humanity's gain from unbelief by charles bradlaugh [reprinted from the "north american review" of march, 1889.] london freethought publishing company, 1889. humanity's gain from unbelief. as an unbeliever, i ask leave to plead that humanity has been real gainer from scepticism, and that the gradual and growing rejection of christianity--like the rejection of the faiths which preceded it--has in fact added, and will add, to man's happiness and well being. i maintain that in physics science is the outcome of scepticism, and that general progress is impossible without scepticism on matters of religion. i mean by religion every form of belief which accepts or asserts the supernatural. i write as a monist, and use the word "nature" as meaning all phenomena, every phænomenon, all that is necessary for the happening of any and every phænomenon. every religion is constantly changing, and at any given time is the measure of the civilisation attained by what guizot described as the _juste milieu_ of those who profess it. each religion is slowly but certainly modified in its dogma and practice by the gradual development of the peoples amongst whom it is professed. each discovery destroys in whole or part some theretofore cherished belief. no religion is suddenly rejected by any people; it is rather gradually out-grown. none see a religion die; dead religions are like dead languages and obsolete customs; the decay is long and--like the glacier march--is only perceptible to the careful watcher by comparisons extending over long periods. a superseded religion may often be traced in the festivals, ceremonies, and dogmas of the religion which has replaced it. traces of obsolete religions may often be found in popular customs, in old wives' stories, and in children's tales. it is necessary, in order that my plea should be understood, that i should explain what i mean by christianity; and in the very attempt at this explanation there will, i think, be found strong illustration of the value of unbelief. christianity in practice may be gathered from its more ancient forms, represented by the roman catholic and the greek churches, or from the various churches which have grown up in the last few centuries. each of these churches calls itself christian. some of them deny the right of the others to use the word christian. some christian churches treat, or have treated, other christian churches as heretics or unbelievers. the roman catholics and the protestants in great britain and ireland have in turn been terribly cruel one to the other; and the ferocious laws of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, enacted by the english protestants against english and irish papists, are a disgrace to civilisation. these penal laws, enduring longest in ireland, still bear fruit in much of the political mischief and agrarian crime of to-day. it is only the tolerant indifference of scepticism that, one after the other, has repealed most of the laws directed by the established christian church against papists and dissenters, and also against jews and heretics. church of england clergymen have in the past gone to great lengths in denouncing nonconformity; and even in the present day an effective sample of such denunciatory bigotry may be found in a sort of orthodox catechism written by the rev. f. a. gace, of great barling, essex, the popularity of which is vouched by the fact that it has gone through ten editions. this catechism for little children teaches that "dissent is a great sin", and that dissenters "worship god according to their own evil and corrupt imaginations, and not according to his revealed will, and therefore their worship is idolatrous". church of england christians and dissenting christians, when fraternising amongst themselves, often publicly draw the line at unitarians, and positively deny that these have any sort of right to call themselves christians. in the first half of the seventeenth century quakers were flogged and imprisoned in england as blasphemers; and the early christian settlers in new england, escaping from the persecution of old world christians, showed scant mercy to the followers of fox and penn. it is customary, in controversy, for those advocating the claims of christianity, to include all good done by men in nominally christian countries as if such good were the result of christianity, while they contend that the evil which exists prevails in spite of christianity. i shall try to make out that the ameliorating march of the last few centuries has been initiated by the heretics of each age, though i quite concede that the men and women denounced and persecuted as infidels by the pious of one century, are frequently claimed as saints by the pious of a later generation. what then is christianity? as a system or scheme of doctrine, christianity may, i submit, not unfairly be gathered from the old and new testaments. it is true that some christians to-day desire to escape from submission to portions, at any rate, of the old testament; but this very tendency seems to me to be part of the result of the beneficial heresy for which i am pleading. man's humanity has revolted against old testament barbarism; and therefore he has attempted to disassociate the old testament from christianity. unless old and new testaments are accepted as god's revelation to man, christianity has no higher claim than any other of the world's many religions, if no such claim can be made out for it apart from the bible. and though it is quite true that some who deem themselves christians put the old testament completely in the background, this is, i allege, because they are out-growing their christianity. without the doctrine of the atoning sacrifice of jesus, christianity, as a religion, is naught; but unless the story of adam's fall is accepted, the redemption from the consequences of that fall cannot be believed. both in great britain and in the united states the old and new testaments are forced on the people as part of christianity; for it is blasphemy at common law to deny the scriptures of the old and new testaments to be of divine authority; and such denial is punishable with fine and imprisonment, or even worse. the rejection of christianity intended throughout this paper, is therefore the rejection of the old and new testaments as being of divine revelation. it is the rejection alike of the authorised teachings of the church of rome and of the church of england, as these may be found in the bible, the creeds, the encyclicals, the prayer book, the canons and homilies of either or both of these churches. it is the rejection of the christianity of luther, of calvin, and of wesley. a ground frequently taken by christian theologians is that the progress and civilisation of the world are due to christianity; and the discussion is complicated by the fact that many eminent servants of humanity have been nominal christians, of one or other of the sects. my allegation will be that the special services rendered to human progress by these exceptional men, have not been in consequence of their adhesion to christianity, but in spite of it; and that the specific points of advantage to human kind have been in ratio of their direct opposition to precise biblical enactments. a. s. farrar says (1) that christianity "asserts authority over religious belief in virtue of being a supernatural communication from god, and claims the right to control human thought in virtue of possessing sacred books, which are at once the record and the instrument of the communication, written by men endowed with supernatural inspiration". 1 farrar's "critical history of freethought". unbelievers refuse to submit to the asserted authority, and deny this claim of control over human thought: they allege that every effort at freethinking must provoke sturdier thought. take one clear gain to humanity consequent on unbelief, i.e. in the abolition of slavery in some countries, in the abolition of the slave trade in most civilised countries, and in the tendency to its total abolition. i am unaware of any religion in the world which in the past forbade slavery. the professors of christianity for ages supported it; the old testament repeatedly sanctioned it by special laws; the new testament has no repealing declaration. though we are at the close of the nineteenth century of the christian era, it is only during the past three-quarters of a century that the battle for freedom has been gradually won. it is scarcely a quarter of a century since the famous emancipation amendment was carried to the united states constitution. and it is impossible for any well-informed christian to deny that the abolition movement in north america was most steadily and bitterly opposed by the religious bodies in the various states. henry wilson, in his "rise and fall of the slave power in america"; samuel j. may, in his "recollections of the anti-slavery conflict"; and j. greenleaf whittier, in his poems, alike are witnesses that the bible and pulpit, the church and its great influence, were used against abolition and in favor of the slaveowner. i know that christians in the present day often declare that christianity had a large share in bringing about the abolition of slavery, and this because men professing christianity were abolitionists. i plead that these so-called christian abolitionists were men and women whose humanity, recognising freedom for all, was in this in direct conflict with christianity. it is not yet fifty years since the european christian powers jointly agreed to abolish the slave trade. what of the effect of christianity on these powers in the centuries which had preceded? the heretic condorcet pleaded powerfully for freedom whilst christian france was still slave-holding. for many centuries christian spain and christian portugal held slaves. porto rico freedom is not of long date; and cuban emancipation is even yet newer. it was a christian king, charles 5th, and a christian friar, who founded in spanish america the slave trade between the old world and the new. for some 1800 years, almost, christians kept slaves, bought slaves, sold slaves, bred slaves, stole slaves. pious bristol and godly liverpool less than 100 years ago openly grew rich on the traffic. daring the ninth century week christians sold slaves to the saracens. in the eleventh century prostitutes were publicly sold as slaves in rome, and the profit went to the church. it is said that william wilberforce, the abolitionist, was a christian. but at any rate his christianity was strongly diluted with unbelief. as an abolitionist he did not believe leviticus xxv, 44-6; he must have rejected exodus xxi, 2-6; he could not have accepted the many permissions and injunctions by the bible deity to his chosen people to capture and hold slaves. in the house of commons on 18th february, 1796, wilberforce reminded that christian assembly that infidel and anarchic france had given liberty to the africans, whilst christian and monarchic england was "obstinately continuing a system of cruelty and injustice". wilberforce, whilst advocating the abolition of slavery, found the whole influence of the english court, and the great weight of the episcopal bench, against him. george iii, a most christian king, regarded abolition theories with abhorrence, and the christian house of lords was utterly opposed to granting freedom to the slave. when christian missionaries some sixty-two years ago preached to demerara negroes under the rule of christian england, they were treated by christian judges, holding commission from christian england, as criminals for so preaching. a christian commissioned officer, member of the established church of england, signed the auction notices for the sale of slaves as late as the year 1824. in the evidence before a christian court-martial, a missionary is charged with having tended to make the negroes dissatisfied with their condition as slaves, and with having promoted discontent and dissatisfaction amongst the slaves against their lawful masters. for this the christian judges sentenced the demerara abolitionist missionary to be hanged by the neck till he was dead. the judges belonged to the established church; the missionary was a methodist. in this the church of england christians in demerara were no worse than christians of other sects: their roman catholic christian brethren in st. domingo fiercely attacked the jesuits as criminals because they treated negroes as though they were men and women, in encouraging "two slaves to separate their interest and safety from that of the gang", whilst orthodox christians let them couple promiscuously and breed for the benefit of their owners like any other of their plantation cattle. in 1823 the _royal gazette_ (christian) of demerara said: "we shall not suffer you to enlighten our slaves, who are by law our property, till you can demonstrate that when they are made religious and knowing they will continue to be our slaves." when william lloyd garrison, the pure-minded and most earnest abolitionist, delivered his first anti-slavery address in boston, massachusetts, the only building he could obtain, in which to speak, was the infidel hall owned by abner kneeland, the "infidel" editor of the _boston investigatory_ who had been sent to gaol for blasphemy. every christian sect had in turn refused mr. lloyd garrison the use of the buildings they severally controlled. lloyd garrison told me himself how honored deacons of a christian church joined in an actual attempt to hang him. when abolition was advocated in the united states in 1790, the representative from south carolina was able to plead that the southern clergy "did not condemn either slavery or the slave trade"; and mr. jackson, the representative from georgia, pleaded that "from genesis to revelation" the current was favorable to slavery. elias hicks, the brave abolitionist quaker, was denounced as an atheist, and less than twenty years ago a hicksite quaker was expelled from one of the southern american legislatures, because of the reputed irreligion of these abolitionist "friends". when the fugitive slave law was under discussion in north america, large numbers of clergymen of nearly every denomination were found ready to defend this infamous law. samuel james may, the famous abolitionist, was driven from the pulpit as irreligious, solely because of his attacks on slaveholding. northern clergymen tried to induce "silver tongued" wendell philips to abandon his advocacy of abolition. southern pulpits rang with praises for the murderous attack on charles sumner. the slayers of elijah lovejoy were highly reputed christian men. guizot, notwithstanding that he tries to claim that the church exerted its influence to restrain slavery, says ("european civilisation", vol. i., p. 110): "it has often been repeated that the abolition of slavery among modern people is entirely due to christians. that, i think, is saying too much. slavery existed for a long period in the heart of christian society, without its being particularly astonished or irritated. a multitude of causes, and a great development in other ideas and principles of civilisation, were necessary for the abolition of this iniquity of all iniquities." and my contention is that this "development in other ideas and principles of civilisation" was long retarded by governments in which the christian church was dominant. the men who advocated liberty were imprisoned, racked, and burned, so long as the church was strong enough to be merciless. the rev. francis minton, hector of middlewich, in his recent earnest volume (1) on the struggles of labor, admits that "a few centuries ago slavery was acknowledged throughout christendom to have the divine sanction.... 1 "capital and wages", p. 19. neither the exact cause, nor the precise time of the decline of the belief in the righteousness of slavery can be defined. it was doubtless due to a combination of causes, one probably being as indirect as the recognition of the greater economy of free labor. with the decline of the belief the abolition of slavery took place." the institution of slavery was actually existent in christian scotland in the 17th century, where the white coal workers and salt workers of east lothian were chattels, as were their negro brethren in the southern states thirty years since; they "went to those who succeeded to the property of the works, and they could be sold, bartered, or pawned". (1) "there is", says j. m. robertson, "no trace that the protestant clergy of scotland ever raised a voice against the slavery which grew up before their eyes. and it was not until 1799, after republican and irreligious france had set the example, that it was legally abolished." 1 "perversion of scotland," p. 197. 2 "capital and wages ", pp. 15, 16. take further the gain to humanity consequent on the unbelief, or rather disbelief, in witchcraft and wizardry. apart from the brutality by christians towards those suspected of witchcraft, the hindrance to scientific initiative or experiment was incalculably great so long as belief in magic obtained. the inventions of the past two centuries, and especially those of the 18th century, might have benefitted mankind much earlier and much more largely, but for the foolish belief in witchcraft and the shocking ferocity exhibited against those suspected of necromancy. after quoting a large number of cases of trial and punishment for witchcraft from official records in scotland, j. m. robertson says: "the people seem to have passed from cruelty to cruelty precisely as they became more and more fanatical, more and more devoted to their church, till after many generations the slow spread of human science began to counteract the ravages of superstition, the clergy resisting reason and humanity to the last". the rev. mr. minton concedes that it is "the advance of knowledge which has rendered the idea of satanic agency through the medium of witchcraft grotesquely ridiculous". he admits that "for more than 1500 years the belief in witchcraft was universal in christendom", and that "the public mind was saturated with the idea of satanic agency in the economy of nature". he adds: "if we ask why the world now rejects what was once so unquestioningly believed, we can only reply that advancing knowledge has gradually undermined the belief". in a letter recently sent to the _pall mall gazette_ against modern spiritualism, professor huxley declares, "... that the older form of the same fundamental delusion--the belief in possession and in witchcraft--gave rise in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries to persecutions by christians of innocent men, women, and children, more extensive, more cruel, and more murderous than any to which the christians of the first three centuries were subjected by the authorities of pagan rome." and professor huxley adds: "no one deserves much blame for being deceived in these matters. we are all intellectually handicapped in youth by the incessant repetition of the stories about possession and witchcraft in both the old and the new testaments. the majority of us are taught nothing which will help us to observe accurately and to interpret observations with due caution." the english statute book under elizabeth and under james was disfigured by enactments against witchcraft passed under pressure from the christian churches, which acts have only been repealed in consequence of the disbelief in the christian precept, "thou shaft not suffer a witch to live". the statute 1 james i, c. 12, condemned to death "all persons invoking any evil spirits, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding, or rewarding any evil spirit", or generally practising any "infernal arts". this was not repealed until the eighteenth century was far advanced. edison's phonograph would 280 years ago have insured martyrdom for its inventor; the utilisation of electric force to transmit messages around the world would have been clearly the practice of an infernal art. at least we may plead that unbelief has healed the bleeding feet of science, and made the road free for her upward march. is it not also fair to urge the gain to humanity which has been apparent in the wiser treatment of the insane, consequent on the unbelief in the christian doctrine that these unfortunates were examples either of demoniacal possession or of special visitation of deity? for centuries under christianity mental disease was most ignorantly treated. exorcism, shackles, and the whip were the penalties rather than the curatives for mental maladies. from the heretical departure of pinel at the close of the last century to the position of maudsley to-day, every step illustrates the march of unbelief. take the gain to humanity in the unbelief not yet complete, but now largely preponderant, in the dogma that sickness, pestilence, and famine were manifestations of divine anger, the results of which could neither be avoided nor prevented. the christian churches have done little or nothing to dispel this superstition. the official and authorised prayers of the principal denominations, even to-day, reaffirm it. modern study of the laws of health, experiments in sanitary improvements, more careful applications of medical knowledge, have proved more efficacious in preventing or diminishing plagues and pestilence than have the intervention of the priest or the practice of prayer. those in england who hold the old faith that prayer will suffice to cure disease are to-day termed "peculiar people", and are occasionally indicted for manslaughter when their sick children die, because the parents have trusted to god instead of appealing to the resources of science. it is certainly a clear gain to astronomical science that the church which tried to compel galileo to unsay the truth has been overborne by the growing unbelief of the age, even though our little children are yet taught that joshua made the sun and moon stand still, and that for hezekiah the sun-dial reversed its record. as buckle, arguing for the morality of scepticism, says (1): 1 "history of civilisation", vol. i, p. 345. "as long as men refer the movements of the comets to the immediate finger of god, and as long as they believe that an eclipse is one of the modes by which the deity expresses his anger, they will never be guilty of the blasphemous presumption of attempting to predict such supernatural appearances. before they could dare to investigate the causes of these mysterious phænomena, it is necessary that they should believe, or at all events that they should suspect, that the phænomena themselves were capable of being explained by the human mind." as in astronomy so in geology, the gain of knowledge to humanity has been almost solely in measure of the rejection of the christian theory. a century since it was almost universally held that the world was created 6,000 years ago, or at any rate, that by the sin of the first man, adam, death commenced about that period. ethnology and anthropology have only been possible in so far as, adopting the regretful words of sir w. jones, "intelligent and virtuous persons are inclined to doubt the authenticity of the accounts delivered by moses concerning the primitive world". surely it is clear gain to humanity that unbelief has sprung up against the divine right of kings, that men no longer believe that the monarch is "god's anointed" or that "the powers that be are ordained of god". in the struggles for political freedom the weight of the church was mostly thrown on the side of the tyrant. the homilies of the church of england declare that "even the wicked rulers have their power and authority from god ", and that "such subjects as are disobedient or rebellious against their princes disobey god and procure their own damnation". it can scarcely be necessary to argue to the citizens of the united states of america that the origin of their liberties was in the rejection of faith in the divine right of george iii. will any one, save the most bigoted, contend that it is not certain gain to humanity to spread unbelief in the terrible doctrine that eternal torment is the probable fate of the great majority of the human family? is it not gain to have diminished the faith that it was the duty of the wretched and the miserable to be content with the lot in life which providence had awarded them? if it stood alone it would be almost sufficient to plead as justification for heresy the approach towards equality and liberty for the utterance of all opinions achieved because of growing unbelief. at one period in christendom each government acted as though only one religious faith could be true, and as though the holding, or at any rate the making known, any other opinion was a criminal act deserving punishment. under the one word "infidel", even as late as lord coke, were classed together all who were not christians, even though they were mahommedans, brahmins, or jews. all who did not accept the christian faith were sweepingly denounced as infidels and therefore _hors de la loi_. one hundred and forty-five years since, the attorney-general, pleading in our highest court, said (1): "what is the definition of an infidel? why, one who does not believe in the christian religion. then a jew is an infidel." and english history for several centuries prior to the commonwealth shows how habitually and most atrociously christian kings, christian courts, and christian churches, persecuted and harassed these infidel jews. there was a time in england when jews were such infidels that they were not even allowed to be sworn as witnesses. in 1740 a legacy left for establishing an assembly for the reading of the jewish scriptures was held to be void (2) because it was "for the propagation of the jewish law in contradiction to the christian religion ". it is only in very modern times that municipal rights have been accorded in england to jews. it is barely thirty years since they have been allowed to sit in parliament. in 1851, the late mr. newdegate in debate (3) objected "that they should have sitting in that house an individual who regarded our redeemer as an impostor". lord chief justice raymond has shown (4) how it was that christian intolerance was gradually broken down. "a jew may sue at this day, but heretofore he could not; for then they were looked upon as enemies, but now commerce has taught the world more humanity." lord coke treated the infidel as one who in law had no right of any kind, with whom no contract need be kept, to whom no debt was payable. the plea of alien infidel as answer to a claim was actually pleaded in court as late as 1737. (5) in a solemn judgment, lord coke says (6): "all infidels are in law _perpetui inimici_; for between them, as with the devils whose subjects they be, and the christian, there is perpetual hostility". twenty years ago the law of england required the writer of any periodical publication or pamphlet under sixpence in price to give sureties for £800 against the publication of blasphemy. i was the last person prosecuted in 1868 for non-compliance with that law, which was repealed by mr. gladstone in 1869. up till the 23rd december, 1888, an infidel in scotland was only allowed to enforce any legal claim in court on condition that, if challenged, he denied his infidelity. if he lied and said he was a christian, he was accepted, despite his lying. if he told the truth and said he was an unbeliever, then he was practically an outlaw, incompetent to give evidence for himself or for any other. fortunately all this was changed by the royal assent to the oaths act on 24th december. has not humanity clearly gained a little in this struggle through unbelief? 1 omychund v. barker, 1 atkyns 29. 2 d'costa. d'pays, amb. 228. 3 hansard cxvi. 381. 4 lord raymond's reports 282, wells v. williams. 5 ramkissenseat v. barker, 1 atkyns 61. 6 coke's reports, calvin's ease. for more than a century and a-half the roman catholic had in practice harsher measure dealt out to him by the english protestant christian, than was even during that period the fate of the jew or the unbeliever. if the roman catholic would not take the oath of abnegation, which to a sincere romanist was impossible, he was in effect an outlaw, and the "jury packing" so much complained of to-day in ireland is one of the habit survivals of the old bad time when roman catholics were thus by law excluded from the jury box. the _scotsman_ of january 5th, 1889, notes that in 1860 the rev. dr. robert lee, of greyfriars, gave a course of sunday evening lectures on biblical criticism, in which he showed the absurdity and untenableness of regarding every word in the bible as inspired; and it adds: "we well remember the awful indignation such opinions inspired, and it is refreshing to contrast them with the calmness with which they are now received. not only from the pulpits of the city, but from the press (misnamed religious) were his doctrines denounced. and one eminent u.p. minister went the length of publicly praying for him, and for the students under his care. it speaks volumes for the progress made since then, when we think in all probability dr. charteris, dr. lee's successor in the chair, differs in his teaching from the confession of faith much more widely than dr. lee ever did, and yet he is considered supremely orthodox, whereas the stigma of heresy was attached to the other all his life." and this change and gain to humanity is due to the gradual progress of unbelief, alike inside and outside the churches. take from differing churches two recent illustrations: the late principal dr. lindsay alexander, a strict calvinist, in his important work on "biblical theology", claims that "all the statements of scripture are alike to be deferred to as presenting to us the mind of god ". yet the rev. dr. of divinity also says: "we find in their writings [i.e., in the writings of the sacred authors] statements which no ingenuity can reconcile with what modern research has shown to be the scientific truths--i.e., we find in them statements which modern science proves to be erroneous." at the last southwell diocesan church of england conference at derby, the bishop of the diocese presiding, the rev. j. g. richardson said of the old testament that "it was no longer honest or even safe to deny that this noble literature, rich in all the elements of moral or spiritual grandeur, given--so the church had always taught, and would always teach--under the inspiration of almighty god, was sometimes mistaken in its science, was sometimes inaccurate in its history, and sometimes only relative and accommodatory in its morality. it assumed theories of the physical world which science had abandoned and could never resume; it contained passages of narrative which devout and temperate men pronounced discredited, both by external and internal evidence; it praised, or justified, or approved, or condoned, or tolerated, conduct which the teaching of christ and the conscience of the christian alike condemned." or, as i should urge, the gain to humanity by unbelief is that "the teaching of christ" has been modified, enlarged, widened, and humanised, and that "the conscience of the christian" is in quantity and quality made fitter for human progress by the ever increasing additions of knowledge of these later and more heretical days. the limits of atheism or, why should sceptics be outlaws? by g. j. holyoake. "it is historically true that a large proportion of infidels in all ages have been persons of distinguished integrity and honour."--_john stuart mill 'on liberty,_' p. 80. london: j. a. brook & co., 282, strand, w.c 1874. price twopence. reverend richard william jelf, d.d., principal of king's college, london, who has lately alarmed convocation by connecting the 'essays and reviews' with atheism these pages, written in arrest of the parliamentary judgment which places the word of the atheist below that of the felon, are respectfully inscribed, by george jacob holyoake. preface. the object of these pages* is not to defend the intellectual accuracy of atheism (which could not be attempted in this brief space), the object is to explain its case, to vindicate its moral rectitude, and the right of those who hold these views, to legal equality. there are two atheisms in literature--the ancient one of mere negation; and the affirmative form, whose relevant name is cosmism, and of which humboldt, in his 'cosmos,' is a great illustrator, and comte, in his 'positive philosophy,' an expounder. the term cosmism ought to supersede the misleading term atheism; just as secularism has superseded the libellous term infidelity. cosmism, as well as secularism, expresses a new form of freethought, and i use the term atheism, as the subject of a lecture, for the first time here. it is a worn-out word, used by theists in hateful senses. i employ it, as a title, to-day for political reasons, in order to show those who make it a ground of civil exclusion, that it is a thing of law and limits: that the reputed atheism of english working men, so far as it prevails, is no longer the old atheism of mere negation, but the cosmism of modern science; neither dissolute, anarchical, nor impious--recognises that the universe is, without theorising _why_ it is. negative atheism says there is nothing beyond the universe. cosmism says it cannot explain anything beyond, and pauses where its knowledge ends. *a report of a lecture delivered in bendall's assembly rooms, city road, london, march 8rd, 1861. atheism questions--cosmism affirms. the language of cosmism is that of the poet in the 'purgatory of suicides':- 'i do not say--there is no god, but this i say--i know not.' i prefer secularism, which concerns itself with the moral life of man, and maintains a well-advised neutrality upon these speculative questions. my sympathies are with 'adam bede,' that striking and greatest creation of modern genius, in which the _national review_ recognised 'the strong-headed, manly, sharp-tempered, secular carpenter, with his energetic satisfaction in his work, and impatience of dreamers.' but as i stated in the york debate, in 1858, at which the reverend canons hey and robinson presided, it is an act of self-defence in england to question the assumed infallibility of theism--to prove that atheists are entitled to civil recognition, as persons having legitimate, actual, and conscientious views, and who, therefore, ought not to be outlawed as they are now. so long as sceptics of theism are refused the right of affirmation in courts of law, and their lives and property consequently placed at the mercy of every ruffian and knave, so long will a sceptical propaganda be a parliamentary necessity, to justify these opinions, and to spread them, that those who hold them may, like the quakers, win by pertinacity what is denied to reason. and while this state of things lasts, i confess that i listen to arguments of opponents with distrust, for i see in them, not so much the confutation of my opinions, as the limitation of my freedom, and the justification of my political exclusion. in the present state of theological liberty in england, for the alleged atheist to be silent, is to be a slave consenting to his own degradation. g. j. h. 147, fleet street, london, e.c., april 13th, 1861. the limits of atheism twenty years ago i stepped forward to defend the right of expressing atheism on the part of those who conscientiously held it. on mr. southwell's imprisonment in bristol, i took his place as editor of the _oracle of reason_, and shared his fate at gloucester. under the same circumstances i would do it again to-morrow. in the expression of speculative opinions there may be error and there may be outrage; but the error is best corrected by discussion, and the outrage by cultivation; but to prohibit the free publication of opinion is to strike at the root of all intrepidity of thought and individuality of character; and against a uniformity of profession, whether brought about by the tyranny of the majority, by the policeman, or by the magistrate, i ever have, and ever will, protest as unwise, dishonest, and degrading. because atheistical opinions were attacked by the law i defended them: i defended the right to hold them without sharing them. and in all the publications i have edited, i have accepted the responsibility of the views of coadjutors and correspondents without conditions, and my name is associated in consequence much more with other persons' opinions than with my own. when the rights of conscience in free-thought are attacked, to discriminate is to condemn; and while persecution is attempted, i make it a point of honour never to pass in appearance on to the side of the persecutors. as soon as legal opposition to the publication of heretical opinion ceased, i was the first to insist that the day of good taste must commence. the moment fair play is permitted, all excuse for invective or outrage ends. violence, exaggeration, denunciation, are crimes against freethought the moment freethought is permitted. now that sir george cornewall lewis, on the part of the government, has refused sir john trelawny's request to alter the law which treats an atheist as an outlaw, which denies him the common right of legal protection, which exposes him to plunder or assault without redress, which cedes to the theist a monopoly of veracity in courts of law, and places the word of every man and woman, however honest, cultivated, and reputable, unable to make a profession of faith, as below that of a convicted felon, i am most reluctant to enter upon any explanation of my own views on the great speculative propositions of theology, lest it should appear to others as timidity, retreat, or disposition to compromise.. if a man had (which i have not) a change of opinion to own, this is not the hour to make it. but with respect to affirmative atheism, the necessity for newness of view is chiefly felt by those who do not understand it. it is refused civil recognition because it is conceived to be some lawless thing. the consternation excited just now by the 'essays and reviews' is owing to an apprehension that public opinion is tending to the negation of theology, and that is concluded to be a state of intellectual lawlessness. to trace any outline of the limits of atheism, may serve to give more intelligent definiteness to the misgivings entertained concerning it, and lead earlier to its legal recognition; and therefore alone i attempt it. let us avoid verbiage if we can. too many words are the locusts of the mind, which darken the air of the understanding and eat up our meaning. i believe that language is given us not to be used--except upon clear compulsion. there are two terms which especially excite religious reprobation, and one of them excites mine. i refer to infidelity and atheism. infidelity is a term i detest. it implies that you believe enough to subject you to reproach, and disbelieve enough to entitle you to be damned. it signifies disbelief too inveterate to allow you to go back to superstition, and too much timidity to carry your doubt to a definite or legitimate result. i am for thoroughness and decision. if it be criminality to disbelieve, i will put scepticism far from me. i will not even tamper with doubt. but if it be lawful to reject from the understanding whatever seems false, then i will disbelieve error as a duty, and unhesitatingly doubt whatever is doubtful. atheism--objectionable as it is from wanton negative associations--is a far more wholesome term. it is a defiant, militant word. there is a ring of decision about it. there is no cringing in it. it keeps no terms with superstition. it makes war, and means it. it carries you away from the noisome word-jugglery of the conventional pulpits, and brings you face to face with nature. it is a relief to get out of the crowd who believe because their neighbours do, who pray by rote, and worship through fear; and win your liberty to wander in the refreshing solitude where the heart may be honest, and the intellect free. affirmative atheism of the intellect is a proud, honest, intrepid, self-respecting attitude of the mind. the negative atheism of mere ignorance, of insensibility, of lust, and gluttony, and drunkenness, of egotism or vanity, whose talk is outrage, and whose spirit is blasphemy; this is the gross negation of god, which superstition begets in its slavery, and nurtures by its terrors. these species of atheism i recognise only to disown and denounce them. of these the priest is the author who preaches the natural corruption of the human heart, who inculcates the guilt of freethought, the distrust of reason, and despair of self-reliant progress. utterly different from this is the atheism of reflection, which seeks for conclusive evidence, which listens reverentially for the voice of god, which weighs carefully the teachings of a thoughtful theism; but refuses to recognise the officious, incoherent babblement of intolerant or presumptuous men. reflective atheism is simply a reluctant uncertainty as to the consciousness of nature, or as to the existence of a power over nature. as one who will allow me the pleasure of calling him my friend, mr. g. h. lewes, said, all reflective atheism is suspensive. he invented the phrase suspensive atheism to describe the only form of opinion which he knew i maintained. the thoughtful atheist wishes to perceive the whole truth of nature, he hesitates unwillingly, and waits longingly for more light. let us dismiss at once that crude and evasive state which affects atheism, and, at the same time, denies it; which says no theist has defined deity, and therefore the disbelief in it is an impossibility. affirmative atheism may be wrong, but it is at least intelligible. it has a definite foundation, or it could claim no position, and would deserve none. it must go upon facts if it would maintain a place in the kingdom of thought, and it finds these facts in positivism. the mind that has wandered in the torrid zones of error, thirsts ardently for the cooling draughts of positive truth. it is this sentiment which causes freethought to take the form of secularism, and exchanges the verbal distractions of conflicting creeds for the clear criterions of moral truth. it is the same wise impatience of metaphysical unrealities which leads to affirmative atheism, and explains it. a series of material and mental facts arrest the attention of one taking an unbiased and independent view of the universe, of time, and space, and matter. there are two classes of thinkers--one who commence with ignoring nature, seeking in something outside it for the origin of it, and who look upon the infinite processes of the worlds which people space, with the dull astonishment accorded to mere agencies, rather than with the native wonder and awe which the consciousness of original powers awakens--these are theists. the other class are those who regard matter as the very garment of the unknown god, to whom every spray, and pebble, and flower, and star is a marvel, a glory, and an inspiration; who, comprehending not an external cause of nature, recognise its existence, its surpassing affluence, its multitudinous marvels, and give them the first place in their wonder, study, reverence, and love--these are affirmative atheists. to believe in nature, in its self-existence, its self-subsistence, its self-action, its eternity, infinity, and materiality, and in that only, is affirmative atheism.* reflective atheism is pure inability to, realise the fact of the consciousness of the universe, or to conceive the existence of a being over it. to believe in something besides nature--is theism. to believe in the consciousness of nature--is pantheism. the explanation of affirmative atheism* here given, involves many considerations which i am not going to discuss. it is not my province here to defend, but to state the case. a definition is a map, but it is not the journey. a definition is a high road through a subject, and a high road should be a straight road: it may run out of the way of some populous towns and beautiful scenes, but it gives the means of quickest transit through a territory, from which the country can be viewed, and the traveller determine its general features. * this might stand for a definition of cosmism, which term i employ at substantially reciprocal with affirmative atheism, and as its substitute, if i may employ it in its modern and wider sense than defined by pythagoras. if we have said enough for this purpose, we may attempt to trace the limits of our subject. the road through every high question lies over precipices. every great question has its mont blancs. the higher you climb the deeper the chasms on the right hand and on the left. the roman catholic makes worship an art, and abject submission a duty. to relieve you of anxiety he deprives the mind of initiation and freedom. the protestant concedes you private judgment, and surrounds you by a social despotism lest you should use it. he substitutes a creed for the church. the church is a cell, and the creed is a cage. the cage is lighter, more airy, and less repulsive than the cell, but the imprisonment is complete in both. mere atheism inculcates freedom and intrepidity of the understanding, but may land you in negation, in dogmatism, in denunciation, in irreverence. these are the chasms that lie in the path of mere atheism. the traveller who passes into these is lost. to avoid this danger we must keep within the limits naturally prescribed to affirmative atheism, which are:-1. positivism in principle. 2. exactness in profession of opinion. 3. dispassionateness in judgment. 4. humanism in conception. 1. the positivist conception of atheism exhibits the limits which modern thought has impressed upon it. affirmative atheism asserts the realism of nature; theism denies it. theism refuses to recognise the self-existence, the self-action, the self-subsistence, eternity, and infinity of the universe. theism is the negation of nature. it is a species of impiety towards nature, and supplants, by an artificial superstition, the instinctive reverence of the human heart. modern atheism is falsely regarded as a mere negation, as a species of criminal vacuity of the understanding. to correct this idea is to win for these opinions attention if not assent. the negation of any error is useful, but it should be followed by its complement of positive truth. all mere negative subjects are like the lime and pebbles swallowed by farm fowl to assist digestion, but it fares ill with the fowl if they get nothing but stones to digest; if no corn or barley follows to be operated upon. now, questions of atheism and scepticism are the digestive stimuli of the mind; positive principles supply the corn and barley which sustain the mental system and preserve its life. if we give ourselves up to negative subjects merely, we come to resemble the theologians who, as talleyrand said, 'pick a great many bones for very little meat.' old atheism shows that the alleged proofs of the existence of a deity are inconclusive, untenable, or self-refutatory. as a discipline of the intellect, as a questioning of that theistical speculation which has always been arrogant and tyrannical towards dissentients, there is good in negative atheism. but it is more important if made to subserve practical objects. mere negative atheism has no ulterior objects it untenants the mind, and this may not be in all things beneficial. the slave may be more healthy who is forced to take exercise, and he may have more physical enjoyment of life than the indolent freeman, who is sedentary by choice, and diseased through inactivity and overfeeding. you may pluck up weeds, and the rank herbage be more fruitful of miasma than the weeds; or if the plucked up weeds produce no harm, the ground may be left useless until crops are made to grow upon it. so of the weeds of worship which spring up in the priest-ridden mind. reverence may be cultivated by superstition, good conduct maybe enforced by terror; if superstition and terror be exploded, the reverence and good conduct must be cared for and be better directed. freethought is no half work, it has much to do. it is delusive to pull down the altar of superstition and not erect an altar of science in its place. to pack up the household gods of superstition and leave the fireside bare, will hardly do.. affirmative atheism must teach that nature is the bible of truth, work is worship, that duty is dignity, and the unselfish service of others consolation. there is nothing wholly bad. superstition has in it some elements of good. i no more believe in perfect error than in perfect truth. error, like truth, is hardly ever found pure; error is mixed with good, and truth alloyed by evil. the mind must have something to feed upon, and if it cannot have truth, it will have superstition; and though superstition, like some diet, is very hard of digestion, and very innutritious, it is better to feed upon that than die. true, it keeps the mind thin, but it keeps it alive, and it is better to be a skeleton than a corpse. now it is true that some intellects, like some animals, eat by instinct the right kind of food, but being healthy are not fastidious, and if you give them bad food they don't object to it and don't care for it. if they take it, their digestion is so good that it does not hurt them. but there are other people who pine for the knowledge of nature, and cannot subsist unless a large proportion of their mental aliment consists of definite principle. when these are not supplied by religious teachers, and christianity by any intolerance prevents it being supplied by others, such natures expire in an intellectual sense, and christianity ought to be regarded as guilty of wilful murder. and in the case of atheism, those persons who are accustomed to take superstition, and are deprived of that, and no attempt is made to supply its place by more wholesome sustenance, are no doubt injured. negative atheism guilty of this neglect may be said to be guilty of manslaughter, and it would be murder were the neglect accompanied, as in the case of theism, by intolerance. beware of reckless iconoclasticism. mere negations give all advantage to superstition; error seems wisdom and wealth when truth is silent. 2. the logic of affirmative atheism begins in self-confession. not to see anything where there is nothing to be seen is the sign of the true faculty; and not to say that you do see when you do not is the first sign of veracity of intellect. man is forgiven who believes more than his neighbours, but he is never forgiven if he believes less. if he believes more than his neighbours, there is the presumption that he may have made some discovery which may become profitable one day to join in. it may be that he who believes most, may merely possess a more industrious credulity, or possess a greater capacity for hasty assumption. but this is seldom probed. he who believes less may have abandoned some important item of justifiable belief. but when he who believes less than the multitude, confesses to the fact in the face of public disapproval, the probability is that he has inquired into, and sifted evidence which others have taken for granted, and discovered some error which they have accepted. his greater accuracy of mind and exactness of speech are an offence, because a reproach to the careless or unscrupulous intellects of those who conduct life on secondhand opinions. yet austerity of intellect and austerity of speech is as wholesome in character, as austerity of morals. i hope, says mr. grote, in his great history of greece, in a memorable passage that ought not to die out of recollection, 'i hope, when i come to the lives of socrates and plato, to illustrate one of the most valuable of their principles, that conscious and confessed ignorance is a better state of mind than the fancy without the reality of knowledge.' and in a passage which i cannot now recall, lord brougham has said that 'a mind uninformed is better than a mind misinformed.' in a state of ignorance we do nothing, in a state of error we do wrong. the popular condemnation of the atheist--which we have lately heard as ignorantly echoed in the house of commons as in some conventicles--is not always uttered, because the atheist does not know more than others, for none know anything certain concerning the existence of god,* but because the atheist does not profess more. * in his remarkable work entitled 'first principles,' now in course of publication, mr. herbert spencer has shown that certain terms of cosmism are as incapable of ultimate explanation as certain terms of theism. this shows how unwise is dogmatism, how unjustifiable is intolerance, on either side. cosmism, a thoughtful name, which ought to supersede atheism in the future, neither denies nor affirms the existence of deity. it waits for explanation and proof. it admits there is evidence of something, but what that something is, does not appear. there is evidence of more than we know, but what that is we do not know, and it is dishonesty to use a term respecting it, which pretends that we do know. why should it not be honourable to observe a scientific reservation in the exposition of opinion? in science it is a sign of cultivation to understate a case and keep within the limits of fact and proof. the reservation of cosmism, which so many regard as an offence, arises from a love of exact truth, from an endeavour to attain to it in expression, and from an honourable unwillingness to employ words which do not represent to him who uses them, definite ideas. if we say god is light, love, truth, power, goodness, law, principle, we confound attributes with existence. if we say god is a spirit, god is space, we merely fill the imagination, not satisfy the understanding: it is feeding the thoughts with air, and leaving the intellect hungry. a trinitarian deity is one of the scholastic perplexities of the intellect. the first rule of arithmetic is against it. if it means three gods in one, it is an enigma. if it means three doctrinal aspects of god, it confuses all simplicity of feeling. in the simple, moral heart of man, god is one, and his name is love; not a weak, vapoury sentimentality, but an austere, healthy love, whose expression is strength, purity, truth, justice, service, and tenderness. but this conception of deity belongs to the empire of the emotions, it is a matter of feeling, not of proof, and can authorise no intolerance towards others, itself existing only by the sufferance of the intellect, which has chastened its expression, and is supreme over it. exactness of phraseology is well understood self-defence. well chosen terms are the true weapons of opinion. employing an old, battered, rheumatic and abused term like atheism, is like riflemen using the old musket instead of the far-reaching and fatal minie. cosmism is the new term which conveys the new idea of the age, and explains the improvements in thought and spirit, which the mere term atheism conceals. to suffer an opponent to choose names for you is as though a combatant should suffer his enemy to supply his arms for the conflict. he who consents to be called by a hateful name, can be defeated at the pleasure of his opponent. his ideas are never discussed, his conscientious spirit is never recognised, he is trampled down by a name which libels, defames, and destroys him. let us banish the unqualified term atheism from the literature of theological controversy. 3. dispassionateness is a law of affirmative atheism. those who commence by believing themselves infallible, and their view of a question open to no dispute, can never see reason in, nor view with patience the dissent which others maintain. it is the first instinct of the cosmist (to use the preferable term) to keep his mind open to reason. the dogmatism which insists on its own case, and shuts its eyes and closes its ears to the facts and arguments on the side of theism, is always to be condemned. dogmatism, the sin of superstition, is excluded from the empire of speculation. the clergyman will often admit that atheism endeavours to maintain an unprejudiced tone of mind. the rev. charles marriot, of oriel college, observed to me, when i had the honour some years ago to be his guest, that 'he had always more hope of the atheist than of the dissenter, for the dissenter always moved in a little infallibility of his own, while the atheist was always to be reached by reason.' mystery will always conquer partisans, and the cosmist who comprehends this, will reason with superstition, and never be impatient with it. dispassionateness of judgment will also lead to dispassionateness of speech. opinion in a minority should never have recourse to invective. prejudice is inveterate enough without being inflamed by denunciation. unpopular and unfriended truth must consent to placate opposition by respectfulness of tone and fairness of speech. it must never compromise principle--that is submission, and gives the errorist insolent confidence. it must never outrage--that makes the errorist indignant, and deaf to all reason. the force of truth lies in invincible patience and in invincible perseverance of exposition. progressive opinion ought ever to be kept on the high places of dispassionate advocacy. it is wonderful how truth has been perilled by passion. the battle of opinion has always been fought on impulse, rather than on calculation of forces; and the small band of the combatants for new truths has often been trampled down by the multitudinous army of error. 4. conceptions of humanity, or, in other words, reliance of humanity, is a law and limit of affirmative atheism. every man who thinks, must choose one of two things, a standard without the universe, or a standard within. i choose one within, i choose humanity. 'men,' says lord bacon, speaking of atheism, 'who look no farther, become wary of themselves.' let us become wary of ourselves; nothing is more wholesome or progressive! hardness, assumption, egotism, insubordination to worth--in one word, irreverence, ought never to be the characteristic of cosmism. he who vindicates nature and reason, should show that being left to nature, philosophy, reputation, and the laws, there exists self-regulation and reliable rationality.* cosmism is the highest form of self-reliance; the responsibility, which to others is a necessity, is to him a duty and a pride. * as the late gen. jacob, the illustrious commander of the scinde horse, testifies. 'in the jangle and desert, amid a barbarous people on the extreme confines of civilisation,' he applied these principles when bishops despaired and christianity failed; and he records that 'he was permitted to witness with delight the fact of a whole nation being raised from a state of barbarous violence, misery, detestable cruelty, and horror, to one of peace, comfort, racial order, and happiness;' that 'he had seen their faithful and steady application in practice change thousands of the wildest robbers and murderers into kindly and industrious citizens. the wildness, excesses, extravagances, and incoherences of superstition, arise through men looking without themselves into those regions of the unknown where men make god after their own image, where they imagine their facts, and reason upon them without check. how impertinent is half our modern worship, and how poor the other half! educated ministers speak of god, and address to him praise they would be ashamed to offer to any gentleman. that delicacy of reverence, that reticence of laudation, that avoidance of presumption and familiarity, which the law of humanity imposes on all men of religious habits in human relations, has no existence in theology, where it is more to be expected and infinitely more needful. when st. augustine speaks of god, there is a magnificent thoughtfulness in the terms he employs which his pagan refinement had taught him, which we seldom find in modern saints. how imposingly he exclaims in his confessions:-what art thou then, my god? most highest, most good, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful, yet most just; most hidden, yet most present; most beautiful, yet most strong; stable, yet incomprehensible; unchangeable, yet all-changing; never new, never old; all-renewing, and _bringing age upon the proud, and they know it not_; ever working, ever at rest; still gathering, yet nothing lacking; supporting, filling, and overspreading; creating, nourishing, and maturing; seeking, yet having all things. thou lovest, without passion; art jealous, without anxiety; repentest, yet grievest not; art angry, yet serene; changest thy works, thy purpose unchanged; receivest again what thou findest, yet didst never lose; never in need, yet rejoicing in gains; never covetous, yet exacting usury. thou receivest over and above, that thou mayest owe; and who hath aught that is not thine? thou payest debts, owing nothing; remittest debts, losing nothing.' we forgive the sublime contradictions in the stately march of this pagan praise. augustine was a noble old saint, but he had a pagan intellect to the end. the 'limits of atheism' which obviously present themselves to those who reflect upon them, rescue it from the imputation of lawlessness. positivism engrafts upon it practical aims. exactness of speech necessitates exactness of thought, and dictates modesty of pretension. dispassionateness of judgment checks invective, dogmatism, prejudice, or unfairness; and reliance upon humanity tends to self-trust, self-direction, and chastity of worship. why should persons who hold the views of affirmative atheism under these 'limits' be treated in the witness-box as public liars--men whose reiterated profession is--that they 'sum up personal duty in honour, which is respecting the truth; in morality, which is acting the truth; and in love, which is serving the truth.'* * 'last trial for atheism,' p. 100. plato in his 'laws,' remarks that 'atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of the understanding.' this just opinion, if applied to mere sensualists, who disbelieve in god because his holiness is a restraint upon their infamous passions, has since been applied to the pure thinkers like spinoza, to whom it is an insult and an outrage. let us see how little such a remark is applicable to those who thoughtfully pause before adopting a creed which, however dictated by a feeling of piety, is far less reverential than thoughtful silence. if we suppose an interposing providence to direct the affairs of this world, what scenes of sorrow must meet his eye? condemned to poverty and pain, how many human beings are there whose every word is a prayer, and every thought a throb, and every pulsation a pang? is it not far more reverential to struggle for the right with what powers we have, and with what secular light is vouchsafed, and own theism inscrutable, than connect all this misery with the name of god? the theory of a god of prayer who hears and aids, of a providence who orders and controls, all issues to one great will, and who receives at last the sorrow-stricken, the worn, struggling and weary spirit, after those conflicts which all who think, and feel, and aspire, encounter, are primitive and enduring conceptions, which all humanity, in every age and in every slime, cherishes in its perplexity and clings to in its weakness. it is not cosmism which seeks or wishes to disprove this theory. alas! the god of prayer does not exist. i say it not in wantonness, or recklessness, nor in any proud spirit of defiance, nor in any hard spirit of denial, nor in outrage, nor wilful scepticism, nor simulated disbelief. it appears to me an austere fact, which all who observe must see, which all who are frank must own. yet i know not that i ought to say 'alas it is so.' why should any man mourn at truth? what right have i to arraign the facts of nature. to mourn what _is_--is to condemn what is. sorrow is censure when it relates to what is possibly the order of god. what authority have i to look on nature awful in its glories and mysteries, and by the implication included in my grief, to judge it and say it is not what it should be? my scrutiny ought rather to be directed to my weakness. true reverence lies rather in accepting unmurmuringly the order of things we find; in believing in the completeness and self sufficiency of nature and humanity, and that these contain within them elements of self-sustainment. our duty is to search there for truth, to work there patiently for progress, to regard the humblest conquest there with glad surprise. all virtue is summed up in service and endurance. a wise humility in expectation is surely the first element of reverence. as to the future life of man, the whole question lies in a narrow compass. the immortality of the soul is one of those problems which you approach with breathless perplexity. is it possible that every human being brought into existence, in the caprices of lust and vice, is a candidate for heaven, and a burden upon the celestial taxes, and an inmate of the great poor house or reformatory of eternity? is it in the power of ignorance, profligacy, and passion, to crowd the porticoes of paradise with illicit offspring? can it be true that every being born is liable to eternal perdition for acts done before it had existence--or for offences it was predestined to commit, or in the course of events may commit? it is better never to be born than to incur this frightful risk. is it worth while to live at all the prey of these awful anxieties, to sport for a few years on the borders of hell? who would enter the dance of life with the devil for a partner? the toad that croaks his hideous existence away in the marsh; the very dog whom men caress, and kick, and despise; the slimy worm that crawls the grave yard, leads a life of dignity and undimmed bliss, compared with the dread responsibilities and never-ending horrors thus imposed on human consciousness. no man will persuade me that god would bring into existence any creature liable to so frightful a fate. the belief in annihilation is a creed of holiness, in comparison with the creed of the popular religion. if, on the other hand, the future life include no hopeless horror, but a state of purification, of restoration, of atonement, of instruction and progress, however arduous, protracted, and slow, i am willing to believe in it, to hope in it, and rejoice in it. i ask no golden crown--i covet no angel wings--i crave no presumptuous seat of honour at the right hand of god. i supplicate for no effeminate security--no eternity of indolence and singing--i am prepared for toil as well as enjoyment. the instinct of adventure is strong within me. study and danger are welcome to me--even suffering, if it bring deeper knowledge, purity and improvement. i do not wish to be a 'saint made perfect,' lingering through an eternity of monotony, in which there is nothing further to realise, but desire rather to enter upon the eternal discipline of indefinite progress. there never were disbelievers in a tolerable immortality. the question is not--is such a state desirable? but--is it true? the vital inquiry is--are we to conduct life on the basis of what we hope or what we know? he who believes in what he wishes, and is willing to teach as true what he desires, has already passed through the gates of superstition. to honour the brave, to reverence the good, to give thanks to the martyr, to be re-united to those you have loved and lost; if these be the incidents of immortality, there never was a disbeliever in it. the cosmist only deplores the scantiness of the proof. there is no scepticism here which is wilful. every doubt is reluctant, every misgiving is a self-denial. the popular theology, it must be owned, has many repulsive aspects. the vulgarest and most illiterate believer is encouraged to profess a familiar and confident knowledge, hidden from the profoundest philosophers. it is an unanswerable position, that had god spoken, the universe would have been convinced. had deity desired that his personal existence should be daily recognised and eternally bruited abroad among men, he would have placarded the fact on the walls of nature in letters of light--so luminous, that time should never pale them; so indelibly, that the war of elements should never efface them; so plainly and conclusively, that no priest should ever be able to misconstrue them; and no wayfarer, in this hurrying world, ever be in doubt about them. as this is not so, the great secret is left evidently to silent thought and reverent conjecture, of which even mere negative atheism is a reserved expression, and cosmism a scheme of philosophical adoration. here is a particle of matter. it may be amber, or a ruby, or a stone. whence came the electrical properties of the one, the lurid brilliancy of the other, or the density of the stone? these qualities are wonders and miracles through all time. science finds them marvels and leaves them mysteries. the philosopher is no more provided with a solution than the peasant. indeed, the wonder of the philosopher has a deeper intensity. he sweeps with his eye, and bends his ear over a wider field of nature, and no sign rewards his scrutiny, no response repays his attention. look at this humble, secure, and commonplace stone! we neglect it with the eye, we spurn it with the foot--it is not worth raising from the shore. yet no book was ever written, no message was ever delivered, no romance ever depicted, no epic ever sung, containing such wondrous interest as the story of this stone, could any man tell it. what thronging conjectures! what unbidden and tumultuous memories rise as we contemplate its possible mutations of existence! history was unwritten when it first slept in the earth. what generations of men have lived and struggled, and died since it was first broken from the rock! great battles, changing the fate of dynasties, and involving the servitude of races, have been fought over its calm resting place. possibly thousands of years ago the mastodon trod upon it, and the ichthyosaurus paddled it into the sea. ancient waves may have washed it into the ocean, before the first ship was launched by the first mariner. in the silent and wondrous caverns of the great deep, which no plummet has fathomed and no eye has ever seen, it has lain in regal rest. what monsters have glared at it! what tempests have raged, what tornadoes have broken over it! what earthquakes may have tossed it up from its hiding place. on what shore did it reappear? did some assyrian lover watch the wave which washed it up? did some young pharaoh play with it? has it been imbedded in the walls of troy? did achilles plant his spear by it? did it lie on the plains of marathon on the morning of the memorable battle? has it been dyed by the blood of caesar in the streets of rome? have chaldean shepherds picked it up as the orient morning sun broke over their silent plains? when all these and a thousand other questions have been answered, its history is not begun. its elements are indestructible. the parts of which it is composed were never created--in some form, in some world, they always existed. where were they when the earth was without form or void? to what astral system did the matter of this pebble once belong? of what star did it form a part? where was it before time on this planet began to be? if matter has existed for ever, this stone in its countless transmutations is a geological wandering jew of eternity. if we cannot tell the history of a single stone, who shall tell the history of god? if a poor pebble be a surpassing mystery, who shall understand the deity? what must be the pretension, the presumption to infinite capacity of that man who, pausing not in reverent humility in the presence of these myriad miracles which crowd before him, yet tells us in confident and dogmatic tones, that he 'looks _through_ nature up to nature's god?' for myself, i cleave rather to that more modest form of opinion which stands in mute wonder and listens with greedy ears to the secret tale of nature, and waits with undying interest the revelations which science, or thought, or time, or death, shall make of these mysteries which surround us evermore. an atheist manifesto by joseph lewis the freethought press association: new york copyrighted, 1954, and in the 178th year of american independence by joseph lewis _all rights reserved_ second edition, 1956 third edition, 1958 printed in the united states of america joseph lewis _author of_ the tyranny of god the bible unmasked voltaire: the incomparable infidel spain: a land blighted by religion burbank the infidel atheism the bible and the public schools franklin the freethinker lincoln the freethinker mexico and the catholic church soviet russia and the catholic church shall children receive religious instruction? the ten commandments thomas paine: author of the declaration of independence in the name of humanity the tragic patriot inspiration and wisdom from the writings of thomas paine an atheist manifesto ingersoll the magnificent an atheist manifesto many ask what difference does it make whether man believes in a god or not. it makes a big difference. it makes all the difference in the world. it is the difference between being right and being wrong; it is the difference between truth and surmises--facts or delusion. it is the difference between the earth being flat, and the earth being round. it is the difference between the earth being the center of the universe, or a tiny speck in this vast and uncharted sea of multitudinous suns and galaxies. it is the difference in the proper concept of life, or conclusions based upon illusion. it is the difference between verified knowledge and the faith of religion. it is a question of progress or the dark ages. the history of man proves that religion perverts man's concept of life and the universe, and has made him a cringing coward before the blind forces of nature. if you believe that there is a god; that man was "created"; that he was forbidden to eat of the fruit of the "tree of knowledge"; that he disobeyed; that he is a "fallen angel"; that he is paying the penalty for his "sins," then you devote your time praying to appease an angry and jealous god. if, on the other hand, you believe that the universe is a great mystery; that man is the product of evolution; that he is born without knowledge; that intelligence comes from experience, then you devote your time and energies to improving his condition with the hope of securing a little happiness here for yourself and your fellow man. that is the difference. if man was "created," then someone made a grievous mistake. it is inconceivable that any form of intelligence would waste so much time and effort to make such an inferior piece of life--with all the "ills that flesh is heir to," and with all the misery and suffering that is so essential a part of living. if man is a "fallen angel," by the commission of a "sin," then disease and sorrow are part of god's inscrutable plan as a penalty imposed upon him for his "disobedience," and man's entire life is devoted to the expiation of that sin so as to soften the indictment before the "throne of god." man's atonement consists in making himself as miserable as possible by praying, fasting, masochism, flagellations and other forms of torture. this sadistic delusion causes him to insist that others--under pain of punishment--be as miserable as himself, for fear that if others fail to do as he does, it will provoke the wrath of his tyrant god to a more severe chastisement. the inevitable result is that man devotes his life, not to the essentials of living and the making of a happy home, but to the building of temples and churches where he can "lift his voice to god" in a frenzy of fanaticism, and eventually he becomes a victim of hysteria. his time and energy are wasted to cleanse his "soul," which he does not possess, and to save himself from a future punishment in hell which exists only in his imagination. religious hallucinations take on many forms. some do not wash themselves; some wash only their fingers; some think that the filthier they are, the "holier" they are; some cut off their hair, while others let it grow long; some refuse to stand up, while others refuse to sit down; some amputate their genitals, and some their breasts; some pull out their teeth, and others wither their limbs; some fast, and others gorge themselves; some cover their heads with sand, and others with sackcloth and ashes; some talk continuously, and others remain silent; some are celibates, and others are profligates; some stand on their heads; some brand themselves, while others pierce their nose, eyes and ears. nuns cut off their hair to make themselves as unsightly as possible--to make themselves repulsive to the opposite sex; there are monks who have vowed never to look upon the face of a woman, and franciscans still wear ropes around their bodies as a symbol of flagellation. there is hardly a form of insanity or delusion that has not been induced by some sort of religious belief. to laugh on the "sabbath," at one time, was considered the sin of sins. how rightfully robert g. ingersoll said that, "christianity has made more lunatics than it ever provided asylums for." on the other hand, we do not believe that man is a depraved human being. we do not believe that there is a tyrant god, or that there is a hell, and that man will suffer the pains and penalties of eternal torment. we do not believe that you should make yourself as miserable as possible here in the hope of securing some happiness "hereafter." we do not believe that disease is a punishment for sin. we believe that disease is a natural consequence of the processes of life, and that the "ills of the flesh" inevitably follow where one form of life lives upon another, and where "at the banquet of life each in turn is a guest and a dish." it is only by understanding the nature of disease that man has been able, even in a small degree, to protect himself from the ravages of its destruction. the use of prayer to cure disease has been responsible for epidemics that have, on many occasions, almost wiped out the human race. prayer has had no more effect upon disease than it has upon health. it merely permits the disease to continue its course and increase the suffering of the victim. if priests--of all clans--were free of disease and immune to death, then there might be some basis for the claim of the religionists. but these "men of god" are victims of the natural course of life, "even as you and i." they enjoy no exemptions. they suffer the same ills; they feel the same sensations; they are subject to the same passions of the body, the same frailties of the mind, are victims of circumstances and misfortune, and they meet inevitable death just as every other person. they commit the same kind of crimes as other mortals, and especially, because of their "calling," many are notoriously involved in the embezzlement of church funds. nor does their calling protect them from the "passions of the flesh." the scandalous conduct of many "men of the cloth," in the realm of moral turpitude, often ends in murder. that is why there are so many "men of god" in our jails, and why so many have paid the supreme penalty in the death chair. they are not free from a single rule of life; what others must endure, they likewise must experience. they cannot protect themselves from the forces of nature, and the laws of life, any more than you can. what they can do, you can do, too. their claims of being "anointed" and "vicars of god" on earth are false and hypocritical. if they cannot fulfill their promises while you are alive, how can they accomplish them when you are dead? if they are impotent here, where they could demonstrate their powers, how ridiculous are their promises to accomplish them in the "hereafter," the mythical abode which exists only in their dishonest or deluded imagination? the illusions of life are many and varied. things are not always what they seem to be, and it is well known that "appearances are deceiving." that is why it is so difficult for some people to understand the nature of disease, and why it has taken man so long to comprehend the true conditions of life. this deception prevails in matters of great importance, as well as in matters of little consequence. there is no "voice of nature" to tell man that which is true and that which is false, nor to warn him of the dangers of life. he must find the truth for himself, and only after very bitter experiences. the first piece of deception of man, after his so-called mental awakening, was his inability to conceive of any scheme of life except from his own primitive concept of limited intelligence. he could not conceive the earth and the universe except as being "created," and from his own feeling of revenge, he could not conceive of the suffering of life except as a punishment for some "disobedience." primitive though he be, he did not inflict pain and punishment upon the innocent. this diabolical scheme could only come from a "merciful" god. as an illustration of this concept of primitive man in this respect is the delusion he experiences when he believes that the sun "rises and sets," when as a matter of fact, it is the sun which is "stationary" as far as the earth is concerned, and it is the earth that "moves," as galileo so courageously maintained--at the cost of his liberty. there is a delusion that the sun shines and the water falls from the clouds to make the flowers bloom. to the religionist this is an indication of the "beauty" in nature. it is nothing of the kind. poisonous plants and obnoxious weeds are equally nourished by the warmth of the sun and the moisture of the water. is this, then, an indication of the "ugliness" of nature? certainly not. both are inevitable consequences of the environment in which they live. it could not be otherwise. is the hippopotamus one of nature's masterpieces? is its face and form the perfection of beauty and grace? would you consider this animal a work of living art if you were responsible for it? and yet, if this beast could talk, it would probably say that its environment was made for its benefit and that its marvelous features, particularly its mouth, was especially "designed" for its enjoyment, and that its whole body was made in the "image and likeness of god." the fact that the hippopotamus has survived these millions of years of the evolutionary process and still thrives today is proof that it is equally as favored by nature as is man. to nature the blossoms of the flowers and the obnoxious weeds are identical, and the fragrance of the one and the stench of the other are equally alike; both, if they could talk, would boast of nature's preference for them. while, as a matter of fact, both would be wrong. the sun does not shine to bring us its necessary light and warmth without also bringing to light some new burden for our overtroubled hearts to bear; and everything in the universe shares the same and inevitable consequences. while it is true that it is "an ill wind that blows no good," it is also true that what is "one man's meat is another man's poison." to nature matters of "great importance" and matters of "little consequence" are on an equal basis. the one is not "favored" above the other. it is the survival of the fittest, and not the most desirable that survives. when conditions are favorable to the "wild" animals, they thrive by killing the other forms of life upon which they live, and when conditions are favorable to man, he kills and lives upon the forms of life which he considers exist solely for his pleasure and benefit. to nature the germs of disease, as a form of life, are equally as important as the other forms of life that "breathe and have their being." when conditions are favorable to the virus of influenza and pneumonia, we have what is known as an epidemic, and when conditions are favorable to the growth of cancer, it has what we might term a "roman holiday" by destroying a third of our population. germs of disease are merely invisible wild animals. they are forms of life that thrive upon the soil of the human body. prayer has about as much effect upon them as it would have upon the hungry tiger ready to devour you. a bullet from a gun would be far more effective against the tiger, and knowledge of the nature of the germs of disease, and the discovery of the methods of destroying them, are comparable to the invention of the gun and its use against the ferocious animal. the knowledge of the one protects you against the invisible enemies of destruction, while the invention of the gun protects you against being destroyed by the wild beasts. the germs of disease and the hungry tiger are both determined upon the same objective--your destruction--one by eating you in "chunks" and the other by minutely gnawing you away "piecemeal." the results are identical. it is not necessary to moralize upon the difference. but this we know, that in our present scheme of life, as ingersoll so eloquently states, "the hands that help are better far than lips that pray." our bodies are as much "meat" for the disease germs that eat us as the animal that furnishes the meat for our appetites. or as shakespeare puts it: "... in the sweetest bud the eating canker dwells." in a broader and more comprehensive concept of disease, shakespeare says, it is, as if a "god omnipotent is mustering in his clouds... armies of pestilence; and they shall strike your children yet unborn and unbegot...." who are you to say which one is the more favored in this scheme of life--the germs of disease or man--which one is preferred by nature; which one is more important than the other, since the ends accomplished are the same? the life of the disease germ came into existence by the same process as did the life of man. it is just as much a part of nature as is the dimpled babe. if we cannot live without sunshine and water, neither can the germs of disease. it might well be that we are nothing more than "disease germs" in the environment in which we live. the same basic construction by which they live forms the same pattern upon which our life is built. to nature the night is just as important as the day, and the life of the germ we call disease is as important as the life of the body upon which it feeds. it follows the same law of life; it is born, reproduces and dies. there are forms of life that live by night that are equally as favored by nature as those which live by day. freaks of all kinds exist in nature--from the utterly ridiculous to the terrifying monstrosities. this is proof of the lack of design in nature as far as man is concerned. when man comes to the realization that he is not the "favorite" of god; that he was not specially created, that the universe was not made for his benefit, and that he is subject to the same laws of nature as all other forms of life, then, and not until then, will he understand that he must rely upon himself, and himself alone, for whatever benefits he is to enjoy; and devote his time and energies to helping himself and his fellow men to meet the exigencies of life and to set about to solve the difficult and intricate problems of living. the recognition of a problem is the first step to its solution-we are not "fallen" angels, nor were we "created" perfect. on the contrary, we are the product of millions of years of an unpurposed evolution. we are the descendants and inheritors of all the defects of our primitive ancestry--the evolution of the myriad forms of life from the infinitesimal to the mammoth--from the worm to the dinosaur. the most important step in the development of man is the recognition of the fact that we are born without knowledge, and that the acquisition of knowledge is a slow and painful process. if all man needed upon earth was a "knowledge of god," then why the necessity of establishing educational institutions? unless a child is taught to talk, it will never be able to speak the language of our tongue. without teaching the child the rudiments of speech, he would be unable to communicate his thoughts to others. without proper training his "grunts" of expression would be meaningless, and the only way he could express himself would be by the primitive instinct of making signs and by pointing. the brain needs the same kind of training as any other part of the body that requires exercise for development. nourishment for the mind is just as necessary as nourishment for the body. just as there are some foods which have been so adulterated and refined that when eaten they add no nourishment to the body, so there are truths which have been adulterated by religion and superstition so as to be utterly valueless in nourishing the mind with intelligence. education becomes the primary object of civilization. as thomas paine says: "wisdom is not the purchase of a day." the church knows that an educated man is an unbeliever. that is why there is a continual struggle on the part of the clergy to adulterate education with superstition. to maintain their untenable position they must keep the people shackled to a form of mental slavery. both fear and superstition are forms of a contagious disease. the ignorance of man produced natural fears of the elements of nature. what he could not understand he attributed to malevolent spirits whose primary purpose was to punish and harm him. under this spell it seems almost incredible that he ever advanced from his state of primitive ignorance. his fears produced such fantastic monsters of the air that it was first necessary to relieve his tormented mind of these terrifying myths of ghosts and gods before he was able to acquire even the simplest rudiments of knowledge. man's ignorance and fears made him an easy prey of priests. his gullibility was such that he believed everything he was told. he soon became a slave to these liars and hypocrites. and what did the priests tell him? they told him that god had made a special revelation in a book called the bible, and that it was necessary to believe every word in that book in order that he might save his soul. they told him that if he disobeyed their commands, he would suffer eternal damnation in a hell where "the fire never ceases, and where the worm never dies." they also told him that it was a sin for him to read that book, and that the priest was especially ordained by god to interpret the meaning of each and every word. and what was the priest's interpretation of the text of that book? it was that man was a corrupt and sinful being, and that in order to be saved from punishment after death, he had to give a substantial part of the fruits of his labor to the priest to pray for him, and intercede with god on his behalf, so as to mitigate the punishment to which he had already been doomed. what a diabolical scheme of fraud by which to live upon the sweat and labor of others. it was such a profitable scheme that the priests began to maintain their power by the force of arms. as a result there came into existence the twin tyrannies of church and state. it seems incredible that such nonsense was ever imposed upon suffering humanity, and nonsense it would be were it not so tragic. so fearful did he become that he thought that he could not live without the "protection" of the priests, and as ingersoll said, "as long as people wanted popes, plenty of hypocrites will be found to take their place...." ingersoll further declared: "the priests pretended to stand between the wrath of the gods and the helplessness of man. he was man's attorney at the court of heaven. he carried to the invisible world a flag of truce, a protest and a request. he came back with a command, with authority and power. man fell upon his knees before his own servant, and the priest, taking advantage of the awe inspired by his supposed influence with the gods, made of his fellow-man a cringing hypocrite and slave." as long as there is one person suffering an injustice; as long as one person is forced to bear an unnecessary sorrow; as long as one person is subject to an undeserved pain, the worship of a god is a demoralizing humiliation. as long as there is one mistake in the universe; as long as one wrong is permitted to exist; as long as there is hatred and antagonism among mankind, the existence of a god is a moral impossibility. ingersoll said: "injustice upon earth renders the justice of heaven impossible." man's inhumanity to man will continue as long as man loves god more than he loves his fellow man. the love of god means wasted love. "for god and country" means a divided allegiance--a 50 per cent patriot. the most abused word in the language of man is the word "god." the reason for this is that it is subject to so much abuse. there is no other word in the human language that is as meaningless and incapable of explanation as is the word "god." it is the beginning and end of nothing. it is the alpha and omega of ignorance. it has as many meanings as there are minds. and as each person has an opinion of what the word god ought to mean, it is a word without premise, without foundation, and without substance. it is without validity. it is all things to all people, and is as meaningless as it is indefinable. it is the most dangerous in the hands of the unscrupulous, and is the joker that trumps the ace. it is the poisoned word that has paralyzed the brain of man. "the fear of the lord" is not the beginning of wisdom; on the contrary, it has made man a groveling slave; it has made raving lunatics of those who have attempted to interpret what god "is" and what is supposed to be our "duty" to god. it has made man prostitute the most precious things of life--it has made him sacrifice wife, and child, and home. "in the name of god" means in the name of nothing--it has caused man to be a wastrel with the precious elixir of life, because there is no god. ingersoll could not understand the mind of those who, once having been told the truth, preferred to remain under the spell of superstition and in ignorance. he could not understand why people would not accept "new truths with gladness." he also knew, however, that once a person's mind had been poisoned with religious superstition, it was almost impossible to free it from the paralyzing fear which destroyed its ability to think. it is now established by verifiable evidence that religion stultifies the brain and is the great obstacle in the path of intellectual progress. the more religious a person is, the more he is steeped in ignorance and superstition, the less is his sense of moral responsibility. the more intelligent a person, the less religious he is. there is an old saying that "where there are three scientists, there are two atheists." the countries whose governments are dominated by religion and religious institutions are the most backward. by the same token, the countries whose people are the most enlightened, and whose governments are based upon the principle of secularism--the separation of church and state--are the most progressive. and let me tell you: when man is intellectually free, the progress he will make is beyond calculation. what better illustration than this: more progress has been made since the declaration of independence and the american revolution than was made in the previous five thousand years! yes, more intellectual and material progress has been made by man since the establishment of the american republic than during all the intervening years from the pharaohs of egypt up to and including the time of "the grandeur that was greece, and the glory that was rome." and there is a good and valid reason for this. it was because "in 1776 our fathers retired the gods from politics." the basic principle of the american republic is the freedom of man in society. the declaration of independence was the product of intellectual emancipation, and that is why, from thenceforth, our date of existence should be recorded, not from the mythical birth of jesus christ, but from the day of our independence! this should be the year one hundred and seventy-eight in our calendar! despite discouraging signs here and there, the seeds of freedom planted by the american revolution will take root, and throughout the world, if man will learn to zealously guard his freedom, peace and progress will come to all the world. could there be a more significant illustration than this: practically in our own lifetime, and certainly since the declaration of independence, man has wrought the most amazing achievements in the field of science and progress ever recorded in human history. not in their order, nor according to their significance, do i record the following: anesthesia was discovered. do you know what it means to relieve man of his pain and suffering? anesthesia is the most humane of all of man's accomplishments, and what a merciful accomplishment it was. for this great discovery we are indebted to dr. w. t. g. morton. do you know that the religionists opposed the use of anesthesia on the ground that god sent pain as a punishment for sin, and it was considered the greatest of sacrileges to use it--just think of it, a sin to relieve man of his misery! what a monstrous perversion! this one instance alone should convince you of the difference in believing in god or not. no believer in god would have spent his energies to discover anesthesia. he would have been in mortal fear of the wrath of his god for interfering with his "divine plan," of making man suffer for having eaten of the fruit of the "tree of knowledge." the very crux of the matter is in this one instance. man seeks to relieve his fellow man from the suffering of disease and the pangs of mental agony. the believers in god are content that man's suffering is ordained, and therefore he accepts life and its trials and tribulations as a penance for living. the fear of the wrath of god has been a stumbling block to progress. when dr. james young simpson sought to apply anesthesia to a woman in childbirth, the clergymen of his day foamed at the mouth and spat upon him with vituperation and abuse, for attempting to violate god's direct command that "in pain thou shalt bring forth children," as based upon the idiotic text of the bible. but dr. simpson persisted despite the ravings of the religious lunatics of his day. the importance of dr. simpson's application of anesthesia to the relief of pain in childbirth, and his open defiance of the religionists, are beyond the measure of words to evaluate. the x-ray was discovered in our time. professor wilhelm roentgen deserves our everlasting debt of gratitude for this contribution. its application alone in the field of medicine makes it one of the greatest contributions to the service of man. dr. karl lansteiner's discovery of the composition of the blood--made in our time--has been responsible for the saving of countless thousands of lives. blood was also feared by the religionists, and a taboo was placed upon all those who touched it, as being contaminated. even the dissection of the human body was prohibited by religion. the study of human anatomy is within our own time, and the fruitful results of this scientific exploring of man's physical structure are incalculable. it is needless, i think, to tell you why the study of human body is so recent. until the emancipation of the mind of man from the thraldom and shackles of religion, it was taught and believed as a "religious truth," and maintained under penalty of eternal damnation, that if the human body was dissected, god would not be able to recognize you on the day of resurrection! such has been the paralyzing menace of religion that has prevailed over the mind of man. the discovery of the chemistry of food and its application to nutrition has contributed more to the health of the human race than all the gods, clergymen and priests since the dawn of existence. preventive medicine has accomplished amazing results in bringing health to, and prolonging, the life of the people. hygiene and its application have saved millions upon millions from disease and premature death. it has stayed the "hand of god" in his madness in spreading deaths from epidemics of disease. charles darwin published his "origin of species" and the great principle of evolution was promulgated. modern emancipated medicine has reduced the infant death rate by more than 50 per cent, and has been responsible for more than doubling the life span of man within the past century. just think of it! all of this within our own lifetime! all of this and more since the day of american independence! and listen to these words of dr. paul d. white, founder of the american heart association. he said: "those of us doctors who graduated from medical school thirty to forty years ago, look back now at the almost unbelievable ignorance about heart disease that then existed. _more knowledge has come since then than had been acquired in all the centuries before._" (italics mine). man was taught in the past that the heart, like the voice, was the "gift of god," and it was too sacred for man to probe into its workings. what were the results? millions died who could have been saved; millions lived as horrible cripples who could have lived a normal life if man in the past, had had the courage, that he has today, to seek relief from the terrors of disease. such is the amazing progress that has been made when man relies upon his own efforts to solve his problems, whether they concern his health, or his social or political affairs. it was only within the past forty years that dr. james b. herrick properly diagnosed the cause of coronary thrombosis from which followed the amazing progress that has since been attained in combating this greatest of killers. i, for one, wish to place upon the brow of dr. herrick my laurel leaf of thanks for his great accomplishment in medicine. what wonders have been accomplished since the invention of the steam engine, the automobile, radio, television, electronic devises, and the thousand and one other discoveries and inventions too numerous to mention. the educational benefit of the motion picture will far outstrip its entertainment value, and its use in nearly every department of learning makes it one of man's most valuable inventions. think of benjamin franklin's discovery of the relationship of electricity and lightning and the condemnation heaped upon him for his defiance of "the prince of the power of the air." and of the wright brothers, and the dire penalty they were to suffer for "flying into the face of god." lightning, once feared as the wrathful manifestation of an angry god, was reproduced in the laboratory by that electrical wizard and atheist, charles p. steinmetz. the telephone, wireless telegraphy, the steam engine, refrigeration, the washing and sewing machines, the mechanical weaving of cloth, and the myriad uses of electric and atomic power will make man the master of his destiny once he frees himself from the myth of a tyrant god. ingersoll best expressed man's inventions and their uses when he said that, "science took the thunderbolt from the gods, and in the electric spark, freedom, with thought, with intelligence and with love, sweeps under all the waves of the sea; science, free thought, took a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created the giant that turns, with tireless arms, the countless wheels of toil." deprive man of the use of his discoveries and inventions of the past century and he will think he has been returned to barbarism. look what thomas a. edison's invention of the electric light did for man--it lengthened his life, it gave more hours to the day, and increased his comforts beyond anything previously known or imagined, and added immeasurably to his joy of living. even joshua's fictitious performance of stopping the sun and the moon fades into nothingness when compared with this sublime achievement. nor must we forget edison's invention for reproducing the human voice--and please grant me a moment's indulgence to say that i had the great honor to know thomas a. edison, and edison honored me by calling me his friend. if printing has been hailed as one of the world's great inventions, what must we say of the phonograph? while printing preserves man's thoughts on paper, the phonograph preserves not only his thoughts but also his voice! the song of the skylark is no longer "wasted upon the desert air." thomas a. edison--the greatest of human benefactors--wrested from nature her most guarded secret--the mystery of the human voice. he disproved, as it was once believed, that the human voice, like the heart, was the "gift of god." he demonstrated that the human voice was merely the natural mechanism of sound produced by air of the lungs passing over the "cords" of the throat and larynx in the same manner as are sounds produced by the strings of a musical instrument. as a result of edison's invention, man himself has already produced artificially every manifestation of the human voice! if the voice was part of "god's plan," how do we account for its absence in the giraffe? this animal has no larynx and therefore no vocal cords, and as a consequence it cannot talk or make sounds with its throat! the giraffe is proof of the lack of design in nature and the blindness of the forces of evolutionary life. to list all the great discoveries in the field of science and medicine during the past century, such as aspirin, insulin, penicillin, and the streptomycin drugs would require the undivided attention of a medical historian and a veritable encyclopedia to record them. and yet, there are still many diseases that plague man of which he has no knowledge. they eat and ravage his mind and body with excruciating pain and torture, and he is utterly helpless against them. he not only does not know their origin, but has not the slightest inkling of their nature or how to fortify himself against their attacks. he must sit, like a condemned criminal, in agonizing torture, waiting for blessed death. if man, and the other forms of life upon this earth, are a mere by-product of an "over-all plan" of a "supreme intelligence," then i denounce such a scheme as tyrannical and barbaric. why should we be made to suffer such excruciating pains and penalties of life to satisfy that from which we derive no benefit, and where death negates all of our efforts; and which makes the purpose of life, our hopes and desires, our ambitions and aspirations, a cruel mockery? o prayer, thy name is failure! o god, thou art a cruel myth! you will not find a single mention of these great humanitarian achievements in the so-called "book of books"; not a single reference about the nature and cure of disease; not a word regarding those inventions that have so mercifully lifted the burden of toil from the backs of labor. and there is good reason for it. the biblical writers not only had no knowledge of these things, but they had a perverted concept of life and the universe. their concept was that man was a victim of blood pollution and his only salvation was by a blood atonement. i remember once seeing a small pamphlet entitled, "what the bible teaches about morality." on opening the little booklet, it was discovered to be nothing but blank pages! another such pamphlet might very appropriately be published entitled, "what the bible reveals about disease, medicine and health," and blank pages should be used for all the bible contains about these vital subjects. on the contrary, these benefits have been denounced by the believers in the bible, and by the representatives of the bible's deity as being contrary to "god's plan." does not the bible plainly state that only by the sweat of his brow is man to labor for the bread he eats? here is the exact biblical quotation: "in the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread..." and why? only because he sought knowledge. and does not the bible god place a curse upon man for the knowledge that has been such a solace and benefit to him? here is another exact biblical quotation: "... cursed be the ground for thy sake; in pain thou shalt eat of it all the days of thy life." the bible is a lie. it is a fake and a fraud. i denounce this book and its god. i hold it in utter detestation. every man and woman who has contributed to the relief of the pain and suffering of humanity has been an infidel to the bible god! every new invention, every new discovery for the benefit of man violates these biblical edicts! i say, seek knowledge--defy this tyrant god--it is your only salvation. it is because of the biblical curse on man's search for knowledge, which has so paralyzed his mind during the past ages, and its detrimental effect upon progress, that makes the bible the most wicked, the most detestable, the most pernicious, and the most obnoxious book ever published. it has been a curse to the human race. it is the duty of every brave and honest man and woman to do everything in his and her power to destroy the influence of this utterly stupid and vicious book, with its infantile concept of life and its nonsense concerning the universe. it is their duty to do everything within their power to stop its demoralizing and paralyzing influence upon the life of man. we will never achieve intellectual liberty until the wickedness of this book has been discarded with the belief in the flatness of the earth. if you do not want to stop the wheels of progress; if you do not want to go back to the dark ages; if you do not want to live again under tyranny, then you must guard your liberty, and you must not let the church get control of your government. if you do, you will lose the greatest legacy ever bequeathed to the human race--intellectual freedom. now let me tell you another thing. if all the energy and wealth wasted upon religion--in all of its varied forms--had been spent to understand life and its problems, we would today be living under conditions that would seem almost like utopia. most of our social and domestic problems would have been solved, and equally as important, our understanding and relations with the other peoples of the world would have, by now, brought about universal peace. man would have a better understanding of his motives and actions, and would have learned to curb his primitive instincts for revenge and retaliation. he would, by now, know that wars of hate, aggression, and aggrandizement are only productive of more hate and more human suffering. the enlightened and completely emancipated man from the fears of a god and the dogma of hate and revenge would make him a brother to his fellow man. he would devote his energies to discoveries and inventions, which theology previously condemned as a defiance of god, but which have proved so beneficial to him. he would no longer be a slave to a god and live in cringing fear! to build a church when a school house is needed is to perpetrate a theft upon education. to build a church when a hospital is needed is to take from the parched lips of the sick the cup of relief and from the suffering the merciful hand of help. when the object of man's conduct will be to improve the conditions of his fellow man and not the appeasement of a mythical god, he will become more understanding and more indulgent of the frailties, mistakes, and action of others, and by the same token he will become more appreciative of their efforts. he will develop a greater consciousness to avoid mistakes and to prevent injury. life and its living will take on a greater significance, and our efforts and energies will be devoted to creating as much joy and happiness as possible for all living creatures. unless death is made a lesson for the living, the life lived is wasted. why should life come into existence only to be destroyed? one dies and another is born--for what? a few miserable hours of life--then oblivion! with this recognition of the finality of death, no one should willingly withhold acts that would bring benefits, joy or happiness to others. in death, the hesitant act can no longer be performed--the word of praise is as impossible as yesterday's return. what perversity justified inflicting pain, suffering and death upon others who have done no wrong? if death ends all, why fight while we are living? why shorten life with unnecessary pain and suffering? how futile are the petty problems of individuals, with their hates and jealousies, when all vanish with death? all the prayers in the world cannot wipe out one injustice. every wrong is irreparable. the dead cannot forgive. all the tears and sighs are of no avail. forgiveness cannot be granted when lips cannot move. praise cannot be heard when ears cannot hear; joy cannot be experienced when the heart no longer beats; and the happiness of an affectionate embrace can no longer be felt when arms are limp and the eyes are forever closed. you are to make up your mind whether it is to be god or man. whether you are to be free or a slave. whether it is to be progress or stagnation. as long as man loves a phantom in the sky more than he loves his fellow man, there will never be peace upon this earth; so long as man worships a tyrant as the "fatherhood of god," there will never be a "brotherhood of man." you must make the choice, you must come to the decision. is it to be god or man? churches or homes--preparation for death or happiness for the living? if ever man needed an example of the benefit of the one against the other, he need but read the pages of history for proof of how religion retarded progress and provoked hatred among the children of men. when theology ruled the world, man was a slave. the people lived in huts and hovels. they were clad in rags and skins; they devoured crusts and gnawed bones; the priests wore garments of silk and satin; carried mitres of gold and precious stones, robbed the poor and lived upon the fat of the land! here and there a brave man appeared to question their authority. these martyrs to intellectual emancipation slowly and painfully broke the spell of superstition and ushered in the age of reason and the dawn of science. man became the only god that man can know. he no longer fell upon his knees in fear. he began to enjoy the fruits of his own labor. he discovered a way to relieve himself from the drudgery of continuous toil; he began to enjoy a few comforts of life--and for the first time upon this earth he found a few moments for happiness. it is far more important to learn how to live than to learn how to pray. a new day and a new era dawned for him. his labors produced enormous dividends. he looked at the sky for the first time and saw that it was blue! he searched the heavens and found no god. he no longer feared the manifestations of nature. the stars, however, are not the alphabet upon which to read the destiny of man. we not only do not believe that man is punished for his "sins," but emphatically state that there is no such thing as sin. there are wrongs and injustices, but no sin. sin, like purgatory and hell, was invented by priests, first to frighten, and then to rob the living. we do not fear these myths and curses, and that is why we devote our time and energies to help our fellow man. that is why we build educational institutions and seek, by a slow and painful process, to teach man the true nature of the universe and a proper understanding of his place as a member in society. at the same time we try to fortify his mind with courage to withstand the rebuffs, the trials and tribulations of life. that it is a difficult and arduous task no one can deny because we cannot correct all of "god's mistakes" in one life time. as ingersoll so succinctly states: "nature cannot pardon." remember this: you are not a depraved human being. you have no sins to atone for. there is no need for fear. there are no ghosts--holy or otherwise. stop making yourself miserable for "the love of god." drive this monster of tyrannic fear from your mind, and enjoy the inestimable freedom of an emancipated human being. the only duty you owe is to yourself and to your family. the duty you owe to yourself is to do the best you can, and the duty you owe to your family is to endeavor to make them happy. emancipate yourself from these stultifying creeds, and protect your children from the contamination of religion. get off your knees, stand erect, and look the whole world in the face. get all the joy and happiness you can out of life. enjoy the fruits of your labor and waste it not upon the myth of heaven; support not the parasites of god. do not knowingly harm another human being; do not knowingly injure your fellow man. all forms of life have feeling, do not make them suffer. as shakespeare says: "the poor beetle, that we tread upon, in corporal sufferance finds a pang as great as when a giant dies." kindness is a magic solvent. while we know that sometimes "ingratitude is more strong than traitor's arms," we also know that "mercy is twice blest; it blesses him that gives and him that takes," and, it should be remembered that while loyalty is the most important of the virtues, patience is the most valuable. become a courageous human being and do the best you can under any and all circumstances in this imperfect and troublesome world. be brave enough to live and be brave enough to die, knowing that when the grim reaper comes, you did the best you could and that the world is better for your having lived. a god could do no more. i will stand between you and the hosts of heaven. i am not afraid. i will act as your attorney before the bar of judgment. i will assume all responsibility. my services are free. put the blame on me. break the chains of mental slavery to religious superstition. arise and become a free and independent human being. dignify yourself as a man, and justify your living by being a brother to all mankind and a citizen of the universe. transcribers note: original text in bold is represented by "=", italic text by "_". in paragraph xii, line 4 "myraids" has been replaced by "myriads". "the tyranny of god" by joseph lewis the new and daring book on the philosophy of atheism clarence darrow =eminent lawyer, noted philosopher, and humanitarian, says=: "your book, 'the tyranny of god,' is well done. it is a very clear statement of the question, bold and true beyond dispute. i am glad that you wrote it. it is as plain as the multiplication table, which doesn't mean that everyone will believe it. i thank you for writing it. i wish i were the author." [illustration: joseph lewis] _a special edition of "the tyranny of god," consists of two hundred and fifty copies, printed on utopian paper, bound in limp leather, gilt top, stamped in gold. each copy is autographed and numbered by the author._ second edition, may, 1921 third edition, april, 1922 fourth edition, january, 1928 fifth edition, april, 1930 sixth edition, october, 1939 seventh edition, november, 1943 the tyranny of god the tyranny of god by joseph lewis the freethought press association new york copyrighted, 1921, by freethought press association _all rights reserved_ printed in the united states of america dedicated to fay my dear wife and comrade, whose loyal and devoted companionship has made life livable. foreword go forth, little book, to destroy fear, prejudice and superstition, and help to install reason in the minds of the human race to be its guide in the affairs of life and its living. preface to second edition the most eloquent testimony given this little book is the fact that a second edition is made necessary only a few months after the publication of the first edition. favorable comments and letters of recommendation from men and women eminent in literary and scientific realms, and commendatory reviews in periodicals of high standard are, i think, sufficient cause for the belief that "the tyranny of god" forms a necessary cog in the machinery of intellectual thought and progress. even those who bitterly oppose the book admit that it possesses the power to make its readers think. of the many opposing reviews and adverse criticism of "the tyranny of god," not a single one offers an argument in answer to it. for the most part, their characterization has been that it is "pessimistic." as if by calling it "pessimistic," they refute its claims! if to tell a man the true nature of a disease from which he is suffering, with the hope that he will seek a cure for his malady, is pessimism, then i am a pessimist. is the use of a danger signal at a hazardous crossing, for the purpose of preventing disaster, pessimism? if to literally "hold the mirror up to nature," disclosing nature's utter disregard for the life and feelings of man, as a warning against the extravagant and useless propagating of life, is pessimism, then surely i am a pessimist. if a fervent desire to help man, instead of wasting time in prayer to "god," is pessimism, i am a pessimist. if to think, to investigate, to express one's thoughts courageously in the face of centuries old dogma is pessimism, then i must confess i am a pessimist. if to expose sham, hypocrisy and fraud; if to open the mind and free it from fear; if to stimulate the intellect, and work for the here instead of the "hereafter"--if all these are classified as pessimism, then truly may i be called an arch pessimist. "the tyranny of god" was written to express the truth as i see it--to portray life, not as we would like to have it, but as it actually is. millions are still like frightened children, afraid of their own shadows. fear of the truth is the greatest deterrent to its acceptance. joseph lewis _april 14, 1922_ preface to the fourth edition i am indeed gratified to send forth the fourth edition of "the tyranny of god." i wish, however, to say to the reader that my book deals with life philosophically and not individually. it was from the viewpoint of life in general and the universe as a whole that the sentiments herein were expressed. to love god is not the duty of man and one of the most important tasks to be accomplished for the human race is to destroy the theistic conception of life and the universe. the sentiments i expressed at a memorial meeting in honor of luther burbank last may best illustrate my convictions. i said: "the religious person loves god so vehemently that he has no love left for man." may "the tyranny of god" do much to accomplish the purpose of its author. joseph lewis _january 10, 1928_ introduction _where did we come from? what are we doing here? whither are we going?_ these questions have puzzled thinking people since consciousness first dawned in the brain. many have sought to answer them, so why not i?--with the hope that the reading of this book will arouse in the minds of the readers thoughts that will enable them to answer these questions for themselves. were you suddenly to find yourself living on another planet, and you were a thinking being, one anxious for knowledge, you would naturally investigate the conditions under which you found yourself, and seek, if possible, a solution for your existence there. surely it is equally appropriate, situated as we are on this earth, endowed with brains and possessing senses and nerves, to inquire into and investigate the conditions under which we live, and the purpose, if any, of our existence here. the peculiarity of this existence warrants such analysis. it is certain, from our understanding as well as from all visible scientific facts, that we did not make ourselves, and that we never had a former existence; and we are led to conclude, in view of lack of credible evidence to the contrary, from those who have passed on, that the future, so far as our individual life is concerned, is an eternal void. it is also certain, as science has indubitably shown, that we do not make our offspring, that we are not creators, but are instruments merely in producing life. furthermore, we did not make any portion of the globe which we inhabit and of which we are a part, and, so far as we are able to determine, all the natural conditions and "raw materials" of our environment are something separate and distinct from anything which we ourselves possess sufficient power to accomplish. therefore, since among the organs of my body, there is a _thinking_ portion, i am within the bounds of sanity when i investigate and express such thoughts, opinions and findings as my reason and understanding dictate. no one can truthfully say that he possesses sufficient knowledge to account for or to explain the peculiar and mystifying rules, conditions and surroundings which we are _forced_ to accept, abide by and live under. and, therefore, the result of one person's findings is worthy the same consideration as those of another. upon such basis i submit an honest attempt to express logically my convictions upon this vital and puzzling condition of our existence, and shall endeavor to aid those who read this book to see conditions in what i believe to be their true light, and to stimulate the readers to think for themselves. it is only through the exchange of the results of investigations, and of honest opinions, that we have been able to add improvement to improvement, and make easier the routine of our lives. the conditions and elements that compose nature, for the sake of clearness, i will ofttimes call "god." i shall be more easily understood, and at times the term "god" will express more succinctly the thoughts or ideas i wish to express. the tyranny of god i lest i be misunderstood, i will say at the outset that i do not believe in a god. the belief in a god is still generally accepted, not because of the existence of one, but for the reason that it is the easiest way to account for our condition. but in the light of scientific discoveries and demonstrations, such a belief is unfounded and utterly untenable to-day. yet the word "god," and even the word "nature," must often be used to describe that condition which the brain of man has not yet been able to analyze fully and scientifically. one ridiculous conception of god that is believed by a multitude of people, is that of a massive being, sitting in a marble chamber studded with gold and lighted with glistening crystals. do those who believe in such a creature ever consider him taking a bath--and in what? or of eating his breakfast--and of what it consists? if there were a god, and the world were governed with stern justice, tempered to our feeble intelligence, existence might become tolerable, but as it is, with a so-called god "ruling above," the earth is an abominable place and life a long series of terrifying torments. if i were to advocate a belief, or faith, in a god, i would seek the embodiment of those things diametrically opposite to the attributes of the popular god of to-day. such a creature is not worthy the sacrifice of ourselves and our thoughts. let us examine and investigate the system and arrangement of the world--that is, that portion of which we are a part and which so vitally concerns us. the result of our most extensive study and labor shows us that the earth, after an illimitable duration of time, has gradually attained its present peculiar development. in other words, nature has taken millions of years to produce the earth as it is now formed; and if it were made particularly for human beings it is not yet completed, for we still find spots, aye, vast areas, where human life is incapable of subsisting. the climate is either too hot or too cold; there is too much water or too little moisture; the means of cultivation are too meager or utterly unobtainable. in short, after eons of labor, nature has failed to be able to present to every one of us, for our habitation, a parcel of earth commodious and comfortable enough to be perfectly desirable for life and its living. surely, if the earth were made for our benefit, nature has been not only a very poor provider, but a very thoughtless parent. some say that man is nature's best product, that the earth was made for us, that we are particularly selected by god, and that a certain race is his chosen people. but that is not true. the jews are no more god's chosen people than the jay is his chosen bird, or the mosquito his chosen insect. it is not true that nature particularly works for us--facts prove the contrary. facts prove that we are nothing but an undesirable by-product, to make our way and to live our life as best we can within a cruelly turbulent space, imprisoned by invisible, impenetrable walls of limitation. no, it is not true that our life is favored by nature. after we build our homes, make our cities and add improvements, what happens? nature, with her forceful winds, blows them down; her cruel storms and rising floods wash them away as so much refuse, and a tremor of the earth destroys not only our homes but ourselves also, leaving no traces of our efforts, treasures and sacred ties. even as individuals we "curse god" for the shortcomings with which we are afflicted. the exceedingly stout person, one who is "in his own way" curses god for making him so stout. the thin person has a similar grievance. those who are too large and those who are too small are equally dissatisfied. the shape of an eye, the curve of the mouth, a blemish here, an impediment there, is the direct cause of poignant embarrassment. organs or dimensions too unsightly and unsatisfactory are productive of continual worry and torment throughout our lives. the blind, the deaf, the dumb and the crippled have forever a curse for god upon their lips. we inhabit the air, with a density of fifteen pounds to the square inch, a mixture of dirt and water, in the same manner that the fish inhabits the water and the worm the earth. were we beings of a superior type, nature would have made us so versatile that we should be able to accustom ourselves to any condition, and survive in any climate. but despite all our improvements, despite all man's efforts to avoid and escape the conditions of nature, many of us freeze to death in winter and become prostrate from the heat of summer. if it were true that the earth were purposely made and existing for us there would be "no flowers born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the desert air." we, ourselves, scientists tell us, are the result of a long series of evolutionary development. they tell us that nature started with a single cell of protoplasm, a single cell of living organism, and produced the present human species after the life and death of an illimitable number of forms through the stages of countless ages, not exempting those lives from the fear, torture and misery that are still so essential a part of the scheme of life. why impose so cruel and wasteful a condition upon those numberless billions that have lived before us, since nothing but eternal death was gained by their existence? surely, nature is a poor architect and builder, after taking so much material and so much time, to make such an incomplete place for such an outlandish form to rule and occupy. if we were given the same opportunity (that is, you and i), with all the power and resources of nature, to build a habitable place, and mold a living something to inhabit it, our results would be ten thousand times better than that which circles the scope and boundary of our lives, with the incomprehensible physical form with which we breathe and manifest life. truthfully, and without the slightest element of egotism, i should be ashamed of my efforts were i to present as my handiwork nothing better than the level and plane which nature has attained. ii we come into this world a tiny bundle and mass of helpless, feeble flesh, utterly unprepared to meet the requirements and fearful conditions that lie in wait for us. we are in need of immediate, urgent and constant help from those who were responsible for our birth, imperatively so from our mother. the child does not ask to come, and knows absolutely nothing about its welfare. and the mother often does not want to bear it, as she knows absolutely nothing about maternal cares. and yet that mother must go through the "shadow of the valley of death" before she can deliver this tiny bundle and helpless mass of feeble flesh. and how often, aye, only too often, does the mother _enter_ the valley of death when making delivery of this living form, never to see the face of the child that nature imposed upon her to bear! what a despicable arrangement! what an unfair bargain! can you imagine a more outlandish, ridiculous, awkward, complicated, cruel and fearful system of reproduction than that which we are under yoke to pursue? without the elaborate details of the perilous stages of life's development, this is the method of incubation nature imposes upon us. before the birth of a human being, one male and one female--that is, one man and one woman--must have sexual intercourse. whether this intercourse is prompted by all the finer impulses of life or is accomplished by the savageness of rape makes no difference to nature's purpose. to nature the end justifies the means, and she continues to go about her business. the male--that is, the man of this pair--can strut and parade with the utmost freedom from his responsibility for the result of his act that nature has made to be pre-eminent among his desires. but the female--that is, the woman of this pair--_must for nine months_ (just think of it!) carry and develop the germ of this child in the fertile field of her womb, and be subjected to the innumerable terrifying dangers accompanying such a carriage, and then suffer a superhuman torture to make the delivery, through a very meager channel of her body, of this living plant which she has never seen, does not know and quite often does not want, _but must absolutely bear_! provided nature has not made the creature too deformed and mutilated and unable to survive, the mother must, during a period of constant care and _outward carriage_, bear this feeble infant for another period of nine months or more!--suckling at her breast for _food_! so you see that woman is not only a human being, but a fertile ground and pasture. i have not gone into the misery of child bearing and caring, nor of the ingratitude that is so often received. i ask for what reason has nature imposed this terrible penalty upon woman? _why?_ would you, reader, were it in your power, formulate such a method of reproduction? i'll answer for you: no! but that is not all. for years to come, this child that for nine months was carried inwardly and for a much longer period outwardly, by its mother, must now be fed, washed and clothed for an indefinite number of _years_, and guided through a thousand perils and dangers that nature has set before it, with disease as nature's agent, crouching and ready to destroy the child's life, not in open combat, but invisibly concealed by the limitation of our senses. this is one of nature's unspeakable crimes; one of god's despicable impositions. it is not sufficient that a mother should subject herself to such a dangerous and perilous mission, but she must also withstand the cruel savageness, the cold, callous death piercings, of nature's invisible tyrants and destroyers. life holds but one real attraction, one instance that can be classified above all others. without this attraction it would be a blessing to choke the life breath from us all. with it we are helped to bear the _tyranny of god_. there comes a time to some of us when the heart of the one man beats for the one woman, and there alights and resides in their breasts that spark of devotion that we call "love." when there is born to that union a child, even though in nature's stupid way, then a bond is created more precious than anything else in this world. without this little circle of loving joy, the earth is a prison and life a grave injustice for those who must bear it. but think of the damnable rule of nature that strives and delights in working destruction of the only condition worthy of life's living! oh, if only the life of our offspring were more stable, more secure! if only the bosom of our family were guaranteed to us! just think! the child the parents would not harm, nature tortures and god kills! looking back upon the path we have trodden, with its continual fight against disease, its manifold combats with obstacles of life, and with its inevitable portion of sorrow we all must bear, we should think seriously and consider the result of our act before we deliberately bring another human being into this life. you, yourself, do not consider your life worthy of reliving, so why bring a human being here to go through the same, if not more, suffering and misery than you have borne with no resultant good? iii up to this point i have been speaking of human beings only, living under improved conditions that man has made. what must be the horror, darkness and emptiness of those living substances that are "inferior" to us? do you know and realize the suffering that we endure? then let me, in passing, urge this: be also kind and considerate to our less fortunate inhabitants of this earth, the "dumb" animals. their feelings are quite similar to ours. they have gone through the rougher parts of evolution that gave to us our more useful organs and limbs. they are allied to us in much the same manner as the members of our own species. they have their painful aches and periods, their hardships and tortures, their broken family ties and fearful abhorrence of death; their flesh is tender and their skin is as delicate to them as ours is to us. so let us "think twice," dear readers, before we deliberately harm any of our humbler brothers and sisters that must inhabit this cold and callous earth and live their lives under a great deal more tyranny and injustice than we live ours. we deliberately enslave and brutally treat the gentle horse. we tyrannically imprison birds and fishes as "pets." we keep, breed, kill and eat a variety of animals for our own selfish purposes, and yet some persons still have the audacity to say that we are "chosen people," "god's children," "divine beings." bah! you know what painful inconvenience there is in losing an arm or a leg. well, the winged and footed beings that must bear this life suffer a great deal more than we do when one of their limbs becomes dismembered. man has to a degree remedied or replaced his crippled limbs, but i do not think any other of the higher animals have advanced so far, and as a result these creatures must endure their pain and distressing annoyance to the end. recently i watched a common house fly caught upon "fly paper," and studied intently every visible movement of it. immediately upon alighting upon the sticky substance, its first thought, almost instantaneously, was to make an effort to free itself. at once i thought of the fly's instinct of "self-preservation," and contrasted it with the human's. the fly must have had intelligence, since it knew that its life was in danger. and, since nature does not deal in "fly paper," the fly's reasoning power told it of its peril. with unabated determination it vibrated its wings with lightning-like rapidity, and worked its legs unceasingly, _breaking them in the attempt_, in its efforts to pull itself away to freedom! as i watched this fly in its labor, this thought came to me: is the fly unlike the human being in its desire to live? is it afraid of death and of the mystery of dissolution? has it, too, all the agony of fear of passing to the "great beyond"? has it, too, an imaginary god in the form of a big fly? and is it also afraid of that god's supposed wrath? if the fly's desire to live is so great, what interest does it have in life? does it love? does it derive happiness when it is able to labor to make happy its fly juliet? does it want to live because it is ambitious and is trying to excel other flies? does it really think to better its species and solve the problem of its kind? is there a fly family to mourn its death? while watching that fly and asking myself these questions, i was convinced of the following _truths_: that the force that we call life is the same that animates the fly. that it, too, has control of its muscles and nerves in the same proportion as we have control of ours. that it, too, possesses the five senses and adds to its tiny brain more intelligence through its experiences. within the movements and actions of that fly was wrapped up the secret of "whence did i come, and whither am i going?" as i released my attention from that fly, i muttered to myself: "the more i look at insects, the more i think i am one." for what purpose do _we_ arise in the morning, fill our stomachs with food, till the fields, and perform labor in exchange for nourishment, in the evening fall into a sleep from exertion, arise the next day, and perform the same routine, day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and year out, and at the age and in the heyday of physical development seek an outlet in the opposite sex for the strongest impulse that nature has implanted in us? this impulse forces us to commit rape and murder, robbery and assault, and to violate every principle of honor that man has tried to establish for the betterment and advancement of the race. with the dissipation of this mighty sex force, we subside and decline into weakness and decay, only to pass into death and oblivion. what a fearful, wasted effort is this life! iv the system of nourishment that nature has imposed upon the world is not only stupid and malicious, but also of a cannibalistic character. we, as frail human beings, are horrified and shocked to think that our ancestors trafficked in and delighted in eating the flesh of their race, and even to-day we are making a strenuous effort to discourage the barbarous custom of killing animals to eat their flesh, yet it seems a dictate of nature that forces us to uphold that custom. just think of it! nourishment and life-sustaining forces are derived from eating the cooked flesh of a dead animal, the unborn fowl, the bowels of the lamb, and the eggs of the fish! can you imagine the wildness of life in such a jungle of cannibalism? no wonder the savage instinct is so deeply implanted in us. to get a fair idea of the food we eat to sustain life and to please and satisfy our palates, we need but take a casual glance at any of our modern butcher shops. although to-day you will not see human limbs on display and for sale, as they were years ago, you will be impressed with the following morsels put there to tempt your appetite: in our modern butcher shops you will find pigs' feet, calves' brains, ox tongues, breasts and legs of lamb, chicken livers, dogs ground to bits and sold as sausages, live and dead fish of all kinds and varieties and innumerable other portions of animal flesh. fortunately we have got beyond the point where we eat the entrails of these animals, although we use their hoofs to make glue, their bones for powder, and we string our delicate musical instruments with their vitals. the things we consume, in turn consume the living forms that they capture and subdue. the lion, the tiger and the leopard will devour us more quickly, and with less ceremony and with more delight, than we devour other animals. we, being "civilized," boil the animal's flesh and season it with weeds that nature allows to grow, to give it zest and flavor, while our wilder brothers eat us in the raw, natural manner, only removing our civilized clothes. really, if getting nearer to god is getting back to nature, the beasts of the fields have an advantage over us. and we know to-day that even the living things in the vegetable kingdom suffer alike from the fearful tortures and penalties of the world. they follow almost the identical routine of life that we follow. birth, life, reproduction, and death are their lot as well as ours; so that, if man were only to practice the idealism of his cramped and feeble brain he would starve to death! v if the world is the result of an established plan, as some say, it must be the conception of a hideous monster whose three cardinal principles are disease, despair and death. but this much we can say: though god created us a savage, fortunately man is civilizing nature's brute and is making him a man. disease is one of nature's cardinal forces. so, to attain health, we struggle against disease; but health only means the guarding of it through fear. "with all the ills the flesh is heir to," true health is a chimera, an existing state unknown to man. to be "well" is such a precious condition, that nature cautions us against expecting to retain health too long, by instructing us, through experience, to prepare for a siege of illness. thus, disease and illness would seem to be the natural states, and health the artificial condition under which nature permits us to live. no one goes to his grave without suffering the tortures of some disease and paying the penalty of living. no one is exempt from the inflictions nature imposes. the greater portion of our life consists in devising means and medication to relieve us of our states of ill health and disease. sanitation and all the methods we are capable of discovering and inventing are becoming universally applied to kill and to destroy the menacing germs that god causes to inhabit the air, and that breed and multiply in the fertile flesh of our bodies. and finally, we are so utterly ignorant of how even to eat, sleep, walk, breathe, stand or sit, that the slightest infringement of the simplest rules of life can, and does, cause us irreparable harm. if we did not move to help ourselves, nature would have us live in filth and stagnation. we seek, discover, or invent all kinds of methods to build health and to remain perfectly strong throughout our lives, and yet, despite it all, we are puny and sickly beings. in fact, i do not think there is such a thing as perfect health. what we may do to correct, insure or perfect our healthy tissues will have a detrimental effect upon some other part of our body. what we do to build up must also tear down. what we do to produce health will, after a certain point, produce disease. this, it seems, is the law not only of life, but also of the universe. it is regrettable that god did not possess the magnanimity of an ingersoll and make health contagious instead of disease. physical pain and mental suffering are the mysterious sorrows that we must experience and pay to a tyrant god for the existence we bear. it is incontrovertible that no realization is given us by nature of the fearful pains and tortures that we are capable of suffering and still sustain ourselves, only to repeat over and over again the unending torment in exchange for the consciousness of a worthless life. we, with our limited intellects, with our puny strength, with our inability to utilize all the materials in our possession, are still superior to the workmanship and the justice of god. tyrant is no name for such a god, who creates a living organism purposely and maliciously to torment and torture it. a poor creature is a god who makes his suffering playthings more powerful than "he," and compels them to bear their existence under the lash of inexorable laws of sorrow and suffering, pain and penalty. and yet we are satisfied with so little. we ask for a crumb only. we are pleased with the slightest favor. a toy delights us; a little trinket elicits from us warm gratitude; a breath of balmy air is drunken with keen and pleasurable delight; a "fine" day is celebrated with exultation! but what a mockery is life! we writhe in pain and bear the brunt of an arrogant tyranny from whatever force that created and controls us. we must daily bathe our bodies, wash our hair, brush our teeth, change our clothes and perform other necessary physical functions to feel freedom from the filthy conditions that nature imposes upon us and surrounds us with. if nature saw fit to give us eyes, she should have given us perfect ones; not those which, upon the slightest contact with a minute foreign substance, cause unutterable pain and possible loss of sight, in a world where sight is so imperative! if nature saw fit to give us ears, she should have given us perfect ones; not those which are capable of such frightful pain, with the possibility of becoming totally deaf, when it is so necessary to hear! if nature saw fit to give us a nose, she should have given us a perfect one; not one that causes such miserable torture and unbearable suffering from the slightest defect! if nature saw fit to give us a mouth, she should have given us a perfect one; one that would perform all the functions of perfect speech; not one that is so liable to harm and so susceptible to dumbness, when speech is of such paramount importance to life! if nature saw fit to give us teeth, she should have given us perfect ones; not those which ache and pain with such fearful intensity that the mind is almost distracted! if nature saw fit to give us arms, legs, and organs, she should have given us perfect ones; not a body whose tenderness makes it an instrument of such menacing torture; not a body of crippled bones and crippled joints, where suffering results from everything it does! if nature saw fit to give us a brain, she should have given us one strong enough to withstand all the rebuffs of life, and one capable enough to utilize all the forces under command. each person should be a mental hercules capable of solving his own problems and directing all matter to its greatest material uses. instead of the human body being the marvelously constructed instrument we are wont to believe it, we now find it to be nothing but a common machine, imperfectly made, and subject to innumerable changes and radical improvements. every person acquainted with the anatomy of the body can give you a list of imperative improvements that it needs, and without which it will continue to function imperfectly and continue to cause pain and suffering to its possessor. it were a great deal better, after a full summary of life, were we to be created utterly devoid of feeling, equally impervious to joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. we should be manifestly benefited, for the greater part of our life is now full of sorrow, anxiety, fear, pain, disappointment and worry. a small portion of our life is a matter of indifference. a portion might be termed satisfaction, and a minute balance, an infinitesimal part, termed--if there is such a thing in life--joy. and yet, the joy we may experience to-day will not be present to-morrow to cheer and comfort us, but the pain that we feel to-day will pinch us more strongly to-morrow, and will remain as an ever-poignant memory. joy and pleasure are of a transitory nature only, while pain and sorrow are of a permanent and accumulative character. is _all_ of life worth the sorrow, the agony and fear of death? just think of giving a life so full of grief that those who have it do not want it and quite often destroy it! no wonder that drugs more powerful than our minds, used to numb the pains of life, are so much in demand and so universally used. what a ridiculous assumption it is to think that a soul, separate and distinct from the body, would imprison itself in such a miserable confinement! instead of life's being a privilege, it is a prison, wherein we must suffer fearful pains and still more fearful thoughts. physical pain registers a high degree of intense feverish suffering, but mental torture is fired with the scorch of hell. vi human life is the cheapest thing that god makes! no consideration is given to the feelings, pains and sorrows it must bear and endure. no wonder that ridicule, shame, hatred and other forms of mental suffering cannot be withstood by some frail minds, and cause them to seek relief from their torment. under the red-hot brand of mental torture, the jealous husband sees his wife violate every rule and principle and vow of virtue. he sees her reveling in the arms and embrace of him that he despises, committing trespass upon the one he so loves. the husband suffers more mentally in a few moments of these imaginings, than the actual performance, with his full knowledge, could cause him to suffer. losses, mistakes, discouragements and disappointments scorch with burning blisters the lining of our lives. i once thought it was cowardly to make destruction of oneself, but i must say that more mature thought, supported by actual scenes and experiences, has caused me to alter my view. but before i go farther, let me make my thought clear so as to avoid any misunderstanding. i do not mean that a person should shirk his or her duty in the face of hardship, discouragement or rebuke. on the contrary, the mettle of the man is best tested by such adverse forces, and some of the most inspiring moments of life lie in overcoming these conditions and triumphing over unjust, undue and seemingly impossible odds. what i do mean is, when life no longer holds any attraction, when the ravages of disease have torn and mutilated your body, when pain and torture are raking your mind, and your daily companions are these miseries, with no possible hope of their relief or change, then by all means, by whatever agency you desire to accomplish it, save yourself the terrible agony of living, and defeat one of the tyrant impositions of god. vii the child suffers the sharpest pains, the crudest poignancy that could possibly be inflicted upon its body, through the stupid, frightening and monstrous tales that are continually told to it to make it "good," to make it "obey." to think that a child cannot bear to enter the dark, cannot bear to be alone, cannot bear to be separated from its loving and protecting parents, and yet must suffer in a few moments from a fatal disease--the agony of all this, in the face of death, is the crime of crimes, too damnable and horrible for words. i remember once seeing a little lost child. it cried for its mother. hot tears were streaming down its burning cheeks. its face portrayed the severest form of suffering that life is capable of experiencing. if nature ever made a frail article, it is our tender offspring, so bewildered, so utterly helpless, so agonizingly delusioned, so pitifully searching for some familiar face; something to make it discover its lost self. oh, what power ever made us so tender, so incapable of self-help, as to have us undergo and feel such terrific suffering! it is injustice enough when adults are made to suffer mental and physical ills, without inflicting such a painful decree upon mere infants. at least an adult has some conception of his suffering. he can make provision for some remedy. he can seek others to ask them to render help. he knows, he feels, he understands the situation, and can adjust himself as best he can to obtain some relief. but not so with the child. its mind is not capable of comprehending the condition which makes its suffering so sharp. its little brain is too feeble, hardly strong enough to direct its awkward and bulky body, much less to solve such an incredible predicament as being utterly destitute of help, in a world fashioned upon such an unsatisfactory plan. there is not, nor can there be, a sadder, more distressing sight, than to see a little lost child overcome with fright. if it were in my power to abolish any of nature's cruel laws, i would take from the little child its feeling of pain. let me ask, would man, were it in his power, send a helpless creature, utterly unable to sustain itself, without power of thought, understanding or expression, so dependent upon loving care, kindness, help and comprehension, into a world that is a wilderness, a world reeking with pestilence and populated with shrieking beasts and brutal and savage people? as a passing word regarding the child, let me say this: do not judge your child as an ordinary mechanical instrument, as if he could be wound up to a certain degree and gradually, as if by clockwork, tick away each moment of the day. the child is a combustible force, and, although there are certain rules by which you may obtain the greatest degree of improvement, you cannot rigidly adhere to them. there are numberless instances when the propensity or inclination of the child may appear to you to be aggravating and annoying; nevertheless, you must not let _your_ irritability interfere with the development of that trait preã«minent to the child's character. look upon your child, encourage your boy or girl, to be a pioneer and a soldier in the march of progress. instruct it with the knowledge of the miserable conditions of our past history, and bring it forcibly to understand that efforts only are repaid, and that we must work in order to accomplish. prayers are only wasted words on the desert air. the greatest mental crime ever committed is that of teaching a child, "while still upon its mother's knee," its duty and obedience to god. it would appear that for the amount of suffering it must endure, and in the face of its unconsulted coming, we should at least disregard god for his insolence, and impress upon the child the peculiar conditions of life. we should instruct it, that from time immemorial, nature has been laboring through the most awkward process of reproduction, and has finally brought the child into existence, not to enjoy the benefits, or eat of the fruits of the earth, but to bear a life of continual strife and suffering. not of god should we speak to our child, but of the importance of being prepared to do all in its power to help others to escape the torture, misery and hardships it must so painfully overcome. is it any wonder that we grow up to be serfs and slaves? before we are able to know or understand the very rudest fundamentals of life, our entire mental machinery is corrupted by unshakable fears and dedicated to the vilest and most sickening submission. would that we were left alone, and free to follow the thoughts of our own minds, regarding the great problems of life. what a mighty, unhampered power we would possess to find the proper course of action, and possibly the real solution to the mystery of the _tyranny of god_! to love and to reverence our tormentor is repulsive and despicable, and since we refuse to allow man to tyrannize over man, what degradation it is for the human race to cringe and bow down unconditionally to the imagination in the great realm of uncertainty! do not hurt your child. do not strike it. do not cause it any unnecessary pain. before it is able to walk, before it is able to talk, before it is old enough to tell of its pain and suffering, nature makes it endure enough. remember, the only language of the babe is the cry of pain. imagine yourself under the lash of suffering, utterly speechless and incapable of conveying your wants and feelings to an absolutely strange surrounding, and you will have a slight picture of the growing child in your household. did you ever stop to consider that the child, when born, does not know that you are its parent? it does not know that you are its father, or that you are its mother. it does not know what prompted its birth, or why it must live--and above all, what it has done to be sent to such a miserable prison place as the planet upon which we live. we must demonstrate all this as well as we can to the child. this much we can be sure of: kindness, tenderness and love should forever be our guide in our dealings and contact with children. the child is brought into this world from the insuppressible passion of two people, and surely without its consent, and it is absolute tyranny and barbarity to torment its mind or to punish its body, regardless of the result its action may have upon us. to the little children that have suffered the horrible punishment so generally followed in that cruel and false book--the bible--my heart goes out in pity, since words fail me to describe those savage characters that visit inhuman, tormenting and torturous treatment upon their unwelcome offspring. if we were forced to perform the thousand tyrannies that are directed against the child during the day by cruel and thoughtless parents, the lunatic asylum would soon be our place of refuge. such trivial things as a spot on the shoe, a speck of dirt upon the clothes, a mere tip of the hat, a slight turn of the scarf often give rise to such violent reprimand, and very often brutal punishment, that the savageness of barbarians is mild compared to such displays of temper. my heart again goes out to you, little children, when and wherever you are, that must bear the brunt of brutal actions from stupid and thoughtless parents and guardians. these people seem to classify children in the matter of discipline as grown ups, thinking (or, rather, not thinking) that children's undeveloped minds should be as strong as theirs, when they themselves are unable to practice the self-denial that they expect from mere infants. how often does a child receive a slap in the face from a parent for the asking of only a simple question, when the parent is not in the "humor" to "bother" with him? what a painful and terrifying beating does a child often get for disobeying some arbitrary command uttered by the one over him. to the child, "don't do this," "don't go there," "stand up straight," and "say this" are commands that carry with them court martial and its severe and unrelenting punishment. remember this: the child will respond to kindness and love more readily and directly than to force and unwarranted discipline. it is purely a question of whether your feelings are actuated by these impulses. if you have become mentally strong enough to restrain your impulses to strike your child, do not substitute other means to "punish" him. changing the method of brutally inflicting physical pain upon your child to some other means, though less repulsive, is still obnoxious and harmful. if you are unable to convince your child, by persuasion, example or otherwise, that you are right and that the child should follow your instruction, then by all means, let it become the victor in the contest. fear--fear of pain, fear in every form--controls our lives, and shapes the courses of our puny destinies. viii the mind, through fear of death, is capable of suffering, within a few moments, the tortures of an eternity, although to accomplish death, nature may require only a few minutes. the extent of the mind's capability for suffering is beyond compare. nature has been distinctly conspicuous in imbuing us not only with grave doubts and uncertainties, but also with an unshakable fear regarding death. in the deepest moments of despair, when living has absolutely no attraction and life becomes a burden and a menace, we fight desperately, and without abatement, for this narrow, worthless thread of existence. possibly the fear that we have in the face of death is caused by the fact that we must suffer pain before death is accomplished. and a great deal of the theory of "self-preservation" is due merely to our great horror of pain. the indisputable fact that thousands "take their lives" by choosing the least possible painful method demonstrates, with a firm conviction, my thought that it is the avoidance of pain, rather than the retaining of life, that prompts our efforts to live. it is only too true, and heard from the lips of thousands, that if they "could only lie down and never awake, what a blessing it would be." we speak in terms of "having lived too long," "being tired of living," "life not worth living," etc., as if life were a prison sentence, and, often, rather than continue the servitude, we surmount and overcome the deterrent of pain and destroy the life. very often our desire to keep on living is prompted by our baser impulses. we "live" sometimes to "get even" with someone--to spite someone. we "live" sometimes to be able to "show" what we can or cannot do. were it not for these baser impulses, what an unlimited number of people would refuse to continue this monotonous, painful and non-paying life! the foregoing expressions of life, at one time or another, represent the feelings of all humanity. in the united states alone during the year 1920 it has been conservatively estimated that more than twelve thousand persons committed suicide. these persons were engaged in all kinds of pursuits and came from all walks of life. they ranged from social outcasts to society leaders; from poverty stricken unfortunates to persons of great wealth; from illiterate men and women to editors and college professors; from laborers and layman to physicians and ministers. the youngest suicide was a mere infant of five years, the oldest, a centenarian of 106! among the suicides of last year were two evangelists and twelve clergymen. it would appear that those who had devoted their thoughts and services to god would at least be spared the agony of such suffering as to force them to prefer death and to take their lives. i say with ingersoll, it is a wonder god does not at least protect his friends and defenders. the reluctance we have to die is due in a large degree to the possibility of securing a few more moments of joy from an already too much troubled world, with the hope that a little compensation will be derived from the pain and sorrow we have endured. and yet those things that we may live to enjoy to-day and to-morrow may likewise be present to thrill us at some future date, away and beyond the limitation we are capable of surviving. it is from this desire that we unconsciously "feel" that we would like to "live" always, to get our full measure of return; and since such is neither the lot nor the privilege of our possession, it really makes no difference when we die as far as personal satisfaction is concerned. the fear that possesses us now in the matter of death will likewise and with equal force possess us later, when we actually and without ceremony must submit to the inevitable. the desire that possesses a person to live now will, with equal attraction, obsess him later. our desires and aspirations are never satisfied. what we may cherish to accomplish to-day may be consummated and achieved, yet to-morrow another something will demand our energies to be spent for further desires to be accomplished. when we are babies we desire to walk; when we walk, we desire to talk; when we talk, we desire to grow; after we grow, we want to learn; after we learn, we want to do and to expand--and our performance and expansion are only curtailed by insolent death! ix the only justification there is to live, once conscious of the damnable scheme of life, is the burning desire to do something to help mankind bear the conditions and to make easier the burden of life for those who are here and for those who are to come; for very often the greatest benefactors of the race are so maligned and persecuted in their day that only the future can render a just appreciation of their labor and their value. for without the improvement bestowed on life by the world's benefactors, over the crudity of nature, it were better that we remain in the bosom of our wilder brothers, and hang from the trees by the length and the strength of our tails. aye, back and back and back, down every degree of life until the time before the first cell of protoplasm from an inanimate into an animate state started. why must we be made to suffer such dreadful torment before death, since by eternal decree it is the common lot all must endure? death, puzzling, eternal death, is nature's final stamp upon our fearful struggle through life. and the agony of death is more poignantly mental than physical, since the mind, reviewing the acts of the past, anticipates with anxiety and with picturesque vividness the wrongs, scandals, terrors, fears and injustice of the future. since life is so replete with physical pains, no wonder our picture of death is so horrible. we see upon the lifeless form the cast of its agonizing pain, and augur from that an eternity of sorrow. but fortunately, in reality we can only feel pain as long as we possess "life." in a sense, therefore, death is a blessing. after all, the severest pains of death lie in the brains of the living. the mind is capable of suffering in one moment all that a lifetime can repay with pleasure, and no joy is sufficient in value to compensate you for enduring an irreparable loss. the conditions that existed before our birth are identical with the conditions that will exist at our death. as we knew no life and felt no pain before our birth, we shall know no life and feel no pain after our death. death is no longer the enigma of life. living is its problem. the sting of death has been removed. we know death's destiny, and no longer fear its consequences. the only suffering attached to death now is the injustice of its time of coming, the reluctance of parting with loved ones, and the loss of the opportunity to attain. well might i say with shakespeare, that: "cowards die many times before their death; the valiant never taste of death but once. of all the wonders that i yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear; seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come." the most despicable characters of human life are those who prey upon credulous persons when in the face of death and shrouded with the fear of its uncertainty, picturing to those persons horrible and frightening tales of an eternity of torture. what unspeakable misery must those whose religious conviction has so terrified death and its aftermath, especially when it is intensified and horrified through the mouthpiece of ignorant priests, suffer in consequence of death. oh, what a fearful sting must be there! just think what this poor, vast, credulous multitude pay, with the sweat of their brows and the bend of their backs, to enrich these moral beasts in exchange for their ignorant and terrifying mumblings, that rob the deluded ones of every fiber of courage and every thought of perfect peace and rest. it is while living that death possesses its sting and anguish. anyone that seeks tribute from the dying, or from the living for services on behalf of the dead, is a damnable moral scoundrel and a cunning rascal. to those whose minds have been poisoned from childhood with this religious conviction, this most awful of beliefs, i cry: "throw off these tyrants of the mind. emancipate yourselves from this fearful ignorance and mental bondage!" what a burden will be lifted from their lives and what a glorious freedom they will experience! if we are to die, let us die in perfect calmness and in perfect peace. let us become firmly convinced that, once we are dead, no thought, no act, can possibly harm us. we are beyond the pale of nature's pangs. we, the individuals that we were, are free from everything. we are at rest, and forever. x but after this life with all our pains and sorrows, what then? what is there to repay us for living? i answer: _nothing!_ i have no misgivings about the "future." i am firmly convinced that there is no "after life," that when we "breathe our last" we arrive at our eternity. we are "one with yesterday's seven thousand years." we are like the flower which, "once blown, forever dies." i firmly believe that life as now manifested in our bodies is a combustible force identical with that of any other form of life. no less so than the "seed" of the flower is different from the "germ" of the wheat. both are forces! so are we! they may be different manifestations, but fundamentally they are the same. in fact, the very force that manifests itself in a mechanical instrument made by man is the identical substance that rules the organs, and charges the brain of our being. in the same manner that the force dissipates itself in the mechanical instrument made by man, and no longer gives motion to its parts, so the force that animates our being dissipates itself and is no longer capable of giving motion to our parts and organs. as man's instruments are dependent upon many channels for their complete performance, so the human brain and body have their many dependencies that must fully and properly be nourished to maintain their power. each day science draws another veil from the mystery of life. our eye is but a chemical camera, that we have not only reproduced, but even improved upon. our voice is nothing but a vibration, that we have not only reproduced and improved upon, but whose minutest modulations we have recorded in innumerable duplications. our ear is but a drum, that carries and conveys to the brain the vibrations of our voice, and that function we have reproduced and even improved upon by the instrument we call the telephone. the telegraphic system of the human body that communicates to the brain the conditions that the senses perceive, is no other than that which man has even improved upon by the transmission of an intelligible message to a far-distant land without the use of any apparent conductor. with the marvelous instrument, the telephone, man sends his voice around the world. man's greatest inventions, the phonograph, the camera and the telephone, both wire and wireless, make the work of nature, as manifested in our bodies, a simple, childish affair, fit only for the kindergarten of things. when edison invented the incandescent light and reproduced the human voice in the phonograph he pulled aside the veil of secrecy and penetrated the infinite. _he proved and demonstrated man to be greater than god._ our limbs carry our bodies in the direction our brains dictate, and _that_ function we have reproduced and even improved upon in all the means of locomotion that we daily use and which we now consider as a "matter of fact" among the ordinary things of life. "comparisons are odious" when we compare the awkward motion of nature with the rapid locomotion of man. man progresses far too rapidly for the accommodation of nature, and as a result adapts for his use and benefit vital essentials that nature in her laziness has either failed to utilize, or will not utilize. although we have not yet completely discovered all the material and mechanical elements that compose life, we are sure and certain of their origin. we hear ourselves talk; we decide upon our destination and direct our motion; we eat when we are hungry; sleep when we are tired; cry when we are in pain; and laugh when we are tickled. our whole being from start to finish is mechanical, and the element of something "spiritual," something separate and distinct from a purely material sense, is absolutely illogical and ill-founded in view of the illimitable illustrations that are being demonstrated every day. it is a thing easily understood, if we logically, and intelligently, without blindness, preference or prejudice, analyze the problem. it may sound better and more desirable to say that we possess a "soul"--that this life is but a "stepping stone to a higher plane"--but it is not true. we cannot observe the true, actual facts of life by coloring our subject. if we want to determine the _truth_ we must be mentally prepared to accept the _truth_. a painted face, brightened eyes, blackened eyelids, marcelled hair, and a form draped in all the splendor of the finest silks do not make a woman possess the sweetness and charm that all this "dope" is intended to make us believe. as much as man wants to have the end of this life attain certain benefits and destinations, this desire does not make them real. the implicit confidence in a faithless wife does not make her loyal and virtuous. a wife's confidence in a profligate husband does not make him stanch and true. life calls for a cold analysis. it must be stripped of all its artificial colorings and superfluities. it must be measured and weighed for what it actually is, not for what we would like it to be. it must be determined in the unwavering scales of science. the proper study of mankind is not the man in the white starched collar, with trimmed hair, shaven face and polished shoes, but the man recently from the forest, with coarse, grizzly hair upon his back, brutal and violent passion dominating his body, and savageness and hatred in his startled and terrifying eyes. the sooner we come to the realization of this vital fact, the sooner we become acquainted with the basic origin of life, the sooner we shall understand life, with its achievements, with its aspirations and hopes. xi it is an absolute fact and certainty, impossible of refutation, that when animation ceases in the body and no effort is made to revive it, life ceases and the processes of decay and decomposition set in. yet it is permanently established and has been successfully demonstrated innumerable times, that certain methods of artificial stimulation have revivified and resuscitated the delicate organs that cause the heartbeat and give consciousness to the brain. recently my local newspaper contained the following item: "dead" but saw no spirits _oklahoma city, okla._, february 7th--neal dillingham doesn't believe in after-death communication with the living. dillingham was "dead" for twenty minutes recently, and he says he ought to know. doctors said dillingham's blood circulation was stopped by a clot of blood. his heart stopped beating, and he did not breathe. insertion of a saline solution into his artery just above the heart caused the clot to dissolve, and dillingham came back to life. "i did not return to earth after i left it," said dillingham. "i had no knowledge of anything that took place, but i must have been pretty dead, as i do know i didn't recognize several persons i had known all my life, after i was myself again. if i had any talks with anybody while i was 'dead' i don't remember anything about them." believing that the publicity that this case received would make the party known to the postal authorities, i sat down and wrote him a letter, hoping that, if fortunate enough to have a letter delivered to him, he might be kind enough to write me personally of his experience. after a lapse of several days i received from him a letter substantiating in detail all that was mentioned in the newspaper clipping quoted above. in the instance of this man dillingham, he was "dead," so to speak, and as far as his "soul" was concerned it had "left" the body; yet the injection of a material solution, compounded by man, in conjunction with artificial respiration, caused the beating of the heart and gave back to the brain its power of consciousness. if it is the "soul" that causes the functioning of the body, where is it when such an action takes place? if it is the "soul" that gives us "life," how is it that we can materially and mechanically destroy it? we are born and nourished by material means. we live our life by material means. we reproduce our kind by material means. and we can destroy ourselves by material means. everything that touches and concerns our life is purely material, and it should be incumbent upon those who believe in the "soul" or the "spiritual element" of man to produce the proof of their contention. we are nothing but a continual propagating instrument, without spiritual, moral, lasting or ultimate value. we are here to reproduce our kind and for nothing more. what man secures for himself within the narrow circle of his existence here is all that he gains for the life that nature forces him to live. everything man has, man has made. nothing has been given to him by nature. god has been a miser! if man possessed a "soul" the thousand deformities of the brain would not exist. insanity would be impossible, and all the forms of petty vices that so miserably afflict us would be totally unknown. that which gives us the power of life is a combination of the material forces of nature, and the elements that compose the brain are of a chemical substance. the difference between a "live" person and a "dead" one can be summarized by a great many instances about us, and because of their commonplaceness, we do not observe them. there are many apples falling to the ground, but we are not inspired with the knowledge that the actuating force is gravity. one of the best illustrations, to show the difference between a "live" and a "dead" person, can be had from that excellent invention called the "film" or "plate," and which is so remarkably used in the camera. when that sensitive composition of chemicals that forms the "film" and which produces such a vivid and lasting likeness of ourselves is freshly made, it possesses that vital something we call "life." but allow this film to remain unused for a period of time, and it will no longer be able to perform its remarkable work. it will not possess the "life" to take a picture or to record an impression. if a premature "exposure" of the film is made, it loses its vital quality because of the mixture with other elements, or because of the evaporation of its constituent parts. it is not necessary to analyze all the properties of that film to show the principle whereby it performs its wonderful work. the general principle, showing its marvelous use while intact and its utter uselessness when its composition is no longer the same, should be sufficient to illustrate the comparison. this illustration can with force and conviction be applied to the peculiar quality and nature of our "soul" and brain. as long as the brain is incased within our skull, and fully protected from contact with any other substance to alter or to change its integrity, it will perform all that is warranted of it. in the case of our brain, though, besides the importance of keeping it protected from outside chemical action, the vital element concerned in its continuity of life lies in the importance of keeping it constantly nourished and supplied with the remarkable qualities of the vital substance of blood. the moment the blood supply to the brain is stopped, our brain loses its most important constituent, with the ultimate and inevitable result of inertia, decomposition and decay. when this condition happens we are then "dead" and, like the proverbial egg, "all the king's horses and all the king's men cannot put humpty dumpty together again." if we possessed a soul, and it were of a permanent and special quality, it would maintain its impressions and remember its existence. it could pass through innumerable periods and know its many and varied journeys. even memory, so unreliable in our short life, bespeaks the utter impossibility of such a thing as a soul with a permanent and lasting existence. that which we call the "soul" is nothing but a chemical composition, that can and _does_ lose its permanency while we are still alive. we are acquainted with a number of chemical compositions that must remain in a pacific state to maintain their identity, so those chemical forces that compose our "soul" must perforce maintain their equilibrium. if we are stunned, or suffer any of the many conditions that upset chemical compounds and compositions, we, for the time being, suffer either "unconsciousness" or some other form of mental disability. if we are shocked too severely, we become totally and permanently impaired, and suffer violent fits and fearful rages, insanity or imbecility. different shocks, and even forms of disease, result in certain action upon our chemical brain, which causes it to lose only part of its ability. extreme high fever is only one form of illness which causes the brain to lose its stability and run rampant and unbridled. if i were fully cognizant of all forms and degrees of disease, i could recite exactly how they act and in what degree they harm the delicate organism of our brain. in many instances shocks or diseases too powerful for our brain to withstand, cause that portion of our brain that may control our speech, our sight, our hearing, our limbs or other organs to lose its power, with the consequence that we must suffer and be handicapped with what is properly called "a great affliction." science to-day has discovered that great truth, and has not only catalogued the different portions of the brain in their individual departments or capacities, but, by a master stroke of surgery, can correct and remedy those impaired parts, and give back to the human being the use of those valuable organs that the invisible agents of nature had taken away. so, instead of the brain's possessing a "soul," we find it, only in a more delicate degree, a mechanical formation such as we discovered our body to be. but if we possess a soul and it is capable of passing through the many and varied stages that life suffers, what becomes of its impressions? what and where are the benefits of its retention? where is the soul when we are in a state of unconsciousness? surely, if the soul were ever present to guard and maintain life, it would be standing by and using its power when it is most needed. we have no occasion for help when we are not in danger. it is when power can be used and exercised that it should be manifested. even love, the great compelling force of our life, is subject to the variations of our chemical "soul," its attractions and repulsions. if two form the unit of reproduction, and love is the great mating medium of nature, then once it is animated, once it is brought into existence, it should endure permanently, and the possessors should at least enjoy their blissful companionship until the end. but no. nature would entice, and then destroy, this most consuming feeling of life. two persons can start life with the most irresistible attraction and irrepressible love and within a very short time, unless they guard their love with every means and weapon of advanced thought and reason, nature, through her duplicity, will provide searching eyes to alienate their affection, causing a wretchedness unparalleled in the mental miseries of mankind's life. the saddest state of all is when two persons, with the sacred devotion of love, cohabit and the happy result is loving children, and yet while this happy family, free from nature's pitfalls and snares, are living in a peaceful and blissful state, there exists the ever-menacing "devil" who tempts the loving wife and mother to follow the will-o'-the-wisp--and thereby undoes and destroys the greatest kingdom of life. the devoted husband and father, by the flash of an eye, and the charm of a face, can forsake his sacred ties of devotion and become a degenerate and outcast, with death as his only salvation. in either case nature stands by with a sneer upon her lips, and god forgets his obligation to his children. but the final analysis proves beyond doubt that the physical attraction is responsible for this action; and who can deny that it is the chemical attraction of two forces that produced this irresistible desire? xii if the life we live be a kindergarten or infancy of a larger and better life somewhere else, nature defeats her own ends, because myriads pass on, leave here, with the most dwarfed intellects, utterly unprepared to live here, and much less prepared to live in a higher state and on a more lofty plane. were such a condition true, that this is but a transitory existence, we should all have to go through the same schooling of life, and be indelibly impressed with its lesson, with conviction and understanding that the same mistakes would never be repeated, or the acquired knowledge would be constantly and forever used. there would be no deaths in infancy, as each child born would be purposely sent here; neither would there be premature deaths, as no one could leave without "learning his lesson." there would be a fixed standard of knowledge and development that we would be required to attain. knowledge, or whatever condition nature imposed, would be our destiny, and we would devote our entire life to its acquirement. as it is, we bend our efforts and use our strength to avoid and to escape the acquisition of knowledge. if our life were given to us in order to pass through a school of experience, the simplest truths would immediately manifest themselves to our minds, and conviction would be instant and permanent. but how sadly untrue is this premise! for thousands, aye, for millions of years, the people have been stupefied with the most ignorant and foolish superstition. an instance that will present with great force an illustration of the utter folly of the contention that we are living on this planet as a lesson in school, lies in the fact that for thousands of years people not only believed but religiously guarded the belief that the earth was flat. even to-day, with irrefutable demonstrations of the truth, there are some people who either cannot, or will not, accept it. as desirable as this theory of a transitory state may be, it is even contrary to nature herself. the entire scheme of nature seems to be fashioned upon the same principle as our life. the fearful struggle of the elements involved squares identically with our own existence. even the gigantic constellations, flying with an incalculable velocity, leaving destruction and desolation in their tracks, meet in their ignorant and blind journey the same fate as we meet. recent astronomical discoveries speak of a struggle constantly taking place in those areas. the belief of an existence after death is so untenable in the face of many scientific discoveries of to-day, and of the irrefutable facts that are constantly staring us in the face, that an instance or two are all that are necessary to prove the fallacy of such a belief. under many circumstances we are unable to recognize our own blood relations after a lapse of a certain length of time. parents fail to know their children; and children their parents. this is equally true in every comparison and degree of relationship. features and characteristics undergo such a decided change and transformation that recognition is ofttimes even impossible. even the law courts are continually called upon to determine the proper identity of persons, to establish the ownership of property by other means than by personal identification. most remarkable of all, under new conditions, we do not recognize ourselves within the interval of only a few seconds! try this if you would seek proof, and convince yourself that recognition of your own personality is momentarily impossible, and that you must resort to other senses than that of sight to identify yourself. put a wig upon your head, blacken your face, "make up" your features, and when you have finished and are completely unaware of your changed appearance, look into the mirror for your reflection and feel the sensation of the startling fact that you know not yourself. we speak of changes so radical in a person's appearance that we often say we could not recognize him "in a thousand years." what a ridiculous presumption it is, then, to maintain that we live after death when _all_ senses are gone and perception is dead! again, how anyone can say that when we die we go to "heaven" is too childish to consider, because when we die, instead of going up and to heaven, we are put deep into the ground to moulder and to rot away. what a far-fetched conclusion it is to assume that we live after death, minus all the physical characteristics and under conditions utterly incomprehensible to our minds! even if, at death, the body turned into invisible gases it would mean and prove absolutely nothing. if we live after death, by what means can one person communicate with another? we cannot feel, because we have no hands. we cannot see, because we have no eyes. we cannot smell, because we have no nose. we cannot hear, because we have no ears. we cannot taste, because we have no mouth, no stomach. but, with it all, these five mediums of sense are dependent upon a _living brain_. the fact that we suffer the loss of our senses even before death, because of the complications in the make-up of our body, should be sufficient proof of the nonexistence of a soul and the utter impossibility of a life after death. unless we retain and maintain our sacred ties after death, another life is valueless and void, useless and unnecessary. it is a fearful sadness to think that the ones you love are to pass away into nothingness and be no more; that the sparkling eyes will be dim forever; that the rosy cheeks will no longer glow with radiant health; that the ruby lips will fade into a deathly blue, motionless and forever still; that dimpled hands and loving arms will never encircle you again, and the supremacy and tenderness of your love must be crushed with a cold and callous ferocity. but, sad and mournful as it is, with the human heart beating hopelessly against hope for only one more chance to kiss and caress and love the one you so dearly cherish, it is nevertheless only too poignantly true that death ends all. death means nothing to the affairs of the world. to be taken from amid the world in such an ever-living condition as now exists, is like taking a cup of water from an ever-full pail. the gap is immediately filled, and the level of the water simultaneously adjusted, leaving absolutely no trace of what has been withdrawn. only the individual suffers. what a mighty burst of heart there would be if we all could feel and suffer at the same time! nature makes no difference and knows no distinction between the living and the dead. the warm and tender rays of the sun, and its blistering heat, fall alike upon the crying, innocent babe and the lifeless, unfeeling corpse. the sun does not shine to give us its necessary heat, without also bringing to light some new problem and pain for our over-troubled hearts to bear. murder, rape and greed look no different to nature than goodness, virtue and unselfishness. tears were made for the things that god causes, laughter is the result of man's efforts. xiii it is man's labor, man's work, man's achievement, that gives us the little desire that we have to live. how often do we prefer _death_ to living life in our former condition, after our efforts have brought us to a point of vantage and comfort! death is always preferable to the living of a "dog's life!" and yet, with it all, the little improvement we have to-day, with the still remaining cruel conditions of nature left to endure and fight, has not been worth the struggle through the black and bleak past. the price has been entirely too severe for the little that has been gained. god gives man nothing; man gives man everything! what sublime courage it was that made the pathfinders of the past sacrifice their lives, in order that their principles of truth might triumph, so that another link might be made in the chain of progress that is endeavoring to break the spell of a tyrant power. you must be made to know that for whatever desirable condition we have to-day we are indebted to heroic men and women of the past, who, in the days of infant progress, achieved a moral, physical and intellectual triumph. the chair you sit on, the cup you drink from, the fork you eat with, the light you read by, the bed you sleep in, the heat that warms you, the shoes on your feet, the clothes upon your back, the hat upon your head, and every part and particle of improvement that has enriched the world with a little touch of human comfort are the result of the heroic labors of the men and women of the past, who victoriously fought the accursed and chaotic forces of nature, so as to make life and living a little better. but at every step and stage of progress the dogmatists have exerted their influence toward retardation. what these dogmatists were unable to accomplish through fear and suppression, they accomplished through ostracism, and death. human advancement and progress are foreign to the "believing" mind. the dogmatists are concerned only with the "supernatural." they want not the comforts of life here if they can secure those benefits "hereafter." it is the attitude of the religious to belittle anything that is designed for human betterment. their philosophy is, the more you suffer here, the less you will suffer "hereafter." their humility to and fear of this "unseen" power is the most degrading trait in human beings. it is a frame of mind not only despicable and a hindrance in the face of progress, but even antagonistic to and destructive of all things worth while. to them, the insanity of belief is of paramount importance, and is more sacred and holy than human life. aye, human life has been so subordinated to this superstitious belief that it meant death in the past to those who rejected it. rather observe some "holy day" than perform "work" to help some fellow human being in distress. murder, rather than eat meat on a "forbidden day"! this frame of mind is one of the mental mysteries that science has yet to solve. xiv the rotundity of the earth was discussed and its circumference scientifically measured hundreds of years before the supposed birth of christ, and had not the "god believers" been so persistent in forcing their belief upon others, and had not christianity been born, i can see how the discovery of america would have been accomplished about a thousand years before the discovery by columbus; and the incalculable progress which would have been the consequence would have carried mankind beyond the boldest imagination of to-day, and placed us a thousand years nearer civilization. hero, a mathematician, who lived at the time when the greek minds were the marvel of the world, invented a steam engine, which was used in experiments and was rapidly nearing completion and perfection, when, unfortunately, ignorant and destructive religion, that was madly trampling upon everything of value, destroyed the famous alexandrian library wherein was kept a model of this engine. it also swept away the incalculable wealth of knowledge that had required ages to accumulate, and thereby completely annihilated the most priceless possessions that the human race ever owned. but that is not all; it is only a fragment. for history at every stage of life shows the continual strife between the forces of progress and the religious fanatic and god believer. what is that strange form of insanity that prompts people to torture and to destroy those who seek to emancipate them from the _tyranny of god_ and from the deluded belief in a hereafter? the attitude of all, each and every one of us, should ever be the desire and willingness to greet a new idea, to support a new thought, to try a new proposal, to do all in our power to uphold the forces of progress, to lend our help and to devote our energies in any direction that will ultimately lead us from the cruel forces and narrow limitations that are our lot to share. to those who have no thought for these things, who care not what forces and conditions man must face, who take without thought and give only through compulsion, whose self-satisfied condition (made possible only by the heroic work of the martyrs of progress) make of them personal heroes, whose life is wrapped within the flicker of a day, who do not know, do not realize, and do not care about the fearful suffering of the world--i say to them to strut their intoxicated hour and pass away. the sooner they live their lives and the sooner they die, the better for the earth. it needs fertilization. were we as mentally progressive as we are materially advanced, what a wonderful and magnificent improvement over the present living conditions we would be enjoying! every new invention, every new improvement, would be immediately and universally installed, and every old and antiquated instrument and method would be discarded and destroyed. that which now seems only within the command of the households of the immensely wealthy, would be as popularly used and enjoyed as the now commonly used articles in the poorest households. think of existing to-day in a predominant percentage of dwellings for human beings where there is not found the essential bathtub, or the still more essential toilet room! governments are instituted for the people's benefit, and shame upon such a government, in an enlightened age like to-day, that tolerates such a condition, when that government possesses the men, the means, the intellect and the materials to electrify the world! the first and foremost essential in higher development is the comfort and conveniences in a home. these are some of the conditions that the progressive minds of the world are trying to solve and remedy. it is only a question of how much longer the majority of people will pay homage to an imaginary god for imaginary benefits in an imaginary life after death. xv it is the antagonism of the dogmatic world, and the apathy of the rest, that is the cause of the mental progress of the world's not keeping pace with the material progress. better still, the universal application of the material progress has been far in advance of the universal acceptance of mental achievement. the automobile, the gigantic ocean liner, the talking machine, the electric fan, the elevator, the telephone and the other marvelous achievements of man are being used by the greater portion of the people, whose mental status belongs to the wheelbarrow, the simple chair, the ox cart and the tallow candle. slight is the realization by the users and beneficiaries of science's modern methods, of the heroic struggles and battles that the great men and women of the past suffered to make possible these accomplishments. oh, how many suffered torture and death at the hands of the very people they were striving to benefit! this same fate has been met by all the brave and courageous, during the past, who have made any attempt to broaden the life and to ease the pain of the troubled heart of humanity. the unselfish endeavors of man have made it possible to take the dumb matter of earth and mold it so the voices of the present can be heard by the ears of the future; so that several generations may hear and know, with a touch of human affection, the traits, features and characteristics of their ancestors. language gives us their thoughts, the camera gives us their natural, life-like features and the phonograph their actual, living voices! nature never did so much. as far as nature is concerned, bastardy may rule the world! one of the comforts of life is that we live again in actions and scenes, which, although they are apart from our own lives, really belong to the past or future races. but nature sees to it that the births and deaths, the knowledge and acquaintance of each and every generation, are so closely allied that none of us is allowed to escape the suffering of the world and the agony of life and death. no person can avoid the pain and the terrible fear that all must endure. no one person can live, move about and possess the varied improvements of the earth's materials all by himself. he is indebted to others for their accomplishments, and they in turn are indebted to him for the improvements he renders. in short, we are all so closely allied with the actions and lives of one another that there should be a mutual appreciation and a common understanding among all. the farmer may know nothing about manufacturing; the manufacturer may know nothing about farming; the artist, the explorer, the thinker, the inventor and the scientist may know nothing about any field of endeavor other than his own, yet all are inter-dependent. with such a condition existing, and with the uncertainty of life forever staring us in the face, and _no one exempt_ from its terrible enactment, it is a _marvelous_ wonder to me why there exist so tenaciously in the human heart all the petty and aggravating tempers, prejudices and jealousies. what man has done with the forces of nature are inspiring deeds. what progress has been made in opposing the forces of nature is marvelous. what man will accomplish in the future with the arrogant forces of nature stimulates our hearts with the sweet satisfaction of a victory of the first magnitude. but in the final analysis, what does it avail us? geologists tell us that the greater portion of the materials that we have taken from the field of nature consists of the buried bones and bodies of our ancient ancestors, who passed through greater periods of agony, torment, disease and death than we are finally and eventually to meet! what sort of crust in the earth's formation are we to make? what will be the product of the future living forces that will utilize the materials that our bodies will make? what will be the future living forces? it is fearfully sad to contemplate that life must continue and be subject to the miserable laws that now govern it. insect man, with his almost tireless industry, makes clothes to cover his ugly and awkward body; builds houses to shelter him from the winds and the torrents of nature; fashions glittering palaces of amusement to cheer his troubled heart; compounds anã¦sthetics to ease his pain; carves wood to replace his broken limbs; molds metal to take the place of those things that nature has made inadequate for his use. in short, man has improved upon nature to uphold his frail body, to strengthen his weak bones, and to soothe his tender heart. that man, fighting the forces of nature, has been able to accomplish so much is simply glorious, and this progress is an achievement of such wonderful magnitude that we are thrilled at the thought, and bow in grateful recognition for the benefits derived and the relief enjoyed. but why did not god institute all the benefits for the immediate use of man, so they could be enjoyed upon the first manifestation of his understanding? why was it necessary to go through the fearful period of past history and gain, only after a most gigantic struggle, the few things that we now use for our comfort? that these things could have been done is proved by the fact that man has done them. fundamentally they always existed. man has only discovered and applied them. and these things that we have gained to-day, from the struggles of the past, would have been equally enjoyed by those who lived before us, with the same degree of benefit, just as the future will find, use and enjoy those things that we do not possess, and without which we shall be pinched, and pained, through the helter-skelter of this troublesome life. i brand as brutal tyranny this scheme of life, that forces us to be a link in a long series of lives to produce something for the benefit of the far-distant future, that we, ourselves, imperatively need but shall not possess. i cry and denounce and plead, in behalf of future humanity, to circumvent and to defeat this "sorry scheme of life," that uses us as an instrument to produce something that we cannot use, do not know about and have not the understanding to comprehend. xvi "in god we trust," on coins that represent our labor and our endeavor, is an insult to the intelligence, courage and independence of the people, and a stinging rebuke to those responsible for our progress. a motto that more truthfully represents our material progress and intellectual development would be: "in science we trust;" or, "humanity and justice our aim." the more we eliminate god from us, the more we are _one without him_, the better for us all, the better for humanity, the better for all the world. the less we "know" of god, the less god that is "in us," the more _human_ we become. the greatest, most frightful and destructive wars of all time have been those which were started in "defense" of god, as if "he" cared what man says or does. the most frightful and torturous instruments ever conceived by man are those that were made to force people to "believe in" god. the history of religious persecution and torture is the horror of the world. may i ask, where was god, and what did he do, to stop this frightful nightmare of torture committed in "his" name? and may i answer for you, that he was where moses was when the light went out? remember this: there will never be a solution to any of our fundamental problems, and mankind will never, in the full sense of the word, be free, as long as there exists in the human mind the insanity of religious belief. as long as god occupies a portion of our thoughts, mankind must be content to suffer the hatred and antagonism of man. let us make up our minds now, let us resolve now, to stop fighting one another, and fight god by helping one another. let us stop fighting our fellow prisoners and fellow sufferers, and fight god. let us help our fellow prisoners and fellow sufferers. let us cleanse our minds of this superstitious poison of an "after life," and work and labor for the good and welfare of here and now. we possess the knowledge and the means and, within the span of only one day, could bring about the much-longed-for "brotherhood of man." we could eliminate hatred from our hearts, and instill justice as our guide. we could eradicate poverty from our midst and bring happiness to sorrowing mankind. we could blot out tyranny among men and exchange it for the priceless legacy of freedom and make the relation between man and man bear some semblance of humanity. but--and i say this with redoubled conviction, and with all the power, force, energy and vehemence that i possess--if we are nature's best endeavor, if man is nature's best product, if the natural world is incapable of any improvement, and life will forever be made to submit to the tyrannical conditions of nature, then it were better ten thousand times over, that life were never called into existence, and that the universe were null and void! the end edison letter to joseph lewis * * * * * _from the laboratory of thomas a. edison, orange, n.j._ august 18, 1921. mr. joseph lewis, c/o the truth publishing co., 1400 broadway, new york city. dear sir:- i received your book--"the tyranny of god"--and have read it through. i think as you do that death ends all, yet i do not feel certain, because there are many facts that seem to show that the real units of life are not the animal mechanism itself, but groups of millions of small entities living in the visible cells. the animal being their mechanism for navigating the environment, and when the mechanism fails to function, i.e. die, the groups go out into space to go thru another cycle. the entities are each highly organized and perform their allotted task. if there is anything like this we still have a fighting chance. you have doubtless read interviews i have given lately on this subject. they appeared in the scientific monthly for october 30, 1920 and the cosmopolitan for may, 1920. yours very truly, thos a edison famous inventor gives views of death and immortality in correspondence with author of "the tyranny of god." attributed to matthew turner (d. 1788?) and william hammon. transcribed by the freethought archives note: irregularities in orthography and punctuation have been reproduced without emendation from the first edition of 1782. answer to dr. priestley's letters to a philosophical unbeliever. part i. london. mdcclxxxii advertisement. the editor of this publication has more in object to answer dr. priestley than to deliver his own sentiments upon natural religion, which however he has no inclination to disguise: but he does not mean to be answerable for them farther, than as by reason and nature he is at present instructed. the question here handled is not so much, whether a deity and his attributed excellences exist, as whether there is any natural or moral proof of his existence and of those attributes. revealed knowledge is not descanted upon; therefore christians at least need take no offence. doubts upon natural religion have not hitherto been looked upon as attacks upon revelation, but rather as corroborations of it. what the editor believes as a christian (if he is one is therefore another affair, nor does he reckon himself so infallible or incapable of alteration in his sentiments, as not at another time to adopt different ones upon more reflexion and better information; therefore, though he has at present little or no doubt of what he asserts (taken upon the principles laid down) he shall hold himself totally freed from any necessity of defending the contents of this publication if brought into controversy; and as he has no desire of making converts, hopes he shall not himself be marked out as an object of persecution. speculative points have always been esteemed fair matters for a free discussion. the religion established in this country is not the religion of nature, but the religion of moses and jesus, with whom the writer has nothing to do. he trusts therefore he shall not be received as a malevolent disturber of such common opinions as are esteemed to keep in order a set of low wretches so inclinable to be lawless. at least, if he attempts to substitute better foundations for morality, malevolence can be no just charge. truth is his aim; and no professors of religion will allow their system to be false. or if he should be thought too bold a speculator, such of the ecclesiastics as will be his opponents may rather laugh at him than fear him. they have a thousand ways of making their sentiments go down with the bulk of mankind, to one this poor writer has. they are an army ready marshalled for the support of their own thesis; they are in the habit of controversy; pulpits are open to them as well as the press; and while the present author will be looked upon as a miracle of hardiness for daring to put his name to what he publishes, they can without fear or imputation lift up their heads; and should they even be known to transgress the bounds of good sense or politeness, they will only be esteemed as more zealous labourers in their own vocation. prefatory address. dr. priestley, your letters addressed to a philosophical unbeliever i perused, not because i was a philosopher or an unbeliever; it were presumption to give myself the former title, and at that time i certainly did not deserve the latter; but as i was acquainted with another, who in reality, as far as i and others who know him can judge, deserves the title of a philosopher and is neither ashamed nor afraid of that of an unbeliever, i conceived them apt to be sent to my friend, and when i presented them to him, he said he was the person whom he should suppose you meant to address, if you had a particular person in view; but he had too much understanding of the world, though much abstracted from the dregs of it, not to conceive it more probable that you meant your letters to be perused by thinking men in general, believers and unbelievers, to confirm the former in their creed, and to convert the latter from their error. you shall speedily know the effect they have had in both ways. for myself i must inform you that i was brought up a believer from my infancy; a theist, if a christian is such; for i suppose the word will be allowed, though the equivalent term of deist is so generally reprobated by christians; i had before my eyes the example of a most amiable parent; a moral man, a christian undoubtedly; who, when i have been attending upon him, as much from affection as from duty upon a sick and nearly dying bed, has prayed i might be stedfast in the faith he held, in accents still sounding in my intellectual ear; a parent, whom for his virtues and love of his offspring, like a chinese, i am tempted to worship, and i could exclaim with the first of poets, _"erit ille mihi semper deus."