The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) π
The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were rooted in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits, and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage state.
It may appear strange that Egypt should have suffered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants, and on the borders of the des
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pleasure to the mind, and can be transmitted as a tendency or
instinct from generation to generation. They were ordered to
abstain from certain kinds of food; to abstain from fishing and
working in the fields on days sacred to the gods of the waters
and the earth; they were taught to give with generosity not
only in fear, but also in thanksgiving. Even the human
sacrifices which they made were sometimes acts of filial piety
and of tender love. They gave up the slaves whom they valued
most to attend their fathers in the Underworld; or sent their
souls as presents to the gods.
But the chief benefit which religionconferred upon mankind,
whether in ancient or in modern times, was undoubtedly the oath.
The priests taught that if a promise was made in the name of the gods,
and that promise was broken, the gods would kill those who took their
name in vain. Such is the true meaning of the Third Commandment.
Before that time treaties of peace and contracts of every kind in
which mutual confidence was required could only be effected by
the interchange of hostages. But now by means of this purely
theological device a verbal form became itself a sacred pledge:
men could at all times confide in one another; and foreign
tribes met freely together beneath the shelter of this useful
superstition which yet survives in our courts of law. In those
days, however, the oath required no law of perjury to sustain
its terrors: as Xenophon wrote, βHe who breaks an oath defies
the godsβ; and it was believed that the gods never failed
sooner or later to take their revenge.
The priests, in order to increase their power, studied the
properties of plants, the movements of the stars; they
cultivated music and the imitative arts; reserving their
knowledge to their own caste, they soon surpassed in mental
capacity the people whom they ruled. And being more
intelligent, they became also more moral, for the conscience is
an organ of the mind; it is strengthened and refined by the
education of the intellect. They learnt from Nature that there
is unity in all her parts; hence they believed that one god or
man-like being had made the heavens and the earth. At first
this god was a despotic tithe-taker like themselves; but as
their own minds became more noble, and more pure; as they began
to feel towards the people a sentiment of paternity and love,
so God, the reflected image of their minds, rose into a
majestic and benignant being, and this idea reacted on their
minds, as the imagination of the artist is inspired by the
masterpiece which he himself has wrought. And, as the Venus of
Milo and the Apollo Belvedere have been endowed by man with a
beauty more exquisite than can be found on earth; a beauty that
may well be termed divine; so the God who is worshipped by
elevated minds is a mental form endowed with power, love, and
virtue in perfection. The Venus and the Apollo are ideals of
the body; God is an ideal of the mind. Both are made by men;
both are superhuman in their beauty; both are human in their
form. To worship the image made of stone is to worship the work
of the human hand. To worship the image made of ideas is to
worship the work of the human brain. God-worship, therefore, is
idolatry; but in the early ages of mankind how fruitful of good
was that error, how ennobling was that chimera of the brain!
For when the priests had sufficiently progressed in the wisdom
of morality to discover that men should act to others, as they
would have others act to them; and that they should never do in
thought what they would not do in deed; then these priests, the
shepherds of the people, desired to punish those who did evil,
and to reward those who did good to their fellow-men; and thus,
always transferring their ideas to the imaginary being whom
they had created, and whom they adored, they believed and they
taught that God punished the guilty, that God rewarded the
good; and when they perceived that men are not requited in this
world according to their deeds, they believed and they taught
that this brief life is merely a preparation for another world;
and that the souls or ghosts will be condemned to eternal
misery, or exalted to everlasting bliss, according to the lives
which they have led within the garment of the flesh.
This belief, though not less erroneous than that on which the
terrors of the oath were based; this belief, though not less a
delusion than the faith in ghosts, of which, in fact, it is
merely an extension; this belief, though it will some day
become pernicious to intellectual and moral life, and has
already plundered mankind of thousands and thousands of
valuable minds, exiling earnest and ardent beings from the
main-stream of humanity, entombing them in hermitage or cell,
teaching them to despise the gifts of the intellect which
nature has bestowed, teaching them to waste the precious years
in barren contemplations and in selfish prayers; this belief
has yet undoubtedly assisted the progress of the human race. In
ancient life it exalted the imagination, it purified the heart,
it encouraged to virtue, it deterred from crime. At the present
day a tender sympathy for the unfortunate, a jealous care for
the principles of freedom, a severe public opinion, and a law
difficult to escape are the safeguards of society but there
have been periods in the history of man when the fear of hell
was the only restriction on the pleasure of the rulers; when
the hope of heaven was the only consolation in the misery of
the ruled.
