FROM GODS TO DICTATORS

Psychology of Religions and their Totalitarian Substitutes

by Pryns Hopkins, M. A., Ph. D.

Lecturer in Psychology, School of Graduate Studies
Claremont Colleges, Claremont, Calif.
Former Honorary Lecturer in Psychology at
University College of the University of London

By the same Author —

Father or Sons, A Study in Social Psychology; Psychology of Social
Movements; Aids to Successful Study.

HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATIONS
GIRARD, KANSAS
 Copyright, 1944, by Pryns Hopkins

Printed in the United States of America

To (Betty Way
 CONTENTS
Page
CHAPTER I
Introductory ,. 5

CHAPTER II
The Search for Truth 18

CHAPTER III
New Heavens for Old? :. 36

CHAPTER IV
Can the Leopard Change His Spots? 56

CHAPTER V
Portals to Paradise 71

CHAPTER VI
Religious Ways of Releasing Energy 87

CHAPTER VII
Woe and Wickedness 102

CHAPTER VIII
Saints and Slayers of Monsters 116

CHAPTER IX
Religious Views on Violence 137

CHAPTER X
The Ladder to Happiness 152

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Man's First Disobedience — and Its Consequences 5

From a famous Russian picture.
2. Our Guest Chamber Window Is the Open Mind 36
3. Religious Dance Within Ankor-Wat Temple 49
4. Altar of Snake Temple, Penang 50
5. Negro Woman Being Baptized 51
6. "The Meaning of the Koan." A wood carving by Sakei-an Sasaki 80
7. An Old Print in the Museum at Moscow 102
8. Marsyas in the Greek Hades 104
9. Sinner's Death and Satan's Triumph 112
10. Varah Avatar of Vishnu, Atop a Demon 116
11. Ali Rescues Follower from a Djinn 119
12. Roger Rescues Angelique (a painting in the Louvre) 121
St. George (from the Louvre)
,
13. 127
14 Regents of the West and North Guarding Temple, Ayer Itam,
Penang 137
15. Vishnu Stands off Attack of a Shaitan 140
 Man's First Disobedience — and its Consequences
(From a famous Russian Picture.)

Chapter I.

Introductory

Ever since Adam was told to terminate his tenancy of Eden, man
has wandered in a world that has failed to meet his needs. The tale
of efforts to correct this state of things constitutes the history of
mankind.
Pre-religious attempts to set right an out-of -joint world were '

mechanical, moral or magical. Man had to obtain food as a tree*

climber or a hunter; to ingratiate himself with his dependents and to
impose his wishes on them; and to attempt a short cut, when per
suasion and force failed, whereby an obstinate environment — trees
lacking fruit, elusive prey and successful human rivals — should be co
zened by means of magic, to serve his purpose.
Following close after magic, in historic development, came re
ligion, with its hope of receiving help from some outside live force,
differing from man's known world in that it was invisible.
Still further cogitation led to sects, philosophies, ethical codes
and the political sciences — yet today, after millenia of effort, the.
world is still out of joint. Exasperated man asks, "Why?" The earth
assisted by scientific method, has brought forth abundantly; thought
has been applied to the proper use of her products, and counsels of
prudence and charity offered for their right distribution; and still
the goal is far off. Man is not yet in harmony with his universe.
Is some basic factor still unrecognized, some one more thing un
dreamed of in his philosophy? He has scanned the heavens and delved
5
beneath the earth and seas. Has he looked into himself? Until yes
terday he thought he had; now he finds what he thought of as "him
self" is but the surface aspect of a complex being with depths pre
viously unsuspected. In those depths are urges whose legitimate out
lets have been blocked (in all innocence, be it admitted) by the "self"
in control, to its own detriment and that of society. The goal might be
ideal and the aspirant zealous in his effort to reach it, but he was
hampered from the outset, for a vital part of this equipment that
was his was stored away beyond his reach.
It has been reserved for clinical psychology to bring these hidden
urges to the surface. When they are seen for what they are, when their
possibilities for good or evil are taken into account, much that has
been obscure to the theologian and the student of the social sciences
becomes clear; for, when all is said, the nature of man is the justifi
cation for these sciences. However worthy the avowed end of ethics,
however lofty the claims of religion, only in the mind of man can
they be put to the test, and up to yesterday a portion of man's make-up
has been unknown territory; more — it has been territory hardly sus
pected. Full light is not available in a single day, but with the aid of
the guiding beams of new discoveries in this previously uncharted
sea, a new approach to the study of religious phenomena becomes
not merely legitimate but imperative.
What have the great religions and their modern substitutes
claimed, what have they achieved, where have they failed; and how far
does a psychological examination of their data reveal the reasons for
failure? Can man, learning from past mistakes, rise "on stepping
stones of his dead self to higher things" and so, reaching the goal he
has set before him, become in harmony with the universe, assured
of peace in mind, body and estate?
It is my intention in the present chapter to indicate briefly the
plan of this book as a whole, to attempt a simple outline of religious
and psychological developments, and to give in both the meanings
of certain terms employed that may be unfamiliar to some of my
readers.
Definitions of religion are apt to subserve the private aims of the
particular writer; but for our present purpose religion may be said
to consist essentially of man's socialized awe-accompanied endeavors
to propitiate a super-human power capable of affecting his well-
being; a power, making demands on the thought and action not only
of the individual but of the community. This power may be per
sonal, or it may be impersonal, as it was in early Buddhism, but in
either case the sense of awe and of obligation are always present.
It must be clearly understood, however, that no definition of re
ligion is valid which omits its intellectual, emotional or striving as
pects. Thus a philosophy alone is not a religion, neither is a mere
set of sentiments, nor is yet an ethical code. We shall accept, for the
purposes of this book, the definition given in Warren's Dictionary of
Psychology:
"beliefs, attitudes and practices with respect to superhuman
personal or personified power or powers which are respon
sible for some or all of the processes of nature, animate
or inanimate, and are conceived as capable of being in
fluenced by human behavior."
Widely as the various religions differ in detail, certain features
appear repeatedly in the majority, and one or two important tenets
occur in all religions.
According to one principle of classification, these religions fall
into legislative vs. redemptive groups; those in the first group impose
a moral code, by following which guilt may be avoided, while those
in the second group offer to redeem men from the effects of sin. These
two groups are, however, not sharply enough divided to form a prac
tical basis of differentiation.
I
 The classification which I have found most workable and shall
accordingly use, divides religions into the (1) primitive, (2) poly
theistic, (3) monotheistic with love-deity (4) monotheistic with power-
deity and (5) impersonalistic religions and (6) political and other
substitutes for religion.
The various religions have their setbacks and their revivals. New
ones often flare up, meteor-like, into being, but the initial sponta
neity is usually lost in the organization and the gaining recognition
which accompany growth in popularity. Nevertheless, religion itself
persists, though the outward form changes. Two thousand years ago,
representatives of the classicial religions and philosophies of the old
Roman world prophesied the destruction of society because of the
rise of supernatural systems such as Attis-worship, Mithraism and
Christianity. Within our own lifetime one religion — Confucianism —
which once numbered hundreds of millions of adherents —has so ut
terly collapsed, that in the capital and major cities of China in 1935
I could hardly find a learned exponent of ^its teachings. Buddhism,
except in its Tibetan fastness and in Japan, has suffered the rot of
apathy. Islam latterly took a slap in the face from Mustapha
Kemal Pasha. And today there is no lack of warning fingers pointing
at the empty pews in Christian churches. Nevertheless, if and while
these great cultural tides recede, tides from strange sources are seen
tumbling and roaring in to occupy the deserted sands. Of these the
most important are the economic and political mysticisms, for though
there are many others in the arena, the others show little likelihood
of capturing the masses.
In the economic field, the chief candidate is Communism, which
differs from Socialism in many ways, but especially in its capacity for
evoking dogmatism and strong emotion. Its resemblances to a religious
movement are many, including the forms under which it organizes
itself.
In the political field, the outstanding rivals of religion are the
three nationalisms that claim religious sanction: National Socialism,
Fascism and the Japanese "New Order in Asia." Under Signor Mus
solini, the mystical extravagance in language was kept under control,
but in nazi pronouncements it is allowed free play. There is not God
but "Unser Gott" of the German people and Hitler is His Prophet.
The mechanistic viewpoint of these modern substitutes for re
ligion accounts for two features wherein they differ from the his
toric religions; their goal is to be found in this present world, and they
use force as freely as persuasion to spread their doctrines. Islam, also,
had its cry of conversion or death, but the heaven it promised was not
of this world. Moreover, Islam claimed direct communication with
heaven as the origin of the Qu'ran. For Das Kapital and Mein Kampf
no supernatural origin has, as yet, been claimed, although Hitler's
progress on the road towards self-deification has been so extremely
speedy. There is also a third difference, the denial of democracy.
The political authoritarian pretensions, foreign to Buddhism and
Islam, and only apparent in Catholicism after its development away
from the early Christian picture have been claimed early by the ex
ecutives of the U. S. S. R. and by fascism and the Third Reich from
the beginning. Whether systems so promulgated can be perpetu
ated is, however, doubtful. For the persistence of a cult, the sanctifi-
cation, if not the actual deification, of the founder has always been
requisite, and so far such founders have been religious geniuses rather
than political opportunists. Mohammed and Lenin seized power for the
advancement of their views, but both disclaimed autocratic pretensions.
It was necessary for the ideology to conquer, but its protagonist sought
no scepter. And apart from the above two prophets, one distinction
turns through history; that whereas Caesar and Charlemagne seize
power and pass away, Siddhartha and Jesus reject this world's scep
ters, and live in the hearts of millions.

7
 For the present, however, the substitutes for religion command
a wide following, and the psychological processes contributing to their
acceptance are of vital importance. That the processes most often pro
ceed from frustration is generally held; whether they can be har
nessed to the needs of the human race as a whole is the problem
facing the present generation.
Whatever be the political outcome of the totalitarian systems, they
are not likely to sound the knell of religious or ethical systems having
an altruistic content. These persisted despite the breakup of the old
Roman world, they survived the vaunted victories of nineteenth cen
tury materialism, and are unlikely to succumb before the onset of
the deified national state. They may be more in the trough than on
the crest of the wave, but they are not yet in the grave.
Before reviewing the various religions in detail, two preliminary
steps await us. First, I feel it necessary to say a few words concerning
modern science. Science split off from the intellectual side of the
religious tree and set up on its own account as a largely antagonistic
growth. There were not lacking people who, admiring the strong
young shoot, hailed it as the complete successor of religion, which
should so completely serve man's needs that no place for religion should
remain. It has developed to an importance in our times which these
prognosticators hardly dreamed of; but this has only emphasized man's
need that other sides of his nature should be ministered to than those
to which science has so far proved adequate. In particular, man needs
an organizer of his emotional-volitional nature as well as of his in
tellectual.
It is unfortunate that it was just while these facts were beginning
to be appreciated that the social movements (Communism, Fascism and
Nazism) mentioned above, and which can lay claim to being sub
stitutes for millions for the non-intellectual side of religion, should
have sprung into being.
Secondly, as the approach to the study of the various religions is
psychological, some description of the apparatus used is requisite. The
chief instrument employed is, after all, the mind of man, and it will be
well to agree as to its nature before using it in our inquiry.
We will consider then the "make-up" of the mind, remembering
always that it is not some static thing, to be divided up, as is the
brain, into parts. With this proviso, we fall back for a moment upon
a representation frankly physical, and we think of "the mind" as a
rubber bag into which primitive desires flow from below. These
are known collectively as the id. A portion of them comes early in
contact with the coldness of the outer world, and is congealed into
what is called the "ego" or realistic self. A little later, another .por
tion makes contact with that special element in the outer world which
moralized to the child, or otherwise emphasized standards —usually
those of the parents— and this portion crystallizes into what is called
the "super-ego" or idealized self.
Continuing our physical way of speaking, we may say that the
primary state of these id desires is what has been called fore-con
scious, by which is meant that they are not exactly present to con
scious attention, but may at any time easily enter into it. We some
times speak of "the" fore-conscious in a substantive way, as though
it were a place or department of the mind in which desires or mem
ories might wait on the threshhold of recognition until they are
called in.
Similar use is made of the term "conscious," which, though more
properly used as an adjective designating those desires and ideas which
are so near to the focus of our attention that we are actively aware
of them, is also used as a substantive as though there were a place or
department in which desires and ideas of this nature resided. Between
conscious and fore-conscious there is no barrier — nothing but gra
dations of awareness.
8
 "Unconscious" is used to designate desires and ideas which are held
completely out of consciousness by the "resistance" or "censorship"
of wishes which are opposed to them, generally through attitudes of
shame, fear or hate. If — using now a religious simile — the "fore-con
scious" is to be compared with limbo, the "unconscious" is more com
parable with hell. Let the reader get the full implication of this
concept. It means that the opinion which any of us may hold, as to
what goes on in this "part" of his own mind, has not the slightest
validity whatever insofar as it is based on introspection. The contents
of our "unconscious" can be estimated only through an elaborate in
direct technique. In order to avoid possible confusion, it is perhaps
desirable that I should mention that "subconscious" and "supercon-
scious" as sometimes used are terms liable to be interpreted moralist-
ically and are therefore not so suitable for scientific usage.
If the reader finds these explanations too hard to follow, he should
"skip" a few pages and continue the chapter. But if he can manage
the necessary close attention to read them, it will be helpful later.
Leaving the structural aspect of the mind, and coming to its
functioning, there are to be noted the phenomena, guessed at by the
philosopher Herbart and observed by Prof. Freud, of (a) conflict be
tween incongruous desires and (b) the repression of some of them by
others. Conflict takes place especially between elements of the id
and the super-ego, resulting in some of the former being held out
of consciousness entirely, and so (as there is no way of making them
non-existent) of their being made unconscious.
These unconscious desires are, however, forever striving for re
cognition. They get this in disguised forms, through the mechanism
of sublimation (as where we love the church as though "she" were our
mother) or in dreams (as where, wishing to return to our mother, we
dream of entering a church) or hallucinations (as where, wishing to
be comforted by our mother who is dead, we think her ghost appears
to us) or neurotic symptoms (as where, wishing we were a child again,
we become ill in the way that always used to get us her anxious at
tention) or neurotic character-formation (as where, having been
"spoiled" as a child, we remain all our lives petulant and expecting
others to humor us).
The tendency of Woodworth, Freud and, on the whole, the greater
number of modern psychologists (with notable exceptions, such as Mc-
Dougall) is to subordinate the conception of numerous specific instincts
to that of a few large, general drives which they subserve — together
with defense-reactions when these are frustrated. There is ■a fair
agreement also upon a dichotomy of the appetitive urges which Freud
employed in his earlier work into the two groups of (a) ego-trends
and (b) libidinous trends.
By the ego-trends were meant the prosaic, matter-of-fact ones
which kept us alive individually— such as hunger, shelter-seeking, etc.
They have been guessed at by James, Thorndike, McDougall and many
others, without much experimental or clinical verification of any
extended list as such, although valuable experimentation has been
done on such things as the nature of the sensation of hunger. Freud
latterly came to regard the ego instincts as derived from narcissism and
the aggressive impulses. Aggression, according to him, or the "death
impulse" or Thanatos, is equally as archaic as the life-impulse or Eros.
They are the dichotomies of the repetition-compulsion, which is the
root of all, unless that place be reserved for fateful necessity — ananke.
The libidinous trends have for certain reasons been the ones re
sponsible for neurotic disorders. The neuroses have within our lifetime
been the subject of clinical investigations by the man to whom few,
even his opponents, would deny the possession of outstanding genius,
namely the said Dr. Sigmund Freud. Consequently, a good deal has
been found out about them, in spite of the great difficulties of in
vestigation.. I intend, however, to mention only one central fact here,
9
namely, that the libidinous trends develop in a succession of stages,
as though a single stream of energy, "the libido" awakened them in
turn. The earlier stages are called the auto-erotic, because in their
case the energy invests (or sensitizes) a series of regions of one's own
body — namely, the oral, anal, and genital zones — and then the self
(first conceived physically) as a whole, constituting the stage called
narcissism. The stages still to follow are called allo-erotic because
then the libido becomes concerned with the outer world through, in
turn, exhibitionism and curiosity, love of one's own sex and finally
love of the other sex.
Returning to the more general consideration of both the ego-trends
and the libidinous drives, it is to be noted that at each stage of the
development they are- subject to expression at different maturational
or cultural levels. The lowest level is the purely instinctive; and this
may seem quite arbitrary, as it certainly is unreasoning (by defini
tion) . The first performance of any act occurs without knowledge
of whether it will bring pleasant or unpleasant results and generally
without any concern over such questions; but when once we have been
through an experience, we are less disposed to repeat it if it has
proved unpleasant, and more disposed to do so if it has proved pleasant.
The third step in sophistication is where we deliberately perform or
avoid an action because it did or did not result pleasantly for us when
done before. Fourthly, we may make the general seeking of happiness
an aim of life and look around to see what will bring that condition
about — this is Epicureanism. Fifthly, we may idealize some goal of
self-development, maybe because it is seen to be contributing to hap
piness in the long run — perhaps development of the very capability
to be stoical in the face of the absence of unpleasantness — as an aim
to which to devote our energies. Or, finally, we may out of love for
some or all of our fellow-creatures, devote ourselves to furthering their
happiness or whatever else we conceive to be their greatest welfare.
Over against the above appetite tendencies, we have to set the
defense reactions, which function when the former are thwarted. The
defense reactions have been classified by James, Thorndike, Mc-
Dougall and their school as instincts in their own right, but as each
of these, instead of being set off by one specific situation, may be simply
an alternative reaction mechanism which replaces the normally ap
propriate one when that one is frustrated. They hardly meet the defi
nition of an instinct; and so it is better to call them, as I have here
done, defense-reactions. Each seems accompanied by its specific emo
tion, the list being: rejection (distaste), spewing (nausea), flight
(fear) , rigidity (coma) and combat (anger) . The last — combat —may
be complicated by containing a component of instinctive aggressivity.
Rejection in its simplest form is seen in the turning away of the
head or body, with perhaps arm-movements, when we are offered
something for which we have at the moment no appetite, or perhaps
a positive distaste.
Spewing is the putting forth out of the mouth (or stomach) of
something which nauseates, or which cannot be tolerated because
of some special condition at the time. Certain nervous states are ex
amples of such conditions.
Flight is the retreat of the whole organism from a situation which
threatens to overwhelm it. The tendency towards flight is accom
panied by secretion into the blood-stream of adrenalin, which increases
the sugar in the blood-stream and constricts the capillaries and in both
these ways makes the body able to undergo strenuous exertion (at the
cost of later exhaustion) ; excretion is also provoked in extreme cases,
thus disembarrassing the fleeing animal of weight that would hamper
escape. Panic is the extreme tendency to flight, in a group especially.
When flight is frustrated, fear is felt; or the disposition of it may change
to rigidity or combat.
Rigidity or paralysis appears to be a form assumed by extreme fear
10
 in many cases. Certain animals when they sense danger at once
"freeze"; the resulting immovability renders them less observable and
less interesting to a beast of prey. In human beings, however, the
paralysis of fear is to be looked on as a vestigial survival which gen
erally increases rather than lessens the danger. Its mental accom
paniment is coma.
Combativeness, as distinguished from mere sadism, is aroused
when there is interference with the satisfaction of any appetite; and,
like flight, is accompanied by the secreting of adrenalin. Except so
far as they are a mask for instinctive aggression, probably combat
iveness and its peculiar emotion of anger do not occur except con
sequently on fear. When the feared object is seen to be not too for
midable, or again when flight is seemingly cut off, flight and fear are
replaced by combativeness and anger. Hate, as McDougall and Shand
have emphasized, is the enduring sentiment crystallized from the fleet
ing emotion of anger.
I should here like to summarize the psychological facts that I have
outlined above, as it is essential, for the purposes of our study, that
my readers should have a clear understanding of the points I have
mentioned. They are, then, as follows:
We have seen that it might be convenient, although not quite ac
curate, to speak of an anatomical division of "the mind" in its orectic
(or, striving) aspect into the id, the ego, and the super-ego. Ana
tomically again, impulses, emotions and ideas are present in the fore-
conscious or the conscious (between which there is no barrier) or in the
(barred-off) unconscious.
Similarly, we spoke in terms of mental physiology when we men
tioned the conflict between different emotionally tinged ideas, and the
resulting repression of some of them by others. The repressed ones
could still, however, find a disguised expression through the symbolism
of sublimations, dreams, symptoms, hallucinations, neuroses, and neu
rotic character-formations.
The appetitive drives were found to be classified by most writers
into the ego-trends and the sexual ones, and I described several dif
ferent levels of maturity or culture at which they could operate. Al
ternatively to these, however, we saw that their frustration brought into
play a series of defense-reactions — rejection, spewing, flight, paralysis
and combat, and that each of these had its appropriate emotion.
Having now cleared the ground from a psychological aspect, I be
lieve it will be helpful to the reader who is imperfectly acquainted with
the religions of the world outside his own country, if I here present
him with a thumb-nail account of their development in historical or
ders from such manifestations as can be drawn from the earliest ves
tiges of human activity (the drawings left in caves of the Aurignac
period) up to our own day.
The first period that I take is from the earliest times up to
2,500 B. C.
During this time man progresses from primitive animism to the elab
orate systems of Egypt, Babylonia and India; Chinese and Cretan be
liefs took form; and the Vedas and most of the Old Testament (though
not, of course, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah nor, much less, Daniel, Ze-
chariah, Ecclesiastes or Esther) had been laid down. Nevertheless,,
this period may, without much exaggeration, be called the pre-historic
period. Let us examine these developments in some detail.
Our earliest evidence regarding them consists in the paintings in
caves done by Aurignacian man. The position of these, in the inner
most recesses where they would be little seen, their subjects and treat
ments and certain parallels with like efforts of primitives of our own
time, makes us reasonably sure that they were connected with a ma-
gico-religious cult.
Dynamism is one name given to a cultural stage prior to the belief
In spirits. It deems all objects to be suffused with an imaginary fluid,
11
called by the Polynesians mana, which may render them dangerous to
touch by persons who have not been ceremonially prepared. Magic is
largely the technique of (supposedly) influencing the world through
control over this mana.
Totemism is a stage, sometimes occurring, in which each clan picks
out a particular species of animal, to treat it as though its members
were members of the human group. To kill such animals, except col
lectively on certain ceremonial occasions, would be murder. The ani
mal is revered, and spoken of, by the clan members as their father.
Animism consists in the belief that an actual soul or spirit has
taken up its dwelling in certain objects, e. g., the sun, and is responsible
for their movements. Probably ancestor-worship does not, as Spencer
thought, precede, but rather follows that of gods.
The religion of the Sumerians and their Babylonian and Assyrian
successors is probably the earliest organized cult of which we have re
cord, inasmuch as it is in the Tigris-Euphrates valley that the oldest
archeological finds (I write in 1944) have been made. The essential
features of the cults of this region are a mother-goddess to whom is
attached a deity who is at once her son and her lover and possibly also
her brother. The names of the pair vary from locality to locality.
Around the temples of these deities the earliest known states seem to
have formed, the king being merely the administrator of and for the
deity. Such theocratic states were earlier than political "city-states."
Egyptian religion has, however, practically an equal claim to an
tiquity, and its gods retained animal features which link it with to
temism. As one "nome" or one kingdom in Egypt conquered others,
its chief god and priesthood likewise rose to supremacy. An elaborate
cult of the dead centered around the river-god Osiris, and postulated
a post-mortem judgment according to a moral code. The Egyptian the
ology reached its apex when pharaoh Aknaton temporarily established
the first of all monotheisms.
Cretan religion will remain an enigma so long as the writing of
Crete is undecipherable; but we find effigies of a mother-deity and her
consort who probably were the precursors of the Greek Hera and
Zeus.
In India, the remains of ancient cities, such as Mohenjodaro, along
the Indus and elsewhere show us that civilization flourished here per
haps as soon as in Babylonia and. Egypt, and that well developed in
digenous beliefs quite antedated the Aryan invasians. Such beliefs
were later largely adopted by the invaders, whose oldest gods, sung
of in the Rig Veda, were nature-deities. These sacred Vedas reflect
increasing complexity of beliefs down through the ages until, in the
Upanishads, they become pantheistic philosophy.
Chinese popular religion is early concerned with the male "prin
ciple" called the Yang and the female "principle" called the Yin, and
their constituent particles, the shen and the kuei respectively. These
particles were practically equivalent to good and bad spirits. The
most outstanding feature of this religion, however, is ancestor-worship.
The Jewish people of this early time are now considered to have
been polytheists. Possibly the tribe of Abraham brought from Chaldea
the code that was later to become the ten commandments. The Bible
tells us that Moses adopted Jahveh from the Kenite desert tribe. And
it may be that Freud is right when, in his Moses and Monotheism he
contends that they got the one-God idea from Aknaton. This they were
to make a matter of national pride as distinguishing them from their
captors, during the Babylonian captivity.
The next period, which comprises the 2,150 years from B. C. 2,500
to B. C. 350, I shall call the Archaic one; and it is the time of the
appearance of the earliest of the world-affecting sages. In Persia there
was Zarathustra; in India, Mahavira the Jaina and Siddhartha the
Buddha; in Israel, such great preachers of righteousness as Isaiah; in
Greece, Pythagoras, Zeno and Epicurus.
12
 The first celebrated prophet, unless Moses antedated him, was
Zarathustra (or Zoroaster) . He found the Persians worshipping much
the same deities as their Aryan cousins from whom they had separated
in the Hindu-Kush mountains; and he gave out that he had been
personally commissioned by the good god Ahura Mazda to preach a
new religion. This postulated a moral dualism throughout all nature,
half of which had been created by, and adhered to, Ahura Mazda, while
the other half had been counter-created by, and adhered to, his enemy,
the god of evil, Ahriman.
In China, a sage named Lao-Tse taught that men should follow
the Tao, the way of nature. He likened this to water which, though
conforming itself to every vessel in which it is placed, is yet the most
powerful of all substances. Tao-ism, however, degenerated later into
mere magical superstition.
Lao-Tse's contemporary, Kung-fu-tse (or Confucius) taught, by
contrast, a matter-of-fact non-supernaturalist ethical system based
upon reverence for the ancients, whose annals and classical writings
he edited. Thanks to the publicist efforts of his follower Meng-tse,
Confucianism became the religion of the Chinese official class, and
maintained its position until the Chinese revolution. Its ethics also
influenced eastern Buddhism.
In India, Mahavira the Jaina carried ahimsa, or non-injury (even
of insects) , to an extreme degree as the fundamental tenet of his athe
istic sect. More important yet, his younger contemporary, Siddhartha
Gautama, surnamed the Buddha left his palace and his bride to seek
the secret of salvation — salvation from the endless succession of re
births into a sorrow-filled world, to which he deemed that men are
doomed. After trying and discarding ascetic practices, he received
enlightenment while meditating under a pipal tree and thereafter
taught the Four Noble Truths about sorrow, and the Eight-fold Path
by which one may become free from it and from rebirths by first rid
ding one's self of all desires.
Among the Jews, their legends were being committed to written
form at the beginning of the first millenium B. C. A series of prophets
arose to denounce the temptations represented by luxurious ways and
crass beliefs of the citified populations among whom the Jews found
themselves in the plains, and to proclaim the ethical aspects of Jahveh
as worshipped in the hilltop shrines. The most exalted of these pro
phets was Isaiah.
Greek popular religion had developed a series of beautiful myths
around deities akin to those of Asia Minor and Crete. It also took over
from the east, although they were alien to its spirit, mystery cults
connected with the worship of Dionysus and that of Demeter. There
followed the golden age of the philosophers, of whom the first great
one was Pythagoras. This mathematical genius studied under Egyp
tian priests, later became an evangelist for the Greek shrines and fin
ally founded a secret society at Krotona.
In the fourth century B. C. came the great blaze of Athenian
intellect. Socrates inspired his pupil, Plato, who was to become the
greatest of the world's philosophers, and Plato's pupil, Aristotle, de
veloped into its greatest scientific intellect. Among the several minor
socratic schools which sprang up, those founded by Epicurus and by
Zeno (Stoicism) were highly influential in the classical world, the
first for its sanity and the second for its nobility.
The third period I would demarcate is the 1,000 years from B. C. 350
to A. D. 650. This is the time when mystery cults — notably the wor
ship of Attis and Cybele and that of Mythras — flow into Rome from
its barbarous dominions. Two interesting Hebrew sects, the Thera-
putae and the Essenes isolate themselves. Jesus teaches his gospel;
and St. Paul and the great church fathers give their interpretations
of it; heretical sects also spring up within the Christian fold and are
persecuted. We shall call this the Ancient period.
13
 The primitive or Theravada form of Buddhism as' preached by its
founder was spread by missionaries sent by the zealous King Asoka
to Ceylon, Burma, Siam and elsewhere, but shortly afterward it suf
fered two catastrophies nearer its place of origin. Northern invaders
who adopted it introduced superstitions which completely altered its
character; and in India thereafter the Brahmins absorbed it into their
own religion. The northern form took the name of Mahayana; it con
verted Tibet and most of China and Japan and it numbers among its
adherents two-thirds of all Buddhists of today.
The period we are considering marked the penetration or spread
in the Roman empire of cults from the east. From Phrygia came the
ecstatic worship of Cybele and her lover-son Attis; from Egypt, that
of Isis and her son Horus; and from Persia, that of Mithras. In this
last country, Zoroastrianism had fallen under the domination of a
priestly clan called the Magi, who corrupted it with revived earlier
forms; and, at the same time, worship came to center upon the person
of the young sun-god, Mithras, who was generally depicted slaying a
bull. This cult was to rival Christianity in popularity.
Among the Jews, I repeat, two heterodox sects were those of the
Theraputae and the Essenes; the former establishing a colony of as
cetics near Lake Moeris in Egypt, the latter one nearer home. It is
sometimes thought that the Essenes influenced Jesus, or that great
numbers of them joined him.
The earliest written documents of Christianity are the letters writ
ten after 52 A. D. to the churches in various cities by a Jewish tent-
maker, Paul. He had been converted by a vision, while engaged in per
secuting the Christians, and he became their Graecicizing and cosmo-
politanizing chief theologian. A score or more years later, the gospels
were written down from earlier sayings or lost documents, with their
picture of the life, deeds, sayings and, most important of all, the per
sonality of Jesus of Nazareth. The cult was persecuted; but, dropping
its early pacifist attitude, it won so many converts in the army that
the Emperor Constantine showed it political favor. It grew powerful
was called on to fight abundant heresies, and so it became a perse
cutor in its own turn.
For a fourth period, we may consider the 800 years from 650 to 1450
A. D. During this time the Christian heresies continued and many of
the Arian beliefs were embodied in the eastern branches of the church
— Orthodox or Russian. Meantime appeared Mohammed, who incor
porated many of the Jewish and many of the Christian concepts and
stories with what he averred to be divine corrections of them, in his
dictations of the Qn'ran. The orthodox sect of Islam is the Sunni;
a heterodox mostly Persian branch, the Shi'ah, made Mohammed's
son-in-law, Ali, their great hero. In Mexico and South America, respec
tively, the Mayas and Quechmas (followed by the Aztecs and Incas)
established distinctive religious cultures. We shall call this period the
Medieval, and shall now consider it in more detail.
A Meccan orphan camel-boy rose by his ability to be the com
mercial agent of a rich widow, whom he married. Meanwhile, he saw
visions in which the angel Gabriel dictated to him the Contents of
a book, the Qu'ran, the original of which is claimed to be in Heaven.
This inspired volume made corrections of the scriptures of the some
what degenerate Christian and Jewish communities with whom the
new messenger of God, Mohammed, had come into touch during his
travels. It appointed himself as greatest of all the prophets, with the
special mission of superseding Arabian idolatry with submission
(whence came the name, Islam) to Allah. Mohammed was driven out
of the Arab holy city of Mecca by its inhabitants, but was received
in Medina and made its prince. He eventually developed military genius
of a magnitude which seemed miraculous, and lived to see his claims
acknowledged by nearly all Arabia, and his armies pushing on to still
further conquests. After his death, Islam continued to sweep forward,
14
overwhelming the Eastern Empire, establishing for a time an en
lightened dominion in Spain and only being turned back from North
ern Europe near Budapest.
Mohammed's death, however, precipitated a serious schism within
the religion itself. As against the orthodox (Sunni) sect, the Shi'ahs
acclaimed the successors of his son-in-law Ali as the true inheritors.
This sect still prevails in Persia, from which country it drove out Zoro-
astrianism.
In Christendom, the powerfully organized Roman Catholic church
had long since been formed, and, with few exceptions, its more as-
cetically-inclined men and women had ceased to live as hermits and
were now organized into monastic orders, each under a "rule" estab
lished by its particular founder. The breaking up of the Roman Em
pire into a western and eastern half had, however, been followed by a
similar split within the church itself, as a result of which the eastern
church largely adopted the Arian heresy. It presently suffered a fur
ther schism of the Russian from the Greek church, and, when later
most of the Greek patriarchs filed to Moscow, this henceforth claimed
to be the "Third Rome" (Constantinople having been the "Second
Rome") .
The same period saw the flourishing of high states of civilization
on the American continents. The Mayas, indeed, had attained the
peak of their culture on the Pacific coast several centuries earlier,
but had declined somewhat. In what are now Yucatan and Mexico
they built many cities with wonderful temple-topped stepped pyramids,
then passed on their culture to the Toltec and so to the Aztec empires.
The last of these, with a form of worship which demanded human
sacrifices in such quantities that aggressive war had continued to be
waged to provide victims, was in existence when the Spaniards dis
covered the country; it succumbed to their greed-begotten boldness,
bigotry and treachery. Meanwhile, in what is now Peru, the Quechuas
raised a parallel civilization, which they bequeathed, only a little
dimmed, to their conquerors, the Incas; the resulting mixed religion
was mild and benevolent; but again the Spanish conquistadores ex
terminated it with fanatical deliberateness.
The next period is that of the Reformation, lasting for 350 years
from 1450 to 1800.
In the northwest corner of India at the beginning of this period,
a revolt against the ceremonialism and priestly tyranny of Hinduism
and an attempt to synthesize the best of it with the best in Islam, was
inaugurated by the guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism.
In Europe, great discoveries by Galileo, Columbus and others wid
ened men's horizons, with resulting revolt from the old orthodoxies
until soon we have the outbreak of Protestantism. Luther's defiance
of Rome was followed by the defection of Calvin, Knox, Henry VIII,
etc. Ignatius Loyola, forced by a cannon shot to give up a military
career, founded the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) to be the pope's soldiers
in the counter-reformation. Then followed inquisitions and religious
wars which made a mockery of Christianity. The Friends (Quakers) ,
a sect integrated rather than founded by George Fox, renounced all
violence and authority in favor of quietism and "the inner light." Later,
the spirit of protestantism led to an individualism which created an
amazing number of sects, some communistic and some with strange
ideas on sex relationships.
The extreme swing was found in the eighteenth century deistic and
rationalistic movements. In France, Voltaire and his group of intel
lectual aristocrats ridiculed the moral and philosophic feebleness of
the clergy; these "encyclopedists" aspired to make a secular compen
dium of all knowledge. In England and revolutionary America Tom
Paine wrote his deistic Age of Reason.
Besides attack, however, religion was being subjected to sympa
thetic interpretation. Hegel, Schleiermacher, Schopenhauer, Straus

15
and Feuerbach all brought philosophies of religion which sought to
reconcile it with the claims of the intellect.
This brings us well into our next period, the Modern 144 years from
1800 until the present day.
The turn of the century was marked by the founding of the broad
and progressive Indian sect of the Brahmo Samaj by Ram Mohun Roy.
This was to receive an accession of energy at the hand of Deben-
dranath Tagore and by the succession to the leadership of the Uddhava
Sampradeva of Swami Narayana, supposed incarnation of Vishnu. An
other, but more narrowly orthodox movement was the Arya Samaj,
founded by Dayananda Saraswati.
In the United States, also, there was a prolific birth of new sects,
of which two were important. An illiterate young man named Joseph
Smith claimed that angels had revealed to him the hiding-place of a
book with golden leaves, in which he read, by the aid of miraculous
spectacles, how lost tribes of Israel had come to America, and how
Jesus had revealed himself to the red-skinned natives. Smith's follow
ers were persecuted, fled westward, and finally founded the city of
Salt Lake, in Utah. They for a time preached, but have since aban
doned, polygamy; such were the Latter Day Saints, or Mormons. An
other American innovation was the first founding of an important re
ligion by a prophetess — Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy — who wrote a book called
Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures, on which, with great
business acumen, she established the Christian Science Church. If I
were to speak of a third American innovation, it might well be of Maz-
daznan, a pseudo-Zoroastrian creation of one Otto Hannish, incorpo
rating many enlightened modern ideas; but the number of lesser cults
is legion.
Nor did Islam fail to produce important sects during this century.
Just over a hundred years ago Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad pro
claimed himself the long-expected Mahdi who would unite all religions
into one; his followers, who are very fervent, speak of their movement
as the Ahmadiyyat. Also, just before the mid-century, there arose
in Persia one who called himself the Bab or gate; he was to be the
St. John to a new messiah who presently did, in all seriousness, appear
in the person of Mirza Hussain Ali, surnamed Baha'u'llah. Bahaiism,
which sprang from his preachings and martyrdom, is characterized by
no great profundity, but by immense good will and an enlightened code
of ethics.
Meanwhile, there was evolving a new type of treatment of religious
phenomena, namely, the explanation of it in terms of the operation of
human forces other than divine inspiration. In a resume of the history
of such explanations which appeared in the September, 1937, number
of Character and Personality, I classified them into six groups, namely,
the rational-naturalistic, economic-sociological, anthropological, classic-
psychological, libidinal and eclectic.
Popularly successful substitutes for religion are the creation of the
present century. To be sure, there have been, before now, attempts to
construct artificial religions which should be free of features felt by
their originators to be objectionable in the standard cults; there have
been colonies practising a peculiar ethic, groups cultivating a philo
sophic viewpoint with its implications, etc., but none of them could be
called popularly successful.
Among these attempts are Positivism and the Ethical Movement.
Positivism was devised by Auguste Comte (the founder of sociology as
a formal science) as a movement on the model of Catholicism, but one
in which Humanity was substituted for God as the object of worship
(as well as of service) . In it, also, the busts of the heroes of various
lines of social progress replaced the statues of the saints. Ethicism
was the creation of Prof. Felix Adler of New York as a religion (?)
which should make no theological requirement, positive or negative,
of its members, but rest entirely on the ideal of eliciting from our fel

16
low-men the unique nobility of each one. Adler assisted at the birth
of an astounding number of progressive movements of which his fa
vorite, Ethicism, has developed a fair number of strong branches in
America and weaker ones in England.
This book, however, proposes to concern itself not with those re
ligious substitutes which have achieved a succes d'estime (as one says
of a work of art which is praised by the reviewers and ignored by the
public) so much as with those which have captured the popular imagi
nation. For such successful substitutes, we must look today in two
fields only; the economic and the political. In the former field, Com
munism, and in the latter field, Nationalism in its diverse forms such
as Imperialism, Fascism, Nazism, etc., have definitely been from the
viewpoint of stirring alike enthusiasm and hate, "best sellers."
In a way, most modern socialism may be said to trace back to two
works by Karl Marx. One is the Communist Manifesto, the challenge
in which that dynamic scholar called upon the workers of the world
to unite against their employers and the profit-making system of society.
The other work is his ponderous holy scripture, Das Kapital. The un
democratic and ruthless modification of socialism which has monopo
lized the term Communism, originated, however, in the accession to
power in Russia of the Bolshevik political party in 1917, under the
leadership of the heroic Lenin. I must here emphasize strongly the
point that, in any discussion of Communism today, a sharp distinction
between Leninism and Stalinism is necessary. I shall differentiate be
tween the two later in the book.
Nationalism began even earlier, as a liberal movement of the peo
ples against being merely parcelled out as part of the inherited estates
of their sovereigns.
Pathological nationalism, however, is a recent maniacal extrem
ism, in which the state is no longer recognized as one among many
instruments for human welfare, but deified above its human creators,
who become worms for it to tread upon as it marches forth to assert,
by murder and bad faith, its "rights" against other states and its
"divine" mission in the world. The most vicious examples of these
pseudo-religions are fascism, nazism and Mikado- worship; but it has
powerful and active sympathizers in every country, including the Eng
lish-speaking ones.

17
 Chapter II.
The Search for Truth

Even as it was two thousand years ago, when the Roman legions
had prostrated the world, so on a yet greater scale at the end of this
war, a nerve-shattered world will be calling for new religions to re
place the ones which have lost their sway.
Anticipations of this tendency have already been shown. An up-
springing of various cults of a more or less secret or "occult" char
acter, in the first place, has marked the beginning of this century. For
the most part, these cults have a strongly oriental flavor. Documented
in the philosophical writings of the East, they contain statements about
evolution, biology and psychology, in justification of which the au
thority of modern laboratory research is also claimed. By those in
whom "the will to believe" is more strongly developed than their judg
ment, the testimony is considered to be completely satisfactory, with
out deep investigation being necessary.
Although you and I may stand aloof and criticize, these movements
go forward among the people; for only too well-founded is M. Gustave
le Bon's contention, in his Psychology of Socialism, that:
"It is not by the faint light of reason that the world has been
transformed. While religions founded on chimeras, have
marked their indelible imprint on all the elements of civ
ilization, and continue to retain the immense majority of
men under their laws, the systems of philosophy built on
reason have played only an insignificant part in the life
of nations, and have had none but an ephemeral ex
istence."
This is partly because many people willing to admit the value and
importance of scientific research say that inquiry and reason must
stop short of questioning the domain of the sacred. Nevertheless, sci
entific study has been defined as common sense taking elaborate pre
cautions against deception; therefore, if we genuinely seek the truth,
surely it is necessary that the claims theological considerations make
on us should be examined in complete and unapprehensive honesty.
As R. A. Thouless remarks, in his Introduction to the Psychology of
Religion, "unless religion is in reality a fancy woven by man out of his
own mind, no scientific analysis will prove it so." Thouless also
points out that investigations which consider only the facts which sup
port religion but discount those which seem to refute accepted beliefs
are "of no value at all as evidence."
The fact is: truth is a discipline demanded in the interests of free
dom and social welfare; yet we, as realists, often find ourselves called
on to denounce intellectual standards when they conflict with dogmas
and accepted social customs. Nevertheless, the intellectual viewpoint
may be regarded as the most modern stage in the evolution of re
ceptivity or, from another aspect, as the today most dependable ex
tension of our interests beyond things seen and concrete to the as yet
unknown. Our goal in this chapter, at any rate, is truth; and we are
concerned with its attainment, its nature and content.
Knowledge is a form of freedom; for, as Robert G. Ingersoll some
where said: —
"The glory of science is, that it is freeing the soul, breaking
18
 the mental manacles — getting the brain out of bondage —
giving the courage to thought — filling the the world with
mercy, justice and joy."
I propose now to outline the importance of truth in so far as it
touches on everyday problems.
Economic: Although economic matters are fundamental in our so
ciety, a surprisingly successful effort is made to keep out of the history
or other texts used in schools any material which would bring real
ization to students that the existing economic system has not always
had its present form, that wars and social catastrophes could be laid
to its score, and that voices have been raised against it and have pro
posed alternatives. Nearly all newspapers with large circulations have
followed the same policy, relegating to back pages most news items of
successful experiments with other economic methods or of the growth
of anti-capitalistic sentiment.
"

Health and aesthetic: Whenever the refusal to be truthful and

frank and scientific enters into the field of medical matters, we can be
fairly confident that great loss will result.
Such a refusal may be found in the conspiracy of silence in schools,
colleges and newspapers on the subject of what are wholesome articles
of consumption and what are not. There is a mass of experimental
evidence relating to the best conditions of foodstuffs and the amount
necessary to promote healthy nutrition, and on the comparative values
of white and brown breads, meat, coffee, tea, tobacco and alcohol. But
although the health of everyone is affected by these commodities,
not one person in a hundred is even moderately well-informed. Little
attempt is made to spread information among the public except by
agencies which have products for sale; and any lies they broadcast
go uncontradicted because to offend advertisers would mean loss of
profits to some one.
In lesser degree, the same may be said of books, which are often
damned or reviewed favorably by undiscriminating critics possessing
little or no literary appreciation. Yet as Milton said in his "Areo-
pagitica":
"As good kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man
kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who de
stroys a good book kills reason itself, kills the image of God,
as it were, in the eye."
Political: Knowledge of facts is essential to the people of any de
mocracy if they are to carry on. The dictatorships .have pointed out
that the citizens of contemporary republics have been condemned to
inefficiency in public affairs because of the venality and bias of the
Press on which they are dependent for their information. While this
is notorious and calls for reform, it is, of course, exceeded by the in
ability of subjects in the dictator countries to obtain at all any news
, which has not been approved by their censors. The vast lie-propa
gating machinery of especially Italy and Germany has been the most
powerful instrument ever invented for confusing and enslaving a peo
ple and -making it hate whomever their master calls "enemy."
Sexual: The sexual sphere has shared with religion the dishonor of
being one of the two subjects in which free discussion has been most
taboo. Parents lie to their children about how they came into the
world, and the influential classes in most countries try to prevent the
common people learning how to limit their families to a size they can
afford to bring up, or to a number that will be able to find employment
in adulthood. Until recently the authorities, in deference to prudish
opinion, often withheld from young men in the fighting forces the
knowledge that would prevent them from contracting venereal disease.
Mental-hygienic: One of the most difficult attitudes to alter through
instruction is the psychological. The person who is emotionally ill, for
example, can never be cured through attending lectures, or reading

19
books which deal with his malady. For a similar reason, all conduct
which is neurotically determined is hard to annihilate — e. g., if a mother
is advised not to spank her child she may desist, only to start nagging
it instead; and if this is pointed out as being equally bad for the child,
she will refrain, but begin moralizing. The reason is that actions
are expressions of the parent's own complexes which remain with her
no matter how much theoretic knowledge she has. Nevertheless, such
teaching may not be entirely futile, for the results of parental instruc
tion have been found to yield, on the whole, some positive gain.
This is what makes it so important that all books and articles and
lectures of a psychological nature should be prepared by persons who
have real knowledge. I have known a newspaper pass over obviously
well equipped persons, to offer very substantial payment to an author
completely unqualified if he would write such a series of articles. He
is always, of course, then introduced as "Dr. . . . the famous psy- "

chologist."
Philosophical, theological and instructional: The absence of frank
discussion of philosophical and theological questions, or of the true
philosophical spirit, or of scientific methods of inquiry, has led to the
growth of gross superstitions which have exposed the public to exploi
tation. In all ages there have been great ecclesiastical bodies which
pretended to the public to be the sole guardians of truths so precious
that we must not run the risk of throwing doubt on them by impious
questioning. Thus these institutions became the enemies not only
of free inquiry but of general education.
Their effect upon public life has always been to deprive the masses
of enlightenment, freedom, and all that had lifted their lives above
that of the beasts. This is of great importance, because culture relies
to a large extent on knowledge which in itself depends on instruction.
From the foregoing we have realized something of the way in
which veracity and lies affect our lives for good and evil, and how
vital it is, if we are to be truly free, that we should get to know the
truth. Our next step towards this end is, to examine the way in which
knowledge comes to us, and the means by which we sift it to separate
truth from falsehood.
The facts with regard to the functioning of reason were thought
until lately to have been quite conclusively summed up in the ancient
science of Logic. Recent years, however, have uncovered much new
knowledge on the subject and I purpose here to elucidate the views
of Professor Charles Spearman to the extent of using the laws he has
laid down as a frame into which to fit a number of facts about the
working of intellect. The laws are of two groups, one quantitative and
the other qualitative and they will be explained as we go along.
Quantitative Laws: The total output of mental energy of any person
at any time is a constant quantity depending upon such considerations
as his age, sex, state of health, exaltation or depression and other de
termining factors. In this statement are combined two of Professor
Spearman's laws called "constancy of output" and "primordial po
tency." The gist of it is, that if two things are thought about at the
same time, neither will be as clear as if it were attended to by itself.
Similarly, if we are fighting a moral conflict within ourselves there will
be less energy available for objective conduct.
The law of "retentivity," or "facilitation," affirms that every ex
perience which we ever had is consciously or unconsciously retained by
the mind and any course of action which we have taken tends to make
us pursue the same path on a future occasion unless hindered by other
factors. (Seemingly apparent differences of retentivity may, however,
be due to one person using a better technique for remembering than
another. The essentials of improving this technique I have tried to
set out in my Aids to Successful Study.) In all intellectual operations,
habit is fundamental, for all mental associations are a kind of habit
and without associations there could be little thinking. But while
20
through adopting scientific procedure as a habit we protect ourselves
against errors caused by lower mental automatisms, there is danger
to clear thinking if we have become accustomed to expect a certain
succession of events and prejudge these without noting exceptional
cases.
Opposed to the law of "facilitation" is that of "fatigue," which
implies that a mental event which has occurred in some degree tends
not to be experienced again. The causes of tiring may be either phy
sical or psychological, the former being brought on by accumulation
in the blood-stream of toxins created by oxidation of muscular tissues,
and the latter by distaste for a task, boredom, suggestion and a num
ber of other rather subtle factors.
The last of the quantitative laws is that of "conative control." It
affirms that mental energy is stimulated or checked by the strength
of desire. William James revealed that man possesses more interests
than the lower animals; and he and Professor William McDougall and
others drew up lists of them. McDougall wished to show that each in
stinct is accompanied by its appropriate emotion. These instincts form
the basis of our desires; and Professors Freud, Aveling and others have
proved that a good deal of our thinking is determined by wishing,
Freud's Psychology of Everyday Life being the classical compendium of
cases proving that contention.
Qualitative Laws: The first qualitative law states that we tend to be
come aware of any experience we have had. Most psychologists hold
that the material out of which all experiences is formed must come to
us via our senses. (These, however, do not consist merely of the five
taught by the ancients. Physiological psychologists specify some twenty
odd senses, most of them having special end-organs which cause cor
responding nerves to be affected by some particular kind of stimulus,
although it is not the sense itself which determines the kind of feeling
we get, but the part of the brain to which it leads.)
Always, however, there have been persons who claimed that, in ad
dition to the known physical senses, we had, or at least some excep
tional persons had, other means of receiving information from the
outside world. This has been variously called revelation, intuition and
telepathic reception; and the most impressive evidence of its ex
istence is represented by the experiments of Dr. Rhine and his fol
lowers at Duke University, N. Carolina, on "extra-sensory perception."
Some independent investigators claim to have corroborated Dr. Rhine's
results but others, including Dr. Soal, in whose experiments at Univer
sity College, London, I was privileged to cooperate, have not.
It needs to be. pointed out that for our experiences to become con
scious to us is not inevitable but only their tendency. Many experiences
remain below the threshhold of awareness, or are received when our
attention is elsewhere; nevertheless these, too, may affect our conduct.
Often we see or hear things of which we are unconscious at the time,
but which build up an idea that becomes conscious to us only much
later — when we wonder how we could possibly have come by such
knowledge.
Hypnotic -and trance states also increase sensory receptivity, or
enable us to recall sensations which, when received, were below the
threshhold. Needless to say, the sensory acuity of animals is often
many times greater than that of human beings — notably so in the
case of their sense of smell — and some beings detect what others
cannot.
Professor Spearman's second qualitative law is that of the "know
ledge of relationships." It says: "the presence of two experiences in
the mind tends to give rise to a sense of relationship between them."
For example, if we see the image of a giant and then the image of a
dwarf, this gives rise to the relationship "smaller than."
In this process, more of the cerebro-spinal nervous system seems
to be involved than in the mere case of sensory perception. Indeed,
21
it appears that the biological utility of the increasingly complex nerve
and brain systems with which we meet as we ascend the scale of
evolution from the earthworm through the mammals up to the an
thropoids is that it allows ever more complex relationships to be ap
preciated.
Professor Bergson, however, holds that all the cells of the body
and not merely those specialized as nerves play their part in leading
us to the apprehension of reality; and he uses the word "intuition"
to describe knowledge received in this way. To some extent, one may
grant, he has laid hold of something plausible; but his further claim
that such intuitions are likely to be accurate even if on being analyzed
they are rejected by dispassionate logic, is doubtful. The intuitive
method may be quicker for discovery, but scientific and metaphysical
methods are necessary for verification.
As in sense-perception, so in the knowledge of relations, much of
the process admittedly takes place unconsciously, for it is often after
a night's sleep upon a matter which has puzzled us that we find our
selves possessed of a new insight. It is indeed, a failure to understand
that relationships can be realized unconsciously which is at the basis
of popular judgments about telepathy and of the over-estimation of
animal intelligence. Der kluge Hans and the famous horses of Eber-
field were thought by their trainer as well as by their audiences to toe
capable of mathematical calculation and even of mind-reading. More
careful observation under controlled conditions showed that the perfor
mances could be accounted for on a basis of muscle-reading — the taking
of cues from scarcely perceptible changes in the spectators' facial ex
pressions.
The "conception of correlates" is the last of Professor Spearman's
principles with which we have to deal. By this he means that the
awareness of one experience and of a sense of relationship tends to
give us an awareness of a correlative experience. For example, if I am
thinking of "this black horse" and of the relationship "oppositely col- ,
ored," there pops into my mind the thought of a white horse.
The lower animals, in comparison with the apes, and especially with
men, evince a lesser ability to educe such correlates. Professor E. L.
Thorndike tested the intelligence of cats by putting them into boxes
from which they could escape by manipulating certain latches. By
means of clawing and biting they would eventually hit upon the way
of release, by accident. On being shut up again, they would discover
the method of escape a little sooner, and so on until after many such
experiences they gradually eliminated the unnecessary movements.
But at no stage did any of them jump to the solution of its problem
as would a human being in like circumstances.
On the other hand, when Professor Kohler hung at the top of
a cage of chimpanzees a banana which, even with a certain stick
he had given them, was out of their reach, one of the apes, Sultan,
piled up some boxes to mount upon, joined two sticks together and se
cured, the fruit. In other words, given the complex experience "single
banana-stick" and the relationship "insufficiently long," Sultan educed
the correlate "double banana-stick." Nevertheless, although the ape
definitely showed insight, it is a dubious question if we can give the
name "reasoning" to anything that does not require a series of such
processes.
In reasoning, we begin with the feeling of a problem to be solved,
and this grows more clearly defined as we reflect on it. There follows
an incubation period, after which a tentative solution suggests itself.
The proposed solution is then tested to see if it works; if it does not,
the process is repeated until at last a workable one is found.
To summarize my point. It is, that when in the testing of what
claims to be knowledge, a high degree of certainty is required, rea
son and the scientific method must be given the final authority. But
undoubtedly new ideas, creative thought and "inspiration" in one or
22
other sense of the word, may illuminate our minds otherwise than
through reason, and often in this way an "illumination" of some prob
lem, to which logic has long been unable to find the answer, comes
suddenly. This is essentially the method of genius, whether in science
or invention, as well as in poetry. The great prophets are perhaps to
be regarded as geniuses in the ethical and religious spheres. The ob
jector has no right to demand that they reach their conclusions
by slow, logical steps. But he has a right to insist that when clearly
formulated, their conclusions must not contradict science.
Further Requirements: The prevalence of truth is conditional upon
a number of other factors besides those purely mental ones with
which we have so far been concerned.
Economic conditions have so much influence upon modes of thought
that Karl Marx maintained (although Engels denies that he meant
it in such extreme form ) that economics afforded an almost complete
cue to the interpretation of culture. Upton Sinclair has shown how
the churches {Profits of Religion) and schools respond to capitalist
control, and it is interesting to note that most labor movements are
anti-clerical.
The aesthetic. Enough cases have already been given of the close
connection between religious ideas and the states induced by narcotic
drugs, by external fatigue, special exercises and dances, or prolonged
fasting. A similar form of influence is that from digestive disturbances.
In a school I had in California, one small boy suffered from gastric
trouble. He confided to me soon after his arrival that he constantly
heard voices talking to him, including those of God and of the devil.
These auditions, and the digestive troubles also, seemingly were de
termined by nervous disturbances very much more fundamental. The
gastric trouble, perhaps through the toxins it generated, appeared to
have been associated with the hallucinatory experiences, because so soon
as it was cured, the auditions ceased.
Political events can, of course, be quite decisive of the fate of
such views as rest on opinion. The espousal of Zoroastrianism by Vis-
taspa, of Buddhism by Asoka, Of Christianity by Constantine, to
gether with the military genius of Mohammed were decisive for the
mundane expansion of the world's greatest religions. Despite the
tendency of truth to be continually rediscovered until it becomes es
tablished, the persecution of certain sects when timely and thorough
has on occasion succeeded in its object. Today we are witnessing the
amazing success with which lies can be given currency and the whole
attitude to truth and knowledge of the people can be corrupted by
unscrupulous governments.
Genetic factors also influence thinking. The basis of intelligence
is hereditary; for, upon the whole, the children of stupid people tend
to be stupid and of bright poeple, to be bright. Secondly, where fam
ilies are large, parents have less time to joke and play with their off
spring, with the result that the youngsters' latent capacities are not
brought out. Thirdly, such prolific parents can less often afford to
send their children to the best schools. And fourthly, where the gen
eral birth-rate is high, the resulting over-population encourages herd-
mindedness. A fifth point is of a different type, namely, that where
unwise prejudices exist about love, divorce, etc., a foundation for neu
rotic thinking is laid.
Child -care in its mental-hygiene aspects naturally has a great
deal to do with future intellection. A much loved child is rightly
encouraged to be responsible. But attempts to forcibly mould its char
acter, or to dominate its outlook or to teach it that some things are
too nasty or too sacred to discuss frankly with even its parents and
teachers, discourages thought not only on these subjects, but on others
also. Impatience at a child's curiosity or embarrassment in answer
ing his questions has the same effect.
A state of war has the immediate effect of sending people into
23
the temples and churches, to seek contact with their dead soldier
sons through spirit mediums. Under such heightened emotions they
give credence to tales of the miraculous, as in the case of "the angels
of Mons" (actually, an exaggeration of a newspaperman's remark).
Science commences with a laborious attempt to stock the mind thor
oughly with carefully observed facts as a preliminary to eliminating
from a problem whatever is unessential to it, or might conduce to error.
Both science and metaphysics are just "peculiarly obstinate attempts
to see and reason clearly" and to submit conclusions to tests. Meta
physics stresses the clarity, breadth and freedom from contradictions
of the hypothesis evolved, whereas science is more involved in its ade
quacy to explain all possible cases and to predict future events which
can then be independently verified or disproved.
A special field of reasoning which concerns those of us who are
interested in religion is the exegesis of sacred texts. How has it become
possible for scholars to aver, as they have done, that certain passages
in hoary documents are fraudulent, and to suggest amendments?
Both in the Bible and the Qu'ran the critics have put forward a new
order of succession of the chapters to correspond more faithfully with
chronology, and have expressed confident opinion as to whether or
not the alleged authors of such chapters were their real authors.
The principles of such criticisms are a subject too complex to de
scribe adequately here, nevertheless some points in the procedure may
be indicated. Thus, if a biblical writer assumed to be living in one
period uses names of towns which were not current until some centuries
afterwards, we may safely say that the passage in question was not
written at the time supposed, or at least was amended later. Again,
if in a Jewish historical document which evinces nowhere else the
slightest trace of the author having been a Christian or impressed by
Christian doctrine, we are surprised by an abrupt declaration that
Jesus is the Christ, there can be no doubt that this passage is a for
gery. The writings of Josephus afford such an example.
Literary style also gives clues to authenticity. Where it changes
suddenly and unaccountably, and later as unaccountably changes back
to the original style, we may assume there has been an interpolation.
Further, if in the Qu'ran we find that certain chapters are written
in a spirit of lyrical inspiration and ethical exaltation while others
are prosaic and worldly, especially if some of the latter are concerned
with problems with which only a reigning prince would have to deal,
this is evidence for supposing that the lyrical chapters were written
in the earlier part of Mohammed's life, and the worldly ones in later
life.
It is not possible in the limited scope of this book to deal ade
quately with all kinds of evidence that can be brought to prove or dis
prove all types of theological arguments. The most we can do is to
examine the three main foundation stones on which most religions
rely and to indicate any points where error may lurk.
Testimony : Statements that an event took place derive their basic
credibility from the competence of witnesses to tell the truth. Tes
timony, however, is capable of serious miscarriage, as is found in courts
of law where, in fact, even too literal an agreement among those who
testify is taken as establishing, not the reliability of the evidence, but
collusion between witnesses.
Psychology has been much interested in this matter and many ex
periments have been conducted to discover exactly how reliable such
testimony is.. A. von Geunap (cited by W. H. George, in Scientist in
Action) describes one such experience at a psychological congress at
Gottingen:
"A public fete with masked ball was taking place. During
one of the meetings the door was suddenly opened and in
rushed a clown chased by a negro carrying a revolver.
After a terrific scuffle in the middle of the room, the
24
 clown fell to the ground, the negro leapt upon him, fired
the revolver, and then both rushed out of the hall."
The President of the meeting, explaining that a judicial inquiry
would certainly follow, then asked those present to write, while the
incident was fresh in their minds, a report of what they had seen
happen. Of the forty reports handed in, only one contained less than
20 percent of errors as regards the principal facts, fourteen had 20
to 40 percent, twelve from 40 to 50 percent and thirteen more than
50 percent. Twenty-four accounts embodied purely fictitious details,
and only six of the entire forty reports were approximately correct
accounts of the facts.
It should be noted that the witnesses did not know at the time that
the incident had been previously arranged, carefully rehearsed and
photographed.
Many other carefully planned experiments on the same lines have
given similar results, and from them it seems to me that the pro
cesses by which we derive ideas are necessarily other than that which
we can in the narrow sense call reason. So liable are we indeed to
err, that the strength of our conviction is never proof that an idea is
truth. In matters of great importance, we have need of submitting
every idea to scientific and metaphysical testing before we can act
on it.
Tradition: The traditional acceptance of any belief gives to those
who hold it »a tendency to demand that whoever questions it shall
assume the burden of disproof. Individually, most of us cling to certain
views just because we have held them as long as we can recall; and
if anyone questions them we expect the querist to produce his evidence.
Since prehistoric times, men have believed in revelations sent them
from a spirit world ruled by the creator of the universe; through the
ages, so it is held, God has sent Angels and prophets to be his wit
nesses; besides prophecies there have been miracles, attested to from
earliest times downward; the divine nature of his particular religion
has been further proven, claims the believer, by the works of mercy,
such as the founding of the first hospitals, which have followed in its
train; and finally, there is the evidence of the conquering spread of
the gospel to all parts of the world.
If all this is true, then faith becomes a virtue equal, if not su
perior, to that free exercise of reason which has led so many souls
astray; the gospels are proven and the great religious institutions
founded upon them derive an authority which is binding upon us.
We shall examine some of these claims in the next section of this
chapter.
This argument from tradition, however, must not be given too
much weight unless one is prepared to be absolutely consistent and
go back to beliefs that are even pre-animistic. Traditionalism is not
even consistent with any evolution of religion, but would support
Buddhism and Confucianism before Christianity, and Hinduism be
fore these. That a belief is ancient means that it originated before
the birth of scientific spirit.
Authority: One of the strongest motives influencing people to believe
or disbelieve in the face, very often, of facts, is authority. It reminds
me of the schoolboy who, when asked to give three proofs of the earth
being round, replied, "You say so, my father says so, and mother says
so."
Yet this is merely one of the impulsions which render men incau
tious in the pursuit of truth, and make them conform to the views
of the herd or of such of its members as have prestige. Although the
discipline of metaphysics and science are directed against the persis
tence of these authoritative leanings, nevertheless they are not always
successful, for, as Professor Pillsbury notes in his Psychology of Na
tionality:
"When an author is hard put to discover a major premise
25
 that will justify a conclusion, he almost invariably falls
back upon the phrase 'it is universally agreed among the
"
most eminent scientists or philosophers.'
At least it might be averred, the most distinctly scientific method,
that of experimentation, is proof against such influence. But is it en
tirely so? Germany is most famed for this method and yet, at the
same time, it is a stronghold of authoritarianism, for Professor Mac-
Curdy reveals in Mind and Money that in a German psychological la
boratory nearly a hundred percent of students may favor a theory
held by the professor conducting an experiment, whereas in England
the response to the same experiment will give only 50 percent in
favor.
Much of the cloak of authority swathing the great seers — Zoro
aster, Buddha, Ramanuja, Isaiah, Lao-tse, Jesus, Mohammed, Swed-
enborg, Joseph Smith, etc. — is claimed by religion to be due to their
superior insight in things spiritual. The fundamental assumption that
some men have more insight into any topic than the bulk of their
fellows is demonstrably true.. There is less discrepancy within the rec
ords of the acts and sayings of one man than there is in a whole re
ligious tradition or in a literature collected in the course of cen
turies, as with the Vedas, Pitakas, Gathas or Bible.
Nevertheless, here again there are intellectual difficulties. The
comparative method damages the claim, for while each leader natur
ally has his own peculiar merits, it is difficult to make «out that any
one is so much in a class by himself that he is entitled to be an au
thority over the others.
Again, most of the personages who are regarded as having given
the world a supreme spiritual revelation have been limited in their
outlook by the circumstances of the climate, place or time in which they
lived. It is, therefore, uncertain whether, if Buddha lived in this day
of clinical psychology, he would still- be as strong an advocate of the
practice of meditation; or if Jesus, if living in this age of great po
litical controversy, would still build up his ethic on an exclusively
person-to-person basis, to the exclusion of the duties of citizenship
in respect of collective economics or government; or if Kung-fu-tse
or. Mohammed would today pronounce exactly as they did with regard
to marriage and divorce.
These facts, taken in conjunction with the further one, that the
modern mind is taught not to look to any person at all as having
said the final word in any subject, show how hard it has become to
limit the freedom of contemporary thinking by the personal, any more
than by the traditional, kind of authority.
We have now established the importance of truth and have gone
some way towards learning the methods by which we can test our ex
periences to discover where truth lies and how to avoid making errors.
We should, then, be ready to examine the various religions to see what
evidence each puts forward as a basis for belief.
Practically every religion has some commandment enjoining its
followers to abstain from telling lies, or at least, from slander. We
may also, as a rule, find in their literature indications of their esteem
for knowledge and wisdom.
They differ greatly, however, in the kind of evidence on which they
rely for the establishment of their own dogmas. Most of them lean
upon sacred scriptures; but these vary greatly in authority and in the
manner in which they are considered to have been compiled. As it
will be possible to survey them only briefly, I propose to devote most
of the space we still have available, to the origins of religious beliefs
as found in the local polytheistic religions and to those with the widest
appeal at the present day.
Local Polytheistic: There is no evidence that native intelligence was
weaker in early mankind than ours is today. What the primitives did
lack was our accumulated experience and the cautious attitude be
26
gotten of that. They therefore fell easily into the error of mistaking
accidental sequences for cause and effect. Thus, if a spear brought
down its game, the hunter attributed its success not only to his skill,
but to the words he murmured, or to asceticisms he practised before
starting on his expedition.
He also failed to distinguish sufficiently the respects in which simi
lar objects were, or were not alike, or mere similarity from actual
identity, or part from whole. To him, for magical purposes, a lock
of his enemy's hair or an effigy of him was the enemy, to the extent
that if he cursed it his enemy would be smitten.
His dreams he also mistook for actual objective occurrences, and
because he believed he could travel while he slept, and talk with those
who were dead, survival of death became accepted.
These miscarriages of intellectual processes are outweighed by an
other source of error, the control of ideas by conative factors —uncon
scious motives disguised under the form of a fascination for certain
concepts.
In primitive beliefs about survival, fear is more frequently evident
than love, possibly because, though one is confident of reunion with
dear ones, there seems less reason to be happy about the dead who
might envy his life. Hence appears a wish to have too little rather
than too much attention from the spirit world, and an effort at ap
peasing the spirits by means of offerings and prayers in order that
he might be left in peace.
Many terms like "spirit," "anima" or "soul" in all languages mean
"breath," and according to the primitive, the power of mind and breath
can even create life. A correctly uttered incantation or even a '
word
can bring new things into existence as well as exert a power over a
person or spirit whose name is interwoven with it.
This reverence for words is reinforced by the reverence in which
we hold the person who uttered them, with the result that we treasure
his sayings for future guidance. Hence the respect in which are held the
ancient sagas and scriptures.
Universalistic polytheist religions: We may credit the Hindu sages
with an unusually persistent effort to arrive at final truth. A few In
dian saints have definitely urged their followers to acquire a store of
objective information, among such men being Narayana, an avatar of
Krishna, who urged his sadhus to master the education he himself
lacked to engage in published controversy and to abandon low su
perstitions.
The ancient songs and ritualistic directions which were authori
tative for the Aryan invaders of India in Vedic times have remained
so — the words themselves are inherently divine. To them have been
added many commentaries and the two great epics of the Mahab-
harata and the Ramanyana.
Two special features of Indian faith are Kathenotheism, which is
the practice of addressing any diety as though he were alone in the
pantheon, and transmigration, according to which the soul is con
tinually reborn and all good or ill is accounted to be the reward and
punishment for the ill karma which we have stored up by deeds in past
lives. There are also heavens and hells to be passed through between
earthly incarnations.
Buddhism leans heavily upon the ancient records of the life and
teaching of Gautama. For its Theravada sect only the Tripitaka, or
"three baskets" are authentic. These are accepted by the Mahayan-
ists, but they include also a vast library of comparatively newer texts.
These were "discovered" from time to time as required to justify in
novations which had come in.
Theravada Buddhism does not concede reality to the self. All
separate existence whatever is maya (illusion) . The Mahayana sects
mostly teach that manifested beings are all ultimately but forms of
a universalized Buddha-Principle.

