The Religious Sentiment

Favorite of these forms was sex-love. “We find,” observes a recent writer, “that all religions have engaged and concerned themselves with the sexual passion. From the times of phallic worship through Romish celibacy down to Mormonism, theology has linked itself with man’s reproductive instincts.”36 The remark is just, and is most conspicuously correct in strongly emotional temperaments. “The devotional feelings,” writes the Rev. Frederick Robertson in one of his essays, “are often singularly allied to the animal nature; they conduct the unconscious victim of feelings that appear divine into a state of life at which the world stands aghast.” Fanaticism is always united with either excessive lewdness or desperate asceticism. The physiological performance of the generative function is sure to be attacked by religious bigotry.

So prominent is this feature that attempts have been made to explain nearly all symbolism and mythology as types of the generative procedure and the reproductive faculty of organism. Not only the pyramids and sacred mountains, the obelisks of the Nile and the myths of light have received this interpretation, but even such general symbols as the spires of churches, the cross of Christendom and the crescent of Islam.37

Without falling into the error of supposing that any one meaning or origin can be assigned such frequent symbols, we may acknowledge that love, in its philosophical sense, is closely akin to the mystery of every religion. That, on occasions, love of sex gained the mastery over all other forms, is not to be doubted; but that at all times this was so, is a narrow, erroneous view, not consistent with a knowledge of the history of psychical development.

Sex-love, as a sentiment, is a cultivated growth. All it is at first is a rude satisfaction of the erethism. The wild tribes of California had their pairing seasons when the sexes were in heat, “as regularly as the deer, the elk and the antelope.”38 In most tongues of the savages of North America there are no tender words, as “dear,” “darling,” and the like.39 No desire of offspring led to their unions. The women had few children, and their fathers paid them little attention. The family instinct appears in conditions of higher culture, in Judea, Greece, Rome and ancient Germany. Procreation instead of lust was there the aim of marriage. To-day, mere sentiment is so much in the ascendant that both these elements are often absent. There is warm affection without even instinctive knowledge of the design of the bond assumed.40

Those who would confine the promptings of the passion of reproduction as it appears in man to its objects as shown in lower animals, know little how this wondrous emotion has acted as man’s mentor as well as paraclete in his long and toilsome conflict with the physical forces.

The venereal sense is unlike the other special senses in that it is general, as well as referable to special organs and nerves. In its psychological action it “especially contributes to the development of sympathies which connect man not only with his coevals, but with his fellows of all preceding and succeeding generations as well. Upon it is erected this vast superstructure of intellect, of social and moral sentiment, of voluntary effort and endeavor.”41 Of all the properties of organized matter, that of transmitting form and life is the most wonderful; and if we examine critically the physical basis of the labors and hopes of mankind, if we ask what prompts its noblest and holiest longings, we shall find them, in the vast majority of instances, directly traceable to this power. No wonder then that religion, which we have seen springs from man’s wants and wishes, very often bears the distinct trace of their origin in his reproductive functions. The liens of the family are justly deemed sacred, and are naturally associated with whatever the mind considers holy.

The duty of a citizen to become a father was a prominent feature in many ancient religions. How much honor the sire of many sons had in Rome and Palestine is familiar to all readers. No warrior, according to German faith, could gain entrance to Valhalla unless he had begotten a son. Thus the preservation of the species was placed under the immediate guardianship of religion.

Such considerations explain the close connection of sexual thoughts with the most sacred mysteries of faith. In polytheisms, the divinities are universally represented as male or female, virile and fecund. The processes of nature were often held to be maintained through such celestial nuptials.

Yet stranger myths followed those of the loves of the gods. Religion, as the sentiment of continuance, finding its highest expression in the phenomenon of generation, had to reconcile this with the growing concept of a divine unity. Each separate god was magnified in praises as self-sufficient. Earth, or nature, or the season is one, yet brings forth all. How embody this in concrete form?

