Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11), Herbert Spencer [historical books to read .txt] 📗

Do We

Not Find Some Men Ready To Bow To Established Authority Of    Whatever

Kind; While Others Demand Of    Every Such Authority Its Reason, And Reject

It If It Fails To Justify Itself? And Must Not The   Minds Thus Contrasted

Tend To Become Respectively Conformist And Nonconformist, Not Only In

Politics And Religion, But In Other Things? Submission, Whether To A

Government, To The   Dogmas Of    Ecclesiastics, Or To That Code Of    Behaviour

Which Society At Large Has Set Up, Is Essentially Of    The   Same Nature;

And The   Sentiment Which Induces Resistance To The   Despotism Of    Rulers,

Civil Or Spiritual, Likewise Induces Resistance To The   Despotism Of    The

World's Opinion. Look At Them Fundamentally, And All Enactments, Alike

Of The   Legislature, The   Consistory, And The   Saloon--All Regulations,

Formal Or Virtual, Have A Common Character: They Are All Limitations Of

Men's Freedom. "Do This--Refrain From That," Are The   Blank Formulas Into

Which They May All Be Written: And In Each Case The   Understanding Is

That Obedience Will Bring Approbation Here And Paradise Hereafter; While

Disobedience Will Entail Imprisonment, Or Sending To Coventry, Or

Eternal Torments, As The   Case May Be. And If Restraints, However Named,

And Through Whatever Apparatus Of    Means Exercised, Are One In Their

Action Upon Men, It Must Happen That Those Who Are Patient Under One

Kind Of    Restraint, Are Likely To Be Patient Under Another; And

Conversely, That Those Impatient Of    Restraint In General, Will, On The

Average, Tend To Show Their Impatience In All Directions.

 

 

 

That Law, Religion, And Manners Are Thus Related--That Their Respective

Kinds Of    Operation Come Under One Generalisation--That They Have In

Certain Contrasted Characteristics Of    Men A Common Support And A Common

Danger--Will, However, Be Most Clearly Seen On Discovering That They

Have A Common Origin. Little As From Present Appearances We Should

Suppose It, We Shall Yet Find That At First, The   Control Of    Religion,

The Control Of    Laws And The   Control Of    Manners, Were All One Control.

However Incredible It May Now Seem, We Believe It To Be Demonstrable

That The   Rules Of    Etiquette, The   Provisions Of    The   Statute-Book, And The

Commands Of    The   Decalogue, Have Grown From The   Same Root. If We Go Far

Enough Back Into The   Ages Of    Primeval Fetishism, It Becomes Manifest

That Originally Deity, Chief, And Master Of    The   Ceremonies Were

Identical. To Make Good These Positions, And To Show Their Bearing On

What Is To Follow, It Will Be Necessary Here To Traverse Ground That Is

In Part Somewhat Beaten, And At First Sight Irrelevant To Our Topic. We

Will Pass Over It As Quickly As Consists With The   Exigencies Of    The

Argument.

 

That The   Earliest Social Aggregations Were Ruled Solely By The   Will Of

The Strong Man, Few Dispute. That From The   Strong Man Proceeded Not Only

Monarchy, But The   Conception Of    A God, Few Admit: Much As Carlyle And

Others Have Said In Evidence Of    It. If, However, Those Who Are Unable To

Believe This, Will Lay Aside The   Ideas Of    God And Man In Which They Have

Been Educated, And Study The   Aboriginal Ideas Of    Them, They Will At

Least See Some Probability In The   Hypothesis. Let Them Remember That

Before Experience Had Yet Taught Men To Distinguish Between The   Possible

And The   Impossible; And While They Were Ready On The   Slightest

Suggestion To Ascribe Unknown Powers To Any Object And Make A Fetish Of

It; Their Conceptions Of    Humanity And Its Capacities Were Necessarily

Vague, And Without Specific Limits. The   Man Who By Unusual Strength, Or

Cunning, Achieved Something That Others Had Failed To Achieve, Or

Something Which They Did Not Understand, Was Considered By Them As

Differing From Themselves; And, As We See In The   Belief Of    Some

Polynesians That Only Their Chiefs Have Souls, Or In That Of    The   Ancient

Peruvians That Their Nobles Were Divine By Birth, The   Ascribed

Difference Was Apt To Be Not One Of    Degree Only, But One Of    Kind.