27
Impersonalist: Gautama was the most intellectual of the religious
founders; he surpassed all others in creative originality of thought
and subtlety of reasoning. He was also outstanding in his search for
truth. He taught that ignorance is at the root of all suffering; and
the Buddhist monks became teachers, not only of spiritual wisdom, but
of general information.
In Taoism, knowledge and learning, along with artificiality of
any kind, are despised. Lao-tse, in fact, declared that the most de
sirable state was that in which there was least knowledge. By con
trast there has never been a more zealous advocate of knowledge in the
field of practical reality than Kung-fu-tse, who, in book vi, chapter 18,
of his Analects, declared:
"They who know the truth are not equal to those who love
it, and they who love it are not equal to those who find
delight in it."
Theosophy calls itself "the wisdom religion." Its views have the
merit of being broad and of seeking to find common elements within
diverse religions. The integrity of its organizer, Madame Blavatsky,
is discredited in the eyes of many by her claim to have been tele-
pathically directed by mysterious Mahatmas in Tibet and by accounts
of her earlier methods of establishing her claims to spirit mediumship.
The Sufi attitude to the pursuit of truth is sincere, but it does
not concede that the deepest truths can be expressed in ordinary
terms. The cult of Gurdiev, which I shall have occasion to notice, is
more or less based on Sufism, and both employ a special vocabulary
of technical terms in order to preserve secrecy.
Of Spiritism, von Schrenck-Notzig, after thirty-five years of in
vestigation, wrote "you may lay it down as a principle that every pro
fessional medium in the world cheats" and that "hardly one medium
has appeared who has not been convicted of fraud." Its claims to be
based on scientific investigation is lived up to by only a minute per
centage of inquirers; the popular practice is yet a complete travesty
of science. This fact is no absolute disproof of its tenets but should
caution us.
Mary Baker Eddy, the late founder of Christian Science, set her fol
lowers many examples of inaccurate statement. Being a woman, one
might condone her registering her age falsely at the time of her mar
riage to Mr. Eddy, but one would expect her to have used greater care
throughout her Key to the Scriptures. Yet it contains many a contra
dictory statement and, when convenient, ignores the Bible on which
the "key" is supposed to be a commentary.
Dualist and Trinitarian Faiths: The Gathas, the records of Zoroas-
trianism, are associated with the claim to direct personal inspiration
on the part of Zarathustra, its founder, through the "good thought"
of Ahura Mazda. The religion is permeated with the obsession that
words and even thoughts (which are psychologically akin to breath)
have magic potency. The means of cosmic creation is the thought of
Ahura Mazda and of Angra Mainu.
The nature of Jesus was one of passionate sincerity. Hypocrisy was
the sin above all others which he despised. It is another question, how
ever,- whether he reflected much upon what constituted valid evidence.
There appear to have been four sources of theological opinion on
which Jesus drew. First, there were the Jewish traditional scriptures
which he took as authoritative. Secondly, there were the currents of
Jewish scriptural interpretation and perhaps Greek philosophic specu
lation of his time: Jesus' disposition determined him toward a liberal
viewpoint. Thirdly, there was trust, confirmed by personal acquain
tance, in the special religious insight or inspiration of one contemporary
personage, St. John the Baptist. Fourthly, he was convinced he held
direct non-sensory communication with God.
Christians have generally considered the gospels and the Pauline
epistles as forming what Professor F. Harold Smith has called a "sacred
33
record with an original claim to direct revelation involving the belief
in a supreme revelation by divine incarnation."
The acceptance of the New Testament as inspired in the literal
sense must include, however, as the New York Arbitrator of December,
1929, pointed out, among other propositions:
"A new star appearing in the heavens to guide wise men
to a manger where a child was born.
"The child being born of a virgin, though descended from
David, through his earthly father.
"That this child, when grown, walked on the water, stilled
the storm, cast out devils, cured blindness with spittle,
fed a multitude with a few loaves and fishes, withered a fig-
tree by a curse, raised the dead."
The types of evidence accepted by the Roman Catholic Church
include, first of all, the traditions that have come down through it
corporately. The persisting accuracy of these is accepted on faith.
Another type of evidence is supplied by saintly asceticism with its
visions and locutions. How one could decide which among these were
genuine and which delusive, early became an urgent question. For
sometimes, as Dr. Thouless observes in his Introduction to the Psy
chology of Religion:
"Angels are seen, but the fruit of the visions is pride and
voices purporting to be divine exhort the saint to re
bellion or to peculiarity of doctrine or practice . . .
He finds himself unable to make the simple criterion of
the divine source of his revelations."
Finally, the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, that truth may be
reached through reason, is still the accepted one of the Church. Never
theless (it is held) although reason is not in itself deceptive, it is de
ficient as a complete means for establishing truth; it may be per
fected somewhat by its own light — this perfection is in the full pos
session of man — or, more greatly, may be perfected by the theological
virtues which, however, we hold less perfectly. But all knowledge by
reason is held to be superseded, though not destroyed, by faith, as a
lesser light is increased by a greater.
There is a certain philosophical consistency in this position. But —
partly, no doubt, because it does not flatter reason —it naturally does
not appeal to men of science.. In America, where there is a number
of these unsurpassed elsewhere, the well-informed Mr. Joseph McCabe
avers that "not one of them of any distinction belongs to the Cath
olic Church."
In Doctrine, the Church maintains that, from the beginning, her
body of tradition (by which the Bible itself needs to be interpreted) has
constituted her the receptacle of absolute truth. The doctrines which
a Catholic of today is required to believe are set forth at greater length
than space permits me to reproduce here, in Catholic Catechisms. The
approved copy issued by the Catholic Truth Society includes the well-
known Apostles' Creed, such articles as that "the Pope is infallible,"
that all Church members "agree in one faith" and that "the Church
cannot err." One of Leo's Encyclicals added that "whatever the Roman
pontiffs have taught, or shall teach hereafter, must be held." In ac
tual practice, however, grave modifications of doctrine were found
in a study of the "Belief of Catholic Men in the Deity," made by D.
Katz and F. H. Allport.
1 have so far confined my remarks on traditional Christianity to
the Roman branch of the Church. Space forbids my saying more of
the eastern branch than that in the last few centuries it has chosen
a generally similar attitude with respect to truth, except that its em
phasis and interest has been less on the intellectual and more on the
volitional aspect of life. Both these conservative branches of Chris
29
tianity fell out of step with the advance of science to the point of re
jecting modernism.
On the doctrines of protestantism, it is difficult to speak generally,
because of their wide variance. With the exception of some consider
able sects, there is a tendency to think in less literal terms, to treat
the eucharist as a symbolic rather than a real transubstantiation,
to regard heaven and hell as states of joy or remorse, rather than as
localities, and to minimize the importance of doctrine in comparison
with spirit and conduct.
The credence given to the traditional beliefs in protestant com
munities also varies considerably. Although fundamentalists are still
reared, fortunately there are more liberal elements in most of the
churches. In the Church of England, such enlightened theologians as
Deans Matthews and Henson are influential and its newly elected Arch
bishop of Canterbury is decidedly liberal. The more recently seceded
sects of Christianity have tended to become less and less authoritarian.
Substitutive: The positivist, ethicist, scientific-humanist and other
philosophical movements differ from most of the large religions in that
they set out with a complete willingness to adapt- their outlook to what
ever the unbiased search for truth may bring forth, to create deliberately
a fact-regarding religion capable of replacing the others.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party, written by Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels, and originally published in 1847, made it abundantly
clear that communism opposed all established religions, although it
did not oppose any person or group because of racial heritage. Their
position has been restated by Earl Browder, the secretary of the Com
munist Political Association in the United States:
"We stand without any restriction for education that will
root out beliefs in the supernatural, that will remove the
religious prejudices that stand in the way of organizing the
masses for socialism, that will withdraw the special privi
leges of religious institutions. But as far as religious work
ers go, the Party does not insist that they abandon their
beliefs before they join the Party."
Despite accusations leveled at it, mainly by Church zealots, there is
insufficient evidence that the Soviet officially persecuted many priests
for religious activity, only when they broke the law or took part in
counter-revolutionary activity.
We have seen that under fascism, the Party identifies itself with the
fascist idea. So far as this notion is to have any intellectual impor
tance, it needs to possess the attribute of clarity. Yet an article on
"War Mysticism" in II Barghelo, February, 1940 maintains that to keep
to "dogmatic accuracy" would be
"irreverent when applied to fascist mysticism. All is mys
ticism in fascism and there can be no fascism where
there is no mysticism. From this one gets the real essence
of fascism compared with religion."
An inevitable suspicion of this political mysticism from the quar
ter of Roman Catholicism takes the form of a respectful criticism of
its semi-theological pretensions. If these objections are stated on a
quieter note than one would have supposed, it is because the fascist
mystics on their own part refrain from attacking the Church, but
claim only to supplement it in a slightly different field from the theo
logical.
The nazi regime is frankly anti-intellectualist and bases its claims
on a pseudo-scientific creed of racialism. Few real thinkers are men
of action, much less of violence; and Hitler is more strategist than
scientist. He is not concerned with finding theories to suit lacts but,
rather, by means of propaganda, to mould opinion to suit his purposes.
Indeed, the weapon of propaganda under the nazis is nothing less than
a lie-machine.
30
Comments on Traditional Claims: Within the scope of this book, it has
only been possible to indicate in the barest outline the bases of certain
beliefs; but in order to suggest one way in which detailed evidence
needs to be sifted, I add here a few comments on the traditional
claims referred to on a later page under the sub-title "Evidence and
Error."
As regards prophecies, those recorded in the Old Testament would
be more impressive if we were sure that the critics are mistaken in af
firming that many of them were written after, instead of before,
the events "predicted," if in others the language used were not so
ambiguous, if one did not suspect that successful prophecies were re
corded while those that failed were suppressed, and if nevertheless
some of the failures, such as that recorded in Jeremiah, 34, 2 and dis
proved in chapter 52, had not leaked out.
Miracle stories were doubtless often exaggerations or misinter
pretations of natural events. The rolling back of the Red Sea may
have been a receding of shallow waters before a strong wind as some
times happens ill that region; the "rock" tapped by Moses may well
have been a kind of cactus which spurted water when struck with a
stick; Jericho's walls may have succumbed to an earthquake, or have
been built, to facilitate defense, with an outward camber which how
ever rendered them susceptible to collapse from trembling of the ground
under the marching hosts; and the cures of disease by Jesus and others
may have been "suggested" temporary suspensions of symptoms such
as a person of prestige is often able to effect. On the whole, we shall
suspect that the old miracles were what their modern counterparts
usually turn out to be— self-deception where not plain fraud.
Whatever credit the Church may take for developing into hos
pitals the lazari of Roman times, she can take little for pioneering in
education. Her first work was to destroy the earliest beginnings of
popular primary education which Rome had begun throughout her
Empire; only later did she develop schools in the monasteries to train
clerics.
Finally, the claim of the conquering spread of Christianity through
out the world needs closer examination. Admittedly positivism and
secular societies have ceased to progress, but this is not because faith
is gaining ground, but rather because popular interest has turned
from religion to economics. In America the only large branch which
can show a growth in membership comparable to the growth of popu
lation in the country at large is the Roman Catholic, and that is be
cause immigration has been from Catholic countries. Nowhere are
public issues any longer decided, as once, by reference to scripture, nor
do all the people respectfully accede to the ecclesiastical view on so
cial questions.
It must be remembered also that in the past many religions have
for a time spread widely, only to lose popularity in the course of time;
e. g., the power of fast-growing Islam was dealt a staggering blow by
the modernism of Attaturk and the disinheritance of the Khalifat.
Moreover, colored converts to the higher religions are mostly drawn
from the lowest social class of pagans, who hope thereby to be received
into social equality.
The only theory on which it may be held that religion advances
is the drastic one that true religion has all along been confined to
a very few enlightened individuals within any cult. That theory, how
ever, stigmatizes the vast body of believers through the ages as mere
pagans repeating Buddhist, Christian or Muslim phrases. If the apol
ogist will grant this appalling concession —but not otherwise —-he can
believe in the reality of the progress of religious enlightenment.
I have thought it best to devote four-fifths of this chapter to what
I consider to be the mode by which we can arrive at truth and avoid
error. That is surely more important in the long run than my own
or anyone else's views on specific points of philosophy or theology or
SI
cosmology. Nevertheless, I should like to give a few pages to the
psychological aspect of (a) the mind-body relationship (b) determin
ism (c) cosmology and (d) theories of creation.
Mind-body relationship: Can truth exist, that is, can thought go on,
independently of a neuro-muscular system such as is constituted by
our physiological bodies? That question implies the entire controversy
over the mind-body relationship. Metaphysically, there are five pos
sible viewpoints, of which one must be true and the others, false; but
to each of these outlooks there is some deadly objection.
Can science aid us where metaphysics has landed itself in a blind
alley? Physiological psychology has found no evidence that thinking
ever takes place without a brain, and has shown that the ability to
think at least certain kinds of thoughts can be interfered with by the
destruction of specific brain-areas. The inference drawn by many
is that at death, the decay of the whole brain must mean permanent
disintegration of all memories and abilities, and consequently of char
acter and personality. This conclusion does not yet answer our entire
query with certainty, however; for much of the destruction of mental
capacities is impermanent. They are presently taken over by other
parts of the brain in a manner which suggests that brain areas, and
maybe even the whole nervous system, may be merely an instrument
enabling some agency beyond it to carry on mental activities more
effectively for the purposes of earthly life than if disembodied, when
it might at best resolve a problem, not through the sure, logical steps
of argument, but only by fitful flashes of hardly verifiable intuition.
What value are we to place on alleged evidences that spirits existing
in a disembodied condition have actually communicated with us? In
what way, if they do exist, <iould they communicate? Our reply must
depend on the final answer which psychology will give to the hypo
theses of telepathy and non-sensory perception, unless we accept the
dubious testimony offered by the spiritists.
The problem must be studied with painstaking precautions, for the
amateur investigator is beset by charlatans and is liable to be tricked
also by mental processes which lead to self-deception. His safest
policy is to leave the probing to societies of fully-qualified psychical
researchers, remembering even then that people do not often join
these societies except because they hope to find favorable evidence,
and so are more apt to err on the side of leniency than of denial. (Yet,
in spite of this, at present they seem more skeptical than satisfied.)
Determinism: Contrary to the views of the theological indeterminists,
determinism is not necessarily a bar to ethical intuitionism, much less
to ethical conduct. That noted philosopher, Canon Rashdall was an
avowed determinist, but also an objective-intuitionist who held, ac
cording to C. E. M. Joad:
"that actions and characters possessed the characteristic of
goodness in their own right, and that this characteristic
is unique in the sense that it cannot be resolved into any
other characteristic . . . Indeed, it is open to question
whether the belief that one's actions are determined makes
any difference at all to one's conduct."
That determinism is not now even a barrier to a personalistically
religious view is proven by the number of orthodox faiths which accept
the idea of fate. Predestination is the religious analogy to the scien
tific concept of determinism.
It does not seem inconsistent to me, however, for either a fatalist
or a determinist to remain, in the old sense of the word, a moralist.
Such a person must, if he is logical, attribute to Fate, or God, or the
past-disposition-of-things the ultimate responsibilty for what has been
fated or determined.
At this point I hear someone ask, "Does the author then reject
the determinism which he seems to imply throughout his book; or
does he on the contrary reject all responsibility in writing the book,
32
including that of being truthful? And, if so, does he also teach his
children that they have no moral responsibility?"
I reply that, assuming one is taking into account inner character
and not only external forces, I am definitely a determinist and there
fore must reject the ultimate responsibility idea in its full old-fashioned
form. I admit there are pragmatic losses in doing this, although I hold
there are compensatory gains, but in any case it seems to me that
facts demand it. I support, however, the right of society to use the
expedient of imposing upon me (and my right to use this expedient
in imposing on my children) an attitude of proximate (not ultimate)
responsibility for much of our actions. The fine points of this argu
ment would involve us, unfortunately, in a more lengthy discussion of
the nature of the self and the play of external and internal forces
than is feasible short of a special chapter to the subject; — if not a book.
Cosmology: This all brings us to the question whether there is some
plan discernible in the universe. Science does find that it is able
to make an increasing number of generalizations about the form
and substance of the universe. But because the universe seems to
have been evolved on an intelligible plan, does science imply that it is
the product of intelligence? The. fact is more simply accounted for by
assuming that intelligence, or at any rate the interconnection between
organisms and intelligence, was the product and evolved because it was
serviceable toward comprehending the (physical) world, rather than
the other way round.
Philosopher Whitehead claims science gives no perfect pic+nre of
the world because it takes merely a cold cross-section of life which ex
cludes the movement and action of the whole. As a macter ot fact,
science neither affirms nor denies the existence of the nebulous kind
of God which Whitehead is anxious to re-introduce into nature; but it
does contradict most of the dogmas which have been asserted about
Him in the past. If God exists, it would appear that He much more de
sires that we should search Him out from His hiding-place in the uni
verse than that men should accept certain dogmas about Him; other
wise, if all powerful, He would have provided such evidences of the truth
of these dogmas that no sincere person could be deceived.
It has been customary to speak of the universe as tri-dimensional —
all solid objects having length, breadth and thickness. This is a static
view; and it has long since become orthodox among mathematicians
to count time as an additional dimension, and describe the physical
universe as a "four-dimensional space-time continuum." This is par
ticularly so since Einstein showed that space and time are not inde
pendent of each other.
It has been suggested that mental experience can be regarded as
still another dimension. Thus if, (let us say) an animal which as a
solid has three dimensions, and on persisting in time has four, is also
conscious, its life may be said to have five dimensions.
It appears to me that this is a legitimate way of regarding live
things. We should, however, beware of considering that it really
explains much, and beware of the deductions which some people try
to draw from it. It does not, for instance, tell us whether all objects,
or all of the ultimately smallest divisions of matter or quantums of
energy have in the "fifth dimension" their own consciousness. It does
not even imply whether "mind" resembles matter in being divisible into
ultimate units after the analogy of matter or whether it differs by being
something infinitely extensible which pervades all the universe and con
tains in it something independent of space or even of time. (On the
whole, relativism seems to deny that matter and mind are ultimately
separable.)
Should it prove to be true that all mind is somehow one — and I re
gard this as not inconceivable —we should have something correspond
ing to the concept of a "collective unconscious" as adumbrated by Freud
and enlarged on by Jung. This concept in its turn, has been hailed
33
by many persons as the equivalent of God. But, if so (one must add)
then it is equivalent to a God responsive perhaps to supplication but
still without the power to operate upon the physical world except,
through the minds of the human and other animals who live and act.
therein. He would resemble a shepherd who could guide his she:p
away from the path of a grass fire, but was not powerful enough to
control the fire itself. Inasmuch as the term God had already quite
another specific meaning for most persons, I certainly think it prefer
able to employ a different word for such a conception as this.
It is also notable that this hypothetical "collective unconscious,'"
in spite of being the reservoir of all past psychical experiences, op
erates through human agents who are either its extensions or incar
nations, as intuitive wisdom, but not as acute intellect. We might con
ceive it to be a vast amoeba, a very few only of whose pseudopodia had
developed a degree of intelligence to which the whole had not achieved.
Or should we think of it as a sea which retains the salt brought down
by all its rivers past and present, although incapable of extending its
saltiness back more than a little way into them?
Theories of Creation: Two great topics on which man has sought
knowledge — more, perhaps, than on any others of so general a nature —
are those of the origin of the cosmos' (and especially. of man) and of
its general plan.
Regarding the first, in spite of statements to the contrary in the
Press and by biased or badly-informed persons, the evolutionary theory
of "creation" has for a long time been almost completely accepted
in scientific circles. In the biological field dissent from Darwinism is
confined to details of the process, not to general principles.
To summarize it briefly, the broad evolutionary viewpoint rests
upon a consensus of five kinds of evidence.
1. Paleontological. The. upper strata of the earth's crust contain
the bones of animals very like those living today, but as we dig into
the earlier-formed strata, the bones uncovered indicate animals of
ever simpler types; and there are smaller divergencies between earlier
species than between later ones as though all the later had been dif
ferentiated from a few earlier types.
2. Distribution. The geographic distribution of fossils and of
living plant and animal genera indicates that all members of a given
species, or their ancestors, have migrated from some center of origin
of that species. And whenever a body of land has for a long time been
cut off from the rest of the world, e. g., Australia, its flora and fauna
have not evolved with those of the rest of the world, but contain many
vestigial types which elsewhere have become extinct.
3. Embryology. The foetus of every animal assumes successively,
except for some short-cuts, all the forms through which the species
as a whole is suspect, on other grounds, of having evolved. "Ontogeny
repeats phylogeny."
4. Physiology. The present form of the human being and the
forms of many other animals include structures (such as the appen
dix) the presence of which cannot be explained on the grounds of
present usefulness, but are readily comprehensible as vestiges of ear
lier evolutionary stages.
5. Analogy. Evolution of biological forms brings them into con
formity with evolution of the cosmos at large, which hypothesis stands
on its own very strong lines of proof.
Therefore, an evolution extending over countless millions of years
must quite certainly be accepted as the method by which we and our
world as we know it came into being. Whether the appearance on earth
of new or altered forms is due to the workings of blind chance, or to
that of some force endowed with a degree of plan or foresight, is an
other question. Some of the phenomena of cell growth and embryo-
logical development and some of those of the genesis of instincts are
hard to explain except on the latter hypothesis. But the type of "fore-
94
sight" involved would appear to be something elemental, feeling and
surmising its way rather than thinking intellectually.
Conclusions: Every psychologist is keenly aware of the unreliability
of human testimony, even when recorded immediately after any event
of a dramatic nature. He also knows that emotional bias will strongly
affect the interpretation a person will give to a written sentence. He
will, therefore, doubly underscore the humanist's insistence on "not
ignoring sacred scriptures but subjecting their revelations to the same
thorough investigation accorded all modern discoveries." To the late
William Floyd, who uttered the above in his paper, The Arbitrator, but
then added that a rationalist philosophy which he called Scientific
Revelation was a substitute for Christianity, I replied that his readers
"will say: 'Mr. Floyd is a logical reasoner,' But will they
mould their conduct to appease the high god Floyd ac
cording to the sacred commandments authoritatively re
vealed by His Holy Word? Will they lay their weary
burdens at your feet, singing, 'William, savior of my soul?'
If so, the philosophy is a substitute for Christianity."
Historically, the first rival to the Biblical morality came, not when
Aristotle composed the Nichomachaean Ethics, but when the angel
Gabriel dictated to Mohammed the heavenly Qu'ran. And the modern
rival to the ethical authority of both is not Bentham's Utilitarianism,
but Marx's Das Kapital, as interpreted to the laity by his apostolic suc
cessors, Lenin and Stalin. Or, if you prefer, it is der heilige Fuehrer's
Mein Kampf. For 170 million Russians, science shines with reflected
glory because she is approved by holy Mother Communism. For 80
million Germans, science is under a cloud, because a doctor angelicus
of the new faith (Goering) has said, "When I hear the word culture,
I reach for my Browning automatic pistol!"
On the other hand, the policy of keeping our heads buried in the
sands of conventional dogma is a hard one for an intelligent person,
and increasingly more hard today, as the blasts of science shift those
sands about.
The least disastrous policy seems to me to be this: Renounce all
confidence that any particular belief about the seen or unseen worlds,
or any revelation by any prophetic person is so certain that we dare
hold it in dogmatic manner. Have confidence that the Big Show is
at least not run by any evil genius, intending to torture us to no pur
pose, but if sufferings come they come more from the absence than
from the presence of superhuman will. And if it shall come to pass that
death gives us none of the rewards that pious optimists have hoped
for, it either will quench our desire for them in eternal sleep, or at
worst, reincarnate us at haphazard to live again in this world which,
meanwhile, we have some small power of improving. Lastly, we can
find — in stemming the forces of tyranny, in work for the betterment
of sentient beings, in continuing the efforts of dear ones frustrated
by death and thoughtful love to those near us — some measure of
refuge from the aloofness of the universe, a salvation effective in the
degree that we hurl ourselves into the fight.

36
 Chapter III.
New Heavens for Old?

Our Guest Chamber Window is the Open Mind

Painted by B. Adams.
When I was a small boy, I was much interested in what the grown
ups told me about heaven. It seemed as wonderful as the scene of
any fairy-tale, with the advantage of being, according to the elders,
quite real. Unfortunately, my informants failed to agree on details,
for the heaven of my Catholic grandmother differed considerably from
that of my Protestant aunt; and so at twelve years of age, I
began to
wonder if either of them knew much about it. A further difficulty
arose, when Longfellow's "Hiawatha," studied in school, revealed the
heaven of the Red Indian as "the happy hunting grounds" in which
the pleasures enjoyed in this world were to continue in even better
circumstances in the after-life. This "reward" or "goal" was very dif
ferent indeed from both that of my grandmother or from that of my
aunt!
As might be expected, the believer of ten years' age grew to be the
skeptic of twelve. Nevertheless, the question as to what goal I wished
to achieve, as the result of a life on earth, remained. One might become
critical, even skeptical, without necessarily growing indifferent. "To
wards what end?" still remained a fascinating question.
Since that time I have studied many religions, as well as many non-
religious ways of life. I find that most of them posit some ideal state
wherein this world or another will be reconstructed nearer to our de
sires. In China, for example, I have watched funerals where paper
models of palaces, servants, horses and even "mountains of gold" have
been burned so that the deceased should want for nothing in the next
existence.
Meanwhile I had lost, in my teens, my trust in a God who would
reward me in heaven for being good. By the time I had graduated
from college I was ready to listen, albeit skeptically, to speakers in so
cialist and communist meetings who maintained that mankind could
do better than look for a heaven hereafter, by making a heaven here
36
on earth —which would come once "the people" took over the world's
industries and ran them for the benefit of the many instead of the
few. In later years I saw socialistic experiments succeeding in the
democratic advanced countries of Scandinavia, and extreme communis
tic ones being tried, with more doubtful results, in always very backward
and autocratic Russia. After my third voyage to Russia I paid the last
of my visits to the once cultured country that had recently attempted
the newest pseudo-heaven, that of Nationalist-Socialism. I found that
in Germany as in Russia and fascist Italy — where I had sojourned sev
eral times — men were willing to put up with the unsatisfactoriness of
the present and real, because of blind hope for the future and ;deal.
So betimes I had learned something about the nature and goals
both of the older religions and of these new substitutes, fascism, com
munism and nazism, I found that, while they differed in detail, they
showed some fundamental likeness. In a field many flowers attract us.
They differ in color, form and scent and some may be those of poisonous
weeds; yet they have some pattern in common. We call them collect
ively neither rose, violet, lily, thistle, nightshade, nor any other specific
name, but simply "flowers." So there are many goals for which men
strive — earthly wealth, mystic union with a diety, national glory and
others. Is there some pattern which they all have in common? If so,
what? Or is one of the goals superior to all others? If so, which one?
Let us study some of these goals. Let us analyze them and discuss
objectively their good points and their bad points — and then, perhaps,
we can attempt to assess their true values.
Probably the first goal conceived by man was that expressed by
the term "food and drink." It gave rise to many primitive rites, and
it persists in the developed rituals of many religions of modern times.
Man must have food and drink in order to live, and he strives to secure
them at first by such mechanical, social or moral techniques as apper
tain to the culture he possesses. What he cannot obtain by what we
today should call the legitimate applications of these three means, he
attempts to gain by their use in magical or religious wise. We see very
many examples of these efforts in primitive religions. The primitive
man was able to scratch the ground with his rude agricultural imple
ments, and to sow his seed, but he couldn't control the elements —he
hadn't even a Weather Bureau to help him foresee them —so, in order
to insure timely rains he offered sacrifices to the gods. What is true
of the primitive in this respect is also true of many Christian churches
of today, for do they not still pray for rain when a drought occurs?
Again, we find that a desired increase of rice, potato or other harvests
created many of the rites of Shinto in the east and the Aztecs and
Incas on our own side of the globe.
Everyone admits the practical need of eating and drinking in or
der to live. But we find in many racial traditions the belief that heroes,
yes and even races, could be begotten by eating, instead of being con
ceived in the normal biological manner. By Shinto scriptures we are
told that the Japanese deity Susa no Wo was appointed king of the
Lower World, and that he went to say "Goodbye" to his sister the
Sun Goddess. Alarmed by his martial demeanor, she armed herself;
but he, vowing his intentions were peaceful, suggested that they both
should bite off and crunch parts of the jewels and swords they wore
and then blow away the fragments. He said that in this manner they
would beget children. They did so, and the stirps of the Mikados of
Japan sprang from one of the children conceived in that fashion! A
queer manner, indeed, to our western minds, in which to beget child
ren; but such beliefs are held to this day by many millions.
Rivers of fluid nutriment are a feature of the Hindu heaven —
streams of soma, ghi (melted butter) , milk, honey and wine. The hymns
of the Rig-Veda tell how the heavy drinking of soma was a character
istic of Indra, the chief god of that time, who overcame a great dragon
while under its intoxication.
37
 Furthermore, we find that this matter of "food" and the act of
"eating" were, and still are, so dominant in the mind of man as to be
used again and again in mythology, even to describe or typify God. Let
us take the Jewish faith. The Old Testament describes the Lord as^
"a sweet savour," and bids us "taste and find that he is good." Again
(Psalm 42) , "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my
soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God." In the New Tes
tament we find, according to John, Jesus declaring — "I am the bread
which came down out of heaven," and again — "It was not Moses that
gave you the bread out of heaven, but my father giveth you the bread
out of heaven ... I am the bread of life." In fact, as Prof. G. Stanley
Hall observes on p. 305 tif his Jesus in the Light of Psychology:
"Jesus' later miracles of feeding are symbols of his work
as soul-feeder."
And so we see that this matter of "food," used primarily as one
of the "commonsense" goals of primitive peoples, becomes symbolic
of the gods of modern religions of a more abstract nature. Why should
the religious imagery so often turn to terms connected with the mouth?
Well, for every human being the mouth was the first zone from which
he derived pleasure —quite apart from the necessity of eating. The ba
bies of all mammals are so constituted that they enjoy sucking for its
own sake, as any doubter can prove by giving one of them the end
of his finger or a rubber teat. What could be more natural than that
our dreams of paradise should be expressed in terms of the earliest
of all pleasures?
Leaving the fascinating study of the goal, "food," what do we find
to be the next most important commonsense aim in the minds of reli
gious peoples? I would suggest — "Security against calamities, merging
into success over enemies." Man is seldom content with immunity
against attack; defense soon becomes aggression; and so we find that
both in the primitive religions and in the developed polytheisms, su
pernatural aid for aggression as well as defense is sought. When we
study primitive religions and ancient culture, this goal becomes very
obvious. Black magic is so rife in Africa that whole tribes live in
chronic fear of the witch-doctors who practice it, and even in so-called
civilized countries the extent to which the organized churches in each
of the belligerent nations in the last if not in the present world-war
appealed to the Creator to bless the national arms, had a disastrous
effect on church prestige when peace brought cynicism.
Much could be written concerning the part played by this goal of
"Security and aggression" in the doctrines of the new substitutes for
religion —namely, communism, fascism and nazism, but I will leave
that for later discussion.
Closely, in fact inseparably, linked to the objectives of "food" and
"security" that urge man to resort to religion, stands the biological
yearning for "reproduction." From primitive times, man has looked
to a high birthrate to offset the inroads of famine, pestilence and
war; and whenever the birthrate fell, magic or religion was called
in as a remedy. In Cuzco, the former capital of the Aztec empire,
love-charms are sold in the market-place to this day. One that I saw
was a terra-cotta token in two parts, which, if successfully buried by
the youth in the loved one's garden, insured the success of his suit.
Needless to say, if the token is discovered by the maiden's father and
he pulls its two parts asunder, the charm is reversed.
Ancestor-worship prevails in many parts of the world; and in such
places, the desire for male children takes precedence over all other
desire save that for safety and food. In one mountain temple in China,
hundreds of male figures were ranged before the shrine. They were
made of plaster, and every woman worshipper endeavored to take and
eat one of these figures, replacing it with a similar one which she
brought with her. If she succeeded in her sleight-of-hand, without
being discovered, all was well; but should she be caught in the act,

88
the efficacy of her untempting meal was destroyed and, with it, her
hope of bearing a son! In a supposedly enlightened Germany, the drive
for prolificity is so strong that even while Hitler cries out for "living
space" for the existing population, the state bribes parents to have
children, and even condones unmarried motherhood! Thus, whether
under the old religions or the new substitutes, the approval of the
biological urge persists. That religious means can assist prolificity and
the happy married life is still a widespread and tenacious belief, proved
by the prayers of the lovers and the married themselves, and also by
the continued preference to be married by a priest or pastor, rather
than a lay registrar.
We have now discussed three absolute essentials to man, viz., Food,
Security and Reproduction, and have formed some idea how these
are bound up with all religions. When these important requirements
have been satisfied, man's mind develops further longings, some of
which are not defined so easily. It seems to me that the most im
portant of such desires is the one for a "heaven" or "paradise" which
is our "home." And this "home" often appears to be synonymous with
a "mother."
Primitive man regards Nature herself as his mother; so much
so, that he often believes it to be wrong even to till the ground or cut
down a tree! A Mazai warrior said to Prof. Malinowski: —
"The •earth is our mother. She gives us all the milk we
need and feeds our cattle. It is wrong to cut and scratch
her body."
Todd, in Theories of Social Progress, mentions: —
"The Wamka of East Africa consider the destruction of a
cocoa-palm matricide, for it gives them food like a mother."
The Egyptian pantheon contains numerous allusions to Mother;
although, according to Christopher Dawson {Age of the Gods, p. 97) ,
many have been borrowed from the Tigris-Euphrates culture. The
Egyptians domesticated the cow at an early date, and probably used
its milk for their children. It was very natural, therefore, that they
should make the cow a symbol of maternity, and reverence it accord
ingly. Again, their worship of the moon was conceived because they
came to think of that also, as a Mother. This may have been due
to its horned resemblance to a cow; as also because, being great ob
servers of the heavenly bodies, the Egyptians were impressed by the
menstrual cycle of the moon corresponding to the biological cycle in
woman. Consequently at an early date, the moon came to stand in
the minds of the Egyptians as the foremost female goddess, and the
one pre-eminently concerned with erotic matters.
In Greece, the moon-diety Aphrodite became the most famous
mother goddess, although there were numerous others. In the Eleu-
sinian mysteries, or so we read, Persephone, the beautiful daughter of
Ceres, goddess of the earth and harvest, was seized by Pluto, King of
Hades, and carried down to the Underworld. The distracted mother
searched all over the world for her daughter, and finally laid her
case before Zeus himself. Here she was so successful that Pluto had
to promise to release Persephone for one half of the year. Her annual
return to the upper air brings springtime and summer, and when
she descends into Hades, winter returns.
The three Norse norns, Urth, Verthandi and Skuld, were more
powerful than the god Odin. Hel was the name, not only of the un
derworld but of the goddess who ruled it. There is a great deal of
psychological importance in this association of the mother-personage
with the cavity into which we are supposed to descend after death, for
it means, in effect, that the after-life is conceived as re-entry into
the cavity of the mother whence we were born. Many other religions
as well make this association of the "return to the womb." Among
them I may mention just one or two:
 Hindu popular beliefs give Kali as the Great Mother. As to Shakti,
this, according to Prof. R. Mukerji in his Theory and Art of Mysticism
p. 218, is:—
"Energy symbolized in Mother-form, which creates, which
sustains and which withdraws into her fathomless womb."
Theravada Buddhism is also interpreted by many authorities to
mean, not complete oblivion at death, but rather a release from an
existence of care and strife. To form a conception of that release,
we need to draw on the hardly conscious or quite unconscious recollec
tions of infancy or of the pre-natal existence in the maternal womb.
In the Jewish faith, I have not noted quite so much reference
to the Mother. We do find, however, in ancient Jewish times, certain
poetical passages which refer to the quality of "Wisdom" as a female
personage (Proverbs, 20-33 and 111, 15-19) :
"Wisdom crieth aloud in the streets . . ."
"She is more precious than rubies."
Clement Wood claims that Asherah —whom the Hebrew prophets
denounce as an abomination of the Canaanites — or some other fe
male figure was thought of as the consort of Jahweh; but I should
prefer to treat this with reserve.
It is at once obvious that the "Mother" conception plays an out
standingly important part in the Christian religions. In the early
Christian Church, the Holy Ghost was often spoken of as a female
figure, thus completing, with God the Father and God the Son, the
usual religious picture of a holy family. Later on, this idea of the
Holy Ghost as female tended to disappear and its place was taken
by that of Mary (Isis) . Christianity, like Hinduism and Buddhism, was
principally able to become a world-religion because of the facility
with which it bent to the prejudices of local groups. The peoples of the
Mediterranean basin have always been fond of a mother-and-child
pair to worship, and this requirement, once it was recognized by the
Roman Catholic Church, resulted in the official sanctioning of the rev
erence due to Mary as the Mother of God. Actually the practice went
well beyond reverence and became Mariolatry. This degree of regard
for Mary can be well proved to be worship in many places; we have
instances in which Mary simply stepped into the places of esteem
formerly held by pagan goddesses. F. C. Conybeare, on p. 229 of his
Myih, Magic and Morals, states that in Armenia:

...
"The feast of the old goddess Anahite was appropriated
to the Virgin In Asia Minor, the Virgin took the place
of Cybele and Artemis; in the west, of Isis and other pagan
goddesses. Latin hymns in honor of Isis seem to have been
appropriated to Mary with little change and I have seen
statues of Isis and Horus set up in Christian Churches as
images of the Virgin and child."
Besides Mary, many, of the female Christian saints have received
an amount of veneration which has often amounted to worship. These
saints have in turn acknowledged Mary as their ideal or more.
One cause of this undoubtedly lies in the abnormal conditions of
life in monasteries and convents, in which, quoting Sister Mary Ethel on
p. 93 of her badly-written but very revealing biographical Forgotten
Women:
"There is no friendship allowed in any convent. Friendship
is the one thing the Church dreads among sisters and
nuns . . . Under these circumstances the girl soon falls
back on herself."
This system results first from consideration of the practical gov
ernment of a convent, secondly lest friendships should lead to the ever-
present dangers of homosexual practices and thirdly because loneliness
strengthens the disposition to replace the absent earthly friend by a
heavenly one — the Virgin.
40
 Prof. H. A. Barnes, in his Psychology and History, even goes so
far as to compliment the Church that:
"With its combination of the Papacy and Mariolatry it pro
vides for a unique 'transference' of the filial and sexual at
tachment of both female and male believers to the 'Holy
Father' and the 'Holy Mother' respectively."
Both Catholicism and Protestantism called in ideas of heaven to
satisfy the same longing. To begin with, if an adored mother has been
lost, it is natural to hope to see her again in heaven; and when this pres
ent life seems filled with sorrow, heaven is thought of as a retreat where
some equivalent for maternal care will be found. But beyond that,
heaven is our mother — or her womb.
Modern Spiritism also owes a very great deal of its drawing power
among certain types of people to the hope held by lonely survivors,
on the death of a loved one, that they will eventually have immortal
reunion with her or him. The cult attempts to prove that the departed
dear one is already happily installed in the "Summerland" whither the
survivor himself will proceed when his time arrives.
Finally, coming to the modern political substitutes for religion,
namely, fascism, nazism and communism, we find that they also con
tinue to make much use of the "mother" conception. The communists
were originally internationalists, owing loyalty only to our mother:
Working-Class Humanity. Stalin, however, practical man rather than
idealist, has narrowed this field of universalism to the pre-revolution
and old-time conception of a "Mother-Russia." The aggression against
Finland well proved the power of this revival. Fascism and nazism
personify the mothers, Italia' and Germania, whom their sons should
keep inviolate from encircling foes. A true rescue phantasy.
We have now considered several religions and substitutes for re
ligions, and found that this goal of "mother" persists in them all. Man
has a great propensity for peopling the universe with ghosts, fairies,
goblins, elves, gods and goddesses. He assumes that they will be im
mensely gratified if he will make sundry unnatural regulations of his
own love-life; and he then expects religion to give him again some of
the satisfactions he had known in his childhood through his relation
ship to his own parents — a relationship often more crudely erotic than
used to be admitted. We deduce, then, that the love of a child for
his own parent largely conditions his attitude to supernatural beings
and religious leaders. This is no far-fetched conclusion, for the par
ents are the great ruling powers of- the child's first model of the
world. Nor is it strange that the first infantile tie was erotic, when we
remember by how little the new-born human child can be removed
from the animal.
Having now discussed to some extent the "mother" goal typified
by many form of female deities, let us see if there is any goal as
sociated with union with male personages. We find, immediately, that
there are many.
In some cases, it amounts only to a rapprochement towards cer
tain human heroes, living or dead, and a self-satisfied imagining that
they would smile approval upon us if they knew. In other cases, it
may even take the form of a mystic marriage with the god himself, or
it may . . . but I proceed too quickly. Let us examine a number of the
various cults in detail.
In the minds of the most primitive people we find that the idea
of immortality has not formed, and so these do not look forward to any
mystic union with their deities, or even always to any reunion with
their beloved ones. In fact, before they attain any such cultural stage,
they seem to fear their dead friends much more than they look forward
to seeing them again! We do find, however, one link with the male-
person goal. Many primitive peoples believe in "totems," or a particular
species of lower animal which they regard as having a blood relation
ship with themselves. They address these as "father," never injure them
41
except with the participation of the entire tribe, and periodically kill
and eat a specimen at a tribal "totem feast." This has often been com
pared with our own eucharist It is certainly a peculiar rite for, as
Freud has suggested it implies both a hostile act against the father, and
also at the same time, a loving incorporation of him into one's own
self.
This similarity between the totem-feast and the eucharist is very
fascinating. Studies of totemism and of eucharist also reveal how the
same custom can develop in widely distant parts of the world and in
completely different geographic and economic surroundings. A sacra
ment which existed among the Incas of Peru seems in many ways to
represent a half-way house between the totem-feast of the savage and
the eucharist as known to ourselves. P. A. Means, on p. 376 of his
Ancient Civilizations of the Andes, tells how, 'towards the close of the
festival of Situa thirty white llamas were "sacrificed by means of a fire
ritualistically composed of thirty bundles of saffron-scented quishmar-
wood," and how their flesh was used for certain ceremonial purposes
of a propitiatory nature. For one such purpose:
"The blood of the animals was mixed with maize to make
yahua-sancu, blood-pudding, which was made up into a
vast number of little loaves. These, after being heaped upon
huge gold platters, were carried through the throng by
Chosen Women of the Sun, every person taking a loaf for
himself and for any sick relatives that he or she might
have at home. This was done in order that all, high and
low, Cuzco folk (both Janan — and Hurin) and provincials,
might be bound to the Sun and to the Inca. . . . Loaves
of yahua-sancu were likewise sent to every huaca great
and small throughout the empire and in order that each
of these might receive promptly his portion. There were
Indians present from each of the shrines, who received a
portion of the blood-pudding and went with it swiftly to
his respective huaca."
There is little likelihood that Mexico had any communication with
Peru, or that either had any contact with other parts of the world
since the time when both their civilizations arose out of savagery; yet
in Mexico, also, similar rituals to the eucharist were held long before
the Spanish conquerors arrived. When these did arrive, their mis
sionary priests were shocked to find confession and eucharist already
being practiced by the heathen Aztecs!
Hinduism is a religion which expresses the aspirations of one of
the most pious of peoples — aspirations which take the form of extreme
veneration for many male personages. The accompanying social order
is said to have been the gift of the god Manu; and Carpenter, on p. 190
of his book on Comparative Religion remarks:
"
'Father Manu,' he is called in the Rig-Veda, and as the
sire of mankind he was the founder of social and moral
order . . . And yet higher dignity belonged to him, for
he sprang from the Self-Existent and could thus be iden
tified with Brahma himself; and as Pajapati (p. 143) he
took part in the creation of the world."
In later Hinduism this piety changes to a mystic union wherein
the human individual withdraws increasingly from his fellows in order
to attain an intenser sense of nearness to the deity. This nearness is
obtained in many peculiar ways. There are numerous instances of male
Hindu saints imagining themselves to be of the female sex in order
that they may enjoy to the full a mystic union with some male deity.
Of Ramakrishna, a Hindu saint who clearly had a homosexual streak,
there are many amusing tales related by his biographer. At one time
he decided that, in order to express and enjoy most completely the
love of holy Krishna (a male deity) , he would imagine himself to be
41
one erf the Gopn, or milkmaids, with whom, according to a famous myth,
the God Vishnu during his incarnation as Krishna had had an affair.
He acted the part so well, says the biographer on p. 224, as to be:
"completely overpowered by its intoxication. Every utter
ance and every movement of his at this time spoke of the
intensity of his feelings. It reminded one so vividly of that
sweet pastoral episode of Vrindavan. Sri Ramakrishna's
pang of separation from God, his yearning to meet his
Beloved, gave an idea to the observers of the mad throes
of the all-renouncing Gopis. He spent six months in this
painful-sweet relation with Sri Krishna, and during this
period he never betrayed any other feelings than those
of the blessed Gopis of Vraja."
Even this was not, perhaps, the saint's supreme feat of identifying
himself with another for the love of Vishnu. A different incarnation
of the same god had been as Rama. In the epic of the Ramanyana,
this hero is befriended by the king of the monkeys, Hanuman. So,
says the biographer, on p. 124, the saint "imposed upon himself the at
titude of the faithful servant as exemplified in Hanuman." He then
lets Ramakrishna describe the attempt in his own words. The quota
tion is rather long, but the picture is so perfect that I feel I must
give it here:
"By a constant meditation on the glorious character of
Hanuman for some time, I totally forgot my personal
identity.
"My daily life and style of food now strangely resembled
those of Hanuman (the monkey) . I did not feign them,
but they came naturally to me. I tied a cloth round the
waist, hanging a portion of it in the form of a tail, and
jumped from place to place instead of walking. I lived
on nuts and fruit only, and these too I preferred without
peeling the skin. I passed most of the time on trees and
in a solemn voice used to call out 'Raghuvit!' My eyes,
too, looked restless like those of a monkey."
To this Hindu saint, the all-important purpose of life was to at
tain unity with Vishnu. He certainly went very far!
When Gautama set forth his original conceptions of Buddhism, he
taught that one should take refuge in one's self, and that at his death the
perfected one's last possibility of personalistic existence would defi
nitely be extinguished. Yet, in spite of this, his northern followers have
not only deified him, but have even decided that there exist five Bud-
dhas— three of the past, one of the present and a "Buddha of the Fu
ture"! Furthermore, in many lands his devotees have erected millions
of statues in his likeness. I myself have felt the force which the calm
visages of the Buddha statues exert over one under favorable circum
stances. Such circumstances are provided by silence, antiquity and
often very cleverly and doubtlessly intentionally, by size. I experienced
most the effect of size in the presence of certain colossal Buddhas In
Japan, and of the other factors, when I suddenly came face to face
with a huge granite effigy in the jungle that has overgrown the an
cient city of Anuradhapura in Ceylon. Ouspenky (see his New Model
of the Universe) was so impressed by the eyes of a reclining Buddha
near Anuradhapura that he believes the figure really saw into his soul!
Let, us, for a moment, leave our study of numerically important re
ligions, and digress to a modern freak religion. To us, frankly, the
way it carries out this same idea of union with a male deity seems
only grotesque; yet the observation of pathological and exaggerated
phenomena often opens our eyes to new understanding- of the normal.
Well, then; just prior to the first world-war, a certain Englehardt
in Germany seriously proposed as the panacea for human woes, to wor
ship the sun, migrate to a tropical island, and live exclusively on cocoa
43
nuts! His writings were translated and published by Benedict Lust, a
noted American dietetic reformer, and the cult calling itself Cocoa-
vorism gained a following on both sides of the Atlantic. All the quota
tions here used are taken from Lust's translation of the prophet's
book, A Carefree Future, published in New Jersey in 1913. The thesis
runs that:
"to free one's self from all cares, means to get in close touch
with the original source of abundance, the donator of all
things, of strength and power, that is, to join God — in other
words we must return to the original source of life, of all
heavenly and earthly force — the sun — we are to become
children of the sun."
This plea for closer union is reinforced by the hope of regression to
childhood's simple dependency:
"The Cocoanut eater, sun-man, is, as he should be, all unity
and simplicity. Living harmoniously with his God-Father,
he receives everything directly from the hands of his God,
the sun."
Strange as is this argument, and quaint the poem that follows
it, a psychological . basis for Cocoavorism is discernible. Englehardt
rises to true frenzy in contemplating mystic union with his (solar)
Father and the hope of being impregnated with His essence. All this he
will achieve through incorporating eucharistically into himself the
fruit of the palm — that tree which, like the pine, has always been a pre
eminent phallic symbol:
"Oh, men, is there a finer calling
Than to be this palm's worthy son?
How to become it? Let me tell you,
There is only one way, the way of fact;
And this fact is; to eat only cocoanuts!
Then you will be penetrated with cocoanut spirit
And your appearance will be happy,
And you will exhale joy, peace, strength and beauty."
This all says that the sun is finer than the earth or, being inter
preted from its symbolism, that father is dearer than mother. This
homosexual attitude is very much borne out in further passages. In
deed, the cocoanut seems to be an essence, issuing from a phallic symbol
of this his solar father, concentrating in itself great stores of his po
tency and omniscience (another form of potency) and able to "impart
them to him who devours."
The concept of the divine father appears in Jewish literature as
early as Psalm 103, and reaches its climax in the later Isaiah; and here
we find that a note of awesomeness, connected with graciousness, per
sists throughout all the early presentations of this paternal figure —
"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that
fear him." The impulse detected by Moxon in the later Christian
creed, might well be applied to the father-deity of the Jewish people
conscious of their individual imperfections and their tragic race-suf
fering.
Moxon, in an article in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis
in 1921, p. 56, found that:
"The impulses to the creation of a father and God are not
only the conscious feelings of inferiority, incapacity and
the fear caused by hard times and lack of earthly love, but
chiefly the unconscious feeling that one's actual father is all
too human, the desire of an ideal lover on whom one may
project one's will to power, and the need of a refuge in the
transcendental family of God."
The persisting note of Jahweh's holiness and the need of conform
ing to its requirements led to an insistence on ritual observance at the
expense of the right conduct demanded by the prophets.
44
 The Reverend Norman Macleish clearly sums up the situation on
p. 128 of The Nature of Religious Knowledge thus: by the Jews
" 'Right' conduct was not thought of as being simply con
duct conducive to human happiness, but as being conduct
well pleasing to God. And, similarly, 'wrong' conduct was
not thought of as conduct which merely failed to conduce
to human happiness; it was regarded as 'sinful'."
Turning to the Moslem world, we find that all through Islam there
persists this admiration or worship of a male figure. The cry of Rabia,
a Moslem saint quoted by Miss Underhill on p. 248 of Mysticism, is
clearly that of a woman to her lover:
"O my God, my concern and my desire in this world and in
the next is that out of all who are in that world, I should
meet with thee alone."
In fact, sublimated "sex-appeal" plays a remarkably strong role
in the whole history of Islam. We find that Allah is worshipped as a
male figure and so is his Prophet; and legend insists that even the
Prophet's parents had exceptional allure. It is recorded that, on the
night his father, Abdallah, married the future prophet's mother, Amina,
"two hundred virgins expired of jealousy and desire!"
Some passages in the holy book of Sikhism, the Granth Sahib or
Guru Granth, illustrate very well the longing that the Sikh also has
for his heavenly beloved. Prof. Mukerji in Theory and Art of Mys
ticism, p. 158, compares it to the expectancy of an earthly bride for
her lord:
"Through Thy saving Love, restore me once again to Thyself.
What am I without you?
As useless as a cow without milk, as a branch cut off from the
juice of a tree.
Burnt be the town and the city where cometh not my beloved.
If the beloved is not by me,
All friends and blood-relations are as death,
All my fine decorations to self, the supremacy of ornaments
and robes, of the betelnut on my lips, the pride of my
beautiful flesh, the tints of love and longings, the de-
liciousness of emotions— all, all is sour and unripe!"
No clearer evidence of the part played by the desire for reunion
with a male figure could be required than that afforded by modern
Spiritism. The love of the bereaved parents for the son of whom war
deprived them, has lain at the basis of much belief. An outstanding
case is that of Sir Oliver Lodge, the great physicist, who embraced
Spiritism. His dearly beloved Raymond was killed in the Great War,
and in his later years he was happily able to write:
"The stress and anxiety to communicate has subsided; now
that the fact of survival and happy employment is estab
lished, the communications are placid, like an occasional
letter from home."
In connection with this Spiritism, it is interesting to note how the
balm which spiritists get in their loneliness causes them to lose interest
in God, who here becomes superfluous. G. Lawton, on p. 423 of his
Drama of Life After Death, remarks:
"So long as there are beings in the universe who like them and

about Him ...

