IF OUR ANALYSIS of rcligious experience is correct then religion is primarily neither an exclusively social nor an exclusively individual fact. Its problem is one of a personal adaptation which involves both an adjustment within the individual and an adjustment of his relations with his fellows. It is an effort of man to “get right with God,” as the evangelical theologians have so emphatically said; but “God” is the name for something felt within the self as a desire and a duty to “get right with man.” We need not repeat nor add to what has already been said as to the inadequacy of merely social theories of religion, such as that of Durkheim. But it becomes necessary to point out the equal inadequacy of such individualistic statements as that of Whitehead, that “religion is what we do with our solitariness” or that “religion is force of belief cleansing the inward parts.” , The element of belief in religion is important; and so is that solitary meditation whereby our values fall into true perspective, resulting in inner personal adjustment in harmony with the disinterested will to the good. But this means that it is chiefly the social attitudes of the individual that need adjusting. And this cannot be done without social effects.
Simply because the religious adjustment involves an adjustment of attitude toward other people, other people are interested in it. Even though it is an inner adjustment in the depths of the inner personality it involves feelings that [ p. 152 ] cannot be hidden. And the feelings involved, and the satisfactions found, are of a kind that others share. Thus mutual expression and mutual understanding of common feelings, interests and attitudes is the inevitable result of any extended process of religious thought and activity. And when a number of people discover that they have feelings, interests and attitudes in common they become a group whether they deliberately will it or not. There is then already a psychological cohesion which can scarcely be restrained from developing further. For its further development it needs that the common interests shall be so communicated that each may recognize the other as a person with whom he has that interest in common. With such mutual recognition the group is consummated as a psychological unit. The degree of its cohesion depends primarily upon the strength of the common interests that bind this group together, relative to that of other interests that might divide it. The rest is a matter of organization, which depends chiefly upon the nature of the goals involved in the common interests and the capacity of the group to develop intelligent leaders.
Now the primary religious interest is an interest in the welfare of others. But it is not felt, and does not at first manifest itself, merely in general or abstract terms. It is always directed toward specific goods of specific persons. Thus the group formed by expression of these specific interests is always limited and distinguished from others by common possession of these specific interests. In the small primitive community these interests are simply those concerned with the ordinary welfare of the contiguous group. Thus the religious unit tends to be one with the political, economic and military unit. The group has but one religion and there is no distinction between church and state. Each person’s religious feelings impel him to participate in all common interests. Yet his religion is more than the sum of those interests, [ p. 153 ] for it concerns the inner adjustment of the ego to the common interests. And, since each person finds the need of this inner adjustment, and since the small primitive community allows so little room for personal idiosyncrasy, each tends to find help toward satisfying inner adjustment in the same ceremonies. Thus these become a further common interest — the interest in the common religious ceremony — an interest that is enhanced by the belief in its effective, largely magical contribution to material common interests. Because of these magical beliefs the group interest in religion is enormously strengthened. But it is important to recognize that they are not the sole reason why religion becomes a group phenomenon. It is a group phenomenon primarily because it is rooted in a natural human concern for the common good.
We have already seen how well recognized among anthropologists is the fact that the social stability of primitive and simple communities rests upon religion. Traditional religion supports the traditional mores. The reason for this is plain. Children learn their moral principles from their elders, and in primitive and simple societies find very little reason for questioning them. The mores are accepted as good. If any moral conflict is experienced it is almost entirely that of the ego asserting its private desires against principles recognized as of social value. Religion, in the inner experience of the individual, supports the mores so long as they are regarded as good. And the religious endorsement of the mores becomes a part of the body of religious teaching accepted as having divine authority.
Until very recent decades this religious support of the mores was recognized, even by naturalistic thinkers, as its chief or only recommendation. But liberal religious thought itself has today almost given up the belief in religious sanctions of [ p. 154 ] the moral code, so that in our modern civilization this dubious utility of religion is rapidly being lost. Yet religion still continues to bolster up our traditional moral principles, laws and institutions. In so far as this is due to a belief that these, in any specific present form, are endorsed by a specific divine revelation the belief is, of course, without foundation, and does harm in its tendency to remove these principles and institutions beyond criticism. For this reason many naturalists of the present day question the whole social value of religion, regarding it as a drag on the wheels of progress and as entirely unnecessary, in an intelligent and educated modern society, as a buttress of the social order. Thus we have, in the past hundred years, a new phenomenon in the history of civilization — a crusade against all religion carried on in the name of morality. In Europe the great revolutionary originator of this crusade was Karl Marx. In America it has been vigorously prosecuted in the interests of a much milder program of reforms by John Dewey.
