Ritter, William E.

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THE RELIGION OF A NATURALIST.I!Y WILLIAM E. RITTER.*<^~1~^ESTIFYJXG" plays an important part in the practices of-I- many religions. This is in accord with the psychologicallysound maxim that confession and profession are "good for thesoul." I see no reason why the principle should not apply to thereligious experiences of the naturalist as well as to other kinds ofexperiences by other classes of people.]\Iy religious impulse is by nature just about average, I judge,as are my natural endowments generally. It seems to be neitherexceptionally strong nor exceptionally weak. Oliver WendellHolmes once remarked about his own religious needs that therewas a little plant in his nature which needed watering once a week;and that he found Sunday morning a convenient watering time.This tits my case very well.As a boy I knew little indeed of formal religious observanceand still less of such discipline. Country churches and Sundayschools and preachers, though not wholly absent, were rare speci-mens sure enough in the part of the Badger state where I was bornand nurtured. I never saw a religious service of any kind untilI was more than half grown. My earliest glimpses of the religiouslife were confined to the little family group. At the very thresholdof memory stands the soul-terrifying warnings of the "wrath tocome'' thrust into my tender mind by a grandmother only a genera-tion removed from Xew England Presbyterianism at its worst.As a fairly successful offset to this stands the larger, morecontinuous influence of a father who could hate pretense moreearnestly, love justice more sincerely, walk uprightly more sure-footedly, and make less noise about all, than—well—any other fatherI ever had at least. So notable was he in these ways that he fellTHE RELIGION OF A NATURALIST. 31under condemnation by the one church organization in the neighbor-hood, of being "worse than the Devil" because a moral man. Buthis occasional slips toward spiritualism and universalism and hisenthusiasm for Ralph Waldo Emerson whose one lecture he heardseemed to have been a red-letter day in his hum-drum life, undoubt-edly enhanced the sin of his moral goodness in the eyes of theseneighbors.Then there was the influence of a mother whose watchfulnessover her brood and efforts for them always partook, as I now know,more or less of the nature of religious service. A person, was thismother, whose daily life was such that even had I been fullyinstructed about angels. I could hardly have felt them of muchpractical importance to me.The years of my peregrination, corporeal and spiritual, thaiintervened between the final break-up of the old family group andthe establishment of the new, brought the experiences, cjuite typical.I think, for young men of that period who were touched by thebreath of learning.We all took a few swallows from the Spencerian fountain thenflowing with full head, and, fewer still from the Darwinian fountain,also at full flood. And there was the intellect-enthralling doctrineof conservation of energy to be reckoned with in any sort ofreligious adjustment that could be attempted, John Tyndall being forus the major prophet in this realm.As for coming to close quarters with religion itself—well, aboutthe best we could do was to go to church on an occasional Sunday,and on week days sit on the bleachers and watch with a bewilderingmixture of satisfaction and disgust, Colonel Bob Ingersoll while hebattered the face of poor Moses for making mistakes now and then.Through most of this period of varied but in no wise extraordi-nary outside influences, I remained quite unconvinced as to the sig-nificance and value of participation in public religious exercises andidentification with religious organizations. But the noonday of lifebrought me into church fellowship. This I have maintained withvarying degrees of value to myself and service to the organizationswhich have taken me in, and undoubtedly shall maintain to the end.That I have recently felt it necessary to change to a less firmlycreed-held society than that to which I originally belonged is signifi-cant here only in its bearing on the controversy over evolution whichnow shows signs of refilling the whole intellectual sky with light andheat. The renewal of this controversy I believe to be much more32 THE OPEN COURT.important than it seems to be considered by most persons of learn-ing. From a moderately skilled examination of the new contro-versy as it has so far developed one can forecast a quite differentalignment from that which most characterized the old controversy.Speaking broadly, the line of cleavage in the contest brought onby "The Origin of Species" was between natural science and theol-ogy. On one side were the great torch bearers of natural knowledge,while on the other side were those eminent in maintaining the doc-trines of traditional Christianity.The indications are that in the on-coming controversy the cleav-age line will run at right angles to its former position, and will cutsquare across it. The result of this would be that on each side ofthe line both scientists and religionists would be found, the cleavagebeing between