_ with such habits of education then, such fervent advice and such reverence for my instructor, what can have turned me from my belief; for i confess i am turned? immorallity it is not; that i assert has not preceded my unbelief, and i trust never will follow it; there has not indeed yet been time for it to follow; whether it is a probable consequence will presently be discussed; but it is _thought_, free thought upon the subject; when i began freely to think i proceeded boldly to doubt; your letters gave me the cause for thinking, and my scepticism was exchanged for conviction; not entirely by the perusal of your letters; for i do not think they would quite have made me an atheist! but by attention to that answer from my friend, which i have his permission to subjoin. in mentioning that doubts arose by reading your very letters, which were written to eradicate all doubts, let me not accuse you of being unequal to the task assumed. i mean no such charge. you have in my opinion been fully equal to the discussion, and have bandied the argument ably, pleasingly and politely. i am certain from the extracts you have made from dr. clarke, the first of other divines, i should have been converted from my superstition by his reasoning, even without perusal of an answer: i pay you however the compliment of having only brought me to doubt, and i find i am not the only person who have been led to disbelieve by reading books expressly written to confirm the believer. stackhouse's comment upon the bible, and leland's view of deistical writers have perhaps made as many renegado's in this country as all the allurements of mahometanism has in others. what can be said to this? they were both undoubtedly men of abilities, and meant well to the cause they had to support. all that i shall observe upon the matter is, that what cannot bear discussion cannot be true. reasoning in other sciences is the way to arrive at truth: the learned for a while may differ, but argument at last finds its force, and the controversy usually ends in general conviction. reasoning upon the science of divinity will equally have its weight, and all men of letters would long ago have got rid of all superstitious notions of a deity, but that men of letters are frequently men of weak nerves; such as dr. johnson is well known to be, that great triumph to religionists; it requires courage as well as sense to break the shackles of a pious education; but if merely a resolve to reason upon their force can break them, what can we observe in conclusion but _"magnus est veritas et prevalebit."_ that religion or belief of a deity cannot bear the force of argument is well known by divines in general, is manifest by their annexing an idea of reproach to the very term of arguing upon the subject. these arguers they call free-thinkers, and this appellation has obtained, in the understanding of pious believers, the most odious disgrace. yet we cannot argue without thinking; nor can we either think or argue to any purpose without freedom. therefore free-thinking, so far from being a disgrace, is a virtue, a most commendable quality. how absurd, and how cruel it is in the professors of divinity, to address the understanding of men on the subject of their belief, and to upbraid those very men who shall exercise their understanding in attending to their arguments! no tyranny is greater than that of ecclesiastics. these chain down our very ideas, other tyrants only confine our limbs. they invite us to the argument, yet damn us to eternal punishment for the use of reason on the subject. they give to man an essence distinct from his corporeal appearance and this they call his soul, a very ray and particle of the divine being; the principal faculty of this soul they allow to be that of reasoning, and yet they call reason a dark lanthorn, an erroneous vapour, a false medium, and at last the very instrument of another fancied being of their own to lead men into their own destruction. _"in the image of himself made he man."_ a favourite text with theologians; but surely they do not mean that this god almighty of theirs has got a face and person like a man. no; that they exclaim against, and, when we push them for the resemblance, they confess it is in the use of reason; it is in the soul. i am aware that i am not here to mix questions of christianity with the general question of a divinity; subjects of a very distinct enquiry, and which in the letters to a philosophical unbeliever are very carefully separated. the subject of revelation is indeed promised afterwards to be taken up, provided the argument in favour of natural religion meets with a good reception. how, dr. priestley, you can judge of that reception i am at a loss to know, otherwise than by the number of editions you publish. it is then in the sum total just as much as if you had said, "provided this book sells well i will write another." yet it may be sold to many such readers as i have been, though you will hardly call such reception good. you that have wrote so much, to whom it is so easy to write more, who profess a belief of revelation, such a laborious enquirer, and so great a master of the art of reasoning, should rather have engaged at once to prove in a subsequent publication the truth of revealed religion in arguments, as candid and as fairly drawn as those you have used in proof of a deity independent of revelation. different as i am in qualifications from you, not very learned, far from industrious, unused to publish, i do now promise that when you shall have brought into light your intended letters in behalf of revelation i will answer them. i hope you will take it as an encouragement to write that you are sure you shall have an answer. i mean you should, and i am sure i shall think myself greatly honoured if you will descend so far as to reply to my present answer. i know you have been used in controversies to have the last word, and in this i shall not baulk your ambition; for notwithstanding any defect of my plea in favour of atheism i mean to join issue upon your replication, and by no means, according to the practice and language of the lawyers, to put in a rejoinder. should your arguments be defectively answered by me, should your learning and your reasoning be more conspicuous than mine, i shall bear your triumph without repining. i declare i am rather pleased there are so few atheists than at all anxious to make more. i triumph in my superior light. i am like the jew or the bramin who equally think themselves privileged in their superior knowledge of the deity. with me and with my friend the comparison holds by way of contrast, for we are so proud in our singularity of being atheists that we will hardly open our lips in company, when the question is started for fear of making converts, and so lessening our own enjoyment by a numerous division of our privilege with others. it has indeed often been disputed, whether there is or ever was such a character in the world as an atheist. that it should be disputed is to me no wonder. every thing may be, and almost every thing has been disputed. there are few or none who will venture openly to acknowledge themselves to be atheists. i know none among my acquaintance, except that one friend, to whom as a philosophical unbeliever i presented your letters, and to whose answer i only mean this address as an introduction. i shall therefore not enter here into the main argument of deity or no deity. my address is only preliminary to the subject; but i do not therefore think myself precluded from entering into some considerations that may be thought incidental to it. i mean such considerations as whether immorality, unhappiness or timidity necessarily do or naturally ought to ensue from a system of atheism. but as to the question whether there is such an existent being as an atheist, to put that out of all manner of doubt, i do declare upon my honour that i am one. be it therefore for the future remembered, that in london in the kingdom of england, in the year of our lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-one, a man has publickly declared himself an atheist. when my friend returned me your letters, addressing me with a grave face he said, "i hope, if you have any doubts, these letters will have as good effect upon you as they have had upon me." my countenance brightened up and i replied, "you are then, my friend, convinced ?" "yes, he said, i am convinced; that is, i am most thoroughly convinced there is no such thing as a god." behold then, if we are to be believed, two atheists instead of one. another question has been raised "whether a society of atheists can exist?" in other words "whether honesty sufficient for the purposes of civil society can be insured by other motives than the belief of a deity?" bayle has handled that question well. [footnote: _pensees sur la comete_.] few who know how to reason (and it is in vain to speak or think of those who lay reason out of the case) can fail to be convinced by the arguments of bayle. i shall discuss the question no farther than as it is necessarily included in the discussion of some of those supposed results of atheism, such as i have before mentioned in the instances of immorality, unhappiness and timidity. in my argument upon this subject i shall carefully avoid all abuse and ridicule. controversies are apt to be acrimonious. you, sir, have certainly shewn instances to the contrary. you have charity beyond your fellows in the ecclesiastical line, and your answerers seem not to me to have a right in fair argument to step out of the limits you have prescribed yourself. to dispute with you is a pleasure equal almost to that of agreeing with another person. you have candour enough to allow it possible that an atheist may be a moral man. where is that other ecclesiastic who will allow the same? your answerers ought also to hold themselves precluded from using ridicule in handling this subject. i am no great supporter of lord shaftesbury's doctrine that ridicule is the test of truth. i own truth can never be ridiculous, that is, it can never be worthy of laughter, but still it may be laughed at. to use the other term, i may say, truth can never be worthy of ridicule, but still it may be ridiculed. just ridicule is a sufficient test of truth; but after all we should be driven to an inquiry, upon the principles of reasoning, whether the ridicule were just or not. boldness, which is not incompatible with decency and candour, i do hold to be an absolute requisite in all speech and argument, where truth is the object of inquiry. therefore when i am asked, whether there is a god or no god, i do not mince the matter, but i boldly answer there is none, and give my reason for my disbelief; for i adopt my friend's answer by the publication of it. that mischief may ensue to society by such freedom of discussion is also another argument for me to consider; i do not say to combat, for though i were convinced or could not resist the argument that mischief would ensue to society by such a discussion, yet i should think myself intitled to enter into it. i have a right to truth, and to publish truth, let society suffer or not suffer by it. that society which suffers by truth should be otherwise constituted; and as i cannot well think that truth will hurt any society rightly constituted, so i should rather be inclined to doubt the force of the argument in case atheism being found to be truth should apparently be proved prejudicial to such a society. i come unprejudiced to the question, and when i have promised you an answer to your future letters in support of revelation, i have neither anticipated your argument nor prejudged the cause. i hold myself open to be convinced, and if i am convinced i shall say so, which is equally answering as if i denied the force of your observations. in that sense only i promise an answer. if i believe i shall say, i do; but i shall not believe and tremble, confident as i am, that if i act an honest part in life, whether there be a deity and a future existence or not, whatever reason i may have to rejoice in case such ideas he realised, i can upon such an issue have none to tremble. i look upon myself to have more reason to be temporally afraid than eternally so. dr. priestley or any other doctor can put his name boldly to a book in favour of theism, loudly call the supporters of a contrary doctrine to the argument, and if no answer is produced, assert their own reasoning to be unanswerable. in that sense their sort of reasoning has been frequently unanswerable. here however is an instance of a poor unknown individual, making experience of the candour of the ecclesiastics and the equity of the laws of england, for he ventures to subscribe his publication with his name as well as dr. priestley does his letters, to which this publication is an answer. perhaps he may have cause to repent of his hardiness, but if he has, he is equally resolved to glory in his martyrdom, as to suffer it. whatever advantage religion has had in the enumeration of it's martyrs, the cause of atheism may boast the same. as to the instances of the professors of any particular form of religion, or modification of that form, such as christians or sects of christians, suffering martyrdom for their belief, i shall no more allow them to be martyrs for theism than pagans similarly suffering for their belief, shall i call martyrs for atheism. theism very likely has had it's martyrs. i can instance one i think in socrates, and i shall mention vanini as a martyr for atheism. the conduct of those two great men in their last moments may be worth attending to. the variety of other poor heretical wretches, who have been immolated at the shrine of absurdity for all the possible errors of human credence, let them have their legendary fame. i put them out of the scale in this important inquiry. not that i really think the argument to be much advanced by naming the great supporters of one opinion or of another. in mathematics, mechanics, natural philosophy, in literature, taste, and politics the sentiments of great men of great genius are certainly of weight. there are some subjects capable of demonstration, many indeed which the ingenuity of one man can go farther to illustrate than that of another. the force of high authority is greater in the three former sciences than in the latter. theism and atheism i hold to be neither of them strictly demonstrable. you, dr. priestley, agree with me in that. still i hold the question capable of being illustrated by argument, and i should hold the authority of great men's names to be of more weight in this subject, were i not necessarily forced to consider that all education is strongly calculated to support the idea of a deity; by this education prejudice is introduced, and prejudice is nothing else than a corruption of the understanding. certain principles, call them, if you please, data, must be agreed upon before any reasoning can take place. disputants must at least agree in the ideas which they annex to the language they use. but when prejudice has made a stand, argumentation is set at so wide a distance, through a want of fixt data to proceed upon, that attention is in vain applied to the dispute. besides, the nature of the subject upon which this prejudice takes place, is such, that the finest genius is nearly equally liable to an undue bias with the most vulgar. to question with boldness and indifference, whether an individual, all-forming, all-seeing and all-governing being exists, to whom, if he exists, we may possibly be responsible for our actions, whose intelligence and power must be infinitely superior to our own, requires a great conquest of former habitude, a firmness of nerves, as well as of understanding; it will therefore be no great wonder, if such men as locke and newton can be named among the believers in a deity. they were christians as well as theists, so that their authority goes as far in one respect as in the other. but if the opinions of men of great genius are to have weight, what is to be said of modern men of genius? you, sir, are of opinion that the world is getting wiser as well as better. there is all the reason in the world it should get wiser at least, since wisdom is only a collection of experience, and there must be more experience as the world is older. modern philosophers are nearly all atheists. i take the term atheist here in the popular sense. hume, helvetius, diderot, d'alembert. can they not weigh against locke and newton, and even more than locke and newton, since their store of knowledge and learning was at hand to be added to their own, and among them are those who singly possessed equal science in mathematics as in metaphysics? it is not impossible, perhaps not improbable, from his course of learning and inquiries, that if dr. priestley had not from his first initiation into science been dedicated for what is called the immediate service of god, he himself might have been one of the greatest disprovers of his pretended divinity. in england you think, sir, that atheism is not prevalent among men of free reasoning, though you acknowledge it to be much so in other countries. it is not the first time it has been observed that the greater the superstition of the common people the less is that of men of letters. in the heart of the papal territories perhaps is the greatest number of atheists, and in the reformed countries the greatest number of deists. yet it is a common observation, especially by divines, that deism leads to atheism, and i believe the observation is well founded. i hardly need explain here, that by deism in this sense is meant a belief in the existence of a deity from natural and philosophical principles, and a disbelief in all immediate revelation by the deity of his own existence. such is the force of habit, that it is by degrees only, that even men of sense and firmness shake off one prejudice after another. they begin by getting rid of the absurdities of all popular religions. this leaves them simple deists, but the force of reasoning next carries them a step farther, and whoever trusts to this reasoning, devoid of all fear and prejudice, is very likely to end at last in being an atheist. nor do i admit it to be an argument either for revelation or natural religion, that the same turn for speculation that would convert a christian into a theist, will carry him on to be an atheist, though i know the argument has been often used. if upon sick beds or in dying moments men revert to their old weakness and superstitions, their falling off may afford triumph to religionists; for my part i care not so much for the opinions of sick and dying men, as of those who at the time are strong and healthy. but in the opinion of the one or the other i put no great stress. my faith is in reasoning, for though ridicule is not a complete test of truth, reasoning i hold certainly to be so. i own belief may be imprest on the mind otherwise than by the force of reason. the mind may be diseased. all i shall say is that though i have formerly believed many things without reason, and even many against it, as is very common, i hope i shall never more. my mind (i was going to say, thank god) is sane at present, and i intend to keep it so. i am aware that at the expression just used some will exclaim in triumph, that the poor wretch could not help thinking of his god at the same time he was denying him. the observation would hold good, if it were not that we often speak and write unpremeditately and though what is in this manner unpremeditately expressed upon a revision should be certainly expunged, yet i chuse to leave the expression to shew the force of habit. in fear lies the origin of all fancied deities, whether sole or numberless. _primus in orbe deos fecit timor._ but the great debasement of the human mind is evidenced in the instance of attributing a merit to belief, which has come at last to be stiled a virtue, and is dignified by the name of faith, that most pitiful of all human qualities. when the apostle spoke of faith, hope and charity, he might as well have exclaimed the least of the three is faith, as the greatest is charity. one enthusiast cries out _un roi_ and another _un dieu_. the reality of the king i admit, because i feel his power. against my feeling and my experience i cannot argue, for upon these sensations is built all argument. but not all the wondrous works of the creation, as i hear the visible operations of nature called, convince me in the least of the existence of a deity. by nature i mean to express the whole of what i see and feel, that whole, i call self-existent from all eternity; i admit a principle of intelligence and design, but i deny that principle to be extraneous from itself. my creed in fine is the same with that of the roman poet; _"deus est ubicunque movemur."_ if then i am admitted to explain my deity in this sense, i am not an atheist, nor can any one else in the world be such. the _vis naturae_, the perpetual industry, intelligence and provision of nature must be apparent to all who see, feel or think. i mean to distinguish this active, intelligent and designing principle, inherent as much in matter as the properties of gravity or any elastic, attractive or repulsive power, from any extraneous foreign force and design in an invisible agent, supreme though hidden lord and maker over all effects and appearances that present themselves to us in the course of nature. the last supposition makes the universe and all other organised matter a machine made or contrived by the arbitrary will of another being, which other being is called god; and my theory makes a god of this universe, or admits no other god or designing principle than matter itself and its various organisations. the inquiry is said to be important. but why is it so! all truth is important. it is a question of little importance, merely whether a man had a maker or no, although it is of great importance to disprove the existence of such a deity as theologians wish to establish, because appearances in the world go against it. supposing however that it was granted, that the question, whether there is a deity or not, was as little important as other truths, yet the question becomes important with this reflexion, that other events may follow as deductions; such as a particular providence, or a future state of rewards and punishments; but whether such deductions or either of them necessarily follow may well be queried. as to a particular providence you give up the reality of it, and i give it up too. but i cannot give up the argument, that if there were a god with all his allowed attributes of wisdom, power and justice, there ought to be a particular providence to counteract the general laws of nature, in favour of those who defend the interposition. though the deity should not interfere unless there be a worthy cause, agreeable to the horation rule, _"nec deus interfuit nisi vindice nodus;"_ yet surely from the same principles it should follow that the deity ought to interfere where there is a worthy cause. here however arises another dilemma, for if the deity has really those attributes of power and justice, there would never have been occasion for such temperaneous interpositions. a particular providence must indeed prove one of these two principles, either that god was imperfect in his design, or that inert matter is inimical to the properties of god. if that wished for interposition of the deity is put off to a future existence, i cannot help observing, that future day has been already a long while waited for in vain, and any delay destroys some one attribute or other of the deity. he wants justice, or he wants the power, or the will to do good and be just. that a future state of rewards and punishments may however exist without a deity, you, dr. priestley, allow to be no impossibility. it may indeed be argued with apparent justness, that a principle of reviviscence may as well be admitted as a principle of production in the first instance: and as to rewards and punishments, judgement may be rendered, as well as now, by beings less than deities. for my part i firmly wish for such a future state, and though i cannot firmly believe it, i am resolved to live as if such a state were to ensue. this seems, i own, like doubting, and doubting may be said to be a miserable state of anxiety. "better be confident than unhinged; better confide in ignorance than have no fixed system." so it may be argued; but i think the result will be as people feel. those who do not feel bold enough, to be satisfied with their own thoughts, may abandon them and adopt the thoughts of others. for my part i am content with my own; and not the less so because they do not end in certainty upon matters, from the nature of them, beyond the complete reach of human intelligence. there is nothing in fact important to human nature but happiness, which is or ought to be the end or aim of our being. i mean self-happiness; but fortunately for mankind, such is by nature our construction, that we cannot individually be happy unless we join also in promoting the happiness of others. should immorality, timidity or other base principles arise from atheism it tends immediately, i will own, to the unhappiness of mankind. if it is asked me, "why am i honest and honourable?" i answer, because of the satisfaction i have in being so. "do all people receive that satisfaction?" no, many who are ill educated, ill-exampled and perverted, do not. i do, that is enough for me. in short, i am well constructed, and i feel i can therefore act an honest and honourable part without any religious motive. did i perceive, that belief in a deity produced morality or inspired courage, i might be prompted to confess, that the contrary would ensue from atheism. but the bulk of the world has long believed, or long pretended to believe in a deity, yet morality and every commendable quality seem at a stand. the believer and the unbeliever we often see equally base, equally immoral. superstition is certainly only the excess of religion. that evidently is attended often with immorality and cowardice. i am tempted to say, from observation, that the belief of a deity is apt to drive mankind into vice and baseness; but i check myself in the assertion, upon considering that very few indeed are those who really believe in a deity out of such as pretend to do so. it is impossible for an intellectual being to believe firmly in that of which he can give no account, or of which he can form no conception. i hold the deity, the fancied deity, at least, of whom with all his attributes such pompous descriptions are set forth to the great terror of old women and the amusement of young children, to be an object of which we form (as appears when we scrutinise into our ideas) no conception and therefore can give no account. it is said, after all this, that men do still believe in such a deity, i then do say in return, they do not make use of their intellects. the moment we go into a belief beyond what we feel, see and understand, we might as well believe in will-with-a-whisp as in god. but i would fix morality upon a better basis than belief in a deity. if it has indeed at present no other basis, it is not morality, it is selfishness, it is timidity; it is the hope of reward, it is the dread of punishment. for a great and good man, shew me one who loves virtue because he finds a pleasure in it, who has acquired a taste for that pleasure by considering what and where happiness is, who is not such a fool as to seek misery in preference to happiness, whose honour is his deity, whose conscience is his judge. put such a man in combat against the superstitious son of spain or portugal, it were easy to say who would shew the truest courage. the question might be more voluminously discussed, but i feel already proof of conviction; if you, dr. priestley, do not, perhaps some other readers may. i have nothing to do with men of low minds. they will always have their religion or pretence of it, but i am mistaken if it is not the gallows or the pillory that more govern their morals than the gospel or the pulpit. after all, atheism may be a system only for the learned. the ignorant of all ages have believed in god. the answer of a philosophical unbeliever though written in the vulgar tongue may probably not reach the vulgar. if argument had prevailed they were long converted from their superstitious belief. the sentiments of atheistical philosophers have long been published. if mischief therefore could ensue to society from such free discussions, that mischief society must long have felt. i think truth should never be hid, but few are those who mind it. i will therefore take upon myself but little importance though i have presumed to preface an answer from a philosophical unbeliever to letters which you, dr. priestley have written. if you deem that answer detrimental to the interests of society, you will recollect that you invite the proposal of objections and promise to answer all as well as you can. if you should happen to be exasperated by the freedom of the language or the contrariety of the sentiment, this answer will gain weight in proportion as you lose in the credit of a tolerant divine. therefore if you reply at all, reply with candour and with coolness; heed the matter and not the man, though i subscribe my name, and am reverend sir, your friend, admirer, and humble servant, william hammon. _oxford-street, no._ 418. _jan._ 1, 1782. answer from a philosophical unbeliever. it is the general fashion to believe in a god, the maker of all things, or at least to pretend to such a belief, to define the nature of this existing deity by the attributes which are given to him, to place the foundation of morality on this belief, and in idea at least, to connect the welfare of civil society with the acknowledgement of such a being. few however are those, who being questioned can give any tolerable grounds for their assertions upon this subject, and hardly any two among the learned agree in their manner of proving what each will separately hold to be indisputably clear. the attributes of a deity are more generally agreed upon, though less the subject of proof, than his existence. as to morality, those very people who are moral will not deny, they would be so though there were not a god, and there never yet has been a civil lawgiver, who left crimes to be punished by the author of the universe; not even the profanation of oaths upon the sacredness of which so much is built in society, and which yet is said to be a more immediate offence against the deity than any other that can be named. the method which dr. priestley has taken to prove the existence of a god, is by arguing from _effect_ to _cause_. he explodes that other pretended proof _a priori_ which has so much raised the fame of dr. clarke among other theologians. as to the attributes of the deity, dr. priestley is not quite so confident in his proofs there; and the most amiable one, the most by mortals to be wished for, the _benevolence_ of god he almost gives up, or owns at least there is not so much proof of it as of his other attributes. his observations are divided into several letters, this is one answer given to the whole; for it would be to no purpose to reply to topics upon which the writers are agreed. what therefore is not contradicted here, dr. priestley may in general take to be allowed; but to obviate doubts and to allow his argument every force, it may be fairer perhaps to recite at full length what in this answer is allowed to be true, what is denied as false, what meant to be exposed as absurd, and what rejected as assertions without proof, inadmissible or inconclusive. the conclusion will contain some observations upon the whole. truisms. 1. "effects have their adequate causes." 2. "nothing begins to exist without a cause foreign to itself." 3. "no being could make himself, for that would imply that he existed and did not exist at the same time." 4. if one horse, or one tree, had a cause, all had." 5. something must have existed from all eternity. 6. "atoms cannot be arranged, in a manner expressive of the most exquisite design, without competent intelligence having existed somewhere." 7. "the idea of a supreme author is more pleasing to a virtuous mind, than that of a blind fate and fatherless deserted world." 8. "the condition of mankind is in a state of melioration, as far as misery arises from ignorance, for as the world grows older it must grow wiser, if wisdom arises from experience." 9. "all moral virtue is only a modification of benevolence." 10. "virtue gives a better chance for happiness than vice." 11. "no instance of any revival." 12. "atheists are not to think themselves quite secure with respect to a future life." 13. "thought might as well depend upon the construction of the brain, as upon any invisible substance extraneous to the brain." 14. "if the works of god had a beginning, there must have been a time when he was inactive." 15. "where happiness is wanting in the creation i would rather conclude the author had mist of his design than that he wanted benevolence." false assertions. 1. "a cause needs not be prior to an effect." 2. "if the species of man had no beginning, it would not follow that it had no cause." 3. "a cause may be cotemporary with the effect." 4. "an atheist must believe he was introduced into the world without design." absurdities. 1. "a general mass of sensation consisting of various elements borrowed from the past and the future." 2. "since sensation is made up of past, present, and future, the infant feeling for the moment only, the man recollecting what is past and anticipating the future, and as the present sensation must therefore in time bear a less proportion to the general mass of sensation than it did, so at last all temporary affections, whether of pain or pleasure become wholly inconsiderable." 3. "the great book of nature and the book of revelation both lie open before us." 4. "a conclusion above our comprehension." 5. "a whole eternity already past." 6. "since a finite being cannot be infinitely happy, because he must then be infinite in knowledge and power; and as all limitation of happiness must consist in degree of happiness or mixture of misery, the deity can alone determine which mode of limitation is best." 7. "we have reason to be thankful for our pains and distress." 8. "if the divine being had made man at first as happy as he can be after all the feelings and ideas of a painful and laborious life, it must have been in violation of all general laws and by a constant and momentary interference of the deity." 9. "it is better the divine agency should not be very conspicuous." 10. "if good prevails on the whole, creation being infinite, happiness must be infinite, and god comprehending the whole, will only perceive the balance of good, and that will be happiness unmixed with misery." 11. "if a man is happy in the whole he is infinitely happy in the whole of his existence." 12. "although all things fall alike to all men and no distinction is made between the righteous and the wicked, and even though the wicked derive an advantage from their vices, yet this is consistent with a state of moral government by a being of infinite wisdom and power." 13. "as ploughing is the means of having a harvest, though god has predetermined whether there should be a harvest or not, so prayer is the means of obtaining good from god, although that good is predetermined upon; it is therefore no more absurd to pray than to plough." 14. "notwithstanding happiness is the necessary consequence of health, yet man's happiness is more from intellectual than corporeal feelings." 15. "evil is necessarily connected with and subservient to good, although in the next world there will be all good and no evil." 16. "by reason we can discover the necessary existence of a deity, yet to be a sceptic on that subject is the first step to be a christian, because reason not sufficiently proving it we fly to revealed truth." 17. "the power, which a man has by the comprehensiveness of his mind to enjoy the future, has no apparent limits." 18. "it is of no avail in the argument concerning the existence of a deity, that we have no conception of him, since it does not imply impossibility of his existence that we have no idea at all upon the subject." inadmissible or inconclusive. 1. "the question of the existence of a deity is important." 2. "a theist has a higher sense of personal dignity than an atheist." 3. "the conduct of an atheist must give concern to those who are not so." 4. "an atheist believes himself to be, at his death, for ever excluded from returning life." 5. "there are more atheists than unbelievers in revelation." 6. "men of letters may have the same bias to incredulity as others to credulity, because they are subject to a wrong association of ideas, as well as other persons though in a less degree." 7. "whoever first made a thing, for example a chair or a table, must have had an adequate idea of it's nature and use." 8. "if a table had a designing cause, the tree from whence the wood came, and the man who made the table must have had a designing cause, which comprehended all the powers and properties of trees and men." 9. "all the visible universe, as far as we can judge, bears the marks of being one work, and therefore must have had a cause of infinite power and intelligence." 10. "we might as well say a table had no cause, as that the world had none." 11. "a being originally and necessarily capable of comprehending itself, it is not improper to call infinite, for we can have no idea of any bounds to it's knowledge or power." 12. "a series of finite causes cannot possibly be carried back _ad infinitum_." 13. "our imagination revolts at the idea of an intellectual soul of the universe, that is, of an intelligence resulting from arrangement." 14. "the actual existence of the universe compels us to come at last to an _originally existent and intellectual being_, because if the immediate maker of the universe has not existed from all eternity, he must have derived his being and senses from one who has, and that being we call god." 15. "god must be present to all his works, if we admit no power can act but where it is, he must therefore exist every where, because his works are every where." 16. "as no being can unmake or materially change himself (at least none can annihilate himself) so god is unchangeable, for no being god made can change him and no other being can exist but what god made." 17. "two infinite intelligent beings of the same kind would coincide, therefore there can only be one god." 18. "nothing can be more evident, than that plants and animals could not have proceeded from each other from all eternity." 19. "that happiness is the design of the creation because health is designed and sickness is only an exception, not a general rule is as evident as that the design of the mill-wright must have been, that his machine should not be obstructed." 20. "as a state of sickness is comparatively rare with a state of health, happiness the result of health, and the end of the creation happiness, so the end of the creation is already in a great measure answered." 21. "pleasure tends to continue and propagate itself, pain to check and exterminate itself." 22. "as our knowledge and power in respect to shunning pains and procuring pleasures advance with our experience, nothing is wanting to enable us to exterminate all pains, but a continuance of being. 23. "our enjoyments continually increase in real value from infancy to old age." 24. "a future moral distribution is probable, because god is infinitely powerful and wise." 25. "since reverence, gratitude, obedience, confidence are duties to men, so they are to god; and as we pray to men, so we should pray to god." 26. "prescience, predetermination and infinite benevolence are no argument against prayer to the deity." 27. "a wish produced by nature is evidence of the thing wished for, but a future state is wished for, therefore there is evidence of a future state." 28. "as we have no idea how we came originally to be produced, for what we know to the contrary our reproduction may be as much the course of nature as our original production.." 29. "a gloom and melancholy belong more to atheists than to devout people." observations. dr. priestley will hardly doubt, after this collection from his work that it has at least been read before it is attempted to be answered. it is in the writer's power to quote the page and line for each assertion, but it would be stuffing this publication with unnecessary references. dr. priestley will be able to know what are his own sentiments and what not without recurring to his printed letters. there has been also another difficulty in classing the several exceptions under the different heads; what is false, what is absurd, and what is inadmissible bordering so nearly on each other. nice distinctions cannot in such respect be made, but the whole together form the main argument which is to be answered. the first and principal assertion is, that effects have their adequate cause; it is then added, that the universe is an effect, that it therefore must have a cause, and to this cause in the english language is given the name of god. this proposition is true, provided the universe is an effect, but that is a _postulatum_ without concession and without a proof. this _original being_ he advances in another place to be that only something which existed uncaused from all eternity, and which could not have been a being, like a man or a table, incapable of comprehending, itself, for such existences would require another superior being. but if the universe is not adopted as an effect, if it is taken as existing from all eternity, the universe becomes an intelligent being, and there or no where is the deity sought after. such a being we may properly speak of and reason upon. the whole is subjected to our sensations and our experience. but of his own _uncaused being_ dr. p. says we cannot properly speak. is not that alone an argument of there being no such thing? his friend dr. clarke says, we cannot have an idea of an impossible thing. now this discovered deity is allowed to be that of which we can have no idea. so far at least it is allied to the impossible. as to the argument of cause and effect, the latter certainly implies the former; but when we give the name of effect to any thing, we must be certain it is an effect, for we may be so far mistaken perhaps as to call that an effect which is a cause, at least what is an effect to-day may be a cause to-morrow, as in the instance of generation; for though a son does not beget his father, he too has his offspring in which he may be said to live over again, and if we are to argue only from experience, most probably that alone is the resurrection and the life to come. but if it is contended that our experience relates only to finite causes, or causes incapable of comprehending themselves, it must at the same time be allowed, that all our reasoning is founded only on experience. this dr. p. at least allows even while he keeps reasoning about a deity, which he calls an infinite cause capable of comprehending itself, though nobody is capable of comprehending it, and of which we therefore can have no experience. yet he will assert, that _thinking_ persons seldom are convinced by _thinking_. this is odd language for a reasoner. when another philosopher or divine attempts to prove a god in their own way, dr. priestley can readily see his fallacies and absurdities. dr. clarke, the former great champion of god almighty, is made very light of. he thought, foolish man, to prove the existence of a deity merely by our having an idea of that existence, which would go to prove the truth of every unnatural conceit that ever entered into the heart of man; and contended farther that it would be equally absurd to suppose no deity as two and two did not make four. it would indeed be absurd, says dr. priestley provided we agreed that the universe is a _caused_ existence, for god is the name we give for the cause of the universe, which in such case must exist. it is only denying that the universe is a caused existence, and then the absurdity is taken away. dr. priestley, for the sake of making dr. clarke absurd, will readily allow the denial capable of being made; and for the same purpose he seems gravely to have taken upon himself to prove that school-boy's difficulty, that two and two do make four, for he says, that four is the term agreed upon in language to be given to the sum total of two and two, and that to deny the deity is at least not so absurd as to say that two and two do not make four. dr. priestley says he finds no difficulty in excluding every thing from the mind except space and duration. he allows then at least, that there is no manifest absurdity in supposing there is no deity, for nothing can be proved by reasoning if the conclusion can be denied without absurdity, nor can there be a manifest absurdity in denying the existence of what there is no difficulty in excluding from the mind. yet after all he adds (somewhat inconsistently) that we cannot exclude the idea of a deity, if we do not exclude an existent universe. this deity he defines to be a most simple being; simple and infinite; terms which but ill agree together. the infinite or boundless existence of this pretended deity is a property more insisted upon than any other, and whatever other properties are given to him they are all in the infinite degree. the properties alledged to be proved are, eternity, infinite knowledge and power, unchangeableness, unity, omnipotence, action from all eternity, and independence. benevolence and moral government are also ascribed to him but confessedly with a less degree of certainty, though the most desireable of all his given properties. upon the subject of benevolence, dr. priestley only advances, that where it is not proved by the happiness of his creatures to exist, he would rather chuse to conclude he mist of his design, that is, he wanted power or knowledge, than that he wanted benevolence. if he means to argue that it is more rational to conclude this deity wanted power and knowledge than that he wanted benevolence, and because dr. priestley fancies himself to have proved the deity cannot want the two former, he concludes the deity cannot want the latter, as the less probable for him to be deficient in, his argument is no more a truism. as a wish, that the deity may not want benevolence, in that sense let him take it as agreed upon. he allows that misery in the human species proves malevolence in the deity, and happiness the contrary. all the proof adduced in favour of benevolence is in asserting that throughout the universe, good is more predominant than evil. the infinite extent of benevolence he will allow incapable of proof; but then it is said that the evils which mankind endure are not so great as might be inflicted upon them; that virtue to vice, happiness to misery, health to sickness bear at least equal proportions. that lesser evils exist instead of greater is indeed but a poor proof in the favour of the benevolence of an all-powerful being. or grant, that good is more predominant than evil, this surely is no proof neither of the benevolence of a kind and all-powerful being. yet dr. priestley adds that the general benevolence of the deity is unquestionable. how unquestionable? it is questioned by the author himself, and he declares he cannot prove it. after this he asks, who will pretend to dictate to such a being? he might in the same stile conclude that no objection deserved a reply. the whole of this is absurd; but when the doctor begins to feel enthusiasm he is like the rest of the ecclesiastical arguers. they reason themselves into imaginary beings with more imaginary properties and then fall down and worship them. god is said to have made man in the image of himself. if he has done so, man is up with him, for he in return makes god in his own image. much as the imagination of one man differs from another, so differs the god of each devotee. they are all idolaters or anthropomorphites to a man; there is none but an atheist that is not the one or the other. the admission of evil into the world is an argument so exceedingly conclusive against at least a good deity, that it is curious to see how dr. priestley studies to get rid of that difficulty. he partly denies the fact, at least he says there is more good than evil in the world. at last he even turns evil into good, or what ought to be the effects of one, into what ought to be the effects of the other, as he says pain is necessary for happiness. but if pain is, as he says, in this world necessary for happiness, why will it not still be necessary hereafter? he answers, because by that time we shall have experienced pain enough for a future supply of happiness. if it is objected, why have we not had pain enough by the time each of us are twenty or thirty years of age, instead of waiting 'till our deaths at so many different ages? he can only finish his argument by allowing that the ways of god are inscrutable to man, that every thing is for the best and refer us to _candide_ for the rest of his philosophy; nor will he ever resolve the question, "if evil and pain are good and necessary now, why will they not always be so? take a view of human existence, and who can even allow, that there is more happiness than misery in the world? dr. priestley thinks to give the turn of the scale to happiness, by making it depend intirely upon health, notwithstanding he says in another place that human sensations are a mass collected from the past, present and future, and as a man grows up the present goes on to bear a less proportion to the other two. it would indeed be a short but lame way of proving that "happiness is the design of the creation" because health is designed, and sickness is only an exception, not a general rule." many a healthy man has certainly been unhappy, or else had a man better study health than virtue. if the mill-wright make a poor machine he is a poor workman; god in like manner designing health and introducing sickness is but a poor physician. in another place dr. priestley having considered, that he had asserted that human sensations arise from ideas of the past and future as well as the present, finds himself obliged to alter his notions of happiness, so far as to say that happiness is more intellectual than corporeal. but it is rather extraordinary to assert at the same time, that happiness is the necessary consequence of health, and that happiness is more from intellectual than corporeal feelings. surely health, if any thing, is corporeal. another curious fancy about pain and happiness is, that our finite nature not admitting infinite or unlimited happiness we must leave it to the wisdom of the deity to determine which is best for us (since happiness must be diminished) a little pain to be added to it or somewhat of happiness to be taken away. it hardly requires the skill of a benevolent deity to determine which is best for the creatures he has made (and whom he wishes to be as happy as their finite nature will admit) to lessen their degree of happiness or mix therein a proportion of misery. to conclude he asks, "how it is possible to teach children caution, but by feeling pain?" it is easy to allow in answer, that it might not perhaps be possible in us. but he is arguing about the benevolence of a deity. it was possible, he will allow, in him to have given these children knowledge without pain, at least if he continues to him the attribute he allows of omnipotence. next he observes that parents suspend at times their benefits to their offspring, when persuaded they are not for their good; so does the deity. but before this argument holds he must therefore say, it is not for the good of man to be made happy now, and that the deity can be infinitely benevolent without willing either infinite or universal happiness. take the argument any way, it must go against his benevolence or his power; and the same observations hold as to his love of justice, whilst he is so tardy in punishing offenders. after observing that things are in an improving state, dr. priestley allows, that the moral government of the universe is not perfect. from thence he proceeds to assert, that atheists may believe it within the course of nature, that men as moral agents may after death be re-produced, and therefore that there may be a future state though there be no god, because he reasons it may be in the course of nature. this allows that the course of nature may be as it is without a god, and that there is therefore no _natural_ proof of a deity. his farther argument on this head is, that "things usually happen in a state of nature that are proper. a future state is proper. (to carry on the supposed state of melioration and complete the moral government of the universe.) it is therefore probable." this is an argument perhaps more of wish than probability, but let it have such force as belongs to it. it is not the wish of the answerer by supporting atheism to give encouragement to immorality, but should he unwarily or with weak minds do so, the argument of the deity's existence is independent of such considerations. it were better to seek another support for morality than a belief in god; for the moral purpose in believing a deity (an invisible being, maker of all, our moral governor, who will hereafter take cognizance of our conduct,) is not a little checked by considering, that he leaves the proof of his very existence so ambiguous, that even men with a habit of piety upon them cannot but have their doubts, whilst on this existence so much of the moral purpose depends. if this is not an argument against the morality of a deity, it is at all events one against his _infinite_ morality though moral is an attribute to be given to him in the infinite degree as much as any other. it is said, infinite intelligence must have procured a necessary fitness of things, and that this forms morality. "his will could not be biassed by other influence; therefore he must have willed morality, because necessarily fit. then comes infinite power, and yet no morality in the world or a very small portion of it. we cannot to any purpose, do what we will, argue against experience. that it must be, yet that it is not. what must be, will be. if it is not, there is no _must_ in the case. it is next said, that virtue gives a better chance for happiness than vice. this also is but a weak argument for the moral government of the universe, unless it be for a moral government by chance. virtue ought to be the certain and immediate parent of happiness, if a moral governor existed with an uncontrouled dominion. if virtue tends to happiness, or has only a better chance of doing so, it is allowed, that a sensible atheist should hold it right to be virtuous. the latter end of a righteous man is certainly more likely to be happy than that of an unrighteous one. but let an atheist be righteous, and he can be as certain of happiness in his latter end as any other. let another life be desirable, as it certainly is, his doubts upon it will not prevent it. who could wish an end better or more happy than that of mr. hume, who most indubitably was an atheist. but if an atheist be not so good as a theist, dr. priestley perhaps, will allow him to be better than a sceptic, as any principles for systematising nature are better than none at all. a theist is not without his doubts as well as the sceptic; an atheist, once firmly becoming so, will never doubt more; for we may venture to say no miracles or new appearances will present themselves to him to draw his belief aside. still every thing is as god intended it--so asserts dr. priestley; and therefore it cannot by him be denied that crimes and vices, are of his intention. the theist exclaims in triumph, "he that made the eye, must he not see?" but who made the eye? or grant that god made the eye, which can only see in the light, must he necessarily see in the dark? it is again asserted, "the power which formed an eye had something in view as certainly as he that constructed a telescope. if any being formed any eye, grant it. but if the eye exists necessarily as a part of nature; as much as any other matter, or combination of matter, necessarily existed, the result of the argument is intirely different. it is far from being a necessary part of the atheist's creed to exclude design from the universe. he places that design in the energy of nature, which dr. priestley gives to some other extraneous being. it is rather inconsistent also in him to say, that an atheist rightly judging of his own situation upon his own principles, ought not to hold himself quite secure from a future state of responsibility and existences, and yet to say he must in his own ideas hold himself soon to be excluded for ever from life. as to the immutability of the deity, it is difficult to guess how that is proved, except by the argument of _lucus a non lucendo_, because every thing is changing here; therefore the deity never changes; which is neither an argument _a priori_ nor _posteriore_, but _sui generis_, merely applicable to the deity. from the imperial infinite intelligence of the deity an argument is formed of his unity. dr. priestley says, "that two _infinite_ intelligent beings would coincide, and therefore that there can only be one such being." two parallels will never coincide. that is one of the first axioms of euclid, in whom dr. priestley believes as much as in his bible. if the beings are infinite in extent and magnitude they must certainly coincide, but if they are only infinite in intelligence, it does not seem to be necessary that they should. the ubiquity of god is proved in this short way: "god made every thing, god controuls every thing. no power can act but where it is. therefore god is present every where. the workman must certainly be present at his work, but when the work is done he may go about other business. if all the properties of matter, such as gravity, elasticity and other such existed only by the perpetual leave and agency of the deity, it may be argued he is in all places where matter is. space, empty space will still exist without him. in this mode of proof dr. priestley must, contrary to the newtonian system argue for a _plenum_, before he proves the ubiquity. he cannot exclude space from his mind, nor can he exclude gravity from matter. yet can he admit matter as well as space to be eternal, because he will not allow the inactivity of god." "if god's works had a beginning he must have been _for a whole eternity_ inactive." he seems to have an odd notion of eternity, for he there allows it could have an end. the argument would be fairer in concluding "he must have been inactive _or doing something else_." the deity set up, if not the creator of matter, is at least the matter of it, nor will his advocates by any means allow him to be material himself. they see some incongruity in admitting one piece of matter to be so complete a master of another. however dr. priestley and other arguers for a deity would do well to consider, that whatever is not matter, is a space that matter may occupy. therefore if god is not matter, and also is not space, he is nothing. dr. priestley allows matter eternal, and its properties of gravity, elasticity, electricity and others equally eternal. he says directly, that matter cannot exist without it's perpetually corresponding powers. the adjustment of those powers he places in the deity. but as we never see matter without the adjustment of those properties as well as the existence of them, this drives him at last to say, the deity must also have created matter, according to his system eternally created it, cotemporarily with himself. ideas absurd and irreconcileable! discoursing upon the hypothesis of "a fortuitous concourse of atoms" dr. priestley asks, "what reason we have to think that small masses of matter can have power without communication _ab extra_?" let this question be returned, "have we not reason to think so from attraction the most common property in matter." to get rid of this difficulty he will not allow an atom of matter to be possessed originally of the most simple powers, though he is ready to allow matter to have been eternal. a magnet according to this system must sometime have existed without its magnetic power. he concludes there must be some original existent being. he shall be allowed many original existent beings if it pleases him. a man may be an originally existent being, as well as any other. he is superior to other animals in this world. in like manner there may be allowed superior beings to man (as most probably there are) and yet those superior beings not have made man. dr. priestley will have it, that all bodies are moved by external force. that does not seem quite necessary. motion may as well be asserted to be originally a property of matter, or its true natural state and rest a deprivation of that property, as that rest should be its natural state. hume thought so and hume was no great fool, notwithstanding dr. priestley makes so light of him. in fact matter never is, and therefore most probably never was found to be in a state of rest. nor has dr. priestley any reason to suppose gravity, elasticity and electricity to have been imprest on bodies by a superior being, and not originally inherent in matter, unless to favour his own hypothesis of a deity. he absolutely says matter could not have had those powers without a communication from a superior and intelligent being. if matter is perceived in regulated motion, it is added bluntly, that it must be by a mover possessed of a competent intelligence, and that a being therefore of such power and intelligence _must_ exist. whoever finds no difficulty in believing the contrary will find as little difficulty in mr. hume's hypothesis, that motion might as well as other powers and properties have been originally inherent in matter, or at least have been a necessary result of some matter acting upon another. it has always been a doubt with theists, whether they can better prove their god's existence by moral or physical considerations. dr. priestley seems to think the _forte_ of the argument lies in the latter proof, and lays particular stress upon his observation respecting cause and effect, which therefore cannot here be so readily dismissed. he makes great reference to the works of art. theists are always for turning their god into an overgrown man. anthropomorphites has long been a term applied to them. they give him hands and eyes nor can they conceive him otherwise than as a corporeal being. in which, as before has been said, they are very right, for there can only be in the world body and the space which bodies occupy. but granting this great workman to have done so much, is it not quite an incontrovertible proposition, that whoever first made a thing, as, for example, a chair or a table, must have had an adequate idea of it's nature and use. dr. priestley speaks more correctly in another part, by saying, he must have been _capable_ of comprehending it. the nature and use of things are often found out after they are made and by different persons than the makers of them. neither is there any analogy between the works of art, as a table or house, and of nature, as a man or tree. therefore there can be no arguing from one to another by analogy. hume observes that the former works are done by reason and design, and the latter by generation and vegetation, and therefore arguing from effect to causes, it is probable, that the universe is generated or vegetated. at least after all the observations about a table, it may be modestly asked, whether there is not some difference between a table and the world? the doctor will also find some difficulty in explaining the propriety of any argument of analogy between men and metals, which he does not at other times scruple to make? a _gratis_ assertion is first made, that all things we see are effects; then because we see one thing caused, every thing must have been caused. his conclusion of the argument is still more curious, "because every thing was caused there must have been something that was not caused." the cause ought to be proportioned to the effect. the effect is not infinite. why then attribute infinity to the cause? this is hume's argument. priestley calls it shortly unworthy of a philosopher. let others judge! but surely, with all this infinity it may be asked, why may not there have been an infinity of causes? another argument is, that being unable to account, for what is, by any thing visible, we must have recourse to something invisible, and that invisible power is what he calls god. apply this argument to gravity, and the external force that is said to cause every stone to fall is god. but if nothing visible can to us account for the operations of nature, why must we have recourse to what is invisible? why necessary to account at all for them? or why may not visible things account for them, although this person or another cannot tell which? if nothing can begin to exist of itself or by the energy of material nature, it is more consistent to allow a plurality of deities, than one immediate deity. an equality in a plurality of deities might be objectionable. but that is not at all necessary, rather the contrary; and so was the pagan theory, which is not so absurd as the modern one. this universe or mundane system may be the work of one hand, another of another, and so on. where is the absurdity of that? if the universe is applied to the solar system, there is an appearance of its being formed by one design, and in that stile it might be said to be the work of one hand. but this deity is asserted to be infinite, and to have made all other worlds and universes, though it does not appear by any unity of design that all other worlds and universes are one work with this. dr. priestley himself allows that reason would drive us to require a cause of the deity. he is himself obliged to conclude, after all his reasoning, that we must acquiesce in our inability of having any idea on the subject; that is, how god could exist without a prior cause. at the same time he says the deity cannot have a cause, and therefore we cannot reason about him. why then all his own reasoning? we make a deity ourselves, fall down and worship him. it is the molten calf over again. idolatry is still practised. the only difference is that now we worship idols of our imagination; before of our hands. "still we must necessarily rest at a being that is infinite;" that is, when our reason drives us to the admission of an infinite cause we must necessarily stop finitely in our career. not content with this conclusion he adds, that we cannot help perceiving the existence of this cause, though he owns that it is not an object of our conceptions. but even the theist's argument does not necessarily drive us to the admission of an infinite cause. the argument is, "because there is a man, and man has intelligence, we must necessarily admit of a being of infinitely superior intelligence." would it not be nearly as well to argue, "because there is a goose, therefore there must be a man." what is there more which hinders a series of finite causes to be carried back _ad infinitum_, than that the reasoner or contemplator of the course of nature is tired. if this eternal series could not exist, a deity might with some propriety be said to follow. put the argument into a syslogistic form. "the universe shews design;" "it is absurd to suppose an infinite succession of finite causes;" "therefore there is an uncaused intelligent cause of this universe." deny the second assertion and the problem is destroyed. so far from its being difficult to suppose an eternity, it is the most difficult thing in the world to suppose any thing but an eternity. a mind, not afraid to think, will find it the most easy contemplation in the world to dwell upon. it is at least a bold assertion, that _nothing can be more evident_ than that plants and animals could not have proceeded from each other by succession from all eternity. surely to this may be answered, that it is more evident that two and two make four. but dr. priestley goes on to say, "that the primary cause of a man cannot be a man, any more than the cause of a sound can be a sound." experience shews us all sound is an effect of a cause. does experience shew us more of a man than that he came from a man and a woman? to allow therefore that all men must have come from a man and a woman is as far as we can argue upon the subject, whilst in reasoning we trust to experience. an argument is well built upon similarity, therefore it is probable if one horse had a cause all horses had. but will not the argument be more consonant to itself, in supposing all horses had the same cause, and as one is seen to be generated from a horse and a mare so all were from all eternity. it were a better argument in favour of a deity or some invisible agent to shew that a new animal came every now and then into life, without any body's knowing how or where. it is allowed by priestley and all other reasoners, that the most capital argument that can be formed in support of any thesis is to be built upon experience, or analogy to experience. yet will many of these reasoners, dr. priestley at least for one, contend at the same time for the probability of a future life, when no instance can be given of any revival whatsoever. the same will contend, that their deity can at pleasure form new species of animals, though in fact we never do see new beings come into existence. we ought only to argue from experience; and experience would teach us, that the species of all animals has eternally existed. grant that we do not know, whether man has been eternal, or from a time, is it therefore because we do not know, that we must say he came from god? that unknown being, as he is sometimes pompously and ridiculously called! the devil is equally an unknown being. the admission of evil under a good deity opens a ready door to the manichean system, which seems much more rational than simple deism. the following chain of reasoning, as used by dr. priestley, is well linked together to prove the weight and force of experience in reasoning, but it proves nothing more. "chairs and tables are made by men or beings of similar powers, because we see them made by men; and we cannot suppose them made by a tree or come into being of themselves, because that is against experience. no one will say one table might make another, or that one man might make another. we see nothing come into being without an adequate cause." yet for this adequate cause we are at the same time referred to a belief in a causeless secret invisible agent, and to our own experience, for a proof of his nature. dr. priestley allows, that what is _visible_ in man may be the feat of all his powers, for it is (as he says,) a rule in philosophy not to multiply causes without necessity. but he affirms that what is _visible_ in the universe cannot be the feat of intelligence. this is breaking the very rule of reasoning which he himself has chosen to adopt; and he gives no other reason for it, than because we do not see the universe think as we do man. sensible of this dilemma, soon afterwards he inclines to allow principle of thought to the universe, for he adds, that if we allow it, yet the universe has so much the appearance of other works of design that we must look out for its author as much as that of a man; and it is allowed that most probably it had the same author. every difficulty vanishes with the energy of nature, or at least is as well accounted for as from an independent deity. it is an usual question to those philosophers, who maintain that the present existence of things is the result of the force and energy of nature acting upon herself, "why this force does not perpetually operate and produce new appearances?" besides that this question may be retorted upon the supporters of a deity, i am thoroughly persuaded, that this force is constantly in action, and that every change which animals and vegetables undergo, whether of dissolution or renovation, is a manifest and undeniable proof of it. man, and the other beings which occupy this terrestrial globe, are evidently suited to its present state, and an alteration in their habitation, such as that of extreme or excessive heat, would inevitably destroy them. this is so certain, that bones of animals have been dug up which appertain to no species now existing, and which must have perished from an alteration in the system of things taking place too considerable for it to endure. whenever the globe shall come to that temperament fit for the life of that lost species, whatever energy in nature produced it originally, if even it had a beginning, will most probably be sufficient to produce it again. is not the reparation of vegitable life the spring equally wonderful now as its first production? yet this is a plain effect of the influence of the sun, whose absence would occasion death by a perpetual winter. so far this question from containing, in my opinion, a formidable difficulty to the epicurean system, i cannot help judging the continual mutability of things as an irrefragable proof of this eternal energy of nature. those who ask, why the great changes in the state of things are not more frequent, would absurdly require them to ensue within the short space of their existence, forgetting that millions of ages are of no importance to the whole mass of matter, though beings of some particular forms may find a wish and an advantage to prolong the term of their duration under that form. if it is said, nature or the energy of nature is another name for the deity, then may dr. priestley and his answerer shake hands; the one is no more an atheist than the other. and if it is observed that the energy of nature having produced men may be capable of re-producing them, so that an atheist is not sure to escape punishment for his crimes, it is easy to say in return, neither is a deist sure. a good atheist has no more reason to be afraid to be re-produced than a good deist or a christian. it may be useful for both of them to be good. if necessary let it again be repeated, that it is not at all meant in this answer to make atheism a plea or protection for immorality. that is a charge long and most unjustly put upon the poor undefended atheist. the knowledge of a god and even the belief of a providence are found but too slight a barrier against human passions, which are apt to fly out as licentiously as they would otherwise have done. all, which this creed can in reality produce, scarce goes beyond some exterior exercises, which are vainly thought to reconcile man to god. it may make men build temples, sacrifice victims, offer up prayers, or perform something of the like nature; but never break a criminal intrigue, restore an ill gotten wealth, or mortify the lust of man. lust being the source of every crime, it is evident (since it reigns as much among idolaters and anthropomorphites, as among atheists) idolaters and anthropomorphites must be as susceptible of all of crimes as atheists, and neither the one set nor the other could form societies, did not a curb, stronger then that of religion, namely human laws, repress their perverseness. if no other remedy were applied to vice than the remonstrances of divines, a great city such as london, would in a fortnight's time, fall into the most horrid disorders. whatever may be the difference of faith, vice predominates alike with the christian and the jew, with the deist and the atheist. so like are they in their actions, that one would think they copied one another. religion may make men follow ceremonies; little is the inconvenience found in them. a great triumph truly for religion to make men baptise or fast? when did it make men do virtuous actions for virtue's sake, or practise fewer inventions to get rich, where riches could not be acquired without poverty to others? the true principle most commonly seen in human actions, and which philosophy will cure sooner than religion, is the natural inclination of man for pleasure, or a taste contracted for certain objects by prejudice and habit. these prevail in whatsoever faith a man is educated, or with whatever knowledge he may store his mind. but it will be said, those who commit crimes are atheists at the time at least they do so. but an atheist cannot be superstitious, and criminals are often so at the very moment of their crimes. religious persuasion men are not doubted to have when they vent their rage upon others of a different way of thinking, when they express a dread of danger or a zeal for ceremonies. these at least are not virtues; and few indeed must be those, who at any time are really theists, if their faith is lost or forgotten every time they have a mind to indulge a vitious passion. to support still the efficacy of religion in making men virtuous is to oppose metaphysical reasoning to the truth of fact; it is like the philosopher denying motion, and being refuted by one of his scholars walking across the room. if then it is true, as history and the whole course of human life shew it is, that men can still plunge themselves into all sorts of crimes, though they are persuaded of the truth of religion, which is made to inform them that god punishes sin and rewards good actions, it cannot but be suspected that religion even encourages crimes, by the hopes it gives of pardon through the efficacy of prayer; at all events it must be granted, that those who hold up a belief in god as a sufficient proof and character of a good life are most egregiously mistaken. some theists may have lighter sense of personal dignity than some atheists. if the theist thinks himself allied to and connected with the deity he may plume himself upon his station; but how apt are those worshipers of a god, instead of having a high sense of personal dignity, to debase themselves into the most abject beings, dreading even the shadow of their own phantom. an atheist feeling himself to be a link in the grand chain of nature, feels his relative importance and dreads no imaginary being. an atheist, who is so from inattention and without intelligence, may indeed feel himself as much debased as the meanest and most humble theist. another argument against atheists is, that where men are atheists it is generally found that their usual turn of thinking and habits of life have inclined to make them so. is not this to be turned upon theists? but granting that the idea of a supreme author is more pleasing, and that the argument with respect to the existence or non-existence of a god was in _equilibrio_, it is not therefore right to conclude that the mind ought to be determined by this or any other bias. nor is it quite clear if there is no god (by which term let it again be noticed, is meant a being of supreme intelligence, the contriver of the material universe and yet no part of the material system) that the world in which man inhabits is either fatherless or deserted. the wisdom of nature supplies in reality what is only hoped for from the protection of the deity. if the world has so good a mother, a father may well be spared especially such a haughty jealous, and vindictive one as god is most generally represented to be. dr. priestley being clear in his opinion; that the being of a god is capable of being proved by reason, is not so weak as some of his fellow-labourers, who hold the powers of reason in so low estimation as to be incapable of themselves to arrive at almost any truth. he must however allow, if reason proves a deity and his attributes there was less use of revelation to prove them. but the learned advocates of a deity differ greatly among themselves, whether his existence is capable of being ascertained by fixt principles of reason. after such a difference and the instance of so many great men in all ages, from democritus downward, who have confidently denied the being of a god, whose arguments the learned dr. cudworth, in the last century, only by fully and fairly stating, with all the answers in his power to give (though his zeal in religion was never doubted) was thought by other divines to have given a weight to atheism not well to be overturned, it is surprising that it should be the common belief of this day, that an argument in support of atheism cannot stand a moment, and that even no man in his senses can ever hold such a doctrine. all that epicurus and lucretius have so greatly and convincingly said is swept away in a moment by these better reasoners, who yet scruple not to declare, with dr. priestley, that what they reason about is not the subject of human understanding. but let it be asked, is it not absurd to reason with a man about that of which that same man asserts we have no idea at all? yet will dr. priestley argue, and say it is of no importance, whether the person with whom he argues has a conception or not of the subject. "having no ideas includes no impossibility," therefore he goes on with his career of words to argue about an unseen being with another whom he will allow to have no idea of the subject and yet it shall be of no avail in the dispute, whether he has or no, or whether he is capable or incapable of having any. reason failing, the passions are called upon, and the imagined god is represented at one time, with all the terrors of a revengeful tyrant, at another with all the tenderness of an affectionate parent. shall then such a tremendous being with such a care for the creatures he has made, suffer his own existence to be a perpetual doubt? if the course of nature does not give sufficient proof, why does not the hand divine shew itself by an extraordinary interposition of power? it is allowed miracles ought not to be cheap or plenty. one or two at least every thousand years might be admitted. but this is a perpetual standing miracle, that such a being as the depicted god, the author of nature and all its works, should exist and yet his existence be perpetually in doubt, or require a jesus, a mahomet or a priestley to reveal it. is not the writing of this very answer to the last of those three great luminaries of religion a proof, that no god, or no _such_ god at least, exists. hear the admirable words of the author of "the system of nature;" _comment permet il qu'un mortel comme moi ose attaquer ses droits, ses titres, son existence meme?_ dr. clarke, mr. hume and helvetius, are writers whose arguments for and against a godhead dr. priestley has much noted. the former says, "the deity must have been infinite, if self-existent, because all things in the universe are made by him." are all things in the universe infinite? why an infinite maker of a finite work? it is juster to argue, that whatever is self-existent must have been eternal. nor is there any great objection to the converse of the proposition properly taken, that whatever is not self-existent must have been created and therefore cannot have been eternal. if this is fair arguing, matter cannot according to dr. priestley's system have been created and be eternal also. but dr. priestley has no inclination to reconcile his opinions with those of dr. clarke. he has chosen a fairer method, and that is, to refute the arguments of former asserters of a deity as well as to establish his own. dr. clarke he most effectually exposes where he enters upon the subject of space. it seems as if dr. clarke, having asserted that the deity necessarily existed, had a mind that nothing else should necessarily exist but the deity; and conscious that space at least also necessarily existed, he makes universal space an attribute of the deity. with this reverie in his head he raises a syllogism of complete nonsense (_vide priestley's letters_, p. 170.) where he supposes space to be nothing though he also supposes it to be an attribute of the deity. making it therefore an attribute of the deity and knowing that space is eternal and unmeasurable he takes upon himself thereby also clearly to have proved that the deity is so. exclude the deity, space will still exist and still be eternal and immense. dr. priestley knew well that dr. clarke's argument in this respect was all a fallacy, and therefore he shews his sense in not adopting it. it is in fact an abuse of terms unworthy of a scientific reasoner. the only argument attempted by dr. clarke, why the deity must have had no cause, is, because it is necessary he should have none. dr. clarke says roundly that necessity is the cause of the existence of the deity. this is very near the language of the ancients, who held that fate controuled the gods. necessity is therefore the first god. why then any other god than necessity? what more has helvetius said than that? it is an old and unanswerable argument that, granting a god and his power infinite, whatever he wills is executed; but man and other animals are unhappy, therefore he does not will they should be happy. or take the argument the other way and it will equally conclude against his power. with regard to mr. hume's famous observations upon the evidence of miracles, dr. priestley thinks to make a short havock of them by observing that new, and therefore miraculous appearances, are continually presenting themselves; but although such new appearances may be instanced, they are not contrary to former experience, only in addition to it. with this allusion to natural philosophy, dr. priestley thinks himself in one short sentence to have discussed all mr. hume's observations upon miracles. _"which is more likely, that the relater of a miracle should have lied or been deceived, or that the thing related should have existed contrary to experience prior and subsequent?"_ let the force of this observation be considered and believe in the history of miracles who can! to give a finishing stroke to poor mr. hume, dr. priestley observes that literary fame was hume's only motive and consolation, as he said himself, in all his laborious enquiries and enlightened writings. at this he exclaims, "what gloomy prospect and poor comfort he must have had at his death!" if so, how much was he the greater man so well to have gone through that last scene! the honour which dr. priestley gives to helvetius, the author of that ingenious and satisfactory work intitled "the system of nature," does credit to his own candour. he applauds him for speaking out, he ought therefore to applaud this answer for the same reason. it is true he seems to have discovered one incongruity in the reasoning of helvetius. the words he imputes to him are, "that nature has no object, because nature acts necessarily; man has an object; yet man also acts necessarily." in the same way nature might have an object though it acted necessarily. but helvetius adds, that the object which man has is a necessary object. the best defence of helvetius (not in behalf of that passage, but of his general system) is to let him speak at large for himself; and the following quotation dr. priestley and the reader may accept as a specimen of the strength and justice of his argument, and as the conclusion of this answer. "theologians tell us, that the disorder and evil, which is seen in the world, is not absolute and real, but relatively and apparently such, and does not disprove the divine wisdom and goodness. but may not one reply, that the goodness and wonderful order which they so much extol, and on which they found their notions of those qualities in god, are in a similar way only relative and apparent. if it be only our co-existence with the causes which surround us, and our manner of perceiving them, that constitute the order of nature for us, and authorise us to attribute wisdom and goodness to the maker of what surround us, should not also our mode of existence and perception authorise us to call what is hurtful to us disorder, and to attribute impotence, ignorance, or malice, to that being which we would suppose to actuate nature. some pretend that the supremely wise god can derive goodness and happiness to us from the midst of those ills which he permits us to undergo in this world. are these men privy counsellors of the divinity, or on what do they found their romantic hopes? they will doubtless say, that they judge of god's conduct by analogy, and that from the present appearance of his wisdom and goodness, they have a right to infer his future wisdom and goodness. but do not the present appearances of his want of wisdom or goodness justify us in concluding, that he will always want them? if they are so often manifestly deficient in this world, what can assure us that they will abound more in the next? this kind of language therefore rests upon no other basis than a prejudiced imagination, and signifies, that some men, having without examination, adopted an opinion that god is good, cannot admit that he will consent to let his creatures remain constantly unhappy. yet this grand hypothesis, of the unalterable felicity of mankind hereafter, is insufficient to justify the divinity in permitting the present sleeting and transitory marks of injustice and disorder. if god can have been unjust for a moment, he has derogated, during that moment at least, from his divine perfection, and is not unchangeably good; his justice then is liable to temporary alteration, and, if this be the case, who can give security for his justice and goodness continuing unalterable in a future life, the notion of which is set up only to exculpate his deviation from those qualities in this? in spite of the experience, which every instant gives the lie to that beneficence which men suppose in god, they continue to call him good. when we bewail the miserable victims of those disorders and calamities that so often overwhelm our species, we are confidently told that these ills are but apparent, and that if our short-sighted mind could fathom the depths of divine wisdom, we should always behold the greatest blessings result from what we denominate evil. how despicable is so frivolous an answer! if we can find no good but in such things as affect us in a manner which is agreeable and pleasing to our actual existence, we shall be obliged to confess that those things which affect us, even but for a time, in, a painful manner, are as certainly evil to us. to vindicate god's visiting mankind with these evils some tell us, that he is just, and that they, are chastisements inflicted on mankind to punish the wrongs he has received from men. thus a feeble mortal has the power to irritate and injure the almighty and eternal being who created this world. to offend any one is, to afflict him, to diminish in some degree his happiness, to make him feel a painful sensation. how can man possibly disturb the felicity of the all-powerful sovereign of nature! how can a frail creature, who has received from god his being and his temper, act against the inclinations of an irresistable force which never consents to sin and disorder? besides justice, according to the only ideas which we can have of it, supposes a fixt desire to render every one his due. but theologians constantly preach that god owes us nothing, that the good things he affords are the voluntary effects of his beneficence, and that without any violence of his equity he can dispose of his creatures as his choice or caprice may impel him. in this doctrine i see not the smallest shadow of justice, but the most hideous tyranny and shocking abuse of power. in fact do we not see virtue and innocence plunged into an abyss of misery, while wickedness rears its triumphant head under the empire of this god whose justice is so much extalled? "this misery, say you, is but for a time." very well, sirs, but your god is unjust for a time. "he chastises whom he loves (you will say) for their own benefit." but if he is perfectly good, why will he let them suffer at all? "he does it, perhaps to try them" but, if he knows all things, what occasion is there for him to try any? if he is omnipotent, why need he vex himself about the vain design any one may form against him? omnipotence ought to be exempt from any such passions, as having neither equals nor rivals. but if this god is jealous of his glory, his titles and prerogative, why does he permit such numbers of men to offend him? why are any found daring enough to refuse the incense which his pride expects? _why am i a feeble mortal permitted to attack his titles, his attributes, and even his existence?_ is this permission of punishment on me for the abuse of his grace and favour? he should never have permitted me to abuse them. or the grace he bestowed should have been efficacious and have directed my steps according to his liking. "but, say you, he makes man free." alas? why did he present him with a gift of which he must have foreseen the abuse? is this faculty of free agency, which enables me to resist his power, to corrupt and rob him of his worshippers, and in fine to bring eternal misery on myself, a present worthy of his infinite goodness? in consequence of the pretended abuse of this fatal present, which an omniscient and good god ought not to have bestowed on beings capable of abusing it, everlasting, inexpressible torments are reserved for the transitory crimes of a being made liable to commit them. would that father be called good, reasonable, just and kind, who put a sharp-edged and dangerous knife into the hand of a playful, and imprudent child, whom he before knew to be imprudent, and punished him during the remainder of his life for cutting himself with it? would that prince be called just and merciful, who, not regarding any proportion between the offence and the punishment, should perpetually exercise his power of vengeance, over one of his subjects who, being drunk, had rashly offended against his vanity, without causing any real harm to him, especially, when the prince had taken pains to make him drunk? should we consider as almighty a monarch, whose dominions were in such confusion and disorder, that, except a small number obedient servants, all his subjects were every instant despising his laws, defeating his will and insulting his person? let ecclesiastics then acknowledge, that their god is an assemblage of incompatible qualities, as incomprehensible to their understanding as to mine. no: they say, in reply to these difficulties, that wisdom and justice in god, are qualities so much above or so unlike those qualities in us, that they bear no relation or affinity towards human wisdom and justice. but, pray how am i to form to myself an idea of the divine perfection, unless it has some resemblance to those virtues which i observe in my fellow creatures and feel in myself? if the justice of god is not the same with human justice, why lastly do any men pretend to announce it, comprehend and explain it to others?" postscript. previous to this publication the editor sent the following letter to dr. priestley. "reverend sir, had you thought it impossible for man to hold different sentiments respecting natural religion and the proof of the existence of a god than you do, the letters to a philosophical unbeliever would not have appeared, much less would you have invited an answer by promising a reply to every objection. differing from you in sentiment i am the man who enter with you in the lists; but i find myself upon consultation with my friends under more difficulties than you were, and more to stand in need of courage in taking up the glove, than you needed to have in throwing it down. for this dispute is not like others in philosophy, where the vanquished can only dread ridicule, contempt and disappointment; here, whether victor or vanquished, your opponent has to dread, beside ecclesiastical censure, the scourges, chains and pillories of the courts of law. i accuse you not of laying a trap for an unguarded author, but i ask your friendly opinion, whether i can, with temporal safety at least, maintain the contrary of your arguments in proof of a deity and his attributes. if i cannot, no wonder the theist cries _victoria!_ but then it is a little ungenerous to ask for objections. of you, i may certainly expect, that you will promise to use your influence, as well with lawyers as ecclesiastics, not to stir up a persecution against a poor atheist in case there should be one found in the kingdom, which people in general will not admit to be possible; or, if a persecution could ensue, that you and your friends, favourers of free enquiry, will at least bear the expences of it. i am, reverend sir, your most humble obedient servant, william hammon. oct. 23. 1781. _to the reverend dr. priestley._ to this letter dr. priestley sent no answer; or no answer ever came to hand. the end. superstition unveiled. by charles southwell, author of "supernaturalism exploded;" "impossibility of atheism demonstrated," etc. abridged by the author from his "apology for atheism." "not one of you reflects that you ought to know your gods before you worship them." london: edward truelove, 240, strand, three doors from temple bar, and all booksellers 1854. superstition unveiled. religion has an important bearing on all the relations and conditions of life. the connexion between religious faith and political practice is, in truth, far closer than is generally thought. public opinion has not yet ripened into a knowledge that religious error is the intangible but real substratum of all political injustice. though the 'schoolmaster' has done much, there still remain among us, many honest and energetic assertors of 'the rights of man,' who have to learn that a people in the fetters of superstition cannot, secure political freedom. these reformers admit the vast influence of mohammedanism on the politics of constantinople, and yet persist in acting as if christianity had little or nothing to do with the politics of england. at a recent meeting of the anti-state church association it was remarked that _throw what we would into the political cauldron, out it came in an ecclesiastical shape_. if the newspaper report may be relied on, there was much laughing among the hearers of those words, the deep meaning of which, it may safely be affirmed, only a select few of them could fathom. hostility to state churches by no means implies a knowledge of the close and important connection between ecclesiastical and political questions. men may appreciate the justice of voluntaryism in religion, and yet have rather cloudy conceptions with respect to the influence of opinions and things ecclesiastical on the condition of nations. they may clearly see that he who needs the priest, should disdain to saddle others with the cost of him, while blind to the fact that no people having faith in the supernatural ever failed to mix up such faith with political affairs. even leading members of the 'fourth estate' are constantly declaring their disinclination for religious criticism, and express particular anxiety to keep their journals free of everything 'strictly theological.' their notion is, that newspaper writers should endeavour to keep clear of so 'awful' a topic. and yet seldom does a day pass in which this self-imposed editorial rule is not violated--a fact significant, as any fact can be of _connection_ between religion and politics. it is quite possible the editors of newspapers have weighty reasons for their repugnance to agitate the much vexed question of religion; but it seems they cannot help doing so. in a leading article of this days' _post_, [endnote 4:1] we are told--_the stain and reproach of romanism in ireland is, that it is a political system, and a wicked political system, for it regards only the exercise of power_, and neglects utterly the duty of improvement. in journals supported by romanists, and of course devoted to the interests of their church, the very same charge is made against english protestantism. to denounce each other's 'holy apostolic religion' may be incompatible with the taste of 'gentlemen of the press,' but certainly they do it with a brisk and hearty vehemence that inclines one to think it a 'labour of love.' what men do _con amore_ they usually do well, and no one can deny the wonderful talent for denunciation exhibited by journalists when writing down each other's 'true christianity.' the unsparing invective quoted above from the _post_ is a good specimen. if just, irish romanism _ought_ to be destroyed, and newspaper writers cannot be better employed than in helping on the work of its destruction, or the destruction of any other religion to which the same 'stain and reproach' may be fairly attached. i have no spite or ill-will towards roman catholics though opposed to their religion, and a willing subscriber to the opinion of romanism in ireland expressed by the _post_. the past and present condition of that country is a deep disgrace to its priests, the bulk of whom, protestant as well as romanist, can justly be charged with 'regarding only the exercise of power, while neglecting utterly the duty of improvement.' the intriguing and essentially political character of romanism it would be idle to deny. no one at all acquainted with its cunningly contrived 'system' will hesitate to characterise it as 'wickedly political,' productive of nothing but mischief--a system through whose accursed instrumentality millions are cheated of their sanity as well as substance, and trained dog-like to lick the hand that smites them. so perfect is their degradation that literally they 'take no thought for to-morrow,' it being their practice to wait 'till starvation stares them in the face,' [4:2] and _then_ make an effort against it. the _globe_ of thursday, october 30th, 1845, contains an article on the damage sustained by the potatoe crop here and in ireland, full of matter calculated to enlighten our first-rate reformers who seem profoundly ignorant that superstition is the bane of intellect, and most formidable of all the obstacles which stand between the people and their rights. one paragraph is so peculiarly significant of the miserable condition to which romanism _and_ protestantism have reduced a peasantry said to be 'the finest in the world,' that i here subjoin it. _the best means to arrest the progress of the pestilence in the people's food have occupied the attention of scientific men. the commission appointed by government, consisting of three of the must celebrated practical chemists, has published a preliminary report, in which several suggestions, rather than ascertained results, are communicated, by which the sound portions of the root may, it is hoped, be preserved from the epidemic, and possibly, the tainted be rendered innoxious, and even partially nutritious. followed implicitly, their directions might mitigate the calamity. but the care, the diligence, the persevering industry which the various forms of process require, in order to effecting the purpose which might result if they were promptly adopted and properly carried out, are the very qualities in which the irish peasantry are most deficient. in the present crisis, the people are more disposed to regard the extensive destruction of their crops in the light of an extraordinary visitation of heaven, with which it is vain for human efforts to contend, than to employ counteracting, or remedial applications. "sure the almighty sent the potatoe-plague and we must bear it as wall us we can," is the remark of many; while, in other places, the copious sprinklings of holy water on the potatoe gardens, and on the produce, as it lies upon the surface, are more depended on for disinfecting the potatoes than those suggestions of science which require the application of patient industry._ daniel o'connell boasted about irish morale and irish intellect--the handsome women, and stalwart men of his 'beloved country,' but no sensible persons paid the least attention to him. it is, at all events, too late in the day for we 'saxons' to be either cajoled or amused by such nonsense. an overwhelming majority of the irish people have been proved indolent beyond all parallel, and not much more provident than those unhappy savages who sell their beds in the morning, not being able to foresee they shall again require them at night. a want of forethought so remarkable and indolence so abominable, are results of superstitious education. does any one suppose the religion of the irish has little, if anything, to do with their political condition? or can it be believed they will be fit for, much less achieve, political emancipation, while priests and priests alone, are their instructors? we may rely upon it that intellectual freedom is the natural and necessary precursor of political freedom. _education_, said lord brougham, _makes men easy to lead but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave_. the irish peasantry clamoured for 'repeal,' never considering that did they get it, no essential change would be made in their social, moral, or, to say all in one word, _political_ condition. they would still be the tool of unprincipled political mountebanks--themselves the tool of priests. great was the outcry raised against the 'godless colleges' that sir robert peel had the courageous good sense to _inflict_ on ireland. protestant, as well as romanist priests, were terribly alarmed lest these colleges should spoil the craft by which they live. sagacious enough to perceive that whatever influence they possess must vanish with the ignorance on which it rests, they moved heaven and earth to disgust the irish people with an educational measure of which superstition formed no part. their fury, like 'empty space,' is boundless. they cannot endure the thought that our minister should so far play the game of 'infidelity' as to take from them the delightful task of teaching ireland's young idea 'how to shoot.' sir robert inglis _christened_ this odious measure, a 'gigantic scheme of godless education,' and a large majority of irish roman catholic prelates have solemnly pronounced it 'dangerous to faith and morals.' neither ministerial allurements, nor ministerial threats can subdue the cantankerous spirit of these bigots. they are all but frantic and certainly not without reason, for the irish colleges' bill is the fine point of that wedge which, driven home, will shiver to pieces their 'wicked political system.' whatever improves irish intellect will play the mischief with its 'faith,' though not at all likely to deteriorate its 'morals.' let the people of ireland be well employed as a preliminary to being well educated, and speedily they may _deserve_ to be singled out as 'the most moral people on the face of the earth.' an educated nation will never tamely submit to be priest-ridden, and well do ireland's enslavers know it. the most stupid of her priests, equally with the shrewdest of her 'patriots,' are quite alive to the expediency of teaching as fact the fraudulent fables of the 'dark ages.' to keep the people ignorant, or what is worse, to teach them only what is false, is the great end of _their_ training; and if a british ministry propose anything better than the merest mockery of education, they call it 'dangerous to faith and morals.' superstition is the curse of ireland. to the rival churches of that country may be traced all the oppressions suffered by its people who never can be materially improved till purged of their faith in priests. when that salutary work shall be accomplished, ireland will indeed be 'a nation' in the secure enjoyment of political liberty. the priest-ridden may talk of freedom, but can never secure it. what then can be thought of the first-rate reformers, before alluded to, who are going to emancipate every body without the least offence to any body's superstition? it should be borne in memory that other people are superstitious as well as the irish, and that the churches of all countries are as much parts of 'a wicked political system' as are the churches of ireland. the judges of _our_ country frequently remind us that its laws have a religious sanction; nay, they assure us christianity is part and parcel of those laws. do we not know that orthodox christianity means christianity as by law established? and can any one fail to perceive that such a religion must needs be political? the cunning few, who esteem nothing apart from their own aggrandisement, are quite aware that the civil and criminal law of england is intimately associated with christianity--they publicly proclaim their separation impossible, except at the cost of destruction to both. they are sagacious enough to perceive that a people totally untrammelled by the fears, the prejudices, and the wickedness of superstition would never consent to remain in bondage. hence the pains taken by priests to perpetuate the dominion of that ignorance which proverbially is 'the mother of devotion.' what care they for universal emancipation? free themselves, their grand object is to rivet the chains of others. so that those they defraud of their hard earned substance be kept down, they are not over scrupulous with respect to means. among the most potent of their helps in the 'good work' are churches, various in name and character but in principle the very same. all are pronounced true by priests who profit by them, and false by priests who do not. every thing connected with them bears the stamp of despotism. whether we look at churches foreign or domestic, popish or protestant, 'that mark of the beast' appears in characters as legible as, it is fabled, the handwriting on the wall did to a tyrant of old. in connection with each is a hierarchy of intellect stultifiers, who explain doctrines without understanding them, or intending they should be understood by others; and true to their 'sacred trust,' throw every available impediment in the way of improvement. knowledge is their accuser. to diffuse the 'truth' that 'will set men free' is no part of their 'wicked political system.' on the contrary, they labour to excite a general disgust of truth, and in defence of bad governments preach fine sermons from some one of the many congenial texts to be gathered in their 'holy scripture.' non-established priesthoods are but little more disposed to emancipate 'mind' and oil the wheels of political progression than those kept in state pay. the air of conventicles is not of the freest or most bracing description. the methodist preacher, who has the foolish effrontery to tell his congregation 'the flush lusteth always contrary to the spirit, and, _therefore_, every person born into the world deserveth god's wrath and damnation,' may be a liberal politician, one well fitted to pilot his flock into the haven of true republicanism; but i am extremely suspicious of such, and would not on any account place my liberty in their keeping. i possess little faith in political fanaticism, especially when in alliance with the frightful doctrines enunciated from conventicle pulpits, and have no hesitation in saying that anti-state church associations do not touch the root of political evils. their usefulness is great, because they give currency to a sound principle, but that principle though important, is not all-important--though powerful, is not all-powerful. if universally adopted, it is questionable that any useful change of a lasting character would be worked in the economy of politics. wise men put no trust in doctrine which involves or assumes supernatural existence. believing that supernaturalism reduced to 'system' cannot be other than 'wickedly political,' they see no hope for 'slave classes,' apart from a general diffusion of anti-superstitious ideas. they cannot reconcile the wisdom of theologians with undoubted facts, and though willing to admit that some 'modes of faith' are less absurd than others, are convinced they are all essentially alike, because all fundamentally erroneous. speculative thinkers of so radical a temper are not numerous. if esteemed, as happens to certain commodities, in proportion to their scarcity they would enjoy a large share of public respect. indeed, they are so few and far between, or at least so seldom make their presence visible, that william gillespie is convinced they are an anomalous species of animal produced by our common parent 'in a moment of madness.' other grave christian writers, though horrified at universal--nicknamed athe-ism--though persuaded its professors, 'of all earth's madmen, most deserve a chain;' and, though constantly abusing them, are still unable to believe in the reality of such persons. these, among all the opponents of sense and wisdom may fairly claim to be considered most mysterious; for, while lavishing on deniers of their idols every kind of sharp invective and opprobrious epithet, they cannot assure themselves the 'monsters' did, or do, actually exist. with characteristic humour david hume observed, 'there are not a greater number of philosophical reasonings displayed upon any subject than those which prove the existence of deity, and refute the fallacies of atheists, and yet the most religious philosophers still dispute whether any man can be so blinded as to be a speculative atheist;' 'how (continues he) shall we reconcile these contradictions? the knight-errants who wandered about to clear the world of dragons and of giants, never entertained the least doubt with regard to the existence of these monsters.' [8:1] the same hume who thus pleasantly rebuked 'most religious philosophers,' was himself a true universalist. that he lacked faith in the supernatural must be apparent to every student of his writings, which abound with reflections far from flattering to the self-love of superstitionists, and little calculated to advance their cause. hume astonished religious fanatics by declaring that _while we argue from the course of nature and infer a particular intelligent cause, which first bestowed, and still preserves order in the universe, we embrace a principle which is both uncertain and useless. it is uncertain, because the subject lies entirely beyond the reach of human experience. it is useless, because our knowledge of this cause being derived entirely from the course of nature, we can never, according to the rules of just reasoning, return back from the cause with any new inference, or making additions to the common and experienced course of nature, establish any principles of conduct and behaviour_. [9:1] nor did hume affect to consider popular christianity less repugnant to reason than any other theory or system of supernaturalism. though confessedly fast in friendship, generous in disposition, and blameless in all the relations of life, few sincere divines can forgive his hostility to their faith. and, without doubt, it was hostility eminently calculated to exhaust their stock of patience, because eminently calculated to damage their superstition, which has nothing to fear from the assaults of ignorant and immoral opponents; but when assailed by men of unblemished reputation, who know well how to wield the weapons of wit, sarcasm, and solid argumentation, its priests are not without reason alarmed lest their house should be set _out_ of order. it would be difficult to name a philosopher at once so subtle, so profound, so bold, and so _good_ as hume. notwithstanding his heterodox reputation, many learned and excellent christians openly enjoyed his friendship. a contemporary critic recently presented the public with 'a curious instance of contrast and of parallel,' between robertson and hume. 'flourishing (says he) in the same walk of literature, living in the same society at the same time; similar in their habits and generous dispositions; equally pure in their morals, and blameless in all the relations of private life: the one was a devout believer, the other a most absolute atheist, and both from deep conviction, founded upon inquiries, carefully and anxiously conducted. the close and warm friendship which subsisted between these two men, may, after what we have said, be a matter of surprise to some; but robertson's christianity was enlarged and tolerant, and david hume's principles were liberal and philosophical in a remarkable degree.' [9:2] this testimony needs no comment. it clearly tells its own tale, and ought to have the effect of throwing discredit upon the vulgar notion that disgust of superstition is incompatible with talents and virtues of the highest order; for, in the person of david hume, the world saw absolute universalism co-existent with genius, learning, and moral excellence, rarely, if ever, surpassed. the unpopularity of that grand conception it would be vain to deny. a vast majority of mankind associate with the idea of disbelief in their gods, everything stupid, monstrous, absurd and atrocious. absolute universalism is thought by them the inseparable ally of most shocking wickedness, involving 'blasphemy against the holy ghost,' which we are assured shall not be forgiven unto men 'neither in this world nor in that which is to come.' educated to consider it 'an inhuman, bloody, ferocious system, equally hostile to every restraint and to every virtuous affection,' the majority of all countries detest and shun its apostles. their horror of them may be likened to that it is presumed the horse feels towards the camel, upon whom (so travellers tell us) he cannot look without _shuddering_. to keep alive and make the most of this superstitious feeling has ever been the object of christian priests, who rarely hesitate to make charges of atheism, not only against opponents, but each other; not only against disbelievers but believers. the jesuit lafiteau, in a preface to his 'histoire des sauvages americanes,' [10:1] endeavours to prove that only atheists will dare assert that god created the americans. not a metaphysical writer of eminence has escaped the 'imputation' of atheism. the great clarke and his antagonist the greater leibnitz were called atheists. even newton was put in the same category. no sooner did sharp-sighted divines catch a glimpse of an 'essay on the human understanding' than they loudly proclaimed the atheism of its author. julian hibbert, in his learned account 'of persons falsely entitled atheists,' says, 'the existence of some sort of a deity has usually been considered undeniable, so the imputation of atheism and the title of atheist have usually been considered as insulting.' this author, after giving no fewer than thirty and two names of 'individuals among the pagans who (with more or less injustice) have been accused of atheism,' says, 'the list shews, i think, that almost all the most celebrated grecian metaphysicians have been, either in their own or in following ages, considered, with more or less reason, to be atheistically inclined. for though the word atheist was probably not often used till about a hundred years before christ, yet the imputation of _impiety_ was no doubt as easily and commonly bestowed, before that period, as it has been since.' [11:1] voltaire relates, in the eighteenth chapter of his 'philosophie de l'histoire,' [11:2] that a frenchman named maigrot, bishop of conon, who knew not a word of chinese, was deputed by the then pope to go and pass judgment on the opinions of certain chinese philosophers; _he treated confucius as atheist, because that sage had said, 'the sky has given me virtue, and man can do me no hurt.'_ on grounds no more solid than this, charges of atheism are often erected by 'surpliced sophists.' rather ridiculous have been the mistakes committed by some of them in their hurry to affix on objects of their hate the brand of impiety. those persons, no doubt, supposed themselves privileged to write or talk any amount of nonsense and contradiction. men who fancy themselves commissioned by deity to interpret his 'mysteries,' or announce his 'will,' are apt to make blunders without being sensible of it; as did those worthy jesuits who declared, in opposition to bayle, that a society of atheists was impossible, and at the same time assured the world that the government of china was a society of atheists. so difficult it is for men inflamed by prejudices, interests, and animosities, to keep clear of sophisms, which can impose on none but themselves. many universalists conceal their sentiments on account of the odium which would certainly be their reward did they avow them. but the unpopularity of those sentiments cannot, by persons of sense and candour, be allowed, in itself, a sufficient reason for their rejection. the fact of an opinion being unpopular is no proof it is false. the argument from general consent is at best a suspicious one for the truth of any opinion or the validity of any practice. history proves that the generality of men are the slaves of prejudice, the sport of custom, and foes most bigoted to such opinions concerning religion as have not been drawn in from their sucking-bottles, or 'hatched within the narrow fences of their own conceit.' every day experience demonstrates the fallibility of majorities. it palpably exhibits, too, the danger as well as folly of presuming the unpopularity of certain speculative opinions an evidence of their untruth. a public intellect, untainted by gross superstition, can nowhere be appealed to. even in this favoured country, 'the envy of surrounding nations and admiration of the world,' the multitude are anything but patterns of moral purity and intellectual excellence. they who assure us _vox populi_ 'is the voice of god,' are fairly open to the charge of ascribing to him what orthodox pietists inform us exclusively belongs to the father of evil. if by 'voice of god' is meant something different from noisy ebullitions of anger, intemperance, and fanaticism, they who would have us regulate our opinions in conformity therewith are respectfully requested to reconcile mob philosophy with the sober dictates of experience, and mob law with the law of reason. a writer in the _edinburgh review_ [12:1] assures us _the majority of every nation consists of rude uneducated masses, ignorant, intolerant, suspicious, unjust, and uncandid, without the sagacity which discovers what is right, or the intelligence which comprehends it when pointed out, or the morality which requires it to be done._ and yet religious philosophers are fond of quoting the all but universal horror of universalism as a formidable argument against that much misunderstood creed! the least reflection will suffice to satisfy any reasonable man that the speculative notions of rude, uneducated masses, so faithfully described by the scotch reviewer, are, for the most part, grossly absurd and consequently the reverse of true. if the masses of all nations are ignorant, intolerant, suspicious, unjust, and uncandid, without the sagacity which discovers what is right, or the intelligence which comprehends it when pointed out, or the morality which requires it to be done, who with the least shadow of claim to be accounted _reasonable_ will assert that a speculative heresy is the worse for being unpopular, or that an opinion is false, and _must_ be demoralising in its influence, because the majority of mankind declare it so. i would not have it inferred from the foregoing remarks that horror of universalism, and detestation of its apostles, is _confined_ to the low, the vulgar, the base, or the illiterate. any such inference would be wrong, for it is certainly true that learned, benevolent, and very able christian writers, have signalised themselves in the work of obstructing the progress of universalism by denouncing its principles, and imputing all manner of wickedness to its defenders. it must, indeed, be admitted that their conduct in this particular amply justifies pious matthew henry's confession that 'of all the christian graces, zeal is most apt to turn sour.' one john ryland, a.m., of northampton, published a 'preceptor, or general repository of useful information, very necessary for the various ages and departments of life,' in which 'pride and lust, a corrupt pride of heart, and a furious filthy lust of body,' are announced as the atheist's 'springs of action,' 'desire to act the beast without control, and live like a devil without a check of conscience,' his only 'reasons for opposing the existence of god,' in which he is told 'a world of creatures are up in arms against him to kill him as they would a venomous mad dog,' in which, among other hard names, he is called 'absurd fool,' 'beast,' 'dirty monster,' 'brute,' 'gloomy dark animal,' 'enemy of mankind,' 'wolf to civil society,' 'butcher and murderer of the human race,' in which, moreover, he is _cursed_ in the following hearty terms;--'let the glorious mass of fire burn him, let the moon light him to the gallows, let the stars in their courses fight against the atheist, let the force of the comets dash him to pieces, let the roar of thunders strike him deaf, let red lightnings blast his guilty soul, let the sea lift up her mighty waves to bury him, let the lion tear him to pieces, let dogs devour him, let the air poison him, let the next crumb of bread choke him, nay, let the dull ass spurn him to death.' this is a notable specimen of zeal turned sour. bishop hall was a divine of solid learning and unquestionable piety, whose memory is reverenced by a large and most respectable part of the christian world. he ranked amongst the best of his class, and, generally speaking, was so little disposed to persecute his opponents because of their heterodox opinions, that he wrote and published a "treatise on moderation," in the course of which he eloquently condemns the practice of regulating, or, rather, attempting to regulate opinion by act of parliament; yet, incredible as it may appear, in that very treatise he applauds calvin on account of his conduct towards servetus. our authority for this statement is not 'infidel' but christian--the authority of evans, who, after noticing the treatise in question, says, 'he (bishop hall) has discussed the subject with that ability which is peculiar to all his writings. but this great and good man, towards the close of the same treatise, forgetting the principles which he had been inculcating, devotes one solitary page to the cause of intolerance: this page he concludes with these remarkable expressions: "master calvin did well approve himself to god's church in bringing servetus to the stake in geneva." remarkable, indeed! and what is the moral that they point? to me they are indicative of the startling truth, that neither eloquence nor learning, nor faith in god and his scripture, nor all three combined, are incompatible with the cruelest spirit of persecution. the treatise on moderation will stand an everlasting memorial against its author, whose fine intellect, spoiled by superstitious education, urged him to approve a deed, the bare remembrance of which ought to excite in every breast, feelings of horror and indignation. that such a man should declare the aim of universalists is 'to dethrone god and destroy man,' is not surprising. from genuine bigots they have no right to expect mercy. he who applauded the bringing of servetus to the stake must have deemed their utter extermination a religious duty. that our street and field preaching christians, with very few exceptions, heartily sympathise with the fire and faggot sentiments of bishop hall, is well known, but happily, their absurd ravings are attended to by none save eminently pious people, whose brains are _unclogged_ by any conceivable quantity of useful knowledge. in point of intellect they are utterly contemptible. their ignorance, however, is fully matched by their impudence, which never forsake, them. they claim to be considered god's right-hand men, and of course duly qualified preachers of his 'word,' though unable to speak five minutes without taking the same number of liberties with the queen's english. swift was provoked by the prototypes of these pestiferous people, to declare that, 'formerly the apostles received the gift of speaking several languages, a knowledge so remote from our dealers in the art of enthusiasm, that they neither understand propriety of speech nor phrases of their own, much less the gift of tongues.' the millions of christian people who have been trained up in the way they should _not_ go, by this active class of fanatics, are naturally either opposed to reason or impervious to it. they are convinced not only that the wisdom of the world is foolishness with god, but that wisdom with god is foolishness with the world; nor will any one affirm their 'moderation' in respect to unbelievers one tittle more moderate than bishop hall's; or that they are one tittle less disposed than 'that good and great man,' to think those who bring heretics to the stake at geneva or elsewhere, 'do well approve themselves to god's church.' educated, that is to say _duped_ as they are, they cannot but think disbelief highly criminal, and when practicable, or convenient, deal with it as such. it is, nevertheless, true, that universalists have been helped to some of their best arguments by adversaries. bishop watson, to wit, has suggested objections to belief in the christian's deity, which they who hold no such belief consider unanswerable. in his famous 'apology' he desired to know what paine thought 'of an uncaused cause of everything, and a being who has no relation to time, not being older to day than he was yesterday, nor younger to day than he will be to-morrow--who has no relation to space, not being a part here and a part there, or a whole anywhere? of an omniscient being who cannot know the future actions of man, or if his omniscience enables him to know them, of the contingency of human actions? of the distinction between vice and virtue, crime and innocence, sin and duty? of the infinite goodness of a being who existed through eternity without any emanation of his goodness manifested in the creation of sensitive beings? or, if it be contended that there was an eternal creation, of an effect coeval with its cause, of matter not posterior to its maker? of the existence of evil, moral and natural, in the work of an infinite being, powerful, wise, and good? finally, of the gift of freedom of will, when the abuse of freedom becomes the cause of general misery?' [15:1] these questions imply much. that they flowed from the pen of a bishop, is one of many extraordinary facts which have grown out of theological controversy. they are questions strongly suggestive of another. is it possible to have experience of, or even to imagine, a being with attributes so strange, anomalous, and contradictory? it is plain that bishop watson was convinced 'no man by searching can find out god.' the case is, that he, in the hope of converting deists, ventured to insinuate arguments highly favourable to atheism, whose professors consider an admission of utter ignorance of god, tantamount to a denial of his existence. many christians, with more candour, perhaps, than prudence, have avowed the same opinion. minutius felix, for example, said to the heathen, 'not one of you reflects that you ought to know your gods before you worship them.' [15:2] as if he felt the absurdity of pretending to love and honour an unknown 'perhaps.' that he did himself what he ridiculed in them proves nothing but his own inconsistency. the christian, equally with the heathen, is open to the reproach of worshipping he knows not what. yes, to idol-hating 'enlightened christians,' may be fairly applied the severe sarcasm minutius felix so triumphantly levelled against idol-loving 'benighted heathens.' will any one say the christian absolutely knows more about jehovah than the heathen did about jupiter? i believe that few, if any, who have attentively considered bishop watson's queries, will say the 'dim unknown,' they so darkly shadow forth, is conceivable by any effort either of sense or imagination. under cover, then, of what reason can christians escape the imputation of pretending to adore what they have no conception of? the very 'book of books,' to which they so boldly appeal, is conclusive _against_ them. in its pages they stand convicted of idolatry. without doubt a god is revealed by revelation; but not _their_ god, not a supernatural being, infinite in power, in wisdom, and in goodness. the bible deity is superhuman in nothing; all that his adorers have ascribed to him being mere amplification of human powers, human ideas, and human passions. the bible deity 'has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth;' is 'jealous,' especially of other gods; changeful, vindictive, partial, cruel, unjust, 'angry with the wicked every day;' and altogether a being far from respectable, or worthy to be considered infinite in wisdom, power, and goodness. is it credible that a being supernaturally wise and good, proclaimed the murderous adulterer david, a man after his own heart, and commanded the wholesale butchery of canaanites? or that a god of boundless power, 'whose tender mercies are over all his works,' decreed the extermination of entire nations for being what he made them? jehovah did all three. confessedly a god of armies and lord of hosts; confessedly, too, a hardener of men's, hearts that he might destroy them, he authorised acts at which human nature shudders, and of which it is ashamed: yet to _reverence_ him we are commanded by the self-styled 'stewards of his mysteries,' on peril of our 'immortal souls.' verily, these pious anathematisers task our credulity a little too much. in their zeal for the god of israel, they are apt to forget that only himself can compass impossibilities, and altogether lose sight of the fact that where, who, or what jehovah is, no man knoweth. revelation (so-called) reveals nothing about 'the creator of heaven and earth,' on which a cultivated intellect can repose with satisfaction. men naturally desire positive information concerning the superhuman deity, belief in whom is the _sine qua non_ of all superstition. but the bible furnishes no such information concerning jehovah. on the contrary, he is there pronounced 'past finding out,' incomprehensible, and the like. 'canst thou by searching find out god? canst thou find out the almighty to perfection?' are questions put by an 'inspired writer,' who felt the cloudy and unsatisfactory nature of all human conceit concerning deity. now, a revelation from god might reasonably be expected to make the mode and nature of his existence manifest. but the christian bible falls infinitely short in this particular. it teaches there is a god; but throws no light on the dark question _what is god?_ numerous and various as are scripture texts, none can be cited in explanation of a deity no older to-day than he was yesterday, nor younger to-day than he will be to-morrow; of a deity who has no relation to space, not being a part here and a part there, or a whole any where: in short, of that deity written about by bishop watson, who, like every other sincere christian, made the mistake of resting his religious faith on 'words without knowledge.' it is to this description of faith universalists object. they think it the root of superstition, that greatest of all the plagues by which poor humanity is afflicted. are they to blame for thus thinking? the christian has no mercy on the superstition of the heathen, and should scorn to complain when the bitter chalice is returned to his own lips. universalists believe the god of bishop watson a supernatural chimera, and to its worshippers have a perfect right to say, _not one of you reflects that you ought to know your gods before you worship them_. these remarkable words, originally addressed to the heathen, lose none of their force when directed against the christian. no one can conceive a supernatural being, and what none can conceive none ought to worship, or even assert the existence of. who worships a something of which he knows nothing is an idolater. to talk of, or bow down to it, is nonsensical; to pretend affection for it, is worse than nonsensical. such conduct, however pious, involves the rankest hypocrisy; the meanest and most odious species of idolatry; for labouring to destroy which the universalist is called 'murderer of the human soul,' 'blasphemer,' and other foolish names, too numerous to mention. it would be well for all parties, if those who raise against us the cry of 'blasphemy,' were made to perceive that 'godless' unbelievers cannot be blasphemers; for, as contended by lord brougham in his life of voltaire, blasphemy implies belief; and, therefore, universalists cannot logically or justly be said to blaspheme him. the blasphemer, properly so called, is he who imagines deity, an ascribes to the idol of his own brain all manner of folly, contradiction, inconsistency, and wickedness. superstition is universally abhorred, but no one believes _himself_ superstitious. there never was a religionist who believed his own religion mere superstition. all shrink indignantly from the charge of being superstitious; while all raise temples to, and bow down, before 'thingless names.' the 'masses' of every nation erect chimera into substantial reality, and woe to these who follow not the insane example. the consequences--the fatal consequences--are everywhere apparent. in our own country we see social disunion on the grandest possible scale. society is split up into an almost infinite variety of sects whose members imagine themselves patented to think truth and never to be wrong in the enunciation of it. _sanders' news letter and daily advertiser_ of feb. 18, 1845, among other curiosities, contains an 'address of the dublin protestant operative association, and reformation society,' one sentence of which is--_we have raised our voices against the spirit of compromise, which is the opprobrium of the age; we have unfurled the banner of protestant truth, and placed ourselves beneath it; we have insisted upon protestant ascendancy as just and equitable, because protestant principles are true and undeniable_. puseyite protestants tell a tale the very reverse of that so modestly told by their nominal brethren of the dublin operative association. they, as may be seen in palmer's letter to golightly, _utterly reject and anathematise the principle of protestantism, as a heresy with all its forms, sects, or denominations_. nor is that all our 'romeward divines' do, for in addition to rejecting utterly and cursing bitterly, as well the name as the principle of protestantism, they eulogise the church of rome, because forsooth _she yields_, says newman in his letter to jelf, _free scope to feelings of awe, mystery, tenderness, reverence, and devotedness_; while we have it on the authority of tract 90, that the church of england is _in bondage; working in chains, and _(tell it not in dublin)_ teaching with the stammering lips of ambiguous formularies_. fierce and burning is the hatred of dublin operative association christians to popery, but exactly that style of hatred to protestantism is avowed by puseyites. both sets of christians are quite sure they are right: but (alas! for infallibility) a third set of christians insist that they are both wrong. there are papists, or roman catholics, who consider protestant principles the very reverse of true and undeniable, and treat with derisive scorn the 'fictitious catholicism' of puseyite divines. count de montalambert, in his recently published 'letter to the rev. mr. neale on the architectural, artistical, and archaeological movements of the puseyites,' enters his 'protest' against the most unwarranted and unjustifiable assumption of the name of catholic by people and things belonging to the actual church of england. _'it is easy,'_ he observes, _'to take up a name, but it is not so easy to get it recognised by the world and by competent authority. any man for example, may come out to madeira and call himself a montmorency, or a howard, and even enjoy the honour and consideration belonging to such a name till the real montmorencys or howards hear something about it, and denounce him, and then such a man would be justly scouted from society, and fall down much lower than the lowness from which he attempted to rise. the attempt to steal away from us and appropriate to the use of a fraction of the church of england that glorious title of catholic is proved to be an usurpation by every monument of the past and present--by the coronation oath of your sovereigns--by all the laws which have established your church--even by the recent answer of your university of oxford to the lay address against dr. pusey, &c., where the church of england is justly styled the reformed protestant church. the question then is, have you, the church of england, got the picture for your frame? have you got the truth, the one truth; the same truth as the men of the middle ages. the camden society says yes; but the whole christian world, both protestant and catholic, says no; and the catholic world adds that there is no truth but in unity, and this unity you most certainly have not. one more; every catholic will repeat to you the words of manzoni, as quoted by m. faber: 'the greatest deviations are none if the main point be recognised; the smallest are damnable heresies, if it be denied. that main point is the infallibility of the church, or rather of the pope.'_ no one desires to be eternally punished; and, therefore, if any one embrace a false faith, it is because he makes the mistake of supposing it the true one. the three sets of christians, just adverted to, may all be equally sincere, but cannot all have the true faith. protestant principles, as taught by the dublin operative association, may be true. anglo-catholic principles, as taught by the oxford tractmen, may be true. roman catholic principles, as taught by the count de montalembert, may be true; but they cannot all be true. it is impossible to reconcile that orthodox papists' 'main point,' _i.e._ the infallibility of the (romish) church, or rather of the pope, with the 'main point' of orthodox protestants, who denounce 'the great harlot of babylon,' that 'scarlet lady who sitteth upon the seven hills,' in the most unmeasured and virulent terms. anti-christ is the name they 'blasphemously' apply to the actual 'old chimera of a pope.' puseyite divines treat his holiness with more tenderness, but even _they_ boggle at his infallibility, and seem to occupy a position between the rival churches of rome and england analogous to that of captain macheath when singing between two favourite doxies- how happy could i be with either, were t'other dear charmer away; but while you thus teaze me together, the devil a word will i say. infallibility of popes is the doctrine insisted upon by count de montalembert as essential--as doctrine the smallest deviation from which is damnable heresy. believe and admit antichrist is _not_ antichrist, but god's accredited viceregent upon earth, infinite is the mercy in store for you; but woe to those who either cannot or will not believe and admit anything of the kind. on them every sincere roman catholic is sure that god will empty the vials of his wrath. priests ascribe to deity the low, grovelling, vindictive, feelings which agitate and disgrace themselves. if roman catholic principles are true and undeniable, none but roman catholics will be saved from the wrath to come. if anglo-catholic principles are true and undeniable, none but anglo-catholics will be saved from the wrath to come. if orthodox protestant principles are true and undeniable, none but orthodox protestants will be saved from the wrath to come. thus superstitionists grunt and groan, cursing all systems but their own. agreeing in little else save disagreement, the 'main point' of this class of believers is a matter of little consequence to that class of believers, and no matter at all to a third class of believers. look at the thousand-and-one sects into which the christian world is divided. 'some reject scripture; others admit no other writings but scripture. some say the devils shall be saved, others that they shall be damned; others that there are no devils at all. some hold that it is lawful to dissemble in religion, others the contrary. some say that antichrist is come, some say not; others that he is a particular man, others that he is not a man, but the devil; and others that by antichrist is meant a succession of men. some will have him to be nero, some caligula, some mohammed, some the pope, some luther, some the turk, some of the tribe of dan; and so each man according to his fancy will make an antichrist. some only will observe the lord's day, some only the sabbath; some both, and some neither. some will have all things in common, some not. some will have christ's body only in heaven, some everywhere; some in the bread, others with the bread, others about the bread, others under the bread, and others that christ's body is the bread, or the bread his body. and others that his body is transformed into his divinity. some will have the eucharist administered in both kinds, some in one, some not at all. some will have christ descend to hell in respect of his soul, some only in his power, some in his divinity, some in his body, some not at all. some by hell understand the place of the damned, some _limbus patrum_, others the wrath of god, others the grave. some will make christ two persons, some give him but one nature and one will; some affirming him to be only god, some only man, some made up of both, some altogether deny him. some will have his body come from heaven, some from the virgin, some from the elements. some will have our souls mortal, some immortal; some bring them into the body by infusion, some by traduction. some will have souls created before the world, some after; some will have them created altogether, others severally; some will have them corporeal, some incorporeal; some of the substance of god, some of the substance of the body. so infinitely are men's conceits distracted with a variety of opinions, whereas _there is but one truth_, which every man aims at, but few attain it; every man thinks he hath it, and yet few enjoy it.' [20:1] chiefs of these sects are, for the most part, ridiculously intolerant; so many small popes, who fancy that whomsoever they bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whomsoever they loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. they remorselessly cobble the true faith, without which, to their 'sole exclusive heaven,' none can be admitted. as if religion were intended, for nothing else but to be mended. and never seem so happy as when promising eternal misery to those who reject their chimeras. but wisdom, we read, is justified by her children; and to the wise of every nation the universalist confidently appeals. he rejects popular religion, because such religion is based on principles of imaginative ignorance. bailly defines it as 'the worship of the unknown, piety, godliness, humility, before the _unknown_.' lavater as 'faith in the supernatural, invisible, _unknown_'. vauvenargus as 'the duties of men towards the _unknown_.' dr. johnson as 'virtue founded upon reverence of the _unknown_, and expectation of future rewards and punishments.' rivarol as 'the science of serving the _unknown_.' la bruyere as 'the respectful fear of the _unknown_.' du marsais, as 'the worship of the _unknown_, and the practice of all the virtues.' walker as 'virtue founded upon reverence of the _unknown_, and expectation of rewards or punishments; a system of divine faith and worship as opposed to other systems.' de bonald as 'social intercourse between man and the _unknown_.' rees as 'the worship or homage that is due to the _unknown_ as creator, preserver, and, with christians, as redeemer of the world,' lord brougham as 'the subject of the science called theology:' a science he defines as 'the knowledge and attributes of the _unknown_' which definitions agree in making the essential principle of religion a principle of ignorance. that they are sufficiently correct definitions will not be disputed, and upon them the universalist is satisfied to rest his case. to him the worship or adoration of what is confessedly unknown is mere superstition; and to him professors of theology are 'artists in words,' who pretend to teach what nobody has any conception of. now, such persons may be well-intentioned; but their wisdom is by no means apparent. they must be wonderfully deficient of the invaluable sense so falsely called 'common.' idolizers of 'thingless names,' they set at naught the admirable dictum of locke that it is 'unphilosophic to suppose names in books signify real entities in nature, unless we can frame clear and distinct ideas of those entities.' theists of every class would do well to calmly and fully consider this rule of philosophising, for it involves nothing less than the destruction of belief in the supernatural. the jupiter of mythologic history, the allah of alkoran, and the jehovah of 'holy scripture,' if entities at all, are assuredly entities that baffle human conception. to 'frame clear and distinct ideas of them' is impossible. in respect to the attribute of _unknown ability_ all gods are alike. books have been written to exhibit the difficulties of (what priests choose to call) infidelity, and without doubt unbelief has its difficulties. but, according to a universally recognised rule of philosophising, of two difficulties we are in all cases to choose the least. from a rule so palpably just no one can reasonably depart, and the universalist, while freely admitting a great difficulty on his own side, is satisfied there can be demonstrated an infinitely greater difficulty on the side of his opponents. the universalist labours to convince mankind they are not warranted by the general course of nature in assigning to it a cause; inasmuch as it is more in accordance with experience to suppose nature the uncaused cause, than to imagine, as errorists do, that there is an uncaused cause of nature. theologians ask, who created nature? without adducing satisfactory evidence that nature _was_ created, and without reflecting that if it is difficult to believe nature self-existent, it is much more difficult to believe some self-existent super-nature, capable of producing it. in their anxiety to get rid of a natural difficulty, they invent a supernatural one, and accuse universalists of 'wilful blindness,' and 'obstinate deafness,' for not choosing so unphilosophic a mode of explaining universal mystery. the rule of philosophising just adverted to--that rule which forbids us, in any case, to chose the greater of two difficulties--is of immense importance, and should be carefully considered by every one anxious to arrive at correct conclusions with respect to theology. for if believers in god do depart from that rule--if their belief necessarily involve its violation--to persist in such belief is to persist in what is clearly opposed to pure reason. now, it has been demonstrated, so far as words can demonstrate any truth whatever, that the difficulty of him who believes nature never had an author, is infinitely less than the difficulty of him who believes it had a cause itself uncaused. in the 'elements of materialism,' an unequal, but still admirable work by dr. knowlton, a well-known american writer, this question of comparative difficulty is well handled. 'the sentiment,' says the doctor, 'that a being exists which never commenced existence, or what is the same thing, that a being exists which has existed from all eternity, appears to us to favour atheism, for if one being exist which never commenced existence--why not another--why not the universe? it weighs nothing, says the atheist, in the eye of reason, to say the universe appears to man as though it were organised by an almighty designer, for the maker of a thing must be superior to the thing made; and if there be a maker of the universe there can be no doubt, but that if such maker were minutely examined by man, man would discover such indications of wisdom and design that it would be more difficult for him to admit that such maker was not caused or constructed by a pre-existing designer, than to admit that the universe was not caused or constructed by a designer. but no one will contend for an infinite series of makers; and if, continues the atheist, what would, if viewed, be indications of design, are no proofs of a designer in the one case, they are not in the other; and as such indications are the only evidence we have of the existence of a designer of the universe, we, as rational beings, contend there is no god. we do not suppose the existence of any being, of which there is no evidence, when such supposition, it admitted, so far from diminishing would only increase a difficulty, which, at best, is sufficiently great. surely, if a superior being may have existed from all eternity, an inferior may have existed from all eternity; if a great god sufficiently mighty to make a world may have existed from all eternity, of course without beginning and without cause, such world may have existed from all eternity, without beginning, and without cause.' [23:1] these are 'strong reasons' for universalism. they prove that theists set at nought the rule of philosophising which forbids us to choose the greater of two difficulties. their system compels them to do so; for having no other groundwork than the strange hypotheses that time was when there was no time--something existed when there was nothing, which something created everything; its advocates would be tongue-tied and lost if reduced to the hard necessity of appealing to facts, or rigidly regarding rules of philosophising which have only their reasonableness to recommend them. they profess ability to account for nature, and are of course exceeding eager to justify a profession so presumptuous. this eagerness betrays them into courses, of which no one bent on rejecting whatever is either opposed to, or unsanctioned by, experience, can possibly approve. it is plain that of the god they tell us to believe 'created the worlds,' no man has any experience. this granted, it follows that worship of such fancied being is mere superstition. until it be shown by reference to the general course of things, that things had an author, himself uncreated or unauthorized, religious philosophers have no right to expect universalists to abandon their universalism. the duty of priests is to reconcile religion with reason, _if they can_, and admit their inability to do so, _if they cannot_. romanists will have nothing to do with reason whenever it appears at issue with their faith. all sects, as sects, play fast and loose with reason. many members of all sects are forward enough to boast about being able to give a reason for the faith that is in them; but an overwhelming majority love to exalt faith above reason. philosophy they call 'vain,' and some have been found so filled with contempt for it, as to openly maintain that what is theologically true, is philosophically false; or, in other terms, that the truths of religion and the truths of philosophy have nothing in common. according to them, religious truths are independent of, and superior to, all other truths. our faith, say they, if not agreeable to _mere_ reason is infinitely superior to it. priests are 'at one' on the point. dissenting and protestant, as well as romanising priests, find it convenient to abuse reason and extol faith. as priests, they can scarcely be expected to do otherwise; for reason is a stern and upright judge whose decrees have hitherto been unfavourable to superstition. its professors, who appeal to that judge, play a part most inconsistent and dangerous, as is evident in the case of origen bachelor, who more zealous and candid than prudent, declared the real and only question between atheism and theism a question of fact; reducing it to these terms--'is there reason, all things considered, for believing that there is a god, an intelligent cause of things, infinite and perfect in all his attributes and moral qualities?' [24:1] now, the reader has seen that the hypothesis of 'an intelligent cause of things' involves difficulties, greater, infinitely greater than the one difficulty involved in the hypothesis that things always existed. he has seen the folly of explaining natural, by the invention of supernatural mystery, because it manifestly violates a rule of philosophising, the justness of which it would be ridiculous to dispute. having clearly perceived thus much, he will perhaps think it rather 'too bad' as well as absurd, to call universalists 'madmen' for lacking faith in the monstrous dogma that nature was caused by 'something amounting to nothing' itself uncaused. there is something. that truth admits not of being evidenced. it is, nevertheless, accepted. it is accepted by men of all religious opinions, equally with men of no religious opinions. if any truth be self-evident and eternal, here is that truth. to call it in question would be worse than idle. we may doubt the reality of an external world, we may be sceptical as to the reality of our own bodies, but we cannot doubt that there is something. the proposition falls not within the domain of scepticism. it must be true. to suppose it false is literally impossible. its falsehood would involve contradiction, and all contradiction involves impossibility. but, if proof of this were needed, we have it in the fact that no man, sage or simple, ever pretended to deny there is something. whatever men could doubt or deny they have doubted or denied, but in no country of the world, in no age, has the dogma--there is something--been denied or even treated as doubtful. here then universalists, theists, and polytheists agree. they agree of necessity. there is no escape from the conclusion that something is, except we adopt the unintelligible dogma--there is nothing--which no human being can, as nothing amounts to nothing, and of what amounts to nothing no one can have an idea. to define the word something by any other word would be labour in vain. there is no other word in any language whoso meaning is better understood, and they who do not understand what it means, if such persons there be, are not likely to understand the meaning of any word or words whatever. ideas of nothing none have. that there is something, we repeat, must be true, all dogmas or propositions being necessarily true whose denial involves an impossibility. what the nature of that something may be is a secondary question, and however determined cannot affect the primary dogma--things are things whatever may be their individual or their aggregate nature. nor is it of the least consequence what name or names we may see fit to give things, so that each word has its fixed and true meaning. whether, for example, we use for the sign of that something which is, the word universe, or god, or substance, or spirit, or matter, or the letter x, is of no importance, if we understand the word or letter used to be merely the sign of that something. words are seldom useful except when they are the sign of true ideas; evidently therefore, their legitimate function is to convey such ideas; and words which convey no ideas at all, or what is worse, only those which are false, should at once be expunged from the vocabularies of nations. something is. the universalist calls it matter. other persons may choose to call it other names: let them. he chooses to call it this one--and no other. there ever has been something. here, again, is a point of unity. all are equally assured there ever has been something. something is, something must always have been, cry the religious, and the cry is echoed by the irreligious. this last dogma, like the first, admits not of being evidenced. as nothing is inconceivable, we cannot even imagine a time when there was nothing. universalists say, something ever was, which something is matter. theists say, something has been from all eternity, which something is not matter but god. they boldly affirm that matter began to be. they affirm its creation from nothing, by a something, which was before the universe. indeed, the notion of universal creation involves first, that of universal annihilation, and secondly, that of something prior to everything. what creates everything must be before everything, in the same way that he who manufactures a watch must exist before the watch. as already remarked, universalists agree with theists, that something ever has been, but the point of difference lies here. the universalist says, matter is the eternal something, and asks proof of its beginning to be. the theist insists that matter is not the eternal something, but that god is; and when pushed for an account of what he means by god, he coolly answers, a being, having nothing in common with anything, who nevertheless, by his almighty will, created everything. it may without injustice be affirmed, that the sincerest and strongest believers in this mysterious deity are often tormented by doubts, and, if candid, must own they believe in the existence of many things with a feeling much closer allied to certainty than they do in the reality of their 'great first cause, least understood.' no man's faith in the inconceivable is ever half so strong as his belief in the visible and tangible. but few among professional mystifiers will admit this, obviously true as it is. some have done so. baxter, of pious memory, to wit, who said, _i am not so foolish as to pretend my certainty be greater than it is, because it is dishonour to be less certain; nor will i by shame be kept from confessing those infirmities which those have as much as i, who hypocritically reproach with them._ my certainty that i am a man is before my certainty that there is a god. so candid was richard baxter, and so candid are _not_ the most part of our priests, who would fain have us think them altogether _un_sceptical. nevertheless, they write abundance of books to convince us 'god is,' though they never penned a line in order to convince us, we actually are, and that to disbelieve we are is a 'deadly sin.' could god be known, could his existence be made 'palpable to feeling as to sight,' as unquestionably is the existence of matter, there would be no need of 'demonstrations of the existence of god', no need of arguments _a priori_ or _a posteriori_ to establish that existence. saint john was right; 'no man hath seen god at any time', to which 'open confession' he might truly have added, 'none ever will,' for the unreal is alway unseeable. yet have 'mystery men' with shameless and most insolent pertinacity asserted the existence of god while denying the existence of matter. _the incomprehensible is not to be defined._ it is difficult to give _intelligible_ account of an immense being confessedly mysterious and about whom his worshippers admit they only know, they know nothing, except that 'he is good, and that themselves are blind.' spinoza said, _of things which have nothing in common, one cannot be the cause of the other_; and to me it seems eminently unphilosophic to believe a being having nothing in common with anything, capable of creating or causing everything. 'only matter can be touched or touch;' and as the christian's god is not material, his adorers are fairly open to the charge of superstition. an unknown deity, without body, parts or passions, is of all idols the least tangible; and they who pretend to know and reverence him, are deceived or deceivers. in this christian country, where men are expected to believe and called 'infidel' if they _cannot_ believe in a 'crucified saviour,' it seems strange so much fuss should be made about his immateriality. all but unitarian christians hold as an essential article of faith, that in him dwelt the fulness of the godhead bodily; in other words, that our redeemer and our creator, though two persons, are but one god. it is true that divines of our 'reformed protestant church,' call everything but gentlemen those who lay claim to the equivocal privilege of feasting periodically upon the body and blood of omnipotence. the pains taken by protestants to show from scripture, reason and nature, that priests cannot change lumps of dough into the body, and bumpers of wine into the blood, of their god, are well known and appreciated. but the roman catholics are neither to be argued nor laughed out of their 'awful doctrine' of the real presence, to which they cling with desperate earnestness. locke wrote rather disparagingly of 'many among us,' who will be found upon inquiry, to fancy god in the shape of a man fitting in heaven, and have other absurd and unfit conceptions of him.' as though it were possible to think of shapeless being, or as though it were criminal in the superstitious to believe 'god made man after his own image.' that christians as well as turks 'really have had whole sects earnestly contending that the deity was corporeal and of human shape', is a fact, so firmly established as to defy contradiction. and though every sincere subscriber to the thirty nine articles must believe, or at least must believe he believes in deity without body, parts, or passions, it is well known that 'whole sects' of christians do even now 'fancy god in the shape of a man sitting in heaven, and entertain other absurd and unfit conceptions of him.' mr. collibeer, who is considered by christian writers 'a most ingenious gentleman', has told the world in his treatise entitled 'the knowledge of god,' that deity must have some form, and intimates it may probably be the spherical; an intimation which has grievously offended many learned theists who considered going so far an abuse of reason, and warn us that 'its extension beyond the assigned boundaries, has proved an ample source of error.' but what the 'assigned boundaries' of reason are, they don't state, nor by whom 'assigned.' that if there is a god he must have _some_ form is self-evident and why mr. collibeer should be ostracized by his less daringly imaginative brethren, for preferring a spherical to a square or otherwise shaped deity, is to my understanding what god's grace is to their's. but admitting the unfitness, and absurdity, and 'blasphemy' of such conceptions, it is by no means clear that any other conceptions of the 'inconceiveable' would be an improvement upon them. undoubtedly, the matter-god-system has its difficulties, but they are trifles in comparison with those by which the spirit-god system is encompassed; for, one obvious consequence of faith in bodiless divinity is an utter confusion of ideas in those who preach it, as regards possibilities and impossibilities. the universe is an uncaused existence, or it was caused by something before it. by universe we mean matter, the sum total of things, whence all proceeds, and whither all returns. no truth is more obviously true than the truth that matter, or something not matter, exists of itself, and consequently is not an effect, but an uncaused cause of all effects. from such conviction, repugnant though it be to vulgar ideas, there is no rational way of escape; for however much we may desire, however much we may struggle to believe there was a time when there was nothing, we cannot so believe. human nature is constituted intuitively or instinctively to feel the eternity of something. to rid oneself of that feeling is impossible. nature or something not nature must ever have been, is a conclusion to which what poets call fate- leads the willing and drags the unwilling. but does this undeniable truth make against universalism? far from it--so far, indeed, as to make for it. the reason is no mystery. of matter we have ideas clear, precise, and indispensable, whereas of something not matter we cannot have any idea whatever, good, bad, or indifferent. the universe is extraordinary, no doubt, but so much of it as acts upon us is perfectly conceivable, whereas, any thing within, without, or apart from the universe, is perfectly inconceivably. the notion of necessarily existing matter seems fatal to belief in god; that is, if by the word god be understood something not matter, for 'tis precisely because priests were unable to reconcile such belief with the idea of matter's self-existence or eternity, that they took to imagining a 'first cause.' in the 'forlorn hope' of vanquishing the difficulty of necessarily existing _matter_, they assent to a necessarily existing _spirit_, and when the nature of spirit is demanded from these assertors of its existence, they are constrained to avow that it is material or nothing. yes, they are constrained to make directly or indirectly one or other of these admissions; for, as between truth and falsehood, there is no middle passage; so between something and nothing, there is no intermediate existence. hence the serious dilemma of spiritualists, who gravely tell us their god is a spirit, and that a spirit is not any thing, which not any thing or nothing (for the life of us we cannot distinguish between them) 'framed the worlds' nay, _created_ as well as framed them. if it be granted, for the mere purpose of explanation, that spirit is an entity, we can frame 'clear distinct ideas of'--a real though not material existence, surely no man will pretend to say an uncreated spirit, is less inexplicable than uncreated matter. all could not have been caused or created unless nothing can be a cause, the very notion of which involves the grossest of absurdities. _whatever is produced, without any cause, is produced by nothing; or, in other words, has nothing for its cause. but nothing never can be a cause no more than it can be something or equal to two right angles. by the same intuition that we perceive nothing not to be equal to two right angles, or not to be something, we perceive that it can never be a cause, and consequently must perceive that every object has a real cause of its existence. when we exclude all causes we really do exclude them, and neither suppose nothing nor the object itself to be the causes of the existence, and consequently can draw no argument from the absurdity of these suppositions except to prove the absurdity of that exclusion. if everything must have a cause, it follows that upon the exclusion of other causes, we must accept of the object itself or nothing as causes. but it is the very point in question whether everything must have a cause or not, and therefore, according to all just reasoning ought not to be taken for granted_. [29:1] this reasoning amounts to logical demonstration (if logical demonstration there can be) of a most essential truth, which in all ages has been obstinately set at nought by dabblers in the supernatural. it demonstrates that something never was, never can be, caused by nothing, which can no more be a cause, properly so called, than it can be something, or equal to two right angles; and therefore that everything could not have had a cause, which, the reader has seen, is the very point assumed by theists--the very point on which as a pivot they so merrily and successfully turn their fine metaphysical theories and immaterial systems. the universe, quoth they, must have had a cause, and that cause must have been first cause, or cause number one, because nothing can exist of itself. oh, most lame and impotent conclusion! how, in consistency, can they declare nothing can exist without a cause in the teeth of their oft repeated dogma that god is uncaused. if god never commenced to be, _he_ is an uncaused existence, that is to say, exists without a cause. [29:2] the difference on this point between theists and universalists is very palpable. the former say, spirit can exist without a cause, the latter say matter can exist without a cause. whole libraries of theologic dogma would be dearly purchased by hume's profound remark--_if everything must have a cause, it follows that upon the exclusion of other causes we must accept of the object itself or of nothing as causes._ saint augustine, more candid than modern theologians, said 'god is a being whom we speak of but whom we cannot describe and who is superior to all definitions.' universalists, on the other hand, as candidly deny there is any such being. to them it seems that the name god stands for nothing, is the archetype of nothing, explains nothing, and contributes to nothing but the perpetuation of human imbecility, ignorance and error. to them it represents neither shadow nor substance, neither phenomenon nor thing, neither what is ideal nor what is real; yet is it the name without senseless faith in which there could be no superstition. if nature is all, and all is nature, nothing but itself could ever have existed, and of course nothing but itself can be supposed ever to have been capable of causing. to cause is to act, and though body without notion is conceivable, action without body is not. neither can two infinites be supposed to tenant one universe. only 'most religious philosophers' can pretend to acknowledge the being of an infinite god co-existent with an infinite universe. universalists are frequently asked--what moves matter? to which question _nothing_ is the true and sufficient answer. matter moves matter. if asked how we know it does, our answer is, because we see it do so, which is more than mind imaginers can say of their 'prime mover.' they tell us mind moves matter; but none save the _third sighted_ among them ever saw mind, and if they never saw mind, they never could have seen matter pushed about by it. they babble about mind, but nowhere does mind exist save in their mind; that is to say, nowhere but nowhere. ask these broad-day dreamers where mind is _minus_ body? and very cutely they answer, body is the mind, and mind is the body. that this is neither joke nor slander, we will show by reference to no. 25 of 'the shepherd,' a clever and well known periodical, whose editor, [30:1] in reply to a correspondent of the 'chaotic' tribe, said 'as to the question--where is magnetism without the magnet? we answer, magnetism is the magnet, and the magnet is magnetism.' if so, body is the mind and the mind is body; and our shepherd, if asked, 'where is mind without the body?' to be consistent, should answer, body is the mind and the mind is the body. both these answers are true, or both are false; and it must be allowed- each lends to each a borrowed charm, like pearls upon an ethiop's arm. ask the 'shepherd' where is mind without the body? and, if not at issue with himself, he _must_ reply, mind is the man and man is the mind. if this be so,--if the mind is the man and the man is the mind, which none can deny who say magnetism is the magnet and the magnet magnetism--how, in reason's name, can they be different, or how can the 'shepherd' consistently pretend to distinguish between them; yet he does so. he writes about the spiritual part of man as though he really believed there is such a part. not satisfied, it would seem, with body, like nonentitarians of vulgar mould, he tenants it with soul or spirit, or mind, which soul, or spirit, or mind, according to his own showing, is nothing but body in action; in other terms, organised matter performing vital functions. idle declamation against 'facts mongers' well becomes such self-stultifying dealers in fiction. abuse of 'experimentarians' is quite in keeping with the philosophy of those who maintain the reality of mind in face of their own strange statement, that magnetism is the magnet and the magnet magnetism. but we deny that magnetism is the magnet. these words magnetism and magnet do not, it is true, stand for two things, but one thing: that one and only thing called matter. the magnet is an existence, _i.e._, that which moves. magnetism is not an existence, but phenomenon, or, if you please, phenomena. it is the effect of which magnetic body is the immediate and obvious cause. to evade the charge of materialism, said dr. engledue, we (phrenologists) content ourselves with stating that the immaterial makes use of the material to show forth its powers. what is the result of this? we have the man of theory and believer in supernaturalism quarrelling with the man of fact and supporter of materialism. we have two parties; the one asserting that man possesses a _spirit_ superadded to, but not inherent in, the brain--added to it, yet having no necessary connection with it--producing material changes, yet immaterial--destitute of any of the known properties of matter--in fact an _immaterial something_ which in one word means _nothing_, producing all the cerebral functions of man, yet not localised-not susceptible of proof; the other party contending that the belief in spiritualism fetters and ties down physiological investigation--that man's intellect is prostrated by the domination of metaphysical speculation--that we have no evidence of the existence of an _essence_, and that organised mutter is all that is requisite to produce the multitudinous manifestations of human and brute cerebration. we rank ourselves with the second party, and conceive that we must cease speaking of 'the mind,' and discontinue enlisting in our investigations a spiritual essence, the existence of which cannot be proved, but which tends to mystify and perplex a question sufficiently clear if we confine ourselves to the consideration of organised matter--its forms--its changes--and its aberrations from normal structure. [31:1] the eccentric count de caylus, when on his death-bed, was visited by some near relation and a pious bishop, who hoped that under such trying circumstance he would manifest some concern respecting those 'spiritual' blessings which, while in health, he had uniformly treated with contempt. after a long pause he broke silence by saying, _'ah, my friends, i see you are anxious about my soul;'_ whereupon they pricked up their ears with delight; before, however, any reply could be made the count added, _'but the fact is i have not got one, and really my good friends you must allow me to know best.'_ if people in general had one tenth the good sense of this _impious_ count, the fooleries of spiritualism would at once give place to the philosophy of materialism, and none would waste time in talking or writing about non-entities. all would know that what theologians call sometimes spirit, sometimes soul, and sometimes mind, is an imaginary existence. all would know that the terms _immaterial something_ do in very truth mean _nothing_. count de caylus died as became a man convinced that soul is not an entity, and that upon the dissolution of our 'earthly tabernacle', the particles composing it cease to perform vital functions, and return to the shoreless ocean of eternal being. pietists may be shocked by such _nonchalance_ in the face of their 'grim monster;' but philosophers will admire an indifference to inevitable consequences resulting from profoundest love of truth and contempt of superstition. count de caylus was a materialist, and no materialist can consistently feel the least alarm at the approach of what superstitionists have every reason to consider the 'king of terrors.' believers in the reality of immaterial existence cannot be 'proper' materialists. obviously, therefore, no believers in the reality of god can be _bona fide_ materialists; for 'god' is a name signifying something or nothing; in other terms matter or that which is not matter. if the latter, to materialists the name is meaningless--sound without sense. if the former, they at once pronounce it a name too many; because it expresses nothing that their word matter does not express better. dr. young held in horror the materialist's 'universe of dust.' but there is nothing either bad or contemptible in dust--man is dust--all will be dust. a _dusty_ universe, however, _shocked_ the poetic doctor, whose writings analogise with- rich windows that exclude the light, and passages that lead to nothing. a universe of nothing was more to his taste than a universe of dust, and he accordingly amused himself with the 'spiritual' work of imagining one, and called its builder 'god.' the somewhat ungentle 'shepherd' cordially sympathises with dr. young in his detestation of the materialist's universe of dust, and is sorely puzzled to know how mere dust contrives to move without the assistance of 'an immaterial power between the particles;' as if he supposed anything could be between everything--or nothing be able to move something. verily this gentleman is as clever a hand at 'darkening counsel by words without knowledge' as the cleverest of those he rates so soundly. the names of newton and clarke are held in great esteem by all who are familiar with the history of mechanical and metaphysical philosophy. as a man of science, there is no individual, ancient, or modern, who would not suffer by comparison with sir isaac newton; while common consent has assigned to dr. samuel clarke the first place among religious metaphysicians. it would be difficult, if not impossible, to cite any other theists of better approved reputation than these two, and therefore we introduce them to the reader's notice in this place; for as they ranked among the most philosophic of theists, it might be expected that their conceptions of deity, would be clear, satisfactory, and definite.--let us see, then, _in their own writings_, what those conceptions were. newton conceived god to be one and the same for ever, and everywhere, not only by his own virtue or energy, but also in virtue of his substance.--again, 'all things are contained in him and move in him, but without reciprocal action' (_sed sine muta passione_) god feels nothing from the movements of bodies; nor do they experience any resistance from his universal presence. [33:1] pause, reader, and demand of yourself whether such a conception of deity is either clear, satisfactory, or definite,--god is _one_. very good--but one _what?_ from the information, 'he is the same for ever and everywhere,' we conclude that newton thought him a being. here, however, matter stops the way; for the idea of being is in all of us inseparably associated with the idea of substance. when told that god is an 'immense being,' without parts, and consequently unsubstantial, we try to think of such a being; but in vain. reason puts itself in a _quandary_, the moment it labours to realise an idea of absolute nothingness; yet marvellous to relate, newton did distinctly declare his deity 'totally destitute of body,' and urged that _fact_ as a _reason_ why he cannot be either seen, touched, or understood, and also as a _reason_ why he ought not to be adored under any corporeal figure! the proper function of 'supernaturality or wonder,' according to phrenologists, is to create belief in the reality of supernatural beings, and begets fondness for news, particularly if extravagant. most likely then, such readers of this book as have that organ 'large' will be delighted with newton's rhodomontade about a god who resists nothing, feels nothing, and yet with condescension truly divine, not only contains all things, but permits them to move in his motionless and 'universal presence;' for 'news' more extravagant, never fell from the lips of an idiot, or adorned the pages of a prayer-book. by the same great _savan_ we are taught that god governs all, not as the soul of the world, but as the lord and sovereign of all things: that it is in consequence of his sovereignty he is called the lord god, the universal emperor--that the word god is relative, and relates itself with slaves--and that the deity is the dominion or the sovereignty of god, not over his own body, as those think who look upon god as the soul of the world, but over slaves--from all which _slavish_ reasoning, a plain man who had not been informed it was concocted by europe's pet philosopher, would infallibly conclude some unfortunate lunatic had given birth to it. that there is no creature now tenanting bedlam who would or could scribble purer nonsense about god than this of newton's, we are well convinced--for how could the most frenzied of brains imagine anything more repugnant to every principle of good sense than a self-existent, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent being, creator of all the worlds, who acts the part of 'universal emperor,' and plays upon an infinitely larger scale, the same sort of game as nicholas of russia, or mohammed of egypt, plays upon a small scale. there cannot be slavery where there is no tyranny, and to say, as newton did, that we stand in the name relation to a universal god, as a slave does to his earthly master, is practically to accuse such god, at reason's bar of _tyranny_. if the word god is relative, and relate itself with slaves, it incontestably follows that all human beings are slaves, and deity is by such reasoners degraded into the character of universal slave-driver. really, theologians and others who declaim so bitterly against 'blasphemers,' and take such very stringent measures to punish 'infidels', who speaks or write of their god, should seriously consider whether the worst, that is, the least superstitious of infidel writers, ever penned a paragraph so disparaging to the character of that god they effect to adore, as the last quoted paragraph of newton's. if even it could be demonstrated that there is a super-human being, it cannot be proper to clothe him in the noblest human attributes--still less can it be justifiable in pigmies, such as we are, to invest him with odious attributes belonging only to despots ruling over slaves. besides, how can we imagine a god, who is 'totally destitute of body and of corporeal figure,' to have any kind of substance? earthly emperors we know to be substantial and common-place sort of beings enough, but is it not sheer abuse of reason to argue as though the character of god were at all analogous to theirs; or rather, is it not shocking abuse of our reasoning facilities to employ them at all about a being whose existence, if we really have an existence, is perfectly enigmatical, and allowed to be so by those very men who pretend to explain its character and attributes? we find no less a sage than newton explicitly declaring as incontestible truth, that god exists necessarily--that the same necessity obliges him to exist always and everywhere--that he is all eyes, all ears, all brains, all arms, all feeling, all intelligence, all action--that he exists in a mode by no means corporeal, an yet this same sage, in the self-same paragraph, acknowledges god is _totally unknown to us_. now, we should like to be informed by what _reasonable_ right newton could pen a long string of 'incontestible truths,' such as are here selected from his writings, with respect to a being of whom, by his own confession, he had not a particle of knowledge. surely it is not the part of a wise man to write about that which is 'totally unknown' to him, and yet that is precisely what newton did, when he wrote concerning god. so much for the theism of europe's chief religious philosopher. turn we now to the theism of dr. samuel clarke. he wrote a book about the being and attributes of god, in which he endeavoured to establish, first, that 'something has existed from all eternity;' second, that 'there has existed from eternity some one unchangeable and independent being;' third, that 'such unchangeable and independent being, which has existed from all eternity, without any external cause of its existence, must be necessarily existent;' fourth, that 'what is the substance or essence of that being, which is necessarily existing, or self-existent, we have no idea--neither is it possible for us to comprehend it;' fifth, that 'the self-existent being must of necessity be eternal as well as infinite and omnipresent;' sixth, that 'he must be one, and as he is the self-existent and original cause of all things, must be intelligent;' seventh, that 'god is not a necessary agent, but a being endowed with liberty and choice;' eighth, that 'god is infinite in power, infinite in wisdom, and, as he is supreme cause of all things, must of necessity be a being infinitely just, truthful, and good--thus comprising within himself all such moral perfections as becomes the supreme governor and judge of the world.' these are the leading dogma contained in clarke's book--and as they are deemed invincible by a respectable, though not very numerous, section of theists, we will briefly examine the more important important of them. the dogma that _something has existed from all eternity_, as already shown, is perfectly intelligible, and may defy contradiction--but the real difficulty is to satisfactorily determine _what that something is_. matter exists, and as no one can even imagine its non-existence or annihilation, the materialist infers _that_ must be the eternal something. newton as well as clark thought the everlasting being destitute of body, and consequently without parts, figure, motion, divisibility, or any other such properties as we find in matter--_ergo_, they did not believe matter to be the eternal something; but if not matter, again we ask, what can it be? of bodilessness or incorporiety no one, even among those who say their god is incorporeal, pretend to have an idea. abady insisted that _the question is not what incorporiety is, but whether it be?_ well, we have no objection to parties taking that position, because there is nothing more easy than to dislodge those who think fit to do so--for this reason: the advocates of nothing, or incorporiety, can no more establish by arguments drawn from unquestioned facts, that incorporiety _is_ than they can clearly show _what_ it is. it has always struck the author as remarkable that men should so obstinately refuse to admit the possibility of matter's necessary existence, while they readily embrace, not only as possibly, but certainly, true, the paradoxical proposition that a something, having nothing in common with anything, is necessarily existent. matter is everywhere around and about us. we ourselves are matter--all our ideas are derived _from_ matter--and yet such is the singularly perverse character of human intellect that, while resolutely denying the possibility of matter's eternity, an immense number of our race embrace the incredible proposition that matter was created in time by a necessarily existing being, who is without body, parts, passions, or positive nature! the second dogma informs us that this always-existing being is unchangeable and independent. one unavoidable inference from which is that deity is itself immoveable, as well as unconnected with the universe--for a moveable being must be a changeable being, by the very fact of its motion; while an independent being must be motiveless, as it is evident all motives result from our relationship to things eternal; but an independent being can have no relations, and consequently must act without motives. now, as no intelligent _human_ action can be imagined without necessary precursors in the shape of motives, reasoning from analogy, it seems impossible that the unchangeable and independent being, clarke was so sure must ever have existed, could have created the universe, seeing he could have had no _motive_ or _inducement_ to create it. the third dogma may be rated a truism--it being evidently true that a thing or being, which has existed from eternity without any eternal cause of its existence, must be self-existent: but of course that dogma leaves the disputed question, namely, whether matter, or something _not_ matter, is self-existent, just where it found it. the fourth dogma is not questioned by universalists, as they are quite convinced that it is not possible for us to comprehend the substance or essence of an immaterial being. the other dogmas we need not enlarge upon, as they are little more than repetition or expansion of the preceding one. indeed, much of the foregoing would be superfluous, were it not that it serves to illustrate, so completely and clearly theistical absurdities. the only dogma worth overturning, of the eight here noticed, is the _first_, for if that fall, the rest must fall with it. if, for example, the reader is convinced that it is more probable matter is mutable as regards _form_ but eternal as regards _essence_, than that it was willed into existence by a being said to be eternal and immutable, he at once becomes a universalist--for if matter always was, no being could have been before it, nor can any exist after it. it is because men in general are shocked at the idea of matter without beginning and without end, that they do readily embrace the idea of a god, forgetting that if the idea of eternal matter shock our sense of the _probable_, the idea of an eternal being who existed _before_ matter, _if well considered_, is sufficient to shock all sense of the _possible_. the man who is contented with the universe, who stops at _that_ has at least the satisfaction of dealing with something tangible--but he who don't find the universe large enough for him to expatiate in, and whirls his brains into a belief that there is a necessarily existing something beyond the limits of a world _unlimited_, is in a mental condition no reasonable man need envy. of the universe, or at least so much of it as our senses have been operated upon by, we have conceptions clear, vivid, and distinct; but when dr. clarke tell us of an intelligent being, not _part_ but _creator_ of that universe, we can form no clear, vivid, distinct, or, in point of fact, _any_ conception of such being. when he explains that it is infinite and omnipresent, like poor paddy's famed ale, the explanation 'thickens as it clears;' for being ourselves _finite_, and necessarily present on one small spot of our very small planet, the words _infinite_ and _omnipresent_ do not suggest to us either positive or practical ideas--of course, therefore, we have neither positive nor practical ideas of an infinite and omnipresent being. we can as easily understand that the universe ever did exist, as we now understand that it does exist--but we cannot conceive its absence for the millionth part of an instant--and really it puzzles one to conceive what those people can be dreaming of who talk as familiarly about the extinction of a universe as the chemist does of extinguishing the flame of his spirit-lamp. the unsatisfactory character of all speculations having for their object 'nonentities with formidable names,' should long ere this have opened men's eyes to the folly of _multiplying causes without necessity_--another rule of philosophising, for which we are indebted to newton, but to which no superstitious philosophiser pays due attention. newton himself in his theistical character, wrote and talked as though most blissfully ignorant of that rule. the passages given above from his 'principia' palpably violate it. but theists, however learned, pay little regard to any rules of philosophising, which put in peril their fundamental crotchet. a distinguished modern fabulist [38:1] has introduced to us a philosophical mouse who praised beneficent deity because of his great regard for mice: for one half of us, quoth he, received the gift of wings, so that if they who have none, should by cats happen to be exterminated, how easily could our 'heavenly father,' out of the bats re-establish our exterminated species. voltaire had no objection to fable if it were symbolic of truth; and here is fable, which, according to its author, is symbolic of the little regarded truth, that our pride rests mainly on our ignorance, for, as he sagely says, 'the good mouse knew not that there are also winged cats.' if she had her speculations concerning the beneficence of deity would have been less orthodox, mayhap, but decidedly more rational. the wisdom of this pious mouse is very similar to that of the theologian who knew not how sufficiently to admire god's goodness in causing large rivers almost always to flow in the neighbourhood of large towns. to jump at conclusions on no other authority than their own ignorant assumption, and to deify errors on no other authority than their own heated imagination, has in all ages been the practice of theologians. of that practice they are proud, as was the mouse of our fabulist. clothed in no other panoply than their own conceits they deem themselves invulnerable. while uttering the wildest incoherencies their self-complacency remains undisturbed. they remind one of that ambitious crow who, thinking more highly of himself than was quite proper, strutted so proudly about with the peacock's feathers in which he had bedecked himself.