Socialism and Mysticism.

HE PRESENT ESSAY is addressed to thinking Socialists.

The writer is fully conscious of touching upon dangerous ground. We know that mysticism has a strong hold on many a collectivist, that certain sentiments and ideals of religious origin are dear to the heart of many a true and sincere friend of the proletariat. We are aware that most of the Socialist leaders are convinced that it would be a fatal mistake to identify militant Socialism with militant Free-thought. We are likewise not unmindful of the fact, that many Socialists are of the opinion that the modern proletarian movement is but a bread and butter affair. And yet we do think, that the so-called "Christian Socialist", the Socialist tactician and even the extreme materialist in the Socialist Movement can well afford, and in fact are in duty bound, to tolerate a discussion of the relation between the great modern proletarian movement, and the cycle of ideas and ideals identified with mysticism in the pages of a magazine devoted to International Socialist Thought.

Socialists ought not to have any Tabu, any forbidden. ground, as long as they are struggling for truth and knowledge and against ignorance and superstition.

Middle class Free-thought publications in the United States like the "Freidenker" and "Truthseeker" publish Socialist contributions constantly. Should we socialists be less broadminded and tolerant than the bourgeois?

We do not advocate the adoption of an anti-religious plank in our National Platform.

We do not even consider it necessary that Socialists as such should take a negative attitude toward religion in their propaganda work and agitation literature.

All we stand for is the elucidation of the organic relation between the philosophy of Socialism, and the cycle of ideas and ideals of mysticism, religion and especially Christianity as revealed in History.

We do not by any means claim to monopolize the truth on

the subject and will welcome any honest and dispassionate expression of opinion diametrically opposed to our own.

Truth can only gain through discussion sine irâ et studio. The International Socialist Review is a free forum for all honest Socialist thought and its Editorial Staff is not responsible for the opinions of outside contributions.

THE COMMON ENEMY.

Religion the foe alike of the Freethinker and of the Socialist. The term religion admits of several interpretations. However vague and hazy the term religion may be in the popular mind, to the critical thinker religion appears as a psychological (a German would say "Voelker-psychologisch") growth of two principal aspects.

Religion comprises, on one hand, a theory of the universe at large, a cosmogony; and, on the other hand, a system of conduct in every day life, ethics.

The religious cosmogony is demolished to such an extent by natural sciences as to present in our distressingly sober age a rather pitiful, although somewhat quaint and picturesque, ruin. No amount of modernization by so-called "higher criticism" (whatever that term may mean) can restore the barbaric splendor of this ruin. To galvanize a corpse does not mean to restore it to life. The system of conduct identified in the popular mind with religion is vital, not on account of its connection with religion, but rather in spite of its religious appendage. It is morality by and for itself, ethics per se, that lends dignity and meaning to religion, and not religion to morality. Morality is an antecedent of religion. Ethics are as old as life on earth.

As soon as the germs of gregarious life in the animal kingdom developed to such an extent as to surpass excessive tendencies of individual variation (centrifugal, anarchic tendencies) in the interests of the survival of the species (centripetal, archic tendencies); as soon as the first rudiments of "consciousness of kind" triumphed over the primordial consciousness of self-a system of conduct of individuals composing the species (social aggregate) toward each other, started to evolve. Morality, ethics, is a sub-human institution, a purely biological phenomenon. Morality is the expression of the interests of the social aggregate, as opposed to the narrowly understood individual interests. All conduct tending toward the conservation and furthering of the interests of the social aggregate is considered as good and praiseworthy, heroic and noble by this aggregate; and vice versa, all conduct tending towards impairing the interests of the social aggregate, is

considered by this unit as bad, blameworthy, cowardly, and mean. Hence the relativity and changeability of all moral conceptions in space and time.

The higher an animal species stands on the evolutionary ladder, the more developed and pronounced is its "consciousness of kind”, the more strict is the subjection of the individual will to the will of the aggregate or social unit, the higher is its morality.

The human race is the most gregarious, the most social of all animal species, as it is physically one of the weakest and, individually, the most helpless of all animal species. It has reached the climax in the "consciousness of kind" or "raceconsciousness", as we would prefer to term it. There was no choice about it. Nothing can be more natural than that the human code of conduct reached the highest degree of development. And this evolution of morals or ethics-itself an evolutionary biological phenomenon-can terminate only with. the life of the race on earth. Religion could not and did not create morality or ethics. Morality or ethics existed long before religion was evolved in the crude mind of the human animal of bygone ages, and will survive religion in the enlightened ages of the future. Religion found morality deeply ingrained in the nature of the human being as an unconscious instinct of race-preservation. The primitive man was moral— to the extent of his mind-development-simply because he had to be moral in order to be able to exist as a member of his primitive social unit before he troubled himself with the mystical and metaphysical phantoms. The humanization of nature or anthropomorphism, forming the essence of all religions, belongs to a comparatively recent stage of the history of men on earth.

