PARASITISM.
"And so I live, you see,
Go through the world, try, prove,
reject,
Prefer, still struggling to effect
My warfare; happy that I can
Be crossed and thwarted as a man,
Not left in God's contempt apart,
With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart,
Tame in earth's paddock as her prize.
* * * * *
Thank God, no paradise stands barred
To entry, and I find it hard
To be a Christian, as I said."
BROWNING.
"Work out your own salvation"--Paul.
"Be no longer a chaos, but a World, or even
Worldkin. Produce! Produce! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction
of a Product, produce it, in God's name!"--Carlyle.
FROM a study of the habits and organization of
the family of Hermit-crabs we have already gained some insight into the nature
and effects of parasitism. But the Hermit-crab, be it remembered, is in no real
sense a parasite. And before we can apply the general principle further we must
address ourselves briefly to the examination of a true case of parasitism.
We have not far to seek. Within the body of the
Hermit-crab a minute organism may frequently be discovered resembling, when
magnified, a miniature kidney-bean. A bunch of root-like processes hangs from
one side, and the extremities of these are seen to ramify in delicate films
through the living tissues of the crab. This simple organism is known to the
naturalist as a Sacculina; and though a full-grown animal, it consists of no
more parts than those just named. Not a trace of structure is to be detected
within this rude and all but inanimate frame; it possesses neither legs, nor
eyes, nor mouth, nor throat, nor stomach, nor any other organs, external or
internal. This Sacculina is a typical parasite. By means of its twining and
theftuous roots it imbibes automatically its nourishment ready-prepared from
the body of the crab. It boards indeed entirely at the expense of its host, who
supplies it liberally with food and shelter and everything else it wants. So
far as the result to itself is concerned this arrangement may seem at first
sight satisfactory enough; but when we inquire into the life history of this
small creature we unearth a career of degeneracy all but unparalleled in
nature.
The most certain clue to what nature meant any
animal to become is to be learned from its embryology. Let us, therefore,
examine for a moment the earliest positive stage in the development of the
Sacculina. When the embryo first makes its appearance it bears not the remotest
resemblance to the adult animal. A different name even is given to it by the
biologist, who knows it at this period as a Nauplius. This minute organism has
an oval body, supplied with six well-jointed feet by means of which it paddles
briskly through the water. For a time it leads an active and independent life,
industriously securing its own food and escaping enemies by its own gallantry.
But soon a change takes place. The hereditary taint of parasitism is in its
blood, and it proceeds to adapt itself to the pauper habits of its race. The
tiny body first doubles in upon itself, and from the two front limbs elongated
filaments protrude. Its four hind limbs entirely disappear, and twelve
short-forked swimming organs temporarily take their place. Thus strangely
metamorphosed the Sacculina sets out in search of a suitable host, and in an
evil hour, by that fate which is always ready to accommodate the transgressor,
is thrown into the company of the Hermit-crab. With its two filamentary
processes--which afterwards develop into the root-like organs--it penetrates
the body; the sac-like form is gradually assumed; the whole of the swimming
feet drop off, --they will never be needed again,--and the animal settles down
for the rest of its life as a parasite.
One reason which makes a zoologist certain that
the Sacculina is a degenerate type is, that in almost all other instances of
animals which begin life in the Nauplius-form--and there are several--the
Nauplius develops through higher and higher stages, and arrives finally at the
high perfection displayed by the shrimp, lobster, crab, and other crustaceans.
But instead of rising to its opportunities, the sacculine Nauplius having
reached a certain point turned back. It shrunk from the struggle for life, and
beginning probably by seeking shelter from its host went on to demand its food;
and so falling from bad to worse, became in time an entire dependant.
In the eyes of Nature this was a twofold crime.
