Chapter 12: Devout Observances
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BACK
A discoursive rehearsal of certain incidents
of modern life will show the organic relation of the anthropomorphic
cults to the barbarian culture and temperament. It will likewise
serve to show how the survival and efficacy of the cults and he
prevalence of their schedule of devout observances are related to
the institution of a leisure class and to the springs of action
underlying that institution. Without any intention to commend or to
deprecate the practices to be spoken of under the head of devout
observances, or the spiritual and intellectual traits of which these
observances are the expression, the everyday phenomena of current
anthropomorphic cults may be taken up from the point of view of the
interest which they have for economic theory. What can properly be
spoken of here are the tangible, external features of devout
observances. The moral, as well as the devotional value of the life
of faith lies outside of the scope of the present inquiry. Of course
no question is here entertained as to the truth or beauty of the
creeds on which the cults proceed. And even their remoter economic
bearing can not be taken up here; the subject is too recondite and
of too grave import to find a place in so slight a sketch.
Something has been said in an earlier chapter as to the influence
which pecuniary standards of value exert upon the processes of
valuation carried out on other bases, not related to the pecuniary
interest. The relation is not altogether one-sided. The economic
standards or canons of valuation are in their turn influenced by
extra-economic standards of value. Our judgments of the economic
bearing of facts are to some extent shaped by the dominant presence
of these weightier interests. There is a point of view, indeed, from
which the economic interest is of weight only as being ancillary to
these higher, non-economic interests. For the present purpose,
therefore, some thought must he taken to isolate the economic
interest or the economic hearing of these phenomena of
anthropomorphic cults. It takes some effort to divest oneself of the
more serious point of view, and to reach an economic appreciation of
these facts, with as little as may be of the bias due to higher
interests extraneous to economic theory.
In the discussion of the sporting temperament, it has appeared that
the sense of an animistic propensity in material things and events
is what affords the spiritual basis of the sporting man's gambling
habit. For the economic purpose, this sense of propensity is
substantially the same psychological element as expresses itself,
under a variety of forms, in animistic beliefs and anthropomorphic
creeds. So far as concerns those tangible psychological features
with which economic theory has to deal, the gambling spirit which
pervades the sporting element shades off by insensible gradations
into that frame of mind which finds gratification in devout
observances. As seen from the point of view of economic theory, the
sporting character shades off into the character of a religious
devotee. Where the betting man's animistic sense is helped out by a
somewhat consistent tradition, it has developed into a more or less
articulate belief in a preternatural or hyperphysical agency, with
something of an anthropomorphic content. And where this is the case,
there is commonly a perceptible inclination to make terms with the
preternatural agency by some approved method of approach and
conciliation. This element of propitiation and cajoling has much in
common with the crasser forms of worship -- if not in historical
derivation, at least in actual psychological content. It obviously
shades off in unbroken continuity into what is recognized as
superstitious practice and belief, and so asserts its claim to
kinship with the grosser anthropomorphic cults.
The sporting or gambling temperament, then, comprises some of the
substantial psychological elements that go to make a believer in
creeds and an observer of devout forms, the chief point of
coincidence being the belief in an inscrutable propensity or a
preternatural interposition in the sequence of events. For the
purpose of the gambling practice the belief in preternatural agency
may be, and ordinarily is, less closely formulated, especially as
regards the habits of thought and the scheme of life imputed to the
preternatural agent; or, in other words, as regards his moral
character and his purposes in interfering in events. With respect to
the individuality or personality of the agency whose presence as
luck, or chance, or hoodoo, or mascot, etc., he feels and sometimes
dreads and endeavors to evade, the sporting man's views are also
less specific, less integrated and differentiated. The basis of his
gambling activity is, in great measure, simply an instinctive sense
of the presence of a pervasive extraphysical and arbitrary force or
propensity in things or situations, which is scarcely recognized as
a personal agent. The betting man is not infrequently both a
believer in luck, in this naive sense, and at the same time a pretty
staunch adherent of some form of accepted creed. He is especially
prone to accept so much of the creed as concerts the inscrutable
power and the arbitrary habits of the divinity which has won his
confidence. In such a case he is possessed of two, or sometimes more
than two, distinguishable phases of animism. Indeed, the complete
series of successive phases of animistic belief is to be found
unbroken in the spiritual furniture of any sporting community. Such
a chain of animistic conceptions will comprise the most elementary
form of an instinctive sense of luck and chance and fortuitous
necessity at one end of the series, together with the perfectly
developed anthropomorphic divinity at the other end, with all
intervening stages of integration. Coupled with these beliefs in
preternatural agency goes an instinctive shaping of conduct to
conform with the surmised requirements of the lucky chance on the
one hand, and a more or less devout submission to the inscrutable
decrees of the divinity on the other hand.
There is a relationship in this respect between the sporting
temperament and the temperament of the delinquent classes; and the
two are related to the temperament which inclines to an
anthropomorphic cult. Both the delinquent and the sporting man are
on the average more apt to be adherents of some accredited creed,
and are also rather more inclined to devout observances, than the
general average of the community. it is also noticeable that
unbelieving members of these classes show more of a proclivity to
become proselytes to some accredited faith than the average of
unbelievers. This fact of observation is avowed by the spokesmen of
sports, especially in apologizing for the more naively predatory
athletic sports. Indeed, it is somewhat insistently claimed as a
meritorious feature of sporting life that the habitual participants
in athletic games are in some degree peculiarly given to devout
practices. And it is observable that the cult to which sporting men
and the predaceous delinquent classes adhere, or to which proselytes
from these classes commonly attach themselves, is ordinarily not one
of the so-called higher faiths, but a cult which has to do with a
thoroughly anthropomorphic divinity. Archaic, predatory human nature
is not satisfied with abstruse conceptions of a dissolving
personality that shades off into the concept of quantitative causal
sequence, such as the speculative, esoteric creeds of Christendom
impute to the First Cause, Universal Intelligence, World Soul, or
Spiritual Aspect. As an instance of a cult of the character which
the habits of mind of the athlete and the delinquent require, may be
cited that branch of the church militant known as the Salvation
Army. This is to some extent recruited from the lower-class
delinquents, and it appears to comprise also, among its officers
especially, a larger proportion of men with a sporting record than
the proportion of such men in the aggregate population of the
community.