--like him, they plume themselves upon their own egregious folly, and like him should get well _plucked_ for their pains. let any one patiently examine their much talked of argument from design, and he will be satisfied that these are no idle charges. that argument has for its ground-work beggarly assumption, and for its main pillar, reasoning no less beggarly. nature must have had a cause, because it evidently is an effect. the cause of nature must have been one god, because two gods, or two million gods, could not have agreed to cause it. that cause must be omnipotent, wise, and good, because all things are double one against another, and he has left nothing imperfect. men make watches, build ships or houses, out of pre-existing metals, wood, hemp, bricks, mortar, and other materials, therefore god made nature out of no material at all. unassisted nature cannot produce the phenomena we behold, therefore such phenomena clearly prove there is something unnatural. not to believe in a god who designed nature, is to close both ears and eyes against evidence, therefore universalists are wilfully deaf and obstinately blind. these are samples of the flimsy stuff, our teachers of what nobody knows, would palm upon us as demonstration of the being and attributes of god. by artfully taking for granted what no universalist can admit, and assuming cases altogether dissimilar to be perfectly analogous, our natural theologians find no difficulty in proving that god is, was, and ever will be; that after contemplating his own perfections, a period sufficiently long for 'eternity to begin and end in,' he said, let there be matter, and there was matter; that with him all things are possible, and he, of course, might easily have kept, as well as made, man upright and happy, but could not consistently with his own wisdom, or with due regard to his own glorification. wise in their generation, these 'blind leaders of the blind' ascribe to this deity of their own invention powers impossible, acts inconceivable, and qualities incompatible; thus erecting doctrinal systems on no sounder basis than their own ignorance; deifying their own monstrous errors, and filling the earth with misery, madness, and crime. the writer who declared theology _ignorance of natural causes reduced to system_, did not strike wide of the true mark. it is plain that the argument from design, so vastly favoured by theologians, amounts to neither more nor less than ignorance of natural causes reduced to system. an argument to be sound must be soundly premised. but here is an argument whose primary premise is a false premise--a mere begging of the very question in dispute. did universalists _admit_ the universe was contrived, designed, or adapted, they could not _deny_ there must have been at least one being to contrive, design, or adapt; but they see no analogy between a watch made with hands out of something, and a universe made without hands out of nothing. universalists are unable to perceive the least resemblance between the circumstance of one intelligent body re-forming or changing the condition of some other body, intelligent or non-intelligent, and the circumstance of a bodiless being creating all bodies; of a partless being acting upon all parts; and of a passionless being generating and regulating all passions. universalists consider the general course of nature, though strangely unheeded, does proclaim with 'most miraculous organ,' that dogmatisers about any such 'figment of imagination' would, in a rational community, be viewed with the same feelings of compassion, which, even in these irrational days, are exhibited towards confirmed lunatics. the author, while passing an evening with some pleasant people in ashton-under-lyne, heard one of them relate that before the schoolmaster had made much progress in that _devil-dusted_ neighbourhood, a labouring man walking out one fine night, saw on the ground a watch, whose ticking was distinctly audible; but never before having seen anything of the kind, he thought it a living creature, and full of fear ran back among his neighbours, exclaiming that he had seen a most marvellous thing, for which he could conceive of no better name than clickmitoad. after recovering from their surprise and terror, this 'bold peasant' and his neighbours, all armed with pokers and other formidable weapons, crept up to the ill-starred ticker, and smashed it to pieces. the moral of this anecdote is no mystery. our clickmitoadist had never seen watches, knew nothing about watches, and hearing as well as seeing one for the first time, naturally judged it must be an animal. readers who may feel inclined to laugh at his simplicity, should ask themselves whether, if accustomed to see watches growing upon watch trees, they would feel more astonished than they usually do when observing crystals in process of formation, or cocoa-nuts growing upon cocoa-nut trees; and if as inexperienced with respect to watches, or works of art, more or less analogous to watches, they would not under his circumstances have acted very much as he did. supposing, however, that theologians were to succeed in establishing an analogy between 'the contrivances of human art and the various existences of the universe,' is it not evident that spinoza's axiom--of things which having nothing in common one cannot be the cause of the others--is incompatible with belief in the deity of our thirty-nine articles, or, indeed, belief in _any_ unnatural designer or causer of material nature. only existence can have anything in common with existence. now, an existence, properly so called, must have at least two attributes, and whatever exhibits two or more attributes is matter. the two attributes necessary to existence are solidity and extension. take from matter these attributes and matter itself vanishes. that fact was specially testified to by priestley, who acknowledged the primary truths of materialism though averse to the legitimate consequences flowing from their recognition. according to this argument, nothing exists which has not solidity and extension, and nothing is extended and solid but matter, which in one state forms a crystal, in another a blade of grass, in a third a butterfly, and in other states other forms. the _essence_ of grass, or the _essence_ of crystal, in other words, those native energies of their several forms constituting and keeping them what they are, can no more be explained than can the _essentiality_ of _human_ nature. but the universalist, because he finds it impossible to explain the action of matter, because unable to state why it exhibits such vast and various energies as it is seen to exhibit, is none the less assured it _naturally_ and therefore _necessarily_ acts thus energetically. no universalist pretends to understand how bread nourishes his frame, but of the _fact_ that bread does nourish it he is well assured. he understands not how or why two beings should, by conjunction, give vitality to a third being more or less analogous to themselves, but the _fact_ stares him in the face. our 'sophists in surplices,' who can no otherwise bolster up their supernatural system than by outraging all such rules of philosophising as forbid us to choose the greater of two difficulties, or to multiply causes without necessity, are precisely the men to explain everything. but unfortunately their explanations do, for the most part, stand more in need of explanation than the thing explained. thus, they explain the origin of matter by reference to an occult, immense, and immensely mysterious phantasm without body, parts or passions, who sees though not to be seen, hears though not to be heard, feels though not to be felt, moves though not to be moved, knows though not to be known, and, in short, does everything, though not to be _done_ by anything. well might godwin say _the rage of accounting for what is obviously unaccountable, so common among philosophers of this stamp, has brought philosophy itself into discredit_. there is an argument against the notion of a supernatural causer which the author does not remember to have met with, but which he considers an argument of great force--it is this. cause means change, and as there manifestly could not be change before there was anything to change, to conceive the universe caused is impossible. that the sense here attached to the word cause is not a novel one every reader knows who has seen an elaborate and ably written article by mr. g.h. lewes, on 'spinoza's life and works,' where effect is defined as cause realised; the _natura naturans_ conceived as _natura naturata_; and cause or causation is define as simply change. when, says mr. lewes, the change is completed, we name the result effect. it is only a matter of naming. these definitions conceded accurate, the conclusion that neither cause nor effect _exist_, seems inevitable, for change of being is not being itself any more than attraction is the thing attracted. one might as philosophically erect attraction into reality and fall down and worship _it_ as change which is in very truth a mere "matter of naming." not so the things changing or changed; _they_ are real, the prolific parent of all appearance we behold, of all sensation we experience, of all ideas we receive, in short, of all causes and of all effects, which causes and effects, as shown by mr. lewis, are merely notional, for "we call the antecedent cause, and the sequent effect; but these are merely relative conceptions; the sequence itself is antecedent to some subsequent change, and the former antecedent was once only a sequent to its cause, and so on." ancient simonides, when asked by dionysius to explain the nature of deity, demanded a day to "see about it," then an additional two days, and then four days more, thus wisely intimating to his silly pupil, that the more men think about gods, the less competent they are to give any rational account of them. cicero was sensible and candid enough to acknowledge that he found it much easier to say what god was not, than what he was. like simonides, he was _mere_ pagan, and like him, arguing from the known course of nature, was unable, with all his mastery of talk, to convey positive ideas of deity. but how should he convey to others what he did not, could not, himself possess? to him no revolution had been vouchsafed, and though my lord brougham is quite sure, without the proof of natural theology, revelation has no other basis than mere tradition; we have even better authority than his lordship's for the staggering fact that natural theology, without the prop of revelation, is a 'rhapsody of words,' mere jargon, analogous to the tale told by an idiot, so happily described by our great poet as 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' we have a rev. hugh m'neil 'convinced that, from external creation, no right conclusion can be drawn concerning the _moral_ character of god,' and that 'creation is too deeply and disastrously blotted in consequence of man's sin, to admit of any satisfactory result from an adequate contemplation of nature.' [42:1] we have a gillespie setting aside the design argument, on the ground that the reasonings by which it is supported are 'inapt' to show such attributes as infinity, omnipresence, free agency, omnipotency, eternality, or unity,' belong in any way to god. on this latter attribute he specially enlarges, and after allowing the contrivances we observe in nature, may establish a unity of _counsel_, desires to be told how they can establish a unity of _substance_. [42:2] we have dr. chalmors and bishop watson, whose capacities were not the meanest, contending that there is no natural proof of a god, and that we must trust solely to revelation. [42:3] we have the rev. mr. faber in his 'difficulties of infidelity' boldly affirming that no one ever did, or ever will 'prove without the aid of revelation, that the universe was designed by a _single_ designer.' obviously, then, there is a division in the religious camp with respect to the sufficiency of natural theology, unhelped by revelation. by three of the four christian authors just quoted, the design argument is treated with contempt. faber says, 'evident design must needs imply a designer,' and that 'evident design shines out in every part of the universe.' but he also tells us 'we reason exclusively, if with the deist we thence infer the existence of one and only one supreme designer.' by gillespie and m'neil, the same truth is told in other words. by chalmers and watson we are assured that, natural proof of a god there is none, and our trust must be placed solely in revelation; while brougham, another immense being worshipper, declares that revelation derives its chief support from natural theology, without which it has 'no other basis than vague tradition.' now, universalists agree with lord brougham as to the traditionary basis of scripture; and as they also agree with chalmers and watson with respect to there being no natural proof of a god, they stand acquitted to their own consciences of 'wilful deafness' and 'obstinate blindness,' in rejecting as inadequate the evidence that 'god is,' drawn either from nature, revelation, or both. it was long a protestant custom to taunt roman catholics with being divided among themselves as regards topics vitally important, and to draw from the fact of such division an argument for making scripture the only 'rule of faith and manners.' chillingworth said, _there are popes against popes, councils against councils, some fathers against others, the same fathers against themselves--a consent of fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age, the church of one age against the church of another age. traditive interpretations of scripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found. no tradition but only of scripture can derive itself from the fountain, but may be plainly proved, either to have been brought in in such an age after christ, or that in such an age it was not in. in a word, there is no sufficient certainty but of scripture only for any considering man to build on_. [43:1] and after reading this should 'any considering man' be anxious to know something about the scripture on which alone he is to build, he cannot do better than dip into dr. watt's book on the right use of reason, where we are told _every learned (scripture) critic has his own hypothesis, and if the common text be not favourable to his views a various lection shall be made authentic. the text must be supposed to be defective or redundant, and the sense of it shall be literal or metaphorical according as it best supports his own scheme. whole chapters or books shall be added or left out of the sacred canon, or be turned into parables by this influence. luther knew not well how to reconcile the epistle of st. james to the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and so he could not allow it to be divine. the papists bring all their apocrypha into their bible, and stamp divinity upon it, for they can fancy purgatory is there, and they find prayers for the dead. but they leave out the second commandment because it forbids the worship of images. others suppose the mosaic history of the creation, and the full of man, to be oriental ornaments, or a mere allegory, because the literal sense of those three chapters of genesis do not agree with their theories._ these remarks are certainly not calculated to make 'considering men' put their trust in scripture. coming from a protestant divine of such high talent and learning, they may rather be expected to breed in 'considering men' very unorthodox opinions as well of the authenticity as the genuineness of _both_ testaments, and a strong suspicion that chillingworth was joking when he talked about their "sufficient certainty." the author has searched scripture in vain for 'sufficient certainty,' with respect to the long catalogue of religious beliefs which agitate and distract society. laying claim to the character of a 'considering man,' he requires that scripture to be proved the word of a god before appealed to, as his revelation; a feat no man has yet accomplished. priests, the cleverest, most industrious, and least scrupulous, have tried their hands at the pious work, but all have failed. notwithstanding the mighty labours of our lardner's and tillemont's and mosheim's, no case is made out for the divinity of either the old or new testament. 'infidels' have shown the monstrous absurdity of supposing that any one book has an atom more divinity about it than any other book. these 'brutes' have completely succeeded in proving that christianity is a superstition no less absurd than mohammedanism, and to the full as mischievous. christian practice is after all, the best answer to christian theory. men who think wisely, do not, it is true, always act wisely; but generally speaking, the moral, like the physical tree, is known by its fruit, and bitter, most bitter, is the fruit of that moral tree, the followers of jesus planted. notwithstanding their talk about the pure and benign influence of their religion, an opinion is fast gaining ground, that bishop kidder was right, when he said, _were a wise man to judge of religion by the lives of its professors, perhaps, christianity is the last he would choose_. he who agrees with milton that to know what every day before us lies is the prime wisdom, will in all likelihood not object to cast his eyes around and about him, where proofs of modern priestly selfishness are in wonderful abundance. by way of example may be cited the cases of those right reverend fathers in god the bishops of london and chester, prelates high in the church; disposers of enormous wealth with influence almost incalculable; the former more especially. and how stand they affected towards the poor? by reference to the _times_ newspaper of september 27th, 1845, it will be seen that those very influential and wealthy bishops are supporters _en chef_ of a reformed poor law,' the virtual principle of which is 'to reduce the condition of those whose necessities oblige them to apply for relief, below that of the labourer of the _lowest class_.' a reformed poor law, having for its 'object,' yes reader, its object, the restoration of the pauper to a position below that of the independent labourer.' this is their 'standard' of reference, by rigid attention to which they hope to fully carry out their 'vital principle,' and thus bring to a satisfactory conclusion the great work of placing 'the pauper in a worse condition than the 'independent labourer.' it appears, from the same journal, that in reply to complaints against their dietary, the commissioners appointed to work the reformed poor law, consider that twenty-one ounces of food daily 'is more than the hard working labourer with a family could accomplish for himself by his own exertions.' this, observes a writer in the _times_, being the commissioners' reading of their own 'standard,' it may be considered superfluous to refer to any other authority; but, as the royal agricultural society of england have clubbed their general information on this subject in a compilation from a selection of essays submitted to them, we are bound to refer to such witnesses who give the most precise information on the actual condition of the _independent labourer_, with minute instructions for his general guidance, and the economical expenditure of his income. 'he should,' they say, 'toil early and late' to make himself 'perfect' in his calling. 'he should _pinch and screw_ the family, even in the _commonest necessaries_,' until he gets 'a week's wages to the fore.' he should drink in his work 'water mixed with some powdered ginger,' which warms the stomach, and is 'extremely cheap.' he should remember that 'from three to four pounds of potatoes are equal in point of nourishment to a pound of the best wheaten bread, besides having the great advantage of _filling_ the stomach. he is told that 'a lot of bones may always be got from the butchers for 2d., and they are never scraped so clean as not to have some scraps of meat adhering to them.' he is instructed to boil these two penny worth of bones, for the first day's family dinner, until the liquor 'tastes something like broth.' for the _second_ day, the bones are to be again boiled in the same manner, but for a _longer_ time. nor is this all, they say 'that the bones, if again boiled for a _still longer_ time, will _once more_ yield a nourishing broth, which may be made into pea soup.' this is the system and this is the schoolmastership expressly sanctioned by the bishops of london and chester. in piety nevertheless those prelates are not found wanting. they may starve the bodies but no one can charge them with neglecting the souls of our 'independent labourers.' nothing can exceed their anxiety to feed and clothe the spiritually destitute. they raise their mitred fronts, even in palaces, to proclaim and lament over the spiritual destitution which so extensively prevails--but they seldom condescend to notice _physical_ destitution. when the cry of famine rings throughout the land they coolly recommend rapid church extension, thus literally offering stones to those who ask them for bread. to got the substantial and give the spiritual is their practical christianity. to spiritualise the poor into contentment with the 'nourishing broth' from thrice boiled bones, and to die of hunger rather than demand relief, are their darling objects. did universalists thus act, did they perpetrate, connive at, or tolerate such atrocities as were brought to light during the andover inquiry, such cold blooded heartlessness would at once be laid to the account of their principles. oh yes, christians are forward to judge of every tree by its fruit, except the tree called christianity. the vices of the universalist they ascribe to his creed. the vices of the christian to anything but his creed. let professors of christianity be convicted of gross criminality, and lo its apologists say such professors are not christian. let fanatical christians commit excesses which admit not of open justification, and the apologist of christianity coolly assures us such conduct is _mere rust on the body of his religion--moss which grows on the stock of his piety._ from age to age the wisest among men have abhorred and denounced superstition. it is true that only a small section of them treated religion as if _necessarily_ superstition, or went quite as far as john adams, who said, _this would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it_. but an attentive reading of ancient and modern philosophical books has satisfied the author that through all recorded time, religion has been _tolerated_ rather than _loved_ by great thinkers, who had _will_, but not _power_ to wage successful war upon it. gibbon speaks of pagan priests who, 'under sacerdotal robes, concealed the heart of an atheist.' now, these priests were also the philosophers of rome, and it is not impossible that some modern philosophical priests, like their pagan prototypes, secretly despise the religion they openly profess. avarice, and lust of power, are potent underminers of human virtue. the mighty genius of bacon was not proof against then, and he who deserves to occupy a place among 'the wisest and greatest' has been 'damned to eternal fame' as the 'meanest of mankind.' nor are avarice and lust of power the only base passions under the influence of which men, great in intellect, have given the lie to their own convictions, by calling that religion which they knew to be rank superstition. fear of punishment for writing truth is the grand cause why their books contain so little of it. if bacon had openly treated christianity as mere superstition, will any one say that his life would have been worth twenty-four hours' purchase? there is an old story about a certain lady who said to her physician, 'doctor, what is your religion?' my religion, madame, replied the doctor, 'is the religion of all sensible men.' 'what kind of religion is that?' said the lady. 'the religion, madame,' quoth the doctor, 'that no sensible man will tell.' this doctor may be given as a type of the class of shrewd people who despise superstition, but will say nothing about it, lest by so doing they give a shock to prejudice, and thus put in peril certain professional or other emoluments. too sensible to be pious, and too cautious to be honest, they must be extremely well paid ere they will incur the risk attendant upon a confession of anti-superstitious faith. animated by a vile spirit of accommodation, their whole sum of practical wisdom can be told in four words--be silent and safe. they are amazed at the 'folly' of these who make sacrifices at the shrine of sincerity; and while sagacious enough to perceive that superstition is a clumsy political contrivance, are not wanting in the prudence which dictates at least a _seeming_ conformity to prevailing prejudices. none have done more to perpetrate error than these time-serving 'men of the world,' for instead of boldly attacking it, they preserve a prudent silence which bigots do not fail to interpret as consent. mosheim says, [47:1] 'the simplicity and ignorance of the generality in those times (fifth century) furnished the most favourable occasion for the exercise of fraud; and the impudence of impostors, in contriving false miracles, was artfully proportioned to the credulity of the vulgar, while the sagacious and the wise, who perceived these cheats, were overawed into silence by the dangers that threatened their lives and fortunes, if they should expose the artifice. thus,' continues this author, 'does it generally happen, when danger attends the discovery and the profession of truth, the prudent are _silent_, the multitude _believe_, and impostors _triumph_.' beausobre, too, in his learned account of manicheism reads a severe lesson to those who, under the influence of such passions as _fear_ and _avarice_, will do nothing to check the march of superstition, or relieve their less 'sensible,' but more honest, fellow-creatures from the weight of its fetters. after alluding to an epistle written by that 'demi-philosopher,' synesius, when offered by the patriarch the bishopric of ptolemais, [48:1] beausobre says, 'we see in the history that i have related a kind of hypocrisy, which, perhaps, has been far too common in all times. it is that of ecclesiastics, who not only do not say what they think, but the reverse of what they think. philosophers in their closet, when out of them they are content with fables, though they know well they are fables. they do more; they deliver to the executioner the excellent men who have said it. how many atheists and profane persons have brought holy men to the stake under the pretext of heresy? every day, hypocrites consecrate the host and cause it to be adored, although firmly convinced as i am that it is nothing more than a piece of bread.' whatever may be urged in defence of such execrable duplicity, there can be no question as to its anti-progressive tendency. the majority of men are fools, and if such 'sensible' politicians as our doctor and the double doctrinising ecclesiastics, for whose portraits we are indebted to mosheim and beausobre, shall have the teaching of them, fools they are sure to remain. men who dare not be 'mentally faithful' to themselves may obstruct, but cannot advance, the interests of truth. in legislation, in law, in all the relations of life, we want honesty _not_ piety. there is plenty of piety, and to spare, but of honesty--sterling, bold, uncompromising honesty--even the best regulated societies can boast a very small stock. the men best qualified to raise the veil under which truth lies concealed from vulgar gaze, are precisely the men who fear to do it. oh, shame upon ye self-styled philosophers, who in your closets laugh at 'our holy religion,' and in your churches do it reverence. were your bosoms warmed by one spark of generous wisdom, _silence_ on the question of religion would be broken, the multitude cease to _believe_, and imposters to _triumph_. london: printed by edward truelove, 240, strand. [endnotes] [4:1] 25th november, 1845. [4:2] vide 'times' commissioner's letter on the condition of ireland, november 28, 1845. [8:1] 'essay on providence and a future state.' [9:1] essay of the academical or sceptical philosophy. [9:2] critical remarks on lord brougham's 'lives of men of letters and science, who flourished in the time of george iii.'--the _times_, wednesday, october 1, 1845. [10:1] history of american savages. [11:1] appendix the second to 'plutarchus and theophrastus on superstition.' [11:2] philosophy of history. [12:1] see a notice of lord brougham's political philosophy, in the number for april, 1845. [15:1] 'apology for the bible,' page 133. [15:2] unusquisque vestrum non cogitat prius se debere deos nosse quam colere. [20:1] see a curious 'essay on nature,' printed for badcock and co., 2, queen's head passage, paternoster row. 1807. [23:1] elements of materialism, chapter 1. [24:1] discussion on the existence of god, between origen bachelor and robert dale owen. [29:1] hume's treastise on human nature. [29:2] this sexing is a stock receipt for mystification.--_colonel thompson._ [30:1] the rev. j.k. smith. [31:1] 'an address on cerebral physiology and materialism,' delivered to the phrenological association in london, june 20, 1842. [33:1] principia mathematica, p. 528, lond. edit., 1720. [38:1] lessing. [42:1] lecture by the rev. hugh m'neil, minister of st. jude's church, liverpool, delivered about seven years since, in presence of some 400 of the irish protestant clergy. [42:2] the necessary existence of deity, by william gillespie. [42:3] page 106 of a discussion on the existence of god, between origen batchelor and r.d. owen. [43:1] quoted by dr. samuel clarke, in his introduction to the scripture doctrine of the trinity. [47:1] ecclesiastical history, vol. ii, page 11. [48:1] manicheisme, tome ii, p. 568. note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustration. see 36568-h.htm or 36568-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36568/36568-h/36568-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36568/36568-h.zip) god and the state by michael bakunin mother earth publishing association [illustration: michael bakunin] god and the state by michael bakunin with a preface by carlo cafiero and elisée reclus first american edition mother earth publishing association 20 east 125th street new york city preface to the first french edition one of us is soon to tell in all its details the story of the life of michael bakunin, but its general features are already sufficiently familiar. friends and enemies know that this man was great in thought, will, persistent energy; they know also with what lofty contempt he looked down upon wealth, rank, glory, all the wretched ambitions which most human beings are base enough to entertain. a russian gentleman related by marriage to the highest nobility of the empire, he was one of the first to enter that intrepid society of rebels who were able to release themselves from traditions, prejudices, race and class interests, and set their own comfort at naught. with them he fought the stern battle of life, aggravated by imprisonment, exile, all the dangers and all the sorrows that men of self-sacrifice have to undergo during their tormented existence. a simple stone and a name mark the spot in the cemetery of berne where was laid the body of bakunin. even that is perhaps too much to honor the memory of a worker who held vanities of that sort in such slight esteem. his friends surely will raise to him no ostentatious tombstone or statue. they know with what a huge laugh he would have received them, had they spoken to him of a commemorative structure erected to his glory; they knew, too, that the true way to honor their dead is to continue their work--with the same ardor and perseverance that they themselves brought to it. in this case, indeed, a difficult task demanding all our efforts, for among the revolutionists of the present generation not one has labored more fervently in the common cause of the revolution. in russia among the students, in germany among the insurgents of dresden, in siberia among his brothers in exile, in america, in england, in france, in switzerland, in italy, among all earnest men, his direct influence has been considerable. the originality of his ideas, the imagery and vehemence of his eloquence, his untiring zeal in propagandism, helped too by the natural majesty of his person and by a powerful vitality, gave bakunin access to all the revolutionary groups, and his efforts left deep traces everywhere, even upon those who, after having welcomed him, thrust him out because of a difference of object or method. his correspondence was most extensive; he passed entire nights in preparing long letters to his friends in the revolutionary world, and some of these letters, written to strengthen the timid, arouse the sluggish, and outline plans of propagandism or revolt, took on the proportions of veritable volumes. these letters more than anything else explain the prodigious work of bakunin in the revolutionary movement of the century. the pamphlets published by him, in russian, french, and italian, however important they may be, and however useful they may have been in spreading the new ideas, are the smallest part of bakunin's work. the present memoir, "god and the state," is really a fragment of a letter or report. composed in the same manner as most of bakunin's other writings, it has the same literary fault, lack of proportion; moreover it breaks off abruptly: we have searched in vain to discover the end of the manuscript. bakunin never had the time necessary to finish all the tasks he undertook. one work was not completed when others were already under way. "my life itself is a fragment," he said to those who criticised his writings. nevertheless, the readers of "god and the state" certainly will not regret that bakunin's memoir, incomplete though it be, has been published. the questions discussed in it are treated decisively and with a singular vigor of logic. rightly addressing himself only to his honest opponents, bakunin demonstrates to them the emptiness of their belief in that divine authority on which all temporal authorities are founded; he proves to them the purely human genesis of all governments; finally, without stopping to discuss those bases of the state already condemned by public morality, such as physical superiority, violence, nobility, wealth, he does justice to the theory which would entrust science with the government of societies. supposing even that it were possible to recognize, amid the conflict of rival ambitions and intrigues, who are the pretenders and who are the real savants, and that a method of election could be found which would not fail to lodge the power in the hands of those whose knowledge is authentic, what guarantee could they offer us of the wisdom and honesty of their government? on the contrary, can we not foresee in these new masters the same follies and the same crimes found in those of former days and of the present time? in the first place, science is not: it is becoming. the learned man of to-day is but the know-nothing of to-morrow. let him once imagine that he has reached the end, and for that very reason he sinks beneath even the babe just born. but, could he recognize truth in its essence, he can only corrupt himself by privilege and corrupt others by power. to establish his government, he must try, like all chiefs of state, to arrest the life of the masses moving below him, keep them in ignorance in order to preserve quiet, and gradually debase them that he may rule them from a loftier throne. for the rest, since the _doctrinaires_ made their appearance, the true or pretended "genius" has been trying his hand at wielding the sceptre of the world, and we know what it has cost us. we have seen them at work, all these savants: the more hardened the more they have studied; the narrower in their views the more time they have spent in examining some isolated fact in all its aspects; without any experience of life, because they have long known no other horizon than the walls of their cheese; childish in their passions and vanities, because they have been unable to participate in serious struggles and have never learned the true proportion of things. have we not recently witnessed the foundation of a whole school of "thinkers"--wretched courtiers, too, and people of unclean lives--who have constructed a whole cosmogony for their sole use? according to them, worlds have been created, societies have developed, revolutions have overturned nations, empires have gone down in blood, poverty, disease, and death have been the queens of humanity, only to raise up an _élite_ of academicians, the full-blown flower, of which all other men are but the manure. that these editors of the _temps_ and the _debats_ may have leisure to "think," nations live and die in ignorance; all other human beings are destined for death in order that these gentlemen may become immortal! but we may reassure ourselves: all these academicians will not have the audacity of alexander in cutting with his sword the gordian knot; they will not lift the blade of charlemagne. government by science is becoming as impossible as that of divine right, wealth, or brute force. all powers are henceforth to be submitted to pitiless criticism. men in whom the sentiment of equality is born suffer themselves no longer to be governed; they learn to govern themselves. in precipitating from the heights of the heavens him from whom all power is reputed to descend, societies unseat also all those who reigned in his name. such is the revolution now in progress. states are breaking up to give place to a new order, in which, as bakunin was fond of saying, "human justice will be substituted for divine justice." if it is allowable to cite any one name from those of the revolutionists who have taken part in this immense work of renovation, there is not one that may be singled out with more justice than that of michael bakunin. carlo cafiero. elisée reclus. god and the state who are right, the idealists or the materialists? the question once stated in this way hesitation becomes impossible. undoubtedly the idealists are wrong and the materialists right. yes, facts are before ideas; yes, the ideal, as proudhon said, is but a flower, whose root lies in the material conditions of existence. yes, the whole history of humanity, intellectual and moral, political and social, is but a reflection of its economic history. all branches of modern science, of true and disinterested science, concur in proclaiming this grand truth, fundamental and decisive: the social world, properly speaking, the human world--in short, humanity--is nothing other than the last and supreme development--at least on our planet and as far as we know--the highest manifestation of animality. but as every development necessarily implies a negation, that of its base or point of departure, humanity is at the same time and essentially the deliberate and gradual negation of the animal element in man; and it is precisely this negation, as rational as it is natural, and rational only because natural--at once historical and logical, as inevitable as the development and realization of all the natural laws in the world--that constitutes and creates the ideal, the world of intellectual and moral convictions, ideas. yes, our first ancestors, our adams and our eves, were, if not gorillas, very near relatives of gorillas, omnivorous, intelligent and ferocious beasts, endowed in a higher degree than the animals of any other species with two precious faculties--_the power to think_ and _the desire to rebel_. these faculties, combining their progressive action in history, represent the essential factor, the negative power in the positive development of human animality, and create consequently all that constitutes humanity in man. the bible, which is a very interesting and here and there very profound book when considered as one of the oldest surviving manifestations of human wisdom and fancy, expresses this truth very naively in its myth of original sin. jehovah, who of all the good gods adored by men was certainly the most jealous, the most vain, the most ferocious, the most unjust, the most bloodthirsty, the most despotic, and the most hostile to human dignity and liberty--jehovah had just created adam and eve, to satisfy we know not what caprice; no doubt to while away his time, which must weigh heavy on his hands in his eternal egoistic solitude, or that he might have some new slaves. he generously placed at their disposal the whole earth, with all its fruits and animals, and set but a single limit to this complete enjoyment. he expressly forbade them from touching the fruit of the tree of knowledge. he wished, therefore, that man, destitute of all understanding of himself, should remain an eternal beast, ever on all-fours before the eternal god, his creator and his master. but here steps in satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. he makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge. we know what followed. the good god, whose foresight, which is one of the divine faculties, should have warned him of what would happen, flew into a terrible and ridiculous rage; he cursed satan, man, and the world created by himself, striking himself so to speak in his own creation, as children do when they get angry; and, not content with smiting our ancestors themselves, he cursed them in all the generations to come, innocent of the crime committed by their forefathers. our catholic and protestant theologians look upon that as very profound and very just, precisely because it is monstrously iniquitous and absurd. then, remembering that he was not only a god of vengeance and wrath, but also a god of love, after having tormented the existence of a few milliards of poor human beings and condemned them to an eternal hell, he took pity on the rest, and, to save them and reconcile his eternal and divine love with his eternal and divine anger, always greedy for victims and blood, he sent into the world, as an expiatory victim, his only son, that he might be killed by men. that is called the mystery of the redemption, the basis of all the christian religions. still, if the divine savior had saved the human world! but no; in the paradise promised by christ, as we know, such being the formal announcement, the elect will number very few. the rest, the immense majority of the generations present and to come, will burn eternally in hell. in the meantime, to console us, god, ever just, ever good, hands over the earth to the government of the napoleon thirds, of the william firsts, of the ferdinands of austria, and of the alexanders of all the russias. such are the absurd tales that are told and the monstrous doctrines that are taught, in the full light of the nineteenth century, in all the public schools of europe, at the express command of the government. they call this civilizing the people! is it not plain that all these governments are systematic poisoners, interested stupefiers of the masses? i have wandered from my subject, because anger gets hold of me whenever i think of the base and criminal means which they employ to keep the nations in perpetual slavery, undoubtedly that they may be the better able to fleece them. of what consequence are the crimes of all the tropmanns in the world compared with this crime of treason against humanity committed daily, in broad day, over the whole surface of the civilized world, by those who dare to call themselves the guardians and the fathers of the people? i return to the myth of original sin. god admitted that satan was right; he recognized that the devil did not deceive adam and eve in promising them knowledge and liberty as a reward for the act of disobedience which he had induced them to commit; for, immediately they had eaten of the forbidden fruit, god himself said (see bible): "behold, the man is become as one of the gods, to know good and evil; prevent him, therefore, from eating of the fruit of eternal life, lest he become immortal like ourselves." let us disregard now the fabulous portion of this myth and consider its true meaning, which is very clear. man has emancipated himself; he has separated himself from animality and constituted himself a man; he has begun his distinctively human history and development by an act of disobedience and science--that is, by _rebellion_ and by _thought_. * * * * * three elements or, if you like, three fundamental principles constitute the essential conditions of all human development, collective or individual, in history: (1) _human animality_; (2) _thought_; and (3) _rebellion_. to the first properly corresponds _social and private economy_; to the second, _science_; to the third, _liberty_. * * * * * idealists of all schools, aristocrats and _bourgeois_, theologians and metaphysicians, politicians and moralists, religionists, philosophers, or poets, not forgetting the liberal economists--unbounded worshippers of the ideal, as we know--are much offended when told that man, with his magnificent intelligence, his sublime ideas, and his boundless aspirations, is, like all else existing in the world, nothing but matter, only a product of _vile matter_. we may answer that the matter of which materialists speak, matter spontaneously and eternally mobile, active, productive, matter chemically or organically determined and manifested by the properties or forces, mechanical, physical, animal, and intelligent, which necessarily belong to it--that this matter has nothing in common with the _vile matter_ of the idealists. the latter, a product of their false abstraction, is indeed a stupid, inanimate, immobile thing, incapable of giving birth to the smallest product, a _caput mortuum_, an _ugly_ fancy in contrast to the _beautiful_ fancy which they call _god_; as the opposite of this supreme being, matter, their matter, stripped by them of all that constitutes its real nature, necessarily represents supreme nothingness. they have taken away from matter intelligence, life, all its determining qualities, active relations or forces, motion itself, without which matter would not even have weight, leaving it nothing but impenetrability and absolute immobility in space; they have attributed all these natural forces, properties, and manifestations to the imaginary being created by their abstract fancy; then, interchanging _rôles_, they have called this product of their imagination, this phantom, this god who is nothing, "supreme being," and, as a necessary consequence, have declared that the real being, matter, the world, is nothing. after which they gravely tell us that this matter is incapable of producing anything, not even of setting itself in motion, and consequently must have been created by their god. at the end of this book i exposed the fallacies and truly revolting absurdities to which one is inevitably led by this imagination of a god, let him be considered as a personal being, the creator and organizer of worlds; or even as impersonal, a kind of divine soul spread over the whole universe and constituting thus its eternal principle; or let him be an idea, infinite and divine, always present and active in the world, and always manifested by the totality of material and definite beings. here i shall deal with one point only. the gradual development of the material world, as well as of organic animal life and of the historically progressive intelligence of man, individually or socially, is perfectly conceivable. it is a wholly natural movement from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher, from the inferior to the superior; a movement in conformity with all our daily experiences, and consequently in conformity also with our natural logic, with the distinctive laws of our mind, which being formed and developed only by the aid of these same experiences, is, so to speak, but the mental, cerebral reproduction or reflected summary thereof. the system of the idealists is quite the contrary of this. it is the reversal of all human experiences and of that universal and common good sense which is the essential condition of all human understanding, and which, in rising from the simple and unanimously recognized truth that twice two are four to the sublimest and most complex scientific considerations--admitting, moreover, nothing that has not stood the severest tests of experience or observation of things and facts--becomes the only serious basis of human knowledge. very far from pursuing the natural order from the lower to the higher, from the inferior to the superior, and from the relatively simple to the more complex; instead of wisely and rationally accompanying the progressive and real movement from the world called inorganic to the world organic, vegetables, animal, and then distinctively human--from chemical matter or chemical being to living matter or living being, and from living being to thinking being--the idealists, obsessed, blinded, and pushed on by the divine phantom which they have inherited from theology, take precisely the opposite course. they go from the higher to the lower, from the superior to the inferior, from the complex to the simple. they begin with god, either as a person or as divine substance or idea, and the first step that they take is a terrible fall from the sublime heights of the eternal ideal into the mire of the material world; from absolute perfection into absolute imperfection; from thought to being, or rather, from supreme being to nothing. when, how, and why the divine being, eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect, probably weary of himself, decided upon this desperate _salto mortale_ is something which no idealist, no theologian, no metaphysician, no poet, has ever been able to understand himself or explain to the profane. all religions, past and present, and all the systems of transcendental philosophy hinge on this unique and iniquitous mystery.[1] holy men, inspired lawgivers, prophets, messiahs, have searched it for life, and found only torment and death. like the ancient sphinx, it has devoured them, because they could not explain it. great philosophers, from heraclitus and plato down to descartes, spinoza, leibnitz, kant, fichte, schelling, and hegel, not to mention the indian philosophers, have written heaps of volumes and built systems as ingenious as sublime, in which they have said by the way many beautiful and grand things and discovered immortal truths, but they have left this mystery, the principal object of their transcendental investigations, as unfathomable as before. the gigantic efforts of the most wonderful geniuses that the world has known, and who, one after another, for at least thirty centuries, have undertaken anew this labor of sisyphus, have resulted only in rendering this mystery still more incomprehensible. is it to be hoped that it will be unveiled to us by the routine speculations of some pedantic disciple of an artificially warmed-over metaphysics at a time when all living and serious spirits have abandoned that ambiguous science born of a compromise--historically explicable no doubt--between the unreason of faith and sound scientific reason? it is evident that this terrible mystery is inexplicable--that is, absurd, because only the absurd admits of no explanation. it is evident that whoever finds it essential to his happiness and life must renounce his reason, and return, if he can, to naive, blind, stupid faith, to repeat with tertullianus and all sincere believers these words, which sum up the very quintessence of theology: _credo quia absurdum_. then all discussion ceases, and nothing remains but the triumphant stupidity of faith. but immediately there arises another question: _how comes an intelligent and well-informed man ever to feel the need of believing in this mystery?_ nothing is more natural than that the belief in god, the creator, regulator, judge, master, curser, savior, and benefactor of the world, should still prevail among the people, especially in the rural districts, where it is more widespread than among the proletariat of the cities. the people, unfortunately, are still very ignorant, and are kept in ignorance by the systematic efforts of all the governments, who consider this ignorance, not without good reason, as one of the essential conditions of their own power. weighted down by their daily labor, deprived of leisure, of intellectual intercourse, of reading, in short of all the means and a good portion of the stimulants that develop thought in men, the people generally accept religious traditions without criticism and in a lump. these traditions surround them from infancy in all the situations of life, and artificially sustained in their minds by a multitude of official poisoners of all sorts, priests and laymen, are transformed therein into a sort of mental and moral habit, too often more powerful even than their natural good sense. there is another reason which explains and in some sort justifies the absurd beliefs of the people--namely, the wretched situation to which they find themselves fatally condemned by the economic organization of society in the most civilized countries of europe. reduced, intellectually and morally as well as materially, to the minimum of human existence, confined in their life like a prisoner in his prison, without horizon, without outlet, without even a future if we believe the economists, the people would have the singularly narrow souls and blunted instincts of the bourgeois if they did not feel a desire to escape; but of escape there are but three methods--two chimerical and a third real. the first two are the dram-shop and the church, debauchery of the body or debauchery of the mind; the third is social revolution. hence i conclude this last will be much more potent than all the theological propagandism of the freethinkers to destroy to their last vestige the religious beliefs and dissolute habits of the people, beliefs and habits much more intimately connected than is generally supposed. in substituting for the at once illusory and brutal enjoyments of bodily and spiritual licentiousness the enjoyments, as refined as they are real, of humanity developed in each and all, the social revolution alone will have the power to close at the same time all the dram-shops and all the churches. till then the people, taken as a whole, will believe; and, if they have no reason to believe, they will have at least a right. there is a class of people who, if they do not believe, must at least make a semblance of believing. this class, comprising all the tormentors, all the oppressors, and all the exploiters of humanity; priests, monarchs, statesmen, soldiers, public and private financiers, officials of all sorts, policemen, gendarmes, jailers and executioners, monopolists, capitalists, tax-leeches, contractors and landlords, lawyers, economists, politicians of all shades, down to the smallest vendor of sweetmeats, all will repeat in unison those words of voltaire: "if god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." for, you understand, "the people must have a religion." that is the safety-valve. there exists, finally, a somewhat numerous class of honest but timid souls who, too intelligent to take the christian dogmas seriously, reject them in detail, but have neither the courage nor the strength nor the necessary resolution to summarily renounce them altogether. they abandon to your criticism all the special absurdities of religion, they turn up their noses at all the miracles, but they cling desperately to the principal absurdity; the source of all the others, to the miracle that explains and justifies all the other miracles, the existence of god. their god is not the vigorous and powerful being, the brutally positive god of theology. it is a nebulous, diaphanous, illusory being that vanishes into nothing at the first attempt to grasp it; it is a mirage, an _ignis fatuus_ that neither warms nor illuminates. and yet they hold fast to it, and believe that, were it to disappear, all would disappear with it. they are uncertain, sickly souls, who have lost their reckoning in the present civilization, belonging to neither the present nor the future, pale phantoms eternally suspended between heaven and earth, and occupying exactly the same position between the politics of the bourgeois and the socialism of the proletariat. they have neither the power nor the wish nor the determination to follow out their thought, and they waste their time and pains in constantly endeavoring to reconcile the irreconcilable. in public life these are known as bourgeois socialists. with them, or against them, discussion is out of the question. they are too puny. but there are a few illustrious men of whom no one will dare to speak without respect, and whose vigorous health, strength of mind, and good intention no one will dream of calling in question. i need only cite the names of mazzini, michelet, quinet, john stuart mill.[2] generous and strong souls, great hearts, great minds, great writers, and the first the heroic and revolutionary regenerator of a great nation, they are all apostles of idealism and bitter despisers and adversaries of materialism, and consequently of socialism also, in philosophy as well as in politics. against them, then, we must discuss this question. first, let it be remarked that not one of the illustrious men i have just named nor any other idealistic thinker of any consequence in our day has given any attention to the logical side of this question properly speaking. not one has tried to settle philosophically the possibility of the divine _salto mortale_ from the pure and eternal regions of spirit into the mire of the material world. have they feared to approach this irreconcilable contradiction and despaired of solving it after the failures of the greatest geniuses of history, or have they looked upon it as already sufficiently well settled? that is their secret. the fact is that they have neglected the theoretical demonstration of the existence of a god, and have developed only its practical motives and consequences. they have treated it as a fact universally accepted, and, as such, no longer susceptible of any doubt whatever, for sole proof thereof limiting themselves to the establishment of the antiquity and this very universality of the belief in god. this imposing unanimity, in the eyes of many illustrious men and writers to quote only the most famous of them who eloquently expressed it, joseph de maistre and the great italian patriot, giuseppe mazzini--is of more value than all the demonstrations of science; and if the reasoning of a small number of logical and even very powerful, but isolated, thinkers is against it, so much the worse, they say, for these thinkers and their logic, for universal consent, the general and primitive adoption of an idea, has always been considered the most triumphant testimony to its truth. the sentiment of the whole world, a conviction that is found and maintained always and everywhere, cannot be mistaken; it must have its root in a necessity absolutely inherent in the very nature of man. and since it has been established that all peoples, past and present, have believed and still believe in the existence of god, it is clear that those who have the misfortune to doubt it, whatever the logic that led them to this doubt, are abnormal exceptions, monsters. thus, then, the _antiquity_ and _universality_ of a belief should be regarded, contrary to all science and all logic, as sufficient and unimpeachable proof of its truth. why? until the days of copernicus and galileo everybody believed that the sun revolved about the earth. was not everybody mistaken? what is more ancient and more universal than slavery? cannibalism perhaps. from the origin of historic society down to the present day there has been always and everywhere exploitation of the compulsory labor of the masses--slaves, serfs, or wage-workers--by some dominant minority; oppression of the people by the church and by the state. must it be concluded that this exploitation and this oppression are necessities absolutely inherent in the very existence of human society? these are examples which show that the argument of the champions of god proves nothing. nothing, in fact, is as universal or as ancient as the iniquitous and absurd; truth and justice, on the contrary, are the least universal, the youngest features in the development of human society. in this fact, too, lies the explanation of a constant historical phenomenon--namely, the persecution of which those who first proclaim the truth have been and continue to be the objects at the hands of the official, privileged, and interested representatives of "universal" and "ancient" beliefs, and often also at the hands of the same masses who, after having tortured them, always end by adopting their ideas and rendering them victorious. to us materialists and revolutionary socialists, there is nothing astonishing or terrifying in this historical phenomenon. strong in our conscience, in our love of truth at all hazards, in that passion for logic which of itself alone constitutes a great power and outside of which there is no thought; strong in our passion for justice and in our unshakable faith in the triumph of humanity over all theoretical and practical bestialities; strong, finally, in the mutual confidence and support given each other by the few who share our convictions--we resign ourselves to all the consequences of this historical phenomenon, in which we see the manifestation of a social law as natural, as necessary, and as invariable as all the other laws which govern the world. this law is a logical, inevitable consequence of the _animal origin_ of human society; for in face of all the scientific, physiological, psychological, and historical proofs accumulated at the present day, as well as in face of the exploits of the germans conquering france, which now furnish so striking a demonstration thereof, it is no longer possible to really doubt this origin. but from the moment that this animal origin of man is accepted, all is explained. history then appears to us as the revolutionary negation, now slow, apathetic, sluggish, now passionate and powerful, of the past. it consists precisely in the progressive negation of the primitive animality of man by the development of his humanity. man, a wild beast, cousin of the gorilla, has emerged from the profound darkness of animal instinct into the light of the mind, which explains in a wholly natural way all his past mistakes and partially consoles us for his present errors. he has gone out from animal slavery, and passing through divine slavery, a temporary condition between his animality and his humanity, he is now marching on to the conquest and realization of human liberty. whence it results that the antiquity of a belief, of an idea, far from proving anything in its favor, ought, on the contrary, to lead us to suspect it. for behind us is our animality and before us our humanity; human light, the only thing that can warm and enlighten us, the only thing that can emancipate us, give us dignity, freedom, and happiness, and realize fraternity among us, is never at the beginning, but, relatively to the epoch in which we live, always at the end of history. let us, then, never look back, let us look ever forward; for forward is our sunlight, forward our salvation. if it is justifiable, and even useful and necessary, to turn back to study our past, it is only in order to establish what we have been and what we must no longer be, what we have believed and thought and what we must no longer believe or think, what we have done and what we must do nevermore. so much for _antiquity_. as for the _universality_ of an error, it proves but one thing--the similarity, if not the perfect identity, of human nature in all ages and under all skies. and, since it is established that all peoples, at all periods of their life, have believed and still believe in god, we must simply conclude that the divine idea, an outcome of ourselves, is an error historically necessary in the development of humanity, and ask why and how it was produced in history and why an immense majority of the human race still accept it as a truth. until we shall account to ourselves for the manner in which the idea of a supernatural or divine world was developed and had to be developed in the historical evolution of the human conscience, all our scientific conviction of its absurdity will be in vain; until then we shall never succeed in destroying it in the opinion of the majority, because we shall never be able to attack it in the very depths of the human being where it had birth. condemned to a fruitless struggle, without issue and without end, we should for ever have to content ourselves with fighting it solely on the surface, in its innumerable manifestations, whose absurdity will be scarcely beaten down by the blows of common sense before it will reappear in a new form no less nonsensical. while the root of all the absurdities that torment the world, belief in god, remains intact, it will never fail to bring forth new offspring. thus, at the present time, in certain sections of the highest society, spiritualism tends to establish itself upon the ruins of christianity. it is not only in the interest of the masses, it is in that of the health of our own minds, that we should strive to understand the historic genesis, the succession of causes which developed and produced the idea of god in the consciousness of men. in vain shall we call and believe ourselves atheists, until we comprehend these causes, for, until then, we shall always suffer ourselves to be more or less governed by the clamors of this universal conscience whose secret we have not discovered; and, considering the natural weakness of even the strongest individual against the all-powerful influence of the social surroundings that trammel him, we are always in danger of relapsing sooner or later, in one way or another, into the abyss of religious absurdity. examples of these shameful conversions are frequent in society to-day. * * * * * i have stated the chief practical reason of the power still exercised to-day over the masses by religious beliefs. these mystical tendencies do not signify in man so much an aberration of mind as a deep discontent at heart. they are the instinctive and passionate protest of the human being against the narrowness, the platitudes, the sorrows, and the shame of a wretched existence. for this malady, i have already said, there is but one remedy--social revolution. in the meantime i have endeavored to show the causes responsible for the birth and historical development of religious hallucinations in the human conscience. here it is my purpose to treat this question of the existence of a god, or of the divine origin of the world and of man, solely from the standpoint of its moral and social utility, and i shall say only a few words, to better explain my thought, regarding the theoretical grounds of this belief. all religions, with their gods, their demigods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the credulous fancy of men who had not attained the full development and full possession of their faculties. consequently, the religious heaven is nothing but a mirage in which man, exalted by ignorance and faith, discovers his own image, but enlarged and reversed--that is, _divinized_. the history of religions, of the birth, grandeur, and decline of the gods who have succeeded one another in human belief, is nothing, therefore, but the development of the collective intelligence and conscience of mankind. as fast as they discovered, in the course of their historically progressive advance, either in themselves or in external nature, a power, a quality, or even any great defect whatever, they attributed them to their gods, after having exaggerated and enlarged them beyond measure, after the manner of children, by an act of their religious fancy. thanks to this modesty and pious generosity of believing and credulous men, heaven has grown rich with the spoils of the earth, and, by a necessary consequence, the richer heaven became, the more wretched became humanity and the earth. god once installed, he was naturally proclaimed the cause, reason, arbiter, and absolute disposer of all things: the world thenceforth was nothing, god was all; and man, his real creator, after having unknowingly extracted him from the void, bowed down before him, worshipped him, and avowed himself his creature and his slave. christianity is precisely the religion _par excellence_, because it exhibits and manifests, to the fullest extent, the very nature and essence of every religious system, which is _the impoverishment, enslavement, and annihilation of humanity for the benefit of divinity_. god being everything, the real world and man are nothing. god being truth, justice, goodness, beauty, power, and life, man is falsehood, iniquity, evil, ugliness, impotence, and death. god being master, man is the slave. incapable of finding justice, truth, and eternal life by his own effort, he can attain them only through a divine revelation. but whoever says revelation says revealers, messiahs, prophets, priests, and legislators inspired by god himself; and these, once recognized as the representatives of divinity on earth, as the holy instructors of humanity, chosen by god himself to direct it in the path of salvation, necessarily exercise absolute power. all men owe them passive and unlimited obedience; for against the divine reason there is no human reason, and against the justice of god no terrestrial justice holds. slaves of god, men must also be slaves of church and state, _in so far as the state is consecrated by the church_. this truth christianity, better than all other religions that exist or have existed, understood, not excepting even the old oriental religions, which included only distinct and privileged nations, while christianity aspires to embrace entire humanity; and this truth roman catholicism, alone among all the christian sects, has proclaimed and realized with rigorous logic. that is why christianity is the absolute religion, the final religion; why the apostolic and roman church is the only consistent, legitimate, and divine church. with all due respect, then, to the metaphysicians and religious idealists, philosophers, politicians, or poets: _the idea of god implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, both in theory and practice._ unless, then, we desire the enslavement and degradation of mankind, as the jesuits desire it, as the _mômiers_, pietists, or protestant methodists desire it, we may not, must not make the slightest concession either to the god of theology or to the god of metaphysics. he who, in this mystical alphabet, begins with a will inevitably end with z; he who desires to worship god must harbor no childish allusions about the matter, but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity. if god is, man is a slave; now, man can and must be free; then, god does not exist. i defy anyone whomsoever to avoid this circle; now, therefore, let all choose. is it necessary to point out to what extent and in what manner religions debase and corrupt the people? they destroy their reason, the principal instrument of human emancipation, and reduce them to imbecility, the essential condition of their slavery. they dishonor human labor, and make it a sign and source of servitude. they kill the idea and sentiment of human justice, ever tipping the balance to the side of triumphant knaves, privileged objects of divine indulgence. they kill human pride and dignity, protecting only the cringing and humble. they stifle in the heart of nations every feeling of human fraternity, filling it with divine cruelty instead. all religions are cruel, all founded on blood; for all rest principally on the idea of sacrifice--that is, on the perpetual immolation of humanity to the insatiable vengeance of divinity. in this bloody mystery man is always the victim, and the priest--a man also, but a man privileged by grace--is the divine executioner. that explains why the priests of all religions, the best, the most humane, the gentlest, almost always have at the bottom of their hearts--and, if not in their hearts, in their imaginations, in their minds (and we know the fearful influence of either on the hearts of men)--something cruel and sanguinary. none know all this better than our illustrious contemporary idealists. they are learned men, who know history by heart; and, as they are at the same time living men, great souls penetrated with a sincere and profound love for the welfare of humanity, they have cursed and branded all these misdeeds, all these crimes of religion with an eloquence unparalleled. they reject with indignation all solidarity with the god of positive religions and with his representatives, past, present, and on earth. the god whom they adore, or whom they think they adore, is distinguished from the real gods of history precisely in this--that he is not at all a positive god, defined in any way whatever, theologically or even metaphysically. he is neither the supreme being of robespierre and j. j. rousseau, nor the pantheistic god of spinoza, nor even the at once immanent, transcendental, and very equivocal god of hegel. they take good care not to give him any positive definition whatever, feeling very strongly that any definition would subject him to the dissolving power of criticism. they will not say whether he is a personal or impersonal god, whether he created or did not create the world; they will not even speak of his divine providence. all that might compromise him. they content themselves with saying "god" and nothing more. but, then, what is their god? not even an idea; it is an aspiration. it is the generic name of all that seems grand, good, beautiful, noble, human to them. but why, then, do they not say, "man." ah! because king william of prussia and napoleon iii. and all their compeers are likewise men: which bothers them very much. real humanity presents a mixture of all that is most sublime and beautiful with all that is vilest and most monstrous in the world. how do they get over this? why, they call one _divine_ and the other _bestial_, representing divinity and animality as two poles, between which they place humanity. they either will not or cannot understand that these three terms are really but one, and that to separate them is to destroy them. they are not strong on logic, and one might say that they despise it. that is what distinguishes them from the pantheistical and deistical metaphysicians, and gives their ideas the character of a practical idealism, drawing its inspiration much less from the severe development of a thought than from the experiences, i might almost say the emotions, historical and collective as well as individual, of life. this gives their propaganda an appearance of wealth and vital power, but an appearance only; for life itself becomes sterile when paralyzed by a logical contradiction. this contradiction lies here: they wish god, and they wish humanity. they persist in connecting two terms which, once separated, can come together again only to destroy each other. they say in a single breath: "god and the liberty of man," "god and the dignity, justice, equality, fraternity, prosperity of men"--regardless of the fatal logic by virtue of which, if god exists, all these things are condemned to non-existence. for, if god is, he is necessarily the eternal, supreme, absolute master, and, if such a master exists, man is a slave; now, if he is a slave, neither justice, nor equality, nor fraternity, nor prosperity are possible for him. in vain, flying in the face of good sense and all the teachings of history, do they represent their god as animated by the tenderest love of human liberty: a master, whoever he may be and however liberal he may desire to show himself, remains none the less always a master. his existence necessarily implies the slavery of all that is beneath him. therefore, if god existed, only in one way could he serve human liberty--by ceasing to exist. a jealous lover of human liberty, and deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, i reverse the phrase of voltaire, and say that, _if god really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him_. the severe logic that dictates these words is far too evident to require a development of this argument. and it seems to me impossible that the illustrious men, whose names so celebrated and so justly respected i have cited, should not have been struck by it themselves, and should not have perceived the contradiction in which they involve themselves in speaking of god and human liberty at once. to have disregarded it, they must have considered this inconsistency or logical license _practically_ necessary to humanity's well-being. perhaps, too, while speaking of _liberty_ as something very respectable and very dear in their eyes, they give the term a meaning quite different from the conception entertained by us, materialists and revolutionary socialists. indeed, they never speak of it without immediately adding another word, _authority_--a word and a thing which we detest with all our heart. what is authority? is it the inevitable power of the natural laws which manifest themselves in the necessary concatenation and succession of phenomena in the physical and social worlds? indeed, against these laws revolt is not only forbidden--it is even impossible. we may misunderstand them or not know them at all, but we cannot disobey them; because they constitute the basis and fundamental conditions of our existence; they envelop us, penetrate us, regulate all our movements, thoughts, and acts; even when we believe that we disobey them, we only show their omnipotence. yes, we are absolutely the slaves of these laws. but in such slavery there is no humiliation, or, rather, it is not slavery at all. for slavery supposes an external master, a legislator outside of him whom he commands, while these laws are not outside of us; they are inherent in us; they constitute our being, our whole being, physically, intellectually, and morally: we live, we breathe, we act, we think, we wish only through these laws. without them we are nothing, _we are not_. whence, then, could we derive the power and the wish to rebel against them? in his relation to natural laws but one liberty is possible to man--that of recognizing and applying them on an ever-extending scale in conformity with the object of collective and individual emancipation or humanization which he pursues. these laws, once recognized, exercise an authority which is never disputed by the mass of men. one must, for instance, be at bottom either a fool or a theologian or at least a metaphysician, jurist, or bourgeois economist to rebel against the law by which twice two make four. one must have faith to imagine that fire will not burn nor water drown, except, indeed, recourse be had to some subterfuge founded in its turn on some other natural law. but these revolts, or, rather, these attempts at or foolish fancies of an impossible revolt, are decidedly the exception; for, in general, it may be said that the mass of men, in their daily lives, acknowledge the government of common sense--that is, of the sum of the natural laws generally recognized--in an almost absolute fashion. the great misfortune is that a large number of natural laws, already established as such by science, remain unknown to the masses, thanks to the watchfulness of these tutelary governments that exist, as we know, only for the good of the people. there is another difficulty--namely, that the major portion of the natural laws connected with the development of human society, which are quite as necessary, invariable, fatal, as the laws that govern the physical world, have not been duly established and recognized by science itself. once they shall have been recognized by science, and then from science, by means of an extensive system of popular education and instruction, shall have passed into the consciousness of all, the question of liberty will be entirely solved. the most stubborn authorities must admit that then there will be no need either of political organization or direction or legislation, three things which, whether they emanate from the will of the sovereign or from the vote of a parliament elected by universal suffrage, and even should they conform to the system of natural laws--which has never been the case and never will be the case--are always equally fatal and hostile to the liberty of the masses from the very fact that they impose upon them a system of external and therefore despotic laws. the liberty of man consists solely in this: that he obeys natural laws because he has _himself_ recognized them as such, and not because they have been externally imposed upon him by any extrinsic will whatever, divine or human, collective or individual. suppose a learned academy, composed of the most illustrious representatives of science; suppose this academy charged with legislation for and the organization of society, and that, inspired only by the purest love of truth, it frames none but laws in absolute harmony with the latest discoveries of science. well, i maintain, for my part, that such legislation and such organization would be a monstrosity, and that for two reasons: first, that human science is always and necessarily imperfect, and that, comparing what it has discovered with what remains to be discovered, we may say that it is still in its cradle. so that were we to try to force the practical life of men, collective as well as individual, into strict and exclusive conformity with the latest data of science, we should condemn society as well as individuals to suffer martyrdom on a bed of procrustes, which would soon end by dislocating and stifling them, life ever remaining an infinitely greater thing than science. the second reason is this: a society which should obey legislation emanating from a scientific academy, not because it understood itself the rational character of this legislation (in which case the existence of the academy would become useless), but because this legislation, emanating from the academy, was imposed in the name of a science which it venerated without comprehending--such a society would be a society, not of men, but of brutes. it would be a second edition of those missions in paraguay which submitted so long to the government of the jesuits. it would surely and rapidly descend to the lowest stage of idiocy. but there is still a third reason which would render such a government impossible--namely that a scientific academy invested with a sovereignty, so to speak, absolute, even if it were composed of the most illustrious men, would infallibly and soon end in its own moral and intellectual corruption. even to-day, with the few privileges allowed them, such is the history of all academies. the greatest scientific genius, from the moment that he becomes an academician, an officially licensed _savant_, inevitably lapses into sluggishness. he loses his spontaneity, his revolutionary hardihood, and that troublesome and savage energy characteristic of the grandest geniuses, ever called to destroy old tottering worlds and lay the foundations of new. he undoubtedly gains in politeness, in utilitarian and practical wisdom, what he loses in power of thought. in a word, he becomes corrupted. it is the characteristic of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the mind and heart of men. the privileged man, whether politically or economically, is a man depraved in mind and heart. that is a social law which admits of no exception, and is as applicable to entire nations as to classes, corporations, and individuals. it is the law of equality, the supreme condition of liberty and humanity. the principal object of this treatise is precisely to demonstrate this truth in all the manifestations of human life. a scientific body to which had been confided the government of society would soon end by devoting itself no longer to science at all, but to quite another affair; and that affair, as in the case of all established powers, would be its own eternal perpetuation by rendering the society confided to its care ever more stupid and consequently more in need of its government and direction. but that which is true of scientific academies is also true of all constituent and legislative assemblies, even those chosen by universal suffrage. in the latter case they may renew their composition, it is true, but this does not prevent the formation in a few years' time of a body of politicians, privileged in fact though not in law, who, devoting themselves exclusively to the direction of the public affairs of a country, finally form a sort of political aristocracy or oligarchy. witness the united states of america and switzerland. consequently, no external legislation and no authority--one, for that matter, being inseparable from the other, and both tending to the servitude of society and the degradation of the legislators themselves. does it follow that i reject all authority? far from me such a thought. in the matter of boots, i refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, i consult that of the architect or engineer. for such or such special knowledge i apply to such or such a _savant_. but i allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the _savant_ to impose his authority upon me. i listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure. i do not content myself with consulting a single authority in any special branch; i consult several; i compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest. but i recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect i may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, i have no absolute faith in any person. such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others. if i bow before the authority of the specialists and avow my readiness to follow, to a certain extent and as long as may seem to me necessary, their indications and even their directions, it is because their authority is imposed upon me by no one, neither by men nor by god. otherwise i would repel them with horror, and bid the devil take their counsels, their directions, and their services, certain that they would make me pay, by the loss of my liberty and self-respect, for such scraps of truth, wrapped in a multitude of lies, as they might give me. i bow before the authority of special men because it is imposed upon me by my own reason. i am conscious of my inability to grasp, in all its details and positive developments, any very large portion of human knowledge. the greatest intelligence would not be equal to a comprehension of the whole. thence results, for science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and association of labor. i receive and i give--such is human life. each directs and is directed in his turn. therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subordination. this same reason forbids me, then, to recognize a fixed, constant, and universal authority, because there is no universal man, no man capable of grasping in that wealth of detail, without which the application of science to life is impossible, all the sciences, all the branches of social life. and if such universality could ever be realized in a single man, and if he wished to take advantage thereof to impose his authority upon us, it would be necessary to drive this man out of society, because his authority would inevitably reduce all the others to slavery and imbecility. i do not think that society ought to maltreat men of genius as it has done hitherto; but neither do i think it should indulge them too far, still less accord them any privileges or exclusive rights whatsoever; and that for three reasons: first, because it would often mistake a charlatan for a man of genius; second, because, through such a system of privileges, it might transform into a charlatan even a real man of genius, demoralize him, and degrade him; and, finally, because it would establish a master over itself. to sum up. we recognize, then, the absolute authority of science, because the sole object of science is the mental reproduction, as well-considered and systematic as possible, of the natural laws inherent in the material, intellectual, and moral life of both the physical and the social worlds, these two worlds constituting, in fact, but one and the same natural world. outside of this only legitimate authority, legitimate because rational and in harmony with human liberty, we declare all other authorities false, arbitrary and fatal. we recognize the absolute authority of science, but we reject the infallibility and universality of the _savant_. in our church--if i may be permitted to use for a moment an expression which i so detest: church and state are my two _bêtes noires_--in our church, as in the protestant church, we have a chief, an invisible christ, science; and, like the protestants, more logical even than the protestants, we will suffer neither pope, nor council, nor conclaves of infallible cardinals, nor bishops, nor even priests. our christ differs from the protestant and christian christ in this--that the latter is a personal being, ours impersonal; the christian christ, already completed in an eternal past, presents himself as a perfect being, while the completion and perfection of our christ, science, are ever in the future: which is equivalent to saying that they will never be realized. therefore, in recognizing _absolute science_ as the only absolute authority, we in no way compromise our liberty. i mean by the words "absolute science," the truly universal science which would reproduce ideally, to its fullest extent and in all its infinite detail, the universe, the system or co-ordination of all the natural laws manifested by the incessant development of the world. it is evident that such a science, the sublime object of all the efforts of the human mind, will never be fully and absolutely realized. our christ, then, will remain eternally unfinished, which must considerably take down the pride of his licensed representatives among us. against that god the son in whose name they assume to impose upon us their insolent and pedantic authority, we appeal to god the father, who is the real world, real life, of which he (the son) is only a too imperfect expression, whilst we real beings, living, working, struggling, loving, aspiring, enjoying, and suffering, are its immediate representatives. but, while rejecting the absolute, universal, and infallible authority of men of science, we willingly bow before the respectable, although relative, quite temporary, and very restricted authority of the representatives of special sciences, asking nothing better than to consult them by turns, and very grateful for such precious information as they may extend to us, on condition of their willingness to receive from us on occasions when, and concerning matters about which, we are more learned than they. in general, we ask nothing better than to see men endowed with great knowledge, great experience, great minds, and, above all, great hearts, exercise over us a natural and legitimate influence, freely accepted, and never imposed in the name of any official authority whatsoever, celestial or terrestrial. we accept all natural authorities and all influences of fact, but none of right; for every authority or every influence of right, officially imposed as such, becoming directly an oppression and a falsehood, would inevitably impose upon us, as i believe i have sufficiently shown, slavery and absurdity. in a word, we reject all legislation, all authority, and all privileged, licensed, official, and legal influence, even though arising from universal suffrage, convinced that it can turn only to the advantage of a dominant minority of exploiters against the interests of the immense majority in subjection to them. this is the sense in which we are really anarchists. the modern idealists understand authority in quite a different way. although free from the traditional superstitions of all the existing positive religions, they nevertheless attach to this idea of authority a divine, an absolute meaning. this authority is not that of a truth miraculously revealed, nor that of a truth rigorously and scientifically demonstrated. they base it to a slight extent upon quasi-philosophical reasoning, and to a large extent on vaguely religious faith, to a large extent also on sentiment, ideally, abstractly poetical. their religion is, as it were, a last attempt to divinize all that constitutes humanity in men. this is just the opposite of the work that we are doing. in behalf of human liberty, dignity, and prosperity, we believe it our duty to recover from heaven the goods which it has stolen and return them to earth. they, on the contrary, endeavoring to commit a final religiously heroic larceny, would restore to heaven, that divine robber, finally unmasked, the grandest, finest, and noblest of humanity's possessions. it is now the freethinkers' turn to pillage heaven by their audacious impiety and scientific analysis. the idealists undoubtedly believe that human ideas and deeds, in order to exercise greater authority among men, must be invested with a divine sanction. how is this sanction manifested? not by a miracle, as in the positive religions, but by the very grandeur or sanctity of the ideas and deeds: whatever is grand, whatever is beautiful, whatever is noble, whatever is just, is considered divine. in this new religious cult every man inspired by these ideas, by these deeds, becomes a priest, directly consecrated by god himself. and the proof? he needs none beyond the very grandeur of the ideas which he expresses and the deeds which he performs. these are so holy that they can have been inspired only by god. such, in few words, is their whole philosophy: a philosophy of sentiments, not of real thoughts, a sort of metaphysical pietism. this seems harmless, but it is not so at all, and the very precise, very narrow, and very barren doctrine hidden under the intangible vagueness of these poetic forms leads to the same disastrous results that all the positive religions lead to--namely, the most complete negation of human liberty and dignity. to proclaim as divine all that is grand, just, noble, and beautiful in humanity is to tacitly admit that humanity of itself would have been unable to produce it--that is, that, abandoned to itself, its own nature is miserable, iniquitous, base, and ugly. thus we come back to the essence of all religion--in other words, to the disparagement of humanity for the greater glory of divinity. and from the moment that the natural inferiority of man and his fundamental incapacity to rise by his own effort, unaided by any divine inspiration, to the comprehension of just and true ideas, are admitted, it becomes necessary to admit also all the theological, political, and social consequences of the positive religions. from the moment that god, the perfect and supreme being, is posited face to face with humanity, divine mediators, the elect, the inspired of god spring from the earth to enlighten, direct, and govern in his name the human race. may we not suppose that all men are equally inspired by god? then, surely, there is no further use for mediators. but this supposition is impossible, because it is too clearly contradicted by the facts. it would compel us to attribute to divine inspiration all the absurdities and errors which appear, and all the horrors, follies, base deeds, and cowardly actions which are committed, in the world. but perhaps, then, only a few men are divinely inspired, the great men of history, the _virtuous geniuses_, as the illustrious italian citizen and prophet, giuseppe mazzini, called them. immediately inspired by god himself and supported upon universal consent expressed by popular suffrage--_dio e popolo_--such as these should be called to the government of human societies.[3] but here we are again fallen back under the yoke of church and state. it is true that in this new organization, indebted for its existence, like all the old political organizations, to the _grace of god_, but supported this time--at least so far as form is concerned, as a necessary concession to the spirit of modern times, and just as in the preambles of the imperial decrees of napoleon iii.--on the (pretended) _will of the people_, the church will no longer call itself church; it will call itself school. what matters it? on the benches of this school will be seated not children only; there will be found the eternal minor, the pupil confessedly forever incompetent to pass his examinations, rise to the knowledge of his teachers, and dispense with their discipline--the people.[4] the state will no longer call itself monarchy; it will call itself republic: but it will be none the less the state--that is, a tutelage officially and regularly established by a minority of competent men, _men of virtuous genius or talent_, who will watch and guide the conduct of this great, incorrigible, and terrible child, the people. the professors of the school and the functionaries of the state will call themselves republicans; but they will be none the less tutors, shepherds, and the people will remain what they have been hitherto from all eternity, a flock. beware of shearers, for where there is a flock there necessarily must be shepherds also to shear and devour it. the people, in this system, will be the perpetual scholar and pupil. in spite of its sovereignty, wholly fictitious, it will continue to serve as the instrument of thoughts, wills, and consequently interests not its own. between this situation and what we call liberty, the only real liberty, there is an abyss. it will be the old oppression and old slavery under new forms; and where there is slavery there is misery, brutishness, real social _materialism_, among the privileged classes as well as among the masses. _in deifying human things the idealists always end in the triumph of a brutal materialism._ and this for a very simple reason: the divine evaporates and rises to its own country, heaven, while the brutal alone remains actually on earth. yes, the necessary consequence of theoretical idealism is practically the most brutal materialism; not, undoubtedly, among those who sincerely preach it--the usual result as far as they are concerned being that they are constrained to see all their efforts struck with sterility--but among those who try to realize their precepts in life, and in all society so far as it allows itself to be dominated by idealistic doctrines. to demonstrate this general fact, which may appear strange at first, but which explains itself naturally enough upon further reflection, historical proofs are not lacking. compare the last two civilizations of the ancient world--the greek and the roman. which is the most materialistic, the most natural, in its point of departure, and the most humanly ideal in its results? undoubtedly the greek civilization. which on the contrary, is the most abstractly ideal in its point of departure--sacrificing the material liberty of the man to the ideal liberty of the citizen, represented by the abstraction of judicial law, and the natural development of human society to the abstraction of the state--and which became nevertheless the most brutal in its consequences? the roman civilization, certainly. it is true that the greek civilization, like all the ancient civilizations, including that of rome, was exclusively national and based on slavery. but, in spite of these two immense defects, the former none the less conceived and realized the idea of humanity; it ennobled and really idealized the life of men; it transformed human herds into free associations of free men; it created through liberty the sciences, the arts, a poetry, an immortal philosophy, and the primary concepts of human respect. with political and social liberty, it created free thought. at the close of the middle ages, during the period of the renaissance, the fact that some greek emigrants brought a few of those immortal books into italy sufficed to resuscitate life, liberty, thought, humanity, buried in the dark dungeon of catholicism. human emancipation, that is the name of the greek civilization. and the name of the roman civilization? conquest, with all its brutal consequences. and its last word? the omnipotence of the cæsars. which means the degradation and enslavement of nations and of men. to-day even, what is it that kills, what is it that crushes brutally, materially, in all european countries, liberty and humanity? it is the triumph of the cæsarian or roman principle. compare now two modern civilizations--the italian and the german. the first undoubtedly represents, in its general character, materialism; the second, on the contrary, represents idealism in its most abstract, most pure, and most transcendental form. let us see what are the practical fruits of the one and the other. italy has already rendered immense services to the cause of human emancipation. she was the first to resuscitate and widely apply the principle of liberty in europe, and to restore to humanity its titles to nobility: industry, commerce, poetry, the arts, the positive sciences, and free thought. crushed since by three centuries of imperial and papal despotism, and dragged in the mud by her governing bourgeoisie, she reappears to-day, it is true, in a very degraded condition in comparison with what she once was. and yet how much she differs from germany! in italy, in spite of this decline--temporary let us hope--one may live and breathe humanly, surrounded by a people which seems to be born for liberty. italy, even bourgeois italy, can point with pride to men like mazzini and garibaldi. in germany one breathes the atmosphere of an immense political and social slavery, philosophically explained and accepted by a great people with deliberate resignation and free will. her heroes--i speak always of present germany, not of the germany of the future; of aristocratic, bureaucratic, political and bourgeoise germany, not of the germany of the _prolétaires_--her heroes are quite the opposite of mazzini and garibaldi: they are william i., that ferocious and ingenuous representative of the protestant god, messrs. bismarck and moltke, generals manteuffel and werder. in all her international relations germany, from the beginning of her existence, has been slowly, systematically invading, conquering, ever ready to extend her own voluntary enslavement into the territory of her neighbors; and, since her definitive establishment as a unitary power, she has become a menace, a danger to the liberty of entire europe. to-day germany is servility brutal and triumphant. to show how theoretical idealism incessantly and inevitably changes into practical materialism, one needs only to cite the example of all the christian churches, and, naturally, first of all, that of the apostolic and roman church. what is there more sublime, in the ideal sense, more disinterested, more separate from all the interests of this earth, than the doctrine of christ preached by that church? and what is there more brutally materialistic than the constant practice of that same church since the eighth century, from which dates her definitive establishment as a power? what has been and still is the principal object of all her contests with the sovereigns of europe? her temporal goods, her revenues first, and then her temporal power, her political privileges. we must do her the justice to acknowledge that she was the first to discover, in modern history, this incontestable but scarcely christian truth that wealth and power, the economic exploitation and the political oppression of the masses, are the two inseparable terms of the reign of divine ideality on earth: wealth consolidating and augmenting power, power ever discovering and creating new sources of wealth, and both assuring, better than the martyrdom and faith of the apostles, better than divine grace, the success of the christian propagandism. this is a historical truth, and the protestant churches do not fail to recognize it either. i speak, of course, of the independent churches of england, america, and switzerland, not of the subjected churches of germany. the latter have no initiative of their own; they do what their masters, their temporal sovereigns, who are at the same time their spiritual chieftains, order them to do. it is well known that the protestant propagandism, especially in england and america, is very intimately connected with the propagandism of the material, commercial interests of those two great nations; and it is known also that the objects of the latter propagandism is not at all the enrichment and material prosperity of the countries into which it penetrates in company with the word of god, but rather the exploitation of those countries with a view to the enrichment and material prosperity of certain classes, which in their own country are very covetous and very pious at the same time. in a word, it is not at all difficult to prove, history in hand, that the church, that all the churches, christian and non-christian, by the side of their spiritualistic propagandism, and probably to accelerate and consolidate the success thereof, have never neglected to organize themselves into great corporations for the economic exploitation of the masses under the protection and with the direct and special blessing of some divinity or other; that all the states, which originally, as we know, with all their political and judicial institutions and their dominant and privileged classes, have been only temporal branches of these various churches, have likewise had principally in view this same exploitation for the benefit of lay minorities indirectly sanctioned by the church; finally and in general, that the action of the good god and of all the divine idealities on earth has ended at last, always and everywhere, in founding the prosperous materialism of the few over the fanatical and constantly famishing idealism of the masses. we have a new proof of this in what we see to-day. with the exception of the great hearts and great minds whom i have before referred to as misled, who are to-day the most obstinate defenders of idealism? in the first place, all the sovereign courts. in france, until lately, napoleon iii. and his wife, madame eugénie; all their former ministers, courtiers, and ex-marshals, from rouher and bazaine to fleury and piétri; the men and women of this imperial world, who have so completely idealized and saved france; their journalists and their _savants_--the cassagnacs, the girardins, the duvernois, the veuillots, the leverriers, the dumas; the black phalanx of jesuits and jesuitesses in every garb; the whole upper and middle bourgeoisie of france; the doctrinaire liberals, and the liberals without doctrine--the guizots, the thiers, the jules favres, the pelletans, and the jules simons, all obstinate defenders of the bourgeoise exploitation. in prussia, in germany, william i., the present royal demonstrator of the good god on earth; all his generals, all his officers, pomeranian and other; all his army, which, strong in its religious faith, has just conquered france in that ideal way we know so well. in russia, the czar and his court; the mouravieffs and the bergs, all the butchers and pious proselyters of poland. everywhere, in short, religious or philosophical idealism, the one being but the more or less free translation of the other, serves to-day as the flag of material, bloody, and brutal force, of shameless material exploitation; while, on the contrary, the flag of theoretical materialism, the red flag of economic equality and social justice, is raised by the practical idealism of the oppressed and famishing masses, tending to realize the greatest liberty and the human right of each in the fraternity of all men on the earth. who are the real idealists--the idealists not of abstraction, but of life, not of heaven, but of earth--and who are the materialists? it is evident that the essential condition of theoretical or divine idealism is the sacrifice of logic, of human reason, the renunciation of science. we see, further, that in defending the doctrines of idealism one finds himself enlisted perforce in the ranks of the oppressors and exploiters of the masses. these are two great reasons which, it would seem, should be sufficient to drive every great mind, every great heart, from idealism. how does it happen that our illustrious contemporary idealists, who certainly lack neither mind, nor heart, nor good will, and who have devoted their entire existence to the service of humanity--how does it happen that they persist in remaining among the representatives of a doctrine henceforth condemned and dishonored? they must be influenced by a very powerful motive. it cannot be logic or science, since logic and science have pronounced their verdict against the idealistic doctrine. no more can it be personal interests, since these men are infinitely above everything of that sort. it must, then, be a powerful moral motive. which? there can be but one. these illustrious men think, no doubt, that idealistic theories or beliefs are essentially necessary to the moral dignity and grandeur of man, and that materialistic theories, on the contrary, reduce him to the level of the beasts. and if the truth were just the opposite! every development, i have said, implies the negation of its point of departure. the basis or point of departure, according to the materialistic school, being material, the negation must be necessarily ideal. starting from the totality of the real world, or from what is abstractly called matter, it logically arrives at the real idealization--that is, at the humanization, at the full and complete emancipation--of society. _per contra_ and for the same reason, the basis and point of departure of the idealistic school being ideal, it arrives necessarily at the materialization of society, at the organization of a brutal despotism and an iniquitous and ignoble exploitation, under the form of church and state. the historical development of man according to the materialistic school, is a progressive ascension; in the idealistic system it can be nothing but a continuous fall. whatever human question we may desire to consider, we always find this same essential contradiction between the two schools. thus, as i have already observed, materialism starts from animality to establish humanity; idealism starts from divinity to establish slavery and condemn the masses to an endless animality. materialism denies free will and ends in the establishment of liberty; idealism, in the name of human dignity, proclaims free will, and on the ruins of every liberty founds authority. materialism rejects the principle of authority, because it rightly considers it as the corollary of animality, and because, on the contrary, the triumph of humanity, the object and chief significance of history, can be realized only through liberty. in a word, you will always find the idealists in the very act of practical materialism, while you will see the materialists pursuing and realizing the most grandly ideal aspirations and thoughts. history, in the system of the idealists, as i have said, can be nothing but a continuous fall. they begin by a terrible fall, from which they never recover--by the _salto mortale_ from the sublime regions of pure and absolute idea into matter. and into what kind of matter! not into the matter which is eternally active and mobile, full of properties and forces, of life and intelligence, as we see it in the real world; but into abstract matter, impoverished and reduced to absolute misery by the regular looting of these prussians of thought, the theologians and metaphysicians, who have stripped it of everything to give everything to their emperor, to their god; into the matter which, deprived of all action and movement of its own, represents, in opposition to the divine idea, nothing but absolute stupidity, impenetrability, inertia and immobility. the fall is so terrible that divinity, the divine person or idea, is flattened out, loses consciousness of itself, and never more recovers it. and in this desperate situation it is still forced to work miracles! for from the moment that matter becomes inert, every movement that takes place in the world, even the most material, is a miracle, can result only from a providential intervention, from the action of god upon matter. and there this poor divinity, degraded and half annihilated by its fall, lies some thousands of centuries in this swoon, then awakens slowly, in vain endeavoring to grasp some vague memory of itself, and every move that it makes in this direction upon matter becomes a creation, a new formation, a new miracle. in this way it passes through all degrees of materiality and bestiality--first, gas, simple or compound chemical substance, mineral, it then spreads over the earth as vegetable and animal organization till it concentrates itself in man. here it would seem as if it must become itself again, for it lights in every human being an angelic spark, a particle of its own divine being, the immortal soul. how did it manage to lodge a thing absolutely immaterial in a thing absolutely material; how can the body contain, enclose, limit, paralyze pure spirit? this, again, is one of those questions which faith alone, that passionate and stupid affirmation of the absurd, can solve. it is the greatest of miracles. here, however, we have only to establish the effects, the practical consequences of this miracle. after thousands of centuries of vain efforts to come back to itself, divinity, lost and scattered in the matter which it animates and sets in motion, finds a point of support, a sort of focus for self-concentration. this focus is man, his immortal soul singularly imprisoned in a mortal body. but each man considered individually is infinitely too limited, too small, to enclose the divine immensity; it can contain only a very small particle, immortal like the whole, but infinitely smaller than the whole. it follows that the divine being, the absolutely immaterial being, mind, is divisible like matter. another mystery whose solution must be left to faith. if god entire could find lodgment in each man, then each man would be god. we should have an immense quantity of gods, each limited by all the others and yet none the less infinite--a contradiction which would imply a mutual destruction of men, an impossibility of the existence of more than one. as for the particles, that is another matter; nothing more rational, indeed, than that one particle should be limited by another and be smaller than the whole. only, here another contradiction confronts us. to be limited, to be greater and smaller are attributes of matter, not of mind. according to the materialists, it is true, mind is only the working of the wholly material organism of man, and the greatness or smallness of mind depends absolutely on the greater or less material perfection of the human organism. but these same attributes of relative limitation and grandeur cannot be attributed to mind as the idealists conceive it, absolutely immaterial mind, mind existing independent of matter. there can be neither greater nor smaller nor any limit among minds, for there is only one mind--god. to add that the infinitely small and limited particles which constitute human souls are at the same time immortal is to carry the contradiction to a climax. but this is a question of faith. let us pass on. here then we have divinity torn up and lodged, in infinitely small particles, in an immense number of beings of all sexes, ages, races, and colors. this is an excessively inconvenient and unhappy situation, for the divine particles are so little acquainted with each other at the outset of their human existence that they begin by devouring each other. moreover, in the midst of this state of barbarism and wholly animal brutality, these divine particles, human souls, retain as it were a vague remembrance of their primitive divinity, and are irresistibly drawn towards their whole; they seek each other, they seek their whole. it is divinity itself, scattered and lost in the natural world, which looks for itself in men, and it is so demolished by this multitude of human prisons in which it finds itself strewn, that, in looking for itself, it commits folly after folly. beginning with fetichism, it searches for and adores itself, now in a stone, now in a piece of wood, now in a rag. it is quite likely that it would never have succeeded in getting out of the rag, if _the other_ divinity which was not allowed to fall into matter and which is kept in a state of pure spirit in the sublime heights of the absolute ideal, or in the celestial regions, had not had pity on it. here is a new mystery--that of divinity dividing itself into two halves, both equally infinite, of which one--god the father--stays in the purely immaterial regions, and the other--god the son--falls into matter. we shall see directly, between these two divinities separated from each other, continuous relations established, from above to below and from below to above; and these relations, considered as a single eternal and constant act, will constitute the holy ghost. such, in its veritable theological and metaphysical meaning, is the great, the terrible mystery of the christian trinity. but let us lose no time in abandoning these heights to see what is going on upon earth. god the father, seeing from the height of his eternal splendor that the poor god the son, flattened out and astounded by his fall, is so plunged and lost in matter that even having reached human state he has not yet recovered himself, decides to come to his aid. from this immense number of particles at once immortal, divine, and infinitely small, in which god the son has disseminated himself so thoroughly that he does not know himself, god the father chooses those most pleasing to him, picks his inspired persons, his prophets, his "men of virtuous genius," the great benefactors and legislators of humanity: zoroaster, buddha, moses, confucius, lycurgus, solon, socrates, the divine plato, and above all jesus christ, the complete realization of god the son, at last collected and concentrated in a single human person; all the apostles, saint peter, saint paul, and saint john before all, constantine the great, mahomet, then charlemagne, gregory vii., dante, and, according to some, luther also, voltaire and rousseau, robespierre and danton, and many other great and holy historical personages, all of whose names it is impossible to recapitulate, but among whom i, as a russian, beg that saint nicholas may not be forgotten. then we have reached at last the manifestation of god upon earth. but immediately god appears, man is reduced to nothing. it will be said that he is not reduced to nothing, since he is himself a particle of god. pardon me! i admit that a particle of a definite, limited whole, however small it be, is a quantity, a positive greatness. but a particle of the infinitely great, compared with it, is necessarily infinitely small. multiply milliards of milliards by milliards of milliards--their product compared to the infinitely great, will be infinitely small, and the infinitely small is equal to zero. god is everything; therefore man and all the real world with him, the universe, are nothing. you will not escape this conclusion. god appears, man is reduced to nothing; and the greater divinity becomes, the more miserable becomes humanity. that is the history of all religions; that is the effect of all the divine inspirations and legislations. in history the name of god is the terrible club with which all divinely inspired men, the great "virtuous geniuses," have beaten down the liberty, dignity, reason, and prosperity of man. we had first the fall of god. now we have a fall which interests us more--that of man, caused solely by the apparition of god manifested on earth. see in how profound an error our dear and illustrious idealists find themselves. in talking to us of god they purpose, they desire, to elevate us, emancipate us, ennoble us, and, on the contrary, they crush and degrade us. with the name of god they imagine that they can establish fraternity among men, and, on the contrary, they create pride, contempt; they sow discord, hatred, war; they establish slavery. for with god come the different degrees of divine inspiration; humanity is divided into men highly inspired, less inspired, uninspired. all are equally insignificant before god, it is true; but, compared with each other, some are greater than others; not only in fact--which would be of no consequence, because inequality in fact is lost in the collectivity when it cannot cling to some legal fiction or institution--but by the divine right of inspiration, which immediately establishes a fixed, constant, petrifying inequality. the highly inspired _must_ be listened to and obeyed by the less inspired, and the less inspired by the uninspired. thus we have the principle of authority well established, and with it the two fundamental institutions of slavery: church and state. of all despotisms that of the _doctrinaires_ or inspired religionists is the worst. they are so jealous of the glory of their god and of the triumph of their idea that they have no heart left for the liberty or the dignity or even the sufferings of living men, of real men. divine zeal, preoccupation with the idea, finally dry up the tenderest souls, the most compassionate hearts, the sources of human love. considering all that is, all that happens in the world from the point of view of eternity or of the abstract idea, they treat passing matters with disdain; but the whole life of real men, of men of flesh and bone, is composed only of passing matters; they themselves are only passing beings, who, once passed, are replaced by others likewise passing, but never to return in person. alone permanent or relatively eternal in men is humanity, which steadily developing, grows richer in passing from one generation to another. i say _relatively_ eternal, because, our planet once destroyed--it cannot fail to perish sooner or later, since everything which has begun must necessarily end--our planet once decomposed, to serve undoubtedly as an element of some new formation in the system of the universe, which alone is really eternal, who knows what will become of our whole human development? nevertheless, the moment of this dissolution being an enormous distance in the future, we may properly consider humanity, relatively to the short duration of human life, as eternal. but this very fact of progressive humanity is real and living only through its manifestations at definite times, in definite places, in really living men, and not through its general idea. the general idea is always an abstraction and, for that very reason, in some sort a negation of real life. i have stated in the appendix that human thought and, in consequence of this, science can grasp and name only the general significance of real facts, their relations, their laws--in short, that which is permanent in their continual transformations--but never their material, individual side, palpitating, so to speak, with reality and life, and therefore fugitive and intangible. science comprehends the thought of the reality, not reality itself; the thought of life, not life. that is its limit, its only really insuperable limit, because it is founded on the very nature of thought, which is the only organ of science. upon this nature are based the indisputable rights and grand mission of science, but also its vital impotence and even its mischievous action whenever, through its official licensed representatives, it arrogantly claims the right to govern life. the mission of science is, by observation of the general relations of passing and real facts, to establish the general laws inherent in the development of the phenomena of the physical and social world; it fixes, so to speak, the unchangeable landmarks of humanity's progressive march by indicating the general conditions which it is necessary to rigorously observe and always fatal to ignore or forget. in a word, science is the compass of life; but it is not life. science is unchangeable, impersonal, general, abstract, insensible, like the laws of which it is but the ideal reproduction, reflected or mental--that is cerebral (using this word to remind us that science itself is but a material product of a material organ, the _brain_). life is wholly fugitive and temporary, but also wholly palpitating with reality and individuality, sensibility, sufferings, joys, aspirations, needs, and passions. it alone spontaneously creates real things and beings. science creates nothing; it establishes and recognizes only the creations of life. and every time that scientific men, emerging from their abstract world, mingle with living creation in the real world, all that they propose or create is poor, ridiculously abstract, bloodless and lifeless, still-born, like the _homunculus_ created by wagner, the pedantic disciple of the immortal doctor faust. it follows that the only mission of science is to enlighten life, not to govern it. the government of science and of men of science, even be they positivists, disciples of auguste comte, or, again, disciples of the _doctrinaire_ school of german communism, cannot fail to be impotent, ridiculous, inhuman, cruel, oppressive, exploiting, maleficent. we may say of men of science, _as such_, what i have said of theologians and metaphysicians: they have neither sense nor heart for individual and living beings. we cannot even blame them for this, for it is the natural consequence of their profession. in so far as they are men of science, they have to deal with and can take interest in nothing except generalities; that do the laws[5] ... they are not exclusively men of science, but are also more or less men of life.[6] * * * * * nevertheless, we must not rely too much on this. though we may be well nigh certain that a _savant_ would not dare to treat a man to-day as he treats a rabbit, it remains always to be feared that the _savants_ as a body, if not interfered with, may submit living men to scientific experiments, undoubtedly less cruel but none the less disagreeable to their victims. if they cannot perform experiments upon the bodies of individuals, they will ask nothing better than to perform them on the social body, and that is what must be absolutely prevented. in their existing organization, monopolizing science and remaining thus outside of social life, the _savants_ form a separate caste, in many respects analogous to the priesthood. scientific abstraction is their god, living and real individuals are their victims, and they are the consecrated and licensed sacrificers. science cannot go outside of the sphere of abstractions. in this respect it is infinitely inferior to art, which, in its turn, is peculiarly concerned also with general types and general situations, but which incarnates them by an artifice of its own in forms which, if they are not living in the sense of real life, none the less excite in our imagination the memory and sentiment of life; art in a certain sense individualizes the types and situations which it conceives; by means of the individualities without flesh and bone, and consequently permanent and immortal, which it has the power to create, it recalls to our minds the living, real individualities which appear and disappear under our eyes. art, then, is as it were the return of abstraction to life; science, on the contrary, is the perpetual immolation of life, fugitive, temporary, but real, on the altar of eternal abstractions. science is as incapable of grasping the individuality of a man as that of a rabbit, being equally indifferent to both. not that it is ignorant of the principle of individuality: it conceives it perfectly as a principle, but not as a fact. it knows very well that all the animal species, including the human species, have no real existence outside of an indefinite number of individuals, born and dying to make room for new individuals equally fugitive. it knows that in rising from the animal species to the superior species the principle of individuality becomes more pronounced; the individuals appear freer and more complete. it knows that man, the last and most perfect animal of earth, presents the most complete and most remarkable individuality, because of his power to conceive, concrete, personify, as it were, in his social and private existence, the universal law. it knows, finally, when it is not vitiated by theological or metaphysical, political or judicial _doctrinairisme_, or even by a narrow scientific pride, when it is not deaf to the instincts and spontaneous aspirations of life--it knows (and this is its last word) that respect for man is the supreme law of humanity, and that the great, the real object of history, its only legitimate object, is the humanization and emancipation, the real liberty, the prosperity and happiness of each individual living in society. for, if we would not fall back into the liberticidal fiction of the public welfare represented by the state, a fiction always founded on the systematic sacrifice of the people, we must clearly recognize that collective liberty and prosperity exist only so far as they represent the sum of individual liberties and prosperities. science knows all these things, but it does not and cannot go beyond them. abstraction being its very nature, it can well enough conceive the principle of real and living individuality, but it can have no dealings with real and living individuals; it concerns itself with individuals in general, but not with peter or james, not with such or such a one, who, so far as it is concerned, do not, cannot, have any existence. its individuals, i repeat, are only abstractions. now, history is made, not by abstract individuals, but by acting, living and passing individuals. abstractions advance only when borne forward by real men. for these beings made, not in idea only, but in reality of flesh and blood, science has no heart: it considers them at most as _material for intellectual and social development_. what does it care for the particular conditions and chance fate of peter or james? it would make itself ridiculous, it would abdicate, it would annihilate itself, if it wished to concern itself with them otherwise than as examples in support of its eternal theories. and it would be ridiculous to wish it to do so, for its mission lies not there. it cannot grasp the concrete; it can move only in abstractions. its mission is to busy itself with the situation and the _general_ conditions of the existence and development, either of the human species in general, or of such a race, such a people, such a class or category of individuals; the _general_ causes of their prosperity, their decline, and the best _general_ methods of securing their progress in all ways. provided it accomplishes this task broadly and rationally, it will do its whole duty, and it would be really unjust to expect more of it. but it would be equally ridiculous, it would be disastrous to entrust it with a mission which it is incapable of fulfilling. since its own nature forces it to ignore the existence of peter and james, it must never be permitted, nor must anybody be permitted in its name, to govern peter and james. for it were capable of treating them almost as it treats rabbits. or rather, it would continue to ignore them; but its licensed representatives, men not at all abstract, but on the contrary in very active life and having very substantial interests, yielding to the pernicious influence which privilege inevitably exercises upon men, would finally fleece other men in the name of science, just as they have been fleeced hitherto by priests, politicians of all shades, and lawyers, in the name of god, of the state, of judicial right. what i preach then is, to a certain extent, the _revolt of life against science_, or rather against the _government of science_, not to destroy science--that would be high treason to humanity--but to remand it to its place so that it can never leave it again. until now all human history has been only a perpetual and bloody immolation of millions of poor human beings in honor of some pitiless abstraction--god, country, power of state, national honor, historical rights, judicial rights, political liberty, public welfare. such has been up to to-day the natural, spontaneous, and inevitable movement of human societies. we cannot undo it; we must submit to it so far as the past is concerned, as we submit to all natural fatalities. we must believe that that was the only possible way to educate the human race. for we must not deceive ourselves: even in attributing the larger part to the machiavellian wiles of the governing classes, we have to recognize that no minority would have been powerful enough to impose all these horrible sacrifices upon the masses if there had not been in the masses themselves a dizzy spontaneous movement which pushed them on to continual self-sacrifice, now to one, now to another of these devouring abstractions, the vampires of history, ever nourished upon human blood. we readily understand that this is very gratifying to the theologians, politicians, and jurists. priests of these abstractions, they live only by the continual immolation of the people. nor is it more surprising that metaphysics, too, should give its consent. its only mission is to justify and rationalize as far as possible the iniquitous and absurd. but that positive science itself should have shown the same tendencies is a fact which we must deplore while we establish it. that it has done so is due to two reasons: in the first place, because, constituted outside of life, it is represented by a privileged body; and in the second place, because thus far it has posited itself as an absolute and final object of all human development. by a judicious criticism, which it can and finally will be forced to pass upon itself, it would understand, on the contrary, that it is only a means for the realization of a much higher object--that of the complete humanization of the _real_ situation of all the _real_ individuals who are born, who live, and who die, on earth. the immense advantage of positive science over theology, metaphysics, politics, and judicial right consists in this--that, in place of the false and fatal abstractions set up by these doctrines, it posits true abstractions which express the general nature and logic of things, their general relations, and the general laws of their development. this separates it profoundly from all preceding doctrines, and will assure it for ever a great position in society: it will constitute in a certain sense society's collective consciousness. but there is one aspect in which it resembles all these doctrines: its only possible object being abstractions, it is forced by its very nature to ignore real men, outside of whom the truest abstractions have no existence. to remedy this radical defect positive science will have to proceed by a different method from that followed by the doctrines of the past. the latter have taken advantage of the ignorance of the masses to sacrifice them with delight to their abstractions, which, by the way, are always very lucrative to those who represent them in flesh and bone. positive science, recognizing its absolute inability to conceive real individuals and interest itself in their lot, must definitely and absolutely renounce all claim to the government of societies; for if it should meddle therein, it would only sacrifice continually the living men whom it ignores to the abstractions which constitute the sole object of its legitimate preoccupations. the true science of history, for instance, does not yet exist; scarcely do we begin to-day to catch a glimpse of its extremely complicated conditions. but suppose it were definitely developed, what could it give us? it would exhibit a faithful and rational picture of the natural development of the general conditions--material and ideal, economical, political and social, religious, philosophical, æsthetic, and scientific--of the societies which have a history. but this universal picture of human civilization, however detailed it might be, would never show anything beyond general and consequently _abstract_ estimates. the milliards of individuals who have furnished the _living and suffering materials_ of this history at once triumphant and dismal--triumphant by its general results, dismal by the immense hecatomb of human victims "crushed under its car"--those milliards of obscure individuals without whom none of the great abstract results of history would have been obtained--and who, bear in mind, have never benefited by any of these results--will find no place, not even the slightest, in our annals. they have lived and been sacrificed, crushed for the good of abstract humanity, that is all. shall we blame the science of history? that would be unjust and ridiculous. individuals cannot be grasped by thought, by reflection, or even by human speech, which is capable of expressing abstractions only; they cannot be grasped in the present day any more than in the past. therefore social science itself, the science of the future, will necessarily continue to ignore them. all that we have a right to demand of it is that it shall point us with faithful and sure hand to the _general causes of individual suffering_--among these causes it will not forget the immolation and subordination (still too frequent, alas!) of living individuals to abstract generalities--at the same time showing us the _general conditions necessary to the real emancipation of the individuals living in society_. that is its mission; those are its limits, beyond which the action of social science can be only impotent and fatal. beyond those limits being the _doctrinaire_ and governmental pretentions of its licensed representatives, its priests. it is time to have done with all popes and priests; we want them no longer, even if they call themselves social democrats. once more, the sole mission of science is to light the road. only life, delivered from all its governmental and _doctrinaire_ barriers, and given full liberty of action, can create. how solve this antinomy? on the one hand, science is indispensable to the rational organization of society; on the other, being incapable of interesting itself in that which is real and living, it must not interfere with the real or practical organization of society. this contradiction can be solved only in one way: by the liquidation of science as a moral being existing outside the life of all, and represented by a body of breveted _savants_; it must spread among the masses. science, being called upon to henceforth represent society's collective consciousness, must really become the property of everybody. thereby, without losing anything of its universal character, of which it can never divest itself without ceasing to be science, and while continuing to concern itself exclusively with general causes, the conditions and fixed relations of individuals and things, it will become one in fact with the immediate and real life of all individuals. that will be a movement analogous to that which said to the protestants at the beginning of the reformation that there was no further need of priests for man, who would henceforth be his own priest, every man, thanks to the invisible intervention of the lord jesus christ alone, having at last succeeded in swallowing his good god. but here the question is not of jesus christ, nor good god, nor of political liberty, nor of judicial right--things all theologically or metaphysically revealed, and all alike indigestible. the world of scientific abstractions is not revealed; it is inherent in the real world, of which it is only the general or abstract expression and representation. as long as it forms a separate region, specially represented by the _savants_ as a body, this ideal world threatens to take the place of a good god to the real world, reserving for its licensed representatives the office of priests. that is the reason why it is necessary to dissolve the special social organization of the _savants_ by general instruction, equal for all in all things, in order that the masses, ceasing to be flocks led and shorn by privileged priests, may take into their own hands the direction of their destinies.[7] but until the masses shall have reached this degree of instruction, will it be necessary to leave them to the government of scientific men? certainly not. it would be better for them to dispense with science than allow themselves to be governed by _savants_. the first consequence of the government of these men would be to render science inaccessible to the people, and such a government would necessarily be aristocratic, because the existing scientific institutions are essentially aristocratic. an aristocracy of learning! from the practical point of view the most implacable, and from the social point of view the most haughty and insulting--such would be the power established in the name of science. this _régime_ would be capable of paralyzing the life and movement of society. the _savants_ always presumptuous, ever self-sufficient and ever impotent, would desire to meddle with everything, and the sources of life would dry up under the breath of their abstractions. once more, life, not science, creates life; the spontaneous action of the people themselves alone can create liberty. undoubtedly it would be a very fortunate thing if science could, from this day forth, illuminate the spontaneous march of the people towards their emancipation. but better an absence of light than a false and feeble light, kindled only to mislead those who follow it. after all, the people will not lack light. not in vain have they traversed a long historic career, and paid for their errors by centuries of misery. the practical summary of their painful experiences constitutes a sort of traditional science, which in certain respects is worth as much as theoretical science. last of all, a portion of the youth--those of the bourgeois students who feel hatred enough for the falsehood, hypocrisy, injustice, and cowardice of the bourgeoisie to find courage to turn their backs upon it, and passion enough to unreservedly embrace the just and human cause of the proletariat--those will be, as i have already said, fraternal instructors of the people; thanks to them, there will be no occasion for the government of the _savants_. if the people should beware of the government of the _savants_, all the more should they provide against that of the inspired idealists. the more sincere these believers and poets of heaven, the more dangerous they become. the scientific abstraction, i have said, is a rational abstraction, true in its essence, necessary to life, of which it is the theoretical representation, or, if one prefers, the conscience. it may, it must be, absorbed and digested by life. the idealistic abstraction, god, is a corrosive poison, which destroys and decomposes life, falsifies and kills it. the pride of the idealists, not being personal but divine, is invincible and inexorable: it may, it must, die, but it will never yield, and while it has a breath left it will try to subject men to its god, just as the lieutenants of prussia, these practical idealists of germany, would like to see the people crushed under the spurred boot of their emperor. the faith is the same, the end but little different, and the result, as that of faith, is slavery. it is at the same time the triumph of the ugliest and most brutal materialism. there is no need to demonstrate this in the case of germany; one would have to be blind to avoid seeing it at the present hour. but i think it is still necessary to demonstrate it in the case of divine idealism. man, like all the rest of nature, is an entirely material being. the mind, the facility of thinking, of receiving and reflecting upon different external and internal sensations, of remembering them when they have passed and reproducing them by the imagination, of comparing and distinguishing them, of abstracting determinations common to them and thus creating general concepts, and finally of forming ideas by grouping and combining concepts according to different methods--intelligence, in a word, sole creator of our whole ideal world, is a property of the animal body and especially of the quite material organism of the brain. we know this certainly, by the experience of all, which no fact has ever contradicted and which any man can verify at any moment of his life. in all animals, without excepting the wholly inferior species, we find a certain degree of intelligence, and we see that, in the series of species, animal intelligence develops in proportion as the organization of a species approaches that of man, but that in man alone it attains to that power of abstraction which properly constitutes thought. universal experience,[8] which is the sole origin, the source of all our knowledge, shows us, therefore, that all intelligence is always attached to some animal body, and that the intensity, the power, of this animal function depends upon the relative perfection of the organism. the latter of these results of universal experience is not applicable only to the different animal species; we establish it likewise in men, whose intellectual and moral power depends so clearly upon the greater or less perfection of their organism as a race, as a nation, as a class, and as individuals, that it is not necessary to insist upon this point.[9] on the other hand, it is certain that no man has ever seen or can see pure mind, detached from all material form, existing separately from any animal body whatsoever. but if no person has seen it, how is it that men have come to believe in its existence? the fact of this belief is certain, and if not universal, as all the idealists pretend, at least very general, and as such it is entirely worthy of our closest attention, for a general belief, however foolish it may be, exercises too potent a sway over the destiny of men to warrant us in ignoring it or putting it aside. the explanation of this belief, moreover, is rational enough. the example afforded us by children and young people, and even by many men long past the age of majority, shows us that man may use his mental faculties for a long time before accounting to himself for the way in which he uses them, before becoming clearly conscious of it. during this working of the mind unconscious of itself, during this action of innocent or believing intelligence, man, obsessed by the external world, pushed on by that internal goad called life and its manifold necessities, creates a quantity of imaginations, concepts, and ideas necessarily very imperfect at first and conforming but slightly to the reality of the things and facts which they endeavor to express. not having yet the consciousness of his own intelligent action, not knowing yet that he himself has produced and continues to produce these imaginations, these concepts, these ideas, ignoring their wholly _subjective_--that is, human--origin, he must naturally consider them as _objective_ beings, as real beings, wholly independent of him, existing by themselves and in themselves. it was thus that primitive peoples, emerging slowly from their animal innocence, created their gods. having created them, not suspecting that they themselves were the real creators, they worshipped them; considering them as real beings infinitely superior to themselves, they attributed omnipotence to them, and recognized themselves as their creatures, their slaves. as fast as human ideas develop, the gods, who, as i have already stated, were never anything more than a fantastic, ideal, poetical reverberation or an inverted image, become idealized also. at first gross fetiches, they gradually become pure spirits, existing outside of the visible world, and at last, in the course of a long historic evolution, are confounded in a single divine being, pure, eternal, absolute spirit, creator and master of the worlds. in every development, just or false, real or imaginary, collective or individual, it is always the first step, the first act that is the most difficult. that step once taken, the rest follows naturally as a necessary consequence. the difficult step in the historical development of this terrible religious insanity which continues to obsess and crush us was to posit a divine world as such, outside the world. this first act of madness, so natural from the physiological point of view and consequently necessary in the history of humanity, was not accomplished at a single stroke. i know not how many centuries were needed to develop this belief and make it a governing influence upon the mental customs of men. but, once established, it became omnipotent, as each insane notion necessarily becomes when it takes possession of man's brain. take a madman, whatever the object of his madness--you will find that obscure and fixed idea which obsesses him seems to him the most natural thing in the world, and that, on the contrary, the real things which contradict this idea seem to him ridiculous and odious follies. well, religion is a collective insanity, the more powerful because it is traditional folly, and because its origin is lost in the most remote antiquity. as collective insanity it has penetrated to the very depths of the public and private existence of the peoples; it is incarnate in society; it has become, so to speak, the collective soul and thought. every man is enveloped in it from his birth; he sucks it in with his mother's milk, absorbs it with all that he touches, all that he sees. he is so exclusively fed upon it, so poisoned and penetrated by it in all his being, that later, however powerful his natural mind, he has to make unheard-of efforts to deliver himself from it, and even then never completely succeeds. we have one proof of this in our modern idealists, and another in our _doctrinaire_ materialists--the german communists. they have found no way to shake off the religion of the state. the supernatural world, the divine world, once well established in the imagination of the peoples, the development of the various religious systems has followed its natural and logical course, conforming, moreover, in all things to the contemporary development of economical and political relations of which it has been in all ages, in the world of religious fancy, the faithful reproduction and divine consecration. thus has the collective and historical insanity which calls itself religion been developed since fetichism, passing through all the stages from polytheism to christian monotheism. the second step in the development of religious beliefs, undoubtedly the most difficult next to the establishment of a separate divine world, was precisely this transition from polytheism to monotheism, from the religious materialism of the pagans to the spiritualistic faith of the christians. the pagan gods--and this was their principal characteristic--were first of all exclusively national gods. very numerous, they necessarily retained a more or less material character, or, rather, they were so numerous because they were material, diversity being one of the principal attributes of the real world. the pagan gods were not yet strictly the negation of real things; they were only a fantastic exaggeration of them. we have seen how much this transition cost the jewish people, constituting, so to speak, its entire history. in vain did moses and the prophets preach the one god; the people always relapsed into their primitive idolatry, into the ancient and comparatively much more natural and convenient faith in many good gods, more material, more human, and more palpable. jehovah himself, their sole god, the god of moses and the prophets, was still an extremely national god, who, to reward and punish his faithful followers, his chosen people, used material arguments, often stupid, always gross and cruel. it does not even appear that faith in his existence implied a negation of the existence of earlier gods. the jewish god did not deny the existence of these rivals; he simply did not want his people to worship them side by side with him, because before all jehovah was a very jealous god. his first commandment was this: "i am the lord thy god, and thou shalt have no other gods before me." jehovah, then, was only a first draft, very material and very rough, of the supreme deity of modern idealism. moreover, he was only a national god, like the russian god worshipped by the german generals, subjects of the czar and patriots of the empire of all the russias; like the german god, whom the pietists and the german generals, subjects of william i. at berlin, will no doubt soon proclaim. the supreme being cannot be a national god; he must be the god of entire humanity. nor can the supreme being be a material being; he must be the negation of all matter--pure spirit. two things have proved necessary to the realization of the worship of the supreme being: (1) a realization, such as it is, of humanity by the negation of nationalities and national forms of worship; (2) a development, already far advanced, of metaphysical ideas in order to spiritualize the gross jehovah of the jews. the first condition was fulfilled by the romans, though in a very negative way no doubt, by the conquest of most of the countries known to the ancients and by the destruction of their national institutions. the gods of all the conquered nations, gathered in the pantheon, mutually cancelled each other. this was the first draft of humanity, very gross and quite negative. as for the second condition, the spiritualization of jehovah, that was realized by the greeks long before the conquest of their country by the romans. they were the creators of metaphysics. greece, in the cradle of her history, had already found from the orient a divine world which had been definitely established in the traditional faith of her peoples; this world had been left and handed over to her by the orient. in her instinctive period, prior to her political history, she had developed and prodigiously humanized this divine world through her poets; and when she actually began her history, she already had a religion ready-made, the most sympathetic and noble of all the religions which have existed, so far at least as a religion--that is, a lie--can be noble and sympathetic. her great thinkers--and no nation has had greater than greece--found the divine world established, not only outside of themselves in the people, but also in themselves as a habit of feeling and thought, and naturally they took it as a point of departure. that they made no theology--that is, that they did not wait in vain to reconcile dawning reason with the absurdities of such a god, as did the scholastics of the middle ages--was already much in their favor. they left the gods out of their speculations and attached themselves directly to the divine idea, one, invisible, omnipotent, eternal, and absolutely spiritualistic but impersonal. as concerns spiritualism, then, the greek metaphysicians, much more than the jews, were the creators of the christian god. the jews only added to it the brutal personality of their jehovah. that a sublime genius like the divine plato could have been absolutely convinced of the reality of the divine idea shows us how contagious, how omnipotent, is the tradition of the religious mania even on the greatest minds. besides, we should not be surprised at it, since, even in our day, the greatest philosophical genius which has existed since aristotle and plato, hegel--in spite even of kant's criticism, imperfect and too metaphysical though it be, which had demolished the objectivity or reality of the divine ideas--tried to replace these divine ideas upon their transcendental or celestial throne. it is true that hegel went about his work of restoration in so impolite a manner that he killed the good god for ever. he took away from these ideas their divine halo, by showing to whoever will read him that they were never anything more than a creation of the human mind running through history in search of itself. to put an end to all religious insanities and the divine _mirage_, he left nothing lacking but the utterance of those grand words which were said after him, almost at the same time, by two great minds who had never heard of each other--ludwig feuerbach, the disciple and demolisher of hegel, in germany, and auguste comte, the founder of positive philosophy, in france. these words were as follows: "metaphysics are reduced to psychology." all the metaphysical systems have been nothing else than human psychology developing itself in history. to-day it is no longer difficult to understand how the divine ideas were born, how they were created in succession by the abstractive faculty of man. man made the gods. but in the time of plato this knowledge was impossible. the collective mind, and consequently the individual mind as well, even that of the greatest genius, was not ripe for that. scarcely had it said with socrates: "know thyself!" this self-knowledge existed only in a state of intuition; in fact, it amounted to nothing. hence it was impossible for the human mind to suspect that it was itself the sole creator of the divine world. it found the divine world before it; it found it as history, as tradition, as a sentiment, as a habit of thought; and it necessarily made it the object of its loftiest speculations. thus was born metaphysics, and thus were developed and perfected the divine ideas, the basis of spiritualism. it is true that after plato there was a sort of inverse movement in the development of the mind. aristotle, the true father of science and positive philosophy, did not deny the divine world, but concerned himself with it as little as possible. he was the first to study, like the analyst and experimenter that he was, logic, the laws of human thought, and at the same time the physical world, not in its ideal, illusory essence, but in its real aspect. after him the greeks of alexandria established the first school of the positive scientists. they were atheists. but their atheism left no mark on their contemporaries. science tended more and more to separate itself from life. after plato, divine ideas were rejected in metaphysics themselves; this was done by the epicureans and skeptics, two sects who contributed much to the degradation of human aristocracy, but they had no effect upon the masses. another school, infinitely more influential, was formed at alexandria. this was the school of neo-platonists. these, confounding in an impure mixture the monstrous imaginations of the orient with the ideas of plato, were the true originators, and later the elaborators, of the christian dogmas. thus the personal and gross egoism of jehovah, the not less brutal and gross roman conquest, and the metaphysical ideal speculation of the greeks, materialized by contact with the orient, were the three historical elements which made up the spiritualistic religion of the christians. * * * * * before the altar of a unique and supreme god was raised on the ruins of the numerous altars of the pagan gods, the autonomy of the various nations composing the pagan or ancient world had to be destroyed first. this was very brutally done by the romans who, by conquering the greatest part of the globe known to the ancients, laid the first foundations, quite gross and negative ones no doubt, of humanity. a god thus raised above the national differences, material and social, of all countries, and in a certain sense the direct negation of them, must necessarily be an immaterial and abstract being. but faith in the existence of such a being, so difficult a matter, could not spring into existence suddenly. consequently, as i have demonstrated in the appendix, it went through a long course of preparation and development at the hands of greek metaphysics, which were the first to establish in a philosophical manner the notion of _the divine idea_, a model eternally creative and always reproduced by the visible world. but the divinity conceived and created by greek philosophy was an impersonal divinity. no logical and serious metaphysics being able to rise, or, rather, to descend, to the idea of a personal god, it became necessary, therefore, to imagine a god who was one and very personal at once. he was found in the very brutal, selfish, and cruel person of jehovah, the national god of the jews. but the jews, in spite of that exclusive national spirit which distinguishes them even to-day, had become in fact, long before the birth of christ, the most international people of the world. some of them carried away as captives, but many more even urged on by that mercantile passion which constitutes one of the principal traits of their character, they had spread through all countries, carrying everywhere the worship of their jehovah, to whom they remained all the more faithful the more he abandoned them. in alexandria this terrible god of the jews made the personal acquaintance of the metaphysical divinity of plato, already much corrupted by oriental contact, and corrupted her still more by his own. in spite of his national, jealous, and ferocious exclusivism, he could not long resist the graces of this ideal and impersonal divinity of the greeks. he married her, and from this marriage was born the spiritualistic--but not spirited--god of the christians. the neo-platonists of alexandria are known to have been the principal creators of the christian theology. nevertheless theology alone does not make a religion, any more than historical elements suffice to create history. by historical elements i mean the general conditions of any real development whatsoever--for example in this case the conquest of the world by the romans and the meeting of the god of the jews with the ideal of divinity of the greeks. to impregnate the historical elements, to cause them to run through a series of new historical transformations, a living, spontaneous fact was needed, without which they might have remained many centuries longer in the state of unproductive elements. this fact was not lacking in christianity: it was the propagandism, martyrdom, and death of jesus christ. we know almost nothing of this great and saintly personage, all that the gospels tell us being contradictory, and so fabulous that we can scarcely seize upon a few real and vital traits. but it is certain that he was the preacher of the poor, the friend and consoler of the wretched, of the ignorant, of the slaves, and of the women, and that by these last he was much loved. he promised eternal life to all who are oppressed, to all who suffer here below; and the number is immense. he was hanged, as a matter of course, by the representatives of the official morality and public order of that period. his disciples and the disciples of his disciples succeeded in spreading, thanks to the destruction of the national barriers by the roman conquest, and propagated the gospel in all the countries known to the ancients. everywhere they were received with open arms by the slaves and the women, the two most oppressed, most suffering, and naturally also the most ignorant classes of the ancient world. for even such few proselytes as they made in the privileged and learned world they were indebted in great part to the influence of women. their most extensive propagandism was directed almost exclusively among the people, unfortunate and degraded by slavery. this was the first awakening, the first intellectual revolt of the proletariat. * * * * * the great honor of christianity, its incontestable merit, and the whole secret of its unprecedented and yet thoroughly legitimate triumph, lay in the fact that it appealed to that suffering and immense public to which the ancient world, a strict and cruel intellectual and political aristocracy, denied even the simplest rights of humanity. otherwise it never could have spread. the doctrine taught by the apostles of christ, wholly consoling as it may have seemed to the unfortunate, was too revolting, too absurd from the standpoint of human reason, ever to have been accepted by enlightened men. according with what joy the apostle paul speaks of the _scandale de la foi_ and of the triumph of that _divine folie_ rejected by the powerful and wise of the century, but all the more passionately accepted by the simple, the ignorant, and the weak-minded! indeed there must have been a very deep-seated dissatisfaction with life, a very intense thirst of heart, and an almost absolute poverty of thought, to secure the acceptance of the christian absurdity, the most audacious and monstrous of all religious absurdities. this was not only the negation of all the political, social, and religious institutions of antiquity: it was the absolute overturn of common sense, of all human reason. the living being, the real world, were considered thereafter as nothing; whereas the product of man's abstractive faculty, the last and supreme abstraction in which this faculty, far beyond existing things, even beyond the most general determinations of the living being, the ideas of space and time, having nothing left to advance beyond, rests in contemplation of his emptiness and absolute immobility. that abstraction, that _caput mortuum_, absolutely void of all contents, the true nothing, god, is proclaimed the only real, eternal, all-powerful being. the real all is declared nothing, and the absolute nothing the all. the shadow becomes the substance, and the substance vanishes like a shadow.[10] all this was audacity and absurdity unspeakable, the true _scandale de la foi_, the triumph of credulous stupidity over the mind for the masses; and--for a few--the triumphant irony of a mind wearied, corrupted, disillusioned, and disgusted in honest and serious search for truth; it was that necessity of shaking off thought and becoming brutally stupid so frequently felt by surfeited minds: _credo quod absurdum._ i believe in the absurd; i believe in it, precisely and mainly, because it is absurd. in the same way many distinguished and enlightened minds in our day believe in animal magnetism, spiritualism, tipping tables, and--why go so far?--believe still in christianity, in idealism, in god. the belief of the ancient proletariat, like that of the modern, was more robust and simple, less _haut goût_. the christian propagandism appealed to its heart, not to its mind; to its eternal aspirations, its necessities, its sufferings, its slavery, not to its reason, which still slept and therefore could know nothing about logical contradictions and the evidence of the absurd. it was interested solely in knowing when the hour of promised deliverance would strike, when the kingdom of god would come. as for theological dogmas, it did not trouble itself about them because it understood nothing about them. the proletariat converted to christianity constituted its growing material but not its intellectual strength. as for the christian dogmas, it is known that they were elaborated in a series of theological and literary works and in the councils, principally by the converted neo-platonists of the orient. the greek mind had fallen so low that, in the fourth century of the christian era, the period of the first council, the idea of a personal god, pure, eternal, absolute mind, creator and supreme master, existing outside of the world, was unanimously accepted by the church fathers; as a logical consequence of this absolute absurdity, it then became natural and necessary to believe in the immateriality and immortality of the human soul, lodged and imprisoned in a body only partially mortal, there being in this body itself a portion which, while material, is immortal like the soul, and must be resurrected with it. we see how difficult it was, even for the church fathers, to conceive pure minds outside of any material form. it should be added that, in general, it is the character of every metaphysical and theological argument to seek to explain one absurdity by another. it was very fortunate for christianity that it met a world of slaves. it had another piece of good luck in the invasion of the barbarians. the latter were worthy people, full of natural force, and, above all, urged on by a great necessity of life and a great capacity for it; brigands who had stood every test, capable of devastating and gobbling up anything, like their successors, the germans of to-day; but they were much less systematic and pedantic than these last, much less moralistic, less learned, and on the other hand much more independent and proud, capable of science and not incapable of liberty, as are the bourgeois of modern germany. but, in spite of all their great qualities, they were nothing but barbarians--that is, as indifferent to all questions of theology and metaphysics as the ancient slaves, a great number of whom, moreover, belonged to their race. so that, their practical repugnance once overcome, it was not difficult to convert them theoretically to christianity. for ten centuries christianity, armed with the omnipotence of church and state and opposed by no competition, was able to deprave, debase, and falsify the mind of europe. it had no competitors, because outside of the church there were neither thinkers nor educated persons. it alone thought, it alone spoke and wrote, it alone taught. though heresies arose in its bosom, they affected only the theological or practical developments of the fundamental dogma, never that dogma itself. the belief in god, pure spirit and creator of the world, and the belief in the immateriality of the soul remained untouched. this double belief became the ideal basis of the whole occidental and oriental civilization of europe; it penetrated and became incarnate in all the institutions, all the details of the public and private life of all classes, and the masses as well. after that, is it surprising that this belief has lived until the present day, continuing to exercise its disastrous influence even upon select minds, such as those of mazzini, michelet, quinet, and so many others? we have seen that the first attack upon it came from the _renaissance_ of the free mind in the fifteenth century, which produced heroes and martyrs like vanini, giordano bruno, and galileo. although drowned in the noise, tumult, and passions of the reformation, it noiselessly continued its invisible work, bequeathing to the noblest minds of each generation its task of human emancipation by the destruction of the absurd, until at last, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, it again reappeared in broad day, boldly waving the flag of atheism and materialism. the human mind, then, one might have supposed, was at last about to deliver itself from all the divine obsessions. not at all. the divine falsehood upon which humanity had been feeding for eighteen centuries (speaking of christianity only) was once more to show itself more powerful than human truth. no longer able to make use of the black tribe, of the ravens consecrated by the church, of the catholic or protestant priests, all confidence in whom had been lost, it made use of lay priests, short-robed liars and sophists, among whom the principal _rôles_ devolved upon two fatal men, one the falsest mind, the other the most doctrinally despotic will, of the last century--j. j. rousseau and robespierre. the first is the perfect type of narrowness and suspicious meanness, of exaltation without other object than his own person, of cold enthusiasm and hypocrisy at once sentimental and implacable, of the falsehood of modern idealism. he may be considered as the real creator of modern reaction. to all appearance the most democratic writer of the eighteenth century, he bred within himself the pitiless despotism of the statesman. he was the prophet of the doctrinaire state, as robespierre, his worthy and faithful disciple, tried to become its high priest. having heard the saying of voltaire that, if god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, j. j. rousseau invented the supreme being, the abstract and sterile god of the deists. and it was in the name of the supreme being, and of the hypocritical virtue commanded by this supreme being, that robespierre guillotined first the hébertists and then the very genius of the revolution, danton, in whose person he assassinated the republic, thus preparing the way for the thenceforth necessary triumph of the dictatorship of bonaparte i. after this great triumph, the idealistic reaction sought and found servants less fanatical, less terrible, nearer to the diminished stature of the actual bourgeoisie. in france, chateaubriand, lamartine, and--shall i say it? why not? all must be said if it is truth--victor hugo himself, the democrat, the republican, the quasi-socialist of to-day! and after them the whole melancholy and sentimental company of poor and pallid minds who, under the leadership of these masters, established the modern romantic school; in germany, the schlegels, the tiecks, the novalis, the werners, the schellings, and so many others besides, whose names do not even deserve to be recalled. the literature created by this school was the very reign of ghosts and phantoms. it could not stand the sunlight; the twilight alone permitted it to live. no more could it stand the brutal contact of the masses. it was the literature of the tender, delicate, distinguished souls, aspiring to heaven, and living on earth as if in spite of themselves. it had a horror and contempt for the politics and questions of the day; but when perchance it referred to them, it showed itself frankly reactionary, took the side of the church against the insolence of the freethinkers, of the kings against the peoples, and of all the aristocrats against the vile rabble of the streets. for the rest, as i have just said, the dominant feature of the school of romanticism was a quasi-complete indifference to politics. amid the clouds in which it lived could be distinguished two real points--the rapid development of bourgeois materialism and the ungovernable outburst of individual vanities. to understand this romantic literature, the reason for its existence must be sought in the transformation which had been effected in the bosom of the bourgeois class since the revolution of 1793. from the renaissance and the reformation down to the revolution, the bourgeoisie, if not in germany, at least in italy, in france, in switzerland, in england, in holland, was the hero and representative of the revolutionary genius of history. from its bosom sprang most of the freethinkers of the fifteenth century, the religious reformers of the two following centuries, and the apostles of human emancipation, including this time those of germany, of the past century. it alone, naturally supported by the powerful arm of the people, who had faith in it, made the revolution of 1789 and '93. it proclaimed the downfall of royalty and of the church, the fraternity of the peoples, the rights of man and of the citizen. those are its titles to glory; they are immortal! soon it split. a considerable portion of the purchasers of national property having become rich, and supporting themselves no longer on the proletariat of the cities, but on the major portion of the peasants of france, these also having become landed proprietors, had no aspiration left but for peace, the re-establishment of public order, and the foundation of a strong and regular government. it therefore welcomed with joy the dictatorship of the first bonaparte, and, although always voltairean, did not view with displeasure the concordat with the pope and the re-establishment of the official church in france: "_religion is so necessary to the people!_" which means that, satiated themselves, this portion of the bourgeoisie then began to see that it was needful to the maintenance of their situation and the preservation of their newly-acquired estates to appease the unsatisfied hunger of the people by promises of heavenly manna. then it was that chateaubriand began to preach.[11] napoleon fell and the restoration brought back into france the legitimate monarchy, and with it the power of the church and of the nobles, who regained, if not the whole, at least a considerable portion of their former influence. this reaction threw the bourgeoisie back into the revolution, and with the revolutionary spirit that of skepticism also was re-awakened in it. it set chateaubriand aside and began to read voltaire again; but it did not go so far as diderot: its debilitated nerves could not stand nourishment so strong. voltaire, on the contrary, at once a freethinker and a deist, suited it very well. béranger and p. l. courier expressed this new tendency perfectly. the "god of the good people" and the ideal of the bourgeois king, at once liberal and democratic, sketched against the majestic and thenceforth inoffensive background of the empire's gigantic victories--such was at that period the daily intellectual food of the bourgeoisie of france. lamartine, to be sure, excited by a vain and ridiculously envious desire to rise to the poetic height of the great byron, had begun his coldly delirious hymns in honor of the god of the nobles and of the legitimate monarchy. but his songs resounded only in aristocratic salons. the bourgeoisie did not hear them. béranger was its poet and courier was its political writer. the revolution of july resulted in lifting its tastes. we know that every bourgeois in france carries within him the imperishable type of the bourgeois gentleman, a type which never fails to appear immediately the parvenu acquires a little wealth and power. in 1830 the wealthy bourgeoisie had definitely replaced the old nobility in the seats of power. it naturally tended to establish a new aristocracy. an aristocracy of capital first of all, but also an aristocracy of intellect, of good manners and delicate sentiments. it began to feel religious. this was not on its part simply an aping of aristocratic customs. it was also a necessity of its position. the proletariat had rendered it a final service in once more aiding it to overthrow the nobility. the bourgeoisie now had no further need of its co-operation, for it felt itself firmly seated in the shadow of the throne of july, and the alliance with the people, thenceforth useless, began to become inconvenient. it was necessary to remand it to its place, which naturally could not be done without provoking great indignation among the masses. it became necessary to restrain this indignation. in the name of what? in the name of the bourgeois interest bluntly confessed? that would have been much too cynical. the more unjust and inhuman an interest is, the greater need it has of sanction. now, where find it if not in religion, that good protectress of all the well-fed and the useful consoler of the hungry? and more than ever the triumphant bourgeoisie saw that religion was indispensable to the people. after having won all its titles to glory in religious, philosophical, and political opposition, in protest and in revolution, it at last became the dominant class and thereby even the defender and preserver of the state, thenceforth the regular institution of the exclusive power of that class. the state is force, and for it, first of all, is the right of force, the triumphant argument of the needle-gun, of the _chassepot_. but man is so singularly constituted that this argument, wholly eloquent as it may appear, is not sufficient in the long run. some moral sanction or other is absolutely necessary to enforce his respect. further, this sanction must be at once so simple and so plain that it may convince the masses, who, after having been reduced by the power of the state, must also be induced to morally recognize its right. there are only two ways of convincing the masses of the goodness of any social institution whatever. the first, the only real one, but also the most difficult to adopt--because it implies the abolition of the state, or, in other words, the abolition of the organized political exploitation of the majority by any minority whatsoever--would be the direct and complete satisfaction of the needs and aspirations of the people, which would be equivalent to the complete liquidation of the political and economical existence of the bourgeois class, or, again, to the abolition of the state. beneficial means for the masses, but detrimental to bourgeois interests; hence it is useless to talk about them. the only way, on the contrary, harmful only to the people, precious in its salvation of bourgeois privileges, is no other than religion. that is the eternal _mirage_ which leads away the masses in a search for divine treasures, while, much more reserved, the governing class contents itself with dividing among all its members--very unequally, moreover, and always giving most to him who possesses most--the miserable goods of earth and the plunder taken from the people, including their political and social liberty. there is not, there cannot be, a state without religion. take the freest states in the world--the united states of america or the swiss confederation, for instance--and see what an important part is played in all official discourses by divine providence, that supreme sanction of all states. but whenever a chief of state speaks of god, be he william i., the knouto-germanic emperor, or grant, the president of the great republic, be sure that he is getting ready to shear once more his people-flock. the french liberal and voltairean bourgeoisie, driven by temperament to a positivism (not to say a materialism) singularly narrow and brutal, having become the governing class of the state by its triumph of 1830, had to give itself an official religion. it was not an easy thing. the bourgeoisie could not abruptly go back under the yoke of roman catholicism. between it and the church of rome was an abyss of blood and hatred, and, however practical and wise one becomes, it is never possible to repress a passion developed by history. moreover, the french bourgeoisie would have covered itself with ridicule if it had gone back to the church to take part in the pious ceremonies of its worship, an essential condition of a meretorious and sincere conversion. several attempted it, it is true, but their heroism was rewarded by no other result than a fruitless scandal. finally, a return to catholicism was impossible on account of the insolvable contradiction which separates the invariable politics of rome from the development of the economical and political interests of the middle class. in this respect protestantism is much more advantageous. it is the bourgeois religion _par excellence_. it accords just as much liberty as is necessary to the bourgeois, and finds a way of reconciling celestial aspirations with the respect which terrestrial conditions demand. consequently it is especially in protestant countries that commerce and industry have been developed. but it was impossible for the french bourgeoisie to become protestant. to pass from one religion to another--unless it be done deliberately, as sometimes in the case of the jews of russia and poland, who get baptised three or four times in order to receive each time the remuneration allowed them--to seriously change one's religion, a little faith is necessary. now, in the exclusive positive heart of the french bourgeois, there is no room for faith. he professes the most profound indifference for all questions which touch neither his pocket first nor his social vanity afterwards. he is as indifferent to protestantism as to catholicism. on the other hand, the french bourgeois could not go over to protestantism without putting himself in conflict with the catholic routine of the majority of the french people, which would have been great imprudence on the part of a class pretending to govern the nation. there was still one way left--to return to the humanitarian and revolutionary religion of the eighteenth century. but that would have led too far. so the bourgeoisie was obliged, in order to sanction its new state, to create a new religion which might be boldly proclaimed, without too much ridicule and scandal, by the whole bourgeois class. thus was born _doctrinaire_ deism. others have told, much better than i could tell it, the story of the birth and development of this school, which had so decisive and--we may well add--so fatal an influence on the political, intellectual, and moral education of the bourgeois youth of france. it dates from benjamin constant and madame de staël; its real founder was royer-collard; its apostles, guizot, cousin, villemain, and many others. its boldly avowed object was the reconciliation of revolution with reaction, or, to use the language of the school, of the principle of liberty with that of authority, and naturally to the advantage of the latter. this reconciliation signified: in politics, the taking away of popular liberty for the benefit of bourgeois rule, represented by the monarchical and constitutional state; in philosophy, the deliberate submission of free reason to the eternal principles of faith. we have only to deal here with the latter. we know that this philosophy was specially elaborated by m. cousin, the father of french eclecticism. a superficial and pedantic talker, incapable of any original conception, of any idea peculiar to himself, but very strong on commonplace, which he confounded with common sense, this illustrious philosopher learnedly prepared, for the use of the studious youth of france, a metaphysical dish of his own making, the use of which, made compulsory in all schools of the state under the university, condemned several generations one after the other to a cerebral indigestion. imagine a philosophical vinegar sauce of the most opposed systems, a mixture of fathers of the church, scholastic philosophers, descartes and pascal, kant and scotch psychologists, all this a superstructure on the divine and innate ideas of plato, and covered up with a layer of hegelian immanence, accompanied, of course, by an ignorance, as contemptuous as it is complete, of natural science, and proving, just as two times two make _five_, the existence of a personal god.... footnotes: [1] i call it "iniquitous" because, as i believe i have proved in the appendix alluded to, this mystery has been and still continues to be the consecration of all the horrors which have been and are being committed in the world; i call it unique, because all the other theological and metaphysical absurdities which debase the human mind are but its necessary consequences. [2] mr. stuart mill is perhaps the only one whose serious idealism may be fairly doubted, and that for two reasons: first, that, if not absolutely the disciple, he is a passionate admirer, an adherent of the positive philosophy of auguste comte, a philosophy which, in spite of its numerous reservations, is really atheistic; second, that mr. stuart mill is english, and in england to proclaim oneself an atheist is to ostracise oneself, even at this late day. [3] in london i once heard m. louis blanc express almost the same idea. "the best form of government," said he to me, "would be that which would invariably call _men of virtuous genius_ to the control of affairs." [4] one day i asked mazzini what measures would be taken for the emancipation of the people, once his triumphant unitary republic had been definitely established. "the first measure," he answered, "will be the foundation of schools for the people." "and what will the people be taught in these schools?" "the duties of man--sacrifice and devotion." but where will you find a sufficient number of professors to teach these things, which no one has the right or power to teach, unless he preaches by example? is not the number of men who find supreme enjoyment in sacrifice and devotion exceedingly limited? those who sacrifice themselves in the service of a great idea obey a lofty passion, and, _satisfying this personal passion_, outside of which life itself loses all value in their eyes, they generally think of something else than building their action into doctrine, while those who teach doctrine usually forget to translate it into action, for the simple reason that doctrine kills the life, the living spontaneity, of action. men like mazzini, in whom doctrine and action form an admirable unity, are very rare exceptions. in christianity also there have been great men, holy men, who have really practised, or who, at least, have passionately tried to practice all that they preached, and whose hearts, overflowing with love, were full of contempt for the pleasures and goods of this world. but the immense majority of catholic and protestant priests who, by trade, have preached and still preach the doctrines of chastity, abstinence, and renunciation belie their teachings by their example. it is not without reason, but because of several centuries' experience, that among the people of all countries these phrases have become by-words: _as licentious as a priest; as gluttonous as a priest; as ambitious as a priest; as greedy, selfish, and grasping as a priest._ it is, then, established that the professors of the christian virtues, consecrated by the church, the priests, _in the immense majority of cases_, have practised quite the contrary of what they have preached. this very majority, the universality of this fact, show that the fault is not to be attributed to them as individuals, but to the social position, impossible and contradictory in itself, in which these individuals are placed. the position of the christian priest involves a double contradiction. in the first place, that between the doctrine of abstinence and renunciation and the positive tendencies and needs of human nature--tendencies and needs which, in some individual cases, always very rare, may indeed be continually held back, suppressed, and even entirely annihilated by the constant influence of some potent intellectual and moral passion; which at certain moments of collective exaltation, may be forgotten and neglected for some time by a large mass of men at once; but which are so fundamentally inherent in our nature that sooner or later they always resume their rights: so that, when they are not satisfied in a regular and normal way, they are always replaced at last by unwholesome and monstrous satisfaction. this is a natural and consequently fatal and irresistible law, under the disastrous action of which inevitably fall all christian priests and especially those of the roman catholic church. it cannot apply to the professors, that is to the priests of the modern church, unless they are also obliged to preach christian abstinence and renunciation. but there is another contradiction common to the priests of both sects. this contradiction grows out of the very title and position of master. a master who commands, oppresses, and exploits is a wholly logical and quite natural personage. but a master who sacrifices himself to those who are subordinated to him by his divine or human privilege is a contradictory and quite impossible being. this is the very constitution of hypocrisy, so well personified by the pope, who, while calling himself _the lowest servant of the servants of god_--in token whereof, following the example of christ, he even washes once a year the feet of twelve roman beggars--proclaims himself at the same time vicar of god, absolute and infallible master of the world. do i need to recall that the priests of all churches, far from sacrificing themselves to the flocks confided to their care, have always sacrificed them, exploited them, and kept them in the condition of a flock, partly to satisfy their own personal passions and partly to serve the omnipotence of the church? like conditions, like causes, always produce like effects. it will, then, be the same with the professors of the modern school divinely inspired and licensed by the state. they will necessarily become, some without knowing it, others with full knowledge of the cause, teachers of the doctrine of popular sacrifice to the power of the state and to the profit of the privileged classes. must we, then, eliminate from society all instruction and abolish all schools? far from it! instruction must be spread among the masses without stint, transforming all the churches, all those temples dedicated to the glory of god and to the slavery of men, into so many schools of human emancipation. but, in the first place, let us understand each other; schools, properly speaking, in a normal society founded on equality and on respect for human liberty, will exist only for children and not for adults; and, in order that they may become schools of emancipation and not of enslavement, it will be necessary to eliminate, first of all, this fiction of god, the eternal and absolute enslaver. the whole education of children and their instruction must be founded on the scientific development of reason, not on that of faith; on the development of personal dignity and independence, not on that of piety and obedience; on the worship of truth and justice at any cost, and above all on respect for humanity, which must replace always and everywhere the worship of divinity. the principle of authority, in the education of children, constitutes the natural point of departure; it is legitimate, necessary, when applied to children of a tender age, whose intelligence has not yet openly developed itself. but as the development of everything, and consequently of education, implies the gradual negation of the point of departure, this principle must diminish as fast as education and instruction advance, giving place to increasing liberty. all rational education is at bottom nothing but this progressive immolation of authority for the benefit of liberty, the final object of education necessarily being the formation of free men full of respect and love for the liberty of others. therefore the first day of the pupils' life, if the school takes infants scarcely able as yet to stammer a few words, should be that of the greatest authority and an almost entire absence of liberty; but its last day should be that of the greatest liberty and the absolute abolition of every vestige of the animal or divine principle of authority. the principle of authority, applied to men who have surpassed or attained their majority, becomes a monstrosity, a flagrant denial of humanity, a source of slavery and intellectual and moral depravity. unfortunately, paternal governments have left the masses to wallow in an ignorance so profound that it will be necessary to establish schools not only for the people's children, but for the people themselves. from these schools will be absolutely eliminated the smallest applications or manifestations of the principle of authority. they will be schools no longer; they will be popular academies, in which neither pupils nor masters will be known, where the people will come freely to get, if they need it, free instruction, and in which, rich in their own experience, they will teach in their turn many things to the professors who shall bring them knowledge which they lack. this, then, will be a mutual instruction, an act of intellectual fraternity between the educated youth and the people. the real school for the people and for all grown men is life. the only grand and omnipotent authority, at once natural and rational, the only one which we may respect, will be that of the collective and public spirit of a society founded on equality and solidarity and the mutual human respect of all its members. yes, this is an authority which is not at all divine, wholly human, but before which we shall bow willingly, certain that, far from enslaving them, it will emancipate men. it will be a thousand times more powerful, be sure of it, than all your divine, theological, metaphysical, political, and judicial authorities, established by the church and by the state; more powerful than your criminal codes, your jailers, and your executioners. the power of collective sentiment or public spirit is even now a very serious matter. the men most ready to commit crimes rarely dare to defy it, to openly affront it. they will seek to deceive it, but will take care not to be rude with it unless they feel the support of a minority larger or smaller. no man, however powerful he believes himself, will ever have the strength to bear the unanimous contempt of society; no one can live without feeling himself sustained by the approval and esteem of at least some portion of society. a man must be urged on by an immense and very sincere conviction in order to find courage to speak and act against the opinion of all, and never will a selfish, depraved, and cowardly man have such courage. nothing proves more clearly than this fact the natural and inevitable solidarity--this law of sociability--which binds all men together, as each of us can verify daily, both on himself and on all the men whom he knows. but, if this social power exists, why has it not sufficed hitherto to moralize, to humanize men? simply because hitherto this power has not been humanized itself; it has not been humanized because the social life of which it is ever the faithful expression is based, as we know, on the worship of divinity, not on respect for humanity; on authority, not on liberty; on privilege, not on equality; on the exploitation, not on the brotherhood of men; on iniquity and falsehood, not on justice and truth. consequently its real action, always in contradiction of the humanitarian theories which it professes, has constantly exercised a disastrous and depraving influence. it does not repress vices and crimes; it creates them. its authority is consequently a divine, anti-human authority; its influence is mischievous and baleful. do you wish to render its authority and influence beneficent and human? achieve the social revolution. make all needs really solidary, and cause the material and social interests of each to conform to the human duties of each. and to this end there is but one means: destroy all the institutions of inequality; establish the economic and social equality of all, and on this basis will arise the liberty, the morality, the solidary humanity of all. i shall return to this, the most important question of socialism. [5] here three pages of bakunin's manuscript are missing. [6] the lost part of this sentence perhaps said: "if men of science, in their researches and experiments are not treating men actually as they treat animals, the reason is that" they are not exclusively men of science, but are also more or less men of life. [7] science, in becoming the patrimony of everybody, will wed itself in a certain sense to the immediate and real life of each. it will gain in utility and grace what it loses in pride, ambition, and _doctrinaire_ pedantry. this, however, will not prevent men of genius, better organized for scientific speculation than the majority of their fellows, from devoting themselves exclusively to the cultivation of the sciences, and rendering great services to humanity. only, they will be ambitious for no other social influence than the natural influence exercised upon its surroundings by every superior intelligence, and for no other reward than the high delight which a noble mind always finds in the satisfaction of a noble passion. [8] universal _experience_, on which all science rests, must be clearly distinguished from universal _faith_, on which the idealists wish to support their beliefs: the first is a real authentication of facts; the second is only a supposition of facts which nobody has seen, and which consequently are at variance with the experience of everybody. [9] the idealists, all those who believe in the immateriality and immortality of the human soul, must be excessively embarrassed by the difference in intelligence existing between races, peoples, and individuals. unless we suppose that the various divine particles have been irregularly distributed, how is this difference to be explained? unfortunately there is a considerable number of men wholly stupid, foolish even to idiocy. could they have received in the distribution a particle at once divine and stupid? to escape this embarrassment the idealists must necessarily suppose that all human souls are equal, but that the prisons in which they find themselves necessarily confined, human bodies, are unequal, some more capable than others of serving as an organ for the pure intellectuality of soul. according to this, such a one might have very fine organs at his disposition, such another very gross organs. but these are distinctions which idealism has not the power to use without falling into inconsistency and the grossest materialism; for in the presence of absolute immateriality of soul all bodily differences disappear, all that is corporeal, material, necessarily appearing indifferent, equally and absolutely gross. the abyss which separates soul from body, absolute immateriality from absolute materiality, is infinite. consequently all differences, by the way inexplicable and logically impossible, which may exist on the other side of the abyss, in matter, should be to the soul null and void, and neither can nor should exercise any influence over it. in a word, the absolutely immaterial cannot be constrained, imprisoned, and much less expressed in any degree whatsoever by the absolutely material. of all the gross and materialistic (using the word in the sense attached to it by the idealists) imaginations which were engendered by the primitive ignorance and stupidity of men, that of an immaterial soul imprisoned in a material body is certainly the grossest, the most stupid, and nothing better proves the omnipotence exercised by ancient prejudices even over the best minds than the deplorable sight of men endowed with lofty intelligence still talking of it in our days. [10] i am well aware that in the theological and metaphysical systems of the orient, and especially in those of india, including buddhism, we find the principle of the annihilation of the real world in favor of the ideal and of absolute abstraction. but it has not the added character of voluntary and deliberate negation which distinguishes christianity; when those systems were conceived, the world of human thought, of will and of liberty, had not reached that stage of development which was afterwards seen in the greek and roman civilization. [11] it seems to me useful to recall at this point an anecdote--one, by the way, well known and thoroughly authentic--which sheds a very clear light on the personal value of this warmer-over of the catholic beliefs and on the religious sincerity of that period. chateaubriand submitted to a publisher a work attacking faith. the publisher called his attention to the fact that atheism had gone out of fashion, that the reading public cared no more for it, and that the demand, on the contrary, was for religious works. chateaubriand withdrew, but a few months later came back with his _genius of christianity_. * * * * * the only anarchist monthly in america mother earth ¶ a revolutionary literary magazine devoted to anarchist thought in sociology, economics, education, and life. ¶ articles by leading anarchists and radical thinkers.--international notes giving a summary of the revolutionary activities in various countries.--reviews of modern books and the drama. ten cents a copy one dollar a year emma goldman, editor and publisher 20 east 125th street new york bound volumes 1906-1915, two dollars per volume * * * * * anarchism the philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary. free communism voluntary economic cooperation; a social arrangement based on the principle: to each according to his needs; from each according to his ability. headquarters for anarchist literature library of anarchism the literature of anarchism is very extensive. numerous books and pamphlets have been written, treating of the various phases of anarchist thought, and many publications, both here and abroad, are devoted to this philosophy of life. no well-informed man or woman can afford to ignore this vital subject. your library is not complete unless it includes works on anarchism. mother earth publishing association 20 east 125th street, new york new york orders for literature should be accompanied by check or money order. special discount on large quantities. * * * * * anarchism _and other essays_ by emma goldman ¶ including a biographic sketch of the author's interesting career, a splendid portrait, and twelve of her most important lectures, some of which have been suppressed by the police authorities of various cities. this book expresses the most advanced ideas on social questions--economics, politics, education and sex. _second revised edition_ emma goldman--the notorious, insistent, rebellious, enigmatical emma goldman--has published her first book, "anarchism and other essays." in it she records "the mental and soul struggles of twenty-one years," and recites all the articles of that strange and subversive creed in behalf of which she has suffered imprisonment, contumely and every kind of persecution. the book is a vivid revelation of a unique personality. it appears at a time when anarchistic ideas are undoubtedly in the ascendant throughout the world.