5. Chapter V: Of The Manner In Which Religion In The United States
Avails Itself Of Democratic Tendencies
I have laid it down in a preceding chapter that men cannot
do without dogmatical belief; and even that it is very much to be
desired that such belief should exist amongst them. I now add,
that of all the kinds of dogmatical belief the most desirable
appears to me to be dogmatical belief in matters of religion; and
this is a very clear inference, even from no higher consideration
than the interests of this world. There is hardly any human
action, however particular a character be assigned to it, which
does not originate in some very general idea men have conceived
of the Deity, of his relation to mankind, of the nature of their
own souls, and of their duties to their fellow-creatures. Nor
can anything prevent these ideas from being the common spring
from which everything else emanates. Men are therefore
immeasurably interested in acquiring fixed ideas of God, of the
soul, and of their common duties to their Creator and to their
fellow-men; for doubt on these first principles would abandon all
their actions to the impulse of chance, and would condemn them to
live, to a certain extent, powerless and undisciplined.
This is then the subject on which it is most important for
each of us to entertain fixed ideas; and unhappily it is also the
subject on which it is most difficult for each of us, left to
himself, to settle his opinions by the sole force of his reason.
None but minds singularly free from the ordinary anxieties of
life -minds at once penetrating, subtle, and trained by thinking
-can even with the assistance of much time and care, sound the
depth of these most necessary truths. And, indeed, we see that
these philosophers are themselves almost always enshrouded in
uncertainties; that at every step the natural light which
illuminates their path grows dimmer and less secure; and that, in
spite of all their efforts, they have as yet only discovered a
small number of conflicting notions, on which the mind of man has
been tossed about for thousands of years, without either laying a
firmer grasp on truth, or finding novelty even in its errors.
Studies of this nature are far above the average capacity of men;
and even if the majority of mankind were capable of such
pursuits, it is evident that leisure to cultivate them would
still be wanting. Fixed ideas of God and human nature are
indispensable to the daily practice of men's lives; but the
practice of their lives prevents them from acquiring such ideas.
The difficulty appears to me to be without a parallel.
Amongst the sciences there are some which are useful to the mass
of mankind, and which are within its reach; others can only be
approached by the few, and are not cultivated by the many, who
require nothing beyond their more remote applications: but the
daily practice of the science I speak of is indispensable to all,
although the study of it is inaccessible to the far greater
number.
General ideas respecting God and human nature are therefore
the ideas above all others which it is most suitable to withdraw
from the habitual action of private judgment, and in which there
is most to gain and least to lose by recognizing a principle of
authority. The first object and one of the principal advantages
of religions, is to furnish to each of these fundamental
questions a solution which is at once clear, precise,
intelligible to the mass of mankind, and lasting. There are
religions which are very false and very absurd; but it may be
affirmed, that any religion which remains within the circle I
have just traced, without aspiring to go beyond it (as many
religions have attempted to do, for the purpose of enclosing on
every side the free progress of the human mind), imposes a
salutary restraint on the intellect; and it must be admitted
that, if it do not save men in another world, such religion is at
least very conducive to their happiness and their greatness in
this. This is more especially true of men living in free
countries. When the religion of a people is destroyed, doubt
gets hold of the highest portions of the intellect, and half
paralyzes all the rest of its powers. Every man accustoms
himself to entertain none but confused and changing notions on
the subjects most interesting to his fellow-creatures and
himself. His opinions are ill-defended and easily abandoned:
and, despairing of ever resolving by himself the hardest problems
of the destiny of man, he ignobly submits to think no more about
them. Such a condition cannot but enervate the soul, relax the
springs of the will, and prepare a people for servitude. Nor
does it only happen, in such a case, that they allow their
freedom to be wrested from them; they frequently themselves
surrender it. When there is no longer any principle of authority
in religion any more than in politics, men are speedily
frightened at the aspect of this unbounded independence. The
constant agitation of all surrounding things alarms and exhausts
them. As everything is at sea in the sphere of the intellect,
they determine at least that the mechanism of society should be
firm and fixed; and as they cannot resume their ancient belief,
they assume a master.