College athletics afford a case in point. It is contended by
exponents of the devout element in college life -- and there seems
to be no ground for disputing the claim -- that the desirable
athletic material afforded by any student body in this country is at
the same time predominantly religious; or that it is at least given
to devout observances to a greater degree than the average of those
students whose interest in athletics and other college sports is
less. This is what might be expected on theoretical grounds. It may
be remarked, by the way, that from one point of view this is felt to
reflect credit on the college sporting life, on athletic games, and
on those persons who occupy themselves with these matters. It
happens not frequently that college sporting men devote themselves
to religious propaganda, either as a vocation or as a by-occupation;
and it is observable that when this happens they are likely to
become propagandists of some one of the more anthropomorphic cults.
In their teaching they are apt to insist chiefly on the personal
relation of status which subsists between an anthropomorphic
divinity and the human subject.
This intimate relation between athletics and devout observance among
college men is a fact of sufficient notoriety; but it has a special
feature to which attention has not been called, although it is
obvious enough. The religious zeal which pervades much of the
college sporting element is especially prone to express itself in an
unquestioning devoutness and a naive and complacent submission to an
inscrutable Providence. It therefore by preference seeks affliation
with some one of those lay religious organizations which occupy
themselves with the spread of the exoteric forms of faith -- as,
e.g., the Young Men's Christian Association or the Young People's
Society for Christian Endeavor. These lay bodies are organized to
further "practical" religion; and as if to enforce the argument and
firmly establish the close relationship between the sporting
temperament and the archaic devoutness, these lay religious bodies
commonly devote some appreciable portion of their energies to the
furtherance of athletic contests and similar games of chance and
skill. It might even be said that sports of this kind are
apprehended to have some efficacy as a means of grace. They are
apparently useful as a means of proselyting, and as a means of
sustaining the devout attitude in converts once made. That is to
say, the games which give exercise to the animistic sense and to the
emulative propensity help to form and to conserve that habit of mind
to which the more exoteric cults are congenial. Hence, in the hands
of the lay organizations, these sporting activities come to do duty
as a novitiate or a means of induction into that fuller unfolding of
the life of spiritual status which is the privilege of the full
communicant along.
That the exercise of the emulative and lower animistic proclivities
are substantially useful for the devout purpose seems to be placed
beyond question by the fact that the priesthood of many
denominations is following the lead of the lay organizations in this
respect. Those ecclesiastical organizations especially which stand
nearest the lay organizations in their insistence on practical
religion have gone some way towards adopting these or analogous
practices in connection with the traditional devout observances. So
there are "boys' brigades," and other organizations, under clerical
sanction, acting to develop the emulative proclivity and the sense
of status in the youthful members of the congregation. These
pseudo-military organizations tend to elaborate and accentuate the
proclivity to emulation and invidious comparison, and so strengthen
the native facility for discerning and approving the relation of
personal mastery and subservience. And a believer is eminently a
person who knows how to obey and accept chastisement with good
grace.
But the habits of thought which these practices foster and conserve
make up but one half of the substance of the anthropomorphic cults.
The other, complementary element of devout life -- the animistic
habit of mind -- is recruited and conserved by a second range of
practices organized under clerical sanction. These are the class of
gambling practices of which the church bazaar or raffle may be taken
as the type. As indicating the degree of legitimacy of these
practices in connection with devout observances proper, it is to be
remarked that these raffles, and the like trivial opportunities for
gambling, seem to appeal with more effect to the common run of the
members of religious organizations than they do to persons of a less
devout habit of mind.
All this seems to argue, on the one hand, that the same temperament
inclines people to sports as inclines them to the anthropomorphic
cults, and on the other hand that the habituation to sports, perhaps
especially to athletic sports, acts to develop the propensities
which find satisfaction in devout observances. Conversely; it also
appears that habituation to these observances favors the growth of a
proclivity for athletic sports and for all games that give play to
the habit of invidious comparison and of the appeal to luck.
Substantially the same range of propensities finds expression in
both these directions of the spiritual life. That barbarian human
nature in which the predatory instinct and the animistic standpoint
predominate is normally prone to both. The predatory habit of mind
involves an accentuated sense of personal dignity and of the
relative standing of individuals. The social structure in which the
predatory habit has been the dominant factor in the shaping of
institutions is a structure based on status. The pervading norm in
the predatory community's scheme of life is the relation of superior
and inferior, noble and base, dominant and subservient persons and
classes, master and slave. The anthropomorphic cults have come down
from that stage of industrial development and have been shaped by
the same scheme of economic differentiation -- a differentiation
into consumer and producer -- and they are pervaded by the same
dominant principle of mastery and subservience. The cults impute to
their divinity the habits of thought answering to the stage of
economic differentiation at which the cults took shape. The
anthropomorphic divinity is conceived to be punctilious in all
questions of precedence and is prone to an assertion of mastery and
an arbitrary exercise of power -- an habitual resort to force as the
final arbiter.
In the later and maturer formulations of the anthropomorphic creed
this imputed habit of dominance on the part of a divinity of awful
presence and inscrutable power is chastened into "the fatherhood of
God." The spiritual attitude and the aptitudes imputed to the
preternatural agent are still such as belong under the regime of
status, but they now assume the patriarchal cast characteristic of
the quasi-peaceable stage of culture. Still it is to be noted that
even in this advanced phase of the cult the observances in which
devoutness finds expression consistently aim to propitiate the
divinity by extolling his greatness and glory and by professing
subservience and fealty. The act of propitiation or of worship is
designed to appeal to a sense of status imputed to the inscrutable
power that is thus approached. The propitiatory formulas most in
vogue are still such as carry or imply an invidious comparison. A
loyal attachment to the person of an anthropomorphic divinity
endowed with such an archaic human nature implies the like archaic
propensities in the devotee. For the purposes of economic theory,
the relation of fealty, whether to a physical or to an extraphysical
person, is to be taken as a variant of that personal subservience
which makes up so large a share of the predatory and the
quasi-peaceable scheme of life.