--_current literature._ emma goldman's book on "anarchism and other essays" ought to be read by all so-called respectable women, and adopted as a text-book by women's clubs throughout the country.... for courage, persistency, self-effacement, self-sacrifice in the pursuit of her object, she has hitherto been unsurpassed among the world's women.... repudiating as she does practically every tenet of what the modern state holds good, she stands for some of the noblest traits in human nature.--_life._ every thoughtful person ought to read this volume of papers by the foremost american anarchist. in whatever way the book may modify or strengthen the opinion already held by its readers, there is no doubt that a careful reading of it will tend to bring about greater social sympathy. it will help the public to understand a group of serious-minded and morally strenuous individuals, and also to feel the spirit that underlies the most radical tendencies of the great labor movement of our day.--hutchins hapgood in _the bookman_. price $1.00 by mail $1.10 _order through your book dealer or send to_ mother earth publishing association 20 east 125th street, new york * * * * * the modern drama _its social and revolutionary significance_ by emma goldman this volume contains a critical analysis of the modern drama, in its relation to the social and revolutionary tendencies of the age. it embraces fifty plays of twenty-four of the foremost dramatists of six different countries, dealing with them not from the technical point of view, but from the standpoint of their universal and dynamic appeal to the human race. contents preface the scandinavian drama: ibsen, strindberg, bjornson the german drama: hauptmann, sudermann, wedekind the english drama: shaw, pinero, galsworthy, kennedy, sowerby the irish drama: yeats, lady gregory, robinson the russian drama: tolstoy, tchekhov, gorki, tchirikov, andreyev index price $1.00 net. by mail $1.15 mother earth publishing association 20 e. 125th street new york * * * * * the selected works of voltairine de cleyre this volume of america's foremost literary rebel and anarchist propagandist contains a choice selection of her poems, essays, sociological discourses, sketches and stories, which have proved a source of great inspiration to the revolutionary movement during the last twenty years. edited by alexander berkman biographical sketch of hippolyte havel over 500 pp., cloth, with portrait of the author. tastefully printed and bound. $1.00 net. by mail, $1.15 with one subscription mother earth $1.50 mother earth publishing association 20 east 125th street new york * * * * * _an important human document_ prison memoirs of an anarchist by alexander berkman an earnest portrayal of the revolutionary psychology of the author, as manifested by his _attentat_ during the great labor struggle of homestead, in 1892. the whole truth about prisons has never before been told as this book tells it. the memoirs deal frankly and intimately with prison life in its various phases. $1.50, postage 15 cents mother earth 20 east 125th street new york * * * * * ideals and realities in russian literature by peter kropotkin a book indispensable to every student and lover of russian literature. kropotkin not only makes us acquainted with the works and personalities of the authors, we also learn much about the deep-rooted sympathetic connections between the writers and the people, more pronounced in russia than in any other country. $1.50. postage, 15 cents mother earth 20 east 125th street, new york * * * * * the works of friedrich nietzsche beyond good and evil $1.25 the birth of tragedy 1.00 case of wagner; we philologists, etc.; nietzsche contra wagner 1.25 the dawn of day 1.75 early greek philosophy and other essays 1.25 ecce homo (nietzsche's autobiography) 2.00 genealogy of morals. poems 1.25 the joyful wisdom 1.60 human, all too human. part i 1.60 human, all too human. part ii 1.75 on the future of our educational institutions; and homer and classical philology 1.00 thoughts out of season. part i 1.00 thoughts out of season. part ii 1.00 the twilight of the idols: the antichrist 1.75 thus spake zarathustra: a book of all and none 2.00 the will to power. books i and ii 1.60 the will to power. vol. ii 1.60 various essays and fragments. biography and criticism 2.00 the gospel of superman 1.60 postage, 15c per volume as a special offer, we will send the above works of nietzsche, complete in 19 volumes, postpaid, for $26 mother earth, 20 east 125th street, new york * * * * * the best literature on birth control: (none give actual methods) "mother earth," (april, 1916 issue) price, 10c, postage 1 cent. "the limitation of offspring," by dr. william j. robinson 1.00 10c "the small family system," by dr. c. v. drysdale 1.00 10c "the right to be well born," by moses harman .25 5c "what every mother should know," by margaret sanger .25 5c "what every girl should know," by margaret sanger .25 5c "the awakening of spring," by frank wedekind (paper) .50 5c mother earth 20 east 125th street, new york * * * * * the ego and his own by max stirner the book contains the most revolutionary philosophy ever written, its purpose being to destroy the idea of duty and assert the supremacy of the will, and from this standpoint to effect a "transvaluation of all values" and displace the state by a union of conscious egoists. price 75 cents, postage 10 cents for sale by mother earth pub. co., 20 e. 125th st., n. y. * * * * * to be had through mother earth, 20 e. 125th st., new york famous speeches of the chicago anarchists delivered in court in reply to why sentence of death should not be passed upon them 30c postpaid * * * * * do you believe in the social revolution? do you know what took place in the great social revolution of 1789-1793? read the great french revolution by peter kropotkin the best way to prepare for the new revolution is to be familiar with the old. now reduced to $1.50, postage 20c. * * * * * gov. altgeld's reasons for pardoning fielden, neebe and schwab 35c postpaid * * * * * the bomb by frank harris a powerful novel, while not giving the facts of the haymarket tragedy, yet gives a vivid and sympathetic portrayal of the event and personalities involved. cloth, 75c postpaid * * * * * transcriber's note: the following corrections were made to the text: page | original word | correction -----------+---------------+------------ 7 | viwes | views 31 | infalliby | infallibly 57 | judcial | judicial 59 | up to-day | up to to-day 83 | burgeoisie | bourgeoisie 83 | singuarly | singularly footnote 2 | onself | oneself christianity unveiled being an examination of the principles and effects of the christian religion by nicolas-antoine boulanger translated from the french by w. m. johnson. "slave to no sect, who takes no private read, but looks through nature up to nature's god; "and knows where faith, law, morals, all began, all end in love of god, and love of man." pope london printed & published by r. carlile, 56, fleet street. 1819 translator's preface. in this philosophic age, when nature, reason, and the rights of man have resumed their empire; when the genius of a great, generous, and brave people is giving the last blow to superstition and despotism, the publication of a work which has greatly contributed to these glorious events, must be highly acceptable, not only to the literary world, but even to the community at large, who eagerly seek after instruction, the moment they believe it necessary for their happiness. this publication bears a conspicuous rank among those works whose free and independent sentiments have introduced a happy change in the public mind, and concurred with the writings of rousseau, mably, raynal, and voltaire, in bringing forward the french revolution: a revolution which will probably prove the harbinger of the complete triumph of reason. persecutions and wars will then cease for ever throughout the civilized world. in offering this translation to the public, i pay a tribute that every member of society owes to his fellow-citizens, that of endeavouring to acquaint them with their true rights and duties, and, consequently, the means most conducive to their happiness. new york, 1804. letter from the author to a friend. i receive, sir, with gratitude, the remarks which you send me upon my work. if i am sensible to the praises you condescend to give it, i am too fond of truth to be displeased with the frankness with which you propose your objections. i find them sufficiently weighty to merit all my attention. he but ill deserves the title of philosopher, who has not the courage to hear his opinions contradicted. we are not divines; our disputes are of a nature to terminate amicably; they in no way resemble those of the apostles of superstition, who endeavour to overreach each other by captious arguments, and who, at the expence of good faith, contend only to advocate the cause of their vanity and their prejudices. we both desire the happiness of mankind, we both search after truth; this being the case, we cannot disagree. you begin by admitting the necessity of examining religion, and submitting opinions to the decision of reason. you acknowledge that christianity cannot sustain this trial, and that in the eye of good sense it can never appear to be any thing but a tissue of absurdities, of unconnected fables, senseless dogmas, puerile ceremonies, and notions borrowed from the chaldeans, egyptians, phenicians, grecians, and romans. in one word, you confess that this religious system is only, the deformed offspring of almost all ancient superstitions, begotten by oriental fanaticism, and diversely modified by the circumstances and prejudices of those who have since pretended to be the inspired ambassadors of god, and the interpreters of his will. you tremble at the horrors which the intolerant spirit of christians has caused them to commit, whenever they had power to do it; you feel that a religion founded on a sanguinary deity must be a religion of blood. you lament that phrenzy, which in infancy takes possession of princes and people, and renders them equally the slaves of superstition and her priests; which prevents their acquaintance with their true interests, renders them deaf to reason, and turns them aside from the great objects by which they ought to be occupied. you confess that a religion founded upon enthusiasm or imposture can have no sure principles; that it must prove an eternal source of disputes, and always end in causing troubles, persecutions, and ravages; especially when political power conceives itself indispensibly obliged to enter into its quarrels. in fine, you go so far as to agree that a good christian who follows literally the conduct prescribed to him as the most perfect by the gospel, knows not in this world any thing of those duties on which true morality is founded; and that if he wants energy he must prove an useless misanthrope, or if his temper be warm a turbulent fanatic. after acknowledging all this, how could it happen that you should pronounce my work a dangerous one! you tell me that a-wise man ought to think only for himself; that to the populace a religion is necessary, be it good or bad; that it is a restraint necessary to gross and ignorant minds, which, without it, would have no longer any motive for abstaining from vice. you look upon a reform of religious prejudices as impossible, because it is the interest of many of those persons who alone can effect it, to continue mankind in that ignorance of which themselves reap the advantage. these, if i mistake not, are the weightiest of your objections. i will endeavour to remove them. books are generally written for that part of a nation whose circumstances, education, and sentiments, place them above the commission of crimes. this enlightened portion of society, which governs the other, reads and judges of writings; if they contain maxims false or injurious, they are soon either condemned to oblivion, or held up to public execration; if they contain only truth, they are not in danger. fanatics and ignorant people are the disturbers of society. sensible, enlightened, and disinterested persons are ever the friends of peace. you are not, sir, of the number of pusillanimous thinkers, who believe that truth is capable of doing harm. it does harm to those only who deceive mankind, and to the rest of the human species it will always be useful. you ought long to have been convinced that the evils with which mankind are afflicted, arise only from our errors, our prejudices, our interests misunderstood, and the false ideas we attach to objects. in fine, it is easy to see that the policy and morality of man have been particularly corrupted by their religious prejudices. was it not religious and supernatural ideas which caused sovereigns to be looked upon as gods? it is then religion which raised up tyrants and despots; tyrants and despots made wicked laws; their example corrupted the great, the great corrupted the lower classes of mankind; these vitiated beings became unhappy slaves, employed either in injuring themselves, flattering the great, or struggling to get clear of their misery. kings were styled images of god: they were absolute like him they created justice and injustice; their wills often sanctified oppression, violence, and rapine. the means of obtaining their favours were vice and meanness. thus nations became filled with perverted citizens, who, under leaders corrupted by religious notions, made continually a war, either open or clandestine, and were left destitute of any motive for practising virtue. has this religion influenced the manners of sovereigns, who derive their divine power from it? do we not behold princes, overflowing with faith, continually undertaking the most unjust wars; wasting the blood and treasure of their subjects; wrenching the bread from the hands of the poor; permitting and even commanding every species of injustice? does this religion, considered by so many sovereigns as the support of their thrones, render them more humane, temperate, chaste, or faithful to their oaths? alas! when we consult history, we there find sovereigns who were orthodox, zealous, and religious to a scruple, and at the same time guilty of perjury, usurpation, adultery, robbery, and murder; men who, in fine, behaved as if they feared not the god whom they honoured with their mouths. among the courtiers who surrounded them, we see a continual alliance of christianity and vice, devotion and iniquity, religion and treason. among the priests of a poor and crucified god, who found their existence upon religion, and pretend that without it there could be no morality, do we not see reigning amongst them, pride, avarice, wantonness, and revenge? amongst us, education is very little attended to by the government, which shews the most profound indifference concerning an object the most essential to the happiness of states. with most modern nations public education is confined to teaching of languages, useless to most who learn them. christians, instead of morality, inculcate the marvellous fables and incomprehensible dogmas of a religion extremely repugnant to right reason. at the first step a young man makes in his studies, he is taught that he ought to renounce the testimony of his senses, to reject his reason as an unfaithful guide, and blindly conform himself to the dictates of his masters? but who are these masters? priests, whose interest it is to continue mankind in errors, of which they alone reap the advantage. can the abject and isolated mind of these mercenary pedagogues be capable of instructing their pupils in that of which themselves are ignorant? will they teach then to love the public good, to serve their country, to know the duties of the man and citizen? certainly not; we can expect nothing from the hands of such teachers but ignorant and superstitious pupils, who, if they have profited of the lessons they have received, are unacquainted with every thing necessary in society, of which they must consequently become useless members. on whatever side we cast our eyes, we see the study of the object most important to man totally neglected. morality, in which i also comprehend policy, is considered of very little importance in european education. the only morality taught by christians is, the enthusiastic, impracticable, contradictory, and uncertain morality contained in the gospel. this is calculated only to degrade the mind, to render virtue odious, to form abject slaves, and break the spring of the soul; or, if it is sown in warm and active minds, to produce turbulent fanatics, capable of shaking the foundations of society. notwithstanding the inutility and perversity of the morality which christianity teaches mankind, its partisans presume to tell us, that without this religion we cannot have morals. but what is it to have morals, in; the language of christians? it is to pray without ceasing, to frequent churches, to do penance, and to: abstain from pleasure; it is to live in selfishness and solitude. what good results to society from these practices, all of which may be observed by a man who has not the shadow of virtue? if such morals lead to heaven, they are very useless on earth. but certain it is, that a man may be a faithful observer of all that christianity enjoins, without possessing any of the virtues which reason shews to be necessary to the support of political society. it is necessary, then, to carefully distinguish christian morality from political morality; the former makes saints, the latter citizens: one makes men useless, or even hurtful to the world; the other has for its object the formation of members useful to society; men active and vigorous, who are capable of serving it, who fulfil the duties of husbands, fathers, friends, and companions, whatever may be their metaphysical opinions, which, let theologists say what they will, are much less sure than the invariable rules of good sense. in fact, it is certain, that man is a social being, who in all things seeks his own happiness; that he does good when he finds it his interest; that he is not commonly bad, because that would be contrary to his welfare. this being premised, let education teach men to know the relations which exist among themselves, and the duties arising from those relations; let governments, calling to their aid laws, rewards, and punishments, confirm the lessons given by education; let happiness accompany useful and virtuous actions, let shame, contempt, and chastisement be the rewards of vice. then would mankind have a true morality, founded in their own nature upon their mutual wants, and the interest of nations at large. this morality, independent of the sublime notions of theology, might perhaps have very little in common with christian morality; but society has nothing to lose from this circumstance, as has already been proved. when the people receive a proper education, which, by inspiring them early in life with virtuous principles, will habituate them to do homage to virtue, detest crimes, contemn vice, and shrink from infamy; such an education cannot be vain, when continual example shall prove to the citizens that talents and virtue are the only means of arriving at honour, fortune, distinction, consideration, and favour; and that vice conducts only to contempt and ignominy. if the clergy have usurped from the sovereign power the right of instructing the people, let the latter re-assume its rights, or at least not suffer the former to enjoy the exclusive liberty of governing the manners of mankind, and dictating their morality. let them teach, if they please, that their god transforms himself into bread, but let them never teach that we ought to hate or destroy those who refuse to believe this ineffable mystery. let no individual in society have the power of exciting citizens to rebellion, of sowing discord, breaking the bands which unite the people amongst one another, and disturbing the public tranquillity for the sake of opinions. if it be said that all governments think it their interest to support religious prejudices, and manage the clergy through policy, although they themselves are undeceived; i answer, that it is easy to convince enlightened government, that it is their true interest to govern a happy people; that upon the happiness it procures the nation, depends the stability and safety of the government; in one word, that a nation composed of wise and virtuous citizens, are much more powerful than a troop of ignorant and corrupted slaves, whom the government is forced to deceive in order to satisfy, and to deluge with impositions that it may succeed in any enterprise. thus let us not despair, that truth will one day force its way even to thrones. if the light of reason and science reaches princes with so much difficulty, it is because interested priests and starveling courtiers endeavour, to keep them in a perpetual infancy, point out to them chimerical prospects of power and grandeur, and thus turn away their attention from objects necessary to their true happiness. every government must feel that their power will always be tottering and precarious, so long as it depends for support on the phantoms of religion, the errors of the people, and the caprices of the priesthood. it must feel the inconveniencies resulting from fanatic administrations, which have hitherto produced nothing but ignorance and presumption, nothing but obstinate, weak citizens, incapable of doing service to-the state, and ready to receive the false impressions of guides who would lead them astray.. it must perceive what immense resources might be derived from the wealth, which has been accumulated by a body of useless men, who, under pretensions of teaching the nation, cheat and devour it.1 upon this foundation (which to the shame of mankind be it said, has hitherto served only to support sacerdotal pride) a wise government might raise establishments which would become useful to the state in forming the youth, cherishing talents, rewarding virtuous services, and comforting the people. i flatter myself, sir, that these reflections will exculpate me in your eyes. i do not hope for the suffrages of those who feel themselves, interested in the continuance of the evils suffered by their fellow-citizens; it is not such whom i aim to convince nothing can be made to appear evident to vicious and unreasonable men. but i presume to hope, that you will cease to look upon my book as dangerous, and my expectations as altogether chimerical. many immoral men have attacked the christian religion, because it opposed their propensities; many wise men: have despised it, because to them it appeared, ridiculous; many persons have looked upon it with indifference, because they did not feel its real inconveniencies. i attack it as a citizen, because it appears to me to be injurious to the welfare of the state, an enemy to the progress, of the human, mind, and opposed to the principles of true morality, from which political interests can never be separated. it remains only for me to say, with a poet, who was, like myself, an enemy, to superstition: .........si tibi vera videtur dede menus, et si falsa est, accingere contra. i am, &c. 1 some have thought that the clergy might one day serve as a barrier against despotism, but experience sufficiently proves that this body always stipulates for itself alone. christianity unveiled chap. i.--introduction. of the necessity of an inquiry respecting religion, and the obstacles which are met in pursuing this inquiry. a reasonable being ought in all his actions to aim at his own happiness and that of his fellow-creatures. religion, which is held up as an object most important to our temporal and eternal felicity, can be advantageous to us only so far as it renders our existence happy in this world, or as we are assured that it will fulfil the flattering promises which it makes us respecting another. our duty towards god, whom we look upon as the ruler of our destinies, can be founded, it is said, only on the evils which we fear on his part. it is then necessary that man should examine the grounds of his fears. he ought, for this purpose, to consult experience and reason, which are the only guides to truth. by the benefits which he derives from religion in the visible world which he inhabits, he may judge of the reality of those blessings for which it leads him to hope in that invisible world, to which it commands him to turn his views. mankind, for the most part, hold to their religion through habit. they have never seriously examined the reasons why they are attached to it, the motives of their conduct, or the foundations of their opinions. thus, what has ever been considered as most important to all, has been of all things least subjected to scrutiny. men blindly follow on in the paths which their fathers trod; they believe, because in infancy they were told they must believe; they hope, because their progenitors hoped; and they tremble, because they trembled. scarcely ever have they deigned to render an account of the motives of their belief. very few men have leisure to examine, or fortitude to analyse, the objects of their habitual veneration, their blind attachment, or their traditional fears. nations are carried away in the torrent of habit, example, and prejudice. education habituates the mind to opinions the most monstrous, as it accustoms the body to attitudes the most uneasy. all that has long existed appears sacred to the eyes of man; they think it sacrilege to examine things stamped with the seal of antiquity. prepossessed in favour of the wisdom of their fathers, they have not the presumption to investigate what has received their sanction. they see not that man has ever been the dupe of his prejudices, his hopes, and his fears; and that the same reasons have almost al ways rendered this enquiry equally impracticable. the vulgar, busied in the labours necessary to their subsistence, place a blind confidence in those who pretend to guide them, give up to them the right of thinking, and submit without murmuring to all they prescribe. they believe they shall offend god, if they doubt, for a moment, the veracity of those who speak to them in his name. the great, the rich, the men of the world, even when they are more enlightened than the vulgar, have found it their interest to conform to received prejudices, and even to maintain them; or, swallowed up in dissipation, pleasure, and effeminacy, they have no time to bestow on a religion, which they easily accommodate to their passions, propensities, and fondness for amusement. in childhood, we receive all the impressions others wish to make upon us; we have neither the capacity, experience, or courage, necessary to examine what is taught us by those, on whom our weakness renders us dependent. in youth, the ardour of our passions, and the continual ebriety of our senses, prevent our thinking seriously of a religion, too austere and gloomy to please; if by chance a young man examines it, he does it with partiality, or without perseverance; he is often disgusted with a single glance of the eye on an object so disgusting. in riper age, new passions and cares, ideas of ambition, greatness, power, the desire of riches, and the hurry of business, absorb the whole attention of man, or leave him but few moments to think of religion, which he never has the leisure to scrutinize. in old age, the faculties are blunted, habits become incorporated with the machine, and the senses are debilitated by time and infirmity; and we are no longer able to penetrate back to the source of our opinions; besides, the fear of death then renders an examination, over which terror commonly presides, very liable to suspicion. thus, religious opinions, once received, maintain their ground, through a long succession of ages; thus nations transmit from generation to generation ideas which they have never examined: they imagine their welfare to be attached to institutions in which, were the truth known, they would behold the source of the greater part of their misfortunes. civil authority also flies to the support of the prejudices of mankind, compels them to ignorance by forbidding inquiry, and holds itself in continual readiness to punish all who attempt to undeceive themselves. let us not be surprised, then, if we see error almost inextricably interwoven with human nature. all things seem to concur to perpetuate our blindness, and hide the truth from us. tyrants detest and oppress truth, because it dares to dispute their unjust and, chimerical titles; it is opposed by the priesthood because it annihilates their superstitions. ignorance, indolence, and passion render the great part of mankind accomplices of those who strive to deceive them, in order to keep their necks beneath the yoke, and profit by their miseries. hence nations groan under hereditary evils, thoughtless of a remedy; being either ignorant of the cause, or so long accustomed to disease, that they have lost even the desire of health. if religion be the object most important to mankind, if it extends its influences not only over our conduct in this life, but also over our eternal happiness, nothing can demand from us a more serious examination. yet it is of all things, that, respecting which, mankind exercise the most implicit credulity. the same man, who examines with scrupulous nicety things of little moment to his welfare, wholly neglects inquiry concerning the motives which determine him to believe and perform things, on which, according to his own confession, depend both his temporal and eternal felicity. he blindly abandons himself to those whom chance has given him for guides; he confides to them the care of thinking for him, and even makes a merit of his own indolence and credulity. in matters of religion, infancy and barbarity seem to be the boast of the greater part of the human race. nevertheless, men have in all ages appeared, who, shaking off the prejudices of their fellows, have dared to lift before their eyes the light of truth. but what could their feeble voice effect against errors imbibed at the breast, confirmed by habit, authorised by example, and fortified by a policy, which often became the accomplice of its own ruin? the stentorian clamours of imposture soon overwhelm the calm exhortations of the advocates of reason. in vain shall the philosopher endeavour to inspire mankind with courage, so long as they tremble beneath the rod of priests and kings. the surest means of deceiving mankind, and perpetuating their errors, is to deceive them in infancy. amongst many nations at the present day, education seems designed only to form fanatics, devotees, and monks; that is to say, men either useless or injurious to society. few are the places in which it is calculated to form good citizens. princes, to whom a great part of the earth is at present unhappily subjected, are commonly the victims of a superstitious education, and remain all their lives in the profoundest ignorance of their own duties, and the truest interests of the states which they govern. religion seems to have been invented only to render both kings and people equally the slaves of the priesthood. the latter is continually busied in raising obstacles to the felicity of nations. wherever this reigns, other governments have but a precarious power; and citizens become indolent, ignorant, destitute of greatness of soul, and, in short, of every quality necessary to the happiness of society. if, in a state where the christian religion is professed, we find some activity, some science, and an approach to social manners; it is, because nature, whenever it is in her power, restores mankind to reason, and obliges them to labour for their own felicity. were all christian nations exactly conformed to their principles, they must be plunged into the most profound inactivity. our countries would be inhabited by a small number of pious savages, who would meet only to destroy each other. for why should a man mingle with the affairs of a world, which his religion informs him is only a place of passage? what can be the industry of that people, who believe themselves commanded by their god to live in continual fear, to pray, to groan, and afflict themselves incessantly? how can a society exist which is composed of men who are convinced that, in their zeal for religion, they ought to hate and destroy all whose opinions differ from their own? how can we expect to find humanity, justice, or any virtue, amongst a horde of fanatics, who copy in their conduct a cruel, dissembling, and dishonest god? a god who delights in the tears of his unhappy creatures, who sets for them the ambush, and then punishes them for having fallen into it? a god who himself ordains robbery, persecution, and carnage? such, however, are the traits with which the christian religion represents the god which it has inherited from the jews. this god was a sultan, a despot, a tyrant, to whom all things were lawful. yet he is held up to us as a model of perfection. crimes, at which human nature revolts, have been committed in his name; and the greatest villanies have been justified by the pretence of their being committed, either by his command, or to merit his favour. thus the christian religion, which boasts of being the only true support of morality, and of furnishing mankind with the strongest motives for the practice of virtue, has proved to them a source of divisions, oppressions, and the blackest crimes. under the pretext of bringing peace on earth, it has overwhelmed it with hate, discord, and war. it furnishes the human race with a thousand ingenious means of tormenting themselves, and scatters amongst them scourges unknown before. the christian, possessed of common sense, must bitterly regret the tranquil ignorance of his idolatrous ancestors. if the manners of nations have gained nothing by the christian religion, governments, of which it has pretended to be the support, have drawn from it advantages equally small. it establishes to itself in every state a separate power, and becomes the tyrant or the enemy of every other power. kings were always the slaves of priests; or if they refused to bow the knee, they were proscribed, stripped of their privileges, and exterminated either by subjects whom religion had excited to revolt, or assassins whose hands she had armed with her sacred poignard. before the introduction of the christian religion, those who governed the state, commonly governed the priesthood; since that period, sovereigns have dwindled into the first slaves of the priesthood, the mere executors of its vengeance and its decrees. let us then conclude, that the christian religion has no right to boast of procuring advantages either by policy or morality. let us tear aside the veil with which it envelopes itself. let us penetrate back to its source. let us pursue it in its course, we shall find that, founded on imposture, ignorance, and credulity, it can never be useful but to men who wish to deceive their fellow-creatures. we shall find, that it will never cease to generate the greatest evils among mankind, and that instead of producing the felicity it promises, it is formed to cover the earth with outrages, and deluge it in blood; that it will plunge the human race in delirium and vice, and blind their eyes to their truest interests and their plainest duties. chap. ii.--sketch of the history of the jews. in a small country, almost unknown to others, lived a nation, the founders of which having too long been slaves among the egyptians, were delivered, from their servitude by a priest of heliopolis, who, by means of his superior genius and knowledge, gained the ascendancy over them.1 this man, known by the name of diodorus siculus also relates the history of moses--vide translation of abbe terrasson. 1 maneton and cheremon, egyptian historians, respecting whom testimonies have been transmitted to us by joseph the jew, inform us that a multitude of lepers were drawn out of egypt by king amenophis; and that these exiles elected for their leader a priest of heliopolis whose name was moses, and who formed for them a religion and a code of laws. joseph contre appion. liv. i. chap. ix. ii, 12. be this as it may, moses, by the confession of the bible itself, began his career by assassinating an egyptian, who was quarrelling with an hebrew; after which he fled into arabia, and married the daughter of an idolatrous priest, by whom he was often reproached for his cruelty. thence he returned into egypt, and placed himself at the head of his nation, which was dissatisfied with king pharaoh. moses reigned very tyrannically; the examples of korah, dathan, and abirain, prove to what kind of people he had an aversion. he at last disappeared like romulus, no one being able to find his body, or the place of his sepulture. moses, being educated in the mysteries of a religion, which was fertile in prodigies, and the mother of superstitions, placed himself at the head of a band of fugitives, whom he persuaded that he was an interpreter of the will of their god, whose immediate commands he pretended to receive. he proved his mission, it is said, by works which appeared supernatural to men ignorant of the operations of nature, and the resources of art. the first command that he gave them on the part of his god was to rob their masters, whom they were about to desert. when he had thus enriched them with the spoils of egypt, being sure of their confidence, he conducted them into a desert, where, during forty years, he accustomed them to the blindest obedience, he taught them the will of heaven, the marvellous fables of their forefathers, and the ridiculous ceremonies to which he pretended the most high attached his favours. he was particularly careful to inspire them with the most envenomed hatred against the gods of other nations, and the most refined cruelty to those who adored them. by means of carnage and severity, he rendered them a nation of slaves, obsequious to his will, ready to second his passions, and sacrifice themselves to gratify his ambitious views. in one word, he made the hebrews monsters of phrenzy and ferocity. after having thus animated them with the spirit of destruction, he shewed them the lands and possessions of their neighbours, as an inheritance assigned them by god himself. proud of the protection of jehovah, the hebrews marched forth to victory. heaven authorised in them knavery and cruelty. religion, united to avidity, rendered them deaf to the cries of nature; and, under the conduct of inhuman chiefs, they destroyed the canaanitish nations with a barbarity, at which every man must revolt, whose reason is not wholly annihilated by superstition. their fury destroyed every thing, even infants at the breast, in those cities whither these monsters carried their victorious arms. by the commands of their god, or his prophets, good faith was violated, justice outraged, and cruelty exercised. this nation of robbers, usurpers, and murderers, at length established themselves in a country, not indeed very fertile, but which they found delicious in comparison with the desert in which they had so long wandered. here, under the authority of the visible priests of their hidden god, they founded a state, detestable to its neighbours, and at all times the object of their contempt or their hatred. the priesthood, under the title of a theocracy, for a long time governed this blind and ferocious people. they were persuaded that in obeying their priests they obeyed god himself. notwithstanding their superstition, the hebrews at length, forced by circumstances, or perhaps weary of the yoke of priesthood, determined to have a king, according to the example of other nations. but in the choice of their monarch they thought themselves obliged to have recourse to a prophet. thus began the monarchy of the hebrews. their princes, however, were always crossed in their enterprises by inspired priests and ambitious prophets, who continually laid obstacles in the way of every sovereign whom they did not find sufficiently submissive to their own wills. the history of the jews at all times shews us nothing but kings blindly obedient to the priesthood, or at war with it, and perishing under its blows. the ferocious and ridiculous superstitions of the jews rendered them at once the natural enemies of mankind, and the object of their contempt. they were always treated with great severity by those who made inroads upon their territory. successively enslaved by the egyptians, the babylonians, and the grecians, they experienced from their masters the bitterest treatment, which was indeed but too well deserved. often disobedient to their god, whose own cruelty, as well as the tyranny of his priests frequently disgusted them, they were never faithful to their princes. in vain were they crushed beneath sceptres of iron; it was impossible to render them loyal subjects. the jews were always the dupes of their prophets, and in their greatest distresses their obstinate fanaticism, ridiculous hopes, and indefatigable credulity, supported them against the blows of fortune. at last, conquered with the rest of the earth, judah submitted to the roman yoke. despised by their new masters, the jews were treated hardly, and with great haughtiness; for their laws, as well as their conduct, had inspired the hearts of their conquerors with the liveliest detestation. soured by misfortune, they became more blind, fanatic, and seditious. exalted by the pretended promises of their god; full of confidence in oracles, which have always announced to them a felicity which they have never tasted; encouraged by enthusiasts, or by impostors, who successively profit by their credulity; the jews have, to this day, expected the coming of a messiah, a monarch, a deliverer, who shall free them from the yokes beneath which they groan, and cause their nation to reign over all other nations in the universe. chap. iii.--sketch of the history of the christian religion. in the midst of this nation, thus disposed to feed on hope and chimera, a new prophet arose, whose sectaries in process of time have changed the face of the earth. a poor jew, who pretended to be descended from the royal house of david,1 after being long unknown in his own country, emerges from obscurity, and goes forth to make proselytes. he succeeded amongst some of the most ignorant part of the populace. to them he preached his doctrines, and taught them that he was the son of god, the deliverer of his oppressed nation, and the messiah announced by the prophets. his disciples, being either impostors, or themselves deceived, rendered a clamorous testimony of his power, and declared that his mission had been proved by miracles without number. the only prodigy which he was incapable of effecting, was that of convincing the jews, who, far from being touched with his beneficent and marvellous works, caused him to suffer an ignominious death. thus the son of god died in the sight of all jerusalem; but his followers declare that he was secretly resuscitated three days after his death. visible to them alone, and invisible to the nation which he came to enlighten and convert to his doctrine, jesus, after his resurrection, say they, conversed some time with his disciples, and then ascended into heaven, where, having again become equal to god the father, he shares with him the adorations and homages of the sectaries of his law. these sectaries, by accumulating superstitions, inventing impostures, and fabricating dogmas and mysteries, have, by little and little, heaped up a distorted and unconnected system of religion which is called christianity, after the name of christ its founder. 1 the jews say that jesus was the son of one pandira, or panther, who had seduced his mother mary, a milliner, the wife of jochanan. according to others, pandira, by some artifice, enjoyed her several times, while she thought him her husband; after which, she becoming pregnant, her husband, suspicious of her fidelity, retired into babylon. some say that jesus was taught magic in egypt, from whence he went and exercised his art in galilee, where he was put to death.--vide peiffer, theol. jud. and mahom. &c. principia. lypsiae, 1687. the different nations, to which the jews were successively subjected, had infected them with a multitude of pagan dogmas. thus the jewish religion, egyptian in its origin, adopted many of the rites and opinions of the people, with whom the jews conversed. we need not then be surprised, if we see the jews, and the christians their successors, filled with notions borrowed of the phenicians, the magi or persians, the greeks, and the romans. the errors of mankind respecting religion have a general resemblance; they appear to differ only by their combinations. the commerce of the jews and christians with the grecians made them acquainted with the philosophy of plato, so analogous to the romantic spirit of the orientals, and so conformable to the genius of a religion which boasts in being inaccessible to reason.1 paul, the most ambitious and enthusiastic of the apostles, carried his doctrines, seasoned with the sublime and marvellous, among the people of greece and asia, and even the inhabitants of rome. he gained proselytes, as every man who addresses himself to the imagination of ignorant people may do; and he may be justly styled the principal founder of a religion, which, without him, could never have spread far; for the rest of its followers were ignorant men, from whom he soon separated himself to become the leader of his own sect.2 1 origen says, that celsus reproached christ with having borrowed many of his maxims from plato. see origen contra cel. chap. i. 6. augustin confesses, that he found the beginning of the gospel of john, in plato. see s. aug. conf. i. vii. ch. 9, 10, 11. the notion of the word is evidently taken from plato; the church has since found means of transplanting a great part of plato, as we shall hereafter prove. 2 the ebionites, or first christians, looked upon st. paul as an apostate and an heretic, because he wholly rejected the law of moses, which the other apostles wished only to reform. the conquests of the christian religion were, in its infancy, generally limited to the vulgar and ignorant. it was embraced only by the most abject amongst the jews and pagans. it is over men of this description that the marvellous has the greatest influence.1 an unfortunate god, the innocent victim of wickedness and cruelty, and an enemy to riches and the great, must have been an object of consolation to the wretched. the austerity, contempt of riches, and apparently disinterested cares of the first preachers of the gospel, whose ambition was limited to the government of souls; the equality of rank and property enjoined by their religion, and the mutual succours interchanged by its followers; these were objects well calculated to excite the desires of the poor, and multiply christians. the union, concord, and reciprocal affection, recommended to the first christians, must have been seductive to ingenious minds: their submissive temper, their patience in indigence, obscurity, and distress, caused their infant sect to be looked upon as little dangerous in a government accustomed to tolerate all sects. thus, the founders of christianity had many adherents among the people,2 and their opposers and enemies consisted chiefly of some idolatrous priests and jews, whose interest it was to support the religion previously established. by little and little, this new system, covered with the clouds of mystery, took deep root, and became too strong and extensive to be suppressed. the roman government saw too late the progress of an association it had despised. the christians now become numerous, dared to brave the pagan gods, even in their temples. the emperors and magistrates, disquieted at such proceedings, endeavoured to extinguish the sect which gave them umbrage. they persecuted such as they could not reclaim by milder means, and whom their fanaticism had rendered obstinate. the feelings of mankind are ever interested in favour of distress; and this persecution only served to increase the number of the friends of the christians. the fortitude and constancy with which they suffered torment, appeared supernatural and divine in the eyes of those who were witnesses to it; their enthusiasm communicated itself, and produced new advocates for the sect, whose destruction was attempted. 1 the first christians were, by way of contempt, called ebionites, which signifies beggars or mendicants. see origen contra celsum, lib. ii. et euseb. hist. eccles. lib. iii. c. 37. ebion, in hebrew, signifies poor. the word ebion has since been personified into the meaning of an heretic, or the leader of a sect, who were excluded from sacred things, and scarcely considered as men. it promised them that they should one day have their turn, and that, in the other life, they should be happier than their masters. 2 le peuple. after this explanation, let christians no longer boast the marvellous progress of their religion. it was the religion of poverty; it announced a god who was poor. it was preached by the poor, to the poor and ignorant. it gave them consolation in their misery. even its gloomy ideas were analogous to the disposition of indigent and unhappy men. the union and concord so much admired in the earlier christians, is by no means surprising. an infant and oppressed sect naturally remain united, and dread a separation of interests. it is astonishing that, in those early days, men who were themselves persecuted and treated as malcontents, should presume to preach intolerance and persecution. the tyranny exercised against them wrought no change in their sentiments. tyranny only irritates the human mind, which is always invincible, when those opinions are attacked to which it has attached its welfare. such is the inevitable effect of persecution. yet christians, who ought to be undeceived by the example of their own sect, have to this day been incapable of divesting themselves of the fury of persecution. the roman emperors, having themselves become christians, that is to say, carried away by a general torrent, which obliged them to avail themselves of the support of a powerful sect, seated religion on the throne. they protected the church and its ministers, and endeavoured to inspire their courtiers with their own ideas. they beheld with a jealous eye those who retained their attachment to the ancient religion. they, at length, interdicted the exercise of it, and finished by forbidding it under the pain of death. they persecuted without measure those who held to the worship of their ancestors. the christians now repaid the pagans, with interest, the evils which they had before suffered from them. the roman empire was shaken with convulsions, caused by the unbridled zeal of sovereigns and those pacific priests, who had just before preached nothing but mildness and toleration. the emperors, either from policy or superstition, loaded the priesthood with gifts and benefactions, which indeed were seldom repaid with gratitude. they established the authority of the latter; and at length respected as divine what they had themselves created. priests were relieved from all civil functions, that nothing might divert their minds from their sacred ministry.1 thus the leaders of a once insignificant and oppressed sect became independent. being at last more powerful than kings, they soon arrogated to themselves the right of commanding them. these priests of a god of peace, almost continually at variance with each other, communicated the fury of their passions to their followers; and mankind were astonished to behold quarrels and miseries engendered, under the law of grace, which they had never experienced under the peaceful reign of the divinities, who had formerly shared without dispute the adoration of mortals. such was the progress of a superstition, innocent in its origin, but which, in its course, far from producing happiness among mankind, became a bone of contention, and a fruitful source of calamities. _peace upon earth, and good will towards men._ thus is the gospel announced, which has cost the human race more blood than all other religions of the earth taken collectively. 1 see tillemont's life of constantine. vol. iv. art. 32. _love the lord thy god with all thy strength, and thy neighbour as thyself._ this, according to the god and legislator of the christians, is the sum of their duties. yet we see it is impossible for christians to love that severe and capricious god whom they worship. on the other hand, we see them eternally busied in tormenting, persecuting, and destroying their neighbours and brethren. to find an explanation of these contradictions, it is sufficient to cast our eyes upon the god which the christians inherited from the jews. not contented with the shocking colours in which he was painted, the christians have still more disfigured his portrait. the legislator of the hebrews speaks only of the transient punishments of this life; the christian represents his god as pouring out unbounded vengeance to all eternity. in one word, christian fanaticism feeds itself with the idea of an hell, where its god, transformed into a ferocious executioner, as unjust as implacable, shall bathe himself in the tears of his wretched creatures, and perpetuate their existence, to render them eternally miserable. there, clothed in vengeance, he shall mock at the torments of sinners, and listen with rapture to the groans with which they shall make the brazen roofs of their prisons resound; not the smallest hope of some distant termination of their pains shall give them an interval of imaginary relief. the christians in adopting the terrible god of the jews, have sublimed his cruelty. they represent him as the most capricious, wicked, and cruel tyrant which the human mind can conceive, and suppose him to treat his subjects with a barbarity and injustice truly worthy of a demon. in order to be convinced of this truth, let us contemplate, for a moment, a picture of the jewish mythology, adopted and rendered still more extravagant by the christians. chap. iv.--of the christian mythology, or the ideas of god, and his conduct, given us by the christian religion. god, by an inconceivable act of his omnipotence, created the universe out of nothing.1 he made the earth for the residence of man, whom he created in his own image. scarcely had this man, the prime object of the labours of his god, seen the light, when his creator set a snare for him, into which he undoubtedly knew that he must fall. a serpent, who speaks, seduces a woman, who is not at all surprised at the phenomenon. she, being persuaded by the serpent, solicits her husband to eat of a fruit forbidden by god himself. adam, the father of the human race, by this light fault, draws upon himself and his innocent posterity innumerable evils, which are followed, but not terminated by death. by the offence of only one man, the whole human race incurs the wrath of god, and they are at length punished for involuntary faults with an universal deluge. god repents having peopled the earth, and he finds it easier to drown and destroy the human race, than to change their hearts. a small number of the just, however, escaped this destructive flood; but the deluged earth, and the destruction of mankind, did not satiate the implacable vengeance of their creator. a new generation appeared, these, although descended from the friends of god, whom he had preserved in the general shipwreck of the world, incense him by new crimes. the almighty is represented as having been incapable of rendering his creature such as he desired him. a new torrent of corruption carries away mankind; and wrath is again excited in the bosom of jehovah. 1 ex nihilo nihil fit, was considered as an axiom by ancient philosophers. the creation, as admitted by the christians of the present day, that is to say, the eduction of all things from nothing, is a theological invention, not, indeed, of very remote date. the word barah, which is used in genesis, signifies to compote, arranges to dispose matter already existing. partial in his affections and his preferences, he, at length, casts his eyes on an idolatrous assyrian. he enters into an alliance with this man, and covenants that his posterity shall be multiplied to the number of the stars of heaven, or the sands of the sea, and that they shall for ever enjoy the favour of god. to this chosen race he reveals his will; for them, unmindful of his justice, he destroys whole nations. nevertheless, this favoured race is not the more happy or the more attached to their god. they fly to strange gods, from whom they seek succours, which are refused to them by their own. they frequently insult the god who is able to exterminate them. sometimes he punishes, sometimes consoles them; one while he hates them without cause, and another caresses them with as little reason. at last, finding it impossible to reclaim this perverse people, for whom he continues to feel the warmest tenderness, he sends amongst them his own son. to this son they will not listen. what do i say? this beloved son, equal to god his father, is put to an ignominious death by his favourite nation. his father, at the same time, finds it impossible to save the human race, without the sacrifice of his own son. thus an innocent god becomes the victim of a just god, by whom he is beloved. both consent to this strange sacrifice, judged necessary by a god, who knows that it will be useless to an hardened nation, which nothing can reclaim. we should expect that the death of this god, being useless to israel, must serve, at least, to expiate the sins of the rest of the human race. notwithstanding the eternal alliance with the hebrews, solemnly sworn to by the most high, and so many times renewed, that favourite nation find themselves at last deserted by their god, who could not reduce them to obedience. the merits of the sufferings and death of his son, are applied to the nations before excluded from his bounty. these are reconciled to heaven, now become more just in regard to them, and return to grace. yet, in spite of all the efforts of god, his favours are lavished in vain. mankind continued to sin, enkindle the divine wrath, and render themselves worthy of the eternal punishments, previously prepared and destined for the greater part of the human race. such is the faithful history of the god, on whom the foundation of the christian religion is laid. his conduct being so strange, cruel, and opposite to all reason, is it surprising to see the worshippers of this god ignorant of their duties, destitute of humanity and justice, and striving to assimilate themselves to the model of that barbarous divinity which they adore? what indulgence have mankind a right to expect from a god, who spared not even his own son? what indulgence can the christian, who believes this fable, shew to his fellow-creature? ought he not to imagine that the surest means of pleasing his god, is to imitate his ferocity and cruelty? 1 1 the sacrifice of the son of god is mentioned as a proof of his benevolence. is it not rather a proof of his ferocity, cruelty, and implacable vengeance? a good christian, on his death-bed said, "he had never been able to conceive how a good god could put an innocent god to death, to appease a just god." it is at least evident, that the sectaries of such a god must have a precarious morality, founded on principles destitute of all firmness. this god, in fact, is not always unjust and cruel; his conduct varies. sometimes he appears to have created all nature for man alone; at others, he seems to have created man only as an object, whereon to exercise his arbitrary rage. sometimes they are cherished by him, notwithstanding all their faults; at others, the whole species is condemned to eternal misery for an apple. this unchangeable god is alternately agitated by anger and love, revenge and pity, benevolence and fury. his conduct is continually destitute of that uniformity which characterises wisdom. partial in his affections, he makes it the duty of his favourite people to commit deliberately the most atrocious crimes. he commands them to violate good faith, and contemn the rights of nations. he enjoins upon them the commission of robbery and murder. on other occasions, we see him forbidding the same crimes, ordaining justice, and prescribing to mankind abstinence from whatever disturbs the good order of society. this god, who is in turn styled the god of vengeance, the god of mercies, the god of arms, and the god of peace, is ever at variance with himself. his subjects are consequently each one at liberty to copy that part of his conduct which he finds most congenial to his humour. hence their morality becomes arbitrary. it is surprising, that christians have never yet been able to agree amongst themselves, whether it would be most pleasing to their god to tolerate the various opinions of mankind, or to exterminate all who differ from themselves. it is, in fact, a problem with them, whether it be most expedient to persecute and assassinate those who think not as they do, or to treat them with humanity, and suffer them to live in peace. christians, however, do not fail to justify the strange and often iniquitous conduct attributed to their god in the scriptures. this god, say they, being of right the absolute master of his creatures, can dispose, of them at his pleasure, and for this no one can accuse him of injustice, or demand an account of his conduct. his justice is not the justice of mankind, and they have no right to censure any of his actions. it is easy to perceive the insufficiency of this answer. mankind in making justice an attribute of their god, can have no idea of this virtue, but by supposing that it resembles the justice of their fellow-creatures. if god have a justice, which in its essence differs from that of man, we know not what it is, and we attribute to him a quality of which we have no idea. if it be said, that god owes nothing to his creatures, he is supposed to be a tyrant, whose conduct has no rule but his own caprice, and who cannot continue to be a model for us, having no longer any relation with us, seeing all relations must be reciprocal. if nothing be due from god to his creatures, how can any thing be due from them to him? if, as we are continually told, men are to god, as the clay in the hands of the potter, no moral relation can exist between them. it is, nevertheless, upon those relations that all religion is founded. therefore, to say that god has no duty towards his creatures, and that his justice is different from that of mankind, is to sap the foundations of all religion and justice, which necessarily suppose that punish them for doing evil. in fine, how can the followers of the christian system reconcile that barbarous conduct, and those sanguinary commands, attributed to him in the scriptures, with his goodness or his wisdom? and how can goodness be an attribute of a god, who has created most of the human race only to damn them eternally? god ought to reward mankind for doing good. here we shall be told that the conduct of god is, to us, an impenetrable mystery, that we have no right to scrutinize it, and that our feeble reason must be lost whenever it attempts to sound the depth of divine wisdom. we are informed that we must adore in silence, and tremblingly submit to the oracles of a god, who has himself sufficiently made known his will in his holy scriptures. this is what they call revelation, to which we proceed in the next chapter. chap. v.--of revelation. how can we know, without the aid of reason, that god hath spoken? but, on the other side, is not reason proscribed by the christian religion? is not the use of reason forbidden, in the examination of the marvellous dogmas with which we are presented by this religion? does it not continually exclaim against a profane reason, which it accuses of insufficiency, and often regards as rebellious to heaven? in order to be capable of judging of divine revelation, we must have a just idea of the divinity. but seeing human reason is too weak and grovelling to exalt itself to an acquaintance with the supreme being, from what source shall we derive that idea, beside revelation itself? thus revelation itself is to become the proof of the authority of revelation. let us pass on from this conjuror's circle, and open the sacred books, destined to enlighten mankind, and before which reason must fall prostrate. do they exhibit any precise ideas of the god, whose oracles they announce? can we draw from them any just conceptions of its attributes? is not this god represented as a mass of extraordinary qualities, which form an inexplicable enigma? if this revelation be, as is supposed, an emanation from god himself, who can confide in him? does he not paint himself as false, unjust, deceitful, and cruel; as setting snares for mankind; seducing, hardening, and leading them astray? 1 1 by the scriptures and the fathers of the church, god is always represented as a seducer. he permits eve to be seduced by a serpent. he hardens the heart of pharaoh. christ himself is a stone of stumbling. such are the points of view under which the divinity is exhibited to us. thus the man, desirous of being assured of the truth of christian revelation, finds himself, at the first step of enquiry, plunged into distrust and perplexity, which is increased by the indeterminable disputes of his sacred guides, who have never been able to agree upon the manner of understanding the oracles of a divinity which they say has revealed itself. the hesitation and fear of the man who honestly examines the revelation adopted by christians, must redouble, when he sees their god represented as revealing himself only to a few favourites of the human race, while he carefully conceals himself from the remainder, to whom, notwithstanding this, revelation is equally necessary. he must be uncertain whether or not he is of the number, to whom this partial god deigns to make himself known. must not his heart be troubled at the sight of a god, who vouchsafes to discover himself, and announce his decrees, only to a number of men, inconsiderable in comparison with the whole human race? is he not tempted to accuse this god of a malevolence too dark, when he finds that for want of revealing himself to so many millions of mankind, he has caused their inevitable misery through an endless succession of ages? what ideas must he form to himself of a god who inflicts this punishment upon them for their ignorance of secret laws, which he has published by stealth in an obscure and unknown corner of asia? thus christians, even when they consult the scriptures, find all things conspiring to put them on their guard against the god exhibited therein. every thing inspires distrust of his moral character. all things float in an uncertainty. this god, in concert with the pretended interpreters of his will, seems to have formed the design of redoubling the darkness of his ignorance. he is, however, told, in order to appease his doubts, that the revealed will of god consists of mysteries; that is to say, things inaccessible to human understanding. in this case what need was there of having spoken? ought a god to reveal himself to mankind for the sole purpose of not being comprehended? is not such conduct as ridiculous as it is unreasonable? to say that god has revealed himself only to announce mysteries, is to say that he has revealed himself in order to remain unknown, to conceal from us his views, embarrass our understandings, and augment our ignorance and uncertainty. a true revelation, proceeding from a just and good god, and necessary to all mankind, ought to be clear enough to be understood by all the human race. but will the revelation, upon which judaism and christianity are founded, bear the test of this criterion? the elements of euclid are intelligible to all who endeavour to understand them. this work excites no dispute among geometricians. is it so with the bible? and do its revealed truths occasion no disputes among divines? by what fatality have writings revealed by god himself still need of commentaries? and why do they demand additional lights from on high, before they can be believed or understood? is it not astonishing, that what was intended as a guide for mankind, should be wholly above their comprehending? is it not cruel, that what is of most importance to them should be least known? all is mystery, darkness, uncertainty, and matter of dispute, in a religion intended by the most high to enlighten the human race. far from contenting themselves with the pretended mysteries contained in the scriptures, the priests of the christian religion have, from age to age, invented new ones, which, though never mentioned by their god, their disciples are forced to believe. no christian can entertain a doubt concerning the mysteries of the trinity, the incarnation, and the efficacy of sacraments; and yet christ never explained these subjects. among christians every thing seems to be abandoned to the imagination, caprice, and arbitrary decision of priests, who arrogate to themselves the right of fabricating mysteries and articles of faith, as their interests occasionally require. thus, this revelation perpetuates itself by means of the church, which pretends to be inspired by god, and which, far from enlightening the minds of her children, delights to confound, and plunges them in a sea of uncertainty! such are the effects of this revelation, which forms the basis of the christian religion, and of the reality of which we are not permitted to doubt. god, it is said, has spoken to mankind. but when has he spoken? thousands of years ago, by prophets and inspired men, whom he has chosen as organs of communication with mankind. but how can it be proved to have been god himself who spoke, except by having recourse to the testimony of the very persons who pretend to have received his commands? these interpreters of the divine will were then men; and are not men liable to be deceived themselves, and prone to deceive others? how then can we discover what confidence is due to the testimony which these organs of heaven give in favour of their own mission? how shall we be made sure that they have not been the dupes of some illusion, or an overheated imagination? at this remote period, how can we be certain that moses conversed with god, and received from him the law which he communicated to the hebrews? what was the temperament of this moses? was he phlegmatic or enthusiastic, honest or knavish, ambitious or disinterested, a practiser of truths or of falsehood? what confidence can be placed in the testimony of a man, who, after pretending to have performed so many miracles, could not convert his people from idolatry; and who, after having caused forty-seven thousand israelites to perish by the sword, has the effrontery to assume the title of the meekest of mankind? is it certain that the books which are attributed to moses, and report so many miraculous circumstances, are perfectly authentic? in fine, what proof have we of his mission, except the testimony of a number of superstitious, ignorant, and credulous israelites, who were probably the dupes of a ferocious legislator? what proofs does the christian religion give us of the mission of jesus christ? are we acquainted with his character and temperament? what degree of confidence can we place in the testimony of his disciples, who, by their own confession, were ignorant and unlearned men, and, consequently, liable to be imposed upon by the artifices of a dexterous impostor? ought not the testimony of the most learned in jerusalem to have greater weight with us, than that of the lowest vulgar, whose ignorance always renders them the dupes of those who endeavour to deceive them? these enquiries bring us to an examination of the proofs which are adduced in support of the christian religion. chap. vi.--of the proofs of the christian religion. miracles, prophecies, and martyrs. we have seen, in the preceding chapters, what just reasons there are to doubt the authenticity of the revelation of the jews and christians. and further, relative to this article, christianity has no advantage over any other religion. all the religions on earth, notwithstanding their discordance, declare that they have emanated from god, and pretend to possess an exclusive right to his favours. the indian asserts, that the brama himself is the author of his worship. the scandinavian derives his from the awful odin. if the jew and the christian have received theirs from jehovah by the ministry of moses and jesus, the mahometan affirms, that he has received his from his prophet, inspired by the same god. thus, all religions pretend to a divine origin; and they all interdict the use of reason in the examination of their sacred titles. each pretends to be the only true one, to the exclusion of all others. all menace with the wrath of heaven those who refuse to submit to their authority, and all acquire the character of falsehood by the palpable contradictions with which they are filled; by the mis-shapen, obscure, and often odious ideas which they give of the godhead; by the whimsical laws which they attribute to him, and by the disputes which they generate among their sectaries. in fine, they all appear to be a mass of impostures and reveries, equally disgusting to reason. thus, on the score of pretensions, the christian religion has no advantage over the other superstitions with which the world is infected; and its divine origin is contested by all others with as much propriety as theirs is denied by it. how then shall we decide in its favour? how prove the validity of its pretensions? has it any superior qualities, by which it merits the preference? and if so, what are they? does it, better than any other, make us acquainted with the nature and essence of god? alas! it only renders them more incomprehensible. it represents him as a capricious tyrant, whose whimsies are sometimes favourable, but more commonly injurious to mankind. does it render mankind better? alas! it arms them against each other, renders them intolerant, and forces them to butcher their brethren. does it render empires flourishing and powerful? wherever it reigns, do we not see the people debased, destitute of energy, and ignorant of true morality? what then are the proofs which are to establish the superiority of the christian religion over all others? we are answered, "miracles, prophecies, and martyrs." but these are to be found in all religions of the earth. there are in all nations men, who, being superior to the vulgar in science and cunning, deceive them with imposture, and dazzle them with performances which are judged to be supernatural, by men ignorant of the secrets of nature and the resources of art. if the jew cite the miracles of moses, i see them performed before a people most ignorant, abject, and credulous, whose testimony has no weight with me. i may, also, suspect that these pretended miracles have been inserted in the sacred books of the hebrews long after the death of those who might have testified the truth concerning them. if the christians cite jerusalem, and the testimony of gallilee, to prove the miracles of christ, i see them attested only by an ignorant populace; or i demand how it could be possible that an entire people, who had been witnesses to the miracles of christ, should consent to his death, and even earnestly demand it? would the people of london, or paris, suffer a man who had raised the dead, restored the blind to sight, and healed the lame and paralytic, to be put to death before their eyes? if the jews demanded the death of jesus, all his miracles are at once annihilated in the mind of every unprejudiced person. may not we, also, oppose to the miracles of moses, and christ, those performed by mahomet in presence of all mecca and arabia assembled? the effect of his miracles was, at least, to convince the arabians that he was a divine person. the miracles of jesus convinced nobody of his mission. saint paul himself, who afterwards became the most ardent of his disciples, was not convinced by the miracles, of which, in his time, there existed so many witnesses. a new one was necessary for his conviction. and by what right do they at this day demand belief of miracles; which could not convince even in the time of the apostles; that is to say, a short time after they were wrought? let it not be said that the miracles of christ are as well attested as any fact in profane history, and that to doubt them is as ridiculous as to doubt the existence, of scipio or cã¦sar, which we believe only on the report of the historians by whom they are mentioned. the existence of a man, of the general of an army, or an hero, is not improbable; neither is it a miracle.1 we believe the probable facts, whilst we reject, with contempt, the miracles recounted by titus livius. the most stupid credulity is often joined to the most distinguished talents. of this, the christian religion furnishes us with innumerable examples. in matters of religion, all testimony is liable to suspicion. the most enlightened men see but ill, when they are intoxicated with enthusiasm, and dazzled by the chimeras of a wild imagination. a miracle is a thing impossible in the order of nature. if this be changed by god, he is not immutable. it will probably be said, that, without changing, the order of things, god and his favourites could not find resources in nature unknown to mankind in general. but then their works would no longer be supernatural, and would have nothing of the marvellous. a miracle is an effect contrary to the established laws of nature. god himself, therefore, cannot perform miracles without counteracting the institutions, of his own wisdom a wise man, having seen a miracle, might with propriety doubt the evidence of his own senses. he ought carefully to examine, whether, the extraordinary effect, which he does not comprehend, proceeds not from some natural cause, whose manner of acting he does not understand. 1 a supernatural event requires, in order to be believed, much stronger proofs than a fact in no-wise contradictory to probability. it is easy to believe, upon the testimony of philostrates, that appollonius existed, because his existence has nothing in it that shocks reason; but i will not believe philostrates, when he tells me, that appollonius performed miracles. i believe that jesus christ died; but i do not believe that he arose from the dead. but let us suppose, for a moment, that miracles may exist, and that those of christ were real, or, at least, that they were inserted in the gospels by persons who imagined they had seen them. are the witnesses who transmitted, or the apostles who saw them, extremely deserving of credit? and have we not a right to refuse their testimonies? were those witnesses very deserving men? by the confession of the christians themselves they were ignorant men, taken from the dregs of the people, and consequently credulous and incapable of investigation. were those witnesses disinterested? no; it was, undoubtedly, their chief interest to support those miracles, upon which were suspended the divinity of their master, and the truth of the religion they were endeavouring to establish. are those miracles confirmed by the testimony of cotemporary historians? not one of them has mentioned those extraordinary facts. we find not a single jew or pagan in the superstitious city of jerusalem who heard even a word of the most marvellous facts that ever were recorded, and facts which happened in the midst of them. the miracles of christ were ever attested by christians only. we are requested to believe that, at the death of the son of god, the earth quaked, the sun was darkened, and the dead arose. how does it happen that such extraordinary events have been noticed only by a handful of christians? were they the only persons who perceived them? we are told, also, that christ arose from the dead; to prove which, they appeal to the testimony of his apostles and followers. would not one solemn apparition, in some public place, have been more decisive than all those clandestine ones, made to persons interested in the formation of a new sect? the christian faith, according to st. paul, is founded on the resurrection of christ. this, then, ought to have been demonstrated to mankind, in the clearest and most indisputable manner.1 1 the barilidians and corinthians, heretics who lived in the infancy of christianity, maintained that jesus was not dead, and that simon the cyrenian was crucified in his place. see epiph. haer. c. 28. thus, there were men, from the birth of the church, who doubted the crucifixion, and, consequently, the resurrection of christ; and yet we are exhorted to believe them at the present day. have we not room to accuse the saviour of the world with want of benevolence, in shewing himself only to his disciples and favourites? it seems that he did not desire that all the world should believe in him. the jews, it is said, deserve to be blinded for putting christ to death. but, if this be the case, why did the apostles preach to them the gospel? could it be expected that the jews would believe the report of the apostles, rather than their own eyes? miracles appear to have been invented to supply the want of good reasons. truth and evidence have no need of miracles to ensure their reception. is it not very astonishing that god almighty should find it easier to derange the order of nature, than to convince mankind of truths the most evident, and calculated to force their assent? miracles were made to prove things which it is impossible to believe. there is no need of miracles when we talk of reason. things incredible are here adduced in proof of incredible things. almost all impostors who have fabricated religions, have announced incredibilities to mankind. they have afterwards fabricated miracles in proof of those incredibilities. "you cannot comprehend," said they, "what i tell you; but i will clearly prove to you that i tell the truth, by doing things that you cannot comprehend." people have in all ages been overcome by this brilliant reasoning. a passion for the marvellous has prevented enquiry. mankind have not perceived that miracles could neither prove impossibilities, nor change the essence of truth. whatever wonders a man, or, if you please, a god may perform, they can never prove that two and two are not four, or that three are no more than one. they cannot prove that an immaterial being, destitute of organs, has spoken to man; or that a good, wise, and just being has commanded the execution of injustice, folly, and cruelty. it appears, therefore, that miracles prove nothing, unless it be the address and impostures of those who are desirous of profiting by the stupid credulity of mankind, and endeavour to seduce them into a belief of the most extravagant falsehoods. such men have always began by falsely pretending to have an intimate commerce with god, in order to prove which, they have performed wonders that they attribute to the being by whom they say they were commissioned. every man, who performs miracles, endeavours to establish, not truth, but falsehood. truth is simple and evident; the marvellous is ever to be suspected. nature is always true to herself; she acts by unvarying laws. to say that god performs miracles, is to say that he contradicts himself, and violates the laws which he has prescribed to nature. it is to say, that he renders useless human reason, of which he is the author. impostors alone can pronounce it necessary to discredit experience and reject reason. thus, the pretended miracles of the christian, as well as all other religions, have no foundation, but the ignorance, credulity, and enthusiasm of mankind, and the cunning of impostors. the same may be said of prophecies. mankind are ever anxious to pry into futurity; and there are always some kind individuals disposed to aid them in the gratification of this desire. there have been enchanters, diviners, and prophets, in all the nations of the earth. the jews have not been happier, in this respect, than others. tartars, negroes, and indians have their share of impostors, all societies will find deceivers enough, so long as they are willing to pay for deception. these inspired men have not been ignorant, that their prophecies ought to be extremely vague and ambiguous, in order that they might not, in process of time, appear to have been falsehoods. we need not, therefore, be surprised, that the jewish prophecies are very dark, and of such a nature, that any thing may be found in them which interpreters think proper to seek. those which are attributed to christ, by his followers, are not considered in the same light by the jews, who still expect the messiah, whom the former believe to have been on earth eighteen centuries ago. the jewish prophecies uniformly announce the deliverer of a discontented and oppressed nation. such a one was also expected by the romans, and almost all the nations of the earth. all mankind have a natural propensity to hope for a termination of the evils they suffer, and believe that providence cannot, in justice, fail to render them, one day, happy. the jews, the most superstitious nation on earth, building upon the supposed promise of their god, have always expected the coming of a monarch or conqueror, who is to elevate them from disgrace, and crown them with triumph. it was impossible for them to see this deliverer in the person of jesus, who, instead of being the restorer of the hebrew nation, was its destroyer; and since whose coming, they seem to have lost all favour with god. it is asserted, that the destruction of the jewish nation, and the dispersion of the jews, were themselves foretold, and that they furnish a convincing proof of the truth of christian prophecy. to this i answer, it was easy to foretel the dispersion and destruction of a restless, turbulent, and rebellious people, continually torn and convulsed by intestine divisions. besides, this people was often conquered and dispersed. the temple destroyed by titus, had previously suffered the same fate from nebuchadnezzar, who carried the captive tribes into assyria, and spread them through his territories. the dispersion of the jews is more perceptible than that of other conquered nations, because they have generally, after a certain time, become confounded with their conquerors; whereas the jews refuse to intermingle, by domestic connections, with the nations where they reside, and have religiously maintained this distinction. it is not the same with the cuebres or parsis, of persia and indostan, as well as the armenians, who dwell in mahometan countries. the jews remain dispersed, because they are unsocial, intolerant, and blindly attached to their superstitions.1 thus christians have no reason to boast of the prophecies contained in the books of the jews, nor to make invidious applications of them to that nation, because they detest its religion. judea was always subjected to priests, who had great influence over affairs of state. they were always meddling with politics, and undertook to foretel the events, fortunate or unfortunate, which were to befal the nation. no country was ever more fertile in prophets. this description of men instituted schools, where they initiated into the mysteries of their art those who proved themselves worthy of that honour, by discovering a wish to deceive a credulous people, and by such honest means acquire riches and respect.2 the art of prophesying was then an actual profession, or an useful and profitable branch of commerce in that miserable nation, which believed god to be incessantly busied in their affairs. the great gains resulting from this traffic of imposture must have caused divisions among the jewish prophets. accordingly, we find them crying down each other. each one treated his rivals as false prophets, inspired by evil spirits. there have always been quarrels among impostors, to decide who should have the exclusive right of deceiving mankind. 1 the acts of the apostles evidently prove, that, even before the time of jesus, the jews began to be dispersed. jews came from greece, persia, arabia, &c. to the feast of pentecost. acts, c. ii. 8. so that, after jesus, the inhabitants of judea only were dispersed by the romans. 2 saint jerome says, that the sadducees did not adopt the prophets, but contented themselves with believing the five books of moses. dodwell, de jure laicorum, asserts, that the prophets prepared themselves to prophesy by drinking wine. see page 259. it seems they were jugglers, poets, and musicians, who had made themselves masters of their trades, and knew how to exercise them profitably. if we examine the conduct of the boasted prophets of the old testament, we shall find them far from being virtuous persons. we see arrogant priests continually meddling with affairs of state, and interweaving them with religion. we see in them seditious subjects, incessantly caballing against all sovereigns, who were not sufficiently submissive to them. they cross their projects, excite their subjects to rebellion, effect their destruction, and thus accomplish the fatal predictions, which they had before made against them.1 such is the character of most of the prophets, who have played a part in the history of the jews. the studied obscurity of the prophecies is such, that those which are commonly applied to the messiah, or the deliverer of israel, are equally applicable to every enthusiast or prophet that appeared in jerusalem or judea. christians, heated with the idea of christ, think they meet him in all places, and pretend to see him in the darkest passages of the old testament. deluding themselves by force of allegories, subtilties, commentaries, and forced interpretations, they have discovered the most formal predictions in all the vague oracles and nonsensical trash of the prophets.2 1 the prophet samuel, displeased with saul, who refused to second his cruelty, declared that he had forfeited the crown, and raised up a rival to him in the person of david. elias appears to have been a seditious subject, who, finding himself unable to succeed in his rebellious designs, thought proper to escape due punishment by flight. jeremiah himself gives us to understand that he conspired with the assyrians against his besieged country. he seems to have employed himself in depriving: his fellow-citizens of both the will and the courage to defend themselves. he purchased a field of his relations, at the very time when he informed his countrymen that they were about to be dispersed, and led away in captivity. the king of assyria recommends this prophet to his general, nebuzaradan, whom he commands to take great care of him.--see jeremiah. 2 any thing may be found in the bible, if it be read with the imagination of saint augustine, who pretended to see all the new testament in the old. according to him, the death of abel is a type of that of christ; the two wives of abraham are the synagogue and the church; a piece of red cloth held up by an harlot, who betrayed jericho, signifies the blood of christ; the lamb, goat, and lion, are figures of jesus christ; the brazen serpent represents the sacrifice on the cross. even the mysteries of the christian religion are announced in the old testament. manna represents the eucharist, &c. see s. aug. serm. 78. and ep. 156. how can a man, in his senses, see, in the immanuel announced by isaiah, the messiah, whose name is jesus? isaiah c. vii. v. 14. how discover, in an obscure and crucified jew, a leader who shall govern israel? how see a royal deliverer and restorer of the jews, in one, who, far from delivering his nation, came only to destroy their laws; and after whose coming their land was desolated by the romans? a man must be sharp-sighted indeed to find the messiah in their predictions. jesus himself does not seem to have been more clear, or happy, in his prophecies. in the gospel of luke, chap. xxi. he speaks of the last judgment: he mentions angels, who, at the sound of the trumpet, assemble mankind together before him. he adds, "verily i say unto you, this generation shall not pass away, until these things are accomplished." the world, however, still stands, and christians have been expecting the last judgment for eighteen hundred years. men are not scrupulous respecting things which accord with their desires. when we examine, without prejudice, the prophecies of the hebrews, we find them to be a mis-shapen mass of rhapsodies, the offspring of fanaticism and delirium. we find them obscure and enigmatical, like the oracles of the pagans. in fine, it is evident that these pretended divine oracles are the vagaries and impostures of men, who imposed on the credulity of a superstitious nation which believes in dreams, visions, apparitions, and sorceries, and received with avidity any deception, provided it were sufficiently decorated with the marvellous. wherever mankind are ignorant, there will be found prophets and workers of miracles, and these two branches of commerce will always decay in the same proportion as mankind become enlightened. among the proofs of the authenticity of their religion, christians enumerate a multitude of martyrs, who have sealed with their blood their belief of the opinions they had embraced. there is no religion destitute of ardent defenders, who would sacrifice their lives for the opinions to which they believe their eternal happiness attached. superstitious and ignorant men are obstinate in their prejudices. their credulity prevents them from suspecting any deception in their spiritual guides. their vanity persuades them that they are incapable of wavering; and if, in fine, their imaginations be strong enough to see the heavens open, and a recompense prepared therein for their courage, there is no torment they will not brave and endure. in their intoxication they will despise all torments of short duration; they will smile upon their executioners; and their souls, alienated from earthly things, will become insensible to pain. in such scenes, the hearts of spectators are softened; they admire the astonishing firmness of the martyr; they catch his enthusiasm, and believe his cause just. his courage appearing to them supernatural and divine, becomes an indubitable proof of the truth of his opinions. thus, by a sort of contagion, enthusiasm communicates itself. men are always interested in the fate of those who shew the greatest firmness; and tyranny always multiplies the friends of those whom it persecutes. the constancy of the first christians must, therefore, have produced proselytes, by a natural effect of their conduct. martyrs prove nothing, unless it be the strength of the enthusiasm, error, and obstinacy produced by superstition, and the barbarous folly of those who persecute their fellow-creatures for religious opinions. every violent passion has its martyrs. pride, vanity, prejudice, love, patriotism, and even vice itself, produces martyrs; or, at least, a contempt of every kind of danger. is it, then, surprising, that enthusiasm and fanaticism, the strongest passions of mankind, have so often enabled men, inspired with the hopes they give, to face and despise death? besides, if christians can boast a catalogue of martyrs, jews can do the same. the unfortunate jews, condemned to the flames by the inquisition, were martyrs to their religion; and their fortitude proves as much in its favour, as that of the christians can do in favour of christianity. if martyrs demonstrate the truth of a religion, there is no religion or sect which may not be looked upon as true. in fine, among the perhaps exaggerated number of martyrs, boasted by christians, many were rather the victims of an inconsiderate zeal, a turbulent and seditious spirit, than a real love of religion. the church itself does not presume to justify some, who, transported by a volcanic zeal, have troubled the peace of the earth, and poured out flaming destruction on all who differed in opinion from themselves; until mankind, consulting their own tranquillity and safety, have destroyed them. if men of this description were to be considered as martyrs, every disturber of society, when punished, would acquire a right to this title. chap. vii.--of the mysteries of the christian religion. to reveal any thing to a man, is to discover to him secrets of which he was before ignorant. if we ask christians what the secrets were, the importance of which rendered it necessary that they should be revealed by god himself, we shall be told that the greatest of those secrets, and the one most necessary to mankind, is the unity of the godhead; a secret which, say they, human wisdom could never have discovered, of itself. but are we not at liberty to doubt the truth of this assertion? moses, undoubtedly, declared an only god to the hebrews, and did all in his power to render them enemies to the idolatry and polytheism of other surrounding nations, whose belief and whose modes of worship he represented as abominable in the eyes of the celestial monarch, who had brought them out of the land of egypt. but have not many wise men among the heathens discovered, without the assistance of the jewish revelation, one supreme god, superior to all others? moreover, was not fate, to which all the other gods of the heathens were subordinate, an only god, to whose sovereign law all nature was subject? as to the colours in which moses paints his godhead, neither jews nor christians have a right to pride themselves therein. he is represented as a capricious and irascible despot, full of cruelty, injustice, partiality, and malignity. what kind of being shall we contemplate, when we add to this the ineffable attributes ascribed to him in the christian theology? is the godhead described when it is said that it is a spirit, an immaterial being, which resembles nothing presented to us by our senses? is not human understanding confounded with the negative attributes of infinity, immensity, eternity, omnipotence, and omniscience, with which he has been decorated, only to render him still more incomprehensible? how can the wisdom, the goodness, justice, and other moral qualities of this god, be reconciled with that strange and often atrocious conduct, which are attributed to him in almost every page of the old and new testament? would it not have been better to have left mankind in entire ignorance of the godhead, than to reveal to him a god made up of contradictions, which lead to eternal dispute, and serve only to trouble his repose? to reveal such a god to mankind, is only to discover to them the means to embarrass and render themselves wretched, and quarrel with and injure one another. but, be this as it may, is it true that christianity admits but one god, the same which was revealed by moses? do we not see christians adore a threefold divinity, under the name of the trinity? the supreme god begat from all eternity a son equal to himself; from these two proceeds a third equal to the two first; these three gods, equal in perfection, divinity, and power, form, nevertheless, only one god. to overturn this system, it seems sufficient only to shew its absurdity. is it but to reveal such mysteries as these that the godhead has taken pains to instruct mankind? have opinions more absurd and contrary to reason ever existed among the most ignorant and savage nations?l in the mean time, however, the writings of moses contain nothing that could authorise the construction of a system so wild. it is only by having recourse to the most forced explanations, that the doctrine of the trinity is pretended to be found in the bible. as to the jews, contented with the only god which their legislator has declared to them, they have never attempted to create a threefold one. 1 the dogma of the trinity is evidently borrowed from the reveries of plato, or from the allegories under which that romantic philosopher chose to conceal his doctrine. it appears that to him the christian religion is indebted for the greater part of its dogmas. plato admitted three hypostases, or modes of being in the divinity. the first constituted the supreme god; the second the logos, word, or divine intelligence proceeding from the first; the third is the spirit, or soul of the world. the early teachers of the christian religion appear to have been platonics; their enthusiasm probably found in plato a doctrine analogous to their feelings; had they been grateful, they would have recorded him as a prophet, or, at least, as one of the fathers of the church. the jesuitical missionaries found a divinity, nearly similar to that of the christians, at thibet. among the tartars, god is called kon-cio-cik, the only god, and kon-cio-sum, the threefold god. they also give him the titles on, ha, hum, intelligence, might, power or words, heart, love. the number three was always revered among the ancients; because salom, which in the oriental languages signifies three, signifies also health, safety, salvation. the second of these gods, or, according to the christians, the second person of the trinity, having clad himself with human nature, and become incarnate in the womb of a virgin, he submitted himself to the infirmities of our species, and even suffered an ignominious death to expiate the sins of the earth. this is what christians call the mystery of incarnation. he must be indeed blind, who cannot see these absurd notions are borrowed from the egyptians, indians, and grecians, whose ridiculous mythologies describe gods as possessing human forms, and subject to infirmities, like mankind.1 1 the egyptians appear to have been the first who pretended that their gods had assumed material bodies. foe, the god of the chinese, was born of a virgin, who was fecundated by a ray of the sun. in indostan nobody doubts the incarnations of vistnou. it seems that theologists of all nations, despairing to exalt themselves to a level with god, have endeavoured to debase him to a level with themselves. thus, we are commanded by christianity to believe that a god having become man without doing injury to his divine nature, has suffered, died, and offered himself a sacrifice to himself; and all this was absolutely and indispensibly necessary to appease his own wrath. this is what christians denominate the mystery of the redemption of the human race. this dead god, however, was resuscitated. thus the adonis of the phenicians, the osiris of the egyptians, and the atys of the phrygians, are represented as periodically resigning and re-assuming life. the god of the christians rises again, re-animated, and bursts the tomb, triumphant. such are the wondrous secrets, or sublime mysteries, that the christian religion unfolds to its disciples. so great, so abject, and so ever incomprehensible are the ideas it gives us of the divine being. such is the illumination our minds receive from revelation! a revelation which only serves to render still more impenetrable the clouds which veil the divine essence from human eyes. god, we are told, is willing to render himself inconsistent and ridiculous, to confound the curiosity of those whom, we are at the same time informed, he desires to enlighten by his special grace. what must we think of a revelation which, far from teaching us any thing, is calculated to darken and puzzle the clearest ideas? thus, notwithstanding the boasted revelation of the christians, they know nothing of that being whom they make the basis of their religion. on the contrary, it only serves to obscure all the notions which might otherwise be formed of him. in holy writ he is called an hidden god. david tells us, that he places his dwelling in darkness, that clouds and troubled waters form the pavilion with which he is covered. in fine, christians, although enlightened, as they say, by god himself, have only ridiculous and inconsistent ideas of him, which render his existence doubtful, or even impossible, in the eyes of every man who consults his reason. what notions, indeed, can we form of a god, who, after having created the world solely for the happiness of mankind, nevertheless suffers the greater part of the human race to be miserable both in this world and that which is to come? how can a god, who enjoys a supreme felicity, be offended with the actions of his creatures? this god is then susceptible of grief; his happiness can be disturbed; he is then dependent on man, who can, at pleasure, delight or afflict him! how can a benevolent god bestow on his creatures a fatal liberty by the abuse of which they may incur his anger, and their own destruction? how can that being, who is himself the author of life and nature, suffer death? how can an only god become triple without injuring his unity? we shall be answered, that all these matters are mysteries; but such mysteries destroy even the existence of god. it would be more reasonable to admit, with zoroaster, or manes, two principles or opposite powers in nature, than to believe, with christians, that there is an omnipotent god, who cannot prevent the existence of evil; a god who is just, and yet partial; a god all-merciful, and yet so implacable, that he will punish through an eternity the crimes of a moment; an only god, who is threefold; a god, the chief of beings, who consents to die, being unable to satisfy by any other means his divine justice. if, in the same subject, contraries cannot subsist at the same time, either the existence of the god of the jews, or that of the christians, must undoubtedly be impossible. whence we are forced to conclude, that the teachers of christianity, by means of the attributes with which they have decorated, or rather disfigured their godhead, have, in fact, annihilated the god of the jews, or, at least, so transformed him, that he is no longer the same. thus, revelation, with all its fables and mysteries, has only embarrassed the reason of mankind, and rendered uncertain the simple notions which they might form to themselves of that necessary being, who governs the universe with immutable laws. though the existence of a god cannot be denied, it is yet certain that reason cannot admit the existence of the one which the christians adore, and whose conduct, commands, and qualities, their religion pretends to reveal. if they are atheists, who have no ideas of the supreme being, the christian theology must be looked upon as a project invented to destroy his existence.1 1 divines have always disagreed among themselves respecting the proofs of the existence of a god. they mutually style each other atheists, because their demonstrations have never been the same. few christians have written on the existence of god, without drawing upon themselves an accusation of atheism. descartes, clarke, pascal, arnauld; and nicole, have been considered as atheists. the reason is plain. it is impossible to prove the existence of a being so inconsistent as the god of the christians. we shall be told that men have no means for judging of the divinity, and that our understandings are too narrow to form any idea of him. why then do they dispute incessantly concerning him? why assign to him qualities which destroy each other? why recount fables concerning him? why quarrel and cut each others throats, because they are differently interpreted by different persons? chap. viii.--mysteries and dogmas of christianity. not content with having enveloped their god in mysterious clouds and judaic fables, the teachers of christianity seen to be still busied in the multiplication of mysteries, and embarrassing more and more the reason of their disciples. religion, designed to enlighten mankind, is only a tissue of enigmas; a labyrinth which sound sense can never explore. that which ancient superstitions found most incomprehensible, seems not unaptly to be interwoven with a religious system, which imposes eternal silence on reason. the fatalism of the grecians has been transformed, in the hands of christian priests, into predestination. according to this tyrannic dogma, the god of mercies has destined the greatest part of mankind to eternal torments. he places them in this world that they, by the abuse of their faculties and liberty, may render themselves worthy of the implacable wrath of their creator. a benevolent and prescient god gives to mankind a free will, of which he knows they will make so perverse an use, as to merit eternal damnation. thus, instead of furnishing them with the propensities necessary to their happiness, he permits them to act, only that he may have the pleasure of plunging them into hell. nothing can be more horrid than the description given us by christians of this place, destined to be the future residence of almost all mankind. there a merciful god will, throughout an eternity, bathe himself in the tears of wretches, whom he created for misery. sinners, shut up in this awful dungeon, will be delivered up for ever to devouring flames. there shall be heard weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. the torments of this place shall, at the end of millions of years, have only begun. the consoling hope of a distant mitigation of pain shall be unknown. in one word, god, by an act of his omnipotence, shall render man capable of miseries uninterrupted, and interminable. his justice will punish finite crimes, the effects of which are limited by time, by torments infinite in degree and duration. such is the idea a christian forms of the god that demands his love. this tyrant, creates him only to render him miserable; he gives him reason to deceive him, and propensities to lead him astray. he gives him liberty, that he may incur eternal ruin. he gives him advantages above the beasts, that he may be subjected to torments, which beasts, like inanimate substances, are incapable of suffering. the dogma of predestination represents the lot of man as worse than that of brutes and stones.1 1 the doctrine of predestination was also a tenet of the jews. in the writings of moses, a god is exhibited, who, in his decrees, is partially fond of a chosen people, and unjust to all others. the theology and history of the greeks represent men as punished for necessary crimes, foretold by oracles. of this orestes, oedipus, ajax, &c. are examples. mankind have always described god as the most unjust of all beings. according to the jansenists, god bestows his grace on whom he pleases, without any regard to merit. this is much more conformable to the christian, pagan, and jewish fatalism, than the doctrine of the molinists, who say that god grants his grace to all who ask and deserve it. it is certain that christians in general are true fatalists. they evade this accusation, by declaring that the designs of god are mysteries. if so, why do they eternally dispute about them? it is true, the christian religion promises a blissful residence to those whom god shall have chosen to be objects of his love. but this place is reserved only for a small number of elect, who, without any merit in themselves, shall, nevertheless, have unbounded claims upon the grace of god. thus, the tartarus and elysium of the heathen mythology, invented by impostors to awe and seduce mankind, have been transplanted into the system of the christians, who have given them the new appellation of heaven and hell. the followers of the christian religion believe in a race of invisible beings, different from man and subordinate to god, part of whom is employed in executing the wrath of god upon offenders; and part in watching over his works, and particularly the preservation of man. the former, being malevolent spirits, are called devils, demons, &c. the latter, being benevolent spirits, are called angels. they are supposed to have the faculty of rendering themselves sensible, and taking the human form. good angels are, in the imagination of christians, what the nymphs, lares, and penates, were imagined to be by the heathens, and what the fairies were with writers of romances. the sacred books of the jews and christians are replete with these marvellous beings, whom god has sent to his favourites to be their guides, protectors, and tutelar deities. devils are considered as the enemies and seducers of the human race, and perpetually busied in drawing them into sin. a power is attributed to them of performing miracles, similar to those wrought by the most high; and, above, a power that counteracts his, and renders all his projects abortive. in fact, the christian religion does not formally allow the same power to the devil as to god; nevertheless, it supposes that malevolent being prevents mankind from entering into the enjoyment of the felicity destined them by the goodness of god, and leads most of them into eternal perdition. christians, however, do virtually attribute to the devil an empire much more extensive than that of the supreme being. the latter, with difficulty, saves a few elect; while the former carries off, in spite of him, the greater part of mankind, who listen to his destructive temptations, rather than the absolute commands of god. this satan, the cause of so much terror to christians, was evidently borrowed from the doctrine of two principles, formerly admitted in egypt and all the east. the osyris and typhon of the egyptians, the orosmades and aharimanes of the persians and chaldeans, have undoubtedly given birth to the continual war between the god of christians and his formidable adversary. by this system mankind have endeavoured to account for all the good and evil with which life is chequered. an almighty devil serves to justify the supreme being with respect to all necessary and unremitted evils which afflict the human race. such are the dreadful and mysterious doctrines upon which christians in general are agreed. there are many others which are peculiar to different sects. thus, a numerous sect of christians admit an intermediate state between heaven and hell, where souls, too sinful for the former and too innocent for the latter, are subjected for a time, in order to expiate by their sufferings the sin they commit in this life; after undergoing this punishment, they are received into the abodes of eternal felicity. this doctrine, which was evidently drawn from the reveries of plato, has, in the hands of the roman priests, been converted into an inexhaustible source of riches. they have arrogated to themselves the power of opening the gates of purgatory, and pretend that, by their prayers, they can mitigate the rigour of the divine decrees, and abridge the torments of the souls, condemned to this place by a just god.1 1 it is evident that the roman catholics are indebted to plato for their purgatory. that great philosopher divided souls into three classes: the pure, the curable, and the incurable. the first returned, by refusion, to the universal soul of the world, or the divinity, from which they had emanated; the second went to hell, where they passed in review every year before the judges of that dark empire, who suffered them to return to light when they had sufficiently expiated their faults; the incurables remained in tartarus, where they were to suffer eternal torment. plato, as well as, christian casuists, described the crimes, faults, &c. which merit those different degrees of punishment. protestant divines, jealous probably of the riches of the catholic clergy, have imprudently rejected the doctrine of a purgatory, whereby they have much diminished their own credit. it would, perhaps, have been wiser to have rejected the doctrine of an hell, whence souls can never be released, than that of purgatory, which is more reasonable, and from which the clergy can deliver souls by means of that all-powerful agent, money. the preceding remarks shew, that the christian religion has been often inculcated and spread by dint of terror. by striking mankind with horror they render them submissive, and remove all his dependence on his reason.1 1 mahomet perceived, as well as christian divines, the necessity of frightening mankind, in order to govern them. "those," says the koran, "who do not believe, shall be clothed in a garment of fire; boiling water shall be poured on their heads; their skins and their entrails shall be smitten with rods of iron. whenever they shall strive to escape from hell, and avoid its torments, they shall be thrust again into it; and the devils say unto them, 'taste the pain of burning'." see alcoran, ch. viii. chap. ix.--of the rites and mysterious ceremonies or theurgy of the christians. if the doctrines of the christian religion be mysteries inaccessible to reason; if the god it announces be inconceivable, we ought not to be surprised at seeing the rites and ceremonies of this religion mysterious and unintelligible. concerning a god, who hath revealed himself only to confound human reason, all things must necessarily be incomprehensible and unreasonable. the most important ceremony of the christian religion is called baptism. without this, no man, it is held, can be saved. it consists in pouring water on the infant or adult, with an invocation on the name of the trinity. by the mysterious virtue of this water, and the words by which it is accompanied, the person is spiritually regenerated. he is cleansed from the stains, transmitted through successive generations, from the father of the human race. in a word, he becomes a child of god, and is prepared to enter into his glory at death. now, it is said, that the death of man is the effect of the sin of adam; and if, by baptism, sin be effaced, why is man still subject to death? but here we are told, it is from the spiritual, not bodily death, that christ has delivered mankind. yet this spiritual death is only the death of sinfulness. in this case, how does it happen that christians continue to sin, as if they had never been redeemed and delivered from sin? whence it results, that baptism is a mystery impenetrable to reason; and its efficacy is disproved by experience.1 in some christian sects, a bishop or pontiff, by pronouncing a few words, and applying a few drops of oil to the forehead, causes the spirit to descend upon whom he pleases. by this ceremony the christian is confirmed in the faith, and receives invisibly a profusion of graces from the most high. those who wandering farthest from reason, have entered most deeply into the spirit of the christian religion, not contented with the dark mysteries common to other sects, have invented one still darker and more astonishing, which they denominate transubstantiation. at the all-powerful command of a priest, the god of the universe is forced to descend from the habitation of his glory, and transform himself into a piece of bread. this bread is afterwards worshipped by a people, who boast their detestation of idolatry.2 1 the ceremony of baptism was practised in the mysteries of mythias, and those initiated were thereby regenerated. this mythias was also a mediator. although christian divines consider baptism necessary to salvation, we find paul would not suffer the corinthians to be baptised. we also learn that he circumcised timotheos. 2 the bramas of indostan distribute a kind of grain in their pagodas: this distribution is called prajadnn, or eucharist. the mexicans believe in a kind of transubstantiation, which is mentioned by father acosta. see his travels, chap. xxiv. the protestants have had the courage to reject transubstantiation, although it is formally established by christ, who says, "take, eat; this is my body." averoes said, "anima mea fit cum philosophie, non vero cum christianis, gente stolidissima, qui deuni faciunt et comedunt." the peruvians have a religious ceremony, in which after sacrificing a lamb, they mingle his blood with flour, and distribute it amongst the people.- aluetanae quest, lib. ii. cap. 20. in the puerile ceremonies, so highly valued by christians, we cannot avoid seeing the plainest traces of the theurgy practised among the orientals, where the divine being, compelled by the magic power of certain words and ceremonies uttered, by priests, or other persons initiated into the necessary secret, descends to earth and performs miracles. this sort of magic is also exercised among christian priests. they persuade their disciples that, by certain arbitrary actions, and certain movements of the body, they can oblige the god of nature to suspend his laws, give himself up to their desires, and load them with every favour they choose to demand. thus, in this religion, the priest assumes the right of commanding god himself. on this empire over their god, this real theurgy, or mysterious commerce with heaven, are founded those puerile and ridiculous ceremonies which christians call sacraments. we have already seen this theurgy in baptism, confirmation, and the eucharist. we find it, also, in penitence, or the power which the priests of some sects arrogate to themselves, of remitting, in the name of heaven, all sins confessed to them. it is seen in orders, that is to say, in the ceremony which impresses on certain men a sacred character, by which they are ever after distinguished from profane mortals. it is seen in the rites and functions which torture the last moments of the dying. it is seen in marriage, which natural union, it is supposed, cannot meet with the approbation of heaven, unless the ceremony of a priest render it valid, and procure it the sanction of the most high.1 1 the number of roman catholic sacraments, seven; a cabalistic, magic, and mysterious number. we see this theurgy, or white magic, in the prayers, forms, liturgies, and, in short, in all the ceremonies of the christians. we find it in their opinion, that words disposed in a certain manner can influence the will of god, and oblige him to change his immutable decrees. its efficacy is seen in exorcisms, that is, ceremonies, in which, by means of a magic water and some mysterious words, it is pretended that evil spirits which infest mankind can be expelled. holy water, which has taken the place of the _aqua lustralis_ of the romans, is believed by certain christians to possess astonishing virtues. it renders sacred, places and things which were profane. in fine, the christian theurgy being employed by a pontiff in the consecration of a king, renders him more respectable in the eyes of men, and stamps him with a divine character. thus all is magic and mystery, all is incomprehensible, in a religion revealed by god himself, to enlighten the darkened understanding of mankind. chap. x.--of the inspired writings of the christians. christians endeavour to prove the divine origin of their religion by certain writings, which they believe to be sacred, and to have been inspired by god himself. let us then see if these writings do really exhibit marks of that wisdom, omniscience, and perfection which we attribute to the divinity. the bible, every word of which christians believe to have been dictated by inspiration, is composed of an incongruous collection of the sacred writings of the hebrews, called the old testament; to which are added, a number of works, more recent indeed, but of equal inspiration, known by the name of the new testament. at the head of this collection are five books which are attributed to moses, who was, it is said, in writing them, the secretary of god. he therein goes back to the origin of things. he attempts to initiate us into the mystery of the creation of the world, of which he has only the most vague and confused ideas. he betrays at every word a profound ignorance of the laws of nature. god, according to moses, created the sun, which, in our planetary system, is the source of light, several days after he had created the light. god, who can be represented by no image, created man in his own image. he creates him male and female; but, soon forgetting what he had done, he creates woman from one of the ribs of the man. in one word, we see, at the very entrance of the bible, nothing but ignorance and contradiction.1 it appears, at once, that the cosmogony of the hebrews is only a tissue of fables and allegories, incapable of giving any true idea of things, and calculated to please only a savage and ignorant people, destitute of science, and unqualified for reasoning. in the rest of the writings of moses, we see little but a string of marvellous and improbable stories, and a mass of ridiculous and arbitrary laws. the author concludes with giving an account of his own death. the books posterior to moses exhibit equal ignorance. joshua stops the sun, which did not move. sampson, the jewish hercules, has strength to overthrow a temple.--but we should never finish the enumeration of the fables and falsehoods of these books, which are audaciously attributed to the holy ghost. the story of the hebrews presents us only with a mass of tales, unworthy the gravity of history and the majesty of divinity ridiculous to reason, it appears to have been invented only to amuse the credulity of a stupid and infant people. 1 st. augustin confesses that there is no way of preserving the true sense of the three first chapters of genesis without wronging religion and attributing things to god which are unworthy of him; and declares, that recourse must be had to allegory. aug. de genesi, contra machineos. origen, also, grants, if we take the history of the bible literally, it is absurd and contradictory.--philos. p. 12. this strange compilation is intermingled with obscure, and unconnected oracles, with which different prophets have, from time to time, enriched jewish superstition. every thing in the old testament breathes enthusiasm, fanaticism, and delirium, often decorated with pompous language. there, every thing is to be found, except good sense, good logic, and reason, which seems to be absolutely excluded from the books which guide the conduct of the hebrews and christians. we have already mentioned the abject, and often absurd ideas of god, which are exhibited in the bible. in this book, all his conduct appears ridiculous. he blows hot and cold, and contradicts himself every moment. he acts imprudently, and then repents of what he had done. he supports with one hand, and destroys with the other. after having punished all the human race with death, for the sins of man, he declares, by ezekiel, that he is just, and will not render children responsible for the iniquities of their fathers. he commands the hebrews, by the mouth of moses, to rob the egyptians. in the decalogue, published by moses, theft and murder are forbidden. in short, jehovah, ever in contradiction with himself, varies with circumstances, preserves no uniformity of conduct, and is represented in the books, said to be inspired by his spirit, as a tyrant, which the most decided villain would blush to be. when we cast our eyes over the new testament, there, also, we see nothing characteristic of that spirit of truth which is said to have dictated this work. four historians, or fabulists, have written the marvellous history of the messiah. seldom agreeing with respect to the circumstances of his life, they sometimes contradict each other in the most palpable manner. the genealogy of christ, given us by matthew, differs widely from that given us by luke. one of the evangelists says, that christ was carried into egypt; whilst, by another, this event is not even hinted at. one makes the duration of his mission three years, while another represents it as only as many months. we do not find them at all better accord respecting the facts in general which they report. mark says that christ died at the third hour, that is to say, nine o'clock in the morning: john says that he died at the sixth hour, that is, at noon. according to matthew and mark, the women who, after the death of jesus, went to his sepulchre, saw only one angel; whereas, according to luke and john, they saw two. these angels were, by some, said to be within the tomb; by others, without. several of the miracles of jesus are also differently reported by the evangelists. this is likewise the case with his appearances after his resurrection. ought not all these things to excite a doubt of the infallibility of the evangelists, and the reality of their divine inspirations? what shall we say of the false and forged prophecies, applied to christ in the gospel? matthew pretends that jeremy foretold that christ should be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver; yet no such prophecy is to be found in jeremiah. nothing is more singular than the manner in which christian divines evade these difficulties. their solutions are calculated to satisfy only those who conceive it their duty to remain in blindness.1 1 jerome himself says, that the quotations of matthew do not agree with the greek version of the bible. erasmus is obliged to confess that the holy spirit permitted the apostles to go astray. every man of sense must feel, that all the industry and sophism on earth can never reconcile such palpable contradictions; and the efforts of interpreters serve only to shew the weakness of their cause. is it, then by subterfuges, subtilties, and falsehoods, that we are to render service to god? we find equal errors and contradictions in the pompous gasconade and declamatory bombast of st. paul. the epistles and harangues of this man, inspired by the spirit of god, appear to be the enthusiastic ravings of a madman. the most laboured commentaries have, in vain, endeavoured to reconcile the contradictions with which his work are filled, and the inconsistency of his conduct, which sometimes favoured and sometimes opposed judaism.1 we do not find ourselves more enlightened by the works attributed to the other apostles. it seems as if these persons, inspired by the holy ghost, came on the earth only to prevent their disciples from comprehending what they had been sent to teach them. 1 st. paul himself informs us, that he was ravished up to the third heaven. why was he transported thither, and what did he learn by his journey? things unspeakable, which no man could, comprehend. what advantage are mankind to derive from all this? st. paul, in the acts of the apostles, is guilty of a falsehood, in saying before the high-priest, that he is persecuted, because he is a pharisee, and on account of the resurrection. here: are two untruths. first, because paul was, at that time, the most zealous apostle of the christian religion, and consequently a christian. secondly, because the accusations brought against him did not refer to his opinion on resurrection. if we know that the apostles sometimes wandered from the truth, how shall we believe them at others? further, we see this great apostle continually changing his counsels and conduct. at jerusalem, he point-blank opposes peter, who favoured judaism; whereas he himself afterwards complied with jewish rites. in fine, he always accommodates himself to the circumstances of the time, and becomes all things to all men. he seems to have set an example to the jesuits, of their conduct in the indies, with which they are reproached, where they unite the worship of the pagans to that of christ. at the foot of the collection, which forms the new testament, we find the mystic work known by the name of the revelation of st. john. this is an unintelligible thing, in which the author has endeavoured to collect and concentrate all the gloomy and dreadful ideas contained in the rest of the bible. it exhibits to the wretched race of man the awful and approaching end of a perishing world. it is filled with horrid pictures, by gazing on which, the trembling christian becomes petrified with fear and wonder, indifferent to life, and useless, or an incumbrance to society. thus, in a manner not unworthy of itself, terminates this compilation, so inestimable and adorable to christians, so ridiculous and contemptible to the man of reason, so unworthy of a good and bounteous god; so detestable to him who contemplates the unparalleled evils it has occasioned on the earth. having taken for the rule of their conduct and opinions a book so full of blasphemous fables and striking, contradictions concerning god, christians have never agreed in the interpretation of his will, or precisely known what he exacted from them. thus they have made this obscure work a bone of contention, an inexhaustible source of quarrels, a common arsenal, where all contending parties have supplied themselves with arms for mutual destruction. geometricians dispute not concerning the fundamental principles of their science. by what fatality does it happen that christian revelation, the foundation of a religion on which depends the eternal felicity of man, should be unintelligible, subject to disputes, and often deluge the earth with blood? to judge by effects, such a revelation ought rather to be thought the work of a malign spirit, a genius of darkness and falsehood, than of a god desirous to preserve, enlighten, and beautify mankind. chap. xi.--of christian morality. were we to believe christians, there could have been no true morality on earth before the coming of the founder of their sect. they represent the world is having been plunged in darkness and vice at all times and places where christ was unknown. yet morality was always necessary to mankind; for, without it, no society can exist. we find, that before the time of christ, there were flourishing and virtuous nations, and enlightened philosophers, who continually reminded mankind of their duties. the precepts of socrates, confucius, and the gymnosophists of india, are by no means inferior to those of the messiah of the christians. we find, amongst heathens, innumerable instances of equity, humanity, temperance, disinterestedness, patience, and meekness, which flatly contradict the pretensions of the christians, and prove that, before christ was known on earth, virtues flourished, which were for more real than those he came to teach to men. was a supernatural revelation necessary to inform mankind that society cannot exist without virtue, and that, by the admission of vice, societies consent to their own destruction? was it necessary that a god should speak, to shew that they have need of mutual aid and mutual love? was assistance from on high necessary to discover that revenge is an evil, and an outrage upon the laws, which, when they are just, assume to themselves the right of retribution? is not the forgiveness of injuries connected with this principle? and is not hatred eternalized where implacable revenge is exercised? is not the pardoning of our enemies a greatness of soul, which gives us an advantage over those who offend us? when we do good to our enemies does it not give us a superiority over them? is not such conduct calculated to multiply our friends? does not every man, who is desirous to live, perceive that vice, intemperance, and voluptuousness must shorten the period of life? has not experience demonstrated to every thinking being, that vice is injurious and detestable, even to those who are not free from its empire, and that the practice of virtue is the only means, of acquiring real esteem and love? however little mankind may reflect on what they themselves, their true interests, and the end of society are, they must feel what they ought to be to each other. good laws will render them good; and where these exist, there is no need of flying to heaven for rules for the preservation and happiness of society. reason is sufficient to teach us our duties to our fellow-creatures. what assistance can it receive from a religion by which it is continually contradicted and degraded? it is said, that christianity, far from counteracting morality, is its chief support, and renders its obligations more sacred, by giving them the sanction of god. in my opinion, however, the christian religion, instead of supporting morality renders it weak and precarious. it cannot possibly have any solid foundation on the commands of a god, who is changing, partial, and capricious; and ordains with the same mouth, justice and injustice, concord and carnage, toleration and persecution. it is impossible to follow the precepts of a rational morality, under the empire of a religion, which makes a merit of the most destructive zeal, enthusiasm, and fanaticism. a religion, which commands us to imitate the conduct of a despot who delights to ensnare his creatures, who is implacable in his vengeance, and devotes to flaming destruction all who have the misfortune to displease him, is incompatible with all morality. the innumerable crimes with which the christian, more than any other religion, has stained itself, have always been committed under the pretext of pleasing the ferocious god whom the christians have inherited from the jews. the moral character of this god, must, of necessity, govern the moral conduct of those who adore him. hence arises the uncertainty of christians, whether it be most conformable to the spirit of their religion to tolerate, or to persecute, those who differ from them in opinion. the two parties find themselves equally authorised in modes of conduct which are diametrically opposite. at one time, jehovah declares his detestation of idolaters, and makes it a duty to exterminate them; at another time moses forbids his people to speak ill of the god of nations. the son of god forbids persecution, after having said that men must be constrained to enter into his kingdom. yet, as the idea of a severe and cruel god makes a much deeper impression than that of a bounteous one, true christians have generally thought it their duty to exert their zeal against those whom they have supposed to be enemies to their god. they have imagined it impossible to offend him by espousing his cause with too much ardour. toleration has seldom been practised, except by indolent and phlegmatic christians, of a temperament little analogous to that of the god whom they serve. must not a true christian, to whose imitation the example of the saints and heroes of the old testament are proposed, become ferocious and sanguinary? will he not find motives for cruelty in the conduct of moses, who twice caused the blood of israel to stream, and immolated to his god more than forty thousand victims? to justify his own, will he not appeal to the perfidious cruelty of phineas, jabel, and judith? will he not see david to be a monster of barbarity, adultery, and rebellion, which nevertheless does not prevent his being a man after god's own heart? in short, the whole bible informs the christian that his god is delighted with a furious zeal in his service; and this zeal is sufficient to close his eyes on every species of crime. let us not, then, be surprised to see christians incessantly persecuting each other. if they are at any time tolerant, it is only when they are themselves persecuted, or too weak to persecute others. whenever they have power they become the terror and destruction of each other. since christianity first appeared on earth, its different sects have incessantly quarrelled. they have mutually exercised the most refined cruelty. sovereigns, in imitation of david, have espoused the quarrels of discordant priests, and served god by fire and sword. kings themselves have often perished the victims of religious fanaticism, which tramples on every moral duty in obedience to its god. in a word, the religion, which boasts of having brought peace on earth, and good will towards men, has for eighteen centuries caused more ravages, and greater effusions of blood, than all the superstitions of heathenism. it has raised walls of separation between the citizens of the same state. it has abandoned concord and affection from families. it has made a duty of injustice and inhumanity. the followers of a god, who was unjustly offended at mankind, became as unjust as he. the servants of a jealous and vindictive god, conceived it their duty to enter into his quarrels and avenge his injuries. under a god of cruelty, it was judged meritorious to cause the earth to echo with groans, and float in blood. such are the important services which the christian religion has rendered to morality. let it not be said, that it is through a shameful abuse of this religion, that these horrors have happened. a spirit of persecution and intolerance is the spirit of a religion ordained by a god, jealous of his power, a god who has formally commanded the commission of murder; a god, who, in the excess of his anger, has not spared even his own son! the servant of such a god is much surer to please him by exterminating his enemies, than by permitting them to offend him in peace. such a god must necessarily serve as a pretext to the most destructive excesses. a zeal for his glory is used as a veil to conceal the passions of all impostors and fanatics who pretend to be interpreters of the will of heaven; and the enthusiastic hopes to wash away the greatest crimes by bathing his hands in the blood of the enemies of his god. by a natural consequence of the same principles, an intolerant religion can be only conditionally submissive to the authority of temporal sovereigns. jews and christians cannot be obedient to a temporal government, unless its laws be conformed to the arbitrary and often ridiculous commands of their god. but who shall decide whether the laws, most advantageous to society, are conformed to the will of this god? without doubt, his ministers, the confidants of his secrets and interpreters of his oracles. thus, in a christian state, the citizens must be subject rather to spiritual than temporal government, to the priest rather than the magistrate. hence must arise civil war, bloodshed, proscription, and all that inspires the human breast with horror. such is the support afforded to morality by a religion, the first principle of which is to admit the god of the jews, that is, a tyrant, whose fantastic commands annihilate every rule necessary to the tranquil existence of society. this god creates justice and injustice, his supreme will changes good into bad, and vice into virtue. his caprice overturns the laws which he himself had given to nature. he destroys at his pleasure the moral relations among mankind. in his own conduct he dispenses with all duties towards his creatures. he seems to authorise them to follow no certain laws, except those prescribed to them, in different circumstances, by the voice of his ministers and prophets. these, when in power, preach nothing but submission. if an attempt be made to abridge that power, they preach arms and rebellion. are they weak? they preach toleration, patience, and meekness. are they strong? they preach persecution, revenge, rapine, and cruelty. they always find in holy writ arguments to authorise these different modes of conduct, they find in the oracles of their just and immutable god, arguments amply sufficient to justify actions diametrically opposite in their nature and offence. to lay the foundation of morality on such a god, or open books which contain laws so contradictory, is to give it an unstable base; it is to found it on the caprice of those who speak in the name of god; it is to found it on the temperament of each one of his adorers. morality should be founded upon invariable rules. a god who destroys these rules destroys his own work. if god be the creator of man, if he intends their happiness and preservation, he would have them to be just, humane, and benevolent, and averse to injustice, fanaticism, and cruelty. from what has been said, we may see what we ought to think of those divines who pretend that, without the christian religion there could be neither morality nor virtue among mankind. the converse of this proposition would much higher approach the truth; and it might be maintained, that every christian who imitates his god, and practises all his commands, must necessarily be an immoral person. if it be said, that those commands are not always unjust, and that the scriptures often breathe benevolence, harmony, and equity, i answer, christians must have an inconstant morality, sometimes good and sometimes bad, according to interest and individuals. it appears that christians must either be wholly destitute of true morality, or vibrate continually from virtue to vice, and from vice to virtue. the christian religion is but a rotten prop to morality. it will not bear examination, and every man who discovers its defects will be ready to believe that the morality founded on such a basis can be only a chimera. thus we often behold men, who have couched the neck beneath the yoke of religion, break loose at once and abandon themselves to debauchery, intemperance, and every kind of vice. escaping from the slavery of superstition, they fly to complete anarchy, and disbelieve the existence of all moral duties, because they have found religion to be but a fable. hence, among christians, the words infidel and libertine have become synonymous. all these inconveniences would be avoided if mankind, instead of being taught a theological, were taught a natural morality. instead of interdicting intemperance and vice, because they are offensive to god and religion, they should be prevented, by convincing man that they are destructive to his existence, and render him contemptible in society: that they are disapproved and forbidden by reason and nature, who aim at his preservation, and direct him to take the path that leads to permanent felicity. whatever may be the will of god, and independently of the future rewards and punishments announced by religion, it is easy to prove to every man that it is, in this world, his interest to preserve his health, to respect virtue, acquire the esteem of his fellow-creatures, and, in fine, to be chaste, temperate, and virtuous. those whose passions will not suffer them to attend to principles so clear and reasonable, will not be more docile to the voice of a religion, which they will cease to believe the moment it opposes their misguiding propensities. let, then, the pretended advantages which the christian religion lends morality be no longer boasted. the principles drawn from revelation tend to its destruction. we have frequent examples of christian nations, whose morals are far more corrupted than those of people whom they style infidels and heathens. the former are, at least, most subject to religious fanaticism, a passion calculated to banish justice and all the social virtues from society. christianity creates intolerants and persecutors, who are much more injurious to society than the most abandoned debauchees. it is, at least, certain, that the most christian nations of europe, are not those where true morality is most felt and practised. in spain, portugal, and italy, where the most superstitious sect of christians has fixed its residence, people live in the most shameful ignorance of their duties. robbery, assassination, debauchery, and persecution, are there carried to their worst extreme; and yet all men are full of religion. few virtuous men exist in those countries. religion itself there becomes an accomplice to vice, furnishes criminals with an asylum, and procures to them easy means of reconciliation with god. presents, prayers, and ceremonies, there furnish mankind with a dispensation from the practice of virtue. amongst nations, who boast of possessing christianity in all its purity, religion has so entirely absorbed the attention of its sectaries, that morality enters not into their thought; and they think they fulfil all their duties by a scrupulous observation of the minutiae of superstitious ceremonies, whilst they are strangers to all social affections, and labour for the destruction of human happiness. chap. xii.--of the christian virtues. what has been said is sufficient to shew what we ought to think of christian morality. if we examine the virtues recommended in the christian religion, we find them but ill calculated for mankind. they lift him above his sphere, are useless to society, and often of dangerous consequence. in the boasted precepts, which jesus christ came to give mankind, we find little but extravagant maxims, the practice of which is impossible, and rules which, literally followed, must prove injurious to society. in those of his precepts that are practicable, we find nothing which was not as well or better known to the sages of antiquity, without the aid of revelation. according to the messiah, the whole duty of man consists in loving god above all things, and his neighbour as himself. is it possible to obey this precept? can man love a god above all things, who is represented as wrathful, capricious, unjust, and implacable? who is said to be cruel enough to damn his creatures eternally? can man love, above all things, an object the most dreadful that human imagination could ever conceive? can such an object excite in the human heart a sentiment of love? how can we love that which we dread? how can we delight in the god under whose rod we tremble? do we not deceive ourselves, when we think we love a being so terrible, and so calculated to excite nothing but horror?1 1 seneca says, with much truth, that a man of sense cannot fear the gods, because no man can love what he fears. de benef. 4. the bible says, the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom. i think it rather the beginning of folly. is it even practicable for mankind to love their neighbours as themselves? every man naturally loves himself in preference to all others. he loves his fellow-creatures only in proportion as they contribute to his happiness. he exercises virtue in doing good to his neighbour. he acts generously when he sacrifices his self love to his love for another. yet he will never love his fellow creatures but for the useful qualities he finds in them. he can love them no farther than they are known to him, and his love for them must ever be governed by the good he receives from them. to love one's enemies is then impossible. a man may abstain from doing evil to the person by whom he is injured; but love is an affection which can be excited in our hearts only by an object which we supposed friendly to us. politic nations, who have enacted just and wise laws, have always forbidden individual to revenge, or do justice to themselves, a sentiment of generosity, of greatness of soul, or heroism, may induce mankind to do good to those from whom they suffer injuries. by such means they exalt themselves above their enemies, and may even change the disposition of their hearts. thus, without having recourse to a supernatural morality, we feel that it is our interest to stifle in our hearts the lust of revenge. christians may, therefore, cease to boast the forgiveness of injuries, as a precept that could be given only by their god, and which proves the divine origin of their morality. pythagoras, long before the time of christ, had said, let men revenge themselves upon their enemies, only by labouring to convert them into friends. socrates taught that it was not lawful for a man, who had received an injury, to revenge it by doing another injury. christ must have forgotten that he spoke to men, when, in order to conduct them to perfection, he commanded them to abandon their possessions to the avidity of the first who should demand them; to turn the other cheek to receive a new insult; to oppose no resistance to the most outrageous violence; to renounce the perishable riches of this world; to forsake houses, possessions, relations, and friends to follow him; and to reject even the most innocent pleasures. who does not see, in these sublime precepts, the language of enthusiasm and hyperbole? are not they calculated to discourage man, and throw him into despair? if literally practised, would they not prove ruinous to society? what shall we say of the morality, which commands the human heart to detach itself from objects which reason commands it to love? when we refuse the blessings offered us by nature, do we not despise the benefactions of the one supreme? what real good can result to society from the melancholy and ferocious virtues which christians consider indispensible? can a man continue useful to society, when his mind is perpetually agitated with imaginary terrors, gloomy ideas, and black inquietudes, which incapacitate him for the performance of his duties to his family, his country, and mankind? if the christian adhere strictly to the gloomy principles of his religion, must he not become equally insupportable to himself, and those by whom he is surrounded? it cannot be said, that, in general, fanaticism and enthusiasm are the bases of the morality of christ. the virtues which he recommends tend to render men unsocial, to plunge them into melancholy, and often to render them injurious to their fellow-creatures. among human beings, human virtues are necessary; christian virtues are not calculated on the scale of real life. society has need of real virtues, from which it may derive energy, activity, and support. vigilance, labour, and affection, are necessary to families. a desire of enjoying lawful pleasures, and augmenting the sum of their happiness, is necessary to all mankind. the christian religion is perpetually busied in degrading mankind by threatening them with dismaying terrors, or diverting them with frivolous hopes; sentiments equally proper to turn them from their true duties. if the christian literally obey the precepts of his legislator, he will ever be either an useless or injurious member of society.1 1 notwithstanding the eulogies lavished by christians on the precepts of their divine master, some of them are wholly contrary to equity and right reason. when jesus says, make to yourselves friends in heaven with the mammon of unrighteousness, does he not plainly insinuate, that we may take from others wherewithal to give alms to the poor? divines will say that he spoke in parables; these parables are, however, easily unfolded. in the mean time, this precept is but too well followed. many christians cheat and swindle during all their lives, to have the pleasure of making donations at their death to churches, monasteries, &c. the messiah, at another time, treated his mother, who with parental solicitude was seeking him, extremely ill. he commands his disciples to steal an ass. he drowns an herd of swine, &c. it must be confessed, these things do not agree extremely well with good morality. what real advantage can mankind derive from those ideal virtues, which christians style evangelic, divine, &c. and which they prefer to the social, humane, and substantial virtues, and without which they pretend no man can please god, or enter into his glory? let us examine those boasted virtues in detail. let us see of what utility they are to society, and whether they truly merit the preference which is given them, to those which are pointed out by reason as necessary to the welfare of mankind. the first of the christian virtues is faith, which serves as a foundation for all the others. it consists in an impossible conviction of the revealed doctrines and absurd fables which the christian religion commands its disciples to believe. hence it appears that this virtue exacts a total renunciation of reason, and impracticable assent to improbable facts; and a blind submission to the authority of priests, who are the only guarantees of the truth of the doctrines and miracles that every christian must believe under penalty of damnation. this virtue, although necessary to all mankind, is nevertheless, a gift of heaven, and the effect of a special grace. it forbids all doubt and enquiry; and it deprives man of the liberty of exercising his reason and reflection. it reduces him to the passive acquiescence of beasts in matters which he is, at the same time, told are of all things the most important to his happiness. hence it is plain, that faith is a virtue invented by men, who, shrinking from the light of reason, deceived their fellow-creatures, to subject them to their own authority, and degraded them that they might exercise an empire over them. if faith be a virtue, it is certainly useful only to the spiritual guides of the christians, for they alone gather its fruits. it cannot but be injurious to other men, who are taught by it to despise that reason, which distinguishes them from brutes, and is their only faithful guide in this world. christians, however, represent this reason as perverted, and as unfaithful guide; by which they seem to intimate that it was not made for reasonable beings. may we not, however, ask them how far this renunciation of reason ought to be carried? do not they themselves, in certain cases, have recourse to reason? do they not appeal to reason, when they endeavour to prove the existence of their god? be this as it may, it is an absurdity to say we believe that of which we have no conception. what, then, are the motives of the christian, for pretending to such a belief? his confidence in his spiritual guides. but what is the foundation of this confidence? revelation. on what, then, is revelation itself founded? on the authority of spiritual guides. such is the manner in which christians reason. their arguments in favour of faith are comprised in the following sentence. to believe our religion it is necessary to have faith, and to have faith you must believe in our religion. or, it is necessary to have faith already, in order to believe in the necessity of faith.1 1 many divines have maintained, that faith without works is sufficient for salvation. this is the virtue which is, in general, most cried up by them. it is, at least, the one most necessary to their existence. it is not, therefore, surprising that they have endeavoured to establish it by fire and sword, it was for the support of faith that the inquisition burned heretics and jews. kings and priests persecute for the establishment of faith. christians have destroyed those who were destitute of faith, in order to demonstrate to them their error. o wondrous virtue, and worthy of the god of mercies! his ministers punish mankind, when he refuses them his grace!!! the phantom faith vanishes at the approach of the sun of reason. it can never sustain a calm examination. hence it arises, that certain christian divines are so much at enmity with science. the founder of their religion declared, that his law was made for ignorant men and children. faith is the effect of a grace which god seldom grants to enlightened persons, who are accustomed to consult their reason. it is adapted only to the minds of men who are incapable of reflection, tendered insane by enthusiasm, or invincibly attached to the prejudices of childhood. science must ever be at enmity with this religion; for in proportion as either of them gains ground, the other must lose. another christian virtue, proceeding from the former, is hope. founded on the flattering promises given by this religion to those who render themselves wretched in this life, it feeds their enthusiasm. it induces them firmly to believe that god will reward, in heaven, their gloominess, inutility, indolence, prayers, and detestation of pleasures on earth. how can a man, who, being intoxicated with these pompous hopes, becomes indifferent to his own happiness, concern himself with that of his fellow-creatures? the christian believes that he pleases his god by rendering himself miserable in this life; and however flattering his hopes may be for the future, they are here empoisoned by the idea of a jealous god, who commands him to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling, and who will plunge him into eternal torture, if he for a moment has the weakness to be a man. another of the christian virtues is charity. it consists in loving god and our neighbour. we have always seen how difficult, not to say impossible, it is to feel sentiments of tenderness for any being whom we fear. it will, undoubtedly, be said, that the fear of christians is a filial fear. but words cannot change the essence of things. fear is a passion totally opposite to love. a son, who fears the anger, and dreads the caprices of a father, can never love him sincerely. the love, therefore, of a christian to his god can never be true. in vain he endeavours to feel sentiments of tenderness for a rigorous master, at whose idea his heart shrinks back in terror. he can never love him but as a tyrant, to whom his mouth renders the homage that his heart refuses. the devotee is not honest to himself, when he pretends to love his god. his affection is a dissembled homage, like that which men are forced to render to certain inhuman despots, who, while they tread their subjects in the dust, demand from them the exterior marks of attachment. if some tender minds, by force of illusion, feel sentiments of divine love, it is then a mystic and romantic passion, produced by a warm temperament, and an ardent imagination, which present their god to them dressed in smiles, with all his imputed faults concealed.1 the love of god is not the least incomprehensible mystery of this religion. 1 it is an ardent and tender temperament that produces mystic devotion. hysterical women are those who commonly love god with most vivacity, they love him to distraction, as they would love a man. in monasteries, particularly ste. therese, madeleine de pazzy, marie a la coque, most of the devotees are of this description. their imagination grows wild, and they give to their god, whom they paint in the most captivating colours, that tenderness which they are not permitted to bestow on beings of their own species. it requires a strong imagination to be smitten with an object unknown. charity, considered as the love of mankind, is a virtuous and necessary disposition. it then becomes no more than that tender humanity which attaches us to our fellows, and inclines us to love and assist them. but how shall we reconcile this attachment with the commands of a jealous god, who would have us to love none but himself, and who came to separate the friend from the friend, and the son from the father? according to the precepts of the gospel, it would be criminal to offer god a heart shared by an earthly object. it would be idolatry thus to confound the creature with the creator. and further, how can the christian love beings who continually offend his god? beings who would continually betray himself into offence? how can he love sinners? experience, teaches us that the devout, obliged by principle to hate themselves, have very little more affection for others. if this be not the case, they have not arrived, at the perfection of divine love. we do not find that those who are supposed to love the creator most ardently, shew much affection for his creatures. on the contrary, we see them fill with bitterness all who surround them; they criticise with severity the faults of others, and make it a crime to speak of human frailty with indulgence.1 a sincere love for god must be accompanied with zeal. a true christian must be enraged when he sees his god offended. he must aim himself with a just and holy severity to repress the offenders. he must have an ardent desire to extend the empire of his religion. a zeal, originating in this divine love, has been the source of the terrible persecutions of which christians have so often been guilty. zeal produces murderers as well as martyrs. it is this zeal that prompts intolerant man to wrest the thunder from the hand of the most high to avenge him of his enemies. it is this zeal that causes members of the same state, and the same family, to detest and torment each other for opinions, and puerile ceremonies, which they are led to esteem as of the last importance. it is this zeal that has a thousand times, kindled those religious wars so remarkable for their atrocity. finally, it is this zeal for religion which justifies calumny, treason, carnage, and, in short, the disorders most fatal to society. it has always been considered as lawful to employ artifice, falsehood, and force, in support of the cause of god. the most choleric and corrupted men are commonly the most zealous. they hope that, for the sake of their zeal, heaven will pardon the depravity of their manners, be it ever so excessive. 1 devotees are generally considered as scourges of society. a devout woman has seldom the talent of conciliating the love of her husband and his domestics. a gloomy and melancholy religion cannot render its disciples very amiable. a sad and sullen monarch must have sad and sullen subjects: christians have judiciously remarked, that jesus christ wept, but never smiled. it is from an effect of the same zeal that enthusiastic christians fly over every sea, and continent to extend the empire of their god and make new proselytes. stimulated by this zeal, missionaries go to trouble the repose of what they call heathen nations, whilst they would be astonished and enraged to find missionaries from those nations endeavouring to propagate a new religion in their country.1 when these propagators of the faith have had power in their hands, they have excited the most horrid rebellions; and have, in conquered countries, exercised cruelties calculated only to render the god detestable whom they pretended to serve. they have thought that men who have so long been strangers to their god could be little better than beasts; and, therefore, judged it lawful to exercise every kind of violence over them. in the eyes of a christian, an infidel is seldom worthier than a dog. it is apparently in imitation of the jews that christian nations have usurped the possessions of the inhabitants of the new world. the castilians and portuguese had the same right to the possession of america and africa, that the hebrews had to make themselves masters of the land of canaan, and exterminate its inhabitants, or reduce them to slavery. have not popes arrogated the right of disposing of distant empires to their favourite monarchs in europe? these manifest violations of the law of nature and of nations appeared just to those christian princes, in favour of whom religion sanctified avarice, cruelty, and usurpation.2 1 kambi, emperor of china, asked the jesuit missionaries at pekin, what they would say, if he should send missionaries to their nation. the revolts excited by the jesuits in japan and ethiopia are well known. a holy missionary has been heard to say, that without muskets, missionaries could never make proselytes. 2 st. augustin says, that of right divine, all things belong to the just. a maxim which is founded on a passage in the psalms, which says, the just shall eat the fruit of the labour of the unrighteous. it is known that the pope, by a bull given in favour of the kings of castile, arragon, and portugal, fixed the line of demarcation which was to rule the conquests which each had gained over the infidels. after such principles, is not the whole earth to become a prey to christian rapacity? humility is, also, considered by christians as a sublime virtue, and of inestimable value. no super-natural and divine revelations are necessary to teach us that pride does not become man, and that it renders him disagreeable to others. all must be convinced, on a moment's reflection, that arrogance, presumption, and vanity, are disgusting and contemptible qualities. but christian humility is carried to a more refined extreme. the christian must renounce his reason, mistrust his virtues, refuse to do justice to his own good actions, and repress all self-esteem, however well merited. whence it appears, that this pretended virtue only degrades and debases man in his own eyes, deprives him of all energy, and stifles in him every desire of rendering himself useful to society. to forbid mankind to esteem themselves and merit the esteem of others, is to break the only powerful string that inclines them to study, industry, and noble actions. this christian virtue is calculated only to render them abject slaves, wholly useless to the world, and make all virtue give place in them, to a blind submission to their spiritual guides. let us not be surprised, that a religion which boasts of being supernatural should endeavour to unnaturalize man. this religion, in the delirium of its enthusiasm, forbids mankind to love themselves. it commands them to hate pleasures and court grief. it makes a merit of all voluntary evils they do unto themselves. hence those austerities and penances so destructive to health; those extravagant mortifications, cruel privations, and gradual suicides, by which fanatic christians think they merit heaven. it must be confessed, all christians do not feel themselves capable of such marvellous perfections, but all believe themselves more or less obliged to mortify the flesh, and renounce the blessings prepared for them by a bounteous god, who, they suppose, offers his good things only that they may be refused, and would be offended should his creatures presume to touch them. reason cannot approve virtues which are destructive to ourselves, nor admit a god who is delighted when mankind render themselves miserable, and voluntarily submit to torments. reason and experience, without the aid of superstition, are sufficient to prove, that passions and pleasures, pushed to excess, destroy us; and that the abuse of the best things becomes a real evil. nature herself inculcates upon us the privation of things which prove injurious to us. a being, solicitous for his own preservation, must restrain irregular propensities, and fly whatever tends to his destruction. it is plain, that by the christian religion, suicide is, at least, indirectly authorised. it was in consequence of these fanatical ideas that, in the earliest ages of christianity, the forests and deserts were peopled with perfect christians, who by flying from the world, left their families destitute of support, and their country of citizens, to abandon themselves to an idle and contemplative life. hence those legions of monks and cenobites, who, under the standards of different enthusiasts, have enrolled themselves into a militia, burthensome and injurious to society. they thought to merit heaven, by burying talents, which might be serviceable to their fellow-citizens, and vowing a life of indolence and celibacy. thus, in nations which are the most faithful to christianity, a multitude of men render themselves useless and wretched all their lives. what heart is so hard as to refuse a tear to the lot of the hapless victims taken from that enchanting sex which was destined to give happiness to our own! unfortunate dupes of youthful enthusiasm, or sacrificed to the ambitious views of imperious families, they are for ever exiled from the world! they are bound by rash oaths to unending slavery and misery. engagements, contradicted by every precept of nature, force them to perpetual virginity. it is in vain that riper feelings, sooner or later, warm their breasts, and make them groan under the weight of their imprudent vows. they regret their voluntary sterility, and find themselves forgotten in society. cut off from their families, and subjected to troublesome and despotic gaolers, they sink into a life of disgust, of bitterness, and tears. in fine, thus exiled from society, thus unrelated and unbeloved, there only remains for them the shocking consolation of seducing other victims to share with them the torments of their solitude and mortifications. the christian religion seems to have undertaken to combat nature and reason in every thing. if it admits some virtues, approved by reason, it always carries them to a vicious excess. it never observes that just mean, which is the point of perfection. all illicit and shameful pleasures will be avoided by every man, who is desirous of his own preservation, and the esteem of his fellow-creatures. the heathens knew and taught this truth, notwithstanding the depravity of morals with which they are reproached by christians.1 the church even recommends celibacy as a state of perfection, and considers the natural tie of marriage as an approach to sin. god, however, declares in genesis, that it is not good for man to be alone. he also formally commanded all creatures to increase and multiply. his son, in the gospel, comes to annul those laws. he teaches that, to attain to perfection, it is necessary to avoid marriage, and resist the strongest desire with which the breast of man is inspired--that of perpetuating his existence by a posterity, and providing supports for his old age and infirmities. 1 aristotle and epictetus recommend chastity of speech. menander said, that a good man could never consent to debauch a virgin or commit adultery. tibullus said, casta placent superis. mark anthony thanks the gods, that he had preserved his chastity in his youth. the romans made laws against adultery. father tachard informs us, that the siamans forbid not only dishonest actions, but also impure thoughts and desires. whence it appears, that chastity and purity of manners were esteemed even before the christian religion existed. if we consult reason, we find, that the pleasures of love are always injurious when taken in excess; and that they are always criminal when they prove injurious. we shall perceive, that to debauch a woman is to condemn her to distress and infamy, and annihilate to her all the advantages of society; that adultery is destructive to the greatest felicity of human life, conjugal union. hence we shall be convinced, that marriage, being the only means of satisfying our desire of increasing the species and providing filial supports, is a state far more respectable and sacred, than the destructive celibacy and voluntary castration recommended as a virtue by the christian religion. nature, or its author, invites man, by the attraction of pleasure, to multiply himself. he has unequivocally declared, that women are necessary to men. experience shews, that they are formed for society, not solely for the purpose of a transient pleasure, but to give mutual assistance in the misfortunes of life, to produce and educate children, form them into citizens, and provide in them support for themselves in old age. in giving man superior strength, nature has pointed out his duty of labouring for the support of his family; the weaker organs of his companion are destined to functions less violent, but not less necessary. in giving her a soul more soft and sensible, nature has, by a tender sentiment, attached her more particularly to her children. such are the sure bands which the christian religion would tear asunder. such the blessings it would wrest from man, while it substitutes in their place an unnatural celibacy, which renders man selfish and useless, depopulates society, and which can be advantageous only to the odious policy of some christian priests, who, separating from their fellow-citizens, have formed a destructive body, which eternalizes itself without posterity. _gens oterna in qua nemo nascitur._ if this religion has permitted marriage to some sects, who have not the temerity to soar to the highest pinnacle of perfection, it seems to have sufficiently punished them for this indulgence, by the unnatural shackles it has fixed on the connubial state. thus, among them, we see divorce forbidden, and the most wretched unions indissoluble. persons once married, are forced to groan under the weight of wedlock, even when affection and esteem are dead, and the place of these essentials to conjugal happiness is supplied by hatred and contempt. temporal laws also conspiring with religion, forbid the wretched prisoners to break their chains. it seems as if the christian religion exerted all its powers to make us view marriage with disgust, and give the preference to a celibacy which is pregnant with debauchery, adultery, and dissolution. yet the god of the hebrews made divorce lawful, and i know not by what right his son, who came to accomplish the law of moses, revoked an indulgence so reasonable. such are the perfections which christianity inculcates on her children, and such the virtues she prefers to those which are contemptuously styled human virtues. she even rejects these, and calls them false and sinful, because their possessors are, forsooth, not filled with faith. what! the virtues of greece and rome, so amiable, and so heroic, were they not true virtues? if justice, humanity, generosity, temperance, and patience be not virtues, to what can the name be given? and are the virtues less because professed by heathens? are not the virtues of socrates, cato, epictetus, and antonine, real and preferable to the zeal of the cyrills, the obstinacy of athanasius, the uselessness of anthony, the rebellion of chrysostom, the ferocity of dominic, and the meanness of francis? all the virtues admitted by christians, are either overstrained and fanatic, tending to render man useless, abject, and miserable; or obstinate, haughty, cruel, and destructive to society. such are the effects of a religion, which contemning the earth, hesitates not to overwhelm it with trouble, provided it thereby heightens the triumph of its god over his enemies. no true morality can ever be compatible with such a religion. chap. xiii.--of the practice and duties of the christian religion. if the christian virtues be destitute of solidity, and produce no effect which reason can approve, we shall find nothing more estimable in a multitude of incommodious, useless, and often dangerous practices, which christians consider as their sacred duties, and by means of which they are confident of obtaining the pardon and favour of god, and an eternal abode with him in unspeakable glory and felicity. the first and most essential duty of christians is prayer. to continual prayer their religion attaches its felicity. their god, whom they suppose to be overflowing with bounty, refuses to bestow his blessings unsolicited. he grants them only to importunity. sensible to flattery, like the kings of the earth, he exacts an etiquette, and hears no petitions unless they are presented in a certain form. what should we say of a father who, knowing the wants of his children, should refuse to give them necessary food, until wearied out with fervent supplications? but in another view, does not it imply mistrust of the wisdom of god to prescribe rules for his conduct? does it not imply a doubt of his immutability, to believe he can be prevailed on by his creatures to alter his designs? if he knows all things, what need is there of continually informing him what are the dispositions and desires of his subjects? if he is almighty, how can he be flattered with the submissions, adorations, and formalities with which christians prostrate themselves before him? in one word, prayer supposes a capricious god, deficient in memory, voracious of praise, fond of seeing his creatures abased in the dust, and anxious to receive at every instant the most abject marks of their submission. can these ideas, borrowed from earthly princes, be with propriety applied to an omnipotent being, who created the universe for man, and desires only that he should be happy? can it be supposed that such a being, without equal and without rival, should be jealous of his glory? can the prayers of man add glory to a being beyond comparison superior to all others? cannot christians see, that, in endeavouring to honour and exalt their god, they only degrade and debase him? it is also the opinion of christians, that the prayers of one man may be serviceable to others. partial to his favourites, god hears petitions only from their lips. he listens not to his people, unless their prayers be offered up to him through his ministers. he becomes a sultan, accessible only to his ministers, vizirs, eunuchs, and the women of his seraglio. hence the millions of priests and cenobites, who have no business on earth but to raise their idle hands to heaven, and pray night and day for its blessings on society. nations pay dearly for these important services, and these pious impostors live in splendour and ease, while real merit, labour, and industry languish in misery. under the pretence of devoting himself to prayer and other ceremonies of his worship, the christian, particularly in some of the more superstitious sects, is obliged to remain idle, and stand with arms across during a great part of the year. he is persuaded that he honours god by his inutility. feasts and fasts, multiplied by the interests of priests and the credulity of the people, often suspended for long intervals the labours necessary to the subsistence of society. men fly to temples to pray when they should stay at home and cultivate their fields. there their eyes are fed with childish ceremonies, and their ears are filled with fables and doctrines, of which they can comprehend nothing. this tyrannical religion makes it a crime for the poor labourer to endeavour, during consecrated days, to procure subsistence for a numerous and indigent family. and civil authority, in concert with religion, punishes those who have the audacity to earn bread, instead of praying or being idle. can reason subscribe to the ridiculous obligation of abstaining from certain aliments and meats which is imposed by some sects of christians? in consequence of these laws, people, who live by their labour, are forced to content themselves, during long intervals', with dear and unwholesome provisions, more proper to generate disease than repair strength. what abject and ridiculous ideas must they entertain of god, who believe he can be offended by the quality of the food that enters into the stomachs of his creatures! heaven, however, for a certain sum of money becomes sometimes more accommodating. priests have been continually busied in straitening the path of their sectaries, that they might transgress more frequently; and that the revenue arising from their transgressions might thus become more ample. all things, even sin itself, among christians, contribute to the profit of the priests. no religion ever placed its sectaries in more complete and continual dependance on priests, than the christian. those harpies never lose sight of their prey. they take infallible measures for subjecting mankind, and making all contribute to their power, riches, and dominion. having assumed the office of mediator between the heavenly monarch and his subjects, these priests were looked upon as courtiers in favour, ministers commissioned to exercise power in his name, and favourites to whom he could refuse nothing. thus they became absolute masters of the destiny of the christians. they gained establishments and rendered themselves necessary by the introduction of innumerable practices and duties, which, though puerile and ridiculous, they had the address to make their flocks look upon as indispensibly necessary to their salvation. they represented the omission of these pretended duties as a crime infinitely greater than an open violation of all the laws of morality and reason. let us not then be surprized, that, in the most zealous, that is to say the most superstitious sects, we see mankind perpetually infested with priests. scarcely are they born, when, under the pretext of washing away original sin, their priests impose on them a mercenary baptism, and pretend to reconcile them with a god whom they have as yet been unable to offend. by means of a few words and magical ceremonies they are thus snatched from the dominion of satan. from the tenderest infancy their education is frequently entrusted to priests, whose principal care is to instil into them early the prejudices as necessary to the views of the church. terrors are now introduced into their minds which increase during their whole lives. they are instructed in the fables, absurd doctrines, and incomprehensible mysteries of a marvellous religion. in one word, they are formed into superstitious christians, and rendered incapable of being useful citizens or enlightened men. only one thing is represented to them as necessary, which is to be in all things devoutly submissive to his religion. "be devout," say his teachers, "be blind, despise thy reason, attend to heaven, and neglect earth; this is all thy god demands to conduct thee to eternal felicity." to maintain the abject and fanatic ideas with which the priest has filled his pupils in their childhood, he commands them to come frequently, and deposit in his bosom their hidden faults, their most secret actions and thoughts. he obliges them to humiliate themselves at his feet, and render homage to his power. he frightens the criminals, and afterwards, if they are judged worthy, he reconciles them to god, who on the command of his ministers remits their sins. the christian sects that admit this practice, boast of it as extremely useful in regulating the manners and restraining the passions of men; but experience proves, that the countries in which this usage is most faithfully observed, are distinguished rather for the dissolution than the purity of their manners. by such easy expiations they are only emboldened in vice. the lives of christians are circles of successive offences and concessions. the priesthood reap the profit of this practice, by means of which they exercise an absolute dominion over the consciences of mankind. how great must be the power of an order of men, who possess all the secrets of families, can kindle at pleasure the destructive flame of fanaticism, and open or shut the gates of heaven! without the consent of his priests, the christian cannot participate in the knowledge of the mysteries of his religion, from which they have a right to exclude him entirely. this privation, however, he has no great reason to lament. but the anathemas or excommunications of the priests generally do a real mischief to mankind. these spiritual punishments produce temporal effects, and every citizen who incurs the disgrace of the church is in danger of that of the government, and becomes odious to his fellow-citizens. we have already remarked that priests have taken upon themselves the management of marriages. without their consent, a christian cannot, become a father. he must first submit to the capricious formalities of his religion, without which his children must be excluded from the rank of citizens. during all his life, the christian is obliged to assist in the ceremonies of worship under the direction of his priests. when he has performed this important duty, he esteems himself the favourite of god, and persuades himself that he no longer owes any thing to society. thus frivolous practices take place of morality, which is always rendered subordinate to religion. when death approaches, the christian, stretched in agony on his bed, is still assailed in those distressful moments by priests. in some sects religion seems to have been invented to render the bitter death of man ten thousand times more bitter. a malicious priest comes to the couch of the dying man, and holds before him the spectacle of his approaching end, arrayed in more than all its terrors. although this custom is destructive to citizens, it is extremely profitable to the priesthood,1 who owe much of their riches to legacies procured by it. morality is not quite so highly advantaged by it. experience proves, that most christians live in security and postpone till death their reconciliation with god. by means of a late repentance, and largesses to the priesthood, their faults are expiated, and they are permitted to hope that heaven will forget the accumulated crimes of a long and wicked life. 1 in catholic countries. death itself does not terminate the empire of the priesthood in certain sects, which finds means to make money even out of the dead bodies of their followers. these, for a sufficient sum, are permitted to be deposited in temples, where they have the privilege of spreading infection and disease. the sacerdotal power extends still further. the prayers of the church are purchased at a dear rate, to deliver the souls of the dead from their pretended torments in the other world, inflicted for their purification. happy they who are rich in a religion, whose priests being favourites with god, can be hired to prevail on him to remit the punishments which his immutable justice had intended to inflict! such are the principal duties recommended by the christians; and upon the observation of these they believe their salvation to depend. such are the arbitrary, ridiculous, and hurtful practices substituted for the real duties of morality. we shall not combat the different superstitious practices, admitted by some sects and rejected by others; such as the honours rendered to the memory of those pious fanatics and obscure contemplators whom roman pontiffs have ranked among the saints. we say nothing of those pilgrimages which superstition has so often produced, nor those indulgences by means of which sins are remitted. we shall only observe, that these things are commonly' more respected where they are admitted, than the duties of morality, which in those places frequently, are wholly unknown. mankind find their natural propensities much less thwarted by such rites, ceremonies, and practices, than by being virtuous. a good christian is a man who conforms exactly to all that his priests exact from him; these substitute blindness and submission in the place of all virtues. chap. xiv.--of the political effects of the christian religion. after having seen the inutility and even danger of the perfections, virtues, and duties proposed by the christian religion, let us enquire whether its political influences be more happy, and whether it can in reality promote the welfare of nations among whom it is established and faithfully observed. we at once find, that wherever this religion is admitted, two opposite legislations, ever at variance with each other, establish themselves. although this religion preaches love and peace, it soon annihilates the effects of those precepts by the divisions which it necessarily sows among its sectaries, who unavoidably interpret diversely the ambiguous oracles announced in holy writ. we find, that from the infancy of religion the most acrimonious disputes have continually taken place among divines. the successive ages of christianity have been stained with schisms, heresies, persecutions, and contests, widely discordant from its boasted spirit of peace and concord; which is in fact incompatible with a religion whose precepts are so dark and equivocal. in all religious disputes, each party believes that god is on its side, and consequently they are obstinate. indeed, how can it be otherwise, when they confound the cause of god with that of their own vanity? thus, mutually averse to concession, they quarrel and fight until force has decided a contest in which they never appeal to reason, in fact, political authorities have ever been forced to interfere in all the dissensions which have arisen among christians. governments have always taken in the frivolous disputes of priests, and foolishly considered them as objects of the last importance. they have conceived, that in a religion established by god himself there could be nothing of a trifling nature. thus, princes have armed themselves against their own subjects, whose opinions differed from theirs. the way of thinking at court has decided the creed and the faith of subjects. opinions supported by kings and priests have been the only true ones. their creatures have been the guardians of orthodoxy, and were commissioned to exterminate all whom they chose to denominate heretics and rebels. the prejudices of princes or their false policy, have caused them to look upon those of their subjects, who differ from themselves in religious opinions, as bad citizens, dangerous to the state, and enemies to their power. if, leaving to priests the business of finishing their own impertinent disputes, they had not assisted their quarrels and persecutions, they would have died away of themselves, and never have disturbed the peace of nations. if those kings had impartially recompensed the good and punished the bad, without regard to their worship, ceremonies, and speculative opinions, they would not have made many of their subjects such enemies to that power, by which they found themselves oppressed. christians have always attempted to reclaim heretics by injustice, violence, and persecution. ought not they to have perceived, that this conduct was calculated only to produce hypocrites and hidden enemies, of open rebellions? but these reflections are not designed for princes, who from their infancy, have been filled with fanaticism and prejudices; they, instead of being actuated by virtuous motives, have formed obstinate attachments to frivolities, and impetuous ardour for doctrines foreign to the welfare of their states, and a boundless wrath against all who refuse to bend to their despotic opinions. such sovereigns find it a shorter way to destroy mankind than reclaim them by mild means. their haughty despotism will not condescend to reason. religion assures them that tyranny is lawful, and cruelty meritorious when they are employed in the cause of heaven. the christian religion, in fact, always makes despots and tyrants of all the sovereigns by whom it is adopted. it represents them as gods upon earth; it causes their very caprices to be respected as the will of heaven itself. it delivers mankind into their hands as an herd of slaves, of whom they may dispose at their pleasure. in return for their zeal for religion, all the outrages upon justice that they can commit are forgiven, and their subjects are commanded, under pain of the wrath of the most high, to submit without a murmur to the sword that strikes instead of protecting themselves. it is not, therefore, matter of surprise, that since the establishment of this religion, we see so many nations groaning under devout tyrants, who, although obstinately attached to religion, have been unjust, licentious, and cruel. whatever were the oppressions and ravages of these religious or hypocritical princes, the priests have not failed to preach submission to their subjects: on the other hand, let us not be surprised to see so many weak and wicked princes, support in their turns the interest of a religion, which their false policy judged necessary to the maintenance of their authority. if kings were enlightened, just and virtuous, and knew and practised their real duties, they would have had no need of the aid of superstition in governing nations. but as it is more easy to conform to rites than to acquire talents or practise virtue, this religion has, in princes, too often found support for itself, and destruction for its enemies. the ministers of religion have not had the same complaisance for princes, who refused to make a common cause with them, espouse their quarrels, and become subservient to their passions. they have arisen against those who have thwarted their views, punished their excesses, touched their immunities, endeavoured to subject them to reason, or repress their ambitious designs. the priests on such occasions, cry out, impiety! sacrilege! then they pretend that the sovereign puts his hand to the censor, and usurps the rights granted them by god himself. then they endeavour to excite nations to rebellion. they arm fanatics against sovereigns, whom they declare tyrants, for having been wanting in submission to the church. heaven is always ready to revenge any injustice done to its ministers. they are themselves submissive, and preach submission to others, only when they are permitted to share the authority, or are too feeble to resist it. this is the reason why the apostles, in the infancy of christianity, being destitute of power, preached subordination. no sooner had this religion gained sufficient strength, than it preached resistance and rebellion; dethroning some kings and assassinating others. in every political body, where this religion is established, there are two rival powers, which, by incessant contention, convulse and wound the state. the citizens divide into opposite parties, each of which fights, or thinks it fights, for god. these contests at different times terminate differently, but the triumphant party is always in the right. by attentive examination of such events, we shall escape the dominion of fanaticism. it is by stimulating mankind to enquiry, that they must be freed from the shackles of superstition. let mankind think till they have thrown aside their prejudices, and they will think justly. the reign of the priesthood will cease when men cease to be ignorant and credulous. credulity is the offspring of ignorance, and superstition is the child of credulity. but most kings dread that mankind should be enlightened. accomplices with the priesthood, they have formed a league with them to stifle reason, and persecute all who confide in its guidance. blind to their own interests, and those of their subjects, they wish only to command slaves, forgetting those slaves are always at the disposal of the priests. thus we see science neglected, and ignorance triumphant, in those countries where this religion holds the most absolute dominion. arts and sciences are the children of liberty, and separated from their parent they languish and die. among christian nations, the least superstitious are the most free, powerful, and happy. in countries where spiritual and temporal despotism are leagued, the people grovel in the most shameful ignorance and lethargic inactivity. the european nations, who boast of possessing the purest faith, are not surely the most flourishing and powerful. their kings, enslaved themselves by priests, have not energy and courage enough to make a single struggle for their own welfare or that of their subjects. priests, in such states, are the only order of men who are rich; other citizens languish in' the deepest indigence. but of what importance are the power and happiness of nations to the sectaries of a religion who seek not for happiness in this world, who believe riches injurious, preach a god of poverty, and recommend abasement to the soul, and mortification of the flesh? it is without doubt to oblige people to practise these maxims, that the clergy, in many christian states, have taken possession of most of the riches, and live in splendour, while their fellow-citizens are set forward in the road to heaven, unincumbered with any burthen of earthly wealth. such are the advantages political society derives from the christian religion. it forms an independent state within a state. it renders the people slaves. when sovereigns are obedient to it, it favours their tyranny. when they are disobedient, it renders their subjects fanatic and rebellious. when it accords with political power, it convulses, debases, and impoverishes nations; when not, it makes citizens unsocial, turbulent, intolerant, and mutinous. if we examine in detail the precepts of this religion, and the maxims which flow from its principles, we shall find it interdicts every thing that can make a nation flourish. we have already seen the ideas of imperfection that it attaches to marriage, and its esteem of celibacy. these notions are highly unfavourable to population, which is, incontrovertibly, the first source of power in a state. commerce is not less contradictory to the spirit of a religion, the founder of which pronounced an anathema against riches, and excluded them from his kingdom. all industry is interdicted to perfect christians; they live a provisory life on earth, and never concern themselves with the morrow. must it not be a great temerity and sin for a christian to serve in war? is not the man, who has never the right to believe himself absolutely in a state of grace, extremely rash when he exposes himself to eternal damnation? is not the christian, who ought to have charity for all men, and love even his enemies, guilty of an enormous crime, when he kills a man of whose dispositions he is ignorant, and whom he, perhaps, precipitates at once into hell? a christian soldier is a monster; unless, indeed, he fights in the cause of religion. then, if he dies, "he dies a blessed martyr." the christian religion has always declared war against science and all human knowledge. these have been looked upon as obstacles to salvation. neither reason nor study are necessary to men, who are to submit their reason to the yoke of faith. from the confession of christians themselves, the founders of their religion were simple and ignorant men. their disciples must be as little enlightened as they were to admit the fables and reveries they have received from them. it has always been remarked, that the most enlightened men seldom make the best christians. science is apt to embarrass faith; and it moreover turns the attention from the great work of salvation, which is represented as the only necessary one. if science be serviceable to political society, ignorance is much more so to religion and its ministers.. those ages, destitute of science and industry, were the garden age of the church of christ. then were kings dutifully submissive to priests; then the coffers of priests held all the riches of society. the priests of a very numerous sect have kept from the eyes of their followers even the sacred pages which contain the laws of their religion. this conduct is, undoubtedly, very discreet. reading the bible is the surest of all means to prevent its being respected. in one word, if the maxims of the christian religion were rigorously and universally followed, no political society could subsist. if this assertion be doubted, listen to what was said by the earliest doctors of the church, and it will be acknowledged, that their precepts are wholly incompatible with the power and preservation of states. according to lactantius, no christian can become a soldier. according, to st. justin, no christian can be a magistrate. according to st. chrysostom, no christian can meddle with commerce. and, according to a great number, no man ought to study. in fine, join these maxims to those of christ, apply them in practice, and the result will be a perfect christian, useless to his family, his country, and mankind; an idle contemplator, unconcerned in the interests of this world, and occupied entirely with the other, whither it is his most important business to go. let us look into eusebius, and see if the christian be not a real fanatic, from whom society can derive no advantage. "the manner of life," says he, "in the christian church, surpasses our present nature, and the ordinary life of man. there they seek neither marriages, children, nor riches. in fact, it is wholly foreign to the human manner of living. the church is given up to an immense love of heavenly things. the members, detached from earthly existence, and leaving only their bodies below, transfer their souls to heaven, where they already dwell as pure and celestial intelligences, and despise the life of other men." a man strongly persuaded of the truth of christianity cannot, in fact, attach himself to any thing below. every thing here is to him a cause of stumbling, and calls away his attention from the great work of his salvation. if christians were not, fortunately, inconsistent with themselves, and wandered not incessantly from their fanatical perfections and sublime speculations, no christian society could subsist, and the nations illuminated by the gospel would return to their pristine barbarity. we should see only wild beings, broken loose from every social tie, and wandering in solitude through this vale of tears, whose only employment would be to groan, to weep, and pray, and render themselves and others wretched, in order to merit heaven. in fine, a religion whose maxims tend to render mankind in general intolerant, to make kings persecutors, and their subjects slaves or rebels; a religion, the obscure doctrines of which give birth to eternal disputes; a religion which debases mankind, and turns them aside from their true interests; such a religion, i say, is destructive to every society. chap. xv.