The Religion of Nature (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

By E. Kay Robinson

Published in 1906, this study attempts to understand the human misinterpretation of animals—asking if there really is a difference between consciousness and sensation. Controversial in its day, the book had many critics whom Robinson was called upon to publish responses to in T. P’s Weekly. He begins the book, “My object is not to preach, but to prove on logical and scientific grounds . . . that man has inherited the spirit of God and will return to God.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Nov 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781411461031

Book preview

THE RELIGION OF NATURE

E. KAY ROBINSON

This 2011 edition published by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

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ISBN: 978-1-4114-6103-1

PREFACE

IN this little book my object is not to preach, but to prove on logical and scientific grounds, and in language which all can understand, that man has inherited the spirit of God and will return to God.

In my earliest childhood I was entrusted, during the absence of my parents in India, to the care of a Scotch clergyman of the severest school. His sermons and his moral exhortations were, so far as my memory serves, all of the gloomiest and most terrifying kind. The end of the world and the commencement of unending torment were always in my mind—at the age of five—as probable occurrences of every day.

My very earliest recollection of nature and wild life is bound up with this haunting dread. I was in the garden one day when a wild duck flew by. I had never seen one before; and, with its neck stretched out in front and no tail to speak of behind, I mistook one end of the bird for the other, and thought it was flying tail-first.

I vividly experience even now the hot-cold rush of thought into my amazed mind: A bird flying backwards! The impossible coming to pass! The end of the world! I rushed indoors and upstairs, and hid under my cot in terror. Such is the state of nerves to which too much religion of the frightening kind can reduce a child of five.

Removed to home surroundings by the return of my mother from India, the end of the world and my own certain damnation were still my terrors in the night; and by day I must have been rather a terror to my seniors with my constant efforts to get some light on the subject. They could not solve my difficulties; so they put me off by saying that we must believe without questioning.

When I grew older, the problem—of course, an old one—presented itself: Why is it wicked to ask questions? We have been given reasoning power by God: and one could understand that it might be wicked to refuse to use God's gift. But how can it be wicked to use this in relation to the most important fact of existence, namely, the future of one's soul?

So I tried to reason the thing out: but the more I tried the more wrong and cruel everything seemed to be.

But that was only because the reasoning did not go quite far enough. By slow degrees I worked out the problem; and now I find myself possessed of a faith the chief beauty and value of which—to my mind—lies in the fact that it brings religion and science into harmony.

It is no longer wicked to ask questions and to seek the truth. The more you ask the more truth you find.

CONTENTS

I. MAN AND OTHER ANIMALS

II. INSTINCT AND REASON

III. THE REALM OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

IV. ACTIONS OF ANIMALS EXPLAINED

V. SOME POPULAR ERRORS

VI. THE RISE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

VII. GOD IN MAN

VIII. ANATOMY NO GUIDE

IX. AUTHORITIES IN SUPPORT

X. CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

XI. CONCLUSION

CHAPTER I

MAN AND OTHER ANIMALS

A Freethinker's Challenge—Cruelty of Nature—The Human Point of View—Man's Unconsciousness in Peril—Hypnotic Unconsciousness—Parallel of the Telegraph Office—Flagellants and Devotees—Meaning of Sensation—Why Animals are Spared Pain—Man as a Hunting Animal—Man as a Person.

IN the following pages I hope to bring home to all readers the truth of the views which have brought comfort and complete satisfaction to myself.

For more than a score of years the problem of the apparent cruelty of the world was daily in my mind. Nature in almost all its details seemed to undermine the very basis of religion; but gradually I came to see the very truth, and now I find nature to be the bed-rock of true religion, insomuch that the future of the human soul itself—as taught by religion—is only the crown of natural evolution.

I should probably not, however, have ventured to put my views in detail into print, but for an accident.

A little while ago A Freethinker whose name, if published, would surprise most of my readers—was good enough to write to me that he had been struck by the confident religious note which seemed to inspire some of my writings, and he wanted to know how I could reconcile the study of nature with belief in religion.

As a very able controversialist he allowed me, in reply, to sum up his closely typewritten pages in the sentence that nature as we see it—from the human point of view—appears intensely cruel and, therefore, incompatible with the theory of the existence of a merciful God.

This has, indeed, been a great stumbling-block to many good men.

But, the apparent cruelty of nature having been granted—for, indeed, the seeming atrocities which are commonplaces in nature are often almost too horrid to be described in print—I was able to point out that the whole significance of the facts lies in the words from the human point of view—for, of course, we cannot look at nature from any point of view but our own.

Now, the human point of view is that of a conscious personality, a being who feels that he has an individual existence apart from his body, and who has the power of contemplating and considering the injuries which his body may suffer, translating them into terms of conscious pain. This translation is almost instantaneous, so that we do not as a rule recognize any connecting link between the two things. When a wasp stings your hand, you start and you probably cry out, at the same time feeling pain.

Indeed, looking back upon this incident, you ordinarily suppose that the reason why you started and cried out was that you consciously felt the pain; and this mistake—for it is a mistake—leads you into the further error of supposing that a dog who similarly jumped and yelped in the same circumstances consciously felt the pain in exactly the same way.

Indeed, it is very hard to realize the distinction between mental consciousness and bodily sensation, or the great difference which may separate other animals' feelings from ours. We have never been in the habit of supposing that there was any distinction or difference, because all our ideas about pain and suffering and the words in which we express them are based on the notion that the feeling of pain is necessarily conscious and inseparable from the suffering of injury. We get just a glimpse of the separation between them, however, in cases of urgent peril or desperate struggle.

Everyone who has been in sudden deadly peril or has fought hard for his life is surprised afterwards to recollect that he was conscious of no fear and felt no pain from wounds at the time. This is owing to the fact that in the terrible shock of mortal combat the conscious personality who rules every man's thoughts and actions—except such thoughts and actions as are automatic, like those of other animals—is temporarily unseated from his throne, and for the moment man is an animal fighting instinctively for self-preservation.

At such times, even a civilized man will fix his teeth like lightning in the exposed throat of his adversary and unconsciously worry it like a wolf, unheeding meanwhile the wounds which are being inflicted upon himself.

When the struggle is over, his instinctive actions may still be the same as those of any other animal in like case; but the conscious human being reasserts his sovereignty in the feeling of sick horror at the fearful experience gone through and glad gratefulness that the peril has been passed.

Other animals, I hold, are spared the horror and denied the gladness; they are consciously neither happier nor unhappier for the experience, and the character of their subsequent actions is modified in no way by those strong waves of feeling which agitate the man when he thinks of the incident.

In this connection I would quote some lines by Kipling, which throw the flashlight of genius on the subject. He is describing one of those sudden panics to which even British troops are liable, and he makes one of the fugitive soldiers say:

"Till I 'eard a beggar squealin' out for quarter as he ran:

An' I thought I knew the voice—an' it was me!"

No one can fail to be struck by the absolute, inexorable truth of the picture of the soldier automatically fleeing for his life and automatically calling out for mercy as he did so, just as a frightened dog would run and yelp; while the conscious human being in the soldier's body was in complete ignorance, as it were, of his proceedings—until he recognized his own voice!

Now, this admirably illustrates the point which I wish to make clear; namely, that our own behavior in moments of terrible crisis enables us to catch just a glimpse of the distinction between the conscious human being and his animal self. It is only at such times that the shock, as it were, throws human consciousness out of gear, and for a moment we see man acting by instinct only like any other animal.

If Kipling's soldier had been shot