The startling refuge was had in the image of a deity at once of both sexes. Such avowedly were Mithras, Janus, Melitta, Cybele, Aphrodite, Agdistis; indeed nearly all the Syrian, Egyptian, and Italic gods, as well as Brahma, and, in the esoteric doctrine of the Cabala, even Jehovah, whose female aspect is represented by the “Shekinah.” To this abnormal condition the learned have applied the adjectives epicene, androgynous, hermaphrodite, arrenothele. In art it is represented by a blending of the traits of both sexes. In the cult it was dramatically set forth by the votaries assuming the attire of the other sex, and dallying with both.42 The phallic symbol superseded all others; and in Cyprus, Babylonia and Phrygia, once in her life, at least, must every woman submit to the embrace of a stranger.

Such rites were not mere sensualities. The priests of these divinities often voluntarily suffered emasculation. None but a eunuch could become high priest of Cybele. Among the sixteen million worshippers of Siva, whose symbol is the Lingam, impurity is far less prevalent than among the sister sects of Hindoo religions.43 To the Lingayets, the member typifies abstractly the idea of life. Therefore they carve it on sepulchres, or, like the ancient nations of Asia Minor, they lay clay images of it on graves to intimate the hope of existence beyond the tomb.

This notion of a hermaphrodite deity is not “monstrous,” as it has been called. There lies a deep meaning in it. The gods are spirits, beings of another order, which the cultivated esthetic sense protests against classing as of one or the other gender. Never can the ideal of beauty, either physical or moral, be reached until the characteristics of sex are lost in the concept of the purely human. In the noblest men of history there has often been noted something feminine, a gentleness which is not akin to weakness; and the women whose names are ornaments to nations have displayed a calm greatness, not unwomanly but something more than belongs to woman. Art acknowledges this. In the Vatican Apollo we see masculine strength united with maidenly softness; and in the traditional face and figure of Christ a still more striking example how the devout mind conjoins the traits of both sexes to express the highest possibility of the species. “Soaring above the struggle in which the real is involved with its limitations, and free from the characteristics of gender, the ideal of beauty as well as the ideal of humanity, alike maintain a perfect sexual equilibrium.”44

Another and more familiar expression of the religious emotion, akin to the belief in double-sexed deities, – nay, in its physiological aspect identical with it, as assuming sexual self-sufficiency, is the myth of the Virgin-Mother.

When Columbus first planted the cross on the shores of San Domingo, the lay brother Roman Pane, whom he sent forth to convert the natives of that island, found among them a story of a virgin Mamóna, whose son Yocaúna, a hero and a god, was chief among divinities, and had in the old times taught this simple people the arts of peace and guided them through the islands.45 When the missionaries penetrated to the Iroquois, the Aztecs, the Mayas, and many other tribes, this same story was told them with such startling likeness to one they came to tell, that they felt certain either St. Thomas or Satan had got the start of them in America.

But had these pious men known as well as we do the gentile religions of the Old World, they would have seasoned their admiration. Long before Christianity was thought of, the myth of the Virgin-Mother of God was in the faith of millions, as we have had abundantly shown us of late years by certain expounders of Christian dogmas.

How is this strange, impossible belief to be explained? Of what secret, unconscious, psychological working was it the expression? Look at its result. It is that wherever this doctrine is developed the status matrimonialis is held to be less pure, less truly religious, than the status virginitatis. Such is the teaching to-day in Lhassa, in Rome; so it was in Yucatan, where, too, there were nunneries filled with spouses of God. I connect it with the general doctrine that chastity in either sex is more agreeable to God than marriage, and this belief, I think, very commonly arises at a certain stage of development of the religious sentiment, when it unconsciously recognises the indisputable fact that sex-love, whether in its form of love of woman, family, or nation, is not what that sentiment craves. This is first shown by rejecting the idea of sex-love in the birth of the god; then his priests and priestesses refuse its allurements, and deny all its claims, those of kindred, of country, of race, until the act of generation itself is held unholy and the thought of sex a sin. By such forcible though rude displays do they set forth their unconscious acknowledgment of that eternal truth: “He that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me.”

