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第32章

a treatise on parents and children(父母与子女专题研究)-第32章


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matter。     The sort of Rationalism which says to a child 〃You must suspend 

your     judgment      until  you    are  old   enough     to   choose    your    religion〃    is 

Rationalism gone mad。            The child must have a conscience and a code of 

honor (which is the essence of religion) even if it be only a provisional one; 

to be revised at its confirmation。 For confirmation is meant to signalize a 

spiritual   coming   of   age;   and   may  be   a   repudiation。      Really  active   souls 

have many confirmations and repudiations as their life deepens and their 

knowledge        widens。      But    what    is  to   guide    the   child   before    its  first 

confirmation?        Not mere orders; because orders must have a sanction of 

some   sort   or   why  should   the   child   obey  them?        If;   as   a   Secularist;   you 

refuse to teach any sanction; you must say 〃You will be punished if you 

disobey。〃      〃Yes;〃 says the child to itself; 〃if I am found out; but wait until 

your back is turned and I will do as I like; and lie about it。〃                 There can be 

no   objective   punishment   for   successful   fraud;   and   as   no   espionage   can 

cover   the   whole   range   of   a   child's   conduct;   the   upshot   is   that   the   child 

becomes a liar and schemer with an atrophied conscience。                        And a good 

many      of  the   orders    given    to  it  are   not   obeyed     after  all。   Thus     the 

Secularist who is not a fool is forced to appeal to the child's vital impulse 

towards perfection; to the divine spark; and no resolution not to call this 

impulse   an   impulse   of   loyalty   to   the   Fellowship   of   the   Holy   Ghost;   or 

obedience to the Will of God; or any other standard theological term; can 

alter   the   fact   that   the   Secularist   has   stepped   outside   Secularism   and   is 

educating the child religiously; even if he insists on repudiating that pious 

adverb and substituting the word metaphysically。 



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                        A TREATISE ON PARENTS AND CHILDREN 



            Natural Selection as a Religion 



     We must make up our minds to it therefore that whatever measures we 

may be forced to take to prevent the recruiting sergeants of the Churches; 

free or established; from obtaining an exclusive right of entry to schools; 

we shall not be able to exclude religion from them。 The most horrible of 

all   religions:    that   which   teaches   us   to   regard   ourselves   as   the   helpless 

prey of a series of senseless accidents called Natural Selection; is allowed 

and even welcomed in so…called secular schools because it is; in a sense; 

the negation of all religion; but for school purposes a religion is a belief 

which   affects   conduct;   and   no   belief   affects   conduct   more   radically   and 

often so disastrously as the belief that the universe is a product of Natural 

Selection。      What is more; the theory of Natural Selection cannot be kept 

out   of   schools;   because   many   of   the   natural   facts   that   present   the   most 

plausible appearance of design can be accounted for by Natural Selection; 

and   it   would   be   so   absurd   to   keep   a   child   in   delusive   ignorance   of   so 

potent   a   factor   in   evolution   as   to   keep   it   in   ignorance   of   radiation   or 

capillary   attraction。      Even   if   you   make   a   religion   of   Natural   Selection; 

and     teach   the   child    to  regard    itself  as   the  irresponsible      prey   of   its 

circumstances and appetites (or its heredity as you will perhaps call them); 

you     will  none    the   less  find   that   its  appetites   are   stimulated     by   your 

encouragement          and   daunted     by   your    discouragement;       that   one   of   its 

appetites is an appetite for perfection; that if you discourage this appetite 

and encourage the cruder acquisitive appetites the child will steal and lie 

and     be  a  nuisance     to  you;    and   that  if  you   encourage      its  appetite   for 

perfection   and   teach   it   to   attach   a   peculiar   sacredness   to   it   and   place   it 

before the other appetites; it will be a much nicer child and you will have a 

much easier job; at which point you will; in spite of your pseudoscientific 

jargon; find yourself back in the old…fashioned religious teaching as deep 

as Dr。 Watts and in fact fathoms deeper。 



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                       A TREATISE ON PARENTS AND CHILDREN 



                Moral Instruction Leagues 



     And now  the voices of our   Moral Instruction  Leagues will be lifted; 

asking whether there is any reason why the appetite for perfection should 

not be cultivated in rationally scientific terms instead of being associated 

with the story of Jonah and the great fish and the thousand other tales that 

grow up round religions。          Yes:    there are many reasons; and one of them 

is that children all like the story of Jonah and the whale (they insist on its 

being a whale in spite of demonstrations by Bible smashers without any 

sense of humor that Jonah would not have fitted into a whale's gulletas if 

the story would be credible of a whale with an enlarged throat) and that no 

child   on   earth   can   stand   moral   instruction   books   or   catechisms   or   any 

other statement of the case for religion in abstract terms。              The object of a 

moral instruction book is not to be rational; scientific; exact; proof against 

controversy; nor even credible:          its object is to make children good; and if 

it makes them sick instead its place is the waste…paper basket。 

     Take   for   an   illustration   the   story   of   Elisha   and   the   bears。 To   the 

authors of the moral instruction books it is in the last degree reprehensible。 

It is obviously not true as a record of fact; and the picture it gives us of the 

temper of God (which is what interests an adult reader) is shocking and 

blasphemous。        But   it   is   a   capital   story   for   a   child。 It   interests   a   child 

because it is about bears; and it leaves the child with an impression that 

children who poke fun at old gentlemen and make rude remarks about bald 

heads   are   not nice   children;  which   is   a   highly  desirable   impression;   and 

just as much as a child is capable of receiving from the story。                   When a 

story is about God and a child; children take God for granted and criticize 

the    child。   Adults    do   the  opposite;    and   are  thereby    led   to  talk  great 

nonsense about the bad effect of Bible stories on infants。 

     But let no one think that a child or anyone else can learn religion from 

a teacher or a book or by any academic process whatever。                    It is only by 

an unfettered access to the whole body of Fine Art:                that is; to the whole 

body     of  inspired    revelation;   that  we    can  build   up   that  conception     of 

divinity to which all virtue is an aspiration。          And to hope to find this body 

of art purified from all that is obsolete or dangerous or fierce or lusty; or to 



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pick and choose what will be good for any particular child; much less for 

all children; is the shallowest of vanities。           Such schoolmasterly selection 

is   neither   possible    nor  desirable。     Ignorance      of  evil  is  not  virtue   but 

imbecility:      admiring it is like giving a prize for honesty to a man who 

has not stolen your watch because he did not know you had one。 Virtue 

chooses good from evil; and without knowledge there can be no cho

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