who .are interested in their welfare, Spiritualists care little
He is seldom referred to in Spiritualistic
writings or services. Many communications have been re
ceived from Jesus, Swedenborg and many other founders of
religion, but none from God, so far as I know."
After noting how important the element of personal attachment
is in so many religions, one wonders how Christian Science manages
so well with its exaltation of "principle" over personality. The answer
probably is, that Christian Science takes back in practice much of
41
what it give* forth in theory. Although Mrs. Eddy, its founder, sfcates
that the supreme being is impersonal, she implicitly denies this else
where by claiming love as one of that being's attributes. As Lueba, in
his Psychological Study of Religion, (p. 304) states the incongruity:
"How love can be an attribute of an impersonal power does
not seem to give Mrs. Eddy one moment of uneasiness."
The theme of union with a male personage runs prominently
throughout the history of Christianity; its very keynote has been
reconciliation with the Father. This was to be effected by renuncia
tion of earthly things like property and sensuality, and by loving all
men "as one's self."
Jesus is one of those heroes of whom it was said that the humble
man who seemed to be his father (here, Joseph) was not actually so,
the real parent being a much more important personage (here, God
himself. Ernest Renan in his Vie de Jesus (p. 52) , stresses the way Jesus
always referred to God as his father, and believed himself to be his
son, and in direct contact with him.
Equally, the yearning of his followers for some affiliation with their
male hero— Jesus — created a need for the eucharist, by which to be
come united with him. Whether the rite was instituted by Jesus or
St. Paul is a matter on which there has been some conjecture. An ex
ample of this Christian longing to identify one's self with one's hero
is very apparent in the case of Thomas a-Kempis (1380-1471) who, in
his Imitation of Christ, tries to attain a stage at which his personality
fuses with that of the deity. The following is but a tasting of the
quality of the third chapter in the fourth book of his famous work:
"Wonderful condescension of Thy tender loving-kindness for
us, that thou, O Lord God, should deign to come to a poor
soul and with Thy whole Deity and Humanity to change
its famishing hunger into fatness . . . O, how great a Lord
is received! How beloved a Guest is entertained! How faith
ful a Friend is welcomed! How beautiful and noble a
Spouse is embraced!"
If a male saint can develop such an intensity of feeling about
union with his Deity, we can rightly assume an even increased fervor
to be possible from female saints. And indeed there are almost innu
merable examples of the intenseness of their desires. They give these
some symbolic gratification through the holy eucharist, and St. Jerome
has assured them that:

of a virgin's body...
"No gold or silver was ever so dear to God as is the temple
Do not seek the Bridegroom in the
streets. . . . Jesus is jealous. . . . Shall she come to him
after the bridal-chamber of God the Son, after the kisses
of Him who is to her born kinsman and spouse? . . .
Let the Bridegroom sport with you within."
Tremendous numbers of these women considered themselves the
"Bride of Christ." I may instance the case of Santa Rosa (1233-1251)
who received a visit from Christ one Palm Sunday. He was disguised
as a stone-cutter and was accompanied by the Virgin Mary. He did
"the right thing by her," proposing marriage gallantly: "Rosa, treasure
of my life, thou shalt be my bride." W. J. Fielding on p. 189 of an
article in the Haldeman- Julius Monthly for January, 1926, continues
the story:
"Sometimes Christ visited his other brides — he had many, in
fact, all the Christian nuns were spiritually the Brides of
Christ, although only the most saintly ones appeared to
have been on terms of actual contact and personal intimacy
with him. When her Beloved visited another Bride, Rosa's
womanhood cropped out through her saintliness in the form
of jealousy."
46
 Unmistakably sensuous are the terms in which many of the femalt
saints described their relationships. The words in which St. Theresa
(1515-1582) pictures the visit of an angel will be seen to be full of
such phallic symbols as "golden spears," "flames," "penetration of en

...
trails," "fire," "sweetness," etc.:
"He seemed to be . . . all fire in his hand he held
a golden spear, at the point of which was a little flame;
he appeared to thrust this spear into my heart again and
again; it penetrated my entrails and as he drew it out He
seemed to draw them out also, and leave me on fire with
a great love of God. The pain was so intense that I could
not but sigh deeply; yet so surpassing was the sweetness
of this pain that it made me wish never to be without it."
These phrases suggest that covert sex desires have been behind
much religious aspiration.
Even in more modern times and sects the attachment of any con
gregation to its leader, whom it sees in the light of a hero, is of the
greatest psychological importance. S. J. Dimond, a reviewer of a book,
Psychology of the Methodist Revival, summarizes in Psychological Ab
stracts,, how
"Wesley was responsible for the abnormal physical effects
that accompanied the movement, as revealed by the fact
that when he encouraged them they increased, and when he
discouraged them, they ceased."
Now let us turn from modern religions to political substitutes for
religion — the communism, fascism and nazism of the three totalitarian
states. Here we find that hero-worship has been so cleverly propagated
by the rulers, or — to make the analogy complete —the high priests of
the cult, that the adoration tendered by the peoples to their leaders
reaches an absurd state of fanaticism.
The men destined to make the Russian revolution had for a long
time been preaching the gospel of Karl Marx. When the Romanoffs
and the Russian Church which had helped them to exploit the masses
were discredited, icons and portraits of the imperial family came
down and (as a British psychoanalyst, the late Dr. Eder, has described)
pictures and busts of Karl Marx went up.
Lenin was a simple man, content to let the glory be attributed
to Marx. But on Lenin's death, Stalin, whether from true hero-worship
of his old leader, or subtle scheming or both, literally "boomed" Lenin
as almost a divinity; and did this with all the resources of modern ad
vertisement. Frank Owen, on p. 160 of The Three Dictators, describes
how:
"a new icon worship was established to honor the arch-
atheist. At any time for fifteen years you might have
watched the queues of mujiks and gaping tourists solemnly
filing past the mummified body of the leader who all his
life denounced the cult of hero-worship."
After a time, Stalin carefully began to associate his own name with
that of Lenin, and then even to supplant him, and now we find Stalin
full in the center of the communist stage and enjoying the spotlight
alone. And what a hearty response these methods have received from
hero-craving human hearts! Read in the August 6th, 1936, number of
Pravda (translated by Worldover Press) :
"O Great Stalin, O Leader of the Nations,
Thou who makest men to be born,
Thou who makest the earth fertile,
Thou who makest the centuries young,
Thou who makest the spring bloom,
Thou who makest the cords ring out music,
Thou who art the splendor of my spring,
O Thou, Sun reflected by millions of hearts!"
47
 In just the same way, hero-worship is to the fore in fascism. One
has only to read the article on "War Mysticism" in II Barghelo for
February, 1940, for proof:
"Faith in fascism is absolutely unconditional, one's devo
tion to the Duce forms part of a creed that cannot be
taught, but which is a spiritual privilege which one attains."
Finally, when one considers nazism, one stands amazed, almost
spellbound, by the heights (or depths, whichever you prefer) of adu
lation to which so many millions of cultured people have risen (or
fallen), in the grip of blind, unreasoning, hypnotic hero-worship. It
seems unbelievable of a once civilized people —but read for yourself
Alphonse de Chateaubriand in La Gerbe de Force quoting on ideal
ization of the Fuehrer:
"His eyes are the deep blue of the waters of his own Konigsee
when it reflects the broken striated masses of the Tyrolean
clouds. A mere nearness to him as he speaks exalts one. The
supple play of his movements as they follow every motion of
his thought is a plastically realized expression of his genius.
His whole body vibrates without once deviating from its ele
gant line. This line is full and pure like an organ pipe."
One reliable friend of mine who was in Germany on the eve of war,
told me of seeing Hitler's road through a small country town strewn
with flowers by the women, some of whom knelt by the road and lifted
their arms and faces to him with gestures and expressions such as
would suit saints ecstatically worshipping at a shrine. And one man
told me in Berlin it was not unusual, if he surprised friends in their
home, to find two lighted candles burning on a little altar before a
picture of Adolf!
For the next two quotations I am indebted to Mr. L. Paul's article
in the December, 1937, Plan. He found on p. 372 of Velhagen's Reader
for School-children this poem by Hans Seitz, to "My Leader":
"Now I
have seen you
And I
carry your image with me
Come what may
Always will I put myself at your side;
I shall remain faithful to you.
From this moment, each day,
Every beat of my heart
Directs my actions towards you.
"I carry your image in my heart,
Which watches every action
That I undertake for you,
That I endeavor to accomplish for you
As a soldier of service and work."
The second, found on p. 8 of Handel's Lesebogen fur die Grund-
schule and entitled "Die Kleine Hasemanns" is particularly appropriate
to the present "happy" moment (1944) :
"But the most beautiful angel
with her shining halo
and her silvered wings
comes down to Hitler,
Protects him in his sleep
and drives away all care
So that he wakes joyously in the morning
and makes his Germany happy."
A whole series of good things of this kind were cited by Friends
of Europe for May and for July, 1939. I shall have to select the choicest
bits:
48
 Baldur von Shirach, as reported in the Voelkischer Beobachter of
April 17th, 1939:
"God has . . . revealed himself to our Volk by sending us
the Fuehrer."
From the special edition of the Schwartze Korps, April 30th, 1939,
to celebrate Hitler's fiftieth birthday we get this: x

"My Fuehrer!
On this day I am approaching thy image. It is superhuman
and inexhaustible; it is colossal, adamant, beautiful and
sublime, it is so simple, kind, natural and warm — nay, it is
father, mother and brother in one and it is ever more."
Very little more need be said concerning this human yearning
for a hero of some kind or other, even if only a Hitler, to be worshipped.
We have studied it in some detail and find that it is "as old as the
hills," for it existed in primitive man and it exists, perhaps even in in
creased strength, today.

Religious Dance Within Ankor-Wat Temple

The goals that I have discussed so far, namely, Food, Security, Re

production and the desires for union with male or female personages,
spring spontaneously and naturally from within us. I now wish to turn
to a group of religious goals and gratifications which I will call the "Ec
static." These are of a slightly different nature from the previous goals
as, whilst they are somnolently inherent in all mankind, they do have
to be personally induced in order that their pleasures may be enjoyed.
They include exalted trance states, singing, dancing and other rhyth
mically harmonic activities and festivals and their accompanying sym
bols and fertility-rites.
Although not always immediately perceptible we find that this
"ecstatic" goal exists in all religions. I have observed it in many parts
of the world; may I cite some of my own experiences?
In Bali, six years ago, I noted the connection, observed by anthro
pologists among primitive peoples, between religion and dancing. Prac
tically every dance was religious, while, reciprocally, religious ob
servances were permeated with dancing. An elderly woman worship
per in the temple, advancing to place her gift upon the altar, would
not do so with direct progress and tottering steps, but by a zig-zag
route and with undulating body. Child dancers in the temples per
formed while in a trance state. In this condition they trod barefoot
on burning embers which quickly burnt my own foot that I experi
49
mentally bared.. I questioned these children through interpreters but
could only ascertain that they had been as though asleep and anaes
thetized to any pain; and I could not verify even that the soles of their
feet were burnt.
In 1920, Mr. Robinson, city editor London Tines, and I visited the
great mosque of Sidi Okba, in the North African Moslem holy city
of Kaironan, during Ramadan, the month of purification. There we
saw a group of Darvishes, who, under direction of their Sheik, and by
the aid of chants, rhythmic prayer and bodily swaying, worked them
selves into a state of frenzy. Each member in turn then presented
himself to the Sheik to be tested. The tests consist of weights hung
from their flesh by hooks, scorpions to be eaten alive, etc., and other
disagreeable things. We were able to examine them, to make sure
of the genuineness if the performance, and to note that the per
formers' state preclu led bleeding from their wounds or their having,
apparently, any feeling of pain or revulsion.

Altar of Snake Temple, Penang

I will turn now to what may seem — but are not really — irrelevant
topics — tree and serpent worship, ecstatic phenomena and the use of
rhythm.
Tree-worship is a widespread custom, in which many variations of
ritual are employed. Mabel Steedman, in her Unknown-to -the- World —
Haiti, describes, on p. 232, how food and drink are offered on an altar
built round the trunk, and how wine or blood are poured on the roots
until the spirit of the tree, entering into the devotee, brings him or her
happiness. Tree-worship is sometimes associated with another often-
encountered phenomenon, serpent-worship, in a way to suggest that
both have the same psychological origin. Miss Steedman on the 235th
page of her book describes:
"an initiation center in Ethiopia with a sacred tree, which
was decorated and on which lived two snakes, 'the viper of
"
existence' and the 'serpent of life.'
Serpent-worship itself is world-wide, and of great antiquity. In
some of the Greek religious processions, serpents and eggs were car
ried aloft as symbols of the male and female genitals respectively.
I myself have seen snakes' nests drilled into the stone walls of temples
in Peru; and in Penang I have inspected the snake temple of a de
generate Buddhist sect, where the altars swarmed with small serpents
that tamely let me handle them. In a pit outside, pythons writhed.
Do not think that the "ecstatic states" are the perquisite of only
primitive religions. They are not; I have witnessed quite as aston
50
ishing revelations of the emotional possibilities of Christianity, not
only in an evangelical negro church in Jacksonville, but in meetings
of whites, belonging to the "Holiness People" in Connecticut.

Negro Woman Being Baptized

Labored breathing, dancing, leaping and other antics were usual in

these meetings. A colored congregation of this sect, better known
as "Holy Jumpers," whom I more recently saw in Jamaica, worshipped
by torchlight out of doors and endeavored by syncopated singing and
dancing, interspersed with exhortation, to work up the members to
a cataleptic climax when they "spoke with tongues."
More dignified rhythmic phenomena, both of music and move
ment are found in Catholic worship, when stressing love of the Deity.
Note the syncopation of these prayers wherein the priest leads and
the flock breaks in with responses, and the periodic genuflexions and
making of the sign of the cross. The Roman and Greek Orthodox and
Anglo-Catholic churches have gone furthest to perfect these mechan
isms, whereas most of the Protestant denominations have relied on
hymns or somewhat more intellectual but still partly rhythmic stimuli
as found in poetical and other literature. In the Roman Catholic
Church, dancing before the altar was once a widespread custom, but
now has unhappily been banished, except for choir boys who perform
at Easter and Christmas at a few places such as Rome and Seville.
Why did ecstatic phenomena such as have just been described
become attached to religion? The too obvious answer, "because they
give pleasure," does not explain why they have not connected them
selves equally to other aspects of life. A psychologist, moreover, still
needs to ask, why do precisely these phenomena give pleasure?
I can find no satisfactory explanation unless that they please be
cause of what, beyond themselves, they symbolize. In all the examples
I have given, the symbols are the same as those which patients bring
repeatedly to their psychotherapists; and it works out that they re
call one and the same bodily region and its functioning. Earlier in
this chapter we had the symbols of another bodily zone, the mouth,
but this time the body-organ is a different one, and one about which
SI
 society has taught us a greater shame, namely, the male genital and
its rhythmic action.
Shame prevents us admitting, even to ourselves, the strong emotions
which are felt about this organ, but the analysis of the dreams regu
larly reveal that it is being unconsciously referred to under the guise
of snakes, tubes, guns, aeroplanes or, in fact, all objects which are elon
gated, which pierce human bodies, or which propel themselves for
ward. This may include other parts of the human frame itself —
such as the arms — and their "polyphallic" multiplication is then an
emphasis on their existence and potency. Similarly, the rhythm of
coitus or of ejaculation is found to be the archetype which other rhythms
of all kinds— dancing, marching, music, oratorical punctuation —rep
resent. The magical fluids which permeate all things and give them
their life — mana, orenda, — are semen and finally, the ecstatic state,
by whatever means produced, is a duplication attenuated and mild
and therefore not accompanied with ejaculation, of orgasm.
At once many readers will object to this interpretation, asking me
"why drag in a sexual explanation, when most of the objects which
are called phallic symbols are known to have come into existence for
other and quite different reasons?" Such objectors are asked to note
that we are faced with explaining not why the snakes, let us say, exist,
but why, in certain religious processions, a snake together with an
egg were picked out as the objects to be borne aloft on a tray, or why
certain persons repeatedly dream about snakes and rarely about, say,
lions.
The only way to find out the reason is to stop merely guessing
and uncover the necessary facts about those persons — a process called
psychoanalysis — and when such a process establishes again and again
the connection I have stated, we must accept them, and then weave
theories to account for them afterwards as best we can. Those who
have done so find that Freud's hypothesis about the repression of un
acceptable ideas and of the subsequent return of the repressed ma
terial in disguised forms to get by what he calls the "censorship" ex
plains the facts very satisfactorily. I must point out, however, that
even if this theory should fail to explain them, we are not thereby
entitled to deny the facts which analyses have unearthed.
There still remain a large number of life-goals which have been
held or proposed by saints or philosophers, and to discuss them all would
be impossible. I shall consider only one more, but a very important one
—Happiness. It occupies a place in all religions in some form or other.
The Chinese popular religion is a case, where it shows Happiness
as Blessedness, and the Confucian philosophy rises to a universal type
of hedonism in the courteously courageous advice offered by Mang-tse
to a ruler, in a quotation for which I am indebted to L. Adams Beck's
Story of Oriental Philosophy, p. 403:
"The people hear the noise of your carriages and horses and
see the beauty of your plumes and pennons, and they all
with aching brows say: 'That's how our prince loves hunt
ing, but we are miserable!'
"And this is because you do not care for the people's hap
piness as well as your own. Your Majesty has music here.
Now if the people hearing that music could say with
joyful looks, 'That sounds as if our prince were rejoicing
in health. What splendid music! What splendid hunting!'
it would be because you considered their pleasure as well
as your own. So if your Majesty will make happiness a
thing common to the people as to yourself, royal heights
await you."
The two numerically important escapist religions of Hinduism and
Buddhism seek as their ultimate goal the cessation of sorrow. Again,
among many ancient Greeks, it was taken for granted that happiness,
52
and of a purely selfish kind, was what everyone most desired. Eudoxius
was one of the first to maintain deliberately that all creatures, ra
tional or irrational, could only aim at pleasure. This is the view called
psychological hedonism. As it is of considerable importance to our
further s.udies, I wish to make the distinction unmistakably clear.
Psychological hedonism held "a man cannot, in any situation, do other
wise than to seek his own greatest happiness, or his own happiness."
E Jiical hedonism, on the Other hand, spates "a man ought, in any situ
ation, to do what will in the end most relieve someone's sorrow or give
someone pleasure."
According to R. E. Fitch, in the Hibbert Journal, October, 1939, Soc
rates, when questioned by Adeimantus, remarked:
"Our object in the construction of our state is not to make
any one class pre-eminently happy, but to make the whole
state as happy as it can be made."
There have been many departures from the true sense of this
platitude (as it may now seem to us non-totalitarians) , which antici
pated Ideal Utilitarianism. Leaving the ancient world and approach
ing our own times, we find the Utilitarian position laid down by John
Gay in 1731, in his Preliminary Dissertation Concerning the Funda-
memal Principles of Virtue or Morality. The subsequent development
was through the theologians Brown, Tucker and Paley, then David
Hume, David Hartley and Bentham. The famous formula of "the
greatest happiness for the greatest number" which was laid down by
Bentham, must have come, however, from Hutcheson, another noted
theologian.
Whatever the philosophical weakness of the form in which it was
presented (owing mainly to the difficulty of the transition from the
happiness of the individual to the well-being of the race) , Ideal or Uni-
versalistic Utilitarianism has had an enormous influence upon political
and social movements since Bentham's day. His teaching was furthered
by the Mills (father and son) and Romilly among English readers;
and on the continent by Mirabeau's friend Pierre Dumont.
Probably the best date to be taken as representing the commence
ment of the modern Utilitarian movement as such, is 1802, when the
senior Mill joined Bentham, and became joint leader with him of a con
siderable group. Bentham himself was content to apply his principle
to immediate political problems, but his followers, the two Mills, Ricardo
and Herbert Spencer, went on to build an ethical system. F. J. C. Hearn-
snaw, in nis article in an Outline of Modtrn Knowledge (1931, p. 601)
tells how Mill came to devote his life to the discovery of a science of
human conduct. In this he supplied an intellectual foundation for
Utilitarianism, which was, however, ultimately destined to harm it, for
it was founded on what we have seen was the false basis of psycho
logical hedonism.
James Mill was succeeded by his son, John Stuart Mill, who, on
p. 52 of Utilitarianism put forward the important psychological ar
gument:

...
"The sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything
is desirable is that people do actually desire it No rea
son be given why the general happiness is desirable, except
that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable,
desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we
have not only all trie proof which the case admits of, but
which it is possible to require that happiness is a good, that
each person's happiness is a good to that person, and the
general happiness therefore a good to the aggregate of
all persons."
Mill Junior thus broadened the viewpoint of the school; but he in
troduced an unfortunate modification by insisting that the quality
as well as the quantity of happiness should be taken into account.
53
 He averred that crude pleasure was not to be considered as of the
same weight as a refined one. A little reflection should have shown
J. S. Mill, Herbert Spencer and those who followed them that this
qualification was wholly unnecessary, for the crude pleasure is usually
limited by the fact that it is unprolific of any additional pleasures,
whereas a refined pleasure paves the way to s'dll further enjoyments.
Two simple examples should make this quite obvious. The gross
pleasure of gluttony gives an immediate enjoyment to one person,
but deprives others of their shares and usually creates indigestion,
which eventually prohibits further pleasure of that kind. On the other
hand, the refined pleasure obtained by the enjoyment of good poetry,
not only gives immediate enjoyment, but leads to the desire for more,
and far from diminishing enjoyment for others may actually increase
their happiness, as when read aloud to them, or as when it inspires
us to greater sympathy.
There have been many subsequent adherents to the Utilitarian
philosophy, including, I believe, in Britain, Leslie Stephen, E. E. Con
stance Jones, J. M. Robertson and, in America, James Mackay; but more
illustrious than these have been Sidgwick, Rashdall and Moore.
However, Sidgwick added Justice to Happiness as components of the
summum bonum, and the late Canon Rashdall, while' remaining close to
the original tradition, considered, in his Theory of Good and Evil, that
Happiness was only one of several ultimate goods.
The only outstandingly distinguished Utilitarian now living is
Prof. G .E. Moore who, by his more recent and complete Principa Ethica,
has supplanted and set right the Ethics which he previously wrote in
the University Series.
Today, the swing of philosophic fashion is against utilitarianism
even in its universalistic form. I believe this to be a sentimentalistic
reaction against the false narrowness of Bentham's and the Mills' psy
chological hedonism. Nevertheless, utilitarianism as a guiding prin
ciple lives on, owing to our conviction that in. a world where so much
proves illusory, the satisfying nature of happiness remains a fact in
experience. It can be tested by all. It is an unmistakable element
In the stuff of life. And now for once I will turn moralist. I do so
in order to have a tilt at those who say that whether or no it is right
to make others happy, there is no moral value in being happy ourselves.
I would point out to such persons first that there is much truth
in that distortion of an old saying which makes it read "be happy
and you'll be good"; for when we are happy we are much more inclined
to feel benevolent; Hitler, to illustrate by a contrary case, is so evil a man
because he has always been a bitterly unhappy one.
Secondly — and this is extremely important — other people are more
influenced towards the good life by a happy exemplar of it than by
a melancholy one. The illustrious persons whom humanity has elected
as representing its most ideal leaders have not, indeed, been inex
perienced in suffering, but have so surmounted adversities as to have
been light hearted or even gay.
If, therefore, we are to view matters from a moral standpoint,
we must say that melancholy is immoral; gayety, moral. Or leaving this
standpoint and returning to the utilitarian one, it is clear that the
person who is bent on giving happiness to others will get farthest if
he manages to achieve happiness, himself.
Part of the art of doing this consists in dropping silly mechanical
habits in our attitudes. No one who reads me to the end is likely
to accuse me of pretending that anxiety, work, fretting, impatience, ir
ritability, fault-finding and occupying our minds with our past mis
takes instead of with what is to be done in the future are merely
habit or can be completely abolished by just resolving to do so. This
is an exaggerated position taught by the New Thought and Auto-Sug
gestion schools. Nevertheless we should profit by the kernel of truth
on which these schools are founded, which is that mental attitudes
54
are to some degree subject to conative control, and that to let the
undesirable traits I have mentioned become needlessly habitual in one
is silly, is prejudicial to our own happiness and influence and is de
pressing and hurtful to others.
Now let me try to draw some inferences from the various goals we
have considered. We have studied in some detail the ultimate goals
represented by "Drink and Food," "Reproduction," "Security," "Home or
Mother," "Union with a Male Personage," "Ecstatic States," and finally
"Happiness." How do the many points for and against each of these
goals add up? To which goals in particular should we, you and I, as
men possessing brains with which to reason, strive to attain?
Well, it seems to me that the goals of "Drink and Food," "Repro
duction" and "Security," being fundamentally biological ones are nat
urally bound to persist always in sufficient strength without any ad
ditional mental effort on our part to intensify them. So we may omit
them from any conscious striving towards a definite goal — they will
take care of themselves. I think that the same remarks also apply to
the "Ecstatic States."
When I consider the goal of "Home and Mother," and that of
"Union With a Male Personage" in the analytical light made possible
by what we have already learned of both these goals, I can only arrive
at one conclusion — that they have been exploited long enough, and
should be labelled — "Dangerous!"
This leaves me with only one goal remaining —"Happiness." This,
we have already seen, is capable of being split into two fundamentals —
psychological hedonism and ethical hedonism, or in very simple, but
nearly enough accurate language — fatalistically determined pursuit
of our own happiness or deliberately chosen pursuit of our own or others'
happiness. The former has been shown scientifically to be false, but
the latter, in its universalistic form of "the greatest gain in pleasant
feeling for the greatest number for the greatest duration of time," is
certain to recover from its eclipse.
If the great cosmopolitan religions of the world have not generally
said frankly that happiness is the greatest of goods, they have cer
tainly named conditions, the significance of which tended towards the
general happiness; communism, also, has done likewise.
In contrast, the more primitive religions, together with fascism and
nazism, have rendered supreme homage to such principles as national
aggrandizement or Aryan "racial" supremacy which represent limita
tions rather than expansion of viewpoint. Whether or not my readers
accept the greatest happiness principle as paramount, they will prob
ably grant me that the supreme goal must at least be consistent there
with. This concession is all we shall need to enable us to work har
moniously together.
Most of us are but compassless sailors, at night upon the ocean,
looking for a star to steer by. The name of our ship is, Life; and the
name of the pole-star is Greatest Happiness, and around this star all
others rotate. Some men guide their ships by the Mars of anger,
the Venus of love, the Jupiter of power or whatsoever they will — for
our instincts are many —but the guidance of Mars, Venus or Jupiter,
they will all, in time, forsake. If we do not lay our course by the pole-
star, it is because of our ignorance or of the mists which intervene.

59
 Chapter IV.
Can the Leopard Changs His Spots?

In our chap'er upon ultimate aims, we learned to look to the greatest

lasting happiness of the greatest number as the supreme aim; and in the
sequel, we learned that happiness does not come to those who pursue it
directly, but incidentally to a keen interest in exploiting each life-
situation for every possibility it contains to give happiness, not to one's
self, but to someone else. Now the question arises: How is one going
to develop this inheres';? How is one going so to change one's self, let alone
anyone else, that he may experience habitually such interest and en
thusiasm?
The problem is far from being" new. Just as, in the ways we have
seen, many of the sages of old arrived at much the same conclusion re
garding the goal of life as we have done, so, quite as naturally, they
also gave much thought to how human nature could be transmuted.
Let us examine some of the methods they suggested —let us classify
them into different categories in order that then, with the gleanings of
their wisdom, we may try to compound our own method.
We saw that the most primitive men formulated no goal for life,
unless it was the obtaining of security from their enemies, sufficient
food in order to live, and similar concrete and immediate aims; and
that they appreciated even less that happiness depended upon inner
qualities. They, therefore, gave little thought to how such qualities
were to be attained. As the help they can give us on our quest is very
limi ed, we will leave them, and come on down through the ages.
In the course of this journey we see an evolution of the world's
religions in the direction of increasing emphasis upon inner develop
ment and increasing reliance upon "spiritual" means of bringing this
about, to the point where ma'erial causation is even under-estimated
and neglected. If recently the churches have been concerning them
selves wi h the need of better housing and general living-conditions for
the masses, it comes as a l^e awakening. Meanwhile such other ele
ments as the socialist movement had reacted more quickly, to the point
even of tending towards a materialist narrowness.
Al hough our parents could read Oscar Wilde on The Soul of Man
Under Socialism, I know of no author who has thought It worth while
56
 to write on how the universalistic attitude in man should develop under
totalitarianism. If there is an exception it might be found among the
Russian psychiatrists. These have been faced, in their clinics, wi:h
the parallel problem of how to build up a wholesome mentality in their
padents, and have agreed upon the orthodox communist solution: oc
cupational therapy. It is not irrelevant that Russian criminologists
have similarly concluded, as the judge told my wife and me in a Mos
cow court in 1936, that the panacea lor rebuilding character and morale
in an offender is to have him cooperate under self-respecting condi
tions with fellow-workmen on a project for the public welfare.
This point of view is taken from Karl Marx, whose watchwords
were the dignity of labor and the dependence of the idealogical realm
upon man's economic occupations. The regime of today vaunts itself
as. one of
"workers, peasants and soldiers," thereby exalting not only
industrial and agricultural labor, with their ideals of efficiency and of
closeness to nature, but also the military life with its emphasis not
only on service but on force. The outlook is definitely materialistic, and
ever less thought is given to one's internal character-development. It
is already obvious that the simplicity and egalLarianism that character
ized the Russian revolution are fast disappearing from the new lsad-
ers' minds. No one can accuse Stalin of sensualism; but even he, while
still dressing as a simple soldier for appearance' sake, is said to have
furnisned his country places in quite a sumptuous manner, and large
numbers of his under-officials have modified their philosophy to the
degree that they feel entitled to live luxuriously "in order to keep them
selves fit to lead" the starving masses to the "better times" still so far
ahead!
Much the same remarks apply to fascism and nazism. As we have
seen, the universalistic spirit is a thing wnicn, far from approving,
they have actively combated. Naturally they are poor in suggestions
which would help our present quest. Neither can I discover that they
have developed ideas of any value on the psychological effects of occu
pations. The practical result of their regime has been from the first
to exalt the military life; and now, to accustom millions of men to
violence and bloodshed. A more evil influence has never been exerted
before in the history of the world.
having consiueieu tne cruuer laiths of the past and those created
recendy, wnnom finding that either can greatly advance us on our
way, let us return to religions of early but organized types. Among
them we lind tremendous iaiUi in the eiieot of u.te/ea wt'i^6. In oraer
to give the best results, the words snould be spoKen by someone cere
monially "pure," preierably by a shaman or a priest and may consist
in recitations of magical formulae or, in the more advanced cultures, of
sonorous passages irorn an ancient text or prayer, it is important to
note that tne loilowers of the religion concerned believe the words
themselves turn the trick — even though no one present knows their
meaning. The explanation for tms attituue I will go into later.
I was present in ly^4 at a tooth filing ceremony in Bali, when for hours
a Hindu priest read passages in SansKrit from die Vedas. After each
passage, someone solemnly read the non-Sanskrit commentary on it
which nau oeen maue uy a suosequenciy-liviiig sage, .ti crowu of peo
ple listened reverently — yet not one of the audience, nor even of the
reauers themselves, understood a word eiuier of the Sanscrit or of the
language of the commentary!
Next, 1 would say tiiat meditation and exercises in mental con
centration are important in many religions towards the transformation
of human character.
When I was in India in 1917, I found a repuled holy man to give
lessons in Yoga, the most widely known system in the world aiming
at self -development. It strives after psychological effects by exercises
which begin with postures and regulated breadiing and go on to at
tempts, to control attention. I had some instruction in such medi
57
tatlon, although I cannot yet claim to have carried the experiments
really far. The experience I did gain, however, was distinctly disap
pointing and did not seem to me at that time sufficiently to justify the
high claims made for the method to warrant me in persevering
further.
Really carefully conducted studies of the results of meditation
which have been made by others appear largely to substantiate the
above conclusions. These studies indicate that most of results obtained
are accounted for by self-suggestion, repression and retrogression; al
though some recent experiences I have had with the Zen technique
leave me unwilling to state this quite dogmatically. Now, all forms
of suggestion have their disadvantages and great limits of application;
and that which is repressed tends to return and find its expression in
less desirable forms. The exercises in meditative association of the
common objectives of adult life with unpleasant things such as bodily
corruption have as their effect to make the libido regress to more
infantile forms of gratification. In this connection the reader may
recall the many stories of ascetics and saints who were admired for
becoming "as little children" not only in their sexual innocence^ but in
other ways. There was Ramakrishna, for instance, who recovered a
passionate fondness for sweets and allowed an elderly woman to nurse
him like a baby.
Mahayana Buddhism, from temples and shrines over all the north
of Asia, offers up its incantations. Often the reduction of prayer to a
completely mechanical performance is effected by prayer-flags and
Tibetan Lamaist prayer-wheels. The wind flaps the flag without any
one's conscious attention; and the wheel, which consists of a cylinder
containing a scroll on which prayers are inscribed, does not even re
quire human agency to spin it on its axis, as this can be done by water-
power. Clearly this proves in a striking fashion that it is the magical
effect of the words, beyond any disposition of the heart of the worship
per, that is here relied upon.
Let me not appear by this to detract from the character of the
prayers offered by other Mahayana Buddhist sects, notably numerous
ones in Japan. In their sincerity and content, these closely resemble the
best type of personal petition heard in our own churches, and proceed
from an identical piety of attitude.
It has been largely the mysiics in the various religions who have
given thought to our present problem of how to transmute the self.
In China, the problem seems to have given concern to certain Taoist
alchemists who, in their writings, employed cryptic phrases. One such
is "he loosened himself with his corpse" to mean he has rid himself of
his selfish viewpoint," and I recall that, a number of years ago, the
little magazine Quest, under Dr. Mead's learned editorship, ran quite
a series of translations of these Taoist documents.
The mention of China reminds us that Kung-fu-tse had vast con
fidence in the utility of ceremonial actions, although none in that of
prayer. He approved of the emperor making the annual sacrifice to
Ti'en (Heaven), but yet counselled his own followers: "pray not at all."
When the sage was believed to be dying, one of his attendants proposed
to try what prayer could do. Kung, however, dissuaded him from an
effort which could only be useless, saying that he had tested praying
and nothing had come of it.
The Jews placed great store on ritual, liturgy and prayer, great
play being made with the Tetragamaton, the Word of Power (the four-
consonanted word, Jahveh) . The harmfulness of swearing probably
lay in its supposed magical effects, the words of certain books, as the
Pentateuch and the Tor ah, were sacred; and any drink in which a holy
text had been soaked at once became efficacious medicine!
There are even references in the Old Testament to meditation, as
in Genesis where "Isaac went out to meditate in the fields at the even
tide" and in Psalm 119, on which Dr. Orchard has commented that
5S
It "might be called the Meditation Psalm," and elsewhere In the book
of Psalms.
Mohammed enjoined prayer along with fasting and pilgrimage as
occupations preeminently for his followers. Five times daily, in all
Islamic lands, you will hear the muezzin's call.
A Moslem proverb runs: "Men's prayer is but the reflection of
Him in the mirror of life."
A feature of Moslem worship which I always found peculiarly
striking was the ?hikir, or "remembering" of Allah, when his name
is repeated endlessly, with resultant induction of hypnotic states.
Now let us consider Christianity. Jesus himself was continually
praying, and gave us as a model form the Lord's Prayer. Nevertheless
he warned (Matt., 617) :
"But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do."
Jesus has been interpreted as objecting to mechanical prayer only
when its raison d'etre was men's wish to "be heard for their much
speaking." So the persisting trust in the efficacy of repetition tri
umphed; in Roman Catholicism, great value is attached both to re
petitive prayer and also to the practising of special mental exercises.
There are oratory assemblages at which the priest repeats many times
a phrase like "Mary, Mother of God," and the kneeling worshippers
as often respond with "Pray for us sinners." I well remember how as a
Catholic youth, always after confessions I was given penances by the
priest, generally consisting of so many "Our Fathers" and "Hail Marys"
and other prayers. I cannot but feel that, even though mental attention
is insisted on, yet behind these there still lurks some of the ancient
trust in a magical efficacy in the words themselves.
Methodical meditation, says Mr. W. E. Collier, "seems to have
been first introduced in the 15th century by the 'Brothers of the Com
mon Life' . . . The great monastic orders have made a practice of
having a regular meditation for prescribed periods, often with some
selected text or subject to meditate upon together."
A striking system of mental exercises was worked out in detail by
Loyola for the Society of Jesus, commonly called the Jesuits. The fol
lowing is quoted from The Science of Spiritual life, by James Clare, S. J.:
METHOD OF MEDITATION
Remote Preparation: Banish pride, sensuality, dissipation
and exercise the contrary virtues, humility, mortification
and recollection.
Immediate Preparation: Read over the meditation the day
before. Upon first awakening think of the meditation to
be made. Excite appropriate sentiments. Enter upon it
with a tranquil mind.
COMMENCEMENT
Standing, reflect that God is present. Kneeling, adore.
Preparatory prayer.
Preludes:
Brief review of the subject. Petition for special grace to
understand and resolve.
THE MEDITATION
The Memory:
Recall to mind the matter of the meditation.
The Understanding:
1. What is to be considered?
2. What practical conclusion to be drawn?
3. What are the motives. Is it becoming, useful, agreeable,
easy, necessary?
59
 4. How has this been observed hitherto?
5. What is to be done in the future?
6. What obstacle to be removed?
7. What means to be taken?
The Will:
1. Excite affections throughout the meditations more with
the heart, than the lips.
2. At the end of each practical consideration form resolu
tions: Practical, particular, suitable to present circumstan
ces. Eased upon solid motives — humble — with fervent sup
plication for assistance.
CONCLUSION
Recapitulation:
In which the resolutions made are confirmed.
Ejaculation:
Taken from the Holy Scripture of the Fathers, recalling to
mind the matter of the meditation, and the resolutions
formed.
Colloquy
Addressed to Jesus Christ, B. V. M. or to any saint.

REFLECTION
Examination:
Of the manner in which the meditation has been made.
Recapitulation:
Of the whole meditation. Of the practical conclusions —
motive — affection — resolutions — particular inspira'ion.
These lines are written only two weeks after my having returned
from a few days participation in a retreat for laymen held near Los
Altos, California, under a Jesuit retreat-master. Periods of "medi
tation" held several times daily were mostly passive listening to a. dis
course; introversion was more complete during rosary processions past
the S ations of the Cross and in Examinations of Conscience.
As well in the Eastern Church as in the Western, repetitive prayers
were known. P. D. Ouspsnsky, in his New Model of the Universe, p. 264,
implies that the principles of East Indian Bhakti Yoga are schematically
explained in a mid-19th century book which circulated in pre-revolu-
tionary Russia: The Sincere Narrations of a Pilgrim to his Spiritual
Father:
"The 'pilgrim' repeated his prayer, 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son
of God. have mercy upon me,' at first 3,000 times consecu
tively in a day, then 6,000 times, then 12,000 times and fin
ally without counting. When the prayer had become auto
matic in him, did not require any effort and was repeated
involuntarily, he began to 'bring it info the heard.' that is. to
make it emotional to connect a definite feeling with it. After
a certain time the prayer began to evoke this feeling and
streng hen it, enriching it to an extraordinary degree of
acuteness and intensity."
Word-magic notions also continue to influence Protestant sects.
In the Church of England, the repetitive type of prayer is employed
and in most Pro'estant Churches there are certain set forms of service
whTe above all, the exact wording of the Lord's Prayer must be pre
served.
Mr. W. E. Collier, in an article in the November 1933, Standard,
points out that an approximation to meditation has long been known
to Protestantism in the pious. "custom of reading the Bible slowly and
60
thinking over what has been read. This is what the Evangelicals
of a century ago called 'the morning watch' and this in turn equates
with the matutinal 'Quiet Time' of the Buchmanite Revival." Dr. Ar
thur Chandler's definLion (in Ars Coeli) is cLed, that "Meditation in
its simples; form is devoiional reading of the Bible with a view to in
creasing our love of God"; and Dr. A. F. McNeile's prescription {Self-
Training in Meditation) that "The only thing you have to do is to make

many ways as you can command, helpful

and your longing to reach after God."
...
the passage, or sentence or word, by any means you like, and by as
to your determination

Collier's own thesis, in his said article,' is that meditation is suit

able for the Ethical Culture movement. He cites Prof. Lueba in this
country and my very old friend Lord Snell of England, skeptics in
theology both, as "of those who constantly urge our movement to out
grow the stage of secularist reaction and bare rationalism"; Lueba even
advocating "revised forms of the praver-^t'itude in the practice of so
cieties for the promotion of ethical thinking."
In now taking leave of this topic, let me make quite clear to my
readers that I have focused attention on those aspects of prayer which
were in some degree mechanical or which involved men's fascination
with words and sounds as means of obtaining effects. Prayer as com
munion between the worshipper and his divinity requires a different
discussion.
The explanation which seems to me to account most easily for
these remarkable beliefs in the power of words per se is that they are
rationalizations of the extraordinary fascination which oral and anal
sounds exert in infancy. It will have to suffice here if I try to show how
the oral factor comes in.
I have just been watching a tiny girl, still at that period when
every interesting small object, whether edible or not, is at once carried
to the lips with which her whole self seems to be identified at certain
times. She also continually exercises those little lips in the formation
of new and sometimes difficult words — the recent mastery of "bicycle,"
for instance, was a very evident satisfaction to her, as- well as a source
of amusement to her mother and me. She has noticed this amusement
and has discovered that in words she has a new means of power, even
if sometimes they are of her own invention (as "ticken" when she
wants a watch) or have a transferred reference (as "pussy" for any
thing furry l as well as much more when they are used in sentences,
as by mother, nurse or father.
It has been found, by direct observations of children and records
of their conversations and through psychoanalyses of adults (and lat
terly of children, too) that infants are fascinated by all the functions
and products and noises of the body without any exception. So far
is this true that children, not alone here and there but all over the
world, when they are trying to guess by what process father and
mother brought them into existence, frequently attribute a part in it
to the body gases. An echo of such notions of "gaseous fertilization" is
found in many myths about wind-gods as well as in the notion of a
potency in spoken words. So the words thought to have been uttered
by gods — those super-parents — become the things with which to con
jure; nor does the mental process I have just described stop even here;
for inasmuch as thoughts are mostly silent words, the art of thinking
is unconsciously regarded as having power in a literal and not merely
allegorical sense. (This concept, the "omnipotence of thought," is well
developed in an essay by Dr. Ernest Jones on "The Holy Ghost.")
Apart from recommending right words and thoughts, another of the
most important of the suggestions made by religions and philosophers
towards self -transformation is that it can be achieved through strenuous
activity. To this suggestion the proviso is often attached that the
activity must be performed without concern as to rewards, or even
as to any consequence of it at all.
 This religious urge to active creative work has persisted throughout
the ages and has found expression in many ways. The one that is
strikingly and immediately apparent is man's perpetual desire to build
temples and monuments to his deities and to adorn them— a desire that
has often promoted him to engage in stupendous constructional under
takings. Two centuries before the birth of Christ, Indian civilization
spread to the far-distant lands of Java and Sumatra, where a great
Visayan kingdom was established; and in Angkor, during the middle
ages, thousands of devout Hindus built some of the most astounding
edifices In the world. Very little is known of subsequent Khmer his
tory, but the wats (or temples> they built still stand, the Angkor wat
especially being a most colossal structure.
Temple-construction, if performed with non-attachment to reaping
gain from it, may be regarded as affording an expression for Karma
Yoga.
Among the sects of Mahayana Buddhism in Japan, one of the most
modern is the Tenrikyo. As described by K. Das Gupta at the World
Fellowship of Faiths in New York in 1941:
Its members "in accord with the spirit of 'Bright Living'
. . . devote themselves to a life of gratitude to God ex
pressed through 'Sanctified Labor.' They assign a definite
time every day. everv month and every year to labor for the
glory of the Parent Deity. Not only are all of the sanctuar
ies built by the 'Sanctified Labor' of pious devotees, but the
. . . founder inculcated the teaching that all should help
each other . . . The central thought of Tenrikyo is: The
original purity of the soul of man. defiled by the 'dusts' of
egoistic desires, can be regained by 'sanctified labor.' "
Various Christian sects also, of course, have at times emphasized
salvation by work.^. Indeed, this \t fairlv implied in the Christian
stress upon love. Take as an example the Quakers. They have been
pioneers in denouncing slavery, improving prison conditions, renoun
cing war, fighting intemperance, championing the rights of all races
and classes, furthering general education and other social reforms. Or,
as other examples, consider some of the nursing and teaching broth
erhoods in the Catholic Church; or the sect of the Seventh Day Ad-
ventists with their excellent sanitariums and thousands of hard-working
medical missionaries (imitating Jesus, the healer) all over the world.
Here we have the indication of an insight into the supremely char
acter-building nature of creative work, if. especially, that work be
at the same time a service rendered. Doubtless it was no communistic
theory of society but an appreciation of the cramping effect which
wealth generally has on the emotions, which made Jesus bid the rich
young man "Go, sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor" and
afterward to comment: "It is easier for a camel (or cable, by another
translation) to go through the eve of a needle, than for a rich man
to en^er into the kingdom of God."
The ideal of selflessness — even non-attachment— -in work or service
has seldom been better expressed than in a simile Invented by one of
the masters of the Zen sect of Mahayana Buddhists. As Prof. D. T.
Suzuki has set it forth in his Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk (p. 68) ,
monastics of this order ought
"to behave like a grindlng-stone. Changsan comes to sharpen
his knife, Li-szu comes to grind his axe. everybody and any
body who wants to have his metal improved in any way
comes and makes use of the stone. Each time the stone
is rubbed, it wears out, but it makes no complaint, nor does
it boast of its usefulness. And those who come to it go
home fully benefited; some of them may not be quite ap
preciative of the stone, but the stone itself remains ever
contented."
62
 In the Order of Sufis, every neophyte has first to foreswear all prop
erty and then, in a spirit of free will, has to perform initiatory labors
for three years before admittance. Here we see developmental efforts
intended to transmute the nature of the neophyte.
But it is not only in the Far East that this urge-to-build has left
its mark for mankind to see. Surely the great European cathedrals
equally bear witness to the limitless work that men will undertake
when fired with zeal and faith. I cannot tell how many men toiled
to build the cathedral at Cologne, one of the two most magnificent
examples of Gothic architecture in the world, but I do know that it
was commenced in 1248 and was not completed until 1880. Again,
it took nearly two hundred years to build Notre Dame de Paris.
Also, the cathedral at Milan contains two thousand marble statues.
And how beautiful are the English masterpieces —Salisbury Cathedral,
Lichfield Catnedral and YorK Minster, to give only a few examples;
and wha; reverence, piety, and faith the actual work of building must
have confirmed in the minds of the men who engaged in such tasks
personally or through their guilds, which volunteered cooperative serv
ices! Whatever the previous mental state of even the humblest iron
worker, mason or ghiss-worker, it may well hava been further uplifted
ana transformed as the object of joint toil grew in magnitude and
splendor ever upwards.
Active work has found exprersion in many and various ways. Con
trasting only as regards channel of expression with the way in which,
in ancient times, Confucius directed his followers' energies towards
"scholarship." so, Miss E. Underhil) (on p. 24ti) tells us:
"St. Theresa was an administrator of genius, and an admirable
hoi'.sewife, and declared that she found her God very easily
among the pots and pans."
In this way, work of divers kinds, whether cleaning pots and pans
or building a cathedral may, apparently, become a valuable means for
such inner transformation of the worker as may fit him better to attain
happiness.
As a final case of the prevalence of the notion that action or doing,
in a social cause, has an up-building effect on the doer, let me refer
to the Ethical Movement again. With no contradiction to its more
fundamental aim of bringing out that which is unique in human per
sonalities, but rather in pursuance thereof, the movement has ad
hered to the principle indicated by Dr. Stanton Coit in the December,
1940, number of its official magazine, The Standard:
"A false intellectualism . . . invented the phrase, 'to know,
to love, and to do,' as if first is knowledge, then interest,
then action. The basic principle which distinguishes the
Ethical Movement, is: first, action, practice, moral ex
perience of justice, truthfulness, self-cpntrol, courage and
the rest, then a living delight in them, then gradually an
increase of knowledge concerning their origin, nature and
affects, but always a fresh return to action."
As we proceed with our investigations into the religions of the
world, we find that many different peoples have shown great esteem
towards the calendar and the ways of nature and the regular suc
cession of astronomic events. This esteem cannot wholly be accounted
for on "logical" premises; we must look further. When we do so, we
find that it seems comprised of two elements — an approval of order
liness and an awe of nature and her ways.
Now, an exceptional interest in orderliness turns out most always
to be traceable to the long years of training during infancy when
everyone is laboriously drilled in being clean and neat. The awe of
nature seems to owe more to the fact that "she" (we almost Invariably
so personalize Nature) presents to us so many aspects of our mother.
I will give a case of a cult showing the type of esteem in question.
83
The Chinese Taoists conceive that there is a certain pattern of life
which, if man can but discover and follow it, will lead him to happiness.
It is, namely, the example set for man by the regularity of the seasons
and the mo. ions of ihe heavenly bodies. Their way is called the Tao;
and ihe religion which especially professes to follow this way is there
fore called Taoism.
A. t.vp:cal ia.jist st">rv is one told by Chung Tsu about Prince Wan
Hui's cook. As related by L. A. Beck in The Story of Oriental Phil
osophy ip- ?61), when this cook would carve up a bullock, "movements
and sounds proceeded as in the dance of the mulberry forest." When
the prince expressed adrnira;ion of his rhythm, the cook replied:
"What your servant loves is the method of the Tao. When
I first began to cut up an ox I saw nothing but the whole
carcass. After three years I censed to see it as a whole. Now
I deal with it intelleclually and never use my eyes. I dis
card the use of my senses, I work by eternal principles. Ob
serving the natural lines, my knife slips through the great
crevices and slides through the great cavities, taking ad
vantage of natural openings."
Prince Wan-Hui said: "Excellent! I have heard the words
of this cook and learned from them the rule of our life."
It will be seen as no far cry to think of Tao-imitating behavior
as exerting a magical potency over events. It is like a child's con
forming to the model set him by the conduct of his parents. By pleasing
them, his behavior tends to render mother and nurse eager to fulfill
all his wishes.
In the course of time, we find Toaism degenerating into a mere
supers. uious collection of magical practices.
In the teachings of that other great Chinese sage, Kung-fu-tze, tre
mendous stress was laid on the iaea of rkual, order and ceremony.
This order, taking as its model frankly the ways of the ancients (or
ultra-parents) was of so great importance that the most minute rules
were laid down in the "Book ot Rices." Christopher Dawson deals
quite fully wiih this aspect of Confucianism in his book Progress and
Religion. He shows that to Kung-fu-tze the great importance of his
new moral teachings lay in their application to the traditional rites
and not in the ethical ideas themselves. Dawson points out that they
were "the external manifestation of that eternal order that governs
the universe, which is known as the Tao, the Way of Heaven," and that
the "true greatness and originality of Kung-fu-tze consists in his having
given this rLuPl order an ethical content." The greatest Confucian
virtue is benevolence. This is to be regarded not as an emotional love
for others, but as a renunciation of self-interest and egoism, and by
this means a merging of one's self into the eternal order.
The ancient Greeks were another people who were influenced by
an unconscious fascination with the idea of orderliness. Commenting
in the above-mentioned book on the universal law, or Dike, Dawson
shows that the Greeks regarded the principle of Eternal Right in much
the same way as the East Aryan peoples regarded Rta and Asha, for
it found its expression in the whole cosmic order. We observe that both
Homer and Hesiod regard an act of human injustice as involving a
disturbance in the course of nature.
The Zen teacher Sokei-An. with true psychological insight, points
out that conformity to commandments gives peace of mind (psycho
logically, it allays guilt-feelings) , which fact in turn favors attainment
of wis.iom. In an article in the November, 1940, Cat's Yawn, the jour
nal of the Buddhist Society of America, he gives an exposition (which
I lack the space to repeat here) of the Buddhist triple concept of Pure
Law, Natural Law and Modified Law.
Not only is the Tao respected in China for its regularity, however;
its authority is a survival of the prestige exerted in our infancy by our
parents. Since the Earth and Nature always serve as symbols for
84
Mother, and the heavens are a de-personalized Father, we can see how
all re-current natural phenomena are seen as the conduct Of those
great-par :nts. The Tao is therefore the example of behavior which
they set before us, their children; and if we follow it, they will bless
us and good luck will be our portion.
Following upon these rites and attitudes which developed from a de
sire for conformity wilh the laws of nature, we find that many other
forms of worship seek refuge in either female or male deities as a means
of moulding the self to what is ideally desirable.
I have already mentioned that in the Hindu religion a very great
value is placed upon associating oneself with a suitable guru or teacher
from whom to receive personal instruction in the way of life.
It is also a well known fact that all sections or divisions of Islam,
which means resignation to the will of Allah, who is regarded as a defi
nitely male deity, have drawn their inspiration from male personages.
In this resignation is summed up the whole of the Muslim's duty and
privilege. It is the worshipper's great good fortune if he be able
to embrace whatever Allah has decreed, and to be content therein —
simply because it is Allah's decree, and by that fact it must be for the
greatest good of his every creature. Naturally, we find Islam to be a
strongly fatalistic faith: "We are in the hands of Allah; let Allah but
withdraw his hand . . . (and we perish)": fatalistic in 'a way which
all too often develops into apathy. In some ways we find Islam to be
a rather queer mixture — for against this tendency towards apathy
It has strong masculine traits of simplicity and aggressiveness.
The religious genius whose teaching of love has been the most
influential throughout the western world was, of course, Jesus of
Nazareth. His story is too famous to require repetition here. Thousands
of wrLers have analyzed and sought to promote his teachings, and I
do not wish to add to the volume already written, except to accenluate
one point. It is that we may probably attribute the greatness of his
influence to the fact that he conveyed his message chiefly by the ex
ample of his own life and personality, and but little by the intellectual
exposition of his doctrines, unless esoterically. To my mind, this is a
most important point, and we in our own efforts to develop an attitude
which will enable us to utilize all situations in which we may be placed
for the greatest social advantage must at all times' remember it— for it
is by our example and personality for good that we shall create the
good attitudes in others for which we are striving. In support of this,
W. de Burgh on p. 95 of From Morality to Religion says that:
"To seek self-perfection for God's sake is one thing, for self's
sake quite another. This is why the saint's conscious effort
after goodness never fails to v/in the hearts of his fellow-
men, while that of the moralist is unamiable and apt to
provoke resentment."
Reverting once more to my remarks upon the manner in which
most religions turn to a male personage — how well do we find this il
lustrated in the case of Christianity! How tremendous is the number
of men of all ages since the birth of Jesus who have sought to attach
themselves not only to his teachings, but to his character and person
ality! Commencing with the Wise Men of the East (if they be not
merely taken from the birth-story of Buddha right down through all
the long line of saints to the present day) —-we find men and women
who have s' riven to follow his guiding star of love.
E. Underhill, quoting St. Theresa, on pp. 429-430 of Mysticism gives
unmistakably clear examples of such efforts. Among them she in-
s'ances St. Paul, who, after visions of and contemplations on his Lord,
set out single-handed and organised the Catholic Church. St. Theresa
asks how it was possible for an obscure Roman citizen who was with
out" money or influence and in poor health to lay such colossal foun
dations, and finds the answer in Paul's own words, "Not I, but Christ
in me."
65
 F. Creedy sums the facts up very clearly on p. 146 of his Human
Nature Writ Large, when he explains that the enormous number of
Christian saints, both real and legendary, is due to the imperative
need of all humans for concrete models of conduct which they can imi
tate and on which they can model their own character.
But the rule works reciprocally — not only are we helped by heroes,
but also by the act of extending help to those less advanced. This was
discovered anciently by Kung-fu-tze:
"A man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself,
seeks to establish others; wishing to be developed himself,
he seeks to develop others and to be able to judge others
by what is nearest in ourselves: this may be called the art
of virtue."
Very much the same principle was announced in our own day by
Prof. Felix Adler, who laid down as the basic aim of the Eihical Culture
movement, the endeavor to elicit the unique in our fellow man, therein
releasing the best in ourselves as well.
I have pointed out that a neophyte to the Sufi order of Islam was
required to serve for anything up to three years before initiation; and
it would be as well if I mentioned here that the Sufis, who make such
a point of love being the state of mind to be attained, also lay great
stress on cultivating this through a mode of life for which a personal
tutor is one of the essentials. Dr. B. MacDonald somewhere points out
that the authority of the shaikhs was absolute and that after the
novice had completed his period of probation it was they who de
cided whether he should be permitted to take the vow of obedience
to one's master necessary from all candidates for initiation. MacDonald
claims that even the instructor places his pupil under hypnotic control
in order to insure the fullest rapport.
Those religions which, having in mind the transmutation of char
acter, stress the helpfulness of association with great personages, hap
pily are many. This is understandable, for it is natural to set forth
ideals of character in the form of saints, gods or legendary heroes.
Additionally to the examples we have given, Buddhism should be noted
particularly because its theory of transmigration gives opportunity for
various hero-stories , to be attributed to the same man in different
lives.
This completes the rough general study we have been making
of the means that have been suggested and employed by the various
religions in order to transmute mankind in such a fashion that a man
shall be disposed to utilize all situations as they occur, for the greatest
good of the greatest number.
We have seen, in the present chapter, that, in his efforts to effect
self-transformation, man has tried the assumed magical powers of
the words or ritual; he has tried active physical work and he has tried
to associate himself with certain female or male personages or with
their teachings. Now, we should have learned a good deal from this
study; we should be able to appreciate those points in the religions
which do help us in our task and to discard those that are as
chaff or dross — large quantities of which often hide the true seed or
worth.
I now intend to leave the field of religious research, and to ex
amine our problem from a psychological aspect — for a psychological
problem it undoubtedly is. Let us ask, then: "What are the methods
known to the science of psychology whereby a person may, through
his own efforts, permanently alter his own disposition?"
The replies from different quarters will vary.
Medical methods such as glandular treatment concern at present
only exceptional cases, and to retain our original good health is of
more general importance.
To have one's self psychoanalyzed is the most potent (even more
than it is the most expensive method of all) , but I prefer to speak
6B
 of it in a later article. Dr. Jennings White (p. 24) aptly comments on
how futile it is to offer people
"platitudes like 'mankind ought to eat' or 'love one an
other.' The only useful thing is to become an expert, dieti
cian or psychologist, and deal with the actual problems of
real individuals. The sermon is being replaced by the
scientific lecture and prayer by the scientinc experiment.
The monk has given place to the research worker."
To take suggestive treatment or to practice auto-suggestion is a
method of doubtful importance here, where we are striving after per
manent self-alteration. All suggestive practices (under which must
be included many of the effects of prayer, meditation, yoga, etc.) op
erate by superimposing a body of ideas upon mental strata to which
they are foreign. The result may be good for a time, if only a super
ficial change of symptoms is wanted, but after a while the "suggested"
foreign ideas are thrown off. The method is for children rather than
for adults; although the type of suggestion that follows from identifying
one's self with a much admired leader can affect us strongly so long as
we cherish this leader's memory.
To change one's circumstances may be another desirable thing —
when possible. At times, a given environment may be putting an un
bearable strain upon one, and then even temporary removal from it,
as when one takes a holiday, or when a war-shocked soldier is with
drawn from the front lines, may be a means to give stronger medicines
a chance to work. A "retreat" from the world into a monastery is of the
same order of procedure and no doubt sometimes a means of prepar
ing for more vigorous re-entry into the world again. But where this
method is merely an escapism, the positive influences in a new environ
ment operate by the method of suggestion, so that one may say again
that the chief permanent value of environment is for the young.
I have also some things to say about the effect of sacrifice; but
these, too are better reserved for a later chapter.
I wish now more particularly to consider the occupational method
of influence, and by this word I mean all activities we engage in reg
ularly. The value of occupational therapy as a method of treating cer
tain nervous troubles is a public recognition that our mental attitudes
do respond to the way we busy ourselves.
In this connection, the James-Lange theory that I have mentioned,
even though it is not acceptable in its entirety, yet contains a certain
amount of truth. The American professor, William James, and his
German contemporary, Lange, held that emotions do not initiate ac
tions, as is generally supposed, but follow upon them. For example —we
do not run away because we are afraid, but we are afraid because we
run away, or start to run. Or: any one can prove for himself that ex
citement can be calmed if he will try deliberately slowing down his
breathing-rate.
By the general fact that the practitioners of certain services — as
those of the hangman or the butcher — are nowhere received into good
social standing even by persons who have no theoretic objection to
these services, society declares its belief that these tend to degrade
such as follow them. By the same token, other kinds of vocational ac
tivities tend to elevate those practicing them, especially in such pro
fessions as require the management of complex affairs, understanding
of human nature, scientific research and above all, of contribution
to the general welfare.
"How" asks Hugo Black in The Practice of Self-CultureJ "can the
heart-life be trained?" and answers:
"The sentiment of kindness is got by being kind. The sen
timent of gentleness is got by being gentle, by stopping the
cutting word at the teeth if it can not be stopped before,
by crushing down the harsh judgment, by replacing the
cruel thought with a tender one, by persistently practicing
•7
 kindness, by doing the generous deed, by speaking the en
couraging word, by thinking no evil. This training of the
Christian sen.iment cannot be left to haphazard, but must
be accepted deliberately as a duty, and persisted in con
stantly as a plan of life; for if we are not deliberately kind
we will often be cruel, if only through thoughtlessness. Some
may have no opportunities of living the life of thought but
all have opportunities to live the life of the heart, by gentle
courtesy to servants and dependents, by consideration of
friends and comrades, by doing something and giving some
thing to alleviate human sorrow."
Almost any kind of work offers opportunities for the exercise of
higher powers than the average worker puts into it.
When these opportunities in the large are being exploited to the
utmost, a field still remains, moreover, for employing the same methods
in the various subsidiary activities which fill the day.
Apart from any special treatment of unconscious complexes, the
method which gives greatest hope of developing unselfish dispositions
in our own self or in someone who is in our charge is, that we give
to these dispositions, whenever they do appear in us or him, the most
favorable opportunities of exercise. As an example of how this works;
who has not nouced that pleasure in giving grows through experience
of being generous and witnessing the joy that results from it?
We next come to the need for some stimulus to the sense of our
own worth, a psychological quality closely related to "peace of mind."
The term "inferiority complex" has become well-known. Many
persons are afflicted with it, and to such persons it presents a serious
handicap, for it not only directly detracts from their own happiness,
but holds them back from the calm attitude needed to understand
themselves or others, and from the detachment needed for unselfish
ness. Now, the claim- to cure inferiority-feeling by anything short of
an analysis (which takes at least many months) is made only by char
latans; but day-to-day amelioration of it can be given by acts of skilled
helpfulness to others, for the helper is conscious of what Charles
Dickens aptly observed:
"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden for
someone else."
The necessity for this inner feeling of a sense of worth is so im
portant, that everyone should take an active part in some philosophical,
ethical, religious, or philanthropic fellowship to which he feels that
he can give a fairly whole-hearted adherence. Whatever be the sug-
ges.ed organization, i.s mission should seem sufficiently important to
give a sort of sanctification to the ordinary humdrum bread-and-
butter work a man may be compelled to perform to earn his living. It
should enable him to feel that he earns his living in order to perform his
said mission.
Now for the need of having experienced good responses. Besides
knowing good acts when we see them, I have said it is necessary that
we should actually get goodness demonstrated before our eyes if we
are to believe it exists in the world. Happily, the technique for pro
ducing such demons, rations is precisely the same as that for learning
to know good acts when they do appear; for, other things being equal,
the world produces its goodness mainly in the presence of those who
are good. The reader himself must have noticed that people are mean
toward other stingy souls oftener than they are to generous ones; and
while they are sometimes magnanimous to us when we have been
petty, they are more often so in response to our having ourselves been
magnanimous. So the surest evidence one can get of the availability
of goodness in the universe, is that which comes directly or indirectly
as a result of expressing it in one's own conduct.
To this proposition, which is supported by all sound observation,
68
I would add the further point, that my statement is truest when the
good actions flow freely, whether from our delight in the activity is-
self — as in artistic creation —or from some already-attained measure
of goodwill — as in charitable acts — and are conducted with aptitude
or skill, thus bringing in a factor analogous to what Christians call,
Grace. The question is often asked, whether secular philosophy can
present any conception of grace corresponding to the rather special
sense in which it is used by religious people. It certainly can, for the
effects of grace are duplicated by those of the approving conscience
of a social being. Two notable signs of the incidence of grace as given
by theologians are:
(a) an access of aptness in performance of life's duties, and (b) peace
of mind.
When a person performs his part "with a good grace," he doubles
the value of his work. It becomes of worth then, not only for the good
which he aimed to attain, but as proof that the worker's own character
is developing in the right direction. It no longer destroys him, but
upbuilds him. It becomes a receiving as well as a giving.
Mr. Frank Ingerson has criticized the chapter on "Portals to Para
dise" which follows because I had not named creative activity as the
chief of all sources of happiness. Well, now is when I will bring that in.
For I would name creativity as at least one of the two greatest formers
of the happy-making disposition.
The original meaning of Charity was not- in the sense in which we
so often employ it, of a mechanical doling out of money to mendicants.
On the contrary, the word meant much the same as love — or, say, the
activity flowing out of love.
As we have seen, many are the sages who proclaimed that the
deeper insights into the spiritual aspects of the universe which they
considered pre-eminently desirable could be obtained only by those
who practised the type of life characterized by charity, virtue, etc. It
may be worth asking whether there is any truth in these oft-repeated
assertions.
I believe the statement to be true if the knowledge which we are
seeking is concerned with the possibility of good response in our own
environment, for such knowledge, if it is to be convincing to us, must
be based upon actual observation, as the most impressive facts always
are those which we collect through our own experiences. But for getting
such data, the practicing of true charity has two advantages.
The first is obvious. It is that, apart from all consequences exter
nally, the charitable action we ourselves perform gives us from within
a proof that such acts are done in this world; and it is a valid presump
tion that what this nearest part of the universe — ourself — does, other
parts must be presumed also to do sometimes.
The other advantage is that which I have already described of how,
soon or late, charitable action on our part usually elicits the most fav
orable disposition our environment is capable of. Contrast for your
self the relatively good responses you will have had to the last-remem
bered charitable action on your part, with people's reactions when your
behavior was not so charitable!
Remember, though, that we are assuming that these charitable ac
tions closely simulate the natural out-pourings of goodwill, they being
conducted with aptness, skill and tact. While occasionally an act done
from a mere grudging sense of duty or clumsily or tactlessly, may
achieve a good effect, it cannot be counted on to do so. Too often some
not wholly worthy motives for our act, while quite unknown to ourselves,
are perceived by others. Often we hear someone remark (regarding
perhaps his or her employees) : "It's no use doing anything for that
class of people, because they never appreciate it"; when it is obvious
even to the hearer that the doer of the "charitable" action was not
singlemindedly intent on being kind.
In other such cases the person helped was merely awkward or
69
embarrassed in expressing a gratitude felt too deeply or was inescapably
resentful at some condescension in the manner in which it was done, or
(somewhat neurotically) of the position of obligation which it put him
in. Or he may be suffering from character-defects developed in in
fancy through circumstances over which now he has no control. Who
knows what complex of this last sort we may have touched off, from
lack of sympathetic insight!
It remains true, therefore, that the kind of experience of the good
in the world which we all desire is hard to come by except by the un
selfishly motived and apt and tactful.
It is also true that, to be able to understand others, one's own
moral character must be sound; for unless we possess a firm anchor
age from which to take bearings, we are hardly likely to be able to plot