There can be little doubt that the twentieth century has witnessed a widespread decline of religious faith, such as has not occurred among the masses of the community since the days of the twilight of the gods in ancient Greece. But a review of the course of social history during the same period scarcely bears out the hopes of its apostles that it would be accompanied by the development of a higher and finer type of moral social consciousness in theory and practice. There are many causes, of course, for the serious modern development of political tyranny, race antagonisms, crime, divorce, and other evils that have seemed to put the clock back in the last three decades. But there can be little doubt that the downward grade has to some extent been made easier by the decline of religious faith. This does not mean, we may hope, that world civilization cannot survive without the support of certain false elements of religious belief. But it does [ p. 155 ] mean that we should recognize the part that religion has always played in the preservation of the social order, and concern ourselves deeply and actively for the discovery and maintenance of those religious beliefs that have reasonable claim to be true and valuable.
In what way then, we may ask, can an intelligent and reasonable minimum of religious belief bolster the moral life of the community? Certainly not by threats of hell or any other sanctions, nor by promise of eternal rewards. Nor can we turn to an argument regarding the special revelation of specific moral laws. It must be recognized that this approach is too dubious to be effective and is inimical to the highest morality because it places it on relatively low grounds. But if we can believe that the will to the general good, which we find within us, is something more than just another of the specific emotional tendencies generated by social pressures or developed by nature in the interests of the race with her typical carelessness of the individual, then that higher will acquires a greater significance. If we call it by the name of God and recognize that it is the central principle of life — a cosmic principle and not just another habit or an evolutionary accident — then it becomes essentially reasonable to give it first place in our lives. If we can believe that it transcends our little lives, feels with us, gathers our lives into that of its own greater personality, so that we can find our truest and surest good in its service, then the religious life will take on a sense of assurance that will make possible a higher devotion. And yet such a belief calls for that critical examination of the value of every principle, law and institution which makes impossible an obscurantist conservatism. It shows how the larger religious faith can conserve social values without becoming an obstacle to useful social change. It shows, too, how one may believe in the divine endorsement of the central principle of the moral life — the disinterested pursuit of the [ p. 156 ] good — without parting company with one who religiously pursues the same goal and yet cannot give to the principle the same metaphysical interpretation.
It must however not be supposed that religion, even in the past, has been no more than a conserver of existing social values, a rigid upholder of things as they are. The fact must not be overlooked that, historically, it has also been one of the greatest dynamics of social change. In such cases we usually find religion arrayed against religion, one dynamic and the other conservative, one appealing to new prophetic insights or revelations and the other to traditional principles, or one appealing to a new deduction from some general principles and the other to specific endorsements of the existing order. In the history of Christianity these revolutionary movements have always found the ammunition they required in the teachings of Jesus, though many leaders have not hesitated to claim direct divine guidance. In the pre-Christian era the Hebrew prophets proclaimed their radical social teaching with a “Thus saith the Lord.” In Arabia Mohammed carried through a sweeping program of social change based upon similar claims to specific revelations. But, in general, the power that religious conviction gives to movements for political and social reform is due to the assurance of the religious person that his cause is productive of good, is objectively right, and that therefore it is the will of God. This assurance rests, in the last instance, upon the foundation stone of all religion, the experience of the disinterested will to the good, resulting in the sense of a religious obligation to do what seems to be best.
What seems to the religious person to be best will, of course, be affected by many circumstances, including those of his traditional beliefs and special personal, class, racial or other [ p. 167 ] sectional interests. But on the whole, it must be recognized, the dynamic force of religion is directed toward the ideal, whatever it may seem to be, rather than simply toward the preservation of traditions for their own sake or the mere continuity of established personal and social habits. Thus it requires only the growth of the conviction that something in a present law, tradition or institution is not in accord with the ideal, and a religious demand is aroused that it be changed. If the condition recognized as wrong is one that has had specific endorsement from the traditional religion, a crisis is created within that religion. Either the notion of a special divine endorsement in this case is given up, or it must be reinterpreted in harmony with the requirements of the ideal. In order that religion may cease to be a source of support for inadequate moral principles and for institutions that have outlived their usefulness, it is necessary that the belief in the specific establishment or endorsement of these by special revelation be given up. And, if religion is nevertheless to continue to be a buttress of social order and a dynamic of social progress, it must assert a significant divine endorsement of the general principle of the disinterested pursuit of the good, so that egoism and every narrow sectionalism or nationalism may be recognized as contrary to the divine will.