The barbarian conception of the divinity, as a warlike chieftain
inclined to an overbearing manner of government, has been greatly
softened through the milder manners and the soberer habits of life
that characterize those cultural phases which lie between the early
predatory stage and the present. But even after this chastening of
the devout fancy, and the consequent mitigation of the harsher
traits of conduct and character that are currently imputed to the
divinity, there still remains in the popular apprehension of the
divine nature and temperament a very substantial residue of the
barbarian conception. So it comes about, for instance, that in
characterizing the divinity and his relations to the process of
human life, speakers and writers are still able to make effective
use of similes borrowed from the vocabulary of war and of the
predatory manner of life, as well as of locutions which involve an
invidious comparison. Figures of speech of this import are used with
good effect even in addressing the less warlike modern audiences,
made up of adherents of the blander variants of the creed. This
effective use of barbarian epithets and terms of comparison by
popular speakers argues that the modern generation has retained a
lively appreciation of the dignity and merit of the barbarian
virtues; and it argues also that there is a degree of congruity
between the devout attitude and the predatory habit of mind. It is
only on second thought, if at all, that the devout fancy of modern
worshippers revolts at the imputation of ferocious and vengeful
emotions and actions to the object of their adoration. It is a
matter of common observation that sanguinary epithets applied to the
divinity have a high aesthetic and honorific value in the popular
apprehension. That is to say, suggestions which these epithets carry
are very acceptable to our unreflecting apprehension.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is
trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He
hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; His
truth is marching on.
The guiding habits of thought of a devout person move on the plane
of an archaic scheme of life which has outlived much of its
usefulness for the economic exigencies of the collective life of
today. In so far as the economic organization fits the exigencies of
the collective life of today, it has outlived the regime of status,
and has no use and no place for a relation of personal subserviency.
So far as concerns the economic efficiency of the community, the
sentiment of personal fealty, and the general habit of mind of which
that sentiment is an expression, are survivals which cumber the
ground and hinder an adequate adjustment of human institutions to
the existing situation. The habit of mind which best lends itself to
the purposes of a peaceable, industrial community, is that
matter-of-fact temper which recognizes the value of material facts
simply as opaque items in the mechanical sequence. It is that frame
of mind which does not instinctively impute an animistic propensity
to things, nor resort to preternatural intervention as an
explanation of perplexing phenomena, nor depend on an unseen hand to
shape the course of events to human use. To meet the requirements of
the highest economic efficiency under modern conditions, the world
process must habitually be apprehended in terms of quantitative,
dispassionate force and sequence.
As seen from the point of view of the later economic exigencies,
devoutness is, perhaps in all cases, to be looked upon as a survival
from an earlier phase of associated life -- a mark of arrested
spiritual development. Of course it remains true that in a community
where the economic structure is still substantially a system of
status; where the attitude of the average of persons in the
community is consequently shaped by and adapted to the relation of
personal dominance and personal subservience; or where for any other
reason -- of tradition or of inherited aptitude -- the population as
a whole is strongly inclined to devout observances; there a devout
habit of mind in any individual, not in excess of the average of the
community, must be taken simply as a detail of the prevalent habit
of life. In this light, a devout individual in a devout community
can not be called a case of reversion, since he is abreast of the
average of the community. But as seen from the point of view of the
modern industrial situation, exceptional devoutness -- devotional
zeal that rises appreciably above the average pitch of devoutness in
the community -- may safely be set down as in all cases an atavistic
trait.
It is, of course, equally legitimate to consider these phenomena
from a different point of view. They may be appreciated for a
different purpose, and the characterization here offered may be
turned about. In speaking from the point of view of the devotional
interest, or the interest of devout taste, it may, with equal
cogency, be said that the spiritual attitude bred in men by the
modern industrial life is unfavorable to a free development of the
life of faith. It might fairly be objected to the later development
of the industrial process that its discipline tends to
"materialism," to the elimination of filial piety. From the
aesthetic point of view, again, something to a similar purport might
be said. But, however legitimate and valuable these and the like
reflections may be for their purpose, they would not be in place in
the present inquiry, which is exclusively concerned with the
valuation of these phenomena from the economic point of view.
The grave economic significance of the anthropomorphic habit of mind
and of the addiction to devout observances must serve as apology for
speaking further on a topic which it can not but be distasteful to
discuss at all as an economic phenomenon in a community so devout as
ours. Devout observances are of economic importance as an index of a
concomitant variation of temperament, accompanying the predatory
habit of mind and so indicating the presence of industrially
disserviceable traits. They indicate the presence of a mental
attitude which has a certain economic value of its own by virtue of
its influence upon the industrial serviceability of the individual.
But they are also of importance more directly, in modifying the
economic activities of the community, especially as regards the
distribution and consumption of goods.
The most obvious economic bearing of these observances is seen in
the devout consumption of goods and services. The consumption of
ceremonial paraphernalia required by any cult, in the way of
shrines, temples, churches, vestments, sacrifices, sacraments,
holiday attire, etc., serves no immediate material end. All this
material apparatus may, therefore, without implying deprecation, be
broadly characterized as items of conspicuous waste. The like is
true in a general way of the personal service consumed under this
head; such as priestly education, priestly service, pilgrimages,
fasts, holidays, household devotions, and the like. At the same time
the observances in the execution of which this consumption takes
place serve to extend and protract the vogue of those habits of
thought on which an anthropomorphic cult rests. That is to say, they
further the habits of thought characteristic of the regime of
status. They are in so far an obstruction to the most effective
organization of industry under modern circumstances; and are, in the
first instance, antagonistic to the development of economic
institutions in the direction required by the situation of today.
For the present purpose, the indirect as well as the direct effects
of this consumption are of the nature of a curtailment of the
community's economic efficiency. In economic theory, then, and
considered in its proximate consequences, the consumption of goods
and effort in the service of an anthropomorphic divinity means a
lowering of the vitality of the community. What may be the remoter,
indirect, moral effects of this class of consumption does not admit
of a succinct answer, and it is a question which can not be taken up
here.
