The climax of civilisation / by Correa Moylan Walsh.

  • Correa Moylan Walsh
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The climax of civilisation / by Correa Moylan Walsh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a part: must attend regularly, must do homage, must disclose their doings and desires,— all avowedly to the god, through the interposition only of the priest. To save from impending ills is the principal object,— from ills in this world first, but also from ills imagined in another. The priesthood lives on fees, and on landed property put in its possession; and it lives well. But as the people become enlightened and find that the services they are paying for are not rendered as unfail- ingly as they now can get them from others, cures being more frequently effected by physicians, and battles more surely won by machinery, the oracles become dumb and miracles cease, except in remote regions or secluded spots, among peas- ants dwelling in villages (pag) or on heaths — pagans or heathen. The priesthood is despoiled of its land, its numbers are reduced, and its support is taken over by the state or by the people, the pay-system being introduced also here, and the priest serving those from whom he gets his salary. For this is the period of the supremacy of money, and the owners of wealth, having present enjoyments, are thoughtless of un- seen ills, and the seekers after it are hard-headed and critical, demanding results and paying close attention to causes and effects.2° The priest now becomes a mere preacher, provid- ing the instruction and consolation which the rulers desire for the people or the people desire for one another. His rivals are the philosophers or scientists, who offer other instruction and other hopes, and also the politicians, who create other dis- traction, and especially the actors and singers, who furnish other entertainment. The clergy must likewise aim at effect and look for new objects of interest. The old central author- ity being removed and the new one careless, numerous sects are formed by division from the overgrown body of the old religion. Also religions of other countries are imported as exciting novelties, and everywhere strange fanes are erected. Even devotion must now cater to the emotions of women. Dissipation occurs of religious as of other forces. But when, in the general disintegration and the approach to misery, all these things must pass off the scene, and the world becomes serious again, and men again take charge of it, then appeal is once more made to powers other than human, and either 20Cf. B. Adams, op. cét., 105, 119, 129, 153, 186, 211, 217.