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Title: Religion and Morality Author: Leo Tolstoy Date: 1900 Language: en Topics: religion, morality Source: Original text from http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=10492, 2021. Translated by Vladimir Tchertkoff
You ask me—first, How I understand the word religion; and, second,
Whether I admit the existence of morality, independent of religion as
understood by me. I will answer these most important questions, well put
by you, as best I can.[1]
There are three separate meanings generally implied by the word
religion. First—That religion is a certain true revelation given by God
to men, from which proceeds man's worship of God. Such an interpretation
is applied to religion by all believers in one of its existing forms,
who regard in consequence their particular form as the only true one.
Second—That religion is a collection of superstitious statements, from
which a worship equally superstitious is derived. Such an interpretation
is applied to religion by skeptics in general; by those, that is, who do
not believe in the religion they are defining. Third—That religion is a
compilation of propositions and rules, invented by clever men, and a
necessity for ​the vulgar herd, as much for their consolation as for
their subjugation and the restraint of their passions. Such an
interpretation is applied to religion by those indifferent to it
personally, but who regard it as a useful instrument in the governance
of mankind.
By the first definition, religion is an indubitable and irrefragable
truth, the propagation of which among all men and by every possible
means is necessary to the welfare of mankind. By the second, religion is
a mass of superstition from which it is desirable, and even needful to
the welfare of humanity, that mankind should be delivered. By the third,
religion is a contrivance useful to humanity, though unnecessary for
those of the highest development, but which, as indispensable to the
consolation and control of the vulgar, it is needful to maintain.
The first definition is similar to one a man might make of music, by
defining it as his most familiar and favorite song, with which it is
desirable that the greatest number of people possible should be
acquainted. The second, in the same connection, would be that applied to
music by a man who, not understanding it, therefore not caring for it,
called it the production of sound by the throat, mouth, or hands upon
certain instruments; a useless and even objectionable occupation, from
which it was necessary to wean men as soon as possible. The third is
similar to that which a man would apply to music, who ​considered it a
useful contrivance for teaching men to dance or to march, for which
purposes it should be maintained.
The difference and narrowness of these definitions arise from their
failure to take hold of the essence of music, merely defining its
features from the definer's point of view. So is it also with the three
definitions of religion. According to the first, religion is whatever
the definer thinks that he is right in believing. According to the
second, it is that which, in the definer's opinion, people are wrong in
believing. According to the third, it is, by the standard of the
definer, what it is beneficial to make men believe. All which define,
not what constitutes the essence of religion, but the definer's belief
of what religion constitutes. The first supplants the notion of
religion, by the faith of him who defines; the second, by the faith by
which other people regard it; the third, by the faith of men in whatever
may be supplied them as religion.
But what is faith? Why do people believe in what they believe? What is
faith? and whence has it arisen?
Among the majority of the educated classes it is regarded as a settled
question that the essence of every religion has its origin in the
personification, deification, and worship of the forces of
Nature—proceeding from superstitious fear of Nature's incomprehensible
phenomena. This view is accepted, without criticism, by the educated
crowd of our time, and it not ​only does not meet with any refutation
from men of science, but for the most part, finds, precisely among them,
most definite confirmation. If, indeed, voices are at times heard, as
that of Max MĂĽller and others, which attribute to religion another
origin and sense, these voices are unheard and unnoticed in the general
and almost unanimous affirmation that religion is the outcome of
ignorance and superstition.
Not long ago, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, if the most
advanced thinkers rejected Catholicism, Protestantism, and Greek
orthodoxy, as did the Encyclopedists at the end of the eighteenth, still
not one of them denied that religion in general has been and is an
indispensable condition in the lives of all. Not to mention the
Deists—as Bernardin de St. Pierre, Diderot, and Rousseau—Voltaire raised
a monument to God, and Robespierre proclaimed a festal day in honor of
the Supreme Being. But at the present day, thanks to the frivolous and
superficial teaching of Auguste Comte (who sincerely believed, in common
with the majority of Frenchmen, that Christianity is nothing but
Catholicism, and therefore saw in Catholicism the complete realization
of Christianity) the educated crowd, which always readily and greedily
accepts the lowest view, have decided and acknowledged that religion is
only a certain long obsolete aspect in the development of humanity which
hinders progress. It is ​agreed that humanity has already outlived two
periods, the religious and metaphysical, and has now entered into the
third and highest, the scientific, and that all religious phenomena are
only the survivals of an outgrown spiritual organ of humanity, once
needful, but long ago lost to sense and significance.
It is agreed that religion had its origin in the worship of imaginary
beings, evoked by fear of the incomprehensible forces of Nature, as in
ancient times Democritus thought, and as affirmed by the philosophers
and historians of religion. But, putting aside the fact that the
recognition of some unseen and supernatural being or beings has not
always proceeded from a sense of fear evoked by unknown forces of
Nature, as is proved by hundreds of advanced and learned thinkers of the
past—Socrates, Descartes, Newton—and like men of our own times, who,
being in no wise fearful of such forces, admitted the existence of some
supreme supernatural being or beings—the affirmation that religion has
been the outcome of man's superstitious fear of the incomprehensible
powers of Nature, in reality does not answer the chief question. From
what in man does the idea of an unseen and supernatural being derive
existence? If men were afraid of thunder and lightning, they would fear
them as thunder and lightning; but why invent an unseen and supernatural
Jove, living in certain regions, and occasionally flinging bolts at men?