(p. 147) : "Moral habituation ...

a true course for either party to steer by. To quote again from De Burgh
is also a conditio sine qua non for
the perception of speculative truth . . . Even in matters of pure philo
sophy, the judgments of thinkers lacking in moral stability and self-
control are open to suspicion." This writer, comparing Bruno and
Nietzsche with Butler and Kant points out that the speculative insight
of the two latter was clarified and strengthened by their moral char
acter. His conclusion that "without goodness of character, the intui
tions of religious experience will be infected by self-deception" has the
support of vast testimony.
D. I. Watson deals with the way to perfect such intuitive power,
in an article in the Psycho-analytic Review, July, 1938. It is necessary:
"to experience undoctored life in many different social settings. More
than that; to experience normal human ups and downs whole
heartedly, with the abandon of the child or artist. Only thus can
the student learn to weigh properly the interlocked meanings and
tensions as they appear to the participant."
Another point is closely related to the above. Just as our own
mastery of any art, such as sculpture, painting or piano-playing gives
us a capacity to recognize fine performance in that field by others,
which we would otherwise not be able to distinguish, so only when
we have attained skill in magnanimous living can we appreciate the
vast amount of kindly intention and conscientious striving which is
going on all around us all the time. To appreciate to the full a good
or a wise act, we ourselves must have performed one somewhat like it.
Yet again, in order to be able to promote the utmost good in this
world where I have to contact fellow-creatures, I obviously must learn
to expand in love towards them. I can refuse to do so only by harden
ing my heart in suspicion against them; for there is no neutrality in
such matters. But to the extent that I shrink within myself, I become
morbid and depressed. Hence all well-being that is exclusive is pre
carious, and it follows that to effect my purpose I throw in -my lot
with the great community.
So we can conclude with at least two precepts: First — the knowledge
of the good in the world (which we need in order to be happy) is to be
had only at the price of ourselves acquiring virtuosity or artistic crea-
tiveness in good. Second—there is no salvation outside social salvation.

"There is no freedom on earth or in any star for those who deny

freedom to others." — Elbert Hubbard; A Thousand and One Epigrams.

70
 Chapter V.

Portals to Paradise
In the chapter on "New heavens for old?" I examined some goals
which men have collectively sought to attain. We noted the many ends
that have been proposed or pursued by the innumerable cults, religions
or substitutes for religions. We concluded that the supreme goal of all
effort should be, or at least should harmonize with, the "greatest lasting
happiness of the greatest number."
Having decided upon our goal, our next problem is to determine what
will lead us toward it. The means to be adopted seem to split into
two main kinds — material means and "spiritual" or mental means. Let
us again make some brief analyses of the principal religions and see
what they have advocated or practiced so as to bring about their aims,
especially the particular aim, Happiness. Some of them act as though
"material" means were the more important, while others prefer "spir
itual."
The local polytheisms with personal dieties, such as primitive ani
mism, Chinese popular superstitions and Shinto represent so low a level
of reflective thought that, even if they should be capable of regarding
"Happiness" in the sense of a goal to be achieved, their conception
of the means of realizing it tends to be mainly materialistic. If the
primitive man can assure himself of prosperity, multiplication of the
tribe and its herds, success in war and the satisfaction of the senses —
then, he thinks, he will be happy.
As we turn the pages of history, however, we find man's religions
expanding to embrace a more spiritual viewpoint. In Palestine, at the
time of which the Old Testament speaks, men had already come to see
that material things alone were not enough for happiness; for did not
Solomon, who had vast wealth, hundreds of wives and military power,
lament that it all was vanity and vexation of spirit?
In a Chinese temple I have seen a woman ask the priest to shake
a hollow bamboo holder for her until out of it fell one of several sticks
each bearing the name of a medicine which would be the best for what
ever illness she suffered from. Less crudely, as early as 1100 B. C. a docu
ment called the Hung- fan, or "Great Plan," enumerates:
"The five blessednesses; long life, wealth, serenity, love of
virtue and object achieved at death."
A very good comment and one really typical of the outlook on life
by many millions of Chinese as well as Japanese is made by Ken Ho-
shimo in The Way of Contentment:

pleasures of the wise are pure ...

"The pleasures of the vulgar pass away . . . but the
He delighteth in the
moon and the mountain, the flowers and the water . . .
simple pleasures such as may be enjoyed by all."
Buddha considered that serenity could not be achieved until a man
had freed himself from the Ten Bonds and the Five Hindrances. Prof.
Rhys Davids, in his article on "Buddhism" in the Encyclopedia Brittan-
ica, states that the devotee,
"when these five hindrances have been cut away from within
him, looks upon himself as freed from debt, rid of disease,
out of jail, a free man and secure. And gladness springs
up from within him on his realizing that, and joy arises to

71
 him thus gladdened and so rejoicing all his frame becomes
at ease, and being thus at ease he is filled with a sense
of peace and in that peace his heart is stayed."
That teachings of Jesus Christ left little room for doubt as to the
general character of the road his disciples were to follow in the attain
ment of their heaven, is too well known to my readers for me to elab
orate upon. Similarly the other advanced religions of the world stress
the values of the "spiritual" means to be used whilst they all heavily /
discount "material" means.
Finally, if we turn from religion to philosophy, we find Epicurus
counselling a friend:
"To accustom one's self to simple, inexpensive habits is one
of the chief means of leading a healthy and therefore a
pleasant life."
Now let us consider the modern substitutes for religion. First of
all we will examine Communism. Its originator, Karl Marx, devoted his
life to showing that the "material" factor was the most important
of all. His follower Lenin preached the same doctrine. It is inter
esting to note, however, that whilst asserting such beliefs, the mental
make-up of both these men was such that in life they were well
able to scorn material comforts. Even at the height of his power Lenin
continued to inhabit with his wife a few ill-furnished rooms, until he
died. Whatever his theory as to the happiness of the masses, he him
self was able to find his own enjoyment chiefly in exercising his zeal
for planning the welfare of others. This points a valuable lesson and
will be referred to later.
When we examine fascism and nazism, we find that both Hitler
and Mussolini rant and rave over the things they want and intend to
get. Both these men, however, led simple lives themselves and there
is little doubt that any happiness either of them may succeed in per
sonally obtaining, is that which comes through his zeal, however ill-
conceived, in his work. Their whole lives, however, are so consumed
with their unprincipled lust for power, that small room indeed is ac
tually left for other goals and it is hard to analyze them from the
angle of "Happiness" as the ultimate good.
In spite of the extreme position to the contrary taken by many
of the saints, I confess I still feel that, provided they are of a whole
some kind, sensory gratifications can, up to a point, add to the worth
of living. Of course, to begin with, appetite (which only comes from
within) is assumed before there can be pleasure at all. Then, provided
he learns to exercise moderation, it is even true that pleasing foods
are better for a man than unpalatable ones; a good clean bed will
better rest him for the next day's work than one which is hard or ver
minous; and pure air is certainly more wholesome that that which is de
vitalized or smoke-laden. This is not to deny that some people who were
deprived of every one of these things have managed to adjust them
selves to their squalid and ugly conditions of life as to be happy in
spite of that.
Wealth provides a foundation upon which we may build happiness
if we use it to liberate our spirit from gnawing worries or to open up
interesting forms of service. When, however, a man has a considerable
surplus of wealth after his wants are met, the value of the surplus as
a source of happiness invariably fast diminishes. If anyone doubts this,
let him observe for himself whether the rich persons he knows are, in
actual fact, noticeably happier than those in average circumstances.
If a man of average wealth suddenly gained a large fortune, the gain
would naturally bring him pleasure, but not necessarily of a permanent
kind. It would be the comparison of his new scale of living with his
old scale that would give him most of the pleasure, rather than the
absolute value of his new riches.
72
 Finally, the cases of some persons who, in even dire poverty, man
age to radiate happiness show that where the spirit is strong enough
to remain free, contentment is possible despite material adversity.
As one's wealth increases, so must one's intelligence if one is to
realize the blessings such increased wealth may be able to give under
favorable management. A man may have sufficient wealth to go any
where, and yet neither please himself nor see anything.
In the London Sunday Ex-press of April 2nd, 1939, S. Rodin reported
an interview with a self-made man of great wealth. This man confessed
that at the end of a half-century of effort and after the first thrill
of success has passed, those of his kind find disillusionment, emptiness
and unfulfillment, and
"Most millionaires I know don't relish their children becom
ing millionaires by inheritance. They fear it will paralyze
their energies."
That which, in the experience of the interviewed men, had brought
happiness was "doing the day's work."
Many a man's life has been made because he chose a true helpmate
or wrecked because he chose a woman who was selfish or a fool. And
while many marriages are facilitated by bride or groom being wealthy;
yet among the superior types, personality becomes the supreme deter
minant of selection.
This is as much as to say that in one's mate, one requires men
tal, increasingly more than physical, factors. But even if accessory
factors help to win a good type of mate, one cannot continue to ex
cite respect and loving responsiveness from him or her except by what
one is. Lacking the psychological attributes which the relationship
with that person required, possession would far from bring peace.
The attributes which would help one might include good looks but,
more than that, good health and, still more, sexual potency. But health
largely, and potency almost entirely, depend upon psychological factors.
In addition to all of these, love, personality, character and intellect are
still needed if the marriage to a cultured person is to have any chance
of success. Furthermore, to insure such success the qualities of com-
panionableness and constant thoughtfulness must certainly be added.
I could also dilate on the deeply satisfying joys of having lovable
children. It is extraordinary, how little has been written on this sub
ject — so that it remains an almost untapped vein for some competent
prospector — in comparison with the spate of expositions of sexual and
marital bliss. Parental joys, however, can adequately be made known
only by actual experience. Admitting this, yet there exist childless
men and women who, whether by serving the children of others or in
other ways, have found ways to make life interesting and agreeable.
For still other persons, power and glory are the things sought for.
Yet Boris Solokoff in The Achievement of Happiness relates that
"Napoleon, at the highest point of his career, lost the ability
to be happy. . . . 'The Emperor cannot be amused,' said
Talleyrand. Caesar even more than Napoleon lost his ca
pacity for happiness. . . . When Antony reported to him

...
the treason of Brutus . . . Caesar stolidly said 'No, no pre
cautions, no arrests.
will kill only a dead man.' "
I have lived long enough. They
The pleasures of liberty and security cannot be fully appreciated
except by those who have suffered imprisonment or torture or Known of
maltreatment of those dear to them. But the many recorded cases
where a mob or an inquisition or a dictatorship has in vain applied
the most extreme pressure which fiendish ingenuity could devise to
make its victim renounce his religious or political or other faith, amply
prove that to some persons such a loyalty can seem dearer than their
freedom from pain. In other words, such a person finds in his said
73
loyalty what are to him greater values than his security from death or
torment would be; f. e., the psychological values are potentially greater
than any sensory ones.
When I come to sum up on these "commonsense" values, my
thoughts turn to the analytical consideration of actual people that I
personally know. I know several who possess at once wealth, good
marital partners and children, security and social honor and who live
in beautiful surroundings; and yet very few of these people impress
me as being happier than persons more moderately blessed. On the
other hand, I also number among my friends other people who, by bat
tling heroically against adversity, demonstrate how exceptionally se
vere circumstances must be, if they are to compare in importance with
the way in which we go to meet them.
Without sentimentalism or moralizing, one may say that the con
ceptions on which people commonly act about the importance of exter
nal things are nine-tenths illusory; and that, as between a hardy mind
waging its battle against a hard world, and a soft mind placed in how
ever soft circumstances, all the chances of being happy are with the
former.
I am going to assume that this point is granted me. I am going to
suppose that it is admitted that attitude is more important than pos
sessions, and that only illusions about their relative value for happiness
prevent us giving more pains to improve our personality than we give
to bettering our circumstances. From here we must then piss on to the
question: what is the essential mental activity or development that
can preserve happiness, having regard to the vicissitudes of fortune?
In Jesus' beautiful Sermon on the Mount, He included among those
whom He called blessed, all such as "hunger and thirst after right
eousness."
St. Francis de Sales, as somewhere quoted by Dr. E. Jones, uses a
similar imagery in his account of the Orison of Quietude, in which
"the soul is like to a little child still at the breast, whose
mother to caress him whilst he is still in her arms makes
her milk distill into his mouth without his even moving his
lips So it is here . . . Our Lord desires that our will should
be satisfied with sucking the milk which His Majesty pours
into our mouth, and that we would relish the sweetness
without even knowing that it comes from the Lord . . .
Consider the little infants, united and joined to the breasts
of their nursing mothers; you will see that from time to
time they press themselves closer with little starts to which
the pleasure of sucking prompts them. Even so, during its
orison, is the heart united to its God."
The Blessed Suso's characterization by the Eternal Wisdom, "Thou
hast been a child at the breast, a spoilt child" is cited on p. 386 of her
Mysticism by Miss Evelyn Underhill, who, on p. 323 had laid down the
rule that
"the true mystic never tries deliberately to enter the orison
of quiet; with St .Theresa, he regards it as a supernatural
gift, beyond his control, though fed by his will and love."
Here again the picture is drawn in terms of feeding and represents
the mystic as behaving like an infant whose hardly-expressed wish for
nourishment or for labial titillation is forestalled by his nurse.
A typical Hindu recipe for happiness is to be found in the recom
mendation in the Bhagavad Ghita of
"a constant unwavering steadiness of heart upon the arrival
of every event whether favorable or unfavorable."
To attain this condition is obviously a defense against sorrow, but
it has the great disadvantage that it equally shuts us off from joy.
This Indian device of meditation as a means of attaining religious
ends was also adopted by Gautama, and became an essential in the
teachings of Buddhism.
74
 The easterners believe that their religious meditation can further a
progressive sort of development — but recent scientific studies seem to
show that regression into a more infantile state is more likely to be the
actual result. The ease with which man approves religious meditation
might be due to fixation or brooding in the infantile period.
"Not music's fivefold sounds can yield
Such charm (rati) as comes o'er him who with a heart
Intent and calm rightly beholds the Norm."
Speaking of music — if I may digress for a moment — most western
ers, when visiting Buddhist temples, miss the singing and instrumenta
tion to which they are accustomed at home. Yet they are likely to ex
perience — as I certainly did — an almost hypnotic effect in the chanting
by the Buddhist monks, punctuated from time to time by the clacking
of little pieces of wood.
The 'idealization of control" reached very great heights in the
Stoics. In an essay on "Statism" in the February, 1939, number of
Psychiatry, Mr. Mousheng Haitien Lin cites a poem about the ideal
Stoic:
"The cold of winter and the ceaseless rain
Come powerless against him . . .
He stands apart,
In naught resembling the vast common crowd;
But, patient and unwearied, night and day,
Clings to his studies and philosophy."
Marx's communist philosophy stressed that only by seizing indus
trial control could the working class attain its goal; and it was natural
that the Russians, when they adopted his philosophy, should emphasize
its "control-idealism."
In creating fascist Italy, II Duce had to strive ceaselessly against
the easy-going nature of his people, but has nevertheless successfully
instilled an appreciable desire for power.
Above all in nazi Germany we find that the great mass of the
population has been prepared to endure hardships and tighten its belt—
to do without butter for the sake of guns— all in lust for power and
domination.
The motives underlying the beliefs and rituals with which we have
been dealing are connected with the pleasures associated with the
mouth, control, etc. We now proceed to views and conduct arising from
another kind of motive.
The Hindu faith expresses dissatisfaction with egoism, the excessive
claims of which must be remedied in the light of a higher ideal. The
following words of Santideva, quoted by Prof. R. Mukerjee on p. 235

...
of his Theory and Art of Mysticism, conveys the idea:
"Our only enemy is our selfish ego If I really love
myself, I must not love myself. If I wish to preserve my
self. I must not preserve myself."
The core of the teaching of Gautama the Buddha was comprised
of the Four Noble Truths— the fact of sorrow, sorrow's cause, sorrow's
ceasing and the path. It is sorrow's cause and sorrow's cessation which
particularly concern us here; and we find that all Buddhism says that
sorrow ceases when its cause, namely the clinging to one's own per
sonal existence, is uprooted. In other words, the likeliest possible ap
proach towards happiness is not an external state of affairs at all,
but the internal attainment of an apathy to all selfish interests. Such
is the essential teaching of all Buddhism; but the Mahayana branch of
the religion has progressed farther and esteems positive benevolence
towards others to be a higher quality than mere apathy towards self.
In this, undoubtedly it is more like Christianity.
The Hebrews considered that the two essentials to be possessed
in order to share God's greatest blessings were to be a Jew (for, in
75
their opinion, they alone were his chosen people) and to be righteous.
By virtue of these two facts they were to receive all blessings, including
the lands of iheir neighbors.
Freud, in his Moses and Monotheism, suggests that the Jews' wor
ship of a god without his being personally represented to them by means
of images or pictures tended to produce a greater spiritualization of
their religion; and that their renunciation of the sensory satisfactions
prevalent in other religions tended to increase Jewish self-esteem. He
holds, as being a general truth, that (p. 187) :
"the world of the senses becomes gradually mastered by
spirituality, and that man feels proud and uplifted by each
such step . . . Sail later it happens that spirituality itself
is overpowered by the altogether mysterious emotional
phenomenon of belief."
Freud offers, however, as an alternative explanation of the grati
fication found therein, that
"perhaps man declares simply that the higher achievement
is what is more difficult to attain, and his pride in it is
only . . . his consciousness of having overcome difficulty."
When we consider the character of Jesus we find a seeming con
tradiction. P. Carnegie Simpson, on p. 33 of his The Fact of Christ,
points out that Christ "regarded himself as the sufficer of all others'
need," as is borne out by such invitations as "if any man thirst, let
him come unto me and drink" and "come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The implications are,
says Simpson, that while:

shepherd ...
"Others are lost sheep he is not only not lost, but is the
All others are sinners; he is not only not a
sinner, but is a saviour."
On the other hand, further on in the same book (p. 64) the author
stresses humility as one of the "four distinctive features of the char
acter of Jesus," and consequently as an essential ingredient in that
of all who would follow him.
Are we to solve the seeming contradiction in Jesus' own person
ality by recalling that it is not unusual for extreme opposites of ten
dency to exist together — each, in fact, being part-cause of the existence
of the other? Anyway, there will be no dispute on the existence in
Jesus of one kind of narcissism — namely of that kind by which one
identifies one's self with a very high ideal and is single-hearted in pur
suing it.
Kung-fu-tse, in the first chapter of his book on Central Harmony,
declares that

...
"When the passions, such as joy, anger, grief, and pleasure
all attain due measure and degree, that is harmony.
Our central self is the great basis of existence and har
mony is the universal law."
In the (Buddhist) Sutta Nipata is written
"A heart untouched by worldly things, a heart that is not
swayed by sorrow, a heart passionless, secure — that is the
greatest blessing."
Here again by Gautama, as formerly by Kung, the attainment of
a personality-ideal is declared to be the chief requisite for happiness.
The terms by which the texts most frequently refer to this ideal,
says Prof. Rhys Davids in his article "Buddhism" in the Encyclopedia
Brittanica, are

Nirvana, the 'dying out' ...

"Arahatship, 'the state of him who is worthy'; and . . .
of the fell fire of the three
cardinal sins — sensuality, ill-will and stupidity."
7fi
 "Grant me to be beautiful in the inner man, and all I have
of outer things to be at peace with those within. May I
count the wise man only rich. And may my store of gold
be such as none but the good can bear."

In ancient Greece, philosophers began early to speculate upon the

nature of happiness and the means of its attainment. This prayer by
Socrates is cited by Dr. H. D. Jennings White in his Goals of Life:
The widow of Prof. Davids, in an article in the January, 1940, Hib-
bert Journal exalts the emphasis which was put on "the will, in Bud
dhism" as against the intellect, of which we have generally heard much
more.
The Samkhya and Upanishad philosophies, likewise, gave first place
to the training of one special kind of character, namely that which is
rid of all desire. It is quite obvious that behind such training lurks
the orr'ere we" see that such an absence of desire saves one from the
possibility of disappointments.
Whilst all three of the totalitarian ideologies stress such ideals as
efficiency and patriotism because they are means toward the better
service of the state, I cannot find any desire for character-development
for the individual's own benefit in communism or nazism. An excep
tion exists in the case of fascism.
In The Function of Mysticism in the Fascist Revolution, Ettore
Martinoli says
"The victory of man over self in the first place; this is what
fascism expects and demands, as a profound moral impulse,
of its followers, of all Italians and of all the new .universal
civilization which is arising through the Duce's action."
"E lo spirito che vale. E lo spirito che vi anima."
While Martinoli bases the majority of his views upon the utterances
of Benito Mussolini, we must note that he also pays a certain amount
of credit to the Church for having begun, even if in a one-sided way,
this character-building work which fascism is to complete; for on p.
39 of his book he admits, if I translate correctly:
"The Christian medieval Mysticism powerfully exalted the
spiritual individual in our civilization, the superior nature,
against an inferior, selfish nature. If we nowadays still
know what is meant by mystical flame, mystical ardor that
cancels our egotistical self and which creates spirituality,
we owe it to the fact that medieval mysticism has placed
deep in the traditions in which we were born . . . the
flame of such ardor."
Although I do not find nazism setting up the development of
human character as an end in itself, as with fascism, much less as a
means to human happiness, it does inspire its devotees to become all,
as instruments, that the state may require. The following introduction
to a Hitler Youth booklet is quoted by R. L. H. Tiller in an article in
the Feb., 1941, Survey Graphic:
"Spartan
rigorous and pure is our aim of life.
When a nation rises out of the glow
of God's smithy
everything weak must become dust.

Proud and pure

are soldiers then.
Dying gladly—
and knowing why.
Their service is action . . .

77
 When we pray, the sword
in our hands,
hear our cry, God:
Never be cowards!"

What is common to the above viewpoints is their connection with the

motive of self-esteem. Whether they are concerned with renouncing a
harmful egotism or with the cultivation of laudable "spirituality," this
remains their theme.
Consider now a truth, complementary to that of transferring In
terest from our own pleasure-seeking to larger issues, which Dr. H. D.
Jennings-White has stressed on p. 51 of his recent book, the possibility
of transferring attention from our immediate pain to such larger is
sues. By attending
"to the total situation, the painful items can be ignored,
because the pleasure of .the whole distracts attention from
them. The martyr attends to his faith and his vision of
Heaven and these distract his attention from the flames
and the torture. Unpleasure can even be regarded as pleas
urable if viewed as an essential necessity of the total ex
perience."
This device is undoubtedly valuable, and we should work it whenever
the opportunity offers. But it has one great weakness; it remains self-
centered. Now, any self-centered mechanism becomes to a large ex
tent impotent in times of depression. The victim feels "Oh, what does
it all matter, anyway? If it is'my own pleasant feeling which is at
stake, I might as well bear this present disgruntlement as take all the
trouble of kindling an interest, now cold, in something else to at
tend to!" Besides, we are often betrayed by an enemy within ourselves
— a morbid conscience, consisting of sadism turned inward upon our
selves by the superego. This point has been treated of especially by
the French psychologist, Dr. Alendy, in La Justice Interieure and,
drawing upon him, Dr. Arthus (p. 253) cautions us that
"an unmerited happiness is not accepted by men and conse
quently if they wish to profit by it they block themselves
unconsciously and punish themselves."
I go on now to show cases where another kind of activity than
those so far mentioned is held by many cults to offer the greatest,
or a very important, means of attaining happiness.
Frequently a religious sect has guarded the wisdom it prided itself

asked "Why speakest thou ...

on possessing, as a very private treasure. Jesus, to his disciples who
in parables?" answered (Matt. 13: 10,
11) : "Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom
of heaven, but to them it is not given." A very effective series of
quotations from the Gospels has been marshalled by P. D. Ouspensky on
pp. 185 to 188 of his New Model of the Universe to support the view
that Jesus meant his teaching to be esoteric.
More notoriously are Sufi teachings esoteric. But as I intend to
deal with this subject in a later chapter, I will call attention now rather
to the authoritative account of what Sufis regard as leading to blessed
ness which will be found in the Sixth book of the fourth division of Al-
Ghazali's Ihya. As rendered in J. C. Lambert's article on "Blessedness
(Moslem)" in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, the Islamic
saint holds that in proportion to the spirituality of the truths appre
hended by the "divine light" in our hearts,
"so does He delight in them . . . The knowledge of Allah
is the greatest delight of all . . . the ecstasies of His
Saints. It preoccupies them so that neither the fear of the
Fire nor the hope of Paradise has any weight. Their entire
desire is to know Him in this world and to behold His face
in that to come, which is the great felicity."
78
 It is chiefly the redemptive polytheisms and impersonalistic beliefs
which have favored that particular approach to happiness with which
we are momentarily concerned. Buddhism is a case; for Gautama
achieved this aim. When he was very old, a man of Alavi came to him
in the forest, to ask whether he was happy. Gautama (I quote from
L. A. Beck's Story of Oriental Philosophy, p. 150) answered,
"
'It is so, young man. Of those who live happily in the world
I also am one.'
"Then, for his heart pitied the aging of the Master, the
man continued: 'Cold, Master, is the winter night; the time
of frost comes; rough is the ground trodden by cattle; thin
is the couch of leaves, light the monk's yellow robe; sharp
is the cutting winter wind.'
"But the Buddha smiled. 'Even so, young" man. Of those
who live happy in the world I am one.'
The secret of this triumphant happiness lay in his having sur
mounted the illusion of dualism; he (in the translation of Teviggs
Sutta, 43, by T. W. Rhys Davids)
"knows the straight path that leads to a union with Brahma.
He knows it as one who entered the world of Brahma and
has been born in it. There can be no doubt in him."
In the Questions of King Melinda, IV, 8, 60, is found this:
"Whoever orders his life aright, he by his careful thinking

...
will realize the supreme bliss of Nirvana, in which the three
fold fire of lust, malice and delusion is all gone out.
man who has got out of a dirty and muddy place onto dry
A
ground will experience bliss. As the mud, so should we es
teem riches and honor and praise."
Note here not so much that material means are regarded inade
quate toward happiness, as that "careful thinking" is the sovereign
remedy.
In the Eightfold path or way to bring about the desired cessation
of craving, the seventh step, commonly is called Right Mindedness. Prof.
Davids tells us that:
"two of the dialogues are devoted to this subject, and it is
constantly referred to elsewhere. The disciple, whatsoever
he does —whether going forth or coming back, standing or
walking, speaking or silent, eating or drinking — is to keep
clearly in mind all that it means."
Some therefore have called this said seventh step "intellectual
activity." And in a reference I have unfortunately lost, the eighth
step, "right zeal, zest or enthusiasm" is referred to as "an enthusiasm
for the way, not for his own progress in it" — again a somewhat intel
lectual interest.
In the early period of Buddhism, putting "the wheel" in motion
had a complimentary reference to Gautama's initiation of the process
of the redemptive enlightenment of humanity. Later, "the wheel"
came to mean the cycle of rebirths which our "karma" compels us to
undergo. Speaking of it, obviously, in this sense, P. Creedy, on p. 103

...
of Human Nature Writ Large, points out that "in Buddhist imagery
we are 'bound to the Wheel' turning to no purpose" until we are
freed from it "by understanding."
It is not surprising that we find the Greek mind beginning to
speculate upon the nature of happiness and means of its attainment.
A great deal of information on the stress which was laid upon wisdom
as being this means is contained in F. W. Bussell's article on "Happi
" in the encyclopedia
ness (Greek) of Religion and Ethics. Bussell can
generalize that every Greek system rested happiness on
"singleness of aim, uprightness of heart and the undisturbed
79'
"The Meaning of the Koan." A wood-carving by Sokei-an Sasaki.

peace of one who rests in ultimate truth and has hold of

reality."
Happiness lay, he continues,
"in reason (as private judgment . . .) not in impulse or
custom. The body and conventional society were the
two great enemies of wisdom and therefore of happiness."

80
 Or again it lay
"in understanding and accepting the world-order ...
It was, then, directly dependent upon knowledge
as that postulated by Plato in his ideas of God ...
schools were agreed (as soon as the question was once
as wide
all

posed) that (a) well-being is the aim of all effort and

inquiry; and (b) wisdom or knowledge of the good can alone
give security and guidance; that (c) 'none can sin against
the light' or his own good if he knows it."
Hindus have distinguished between their own sects on the basis
of three "ways" — karma-marga, shakti-marga and jnana-marga — all
leading toward the religious goal. The Vedantins and some later groups
follow the jnana-marga, or road to the summum bonum via knowledge.
The classical philosophical schools of Hinduism, meanwhile, are
six; and of these the Vedanta and the Samkha go far to justify the
claim to pure idealism; the one as a monism, the other as a dualism.
According to Vedanta, Brahman is the sole reality. It has no other,
no second. Also, being perfect, it is changeless. This changing world
we see around us is a mirage rising from the everlasting but unper-
ceived Buddha. It is due to our non-knowing (avidya) , an ignorance
inseparable from human nature as such. But avidya can be destroyed
by vidya (knowledge) by means of man's instrument-of -knowledge
which is compact of perception, inference and authority (the last
named being the Veda.) . Such is woksha (salvation) the goal to be
sought— to know Brahman.
The Yoga system shows a similarity to the Vedanta and Samkha.
In Vyasa-bhasha, II, 15, we read how
"The Yogin, seeing himself and the world of living beings
surrounded by the eternal flow of pain, turns for refuge
to right knowledge, cause of the destruction of all pains."
Chinese sages also have appreciated the value of mental activity.
Of a disciple who had been nonplussed by a request to describe his
master, Kung-fu-tse asked:
"Why didn't you tell him that I am a man who forgets to eat
when he is enthusiastic about something, who forgets his
worries when he is happy and who is not aware that old
age is coming on?"
Very recently, Lord Mottistone, in a book on Paths of Happiness,
concluded that the equipment needed for this quest was "a delightful
perception, mental and spiritual, of fair things." Negatively much the
same is implied in the words of Francis Thompson's unfinished The
Kingdom of God:
'
"The angels keep their appointed places —
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces,
\ That miss the many-splendored thing."
I cannot help thinking that Mottistone is very near the mark.
His principle does not imply that the lack of "fair things" would
necessarily depress the subject, and the search for them provides a cer
tain distraction in times of pain and trouble. It is also an objective. The
only real question I would raise is as to whether an aesthetic interest
such as this imparts as much drive as we require.
Drive is certainly given by the totalitarian systems, with so many
millions of humanity governed by them in our world today. Let us
inquire whether or no these systems encourage intellectuality— I mean,
do so for the benefit of the individual, apart from the usefulness of
his technical achievements to the state.
When I consider nazism from this viewpoint I definitely and em
phatically find the answer to be "no." I have to record in all honesty
81
that I cannot find one single instance in which nazism has encour
aged intellectual activity as a contribution to individual contentment.
Communism has undoubtedly provided many incentives towards
intellectuality that did not exist under the old regime, but it is only
quite incidentally that it has encouraged any non-technical thinking.
One must admit, however, that in bringing literacy for the first time
to the great mass of the people it has indirectly been of help to in
dividual cultural life. Incidentally, because certain of the population
are now capable of such criticism, some of the events of the past
twenty years of communist experiment have actually shocked a few into;
other lines of thinking, too!
The above conclusions about whp.t things chiefly contribute to
happiness seem to have been reached through intellectual speculation
carried on by persons who enjoyed the activity for its own sake. Such
persons may have b;en inclined go ascribe to intellect an undue im
portance in life. Many psychologists have accounted for this activity
on the ground of an "instinct of curiosity." At any rate, the impulse
brings with it great blessings, for among the prime factors making for
happiness is the liberation from boredom which is provided by intel
lectual interests.
It is a moot question how our enjoyment of any experience is
affected by understanding it. This has been most debated in the
field of aesthetics. Some have claimed that knowledge of music or of
painting makes us so critical of all art-works which fall within those
categories that we are henceforth robbed of that capacity for naive en
joyment of a picture or a melody which we had previously. Something
must be conceded to this view; but if it were true, we should find that
classes in art-appreciation tended to destroy the pupil's pleasure and
so to dimmish attendance at our galleries — which is not the case.
Of more value yet to the achievement of happiness is the as
surance, if that is possible to have, that a significant portion of the
universe, will, if we rightly handle it, react in a loving fashion to us.
That the happiness of a person depends largely on his feeling that
he is loved by persons in his environment has been emphasized by
psychoanalysis and is confirmed by child-study.
The security which comes from a knowledge that goodness is all
around us depends partly upon our mental condition. This is a sub
ject which I shall discuss later on. It also depends partly on having
concrete experience of such goodness. Understanding is more than
knowledge and more than science, although it is helped by these. It is
knowledge of, rather than knowledge about; direct knowledge and not
that at second hand.
Reviewing the immediately preceding points, we see that in
tellectual activity certainly reduces boredom, that in our dealings with
people it does good, and that, generally speaking, a big portion of hu
manity reciprocates this good by creating in us a feeling that we our
selves are loved or are at least surrounded by beings in whom is some
goodness.
It will not have escaped some of my readers that the sages and
saints who exalted knowledge sometimes meant by that, a knowledge
of some deity, paramount to a union with him. This introduces us to
the last motif we shall consider.
In the development of Jewish religion, the harsher and more ter
rifying sides of Jahveh's nature recede gradually into the background,
and he becomes more a friend to be loved. In this connection, the
lines "like as a father pitieth his children" will be recalled.
According to the Moslems, the character of their prophet Moham
med set the example of all the aspects of love. These include some which
the heads of many other religions were never able to practice, e. g.,
conjugal love and clemency to conquered enemies, for Mohammed both
married and wielded great political power.
82
 Jesus spent his life in preaching the gospel of love — a love em
bracing every one and every thing. And he held out, as the re
ward of our extending this love, our final ability to enter that affective
condition — or did he mean, as Ouspensky effectively contends, that
esoteric fellowship? — which he called, "Kingdom of Heaven."
Jesus gave his classical enunciation of the things which bring hap
piness in the Beatitudes, pronounced in his Sermon on the Mount (re
corded in Matthew, 5, 3-12) :
"Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteous
ness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the
children of God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness'
sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute
you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely,
for my sake.
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in
heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were
before you."
We should note also the significant view that "it is more blessed
to give than to receive."
F. Creedy points out on p. 117 of his book Human Nature Writ
Large that for entering the Kingdom of Heaven a type of life is re

chological matter."
...
commended which lays emphasis on humble love and service in despite
of worldly outward things. In short, "happiness is inward
The character of him who "went about doing
a psy

good" manifests multiformly the features of benevolence despite

social, creedal or conventional barriers or those personages who
rejected himself. In Matthew, 5, 44 and Luke 6, 35, he places on his dis
ciples the obligation of limitless liberality; and on the cross Jesus
prays: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Thus
the principal Christian approach to blessedness is via love. I expect
there are many of my readers who will ask whether Hope or, at any
rate, Faith, does not closely dispute this place. I aver that Christian
Hope and Faith themselves spring from a confidence in God or Jesus
which actually is Love's achievement.
It is shown in Al-Ghazali's Ihya, 4th division, 6th book, that for
the Sufi; the highest stage of the spiritual life is "the love of Allah";
all which comes before is simply an introduction to this state, and all
which follows is its fruit.
The same exalted emphasis on loving God and of mankind as well
—with an emphasis on the sharing of it by all races —runs through
the "tablets" of Baha'U'llah, of his son, Abd'ul'Baha and the whole
literature of the Bahai movement.
The pious tincturing of history by a belief that our ancient ances
tors actually lived by such principles appears in an account by Chwang-
tze, IX, 2, cited by W. L. Hare in his Systems of Meditation in Religion,
p. 13. The ancients
"were upright and correct without knowing that to be so
was Righteousness; they loved one another without know
ing that to do so was Benevolence; they were honest and
leal-hearted without knowing that it was loyalty; they ful
filled their engagements without knowing that to do so
81
 was Good Faith; in their simple movements they employed
the services of one another, without thinking that they were
conferring or receiving any gift, therefore their actions left
no trace and there was no record of their affairs."
There were, however, other Chinese sages, of a much more "prac
tical" nature than this Taoist writer — in fact, practicality is still a
chief characteristic of the Chinese of today— and of these, Kung-fu-tse
is typical. Even he, however, represented the chief personal god, Shang-
ti, as benevolent and gave "reciprocity" as the one word which best
conveyed his own ethical attitude.
It is well known that primitive Buddhism of the Therevada type"
taught compassionateness. In his article on "Happiness (Buddhist)
in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Prof. Rhys Davids quotes
passages from Therag, 60, 63, 141, 398 and 512 which show such bene
volence as well as mental calm under the aspect of means to joy. To
the query, What has Buddhism to suggest as the basis on which bliss
must rest? an answer is to hand in the four Brahma Viharas or Su
blime Conditions. Of these, the first is Love; while the second — sorrow
at the sorrows of others— and third — Joy at the joys of others — -are
really manifestations of love, while the fourth — Equanimity about
what might be expected to make one's self sorrowful or joyful — is more
or less the fruit of love having directed one's interest outward.
Another text stressing Love is that quoted by F. Creedy in Human
Nature Writ Large, p. 102, and in which the questionable must not be
allowed to obscure the point: —
"just as the mongoose only attacks a snake after he has
covered his body with an antidote, so should the strenuous
Bhikku, earnest in effort, when going into the world where
anger and hatred are rife, which is under the sway of quar
rels, strife, disputes and enmities ever keep his mind
anointed with the antidote of love."
In one of the Suttas, Prof. R. Mukerjee {Theory and Art of Mys
ticism, p. 177.) finds verses exalting maternal love as the model of
the affection we should feel:
"Even as a mother watcheth o'er her child,
Her only child, as long as life doth last,
So let us, for all creatures, great or small,
Develop such a boundless heart and mind,
Aye, let us practice love for all the world,
Upward and downward, yonder, hence
Uncramped, free from ill-will and enmity."
A text on the qualities (dhamma) which have to be acquired is
quoted by Prof. Rhys Davids on p. 744 of Vol. IV of the Encyclopedia
Brittanica, as declaring:
"Just as whatsoever stars there be, their radiance avails not
the sixteenth part of the radiance of the moon . . . Just as
sun, mounting on up higher into the clear and
. . . the
cloudless sky, overwhelms all darkness ... just as in the
night, when the dawn is breaking, the morning star shines
out in radiance and glory — just so all the means that can be
used as helps towards doing right avail not the sixteenth
part of the emancipation of the heart through love."
Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, in her system of Christian Science, replaces
the term "God" as used by orthodox monotheists, by the abstraction
which she calls "Principle." Upon the whole, Mrs. Eddy's writings make
less reference to the Father as such than do those of most religious
founders. But love of this "Principle" is what will lead to health and
happiness.
84
 Before concluding this section on love, we must cast a brief glance
on the political substitutes for religion, to round off our brief study
fairly.
Nazism and fascism have tended, as we saw, to scout all ideas
of happiness as an objective; and, instead, the former overtly and the
latter by implication and despite some denials have proposed the
welfare of the state as be-all and end-all. In the former, I find little
trace of any "love" for anybody or anything except der Fuehrer; and
while both it and fascism have endeavored to arouse a spirit of un
selfishness, this is not on behalf of all humanity, but for the benefit
of one nation.
While the creed of communists is Dialectic Materialism, the curious
thing is that, as I think De Man has pointed out in his Psychology of
Socialism, the whole strength of all socialism, including its parody,
modern Stalinism, has consisted in the readiness of adherents to
sacrifice their own and their generation's welfare for a fellowship ideal.
In our studies of examples of love felt towards some male per
sonage, we have found that untold millions of peoples are swayed and
made sad or happy through a personality. High above the man in the
crowd towers the influence of those who are outstandingly gifted. Un
doubtedly Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed — to name only the "big
three" — were geniuses in the field of religious insight; and just as Mi
chelangelo and Beethoven set their mark upon painting and music,
so have these religious geniuses set the stamp of their characters on
the religions which bear their names. This fact convinces me that
we in the west have neglected too much the principle of putting our
selves in the way of catching the ethical fire of truly magnanimous
men.
Let me elucidate this last sentence. An outstanding feature of
Indian religion has always been the importance of finding one's ideally
suited guru or personal tutor in religion. To those who identify religion
with theological doctrine — and there are many such in the west — such
a view appears exaggerated. But if religion be regarded as a "way
of life," which must "be caught, not taught," the value of an inspiring
leader can hardly be over-estimated. Whenever we discover someone
who is such a leader for us individually, we should seek the closest
working contact with him.
I must sum up and conclude this discussion.
In a previous chapter we decided that happiness of some' sort,
for some reason, some time, was the end most worthy to be set up as
our supreme goal. In the present article, we have reviewed the religious
thought of the ages in order to see how this great objective is best
attained. As a result of our investigations we find that three headings
seem to cover what has been taught as to the most happy-making
character-traits. The emphasis of the farthest eastern peoples has
been on ridding one's self of the desire for anything which is not willed
or provided by Heaven; so, one would be contented in whatever circum
stances one is placed. The emphasis of many Hindus and of the Greeks
was on occupying the mind with certain ideas; it is also a fact that
a "well-stored mind" is a wonderful retreat from adversity or even
physical pain. The emphasis of the two schools of Buddhism has been
on self-occupation with the process of willing and with compassion.
The emphasis of a few Chinese and other thinkers and later that of
Christianity was upon Benevolence. This last is more a positive thing
than directly trying to rid one's self of desire is, and more dynamic than
intellectualizing is, to combat a fatal narrowing of the attention to one's
self and one's own troubles. It is also less inhibitive of positive pleas
ures, including human relationships, than the former two emphases are.
According to their degree of maturity, the religions have considered
the chief requisites of blessedness or happiness to be either attention-
control or unselfishness. Communism has made a greater point of get
ting the material conditions of life improved. Fascism preaches devel
85
opment of a vague "superior nature" and nazism ignores all roads
to happiness in its obsession with military power.
All these ideals have advocates at the present time. When Rud-
yard Kipling, in "If" praises those who "can meet with triumph and
disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same," his standpoint
is that of oriental imperturbability. The western, and, to my way of
thinking, stronger position is given in Whittier's lines:
"When we climb to heaven,
'Tis on rounds of love to man."
A psychologist feels it is the religions which have here attained
to profounder understanding of human nature than the new substi
tutes have, for the communist view gives first place to what, whilst
being necessary, should be subordinate; the fascist aim needs to be
related to human values and the nazi view is ethical regression, based
on fundamental illusions and ending in bitterness.
If I were asked to state at greater length than was done above
the conditions which I myself would consider to be most conducive
to the happiness of any person, I should list the following in ascending
order of importance, providing the person to be benefitted is not too
old to grow mentally.
External conditions: a certain minimum of security and
comfort, the right mate and children, liberty and beauty.
Appreciation of the noblest potentialities of those around us.
Enlightened interest in something greater than ourselves,
preferably the happiness of others, leading to an urge to
exploit each situation for the sake of that interest.
Doubtless an objector can find particular situations where the rule
italicized will not seem to work. For example, if this disposition caused
a man to let himself be maimed by brigands rather than betray others
into their hands, quite possibly this occasion might net him suffering
rather than happiness. I do not deny it sometimes might; all the
same I would accept on behalf of anyone dear to me the occasional
risks it would involve him in for the sake of sure gains the disposition
would on the whole bring him or her. For, after the youthful years, I
do not think that without such a risk-involving principle life is more
than superficially satisfactory. That people who "play safe" throughout
life lose all zest in the game is as sure as that those who try to be care
free end in depression.
Wise are the words of some writer (of whose name I am ignorant) :
"Although neither is to be despised, it is always better
policy to learn an interest than to make a thousand pounds;
for the money will soon be spent, or perhaps you may feel
no joy in spending it; but the interest remains imperishable
and ever new."
The greatest gift we can convey to our children is not property,
but certain attitudes.
 Chapter VI.
Religious Ways of Releasing Energy

