Morality as a Religion: An exposition of some first principlesSullivan, W. R. Washington (William Robert Washington)
Religion
Morality as a Religion: An exposition of some first principles
Sullivan, W. R. Washington (William Robert Washington)
Conduct of life; Ethics; Religion and ethics
What is that event? Unless a man is prepared to say that the present
chaotic condition of religious thought is to perpetuate itself, or that
we are to revert to the ideal of mediaevalism--a world iron-bound by
the dogmatism of self-appointed representatives of "all truth,"--or
unless we are to expect a mental paralysis consequent upon a universal
scepticism, there must be some definite bourne for which the forces now
at work in humanity are making. We are not able to believe in the
perpetuity of an unstable equilibrium in the world of mind any more
than in the universe of matter, nor does history show any warrant for
the expectation that the world will return to the discarded ideal of a
mediaeval theocracy, nor does the language of modern agnosticism, with
its hesitations and falterings, encourage one to believe that therein
is a solution, complete and final, of those obstinate questionings
which beset us. No; we believe with Kant in the indestructibility of
the religious sentiment. We hold that if the soul of man have not
whereon to feed, it will feed upon itself to its own destruction. We
are persuaded that the Infinite which is necessary to _explain_ the
finite, is alone adequate to satisfy its desires. Our faith is in a
"religion within the boundaries of mere reason".
In the first place, its beliefs are the one element of truth in all the
"little systems" of this and of all time. It is here they touch the
confines of the eternal. It is in this centre of changeless truth that
all their wandering, broken lights do meet. This is the one reality
behind the phantoms and phenomena wherewith they have been perplexing
and confusing man's thoughts; it is at the same time the great ideal,
the passion for which is the star of life.
What a majestic source of unity is there here! The soul positively
thrills at the thought of the boundless possibilities of good which
centre in this conception of religion. That which the faiths of the
world aspired to do, might hope to become an accomplished fact did
their votaries believe with Shelley that only
The One remains, the many change and pass;
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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