--of the christian church, or priesthood. there have been, in all ages, men who know how to profit by the errors of mankind. priests of all religions, have laid the foundations of their greatness, power, and riches, on the fears of the vulgar. no religion has, however, had so many reasons as the christian, for subjecting people to the priesthood. the first preachers of the gospel, the apostles, are represented as divine men, inspired by god, and sharing his omnipotence. if each individual among their successors has not enjoyed the same privileges in the opinion of all christians, yet the body of priests, or church, is never abandoned by the holy ghost, but always illuminated thereby. they collectively, at all times, possess infallibility, and consequently their decisions become perpetual revelations, equally sacred with those of god himself. such being the attributes of the priesthood, this body must in virtue of the prerogatives they hold from christ himself have a right to unconditional submission from men and nations. the enormous power they have so long exercised is not, therefore, surprising. it should be unlimited, since it is founded on the authority of the almighty. it should be despotic, because men have no right to resist divine power. it must degenerate into abuse, for the priesthood is exercised by men whom impunity always renders licentious and corrupt. in the infancy of christianity, the apostles, commissioned by jesus christ, preached the gospel to jews and gentiles. the novelty of their doctrine, as we have already seen, procured them many proselytes among the vulgar. the new christians, inflamed with ardour for their new opinions, formed in every city particular congregations, under the government of men appointed by the apostles. the latter having received the faith at first hand, retained the inspection and direction of the different christian societies they had formed. such appears to have been the origin of bishops or inspectors, which are perpetuated in the church to this day;1 an origin in which the princes of modern christianity sufficiently pride themselves. it is known that, in this infant sect, the associates held, their goods in common. this duty appears to have been rigorously exacted; for, by the command of st. peter, two new christians were smitten to death, for having withheld some part of their own property. the funds resulting from this practice, were at the disposal of the apostles; to this, commission the bishops, inspectors, or priests succeeded, when they became successors of the apostles; and as the priests must live by the altar, we may suppose that they paid themselves, and not illiberally, for their instructions, out of the public treasury. those who attempted new spiritual conquests were, probably, obliged to content themselves with the voluntary contributions of their converts. however this may be, the treasures accumulated, through the credulous piety of the faithful, became an object of the avarice of priests, and begat discord among them. each one wished to govern, and have the disposal of the riches of the community. hence the cabals and factions which we find growing up with the church of god. the priests were always first to wander from the principles of their religion. their own ambition and avarice always contradict the disinterested maxims they teach to others. 1 saint jerome highly disapproved the distinction of bishops and priests or curates. he pretends, that priests and bishops were according to st. paul, the same thing, before, says he, by the instigation of the devil, there were destinations in religion. at this day, bishops, who do nothing, enjoy great revenues; while innumerable curates, who labour, are dying with hunger. so long as the christian: religion was much depressed and persecuted, discordant bishops and priests combated in secret, and the noise of their quarrels did not spread far abroad. but when constantine wished to secure to himself a party, the obscurity of which had favoured its increase, until now become very numerous, the face of every thing in the church was changed. christian leaders, transformed to courtiers; and seduced by authority, fought openly. they engaged sovereigns in their quarrels, and persecuted their rivals. laden by degrees with riches and honours; they would no longer be recognized as the successors of the poor and humble apostles, sent by christ to preach his doctrine.. they became princes, and, supported, by the strongest arms, opinions, they found themselves able to give laws to nations, and put the world in confusion. under constantine the pontificate had been by a shameful imprudence separated from the empire. the emperors soon found they had cause to repent this oversight. the bishop of rome, that former mistress of the world, whose name still sounded awful in the ears of nations, knew how to make a skilful advantage of the troubles of the empire, invaded by barbarians, and the weakness of emperors, too remote to watch over his conduct. by dint of plots and intrigues, the roman pontiff at length seated himself on the throne of the cã¦sars. it was for him that emilius and scipio had fought. he was, in fine, looked upon in the west, as the monarch of the church, the universal bishop, the vicar of jesus. christ upon earth, and the infallible organ of god. although these haughty titles were rejected in the east, the roman, pontiff reigned, without contest, in the greater part of the christian world. he was a god upon earth; through the imbecility of kings, he became arbiter of their destinies, and founded a theocracy or divine government, of which himself was chief, and they were his lieutenants. when they had the audacity to become disobedient to him, he dethroned them, or excited their subjects to rebellion. in a word, his spiritual arms were, through a long succession of ages, stronger than the temporal ones of his opponents. nations had the stupidity to obey him, and the distribution of crowns was in his power. to secure his dominion over princes, he sowed divisions among them; and his empire would still retain its extent and vigour, if a gradual increase of knowledge had not, in spite of religious opposition, made its way among mankind, and kings, acting inconsistently with their religion, listened to ambition rather than duty. if the ministers of the church have received their power from christ himself, to resist these his representatives is, in feet, to revolt against him. kings, as well as subjects, cannot throw off allegiance to god without a crime. the spiritual authority proceeding from god, must, of right, have jurisdiction over temporal authority proceeding from man. a prince, who is a true christian, must become a servant of the church, and, at best, the first slave of the clergy. let us not, then, be surprized, that, in the ages of ignorance, priests, being most readily obeyed by people, more attached to heavenly than earthly interests, were more powerful than kings. among superstitious nations the pretended voice of god and his interests is more listened to than that of duty, justice, and reason. a good christian, piously submissive to the church, must be blind and unreasonable, whenever the church commands him to be so. the power that has a right to render us absurd, has the right to render us criminal. besides, those that derive their power from god can be subject to no other power. thus, the independence of the christian clergy is founded upon the principles of their religion. of this circumstance, they have taken care to profit, and impressed with this idea, they, after being enriched by the generosity of kings and people, have always proved ungrateful to the true sources of their own opulence and privileges. what had been given this body, through surprize or impudence, it was found impossible to recover from their hands. they foresaw, that future generations, breaking loose from the fetters of prejudice, might tear from them the donations they had gained by the extortions of terror, and the evils of imposture. they, therefore, persuaded mankind that they held from god alone what had been given them by their fellow-mortals: and by a miracle of credulity, they were believed on their word. thus the interests of the clergy became separated from those of society. men devoted to god, and chosen to be his ministers, were no longer confounded with the profane. laws and civil tribunals renounced all power over them. they could be judged only by members of their own body. hence the greatest excesses were often committed by them with impunity; and their persons, at the disposal of god alone, were sacred and inviolable. their possessions, although they contributed nothing to public charges, or, at least, no more than they pleased; were defended and enlarged by fanatic sovereigns, who hoped thereby to conciliate the favour of heaven. in fact, those reverend wolves in shepherds' clothing, under pretence of feeding with instruction, devoured with avarice, and, secure in their disguise, fattened on the blood of their flocks, unpunished and unsuspected. from their instructions for eighteen hundred years past, what advantages have nations derived? have these infallible men found it possible to agree among themselves, on the most essential points of a religion, revealed by god himself? strange, indeed, is that revelation, which needs continual commentaries, and interpretations. what must be thought of these divine writings, which every sect understands so differently? those who are incessantly fed with the gospel, do not understand these matters better, nor are they more virtuous than others. they are commanded to obey the church, and the church is never at accord with itself. she is eternally busied in reforming, explaining, pulling down, and building up her holy doctrines. her ministers have, at will, created new doctrines unknown to christ and the apostles. every age has brought forth new mysteries, new ceremonies, and new articles of faith. notwithstanding the inspirations of the holy ghost, this religion has never attained to that clearness, simplicity, and consistency, which are the only indubitable proofs of a good system. neither councils, nor canons, nor the mass of decrees and laws, which form the code of the church, have ever yet been able to fix the objects of her belief. were a sensible heathen desirous of embracing christianity, he would be, at the first step, thrown into perplexity, at the sight of the numerous variety of sects, each of which pretends to conform precisely to the word of god, and travel in the only sure road to salvation. when he finds that these different-sects regard each other with horror that they all deal out damnation: to all whose opinions differ from their own; that they all unite their efforts to banish peace-from society; that always, when power is in their hands, they persecute and inflict the most refined cruelties on each other, for which shall he determine? for, let us not be deceived--christians, not satisfied with enforcing by violence an exterior submission to the ceremonies of their religion, have invented an art unknown to heathen superstitions, that of tormenting the conscience, and exercising a tyranny over the mind itself. the zeal of the ministers of the church is not limited to exteriors; they steal into the foldings of the heart, and insolently violate the most secret sanctuaries of thought.1 and-for this sacrilege, their justification is a pretended interest in the salvation of souls. 1 spoken of the romish clergy. such are the effects which necessarily result from the principles of a religion, which teaches mankind that involuntary error is a crime that merits the wrath of god. it is in consequence of such ideas, that in certain countries, priests, with the permission of the civil governments, pretend to a commission for maintaining the faith in its purity. judges in their own cause, they condemn to the flames all whose opinions appear to them dangerous.1 served by innumerable spies, they watch the minutest actions of the people, and inhumanly sacrifice all that have the misfortune to give them the smallest umbrage. to excite suspicions in their minds, is to rush upon inevitable destruction. such are the blessings which the holy inquisition, all mild and gentle, pours upon mankind. 1 civil tribunals, when they are just, have a maxim to look for every thing that can contribute to the defence of the accused. in the inquisition a method directly opposite has been adopted. the accused is neither told the cause of his detention nor confronted with his accuser. he is ignorant of his crime, yet he is commanded to confess. such are the maxims of christian priests. the inquisition, however, condemns nobody to die. priests cannot themselves shed blood. that function is reserved for the secular arm; and they have even the effrontery to intercede for criminals, sure, however, of not being heard. indeed, it is probable, they would make no small clamour, should the magistrate take them at their word. this conduct becomes men in whom almighty interest stifles humanity, sincerity, and modesty. such are the principles of this sanguinary tribunal which perpetuates the ignorance and infatuation of the people wherever the false policy of governments permits its horrors to be exercised. the disputes between christian priests have been sources of animosity, hatred, and heresy. we find these to have existed from the infancy of the church. a religion founded on wonders, fables, and obscure oracles, could only be a fruitful source of quarrels. priests attended to ridiculous doctrines instead of useful knowledge; and when they should have studied true morality, and taught mankind their real duties, they only strove to gain adherents. they busied themselves in useless speculations in a barbarous and enigmatical science, which, under the pompous title of the science of god, or theology, excited in the vulgar a reverential awe. they invented a system, bigoted, presumptuous, ridiculous, and as incomprehensible as the god whom they affected to worship. hence arose disputes on disputes concerning puerile subtilties, odious questions, and arbitrary opinions, which far from being useful, only served to poison the peace of society. in these bickerings we find profound geniuses busied; and we are forced to reject the prostitution of talents worthy a better cause. the vulgar, ever fond of riot, entered into quarrels they could not understand. princes undertook the defence of the priests they wished to favour, and orthodoxy was decided by the longest sword. their assistance the church never hesitated to receive in time of danger; for on such occasions the church relies rather on human assistance than the promise of god, who declared that the sceptre of the wicked should not rest upon the lot of the righteous. the heroes, found in the annals of the church, have been obstinate fanatics, factious rebels, or furious persecutors. they were monsters of madness, faction, and cruelty. the world in the days of our ancestors, was depopulated in defence of extravagancies which excite laughter in a posterity, not indeed much wiser than they were. in almost all ages complaints have been made of abuses in the church, and reformation has been talked of. notwithstanding this pretended reform, in the head, and in the members of the church, it has always been corrupted. avaricious, turbulent, and seditious priests have made nations to groan under the weight of their vices, while princes were too weak to reclaim them to reason. the divisions and quarrels which took place among those ecclesiastical tyrants did indeed at length diminish the weight of the yoke they had imposed on kings and nations. the empire of the roman pontiff, which endured many ages, was at last shaken by irritated enthusiasts, and rebellious subjects, who presumed to examine the rights of this formidable despot. some princes, weary of their slavery and poverty, readily embraced opinions which would authorise them to enrich themselves with the spoils of the clergy. thus the unity of the church was destroyed, sects were multiplied, and each fought for the defence of his own system. these founders of these new sects were treated by the roman pontiff as innovators, heretics, and blasphemers. they, it is true, renounced some of their old opinions; but content with having made a few steps towards reason, they dared not to shake off entirely the yoke of superstition. they continued to respect the sacred writ of the christian, which they still looked upon as the only faithful guide. upon them they pretended to found all their opinions. in fine, these books, in which every man may find what he pleases, as they became more common from time to time, produced new sects. men were lost in a dark labyrinth, where each one groped his way in error, and yet judged all but himself to be wrong. the leaders of these sects, the pretended reformers of the church, gained but a glimpse at the truth, and attended to nothing but minutiae. they continued to respect the sacred oracles of the christians, and believe in their cruel and capricious god. they admitted their extravagant mythology, and most of their unreasonable doctrines. in fine, although they rejected some mysteries that were incomprehensible, they admitted others not less so. let us not be surprized, therefore, that, notwithstanding these reforms, fanaticism, controversy, persecution, and war, continued to rage throughout europe. the reveries of innovators only served to plunge nations into new misfortunes. blood continued to stream, and people grew neither more reasonable nor more happy. priests of all sects have ever wished to govern mankind and impose on them their decisions as infallible and sacred. they were always persecutors when in power, involved nations in their fury, and shook the world by their fatal opinions. the spirit of intolerance and persecution will ever be the essence of every sect founded on the bible. a mild and humane religion can never belong to a partial and cruel god? whom the opinion of men can fill with wrath. wherever christian sects exist, priests will exercise a power which may prove fatal to the state, and bodies of fanatical enthusiasts will be formed, always ready to rush to slaughter, when their spiritual guides cry, the church or the cause of god is in danger. thus, in christian countries, we see the temporal power servilely submissive to the clergy, executing their commands, exterminating their enemies, and supporting their rights, riches, and immunities. in almost all nations where the church prevails, the most idle, useless, seditious, and dangerous men are most liberally honoured and rewarded. superstition thinks she can never do enough for the ministers of her gods. these sentiments are the same in all sects.1 priests every where endeavour to instil them into kings, and to make policy bend to religion, in doing which they often oppose the best institutions. they in all places aim at the superintendance of education, and they fill their adherents with their fatal prejudices from their infancy. 1 except the quaker. it is, however, in places that remained subject to the roman pontiff, that the clergy have wallowed in the greatest profusion of riches and power. credulity has even enlisted kings among their subjects, and debased them into mere executioners of their will. they were in readiness to unsheath the sword whenever the priest commanded it. the monarchs of the roman sect, blinder than all others, had an unbounded confidence in the clergy of their church that generally rendered them mere tools of that body. this sect, by means of furious intoleration and atrocious persecutions, became more numerous than any other one; and their turbulent and cruel temper has justly rendered them odious to the most reasonable, that is to say, least christian nations. the romish system was, in fact, invented to throw all the power into the hands of the clergy. its priests have had the address to identify themselves with god. their cause was always his; their glory became the glory of god. their decisions were divine oracles; their possessions appertained to the kingdom of heaven. their pride, avarice, and cruelty, were rendered lawful, because they were never actuated by other motives than the interest of their heavenly master. in this sect, the priest saw his king at his feet, humbly confessing his sins, and beseeching the holy man that he might be reconciled to his god. seldom was the priest known to render his sacred ministry subservient to the good of mankind. he thought not of reproaching monarchs with the abuse of their power, the misery of their subjects, and the tears of the oppressed. too timid, or too much of a courtier to thunder truth in their ears, he mentioned not to them the insupportable oppressions, the galling tyranny, and useless wars under which their subjects groaned. but such objects never interest the church, which might indeed be of some utility, if its influence were exercised in bridling the excesses of superstitious tyrants. the terrors of the other world would not be unpardonable falsehoods, could they make the herd of wicked kings to tremble. this, however, has not been the object of the ministers of religion. they never stickled for the interest of mankind. they always burned incense at the altar of tyranny, looked upon its crimes with indulgence, and devised for them easy means of expiation. tyrants were sure of the pardon and favour of heaven, if they entered warmly into the quarrels of the clergy. thus, among the catholics, priests governed kings, and consequently all their subjects. superstition and despotism formed an internal alliance, and united their efforts, to plunge mankind into slavery and wretchedness. priests frightened nations with religious terror, that they might be preyed upon by their sovereigns at leisure; and, in return, those sovereigns loaded the priests with opulence and power, and undertook, from time to time, to exterminate their enemies. what shall we say of those subtle geniuses which christians call casuists, those pretended moralists who have computed the number of sins against god which a man can commit without risking his salvation? these men of profound wisdom have enriched christian morality with a ridiculous tarif of sins; they know precisely the degree of wrath which each excites in the breast of the almighty. true morality has but one criterion for judging the sins of man; the greatest are those that injure society most. the conduct which injures ourselves is imprudent and unreasonable. that which injures others is unjust and criminal. every thing, even to idleness itself, is rewarded in christian priests. multitudes of these drones are maintained in ease and affluence, while, instead of serving society, they only prey upon it. they are paid with profusion for useless prayers which they make with negligence. and while monks and lazy priests, those blood-suckers of society, wallow in an abundance shameful to the states by whom they are tolerated, the man of talents, the man of science, and the brave soldier are suffered to languish in indigence, and poorly exist on the mere necessaries of life. in a word, christianity makes nations accomplices in all the evils which are heaped upon them by the clergy. neither the uselessness of their prayers demonstrated by the experience of so many ages, the bloody effects of their fatal controversies, nor even their licentious excesses, have yet been sufficient to convince mankind how shamefully they are duped by that infallible church, to the existence of which, they have had the simplicity to believe, their salvation. chap. xvi.--conclusion. all which has hitherto been said, demonstrates, in the clearest manner, that the christian religion is contrary to true policy, and the welfare of mankind. it can be advantageous only to ignorant and vicious princes, who are desirous to reign over slaves, and who, in order to strip and tyrannize over them with impunity, form a league with the priesthood, whose function it has ever been to deceive in the name of heaven. but such imprudent princes should remember, that, in order to succeed in their projects, they must themselves become the slaves of the priesthood, who (should the former fail in due submission, or refuse to be subservient to their passions) will infallibly turn their sacred arms against their royal heads. we have seen, above, that the christian religion is not, on account of its fanatic virtues, blind zeal, and pretended perfections, the less injurious to sound morality, right reason, the happiness of individuals, and domestic harmony. it is easy to perceive that a christian, who proposes to himself as a model, a gloomy and suffering god, must take pains to afflict and render himself wretched. if this world be only a passage, if this life be only a pilgrimage, it must be ridiculous for a man to attach himself to any thing here below. if his god be offended with either the actions or opinions of his fellow-creatures, he must do every thing in his power to punish them with severity, or be wanting in zeal and affection to his god. a good christian must fly the world, or become a torment to himself and others. these reflections are sufficient to answer those who pretend that the christian religion is the foundation of true policy and morality, and that where it is not professed, there can be neither good men nor good citizens. the converse of this proposition is undoubtedly much truer; for we may assert, that a perfect christian, who conforms to all the principles of his religion, who faithfully imitates the divine men proposed to him as a model, and practises their austerities in solitude, or carries their fanatic enthusiasm and bigotry into society, must be either useless to mankind, or a troublesome and dangerous citizen.1 1 the clergy incessantly cry out against unbelievers and philosophers, whom they style dangerous subjects. yet, if we open history, we do not find that philosophers are those who have embroiled states and empires; but that such events' have generally been produced by the religious. the dominican, who poisoned the emperor henry xi. james clement, and ruvaillac, were not unbelievers. they were not philosophers, but fanatic christians. were we to believe the advocates of the christian religion, it would appear, that no morality can exist where this religion is not established. yet we may perceive, at a single glance, that there are virtues in every corner of the earth. no political society could exist without them. among the chinese, the indians, and the mahometans, there are, undoubtedly, good citizens, tender fathers, affectionate husbands, and dutiful children. and good people there, as well as with us, would be more numerous, if they were governed by a wise policy, which, instead of causing children to be taught a senseless religion, should give them equitable laws, teach them a pure morality uncontaminated with fanaticism, deter them from vice by suitable punishments, and invite them to the practice of virtue by proper rewards. in truth, it seems (i repeat it) that religion has been invented to relieve governments from the care of being just, and reigning over equitable laws. religion is the art of inspiring mankind with an enthusiasm, which is designed to divert their attention from the evils with which they are overwhelmed by those who govern them. by means of the invisible powers with which they are threatened, they are forced to suffer in silence the miseries with which they are afflicted by visible ones. they are taught to hope that, if they consent to become miserable in this world, they will for that reason be happy in the next. thus religion has become the most powerful support of a shameful and iniquitous policy, which holds it necessary to deceive mankind, that they may the more easily be governed. far from enlightened and virtuous governments be resources so base! let them learn their true interests, and know that these cannot be separated from that of the people. let them know that no state can be truly potent, except the citizens who compose it be courageous, active, industrious, virtuous, and attached to their government. let governments know, that the attachment of their constituents can have no other foundation than the happiness which the former procures the latter. if governments were penetrated with these important truths, they would need the aid of neither religion nor priests. let them be just and equitable---let them be careful to reward talents and virtue, to discourage inutility and punish vice, and their states will soon be filled with worthy and sensible citizens, who will feel it their own interest to serve and defend their country, and support the government which is the instrument of their felicity. they will do their duties, without the influence of revelation, or mysteries of paradise or hell. morality will be preached in vain, if it is not supported by the example of influential characters. it belongs to magistrates to teach morality, by practising it, by inciting to virtue, and repressing vice in every form. their power is weakened the moment they suffer a power to arise, in the state, whose influence is exerted to render morality subservient to superstition and fanaticism. in states where education is entrusted to a fanatic, enthusiastic clergy, we find citizens overwhelmed with superstition, and destitute of every virtue, except a blind faith, a ferocious zeal, a ridiculous submission to puerile ceremonies, and, in one word, fantastic notions, which never render them better men. notwithstanding the happy influences attributed to the christian religion, do we find more virtues in those who profess it, than in those who are strangers to it? are the men, redeemed by the blood of even a deity, more honest than others? among christians, impressed with their religion, one would imagine we should search in vain for rapine, fornication, adultery, and oppression. among the orthodox courtiers, who surround christian thrones, do we see intrigues, calumny, or perfidy? among the clergy, who announce to others such redoubtable dogmas, and such terrible chastisements, do we find crimes that shun the day, and every species of iniquity? all these men are christians, who, unbridled by their religion, continually violate the plainest duties of morality, and knowingly offend a god, whom they are conscious of having irritated. yet they flatter themselves that they shall be able, by a tardy repentance at death, to appease that divine justice which they have insulted during the whole course of their lives. in the mean time, we shall not deny, that the christian religion sometimes proves a restraint to timorous minds, which are incapable of that fanaticism, and destitute of that destructive energy, which lead to the commission of great crimes. but such minds would have been honest and harmless without this restraint. the fear of rendering themselves odious to mankind, of incurring contempt, and losing their reputation, would have been a chain of equal strength, on the actions of such men. those who are so blind as to tread these considerations under foot, would never be deterred from it by the menaces of religion. every man, who has received a proper education, experiences within himself a painful sentiment of mingled shame and fear, whenever he soils himself with the guilt of a dishonest action. he even condemns himself frequently, with greater severity than others do. he dreads, and shuns the eyes of his fellow-creatures; he even wishes to fly from himself. this is what constitutes remorse. in a word, christianity puts no restraint upon the passions of mankind, which might not be more efficaciously applied to them by reason, education, and sound morality. if the wicked were sure of being punished, as often as they think of committing dishonest actions, they would be forced to desist. in a society well constituted, contempt will always follow vice, and crimes will produce punishment. education, guided only by the good of society, ought ever to teach mankind to esteem themselves, to dread the contempt of others, and fear infamy more than death itself. but this kind of morality can never be consistent with a religion which commands men to despise themselves, avoid the esteem of others, and attempt to please only a god, whose conduct is inexplicable. in fine, if the christian religion be, as is pretended, a restraint to the crimes of men, if it produces salutary effects on some individuals; can these advantages, so rare, so weak and doubtful, be compared with the evident and immense evils which this religion has produced on the earth? can some few trifling crimes prevented, some conversions useless to society, some sterile and tardy repentances, enter into the balance against the continual dissensions, bloody wars, horrid massacres, persecutions, and cruelties, of which the christian religion has been a continual cause and pretext? for one secret sinful thought suppressed by it, there are even whole nations armed for reciprocal destruction; the hearts of millions of fanatics are inflamed; families and states are plunged into confusion; and the earth is bedewed with tears and blood.1 after this, let common sense decide the magnitude of the advantages which mankind derive; from the glad tidings which christians pretend to have received from their god. 1 witness, even in this enlightened age, the holy crusade against france, for the purpose of restoring the christian religion. many honest people, although not ignorant of the ills produced among mankind by this religion, nevertheless consider it a necessary evil, and think it dangerous to attempt to uproot it. mankind, say they, are naturally superstitious; they must be amused, with chimeras, and become outrageous when deprived of them. but, i answer, mankind are superstitious only because, in infancy, every thing contributes to render them so. he is led to expect his happiness, from, chimeras, because he is forbidden to seek for it from realities. in fine, it is for philosophers and for magistrates to conduct mankind back, to reason. the former will obtain the confidence and love of the latter, when they endeavour to promote the public good. undeceived themselves, they may undeceive others by degrees. governments will prevent superstition from doing harm, when they despise it and stand aloof from its ridiculous disputes. when they tolerate all sects, and side with none, those sects, after quarrelling awhile, will drop their masks, and become contemptible even to themselves. superstition falls beneath its own weight when, freedom of conscience being restored to mankind, reason is at liberty to attack their follies. true toleration and freedom of thought are the most proper instruments for the destruction of religious fanaticism. imposture is in nature timid, and when she finds herself confronted with truth, her arms fall from her hands. if a criminal and undiscerning policy has, hitherto, in almost all parts of the earth, had recourse to the aid of religion, to enslave mankind and render them miserable, let a virtuous and more enlightened policy hereafter destroy it by little and little to render them happy. if education has hitherto formed enthusiasts and fanatics, let it be hereafter calculated to form good citizens. if a morality founded on miracles, and looking to futurity, has been unable to restrain the passions of mankind, let a morality established upon their present and real wants demonstrate that, in a well constituted society, happiness is always the reward of virtue: shame, contempt, and punishment the companions of vice, and the wages of sin. if error be an evil, to it let truth be opposed. if enthusiasm produce disorders in society, let it be suppressed. let us leave to asia a religion begotten by the ardent imaginations of the orientals. let our milder climates be more reasonable, more free, and more happy. let us make them the residence of honesty, activity, industry, social affections, and exalted minds. may not reason be permitted to hope, that she shall one day re-assume the power so long usurped from her by error, illusion, and deceit? when will nations renounce chimerical hopes, to contemplate their true interests? will they never shake off the yokes of those hypocritical tyrants, who are interested only in the errors of mankind? let us hope it. truth must at last triumph over falsehood.--mankind, fatigued with their own credulity, will return to her arms.--reason will break their chains--reason, which was created to reign, with undivided empire, over all intelligent beings. amen. production notes: an apology for atheism by charles southwell (1814-1860) first published anonymously in 1846 transcribed by the freethought archives, www.freethought.vze.com an apology for atheism: addressed to religious investigators of every denomination by one of its apostles. "not one of you reflects, that you ought know your gods before you worship them." london: j. watson, 5, paul's alley, paternoster row. and all booksellers. 1846 an apology for atheism it would be absurd to doubt that religion has an important bearing on all the relations and conditions of life. the connexion between religions faith and political practice is, in truth, far closer than is generally thought. public opinion has not ripened into a knowledge that religious error is the intangible but real substratum of all political injustice. though the 'schoolmaster' has done much, there still remain and hold some away among us, many honest and energetic assertors of 'the rights of man,' who have to learn that a people in the fetters of superstition, can never achieve political freedom. many of these reformers admit the vast, the incalculable influence of mahommedanism on the politics of constantinople, and yet persist in acting as if christianity had little or nothing to do with the politics of england. at a recent meeting of the anti-state church association it was remarked, that 'throw what we would into the political cauldron, out it came in an ecclesiastical shape'. if the newspaper report may be relied on, there was much laughing among the hearers of those words, the deep meaning of which it may safely be affirmed, only a select few of them could fathom. hostility to state churches by no means implies a knowledge of the close and important connection between ecclesiastical and political questions. men may appreciate the justice of voluntaryism in religion, and yet have rather cloudy conceptions with respect to the influence of opinions and things ecclesiastical on the condition of nations. they may clearly see that he who needs the priest, should disdain to saddle others with the cost of him, while blind to the fact that no people having faith in the supernatural ever failed to mix up such faith with political affairs. even leading members of the 'third estate' are constantly declaring their disinclination for religious controversy, and express particular anxiety to keep their journals free of everything 'strictly theological.' their notion is, that newspaper writers should endeavour to keep clear of so 'awful' a topic. and yet seldom does a day pass in which this self-imposed editorial rule is not violated--a fact significant as fact can be, of that connection between religion and politics the author thinks has been far too little regarded. it is quite possible the editors of newspapers have weighty reasons for their repugnance to agitate the much vexed question of religion, but it seems they cannot help doing so. in a leading article of this day's _post_, [endnote 4:1] we are told--'the stain and reproach of romanism in ireland is, that it is a political system, and a wicked political system, for it regards only the exercise of power, and neglects utterly the duty of improvement.' in journals supported by romanists, and of course devoted to the interests of their church, the very same charge is made against english protestantism. to denounce each other's 'holy apostolic religion' may be incompatible with the taste of 'gentlemen of the press,' but certainly they do it with a brisk and hearty vehemence that inclines one to think it a 'labour of love.' what men do _con amore_ they usually do well, and no one can deny the wonderful talent for denunciation exhibited by journalists when writing down each other's 'true christianity.' the unsparing invective quoted above from the _post_ is a good specimen. if just, irish romanism _ought_ to be destroyed, and newspaper writers cannot be better employed than in helping on the work of its destruction, or the destruction of any other religion to which the same 'stain and reproach' may be fairly attached. the author of this apology has no spite or ill-will towards roman catholics, though opposed to their religion, and a willing subscriber to the opinion of romanism in ireland, expressed by the _post, because convinced of its truth._ the past and present condition of that country is a deep disgrace to its priests, the bulk of whom, protestant as well as romanist, can justly be charged with 'regarding only the exercise of power, while neglecting utterly the duty of improvement.' the intriguing and essentially political character of romanism, it would be idle to deny. no one at all acquainted with its cunningly contrived 'system' will hesitate to characterise it as 'wickedly political,' productive of nothing but mischief--a system through whose accursed instrumentality millions are cheated of their sanity as well as substance, and trained like the dog to lick the hand that smites them. so perfect is their degradation that literally they 'take no thought for to-morrow,' it being their practice to wait 'till starvation stares them in the face,' [5:1] and _then_ make an effort against it. notwithstanding the purely christian education of which they are taught to boast, nothing can exceed the superstitious recklessness displayed in their daily conduct. the _globe_ of thursday, october 30th, 1845, contains an article on the damage sustained by the potato crops here and in ireland, full of matter calculated to enlighten our first rate reformers, who seem profoundly ignorant that superstition is the bane of intellect, and most formidable of all the obstacles which stand between the people and their rights: one paragraph is so peculiarly significant of the miserable condition to which romanism and protestantism have reduced a peasantry, said to be 'the finest in the world,' that we here subjoin it- 'the best means to arrest the progress of the pestilence in the people's food have occupied the attention of scientific men. the commission appointed by government, consisting of three of the most celebrated practical chemists, has published a preliminary report, in which several suggestions, rather than ascertained results, are communicated, by which the sound portions of the root may, it is hoped, be preserved from the epidemy, and possibly, the tainted be rendered innoxious, and even partially nutritious. followed implicitly, their directions might mitigate the calamity. but the care, the diligence, the persevering industry which the various forms of process require, in order to effecting the purposes which _might_ result if they were promptly adopted and properly carried out, are the very qualities in which the irish peasantry are most deficient. in the present crisis, the people are more disposed to regard the extensive destruction of their crops in the light of an extraordinary visitation of heaven, with which it is vain for human efforts to contend, than to employ counteracting or remedial applications. "sure the almighty sent the potato-plague, and we must bear it as well as we can!" is the remark of many; while, in other places, the copious sprinklings of holy water on the potato gardens, and on the produce, as it lies upon the surface, are more depended on for disinfecting the potatoes than the suggestions of science, which require the application of patient industry.' daniel o'connell may continue to boast about irish morale and irish intellect--the handsome women, and stalwart men of his 'beloved country;' but no sensible persons will pay the least attention to him. it is, at all events, too late in the day for we 'saxons' to be either cajoled or amused by such nonsense. an overwhelming majority of the irish people have been proved indolent beyond all parallel, and not much more provident than those unhappy savages who sell their beds in the morning, not being able to foresee they shall again require them at night. a want of forethought so remarkable, and indolence so abominable, as characterize the peasantry of ireland, are results of their religious education. does any one suppose the religion of that peasantry has little, if anything, to do with their political condition; or can it be believed they will be fit for, much less achieve political emancipation, while priests, and priests alone, are their instructors? we may rely upon it, that intellectual freedom is the natural and necessary precursor of political freedom. education, said lord brougham, makes men easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave. the irish peasantry clamour for 'repeal,' never considering that did they get it, no essential change would be made in their social, moral, or to say all in one word, _political_ condition; they would still be the tool of o'connell and other unprincipled political mountebanks--themselves the tool of priests. great has been the outcry raised against the 'godless colleges, that sir robert peel had the courageous good sense to _inflict_ on ireland. protestant as well as romanist priests are terribly alarmed lest those colleges should spoil the craft by which they live. sagacious enough to perceive that whatever influence they possess must vanish with the ignorance on which it rests, they moved heaven and earth to disgust the irish people with an educational measure of which religion formed no part. their fury, like 'empty space,' is boundless. they cannot endure the thought that our ministers should so far play the game of 'infidelity' as to take from them the delightful task of teaching ireland's young ideas 'how to shoot.' sir robert inglis _christened_ this 'odious' measure, a 'gigantic scheme of godless education,' and a large majority of irish roman catholic prelates have solemnly pronounced it 'dangerous to faith and morals,' neither ministerial allurements, nor ministerial threats can subdue the cantankerous spirit of these bigots. they are all but frantic, and certainly not without reason, for the irish colleges bill is the fine point of that wedge which, driven home, will shiver to pieces their 'wicked political system.' whatever improves irish intellect will play the mischief with its 'faith,' though not at all likely to deteriorate its 'morals.' the best guarantee for national morality is to be found in national intelligence; nor need any one feel alarmed at the progress of principles and measures inimical to faith in either romanism or protestantism. let the people of ireland be properly employed, as a preliminary to being well educated, and speedily they may _deserve_ to be singled out as 'the most moral people on the face of the earth.' an educated nation will never tamely submit to be priest-ridden, and well do ireland's enslavers know it. the most stupid of her priests, equally with the shrewdest of her 'patriots,' are quite alive to the expediency of teaching as facts, the fraudulent fables of the 'dark ages.' to keep the people ignorant, or what is worse, to teach them only what is false, is the great end of _their_ training; and if a british ministry propose anything better than the merest mockery of education, they call it 'dangerous to faith and morals.' the sage who writes 'leaders' for the _morning herald_, is of opinion that ireland would indeed be 'great, glorious, and free,' if its roman catholic people were to cease all efforts for repeal, and turn good protestants. but the _herald_ does greatly err not knowing human nature and the source of irish evils. it is not by substituting protestantism for romanism that those evils are to be cured. were every romanist in ireland at once to turn 'good protestant,' their political emancipation would be far off as ever. protestantism everywhere, like romanism everywhere, is 'a political system, and a wicked political system, for it regards only the exercise of power, and neglects utterly the duty of improvement.' religion is the curse of ireland. to the rival churches of that country may be traced nearly all the oppressions suffered by its people, who never can be materially improved till purged of their faith in priests. when that salutary work shall be accomplished, ireland will indeed be 'a nation' in the secure enjoyment of political liberty. the priest-ridden may talk of freedom, but can never secure it; for, as truly said by one of our most admired poets- tis man's base grovelling nature makes the priest, who always rides a superstitious beast. and he is a poor politician who expects to see political liberty achieved or enjoyed by nations made up of 'base, grovelling' specimens of human nature. what then can be thought of the first-rate reformers before alluded to, who are going to emancipate every body without the least offence to any body's superstition? it should be borne in memory that other people are superstitious as well as the irish, and that the churches of all countries are as much parts of 'a wicked political system' as are the churches of ireland. the judges of our own country frequently remind us that its laws have a religious sanction; nay they assure us christianity is part and parcel of those laws. do we not know that orthodox christianity means christianity as by law established? and can any one fail to perceive that such a religion must needs be political? the cunning few, who make a market of delusion, and esteem nothing apart from their own aggrandisement, are quite aware that the civil and criminal law of england is intimately associated with christianity--they publicly proclaim their separation impossible, except at the cost of destruction to both. they are sagacious enough to perceive that a people totally untrammelled by the fears, the prejudices, and the wickedness of religion would never consent to remain in bondage. hence the pains taken by piety-mongers to perpetuate the dominion of that ignorance which proverbially is 'the mother of devotion.' what care they for universal emancipation? free themselves, their grand object is to rivet the chains of others. so that those they defraud of their hard earned substance be kept down, they are not over scrupulous with respect to means. among the most potent of their helps in the 'good work' are churches, various in name and character, but in principle the very same. all are pronounced true by priests who profit by them, and false by priests who do not. every thing connected with them bears the mark of despotism. whether we look at churches foreign or domestic, popish or protestant, that mark of the 'beast' appears in characters as legible as, it is fabled, the hand writing on the wall did to a tyrant of old. in connection with each is a hierarchy of intellect stultifiers, who explain doctrines without understanding them, or intending they should be understood by others; and true to their 'sacred trust,' throw every available impediment in the way of improvement. knowledge is their devil. so far as antagonism to progression goes, there is no sensible difference between the hierarchies of rome or of england, or of constantinople. to diffuse the 'truth' that 'will set men free' is no part of their 'wicked political system.' on the contrary, they labour to excite a general disgust of truth, and in defence of bad governments preach fine sermons from some one of the many congenial texts to be gathered in their 'holy scripture.' nor is it found that non-established priesthoods are much more disposed to emancipate 'mind' and oil the wheels of political progression than those kept in state pay. the air of conventicles is not of the freest or most bracing description. no doubt the 'voluntary principle' is just--only brazen faced impostors will say it is right to tax a man for the support of those who promulgate doctrines abhorrent to his feelings and an insult to his judgment. still, the fact is incontestable, that dissenting priests are, for the most part, opposed to the extension of political rights, or, what is equal, that' knowledge which would infallibly secure them. the methodist preacher, who has the foolish effrontery to tell his congregation 'the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and, therefore, every person born into the world deserveth god's wrath and damnation,' may be a liberal politician, one well fitted to pilot his flock into the haven of true republicanism: but the author is extremely suspicious of such persons, and would not on any account place his liberty in their keeping. he has little faith in political fanaticism, especially when in alliance with the frightful doctrines enunciated from conventicle pulpits, and has no hesitation in saying that anti-state church associations do not touch the root of all political evils. their usefulness is great, because they give currency to a sound principle, but that principle, though important, is not all-important--though powerful, is not all-powerful. if universally adopted, it is questionable that any useful change of a lasting character would be worked in the economy of politics. priests of all religion are the same, said dryden--the religions they teach are false, and in their tendency anti-progressive, say atheists, who put no trust in doctrine which involves or assumes supernatural existence. believing that supernaturalism reduced to 'system' cannot be other than 'wickedly political,' the atheist, truly so called, sees no hope for 'slave classes,' apart from a general diffusion of anti-religious ideas. according to his theory, religion is in part a cunningly and in part a stupidly devised fable. he cannot reconcile the wisdom of theologians with undoubted facts, and though willing to admit that some 'modes of faith' are less absurd than others, is convinced they are all essentially alike, because all fundamentally erroneous. rousseau said 'philosophy can do nothing that religion cannot do better, and religion can do many things which philosophy cannot do at all.' but atheists believe religion the most formidable evil with which progressors have to cope, and see in philosophy that mighty agent in the work of improvement so beautifully described by curran as _the irresistible genius of universal emancipation_. speculative thinkers of so decidedly irreligious a temper are not numerous. if esteemed, as happens to certain commodities, in proportion to their scarcity they would enjoy a large share of public respect. indeed, they are so few and far between, or at least so seldom make their presence visible, that william gillespie is convinced they are an anomalous species of animal, produced by our common parent 'in a moment of madness.' other grave christian writers, though horrified at atheism--though persuaded its professors, 'of all earth's madmen, most deserve a chain;' and, though constantly abusing them, are still unable to believe in the reality of such persons. these, among all the opponents of atheism and atheists, may fairly claim to be considered most mysterious; for, while lavishing on deniers of their gods every kind of sharp invective and opprobrious epithet, they cannot assure themselves the 'monsters' did, or do actually exist. with characteristic humour, david hume observed 'there are not a greater number of philosophical reasonings displayed upon any subject than those which prove the existence of deity, and refute the fallacies of atheists, and yet the most religious philosophers still dispute whether any man can be so blinded as to be a speculative atheist;' 'how (continues he) shall we reconcile these contradictions? the knight-errants who wandered about to clear the world of dragons and of giants, never entertained the least doubt with regard to the existence of these monsters.' [10:1] the same hume who thus pleasantly rebuked 'most religious philosophers,' was himself a true atheist. that he lacked faith in the supernatural must be apparent to every student of his writings, which abound with reflections far from flattering to the self-love of religionists, and little calculated to advance their cause. many deists have been called atheists: among others robert owen and richard carlile, both of whom professed belief in something superior to nature, something acting upon and regulating matter, though not itself material. [11:1] this something they named _power_. but hume has shown we may search 'in vain for an idea of power or necessary connection in all the sources from which we would suppose it to be derived. [11:2] owen, carlile, and other atheists, falsely so called, supposed power the only entity worthy of deification. they dignified it with such appellations as 'internal or external cause of all existence,' and ascribed to it intelligence, with such other honourable attributes as are usually ascribed to 'deified, error.' but hume astonished religious philosophers by declaring that, 'while we argue from the course of nature and infer a particular intelligent cause, which first bestowed, and still preserves order in the universe, we embrace a principle which is both uncertain and useless. it is uncertain, because the subject lies entirely beyond the reach of human experience. it is useless, because our knowledge of this cause being derived entirely from the course of nature, we can never, according to the rules of just reasoning, return back from the cause with any new inference, or making additions to the common and experienced course of nature, establish any principles of conduct and behaviour. [11:3] nor did hume affect to consider christianity less repugnant to reason than any other theory or system of supernaturalism. though confessedly fast in friendship, generous in disposition, and blameless in all the relations of life, few sincere divines can forgive his hostility to their faith. and without doubt it was hostility eminently calculated to exhaust their stock of patience, because eminently calculated to damage their religion, which has nothing to fear from the assaults of ignorant and immoral opponents; but when assailed by men of unblemished reputation, who know well how to wield the weapons of wit, sarcasm, and solid argumentation, its priests are not without reason alarmed lest their house should be set _out_ of order. it would be difficult to name a philosopher at once so subtle, so profound, so bold, and so _good_ as hume. notwithstanding his heterodox reputation, many learned and excellent christians openly enjoyed his friendship. a contemporary critic recently presented the public with 'a curious instance of contrast and of parallel,' between robertson and hume. 'flourishing (says he) in the same walk of literature, living in the same society at the same time; similar in their habits and generous dispositions; equally pure in their morals, and blameless in all the relations of private life: the one was a devout believer, the other a most absolute atheist, and both from deep conviction, founded upon inquiries, carefully and anxiously conducted. the close and warm friendship which subsisted between these two men, may, after what we have said, be a matter of surprise to some; but robertson's christianity was enlarged and tolerant, and david hume's principles were liberal and philosophical in a remarkable degree.' [12:1] this testimony needs no comment. it clearly tells its own tale, and ought to have the effect of throwing discredit upon the vulgar notion that disgust of all religion is incompatible with talents and virtues of the highest order; for, in the person of david hume, the world saw absolute atheism co-existent with genius, learning, and moral excellence, rarely, if ever, surpassed. the unpopularity of that creed it would be vain to deny. a vast majority of mankind associate with the idea of disbelief in their gods every thing stupid, monstrous, absurd, and atrocious. absolute atheism is thought by them the inseparable ally of most shocking wickedness, involving as it manifestly does that 'blasphemy against the holy ghost' which we are assured shall not be forgiven unto men 'neither in this world nor in that which is to come.' educated to consider it 'an inhuman, bloody, ferocious system, equally hostile to every restraint and to every virtuous affection,' the majority of all countries detest and shun its apostles. their horror of them may be likened to that it is presumed the horse feels towards the camel, upon whom (so travellers tell us) he cannot look without _shuddering_. to keep alive and make the most of this strong religious feeling has ever been the object of christian priests, who rarely hesitate to make charges of atheism, not only against opponents, but each other; not only against disbelievers but believers in god. the jesuit lafiteau, in a preface to his 'histoire des sauvages americanes,' [13:1] endeavours to prove that only atheists will dare assert that god created the americans. scarcely a metaphysical writer of eminence has escaped the 'imputation' of atheism. the great clarke and his antagonist the greater leibnitz were called atheists. even newton was put in the same category. no sooner did sharp-sighted divines catch a glimpse of an 'essay on the human understanding' than they loudly proclaimed the atheism of its author. julian hibbert, in his learned account 'of persons falsely entitled atheists,' says, 'the existence of some sort of a deity has usually been considered undeniable, so the imputation of atheism and the title of atheist have usually been considered as insulting.' this author, after giving no fewer than thirty and two names of 'individuals among the pagans who (with more or less injustice) have been accused of atheism,' says, 'the list shews, i think, that almost all the most celebrated grecian metaphysicians have been, either in their own or in following ages, considered, with more or less reason, to be atheistically inclined. for though, the word atheist was probably not often used till about a hundred years before christ, yet the imputation of _impiety_ was no doubt as easily and commonly bestowed, before that period, as it has been since.' [13:2] voltaire relates, in the eighteenth chapter of his 'philosophie de l'histoire,' [13:3] that a frenchman named maigrot, bishop of conon, who knew not a word of chinese, was deputed by the then pope to go and pass judgment on the opinions of certain chinese philosophers: he treated confucius as atheist, because that sage had said 'the sky has given me virtue, and man can do me no hurt.' on grounds no more solid than this, charges of atheism are often erected by 'surpliced sophists.' rather ridiculous have been the mistakes committed by some of them in their hurry to affix on objects of their hate the brand of impiety. these persons, no doubt, supposed they were privileged to write or talk any amount of nonsense and contradiction. men who fancy themselves commissioned by deity to interpret his 'mysteries,' or announce his 'will,' are apt to make blunders without being sensible of it, as did those worthy jesuits who declared, in opposition to bayle, that a society of atheists was impossible, and at the same time assured the world that the government of china, by voltaire and many others considered the most ancient on earth, was a society of atheists. so difficult it is for men inflamed by religious prejudices, interests, and animosities to keep clear of sophisms, which can impose on none but themselves. many atheists conceal their sentiments on account of the odium which would certainly be their reward did they avow them. but the unpopularity of those sentiments cannot, by persons of sense and candour be allowed, in itself, a sufficient reason for their rejection. the fact of a creed being unpopular is no proof it is false. the argument from general consent is at best a suspicious one, for the truth of any opinion or the validity of any practice. history proves that the generality of men are the slaves of prejudice, the sport of custom, and foes most bigotted to such opinions concerning religion as have not been drawn in from the sucking-bottles, or 'hatched within the narrow fences of their own conceit.' no prudent searcher after truth will accept an opinion because it is the current one, but rather view it with distrust for that very reason. the genius of him who said, in our journey to the other world the common road is the safest, was cowardly as deceptive, and therefore opposed to sound philosophy. like horses yoked to a team, 'one's nose in t'others tail,' is a mode of journeying anywhere the opposite of dignified, pleasant, or improving. they who are enamoured of 'the common road,' unless handsomely paid for journeying thereon, must be slavish in feeling, and willing submitters to every indignity sanctioned by custom, that potent enemy of truth, which from time immemorial has been 'the law of fools.' every day experience demonstrates the fallibility of majorities. it palpably exhibits, too, the danger as well as the folly of presuming the unpopularity of certain speculative opinions an evidence of their falsity. a public intellect, untainted by gross superstition, can nowhere be appealed to. even in this favoured country, 'the envy of surrounding nations and admiration of the world,' the multitude are anything but patterns of moral purity and intellectual excellence. they who assure us _vox populi_ is the voice of god, are fairly open to the charge of ascribing to him what orthodox pietists inform us exclusively belongs to the father of evil. if by 'voice of god' is meant something different from noisy ebullitions of anger, intemperance, and fanaticism, they who would have us regulate our opinions in conformity therewith are respectfully requested to reconcile mob philosophy with the sober dictates of experience, and mob law with the law of reason. a writer in the _edinburgh review_ [15:1] assures us 'the majority of every nation consists of rude uneducated masses, ignorant, intolerant, suspicious, unjust, and uncandid, without the sagacity which discovers what is right, or the intelligence which comprehends it when pointed out, or the morality which requires it to be done.' and yet religious philosophers are fond of quoting the all but universal horror of atheism as a formidable argument against that much misunderstood creed. the least reflection will suffice to satisfy any reasonable man that the speculative notions of rude, uneducated masses, so faithfully described by the scotch reviewer, are for the most part grossly absurd and consequently the reverse of true. if the masses of all nations are ignorant, intolerant, suspicions, unjust, and uncandid, without the sagacity which discovers what is right, or the intelligence which comprehends it when pointed out, or the morality which requires it to be done; who with the least shadow of claim to be accounted reasonable will assert that a speculative heresy is the worse for being unpopular, or that atheism is false, and must be demoralising in its influence because the majority of mankind declare it so. the author of this apology does not desire it may be inferred from the foregoing remarks, that horror of atheism, and detestation of its apostles, is confined to the low, the vulgar, the base, or the illiterate. any such inference would be wrong, for it is certainly true that learned, benevolent, and very able christian writers, have signalised themselves in the work of obstructing the progress of atheism by denouncing its principles, and imputing all manner of wickedness to its defenders. it must indeed be admitted by the really enlightened of every name, that their conduct in this particular amply justifies pious matthew henry's confessions, that 'of all the christian graces, zeal is most apt to turn sour.' one john ryland, a.m. of northampton, published a 'preceptor, or general repository of useful information, very necessary for the various ages and departments of life' in which 'pride and lust, a corrupt pride of heart, and a furious filthy lust of body,' are announced as the atheist's 'springs of action,' 'desire to act the beast without control, and live like a devil without a check of conscience,' his only 'reasons for opposing the existence of god;' in which he is told 'a world of creatures are up in arms against him to kill him as they would a venomous mad dog,' in which among other hard names he is called 'absurd fool,' 'beast,' 'dirty monster,' 'brute,' 'gloomy dark animal,' 'enemy of mankind,' 'wolf to civil society,' 'butcher and murderer of the human race,' in which moreover he is _cursed_ in the following hearty terms: 'let the glorious mass of fire burn him, let the moon light him to the gallows, let the stars in their courses fight against the atheist, let the force of the comets dash him to pieces, let the roar of thunders strike him deaf, let red lightnings blast his guilty soul, let the sea lift up her mighty waves to bury him, let the lion tear him to pieces, let dogs devour him, let the air poison him, let the next crumb of bread choke him, nay, let the dull ass spurn him to death.' dr. balguy in the course of a treatise which the 'liberal' author of a sketch of the denominations of the christian world, 'considered an excellent antidote against atheistical tenets,' expresses himself in the following manner: 'of all the false opinions which ever infested the mind of man, nothing can possibly equal that of atheism, which is such a monstrous contradiction of all evidence, to all the powers of the understanding and the dictates of common sense, that it may well be questioned whether any man can really fall into it by a deliberate use of his judgment. all nature so clearly points out, and so clearly proclaims a creator of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, that whoever hears not its voice and sees not its proofs may well be thought wilfully deaf and obstinately blind.' these are notable specimens of zeal turned sour. now, when it is considered that such writings are carefully put into popular hands, and writings of an irreligious character as carefully kept out of them, astonishment at human intolerance must cease. so far, indeed, from wondering that the 'giddy multitude' shrink aghast from atheists we shall conceive it little short of miraculous, that they do not fall upon and tear them to pieces. beattie, another christian doctor, towards the close of his celebrated essay on the immutability of truth, denounces every sincere outspoken unbeliever as a 'murderer of human souls,' and it being obvious that the murderer of a single soul must to the 'enlightened' majority of our people appear an act infinitely more horrible than the butchery of many bodies, it really does at first view seem 'passing strange' that body murderers are almost invariably hanged, whilst they who murder 'souls,' if punished at all, usually escape with some harmless abuse and a year or two's imprisonment. even the 'tolerant' richard watson, lord bishop of llandaff, wrote with contemptuous bitterness of 'atheistical madmen,' and in his apology for the bible, assured deistical thomas paine, deism was so much better than atheism, he (bishop watson) meant 'not to say anything to its discredit.' the rev. mr. ward, whose 'ideal of a christian church' spread such consternation in the anti-popish camp, describes his own hatred of protestantism as 'fierce and burning.' nothing can go beyond that--it is the _ne plus ultra_ of bigotry, and just such hatred is displayed towards atheists by at least nine-tenths of their opponents. strange to say, in christians, in the followers of him who is thought to have recommended, by act and word, unlimited charity, who is thought to have _commanded_ that we judge not, that we be sat judged; the atheist finds his most active foe, his bitterest and least scrupulous maligner. to exaggerate their bigotry would be difficult, for whether sage or simple, learned or unlearned, priests or priest-led, they regularly practise the denunciation of atheists in language foul as it is false. they call them 'traitors to human kind,' yea 'murderers of the human soul,' and unless hypocrites, or much better than their sentiments, would rather see them swing upon the gibbet than murderers of the body, especially if like john tawell, 'promoters of religion and christian missions.' robert hall was a divine of solid learning and unquestionable piety, whose memory is reverenced by a large and most respectable part of the christian world. he ranked amongst the best of his class, and generally speaking, was so little disposed to persecute his opponents because of their heterodox opinions, that he wrote and published a treatise on moderation, in the course of which he eloquently condemns the practice of regulating, or rather attempting to regulate opinion by act of parliament: yet, incredible as it may appear, in that very treatise he applauds calvin on account of his conduct towards servetus. our authority for this statement is not 'infidel' but christian--the authority of evans, who, after noticing the treatise in question, says, 'he (bishop hall) has discussed the subject with that ability which is peculiar to all his writings. but this great and good man, towards the close of the same treatise, forgetting the principles which he had been inculcating, devotes one solitary page to the cause of intolerance: this page he concludes with these remarkable expressions: "master calvin did well approve himself to god's church in bringing servetus to the stake in geneva."' remarkable, indeed! and what is the moral that they point? to the author of this apology they are indicative of the startling truth, that neither eloquence nor learning, nor faith in god and his scripture, nor all three combined, are incompatible with the cruelest spirit of persecution. the treatise on moderation will stand an everlasting memorial against its author, whose fine intellect, spoiled by superstitious education, urged him to approve a deed, the bare remembrance of which ought to excite in every breast, feelings of horror and indignation. that such a man should declare the aim of atheists is 'to dethrone god and destroy man,' is not surprising. from genuine bigots they have no right to expect mercy. he who applauded the bringing of servetus to the stake must have deemed the utter extermination of atheists a religious duty. that our street and field preaching christians, with very few exceptions, heartily sympathise with the fire and faggot sentiments of robert hall, is well known; but happily, their absurd ravings are attended to by none save eminently pious people, whose brains are unclogged by any conceivable quantity of useful knowledge. in point of intellect they are utterly contemptible. their ignorance, however, is fully matched by their impudence, which never forsakes them. they claim to be considered god's right-hand men, and of course duly qualified preachers of his 'word,' though unable to speak five minutes without taking the same number of liberties with the queen's english. swift was provoked by the prototypes of these pestiferous people, to declare that, 'formerly, the apostles received the gift of speaking several languages, a knowledge so remote from our dealers in the art of enthusiasm, that they neither understand propriety of speech nor phrases of their own, much less the gift of tongues.' the millions of christian people who have been trained up in the way they should _not_ go, by this active class of fanatics, are naturally either opposed to reason or impervious to it. hence, arguing with them is sheer waste of brains and leisure--a casting of pearls before swine. they are convinced not only that the wisdom of the world is foolishness with god, but that wisdom with god is foolishness with the world; nor will any one affirm their 'moderation' in respect to unbelievers one tittle more moderate than robert hall's; or that they are one tittle less disposed than 'that good and great man,' to think those who bring heretics to the stake at geneva or elsewhere, 'do well approve themselves to god's church.' educated, that is to say, _duped_ as they are, they cannot but think unbelief highly criminal, and when practicable, or convenient, deal with it as such. atheists would, be 'astonished with a great astonishment' if they did not. their crafty teachers adjure them to do so 'on peril of their souls;' and if, as mr. jay, of bath, said in one of his best sermons, 'the readiest way in the world to thin heaven, and replenish the regions of hell, is to call in the spirit of bigotry,' the author of this apology would not for all the treasures of india stand in the shoes of these men, whose whole time and energies are employed in generating and perpetuating that detestable spirit. but when your rylands, and balguys and beatties, and watsons and halls make a merit of abusing those who cannot believe as they believe, what can be hoped or expected from the tribe of illiterate canters, who 'go about mawworming?' it is nevertheless true, that atheists have been helped to some of their best arguments by adversaries. bishop watson, to wit, has suggested objections to belief in the christian's deity, which they who hold no such belief, consider unanswerable. in his famous 'apology' he desired to know what paine thought 'of an uncaused cause of everything, and a being who has no relation to time, not being older to day than he was yesterday, nor younger to day than he will be to-morrow--who has no relation to space, not being a part here and a part there, or a whole anywhere? of an omniscient being who cannot know the future actions of man, or if his omniscience enables him to know them, of the contingency of human actions? of the distinction between vice and virtue, crime and innocence, sin and duty? of the infinite goodness of a being who existed through eternity, without any emanation of his goodness manifested in the creation of sensitive beings? or if it be contended that there was an eternal creation of an effect coeval with its 'cause, of matter not posterior to its maker? of the existence of evil, moral and natural, in the work of an infinite being, powerful, wise, and good? finally, of the gift of freedom of will, when the abuse of freedom becomes the cause of general misery?' [20:1] these questions imply what, to the author of this apology, appears an ample _justification_ of atheism. that they flowed from the pen of a bishop, is one of many extraordinary facts which have grown out of theological controversy. they are questions strongly suggestive of another. is it possible to have experience of, or even to imagine a being with attributes so strange, anomalous, and contradictory? to that question reason prompts an answer in the negative--it is plain that bishop watson was convinced 'no man by searching can find out god.' the case is, that he, in the hope of converting deists, ventured to insinuate arguments highly favourable to atheism, whose professors consider an admission of utter ignorance of god, tantamount to a denial of his existence. many christians, with more candour, perhaps, than prudence, have avowed the same opinion. minutius felix, for example, said to the heathen, 'not one of you reflects that you ought to know your gods before you worship them.' [20:2] as if he felt the absurdity of pretending to love and honour an unknown 'perhaps.' that he did himself what he ridiculed in them proves nothing but his own inconsistency. to the author of this apology it seems certain, a god whose being is not as our being, whose thoughts are not as our thoughts, and whose ways are not as our ways, is neither more nor less than the merest figment of ill-regulated imagination. he is _sure_ a being, above nature, can only be conceived of by itself; it being obviously true that the natural cannot attain to the supernatural. the christian, equally with the heathen, is open to the reproach of worshipping he knows not what. yes, to idol-hating, enlightened christians, may fairly be applied the severe sarcasm minutius felix so triumphantly levelled at idol-loving 'benighted heathens.' will any one say the christian absolutely knows more about jehovah than the heathen did about jupiter? the author believes that few, if any, who have attentively considered bishop watson's queries, will say the 'dim unknown,' they so darkly shadow forth, is conceivable by any effort, either of sense or imagination. under cover, then, of what reason christians can escape the imputation of pretending to adore what they have no conception of, the author of this apology is unable to divine. the very 'book of books,' to which they so boldly appeal, is conclusive against them. in its pages they stand convicted of idolatry. without doubt a god is revealed by revelation; but not _their_ god; not a supernatural being, infinite in power, in wisdom, and in goodness. the bible deity is superhuman in nothing; all that his adorers have ascribed to him being mere amplification of human powers, human ideas, and human passions. the bible deity 'has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth;' is 'jealous,' especially of other gods; changeful, vindictive, partial, cruel, unjust, 'angry with the wicked every day;' and altogether a being far from respectable, or worthy to be considered infinite in wisdom, power, and goodness. is it credible that a being supernaturally wise and good, proclaimed the murderous adulterer david, a man after his own heart, and commanded the wholesale butchery of canaanites? or that a god of boundless power, 'whose tender mercies are over all his works,' decreed the extermination of entire nations for being what he made them? jehovah did all three. confessedly a god of armies and lord of hosts; confessedly, too, a hardener of men's hearts that he might destroy them: he authorised acts at which human nature shudders, and of which it is ashamed: yet to love, respect, yea, reverence him, we are commanded by the self-styled 'stewards of his mysteries,' on peril of our 'immortal souls.' verily, these pious anathematisers ask our credulity a little too much.' in their zeal for the god of israel, they are apt to forget that only himself can compass impossibilities, and altogether lose sight of the fact that where, who, or what jehovah is, no man knoweth. revelation (so-called) reveals nothing about the imagined creator of heaven and earth on which a cultivated intellect can repose with satisfaction. men naturally desire positive information concerning the superhuman deity, belief in whom is the _sine qua non_ of all religion. but the bible furnishes no such information concerning jehovah. on the contrary, he is their pronounced 'past finding out,' incomprehensible, and the like. 'canst thou, by searching, find out god? canst thou find out the almighty to perfection?' are questions put by an 'inspired writer,' who felt the cloudy and unsatisfactory nature of all human conceit about gods. now, a revelation from god, at least so thinks the author of this apology, might reasonably be expected to make the mode and nature of his existence manifest. but the christian bible falls infinitely short in this particular. it teaches there is a god; but throws no light on the dark questions, who, what, or where is god? numerous and various as are scripture texts, none can be cited in explanation of a deity no older to-day than he was yesterday, nor younger to-day than he will be to-morrow; of a deity who has no relation to space, not being a part here and a part there, or a whole anywhere: in short, of that deity written about by bishop watson, who, like every other sincere christian, made the mistake of resting his religious faith on 'words without knowledge.' it is to this description of faith atheists object. they think it the root of superstition, that greatest of all plagues, by which poor humanity is afflicted. are they to blame for thus thinking? the christian has no mercy on the superstition of the heathen; and should scorn to complain when the bitter chalice is returned to his own lips. atheists believe the god of bishop watson a supernatural chimera, and to its worshippers have a perfect right to say, 'not one of you reflects that you ought to know your gods before you worship them.' these remarkable words, originally addressed to the heathen, lose none of their force when directed against the christian. no one can conceive a supernatural being, and what none can conceive, none ought to worship, or even assert the existence of. who worships a something of which he knows nothing, is an idolater. to talk of, or bow down to it, is nonsensical; to pretend affection for it, is worse than nonsensical. such conduct, however pious, involves the rankest hypocrisy; the meanest and most odious species of idolatry; for labouring to destroy which, atheists are called 'murderers of the human soul,' 'blasphemers,' and other foolish names, too numerous to mention. it would be well for all parties, if those who raise against atheists the cry of 'blasphemy,' were made to perceive that godless unbelievers cannot be blasphemers; for, as contended by lord brougham in his life of voltaire, blasphemy implies belief, and, therefore, atheists who do not believe in god, cannot logically or justly be said to blaspheme him. the blasphemer, properly so called, is he who imagines deity, and ascribes to the idol of his own brain, all manner of folly, contradiction, inconsistency, and wickedness. yes, the blasphemer is he who invents a monster and calls it god; while to reject belief therein, is an act both reasonable and virtuous. superstition is universally abhorred, but no one believes himself superstitious. there never was a religionist who believed his own religion mere superstition. all shrink indignantly from the charge of being superstitious; while all raise temples to, and bow down before, 'thingless names.' the 'masses' of every nation erect 'thingless names' into substantial realities, and woe to those, who follow not the insane example. the consequences--the fatal consequences--are everywhere apparent. in our own country, one consequence is social disunion on the grandest possible scale. society is split up into an almost infinite variety of sects, whose members imagine themselves patented to think truth, and never to be wrong in the enunciation of it. this if no idle or frivolous charge, as the author of this apology can easily show. before him is _sanders' news letter and daily advertiser_ of feb. 18, 1845, which, among other curiosities, contains an 'address of the dublin protestant operative association, and reformation society,' one sentence of which is--'we have raised our voices against the spirit of compromise, which is the opprobrium of the age; we have unfurled the banner of protestant truth, and placed ourselves beneath it, we have insisted upon protestant ascendancy as just and equitable, because protestant principles are true and undeniable.' puseyite protestants tell a tale the very reverse of that so modestly told by their nominal brethren of the dublin operative association. they, as may be seen in palmer's letter to golightly, 'utterly reject and anathematise the principle of protestantism, as a heresy with all its forms, sects, or denominations.' nor is that all our 'romeward divines' do, for in addition to rejecting utterly and cursing bitterly, as well the name as the principle of protestantism, they eulogise the church of rome because forsooth 'she yields,' says newman in his letter to jelf, 'free scope to feelings of awe, mystery, tenderness, reverence, and devotedness;' while we have it on the authority of tract 90, that the church of england is 'in bondage, working in chains, and (tell it not in dublin) teaching with the stammering lips of ambiguous formularies.' fierce and burning is the hatred of dublin operative association christians to popery, but the reader has seen exactly that style of hatred to protestantism is avowed by mr. ward. both sets of christians are quite sure they are right: but (alas! for infallibility) a third set of christians insist that they are both wrong. there are papists or roman catholics who consider protestant principles the very reverse of true and undeniable, and treat with derisive scorn the 'fictitious catholicism' of puseyite divines. count de montalambert, in his recently published 'letter to the rev. mr. neale on the architectural, artistical, and archaeological movements of the puseyites,' enters his 'protest' against the most unwarranted and unjustifiable assumption of the name of catholic by people and things belonging to the actual church of england. 'it is easy,' he observes, 'to take up a name, but it is not so easy to get it recognised by the world and by competent authority. any man, for example, may come out to madeira and call himself a montmorency, or a howard, and even enjoy the honour and consideration belonging to such a name till the real montmorencys or howards hear something about it, and denounce him, and then such a man would be justly scouted from society, and fall down much lower than the lowness from which he attempted to rise. the attempt to steal away from us and appropriate to the use of a fraction of the church of england that glorious title of catholic is proved to be an usurpation by every monument of the past and present; by the coronation oath of your sovereigns--by all the laws which have established your church--even by the recent answer of your university of oxford to the lay address against dr. pusey, &c., where the church of england is justly styled the reformed protestant church. the name itself is spurned at with indignation by the greater half, at least, of the inhabitants of the united kingdom. the judgment of the whole indifferent world--the common sense of humanity--agrees with the judgment of the church of rome, and with the sense of her 150,000,000 of children, to dispossess you (puseyites) of this name. the church of england, who has denied her mother, is rightly without a sister. she has chosen to break the bonds of unity and obedience; let her therefore stand before the judgment-seat of god and of man. again, supposing the spirit of the camden society ultimately to prevail over its anglican adversaries; supposing you do one day get every old thing back again; copes, letters, roodlofts, candlesticks, and the abbey lands into the bargain, what will it all be but an empty pageant, like the tournament of eglington castle, separated from the reality of catholic truth and unity, by the abyss of three hundred years of schism? the question then is, have you, the church of england, got the picture for your frame? have you got the truth, the one truth; the same truth as the men of the middle ages? the camden society says yes; but the whole christian world, both protestant and catholic, says no; and the catholic world adds that there is no truth but in unity, and this unity you most certainly have not. once more; every catholic will repeat to you the words of manzoni, as quoted by m. faber: 'the greatest deviations are none if the main point be recognised; the smallest are damnable heresies, if it be denied. that main point is the infallibility of the church, or rather of the pope.' our anti-romish priests would have us think the more and more we have of-faith, the more and more we have of happiness. faith they exalt far, very far, above hope or even charity. 'oh lord, increase our faith,' is the text on which they love to enlarge. faith is their panacea for all human ills: but their faith is worse than useless if it be not true faith. and how can we so test conflicting faiths as to distinguish the true from the false? aye, there's the rub! undoubtedly faith is to religion what the root is to the tree; and men in search of 'saving faith' are naturally anxious to find it. no one desires to be eternally punished; and therefore, if any one embrace a false faith it is because he makes the mistake of supposing it the true one. the three sets of christians just adverted to, may all be equally sincere, but cannot all have the true faith. protestant principles as taught by the dublin operative association, may be true. anglo-catholic principles, as taught by the oxford tractmen, may be true. roman catholic principles, as taught by the count de montalambert, may be true; but they cannot all be true. it is impossible to reconcile that orthodox papists' 'main point', _i.e._ the infallability of the (romish) church, or rather of the pope, with the 'main point' of orthodox protestants, who denounce 'the great harlot of babylon,' that 'scarlet lady who sitteth upon the seven hills, in the most unmeasured and virulent terms. anti-christ is the name they 'blasphemously' apply to the actual 'old chimera of a pope.' puseyite divines treat his holiness with more tenderness; but even they boggle at his infallibility, and seem to occupy a position between the rival churches of rome and england analogous to that of captain macheath when singing between two favourite doxies- how happy could i be with either, were t'other dear charmer away; but while you thus teaze me together, the devil a word can i say. the infallibility of popes is the doctrine insisted upon by count de montalambert as essential--as doctrine, the smallest deviation from which is damnable heresy. believe and admit 'antichrist' is not antichrist, but god's accredited vicegerent upon earth, infinite is the mercy in store for you; but woe to those who either cannot or will not believe and admit anything of the kind. on them every sincere roman catholic is sure god will pour out the vials of his wrath, as if the 'great perhaps,' who sees with equal eye, as god of all, a hero perish, or a sparrow fall, could be angry with creatures of his own creation for thinking what they cannot help thinking, and being what they cannot help being. every one has heard of the predestinarian, who, having talked much of his god, was asked by a bystander to speak worse of the devil if he could; but comparatively few persons feel the full force of that question, or are prepared to admit god-worshippers in general, picture their deities as if they were demons. 'recognise,' exclaims the roman catholic priest, 'the "main point" of our holy apostolic religion, or god will judge and eternally punish you.' the priests of nearly all religional denominations ascribe to deity the low grovelling vindictive feelings which agitate and disgrace themselves. if roman catholic principles are true and undeniable, none but roman catholics will be saved from the wrath to come. if anglo-catholic principles are true and undeniable, none but anglo-catholic will be saved from the wrath to come. if orthodox protestant principles are true and undeniable, none but orthodox protestants will be saved from the wrath to come. thus do religionists grunt and groan, and curse all systems but their own; never scrupling to assure the advocates of those systems a hell is waiting to receive them. agreeing in little else save disagreement, the 'main point' of this class of believers is a matter of little consequence to that class of believers, and no matter at all to a third class of believers. look at the thousand-and-one sects into which the christian world is divided. 'some reject scripture; others admit no other writings but scripture. some say the devils shall be saved, others that they shall be damned; others that there are no devils at all. some hold that it is lawful to dissemble in religion, others the contrary. some say that antichrist is come, some say not; others that he is a particular man, others that he is not a man, but the devil; and others that by antichrist is meant a succession of men. some will have him to be nero, some caligula, some mohammed, some the pope, some luther, some the turk, some of the tribe of dan, and so each man according to his fancy will make an antichrist. some only will observe the lord's day, some only the sabbath; some both, and some neither. some will have all things in common, some not. some will have christ's body only in heaven, some everywhere; some in the bread, others with the bread, others about the bread, others under the bread, and others that christ's body is the bread, or the bread his body. and others that his body is transformed into his divinity. some will have the eucharist administered in both kinds, some in one, some not at all. some will have christ descend to hell in respect of his soul, some only in his power, some in his divinity; some in his body, some not at all. some by hell understand the place of the damned, some _limbus partum_, others the wrath of god, others the grave. some will make christ two persons, some give him but one nature and one will; some affirming him to be only god, some only man, some made up of both, some altogether deny him. some will have his body come from heaven, some from the virgin, some from the elements. some will have our souls mortal, some immortal; some bring them into the body by infusion, some by traduction. some will have souls created. before the world, some after; some will have them created altogether, others severally; some will have them corporeal, some incorporeal; some of the substance of god, some of the substance of the body. so infinitely are men's conceits distracted with a variety of opinions, whereas _there is but one truth_, which every man aims at, but few attain it; every man thinks he hath it, and yet few enjoy it.' [27:1] the chiefs of these sects are, for the most part, ridiculously intolerant; so many small popes, who fancy that whomsoever they bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whomsoever they loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. they remorselessly cobble the true faith, without which to their 'sole exclusive heaven,' none can be admitted; as if religion were intended, for nothing else but to be mended, and rarely seem so happy as when promising eternal misery to those who reject their chimeras. even dissenting ministers, from whom better things might be expected, have been heard to declare at public meetings, called by themselves for the purpose of sympathising with, and supporting one of themselves who was suffering for 'conscience sake,' that when they spoke of liberty to express opinions, they meant such liberty for religionists, not irreligionists. when learned and 'liberal' dissenters gratuitously confess this species of faith, none have a right to be surprised that the 'still small voice of truth' should be drowned amid the clamour of fanaticism, or that atheists should be so recklessly villified. but wisdom, we read, is justified of her children; and to the wise of every nation the atheist confidently appeals. he rejects religion, because religion is based on principles of imaginative ignorance. bailly defines it as 'the worship of the unknown, piety, godliness, humility, before the _unknown_.' lavater as 'faith in the supernatural, invisible, _unknown_.' vauvenargus as 'the duties of men towards the _unknown_.' dr. johnson as 'virtue founded upon reverence of the unknown, and expectation of future rewards and punishments.' rivarol as 'the science of serving the _unknown_.' la bruyere as 'the respectful fear of the unknown.' du marsais, as 'the worship of the _unknown_, and the practice of all the virtues.' walker as 'virtue founded upon reverence of the _unknown_, and expectation of rewards or punishments: a system of divine faith and worship as opposed to other systems.' de bonald as 'social intercourse between man and the _unknown_.' rees as 'the worship or homage that is due to the _unknown_ as creator, preserver, and with christians as redeemer of the world.' lord brougham as 'the subject of the science called theology:' a science he defines as 'the knowledge and attributes of the _unknown_;' which definitions agree in making the essential principle of religion a principle of ignorance. that they are sufficiently correct definitions will not be disputed, and upon them the atheist is satisfied to rest his case. to him the worship or adoration of what is confessedly _unknown_ is mere superstition; and to him professors of theology are 'artists in words,' who pretend to teach what nobody has any conception of. now, such persons may be well-intentioned; but their wisdom is by no means apparent. they must be wonderfully deficient of the invaluable sense so falsely called 'common.' idolisers of 'thingless names,' they set at naught the admirable dictum of locke, that it is 'unphilosophic to suppose names in books signify real entities in nature, unless we can frame clear and distinct ideas of those entities.' theists of every class would do well to calmly and fully consider this rule of philosophising, for it involves nothing less than the destruction of belief in the supernatural. the jupiter of mythologic history, the allah of alkoran, and the jehovah of 'holy scripture,' if entities at all, are assuredly entities that baffle human conception. to 'frame clear and distinct ideas of them' is impossible. in respect to the attribute of _unknowability_ all gods are alike. they are all supernatural; and the merely natural cannot attach rational ideas to names assumed to stand for something above nature. it is easy to talk about seeing the creator in creation, looking through nature up to nature's god, and the like, but very difficult to have any idea whatever of a god without body, parts, or passions; that is to say, the god set forth in one of the church of england's thirty-nine articles. no such god can be believed to exist by reasoners who rigidly abide by john locke's rule of philosophising, and if it be urged that he, the author of the rule, was a theist and a christian--our answer is, that in such case, like many other philosophers, he practically gave the lie to his own best precept. books have been written to exhibit the difficulties of (what priests choose to call) infidelity; and without doubt unbelief _has_ its difficulties. but according to a universally recognised rule of philosophising, of two difficulties we are in all cases to choose the least. from a rule so palpably just no one can reasonably depart, and the atheist, while freely admitting a great difficulty on his own side, is satisfied there can be demonstrated an infinitely greater difficulty on the side of his opponents. the atheist labours to convince mankind they are not warranted by the general course of nature in assigning to it a cause, inasmuch as it is more in accordance with experience to suppose nature the uncaused cause, than to imagine, as religionists do, that there is an uncaused cause of nature. theologians ask, who created nature? without adducing satisfactory evidence that nature was created, and without reflecting that if it is difficult to believe nature self-existent, it is much more difficult to believe some self-existent super-nature, capable of producing it. in their anxiety to get rid of a natural difficulty, they invent a supernatural one, and accuse atheists of 'wilful blindness,' and 'obstinate deafness,' for not choosing so unphilosophic a mode of explaining universal mystery. call upon them to define their 'all-creative deity,' and they know not what to answer. ask them who, what, or where he is, and at once you have them on the hip; at once you spy their utter ignorance, and reduce them to a condition very similar to that of master abraham slender, when with stammering lips he 'sings small like a woman.' to assume everything they are always ready; but to prove anything concerning their immense supernatural, they are never prepared. regularly drilled to argue in a circle, they foolishly imagine everybody else should do the same, and marvel at the man who rigidly adheres to just rules of philosophising and considers experience of natural derivation a far safer guide than their crude, undigested, extravagant, contradictory notions about the confessedly _unknown_. the rule of philosophising just adverted to--that rule which forbids us, in any case, to choose the greater of two difficulties--is of immense importance, and should be carefully considered by every one anxious to arrive at correct conclusions with respect to theology. for if believers in god do depart from that rule--if their belief necessarily involve its violation--to persist in such belief is to persist in what is clearly opposed to pure reason. now, it has been demonstrated, so far as words can demonstrate any truth whatever, that the difficulty of him who believes nature never had an author, is infinitely less than the difficulty of him who believes it had a cause itself uncaused. in the 'elements of materialism,' an unequal but still admirable work by dr. knowlton, a well-known american writer, this question of comparative difficulty is well handled, and the author of this apology conceives most satisfactorily exhausted. 'the sentiment,' says the doctor,' that a being exists which never commenced existence, or what is the same thing, that a being exists which has existed from all eternity, appears to us to favour atheism, for if one being exist which never commenced existence--why not another--why not the universe? it weighs nothing, says the atheist, in the eye of reason, to say the universe appears to man as though it were organised by an almighty designer; for the maker of a thing must be superior to the thing made; and if there be a maker of the universe there can be no doubt, but that if such maker were minutely examined by man, man would discover such indications of wisdom and design that it would be more difficult for him to admit that such maker was not caused or constructed by a pre-existing designer, than to admit that the universe was not caused or constructed by a designer. but no one will contend for an infinite series of makers; and if, continues the atheist, what would, if viewed, be indications of design, are no proofs of a designer in the one case, they are not; in the other; and as such indications are the only evidence we have of the existence of a designer of the universe, we, as rational beings, contend there is no god. we do not suppose the existence of any being, of which there is no evidence, when such supposition, if admitted, so far from diminishing would only increase a difficulty, which at best is sufficiently great. surely, if a superior being may have existed from all eternity, an inferior may have existed from all eternity; if a great god sufficiently mighty to make a world may have existed from all eternity, of course without beginning and without cause, such world may have existed from all eternity, without beginning, and without cause.' [31:1] these are 'strong reasons' for atheism--they prove that theists set at nought the rule of philosophising which forbids us to choose the greater of two difficulties. their system compels them to do so, for having no other groundwork than the strange hypotheses that time was when there was no time--something existed when there was nothing, which something created everything; its advocates would be tongue-tied and lost if reduced to the hard necessity of appealing to facts, or rigidly regarding rules of philosophising, which have only their reasonableness to recommend them. they profess ability to account for nature, and are of course exceedingly eager to justify a profession so presumptuous. this eagerness betrays them into courses, of which no one bent on rejecting whatever is either opposed to, or unsanctioned by experience, can possibly approve. it is plain that of the god they tell us to believe 'created the worlds,' no man has any experience. this granted, it follows that worship of such fancied being is mere superstition. until it be shown by reference to the general course of things, that things had an author, himself uncreated or unauthorised, religious philosophers have no right to expect atheists to abandon their atheism. the duty of priests is to reconcile religion with reason, if they can, and admit their inability to do so, if they cannot. romanists will have nothing to do with reason whenever it appears at issue with their faith. all sects, as sects, play fast and loose with reason. many members of all sects are forward enough to boast about being able to give a reason for the faith that is in them; but an overwhelming majority love to exalt faith above reason. philosophy they call 'vain,' and some have been found so filled with contempt for it, as to openly maintain that what is theologically true, is philosophically false; or, in other terms, that the truths of religion and the truths of philosophy have nothing in common. according to them, religious truths are independent and superior to all other truths. our faith, say they, if not agreeable to _mere_ reason, is infinitely superior to it. priests are 'at one' on the point. dissenting and protestant, as well as romanising priests, find it convenient to abuse reason and extol faith. as priests, they can scarcely be expected to do otherwise; for reason is a stern and upright judge, whose decrees have hitherto been unfavourable to religion. its professors who appeal to that judge, play a part most inconsistent and dangerous, as is evident in the case of origen bachelor, who more zealous and candid than prudent, declared the real and only question between atheism and theism a question of fact, reducing it to these terms--'is there reason, all things considered, for believing that there is a god, an intelligent cause of things, infinite and perfect in all his attributes and moral qualities? [32:1] now, the reader has seen that the hypothesis of 'an intelligent cause of things' involves difficulties, greater, infinitely greater than the _one_ difficulty, involved in the hypothesis that things always existed. he has seen the folly of explaining natural, by the invention of supernatural mystery, because it manifestly violates a rule of philosophising, the justness of which it would be ridiculous to dispute. having clearly perceived thus much, he will perhaps think it rather 'too bad' as well as absurd, to call atheists 'madmen' for lacking faith in the monstrous dogma that nature was caused by 'something amounting to nothing' itself uncaused. there is something. that truth admits not of being evidenced. it is, nevertheless, accepted. it is accepted by men of all religious opinions, equally with men of no religious opinions. if any truth be self evident and eternal, here is that truth. to call it in question would be worse than idle. we may doubt the reality of an external world, we may be sceptical as to the reality of our own bodies, but we cannot doubt that there is something. the proposition falls not within the domain of scepticism. it must be true. to suppose it false is literally impossible. its falsehood would involve a contradiction, and all contradiction involves impossibility. but if proof of this were needed, we have it in the fact that no man, sage or simple, ever pretended to deny there is something. whatever men could doubt or deny they have doubted or denied, but in no country of the world, in no age, has the dogma--there is something, been denied or even treated as doubtful. here then atheists, theists, and polytheists agree. they agree of necessity. there is no escape from the conclusion that something is, except we adopt the unintelligible dogma there is nothing, which no human being can, as nothing amounts to nothing and of what amounts to nothing no one can have an idea. to define the word something by any other word, would be labour in vain. there is no other word in any language whose meaning is better understood, and they who do not under stand what it means, if such persons there be, are not likely to understand the meaning of any word or words whatever. ideas of nothing none have. that there is something, we repeat, must be true; all dogmas or propositions being necessarily true whose denial involves an impossibility. what the nature of that something may be is a secondary question, and however determined cannot affect the primary dogma--things are things whatever may be their individual or their aggregate nature. nor is it of the least consequence what name or names we may see fit to give things, so that each word has its fixed and true meaning. whether, for example, we use for the sign of that something which is, the word universe, or god, or substance, or spirit, or matter, or the letter x, is of no importance, if we understand the word or letter used to be merely the sign of that something. words are only useful, when they are the signs of true ideas; evidently therefore, their legitimate function is to convey such ideas; and words which convey no ideas at all, or what is worse, only those which are false, should at once be expunged from the vocabularies of nations. something is. the atheist calls it matter. other persons may choose to call it other names; let them. he chooses to call it this one and no other. there ever has been something. here again, is a point of unity. all are equally assured there ever has been something. something is, something must always have been, cry the religions, and the cry is echoed by the irreligious. this last dogma, like the first, admits not of being evidenced. as nothing is inconceivable, we cannot even imagine a time when there was nothing. atheists say, something ever was, which something is matter. theists say, something has been from all eternity, which something is not matter, but god. they boldly affirm that matter began to be. they affirm its creation from nothing, by a something, which was before the universe. indeed, the notion of universal creation involves first, that of universal annihilation, and second, that of a something prior to everything. what creates everything must be before everything, in the same way that he who manufactures a watch must exist before the watch. as already remarked. atheists agree with theists, that something ever has been; but the point of difference lies here. the atheist says, matter is the eternal something, and asks proof of its beginning to be. the theist insists that matter is not the eternal something, but that god is, and when pushed for an account of what he means by god, he coolly answers, a being, having nothing in common with anything, who, nevertheless, by his almighty will created everything. it may without injustice be affirmed, that the sincerest and strongest believers in this mysterious deity, are often tormented by doubts, and, if candid, must own they believe in the existence of many things with a feeling much closer allied to certainty than they do in the reality of their 'great first cause, least understood.' no man can be so fully and perfectly satisfied there is a god in heaven as the author of this apology cannot but be of his own existence on earth. no man's faith in the imaginary is ever half so strong as his belief in the visible and tangible. but few among professional mystifiers will admit this, obviously true as it is. some have done so. baxter, of pious memory, to wit, who said, 'i am not so foolish as to pretend my certainty be greater than it is, because it is dishonour to be less certain, nor will i by shame be kept from confessing those infirmities which those have as much as i, who hypocritically reproach with them. _my certainty that i am a man is before my certainty that there is a god._' so candid was richard baxter, and so candid are _not_ the most part of our priests, who would fain have us think they have no more, and we ought to have no more, doubt about god's existence than our own. nevertheless, they write abundance of books to convince us 'god is,' though they never penned a line in order to convince us, we actually are, and that to disbelieve we are is a 'deadly sin.' could god be known, could his existence be made 'palpable to feeling as to sight,' as unquestionably is the existence of matter, there would be no need of 'demonstrations of the existence of god,' no need of arguments _a priori_ or _a posteriori_ to establish that existence. saint john was right; 'no man hath seen god at any time,' to which 'open confession' he might truly have added, 'none ever will,' for the unreal is always unseeable. yet have 'mystery men' with shameless and most insolent pertinacity asserted the existence of god while denying the existence of matter. define your terms, said locke. atheists do so, and where necessary insist upon others following the philosophic example. on this account they are 'ugly customers' to priests, who, with exceptions, much dislike being called upon to explain their idealess language. ask one to define the word god and you stagger him. if he do not fly into a passion deem yourself fortunate, but as to an intelligible definition, look for nothing of the sort. he can't furnish such definition however disposed to do so. the incomprehensible is not to be defined. it is difficult to give an intelligible account of an 'immense being' confessedly mysterious, and about whom his worshippers admit they only know, they know nothing, except that 'he is good, and that themselves are blind.' spinoza said, _of things which have nothing in common, one cannot be the cause of the other;_ and to the author of this apology, it seems eminently unphilosophic to believe a being having nothing in common with anything, capable of creating or causing everything. 'only matter can be touched or touch;' and as the christian's god is not material, his adorers are fairly open to the charge of superstition. an unknown deity, without body, parts or passions, is of all idols the least tangible; and they who pretend to know and reverence him, are deceived or deceivers. knowledge of, and reverence for an object, imply, the power of conceiving that object; but who is able to conceive a god without body, parts, or passions? in this christian country where men are expected to believe and called 'infidel' if they cannot believe in a 'crucified saviour,' it seems strange so much fuss should be made about his immateriality. all but unitarian christians hold as an essential article of faith, that in him dwelt the fulness of the godhead bodily, in other words, that our redeemer and our creator; though two persons are one god. it is true that divines of our 'reformed protestant church,' call everything but gentlemen those who lay claim to the equivocal privilege of feasting periodically upon the body and blood of omnipotence. the pains taken by protestants to show from scripture, reason and nature, that priests cannot change lumps of dough into the body, and bumpers of wine into the blood of their god, are well known and appreciated. but the roman catholics are neither to be argued nor laughed out of their 'awful doctrine' of the real presence, to which they cling with desperate earnestness. proselytes are apt to misunderstand, and make sad mistakes about, that doctrine. two cases are cited by hume in his 'essay of the natural history of religion,' which he announces as 'pleasant stories, though somewhat profane.' according to one, a priest gave inadvertently, instead of the sacrament, a counter, which had by accident fallen among the holy wafers. the communicant waited patiently for some time, expecting that it would dissolve on his tongue, but finding that it still remained entire, he took it off. i hope, said he, to the priest, you have not made a mistake; i hope you have not given me god the father, he is so hard and tough that there is no swallowing him. the other story is thus related. a famous general, at that time in the muscovite service, having come to paris for the recovery of his wounds, brought along with him a young turk whom he had taken prisoner. some of the doctors of the sorbonne (who are altogether as positive as the dervises of constantinople) thinking it a pity that the poor turk should be damned for want of instruction, solicited mustapha very hard to turn christian, and promised him for encouragement, plenty of good wine in this world and paradise in the next. these allurements were too powerful to be resisted; and therefore having been well instructed and catechised, he at last agreed to receive the sacraments of baptism and lord's supper. nevertheless, the priest to make everything sure and solid, still continued his instructions, and began the next day with the usual question, _how many god's are there? none at all_, replied benedict, for that was his new name. _how! none at all?_ cries the priest. _to be sure_, said the honest proselyte, _you have told me all along that there it but one god; and yesterday i ate him._ this is sufficiently ridiculous; and yet if we fairly consider the whole question of divinity there will be found no more absurdity in the notion of our benedict eating the creator, than in jews crucifying him. both notions involve materiality. a god without body, parts, or passions, could no more be nailed upon a cross than taken into the stomach. and if it be urged there is something awful in the blasphemy of him who talks of swallowing his god, the author of this apology can as conscientiously urge that there is something very disgusting in the idea of a murdered deity. locke wrote rather disparagingly of 'many among us,' who 'will be found upon inquiry, to fancy god in the shape of a man sitting in heaven, and have other absurd and unfit conceptions of him.' as though it were possible to think of shapeless being, or as though it were criminal in the superstitious to believe 'god made man after his own image.' a 'philosophical unbeliever,' who made minced meat of dr. priestley's reasonings on the existence of god, well remarked that 'theists are always for turning their god into an overgrown man. anthropomorphites has long been a term applied to them. they give him hand and eyes, nor can they conceive him otherwise than as a corporeal being. we make a deity ourselves, fall down and worship him. it is the molten calf over again. idolatry is still practised. the only difference is that now we worship idols of our own imagination before of our hands.' [37:1] this is bold language, but if the language of truth and soberness no one should take offence at it. that christians as well as turks 'have had whole sects earnestly contending that the deity was corporeal and of human shapes,' is a fact, testified to by locke, and so firmly established as to defy contradiction. and though every sincere subscriber to the thirty nine articles must believe, or at least must believe he believes in deity without body, parts, or passions, it is well known that 'whole sects' of christians do even now 'fancy god in the shape a man sitting in heaven, and entertain other absurd and unfit conceptions of him.' mr. collibeer, who is considered by christian writers 'a most ingenious gentleman,' has told the world in his treatise entitled 'the knowledge of god,' that deity must have some form, and intimates it may probably be the spherical; an intimation which has grievously offended many learned theists who consider going so far 'an abuse of reason,' and warn us that 'its extension beyond the assigned boundaries, has proved an ample source of error.' but what the 'assigned boundaries' of reason are, they don't state, nor by whom 'assigned.' that if there is a god, he must have some form is self-evident; and why mr. collibeer should be 'called over the coals' by his less daringly imaginative brethren, for preferring a spherical to a square or otherwise shaped deity, is to my understanding what god's grace is to their's. but admitting the unfitness, and absurdity, and 'blasphemy' of such conceptions, it is by no means clear that any other conceptions of the 'inconceivable' would be an improvement upon them. the author's serious and deliberate opinion is, that ascribing to deity a body analagous to our own, is less ridiculous than affirming he has _no_ body; nor can he admire the wisdom of those christians who prefer a partless, passionless god, to the substantial piece of supernaturalism adored by their forefathers. undoubtedly, the matter-god-system has its difficulties, but they are trifles in comparison with those by which the spirit-god-system is encompassed: for, one obvious consequence of faith in bodiless divinity is, an utter confusion of ideas in those who have it, as regards possibilities and impossibilities. the author confidently submits that, no man having 'firm faith' in a deity--without body parts and passions--can be half so wise as the famous cook of my lord hoppergollop, who said, what is impossible can't be, and never never comes to pass. he, moreover, confidently submits that, granting the existence of so utterly incomprehensible a deity, still such deity could not have caused nature, or matter, unless we deny the palpably true proposition of spinoza, to wit--of things which have nothing in common, one cannot be the cause of the other. in harmony with this proposition, atheists cannot admit the supernatural caused the natural; for, between the natural and the supernatural it is impossible to imagine any thing in common. the universe is an uncaused existence, or it was caused by something before it. by universe we mean matter, the sum total of things, whence all proceeds, and whither all returns. no truth is more obviously true than the truth that matter, or something not matter, exists of itself, and consequently is not an effect, but an uncaused cause of all effects. from such conviction, repugnant though it be to vulgar ideas, there is no rational way of escape; for however much we may desire, however much we may struggle to believe there was a time when there was nothing, we cannot so believe. human nature is constituted intuitively or instinctively to feel the eternity of something. to rid oneself of that feeling is impossible. nature, or something not nature must ever have been, is a conclusion to which, what poets call fate- leads the willing and drags the unwilling. but does this undeniable truth make against atheism? far from it--so far, indeed, as to make for it: the reason is no mystery. of matter we have ideas clear, precise, and indispensable, whereas, of something not matter we cannot have any idea whatever, good, bad, or indifferent. the universe is extraordinary, no doubt, but so much of it as acts upon us is perfectly conceivable, whereas, any thing within, without, or apart from the universe is perfectly inconceivable. the notion of necessarily existing matter seems to the author of this apology fatal to belief in god; that is, if by the word god be understood something not matter, for 'tis precisely because priests were unable to reconcile such belief with the idea of matter's self-existence or eternity, that they took to imagining a 'first cause.' in the 'forlorn hope' of clearing the difficulty of necessarily existing _matter_, they assent to a necessarily existing _spirit_; and when the nature of spirit is demanded from these assertors of its existence they are constrained to avow that it is material or nothing. yes, they are constrained to make directly or indirectly one or other of these admissions; for, as between truth and falsehood there is no middle passage, so between something and nothing there is no intermediate existence. hence the serious dilemma of spiritualists, who gravely tell us their god is a spirit, and that a spirit is not any thing, which not any thing or nothing (for the life of us we cannot distinguish between them) 'framed the worlds nay, _created_ as well as framed them. if it be granted, for the mere purpose of explanation, that spirit is an entity, we can frame 'clear and distinct ideas of'--a real though not material existence, surely no man will pretend to say an uncreated reality called spirit, is less inexplicable than uncreated matter. all could not have been caused or created unless nothing can be a cause, the very notion of which involves the grossest of absurdities. 'whatever is produced,' said hume, 'without any cause, is produced by nothing; or, in other words, has nothing for its cause. but nothing never can be a cause no more than it can be something or equal to two right angles. by the same intuition that we perceive nothing not to be equal to two right angles, or not to be something, we perceive that it can never be a cause and consequently must perceive that every object has a real cause, of its existence. when we exclude all causes we really do exclude them, and neither suppose nothing nor the object itself to be the causes of the existence, and consequently can draw no argument from the absurdity of these suppositions to prove the absurdity of that exclusion. if everything must have a cause, it follows that upon the exclusion of other causes we must accept of the object itself or nothing as causes. but it is the very point in question whether everything must have a cause or not, and therefore, according to all just reasoning ought not to be taken for granted. [40:1] this reasoning amounts to logical demonstration (if logical demonstration there can be) of a most essential truth, which in all ages has been obstinately set at nought by dabblers in the supernatural. it demonstrates that something never was, never can be caused by nothing, which can no more be a cause, properly so called, than 'it can be something, or equal to two right angles;' and therefore that everything could not have had a cause which the reader has seen is the very point assumed by theists--the very point on which as a pivot they so merrily and successfully turn their fine metaphysical theories, and immaterial systems. the universe, quoth they, must have had a cause, and that cause must have been a first cause, or cause number one, because nothing can exist of itself. oh, most lame and impotent conclusion! how in consistency can they declare nothing can exist without a cause in the teeth of their oft repeated dogma that god is uncaused. if god never commenced to be _he_ is an uncaused existence, that is to say, exists without a cause. the difference on this point between theists and atheists is very palpable. the former say, spirit can exist without a cause; the latter say matter can exist without a cause. whole libraries of theologic dogma would be dearly purchased by hume's profound remark--'if everything must have a cause, it follows that upon the exclusion of other causes we must accept of the object itself or of nothing as causes.' if the god of our deists and christians is not matter, what is he? upon them devolves the difficult duty of answering that question. they are morally bound to answer it or make the humiliating confession that they 'ignorantly worship;' that with all their boasted certainty as to the existence of their 'deified error' they can furnish no satisfactory, or even intelligible account of his [41:1] nature, if indeed a supernatural or rather unnatural being can properly be said to have a nature. the author of 'good sense' has observed, that names which may be made to mean anything in reality mean nothing. is not god a name of this class? our 'state puppet showmen,' as my lord brougham nicknamed priests, who talk so much about gods, forcibly remind one of that ingenious exhibitor of puppets, who, after saying to his juvenile patronisers--'look to the right, and there you will see the lions a dewouring the dogs,' was asked--which is the lion and which is the dogs?' to which query he replied, 'vichever you please, my little dears, it makes no difference votsomnever.' for in exactly the same spirit do our ghostly exhibitors, they who set up the state puppet show meet the inquiries of the grown children they make so handsomely (again we are under an obligation to lord brougham) 'to pay for peeping.' children of this sort would fain know what is meant by the doctrines concerning the many 'true gods' they hear such precious rigmaroles about in church and conventicle, as well as the many orthodox opinions of that god, whose name is there so often 'taken in vain.' but priests like the showman in question, answer, in language less inelegant to be sure, but substantially the same, 'vichever you please, my little dears, it makes no difference votsomnever.' he who declared that the word god was invented by philosophers to screen their own ignorance, taught a valuable truth, though the author of this apology never fails mentally to substitute _quacks_ for _philosophers_. saint augustin more candid than modern theologians, said, 'god is a being whom we speak of but whom we cannot describe, and who is superior to all definitions.' atheists on the other hand, as candidly deny there is any such being. to them it seems that the name god stands for nothing, is the archetype of nothing, explains nothing, and contributes to nothing but the perpetuation of human imbecility, ignorance and error. to them it represents neither shadow nor substance, neither phenomenon nor thing, neither what is ideal nor what is real; yet is it the name without full faith in which there could be no religion. if to the name god some rational signification cannot be attached away goes, or at least away _ought_ to go, that belief in something supernatural which is 'the fundamental principle of all false metaphysics.' 'no such belief can for a moment be entertained by those who see in nature the cause of all effects, and treat with the contempt it merits, the preposterous notion that out of nothing at the bidding of something, of which one can make anything, started everything. the famous mr. law, in his 'appeal to all that doubt or disbelieve the truths of the gospel,' gratuitously allows 'it is the same impossibility for a thing to be created out of nothing as by nothing,' for which sensible allowance 'insane philosophy' owes him much. indeed the dogma, if true, proves all religion false, for it strikes full at belief in a god, a belief which, it cannot be too often repeated, is to religion what blood is to the brain and oxygen to the blood. materialism is hated by priests, because no consistent materialist can stop short of disbelief in god. he believes in nature and nature alone. by nature he understands unity. the one which; includes all, and is all. that it pertains to the nature of substance to exist; and that all substance is necessarily infinite, we are told by spinoza, who understood by substance that which exists in itself, and is conceived through itself; _i.e._ the knowledge of which does not require the knowledge of anything antecedent to it. this substance of spinoza is just the matter of materialists. with him most likely, with them certainly, matter and substance are convertible terms. they have no objection to the word substance so long as it is the sign of something substantial; for substantiality implies materiality. whether we say--substance exists, and is conceived through itself; _i.e._ the knowledge of which does not require the knowledge of anything antecedent to it, or--matter exists and is conceived through itself; _i.e._ 'the knowledge of which does not require the knowledge of anything antecedent to itself'--our meaning is exactly the same. to exclude matter from our conception (if it were possible) would be to think universal existence out of existence, which is tantamount to thinking without anything to think about. the ideas of those who try their brains at this odd sort of work, have been well likened to an atmosphere of dust superintended by a whirlwind. they who assume the existence of an unsubstantial _i.e._ immaterial first cause, outrage every admitted rule and every sound principle of philosophising. only pious persons with ideas like unto an atmosphere of dust superintended by a whirl wind would write books in vindication of the monstrously absurd assumption that there exists an unsubstantial great first cause of all substantialities. nothing can be wilder than the speculations of such 'hair brained' individuals, excepting only the speculations of those sharp-sighted enough to see reason and wisdom in them. a great cause, or a small cause, a first cause, or a last cause, involves the idea of real existence, namely, the existence of matter. by cause of itself, said spinoza, i understand that which involves existence, or that the nature of which can only be considered as existent. and who does not so understand cause? why gillespie and other eminently dogmatic christian writers whose great first cause cannot be considered an entity, because they assert, yes, expressly assert its immateriality. if nature is all, and all is nature, nothing but itself could ever have existed, and of course nothing but itself can be supposed ever to have been capable of causing. to cause is to act, and though body without action is conceivable, action without body is not. neither can two infinites be supposed to tenant one universe. only 'most religious philosophers' can pretend to acknowledge the being of an infinite god co-existent with an infinite universe. atheists are frequently asked--what moves matter? to which question, _nothing_ is the true and sufficient answer. matter moves matter. if asked how we know it does, our answer is, because we see it do so, which is more than mind imaginers can say of their 'prime mover.' they tell us mind moves matter; but none save the _second sighted_ among them ever saw mind; and if they never saw mind, they never could have seen matter pushed about by it. they babble about mind, but nowhere does mind exist save in their mind; that is to say, nowhere but nowhere. ask these broad-day dreamers where mind is, _minus_ body? and very acutely they answer, body is the mind and mind is the body. that this is neither joke nor slander, we will show by reference to no. 25 of 'the shepherd,' a clever and well known periodical, whose editor, [44:1] in reply to a correspondent of the 'chaotic' tribe, said 'as to the question--where is magnetism without the magnet? we answer, magnetism is the magnet, and the magnet is magnetism.' if so, body is the mind and the mind is body; and our shepherd, if asked, 'where is mind without the body?' to be consistent, should answer, body is the mind and the mind is the body. both these answers are true or both are false; and it must be allowed- each lends to each a borrowed charm, like pearls upon an ethiop's arm. ask the 'shepherd' where is mind without the body? and if not at issue with himself, he must reply, mind is the man and man is the mind. if this be so,--if the mind is the man and the man is the mind, which none can deny who say magnetism is the magnet and the magnet magnetism--how, in reason's name, can they be different, or how can the 'shepherd' consistently pretend to distinguish between them: yet he does so. he writes about the spiritual part of man as though he really believed there is such apart. not satisfied, it would seem, with body, like nonentitarians of vulgarest mould, he tenants it with soul or spirit, or mind, which soul, or spirit, or mind, according to his own showing, is nothing but body in action: in other terms, organised matter performing vital functions. idle declamation against 'fact mongers' well becomes such self-stultifying dealers in fiction. abuse of 'experimentarians' is quite in keeping with the philosophy of those who maintain the reality of mind in face of their own strange statement, that magnetism is the magnet and the magnet magnetism. but we deny that magnetism is the magnet. those words magnetism and magnet do not, it is true, stand for two things, but one thing: that one and only thing called matter. the magnet is an existence; _i.e._, that which moves. magnetism is not an existence, but phenomenon, or, if you please, phenomena. it is the effect of which magnetic body is the immediate and obvious cause. cause implies action; and till nonentitarians can explain how nothing may contrive to cause something, they should assume the virtue of modesty, even if they have it not. to rail at 'fact mongers' is, doubtless, far easier than to overturn facts themselves. the 'shepherd' calls atheists 'chaotics' and materialism 'the philosophy of lunacy,' which is a very free and very easy way of 'universalising.' but arguments grounded on observation and experience are not to be borne down by hard names. man, like the magnet, is something--he acts. dust and ashes he was; dust and ashes he will be.--he may be touched, and tasted, and seen, and smelt. in the immateriality of _his_ composition no one believes; and none but nonentitarians pretend to do so. he thinks--thinking is the very condition of his existence. to think is to live. to the sum total of vital manifestations we apply the term mind. to call mind matter, or matter mind, is ridiculous--_genuine_ lunacy. it would be as wise to call motion matter and wind up the spiritual work by making nothing of both. the man who ran half round our planet in search of his soul did not succeed in finding it. how should he when there is no such thing as soul. to evade the charge of materialism, said dr. engledue, we (phrenologists) content ourselves with stating that the immaterial makes use of the material to show forth its powers. what is the result of this? we have the man of theory and believer in supernaturalism quarrelling with the man of fact and supporter of materialism. we have two parties; the one asserting that man possesses a _spirit_ superadded to, but not inherent in, the brain--added to it, yet having no necessary connexion with it--producing material changes, yet immaterial--destitute of any of the known properties of matter--in fact an _immaterial something_ which in one word means nothing, producing all the cerebral functions of man, yet not localised--not susceptible of proof; the other party contending that the belief in spiritualism fetters and ties down physiological investigation--that man's intellect is prostrated by the domination of metaphysical speculation--that we have no evidence of the existence of an essence, and that organised matter is all that is requisite to produce the multitudinous manifestations of human and brute cerebration. we rank ourselves with the second party, and conceive that we must cease speaking of 'the mind,' and discontinue enlisting in our investigations a spiritual essence, the existence of which cannot be proved, but which tends to mystify and perplex a question sufficiently clear if we confine ourselves to the consideration of organised matter--its forms--its changes--and its aberrations from normal structure. [46:1] the eccentric count de caylus, when on his death-bed, was visited by some near relations and a pious bishop, who hoped that under such trying circumstances he would manifest some concern respecting those 'spiritual' blessings which, while in health, he had uniformly treated with contempt. after a long pause he broke silence by saying, 'ah, friends, i see you are anxious about my soul;' whereupon they pricked up their ears with delight; before, however, any reply could be made, the count added, '_but the fact is i have not got one, and really my good friends, you must allow me to know best_.' if people in general had one tenth the good sense of this _impious_ count, the fooleries of spiritualism would at once give place to the philosophy of materialism; and none would waste time in talking or writing about nonentities. all would know that what theologians call sometimes spirit, sometimes soul, and sometimes mind, is an imaginary existence. all would know that the terms _immaterial something_, do in very truth mean _nothing_. count de caylus died as became a man convinced that soul is not an entity, and that upon the dissolution of our 'earthly tabernacle,' the particles composing it cease to perform vital functions, and return to the shoreless ocean of eternal being. pietists may be shocked by such _nonchalance_ in the face of their 'grim monster,' but philosophers will admire an indifference to inevitable consequences resulting from profoundest love of truth and contempt of superstition. count de caylus was a materialist, and no materialist can consistently feel the least alarm at the approach of what religionists have every reason to consider the 'king of terrors.' believers in the reality of immaterial existence cannot be 'proper' materialists. obviously, therefore, no believers in the reality of 'god' can be _bona fide_ materialists, for 'god' is a name signifying something or nothing; in other terms, matter, or that which is not matter. if the latter, to materialists the name is meaningless--sound without sense. if the former, they at once pronounce it a name too many; because it expresses nothing that their word matter does not express better. dr. young held in horror the materialist's 'universe of dust.' but there is nothing either bad or contemptible in dust--man is dust--all will be dust. a _dusty_ universe, however _shocked_ the poetic doctor, whose writings analogise with- rich windows that exclude the light, and passages that lead to nothing. a universe of nothing was more to his taste than a universe of dust, and he accordingly amused himself with the 'spiritual' work of imagining one, and called its builder 'god.' the somewhat ungentle 'shepherd' cordially sympathises with dr. young in his detestation of 'the materialist's universe' of dust, and is sorely puzzled to know how mere dust contrives to move without the assistance of 'an immaterial power between the particles;' as if he supposed anything could be between everything--or nothing be able to move something. verily this gentleman is as clever a hand at 'darkening counsel by words without knowledge' as the cleverest of those he rates so soundly. we observe that motion is caused by body, and apart from body no one can conceive the idea of motion. local motion may, but general motion cannot be accounted for. the shepherd contends there is nothing more mysterious than motion. there he is right; and had he said nothing is _less_ mysterious than motion he would have been equally so. for telling these unpalatable truths the atheist is bitterly detested. 'the shepherd' is a most unorthodox kind of pantheist; yet even he does not scruple to swell the senseless cry against 'godless infidels,' whom he calls an almost infinite variety of bad names, and among other shocking crimes accuses them of propounding a 'dead philosophy.' yet the difference between his pantheism and our atheism is only perceptible to the microscopic eye of super-sublimated spiritualism. the subjoined is offered to the reader's notice as a sample of pantheism so closely resembling atheism, that, like the two sosias in the play, to distinguish them is difficult: 'what coleridge meant by the motto (all theology depends on mastering the term nature) concerns us not. we appropriate the motto, but we do not profess to appropriate it in the same sense as coleridge appropriated it. every man must appropriate it for himself. coleridge perceived what every thinking mind has perceived--the difficulty of believing in two self-determining powers, viz., god and nature, as also the consequences of regarding them as identical. if nature be one power and god another power, and if god be not responsible for what nature does, then nature is a self-subsisting god. if god and nature be esteemed one universal existence, this is pantheism, which is denominated an accursed doctrine by the disciples of sectarianism, and formed no part of the creed, of the great dialectician of modern times. the attempt to separate god from nature will mistify the clearest head: not even coleridge could wade the depths of this vulgar theology. is there any man who can rest satisfied in the faith of two independent powers who exist together in any other sense than the two polar energies of a magnet, which are really one? no: and men are afraid to regard them as one. on the one hand they are puzzled to understand an unintelligible absurdity, and on the other, they are afraid to admit a simple truism which leads to the abolition of all ceremonial forms, and lip professions of religion, and is execrated by priests and their accomplices on this very account. we do not pretend to understand anything. every subject whatsoever is too high, too deep, and too broad for us. but coming into a world where men act upon certain modes of reasoning, which are unsatisfactory to our minds, we battle immediately with these men, like an animalcule thrown into a glass of water amongst other animalcules of opposite principles, and in doing so we act from the impulse within which is our sole authority--that impulse within is the preference we give to a mode of reasoning which begins by regarding the existing of every kind and, degree as a 'perfect unity,' and making the unity, responsible for every mode--the cause of every mode.' [49:1] that is to say, dealing with it as what it is, the only existence; the one, or all and in all. can atheists object to that? no, surely, for they uniformly thus reason with respect to nature; and unless traitors to their own principles, cannot object to pantheistical philosophy _as here laid down_. atheists say, nature never had an author--so do pantheists of the 'shepherd' school. atheists say nature is at once the womb and grave and cause and effect of all phenomena--so do they. atheists say 'death is nothing, and nothing death;' all matter breathing the breath of life--so do they. indeed, notwithstanding their talk about god and devil, they think nature both, which amounts to denying both. can atheists do more? or can pantheists do so much without themselves being atheists? but the rev. mr. smith is no atheist; at least he makes no profession of atheism. _au contraire_, he makes fine sport with those who do. himself a pantheist of the all-god school, he took to calling atheists 'ugly names,' as if quite innocent that no 'thinking mind' can fail to perceive the downright lunacy, or something worse, of supposing a pin to choose on the score of piety, between universal deity and no deity at all. the 'shepherd' of a new philosophic flock should have known better than to attempt the reform of 'vulgar theology' by setting forth the mystical nonsense of 'vulgar' pantheism. all falsehood is 'vulgar'; but the most 'vulgar' of falsehood is that which assumes the convenient garb of transcendentalism, with a view to throw dust in the eyes of 'vulgar' lookers-on. if pantheists of this reverend gentleman's school are neither sophists nor simpletons, materialism is neither true nor false. they do not plainly write down philosophy of so strangely negative a kind; that would be too ridiculous; but every reader of the 'shepherd' knows that, in their way, they cleverly demonstrate all doctrine--their own of course excepted--true _and_ false, which, no one need mount a pair of 'universal' spectacles to see, comes to neither true _nor_ false. spiritualism receives at their hands no better treatment than materialism, nor southcottianism than either. southcottianism (they say) is true and false; materialism is true and false; spiritualism is true and false: in brief, all doctrine, positive or negative, faithful or unfaithful, is true and false, except the doctrine of pantheism alias universalism, which is, bye and bye, to supersede every other. according to this mystically wise, but rather inconsistent school, atheists are stupid as christians, christians stupid as mohammedans, and mohammedans stupid as nearly everybody else. these men are peculiarly fitted to make in the world of intellect the best possible 'arrangements for general confusion.' atheists in all but good sense, and seemingly without knowing it, they contrive to mix up, with skill worthy of better employment, a very novel and amusing species of philosophical hodge-podge. their reverend leader or 'shepherd' was wont to rail most furiously against dogmatists, especially those of the atheistic sort; but his own dogmatism is at least a match for theirs. he did more than dogmatize when combatting materialism, he from ignorance or design, libelled it by putting, according to a custom 'more honoured in the breach than the observance,' words into the mouths of materialists that no real materialist could utter. take an example. in the periodical just referred to and quoted from, [50:1] are these words:--'the mode of (matter's) existence is the only subject in dispute. the materialist says, it is an infinite collection of dead unintelligent particles of sand; the spiritualist, that it is the visible and tangible development of an infinite, eternal, omnipresent, thinking, sentient mind.' now, the truth is, materialists contend that matter _as a whole_ cannot in strictness be considered either dead or living, intelligent or non-intelligent, but simply matter; which matter when in certain well-known states is called dead, and when in other equally well-known states is called living. if where motion is there is life, then there is no dead matter; for all matter, or at least all matter of which we have experience, moves. to charge upon materialists the dogma of matter's deadness is a paltry trick which a writer like mr. smith should disdain to practice. nor does it become him to lecture atheists about their dogmatism, while from his own published writings can be adduced such passages as the following:-'we know that the two principal attributes of matter are visibility and tangibility, and these two properties are purely spiritual or immaterial. thus resistance is nothing but that mysterious power we call repulsion--a power which fills the whole universe--which holds the sun, moon, and stars in its hand, and yet is invisible.' this is what our rev. pantheist calls one of spiritualism's 'splendid arguments,' and splendidly absurd it certainly is; quite equal, considered as a provocative of mirth, to robert owen's sublimest effusions about that very mysterious and thoroughly incomprehensible power which 'directs the atom and controuls the aggregate of nature.' but the argument though 'splendid,' is false. who is ignorant that resistance is _not_ a power at all, though we properly enough give the name resistance to one of matter's phenomena. only half crazed spiritualists would confound phenomena with things by which they are exhibited. matter under certain circumstances resists, and under certain other circumstances attracts. but neither repulsion nor attraction exists, though we see every day of our lives that matter does repel and does attract. its doing so proves it is able to do so, and proves nothing more. mr. smith says, 'if we want repose for our minds upon this subject we may find it; but it can only be found in the universal mind.' he does not however explain the co-existence of universal mind with universal matter. he does not tell us how two universals could find room in one universe. 'we are gravely assured (by spiritualising pantheists among the rest) that god is something out of time and space; but since our knowledge is intuition comprehended under conception, we cannot have any knowledge of that which is not received into the imaginary recipients of time and space, and consequently god is not an entity. 'but here comes the jugglery--reason forms the idea of the soul or a substance out of nature, by connecting substance and accident into infinite and absolute substance. what is that verbiage, but that the reason gives the name of soul to something that does not exist at all?' 'reason forms the idea of god or of supreme intelligence out of nature, by connecting action and reaction into infinite and absolute concurrence. what is god out of nature? where is out? where is god? what is god?--an absolute nothing.' 'for an imagination to exist there must be two properties or qualities coming in contact with each other to produce that imagination. for these two properties or qualities to exist there must be matter for them to exist in; and for matter to exist there must be space for it to exist in, and so on. matter might exist without two different properties to produce an imagination; but neither two properties nor one property can exist without matter for it to exist in. man may exist for a time as he does when he is dead without an imagination; but the imagination cannot exist without the material man. matter cannot become non-existent, but the imagination can and does become so. matter therefore is the reality and the imagination a nonentity, an unsubstantial idea; or an imagination only.' [52:1] the anonymous writer of the passages here given within inverted commas clearly draws the line of demarcation between the real and the unreal. his remarks on imagination are specially important. theologians do not seem to be aware that imagination is a modification of mind, and mind itself a modification of sensibility--no sensations--no thought--no life. though awkwardly expressed, there is truth in the dogma of gassendi--_ideas are only transformed sensations._ all attempts to conceive sensibility without organs of sense are vain. as profitably might we labour to think of motion where nothing exists to be moved, as sensibility where there is no organ of sense. we often see organs void of sensibility, but who ever saw, or who can imagine sensibility independent of organs? pantheists and other divinitarians write about mind as if it were an existence; nay, they claim, for it the first place among existences, according to 'mere matter' the second. the 'shepherd' plainly tells us mind is a _primary_ and matter a _secondary_ existence. having conjured up an universal mind god, it was natural he should try to establish the supremacy of mind--but though a skilful logician he will be unable to do so. experience is against him. on experience of natural operations materialists base their conclusion that matter without mind is possible, and mind without matter is impossible. it has been proved that even the modification of mind called imagination is indebted for all its images, yea, for its very existence as imagination, to the material world. d'alembert states in the discourse prefixed to the french encyclopaedia that 'the objects about which our minds are occupied are either spiritual or material, and the media employed for this purpose are our ideas either directly received or derived from reflection'--which reflection he tells us 'is of two kinds, according as it is employed in reasoning on the objects of our direct ideas, or in studying them as models for imitation.' and then he tells us 'the imagination is a creative faculty, and the mind, before it attempts to create, begins by reasoning upon what it sees and knows.' he lauds the metaphysical division of things into material and spiritual, appending however to such laudation these remarkable words--'with the material and spiritual classes of existence, philosophy is equally conversant; but as for imagination, her imitations are imitations entirely confined to the material world.' des cartes, in his second 'meditation,' says--_imaginari nihil aliud est quam rei corporeos figuram seu imaginem contemplari_--which sentence indicates that he agreed with d'alembert as to the exclusive limitation of imagination to things material and sensible. the same opinion seems to have been held by locke, who in the concluding chapter of his 'essay on the human understanding,' states as something certain, and therefore beyond dispute, that 'the understanding can only compass, first--the nature of things as they are in themselves, their relations and manner of operation--or secondly, that which man ought to do, as a rational and voluntary agent, for the attainment of any end, especially happiness--or thirdly, the ways and means by which the knowledge of both the one and the other of these is attained and communicated.' adam smith too, in book 5, c. 1, of his 'wealth of nations,' assures us the ancient greek philosophy was divided, into three branches--physics, ethics, and logic; and after praising such general division of philosophy, as being perfectly agreeable to the nature of things, says that, 'as the human, mind and the deity, in whatever their essence may be supposed to consist, are parts of the great system, of the universe, and parts too, productive of the most important effects, whatever was taught in the ancient schools of greece concerning their nature, made a part of the system of physics.' dr. campbell, in his 'philosophy of rhetoric,' ventures to assign 'local habitation,' as well as 'name' to spirit itself. nay, he makes something of deity, and the soul; for spirit, says he, which here comprises only the supreme being and the human soul, is surely as much included under the idea of natural object as body is, and is knowable to the philosopher purely in the same way--by observation and experience. it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of these opinions--they are eminently worthy of attention. if god is a spirit--and spirit 'is surely as much a natural object as body is'--the idea of something supernatural cannot for one instant be entertained. if god is really no more than a 'part' of the great system of the universe, to immaterialise him is absurd, inconsistent, and idolatrous. let it be granted that god is 'part of nature, and a part too, productive of most important effects;' and what logician will be fool-hardy enough to declare him without body, parts, or passions? nor are locke's _dicta_ as to the compass of the understanding easier to be explained away than these of dr. campbell and adam smith. if we cannot know more than 'the nature of things as they are in themselves,' their relations, manner of operation, &c. only ignorant or cunning men will pretend acquaintance with the supernatural. that nothing natural can possibly conceive what is above nature is indeed so palpably true as to deserve a place among philosophical axioms. imagination itself, however lofty, wild, or daring its flights, cannot quit the universe--matter is its prison, where, like sterne's starling, it is 'caged and can't get out.' fortunately, however, imagination, though a prisoner, has abundance of room to legitimately exercise itself in. but, is it not obvious that if, as des cartes and d'alembert contended, the 'imitations of imagination are imitations entirely confined to the material world,' all conceits about a supernatural somebody, or supernatural somebodies, are necessarily false, because of purely natural origin, and should be viewed as at best 'mere cobwebs of learning, admirable indeed, for the fineness of the thread and work, but of no substance or profit.' [54:1] it is unfortunate for theologians that the fundamental principle of their 'science' either cannot be comprehended, or, if comprehended, cannot be reconciled with any known principle of nature. 'god is,' they pompously declare; but what he is they are unable to tell us, without contradicting themselves and each other. some say god must be material; some say, nay, he must be no such thing; some will have him spiritual, others immaterial, others again neither spiritual nor material, nor immaterial, nor even conceivable. some say, if a spirit, he can only be known by his place and figure; some not. some call him the author of sin, some the permitter of sin, while some are sure he could not consistently, with his own perfections, either authorize sin or grant to sinners a permit. some say he made the devil, others that the most low bedevil'd himself; others that he created him angelic and upright, but could not keep him so. some say he hardens men's hearts, others that they harden their own hearts; others again, that to harden men's hearts is the devil's peculiar and exclusive privilege. some say he has prepared a hell for all wicked people, others that hell will receive many good as well as tricked, while others cannot believe either the just or the unjust, the faithful or the unfaithful, will be consigned to perdition and made to endure torments unutterable by a god 'whose tender mercies are over all his works.' some affirm his omnipotency, some deny it; some say he is no respecter of persons, some the reverse. some say he is immensity, others that he fills immensity; others that he don't fill anything, though 'the heaven, of heavens cannot contain him;' others again, that he neither contains nor is contained, but 'dwells on his own thoughts.' some say he created matter out of nothing; some say it is quite a mistake--inasmuch as creation meant bringing order out of chaos. some say he is not one person, but three persons--the father, the son, and the holy ghost, which together constitute godhead; others that he is 'one and indivisible,' while others believe him 'our father which art in heaven,' but will have nothing to do with the son and the holy ghost, unitarians, for example, one of whose popular preachers in the town of manchester, was about twelve months ago charged with having in the course of a single sermon 'killed, two gods, one devil, and slacked out hell fire.' the names of newton and clarke are held in great esteem by all who are familiar with the history of mechanical and metaphysical philosophy. as a man of science, there is no individual, ancient or, modern, who would not suffer by comparison with sir isaac newton; while common consent has assigned to dr. samuel clarke the first place among religious metaphysicians. it would be difficult, if not impossible; to cite any other theists of better approved reputation than these two, and therefore we introduce them to the reader's notice in this place; for as they ranked among the most philosophic of theists, it might be expected that their conceptions of deity, would be clear, satisfactory, and definite.--let us see, then, _in their own writings_, what those conceptions were. newton conceived god to be one and the same for ever, and everywhere, not only by his own virtue or energy, but also in virtue of his substance--again, 'all things are contained in him and move in him, but without reciprocal action.' (_sed sine mutua passione_) god feels nothing from the movements of bodies; nor do they experience any resistance from his universal presence. [56:1] pause reader, and demand of yourself whether such a conception of deity is either clear, satisfactory, or definite,--god. is _one_.--very good--but one _what_? from the information, 'he is the same for ever and everywhere,' we conclude that newton thought him a being. here however, matter stops the way; for the idea of being is in all of us inseparably associated with the idea of substance. when told that god is an 'immense being,' without parts, and consequently unsubstantial, we try to think of such a being; but in vain. reason puts itself in a _quandary_, the moment it labours to realise an idea of absolute nothingness; yet marvellous to relate, newton did distinctly declare his deity 'totally destitute of body,' and urged that _fact_ as a _reason_ why he cannot be either seen, touched, or understood, and also as a _reason_ why he ought not to be adored under any corporeal figure! the proper function of 'supernaturality or wonder,' according to phrenologists, is to create a belief in the reality of supernatural beings, and begets fondness for news, particularly if extravagant. most likely then, such readers of our apology as have that organ 'large' will be delighted with newton's rhodomontade about a god who resists nothing, feels nothing, and yet with condescension truly divine, not only contains all things, but permits them to move in his motionless and 'universal presence'; for 'news' more extravagant, never fell from the lips of an idiot, or adorned the pages of a prayer-book. by the same great _savan_, we are taught that god governs all, not as the soul of the world, but as the lord and sovereign of all things; that it is in consequence of his sovereignty he is called the lord god, the universal emperor--that the word god is relative, and relates itself with slaves--and that the deity is the dominion or the sovereignty of god, not over his own body, as those think who look upon god as the soul of the world, but over slaves--from all which _slavish_ reasoning, a plain man who had not been informed it was concocted by europe's pet philosopher, would infallibly conclude some unfortunate lunatic had given birth to it. that there is no creature now tenanting bedlam who would or could scribble purer nonsense about god than this of newton's, we are well convinced--for how could the most frenzied of brains imagine anything more repugnant to every principle of good sense than a self-existent, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent being, creator of all the worlds, who acts the part of 'universal emperor,' and plays upon an infinitely large scale, the same sort of game as nicholas of russia, or mohammed of egypt plays upon a small scale. there cannot be slavery where there is no tyranny, and to say as newton did, that we stand in the same relation to a universal god, as a slave does to his earthly master, is practically to accuse such god, at reason's bar, of _tyranny_. if the word of god is relative, and relates itself with slaves, it incontestably follows that all human beings are slaves, and deity is by such reasoners degraded into the character of universal slave-driver. really theologians and others who declaim so bitterly against 'blasphemers,' and take such very stringent measures to punish 'infidels,' who speak or write of their god, should seriously consider whether the worst, that is, the least religious of infidel writers, ever penned a paragraph so disparaging to the character of that god they affect to adore, as the last quoted paragraph of newton's. if even it could be demonstrated that there _is_ a super-human being, it cannot be proper to clothe him in the noblest human attributes--still less can it be justifiable in pigmies, such as we are, to invest him with odious attributes belonging only to despots ruling over slaves. besides, how can we imagine a god who is 'totally destitute of body and of corporeal figure,' to have any kind of attributes? earthly emperors we know to be substantial and common-place sort of beings enough, but is it not sheer abuse of reason to argue as though the character of god were at all analogous to theirs; or rather, is it not a shocking abuse of our reasoning faculties to employ them at all about a being whose existence, if it really have an existence, is perfectly enigmatical, and allowed to be so by those very men who pretend to explain its character and attributes? we find no less a sage than newton explicitly declaring as incontestable truth, that god exists necessarily--that the same necessity obliges him to exist always and everywhere--that he is all eyes, all ears, all brains, all arms, all feeling, all intelligence, all action--that he exists in a mode by no means corporeal, and yet this same sage, in the self-same paragraph, acknowledges god is _totally unknown to us_. now, we should like to be informed by what _reasonable_ right newton could pen a long string of 'incontestible truths,' such as are here selected from his writings, with respect to a being of whom, by his own confession, he had not a particle of knowledge. surely it is not the part of a wise man to write about that which is 'totally unknown' to him, and yet that is precisely what newton did, when he wrote about god. there is, however, one remark of his respecting the god he thought necessarily existed, worthy of notice, which is, that 'human beings revere and adore gad on account of his (supposed) sovereignty, and worship him like his slaves;' for to all _but_ worshippers, the practice as well as principle of worship does appear pre-eminently slavish. indeed, the author has always found himself unable to dissociate the idea of worshipping beings or things of which no one has the most remote conception, from that of genuine hypocrisy. christians despise the rude heathen for praying to a deity of wood or stone, whom he soundly cudgels if his prayer is not granted; and yet their own treatment of jehovah, though rather more respectful, is equally ridiculous. when praying, they lay aside truth, sincerity, and sanity. their language is the language of fawning, lying, imbecile, cowardly slaves. intending to exalt, they debase the imaginary object of their adoration. they presume him to be unstable as themselves, and no less greedy of adulation than themistocles the athenian, who, when presiding at certain games of his countrymen, was asked which voice pleased him best? _'that,'_ replied he, _'which sings my praises.'_ they love to enlarge on 'the moral efficacy of prayer,' and would have us think their 'omnipotent tyrant' best pleased with such of his 'own image' as best 'sing his praises.' of their 'living god' they make an amplified themistocles, and thus reduce (conscientiously, no doubt,) the creator to a level with his creature. the author is without god; but did he believe there is one, still would he scorn to _affect_ for him a love and a reverence that nothing natural can feel for the supernatural; still would he scorn to _carry favour_ with deity by hypocritical and most fulsome adulation. finely did eschylus say of aristides- to be and not to seem is this man's maxim; his mind reposes on its proper wisdom, and wants no other praise. tell us, ye men of mystery, shall a god need praises beneath the dignity of a man? shall the creator of nature act less worthily than one of his creatures? to do god homage, we are quite aware, is reckoned by christians among their highest duties. but, nevertheless, it seems to us impossible that any one can love an existence or creature of which he never had any experience. love is a feeling generated in the human breast, by certain objects that strike the sense--and in no other conceivable way can love be generated! but god, according to newton, is neither an _object_ nor a _subject_, and though, all eyes, all ears, all brains, all arms, all feeling, all intelligence, and all action, he is _totally unknown to us_. if christians allow this to be a true description of the god they worship, we wish to understand how they can love him so vehemently as they affect to do--or how they can pay any other than _lip_ homage to so mysterious a deity? it is usual for slaves to feign an affection for their masters that they do not, cannot feel--but that believers in a god should imagine that he who 'searcheth all hearts,' can be ignorant of what is passing in theirs, or make the tremendous mistake of supposing that their _lip homage_, or interested expressions of love, are not _properly_ appreciated by the most high god, and 'universal emperor,' is indeed very strange. to overreach or deceive a god who created the heavens and the earth, is altogether beyond the power of puny mortals. let not therefore those who bend the knee, while the heart is unbent, and raise the voice of thankful devotion, while all within is frost and barrenness, fancy they have stolen a march upon their deity; for surely _if_ the lord liveth, he judgeth rightly of these things. but it were vain to expect that those who think god is related to his creatures as a despot is related to his slaves, will hope to please that god by aught save paltry, cringing, and dishonestly despicable practices. yet, no other than a despotic god has the great newton taught us to adore--no other than mere slaves of such a god, has he taught us to deem ourselves. so much for the theism of europe's chief religious philosopher. turn we now to the theism of dr. samuel clarke. he wrote a book about the being and attributes of god, in which he endeavoured to establish, first, that 'something has existed from all eternity;' second, that 'there has existed from eternity some one unchangeable and independent being;' third, that 'such unchangeable and independent being, which has existed from all eternity, without any external cause of its existence, must be necessarily existent;' fourth, that 'what is the substance or essence of that being, which is necessarily existing, or self-existent, we have no idea--neither is it possible for us to comprehend it;' fifth, that 'the self-existent being must of necessity be eternal as well as infinite and omnipresent;' sixth, that 'he must be one, and as he is the self-existent and original cause of all things, must be intelligent;' seventh, that 'god is not a necessary agent, but a being endowed with liberty and choice;' eighth, that 'god is infinite in power, infinite in wisdom, and, as he is supreme cause of all things, must of necessity be a being infinitely just, truthful, and good--thus comprising within himself all such moral perfections as becomes the supreme governor and judge of the world.' these are the leading dogmas contained in clarke's book--and as they are deemed invincible by a respectable, though not very numerous, section of theists, we will briefly examine the more important of them. the dogma that _something has existed from all eternity_, as already shown, is perfectly intelligible, and may defy contradiction--but the real difficulty is to satisfactorily determine _what that something is_. matter exists; and as no one can even imagine its non-existence or annihilation, the materialist infers _that_ must be the eternal something. newton as well as clarke thought the everlasting being destitute of body, and consequently without parts, figure, motion, divisibility, or any other such properties as we find in matter--_ergo_, they did not believe matter to be the eternal something; but if not matter, again we ask, what can it be? of bodilessness or incorporiety no one, even among those who say their god is incorporeal, pretend to have an idea. abady insisted that _the question is not what incorporiety is, but whether it be?_ well, we have no objection to parties taking that position, because there is nothing more easy than to dislodge those who think fit to do so--for this reason: the advocates of nothing, or incorporiety, can no more establish by arguments drawn from unquestioned facts, that incorporiety _is_ than they can clearly show _what_ it is. it has always struck the author as remarkable that men should so obstinately refuse to admit the possibility of matter's necessary existence, while they readily embrace, not only as possibly, but certainly, true, the paradoxical proposition that a something, having nothing in common with anything, is necessarily existent. matter is everywhere around and about us. we ourselves are matter--all our ideas are derived _from_ matter--and yet such is the singularly perverse character of human intellect that, while resolutely denying the possibility of matter's eternity, an immense number of our race embrace the incredible proposition that matter was created in time by a necessarily existing being who is without body, parts, passions, or positive nature! the second dogma informs us that this always-existing being is unchangeable and independent. one unavoidable inference from which is that deity is itself immoveable, as well as unconnected with the universe--for a moveable being must be a changeable being by the very fact of its motion; while an independent being must be motiveless, as it is evident all motives result from our relationship to things external; but an independent being can have no relations, and consequently must act without motives. now, as no human action can be imagined without necessary precursors in the shape of motives, reasoning from analogy, it seems impossible that the unchangeable and independent being, clarke was so sure must ever have existed, could have created the universe, seeing he could have had no _motive_ or _inducement_ to create it. the third dogma may be rated a truism--it being evidently true that a thing or being, which has existed from eternity without any external cause of its existence, must be self-existent; but of course that dogma leaves the disputed question, namely, whether matter, or something not matter, is self-existent, just where it found it. the fourth dogma is not questioned by atheists, as they are quite convinced that it is not possible for us to comprehend the substance or essence of an immaterial being. the other dogmas we need not enlarge upon, as they are little more than repetitions or expansions of the preceding one. indeed, much of the foregoing would be superfluous, were it not that it serves to illustrate, so completely and clearly, theistical absurdities. the only dogma worth overturning, of the eight here noticed, is the _first_, for if that fall, the rest must fall with it. if, for example, the reader is convinced that it is more probable matter is mutable as regards _form_, but eternal as regards _essence_, than that it was willed into existence by a being said to be eternal and immutable, he at once becomes an atheist--for if matter always was, no being could have been before it, nor can any exist after it. it is because men in general are shocked at the idea of matter without beginning and without end, that they so readily embrace the idea of a god, forgetting that if the idea of eternal matter shock our sense of the _probable_, the idea of an eternal being who existed _before_ matter, _if well considered_, is sufficient to shock all sense of the _possible_. the man who is contented with the universe, who stops at _that_ has at least the satisfaction of dealing with something tangible--but he who don't find the universe large enough for him to expatiate in, and whirls his brains into a belief that there is a necessarily existing something beyond the limits of a world _unlimited_, is in a mental condition no reasonable man need envy. of the universe, or at least so much of it as our senses have been operated upon by, we have conceptions clear, vivid, and distinct; but when dr. clarke tells us of an intelligent being, not _part_ but _creator_ of that universe, we can form no clear, vivid, distinct, or, in point of fact, _any_ conception of such a being. when he explains that it is infinite and omnipresent, like poor paddy's famed ale, the explanation 'thickens as it clears;' for being ourselves _finite_, and necessarily present on one small spot of our very small planet, the words _infinite_ and _omnipresent_ do not suggest to us either positive or practical ideas--of course, therefore, we have neither positive nor practical ideas of an infinite and omnipresent being. we can as easily understand that the universe ever did exist, as we now understand that it does exist--but we cannot conceive its absence for the millionth part of an instant--and really it puzzles one to conceive what those people can be dreaming about who talk as familiarly about the extinction of a universe as the chemist does of extinguishing the flame of his spirit-lamp. the unsatisfactory character of all speculations having for their object 'nonentities with formidable names,' should long ere this have opened men's eyes to the folly of _multiplying causes without necessity_-another rule of philosophising, for which we are indebted to newton, but to which no religious philosophiser pays due attention. newton himself, in his theistical character, wrote and talked as though most blissfully ignorant of that rule. the passages given above from his 'principia' palpably violate it. but theists, however learned, pay little regard to any rules of philosophising, which put in peril their fundamental crotchet. if they did, atheism would need no apologist, and theism have no defenders; for theism, in all its varieties, presupposes a supernatural causer of what experience pronounces natural effects. the author is aware that 'natural theologians' seek to justify their rebellion against the rules of philosophising, to which the reader's attention has been specially directed, by appealing to (what they call) evidences of design in the universal fabric. but though they think so highly of the design argument, it is not the less true that that argument rests on mere assumption of a disputed fact; that even though it were proved the universe was designed, still whether designed by one god, two gods, or two million of gods, would be unshown; and that paley, 'the most famous of natural theologians'--paley, who wrote as never man wrote before on the design question, has been satisfactorily refuted _in his own words_. [63:1] a distinguished modern fabulist [63:2] has introduced to us a philosophical mouse who praised beneficent deity because of his great regard for mice: for one half of us, quoth he, received the gift of wings, so that if we who have none, should by cats happen to be exterminated, how easily could our 'heavenly father,' out of the bats re-establish our exterminated species. voltaire had no objection to fable if it were symbolic of truth; and here is fable, which, according to its author, is symbolic of the little regarded truth, that our pride rests mainly on our ignorance, for, as he sagely says, 'the good mouse knew not that there are also winged cats.' if she had her speculations concerning the beneficence of deity would have been less orthodox, mayhap, but decidedly more rational. the wisdom of this pious mouse is very similar to that of the theologian who knew not how sufficiently to admire god's goodness in causing large rivers almost always to flow in the neighbourhood of large towns. to jump at conclusions on no other authority than their own ignorant assumptions, and to deify errors on no other authority than their own heated imaginations, has in all ages been the practice of theologians. of that practice they are proud, as was the mouse of our fabulist. clothed in no other panoply than their own conceits; they deem themselves invulnerable. while uttering the wildest incoherencies their self-complacency remains undisturbed. they remind one of that ambitious crow who, thinking more highly of himself than was quite proper, strutted so proudly about with the peacock's feathers in which he had bedecked himself.--like him, they plume themselves upon their own egregious folly, and like him should get well _plucked_ for their pains. let any one patiently examine their much talked of argument from design, and he will be satisfied that these are no idle charges. that argument has for its ground-work beggarly assumptions and for its main pillar, reasoning no less beggarly. nature must have had a cause, because it evidently is an effect. the cause of nature must have been one god; because two gods, or two million gods, could not have agreed to cause it. that cause must be omnipotent, wise, and good, because all things are double one against another, and he has left nothing imperfect. men make watches, build ships or houses, out of pre-existing metals, wood, hemp, bricks, mortar, and other materials, therefore god made nature out of no materials at all. unassisted nature cannot produce the phenomena we behold, therefore such phenomena clearly prove there is something supernatural. not to believe in a god who designed nature, is to close both ears and eyes against evidence, therefore atheists are wilfully deaf and obstinately blind. these are samples of the flimsy stuff, our teachers of what nobody knows, would palm upon us as argument for, yea demonstration of, the being and attributes of god. design, said shelley, must be proved before a designer can be inferred--the matter in controversy, is the existence of design in the universe, and it is not permitted to assume the contested premises and thence infer the matter in dispute. insidiously to employ the words contrivance, design and adaptation, before these circumstances are apparent in the universe, thence justly inferring a contriver, is a popular sophism against which it behoves us to be watchful. to assert that motion is an attribute of mind, that matter is inert, that every combination is the result of intelligence, is also an assumption of the matter in dispute. why do we admit design in any machine of human contrivance? simply because innumerable instances of machines having been constructed by human art are present to our mind--because we are acquainted with persons who could construct such machines; but if having no previous knowledge of any artificial contrivance, we had accidently found a watch upon the ground, we should have been justified in concluding that it was a thing of nature, that it was a combination of matter with whose cause we were unacquainted, and that any attempt to account for the origin of its existence would be equally presumptuous and unsatisfactory. [64:1] the acuteness and, accuracy of this reasoning can only be disputed by persons wedded to system, who either lack capacity to understand what is advanced in opposition to it, or, being convinced against their will, are of the same opinion still. experience, the only safe guide on religious as well as other topics, lends no sanction to belief in design apart from material agency. by artfully taking for granted what no atheist can admit and assuming cases altogether dissimilar to be perfectly analogous, our natural theologians find no difficulty in proving that god is, was, and ever will be; that after contemplating his own perfections, a period sufficiently long for 'eternity to begin and end in,' he said, let there be matter, and there was matter; that with him all things are possible, and he, of course, might easily have kept, as well as made, man upright and happy, but could not consistently with his own wisdom, or with due regard to his own glorification. wise in their generation, these 'blind leaders of the blind' ascribe to this deity of their own invention, powers impossible, acts inconceivable, and qualities incompatible; thus erecting doctrinal systems on no sounder basis than their own ignorance; deifying their own monstrous errors, and filling the earth with misery, madness, and crime. the writer who declared theology _ignorance of natural causes reduced to system_, did not strike wide of the true mark. it is plain that the argument from design, so vastly favoured by theologians, amounts to neither more nor less than ignorance of natural causes reduced to system. an argument to be sound must be soundly premised. but here is an argument whose primary premise is a false premise--a mere begging of the very question in dispute. did atheists _admit_ the universe was contrived, designed, or adapted, they could not _deny_ there must have been at least one being to contrive, design, or adapt; but they see no analogy between a watch made with hands out of something, and a universe made without hands out of nothing--atheists are unable to perceive the least resemblance between the circumstance of one intelligent body re-forming or changing the condition of some other body, intelligent or non-intelligent, and the circumstance of a bodiless being creating all bodies; of a partless being acting upon all parts; and of a passionless being generating and regulating all passions. atheists consider the general course of nature, though strangely unheeded, does proclaim with 'most miraculous organ,' that dogmatisers about any such 'figment of imagination,' would, in a rational community, be viewed with the same feelings of compassion, which, even in these irrational days, are exhibited towards confirmed lunatics. the author was recently passing an evening with some pleasant people in ashton-under-lyne, one of whom related that before the schoolmaster had much progress in that _devil dusted_ neighbourhood, a labouring man walking out one fine night, saw on the ground a watch, whose ticking was distinctly audible; but never before having seen anything of the kind he thought it a living creature, and full of fear ran back among his neighbours, exclaiming that he had seen a most marvellous thing, for which he could conceive of no better name than clickmitoad. after recovering from their surprise and terror, this 'bold peasant' and his neighbours, all armed with pokers or ether formidable weapons, crept up to the ill-starred ticker, and smashed it to pieces. the moral of this anecdote is no mystery. our clickmitoadist had never seen watches, knew nothing about watches, and hearing as well as seeing one for the first time, naturally judged it must be an animal. readers who may feel inclined to laugh at his simplicity, should ask themselves whether, if accustomed to see watches growing upon watch trees, they would feel more astonished than they usually do when observing crystals in process of formation, or cocoa-nuts growing upon cocoa-nut trees; and if as inexperienced with respect to watches, or works of art, more or less analogous to watches, they would not under his circumstances have acted very much as he did. admirably is it said in the unpublished work before referred to, that the analogy which theologians attempt to establish between the contrivances of human art and the various existences of the universe is inadmissable. we attribute these effects to human intelligence, because we know beforehand that human intelligence is capable of producing them. take away this knowledge, and the grounds of our reasoning will be destroyed. our entire ignorance therefore of the divine nature leaves this analogy defective in its most essential point of comparison. supposing, however, that theologians were to succeed in establishing an analogy between 'the contrivances of human art and the various existences of the universe,' is it not evident that spinoza's axiom--of things which having nothing in common one cannot be the cause of the others--is incompatible with belief in the deity of our thirty-nine articles, or, indeed, belief in _any_ unnatural designer or causer of material nature. only existence can have anything in common with existence. now an existence, properly so called, must have at least two attributes, and whatever exhibits two or more attributes is matter. the two attributes necessary to existence are solidity and extension. take from matter these attributes, and matter itself vanishes. this fact was specially testified to by priestley, who acknowledged the primary truths of materialism though averse to the legitimate consequences flowing from their recognition. according to this argument, then, nothing exists which has not solidity and extension, and nothing is extended and solid but matter, which in one state forms a crystal, in another a blade of grass, in a third a butterfly, and in other states other forms. the _essence_ of grass, or the _essence_ of crystal, in other words, those native energies of their several forms constituting and keeping them what they are, can no more be explained than can the _essentiality_ of human nature. but the atheist, because he finds it impossible to explain the action of matter, because unable to state why it exhibits such vast and various energies as it is seen to exhibit, is none the less assured it _naturally_ and therefore _necessarily_ acts thus energetically. no atheist pretends to understand how bread nourishes his frame, but of the _fact_ that bread does nourish it he is well assured. he understands not how or why two beings should by conjunction give vitality to a third being more or less analogous to themselves, but the _fact_ stares him in the face. our 'sophists in surplices,' who can no otherwise bolster up their supernatural system than by outraging all such rules of philosophising as forbid us to choose the greater of two difficulties, or to multiply causes without necessity, are precisely the men to explain everything. but unfortunately their explanations do for the most part stand more in need of explanation than the thing explained. thus they explain the origin of matter by reference to an occult, immense, and immensely mysterious phantasm without body, parts or passions, who sees though not to be seen, hears though not to be heard, feels though not to be felt, moves though not to be moved, knows though not to be known, and in short, does everything, though not to be _done_ by anything. well might godwin say the rage of accounting for what, like immortal gibbs, is obviously unaccountable, so common among 'philosophers' of this stamp, has brought philosophy itself into discredit. there is an argument against the notion of a supernatural causer which the author of this apology does not remember to have met with, but which he considers an argument of great force--it is this. cause means change, and as there manifestly could not be change before there was anything to change, to conceive the universe caused is impossible. that the sense here attached to the word cause is not a novel one every reader knows who has seen an elaborate and ably written article by mr. g.h. lewes, on 'spinoza's life and works,' [68:1] where effect is defined as cause realised, the _natura naturans_ conceived as _natura naturata_; and cause or causation is defined as simply change. when, says mr. lewis, the change is completed, we name the result effect. it is only a matter of naming. these definitions conceded accurate, the conclusion that neither cause nor effect _exist_, seems inevitable, for change of being is not being itself, any more than attraction is the thing attracted. one might as philosophically erect attraction into reality and fall down and worship _it_, as change, which is in very truth, a mere "matter of naming." not so the things changing or changed: _they_ are real, the prolific parent of all appearance we behold, of all sensation we experience, of all ideas we receive; in short, of all causes and of all effects, which causes and effects, as shown by; mr. lewis, are merely notional, for "we call the antecedent cause, and the sequent effect; but these are merely relative conceptions; the sequence itself is antecedent to some subsequent change, and the former antecedent was once only a sequent to its cause, and so on." now, to reconcile with this theory of causation, the notion of an eternal, mighty, causeless god, may be possible, but the author of this apology cannot persuade himself that it is. his poor faculties are unequal to the mighty task of conceiving the amazing deity in question, whom sir richard blackmore, in his ode to jehovah, describes as sitting on an 'eternal throne'- above the regions of etherial space, and far extended frontier of the skies; beyond the outlines of wide nature's face, where void, not yet enclosed, uncultivated lies; completely filling every place and far outstretching all imaginary space. still less has he the right to pretend acquaintance with a process of reasoning by which such eternal, mighty, causeless god can be believed in consistently with the conviction that cause is effect realised, and means only change. ancient simonides, when asked by dionysius to explain the nature of deity, demanded a day to 'see about it,' then an additional two days, and then four days more, thus wisely intimating to his silly pupil, that the more men think about gods; the less competent they are to give any rational account of them. cicero was sensible and candid enough to acknowledge that he found it much easier to say what god was not, than what he was. like simonides, he was _mere_ pagan, and like him, arguing from the known course of nature, was unable, with all his mastery of talk, to convey positive ideas of deity. but how should he convey to others what he did not, could not, himself possess? to him no revelation had been vouchsafed, and though my lord brougham is quite sure, without the proof of natural theology, revelation has no other basis than mere tradition, we have even better authority than his lordship's for the staggering fact that natural theology, without the prop of revelation, is a 'rhapsody of words,' mere jargon, analogous to the tale told by an idiot, so happily described by our great poet as 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' we have a rev. hugh m'neil 'convinced that, from external creation, no right conclusion can be drawn concerning the _moral_ character of god,' and that 'creation is too deeply and disastrously blotted in consequence of man's sin, to admit of any satisfactory result from an adequate contemplation of nature.' [69:1] we have a gillespie setting aside the design argument on the ground that the reasonings by which it is supported are 'inapt' to show such attributes as infinity, omnipresence, free agency, omnipotency, eternality, or unity,' belong in any way to god. on this latter attribute he specially enlarges, and after allowing 'the contrivances we observe in nature, may establish a unity of _counsel_, desires to be told' how they can establish a unity of _substance_. [69:2] we have dr. chalmers and bishop watson, whose capacities were not the meanest, contending that there is no natural proof of a god, and that we must trust solely to revelation.' [69:3] we have the rev. mr. faber in his 'difficulties of infidelity,' boldly affirming that no one ever did, or ever will 'prove without the aid of revelation, that the universe was designed by a single designer.' obviously, then, there is a division in the religious camp with respect to the sufficiency of natural theology, unhelped by revelation. by three of the four christian authors just quoted, the design argument is treated with all the contempt it merits. faber says, 'evident design must needs imply a designer,' and that 'evident design shines out in every part of the universe.' but he also tells us 'we reason exclusively, if with the deist we thence infer the existence of one and _only_ one supreme designer.' by gillespie and m'neil, the same truth is told in other words. by chalmers and watson we are assured that, natural proof of a god there is none, and our trust must be placed _solely_ in revelation; while brougham, another immense being worshipper, declares that revelation derives its chief support from natural theology, without which it has 'no other basis than vague tradition.' now, atheists agree with lord brougham as to the traditionary basis of scripture; and as they also agree with chalmers and watson with respect to their being no natural proof of a god, they stand acquitted to their own consciences of 'wilful deafness' and 'obstinate blindness,' in rejecting as inadequate the evidence that 'god is' drawn either from nature, revelation, or both. it was long a protestant custom to taunt roman catholics with being divided among themselves as regards topics vitally important, and to draw from the fact of such division an argument for making scripture the only 'rule of faith and manners.' chillingworth said, 'there are popes against popes, councils against councils, some fathers against others, the same fathers against themselves--a consent of fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age, the church of one age against the church of another age. traditive interpretations of scripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found. no tradition but only of scripture can derive itself from the fountain, but may be plainly proved, either to have been brought in in such an age after christ; or that in such an age it was not in. in a word, there is no sufficient certainty but of scripture only for any considering man to build on. [70:1] and after reading this should 'any considering man' be anxious to know something about the scripture on which alone he is to build, he cannot do better than dip into dr. watt's book on the right use of reason, where we are told 'every learned (scripture) critic has his own hypothesis, and if the common text be not favourable to his views a various lection shall be made authentic. the text must be supposed to be defective or redundant, and the sense of it shall be literal or metaphorical according as it best supports his own scheme. whole chapters or books shall be added or left out of the sacred canon, or be turned into parables by this influence. luther knew not well how to reconcile the epistle of st. james to the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and so he could not allow it to be divine. the papists bring all their apocrypha into their bible, and stamp divinity upon it, for they can fancy purgatory is there, and they find prayers for the dead. but they leave out the second commandment because it forbids the worship of images. others suppose the mosaic history of the creation, and the fall of man, to be oriental ornaments, or a mere allegory, because the literal sense of those three chapters of genesis, do not agree with their theories. these remarks are certainly not calculated to make 'considering men' put their trust in scripture. coming from a protestant divine of such high talent and learning, they may rather be expected to breed in 'considering men' very unorthodox opinions as well of the authenticity as the genuineness of _both testaments_, and a strong suspicion that chillingworth was joking when he talked about their "sufficient certainty." the author of this apology has searched scripture in vain for 'sufficient certainty,' with respect to the long catalogue of religious beliefs which agitate and distract society. laying claim to the character of a 'considering man,' he requires that scripture to be _proved_ the word of a god before appealed to, as his revelation; a feat no man has yet accomplished. priests, the cleverest, most industrious, and least scrupulous, have tried their hands at the pious work, but all have failed. notwithstanding the mighty labours of our lardner's and tillemont's and mosheim's, no case is made out for the divinity of either the old or new testament. 