Someone may well remark, that all I have advocated In the

earlier chapters on religions has been propounded already by
the majority of philosophers and moralists. Further, they will say,
it does no good at all to preach to people about self discipline
and moral codes or even their own advantage, because most
persons know what they ought to do but cannot summon up their
energies to the point of performance. The real problem is how to re
lease their energies.
Modern psychology has discovered that every infant is possessed
of abundant libido, but has also found that it becomes locked up and
unavailable for use when he achieves adulthood. In the brief sketch
of the principles of psychology which I have given already, I mentioned
that in the conflict of opposing desires many of our impulses become
repressed into what is called, in inaccurately static language, the un
conscious "part" of the "mind." I also pointed out that these en
ergies can nevertheless escape (1) if they could find suitable disguises,
such as neurotic symptoms, dreams or useful sublimations or (2) if
we could teach a person to look at his desires or impulses squarely
and to deal »with them rationally instead of by repressing them.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to deal with them as well meaning
lay persons have sometimes suggested, by artfully finding ways of
sublimation for them, because so much depends on chance circum
stances being favorable. The second means of freeing energies, how
ever, is now available to us by the potent therapeutic technique known
as psychoanalysis.
Most of the religions have recognized the necessity for effecting
a release of the energies of its devotees, and from the earliest times
various rites were performed with this purpose in view. In this chap
ter we shall examine the religions and their substitutes to see exactly
what they have done in this matter. For greater simplicity, I have set
out their methods under the headings Lustration, Baptism, Confession
and Redemption.
Cleanliness is said to be next to Godliness. It is not surprising,
therefore, that washing or otherwise cleansing one's self should be con
sidered an essential step in equipping one for a religious life. It im
plies, first of all, an acknowledgment of sin, for where there is no
wrong-doing, there is no necessity for cleansing. Its second and main
purpose is to effect a release of energy for, by removing the sense of
guilt, the quondam sufferer can set forth lightly on his chosen path
freed from a weight of worry about earlier misdoings.
Neither of these aspects of lustration is necessarily understood
consciously in part or in full by the primitives who participate in cere
monial cleansing, nor for that matter by those who subscribe to the
similar requirement of the higher religions. Nevertheless, it is inter
esting to observe how closely all such ceremonies approximate.
The African people of Sarac use for this rite, water which has
been specially blessed, the ceremony taking place when the child is
three days old. Among the Basutos the procedure is more elaborate,
for to the water are added various "medicines," in order to make a foam
with which the child's head is lathered.
87
 The ceremony adopted by the Yoruba negroes is closer to the
"christening" of Christian infants. At birth a priest is sent for to
discover which ancestor intends to dwell In the child, and at the name-
giving ceremony, the child's face is sprinkled with water which has
been standing under a sacred tree. A similar rite is performed by the
Mfiote people of Loanga, who name the child after a famous ancestor,
while sprinkling it with water in the presence of all the villagers.
In Fiji they hold a feast to celebrate a child's first bath, and in
Uvea, in addition to a feast, the child's head is sprinkled with water.
In Java there is yet another variation. Forty days after birth, baby's
head is shaved in the presence of an assembly of natives, and then -\
he is dipped in a stream.
In Greek mythology, the theme of cleanliness occurs in the story
of the Augean stables. It will be recalled that Heracles was given twelve
labors to perform, each of which surpassed anything which an ordinary
mortal could have accomplished; and that one of these was to clean
out some stables in which thousands of horses had been quartered for
years. He performed the task by diverting a river through the stables.
In connection with this, H. J. Faithfull in his Ladder of Life, notes that:
"the cleaning of the Augean stables probably refers to his
winning clear of the auto-erotic stage of life . . . when the
child, though generally unsuspected by its parents, takes a
deep interest in its excretions The walls of playgrounds
and the conversations of children from three to six years
of age give ample evidence of this."
The Chinese regard lustration as appropriate for removing what
they consider the defilement brought by giving birth to a child. Doo-
little in his Social Life of the Chinese says these people, "when the child
is washed at three days old, hold a religious rite in connection with this
act of purification." We seem to have here a very early form of bap
tism.
In Egypt, similar ideas prevailed, it being common to bathe the
child on its fortieth day and then pronounce it "clean."
Baptism, christening or name-giving, and confirmation are all de
velopments of lustration. Indeed, among the examples given of primi
tive washing rites, the dividing line between lustration and baptism is
difficult to detect. The development, however, seems to embrace two
ideas not yet mentioned — the complete regeneration of the person bap
tized and the initiation into a brotherhood of fellow-believers. The
baptized person is "reborn" into a new family.
This aspect of our guilt-expurgation rite is far from being of re
cent origin. Hastings in his Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, writes:
"out of the bath grew a rite of immersion designed to solem
nize his admission into the guild of mankind, and wash
away the strange element of evil which seemed to inhere in
human nature. In Peru, this was exorcised by the priest,
who bade it enter the water, which was then buried in the
ground."
The native writer " Sahugan, in describing the Aztec baptism rite,
states that it began, O child, receive the water of the lord of the
world, which is our life. It is to wash and purify," and concluded with
"Now he liveth anew and is born anew, for he is purified and cleansed.
Now our Mother the water again bringeth him into the world."
This clearly shows the idea of regeneration which was referred to i
above.
The "brotherhood" idea can he instanced from the Egyptians, who, in
admitting a candidate to a religious society, baptized him. Thus, any
one wishing to be initiated into the mysteries of Isis had first to be
baptized by the priest in order to obtain forgiveness of sins and the
contingent purification.
88
 The Greeks had a milk-baptism ritual which seems definitely to
refer to new birth. And in the Greek Eleusinia. the preliminary rites
of initiation included purification by water, after which the candidate
became a new man and possesed a new name.
In the Indian religions, we meet a deviation from our practice
of child baptism; in the ceremony of Upanaya, which accompanies
initiation to the privileges of Brahmanic religion, the candidates are
boys who have arrived at years of discretion. The rite includes the
sprinkling of water three times on the initiate's hands, at the con
clusion of which the boy becomes "born again." Not until then is he
called a "twice-born."
From the Brahmins, the Buddhists seem to have copied the many
washings which largely constitute the three-day-long baptism ad
ministered when a novice is about to become a monk. The ceremony
culminates when a pot containing water, certain mystic ingredients,
a gold lotus and some confections and charms are poured on the initi
ate's head. For a full account of the ceremony I commend to students
of religions Mr. A. Lillie's book, Buddhism in Christendom, in which,
also, he refers to the similarity between the Hemero Baptists or dis
ciples of John, and the Brahmins and Buddhists, in their use of water
in such rites.
Throughout the baptismal rite of Zoroastrianism we again find
the regeneration theme running. In their later holy books, it was laid
down that the age of candidature for the priesthood was fifteen, at the
same time that it was necessary that novitiates must be newly born, or
born again. The ritual ceremony began with a purification lasting nine
nights. So closely did the Mithraic sacraments resemble Christian
usages, that, as J. E. Carpenter, in his Comparative Religion, says:
"they were vehemently denounced by Church writers as a satanic par
ody," adding that "The believer who had passed through the blood-bath
of the slaughtered bull was said to be 'reborn for ever.' "
I am not acquainted with any baptismal rites connected with
Islam.
In the Jewish religion, sin was regarded as a defilement, and to
wash it away, the rite of baptism was known. And a forerunner of
baptism purification was represented by the sprinkling of blood from
the sacrifices, or the ears, thumbs and toes of the priests.
One famous Jewish sect was the Essenes whose name means, ac
cording to some philologists, "bathers", or "baptizers.". According to Jo-
sephus, however, the ceremony was not performed until the subject had
shown himself worthy of the brotherhood by living for a while in ac
cordance with their tenets. Readers will be familiar with the em
ployment of this rite by John the Baptist as a means of sanctifying those
who came to join his flock.
In Christianity, a share in the benefits accruing from the sacri
fice made vicariously by Jesus for all mankind can be obtained by iden
tifying ourselves with him. This is done by being baptized and con
firmed in his flock, keeping his commandments (all the mystics agree
that observance of the rules of lay conduct is a preliminary to culti
vation of the higher virtues) and taking his communion.
On the question of baptism, however, great disputes have raged as'
to whether sin could be washed away by a mere sprinkling (accom
panied, of course, by the necessary verbal formula) or whether total
immersion was needed. In connection with this, I am tempted to relate
the stories of a negress who, at the moment the ceremony was about to
be performed, was told by the pastor,
"In one moment now, your sins will be washed whiter than snow,"
and who expostulated:
"Ah's afraid ah's asking too much, parson. A cream color will do."
The humor of the story depends on our appreciation that in religion,
contentment with half measures is wholly incongruous. A perfect
cleansing and no mere -"cream color" is the religious objective.
89
 In his Guide to Mental Health, H. D. Jennings-White offers the
following observations on flood-stories and baptism. He explains that
the facts of the moon controlling the ocean tides is connected in the
minds of seaboard peoples with baptism, for the moon-god is also the
water-god. "The Deluge can be regarded as a cosmic baptism of the
world" and the dove which came to Noah, after the water had sub
sided, has its parallel in the dove which appeared after Jesus was bap
tized by John the Baptist. The name Noah came from Nuah, the Baby
lonian moon-god and is derived from the Egyption nu, a pot for hold
ing liquid, and so the liquid itself. Jennings-White also refers to the
similarity between Noah's ark and Jesus. The ark is the moon-boat,
which was thought to carry souls from the earth to the sun, and thus
was a mediator between earth and/the heavens, as indeed Jesus is
reputed to be.
Theoretically, the rite of baptism removes the excessive conscious
ness of sin, and sincere confession thus insures that further accumula
tions of repressed guilt shall not impede progress in the religious life.
As with the runner, however, there is little point in stripping for the
contest unless there is a fixed winning-post and unless there is a reas
onable chance of success. The winning-post corresponds, of course,
to the goals we have discussed in an earlier chapter, and we might
consider we had a reasonable chance of attaining that goal if we could
find someone who had already covered the course and who was pre
pared to share his knowledge and experience. With these conditions
satisfied we should run the race with the added vitality given by the
hope of success, hence, theories of redemption and resurrection give
to the believer a greater incentive and more abundant energy for the
"good life."
The ideas of redemption and resurrection are not, however, as
many people think, original with the Christian religion. They are
reflected in the mythology of the ancients and existed in earliest re
corded times.
The ideas of redemption and need for a saviour appear in Egyptian
religion. The notion of self -identification with Osiris as a saviour, when'
betrayal and death at the hands of Set would redeem his worshippers
was one of the most important features of the Osiris cult. Four days
of mourning were given over to lamenting the dead god, who was rep
resented by a golden bovine image. Worshippers and priests alike la
cerated their shoulders and beat their breasts, some even tearing from
healing wounds the protective bandages in order to make the blood
flow.
The legends about Istar and Adonis or Astarte and Adonis, which
were current anciently in Asia Minor, all border very closely on the
resurrection and redemption themes. They are more widely known in
the forms they later assumed in Greece.
There is a school of interpreters of the more advanced religions
who insist that all the mythical or partly-mythical saviours were really
sun-gods. Heracles, they say, was one. His twelve labors represent
the signs of the zodiac; and his lion's-skin garment manifests the color
of father Sol. Cyril of Alexandria mentioned a solemn rite in which
the Greeks mourned with Artemis or Aphrodite for the death of her
lover, Adonis. The ceremony terminated in rejoicing at his resurrec
tion from the underworld. In Plutarch's Lives we read that women
made "little gardens of Adonis" and wept over the god whom Aphrodite
loved, and again, that, on the festival of Adonis, "women bore images,
little dead bodies, and held mock funerals."
There are also resurrection stories about Dionysius, later known
as Bacchus. His mother, Semele, according to legend, incurred the
wrath of Hera, the wife of Zeus, and had to give birth to him in a cave
while she was on a journey. One account says that later he descended
into Hades to rescue Semele and ascended into heaven with her, while
N
in another he was cut to pieces by the Titans, but rose from the dead
and ascended into heaven, after being restored by Demeter.
Another myth concerns Hyacinthus, the youngest son of King
Amyclas of Sparta. Because of his great beauty, Apollo came to play
with him and by accident killed him while they were playing quoits
together. The legend goes on to relate that the hyacinth sprang up out
of his blood.
But if mortals welcomed the hope of resurrection, it seems not to
have been so unqualifiedly approved of by the Greek gods. Mr. Joseph
McCabe refers somewhere to a myth that Aesculapius had
"raised so many from the dead that Zeus slew him lest the
whole race of mortals should escape death; or, as other
works said, because he found his lower world defrauded of
crowds of its citizens."
As already indicated, redemption or salvation is a method by which
sin is removed. The main purpose is to make possible our entrance
into a happier other life, and our mystic reunion with one or another
deity. Since, In order to reach that other life, we must, in the belief
of majority, first experience death, we must, in the rites they devise to
win immortality, pass through a ritual death.
The secondary purpose of redemption in earlier times was a more
material one, and had reference to the sins of a community. For ex
ample, humiliation at the hands of an invading army was almost in
variably attributed to some error of commission or omission on the part
of the collectivity. In order that a counter-offensive should have hope
of success a redemptive sacrifice or scapegoat was more or less essen
tial. Readers will be familiar with the function of the scapegoat in
the Old Testament records. Although we find no scapegoat in Assyro-
Babylonian religions, there are instances of pigs being slain to purify
the Greek communities.
The development of redemption from its primitive forms to its place
in the Christian doctrine today may be seen through Semitic and He
braic literature. Some of the evidence indicates it as having been de
rived by a custom of sacrificing first-born children among certain bar
barians. (Probably it was considered that the first-fruits of marriage
were the purest and therefore belonged to the deity.) As civilization
advanced, however, the unnecessary cruelty to both child and parents
would have suggested the substitution of an animal for the child. Some
authorities on religion consider that, although redeemed, the first born
child was still God's property and was. therefore, taboo. A still later
development seems to have been the idea that neither human beings
nor animals considered to be unclean were suitable objects of redemp
tive sacrifice. It should be noted that both in the case of personal re
demption and the redeeming of a community, the person or animal
sacrificed was considered as bearing that person's or community's sins,
and undergoing the penalty of death in place of the individual or in
dividuals.
The accepted doctrine of the Christian Church today Is sometimes
attributed to St. Augustine, but that part of it which deals with redemp
tion may be traced right back to St. Paul. Paul, while admitting him
self a (repentant) sinner, placed the blame for his guilt ultimately upon
Adam and made us all out to be inheritors of Adam's original sin,
"wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and
death through sin; and so death passed upon all men."
Paul, however, could not merely leave his followers In that pre
dicament, but continued,
"For If by the trespass of the one the many died, much more
than the grace of God, and the gift of grace which is by
one man, Jesus Christ, abound unto many,"
and in Corinthians 15:22
 "For as In Adam all die, so In Christ shall all be made alive,"
or, as Jennings-White puts it in his Guide to Mental Health:
"Christianity theoretically reduced all taboos to one taboo —
in the Garden of Eden all sinners to one sinner — Adam, all
punishments to one punishment, the vicarious sacrifice of
Christ."
Where Roman Catholicism and Protestantism divide on this subject
is in the positiveness of the sacrifice. Nearly every Protestant sect main
tains that once the sinner has identified himself with that sacrifice, then
he is redeemed, and can do nothing thereafter to destroy utterly his
chances of salvation. The contention is that once a person has really
accepted the Christ as his personal saviour, then, although he may oc
casionally slip up, he cannot, because of the Holy Spirit within him,
become an utter renegade.
On the other hand, the Catholic Church, while admitting the com
pleteness of the sacrifice of Christ for all people, lays stress on the fact
that only membership in the Mother Church qualifies one for benefit.
Since participation in the ceremonial ritual of the Church consists in
continual repentance, confession and penance, it would seem that
how one acts is stressed relatively to Christ's sacrifice.
I will close this account with a few comments. We have seen that
from the most primitive times down to the present, cults have made
use of some animal or person as a scapegoat. They have persuaded
themselves that they could load their own sins onto him, so that his
sufferings and death became an atonement for their own guilt.
Thus when the sect is persecuted by its enemies, then martyrs to
the cause provide in a natural way the victims with which all members
identify themselves so they can feel they have atoned for their sins.
But when such natural victims are not to hand, then they must be
manufactured by the process of falsely accusing innocent parties (e. g.,
Jews in Germany) of committing offenses corresponding to, or justi
fying, those of which the people feel themselves guilty.
The psychological mechanism underlying these phenomena can
now be summarized. First, there is a sense of guilt, the true origin
of which remains repressed in the unconscious. Secondly, there is ei
ther a projection of the uncomfortable sense of guilt onto some other
person (the scapegoat) , or else there is identification of self with that
person (the saviour) . In either case his death, mutilation or punishment
is necessary, and it is then felt that the guilt has been assuaged.
The scapegoat and the saviour are merely modifications of the sac
rificial victim.
The foregoing methods which religions employ in order that their
followers shall have energy for the task of living a holy and just life,
depend for their success upon the complete faith of the adherent in
that religion. The more fanatical that faith, the greater the energy
will be for furthering its teachings.
In these days, how many professing believers give credence to all
they are supposed to believe? Even in the churches themselves there
are deviations of opinion as to what is orthodox or unorthodox. Can
we then be expected to hold that devotion to this or that creed will
give us the drive necessary to bring happiness to ourselves and others;
for, after all, that is implicit in the aim of all religions.
But is there any better method than those devised by religions?
I think there is, and in the pages to follow, I shall try to show how the
method has developed and what it does.
Among some religions, the practice of confession is considered
to be of supreme importance to the continuance of the religious life.
At the same time, there are differences of opinion as to whether con
fession should be made publicly or to one other person or to the di
vinity worshipped. There are also disagreements between those who
make a feature of confessing their sins at regular intervals and those

?2
who believe that such a practice tends to encourage in the transgressor
too light an attitude towards sin. This latter opinion is based on the
belief that if one feels he can get rid of guilt so easily, confession in
duces in the sinner a carelessness which may well lead to more fre
quent transgression. However, all are agreed that if confession is
made in the right spirit when one is under a feeling of shame, the dis
burdening of one's self of a sense of wrongdoing may lead to greater
enthusiasm and energy for right doing, as well as for the ordinary tasks
of life.
Prof. Wm. James, in his Varieties of Religions Experience, expressed
surprise at the decav of the practice of confession in Anglo-Saxon com
munities and considered that most men would welcome the relief of
being able to unburden themselves to another "even though the ear that
heard the confession was unworthy." As to its effectiveness,
"It is a part of the general system of purgation and cleansing
which one feels one's self in need of, in order to be in right
Ft
relation tn nn°'s deitv. him who c<">nf°KsQs. shams are
over and realities have begun; he has exterior ated his rot
tenness."
After referring to the above passage in his The Christian Life, the
noted Anglican authority, Dr. O. Hardeman, sums up his views on con
fession in these words:
"The obi'ect of making a confession is. first and foremost,
spiritual. The penitent seeks to be brought into a partic
ular and sacramental relationship with Ood. and the priest
who receives the confession regards himself, not passively
as a therapeutist, but as the minister of a sacrament."
These attitudes may seem reasonable enough when one worships
a beneficent deitv. but neither Jam^s pt Hardeman has taken into
account the confessions practiced bv primitive peoole. What about, such
rites as Miss M. Steedman speaks of in her book Unknown to the World
Haiti, when "tortured humanity comes to confess and seek pardon for
innumerable faults, in the secret depths of the forest." How is this
rite practiced? and is its origin African, or has it been taken over from
Roman Catholicism, of which Voodoo is partly compounded? In this
book, examples are given of the way in which Catholicism can be mixed
up in primitive rites. Consider the following. Certain Haitians
who have deliberately tried to attain a state of spirit-possession — un
derstandable, if one realizes that it is the desire of the Christian to be
possessed by God — cannot get rid of the demon. Their relatives be
come so worried that they ask the Roman Catholic priest to perform
a ceremony of exorcism. The priest does this, but "unwillingly, for
it is extremely dangerous, as the exorcist may suffer a revengeful
counter-attack." I elsewhere touch on exorcism; so, for the time being,
lelTus take a rapid glance at the part played by confession in a few of
the primitive and modern religions.
The rite of confession was quite common among the Assyro-Baby-
lonians. It consisted, usually, of an acknowledgment of wrong-doing to
the particular d°ity worshioped.' The transgression mi?ht be aeainst
morality or religion; or questions of acting unjustly or inhumanly might
be involved. It is thought that religious concern over ethical offenses
probably was of later origin than over ritual defects such as neglect
ing details of worship or failing to make a scheduled sacrifice.
The Egyptians, on the other hand, even in their famous so-called
"negative confession" by the soul in the presence of Osiris, did not
stress the necessity for truthfully relating their sins; rather, they
deemed salvation to be dependent on their ability effectively to re
pudiate them. Their chances of happiness in the future life lay in con
vincing their deities that they were spotl°ss. Perhaps, in a way, one
modern religion maintains an attitude which carries this method still
S3
further — Christian Science, namely, makes a general denial that any
evil — and that includes sin — exists at all.
In most modern religions in which confession is practiced, this is
followed by the working out of an imposed penance, failing in which,
expiation cannot be achieved. This feature, although not always re
corded as part of the rite of confession of the ancient religions neverthe
less may well have been common then, too.
Both confession and penance are found in North American abor
iginal religions although it is probable that the penitential aspect is
of borrowed, Catholic, origin. Sahagun, a native Mexican writer, re
corded many details of Aztec confessions, but mentioned that it was
mostly the older men who had lived most of their lives who confessed
to the priests, the young holding off until they had had their fling.
Whether this was said in satire, we cannot tell.
Among the Denes, a group of uncivilized tribes in the north of Mex
ico, auricular confession of personal failings was made to the local sha
man. Writing in 1820, one Harman, according to the Encyclopedia of
Religion and Ethics, describes how,
"When the Carriers are sick, they often think that they will
not recover unless they divulge to a priest or magician every
crime which they may have committed, which has hitherto
been kept secret. In such a case, they will make a full con
fession." »

In Central America, likewise, confessions were considered of great

importance— were, indeed, an indispensable part of some religious cere
monies. Similarly, in Peru, one could not take part in certain religious
observances without first having made preparation by confessing his
sins. Confession, in these cases, was for the individual; but there
was a special collective rite, called Landa, or "expelling the demon,"
reserved for the community.
In China, confession is an integral part of Buddhist monastic life.
Every morning at early service, or at least at the new and full moon,
exercises of repentance and confession of sins are performed as part of
the scheme for attaining holiness.
The Old Testament contains many examples of confession as prac
ticed by the ancient Jewish heroes. Nearly every one is familiar with
the Psalms of David, many of which are acknowledgments of wrong-doing
that cover moral and religious failings as well as injustices to fellow
men and ritual transgressions. Confession was part of the Hebraic
method of expiation ; but in all cases it must be accompanied by a "true
sense of repentance before forgiviness could be assured. As Marcus
Gregory puts it in Psychotherapy, Scientific and Religious:
"The need was to find out the specific sin. change the atti
tude, confess to Jahweh and ask for His forgiveness. When
this was granted, then followed the cure."
Roman Catholicism maintains that confession is of divine origin.
They say it must be so in order to fulfill its function, because no judge
can condemn or pardon unless he has complete evidence before him
such as only God can have. On such a foundation, it is natural that
every member of the Catholic Church must, if he is to be considered
a "good" Catholic, and particularly if he wishes to participate as a
communicant, make regular confession in the prescribed manner. The
priest who hears the confession lays down a suitable penance for the
sinner; and in order that both priest and penitent shall have a ready
guide to the seriousness of the transgressions, sins are divided into two
types, venial and mortal.
This latter point is in direct opposition to the Protestant views, which
hold that every sin whether large or small merits everlasting punish
ment (fundamentalism) or deem that we shall be judged less by a
footing up of good and bad acts than by the character we have devel
oped and our lovingness.
94
 When the Reformation came, the confessional was one of the bones
of contention. The Lutherans abolished the rite; and by Protestants
generally confession to a priest is not considered desirable. In the
Salvation Army, it is customary for converts to confess publicly that
they are sinners; and the practice of reciting in detail, at so-called
"testimony meetings," the tale of the depths of sin into which they
had sunk before conversion, is encouraged. There is no particular ex
piatory purpose, however, behind such testimony, which may at times
lead to flights of imagination, when one sinner wishes to prove that
he used to be worse than another.
The Anglican church does not prescribe confession, but considers
it advisable when necessary to satisfy conscience. Actually the at
titude of many Protestant sects to confession varies considerably, but
with few exceptions, and save for private confession to their God, they,
as I have said, look upon self -revelation to a priest as unscriptural and
unnecessary.
Of all the fields of relationships into which human beings can enter,
the least tangible one is that of relations with parts of their own
minds — mental integration. Problems of this field are fundamental
because they determine incidence or absence of functional mental dis
orders and settle in advance how other problems, physical, social, etc.,
will be handled.
The problem which I shall treat as the essential one in this field
is that of mental balance — the hygiene of will and emotions. We shall
see in due course that failure of such balance is due to unrecognized
complexes which control our thinking from out of dark corners, as it
were. This indicates, as being the quality which is most suited to set
in order the orectic field, the character-trait, insight. Hence, in the
following sections much will be said on the factors which affect insight.
But first let us run briefly over the history of psychoanalysis. Elements
of its picture of unconscious mental activity and of a struggle between
repressed elements were anticipated by Herbart and (to a lesser ex
tent) by Lao-tze, Schopenhauer and Kauffman. In the main, however,
its concepts originated in the mind of Sigmund Freud.
Freud, after showing early brilliance in his youth, studied medicine
at Vienna University, where he worked in Ernst Brucke's physiological
laboratory as assistant to Sigmund Exner. It was here that he met
Breuer, who told him of the famous case of the patient Dora, the first
to be treated under hypnosis by the "cathartic" method. It was Breuer's
remark about "secrets of the alcove," checking with Charcot's "C'est
toujours la chose genitale," which gave Freud a hint of the role of sex
in neurosis. In 1881, he took his M. D., and became a junior resident
in a hospital. Turning to brain-anatomy and then to nervous dis
eases, he attracted attention through his clinical observations on organic
diseases of the nervous system.
In 1885, Freud became a lecturer on neuropathology and obtained
a travelling fellowship which took him to Paris, where he studied at
the Salpetriere. From Charcot he received not only confirmation of
the psycho-genesis of "nervous" ailments, but a second hint of the
sexual factor in them. In the following year he returned to Vienna to
begin medical practice as privat dozent for nervous diseases. Here the
eminent gynecologist Chrobak gave him a third hint that the origin
of such illnesses would be found to be erotic.
When, in 1889, Freud went to Nancy to perfect his hypnotic tech
nique under Liebault and Bernheim, he was greatly impressed with
the evidence of reality of mental processes hidden from the conscious
ness. In 1895, he collaborated with Breuer in producing Studien iiber
Hysteric In this book, Freud supplied a theory of the unconscious and
emphasized the importance of sexuality. He argued, also, that "actual"
neuroses were direct toxical effects of sex, while the psychoneuroses
were mental impressions of it.

95
 At this point Freud abandoned hypnosis and replaced it with the
new technique of free association in the waking state. It is this which
marks the definite beginning of the new therapy, for which he coined
the name, psychoanalysis.
Freud found that a whole series of activities from childhood to
adult life seem to be connected by a certain flood of energy which in
vests different zones of the body. The little child at first is deeply
interested in sucking, and gets pleasure out of it long after his physio
logical needs are satisfied. The urethral and genital zones attract him
next. Then he becomes interested in the body as a whole, admiring
and looking at himself, and laier, exhibiting his physical form to, and
spying upon, others. Then comes love for others of his own sex, called
homosexuality and, finally, heterosexual love, love of the opposite sex.
Freud found that interferences at various stages of the development,
bottling up of these tendencies, were the cause of nervous disorders;
and he began to realize that there were good reasons for it being so.
They were: that the group of impulses which we call ego-trends are
the things which we do not need to be ashamed of and therefore do
not thrust into the unconscious, whereas the sexual impulses we are
apt to be ashamed of and do thrust in and under.
The more experience Freud gained, the more universal did a sexual
origin seem to be at the base of nervous states, and the more did he
find that these led back to the attitudes of the very young child. He
discovered that the feelings and experiences of the young cnild had
the most powerful determining influence over his whole future.
The special problem of psycho-pathology is to discover under what
conditions these feelings-conflicts give rise to pathological effects. The
"new psychology" is endowed with (1) insight into the tremendous de
termining and persisting influence of the psychic state of the young
child and (2) capacity lor uncovering the quite unsuspected essentials
of that state, its most powerful forces, conflicts and problems.
The term, analytic insight, is intended here to refer to knowledge
of one's self to the extent that this is natural in a person whose up
bringing has spared him excessively repressive influences, or who has
been through an analysis.
Tne tcciunque 01 psychoanalysis consists in the following pro
cedure. The patient reclines on a couch. Near his head the analyst
siis on a chair. Neither faces the other — an arrangement which leaves
each freer to follow the nuances of his thought than if he had con
stantly to be responding to the verbal or facial expressions of the
other. The patient then tries to speak out all the reverie which comes
into his mind, the only rule of analysis being that nothing whatsoever
shall be held back. The analyst from time to time calls attention to
the way the patient dwells on certain themes or connects one idea with
another as though it were a symbol of this other. By such a method
analyst and patient trace back present obsessions and symptoms to
more primitive states in order to arrive at, and re-experience the ul
timate emodonal roots. Strange as it may seem, this process is followed
by the automatic disappearance of the parent's neurotic compulsions
because, after one or more years of the daily analytic hour, he is able
to face the emotional causes of his troubles.
One may well ask at this point: Is the insight which comes through
being psychoanalyzed, or becoming able to bear his psychic wounds,
in the ways that Freud regards as important, the most effective means
we have of maintaining or regaining the integration of self? That is
best answered by mentioning a half-dozen of the benefits that have
been found actually to accrue from it, Nand by answering some eight
of the criticisms brought against psychoanalysis.
Why, from enlightened self-interest, should we desire for our
selves or for those dear to us, mental treatment along the lines sug
gested by recent insight, that is, experimental psychology or pedagogy,
and most especially by psychoanalysis? I propose six reasons.
96
 An excellent definition of happiness describes it as surplus energy
over and above the requirements of our existence. Here the whole mat
ter seems to be in the hands of those who form our mental life. Everyone
knows the abounding energy of young children. They are physically or
mentally active every waking moment. Energy may be directed toward
useless ends, but certainly it is not deficient in quantity. If the adult
seems to fall behind the child in the amount of his vitality, it can hardly
be taken as a sign that his metabolism is defective, or that in any other
way the needed energy is never generated. It must be that the energy
is in some way neutralized or diverted.
Just this fact has, indeed, been revealed by Freud. Every analysis
shows that our impulsions come into conflict with one another in ways
that would hardly have occurred but for errors in training. Thus these
drives, which might have achieved gratifying ends, waste themselves in
incessant internal warfare. Had the hygiene of childhood been more
enlightened, then our adult personality would have been like that of
• the abundantly energetic people whom we occasionally see — to envy.
Even in later life it is possible to retrieve a greater or lesser amount
of such energy by the analytic procedure. I do not believe that there
is any other method by which this can be done; certainly mere sug
gestion or advice is quite incapable of achieving renewed energy.
Secondly, it is the experience of those who have been analyzed that
thev are enabled to face tasks more effectively. The difficulty of any
task depends not merely on the thing itself, but on the interest it has
for us. This interest in its turn depends very largely on the presence or
absence of inhibiting factors. Most of us would find it onerous to have
to memorize a lengthy poem or play, and children when forced to do
so often rebel. Yet when learning is incidental to or accompanied by
pleasure it is astonishing what prodigious feats are at times performed.
Unfortunatelv, it is not alwavs possible to arrange the circumstan
ces of life in such a wav that all our many tasks will be intrinsically
interesting. Experimental psvchology has shown that the supposed
"disciplinary" value of doing things out of the motive of fear of greater
unpleasantness to follow from the hands of some adult, is not a discip
line which transfers itself to real life situations. The vague entity
known as "will-power" is much more related to an abundance of vital
interests than to being taught to expect the unpleasant. The modicum
of benefit in sometimes insisting on children doing irksome things lies
in making them recognize that in life there are manv unpleasant facts
which they cannot always be shielded from by their elders, and obstacles
which cannot be removed merely by wishing.
The method of modern education is the method independently
approved of bv psvchoanalvsis. It is neither to habituallv emplov ar
tificial punishments to goad the child into doing things which have no
interest for him, nor yet to help the child or man to shut his eves
to the real difficulties of life. The modern idea is that of facing actual
facts as they exist, and weighing their unpleasantness calmly against
such genuine advantages to be had by overcoming them as we are ma
ture enough to appreciate. In the degree that we live our lives on this
pattern, we derive an increasing amount of satisfaction of a real tvr>e
which leaves us with less and less tendency to seek illusory, however
grandiose, pleasures in the realm of fantasy.
The third advantage of an analysis is that it pares down character-
defects. The motives in developing character are partlv of a nature to
anneal to self-interest, although other elements, such as the realization
of some ideal, or pleasing some admired or loved person, also play a part.
Some of the defects of character which interfere with success are: lack
of self-reliance, failure to work up to the limit of one's capacity, infir
mities of temper and the inahility to refrain from attempts to prac
tice methods of deception which, in the long run, are almost sure to
be found out.

97
 A few pages back I spoke of the impotence of the older methods of
treatment to enable one to face his tasks more frankly, and the rela
tive effectiveness of the modern technique. The same is certainly true
with regard to the development of good, or the elimination of undesir
able, traits of character. Even when a person clearly sees that a certain
trait is to his disadvantage, he frequently finds himself unable to over
come it.
It has been usual to attribute this to mere force of habit; where
that is really so, the obstacle can be overcome by the formation of
counter-habits. Almost, if not quite, invariably, however, more for
midable barriers are present in the form of conflicts of desire. Merely
to give suggestions does not, in such circumstances, reach the root of
the trouble, and is relatively powerless except, perhaps, in the most mo
mentary degree. Such suggestions are apt to be listened to piously,
but without much permanent effect.
I should like to be able to offer some easy remedies for infirmities
of temper. Unfortunately, the only entirely effective remedy is never •

to have created them. That should serve as a grave caution to us to

be careful in the future handling of children, but it is not very helpful
to the adult who has already acquired the tendencies in question.
The one other remedy which approaches anything like effective
ness is, of course, to undergo an analysis. Here the greatest precautions
have to be taken to have this done by a person who has himself
been completely analyzed, who additionally has undergone a course
of training in analysis and who is recognized by psychoanalytic asso
ciations as competent to do analyses. Inasmuch as the number of such
persons is still small and the free clinics are very crowded, this generally
involves great expense of money and months, if not years, of time. But
snort of completing the treatment it will still be of some, if slighter,
assistance to have come simply to an understanding of the nature of
the tendencies involved, in order that we may be on the watch for
their expression and mitigate the mischief likely to follow.
The above point may be clarified by a consideration of the follow
ing facts. A number of studies of bluffing and lying have been carried
out in psychological laboratories. An important outcome of such tests
has been the discovery that there is greater tendency to cheat among
children educated in the elementary free schools of certain towns than
among private schools. This may be because of the economic or social
environment of the class of children recruited from the elementary
schools, or because the schools themselves are larger and handled in
more machine-like fashion. The children from the modern, freer type
of schools have also been shown to rank above those from the older
or more conventional class of school with regard to honesty of this type.
There is evidence in the abve that dishonesty of the kind measured
cannot really be computed from a calculation of chances, but only of
character -tendencies, and that one of the most important origins of
such character defects consists in the old-fashioned, harsh type of
school discipline. This is what we might expect if dishonesty repre
sents inner anxiety, such as, once instilled can only be eradicated psy-
chotherapeutically.
Fourth, the analytic experience enables us to understand neighbors
better. Severe treatment tends to beget in a child a certain defensive
thick-skinnedness which interferes seriously with his ability to sym
pathize with others and enter into their moods. The hypnotic methods
of the earlier mental therapy, which follow more or less along the
same lines by endeavoring, as it were, to browbeat the patient forcing
or cozening him to accept alien attitudes authoritatively, tend to Jus
tify obtuseness rather than to soften it.
By comparison, the type of therapy which proceeds by trying to
understand, is certain to reduce the barrier between one's self and
other personalities. This is because the barrier is made up largely of the
tendency, which persons who do not comprehend their own motives
98
 V
have, to project their own faults upon others, attributing to those
others, especially, their less creditable desires. Persons who lack insight
into their own character look on the world "through rose-colored
glasses." This fact is recognized by everybody. If a person begins
accusing everyone around him of some special character defect, we
generally suspect that he himself is harboring the evil attitudes which
he is always speaking about.
Fifth, analytic enlightenment is, therefore, peculiarly important
in the special case of those who deal with primitive people or children.
Among such professions, those of parent, teacher, nurse, workers with
mentally abnormal persons or colonial officials administering man
dates stand out prominently.
When adults in charge of children understand their own irrational
motives better (but hardly until then) they will become able to under
stand those of a child. This fact arouses doubts about the whole school-
system of today. Are examinations worth the mental strain which they
cost the over-conscientious child? Is the teaching of religion in schools
compatible with a child's sense of completely honest inquiry? Does
not "scientific" sex-instruction wrongly de-emotionalize a subject which
ought to remain charged with feeling?
The answers to these and other allied problems would seem to be
the most careful essential intellectual contributions of psychoanalysis,
to teachers. To instruct them as we do in pre-Freudian academic psy
chological theory is like teaching an astronomy limited to its pre-Co-
pernican discoveries. Not that the analytically acquired knowledge is
opposed to the other or is of a wholly unrelated kind, but the new and
deeper knowledge combines and confers new significance on the old.
Last in the list of services which I would credit analysis with being
able to render one would be that of sometimes opening up certain ca
reers in this modern world or of manifestly increasing one's proficiency
in them. The young science of psychology has gained such prestige al
ready and has shown itself able to perform useful service in so many
departments that it can itself be an object of specialization. In an
address given by Professor J. McKeen Cattell in 1929, he noted that,
apart from general psychology, which is concerned mainly with teach
ing, psychologists were specializing in the following fields: experi
mental, educational, clinical, pathological, social, genetic, applied, theo
retical, vocational, comparative, physiological, statistical and historical.
The subjects are listed in their order of popularity. But in the psy
chologist, of all professional men, the public has a right to demand
insight above the average, such as the experience of being analyzed
gives.
I will now deal with the major criticisms leveled against psycho
analysis. My selections do not, of course, cover all the objections that
are raised, but so far as possible I shall try, in the limited space
available, to answer those which are deemed by our opponents to
carry most weight.
The first objection is, that the majority of doctors are still nostile
to psychoanalysis. There are five replies to this. First, psychoanalysis
is a comparatively new movement but slowly gaining the attention of
medical and scientific circles which at first refused to countenance
it. There is nothing unusual in this, for many medical movements
and discoveries have been damned by the medical profession and then
later accepted as orthodox. Second, doctors are conservative. On the
whole this is good, but it means that medical progress is slowed down.
Third, medical men are human and, being dependent on the fees
of their patients, they are naturally not disposed to look kindly upon
an intruder with a new therapeutic method which is unavoidably ex
pensive. Fourth, because doctors are human, some of them also
are as prudish as other members of the public and object to analysis
on emotional and pseudo-moralistic grounds. Last, it is true that
many unqualified persons claiming to be psychoanalysts have pur
99
ported to give treatment — with (naturally) unsatisfactory results. But
even in the medical profession itself and in spite of strict supervision,
there have always been pretenders.
A second objection is raised by those who say that the results of
analysis are due to suggestion. This is quite true of other methods of
mental therapy. Suggestion-therapy consists in the authoritative im
position of an idea on the patient ab extra, but this is the antithesis of
analysis, which consists in the exposure of elements already in him.
The objection is rendered plausible because, admittedly, in analysis
suggestions of one sort are sometimes given — but it is vital to note their
method and object. First, the analyst does not impose his idea at all,
but merely offers it for the tentative consideration of the patient, wel
coming his criticism; and secondly, the suggestion is not directed to the
future health, feelings, ideas or conduct of the patient as it is in
hypnotic therapy. It is directed to the significance which some ex
perience may have had, in reference to the past. Actually the unsatis-
factoriness of the most carefully elaborated suggestion-technique was
what led to the development of analysis. If the therapeutic effects
of analysis were due to suggestion why should psychoanalysis be more
potent than the best elaborated suggestion technique? And why is it not
rendered less effective by analysts taking many precautions against
suggestion, as they do?
A third objection claims that the confessional is as good as analysis.
The confessional has undoubtedly been of help to many people. The
very fact of its becoming so important an institution of several religions
implies that it has contributed to some human need. Though this is
so, it works under disadvantages. One is, that not everyone is able to
believe in the Catholic (or some other specific) communion; a second is
that, for all its experience, the church did not discover the region
of the unconscious, much less the way to unveil it, without which the
priest gets little farther than, if as far as, a tactful confidant; a third
is, that the point of approach of the priest is a moralizing one — he
regards our failures not as symptoms or symbols, but as sins, and
thus plays up the repressing super-ego.
A lourth contention is that it is the incompleteness of repression
which does harm. This is a theory spun out of the critic's own head
and lacking all clinical evidence. It is true that some conscious sup
pression is necessary to the conduct of life, but little of this is repres
sion (the latter of these terms being reserved for the unconscious, blind
form of censorship). I say to myself, "Much as I covet my neighbor's
wife, I see that for the sake of peace in the community and the hap
piness of both our homes, I must see no more of her." That is com
mendable suppression. But if I passionately declare and persuade my
self that "far from loving that woman, I am quite indifferent to her,"
that is a case of repression of the love actually felt and it will lead
to inconsistent conduct, or worse. The repressed desire represents a
certain amount of psychic energy, the effort to keep it repressed rep
resents additional energy, so that both these now become locked up
in "conflict." One of them may return in the form of neurotic symp
toms; or the personality, robbed of more energy than it can afford,
may become listless.
A fifth objection heard asserts that instead of analyzing our im
pulses, we should sublimate them, that is, substitute mechanisms which,
unlike symptoms, are acceptable in character. In this way sometimes
the thwarted love for a woman may become devotion to the Virgin
Mary or to one's Mother Country. Sometimes primitive impulses may
certainly be dealt with in this way, but unfortunately it is impossible
to produce these sublimations at will. We can provide children with
a rich environment offering the opportunity of many interests and
may then hopefully expect that sublimation will take place, but that
is all we can do. Such sublimations often take place after the com
pletion of an analysis which releases energy from harmful symptoms
100
with which it was bound up. But only the release, not the sublimating,
is within our control.
A sixm objection is that the analyst may project his own complexes
onto .he patient. This, however, is a danger so well recognized by
analysts mat strong measures are taken to forestall it. Hence the
practice, started by Dr. Ernesu Jones, of the prospective analyst first
himself being analyzed, is now universally insisted on. That he should
be thoroughly analyzed himself is the only way of making the phy
sician so aware of his own complexes that he can keep them
out of his interpretations. It is to be noted, moreover, that other
methods of psychotherapy also run a similar risk but do not safeguard
themselves by this effective precaution.
A seventh objection is, that "the reduction of human conduct to
the single motive of sex" is too simple to fit the facts, and that this
emphasis on sex is morbid. But Freud has again and again explicitly
denied — I remember his saying it to me at our first meeting — that he
considers sex the only motive in life. It is rather that he regards
the sex "ins.incis," broadly defined at that, as those which come in for
repression and that it is repression which underlies neurotic conditions.
In giving to sex the emphasis he has, Freud has merely followed where
the evidence led. His facts are not refuted by calling them morbid.
If some persons find them so, the onus is on them to find a more
adequate explanation of those facts, or else to admit that it is they,
the objectors, who are morbid.
Finally, rather pathetically, it is averred that when a patient has
relied so long on his analyst for advice, it must be hard for him to
cut loose and depend on himself. It is true that this does frequently
present a certain problem, but not one unforseen by analysts. The
technique of winding up the analysis is one of the points on which
every analyst is instructed, and articles on this topic will be found in
the leading psychoanalytic journals.
I conclude then, that the religions have in the past evolved certain
procedures, most notably confession, which had psychotherapeutic
value. But for such as can afford it a more powerful means of cure
is ofiered today by psychoanalysis when practiced by a competent per
son. It confers many benefits, and the objections to it will not bear
examination.

101
 An Old Print in the Museum at Moscow

Chapter VII.
Woe and Wickedness

In this chapter I intend to consider Affliction, meaning by this word

all forms of non-happiness. I first wish to ascertain the attitudes of
the religions towards this "affliction"— to find out how they explain
its existence at all and whether they excuse, condemn or condone it—
and then to see at what conclusions we ourselves arrive.
Commencing with primitive man, we found that he was driven to
recourse to erne ties or alternately to confession by the idea that he had
been made ritually impure by something he had done; and if we asked
why this mattered, he would say that ritual impurity attracted ill-for
tune and so, pain.
The ritual uncleanliness is one of the earliest concepts to appear
on the religious horizon and later it develops great significance, for,
commencing with the belief that fearsome accidents will occur to peo
ple in such an unfortunate state, it comes, as culture evolves, to be
thought of as essentially associated with sin.
There is a distinct resemblance between taboo in savage society
and our own ideas of contagious diseases. It is particularly interesting
to note that among primitives, as Crawley in his Mystic Rose, p. 228,
tells us, a person wno has been exposed to contagion is sometimes
placed near a fire or fumigated with smoke or incense, the assumed
evil is scraped off and the hands that do the scraping are themselves
cleansed with a scraper which is destroyed. The idea, prevalent in many
religions, of washing away evil with water, is a development of this
treatment.
But, as we have already seen in earlier chapters, animists also give
a great deal of attention to the securing of safety from evil spirits;
and the idea that our misfortunes are brought upon us by this agency
is probably the first theoretic solution of the problem of why evil
exists.
102
 It is curious that among the most primitive peoples we do not find
much thought given to discomforts after death. In their view, the
future life must be like the present one, with privileges for those who
were great personages here, and a low condition or sheer non-survival
for humbler men and for all women. We find very little modification of
this plan in order to reward good and punish evil.
Of Shinto, one of the most backward of religions, Dr. Harold Smith,
in his Elements of Comparative Theology, says that the defilement just
referred to is the thing from which it seeks salvation. Chinese popular
religion is also one of those in which sin is regarded as a thing to be
washed away.
Prof. Pratt, in his book, The Religious Consciousness, brings to
our attention "one of the earliest expressions of desire for a future
life" when he quotes from the Book of the Dead, as translated by
Budge, the prayer written many thousands of years ago by some
Egyptian "to whom the hope of personal immortality was somehow
bound up with the hope that his body might avoid the horrors of dis
integration." As it is probably the earliest record we have of such an
expressed desire, I give the quotation in full:
"Let not my body become worms, but deliver me as thou didst
thyself . . . O my divine father Osiris, thou didst not decay,
thou didst not become worms, thou didst not diminish,
thou didst not putrefy, thou didst not turn into worms.
I shall not decay, I shall not rot, I shall not putrefy, I shall
not turn into worms."
With the advent of theologies such as the Egyptian, the after-life
began to be described in more detail, and in a way to subserve moral
purposes. In Egypt, the thoughts of the living were largely absorbed
with preparations for meeting successfully the final test when, having
made the "negative confession," their hearts would be weighed against
truth in the judgment of Osiris. The good would then go to live with
him, while the wicked would choke in a world of muck.
Turning to the ancient Jews, we find the thing most to be shunned
was unrighteousness; but unrighteousness might almost have been de
fined by them as that conduct which Jahveh visited with punishments.
The Hebrews at first held to the view that rewards and punishments
are meted out to man in this present life, and a belief in the survival
of the soul came in but gradually. In fact, up to' our own era, Sheol,
their Hades, remained an ill -defined place where departed spirits
all existed tenuously among pleasures and pains less than those here
below.
The Old Testament explanation that evils of various kinds were
sent by God as a means of retribution to man, both as an individual
and as a whole community, for his offenses, still seems to have remained,
despite the book of Job. I believe that the idea that the suffering
could be intended for the good of the recipient was first extolled by
the prophet Isaiah. He conceived of God as treating mankind in the
same way that he proposed to treat his faithless wife — namely, to pun
ish only for the sake of redeeming — and this explanation of the ex
istence of evil has become increasingly popular since his day.
It is when he come to such monotheistic religions as that of the
Jews, that the problem of reconciling the undeniable existence of evil
with a supposedly all-powerful God who is good, becomes for the first
time acute, for in the higher polytheistic religions, the gods fell heirs
to the imago of the "good father," and the devils or giants to that of
the "evil father," and there was no inconsistency. Trouble only comes
when the refinement of our religious beliefs abolishes devils and giants,
or tells us the good father (God) is strong enough to worst any evil
fathers if he really wished to.
103
 In Greece, it was the popular elements and
particularly the mystery cults which contained
the redemptive element. Freud, cn p. 354 of
his Totem and Taboo, enters on this speculation
as to the beginning of the sense of original sin
and, incidentally, on the Greek solution of the
problem of the existence of evil:
"The theory of primal sin is of Or
phic origin; it was preserved in the
mysteries and thence penetrated
into the philosophic schools of
Greek antiquity. (Reinach: Cultes,
Mythes et Religions, 11, p. 75) . Men
were the descendants of Titahs who
had killed and dismembered the
young Dionysus-Zagreus; the weight
of this crime oppressed them. A
fragment of Anaximander says that
the unity of the world was de
stroyed by a primordial crime, and
everything that issued from it must
carry on the punishment for this
crime."
The Greeks located in Hades in one place
the Elysian fields for the blessed, but in an
other place Tartarus for the evil; and both
Komer and (the Roman) Virgil describe the
last-nfmed city in some detail. We al~)0 find marsyas in the
plenty of killing in classic mythology and semi- Greek Hades
sacred literature. A Mr. Fai^hfull points out
the slaying of Lichas by Heracles as an excellent example of "sadistic
impulse to vent one's twin upon another," but it is worth noting that
the fe^r of Tartarus was not much preached as a reason for entering
upon th-e religious path.
To Zarathustra, the grand drama of the universe unfolded itself
as a war between Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, and resisting the latter's
machinations corresponded to our idea of salvation. The fact of Ahri
man being in his own right a god co-equal with Ahura Mazda was an
entirelv satisfactory solution of the problem of the existence of evil.
Even fire, as the sacred symbol of the good father, is exculpated from
responsibility for the death of those who appear to die from burns.
The salvation offered by Hinduism is against existence, which
is looked on as wretched. This is not strange, for in India, the dire
poverty of nearly the entire prolific population is an obvious cause
of a general misery which is unmatched elsewhere except in Japan
and in China. The attack of the average Hindu upon this condition
is realistic up to the point of his knowledge. That is to say, he works
hard to earn the scant necessities of his family budget, and there is
also a certain amount of collective effort in the tilling of the paddy-
fields. After a life of such difficult is seemingly ended by death (so
Hinduism teaches) we may be reborn, unless we are excentirimHy
good, to repeat the struggle. And, as though man's mundane existence
were not dour enough, the Hindu imagination busies itself with vivid
portrayal of the hells.
Tt is p fnot th^t wherever Indian culture has penetrated, its art
will be found depicting the sufferings of the damned hereafter, in the
vain hone of frightening humanity into goodness. I well recall in a
small village in the far-off island of Bali, how beautifully the ceiling
of the judgment hall was painted with demons busy at ingenious tor
tures!
104
 All man's toil cannot save him from his unhappy predicament even
here on earth; much less from ihat of possible future existences. Un-
eaucaied as he is, it is not strange thai he grasps at the straw held out
to him by those who offer to control magically or by religious methods
the forces of nature which have been so recalcitrant when wooed more
realistically. What requires explanation is rather why certain of the
magical and religious techniques offered are chosen as the more likely
to succeed in preference to others. That an appeal should be made
to unknown forces by ignorant men when their more "scientific" pro
cedures have yielded meager results, needs no explanation on grounds
more recondite than the ego-drives. And India is known as the most
religious of countries with the possible exception of Tibet.
The dilemma of the existence of evil in a moral universe is not seen
as an insuperable problem by Brahmanism, for, by its devotees, the
very gods themselves are thought to have only as much power as they
have won by their asceticism and exercises. For the rest, those who
believe in the transmigration of souls explain the injustices of life on
the ground, that whoever suffers misfortune in this life, is but reaping
the inevitable consequences of his misdeeds in a previous existence,
whereas the very fortunate people are in the same manner now tasdng
rewards previously earned. The earliest name definitely associated with
this doctrine of karmaphalam — which is to say, "the fruit of karma" —
is the author of the last book of the Laws of Manu. He, according to the
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics article on "Karma," gives many
curious details of the way in which sin is punished and merit rewarded.
The whole idea of the doctrine of karma and transmigration was a
brilliant attempt to answer the problem of injustice, although it was
not really any answer at all to the broader problem of the existence
'it evil as a whole, which it merely puts back in point of time. This
is obviously so, for if one asks: "Why was it that the present sufferer
ever had the evil disposition which has earned him this punishment,
instead of having had a good disposition such as would have earned
him juy? Manu would be aula oniy tj reply tnat it was because in an
earlier life still he had sinned — and so on, with an infinite regress into
the past, but let that go. lne riunctreus of millions of tne Indian sub
continent and as many more Mahayana Buddhists in Tibet and
China and elsewhere s ill think they can find in the doctrine of karma
phalam some explanation for the world's seeming injustice.
Mahayana Buddhism arose in India, where man's life was subject
to the hardships just described and passed chiefly into Tibet, where
the climate rivals that of Siberia for bleakness. It inherited the name
and some of the doctrines taught by Buddha, such as that all life is
sorrow and escape from sorrow is only via the eight-fold path. To this
are added gruesome views of the hereafter from Tibetan and Chinese
popular demonology. Pictorial representations of the wheel of life
show between its six spokes the six states through which each of us
is destined to pass in eternal rotation until he works himself free.
Of these the lowest-placed is hell, in painting which the artist gives
his sadistic phantasies full rein. It is from all these tortures as well
as from rebirth to the sorrows of earth that the Mahayanist seeks
refuge.
In Jesus, the ego-impulses and a realistic view of the circum
stances of his time were Strong enough to prevent his imagining that
he could redeem himself or the Jewish people from their tribulation
by becoming the kind of messiah which so many of them expected him to
be. He had no illusions but that the might of Rome would easily
crush any armed rebellion which he might raise up, or any worldly
kingship which he could, wkh the backing of his followers, attain to.
These impulses must, therefore, have contributed somewhat to his
determination that his kingdom should be "not of this world." They
helped him to turn the great flood of his energies and the genius of
108
his leadership, Into an entirely different direction, toward becoming
a saviour not through physical, but through spiritual might. Although
Jesus definitely mentions hell-fire and threatens the wicked with being
"cast into outer darkness," we meet with no interest in hell among the
early Christians.
As A. Roche points out In Fear and Religion there was no tendency
among the Christians in the Catacombs to perpetuate forms of suffering,
and "no representations were made of the Day of Judgment or of the
torments of the damned." Quoting Lecky, Roche goes on to comment:
"This systematic exclusion of all images of suffering and 1
vengeance, at a time that seemed beyond all others most
calculated to produce them, reveals the Early Church in an
aspect singularly touching and it may, I think, be added,
singularly sublime."
But later on, about 400 A. D., the Catholic church-father, St. Au
gustine, as Mr. R. S. Carpenter recounts in an article in The Listener,
February 22nd, 1933:
"suggested, quite incidentally, that • some of the faithful
might be called to pass through a purifying fire (purgator-
ius ignis) . By this he did not mean anything so technical
and exact as a doctrine of purgatory. But the hint was
taken up and developed."
For the benefit of doubting Thomases requiring direct evidence,
the Venerable Bede tells the story of a man who died and who after
wards returned to life. This man is supposed to relate his experiences
while dead and he describes how people who had repented and con
fessed "at the last moment, just in time," were flung alternately into
intense extremes of heat and cold. This was not hell, for the man
then proceeds to an actual description of "the abyss of hell," likening
it to "a pit of flames into which hideous demons were thrusting un
happy, shrieking victims."
I can even now recall from my own boyhood two vivid descriptions
given to our Sunday school class by a priest. One was in connection
with a man who had taken the Eucharist after an unworthy confession;
the other, a man who had betrayed a girl. In the former instance,
the man, and in the second, the girl returned from hell with an account
of their damnation and suffering.
By the later mystics of the church, however, more spiritual con
ceptions of the punishments from which we need to take refuge were
eventually evolved.
Early Protes cants considered that frightening humanity into good
ness was a practical idea, worth taking over, and we have many records
of the terrifying sermons to which they used to listen. In America,
those by Jonathan Edwards are outstanding in this respect.
In such phantasies, the repressed sadism of the religious con
science has found satisfaction vicariously. Beside^ the vicarious form,
however, it has doubtless derived some pleasure more directly, insofar
as It has been granted the insight to see how much human suffering
has been caused by these horrible doctrines. For one thing, belief that
such cruelties were practised by God excused their imitation by man,
and for another thing, brooding over the perils awaiting them after
death has frightened vast numbers of poor humans to the verge of up
setting their reason. Happily modern protestantism has turned hu
mane.
The ethicalization of man has involved that of his Deity. Hence
the problem of existence of evil is encountered in its most difficult
form by Christianity, which attempts to teach that God is not only
all-loving but omnipotent — could stop this war tomorrow if He thought
It worth while.
In this dilemma some Christian mystics frankly declare themselves
unable to reconcile their position with the known fact of evil, never
106
theless they hold to their faith that this Inability Is due to some limi
tation of human reason and would not appear if we but possessed
God's own oversight.
Other Christians, clinging to the all-lovingness of God as his more
essential attribute, limit the other claim of his omnipotence to the
extent of admitting that he cannot make human souls other than
they are, or cannot aUer certain laws of the cosmos or cannot give
us more than an insufficient measure of happiness except by making
us His partners in improving an imperfect world. This implies — al
though the Christian does not always admit the fact to himself — that
a power, outside of and equal to or geater than that of God himself,
exists in the form of laws of the universe or of the human soul, by
which the latter cannot be perfected in any less painful fashion. To
modern Christians, this seems, in fact, the only possible way of re
conciling the power and goodness of God with the persistence in the
world of appalling horrors. At any rate, things being what they are,
the unsatisfactoriness of worldly living is what serves to bring many
persons to embrace the religious life.
The Muslim, like the other religionists, is impressed partly by the
failure of worldly methods to secure him from the pains and frus
trations of life, and partly in some cases by the fear of greater pains
to come in a future existence. It seems unfortunate that when Mo
hammed was selecting for imitation features of Hebrewism and others
from a degraded Christianity, he should have preferred the latter's
version of the after-life. His modification of this was chiefly in the
direction of making it more material; e. sr., one of the punishments of
hell is being boiled in the lake of moUen lead. Although he is troubled
to some extent to understand why Allah permits evils to continue to
exist the nrobl^m is nrobablv less glaring for the Muslim than for
the Christian. The reason for this is because it is more God'r power
t.Vim h'p fatherhood, which Islam stresses. To the Muslim, whatever
Allah wills is good.
To fh« re]jfrjr>'-n9t. whose deity has become *mr>ersonai. the suturing
which does not yield to eommonsense remedies is generally still re
garded as a spur to abandonment of the worldlv way of living. It is
worth pointing out. however, that he has less need than his personal-
istieallv-believing neighbors for iusHfying the fact that suffering does
exist, for unless God has personality, He does not fit easily into our
system of judgments.
This theological position lends itself easily to another — which ap
peals especially to the philosophic mind, namely, the position of sub
jective idealism, which claims to solve the problem of evil by denying
Its existence as reality.
Although this view was probably known to Indians two mlllenlums
ago, it was not until the seventh or eighth century that it was eiven
a masterly formulation by Sankara. Among the Vedantistic philosophies,
that one which he wrote 1nt<-> the Uoanishads finds that nature might
be interpreted both esoterically and exoterically. For common people
the exoteric interpretation seemed to be necessary; and by this in-
ternretation the phenomenal worlds, man, God, etc., have a real exist
ence; but for persons of superior discernment, the esoteric truth mani
fested itself that all these things are, in reality, maya (or illusion)
and that there exists really only the supreme Brahman, the spirit of the
universe, with which our soul also is identified. It follows, therefore,
that for the followers of this subjective idealism evil does not exist
at all.
The initiate into Buddhism declares "I take my refuee in the
Buddha and the Dharma and the Sangha." If we ask, "Refuge from
what?" the answer is: "from the sorrow which is of the essence of in
dependent existence."