 

 

 

Let Them Remember Next, How Gross Were The   Notions Of    God, Or Rather Of

Gods, Prevalent During The   Same Era And Afterwards--How Concretely Gods

Were Conceived As Men Of    Specific Aspects Dressed In Specific Ways--How

Their Names Were Literally "The Strong," "The Destroyer," "The Powerful

One,"--How, According To The   Scandinavian Mythology, The   "Sacred Duty Of

Blood-Revenge" Was Acted On By The   Gods Themselves,--And How They Were

Not Only Human In Their Vindictiveness, Their Cruelty, And Their

Quarrels With Each Other, But Were Supposed To Have Amours On Earth, And

To Consume The   Viands Placed On Their Altars. Add To Which, That In

Various Mythologies, Greek, Scandinavian, And Others, The   Oldest Beings

Are Giants; That According To A Traditional Genealogy The   Gods,

Demi-Gods, And In Some Cases Men, Are Descended From These After The

Human Fashion; And That While In The   East We Hear Of    Sons Of    God Who Saw

The Daughters Of    Men That They Were Fair, The   Teutonic Myths Tell Of

Unions Between The   Sons Of    Men And The   Daughters Of    The   Gods.

 

 

 

Let Them Remember, Too, That At First The   Idea Of    Death Differed Widely

From That Which We Have; That There Are Still Tribes Who, On The   Decease

Of One Of    Their Number, Attempt To Make The   Corpse Stand, And Put Food

Into His Mouth; That The   Peruvians Had Feasts At Which The   Mummies Of

Their Dead Incas Presided, When, As Prescott Says, They Paid Attention

"To These Insensible Remains As If They Were Instinct With Life;" That

Among The   Fejees It Is Believed That Every Enemy Has To Be Killed Twice;

That The   Eastern Pagans Give Extension And Figure To The   Soul, And

Attribute To It All The   Same Substances, Both Solid And Liquid, Of    Which

Our Bodies Are Composed; And That It Is The   Custom Among Most Barbarous

Races To Bury Food, Weapons, And Trinkets Along With The   Dead Body,

Under The   Manifest Belief That It Will Presently Need Them.

 

 

 

Lastly, Let Them Remember That The   Other World, As Originally Conceived,

Is Simply Some Distant Part Of    This World--Some Elysian Fields, Some

Happy Hunting-Ground, Accessible Even To The   Living, And To Which, After

Death, Men Travel In Anticipation Of    A Life Analogous In General

Character To That Which They Led Before. Then, Co-Ordinating These

General Facts--The Ascription Of    Unknown Powers To Chiefs And Medicine

Men; The   Belief In Deities Having Human Forms, Passions, And Behaviour;

The Imperfect Comprehension Of    Death As Distinguished From Life; And The

Proximity Of    The   Future Abode To The   Present, Both In Position And

Character--Let Them Reflect Whether They Do Not Almost Unavoidably

 

Part 2 Chapter 2 (On Manners And Fashion) Pg 83

Suggest The   Conclusion That The   Aboriginal God Is The   Dead Chief; The

Chief Not Dead In Our Sense, But Gone Away Carrying With Him Food And

Weapons To Some Rumoured Region Of    Plenty, Some Promised Land, Whither

He Had Long Intended To Lead His Followers, And Whence He Will Presently

Return To Fetch Them.

 

 

 

This Hypothesis Once Entertained, Is Seen To Harmonise With All

Primitive Ideas And Practices. The   Sons Of    The   Deified Chief Reigning

After Him, It Necessarily Happens That All Early Kings Are Held

Descendants Of    The   Gods; And The   Fact That Alike In Assyria, Egypt,

Among The   Jews, Phoenicians, And Ancient Britons, Kings' Names Were

Formed Out Of    The   Names Of    The   Gods, Is Fully Explained. The   Genesis Of

Polytheism Out Of    Fetishism, By The   Successive Migrations Of    The   Race Of

God-Kings To The   Other World--A Genesis Illustrated In The   Greek

Mythology, Alike By The   Precise Genealogy Of    The   Deities, And By The

Specifically Asserted Apotheosis Of    The   Later Ones--Tends Further To

Bear It Out. It Explains The   Fact That In The   Old Creeds, As In The

Still Extant Creed Of    The   Otaheitans, Every Family Has Its Guardian

Spirit, Who Is Supposed To Be One Of    Their Departed Relatives; And That

They Sacrifice To These As Minor Gods--A Practice Still Pursued By The

Chinese And Even By The   Russians. It Is Perfectly Congruous With The

Grecian Myths Concerning The   Wars Of    The   Gods With The   Titans And Their

Final Usurpation; And It Similarly Agrees With The   Fact That Among The

Teutonic Gods Proper Was One Freir Who Came Among Them By Adoption, "But

Was Born Among The   _Vanes_, A Somewhat Mysterious _Other_ Dynasty Of

Gods, Who Had Been Conquered And Superseded By The   Stronger And More

Warlike Odin Dynasty." It Harmonises, Too, With The   Belief That There

Are Different Gods To Different Territories And Nations, As There Were

Different Chiefs; That These Gods Contend For Supremacy As Chiefs Do;