In Christianity this condition is practically achieved in the teaching of Jesus himself, for he divests the rigid and specific Old Testament law of all authority and founds his ethics on sweeping principles of disinterested good will, such as the Golden Rule and the principle of love to one’s neighbor. These are supported and interpreted in parables, paradoxes and hyperboles, which cannot be taken literally, but all serve to emphasize the sweeping breadth and intensity of his ideal of human service. Thus the parable of the Good Samaritan abolishes all limits from the concept of “neighbor the paradox, “He that saveth his life shall lose it,” sets the ideal [ p. 158 ] of service above all self-interest; the hyperbole of the camel and the needle’s eye emphasizes the psychological antagonism between the spiritual life and the problems of care for an accumulation of material things. As is also the case with Socrates, we have his teaching only at second hand, so that we are never sure that we have his exact statements anywhere. But the whole tenor of what is preserved indicates that it was the reverse of formalism and legalism, and constituted, both in precept and in example, a magnificent expression of the disinterested will to the good of all. The difficulty that human beings find in maintaining an attitude of critical intelligence in the realm of morals is tragically manifested in the fact that so high and free an expression of the ideal should have been so much legalized and formalized by subsequent disciples.
The adoption of the right ideal is one thing. Its implementation is another. In general, social ideals require social (and usually legal) implementation, not mere individual action. Where the religious group is one with the political (the tribe, state or nation) , social implementation naturally follows from the adoption of a religious principle. But the principles tend to become highly formalized and rigid, and individuality is crushed. In complex societies, where there is sufficient religious freedom, the religious groups tend to be more or less completely differentiated from the state. Some individuals stand outside the religious group; and the religious group itself tends to be divided into groups differing in beliefs, ideals and methods. When a religious group constitutes a minority devoid of political power, the social implementation of its ideals is very difficult or impossible. When it is a majority and possesses political power it is often [ p. 159 ] a difficult question how far it should use that power to give social implementation to its ideals against the will of a minority; for example, should it prohibit the slave trade or the liquor trade? Only a weighing of the good and evil involved in social or legal action, in each case, can decide such questions: and mistakes are sure to be made.
Because of the sweeping nature of its ideal of the good, Christianity needs must face this question. Jesus himself seems to have made no effort to secure a social implementation of his ideals in his own day, and stood aside from the only significant movement of that kind in his own country — the movement for Jewish independence, which subsequently culminated in futile rebellion and the destruction of Jerusalem. He sought instead to build the “Kingdom of God” as a religious society which might work like a leaven to leaven the whole lump. Considering the political impotence of the people to whom he preached it is obvious that there was no other way. Thus the first Christian centuries placed the emphasis upon the cultivation of personal character and the attainment of individual salvation.
When, in the later Roman Empire, the church acquired numbers and political influence it turned its attention to the social implementation of its ideals. It brought about reforms in the treatment of slaves, of infants and of the poor. It secured the abolition of the gladiatorial games and the adoption of its ideal of marriage, which involved a great improvement in the status of women. It emphasized the moral responsibility of rulers and officials. But the church came to power in a period of political decline, social disintegration and barbarian invasion; and at the same time it was corrupted by the influx of masses who did not understand or share its ideals. So far as civilization was saved in the Dark Ages that followed, it was the church that saved it, for the church retained a strong sense of social values in spite of its [ p. 160 ] corruption. But the long period of political impotence had turned its thoughts chiefly inward upon the problems of the individual soul. Its many sins and failures, in its period of great political influence amidst terrific difficulties, intensified this tendency. So the revival of Christianity in the Reformation era saw a revulsion of feeling against the influence of the church in the state. It was not until the nineteenth century that the thoughts of Christian leaders turned again to the social implementation of their gospel of good will.
The “social gospel,” under the stimulus of leaders such as Walter Rauschenbusch,[1] has today become a commonplace and is the chief interest of many religious groups. Like every vigorous movement it has sometimes gone to extremes, neglecting the vital but less spectacular task of cultivating the individual spiritual life; and sometimes it has lent its support to political movements of dubious wisdom. But its central idea is unquestionably right, and in a democracy it becomes of pressing moral importance. Where a citizen plays a part in government, and can influence by his voice or vote the laws and administrative measures that affect the welfare of the community, the principle of universal good will must determine his use of that power if he is to be true to the deepest insight of ethics and religion.
In our complex modern civilization it is becoming increasingly evident that the attainment of the ideal of the more abundant life for all cannot be left to individual good will, but requires social and often legal measures. Our modern economic order, supported by our law of property, deprives millions of access to the means of production, shuts off others from the educational opportunities necessary for full development of their mental capacities, leaves large numbers in want, encourages vice and crime, works injustice on individuals, classes and nations, thus leading to revolution and war. [ p. 161 ] These facts present problems that are beyond remedy by individual morality, for they destroy personality faster than the means at the disposal of religion can remake it. Consequently they call imperiously for the social implementation of the moral and religious ideal. And in spite of the difficulties and dangers of carrying the religious motivation into political activity the thing must be done.
It must be recognized, however, that here good will alone does not suffice. Intelligence and expert knowledge are also necessary. Even the experts honestly differ on the wisdom of many proposed solutions of the various problems. It would be presumptuous of religious leaders to claim superior ability to decide the right and wrong of many complicated issues. However, they need not regard themselves as therefore powerless to act and exonerated from responsibility. There are three things that they can do.
