It is by observing the frequency and emphasis with which certain views and expressions occur and reoccur in an author, and the consistency with which they are given the preference, that we may be able to generalize as to his philosophy or religion. As Shakespeare's works are neither a treatise on theology nor a manual of philosophy, our only means of discovering his attitude toward the problems of life and destiny is by reading, as it were, between the lines.
A great mind can neither sophisticate nor suppress its earnest convictions. This does not mean that anyone with earnest convictions must necessarily be a propagandist. To think and to let think, represents a state of mind which is entirely consistent, both with enthusiasm and toleration, if not with proselytism. We believe that Shakespeare has unmistakably expressed himself on the subject of religion, as he has on that of patriotism, for instance, but without any missionary zeal, which fact has led not a few students of his works to the conclusion that of all the great poets Shakespeare is the only one without a religion.
Green, in his Short History of England, writes, that "It is difficult to say whether Shakespeare had any religious faith or no." But this is not a fair way of stating the problem. If by "religious faith" Green means the Anglican, the Presbyterian, or the Unitarian faith, then it is true that we do not know to which of these he nominally belonged, and it does not much matter. But if he means that we have no means of knowing whether or not he accepted the Christian or any other supernatural interpretation of the Universe, the allegation is not true, so far as we are able to judge. It is difficult to read any one of Shakespeare's tragedies without perceiving that its author is an anti-supernaturalist. In Shakespeare this world is all there is, and it is what men have made it. It is in terms of naturalism, pure and simple, that Shakespeare states the problem of human existence.
It is no objection to this to say that there are ghosts, witches, and apparitions on his stage, and that therefore he was a believer in the supernatural. We must not confound the machinery of the stage with the stage-master. Even Hamlet, when he exclaims that he sees his dead father and Horatio asks him "Where?" answers: "In my mind's eye;" which shows how little the appurtenances of the theatre of those times affected the atmosphere of the author's mind. This same Hamlet who in popular parlance has beheld his dead father revisit the glimpses of the moon, declares in the language of his own sober thought, that the beyond is an "undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns." And if Macbeth, unlike Hamlet, puts faith in the supernatural, he does so to his own hurt. But even Macbeth recovers his senses sufficiently to exclaim:
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,