The significance of these words is not that there is an antagonism in the forms of love. It is not that man should hate himself, as Pascal, following the teachings of the Church, so ably argued; nor that the one sex should be set over against the other in sterile abhorrence; nor yet that love of country and of kindred is incompatible with that toward the Supreme of thought; but it is that each of these lower, shallower, evanescent forms of emotion is and must be lost in, subordinated to, that highest form to which these words have reference. Reconciliation, not abnegation, is what they mean.

Even those religions which teach in its strictness the oneness of God have rarely separated from his personality the attribute of sex. He is the father, pater et genitor, of all beings. The monotheism which we find in Greece and India generally took this form. The ancient Hebrews emphasized the former, not the latter sense of the word, and thus depriving it of its more distinctive characteristics of sex, prepared the way for the teachings of Christianity, in which the Supreme Being always appears with the attributes of the male, but disconnected from the idea of generation.

Singularly enough, the efforts to which this latent incongruity prompts, even in persons speaking English, in which tongue the articles and adjectives have no genders, point back to the errors of an earlier age. A recent prayer by an eminent spiritualist commences: – “Oh Eternal Spirit, our Father and our Mother!” The expression illustrates how naturally arises the belief in a hermaphrodite god, when once sex is associated with deity.

Of all founders of religions, Mohammed first proclaimed a divinity without relation to sex. One of his earliest suras reads:

“He is God alone,God the eternal.He begetteth not, and is not begotten;And there is none like unto him.”

And elsewhere: —

“He hath no spouse, neither hath he any offspring.”46

While he expressly acknowledged the divine conception of Jesus, he denied the coarse and literal version of that doctrine in vogue among the ignorant Christians around him. Enlightened christendom, to-day, does not, I believe, differ from him on this point.

Such sexual religions do not arise, as the theory has hitherto been, from study and observation of the generative agencies in nature, but from the identity of object between love in sense and love in intellect, profane and sacred passion. The essence of each is continuance, preservation; the origin of each is subjective, personal; but the former has its root in sensation, the latter in reason.

The sex-difference in organisms, the “abhorrence of self-fertilization” which Mr. Darwin speaks of as so conspicuous and inexplicable a phenomenon, is but one example of the sway of a law which as action and reaction, thesis and antithesis, is common to both elementary motion and thought. The fertile and profound fancy of Greece delighted to prefigure this truth in significant symbols and myths. Love, Eros, is shown carrying the globe, or wielding the club of Hercules; he is the unknown spouse of Psyche, the soul; and from the primitive chaos he brings forth the ordered world, the Kosmos.

The intimate and strange relation between sensuality and religion, so often commented upon and denied, again proven, and always misinterpreted, thus receives a satisfactory explanation. Some singular manifestations of it, of significance in religious history, are presented by the records of insane delusions. They confirm what I have above urged, that the association is not one derived from observation through intellectual processes, but is a consequence of physiological connections, of identity of aim in the distinct realms of thought and emotion.

That eminent writer on mental diseases, Schroeder van der Kolk, when speaking of the forms of melancholy which arise from physical conditions, remarks: “The patient who is melancholy from disorders of the generative organs considers himself sinful. His depressed tone of mind passes over into religious melancholy; ‘he is forsaken by God; he is lost.’ All his afflictions have a religious color.” In a similar strain, Feuchtersleben says: “In the female sex especially, the erotic delusion, unknown to the patient herself, often assumes the color of the religious.”47

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1

In his essay entitled, Ueber den Geschlechtsunterschied und dessen Einfluss auf die organische Natur, first published in 1795.

2

“Der alte Dualismus von Geist und Körper, der Jahrhunderte hindurch nach Versöhnung gerungen, findet diese heute nicht zwar in der Einheit der Substanz, wohl aber in der Einheit des Gesetzes.” Dr. Heinrich Boehmer, Geschichte der Entwickelung der Naturwissenschaftlichen Weltanschauung in Deutschland, s. 201 (Gotha, 1872).