'infidels' have shown the monstrous absurdity of supposing that any one book has an atom more divinity about it than any other book. those 'brutes' have completely succeeded in proving that christianity is a superstition, no less absurd than mohammedanism, and to the full as mischievous. to us, we candidly avow that its doctrines, precepts, and injunctions appear so utterly opposed to good sense, and good government, that we are persuaded even if it were practicable to establish a commonwealth in harmony with them at sun-rise it would infallibly go to pieces before sunset. the author has read that roman augurs rarely met to do the professional without laughing at each other, and he is bothered to understand how christian priests contrive to keep their countenances, amid the many strong temptations to mirth, by which, in their official capacity they are surrounded. no doubt very many of them laugh immoderately in private, by way of revenge for the gravity they are constrained to assume in public. it is well known that hypocrites are most prone to an affectation of sanctity; which marvellously steads them in this world, happen what may in the world to come. nine-tenths of those who make a parade of their piety, are rotten at heart, as that cardinal de crema, legate of pope calixtus 2nd, in the reign of henry 1st, who declared at a london synod, it was an intolerable enormity, that a priest should dare to consecrate, and touch the body of christ immediately after he had risen from the side of a strumpet, (for that was the decent appellation he gave to the wives of the clergy), but it happened, that the very next night, the officers of justice, breaking into a disorderly house, found the cardinal in bed with a courtezan; an incident, says hume, [72:1] "which threw such ridicule upon him, that he immediately stole out of the kingdom; the synod broke up, and the canons against the marriage of its clergymen, were worse executed than ever." christian practice is after all, the best answer to christian theory. men who think wisely, do not it is true, always act wisely; but generally speaking, the moral, like the physical tree, is known by its fruit, and bitter, most bitter, is the fruit of that moral tree, the followers of jesus planted. notwithstanding their talk about the pure and benign influence of their religion, an opinion is fast gaining ground, that bishop kiddor was right, when he said, 'were a wise man to judge of religion by the lives of its professors, perhaps, christianity is the last he would choose.' no unprejudiced thinker who is familiar with the history of religion will deny, that of all priests in this priest-ridden world christian priests are the worst. though less potent they are not much less proud or ambitious than when pope pascal ii. told king henry i. that all ecclesiastics must enter into the church through christ and christ alone, not through the civil magistrate or any profane laymen. nor are they less jealous of such as would fain reduce the dimensions of their 'spiritual jurisdiction,' than when that haughty pope reminded his king that 'priests are called god in scripture as being the vicars of god;' while in consideration for the poor and the oppressed, modern priests are disadvantageously distinguished, from those 'vicars of god,' who trod upon the necks of emperors and kings, made or unmade laws at pleasure, and kept europe, intellectual europe, in unreasoning, unresisting subjection. the reader who agrees with milton that to know, what every day before us lies, is the prime wisdom, will in all likelihood not object to cast his eyes around and about him, where proofs of modern priestly selfishness are in wonderful abundance. by way of example may be cited the cases of those right reverend fathers in god the bishops of london and chester, prelates high in the church; disposers of enormous wealth with influence almost incalculable; the former more especially. and how stand they affected towards the poor? by reference to the _times_ newspaper of september 27th, 1845, it will be seen that those very influential and wealthy bishops are supporters _en chef_ of a 'reformed poor law,' the 'virtual principle' of which is 'to reduce the condition of those whose necessities oblige them to apply for relief, below that of the labourer of the _lowest class_.' a reformed poor law, having for its 'object,' yes reader, its object, the restoration of the pauper to a position below that of the independent labourer.' this is their 'standard' of reference, by rigid attention to which they hope to fully carry out their 'vital principle,' and thus bring to a satisfactory conclusion the great work of placing 'the pauper in a worse condition than the independent labourer.' it appears, from the same journal, that in reply to complaints against their dietary, the commissioners appointed to work the reformed poor law, consider that twenty-one ounces of food daily 'is more than the hard working labourer with a family could accomplish for himself by his own exertions.' this, observes a writer in the _times_, being the commissioners' reading of their own 'standard,' it may be considered superfluous to refer to any other authority; but, as the royal agricultural society of england have clubbed their general information on this subject in a compilation from a selection of essays submitted to them, we are bound to refer to such witnesses who give the most precise information on the actual condition of the _independent labourer_, with minute instructions for his general guidance, and the economical expenditure of his income. 'he should,' they say, 'toil early and late' to make himself 'perfect' in his calling. 'he should _pinch and screw_ the family, even in the _commonest necessaries_,' until he gets 'a week's wages to the fore.' he should drink in his work 'water mixed with some powdered ginger,' which warms the stomach, and is 'extremely cheap.' he should remember that 'from three to four pounds of potatoes are equal in point of nourishment to a pound of the best wheaten bread, besides having the great advantage of _filling_ the stomach. he is told that 'a lot of bones may always be got from the butchers for 2d., and they are never scraped so clean as not to have some scraps of meat adhering to them.' he is instructed to boil these two penny worth of bones, for the first day's family dinner, until the liquor 'tastes _something_ like broth.' for the second day, the bones are to be again boiled in the same manner, but for _a longer time_. nor is this all, they say, 'that the bones, if again boiled for a _still longer_ time, will _once more_ yield a nourishing broth, which may be made into pea soup.' this is the system and this the schoolmastership expressly sanctioned by the bishops of london and chester. in piety nevertheless these prelates are not found wanting. they may starve the bodies but no one can charge them with neglecting the souls of our 'independent labourers.' nothing can exceed their anxiety to feed and clothe the spiritually destitute. they raise their mitred fronts, even in palaces, to proclaim and lament over the spiritual destitution which so extensively prevails--but they seldom condescend to notice _physical_ destitution. when the cry of famine rings throughout the land they coolly recommend rapid church extension, thus literally offering stone to those who ask them for bread. to get the substantial and give the spiritual is their practical christianity. to spiritualise the poor into contentment with the 'nourishing broth' from thrice boiled bones, and to die of hunger rather than demand relief, are their darling objects. verily, if these and men like these do not grind the faces of the poor, the author of this apology is unable to conceive in what that peculiar process consists. in scripture we are told, the bread of the poor is his life, and they who defraud him thereof are men of blood; and by whom are the poor defrauded of their bread if not by those who, like the bishops of london and chester, legislate for poverty as if it were a crime, and lend theft sanction to a system which, while it necessitates the wholesale pinching and screwing even in the commonest necessaries of life 'of independent labourers,' does also necessitate the wholesale starvation of still more wretched paupers? formerly our 'surplus populations' were 'killed off' by bullet and sabre, now they are got rid of in poor law unions by a process less expensive perhaps, but not less effectual. did atheists thus act, did they perpetrate, connive at, or tolerate such atrocities as were brought to light during the andover inquiry, such cold blooded heartlessness would at once be laid to the account of their principles. oh yes, christians are forward to judge of trees by their fruit, except the tree called christianity. their great 'prophet' argued that if the tree is good the fruit will be good; but when their own religion is in question they give such argument the slip. the vices of the atheist they ascribe to his creed. the vices of the christian to anything but his creed. let professors of christianity be convicted of gross criminality, and lo its apologists say such professors are not christians. let fanatical christians commit excesses which admit not of open justification, and the apologist of christianity coolly assures us such conduct is mere rust on the body of his religion--moss which grows on the stock of his piety. it has been computed that the spaniards in america destroyed in about forty-five years ten millions of human creatures, and this with a view of converting them to christianity. bartholomew casa, who made this computation, affirms that they (the spaniards) hanged those unhappy people _thirteen in a row_, in honour of the _thirteen apostles_, and that they also gave their infants to be devoured by dogs. [75:1] corsini, another religious author, tells us the spaniards destroyed more than fifteen millions of american aborigines, and calculates that the blood of these devoted victims, added to that of the slaves destroyed in the mines, where they were compelled to labour, would weigh as much as all the gold and silver that had been dug out of them. if these or similar horrors were perpetrated by atheists, who can doubt that roman catholics would at once ascribe them to the pestiferous influence of atheistical principles. and the author of this apology is of opinion that they would be justified in so doing. when whole nations of professed irreligionists shall be found conquering a country, and hanging the aborigines of that country thirteen in a row, in honour of some thirteen apostles of atheism, their barbarity may fairly be ascribed to their creed. habit does much, and perhaps much of our virtue, or its opposite is contingent on temperament; but no people entertaining correct speculative opinions could possibly act, or tolerate, atrocities like these. but strange to say, neither roman catholic, nor any other denomination of christians, will submit to be tried to the same standard they deem so just when applied to atheists. now sauce for the goose every body knows is equally sauce for the gander, and it is difficult to discover the consistency or the honesty of men, who trace to their creed the crimes or merest peccadilloes of atheists, and will not trace to their creed the shocking barbarity of christians. to understand such men is easy; to admire them is impossible; for their conduct in this particular palpably shocks every principle of truth and fairness. why impute to atheism the vices or follies of its apostles, while refusing to admit that the vices or follies of christians should be imputed to christianity. of both folly and vice it is notorious professing christians have 'the lion's share.' yet the apologists of christianity, who would fain have us believe the lives of atheists a consequence of atheism, will by no means believe that the lives of christians are a consequence of christianity. let no one suppose the author of this apology is prepared to allow that atheists are men of cruel dispositions or vicious. he will not say with coleridge that only men of good hearts and strong heads can be atheists, but he is quite ready to maintain that the generality of atheists are men of mild, generous, peaceable studious dispositions, who desire the overthrow of superstition, or true religion as its devotees call it, because convinced a superstitious people never can be enlightened, virtuous, free, or happy. their love of whatever helps on civilisation and disgust of war are testified to even by opponents. we may learn from the writings of lord bacon not only his _opinion_ that atheism leaves men to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which, he justly observes, may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but the _fact_ that 'the times inclined to atheism (as the times of augustus caesar) were civil times.' nay, he expressly declared 'atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves as looking no further.' [76:1] can the same be said of religion? will any one have the hardihood to say religion did never perturb states, or that the times inclined to religion (as the times of oliver cromwell) were civil times, or that it makes man wary of themselves as looking no further? during times inclined to religion more than one hundred thousand witches were condemned to die by christian tribunals in accordance with the holy text, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. during times inclined to religion it was usual to burn, broil, bake, or otherwise murder heretics for the glory of god, and at the same time to spare the vilest malefactors. during times inclined to religion, it has been computed that in spain alone no less than 32,382 people were, by the faithful, burnt alive; 17,690 degraded and burnt in effigy; and all the goods and chattels of the enormous number of 291,450 consigned to the chancery of the inquisition. [77:1] in short, during those 'good old times,' men yielded themselves up to practices so strangely compounded of cruelty and absurdity, that one finds it difficult to believe accounts of them, however well authenticated. speaking of the bigotted fury of certain ecclesiastics, hippolyto joseph de costa, in his 'narrative of the persecution' he suffered while lodged gratis by the portuguese inquisition for the pretended crime of free masonry, says, it would exceed the bounds of credulity, had not facts in corroboration of it been so established by witnesses, that nothing can shake them. among ecclesiastics of this denomination we may mention that pontiff, who, from a vile principle of hate for his predecessor, to whom he had been an enemy, as soon as he ascended the papal chair directed the corpse to be taken out from the grave, had the fingers and the head cut off and thrown into the sea, ordered the remainder of the body to be burnt to ashes and excommunicated the soul. could revenge be carried farther than in this instance? the institution itself of the inquisition and the cruelty with which its members persecute those whom they suspect of tenets different from their own, may well excite surprise. in their eyes the tortures and the death of their fancied enemies are a mere amusement. they burn some of their prisoners alive, render their memories infamous, and prosecute their children and all the connections of these unhappy sufferers; they deprive orphans of the inheritance of their parents, dishonour families in every possible shape, and at length have recourse to the auto da fe, [77:2] on which occasion, while the miserable wretches are lingering in torments, the members of the inquisition not only feast their eyes with this infernal spectacle, but regale themselves with their friends at the expense of their unhappy victims. such are the practises of the inquisition. when those spanish christians who amused themselves by hanging poor wretches, thirteen in a row, in honour of the thirteen apostles, were taunted with cruelty, they boldly affirmed that as god had not redeemed with his blood the souls of the indians, no difference should be made between them and the lowest of beasts. in irvings history of new york is a letter written, we are told, by a spanish priest, to his superior in spain, which, 'among other curiosities, contain this question--'can any one have the presumption to say these savage pagans have yielded anything more than an inconsiderable recompense to their benefactors, in surrendering to them a little pitiful tract of this dirty sublunary planet in exchange for a glorious inheritance hereafter.' such is the conceit as well as cruelty of men who imagine themselves the vicegerents and avengers of deity. in his name they burn, and slay, and rob without compunction or remorse; nay, when like sir giles overreach, their ears are pierced by widows cries, and undone orphans wash with tears their thresholds, they only think what 'tis to make themselves acceptable in the sight of god. believing pious ends justify any means, they glory in conduct the most repugnant to every principle of decency, equity, and humanity. in the cathedral of saragossa, is a magnificent tomb, raised, in honor of a famous inquisitor; around it are six pillars, to each of which is chained a moor preparatory to his being burnt. and if additional evidence were needed of human folly, and stupid disposition, like dray horses to go perpetually, on 'one's nose in t'others tail,' we have it in the astounding fact, that when the spanish cortes proposed the abolition of the inquisition, the populace of spain considered such proposal, 'an infringement of their liberties.' [78:1] we have it on respectable authority, that torquemada in the space of fourteen years that he wielded the chief inquisitorial powers, robbed, or otherwise persecuted eighty thousand persons, of whom about six thousand were committed to the flames. inquisitors made no secret of their hatred towards heretics; to destroy them they considered a sacred duty. far from ashamed of their cruelty towards heretics, they gloried in it, as undeniable evidence of their enthusiasm in the cause of christ. simoncas, one of their most esteemed writers, said, 'the heretics deserve not merely one death, but many deaths; because a single death is the punishment of an ordinary heretic; but these (the heretics) are deserving of punishment without mercy, and particularly the teachers of the lutheran heresy, who must by no means be spared.' pegma, another of their writers, insists, that dogmatical heretics should be punished with death, even though they gave the most unequivocal proof of their repentance. that eminently pious monarch, phillip the second of spain, so loved to hear heretics groan, that he rarely missed auto da fes; at one of which several distinguished persons were to be burnt for heresy; among the rest don john de cesa, who while passing by him, said,' sire, how can you permit so many unfortunate persons to suffer? how can you be witness of so horrid a sight without shuddering?' phillip coolly replied, 'if my son, sir, were suspected of heresy, i should myself hand him over to the inquisition.' 'my detestation,' continued he, 'of you and your companions is so great, that i would act myself as your executioner, if no other could be found.' phillip the fifth, as may be seen in coxe's memoirs of the kings of spain, 'presented about the year 1172, three standards taken from 'infidels' to our lady of atocha; and sent another to the pope, as the grateful homage of the catholic king to the head of the church. he also, for the first time, attended the celebration of an auto da fe, at which in the commencement of his reign he had refused with horror to appear, and witnessed the barbarous ceremony of committing twelve jews and mohammedans to the flames.' so great during times inclined to religion was inquisitorial power, that monarchs and statesmen of liberal tendencies were constrained to quail before it. it is related that a jewish girl, entered into her seventeenth year, extremely beautiful, who in a public _act of faith_, at madrid, june 30th, 1680, together with twenty others of the same nation of both sexes, being condemned to the stake, turned herself to the queen of spain, then present, and prayed, that out of her goodness and clemency she might be delivered from the dreadful punishment of the fire. 'great queen,' said she, 'is not your presence able to bring me some comfort under my misery? consider my youth, and that i am condemned for a religion which i have sucked in with my mother's milk.' the queen turned away her eyes, declaring, she pitied the miserable creature, but did not dare to intercede for her with a single word. not only have roman catholic writers defended these inquisitorial abominations, but, with what every protestant must needs consider daring and blasphemous impiety, laboured to prove that the first inquisitor was god himself. luis de paramo, for instance, in his book 'de origine et progressu officii sanctoe inquisitionis, ejusque dignitate et utilitate,' proves god to be the first inquisitor, and that in the garden of eden was the first auto da fe. nor do these most pious casuists discover anything in scripture which forbids the burning of heretics, notwithstanding such texts as 'whosoever sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed,' which they contend inquisitors do never violate the true meaning or spirit of, it being evident that to burn men is not to shed their blood--thus eluding the maxim ecclesia non novit sanguinem. and if their right to burn heretics was questioned they triumphantly cited the text (as given in the 'beehive' of the romish church) 'whosoever doth not abide in me, shall be cast out of the vineyard as a branch and there wither; and men gather those branches and cast them into the fire and burn them.' on this text john andreas, panormitamis, hostraensii, bernardus leizenburgen, and others of the roman catholic casuists built up their proof that heretics, like grape branches, should be cast into the fire and burnt. the execrable duplicity of these men is by protestant priests made the theme of unsparing invective, as if the burning of heretics and its justification by scripture were crimes peculiar to roman catholics, when in point of fact both have been shamelessly committed by christians rejoicing in the name of protestants. john calvin burnt servetus, and robert hall, as we have seen, applauded the act. england, to say nothing of other countries, has had its auto da fe, as well since as before the reformation. heretics were first made bonfires of in england during the reign of henry the fourth, who permitted the abomination in order to please certain bishops he was under obligation to for assisting him to depose richard the second and usurp his throne. but that the practice of committing heretics to the flame prevailed in england long after popery ceased to be the dominant religion is notorious. if heretics were thus sacrificed by henry the fourth to please popish bishops, they were also sacrificed by elizabeth with a view to the satisfaction of protestant bishops. cranmer literally compelled her brother, the amiable edward, to send a half crazed woman named joan boacher to the stake. elizabeth herself caused two dutch anabaptists to be burnt in smithfield, though it is but just to admit that, unlike her sullen sister, she preferred rather to hang than to burn heretics. lord brougham has recently done mankind another valuable piece of service by painting the portrait of that protestant princess in colours at once so lively and faithful that none, save the lovers of vulgar fanaticism and murderous hypocrisy, will gaze on it without horror. [81:1] 'mary, honoured with the title of "bloody," appears to me a far more estimable character than her ripping-up sister elizabeth, who, when mary, on her death-bed, asked her for a real avowal of her religion, "prayed god" that the earth might open and swallow her up if she was not a true roman catholic.' she made the same declaration to the duke of ferria, the spanish ambassador, who was so deceived that he wrote to philip, stating no change in religious matters would take place on her accession, and soon afterwards began ripping up the bellies of catholics. that was quite the fashionable punishment in this and the succeeding reign. i have the account, with names, dates, and reference of no less than 101 more catholics who were burnt, hung, ripped up, &c., by elizabeth, and on to charles the second's end, than there were protestants in mary's, and all the reigns which preceded her, letting lying fox count all he has got. elizabeth, too, was by law a bastard, and is to this day; and so soon did her intentions appear of changing the religion, that all the bishops but one refused to crown her; and when this was done, it was by the catholic ritual. however the act-of-parliament religion was set up again; the prayer book of cranmer was set up again, after sundry alterations: it was altered too, in edward's reign, yet when first made, it was duly declared to come from the 'holy ghost;' so it was after its second polishing under elizabeth. to refuse the queen's supremacy was death; it was death to continue in that religion, which, at her coronation she had sworn to firmly believe and defend. it was high treason to admit or harbour, or relieve a priest, and hosts of these were ripped up, for, in the piety of their hearts, risking all to afford the consolations of their religion to the catholics of england. victim after victim came to the sacrifice, mostly from the college of douay. it is really horrible to read of these good and faithful champions of their religion being hung, cut down instantaneously, their bellies ripped up, their hearts cut out, their bodies chopped in pieces with every insult and indignity added to injury, all through this reign, and then to be talked to about 'bloody mary,' and the 'good queen-bess.' verily, countrymen, you are vilely deceived. taking into account the rippings, and burnings, and roastings, and hanging; the racks, whips, fines, imprisonments, and other horrors of the reign of this 'good bess,' there was a hundred times more human misery inflicted in her reign than in that of' bloody mary.' [82:1] the second catherine of russia, though remarkable for rigid and scrupulous adherence to the ceremonial mummeries of her 'true church,' was at the same time as remarkable for liberality of sentiment. it is said, that upon a certain occasion, being strongly advised by her ministers to deal out severe punishment on some heretics of atheistical tendencies, who had given offence by rather freely expressing their opinions, she laughingly said, 'oh, fie, gentlemen fie, if these heretics are to be eternally miserable in the other world, we really ought to let them be comfortable in this.' few religious persons are liberal as this empress, whose strong good sense seems to have been fully a match for her bad education: that education was christian. she was taught to loathe the opinions, aye, and the persons, of heretics, under which denomination may be included all dissenters from religious truth as it was in her, or rather in the church of which she was chief member. no other kind of teaching is accounted orthodox in our 'land of bibles' than that of state paid priests of law established religion. look at the true church of england's thirty-nine articles. do they not abound in anathema, and literally teem with the venom of intolerance? do they not shock the better feelings even of those who believe them divine? the truth is, all priests teach religion which no wit can reconcile with reason, and very many of them make their followers believe, and perhaps believe themselves, that to villify, abuse, and hunt down 'infidels,' are acts acceptable in the sight of god. the idea of compensating poor unbelievers in this world by an extra quantum of comfort for the torments they are doomed to suffer in the next, never enters their head. indeed, not a few of them gloat with satisfaction over the prospect of 'infidels' gnashing their teeth in that fiery gulph prepared for the devil and his angels. by this odious class of fanatics neither the worm that dieth not, nor the flame never to be extinguished, is deemed sufficient punishment for the wretch whose thoughts concerning religion are not as their thoughts. by them the imagined 'creator of the heavens and the earth' is dressed, up in attributes the most frightful. witness the character of him implied in the conceit of that popular preacher who declared 'there are children in hell not a span long'--a declaration which could only be made by one whose humanity was extinguished by divinity. our pulpits can furnish many such preachers of 'a religion of charity,' while a whole army of christian warriors might be gathered from metropolitan pulpits alone, who deeming it impious to say their god of mercy would permit the burning of infants not a span long, do nevertheless, firmly believe that 'children of a larger growth' may justly be tormented by the great king of kings; and as _ignorantia legis non excusat_ is a maxim of _human law_, so, according to them, ignorance of _divine_ law is no excuse whatever, either for breaking or disregarding it. the author of this apology was recently in scotland, where a vast number of religious tracts were put into his hand, one of which contains the following among other striking paragraphs:-'man could, not _create_ himself, and far less can he save himself. when god made him, he brought him out of nothing; when god. saves him, he brings him out of a state far lower and worse than nothing. if in the one case, then, everything depended, upon god's will and decree, much more in the other. there can be no injustice here. had god pleased, he might have saved the whole world. but he did not; and thousands are now in hell, and shall be to all eternity.' 'hell is peopled already with millions of immortal souls doomed to fiery wrath; while heaven is filled with ransomed sinners as vile, yea perhaps viler than they.' [83:1] if the writer of this horrid nonsense do not blaspheme, there surely can be no possibility of blaspheming. if he do not impute to his god of mercy cruelty and injustice the most monstrous that can enter into human conception, all language is void of meaning, and men had far better cease 'civilising,' and betake themselves to woods and wilds and fastnesses, to enjoy the state of mere brutishness so infinitely preferable to that _reasonable_ state in which they are shaken and maddened by terrible dreams of a vengeful cruel god. better be with the dead than on the tortures of the mind to lie in restless ecstacy. better, far better, roam the desert or the forest like any other brutes, than educate ourselves and others into the monstrous belief in a god who might have saved the world and would not; who predestinates to endless and unutterable agonies; who has with the one hand peopled hell with millions of immortal creatures, while with the other has filled heaven with millions of ransomed sinners, as vile, yea perhaps viler than they. in justice however to the large class of christians under the despotic and truly lamentable influence of this belief, the author is bound to admit that they are far more consistent and logical in their notions of deity than perhaps any other section of theists, for it cannot properly be denied that the doctrine of an omnipotent and prescient god destroys all distinction of virtue and vice, justice and injustice, right and wrong, among men. let the omnipotency and prescience of a first cause be granted, the corollary of 'whatever is, is right,' is one of the most obvious that can flow from any proposition: the distance of any link in the eternal sequence cannot lessen the connection with a first cause, admitting its omnipotency and prescience. the author of these detestable paragraphs admits both. he is a rigid predestinarian, which no one can be who doubts the all powerfulness or foreknowledge of that god whom christians worship. taking scripture as his guide, the predestinarian must needs believe some are foredoomed to hell, and some to hell, irrespective of all merit; it being manifestly absurd to suppose one man can deserve more or less than another, in a world, where all are compelled to believe, feel, and act, as they do believe, feel, and act. the disgrace attached to the memory of judas, supposing him really to have betrayed his divine master, has no foundation in human justice, for 'surely as the lord liveth,' he was foredoomed, and therefore compelled to betray him. luther saw that truth, and had the good sense to avow it. no more rational or just are the denunciations of judas than those so unsparingly heaped upon the jews for crucifying the redeemer of the world, when every body must, or at least, should know, that admitting the world's redemption depended upon the crucifixion of christ, if the jews had _not_ crucified him the world could not have been redeemed. so far then from blackguarding judas and the jews for doing, what in the gospel they are represented to have done, we should consider them rather as martyrs in the cause of divine providence than as villains worthy only of abhorrence and execration. to the author of this apology it seems certain that if there is a god, such as the christian delighteth to honour, nothing happens, nothing has happened, nothing can happen contrary to his will. and is it not absurd to say that what he pre-ordains mere mortals can hinder coming to pass? even the devil, believed in by christians, is a creature--how then could he be anything else than the creator thought fit to make him? grant he is the father of lies, and then he will appear worthy of compassion, if you reflect that he was made so by the father of truth. in the tract to which such special reference has been made, it is contended that adam was made not because he chose to be made, but because god chose to make him, and surely the same may be contended on the part of judas, the jews, and last, though, assuredly, not least, the devil himself. he who is without god cannot run into absurdities and blasphemies like these, whereas he who is with one cannot keep clear of them. if consistent he must clothe him with calvinistic attributes. to present him stripped of foreknowledge, or omnipotency would outrage all just conception of that 'immense being' who brought his worshippers out of nothing. and yet if we allow him these attributes there is no help for us, headlong we go into the dark and fathomless doctrine of predestination, than which no religious doctrine is so consistent or so revolting. receive it, and at once you find yourself bound heart and brain to belief in a supernatural monster--'a vengeful, pitiless, and almighty fiend, whose mercies are a nickname for the rage of hungry tigers.' the believers in this terrible offspring of heated imagination, naturally aim at imitating, and thus rendering themselves acceptable, to him. here is the source, whence for ages have flowed the bitter waters of religious intolerance. if calvin had not worshipped a cruel god, he never could have hoped to please him by the murder of servetius. if cranmer had wanted lively faith in a god who people's hell 'with millions of immortal souls,' he never would have brought joan bocher to the stake. full of that christian zeal, so 'apt to tarn sour,' these men lived like the hermit honorius, 'in hopes of gaining heaven by making earth a hell.' the savage bigotry of an elizabeth or a mary, naturally resulted from the notion that monarchs unquestionably ruling by divine right, were called upon by every earthly, as well as heavenly consideration, to prove their zeal in the cause of god, by destroying his adversaries. heretics have been consigned to dungeon and to name, for his glory, and his satisfaction. all inquisitors from st. dominic downward, have indignantly repelled the charge that they have punished heretics just to glut their own appetite for cruelty. worshippers of a god who saith, 'vengeance is mine,' they have felt themselves mere instruments in his hands; of themselves, and for themselves, they did nothing; all was for god. to please him, the jew and the heretic shrieked amid the flames. they are not ashamed, why should they? to perform his behests. when the late duke of york was about to leave lisbon, its inquisitor-general waited upon him, with a humble request that he would delay his departure for a few days, in order to make one at an auto da fe, where it was kindly promised, some jews should be burnt for his diversion: so cruel and so blind are the superstitious. queen mary has long been the mark at which our most eloquent protestant divines have aimed their shafts, while of her no less 'bloody' sister's reputation, they have been most watchful and tender. with respect to _her_ persecution of heretics, they preserve a death-like silence. fear of damaging protestantism deters them from exposing the enormous abomination of protestant monarchs. against the bigotry of catholics they hurl the fiercest denunciations; but if called upon to denounce as fiercely the bigotry of protestants, they make us understand 'the case being altered, that alters the case.' a popish inquisition they abhor, but see no evil in inquisitions of their own. smithfield auto da fe's, according to these consistent christians, were wrong during the reign of mary, and right during the reign of her pious sister, 'good queen bess.' such is the justice of superstition. its votaries knowing themselves the favoured of heaven, feel privileged to outrage and trample under foot the great principles of sense, propriety, and honour. between catholics and protestants as regards these principles there is little to distinguish; for in the race of abomination, they have kept pretty nearly neck and neck. the author of this apology has no sympathy with either, but of the two much prefers popery. there is about it a breadth of purpose, a grandeur, and a potency which excites some respect, even in the breast of an enemy. unreasonable it assuredly is, but christians who object to it on that ground, may be told--religion was never meant to be reasonable; and that an appeal to rational principles will as little avail one religion as another, as little avail protestant as roman catholic faith. all religion is unreasonable, and, moreover, to rationalize would be to destroy it. hobbes could discover nothing in superstition essentially different from religion, nor can we. he deemed true religion as the religion which is fashionable, and superstition as the religion which is not fashionable. so do we, so do all absolute atheists. the notion that false religion implies the true, just as base coin implies the pure, will have weight with those, and only those, who cannot detect the sophistry of an argument _a rubii toto caelo differentibus_; or in plain english, from things entirely different presumed to be similar. between coin and religion there is no precise analogy. false coin implies true coin, because none are sceptical as to the reality of true coin, but false religion does not necessarily imply true religion, because the reality of true religion is not only questionable, but questioned. it is not usual for money-dealers to be at issue as to the quality of their cash. the genuine article will stand the test, and always passes muster. a practised ear can easily decide between the rival claims of two half-crowns, one genuine, the other spurious, thrown upon a tradesman's counter. but where are the scales in which we can weigh to a nicety true and false religions? where is the ear so well practised and so delicately sensitive as to distinguish the true from the 'number without number' of false voices raised in their behalf? where the eye so perfectly theologic, so sharp, piercing, and free of that film called prejudice, as to see which of our religions is the genuine article? all are agreed as to the genuineness of current money. all are at 'daggers drawn' as to the genuineness of any one religion. that christianity is true no christian denies, but which is the true christianity _has not_ and we think _cannot_ be determined. the knot of old fashioned politicians who call themselves young england, are enamoured of 'graceful superstition.' alarmed at the march of reason, and admirers of 'blind faith in mystery,' they sigh for a renewal of those times when no one doubted the propriety of drowning witches, or being touched for the king's evil. _cui bono_ is the question repeatedly put to the proselytising atheist by this modern antique class of persons, who cannot see the utility of destroying the vital principle of all religions. but if that principle is false, no sane man can doubt the expediency of proving it so. falsehood may be useful to individuals, but cannot tend to the moral and political advancement of nations. apologists of error find the presumed unfitness of their fellow creatures to appreciate truth a sufficient reason for not teaching it. to raise up the populace to their own intellectual level they deem impracticable, and therefore speak down to their lowest passions and prejudices: like varro they contend there are some truths the vulgar had better think falsehoods, and many falsehoods they had better think truths. the consequences of such 'moral swindling' are everywhere visible: on all sides superstition, wild, unreasoning, senseless superstition rears its hateful front, and vomits forth anathema on the friend of progress, humanity, and social justice. look at ireland: see to what a pandaemonium superstition has converted 'the first flower of the land and first gem of the sea.' in that unhappy country may be seen seven or eight millions of people cheated, willingly defrauded of their substance, by a handful of designing priests, who, dead to shame, erect the most stupid credulity into exalted virtue --battle in support of ignorance because knowledge is incompatible with their 'blood-cemented pyramid of greatness,' and to aggrandise themselves, perpetuate the vilest as well as most palpable delusions that ever assumed the mask of divine truth. daniel o'connell may object to have them called 'surpliced ruffians,' not so the philosopher, who sees in pious fraud on a gigantic scale, the worst species of ruffianism that ever disgraced the earth. these are no new tangled or undigested notions. from age to age the wisest among men have abhorred and denounced superstition. it is true that only a small section of them treated religion as if _necessarily_ superstition, or went quite so far as john adams, who said, _this would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it_. but an attentive reading of ancient and modern philosophical books has satisfied the author of this apology that through all recorded time, religion has been _tolerated_ rather than _loved_ by great thinkers, who had _will_, but not _power_ to wage successful war upon it. gibbon speaks of pagan priests who, 'under sacerdotal robes, concealed the heart of an atheist.' now, these priests were also the philosophers of rome, and it is not impossible that some modern philosophical priests, like their pagan prototypes, secretly despise the religion they openly profess. avarice, and lust of power, are potent underminers of human virtue. the mighty genius of bacon was not proof against them, and he who deserves to occupy a place among 'the wisest and greatest' has been 'damned to eternal fame' as the, 'meanest of mankind.' nor are avarice and lust of power the only base passions under the influence of which men, great in intellect, have given the lie to their own convictions, by calling that religion which they knew to be rank superstition. fear of punishment for writing truth is the grand cause why their books contain so little of it. if bacon had openly treated christianity as mere superstition, will any one say that his life would have been worth twenty-four hours purchase. he lived at a time when heresy, to say nothing of atheism, was _rewarded_ with death. bacon was not the man to be ambitious of such a reward. few great geniuses are. philosophers seldom covet martyrdom, and hence it came to pass that few of them would run the terrible risk of provoking bigotted authority by the 'truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth' concerning religion. in our own day the smell of a faggot would be too much for the nostrils of, that still unamiable but somewhat improved animal, called the public. one delightful as well as natural consequence is, that philosophical writers do ever and anon deal much more freely with religion than its professors are _disposed_, though _compelled_, to tolerate. but, even now, with all our boasted liberty of conscience, not one in one thousand of those who _think_ truth about religion dare express it. philosophy still exhibits, in deference to popular prejudice and fanaticism, what the great french maximist defined as 'the homage that vice pays to virtue.' such is the rule to which, most fortunately for the pause of truth, there are many, and some splendid, exceptions. one of these is worth citing not only because of its intrinsic merit, but because the thing to be cited includes an opinion of religion, and a marked distinction between what is _pious_ and what is honest, that calls for especial notice. the exception referred to is a paragraph from a paper on saint simonianism, written by colonel thompson, and originally published in the westminster review, of april 1, 1832, containing these remarkable words:--'the world wants _honest_ law-givers, not pious ones. if piety will make men honest, let them favour us with the honesty and keep the piety for god and their own consciences. there never was a man that brought piety upon the board when honesty would do, without its being possible to trace a transfusion in the shape of money or money's worth, from his neighbour's pocket into his. the object of puzzling the question with religion is clear. you cannot quarrel for sixpences with the man who is helping you the way to heaven. the man who wants your sixpences, therefore, assumes a religious phraseology, which is cant, and cant is fraud, and fraud is dishonesty, and the dishonest should have a mark set on them.' there is an old story about a certain lady who said to her physician, 'doctor, what is your religion?' 'my religion, madam,' replied the doctor, 'is the religion of all sensible men.' 'what kind of religion is that?' said the lady. 'the religion, madam,' quoth the doctor, 'that no sensible man will tell.' this doctor may be taken as a type of the class of shrewd people who despise religion, but will say nothing about it, lest by so doing they give a shock to prejudice, and thus put in peril certain professional or other emoluments. too sensible to be pious, and too cautious to be honest, they must be extremely well paid ere they will incur the risk attendant upon a confession of irreligious faith. like colonel thompson, they know the world needs _honest_ lawgivers not pious ones, but unlike him, they won't say so. animated by a vile spirit of accommodation, their whole sum of practical wisdom can be told in four words--be silent and safe. they are amazed at the 'folly' of those who make sacrifices at the shrine of sincerity; and while sagacious enough to perceive that religion is a clumsy political contrivance, are not wanting in the prudence which dictates at least a warning conformity to prevailing prejudices. none have done more to perpetuate error than these time serving 'men of the world,' for instead of boldly attacking it, they preserve a prudent silence which bigots do not fail to interpret as consent. mosheim says, [90:1] 'the simplicity and ignorance of the generality in those times (fifth century) furnished the most favourable occasion for the exercise of fraud; and the impudence of imposters, in contriving false miracles, was artfully proportioned to the credulity of the vulgar; while the sagacious and the wise, who perceived these cheats, were overawed into silence by the dangers that threatened their lives and fortunes, if they should expose the artifice. thus,' continues this author, 'does it generally happen, when danger attends the discovery and the profession of the truth, the prudent are _silent_, the multitude _believe_, and impostors _triumph_.' beausobre, too, in his learned, account of manicheism reads a severe lesson to the 'sensible _dummies_, who, under the influence of such passions as _fear_ and _avarice_, will do nothing to check the march of superstition, or relieve their less 'sensible,' but more honest, fellow-creatures from the weight of its fetters. after alluding to an epistle written by that 'demi-philosopher,' synesius, when offered by the patriarch the bishopric of ptolemais, [91:1] beausobre says, 'we see in the history that i have related a kind of hypocrisy, which, perhaps, has been far too common in all times. it is that of ecclesiastics, who not only do not say what they think, but the reverse of what they think. philosophers in their closet, when out of them they are content with fables, though they know well they are fables. they do more; they deliver to the executioner the excellent men who have said it. how many atheists and profane persons have brought holy men to the stake under the pretext of heresy? every day, hypocrites consecrate the host and cause it to be adored, although firmly convinced as i am that it is nothing more than a piece of bread.' whatever may be urged in defence of such execrable duplicity, there can be no question as to its anti-progressive tendency. the majority of men are fools, and if such 'sensible' politicians as our doctor and the double doctrinising persecuting ecclesiastics, for whose portraits we are indebted to mosheim and beausobre, shall have the teaching of them, fools they are sure to remain. men who dare not be 'mentally faithful' to themselves may obstruct, but cannot advance the interests of truth. colonel thompson is right. in legislation, in law, in all the relations of life, we want _honesty_, not piety. there is plenty of piety, and to spare, but of honesty--sterling, bold, uncompromising honesty--even the best regulated societies can boast a very small stock. the men best qualified to raise the veil under which truth lies concealed from vulgar gaze, are precisely the men who fear to do it. oh, shame upon ye self-styled philosophers, who in your closets laugh at 'our holy religion,' and in your churches do them reverence. were your bosoms warmed by one spark of generous wisdom, _silence_ on the question of religion would be broken, the multitude cease to _believe_, and imposters to _triumph_. but the desire to enlighten others is lost in regard for yourselves, and what mrs. grundy may say, is sufficient to frighten ye from the enunciation truth. is superstition no evil? is there nothing hateful, nothing against which unceasing war should be waged, in the degradation of those unhappy persons who worship idols of their own imagination? can error be fraught with good and truth with evil, that we should shrink from doing justice to both? everywhere are learnedly ignorant or basely cunning men, who would scare us from dealing with religious error, as all error deserves to be dealt with, by high-sounding jargon about the danger of freeing vulgar minds from the wholesome restraints of certain antiquated beliefs. themselves essentially vulgar by habit and in feeling, their estimate of human tendencies is of the meanest, the most grovelling description. measuring the _chaff_ of other men by their own bushel, they arrive at the pious but false conclusion that without fear of god there can be no genuine love of man, and that without faith in some one of our five hundred and odd true religions, all the thoughts of our hearts would be evil continually. they insist upon it that the 'absolute atheist,' if virtuous, is so by accident not design; that he can neither love truth, justice, nor his neighbour, except by sheer luck, and that, if bad as his principles, would cut the throat of every man, woman, and child who might have the misfortune to fall in his way. they argue as if none can think good thoughts or purposely perform good acts unless so far eaten up by superstition as always to keep in view the probable _rewards_, or equally probable _vengeance_ of some supernatural being. faith in human goodness, irrespective of reward and punishment, either here or hereafter, sophists of this bigotted class have literally none. influenced by fanaticism and stimulated by cupidity they let slip no opportunity of dealing out upon such as oppose their hideous doctrines the choicest sort of vituperative blackguardism. the reader knows this is no idle or ill-considered charge. he has seen at the commencement of this apology verbatim extracts, affecting the moral character of atheists, from books written by pious christians, so utterly disgusting that only those in whom every sense of delicacy, truth, and justice has been obliterated, by a worse than savage creed, can peruse them without horror. not inaptly, we conceive, has religion been likened to a madman's robe, for the least puff of reason parts it and shows the wearer's nakedness. this view of religion explains the otherwise inexplicable fact that eminent piety is usually associated with eminent imbecility. such men as newton, locke, and bacon are not remembered and reverenced on account of their faith. by all but peddling narrow-thoughted bigots they are held in honour for their science, their matter-of-fact philosophy; not their puerile conceits about 'airy nothings,' to which half crazed supernaturalists have assigned 'a local habitation and a name.' lord bacon laid down principles so remote from pious, that no man can understand and philosophise in strict accordance with them, if he fears to embrace atheism. from his _novum organum scientiarum_ may be extracted an antidote to the poison of superstition, for it is there we are told that _aiming at divine things through the human, breeds only an odd mixture of imaginations_. there we are told that _man, the servant and interpreter of nature, can only understand and act in proportion as he observes or contemplates the order of nature--more he cannot do._ there too is set down the wise lesson that truth is justly to be called the daughter, not of authority, but time. bacon abhorred superstition. he denounced it as the 'confusion of many states,' and for a 'religious philosopher' wrote most liberally of atheism. no one who has read his essay on superstition can doubt that he thought it a far greater evil than atheism. any man who should now write as favourably of godlessness would be suspected of a latitudinarianism quite inimical to the genius and spirit of 'true religion.' the orthodox much prefer false piety to no piety at all. mere honesty does not satisfy them. they insist on faith in their chimerical doctrines and systems, as 'the basis of all excellence.' to please them we must sacrifice truth as it is in nature, at the shrine of truth as it is in jesus, and believe what derives no sanction from experience. bacon taught us to 'interpret nature,' and that 'aiming at the divine through the human breeds only an odd mixture of imaginations;' but these hair-brained fanatics who would have us believe him _one of them_, care little for natural knowledge, and affect contempt for all that concerns most intimately our 'earthly tabernacles.' bacon taught us to _consider as suspicious every relation, which depends in any degree upon religion_, [93:1] but wiser than that 'wisest of mankind,' our _real_ christians execrate such teaching, and will have nothing _good_ to do with those who walk in the light and honestly act in the spirit of it. how dare they then pretend to sympathise with the opinions of bacon? it is true he announced himself willing to swallow all the fables of the talmud or the koran, rather than believe this almighty frame without a mind; but who is now prepared to determine the precise sense in which our illustrious philosopher used the words 'without a mind.' we believe his own interpretation altogether unchristian. 'to palter in a double sense' has ever been the practice of philosophers who, like bacon, knew more than they found it discreet to utter. but with all their discretion, locke, milton, and even newton did not succeed in establishing an orthodox reputation. the passages from locke given in this apology do at least warrant our opinion that it may fairly be doubted whether he was either a christian or a theist. had he been disposed to avow atheistical sentiments, he could not have done so, except at the imminent hazard of his life. speculative philosophers do not usually covet the crown of martyrdom, and are seldom unwilling to fling down a few religious sops to the cerberus of popular bigotry. it was the boast of synesius, bishop of ptolemais, that when communing with himself, he was always a philosopher, but when dealing with the mass of mankind, he was always a priest. who knows how far john locke followed the _safe_ example. that he was a materialist his writings prove; and every far sighted theist will admit that atheism is the natural termination of materialism. john locke may have been a devout believer in 'thingless names,' to which no merely human creature can attach clear and distinct ideas: he may have thought the bible had one of the said 'thingless names' for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without mixture of error for its matter; though very probable he affected such belief, to shield himself from persecution; but it is quite certain, and may be affirmed without injustice, that he should to have professed atheism; for his own rule of philosophising is inconsistent with belief in any thing supernatural. while living he was often charged with atheism, by opponents who understood the tendencies of his philosophy better than he appeared to do himself. but the author of this apology has no such mean opinion of john locke, as to suppose him ignorant that materialism, as he taught it, is totally irreconcileable with that god, and that religion in which he professed to believe. belief in inconceivable entities cannot be reconciled with disbelief of all entities, save those of which we can frame clear and distinct ideas. nor is it easy to persuade oneself that locke could so far have done violence to his own principles as to feel 'lively faith' in a 'science' with no other aim, end, or ground-work, than 'the knowledge and attributes of the unknown.' by a late writer in the edinburgh review, we are told that 'some of the opinions avowed by milton,' were so 'heterodox,' as to have 'excited considerable amazement.' we can scarcely conceive, says this writer, that any one could have read his paradise lost without suspecting him of heterodoxy; nor do we think that any reader acquainted with the history of his life, ought to be much startled by his opinions on marriage. the opinions which he expressed regarding the nature of the deity, the eternity of matter, and the observation of the sabbath, might, we think, have caused more just surprise. [95:1] add to this good reader, dr. johnson's statement, ('lives of the poets,' p. 134, art. milton,) that in the distribution of his (milton's) hours _there was no hour of prayer, either solitary or with his household_; and then come, if you can, to the conclusion that he was a christian. the piety of newton we are not prepared to dispute. it is certain he manufactured for himself a god, inasmuch as to space he ascribed the honor of being his sensorium. it is equally clear that he believed christianity a divine system, inasmuch as he wrote, and rushed into print with, a lot of exquisite nonsense about the exquisitely nonsensical apocalypse. but we defy pietists to ferret out of his religious writings, any argument in defence of religion, not absolutely beneath contempt; the best of them are execrably bad--mere ravings of a disordered and o'erwrought intellect. 'the sublime newton,' said d'holbach, 'is but a child when he quits physical science, to lose himself in the imaginary regions of theology.' he failed, nevertheless, to achieve the favour, or escape the wrath, of thorough-going theologians who were in ecstacies at his childishness, but bitterly detested him, as they detested every man who had the audacity to open up new, and widen old fields, of investigation; to reject chimera and hold fast by fact in the pursuit of knowledge, and to teach a series of scientific truths, no ability can reconcile with the philosophy (?) of jesus and moses, who, according to wise dr. epps, never intended to teach man natural science, which he defines to be 'god in creation;' but 'came to teach, in referring to natural events, scientific untruths. [95:2] the author hopes that the opinions here advanced in reference to what may be named the argument from 'authority,' as contradistinguished from 'time,' will make obvious to christians themselves, that it is an unsafe argument, an argument which, like the broken reed, not only fails, but cruelly wounds the hand that rests upon it. much evidence _has been_, and much more _can be_ adduced to show that no prudent, well-informed christian will say anything about the sanction lent to christianity, or religion of any sort, by the writings of newton, milton, bacon, and locke. by admirers of such sanction, (?) this, our apology for atheism will, no doubt, be rejected with indignant contempt, but we venture to predict for it better treatment at the hands of those who are convinced that _untruth_ can no more be _scientific_, than truth can be _unscientific_, and that belief, whether in the god of nature, the god of scripture, or the scripture itself, opposed to philosophy, must needs be opposed to reason and experience. [endnotes] [4:1] 25th of november, 1845. [5:1] vide 'time's' commissioner's letter on the condition of ireland,' november 28, 1843. [10:1] essay 'of the academical or sceptical philosophy.' [11:1] see the creeds of r. owen and r. carlile in no. 14 of the promptor. [11:2] 'essay of the idea of necessary connexion.' [11:3] 'essay of a providence and a future state.' [12:1] critical remarks on lord brougham's 'lives of men of letters and science, who flourished in the time of george iii.'--the times, wednesday, october i, 1845. [13:1] history of american savages. [13:2] appendix the second to 'plutarchus and theophrastus on superstition.' [13:3] philosophy of history. [15:1] see a notice of lord brougham's political philosophy, in the number for april, 1845. [20:1] 'apology for the bible,' page 133. [20:2] unusquisque vestrum non cogitate prius se debere deos nosse quam colere. [27:1] see a curious 'essay on nature.' printed for badcock and co., 2, queen's head passage, paternoster row. 1807. [31:1] elements of materialism, chapter i. [32:1] discussion on the existence of god, between origen bachelor and robert dale owen. [37:1] answer to dr. priestly on the existence of god, by a philosophical unbeliever. [40:1] treatise on human nature. [41:1] this sexing is a stock receipt for mystification.--_colonel thompson._ [44:1] the rev. j.e. smith. [46:1] 'an address on cerebral physiology and materialism,' delivered to the phrenological association in london, june 20, 1842. [49:1] no 40 of 'the shepherd.' [50:1] 'the shepherd,' vol. i., page 40. [52:1] extracts from an able letter to the editor of 'the shepherd,' in no. 23 of that periodical. [54:1] novum organon. [56:1] principia mathmatica, p. 528. lond. edit., l726. [63:1] see a pamphlet, price sixpence, entitled 'paley refuted in his own words,' by g.j. holyoake.' [63:2] lessing. [64:1] see "extract from an unpublished work, entitled the 'refutation of deism,'" by the late p.b. shelley--given in the model republic of may 1st, 1813. [68:1] 'westminster review' for may, 1843. [69:1] lecture by the rev. hugh m'neil, minister of st. jude's church, liverpool, delivered about seven years since, in presence of some 400 of the irish protestant clergy. [69:2] the necessary existence of deity, by william gillespie. [69:3] page 105 of a discussion on the existence of god, between origen batchelor and r.d. owen. [70:1] quoted by dr. samuel clarke, in his introduction to the scripture doctrine of the trinity. [72:1] history of england, p. 51. [75:1] 'dictionary of conversions,' page 4. [76:1] essay on superstition. [77:1] see article 'auto da fe,' vol. i. of 'recreative review,' published in 1821. [77:2] act of faith. [78:1] st. foix observes, with respect to this tomb, that if the jack ketch of any country should be rich enough to have a splendid tomb, this might serve as an excellent model. [81:1] 'lives of men of letters,' by henry lord brougham. [82:1] vol iii., page 593, 594, of 'a few hundred bible contradictions, a hunt after the devil, and other odd matters.' by john p.y., m.d. [83:1] no. 8 of j. rutherford's series of tracts, and entitled 'electing love.' [90:1] ecclesiastical history, vol. ii. page 11. [91:1] 'manicheisme,' tome ii, p. 568, 569. [93:1] nov. org., lib; ii. aph. 29. [95:1] see 'edinburgh review' containing a notice of milton's 'de doctrina christiana.' [95:2] page 55 of a pamphlet entitled, 'the devil.' _the expositor's library_ modern substitutes for christianity by the very rev. pearson mcadam muir d.d. minister of glasgow cathedral chaplain in ordinary to the king _christus vincit, christus regnat, christus imperat_ hodder and stoughton london -new york -toronto first published . . . december 1909 second edition . . . october 1912 in memoriam s. a. m. june 3, 1847. october 5, 1871 february 12, 1907 {vii} contents i page popular impeachments of christianity . . . . . 1 ii morality without religion . . . . . . . . . . 31 iii the religion of the universe . . . . . . . . . 63 iv the religion of humanity . . . . . . . . . . . 91 {viii} v theism without christ . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 vi the tribute of criticism to christ . . . . . . 171 appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 authorities consulted . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 {2} i popular impeachments of christianity 'why call ye me lord, lord, and do not the things which i say?'--s. luke vi. 46. 'the name of god is blasphemed among the gentiles through you.'--romans ii. 24. 'what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of god without effect?'--romans iii. 3. 'by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.'--2 s. peter ii. 1. 'so is the will of god, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.'--1 s. peter ii. 15. {3} i popular impeachments of christianity that there is at present a widespread alienation from the christian faith can hardly be denied. sometimes by violent invective, sometimes by quiet assumption, the conclusion is conveyed that christianity is obsolete. whatever benefits it may have conferred in rude, unenlightened ages, it is now outgrown, it is not in keeping with the science and discovery of modern times. 'the good lord jesus has had his day,'[1] is murmured in pitying condescension towards those who still suffer themselves to be deceived by the antiquated superstition. the statements in which our forefathers embodied the relations {4} between god and man are no longer, except by a very few, considered adequate; and there is everywhere a demand that those statements should be recast. is not all this an irresistible proof that the beliefs of the church have been abandoned, that the old notions of the divine care, the spiritual world, the everlasting life, cannot be maintained, must be relegated to the realm of imagination? the blessings with which christianity is commonly credited spring from other sources: the evils with which society is infected are its result, direct or indirect. i such accusations, it may occur to us, cannot be made seriously: they bear their refutation in the very making; they cannot be propounded with any expectation of being accepted. this may seem self-evident to us: it is not self-evident to multitudes of eager, {5} earnest men. the accusations are persistently made by vigorous writers and impassioned speakers, and are received as incontrovertible propositions. however astonishing, however painful, it may be for us to hear, it is well that we should know, what, in largely circulated books and periodicals, and in mass meetings of the people, is said about the faith which we profess, and about us who profess it. listen to some of the terms in which christianity is impeached. 'i undertake,' says mr. winwood reade, 'i undertake to show that the destruction of christianity is essential to the interests of civilisation; and also that man will never attain his full powers as a moral being, until he has ceased to believe in a personal god, and in the immortality of the soul. christianity must be destroyed.'[2] 'the hostile evidence,' says mr. philip {6} vivian, 'appears to be overwhelming. christianity cannot be true. provided that we see things as they really are, and not as we wish them to be, we cannot but come to this conclusion. we cannot get away from facts. modern knowledge forces us to admit that the christian faith cannot be true.'[3] 'i want,' exclaims mr. vivian carey, who has apparently, like lord herbert of cherbury, received a revelation to prove that no revelation has been given, 'i want to destroy the fetich of centuries and to instil in its place a life of duty, and of faith in god and man, and i believe there is a power that has impelled me to attempt this task.... a system that has produced such results must be essentially bad.... it will not be difficult to create a faith and a religion that will serve the needs of humanity, where christianity has so deplorably failed.'[4] {7} 'if christianity,' argues mr. charles watts, 'were potent for good, that good would have been displayed ere now.... the ties of domestic affection, the bonds of the social compact, the political relations of rulers and ruled, all have surrendered themselves to its influence. yet with all these advantages, it has proved unable to keep pace with a progressive civilisation.'[5] 'in a really humane and civilised nation,' mr. robert blatchford contends, 'there should be and need be no such thing as ignorance, crime, idleness, war, slavery, hate, envy, pride, greed, gluttony, vice. but this is not a humane and civilised nation, and never will be while it accepts christianity as its religion. these are my reasons for opposing christianity.'[6] 'christianity,' he iterates and reiterates, 'is not true.'[7] 'onward, ye children of the new faith!' {8} exultantly cries mr. moncure d. conway. 'the sun of christendom hastes to its setting, but the hope never sets of those who know that the sunset here is a sunrise there!'[8] such is the manner in which the downfall of christianity is now proclaimed. and the impression is prevalent that, though in all ages christianity has been the object of doubt and of scorn, yet never has it been rejected with such intensity of hatred as now, never have keen criticism and deep earnestness, wide learning and shrewd mother-wit been so combined in the attack. it is not merely the reckless, the dissolute, the frivolous who turn away from its reproofs, seeking excuses for their self-indulgence, but it is the thoughtful, the austere, the high-principled, the reverent, the unselfish, who are engaged in a crusade against all that we, as christians, hold dear. 'to the old spirit of mockery, coarse or refined, to the old wrangle of argument, {9} also coarse or refined, has succeeded the spirit of grave, measured, determined negation.'[9] men whose integrity and elevation of character are beyond suspicion, take their places among the rebels against the authority of christ. they are fighting, they assert, not for the removal of a check to their vices, but for the introduction of a nobler ideal. in the demolition of christianity, in the sweeping away of every vestige of religious belief, religious custom, religious hope, they imagine themselves to be conferring inestimable benefits upon mankind. christianity, in their view, is the product of delusion and the buttress of all social ills. ii the contrast which so many are drawing between the present and the past is not a little exaggerated. there have been few periods in which christianity has not been the {10} object of animadversion and attack, in which its speedy downfall has not been confidently predicted. it was two hundred years ago that dean swift wrote _an argument to prove that the abolishing of christianity in england may, as things now stand, be attended with some inconveniences, and perhaps not produce those many good effects proposed thereby_': the dean, with scathing sarcasm, ridiculing at once the conventional customs by which christianity was misrepresented, and the supercilious ignorance which assumed that it was extinct.[10] it was about a quarter of a century later that bishop butler, in the advertisement to his _analogy of religion to the constitution and course of nature_, stated, 'it is come, i know not how, to be taken for granted by many persons that christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry, but that it is now, at length, discovered to be fictitious. and accordingly they treat it as if, {11} in the present age, this were an agreed point among all people of discernment; and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were, by way of reprisals for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world.' and the bishop drily gave as the aim of the _analogy_: 'thus much, at least, will be here found, not taken for granted but proved, that any reasonable man who will thoroughly consider the matter, may be as much assured as he is of his own being, that it is not, however, so clear a case that there is nothing in it.' the assumption that christianity is a thing of the past can hardly be more prevalent now than it was then; and the groundlessness of the assumption then may lead to the conclusion that the assumption is equally groundless now. since the days of butler or of swift, the progress of christianity has not ceased: its developments of thought and {12} life have been among the most remarkable in its whole career. the exultation over its decay in the twentieth century may possibly be found as premature and as vain as the exultation over its decay in the eighteenth century, or in any of the centuries which have gone before. iii the most popular impeachments of christianity are mainly these. it is a mass of false and superstitious beliefs long exploded. it is the opponent of progress and inquiry, the discoveries of science having been made in direct defiance of its teaching and its influence. it is the champion of oppression and tyranny. it aims at keeping the poor in ignorance and destitution. it prostrates itself before the rich and seeks the patronage of the great. it so insists on people being absorbed in {13} the thought of heaven that it practically precludes them from doing any good on earth. it is a system of selfishness, inculcating the dogma that no one need care for anything except the salvation of his own soul.[11] it is the foster-mother of all the evil and misery by which society is distressed. dishonesty, cruelty, slavery, war, persecution, avarice, drunkenness, vice, would seem to be its natural fruits. 'how calm and sweet the victories of life,' shrieked shelley in one of his early poems. 'how terrorless the triumph of the grave ... ... but for thy aid religion! but for thee, prolific fiend, who peoplest earth with demons, hell with men, and heaven with slaves! thou taintest all thou look'st upon!'[12] what shall we say to these accusations? christians have been credulous and superstitious, have argued and acted as if only in {14} the abnormal and exceptional could the divine presence be found, as if god were a hard taskmaster and capricious tyrant. they have resisted progress and inquiry, blindly refusing to see the light which was streaming upon them. they have unquestionably been guilty of miserable pride towards inferiors in wealth or in station, and guilty of miserable sycophancy towards the rich and the powerful. christians have too frequently neglected the material well-being of the community, have suffered disgraceful outward conditions to remain without protest, have not striven to shed abroad happiness and brightness in squalid and wretched lives. christians have been art and part in fostering such conditions as wrung from compassionate and indignant hearts the _song of the shirt_ and the _cry of the children_. christians have imagined that correctness of belief would make up for falseness of heart, and loudness of profession for depravity of {15} practice. christians have supposed that in religion all that has to be striven for is the salvation of one's own soul, have even represented the joy of the redeemed as heightened by a contemplation of the torments of the lost. christians must bear the responsibility of much of the abounding vice which they have not earnestly tried to combat where it already exists, and which, in various forms, they have introduced into regions where it was unknown before. lawlessness and degradation in the slums, fraud and dishonesty in trade, gross revelations in the fashionable world; bigotry, slander, scandals in the ecclesiastical world; plots, wars, treacheries, assassinations, in the political world: these things ought not so to be. the fiercest denunciations, the most withering satires, which unbelievers have employed, do not exceed in intensity of condemnation the judgment which christian preachers and christian writers have pronounced.[13] {16} in all ages of the church the most powerful weapon against christianity has been the example of christians. the faith which they nominally hold has been judged by the lives which they actually lead.[14] 'christianity,' said a bishop of the eighteenth century, 'would perhaps be the last religion a wise man would choose, if he were guided by the lives of those who profess it.'[15] but is this to admit that the hope of the world lies in renouncing christianity? that in confining ourselves to the seen and the temporal, we shall best elevate mankind? that the prospect of annihilation and the absence of wisdom, love, and providence in the order of the universe constitute the most glorious gospel which can be proclaimed? nothing of the kind. it is only proved that many christians are not acting according to their belief, that their practice does not square with their {17} profession. the belief and the profession are not proved to be wrong and bad. it would be unreasonable to argue that, because a man who has been vehemently sounding the praises of truthfulness is convicted of deliberate lying, therefore truthfulness is shown to be worthless. it is equally unreasonable to identify christianity with everything to which it is most definitely opposed, to represent it as the enemy of everything which it was intended to maintain, and then to conclude that christianity is discredited.[16] as we should argue from the detection of a liar, not that lying is right, but that he should return to the ways of truth, so we should argue from the lives of christians who live in flagrant contradiction to the precepts of our lord and his apostles, not that the precepts should be rejected, but that they should be kept; not that christianity should be abolished, but that it should be obeyed. {18} christians have created prejudice, hatred, against christianity, but it is not christianity which they have been exhibiting. we repudiate the hideous travesty which they have made, the hideous travesty which is credulously or maliciously accepted by assailants as a correct representation. christianity is not a religion of darkness and superstition: it calls to its disciples 'be children of light: prove all things: hold fast that which is good.' christianity does not sycophantishly court the rich and despise the poor: it tells the stories of the rich man and lazarus, and of the rich fool, and it declares 'ye cannot serve god and mammon.' christianity does not teach that the life which a man leads is of less consequence than the belief which he professes: it demands, 'why call ye me, lord, lord, and do not the things which i say?' christianity is not selfish, is not a system which inculcates the saving of one's own soul as the first and last of duties: {19} 'he that loveth his life shall lose it. bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of christ. by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another.' it is surely reasonable to demand that christianity shall be judged, not by its misrepresentations, but by what it is in itself, not as it has been perverted by bitter enemies, or by false disciples, but as it is proclaimed and manifested in its author and finisher. iv in the face of such tremendous indictments, what is the duty incumbent on us who profess and call ourselves christians? certainly not that we should abjure the name, but that we should remember what the name signifies. we ought to consider our ways, to give ourselves to self-examination. there must be something amiss when such hideous portraits can be painted with any expectation of their being taken as correct likenesses. it is right {20} that we should repel with indignation the ludicrous and intolerable caricatures which are presented as our belief, the unwarrantable consequences which are deduced from it. it is right that we should remove misapprehensions and refute calumnies; but, above all it is necessary that we should take heed to our own conduct and our own character. the scandals which we have so much reason to deplore owe their existence, not to christianity, but to the absence of christianity. and the very sneers which greet any departure from rectitude or morality on the part of a professing christian prove that such a departure is not a manifestation, but a renunciation of christianity, that what is expected of christians is the highest and the best that human nature can produce. 'if,' argues mr. blatchford, 'if to praise christ in words and deny him in deeds be christianity, then london is a christian city and england is a christian nation. for it is {21} very evident that our common english ideals are anti-christian, and that our commercial, foreign, and social affairs are run on anti-christian lines.'[17] as mr. blatchford's life is spent in deploring the baseness of 'our common english ideals,' and in exposing the iniquity of the methods in which 'our commercial, foreign, and social affairs' are conducted, the logical inference would seem to be that, as anti-christian ideals and anti-christian lines have so signally failed, it might be well to give christian ideals and christian lines a trial. 'in a really humane and civilised nation,' mr. blatchford maintains, 'there should be, and there need be, no such thing as poverty, ignorance, crime, idleness, war, slavery, hate, envy, pride, greed, gluttony, vice. but,' he continues his curious argument, 'this is not a humane and civilised nation, and never will be while it accepts christianity as its religion. these,' {22} so he adds as an irresistible conclusion, 'these are my reasons for opposing christianity.'[18] very good reasons, if christianity taught such a creed and encouraged such a morality. but that any human being should give such a description of the purpose of christian faith indicates either that the describer is swayed by blindest prejudice or else that no genuine christian has ever crossed his path. 'what if some do not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of god of none effect? god forbid: yea, let god be true, but every man a liar.' truth continues to be truth, though people who talk much about it may be false. goodness continues to be goodness, though people who sing its praises may be thoroughly depraved. generosity does not cease to be generosity, though its beauty should be extolled by a miser. courage does not cease to be courage, though its heroism should be extolled by a coward. temperance {23} is temperance, though we should be assured of the fact by the thick speech of a drunkard. the virtue is admirable, even when those who acknowledge how admirable it is do not practise it. that christianity towers so far above the attainments of its average disciples, nay, above the attainments of its saintliest, is itself a kind of evidence of its divine origin. 'when the king of the tartars, who was become christian,' says montaigne, 'designed to come to lyons to kiss the pope's feet, and there to be an eyewitness of the sanctity he hoped to find in our manners, immediately our good s. louis sought to divert him from his purpose: for fear lest our inordinate way of living should, on the contrary, put him out of conceit with so holy a belief. and yet it happened quite otherwise to this other, who going to rome to the same end, and there seeing the dissolution of the prelates and people of that time, settled {24} himself so much the more firmly in our religion, considering how great the force and dignity of it must necessarily be that could maintain its dignity and splendour amongst so much corruption and in so vicious hands.' god's truth abides whether men receive it or deny it. christ is the way, the truth, and the life, though every so-called christian should become apostate. the woes of the world are to be cured by more christianity, not by less; and on us, in whose hands have been placed its holy oracles, rests the responsibility of proving its inestimable advantage ourselves and of conferring it on all mankind. wherever christianity has really flourished, untold blessings have been the result.[19] with all the sad deficiencies and sadder perversions by which its course has been chequered, no influence for good can be compared with it in elevating character, in diffusing peace and {25} goodwill, in fitting men to labour and to endure. the diffusion of the spirit of christianity is a synonym for the diffusion of all that tends to the true well-being of the world. only as genuine christianity, the christianity of christ, prevails, will mankind be morally and spiritually lifted into a higher sphere. put together the wisest and most ennobling suggestions of those who regard christianity as obsolete and you find that it is virtually christianity which is delineated. it is in the prevalence of principles and practices which, however they may be designated, are in reality christian, that the salvation of society and of individuals will be found. in the absence of such principles and practices will be found the secret of ruin, disorder, dissolution, and decay. it is false christianity against which the tornado of abuse is really directed. where genuine christianity appears, and is recognised as genuine, it commands respect. {26} even the most virulent of recent assailants, who seriously considers that, until we get rid of the 'incubus of the modern christian religion, our civilisation will so surely decay that we shall become an entirely decadent race,' and who complacently announces that 'it will not be difficult to create a faith and a religion which will serve the needs of humanity where christianity has so signally failed,' even he is graciously pleased to allow, 'i have no quarrel with christianity as a code of morals. the sermon on the mount, no matter who preached it, is quite sufficient, if its teaching was only practised instead of preached, to make this world an eminently desirable place in which to live. my quarrel is concerned with the professional promoters and organisers of religion who have made the very name of christianity to stink in the nostrils of honest men.' in other words, it is not to christianity, but to christians by whom it is misrepresented, that he is opposed, and he {27} cannot refrain from granting, though surely with transparent inconsistency, that it is by the noble lives of christians that christianity has been so long preserved. 'it won, with its beauty and sentiment, the allegiance of many who were true and manly. and it is such as these who have raised the gospel from the slough of infamy. it is such as these who, in the darkest ages, have perpetuated by the goodness of their lives the faith that is left to-day. it is the virtues of christians, not the virtue of christianity, that keeps the faith alive.'[20] the very opposite is nearer the truth. the virtues of christians are simply the outcome of the virtue of christianity: it is the vices of christians which compose the deepest 'slough of infamy' into which the gospel has ever been plunged. but from all these charges and counter-charges, it would seem to be clear that real {28} christianity compels respect even where it is viewed with aversion, that its progress is hindered by nothing so much as by the unworthiness of its adherents, that it gains assent by nothing so much as by the manifestation of christian lives. will any one venture to deny that the world would be vastly improved were every one in it to be a genuine christian, animated by christian motives, doing christian deeds? the revolution would be immense, indescribable: it would be the end of all evil: it would be the establishment of all good. no man's hand would be against another, all would strive together for the welfare of the whole, there would be no contention save how to excel in love and in good works. the human imagination cannot depict anything more glorious, more ennobling, than the will of god done on earth as it is done in heaven, and this is what would be if the thoughts of every heart were brought {29} into captivity to the obedience of christ. the most splendid dreams of the most exalted visionaries would be more than fulfilled: everything true and lovely and of good report would be ratified and confirmed: everything false and vile would be changed and purified, and nothing to hurt or destroy or defile would remain. the fulfilment of that ideal is simply the universal prevalence of christianity, the universal triumph of christ. the systems and tendencies at which we are about to glance owe their vitality to the faith which they attempt to supersede. they are, in so far as they are good, either tending towards christianity or borrowing from it. the insufficiency of mere material well-being, the irresistible association of religion with morality, the worship of the universe, the worship of humanity, all are signs of the ineradicable instinct of the unseen and eternal, of the unquenchable thirst for the living god; and belief in the living {30} god finds its noblest illustration and confirmation in him who said, 'he that hath seen me hath seen the father,' in him to whom the searching scrutiny of critical inquirers, as well as the fervid devotion of believers, bears so marvellous a witness. we hope to show not only that the abolition of christianity might 'be attended with sundry inconveniences,' or that the assumption of there being 'nothing in' christianity is 'not so clear a case,' but we hope to show that if, amid present perplexity and estrangement, many feel themselves obliged to go back and walk no more with christ, we, for our part, as we hear his voice of tender reproach, 'will ye also go away?' can only, with heartfelt conviction, give the answer, 'lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.' [1] tennyson, _in the children's hospital_. [2] _the martyrdom of man_. [3] _the churches and modern thought_. [4] _parsons and pagans_. [5] _secularists' manual_. [6] _god and my neighbour_. [7] _ibid_. [8] _earthward pilgrimage_. [9] dean church, _pascal and other sermons_, p. 348. [10] appendix i. [11] appendix ii. [12] _queen mab_. [13] hans faber, _das christentum der zukunft_. [14] appendix. [15] sir leslie stephen, _english thought in the eighteenth century_, vol. i. p. 144 [16] appendix iv. [17] _god and my neighbour_. [18] _god and my neighbour_, ch. ix. p. 197. [19] appendix v. [20] _parsons and pagans_. {32} ii morality without religion 'i am sought of them that asked not for me: i am found of them that sought me not.'--isaiah lxv. 1. 'not the hearers of the law are just before god, but the doers of the law shall be justified. for when the gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.'--romans ii. 13-15. 'strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without god in the world.'--ephesians ii. 12. 'the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness.'--titus i. 1. {33} ii morality without religion that religion and morality have no necessary connection is a popular assumption. in books, in pamphlets, in magazines, on platforms, in ordinary conversation, it is loudly proclaimed or quietly insinuated that the morality of the future will be independent morality, morality without sanction. morality, it is iterated and reiterated, can get on quite well without religion: religion is a positive hindrance to morality. this view is, no doubt, extreme. perhaps it is only here and there in the writings which fall into the hands of most of us, or in the circles with which most of us mingle, that the matter is stated so bluntly and so plainly. but in {34} not a few writings of wide circulation, and in whole classes of the community, the statement is made as if beyond contradiction. even in works which we are all reading, and in companies where we daily find ourselves, the logical conclusion of arguments, the natural inference from assumptions, would be simply that extreme position. there is no use in evading the fact that if some highly popular opinions are accepted, no statement of the uselessness of religion in any form or system can be too extreme. the mere assurance that religion is a reality, is a benefit, is a necessity, though it may not seem a great deal to establish, though it may leave a host of problems still to solve, would be a gain to many, would sweep away the chief doubts by which they are perplexed. there need not, on our part, be any hesitation in declaring, to begin with, that religion {35} without morality is worthless. the attempt to keep them apart, to regard them as independent of each other, has often enough been made by nominal champions of religion. the upholding of certain views regarding god and his relations to mankind has been considered sufficient to make up for neglect of the duties incumbent on ordinary mortals. the performance of certain rites and ceremonies has been considered an adequate compensation for the commission of deliberate crimes. instances might easily be cited of persons engaged in villainous schemes, achieving deeds of dishonesty which will cause ruin to hundreds of innocent victims, executing plots of fiendish revenge, with little regard for human life, and no regard at all for truth, but exceedingly punctilious in attention to religious observances. one of the most cold-blooded murderers that ever disgraced the habitable globe was careful not to neglect any act of devotion, and while {36} perpetrating the most nefarious basenesses never failed to write in his diary the most pious sentiments. that kind of religion is worse than nothing, was rightly regarded as increasing the horror and loathsomeness of the monster's life. in a minor degree, we have all seen illustrations of the same incongruity, we may even have detected indications of it in ourselves, the tendency to imagine that the more we go to church or frequent the sacraments or read the bible, we are entitled to latitude in our conduct. there is no tendency against which we need to be more constantly on our guard, none which is more strongly, more terrifically, denounced in the old testament and in the new, by prophets and apostles, and by the lord jesus christ himself. unbelievers in christianity are perfectly right when they say that religion without morality is absolutely worthless. {37} ii we may go further. we may admit, nay, we must vehemently maintain, that morality without religion is far better than religion without morality. look at this man who makes no profession of religion, but who is temperate, honest, self-sacrificing for the public good. look at that man who made a loud profession, but who was leading a life of secret vice, who was false to the trust reposed in him, who appropriated what had been committed to his charge. can there be any doubt, we are triumphantly asked, that of these two, the religious is inferior to the irreligious? there can be no doubt whatever, would be the reply of every well-instructed christian. morality without religion is incalculably better than religion without morality. but what does this prove with regard to christianity? it simply proves how eternally true is the parable {38} of our lord: 'a certain man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, son, go work to-day in my vineyard. he answered and said, i will not, but afterwards he repented and went. and he came to the second and said likewise. and he answered and said, i go, sir, and went not. whether of them twain did the will of his father? they say unto him, the first,' and our lord confirmed the answer. iii that kind of comparison between religion and morality is most misleading, for such 'religion' is not religion at all. it may be hypocrisy, it may be superstition, it may be self-deception: christianity it is not, and never can be. the contrast is not really between morality and religion, but between morality and immorality, falsehood, fraud, and wilful imposition. whatever else the kingdom of god may be, it is at least {39} righteousness: where there is no righteousness, there can be no kingdom of god. whatever else christian doctrine may be, it is at least a doctrine according to godliness, a teaching in accordance with the eternal laws of righteousness. for purposes of analysis and convenience, we may distinguish between religion and morality, and show them working in different spheres, but it is utterly erroneous to suppose that they can be actually divorced. in every right and rational representation of the christian religion, morality is included and imbedded, otherwise it is only a maimed and mutilated religion which is held out for acceptance. on the other hand, in all true morality, especially in its highest and purest manifestations, religion is present. it is possible to decry morality. 'mere morality,' in the current acceptation of the phrase, may lack a good deal, may be a phase of self-righteousness, self-interest, cold calculation, {40} a keeping up of appearances before the world, but morality itself is of a higher strain: it is the fulfilment of every duty to one's self and to one's neighbour: it implies that each duty is done from the right motive: the purer and loftier it becomes the more it encroaches on the religious domain: it is crowned and glorified with a religious sanction: it is, visible or hidden, conscious or unconscious, a doing of the will of god. morality, to hold its own, must be 'touched by emotion,' and morality touched by emotion is identical with religion. to admit moral obligation in all its length and breadth, and depth and height, is to admit god.[1] iv a curious illustration of the fact that morality, to be permanent, needs the inspiration of religion, that morality, at its best and purest, tends to become religion, is {41} afforded in such a work as dr. stanton coit's _national idealism and a state church_. dr. coit has for twenty years been engaged in founding ethical societies, and his high and disinterested aims need not be called in question. but the book is evidence that in order to support the lofty principles which he so earnestly expounds, he is obliged to call in the aid of principles which he imagined himself to have discarded. he begins by denying the supernatural in every shape and form. he will have none of a personal god, or of a personal immortality. there is no higher being than man. all trust must be shifted from supernatural to human agencies. 'combined human foresight, the general will of organised society, assumes the rã´le of creative providence.' 'this is, then, the presupposition of all moral judgment in harmony with which i would reconstruct the religions of the world: that no crime and no good deed that happens in this world shall {42} ever be traced to any other moral agencies than those actually inhabiting living human bodies and recognised by other human beings as fit subjects of human rights and privileges.' in other words, morality, morality alone, morality without any sanction from above, or any hope from beyond, is the all-sufficient strength and ennoblement of man. but what is the superstructure which dr. stanton coit proceeds to build upon this foundation? one would naturally expect that prayer and churches and sacraments would have no place. but these are exactly what he insists on retaining; these will apparently be more important, more necessary, in the future than in the past. 'we should appropriate and adapt the materials furnished us by the rites and ceremonies of the historic church. as the woodbird, bent on building her nest, in lieu of better materials makes it of leaves and of feathers from her breast, so may we use what is familiar, old, {43} and close at hand. it is all ours; and the homelike beauty of the church of the future will be enhanced by the ancient materials wrought into its new forms.' so much enhanced, indeed, that most people will be inclined to tolerate the new forms simply because of the ancient materials which are allowed to remain. among the ancient materials which dr. coit appropriates or adapts, prayer occupies a prominent place. and he is severe upon those, _e.g._, comte and dr. congreve, who would banish petition from the sphere of worship. he delights in pointing out that, in despite of themselves, they include requests for personal blessings. nor is prayer to be a mere aspiration or inarticulate longing of the soul. 'no mental activity can become definite, coherent, and systematic, and remain so, except it be embodied and repeated in words.... a petition that does not, or cannot, or will not, formulate itself in words, and let the lips move to shape them, and the {44} voice to sound them, and the eye to visualise them on the written or printed page, becomes soon a mere torpor of the mind, or a meaningless movement of blind unrest, or a trick of pretending to pray. perfected prayer is always spoken.' to whom, or to what, this prayer, uttered or unexpressed, is to be offered, may be difficult of comprehension. it is not to god, as we have hitherto employed that sacred name; but dr. coit insists that the word 'god' shall be retained, and that we have no right to deny to this god the attribute of personality. 'any one who worships either a concrete social group or an abstract moral quality may justly protest against the charge that his god is impersonal: he may insist that it is either superpersonal or interpersonal, or both.' the worship of nature appears to be discouraged, and to be considered as of comparatively little worth. 'we dare never forget that moral qualities stand to us in a {45} different dynamic relation from the grass and the stars and the sea--no effects upon us or upon these will result from petitions even of a most righteous man to them. but no one can deny that prayers to purity, serenity, faith, humanity, england, man, woman, to milton, to jesus, do create a new moral heaven and a new earth for him who thirsts after righteousness.' leaving the name of our lord out of the discussion, why should a prayer to serenity have more moral influence than a prayer to the sea? why should a prayer to the stars be less efficacious than a prayer to milton, whose soul was like a star and dwelt apart? we have only to invest the stars and the sea with certain qualities evolved from our own imagination to make them as worthy of worship as either milton or serenity. dr. coit is scathing in his criticism of the positivist prayers, whether of comte or of dr. congreve: they are 'screamingly funny': 'the most monstrous {46} absurdity ever perpetrated by a really good and great man.' the epithets are possibly justified; but are they quite inapplicable to one who supposes that an invocation of the living and eternal god means no more than an invocation of england, or faith, or woman? it is only when god has become to us an abstraction that an abstraction can take the place of god. a manual of services fitted to a nation's present needs is what, according to dr. coit, is required to ensure the progress and triumph of the ethical movement. 'until the new idealism possesses its own manual of religious ritual, it cannot communicate effectively its deeper thought and purpose. the moment, however, it has invented such a means of communication, it would seem inevitable that a rapid moral and intellectual advancement of man must at last take place, equal in speed and in beneficence to the material advancement which followed {47} during the last century in the wake of scientific inventions.' the ritual of ethical societies will not outwardly differ much from the ritual to be found in existing religions. its details have yet to be arranged or 'invented.' the only things certain are that a book of prayers ought to be provided at once, and that in swinburne's _songs before sunrise_ may be found an 'anthology of prayer suitable for use in the church of humanity,' prayers 'as sublime and quickening in melody and passion as anything in the hebrew prophets or the litany of the church.' dr. coit does not denounce theology as theology, he even insists on being himself ranked among theologians. his readers may be surprised to learn on what doctrines he dwells with particular fondness. he laments that belief in the existence and power of the devil should be waning. 'we may not believe in a personal devil, but we must believe in a devil who acts very like a person.' {48} he predicts that teachers will more and more teach a doctrine of hell-fire. out of kindness they will terrify by presenting the evil effects, indirect and remote, of selfish thoughts and dispositions. 'we must frighten people away from the edge of the abyss which begins this side of death.' finally, though, of course, the word is not used in the ordinary sense, the necessity of the doctrine of the incarnation is upheld. 'the incarnation must for ever remain a fundamental conception of religion. until all men are incarnations of the principle of constructive moral beneficence, and to a higher degree, jesus will remain pre-eminent; and it is quite possible that in proportion as he is approached, gratitude to him will increase rather than diminish.' 'even should any one ever in the future transcend him, still it will only be by him and in glad acknowledgment of the debt to him. there never can in the future be a dividing of the world into christianity {49} and not christianity. it will only be a new and more christian christianity, compatible with liberty and reason.' thus the drift and tendency of this book bring us back, however unintentionally, to the faith of which it appears, at first sight, to be the renunciation. it establishes irresistibly that morality, to be living and permanent, must have religious sanction and inspiration, that we need to be delivered from the awful thraldom of evil, that the supreme realities are the things which are unseen; that prayer is the life of the soul; that public worship is a necessity; that in christ the greatest redemptive power has been embodied, and the purest vision of the eternal has been granted; and that, in its adaptation to human needs, its fostering of human aspirations, its ministering to human sorrows, its renewal of human penitence, its consecration of life and its hope in death, no ethical society yet devised gives any {50} symptom of being able to supplant the church of him who said, 'come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and i will give you rest.' v now, from the fact that morality at its best assumes a religious tinge, merges itself in religion, we may legitimately infer that, without the inspiration of religion, morality at its best will not long prevail.[2] 'love, friendship,' said sir james fitzjames stephen, 'good nature, kindness carried to the height of sincere and devoted affection, will always be the chief pleasures of life, whether christianity is true or false; but christian charity is not the same as any of these, or all of these put together, and i think that if christian theology were exploded, christian charity would not survive it.'[3] at present, when religion has pervaded everything with its sacred sanctions, it is easy to say that religion {51} would not be greatly missed were it discarded, and that morality would be unaffected. this is pure conjecture. to test its worth we should need a state of society from which every vestige of religion had disappeared. it will not do to retain any of the beliefs or the customs which owe their origin to a sense of the unseen and eternal, to a sense of any power above ourselves, ruling our destinies and instilling into our minds thoughts and desires and hopes beyond the visible and the material. if morality, in the limited acceptation of the term, is sufficient for the elevation and welfare of mankind, it is not to be supported by any admixture of religion: it must prove its power by itself. religion must be utterly abolished, its every sanction must be universally rejected, its every impulse must have universally ceased before it can be contended with any measure of assurance that the world will be none the worse, may be even the better, for its vanishing. {52} if religion is a delusion, remember what must be eliminated from our convictions. there can be no higher tribunal than that of man by which our actions can be judged.[4] a life of outward propriety is the utmost that can be demanded of us, if it is only against the wellbeing of our neighbour or the promotion of our own happiness that we can transgress. what has human law to do with our hearts? what legislation can deal with 'envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness,' unless they manifest themselves in outward acts? a base, unloving, impure, acrimonious, untruthful man may crawl through life, never having been arrested, never having been sentenced to any term of penal servitude. he can stand erect before all the laws of the country and say, 'all these have i kept from my youth up.' and unless there be a higher law than the law of man, unless there be a law written on our hearts by the finger of {53} god, unless there be one to whom, above and beyond all earthly appearances, we can mournfully declare, 'against thee, thee only, have i sinned,' nothing more can be reasonably demanded. if there is nothing higher than the visible, it can be only visible results which are of any value. the giving of money to help the needy, and the giving of money in order to obtain a reputation for generosity, must stand on the same level. the widow's mite will be worth infinitely less than the shekels which come from those who devour widows' houses. if there be none to search the heart, none save poor frail fellow-mortals to whom we must give account, what an incentive to purity of motive and loftiness of aspiration is removed! but let men talk as they will, there is a conscience in them which whispers, it does matter whether our hearts as well as our actions are right; it does matter whether we have good motives, good intentions; there is a scrutiny of hearts, {54} making and to be made more fully yet; there is one before whom, even though we have not broken the law of the land, we confess with anguish, against thee have i sinned and done evil in thy sight: where i appear most irreproachable, thine eye detecteth error: it is not the occasional trespass that i have chiefly to lament, it is the sin that is almost part and parcel of my very being, the sin that corrodes even where it does not glare, the sin that undermines even where it does not crash. vi the most thoughtful of those who have lost faith in the living god and in fellowship with him hereafter, look on this life with a pessimistic eye. without trust in the unseen and eternal, life is worthless, an idle dream. with its harassing cares, with its petty vexations, with its turbulence and strife, its sorrows, its breaking up of old associations, its quenching the light of our {55} eyes, 'o dreary were this earth, if earth were all!' on the stage of the world, 'the play is the tragedy man, the hero the conqueror worm!' we cannot but extend the deepest sympathy, the warmest admiration to those who, bereft of belief and of hope, yet cling tenaciously to moral goodness.[5] 'what is to become of us,' asks the pensive amiel, 'when everything leaves us, health, joy, affections, the freshness of sensation, memory, capacity for work, when the sun seems to us to have lost its warmth, and life is stripped of all its charms? ... there is but one answer, keep close to duty. be what you ought to be; the rest is god's affair.... and supposing there were no good and holy god, nothing but universal being, the law of the all, an ideal without hypostasis or reality, duty would still be the key of the enigma, the pole star of a wandering {56} humanity.'[6] who does not see that it is the lingering faith in god which gives strength to this conviction and that, were the faith obliterated, the natural conclusion would be for the cultured, 'vanity of vanities: all is vanity'; and for the multitudes, 'let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' 'i remember how at cambridge,' says mr. f. w. h. myers of george eliot, 'i walked with her once in the fellows' garden of trinity on an evening of rainy may: and she, stirred somewhat beyond her wont, and taking as her text the three words which have been used so often as the inspiring trumpet calls of men--the words _god, immortality, duty_--pronounced with terrible earnestness, how inconceivable was the _first_, how unbelievable the _second_, and yet how peremptory and absolute the _third_. never, perhaps, have sterner accents affirmed the sovereignty of impersonal and uncompromising law. i {57} listened and night fell: her grave, majestic countenance turned toward me like a sibyl's in the gloom, and it was as though she withdrew from my grasp one by one the two scrolls of promise, and left me the third scroll only, awful with inevitable fates. and when we stood at length and parted, amid that columnar circuit of the forest trees, beneath the last twilight of starless skies, i seemed to be gazing, like titus at jerusalem, on vacant seats and empty halls, on a sanctuary with no presence to hallow it, and heaven left lonely of a god.'[7] withdraw belief in a god above and in a life beyond, the only reason for obedience to duty and morality will be either our own pleasure, the doing what is most agreeable to ourselves; or sympathy, the bearing of others' burdens, in the hope that when we have passed away there may be some on earth who will reap the harvest which we have {58} sown; or public opinion, the views which are prevalent in a particular time in a particular region; and these reasons are hardly likely to produce a morality which will be other than that of self-indulgence, of despair, or of conventionality.[8] 'we can get on very well without a religion,' said sir james fitzjames stephen, 'for though the view of life which science is opening to us gives us nothing to worship, it gives us an infinite number of things to enjoy. the world seems to me a very good world, if it would only last. it is full of pleasant people and curious things, and i think that most men find no difficulty in turning their minds away from its transient character.' if it would only last! but it does not last: those dearer to us than ourselves are snatched away. could anything be more selfish, more despicably base than to go about saying, all that is of no {59} consequence, so long as i meet with pleasant people and have an infinite number of things to enjoy? it is true that an infinite number of my fellow-creatures may not be enjoying an infinite number of things, may have trouble in recalling almost anything worthy of the name of enjoyment, but why should i be depressed by that? i find no difficulty in turning away my mind from the misfortunes of others. 'we can get on very well without religion.' no doubt without it some of us can have agreeable society and a variety of pleasures more or less refined; but this does not prove that religion is no loss. on the same principle, we can get on very comfortably without honesty, without sobriety, without purity, without generosity. we can get on very comfortably indeed without anything except without a heart which is intent on self-gratification, and which excludes all thought of the wants and woes of the world. 'let us eat and drink, for {60} to-morrow we die,' is the irresistible, though rather inconsistent, conclusion of that sublime austerity which so indignantly repudiates the merest hint of reward or hope within the veil, and which so sensitively shrinks from the mercenariness of the religion of the cross. 'the wages of sin is death: if the wages of virtue be dust, would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly!'[9] what are the facts? what is the growing tendency where men think themselves strong enough to do without religious beliefs, when they have been proclaiming that the suppression of religion will be the exaltation of a purer morality? there are plenty of indications that the laws of morality are found to be as irksome as the dictates of religion. the first step is to cry out for a higher morality, to censure the morality of {61} the new testament as imperfect and inadequate, as selfish and visionary. the next step is to question the restraints of morality, to clamour for liberty in regard to matters on which the general voice of mankind has from the beginning given no uncertain verdict. the last step is to declare that morality is variable and conventional, a mere arbitrary arrangement, which can be dispensed with by the emancipated soul. the literature which assumes that religion is obsolete does not, as a rule, suffer itself to be much hampered by the fetters of morality. the non-religion of the future is what, we are confidently told, increasing knowledge of the laws of sociology will of necessity bring about. should that day ever dawn, or rather let us say, should that night ever envelop us, it will mean the diffusion of non-morality such as the world has never known.[10] [1] appendix. [2] appendix vi. [3] _nineteenth century_, june 1884. [4] appendix vii. [5] appendix viii. [6] _journal intime_, ii. [7] _modern essays_. [8] appendix ix. [9] tennyson, _wages_. [10] appendix x. {64} iii the religion of the universe 'whither shall i go from thy spirit? or whither shall i flee from thy presence.'--psalm cxxxix. 7. 'do i not fill heaven and earth? saith the lord.'--jeremiah xxiii. 24. 'the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee.'--1 kings viii. 27. 'in him we live, and move, and have our being.'--acts xvii. 28. 'one god and father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.'--ephesians iv. 6. 'of him, and through him, and to him are all things: to whom be glory for ever. amen.'--romans xi. 36. 'that god may be all in all.'--1 corinthians xv. 28. {65} iii the religion of the universe among proposed substitutes for christianity, none occupies a more prominent place than pantheism, the identity of god and the universe. 'pantheism,' says haeckel, 'is the world system of the modern scientist.'[1] pantheism, or the religion of the universe, is, in one aspect, a protest against anthropomorphism, the making of god in the image of man. it is in supposing god to be altogether such as we are, to be swayed by the same motives, to be actuated by the same passions as we are, that the most deadly errors have arisen. robert browning, in _caliban upon setebos_, represents a half-brutal {66} being who lives in a cave speculating upon the government of the world, wondering why it came to be made, and what could be the purpose of the creator in making it. every motive that could sway the savage mind is in turn discussed: pleasure, restlessness, jealousy, cruelty, sport. 'because i, caliban,' such is the process of his reasoning, 'delight in tormenting defenceless animals, or would crush any one that interfered with my comfort, or do things because my taskmaster obliges me to do them, so must it be with him who made the world.' with great grotesqueness, but with marvellous power, the degraded monster argues as to the reasons which could have prompted the unseen ruler to frame the earth and its inhabitants. everything that he attributes to god is in keeping with his own base nature. what is the explanation of the horrors which have been perpetrated in the name of god? the sacrifice of human {67} beings, of vanquished enemies, or of the nearest and the dearest, the agonies of self-torture, did not these originate in the transference to the invisible god of the emotions and principles by which men were guiding their own lives? they had no notion of forbearance and forgiveness and patience, therefore they did not think that there could be forgiveness with god. they were to be turned aside from their fierce, revengeful purposes by bribes and by the protracted sufferings of their foes, therefore they thought that god might be bribed by gifts or propitiated by pains. what they were on earth, delighting in bloodshed and conquest and revelry, that, they supposed, must be the being or the beings who ruled in the world unseen. i god is not as man is, this was a lesson which ancient prophets struggled to teach. he is not a man that he should lie, or a son {68} of man that he should repent. he is not to be conceived as influenced by the petty hopes and fears and jealousies which influence the mass of mortals. 'my thoughts are not as your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the lord. for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.' he is infinitely exalted above the best and wisest of his children and to see in him only their likeness is not to see him aright. it is not to be denied that the writers of the old testament employ anthropomorphic language to vivify the justice and goodness of the eternal. they speak of his eyes and of his face, of his hands and of his arm and of his voice. they speak of him walking in the garden and smelling a sweet savour. they speak of him repenting and being jealous and coming down to see what is done on earth. such figures, however, as a rule, have a force {69} and an appropriateness which never can become obsolete or out of date. they even heighten the majesty and spotless holiness of god. they are felt to be, at most, words struggling to express what no words can ever convey: they are the readiest means of impressing on the dull understanding of men their practical duty, of letting them know with what purity and righteousness they have to do. it is not in such figures that any harm can ever lie. the error of taking literally such phrases as 'hands' or 'arm' or 'voice' is not very prevalent, but the error of framing god after our moral image is not distant or imaginary. there is a mode of speaking about divine purposes and divine motives which must jar on those who have begun to discern the divine majesty, to whom the thought of the all-embracing presence has become a reality. {70} ii the representation of the almighty and eternal as one of ourselves, as animated by the lowest passions and paltriest prejudices of mankind, as a 'magnified and non-natural' human being, is recognised as ludicrously inadequate and terribly distorted. the representation of the creator as 'sitting idle at the outside of the universe and seeing it go,' as having brought it into being and afterwards left it to itself, as mingling no more in its events and evolution, is utterly discarded. it is, however, to such representations that the assaults of modern critics are directed, and in the overthrow of such representations it is imagined that christianity itself is overthrown. the assailants maintain that christianity in attributing personality to god makes him in the image of man, and separates him from the universe. but what is meant by personality? it does not mean a {71} being no higher than man, with the limitations and imperfections of man.[2] mr. herbert spencer, who would not ascribe personality to god, yet affirmed that the choice was not between personality and something lower than personality, but between personality and something higher. 'is it not just possible that there is a mode of being as much transcending intelligence and will as these transcend mechanical motion?'[3] the description of personality given by the author of the _riddle of the universe_ would be repudiated by every educated christian. 'the monistic idea of god, which alone is compatible with our present knowledge of nature, recognises the divine spirit in all things. it can never recognise in god a "personal being," or, in other words, an individual of limited extension in space, or even of human form. god is everywhere.'[4] that conclusion,--we {72} are not concerned with the steps by which the conclusion is reached,--does not strike one as a modern discovery. in what authoritative statement of christian doctrine god is defined as _not_ being everywhere, or 'an individual of limited extension in space, or even of human form,' we are unaware. there is apparent misunderstanding in the supposition that we have to take our choice between god as entirely severed from the world, and god existing in the world. god, it is asserted in current phraseology, cannot be both immanent and transcendent; he cannot be both in the world and above it. 'in theism,' so haeckel draws out the comparison, 'god is opposed to nature as an extra-mundane being, as creating and sustaining the world, and acting upon it from without, while in pantheism god, as an intra-mundane being, is everywhere identical with nature itself, and is operative within the world as "force" or {73} "energy."'[5] if there is no juggling with words here, it can hardly be juggling with words to point out that so far as 'space' goes, an intra-mundane being, rather than an extra-mundane, is likely to be 'limited in extension.' iii the imagination that the christian god is a personality like ourselves, and is to be found only above and beyond the world, finds perhaps its strangest expression in some of the writings of that ardent lover of nature, the late richard jefferies. 'i cease,' so he writes in _the story of my heart_, 'to look for traces of the deity in life, because no such traces exist. i conclude that there is an existence, a something higher than soul, higher, better, and more perfect than deity. earnestly i pray to find this something better than a god. there is something superior, higher, more good. for this i search, labour, {74} think, and pray.... with the whole force of my existence, with the whole force of my thought, mind, and soul, i pray to find this highest soul, this greater than deity, this better than god. give me to live the deepest soul-life now and always with this soul. for want of words i write soul, but i think it is something beyond soul.' could anything be more pathetic or, at the same time, more self-refuting? how can anything be greater than the infinite, more enduring than the eternal, better than the all-pure and all-perfect? it could be only the god of unenlightened, unchristian teaching, whom he rejected. the god whom he sought must be not only in but beyond and above all created or developed things. it was, indeed, the higher than the highest that he worshipped. it was for god, for the living god, that his eager soul was athirst, and it is in god, the living god, that his eager soul is now, we humbly trust, for ever satisfied. {75} iv 'the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him.' 'whither shall i go from thy spirit? or whither shall i flee from thy presence?' 'my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways saith the lord.' 'in him we live and move and have our being.' 'of him and through him and to him are all things, to whom be glory for ever. amen.'[6] now it cannot be denied that some who have striven to express after this fashion the unutterable majesty and the universal presence of god, who have endeavoured to demonstrate that god is in all things, and that all things are in god, have at times failed to make their meaning plain. either from the obscurity of their own language, or from the obtuseness of their readers, they have been considered atheists. while vehemently asserting that god is {76} everywhere, they have been taken to mean that god is nowhere. the actual conclusion to be drawn from the treatises of spinoza, the reputed founder of modern pantheism, is still undecided. but no one now would brand him with the name of atheist. he was excommunicated by jews and denounced by christians, yet there are many who think that his aim, his not unsuccessful aim, was to establish faith in the unseen and eternal on a basis which could not be shaken. so far from denying god, he was, according to one of the greatest of german theologians, 'a god-intoxicated man.' 'offer up reverently with me a lock of hair to the manes of the holy, repudiated spinoza! the high world-spirit penetrated him: the infinite was his beginning and his end: the universe his only and eternal love.... he was full of religion and of the holy spirit, and therefore he stands alone and unreachable, master in his art above the profane multitude, {77} without disciples and without citizenship.'[7] dean stanley went so far as to say that 'a clearer glimpse into the nature of the deity was granted to spinoza, the excommunicated jew of amsterdam, than to the combined forces of episcopacy and presbytery in the synod of dordrecht.'[8] such a judgment is rather hard upon the divines who took part in that celebrated synod, but at any rate it indicates that the great philosopher, misunderstood and persecuted, was elaborating in his own way, this great truth, 'in him we live and move and have our being.' 'of him, and through him are all things.' v in their loftiest moments, contemplating the marvels of the heavens above and the earth beneath, devout souls have, wherever they looked, been confronted with the vision of god. 'what do i see in all {78} nature?' said fã©nelon, 'god. god is everything, and god alone.' 'everything,' said william law, 'that is in being is either god or nature or creature: and everything that is not god is only a manifestation of god; for as there is nothing, neither nature nor creature, but what must have its being in and from god, so everything is and must be according to its nature more or less a manifestation of god.' it is the thought which has inspired poets of the most diverse schools, which has been their most marvellous illumination and ecstasy. now it is alexander pope: all are but parts of one stupendous whole whose body nature is, and god the soul. now it is william cowper: there lives and works a soul in all things and that soul is god. now it is james thomson of _the seasons_: these, as they change, almighty father! these are but the varied god. the rolling year is full of thee. {79} now it is william wordsworth: i have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, and the round ocean and the living air, and the blue sky, and in the mind of man a motion and a spirit which impels all thinking things, all objects of all thought, and rolls through all things. now it is lord tennyson: the sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains, are not these, o soul, the vision of him who reigns? * * * * * speak to him thou, for he hears, and spirit with spirit can meet. closer is he than breathing and nearer than hands or feet. certainly, we may say, nothing atheistic in utterances like these: they are the utterances of lofty thought, of profound piety, of soaring aspiration, and of childlike faith. they have a pantheistic tinge: what is there to dread in pantheism? not much in {80} pantheism of that kind: would there were more of it! but it will be observable that, in the instances cited, though god is in nature and manifesting himself through it, there is a clear distinction between nature and god. it may seem as if it were merely the sky, the sun, the stars, the ocean, that are apostrophised: in reality it is a life, a spirit, a power not themselves, in which they live and move and have their being: not to them, but to that, are the prayers addressed. and, we venture to think, it is scarcely ever otherwise: scarcely ever is the visible alone invoked: identify god as men will with the material universe, or even with the force and energy with which the material universe is pervaded, when they enter into communion with it, in spite of themselves they endow it with the life and the will and the purpose which they have in theory rejected. but the absolute identification of god and the universe, the assumption that above and {81} beneath and through all there is no conscious righteousness and wisdom and love overruling and directing, _that_ is a belief to be resisted, a belief which enervates character and enfeebles hope.[9] 'whoever says in his heart that god is _no more_ than nature: whoever does not provide _behind the veil of creation_ an infinite reserve of thought and beauty and holy love, that might fling aside this universe and take another, as a vesture changing the heavens and they are changed, ... is bereft of the essence of the christian faith, and is removed by only accidental and precarious distinctions from the atheistic worship of mere "natural laws."'[10] 'in our worship we have to do, not so much with his finite expression in created things as with his own free self and inner reality ... all _religion_ consists in _passing nature by_, in order to enter into direct personal relation {82} with him, soul to soul. it is _not_ pantheism to merge all the life of the physical universe in him, and leave him as the inner and sustaining power of it all. it is pantheism to rest in this conception: to merge him in the universe and see him only there: and not rather to dwell with him as the living, holy, sympathising will, on whose free affection the cluster of created things lies and plays, as the spray upon the ocean.'[11] vi god is _not_ as we are, and yet he _is_ as we are. god is not made in the image of man, but man is made in the image of god. it is through human goodness and human purity and human love that we attain our best conceptions of the divine goodness and purity and love. 'if ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will your heavenly father {83} give the holy spirit to them that ask him?' picture to yourself what is highest and best in the human relationship of father and child: be sure that the heavenly father will not fall below, but will infinitely transcend, that standard. all the justice and goodness which we have seen on earth are the feebler reflection of his. it is by learning that the utmost height of human goodness is but a little way towards him that we learn to think of him at all aright. but the justice and the love by which he acts are different only in degree, and not in kind, from ours. when we think of god as altogether such as we are, we degrade him, we have before us the image of the imperfect; when we try to think of him under no image and to discard all figures, he vanishes into unreality and nothingness, but when we see him in christ, we have before us that which we can grasp and understand, and that in which there is no imperfection. {84} if there is no god but the universe, we have a universe without a god. worship is meaningless, faith is a mockery, hope is a delusion. if the universe is god, all things in the universe are of necessity divine. the distinction between right and wrong is broken down. in a sense very different from that in which the phrase was originally employed, 'whatever is, is right.' nothing can legitimately be stigmatised as wrong, for there is nothing which is not god. 'if all that is is god, then truth and error are equally manifestations of god. if god is all that is, then we hear his voice as much in the promptings to sin as in the solemn imperatives of conscience. this is the inexorable logic of pantheism, however disguised.'[12] 'i know,' says mr. frederic harrison, 'what is meant by the power and goodness of an almighty creator. i know what is meant by the genius and patience {85} and sympathy of man. but what is the all, or the good, or the true, or the beautiful? ... the "all" is not good nor beautiful: it is full of horror and ruin.... there lies this original blot on every form of philosophic pantheism when tried as the basis of a religion or as the root-idea of our lives, that it jumbles up the moral, the unmoral, the non-human and the anti-human world, the animated and the inanimate, cruelty, filth, horror, waste, death, virtue and vice, suffering and victory, sympathy and insensibility.'[13] where these distinctions are lost, where this confusion exists, what logically must be the consequence? honesty and dishonesty, truth and falsehood, purity and impurity, kindness and brutality, are put upon a level, are alike manifestations of the one or the all. it is said that in our day the sense of sin has grown weak, that men are not troubled {86} by it as once they were. there is a morbid, scrupulous remorsefulness for wrong-doing, a desponding conviction that repentance and restoration are impossible, which may well be put away. but that sin should be no longer held to be sin, that evil should be wrought and the worker experience no pang of shame, would surely indicate moral declension and decay. were the time to come when, universally, mankind should commit those actions and cherish those passions which, through all ages in all lands, have gone by the name of sin, should become so heedless to the voice of conscience, that conscience should cease to speak, the time would have come when men, being past feeling, would devote themselves with greediness to anything that was vile, so long as it was pleasant, the bonds of society would be loosened and destruction would be at hand. the religion of the universe ignores the facts of life, the sorrow, the struggle, {87} the depravity, the need of redemption. fortunately, human beings in general are still inclined to mourn because of imperfection or of baseness: still they are inclined at times to cry out, 'who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' and still they have the opportunity of joyfully or humbly saying, 'i thank god through jesus christ our lord.' 'and now at this day,' listen to the ungrudging admission of perhaps the most earnest english apostle of pantheism, mr. allanson picton: 'we of all schools, whether orthodox or heterodox so-called, whether believers or unbelievers in supernatural revelation, all who seek the revival of religion, the exaltation of morality, the redemption of man, draw, most of us, our direct impulse, and all of us, directly or indirectly, our ideals from the speaking vision of the christ. such a claim is justified, not merely by the spiritual power still remaining in the church, {88} but almost as much by the tributes paid, and the uses of the gospel teaching made in the writings of the most distinguished among rationalists.... such writers have felt that somehow jesus still holds, and ought to hold, the heart of humanity under his beneficial sway. excluding the partial, imperfect and temporary ideas of nature, spirits, hell, and heaven, which the galilean held with singular lightness for a man of his time, they have acquiesced in and even echoed his invitation to the weary and heavy laden, to take his yoke upon them and learn of him. and that means to live up to his gospel of the nothingness of self, and of unreserved sacrifice to the eternal all in all.'[14] if such is the conclusion of rationalism and of pantheism, how much more ought it to be the conclusion of christianity. the imagination of a god confined to times and places, visiting the world only occasionally, {89} manifesting himself in the past and not in the present, ought to be as foreign to the christian church as to any rationalist or pantheist. be it ours to show that we believe in god who filleth all things with his presence, who is from everlasting to everlasting, that to us there is but one god the father, by whom are all things and we in him, and one lord, jesus christ, by whom are all things and we by him, that god has identified himself with us in jesus christ, his son. be it ours to lose ourselves in him. for, after all our questionings as to the government of the world, as to abounding misery and degradation, as to what lies beyond the veil for ourselves and for others, this is our hope and our confidence: 'god hath concluded all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all. o the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of god! how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. for who hath {90} known the mind of the lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? for of him and through him and to him are all things: to whom be glory for ever. amen.' [1] _riddle of the universe_. [2] appendix xi. [3] _first principles_. [4] _confession of faith of a man of science_. [5] _riddle of the universe_. [6] appendix xii. [7] schleiermacher. [8] _st. andrews addresses_. [9] appendix xiii. [10] martineau, _hours of thought_, ii. p. 110. [11] martineau, _hours of thought_, ii. p. 114. [12] _faith of a christian_. [13] _creed of a layman_, p. 203. [14] _religion of the universe_. {92} iv the religion of humanity 'and god said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness.'--genesis i. 26. 'when i consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him? for thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and honour.'--psalm viii. 3-5 thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. for in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. but now we see not yet all things put under him. but we see jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, that he by the grace of god should taste death for every man.'--hebrews ii. 8, 9. {93} iv the religion of humanity the position which religion, and especially the christian religion, assigns to man, to man as he ought to be, is very high. he is made in the image of god, he is a little lower than the angels, a little lower than god, he is a partaker of the divine nature. but as the corruption of the best is the worst, there is nothing in the whole creation more miserable, more loathsome, than man as he has forgotten his high estate and plunged himself into degradation. 'what man has made of man,' is the saddest, most deplorable sight in all the world. amid the awful splendour of the winning loveliness of nature, 'only man is vile.' that is the terrible {94} verdict which may be pronounced upon him renouncing his birthright, surrendering himself to the powers which he was meant to keep in subjection. it is not the verdict to be pronounced on man as man, the child of the highest and the heir of all the ages. the appeal of religion, the appeal of christianity above all, has continually been, o sons of men, sully not your glorious garments, cast not away your glorious crown. i it is irreligion, it is unbelief, which comes and says, lay aside these fantastic notions as to your greatness: you are the creatures of a day: you belong, like other animals, to the world of sense, and you pass away along with them: a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast. banish your delusive hopes; confine yourselves to reality; waste not your time in the pursuit of phantoms: make the best of the world in {95} which you are: seize its pleasures: shut your eyes to its sorrows: enjoy yourselves in the present and let the future take care of itself: follow the devices and desires of your own hearts in the comfortable assurance that there is no judgment to which you can be brought, save that which exists in the realm of imagination. listening to such whispers, obeying such suggestions, walking in such courses, the spectacle which man presents can be viewed only with compassion, with horror, or with disdain. his ideals, his aspirations, his self-sacrifices are only so many phases of self-deception. the natural conclusion to be drawn from denying the spiritual origin and eternal prospects of man must be that he is of no more account than any of the transitory beings around him, that, if he has any superiority over them, it is only the superiority of a skill with which he can make them the instruments of {96} his purposes. with no glimpses of a higher world, with no inspirations from a spirit nobler than his own, he can hardly regard the achievements of heroism as other than acts of madness, he can be fired with no desire to emulate them, he cannot well be trusted to perform ordinary acts of honesty and morality, let alone extraordinary acts of generosity and magnanimity, should they come in collision with his objects and ambitions. unless above himself he can erect himself, how mean a thing is man! deny his divine fellowship, extirpate his heavenly anticipations, and it might seem as if no race on earth would be so poor as do him reverence. ii one thing is assumed by not a few, the absurdity of the almighty caring for such a race, and therefore the impossibility of the incarnation. 'which,' asks mr. frederic {97} harrison, 'is the more deliriously extravagant, the disproportionate condescension of the infinite creator, or the self-complacent arrogance with which the created mite accepts, or rather dreams of, such an inconceivable prerogative? his planet is one of the least of all the myriad units in a boundless infinity; in the countless ã¦ons of time he is one of the latest and the briefest; of the whole living world on the planet, since the ages of the primitive protozoon, man is but an infinitesimal fraction. in all this enormous array of life, in all these ã¦ons, was there never anything living which specially interested the creator, nothing that the redeemer could care for, or die for? if so, what a waste creation must have been! ... why was all this tremendous tragedy, great enough to convulse the universe, confined to the minutest speck of it, for the benefit of one puny and very late-born race?'[1] {98} but is it not the fact that along with the discovery of man's utter insignificance, there has come the discovery of powers and faculties unknown and unsuspected, so that more than ever all things are in subjection to him, his dominion has become wider, his throne more firmly established? is it not the fact that the whole realm of nature is explored by him, is compelled to minister to his wants or to unfold its treasures of knowledge? is it not the fact that more than ever it can be said: the lightning is his slave: heaven's utmost deep gives up her stars, and, like a flock of sheep, they pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on. the tempest is his steed: he strides the air. and the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare 'heaven, hast thou secrets? man unveils me: i have none.'[2] is it not the fact that deposed from his position of proud pre-eminence as centre of the universe, man has by his labours and his ingenuity reasserted his high prerogative {99} to be lord of the creation? the printing-press, the railway, the telegraph, how have inventions like these invested him with an influence which he did not possess before! and is it not the fact that when most conscious of our nothingness before the immensities around us, when humbled and prostrate before the infinite of which we have caught a transitory glimpse, we are also most conscious of our high destiny, we are lifted above the earthly to the heavenly, we discern that, though we cannot claim a moment, yet eternity is ours? 'what, then, is man! what, then, is man! he endures but an hour and is crushed before the moth. yet in the being and in the working of a faithful man is there already (as all faith, from the beginning, gives assurance) a something that pertains, not to this wild death element of time; that triumphs over time, and _is_, and will be, when time shall be no more.'[3] {100} man's place in the universe may, according to dr. alfred russel wallace, be nearer the centre of things than has so commonly come to be accepted. modern discovery, he maintains, has thrown light on the interesting problem of our relation to the universe; and even though such discovery may have no bearing upon theology or religion, yet, he thinks, it proves that our position in the material creation is special and probably unique, and that the view is justified which holds that 'the supreme end and purpose of this vast universe was the production and development of the living soul in the perishable body of man.' and another, a convinced and ardent disciple of evolution, the late professor john fiske, argues that, 'not the production of any higher creature, but the perfecting of humanity is to be the glorious consummation of nature's long and tedious work.... man seems now, much more clearly than ever, the chief among god's {101} creatures.... the whole creation has been groaning and travailing together in order to bring forth that last consummate specimen of god's handiwork, the human soul.'[4] if this be so, this conclusion arrived at by those who do not hold the ordinary faith of christendom, then the objection that the incarnation could not have taken place for the redemption of such a race as ours, in a world which is so poor a fraction of the infinite universe, falls to the ground; and the protest of a devout modern poet carries conviction with it: this earth too small for love divine! is god not infinite? if so, his love is infinite. too small! one famished babe meets pity oft from man more than an army slain! too small for love! was earth too small to be of god created? why then too small to be redeemed?[5] man may, or may not, occupy a 'central position in the universe': other worlds may, {102} or may not, be inhabited: this earth may be but a minute and insignificant speck amid the mighty all, this at least is certain, that not by mere magnitude is our rank in the scale of being to be decided, and that in the spirit of man will be found that which approaches most nearly to him who is spirit. 'the man who reviles humanity on the ground of its small place in the scale of the universe is,' according to mr. frederic harrison, 'the kind of man who sneers at patriotism and sees nothing great in england, on the ground that our island holds so small a place in the map of the world. on the atlas england is but a dot. morally and spiritually, our fatherland is our glory, our cradle, and our grave.'[6] iii hence, one of the ablest attempts to supersede christianity is that which goes by {103} the name of positivism or the religion of humanity, which sets man on the throne of the universe, and makes of him the sole object of worship. 'a helper of men outside humanity,' said the late professor clifford, 'the truth will not allow us to see. the dim and shadowy outlines of the superhuman deity fade slowly away from before us, and, as the mist of his presence floats aside, we perceive with greater and greater clearness the shape of a yet grander and nobler figure, of him who made all gods and shall unmake them. from the dim dawn of history, and from the inmost depths of every soul, the face of our father _man_ looks out upon us with the fire of eternal youth in his eyes, and says, "before jehovah was, i am." the founder of the organised religion of humanity was auguste comte, who died in the year 1857. he held that in the development of mankind there are three stages: the first, the theological, in which {104} worship is offered to god or gods; the second, the metaphysical, in which the human mind is groping after ultimate truth, the solution of the problems of the universe; the third, the positive, in which the search for the illusive and the unattainable is abandoned, and the real and the practical form the exclusive occupation of the thoughts. on sunday, october 19, 1851, he concluded a course of lectures on the general history of humanity with the uncompromising announcement, 'in the name of the past and of the future, the servants of humanity, both its philosophical and practical servants, come forward to claim as their due the general direction of this world. their object is to constitute at length a real providence, in all departments, moral, intellectual, and material. consequently they exclude, once for all, from political supremacy, all the different servants of god, catholic, protestant, or deist, as being at once behindhand and {105} a source of disturbance.' all religions were banished by the truly 'uncompromising announcement': they were all condemned as futile and unreal. the best that could be said of the worship of the past was that it directed 'provisionally the evolution of our best feelings, under the regency of god, during the long minority of humanity.' but the fact that religion will not be banished, that it must somehow find expression, never received fuller verification. we do not dwell upon the private life of comte, its eccentricities and inconsistencies, but this at least cannot be omitted: he practised a course of austere religious observances, he worshipped not only humanity at large, but he paid special adoration to a departed friend such as hardly the devoutest of roman catholics has ever paid to the virgin mary. positivism became, what professor huxley called it, 'catholicism _minus_ christianity.' comte laid down for the guidance of his {106} disciples, who are potentially all mankind, rules which no existing religious communion can surpass in minuteness. the supreme object of worship is the great being, humanity, the sum of human beings, past, present, and future. but as it is only too evident that too many of these beings in the past and the present, whatever may be said about the future, are not very fitting objects of worship, humanity, the great being, must be understood as including only worthy members, those who have been true servants of humanity. the emblem of this great being is a woman of the age of thirty, with her son in her arms; and this emblem is to be placed in all temples of humanity and carried in all solemn processions. the highest representatives of humanity are the mother, the wife, and the daughter; the mother representing the past, the wife the present, and the daughter the future. these are in the abstract to be regarded as the guardian {107} angels of the family. to these angels every one is to pray three times daily, and the prayers, which may be read, but which must be the composition of him who uses them, are to last for two hours. humanity, the world, and space form the completed trinity of the positivist religion. there are nine sacraments: presentation, initiation, admission, destination, marriage, maturity, retirement, transformation, incorporation. there is a priesthood, to whom is committed the duties of deciding who may or may not be admitted to certain offices during life, of deciding also whether or not the remains of those who have been dead for seven years should be removed from the common burial-place, and interred in 'the sacred wood which surrounds the temple of humanity,' every tomb there 'being ornamented with a simple inscription, a bust, or a statue, according to the degree of honour awarded.' the priests are to receive so comprehensive {108} a training that they are not to be fully recognised till forty-two years of age. they are to combine medical knowledge with their priestly qualifications. three successive orders are necessary for the working of the organisation: the aspirants admitted at twenty-eight, the vicars or substitutes at thirty-five, and the priests proper at forty-two. the religion of humanity has a calendar, each month of twenty-eight days being in one aspect dedicated to some social relation, and in another to some famous man representing some phase of human progress: moses, homer, aristotle, cã¦sar, st. paul, gutenberg, shakespeare. each day of the year is dedicated to one or more great men or women, five hundred and fifty-eight in number, and the last day of the year is the festival of all the dead. 'our calendar is designed to remind us of all types of the teachers, leaders, and makers of our race: of the many modes in which the servants of humanity {109} have fulfilled their service. the prophets, the religious teachers, the founders of creeds, of nations and systems of life: the poets, the thinkers, the artists, kings, warriors, statesmen and rulers: the inventors, the men of science and of all useful arts.... every day of the positivist year is in one sense a day of the dead, for it recalls to us some mighty teacher or leader who is no longer on earth.... but the three hundred and sixty-four days of the year's calendar have left one great place unfilled.... those myriad spirits of the forgotten dead, whom, no man can number, whose very names were unknown to those around them in life, the fathers and the mothers, the husbands and the wives, the brothers and the sisters, the sturdy workers and the fearless soldiers in the mighty host of civilisation--shall we pass them by? ... it is those whom to-night we recall, all those who have lived a life of usefulness in their generation, though {110} they tugged as slaves at the lowest bank of oars in the galley of life, though they were cast unnoticed into the common grave of the outcast, all whose lives have helped and not hindered the progress of humanity, we recall them all to-night.'[7] iv the religion of humanity has numbered among its adherents, in part or in whole, several celebrated persons in this country, such as richard congreve, dr. bridges, professor beesley, cotter morison, george eliot. but at present it has no more eloquent and earnest advocate than mr. frederic harrison, who, in _the creed of a layman_, and several other recent volumes, has passionately proclaimed its principles. for more than fifty years he has been its apostle: 'every other aim or occupation has been subsidiary and instrumental to this.'[8] it {111} is true that in some points he has retained his independence, and while those outside accuse him of fanaticism, some of his fellow-believers suspect him of heresy.[9] but he himself is assured that in the worship of humanity he has obtained the solution of his doubts[10] and the satisfaction of his spirit, and on his gravestone or his urn he would have inscribed the words, _he found peace_.[11] there is much that is marvellously elevated in thought as well as exquisite in expression, profoundly devout as well as brilliantly argued, in the narrative of his progress towards his present position. but when his vehement statements are carefully examined, it will almost inevitably be seen that all that is good and sensible in them is an unconscious reproduction of christianity. his negations disappear: the affirmations which he makes are those which the church has always {112} maintained. the faith of his childhood permeates and strengthens and beautifies the creed which he adopted in his maturer years. the unity of mankind, the memory of the departed, the necessity of living for others, these are no novelties in christianity. it is in christ that they have specially been brought to light, in him that they find their highest ratification, without him they remain unfulfilled, with him they attain to consistency and power. the great being, humanity, is only an abstraction.[12] 'there is no such thing in reality,' principal caird reminds us, 'as an animal which is no particular animal, a plant which is no particular plant, a man or humanity which is no individual man. it is only a fiction of the observer's mind.' there is logical force as well as humorous illustration in the contention of dean page roberts, that there is no more a humanity apart {113} from individual men and women than there is a great being apart from all individual dogs, which we may call caninity, or a transcendent durham ox, apart from individual oxen, which may be named bovinity.'[13] nor does the geniality of mr. chesterton render his argument the less telling: 'it is evidently impossible to worship humanity, just as it is impossible to worship the savile club: both are excellent institutions to which we may happen to belong. but we perceive clearly that the savile club did not make the stars and does not fill the universe. and it is surely unreasonable to attack the doctrine of the trinity as a piece of bewildering mysticism, and then to ask men to worship a being who is ninety million persons in one god, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.'[14] can it be doubted that the great being, {114} the sum of human beings, is less conceivable, less worthy of worship than the great being, the god and father of our lord jesus christ?[15] can it be doubted that the claim of humanity to worship is less credible if we exclude the perfect man, christ jesus, from our view? can it be doubted that the positivist motto, 'live for others,' gains a force and a meaning unapproached elsewhere from the life and death of him who said, 'the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many?' humanity knit together in one, purified from every stain, glorious and adorable, is a lofty and inspiring idea, but nowhere has it been disclosed save in the man christ jesus, the word made flesh, the brightness of the father's glory and the express image of his person. {115} v dr. richard congreve owns that much of the religion of humanity exists already in the christian faith, but, in one respect, he asserts that the religion of humanity can claim to be entirely original. 'we accept, so have all men. we obey, so have all men. we venerate, so have some in past ages, or in other countries. we add but one other term, we love.'[16] that is what distinguishes this new religion and proves its superiority to the old: its votaries have attained this new principle and mode of life: they love one another. the boldness of the claim may stagger us. we turn over the pages of the new testament. we see that love is the fulfilling of the law; is the end of the commandment; is the sum of the law and the prophets; is placed at the very summit of christian graces; is the bond of perfectness; {116} is manifested in a life and a death which, after nineteen centuries, remain without a parallel. we recall the touching legend that in his old age the apostle s. john was daily carried into the assembly of the ephesian christians, simply repeating to them, over and over, the words, 'love one another. this is our lord's command, fulfil this and nothing else is needed.' we recall that in early centuries the sympathy and helpfulness by which christians of all ranks and races were united called forth from heathen spectators the amazed and respectful exclamation, 'see how these christians love one another!' recalling these things, we cannot but be startled that, in the nineteenth century of the christian era, a teacher should, with any expectation of being believed, have ventured to affirm that the great discovery which it has been reserved for the present day to make is that of loving one another. ignorance of christianity, misrepresentation {117} of christianity, we may well call it: ignorance inconceivable, misrepresentation inconceivable: and yet, as we consider the state of christendom, do we not see what palliates the ignorance and the misrepresentation? have we not reason to confess that, if the commandment be not new, universal obedience to it would be new indeed? may the calm assurance that love is foreign to christianity not startle us into the conviction that we have forgotten what, according to our lord's own declaration, the chief feature of christianity ought to be? 'by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.' vi 'how can we,' it has been well said, 'be asked to give the name of religion of humanity to a religion that ignores the greatest human being that ever lived, and the very source from which the religion of humanity {118} sprang?'[17] man in himself, man so full of imperfections, man having no connection with any world but this, man unallied to any power higher, nobler than himself, is this to be our god? which is more reasonable: to set up the race of man, unpurified, unredeemed, worthless and polluted, as the object of adoration, or to maintain that 'man indeed is the rightful object of our worship, but in the roll of ages, there has been but one man whom we can adore without idolatry, the man christ jesus'?[18] the religion of humanity, so called, would have us worship man apart from christ whom yet all acknowledge to be the glory of mankind, but we call on men to worship christ jesus, for in him we see man without a stain, we see our nature redeemed and consecrated, we see ourselves brought nigh to the infinite god. we adore humanity, but humanity {119} in its purity: we adore humanity, but only as manifesting in the only begotten son the glory of the eternal father. thus we place no garland around the vices of the human race: thus we abase, and thus we exalt: thus are we humbled to the dust, thus are we raised to the highest heavens. apart from christ, the magnitude of the creation may well depress and overwhelm: apart from christ the human race is morally imperfect instead of being a fit object of blind adoration. seeing christ, we not only feel our inconceivable nothingness in presence of the infinite majesty, but we stand erect and unpresumptuously say, 'we wonder not that thou art mindful of those for whom that son of man lived and died, we are in him partakers of the divine nature. there thou beholdest thine own image.' made in the image of god, such is the ideal of man that comes to us from the beginning of his history; and such is the ideal {120} that once, and once only, has been realised. '_ecce homo_! behold the man!' said pontius pilate, in words more full of significance than he knew, pointing to the victim of priestly hatred and popular fickleness. behold the man! man as he ought to be, the image of god. before that divine humanity we reverently bow, to that divine humanity we humbly consecrate ourselves, in fellowship with it alone we learn and manifest the true worth and dignity of man. one writing frantically to exalt mankind and to depreciate christianity, tells us how he sat on a cliff overhanging the seashore and gazed upon the stars, murmuring, 'o prodigious universe, and o poor ignorant, that could believe all these were made for him!' but the sight of a steamship caused him to rejoice at the triumph of art over nature, and to exclaim, 'if man is small in relation to the universe, he is great in relation to the earth: he abbreviates distance and time, {121} and brings the nations together.' then he saw that man is ordained to master the laws of which he is now the slave; he believed that if man could understand this mission, a new religion would animate his life, and, in the strength of this revelation, the writer says that he sang in ecstasy to the waters and winds and birds and beasts, he felt a rapture of love for the whole human race, he resolved to preach the new gospel far and wide, and proclaim the glorious mission of mankind.[19] on the whole the old gospel will be found as ennobling, as inspiring, as practical as the new. all that this new gospel aims at, we, as christians, already believe: and we possess a divine token, a sacred pledge which is foreign to it: we believe that a higher destiny is in store for us than even the construction of wonders of mechanical skill.[20] stripped of all rhetoric, the conclusion of unbelief in god and immortality can only {122} be 'man is what he eats': the conclusion of christianity, 'there is but one object greater than the soul, and that is its creator.' one in a certain place testified, saying, 'what is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him? thou madest him a little lower than the angels: thou crownest him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.' for in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. but now we see not yet all things put under him. but we see jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour. we see him who is our brother and our forerunner within the veil; and in his exaltation we behold our own.[21] no vision of the future can surpass that which the christian church {123} has cherished from the beginning, that we shall all 'come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the son of god, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of christ ... from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.' [1] _creed of a layman_, p. 67. [2] shelley, _prometheus unbound_. [3] thomas carlyle. [4] _man's destiny_, p. 31, [5] aubrey de vere. [6] _creed of a layman_, p. 76. [7] frederic harrison, _creed of a layman_. [8] _memories and thoughts_, p. 14. [9] _memories and thoughts_, p. 15. [10] appendix xiv. [11] _creed of a layman_. [12] appendix xv. [13] _some urgent questions in christian lights_. [14] _heretics_, p. 96. [15] appendix xvi. [16] appendix xvii. [17] e. a. abbott, _through nature to christ_. [18] frederick william robertson, _sermon on john's rebuke of herod_. [19] winwood reade, _the outcast_. [20] appendix xviii. [21] appendix xix. {126} v theism without christ 'ye believe in god, believe also in me.'--s. john xiv. 1. 'i am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the father but by me.'--s. john xiv. 6. 'he that hath seen me hath seen the father.'--s. john xiv. 9. 'neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.'--acts iv. 12. 'he that abideth in the doctrine of christ, he hath both the father and the son.'--2 s. john 9. {127} v theism without christ by theism without christ is not meant a system like judaism or mohammedanism, but a modern school which maintains that faith in god becomes weakened and impaired by being associated with faith in jesus. there are those who cling with tenacity to the first article of the apostles' creed, 'i believe in god the father almighty,' but who reject with equal fervour the second article of the creed, 'and in jesus christ, his only son, our lord.' they resist with horror the suggestion that the world is under no overruling providence, or that the humblest human being is not regarded with the tender love of the infinite god: they rival the most {128} mystical worshipper in the ardour of the language with which in prayer they address the father in heaven, but they refuse to bow in the name of jesus: they go to the father, as they think, without him: they assert that to look to him is virtually to look away from god. they are as hostile as we can be to the substitutes for christianity which we have been considering. they have no sympathy with those who loudly deny that there is a god, or with those who say that it is impossible to find out whether there is a god or not, or with those who think that the creator and the creation are one, that the universe is god, or with those who, not believing in any unseen and eternal god, insist that the proper object of the worship of mankind is man. in the proclamation of the existence of an all-wise and all-holy being, in the proclamation that he has made the world and rules it to its minutest detail, in the proclamation that {129} there is a life beyond the grave, they are the allies of the christian church. but then they go on to argue, for those who hold these doctrines, christ is quite superfluous: to hold them in their purity christ must be dethroned and his name no longer specially revered. some may still wish to speak of him as among the great teachers of the world, but some, in order to preserve these precious truths unmixed, decline in a very fanaticism of unbelief to assign him even that position. i the declaration of our lord, 'no man cometh unto the father but by me,' has been a chief stumbling-block and rock of offence. are we to believe, it is asked, that only the comparatively few to whom the knowledge of jesus christ has come can possibly be accepted of the father? when the words were spoken the number of his disciples was exceedingly small. did he mean that the {130} father could be approached only by that handful of people, that all beyond were banished from the divine presence and must inevitably perish? that this is what he meant both the friends and the foes of christianity have at times been agreed in holding. the friends have imagined that they were thereby exalting the claim of christ to be the one mediator. it may be a terrible mystery that the vast majority of the human race should have no opportunity of believing in him, should be even unacquainted with his name. we can only bow before the inscrutable decree, and strive with all our might, not only that our own faith may be deepened, but that the knowledge of christ may be diffused over all the earth, so that some here and there may be rescued. there is little wonder that such a view should have given rise to questionings and opposition, should have been rejected as inconsistent with mercy and with justice. it is an {131} interpretation on which hostile critics have laid stress as incontestably proving the narrowness and bigotry of the christian creed. if we bear in mind who it is that is presumed to say, 'no man cometh unto the father but by me,' the misconception disappears. it is not merely an individual man, separate from all others, giving himself out as a wise and infallible teacher. he who makes the stupendous claim is one who by the supposition embodies in himself human nature in its perfection, who is identified with his brethren, who says, 'he that hath seen me hath seen the father.' the life which he manifests is the life of god. he is set forth as the way to the father: in mercy and in blessing the way is disclosed in him: it is not in harsh and rigid exclusiveness that he speaks, debarring the mass of mankind: it is in tender comprehensiveness, inviting all without distinction of race or circumstance, opening a new {132} and living way for all into the holiest. it is the breaking down of all barriers between man and man, between man and god, not the setting up of another barrier high and insurmountable. when christ declares 'no man cometh unto the father but by me,' he is not declaring that the way is difficult and impassable, he is pointing out a way of deliverance which all may tread. so far from laying down a hard and burdensome dogma to be accepted on peril of pains and penalties, he is imparting a hope and a consolation in which all may rejoice. if we believe him to be the word of god made flesh, if we see in him the brightness of the father's glory, it becomes a truism to say that only through him can life and healing be imparted to mankind. when he himself says, 'i am the way, the truth and the life,' it is natural for him to add, 'no man cometh unto the father but by me.' it will {133} be granted by all who believe in god that, apart from god, no soul of man can have life eternal. the most strenuous advocate of the salvation of the virtuous heathen will grant that their salvation does not descend from the idol of wood and stone before which they grovel. it is from the true god, the living god, that the blessing proceeds. it is his touch, his spirit, his presence which has consecrated the earnest though erring worship of the poor idolater. no one who believes in the infinite and eternal god could possibly say that the monstrous image whose aid is invoked by the devout heathen is itself the answerer of his prayer, the cause of his deliverance from sin, the bestower of immortality upon him. the utmost that can be said is that in the costly sacrifices, the painful penances, the passionate prayers which he presents to the object of his adoration, the almighty love discerns a longing after something nobler and better, {134} and accepts the service as directed really, though unconsciously, to him. the feeble hands and helpless, groping blindly in the darkness, touch god's right hand in that darkness and are lifted up and strengthened.[1] but it is the hand of god that they touch. it is from the one omnipotent god that every blessing comes: it is the one omnipotent god who turns to truth and life and reality every sincere and struggling and imperfect attempt to serve him on the part of those who know not his nature or his name. and what is true of god is equally true of christ, the manifestation of god. only grant him to be the incarnate word of god, and it becomes plain that salvation can no more exist apart from him than apart from the father. this word of god is the light that lighteth every man. whatever truth, whatever knowledge of the divine, anywhere {135} exists is the result of that illumination. the sparks which shine even in the darkness of heathendom betoken the presence of that light, not wholly extinguished by the folly and ignorance of man. that is the one sun of righteousness which gives light everywhere, though in many places the clouds are so dense that the beams can scarcely penetrate. now, if that word has become flesh, if that light has become embodied in human form, we are still constrained to say, there is no true light but his, it is in his light that all must walk if they would not stray, there is no guide, no deliverer, save him. christ discloses, brings to view, all the saving health which has ever been, all the power of restoring, cleansing, healing, which has ever worked in the souls of men. the one power by which any human being, in any age or in any land, has ever been fitted for the presence of the all holy god, is made manifest in christ. 'neither is there {136} salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.' we need have no hesitation in asserting that all who in any age or in any land, or in any religion, have come to the father must have come through the son of man, the eternal word made flesh. we do not contend, as has too frequently been contended, that beyond the limits of christianity, beyond, it may be, the limits of one section of christianity, there is no truth believed, no acceptable service rendered. we hail with gratitude the lofty thoughts and the noble achievements of some who do not in word acknowledge christ as lord. in the vision of the light that lighteth every man, we see how light can find its way to regions farthest from the fount of day.[2] 'now,' as is well said by the present bishop {137} of birmingham, who will hardly be accused of any tendency to minimise the claims of christianity, 'this is no narrow creed. christianity, the religion of jesus, is the light: it is the one final revelation, the one final religion, but it supersedes all other religions, jewish and pagan, not by excluding, but by including all the elements of truth which each contained. there was light in zoroastrianism, light in buddhism, light among the greeks: but it is all included in christianity. a good christian is a good buddhist, a good jew, a good mohammedan, a good zoroastrian; that is, he has all the truth and virtue that these can possess, purged and fused in a greater and completer light. christianity, i say, supersedes all other religions by including these fragments of truth in its own completeness. you cannot show me any element of spiritual light or strength which is in other religions and is not in christianity. nor can you {138} show me any other religion which can compare with christianity in completeness of light: christianity is the one complete and final religion, and the elements of truth in other religions are rays of the one light which is concentrated and shines full in jesus christ our lord.'[3] ii from whatever cause, whether as a reaction against the mode in which this great truth has been at times presented, there have been, and there are, attempts to supersede christianity because of its narrowness. religion must not be identified with any one name: god manifests himself to all, and no mediator is needed. theism, therefore, the worship of the one almighty and eternal being, not christianity, in which a human name is associated with the divine name, can alone pretend to be the universal religion, the {139} religion of all mankind. it is not the first time that such an attempt to do without christianity and to do away with it has been made. in the eighteenth century there was a similar movement. to this day at ferney, near geneva, is preserved the chapel which voltaire erected for the worship of god, of god as distinguished from christ as divine or as mediator between god and man. voltaire thought that he could overthrow and crush the faith of christ, but he none the less erected a temple to god. the deists upheld what they called the religion of nature and repudiated revelation. _christianity not mysterious; christianity as old as the creation_, were among the works issued to show the superiority of natural religion, its freedom from difficulties, its agreement with reason, its universality. the most enduring memorial of the controversy is bishop butler's _analogy of religion to the constitution and course of nature_, {140} in which it was argued that the natural religion of the deists was beset by as many difficulties as the revelation of the christians, that those who were not hindered from believing in god by the problems which nature presented need not be staggered by the problems which were presented by christianity. bishop butler's argument was directed against a special set of antagonists, an argument, it may be said, of little avail against the scepticism of the present day. the argument seems to have been unanswerable by those to whom it was addressed. the grounds on which they rejected the revelation of christ were shown to be inadequate. when they accepted this or that article of natural religion, they had accepted what was as difficult of belief as this or that part of the revelation which they rejected. the mysteries which existed in the religion with which they would have nothing to do were in harmony with the {141} mysteries which existed in the religion which they declared to be necessary for the welfare of society. that retort may be made with even more effect to those who so far occupy that same ground to-day. they rejoice to believe that there is a god, that he is not far off, that he communicates himself to their souls, that the love which we bear to one another is but a faint image of the love which he bears to us, that the noblest qualities which exist in us exist more purely, more gloriously in him, that we are in very deed his children and are called to manifest his likeness. it is by prayer, both in public and in private, both in congregations and alone with the alone, that his love and his help can be comprehended and used. he is no absent god: his ear is not heavy that it cannot hear, nor his arm shortened that it cannot save. with this belief we, as christians, have no dispute: we gladly go along with theists in asserting it: we {142} only wonder at their unwillingness to go along with us a little further. for if god be such as they glowingly depict him, if our relations to him be such as they esteem it our greatest dignity to know, there is nothing antecedently impossible in the thought that one man has heard his voice more clearly, has surrendered to his will more entirely, than any other in the history of the ages and the races of mankind: nothing antecedently impossible in the thought that to one man his truth has been conveyed more brightly, more fully than to any other; that in one man the lineaments of the divine image may be seen more distinctly than in any other. if god be such, and if our relations to god be such, as theists describe, why should they shrink with distrust or with antipathy from a son of man who has borne witness to those truths in his life and in his death with a steadfastness of conviction which none other has ever surpassed; who, according {143} to the records which we possess of him, habitually lived to do the father's will and died commending his spirit into the father's hands: a son of man who could truly be said to be in heaven while he was on earth? if god be such, and our relations to god be such, as theists describe, would not that son of man be the confirmation of their thoughts? would not his testimony be of infinite value on their side? would he himself not be the radiant illustration, the eagerly longed for proof of the truth for which they contend? they believe in god: why should it, on their own showing, be so hard to believe in christ? iii the theism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is in some respects different from the deism of the eighteenth. it is not so cold, the god in whom it believes is not so distant from his creatures. but it is not {144} less vehement in its depreciation of christianity as a needless and even harmful addition to the religion of nature. conspicuous among the advocates of this modern theism have been francis william newman, miss frances power cobbe, and the rev. charles voysey. francis newman, in his youth, belonged, like his brother the famous cardinal, to the strictest sect of evangelicals, but, like the cardinal also, drifted away from them, though in a totally different direction.[4] as he found the untenableness of certain views which he had cherished, the insufficiency of certain arguments which he had employed, he came with much anguish of mind to the conclusion that the whole fabric of historical christianity was built upon the sand. he rapidly renounced belief after belief, and caused widespread distress and dismay by a crude attack upon the moral perfection of {145} our lord. his conviction that christianity had nothing special to say for itself, and that one religion was as good as another, seems to have been mainly brought about by a discussion which he had with a mohammedan carpenter at aleppo. 'among other matters, i was particularly desirous of disabusing him of the current notion of his people that our gospels are spurious narratives of late date. i found great difficulty of expression, but the man listened to me with much attention, and i was encouraged to exert myself. he waited patiently till i had done and then spoke to the following effect: "i will tell you, sir, how the case stands. god has given to you english many good gifts. you make fine ships, and sharp penknives, and good cloth and cottons, and you have rich nobles and brave soldiers; and you write and print many learned books (dictionaries and grammars): all this is of god. but there is one thing that god has withheld {146} from you and has revealed to us; and that is the knowledge of the true religion by which one may be saved."'[5] but although newman was led to give up christianity, and practically to hold that one religion was as good as another, he clung tenaciously to what he supposed to be common to all religions, belief in god, a belief deep and ardent. the rationalism of the deists did not approve itself to him. 'our deists of past centuries tried to make religion a matter of the pure intellect, and thereby halted at the very frontier of the inward life: they cut themselves off even from all acquaintance with the experience of spiritual men.'[6] he nourished his soul with psalms and hymns: he sought communion with god. he saw the weakness of morality without the inspiring power of religion. 'morals can seldom gain living energy without the impulsive force derived from spirituals.... however {147} much plato and cicero may talk of the surpassing beauty of virtue, still virtue is an abstraction, a set of wise rules, not a person, and cannot call out affection as an existence exterior to the soul does. on the contrary, god is a person; and the love of him is of all affections by far the most energetic in exciting us to make good our highest ideals of moral excellence and in clearing the moral sight, so that that ideal may keep rising. other things being equal (a condition not to be forgotten) a spiritual man will hold a higher and purer morality than a mere moralist. not only does duty manifest itself to him as an ever-expanding principle, but since a larger and larger part of duty becomes pleasant and easy when performed under the stimulus of love, the will is enabled to concentrate itself more on that which remains difficult and greater power of performance is attained.'[7] where shall we find a more {148} vivid or more spiritual description of the rise and progress of devotion in the soul than in the words of this man, who placed himself beyond the pale of every christian communion? 'one who begins to realise god's majestic beauty and eternity and feels in contrast how little and transitory man is, how dependent and feeble, longs to lean upon him for support. but he is _outside_ of the heart, like a beautiful sunset, and seems to have nothing to do with it: there is no getting into contact with him, to press against him. yet where rather should the weak rest than on the strong, the creature of the day than on the eternal, the imperfect than on the centre of perfection? and where else should god dwell than in the human heart? for if god is in the universe, among things inanimate and unmoral, how much more ought he to dwell with our souls! and they, too, seem to be infinite in their cravings: who but he can satisfy them? thus a restless {149} instinct agitates the soul, guiding it dimly to feel that it was made for some definite but unknown relation towards god. the sense of emptiness increases to positive uneasiness, until there is an inward yearning, if not shaped in words, yet in substance not alien from that ancient strain, "as the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, o god; my soul is athirst for god, even for the living god."'[8] mr. newman, in his later days, we understand, had modified the bitterness of his opposition to historical christianity and was ready to avow himself as a disciple of christ. miss frances power cobbe was another devout spirit who, with less violence but equal decisiveness, accepted theism as apart from christianity. in her case, even more visibly than in mr. newman's, it was not christianity which she rejected, but sundry distortions of it with which it had in her mind become {150} identified. she wrote not a few articles so permeated with the christian spirit and imbued with the christian hope that the most ardent believer in christ could read them with entire approval and own himself their debtor. she took an active part in many philanthropic movements, and she was an earnest and eloquent advocate of faith in the divine ordering of the world and in human immortality. 'theism,' she said, 'is not christianity _minus_ christ, nor judaism _minus_ the miraculous legation of moses, nor any other creed whatsoever merely stripped of its supernatural element. it is before all things the positive affirmation of the absolute goodness of god: and if it be in antagonism to other creeds, it is principally because of, and in proportion to, their failure to assert that goodness in its infinite and all-embracing completeness.'[9] 'god is over us, and heaven {151} is waiting for us all the same, even though all the men of science in europe unite to tell us there is only matter in the universe and only corruption in the grave. atheism may prevail for a night, but faith cometh in the morning. theism is "bound to win" at last: not necessarily that special type of theism which our poor thoughts in this generation have striven to define: but that great fundamental faith, the needful substruction of every other possible religious faith, the faith in a righteous and loving god, and in a life of man beyond the tomb.'[10] 'all the monitions of conscience, all the guidance and rebukes and consolations of the divine spirit, all the holy words of the living, and all the sacred books of the dead, these are our primary evidences of religion. in a word, the first article of our creed is "i believe in god the holy ghost." after this fundamental dogma, we accept {152} with joy and comfort the faith in the creator and orderer of the physical universe, and believe in god the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. and lastly we rejoice in the knowledge that (in no mystic athanasian sense, but in simple fact) "_these two are one_." the god of love and justice who speaks in conscience, and whom our inmost hearts adore, is the same god who rolls the suns and guides the issues of life and death.'[11] in an able paper, _a faithless world_, in which miss cobbe combated the assertion of sir james fitzjames stephen, that the disappearance of belief in god and immortality would be unattended with any serious consequences to the material, intellectual, or moral well-being of mankind, she forcibly said, 'i confess at starting on this inquiry, that the problem, "is religion of use, or can we do as well without it?" seems to me {153} almost as grotesque as the old story of the woman who said that we owe vast obligations to the moon, which affords us light on dark nights, whereas we are under no such debt to the sun, who only shines by day, _when there is always light_. religion has been to us so diffused a light that it is quite possible to forget how we came by the general illumination, save when now and then it has blazed out with special brightness.' the comment is eminently just, but does it not apply with equal force to miss cobbe herself? the theism which she professed was the direct outcome of christianity, could never have existed but for christianity, was, in all its best features, simply christianity under a different name. that theism, as a separate organisation, gives little evidence of conquering the world is shown by the fact that, after many years, it boasts of only one congregation, that of the theistic church, swallow street, piccadilly, {154} of which the rev. charles voysey is minister. mr. voysey was at one time vicar of a parish in yorkshire, where he issued, under the title of _the sling and the stone_, sermons attacking the commonly accepted doctrines of the church of england, and was in consequence deprived of his living. he is distinctly anti-christian in his teaching; strongly prejudiced against anything that bears the christian name: criticising the sayings and doings of our lord in a fashion which indicates either the most astonishing misconception or the most melancholy perversion. but his sincerity and fervour on behalf of theism are unmistakable. he describes it as _religion for all mankind, based on facts which are never in dispute_. the book which is called by that title is written for the help and comfort of all his fellowmen, 'chiefly for those who have doubted and discarded the christian religion, and in consequence have become agnostics or {155} pessimists.' it is prefaced by a dedication, which is also a touching confession of personal faith: 'in all humility i dedicate this book to my god who made me and all mankind, who loves us all alike with an everlasting love, who of his very faithfulness causeth us to be troubled, who punishes us justly for every sin, not in anger or vengeance, but only to cleanse, to heal, and to bless, in whose everlasting arms we lie now and to all eternity.'[12] mr. voysey has compiled a prayer book for the use of his congregation. the ordinary service is practically the morning or evening service of the book of common prayer, with all references to our lord carefully eliminated. the hymn _jesus, lover of my soul_ is changed to _father, refuge of my soul_; and the hymn just as i am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me come to thee, o lamb of god, i come, {156} is rendered: just as i am without one plea, but that thy lore is seeking me, and that thou bidst me come to thee, o loving god, i come. the service respecting our duty, and the service of supplication have merits of their own, but, except for the wanton omission of the name which is above every name, there is nothing in them which does not bear a christian impress. 'christianity _minus_ christ' would seem to be no unfair definition of their standpoint: and without christ they could not have been what they are. the father who is set forth as the object of worship and of trust is the father whom christ declared, the father who, but for the manifestation of christ, would never have been known. far be it from us to deny that the father has been found by those who have sought him beyond the limits of the church: this only we affirm that those by whom he {157} has been found, have, consciously or unconsciously, drawn near to him by the way of christ. nothing of value in modern theism is incompatible with christianity: nothing of value which would not be strengthened by faith in him who said, 'he that hath seen me hath seen the father.' iv the strange objection to faith in christ is sometimes made that it interferes with faith in the father. the notion of mediation is regarded as derogatory alike to god and to man. there is no need for any one to come between: no need for god to depute another to bear witness of him: no need for us to depute another to secure his favour, as from all eternity he is love. the assumption, the groundless assumption, underlying this conception is that the mediator is a barrier between man and god, a hindrance not a help to fellowship with the divine: that one {158} goes to the mediator because access to god is debarred. whatever may occasionally have been the unguarded statements of representatives of christianity, it is surely plain that no such doctrine is taught, that the very opposite of such doctrine is taught, in the new testament. 'we do not,' says m. sabatier, 'address ourselves to jesus by way of dispensing ourselves from going to the father. far from this, we go to christ and abide in him, precisely that we may find the father. we abide in him that his filial consciousness may become our own; that the spirit may become our spirit, and that god may dwell immediately in us as he dwells in him. nothing in all this carries us outside of the religion of the spirit: on the contrary, it is its seal and confirmation.'[13] the whole object of the work of christ, as proclaimed by himself, or as interpreted {159} by his apostles, was to show the father, to bring men to the father. 'believest thou not that i am in the father, and the father in me? the words that i speak unto you i speak not of myself: but the father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.' he 'came and preached peace to you which were afar off and to them that were nigh. for through him we both have access by one spirit unto the father.' to argue that to come to christ is a substitute for coming to god, is an inducement to halt upon the way, is an absolute travesty and perversion. to refuse to see the glory of god in the face of jesus christ is not to bring god near: it is to remove him further from our vision. that god should come to us, that we should go to god, through a mediator, is only in accordance with a universal law. 'why,' says one, who might be expected from his theological training to speak otherwise, 'why, _all_ knowledge is "mediated" even of {160} the simplest objects, even of the most obvious facts: there is no such thing in the world as immediate knowledge, and shall we demur when we are told that the knowledge of god the father also must pass, in order to reach us at its best and purest, through the medium of "that son of god and son of man in whom was the fulness of the prophetic spirit and the filial life?" ... of this at least i feel convinced, that where faith in the father has grown blurred and vague in our days, and finally flickered out, the cause must in many instances be sought--i will not say in the wilful rejection, but--in the careless letting go of the message and personality of the son.'[14] so far from the thought of the father being ignored or set aside by the thought of christ, we may rather say with s. john, 'whosoever denieth the son, the same hath not the father: he that confesseth the son hath the father also.' 'he {161} that abideth in the doctrine of christ, he hath both the father and the son.' the homage that we render thee is still our father's own; nor jealous claim or rivalry divides the cross and throne.[15] v the notion that theism as contrasted with christianity is a mark of progress and of spirituality is a pure imagination. 'more spiritual it may be than the traditional christianity which consists in rigid and stereotyped forms of practice, of ceremonial, of observance, of dogma: but not more spiritual than the teaching of christ himself, the end and completion of whose work was to bring men to the father, to teach them that god is a spirit, and to send the spirit of the father into the hearts of the disciples. it would be a strange perversity if men should reject christ in the name of spiritual {162} religion when it is to christ, and to him alone, that they owe the conception of what spiritual religion is.'[16] to preach the doctrines of theism without reference to christ is to deprive them of their most sublime illustration, their most inspiring force, and their most convincing proof. it is as christ is known that god is believed in. the attempt to create enthusiasm for god while banishing the gospel of christ meets with astonishingly small response. the 'religion for all mankind' makes but little progress, is, in spite of the labours of five-and-thirty years, confined, as we have seen, almost to a solitary moderately sized congregation. and whether or not the 'facts' on which the religion is based 'are never in dispute,' the religion itself is often-times disputed very keenly. modern assaults upon religious faith are, as a rule, directed quite as much against theism as {163} against christianity.[17] it is the love, or even the existence, of the living god, it is human responsibility, it is life beyond the grave, that are called in question as frequently as the resurrection of christ. the assurance that god at sundry times and in divers manners has spoken by prophets renders it not more but less improbable that he should speak by a son: the assurance that there is life beyond the grave for all renders it not more but less improbable that jesus rose from the dead. conversely those who believe in jesus believe with a double intensity in him whom he revealed. 'ye believe in god,' said christ, 'believe also in me.' for many of us now, it is because we believe in christ that we believe also in god. the almighty and eternal is beyond our ken: the grace and truth of jesus christ come home to our hearts. the word that was in the beginning with god and was god, {164} is wrapt in impenetrable mystery: the word made flesh can be seen and handled: has wrought with human hands the creed of creeds in loveliness of perfect deeds, more strong than all poetic thought.[18] and however it may be in a few exceptional cases, where people nominally renouncing christ desperately cleave to a fragment of the faith of their childhood, the fact remains that, where he ceases to be acknowledged, faith in the father whom he manifested tends, gradually or speedily, to vanish. vi the superiority of theism to deism simply consists in its being more christian. with the ideas of god which 'theists' hold, we can, as christians, most cordially sympathise. we can sincerely say, 'hold to them firmly, they are your life: let no man rob you of {165} them by any vain deceit.' but we cannot help also asking, 'whence have you drawn those lofty ideas? where have you obtained so exalted a conception of the divine being in his mingled majesty and lowliness, in his inconceivable greatness, and his equally inconceivable compassion? we turn from the picture of god which, with so much labour, so much skill, so much moral earnestness, you have exhibited, and we behold the original in christ and his teaching. however unconsciously, it is his truth, it is his features, that you have reproduced. you have been brought up in the church of christ, or you have been brought into contact with its influences, and you have imbibed its teachings, perhaps more deeply than some who would not dare to question its smallest precepts. still, christ's teaching you have not outgrown, from christ himself you have not escaped. you cannot go from his presence or flee from his spirit. those {166} views which you hold so strongly, which are to you the most ennobling that have ever been given of god and of religion, where is it that alone they are to be found? in places where christianity has gone before. no doubt, belief in god is not confined to christian countries: worship of the maker of heaven and earth exists where the name of christ has never been heard, but not such belief, _such_ worship, as that for which those persons contend. the god whom they adore will not be found anywhere save where christianity has penetrated. in this country it is the desperate clinging to one portion of the christian faith when all else has been abandoned: in other lands, in india, for example, where representatives of this way of thinking are not uncommon, it is the rapturous welcome of one of the sublime truths of christianity before which the idolatries of their forefathers are passing away. it is safe to call it a transition stage: {167} it will either part with the fragment of christianity which it retains and become merged in doubt and speculation and unbelief; or it will include yet more of the christianity of which it has grasped a part: its belief in god will be crowned and confirmed by its belief in christ. for, speaking to those who cherish faith in the all-righteous and all-loving god as the only hope for the regeneration of mankind, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that where faith in christ fades, faith in god has a tendency to become vague and dim. he ceases to be thought of as a friend and help at hand: he is resolved into a creator infinitely distant or into a law, immovable, inexorable, a blind, unconscious fate. it is christ who gives life to the thought of god. it is the word made flesh that makes the eternal word more real. the attempt of the deists to purify religion by the preaching of a god who had not {168} revealed himself, and could not reveal himself, in a son, came to nothing. voltaire's chapel at ferney still stands, but nobody worships in it. religion seemed to slumber: belief in god seemed to be decaying, when the preaching of the name and the work of christ again aroused it into life. and so it is now. whatever the ability, whatever the sincerity of the advocates of belief in god without reference to christ, it lacks motive-power, it lacks the missionary spirit. if we may judge by the past, theism without christ is a faith which will not spread, which will not lay hold on the labouring and the heavy laden: which may be maintained as a theory, but which will not be as a fire in the souls of men diffusing itself by kindling other souls. it is from christ alone, from christ the manifestation of what god is in heart and mind, from christ the manifestation of what man ought to be, from christ who said, 'in my father's house are many {169} mansions: he that hath seen me hath seen the father,' that there comes with an authority to which, in face of the difficulties besetting the present and the future, the human soul will bow, with a soothing power to which the human spirit will gladly yield--it is from christ alone that there comes the divine injunction, 'let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in god, believe also in me.' it is as he is clearly seen and truly known that the clouds of error and superstition vanish from the face of god, and men are drawn to worship and to trust. [1] longfellow, _song of hiawatha_. [2] keble, _christian year_. [3] bishop gore, _the christian creed_. [4] appendix xx. [5] _phases of faith_. [6] _the soul: its sorrows and aspirations_. [7] _the soul: its sorrows and aspirations_. [8] _the soul_. [9] _alone to the alone_. [10] _alone to the alone_. [11] _alone to the alone_. [12] appendix xxi. [13] _the religions of authority and the religion of the spirit_. [14] j. warschauer, _coming of christ_. [15] whittier, _our master_. [16] r. b. bartlett, _the letter and the spirit_: bampton lecture. [17] appendix xxii. [18] tennyson, _in memoriam_. {172} vi the tribute of criticism to christ 'for their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.'