Part 30

CCCXLVII

There is amazingly little evidence of "reverential care for unoffending creation" in the arrangements of nature, that I can discover. If our ears were sharp enough to hear all the cries of pain that are uttered in the earth by men and beasts, we should be deafened by one continuous scream!

And yet the wealth of superfluous loveliness in the world condemns pessimism. It is a hopeless riddle.

CCCXLVIII

A man who has only half as much food as he needs is indubitably starved, even though his short rations consist of ortolans and are served upon gold plate.

CCCXLIX

Economy does not lie in sparing money, but in spending it wisely.

CCCL

We men of science, at any rate, hold ourselves morally bound to "try all things and hold fast to that which is good"; and among public benefactors, we reckon him who explodes old error, as next in rank to him who discovers new truth.

CCCLI

Whatever Linnaeus may say, man is not a rational animal--especially in his parental capacity.

CCCLII

The inquiry into the truth or falsehood of a matter of history is just as much a question of pure science as the inquiry into the truth or falsehood of a matter of geology, and the value of evidence in the two cases must be tested in the same way. If anyone tells me that the evidence of the existence of man in the miocene epoch is as good as that upon which I frequently act every day of my life, I reply that this is quite true, but that it is no sort of reason for believing in the existence of miocene man.

Surely no one but a born fool can fail to be aware that we constantly, and in very grave conjunctions, are obliged to act upon extremely bad evidence, and that very often we suffer all sorts of penalties in consequence. And surely one must be something worse than a born fool to pretend that such decision under the pressure of the enigmas of life ought to have the smallest influence in those judgments which are made with due and sufficient deliberation.

CCCLIII

1. The Church founded by Jesus has not made its way; has not permeated the world--but did become extinct in the country of its birth--as Nazarenism and Ebionism.

2. The Church that did make its way and coalesced with the State in the 4th century had no more to do with the Church founded by Jesus than Ultramontanism has with Quakerism. It is Alexandrian Judaism and Neoplatonistic mystagogy, and as much of the old idolatry and demonology as could be got in under new or old names.

3. Paul has said that the Law was schoolmaster to Christ with more truth than he knew. Throughout the Empire the synagogues had their cloud of Gentile hangers-on--those who "feared God"--and who were fully prepared to accept a Christianity, which was merely an expurgated Judaism and the belief in Jesus as the Messiah.

4. The Christian "Sodalitia" were not merely religious bodies, but friendly societies, burial societies, and guilds. They hung together for all purposes--the mob hated them as it now hates the Jews in Eastern Europe, because they were more frugal, more industrious, and lived better lives than their neighbours, while they stuck together like Scotchmen.

If these things are so--and I appeal to your knowledge of history that they are so--what has the success of Christianity to do with the truth or falsehood of the story of Jesus?

CCCLIV

It is Baur's great merit to have seen that the key to the problem of Christianity lies in the Epistle to the Galatians. No doubt he and his followers rather overdid the thing, but that is always the way with those who take up a new idea.

CCCLV

If a man cannot do brain work without stimulants of any kind, he had better turn to hand work--it is an indication on Nature's part that she did not mean him to be a head worker.

CCCLVI

It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.

CCCLVII

Even the best of modern civilisations appears to me to exhibit a condition of mankind which neither embodies any worthy ideal nor even possesses the merit of stability. I do not hesitate to express my opinion that, if there is no hope of a large improvement of the condition of the greater part of the human family; if it is true that the increase of knowledge, the winning of a greater dominion over Nature which is its consequence, and the wealth which follows upon that dominion, are to make no difference in the extent and the intensity of Want, with its concomitant physical and moral degradation, among the masses of the people, I should hail the advent of some kindly comet, which would sweep the whole affair away, as a desirable consummation. What profits it to the human Prometheus that he has stolen the fire of heaven to be his servant, and that the spirits of the earth and of the air obey him, if the vulture of pauperism is eternally to tear his very vitals and keep him on the brink of destruction?