3

Elements of Physio-Philosophy, § 3589. Eng. trans., London, 1847.

4

Von Feuchtersleben, The Principles of Medical Psychology, p. 130 (Eng. trans., London, 1847).

5

“The fundamental property of organic structure is to seek what is beneficial, and to shun what is hurtful to it.” Dr. Henry Maudsley, Body and Mind, p. 22.

“The most essential nature of a sentient being is to move to pleasure and from pain.” A. Bain, On the Study of Character, p. 292 (London, 1861).

“States of Pleasure are connected with an increase, states of Pain with an abatement of some or all of the vital functions.” A. Bain, Mind and Body, p. 59.

“Affectus est confusa idea, quâ Mens majorem, vel minorem sui corporis, vel alicujus ejus partis, existendi vim affirmat.” Spinoza, Ethices, Lib. III. ad finem.

6

The extension of the mechanical laws of motion to organic motion was, I believe, first carried out by Comte. His biological form of the first law is as follows: “Tout état, statique ou dynamique, tend à persister spontanément, sans aucune altération, en resistant aux perturbations extérieures.” Système de Politique Positive, Tome iv. p. 178. The metaphysical ground of this law has, I think, been very well shown by Schopenhauer to be in the Kantian principle that time is not a force, nor a quality of matter, but a condition of perception, and hence it can exert no physical influence. See Schopenhauer, Parerga und Paralipomena, Bd. II, s. 37.

7

“Aller Genuss, seiner Natur nach, ist negativ, d. h., in Befreiung von einer Noth oder Pein besteht.” Parerga und Paralipomena. Bd. II, s. 482.

8

“No impression whatever is pleasant beyond the instant of its realization; since, at that very instant, commences the change of susceptibility, which suggests the desire for a change of impression or for a renewal of that impression which is fading away.” Dr. J. P. Catlow, The Principles of Aesthetic Medicine, p. 155 (London, 1867).

“Dum re, quem appetamus fruimur, corpus ex ea fruitione novam acquirat constitutionem, á quá aliter determinatur, et aliæ rerum imagines in eo excitantur,” etc. Spinoza, Ethices, Pars III, Prop. lix.

9

“Feeling and thought are much more real than anything else; they are the only things which we directly know to be real.” – John Stuart Mill. —Theism, p. 202. How very remote external objects are from what we take them to be, is constantly shown in physiological studies. As Helmholtz remarks: “No kind and no degree of similarity exists between the quality of a sensation, and the quality of the agent inducing it and portrayed by it.” —Lectures on Scientific Subjects, p. 390.

10

The Philosophy of Consciousness, p. 72.

11

The Gospel of John (ch. xviii.) leaves the impression that Pilate either did not wait for an answer but asked the question in contempt, as Bacon understood, or else that waiting he received no answer. The Gospel of Nicodemus, however, written according to Tischendorf in the second century, probably from tradition, gives the rest of the conversation as follows: “Pilate says to him: What is truth? Jesus says: Truth is from heaven. Pilate says: Is not there truth upon earth? Jesus says to Pilate: See how one who speaks truth is judged by those who have power upon earth!” [ch. iii.]

12

The most acute recent discussion of this subject is by Helmholtz, in his essay entitled, “Recent Progress in the Theory of Vision.”

13

George Boole, Professor of Mathematics in Queen’s College, Cork, was born Nov. 2, 1815, died Dec. 8, 1864. He was the author of several contributions to the higher mathematics, but his principal production is entitled: An Investigation into the Laws of Thought, on which are founded the mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities [London, 1854.] Though the reputation he gained was so limited that one may seek his name in vain in the New American Cyclopedia [1875], or the Dictionnaire des Contemporains [1859], the few who can appreciate his treatise place the very highest estimate upon it. Professor Todhunter, in the preface to his History of the Theory of Probabilities, calls it “a marvellous work,” and in similar language Professor W. Stanley Jevons speaks of it as “one of the most marvellous and admirable pieces of reasoning ever put together” (Pure Logic, p. 75). Professor Bain, who gives a synopsis of it in his Deductive Logic, wholly misapprehends the author’s purpose, and is unable to appraise justly his conclusions.

