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pagan and christian creeds-第37章

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very wisewiser than he knewfor in attempting to drive out Sex (which of course he could not do) he entered into a conflict which was bound to end in the expulsion of SOMETHING; and that something was the domination; within himself; of self…consciousness; the very thing which makes and ever has made sex detestable。 Man did not succeed in driving the snake out of the Garden; but he drove himself out; taking the real old serpent of self…greed and self… gratification with him。 When some day he returns to Paradise this latter will have died in his bosom and been cast away; but he will find the good Snake there as of old; full of healing and friendliness; among the branches of the Tree of Life。

Besides it is evident from other considerations that this moment of the denial of sex HAD to come。 When one thinks of the enormous power of this passion; and its age…long; hold upon the human race; one realizes that once liberated from the instinctive bonds of nature; and backed by a self…conscious and self…seeking human intelligence it was on the way to become a fearful curse。

  A monstrous Eft was of old the Lord and Master of Earth;   For him did his high sun flame; and his river billowing ran。

And this may have been all very well and appropriate in the carboniferous Epoch; but WE in the end of Time have no desire to fall under any such preposterous domination; or to return to the primal swamps from which organic nature has so slowly and painfully emerged。

I say it was the entry of self…consciousness into the sphere of Sex; and the consequent use of the latter for private ends; which poisoned this great race…power at its root。 For above all; Sex; as representing through Childbirth the life of the Race (or of the Tribe; or; if you like; of Humanity at large) should be sacred and guarded from merely selfish aims; and therefore to use it only for such aims is indeed a desecration。 And even ifas some maintain and I think rightly'1'sex is not MERELY for child…birth and physical procreation; but for mutual vitalizing and invigoration; it still subserves union and not egotism; and to use it egotistically is to commit the sin of Separation indeed。 It is to cast away and corrupt the very bond of life and fellowship。 The ancient peoples at any rate threw an illumination of religious (that is; of communal and public) value over sex…acts; and to a great extent made them into matters either of Temple…ritual and the worship of the gods; or of communal and pandemic celebration; as in the Saturnalia and other similar festivals。 We have certainly no right to regard these celebrationsof either kindas insincere。 They were; at any rate in their inception; genuinely religious or genuinely social and festal; and from either point of view they were far better than the secrecy of private indulgence which characterizes our modern world in these matters。 The thorough and shameless commercialism of Sex has alas! been reserved for what is called 〃Christian civilization;〃 and with it (perhaps as a necessary consequence) Prostitution and Syphilis have grown into appalling evils; accompanied by a gigantic degradation of social standards; and upgrowth of petty Philistinism and niaiserie。 Love; in fact; having in this modern world…movement been denied; and its natural manifestations affected with a sense of guilt and of sin; has really languished and ceased to play its natural part in life; and a vast number of peopleboth men and women; finding themselves barred or derailed from the main object of existence; have turned their energies to 'business' or 'money…making' or 'social advancement' or something equally futile; as the only poor substitute and pis aller open to them。

'1' See Havelock Ellis; The Objects of Marriage; a pamphlet published by the 〃British Society for the Study of Sex…psychology。〃


Why (again we ask) did Christianity make this apparently great mistake? And again we must reply: Perhaps the mistake was not so great as it appears to be。 Perhaps this was another case of the necessity of learning by loss。 Love had to be denied; in the form of sex; in order that it might thus the better learn its own true values and needs。 Sex had to be rejected; or defiled with the sense of guilt and self… seeking; in order that having cast out its defilement it might return one day; transformed in the embrace of love。 The whole process has had a deep and strange world… significance。 It has led to an immensely long period of suppressionsuppression of two great instinctsthe physical instinct of sex and the emotional instinct of love。 Two things which should naturally be conjoined have been separated; and both have suffered。 And we know from the Freudian teachings what suppressions in the root…instincts necessarily mean。 We know that they inevitably terminate in diseases and distortions of proper action; either in the body or in the mind; or in both; and that these evils can only be cured by the liberation of the said instincts again to their proper expression and harmonious functioning in the whole organism。 No wonder then that; with this agelong suppression (necessary in a sense though it may have been) which marks the Christian dispensation; there should have been associated endless Sickness and Crime and sordid Poverty; the Crucifixion of animals in the name of Science and of human workers in the name of Wealth; and wars and horrors innumerable! Hercules writhing in the Nessus…shirt or Prometheus nailed to the rocks are only as figures of a toy miniature compared with this vision of the great and divine Spirit of Man caught in the clutches of those dread Diseases which through the centuries have been eating into his very heart and vitals。

It would not be fair to pile on the Christian Church the blame for all this。 It had; no doubt; its part to play in the whole great scheme; namely; to accentuate the self…motive; and it played the part very thoroughly and successfully。 For it must be remembered (what I have again and again insisted on) that in the pagan cults it was always the salvation of the CLAN; the TRIBE; the people that was the main consideration; the advantage of the individual took only a very secondary part。 But in Christendomafter the communal enthusiasms of apostolic days and of the medieval and monastic brotherhoods and sisterhoods had died downreligion occupied itself more and more with each man or woman's INDIVIDUAL salvation; regardless of what might happen to the community; till; with the rise of Protestantism and Puritanism; this tendency reached such an extreme that; as some one has said; each man was absorbed in polishing up his own little soul in a corner to himself; in entire disregard to the damnation which might come to his neighbor。 Religion; and Morality too; under the commercial regime became; as was natural; perfectly selfish。 It was always: 〃Am _I_ saved? Am _I_ doing the right thing? Am _I_ winning the favor of God and man? Will my claims to salvation be allowed? Did _I_ make a good bargain in allowing Jesus to be crucified for me?〃 The poison of a diseased self…consciousness entered into the whole human system。

As I say; one must not blame the Christians too much for all thispartly because; AFTER the communal periods which I have just mentioned; Christianity was evidently deeply influenced by the rise of COMMERCIALISM; to which during the last two centuries it has so carefully and piously adapted itself; and partly becauseif our view is anywhere near rightthis microbial injection of self…consciousness was just the necessary work which (in conjunction with commercialism) it HAD to perform。 But though one does not blame Christianity one cannot blind oneself to its defects the defects necessarily arising from the part it had to play。 When one compares a healthy Pagan ritualsay of Apollo or Dionysusincluding its rude and crude sacrifices if you like; but also including its whole…hearted spontaneity and dedication to the common life and welfarewith the morbid self…introspection of the Christian and the eternally recurring question 〃What shall I do to be saved?〃the comparison is not favorable to the latter。 There is (at any rate in modern days) a mawkish milk…and…wateriness about the Christian attitude; and also a painful self… consciousness; which is not pleasant; and though Nietzsche's blonde beast is a sufficiently disagreeable animal; one almost thinks that it were better to be THAT than to go about with one's head meekly hanging on one side; and talking always of altruism and self…sacrifice; while in reality one's heart was entirely occupied with the question of one's own salvation。 There is besides a lamentable want of grit and substance about the Christian doctrines and ceremonials。 Somehow under the sex…taboo they became spiritualized and etherealized out of all human use。 Study the initiation…rites of any savage tribewith their strict discipline of the young braves in fortitude; and the overcoming of pain and fear; with their very detailed lessons in the arts of war and life and the duties of the grown man to his tribe; and with their quite practical instruction in matters of Sex; and then read our little Baptismal and Confirmation services; which ought to correspond thereto。 How thin and attenuated and weak the latter appear! O
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