107
 The search for a scholar to place against Buddha Is rery difficult.
The man I shall take, however, is not one who pretends to refute the
widespread existence of sorrow, but who does attack certain assump
tions in Buddha's philosophy, namely, Dr. Sigmund Freud.
Freud would confirm Buddha's statement that sorrow is inevitable
wherever there is desire, and also Buddha's contention that if we wish
to get rid of a susceptibility to unhappiness, it is aui*e likely we must
realize that this implies getting rid of a susceptibility to happiness
as well. Where Freud would begin to part company with Buddha would
be that he would question whether the elimination of all susceptibility
to pain really makes for happiness. Freud would maintain that a mode
of life which retreats from experiencing elation and depression, i. e.,
really evades life itself, is contrary to our nature, and means that life
on the whole is on a lower rather than a higher effective level. Ad
ditionally, Freud would very definitely oppose Buddha's claims that his
technique actually did result in the elimination of desires. He would
say, rather, that it would result in repression of desires and reversion
from ^duH dpRfr^s to more infontil? ones.
This Is, however, somewhat beside our point, the great importance
of which is that Buddha recognised that sorrow is the ultimate evil,
that its absence is good, and that whatever eliminates it, is right.
The Buddha's teaching about evil was the heart of his philosophy,
and except for his over-emphasizing it to the point of excluding most
of the compensating good in life from his picture, it was highly realistic.
He was altogether realistic, for example, in pointing out that to save
mankind from sorrow is the greatest and most rational aim that a re
former can have —one compared with which all others are subordinate.
As I describe in another chapter, he made the first of his four noble
truths that of the existence of sorrow; the second, that of sorrow's
cause and the third, that of sorrow's ceasing. The fourth truth, the
"eightfold path," was s;mply a mnre detail id statement of the steps
by which this ceasing of sorrow was to be brought about. While we
may question whether he was correct in some of his views, the ego-
impulses were certainly strongly involved in setting his problem for
him.
Leaving the East and turning our attention to Europe, we note that
Pythagorus, on his return to Greece from a sojourn in Egypt promi
nently sponsored the theory of transmigration. He toured many shrines
throughout the country to help in local religious revivalist efforts, for
indeed Dill, according to Hastings Encyclopedia "has shown tint to
wards the beginning of the Christian era, Graeco-Roman philosophy
became evangelical; it sent out an array of preachers to convert men to
a higher and purer ideal."
By the Stoics, the great impulse to the philosophic life was held
to be experience of evil. Indeed, they so stressed the importance of
evil as a disciplinary agent as to become its most complete exonerators.
They found a consistent solution for the dilemma of pain existing in
a universe supposed to be governed by Goodness, in the hypothesis that
the greatest good is not happiness at all, but character-development
per se. I find it very difficult to accept this hypothesis of the Stoics,
and am quite in agreement with the author of the article on "Good and
Evil" in Has'Ang's Encyclopedia, who remarks that it "does not explain
the suffering which destroys the very possibility of moral improvement
e. g., by reducing a mind to imbecility."
Let us resume, now, the topic of subjective idealism on which we
touched in connection with Sankara and Buddha. In Western Europe,
the extreme note of this viewpoint was sounded in modern times by
Bishrp Berkeley carrying further the speculations of Locke and Leibnitz,
who had pointed out that it is only through sensation that we have
come to know objects at all. Berkeley postulated that there was really
no proof that anything beyond sensation does exist, and to the ques
tion: "How, then, if nothing exists, but our ideas, do two people come
IQ8
to have the same idea, as, for instance, of the existence of this pulpit
in front of us?" he answered that both were affected at once by the
ideas which were in the mind of God.
There lived in New England at the beginning of last century a
travelling mesmerist by the name of Quimby, who always carried in
one hand a copy of the Bible and in the other a copy of Bishop
Berkeley's book. All his life Quimby tried to form a synthesis of the
Bible with the Berkeleian philosophy as the theoretical basis for his
method of mental healing, which he said would then be a "science."
Quimby had as one of his patients an hysterical woman who afterwards
gave lectures on his methods and who, during one winter re-wrote
the notes he. had lent her, together with comments of her own, into a
text which she published under the title of Science and Health and
Key to the Scriptures. This lady— Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy— thus became,
if somewhat at second hand, another seer with a solution of the problem
of the existence of evil, namely, that evil is what she called an error
of mortal mind. Her followers, the "Christian Scientists" are taught
that "there is no evil," and we must presume that Mrs. Eddy over
looked all the numerous Biblical references to evil as a reality, and
in particular that verse in Isaiah where the Lord admits he himself
creates evil.
We will now turn our attention to the modern substitutes for re
ligion, to see how they handle the problem of affliction, and the like.
The spur to a changed life which pricks the Communist into wake
fulness is traditionally, uneoual poverty. Marx's Manifesto begins:
"Workers of the world, unite!" and the words of the stirring song, The
Internationale: "Arise ve prisoners of starvation!" require no further
explanation. The devil's new name is Capitalism; he was put into
the world by the Materialist Dialectic in order to give birth via State
Socialism (which is the proper appellation of the present regime in
Russia) to the blessed future condition of a true and full Communism.
To international communism, imperium sine fine dedit except only as
it shall melt away imperceptibly by the decreasing necessity of com
pulsion on a perfected humanity, into anarchist voluntarism. It is for
this salvation from the hell of a competitive society with its slums,
ghettos and greeds, and the wars they breed, that we are finally re-
d°°m°d bv the wcrds and works of our saviour, Marx, and his inter
preter, Lenin.
It was not only in Russia in 1917, that the glad tidings of how Marx
had lived and died for our redemption spread like an epidemic among
the proletariat, although there alone did whole villages come forth
to receive the new baptism, for the convulsion that raised the hammer
and sickle in place of the cross travelled around the world, frightening
the propertied classes and bringing hope and the gift of tongues to
downtrodden elements in every continent.
Communism emphatically bases itself upon an avowal of intent
to deal realistically with the ills of the world, placing its emphasis, of
course, on the economic ills as being the ultimate and complete expla
nation of all miseries. While this exaggeration departs, as do all ex
aggerations, from realism, it owes itself chiefly to the very strength of
the ego-trends which are so closely identified with what we call "eco
nomic." The Marxian's concern with those of his own troubles which
are of an industrial nature, and by identification, of his sympathetic
distress at the similar troubles of o^her members of the working
class necessarily gives rise to the illusion that if only a sufficiently
dras ic revolution in our industrial order could be engineered, every
other reform would follow more or less automatically.
Wi'h regard to fascism. I have s^own in an earlier chapter how in
the mistica fascista the ardent fascist is taught that present trials and
tribulations are to be looked upon as the anvil upon which is to be
forged the noble spirit of a re-born Italy.
109
 For nazism, the forward (or backward, if the reader prefers) stim
ulus is given by many of the same prods as are effective for the fas
cist, although with a slight change of emphasis.
The humiliation which all Germans have been continually told
they suffered as a result of the Versailles Treaty is supposed to be in
tolerable. This treaty implied that they alone were guilty of provoking
the last Great War and made of them a kind of outcast adolescent na
tion condemned to a perpetuity of paying impossible reparations, but
deprived of playing with real weapons such as the grown-up nations
wore. The strength of German sensitivity on this point generated a
comp'ete myth about the war and the peace, according to which the
former had been forced upon a lamb-like Deu^schland by greedv foes
who. impotent to overcome her in the field, had deceived her peace-
loving innocence by means of Wilson's fourteen points, and then raped
her.
Then comes Hitler with power to save those who trust him. from
such an evil world, and althoueh the war-loving democracies are pic
tured as raging all about, trying to encircle Germania and imprison
her in her tower, this knight supposedly regards it as a divine duty to
defend her.
The conclusions which we may draw from the preceding remarks
have to do with impulsions which, in the view of the religious, have
set, men's feet on the path of spiritual development. These impul
sions are human ills and thev mav be real <e. q.. death) or they mav be
imaginary. It is also necessary for us to deal with the problem of the
persistence of evil in a morally governed universe and with the nature
of conversion.
Our inmiiry seems to have s^own that religions consider that the
impulse which most, often launches men aloner the path of spiritual
progression is wanting to he rid of misfnrtune-brinerinsr ceremonial
uncleanness. fear of hell nr despair at the insecurity of worldly achieve
ments—in a word, suffering.
This conclusion is substantiated bv general observation, which shows
that a frequent effect nf the experience of deep frustraMon is to turn
us from the whole nolicv of life which we have been pursuing during
thf unsatisfactorv time into another policv of life which we hope will
yield more beneficent results; or. if one aspect of personalities has been
dominant, a hitherto suppressed aspect mav appear. Quite apart from
religion, me'n have thus been suddenly struck by a deep consciousness of
an entirely new attitude to life, and it is noteworthy that some have ex
perienced conversions awnv from religion.
The same facts may also be substantiated from psychiatric sources.
C. M'w"r'. in the Psvchnanalvtic Rfviein (p. 96) writes that:
"When dangers threaten mental peace or physical health,
the instinct of fear counsels men to retreat from an in
tolerable situation. Viewed thus, relieion appears to be a
psychical flight from a dark and threatening reality. The
sensitive. person who feels inwardly incapable of resisting
the blows of fortune seeks escape from the real present
in a religious world of phantasy or faith. Religion is indeed
a safety valve for the strained mind."
We find that pain and affliction play their part in the psychological
outlook on life. In his book Surprise and the Psycho-analyst, Theodore
Reik states that before a psychoanalysis can penetrate "to the deepest
and most sensitive plane of our personality, it can only force an en
trance with pain." He goes on:
"The subjective capacity to suffer or, better, the capacity
to accept and assimilate painful knowledge, is one of the
most important prognostical marks of analytical study . . .
rp„ c^r-. rairwivn? tt->5-> c-r^gyrnss involves sparing our
selves psychological insight."
110
 Finally we may reinforce the point by what seems a biological
analogy. E. N. Marais, in speculating as he does on pp. Ill to 113 of
The Soul 0/ the White Ant (1937) about the origin of that glorious phe
nomenon, the love of a mammal mother for her offspring, concludes,
"Birth pain is the key which unlocks the doors to mother-
love, in all animals from the termite queen to the whale.
Where pain is negligible, mother love and care are feeble.
Where pain is absent, there is absolutely no mother love."
Marais then goes on to describe experiments he made which sup
port his contention. Using a herd of sixty half-wild buck, known in
South Africa as Kaffir Buck, he first observed six cases of birth during
full anaesthesia of the mother induced by chloroform and ether and in
all six cases the mother refused to accept her offspring. Then, in order
to prove "that refusal on the part of these mothers was not due to the
g :ii.rai disturbance caused by the anesthetics used," Marais observed

after delivery was made, but before she had seen her lamb ...
six cases in which the mother was put under chloroform immediately
all six cases the mother accepted her lamb without any doubt the mo
in

ment she became conscious." Marais also conducted similar experi

ments on births during periods of paralysis of consciousness and of
feeling that were induced by the American arrow-poison, curare — with
like results.
We must admit that these experiments certainly do appear to
bear out fully Marais' statement that mother love is consequent on
the birth-pains experienced by the mother, although much more evi
dence is needed before his hypothesis can be regarded as substantiated.
I cannot accept his conclusion in the sweeping way he presents it be
cause my own younger daughter Jennifer was born under conditions
of local anaesthesia so perfect that during the parturition her mother
kept up a lively repartee with the attending doctors and me, and yet
her affection for Jennifer goes quite beyond the ordinary. But possibly
the inconveniences incidental to the pregnancy period were a substitute
for the usual birth pains.
Some efforts have been made in the past to establish a theory that
the good and ill in life, always balance one another? (The reader will
recall Emerson's famous essay on "Compensation.") I do not think,
however, that there is now any room left for this idea, for every psy
chiatrist knows that in the disease called melancholia, a person may for
years be plunged into the most unrelieved state of misery with attempts
at suicide, and may swing to the opposite pole of mania either only
very briefly or not at all.
The question whether, for the average person, life is predominantly
pleasant or unpleasant, has passed from idle debate to statistical study,
as many interesting experiments prove. Prof. J. C. Flugel several years
ago asked a number of persons to record hourly over a period of several
days their affective states; the total result was positive for most, but
not for all subjects. Again, L. D. Whistler and H. H. Remmers describe
in the November, 1938 Journal of Social Psychology the result of an' in
quiry which showed that life is quite satisfactory for the average Pur
due student, and that students think they are happier than their
parents.
Similar studies have shown that humiliated "races," such as Ameri
can negroes and Jews, are more depressed than the more socially dom
inant groups.
While admitting that these investigations have a certain amount
of scientific value, I personally would not place too great reliance
on their results, as there appear to me distinct possibilities that grave
errors may at times occur; particularly when one attempts to com
pare the results of experiments conducted under different sets of cir
cumstances or conditions. Even though such differences may appear
trifling, a huge margin of error may eventually result.
Ill
 Sinner's Death and Satan's Triumph

Death is the most dramatic and final of all man's frustrations.

On this account one's own demise can never be viewed with indifference
by the normal hormic human or other animal, and only the world-
weary or philosophically sophisticated can regard the solaces which
death also offers as compensation. The death of our friends involves
feelings of the most complicated kind. These include frustrated love,
remorse for the aggressive acts and wishes expressed towards the
deceased in his lifedme, and secret pleasure in the departure of one
towards whom jealousy and not affection alone was felt.
In mourning for the departed, many emotions of our earliest infancy
are revived. Quite early in our chilahood we lose, in a mental sense,
the parents of our infancy. That is to say we become more observant
and also more critical of those two fantastically wise, powerful
and loving-us-only beings which our father and mother appeared, to
our imagination, in that period to be.
It is these early subjective pictures of the parents, their imagos,
which we go on trying, for the rest of our lives, to replace, and the
less of other dear ones which we may sustain in later life that is largely
so unbearable for us because it recalls how in infancy we lost our
monopolistic possession of mother and father.
Mrs. Melanie Klein well described the psychological aspect of these
emotions in a paper to the British Psycho-analytic Society on the 19th
of OctODer, 19iJ8. Her abstract stated:
"The infantile depressive position, which plays a central
part in the child's development, recurs whenever in later
life pain or sorrow is experienced. This depressive position
arismg lirst in babyhoou is mourning on a small scale. The
mourned object is the mother's breast and the whole loved
mother. Tnroughout the processes of internalization she
has come to stand in the infant's mind for inner goodness
and security. Her destruction is leared and she is being
mourned because of die child's uncontrollable greed and
hatred . . .
Faiiuru to experience mourning is due to the paranoid
fears of internal persecutors who must be maniacally con-
112
 trolled and denied. The psrs3cutors are often projected into
the outer world and manifested as hypochondria. In this
type of person, feelings are s;rongly inhibited and persecu
tory fears parly increased as an escape from guilt and the
painfulness of mourning."
Besides these unavoidable ills of life, there are others which man's
own imagination creates for him. The psychologist is especially in
terested in the way in which these are created, for information on this
point should make the ills impossible to him who fully understands;
nevertheless, it should not lead him to minimize the reality which
they have for the uninformed. How are we to account for the choice
of words used when life is described as sweet or bitter? Is it unreas
onable to suspect that these particular terms have intruded themselves
because the psychological sensaiion for which they stand were very
much in the religious person's un"onscious mind? They intruded, that
is to say, because the theological topic under discussion afforded him
an analogy viih cer'ain experiences regarding food and drink, about
which he had a fixation.
This may be an appropriate time to go back to a topic earlier
touched on. We have seen that religion after religion, from the most
primitive to the most advanced, has tended to consider sin as something
which could be scraped off the skin, washed away with water, or other
wise treated as though it were filth. Then why not accept as fact the
simple conclusion, that to the religious mind, sin is filth? With what
especial filth is it, however, that obsessions tend to grow up? When
ever such obsessions have been submitted to analysts, it turns out that
mud, dirt, clay and all substances that may be said to have the
character of soiling, are ultimately only screens for, and symbols of,
the one which the infant makes earliest and most effectively tinged
contact with, his own excreta. The horror of this material, the as-
s'^ci°tf"v> f^mH ?« pnri'ftcjt ch^d hnr>rt, r>et."""»en "nasty" and "naughty"
is responsible for fixation on this line of thought.
And now an explanatory word on still another of the phenomena
we have described, the creation of unreal fears. It may seem strange,
perhaps, that man, who has already so many pains and difficulties
in this world, must imagine additional ones for himself in another
life, which be really knows no+hing about. But just as, when a coun
try is at war, the non-combatants who must remain far from the
fierce delights of the field of carnage recompense themselves by re
tailing atrocity stories, exaggerating them and wallowing in them, so
sadists within the various religions create a mythology of suffering.
Some busy themselves with derails of the tortures administered under
persecution to martyrs of the faith — what would medieval Europe have
done wi'hout St. S'ephen to depict? Others elaborate the refinements
of suffering which their God has in store for all who differ from
themselves.
We saw that as soon as religions developed to the point of a mono
theism which postulated a God at once omnipotent and benevolent, it
was faced with the most difficult of the problems which theology has
been called on to solve — that of justifying the existence of evil to those
who trust that the cosmos is ultimately moral. This is truly a difficult
problem, for we have more evidence than we can easily doubt that
some of the suffering and other evils bring with them no compensating
gains at all —-no building of character, for example, but only destruc
tion anrf disheartepment, frequency on a colossal scale.
There was a time when an answer seemed to be eriven bv comparing
the Almighty to an earthly fa+ber who chastises his children to im
prove them, but if we look on God as a father whose concern is that
his children should develop their best potentialities, then the modern
man sees no evidence of His pedagogical knowledge in the infliction of
the terrific catastrophes which are now overwhelming races and per
sons. A good father, by the modern conception, does not carry the
113
discipline of his child to the point of breaking its limbs and ruining
its health, or even breaking its will, and two whole generations of
educators, from Pestalozzi and Froebel down to Dewey, Montessori, De-
croly and others have taught us to mistrust chastisement, anyway, in
favor of vigilant encouragement of a child's good efforts.
Idealists claim that evil is merely the negation of good or is an
"error" consisting in imagining as real what has no existence outside
the mind. We have, however, already seen that this is no solution but
only a calling by a new name, since it must now be explained why
God permits "errors" to wreck lives and characters. Yet most of the
religions have found it hard to see its glaring fallacy. We may well
ask — why?
The first reason is, that they have been led to deny the "greatest
happiness" test of goodness, and because traditionally and for psycho
logical reasons which we need not discuss here, they have always put
such a high value on the due observance of rites, including the keep
ing the letter rather than the spirit of ritual and ethical rules. When,
therefore, in times of public calamity, they find their fellows more
prone than before to throng the temples and assist at the observances,
they may even convince themselves that, for the sake of this passing
piousness, God was justified in having brought the calamity to pass.
Another reason is, that a person who believes in a life hereafter
for which the present one is merely a preparation, can afford to be
more tolerant of earthly evils than a person who has no hope of the
balance being readjusted beyond the grave. For the believer, even
to be burnt at the stake may logically and rationally seem good, since
martyrdom leads to heaven; but the skeptic has no such consolation.
The greatest reason of all is, howevef, that the unconscious iden
tification of a personal God with the beloved father of our infancy
makes us unwilling to admit any limitation to either his power or his
love of us.
This brings us to the important point, that for those who do not
accept a personal god, or do not claim that he has power over anything
but the hearts of his worshippers, the enigma of the persistence of
evil is easier to accept, for such persons can proceed simply to make
the best case of matters as they find them.
Now let me sum up so that we may decide the proper attitude we
are to adopt to this question of Affliction.
First we will consider the possible good that can result from it,
and we will admit that although the world is full of futile tragedies,
unremedied injustices ?md the eternal as well as irreparable loss of
many values, we can yet realize that frequently what threatens to be
pure loss can be turned at least to a partly compensatory advantage
by searching for a lesson to be learned from it.
Biologically, the function of unpleasantness of experience is to dis
courage us from repeating unsuccessful types of adjustment. The hurt
of a fall teaches us not to proceed so clumsily. The hurt of a snub from
our social group teaches us to respect the tribal customs. Cases where
unhappiness simply prevents further development — as where a fall from
a bicycle discourages us from further attempts at learning — are sim
ply cases where an ordinarily serviceable mechanism has gone wrong.
Again, affliction may be the means of bringing us certain quali
ties, the lack of which in our character are serious weaknesses. Of
such, the first is doubtless a capacity to sympathi7e with others who are
in distress. To be sure, adversity makes some people merely bitter and
cynical, but it may also be said that gently compassionate natures are
not born except through much pain. Affliction gives to human per
sonality a certain depth which leaves it better anchored than it was
before. The sheltered child flits about from pleasure to pleasure, say
ing and doing many bright things, but we probably value more a differ
ent kind of sweetness in the person matured without having been em
114
bittered by the disappointments of life. This is much the same as saying
that wisdom is largely brought by pain and disillusionment.
Finally, the function of adversity may be to generate in us a whole
some despair of all the quack nostrums for, and short-cuts out of di
lemmas, together with desperation-born persistence in pursuing the
at last appreciated only true road. A case in point is where a neurotic
who has been hoping for a quick cure from tnis or that charlatan, or
by joining this or that cult, at last settles down to an (always long)
psychoanalysis.
So much for the good that may evolve from affliction — now let us
turn to the other side of the picture.
The outlook on life which I have adopted, which regards happiness
as one, if not ultimately the only, self-sufficient good, cannot consis
tently admit that affliction is purely, in itself, anything but evil.
By nature, every creature shrinks from pain, sorrow and every kind
of unhappiness which it has experienced. Such experiences are, in
deed, as has been said, the very factors which first evoked from us the
characterization "bad" — bad to an infant means simply that an object
causes unpleasant effects. The only ways in which our minds can come
to think of an unpleasant thing as other than bad are: by finding it
less unpleasant than its alternative— taking one's medicine, for instance,
is less unpleasant than being spanked for refusing it — or, by finding
it is followed by a compensating pleasure, such as when a child's giving
away of a treasured toy brings forth such signs of extreme delight in
the recipient as make the child wish to repeat the experience.
The "beauty of self-sacrifice for its own sake" has been lauded; but
this is entirely unnatural, and from either a social (vide Herbert Spen
cer) or a psychological standpoint it is morbid. Self-sacrifice can con
tinue to recommend itself to a normal person only when he finds reason
to believe that its pain to him has been outbalanced by sparing its
object still greater pain, or by the gain of some ultimately pain-sparing
or pleasure-bringing quality such as self-discipline.
These remarks hold true of all other kinds of unpleasure. I repeat
that unpleasure is in itself evil. He who would justify it must snow
that it wards off ills that are greater still or that it brings compensatory
good. War is not justified because it develops courage; nor is poverty,
because it develops thrift; nor is punishment, because it develops re
spectfulness, unless courage spares more pain than war brings, thrift
spares more than poverty destroys, respectfulness creates more high
spirits than punishments kill, etc.
Affliction does not cease to be evil because some good comes out of it,
but only if so much happiness finally results as not merely might (if
men were philosophers) but actually does (men being what they are)
balance the total of misery and discouragement of all concerned.

115
 Varah, Avator of Vishnu, Atop a Demon

Chapter VIII.
Saints and Slayers of Monsters
Skillfully magnanimous living was the recipe I recommended in my
previous chapter 10 those who wished to create the state of mind which
yields happiness. And now I propose to consider several mechods, all
of which nave enlisted the zeal of millions of men, by which it has
been hoped that such a perfection of conduct might itself be developed.
Those who succeed in living out an ideal supremely esteemed by
their fellows are called heroes. If the ideal is a religious one, the hero
is called a prophet, saint, yogin, sanayasin, etc. But by what road does
the cult claim that one reacnes the mere foot of these mountains of
achievement, before he is strong enough to have much hope of as
cending?
The answer is given in two words: by sacrifice. But according to
the crudity or refinement of the particular religion considered, the na
ture of the sacrifice expected will vary. At the bottom is the brutal
butchery of animals ana men. Sometimes this becomes a mere memory
reflected in myths of the slaying of a monster. Or the slayer may turn
inward, mortifying himself with asceticism. Humility and piety spring
from a like root. Finally, the demand may be only for a renunciation of
unethical behavior in the interest of self-discipline or of altruism.
In animal sacrifices, note distinct features in two of the stages of
early human culture.
Under tolemism, each clan looks on one species of animal as a clan-
member, calls it "father" and treats injury of it on a par with parricide
— but periodically all the clan collectively kill their own totem and eat
him.
In the primitive agricultural stage, men think that a victim's blood
will make their fields fertile or that an offering of its heart will appease
116
some deity. The value of the sacrifice is now thought to vary with the
"nobility" of the victim, until in India, in Vedic times, the puja of a horse
was considered the suitable one for a king to make. By some, a human
victim was considered the noblest offering of all, and the more so if
he was renowned or of royal blood. The hope that the good qualities
of a victim passed into those who ate his flesh was a further stimulus
to cannibalism.
But self-interest combined with ethical disgust to bring about
the eventual decline of these practices. The way sometimes — e. g., in
ancient Inca religion — was paved by baking and eating, as substitutes,
dough images of ,a man. Observe, though, that sacrifice was a much
too complex phenomenon to be described as mere buying of favors
from the gods. And not only are the malevolent rather than the kindly-
disposed spirits first appeased, but the type of appeasement offered
to even the good ones is often such as further complicates the question.
Thus, the Egyptians circumcised all male infants — that is, partially
or symbolically castrated them.
Orthodox Jews and Moslems, in perpetuating this hoary Egyptian
custom, today may "rationalize" it as an hygienic measure but are
careful not to attempt to support their claim with any clinical cases.
Anciently also, the Jews immolated animals to Jahveh. So long
as the temple at Jerusalem was standing, these offerings were made
there alone and never in a synagogue.^ For this reason (to which add,
that the prophets had for some time been demanding a purer form of
worship) the fall of Jerusalem and dispersion of the tribes involved the
end of the sacred slaughter. It was unfortunate that no corresponding
event could have ended circumcision also, and before Mohammed came
upon the scene and gave the barbaric custom (do not ignore its emo
tional effects on infant victims) a fresh lease on life.
When it is Christianity we are examining for sacrificial rites, we
find that, to its infinite credit, none of its sects, unless some hybrid
ones, like voodoo, has reverted to animal sacrifices.
The cross, nevertheless, stands to most Christians pre-eminently as
the symbol of sacrifice. So much has been written on this emblem,
which dates from at least several centuries B. C, that such brief com
ments as I could spare space for here would be banal. As to why it
should have served also as the sign for torture, less has been written.
Dr. H. D. J. White offers an ingenious explanation when he suggests
that it was previously used as an instrument for measuring the move
ments of the sun and was thus peculiarly applicable for the last rites
of man who, as sometimes among the ancient culture-peoples, was
to impersonate the sun.
Now let us leave the religions and consider the modern totalitarian
substitutes for them. Each of the three regimes, communism, fascism
and nazism has been founded on a "revolution" involving passionate
action and the spilling of blood.
In Russia, it began with the slaughter by the mob of thousands of
the nobility and of the Tsar's family. It has continued through the offi
cial execution of appalling numbers of persons accused of counter
revolutionary activities — modern sacrifices of tens of thousands of hu
mans, causing Nicholas Berdyaev to liken communism to a recrudes
cence of the cult of Moloch, the state deity to whom children were
offered as sacrifices in ancient times.
In Italy, fascism came upon the scene to the same accompaniment
of assassinations, and during its first ten years of power it offered up
its political enemies upon its bleeding altars. Labor leaders and social
ist mayors of cities were tortured with castor oil or ciubbed by black-
shirted "storm troops"; politicians whose opposition was particularly
stubborn were murdered in cold blood.
The classic example of fascism's sacrificial victims was Giacomo
Matteoti. On June 7th, 1924, in the Italian Chamber this cultured so
cialist deputy, a doctor of law, began to liken fascism to communism,
117
and to embarrass Mussolini with questions. Mussoiini could only shout
back his regrets that Italians did not imitate Russian methods with op
ponents, in which case "You would be in jail — or against a wall." Three
days later, as Matteoti left his house, five fascists struck him down,
"took him for a ride," and disposed of the body. One of the assailants,
Cesare Rossi, in December wrote a confession which involved Mussolini's
complicity in this and also in other maimings and killings by strong-arm
gangs. It became necessary to put the Matteoti murder squad on trial;
their chief, Dumini, was sentenced to five years for homicide, but was
amnestied after twelve months.
When the National-Socialist party rose to power in Germany, as
sassination once more became the favorite political weapon. The
tale cf sacrificial victims of the new movement mounted by thousands
as communists, socialists, labor unionists and internationalists were
tortured and died in concentration camps. It is well-known how in
dividual leaders of the movement made "sacrifices" of their personal
rivals.
While Hitler has adopted this method on many occasions, it was
Goering who commenced the method for, according to Icarus in his
Goering the Successor, the fat Herman even back in the first world
war, when he was in charge of an air squadron, used to order his
officers:
"to drive British and French planes in front of Goering's
machine so that he could finish them off. In this way Air-
Commander Goering acquired glory as a daring killer, while
his comrades-in-arms acquired glory as heroes fallen in
battle."
So the custom of sacrifice has continued throughout the ages.
The question naturally arises, "Why has humanity persisted in its
belief in the efficacy of such acts?"
I have already mentioned the interpretation Freud places upon
the sacrificing of animals — that, in the killing of a "totem," the sac-
rificer is slaying symbolically a father of whom he is jealous, although
slaying the real father would have been prevented by the fact that
part of us loves and part of us stands in awe of the father. So we
regard his death as a ground for sorrow or remorse or guilt. Probably
the truest psychological explanation is that the sacrifice made on
behalf of any object, even if this object be our own psychological de
velopment, is like the price which a merchant has demanded for a pur
chase and which gives the object a higher value in the buyer's eyes.
This is one of the reasons why psychological clinics always' demand
some payment from patients, even if the amount be so small that as
a real contribution to expenses it is negligible. An analogous custom
is that whereby those who approach an Indian holy man for advice
place before him some gift, even if it be only a flower.
Against such beneficial effects must be placed the opinion which
Freud has somewhere expressed, that no sacrifice ever is made without
engendering some unconscious resentment against the person to whom
it was offered. At least, those who are ready to sacrifice themselves
are usually also disposed to sacrifice others.
Maeterlinck has written sage counsel on self-sacrifice in his Wis
dom and Destiny. The following excerpts are from a translation quoted
by O'Dell in the February, 1940, Standard:
"There is beauty in simple self-sacrifice when its hour has
come unsought, when its motive is happiness of others;
but it cannot be wise, or of use to mankind, to make sacri
fice the aim of one's life . . .Let us wait until the hour of
sacrifice sounds; till then, each man to his work."
Let us proceed to a second topic. Many of the religious heroes
have been killers of dragons or of other mythical monsters.
US
 All Rescues Follower from a Djinn

Even primitive peoples can name some great hunter or warrior

whom they revere — Hiawatha is a well-known example from American
savages — and as we turn the pages of history we find absolutely in
numerable examples of these demi-gods constantly occurring. Let
us just recall some of the most popular.
Among the Shinto myths of Japan we have Susa No Wo journeying
to the province of Idzumo, where he slays an eight-headed serpent
and rescues a beautiful maiden whom he takes for wife and who bears
him 181 children.
The Egyptians believed that the sun-god was swallowed by a dread
ful creature every night, but as regularly built a fire in his belly and
fought his way out by morning.
The Babylonians and Assyrians recounted a victory of the god,
Marduk, over the dragon Tiamat. This tale may have developed into
the Homeric Greeks' myth of the war of the gods against the Titans
and the Hepatonshires. The Greeks also told how Bellerophon slew
his chimera; Perseus, his gorgon and Heracles, his hydra, besides
once taking over for a short time the task of Atlas, who supported the
heavens upon his shoulders and thus kept Father Heaven from lying
upon Mother Earth.
The Teutonic mythology, with its Aesir-folk battling against giants,
its dragon, Fafnir and its heroes made known to us through Wagnerian
opera, manifests similar themes.
The earliest Hindu mythology offers us a rich selection of herowi
119
 who slew their monsters. Fundamental as type of monster was the
great Naga serpent which is twined round the earth with its tail in its
mouth. It is, I believe, still alive, but it was defeated in a terrific
fight.
It looks as though the Jews had had a story of the dragon-slaying
sort, which later had been expurgated from the Bible except for the
tell-tale fragment in Isaiah, IX, 6:
"The Lord shall punish Leviathan, that crooked serpent, and
shall slay the dragon that is in the sea."
When we come to Christianity there is some difficulty in deciding
whether any particular Christian legend was not pagan in origin. .
Taking them' at their face value, however, we have several widely-
known heroes who vanquished dragons or serpents. To Englishmen,
the best known of these is St. George. One well-known in France
is Roger, the painting (hy Ingres) of whose rescue of Angelique makes
us quite certain that it is plagiarized from the Greek tale of Perseus
and the gorgon Medusa. And in Ireland, or course, the outstanding
story is that of how St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of the country.
When we come to the present time, how obtrusive we find the
"heroes" of the totalitarian states to be!
Communism's trio of supreme dragon-slayers are Marx, Lenin and
Stalin. Each in his turn had an heroic tilt against the dragon of
capitalism. Marx did so with his venom-dripping pen, which suc
ceeded at least in making the monster howl and showed all men where
its lair was. Lenin drove it out of Russia, killing its allies, Tsarism and
the Holy Synod. Stalin claims to have continued the fight.
Fascism is not behind any cult in having its ogres and monsters
and their heroic slayers. I was surprised to learn in Italy in 1940
that the chief dragon or devil was definitely not communism but "pluto-
democracy" with "Jewish communism" as a mere consort thereto; while
socialism, pacifism and all other leftist movements are little dragonlets
to practice upon. The Versailles treaty, which was an unflattering
comment on what the Allies had thought of Italy's help in the war,
was to be amended. In smiting these, Mussolini became the St. George
of the Italian middle-classes; a St. George with a gift for theatricality
which went down well with his countrymen and with a newspaper train
ing which has served him in the art of self -publicity.
The hero-in-chief saw that honors were done to all his assistants
in the fascist coup d'etat. Such of his ruffians as were injured in the
early brawls were dubbed martyrs; I have visited the special vault under
the church of Sta. Croce, the Westminster Cathedral of Florence, where
many of their bodies then rested, with a rifleman standing guard.
But Mussolini always took good care that Italy should have no live
aspirant to honors, strong enough to rival himself, even the royal house
of Savoy being kept well in the background. If any personage seemed
on the road to becoming a popular hero, measures were taken to see the
process never went too far. Many people regarded the death of Mar
shal Balbo as a fairly obvious case in point. According to an Italian
report, Balbo was killed in an air encounter with British fighter-planes.
The British, however, state that the reported action never took place!
The popularity of a hero is uniquely knitted up with the degree
of success which fate, as much as his own abilities, metes out to himself
and his followers; for the most revered kings and queens of all coun
tries have always been those who reigned during seasons of good har
vests or prosperous years of trade or when the nation's' armies or navies
fought well.
Mussolini's early successes built up his prestige. When it might
have tottered under the burden of debt into which he had sunk his
country, the half-hearted threats of sanctions against Italy's Abyssinian
gamble were a veritable godsend to him. He could pose to the Italians
as defying on their behalf all the powerful countries whom they had
hitherto looked up to as their superiors— and as "getting away with it."
120
 Roger Rescues Angelique
(A painting in the Louvre)

But a dictator has to be repeating such successes constantly or

fate catches up with him. In April, 1940, I found discontent and criti
cism again raising their heads in Italy. The very first cabby who drove
us around Florence pointed to the Grand Hotel, now closed, and went
into a long harangue on the decline of tourist trade and of living con
ditions. I was surprised at the large proportion of the Italians whom
I met who dared, when we were not in public, to speak very critically
of Mussolini. They were less disciplined than the Germans.
As the nazi movement was an essentially emotional one inspired
by Hitler's effective oratorical exploitation of the sense of national
humiliation, enough nazis were soon killed in fights for the Fuehrer
to proclaim them as "martyrs."
However, we must admit that a greater tolerance for other heroes
than himself has been shown by Adolf than by Benito. Psychologically
well-cast for this role, living aloof like an eagle on his mountain peak
(where auditions and visions are vouchsafed him) and pouncing thence
to straighten out the affairs of men when they require it, he remains
the Wotan —or at least the Sigmund of the new Saga.
As dragon-slayer, Hitler cleverly scotched communism in Germany
through his ruse of the trumped-up Reichstag fire — although the drag
on's blood has become prolific under subsequent persecution. But
Goering, Goebbels and von Ribbentrop were also out for honor, with
Streicher (until September 1940) leading all the others in the knightly
sport of rescuing Germans from the Jew-dragon; Himmler is also to
be counted in, and Hess was, until he flew to England.
Yet from conversations I had with Germans whom I met during
the visit to Florence just recorded, and especially through their over
anxious questions as to what America and the rest of the world thought
of the Fuehrer, I received the impression that Hitler's hold was slipping
among at least the intelligent class of persons. One man for whose
judgment I formed a good deal of respect was frank enough to say
that even if Germany won the war, she would not retain Hitler in office.
This educated man felt that the mantle would fall upon Goering.
As we round off the present section of this chapter, we come to
the conclusion that the dragon-slayer myths which we have examined
seem to carry out in phantasy the same theme as the sacrificial ritual
121
did in fact. The mythical hero slays his dragon as the priest would
slay a sacred victim. So also does the hero of a totalitarian regime.
If we were correct in supposing that the victim on the altar rep
resented the Father in his hated aspect, then the dragon too would
seem to be no other than he. This would suggest that there always
will be a demand for heroes to slay dragons, since the image of our
Father, being always with us, is eternal. But perhaps the race will
learn some day to discriminate between dragon-slayers on the basis
of something more trustworthy than their own self-evaluation.
Our attention in this chapter has, till now, been given, then, first
to the ceremonial sacrificing of animals or of human beings by other hu
mans, and secondly to the slaying of dragons by popular heroes of all
times and places. We come now to the most "unnatural," in a certain
sense of the word, of all the features of religion, that of asceticism,
or the presentation of one's own body as the object of sacrifice.
Self-mortification is found even among savages, and there are
many interesting accounts of the varied methods used by primitive
peoples. Early missionaries in North America describe how among the
Algonquins the young men, at certain of their religious revivals,
had themselves suspended from trees by hooks passing through
the flesh of their backs, over the smoke of fires. And Peter Briffault,
in his book on Sin and Sex, has related some of the severe treatments
to which Sioux warriors subjected themselves before setting out on an
expedition. They not only starved for three days but also prevented
themselves from sleeping, sitting or even resting against a tree; in ad
dition, they refused to drink, gashed their bodies and finished up by
rubbing their wounds with thorns.
Evil spirits, like modern dictators, were always greedy for appease
ment; and E. F. Im Thurn, in Indians of Guiana, tells how Indians avert
the ill-will of spirits supposed to inhabit any new place they visit,
by rubbing red peppers in their own eyes. They will do this before
attempting to shoot any cataract for the first time, or whenever they
sight any new mountain or stone.
Everyone has heard of the extraordinary tortures inflicted upon
themselves by the Hindu ascetics, who force themselves to hold up an
arm until it withers away, or who lie upon beds of sharp spikes. I can
recall seeing in Benares a holy man who came daily to the bank
of the Ganges, where he would balance himself on one foot while hold
ing the other raised high. At the same time he kept one arm raised;
and, in this uncomfortable position, stared directly at the sun for
two hours every morning.
In 1935 I was so lucky as to arrive in Penang on the 20th of Janu
ary, just when the local Hindu community was celebrating its annual
Taipusan ceremony, honoring the god Subraman. All along the Penang
Road were seen devotees fulfilling their vows. A short account of the
festival may be of interest to my readers.
The devotee presents himself at the temple nearest his home, where
the "official decorators" stick spears and sharp pins into his half -naked
body. To these spears they attach heavy cocoanuts and limes. He
then has to make his slow and tortuous way to the important Waterfall
Temple to fulfill his vows, stopping for a few minutes at every shrine
en route to make obeisance. A crowd of chanting fellow-worshippers
follow him, exhorting the tortured devotee to continue on his journey.
When he reaches the Waterfall Temple he has to walk three times
round the shrine where the god is enthroned, and then to start on his
final climb to the hill-shrine above. This is made more difficult by the
tremendous crowds thronging the steps up which he has to labor. Ar
rived at the top, he still has to circle the shrine three times and, finally,
to present himself to the temple authorities to have the spears and
hooks removed. This is probably the most painful part of the whole
procedure and the devotee is now in such a state of collapse, with
blood and saliva streaming from the corners of his mouth, that he has
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to !»• supported by his friends. &fter removal of the spears, sacred
ashes are applied to his wounds, a votive offering is made, and in a
dazed condition he retires to break the fast that preceded his pil
grimage.
It is said, but I did not check up on the allegation, that in per
forming these penances, the devotees feel no pain. I should not have
judged that such was the case, but one cannot dogmatize when such
acts are performed in a state of exaltation.
Zarathustra's religious reform swung away from all such excesses.
His ideal man is the husbandman, hearty in body and mind. He there
fore expressly forbids all emaciating practices.
In spite of Gautama's own teaching as to their futility, forms of
extreme asceticism crept into the life of monks who professed him.
While this is less true of the Theravada sect, Mahayana corruptions, with
their unauthentic scriptures, went far in the ascetic direction. Space
forbids me going into details here, but a vivid portrayal of the ap
palling self-inflictions which some of the monks in Tibet undergo is
given in that fascinating book, The Life of Milarepa.
Asceticism thrived among all the old culture-peoples. Of the an
cient Egyptians, many fled from civilization's comforts into the desert
in the Fayoum Lake region, there to practice lives of self-denial. In
this district the climate, and the very sight of the gaunt desert itself,
stretching so far away from the towns, must inevitably have drawn
those who had reclusive tendencies. It is worth noting that it was
actually in Egypt that the monastic movement of the Christian Church
later developed.
While the Greek popular religion was a relatively bright one com
pared with those of Egypt, Babylonia or Judea, it did contain such
serious elements as the Erinys or Furies who played their part in Greek
drama in punishing the guilty. These, according to Dr. Theodore
Reik, represented conscientious anxiety.
Now let us consider Christianity. Jesus, like Buddha, was coura
geously ready to meet sorrows and trials which were imposed by his
mission, but did not seek them for their own sake. To his immediate
followers, however, the life of the cross meant the life of renunciation
and suffering. It is well-known how thousands of men and women went
into the desert to live lives of mortification far from all the pleasures
of life; and it is recognized that their pursuit of suffering and pain is
one of the strangest chapters in the history of humanity. Monasticism,
which followed cenobitism, continued this pathological outlook, and even
now, the Roman Catholic Church breathes the spirit of the acceptability
to God of unnecessary suffering undertaken voluntarily. For in every
continent at the present day where there are Catholic countries there
are monks who live a life of this sort, making themselves miserable for
blessedness' sake.
Whilst Jesus himself undoubtedly had such love for his fellowmen
that it is unnecessary for us to seek more obscure motives for the
course of his life, the readiness — nay, often eagerness — for suffering
of many of the Christian martyrs must be classed psychologically as
masochistic. ♦
G. C. Jung advances some interesting views in connection with
the life of St. Paul. It will be recalled that Saul, as he was then known,
was a Jew who set out to persecute the Christians until one day, he
was converted to Christianity by seeing Jesus in a vision. Thereupon,
for several days, he was struck blind, but as he recovered, the blind
ness must have been psycho-genetic or mentally caused. Now Dr. Jung,
in the course of clinical experience, found that psycho-genetic blindness
could represent "an unwillingness to see," i. e., to accept unpalatable
views; and he points out that it would be a suitable self -punishment
for Paul's previous resistance to the Gospel. If I may be forgiven for
quoting him at second hand from A. J. Faithful's Ladder of Life, Jung
states:
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 "Before conversion he expressed his Christian complex in
sadism because his repression was of a rebellious ego, re
pressed by his moral sense. The Saul complex, however, was
strongly tinged with guilt. He had forsaken the faith of
his father and the rebellious ego had won. Consequently,
his sadism turned suddenly to masochism, and he wel
comed the whippings and various forms of ill-treatment
which have become almost proverbial, because they enabled
him to compensate for his inward feelings of guilt."
As a matter of fact, the early Christians, by their aggressive atti
tudes towards other varieties of worship, in part drew their much ad
vertised persecutions upon their own heads.
In the opening days of the Roman Empire, the strangest imagin
able medley of cults from all parts of the world jostled each other in
Rome and, except for the Jews and Christians, were tolerant of each
other. These two sects, however, were not content with being allowed
their own freedom, but by reviling and upsetting the idols of their
neighbors caused the remainder of the population and the government
to turn upon them and persecute them. The resultant reaction of the
populace seems to have given the opportunity for Christian (partly
auto-sadistic) heroism to rise to its greatest height.
In any case, and in flagrant disregard of what should have been
the moderating example of Jesus, the early Christians swung strongly
in an ascetic direction, and their masochistic impulses drove many of
them to place themselves in positions where they were sure to suffer
at the hands of other persons. Listen to the fervor of St. Ignatius,
Bishop of Antioch, as quoted by L. Powys in the Pathetic Fallacy:
"Now I begin to be a disciple. Fire and cross, troops of wild
beasts, rending of every limb, dire torments of the devil, let
them come to me, if only I may follow Jesus Christ. . . .
I am God's wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild
beasts that I may be found Christ's pure bread."
That German mystic of the early fourteenth century, Heinrich Suso,
is typical of numerous Christian saints who practised self -mortification
in the highest degree. I cannot go into all the unsavory details, but
amongst other things the blessed Suso not only considered it necessary
to sleep in a specially constructed hair shirt into which hundreds of
brass nails had been driven, but also to wear leather gloves fitted with
brass tacks so that if he did attempt to take off the tormenting shirt
whilst he slept he would only have succeeded in gashing himself still
further. Remarkable as it may seem, according to all accounts he con
tinued these practices for over sixteen years.
Listen also, if you would catch the true masochistic note that com
bines suffering with love, to Llama de Amor Viva by St. John of the
Cross (translated by Arthur Symons) :
"O burn that burns to heal!
O more than pleasant wound!
And O soft hand, O touch most delicate,
That dost new life reveal,
That dost in grace abound
And, slaying, dost from death to life translate."
Another revealing account is that given by a Huguenot, Blanche
Gamond, which William James quoted {Varieties, p. 288) from Clapa-
rede et Goty Deux Heroines de la Foi, p. 112. Her inquisitor
"gave me the order, 'Undress yourself,' which I did. . . .
They drew the cord tight with all their strength and asked
me: 'Does it hurt you?' and then they discharged their fury
upon me, . . . But at this moment I received the great
est consolation that I can ever receive in my life, since I had
the honor of being whipped for the name of Christ, and
in addition of being crowned with his mercy and his con
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 solations. Why can I not write down the inconceivable in
fluences, consolations and peace which I felt interiorly? To
understand them one must have passed by the same trial;
they were so great that I was ravished, for there where af
flictions abound grace is given superabundantly. In vain
the women cried, 'We must double our blows; she does not
feel them, for she neither speaks nor cries.' And how
should I have cried, since I was swooning with happiness
within?"
There is no doubt that self-sacrifice as being something virtuous
per se has been over-rated under Christian influence and, in addition,
there has often been a hypothetical danger that many people would,
instead of practicing it, preach it to others who had less need of it—
e. g., to the working masses when they asked for better pay or for a few
of life's relaxations.
Mohammed resembled Zarathustra in his practical and non-as
cetic attitude; although during Ramadan all Muslims were told to fast
from sunrise to sunset. Nevertheless, as in so many other religions,
some of the prophet's followers "improvised" on his teachings so that
an ascetic tradition sprang up in Islam. I have already told in the
initial article of this series of the self-inflicted tortures practiced by Dar-
vishes that I observed at Kairoan in North Africa.
It would be natural to expect that, in the degree that supernatural
powers ceased to be believed in or were depersonalized, the fear that they
will require to be appeased should die down too. We find that such is
the case.
The emphasis on modes of conduct which shall activate desirable
states of mind within the actor continues in at least the more ancient
impersonalistic religions and philosophers.
In China, Lao-Tzu testified no more by his teaching than by the ex
ample of his life, which was one of extreme simplicity, to his belief
that poverty and self-denial, although not self-torture of any kind,
were proper in a sage. Those who are familiar with his story will re
member that in the end he left civilization altogether and wandered
away into the Western Hills.
As I have mentioned earlier, Lao-Tzu taught that the wisest way
of living is to be essentially like water; which takes the form of any
vessel in which it is placed and yet works the most powerful effects
of all substances in nature. The doctrine was one of complete non-
resistance or inaction. A considerable number among the hundreds of
millions of Chinese were fascinated by this doctrine and a religion
formed itself upon the nucleus of his writings. This was Taoism. It
had, for a time, a great vogue and prepared the way for Buddhism which
was kindred in spirit. These two cults effected a fair interchange of
principles —Buddhism absorbing all the best principles of Taoism and
Taoism all the worst principles of Buddhism, until Taoism degenerated
into the mere welter of superstitions which it is today.
Meanwhile, Kung-fu-Tse, like Zarathustra, was too "practical" a
reformer to take any stock in pure asceticism. He did, however, pour
scorn on the scholar who should not be willing to forego food and
comfort for the sake of learning. There is also an aroma of this modi
fied asceticism in a paragraph from Chinese classics translated by Lin
Yutang on p. 123 of his Wisdom of Confucius:
"If another man succeeded by one effort, you will use a hun
dred efforts. If another man succeed by ten efforts, you
will use a thousand efforts.
Let a man really proceed in this manner and, though
dull, he will surely become intelligent; though weak, he
will surely become strong."
I have hinted that if some Buddhist sects are ascetic, they con
tradict their founder. Prince Siddhartha, on first renouncing the palace
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and harem with which his father had sought to enchain him, and
faring forth to seek deliverance for mankind from sorrow, did indeed
flirt for a time with various orthodox and heretical schemes of sal
vation. And in the course of so doing, he fell into the company of five
ascetics, whose extremities of penance he tried out for several years.
He concluded, however, that whatever lease of immunity from re-birth
into a painful world might be purchased by such voluntary griefs could
only be a temporary respite. I confess myself not to be aware that he
at any time denied that merit could be acquired by suffering; only he
held that in time such merit would be spent and one would be back
again where one started. He saw no advantage in sacrifice per se,
although he admitted it to be good when undertaken in the service
of missionary ends.
Eagerness for the self-sacrificial life is not characteristic of the
average man of any class of society, and the revolutionarily-disposed
working-man, taken by and large, is no exception to this. Nevertheless,
the zealots and actual initiators of any political change invariably are
truly ascetic. I certainly cannot agree with Hilaire Belloc who, on p.
123 of his Economics for Helen, one of the most ill-documented booklets
by even this author which I have ever read, remarks:
"No word ending in 'ism' ever made a martyr or an apostle
or a hero or a saint."
To be convinced of the contrary, one needs but to consult the In
ternational Committee for Political Prisoners, room 412, 70 Fifth Avenue,
New York City, who will supply the names of hundreds or thou
sands of such martyrs who even before the war, had been beaten by
hired thugs, or are languishing in the prisons of almost all countries
of the world.
Certainly N. Berdyaev shows far more understanding when he
states, on pp. 73 and 74 of Spirit and Reality:
"All revolutionary movements imply an ascetic attitude before
victory is achieved. Indeed, a revolutionary victory would be impossible
without a foundation of asceticism. . . . The revolutionary is himself
a doomed man. He has sacrificed his private interests, affairs, feel
ings, attachments, personality and even his name. His whole being
is dominated by one supreme interest, one idea, one passion — the revo
lution."
Karl Marx is generally, if not quite accurately, accredited (?) with
the view that the economic motive is the only motive appertaining to
mankind. But the amount of heroism and of willingness to sacrifice
one's own welfare in the hope of revolutionizing the conditions of this
world which his own economic ideal has brought out has been so
amazing that in itself it has proved this "Marxian" view to be wrong.
The names of very many men who spent their life in this spirit
of self-sacrifice come to my mind from my old acquaintances in the
labor movement in America. There were so many that it is hardly
fair to speak particularly of any, but as examples I will mention just
three. The first was the secretary of the local headquarters of the In
dustrial Workers of the World at Fresno which I visited in 1912. Al
though competent to earn a good salary elsewhere, this man would
accept no more than five dollars a week in return for working all day
and half the night for the movement which to him spelled humanity's
salvation. He was my first experience of a living saint.
Next I would mention that abstemiously living but immoderately
working socialist, Upton Sinclair, who not only built his house with
his own hands, but for many years refused to let any commercial pub
lisher handle his novels, preferring to publish them himself at a lower
price than any publisher would agree to do in order that the very poorest
people should be able to afford to read them.
A third case would be Dr. Scott Nearing, who worked eight hours
a day at literary tasks to propagate the economic principles he believed
in, and labored another eight hours on his farm because he was un
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 St. George (from the Louvre)

willing to take any personal profit out of his writing and wished to
share all the hardships of the "working class."
The missionaries who introduced the Marxian creed into Russia
faced torture and death at the hands of the Tsar's agents. The cour
age and devotion of these apostles is the more outstanding because
most of them, being atheists, had no hope that in any after-life they
would receive compensation for their agony. The toiling masses of
Russia, whether or no they understood all the doctrines of these men,
could not but heroize them and contrast them with the sleek officials
and greedy priests of the old order. The roll of those martyrs is a
long one.
Even into Japan, the land of Emperor -Worship, do these mission
aries venture. Here, the police so stringently suppress their activities
that it leads Mr. A. Morgan Young to remark on p. 201 of his book, The
Rise of a Pagan State:
"So it was left to the atheistic Marxists to emulate the
early Christians. Like them, they suffered, and suffer
today, untold tribulations for their faith."
In fascism also we find that, in addition to the enemies that had
to be sacrificed and the dragon-slaying heroes we discussed earlier in
this chapter, there is an appreciable spirit of self-sacrifice.
The fascists consisted at the outset of young men of the Italian
middle-class, not clear as yet as to doctrine, but full of the spirit of ad
venture and often vaguely resolved to set right the inefficiency and
disorganization of their country. In the spirit of patriotic service, the
movement has always insisted that its representatives should be willing
to forego their own personal advantage, and Mussolini did not, until
quite recently, wink at scandalous self-enrichment by high officials
comparable with those cases which have come to light in connection
with the circle surrounding Hitler.
The spirit of the movement undeniably deteriorated, however, for
in Italy in April, 1940, I learned that the Duce was no longer so strict
in his recent appointments and that a more self-seeking class of per
sons were finding their way into office and lowering the party's
prestige.
One of the most remarkable cases of mass asceticism the world has
known is that of the German people of our own times. Even before
Hitler arose and before Lord Baldwin would admit that Germany was
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secretly re-arming, a cult of Spartan physical training had captured the
nation. Hitler easily built upon this and was able to put across the
slogan — "Guns are better than butter" — guns with which the German
people were to keep their present enslaver in power! The lowering of
wages and living conditions together with the extension of working
hours which followed on his destruction of labor unions were facili
tated by the responsiveness Of the people to Hitler's appeal to their
"moral" nature and the fact that the middle classes themselves en
thusiastically gave a lead by holding it shameful for any one of either
sex, poor or wealthy, to spend an hour idly or to enjoy the smallest
luxury.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the whole business is that
this man, the greatest demagogue of all time, has been able to persuade
so many millions of intelligent people to live in this so ascetic style,
at the very moment when his closest henchmen were enriching them
selves and living luxuriously at those people's expense, and when he
was providing himself with a fantastic palace on a mountain peak!
It almost passes belief.
.May I add some psychological comments on this question of as
ceticism?
Asceticism receives in Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics
a dual definition. In the better sense it is xo-krois or training of the
spiritual athlete; whereas:
"the other conception mistrusts the body altogether. Asceti
cism has then as its function not the training but the de
struction of the body."
If the destruction in question were of others and not of one's self,
we might describe it as due to hatred or sadism. Psychoanalysis
has taught us that infancy often stores up terrific jealous hates, par
ticularly by boys against their fathers; analysis and criminology have
also acquainted us with the fact that there lurks in everyone a desire
to crush and injure others. But what are we to make of asceticism, in
which are seen indeed just such aggressive tendencies, but turned
upon one's self?
If persons with such tendencies come up for psychological treat
ment, the cause of this behavior is brought to light. Namely, in the
development of their conscience, the aggressive tendencies, for which
they as children were punished, were taken over and incorporated
into the conscience itself. Because of this mechanism, many children
become far more severe upon their own peccadilloes than ever their
parents were, or they develop "scruples" to a morbid degree.
Such an "ingrowing conscience" may merely make its owner un
happily self-critical, or it may cause him unconsciously to steer all
his undertakings in the direction of failure, giving a typical defeatist
character. In certain extreme cases it creates the "criminal from
conscience."
The inward direction given to sadism by punishment thus has fre
quently as a result, that our super-ego accepts it as right and proper
that pain should be coming to the self. We then actually demand pun
ishment for the aggressive desires which unconsciously we know that
we harbor. So the super-ego deliberately maneuvers the self into
situations where it will suffer or be injured. To the average reader,
who retains a certain persistent belief that in spite of some small in
consistencies man does not really wander very far from the pursuit of
his own happiness, this is hard to believe; yet every psychoanalysis
proves the presence of a greater or lesser amount of self -punishing auto-
sadism in each patient. Many people have plenty of ability and energy,
except their careers are frustrated at every turn by the devil inside
them who forbids them ever to enjoy success.
Our discussion has led us from defiant and heroic acts through
sacrificial ones to the vicarious sacrifices we make via scapegoats and
128
so to self-sacrifice in the form of asceticism. But now we come to
a further step in religious development, which is taken when it is
thought that the sacrifice most acceptable to the gods is the consecration
to them of our hearts rather than the laceration of our members.
What is the distinctive mark of the actions which please gods?
Man's answer was: after self-denial, piety. And, said he^ this can be
more especially evinced by imitating Heaven's or Earth's own distinctive
order of conduct as shown by the calendar or by the order of nature.
Piety is a word used to describe an attitude of respect for either
one's father, an elderly person or a deity; and when we consider any
religion, we find that invariably this quality is required of its fol
lowers. Let us briefly review some of the religions to bring out this
point .
Shinto teaches that the Japanese emperor is a descendant of the
sun-goddess Amaterasu and that he therefore is entitled to pious adora
tion. It exalts loyalty and patriotism — the former an attachment to
a paternally-revered individual person; the latter, to the fatherland.
In China, the reverence for the father found in many lands reaches
its height, and here we note its tendency to integrate the clan under
the complete authority of the patriarch —"under heaven there are no
wrong parents." This implies the fidelity demanded of woman, respect
to all the senior-generation and the view that filial piety means not
only sacrifice but also the performance of good deeds in order to bring
luster on the ancestors.
I have already described the principles of Taoism and the teachings
of Kung-fu-Tse and indicated their pious leaning towards ritual order,
and have shown that the same cosmic order analogy occurred in the
Laws of Eternal Right in ancient Greece.
In India, as in China, there has always existed a strong encourage
ment of reverence to parents. This has been so stressed, indeed, as
to interfere with social change.
Again we find that, although Buddha declared prayer and sup
plication to the gods to be futile, a reverential attitude pervades the
religion he founded.
Nothing impressed me more dramatically the first time I visited
Bombay than a number of circular windowless stone structures I saw
on the hillsides, about which countless vultures were circling expect
antly. "Those," explained a friend, "are the famous towers of silence,
where the Parsees expose the bodies of their dead!" The reason for
such exposure turns out to be an unwillingness to pollute either father
fire, by cremation or mother earth by burial; a true instance of piety
towards parental figures. Such mechanisms as this, and not the in-
tellectualistic rationalizations about hygienic considerations .such as
modern apologists advance, are the true explanations of archaic cus
toms of exposing the dead.
In Judaism, also, piety was the highest virtue. After the acceptance
of Jahveh as the only god, the honoring of father and mother had a
commandment to itself. And in the Muslim faith we note that as the
very name Islam means "resignation" it follows that a complete sub
mission to the will of Allah is the essence of its ideas of salvation.
Now let us come to more modern times and turn our attention to
the totalitarian states.
As a creed of revolution, communism is considerably "on the other
side of the fence" from religions which preach humility, but we should
note that "communist discipline" has been a war-cry of the party, and
many adherents find a joy in subordinating their personality to that of
the movement in a way which reminds us of Christian saints. The
creed and its ethics are different, but the attitude is less so.
Not only does fascism feel the weight of many of the reasons com
munism set for a pious subordination of individual preferences in the
face of collective needs, but its fundamental assumptions are more con
gruous with a meek citizenship.
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 Fascism and also nazism, however, declare: democracy is wrong
in principle, life will always be a rivalry between racial or political
groups, in which the stronger can find one of their greatest pleasures
in oppressing the weaker. The prudent course for the common man
is to put himself at the disposal of the ablest leader. In this, be. it
noted, there is again a reference to what is part of the inevitable cosmic
order.
In a way, National Socialism may be called the extremest form
of piety, for it explicitly is the apotheosis of the idea of leadership;
Mein Fuehrer is in principle as well as in fact its absolute center. I
have mentioned in a former chapter the truly pious attitudes presented
by the inhabitants to their Leader when perchance he chooses to pass
through the village or town in which they live — how the women folk
literally strew his way with flowers and even abase themselves — and
it is only when we realize that Hitler is an absolute god to tens of mil
lions of his countrymen that we can understand the force of such
a true form of reverence.
To conclude this section on piety, we find that its various phe
nomena are alike in being acts of awe in the face of a deeply revered
entity, be that entity God, fate, the cosmic order or whatever.
A psychologist sees in such a revered entity, above all, the image
of the parent. God is the father, and fate or the cosmic calendar is the
mother of infantile recollection. Besides this, however, the cosmic cal
endar or ritual order appears to have a second unconscious cause of
fascination. Namely, the concepts of habit and regularity were in the
first instance applied to physiological functions. We have seen that
these ideas had great importance in all the religions and mere logical
reasoning could never have brought men to put the stress that they
have upon such phenomena as the calendar, the punctilious perform
ance of periodical ritual ceremonies, etc. In short, this orderliness
is, like cleanliness, a reaction-formation against the smearing-tendency,
irregularity and carelessness of an untrained infant.
I shall speak now of the final substitution which religion has made
for the old-time blood-offering, while still retaining the spirit of sac
rifice. It is, obedience to a code of morals. The gods —when civilization
and humane feeling have advanced sufficiently— are declared to be
more pleased with such behavior than with hecatombs of victims.
Where a religion owes its origin to the genius of an individual pro
phet, he may occasionally introduce regulations which reflect his own
peculiar views; but these are then likely to be pruned down, to suit
the moral prejudices and limitations of those who become the trustees
of his reform — as happened to the ghost-dance religion of some Indian
tribes or to Zoroastrianism under the Magi — not to give more contro
versial cases.
Let me now try to picture the development of some of these moral
codes. As we should expect, it is among savage people that the great
est divorce exists between religion and morals. Very early, however,
a connection arises, although sometimes only a close scrutiny reveals
it. Thus both Professor Malinowski and rpr. Firth have shown that
a number of primitive Australian rites — to say nothing of chanties, etc.,
have as their function the encouragement of industry.
The ghost-dance religion which sprang up in the last century among
the Amerinds on the Canadian-American border was the creation of a
native evangelist. He modelled it after Christian revivals, although
with its own outfit of gods, rituals and commandments. It spread like
wild-fire among his people; but although the revivals and certain spir
itistic beliefs still continue, a single generation has so pruned down
the original teachings that little of them remains.
Probably the code of which we have the earliest historical record
was that produced by King Hammurabi of Babylon, whose table of
commandments so strikingly resembled the (later) Mosaic code as to

