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Page 13
On the other hand, in disgust at the mutilation of human nature and
under pretext of its consummation, has arisen the "fleshly school,"
whose maxim is "obedience to Nature,"--leaving undefined what nature,
the nature of the swine or the nature of the man,--which holds that
every natural instinct ought to be obeyed, which takes the agreeable as
the test of the right, and which goes in for the "healthy animal" with
enlightened self-interest as the safeguard against excesses.
Alas! the results are no happier. The healthy animal treads under his
feet the helpless and the weak, who suffer that he may grow fat and
kick. The attractive warmth and color and richness are found to be but
rottenness and decay.
When, dissatisfied with the teaching of men, one turns to the great
world at large, to see whether some practical instinct may not have
guided men to a right adjustment, one's first feeling is one of dismay
at the spectacle presented. The bodily instincts and appetites that seem
to work aright in the animal world, in man seem fatally overloaded, and,
instead of hitting the mark, explode with disaster and death at the
outset.
Let us now turn to the teaching of Christ, and see whether it does not
explain the deep disorder of the animal instincts in the world of man,
and while saving us on the one hand from the self-mutilation of
asceticism, and from the swinishness of the fleshly school on the
other, whether it does not embrace the truth that is in both and teach
us how to correlate the material and the spiritual.
Now, Dr. Martineau points out that Christ teaches, in contradistinction
to asceticism, that the animal body, with its instincts and appetites,
is as good on its own plane as the higher and spiritual attributes of
man are on theirs. Our Father knoweth that, in common with other
creatures, we have need of physical good, and He has provided us with a
self-acting mechanism for its attainment, which will work rightly if
only it is left alone and not tampered with. There is the same
provision in us as in them of unconscious instincts and appetites for
carrying on the lower life which is necessary as the platform of the
higher spiritual being, to set it free, as it were, for the pursuit of
its legitimate ends--all those higher and wider interests in life which
are comprised under the one comprehensive name of "the kingdom of God."
And the teaching of Christ is: Neither hate nor fear this part of your
nature with the ascetic, nor pamper and stimulate it with the Hedonist,
but let it alone to act on its own plane; trust it, trust God who made
it, while you throw all your conscious energies into the higher
concerns of life; and you will find, when left to its own unconscious
activity, it is neither an over-nor an under-provision for carrying on
your subsistence and that of the race. "Take no anxious thought
[(Greek: me merimnesete)] for the morrow." "Your Father knoweth that ye
have need of these things," and has arranged your being accordingly.
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added
to you." "Behold the birds of the air; your heavenly Father feedeth
them."
"Oh," says the practical man at once, "that is all very fine as
sentiment; it is very Eastern and poetical; but I should like to know
how, in these overcrowded days, I could support myself and family if I
am to trust God to feed me and them like the birds of the air, and only
think about religion." But is not this wholly to misunderstand our
Lord's teaching? How does God feed the birds of the air? Is it not by
incessant and untiring effort on their part? Those who have watched a
pair of birds flying backwards and forwards to the nest under the eave
may well question whether industry can go further. But in the
unconscious being of a bird it is toil without [Greek: merimna],
without thought and worry, and becomes, therefore, the very picture to
us of trust in a higher Power, who has thus adjusted an unerring
instinct to an unfailing end. The insect and the bird provide for the
morrow, while they take no anxious thought for the morrow. "The agility
which achieves it is theirs, the skill and foresight absent from them
remain with God. And thus the simple life of lower natures, in its
unconscious surrender to involuntary though internal guidance, becomes
the negative type of perfect trust."[7]
But to leave his instincts and appetites to work, unimpeded and
unconscious, on their own plane, while he concerns himself with matters
of truly human interest, is just what man is not content to do. On the
contrary, he takes his higher and spiritual nature down into them. He
enhances their pleasure with all the powers of his imagination; he sets
his intellect to work to plot and plan for their gratification; he loads
them with the whole force of his spiritual will, and in so doing he
overloads and maddens them. The instinct for food and drink, which in
the animal is sufficient for the maintenance of health and activity, in
the man becomes gluttony and drunkenness; the instinct for the
preservation of the race becomes the licentiousness which produces
sterility and defeats its own ends; the instinct of self-maintenance
becomes the feverish greed and money-getting which leave no room for the
higher life of beauty, and science, and worship, and disinterested
service. "Seek ye first the material," says the world, "and all these
things shall be added unto you when you get the time for them"--which
will be probably never.
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