It was first a disregard of evolution, and second, which is practically the
same thing, an evasion of the great law of work. And the revenge of Nature was
therefore necessary. It could not help punishing the Sacculina for violated
law, and the punishment, according to the strange and noteworthy way in which
Nature usually punishes, was meted out by natural processes, carried on within
its own organization. Its punishment was simply that it was a Sacculina--that
it was a Sacculina when it might have been a Crustacean. Instead of being a
free and independent organism high in structure, original in action, vital with
energy, it deteriorated into a torpid and all but amorphous sac confined to
perpetual imprisonment and doomed to a living death. "Any new set of
conditions," says Ray Lankester, "occurring to an animal which render its food
and safety very easily attained, seem to lead as a rule to degeneration; just
as an active healthy man sometimes degenerates when he becomes suddenly
possessed of a fortune; or as Rome degenerated when possessed of the riches of
the ancient world. The habit of parasitism clearly acts upon animal
organization in this way. Let the parasitic life once be secured, and away go
legs, jaws, eyes, and ears; the active, highly-gifted crab, insect, or annelid
may become a mere sac, absorbing nourishment and laying eggs."[95]
There could be no more impressive illustration
than this of what with entire appropriateness one might call "the physiology of
backsliding." We fail to appreciate the meaning of spiritual degeneration or
detect the terrible nature of the consequences only because they evade the eye
of sense. But could we investigate the spirit as a living organism, or study
the soul of the backslider on principles of comparative anatomy, we should have
a revelation of the organic effects of sin, even of the mere sin of
carelessness as to growth and work, which must evolutionize our ideas of
practical religion. There is no room for the doubt even that what goes on in
the body does not with equal certainty take place in the spirit under the
corresponding conditions.
The penalty of backsliding is not something
unreal and vague, some unknown quantity which may be measured out to us
disproportionately, or which perchance, since God is good, we may altogether
evade. The consequences are already marked within the structure of the soul. So
to speak, they are physiological. The thing affected by our indifference or by
our indulgence is not the book of final judgment but the present fabric of the
soul. The punishment of degeneration is simply degeneration--the loss of
functions, the decay of organs, the atrophy of the spiritual nature. It is well
known that the recovery of the backslider is one of the hardest problems in
spiritual work. To reinvigorate an old organ seems more difficult and hopeless
than to develop a new one; and the backslider's terrible lot is to have to
retrace with enfeebled feet each step of the way along which he strayed; to
make up inch by inch the lee-way he has lost, carrying with him a dead-weight
of acquired reluctance, and scarce knowing whether to be stimulated or
discouraged by the oppressive memory of the previous fall.
We are not, however, to discuss at present the
physiology of backsliding. Nor need we point out at greater length that
parasitism is always and indissolubly accompanied by degeneration We wish
rather to examine one or two leading tendencies of the modern religious life
which directly or indirectly induce the parasitic habit and bring upon
thousands of unsuspecting victims such secret and appalling penalties as have
been named.
Two main causes are known to the biologist as
tending to induce the parasitic habit. These are first, the temptation to
secure safety without the vital exercise of faculties, and, second, the
disposition to find food without earning it. The first, which we have formally
considered, is probably the preliminary stage in most cases. The animal,
seeking shelter, finds unexpectedly that it can also thereby gain a certain
measure of food. Compelled in the first instance, perhaps by stress of
circumstances, to rob its host of a meal or perish, it gradually acquires the
habit of drawing all its supplies from the same source, and thus becomes in
time a confirmed parasite. Whatever be its origin, however, it is certain that
the main evil of parasitism is connected with the further question of food.
Mere safety with Nature is a secondary, though by no means an insignificant,
consideration. And while the organism forfeits a part of its organization by
any method of evading enemies which demands no personal effort, the most entire
degeneration of the whole system follows the neglect or abuse of the functions
of nutrition.
The direction in which we have to seek the wider
application of the subject will now appear. We have to look into those cases in
the moral and spiritual sphere in which the functions of nutrition are either
neglected or abused. To sustain life, physical, mental, moral, or spiritual,
some sort of food is essential. To secure an adequate supply each organism also
is provided with special and appropriate faculties. But the final gain to the
organism does not depend so much on the actual amount of food procured as on
the exercise required to obtain it. In one sense the exercise is only a means
to an end, namely, the finding food; but in another and equally real sense, the
exercise is the end, the food the means to attain that. Neither is of permanent
use without the other, but the correlation between them is so intimate that it
were idle to say that one is more necessary than the other. Without food
exercise is impossible, but without exercise food is useless.
Thus exercise is in order to food, and food is in
order to exercise--in order especially to that further progress and maturity
which only ceaseless activity can promote. Now food too easily acquired means
food without that accompaniment of discipline which is infinitely more valuable
than the food itself. It means the possibility of a life which is a mere
existence. It leaves the organism in statu quo, undeveloped,
immature, low in the scale of organization, and with a growing tendency to pass
from the state of equilibrium to that of increasing degeneration. What an
organism is depends upon what it does, its activities make it. And if the
stimulus to the exercise of all the innumerable faculties concerned in
nutrition be withdrawn by the conditions and circumstances of life becoming, or
being made to become, too easy, there is first an arrest of development, and
finally a loss of the parts themselves. If, in short, an organism does nothing,
in that relation it is nothing.