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have convinced most open-minded scholars that it served as the model
for this.
Immediately we commence our review of the codes of the various
religions, we regularly find that the number of commandments in each
is five, although occasionally the original five are doubled at a later
date for the sake of emphasis; we find also that most of the com
mandments of all religions are of a negative nature.
The Hindus have a set of five such commandments, covering steal
ing, adultery, taking life, intoxication and lying.
The teachings of Kung-fu-Tse enjoined restraint in "the five re
lationships."
Again, in Buddhism we have the "five precepts";
Do not kill.
Do not steal.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not tell lies.
Do not take anything that will make you drunk or dull your
senses.
Additionally to these precepts, according to a pamphlet by Mr. B. K.
Gunaratan, The Buddhist Way, published in Penang, "Our Lord warns
us to avoid ten evils," which may be grouped as:
1. Evils of the body: killing, theft and adultery.
2. Evils of the tongue: lying, slander, abuse and gossip.
3. Evils of the mind: craving, anger and ignorance.
This writer also gives us "ten laws of life," namely:
1. Kill not, but have regard for life.
2. Steal or rob not, but help everyone when possible, to
be independent.
3. Abstain from impurity and lead a pure life.
4. Lie not, but be truthful.
5. Invent not evil reports, nor repeat them. Think good
of all things.
6. Abuse not, but be kind and polite to all.
7. Waste not your time in gossip, but speak to all with a
purpose or keep quiet.
8. Do not crave but rejoice at the good fortune of others.
9. Do not hate, but have kind regard for all.
10. Free your mind from ignorance and seek the Truth.
These "ten laws of life" given by Mr. Gunaratan are really a gen
eral resume of instructions compiled from the Ten Bonds (Samyojanas) ,
the Four Intoxications (Asava) and the Five Hindrances (Nivaranas) .
In more detail, and according to Prof. Rhys Davids in his article on
"Buddhism" in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, vol. 4, p. 744, the Ten
Bonds are: (1) Delusion about the soul; (2) Doubt; (3) Dependence on
good works; (4) Sensuality; (5) Hatred, ill-feeling; (6) Love of life
on earth; (7) Desire for life in heaven; (8) Pride; (9) Self-righteous
ness; (10) Ignorance. The Four Intoxications are the mental intoxi
cation arising respectively from (A) Bodily passions, (B) Becoming, (C)
Delusion, (D) Ignorance. The Five Hindrances are (a) Hankering after
worldly advantages, (b) The corruption arising out of the wish to injure,
(c) Torpor of mind, (d) Fretfulness and worry, (e) Wavering of mind.
And the devotee,
"when these five hindrances have been cut away from with
in him, looks upon himself as freed from debt, rid of disease,
out of jail, a free man and secure. And gladness springs
up within him on his realizing that, and joy arises to him
thus gladdened and so rejoicing all his frame becomes at
ease, and being thus at ease he is filled with a sense of peace
and in that peace his heart is stayed."
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 It is one of the merits of Mohammed to have stated his principles
in clear, unmistakable terms. This applies especially to the rules of
right and wrong. F. M. Muller, in Sacred Books of the East, VI, p. lxxi,
writes:
"The practical duties of Islam are:
1. The profession of faith in the unity of God and the
mission of Mohammed.
2. Prayer.
3. Pasting.
4. Almsgiving.
5. Pilgrimage."
On these essentials there can be, I think, no disagreement, although
we may expand them somewhat. There are one or two points, however,
worthy of rather special note: Mohammed was the first prophet to at
tempt a constructive solution of the problem of poverty, for every Mus
lim has a responsibility for his needy relatives of all degrees and es
pecially for orphans, and he pays a regular tax for the poor.
It is very extraordinary to find that nothing is said about murder
or adultery. Elsewhere, however, a penalty of stoning to death is pre
scribed for adultery and murder is also made an offense. Plural mar
riage is permitted to the extent of four wives; and although Mohammed
took several times that number, he was a privileged character. As for
the "fasting" listed above —this is to be occasional but severe, and there
is an absolute prohibition of red wine. Some Muslims, e. g. Wahabis,
extend this prohibition to all intoxicants and narcotics, including to
bacco.
The Jews have always had as their fount of laws a tabulation of
ten, significantly resembling, as already stated, those of Hammurabi.
They maintain that these laws were given to Moshe, the leader who
brought them out of Egypt, by Jahveh, (a Kenite volcano-god) on top
of Mount Sinai.
The ten commandments of Moshe (or as we better know Tiim,
Moses) are an instance of that duplication I mentioned earlier, for they
actually reduce themselves to five — do not steal, do not commit adultery
(although polygamy is permissible) do no private murder, utter no
false slander and be pious.
Christianity has adopted the ten-fold Mosaic code. Jesus' own ten
dency is to be at once more exacting and less legalistic than were the
orthodox among his people. In consonance with the more spiritual
of the rabbis of his times, he would not only forbid a man to act out
adulterous or other evil desires, but even to have the desires at all.
It is an interesting psychological question whether this counsel of per
fection is workable.
Jesus' preference for ethical (or kind) conduct rather than sacri
ficial offerings is clearly stated in Matt. 9, 13:
"But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy
and not sacrifice; for I am not come to call the righteous
but sinners to repentance."
When we come to consider the more modern philosophical codes,
we find Emmanuel Kant laying down as a guidance for all conduct
and basis of duty, that we should:
"Act as if the maxim from which you act were to become
through your will a universal law of nature."
"Act so as to use humanity, whether in your person or in
the person of another, always as an end, never merely as a
means" and
"Act in conformity with the idea of the will of every rational
being as a will which lays down universal laws of action."
Felix Adler, when founding the Ethical Movement, enunciated one
general principle, namely to "so act as to bring out the unique value
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in thy neighbor," and on this the movement as a whole has rested, de
clining to specify what it considers to be ethical or the reverse.
There is, however, one of the ethical societies in London which
differs markedly from the others in its atmosphere and ritual. It la
bors to deliver its members "from error, ugliness and sin." I refer
to the Ethical Church, off Bayswater, in London. The president of this
church, the late Dr. Stanton Coit, drew up, a number of years ago, a re
vision of the Jewish commandments, making them more suitable to the
problems of his own time, and called this the "ten words of the moral
life." In other writings, he included by implication additional moral
principles. Whether the membership of the Ethical Movement will re
gard Dr. Coit's ten as more authoritative and binding on them than
a similar decalogue which might be drawn up by any other leader of
the movement depends entirely on the amount of prestige which Dr.
Coit carried. If he could be proven to be God's own messenger, he
would obviously carry more. For the real reason why the laws of Moses
(in preference to any other set of rules that might have been sug
gested) became so binding on the Jewish people, was not because
sociologists approved of them, but because it was believed that God,
the supreme Father, personally gave them to the Jewish leader in
exactly the form in which Moses put them down and not as they
appear in any modern revision.
We will now see what communism, fascism and nazism have to
show in the way of codes or commandments.
Marx, perhaps unconsciously through the hatred of his father
which marked his early life, has done more than anyone else to under
mine the basis of the commandments of the great lawgiver of his fa
ther's race. I have seen some formulations of a new ethical code by
socialist Sunday schools, but I know of none which is official.
Fascism, by teaching Roman Catholic dogma in the state schools,
fairly commits itself to the Catholic morality, but has formed no of
ficial set of rules.
Although Hitler has issued numerous commandments to his chosen
people, these have not so far as I am aware, been codified. A peculiar
difficulty in doing this, is indeed, introduced by the frequent volte-faces
of the Fuehrer upon so many questions. His first commandment seems
to be his only irreversible one: "I am the Lord thy God."
I now intend to summarize briefly what we have learned in this
chapter regarding sacrifice. We have seen man's original desire to
sacrifice animals merge into asceticism and noted that this self-casti-
gation may become auto-sadistic or masochistic or otherwise abnormal,
for by it one can inflict upon one's self types of cruelty that give mor
bid pleasure, while they are the excuse for relieving one's self of the
things which — in themselves, seemingly lighter — are by the individual
far more disliked, e. g., the patient attention to routine duties. We find,
therefore, that asceticism today makes very little appeal to an in
telligent community and that most people will fall bacn upon a code of
morals prescribed by some great lawgiver whose renown has been en
hanced by tradition and while criticisms (such as the fact that they
are purely negative) can be made, of course, against the command
ments, they do nevertheless retain the tremendous strength of being
simply-worded divine commands of a strong father-figure.
Personally, however, I cannot conceive that we can profitably ac
cept a detailed code from any law-giver who lived from 1% to 2%
milleniums ago, at a time when conditions in the world were entirely
different, and when our knowledge was so much more limited. Hence,
I propose to round off the present "moral codes" section of this chapter
with a prognosis of a rational ethical code based on sociological real
ities, although I am under no illusions as to the difficulties in the
way of getting it adopted. I shall deal only briefly with its points at
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the present moment, but shall expand them more fully later in this
book.
Its ethical rules will be taken from six fields of major human con
cern, namely of property, the family, security of person, narcotics, truth
and parent-child relationships.
What is the attitude towards property which, for the sake of the
general well-being, we could most wish to see become general? I would
unhesitatingly suggest cooperativeness. The essence of the service
which we would render in the economic field would be to liberate men
from the terrific constraints which hunger and poverty put upon them.
The second field I mention is that of the family. Three parties are
here essentially concerned; the community, the children and the mar
ital partners. Here again it is our duty towards the institution of mar
riage to introduce into it the greatest freedom for each of the three
elements concerned. The community must be free of the danger that
irresponsible" parties should foist upon it unsupported, inferior, badly
brought up or otherwise unwanted children. Posterity must be freed
from being brought into this world under any but favorable conditions
for happiness. They must not be born "on the dole" or otherwise into
abject poverty, their biological inheritance must be untainted with
handicapping predispositions, and they must not be born under cloud
of the probability of having to live under a despotism, etc. The two
marital partners must be freed from restrictions unessential either to
the community or to the children but derived only from superstitious
prejudices. They must be free to decide what ceremonies, or whether
any at all, they shall undergo before they consider themselves united,
what means they may employ in order that children may not arrive
before proper provision is made for them, whether a marriage which
has become black tragedy to the partners and is making neurotics
of the children should be dissolved, and so on.
Now for the field of personal security. We must be free from fear
of the footpad who would waylay us on the street, of the dictator who
would set his followers on us to beat us for our political opposition
to him and the foreign enemy who would send airplanes to bomb us.
In all three cases the duty of the citizen is the same, namely, to insure
that there are proper courts and a democratically-controlled, able police
force to keep the ruffian in order. The footpad has already ceased
to be a menace in civilized countries since police forces have been or
ganized, and the dictator would not be able to raise his murderous
head in any country where the public was united behind the police
and courts in dealing with the earliest manifestations of political gang
sterism and did not remain apathetic until the gangsters became too
powerful to be stopped. With regard to foreign war, the public mind
must realize that peace cannot be secured by the old-fashioned, out
moded method of each country arming faster than its neighbors, but
only by all countries pooling their arms in an international police strong
enough to enforce the decrees of an international court of equity. Here
again we note that the principle for the public mind must be — defense
of the equal liberties of all the citizens against every kind of aggressor.
The fourth field is that of narcotic addiction. The civilization which
built the vast temples at Angkor in the jungles of what is now French
Indo-China is thought by some to have foundered through the use of
opium. Be that as it may, there is no doubt whatever that this drug,
together with the newer one, cocaine, are today terrible menaces which
Egypt, China, and other oriental countries are fighting. One is able
to appreciate more fully their destructive power when one notes that
Japan spread addiction as a deliberate means of undermining the
morale of the populations who resisted her dominion. While alcohol is
also thought by some to have played a sinister role in the collapse
of some civilizations, the chewing of coca and drinking of chicha in Peru
and mesquite-drinking and marijuana smoking in Mexico are only two
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 typical problems of many confronting the civilizations of today. If we
ask which are the most universally used of all narcotics, the answer
must be alcohol and tobacco. The evils of alcohol are fairly obvious to
all. Those of tobacco consist of a more insidious lowering of one's
mental efficiency and injury to heart, liver, eyes and other organs. And
whereas one may drink a reasonable amount of wine or spirits without
inconveniencing others, to smoke in a railway coach, restaurant or
any other room is to train one's self in disregarding the sensibilities of
whoever else may come into that room.
The results of the prohibition experiment in America were not en
couraging. But one thing which the law might very well interfere
with is the advertising of all nefarious products. Such advertising serves
only commercial ends which the public is under no obligation to consider
sacrosanct. I would go further and label the bottles and packages of
theit products with warnings stating all the dangers of use, and I would
tax them 100% of all profits.
The fifth field of our public duties is that of checking lies and
spreading public knowledge. Certainly the cliche that "knowledge is
power" has been brilliantly vindicated by the control over nature which
man has achieved since he implemented his intellect with the methods
of procedure known as scientific. Yet the use of this power for evil,
often instead of good ends has caused some people to ask whether
science itself is not evil. Although we may call that allegation absurd,
the necessity now undeniably exists to turn science to mental and so
cial problems in the hope that it may prove as powerful to improve
man as it has shown itself to be to improve machinery.
A chief handicap to the progress of science has always been the
censorship exercised by bigotry over new ideas. This bigotry gave way,
first, in the physical and astronomical sciences. In biology, it prevented
for a' long time the adoption of the enormously fruitful Darwinian theory
of evolution — the Catholic church and the fundamentalists still sneer
at it. Today, the chief battlefield is psychology, where the religious
mind finds Freudian theories as bitter a pill today as it found evolu
tion yesterday.
So here, once more, we see that the goal to aim at is freedom —
this time intellectual freedom. We see that it is attained less by sudden
flights than by gradual growth, that the struggle to win it for society
is a duty, the assumption of which is required for the growth of the
citizen.
Finally, the sixth field in which practical duties standardize our
self-discipline is that of child-parent relationships. Few, and perhaps
none, of the great religions give us good guidance in this matter.
Nearly all are much concerned with teaching piety to the young, but
none give more than passing attention to the much more important mat
ter of teaching tolerance to the old. They put the boot on the wrong
foot; if a few of the aged are worthy of reverence, all the very young
are so.
I speak from the viewpoint not only of individual evaluation, but
from that of social welfare. The old are on the way to quit this life;
the young are just entering upon it. It is chivalrous to treat the old
kindly; it is a matter of self-preservation to treat the young so.
Our modern ideas about the right way to treat young people are
derived from educational science and psychotherapy. The former re
places the old-time compulsion and mass-handling of children by a
regime of great freedom, giving each opportunity of developing the
unique potentialities of each child as a future member of society. The
latter, finding that psychopaths and neurotics are created by the use
toward infants of dull sternness and domination, replaces these abomi
nations by understanding and a freedom limited only by consideration
for the freedom of others.
It appears, therefore, that child-parent relationships are the field
in which, to a degree perhaps greater than anywhere else, the concept
135
of liberation as a goal to be worked towards is valid. Freud, indeed,
has defined education as "immunization against the ills of life." Such
immunization cannot take place unless the child is freed from parental
domination.
When we review our duties in the six fields I have just discussed,
we find that they have one trait in common —namely, they are Iter
ative of the consumer, the home-maker, the citizen, the potential addict,
the child and the inquirer. We thus add social freedom to personal
freedom as growth's incentive.
Now let us draw our final conclusions from the study of sacrifice we
have just completed. We have learned that there are two principal
dangers against which we must guard in our attitude towards it —
first the danger that renunciation may result in our being to some
degree embittered and secondly it can easily degenerate into sacrifice
for its own sake. Nevertheless, rightly-managed sacrifice is too power
ful an instrument in self -reformation to be neglected. Its effectiveness
is due to the fact that (1) what we have been at pains to acquire, we
put a great value on, besides (2) learning skills in the process and
(3) preparing for grace by appeasing unconscious guilt. I have already
discussed the other factor and will make a few remarks concerning the
other two.
Skills and aptitudes of whatever kinds consist of a mass of habits
built up on whatever hereditary predisposition the person may have
had. Very much indeed has been written about this question of habit;
and although lack of space forbids my going deeply into the matter,
I feel that I must point out that the certain advantages of having
a good body .of habits to hand are that they save energy and increase
skill, while morally they also check vacillation and help against un
foreseen temptations.
On the fourth point listed above, I will content myself with ob
serving that the person who not merely follows, but goes two-thirds
of the way to anticipate the dictates of his conscience appeases in
this manner that sense of guilt (the theologians call it original sin)
which all of us acquired in our infancy. Thereby he is rid of some
of the self-punitive impulses which, as Freud showed in the Psycho-
pathology of Everyday Life, are the causes of many of our failures
and "accidents."
This brings us, lastly, to the question of the form which sacrifice
should take; and I conclude by making the proposition that the best
of all disciplines is offered by attention to the objective duties of the
economic, genetic, defensive, sensory, cognitive and affective problems
of social life, as determined by the principle of establishing the con
ditions which will most help our fellow-creatures on the road to them
selves becoming more loving and so more happy.

136
 Regents of the West and North Guarding Temple, Ayer Ham, Penang

Chapter IX.
Religious Views on Violence

I am devoting this chapter to the problems of "killing," although no

other ethical problem unless that of truth-speaking (Ch. II) is to be
given a chapter to itself. The exception is made because of the ob
vious timeliness of these two topics in a world first tricked by nazi
lies and then plunged into unprecedented bloodshed and "aggression."
I intend first to study the attitudes displayed by the various religious
and political regimes toward these questions, then to examine the con
clusions which they have arrived at and afterwards to see whether we
ourselves should accept any of their judgments or whether we are
able to formulate more hopeful ideas of our own.
In order to simplify our work, I am partitioning this chapter in a
different fashion from the preceding ones by dividing it directly into
sections named after the various groups of religions; local polytheistic,
universalist polytheistic, impersonalistic, dualist or trinitarian, unitarian
and political.
In the animism of the savages we find that, while some small
proportion of the spirits are regarded as benevolent, the majority are
feared as definitely hostile. Nearly all primitive peoples live in the
belief that they are in constant danger of attack from these.
The supposed readiness of the spirits to do mischief can be ex
ploited by shamans and priests in various ways, none of which tends
to build up the disposition of reasonable trustfulness in neighbors which
is desirable from the international viewpoint.
As examples of purely inter-tribal domestic exploitation, we find
that the natives of Central Australia use the fear of ghosts to over
137
awe women and children; and the same device is also employed by the
men of many of the tribes of Central Africa. In the Mumbo-Jumbo
the men dress up and secretly disguise themselves as terrifying and
supposedly supernatural figures in order to impress the women and
children, and to impose upon them various taboos.
This supernatural activity, however, is not confined to use. within
the tribe, but is rapidly extended by the witches and witch-doctors
of one tribe against another, and is a cause of inter-tribal wars. Some
times the spirit of a departed chieftain is imagined to return and
deliver commands of a trouble-making character to his people (it
is not many years since the armed constabulary of Papua acted under
orders supposed to have been received from the ghost of Diluwaga) and
often witches use their magical powers for the same end. As some
where reported by Sir Hubert Murray, the witches of Papua by their
own confession fly on cocoanut shells three hundred miles to Port
Moresby for the sole purpose of causing trouble. In fact, throughout
most of both Polynesia and Melanesia any misfortune which may be
fall a community, whether it be injury to crops, failure of the fishing
or the death of one of the tribe, is usually attributed to the evil work
of some antagonistic neighbor and, as H. Davis remarks in The Evo
lution of War, "will sooner or later lead to reprisals by means of magic
or force of arms."
In the preceding chapter, dealing with slayers, I mentioned the
belief of many primitive peoples in the efficacy of sacrificing humans
to appease their gods. The provision of a goodly supply of victims was
often the sole reason for wars which sometimes involved incredibly
large numbers of people. It is recorded that in Benin terrible human
sacrifices were an integral part of the religious ceremonies and rites,
especially when an enemy was at the gates, and the King of Benin had
to wage war so extensively as to be able to procure the thousands
of victims which were required annually for these sacrificial pur
poses. Similarly were the wars of the Aztecs waged chiefly to supply
human victims whose still palpitating hearts were offered to the
sun-god. ^
War was often the result of another propensity connected with
early religious beliefs, namely head-hunting. Only eleven years ago
the Press (see American Freeman, July, 1933) reported that Formosan
head-hunters "fell upon an isolated station and carried off a hundred
Japanese heads," which, of course, resulted in a punitive expedition
being sent against the head-hunters. Apparently these savages do not
look upon their practices as being at all extraordinary, but as being
"quite the thing," for in his already quoted The Evolution of War, H.
Davis writes that:
"When Furness asked a Kalamatan native why they killed
one another for their heads, the latter replied: 'The custom
is not horrible; it is an ancient custom, a good, beneficent
custom, bequeathed to us by our father and our fathers'
fathers; it brings us blessings, plentiful harvests and keeps
off sickness and pains; those who were once our enemies,
hereby become our guardians, our friends, our benefactors.' "
Leaving the islands of the Pacific, we will take a brief glance at the
peoples of the Near East as they were in early barbaric times. At that
stage of civilization where each district or town had its tutelary deity,
the expansion of the state by aggressive warfare was proposed chiefly
as a means of glorifying the god. This is again and again witnessed to
in the accounts of wars in Babylonia and Assyria and the description
needs very little modification to be true also of the Jews. Eager, really
from sadistic motives, to butcher and injure their fellow-beings, all
these peoples put into the mouths of their deities a command that
cities should be razed, men slaughtered and women and children sold
into slavery.
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 Although the terrors of such wars lacked the benefit of modern
murder-techniques, yet for the periods in which they occurred they were
as catastrophic as the wars of our own times.
At this juncture, I should like my readers to note a very important
point. The wars and tribal frays we have just considered were usually
brought about among peoples whom we now regard as savages through
the exploitation by their leaders of superstitions and religious beliefs.
I shall refer to this point later in the present chapter.
Let us now consider the Universalist Polytheistic religions.
In almost every Indian religion, the oriental doctrine of ahimsa,
or harmlessness, occupies a prominent place. Ahimsa enjoins non
injury to all living things, whether men or animals, which, according to
an article written in Hasting's Encyclopedia of Reliction and Ethics,
first finds expression in a mystical passage in the Chandogya Upanishad,
a document probably written in the seventh century B. C.
Ahimsa persists, with very few exceptions about which I shall
speak later, throughout all Indian religions; and the killing of animals is
therefore prohibited; but short of actual killing, the oriental appears
to the occidental as extremely callous in his treatment of animals;
often torturing or otherwise maltreating them without heed or con
cern.
When Indians are asked why they lay so much more stress on the
wickedness of killing an animal than on that of making it suffer —
which is the reverse of what would be true if their motive were ul
timately a humane one— they offer a logical defense of their position,
but it has all the earmarks of being a rationalization invented to jus
tify a position taken on emotional grounds. A holy-man to whom I
pointed out the superiority of the action of an Englishman who had
shot a dog who had been run over and maimed, as compared with the
Indians in the crowd who merely looked on and did nothing — this
holy-man had his answers ready. He said that it was better to have let
the dog suffer the few hours of pain which fate had decreed for him,
than to have spared him this at the cost of death, because the fear
which even a wounded animal has of death proves that he must have
some remembrance of the all-surpassing torment which he found
death to be, at the end of previous incarnations. I repeat that such
a reply, which does not ask whether there may not be other explana
tions of such fear, is an obvious rationalization. It looks as though the
excuse-maker wanted the animal to go on suffering, so long as he
could salve his own conscience. It looks as though his professed desires
to save the world (from the world) were not compassionate in the
true sense of loving all beings.
The "non-injury" doctrine is the first of the five vows of the
Jain ascetics, who stringently apply it to every living thing. They
carry the idea so far that they even strain the water they drink for
fear of accidentally swallowing even the smallest organism, and sweep
the path along which they walk to make sure they shall tread on none.
According to the Bhagavad-Gita doctrine, however, there is no guilt
to the soldier in slaying enemies, so long as it is done without "attach
ment" to selfish results, as the doctrine preaches that one should
carry out whatever are the functions of one's station or profession.
One of the principal exceptions to which I have referred is that
peculiar sect called Thugees. Lieut. -General Sir George MacMunn on
p. 169 of his Religions and Hidden Cults of India gives a very good
description of them. He states that the Thugs were consecrated by
the goddes Bhowani or Kali to her service, and that they were sworn
in by terrible oaths and penalties to be faithful to one another and
to devote their lives to removing wealthy people from the world in
order that their wealth should be shared "on a basis of equality and
brotherly love." The most remarkable of their many oaths was, not
to shed the blood of their victims but only to dispose of them by

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 Vishnu Stands off Attack of a Shaitan

strangulation with a sacred silk handkerchief "in the use of which

all Thugs were made adept," and that they were to be sure that
all traces of their actions, including the bodies of their victims, were
removed. They always consulted omens before carrying out any en
terprise and worked in gangs, each member of which had definite
work to do; some to select the suitable spot for the murder and burial,
some to do the actual strangling, and others to bury the bodies and
obliterate all traces. Whole parties, including men, women, children
and servants, would sometimes be killed at the same time, the bodies
buried, traces removed and the whole business completed within half,
an hour.
A famous Indian saint of the last century, who was looked on
as a Messiah in the most absolute sense by his followers, and must
indeed have been a remarkable personality, was Sri Narayana. This
reformer took a moderate stand against animal sacrifices, teaching
that they were of use for obtaining blessings of a worldly kind, but
not for higher spiritual benefits such as the purification of the soul.
According to his biographer, however, Narayana was able to evade
attempted assassination by his enemies only by the employment of a
military guard of Kathis. The acceptance of this protection demarcates
him from Buddha, who preached and practised complete non-violence,
from Lao-Tzu if not from Kung-fu-Tse; from Jesus, who "told Peter
to put up his sword and from much the greater number, although
not all, of those who had a high ethical message for humanity.
The magnificent ethical effervescence which, in the second half-
millenium B. C. gave the world so many of its moral geniuses, was re
sponsible for much preaching of peace. In China, that country's two
greatest sages, Lao-Tzu and Kung-fu-Tse, taught their followers to de
spise things military; and in India, the most humane reformers of them
all, Mahavira the Jaina and Siddhartha the Buddha, showed mercy to
both man and beast and forbade the taking of any life. Hundreds of
thousands of believers in these religious leaders have found their pre
cepts acceptable, even if millions have fallen away.
Lao, Kung and Siddhartha in their own generation were as much
philosophers as they were religious leaders, teaching that although gods
might exist, man was wise not to pray to, or concern himself about
them.

140
 Lao-Tze taught that complete non-resistance was the Way of
Truth. His contemporary, Kung-fu-Tse, was more staid, less imaginative
and much more practical — so much so that he refused consent to so
idealistic a principle as that of returning good for evil. It was he who
founded the Chinese administrative system upon a most extraordinary
series of public examinations. This, the oldest of any large-scale of
civil service examination systems, had its distinctive merits but suf
fered from the fact that until recent times, when it was overthrown
by the revolution, the subjects on which men were examined still
remained the same, including such achievements as archery and the
composition of poetry in the style of the ancient writers.
It seems as if we should put Kung-fu-Tse at the head of the list
of those who stood aloof from religion, yet on whose writings has been
founded a whole non-theistic system of culture influencing millions.
Owing to this fact, it has always been the cult of the intellectuals and
officials, and has existed somewhat aloof from the masses. It is note
worthy that irrational and profitless self-torturing is foreign to it, even
as it would have been to its practical-minded founder.
Buddha reacted very strongly against the sufferings of animals.
This is well seen in the episodes where he rescued the swan which his
cousin Devadata had shot with his bow, and where he carried, good
shepherd-like, the weakened lamb on his shoulders when on his way to
plead with King Bimbissara to abolish animal sacrifices. To end sorrow
of every kind was the purpose of Buddha's quest.
Buddhism was originally founded upon the idea of refining one's es
sential nature. It teaches that ethical living is one of the instruments
of such refining; and of all its ethical rules, compassion is stressed
as the most important. This does not remain merely theoretic doc
trine, for Buddhist peoples are generally known for their kindness.
Japan is sometimes cited as a country which disgraces and belies this
characterization by the way it is waging aggressive war in Asia. But
Japan follows Mahayanist sectarian teachings far indeed removed
from what was taught by Buddha.
There is a very great similarity of views between Buddha and Jesus
with regard to the attitude of non-resistance towards aggression. The
following quotation from the famous parable of the saw, told by Buddha
in Jeta's grove at Savatthi, is illustrative of the resemblance:
"If bandits were to carve you limb from limb with a two-
handled saw, even then the man who should give way to
anger would not be obeying my teaching. Even then be it
your task to preserve your hearts unmoved, never to allow
an ill word to pass your lips, but always to abide in com
passion and good will, with no hate in your hearts, enfold
ing in radiant thought of love the bandit (who tortures
you) and proceeding thence to enfold the whole world
in your radiant thoughts of love, great, vast and beyond
measure, in which is no hatred or thought of harm."
In ancient Greece also we find there were men averse as Buddha
to the killing and eating of animals, for Philostratus, in his Life of
Apollonius of Tyana, as translated by Conybeare, records that "he de
clined to wear apparel made from dead animal products; and to guard
his purity, abstained from all flesh diet, whether of animals or of
sacrificial victims."
We will now leave the ancient times and turn our attention to mod
ern schools of thought upon the questions of killing and aggression.
The position of modern Spiritism appears to be quite clear. G. Law-
ton, in his book Drama of Life after Death, cites one of the official
reports of the largest American body of the movement, the "N. S. A.,"
in which this faith is to be credited with laying down that it is
"opposed to war, to capital punishment, to . . . every form of tyr
anny."
141
 The outlook of Christian Science has been criticized from the
same standpoint as has the ancient a-dualism of India, subtly de
veloped by Sankara — such a denial of the reality of evil and therefore
of the sufferings of the humanity around us has been called unsym
pathetic. Hear, on this score, Pundit Ramabai, the noted helper of
the "little widows" in Bombay, India, who
"was told on coming to New York that a new philosophy was
being taught in the United States . . . called Christian
Science, but when I recognized what its teachings were
I recognized it as being the same philosophy that had been
taught my people for four thousand years. It has wrecked
millions of lives and caused immeasurable suffering and
sorrow in my land, for it is based upon selfishness and knows
no sympathy or compassion."
Christian Science has been a seeming help to some nervous in
valids who, by repeated iteration of the assertions in Mrs. Eddy's book,
Science and Health, have been able to induce in themselves a con
viction that her phrases make sense and that they are able to heal
or remove every malady, and it teaches a healthy-minded superiority
to the small ills of life. But only by being inconsistent to its teachings
can one apply any more adequate check to epidemics, crime-waves,
wars or dictators than a refusal to admit their existence.
The late Otto Hannish or, as he latterly styled himself, Ottoman
Zar Adusht Ha'nish, leader of the Mazdaznan cult, condemned the
killing of animals and the eating of meat. He obviously was possessed
of the "father-murder" complex, for in his book, Mazdaznan Dietetics,
he first declared it strange to find people who were members of so
cieties for the prevention of cruelty to animals, who talked on hu-
manitarianism and who claimed to be God-loving men and women
and yet encouraged the killing of animals merely to gratify the cravings
of appetite; and he then went on to proclaim that retribution for
such killing would be visited upon the evil-doers. In his own words
to such killers: "Murmur not when condemnation comes, when sick
ness, sorrow and poverty enter your home — you reap what you have
sown . . . the blood of your brother-beings (animals) cries out to
heaven for justice."
He was apparently regarding the animal in the light of the "totem"
I have several times mentioned earlier in this book, and unconsciously
expected that the retribution which he proclaimed would be visited
by the father-spirit (Mazda) upon breakers of the taboo against killing
the totem. If this interpretation is correct, it is in conformity with the
psychoanalytic view that abstinence from animal food frequently
indicates that the person is inwardly fighting against his blood-
lusting Oedipus complex. Any such complex, however, in the
case of Hannish is very effectively repressed, for, on the surface,
one notices that he wishes only to rescue animals from an unnecessary
and cruel custom; and this kindly motive may, indeed, be the prin
cipal one.
It is unfortunate that those founders of religions who possessed
a pacific bent never made any distinction between the acts of a sheriff
appointed by a whole community to suppress brigandage, and those
of war-lords and dictators adjudging their own quarrels. A much more
practical counsel was that of the greatest modern philosopher, Em
manuel Kant, who actually, in his Zum Ewigen Frieden, proposed a
Society of Nations, although not along the lines of that which was
born at Versailles.
Kant foresaw that the ever-increasing armament-programs of
almost all states, involving heavier and heavier costs, would lead to
intolerable burdens of debt (a prophecy of genius!) and declared that
some mutual arrangement must be made by all nations to stop this
trend. According to Hermann Kirchoff, Kant also foresaw that the
possession by any one nation of stronger armed forces than those of
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another would be "a temptation to invasion of the weaker party" and
he demanded, to begin with "a firm international condemnation of wars
of aggression." Furthermore, his Society of Nations was to institute
rules of law "for the safeguarding of nations' freedom against surrep
titious or violent attacks."
Jeremy Bentham, to whom I have several times referred, had a
simliar vision. In a London radio broadcast, Mr. W. I. Jennings once
told his listeners how that great English philosopher-reformer had pro
posed a program of entirely practical measures which might well,
if carried out, have averted the Great War. While admitting that
"his immediate influence upon international affairs was small," Mr.
Jennings told how Bentham wanted disarmament, codification of in
ternational law, an international court of justice and open diplomacy
with publication of treaties.
It is fortunate that we have interesting biographical material con
cerning Jeremy Bentham, for this man, who was active in humani
tarian reforms of many kinds and was the founder of Utilitarianism,
provides a most interesting psychological study. We learn through his
biography that his humanitarianism was undoubtedly connected with
reaction against his intended cruelty in boyhood to a pet cat, but in
carrying out which act, he was surprised and reprimanded by an aunt.
Prom the same source we also learn that Bentham, who was violently
hostile to his father, was also a prey to morbid self-accusations and
sense of guilt. The connection of thoughts of sin and guilt with his
father, and the tendency to blaming his father played a prominent part
in Bentham's psychological make-up.
In any case, here were two great modern philosophers, Kant and
Bentham, able to envisage practical methods that would help toward
the final abolition of war; but we must admit that there have been
other recent thinkers who formed completely erroneous outlooks toward
this question.
August Comte thought that militarism was definitely on the decline.
And as an example of how English, as well as German thinkers can
go astray, Ruskin held that:

of men ...
"war is the foundation of all the high virtues and faculties

founded on war."
all the pure and noble arts of peace are

Equally erroneous in an optimistic direction was I. S. Block who,

in 1890, prophesied:
"There will be no more war in the future, for it has become
impossible now that it is clear that war means suicide."
There was rationalism for you! And President David Starr Jordan
of Stanford University, as late as 1913, seconded him with the consoling
prediction — pathetic in its filial trust both in economic determinism and
in the prudence of the father-figures of our economic order — that:
"The great war of Europe . . . will never come . . . The
bankers will not find the money . . . The industries of
Europe will not maintain it . . . The masters have too
much to lose."
In concluding this section, I should like to add a few words concern
ing the Ethical Culture Society and similar associations. The late Prof.
Felix Adler of New York, the founder of the Ethicalist movement, while
not a thorough pacifist, was on principle a disparager of violence. Henry
Newman, an American Ethical leader, writing in their journal, The
Standard, for December, 1939, defines the Society's attitude towards
international aggression:
"The Ethical Culture Society has never even remotely en
couraged the kind of secularism which gives the totalitarian
doctrines their uglier expressions. On the contrary, it
stands for world-embracing ideals which refuse to set up
143
 a nation, the one hope of humanity.
a race, or a class, as
Far from suppressing nonconformists, it insists that the
very differences among people are to be worked over into
harmonies which are all the grander for the interplay of
diverse excellence."
Another Adler — Dr. Alfred Adler of Vienna — was for some time
a psychoanalyst, but broke away to found the school called Individual
Psychology. He had also strong interests in education and in socialism.
There was in London a group of his followers which eventually split
into a medical society and a lay section. The lay section changed its
name twice or more, but is best known as the New Europe Group and
adopted as leader a Serbian philosopher named Metrinovitch. It worked
ardently for the political unification of "Atlantic Man."
One of the worthiest movements I know is the International Vol
untary Service for Peace. It differs from nearly all others in that
it is but little interested in pushing its ideas but only in doing useful
work. It began with the aim of finding helpful things for men and
women whose consciences would not let them be soldiers, but who
equally did not wish to be shirkers from danger or hardship. When there
•has been a catastrophe (e. g., a Swiss village destroyed by avalanche),
it enlists its recruits to live together, and collectively repair the dam
age.
But enough of impersonalistic and secular cults. As a preliminary
to discussing the Trinitarian type of religion, we shall now consider
the views held on- our present subject of war and aggression by Jesus.
His recorded utterances on the subject of killing were sufficiently
ambiguous, or sufficiently susceptible of sincere and yet contradictory
plausible interpretations to have kept disputants busy down to the
present time. The example of his own life, however, is clearly pacifistic.
To be sure, he did not rebuke the Centurion for his military profession,
but in that famous scene with the money-changers in the temple
which is so often quoted against Jesus' pacifism, it was presumably
not on the men but on the beasts that he applied the whip, to saving
these momentarily from slaughter.
As Jesus taught that "the kingdom of heaven is within you," it is
reasonable to suppose that his non-resistant example was intended to
show one of the means whereby one built up the disposition of love
which he supremely esteemed.
In the case of Christ, there is little evidence that his scheme of
salvation intended either ill or good to the animal kingdom. To be sure,
he and his disciples did not continue the sacrifices which went on in
the temple, but the pictures often shown of him carrying a lost lamb
are not based on any account of his doing this literally, but are al
legorical of his wish to save human souls, and may well be taken from
an older picture either of Zeus or of Buddha bearing a lamb in this
way. I have before me a book by the Rev. E. Francis Udny called
Christ's Love for Animals: but I find his argument is all by implications
or from apocryphal writings, and to me it appears anything but con
clusive.
A number of remarks about Christ can be made from the psycho
analytic approach. For these I am indebted to a pamphlet by G. Wood
entitled A Psycho- Analysis of Jesus (Little Blue Book, 1071, Girard,
Kansas, 1926) . Wood shows that it was Jesus's early impoverished cir
cumstances, and possibly the doubt whether Joseph was truly his father,
that made him a friend to all the unfortunate. His kindliness generally
remains judicious, except perhaps in his prediction that in the kingdom
of God everyone's estate shall be, more or less irrespectively of his merits,
just the reverse of what it is here, the poor being rich and the rich
poor. It is worth noting that Jesus never utters a protest against that
most cruel institution of his time — slavery, nor does he ask pity for
animals.
Wood proceeds to draw psychological conclusions from the intense
144
opposition to the family that Jesus so often displayed. Of the many
instances in the New Testament the following, taken from Matthew,
10, 34-37, is typical:
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I
am
come not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set
a man at variance against his father, and the daughter
against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her
mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own
household. He that loveth father or mother more than
me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter
more than me is not worthy of me."
Wood remarks that it is an easy evasion to say that this simply
predicts what tribulations Jesus' followers must expect to go through;
he avers that it describes Jesus' own emotional feelings towards his
putative father's household. It is also psychologically significant that
he does not say he has come to set a son against his mother, or a mother
against her son, in spite of the fact that the mother-son tie is normally
stronger than the ones he mentions. The first generations of Christians,
those who were closest to him, certainly regarded Jesus as a non-
resistant, and they carried out his teachings (as they interpreted him)
by refusing to serve in the army.
This attitude was held for some time, and was expressed by many
of the early members of the sect, among them, Justin Martyr, Cyprian
and Origen — the last named declaring boldly that they would not
fight, even though commanded by the Emperor. By the time of Con-
stantine, however, this attitude had become relaxed.
As I have already mentioned in a previous chapter, Christianity
has not been slow to advertise the persecutions that it has suffered
at various times. But we must also point out that as soon as Christianity
inherited power, it began to persecute in its own turn, and completely
disregarded the pacific character of its founder. Not only were heretics
slaughtered and punished, but even within the orthodox fold violence
seems to have been a constant means for settling disputes. Passing
over the records of Christianity during the early centuries of our era
and coming to the "Holy Inquisition," we are horrified by the ingenuity
shown in torture. Mr. H. M. Robinson, in an article abbreviated by the
Readers Digest of February, 1934, tells how a set of weights was ap
plied to crush, in a literal sense, an admission of guilt from an accused
person by piling stones upon his chest until after a few days he either
confessed or died.
"The torture chiefly employed by the Inquisition was the
strappado. The victim's hands were tied behind his back,
and he was suspended by his wrists; heavy weights were
now fastened to his ankles, he was hoisted high into the
air, then dropped with a jerk. The rending shock usually
dislocated his shoulders, but if the first dislocation did not
bring about the desired confession, the shoulder -bones were
set and the operation repeated."
These methods were not invented at the time, but were merely
adopted from current practices, and employed on a grander scale.
Moreover, the Church left it to the secular power to put them into
practice; but as she provided the inspiration of it all, she is not jus
tified in the claim (that she now makes) that therefore her hands
are clean.
In the auto-da-fe, Torquemada showed a dramatic talent as well
as an understanding of the crowd's craving for cruelty, equal to that of
a modern dictator. On a platform in the center of a town was staged
a reproduction of the day of judgment, with an audience of nobles on
a gorgeously-draped platform in front and the ecstatic rabble below.
First a sermon was given, comparable to a modern Fuehrer's speech,
149
and the heretics huddled on the stage were led out for individual
judgment. The condemned men were taken away to be burnt at the
stake.
Much glamor has been thrown on the Crusades, those "holy" wars
between the Christians and the "infidels," but the truth is that they had
their economic cause in an interference by the Seljukian Turks with
the profitable luxury trade between Europe and the Orient, and that
they received their direct inspiration from the preaching of Peter the
Hermit and the indulgences promised by the Pope to those who should
help recover the Holy Sepulcher from the "infidels." These crusades
dragged on through many years of futile brutality, the "infidels" in
the end having the better of them.
Famous are the religious war between Catholicism and Protestant
ism which followed the Reformation, and in which both sides sank to
pretty much the same level of "inhuman" cruelty. It is worth remem
bering that these wars gradually subsided as people became apathetic
to the issues at stake; certainly the religious issues involved did not
warrant the cruelty they provoked.
In our own decade, is it of any significance that Mussolini, Ciano,
Goebbels, von Papen, von Neurath, Seyss-Inquart, Seipel, Dolfuss,
Schuschnigg, Fey, Stahremberg, Father Tiso, Primo de Rivera, Pilsud-
ski, Smigly-Rudz, Franco, Sajurjo, Gil Robles, Salazar, Vargas, Imredy,
de la Rocque and Degrelle were Catholics, that Hitler was at least raised
in that faith, and that the Catholic press in England and America
supported Franco's Spanish counter-revolution? If every great ec
clesiastical institution has its weaknesses, those of the Roman Church
are its excessive concern to obtain worldly power, and the attitude it
adopts to thwart any movement towards freedom that may spring from
philosophical or scientific sources. There is too much truth in a passage
in the Bulletin of the C. I. V. I. C, January 15th, 1939:
"The claim of the church is to be mankind's guide in all
matters of faith and morals. How many human matters,
whether individual or social, have no connection with mor
als? In 1930, in the island of Malta, the bishop there pro
nounced excommunication against anyone supporting the
political party disliked by the clergy. According to Papal
Canon Law,' excommunication is incurred by any Catholic
who — without permission from a Church authority— cites
a cleric before a civil court. Further, the Roman Church
has condemned (by means of Papal Encyclicals or in some
other way) liberalism, socialism, communism, freedom of
speech and propaganda, divorce, the control of education
by the state, birth control, the separation of Church and
State."
The attitude towards the treatment of animals manifested in the
strongly Roman Catholic countries also seems to show much more
cruelty than compassion. An acceptance of the Cartesian view that
animals, as contrasted with human beings, are mere automata, has re
inforced the dogma that animals have no souls, to sanction their
heartless exploitation.
But Protestants are apt to become self-righteous over the un
speakable horrors of the Inquisition. They should not forget that the
Protestant churches ran the Catholics a close second in religious wars
and tortures, and perhaps outstripped them in burning witches. Over
the continents of Europe and America, tens and even hundreds of
thousands of poor women, not all of them old and haggard, either,
were hounded into confessing that they had dealings with the devil,
and had cast spells on people; and these poor creatures were afterwards
burned alive. Of course, as in all cases where there is a wish to inflict
suffering, excellent reasons were found to justify before conscience this
appalling cruelty. I will quote from p. 161 of Margaret Wilson's The
Crime of Punishment:
146
 "The first bill, (to abolish capital punishment for the of
fense of stealing goods worth 5s. from a shop) was defeated
in the House of Lords by 31 votes to 11, the Archbishop of
Canterbury and no less than six bishops voting against it."
It must be said to the credit of Protestantism, that it has been a
great awakener of the movement to relieve animal suffering. In Eng
land, the complaint is even heard from those who wish to raise funds
for other movements, that people are found readier to give towards
the amelioration of animal than human conditions —I do not pretend
to pass any judgment of my own on this claim.
It is also necessary to record that the rally of Protestant England,
seconded strongly by America, against the fiendish cruelties of the
slave-trade and the great evil of the whole institution of slavery, did
undoubtedly involve genuine sympathy. The fact that some of the
leaders of the movement were fanatical does arouse the suspicion that
theirs was a reaction-formation against infantile pleasure in cruelty,
but the psychological complexes of this minority must not be per
mitted to minimize the fact that the movement for freedom was founded
on the finest humanitarian principles.
Concerning the earliest persecutions of the Jews by the Christians,
I feel it necessary to show that, cruel and absolutely contrary to the
teachings of Jesus as these were, the spirit in which they were carried
out was perhaps not so irremediably selfish and inhuman as the prin
ciples put forward to justify the nazi anti- Jewish actions of today. As
C. Webb shows in an article in Philosophy, January, 1940, the olden time
persecutions were carried out with the idea of leading the Jews to
salvation by converting them to Christianity and all who were so con
verted were freed from any fear of brutal ill-treatment. But nothing
that they can do can save persons of Jewish blood from persecution in
the Germany of today, where, as Webb remarks, "no pretense is made
that the persecution is in the interest of anyone but the persecutors."
In concluding this section concerning the attitude of the Christian
Churches towards killing, war and aggression, I wish to turn the
thoughts of my readers to an important point. The Christian religion
is assumed to be a religion of love, and, indeed, at its best it is so —
even more than most others are. But a loving attitude does not neces
sarily result from mere preaching that we ought to love. Quite other
attitudes than kindness may be begotten even in the Sunday school
and the mission.
In this connection the anthropologist, Geza Roheim, testifies to how
in Australia the suppression by the missionaries of the overt amatory
play of the children has resulted in an observable increase of sadism
in such play. Also Hartshorne and May have reported the dismal
failure of Sunday schools to improve the morals of children who attend
them. Tests of children attending, compared with children not attend
ing, in such character-traits as honesty, showed no superiority of the
former which was not accounted for by superior social status of their
families. This was in striking comparison with the beneficial effect
of membership in boy and girl scout organizations or even attendance
at private as against public schools, or. progressive as against old-
fashioned ones.
In England, there has been a movement lately to turn back the
clock by re-introducing religious instruction into -the educational sys
tem. This is justified by its advocates on the ground that something
needs to be done to check the declining morals of the time.
While I do not deny this decline in morals, I certainly do strongly
deplore the unsupported assumption that its cause lies in secular edu
cation, made to facilitate re-introduction of a form of instruction which
has been proved inefficacious. It appears to me to be made in a
spirit of despair of the hope of finding anything better.
We will now proceed to our consideration of the unicitarian re
ligions.
147
 Among those ancient religious scriptures which have come down
to modern times, the Jewish literature expresses a deplorable amount
of sadism.
This is seen in the long accounts of the wars and innumerable
battles of this people, dating from their escape out of Egypt; and we
note that the worst wholesale slaughters are given the express sanction
of the deity, for Jahveh explicitly commands the sack of towns, the
slaying of the whole adult male population and the selling of women and
children into slavery.
A similarly harsh discipline prevailed internally. Relatively harm
less .offenses, like gathering sticks on the sabbath day, are visited with
stoning; and husbands are given authority to punish their wives in a
most brutal fashion. The worst feature of all, because it is the in
strument of passing down sadism from one generation to another, is the
attitude condoned towards infants, whereby parents are authorized
to stone their children. King Solomon, extolled as the wisest of all
the monarchs of the world, gave us advice that has been such a curse
to childhood throughout all the generations of the people that have
been influenced by Hebrewism and its offspring, Christianity — "Spare
the rod and spoil the child." The holy prophet Elisha, merely because
some children made fun of him, cursed forty-two of them, with the
alleged result that some bears came out of the wood and devoured
them.
It is a fact, however, that the Jewish religion presents to the scholar
a progressive ethical evolution. Many of the sayings of Jesus are prac
tically paraphrases of teachings of Hillel or other such liberal rabbis,
and most of his finest statements are also to be found in the Torah.
In its later period, compassion was among the attitudes valued by these
finer minds of Judaism.
We find that Jewish sacrifices went through a development, for
although the butchery of animals continued to take place in the temple
until the diaspora, the prophets increasingly raised their voices against
its crudities —reviving, thinks Freud in Moses and Monotheism, the old
tradition of a purer monotheism taught them by Moses, who had learned
it from the Akhnaton cult in Egypt.
Similarly, these prophets helped towards a refinement of the con
ception of God. The Kenitish volcano-god, Jahveh, who delighted in
violence and ordered the destruction of cities and slaughter of their
male inhabitants, becomes more ethical, even as the commandment
"thou shalt not kill" is given a broader significance. This evolution,
insofar as a religious tradition motivated it, should make us more char
itable than we might else be when noting the brutality of one of the
world's most religious peoples. I must state, however, that I cannot
profess to have found any biblical passages connecting these progressive
renunciations of aggression with a belief that doing so would promote,
individual spiritual development.
Leaving the Jewish faith, we turn to the other great unicitarian
religion; and we find that the orthodox teaching of Islam is, that
peace is a blessing, and that the Muslim looks forward to its universal
prevalence when all the world shall be united in submission to the
Sheik-ul-Islam, and that therefore, to a Muslim the road to peace lies
in the conversion of non-believers.
While Islam does undoubtedly teach that those who die fighting
bravely on behalf of their religion will at once know paradise (a tenet
which has made them such effective fighters), Muslims indignantly
deny that Mohammed authorized the spread of their faith through
the sword.
It is an historical fact that Islam, by uniting into one great group
many warring Arab tribes, turned aggression from smaller to larger
issues. Yet Mohammed definitely taught that wars should only be
waged defensively, and his admirers claim that all his own wars were
so waged. Unfortunately, in the Jihad, or Holy War, Iam afraid that
148
Muslims carried further the evil tradition inherited by them from Jew
and christian.
I understand that the origin of many of the Darvish orders which
devote themselves to mystical cultivation of spiritual qualities was
originally a military one. In confirmation of this, we find that a sheik
charged with the maintenance of an isolated outpost against the foes of
Islam was also the religious leader of his men.
Mohammed reacted to the hardships of his orphaned childhood
with a genuine sympathy for the fatherless, as also for the widowed;
and, as a result, he included in the Qu'ran, much humane legislation
for human beings, as well as an occasional word for animals. In spite
of this, however, the condition of animal life under Islam is deplorable,
as no one can have failed to observe who has voyaged in any Moham
medan country, such as Egypt, Morocco, Iran or pre-Kemalist Turkey.
The harsher motives in humanity have seemingly negated entirely the
commands given.
In many religious dietetic restrictions we have almost certainly a
reflection of the hesitancy about being brutal, originally to the father
but, by projection, to an animal victim. Islam provides a striking
example of this reflex, for Mohammed, in "The Chapter of the Table"
in the Qu'ran took over almost bodily the Jewish prohibitions against
eating things which died of themselves, or blood, or the flesh of swine,
or food devoted to idols; he went on to forbid also what had been
strangled, knocked down, gored, or what wild beasts had eaten — rather
a formidable list of prohibitions as regards the methods by which a
creature should be killed. It is again very doubtful, however, how
much these restrictions owe to genuine humane feeling.
In concluding our remarks on Islam a point made by Dr. H. D.
Jennings White on page 31 of his Goals of Life is well worth noting.
As is well known, Islam is an extremely fatalistic faith, and Dr. White
points out how the doctrine of predestination serves as a rationaliza
tion to allow people to be cruel, since both their own actions and the
misfortunes of their victims had been predestined by God.
We will now consider the totalitarian faiths. While Russia, Italy
and Germany have all proved aggressors, there have been distinctive
differences of attitude displayed by each of these countries towards
aggression.
The invasion of Russian soil during her revolutionary days by the
troops of America, England and France although they were not at
war with the Soviets, taught Russians that capitalistic countries
would stop at nothing to overturn communism. As a result, they at once
constructed an enormous army and taught that every citizen's first
duty was to defend the state against counter-revolution. Until the
invasion of Poland and Finland, the singularly enlightened policy pur
sued toward racial minorities within Russia, the series of non-ag
gression pacts concluded with neighboring states, and the initiative
so frequently taken on behalf of collective security, had borne out the
Soviet's claim that their sole purpose was to be left in peace to de
velop the vast resources of their empire.
While it is impossible at the moment for any outside observer to
assess the true motives which led the Soviets to take these actions,
let alone attempt to forecast their political movements in the near
future, I personally hold the theory that these acts of aggression would
not have taken place had not Germany shown signs of thrusting out
covetous fingers, not only in to Poland, but eventually into the Balkan
States and finally into Russia herself. I will refrain, however, from
prophecies but will briefly examine the internal aspect of the Soviet
regime.
As I have already indicated, there has been no persecution of na
tional minorities in Russia since the revolution; in fact, the Soviet
Government has set an example to the entire world in this direction.
As N. Thomas and J. Seidman point out in their pamphlet Russia —De
140
tnocracy or bictatorship? published by the League for Industrial De
mocracy:
"No discrimination based on race is permitted, and the use of
minority languages and the development of minority cul
tures is fostered . . . when so much of the world is perse
cuting the Jews it is worthy of attention that anti-Semitism
is Illegal in the U. S. S. R."
Nevertheless, there are many decided restrictions on the freedom
of the individual. Internal passports, which had previously been com
pulsory under the Tsars, had been abolished after the revolution, but
were re-introduced at the end of 1932. Citizens are, shall we say, gen
erally discouraged from travelling even within the Union, and their,
emigration is almost prohibited. In addition, there is the well-known
secret police, the O.G.P.U., against whom the citizen has no legal
safeguards.
It may well be that the secret of the appeal of fascism lies in
its variety of outlets for aggression. At first, there were the political
assassinations and riotings by means of which the party rose to power
and continued to maintain itself. Then, taking a leaf from Russia's
book, even the victories of peace were dramatized in warlike language,
as for instance, the "battle of the Pontine marshes" (their draining)
etc. The persecution of all pacifists, democrats and other liberals was
another outlet.
As is the case with all tyrannies, the Italian treatment of political
prisoners at once underwent a deterioration on the advent of fascism.
Copying the Russian O. G. P. U., the new party set up as its secret
police the O. V. R. A. (Organizzazione Vigitanza Repressione Antifas-
cistas) ; and corresponding to Siberia, it set apart for exiles the Lipari
Islands.
In Abyssinia, "fascist civilization," with its accompaniments of mass
murder and arson, triumphed. The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals wrote, before the war, of having to withdraw their Silver Star
Union from that country on account of the Italian occupation. League ef
forts to check Mussolini's criminal assaults — efforts backed for a time
by Britain — were defeated by French anxiety to check Hitler, and by
the fear of each member country of losing to America their Italian
trade, when our earlier cooperative gestures capitulated to oil interests,
provincialism and discouragement by the League countries' own vacil
lations.
Nazi policy bettered the lesson taught by fascism, and the treat
ment of its scapegoats, the communists, internationalists, unoffending
Jews, et al., at large and in concentration camps and prisons touched
unimaginable depths of sadistic brutality.
Then came, under cloak at first of the liberation of Sudeten Ger
mans, a series of invasions of other countries — Austria, Spain, Czecho
slovakia. Chamberlain's mistaken policy of appeasement was misread
as a sign of weakness, so that Britain's most solemn assurances that,
she would fight if Poland were invaded were not believed, and this
present war was provoked.
By smashing her communists, socialists and liberals, and later by
bombing the helpless Abyssinians and stealing their country the Ital
ians compensated for their inferiority complex. Jubilant, they raised
Mussolini to something like deification. In the same manner, the Ger
mans were able to defy the public opinion of the world by tearing up
treaties and marching first into the Ruhr and then into Austria; and
Hitler, who thus slapped the faces of foreign countries for them, be
came a hero of fantastic prestige among his people.
It has all been an interesting lesson in how the economic realities,
such as sufficiency of food and soft living, can take second place to the
psychological ones of collective self-respect, "honor." Another lesson
has been that of the enormous prestige which attaches to the nation
or leader by each success that he gains.
150
 Now let us sum up what we have learned concerning the subject of
this chapter — the inhibition of killing and aggression.
We first observed that the local religious cults of primitive peoples
invariably led to kililng and war. Next we saw that while the founders
of all the great established religions of the world taught peace and
goodwill, the actual result of their teachings had been very different
from that at which those founders aimed. This discrepancy between
the intentions of a teacher and the results in the pupils is not astonish
ing for, as I have already instanced in regard to Sunday schools, the
teaching of good actions does not necessarily result in good actions
being promoted.
It being an undeniable fact that religious teaching has failed to
stop wars, we must find something else that will.
It is not conceivable that a world which can now be entirely cir
cled by armed vessels of the air will continue divided into jealous na
tions under the anachronism of sovereign governments. The taxpayers
who groan under burdens becoming increasingly fantastic as the ar
maments race quickens, only to have the expenses become literally as
tronomical when the inevitable failure of such individualistic false se
curity brings open war, will not forever be content to see all the fruit
of science and invention frittered away through patriotic folly. Short
of the conquest of the world by one iniquitous aggressor and peace
without even pretense of justice, men of science would welcome almost
anything to end such a nightmare in favor of world union and peace.
There is, however, a way out if men of goodwill will take it. The
attempt at world government made by the League of Nations was a
beginning which, for the sake df all we value in life we must not give
up, even though the League itself, owing to inner faults and to be
trayal by those who should have supported it, may have been wounded
beyond recovery.
As I have already indicated in a previous chapter, these two faults
of thf League were (a) it had no armed police with the help of
which to force compliance upon its brawling members, (b) it had no
court of equity to which members could bring their grievances for
settlement and know that the issue would be decided on merits. For
sheer expediency prevailed in a council of mere national delegates. To
remedy these defects and to establish an international body with an
equity tribunal and a police body into which the member-states should
merge their armed forces, Lord Davies established the New Common
wealth movement.
Such an improved League, however, still would not remedy some
faults which are probably quite vital. From the beginning, the League
has been justly criticized as not democratic; its council represented
only states, not peoples. Moreover, decisions did not go by majority
vote, but required an unanimity of the "big fellows" which proved im
possible to obtain when a major power was the delinquent. Action, too,
on the League's part was hopelessly slow in this day of undeclared
wars and swift moves by aggressor dictatorships.
Almost simultaneously in Britain and America, therefore, the plan
for a still further improvement of the League has sprung into being.
This is Federal Union. It proposes nothing less than "to unite all demo
cratic peoples under one central government as a first step towards
a world state."
I know of no other plan so likely to solve the international impasse
as a federal union of the democracies constituted as part of a larger
new Commonwealth type of organization of such non-democracies as
Russia and China. The time to begin organizing for this is now, before
peace is won, or the war will have been fought in vain. Such a plan
will, moreover, inspire our forces with a more positive war aim than
we now haire, and such organization will increase our efficiency in
fighting.
131
 Chapter X.

