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Page 2
The net result is that ancient Revelations, being given for a certain
age and certain social conditions, often cannot and ought not to be
carried out in the present state of Society; that ancient documents are
difficult to verify--often impossible--as coming from those whose names
they bear; that there is no guarantee against forgeries, interpolations,
glosses, becoming part of the text, with a score of other imperfections;
that they contain contradictions, and often absurdities, to say nothing
of immoralities. Ultimately every Revelation must be brought to the bar
of reason, and as a matter of fact, is so brought in practice, even the
most "orthodox" Br[=a]hma[n.]a in Hin[d.][=u]ism, disregarding all the
Sh[=a]s[t.]raic injunctions which he finds to be impracticable or even
inconvenient, while he uses those which suit him to condemn his
"unorthodox" neighbours.
No Revelation is accepted as fully binding in any ancient religion, but
by common consent the inconvenient parts are quietly dropped, and the
evil parts repudiated. Revelation as a basis for morality is impossible.
But all sacred books contain much that is pure, lofty, inspiring,
belonging to the highest morality, the true utterances of the Sages and
Saints of mankind. These precepts will be regarded with reverence by the
wise, and should be used as authoritative teaching for the young and the
uninstructed as moral textbooks, like--textbooks in other sciences--and
as containing moral truths, some of which can be verified by all morally
advanced persons, and others verifiable only by those who reach the
level of the original teachers.
* * * * *
II
INTUITION
When scholarship, reason and conscience have made impossible the
acceptance of Revelation as the bedrock of morality, the
student--especially in the West--is apt next to test "Intuition" as a
probable basis for ethics. In the East, this idea has not appealed to
the thinker in the sense in which the word Intuition is used in the
West. The moralist in the East has based ethics on Revelation, or on
Evolution, or on Illumination--the last being the basis of the Mystic.
Intuition--which by moralists like Theodore Parker, Frances Power Cobb,
and many Theists, is spoken of as the "Voice of God" in the human
soul--is identified by these with "conscience," so that to base morality
on Intuition is equivalent to basing it on conscience, and making the
dictate of conscience the categorical imperative, the inner voice which
declares authoritatively "Thou shalt," or "Thou shalt not".
Now it is true that for each individual there is no better, no safer,
guide than his own conscience and that when the moralist says to the
inquirer: "Obey your conscience" he is giving him sound ethical advice.
None the less is the thinker faced with an apparently insuperable
difficulty in the way of accepting conscience as an ethical basis; for
he finds the voice of conscience varying with civilisation, education,
race, religion, traditions, customs, and if it be, indeed, the voice
of God in man, he cannot but see--in a sense quite different from that
intended by the writer--that God "in divers manners spoke in past
times". Moreover he observes, as an historical fact, that some of the
worst crimes which have disgraced humanity have been done in obedience
to the voice of conscience. It is quite clear that Cromwell at Drogheda
was obeying conscience, was doing that which he conscientiously believed
to be the Will of God; and there is no reason to doubt that a man like
Torquemada was also carrying out what he conscientiously believed to be
the Divine Will in the war which he waged against heresy through the
Inquisition.
In this moral chaos, with such a clash of discordant "Divine Voices,"
where shall sure guidance be found? One recalls the bitter gibe of Laud
to the Puritan, who urged that he must follow his conscience: "Yea,
verily; but take heed that thy conscience be not the conscience of a
fool."
Conscience speaks with authority, whenever it speaks at all. Its voice
is imperial, strong and clear. None the less is it often uninformed,
mistaken, in its dictate. There _is_ an Intuition which is verily
the voice of the Spirit in man, in the God-illuminated man, which is
dealt with in the fifth chapter. But the Intuition recognised in the
West, and identified with conscience, is something far other.
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