We may, therefore, formulate the general
principle thus: Any principle which secures food to the individual without
the expenditure of work is injurious, and accompanied by the degeneration and
loss of parts.
The social and political analogies of this law,
which have been casually referred to already, are sufficiently familiar to
render any further development in these directions superfluous. After the
eloquent preaching of the Gospel of Work by Thomas Carlyle, this century at
least can never plead that one of the most important moral bearings of the
subject has not been duly impressed upon it All that can be said of idleness
generally might be fitly urged in support of this great practical truth. All
nations which have prematurely passed away, buried in graves dug by their own
effeminacy; all those individuals who have secured a hasty wealth by the
chances of speculation; all children of fortune; all victims of inheritance;
all social sponges; all satellites of the court; all beggars of the
market-place-- all these are living and unlying witnesses to the unalterable
retributions of the law of parasitism. But it is when we come to study the
working of the principle in the religious sphere that we discover the full
extent of the ravages which the parasitic habit can make on the souls of men.
We can only hope to indicate here one or two of the things in modern
Christianity which minister most subtly and widely to this as yet all but
unnamed sin.
We begin in what may seem a somewhat unlooked-for
quarter. One of the things in the religious world which tends most strongly to
induce the parasitic habit is Going to Church. Church-going itself every
Christian will rightly consider an invaluable aid to the ripe development of
the spiritual life. Public worship has a place in the national religious life
so firmly established that nothing is ever likely to shake its influence. So
supreme indeed, is the ecclesiastical system in all Christian countries that
with thousands the religion of the Church and the religion of the individual
are one. But just because of its high and unique place in religious regard,
does it become men from time to time to inquire how far he Church is really
ministering to the spiritual health of the immense religious community which
looks to it as its foster-mother. And if it falls to us here reluctantly to
expose some secret abuses of this venerable system, let it be well understood
that these are abuses, and not that the sacred institution itself is being
violated by the attack of an impious hand.
The danger of church-going largely depends on the
form of worship, but it may be affirmed that even the most perfect Church
affords to all worshippers a greater or less temptation to parasitism. It
consists essentially in the deputy-work or deputy-worship inseparable from
church or chapel ministrations. One man is set apart to prepare a certain
amount of spiritual truth for the rest. He, if he is a true man, gets all the
benefits of original work. He finds the truth, digests it, is nourished and
enriched by it before he offers it to his flock. To a large extent it will
nourish and enrich in turn a number of his hearers. But still they will lack
something. The faculty of selecting truth at first hand and appropriating it
for one's self is a lawful possession to every Christian. Rightly exercised it
conveys to him truth in its freshest form; it offers him he opportunity of
verifying doctrines for himself; it makes religion personal; it deepens and
intensifies the only convictions that are worth deepening, those, namely, which
are honest; and it supplies the mind with a basis of certainty in religion. But
if all one's truth is derived by imbibition from the Church, the faculties for
receiving truth are not only undeveloped but one's whole view of truth becomes
distorted. He who abandons the personal search for truth, under whatever
pretext, abandons truth. The very word truth, by becoming the limited
possession of a guild, ceases to have any meaning; and faith, which can only be
founded on truth, gives way to credulity, resting on mere opinion.
In those churches especially where all parts of
the worship are subordinated to the sermon, this species of parasitism is
peculiarly encouraged. What is meant to be a stimulus to thought becomes the
substitute for it. The hearer never really learns, he only listens. And while
truth and knowledge seem to increase, life and character are left in arrear.
Such truth, of course, and such knowledge, are a mere seeming. Having cost
nothing, they come to nothing. The organism acquires a growing immobility, and
finally exists in a state of entire intellectual helplessness and inertia. So
the parasitic Church-member, the literal "adherent," comes not merely to live
only within the circle of ideas of his minister, but to be content that his
minister has these ideas--like the literary parasite who fancies he knows
everything because he has a good library.