What was the effect of anthropomorphic religions on morals or ethics?

In the first instance religion falsified the motives of human conduct. Religion invented the purely anthropomorphic motives of fear of punishment by a humanized supernatural power and desire for reward by the same power in an imaginary mystical life following physical bodily annihilation. Religion invented the dualism of mind (spirit) and matter, of body and soul.

The anthropomorphic religious philosophy could not fail to produce material changes in the moral concepts of believers.

The motives of fear or rewards by a supernatural humanized power (deity) could not but debase the moral currency. These motives appeal to and tend to develop the lower, baser part of the human nature-its individual selfish side. Indeed the primitive man unconsciously acted from higher and nobler

motives than those substituted by religion. The reward of his conduct was its beneficient effect directly on the welfare of the social aggregate he belonged to, indirectly on himself. The punishment of an evil deed or immoral act consists in the bad effect it produces on its author through the medium of his respective social unit. In other words, good conduct is dictated by (conscious or unconscious) enlightened selfishness; immorality by unenlightened crude animal selfishness. Consequently morality depends on the development of the human mind, it is a question of intelligence, an emotional refinement. Making human conduct depend on any other basis than broad self-interest identified with the interests of the social or racial aggregate is not only a perversion of actual facts, but amounts to undermining of the very foundation of social life, to poisoning the very fountain of morality.

However, especially pernicious is the introduction of the whims and fancies of a deity as criteria of good or bad conduct, the making of that deity an arbiter and judge in the realm of human conduct. The criterion of morality-the will of a deity! Can there be a more fruitful source of eternal confusion and flagrant abuse, confusion for the believers and abuse by the selfappointed representatives of the deity-the caste of priests! As a matter of fact, it was the caste of priests that, in the name of the deity, usurped and monopolized the function of moral legislation, which by nature and right belonged to the social aggregate as a whole. The deity, through the agency of priests, of course, can be propitiated by gifts and coaxed by prayers to pardon evil deeds, as if an evil deed may be undone. The curse of an evil deed is that it is an inexhaustible source of other evil deeds and the idea of pardon itself is not only irrational but highly immoral. Most religions teach that a repentant sinner is dearer to the heart of the deity (the stomachs of the priests) than an immaculate saint. Does not this put a premium on immorality?

However confusing and debasing the influence of religious anthropomorphism in the realm of human conduct may be in general, there is one aspect of the case especially fraught with moral confusion and debasement.

We refer now especially to the transference of the center of gravity of human morals, from its natural and only legitimate field-human relations and consociations-to the mystical domains of mythical relations between man and his deity.

Who created this idea? It is a time-honored legal rule: "fecit cui prodest". If a crime is committed and the culprit unknown, look for the person that would or could profit by the crime. The culprit in this crime against rational ethics. was and is the priesthood, the self-appointed representatives

of their own creature-the deity. This crime against humanity is eminently calculated to create and maintain in a comfortable if not luxurious life of idleness a parasitic class of priests at the expense of the community. "Fecit cui prodest": The priests invented theocracy in order to establish their class-rule over the unreasoning masses of humanity, scared by hell and damnation, and coaxed by paradisiacal bliss into submission and obedience.

In short, religion and the institutional church are the creations of class-interests, and are maintained by class-interests and in direct violation of the interests of the human race as a whole. The class of priests produce nothing useful to the community, they are an essentially parasitic class. And as such the priests as a rule naturally sympathize with other parasitic classes, the military and capitalistic class. This is the reason why the institutional church always was and always is on the side of the strong and against the weak, on the side of might against right. In spite of all the sickly mysticism and maudlin sentimentalism of the so-called "religion of love" (lux a non lucendo;) the institutional church never seriously attacked any anti-social institutions and frequently defended them against attacks on the part of Rationalists. The church. never seriously attacked the wholesale murder of men called war, and frequently glorified and sanctioned it. The anti-war movements were started and are kept up by Freethinkers and Socialists. The so-called peace conference of Hague is correctly termed by Blatchford a "thieves' supper".

The institutional church never seriously attacked pauperism and frequently glorified it.

It never seriously attacked the social evil, but at times engaged in white slavery for the filthy lucre (as some Roman popes did).

The institutional church never seriously attacked injustice in any shape or form, but frequently covered it up by turning and twisting the Bible. It defended slavery, serfdom and modern exploitation of men by men. The institutional church always had two weights and two measures, two codes of morals. One rule of conduct for the toiling masses and another for the parasite classes. Quod licet Jovi non licet bovi. It preaches the virtues of slavery to the masseshumility, submission to the powers that be, contentment with a life of drudgery and want. To the powerful the church respectfully recommends the social lubricant of charity, equally demoralizing to the giver and the receiver.

The institutional church is not conservative-it is reactionary. Its dial always moves backward, its ideals and aspirations are in the past. It believes in human degeneration (fall of