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11 - Characteristics of Secularism Part 3 - The Principles of Secularism - George J Holyoake · Logic Library

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Fifteen. Yet some opponents have professed that secular cannot be distinguished from Christian rights.
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Is this so the right to think for ourselves has been emphatically and reiterately
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declared to be a Christian right, It belongs essentially to Christianity. Now,
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Christianity has no such right. It has the right to think the Bible true
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and nothing else. The Christian has no right to think Christianity untrue. However
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untrue it may appear. He dare not think it false. He dare no
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more think it false than the Catholic dare differ from the dictum of the Church,
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or the Mahommedan differ from the text of the Qoran, or the Hindu
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differ from the precepts of the Brahmin. Therefore, the Christian's right to think
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for himself is simply a compulsion to believe. A right implies relative freedom of
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action. But the Christian has no freedom. He has no choice but to
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believe or perish. Everlastingly, the Christian right to think for himself is therefore
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not the same as the secular right. We mean by the right to think
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what the term right always implies freedom and independence and absence of all crime or
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danger of penalty through the honest exercise of thought and maintenance of honest conclusions.
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Whether in favor of or against Christianity, Our assertion is that private judgment is
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free and guiltless. The Christian is good enough to say we have a right
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to think, provided we think rightly. But what does he mean by rightly?
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He means that we should think as he thinks. This is his interpretation
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of rightly. Whoever does not fall in with his views is generally in his
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Vocationibullary a dishonest perverter of scripture. Now, if we really have the right
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to differ, we have the right to differ from the minister or from the
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Bible, if we seek good reason to do so without being exposed to the
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censure of our neighbors or disapprobation of God. The question is not does men
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give us the right to think for ourselves? But does God give it to
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us? If we must come to a given opinion, our private judgment is
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unnecessary. Let us know at once what we are to believe, that we
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may believe it at once and secure safety. If possible, disbelief in Christianity
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will lead to eternal perdition. The right of private judgment is a snare.
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We had better be without that perilous privilege. And we come to regard the
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Roman Catholic as penetrative when he paints private judgment as the suggestion of Satan,
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and the Roman Catholic no less merciful and consistent when he proscribes it. Altogether,
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we must feel astonishment at him who declares the secular right to be essentially
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a Christian right, when it is quite a different thing, is understood in
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an entirely different sense, and has an application unknown and unadmitted by Christianity.
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This is not merely loose thinking. It is reckless thinking. Sixteen It has
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been asserted that the second right, the right to differ, is also a
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Christian right. Christianity recognizes the claim to difference of opinion. Christians are not
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careful to maintain uniformity at the expense of private judgment. This is omitting a
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part of the truth. Christians often permit difference of opinion upon details, but
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not upon essentials, and this is the suppression made. The Christian may differ
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on points of church discipline, but if he differ upon the essential articles of
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his creed, the minister at once warns him that he is in danger of
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the judgment that any minister tried himself and his congregation will soon warn him to
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depart, and also warn him of that higher power who will bid him depart
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into outer darkness, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. With
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respect to the third right, the right of asserting difference of opinion, this
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is declared to be not peculiar to secularism that Christian churches, chapels, literature,
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and services are so many confirmations of the statement that Christians claim the right
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of speaking what they think, whether it be affirmative or negative. Yes,
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so long as what they speak agrees with the Bible. This is the Christian
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limit. Yet this is the limit which secularism expressly passes and discards. It
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is the unfed right which makes secularism to differ from Christianity and to excel it.
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Seventeen. The right of private judgment, always in said terms conceded to
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us, means nothing unless it leads to a new understanding as to the terms
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in which we are to be addressed in the Bible and the people. It
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is described as an insolence to ignore Christianity. We do not understand this language.