If men were ​astounded by the aspect of death, they would fear to die;
but why invent souls of the dead with whom to enter into imaginary
communion? From thunder men might hide; from the fear of death they
might fly; but instead they devised an eternal, all-powerful Being, on
whom they reckon themselves dependent, and the living souls of the
dead—not from fear alone, but for some other reasons. And in these
reasons, evidently, lies the essence of what is called religion.
Moreover, every man who has ever felt the religious sentiment, if only
in childhood, knows from his own experience that such a sentiment has
always been awakened in him, not by external, terrifying, material
phenomena, but by an internal consciousness of his own frailty,
solitude, and sinfulness, and connected not at all with any dread of the
unknown forces of Nature. Hence man may, both by external observation
and by personal experience, ascertain that religion is not the worship
of deities, evoked by superstitious fear of unknown natural forces, and
only proper to mankind at a certain period of their development, but
something independent altogether of fear, or of a degree of culture, and
not liable to destruction by any access of enlightenment; just as man's
consciousness of his finality in the infinite universe, and of his
sinfulnesss (i.e., his non-fulfillment of all he might and ought to have
done), always has existed and always will exist while man remains man.
​In truth, every man, as soon as he emerges from the animal existence of
infancy and childhood—during which he lives by the pressure of those
claims which are presented to him by his animal nature—every man who is
awake to reasonable consciousness cannot fail to remark how the life
about him renews itself, undestroyed, and steadfastly subordinate to one
definite eternal law; and that he alone, self-recognized as a creature
separate from the entire universe, is condemned to death, to a
disappearance in unbounded space and limitless time, and to the painful
consciousness of responsibility for his actions—a consciousness, so to
say, that, having acted not well, he might have acted better. And, with
this understanding, every reasoning man must stop, think, and ask
himself—wherefore this momentary, indefinite, unstable existence within
a universe uncompassed, eternal, firmly defined?
Man cannot, when he enters into his full measure of life, elude this
question. It confronts all, and all in some fashion answer it, and it is
this answer which is the essence of religion; the answer to the
question, Wherefore do I live, and what is my relation to the infinite
universe about me? All religious metaphysics—their teaching as to
deities, the origin of existence, external worship—though generally
taken for religion, are only the various signs accompanying religion,
and changing with a change in its geographical, historical, or
ethnographical conditions. There is no ​religion, however cultured,
however crude, but has its beginnings in the assessment of the relations
of man to the surrounding universe or to its first cause. There is no
ceremony of religion so rustic, nor ritual so refined, which has not a
like foundation. All the teaching of religion is the expression of the
relations in which the founder of the religion regards himself—and
therefore all mankind—as standing towards the universe or towards its
origin and first cause.
The expressions of these relations are very numerous, and correspond to
the conditions of race and time in which the founder of the religion and
those appropriating it are placed. Moreover, these expressions are
variously misinterpreted and deformed by the founder's disciples, who,
often for hundreds, sometimes for thousands of years, are in advance of
the understanding of the masses. Hence many accounts appear to exist of
this relation of man to the universe, called religions but in substance
there are only three relations to the universe or its first cause of an
essential quality: (1) The primitive personal relation; (2) the pagan
social, or family, or State relation; (3) the Christian or godly
relation. Strictly speaking, man can only be related to the universe in
two ways: the personal, which is the recognition of life as the welfare
of the individual, separately or in union with others; and the
Christian, which is the recognition of life as the service of Him who
sent man ​into the world. The social relation of man to the universe is
merely an enlargement of the personal.
The first 'of these recognitions (or perceptions), which is the most
ancient, and which is now found only among men of the lowest order of
development, consists in the consideration by man of himself as a
self-sufficient being, existing with the sole purpose of obtaining for
himself the greatest possible amount of personal happiness from the
world about him, indifferent to the amount of suffering thus entailed on
other creatures. From this early conception of a relation to the
universe—which suffices for every child, as it sufficed for humanity on
the threshold of its development, and still satisfies many savage tribes
and men of a coarse moral fiber—have proceeded all the ancient heathen
religions, as well as the corrupt and lower forms of more recent
religions, as Buddhism,[2] Taoism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity in
its perverted issues. To this same perception the more modern spiritism
owes its origin, being founded on the preservation and welfare of the
​indiyidual. All heathen superstitions, divination, deification of beings
in blissful existence with the attributes of men, or of saints
interceding for men, all sacrifices and supplications for earthly
advantages or protection from calamity, proceed from the same conception
of life.
The second or social pagan conception of man's relation to the universe,
established in the next stage of development and natural to the state of
manhood, consists in the admission that the meaning of life is to be
discovered, not in the happiness of individuals, but in the welfare of a
certain association of them, as the family, tribe, State, nation, even
humanity (according to the attempted religion of the Positivists). In
this perception, the attention is transferred from the individual to the
family, tribe, State, or nation—that is, to an association of
individuals, the welfare of whom is, in this case, regarded as the
object of existence. All patriarchal and social religions of a like
character have their origin in this conception: the religions of the
Chinese, Japanese, of the chosen people of the Jews, the State religion
of the Romans, our own religion of Church and State, debased to this
connection by Augustine, and wrongly called Christian, and the
Positivists' hypothetical religion of "humanity." Ancestor-worship in
China and Japan, emperor-worship in Rome, the manifold ceremonies of the
Jews to preserve their covenant with God, all family, social, Church,
Christian ​Te Deums for the welfare of the State, and for military
success, are founded on this same conception of the relation of man to
the universe.
