Essays of Schopenhauer
of years have never been equalled and are almost works of a higher order
of beings, whom we can never approach; life embellished by the noblest
fellowship, as is portrayed in the _Banquet_ of Xenophon. And now look
at this side, if you can. Look at the time when the Church had
imprisoned the minds, and violence the bodies of men, whereby knights
and priests could lay the whole weight of life on the common beast of
burden--the third estate. There you have club-law, feudalism, and
fanaticism in close alliance, and in their train shocking uncertainty
and darkness of mind, a corresponding intolerance, discord of faiths,
religious wars, crusades, persecution of heretics and inquisitions; as
the form of fellowship, chivalry, an amalgam of savagery and
foolishness, with its pedantic system of absurd affectations, its
degrading superstitions, and apish veneration for women; the survival of
which is gallantry, deservedly requited by the arrogance of women; it
affords to all Asiatics continual material for laughter, in which the
Greeks would have joined. In the golden Middle Age the matter went as
far as a formal and methodical service of women and enjoined deeds of
heroism, _cours d'amour_, bombastic Troubadour songs and so forth,
although it is to be observed that these last absurdities, which have an
intellectual side, were principally at home in France; while among the
material phlegmatic Germans the knights distinguished themselves more by
drinking and robbing. Drinking and hoarding their castles with plunder
were the occupations of their lives; and certainly there was no want of
stupid love-songs in the courts. What has changed the scene so?
Migration and Christianity.
_Demop_. It is a good thing you reminded me of it. Migration was the
source of the evil, and Christianity the dam on which it broke.
Christianity was the means of controlling and taming those raw, wild
hordes who were washed in by the flood of migration. The savage man must
first of all learn to kneel, to venerate, and to obey; it is only after
that, that he can be civilised. This was done in Ireland by St. Patrick,
in Germany by Winifred the Saxon, who was a genuine Boniface. It was
migration of nations, this last movement of Asiatic races towards
Europe, followed only by their fruitless attempts under Attila, Gengis
Khan, and Timur, and, as a comic after-piece, by the gipsies: it was
migration of nations which swept away the humanity of the ancients.
Christianity was the very principle which worked against this savagery,
just as later, through the whole of the Middle Age, the Church and its
hierarchy were extremely necessary to place a limit to the savagery and
barbarism of those lords of violence, the princes and knights: it was
the ice-breaker of this mighty flood. Still, the general aim of
Christianity is not so much to make this life pleasant as to make us
worthy of a better. It looks beyond this span of time, this fleeting
dream, in order to lead us to eternal salvation. Its tendency is ethical
in the highest sense of the word, a tendency which had hitherto been
unknown in Europe; as I have already pointed out to you by comparing the
morality and religion of the ancients with those of Christianity.
_Phil_. That is right so far as theory is concerned; but look at the
practice. In comparison with the Christian centuries that followed, the
ancient world was undoubtedly less cruel than the Middle Age, with its
deaths by frightful torture, its countless burnings at the stake;
further, the ancients were very patient, thought very highly of justice,
and frequently sacrificed themselves for their country, showed traits of
magnanimity of every kind, and such genuine humanity, that, up to the
present time, an acquaintance with their doings and thoughts is called
the study of Humanity. Religious wars, massacres, crusades,
inquisitions, as well as other persecutions, the extermination of the
original inhabitants of America and the introduction of African slaves
in their place, were the fruits of Christianity, and among the ancients
one cannot find anything analogous to this, anything to counterpoise it;
for the slaves of the ancients, the _familia_, the _vernae_, were a
satisfied race and faithfully devoted to their masters, and as widely
distinct from the miserable negroes of the sugar plantations, which are
a disgrace to humanity, as they were in colour. The censurable
toleration of pederasty, for which one chiefly reproaches the morality
of the ancients, is a trifle compared with the Christian horrors I have
cited, and is not so rare among people of to-day as it appears to be.
Can you then, taking everything into consideration, maintain that
humanity has really become morally better by Christianity?
_Demop_. If the result has not everywhere corresponded with the purity
and accuracy of the doctrine, it may be because this doctrine has been
too noble, too sublime for humanity, and its aim set too high: to be
sure, it was much easier to comply with heathen morality or with the
Mohammedan. It is precisely what is most elevated that is the most open
to abuse and deception--_abusus optimi pessimus_; and therefore those
lofty doctrines have sometimes served as a pretext for the most
disgraceful transactions and veritable crimes. The downfall of the
ancient institutions, as well as of the arts and sciences of the old
world, is, as has been said, to be ascribed to the invasion of foreign
barbarians. Accordingly, it was inevitable that ignorance and savagery
got the upper hand; with the result that violence and fraud usurped
their dominion, and knights and priests became a burden to mankind. This
is partly to be explained by the fact that the new religion taught the
lesson of eternal and not temporal welfare, that simplicity of heart was
preferable to intellectual knowledge, and it was averse to all worldly
pleasures which are served by the arts and sciences. However, in so far
as they could be made serviceable to religion they were promoted, and so
flourished to a certain extent.