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It would be insolence to deity to ignore a message which we can recognize
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as coming from him. But it may rather imply reverence for God to reject
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the reports of many who speak in his name. Were we to require Christians
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to read our books or think as we think, they would resent the requirement
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as an impertinence, And we have yet to learn that it is less an
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impertinence when Christians make these demands of us. If Christians are under no obligation
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to hold our opinions, neither are we under obligation to hold theirs by our
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own act or at their solicitation. We may study sacred writings, but at
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dictation never so long as secularists obey the laws enacted for the common security,
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so long as they perform the duties of good citizens. It is nothing to
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Christians what opinions they hold. We neither seek their counsel nor desire their sentiments,
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except they concede them on terms of equality. The light by which we
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walk is sufficient for us. And as at the last day of which Christians
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speak, we shall there have, according to their own showing to answer for
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ourselves. We prefer to think for ourselves and since they do not propose to
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take our responsibility, we decline to take their doctrines. Where we are to
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be responsible, we will be free, and no man shall dictate as to
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the opinions we shall hold. We shall probably know as well as any Christian
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how to live with freedom and to die without fear. It is in vain
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for Christians to tell us that Newton and Locke differed from us. What is
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that to us? Unless Newton and Locke will answer for us. The world
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may differ from a man, but what is the world to him unless it
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will take his place at the judgment day? Who is Paul or Apollus,
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or Matthew or Mark that we should venture our eternal salvation on his word any
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more than on that of a Mahomedan prophet or a Buddhist priest. Where the
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danger is our own, the faith shall be our own. Secularism is not
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an act conceived in the spirit of pride or vanity, or a self will
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or eccentricity, or a singularity or stiff nakedness. It is simply well understood
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self defense. If men have the right of private judgment, that right has
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set them free. And we own no law, but reason no limits but
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the truth, and have no fear but that of guilt. We may say
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we believe in honor, which is respecting the truth, in morality, which
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is acting the truth, in love, which is serving the truth, and
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in independence, which is defending the truth. Eighteen Confucius declared that the foundation
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of all religion was reverence and obedience. The religious sentiment is the intentional reverence
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of God. The Christian is ever persuaded that there is only one way of
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doing this, and he arrogantly assumes that he has that way, whereas the
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ways are as diverse as human genius. That those who deny that secular truth
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meets the emotional part of their nature settle what is the nature of the emotions
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they desiderate. The miser wants money, the sensualist wants to cook, the
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scholar one's knowledge, and the mother desires the life, growth, and happiness
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of her child. But what can man want in a rational sense which nature
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and humanity may not supply? Do we not meet the demand of the many
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when we show that secularism is sufficient for progress, that it is moral and
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therefore sufficient for trust, that it builds only upon the known, and is
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therefore reliable. It is the highest and most unpresumptuous form of unconscious worship.
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It is practical reverence without the arrogance of theoretical homage. We at least feel
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confidence of this that the future, if it come, will not be miserable.
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There may be a future. This remains to awaken interest and perennial curiosity.
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If nature be conscious, it will still design the happiness of man which
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it now permits. This assurance remains still in fear and teaching trust nineteen.
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In surveying the position of Christianism in Great Britain, there is found to exist
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a large outlying class daily increasing who for conscientious reasons, reject its cardinal tenets.
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Hence arises the question our good citizenship and virtuous life on secular principles possible
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to these persons. Secularism answers yes to these excluded by the letter of scripture,
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by the narrowness of churches, by the intrinsic error and moral repulsiveness of
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doctrine. Secularism addresses itself to these. It is the word of recognition of
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concert and morality. It points them to an educated conscience, as a security
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of morals, to the study of nature as a source of help, and
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seeks to win the indifferent by appeals to the inherent goodness of human nature and
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the authority of reason, which Christianism cannot use and dare not trust. If,
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however, the secularist elects to walk by the light of nature, will
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he be able to see? Is the light of nature a fitful lamp or
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a brief torch, which accident may upset or agust extinguish. On the contrary,
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the light of nature may burn steady, clear and full over the entire
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field of human life. On this point we have the testimony of an adversary
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who was understood to address us, a testimony as remarkable for its quality as
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for its felicity of expression. There is the ethical mind, calm, level
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and clear, chiefly intent on the good ordering of this life, judging all
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things by their tendency to this end, and impatient of every oscillation of our
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nature that swings beyond it. There is nothing low or unworthy in the attachment
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which keeps this spirit close to the present world and watchful for its affairs.
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It is not a selfish feeling, but often one intensely social and humane.
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Not any mean fascination with mere material interests, but a devotion to justice and
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right, and an assertion of the sacred authority of human duties and affections.