It will be to the point, however, to note the general economic
character of devout consumption, in comparison with consumption for
other purposes. An indication of the range of motives and purposes
from which devout consumption of goods proceeds will help toward an
appreciation of the value both of this consumption itself and of the
general habit of mind to which it is congenial. There is a striking
parallelism, if not rather a substantial identity of motive, between
the consumption which goes to the service of an anthropomorphic
divinity and that which goes to the service of a gentleman of
leisure chieftain or patriarch -- in the upper class of society
during the barbarian culture. Both in the case of the chieftain and
in that of the divinity there are expensive edifices set apart for
the behoof of the person served. These edifices, as well as the
properties which supplement them in the service, must not be common
in kind or grade; they always show a large element of conspicuous
waste. It may also be noted that the devout edifices are invariably
of an archaic cast in their structure and fittings. So also the
servants, both of the chieftain and of the divinity, must appear in
the presence clothed in garments of a special, ornate character. The
characteristic economic feature of this apparel is a more than
ordinarily accentuated conspicuous waste, together with the
secondary feature -- more accentuated in the case of the priestly
servants than in that of the servants or courtiers of the barbarian
potentate -- that this court dress must always be in some degree of
an archaic fashion. Also the garments worn by the lay members of the
community when they come into the presence, should be of a more
expensive kind than their everyday apparel. Here, again, the
parallelism between the usage of the chieftain's audience hall and
that of the sanctuary is fairly well marked. In this respect there
is required a certain ceremonial "cleanness" of attire, the
essential feature of which, in the economic respect, is that the
garments worn on these occasions should carry as little suggestion
as may be of any industrial occupation or of any habitual addiction
to such employments as are of material use.
This requirement of conspicuous waste and of ceremonial cleanness
from the traces of industry extends also to the apparel, and in a
less degree to the food, which is consumed on sacred holidays; that
is to say, on days set apart -- tabu -- for the divinity or for some
member of the lower ranks of the preternatural leisure class. In
economic theory, sacred holidays are obviously to be construed as a
season of vicarious leisure performed for the divinity or saint in
whose name the tabu is imposed and to whose good repute the
abstention from useful effort on these days is conceived to inure.
The characteristic feature of all such seasons of devout vicarious
leisure is a more or less rigid tabu on all activity that is of
human use. In the case of fast-days the conspicuous abstention from
gainful occupations and from all pursuits that (materially) further
human life is further accentuated by compulsory abstinence from such
consumption as would conduce to the comfort or the fullness of life
of the consumer.
It may be remarked, parenthetically, that secular holidays are of
the same origin, by slightly remoter derivation. They shade off by
degrees from the genuinely sacred days, through an intermediate
class of semi-sacred birthdays of kings and great men who have been
in some measure canonized, to the deliberately invented holiday set
apart to further the good repute of some notable event or some
striking fact, to which it is intended to do honor, or the good fame
of which is felt to be in need of repair. The remoter refinement in
the employment of vicarious leisure as a means of augmenting the
good repute of a phenomenon or datum is seen at its best in its very
latest application. A day of vicarious leisure has in some
communities been set apart as Labor Day. This observance is designed
to augment the prestige of the fact of labor, by the archaic,
predatory method of a compulsory abstention from useful effort. To
this datum of labor-in-general is imputed the good repute
attributable to the pecuniary strength put in evidence by abstaining
from labor.
Sacred holidays, and holidays generally, are of the nature of a
tribute levied on the body of the people. The tribute is paid in
vicarious leisure, and the honorific effect which emerges is imputed
to the person or the fact for whose good repute the holiday has been
instituted. Such a tithe of vicarious leisure is a perquisite of all
members of the preternatural leisure class and is indispensable to
their good fame. Un saint qu'on ne ch鬽e pas is indeed a saint fallen
on evil days.
Besides this tithe of vicarious leisure levied on the laity, there
are also special classes of persons -- the various grades of priests
and hierodules -- whose time is wholly set apart for a similar
service. It is not only incumbent on the priestly class to abstain
from vulgar labor, especially so far as it is lucrative or is
apprehended to contribute to the temporal well-being of mankind. The
tabu in the case of the priestly class goes farther and adds a
refinement in the form of an injunction against their seeking
worldly gain even where it may be had without debasing application
to industry. It is felt to he unworthy of the servant of the
divinity, or rather unworthy the dignity of the divinity whose
servant he is, that he should seek material gain or take thought for
temporal matters. "Of all contemptible things a man who pretends to
be a priest of God and is a priest to his own comforts and ambitions
is the most contemptible." There is a line of discrimination, which
a cultivated taste in matters of devout observance finds little
difficulty in drawing, between such actions and conduct as conduce
to the fullness of human life and such as conduce to the good fame
of the anthropomorphic divinity; and the activity of the priestly
class, in the ideal barbarian scheme, falls wholly on the hither
side of this line. What falls within the range of economics falls
below the proper level of solicitude of the priesthood in its best
estate. Such apparent exceptions to this rule as are afforded, for
instance, by some of the medieval orders of monks (the members of
which actually labored to some useful end), scarcely impugn the
rule. These outlying orders of the priestly class are not a
sacerdotal element in the full sense of the term. And it is
noticeable also that these doubtfully sacerdotal orders, which
countenanced their members in earning a living, fell into disrepute
through offending the sense of propriety in the communities where
they existed.