In the first place, the issue is often sufficiently clear as merely one of the retention or nonretention by one group or another of privileges which are injurious to others and have no Justification in social utility or past service; and sometimes it is simply a matter of whether a necessary burden shall be borne by the strong or by the weak. In the second place, where the means of remedy is doubtful or unknown, a great service can be done simply by keeping the need before the attention of the community. The church should be the most sensitive part of the community conscience, recognizing and declaring injustice where it exists, and insisting that evils be not hidden by those whose interests might be at stake or simply forgotten by a careless majority which is not itself affected. In the third place, religion should be able to discover, within the essential feature of its own experience, an insight into the nature of man which illuminates many of the social problems of our day and shows the real wisdom of the more liberal modes of dealing with them. To show the meaning and the [ p. 162 ] truth of this last point will occupy us for the remainder of this chapter.
Liberalism in social affairs, like religion itself, has suffered from an unwarranted identification with certain temporary beliefs and programs that it has at times adopted and that have been outgrown (e.g., the economic doctrine of laissez faire) . But liberalism is really something more complex and subtle than any specific set of principles. Because human motives are always so complex, no party that has ever worn the name has ever exemplified in its purity the liberal spirit. Nor has any party a monopoly of it. It is a typical attitude to human problems that defines itself differently from time to time and yet always retains its own distinctively recognizable character. Its difficulty is that it is not always sure of itself. The fundamental faith on which it rests has not been made explicitly conscious. Consequently, in times of crisis it has too often become hesitant and flaccid. It is for that reason that, in many circles, it has fallen today into some disrepute, Yet the world is suffering from an illiberalism that threatens to lay it in ruins. What is needed is that liberalism should find its feet by acquiring a truer insight into its own foundation. That foundation, I think it can be shown, is a certain faith in human nature which may find enlightenment and support in the analysis of the religious consciousness of man that has been developed in these pages.
In recent decades both liberalism and democracy have been challenged by movements, such as fascism and communism, claiming to be more vigorous and direct means of securing socially desirable goals. The reason for the widespread loss of faith in liberal and democratic procedure is the loss of faith in man himself that has come over the world in the mood of disillusionment following the First World War, the [ p. 163 ] collapse of the postwar settlement, and the failure of economic individualism. It is true that the rapid overcoming of many of man’s physical problems, which has come as the suddenly ripened fruit of three centuries of scientific work, has called for a series of far-reaching social adjustments, which lack of understanding and the rigidity of habit and prejudice have prevented us from achieving. But the failures of these few decades in the face of extremely difficult problems constitute no reason for despair. The problems are not beyond the intelligence of the best minds. If they were, the opponents of liberalism and democracy would be in no better position than others. Their contention is that the masses of mankind cannot be persuaded by the methods of liberalism and democracy to adopt the solutions that the best minds find. This means, not that they are not sufficiently intelligent, but that, so long as they are free to pursue their own petty interests, they do not have the mutual good will to adopt the necessary measures by collective action. Thus it is argued that power must be retained in the hands of the few, and that the multitude must be constantly subjected to checks and controls and ultimately be directed by force.
It is here that a liberal political philosophy must take up the issue. It must be admitted that there are many things which the masses and the layman do not understand and that these must be left to the expert and the leader. But it must be asserted that the ultimate power can be safely left with the people when they have enlightened leadership, because it is possible to trust in their good will. The liberal philosophy of human nature might be succinctly stated as a faith in the good will of the normal human being. A little more exactly stated, it is the conviction that normal human beings are naturally animated by good will toward each other so that, unless specifically and strongly stirred by such feelings as anger, fear, jealousy and greed, they will adopt attitudes manifesting [ p. 164 ] interest in the common good; and, in the absence of circumstances arousing such special antipathies, they will tend to seek each other’s good even without special egoistic incentives to do so. In brief, it embodies the essential insight of religion, as brought out in our analysis, that the disinterested will to the good of all is the deepest-rooted principle of human personality and may become its dominant principle.
This faith does not ignore the obvious facts of criminality and indifference, both of individuals and of groups, but it does deny that such conditions are necessary and incurable. It holds that an interest in the welfare of others is as natural to human beings as is the interest in self. It maintains that human good will needs only opportunity and stimulus, and the absence of overstimulation of the opposing impulses to rivalry, greed and fear, for it to blossom forth into the dominant attitude of life. It believes that human beings naturally tend to be kindly and co-operative, so that institutions based upon these motives, when properly understood, may be expected to succeed, providing circumstances arousing strong antagonistic tendencies are absent. It asserts that the bribing and dragooning of the individual is not the only way to get him to do his duty, but that another possible motive is that of an appeal to him to co-operate in the common good.