--deuteronomy xxxii. 31. 'he asked his disciples, saying, whom do men say that i, the son of man, am? and they said, some say that thou art john the baptist; some elias; and others jeremias or one of the prophets.'--s. matthew xvi. 13, 14. 'what think ye of christ? whose son is he?--s. matthew, xxii. 42. 'and there was much murmuring among the people concerning him: for some said, he is a good man: others said, nay, but he deceiveth the people.'--s. john vii. 12. 'then said jesus unto the twelve, will ye also go away? then simon peter answered him, lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.'--s. john vi. 67, 68. {173} vi the tribute of criticism to christ[1] of the investigations of modern criticism the most serious are those which have concerned the person of our lord. it has been felt both by assailants and by defenders of the faith that, so long as his supremacy remains acknowledged, christianity has not been overthrown. other doctrines once considered all-important may fall into comparative abeyance: whether they are upheld or rejected or modified, matters little to christianity as christianity. but more and more it has grown clear that christ himself {174} is the article of a standing or a falling church. if this doctrine is not of god, if he is not the way, the truth, and the life, christianity, whatever benefits may have been associated with its career, must be ranked among religions which have passed away. but so long as he is admitted to be the authority and standard in the moral and spiritual realm, so long as his name is above every name, the work of destruction is not accomplished. hence, renewed attempts have of late been made to tear the crown from his brow, to reduce him to the level of common men, to relegate him to the domain of myth, even to deny that he ever existed. although, in certain quarters at present, this last and extreme position is loudly asserted, it is hardly necessary to occupy much time in examining it, the trend of all criticism, even of the most rationalistic, being so decidedly opposed to {175} it. to deny that he existed is commonly felt to be the outcome of the most arbitrary prejudice, the conclusions of whately's _historic doubts relative to napoleon buonaparte_ remaining grave and weighty in comparison. that jesus of nazareth lived and taught and was crucified, that, immediately after his death, his disciples were proclaiming that he had risen, and was their living inspiration, these are facts which can be denied only by the very extravagance of scepticism. and the admission of these simple facts implies a great deal more than is commonly supposed. i it is the fashion for hostile critics to say, 'christianity is not dependent upon christ: it is the creation of the semi-historical paul, not of the unhistorical jesus. there is at best no more connection between christendom and christ than between america and {176} amerigo vespucci.[2] see how much christians have been obliged to give up: see how belief after belief has had to be surrendered; see how they are now left with the merest fragment of their ancient creed, how evidently they will soon be compelled to part with the little to which they still desperately cling.' the conclusion is somewhat hasty and premature. the fragment which remains is after all the main portion of the creed of the early disciples. where that fragment is declared and held and lived in, there is the presence and the power of the christian faith. we need not trouble ourselves about sundry points which, at one epoch or another, have come to be denied or ignored: we need not say anything either for them or against them. we have to take our stand on what is accepted, not on what is rejected. and for the moment we may {177} venture to take our stand only on what is accepted by the critics least biassed in favour of the traditional views of christendom. those who have come to imagine it to be a mark of advanced culture to break with all religion, to confine their attention to the fleeting present, to reject all that claims to have divine sanction, may listen with respect to the words of some who appear in fancied hostility to christianity. we are not assuming that because men are great in science or history or philosophy they must be great in spiritual things. their achievements in their own sphere, let us gratefully recognise; their uprightness, their single-heartedness, let us imitate; and if by chance they are sincere christians as well as able men, let us rejoice; if they are not professing christians at all and yet bear witness to the beneficial influence of christianity and the unique power of the words and character of christ, let us hail with {178} pleasure their tribute of admiration as a testimony impartial and unanswerable to the pre-eminence of our lord, but let not our faith in god, our knowledge of our saviour, be dependent on their verdict. the faith of the gospel does not stand or fall with their approval or disapproval. in matters of criticism we do well to defer to scholars, in matters of science we do well to defer to men of science. but in matters pertaining to the inner life, to the development of character, to the knowledge of things pure and lovely and of good report, such men have no exclusive claim to be listened to. and it would be absurd to say that we cannot make up our minds as to whether christ is worthy to be revered and loved and followed until we have ascertained what is said about him by authorities in physics, or geology, or astronomy, by statesmen or novelists or writers of magazine articles, by inventors of ingenious machines or authors of {179} sensational stories. if they speak scoffingly, if they do not recognise any sacredness in his spirit and life, it will be impossible for us to take him as our moral and spiritual guide. we might almost as well say that we will not trust the truthfulness or goodness of our father or mother or brother or friend of many years, unless, from persons eminent in literature or science or politics, we have testimonials assuring us that our affection for those with whom we are so closely associated is not a delusion. that is a matter, we should all feel, with which the great and distinguished, however justly great and distinguished, have really nothing to do. it is a matter for ourselves, a matter in which our own experience is worth more than the verdict of people, however learned in their own line, who do not, and cannot, know the friend or relative as we know him ourselves. still, we regard it as an additional {180} compliment to his worth, and an additional confirmation of our own faith, if those who have been jealously scrutinising his conduct declare that they can find no fault in him.[3] if it is made plain that the positive teaching of men unconnected with any church, untrammelled by any creed, is a virtual assertion of much that is most dear to christianity, if it is made plain that even where there is strong denial there is also much reference to christ, it may have more weight than the most cogent arguments or the most glowing appeals of orthodox divines or devout believers. the evangelists delight to record instances of unexpected, unfriendly, unimpeachable testimony to the power of christ. it is not only that the simple-minded people were astonished at his doctrine, but that the soldiers who were sent to silence him {181} returned, smitten with amazement, saying, 'never man spake like this man.' it is not only that a grateful penitent washed his feet with tears, but that the unprincipled governor who sentenced him to death declared 'i find in him no fault at all.' it is not only that an apostle confesses, 'thou art the christ the son of the living god,' but that the centurion who watched over his crucifixion exclaimed, 'certainly this was a righteous man: this was a son of god.' it is similar unprejudiced witness that we may hear around us still, the witness of those who profess to have another rule of life than ours, and to be in no degree influenced by our traditions. we must not expect too much from this kind of evidence: we must not expect clear logical proof of every article rightly or wrongly identified with the popularly termed 'orthodox' creed. it would destroy the value of the evidence {182} simply to quote orthodox doctrines in orthodox language. what we rather offer is the testimony of those who have resigned their grasp on much that we may deem essential. it is because in a sense we may call them 'enemies' that we ask them to be 'judges' in the great controversy. it is exactly because they are incredulous, or sceptical, or irreligious that we cite them at all. we confine ourselves to the utterances of men who are commonly cited as hostile to the commonly accepted faith of christ, or who do not rank among the number of his nominal disciples, or who at least have discussed his claims by critical and historical methods, endeavouring fairly to take into account all the facts which the circumstances warrant. we say to those who disown the authority of christ: it is not to the words of evangelists or preachers that your attention is sought: it is to the words of those whom you {183} profess to respect, of those because of whose supposed antagonism to christianity you are rejecting him. we ask you to listen to them and to consider whether he of whom such men speak in such terms is to be so lightly set aside as you have fancied. ii it will be strange if, accepting even that scanty creed, we do not find ourselves speedily accepting much more. when it is heartily acknowledged that jesus of nazareth lived and died, and that his first followers found strength and irresistible power in the conviction that he had conquered death and the grave, it is of necessity that we go further. the extreme sceptics who maintain that he never existed are, for the purpose of controversy, wise in their generation, for, once his existence is admitted, his mysterious power begins to tell. we are confronted {184} with an influence by which, consciously or unconsciously, we must be affected, a knowledge which we must acquire, an authority to which we must bow. let us not think merely of those who have, in utter devotion, yielded their hearts and souls to him through all the centuries, of the institutions and customs which owe their existence directly to him; let us think of the manifestations which are so often visible in those who do not suspect whence the manifestations come, let us think of the tributes of affection, of homage, of devotion which are paid by those to whom the ancient faith in his divinity appears to be an illusion or an impossible exaggeration. scarcely any critic of recent years has been regarded as more destructive than professor schmiedel. indignant attack after indignant attack has been made upon him for arguing that only nine sayings attributed to our lord can be accepted as genuine, that {185} all else is involved in suspicion. what schmiedel really does maintain is that these nine sayings must of necessity be accepted as genuine, cannot be rejected by any sane canon of criticism, and that the acceptance of these nine sayings, these 'foundation-pillars,' compels the acceptance of a great deal besides. '_what then have i gained in these nine foundation pillars_? you will perhaps say "very little": i reply, "i have gained just enough." having them, i know that jesus must really have come forward in the way he is said to have done.... in a word, i know, on the one hand, that his person cannot be referred to the region of myth; on the other hand, that he was man in the full sense of the term, and that, without of course denying that the divine character was in him, this could be found only in the shape in which it can be found in any human being. i think, therefore, that if we knew no more we should {186} know by no means little about him. but as a matter of fact the foundation-pillars are but the starting-point for our study of the life of jesus.'[4] and this study, he concludes, gives us nothing less than 'pretty well the whole bulk of jesus' teaching, in so far as its object is to explain in a purely religious and ethical way what god requires of man and wherein man requires comfort and consolation from god.' the standpoint of professor schmiedel is not the standpoint of the church as a whole: he fearlessly and aggressively endeavours to remove any misconception on that subject: all the more remarkable that, renouncing so much, he incontrovertibly establishes so much, incontrovertibly establishes, we may not unreasonably contend, a great deal more than he admits: he cannot, we may think, stop logically where he does. all this may, or may not, be legitimately argued: there can {187} be no doubt that one whose dislike of traditional dogmas is excessive, and whose scrutiny of the gospel records is minute and unsparing, forces us to say of jesus, what manner of man is this? it is the same with the general tendency of modern criticism. from the day that strauss accomplished his destructive work, the figure of jesus as a historical reality has been more and more endowed with power.[5] no age has so occupied itself with him, none has so endeavoured to recall the features of his character, to apply his teachings to the solution of social questions, as this age of ruthless inquiry. the inquirers may have abjured tradition, but almost without exception they have profoundly reverenced, if they have not actually worshipped, jesus of nazareth, and they have found in his gospel moral and spiritual light and life. {188} some thirty years ago, m. andrã© lefã¨vre, a fervid disciple of materialism, an uncompromising and bitter opponent of every symptom of religious manifestation, could not help discerning 'with the clairvoyance of hatred,' the influence of christianity in modern thought. 'descartes, leibnitz, locke, condillac, newton, bonnet, kant, hegel, spinoza himself, toland and priestley, rousseau, all are christians somewhere.... voltaire himself has not completely eliminated the virus: his deism is not exempt from it.'[6] the same thing is still occurring. in the most unexpected quarters we find the fascination of christ remaining. men not acknowledging themselves to be his followers, defiantly proclaiming that they are not his followers, that they can hardly be even interested in him, are yet perpetually returning, in what they themselves will confess as their higher moments, to the thought of {189} him, trying to make plain why it is that for them there is in him no beauty that they should desire him. for example, this is how mr. h. g. wells, the popular author of so many imaginative works, attempts frankly to explain his attitude: 'i hope i shall offend no susceptibilities when i assert that this great and very definite personality in the hearts and imaginations of mankind does not, and never has, attracted me. it is a fact i record about myself without aggression or regret. i do not find myself able to associate him in any way with the emotion of salvation.' but mr. wells goes on to say: 'i admit the splendid imaginative appeal in the idea of a divine human friend and mediator. if it were possible to have access by prayer, by meditation, by urgent outcries of the soul, to such a being whose feet were in the darknesses, who stooped down from the light, who was at once great and little, limitless in power {190} and virtue, and one's very brother; if it were possible by sheer will in believing to make and make one's way to such a helper, who would refuse such help? but i do not find such a being in christ. i do not find, i cannot imagine such a being. i wish i could. to me the christian christ seems not so much a humanised god as an incomprehensibly sinless being, neither god nor man. his sinlessness wears his incarnation like a fancy dress, all his white self unchanged. he had no petty weaknesses. now the essential trouble of my life is its petty weaknesses. if i am to have that love, that sense of understanding fellowship which is, i conceive, the peculiar magic and merit of this idea of a personal saviour, then i need some one quite other than this image of virtue, this terrible and incomprehensible galilean with his crown of thorns, his bloodstained hands and feet. i cannot love him any more than i can love a man {191} upon the rack.' 'the christian's christ is too fine for me, not incarnate enough, not flesh enough, not earth enough. he was never foolish and hot-eared and inarticulate, never vain, he never forgot things, nor tangled his miracles.'[7] there is no disputing about tastes; and it is impossible to refute one who tells us that he cannot see and cannot understand, though we may lament and be astonished at his disabilities. why a man upon the rack should not be loved, or why the prime qualification for the saviour of mankind should be the plentiful possession of petty weaknesses, or why it should be necessary for him to be sometimes foolish and to have a bad memory, or what necessary connection there is between hot-ears and the salvation of the world, need not detain us long. for in spite of this apparently curious longing for a deliverer who shall be weak and vain {192} and forgetful and hot-eared, and foolish, and of the earth earthy, mr. wells shows us that the urgent outcry of his soul is for a being limitless in power and virtue and one's very brother; and though he says that he does not find such a being in christ, it is exactly what christians have in all ages been finding. 'we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in times of need.' iii the instance which we have cited is exceptional among modern doubters, among those who have deliberately set themselves without violent prejudice to study the claims of christianity. be it in poetry or prose, in scientific criticism or in imaginative {193} biography, with remarkable unanimity, while stubbornly refusing to accept the creed of the church, they so depict him that the natural conclusion of their representation is, 'oh, come let us adore him.' there is scarcely any of them who would not sympathise with the admission and aspiration of b. wimmer in his confession, _my struggle for light_: 'i cannot but love this unique child of god with all the fervour of my soul, i cannot but lift up eyes full of reverence and rapture to this personality in whom the highest and most sacred virtues which can move the heart of man shine forth in spotless purity throughout the ages. even if many a trait in his portrait, as the gospels sketch it for us, be more legendary than historical, yet i feel that here a man stands before me, a man who really lived and has a place in history like that of no other man: indeed i feel that even the legends concerning him possess a truth in that they spring from the {194} spirit which passed from him into his church. i know what i have to thank him for. i would in my inmost self be so closely united with him that he may live in my spirit and bear absolute sway in my soul. i will not be ashamed of his cross and i will gladly endure the insults which men have directed, and still often enough direct, against him and his truth.' that is the characteristic and dominant note of the more recent criticism. the almost universal conclusion is that the perfect ideal has been depicted in the christ of the gospels, and has been depicted because the reality had been seen in jesus of nazareth.[8] is it not allowable to declare that the writers, let them say what they will about their rejection of the doctrine of the church concerning the incarnation and the atonement of christ, are practically his disciples, that the ardour of their faith in him not {195} infrequently puts to shame the coldness of us who call him lord?[9] there is scarcely extravagance in the assertion that, as we recognise the part which strauss and renan played, and the unconscious help which they rendered, 'we may well say now "_noster_" strauss and "_noster_" renan. they were, in their measure, and, according to their respective abilities, defenders of the faith.'[10] while it is possible to lament that among christian apologists there are timid surrenders and faithless forebodings, it is yet more possible to reply that 'whereas our critics were at one time infidels and our bitter enemies, they are now proud of the name of christian and ready to be the friends, as far as that is permitted, of every form of orthodoxy in christianity.'[11] the language in which, at any rate, they express their conception of him is sometimes {196} more devout, more exalted, than the language which used to be employed by professed apologists. the hindu theist, protab chandra mozoomdar, who stood outside the fold of christianity, joyfully proclaimed, 'christ reigns. as the law of the spirit of heavenly life, he reigns in the bosom of every believer.... christ reigns as the recogniser of divine humanity in the fallen, the low, and the despicable, as the healer of the unhappy, the unclean, and the sore distressed. reigns he not in the sweet humanity that goes forth to seek and to save its kin in every land and clime, to teach and preach, and raise and reclaim, to weep and watch and give repose? he reigns as sweet patience and sober reason amid the laws and orders of the world; as the spirit of submission and loyalty he reigns in peace in the kingdoms of the world.... christ reigns in the individual who feebly watches his footprints in the tangled mazes of life. {197} he reigns in the community that is bound together in his name. as divine humanity, and the son of god, he reigns gloriously around us in the new dispensation.'[12] or listen to the rhapsody with which mrs. besant, once an atheist, now a theosophist, depicts his influence from age to age: 'his the steady inpouring of truth into every brain ready to receive it, so that hand stretched out to hand across the centuries and passed on the torch of knowledge, which thus was never extinguished. his the form which stood beside the rack and in the flames of the burning pile, cheering his confessors and his martyrs, soothing the anguish of their pains and filling their hearts with his peace. his the impulse which spoke in the thunder of savonarola, which guided the calm wisdom of erasmus, which inspired the deep ethics of the god-intoxicated spinoza.... his the beauty that allured fra {198} angelico and raphael and leonardo da vinci, that inspired the genius of michael angelo, that shone before the eyes of murillo, and that gave the power that raised the marvels of the world, the duomo of milan, the san marco of venice, the cathedral of florence. his the melody that breathed in the masses of mozart, the sonatas of beethoven, the oratorios of handel, the fugues of bach, the austere splendour of brahms. through the long centuries he has striven and laboured, and, with all the mighty burden of the churches to carry, he has never left uncared for and unsolaced one human heart that cried to him for help.'[13] when we read sentences like these by themselves we say, here is unqualified acceptance of the christian faith. and even when we are told that we must not take the sentences in their literal and natural meaning, that they apply not to him whose earthly {199} career is sketched in the gospels, but to an ideal being evolved out of the writer's imagination, we are surely entitled to answer, it is of jesus that the words are spoken, whether their meaning is to be taken literally or figuratively; if they have any meaning at all, they indicate a being without a parallel. that there should be so extraordinary a conflict of opinion regarding him, that the greatest intellects as well as the simplest souls should hail him as divine, that the most critical should still find their explanations insufficient to account for the impression which he made upon his contemporaries and continues to wield to this day, at least renders him absolutely unique. men may disbelieve a great deal; they cannot disbelieve that this amazing personality has a place in the heart of the world which no other has ever occupied. the alleged imaginary ideal has had on earth only one approximate embodiment. nay, we are {200} forced to confess, without the actual character disclosed from nazareth to calvary, the ideal would never have been conceived. iv robert browning has described in his _christmas eve_ a certain german professor lecturing upon the myth of christ and the sources whence it is derivable. but as the listeners wait for the inference that faith in him should henceforth be discarded, 'he bids us,' says the supposed narrator of the story, 'when we least expect it take back our faith': go home and venerate the myth i thus have experimented with. this man, continue to adore him rather than all who went before him, and all who ever followed after. this is a correct though humorous summary of much prevalent scepticism. while critics destroy with the one hand, they build up {201} with the other; while they seem intent on rooting out every remnant of trust in christ, they frequently conclude by passionately beseeching us to make him our model and our king, our pattern and our guide. if there is anything which is calculated at once to arouse us who profess and call ourselves christians and to make us ashamed, it is that the diligence with which his example is followed, the earnestness with which his words are studied, by some whom we hold to have abandoned the catholic faith, throw into the shade the obedience, the love, the earnestness which prevail among ourselves. they who follow not with us are casting out devils in his name. it is with us, they are careful to say, and not with him that they are waging war. they may dispute the incidents of his recorded life: they may insist on reducing him to the level of humanity, but they also insist that in so doing they act according to his own {202} mind, that they refuse, for the very love which they bear him, to surround him with a glory which he would have rejected. devoid of the errors which have led astray his successors, exalted far above the wisest and the best of those who have spoken in his name, it is the function of criticism to show him in his fashion as he lived, to sweep away the falsehoods which have gathered round him in the course of ages.[14] we do not seek to read into the emotional language of such writers a significance which they would repudiate, but we are surely entitled to point out that in spite of themselves they are bringing their tribute of homage to the king of the jews, the king of all mankind. they grant so much that, it seems to us, they must grant yet more. we, at any rate, cannot stop where they deem themselves obliged to stop. we must go further, we hear other voices swell the {203} chorus of adoration, we have the witness not only of those who, in awe and wonderment have exclaimed, 'truly this was a son of god,' but we have the witness of those who from heartfelt conviction are able to say, 'the life which i now live in the flesh i live by the faith of the son of god, who loved me and gave himself for me.' and to them we humbly hope to be able to respond, 'now we believe not because of the language of others, whether honest doubters or devout disciples, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the christ, the saviour of the world.' 'restate our doctrines as we may,' to sum up all in the words of one who began his career as a teacher in the confidence that jesus of nazareth was merely a man, but whom closer study and deepening experience have brought to a fuller faith, 'reconstruct our theologies as we will, this age, like every age, beholds in him the way to god, the {204} truth of god, the life of god lived out among men: this age, like every age, has heard and responds to his call, "come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and i will give you rest": this age, like every age, finds access to the father through the son. these things no criticism can shake, these certainties no philosophy disprove, these facts no science dissolve away. he is the religion which he taught: and while the race of man endures, men will turn to the crucified son of man, not with a grudging, "thou hast conquered, o galilean!" but with the joyful, grateful cry, "my lord and my god."'[15] v he who was lifted up on the cross is drawing all men to himself, wise and unwise, friend and foe, devout and doubting, is ruling even where his authority is disavowed, is {205} causing hearts to adore where intellects rebel. the patriotic english baron, simon de montfort, as he saw the royal forces under prince edward come against him, was filled with admiration of their discipline and bearing. 'by the arm of s. james,' he cried, recalling with soldierly pride that to himself they owed in great measure their skill, 'they come on well: they learned that not of themselves, but of me.' the church of christ, when confronted with the benevolence, the integrity, the zeal of some who are arrayed against her, may naturally say, 'they live well indeed: they learned that not of themselves, but of me.' 'you are probably,' was the homely expostulation of benjamin franklin with thomas paine, 'you are probably indebted to religion for the habits of virtue on which you so justly value yourself. you might easily display your excellent talents of reasoning upon a less hazardous subject, and thereby obtain a rank amongst {206} our most distinguished authors. for among us,' continued franklin satirically, 'it is not necessary, as among the hottentots, that a youth, to be raised into the company of men, should prove his manhood by beating his mother.' the blows inflicted on christianity come from unfilial hands and hearts, from hands and hearts which have been strengthened and nurtured on christianity itself, from hands and hearts which, but for the lingering christianity that still impels them, would soon be paralysed and dead. the ideals which systems intended to supersede christianity set before them are, to all intents and purposes, only christianity under another name. where the ideals go beyond ordinary christian practice, they are only a nearer approximation to the supreme ideal which has never been fulfilled save in jesus christ himself. wherever there is truth in them which is not generally accepted, or which comes as a surprise, investigation {207} will show that it is an aspect of christianity which christians have been neglecting, that it is a manifestation of the mind of christ, a development of his principles. look where we will, the men that are making real moral and spiritual progress are those who are in touch with him. their beliefs about him may not be accurate, their conception of his nature and work may be defective, but it is his name, his spirit, his power, it is himself that is the secret of their life. one part of his teaching has sunk into their hearts, one element of his character has mysteriously impressed them. they have touched the hem of his garment, the shadow of his apostle passing by has glided over them, and they have been roused from weakness and death. 'he that was healed wist not who it was, for jesus had conveyed himself away.' so it happened in the days of his flesh: so is it happening still: they that are set free may not yet know to whom {208} their freedom is to be ascribed. now, as on the way to emmaus, when men are communing together and reasoning, jesus himself may be walking with them, though their eyes are holden that they do not know him. john stuart mill, whose acute intellect, whose spotless rectitude, whose public spirit, whose non-religious training naturally made him the idol of those to whom christianity was a bygone superstition, came in his later days, not indeed to accept the orthodox creed, but yet to stretch out his longing hand to christ, believing that he might have 'unique commission from god to lead mankind to truth and virtue.' george eliot, whose genius was ever labouring to fill up the void which the rejection of her early faith had made, consoled her dying hours, as she had inspired her most ennobling pages, with the _imitation of christ_. matthew arnold, most cultured of critics, joins hands with the most fervid of evangelists in maintaining that {209} 'there is no way to righteousness but the way of jesus.' the name of christ--none other name under heaven given among men will ever prove a substitute for that. renouncing faith in christ, is there life, is there salvation for man to be found in the doctrines, the names, the influences which are so vehemently extolled? is there one of them which so satisfies the cravings of the heart, which enkindles such glorious hopes, which inspires to such holy living, which inculcates so universal a brotherhood, as christianity? is there one of them which, at the best, is more than a keeping of despair at bay, than a resolute acceptance of utter overthrow, than a blindness to the tremendous issues which are involved?[16] will the culture which is devoted, and cannot but be devoted, exclusively to the outward, which imparts a knowledge of science or art or literature, be found sufficient to {210} rescue men from the slavery of sin or from the torment of doubt? will the progress which is altogether occupied with the material and the physical, with providing better houses and better food and better wages, produce happiness without alloy and remove the sting and dread of death?[17] will the reiteration of the dogma that we are but fleeting shadows, that there is nothing to hope for in the future, that we are all the victims of delusion, tend to elevate and benefit our downcast race? will the attempt to worship what has never been made known, what is simply darkness and mystery, be more successful in raising men above themselves than the worship of the righteousness and the love which have been made manifest in christ? will the attempt to supplant the worship of jesus christ, in whom was no sin, by the worship of humanity at large, of humanity stained with guilt and crime as {211} well as illumined here and there with deeds of heroism, of humanity sunk to the level of the brutes as well as exalted to the level of whatever we may suppose to be the highest, seeing that there is really no higher existence with which to compare it--will this worship of itself, with all its baseness and imperfection, this turning of mankind into a mutual adoration society, make humanity divine? will even the assurance that far-distant ages will have new inventions, fairer laws, more abundant wealth be any deliverance to us from our burdens, any salvation from our individual sorrow and guilt and shame? can we to whom the likeness of christ has been shown, can we imagine that any of these efforts to answer the yearning of mankind for deliverance from the body of this death will prove an efficient substitute for him? and if we forsake him, it must be in one or other of these directions that we go. {212} vi but the signs of the times are full of hope. in social work at home, in the progress of missions abroad, in revivals of one kind and another, in growing reverence for holy things, in a renewed interest in religion as the most vital of all topics, even in strange spiritual manifestations not within the church, we have, amid all that is discouraging and depressing, indication of the coming kingdom. the cry, 'back to christ,' with all the truth that is in it, is only half a truth if it does not also mean 'forward to christ.' he is before us as well as behind us, and the hope of the world is the gathering together of all things in him. should there be, as there has been over and over again in days gone by, a widespread unbelief, a rejection of his divine revelation, of this we may be sure--it will be only for a time. when the sceptical physician, in tennyson's poem, murmured: 'the good lord jesus has had his day,' {213} the believing nurse made the comment: 'had? has it come? it has only dawned: it will come by and by.' a thought most sad, though most inspiring. 'only dawned.' why is christianity after all these centuries only beginning to be manifested? it is at least partly because of the apathy, the divisions, the evil lives of us who profess and call ourselves christians, because we have wrangled about the secondary and the comparatively unimportant, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, because we have so left to those beyond the church the duty of proclaiming and enforcing principles which our lord and his apostles put in the forefront of their teaching. we have narrowed the kingdom of christ, we have claimed too little for him, we have forgotten that he has to do with the secular as well as with the spiritual, that he must be king of the nation as well as of the church. but now in the growing {214} prominence of social questions, which so many fear as an evidence of the waning of religion, have we not an incentive to show that the social must be pervaded by the religious, that our duties to one another are no small part of the kingdom of christ? for all sorts and conditions of men, for masters and servants, for rulers and ruled, for employers and employed, there is ever accumulating proof that only as they bear themselves towards each other in the spirit of the new testament can there be true harmony and mutual respect; that only, in short, as the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our lord and of his christ will men in reality bear one another's burdens; that only as the everlasting gospel of the everlasting love prevails will all strife and contention, whether personal or political or ecclesiastical or national, come to an end; that only as men enter into the fellowship of that son of man who came not to be {215} ministered unto but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many will the glorious vision of old be fulfilled: i saw in the night vision, and behold one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the ancient of days and they brought him near before him. and there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations and languages shall serve him. his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. [1] in this lecture are included some paragraphs from a sermon long out of print, _the witness of scepticism to christ_, preached before the synod of lothian and tweeddale. [2] g. lommel, _jesus von nazareth_ (quoted in pfannmã¼ller's _jesus im urteil der jahrhunderte_). [3] appendix xxiii. [4] _jesus in modern criticism_. [5] h. weinel, _jesus im neunzehnten jahrhundert_. [6] quoted in e. naville, _le tã©moignage du christ_. [7] _first and last things: a confession of faith and rule of life_. [8] appendix xxiv. [9] appendix xxv. [10] _lux hominum_, preface. [11] _lux hominum_, p. 84. [12] _the oriental christ_. [13] _esoteric christianity_. [14] appendix xxvi. [15] j. warschauer, _the new evangel_. [16] appendix xxvii. [17] appendix xxviii. {219} appendices appendix i 'i hope no reader imagines me so weak to stand up in defence of real christianity such as used in primitive times (if we may believe the authors of those ages) to have an influence upon men's beliefs and actions. to offer at the restoring of that would indeed be a wild project: it would be to dig up foundations: to destroy at one blow all the wit and half the learning of the kingdom, to break the entire frame and constitution of things, to ruin trade, extinguish arts and sciences, with the professors of them; in short, to turn our courts, exchanges, and shops into deserts; and would be full as absurd as the proposal of horace, where he advises the romans all in a body, to leave their city, and seek a new seat in some remote part of the world, by way of cure for the corruption of their manners.'--dean swift, _an argument to prove that the abolishing of christianity in england may, as things now stand, be attended with some inconveniences_. {220} appendix ii while the state of our race is such as to need all our mutual devotedness, all our aspiration, all our resources of courage, hope, faith, and good cheer, the disciples of the christian creed and morality are called upon, day by day, to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling and so forth. such exhortations are too low for even the wavering mood and quacked morality of a time of theological suspense and uncertainty. in the extinction of that suspense and the discrediting of that selfish quacking i see the prospect for future generations of a purer and loftier virtue, and a truer and sweeter heroism than divines who preach such self-seeking can conceive of.'--harriet martineau, _autobiography_, vol. ii. p. 461. 'noble morality is classic morality, the morality of greece, of rome, of renaissance italy, of ancient india. but christian morality is slave morality _in excelsis_. for the essence of christian morality is the desire of the individual to be saved: his consciousness of power is so small that he lives in hourly peril of damnation and death and yearns thus for the arms of some saving grace.'--_f. nietzsche_, by a. r. orage, p. 53. {221} 'they [christians] have never learnt to love, to think, to trust. they have been nursed and bred and swaddled and fed on fear. they are afraid of death: they are afraid of truth: they are afraid of human nature: they are afraid of god.... they deal in a poor kind of old wives' fables, of lackadaisical dreams, of discredited sorcery, and white magic, and call it religion and the holy of holies. they wander about in a sickly soil of intellectual moonshine, where they mistake the dense and sombre shadows for substances. they want to stop the clocks of time that it may never be day, and to hoodwink the eyes of the nations that they may lead the people as so many blind.'--robert blatchford, _clarion_, march 3, 1905. {222} appendix iii 'in georgia, indeed, as the jesuits had found it in south america, the vicinity of a white settlement would have proved the more formidable obstacle to the conversion of the indian. when tounchichi was urged to listen to the doctrines of christianity, he keenly replied, "why, there are christians at savannah! there are christians at frederica!" nor was it without good apparent reason that the poor savage exclaimed, "christian much drunk! christian beat men! christian tell lies! devil christian! me no christian!"'--southey, _life of john wesley_, vol. i. p. 57. 'i was then carried in spirit to the mines where poor oppressed people were digging rich treasures for those called christians, and heard them blaspheme the name of christ, at which i was grieved, for to me his name was precious. i was then informed that these heathens were told that those who oppressed them were the followers of christ, and they said among themselves, "if christ directed them to use us in this sort, this christ is a cruel tyrant."'--_journal of john woolman_, p. 264. {223} appendix iv 'what many upright and ardent souls have rejected is a misconception, a caricature, a subjective christianity of their own, a traditional delusion, which no more resembles real christianity than the conventional christ of the painted church window resembles jesus christ of nazareth. it is true that at this moment the great majority of the people of this country never go to any place of worship, and this is yet more the case on the continent of europe. does it in the least degree indicate that the masses of the european nations have weighed christianity in the balance and found it wanting? nothing of the sort. the overwhelming majority of them have not the faintest conception of what christianity is. i myself have met a great number of so-called "agnostics" and "atheists" in our universities, among our working-men, and in society, but i have never yet met one who had rejected the christianity of christ.'--hugh price hughes, preface to _ethical christianity_. {224} appendix v 'wheresoever christianity has breathed it has accelerated the movement of humanity. it has quickened the pulses of life, it has stimulated the incentives of thought, it has turned the passions into peace, it has warmed the heart into brotherhood, it has fanned the imagination into genius, it has freshened the soul into purity. the progress of christian europe has been the progress of mind over matter. it has been the progress of intellect over force, of political right over arbitrary power, of human liberty over the chains of slavery, of moral law over social corruption, of order over anarchy, of enlightenment over ignorance, of life over death. as we survey this spectacle of the past, we are impressed that this study of history is the strongest evidence for god. we hear no argument from design but we feel the breath of the designer. we see the universal life moulding the individual lives, the one will dominating many wills, the infinite wisdom utilising the finite folly, the changeless truth permeating the restless error, the boundless beneficence bringing blessing out of all.... and what shall we say of the future? ... ours is a position in some respects analogous to that of the mediaeval world: the landmarks of the past are fading, the lights in the future are but dimly seen. yet it is the study of the landmarks that helps us to wait for the light, and our highest hope is born of memory. in the view {225} of that retrospect, we cannot long despair. we may have moments of heart-sickness when we look exclusively at the present hour: we may have times of despondency when we measure only what the eye can see. but looking on the accumulated results of bygone ages as they lie open to the gaze of history, the scientific conclusion at which we must arrive is this, that the course of christianity shall be, or has been, the path of a shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect day.'--g. matheson, _growth of the spirit of christianity_ (chap, xxxviii., 'dawn of a new day'). {226} appendix vi 'shadows and figments as they appear to us to be in themselves, these attempts to provide a substitute for religion are of the highest importance, as showing that men of great powers of mind, who have thoroughly broken loose not only from christianity but from natural religion, and in some cases placed themselves in violent antagonism to both, are still unable to divest themselves of the religious sentiment or to appease its craving for satisfaction. 'that the leaders of the anti-theological movement at the present day are immoral, nobody but the most besotted fanatic would insinuate: no candid antagonist would deny that some of them are in every respect the very best of men.... but what is to prevent the withdrawal of the traditional sanction from producing its natural effect upon the morality of the mass of mankind? ... rate the practical effect of religious beliefs as low and that of social influences as high as you may, there can surely be no doubt that morality has received some support from the authority of an inward monitor regarded as the voice of god.... 'the denial of the existence of god and of a future state, in a word, is the dethronement of conscience: and society will pass, to say the least, through a dangerous interval, before social conscience can fill the vacant throne.'--goldwin smith, 'proposed substitutes for religion,' _macmillan's magazine_, vol. xxxvii. {227} appendix vii 'it no less takes two to deliver the game of duty from trivial pretence and give it an earnest interest. how can i look up to myself as the higher that reproaches me? issue commands to myself which i dare not disobey? ask forgiveness from myself for sins which myself has committed? surrender to myself with a martyr's sacrifice? and so through all the drama of moral conflict and enthusiasm between myself in a mask and myself in _propria persona_? how far are these semblances, these battles in the clouds, to carry their mimicry of reality? are we to _worship_ the self-ideality? to _pray_ to an empty image in the air? to trust in sorrow a creature of thought which is but a phenomenon of sorrow? no, if religious communion is reduced to a monologue, its essence is extinct and its soul is gone. it is a living relation, or it is nothing: a response to the supreme reality. and vainly will you search for your spiritual dynamics without the rock eternal for your [greek] _pou stã´_'--james martineau, essays iv. 282, _ideal substitutes for god_. {228} appendix viii 'it is an awful hour--let him who has passed through it say how awful--when life has lost its meaning and seems shrivelled into a span--when the grave appears to be the end of all, human goodness nothing but a name, and the sky above this universe a dead expanse, black with the void from which god himself has disappeared. in that fearful loneliness of spirit ... i know but one way in which a man may come forth from his agony scathless: it is by holding fast to those things which are certain still--the grand, simple landmarks of morality. 'in the darkest hour through which a human soul can pass, whatever else is doubtful, this at least is certain. if there be no god and no future state yet even then it is better to be generous than selfish, better to be chaste than licentious, better to be true than false, better to be brave than to be a coward. blessed beyond all earthly blessedness is the man who, in the tempestuous darkness of the soul, has dared to hold fast to these venerable landmarks. thrice blessed is he who, when all is drear and cheerless within and without, when his teachers terrify him and his friends shrink from him, has obstinately clung to moral good. thrice blessed, because his night shall pass into clear bright day.'--f. w. robertson, _lectures, addresses, etc._, p. 49. {229} appendix ix 'let me say at once that if after the elimination of all untruths from christianity, we could build a belief in god and immortality on the residue, we should then have a far more powerful incentive to right conduct than anything that i am about to urge.'--philip vivian, _churches and modern thought_, p. 323. {230} appendix x 'without prejudice, what would be the effect upon modern civilisation if the divine ideal should vanish from modern thought? 'it would be presumptuous to attempt a description, rather because it is so hard to picture ourselves and our outlook deprived of what we have held during thousands of generations, our very _raison d'ãªtre_, than because we cannot calculate at least a part of what would have to happen. without pretending to undertake that exercise, it may not be too bold to conclude definitely, what has been suggested argumentatively throughout: namely, that moral goodness, as we trace it in the past, as we enjoy it in the present, as we reckon upon it in the future, would be found undesirable and therefore impracticable. a new "morality" would doubtless take its place and set up a new ideal of goodness; but the former would no more represent the elements we so far call moral than the latter would embody the conceptions we now call good: the more logically the inevitable system were followed up, the more progressively would moral inversion be realised. 'it does not seem credible that the new morality could escape being egoistic and hedonistic, and these principles alone would dictate complete reversal of all our present notions as to what is noble, what is useful, what is good. an egoist hedonism that should not be selfish and sensual is a fond {231} superstition; it would have to be both and frankly. all the prophylactic expedients whereby a reciprocal egoism must safeguard its sensuous rights would certainly be there; and they represent in spirit and in practice whatever we have learned to consider execrable. we do not require professor haeckel[1] to inform us, with the triumphal rhetoric that accompanies a grand new discovery, of the prudential homicide which is to confer a supreme blessing upon humanity, for it has raged throughout antiquity, and still stalks abroad in daylight wherever the kingdom of men is not also the kingdom of christ. ten minutes' thought is sufficient to convince any rational man or woman what must inevitably follow in a world of animal rationalism, where no souls are immortal, where the human will is the supreme will and there is eternal peace in the grave. it could scarcely transpire otherwise than that "euthanasia" should replace care of the chronic sick and indigent aged; that infanticide should be in a large category of circumstances encouraged, and in some compelled; that suicide should offer a rational escape from all serious ills, leaving a door ever hospitably ajar to receive the body bankrupt in its capacity for sensual enjoyment, the only enjoyment henceforth worthy of the name. these are the "virtues" under the new morality; there are other things of which it were not well to speak. imagination turns its back. in a world that has never been without its gods, among human creatures who have never existed without a conscience, deeds have been done and horrors have been practised through centuries, through ages, that make annals read like ogre-tales and books of travels like the works of morbid novelists; and the worst always goes unrecorded. what then ought we to anticipate for a world yielding obedience to nothing loftier {232} than the human intellect, seeking no prize obtainable outside the individual life time, logically incapable of any gratification outside the individual body, convinced of nothing save eternal oblivion in the ever-nearing and inevitable grave, and reposed on the calm assurance that "goodness" and "badness," "virtue" and "vice" (whatever these terms may then correspond to) are recompensed, indifferently, by nothing better and nothing worse than physical animal death?'--jasper b. hunt, b.d., _good without god: is it possible_? p. 51. [1] see _the wonders of life_, chap. v., popular translation, and other works. {233} appendix xi 'when we say that god is personal, we do not mean that he is localised by mutually related organs; that he is hampered by the physical conditions of human personality. we mean that he is conscious of distinctness from all other beings, of moral relation to all living things, and of power to control both from without and from within the action of every atom and of every world. this is what we mean by personality in god. it is not a materialistic idea. it is essentially spiritual. it is a breakwater against the destruction of the very thought of god, or the submersion of it in the mere processes of eternal evolution. there is a pantheism which obliterates every trace of divine personality, which takes from god consciousness, will, affection, emotion, desire, presiding and over-ruling intelligence. but such pantheism is better known as atheism. it destroys the only god who can be a refuge and a strength in time of trouble. it annihilates that mighty conscience which drives the workers of iniquity into darkness and the shadow of death, if possible, to hide themselves. it closes the divine ear against the prayer of faith. it abolishes all sympathy, all communion between the father and the children. it makes god not the world's life, but the world's grave. therefore, against all such pantheism our being revolts.'--peter s. menzies, _sermons_ ('christian pantheism'). {234} appendix xii 'there is an old testament pantheism speaking unmistakably out of the lips of the prophets and the psalmists, ... so interwoven with their deepest thoughts of god, that any hesitation to receive it would have been traced by them most probably to purely heathen conditions of thought, which ascribes to every divinity a limited function, a separate home, and a restricted authority.... but undoubtedly the most unequivocal and outspoken pantheist in the bible is st. paul. he speaks in that character to the athenians, affirming all men to be the offspring of god, and, as if this were not a sufficiently close bond of affinity, adding, "in him we live and move and have our being." his pantheistic eschatology casts a radiance over the valley of the shadow of death, which makes the 15th chapter of 1st corinthians one of the most precious gifts of divine inspiration which the holy volume contains. "and when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that god may be all and all." nor, if he had wished to administer a daring shock to the ultra-calvinism of our own confessional theology, could he have uttered a sentiment more hard to reconcile with any view of the universe that is not pantheistic than that contained in the 32nd verse of the present chapter: "for god hath concluded them all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all." it {235} is quite clear in the face of all this scripture evidence that there is a form of pantheism which is not only innocent, defensible, justifiable, but which we are bound to teach as of the essence of all true theology. nothing could be more childish than that blind horror of pantheism which shudders back from it as the most poisonous form of rank infidelity.'--peter s. menzies, _sermons_ ('christian pantheism'), {236} appendix xiii 'pantheism gives noble expression to the truth of god's presence in all things, but it cannot satisfy the religious consciousness: it cannot give it escape from the limitations of the world, or guarantee personal immortality or (what is most important) give any adequate interpretation to sin, or supply any adequate remedy for it.... christian theology is the harmony of pantheism and deism. on the one hand christianity believes all that the pantheist believes of god's presence in all things. "in him," we believe, "we live and move and are; in him all things have their coherence." all the beauty of the world, all its truths, all its goodness, are but so many modes under which god is manifested, of whose glory nature is the veil, of whose word it is the expression, whose law and reason it embodies. but god is not exhausted in the world, nor dependent upon it: he exists eternally in his triune being, self-sufficing, self-subsistent.... god is not only in nature as its life, but he transcends it as its creator, its lord--in its moral aspect--its judge. so it is that christianity enjoys the riches of pantheism without its inherent weakness on the moral side, without making god dependent on the world, as the world is on god.'--bishop gore, _the incarnation of the son of god_, p. 136. {237} appendix xiv 'the supreme power on this petty earth can be nothing else but the humanity, which, ever since fifty thousand--it may be one hundred and fifty thousand--years has slowly but inevitably conquered for itself the predominance of all living things on this earth, and the mastery of its material resources. it is the collective stream of civilization, often baffled, constantly misled, grievously sinning against itself from time to time, but in the end victorious; winning certainly no heaven, no millennium of the saints, but gradually over great epochs rising to a better and a better world. this humanity is not all the human beings that are or have been. it is a living, growing, and permanent organism in itself, as spencer and modern philosophy establish. it is the active stream of human civilization, from which many drop out into that oblivion and nullity which is the true and only hell.'--f. harrison, _creed of a lagman_, p. 72. {238} appendix xv mr. frederic harrison's creed 'is open to every objection which he so justly brings against what he regards as mr. spencer's creed. these reasons are broad, common, and familiar. so far as i know they never have been, and i do not believe they ever will be, answered. the first objection is that humanity with a capital h (mr. harrison's god) is neither better nor worse fitted to be a god than his unknowable with a capital u. they are as much alike as six and half-a-dozen. each is a barren abstraction to which any one an attach any meaning he likes. humanity, as used by mr. harrison, is not an abstract name for those matters in which all human beings as such resemble each other, as, for instance, a human form and articulate speech.... humanity is a general name for all human beings who, in various ways, have contributed to the improvement of the human race. the positivist calendar which appropriates every day in the year for the commemoration of one or more of these benefactors of mankind is an attempt to give what a lawyer would call "further and better particulars" of the word. if this, or anything like this, be the meaning of mr. harrison's god, i must say that he, she, or it appears to me quite as ill-fitted for worship as the unknowable. how can a man worship an indefinite number of dead people, most of whom are unknown to him even by name, and many of whose characters {239} were exceedingly faulty, besides which the facts as to their lives are most imperfectly known? how can he in any way combine these people into a single object of thought? an object of worship must surely have such a degree of unity that it is possible to think about it as distinct from other things, as much unity at least as the english nation, the roman catholic church, the great western railway. no doubt these are abstract terms, but they are concrete enough for practical purposes. every one understands what is meant when it is asserted that the english nation is at war or at peace; that the pope is the head of the roman catholic church; that the great western railway has declared a dividend; but what is humanity? what can any one definitely assert or deny about it? how can any one meaning be affixed to the word so that one person can be said to use it properly and another to abuse it? it seems to me that it is as unknowable as the unknowable itself, and just as well, and just as ill, fitted to be an object of worship.'--sir james fitzjames stephen, 'the unknowable and unknown,' _nineteenth century_, june 1884. {240} appendix xvi 'deism and pantheism are both so irrational, so utterly inadequate to explain the simplest facts of our moral and spiritual life that neither of them can long hold mankind together. positivism, which has made a systematic and memorable attempt to fill the gap, itself bears witness to the craving of human nature for some stronger bond than such systems can supply; while its appreciation of the necessity of religion gives it an importance not possessed by mere agnosticism. yet it is impossible to look at an encyclopã¦dic attempt to grasp all knowledge and all history, such as that made by the founder of positivism, without a deep, oppressive sadness.... 'can men heap fact upon fact and connect science with science in a splendid hierarchy and find no better end than this? is such a review to come to this, that we must worship either actual humanity with all its meanness and wickedness, or ideal humanity which does not yet exist, and, if this world is all in all, may never come into being? ... for ideal humanity, however moral and enlightened, if unaided by god, as the posivitist holds, is still earth-bound and sense-bound.... we are told that it is common sense to recognise that much is beyond us. perfectly true. but it is not common sense to worship an ignorant and weak humanity which certainly made nothing, and has in itself no assurance {241} of continuance in the future, nay rather, a very clear probability of destruction, if simply left to itself. 'what positivism surely needs to give it hope and consistency is the doctrine of the logos, of the eternal word and reason, the creator, orderer, and sustainer of all things, who has taken a stainless human nature that he might make men capable of all knowledge. this divine humanity of the logos, drawing mankind into himself, is indeed worthy of all worship. in loving him, we learn really what it is to "live for others." in looking to him we cease from selfishness and pride. such a worship of humanity is not a mere baseless hope, but a reality appearing in the very midst of history, a reality apprehended by faith indeed, but by a faith always proving itself to those, and by those, who hold it fast in love. there is room, then, ample room, and a loud demand for the re-establishment of a christian philosophy based upon the incarnation.'--john wordsworth (bishop of salisbury), _the one religion_, pp. 307-309. {242} appendix xvii the invariable laws under which humanity is placed have received various names at different periods. destiny, fate, necessity, heaven, providence, all are so many names of one and the same conception: the laws which man feels himself under, and that without the power of escaping from them. we claim no exemption from the common lot. we only wish to draw out into consciousness the instinctive acceptance of the race, and to modify the spirit in which we regard them. we accept: so have all men. we obey: so have all men. we venerate: so have some in past ages or in other countries. we add but one other term--we love. we would perfect our submission and so reap the full benefits of submission in the improvement of our hearts and tempers. we take in conception the sum of the conditions of existence, and we give them an ideal being and a definite home in space, the second great creation which completes the central one of humanity. in the bosom of space we place the world, and we conceive of the world and this our mother earth as gladly welcomed to that bosom with the simplest and purest love, and we give our love in return. thou art folded, thou art lying in the light which is undying. 'thus we complete the trinity of our religion, humanity, the world, and space. so completed we recognise power to {243} give unity and definiteness to our thoughts, purity and warmth to our affections, scope and vigour to our activity. we recognise its powers to regulate our whole being, to give us that which it has so long been the aim of all religion to give--internal union. we recognise its power to raise us above ourselves and by intensifying the action of our unselfish instincts to bear down unto their due subordination our selfishness. we see in it yet unworked treasures. we count not ourselves to have apprehended but we press forward to the prize of our high calling. but even now whilst its full capabilities are unknown to us, before we have apprehended, we find enough in it to guide and strengthen us.'--'_the new religion in its attitude towards the old_: a sermon preached at south field, wandsworth, wednesday, 19th moses 71 (19th january 1859), on the anniversary of the birth of auguste comte, 19th january 1798, by richard congreve.' j. chapman: 8 king william street, strand, london. {244} appendix xviii 'we have compared positivism where it is thought to be strongest with christianity where it is thought to be weakest. and if the result of the comparison even then has been unfavourable to positivism, how will the account stand if every element in christianity be taken into consideration? the religion of humanity seems specially fitted to meet the tastes of that comparatively small and prosperous class who are unwilling to leave the dry bones of agnosticism wholly unclothed with any living tissue of religious emotion, and who are at the same time fortunate enough to be able to persuade themselves that they are contributing, or may contribute, by their individual efforts to the attainment of some great ideal for mankind. but what has it to say to the more obscure multitude who are absorbed, and wellnigh overwhelmed, in the constant struggle with daily needs and narrow cares, who have but little leisure or inclination to consider the precise rã´le they are called on to play in the great drama of "humanity," and who might in any case be puzzled to discover its interest or its importance? can it assure them that there is no human being so insignificant as not to be of infinite worth in the eyes of him who created the heavens, or so feeble but that his action may have consequence of infinite moment long after this material system shall have crumbled into nothingness? does it offer consolation to those who are in grief, hope to those who {245} are bereaved, strength to the weak, forgiveness to the sinful, rest to those who are weary and heavy laden? if not, then whatever be its merits, it is no rival to christianity. it cannot penetrate or vivify the inmost life of ordinary humanity. there is in it no nourishment for ordinary human souls, no comfort for ordinary human sorrow, no help for ordinary human weakness. not less than the crudest irreligion does it leave us men divorced from all communion with god, face to face with the unthinking energies of nature which gave us birth, and into which, if supernatural religion be indeed a dream, we must after a few fruitless struggles be again resolved.'--right hon. arthur j. balfour, _the religion of humanity_. {246} appendix xix 'truly if humanity has no higher prospects than those which await it from the service of its modern worshippers its prospects are dark indeed. its "normal state" is a vague and distant future. but better things may yet be hoped for when the true light from heaven shall enlighten every man, and the love of goodness shall everywhere come from the love of god, and nobleness of life from the perfect example of the lord.'--john tulloch, d.d. ll.d., _modern theories in philosophy and religion_, p. 86. {247} appendix xx mr. frederic harrison came under the influence of both the newmans. 'john henry newman led me on to his brother francis, whose beautiful nature and subtle intelligence i now began to value. his _phases of faith, the soul, the hebrew monarchy_ deeply impressed me. i was not prepared either to accept all this heterodoxy nor yet to reject it; and i patiently waited till an answer could be found.'--_the creed of a layman_. {248} appendix xxi even mr. voysey admits the constraining power of the cross: 'that is still the noblest, most sublime picture in the whole bible, where the christ is hanging on the cross, and the tears and blood flow trickling down, and the last words heard from his lips are "father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." that love and pity will for ever endure as the type and symbol of what is most divine in the heart of man. thank god! it has been repeated and repeated in the lives and deaths of millions besides the christ of calvary. but wherever found it still claims the admiration, and wins the homage of every human heart, and is the crowning glory of the human race.--c. voysey, _religion for all mankind_, p. 105. {249} appendix xxii 'not only the syrian superstition must be attacked, but also the belief in a personal god which engenders a slavish and oriental condition of the mind, and the belief in a posthumous reward which engenders a selfish and solitary condition of the heart. these beliefs are, therefore, injurious to human nature. they lower its dignity, they arrest its development, they isolate its affections. we shall not deny that many beautiful sentiments are often mingled with the faith in a personal deity, and with the hopes of happiness in a future state; yet we maintain that, however refined they may appear, they are selfish at the core, and that if removed they will be replaced by sentiments of a nobler and purer kind.'--winwood reade, _martyrdom of man_, p. 543. {250} appendix xxiii 'there is a servile deference paid, even by christians, to incompetent judges of christianity. they abjectly look to men of the world, to scholars, to statesmen, for testimonies to the everlasting and self-evidencing verities of heaven! and if they can gather up, from the writings or speeches of these men, some patronising notices of religion, some incidental compliment to the civilising influence of the bible, or to the aesthetic proprieties of worship, or to the moral sublimity of the character or gospel of christ, they forthwith proclaim these tributes as lending some great confirmation to the truth of god! so we persist in asking, not "is it true? true to our souls?" or, "has the lord said it?" but, "what say the learned men, the influential men, the eloquent men?" shame upon these time-serving concessions, as unmanly as they are fallacious. go back to the hovels, rather, and take the witnessing of the illiterate souls whose hearts, waiting there in poverty or pain, or under the shadow of some great affliction, the lord himself hath opened.'--f. d. huntingdon, _christian believing and living_. {251} appendix xxiv 'it is foreign to our purpose to discuss the various theories which have been advanced to explain the genesis and power of the christian religion from the cynical gibbon to the sentimental renan and the rationalist strauss. one remark may be permitted. it has been our lot to read an immense amount of literature on this subject, and with no bias in the orthodox direction, we are bound to admit that no theory has yet appeared which from purely natural causes explains the remarkable life and marvellous influence of the founder of christianity.'--hector macpherson, _books to read and how to head them_. {252} appendix xxv the song of a heathen sojourning in galilee, a.d. 32. if jesus christ is a man, and only a man, i say that of all mankind i cleave to him, and to him will i cleave alway. if jesus christ is a god, and the only god, i swear i will follow him through heaven and hell, the earth, the sea, and the air! richard watson gilder. {253} appendix xxvi 'i distinguish absolutely between the character of jesus and the character of christianity--in other words between jesus of nazareth and jesus the christ. shorn of all supernatural pretensions, jesus emerges from the great mass of human beings as an almost perfect type of simplicity, veracity, and natural affection. "love one another" was the alpha and omega of his teaching, and he carried out the precept through every hour of his too brief life.... but how blindly, how foolishly my critics have interpreted the inner spirit of my argument, how utterly have they failed to realise that the whole aim of the work is to justify jesus against the folly, the cruelty, the infamy, the ignorance of the creed upbuilt upon his grave. i show in cipher, as it were, that those who crucified him once would crucify him again, were he to return amongst us. i imply that among the first to crucify him would be the members of his own church. but nowhere surely do i imply that his soul, in its purely personal elements, in its tender and sympathising humanity was not the very divinest that ever wore earth about it.'--robert buchanan in letter of january 1892 to _daily chronicle_ regarding his poem _the wandering jew_. _robert buchanan: his life, life's work, and life's friendships_, by harriett jay, pp. 274-5. {254} appendix xxvii 'i do not believe i have any personal immortality. i am part of an immortality perhaps, but that is different. i am not the continuing thing. i personally am experimental, incidental. i feel i have to do something, a number of things no one else could do, and then i am finished, and finished altogether. then my substance returns to the common lot. i am a temporary enclosure for a temporary purpose: that served, and my skull and teeth, my idiosyncrasy and desire will disperse, i believe, like the timbers of the booth after a fair.'--h. g. wells, _first and last things_, p. 80. {255} appendix xxviii 'the estate of man upon this earth of ours may in course of time be vastly improved. so much seems to be promised by the recent achievements of science, whose advance is in geometrical progression, each discovery giving birth to several more. increase of health and extension of life by sanitary, dietetic, and gymnastic improvement; increase of wealth by invention and of leisure by the substitution of machinery for labour: more equal distribution of wealth with its comforts and refinements; diffusion of knowledge; political improvement; elevation of the domestic affections and social sentiments; unification of mankind and elimination of war through ascendency of reason over passion--all these things may be carried to an indefinite extent, and may produce what in comparison with the present estate of man would be a terrestrial paradise. selection and the merciless struggle for existence may be in some measure superseded by selection of a more scientific and merciful kind. death may be deprived at all events of its pangs. on the other hand, the horizon does not appear to be clear of cloud.... let our fancy suppose the most chimerical of utopias realised in a commonwealth of man. mortal life prolonged to any conceivable extent is but a span. still over every festal board in the community of terrestrial bliss will be cast the shadow of approaching death; and the sweeter life becomes the more bitter death will be. {256} the more bitter it will be at least to the ordinary man, and the number of philosophers like john stuart mill is small.'--goldwin smith: _guesses at the riddle of existence_ ('is there another life?'). 'in return for all of which they have deprived us, some prophets of modern science are disposed to show us in the future a city of god _minus_ god, a paradise _minus_ the tree of life, a millennium with education to perfect the intellect, and sanitary improvements to emancipate the body from a long catalogue of evils. sorrow no doubt will not be abolished; immortality will not be bestowed. but we shall have comfortable and perfectly drained houses to be wretched in. the news of our misfortunes, the tidings that turn the hair white, and break the strong man's heart will be conveyed to us from the ends of the earth by the agency of a telegraphic system without a flaw. the closing eye may cease to look to the land beyond the river; but in our last moments we shall be able to make a choice between patent furnaces for the cremation of our remains, and coffins of the most charming description for their preservation when desiccated.'--archbishop alexander: _witness of the psalms to christ and christianity_, p. 48. {257} authorities consulted abbott, e. a., _through nature to christ_. armstrong, e. a., _back to jesus; man's knowledge of god; agnosticism and theism in the nineteenth century_. arthur, w., _god without religion; religion without god_. aveling, f. (edited by), _westminster lectures_. balfour, a. j., _religion of humanity; foundations of belief_. ballard, f., _clarion fallacies; miracles of unbelief_. _barker, joseph, life of_. barry, w., _heralds of revolt_. bartlett, r. e., _the letter and the spirit_. besant, annie, _esoteric christianity_. blatchford, r., _god and my neighbour_. blau, paul, '_wenn ihr mich kennetet_.' bousset, w., _jesus; what is religion?; the faith of a modern protestant_. brace, g. loring, _gesta christi_. bremond, h., 'christus vivit' (epilogue of _l'inquiã©tude religieuse_). broglie, l'abbã© paul de, _problã¨mes et conclusions; la morale sans dieu_. brooks, phillips, bishop, _the influence of jesus_. butler, bishop, _the analogy of religion_. {258} caird, e., _the evolution of religion; the social philosophy and religion of comte_. caird, j., _fundamental ideas of christianity_. cairns, d. s., _christianity in the modern world_. carey, vivian, _parsons and pagans_. caro, e., _l'idã©e de dieu et ses nouveaux critiques; ã�tudes morales; problã¨mes de morale sociale_. chesterton, g. k., _heretics; orthodoxy_. church, k. w., _gifts of civilization; pascal and other sermons_. clarke, j. freeman, _steps to belief_. cobbe, frances power, _a faithless world; broken lights; autobiography_. coit, stanton, _national idealism and a state church_. comte, auguste, _catechism of positive religion_ (translated by richard congreve). _contentio veritatis_. conway, moncure d., _the earthward pilgrimage_. craufurd, a. h., _christian instincts and modern doubt_. crooker, j. h., _the supremacy of jesus_. d'alviella, g., _revolution religieuse contemporaine_. davies, o. maurice, _heterodox london_. davies, llewelyn, _morality according to the lord's supper_. _do we believe_? (correspondence from _daily telegraph_.) drawbridge, c. l., _is religion undermined_? drummond, j., _via, veritas, vita_. du bose, w. p., _the gospel and the gospels_. eaton, j. r. t., _the permanence of christianity_. faber, hans, _das christentum der zukunft_. fairbairn, a. m., _christ in modern theology_. {259} farrar, a. s., _critical history of free thought_. farrar, f. w., _seekers after god; witness of history to christ_. fiske, john, _the idea of god as affected by modern knowledge; through nature to god; man's destiny_. fitchett, w. h., _beliefs of unbelief_. flint, r., _theism; anti-theistic theories_. footman, h., _reasonable apprehensions and reassuring hints_. fordyce, j., _aspects of scepticism_. forrest, d. w., _the christ of history and of experience_. frommel, gaston, _ã�tudes religieuses et sociales; ã�tudes morales et religieuses_. gindraux, j., _le christ et la pensã©e moderne_ (translation from pfennigsdorf). gladden, washington, _how much is left of the old doctrines_? gore, o., bishop, _the incarnation of the son of god; the christian creed_. guyau, m., _l'irrã©ligion de l'avenir; la morale sans sanction_. haeckel, e., _riddle of the universe; the confession of faith of a man of science_. harnack, adolf, _what is christianity?; christianity and history_. harrison, a. j., _problems of christianity and scepticism_. harrison, frederic, _memories and thoughts; the creed of a layman_. haw, george (edited by), _religious doubts of democracy_. henson, h. hensley, _popular rationalism; the value of the bible_. hillis, n. d., _influence of christ in modern life_. {260} hoffmann, f. s., _the sphere of religion_. hunt, jasper b., _good without god_. hunt, john, _christianity and pantheism_. hutton, r. h., _essays theological and literary; contemporary thought and thinkers; aspects of religious and scientific thought_. huxley, t. h., _evolution and ethics_. illingworth, j. r., _personality human and divine; divine immanence_. _is christianity true_? (lectures in central hall, manchester). jastrow, morris, _the study of religion_. jefferies, richard, _the story of my heart: my autobiography_. jones, harry (edited by), _some urgent questions in christian lights_. kutter, herrmann, _sie mã¼ssen_. lecky, w. e. h., _history of european morals_. liddon, h. p., _the divinity of our lord and saviour jesus christ; some elements of religion_. lilly, w. s., _the great enigma; the claims of christianity_. lodge, sir oliver, _the substance of faith_. lucas, bernard, _the faith of a christian_. _lux hominum_. _lux mundi_. maitland, brownlow, _theism or agnosticism; steps to faith_. mallock, w. h., _reconstruction of belief_. {261} marson, o. l., _following of christ_. martin, a. s., 'christ in modern thought' (hastings's _dictionary of christ and the gospels_, appendix). martineau, harriet, _autobiography_. martineau, james, _ideal substitutes for god; a study of religion; hours of thought_. matheson, g., _growth of the spirit of christianity_. matheson, a. scott, _the gospel and modern substitutes_. menzies, allan, _s. paul's view of the divinity of christ_. menzies, p. s., 'christian pantheism' (in _sermons_). momerie, a. w., _belief in god; immortality; origin of evil_. monod, wilfrid, _aux croyants et aux athã©es; peut-on rester chrã©tien_? mories, a. s., _haeckel's contribution to religion_. morison, j. cotter, _the service of man_. mozoomdar, protab chandra, _the oriental christ_. myers, f. w. h., _modern essays_. naville, ernest, _le pã¨re cã©leste; le christ; le temoignage du christ et l'unitã© du monde chrã©tien_. neumann, arno, _jesus_. newman, f. w., _the soul: its sorrows and aspirations; phases of faith_. nolloth, c. f., _the person of our lord and recent thought_. oxenham, h. n., _essays ethical and religious_. _oxford house tracts_. palmer, w. s., _an agnostic's progress; the church and modern men_. peile, j. h. f., _the reproach of the gospel_. pfannmã¼ller, gustav, _jesus im urteil der jahrhunderte_. {262} picard, l'abbã©, _christianity or agnosticism?; la transcendance de jã©sus christ_. picton, j. allanson, _the religion of the universe; pantheism: its story and significance_. plumptre, e. h., _christ and christendom_. _present day tracts_ (r. t. s.). pringle-pattison, a. seth, _man's place in the cosmos_. reade, winwood, _the martyrdom of man; the outcast_. _religion and the modern mind_ (st. ninian's society lectures). renesse, _jesus christ and his apostles and disciples in the twentieth century_. robinson, o. h., _human nature a revelation of the divine; studies in the character of christ_. romanes, g. j., _thoughts on religion_. sabatier, a., _the religions of authority and the religion of the spirit_. sanday, w., _life of christ in recent research_. savage, m. j., _religion for to-day; the life beyond_. schmiedel, p. w., _jesus and modern criticism_. seaver, r. w., _to christ through criticism_. _secularist's manual_. seeley, j. r., _ecce homo; natural religion_. sen, keshub chunder, india asks, _who is christ_? sheldon, h. o., _unbelief in the nineteenth century_. simpson, p. carnegie, _the fact of christ_. smith, goldwin, _guesses at the riddle of existence; lectures on the study of history; the founder of christianity_. smyth, newman, _old faiths in new light_. stanley, a. p., 'theology of the nineteenth century' (in _essays on church and state_); _christian institutions_. {263} stephen, j. fitzjames, 'the unknowable and unknown' (_nineteenth century_, june 1884); _liberty, equality, and fraternity_. stephen, leslie, _an agnostic's apology; english thought in the eighteenth century_. swete, h. b. (edited by), _cambridge theological essays_. swift, dean, _the abolishing of christianity_. _topics for the times_ (s. p. c. k.). tulloch, j., _modern theories in theology and philosophy; movements of religious thought_. van dyke, h., _the gospel for an age of doubt; the gospel for a world of sin_. vivian, philip, _the churches and modern thought_. voysey, c., _religion for all mankind_. wace, h., _christianity and morality_. wallace, alfred russel, _man's place in the universe_. warschauer, j., _the new evangel; jesus: seven questions; anti-nunquam; jesus or christ?_ watkinson, w. l., _influence of scepticism on character_. weinel, h., _jesus im nevmzehnten jahrhundert_. welsh, r. e., _in relief of doubt_. wells, h. g., _first and last things, a confession of faith and rule of life_. wilson, j. m., _problems of religion and science_. wimmer, r., _my struggle for light_. wordsworth, john, bishop, _the one religion_. young, john, _the christ of history_. {265} index abbott, edwin a., 117. alexander, archbishop, 256. amiel, h. f., 55. anthropomorphism, 65, 68, 82. arnold, matthew, 208. 'back to christ,' 212. balfour, a. j., 244. bartlett, r. e., 161. besant, mrs., 197. blatchford, robert, 7, 20, 221. browning, robert, 65, 200. buchanan, robert, 253. butler, bishop, 10, 139. caird, principal, 112. calendar, positivist, 108. _caliban upon setebos_, 65. carey, vivian, 6, 26. chesterton, g. k., 113. christ the only way, 129, 207. ---the substance of christianity, 173. christianity, influence of, 24, 28. ---misrepresentation of, 18, 223. christians, inconsistency of, 16, 19, 213, 222, 253. _christmas eve_, 200. church, dean, 9. clifford, w. k., 103. cobbe, frances power, 144, 149. coit, dr. stanton, 41. comte, auguste, 103. congreve, richard, 115, 242. conway, moncure d., 8. cowper, william, 78. criticism, 173. deism, 139, 143, 164, 236, 240. de vere, aubrey, 101. eliot, george, 56, 208. enemies, witness of, 177. fã©nelon, 78. fiske, john, 100. gilder, r. w., 252. gore, bishop, 136, 236. great being of positivism, 106, 112, 114. haeckel, 71. harrison, frederic, 84, 96, 102, 108, 110, 237, 238. hughes, hugh price, 223. humanity, christ, the ideal of, 118. ---religion of, 93, 103, 105, 237, 238, 242. huntingdon, bishop, 250. immortality, denial of, 54, 60, 254. impeachments of christianity, 12, 249. incarnation, 48, 96. jefferies, richard, 73. law, william, 78. lefã¨vre, a., 188. macpherson, hector, 251. man, 93. martineau, harriet, 220. ---james, 227. material progress, 255, 256. matheson, george, 224. mediation, 157. menzies, p. s., 233, 234. mill, john stuart, 208. montaigne, 23. morality and religion, 33, 39, 146, 229, 230. ---religion without, 34. mozoomdar, p. c., 196. myers, f. w. h., 56. newman, f. w., 144, 247. nietzsche, 220. pantheism, 65, 81, 233, 234, 236. personality of god, 44, 70, 147, 233. picton, j. allanson, 87. pope, alexander, 78. positivism, 93, 103, 211. prayer, 43. reade, winwood, 5, 120, 249. renan, e., 192. roberts, w. page-, dean, 112. robertson, frederick william, 118, 228. sabatier, a., 158. schleiermacher, 77. schmiedel, p. w., 184. shelley, 13, 98. sin, sense of, 86. smith, goldwin, 226, 255. spencer, herbert, 71. spinoza, 76. stanley, dean, 77. stephen, sir j. f., 50, 58, 238. ---sir leslie, 16. strauss, d. f., 195. swift, dean, 10, 219. tennyson, 60, 79, 212. 'theism,' 127, 150, 164. thomson, james, 78. tulloch, john, 246. uniqueness of christ, 199, 252. vivian, philip, 5, 229. voltaire, 139, 168. voysey, rev. charles, 153, 248. wallace, alfred russel, 100. warschauer, j., 159, 203. watts, charles, 7. wells, h. g., 189, 254. wesley, john, 222. wimmer, r., 193. woolman, john, 222. wordsworth, john, bishop, 240. ---william, 79. printed by t. and a. constable, printers to his majesty at the edinburgh university press the expositors library cloth, 2/net each volume. the new evangelism. prof. henry drummond, f.r.s.e. the mind of the master. rev. john watson, d.d. the teaching of jesus concerning himself. rev. prof. james stalker, d.d. fellowship with christ. rev. r. w. dale, d.d., ll.d. studies on the new testament. prof. f. godet, d.d. the life of the master. rev. john watson, d.d. studies of the portrait of christ.- vol. i. rev. george matheson, d.d. studies of the portrait of christ.- vol. ii. rev. george matheson, d.d. the jewish temple and the christian church. rev. r. w. dale, d.d., ll.d. the ten commandments. rev. r. w. dale, d.d., ll.d. the fact of christ. rev. p. carnegie simpson, m.a. the cross in modern life. rev. j. g. greenhough, m.a. heroes and martyrs of faith. prof. a. s. peake, d.d. a guide to preachers. principal a. e. garvie, m.a., d.d. modern substitutes for christianity. rev. p. mcadam muir, d.d. ephesian studies. right rev. h. c. g. moule, d.d. the unchanging christ. rev. alex mclaren, d.d., d.litt. the god of the amen. rev. alex mclaren, d.d., d.litt. the ascent through christ. rev. e. griffith jones, b.a. studies on the old testament. prof. f. godet, d.d. london: hodder and stoughton the history of the last trial by jury for atheism in england: a fragment of autobiography submitted for the perusal of her majesty's attorney-general and the british clergy. by george jacob holyoake i was present in the court, to witness the trial of george jacob holyoake. i heard wooler and hone defend themselves successfully in 1817; but i would prefer to be declared guilty with holyoake to being acquitted on the ground of wooler and hone.--richard carlile. london: james watson, 3, queen's head passage, paternoster row. 1850. to william john birch, m.a., of new inn hall, oxon. in whom free discussion has found an accomplished defender and munificent friend; who was first to help us when a friend is twice a friend, when we were unknown and struggling; this history of six months imprisonment preface. the events, more than half of which are newly narrated in this 'history,' are recited from recollection. it is not pretended that all the conversations took place with the brevity with which they are given here. in the lapse of eight years there is much which i must have forgotten; but what i have told i distinctly remember, and the actors living will not, i think, contradict it. as, by a creditable improvement in english law, the recommencement of prosecutions for (ir)religious opinion can originate with the attorney-general alone, i have ventured to hope that, if this narrative should fall into the hands of that officer for the time being, it may present some reasons to him why this 'last trial by jury for atheism' should be the _last_. there are some passages in these fragments over which some will be sad with me. others will assume them to be written for effect; for such, let me say, they were not written at all. these pages will leave me for the press with much more pleasure if i can believe that no one will connect them with me, but read them as a posthumous record of bygone events. at times i thought i would omit all incidents of feeling; but i felt, that if i did so the narrative would not represent the whole (personal) truth of these proceedings--and, as they stand, they may serve to suggest to some a doubt of the correctness of the oft-repeated dictum of the rev. robert hall, that 'atheism is a bloody and a ferocious system, which finds nothing above us to excite awe, nor around us to awaken tenderness.' whether these are sufficient reasons for the purpose, i know not; but this i know--they are the true ones. as i very much dislike being an object of pity, those will much mistake me who suppose that this narrative has been written to excite it. in my estimation, imprisonment was a matter of conscience. i neither provoked prosecution nor shrank from it; and i am now as far from desiring it as i trust i ever shall be from fearing it. i do not pretend to despise public approval, but i think it should be regarded as a contingent reward, not as the sole motive of action; for he who only works while the public (always fickle in memory) care to remember him, is animated by a very precarious patriotism. as i have once, before said, it is an encouragement to me that others may profit by any public principle i may assist in maintaining: but my interest in it is personal also. though no one else desired freedom, it is enough for me that i desire it; and i would maintain the conflict for it, as best i could, though no one else cared about it; and, as i choose to make the purchase, i do not higgle about the price. tyranny has its soldiers, and why not freedom? while thousands daily perish at the shrine of passion, what is the pain of a sacrifice now and then for public principle or personal freedom? g. j. h. the history of the last trial by jury for atheism. chapter i.--before the imprisonment. that day is chilled in my memory when i first set out for cheltenham. it was in december 1840. the snow had been frozen on the ground a fortnight. there were three of us, mrs. holyoake, madeline (our first child), and myself. i had been residing in worcester, which was the first station to which i had been appointed as a social missionary. my salary (16s. per week) was barely sufficient to keep us alive in summer. in winter it was inherent obstinacy alone which made us believe that we existed. i feel now the fierce blast which came in at the train windows from 'the fields of tewkesbury,' on the day on which we travelled from worcester to cheltenham. the intense cold wrapped us round like a cloak of ice. the shop lights threw their red glare over the snow-bedded ground as we entered the town of cheltenham, and nothing but the drift and ourselves moved through the deserted streets. when at last we found a fire we had to wait to thaw before we could begin to speak. when tea was over we were-escorted to the house where we were to stay for the night. i was told it was 'a friend's house.' cheltenham is a fashionable town, a watering, visiting place, where everything is genteel and thin. as the parlours of some prudent house-wives are kept for show, and not to sit in, so in cheltenham numerous houses are kept 'to be let,' and not to live in. the people who belong to the apartments are like the supernumeraries on a stage, they are employed in walking over them. their clothes are decent--but they cannot properly be said to wear them: they carry them about with them (on their backs of course, because that mode is most convenient) but simply to show that they have such things. in the same manner eating and drinking is partly pantomime, and not a received reality. such a house as i have suggested was the 'friend's house' to which we were conducted till lodgings could be found. we were asked to sit by the kitchen fire on 'the bench in the corner,' and there we sat from eight till one o'clock, without being asked to take anything to eat. madeline, deprived of her usual rest, continued sucking at the breast till her mother was literally too exhausted to speak. a neighbouring festivity kept my 'friends' up that night till two o'clock--up to which time we saw no prospect of bed or supper. as we entered the house, eleanor, with a woman's prescience, said 'george, you had better go and buy some food.' 'buy food,' i replied, in simplicity, 'the people at this fine house will be outraged to see me bring in food.' retribution was not far off. i repented me of my credulity that night. when at last i clearly comprehended that we were to have nothing to eat, i proceeded to take affairs into my own hands, and being too well assured of the insensibility of my host, i did it in a way that i conceived suited to his capacity, and began as follows: 'we have talked all night about social progress, and if you have no objection we will make some. and if eating,' i added, 'be not an irregular thing in your house, we will take some supper.' 'i am very sorry to say,' he answered, 'we have nothing to offer you.' 'charge me bed and board while we are with you,' i rejoined, 'but let us have _both_. you have bread, i suppose?' 'we have some rice bread.' 'perhaps you will toast it.' 'will you have it _toasted?_ 'i will. could you not make coffee?' 'we have no coffee.' 'tea?' 'we have no tea.' 'any water?' 'no _hot _water.' 'any butter?' 'yes, we have _salt_ butter.' 'then put some on the bread,' i added, for he did not even propose to do that. i had to dispute every inch of hospitality with him. my 'friend,' mr. v., was an instance of that misplacement of which plato speaks in his 'republic' what a capital conservative he would have made! no innovation with him--not even into his own loaf! i was obliged to take the initiative into the 'salt' butter. after seeing the bread toasted, and buttering it myself, to make sure that it was buttered, i put on my hat and went into the streets, in search of material out of which to manufacture a cordial, for eight hours had then elapsed since eleanor had had any sustenance, and my good host's choice reserve of cold water did not seem quite adequate to revive her. when i reached the dark streets, to which i was so absolute a stranger, not knowing where i stood on the slippery ground, made so by frozen rain on a bedding of snow, i had not gone (or rather _slipped_) far before i was fairly lost. like the sense in a rousseauian love-letter, i neither knew whence i came nor whither i was going, and when i succeeded in my errand it was at the last place at which i should wish to be found. during my absence that voluptuous caterer, 'mine host,' whom i had left behind--whose counterpart maginn must have had before him when he drew the portrait of 'quarantotti'--had proceeded so far as to boil some water. the evening ended without inconsistency, and the bed corresponded with the supper. the next day i took lodgings, where, expecting nothing, i was no longer disappointed. but on this occasion, profiting by the experience of the preceding night, i went provided with a small stock of loaves and chocolate. my stay in cheltenham was more agreeable than was to be expected after such an introduction; but i remember that i had to pay my expenses back again, and though they only amounted to 12s., i felt the want of them for a long time afterwards. yet cheltenham was not without generous partizans, but, as is common in the incipiency of opinion, they were at that time among that class who had fewest means. the experience here recounted was a sample of that frequently recurring, but not exactly of the kind on which vanity is nurtured, as the reader will think as he reverts (from a speech to be recited) to these incidents. he who reads thus far will acquit me of any premeditation of disturbing the peace of the religious inhabitants of cheltenham, for it is certainly the last town i should have selected as the scene of such an occurrence as the one which i have to narrate. my next location was in a northern manufacturing town, where i was treated like its iron-ware--case hardened. my salary there of 30s. per week was a subject of frequent discussion by the members of the branch. for this sum i taught a day school and lectured on sunday. and as he who lives the life of a child all the week (as he must do who teaches children to any purpose) finds it hard to live that of a man on sunday, my duties were wearying and perplexing. those who grudged my salary made no sufficient allowance for that application necessary for the discharge of my duties--an application which often commenced long before they were up in the morning, and continued long after their mechanical employment was over at night. not comprehending myself, at that time, that they who work for the improvement of others must not calculate on their appreciation as an encouragement, but as a _result_, i was thrown into that unpleasant state in which my pride incited me to stop and my duty to go on. it was not till subsequent to my return from glasgow, four years afterwards, that i mastered the problem thus raised which so many have been ruined in solving. though an anti-priest, my treatment was that of a priest. my congregation, as is the case with most freethinkers, objected to the pay of the priest, when the true quarrel was with error, and not with payment: for if a man has the truth, it is well that it should be his interest to hold it. but dissent, objecting to the pay of others, has been left without pay itself--hence its apostles have been reduced to fight the lowest battles of animal wants, when they should have been fighting for the truth. dissent has too often paid its advocates the bad compliment of supposing, that if placed within reach of competence they would either fall into indolence or hypocrisy. it has acted practically upon the hypothesis, that the only possible way of ensuring their zeal and sincerity was to starve them--a policy which leaves progress to the mercy of accident. for a long period the operation of this policy chilled me. my initiation into affairs of progress was in company with men who estimated, above all other virtues, the virtue which worked for nothing. they would denounce the patriotism of that man who accepted a shilling for making a speech, although it had cost him more to compose it than those who heard it would probably give to save their country. nine tenths of the best public men and women i have known, have turned back at this point. not any new conviction--not any bribe of the enemy, but the natural though unwise revolt against being considered mendicants, has forced them back into supineness, indifference, or even into the very ranks of oppression. true, i felt that he who labours with his brains is worthy of his hire as well as he who labours with his hands. as often as i read a book or heard a lecture, which threw new light on the paths of life, i found that it not only relieved me from the dominion of ignorance, but imparted to me the strength of intelligence. i felt indebted to the author and speaker, for i found that knowledge was not only _power_, but _property_. i knew all this, but painful years passed over me before i acquired the courage to offer what instruction i had to impart as an article of commercial value. those who have encountered this kind of experience know that the feeling it engenders is one of indifference, and that an unusual speech would arise in a cold sense of duty, and not in wantonness or wickedness. thus much will inform the reader of the circumstances under which i spoke the alleged blasphemy in cheltenham. a fellow-missionary, mr. charles southwell, had, in conjunction with mr. chilton and mr. field, set up an atheistical periodical in bristol, entitled the _oracle of reason_--which the authorities attempting forcibly to put down, mr. southwell was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment in bristol gaol. on a visit to him i walked ninety miles from birmingham to bristol, and as my way lay through cheltenham, i staid a night in that town to deliver a lecture on 'home colonisation as a means of superseding poor laws and emigration.' at the conclusion of the lecture i instructed the chairman to make the announcement, which i still make after my lectures, viz., that any of the audience may put relevant questions or offer what objections they consider useful--whereupon a person stood up of the name of maitland, a teetotaller, and sort of local preacher, and complained that 'though i had told them their duty to man, i had not told them of their duty to god,' and inquired 'whether we should have churches and chapels in community?' i answered thus: 'i do not desire to have religion mixed up with an economical and secular subject, but as mr. maitland has introduced questions in reference to religion i will answer him frankly. our national debt already hangs like a millstone round the poor man's neck, and our national church and general religious institutions cost us, upon accredited computation, about twenty millions annually. worship being thus expensive, i appeal to your heads and your pockets whether we are not too poor to have a god? if poor men cost the state as much, they would be put like officers upon half-pay, and while our distress lasts i think it would be wise to do the same thing with deity. thus far i object, as a matter of political economy, to build chapels in communities. if others want them they have themselves to please, but i, not being religious, cannot propose them. morality i regard, but i do not believe there is such a thing as a god.* the pulpit says "search the scriptures," and they who are thus trepanned get imprisoned in bristol jail, like my friend mr. southwell. for myself, i flee the bible as a viper, and revolt at the touch of a christian.' perhaps this reply was indecorous, but it was nothing more, and as it was delivered in a tone of conversational freedom, it produced only quiet amusement on the meeting. the next day i continued my journey to bristol. a day or two after i received the _cheltenham chronicle_, commonly called the rev. francis close's paper, it being the organ of his party, in which i read the following paragraph--written with that exaggerated virulence which archdeacon hare has subsequently deprecated as the bane of religious journalism, but which at that time was considered as a holy ornament:- * i do not remember using this phrase, but as the witnesses reported it perhaps it was so; but i still incline to the opinion that it was an expression they fell upon in stating their impressions of the meeting to their employers, and all working in one office, they fell into one story, either through inadvertence or from precaution. atheism and blasphemy.--on tuesday evening last a person named holyoake, from manchester, (?) delivered a lecture on socialism (or, as it has been more appropriately termed, devilism), at the mechanics' institution. after attacking the church of england and religion generally for a considerable time, he said he was open to any question that might be put to him. a teetotaller named maitland then got up, and said the lecturer had been talking a good deal about our duty to man, but he omitted to mention our duty towards god, and he would be glad to know if there were any chapels in the community? the socialist then replied that he professed no religion at all, and thought they were too poor to have any. he did not believe there was such a being as a god, and impiously remarked that _if there was_* he would have the deity served the same as government treated the subalterns, by placing him upon half-pay. with many similar blasphemous and awful remarks, which we cannot sully our columns by repeating, the poor misguided wretch continued to address the audience. to their lasting shame, be it spoke, a considerable portion of the company applauded the miscreant during the time he was giving utterance to these profane opinions. we have three persons in our employ who are ready to verify on oath the correctness of the above statements. we therefore hope those in authority will not suffer the matter to rest here, but that some steps will immediately he taken to prevent any further publicity to such diabolical sentiments.--ed. cheltenham chronicle.* * this is an interpolation. some have censured the openness of my answer to mr. maitland as being inexpedient. it is not impossible to justify it on that ground, but i have an aversion to do it. expediency has nothing to do with what a man shall say. expediency may close the mouth, but it has no power over the speech if the mouth once opens. a man may keep silence if he chooses, but if he does speak he has no alternative but to speak that which is frank and true. but at that time there were political reasons why i should not evade the question put to me. the _odd fellow_ of mr. hetherington (under the editorship of w. j. linton) had shortly before contained an able article beginning thus:-the world need not be much frightened at the present race of socialists. however heinous their doctrines may be thought, there need be no fear, they will not act in too close accordance with them. for ourselves, having been among them at various times, we have never yet been able to discover any certain marks, whether of manner, of opinion, or of conduct, whereby to distinguish them from the mass of professing christians. however heterodox their innermost sentiments, they usually maintain as decent an appearance of conformity with custom as the most worldly and orthodox could desire. this was a character which no progressive party could live with, and as the hypocrisy here charged upon us was generally believed, and not wholly without reason, it became necessary either to give up the party or refute the accusation. the attack on mr. owen's friends, by the bishop of exeter in the house of lords, had been evaded, not met, and a noble opportunity, such as bigotry seldom affords to a rising party, had been suffered to pass away unused. the enemy triumphed. in this very town of cheltenham a young poet, named sperry, who betrayed freethink-ing tendencies, had been called upon to recant. he did so, and then he was treated with contempt by those who intimidated him. they first destroyed his moral influence, and then despised him. i had therefore sufficient public reasons for not tempting a similar fate. if i had refused to reply, it would have been said i held opinions too horrible to avow. had i evaded the answer i should have been considered a time-server, and if i answered frankly there were the legal consequences in prospect. i was not very much skilled in policy, but i knew this much that when a man cannot take care of consequences, he ought to take care of the credit of his cause. a little anticipating this history i may say that the expediency of the course i took, if the expediency must be defended, was shown in the altered tone of the authorities, both in cheltenham and gloucester, after my trial. instead of that contempt with which persons holding socialist opinions are treated, there was a somewhat respectful recognition of them. however crude might be considered my defence of my views, nothing escaped me that could be distorted into a willingness to avoid any suffering at the expense of my adherence to the principles i had adopted. many persons who would not have spoken to me before came and expressed regret at what had happened, and i met with many instances of regard from persons who had formerly despised those with whom i acted. i was indebted to the _odd-fellow_ of july 23, then edited by eben jones, author of 'studies of sensation and event,' for the fairest statement of my conduct and of the point in question, which the press gave. it was thus expressed:-we cannot refrain from saying, that under the peculiar circumstances, mr. holyoake (presuming his disbelief in a god to be sincere) could not have said other than he did say, and at the same time have continued honest. it is true he was not asked, 'do you believe in a god?' but a question was put to him which assumed his belief in a god, and had he not testified at once his disbelief, he would have sanctioned the false assumption: and if not a liar, would have been at least the permitter of a lie; between which is no distinction recognised by an honourable man. in arguing thus we would not express any sympathy whatever with mr. holyoake's atheism, we are merely concerned to show that it was not mr. holyoake's right alone, but absolutely his duty, to say that 'he did not believe in a god.' it was his duty, if it be the duty of man to be honest; he could not have spoken otherwise, unless he had 'lied against his heart,' and lied towards mankind. the next number of the aforesaid _cheltenham chronicle_ brought me this further notice:-holyoake the blasphemous socialist lecturer.--in reference to a paragraph which appeared in the last _chronicle_ regarding this monster, the magistrates read the article alluded to, and expressed their opinion that it was a clear case of blasphemy. in order to check the further progress of his pernicious doctrines, the superintendent of police was ordered to use every exertion to bring him to justice. on reading this paragraph i lost no time in setting out for cheltenham, to hold a public meeting and justify myself to the town. foot-sore and weary--for the journey was more than thirty miles, and the day very hot--i reached cheltenham on the 1st of june, and proceeded as privately as a 'monster' could to my friends the adamses. the next night i slid like sleep into the meeting, lest the police should prevent me from addressing it. mr. leech, a leading chartist, presided, and the meeting was addressed by messrs. parker, jun., geo. adams, w. bilson, and j. b. lear. the chartists of cheltenham at that time held possession of the mechanics' institution, and they were threatened with the loss of it, if they let it to me to speak in any more. but as i required it in self-defence they generously disregarded the menace, and permitted me the use of it. my friends in the distant town of newcastle-upon-tyne afterwards gracefully acknowledged this kindness by making a collection for mrs. holberry, the wife of a sheffield chartist who had perished in prison. before i had been long in the meeting, superintendent russell came in with about a dozen men, who were arranged on each side the door, and their glazed hats formed a brilliant, but a dubious back-ground for a meeting on free-discussion. i spoke an hour after they came in. so rare an audience was not to be thrown away, and i thought we might convert some of them. at the conclusion superintendent russell, who had the politeness to wait till we had done, intimated that he had instructions to apprehend me. i asked for his warrant. he said he had none. it was in vain that i protested against the irregularity of the proceeding. he replied that his instructions were imperative upon him--and it was thereupon arranged that i should walk down to the station with mr. hollis, a well-known gun maker of cheltenham, and there, the meeting following, we arrived in procession between eleven and twelve o'clock. to the truth, it is no great proof _a posteriori_ of a man's extravagance, that he should be involved in legal proceedings in cheltenham on account of freedom of speech. owing to priestly and conventional influences, that town will furnish a jury who would, under direction, bring in any man guilty of blasphemy who boiled his tea-kettle on a sunday. not long before the time now spoken of, a mormon preacher, holding forth there, happened to say that the elements of euclid were as true as the bible: and for this he was indicted for blasphemy, and was only saved from imprisonment by the grand jury (who must have had infidel tendencies) throwing out the bill. on the morning after my apprehension i was taken before the rev. dr. newell, r. capper, and j. overbury, esquires, magistrates of cheltenham. the rev. dr. newell ought to have had the pride, if not the decency, to have kept away. the _cheltenham chronicle_ reported that' george jacob holyoake, who was described as a socialist lecturer, and as the editor of the _oracle of reason_, was charged with delivering atheistical and blasphemous sentiments at the mechanics' institution, on the evening of the 24th of may. the prisoner had been apprehended last night, after delivering another lecture at the same place. the affair appeared to have caused great sensation, and several persons attended at the office anxious to hear the examination. amongst the number were some individuals who, without the blush of shame mantling their cheeks, acknowledged themselves friends of the accused.' mr. bubb, a local solicitor, a particularly gross and furious man, then said--'i attend to prefer the charge of blasphemy, and i shall take my stand on the common unwritten law of the land. there have been a variety of statutes passed for punishing blasphemy, but these statutes in no way interfere with the common unwritten law. (mr. capper nodded assent.)* any person who denies the existence or providence of god is guilty of blasphemy, and the law has annexed to that offence imprisonment, corporal punishment, and fine. i shall give evidence of the facts, and i shall ask that he be committed for trial, or required to find bail for his appearance. the offence is much aggravated by his having put forth a placard, announcing a lecture on a subject completely innocent, and having got together a number of persons, has given utterance to those sentiments which are an insult to god and man.' * mr. bubb took his stand on the common law because his object was to make it a _sessions_ case, and to take it out of the statuary law, which (9 & 10 will. 3, c. 32) would have required that information of the words spoken should be laid before a justice of the peace within four days from their utterance, and would likewise have implied a trial at the _assizes_. the assertion that i had employed duplicity in choosing my subject was quite gratuitous. addressing the bench, i asked whether it was legal in these cases to apprehend persons without the authority of a warrant? mr. capper replied, 'any person in the meeting would be justified in taking you up without the authority of a warrant,' which showed that the bench were better read in bigotry than in blackstone. i said it was customary in other towns, where bigotry existed to a greater degree even than it did there, for information to be laid and a regular notice served. mr. capper said, 'we refuse to hold an argument with a man professing the abominable principle of denying the existence of a supreme being,' this was not a very legal way of getting rid of my objections, but it answered in cheltenham. two witnesses, james bartram and william henry pearce, both of the _chronicle_ office, were adduced to report the words that formed the ground of the indictment. neither of them could recollect anything else but the objectionable words reported in their own paper, and to these they did not swear positively, but only to the 'best of their belief.' mr. pearce was not produced at the trial at the assizes, he having no local reputation but that of a dog-fancier and fighter, which did not render him a creditable authority on matters pertaining to religion. bartram's sister was a socialist, and she came to me some years after, in manchester, to apologise for the disgrace brought upon her family by the weakness or the ignorance of her brother. mr. overbury said he considered the case satisfactorily proved, and added, 'whether you are of no religion _is of very little consequence to us_, but your attempt to propagate the infamous sentiment that there is no god, is calculated to produce disorder and confusion, and is a breach of the peace.' this was the remark of an ill-informed politician rather than of a christian. being required to enter into my own recognizances of â£100, and find two sureties of â£50 each, mr. partridge became one, and mr. henry fry, editor of the _educational circular_, offered himself as the other. but the rev. dr. newell objected to mr. fry's bail, on the ground that he did not swear positively that he was worth â£50 when all his debts were paid. he swore only that 'to the best of his belief he was so. i reminded the bench that they had accepted the evidence of the witnesses against me on the same ground, namely 'the best of their belief.' hereupon the rev. dr. newell, with an air of outraged morality, exclaimed 'come, come! we'll have no quibbling.' i answered that i did not propose to quibble, for if that had been to my taste i might have avoided standing there at that moment. mr. bubb then interjected that he should demand twenty-four hours' notice of bail. another gentleman then offered himself, whom i desired to sit down and let the bench take their own course. this indifference with regard to the bench incensed them very much. mr. capper said, 'even the heathens acknowledged the existence of a deity. if you entertain the same pernicious opinion on your death-bed you will be a bold man indeed. but you are only actuated by a love of notoriety.' i only answered, 'why do you address me thus, since you will not allow me to reply?' and i turned away repeating to myself the words of sir thomas browne--'there is a rabble amongst the gentry as well as the commonalty; a sort of plebeian heads, whose fancy moves with the same wheel as these: men in the same level with mechanics, though their fortunes do somewhat gild their infirmities, and their purses compound, for their follies.' but i ought to say that during these proceedings the people in the court, of juster feeling than the magistrates, frequently expressed their disapprobation of the speeches made to me. mr. capper's assertion that i was only actuated by a love of notoriety, were just the words to do me injury. the respectable people near, and the intelligent people at a distance, would believe the magistrate and disbelieve the sceptic, who had no friends to rebut the imputation. the vulgar bearing of this brutal old man lingered long in my memory as the most distinct thing of these proceedings. i should have thought less of it had it not come from an old man. the aged always inspire me with reverence, in their kindly aspects. they are the links which nature perpetuates between old time and our time--the human chroniclers of an experience the young can never know. they have followed the hearse of the old world, and are the legatees of time, who has bequeathed to them his secrets and his conquests, which they in their turn distribute to us. when living at islington, in 1848, i frequently passed, but not without sadness, nor sometimes without tears, an old man who stood near the merlin's cave to beg. he resembled one whom i cannot name. i could see on his brow the fresh traces of a struggle still going on between dignity and destitution. and i often gave him the price of the biscuit intended for my dinner, in the secret hope we all have in a kind act that some one else may repeat it to those we love; and i indulged the hope that others might approach with the same respectful feelings him to whom i have alluded, if ever, with untamed pride and broken heart, he should stand in his grey hairs on the high way to beg--which i have dreaded through so many years. when taken back to the station-house, captain lefroy, who was at the head of the police, introduced me to mr. pinching, surgeon of the same corps. the captain, in a gentlemanly way, inquired if i would allow mr. pinching to reason with me on my opinions? i said, 'certainly.' mr. pinching asked me the irrelevant question 'did i believe in jesus christ?' and began a dry, historical argument to prove that there was the same evidence for the existence of jesus christ as for that of henry the fourth. i said, 'the argument is unnecessary with me. i do not care to argue whether he existed or not. my inquiry is not whether he lived, but what he _said._' mr. pinching's next speech was delivered with an air of sharp authority, and he began to address me rather rudely. he asked me was it not robert owen who made me an atheist? i replied, mr. owen himself was not an atheist. for myself, i had not become so till after the imprisonment of mr. southwell, which had led me to inquire into the grounds of religious opinion more closely than i had before done, and it had ended in my entire disbelief. mr. pinching now became impatient and abusive, allowing me no opportunity of replying, and i said 'stop! stop! sir, you must not treat me as a prisoner if you intend me to hear you. unless you converse with me upon equal terms i shall not answer you.' lefroy laughed, and said, 'come! come! pinching, i think you are not quite fair. after this mr. pinching became more abusive, and i turned away--when he ended the conversation by saying, 'i am only sorry the day is gone by when we could send you and owen of lanark to the stake instead of to gloucester gaol.' not allowed to wait twenty-four hours to see if i could obtain bail, i was soon after sent off to gloucester, nine miles away, the same afternoon, where the difficulty of negotiating my release was so much increased that it took me a fortnight to do it. after my conversation with mr. pinching i was shut up in a very filthy place with a lousy man. i was handcuffed with small old irons that pinched my wrists, and i begged to have another pair of handcuffs put on, which was done: then i was made to walk through cheltenham town and suburbs, and afterwards through gloucester city, with the hand irons on. as i had walked thirty miles to be apprehended, they had no reason to suspect me of making my escape; nor was it customary to handcuff prisoners conveyed to gloucester on foot. in my case it was done to pain and degrade me. a memorial of a public meeting, sent from the town of cheltenham to the house of commons, on this subject, stated 'that notwithstanding mr. holyoake offered no resistance to any officer or procedure, and was at the same time in very delicate health and much exhausted, yet it was deemed necessary to lock both his hands in irons and make him walk to gloucester--a distance of near nine miles--on a most sultry day, but on the way thither his friends interfered and obtained leave for him to ride, on condition only that they should pay his expenses as well as the expenses of two policemen to accompany him.' and it may be added that though i sat an hour at the station, waiting for the train, my hands were not unlocked. the same memorial also alleged 'that the conduct of the magistrates during the proceedings indicated a predisposition to punish mr. holyoake, independently of any evidence which he might have offered in defence of his own conduct.' the member for bath, to whom this memorial was entrusted, paid to it the most generous attention, and immediately returned the following reply:-london, june 23rd, 1842. sir,--the petition you sent me is of a nature that demands serious inquiry, and i thought i should best discharge my duty towards the petitioners and mr. holyoake by at once addressing myself to sir james graham. he has very promptly taken up the inquiry, and i have no doubt but that substantial justice will be done. if, however, the petitioners should hereafter deem that justice has not been done, i can present their petition after the inquiry which has been undertaken by the home secretary has been closed. i have taken this liberty with the petition on my own responsibility, hoping that the petitioners will here trust to my discretion, and they for the moment will put confidence in my judgment. i will write you word so soon as i hear from the home secretary, who has now the petition in his hands for the purpose of immediately instituting a searching inquiry. i am, sir, your obedient servant, mr. h. fry. j. a. roebuck. the committal the police bore with them was to the following effect:-[gloucestershire to wit.]--to all and every of the constables and other officers of the peace for the said county, and to the keeper of the gaol at gloucester in the said county-whereas george jacob holyoake is now brought before us, three of her majesty's justices of the peace in and for the said county, and charged, on the oaths of james bertram and william henry pearce, with having, on the twenty-forth day of may last, at the parish of cheltenham in the said county, wickedly and profanely uttered, made use of, and proclaimed, in the presence of a public assembly of men, women, and children, then and there assembled, certain impious and blasphemous words against god, and of and concerning the christian religion, to wit, 'that he was of no religion at all,' and 'that he did not believe there was such a thing as a god,' and 'that if he could have his way he would place the deity on half-pay, as the government of this country did the subaltern officers,' against the peace of our lady the queen, her crown and dignity. and whereas we, the said justices, have required the said george jacob holyoake to become bound in the sum of one hundred pounds, and to find two sufficient sureties in the sum of fifty pounds each, conditioned for the appearance of the said george jacob holyoake at the next quarter sessions of the peace, to be holden at gloucester, in and for the said county, and then and there to answer to any bill of indictment that may be preferred against him for his said offence, which he hath neglected to do. these are therefore in her majesty's name to command you, and every of you the said constables, forthwith safely to convey and deliver into the custody of the keeper of the said gaol the body of the said george jacob holyoake. and you, the said keeper, are hereby required to receive the said george jacob holyoake into your said custody, and him safely keep until the said next general quarter sessions of the peace, to be holden at gloucester, in and for the said county, or until he become bound and finds such sureties as aforesaid, or until he shall be thence delivered by due course of law. and for your so doing this shall be to you and every of you a sufficient warrant. given under our hands and seals the third day of june, in the year of our lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-two. robt. capper, j. b. newell, joseph overbury. twenty-four hours' notice of bail to be given. i hereby certify that the above is a true 'copy' of a warrant, by virtue of which the within named george jacob holyoake was brought into custody the 3rd day of june, 1842. witness my hand, thomas moore, clerk to the county gaol of gloucester. some of the magistrates characterised the speech for which i was committed as 'felony,' 'a breach of the peace,' etc., and i was told that my committal was made out for 'felony.' serious comments were made thereupon by the public. able strictures on the subject were made by 'philo publicola,' in the _weekly dispatch_. but the magistrates grew wiser as they grew cooler, and on the copy of the committal subsequently furnished to me, the charge of felony did not appear. a very curious circumstance deserves mentioning here. the magistrates being censured in the house of commons for their 'irregularities' in my case (as will be explained in my defence further on) an attempt was made to fix the blame on mr. russell, superintendent of the police. this induced me to address the following letter to the editor of the _cheltenham free press_:-sir,--observing an attempt has been made in parliament by the hon. craven berkley to fix the blame of my 'harsh treatment' on the constables of your town, and to implicate superintendent russell, i beg to say that after my committal i never saw mr. russell, and never once said, or suspected, that the harshness exercised towards me, while ostensibly in his custody, originated with him. his courtesy to me on the night of my apprehension, of which i retain a lively sense, forbids such a conclusion. i shall be glad if you will insert this in your next number. i can never consent to purchase public sympathy by a silence which may unjustly sacrifice any person's interest. i was justified in making the complaints i have, but would rather they were for ever unredressed than that an innocent man should suffer. birmingham, july 30, 1842. g. jacob holyoake. soon after mr. russell left the corps, and appears to have been offered up by the magistrates as a sacrifice for the irregularities _they_ had committed. on my arrival my pockets were searched, and even my pocket-book and letters taken from me. this i felt not only as an indignity, but also as a breach of faith. before leaving cheltenham, and when in communication with my friends, i inquired if my papers would be taken from me at gloucester, and the officers answered 'no,' (but they must have known differently). trusting their answer, however, i brought with me papers i should not otherwise have brought. perhaps i was fevered after my walk, but the cell i was put into gave me a new sense. there had been times when i had wished for a sixth sense, but this was not the sense i coveted, for it was a sense of suffocation. the bed was so filthy that i could not lie down, and sat on the side all night. when taken into the general room next morning the prisoners surrounded me, exclaiming,' what are ye come for?' as i made no reply, another observed, 'we always tells one another,' 'oh! blasphemy,' i replied. 'what's that,' said one. 'aren't you 'ligious?' said another. but as these rustics were happily unacquainted with doctrinal piety, they said nothing rude; and seeing my loaf unbroken, and that i could not eat, 'here,' said four or five at once, 'will you have some of this tea, zir?'--which was mint-tea, the reward of some extra work, and the nicest thing they had to offer. when the chaplain of the gaol, the rev. robert cooper, came to see me, i told him that before i took anything from him for my soul, i wanted something from him for my defence; and i demanded my note book and papers. mr. samuel jones, a visiting magistrate, brought me a few pencil notes which i had made during my examination in cheltenham and some private papers, but he withheld many others relating to matters of opinion, saying that _he_ 'did not think them necessary to my defence.' the clergyman has a veto on all books admitted, and of a list which i gave him, which i wanted to read for my trial, he only allowed me thirteen. he said the others 'were of an unchristian character,' and he could not let me have them. 'i told him i was not going to make an orthodox defence. he would not relax, so i would not have any spiritual consolation, and we lived on very indifferent terms. one day mr. bransby cooper, and mr. samuel jones (just mentioned), both old magistrates, came to visit me. mr. jones, i was told, had at one time been a preacher among the methodists. he told me he would be kind to me, but all his kindness was religious kindness--the worst kindness i have ever experienced. i was then the sole occupant of the queen's evidence side of the prison, a place i had chosen as i preferred to be alone. i had a large yard and all the cells to myself. in this solitary place these magistrates visited me. after teazing me with leslie for a long time, mr. bransby cooper concluded thus--'now! holyoake, you are a deist--are you not?' i shook my head. 'you cannot be an atheist,' he continued, 'you don't look like one.' he said this, i suppose, seeing no horns on my head, and no eyes on my elbows, as he expected. i answered that i felt very unpleasantly how much i was in their power, and had therefore some reason to desire to oblige them. though sorry to say what might outrage them or look like obstinacy, yet out of respect to my own conscience i must say that i _was_ an atheist. upon these they both flew into indignant revulsions, and shouted 'a fool! a fool!' till the roof rang. capt. mason (the governor), who accompanied them, turned away a few paces, with the air of one not caring to be witness of so much rudeness. * see report of gloucester trinity sessions in the county papers of that period. before leaving they said of course i should employ counsel to defend me. i answered, 'no, i should defend myself as well as i was able. barristers were not good at stating a case of conscience.' they urged, they even coaxed me to abandon the idea of defending myself; but finding me not to be deterred, they threatened me that it would aggravate my case--reminded me of hone and others, and said that the judge would put me down and not hear me. this menace, as will be seen hereafter, did me great harm. they reported my determination at the trinity sessions as though it was a matter desirable to be averted. mr. bransby cooper was a brother of sir astley cooper. he was formerly member for gloucester, and when he suspected that i did not regard his dignity sufficiently, he would slide in some remark about 'his friend' sir james graham, who was then secretary of state for the home department. bransby cooper was the senior magistrate at this time--a man of venerable and commanding aspect, generous to a fault in matters of humanity, harsh to a fault in matters of religion. on his way through the city, old women would way-lay him to beg. first raising his stick against them--then threatening to commit them as vagrants--they fled from him in mock terror, but knowing the generous feelings of the man they returned again, and before he reached home he would empty his pockets among them. one minute he would growl at me like an unchained tiger--the next he would utter some word of real sympathy, such as came from no one else, and at the end of my imprisonment i parted from him with something of regret. he had the voice of stentor, and though at first his savage roar shook me, at last i acquired an artistic liking for it, and his voice was so grand that i came to the conclusion that he had a natural right to be a brute. the old man, after his fashion, laboured very hard for my conversion. his son robert was chaplain of the gaol, and had i happily been brought over, the old man would have given the credit to his boy. my conversion was thus a sort of family speculation. those who sent me to prison in default of bail, took care to make bail impossible to me by intimidating those who would have become my sureties, and after two weeks' anxiety i was obliged to accept the generous offer of two friends in worcester--james barnes and john dymond stevenson--to come from that city and enter into recognizances for me, and i was indebted to them for my liberation, after sixteen days' imprisonment. so near was my trial upon my release that i had to return to gloucester within a fortnight. a great desire of my youth had been to see london. when i found myself suddenly shut up in gaol, in prospect of an indefinite term of imprisonment, which in my then state of health might prove fatal, my sole remorse was that i had never seen that city of my dreams. once again at liberty i made a short visit to my family in birmingham, and the next week found me in london. chafed and sad, with tremulous heart and irresolute step, it seems but yesterday that i walked through woburn place into the city in which i now write. its streets, its pride, its magnificence enthralled me, and its very poverty fascinated me because nearer to my destiny. savage and johnson had walked those squares houseless, and why not i. chatterton had perished in a garret, and garrets had something sacred in them. solitary in that two million multitude, i was hardly known to any one in it, yet when i remembered that i was in london i felt an enchanted gladness, and in all vicissitudes of fortune and chequered struggles with fate, i have walked its magical streets with undimmed joy, and it is to me still a fairy land, whose atmosphere of enchantment feels as if it would never leave me. how sweetly, how gratefully to me (as words never read before) came the notice the _weekly dispatch_ gave of my first lecture in london. all the night before i had sat up with ryall, answering correspondence and concerting my defence. when i reached the rotunda it was more fitting that i should have found a bed there than a rostrum, for when i rose to speak i was weak as well as timid. to succeed in any way in london was more than i ventured to expect, and the nature of the report in the _weekly dispatch_ inspired me with the hope of at least being tolerated. i hastened back to gloucester. either a secretary of state's order, or a bill had come into operation, i was never correctly informed which, removing my trial from the sessions to the assizes, which gave me an impartial judge to determine my case. at a sessions' trial the parties who had caused my imprisonment, and the magistrates who had shown themselves my personal opponents, would have sat on the bench to try me. though unable to proceed with my trial after having committed me, they put me to the expense of bringing my bail from worcester, and charged me â£1 9s. for renewing my sureties. my arrest caused a demand for atheistical publications in cheltenham, which mr. george adams, partly as a friend to the free publication of opinion and partly from personal friendship to me, undertook to supply. in this he was joined by his wife, harriet adams, a very interesting and courageous woman. on monday evening, june 13th, at a public meeting called to consider the grounds of my own apprehension, mr. george adams was arrested for selling no. 25 of the _oracle_, and forthwith conveyed to the station-house. as soon as a knowledge of the arrest came to the ears of mrs. adams, she went to the station-house to see her husband, when she, likewise, was served with a warrant for selling no. 4. mrs. adams says, (the account cannot be better rendered than in her own words) 'i went to see my husband at the station-house, when i was detained; a policeman was sent home with me to fetch my infant, and i had to leave four at home in bed. the man that went with me to the station was a rude fellow; he was quite abusive to me, telling me i should be locked up from my husband; saying, it was quite time such things were put a stop to. when we arrived at the station-house he would have locked me in a cell with drunken women, had i not sat down in the yard and insisted on seeing the superintendent, who then allowed me to sit up in a kitchen, where policemen were coming in and out all night. my husband was much troubled on my account.' the four children were left locked up in the house alone. mr. bubb's speech, when adams was brought up, is so curious a relic of provincial barbarism that i preserve it, or those who are told of it in time to come will regard the story as some malicious fiction. mr. bubb opened the charge by justifying himself and clients--'it has been said that we are prosecuting here for the entertaining of opinions merely. that proposition i deny. the entertaining of opinions is not opposed to law if people keep them to, themselves. if they step out of the way, and seek to propagate them by undermining the institutions of the country, by denying the existence of a god, by robbing others of "the hopes set before them," without offering the flimsiest pretext, it is the duty of all to prevent this. such is the opinion of those gentlemen who set on foot these proceedings, and no clamour of persecution will prevent them from doing what they believe to be their duty. and if there are any here present disposed to take up this unfortunate trade, i would assure them that as long as the law punishes, and the magistrates uphold the law, so long will they bring offenders to justice. so long as men say there is no god, or that the religion of the state is a farce and a fallacy, these gentlemen will not be deterred by any clamour.' if this threat were carried out the magistrates on every bench would have constant employment--especially if they would undertake, as mr. bubb appeared to promise, to ascertain whether or not we had the 'flimsiest pretext' to offer in defence of the course we took. adams and his wife were committed to take their trials at the sessions--in the wife's case it was purely vexatious, as there was no one bound over to prosecute her. yet adams, nearly blind from an inflammation of the eyes, and his wife with her child in her arms, were kept several days in attendance at gloucester--though the same law which prevented the court proceeding in my case, prevented the court from trying the adamses. in further aggravation of loss, â£1 17s. 6d. were demanded for discharge of bail and entering new sureties--nor was time allowed to fetch the bail (after they were demanded) from cheltenham, the clerk announcing that they would be estreated at once. upon this i directed mr. and mrs. adams to go into court and say they were prepared to take their trial _then_, and there was no occasion to estreat the property of their friends. time was then allowed. mrs. adams was never tried. mr. adams's trial took place at gloucester assizes, immediately before my own. the passage from no. 25 of the _oracle_, for which adams was indicted, was written by my friend mr. chilton, who was outraged at my imprisonment, and ran as follows:-what else could be expected of men who deify a real or imaginary individual, a compound of ambition and folly, of mock humility and rampant tyranny; who, though called the 'prince of peace,' declared he came to bring a sword in the world? this hellish mission he performed to perfection, for never since his time has blood and misery ceased to flow from his dogmas and mysteries. as i was very anxious to save adams from consequences which he incurred through friendship to me, i advised him to let mr. thompson defend him. this gentleman began by sympathising with all the disgust invented by the counsel who opened the prosecution, and he ended by expressing adams's sorrow and contrition for what he had done--a contrition which he did not feel, and would rather have undergone much imprisonment than have had it said that he did. during the whole of the trials arising out of the _oracle_, mr. ralph thomas, barrister, was the only counsel who defended us in court without sacrificing us. taking warning by mr. thompson's example, i made it a rule to advise all our friends to defend themselves, and where unaccustomed to public speaking, to write a brief defence in their own language, and after some legal friend had revised it, to read it to the court. we do not want lawyers to defend our opinions, those opinions not being their own, but we want them simply to maintain our right to publish what are to us important convictions. instead of this they commonly agree with the crown that we are criminal for having a conscience, and then, in our name, recant with 'contrition' the opinions which we go into court to maintain. adams's sentence was delivered in the following words by mr. justice erskine:--'george adams, you have been convicted of the offence of publishing a blasphemous libel, and the libel which was proved to have been published by you was one of a most horrid and shocking character. whatever a man's opinions may be, he can have no right to give vent to them in that language. if there was evidence to prove that you were the author, or that you were engaged as an active disseminator, i should have thought it my duty to have inflicted on you a very serious imprisonment. although by the law of this country every man has a right to express his sentiments in decent language, he has no business to make use of such shocking language as this. but you have expressed, through your counsel, contrition; and trusting that this is the general feeling of your mind, i shall not think it necessary to pass on you a severe sentence this time. but if you ever offend again, it will then be known that you are determined to persevere, and it will be seen whether the law is not strong enough to prevent it. the sentence of the court is, that you be _imprisoned in the common gaol of this county for one calendar month._ i was with adams during the term of his imprisonment, and although his losses and the privations of his family were great, he never uttered a murmuring word. from first to last he behaved well, and mrs. adams, as women usually do, behaved better. it is worthy of remark that when a gentleman deposed that the character of mr. adams 'was a pattern of morality,' mr. justice erskine told the jury that 'had adams committed a robbery such a character might have weight, but in extenuation of religious offence it was of no service.' chapter ii. the trial the assizes opened on the 6th of august, 1842, but my case did not come on till the 15th, mr. knight hunt (the author of the 'fourth estate') was the gentleman engaged to report my trial. as the judge was informed that i intended to defend myself he resolved to take my case last. this caused the assizes to extend into a second week. saturday came before the calendar was exhausted, and as there was no knowing whether my trial could be gone through in a day, the fear of trespassing on sunday led to the court's being ordered to open on monday, to the annoyance of javelin men kept there unexpectedly, to jury men who had left tills, ploughs, and orange baskets unprotected--and not least to my prosecutors, who saw with some consternation some â£200 added to the county expenses, for in cheltenham bigotry is greatly preferred when it is _cheap_. if ignorance would look upon its own degradation, let it spend a few hours in an assize court. one trial i witnessed was of two men for an offence which indeed arose out of depravity, but the depravity arose out of bad training and vicious circumstances. the oldest man, between forty and fifty, was sentenced to transportation for life to norfolk island, the most ferocious sentence an english judge can pronounce. when the man heard it, he bowed in genuine and awkward humbleness, and said, as he made a rustic bow to the bench, '_thank'ee, my lord!_' such abject humiliation of spirit i had never conceived before. ignorance never appeared to me so frightful, so slavish, so blind, as on this occasion. unable to distinguish a sentence passed upon him from a service done him, he had been taught to bow to his pastors and masters, and he bowed alike when cursed as when blessed. the measured contempt with which the words were spoken by the judge which blasted the man's character for ever--the scorn with which he was thrust out of the pale of society, never again to know freedom or reputation, made no impression on his dark and servile soul. that appalling weight of infamy falling on his head and on the heads of his children--for which he might justly have cursed society--only elicited from him a 'thank'ee, my lord!' if ignorance would see its own degradation, would feel the incalculable depth of its abjectness, let it sometimes sit for instruction in an assize court. the preliminary proceedings at the trial i shall render as mr. hunt gave them, in the third person--adding what, from various causes, was omitted at the time. on the morning of the trial the court-house at gloucester was very crowded. many ladies were present from all parts of the county: the wives of clergymen, and some of the nobility, were among them, attracted by curiosity, and by the opportunity which might never occur to them again of hearing, without loss of caste, a little heresy defended in person. the audience continued undiminished till ten o'clock at night. as the name of george jacob holyoake was called, he advanced and entered the dock. mr. ogden, the turnkey in charge of prisoners, directed him with the usual air of official impatience to take his place at the bar. mr. holyoake. do not be in a hurry. first hand me my books. mr. ogden. (looking indignantly at a large corded box lying outside the dock.) you can't have that box here. you must go to the bar and plead. mr. holyoake. nonsense. hand me the box. it being reluctantly handed up, mr. holyoake applied to the judge, mr. justice erskine, for the use of a table. mr. justice erskine. there is one. (he referred to some boarding behind the bar), and there mr. holyoake proceeded to arrange his books and papers--although the situation was not advantageous, it being lower than the bar where the prisoners usually stand. mr. holyoake employed twenty minutes in this operation, and when he had done, the dock resembled, a young bookseller's stall. mr. holyoake then advanced to the bar and bowed to the court. mr. justice erskine (who had waited with great patience). are you ready? mr. holyoake replied affirmatively, and the clerk proceeded to read the indictment as follows:-[gloucester to wit.]--the jurors for our lady the queen, upon their oath, present that george jacob holyoake, late of the parish of cheltenham, in the county of gloucester, labourer,* being a wicked, malicious, and evil-disposed person, and disregarding the laws and religion of the realm, and wickedly and profanely devising and intending to bring almighty god, the holy scriptures, and the christian religion, into disbelief and contempt among the people of this kingdom, on the twenty-fourth day of may, in the fifth year of the reign of our lady the queen, with force and arms, at the parish aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, in the presence and hearing of divers liege subjects of our said lady the queen, maliciously, unlawfully, and wickedly did compose, speak, utter, pronounce, and publish with a loud voice, of and concerning almighty gog, the holy scriptures, and the christian religion, these words following, that is to say, 'i (meaning the said george jacob holyoake) do not believe there is such a thing as a god; i (meaning the said george jacob holyoake) would have the deity served as they (meaning the government of this kingdom) serve the subaltern, place him (meaning almighty god) on half-pay'--to the high displeasure of almighty god, to the great scandal and reproach of the christian religion, in open violation of the laws of this kingdom, to the evil example of all others in the like case offending, and against the peace of our lady the queen, her crown and dignity. * it was pure invention that described me as a' labourer.' it was a term of degradation in the county, and therefore employed--my profession was that of a mathematical teacher. mr. holyoake pleaded _not guilty_, and applied to have the names of the jury called over singly and distinctly. mr. alexander, counsel for the prosecution, said the offence being only a misdemeanour, the defendant had no right to challenge. mr. justice erskine. of course not, unless reasons are given in each case. clerk. the name of john lovesey is first. mr. holyoake. i object to lovesey. he sat on the bench when i was before the magistrates at cheltenham, and approved the proceedings against me. he is not disinterested in this matter. mr. justice erskine said that was not sufficient reason for challenging. loresey declared he 'shuddered at the crime of the prisoner,' and after some further conversation, the judge having observed it was 'as well to go,' lovesey left the box. mr. holyoake. in the case of mr. southwell he was allowed to challenge. mr. justice erskine. i am not bound by the recorder of bristol. the names of the other jurors having been called over, mr. holyoake objected to one on the ground of his being a farmer, and from his profession not likely to be acquainted with the nature of the question at issue.* mr. justice erskine said he could not sit there to listen to such objections. mr. holyoake saying he had no objection to urge which his lordship would allow, 'seven farmers, one grocer, one poulterer, one miller, one nondescript shopkeeper, and one maltster, were then impaneled to ascertain whether one george jacob holyoake had had a fight with omnipotence, whether he had done his utmost to bring the deity into contempt, whether he had fought omnipotence with force of arms, and had spoken against it or him with a loud voice.'** * a poulterer is called upon, under oath, to decide this great theological and philosophical question that has agitated the world for so many hundred centuries.......to make a poulterer a sovereign judge of theology is on a par with making the archbishop of canterbury a judge of poultry.--weekly dispatch, august 18. 1842. [it has been objected to this that very likely his grace of canterbury is a very good judge of poultry.] ** 'publicola's' second letter to judge erskine.--weekly dispatch, sep 18, 1842 the following is the list of the jury:-thomas gardiner, grocer, cheltenham, foreman. james reeve, farmer, chedworth. william ellis, farmer, chedworth. avery trotman, farmer, chedworth. william mathews, poulterer, cheltenham.' simon vizard, shopkeeper, oldland. isaac tombs, farmer, whitcomb. william wilson, maltster, brimpsfield. edwin brown, farmer, withington. bevan smith, farmer, harescomb. william smith, miller, rarnwood. joseph shipp, farmer, yate. mr. holyoake. can i have a copy of the indictment? mr. justice erskine. i had one made for you in consequence of your application to the court last week. mr. holyoake. yes, my lord, but after i had thanked you for your courtesy in so doing, i was asked 8s. 6d. for it by (not being able to call him by his name, mr. holyoake said) that sour looking gentleman there, (pointing to the clerk of the court, an individual as dusty and as forbidding as an old penal statute, and who always spoke to mr. holyoake like one. the court laughed, the judge frowned, the clerk looked indignant, but before censure could fall, mr. holyoake escaped into the next sentence, adding), after the numerous exactions i was subjected to at the sessions, after being brought here by the magistrates and then not tried, i did not think myself justified in paying any more, and the clerk refused it me. mr. justice erskine. i ordered a copy to be made for you, but did not think it necessary that you should have it on any other than the usual conditions.* mr. holyoake. can i be allowed to read the indictment against me? mr. justice erskine. certainly. the clerk then handed a copy to mr. holyoake, who on observing the counsel for the prosecution rise, left the bar and placed himself where he could face mr. alexander, with a view to take notes. the judge very courteously asked if mr. holyoake desired note-paper and pens, which he accepted, and: mr. alexander said--gentlemen of the jury: the defendant at the bar is indicted, not for writing, but for speaking and uttering certain wicked and blasphemous words. this person is not, as in the case previously brought before your attention,** the _vendor_, but he is the _author_ of the blasphemy. from the coincidence of words, he is the editor-mr. justice erskine. you must not proceed in that way. you must not assume- * this copy of indictment occupied not quite one sheet of paper, for which eight shillings and sixpence were asked! **that of george adams. mr. alexander. i am aware, my lord, that i may not assert the identity of the defendant with the work alluded to--i was only going to draw the attention of the gentlemen of the jury to the coincidence of the words. but i will proceed with my case. the defendant, on the 24th of may last, issued placards for a lecture to be delivered in cheltenham. in these placards he announced, not the diabolical, the dreadful topics which he descanted upon, not anything which would lead the reader to imagine or expect what really took place--but he gave out his subject as a lecture upon home colonisation, emigration, and the poor laws. mark this, gentlemen of the jury. had he given in his announcements any hint of what was to take place, his end might have been defeated, and no audience attracted to listen to the blasphemous expressions you have heard set out in the indictment. but he did obtain an audience, a numerous audience, and then declared that the people were too poor to have a religion--that he himself had no religion--that he did not believe in such a thing as a god; and--though it pains me to repeat the horrible blasphemy--that he would place the deity upon half-pay. i shall call witnesses to prove all this, and then it will be for you to say if he is guilty. it may be urged to you that these things were said in answer to a question, that the _inuendoes_ must be made out. _inuendoes!_ i should think it an insult to the understandings of twelve jurymen--of twelve intelligent men--to call witnesses to prove inuendoes: but i shall place the case before you, and leave it in your hands. i am sure i need not speak, i need not dilate upon the consequence of insulting that deity we are as much bound, as inclined, to reverence. he then called james bartram--who said: i am a printer at cheltenham, employed upon the _cheltenham chronicle_; attended the lecture of defendant, just after nine o'clock; there were about one hundred persons present of both sexes; the placard announced 'home colonisation, emigration, poor laws superseded;' heard a man put a question to mr. holyoake; he said,' the lecturer has been speaking of our duty to man, but he has said nothing as regards our duty towards god.' prisoner replied, 'i am of no religion at all--i do not believe in such a thing as a god. the people of this country are too poor to have any religion. i would serve the deity as the government does the subaltern--place him on half-pay.' he was the length of the room off; i heard him distinctly; he spoke in a distinct voice. cross-examined by mr. holyoake. you say i said the people were too poor to have any religion; will you state the reasons i gave? witness. i can give the substance, if not the words; 'you said, 'the great expense of religion to the country.' mr. holyoake. i will thank you to state the other reasons? witness. i don't recollect any other reason* mr. holyoake. now, you have sworn the words are blasphemous-mr. justice erskine. no, he has not. mr. holyoake. will you state if the words are blasphemous? mr. justice erskine said such a question could only be put through him. he then put the question--do you consider the words blasphemous? witness. i do. mr. holyoake. why do you think them blasphemous? witness. because they revile the majesty of heaven, and are calculated to subvert peace, law, and order; and are punishable by human law, because they attack human authority. mr. holyoake. who has instructed you to define blasphemy thus? witness. i have not been instructed, it is my own opinion. mr. holyoake. at cheltenham, during my examination before the magistrates, you did not appear to have these notions. will you swear you have not concocted that answer for this occasion? witness. i did not expect such a question would be put; i did not expect to be catechised. mr. holyoake. who advised you to attend as a witness? witness. the magistrates sent for me. mr. holyoake. did you not know before the day of my commitment something of this matter? witness. there was some 'chaff' in the office about it; that's all i heard of it; a policeman was sent from the magistrates for me to give the names of witnesses who were to appear. don't know why the policeman came to me; don't know his name; no clergyman has spoken to me, that i recollect, upon the subject of this prosecution; not sure of it; several persons have spoken to me, cannot say they were clergymen; i do not know the parties who got up the prosecution, or sent the policeman to me; the report was furnished to the paper i work on by another person; i saw the reporter's notes, but not the editor's observations till the galleys were pulled. mr. justice erskine. what do you mean by galleys pulled? witness. brass slides, my lord. mr. justice erskine. you mean, i suppose, till all the types were up? witness. yes, my lord. cross-examination resumed. do not know of my own knowledge who made the report; have been ten years in employment at _chronicle_ office; know it was said in that paper that three witnesses from that office could prove what had occurred at the lecture; the name of reporter of our paper is edward wills; i heard your lecture, you said nothing against morality. mr. holyoake. will you state your opinion of morality? mr. justice erskine. the question is irrelevant. mr. holyoake. did you think i spoke my honest convictions? witness. i thought you spoke what you meant; you spoke straightforwardly. the judge here interposed, to stop mr. holyoake from asking as to witness's opinions. cross-examination resumed--witness. i should not have lost my situation if i had not come forward in this case; in my opinion you spoke wickedly, as stated in indictment; i did not notice that you spoke contemptuously when using the word _thing_, but you used the word; there were other words between those used in indictment; they did not, is in that document, follow one another; i do not remember the words; you spoke of the enormous sums of money spent upon religion, and the poverty of the people, and afterwards, and in connection with that, said you would place deity as government did the subalterns--on half-pay; i have been a preacher. re-examined by mr. alexander. i have been uninterruptedly ten years in the same employment; do not give evidence from fear or reward; but from a sense of duty. mr. alexander. that is the case for the prosecution, my lord. mr. justice erskine. now is the time for your defence. mr. holyoake. i am not a little surprised to hear that the case for the prosecution is closed. i have heard nothing, not one word, to prove the charge in the indictment. there has been adduced no evidence to show that i have uttered words _maliciously_ and _wickedly_ blasphemous. i submit to your lordship that there is not sufficient evidence before the court. mr. justice erskine. that is for the jury to decide. mr. holyoake. i thought, my lord, as the evidence is so manifestly insufficient to prove _malice_, you would have felt bound to direct my acquittal. mr. justice erskine. it is for the jury to say whether they are satisfied. mr. holyoake. then, gentlemen of the jury, it now becomes my duty to address you on the nature of the charge preferred against me, and of the evidence by which it is attempted to be supported. when i stood in this court a week ago, and saw the grand jury with mr. grantley berkeley at their head as foreman--when i heard his lordship, surrounded by learned counsel, deliver his charge in the midst of persons distinguished for learning, for eloquence, for experience, and for literary attainments-i then thought, as i now do, that this court could find nobler means than the employment of brute force to counteract anything i could attempt--which i never have done--to bring the truly sacred into contempt. i thought i never should be called upon to stand in this dock, with all its polluting and disgusting associations, to answer for mere matters of speculative opinion. i did think that such persons possessed a sense of the powers of the human mind that would have prevented the interposition of penal judges upon such subjects. but to mr. grantley berkeley, as foreman of the grand jury who found a true bill against me, i beg to draw your attention. mr. grantley berkeley, as you are aware, is brother to the member, mr. c. berkeley, who attempted to vindicate the conduct of the cheltenham magistrates from the allegations against them by sir james graham in the house of commons. in the recent case of mr. mason, who was taken from a meeting, as i was at cheltenham, by a policeman, illegally, without a warrant, the doctrine was laid down by a cabinet minister, in the house of commons, that if the person so arrested was subsequently found guilty by a jury, the illegal apprehension was justified. see how this applies to my case. i was taken from a public meeting a week after the objectionable words were spoken; was taken by a policeman at near midnight; without a warrant. this was justly deemed illegal. i sat in the gallery of the house of commons when the hon. member for bath brought forward my case, and when sir james graham, in reference to the correspondence which had taken place with the magistrates, had the frankness to say, 'there had been serious irregularities and unnecessary harshness used in the case of holyoake.' in this country four thousand applications are annually made to the secretary of state for the home department, and out of that four thousand my case is spoken of as one in which serious irregularities had occurred, and unnecessary harshness been employed. and that amid the numerous affairs of this great empire it should have received this distinct notice is presumptive evidence that it contained much that should be corrected. on thursday, july 21, the hon. mr. c. berkeley, addressing the speaker of the house of commons, said, 'i wish to ask the right hon. baronet the secretary for the home department a question, but in order to make it intelligible to the house, it will be necessary for me to refer to what took place on tuesday last. it appears that upon that day the hon. member for bath stated, "that as a person named holyoake had been committed to prison, at cheltenham, in an improper manner, he wished to know whether the right hon. the secretary for the home department had any objection to produce the correspondence which had taken place upon that subject"--to which the right hon. baronet replied that, "he felt called on in the discharge of his duty to inquire into the circumstances of the commitment in question--he found that serious irregularities had been committed, and he expressed his opinion to that effect--but as legal proceedings were likely to result out of what had occurred, he did not think it would be judicious in the hon. and learned gentleman to press for the production of the correspondence."... ...the right hon. baronet knows, or at least ought to know, that no such imputation could with propriety be cast upon the magistrates, for by the 3rd section of the 2nd and 3rd of victoria, commonly called the county constabulary act, no magistrate or magistrates, in petty sessions assembled, can interfere with or control the chief constable, or any sub-constable, in the discharge of their duties, as the rules and regulations for these all emanate from the office of the right hon. baronet. it therefore was exceedingly unfair that these imputations should go forth, and i have therefore now to ask, on behalf of the magistrates, whether the right hon. baronet objects to the correspondence being printed and circulated with the votes of the house, and in case he should object i shall offer it for the perusal of the hon. member for bath.' sir james graham, in reply, said, 'i had no intention whatever to cast any imputation on the gentlemen, who that day formed the petty sessions. my observation more properly applied to the capture of holyoake, and the unnecessary harshness used in his conveyance from the magistrates' office. at the same time i shall object to the printing of the correspondence with the votes, as no good result would come from it. of course the hon. member is at liberty to offer it to the hon. member for bath if he chooses--but i repeat, that as legal proceedings were pending, i think such course not advisable.' this is a most flagrant attempt at justification. the act the hon. member quoted related to petty session magistrates, before whom he knew my case had never come, and of whom, therefore, no complaint could have been made. but mr. berkeley had a friendly purpose to serve. the magistrates and their friends have the strongest motives for finding a true bill against me--and they have motives equally powerful for desiring that your verdict should be 'guilty,' inasmuch as that verdict will justify all these 'irregularities'--all the 'unnecessary harshness'--will remove from their shoulders all the responsibility which they incurred by the course they have pursued towards me. bear in mind, gentlemen of the jury, if the rights are to be enjoyed about which we so much glorify ourselves, cases of this kind must not be allowed to pass unnoticed. 'serious irregularities' demand serious notice. arbitrary infraction of the liberty of the subject must not receive the sanction of a jury. recollect that the same course may be pursued towards any one of you, and that if it receives your sanction it will be made a precedent of law--and pernicious may be its influence. but i would draw your attention to a printed report of remarks, made by his lordship, in his charge to the grand jury upon my case, i do not for a moment believe that his lordship had other than fair intentions, but, unfortunately, his remarks will have a contrary effect on those who have to judge my case. i have in my hand the _cheltenham chronicle_, of wednesday last, august 10th, from which i will read. 'these offences,' he said, referring to the cases of blasphemy, 'lay at the root of all the crime which prevailed, and a consideration of the causes out of which they sprung pointed to the only efficient remedy for their removal. in the case of holyoake, his lordship observed that a work called the _oracle of reason_ had been printed and circulated containing language which he did not think it right to repeat; language in which the writer traced all the evil which existed in the world, not to the real cause--the evil passions of the human heart--but to the existence of christianity itself. this was followed by the most opprobrious language'-mr. justice erskine (interrupting). i never said anything of that kind--that printed report is entirely incorrect. mr. holyoake. i will read some notes of your lordship's charge, taken at the time of its delivery by a reporter. but whether the report in the _chronicle_ is correct or incorrect, it has had its influence in leading the public, and probably this jury, to a prejudgment of my case. 'there are other charges which seem at once to lead the mind to the consideration of the root of all the evil which forms the subject of our present consideration. i allude to two charges of blasphemy. in one the accused is said to have sold and published a paper called the _oracle of reason_ containing language which i shall not think it right to read, in which the writer traces the evils at present existing, not to the evil passions of man, but to the existence of christianity, and follows it up with the most opprobrious language to the saviour and his system, charging him with being the occasion of all the crime and misery which prevail. the second charge is against a man who gave a lecture, in the course of which he discussed the proper way of teaching man his duty to his neighbour. a person _suggested_ that he had said nothing about teaching man his duty to his god. that led to a statement which shows the folly of the person; and he followed it up by making use of such language that, if you believe it was intended to have destroyed the reverence for god, he has subjected himself to punishment. there is another thing--he does not appear to have intended to discuss this; but if you are convinced that, by what he has said, he intended to bring religion into contempt, he is guilty of blasphemy. if such addresses had been directed to the educated classes, it might have been thought they would remedy themselves; but when they are delivered among persons not educated, the greatest danger might be expected. it is not by the punishment of those who attempt to mislead the ignorant that we can hope to cure the evil. if we feel that it is from the ignorance of those persons to whom the addresses are delivered that the danger is to be apprehended, it becomes our imperative duty to teach those persons. some persons have said, "instruct the poor in reading and writing, but leave them to learn religion at home." but what would you say to a man who would manure his land, and leave it to find seed for itself? it would produce nothing but weeds. i know there is great difficulty in arranging any national schools; but, as we are all individually sufferers, i hope we shall join in extending a national religious education, so that all may learn to do right, not from a fear of punishment, but from a far nobler motive--the knowledge that offences against the laws are contrary to the precepts of the word of god, and hostile to the best interests of society.' i fear his lordship may not give me credit for sincerity; but i do assure you, gentlemen of the jury, no one heard _some_ of those sentiments with more pleasure than i did. i did not expect so much liberality. if such advice had been followed, i should not now be standing here to defend points of a speculative nature. such errors should be corrected by argument, in the arena of public opinion. where i uttered these words, they should have been refuted. the witness against me says he is a preacher; had he no word in answer? could he say no word for his god? no; he, and those who employ and abet him, shrink from the attempt, and seek to punish in this dock opinions they cannot refute. is this a course becoming those who say they have _truth_ on their side? his lordship said 'emissaries are going about.' i am no emissary, and the term as applied to me is unjust. i might, even by the admission of mr. bubb, 'undermine' men's religion, go about secretly disseminating my opinions, without danger of standing here. but i spoke openly; and you who usually have to punish _dishonesty_, are now called upon to punish its non-committal, for a little lying would have saved me from this charge. i have infringed no law, injured no man's reputation, taken no man's property, attacked no man's person, broken no promise, violated no oath, encouraged no evil, taught no immorality--set only an example of free speaking. i was asked a question, and answered it openly. i am not even charged with declaring dogmatically, 'there is no god.' i only expressed an opinion. i should hold myself degraded could i descend to inquire, before uttering my convictions, if they met the approval of every anonymous man in the audience. i never forget that other men's opinions may be correct--that others may be right as well as myself, i have put forth my own opinions openly, from a conviction of their truth; and the sentiments i cannot defend i should scorn like my prosecutors to invoke an attorney-general to protect. i seek a public place, where any man may refute me if he can, and convict me as wilful or ignorant. i should think myself degraded if i published secretly. what can we think of the morality of a law which requires secret inquiry, which prohibits the _free_ publication of opinion? mr. justice erskine. you must have heard me state the law, that if it be done seriously and decently all men are at liberty to state opinions. mr. holyoake. whatever the law says, if an informer can carry the words to persons interested in their suppression--if policemen can be sent to apprehend, without warrants, the man who publicly expresses his opinions--if he can be handcuffed like a felon, and thrust into a gaol--if indictments can be brought against him, and he be put to ruinous expenses and harassing anxieties, however honest the expression of opinion may be--then, i say, this 'liberty-law' is a mockery. but by the word 'decent' is meant 'what those in authority think proper.' there should be no censorship of opinions; but i am told that because i spoke to ignorant people, i am criminal. to educated persons, then, i might have said what i did with impunity-mr. justice erskine. i only, after speaking of education, said that an honest man, speaking his opinions decently, was entitled to do so. mr. holyoake. there is no evidence to show that my audience were unable to distinguish decency and propriety. but it must be already clear enough to you, gentlemen of the jury, who have been employed during the past week determining violations of the law, that i am placed here for having been more honest than the law happens to allow. i am unaccustomed to address a jury, and i hope to avoid the charge of presumption or dogmatism. i have no wish to offend the prejudices of any man in this court, and have no interest in so doing, when his lordship is armed with the power of the law to punish it. but, while i profess respect for your opinions, i must entertain some for my own. there are those here who think religion proper, and that it alone can lead to general happiness--i do not, and i have had the same means of judging. you say your feelings are insulted--your opinions outraged; but what of mine? mine, however honest, are rendered liable to punishment. i ask not equality of privileges in this respect; i seek not the power of punishing those who differ from me--nay, i should disdain its use. christianity claims what she does not allow, although she says 'all men are brothers.' it is from no disrespect to the bar that i did not give my case into the hands of counsel, but because they are unable to enter into my motives. there is a magic circle out of which they will not step; they will argue only what is orthodox; and you would have had no opportunity from them of learning my true motives, or seeing the real bearings of this case.* * from what subsequently appeared in the _cheltenham free press_, i learned that some of the bar took offence at these remarks; and one revenged himself by describing me, in the _morning chronicle_, as 'a wretched-looking creature, scarcely emerging from boyhood, whose wiry and dishevelled hair, "lip unconscious of the razor's edge," and dingy looks, gave him the appearance of the author of the paragraph which led to this day's proceedings applied to me the epithets of 'wretch,' 'miscreant,' 'monster'--represented me as one who discoursed 'devilism.' the _gloucester chronicle_ laboured to prove that i was a _malicious_ blasphemer, a low german student, is evidently, from his pronunciation and language, a most ignorant and illiterate character, and no doubt courted the present prosecution tor the sake of notoriety.' the cheltenham examiner--the editor of which, i understand, is mr. jelinger symons--draws a parallel between me and the reputed regicide, who has recently shot at the queen. these are the words:--'akin to the offence for which holyoake has been committed is the crime for which francis, also a mere stripling, is likely to forfeit his personal liberty, if not his life. the crimes of blasphemy and treason have many points of great similarity, and frequently result from the same causes; and it would not be an uninstructive task to trace out the progress of those causes which lead the minds of the unguarded to the extreme points when they become dangerous to society. holyoake, the bold assertor of the non-existence of a god, did not become an infidel at once; and francis, the would-be regicide, did not level his pistol at oar beloved sovereign without his mind having been acted and prepared by previous circumstances.... in both cases a morbid imagination, an affectation of superiority, a contempt for and a dissatisfaction with existing institutions, and a craving after notoriety, are the primary incentives to action,' this ungenerous and offensive parallel was drawn out through a long leading article. the effect, if not the object, of all this is to prejudge my case, to awaken all the bitter prejudices which lurk around religion, and to secure my condemnation before my trial. another paper,* in which justice was done me in some respects, called me a 'bigot.' i am not a bigot. i do not assume that i alone am right; nor did i speak of deity, declaring dogmatically his non-existence. i spoke only of my own disbelief in such an existence. of all _isms_ i think dogmatism the worst. i do not judge other men by the agreement of their opinions with my own. i believe you consider christianity a benefit. i regret that i feel it is not so, and i claim the privilege of saving what is true to me. i have ever been ready to acquire correct notions. i have publicly called upon parties whose duty it was to teach me--and who were well paid for teaching--to assist me in sifting out the truth. but they have chosen the strong arm of the law rather than strong argument. jean jacques rousseau says in his 'confessions,' 'enthusiasm for sublime virtue is of little use in society. in aiming too high we are subject to fall; the continuity of little duties, well fulfilled, demands no less strength than heroic actions, and we find our account in it much better, both in respect to reputation and happiness. the constant esteem of mankind is infinitely better than sometimes their admiration.' as the world goes there is much good sense in this, and i have read it to show how fully i accord with these sentiments. i am not aiming at sublime virtue, but rather at the continuity of little duties well fulfilled. it is enough for me if i can be true and useful. * the national association gazette. i was greatly surprised to find the learned gentleman engaged as prosecuting counsel had so-little to say in reference to the case entrusted to his charge, but i presume it must be attributed to the fact that little could be said upon the subject. all his ingenuity, all his legal skill could not discover an argument at all tenable against me. i certainly expected to hear him attempt to prove to you that these prosecutions were either useful or necessary, but he could only tell you that my sentiments were very horrible, without adducing proof that his assertions were true. he dealt liberally in inuendoes, particularly in reference to the placards exhibited previous to the lecture, and the motive for issuing them. but you have been able to glean from his own witness the truth of the matter. i had completed my discourse, which was of a secular character, and was preparing to return home, when one maitland questioned me on the subject of my opinions. i did not get up a meeting under one pretence to use it for another. i employed no scheme to allure an audience to listen to what i did not openly avow, although it has been unfairly insinuated that i did so. when i was first apprehended my papers were taken from me. they would not even leave me the papers necessary for my defence, and i do not know what use was made of them, or that this day the information thus unfairly obtained may not be employed against me. i will read the memorial on this subject, which i forwarded to the secretary of state. '_memorial of the undersigned george jacob holyoake, prisoner in gloucester county gaol, on the charge of blasphemy, to sir james graham, her majesty's secretary of state,_ 'shewith,--that your memorialist was committed to this gaol from cheltenham, on the vague charge of blasphemy, on june 3rd. 'that in consequence of representations made to him by the police authorities in cheltenham, your memorialist brought with him to the gaol some private papers, hastily selected, for his defence--and that, on arriving here, the said papers were seized, and the visiting magistrate refused to allow your memorialist the use of them, or to give them up to his friends to be used for his advantage. 'that, as these papers were brought in confidence that your memorialist would have been allowed to consult his own thoughts in his own defence--and as they are no man's property but his own--and, also, as without them your memorialist will not have a fair chance of defence,--he trusts you will order them to be restored to him without delay. 'the offence with which your memorialist stands charged occurred as he was journeying homeward, in a town where he was a comparative stranger. consequently, and owing to great bigotry on religious subjects, your memorialist has been unable to obtain bail, and has suffered fourteen days' imprisonment, which time he has spent in fruitless applications to the authorities here for proper books and papers to prepare his defence. out of a list of thirty-one books submitted for that purpose only thirteen are allowed. 'that, as the trial of your memorialist is to take place at the next sessions of this county, to be holden on the 28th inst., and he is without the means of defence or hope of justice, and has a wife and two children dependent on him for support, he is placed in circumstances of peculiar anxiety. 'hence your memorialist earnestly hopes that you will direct that his papers, seized as before mentioned, be immediately restored to him, and also that he be allowed free access to such works and papers as he may deem necessary for his defence, and that without further delay. '(signed) george jacob holyoake. 'county gaol, gloucester, june 14, 1842.' the papers were _afterwards_ returned; but, had it not been for friends in the house of commons, and in various parts of the country, i should have been deprived of the materials for my defence. public opinion did for me that which christian charity refused.* * at the gloucester trinity sessions, mr. r. b. cooper stated, in contradiction of the prayer of this memorial, that 'as soon as i mentioned that my papers were necessary for my defence they were returned to me.' mr. s. jones said he 'took my papers home, and _every one_ i wanted for my trial on the morrow i had given to me.' both these statements were untrue, and i stated so at the time in the _cheltenham free press_, and my assertion was never impugned. strong prejudices exist against me as being a socialist. your local newspapers have denounced me on this ground. to show that i deserve no condemnation on this account i shall draw your attention to the nature of socialism. i have here a little book, stated to be published by the 'society for promoting christian knowledge.' if it had been stated to be a 'society' for disseminating 'malicious knowledge' the title-page would have been correct--for a more gross series of misrepresentations were never strung together. if what it says of socialism were true, then i might be abused; but socialism as i have learned or explained it, would never lead to the injury of peace or the disturbance of public order. the first paragraph of godwin's 'political justice' is an epitome of socialism as developed in this country hitherto s it is 'an investigation concerning that form of political society, that system of intercourse and reciprocal action extending beyond the bounds of a single family, which shall be found most conducive to the _general_ benefit--how may the peculiar and independent operation of each individual in the social state most effectually be preserved--how may the security each man ought to possess as to his life, and the employments of his faculties according to the dictates of his own understanding, be most certainly defended from invasion--how may the individuals of the human species be made to contribute most substantially to general improvement and happiness.' but i shall not content myself with one authority; and to avoid the charge of presumption, i have gathered much of my defence from other men's writings, and shall make them speak for me. socialists have been declared to have dangerous metaphysical notions. the whole question has been expressed by the poet-philosopher goethe in four lines, translated by ebenezer elliott, thus- how like a stithy is this land! and we lie on it, like good metal long hammer'd by a senseless hand; but will such thumping make a kettle? meaning that senseless hammering and senseless legislation could neither make the dull iron into a kettle, nor a vicious people into an enlightened nation. socialism says, all men have in them the true metal--the elements of goodness, which all governments are responsible for moulding. socialism proposes to substitute other means than punishments for the prevention of crime, and that you may not think these chimeras of my own, i will read you the opinion of a lord cardinal to a certain high chancellor of england, sir thomas more, who, in his 'utopia.' says, 'when i was in england, the king depended much on his councils.... one day when i was dining with him there happened to be at table one of the english lawyers, who took occasion to run out in high commendation of the severe execution of justice upon thieves, "who," as he said, "were then hanged so fast that there were sometimes twenty on one gibbet!" and upon that he said, "he could not wonder enough how it came to pass, that since so few escaped there were so many thieves left, who were still robbing in all places." upon this, i (who took the boldness to speak freely before the cardinal) said, "there was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of punishing thieves was _neither just in itself nor good for the public_; for as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft not being so great a crime, that it ought to cost a man his life: no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain those from robbing who can find no other way of livelihood. in this (said i) not only you in england but a great part of the world, imitate some ill masters, that are readier to chastise their scholars than teach them. there are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves, _but it were much better to make such good provisions by which every man might be put in a method how to live and so be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing, and of dying for it._"' socialism would try to obtain a remedy for the evils which judges go round year by year lamenting; socialism would suggest a means of affording employment, and thus mitigate the crime which judges and juries are called to punish. such objects may be declared chimerical, but surely it is not criminal to hope that they can be carried out, and to feel that they ought. i could read many other passages to show that under no circumstance socialism merits that character which has been ascribed to it but i do not deem it necessary, as i think i have said enough to prove that. nor do i want to instil my sentiments, but merely to disabuse your minds of a prejudice which has been disseminated to my disadvantage. my assuming the right of free expression inculcated by mr. owen, and when asked a question, refusing to equivocate, are opposed, it would appear, to the laws of this country. but this i have learned from socialism, that there can be no public or private virtue, unless the foundation of action is the practice of truth. passing through cheltenham to pay a visit to a friend, i delivered a lecture. after which the words were uttered which are here indicted. when i had read the _cheltenham chronicle_, in the city of bristol, i returned to cheltenham. if i had been conscious of guilt, should i have returned? on the night of my apprehension marks of kindness were shown me by the people. if i had acted disgracefully, would the people of cheltenham have met a stranger and showed him marks of esteem and friendship? i went to the station-house and remained there all night. when taken before the magistrates, mr. capper told me i was not fit to be reasoned with, because i did not believe in a god, and that it was from a love of notoriety that i acted: but from the love of mere notoriety i have never uttered any sentiments, for i hold such conduct in contempt. after i was taken from the magistrates' office, i was treated with contumely at the police-station. surgeon pinching, finding me completely in his power, said he was sorry the days were gone by when i could hold up my head, and wished the inquisition could be put in force against such persons as myself. i was thrust into a filthy cell, and my hands were bolted together and the skin pinched off. i was brought to gloucester on a sultry day, and should have been made to walk had not some friends interfered and obtained permission for me to ride, on paying my own fare and that of two policemen. there was no indication from my manner that i wished to make my escape, and the company of two policemen was sufficient to prevent it. it was thought if i was chained like a felon and dragged through two towns, it would wound my feelings. if these are the ways in which the truths of christianity are to be taught, i leave you to judge of them. two of your magistrates conversed with me, and shouted with much rudeness that i was a fool for holding my opinions. i never could have said this to any man, and yet such treatment i received from magistrates old enough to be my grandfathers. here mr. bransby cooper, who sat upon the left of the judge, was so moved by this remark, that he rose and ejaculated something in court; but the judge peremptorily commanded him to sit down. mr. holyoake then read the memorial of the public meeting of the inhabitants of cheltenham, before quoted, referring to the conduct, at the examination, of joseph overbury, robert capper, and the rev. t. b. newell, d.d., magistrates. mr. justice erskine. you ought not to read any statement not authenticated by evidence, which reflects on any person. defendant. this is a petition of a public meeting. mr. justice erskine. it is not evidence. defendant continued. i have never been anxious under any circumstances to obtrude my opinions on the public. i confined myself strictly to the subject on which i lectured, and should not have introduced my sentiments on religion, should not have spoken another word after my lecture, if i had not been publicly questioned. i have held various situations, and in all secular ones i have strictly kept religious opinions out of view. it is known that i have taught that and that only which i have been employed to teach. in proof of this i may cite testimonials given me upon the occasion of my applying for the situation of collector at the birmingham botanic gardens. they are from magistrates and gentlemen of birmingham, and the post was one requiring a person of trust, as considerable funds would have to pass through his hands in a year. mr. holyoake here quoted from numerous testimonials. one of them, from a magistrate, f. lloyd, esq., stated that mr. holyoake obtained the first prize at the mechanics' institute, some years ago, for proficiency in mathematics, a proficiency attained, too, under most discouraging circumstances.' another of the testimonials was from the rev. s. bache, one of the ministers of the new meeting house congregation. having read these documents, mr. holyoake resumed. during one of those commercial panics, which a few years ago passed over this country like a pestilence, my parents were suddenly reduced from a state of comparative affluence to one of privation. at one of these seasons my little sister became ill. while she was so the rev. mr. moseley, m.a., rector of st, martin's, birmingham, sent an order to us for his easter due of fourpence. on previous occasions this demand had been cheerfully and promptly paid; but now, small as the sum was, it was sufficient materially to diminish the few comforts our house of illness unfortunately afforded; and it was therefore discussed whether the demand of the clergyman should be paid, or whether it should be expended in the purchase of some little comforts for my sick sister. humanity decided; and we all agreed that it should be devoted to this latter purpose. it was; but, i think, the very next week, a summons came for the easter due, and two shillings and sixpence were added, because of the non-payment of "the _fourpence_". the payment of this could now no longer be evaded, for in a few days a warrant of _distraint_ would have rudely torn the bed from under her, as had been the case with a near neighbour. dreading this, and trembling at the apprehension, we gathered together all the money we had, and which was being saved to purchase a little wine to moisten the parched lips of my dying sister, for at this time her end seemed approaching. my mother, with a heavy heart, left home to go to the public office. the aisles there were cold and cheerless like the outside this court, and there, all broken in health and spirits, worn out with watching, and distracted by that anxiety for her child a parent, under such circumstances, only could feel, she was kept from five to six hours waiting to pay the two shillings and ten-pence. when she returned all was over--my sister was dead. gentlemen, will you wonder if, after this, i doubted a little the utility of church establishments?* and if, after the circumstances i have related, i did not think so highly of church 'as by law established' as before, can you be surprised? can you punish me for it? [at this point many ladies wept, and the court manifested considerable attention.] * i have since learned that mr. w. j. fox read this passage in a sunday morning lecture on the events of the month, delivered at south-place in the september following my trial; and i take this opportunity of acknowledging that mr. fox was the only occupant of a pulpit from whom i received a friendly line during my entire imprisonment. i have been told to look around the world for evidences of the truth of the christian religion; to look upon the world and draw different conclusions. it is well for those who enjoy the smiles of fortune to say so. for them all shines brightly--for them all is fair. but i can see cause of complaint, and i am not alone in the feeling. mr. capel lofft had said, 'the sours of life less offend my taste than its sweets delight it.' on this kirke white wrote:- go to the raging sea, and say 'be still!' bid the wild lawless winds obey thy will; preach to the storm, and reason with despair- but tell not misery's son _that life is fair_. thou, who in plenty's lavish lap hast roll'd, and every year with new delight hast told--thou, who, recumbent on the lacquer'd barge, hast dropt down joy's gay stream of pleasant marge, thou may'st extol life's calm, untroubled sea--the storms of misery ne'er burst on thee. go to the mat where squalid want reclines; go to the shade obscure where merit pines; abide with him whom penury's charms control, and bind the rising yearnings of his soul--survey his sleepless couch, and, standing there, tell the poor pallid wretch _that life is fair_! lo! o'er his manly form, decay'd and wan, the shades of death with gradual steps steal on; and the pale mother, pining to decay, weeps, for her boy, her wretched life away. go, child of fortune! to his early grave, where o'er his head obscure the rank weeda wave; behold the heart-wrung parent lay her head on the cold turf, and ask to share his bed. go, child of fortune, take thy lesson there, and tell us then that life is _wondrous fair_. as i grew up i attended missionary meetings, and my few pence were given to that cause. when told of heathen kings who knew not god, and caged their miserable victims, i shuddered at their barbarity and prayed for their conversion. o waste of money and prayers that should have been employed on christian men. o infantile fatuity! do i not reap the whirlwind for my pains? i learned the accents of piety from my mother's lips. she was and still is a religious woman. whatever may be the dissent i entertain, i have never spoken of her opinions in the language of contempt. i have always left her (as she to her honour has left me), to enjoy her own opinions. in early youth i was religious. i question whether there is any here who have spent more time than i did as a sunday school teacher. i have given hours, which i ought to have employed in improving myself, in improving others. it is not without giving to christianity time and attention--without knowing what it was--that i have given it up. some lines i contributed to a religious publication at that time, will show the tone of thought which inquiry has subsequently changed:- the reign of time. the proudest earthly buildings show, time can all things devour; e'en youth and beauty's ardent glow, and manhood's intellectual brow, betray the spoiler's power: how soon we sink beneath his sway- he glances, and our heads turn gray. though, over all this earthly ball, time's standard is unfurled, and ruins loud to ruins call throughout this time-worn world- yet from this wreck of earthly things, see how the soul exulting springs. and after the archangel's wand has wav'd o'er earth and sea, and time has stopped at his command, the soul will nourish and expand through all eternity. religion--lovely, fair, and free- holds forth this immortality. by all the glories of the sky, to mortals yet unknown- and by the worm that ne'er shall die, the fires that always burn- by all that's awful or sublime, ye sons of men improve your time.