The third conception of this relation—the Christian one—of which every
man of advanced years is involuntarily conscious, and upon which
humanity, in my opinion, is now entering, consists in the acknowledgment
by man that the meaning of life is not to be found in the attainment of
his own individual aim, nor in the attainment of that of any association
of individuals, but solely in serving that Supreme Will, which has
produced man and the entire universe, for the attainment, not of the
aims of man, but of the Superior Will which has produced him. From this
conception, the loftiest religious teaching known to us has proceeded,
germs of which existed in the teaching of the Pythagoreans,
Therapeutics, Essenes, Egyptians, Persians, Brahmins, Buddhists, and
Taoists, in their best representatives, but which has only received its
final and fullest expression in the true, unperverted interpretation of
Christianity. All the ritual of those ancient religions proceeding from
this conception of life, all the modern external forms of association of
the Unitarians, Universalists, Quakers, Nazarenes, and Russian
Spirit-Wrestlers (Doukhobors),[3] ​and all so-called rationalistic sects,
their sermons, hymns, intercourse, and books, are religious
manifestations of this conception of man's relation to the universe.
All possible religions of every kind are inevitably distributed between
these three conceptions. Every man who has emerged from the animal
condition must invariably adopt one of these conceptions of his relation
to the universe, and in this adoption consists the real religion of
every man, outside any confession of faith to which he may nominally
adhere. Every man inevitably, one way or another, pictures to himself
his own relation to the universe, because a rational being cannot live
in the world without some sort of consciousness of his relation to it.
And as only three explanations of this relation have been produced by
humanity, and are known to us, every man must inevitably hold by one of
the three, and, whether he will or not, belongs to one of the three
fundamental religions, among which all humanity may be divided. And
hence the general assertion made by men of culture in the Christian
world that they have reached the summit of development, where they
neither have nor need a religion, only means that, renouncing
Christianity, the one religion proper to our time, they hold with one of
the lower religions—either with the social-family-State religion, or
with that of primitive heathendom—without being aware of the tendency
themselves. A man without a ​religion—that is, without any perceptive
relation to the universe—is as impossible as a man without a heart. He
may be as unaware of the possession of one as of the other, but neither
without a heart nor without a religion can man exist. Religion is the
relation which man acknowledges towards the universe about him, or to
its source and first cause, and a rational man must perforce be in some
sort of perceptive relationship.
But you may perhaps say that the definition of man's relation to the
universe is a subject not for religion, but for philosophy, or, in
general, for science, allowing that the latter term includes philosophy.
I do not think so. I hold, on the contrary, that the supposition that
science in its widest sense, including philosophy, should define the
relation of man to the universe is altogether erroneous, and the chief
source of disorder in the ideas of our educated society as to religion,
science, and morality. Science, including philosophy, cannot define the
relation of mankind to the infinite universe or to its source; if only
because, before any sort of science or of philosophy could have been
formulated, a conception of some sort of relationship of man to the
universe, without which no kind of mental activity is possible, must
have existed. As a man cannot by any kind of movement discover the
direction in which he must move, yet all movement is made inevitably in
some given direction, so it is impossible, by the ​mental efforts of
philosophy or of science, to discover the direction in which this effort
should be made, but every mental effort is inevitably accomplished in
some direction which has been given it already. And this direction for
all mental effort is always indicated by religion. All philosophies
known to us, from Plato to Schopenhauer, have followed inevitably the
direction given by religion.
The philosophy of Plato and of his followers was a pagan system to
procure the maximum of happiness, as well for the individual as for the
association of individuals in the form of a State. The Church-Christian
philosophy of the Middle Ages, based on the same pagan conception of
existence, investigated means of salvation for the individual—that is,
the means for procuring his best advantage in a future life—and only in
its theocratic endeavors did it touch on the welfare of societies. The
modern philosophy of Hegel, as well as that of Comte, is founded on the
State-social-religious conception of existence. The pessimistic
philosophy of Schopenhauer and Hartmann, which desired to free itself
from the Jewish religious conception, became unwittingly subject to the
basis of Buddhism. Philosophy always has been and always will be merely
the investigation of the results of the relation of man to the universe
inculcated by religion, for until this conception is acquired there is
no material for philosophical investigation.
​It is just the same with positive science in the strict meaning of the
term. Such a science always has been, and always will be, merely the
investigation of such objects and phenomena as appear to demand inquiry
in consequence of a certain conception of the relation of man to the
universe instituted by religion. Science always has been, and always
will be, not the study of "everything," as men of science at present
naively imagine (a thing which is, moreover, impossible, as the subjects
in the scope of study are innumerable), but only of those things which,
in order and according to their degree of importance, religion selects
from the infinite objects, phenomena, and circumstances, into which
inquiry may be made.