14

The Institutes of Metaphysic, p. 459, (2nd edition.)

15

An Outline of the Necessary Laws of Thought, p. 113 (New York, 1860).

16

The Dhamapada, verse 93.

17

Koppen, Der Buddhismus, s. 30.

18

Spencer in assuming an “unknowable universal causal agent and source of things,” as “the nature of the power manifested in phenomena,” and in calling this the idea common to both religion and “ideal science,” fell far behind Comte, who expressed the immovable position, not only of positive science but of all intelligence, in these words: “Le véritable esprit positif consiste surtout à substituer toujours l’étude des lois invariables des phénomènes à celles de leurs causes proprement dites, premières ou finales, en un mot la determination du comment à celle du pourquoi.” —Systèmede Politique Positive, i. p. 47. Compare Spencer’s Essay entitled, “Reasons for dissenting from Comte.” The purposive law is the only final cause which reason allows. Comte’s error lay in ignoring this class of laws.

19

The Institutes of Metaphysic, 2d Ed. See also Bain, The Emotions and the Will, the closing note.

20

Boole, Laws of Thought, p. 401.

21

Address to the Clergy, pp. 42, 43, 67, 106, etc.

22

E. von Hardenberg [Novalis], Werke, s. 364.

23

Treatises Devotional and Practical, p. 188. London, 1836.

24

In Aramaic dachla means either a god or fear. The Arabic Allah and the Hebrew Eloah are by some traced to a common root, signifying to tremble, to show fear, though the more usual derivation is from one meaning to be strong.

25

“Wen die Hoffnung, den hat auch die Furcht verlassen.” Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga und Paralipomena. Bd. ii. s. 474.

26

Alexander Bain, On the Study of Character, p. 128. See also his remarks in his work, The Emotions and the Will, p. 84, and in his notes to James Mill’s Analysis of the Mind, vol. i., pp. 124-125.

27

Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Gesammelte Werke, Bd. vii., s. 62.

28

De Senancourt, Obermann, Lettre xli.

29

Elements of Medical Psychology, p. 331.

30

Lessing’s Gesammelte Werke. B. ii. s. 443 (Leipzig, 1855).

31

See Exodus, xxiii. 12; Psalms, lv. 6; Isaiah, xxx. 15; Jeremiah, vi. 16; Hebrews, v. 9. So St. Augustine: “et nos post opera nostra sabbato vitæ eternæ requiescamus in te.” Confessionum Lib. xiii. cap. 36.

32

“Filioli, diligite alterutrum.” This is the “testamentum Johannis,” as recorded from tradition by St. Jerome in his notes to the Epistle to the Galatians.

33

Alexander Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, Chap. I.

34

A Christian Directory. Part I. Chap. III.

35

“The very nature of affection, the idea itself, necessarily implies resting in its object as an end.” Fifteen Sermons by Joseph Butler, late Lord Bishop of Durham, Preface, and p. 147 (London, 1841).

36

Dr. J. Milner Fothergill, Journal of Mental Science, Oct. 1874, p. 198.

37

The most recent work on the topic is that of Messrs. Westropp and Wake, The Influence of the Phallic Idea on the Religions of Antiquity, London, 1874.

38

Schoolcraft’s History and Statistics of the Indian Tribes, Vol. iv. p. 224.

39

Richardson, Arctic Expedition, p. 412.

40

Most physicians have occasion to notice the almost entire loss in modern life of the instinctive knowledge of the sex relation. Sir James Paget has lately treated of the subject in one of his Clinical Lectures (London, 1875).

41

Dr. J. P. Catlow, Principles of Aesthetic Medicine, p. 112. This thoughtful though obscure writer has received little recognition even in the circle of professional readers.