MR. J. W. ALFRED CLUETT:— I regard Religion as a Factor in Social Evolution as one of the worthiest themes ever discussed in the meetings of our Association. As a question, it fairly assumes the affirmative in the putting of it. A religion not a factor in social evolution, would be such a private concern as to predispose the individual to conceal it from his neighbor. Yet even under such conditions, what might be called a religion would surely have its influence on human progress; but religion is a social thing, and one of its strongest forces is its tendency to attract and keep together bodies or classes of men. In this respect religion is second, if at all, only to government. In fact there are not wanting strong minds who are incessantly declaring that religion is government, while just as ardently asserting that government is not even religious. The power of religion to mobilize humanity has been demonstrated by even those beliefs which have contained the smallest kernel of truth. The negative controlling force of such creeds, together with their positive attracting influence over minds seemingly innately disposed to conform to them, has constituted in all ages the dynamics of religion. These claims are not vitiated by the tendencies of the average mind to accept with inadequate examination the varying or contradictory doctrines of its teachers. While the great governments of the world have by force of arms extended their borders, making mortal enemies where they failed to subject, religious cults have jumped the bounds of government, race, and language, and have been voluntarily accepted by masses of mankind in other respects alien to their originators. These facts stand serenely in their place, despite the teachings of any philosophy that founds itself on mere nature. It is the pride and pleasure of much of our modern philosophy, and its duty, too, to assert that nature is unvarying, implacable, unforgiving, neither relenting nor repenting; that benevolence is the culminating result, and not the incidental intention; but such conceptions of nature are not modern, nor is their acceptance confined to philosophic systems. Certain religions have taught them explicitly, even to the visiting of the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, and to demanding an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but it may be questioned if such principles have ever been fundamental to any religion, not being of a sort to either attract men or to keep them together. In fact they encroach on the function of government, because pitilessly competitive. Religion as a factor in social evolution, is such by its recognition of individual frailties and necessities. It does not demand full measure, nor limit survival to the fittest. It does not invite every man to be a judge of his fellow-man, but rather impresses upon its votaries the primal fact of their own ethical and spiritual limitations, teaching them how to forgive and how to be forgiven. In a society so constituted, the individual man will find the fullest sense of freedom. Without first knowing his fellows, he is assured that the perfection of their knowledge and actions is fundamentally disallowed. He is invited into a society which does not assume that his own conduct is fully exemplifying all the cardinal virtues. In short, if sincere, he joins such an association with the double motive of helping and being helped. These characteristics of religion, if admitted, throw light on its influence on society. Social evolution I assume to be something far different from the evolution of so-called socialism. That ideal of society is purely governmental and directive. The inducements to adopt it are not those suggested by the impulse to contribute, but rather by the desire to receive, with at least the tacit disposition to avoid responsibility. J. S. Mill finely eulogizes the sense of personal responsibility involved in Protestant church membership. Religion itself, under the laws of its own development, and as a factor in social evolution, has operated to assuage the severity of law and to modify the rigor of government, to accentuate in the individual conscience its own share in the complexion of society, and above all has developed and maintained the supremacy of the law of forbearance. |