And hence there is not one science, but as many sciences as there are
religions. Each religion selects a certain circle of subjects which must
be studied, and hence the science of every time and nation inevitably
bears the character of its religion in the point of view from which its
examination is made. So the pagan science, reinstituted at the
Renaissance, and flourishing at present among us under the title of
Christian, always has been, and continues to be, merely an investigation
of the circumstances by which man may attain the highest welfare, and of
those phenomena of the universe which may be put under contribution to
the same end. The philosophical science of Brahmin and ​Buddhist has
always been merely the investigation of circumstances by which man may
be delivered from the miseries which oppress him. The Jewish science (of
the Talmud) has always been the study and explanation of those
conditions which must be observed by man in order to ratify his covenant
with God, and to preserve the chosen nation at the highest level of its
election. The Church-Christian science was and is the investigation of
those circumstances by which man procures his salvation. The true
Christian science, that which is but just at the birth, is the
investigation of those circumstances by which man may become acquainted
with the demands of the Supreme Will, whose instrument he is, and how he
may fit them to his existence.
Neither philosophy nor science can institute the relation of man to the
universe, because such reciprocity must have existence before any kind
of science or philosophy can begin; since each investigates phenomena by
means of the intellect, and independent of the position or sensations of
the investigator; whereas the relation of man to the universe is
defined, not by the intellect alone, but by his sensitive perception,
aided by all his spiritual powers. However much one may assure and
instruct a man that all real existence is an idea only, that matter is
made up of atoms, that the essence of life is corporality or will, that
heat, light, movement, electricity are different ​manifestations of one
and the same energy, one cannot thereby explain to a being with pains,
pleasures, fears, and hopes, his position in the universe. That
position, and his consequent relation to the universe, is explained only
by religion, which says, "The universe exists for thee, and therefore
take from life all that thou canst obtain;" or else, "Thou art one of
the favorite people of God; serve that people, and accomplish the
instructions of that God, and thou and thy people shall be partakers of
the highest bliss;" or else, "Thou art the instrument of a Supreme Will,
which has sent thee into the universe to accomplish a work predestined
for thee; learn that will, and do it, and thou wilt do for thyself the
best that thou canst do."
To understand philosophy and science, one needs study and preparation,
but neither is required for the understanding of religion: that is at
once comprehensible to every man, whatever his ignorance and
limitations. A man need acquire neither philosophy nor science to
understand his relation to the universe, or to its source; a superfluity
of knowledge, encumbering his consciousness, is rather an impediment;
but he must renounce, if only for the time, the vanity of the world, and
acquire a sense of his material frailty and of truth, which are, as the
Gospels tell us, to be found most often in children and in the simplest,
most unlearned, of men. For this reason we see the most simple, ​ignorant
and untaught men accept clearly, consciously, and easily the highest
Christian conception of life, whereas the most learned and cultured
linger in crude paganism. As, for example, we observe men of refinement
and education whose conception of existence is the acquirement of
personal pleasure or security from pain, as with the shrewd and cultured
Schopenhauer, or in the salvation of the soul by sacraments and means of
grace, as with learned bishops of the Church; whereas an almost
illiterate sectarian peasant in Russia, without the slightest mental
effort, achieves the same conception of life as was accomplished by the
greatest sages of the world—Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca—namely,
the consciousness of one's being as the instrument of the will of
God—the son of God.
But you may ask me: In what, then, does the essence of this unscientific
and unphilosophical knowledge consist? If it be neither scientific nor
philosophical, of what sort is it? How is it to be defined? To these
questions I can only reply that as religious knowledge is that which
precedes, and upon which is founded, every other knowledge, it cannot be
defined, there being no means of definition in existence. In theological
language this knowledge is called revelation. And this word, if we do
not give it any mystic meaning, is quite accurate; because this
knowledge is not acquired by study, nor by the efforts of individuals,
but through ​the reception by them of the manifestation of the Infinite
Mind, which, little by little, discloses itself to men. Why is it that
ten thousand years ago men were unable to understand that the meaning of
their life was not exhausted by the welfare of the individual, and that
later came a time when the higher family-social-State-national
conception of life was disclosed to mankind? Why is it that, within the
limits of historical memory, the Christian conception of life has been
disclosed to men? And why has it been disclosed to such a man or men,
and precisely at such a time, at such and no other place, in such and no
other form?
To try to answer these questions by searching for their reasons in the
historical circumstances of the time, life, and character and special
qualities of those men who first accepted and expressed this conception
of life, is as though one were to try to prove why the rising sun first
casts his rays on certain objects. The sun of truth, rising higher and
higher upon the world, enlightens it ever further, and is reflected by
those forms on which first fall the illumination of its rays, and which
are most capable of reflecting them. The qualities which give to some
the power of receiving the rising truth are no special activities of the
mind, but, on the contrary, are rather passive qualities of the heart,
seldom corresponding to a great and inquisitive intellect. Rejection of
the vanities of the world, a sense of one's ​material frailty, and of
truthfulness, are what we observe in every founder of a religion, none
of whom have been distinguished by philosophical or scientific
acquirement.
