James Mill, the Scottish Enlightenment and the Problem of Civil Religion
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the preeminence of manners over laws, but also collects Burkean quotes in support: “Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon them, in a great measure, the laws depend.”
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Hence Mill’s delight as he observes the slow but significant shift effected by public opinion in Britain in the past few decades. “Ecclesiastical Establishments” opens with a celebration of the “improving spirit of the age,” which first made it impossible to outlaw religious difference, and is making it increasingly difficult to maintain the discrimination established by the Test and Corporation acts. 118 Mill predicts their imminent downfall: “For protection against this spirit of persecution, strong and formidable to the present hour, we look to public opinion, daily approaching to the condition of a match for this once gigantic foe”. 119
Religious freedom, in Mill’s thinking, is central to religious progress, which is itself central to societal progress: this is why he assert that “in the destruction of religious freedom, that of all other freedom is involved.” 120
Mill was correctly assessing the changing public mood, as his predictions were realized by the end of the decade: the Test and Corporation acts were repealed in 1828, and Catholic emancipation followed with the Relief Act of 1829.
Mill's lifelong denunciation of the illiberality and hypocrisy of the Church of England, and his critique of ecclesiastical authority, are at the heart of his political thinking. Regardless of his personal beliefs, all commentators agree to see Mill’s anticlericalism and secularism (understood as “the liberating of religion from its capture as an engine of the state”) as a prominent theme running through all his political writings. 121 Hence the seemingly jarring nature of the message offered in one of his last published texts, “The Church and Its Reform” (1835), which advocated a utilitarian state religion. The text was written as an article for the second issue of the London Review. Mill’s commitment to utilitarianism had survived the end of his friendship with Bentham, and Bentham’s own death in 1832, and launching this “organ of philosophical radicalism”
117 Ibid.
118 Mill, “Ecclesiastical Establishments,” 530. 119 Ibid, 505. 120 Ibid, 541. 121 Grint, “James Mill’s Common Place Books,” 152. See also for instance Robert A. Fenn, James Mill’s Political Thought (London, 1987), 53. 28
occupied much of his final two years. 122 The first issue of the Review, published in April 1835, had opened with an article penned by Mill, which accused the Church of slowing the progress of reform through the “chains they had placed on the human mind.” In 1834 as in 1805 however, Mill exempted the Reformation from his criticism, hailing Luther as “the most heroic of the sons of men, and the greatest earthly benefactor, beyond compare, of the species to which he belonged.” 123
He promised a future article that would outline a path towards religious education and reform: since education and government had “the greatest effect in forming the minds of men,” he would explain how to create “a clergy so happily circumstanced as to have an interest in good education.” 124
True to his word, three months later Mill published the article “The Church and Its Reform”, which focused on the role of religion in “forming the minds of men.” In the article Mill laid out his vision for the next steps of religious progress and the advent of “true religion.” 125
The improved religion he described could not be expected to emerge naturally; rather it was to be imposed by a wise legislator, as a tool to drive progress forwards.
Assuredly, the best means of carrying on the moral culture of the people will not speedily present themselves to the people, if they are not aided; and if the influence of those whom they are always ready to follow is not employed to put them in the right path, and urge them forward in it. 126
The implication was that the many harmful effects of the Church of England were due to the nature of its organization and creed, rather than to its nature as a state religion. Once reformed, “the Church of England might be converted from an instrument of evil into an instrument of much good.” 127 A “well-ordered and well-conducted clergy” could render “a service of unspeakable importance,” in “raising the moral and intellectual character of the people.” 128
122 Mill, Autobiography, 154. 123 James Mill, “The State of the Nation,” The London Review 1/1 (1834): 8–9. 124 Ibid, 23. 125 Mill, “The Church, and Its Reform,” 295. 126 Ibid.
