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Speculations On The Mysteries Of Religion - Conclusion
Speculations On The Mysteries Of Religion - Conclusion
Let it not be objected that speculations of this description upon the
mysteries of religion are forbidden. The word mystery signified, in the first
ages of Christianity, something quite different from what it means now: and
the cultivation of revealed truths into truths of reason, is absolutely
necessary, if the human race is to be assisted by them. When they were
revealed they were certainly no truths of reason, but they were revealed in
order to become such. They were like the "that makes - " of the ciphering
master, which he says to the boys, beforehand, in order to direct them thereby
in their reckoning. If the scholars were to be satisfied with the "that
makes," they would never learn to calculate, and would frustrate the intention
with which their good master gave them a guiding clue in their work. And why
should not we too, by the means of a religion whose historical truth, if you
will, looks dubious, be conducted in a familiar way to closer and better
conceptions of the Divine Being, our own nature, our relation to God, truths
at which the human reason would never have arrived of itself?
It is not true that speculations upon these things have ever done harm or
become injurious to the body politic. You must reproach, not the speculations,
but the folly and the tyranny of checking them. You must lay the blame on
those who would not permit men having their own speculations to exercise them.
On the contrary, speculations of this sort, whatever the result, are
unquestionably the most fitting exercises of the human heart, generally, so
long as the human heart, generally, is at best only capable of loving virtue
for the sake of its eternal blessed consequences. For in this selfishness of
the human heart, to will to practice the understanding too, only, on that
which concerns our corporal needs, would be to blunt rather than to sharpen
it. It absolutely will be exercised on spiritual objects, if it is to attain
its perfect illumination, and bring out that purity of heart which makes us
capable of loving virtue for its own sake alone. Or, is the human species
never to arrive at this highest step of illumination and purity? - Never?
Never? - Let me not think this blasphemy, All Merciful! Education has its
goal, in the Race, no less than in the Individual. That which is educated is
educated for something. The flattering prospects which are open to the people,
the Honor and Well-being which are painted to him, what are they more than
the means of educating him to become a man, who, when these prospects of Honor
and Well-being have vanished, shall be able to do his Duty?
This is the aim of human education, and should not the Divine education
extend as far? Is that which is successful in the way of Art with the
individual, not to be successful in the way of Nature with the whole?
Blasphemy! Blasphemy!! No! It will come! it will assuredly come! the time of
the perfecting, when man, the more convinced his understanding feels itself of
an ever better Future, will nevertheless not be necessitated to borrow motives
of action from his Future; for he will do the Right because it is right, not
because arbitrary rewards are annexed thereto, which formerly were intended
simply to fix and strengthen his unsteady gaze in recognizing the inner,
better, rewards of well-doing. It will assuredly come! the time of a new
eternal Gospel, which is promised us in the Primer of the New Testament
itself!
Perhaps even some enthusiasts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
had caught a glimpse of a beam of this new eternal Gospel, and only erred in
that they predicted its outburst at so near to their own time. Perhaps their
"Three Ages of the World" were not so empty a speculation after all, and
assuredly they had no contemptible views when they caught that the New
Covenant must become as much antiquated as the old has been. There remained by
them the similarity of the economy of the same God. Ever, to let them speak my
words, ever the self-same plan of the Education of the Race. Only they were
premature. Only they believed that they could make their contemporaries, who
had scarcely outgrown their childhood, without enlightenment, without
preparation, men worthy of their Third Age.
And it was just this which made them enthusiasts. The enthusiast often
casts true glances into the future, but for this future he cannot wait. He
wishes this future accelerated, and accelerated through him. That for which
nature takes thousands of years is to mature itself in the moment of his
existence. For what possession has he in it if that which he recognises as the
Best does not become the best in his lifetime? Does he come back? Does he
expect to come back? Marvellous only that this enthusiastic expectation does
not become more the fashion among enthusiasts.
Go thine inscrutable way, Eternal Providence! Only let me not despair in
Thee, because of this inscrutableness. Let me not despair in Thee, even if Thy
steps appear to me to be going back. It is not true that the shortest line is
always straight. Thou hast on Thine Eternal Way so much to carry on together,
so much to do! So many aside steps to take! And what if it were as good as
proved that the vast flow wheel which brings mankind nearer to this perfection
is only put in motion by smaller, swifter wheels, each of which contributes
its own individual unit thereto? It is so! The very same Way by which the Race
reaches its perfection, must every individual man - one sooner - another later
- have travelled over. Have travelled over in one and the same life? Can he
have been, in one and the selfsame life, a sensual Jew and a spiritual
Christian? Can he in the self-same life have overtaken both? Surely not that!
But why should not every individual man have existed more than once upon this
world? Is this hypothesis so laughable merely because it is the oldest?
Because the human understanding, before the sophistries of the Schools had
dissipated and debilitated it, lighted upon it at once? Why may not even I
have already performed those steps of my perfecting which bring to man only
temporal punishments and rewards? And once more, why not another time all
those steps, to perform which the views of Eternal Rewards so powerfully
assist us? Why should I not come back as often as I am capable of acquiring
fresh knowledge, fresh expertness? Do I bring away so much from once, that
there is nothing to repay the trouble of coming back? Is this a reason against
it? Or, because I forget that I have been here already? Happy is it for me
that I do forget. The recollection of my former condition would permit me to
make only a bad use of the present. And that which even I must forget now, is
that necessarily forgotten for ever? Or is it a reason against the hypothesis
that so much time would have been lost to me? Lost - And how much then should
I miss? - Is not a whole Eternity mine?
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