Where the worship, again, is largely liturgical
the danger assumes an even more serious form, and it acts in some such way as
this. Every sincere man who sets out in the Christian race begins by attempting
to exercise the spiritual faculties for himself. The young life throbs in his
veins, and he sets himself to the further progress with earnest purpose and
resolute will. For a time he bids fair to attain a high and original
development. But the temptation to relax the always difficult effort at
spirituality is greater than he knows. The "carnal mind" itself is "enmity
against God," and the antipathy, or the deadlier apathy within, is unexpectedly
encouraged from that very outside source from which he anticipates the greatest
help. Connecting himself with a Church he is no less interested than surprised
to find how rich is the provision there for every part of his spiritual nature.
Each service satisfies or surfeits. Twice, or even three times a week, this
feast is spread for him. The thoughts are deeper than his own, the faith
keener, the worship loftier, the whole ritual more reverent and splendid. What
more natural than that he should gradually exchange his personal religion for
that of the congregation? What more likely than that a public religion should
by insensible stages supplant his individual faith? What more simple than to
content himself with the warmth of another's soul? What more tempting than to
give up private prayer for the easier worship of the liturgy or of the church?
What, in short, more natural than for the independent, free-moving, growing
Sacculina to degenerate into the listless, useless, pampered parasite of the
pew? The very means he takes to nurse his personal religion often come in time
to wean him from it. Hanging admiringly, or even enthusiastically, on the lips
of eloquence, his senses now stirred by ceremony, now soothed by music, the
parasite of the pew enjoys his weekly worship--his character untouched, his
will unbraced, his crude soul unquickened and unimproved. Thus, instead of
ministering to the growth of individual members, and very often just in
proportion to the superior excellence of the provision made for them by
another, does this gigantic system of deputy-nutrition tend to destroy
development and arrest the genuine culture of the soul. Our churches overflow
with members who are mere consumers. Their interest in religion is purely
parasitic. Their only spiritual exercise is the automatic one of imbibition,
the clergyman being the faithful Hermit-crab who is to be depended on every
Sunday for at least a week's supply.
A physiologist would describe the organism
resulting from such a process as a case of "arrested development." Instead of
having learned to pray, the ecclesiastical parasite becomes satisfied with
being prayed for. His transactions with the Eternal are effected by commission.
His work for Christ is done by a paid deputy. His whole life is a prolonged
indulgence in the bounties of the Church; and surely--in some cases at least
the crowning irony--he sends for the minister when he lies down to die.
Other signs and consequences of this species of
parasitism soon become very apparent. The first symptom is idleness. When a
Church is off its true diet it is off its true work. Hence one explanation of
the hundreds of large and influential congregations ministered to from week to
week by men of eminent learning, and earnestness, which yet do little or
nothing in the line of these special activities for which all churches exist.
An outstanding man at the head of a huge, useless and torpid congregation is
always a puzzle. But is the reason not this, that the congregation gets too
good food too cheap? Providence has mercifully delivered the Church from too
many great men in her pulpits, but there are enough in every countryside to
play the host disastrously to a large circle of otherwise able-bodied Christian
people, who, thrown on their own resources, might fatten themselves and help
others. There are compensations to a flock for a poor minister after all. Where
the fare is indifferent those who are really hungry will exert themselves to
procure their own supply.
That the Church has indispensable functions to
discharge to the individual is not denied; but taking into consideration the
universal tendency to parasitism in the human soul it is a grave question
whether in some cases it does not really effect more harm than good. A dead
church certainly, a church having no reaction on the community, a church
without propagative power in the world, cannot be other than a calamity to all
within its borders. Such a church is an institution, first for making, then for
screening parasites; and instead of representing to the world the Kingdom of
God on earth, it is despised alike by godly and by godless men as the refuge
for fear and formalism and the nursery of superstition.
And this suggests a second and not less practical
evil of a parasitic piety--that it presents to the world a false conception of
the religion of Christ. One notices with a frequency which may well excite
alarm that the children of church-going parents often break away as they grow
in intelligence, not only from church-connection but from the whole system of
family religion. In some cases this is doubtless due to natural perversity, but
in others it certainly arises from the hollowness of the outward forms which
pass current in society and at home for vital Christianity. These spurious
forms, fortunately or unfortunately, soon betray themselves. How little there
is in them becomes gradually apparent. And rather than indulge in a sham the
budding sceptic, as the first step, parts with the form and in nine cases out
of ten concerns himself no further to find a substitute. Quite deliberately,
quite honestly, sometimes with real regret and even at personal sacrifice he
takes up his position, and to his parent's sorrow and his church's dishonour
forsakes for ever the faith and religion of his fathers. Who will deny that
this is a true account of the natural history of much modern scepticism? A
formal religion can never hold its own in the nineteenth century. It is better
that it should not. We must either be real or cease to be. We must either give
up our Parasitism or our sons.
