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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 35

Chapter I

page 64

Chapter I.

Mischief I.—Inflicting Unprofitable Suffering.

There is an interminable variety in the particularities which characterize natural religion, amongst different nations of the globe. But its genuine spirit and tone is throughout the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever. The same motive pervades all its votaries, whether in Hindostan or Mexico; and though it may impel them with greater strength and sovereignty in one climate or age, than in another, yet there is not the smallest difficulty in tracing its identity everywhere.

You wish to give proof of your attachment to the Deity, in the eyes and for the conviction of your fellow-men? There is but one species of testimony which will satisfy their minds. You must impose upon yourself pain for his sake; and in order to silence all suspicion as to the nature of the motive, the pain must be such as not to present the remotest prospect of any independent reward. I have already attempted to show, that this condition effectually excludes, and renders improper for the purpose, all suffering endured for the benefit of mankind. Mankind will measure your devotion to God by the amount and intensity of the pain which you thus gratuitously inflict upon yourself. Accordingly we see, that wherever the religious principle has been most predominant, and the counteracting hand of reason the most feeble, the mass of torture thus voluntarily imposed has been the most deplorable, revolting, and unprofitable.

Almost all the modes of pain, both physical and mental, seem to have been selected at different places and periods, for the purpose of demonstrating the magnitude and sincerity of the extra-human affections.

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Mischief II.—Imposing Useless Privations.

It is by the endurance of voluntary pain that a man can most invincibly attest his devotion to the Deity. But there seems to have been a gradual declension of genuine and fervid piety in many countries, or at least its intensity has frequently fallen short of this first-rate excellence. In this state of comparative relaxation, it suffices only to enforce upon its votaries the greater or less immolation of earthly pleasures, without being strong enough to produce gratuitous self-torture. Public opinion, less impassioned and less exciteable on behalf of the Deity, will not reimburse the sufferer for the endurance of stripes and mutilation. The motive to the latter being thus withdrawn, he contents himself with colder and more moderate testimonies of devotion. He claims the public esteem for a voluntary resignation of all his earthly pleasures for the sake of God. To impress this conviction in the minds of his neighbours, it is necessary that his self-denial should be above all imputation of temporal recompense—and, therefore, that it should be productive of little or no benefit to any beside the Deity.

Of all the sources of pleasure, physical and mental, few can be named which have not thus become, in a greater or less degree, objects of renunciation and abhorrence. The following acts of self-denial have all, on different occasions been placed in the catalogue of religious practices:—
1.Fasting.
2.Celibacy.
3.Abstinence from repose.
4.Abstinence from cleanliness, personal decoration, and innocent comforts.
5.Abstinence from social enjoyments and mirth.
6.Abstinence from remedies to disease.
7.Gratuitous surrender of property, time, and labour.
8.Surrender of dignity and honours.

It is unnecessary to remark that none of these privations inflict that acute and immediate agony, which results from the tortures before enumerated. Some of them, perhaps, may upon the long run occasion a larger aggregate of suffering, from their constant pressure and irritation. But I think it most important to notice, that out of the whole diminution of human happiness, which natural religion page 66 originates, these intense self-inflictions constitute a portion almost infinitely small, when compared with that spreading system of privation and self-denial, which lays whole societies under contribution. Like a vicious government, the amount of its noxious effects ought to be estimated by the standing sacrifices which it extorts from the million, and which, though not strikingly oppressive in any individual case, swell into an unfathomable mass when multiplied into the countless host upon whom they are levied—not from the comparatively rare occurrences of concentrated horror and atrocity.

For public opinion, which merely encourages and provokes, by excessive admiration, the voluntary tortures of the enthusiast, acts as a compulsory force in extorting self-denial and asceticism. How it originally comes to demand and enforce these sacrifices, how each individual finds himself interested in exacting them from others, and thence obliged to pay them himself—I have attempted to elucidate in the foregoing part. The reason why the privations are thus required by the popular voice, while the self-inflictions are left optional, is because the earliest and most natural mode which occurs for conciliating the unseen misanthrope, is to consign to his use some gratifying and valuable possession. A man despoils himself of some piece of property, and bestows it to satisfy the wants of his Deity: The Ostiak, according to Pallas, takes a quantity of meat and places it between the lips of his idol—other nations present drink to the gods by throwing it out of the cup upon the ground; that is, by rendering it useless to any human being. It is these donatives, or acts of privation, which are originally conceived as recommending the performer to divine favour. Sacrifices of other sorts are subsequently super-added—and abstinences from certain enjoyments, on the plea of consecrating them to the Deity. Hence the public opinion is at the outset warmly enlisted in exacting self-denying performances for his benefit—a tone of thought industriously cherished by his ministers, as I shall hereafter explain.4

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These considerations will serve to explain how the popular opinion has come to compel imperiously a certain measure of self-denial and privation, while it abandons self-inflicted penance to the kindlings of spontaneous enthusiasm.