In my opinion, the chief error, which, more than all else, impedes the
true progress of Christian humanity, is precisely the fact that the
scientific men of our time, who are now in the seat of Moses, being
guided by the pagan conception of life revived at the Renaissance, and
having accepted as the essence of Christianity its crudest distortions,
and having decided that it is a condition already outworn by mankind
(while they consider, on the contrary, that the ancient social-State
conception of paganism, which is indeed outworn, is the loftiest
conception and one that should steadfastly be held by humanity), these
men not only do not understand true Christianity, which comprises that
most perfect conception of life towards which all humanity is advancing,
but they do not even try to understand it.
The chief source of this misunderstanding arises from the fact that men
of science, having diverged from Christianity, and seen that their
science cannot conform to it, have agreed that Christianity and not
science must be at fault: that is, they have assumed, not the fact that
science is 1800 years behind Christianity, which embraced the greater
part of contemporary society, but that it is Christianity which is 1800
years in arrear. From this distortion of facts arises the curious
​circumstance that no people have more entangled ideas as to the essence
of true knowledge, religion, morality, and existence than men of
science, and tiie yet more curious fact that the science of our time,
despite all its successes in examining the phenomena of the material
world, appears to be, as to human existence, either unnecessary or
productive of merely pernicious results. And hence I hold that it is
neither philosophy nor science which can determine the relation of man
to the universe, but only religion.
And so I answer your first question, as to what I understand by the word
"religion," thus—Religion is a certain relation of man to the eternal,
infinite universe, its origin and source. Out of this reply to your
first question follows naturally that to the second. If religion is a
definite relation of man to the universe which determines the meaning of
his life, morality is the index and explanation of man's activity which
naturally flows from one or other perceived relation. And as we
recognize only two of these perceptions, if we include the pagan-social
as the enlargement of the personal relation, or three, if we consider it
apart, so there exist but three moral teachings: the primitive, savage,
individualistic; the pagan-family-State or social; and the Christian or
godly, teaching man's subservience to the universe or to God.
From the first conception of man's relationship proceeds the morality
common ​to all pagan religions whose essential tendency is the welfare of
the individual, and which, therefore, defines every condition capable of
producing that welfare and the means by which it may be procured.
From this perception of man's relationship have proceeded the pagan
moralities; the Epicurean in its lowest manifestation; the Mohammedan,
promising the welfare of the individual in this and the next world; the
Church-Christian, with salvation for its object—that is, the welfare of
the individual chiefly in the world to come; and the worldly
utilitarian, having for its object the welfare of the individual in this
world alone.
From this same conception, which proclaims the welfare of the
individual, and hence his immunity from pain, as the object of his
existence, proceeds the Buddhist morality in its crudest aspect and the
worldly teaching of the pessimists.
From the second pagan conception, which proclaims the welfare of a
certain association of individuals as the object of existence, proceed
those moral teachings which demand from mankind subservience to that
particular association, the welfare of which is accepted as the aim of
life. According to this morality, such amount of personal welfare is
alone permitted as may be procurable for the entire association which
forms the religious base of existence.
From this relation of man to the ​universe proceed such moral teachings
of the Greek and Roman world as are known to us, in which the individual
is always sacrificed to society; the moral teaching of China; the Jewish
morality of personal subjection to the welfare of the chosen people; and
the Church-State-moral teaching of our own time which demands the
sacrifice of the individual to the welfare of the State.
From this same conception proceeds also the morality of the majority of
women, sacrificing their individuality to the welfare of the family, and
especially of their children. All ancient history, and in part that of
the Middle Ages, and of the modern era, is full of the exploits of this
family-social and State morality. And, at the present time, most men
only imagine they profess Christianity and hold the Christian morality,
but in reality they follow this family-State morality of paganism. And
this morality they elevate into an ideal in the education of the young.
From the third conception of man's relation to the universe—namely, the
acknowledgment by man of his existence as an instrument of the Supreme
Will for the accomplishment of its designs—proceeds the morality
corresponding to this conception, which explains the dependence of man
on the Supreme Will, and determines the demands of this Will. From this
perception, proceeds the loftiest morality known to man—the Pythagorean
​Stoic, Buddhist, Brahmin, and Taoist—in their best aspects, and the
Christian teaching in its real sense, which demands the renunciation of
the individual will, and of the welfare, not only of the individual, but
of family, society, and State, in the name of the fulfillment of His
will who gave us the existence which our consciousness has disclosed.
From one of these perceptions of man's relationship to the infinite
universe or its first cause proceeds the true, sincere morality of every
man, in spite of what he nominally professes or preaches as morality or
the appearance he desires to convey.
So that a man who acknowledges that the essence of his relation to the
universe consists in the acquirement of the greatest welfare for
himself, however much he may prate of the morality of living for family,
society. State, humanity, or the accomplishment of the will of God
(though he may be clever enough by feigning to deceive his fellows), the
real motive of his activity will always be the welfare of himself, so
that, when occasion arises for choice, he will sacrifice, not himself
for his family, nation, or the accomplishment of God's will, but
everything for himself, because his conception of existence being
centered in his own welfare, he cannot act otherwise till the conception
of his relation to the universe undergoes a change.