Any one who will take the trouble to investigate
a number of cases where whole families of outwardly Godly parents have gone
astray, will probably find that the household religion had either some palpable
defect, or belonged essentially to the parasitic order. The popular belief that
the sons of clergymen turn out worse than those of the laity is, of course,
without foundation; but it may also probably be verified that in the instances
where clergymen's sons notoriously discredit their father's ministry, that
ministry in a majority of cases, will be found to be professional and
theological rather than human and spiritual. Sequences in the moral and
spiritual world follow more closely than we yet discern the great law of
Heredity. The Parasite begets the Parasite--only in the second generation the
offspring are sometimes sufficiently wise to make the discovery, and honest
enough to proclaim it.
We now pass on to the consideration of another
form of Parasitism which, though closely related to that just discussed, is of
sufficient importance to justify a separate reference. Appealing to a somewhat
smaller circle, but affecting it not less disastrously, is the Parasitism
induced by certain abuses of Systems of Theology.
In its own place, of course, Theology is no more
to be dispensed with than the Church. In every perfect religious system three
great departments must always be represented--criticism, dogmatism, and
evangelism. Without the first there is no guarantee of truth, without the
second no defence of truth, and without the third no propagation of truth. But
when these departments become mixed up, when their separate functions are
forgotten, when one is made to do duty for another, or where either is
developed by the church or the individual at the expense of the rest, the
result is fatal. The particular abuse, however, of which we have now to speak,
concerns the tendency in orthodox communities, first to exalt orthodoxy above
all other elements in religion, and secondly to make the possession of sound
beliefs equivalent to the possession of truth.
Doctrinal preaching, fortunately, as a constant
practice is less in vogue than in a former age, but there are still large
numbers whose only contact with religion is through theological forms. The
method is supported by a plausible defence. What is doctrine but a compressed
form of truth, systematised by able and pious men, and sanctioned by the
imprimatur of the Church? If the greatest minds of the Church's past, having
exercised themselves profoundly upon the problems of religion, formulated as
with one voice a system of doctrine, why should the humble inquirer not
gratefully accept it? Why go over the ground again? Why with his dim light
should he betake himself afresh to Bible study and with so great a body of
divinity already compiled, presume himself to be still a seeker after truth?
Does not Theology give him Bible truth in reliable, convenient, and moreover,
in logical propositions? There it lies extended to the last detail in the tomes
of the Fathers, or abridged in a hundred modern compendia, ready-made to his
hand, all cut and dry, guaranteed sound and wholesome, why not use it?
Just because it is all cut and dry. Just because
it is ready-made. Just because it lies there in reliable, convenient and
logical propositions. The moment you appropriate truth in such a shape you
appropriate a form. You cannot cut and dry truth. You cannot accept truth
ready-made without it ceasing to nourish the soul as truth. You cannot live on
theological forms without becoming a Parasite and ceasing to be a man.
There is no worse enemy to a living Church than a
propositional theology, with the latter controlling the former by traditional
authority. For one does not then receive the truth for himself, he accepts it
bodily. He begins the Christian life set up by his Church with a stock-in-trade
which has cost him nothing, and which, though it may serve him all his life, is
just exactly worth as much as his belief in his Church. This possession of
truth, moreover, thus lightly won, is given to him as infallible. It is a
system. There is nothing to add to it. At his peril let him question or take
from it. To start a convert in life with such a principle is unspeakably
degrading. All through life instead of working towards truth we must work from
it. An infallible standard is a temptation to a mechanical faith. Infallibility
always paralyses. It gives rest; but it is the rest of stagnation. Men perform
one great act of faith at the beginning of their life, then have done with it
for ever. All moral, intellectual and spiritual effort is over; and a cheap
theology ends in a cheap life.
The same thing that makes men take refuge in the
Church of Rome makes them take refuge in a set of dogmas. Infallibility meets
the deepest desire of man, but meets it in the most fatal form. Men deal with
the hunger after truth in two ways. First by Unbelief--which crushes it by
blind force; or, secondly, by resorting to some external source credited with
Infallibility--which lulls it to sleep by blind faith. The effect of a
doctrinal theology is the effect of Infallibility. And the wholesale belief in
such a system, however accurate it may be--grant even that it were
infallible--is not Faith though it always gets that name. It is mere Credulity.