The priest should not put his hand to mechanically productive work;
but he should consume in large measure. But even as regards his
consumption it is to be noted that it should take such forms as do
not obviously conduce to his own comfort or fullness of life; it
should conform to the rules governing vicarious consumption, as
explained under that head in an earlier chapter. It is not
ordinarily in good form for the priestly class to appear well fed or
in hilarious spirits. Indeed, in many of the more elaborate cults
the injunction against other than vicarious consumption by this
class frequently goes so far as to enjoin mortification of the
flesh. And even in those modern denominations which have been
organized under the latest formulations of the creed, in a modern
industrial community, it is felt that all levity and avowed zest in
the enjoyment of the good things of this world is alien to the true
clerical decorum. Whatever suggests that these servants of an
invisible master are living a life, not of devotion to their
master's good fame, but of application to their own ends, jars
harshly on our sensibilities as something fundamentally and
eternally wrong. They are a servant class, although, being servants
of a very exalted master, they rank high in the social scale by
virtue of this borrowed light. Their consumption is vicarious
consumption; and since, in the advanced cults, their master has no
need of material gain, their occupation is vicarious leisure in the
full sense. "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye
do, do all to the glory of God." It may be added that so far as the
laity is assimilated to the priesthood in the respect that they are
conceived to he servants of the divinity. so far this imputed
vicarious character attaches also to the layman's life. The range of
application of this corollary is somewhat wide. It applies
especially to such movements for the reform or rehabilitation of the
religious life as are of an austere, pietistic, ascetic cast --
where the human subject is conceived to hold his life by a direct
servile tenure from his spiritual sovereign. That is to say, where
the institution of the priesthood lapses, or where there is an
exceptionally lively sense of the immediate and masterful presence
of the divinity in the affairs of life, there the layman is
conceived to stand in an immediate servile relation to the divinity,
and his life is construed to be a performance of vicarious leisure
directed to the enhancement of his master's repute. In such cases of
reversion there is a return to the unmediated relation of
subservience, as the dominant fact of the devout attitude. The
emphasis is thereby throw on an austere and discomforting vicarious
leisure, to the neglect of conspicuous consumption as a means of
grace.
A doubt will present itself as to the full legitimacy of this
characterization of the sacerdotal scheme of life, on the ground
that a considerable proportion of the modern priesthood departs from
the scheme in many details. The scheme does not hold good for the
clergy of those denominations which have in some measure diverged
from the old established schedule of beliefs or observances. These
take thought, at least ostensibly or permissively, for the temporal
welfare of the laity, as well as for their own. Their manner of
life, not only in the privacy of their own household, but often even
before the public, does not differ in an extreme degree from that of
secular-minded persons, either in its ostensible austerity or in the
archaism of its apparatus. This is truest for those denominations
that have wandered the farthest. To this objection it is to be said
that we have here to do not with a discrepancy in the theory of
sacerdotal life, but with an imperfect conformity to the scheme on
the part of this body of clergy. They are but a partial and
imperfect representative of the priesthood, and must not be taken as
exhibiting the sacerdotal scheme of life in an authentic and
competent manner. The clergy of the sects and denominations might be
characterized as a half-caste priesthood, or a priesthood in process
of becoming or of reconstitution. Such a priesthood may be expected
to show the characteristics of the sacerdotal office only as blended
and obscured with alien motives and traditions, due to the
disturbing presence of other factors than those of animism and
status in the purposes of the organizations to which this
non-conforming fraction of the priesthood belongs.
Appeal may be taken direct to the taste of any person with a
discriminating and cultivated sense of the sacerdotal proprieties,
or to the prevalent sense of what constitutes clerical decorum in
any community at all accustomed to think or to pass criticism on
what a clergyman may or may not do without blame. Even in the most
extremely secularized denominations, there is some sense of a
distinction that should be observed between the sacerdotal and the
lay scheme of life. There is no person of sensibility but feels that
where the members of this denominational or sectarian clergy depart
from traditional usage, in the direction of a less austere or less
archaic demeanor and apparel, they are departing from the ideal of
priestly decorum. There is probably no community and no sect within
the range of the Western culture in which the bounds of permissible
indulgence are not drawn appreciably closer for the incumbent of the
priestly office than for the common layman. If the priest's own
sense of sacerdotal propriety does not effectually impose a limit,
the prevalent sense of the proprieties on the part of the community
will commonly assert itself so obtrusively as to lead to his
conformity or his retirement from office.
Few if any members of any body of clergy, it may be added, would
avowedly seek an increase of salary for gain's sake; and if such
avowal were openly made by a clergyman, it would be found obnoxious
to the sense of propriety among his congregation. It may also be
noted in this connection that no one but the scoffers and the very
obtuse are not instinctively grieved inwardly at a jest from the
pulpit; and that there are none whose respect for their pastor does
not suffer through any mark of levity on his part in any conjuncture
of life, except it be levity of a palpably histrionic kind -- a
constrained unbending of dignity. The diction proper to the
sanctuary and to the priestly office should also carry little if any
suggestion of effective everyday life, and should not draw upon the
vocabulary of modern trade or industry. Likewise, one's sense of the
proprieties is readily offended by too detailed and intimate a
handling of industrial and other purely human questions at the hands
of the clergy. There is a certain level of generality below which a
cultivated sense of the proprieties in homiletical discourse will
not permit a well-bred clergyman to decline in his discussion of
temporal interests. These matters that are of human and secular
consequence simply, should properly be handled with such a degree of
generality and aloofness as may imply that the speaker represents a
master whose interest in secular affairs goes only so far as to
permissively countenance them.
It is further to be noticed that the non-conforming sects and
variants whose priesthood is here under discussion, vary among
themselves in the degree of their conformity to the ideal scheme of
sacerdotal life. In a general way it will be found that the
divergence in this respect is widest in the case of the relatively
young denominations, and especially in the case of such of the newer
denominations as have chiefly a lower middle-class constituency.
They commonly show a large admixture of humanitarian, philanthropic,
or other motives which can not be classed as expressions of the
devotional attitude; such as the desire of learning or of
conviviality, which enter largely into the effective interest shown
by members of these organizations. The non-conforming or sectarian
movements have commonly proceeded from a mixture of motives, some of
which are at variance with that sense of status on which the
priestly office rests. Sometimes, indeed, the motive has been in
good part a revulsion against a system of status. Where this is the
case the institution of the priesthood has broken down in the
transition, at least partially. The spokesman of such an
organization is at the outset a servant and representative of the
organization, rather than a member of a special priestly class and
the spokesman of a divine master. And it is only by a process of
gradual specialization that, in succeeding generations, this
spokesman regains the position of priest, with a full investiture of
sacerdotal authority, and with its accompanying austere, archaic and
vicarious manner of life. The like is true of the breakdown and
redintegration of devout ritual after such a revulsion. The priestly
office, the scheme of sacerdotal life, and the schedule of devout
observances are rehabilitated only gradually, insensibly, and with
more or less variation in details, as a persistent human sense of
devout propriety reasserts its primacy in questions touching the
interest in the preternatural -- and it may be added, as the
organization increases in wealth, and so acquires more of the point
of view and the habits of thought of a leisure class.
