Devout Observances
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 chôme 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.