For my own part, I doubt whether man can ever support at the
same time complete religious independence and entire public
freedom. And I am inclined to think, that if faith be wanting in
him, he must serve; and if he be free, he must believe.
Perhaps, however, this great utility of religions is still
more obvious amongst nations where equality of conditions
prevails than amongst others. It must be acknowledged that
equality, which brings great benefits into the world,
nevertheless suggests to men (as will be shown hereafter) some
very dangerous propensities. It tends to isolate them from each
other, to concentrate every man's attention upon himself; and it
lays open the soul to an inordinate love of material
gratification. The greatest advantage of religion is to inspire
diametrically contrary principles. There is no religion which
does not place the object of man's desires above and beyond the
treasures of earth, and which does not naturally raise his soul
to regions far above those of the senses. Nor is there any which
does not impose on man some sort of duties to his kind, and thus
draws him at times from the contemplation of himself. This
occurs in religions the most false and dangerous. Religious
nations are therefore naturally strong on the very point on which
democratic nations are weak; which shows of what importance it is
for men to preserve their religion as their conditions become
more equal.
I have neither the right nor the intention of examining the
supernatural means which God employs to infuse religious belief
into the heart of man. I am at this moment considering religions
in a purely human point of view: my object is to inquire by what
means they may most easily retain their sway in the democratic
ages upon which we are entering. It has been shown that, at
times of general cultivation and equality, the human mind does
not consent to adopt dogmatical opinions without reluctance, and
feels their necessity acutely in spiritual matters only. This
proves, in the first place, that at such times religions ought,
more cautiously than at any other, to confine themselves within
their own precincts; for in seeking to extend their power beyond
religious matters, they incur a risk of not being believed at
all. The circle within which they seek to bound the human
intellect ought therefore to be carefully traced, and beyond its
verge the mind should be left in entire freedom to its own
guidance. Mahommed professed to derive from Heaven, and he has
inserted in the Koran, not only a body of religious doctrines,
but political maxims, civil and criminal laws, and theories of
science. The gospel, on the contrary, only speaks of the general
relations of men to God and to each other -beyond which it
inculcates and imposes no point of faith. This alone, besides a
thousand other reasons, would suffice to prove that the former of
these religions will never long predominate in a cultivated and
democratic age, whilst the latter is destined to retain its sway
at these as at all other periods.
But in continuation of this branch of the subject, I find
that in order for religions to maintain their authority, humanly
speaking, in democratic ages, they must not only confine
themselves strictly within the circle of spiritual matters: their
power also depends very much on the nature of the belief they
inculcate, on the external forms they assume, and on the
obligations they impose. The preceding observation, that
equality leads men to very general and very extensive notions, is
principally to be understood as applied to the question of
religion. Men living in a similar and equal condition in the
world readily conceive the idea of the one God, governing every
man by the same laws, and granting to every man future happiness
on the same conditions. The idea of the unity of mankind
constantly leads them back to the idea of the unity of the
Creator; whilst, on the contrary, in a state of society where men
are broken up into very unequal ranks, they are apt to devise as
many deities as there are nations, castes, classes, or families,
and to trace a thousand private roads to heaven.