open-mindedness and liberalism on the one hand, andshut-mindedness and dogmatism on the other. On the one sidewill be, it seems, liberal religion and liberal science, while on theother side will stand dogmatic science and dogmatic religion. Andwhat ought to contribute largely to quick and decisive victory forthose on the open-mind side is the fact that it should be very easyfor all those on this side whether scientists or religionists, to workhand in hand so far as this controversy is concerned ; while on theother side there can be little or no common ground. It is in theessence of all dogmatism to exclude all other dogmatism. If differ-ent dogmatisms can be on mere speaking terms with one anotherthat is all that can be expected of them. They can never worktogether.Whatever chance there may be of value to others as well as tomyself in this testimony of mine is dependent upon my being per-sonal still further. I shall have to go into a little detail on mysolution of the problem of my own public duty toward religion. Thiswill involve a brief look at the groundwork upon which the solutionrests.To me the normal, the naturalistic, starting-point for the solu-tion is the question : What is the place, what the function, ofreligion in human life? And this, asked naturalistically, must beunderstood to refer to religion not merely in its developed or actual-ized form, but quite as much in its incipient or germinal form. Itmust really concern the impulse to religion more than the potentinanifcstation of it.Now, the mode by which the naturalist must seek to answerthis as all questions is well known: He must seek the evidence.THE RELIGION OF A NATURALIST. 33The evidence in this case is from three sources ; from the historic orracial source; from contemporaneous Hfe—the side of objectiveindividual experience. And finally from the side of the "inner life."Here the seeker must dive deep and swim hard if he would knowthe vast ocean of reality into which he is plunged.On the historic side the evidence is now so vast and so easilyaccessible that very little time devoted to it will carry us far.I quote : "The fact is that there has not been a single tribe, nomatter how rude, known in history or visited by travelers, whichhas been shown to be destitute of religion, under some form. . . ."Religion, therefore, is and has been as far as history informsus. universal in the human race."This statement taken from Daniel G. Brinton's "Rehgion ofPrimitive Peoples," epitomizes a generalization than which no other,I believe, concerning the psychic life of mankind rests on a soliderfoundation.From the side of individual experience, we must, it seems to me,accept such works as William James's The Varieties of ReligiousExperience as confirming our own impressions that the germ ofreligion is present in every normal man, woman and child. But ifthe religious impulse is thus inherent in human nature, as a naturalistI see no way to avoid recognizing certain consequences of the utmostimportance for human welfare, but which are rarely and imperfectlyrecognized.For one thing, it would follow, that the old notion of becoming"converted" and of "getting religion" is almost sure to be, indeedusually has been, disastrously misunderstood. A person may besaid to "get religion" only in much the sense that a lad may be saidto get a man's voice at a certain time in his life. Undoubtedly thestate of latency or part-latency of religion in one's constitution ismuch more subject to external conditions for being brought toactuality than is the heaviness of the male voice in the young boy.But if the generalization above indicated is correct, religion is noless potentially present everywhere than is the manly voice in theboy, however unrecognizable it may be.Now this means, stated in the naturalist's language, that thereligious impulse is hereditary. It is instinctive. The germ ofreligion is in the germ plasm of the human species. This truth car-ries with it another of great practical importance. It is this : Inaccordance with a fundamental principle of biological development,if the egg, or germ, develops properly, it develops as a whole. That34 THE OPEN COURT.is if any of its potentialities become actualities they all must and willpreserve due balance. Otherwise the outcome is an abnormality.Now such faulty developments are well known especially to embryol-ogists. When the incompletenesses are striking they make whatare called monstrosities.But such incomplete development may pertain to the mental orspiritual potentialities of the human organism quite as well as toits physical potentialities. Consequently, abnormalities andmonstrosities occur in mental or spiritual life as well as in physicallife. Innate mental defectives of many kinds and degrees are illus-trations of this too familiar to us all. The psychopathic clinics arewhere science learns most about them.Here still another principle must be called in. I refer to thatprinciple in the mental Hfe of human beings according to whichimpulses and emotions become detached more or less completelyfrom their original objects and attached to others alien to them insome degree. This appears to be the essential thing in the idea