Beyond the priestly class, and ranged in an ascending
hierarchy,ordinarily comes a superhuman vicarious leisure class of
saints, angels, etc. -- or their equivalents in the ethnic cults.
These rise in grade, one above another, according to elaborate
system of status. The principle of status runs through the entire
hierarchical system, both visible and invisible. The good fame of
these several orders of the supernatural hierarchy also commonly
requires a certain tribute of vicarious consumption and vicarious
leisure. In many cases they accordingly have devoted to their
service sub-orders of attendants or dependents who perform a
vicarious leisure for them, after much the same fashion as was found
in an earlier chapter to be true of the dependent leisure class
under the patriarchal system.
It may not appear without reflection how these devout observances
and the peculiarity of temperament which they imply, or the
consumption of goods and services which is comprised in the cult,
stand related to the leisure class of a modern community, or to the
economic motives of which that class is the exponent in the modern
scheme of life to this end a summary review of certain facts bearing
on this relation will be useful.
It appears from an earlier passage in this discussion that for the
purpose of the collective life of today, especially so far as
concerns the industrial efficiency of the modern community, the
characteristic traits of the devout temperament are a hindrance
rather than a help. It should accordingly be found that the modern
industrial life tends selectively to eliminate these traits of human
nature from the spiritual constitution of the classes that are
immediately engaged in the industrial process. It should hold true,
approximately, that devoutness is declining or tending to
obsolescence among the members of what may be called the effective
industrial community. At the same time it should appear that this
aptitude or habit survives in appreciably greater vigor among those
classes which do not immediately or primarily enter into the
community's life process as an industrial factor.
It has already been pointed out that these latter classes, which
live by, rather than in, the industrial process, are roughly
comprised under two categories (1) the leisure class proper, which
is shielded from the stress of the economic situation; and (2) the
indigent classes, including the lower-class delinquents, which are
unduly exposed to the stress. In the case of the former class an
archaic habit of mind persists because no effectual economic
pressure constrains this class to an adaptation of its habits of
thought to the changing situation; while in the latter the reason
for a failure to adjust their habits of thought to the altered
requirements of industrial efficiency is innutrition, absence of
such surplus of energy as is needed in order to make the adjustment
with facility, together with a lack of opportunity to acquire and
become habituated to the modern point of view. The trend of the
selective process runs in much the same direction in both cases.
From the point of view which the modern industrial life inculcates,
phenomena are habitually subsumed under the quantitative relation of
mechanical sequence. The indigent classes not only fall short of the
modicum of leisure necessary in order to appropriate and assimilate
the more recent generalizations of science which this point of view
involves, but they also ordinarily stand in such a relation of
personal dependence or subservience to their pecuniary superiors as
materially to retard their emancipation from habits of thought
proper to the regime of status. The result is that these classes in
some measure retain that general habit of mind the chief expression
of which is a strong sense of personal status, and of which
devoutness is one feature.
In the older communities of the European culture, the hereditary
leisure class, together with the mass of the indigent population,
are given to devout observances in an appreciably higher degree than
the average of the industrious middle class, wherever a considerable
class of the latter character exists. But in some of these
countries, the two categories of conservative humanity named above
comprise virtually the whole population. Where these two classes
greatly preponderate, their bent shapes popular sentiment to such an
extent as to bear down any possible divergent tendency in the
inconsiderable middle class, and imposes a devout attitude upon the
whole community.
This must, of course, not be construed to say that such communities
or such classes as are exceptionally prone to devout observances
tend to conform in any exceptional degree to the specifications of
any code of morals that we may be accustomed to associate with this
or that confession of faith. A large measure of the devout habit of
mind need not carry with it a strict observance of the injunctions
of the Decalogue or of the common law. Indeed, it is becoming
somewhat of a commonplace with observers of criminal life in
European communities that the criminal and dissolute classes are, if
anything, rather more devout, and more naively so, than the average
of the population. It is among those who constitute the pecuniary
middle class and the body of law-abiding citizens that a relative
exemption from the devotional attitude is to be looked for. Those
who best appreciate the merits of the higher creeds and observances
would object to all this and say that the devoutness of the
low-class delinquents is a spurious, or at the best a superstitious
devoutness; and the point is no doubt well taken and goes directly
and cogently to the purpose intended. But for the purpose of the
present inquiry these extra-economic, extra-psychological
distinctions must perforce be neglected, however valid and however
decisive they may be for the purpose for which they are made.
What has actually taken place with regard to class emancipation from
the habit of devout observance is shown by the latter-day complaint
of the clergy -- that the churches are losing the sympathy of the
artisan classes, and are losing their hold upon them. At the same
time it is currently believed that the middle class, commonly so
called, is also falling away in the cordiality of its support of the
church, especially so far as regards the adult male portion of that
class. These are currently recognized phenomena, and it might seem
that a simple reference to these facts should sufficiently
substantiate the general position outlined. Such an appeal to the
general phenomena of popular church attendance and church membership
may be sufficiently convincing for the proposition here advanced.
But it will still be to the purpose to trace in some detail the
course of events and the particular forces which have wrought this
change in the spiritual attitude of the more advanced industrial
communities of today. It will serve to illustrate the manner in
which economic causes work towards a secularization of men's habits
of thought. In this respect the American community should afford an
exceptionally convincing illustration, since this community has been
the least trammelled by external circumstances of any equally
important industrial aggregate.
