6. The results of Religious Revolutions.
If religious revolutions were judged only by the gloomy story
of the Reformation, we should be forced to regard them as highly
disastrous. But all have not played a like part, the civilising
influence of certain among them being considerable.
By giving a people moral unity they greatly increase its
material power. We see this notably when a new faith, brought by
Mohammed, transforms the petty and impotent tribes of Arabia into
a formidable nation.
Such a new religious belief does not merely render a
people homogeneous. It attains a result that no philosophy, no
code ever attained: it sensibly transforms what is almost
unchangeable, the sentiments of a race.
We see this at the period when the most powerful religious
revolution recorded by history overthrew paganism to substitute a
God who came from the plains of Galilee. The new ideal demanded
the
renunciation of all the joys of existence in order to acquire the
eternal happiness of heaven. No doubt such an ideal was readily
accepted by the poor, the enslaved, the disinherited who were
deprived of all the joys of life here below, to whom an
enchanting future was offered in exchange for a life without
hope. But the austere existence so easily embraced by the poor
was also embraced by the rich. In this above all was the power
of the new faith manifested.
Not only did the Christian revolution transform manners:
it also exercised, for a space of two thousand years, a
preponderating influence over civilisation. Directly a religious
faith triumphs all the elements of civilisation naturally adapt
themselves to it, so that civilisation is rapidly transformed.
Writers, artists and philosophers merely symbolise, in their
works, the ideas of the new faith.
When any religious or political faith whatsoever has
triumphed, not only is reason powerless to affect it, but it even
finds motives which impel it to interpret and so justify the
faith in question, and to strive to impose it upon others. There
were probably as many theologians and orators in the time of
Moloch, to prove the utility of human sacrifices, as there were
at other periods to glorify the Inquisition, the massacre of St.
Bartholomew, and the hecatombs of the Terror.
We must not hope to see peoples possessed by strong
beliefs readily achieve tolerance. The only people who attained
to toleration in the ancient world were the polytheists. The
nations which practise toleration at the present time are those
that might well be termed polytheistical, since, as in England
and America, they are divided into innumerable sects.
Under identical names they really adore very different deities.
The multiplicity of beliefs which results in such
toleration finally results also in weakness. We therefore come
to a psychological problem not hitherto resolved: how to possess
a faith at once powerful and tolerant.
The foregoing brief explanation reveals the large part
played by religious revolutions and the power of beliefs.
Despite their slight rational value they shape history, and
prevent the peoples from remaining a mass of individuals without
cohesion or strength. Man has needed them at all times to
orientate his thought and guide his conduct. No philosophy has
as yet succeeded in replacing them.