In the same way, however much a man, the conception of whose relation to
the universe consists in the service of his ​family (as is the case with
most women), tribe, country, or nation (as those of oppressed
nationalities, or political workers in times of contention), may say
that he is a Christian, his morality will always remain a family,
national, or State morality, not a Christian; and when the necessity
arises for choosing between the welfare of family or of society and that
of himself, or between social welfare and the accomplishment of God's
will, he will inevitably choose to serve the welfare of that association
of his fellows for which he, according to his conception of life,
exists; because only in such service does he discover the meaning of his
existence. And, similarly, however much you may assure a man, who
considers that his relation to the universe consists in the
accomplishment of the Will of Him that sent him, that he must, in the
interest of person, family. State, nation, or humanity, do that which
contradicts this Superior Will, of which he is conscious through the
reason and love with which he is equipped, he will always sacrifice
persons, family, country, or humanity rather than be unfaithful to the
Will of Him that sent him, because only by the accomplishment of this
Will does he realize his conception of life.
Morality cannot be independent of religion, because, not only is it the
outcome of religion—that is, of that conception by man of his relation
to the universe—but because it is already implied by religion. All
religion is a reply to the ​question, What is the meaning of my life? And
the religious answer always includes a certain moral demand, which may
sometimes follow the explanation of this conception, sometimes precede
it. The question may be answered thus—The meaning of life is in the
welfare of the individual, therefore profit by every advantage
accessible to thee; or, The meaning of life is in the welfare of an
association, serve therefore that association with all thy power; or,
The meaning of life is in the fulfillment of the "Will of Him that sent
thee, therefore try, with all thy power, to learn that Will and to do
it. And the same question may be answered thus—The meaning of thy life
is in thy personal pleasure, and that is the true destiny of man; or,
The meaning of life is in the service of that association of which thou
considerest thyself a member, for that is thy destiny; or, The meaning
of life is in the service of God, since for that thou hast been made.
Morality is included in the explanation of life which religion offers
us, and therefore cannot possibly be divorced from it. This truth is
especially evident in those attempts of non-Christian philosophers to
deduce the inculcation of the loftiest morality from their philosophy.
These teachers see that Christian morality is indispensable; that
existence without it is impossible; more, they see that such a morality
does exist, and they desire in some manner to attach it to their
​non-Christian philosophy, and even so to represent things that it may
appear as if Christian morality were the natural outcome of their
heathen or social philosophy. And they make the attempt, but their very
efforts exhibit more clearly than anything else, not only the
independence of Christian morality, but its complete contradiction of
the philosophy of individual welfare, of escape from personal suffering,
of the welfare of society.
Christian ethics, that of which we become conscious by a religious
conception of life, demand not only the sacrifice of personality to an
aggregate of persons, but of one's own person and any aggregate of
persons to the service of God. Whereas, heathen philosophy,
investigating the means by which the welfare of the individual or of an
association of individuals may be achieved, inevitably contradicts the
Christian ideal. Pagan philosophy has but one method for concealing this
discrepancy; it heaps up abstract conditional notions, one upon the
other, and refuses to emerge from the misty region of metaphysics.
Chiefly after this manner was the behavior of the philosophers since the
Renaissance, and to this circumstance—namely, the impossibility of
reconciling the demands of Christian morality already recognized as
existing, with philosophy upon a heathen basis—one must attribute that
awful abstraction, unclearness, incomprehensibility, estrangement from
life, of the new philosophy.
​With the exception of Spinoza, whose philosophy proceeded from a
religious and truly Christian basis, although he is not commonly
reckoned a Christian, and of Kant, a gifted genius who resolutely
conducted his ethics independent of his metaphysics; with these two
exceptions, every other philosopher, even the brilliant Schopenhauer,
manifestly devised artificial connections between their ethics and their
metaphysics. One feels that Christian ethics have an original and firmly
established standpoint independent of philosophy, and needing not at all
the fictitious props placed beneath it, and that philosophy invents such
statements not only to avoid an appearance of contradiction, but
apparently to involve a natural connection and outcome.
But all these statements only seem to justify Christian ethics while
they are considered in the abstract. The moment they are fitted to
questions of practical existence, then not only does their disagreement
become visible in all its force, but the contradiction between the
philosophical basis and that which we regard as morality is made
manifest. The unhappy Nietzche, who has lately become so celebrated, is
especially noticeable as an example of this contradiction. He is
irrefutable when he says that all rules of morality, from the standpoint
of the existent non-Christian philosophy, are nothing but falsehood and
hypocrisy, and that it is much more advantageous, pleasant, and
reasonable for ​a man to create a society of Uebermensch, and to become
one of its members, than to be one of a crowd which must serve as a
scaffold for that society.
No combinations of philosophy which proceed from the pagan religious
conception of life can prove that it will be of greater advantage to,
and more reasonable for, a man to live, not for his own desired,
attainable, and conceivable welfare, or for the welfare of his family
and society, but for the welfare of another, which, as far as he is
concerned, may be undesirable, inconceivable, and unattainable by his
own insufficient means. That philosophy which is founded on man's
welfare as the conception of life can never prove to a reasoning being,
with the ever-present consciousness of death, that it is fitting for him
to renounce his own desirable, conceivable, and certain welfare, not for
the certain welfare of others—for he can never know the results of his
sacrifice—but merely because it is right that he should do so: that it
is the categorical imperative.