The doctrine of rewards and punishments in a future state is
comparatively modern; the authors of the Iliad, the authors of
the Pentateuch, had no conception of a heaven or a hell; they
knew only Hades or Scheol, where men dwelt as shadows, without
pain, without joy; where the wicked ceased from troubling and
the weary were at rest. The sublime conception of a single God
was slowly and painfully attained by a few civilised people in
ancient times. The idea that God is a being of virtue and of
love has not been attained even in the present day except by a
cultivated few. Such is the frailty of the human heart that
men, even when they strive to imagine a perfect being, stain
him with their passions, and raise up an idol which is
defective as a moral form. The God of this country is called a
God of love; but it is said that he punishes the crimes and
even the errors of a short and troubled life with torture which
will have no end. It is not even a man which theologians
create; for no man is quite without pity; no man, however cruel
he might he, could bear to gaze for ever on the horrors of the
fire and the rack; no man could listen for ever to voices
shrieking with pain, and ever crying out for mercy and
forgiveness. And if such is the character of the Christian God,
if such is the idea which is worshipped by compassionate and
cultivated men, what are we to expect in a barbarous age? The
God of Job was a sultan of the skies, who, for a kind of wager,
allowed a faithful servant to be tortured, like that man who
performed vivisection on a favourite dog which licked his hand
throughout the operation. The Jehovah of the Pentateuch was a
murderer and bandit; he rejoiced in offerings of human flesh
The gods of Homer were lascivious and depraved. The gods of
savages are merely savage chiefs.
God, therefore, is an image of the mind, and that image is ennobled
and purified from generation to generation, as the mind becomes
more noble and more pure. Europeans believe in eternal punishment,
partly because it has been taught them in their childhood and because
they have never considered what it means; partly because their
imaginations are sluggish, and they are unable to realise its
cruelty; and partly also, it must be feared, because they have
still the spirit of revenge and persecution in their hearts.
The author of Job created God in the image of an Oriental king,
and in the East it is believed that all men by nature belong to
the king, and that he can do no wrong. The Bedouins of the
desert abhorred incontinence as a deadly sin; but brigandage
and murder were not by them considered crimes. In the Homeric
period, piracy was a profession, and vices were the customs of
the land. The character of a god is that of the people who have
made him. When, therefore, I expose the crimes of Jehovah, I
expose the defective morality of Israel; and when I criticise
the God of modern Europe, I criticise the defective intellects
of Europeans. The reader must endeavour to bear this in mind,
for, though he may think that his idea of the creator is
actually the Creator, that belief is not shared by me.
We shall now return to the forest and investigate the origin of
intellect; we shall first explain how the aptitude for science
and for art arose; and next how man first became gifted with
the moral sense.
The desire to obtain food induces the animal to examine
everything of novel appearance which comes within its range of
observation. The habit is inherited and becomes an instinct,
irrespective of utility. This instinct is curiosity, which in
many animals is so urgent a desire that they will encounter
danger rather than forego the examination of any object which
is new and strange. This propensity is inherited by man, and
again passes through a period of utility. When fire is first
discovered, experiments are made on all kinds of plants, with
the view of ascertaining what their qualities may be. The
remarkable knowledge of herbs which savages possess; their
skill in preparing decoctions which can act as medicines or as
poisons, which can attract or repel wild animals, is not the
result of instinct but of experience; and, as with the lower
animals, the habit of food-seeking is developed into curiosity,
so the habit of searching for edibles, medicine, and poison
becomes the experimental spirit, the passion of inquiry which
animates the lifetime of the scientific man, and which makes
him, even in his last hours, observe his own symptoms with
interest, and take notes on death as it draws near. It has been
said that genius is curiosity. That instinct is at least an
element of genius; it is the chief stimulant of labour; it
keeps the mind alive.
The artistic spirit is, in the same manner, developed from the
imitative instinct, the origin of which is more obscure than
that of the inquisitive propensity. However, its purpose is
clear enough; the young animal learns from its parent, by means
of imitation, to feed, to arrange its toilet with beak or
tongue, and to perform all the other offices of life. The hen,
for instance, when she discovers food, pecks the ground, not to
eat, but to show her chickens how to eat, and they follow her
example. The young birds do not sing entirely by instinct, they
receive lessons from their parents. The instinct of imitation,
so essential to the young, remains more or less with the adult,
and outlives its original intent. Animals imitate one another,
and with the monkeys this propensity becomes a mania. It is
inherited by men, with whom even yet it is half an instinct, as
is shown by the fact that all persons, and especially the
young, reflect, in spite
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