After making due allowance for exceptions and sporadic departures
from the normal, the situation here at the present time may be
summarized quite briefly. As a general rule the classes that are low
in economic efficiency, or in intelligence, or both, are peculiarly
devout -- as, for instance, the Negro population of the South, much
of the lower-class foreign population, much of the rural population,
especially in those sections which are backward in education, in the
stage of development of their industry, or in respect of their
industrial contact with the rest of the community. So also such
fragments as we possess of a specialized or hereditary indigent
class, or of a segregated criminal or dissolute class; although
among these latter the devout habit of mind is apt to take the form
of a naive animistic belief in luck and in the efficacy of
shamanistic practices perhaps more frequently than it takes the form
of a formal adherence to any accredited creed. The artisan class, on
the other hand, is notoriously falling away from the accredited
anthropomorphic creeds and from all devout observances. This class
is in an especial degree exposed to the characteristic intellectual
and spiritual stress of modern organized industry, which requires a
constant recognition of the undisguised phenomena of impersonal,
matter-of-fact sequence and an unreserved conformity to the law of
cause and effect. This class is at the same time not underfed nor
over-worked to such an extent as to leave no margin of energy for
the work of adaptation.
The case of the lower or doubtful leisure class in America -- the
middle class commonly so called -- is somewhat peculiar. It differs
in respect of its devotional life from its European counterpart, but
it differs in degree and method rather than in substance. The
churches still have the pecuniary support of this class; although
the creeds to which the class adheres with the greatest facility are
relatively poor in anthropomorphic content. At the same time the
effective middle-class congregation tends, in many cases, more or
less remotely perhaps, to become a congregation of women and minors.
There is an appreciable lack of devotional fervor among the adult
males of the middle class, although to a considerable extent there
survives among them a certain complacent, reputable assent to the
outlines of the accredited creed under which they were born. Their
everyday life is carried on in a more or less close contact with the
industrial process.
This peculiar sexual differentiation, which tends to delegate devout
observances to the women and their children, is due, at least in
part, to the fact that the middle-class women are in great measure a
(vicarious) leisure class. The same is true in a less degree of the
women of the lower, artisan classes. They live under a regime of
status handed down from an earlier stage of industrial development,
and thereby they preserve a frame of mind and habits of thought
which incline them to an archaic view of things generally. At the
same time they stand in no such direct organic relation to the
industrial process at large as would tend strongly to break down
those habits of thought which, for the modern industrial purpose,
are obsolete. That is to say, the peculiar devoutness of women is a
particular expression of that conservatism which the women of
civilized communities owe, in great measure, to their economic
position. For the modern man the patriarchal relation of status is
by no means the dominant feature of life; but for the women on the
other hand, and for the upper middle-class women especially,
confined as they are by prescription and by economic circumstances
to their "domestic sphere," this relation is the most real and most
formative factor of life. Hence a habit of mind favorable to devout
observances and to the interpretation of the facts of life generally
in terms of personal status. The logic, and the logical processes,
of her everyday domestic life are carried over into the realm of the
supernatural, and the woman finds herself at home and content in a
range of ideas which to the man are in great measure alien and
imbecile.
Still the men of this class are also not devoid of piety, although
it is commonly not piety of an aggressive or exuberant kind. The men
of the upper middle class commonly take a more complacent attitude
towards devout observances than the men of the artisan class. This
may perhaps be explained in part by saying that what is true of the
women of the class is true to a less extent also of the men. They
are to an appreciable extent a sheltered class; and the patriarchal
relation of status which still persists in their conjugal life and
in their habitual use of servants, may also act to conserve an
archaic habit of mind and may exercise a retarding influence upon
the process of secularization which their habits of thought are
undergoing. The relations of the American middle-class man to the
economic community, however, are usually pretty close and exacting;
although it may be remarked, by the way and in qualification, that
their economic activity frequently also partakes in some degree of
the patriarchal or quasi-predatory character. The occupations which
are in good repute among this class and which have most to do with
shaping the class habits of thought, are the pecuniary occupations
which have been spoken of in a similar connection in an earlier
chapter. There is a good deal of the relation of arbitrary command
and submission, and not a little of shrewd practice, remotely akin
to predatory fraud. All this belongs on the plane of life of the
predatory barbarian, to whom a devotional attitude is habitual. And
in addition to this, the devout observances also commend themselves
to this class on the ground of reputability. But this latter
incentive to piety deserves treatment by itself and will be spoken
of presently.
There is no hereditary leisure class of any consequence in the
American community, except in the South. This Southern leisure class
is somewhat given to devout observances; more so than any class of
corresponding pecuniary standing in other parts of the country. It
is also well known that the creeds of the South are of a more
old-fashioned cast than their counterparts in the North.
Corresponding to this more archaic devotional life of the South is
the lower industrial development of that section. The industrial
organization of the South is at present, and especially it has been
until quite recently, of a more primitive character than that of the
American community taken as a whole. It approaches nearer to
handicraft, in the paucity and rudeness of its mechanical
appliances, and there is more of the element of mastery and
subservience. It may also be noted that, owing to the peculiar
economic circumstances of this section, the greater devoutness of
the Southern population, both white and black, is correlated with a
scheme of life which in many ways recalls the barbarian stages of
industrial development. Among this population offenses of an archaic
character also are and have been relatively more prevalent and are
less deprecated than they are elsewhere; as, for example, duels,
brawls, feuds, drunkenness, horse-racing, cock-fighting, gambling,
male sexual incontinence (evidenced by the considerable number of
mulattoes). There is also a livelier sense of honor -- an expression
of sportsmanship and a derivative of predatory life.
As regards the wealthier class of the North, the American leisure
class in the best sense of the term, it is, to begin with, scarcely
possible to speak of an hereditary devotional attitude. This class
is of too recent growth to be possessed of a well-formed transmitted
habit in this respect, or even of a special home-grown tradition.
Still, it may be noted in passing that there is a perceptible
tendency among this class to give in at least a nominal, and
apparently something of a real, adherence to some one of the
accredited creeds. Also, weddings, funerals, and the like honorific
events among this class are pretty uniformly solemnized with some
especial degree of religious circumstance. It is impossible to say
how far this adherence to a creed is a bona fide reversion to a
devout habit of mind, and how far it is to be classed as a case of
protective mimicry assumed for the purpose of an outward
assimilation to canons of reputability borrowed from foreign ideals.