127 Ibid, 274. 128 Ibid, 258, 260. 29
Mill's plan of action comported two sides. One focused on the practical reorganization of ecclesiastical institutions and of worship, from the selection of well-educated and morally sound ministers by a Minister of Public Instruction, paid by the state “for teaching the people to live well,” to the use of dominical sermons for the scientific, political and practical education of the masses, including chemistry, health, and political economy, and including the invention of “social amusements” that would both improve the minds of participants and help to bind the community together. 129
central tenet was to become the assertion of the existence of an “Almighty Being of perfect wisdom and goodness.” According to Mill this was the most central of all religious notions, and “a matter of infinite importance,” because it placed human search for rational knowledge at the heart of religion. 130
It is according to the perfections of the Divine nature to approve in his rational creatures the love of truth. But the love of truth leads a man to search for evidence, and to place his belief on that side, whatsoever it be, on which the evidence appears to him to preponderate. 131
This allowed Mill to erase from religion “the atrocity of giving men inducements to make a belief, which they have not derived from evidence.” Instead “love of truth”, as enacted through the rational search for knowledge, was to become the central tenet of Mill's State religion. All peripheral tenets and institutional forms were dismissed as harmful superstition: Mill's vision for his reformed religion was that of a “church without dogmas and ceremonies,” whose universal central message and pared-down doctrine would spell the end of religious divisions and welcome all Christian creeds:
It would be truly a catholic church. Its ministers would be ministers of good, in the highest of all sense of the word, to men of all religious denominations. … This is the true idea of a State religion; and there is no other. It ought to be stripped of all which is separating; of all that divides men from one another; and to present a
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Ibid, 280. See Hume’s argument for a clergy salaried by the state, in a passage cited by Smith. Smith, Wealth of Nations, 1981, 2:791; Hume, The History of England, 3:136. 130
Mill, “The Church, and Its Reform,” 288, 267. 131
Ibid, 280–81. 30
point whereon, in the true spirit of reverence to the perfect being, and love to one another, they may all unite. 132
The role of the State was to provide to all its citizens this core, uncontroversial religion, which would preserve religious liberty by remaining compatible with all existing sects: 133
So long as there are men who think dogmas and ceremonies a necessary part of religion, those who agree about such dogmas and ceremonies may have their separate and respective institutions of their own providing, for their inculcation and performance. But this is extraneous to the provisions which alone it is proper for the State to make, and which ought to be so contrived as to embrace, if it were possible, the whole population. 134
Mill’s plan can be analyzed as an expanded and radicalized version of Smith’s argument that state-sponsored education and toleration would provide a path to “true religion”. Echoing both Smith’s account of competing religious sects and Hardy’s belief in people’s natural attraction towards simplicity, he predicted that such a state religion would give its members the tool to reject nefarious influences and unsound reasonings, and would eventually absorb all other religions:
All would belong to this church; and after a short time would belong to no other. Familiarized with the true worship of the Divine Being, they would throw off the pseudo worship, dogmas and ceremonies. This is the true plan for converting Dissenters. 135
Mill's plan for a utilitarian state religion was – rather unsurprisingly – not well received, and the article’s criticism of the Church damaged the circulation and reputation of the London Review. 136
It has been put aside by his commentators as an oddity, a late, out-of-
132 Ibid, 288. The emphasis is mine. 133 “There is no class of Christians, who could not join in the labours of love of one who was going about continually doing good; whose more solemn addresses to his assembled parishioners would never have any other object than to assimilate them more and more in heart and mind to Him who is the author of all good, and the perfection of wisdom and benevolence.” Ibid. 134
Ibid. 135
Ibid. 136
Bain, James Mill, 389. 31
character U-turn on his consistently anticlerical discourse. 137 Ball accurately describes Mill as a “practical theist,” in the sense that he took religious beliefs and their negative effects seriously, and believed they needed to be corrected by education. 138 What remains to be explained, however, is why Mill believed that a state church was the best way to provide such an education, or indeed the central assumption by Mill that religion could and should be used to shape politics and society. But here it has been argued that Mill’s final call for a “true religion” that would improve the manners of the masses was entirely consistent with his lifelong understanding of religion as a natural phenomenon, shaped by human psychology and the state of society, and in turn a major driving force of historical progress. The philosophical roots of “The Church, and Its Reform” can be identified as early as 1805. 139 Then, Mill’s attempts to publicize the Scottish and German narratives linking Protestantism to progress had already established that his interest in religion lay not in theological truths, but rather in its instrumental role in shaping the progress of society. Bentham’s utilitarian philosophy had later inflected this view towards an openly instrumental consideration of religion as one of the instruments available to the legislator to impose utilitarian progress. By the end of his life, Mill apparently decided it was time to widen the evangelical tactics he had always supported outside of Europe as a way to accelerate the natural progress of non- European societies. “The Church and Its Reform” was merely adapting these same tactics for Britain.