It is impossible to prove this from the pagan-philosophical standpoint.
In order to prove that men are all equal, that it is best for a man to
sacrifice his own life in the service of others, rather than to make his
fellows serve him, trampling upon their lives, it is necessary for a man
to redefine his relation to the universe, and to understand that such is
the position of a man that he is left no other course, ​because the
meaning of his life is only to be found in the accomplishment of the
Will of Him that sent Mm, and that the Will of Him that sent him is—that
he should give his life to the service of mankind. And such a
modification in man's perception of his relation to the universe is
wrought only by religion.
So, too, is it with the attempts to deduce Christian morality from, and
to harmonize it with, the fundamental propositions of pagan science. No
sophisms nor mental shifting will destroy the simple and clear
proposition, that the hypothesis of evolution, laid as the basis of all
the science of our time, is founded upon a general, unchangeable, and
eternal law—that of the struggle for existence, and of the survival of
the "fittest"—and that, therefore, every man, for the attainment of his
own welfare, or of that of his society, must be this fittest, or make
his society the fittest, in order that neither he nor his society should
perish, but another less fit. However much some naturalists, alarmed by
the logical inferences of this law, and by its adaptation to human
existence, may strive to extinguish it with words and talk it down, its
irrefutability becomes only the more manifest by their efforts, and its
control over the life of the entire organic world, and hence over that
of man, regarded as an animal.
While I am writing this,[4] the Russian translation of an article by
Professor ​Huxley has been published, compiled from a speech of his upon
the evolution of ethics before a certain English society. In this
article the learned Professor—as did some years ago, too, our eminent
Professor Beketoff as unsuccessfully as his predecessors—tries to prove
that the struggle for existence does not violate morality, and that,
alongside the acceptance of the law of this struggle as the fundamental
law of existence, morality may not only exist, but may improve. Mr.
Huxley's article is full of a variety of jokes, verses, and general
views upon the religion and philosophy of the ancients, and therefore is
so shock-headed and entangled that only with great pains can one arrive
at the fundamental idea. This, however, is as follows:— The law of
evolution is contrary to the law of morality; this was known to the
ancient world of Greece and India. And the philosophy and religion of
either nation led them to the teaching of self-abnegation. This
teaching, according to the author's opinion, is not correct; but the
right one is the following: A law exists, termed by the author "cosmic,"
according to which all creatures struggle among themselves, and only the
fittest survives. Man is subordinate to this law, and, thanks to it, has
became what he now is. But this law is contrary to morality. How, then,
are we to reconcile morality with this law? Thus: Social progress exists
which tends to suspend the cosmic process, and to replace it by
another—an ​ethical one, the object of which is no longer the survival of
the "fittest," but of the "best" in the ethical sense.
Whence came this ethical process Mr. Huxley does not explain, but in
Note 19 he says that the basis of this process consists in the fact that
men, as well as animals, prefer, on the one hand, to live in companies,
and therefore smother within themselves those propensities which are
pernicious to societies, and, on the other hand, the members of
societies crush by force such actions as are prejudicial to the welfare
of the society. Mr. Huxley thinks that this process, which compels men
to control their passions for the preservation of that association to
which they belong, and the fear of punishment should they break the
rules of that association, compose that very ethical process the
existence of which it behooves him to prove. It evidently appears to the
mind of Mr. Huxley, that in English society of our time, with its Irish
destitution, its insane luxury of the rich, its trade in opium and
spirits, its executions, its sanguinary wars, its extermination of
entire nations for the sake of conmierce and policy, its secret vice and
hypocrisy—it evidently appears to him that a man who does not overstep
police regulations is a moral man, and that such a man is guided by an
ethical process. Mr. Huxley seems to forget that qualities which may be
needful to prevent the destruction of that society in which its member
lives, may be of ​service to the society itself; and that the personal
qualities of the members of a band of brigands are also useful to the
band; as, also, in our society, we find a use for hangmen, jailers,
judges, soldiers, false pastors, etc., but that these qualities have
nothing in common with morality.
Morality is an affair of constant development and growth, and hence the
preservation of the instituted orders of a certain society, by means of
the rope and scaffold, to which as instruments of morality Mr. Huxley
alludes, will be not only not the confirmation, but the infraction of
morality. And, on the contrary, every infringement of existing canons,
such as was the violation by Christ and His disciples of the ordinances
of a Roman province, such as would be the defiance of existing
regulations by a man who refuses to take part in judgments at law,
military service, and payment of taxes, used for military preparations,
will be not only not contrary to morality, but the indispensable
condition of its manifestation. Every cannibal, who ceases to partake of
his species, acts in the same manner and transgresses the ordinances of
his society. Hence though actions which infringe the regulations of
society may be immoral, without doubt, also, every truly moral action
which advances the cause of morality is always achieved by transgressing
some ordinance of society. And, therefore, if there has ever appeared in
a society a law which demands the sacrifice of personal advantage to
preserve the unity ​of the whole social fabric, that law is not an
ethical statute, but, for the most part, on the contrary (being opposed
to all ethics), is that same law of struggle for existence in a latent
and concealed form. It is the same struggle, but transferred from units
to their agglomerations. It is not the cessation of strife, but the
swinging backward of the arm to hit the stronger. If the law of the
struggle for existence and survival of the fittest is the eternal law of
all life (and one must perforce regard it as such with reference to man
considered as an animal), then such misty arguments as to social
progress—supposed to proceed from it, and arisen none knows whence, a
deus ex machinâ ethical process to assist us in our need—cannot break
that law down. If social progress, as Mr. Huxley assures us, collects
men into groups, then the same struggle and the same survival will exist
between families, races, and States, and this struggle will be, not only
not more moral, but more cruel and immoral than that between
individuals, as, indeed, we find it in reality.