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A man thus tempered, deals chiefly with this visible life and his comrades in
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it, because as nearest to him, they are better known. He plants
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his standard on the present as on advantage ground, where he can survey his
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field and maneuver all his force and compute the battle he is to fight,
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whatever his bearings fervors towards beyond his range. He has no insensibility to the
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claims that fall within his acknowledged province and that appeal to him in the native
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speech of his humanity. He so reverences veracity, honor, and good faith
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as to expect them like the daylight, and he is of their violation with
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a flush of scorn. His word is a rock, and he expects that
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yours will not be a Quicksand if you are lax, you cannot hope for
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his trust. But if you are in trouble, you easily move His pity
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and the sight of a real oppression. Though the sufferer be no ornamental hero,
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but black, unsightly and disreputable suffices perhaps to set him to work for
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life, that he may expunge the disgrace from the records of mankind. Such
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man as he constitute for our world its moral center of gravity. And whoever
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would compute the path of improvement that has brought it thus far on its way,
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or trace its sweep into a brighter future, must take account of their
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steady mass. The effect of this style of thought and taste on the religion
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of its possessor is not difficult to trace. It may, no doubt stop
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short of avowed and conscious religion Altogether, its basis being simply moral, and
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its scene temporal, its conditions may be imagined as complete without any acknowledgment of
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higher relations. Twenty Nature is that which is is the primary subject of study.
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The study of nature reveals the laws of nature. The laws of nature
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furnish safe guidance to humanity. Safe guidance is to help available in daily life,
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to happiness self contained, to service, which knows how to labor and
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to wait for authority. Nature refers us to experience and to reason for help.
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To science the nearest available help of man. Science implies disciplined powers on
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the part of the people and concert in their use to realize the security and
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sufficiency necessary to happiness. Happiness depends on moral no less than on physical conditions.
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The moral condition is the full and fearless discharge of duty. Duty is
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devotion to the right. Right is that which is morally expedient, that is
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morally expedient, which is conducive to the happiness of the greatest numbers. The
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service of others is the practical form of duty, and endurance in the service
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of others the highest form of happiness. It is pleasure, peace, security,
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and desert. Twenty one. We believe there is sufficient soundness in secular
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principles to make way in the world. All that is wanted is that advocates
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of them shall have clear notions of the value of method in their work.
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To the novice in advocacy, policy seems a crime, at least many so
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describe it. Unable himself to see his way, the tyroh fights it everything
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and everybody equally, and too vain to own his failure, he declares that
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the right way, not knowing that progress is an art, and an art
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requiring the union of many qualities. He denies all art, cries down policy,
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and erects blundering into a virtue. Compare the way which Havelock reached lucknow
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and the way in which Sir Colin Campbell performed the same feat, and you
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see the difference between courage without and courage with strategy. It was because magnitude
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existed which were inaccessible and incapable of direct measurement, and that mathematics arose.
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Finding direct measurements so often impossible, men were compelled to find means of ascertaining
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magnitude and distance indirectly. Hence mathematics became a scientific policy. Mathematics is but
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policy of measurement, Grammar but the policy of speech, Logic but the policy
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of reason, Arithmetic but the policy of calculation. Temperance but the policy of
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health. Trigonometry but the policy of navigation, Roads but the policy of transit,
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Music but the policy of controlling sound. Art but the policy of beauty.
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Law but the policy of protection. Discipline but the policy of strength,
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Love but the policy of affection. An enemy may object to our having a
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policy because it suits his purpose that we should be without one, But that
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a friend should object to our having a policy is one of those incredible infatuations
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which converts partisans into unconscious traitors. The policy adopted may be a bad policy,
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and no policy at all is idiocy. If a policy be bad,
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criticize and amended. But to denounce all policy is to commit your cause to
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the providence of bedlam. If therefore, throughout all intelligent control of nature and
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humanity, policy is the one supreme mark of wisdom, why should it be
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dishonorable to study the policy of opinion. He who consistently objects to policy would
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build railway engines without safety valves and dismiss them from stations without drivers. He
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would abolish turnpike roads and streets and leave us to find our way at random.
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He would recommend that vessels be made without helms and sail without captains,
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that armies fight without discipline, and artillery men should fire before loading, and
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when pointing their guns should aim at nothing in fine. A man without policy,
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honestly and intelligently opposed to policy, would build his house with the roof
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downwards and plant his trees with the roots in the air. He would kick
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his friend and hug his enemy. He would pay wages to servants who would
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not work, govern without rule, speak without thought, think without reason,
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act without purpose, be a knave by accident and a fool by design.
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End of Chapter nine, Part three, End of the Principles of Secularism by
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George Jacob Holyoke