In the end, James Mill’s plan for a state religion rather defies classification. It was neither a classical defense of civil religion, nor a mere liberal call for toleration. His state religion was conceived (like Rousseau’s) as a way to educate citizens into using their critical faculties, but it was not about “virtue” (unless “virtue” is understood as “the proper use of one’s rational faculties”), and neither was it about republican ideas of social cohesion. It was purely about educating citizens in rational thinking and behavior, in the rationalist credo of utilitarianism.
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Ball acknowledges that “call for state-supported church and civil religion is at first sight surprising,” and credits Plato for inspiring the scheme. Ball, “The Survivor and the Savant,” 142. Interestingly, Mill’s first biographer Alexander Bain was most puzzled by Mill’s plan for “a religion of Natural Theism” in view of his well-known mastery of theology and biblical exegesis. Bain, James Mill, 388. 138 Ball, 153. 139 Grint also observes that some of the article’s points (especially on clerical salaries) were noted in Mill’s Common Place Books around 1813-1815. Grint, “James Mill’s Common Place Books,” 154.
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This was also far from a traditionally “liberal” way to approach the relationship between church and state. His defense of toleration was central to his political thinking, but it was grounded in social utility and his belief that religious plurality was a necessary condition for the improvement of religious ideas towards “true religion”. His state religion was compatible with religious freedom, but his clearly-stated ambition remained to attract all worshippers under the umbrella of his rationalist, utilitarian religion. This was, in some ways, less “liberal” that Montesquieu’s defense of Christianity as a perfectly serviceable civil religion: Montesquieu accepted the possibility that different societies may be better suited for different civil religions, while Mill saw Humean rational “true religion” as the answer to Rousseau’s search for a universal and perfect civil religion. 140
Of course, it is possible to argue that Mill’s state religion was in fact no religion at all, but rather an empty rhetorical device conceived as a Trojan horse for his agenda of rational education. There is certainly a good case to be made that Mill was only paying lip service to Christianity, and his state religion lacked even the transcendental faith in altruism that would later characterize Comte’s Religion of Humanity. 141 Nevertheless, Mill took religion seriously, in the sense that he believed that it was a natural tendency of the human mind, and one that needed to be channeled by the legislator for the good of society. His consistent interest in the question throughout his career suggest that he was entirely sincere when he argued that religion could reform manners and therefore accelerate social progress, and that this was an ability he genuinely wanted to harness. But it is certainly true that Mill represents an extreme limit to Montesquieuan and Humean attempts to apprehend religion as a natural phenomenon embedded in society, in his determined stance to look at religion purely from the perspective of social utility. Mill argued for an entirely rationalist and utilitarian approach to religion, which was one logical end point for this line of discourse. His claim to innovation was to advocate civil religion as a mere shell that would replicate the psychological effects of religious worship, but contain no actual transcendental faith and be purely rationalist in its assumptions and aims. One can see how this would have triggered anxieties in his son about the human need for a higher purpose in life. 142 Yet Mill was also indebted to a Moderate strand of Scottish enlightened thought that stressed the limitations of reason and the need for
140 In fact Rousseau even flirted with the idea that Protestantism could provide a satisfying civic religion. Beiner, Civil Religion, 31. 141
For parallels and differences between Mill’s civil religion and Comte’s, see Ball, “The Survivor and the Savant,” 150. 142 See Beiner’s assessment of JS Mill’s approach to religion as a cross between Hume’s (and the need to replace superstition with reason) and Tocqueville’s (and the need for religion to give depth and meaning to human life). Beiner, Civil Religion, 267. 33
Revelation: the Scottish Enlightenment inspired Mill’s rationalist perspective not because it dismissed religion, but rather because it analyzed religious feeling as a natural phenomenon that was also a force driving the progress of society. Perhaps strangely, it was not only through Smith’s stadial history, but also through Robertson’s natural providentialism and Stewart’s Christian moral philosophy that Hume’s skeptical approach to religion was reinterpreted to inform the democratic, rationalist and secular discourse of nineteenth-century utilitarian radicalism. Yüklə 438,97 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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