This connection of liberalism with such an optimistic faith in human nature has been expressed by many of its twentieth century apostles. Thus Professor L. T. Hobhouse wrote:
Liberalism is the belief that society can safely be founded on this self-directing power of personality, that it is only on this foundation that a true community can be built, and that so established its foundations are so deep and wide that there is no limit we can place to the extent of the building.[2]
[ p. 165 ]
Again, we find Professor W. E. Hocking saying;
Liberalism maintains that the greatest natural resource of any community is the latent intelligence and good will of its members; and it seeks those forms of society which run a certain risk of preliminary disorder in order to elicit that resource. Since such individuals can be developed only by being trusted with somewhat more than they can, at the moment, do well, liberalism is a sort of honor system. Its liberality toward individuals will only be justified if those individuals are in turn liberal toward their groups.[3]
This favorable view of human nature stands in striking contrast to the fascist estimate as that is interpreted even by so idealistic a representative as Major Barnes:
The general will . . . can be no more than the life instinct of the herd, a reflection of its vital solidarity. But this is not apparently a rational force at all. . . . Normally it is a relatively dormant force, negative rather than positive, so that in the absence of any acute crisis it is very feebly manifested, if at all. . . . And since it is strong in proportion to a society’s cohesion, it must be recognised as pre-eminently selfish. … The sum of the individual wills of a community is never the same thing, even if unanimous, as the general will, for the same reason that the sum of individual interests of the members of a community does not amount to the general interest. . . . Education . . . placed the predominantly selfish in a better position to pursue their selfish aims than before, however much it placed the predominantly unselfish in a better position to pursue unselfish aims. And unfortunately the predominantly selfish remained the overwhelming majority.[4]
Mussolini himself, the fountainhead of fascism, declares:
[ p. 166 ]
Struggle is the origin of all things, for life is full of contrasts: there is love and hatred, white and black, day and night, good and evil; and until these contrasts achieve balance struggle fatefully remains at the root of human nature. However it is good for it to be so.[5] . . . Men are not brothers, neither do they want to be, and evidently they cannot be. Peace is hence absurd, or, rather, is a necessary pause in the process of war. There is something that binds man to his destiny of struggling either against his fellows or against himself. … I see the world as it actually is; that is a world of unbridled egoism.[6]
This is the general tone of fascist [7] analyses of human nature, and the ground of the fascist conviction as to the necessity of authoritarianism and its disdain of the plea for personal liberty. Morality is conceived as consisting in obedience to a law higher than anything to be found within human personality — a law of a transcendent God or of the state. Conscience is regarded as expressing itself as a recognition of the stern voice of duty — a duty imposed from without — not as the expression of the best that is within. This being the view held of human nature and of the roots of the moral life, the conclusion becomes almost inevitable that government must “tend to become the prerogative of a class of optimi, of those persons whose egoisms are habitually overridden by their social sense, by a well-informed patriotism, by a high moral purpose.” [8] One only wonders how such individuals are to be found and given power, and how they are to be saved from the corrupting effects of possession of power. Indeed, if general human nature is naturally so selfish, [ p. 167 ] it is remarkable that the higher moral type is to be found at all.
It is not merely the reactionary fascist movement, however, that is characterized by this low view of human nature. It is instead typical, in greater or lesser degree, of conservatism generally. As instancing this we may point to what is acknowledgedly an expression of the finer ideals of English political Conservatism, made by one of the most noble-minded Conservatives:
Conservatives defend the Constitution, property, and the existing social order, partly from the natural conservative love of what exists, partly from a dread of injustice threatened to individuals by advocates of revolutionary change. . . . Conservatism is certainly not opposed to liberty. . . . The liberty of the subject has been so largely the purpose of our constitutional system that no party can champion the traditional Constitution without also defending the principles of liberty. . . . But it may be claimed for Conservatism that it has achieved under happier auspices than Liberalism a compromise between liberty and authority … in its reverence for the sanctions of religion. . . . The religious sentiment which is hostile to injustice is also unwilling to acquiesce in the sufferings of people from poverty and its attendant evils. Hence Conservatism comes also to be identified with measures of social improvement designed to raise the condition of the poor. . . . Conservatism arose to resist Jacobinism [of the French Revolution], and that is to this day its most essential and fundamental character. … In the Socialist movement … we seem sometimes to catch the Jacobin accents of reckless disregard of private rights; of merciless hatred toward those who, perhaps through no fault of their own, have become associated with some real or fancied abuse; of that disposition, not gradually to develop one state of society out of another, but to make a clean sweep of institutions in the interest of a half-thought-out reform. It is in [ p. 168 ] so far as these elements are present in the Socialist movement that Conservatism is opposed to it.,[9]
Thus Conservatism seeks the common good, favors reform, upholds the democratic institutions wrought into the constitution, and stands for at least that measure of liberty guaranteed by the constitution and tested for its safety in experience of its working. No one familiar with the history of the nineteenth century in Britain will deny this claim that Conservatives have favored and introduced many valuable social and economic reforms. But there are phrases in Lord Cecil’s statement of his ideals which show a conception of the nature of the social problem, and an attitude of mind, which distinguish his approach to the goal of the common good from that of the man of genuinely liberal political philosophy. His references to the motives of Conservatism — the dread of injustice, the reverence for authoritative sanctions, the suspicion of possible Jacobin excesses on the part of modern British Socialists — all show the distinction of spirit and outlook between conservative and liberal.