Even if we admit the impossible—that all humanity, solely by social
progress, will in a thousand years achieve a single unity and will be of
one State and nation, even then, not to mention that the struggle
suppressed between States and nations will be altered to one between
humanity and the animal world, and that that struggle will always remain
a struggle—that is, an activity absolutely excluding ​the possibility of
Christian morality as professed by us—not to speak of this, the struggle
between the individuals which compose this unity, and between the
associations of families, races, nationalities will not in the least be
diminished, but will continue the same, only in another form, as we may
observe in all associations of men in families, races, and States. Those
of one family quarrel and fight—and often more and most cruelly—between
themselves, as well as with strangers. So also in a State, the same
struggle continues between those within it, as between them and those
without, only in other forms. In one case men kill each other with
arrows and knives, in another by starvation. And if the feeblest are
sometimes preserved in the family or State, it is in no wise thanks to
the State association, but because self-abnegation and tenderness exist
among people joined in families and States. If, of two children without
parents, only the fittest survives, the fact that both might live with
the help of a good mother, will not be a consequence of family
unification, but because a certain mother is gifted with tenderness and
self-denial. And neither of these gifts can proceed from social
progress. To assert that social progress produces morality is equivalent
to saying that the erection of stoves produces heat. Heat proceeds from
the sun; and stoves produce heat only when fuel—the work of the sun—is
kindled in them; so morality ​proceeds from religion, and social forms of
life produce morality only when into these forms are put the results of
religious influence on humanity—this is, morality. Stoves may be
kindled, and so may impart heat, or may be left unlit and so remain
cold. So, too, social forms may include morality, and in that case
morally influence society, or may not include morality and thus remain
without influence. Christian morality cannot be founded on the heathen
or social conception of life, nor can it be deduced either from
non-Christian philosophy or science—can not only not be deduced, but
cannot be reconciled with them. So always was it imderstood by all
serious, consistent, ancient philosophy and science, which said, "Do our
propositions disagree with morality? Well, then, so much the worse for
morality," and continued their investigations.
Ethical treatises not founded on religion, and even lay catechisms, are
written and taught, and men may believe that humanity is guided by them;
but it only seems to be so, because people in reality are guided, not by
these treatises and catechisms, but by the religion which they have
always had and have; whereas the treatises and catechisms only try to
counterfeit the natural outflux of religion. Ordinances of lay morality
not founded upon religious teaching are similar to the actions of a man
who, being ignorant of music, should take the conductor's seat before
the orchestra, and begin to wave his arms ​before the musicians, who are
performing. The music might continue a little while by its own momentum,
and from the previous knowledge of the players, but it is evident that
the mere waving of a stick by a man who is ignorant of music would be
not only useless, but would inevitably confuse the musicians and
disorganize the orchestra in the end. The same disorder is beginning to
take place in the minds of the men of our time, in consequence of the
attempts of leading men to teach people morality, not founded on that
loftiest religion which is in process of adoption, and is in part
adopted by Christian humanity. It would be, indeed, desirable to have a
moral teaching unmixed with superstition, but the fact is that moral
teaching is only the result of a certain defined relation of man to the
universe, or to God. If the determination of such a relation is
expressed in forms which seem to us superstitious, then, in order to
prevent this, we should try to express this relation more clearly,
reasonably, and accurately, and even to destroy the former perception of
man's relationship which has become insufficient, and to put in its
place one loftier, clearer, and more reasonable; but by no means to
invent a so-called lay, irreligious morality founded on sophisms, or
upon nothing at all.
The attempts to found a morality independent of religion are like the
actions of children when, wishing to move a plant which pleases them,
they tear off the root which does not please and seems ​unnecessary to
them, and plant it in the earth without the root. Without religious
foundation there can be no true, unsimulated morality, as without a root
there can be no true plant. And so in reply to your two questions, I say
religion is man's conception of his relation to the infinite universe,
and to its source. And morality is the ever-present guide of life
proceeding only from this relation.
[1] A reply to two questions put by the German Ethical Society. First
printed in Contemporary Review, 1894. Revised and corrected.
[2] Buddhism, although it demands from its disciples resignation of all
the pleasures of the world, and even of life itself, is founded on the
same idea of an individual sufficient for himself, and predestined to
happiness, or rather—in comparison with the right of man to enjoyment as
proclaimed by positive heathenism—to the absence of pain. Heathenism
holds that the universe should serve the interest of the individual.
Buddhism that the universe must be dissolved as the producing factor in
the miseries of mankind. Buddhism is only negative heathenism.
[3] A section of the so-called sectarians, having a spiritual conception
of life and the Gospels, and who claim to fight against the flesh by the
aid of the Spirit.
[4] 1894