_Phil_. In a very narrow sphere. The sciences were suspicious
companions, and as such were placed under restrictions; while fond
ignorance, that element so necessary to the doctrines of faith, was
carefully nourished.
_Demop_. And yet what humanity had hitherto acquired in the shape of
knowledge, and handed down in the works of the ancients, was saved from
ruin by the clergy, especially by those in the monasteries. What would
have happened if Christianity had not come in just before the migration
of nations?
_Phil_. It would really be an extremely useful inquiry if some one, with
the greatest frankness and impartiality, tried to weigh exactly and
accurately the advantages and disadvantages derived from religions. To
do this, it would be necessary to have a much greater amount of
historical and psychological data than either of us has at our command.
Academies might make it a subject for a prize essay.
_Demop_. They will take care not to do that.
_Phil_. I am surprised to hear you say that, for it is a bad look-out
for religion. Besides, there are also academies which make it a secret
condition in submitting their questions that the prize should be given
to the competitor who best understands the art of flattering them. If
we, then, could only get a statistician to tell us how many crimes are
prevented yearly by religious motives, and how many by other motives.
There would be very few of the former. If a man feels himself tempted to
commit a crime, certainly the first thing which presents itself to his
mind is the punishment he must suffer for it, and the probability that
he will be punished; after that comes the second consideration, that his
reputation is at stake. If I am not mistaken, he will reflect by the
hour on these two obstacles before religious considerations ever come
into his mind. If he can get away from these two first safeguards
against crime, I am convinced that religion _alone_ will very rarely
keep him back from it.
_Demop_. I believe, however, that it will do so very often; especially
when its influence works through the medium of custom, and thereby
immediately makes a man shrink from the idea of committing a crime.
Early impressions cling to him. As an illustration of what I mean,
consider how many a man, and especially if he is of noble birth, will
often, in order to fulfil some promise, make great sacrifices, which are
instigated solely by the fact that his father has often impressed it
upon him in childhood that "a man of honour, or a gentleman, or a
cavalier, always keeps his word inviolate."
_Phil_. And that won't work unless there is a certain innate _probitas_.
You must not ascribe to religion what is the result of innate goodness
of character, by which pity for the one who would be affected by the
crime prevents a man from committing it. This is the genuine moral
motive, and as such it is independent of all religions.
_Demop_. But even this moral motive has no effect on the masses unless
it is invested with a religious motive, which, at any rate, strengthens
it. However, without any such natural foundation, religious motives
often in themselves alone prevent crime: this is not a matter of
surprise to us in the case of the multitude, when we see that even
people of good education sometimes come under the influence, not indeed
of religious motives, which fundamentally are at least allegorically
true, but of the most absurd superstitions, by which they are guided
throughout the whole of their lives; as, for instance, undertaking
nothing on a Friday, refusing to sit down thirteen at table, obeying
chance omens, and the like: how much more likely are the masses to be
guided by such things. You cannot properly conceive the great
limitations of the raw mind; its interior is entirely dark, especially
if, as is often the case, a bad, unjust, and wicked heart is its
foundation. Men like these, who represent the bulk of humanity, must be
directed and controlled meanwhile, as well as possible, even if it be by
really superstitious motives, until they become susceptible to truer and
better ones. Of the direct effect of religion, one may give as an
instance a common occurrence in Italy, namely, that of a thief being
allowed to replace what he has stolen through the medium of his
confessor, who makes this the condition of his absolution. Then think of
the case of an oath, where religion shows a most decided influence:
whether it be because a man places himself expressly in the position of
a mere _moral being_, and as such regards himself as solemnly appealed
to,--as seems to be the case in France, where the form of the oath is
merely "_je le jure_"; and among the Quakers, whose solemn "yea" or
"nay" takes the place of the oath;--or whether it is because a man
really believes he is uttering something that will forfeit his eternal
happiness,--a belief which is obviously only the investiture of the
former feeling. At any rate, religious motives are a means of awakening
and calling forth his moral nature. A man will frequently consent to
take a false oath, but suddenly refuse to do so when it comes to the
point; whereby truth and right come off victorious.
_Phil_. But false oaths are still oftener sworn, whereby truth and right
are trodden underfoot with the clear knowledge of all the witnesses of
the act. An oath is the jurist's metaphysical _pons asinorum_, and like
this should be used as seldom as ever possible. When it cannot be
avoided, it should be taken with great solemnity, always in the presence
of the clergy--nay, even in a church or in a chapel adjoining the court
of justice.... This is precisely why the French abstract formulary of
the oath is of no value. By the way, you are right to cite the oath as