The Ladder to Happiness

In the foregoing chapters, we began with happiness as our goal and

have ended with considering the states of being which are the very an
tithesis of happiness. We have, as it were, descended from the heights
of perfection to the depths of suffering, a procedure which, in these
days of international warfare and deprivation, is not entirely untrue
of the abortive efforts of man to achieve for himself and his loved
ones a happier and fuller existence. Certainly, at this time, those dreams
of a perfect world seem as far away as ever.
Today, however, we are witnessing not only a threat to the structure
of our whole civilization, but also the collapse of various extensive and
coherently organized forms of religion. This is because there was with
in these structures so much material that was scientifically unsound.
Unfortunately, other elements, sound enough in themselves and of such
intrinsic value as to cause people to part with their beliefs only reluct
antly, are likely to perish with the whole unless we salvage them.
Several persons who enjoy a reputation for holiness, yet who have
been separated geographically and in time by cultural and religious
tradition, have given somewhat similar accounts of definite lines of
development which they have experienced as the result of certain
exercises. This path of progress which contains the elements of
value to us referred to above, has been marked by from three to ten
stages, according to which mystic has mapped it out, and has furnished
these pious men with increased powers of insight plus great emotional
satisfaction. If we make allowances in their accounts for such defects
as are due to lack of training in scientific self-observation, we may
still, whenever we find they are in agreement and after we have dis
counted for psychological sources of error, discover in them something
valuable for our guidance.
This conception of a Path I will explain briefly, taking examples
from Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. The steps of the
path or (to employ another common analogy) rungs of the ladder, rep
resent stages of spiritual advance.
The Hindu religion as a whole stresses the concept of evolution,
both for the cosmos and for the individual person. Its ideal scheme
of like for the individual is divided into four ashramas, those of the
student, the householder, the man retiring from active affairs and fin
ally the ascetic who has broken away from all bonds of property or
family. Most striking of all is the school of Yoga, enjoining certain pos
tural and other practices whereby it is hoped to cause what is called
"the Serpent Power" to release successively the energies located in
the six Chakras at points assumed to lie in the spinal cord. These Chakras
recall to some extent the erotogenic zones of the body which have
been made known by psychoanalysis, although other ingenious ex
planations have been suggested by such writers as Rele.
The Buddhists have inherited the evolutionary bias of the Hin
dus. Their whole religion is founded on four "noble" (or "Aryan")
truths, and the eight-fold path. The "truths" declare that life is evil,
that its cause is by clinging to selfhood, that we can free ourselves from
recurrent re-births by becoming apathetic to selfish aims, and that
the way to do this is via the successive steps of the path —right views,
aspirations, speech, conduct, mode of living, effort, thought and
rapture.
1S2
 Mohammed's Qu'ran is explicit In most of Its ethical teaching, yet
lends itself to mystical interpretation. From the unorthodox half of
the Muslim world, called Shi'ah, have sprung the mystically disposed
Sufis, containing many orders of Darvishes. These practice various
methods of trying to develop themselves spiritually, or to attain a state
of ecstasy during life. The Sufis hope to progress along a mystic path
of which the successive steps are: repentance, abstinence, renunciation,
poverty, patience, trust in God and satisfaction.
Christians of the medieval period arranged the virtues themselves
in the hierarchy: temperance, courage, justice, wisdom, faith, hope
and charity. The Jesuit order, in training its aspirants, put them
through a course consisting of a preliminary four so-called "weeks" of
meditation. The first was meditation on the end of man and his ill-
deserts; the second, on Jesus as a reconquering chief; the third, on
His passion; and the fourth, on resurrection and heaven. There is
also a Christian tradition of a mystic path of individual progress in
which all recognize the purgative, illuminative and unitive stages. The
purgative stage, says Dean Inge, was subdivided into contrition, com
pensation and amendment, and included self-discipline; in the il
luminative stage, good works are performed "no longer as virtues."
Dante —or so it has been suggested by the giver of the Barlowe
lectures at University College, London — had in mind the stages of this
path when he described heaven in terms of the three lower spheres,
the four higher spheres of the planets, the stellar heaven, the prelimi
nary vision after the river of life and the ultimate ecstatic vision. Rich
ard of St. Victor describes the stages with equal obscurity as imagi-
-nation according to imagination, imagination according to reason, rea
son according to imagination, reason according to reason, under the
absolute but not beside reason, under, above and beside reason and
vision of the trinity in ecstasy. Finally, Bonaventura presumably has
these stages in mind when he gives as a sequence: sense, reason, intel
lect, understanding, apex mentis and ecstasy..
In these various accounts and others of a like nature, some theo
logians have affected to see an amount of mutual agreement constitut
ing them a proof of the existence of God. I do not follow them there.
There are, however, enough resemblances to make it probable that
the practices of mystics do move them along a line of development
the stages of which tend to follow a certain order. Where the stages
of the Buddhist eight-fold path fall in with those described by Muslim
and Christian mystics they can be briefly summarized as follows:
I Purgative stages:
i. Brahmacharya ashrama or studentship, right views,
temperance, sense, reason, intellect.
ii. Grihastha ashrama or householdership, right thought,
abstinence, renunciation, poverty, courage, aspiration,
search, despair, awakening, recalling aims, contrition,
compensation, amendment.
iii. Rightspeech, confession, wisdom, understanding.
II Illuminative stages:
iv. Vanaprasthana ashrama or semi-retired stage, non-
attachment, right conduct, right mode of livelihood,
amendment, independence of all but God.
v. Sanyasa ashrama or homeless asceticism, right effort,
right thought, patience, trust in God, faith, hope,
charity, longing, preliminary vision of the empyrean,
"dark night of the soul," amazement, suffering or
stupefaction.
Sometimes another stage intervenes here — contempla
tion, tranquility, intimacy or apex mentis.
Ill Unitive stage:
153
 vi. Nirvana, right rapture, satisfaction, annihilation, re
pose, ultimate ecstatic vision, vision of the trinity in
ecstasy, union and heaven.
Having surveyed the scala perfectionis of the mystics, we are in a po
sition to consider our own ladder of happiness, the rungs of which cor
respond in some measure to the stages laid down by these founders of
religions. As I have already remarked, our progress through this book
has been from happiness to deprivation, or beyond that to primitive
animality, but now we shall make the return journey and climb upwards.
The first rung on the upward climb of humanity is the modifica
tion of sheer pleasure-principle conduct responding to instinctual
promptings, in favor of a more calculating realism. This is the stage of
the learning of skills and of mechanical (in a very broad sense) ap
titudes. For this rule of the id, that of the ego is substituted. But
as yet life is not troubled by the super-ego with its accompaniment of
conscience, morality or idealistic yearnings. Therefore this first step
is really a secular, more than a religious one and on the whole pre
cedes those in which the mystics have been interested. It is on that
account that little attention has been given it in this volume.
The second rung of our ladder, and a part of the process called
"purgation," is that of the development of the super-ego. It introduces
a self-discipline which makes sense only if focused on an objectively
determined set of standards. To the patient who has undergone
psychotherapeutic treatment this stage of his upper- climb corresponds
to the time when he is brought against the necessity of facing the
world alone without the support of his therapist's guidance. If in the
phase yet to come the emphasis will be upon the relaxation of excessive -
control, in the present one, self-discipline has yet to come into its
own.
One may attribute certain practical results to ascetic practices,
without supposing that these results actually had much to do with
inducing the practices. When any religious ritual is performed for
the sake of such results, it is apt to indicate an ultimate and decaying
stage in the ritual, as where obeisance made to the image of Buddha
is justified on the ground that doing so will increase zeal in practicing
his precepts, or where church attendance is justified as setting a good
example to the servants.
Nevertheless, the existence of any useful results gives a certain sur
vival value to a custom; and it is, in any case, part of scientific pro
cedure to note all such factors wherever they are to be found.
Now it has been shown experimentally that the amount of attention
which subjects give to a task they are performing is somewhat in
creased if they are also exerting energy by squeezing two dynamometers.
This seems to substantiate Dr. Thouless' surmise, in his Introduction
to the Psychology of Religion, that:
"the strained posture of the Yogi immobilizes his attention
on the physical discomfort of his position; and the sub
ject's fatigue of attention produces the hypnoidal condi
tion with its characteristic tendency to pass into con
tention when an object of thought is presented to it."
He continues, however, to point out that the method is probably
not wise for auto-suggestion since, instead of "fixity of attention" it is
likely to produce "reverie and dispersion of the attention."
To a great extent, it is undoubtedly also true that the practice
of whatever virtues a religion postulates is a means of emphasizing
the value of them in the worshipper's mind. The perception of this
fact may sometimes have been a reason the formulator of a scala
perfectionis has insisted that one of its early stages should consist in
living up to the contemporary mores.
In the Buddhist eight-fold path (although they are numbered as
steps 4, 5, and 6) we find what greatly resembles the patient's facing
154
of the world, as we do also in the Muslim and Christian traditions. For
these steps consist in, respectively, "right conduct," "right mode of live
lihood" and "right effort."
For Darvishes, the rung of the ladder which corresponds to the
above is clearly that called the Shariat. As explained by J. P. Brown
in The Darvishes:
"their doctrine teaches that there are four stages or de
grees, called the four columns of the Order . . .
The first of these stages is that of humanity, called the
Shariat or that of 'holy law' which supposes the murid
or disciple to live in obedience to the written law, and to
be an observer of all the established rites, customs and pre
cepts of the (Islam) religion, which are admitted to be
useful in regulating the lives and restraining the vulgar
mass."
Although the stage is the first on the Darvish path, the fact that
they enumerate only four stages in all makes it proper, I thijik, that we
should class it here with rung two of our ladder, where it fits in so
well with the majority of other religions. The author of the Kitab al
Lima names one step of his path "renunciation," by which he undoubt
edly means the renunciation of the pleasure principle.
The standard Christian appellation of this stage is that of "hearty
amendment" which is much in line with the analytic conception except
in being moralistic. So is Miss Underbill's deduction from her group
of exemplars, by whom it is called simply the stage of "purgation."
In the Jesuit discipline, a novice's third "week" is given over to
penance. Penance is, of course, the carrying out of actual activities
expressive of the inner desire to atone for undue yielding in the past
to the allurements of pleasure. Many of Ignatius Loyola's sayings em
body useful general principles, but still betray his very great interest
in molding and forming human nature:
"A violent nature is not to be subdued by flying from dan
gerous occasions, but by combat. Solitude does not destroy,
it only conceals impatience."
Or again:
"He who is born with a rugged and difficult nature, and
by dint of courage succeeds in softening it, is often in after
life capable of great and laborious undertakings for God's
service, for this very" rigidness or natural obstinacy being
employed in a good cause, is not subject to weakness or
discouragement."
All this concern with combat and difficult natures raises a question
whether Ignatius had not some inner conflict over them, as by having
been a "difficult child" in his own infancy, a state of affairs most often
appearing first at the time of training in physiological habits, and ag
gravated by any sadism. Many other maxims of St. Ignatius employ
anal-erotic terms, which are italicized in the following:
Labor to conquer yourself.
They who aim at reforming the conduct of others before
. . . correcting themselves lose their time and" their
trouble . . . You wish to reform the world; reform your
self, else your labor will be lost.
As a nail is driven out by another, let effort be opposed to
effort, and habit to habit.
To some extent, Protestantism has taken over from Catholicism
the disciplinary and molding idea. The Anglican Church, for example,
conducts retreats where systematic courses of meditation are presented.
To sum up:
The outstanding psychological characters and motivations, there
fore, of the second rung of the ladder begin with an attempt to sacri
fice pleasure to the reality-principle. The effort to do this, however,
155
is itself sometimes betrayed into swinging to so great an extreme
from the indulgence of the naive id-promptings that one sees that an
other element of unreality has entered. With the disciplinary and
penitential attitudes, opportunity is offered to auto-sadistic self-pun
ishment and masochistic motives and, by rivalry in mortification, to
narcissism and exhibitionism.
The need for safeguarding against these is the reason why dis
ciplinary standards must be objective; which in practice means, social.
For those mystics who belonged to a religious group, the conduct norms
were provided by the commandments of the religion. In modern life,
these need to be corrected or replaced in the light of changed social
conditions, and our increased knowledge. They should aim at non-
addictionism, genetic responsibility, Freudian mental hygiene, collectivist
economy, international justice and a wisdom based on science and on
viewing of the universe as a comprehensive scheme such as will show
whether unhappiness is relieved by such measures as the ladder we
are considering.
Longing for a new life, combined with aversion for the old, has been
expressed in oral terms by the religions in the words "hunger and thirst
after righteousness," and the Jesuits, indeed, deprive novices of light,
warmth, food and society during the first "week" of their training
as candidates for the Catholic order of the Society of Jesus, as an
auxiliary means of inducing the right state of mind.
The aversion to worldly living is, at the same time, conceived in
terms of anal reaction-formation, since one thing on which perhaps
all of the mystics are agreed is in designating the earlier steps on the
"path" as purgation. That is, one must be filled with disgust at one's
mistakes and a desire to put them away from him.
The earliest part of this process, which forms the first rung on our
"ladder" is not yet in the strict sense a moral one. It is merely pru
dential or skill-forming, it is the appreciation that the world of reality
must be adjusted toby renouncing many instinctive gratifications. Pleas
ure-principle must yield to reality-principle; out of the id must be built
the ego. To this first rung such concepts are not unappropriate as the
Hindu brahmacharya ashrama or student-stage, Buddhist "right
views," Greek and Christian "temperance," Dante's "lower spheres" of
the planets, the transition from St. Victor's "imagination according
to imagination" (id impulses) to "imagination according to reason"
(realistic ego) and Bonaventura's "sense."
To mount the second rung of the ladder means that one is pre
pared to rid himself of all such tendencies as are, in general, the ways
and tricks of crass and worldly persons. Of great significance are the
words in which this step on the path are described. The Sufis, including
the anonymous author of the Kitab al Lima, named it "repentance" and
that other great Sufi mystic, Attar, meant the same thing when he
spoke of the "search" and of being or feeling "castaway." The other
expressions I have referred to are "despair," "awakening," and re
calling one's sins.
None will deny that the predominant sentiment to which these
terms would seem to give expression is that of guilt. It is an early
stage — one of deep depression over the Oedipus complex, relieved at
the end by the hope of achieving reconciliation with the Father by some
process of rendering one's self acceptable to Him.
That some religions give relatively little importance to the neces
sity for inner conviction of original sin, which in other religions is so
strongly emphasized, is perhaps a clue to the reason why the former
have not developed scalae perfectioni by which to climb out of their
abasement. Of the ancient Greeks, Dr. Ian Suttie has said that they
suffered "very little from the Semitic sense of sin. Their religion re
flects this; and, as with the Teutons, sat upon them lightly." (Dr.
Suttie would presumably have allowed an exception in the case of
some cults of non-Grecian origin.)
 Such religions would seem to have less depth than others and to
be unable to offer to humanity as much as those which, precisely
because of conviction of sin, are less optimistic about life. Prof. William
James, in his Varieties of Religious Experience, has maintained that: —
"systematic healthy-mindedness, failing as it doei to accord
to sorrow, pain and death any positive and active at
tention whatever, is formally less complete than systems
that try at least to include these elements in their scope.
The completest religions would therefore seem to be those
in which the pessimistic elements are best developed.
Buddhism, of course, and Christianity are the best known
of these. They are essentially religions of deliverance;
the man must die to an unreal life before he can be born
into the real life."
If the need for a deep pessimism concerning self is a vital first
step in beginning a life of religion, no less is it a necessary second
rung on our ladder of happiness. We may call it "the awakening" —
that is, the awakening to a realization of the need of self -understanding,
even though it may mean that understanding can be achieved only
via a psychoanalysis. Even the straightforward confession of things
which we are deeply sorry for or ashamed of is unpleasant; and the
process of digging them up in the analytic consulting room is so much
more so that it can be accomplished only after years of effort. Such
effort requires that there should have been a very powerful driving-
force behind it.
What is to supply this force? In the experience of all analysts,
there is, as a rule, only one thing strong enough to make a person
take this step, and that is, suffering. When a person is deeply in pain,
he will face the lesser pain of the analytic revelation in order to es
cape from the greater one. Otherwise he can seldom be persuaded to
go through with it.
I make with reluctance this seeming, but only seeming, concession
to the Stoic view of life.* A psychologist can hardly condone avoidable
suffering, except in the interest of the elimination of still greater
suffering or the creation of happiness. Pain, or more correctly, (how
ever crude the term) unpleasure, if taken merely in itself, means no
progress but only a denial of that freedom which we have all along
found essential to development.
To be free to escape, whenever we will, from sorrow is to be at
once relatively happy. All that sorrow can be used for, so far as I can
see, is to spur us on to action and to growth. The acts and growth so ini
tiated may, at the end of its long process, lead again to happiness for
self and others.
Meanwhile, as has been well said:
"the way to find comfort in our own sorrow is to forget
it in carrying comfort to another."
My general point is in keeping with the general biological law,
according to which pain and sorrow are regularly the signs of failure
and of wrong adjustment, and are the spurs towards making a change.
If this is true in the individual, it is also true in the social sphere, and if
it is true of physical discomfort, it is likewise true of mental discomfort.
M. Gregory, in his Psycho-therapy, Scientific and Religious, rightly
remarks: —
"The present disintegration of values, and the skepticism or
living for the moment that follows from this are socially
disastrous; and it has contributed to the production in the

...
community of the present great incidence of neurotic dis
orders No one can bear living only in the present
without security, continuity and allegiance to any scheme
of Values."
To sum up the first two steps which initiate the religious life :
157
 I have maintained that an awakening is necessary from the apathy
which, even more than apprehension, keeps the ordinary man from
learning to face life's realities. Unfortunately, awakening is a pain
ful process, because (we have claimed) it is to fight against pain in
favor of pleasure (for so?«eone, sometime) that awakening is to be
desired, the painful stimulus is only justified before reason if it is less
than the pain ultimately assuaged or the happiness won.
Religions have too often assumed that in tne fact of pain some
times being a stimulus to progress, we could find the justification of
the existence of all evil, ignoring tne point that in other cases it only
discourages and corrupts. Of religious and substitutive attempts at a
solution of the problem presented by the existence of evil, it will have
been seen that only two contained any constructive elements. The
first is tne Stoic-Christian one, wnich points to the possible utilization
of suffering for developing character, but which untenably holds that
character has value above its usefulness as a means of diminishing
suffering or adding to someone's happiness. The other is the com
munist view, which puts evil in its proper perspective as a survival
from the past, but does not sufficiently emphasize that some use
can be made of it.
The third rung of the ladder consists in expunging the inner con
flict and sense of guilt over aggressiveness, etc., witn the object of
thus releasing the energy used up in this unproductive warfare. As we
have just seen, the suiferer who has become disillusioned regarding
the power of external things to save him from his internal conflicts
looks around for the most potent means of purging himself of the un
known complexes which have brought him to despair. In some cases,
desperation drives the sufferer to suicide, but in more fortunate in
stances it results in his seizing the rungs of the "ladder" or true as
cent, with a determination measured by the depth of agony through
which he has passed. This grasping of the rungs of the ladder is, as I
have suggested, to resolve to give psychotherapeutic methods a trial,
and the third stage of his progress will be that of pouring forth
to his physician the secrets that burden his'soul.
Among the religious, the rite which most closely resembles this
procedure is confession, which had great importance even among the
Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. In primitive society ic was
very often combined with the taking of a physical emetic, a principle
of ceremonial purity applied logically and properly to the point of
realizing that the gods would prefer not only an inner to an outer
cleanliness (hence emetics) but a spiritual to a physical one.
Archaically among the Greeks, according to utterances ascribed
to the Pythia and translated by Dr. Farnell, ceremonial cleansing was
regarded as worthless without corresponding holiness of heart:
"O stranger, if holy of soul, enter the shrine of the holy god,
having but touched the lustral water; lustration is an easy
matter for the good; but all Ocean with its streams cannot
cleanse the evil man."
And, according to J. E. Carpenter in Comparative Religion, the
aspirant was warned:
"Depart, whoever is baneful at heart; for thy soul will never
be washed by the cleansing of the body."
Returning now to our treaders of mystical paths, we will consider
first the Yogis. It is just possible, that by the terms Yama (truth
fulness) and Niyama (cleanliness), which Patanjali described as the
first and second steps for achieving Yoga, he meant the carrying of
the frankness to a self -purging degree; the second term, cleanliness,
was no doubt intended to refer to freedom from guilt, not material
filth.
Similarly with regard to Buddha; it may be that by "right speech"
which forms the third step along his eight-fold path, Sakyamuni ex
pressed an intuitive appreciation of the cathartic function of frankness.
158
At any rate, the confessional has been since ancient times a Buddhist
institution.
Some of the Sufi sects practice a type of confession, while others
bring regularly to the Sheik of their order the dreams of the previous
night for interpretation — an interpretation, to be sure, in terms more
religious that those employed by modern psychotherapists. For Chris
tians certainly — and not alone the Roman Catholics — as we are told
by Dean Inge in Chrisian Mysticism, an important step in the purgative
stage of the scala perfectionis is confession.
Such confession is made to a priest, whose attitude is primarily
theological and moral and only secondarily, if at all, psychological, and
who therefore tends to reinforce, rather than relieve the super-ego
and the old repressions. Despite this fact, however, the process un
doubtedly in many instances has cathartic value. Where the priest is
a man of real insight and human sympathy — and who does not know
how tolerant of sinning the great casuists like St. Alphonse Liguori
were, so long as the sinners did not also rebel against the domination
of the ecclesiastical authorities — undoubtedly the burden of guilt is
sometimes lightened.
Confession we have seen to be widely practiced today, not only by
adherents of the Roman Church and of Anglo-Catholicism, but by
a great number of other sects. It is difficult to account for this per
sistence without supposing it made some contribution to the peace
of mind to the worshippers and not merely to the power of the priest.
We saw that confession, which in primitive societies was some
times accompanied by the giving of an emetic, seemed related to un
conscious reactions of disgust connected with erotisms of the alimentary
tract. Confession is a form of speech, the oral aspect of which has
been brought out by Roheim. Dr. Melitta Schmideberg, referring to a
phantasy on the part of infants of having in some way cannibalisti-
cally eaten their parents, says that "possibly for the sons, everything
which came out of the mouth (by which they had incorporated the
father) took on the meaning of the ejected father. This would apply
especially to words and breath."
She quotes Hawthorne as asking in The Scarlet Letter:
"Why should some wretched man, guilty, we will say, of mur
der, prefer to keep the corpse buried in his heart, rather
than fling it forth at once and let the universe take charge
of it?"
More concretely,' Schmiedeberg points out that primitives employ
confession as a therapeutic measure; that "the Kikuyus have the same
word for confession and vomit"; that "the Indians of the coast of Alaska
prepare themselves by vomiting to come before the judgment of their
God," and that the Kaffirs practice giving a child an emetic to rid him
of the Christianity he has received from missionaries.
Spewing forth one's poisonous, bad, inner objects, then, must be
generally an important motive of the enduring saint advancing along
the early part of the mystic path. It must weigh with him even more
than with the more frivolous types of person, who may unconsciously
enjoy a rivalry in exhibiting their past wickedness, or revel in the
garrulity (in which it is not difficult to detect the analogy to flatu
lence — anal erotic — and to ejaculation — genital-erotic) which is some
times seen in the public confessions of Salvation Army, Oxford Group,
"testimony meetings" or other revivalist and emotional religious gath
erings.
I do not imply that either laity or saints have gone to confession
as one goes to the psychotherapeutist today with the avowed conscious
purpose of being thereby healed of neurotic disorder. But those dis
tressed in soul and burdened with guilt do go to confession and often
the motive is the same — that of hope of relief from suffering.
159
 To sum up the third rung of the ladder:
As always out of the pain and sense of frustration which mental
conflicts wthin us have created, and which have driven us to seek a
way of escape, there lie before us particularly the methods of the con
fessional and of psychoanalysis. All other solutions of the trouble —
lustration, baptism, redemption, exorcism — while they may bring tem
porary relief, and sometimes partial sublimation, cannot satisfy every
man all the time. Even when accepted as fact they yet, more often
than not, merely add to the load of sin, for, as in the case of the
Christian who has accepted the vicarious sacrifice of Christ for him
self, the slightest slip from the path of "truth" is to magnify the of
fense so that it may become a burden out of all proportion to its ac
tual seriousness.
Undoubtedly the best means of freeing ourselves of excessive ag
gressiveness, guilt and like complexes is to undergo an analysis, and
if we cannot pay for a private one, then we should place ourselves on
the waiting list of a clinic. Short of that, we may still find ephemeral
relief if we have understanding friends to whom we may unburden our
selves quite freely. In the arts or in a useful and busy life we may
chance upon partial sublimation, but always we must practice facing
every situation in the spirit of the fullest realism and of Socrates'
maxim:
"I at least . . . know, that I know nothing."
The fourth and fifth rungs of the ladder correspond to that series
of stages of the mystic path collectively called "illumination." The
first trials of readjustment to facing one's world alone have been suc
cessfully met and discipline has made automatic the subordination
of narrower interests in favor of public service such as I have out
lined. If the feet of the pilgrim have been firmly planted on the pre
ceding rung of the ladder, the present stage of adjustment to reality
is marked by a greater zest and energy for life.
To return to the mystics, the parallel position in Yoginism is oc
cupied by darana, "concentration of attention." In Buddhism it is
"right-conduct" and "right mode of livelihood." Perhaps by this ad
jective "right" Buddha here meant to imply the presence of what the
Hindus call "non-attachment": That is to say, conduct accompanied
by, or mode of livelihood favoring, a state of mind in which good actions
are carried on as a matter of principle without internal conflict over
what would be the consequence of them to one's self.
Certainly many -of the names given to this stage do not at first
sight seem to bear out this idea. For the Darvishes the stage corres
ponding to our general fourth "rung" seems to be that which, as J. B.
Brown tells us:

or disciple attains power and strength ...

"is called tarigat, the 'mystical rights' in which the muriad
He may now
abandon all observances of strictly religious form and cere
monies because he exchanges practical for spiritual worship.
But this cannot be attained without great piety, virtue and
fortitude."
Whether because the saint who had practised faithfully the
rules for social life as enjoined for the preceding stage cannot have
retained possession of private property, or whether because of the
special meaning mystics attach to the name, the author of the Kitab
al Lima calls the fourth rung of the Sufi path, "poverty." Al Gazzali,
on his conversion to Sufism, relates that he renounced his property and
went to live in seclusion in Syria, where for more than two years he
struggled to conquer his desires and passions, strove to purify -his soul,
perfected his character and prepared his heart to meditate upon God.
A similar attitude is also voiced by Attar when he calls the fourth stage
"independence of all but God."
By the term poverty, the mystics do not so much mean the want
of material things, but rather they intend that state of mind which
160
is relatively independent of physical factors for its happiness. Miss
Underhill says:
"The true rule of poverty consists in giving up those things

it on its road to God ...

which enchain the spirit, divide its interests and deflect
It is attitude, not act, that
matters . . . the poverty of the mystics, then, is a mental
rather than a material state."
According to the Christian tradition, the fourth stage is usually
one in which those social activities which before were grudgingly done
as duties with conscious effort, now proceed almost automatically from
the impulsion of inner grace.
The essential feature, then, of this stage seems to be that of putting
to practical use those energies which have been released and discip
lined. If there has been an analysis such release will have been effected,
as we have seen, through mitigation of the severity of the super-ego
and the dragging into the light of day of conflicts which persisted
thanks to their being hidden from conscious scrutiny. Among the
small minority of mystics who have succeeded in attaining a high de
gree of illumination, however, it would seem that the resolution of their
conflicts may have been achieved by another, and less beneficial,
method. The basis of this method would appear to be an unqualified
renunciation of all desires, directly sexual, which are not completely
congruous with the maternal imago. What actually becomes of these
disharmonious desires is a problem which can best be solved when
someone has succeeded in carrying out an extensive analysis of a mys
tic who has generally attained, and remained for a considerable
period in the "illuminative" stage. We shall see a possible answer
to this problem when we pass on to our fifth rung, but before doing
so we must summarize this fourth one of our own ladder.
The step upwards is made possible only when self-discipline,
through the self-sacrifice which it entails, has enhanced the evaluation
of spiritual things still to be attained. Practice develops in us many
skills in handling human relationships and makes natural the di
versified application of ideals of cooperation, thoughfulness, justice,
good taste, realism and love of truth. From the negativeness and un
certain struggle of our second rung, life, freed by the confessional or
better, the analytic, practices of the third rung passes, with attainment
of rung four, into a more affirmative and assured tone. Our attention
can dwell less on conflict and rather on love. Aptness succeeds to
effort, and the personality, successfully adjusted to reality, becomes
gracious. As Miss Underhill puts it:
"Detachment of the will from all desire of possessions is the
inner reality, of which Franciscan poverty is a sacrament
to the world. It is the poor in spirit, not the poor in sub
stance who are to be spiritually blessed."
Thus, having entered on the illuminative stage where we are able
to separate ourselves from self-inspired motives, irrespective of wheth
er we can see the benefits that will accrue to others, we may proceed
a step higher in our ascent towards happiness.
At this fifth step on the path of the mystics, and the second in
the "illumniative" stage, we find the founder of the religions are less
in agreement with one another than at most of the others we ex
amined.
According to the Yoga school, probably dhyana, "self-contempla
tion," should come in about here. G. B. Brown says a certain stage
of the Darvishes path:
"is that of the ma'rifat, of 'knowledge,' and the disciple
who arrives at, or is deemed to have attained to, super
natural knowledge, or, in other words, to have become as
one inspired, is supposed, when he reaches it, to be on an
equality with the angels in point of knowledge."
101
 The author of the Kltdb al Lima postulates, as the fifth stage,
"patience" and "trust in God." This is followed by that of "certainty,"
"tranquility" and "intimacy."
Attar calls it "the reality of unity" and "the contemplation of His
Essence." 1
To Dante, this stage presents "the preliminary vision of the Em
pyrean," following which comes a "fuller vision of the Empyrean after
the river of life."
St. Francis de Sales' account of what seems to be his name for
this stage, namely the orison of quietude, has already been quoted, as
cited Dr. E. Jones, in an earlier chapter. The quotation made is a
marvelous example of oral-erotic imagery which also embodies the
positive parent-child relationship.
It is, however, at this stage in the scalae perfectioni of the mystics
we become aware that some of our authorities introduce a rather dis
quieting note. The climb upwards, instead of becoming easier, seems
to suffer a check, as though the rung of the ladder were rotten and
unable to support the human frame. A hint of this condition can be
found in the Sufi name for this stage — "patience"; and it should be
noted that patience is partly a reaction formation against the oral-
erotic traits of greed and petulant spoiledness. Attar, too, may have
had in mind what I am going to suggest when he talks of the "valley
of amazement" and of suffering "stupefaction." The latter term
makes us wonder whether he means that he experienced at this point
the disquiet I have referred to above.
Miss Evelyn Underhill, basing her conclusions on the accounts
of a large number of mystics, mostly Christian, explains this condition
with greater clarity by calling it the "dark night of the soul." It is,
apparently, a. period in which the auspicious gifts of grace, which they
had before experienced, desert the believers and leave them desolate.
Can we not interpret this change of outlook, and the states de
scribed as the beginning of the swing back from happiness to depres
sion which repression eventually produces? This "dark night of the
soul" certainly looks like "a return of the repressed." But is it a swing
back? It definitely suggests to us that these mystics have not suc
ceeded in annihilating permanently, as they had hoped to do, their
evil desires. Rather, these tendencies — actually oral sadism and the
hostile objects incorporated at this stage — being merely driven out of
consciousness, return after the stage of exaltation to plague them.
The evil wishes are perhaps not actually able to break" down the
strongly fortified psychological organization, but are able to rob the .
saint of energy and plunge him into dejection. In other words, what
has really been established in their case is a psycho-thymic wheel of
recurrence. If this is so, we shall not be surprised if the "dark night
of the soul" in its own turn passes away and gives place again to more
cheerful moods. It is possible, however, that death may intervene
before this next exalted state has in its own turn spent itself.
In contrast to this disquieting stage in so many mystics, the neu
rotic patient who has undergone an analysis normally not only ac
quires but retains a new zeal for life and, if the work has really been
completed, there is no reversion from this state, because the auto-
sadistic elements and guilty feelings which alone could cause it have
been dissipated by the therapeutic process.
Therefore, the fifth rung of our own ladder should be a positive,
not a negative one. We are still on the ascendant and nearing our
goal. The graciousness of behavior brought about in the personality
successfully adjusted to reality bears fruit by enabling one to perceive
and recognize similar grace in others, as well as stimulating those
others to a higher responsive functioning. In this two-fold way one
becomes aware that there is in the world a vast amount of latent good
ness which, but for our conduct, would neither be evoked nor per
162
ceived. Our progress is characterized also by an access to intellectual
energy freed from phantasy-compulsion and introspection.
To survey the foundations of this rung of our ladder:
We have discovered that, although sensory gratifications, in mod
eration, can make life pleasanter, they are by no means as essential
as is generally assumed, to happiness. One's attitude to external things
is more important than their possession, and despite occasions when
suffering cannot be avoided, there is yet much positive happiness to
be gained if one exploits any and every situation in order to further
the happiness of others or at least to lessen the load of unhappiness
which they may have to bear.
The cultivation of a disposition to act in this way incur risks to
one's personal comfort and, therefore, one's happiness, but this is
amply compensated for. It is offset by the pleasure we gain in making
others happy (always provided that we do not yield to a sadistic ten
dency to mortify ourselves merely for the sake of doing so; so far up
our ladder, however, we have presumably put aside such shams and
pretenses) . It is also offset by the understanding which comes to us
from deeper experience of, and sympathy with, the lives of others,
and by the knowledge that our actions invoke in others a like dis
position themselves. By this means we generate or release a greater
amount of love in the world than would ^otherwise be liberated. Fin
ally, it is because one tends to feel the sentiment appropriate to a type
of conduct (in this case, beneficence) consistently carried out, that
one has still another impulsion towards becoming loving and unself-
centered. For this reason, we may call this rung "benevolence."
We have arrived at the summit of our climb where before us lies
the world with all its peoples, their agonies, their petty shams and
their vain strivings after pleasure, real enjoyment in which forever
eludes them. On all sides they are seeking the happiness that lies
within their grasp, but they look for it sometimes blindly and without
reason, at other times along strange by-paths almost hidden in a jun
gle of myth and legend. Happiness is attainable but, as we have seen,
not without effort, nor without sacrifice.
Here on the topmost rung one can survey a wide landscape. Away
on one side is a group of primitives who seem easily satisfied, for be
yond the desire for food, security and reproduction, their ideas of hap
piness hardly extend. Among the other groups which make up the
scene, although these primary needs are essential to the happiness of
the individual, they have seemingly become incidental, perhaps because
wider knowledge and more advanced civilization have made food easier
to obtain, life less precarious and the desire for children less urgent.
Instead of being satisfied with such adyantages, however, we find
that these people have developed other longings; among them the hope
that the blessings which have been granted them shall be carried
over into a life after death. Once that vision has materialized there
seems to be no limit to the human imagination, for, if we examine
carefully all the groups before us, we find that each has projected an
aim or goal of its own, and each has its own formula for achieving that
aim. There is, however, a great deal of similarity in the types of goals
that large groups favor and, strangely enough, perhaps because they
are looking so far ahead and therefore wish to ignore the present, few
of them consider there is much chance of attaining complete happiness
during the present life.
The similarity that exists in the future aims of these peoples is
that of union with someone. If we look back over the mystic path, it
will be found that, although the sages may differ on what is the first
or subsequent step, they are in agreement as to the final one. It is
called the "unitive" stage; and in it the apex of development resembles
closely the supreme bliss of happy marriage. Because of its special
qualification, however, it is termed "spiritual marriage." This spiritual
marriage may as easily be homosexual as heterosexual; e. g., it may
163
 represent the union of the male worshipper with his heavenly Father
as well as that of the nun or female saint with hers.
In some of these mystical unions, their homosexual character is
extremely obvious. As a case in point, a famous Hindu saint, as cited
by F. M. Miller in his biographical book, Ramakrishna, generalized out
of his own experience that "a true devotee who has drunk deep of Di
vine Love is like a veritable drunkard and, as such, cannot always ob
serve the rules of propriety." This is borne out by numerous facts
that have been recorded of the saint.
Theravada Buddhism, which presumably is close to the primitive
form established by Sakyamuni himself, offers in its ultimate attain
ment of the "way" a curious anomaly. Buddha describes the final
step of his eight-fold path as a "rapture," but since the Ahrat is sup
posed to have rid himself of all desire, and since Buddha chose if
not to deny, at least to ignore the existence of any deity, it becomes
an interesting problem how the rapture is generated. Whether it is
merely the product of a form of psychological auto-erotism, or whether
in some way unconscious to the Ahrat himself, it represents his union
with the paternal imago disguised as some obscure metaphysical en
tity, is uncertain. The same remark applies to the ultimate Buddhist
goal of Nirvana.
The same observation seems to hold true of the Mohammedans.
A. J. B. Brown says in The Danishes the "Darvishes represent them
selves as entirely devoted to Haqq or 'the truth,' at which the disciple
is supposed to have arrived when he has become completely united
to the Deity."
Even the author of the Kitab al Lima calls the unitive stage by
the simple but expressive term of "satisfaction." Attar names it "an
nihilation" and "repose."
In nothing do the Sufis show themselves more distinctly Persian and
Shi'ah than when they express their religious sentiments through
erotic poetry. I do not hesitate to class under this term also those
poems in which religious knowledge or love is compared with wine
(the treatment of knowledge and love as synonyms suggests our phrase
"carnal knowledge"), since the psychoanalysts have pointed out that
intoxicants frequently serve as symbols for semen.
Of Christian designations, the most usual and the one which
Miss Underhill brings out in most, if not all, of the mystics examined
by her, is the plain-speaking one, "union."
The language of Dante in this case is easy to understand, -when he
speaks of the "ultimate ecstatic vision." So is that of Richard of St.
Victor; additionally, his term "vision of the Trinity in ecstasy" makes
the psychoanalyst ask whether '
it has reference to infantile recollec
tions of the family group.
St. Theresa's Chateau Interieur mentions four ascending degrees
of the mystic union, which we may arrange, with Poulain's comments
on them as follows: —
1. Incomplete union or orison of quietude. When distraction be
comes impossible, this develops into
2. Complete, semi-ecstatic union. With loss of sense perception -
and power of voluntary movement, this becomes
3. Ecstatic in the strictest sense. Becoming a more permanent
condition, this yields
4. Transforming union or spiritual marriage.
There seems no doubt that the final "week" in the training of a
neophyte for the Society of Jesus corresponds to the unitive rung of the
scala perfectionis. In this "week," initiates enjoy "refreshment" and
their meditation is upon the happy themes of resurrection and of
heaven.
We see, then, in the final stages of the mystic path, hope swing
ing back from the "dark night of the soul," which, in some cases, has
been earlier endured, to a more intense and energetic living, a denial, in
164
 effect, of the conflict which was uppermost during that period when
all good objects were felt to be in danger from aggressive impulses.
Without wishing to use the term in any diseulogistic (to employ a word
familiarized by Bentham) sense, this stage can almost be described as
often approaching mild mania. Congruous with this fact is the further
one that it is extremely far from being, as is popularly supposed, a
condition of passivity. It is, on the contrary, marked by intense ac
tivity in humanistic as well as religious fields, salvation by works as
well as by faith, according as the reparative tendency is worked out
on external or .internal objects. Undoubtedly this final stage repre
sents a highly sublimated form of satisfaction of the allo-erotic im
pulses.
In the male worshipper, they seem at first view to represent, as
a rule, the triumphant subordination of the heterosexual, as well as
of all auto-erotic, tendencies —their subordination, I say, to the homo
sexual motive. As a reward for his life of disciplining the rebellious
tendencies, the saint conceives himself as eternally united with the
beloved Father in what he calls "mystical union." Yet we must not
forget that the parents are often conceived in these deeply repressive
phases as combined figures. Hence what has the appearance of being
flight into sublimated homosexuality may be but a mask for deeper
heterosexual phantasies with the mother as the phantasied partner.
The female worshipper finds true relationship easier to express,
and the religious public find it easier in her case to accept, than is
likely to be the case with the male. For, to her, the mystic union
is a heterosexual one, and does not, therefore, involve so much renun
ciation of the natural. The saviour, or deity, becomes to her, to use
the terms literally employed by Theresa, Catherine, and other saints, "the
heavenly bridegroom." All the terms which we employ in our ac
counts of earthly weddings are used also by the nun and female saint
as the terms — indeed the only adequate terms —in which to describe
spiritual marriage to God Himself.
But all these visions of union with gods and goddesses, or with be
loved relatives and friends, are to be adjudged by their one aim — hap
piness. Such unions are in my view but a method of attaining that
goal; a method that has now been tried out through the centuries.
Unless it has added to the total of man's happiness, or we have reason
to believe on verifiable grounds, to the happiness of beings other than
human, it must be considered not only unwise, but disastrous. I do not
presume here to decide this point for my readers.
To set up our goal, on this topmost rung of our ladder, the giving
of "the greatest gain in pleasure feeling for the greatest number for
the greater duration of time," I contend, is likely to bring more lasting
benefit to suffering humanity than such narrow creeds as have prom
ised everlasting peace to those who follow other lines of thought.
The repression of this and that instinct in the child of yesterday has
led to the problems and international strifes of today. If the same
processes are continued in the children of today, tomorrow they
shall reap a thousandfold the seed that we have sown. Let us clear
away the mists of error, and steer, not by the holy books whose teach
ing is seldom unequivocal, nor by the gospels of racial supremacy pro
claimed by the sadistic totalitarianists, but by the pole-star, Great
est Happiness.

165
 INDEX
Adler, Prof. Felix, 66-132 Communism, 7-17-35-37.38-41-417-72-82-85-109-129
Aesthetic, 19-23 Communist manifest, 17-80
Affliction, 102-114 Conative control, 21-55
Aggression, 9-88-141-142-151 Conative factors, 27
Ahiinsa, 13-139 Conception of correlates, 22
Ahmadiyyat, 16 Confession, 42-92-158-159
Conflict, 9
Ahura Mazda, 28 Confucius, 13-25-52-63
Aleody, Dr., 78 Conscious (awareness), 8
AH, 14-15-16 Control idealism, 76
Allah, 45-59-65 Conybeare, F. C, 40-41
Allo-erotic, 10 Cosmic creation, 28
Altruistic, 8 Cosmology, 32-33
Anal zone, 10-34 Creative work, 63
Ananke, 9 Creedy, F., 66-79-83-84
Ancestor worship, 38 Cretan religion, 12
Ancient period, 13-14 Crusades, 146
Animism, 12-27 Curiosity. 10-82
Anthropological, 16 Cybele, 13
Appetitive urges, 9-11
Aquinas, Sir Thomas, 29 Darvishes, 155
Archaic period, 12 das Gupta, K., 62
Arian beliefs, 14 das Kapital, 35
Aristotle, 13-35 Davids, Prof. Rhys, 29-76-84-131
Arthus, Dr., 78 Davis, H., 138
Artificial religions, 16 Death, psychological aspect, 112
Asceticism, 123-128 Death, impulse, 9
As her ah, 40 de Chateaubriand, Alfonse, 48
Defense reaction, 9-10-11
Athenian intellect, 13 Demi-gods, 119
Attaturk. 31 Determination, 32
Attis worship, 7 Dichotomy, 9
Angra Mai mi, 28 Distribution, 34 ,
Aurignac period, 11 Dogmatism, 7-33
Authority, 35-26 Dualist faith, 28
Auto-erotic, 10 Dynamism, 11
Auto-suggestion, 54-67
Awakening, 157-158 Eclectic, 16
Awareness, 8 Economic, 7-16-19-23
Aztec, 15-38-42 Ecstatic states, 49-50
Eddy, Mrs. Mary Baker, 28-46-84
Bahaiisrn, 16 Ego, ego trends, 8-10-11-156
Baha'u'Ilah, Mirza Hussain Ali, 16 Egoism, 75
Baptism, 88 et seq. Egyptian religion, 12-103
Barnes, Prof H, A., 41 Ejaculation, 57
Beck, L. Ada ma, 52 Embryology, 34
Benevolence, 163 Emotional, 6
Bentham. Jeremy, 35-143 Empty pews, 7
Berdyaev, N. 126 Engels, Friedrich, 30
Berkeley, Bishop, 108 Epicureanism, 10-12-72
Black, Hugo, 67 Eros, 9
Essenes, 14
Blavatsky, Madame, 28
Esoteric, 78
Block, S. I., 143 Ethical codes, 5-133
Brahman, 81-105-107 Ethical code, 134: Property, the family, security
Brown, 6. B., 161 of person, narcotics, truth, parent-child rela
Brown, J. P., 155-160 tionships.
Buddha, 13-26-27-71-81-85-108-141 Ethical hedonism, 53
Buddhism, 6-7-14-25-27-38-31-40-43-52-75-76-79-84 Ethicism, 16-30
131-141-152 Ethical Culture Movement, 16-61-63-66-143
Bussell, F. W., 79 Evolution, 43-152
Exhibitionism, 10
Caesar, 7 Extra-sensory perception, 21
Careful thinking, 79
Carpenter, 42-89-106-158 ; [! i Facilitation, 20
Censorship, 9 Faith, 29
Charity, 69 Farnell, Dr., 158
Child -care, 23 Fascism, 7- 17-30-37-3 B.4S-47-72-77-85- 120- 127- 129-
Child-parent relationship, 135 133-150
Chinese religion, 12-52-71 Fateful necessity, 9
Christendom, 15 Fatigue, 21
Christianity, 7-14-25-28-29-31-40-59-65-123-132-145 Fear, 106-113
Christian Science, 28-45-142 Federal Union, 151
Clare, James S. J., 59 Female saints, 46
Classic-psychology, 16 Feuerbach, 16
Cleanliness, 87 Fielding, "W. J.. 46
Clinical-psychology, 6 Fitch, R. E. 53
Cocoa vorism, 44 Floyd, William, 34
Coit, Dr. Stanton. 63-133 Food, 37-38-39
Collective unconscious, 34 Foresight, 34
Combat, 10 11 Freud, Sigismund, 9-12-21-52-76-95-104-108-118

166
Gathas (or Bible), 28-28 MacMunn, Lt. Gen..
Gautama, 27-28-43-78 Magi, 14
Genetic Factors, 23 Magical, 5
Genital, 10 Magico-religious cult, 11
Goals, 37 Mahabharata, 27
God, father of Jesus, 33 Mahatmas, 28
Gospels, 14-28 Mahavira, 12-13-105
Grace, 89 Mahayama, 14-27-58-62-75-76
Great Mother, 39-40 Male genital, 52
Greek religion, 13-64-104 Male person goal, 41-44-45-46-65
Gregory, Marcus, 94-157 Mana, 12
Gunaratan, 131 Marais, E. N.. Ill
Martinole, Ettore, 77
Habit, 136 Marx, Karl, 17-23-30 35-47-57-72-75 109-120-126-133
Hall, Prof. G. Stanley, 38 Mayas, 14-15 27-107
Hallucinations, 9-11 Mazdaznan, 52-59
Happiness, 52-S5-71-72 McCabe, 29
Hare, W. L., 83 McDougall, 9
Harman, 94 Means, F. A,, 42
Hate, 11 Mechanical, 5-7
'
Hegel, G. W. F., 15 Medieval period, 14
Hell, 9 • Meditation, 26-57-58-59-74-75
Herbart, 9 Mein Kampf, 7
Hero-worship, 45-47-48 Mental experiences, 33
Himself, 8 Mental hygiene, 19
Hindu, 27-37-40-81 131 Mental physiology, 11
Hinduism, 15-25-40-42-52-104-152 Metaphysics, 24
Hitler, Adolf, 7-30-39-48-49-72-110-121-128-133 Mikado worship, 17-37
Hunger, sensation of, 9 Mill, John Stuart, 53
Mind, 8-11
Id, 8-9-11-156 Mind-body relationship, 32
Illumination stages, 23-153-160 -. Miracles, 31
Im Thurm, E. F., 122 Mithraism, 7-13-14
Imperialism, 17 Modern psychology, 87
Impersonalistic, 28 Modem substitute for religion, 109
Impersonalistic beliefs, 7-28-79 Modern Totalitarian substitutes, 117
India, Religion, 12 Mohammed. 7-14-24-26 59-82-85-132-148-149
Indra, 37 Monotheistic. 7-103
Inferiority complex, 68 Moore, Prof. G. E., 54
Insight, 26-95 Moral, 5-6-130-131
Intellectual activity, 79-82 Moral responsibility, 33
Intellectual freedom, 135 Mormons, 16
Interest, 56 Moslem world, 45-59-82
Intuition, 21 70 Mother conception, 39-40-41
Isaiah, 12-13-26-103 Moxon, 44-110
Islam, 7-14-31-45-65-148 Murkerji, 40-45-75-84
Muslim, 31-107
James, William, 9-10-21-62-93-124-157 Mussolini, 7-72-120
Japan, 7 Mustapha Kemal Fasha, 7
Jesus, 7-13-26-28-46-59-65-76-78-83-85-105-144 Mystic cults, 18
Jesuits, 15-59 Mysticism, 45
Jewish religion, 12-38-75-82-103.132-148 Mystics, 58
Jewish traditional scriptures, 28
Jews, 103-132 Narayana, 16-27
Narcissism, 9-10
Kali, 40 Narcotic addiction, 134
Kant, Emmanuel, 132-142-143 Nationalism, 17
Karma, 27-105 Nature, 39-63
Kempis, Thomas a, 46 Nazi, 7-17-30-37-38-41-47-72-77-81-85-110-150
Killing, 137-151 Neurosis, 9-11-87
Knowledge, 18 New Order of Asia, 7
Krishna. 27-42-43 New religions, 18
Kuli, 12 New Thought, 54
Kung-fu-tse, 26-27 28 -42-K3-58-64-66 -76-81 84-125- Nirvana, 154
131-140-141
Occupational therapy, 57-67
Lange, 67 Oral factors, 61
Lao-tse, 13-26-28 Oral zone, 10.57
Lao-Tzu. 125-140-141 Orthodox religion, 14
Latter Day Saints, 16 Ouspensky, 78
Law ton. G.. 45-141
Legislation vs. Redemptive groups, 6 Paleontological, 34
Lenni, 7-35-47-72-120 Parables, 78
Leuba, 46 Paralysis, 11
Libido, 10-18-87 Parents, 8
Libinous trends, 9-10-16 Path, conception of a, 152
Limbo, 9 Paul. L.. 48
Lin Yutang, 125 Pauline Epistles, 28
Logic, 20 Penance, 155
Love, 66-83 Persecution of the Jews, 14i7
Love deity, 7 Philosophy, 5-20-72
Love of one's own sex, 10 Plato, 13
Love of other sex. 10 Political, 7-19-23-41-47-85
Loyola, Ignatius, 15-59-155 Polytheisms, 7-12-26-79
Lustration, 87 Positivism, 16-30

167
Power deity, 7 Sociological realities, 133
Powys, L., 124 Socrates, 13-17
Pre animistic beliefs, 25 Solokoff, Boris, 75
Pre-historic period, 11 Soviet, 30
Primitive, 7-37 Spewing, 10-11
Prohibition, 135 Spiritism, 28-41-45-141 "
Property, 134 Stalin, 35-41-47-57-120 •
Protestantism, 15-30-146 Steedman, Miss, 50
Pseude-religions, 17 Stoicism, 13-108-157
Psychoanalysis, 52-96-160 Striving, 6
Psychological aspect, 66 Subconscious, 9
Psychological hedonism, 53 Subjective ideals, 107-108
Pythagoras, 12-108 Sublimation, 9-11-87
Substitutes for religion, 16-72
Quakers, 15-62 Sufi. 28-63-78-83
Qualitative laws, 21 Sumarians, 12
Quantitative laws, 20 Sun worship, 44
Quechmas, 14-15 Sunni, 14-15
Qu'ran, 7-14-24-35-153 Super-conscious, 9
Super-ego, 8-9-11
Ramanuja, 26-27 Survival, 27
Realistic ego, 156 Susa no Wo, 37
Reality principle, 155 Suttie, Dr. Ian. 156
Reasoning, 22-29 Suzuki, Prof. D. T., 62
Redemption, 6-90-91-95 Swedenborg, 26
Reformation period, 15
Rejection, 10-11 Tagore, Debendranath, 16
Relationships, knowledge of, 21 Tao, 13
Religion, 5-6-7 Taoism, 28-58-64-65
Religion, origin of, 26 Telepathic reception, 21
Religious phenomena, explanation, 16 Tenrikyo, 62
Renunciation, 155 Testimony, 24
Repetitive impulse, 9 Tetregamation, 58
Repetitive prayer, 59-60 Thanatos, 9
Repression. 9-11-58-162 Theological, 20
Resurrection, 90 Theories of creation, 22-34
Retentivity, 20 Theosophy, 20-28
Retrogression, 58 Theraputal, 14
Revelation, 21-29 Theravada, 14-27-40-84
Rig-Veda, 37 Thorndike, 9-10
Roche, A., 106 Thouless, Dr., 29-154
Tibetan, 7
Roman Catholic Church, 15-29-31-40-146
Rungs of the Ladder to Happiness, 152 Totalitarian, 8-81-142-149
Totemism, 12.14-104-118
Sacrifice, 15-37-91-1 16 118-123-133-138 Tradition, 25-31
Saint Paul, 13-14-65 Transmigration, 27
Tree, 8
Saint Theresa, 47-63-65
Sadism, 11-104-148 Tree worship, 50
Salvation, 103-105 Trinitarian faith, 28-29
Sanctified labor, 62 Tripitaka, 27
Schleiermacher, 15 Truth, 18-26
Schopenhauer, 15
Science, 8-24 Uddhava Samprada, 16
Science and Health, 16 Unconscious, 9
Scientific humanist, 30 Underbill, Miss, 45-65-74-161
Search for Truth, 18: Economic, Health and Unicitarian religion, 147
(tpsfhetic. Political. Sexual, Mental Hygiene, Unitive stage, 153-163
Philosophical, Theological and Instructional Universalistic polytheist religion, 27
Sects, 5 Upanishad, 77
Security. 38-39 Utilitarianism, 35-53
Sedeewick, 54
Selflessness, 62 Vedanta, 8
Se'f-contemplation. 161 Vedas, 10-11-12-26
Self -development. 10 Vishnu, 16-43
Self-discipline. 135-161 Voltaire, 15
Self-mortification. 122-124 von Schrenck-Notzig, 28
Se'f-sacrifice, 125 von Shirach, Baldue, 49
Se'f-suggestion, 58
Self-transformation, 61-66 Wealth, 72-73
Sense perception, 22 Wisdom. 29-40-78
Serpent worship, 50 Wood, Clement, 40
Sexual trends, 11-19-23 Wood. G.. 144
Shariat. Darvishee, 155 Woodworth, 9
Shen, 12
Shi-ah, 14 Yang. 12
Shinto, 37-71-103 Yin, 12
Siddhartha Gautama, 7-13-125-140 Yoga, 57-81-154-158
Sikhism, 15-45 Young, A. Morgan, 127
Simpson. P. Carnegie. 76 Yung, 34-123
Sister Mary Ethel. 40
Smith, Joseph, 26 Zarathustra (Zoroaster), 12-13-14-26-28-184
Smith. Prof. T. H»rold, 28-103 Zeno, 12-13
Socialism. 7-17-37-130 Zoroastrianism, 14-28
Social Standards, 156 Zen, 54

168