It cannot be denied that Christianity itself has felt, to a
certain extent, the influence which social and political
conditions exercise on religious opinions. At the epoch at which
the Christian religion appeared upon earth, Providence, by whom
the world was doubtless prepared for its coming, had gathered a
large portion of the human race, like an immense flock, under the
sceptre of the Caesars. The men of whom this multitude was
composed were distinguished by numerous differences; but they had
thus much in common, that they all obeyed the same laws, and that
every subject was so weak and insignificant in relation to the
imperial potentate, that all appeared equal when their condition
was contrasted with his. This novel and peculiar state of
mankind necessarily predisposed men to listen to the general
truths which Christianity teaches, and may serve to explain the
facility and rapidity with which they then penetrated into the
human mind. The counterpart of this state of things was
exhibited after the destruction of the empire. The Roman world
being then as it were shattered into a thousand fragments, each
nation resumed its pristine individuality. An infinite scale of
ranks very soon grew up in the bosom of these nations; the
different races were more sharply defined, and each nation was
divided by castes into several peoples. In the midst of this
common effort, which seemed to be urging human society to the
greatest conceivable amount of voluntary subdivision,
Christianity did not lose sight of the leading general ideas
which it had brought into the world. But it appeared,
nevertheless, to lend itself, as much as was possible, to those
new tendencies to which the fractional distribution of mankind
had given birth. Men continued to worship an only God, the
Creator and Preserver of all things; but every people, every
city, and, so to speak, every man, thought to obtain some
distinct privilege, and win the favor of an especial
patron at the foot of the Throne of Grace. Unable to subdivide
the Deity, they multiplied and improperly enhanced the importance
of the divine agents. The homage due to saints and angels became
an almost idolatrous worship amongst the majority of the
Christian world; and apprehensions might be entertained for a
moment lest the religion of Christ should retrograde towards the
superstitions which it had subdued. It seems evident, that the
more the barriers are removed which separate nation from nation
amongst mankind, and citizen from citizen amongst a people, the
stronger is the bent of the human mind, as if by its own impulse,
towards the idea of an only and all-powerful Being, dispensing
equal laws in the same manner to every man. In democratic ages,
then, it is more particularly important not to allow the homage
paid to secondary agents to be confounded with the worship due to
the Creator alone.
Another truth is no less clear -that religions ought to assume
fewer external observances in democratic periods than at any others. In
speaking of philosophical method among the Americans, I have shown that
nothing is more repugnant to the human mind in an age of equality than
the idea of subjection to forms. Men living at such times are impatient
of figures; to their eyes symbols appear to be the puerile artifice
which is used to conceal or to set off truths, which should more
naturally be bared to the light of open day: they are unmoved by
ceremonial observances, and they are predisposed to attach a secondary
importance to the details of public worship. Those whose care it is to
regulate the external forms of religion in a democratic age should pay a
close attention to these natural propensities of the human mind, in
order not unnecessarily to run counter to them. I firmly believe in the
necessity of forms, which fix the human mind in the contemplation of
abstract truths, and stimulate its ardor in the pursuit of them, whilst
they invigorate its powers of retaining them steadfastly. Nor do I
suppose that it is possible to maintain a religion without external
observances; but, on the other hand, I am persuaded that, in the ages
upon which we are entering, it would be peculiarly dangerous to multiply
them beyond measure; and that they ought rather to be limited to as much
as is absolutely necessary to perpetuate the doctrine itself, which is
the substance of religions of which the ritual is only the form.
[1] A religion which should become more minute, more
peremptory, and more surcharged with small observances at a time in
which men are becoming more equal, would soon find itself reduced to a
band of fanatical zealots in the midst of an infidel people.
I anticipate the objection, that as all religions have
general and eternal truths for their object, they cannot thus
shape themselves to the shifting spirit of every age without
forfeiting their claim to certainty in the eyes of mankind. To
this I reply again, that the principal opinions which constitute
belief, and which theologians call articles of faith, must be
very carefully distinguished from the accessories connected with
them. Religions are obliged to hold fast to the former, whatever
be the peculiar spirit of the age; but they should take good care
not to bind themselves in the same manner to the latter at a time
when everything is in transition, and when the mind, accustomed
to the moving pageant of human affairs, reluctantly endures the
attempt to fix it to any given point. The fixity of external and
secondary things can only afford a chance of duration when civil
society is itself fixed; under any other circumstances I hold it
to be perilous.