And It Gives Meaning To The   Boast Of    Neighbouring Tribes--"Our God Is

Greater Than Your God." It Is Confirmed By The   Notion Universally

Current In Early Times, That The   Gods Come From This Other Abode, In

Which They Commonly Live, And Appear Among Men--Speak To Them, Help

Them, Punish Them. And Remembering This, It Becomes Manifest That The

Prayers Put Up By Primitive Peoples To Their Gods For Aid In Battle, Are

Meant Literally--That Their Gods Are Expected To Come Back From The

Other Kingdom They Are Reigning Over, And Once More Fight The   Old

Enemies They Had Before Warred Against So Implacably; And It Needs But

To Name The   Iliad, To Remind Every One How Thoroughly They Believed The

Expectation Fulfilled.

 

 

 

All Government, Then, Being Originally That Of    The   Strong Man Who Has

Become A Fetish By Some Manifestation Of    Superiority, There Arises, At

His Death--His Supposed Departure On A Long Projected Expedition, In

Which He Is Accompanied By His Slaves And Concubines Sacrificed At His

Tomb--Their Arises, Then, The   Incipient Division Of    Religious From

Political Control, Of    Civil Rule From Spiritual. His Son Becomes Deputed

Chief During His Absence; His Authority Is Cited As That By Which His

Son Acts; His Vengeance Is Invoked On All Who Disobey His Son; And His

Commands, As Previously Known Or As Asserted By His Son, Become The   Germ

Of A Moral Code; A Fact We Shall The   More Clearly Perceive If We

Remember, That Early Moral Codes Inculcate Mainly The   Virtues Of    The

Warrior, And The   Duty Of    Exterminating Some Neighbouring Tribe Whose

Existence Is An Offence To The   Deity.

 

 

 

From This Point Onwards, These Two Kinds Of    Authority, At First

Complicated Together As Those Of    Principal And Agent, Become Slowly More

And More Distinct. As Experience Accumulates, And Ideas Of    Causation

Grow More Precise, Kings Lose Their Supernatural Attributes; And,

Instead Of    God-King, Become God-Descended King, God-Appointed King, The

Lord's Anointed, The   Vicegerent Of    Heaven, Ruler Reigning By Divine

Right. The   Old Theory, However, Long Clings To Men In Feeling, After It

Has Disappeared In Name; And "Such Divinity Doth Hedge A King," That

Even Now, Many, On First Seeing One, Feel A Secret Surprise At Finding

Him An Ordinary Sample Of    Humanity. The   Sacredness Attaching To Royalty

Attaches Afterwards To Its Appended Institutions--To Legislatures, To

Laws. Legal And Illegal Are Synonymous With Right And Wrong; The

Authority Of    Parliament Is Held Unlimited; And A Lingering Faith In

Governmental Power Continually Generates Unfounded Hopes From Its

Enactments. Political Scepticism, However, Having Destroyed The   Divine

_Prestige_ Of    Royalty, Goes On Ever Increasing, And Promises Ultimately

To Reduce The   State To A Purely Secular Institution, Whose Regulations

Are Limited In Their Sphere, And Have No Other Authority Than The

General Will. Meanwhile, The   Religious Control Has Been Little By Little

Separating Itself From The   Civil, Both In Its Essence And In Its Forms.

While From The   God-King Of    The   Savage Have Arisen In One Direction,

Secular Rulers Who, Age By Age, Have Been Losing The   Sacred Attributes

Men Ascribed To Them; There Has Arisen In Another Direction, The

Conception Of    A Deity, Who, At First Human In All Things, Has Been

Gradually Losing Human Materiality, Human Form, Human Passions, Human

Modes Of    Action: Until Now, Anthropomorphism Has Become A Reproach.

 

 

 

Along With This Wide Divergence In Men's Ideas Of    The   Divine And Civil

Ruler Has Been Taking Place A Corresponding Divergence In The   Codes Of

Conduct Respectively Proceeding From Them. While The   King Was A

Deputy-God--A Governor Such As The   Jews Looked For In The   Messiah--A

Governor Considered, As The   Czar Still Is, "Our God Upon Earth,"--It, Of

Course, Followed That His Commands Were The   Supreme Rules. But As Men

Ceased To Believe In His Supernatural Origin And Nature, His Commands

Ceased To Be The   Highest; And There