Conservatism is cautious, suspicious of radical change, hesitant to make reforms. (Cecil admits it has often been too hesitant.) It upholds established authority in church and state. It dreads injustice at the hands of reformers. It remembers the French Revolution for the excesses of Jacobinism rather than for its ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. It fears that these excesses would again manifest themselves in a successful Socialist party. It insists that the competitive system alone can extract from the worker his best efforts. All these elements in its attitude are evidence of its relatively small confidence in the natural good will of the normal human being. Thus, in despite of its admiration of the present relatively liberal institutions of Western democracies, of its [ p. 169 ] desire to eliminate obvious and excessive injustices, and of its ideal of the common good, it often hesitates to make reforms until it is too late; and its opposition to needed change today is placing civilization in jeopardy.
Most of the typical clashes between liberal and conservative policies in Britain and America in the past few decades illustrate this diversity of attitude. Conservatism tends to be imperialistic. It lays to its soul the flattering unction of the “white man’s burden” because it distrusts the moral and intellectual capacities of the colored man. For the same reason it has opposed self-government in India. Distrusting the intentions of the Irish Catholics and the South African Dutch it opposed the grant of dominion status in both cases. It wrote the oppressive clauses in the Versailles treaty because it distrusted the new German republic’s intention to become a good European, and it maintained that distrust and consequent oppression until it goaded the Germans into reaction and revolt. On all these questions men of liberal political philosophy in all parties were on the other side. And the ground of the difference was not one of economic interests, for the economic interests of all parties, so far as they were affected at all by these issues, have been practically the same. It is rather that most of the leaders of the other parties have believed that policies of good will and generosity would call forth a favorable response from the foreign peoples concerned, but the Conservatives, with a more limited faith in human nature, feared that they would not, and so put their trust in the policy of the strong arm and the heavy hand.
In America, conservative members of both parties defeated the League of Nations and the World Court proposal, passed the Japanese exclusion act, erected the Smoot-Hawley tariff, opposed collective bargaining and the organization of industrial unions, organized the Ku Klux Klan, maintained discrimination against the Negro, opposed the recognition of [ p. 170 ] Russia, and resisted experimentation in dealing with the depression. And they still exploit the fear of communism. In some of these matters economic considerations enter in to motivate the different policy of the liberals, but by no means in all; and in few if any of them are economic considerations paramount, for American liberalism is by no means identified with the proletariat. Nor is the difference really a moral one. The ordinary American conservative citizen is personally just as generous and goodhearted a person as his liberal neighbor, and the old guard Democrats and Republicans number just as many genuine humanitarians among their leaders as there are among the New Dealers and Progressives. The difference is not in their desire for the good of the other person, but in their faith in his good will. The root of the difference does not lie in the strength of the desire for the common good, and is only partly due to a calculation of personal economic interests. Fundamentally, and most important, the root of the difference lies in different theories of human nature.
This definition of liberalism as fundamentally a theory of human nature — a faith in the good will of the normal human being — has the advantage of obviating the necessity of attempting to define it in terms of a specific political program. The liberalism of yesterday is already, to a great extent, the conservatism of today. This is a general principle which applies to much more than the obvious case of laissez fa ire. On the other hand, what would be a sound liberal policy in one country, at a certain stage of development, may not be a sound policy for another country at a different stage of development. A striking example of this is to be found in the failure of the liberal leaders of the Chinese revolution of 1911 to establish in China a liberal democratic form of government. [ p. 171 ] Because of the lack of psychological preparation and general education, their movement collapsed into chaos for a quarter of a century. A wiser liberalism would not, at that stage, have completely destroyed the monarchy on which the unity of the country depended.
Thus neither laissez faire, nor even democracy, necessarily constitutes liberalism. Liberalism must define its policy in accordance with its own spirit to meet the exigencies of each new situation. Each age presents its problems. Liberalism will always distinguish itself from conservatism by its readiness to experiment with those solutions which require some additional reliance upon the good will of the normal human being; and where such good will seems lacking, liberalism will seek to find and remove the causes of distrust and antagonism and to cultivate the necessary good will. It will do this because it believes in the possibility of success in such efforts.