We shall have occasion to see that, of all the passions
which originate in, or are fostered by, equality, there is one
which it renders peculiarly intense, and which it infuses at the
same time into the heart of every man: I mean the love of
well-being. The taste for well-being is the prominent and
indelible feature of democratic ages. It may be believed that a
religion which should undertake to destroy so deep seated a
passion, would meet its own destruction thence in the end; and if
it attempted to wean men entirely from the contemplation of the
good things of this world, in order to devote their faculties
exclusively to the thought of another, it may be foreseen that
the soul would at length escape from its grasp, to plunge into
the exclusive enjoyment of present and material pleasures. The
chief concern of religions is to purify, to regulate, and to
restrain the excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which
men feel at periods of equality; but they would err in attempting
to control it completely or to eradicate it. They will not
succeed in curing men of the love of riches: but they may still
persuade men to enrich themselves by none but honest means.
This brings me to a final consideration, which comprises, as
it were, all the others. The more the conditions of men are
equalized and assimilated to each other, the more important is it
for religions, whilst they carefully abstain from the daily
turmoil of secular affairs, not needlessly to run counter to the
ideas which generally prevail, and the permanent interests which
exist in the mass of the people. For as public opinion grows to
be more and more evidently the first and most irresistible of
existing powers, the religious principle has no external support
strong enough to enable it long to resist its attacks. This is
not less true of a democratic people, ruled by a despot, than in
a republic. In ages of equality, kings may often command
obedience, but the majority always commands belief: to the
majority, therefore, deference is to be paid in whatsoever is not
contrary to the faith.
I showed in my former volumes how the American clergy stand
aloof from secular affairs. This is the most obvious, but it is
not the only, example of their self-restraint. In America
religion is a distinct sphere, in which the priest is sovereign,
but out of which he takes care never to go. Within its limits he
is the master of the mind; beyond them, he leaves men to
themselves, and surrenders them to the independence and
instability which belong to their nature and their age. I have
seen no country in which Christianity is clothed with fewer
forms, figures, and observances than in the United States; or
where it presents more distinct, more simple, or more general
notions to the mind. Although the Christians of America are
divided into a multitude of sects, they all look upon their
religion in the same light. This applies to Roman Catholicism as
well as to the other forms of belief. There are no Romish
priests who show less taste for the minute individual observances
for extraordinary or peculiar means of salvation, or who cling
more to the spirit, and less to the letter of the law, than the
Roman Catholic priests of the United States. Nowhere is that
doctrine of the Church, which prohibits the worship reserved to
God alone from being offered to the saints, more clearly
inculcated or more generally followed. Yet the Roman Catholics
of America are very submissive and very sincere.
Another remark is applicable to the clergy of every
communion. The American ministers of the gospel do not attempt
to draw or to fix all the thoughts of man upon the life to come;
they are willing to surrender a portion of his heart to the cares
of the present; seeming to consider the goods of this world as
important, although as secondary, objects. If they take no part
themselves in productive labor, they are at least interested in
its progression, and ready to applaud its results; and whilst
they never cease to point to the other world as the great object
of the hopes and fears of the believer, they do not forbid him
honestly to court prosperity in this. Far from attempting to show
that these things are distinct and contrary to one another, they
study rather to find out on what point they are most nearly and
closely connected.
All the American clergy know and respect the intellectual
supremacy exercised by the majority; they never sustain any but
necessary conflicts with it. They take no share in the
altercations of parties, but they readily adopt the general
opinions of their country and their age; and they allow
themselves to be borne away without opposition in the current of
feeling and opinion by which everything around them is carried
along. They endeavor to amend their contemporaries, but they do
not quit fellowship with them. Public opinion is therefore never
hostile to them; it rather supports and protects them; and their
belief owes its authority at the same time to the strength which
is its own, and to that which they borrow from the opinions of
the majority. Thus it is that, by respecting all democratic
tendencies not absolutely contrary to herself, and by making use
of several of them for her own purposes, religion sustains an
advantageous struggle with that spirit of individual independence
which is her most dangerous antagonist.
[1]
In all religions there are some ceremonies which are
inherent in the substance of the faith itself, and in these
nothing should, on any account, be changed. This is especially
the case with Roman Catholicism, in which the doctrine and the
form are frequently so closely united as to form one point of
belief.