Mischief III.—Impressing Undefined Terrors.

In treating generally of the efficacy of these posthumous anticipations in the character of sanctions, I have already indicated the mode in which they kindle up, on certain occasions, the most terrific feelings of which the human bosom is susceptible. Their operation is indeed most afflicting, in this point of view; it is always most cruelly preponderant upon those unhappy subjects whose title to exemption is the greatest—upon those who are already broken down by sickness and despondency—upon those whose only point of distinction from their neighbours is the actual calamity under which they suffer. This unfortunate casualty shatters the nervous system, enfeebles the judgment, and lays open the victim to the incursions of imaginary terrors, the extent and reality of which he cannot measure. The force, which religion thus casts into the already over-poised scale of misery, may be best appreciated by stating, that it frequently drives the sufferer into insanity. It augments also most fatally the horrors which usually environ the prospect of death.

But I need not again repeat what has been before urged, that these anticipations redouble their severity precisely at the time when no benefit can possibly result from it. They slumber during the period of health and comfort; they await the appearance of sorrow and disaster before they can obtain a congenial atmosphere. The mass of suffering which they thus occasion to almost every one, at different times of life, must be very considerable. There is no one who has not been occasionally assailed by illness, and by the page 68 despondency which generally attends it, and few, therefore, into whose mind posthumous fears do not at times find admission, with more or less effect. We are warranted then in assuming the aggregate of misery introduced by them in this shape, as highly important in amount. That almost all persons, in whom religion is deeply and fervently implanted, are much harassed by these distressing apprehensions, may be asserted with confidence. But it is seldom that we can obtain a testimony at once so striking and authentic, of their power and extent, as the following account of the Spanish monasteries—written by a philosophical Spanish clergyman, and contained in a most eloquent and interesting work entitled, "Don Leucadio Doblado's Letters from Spain"—(London, 1822).

"The common source of suffering [says this author, p. 252] among the Catholic recluses, proceeds from a certain degree of religious melancholy, which, combined with such complaints as originate in perpetual confinement, affect more or less the greater number. The mental disease to which I allude, is commonly known by the name of Escrupulos, and might be called religious anxiety. It is the natural state of a mind, perpetually dwelling on hopes connected with an invisible world, and anxiously practising means to avoid an unhappy lot in it, which keep the apprehended danger for ever present to the imagination. Consecration for life at the altar promises, it is true, increased happiness in the world to come; but the numerous and difficult duties attached to the religious profession, multiply the hazards of eternal misery with the chances of failure in their performance, and while the plain Christian's offences against the moral law are often considered as mere frailties, those of the professed votary seldom escape the aggravation of sacrilege. The odious diligence of the Catholic moralist has raked together an endless catalogue of sins, by thought, word, and deed, to every one of which the punishment of eternal flames has been assigned. This list, alike horrible and disgusting, haunts the imagination of the unfortunate devotee, till reduced to a state of perpetual anxiety, she can neither think, speak, nor act, without discovering in every vital motion a sin which invalidates all her past sacrifiecs, and dooms her painful efforts after Christian perfec- page 69 tion to end in everlasting misery. Absolution, which adds boldness to the resolute and profligate, becomes a fresh source of disquietude to a timid and sickly mind. Doubts innumerable disturb the unhappy sufferer, not, however, as to the power of the priest in granting pardon, but respecting her own fulfilment of the conditions, without which to receive pardon is sacrilege. These agonizing fears, cherished and fed by the small circle of objects to which a nun is con-fined, are generally incurable, and usually terminate in an untimely death or insanity."

Mischief IV.—Taxing Pleasure, by the Infusion of Preliminary Scruples, and Subsequent Remorse.

Among the mischievous effects of religion in the present life, it is necessary to advert to those cases where the innocuous pleasure, which it proscribes, is still, in defiance of the mandate, enjoyed. In these circumstances its effect is not so great as absolutely to discard the pleasure, but only to damp and darken it; partly by introducing a previous doubt or opposition of motives; partly by obtruding, when the vehemence of the conquering passions has subsided, a mixture of shame and regret oftentimes in supportably bitter. Though religion thus does not entirely preclude our enjoyment, yet she compels us to purchase it by unhappiness both antecedent and consequent.

4 Self-imposed torture seems to be a subsequent refinement, devised by poor men who had no property to make donations, and whose time cannot be spared from the task of providing subsistence. In order to gain a living, as well as to make good his claim to the public admiration, the naked enthusiast must give manifestations of internal feeling which may strike the beholder with awe. But utter destitution admits of no farther self-denial, and can elevate itself above others only by insensibility to pain, which appears to place it beyond the reach of human menaces. Hence the incredible sufferings which have been voluntarily endured by monks and fakirs, and the prodigious veneration which, among ignorant nations, they have seldom failed to inspire—a veneration which has doubtless on some occasions caused them to be practised even by the rich.