Thus liberalism will move in the direction of co-operative solutions of both economic and international problems and, in general, toward democratic solutions also. It will seek to extend those forms of co-operative and government action in the economic field which have already, in various places, been found successful, and to prepare the psychological basis necessary for their further extension. In international affairs it will mean an abandonment of American isolationism, not merely and blindly to “take the side of the democracies,” but to work and press for a fundamentally just solution of world problems through some such instrumentalities as the World Court and a new League of Nations, enforcing international law though giving no sanction to treaties dictated by force, and guaranteeing to all peoples adequate economic opportunity and freedom from external aggression.
The solutions eventually reached by liberalism may, in the long run, not greatly differ from those envisaged by communism [ p. 172 ] as its ultimate goal. But the difference in method is due to the different theories of human nature. Dialectical materialism issues in economic determinism, the theory of the class war and the belief in a necessary period of dictatorship for the forcible shaping of a popular mentality conducive to a co-operative social order. It therefore refuses to believe in the possibility of a gradual redistribution of wealth without a resort to violence on the part of the wealthy in defense of their status. Because it expects to have to use force, in the long run, to meet force, it is ready to hasten its goal by use of force when opportunity offers, as in Russia in 1917, when it overthrew an incipient democracy, and more recently when it attacked Finland and other countries. Because of this belief in the necessity of force, and readiness to get its blow in first when it can, communism has stimulated the violent counteraction of fascism. Thus the refusal to believe in the good will of the normal human being has brought about its own nemesis and has forced upon communists the remarkable changes in tactics manifested in recent years. Yet, in spite of their occasional role as apostles of peace and democracy, communists can never be true liberals because of their fundamentally different theory of human nature. The purges, oppression and aggressions of Russia under Stalin are not due to a double dose of original sin in the souls of the party leaders, but are the logical result of the application of the Marxist philosophy of human nature to the problems those leaders have had to face.
In general, as has already been said, liberalism will tend toward democratic procedures. Such procedures give scope for personality, and the free development of personality is the essential medium of all value. But it is a mistake simply to identify political liberalism with democracy. Liberalism is a faith in the good will of the normal human being. But the successful working of democracy requires also that he possess [ p. 173 ] intelligence and knowledge adequate to the tasks entrusted to him. Democratic procedure can be successful only if those who vote on a question adequately understand the issues involved. A vote without understanding is either an expression of prejudice, a response to propaganda, a reliance on authorities, or mere guesswork. Good will in a man’s heart without understanding in his head does not make it safe to put a ballotpaper into his hands. Liberalism is a faith in the good will of the normal human being. But it is not, or should not be, a naive belief in the competence of the average citizen to solve complex problems of economics or foreign policy on which he has only the scantiest information, or to make wise choices of personnel among candidates he does not know, who are seeking positions the qualifications necessary for which he does not understand.
It is important, therefore, to be quite clear as to what is implied by our statement that religion, when it becomes conscious of its own roots in a disinterested will to the good that is fundamental to the structure of human personality, will tend to support social policies that are characteristically liberal. It does not mean that political liberals are always right and their opponents wrong. It does not mean that the most democratic procedure is always necessarily the best. It does not mean vox populi, vox dei. But it does mean that public policy should be shaped on the assumption that the normal human being, when convinced that others are acting toward him with good will, can, in general, be trusted to respond with good will. It will therefore encourage every effort at the creation of good will. It will ease the fears that motivate so many repressive measures. It will encourage experimentation in the direction of wider and closer political organization. It will facilitate the substitution of co-operation for competition in the economic sphere. It will reduce the suspicion that hampers the work of even well tried leaders. It will work [ p. 174 ] toward the emancipation of repressed and segregated sections of the community. It will ease the tensions that lead to national rivalry and war. It will facilitate the organization of peace and security.
For the most part a man’s theory of human nature is an expression of his experience and temperament. For this reason few people are consistently liberal or conservative, but are more liberal toward some groups, and on some questions, and at some times, than others. But a general trend in one direction or another is often determined by a general philosophical and theological viewpoint. At first thought it might be expected that, if our analysis is sound and religion arises from man’s experience of the disinterested will within himself, religion would always tend to cultivate a faith in human good will. But this is not in fact the case. As we have seen, the more intense forms of religious experience tend to arise when there is a decided element of conflict within the self, resulting in a severe sense of sin. Thus there has been a strong tendency, among the more vivid religious personalities, to confess aloud their own sinfulness and declare emphatically the sinfulness of the race.
In Christianity this type of theology came into the ascendant through the tremendous influence of Augustine. It found support in much of the writing of Paul, who appears to have been of a similar semineurotic temperament, deeply impressed with his own shortcomings. Both preached love toward their fellow men, but both were so impressed by their own need of a special divine aid that they could not believe there was enough natural goodness in the common man to see any hope for human society apart from a special divine intervention. This outlook culminated in the doctrine of the [ p. 175 ] total depravity of man — a doctrine which for centuries has perverted and distorted Christian efforts to be of use to society. It has created the harsh type of Christian moralist whose chief thought of how to do good was to make people afraid to do ill. And it has taught Christians to despair of doing any permanent good by seeking to improve the social order on earth, directing them to make all human charity merely a means to prepare themselves and others for the next world.