It is a complacent and idle rest upon authority, not a hard-earned,
self-obtained, personal possession. The moral responsibility here, besides, is
reduced to nothing. Those who framed the Thirty-nine Articles or the
Westminster Confession are responsible. And anything which destroys
responsibility, or transfers it, cannot be other than injurious in its moral
tendency and useless in itself.
It may be objected perhaps that this statement of
the paralysis spiritual and mental induced by Infallibility applies also to the
Bible. The answer is that though the Bible is infallible, the Infallibility is
not in such a form as to become a temptation. There is the widest possible
difference between the form of truth in the Bible and the form in theology.
In theology truth is propositional--tied up in
neat parcels, systematized, and arranged in logical order. The Trinity is an
intricate doctrinal problem. The Supreme Being is discussed in terms of
philosophy. The Atonement is a formula which is to be demonstrated like a
proposition in Euclid. And Justification is to be worked out as a question of
Jurisprudence. There is no necessary connection between these doctrines and the
life of him who holds them. They make him orthodox, not necessarily righteous.
They satisfy the intellect but need not touch the heart. It does not, in short,
take a religious man to be a theologian. It simply takes a man with fair
reasoning powers. This man happens to apply these powers to theological
subjects--but in no other sense than he might apply them to astronomy or
physics. But truth in the Bible`s a fountain. It is a diffused nutriment, so
diffused that no one can put himself off with the form. It is reached not by
thinking, but by doing. It is seen, discerned, not demonstrated. It cannot be
bolted whole, but must be slowly absorbed into the system. Its vagueness to the
mere intellect, its refusal to be packed into portable phrases, its satisfying
unsatisfyingness, its vast atmosphere, its finding of us, its mystical hold of
us, these are the tokens of its infinity.
Nature never provides for man's wants in any
direction, bodily, mental, or spiritual, in such a form as that he can simply
accept her gifts automatically. She puts all the mechanical powers at his
disposal--but he must make his lever. She gives him corn, but he must grind it.
She elaborates coal, but he must dig for it. Corn is perfect, all the products
of Nature are perfect, but he has everything to do to them before he can use
them. So with truth; it is perfect, infallible. But he cannot use it as it
stands. He must work, think, separate, dissolve, absorb, digest; and most of
these he must do for himself and within himself. If it be replied that this is
exactly what theology does, we answer it is exactly what it does not. It simply
does what the greengrocer does when he arranges his apples and plums in his
shop window. He may tell me a magnum bonum from a Victoria, or a Baldwin from a
Newtown Pippin. But he does not help me to eat it. His information is useful,
and for scientific horticulture essential. Should a sceptical pomologist deny
that there was such a thing as a Baldwin, or mistake it for a Newtown Pippin,
we should be glad to refer to him; but if we were hungry, and an orchard were
handy, we should not trouble him. Truth in the Bible is an orchard rather than
a museum. Dogmatism will be very valuable to us when scientific necessity makes
us go to the museum. Criticism will be very useful in seeing that only
fruit-bearers grow in the orchard. But truth in the doctrinal form is not
natural, proper, assimilable food for the soul of man.
Is this a plea then for doubt? Yes, for that
philosophic doubt which is the evidence of a faculty doing its own work. It is
more necessary for us to be active than to be orthodox. To be orthodox is what
we wish to be, but we can only truly reach it by being honest, by being
original, by seeing with our own eyes, by believing with our own heart. "An
idle life," says Goethe, "is death anticipated." Better far be burned at the
stake of Public Opinion than die the living death of Parasitism. Better an
aberrant theology than a suppressed organization. Better a little faith dearly
won, better launched alone on the infinite bewilderment of Truth, than perish
on the splendid plenty of the richest creeds. Such Doubt is no self-willed
presumption. Nor, truly exercised, will it prove itself, as much doubt does,
the synonym for sorrow. It aims at a lifelong learning, prepared for any
sacrifice of will yet for none of independence; at that high progressive
education which yields rest in work and work in rest, and the development of
immortal faculties in both; at that deeper faith which believes in the vastness
and variety of the revelations of God, and their accessibility to all obedient
hearts.
[95] "Degeneration," by E. Ray Lankester, p.
33.
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