of"transference" rightly taken much account of by the Freudianschool of psychopathology. Familiar illustration, falling short ofreal disease, is seen in the abnormal affection which childless womenand men sometimes bestow upon dogs and other animal pets.Now for my main point : Since the religious impulse is boundto develop in some way, i. e., to express itself in some sort ofresponse, if it does not go in its original or normal direction, it willgo in some other or abnormal direction. And this means, whenstated in a nutshell, that if any normal person supposes himself orherself without religion and not needing any, that person is probably"making a rehgion" as we say, of some lesser object or interest thanthat to which the religious impulse naturally pertains. And so wesee politicians making a religion of their party; business men scanti-fying some business project; scientists deifying some pet theory;artists idolizing their peculiar creative powers ; social reformersworshipping in the temple of Socialism or social service ; and so onand on. In no domain, probably, has man been more wont to makereligion than in that of effort for relief from bodily pain and disease.The seeds of idolatry whatever its form or name is right here, I amquite sure. Magic, animism, ancestor worship, etc.. are rooted inthis same soil almost certainly.Now, do not, I pray, fail to catch the real point of what I amsaying here.The idea implied in what was said a moment ago that if theTHE RELIGION OF A NATURALIST. 35religious impulse does not go in the right direction it will go in thewrong direction, will almost certainly raise in some minds the ques-tion : But what is the right direction? In other words, they wouldinquire : What else are you presenting us than the ancient problemover which so much bad temper and good blood have been shed,that of what the True religion is.If, however, my words be closely scrutinized it will be foundthat the issue they raise is very different from this very old andvery bloody issue. The question I raise is that of religion or noreligion as compared with the old question of which among twoor more religions is the right one. And the difference is far reaching.These statements bring me to the culminating point of my per-sonal attitude and action with reference to religion. I think it willreadily be seen that, holding such a conception of religion as thatindicated, I could not consistently avoid, even if I so desired, aclear, open religious profession of some sort.Stating the case more specifically it is this : ]\Iy professionallife interest is science—the sciences of living nature. This beingso my nominal renunciation of religion would probably result inthe actual transfer of my religious impulse to my science or somesegment thereof, even though I were quite unconscious of the fact.At any rate so great are my claims, especially latterly, for the impor-tance of this group of sciences to human welfare that I would beopen to the charge of trying to substitute my science or some phaseof it, for religion.I may sum up in this way : So profound is my conviction ofthe importance of both biological science and religion, eacJi in itsoicn ec'ov and right, for human life, that I caiinot riin the risk ofsupposing or being charged zfith supposing that either may supplantthe other zvithout incalculable harm to mankind.Let me illustrate what is implied by this : Imagine me to haveespoused the eugenic faith in the extreme form in which it is heldby a considerable number of well known biologists and sociologists.Imagine me also convinced, as several Americans seem to be. thathuman excellence reached its apogee in Nordic germplasm. Seethen what could easily happen in accordance with the principle ofconceptual transference noted above were I irreligious by proclamation. My family name, my stature, complexion, known geneology,etc., being what they are, it is probably that I should use my scienceto convince myself of my Nordic lineage, and then allow my re-ligious impulse to make me a sort of Eugenic Shintoist, my house-hold shrine being dedicated to my Nordic ancestors.36 THE OPEN COURT.It is incompatible with man's highest good to "make a reHgion"out of some one or a few interests, as for example eugenics inopposition to education, since this would be to divert to the serviceof one, energy which of right belongs to both.Such diversion would be like using all the water in the reser-voir for irrigation and none for drinking and other domesticpurposes.A^iewed psycho-biologically religion is seen not to be science,and science not to be religion, but each a complement and fulfillmentof the other.Religion is the common magma of all emotional life, as scienceis of all rational Hfe. Religion is the individual's one great reservoirof spiritual energy and as such must be freely available for eachand every one of his special interests and activities. True religionsensitizes all man's powers of perceiving, energizes all his powers ofaction, and expands and deepens all his powers of imagination.

The Religion of a Naturalist.

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The Religion of a Naturalist.

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