Something of a substantial devotional propensity seems to be
present, to judge especially by the somewhat peculiar degree of
ritualistic observance which is in process of development in the
upper-class cults. There is a tendency perceptible among the
upper-class worshippers to affiliate themselves with those cults
which lay relatively great stress on ceremonial and on the
spectacular accessories of worship; and in the churches in which an
upper-class membership predominates, there is at the same time a
tendency to accentuate the ritualistic, at the cost of the
intellectual features in the service and in the apparatus of the
devout observances. This holds true even where the church in
question belongs to a denomination with a relatively slight general
development of ritual and paraphernalia. This peculiar development
of the ritualistic element is no doubt due in part to a predilection
for conspicuously wasteful spectacles, but it probably also in part
indicates something of the devotional attitude of the worshippers.
So far as the latter is true, it indicates a relatively archaic form
of the devotional habit. The predominance of spectacular effects in
devout observances is noticeable in all devout communities at a
relatively primitive stage of culture and with a slight intellectual
development. It is especially characteristic of the barbarian
culture. Here there is pretty uniformly present in the devout
observances a direct appeal to the emotions through all the avenues
of sense. And a tendency to return to this naive, sensational method
of appeal is unmistakable in the upper-class churches of today. It
is perceptible in a less degree in the cults which claim the
allegiance of the lower leisure class and of the middle classes.
There is a reversion to the use of colored lights and brilliant
spectacles, a freer use of symbols, orchestral music and incense,
and one may even detect in "processionals" and "recessionals" and in
richly varied genuflexional evolutions, an incipient reversion to so
antique an accessory of worship as the sacred dance.
This reversion to spectacular observances is not confined to the
upper-class cults, although it finds its best exemplification and
its highest accentuation in the higher pecuniary and social
altitudes. The cults of the lower-class devout portion of the
community, such as the Southern Negroes and the backward foreign
elements of the population, of course also show a strong inclination
to ritual, symbolism, and spectacular effects; as might be expected
from the antecedents and the cultural level of those classes. With
these classes the prevalence of ritual and anthropomorphism are not
so much a matter of reversion as of continued development out of the
past. But the use of ritual and related features of devotion are
also spreading in other directions. In the early days of the
American community the prevailing denominations started out with a
ritual and paraphernalia of an austere simplicity; but it is a
matter familiar to every one that in the course of time these
denominations have, in a varying degree, adopted much of the
spectacular elements which they once renounced. In a general way,
this development has gone hand in hand with the growth of the wealth
and the ease of life of the worshippers and has reached its fullest
expression among those classes which grade highest in wealth and
repute.
The causes to which this pecuniary stratification of devoutness is
due have already been indicated in a general way in speaking of
class differences in habits of thought. Class differences as regards
devoutness are but a special expression of a generic fact. The lax
allegiance of the lower middle class, or what may broadly be called
the failure of filial piety among this class, is chiefly perceptible
among the town populations engaged in the mechanical industries. In
a general way, one does not, at the present time, look for a
blameless filial piety among those classes whose employment
approaches that of the engineer and the mechanician. These
mechanical employments are in a degree a modern fact. The
handicraftsmen of earlier times, who served an industrial end of a
character similar to that now served by the mechanician, were not
similarily refractory under the discipline of devoutness. The
habitual activity of the men engaged in these branches of industry
has greatly changed, as regards its intellectual discipline, since
the modern industrial processes have come into vogue; and the
discipline to which the mechanician is exposed in his daily
employment affects the methods and standards of his thinking also on
topics which lie outside his everyday work. Familiarity with the
highly organized and highly impersonal industrial processes of the
present acts to derange the animistic habits of thought. The
workman's office is becoming more and more exclusively that of
discretion and supervision in a process of mechanical, dispassionate
sequences. So long as the individual is the chief and typical prime
mover in the process; so long as the obtrusive feature of the
industrial process is the dexterity and force of the individual
handicraftsman; so long the habit of interpreting phenomena in terms
of personal motive and propensity suffers no such considerable and
consistent derangement through facts as to lead to its elimination.
But under the later developed industrial processes, when the prime
movers and the contrivances through which they work are of an
impersonal, non-individual character, the grounds of generalization
habitually present in the workman's mind and the point of view from
which he habitually apprehends phenomena is an enforced cognizance
of matter-of-fact sequence. The result, so far as concerts the
workman's life of faith, is a proclivity to undevout scepticism.
It appears, then, that the devout habit of mind attains its best
development under a relatively archaic culture; the term "devout"
being of course here used in its anthropological sense simply, and
not as implying anything with respect to the spiritual attitude so
characterized, beyond the fact of a proneness to devout observances.
It appears also that this devout attitude marks a type of human
nature which is more in consonance with the predatory mode of life
than with the later-developed, more consistently and organically
industrial life process of the community. It is in large measure an
expression of the archaic habitual sense of personal status -- the
relation of mastery and subservience -- and it therefore fits into
the industrial scheme of the predatory and the quasi-peaceable
culture, but does not fit into the industrial scheme of the present.
It also appears that this habit persists with greatest tenacity
among those classes in the modern communities whose everyday life is
most remote from the mechanical processes of industry and which are
the most conservative also in other respects; while for those
classes that are habitually in immediate contact with modern
industrial processes, and whose habits of thought are therefore
exposed to the constraining force of technological necessities, that
animistic interpretation of phenomena and that respect of persons on
which devout observance proceeds are in process of obsolescence. And
also -- as bearing especially on the present discussion -- it
appears that the devout habit to some extent progressively gains in
scope and elaboration among those classes in the modern communities
to whom wealth and leisure accrue in the most pronounced degree. In
this as in other relations, the institution of a leisure class acts
to conserve, and even to rehabilitate, that archaic type of human
nature and those elements of the archaic culture which the
industrial evolution of society in its later stages acts to
eliminate.
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