But this despair of the conduct of men in their practical affairs is the very antithesis of the conclusion which ought to be drawn from religious experience. It is certainly not the conclusion that Jesus drew. The remarkable wholesomeness of his teaching is largely due to the fact that he differs from other great religious personalities in being driven not by a consciousness of sin, but simply by a tremendous zeal for human moral welfare, to be manifested in righteousness and love. To Jesus all men were children of God; that was to him the most important of all truths and the ground of a lively hope and faith for this world and the next. The earliest Christian statement of a philosophical theology is in the same tone: “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. … In him was life and the life was the light of men. . . . There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man, coming into the world.”[10] Here the immanence of God in man is taught as the cardinal fact, the source of the life and light, the reason and moral insight of man. The Greek theologians, from Clement of Alexandria in the second century to Theodore of Mopsuestia in the fifth, continued to give prominence to this doctrine of immanence and, on the whole, did not exaggerate the sinfulness of man. It was the Latin theology, under the influence of Augustine, and facing the collapse of its civilization [ p. 176 ] amid corruption and defeat, that imposed this tragic misrepresentation upon Christian thought.[11]
In spite of a certain revival of this type of thinking in the Barthian movement, due to the present-day reaction from the optimism of thirty years ago, the general trend of Christian thought today is with the Greek rather than the Latin theology. The chief emphasis in the religious thought of this century has been on the doctrine of immanence — an emphasis which, it is now fairly clear, will not be allowed to pass over into mere pantheism. In spite of the new pessimism of the last decade, it seems evident that Christian thought has thoroughly shaken off its exaggerated sense of sin. It is a problem on which the age has hardly yet found its balance. But if our analysis of religious experience is sound it should be possible to obtain a sober yet hopeful view. The very fact of the consciousness of sin is due to that in man which we have recognized as divine — the disinterested will to the good. And because this element of human personality is fundamental — no mere occasional and superficial growth — man finds no complete satisfaction until he makes his peace with it.
Thus there is always in man an element of good will to which appeal can be made. Human nature is on the side of human progress. The problem is to set aside the damnosa hereditas of prejudice, false tradition, superstition, fear, hatred, that survives from the childhood of the race, and to develop institutions adequate to its maturity. There is in the human heart enough of natural good will. It remains for intelligence to enable it to find its way.
Now this liberal faith that human beings are fundamentally creatures of good will, while it is an implication of our analysis of religious experience, is not a conclusion drawn from a religious metaphysic. Its basis is empirical; and it is often recognized [ p. 177 ] as factual even by those who cannot accept metaphysical views of a theistic character. It is, for example, emphatically proclaimed by John Dewey.“It offers, therefore, the basis of a practical program of social progress which is independent of further details of creed. Men of good will, who believe in the good will of others, may work together in spite of differences of theological opinion. That faith in the good will of others may for some be simply a “hunch,” for others an expression of temperament, for yet others an induction from experience or a deduction from a philosophical theory. For the religious man it may be any or all of these. But it should also be a conviction arising from an intelligent analysis of his own religious experience. Let that clearsighted conviction, with all the dynamic zeal that flows from a deep religious experience, be thrust into the movement for a liberal social implementation of the ideal of the common good, and the present dark outlook of civilization should rapidly be changed.
Author of ChrUtianity and the Social Crias and numerous other works. ↩︎
L. T. Hobhouse: Liberalism (London: Williams & Norgate, 1911; now published by Oxford University Press) , p. 123. ↩︎
W. E. Hocking: The Lasting Elements of Individualism (New Haven. Conn.: Yale University Press, 1937) , p. 5. ↩︎
J. S. Barnes: Fascism (London: T. Butterworth, Ltd., 1931: now published by Oxford University Press) , pp. 98-99. ↩︎
B. Mussolini: The Doctrine of Fascism (Rome: Ardita, 1935) , p. 35. ↩︎
Quoted by Mario Palmieri: The Philosophy of Fascism (Chicago: Fortune Press, Inc., 1936) , pp. 81, 82. ↩︎
The nazi philosophy builds on the same basis, developing its more extreme views by addition of the racial doctrines of Nordic superiority and anti-Semitism. ↩︎
Palmieri, op, cit, p. 109. ↩︎
Lord Hugh Cecil: Conservatism (London: Williams &: Norgatc, 1927; now published by Oxford University Press) , pp. 244-49 passim. ↩︎
John 1:1-9. ↩︎
These trends in early church history are well portrayed by F. D. Kershner; Pioneers of Christian Thought (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1930) . ↩︎