* * 'baptist tract magazine.' vol. ii., p. 341. it was stated by one of the magistrates that my being of no religion was no crime. i may conclude from what i heard this morning that i am not to be punished for not being religious. it was argued in, the _cheltenham chronicle_ that my expressing my opinions was no crime, and i was at some loss to know what my crime was. the charge stated i was guilty of _blasphemy_. in the depositions made against me, it is stated that i was brought before the cheltenham magistrates on a charge of felony. i believe now what i have to answer is the accusation of uttering certain words offensive to the _cheltenham chronicle_. this paper stated that 'three persons were ready to give evidence on the matter.' and yet the witness says he knew nothing of it till the policeman came for him. he says they were 'chaffing' about my remarks in the office--that is, joking upon them. it does not say much for his seriousness--reporting these 'horrid sentiments' at night, and the next morning '_chaffing_' about them. if it was an aggravation of my crime to have chosen an innocent subject, what would the learned counsel have said if i had chosen a guilty one? it has been sworn by the witnesses that i said i did not believe there was such a _thing_ as a god, and an attempt has been made to make you believe that i used the term 'thing' contemptuously, but the witness admits that i did not use it in a contemptuous sense. the same word occurs in some lines by thomas moore:- man, in the sunshine of the world's new spring, shall walk transparent like some holy thing. i must have used the word 'thing' in some such sense as it is used in these lines. it is laid down by the common law, that a person denying the existence of a god is a blasphemer. it has not been shown that i did this. i merely stated my disbelief--and disbelief is not included by the law. there is a great difference between denial and disbelief. if i had said distinctly 'there is no god,' it would have been stating that i was quite sure of it. i could not have said that, because i am not sure of it. i saw reasons for disbelief, but did not assert denial. disbelief is all i profess. those dogmatise who affirm, rather than those who deny a proposition. mr. southwell put this point in its proper light:-'if god had never been affirmed, he could not have been denied. it is a rule of logic, and a very sensible rule, that the _onus probandi,_ that is the burthen or weight of proving, rests on those who affirm a proposition. priests have affirmed the existence of a god, but who will maintain that they have complied with the rule of logic?'* we can only, i think, arrive at a conviction of the existence of a god by the following modes:-1. by the medium of _innate ideas_, which we are said by some divines to possess, and which intuitively lead us to entertain the idea of a god. 2. by the _senses_, the sole media by which all _knowledge_ is acquired. 3. by _conjecture_.--this is employed by those who suppose there must be a god from their inability otherwise to account for the existence of the universe, and are not willing to allow it to be inexplicable. 4. by _analogy_.--comparison is the basis of this argument. analogy is the foundation of natural theology. 5. by _revelation_.--in this country the bible is said to contain the revelation of a god. of these it may be remarked:-1. _innate ideas_.--with regard to these, very conclusive reasons have been advanced by eminent philosophers for disbelieving that we have any. and human experience confirms this conclusion. some nations, as the people of the arru islands, have no idea of a god. so this source of knowledge concerning one is, to say the least, dubious. 2. _senses_.--'no man hath seen god at any time,' is a sufficient reply to this--for the same may be affirmed of every other sense, which is here affirmed of sight. 3. _conjecture_.--this defies us. we only prove our own inability and multiply difficulties. for when we suppose a god, we cannot suppose how he came, nor how he created something out of nothing, which is held by the learned to be plainly _impossible_.** * oracle of reason, no. 31, p. 251. ** since this time mr. francis william newman has put this argument unanswerably in these words; 'a god uncaused and existing from eternity, is to the full as incomprehensible as a world uncaused and existing from eternity'--'the soul,' p. 36. second edition. 4. _analogy_ will not inform us. a small pivot or wheel cannot _infallibly_ indicate to us the mechanism to which it belongs, nor anything conclusive as to whether the whole had only one or more makers. so of the universe, no part can shadow forth the whole of that, nor inform us conclusively whether it had a creator or creators. and here it is to be observed the difficulty is greater than with machines--for a pivot or wheel is a finite part of a finite whole, and _both comprehensible_; but with the universe, all we can take cognisance of is but a very finite part of an _infinite_ whole, and that whole to all men acknowledged _incomprehensible_. moreover, _creation_ can have no analogy--no one ever saw or can conceive of anything being created. so that this mode of learning the existence of a god fails. the rev. hugh m'neile, m.a., minister of st. jade's church, liverpool, in a lecture delivered to above four hundred of the irish clergy, at the rotunda in dublin, said in reference to this part of the question, 'i am convinced, i say, that, from external creation, no right conclusion can be drawn concerning the _moral_ character of god. creation is too deeply and disastrously blotted in consequence of man's sin, to admit of any satisfactory result from an _adequate_ contemplation of nature. the authors of a multitude of books on this subject, have given an inadequate and partial induction of particulars. already aware (though perhaps scarcely recognising how or whence) that "god is love," they have looked on nature for proofs of this conclusion, and taken what suited their purpose. but they have not taken nature _as a whole_, and collected a conclusion fairly from impartial premises. they expatiate on the blessings and enjoyments of life, in the countless tribes of earth, air, and sea. but if life be a blessing, death is a curse. nature presents the universal triumph of death. is this the doing of a god of love? or are there two gods--a kind one, giving life; and an unkind one taking it away; and the wicked one invariably the victor? in external creation, exclusively and adequately contemplated, there is no escape from manichã¦ism. it is vain to say that the death of the inferior creatures is a blessing to man; for why, in the creation of a god of love, should any such necessity exist? and how would this account for the death of man himself?' so far the argument of analogy. 5. _revelation_.--we have _none_. if others ever had, we can only determine it by human reason, and for this purpose leslie has furnished his well-known rules. therefore, as revelation means something superadded to reason, we cannot be said to possess it, for reason has to determine what is, and what is not revelation, and therefore is superior to it. also, it is contended by divines that, but for the bible we should know nothing of a god, which shows the unsatisfactory nature of the four methods of learning his existence we have gone through. and lord brougham contends that but for natural theology, or the analogy argument, which has been shown to be no argument at all, the bible would have no other basis than mere tradition. so you see, gentlemen, the philosophical difficulties besetting the path of a young inquirer into sacred things. these difficulties are to me insuperable, and hence i find myself incapable of employing language you are more fortunate in being able to adapt to your conscience.* * the object of this passage was to show the jury the intellectual difficulties belonging to this subject, and the passage formed but an episode among the moral issues i raised. a friend of mine asking an eminent divine at one of dr. elliotson's seances, and who afterwards entered parliament, what he thought of my defence. 'oh it turned upon that eternal conundrum the existence of god,' was the answer. but i hope the reader will see something more in my defence than the frivolity that employs itself on riddles. but it has been stated i said i would put the deity on half-pay. after first stating that i did not believe there was a deity, is it likely i should say i would put him on half-pay? would you put a servant on half-pay whom you never hired or had? all my expressions went to prove that i referred to the expenses of religion. i could not suppose that there is a being capable of governing the world, and consider him good and kind, and yet have any intention of bringing him into contempt. i had no personal reference to the deity. i made use of that figure of speech because i thought they would understand it better, and they did understand it. i was saying we had many heavy burdens to pay to capitalists and others, and that i thought it hung like a millstone round us. sir r. peel said, when he introduced the income-tax, that the poor man could bear no more. i said there were twenty-four millions taken from us for the support of religion, and that they would do well to reduce that one-half. suppose, gentlemen, that i did refer to the deity, was my notion a dishonourable one? what man of you who had enough and to spare, and seeing the people around him in poverty, would not willingly relinquish part of his income to give them a bare subsistence? who will deny that in england there are honest, industrious, hard-working men, honourable women, and beautiful children, who have not the means of obtaining food? did i do him a disgrace if i thought he, who is called our father, the most high, would have dispensed with one-half of the lip-service he receives in order to give his creatures necessaries! [it being nearly four o'clock the jury asked leave to retire, to which mr. holyoake consenting, they left the court for a short time. some ladies who represented themselves as wives of clergymen, came round the dock offering mr. holyoake confections and refreshment, and expressing their regret at the treatment he had received, and the position in which he was placed.] mr. holyoake, on resuming, said--according to a calculation that has never been disputed, the 'pay to their clergy. catholics, numbering... 124,672,000... â£6,106,000 protestants â� ... 54,046,000... 11,906,000 greek church â� ... 41,000,000... 760,000 total of christians 219,718,000 â£18,762,000 'of which england, for twenty-one millions of people, pays more than one-half.'* thus the english pay five times more according to their numbers--i proposed a reduction of only one-half. * 'cheap salvation.' by henry hetheringten. mr. w. j. fox has told us--'if the government of the country disposed of the mismanaged funds of the clergy, they would have sufficient for their annual needful expenditure.' mr. justice erskine. if you can convince the jury that you only meaning was that the incomes of the clergy ought to be reduced, and that you did not intend to insult god, i should tell the jury you ought not to be convicted. you need not go into a laboured defence of that. mr. holyoake. it was stated by one of the witnesses at cheltenham that i said christians are worshippers of mammon. i thought it necessary for me to refer to it. mr. justice erskine. there is no evidence of that. mr. holyoake. then turn to the question _what is blasphemy?_ in the case of mr. southwell, one of the witnesses for the prosecution stated his opinion that the crime was '_bringing a scandal on the religion of the magistrates_.' perhaps this is as correct a definition as can be given. it has been said to be 'an injury to god,' men who could not string six sentences together grammatically, have told me they would defend god--men whom i should be ashamed to have defending me. but blasphemy is impossible in the sense of annoyance to god. jonathan edwards says--'the following things may be laid down as maxims of plain truth and indisputable evidence:-'1. that god is a perfectly happy being, in the most absolute and highest sense possible. '2. it will follow from hence, that god is free from everything that is _contrary to happiness_: and so that in strict propriety of speech there is no such thing as any pain, grief or trouble in god. '3. where any intelligent being is really crossed and disappointed, and things are contrary to what he truly desires, he is less pleased, or has the less pleasure, his pleasure and happiness are diminished, and he suffers what is disagreeable to him, or is the subject of something that is of a nature contrary to joy and happiness, even pain and grief. 'from this last maxim it follows, that if no distinction is to be admitted between god's hatred of sin, and his will with respect to the event and existence of sin, as the all-wise determiner of all events, under the view of all consequences through the whole com pass and series of things; i say, then, it certainly follows, that the coming to pass of every individual act of sin is truly, all things considered, contrary to his will, and that his will is really crossed in it, and that in proportion as he hates it. and as god's hatred of sin is infinite, by reason of the infinite contrariety of his holy nature to sin; so his will is infinitely crossed in every act of sin that happens. which is as much as to say:--he endures that which is infinitely disagreeable to him, by means of every act of sin he sees committed--and so he must be infinitely crossed and suffer infinite pain every day, in millions of millions of instances, which would be to make him infinitely the most miserable of all beings.'* but _blasphemy_ is an antiquated accusation. in a work** by col. feyronnet thompson, it is remarked--'what a turmoil, what a splutter, was in this land, when men first announced that they would not eat fish, they would not bow down, they would not confess but when they liked, and this because the secret had got wind that these things were either not in the priests' own rule, or were against it! what threats of hell flames, what splashing about of fire and brimstone, what registration of judgments on men choked with a beef-steak on friday! look at one of those simple men in the present day, who shock themselves with the barouches, the cigars, the newspapers, and the elephants of a london sunday, and occasionally digress to paris, for the keener excitation of seeing punch upon the boulevards, and wondering where heaven reserves its thunder. and put the parallel case; that a good austrian or navarrese catholic came here, and grieved his heart with our weekly doings on a friday, to say nothing of our more wholesale offences for forty days together in lent. "such frying; such barbecuing; in no place did i see anybody having the smallest notion of a red herring! all are involved in one flood of sin and gravy! how fathomless the patience of heaven, that such an island is not swallowed up of the deep!" we have looked into the rule he professes to go by; and we declare it is not there, but the contrary. we know we must appear in the next world with all our mutton on our heads. but we have done our best to look at the rule with the light that god has given us; and in spite of austria or navarre, we will take the risk of his not being angry with us, for seeing no prohibition of mutton there.' thus we see that _mutton-eating_ was at one period blasphemous. * quoted from 'a commentary on the public discussion on the subjects of necessity and responsibility,' &c by jonathan jonathan, late of the united states. ** 'the question of sabbath observance, tried by the church's own rule,' &c. by col. peyronnet thompson, f.r.s, of queen's college, cambridge. mr. sergeant talfourd told the jury, in the case of hetherington v. moxon, that if the government were consistent in carrying out prosecutions for blasphemy--shakspere, milton, byron, shelley, southey--might be prohibited. this perhaps would be an agreeable result to a reverend gentleman well known in this court and county, who says all science should be destroyed; but i trust you entertain no such feelings, and that if i can show that my sentiments cannot be productive of harm, you will feel called upon to acquit me. i claim no inherent right of expressing my opinions, i only contend for liberty of expression because required for the public good. a doctrine was laid down by lord john russell upon the occasion of the presentation of the national petition, which i will quote as a view of the subject of human rights well expressed. 'i am aware,' he said, 'that it is a doctrine frequently urged, and i perceive dwelt upon in this petition, that every male of a certain age has a right, absolute and inalienable, to elect a representative to take his place among the members in the commons' house of parliament. now, sir, i never could understand that indefeasible right. it appears to me that that question, like every other in the practical application of politics, is to be settled by the institutions and the laws of the country of which the person is a native. i see no more right that a person twenty-one years of age has to elect a member of parliament than he has to be a juryman. i conceive that you may just as well say that every adult male has a right to sit upon a jury to decide the most complicated and difficult questions of property, or that every man has a right to exercise the judicial functions, as the people did in some of the republics of antiquity. these things, as it appears to me, are not matters of right; but if it be for the good of the people at large, if it be conducive to the right government of the state, if it tend to the maintenance of the freedom and welfare of the people, that a certain number, defined and limited by a reference to a fixed standard of property, should have the right of electing members of parliament, and if it be disadvantageous to the community at large that the right of suffrage should be universal, then i say that on such a subject the consideration of the public good should prevail, that legislation must act upon it as on every other, and that no inalienable right can be quoted against that which the good of the whole demands.' if lord russell did not, i do see a difference between the claim of an elector and the right of a juryman. the elector is chiefly concerned with his own interests, the juryman with other people's--one is simple, the other complex. but with the measure of right laid down by his lordship in the sentiments i have quoted, i perfectly accord, and if it could be shown that freedom of expression produced public harm, then i would give it up. but i believe such a right would produce good, and therefore i claim it at your hands upon the ground of public good. in what i urge, it is not faith but reason, as far as i understand it, that i take for my guide--a rule of argument i trust you will accept. 'reason contents me,' was inscribed as the motto on the seal of the letter from sir james graham, acknowledging the receipt of the cheltenham memorial. if reason 'contents' the secretary of state, and 'fountain of justice,' surely it ought to 'content' the channels through which such justice is diffused over society. reason would always be preferred by us were we not differently instructed. 'bewildered,' says diderot, 'in an immense forest during the night, and having only one small torch for my guide, a stranger approaches and thus addresses me: "_friend, blow out thy light if thou wouldst make sure of the right path_" the "forest" was the world--the "light" was my reason---the "stranger" was a priest.' after several quotations showing the dubious and often pernicious influence of sacred authority, mr. holyoake observed---religious sanctions are regarded only by the ignorant, whom they confirm in folly. the good find their sanction in the satisfaction ef a virtuous act performed. in an address of the rev. f. close, delivered a short time since at the church of england tradesmen and working men's association of cheltenham, he said, 'that the more a man is advanced in human knowledge, the more is he opposed to religion, and the more deadly enemy he is to the truth of god.' if this christian minister is to be believed, then may you burn your books--forsake all mental refinement--and be equal in piety and ignorance. if christianity is opposed to human improvement, then should all systems of ignorance be patronised by christians. sentiments like these would lead us to give up boyle, locke, and newton, and regard them, with the rev. mr. close, with detestation. mr. justice erskine. let me see the discourse of mr. close from which you are quoting. the book was handed to his lordship. mr. holyoake. if the correctness of that report be doubted, i may state that the sentiments of mr. close were replied to by mr. g. berkeley. permit me now to draw your attention strongly to what has been said by men in authority of the impolicy of these prosecutions--that even if you were justified in inflicting punishment on me, it would not be wise to do so, lord brougham, three or four years ago, said, 'i may underrate the power of truth opposed to error, and i may overrate the good sense of my fellow country men in rejecting it, but one thing i do not overrate--the power of persecution to spread that which persecution only can spread.' when i walk through any of those ancient places, as i did yesterday through your beautiful cathedral, i feel the majesty they ever present, and think of the manner in which our catholic ancestors acted on the minds of men. there were sublimity and pageantry and pomp to create awe. we have none now of that beauty of architecture in our meagre churches and more meagre chapels. they had a service more imposing than we ever had. recollecting all these things, i have wondered how anything could be found sufficiently powerful to shake them off. i have wondered how luther, with his rude vulgarity, could have effected so much. i can only account for it in this way--that when the catholics dragged his followers to gaol, it was found that human feelings were stronger than human creeds. these prosecutions are entirely in opposition to the sentiments promulgated by yourselves, as appears from a book given me in gaol called the 'manual of devotion.' i amused myself by contracting the profession contained in it with the practice of my opponents. it is published by the 'society for promoting christian knowledge.' in the 'discourse concerning prayer,' it is laid down that the 'second qualification for prayer is charity or love. there is nothing so contrary to the nature of god, nothing so wide of the true spirit of a christian, as bitterness and wrath, malice and envy; and therefore it is vain to think that even our prayers can be acceptable to god, till we have put on, as the elect of god, bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, as st. paul commands.' gentlemen, where are these sentiments evinced in this prosecution? the 'third qualification--is faith. if any of you lack wisdom, says st. james, let him ask of god, but let him ask in faith.' my prosecutors have asked mr. bubb, have had faith in policemen, and confidence only in the 'common law.' the 'fourth qualification is--that in all things of a temporal concern, we must exercise an entire submission to the will of god. a good christian will be sure to leave the issue in god's hands.' in my case not the will of god, but the will of bigots was done, and the 'issue' left in the turnkey's hands. the 'fifth qualification--is that the person praying hath a good intention; that he asks for a good end. we must not pray as the revengeful man when he prays for authority, that he may have the more power to effect his evil designs.' what can be more wholly condemnatory of these proceedings than these instructions of the 'manual of devotion?' when the 'life of christ,' by dr. strauss, appeared in berlin, contrary to usages in such matters, the prussian government consulted the clergy to ascertain from them whether it would not be prudent to prohibit this extraordinary production. the celebrated bishop neander was commissioned by the ecclesiastical body of berlin, to peruse the book and to return an answer. neander did so, and declared in reply, that the work submitted to his examination threatened, it was true, the demolition of all creeds; nevertheless, he requested that full liberty should not be denied to his adversary, in order that full and free discussion might be the only judges between truth and error. and when asked whether it should be prosecuted, said, 'no, i will answer it.' mr. justice erskine. that work was temperately written. mr. holyoake. neander did reply to it, and strauss had the manliness to acknowledge that it had corrected many of his errors. would that have been done had he been prosecuted? dr. strauss's work on the scriptures got him a professor's chair in germany. in this country it would have made him amenable to the common law, and to one, two, or three years' imprisonment. gentlemen, in the pertinacity of my open reply to maitland, you may find something objectionable, but i happen to be an admirer of that sentiment expressed by the honest 'vicar of wakefield'--'in all human institutions a smaller evil is allowed to procure a greater good; as in politics, a province may be given away, to secure a kingdom; in medicine, a limb may be lopt off, to preserve the body. but in religion, the law is written and inflexible, _never_ to do evil.' then, gentlemen, i ought to be tolerated in the truthfulness of my answer. milton, in his prose works,* in reference to an incident in his travels, says:- * milton's prose works, pp. 933-4, 8vo edit. edited by fletcher. 'while i was on my way back to rome, some merchants informed me that the english jesuits had formed a plot against me, if i returned to rome, because i had spoken too freely of religion; for it was a rule which i laid down to myself in those places, never to be the first to begin any conversation on religion--but, if any questions were put to me concerning my faith, to declare it without any reserve or fear.' this is the rule which i myself have followed in this case. since his lordship--with more liberality than is customary, and with more philosophy than i expected on matters of religion (on which i hear his lordship thinks very devoutly)--has said, that any religion may be discussed in temperate language, it is not necessary for me to prove, as i should have done, that it would be useless liberty for me to entertain opinions without permission to publish them. the only question is whether, in the expression of these opinions, i used a proper kind of language. i think i have proved that i was far from having any of those 'malicious' feelings the indictment presupposes. many figures of speech have been used in this court from which my feelings revolted as much as those of any person could from what i said. no allowance is made for this, and too much importance is attached to what is assumed to be ridicule. a short time ago it was argued, that if the political squibs which are seen in shop windows were permitted to be published, they would bring government into contempt, and you would soon have no government. their publication has been permitted. have we no government now? i feel the utility of a government, and no force of ridicule could shake my belief in the importance of good government. so it is with religion. nothing that is uttered, however contemptuous, can bring it into contempt, if it really is useful and beneficial. we might defy all the wits and caricaturists in the world to bring the problems of euclid into contempt. no man can bring into contempt that which is essential and true. the counsel who opened the case did not state whether the indictment was at statute or common law. mr. justice erskine. common law. mr. holyoake. then, gentleman of the jury, i shall draw your attention to that, and i hope i shall be able to explain the law bearing on my case. mr. justice erskine. the jury must take the law from me. i am responsible for that. mr. holyoake. i know, my lord; but still i may refer to it. a friend of mine consulted the works bearing upon the law of this case.* i have here the results of his labours, and, if i am wrong, your lordship will, in summing up, correct me. * i was indebted to mr. j. homffrey parry, barrister, for the revision of the argument i employed. gentleman of the jury, the common law is a judge-made law. a judge laid down, some years ago, that to say anything against the christian religion was an indictable offence. another judge followed him and said the same; and at last it came not to be doubted. if i show there is no law properly made in parliament assembled, you ought to acquit me. the offence with which i am charged is an offence at common law. there is no statute which punishes a man simply for denying the existence of god. there is a statute (9 and 10 wm. iii., c. 32) directed against those who denied the trinity and who renounced christianity. but the former part has been repealed in favour of unitarians, by the 53rd geo. iii., e. 160; and the words i am charged with having spoken cannot be brought within the latter. there is a statute against profane cursing and swearing (19 geo. ii., c. 21), but it takes no cognisance of this offence. human beings have also been put to death for witchcraft (33 hen. viii., c. 8; and 1 james i., c. 12), under the merciless statutes which were enacted in times of the grossest ignorance and superstition; but those statutes have been repealed (9 geo. ii., c. 5). this offence, therefore, is an offence against the common law, if it is an offence at all. it is to be found in the recorded decisions of the judges, if it is to be found anywhere; and the punishment for it is in their discretion. had it been an offence under a statute, it would have been impossible for me to have denied the authority of the statute; but, as it is an offence at common law, it is quite competent for me to show that the authorities which have been supposed to constitute the offence do not warrant such a construction. should your lordship even declare that you had no doubt upon the subject, it would still be competent for me to bring before you the decisions of former judges, to argue upon those decisions, and to show, if i could, that there was some mistake or error running throughout the whole of them. your lordship, i am sure, will admit that judges are fallible, and that a blind, unreasoning submission to them no man should give. as some excuse for presuming to doubt the decision of some of your lordship's predecessors, i shall quote the following passage from the preface to mr. watkin's treatise on conveyancing, allowed to be a master-piece of legal sagacity and method. 'i believe,' writes that gentleman, 'it will be found, on examination, that an implicit submission to the assertions of our predecessors, whatever station those predecessors may have held, has been one of the most certain sources of error, perhaps there is nothing which has so much shackled the human intellect, nothing which has so greatly promoted whatever is tyrannic, preposterous, and absurd, nothing perhaps which has so much degraded the species in the scale of being as the implicit submission to individual dicta.' and he then goes on in vigorous terms to reprobate the practice of allowing 'authority to shoulder out common sense, or adhering to precedent in defiance of principle.' upon the principle contained in this passage i shall act, in claiming the attention of your lordship, and you, gentlemen of the jury, whilst i examine the authorities for the doctrine which brings the offence with which i am charged within the jurisdiction of the temporal courts. your lordship will, perhaps, refer to these books. mr. justice erskine, no need of that. if it is not an offence at common law, this indictment is worth nothing. you can take it before the fifteen judges on a writ of error. i sit here, not to correct the law, but merely to administer it.* * i have been told by a legal friend of great experience, that at this point i might have taken the judge at his word, and have carried the case before the judges for decision; but i was unacquainted with the forms of law in such cases, and i moreover distrusted the judge. mr. holyoake resumed. in the fourth volume of 'blackstone's commentaries,' p. 59, in speaking of offences against god and religion, that writer says, 'the fourth species of offences, therefore, more immediately against god and religion, is that of blasphemy against the almighty, by denying his being or providence, or by contumelious reproaches of our saviour, christ. whither also may be referred all profane scoffing at the holy scripture, or exposing it to contempt and ridicule. these are offences punishable at common law by fine and imprisonment, or other infamous corporal punishment; _for christianity is part of the laws of england_.' blackstone quotes, in support of the first species, a volume of 'ventris' reports,' p. 298; and the second from the second volume of 'strange's reports,' p. 834. mr. christian, the commentator upon blackstone, adds, in a note, a passage from the 'year book' (34 henry vi.), folio 43. the earliest case is that from the year book, in the 34th year of henry vi. (1458). mr. christian quotes from it this passage--'scripture est common ley, sur quel toutes manieres de leis sont fondes' (i.e., scripture is common law, upon which all descriptions of laws are founded). were this quotation correct, and did the word scripture here mean 'holy scripture,' or what is generally understood by the bible, then i admit this passage would be a good foundation to build up mr. judge blackstone's law. but it is no such thing. the case in the year book is a case of _quare impedit_, and, in the course of the argument the question arose whether, in a matter of induction to a benefice by the ordinary (i.e., the bishop) the common law would take notice of, or be bound by, the law or practices of the church. where-. upon, chief justice prisot says--'to such laws, which they of the holy church have in "ancient writing," it becomes us to give credence, for such is common law, upon which all descriptions of laws are founded. and therefore, sir, we are obliged to recognise their law of the holy church--likewise they are obliged to recognise our law. and, sir, if it appears to us now that the bishop has done as an ordinary should do in such a case, then we ought to judge it good--if otherwise, bad.' in this passage, then, there is not one word about scripture in the sense of 'holy scripture.' judge prisot says, 'to such laws as the church has in ancien scripture (t. e.9 ancient writing) we ought to give credence.' and what does he mean by 'laws which the church has in ancient writing?' not any laws that are to be found in the bible, but the canon or ecclesiastical laws by which the temporal concerns of the church are guided. and the reason he uses the phrase 'ancien scripture,' or ancient writing, is that the laws were not then printed; the only record of them was in writing. printing had not been introduced into england, and was only just discovered on the continent, the laws therefore of the spiritual and temporal courts were only to be seen in writing. and as though there should be no doubt as to his meaning, he goes on to say, 'and as we are obliged to recognise their laws (that is the ecclesiastical laws, or laws of the spiritual courts), so they are obliged to recognise our laws (that is, the laws of the temporal courts).' it must therefore be evident that this quotation of mr. christian is a perversion or mistake, a judicial forgery or a judicial blunder, and in either case its authority is of no value. it must be dismissed altogether from our minds in considering what the law is upon this point--that is, whether christianity is or is not a part and parcel of the law of england. unfortunately, however, we shall find that this case is actually made the substratum of the law. in proving, therefore, that it cannot warrant such a law, surely i prove that at common law, at least to speak against christianity, is not an offence. the next case is that in ventris' report, vol. 1, p. 293. it is called taylor's case, and chief justice hale certainly declares explicitly in this case, 'that christianity is parcel of the laws of england.' but he cites no authority whatever. in the case analysed from the year book, it is expressly said, that the common law is to be found in 'ancient writings,' and the unsupported dictum of a judge in the middle of the seventeenth century cannot be construed as a part of the ancient writings of the common law. either the law already existed or it did not. if it did, the question is--where is it? if it did not, chief justice hale could not then make it for the first time; and this case in ventris' cannot be said to lay down the law. the case in the second volume of strange is the king v. woolston. the defendant had been convicted of writing four blasphemous discourses against the divinity and character of christ; and upon attempting to move in arrest of judgment, the court declared they would not suffer it to be debated whether to write against christianity in general was an offence punishable in the temporal courts of common law. and they cited taylor's case, which has been shown to be an insufficient authority, or rather no authority at all, and the king v. hale, in the same volume of strange, p. 416, but which was an indictment under the statute (9 & 10 wm. hi.) for speaking against the trinity, and therefore cannot in any way support the common law doctrine. the first person who called attention to the utter want of authority in the common law for the dictum 'that christianity was part of the common law,' was jefferson, the second president of america--himself a profound lawyer, and to his references i am indebted for the foregoing authorities, which, however, have been carefully verified. mr. jefferson, in a letter to major cart-wright, to be found in vol. ii., p. 272, of his 'memoirs,' exposes the mode in which this law was created. alluding to the case of prisot, he says, 'finch in his first book, c. 3, is the first who afterwards quotes this case. he misstates it thus: "to such laws of the church as have warrant in holy scripture, our law giveth credence," and cites prisot, mistranslating "ancien scripture" into holy scripture. this was in 1613, a century and a half after the dictum of prisot. wingate, in 1658, erects this false translation into a maxim of the common law, copying the words of finch, but citing prisot. shephard, title "religion," in 1675, copies the same mistranslation, quoting the year book, finch, and wingate. hale expresses it in these words, "christianity is parcel of the laws of england," but quotes no authority. wood, 409, ventures still to vary the phrase, and says, "that all blasphemy and prophaneness are offences by the common law," and blackstone repeats the words of hale.' in the case of the the king v. carlile, decided since mr. jefferson wrote this letter, there was no argument as to the common law. the question was as to whether the statute (9 & 10 wm. iii.) had superseded the common law. but the common law itself was not called in question, which i submit it should be, and by a wise example superseded. but let us see what christianity is according to common law? we may remark-1. its inconsistency.--it calls blasphemy the greatest crime man can commit. yet in the case of hetherington v. moxon, it permits the _respectable_ blasphemer to go free. blasphemy in guinea volumes it allows, but exhibits the holiest horror at it when in penny pamphlets. 2. its barbarity, as in peter annet's case.--in michaelmas term, m. 3. g. 3. peter annet was convicted on an information for writing 'a most blasphemous libel,' in weekly papers called the _free inquirer_, to which he pleaded guilty; in consideration of which, and of his poverty, of his having confessed his errors in an affidavit, and of his being 74 years old, and some symptoms of wildness that appeared on his inspection in court, the court declared they had mitigated his punishment to the following: to be imprisoned in newgate for one month; to stand twice in the pillory with a paper on his forehead, inscribed blasphemy; to be sent to the house of correction to hard labour for a year; to pay a fine of 6s. 8d., and to find security himself in â£100, and two sureties in â£50 each for his good behaviour during life.* 3. its capriciousness.--the common law before the time of henry viii. was one thing, but afterwards it was another. the language which was blasphemy at the first period, was not so in the other. those expressions which insulted god before henry the eighth was born, did not insult him afterwards. henry the eighth's opinion made the difference. lord commissioner white-locke (5 howell's state trials, p. 826), in debate whether james nayler the quaker should suffer death, remarked, 'i remember a case in our book h. 7, where the bishop committed one to prison for a heretic, and the heresy was denying that tythes were due to the parson. this at that time was a very great heresy.' 4. its disregard of equal justice.--a british subject would be punished for firing into a turkish vessel; but he is not punishable for attacking the captain and sailors with bibles and tracts, which, if they read and believe, will make them apostates from the faith of mahomet, and blasphemers of the koran. while on terms of amity with the sublime porte, the laws of england restrain us from despoiling them of their property, but not from despoiling them of their religion.** * blackstone's reports, p. 305. ** vide freethinker's information for the people. 5. it debases religion as best set forth.--'religion (says miss martineau) is, in its widest sense, "the tendency of human nature to the infinite;" and its principle is manifested in the pursuit of perfection in any direction whatever. it is in this widest sense that some speculative atheists have been religious men; religious in their efforts after self-perfection; though unable to personify their conception of the infinite. in a somewhat narrower sense, religion is the relation which the highest human sentiments bear towards an infinitely perfect being. there can be no further narrowing than this. any account of religion which restricts it within the boundaries of any system, which connects it with any mode of belief, which implicates it with hope of reward, or fear of punishment, is low and injurious, and debases religion into superstition.' how much more is religion degraded that is made the subject of reward and punishment here? thus speaks the common law upon these points, and thus, as part of the common law, speaks christianity. will you, by a verdict of guilty this day, send forth to the world this card of credentials of the religion of jesus? the intention of a libel constitutes its criminality. it is for you, gentlemen, to say whether i knowingly, wickedly, and maliciously offended the law? malice is necessary to a libel--conscientious words are allowable, 'contumely and contempt are what no establishment can tolerate: but on the other hand it would not be proper to lay any restraint upon rational and dispassionate discussions of the rectitude and propriety of the established mode of worship.' 4 bla. com. 51; 1 pmp. 219. and mr. starkie, on the subject, says 'that it may not be going too far from the principles and decisions, that no author or preacher who fairly and conscientiously promulgates the opinions with whose truth he is impressed for the benefit of others, is for so doing amenable as a criminal, that a malicious and mischievous intention is in such case the broad boundary between right and wrong; and that if it can be collected from the offensive levity with which so serious a subject is treated, or from other circumstances, that the act of the party was malicious, then, since the law has no means of distinguishing between different degrees of evil tendency, if the matter published contain any such tendency, the publisher becomes amenable to justice.'* * starkie on libel, pp. 496-7. as to the duty of the jury, i have lord chief justice abbott's opinion, in his charge to the jury in summing up the evidence against mr. joseph russell at the warwick summer assizes, on friday, august 13, 1819, for a political libel, being mr. hone's 'parody on the litany.' mr. russell argued that as hone had been acquitted for publishing it, he also ought to be. 'no one,' says his lordship, 'is more inclined than myself to speak reverently of the decision of juries. but, gentlemen, you cannot, under the sanction of an oath, take the verdict of those juries either directly or indirectly as your guide in the verdict you are called upon to give in this case. those juries, no doubt, returned their verdicts honestly and conscientiously according to the evidence that was layed before them. what that evidence was you can know nothing of. you are to try the question by your own consciences and by your own reason. they might have been right in their decision, and you should be careful that you are right in yours.' after this, you will see it is clear that though a jury had before found a person guilty of the offence i am charged with, it will be no justification of your doing so too. here mr. holyoake, perceiving that he would be heard fairly, and that no attempts to put him down were practised, laid aside a handful of notes, and said:-i have to thank your lordship, and you, gentlemen of the jury, for the courtesy and attention with which i have been heard. gentlemen, if i have occupied you long you will find my apology in the circumstance that your verdict against me will occupy me longer. i could wish that justice to me and your convenience had permitted brevity. the length of my defence has originated with the charge against me, and not with myself. it is said, that when southey was asked if he were not ashamed of having written _wat tyler_, he answered, no more ashamed than i am of having been young. meaning, any man may err in youth. so i erred in being religious in my early days. if i am not religious now, deem me not criminal. religion never did me a service, how then should i love it? but it assailed my youth with gloomy dogmas, now it assails my liberty. gentlemen, if during my address to you i have offended by the frankness of my avowals, it has not proceeded from a disregard of your feelings, but from the belief that, as men, you would prefer independence to servility of speech. of the nature of the charge against me i add no further word. my only crime has been the discharge of what i considered a duty. for my difference in opinion with you upon the question of deity, i offer no apology. i have made no contract to think as you do, and i owe you no obligation to do it. if i commanded you to abjure your belief, you would disregard it as impertinence, and if you punish me for not adjuring mine, how will you reconcile it with 'doing as you would wish to be done unto?' had i said, that there is no god, still i should not deserve the penalties of the law. if i point to the wrong i see in this christian country, and ask, is this christianity? you would reply, 'no; what you refer to results from men who live without god in the world.' then, gentlemen, would you punish me for simply saying that which other men, unpunished, are every day doing? if i have said that religious revenues should be reduced one half, i spoke only the dictates of humanity at this season of national suffering. surely it is not blasphemous to argue that human misery should be alleviated at the expense of spiritual pride. i ask not equal rights with yourselves. you, as christians, can imprison those who differ from you. i do not offend your pride by asking to be admitted your equals here. i desire not such privileges. i claim merely the right to speak my convictions; to show a man the right path when i think he takes the wrong one. it is a melancholy maxim in these courts of law, that the greater the truth the greater the libel; and so it would be with me this day could i demonstrate to you that there is no deity. the more correct i am the severer would be my punishment, because the law regards the belief in a god to be the foundation of obedience among men. but i trust i have convinced you that my views of this question are compatible with the practice of all our duties to our fellow-men, borne out by eminent authority and long experience. setting aside the reprobation of persecution by middleton, by clarke, by latimer, and other divines i have quoted; leslie, reid, and bulwer have contended that the objections of the sceptic merely strengthen the fabric of piety they pretend to assail. gentlemen, which is to be believed, divines and philosophers, or the common law? these persons speak as though they believed christianity to be true; the common law punishes as though it knew it to be false. if the state religion be true, my opinion can never overcome it; and by convicting me you publish your consciousness of error in the cause you are placed there to defend as truth. if god be truth you libel him and his power, and publish the omnipotence of error. when in gaol, i one day opened the rules drawn up by the judges. the 167th opens thus: 'no prisoner shall lie.' now, gentlemen, how is a man to act under these circumstances in which i am placed? if you find me guilty upon the indictment before you, my case stands in this manner--if i do not lie you imprison me, and if i do you punish me. turning back to the morality of ancient days, and meditating with delight on their noble sincerity and love of truth, am i to count it a misfortune to live in modern times and among a christian people? in your churches, as i have read to you, you implore that truth and justice may descend among men, and: the supplication is a noble one. gentlemen, will you pray for truth in your churches and brand it in your courts? the atmosphere of your gaols as little assimilates with my taste as their punishments will accord with my constitution, i seek not these things, i assure you, but when they lie in the path of duty i trust i shall ever prefer them to a dereliction from it. but, gentlemen, supposing that they are my sentiments that you are requested to punish; you should first do yourselves the justice to reflect what has been said about them and insinuated in this court. learned divines, and sage writers on atheism, agree that it is too absurd to need refutation--too barren to satisfy, too monstrous to attract, too fearful to allure, too dumb to speak, and too deathly not to appal its own votaries. it is styled too grave to entertain youth, and too devoid of consolation for the trembling wants of age--too abstract for the comprehension of the ignorant, and too unreasonable to gain the admiration of the intelligent. that it is alarming to the timid, and disquieting to the brave-that it negatives everything, and sets up nothing, and is so purely speculative that it can never have a practical bearing on the business of life. gentlemen, will you disturb the harmony of these conclusions by a verdict against me, and attack that which never existed, and place upon the grave records of this court a slaying of the self-slain? will you thus draw attention to a subject you perhaps think had better be forgotten, and create a conviction that it must be a greatly important one, since you erect it into public notice by directing the thunders of the law at young and comparatively inexperienced believer in its principle? would you test my opinions by my emotions on the bed of death? let me assure you, that if men can expect to die in peace who can send their fellow men to a gaol because of honest difference of opinion, i have nothing to fear. i am told i may hold opinions, but must keep them to myself--which means, i may know and feel what is right, but must never do it. i must see my fellow-men in error, but never put them right. must live every day below the standard of right my sense of duty and conscience sets up, and all my life long 'prove all things' and never 'hold fast to the good.' the indictment charges me with having 'wickedly, maliciously, and with evil design,' against the peace of the queen, uttered certain words. what shadow of evidence has been adduced to substantiate this extravagant charge? will you suffer this court to proclaim the sacred nature of an oath, and openly violate it in the same hour and under the same roof? i might ask in the spirit of that christianity you sit there to administer, how do you propose to answer to your god in that day when the secrets of all hearts are to be opened, when all dissembling is to be exposed, and all perjury punished; how do you pro-pose to answer for having invoked the name of god in this assembly only to disregard it, on the poor plea of precedent--that others have done so before? for, gentlemen, there is nothing else that even the subtlest sophistry can conjure up to justify you. but i best prefer appealing to you as honest men, in the spirit of my own reasoning, and thinking; as men with an eye to the improvement of mankind, who would break the unjust shackles that bind them, who would discard prejudice in order to be just, who will not condemn me because i am not rich, and who will listen to humanity rather than to bigotry, and respect truthfulness wherever you may find it. i believe that in every honest heart there is a sense of rectitude that rises superior to creeds, that respects all virtue and protects all truth, that asks for no names and seeks no precedents before resolving to do rightly, that fears no man's frowns, and dares to be just without custom's permit. to this feeling, gentlemen, only do i appeal, and by its verdict i am willing to abide. mr. justice erskine: gentlemen of the jury, although the lengthened address of the defendant has demanded from you so long endurance, in this vitiated atmosphere, i still trust we shall have enough of power left to direct our minds to the parts of this case which are important. the greater part of the time has been wasted on subjects with which you have nothing to do. we are not sitting here as a deliberative assembly to consider whether in respect of such cases as this it is politic or wise to imprison for opinions--whether men ought to be punished for uttering such sentiments--and i shall have nothing to say to you on that point. we have to decide on the law as we find it. i shall make no law--the judges made no law, but have handed it down from the earliest ages. i should have no more power to alter this than to say the eldest son is not the heir of his father. allusion has been made to some expressions of mine, when in the course of my duty i directed the attention of the grand jury to these cases. certainly the printed report was highly incorrect. i said nothing to prejudice them. inasmuch as this offence directly tended to take away that foundation on which real morality can alone be safely based, i told them what i feel, that without religion there is no morality. i recommended that that foundation may be made by early education and habits of thought, but in so doing i did not mean to prejudge, nor do i seem to have been considered as doing so, i am not going to lay down as law that no man has a right to entertain opinions opposed to the religion of the state, nor to express them. man is only responsible for his opinions to god, because god only can judge of his motives, and we arrogate his duties if we judge of men's sentiments. if men will entertain sentiments opposed to the religion of the state we require that they shall express them reverently, and philosophers who have discussed this subject all agree that this is right mr. archdeacon paley has stated this in language so plain, far better than any words i could supply myself. 'serious arguments are fair on all sides. christianity is but ill-defended by refusing audience or toleration to the objections of unbelievers. but whilst we would have freedom of inquiry restrained by no laws but those of decency, we are entitled to demand, on behalf of a religion which holds forth to mankind assurances of immortality, that its credit be assailed by no other weapons than those of sober discussion and legitimate reasoning.' our law has adopted that as its rule, and men are not permitted to make use of indecent language in reference to god and the christian religion, without rendering themselves liable to punishment. you have had a great number of books read to you, arguing whether it was politic to prosecute in such cases. one of the sentiments was a dignitary's reply, 'i will answer it.' that points out the difference in these cases. sober argument you may answer, but indecent reviling you cannot, and therefore the law steps in and punishes it. you have been told you have to consider what is blasphemy. he asked the witness what he considered blasphemy, and he gave him a very sensible answer. what you have to try is, whether the defendant wickedly and devisedly did intend to bring the christian religion into contempt among the people, by uttering words of and concerning almighty god, the holy scriptures, and the christian religion. the charge is, that he uttered these words with the intention of bringing almighty god, the christian religion, and the holy scriptures, into contempt. you are not called upon to say whether in your judgment the opinions of the defendant are right or wrong--whether it is right or wrong that words like these should be punished, but whether he uttered these words with the intent charged in the indictment. these words were proved by a witness who admits that others were used, that they did not follow consecutively, and that other words were interspersed. it is right that you should have the whole set before you, for a man is not to be judged for what is partly set before you, and therefore it was necessary you should have the whole of what was said. the way in which the witness related the statements made by defendant was this: he said he had been lecturing on 'home colonisation, emigration, and poor-laws superseded.' after the lecture had been closed, some man whose name he did not then know, said the lecturer had been speaking of our duty to our fellow-men, but he had not spoken of our duty to our god, and it is important that you should notice that the words were not the subject of the lecture, but uttered in answer to a question put to him. there is no evidence that he intended to have said anything--there is no evidence that this person is a friend of the other person, or that this question was asked so as to give him an opportunity of uttering these sentiments,* if that had been the case it would have made it worse than if he had introduced it. this challenge having been made by this person, whoever it was, the defendant said--'i am of no religion at all; i do not believe in such a thing as a god.' there is nothing in the introduction of the word 'thing' to show that he intended to-treat the subject with levity and contempt. you might take it that he said he did not believe there is such a being as a god. * the artifice which mr. justice erskine here suggested to the jury never entered into my imagination. the evidence could not have given the jury any such idea, and i was pained and astonished to hear the judge employ it. the witness went on: 'he said the people of this country are too poor to have any religion, he would serve the deity as the government did the subaltern officers--place him on half-pay; i was near the door; you said the reason was the expense of religion. and then he was asked as to his opinion of blasphemy. he is then cross-examined as to his knowledge of some report made by another person. you did not lay any emphasis on the word thing; you said the word in the ordinary tone of voice.' there is something which defendant has alleged himself to have stated* which gives a stronger sting than that which was given by the witness--'i flee the bible as a viper.' the question is whether these words were uttered with the intention of bringing god and the christian religion into contempt. then the charge is made out, for i tell you that it is an offence at common law. if it is not an offence, the indictment is not worth the parchment it is written upon--if there is no such authority as that which i have laid down. any man who treats with contempt the christian religion, is guilty of an indictable misdemeanour. you have to consider the language and a passage read to you from a charge of a learned judge. 'it may not be going too far to state, that no author or preacher is forbidden stating his opinions sincerely. by maliciously is not meant malice against any particular individual, but a mischievous intent. this is the criterion, and it is a fair criterion, if it can be collected from the offensive levity in which the subject is treated, if the matter placed in the indictment contains any such tendency.' if the words had appeared in the course of a written paper you would have entertained no doubt that the person who had uttered these words had uttered them with levity. the only thing in his favour is, that it was not a written answer. the solution given by the defendant is, that although his opinions are unhappily such that he has no belief in a god, he had no intention of bringing religion into contempt. he went on to state that he considered it the duty of the clergymen of the establishment to have reduced their incomes one-half. if he had meant this, he ought to have made use of other language. you will dismiss from your minds all statements in newspapers, or other statements made out of court, and consider it in reference to the evidence. if you are convinced that he uttered it with levity, for the purpose of treating with contempt the majesty of almighty god he is guilty of the offence. if you think he made use of these words in the heat of argument without any such intent, you will give him the benefit of the doubt. if you are convinced that he did it with that object you must find him guilty, despite of all that has been addressed to you. if you entertain a reasonable doubt of his intention, you will give him the benefit of it. * in the report of my original speech to maitland, which i read to the court from the oracle. the jury, after a very brief deliberation, returned a verdict of _guilty_. [one of the jury was a deist, a professed friend of free speech, and who had said that he never could convict me, but he wanted courage when the hour of the verdict came, and gave in against me. for myself, i never for a moment expected an acquittal. during the few moments of the jury's consultation, i took my watch from my neck and gave it, with my keys, to my friend, mr. knight hunt. my papers i consigned to my friend mr. w. b. smith, as for all i knew they might the next moment become the property of the court by virtue of the sentence.] mr. justice erskine. george jacob holyoake, if you had been convicted as the author of that paper which adams has been convicted of publishing, my sentence must have been very severe. but, although the name is the same, there is no evidence of it.* you have been convicted of uttering language, and although yom have been adducing long arguments to show the impolicy of these prosecutions, you are convicted of having uttered these words with improper levity. the arm of the law is not stretched out to protect the character of the almighty; we do not assume to be the protectors of our god, but to protect the people from such indecent language. and if these words had been written for deliberate circulation, i should have passed on you a severer sentence. you uttered them in consequence of a question--i have no evidence that this question was put to draw out these words. proceeding on the evidence that has been given, trusting that these words have been uttered in the heat of the moment, i shall think it sufficient to sentence you to be _imprisoned in the common gaol for six calendar months_. * this is another of those unwarranted suppositions in which the judge ought not to have indulged. 'that paper' was written by my friend mr. chilton, editor of the oracle in my absence, and signed with his initials. the judge might have known that i was in gloucester gaol when it was written and published. i should have stopped the judge and corrected him, but i feared by seeming to separate myself from adams, to be thought capable of saving myself at his expense, or exposing him to new rigour. mr. holyoake. my lord, am i to be classed with thieves and felons? mr. justice erskine. no; thieves and felons are sentenced to the penitentiary, you to the common gaol. the court adjourned at ten o'clock. what was advanced by the counsel and the judge has been rendered in full in the foregoing report, but i have contented myself with an abstract of what i urged myself. the _times_ said i quoted from more than thirty authors, which is very likely; but it was not because i was not sensible of the good taste of brevity that i occupied the bench so long. i was standing that day in court fourteen hours, and, including the cross examinations, i was speaking more than eleven hours. i prepared notes to last me two days; and after the first six hours, my voice, usually shrill and weak, became full and somewhat sonorous. i could have spoken all night, and i should have done it had the judge attempted to put me down. but i willingly acknowledge that, on the whole, the conduct of the judge was fair to me, and patient to a degree that inspired me with great respect for the dignity of the bench, and i dedicated my 'short and easy method with the saints' to mr. justice erskine, as an actual expression of my respect. the governor of the gaol one day said to me, that i ought not to regret six months' imprisonment after occupying the court and public so many hours. i did not regret it. indeed, i more deserved the sentence for the length of my defence than for the words for which i was indicted. but it was the menace of the magistrates (before recounted) that i should not be heard, that did me the harm, and exposed me to the imputation of wanting good sense, which is a worse imputation than that of wanting orthodoxy. this came of inexperience in imprisonment. the menaces of magistrates will not so mislead me another time. when i now read the notices of these proceedings which i furnished to the _oracle_ at the time, i smile at the juvenility of comment in which i indulged. when similarly-worded reports reach me for the _reasoner_, my practice is to extract the simple facts--and, of course, the writers remonstrate with me; but how grateful should i be now if some one had done the same by me then. the principle on which we proceeded with our _oracle_ was that every man should express himself in his own words and in his own way, and we thought it a crime against freedom to distinguish between weak comment and the report of essential facts, or the expression of vital principle. the report of the proceedings rendered in these pages is given in some measure upon the rule of discrimination which i have described. but, in this, i have been impartial to others, and have omitted many things on the part of my opponents which i believe they would not repeat, and which i, therefore, have no wish to perpetuate. the remaining variations between this report and that which formerly appeared will be found to be partly on the side of greater accuracy in some respects, and more fulness in others. the original report presented most of the quotations, calling them a string of pearls, but left in a very unravelled state the string which tied them--and hence they read like abrupt interpolations. i have now given the connecting observations, the spirit of the extracts, and, in cases where the extracts have not since that time grown familiar to the public ear, i have given them also. the influence of my defence upon the public at gloucester and cheltenham, notwithstanding the difficulties under which i laboured, was in my favour beyond my expectation. the newspapers stated that the court and jury were attentive throughout, and the numbers who thronged the court behaved in the most decorous manner, testifying their interest in the proceedings by a uniform silence, manifesting neither approbation nor disapprobation.' several newspapers gave nine or ten columns of the proceedings, which was valuable propagandism. and it is due to the _cheltenham examiner_ (whose parallel between me and francis the reader will not have forgotten), to state that it gave an effective rendering of my defence, and added these compensatory words to its report:--'the defendant spoke throughout in a temperate manner, and his defence appeared to tell in his favour, so far as regarded the honesty of his motives.' let me say here that my grateful acknowledgments are due to the editor of the _cheltenham free press_. that paper reported whatever concerned my liberty, my conscience, or my character. it risked much in defending, alone among its local contemporaries, the freedom of speech violated in my person. it opened its columns to goodwyn barmby's proclamations, to catherine barmby's letters, to richard carlile's defences, and to the numerous communications of my friends on my behalf. my acknowledgments are also due to the _weekly dispatch_. on my visiting london 'publicola,' then captain williams, invited me to call upon him, and inform him of my position with respect to the pending trial; and his able letters to justice erg-kine, after my conviction, produced great uneasiness at the gaol, and each number of the _dispatch_ was awaited for some weeks by the authorities around me, as i learned from the gaolers, with anxiety. my defence, considered as a defence of the wide and momentous question of atheism, was crude enough. no one can be more sensible of that than i am. on the moral aspects of atheism and its relation to public polity i feared to enter, lest in my own newness to the study of so large a subject i should compromise it by unskilfulness of statement; i therefore confined myself to pleading that the right of public expression was the sequence of the right of private judgment--that the right of expression was consonant to the common law as well as to reason, and that the right of expression being necessary to private morality, it could not be incompatible with the public peace. chapter iii. after the sentence as soon as the sentence was pronounced, i was taken to the ceils under the court. captain mason, the governor, said there was another prisoner to go down besides me and adams. it was a case of felony. he said 'would i go with him?' i replied 'i would not.' he then asked if i 'objected to go with adams.' that i cheerfully agreed to, and, handcuffed with adams, i walked down to the gaol. having taken nothing since morning but a little raspberry vinegar, with which mr. carlile supplied me, i began to feel weak, but nothing was offered me except a little warm water, for which i asked, and this, with a very hard and bitter apple, constituted my supper. the transition from the excitement of the court to the darkness and coolness of the night-cell, made me feel as if going into a well, and my supper not serving to compose me, i continued restless till the morning. next day i felt so weak that i could scarcely stand upright. about twelve o'clock mr. bransby cooper and the rev. samuel jones came round. when mr. cooper saw me, he said, 'why, holyoake, i did not know you yesterday.' 'why, sir?' 'you did not seem to be the same person you were before.' 'in what respect was i different?' 'before you were so gentle and submissive, but yesterday there was so much _hauteur_ about you.' i answered, 'here i had to endure your authority; in court i had to defend my character and liberty. it was my turn yesterday, it is yours again to-day.' about the middle of the first day's imprisonment i was startled by the sonorous voice of the street cryer, passing near the walls of the gaol, crying with a loud voice--'howitt's correct list of all the cast, quit, and condemned;' and specifying, with marked emphasis, far above that bestowed on two cases of _wilful murder_, the case of george jacob holyoake, for uttering certain blasphemous words against god, and of and concerning the christian religion.' the above words and specification are to be found in the said 'correct list,' which a turnkey bought for me at my request, and which i still have. on the second morning after my sentence, i was sitting by the (very little) fire in the common room, contemplating, with very critical air, a can of somewhat indifferent gruel, which i had not the slightest disposition to eat, when the prayer bell rung, which did not at all improve my temper. where the gaol was situated, i enjoyed such a propinquity to dock bells, basin bells, cathedral bells, and gaol bells, that had i been inclined to _rebel_, it would have chimed in with the others. upon the aforesaid prayer bell ringing, all my fellow-prisoners made a rapid escape. i could not tell what had become of them. over my head was a large grating, for the convenience of gaolers overlooking the room. down this grating there came a tremendous voice, shouting 'holyoake! holyoake! holyoake!' the voice belonged to ogden, a man whom carlyle would have delighted to honour. nature made him for a gaoler. looking up, i said 'what do you want?' 'did you not hear that bell?' 'yes,' i said; 'what of that?' 'all the other prisoners are gone to prayers.' 'well, let the poor devils go, if they like it.' 'i can't be talked to in this way,' he roared out, in his surliest tones; 'you must go.' 'i am afraid that is a mistake of yours.' 'don't you know where you are?' 'yes; i'm in gloucester gaol, sitting over a can of very bad gruel.' 'don't you know you are a prisoner?' 'oh! yes; i am quite sensible of it.' 'well, you must do as the others do, and you must go to prayers.' 'then you must carry me.' 'i'll report you to the clergyman.' 'give the clergyman my compliments, and say i'm not coming to prayers.' he stalked away with the air of one whose dignity was greatly outraged. during the time of this colloquy prayers were suspended, and the clergyman was waiting my arrival in order to begin. as soon as prayers were well over, an order came for me--'the clergyman wanted me.' 'well, mr. holyoake,' he said, when i met him, 'how is it you did not come to prayers?' i answered, 'you cannot expect me to come to prayers; you imprison me here on the ground that i do not believe in a god, and then you would take me to chapel to pray to one. i cannot prevent your imprisoning me, but i can prevent your making me a hypocrite, and must.' 'but if you attended the ordinances of grace, it might lead you to believe in the christian religion.' 'i should be very sorry for that.' 'really me--how can you say so, sir?' 'because i should be very sorry to treat those who differ from me as you treat me.' 'you do not understand us. it is not you we persecute--it is your opinions.' 'then i wish you would imprison my opinions, and not me.' here he turned to refresh himself by looking at the rules for the regulation of prisoners in gloucester gaol. he resumed--'but you must attend prayers--it's the rule of the gaol.' 'i must do what i must do, i know; but, if i do that, i must be carried into chapel every morning, and that will not edify the remainder of your congregation. what can i do if i go? i could not say, "o lord, i have erred and strayed like a lost sheep." you see yonder gratings? i'm not likely to err and stray, for the next six months, beyond those bars.' 'ah! that is not what we mean.' 'then what do you mean? can i join with those men in saying, "o lord, who hath given us grace with one accord to make our common supplications unto thee," when i shall make no supplications, unless i am forced to it? you know the prisoners only go because the turnkey is behind them?' then i showed him the passage, 'we have done those things which we ought not to have done,' &c, and asked him what i had done, or had the chance of doing, wrong, since i came there? at this he was puzzled a little, and he at last answered-'ah! but we think there is a divine influence in prayer, which might operate upon you.' 'not in this place,' i answered, 'where it is so much contradicted by your practice. i will agree to this, that when on sundays you preach, and i may hear something new, i will come.' he ended the colloquy after a very christian manner, by saying, 'well, if you don't come to prayers, you shall be locked up.' i answered, 'well, sir, give your orders.' i need scarcely say this was done, in one form or other, to the end of my imprisonment. sometimes i was locked in my sleeping cell, but generally in the day room; but i found it more agreeable than the litany, and i never asked for any alteration. i went to chapel only on sunday (the preaching day), but never to the week-day prayers. offensive regulations were often sought to be applied to me. one was an attempt to make me wear the prison dress. i said i preferred my own clothes. the answer was, the rules were imperative, and they must enforce them. i inquired whether they had any spare time on their hands, for it would be necessary to dress me every morning. my answer was reported to the magistrates, and i heard no more of the project. out of doors much is said against passive resistance, but in prison it is the only resistance possible, and is often very effective, if you speak or act, you are at the mercy of those in whose power you are. take any aggressive step and your gaoler knocks you down, or locks you up in a moment. but if you simply will not do a thing, if without bluster or bravado you leave it to them to make you do it, or to do it themselves, they often find it of rather awkward accomplishment. to carry me to prayers or to dress me every morning was far more offensive and troublesome to them than breaking my head, so they left me alone. old mr. jones, the magistrate, paid me frequent visits. one day he took me to the door, and pointing upwards, asked, 'did i not see there proofs sufficient of the existence of a god?' i answered, that 'when the boundless expanse of the skies had been before me i had been unable to think so, and now the few square feet, which the high walls of the gaol permitted me to see, were still less likely to inspire me with that conviction.' a little reflection ought to have shown these gentlemen, who made these appeals to me, that the time and place were both inauspicious in which to address to me such interrogatories. indeed it was offensive, and on more than one occasion i told them, that having undertaken to compel my acquiescence with them by imprisonment, i could never divest myself of the conviction that it was superfluous to pretend to win me by argument. the last visit mr. jones paid was to read me a psalm. as on my trial i had complained of the discourtesy of their calling me a fool, the old man was particularly anxious to justify himself. he found what seemed to him a favourable opportunity in the circumstance that a german scholar had at this time published a new translation of the psalms of david. as i had spoken favourably of german theologians, he concluded that this one would have weight with me. he brought down the book, summoned the whole class of prisoners, and we stood twelve or eighteen in a row. proclaiming attention, he said he wished to read to us, and particularly to me, the 14th psalm. reading aloud the first verse where david observes 'the fool hath said in his heart there is no god,' mr. jones said, 'now, holyoake, you complained that we called you a fool--you see david says you are a fool.' the old man looked round with an air of triumph, which was considerably moderated when i gently but distinctly observed that 'i no more liked rudeness in the mouth of david than in the mouth of a magistrate.' my fellow-prisoners glanced around in consternation at my audacity, and expected to hear me ordered into the dark cell, but old mr. jones turned round, shut up his book, and walked away without saying a word, and i never saw him afterwards. the next day i wrote to the board of magistrates to say that 'if visiting magistrates continued to question me before other prisoners, where the discipline of the gaol forbade adequate reply, i should refuse to answer.' in future i was always called out by myself and spoken with alone. before my trial the same mr. jones told me that my friend, mr. richard carlile, had died in london a very horrible death, recanting all his principles before he expired, and urged me to take warning by his example and do the same. shortly after mr. jones was surprised to meet mr. carlile in the corridor of the gaol bringing me refreshments, which his experience assured him i needed. and it was not the least part of my pride on the day of my trial that he sat near me from morning till night, encouraging me by his presence, and assisting me by his wisdom. after my conviction he vindicated me assiduously through the press, addressed to me public letters, and wrote to justice erskine and sir robert peel, threatening to renew his former war against the church if my situation was not ameliorated--a very curious species of recantation it must be confessed, but a fair sample of the usual death-bed 'scenes' which the pulpits relate. my company as a prisoner was not of a very agreeable kind, i had to listen to recitals of depravity such as i never heard before, and do not wish to hear again. but this was not all. sometimes a companion was filthy as well as wicked. one man sent in among us had the itch, and before i found it out he had held me by the wrists in some accidental wrestle--which misfortune might have subjected me to a taste of prison discipline which few will be able to imagine. when the surgeon finds that a prisoner has this disease he makes no remark, but shortly after, the man is called out by the turnkey, whom he has to follow through various corridors to remote cells at the top of the gaol, near the gallows. upon entering one, he is told to take off his clothes. as soon as he is in a state of nudity, his clothes are taken away, and locked up. he is then shown a cask filled with brimstone, grease, and other mixture, of the consistence of pitch, and quite as offensive to the sight. with this he is made to smear his entire person over; when this is done, he is left locked up in the place. all he finds about him is a bed on which are two blankets, in which hundreds, smeared as he is, have lain before. when no longer able to endure the cold, he may lie in this place. thick and chilly, these disgusting coverings adjust themselves to the body when softened by the warmth, where, without caution, the liquid will run into the eyes and the mouth. here he remains some days and eats the uncut food which is brought to him as well as he can with his filthy fingers. such is the description of a process of cure (as i gathered from several whose experience i heard narrated), to which i might have been subjected, if, when i discovered pustules on my wrists similar to those on the infected man, i had not kept from the observation of the surgeon while they remained. my habit of daily ablution, and some medicine i procured, saved me from more than temporary discomfort. i need scarcely add, that had such a cure been attempted on me, i should have had to be carried to the place, and the application must have been effected by force. after some weeks' imprisonment, and when i had had sufficient opportunity of noticing the disposition of the authorities, and estimating the treatment to which i was to be subjected, i addressed the following, slightly abridged-memorial of george jacob holyoake, prisoner for blasphemy* in gloucester county gaol, to sir james graham, her majesty's secretary of state. sir,--at the recent gloucester assizes your memorialist was sentenced by mr. justice erskine to six months' imprisonment for the alleged offence of blasphemy. since that period he has been confined in the common gaol and fed on convict gruel, bread, rice, and potatoes. it is true your memorialist is allowed the privilege of purchasing, to some extent, better food, but his imprisonment renders this privilege valueless, without the assistance of friends, upon whom are the claims of his family left dependent by his incarceration. under these circumstances your memorialist applied to the surgeon of the gaol for other diet; by the surgeon he was referred to the governor; by the governor to the visiting magistrates, and by the visiting magistrates back to e surgeon, who subsequently has _recommended_, though not prescribed, better diet: but from the recommendation of it, your memorialist concludes that in that gentleman's opinion it is necessary. two other surgeons whom your memorialist consulted on entering his prison warned him that a generous diet was absolutely requisite, and the decay of your memorialist's health is a testimony of its truth. he prays for other regulations than those under which he sees visitors. they have always to stand, sometimes to talk through the bars of a gate, and are permitted to stay but a few minutes. as your memorialist is far from his friends, these rules continually prevent him seeing them, and receiving those attentions to his wants he otherwise would. he wishes permission to remain up in an evening until the hour of the debtors' retiring (9 o'clock), or at least to be allowed the use of a light in his cell, in which he is confined from twelve to fourteen hours, and during the winter he will be so shut up sixteen hours and a half. thus much time will be lost your memorialist could employ upon a little mathematical speculation.** which would afford him the gratification of contributing himself to the support of his family. * i always said 'prisoner for blasphemy' in all my communications, and directed my friends so to address me, to which the magistrates objected. but if i was to be written to at a gaol, i preferred to be known as a prisoner for opinion rather than as a prisoner for crime. ** mentioned to prevent the supposition on the part of sir james that the time would be employed in writing blasphemy, which would be fatal to the application. as every newspaper sent your memorialist is retained by the governor, your memorialist prays the liberty of reading them. the visiting magistrates have said they should have no objection to grant what your memorialist asks, had they the power; and hence he prays the exercise of your authority on his behalf. as custom attaches little weight to the opinion of a prisoner, it becomes not your memorialist to speak of his own case, but trusts he may with propriety refer to it as one in which he believes will be found little that is aggravated. seduced in the warmth of debate to express his honest opinion on a religious question, young and inexperienced, he took not the hypocrite's crooned path, nor the dissembler's hidden way, but unwarily uttered language disingenuousness would have concealed or art have polished, and became in consequence the ready victim of christianity. criminal without intention, punishment brings with it no consciousness or guilt, and hence that which in other circumstances would be light, is, in his, a bitter infliction. george jacob holyoake. sir james gave me permission to remain up till 9 o'clock after i had been three months in prison. but for the concession it required an effort to be grateful, for it was a permission to remain up without fire and without light. for unless i could pay for fire and light, i had to go without. whether sir james graham intended this, i have no means of knowing; he probably expected that the magistrates would not interpret his order as a privilege to sit up in the cold and in the dark, which would be a greater punishment than going to bed. but they did put this construction upon it. as sir james did not mention fire and light, they refused to supply them. mathematical studies were impossible, for the authorities also refused to allow me my instruments, lest i should commit suicide with them; but i had provided for that, as every man should who goes to gaol. there was just width enough in my cell to admit of the heavy iron bed-frame being raised on one end. by marking a circle round one of the legs, which i did with a fragment of stone, i determined the place on which the leg would fall when the frame was pulled down. my head once placed on that spot, the great weight of the frame would have sent the narrow leg through the brain, and death must have been instantaneous. i am no friend of suicide, and had a thousand reasons for living; but i had not been long in gaol before i saw many things to which none but the degraded or the weak would submit--and lest they should come to my turn, i provided against them. about this time an event occurred in my family which converted my imprisonment into an unexpected bitterness. against that 'love abroad which means spite (or indifference) at home,' i early set my face. between me and eleanor, my wife, there always existed an understanding as to the risks i ran in my free speaking. whatever consequences fell upon my own head alone, i had myself only to please in incurring: but those which affected others, i had no right to invoke, without their consent--and this consent i always sought from my wife, in any special case which arose. at our marriage, eleanor very well understood that my life somewhat resembled a soldier's, and that it would often include duties and dangers not compatible with perennial fireside comfort nor did she object to this, and i have had the sweet fortune always to be left to do whatever i should have done, had i been single and childless. on my saying, on the imprisonment of mr. southwell, first editor of the _oracle_, that it was my duty to take his place, eleanor replied--'do what it seems your duty to do, and i and the children will take care of ourselves as well as we can. when they grow up, i trust they will contemplate with little satisfaction any advantage they might have enjoyed at the expense of their father's duty. we can leave them no riches, but we may at least leave them a good example, and an unsoiled name.' it was therefore that when i came to leave home, to go to my trial, all was calm and cheerful as usual, though there was much around to suggest uneven thoughts. on that day no one came to accompany me or to spend an hour of solace with those from whom i parted. had there been a single friend present to have made up the appearance of society after i was gone, the loneliness would have been less bitter. as i left the house i heard that cry break forth which had been suppressed that it might not sadden my departure. before i had proceeded far up windsor street, ashted, i was arrested by madeline's silvery voice calling 'good bye, dada,' and turning round i saw her large bright, black eyes (which every body praised) peering like two stars round the lintel of the door. i am glad i did not then know that i should never hear that voice again, nor see those bright eyes any more. to turn the attention of mankind in an atheistical direction may do harm to some. the propagation of all new views does harm, more or less. as in commercial speculations much capital is sunk before any returns come in, so in the improvement of the people, you sacrifice some old feeling which is good, before the new opinion, which is better, can be created. but all the new opinions i have at any time imbibed have never produced so much harm in me as the prudential doctrines of political economy. the doctrine that it is disreputable in the poor to have children, is salutary, no doubt--but it requires to be enforced under limitation. to regard the existence of your little ones as an expense, and the gentle love of children as a luxury in which you cannot indulge without reproach, is to sour life, dry up affection, and blight those whose tender years should be passed in a perpetual smile of joy. to look into the face of your child and feel that the hand of death, which shall hush that gentle voice, pale those rosy cheeks, and quench those animated eyes--is a political blessing, is horrible. i look back with mute terror on the day when i was under the influence of those feelings. i cannot dwell upon it. i would burn all the books of political economy i ever read (and i think it the science of many blessings) if i could feel once more on my knee the gentle hand of my child from whom i parted that day, too stoical to shed a tear. after a few weeks of my imprisonment had passed away, hint--words came of madeline's failing health. out of some money sent by my private friends, john fowler and paul rodgers, of shefield, to buy better food than the gaol afforded, i saved a guinea and sent it to birmingham to purchase madeline a winter cloak--it was spent in buying her a coffin. though of perfect health and agility, she was one of those children who require entire preservation from exposure, want, or fatigue. on ten shillings per week, which was all that the anti-persecution union could provide, this could not be done, as eveline, then in arms, left her mother no opportunity of increasing that small income. cold succeeded cold, when want of more means caused them all to go to live in a house ill ventilated, and where several were ill of fever, which soon attacked madeline. mr. chilton sent me several intimations to prepare for the worst, should it happen. but i could not believe in the worst happening, and indeed i had yet to realise what the worst implied. at length one morning the heavy corridor door grated on its harsh hinges, and the morose turnkey--fit messenger of misery--put a letter into my hand. as it had been, as usual, broken open--for there is no feeling, not even that of affection and death, respected in a gaol--ogden knew its contents, and in justice to him i must say he endeavoured, as well as one whose ability lay in his moroseness could, to speak a word of apology and sympathy. the strangeness and awkwardness of the attempt drew my attention to the fatal black border, which gave me sensations such as i never received before and never shall again, for the first death of one dear to you, like that of the first love, brings with it a feeling which is never repeated. i remember that some prisoner came and covered me with a coat, for i had walked into the yard without one. captain mason and two friends came round, but i could not speak to them. he addressed a few words to me, but i turned away. then madeline had died the death of the poor; she had perished among the people who know neither hope nor comfort, a pledge that i shall never forsake those with whose sad destiny one so dear to me is linked. though in the death of poverty there is nothing remarkable, though hundreds of children are daily killed off in the same way, yet parents unused to this form of calamity find in it, the first time, a bitterness which can never be told. the ten shillings per week income of the family was made up by small subscriptions by some who knew me, and by a few outside who happened to think useful the course i had taken. one or two friends whose professions had beforetime been profuse, eleanor met. they were cold, or to her they seemed so. she thought they feared a continued acquaintance might lay them under some tax to contribute to her support. this she could never bear. offering her hand to one who did not take it, she went home, and nothing induced her to subject herself to such suspicion any more. a quick and enduring sense of independence, which no privation could disturb, was an attribute in her character i had always admired, and this dreadful form of its operation i have never been able to censure. the roman mother put on the armour of her son as he went out, and saw him brought home dead from the fight without weakness: but in that case, the strife of arms, the glory of victory, the sublimity of duty, and the applause of the senate, were so many supports to the mother's heroism; but harder far is it for a mother to bend over her child day by day and night after night, and see relentless death eat like a canker into the bud of the damask cheek of beauty, and be too poor to snatch it from the tomb--and this with no trumpet note, no clang of arms to drown the dying scream, no incense of glory to raise the sinking heart, no applause of a generous people to reward the sacrifice--without one soul near who could penetrate to the depth of that desolation, and utter those words of sympathy which is all which humanity can do to soothe in the face of death. there were indeed those near who might have done so, but some could not comprehend this grief, and others, for reasons of political economy, 'did not see the good of regret' at a child dying, and they will learn from these pages for the first time that these wounds existed which, after eight years, are still fresh. there are homesteads that have witnessed deeds that battle fields, with all their bannered pomp, have little to compare with. life's great play may, so it have an actor great enough, be well performed upon a humble stage. 'my dada's coming to see me,' madeline exclaimed on the night of her death, with that full, pure, and thrilling tone which marked her when in health. 'i am sure he is coming to night, mama,' and then remembering that that could not be, she said 'write to him, mama, he will come to see me;' and these were the last words she uttered--and all that remains now is the memory of that cheerless, tireless room, and the midnight reverberation of that voice which i would give a new world to hear again. for her father, he was debating in incoherence the vain proposition as to whether he could prevail on the governor to let him go home for one night to smooth and watch over that dying pillow, and he would cheerfully and gratefully have expiated the privilege by six or twelve months' additional imprisonment. o liberty! whom the nations welcome with triumphant shouts, whom all to whom the world owes its progress have worshipped--over how many graves hast thou walked! rising with the morning's dawn, making all people radiant with thy presence, the poet thrills as thy chariot is borne on the tarn's golden beams, and he hails thee as a goddess, and blesses thee as a bride, and sings of thy triumphs and benefactions! but those who serve thee--who make their lives a sad and desert waste that thy pathway through the world may be unobstructed--who kneel to thee in their dungeon-churches and pour out the incense of life's young warm blood at gibbet-altars: they know thee by thy gory garments dripping with the blood of the father and the tear of the orphan, and the desolation which precedes thy progress. the anthems of thy march are hollow voices from siberia's mines, and vinceanes' cells--the wail of women under the russian knout, the groans of konarski and the whistle of bullets which slay the bandiera and blum--thy trophies are the fresh graves of hungary and rome, thy throne is on a hecatomb of earth's noblest and bravest sons. yet art thou still sacred in the eyes of man. queen of genius and progress! emblem of that suffering through which humanity is purified and developed! thou hast trodden on the grave of my child, and i worship then still, although thou mayst yet tread on my own. yes, though i neither hope--for that would be presumptuous--nor expect it, seeing no foundation, i shall be pleased to find a life after this. not a life where those are punished who were unable to believe without evidence, and unwilling to act in spite of reason--for the prospect of annihilation is pleasanter and more profitable to contemplate: not a life where an easy faith is regarded as 'easy virtue' is regarded among some men--but a life where those we have loved and lost here are restored to us again--for there, in that hall where those may meet who have been sacrificed in the cause of duty--where no gross, or blind, or selfish, or cruel nature mingles, where none sit but those whom human service and endurance have purified and entitled to that high company, madeline will be a hebe. yes, a future life, bringing with it the admission to such companionship, would be a noble joy to contemplate. but christianity has no such dream as this. on making arrangements for the burial, at the birmingham cemetery, the clerk asked whether they should provide a minister, or whether the friends of the deceased would do so? the answer was--'a minister was not desired. 'then i presume,' the clerk observed, 'you mean that you will provide one yourselves?' the answer again was, 'we do not require one at all. please send the beadle merely.' on the day of the interment the beadle attended as requested. he was instructed to conduct the burial party direct to the grave; and not into the chapel, which he did without remark: and when the coffin, plain but pretty, without tinsel or angels, was lowered, each threw a bouquet of flowers in, and when the grave was made up they returned home. thus madeline was buried, as became her innocence and her fate, without parade, without priest, or priestly ceremony. had hesitation been displayed, or previous inquiries been made as to whether what was done could have been permitted, no question but that a priest would have been inflicted, as at the grave of carlile and others--for christianity, always officious and rude to the dissentient, is never more so than when opposition is paralysed by agony on the bed of death, or hushed in speechless sadness by the side of the grave. as it would only be painful to mrs. holyoake, i never wished her to visit me; but after the death of madeline she desired it, and she brought little 'eveline' (a name given to her in lieu of her own because of its similarity to madeline.) on this occasion mr. bransby cooper sent to say that the magistrates' committee-room, an elegant and cheerful apartment, should be at my service, at mrs. holyoake's visit. mr. cooper was the first of the magistrates to send a message of condolence on the death of madeline, and in this instance his kindness was delicate and generous. as on the day mrs. holyoake came the magistrates happened to hold a meeting in it, an apology was sent me, and the lodge placed at my service. no turnkey was sent in, and i was permitted to see my friends with an air of perfect freedom. my sister caroline, who was one of the party, brought me a present of wine and cigars. as both were forbidden by the rules of the gaol, i declined to touch them. as i was trusted without restraint, i was doubly anxious to respect a liberty so generously conceded. had they set a watch over me, i should have had less scruple, and perhaps have thought it a merit to defeat their suspicions. captain mason, the governor, was a study--a type of the gentleman, official, and conventional, whose qualities were instructive. bland, imperturbable, civil, and firm, he was never weak and never rude. among the uneducated, all decisive action is announced in commotion or bluster. the gentleman is never in a hurry, never in a contention. if you annoy him, are rude to him, impose upon him, or menace him, perhaps he quietly indicates his opinion of the impropriety, perhaps his resolution is taken without. he avoids you. his defence is prevention. renewal of offence, renewal of intercourse, chance of altercation or repetition, is simply impossible. such was captain mason. i watched his manners with pleasure--he governed the gaol like a drawing room, excepting that the _desserts_ were not quite the same. i saw rude men baffled, they could not make out how. possibly he had nerves and sensibility, but these articles were not in common use. they were kept under lock and key, and never brought out in the routine of official duties. as blandly and courteously as he wished me good morning, he would have conducted me to the gallows, had instruction to that effect reached him. he would have apologised for the inconvenience, but he would have hung me while i was saying 'pray don't mention it.' excepting in one transaction our intercourse was unruffled. when i had left the gaol, a prisoner (the master of a post office) the only gentleman on my side of the prison, addressed to me a letter of accusation against the governor--an act which made me a participator in his sentiments. as it passed through the governor's hands, he wrote under the name the crime and sentence of the writer--a brief and bitter retort. i reenclosed the letter to the writer with a note to captain mason, observing that on leaving the gaol i had expressed to him the only opinion i entertained of him, and i should regard it as unmanly to be a party to reproaches which i did not see reason to address to him in person. he wrote me back, with a soldier's honourable frankness, that 'i had always behaved honourably in my intercourse with him, and he did not believe i would do an unmanly thing.' the exceptional transaction with the captain referred to was this. one of my fellow-prisoners was an epileptic man, whose ignorance and irritability, more than any crime, had led to his imprisonment. as i kept a sort of school in our common room, and taught a few things to those about me who were disposed to learn, i had become interested in upton, a humble and unhappy man, who learned at grammar anxiously. some nights he would fall out of bed in an epileptic fit, and lie groaning on the stone floor for an hour or more together. it was in vain that we shouted to the turnkeys. they who can hear a man think of escaping, cannot hear when he breaks his neck. upton representing that a little tobacco, to which he had been accustomed, would save him from the frequency of these fits, i procured him some. smoking it one day in a corner, in a paper pipe made for the purpose out of one of my letters, the governor came upon him through a side door. upon being asked how he procured it, he answered, 'from a man who had just come in from the sessions.' this the governor did not believe. at night ogden made an immense speech at me, in which that luminous functionary inserted several elephantine hints, to the effect that he knew the source whence the aforesaid tobacco came. it was a treat to hear ogden hint; it was like a hippopotamus putting his paw out, or kicking a man down stairs. as soon as i could get to speak to upton, i prevailed upon him to allow me to write to the governor, tell him the truth, and take the blame upon myself, reminding upton that a good man might be surprised into a lie, but only a bad man would persist in one. the retaliation of the governor was refined and vindictive. instead of ordering me into a dark cell on bread and water for two or three days, which was the authorised punishment, he ordered two gates to be locked between me and my visitors, so that those who spoke were obliged to shout to me. this he continued, with slight variation, to the end of my imprisonment. this deprived me of the pleasure of seeing ladies who called, as i would never consent to see them under circumstances of so much humiliation. captain mason had had previous proof that my professions might be trusted. when first imprisoned, the reader perhaps remembers i was kept (though on my way home after a journey) a fortnight while the magistrates played at bail. when at length they signified their intention of accepting it, captain mason took me, through the city, to bransby cooper's house, where the bail-deed was to be completed. on our way i asked him if it would be necessary for me to take an oath, before my own bond could be accepted, as i should object to take an oath? he turned round and replied--'why, holyoake, as you don't believe in any of the gods, you could have no objection to swear by them all.' i explained to him that if the magistrate would regard my oath as a mere ceremony, by which i rendered myself liable to penalties in case of violated truth or failure in my bond, i would take the oath readily, if all the gods of the pantheon were in it: but if it were regarded as a profession of my religious faith, i would not take it. it was better that i should go back to gaol, than to make a profession of belief which would mislead others. i told mr. cooper the same when we reached his house. he, however, said my signature would do. one day i concluded a dialogue with my chaplain upon the principle of reciprocation, i. e. of retorting his language upon himself, and, i think, not without utility, for he never afterwards fell into that insensible arrogance of speech so common among pastors. on the occasion referred to, he began--'are you really an atheist, mr. holyoake?' 'really i am.' 'you deny that there is a god?' 'no; i deny that there is sufficient reason to believe that there is one.' 'i am very glad to find that you have not the temerity to say that there is no god.' 'and i am very sorry to find that you have the temerity to say there is one. if it be absurd in me to deny what i cannot demonstrate, is it not improper for you to avert so dogmatically what you cannot prove?' 'then where would you leave the question of atheism?' 'just where it leaves us both. 'it is a question of probability.' 'ah! the probabilities in favour of atheism are very few.' 'how know you that? did you ever examine the question without prejudice, or read that written in its favour without fear? those who dare not look at all never see far.' 'but if the atheist has so much on his side, why does he not make it known? we do not keep back our evidences.' 'has the atheist an equal opportunity with you? is it generous in you to taunt him with lack of evidence, when you are prepared to punish its production?' 'the reason is that your principles are so horrible; as robert hall has said, 'atheism is a bloody and ferocious system.' 'permit me, sir, to return that gentle speech--to tell you that your principles are horrible, and that christianity is a bloody and ferocious system.' 'really i am shocked to hear you speak so dreadfully of christianity.' 'why should you be shocked to hear what you are not shocked to say?' 'but atheism is so revolting.' 'but christianity is so revolting.' 'how dangerous is it for atheism to corrupt the minds of children.' 'how pernicious is it for christian doctrines to corrupt the thoughts of infancy.' 'but you are only asserting.' 'are you doing otherwise? i sometimes think that christians would be more respectful in their speech if the same language could be applied to them with impunity which they apply to others.' 'but, my dear sir, the language of the atheist is so shocking to christian feeling.' 'and, my dear sir, has it never occurred to you that the language of the christian is shocking to atheistical feeling?' 'atheists have a right to their opinions, i allow, but not to publish them.' 'i shall think you speak reasonably when you permit the same rule to be applied to the christian.' 'but you really cannot be an atheist?' 'and you say this who have been a party to imprisoning me here for being one! if you believe yourself, go and demand my liberation.' 'ah! when you come to die you will wish that you were a christian.' 'can it be that i shall wish to hold a creed that i distrust--one that leads me to deny another the liberty i claim for myself? if to be capable of looking back with satisfaction on conduct like this is to be a christian, may i never die the death of the righteous, and may my last end never be like his.' as the general treatment pursued towards me did not work an satisfactory conversion, some attempts were made by gentler means. taken one day into a sleeping cell for privacy, one who had the power to fulfil his promises passed in review the casualties of a life like mine, and asked whether i had not better change it. thinking i was seduced by some attraction which belonged to my position, he suggested how fickle a thing was popularity, and how soon the applause of friends might die away, or change with the growth or refinement of my conviction, into suspicion or even hate. had i not better accept the editorship of a paper, where i should not be required to contradict, but merely to avoid advocating my views? had i not better accept a school in a retired part of the country---a girls' school also might be given to mrs. holyoake, and our joint incomes would ensure competence, respectability, and usefulness? i answered, 'i think you have mistaken me. the opinions i defended are also my convictions; and thinking them useful, it seems my duty to propagate them, and the discharge of this duty is more serious in my eyes than you suppose; nor do the inducements you picture exist. do you not see that i am nearly friendless? i am without even the attentions of those from whom i have some right to expect it. except mr. farn, mr. watts, and mr. campbell, none of my colleagues among the social missionaries have written me a friendly word. the editor of the _new moral world_, upon whose protection i have some claim, has written no word in my favour. the only public defence for which i am indebted has come from strange papers, and unknown men. even mr. owen, the advocacy of whose opinions involved me in this prosecution, he who occupied the largest share of my veneration, has not even recognised my existence by a single line. this affair may have made some noise, but i am not so young as to mistake noise for popularity, nor so weak as to think popularity the one thing needful. popularity, is to be won by those who can flatter the public, but that estimation which is alone worth having is only to be won by the service of the people, and that is not the work of youth but of life. that which you call my cause is yet in an infantine state. it has no attractions but the rude ones of daring and truth. it requires to be divested of antagonism, and developed in its relations to political and social interests and personal character. this must be the work of time, and judging from the present, it will be a work of difficult and precarious effort. at present we number no public friends of wealth or influence. we have every thing to gain--yet the comparative affluence you offer would be a canker to my peace, while it was the price of duty evaded. my self-chosen faith, presumptuous and thorny, will be sweeter to walk. it is enough that you see i am not misled by its attractions. now i tread these floors with a proud step, and meet your eye with unblenched brow, because it is necessary to show you that in defence of my opinions i feel neither fear nor guilt--but when i walk from this place into the wilderness of the world, my steps will falter and my face will pale, because my path will lie over the grave of my child.' all i remember farther is that my tempter made a few not unfeeling remarks, and led me back in silence to my usual cell. the final efforts for my conversion were on this wise. the rev. mr. cooper sent for me, a few days before my liberation, and asked me to follow him to the chapel. arrived there, he ascended the pulpit, motioning me to a prisoner's pew without even asking me to be seated. my neck was stiff with a severe cold, and i was as ill able as ill disposed to be catechised. i stood leaning on the spikes--not inapt emblems of such christian love as i had there been made acquainted with. the good chaplain prayed--i did not move. he looked at me to catch my eye--i kept mine fixed on the spikes. he addressed me--i made no sign. he spoke some minutes--still i remained motionless. he paused and asked what i thought of his representations--i answered no word. he seemed to think he was making a favourable impression. he resumed, and came to another peroration, and again besought me to answer--still no motion, no word from me. he began a third time, and touched all serious topics which he could command, and came again to an elaborate peroration on deathbeds; and as i remained still silent and immovable, he said, somewhat perplexed this time, 'holyoake, won't you speak?' i then answered 'not while we occupy these places. do you not preach to me and place me here where prisoners stand? i take this to be a ceremony, and not a conversation.' he walked down from his pulpit and asked me to accompany him, when he took me into several cells till he found one warmed with hot air, and asked would i speak with him there on friendly terms? i answered, 'with pleasure;' and there we conversed for the last time. i troubled him to repeat his arguments, as i would not admit that i had attended to a word. when he had done, i briefly assured him that my experience there had not created in me any desire to be a christian: he had brought before me no new evidences, and as it had been found necessary to enforce those i knew before by penal reasons, the operation had rather diminished their weight in my estimation. he professed himself anxious to 'present me with a bible'--a fact which i knew was destined to make a figure in the next gaol report to the county magistrates; i therefore resolved to have one worth acceptance, or not one at all. when he brought to me the usual prison copy, i respectfully declined it, i said, a thin copy bound in calf, in pearl type, with marginal references, would be interesting to me, but the dumpling-shaped book he offered, i could never endure in my library. he deliberated--the trade price of the bible he offered me was about tenpence, that i desiderated would cost him half a guinea. the reflection was fatal. the bible never came, and the evangelical fact that 'the prisoner george jacob holyoake was presented with a copy of the holy scriptures before leaving the gaol, which it is hoped, under the divine blessing, will be the means of bringing him to the knowledge of the truth'--was never recorded. about this period i saw the magistrates for the last time. there seemed to be a full board of them, and mr. bransby cooper was in the chair. before withdrawing i addressed mr. cooper, and said--'as in a short time i shall leave this place, i wish, before doing so, to express to you my sense of the kindness and consideration shown me by you when mrs. holyoake visited me here. it is one of the few things i shall remember with pleasure when again at liberty. you will not, i fear, believe in the possibility of one of my opinions feeling gratitude, but i will at least assure you of it.' the answer he made was a compensation for much that i had experienced. in that loud voice in which he usually spoke, he exclaimed--'yes, i will say this, that i believe you, holyoake. i don't believe that you could be a hypocrite.' one day a magistrate, described to me as the hon. and rev, andrew sayer, sent me a copy of paley's works, requesting my particular attention to his natural theology. 'did i put into your hands,' i said, addressing that gentleman, 'an atheistic work, you would tell me of the contamination you dread; and may i not plead the same risk in perusing your theistical book? but, as all in the search after truth must venture through phases of error, i shall not hesitate to comply with your request; and that you may be certain that i do so, you may, when i have ended, put to me any question upon the contents you please.' it happened that my examination resulted in my writing 'paley refuted in his own words.' when mr. sayer came to ask me what conclusions i had come to on the books he had lent me, i made this answer to him--* sir, i am surprised at your asking me this question. does it become you, a clergyman and a magistrate, to ask me to commit crime?' 'what do you mean?' he inquired. 'i mean this,' i replied, 'that in having punished my last expression of opinion as a crime, by bringing me here, it does not become you to put religious inquiries to me again.' he seemed confounded; and on this occasion i showed him, that while christianity punished as crime the expression of dissentient opinions, christians were disqualified from seeking the state of any man's thoughts with respect to religion. unless one volunteers explanations, christians have plainly no right to demand them. they put themselves out of the pale of ordinary privilege. writing 'paley refuted' and the 'short and easy method with the saints'--a title suggested by 'leslie's short and easy method with the deist,' another book put into my hands by the authorities--occupied me till the end of my imprisonment. on the 15th of february, 1843, i was liberated; and three days after (having paid visits of acknowledgment to my friends in gloucester, cheltenham, and worcester) i rejoined (what i might then term the remains of) my family in birmingham. chapter iv. after the liberation on rejoining my colleagues of the _oracle of reason_, i proceeded to issue an address to our readers. the substance of it, which was as follows, comprises some additional facts of my prison experience:-'my friends,--it is now six months since cut and hacked, "i fell," not merely in the language of the parable but literally, "among thieves." of those who caused that contact, i am afraid i must say, as william hutton said of an untoward sweetheart--"there was little love between us at first, and heaven has been pleased to decrease it on a further acquaintance." christians profess to draw men to jesus with "cords of love," but were it not for their judicious foresight in telling us that they axe "cords of love," few would find it out. 'to friends in gloucester,* cheltenham, birmingham, london,** and other places, i owe many thanks for what has been contributed for my support, and for that of my family, during my imprisonment. * to gloucester two special acknowledgments are due. first to a young lady, the niece of the innkeeper, in whose house i resided, when awaiting trial, both at the sessions and assises. with no other knowledge of me than these occasions afforded, and with no prepossession in favour of my opinions, but simply from that generous sympathy women often display, she frequently brought me refreshments to the gaol, and was a medium of communication with my friends, and often answered inquiries of my family which the restrictions of the gaol sometimes rendered it impossible for me even to know. in the romance of incident, she afterwards became the wife of my friend mr. chilton. the other instance was that of mrs. price, a woman in humble circumstances, who, during the latter part of my imprisonment, brought me dinner every sunday. both mrs. price and her husband were utterly unknown to me. ** at the time of the death of madeline, mrs. ralph thomas, of london, sent to mrs. holyoake â£3, subscribed by herself and personal friends. for their attentions i believe no thanks were asked and none are wished. yet i am concerned to make acknowledgments, because a man always values highly the kindness he does not expect. when the words were spoken which led to my prosecution, i expected that the cautious would think that i had gone "too far"--that the prudent would think that i had been too rash--that my friends would be afraid for me, and that the timid would be afraid for themselves. but i held with polydamus, that to speak his thoughts is every freeman's right- in peace and war, in council and in fight. 'and, what i regarded as greater than my right, i felt it to be my duty. besides, my honour was concerned. i could not descend to that disingenuousness i had often counselled others to scorn. hence, in the course i took, i did not think it necessary to calculate consequences; a man's true concern is with his principles, and not with his fate. i pretended to no public virtue, and i laid claim to no praise--i did no more than every man ought to do. that doing so little has been so rewarded by the exertions of many friends for my protection, i must be pleased--but had nothing been done, i trust i should have found pride in penury and satisfaction under neglect, in the reflection that i had discharged my duty and preserved consistency. 'when my memorial to sir james graham was returned to the magistrates for their opinion, they came to me, and mr. bransby cooper stormed out with great violence--"you were sent here, sir, for punishment, and you have nothing else to expect. i consider you worse than the greatest felon in the gaol; you have been guilty of the most atrocious crime a man can possibly commit. i have told sir james graham what you deserve." i knew that these magistrates were christians. i was told they were gentlemen, but i thought them furies.* * yet such is the inconsistency of the christian character when allied to a generous nature, that mr. bransby cooper who, as a christian, behaved with so much rudeness, had just before given instruction to the turnkeys to treat me with respect, with a view to save me from less harshness from other officials than that which, in other moods, he so plentifully inflicted on me himself. 'the prison diet was bread, gruel, and potatoes. on two days in each week boiled rice was substituted for potatoes; and after i had been in prison nine weeks i was, by the rules, allowed a small portion of salt beef on thursdays and sundays. as this fare is deemed in gloucestershire a famous specific for the cure of atheism, it may not be out of place to explain its virtues. the gruel was little remarkable for its delicate flavour and little celebrated for its nutritious qualities, and known by the luxurious cognomen of "skilly." the rice had a blue cast, a saline taste, and a slimy look. the beef i could not often taste, seldom chew, and never digest--i should say it was rather _leather_ mode than _a la mode_. the whole of the food could only be taken by a ploughman's appetite, and only be digested by a navigator's stomach. 'the indirect occasion of my prosecution was the editorship of the _oracle_. when mr. southwell was apprehended no social missionary came forward to continue his paper, although many of them were better qualified to do so than myself. socialism had always attached great importance to freedom of expression, and socialism's advocates had been styled "apostles of freethought." knowing this, i felt that it would be a dishonourable reflection should any one refuse personally to support what he was known publicly to approve. had mr. fleming been placed in mr. southwell's situation, and had he been of opinion that i could have defended his violated liberty by taking his place, i should have edited the _new moral world_ as cheerfully as i did the _oracle of reason_. when i speak of "freedom of speech" and "liberty for all," i know of no distinction between myself and those who differ from me--i see with an equal eye the atheist and the christian, the violent and the gentle, the dogmatic and the modest. 'that is true of christianity which has been said of catholicism, "humane individuals may express their abhorrence of the sentiments of persecution--bodies of men, sections of the church itself, nay many of the dignitaries may abjure them, and protest that they have never acted upon them, nor ever will enforce them--yet all this will not avail to give a discerning man the smallest security for his liberty, his property, or his life; for as long as those intolerant decrees remain upon the statute book, they can at any time be revived." it therefore behoves everyone to set a guard over that liberty, for the loss of which no religion will ever compensate. the conviction should be permanent that christianity is a fearful thing. but bad men may laud it--mistaken men may contend that there is some good in it--unthinking men may give currency to its terms--and weak men may connive at its delusions, but we ought to regard with different sentiments a system which tramples upon the feelings of humanity and the principles of liberty. let us then secure the antidote--free expression of opposite opinion. shall it be said that we are content to wear mental fetters? when protestants, who dare never think without the bible and prayer book, have shaken off the iron despotism of catholicism--when methodists and even ranters have refused to submit their thoughts to be cut down to the procrustean bed of conventional opinion--let not christians mock at freethinking pusillanimity and deride us as holders of craven principles. not only for ourselves but for others are our exertions demanded. what patrimony has the poor man but his free thoughts? industry will not save him from chill penury's grip, nor virtue from the poor-house grave--let us then preserve and perfect the humble inheritance of those who have no other.'* in prison it is not _safe_ to make complaints. you are too much in the power of those around you to escape reprisals of a serious kind, but this did not deter me from what i conceived to be a duty, and which might make the future easier for others who might follow me in the same way. besides the endeavours i had made within the prison, with a view to tolerable treatment, i addressed, on my release, the following letter to the editor of the _cheltenham free press_-'mr. editor,--as prisons and prison discipline have lately occupied much public attention, i am induced to offer to your notice a little recent experience in such matters. what i have written, i intended to have stated to a public meeting, but suffering from debility, which makes me glad to avoid excitement, i seek the calmer medium of your paper. 'i speak of gloucester county gaol. i believe the prison inspector is of opinion that the rules of that place are "_harsh and cruel_." now, should a prisoner seek a partial exemption from their operation, the process he goes through is very curious. he applies to a turnkey--the turnkey answers, "my duty is determinate and my province clear; i cannot do it." probably, he refers the prisoner to the surgeon. the surgeon is seen--he refers him to the governor, the governor refers him to the visiting magistrates--they reply, "we have no power to grant the request, sir james graham only can do that." sir james graham is memorialised, who, as is usual, answers, "the visiting magistrates best know what is proper--i only grant what they recommend." any further application to them would be construed into a wilful annoyance, and the prisoner is fortunate who can sit down like sterne's happy man--pleased he knows not why, and contented he knows not wherefore. of course i blame no one, for there is no one to blame, and this constitutes the beauty of the system.** * revised and abridged from the _oracle_. ** it seemed to me useful to make applications for what i wanted in writing. it prevented mistakes, and afterwards admitted of proof. the governor used to come to me and say, 'now, holyoake, it is of no use sending this memorial. it is sure not to be attended to, and he would so obligingly bestow upon me the treasures of his experience on the futility of the course i was pursuing, that at times it really did seem not only useless--but uncivil to persist. but i used to say, 'captain mason, i suppose you are right as to the result. that makes no difference, however, as to my duty; you may put my memorials in the fire, if you like, as soon as i have written them; still i will make the proper application to every officer and every authority, and deliver them to your care, as in duty bound.' i knew the captain would not burn them--i knew more, i knew he dare not burn them. i knew, also, that each would be duly delivered to the proper party. further i knew this, that if his dissuasions had deterred me from sending in my complaints, that when i left the prison the authorities would destroy every representation i might make, by saying 'if there had been anything wrong holyoake would have complained, but as he has not done so, the aggravation he points out could not have existed, or could not have been grievous.' foreseeing this i provided against it, and disregarding the refusal of my applications, i addressed them all round with scrupulous formality. the result was, that on my liberation i found myself in a position to defy contradiction in any allegations i had to advance; and though i published this letter immediately under the eyes of the magistrates, it was never contradicted. should i individualise, it would only be to say, that the governor is a gentleman of some excellent qualities, and some unintelligible conduct; that the surgeon possesses the _suaviter in modo_ without the _fortiter in re_; and that the magistrates are little gods, who, like jupiter, thunder oftener than they smile. 'what of health i have, i owe to my friends, who supplied me with such food as my constitution required, for had i been compelled to subsist on the diet of the prison, my health, by this time, would have been quite broken. with the direction of my own medical adviser, i made this representation to the proper authorities at the gaol; i made them to the commissioners who were lately there, and i made them to sir james graham;* i therefore conceive that i am justified in repeating them here. the surgeon admitted the necessity of better diet, but referred me to the governor, and he sent me the fruitless round i have described. now the province of the governor was the care of my person, and the province of the surgeon the care of my health. the governor ought not to have permitted the reference to him, and the surgeon ought not to have made it. either the surgeon should have refused my application with decision, or have allowed it with independence. upon this subject, the commissioners reminded me, "that if the surgeon did not order what was necessary for my health, he was responsible for it." i replied "that i knew this, and that they also knew, that a prisoner, like beale of northleach, must die before he could avail himself of such responsibility, and that this was but grave consolation." but of the surgeon i wish to speak impartially, and i gladly admit, that his manner was always very kind, but i complain that his answers were always very indecisive. what he recommended he seldom prescribed, and professed that he must consult the governor when he should have consulted only himself. this fault may seem little, but its effects are great. in a gaol, the surgeon is the only person who stands between a prisoner and the grave, and it is indispensable that to the quality of humanity those of independence and decision should be joined. the kind of answers to which i have alluded were given to me more than once, and given to others as well as to me. and i again repeat, that had i been without friends, i should have left my prison without health. * in consequence of these representations some medical gentlemen of the city were brought in to examine me, who pronounced my life to be in no danger, and therefore (so it seemed) my health was not regarded as worth improving by better food. provided i did not make a case fer the house of commons, that was enough. they appeared to consider themselves as bound to keep me alive and no more. 'akin to the want of better food, was the want of exercise, and no want of damp. the yard in which i walked was so small, that i always became giddy, through the frequent turnings, before i became refreshed. the governor sometimes permitted the "fines-class" in which i was, to walk in his garden; but the occasions came seldom and lasted not long--and i was previously so enervated by confinement, that the unusual exercise thus taken, threw me into a slight fever. generally speaking, the place in which i was confined was miserably humid, and, although i took perpetual care, i had almost a perpetual cold. 'an application for a trivial favour often brought down upon me ruthless treatment. the visiting magistrates would come, and before the other prisoners denounce me as the "worst felon in the gaol, and the most atrocious of criminals." i was directed to ascribe this to the petulance of age and the rancour of orthodoxy; but i thought it proceeded from bad taste and worse feeling. 'from first to last, every newspaper sent me was detained; every letter from me was perused, and every one to me was broken open and read--and the very seals, if they happened to be heterodox, were interdicted. thus the privacy of affection and friendship were violated, and mind as well as body laid under one restraint. 'when i saw friends it was but for a few minutes, and then through the bars of a gate; to shake hands was a privilege, and to converse unheard, impossible. to me it was a momentary satisfaction made an enduring mortification. to the public it may seem a light matter that nothing can be spoken to a visitor unheard by officers, but it is no light matter to a prisoner. the commissioners inquired--"can you make no communication to your friends without its passing under the eyes of the governor, or through the ears of the turnkey?" i answered--"none; and that it was not prudent for a prisoner to mention openly what affected persons in whose power he was put--that no prisoner must calculate on gaolers being generous, for they owned few virtues not written in their rules." i spoke from experience, and gave them cases in point.* 'during the latter portion of my time all my friends were denied access to me, which, though it interfered with the supply of my wants, i did not, for the reasons stated, much regret. but this i did regret--all my letters were detained, and i was refused the privilege of writing a single letter to my family. the reason assigned by the governor for this was the enforcement of new rules, but i know that they were enforced without proper authority, and i believe applied only to me.*** 'those are happy who are for ever preserved from the reception cells of gloucester gaol. of the one in which i was put, the floor was filthy, the bed was filthier, and the window was filthier still, for in the window was--what i sicken at while i write--a rag full of human excrement. and of the bed, a prisoner assured me that when he lay in it the lice crept up his throat off the corners of the blanket which covered him. this statement, on my direction, he made to the commissioners. * one case i allude to was this. mr. bransby cooper and mr. jones had called me out to state that an application i had made for better dietary would not be acceded to. mr. cooper said the surgeon did not prescribe any other diet. i said, 'it appears to me, sir, that the surgeon dare not prescribe any other diet, unless he was first assured you would approve of it.' the answer of mr. cooper was loud, harsh, brief, and decisive. 'of course, sir, he dare not.' thus the fierce candour of this man broke through the web-work of cautiousness which surrounded prisoners there, and spoke the truth for once. ** i have since been told that mr. alcott, of america, was among the number, who, being a visitor in england, had but one opportunity of calling upon me. ***on one occasion richard carlile brought me a present of a handsome pair of large razors, which were sent back lest i should cut my throat with them. the rules of the gaol forbid the entrance of such articles, but this reason for their rejection was not in the rules, but added as suitable to my case. 'the gaol chapel is a cold place. often, on entering it, i have exclaimed, with jugurtha, on entering his roman dungeon--"heavens! how cold is this bath of yours!" yet in this place, during this inclement season, the prisoners are assembled every morning to hear prayers, on empty stomachs, after sixteen hours' confinement in their night cells. on the "long prayer" mornings, they are detained in chapel three-quarters of an hour, and the penitentiary men, on their return to their cells, find their gruel on the stone floor, gone cold in their absence. i mention this matter with reluctance, as some may suppose that i notice it only from want of religion; but perhaps a little reflection will convince them that believers, as well as unbelievers, can appreciate a warm breakfast on a cold morning!--and that an asthmatical man, however sound his faith, will have his affection painfully increased by enervation, inanition, and sudden cold. this practice i do not say is contrary to the rules, for it would be difficult to say what is, or what is not, contrary to them--and i never met with any one at the gaol who could tell. but the practice is contrary to the act of the 4th of geo. iv., chap. 64, see. 30, which is professed to regulate it. 'a circumstance' of a different nature from any of the foregoing i think it my duty to notice. after a considerable portion of my term of imprisonment had elapsed, and after i had memorialised sir james graham, i was permitted to remain up in an evening with my books. to this i owe what of pleasure i can be said to have experienced in gaol, and with pleasure i acknowledge it.* * before this privilege was conceded i whiled away the long nights by writing on the cover of a book, on which i had adjusted threads at equal intervals; under these threads i slipped paper, and thus wrote on the lines made by the threads, which kept in the dark the words from running into each other. when a boy i learned to write with my eyes shut, and my playful acquirement now became of service to me. in this way i wrote some letters for the _oracle,_ and much of my correspondence. scattered by force, our little party at that time, and for some years after, had to be kept together oy letters, and, incredible as it will sound, i wrote during my imprisonment from first to last nearly 2000 letters. the governor did not see them all, but he saw so many, that one day he said i sent out more letters than usually went through a local post office. 'i prefer leaving these statements without comment, and content myself with saying, that i can abundantly substantiate every one of them. on saturday last they were partly examined at the gaol by the magistrates, but i heard nothing that impugned their correctness or affected the propriety of their appearing before the public. if i have made any misrepresentations, i shall be sorry; and what is proved to be wrong i will cheerfully retract. i have written from no malevolence, for i feel none, and, as what i have related affects me no longer, my only motive is the hope of benefiting the unfortunate beings whom i have left behind me. my object is not, as some may suspect, to excite commiseration on my own part; to do this i have no wish, and no expectation, for in cheltenham it seems to be a received maxim, that they who have little faith have no feelings--certainly, none are respected. 'how my imprisonment is supposed to affect me toward religion, i cannot tell; i only know that i have no change of sentiment to own. during six months i have been "shut out from the common light and common air"--from those whom the bonds of friendship connected, and the ties of affection endeared; and some of these ties are broken for ever. after this, i can only say, that i have greater difficulty than ever in believing that humanity is the associate of piety; and if christianity has no expounders more attractive than those i have fallen in with, the day of my conversion is still distant. 'it was taught to me that the religion of jesus cherished kindness, that it promoted our best affections, and reclaimed the erring in love. but how is this accomplished in gaol? the man who goes there must leave his affections, his feelings, and his sensibilities behind him--for in gaol all are blighted, deadened, and destroyed. there no appeals are made but to coward fears, and no antidote applied to error but misery. indeed, i cannot dwell upon christianity's treatment of what she considers my errors, without wishing, with themistocles, that i could learn the art of forgetting. with regard to the cause of my prosecution, i admit that i might be wrong in the sentiments which i held, but i could not be wrong in frankly avowing them. and i may answer to christians, as did aristides to the tyrant dionysius--"i am sorry for what you have done, but i am not sorry for what i have said." despite all that has succeeded, i still prefer integrity to liberty. my resolution has long been taken, to speak nothing or to speak what i think--for who dares think one thing and another tell, my heart detests him as the gates of hell. 'christians speak what they think useful, and the same privilege ought to be conceded to me. a difference in faith ought not to make a difference in right. but while it does so, those who cannot pronounce the required shibboleth must arm themselves to bear. those are poor principles for which a man is unwilling to suffer when they are in danger. it is an encouraging reflection, that though a man's fate may be at others' disposal, his character is ever at his own--and that no enemy can dishonour him who will not dishonour himself. 'yours respectfully, 'gloucester, feb. 7, 1843. 'g. j. holyoake.' the commissioners referred to in this letter asked me, when i was first taken before them, whether i had any complaint to make? i said i had. did i wish to give it as evidence? i said i did. in the evening of the next day, between 9 and 10 o'clock, i was called up and taken into their presence again. the governor of the gaol, captain mason, and the surgeon, mr. hicks, were present. 'take a seat, mr. holyoake,' said the speaker of the board--dr. blissett hawkins, i believe. i did so. 'now, mr. holyoake, what have you to complain of?' said the speaking commissioner. 'nothing, sir.' 'nothing! why what do you mean?' 'what i say, sir.' 'but did you not say that you had evidence that you wished to give?' 'i did.' 'has it not been at your request that you have been brought before us for that purpose?' 'it has?' 'then what are we to understand by your present statement?' 'why, sir, what you hardly need me to explain. i cannot give evidence before these gentlemen,' looking towards the governor and the surgeon. 'true,' said the questioner. 'captain mason, mr. hicks, you will please to withdraw.' when they were gone, 'now, mr. holyoake, you can speak freely,' said the chairman. 'but first i must have your guarantee that i shall suffer no inconvenience in consequence.' 'why what danger do you run?' was asked me. 'this. am i not in the power of governor and surgeon? can they not retaliate in your absence? no prisoner is safe in any gaol, as you ought to know, if the authorities come to regard him as reporting them. if you decline to give me this guarantee i shall not make any communication to you, and when i am at liberty again, i shall have a right to publish that your commission did not learn the whole truth at this gaol--that it did not even put itself in a condition to learn it.' 'well,' the chairman said, 'we guarantee that you shall suffer no inconvenience in consequence of any evidence you may give to us.' then, and not till then, did i proceed to explain what in the last letter and notes is recounted. the commissioners kept their word. the severity of the discipline, instituted by the governor when a visitor came, was somewhat relaxed; and once or twice, when i was suffering from cold (before unnoticed), a can of mutton broth was ordered me by the surgeon, in which i found a very sensible looking piece of mutton. nothing more of importance remains to be narrated. concluding, let me solicit consideration to the moral aspects of christianity, as set forth in this narrative, and to what i consider the political moral of these pages. many persons whose candour and general intelligence i do not distrust, tell me that the persecution here recounted, is not to be ascribed to christianity. to this i make the answer made on this subject (the imprisonment of myself, adams, and others) by my late friend, maltus questell ryall. 'christians set a watch upon them--christians informed against them--christians prejudiced the public against them. by christian pay were hireling lawyers retained--by christian witnesses confronted--by the christian press misrepresented--by christian juries found guilty, by christian judges condemned.' it is necessary to put the argument in this cumulative form to satisfy some understandings; but a well-informed and candid christian can hardly be supposed to need formal proof on this head. a careful study of the evangelists some time after this imprisonment, satisfied me that the religion of jesus involves persecution. a man who believes that men need saving, that there is only one way whereby they can be saved, that _his_ way is that way, and that it is better for a man to lose the whole world than to lose his own soul by missing that way, such a believer will inevitably coerce all he can into it. if he is not a persecutor he ought, in moral consistency, to be one. having the fear of the philanthropists and of the humanitarians before his eyes, he may modify his practice, but it will be at the expense of his penetration or of his religious duty. i have no difficulty whatever in understanding that the conscientious among the old inquisitors might be men of benevolence--spiritual physicians, who amputated existence with a view to save the eternal life of the patient. it is now many years since i wrote or spoke against them on religious grounds, and for a long period i have ceased to speak of persecution as being either unscriptural or unchristian. it will not do to say that what we have seen of persecution has been but the abuse of christianity. it is in itself a condemnation of christianity to be obliged to repudiate the conduct of all christian churches. it will not do to say that christians have not been wise enough to see, nor good enough to image, the divine gentleness of christ. the christian churches have been presided over by pastors who have possessed both penetration and purity in the highest degree--who were able to see what there was to be seen, and devout enough to render it in their lives. try the question even in our day. if christ be the symbol of love and gentleness to all who believe in his name, how is it that in every part of the world the freethinker should fear to fall into the hands of the christian? how is it that he must set a watch upon his words in every town and hamlet in our own land, lest the free expression of his deepest convictions should cost him his position, his employment, and his character? branded, outcast, and friendless, the christian's door is the last at which he would knock--the christian's fireside is the last at which he would find a welcome--and the christian pastor, who in knowledge, duty, and example, most nearly resembles the christ whom he preaches, is the last man whose path the freethinker would wish to cross, or into whose ear he would venture to pour the tale of his expatriations. in one passage in my defence i represent persecution, as lord brougham and others have done, as a power which spreads opinion. i believed so then, but believe it no longer. i have lived to watch the effects of persecution, and have seen it put down the truth so often, as no longer to doubt its bad efficacy. the ignorant, the timid, the opulent, and the conventional (and these make up the mass of mankind), are all deterred by danger or opprobrium, the resolute and the reckless, the only parties who persist, labour under accumulated disadvantages. condemned to spend then time in self-defence, development of doctrine--the legitimate and only source of permanent influence--is nearly impossible to them: and it is well for them if they escape acquiring an antagonistic spirit, which disfigures their advocacy and misrepresents their character. their only proselytes are those who come to them out of spite or out of sympathy, and who of course miss the intellectual ground of conviction, and can be of little real service until they have been re-educated. if, as i admit, persecution will put down opinion, what objection's there to its employment when it puts down error? i answer, 'beware of its use, because it may put down the truth also.' persecution is not an ordeal. free discussion is the only test capable of distinguishing and establishing the truth. the proper condemnation of persecution is, that it is an illegitimate opposition which is sure to be discountenanced as men become manly and refined. the armies of a civilised people observe, even in the deadly strife of battle, some rules of honourable warfare, and do not descend to the arts of treachery or tactics of savages. we may surely hope that in the battle for religious truth, a sense of honour will prevent the dominant party from taking against its opponents the undue advantage of persecution. montaigne relates that when polyperchon advised alexander to take advantage of the night for attacking darius, 'by no means,' answered the noble general; 'it is not for such a man as i am to steal such an advantage; _i had rather repent me of my fortune than be ashamed of my victory_,' it is not too much to expect that christianity will always be less refined than war. persecution, always a disaster, was not however with us a defeat. we were not put down by persecution; we continued the _oracle_ a hundred and four weeks, then the movement, sixty-eight weeks, and the _reasoner_ will soon have completed ten volumes. besides having written in our publications, we have, in almost all the principal cities and towns in the kingdom, spoken, since the trial at gloucester, with the utmost explicitness. the imprisonment has at least been of this service--and this is all--it has enabled me to speak accredited by the sincerity which otherwise could not have been so satisfactorily manifest to the multitude. to have spent, without shrinking, some portion of life in prison in defence of public liberty, gives the same authority among the people as having graduated at a university does among scholars.* the fact is a sad illustration of the brutal manner in which the people are condemned to win the enlargement of their liberties. in cases where clergymen have menaced me with renewed imprisonment, i have always answered--'i consider myself as having taken out a license to speak freely. the government made a charge to me of six months' imprisonment for that privilege, and i paid the price. if you have renewed demands upon me, let me know them, and i will endeavour to meet them; but do not interrupt me.' * when the prizes were awarded me for writing the literary lectures of the manchester unity, an attempt was made to cancel the award on the ground of my having been imprisoned, but it was immediately quashed. when the legislation of the order was before the house of lords, the bishop of oxford (in committee) made an objection to the lectures on account of the authorship, but the unity refused to withdraw them, and they are in use to this day. the objections of this nature made in some instances by the press have been inoperative where the people have been concerned. in the present structure of english political society, to preserve the ability to be imprisoned is necessary to usefulness. when the associations of home have twined themselves around the feelings--after long industry and patient frugality have surrounded a man with some comforts unknown to his youth--few have the temper which will part from them and walk into a gaol at the call of duty. i should think this state the death of progress. when, some time ago, insuring my life in the equity law insurance office, i asked, before i took out my policy, whether it would be forfeited if my death was occasioned by imprisonment or transportation. the directors naturally asked whether i was liable to those casualties. i said, not particularly liable i hoped; but to be able to be imprisoned, if it seemed a duty, i valued as a great privilege, and i would not barter my right to be imprisoned. i am afraid they smiled at my eccentricity, but they assured me that that accident would not involve the forfeiture of my policy--which i then took out. no one who reads thus far will, i hope, consider me as a candidate for either imprisonment or transportation. i have too keen an insight into their misery for that. but he who pretends to take the side of the people ought to see his way all through, and not incur a danger he has not weighed, and not suffer any to ascribe to him a virtue he does not mean to maintain. if any, from what i have just expressed, or from the transactions of this narrative, shall conclude that i am disposed to regard law-breaking lightly, they will mistake me. respect for the law is an intelligent virtue--a sign of fitness for freedom so important that none but an enemy would obscure the duty or weaken the sentiment. if accused, in the matter which led to my trial, of breaking the law, i might plead that there was no law to break, and therefore i could not break one. what is called the common law relating to blasphemy is a mere caprice, an opinion interpreted by ignorance or sectarian prejudice, and enforced at the call of bigotry--malevolent to the humble while neutral towards the rich. against this tyranny one is obliged to rebel. it is disastrous that we should have to set up the standard of resistance even in a case of this kind, and the chief justification is that a democratic government is denied us. had the people a voice in making the laws, the breaking of any law would require grave justification. men have two lives--a private and a public one. conscience is the guide of all that relates to private duty, but law is the conscience of society, and it is best when private conscience can be subordinate to the public conscience. private conscience may be the child of selfishness, fanaticism, or vanity, as well as of the greatest purity and intelligence. a man, therefore, should be careful how he places so uncertain a thing above the law. if private conscience be more just and intelligent than the public conscience, a democratic form of government affords peaceful facilities whereby it can come into the ascendant. but where these modes are denied, no alternative remains but that of rebellion or unconditional and indefinite submission. resistance to the law, however, or to what is tacitly accepted by the majority as law, is, under any form of government, so pernicious an example, is so liable to be abused, so liable to unfit the people who learn the lesson, for submission to legitimate authority, that these cases demand the strictest surveillance before they receive the sanction of a friend of the people. in all instances in which conscience is the ground of resistance, the wrong done to conscience ought to be clear, deep, and momentous, and the necessity which obliges the claims of private conscience to be put above the laws ought to be made so evident that the sentiment of freedom shall not deteriorate that of legitimate and honourable allegiance. if the political moral of this narrative be therefore drawn with discrimination, we may do little harm even if mistaken in the belief that the prevalence of our views of life may be a public good; and if this belief prove to be right in the main, we do what reformers are said often to forget--we make a past to which the future may refer for authority and instruction. then not 'in vain!' even obscurest weeds nourish the roots of fruitfulest fair trees so from our fortune loathed hope proceeds the experience that may base high victories.* * w. j. union. what 'our views' are this is not the place to state; as to some it would seem that under the pretext of a plea for free utterance, sentiments were obtruded upon the reader he was not forewarned to expect. i therefore limit myself to saying (and that only for the sake of others who will decline to concede free utterance until they know what has to be uttered) that whoever sees in atheism simply the development of a negation, sees but half the truth. even in this respect (supposing existing theological systems to be erroneous) atheism has the merit of clearing the way for pure moralism--which is the other half, or positive ground of atheism. the latest writers on the philosophy of religion resolve religion into _dependance_; by which its modern theory at length coincides with its ancient practice. we venture to think that this is not salutary teaching. life should be self-reliant. it seems to us that the light of nature and the experience of man are anterior to the dogmas of priests, and are the sources whence guidance and duty independently spring. the priest breaks in upon the integrity of life, and diverts its course. he says he makes an addition to our knowledge--we do not find it so. he professes to show us the hidden mysteries of the future--we fail to see them. he simply encumbers us, and we pray him to stand aside. the responsibility of our course is our own and not his, and we have a right to be left free. rejecting his advices, he proclaims that we reject truth, honour, justice, love. this is his error or the retaliation of his disappointment. we appeal to the candid and the impartial to judge between us. we respect theology as the science of man's destiny, and regret that it bears no fruits for us: but this is not our fault; and we therefore attempt to solve the problem of life for ourselves. our progress already counts some distinct steps. we have recast the practice of controversy: we forbid to ourselves to suspect evil motives, or to impute insincerity to others; the doubtful act we propose to judge by evidence alone, and to put the best construction on the dubious word. thus we annihilate antagonism, the eldest foe of progress, by imposing laws on impulse. our search in every system is directed after _moral truth_; and, less exacting than the christian, we accept it, whether given by inspiration, confirmed by miracle, attested by prophecy, or not. probity of word and act may be securely based on the intelligence and refinement of mankind--and this we labour to enforce. to restrict human expectation to that which is ascertainable by reason, must have the effect of concentrating attention on humanity, and intensifying interest in human exertions. in solidarity we find the encouragement to public endeavour, and we sum up private duty in honour, which is respecting the truth; in morality, which is acting the truth; and in love, which is serving the truth. the end. holyoake brothers, printers, 3. queen's head-passage, paternoster-row. good sense without god: or freethoughts opposed to supernatural ideas by baron d'holbach "freethinker's library" series london: w. stewart & co. a translation of baron d'holbach's "le bon sens" transcriber's note: this e-text is based on an undated english translation of "le bon sens" published c. 1900. the name of the translator was not stated. "_atheism_ leaves men to sense, to philosophy, to laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to moral virtue, tho' religion were not: but superstition dismounts all these, and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. therefore, atheism did never perturb states; but superstition hath been the confusion of many. the causes of superstition are pleasing and sensual rights, and ceremonies; excess of pharisaical and outside holiness, reverence to traditions and the stratagems of prelates for their own ambition and lucre."--_lord bacon._ contents 1. apologue 2. what is theology? 3. what is theology? 4. man is not born with any ideas of religion 5. it is not necessary to believe in a god 6. religion is founded on credulity 7. all religion is an absurdity 8. the idea of god is impossible 9. on the origin of superstition 10. on the origin of all religion 11. religious fears expose men to become a prey to imposters 12. religion seduces ignorance by the aid of the marvellous 13. religion seduces ignorance by the aid of the marvellous 14. no religion, if not ages of stupidity and barbarism 15. all religion was produced by the desire of domination 16. what serves as a basis to religion is most uncertain 17. it is impossible to be convinced of the existence of a god 18. it is impossible to be convinced of the existence of a god 19. the existence of god is not proved 20. it explains nothing to say, that god is a spirit 21. spirituality is an absurdity 22. whatever exists is derived from matter 23. what is the metaphysical god of modern theology? 24. less unreasonable to adore the sun, than adore a spiritual deity 25. a spiritual deity is incapable of volition and action 26. what is god? 27. some remarkable contradictions in theology 28. to adore god, is to adore a fiction 29. atheism is authorised by the infinity of god 30. believing not safer than not believing in god 31. belief in god is a habit acquired in infancy 32. belief in god is a prejudice ov successive generations 33. on the origin of prejudices 34. on the effects of prejudices 35. theology must be instilled before the age of reason 36. the wonders of nature do not prove the existence of god 37. nature may be explained by natural causes 38. nature may be explained by natural causes 39. the world has never been created: matter moves of itself 40. the world has never been created: matter moves of itself 41. motion is essential to matter: no spiritual mover 42. the existence of man does not prove the existence of god 43. neither man nor the universe are the effects of chance 44. order of the universe does not prove the existence of a god 45. order of the universe does not prove the existence of a god 46. absurd to adore a divine intelligence 47. qualities given god contrary to the essence attributed to him 48. qualities given god contrary to the essence attributed to him 49. absurd to say that the human race is the object of the universe 50. god is not made for man, nor man for god 51. untrue that the object of the universe was to render man happy 52. what is called providence is a word without meaning 53. this pretended providence is the enemy of man 54. the world is not governed by an intelligent being 55. god cannot be considered immutable 56. good and evil are the necessary effects of natural causes 57. the consolations of theology and paradise are imaginary 58. another romantic reverie 59. vain that theology attempts to clear its god from human defects 60. impossible to believe god is of infinite goodness and power 61. impossible to believe god is of infinite goodness and power 62. theology's god a monster of absurdity and injustice 63. all religion inspires contemptible fears 64. religion, the same as the most somber and servile superstition 65. the love of god is impossible 66. an eternally tormenting god is a most detestable being 67. theology is a tissue of palpable contradictions 68. the pretended works of god do not prove divine perfections 69. the perfection of god and the pretended creation of angels 70. theology preaches omnipotence of its god, yet makes impotent 71. per all religious systems, god is capricious and foolish 72. it is absurd to say that evil does not proceed from god 73. the foreknowledge of god proves his cruelty 74. absurdity of the stories concerning original sin, and satan 75. the devil, like religion, was invented to enrich the priests 76. god has no right to punish man 77. it is absurd to say, that the conduct of god a mystery 78. ought we look for consolation, from the author of our misery? 79. god who punishes the faults which he might have prevented 80. what is called free will is an absurdity 81. but we must not conclude that society has no right to punish 82. refutation of the arguments in favour of free will 83. refutation of the arguments in favour of free will 84. god, if there were a god, would not be free 85. according to theology, man is not free a single instant 86. there is no evil, and no sin, but must be attributed to god 87. the prayers prove dissatisfaction of the divine will 88. absurd to imagine repair of misfortune in another world 89. theology justifies the evil permitted by its god 90. jehovah, exterminations prove an unjust and barbarous god 91. is god a generous, equitable, and tender father? 92. man's life, deposes against goodness of a pretended god 93. we owe no gratitude to what is called _providence_ 94. it is folly to suppose that man is the favourite of god 95. a comparison between man and brutes 96. there are no animals so detestable as tyrants 97. a refutation of the excellence of man 98. an oriental tale 99. it is madness to see nothing but the goodness of god 100. what is the soul? 101. the existence of a _soul_ is an absurd supposition 102. it is evident that man dies _in toto_ 103. incontestible arguments against the spirituality of the soul 104. on the absurdity of the supernatural causes 105. it is false that materialism degrades 106. it is false that materialism degrades 107. idea of future life only useful to priest's trade 108. it is false that the idea of a future life is consoling 109. all religious principles are derived from the imagination 110. religion a system to reconciles contradictions by mysteries 111. absurdity of all mysteries, invented for the interests of priests 112, absurdity of all mysteries, invented for the interests of priests 113. absurdity of all mysteries, invented for the interests of priests 114. an universal god ought to have revealed an universal religion 115. religion is unnecessary, as it is unintelligible 116. all religions are rendered ridiculous by the multitude of creeds 117. opinion of a famous theologian 118. the god of the deists is not less contradictory 119. aged belief in a deity does not prove the existence of god 120. all gods are savage: all religions are monuments of ignorance 121. all religious usages bear marks of stupidity and barbarism 122. the more a religion is ancient and general, the more suspect 123. scepticism in religious matters from very superficial study 124. revelations examined 125. where is the proof that god ever shewed himself or spoke to men 126. there is nothing that proves miracles to have been ever performed 127. strange that god spoke differently to different sects 128. obscurity and suspicious origin of oracles 129. absurdity of all miracles 130. refutation of the reasoning of pascal on miracles 131. every new revelation is necessarily false 132. blood of martyrs testifies _against_ the truth of miracles 133. fanaticism of martyrs, and the interested zeal of missionaries 134. theology makes its god an enemy to reason and common sense 135. faith irreconcilable with reason; and reason preferable to faith 136. to what absurd and ridiculous sophisms the religious are reduced 137. ought a man to believe, on the assurance of another man 138. faith can take root only in feeble, ignorant, or slothful minds 139. that one religion has greater pretensions to truth an absurdity 140. religion is unnecessary to morality 141. religion the weakest barrier that can be opposed to the passions 142. honour is a more salutary and powerful bond than religion 143. religion does not restrain the passions of kings 144. origin of "the divine right of kings" 145. religion is fatal to political ameliorations 146. christianity preaching implicit obedience to despotism 147. one object of religious principles: eternize the tyranny of kings 148. fatal it is to persuade kings they are responsible to god alone 149. a devout king is the scourge of his kingdom 150. tyranny finds religion a weak obstacle to the despair of the people 151. religion favours the wickedness of princes 152. what is an enlightened sovereign? 153. of the prevailing passions and crimes of the priesthood 154. the quackery of priests 155. religion has corrupted morality, and produced innumerable evils 156. every religion is intolerant 157. the evils of a state religion 158. religion legitimates and authorizes crime 159. the argument, that evils attributed to religion are faults of men 160. religion is incompatible with morality 161. the morality of the gospel is impracticable 162. a society of saints would be impossible 163. human nature is not depraved 164. concerning the effects of jesus christ's mission 165. the remission of sins was invented for the interest of priests 166. who fear god? 167. hell is an absurd invention 168. the bad foundation of religious morals 169. christian charity, as preached and practised by theologians!!! 170. confession, priestcraft's gold mine 171. supposition of the existence of a god unnecessary to morality 172. supernatural morality are fatal to the public welfare 173. the union of church and state is a calamity 174. national religions are ruinous 175. religion paralyses morality 176. fatal consequences of devotion 177. the idea of a future life is not consoling to man 178. an atheist is fully as conscientious as a religious man 179. an atheistical king far preferable to a religious king 180. philosophy produces morality 181. religious opinions have little influence upon conduct 182. reason leads man to atheism 183. fear alone makes theists 184. can we, and ought we, to love god? 185. god and religion are proved to be absurdities 186. the existence of god, has not yet been demonstrated 187. priests are more actuated by self-interest, than unbelievers 188. presumption, and badness, more in priests, than in atheists 189. prejudices last but for a time 190. what if priests the apostles of reason 191. if philosophy were substituted for religion! 192. recantation of an unbeliever at the point of death proves nothing 193. it is not true that atheism breaks the bonds of society 194. refutation of the opinion, that religion necessary for the vulgar 195. logical systems are not adapted to the capacity of the vulgar 196. on the futility and danger of theology 197. on the evils produced by implicit faith 198. on the evils produced by implicit faith 199. all religions were established by impostors, in days of ignorance 200. all religions borrow from one another ridiculous ceremonies 201. theology has always diverted philosophy from its right path 202. theology explains nothing 203. theology has always fettered morality, and retarded progress 204. theology has always fettered morality, and retarded progress 205. religion is an extravagance and a calamity 206. religion prevents us from seeing the true causes of misfortunes publisher's note the chief design in reprinting this translation, is to preserve "_the strongest atheistical work_" for present and future generations of english freethinkers. the real author was, unquestionably, paul thyry; baron d'holbach, and not john meslier, to whom this work has been wrongly attributed, under the title of "le bon sens" (common sense). in 1770, baron d'holbach published his masterpiece, "systeme de la nature," which for a long time passed as the posthumous work of m. de mirabaud. that text-book of "atheistical philosophy" caused a great sensation, and two years later, 1772, the baron published this excellent abridgment of it, freed from arbitrary ideas; and by its clearness of expression, facility, and precision of style, rendered it most suitable for the average student. "le bon sens" was privately printed in amsterdam, and the author's name was kept a profound secret; hence, baron d'holbach escaped persecution. the author's preface when we examine the opinions of men, we find that nothing is more uncommon, than common sense; or, in other words, they lack judgment to discover plain truths, or to reject absurdities, and palpable contradictions. we have an example of this in theology, a system revered in all countries by a great number of men; an object regarded by them as most important, and indispensable to happiness. an examination of the principles upon which this pretended system is founded, forces us to acknowledge, that these principles are only suppositions, imagined by ignorance, propagated by enthusiasm or knavery, adopted by timid credulity, preserved by custom which never reasons, and revered solely because not understood. in a word, whoever uses common sense upon religious opinions, and will bestow on this inquiry the attention that is commonly given to most subjects, will easily perceive that religion is a mere castle in the air. theology is ignorance of natural causes; a tissue of fallacies and contradictions. in every country, it presents romances void of probability, the hero of which is composed of impossible qualities. his name, exciting fear in all minds, is only a vague word, to which, men affix ideas or qualities, which are either contradicted by facts, or inconsistent. notions of this being, or rather, _the word_ by which he is designated, would be a matter of indifference, if it did not cause innumerable ravages in the world. but men, prepossessed with the opinion that this phantom is a reality of the greatest interest, instead of concluding wisely from its incomprehensibility, that they are not bound to regard it, infer on the contrary, that they must contemplate it, without ceasing, and never lose sight of it. their invincible ignorance, upon this subject, irritates their curiosity; instead of putting them upon guard against their imagination, this ignorance renders them decisive, dogmatic, imperious, and even exasperates them against all, who oppose doubts to the reveries which they have begotten. what perplexity arises, when it is required to solve an insolvable problem; unceasing meditation upon an object, impossible to understand, but in which however he thinks himself much concerned, cannot but excite man, and produce a fever in his brain. let interest, vanity, and ambition, co-operate ever so little with this unfortunate turn of mind, and society must necessarily be disturbed. this is the reason that so many nations have often been the scene of extravagances of senseless visionaries, who, believing their empty speculations to be eternal truths, and publishing them as such, have kindled the zeal of princes and their subjects, and made them take up arms for opinions, represented to them as essential to the glory of the deity. in all parts of our globe, fanatics have cut each other's throats, publicly burnt each other, committed without a scruple and even as a duty, the greatest crimes, and shed torrents of blood. for what? to strengthen, support, or propagate the impertinent conjectures of some enthusiasts, or to give validity to the cheats of impostors, in the name of a being, who exists only in their imagination, and who has made himself known only by the ravages, disputes, and follies, he has caused. savage and furious nations, perpetually at war, adore, under divers names, some god, conformable to their ideas, that is to say, cruel, carnivorous, selfish, blood-thirsty. we find, in all the religions, "a god of armies," a "jealous god," an "avenging god," a "destroying god," a "god," who is pleased with carnage, and whom his worshippers consider it a duty to serve. lambs, bulls, children, men, and women, are sacrificed to him. zealous servants of this barbarous god think themselves obliged even to offer up themselves as a sacrifice to him. madmen may everywhere be seen, who, after meditating upon their terrible god, imagine that to please him they must inflict on themselves, the most exquisite torments. the gloomy ideas formed of the deity, far from consoling them, have every where disquieted their minds, and prejudiced follies destructive to happiness. how could the human mind progress, while tormented with frightful phantoms, and guided by men, interested in perpetuating its ignorance and fears? man has been forced to vegetate in his primitive stupidity: he has been taught stories about invisible powers upon whom his happiness was supposed to depend. occupied solely by his fears, and by unintelligible reveries, he has always been at the mercy of priests, who have reserved to themselves the right of thinking for him, and of directing his actions. thus, man has remained a slave without courage, fearing to reason, and unable to extricate himself from the labyrinth, in which he has been wandering. he believes himself forced under the yoke of his gods, known to him only by the fabulous accounts given by his ministers, who, after binding each unhappy mortal in the chains of prejudice, remain his masters, or else abandon him defenceless to the absolute power of tyrants, no less terrible than the gods, of whom they are the representatives. oppressed by the double yoke of spiritual and temporal power, it has been impossible for the people to be happy. religion became sacred, and men have had no other morality, than what their legislators and priests brought from the unknown regions of heaven. the human mind, confused by theological opinions, ceased to know its own powers, mistrusted experience, feared truth and disdained reason, in order to follow authority. man has been a mere machine in the hands of tyrants and priests. always treated as a slave, man has contracted the vices of slavery. such are the true causes of the corruption of morals. ignorance and servitude are calculated to make men wicked and unhappy. knowledge, reason, and liberty, can alone reform and make men happier. but every thing conspires to blind them, and to confirm their errors. priests cheat them, tyrants corrupt and enslave them. tyranny ever was, and ever will be, the true cause of man's depravity, and also of his calamities. almost always fascinated by religious fiction, poor mortals turn not their eyes to the natural and obvious causes of their misery; but attribute their vices to the imperfection of their natures, and their unhappiness to the anger of the gods. they offer to heaven vows, sacrifices, and presents, to obtain the end of sufferings, which in reality, are attributable only to the negligence, ignorance, and perversity of their guides, to the folly of their customs, and above all, to the general want of knowledge. let men's minds be filled with true ideas; let their reason be cultivated; and there will be no need of opposing to the passions, such a feeble barrier, as the fear of gods. men will be good, when they are well instructed; and when they are despised for evil, or justly rewarded for good, which they do to their fellow citizens. in vain should we attempt to cure men of their vices, unless we begin by curing them of their prejudices. it is only by showing them the truth, that they will perceive their true interests, and the real motives that ought to incline them to do good. instructors have long enough fixed men's eyes upon heaven; let them now turn them upon earth. an incomprehensible theology, ridiculous fables, impenetrable mysteries, puerile ceremonies, are to be no longer endured. let the human mind apply itself to what is natural, to intelligible objects, truth, and useful knowledge. does it not suffice to annihilate religious prejudice, to shew, that what is inconceivable to man, cannot be good for him? does it require any thing, but plain common sense, to perceive, that a being, incompatible with the most evident notions--that a cause continually opposed to the effects which we attribute to it--that a being, of whom we can say nothing, without falling into contradiction--that a being, who, far from explaining the enigmas of the universe, only makes them more inexplicable--that a being, whom for so many ages men have vainly addressed to obtain their happiness, and the end of sufferings--does it require, i say, any thing but plain, common sense, to perceive--that the idea of such a being is an idea without model, and that he himself is merely a phantom of the imagination? is any thing necessary but common sense to perceive, at least, that it is folly and madness for men to hate and damn one another about unintelligible opinions concerning a being of this kind? in short, does not every thing prove, that morality and virtue are totally incompatible with the notions of a god, whom his ministers and interpreters have described, in every country, as the most capricious, unjust, and cruel of tyrants, whose pretended will, however, must serve as law and rule the inhabitants of the earth? to discover the true principles of morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of gods: they have need only of common sense. they have only to commune with themselves, to reflect upon their own nature, to consider the objects of society, and of the individuals, who compose it; and they will easily perceive, that virtue is advantageous, and vice disadvantageous to themselves. let us persuade men to be just, beneficent, moderate, sociable; not because such conduct is demanded by the gods, but, because it is pleasant to men. let us advise them to abstain from vice and crime; not because they will be punished in another world, but because they will suffer for it in this.--_these are,_ says montesquieu, _means to prevent crimes--these are punishments; these reform manners--these are good examples._ the way of truth is straight; that of imposture is crooked and dark. truth, ever necessary to man, must necessarily be felt by all upright minds; the lessons of reason are to be followed by all honest men. men are unhappy, only because they are ignorant; they are ignorant, only because every thing conspires to prevent their being enlightened; they are wicked only because their reason is not sufficiently developed. by what fatality then, have the first founders of all sects given to their gods ferocious characters, at which nature revolts? can we imagine a conduct more abominable, than that which moses tells us his god showed towards the egyptians, where that assassin proceeds boldly to declare, in the name and by the order of _his god_, that egypt shall be afflicted with the greatest calamities, that can happen to man? of all the different ideas, which they give us of a supreme being, of a god, creator and preserver of mankind, there are none more horrible, than those of the impostors, who represented themselves as inspired by a divine spirit, and "thus saith the lord." why, o theologians! do you presume to inquire into the impenetrable mysteries of a being, whom you consider inconceivable to the human mind? you are the blasphemers, when you imagine that a being, perfect according to you, could be guilty of such cruelty towards creatures whom he has made out of nothing. confess, your ignorance of a creating god; and cease meddling with mysteries, which are repugnant to _common sense_. detailed table of contents given in the french edition section 1. apologue 2, 3. what is theology? 4. man is not born with any ideas of religion 5. it is not necessary to believe in a god 6. religion is founded on credulity 7. all religion is an absurdity 8. the idea of god is impossible 9. on the origin of superstition 10. on the origin of all religion 11. religious fears expose men to become a prey to imposters 12, 13. religion seduces ignorance by the aid of the marvellous 14. there would never have been any religion, if there had not been ages of stupidity and barbarism 15. all religion was produced by the desire of domination 16. what serves as a basis to religion is most uncertain 17, 18. it is impossible to be convinced of the existence of a god 19. the existence of god is not proved 20. it explains nothing to say, that god is a spirit 21. spirituality is an absurdity 22. whatever exists is derived from matter 23. what is the metaphysical god of modern theology? 24. it would be less unreasonable to adore the sun, than to adore a spiritual deity 25. a spiritual deity is incapable of volition and action 26. what is god? 27. some remarkable contradictions in theology 28. to adore god, is to adore a fiction 29. atheism is authorised by the infinity of god, and the impossibility of knowing the divine essence 30. believing in god is neither safer nor less criminal than not believing in him 31. belief in god is a habit acquired in infancy 32. belief in god is a prejudice established by successive generations 33. on the origin of prejudices 34. on the effects of prejudices 35. the religious principles of modern theology could not be believed if they were not instilled into the mind before the age of reason 36. the wonders of nature do not prove the existence of god 37, 38. nature may be explained by natural causes 39, 40. the world has never been created: matter moves of itself 41. additional proofs that motion is essential to matter, and that consequently it is unnecessary to imagine a spiritual mover 42. the existence of man does not prove the existence of god 43. nevertheless, neither man nor the universe are the effects of chance 44, 45. the order of the universe does not prove the existence of a god 46. a spirit cannot be intelligent it is absurd to adore a divine intelligence 47, 48. all the qualities, which theology gives to its god are contrary to the essence which is attributed to him 49. it is absurd to say that the human race is the object and end of the formation of the universe 50. god is not made for man, nor man for god 51. it is not true that the object of the formation of the universe was to render man happy 52. what is called providence is a word without meaning 53. this pretended providence is the enemy of man 54. the world is not governed by an intelligent being 55. god cannot be considered immutable 56. good and evil are the necessary effects of natural causes. what is a god that cannot change any thing? 57. the consolations of theology and the hope of paradise and of a future life, are imaginary 58. another romantic reverie 59. it is in vain that theology attempts to clear its god from human defects: either this god is not free, or else he is more wicked than good 60, 61. it is impossible to believe that there exists a god of infinite goodness and power 62. theology makes its god a monster of absurdity, injustice, malice, and atrocity 63. all religion inspires contemptible fears 64. there is no difference between religion, and the most somber and servile superstition 65. to judge from the ideas which theology gives of the deity, the love of god is impossible 66. an eternally tormenting god is a most detestable being 67. theology is a tissue of palpable contradictions 68. the pretended works of god do not prove divine perfections 69. the perfection of god is not rendered more evident by the pretended creation of angels 70. theology preaches the omnipotence of its god, yet constantly makes him appear impotent 71. according to all religious systems, god would be the most capricious and most foolish of beings 72. it is absurd to say that evil does not proceed from god 73. the foreknowledge attributed to god would give men a right to complain of his cruelty 74. absurdity of the theological stories concerning original sin, and concerning satan 75. the devil, like religion, was invented to enrich the priests 76. if god has been unable to render human nature incapable of sin, he has no right to punish man 77. it is absurd to say, that the conduct of god ought to be a mystery for man 78. ought the unfortunate look for consolation, to the sole author of their misery 79. a god, who punishes the faults which he might have prevented, is a mad tyrant, who joins injustice to folly 80. what is called free will is an absurdity 81. but we must not conclude that society has no right to punish 82, 83. refutation of the arguments in favour of free will 84. god himself, if there were a god, would not be free: hence the inutility of all religion 85. according to the principles of theology, man is not free a single instant 86. there is no evil, no disorder, and no sin, but must be attributed to god: consequently god has no right either to punish or recompence 87. the prayers offered to god sufficiently prove dissatisfaction of the divine will 88. it is the height of absurdity to imagine, that the injuries and misfortunes, endured in this world, will be repaired in another world 89. theology justifies the evil and the wickedness, permitted by its god, only by attributing to him the principle, that "might makes right," which is the violation of all right 90. the absurd doctrine of redemption, and the frequent exterminations attributed to jehovah, impress one with the idea of an unjust and barbarous god 91. can a being, who has called us into existence merely to make us miserable, be a generous, equitable, and tender father? 92. man's life, and all that occurs, deposes against the liberty of man, and against the justice and goodness of a pretended god 93. it is not true, that we owe any gratitude to what is called _providence_ 94. it is folly to suppose that man is the king of nature, the favourite of god, and unique object of his labours 95. a comparison between man and brutes 96. there are no animals so detestable as tyrants 97. a refutation of the excellence of man 98. an oriental tale 99. it is madness to see nothing but the goodness of god, or to think that this universe is only made for man 100. what is the soul? 101. the existence of a _soul_ is an absurd supposition; and the existence of an _immortal_ soul still more absurd 102. it is evident that man dies _in toto_ 103. incontestible arguments against the spirituality of the soul 104. on the absurdity of the supernatural causes, to which theologians are constantly having recourse 105, 106. it is false that materialism degrades 107. the idea of a future life is only useful to those, who trade on public credulity 108. it is false that the idea of a future life is consoling 109. all religious principles are derived from the imagination. god is a chimera; and the qualities, attributed to him, reciprocally destroy one another 110. religion is but a system imagined in order to reconcile contradictions by the aid of mysteries 111, 112, 113. absurdity and inutility of all mysteries, which were only invented for the interests of priests 114. an universal god ought to have revealed an universal religion 115. what proves, that religion is unnecessary, is, that it is unintelligible 116. all religions are rendered ridiculous by the multitude of creeds, all opposite to one another, and all equally foolish 117. opinion of a famous theologian 118. the god of the deists is not less contradictory, nor less chimerical than the god of the christians 119. it by no means proves the existence of god to say, that, in every age, all nations have acknowledged some deity or other 120. all gods are of a savage origin: all religions are monuments of the ignorance, superstition, and ferocity of former times: modern religions are but ancient follies, re-edited with additions and corrections 121. all religious usages bear marks of stupidity and barbarism 122. the more a religious opinion is ancient and general, the more it ought to be suspected 123. mere scepticism in religious matters, can only be the effect of a very superficial examination 124. revelations examined 125. where is the proof that god ever shewed himself to men, or ever spoke to them? 126. there is nothing that proves miracles to have been ever performed 127. if god has spoken, is it not strange that he should have spoken so differently to the different religious sects? 128. obscurity and suspicious origin of oracles 129. absurdity of all miracles 130. refutation of the reasoning of pascal concerning the manner in which we must judge of miracles 131. every new revelation is necessarily false 132. the blood of martyrs testifies _against_ the truth of miracles, and _against_ the divine origin attributed to christianity 133. the fanaticism of martyrs, and the interested zeal of missionaries, by no means prove the truth of religion 134. theology makes its god an enemy to reason and common sense 135. faith is irreconcilable with reason; and reason is preferable to faith 136. to what absurd and ridiculous sophisms every one is reduced, who would substitute faith for reason! 137. ought a man to believe, on the assurance of another man, what is of the greatest importance to himself 138. faith can take root only in feeble, ignorant, or slothful minds 139. to teach, that any one religion has greater pretensions to truth than another, is an absurdity, and cause of tumult 140. religion is unnecessary to morality 141. religion is the weakest barrier that can be opposed to the passions 142. honour is a more salutary and powerful bond than religion 143. religion does not restrain the passions of kings 144. origin of "the divine right of kings," the most absurd, ridiculous, and odious, of usurpations 145. religion is fatal to political ameliorations: it makes despots licentious and wicked, and their subjects abject and miserable 146. christianity has propagated itself by preaching implicit obedience to despotism 147. one object of religious principles is to eternize the tyranny of kings 148. how fatal it is to persuade kings that they are responsible for their actions to god alone 149. a devout king is the scourge of his kingdom 150. tyranny sometimes finds the aegis of religion a weak obstacle to the despair of the people 151. religion favours the wickedness of princes by delivering them from fear and remorse 152. what is an enlightened sovereign? 153. of the prevailing passions and crimes of the priesthood 154. the quackery of priests 155. religion has corrupted morality, and produced innumerable evils 156. every religion is intolerant 157. the evils of a state religion 158. religion legitimates and authorizes crime 159. refutation of the argument, that the evils attributed to religion are but the bad effects of human passions 160. religion is incompatible with morality 161. the morality of the gospel is impracticable 162. a society of saints would be impossible 163. human nature is not depraved 164. concerning the effects of jesus christ's mission 165. the dogma of the remission of sins was invented for the interest of priests 166. who fear god? 167. hell is an absurd invention 168. the bad foundation of religious morals 169. christian charity, as preached and practised by theologians!!! 170. confession, priestcraft's gold mine, and the destruction of the true principles of morality 171. the supposition of the existence of a god is by no means necessary to morality 172. religion and its supernatural morality are fatal to the public welfare 173. the union of church and state is a calamity 174. national religions are ruinous 175. religion paralyses morality 176. fatal consequences of devotion 177. the idea of a future life is not consoling to man 178. an atheist is fully as conscientious as a religious man, and has better motives for doing good 179. an atheistical king would be far preferable to a religious king 180. philosophy produces morality 181. religious opinions have little influence upon conduct 182. reason leads man to atheism 183. fear alone makes theists 184. can we, and ought we, to love god? 185. god and religion are proved to be absurdities by the different ideas formed of them 186. the existence of god, which is the basis of religion, has not yet been demonstrated 187. priests are more actuated by self-interest, than unbelievers 188. pride, presumption, and badness, are more often found in priests, than in atheists 189. prejudices last but for a time: no power is durable which is not founded upon truth 190. what an honourable power ministers of the gods would obtain, if they became the apostles of reason and the defenders of liberty! 191. what a glorious and happy revolution it would be for the world, if philosophy were substituted for religion! 192. the recantation of an unbeliever at the point of death proves nothing against the reasonableness of unbelief 193. it is not true that atheism breaks the bonds of society 194. refutation of the often repeated opinion, that religion is necessary for the vulgar 195. logical and argumentative systems are not adapted to the capacity of the vulgar 196. on the futility and danger of theology 197, 198. on the evils produced by implicit faith 199. history teaches us, that all religions were established by impostors, in days of ignorance 200. all religions, ancient or modern, have borrowed from one another ridiculous ceremonies 201. theology has always diverted philosophy from its right path 202. theology explains nothing 203, 204. theology has always fettered morality, and retarded progress 205. it cannot be too often repeated and proved, that religion is an extravagance and a calamity 206. religion prevents us from seeing the true causes of misfortunes good sense without god apologue 1. there is a vast empire, governed by a monarch, whose strange conduct is to confound the minds of his subjects. he wishes to be known, loved, respected, obeyed; but never shows himself to his subjects, and everything conspires to render uncertain the ideas formed of his character. the people, subjected to his power, have, of the character and laws of their invisible sovereign, such ideas only, as his ministers give them. they, however, confess, that they have no idea of their master; that his ways are impenetrable; his views and nature totally incomprehensible. these ministers, likewise, disagree upon the commands which they pretend have been issued by the sovereign, whose servants they call themselves. they defame one another, and mutually treat each other as impostors and false teachers. the decrees and ordinances, they take upon themselves to promulgate, are obscure; they are enigmas, little calculated to be understood, or even divined, by the subjects, for whose instruction they were intended. the laws of the concealed monarch require interpreters; but the interpreters are always disputing upon the true manner of understanding them. besides, they are not consistent with themselves; all they relate of their concealed prince is only a string of contradictions. they utter concerning him not a single word that does not immediately confute itself. they call him supremely good; yet many complain of his decrees. they suppose him infinitely wise; and under his administration everything appears to contradict reason. they extol his justice; and the best of his subjects are generally the least favoured. they assert, he sees everything; yet his presence avails nothing. he is, say they, the friend of order; yet throughout his dominions, all is in confusion and disorder. he makes all for himself; and the events seldom answer his designs. he foresees everything; but cannot prevent anything. he impatiently suffers offence, yet gives everyone the power of offending him. men admire the wisdom and perfection of his works; yet his works, full of imperfection, are of short duration. he is continually doing and undoing; repairing what he has made; but is never pleased with his work. in all his undertakings, he proposes only his own glory; yet is never glorified. his only end is the happiness of his subjects; and his subjects, for the most part want necessaries. those, whom he seems to favour are generally least satisfied with their fate; almost all appear in perpetual revolt against a master, whose greatness they never cease to admire, whose wisdom to extol, whose goodness to adore, whose justice to fear, and whose laws to reverence, though never obeyed! this empire is the world; this monarch god; his ministers are the priests; his subjects mankind. 2. there is a science that has for its object only things incomprehensible. contrary to all other sciences, it treats only of what cannot fall under our senses. hobbes calls it the _kingdom of darkness_. it is a country, where every thing is governed by laws, contrary to those which mankind are permitted to know in the world they inhabit. in this marvellous region, light is only darkness; evidence is doubtful or false; impossibilities are credible: reason is a deceitful guide; and good sense becomes madness. this _science_ is called _theology_, and this theology is a continual insult to the reason of man. 3. by the magical power of "ifs," "buts," "perhaps's," "what do we know," etc., heaped together, a shapeless and unconnected system is formed, perplexing mankind, by obliterating from their minds, the most clear ideas and rendering uncertain truths most evident. by reason of this systematic confusion, nature is an enigma; the visible world has disappeared, to give place to regions invisible; reason is compelled to yield to imagination, who leads to the country of her self-invented chimeras. 4. the principles of every religion are founded upon the idea of a god. now, it is impossible to have true ideas of a being, who acts upon none of our senses. all our ideas are representations of sensible objects. what then can represent to us the idea of god, which is evidently an idea without an object? is not such an idea as impossible, as an effect without a cause? can an idea without an archetype be anything, but a chimera? there are, however, divines, who assure us that the idea of god is innate; or that we have this idea in our mother's womb. every principle is the result of reason; all reason is the effect of experience; experience is acquired only by the exercise of our senses: therefore, religious principles are not founded upon reason, and are not innate. 5. every system of religion can be founded only upon the nature of god and man; and upon the relations, which subsist between them. but to judge of the reality of those relations, we must have some idea of the divine nature. now, the world exclaims, the divine nature is incomprehensible to man; yet ceases not to assign attributes to this incomprehensible god, and to assure us, that it is our indispensable duty to find out that god, whom it is impossible to comprehend. the most important concern of man is what he can least comprehend. if god is incomprehensible to man, it would seem reasonable never to think of him; but religion maintains, man cannot with impunity cease a moment to think (or rather dream) of his god. 6. we are told, that divine qualities are not of a nature to be comprehended by finite minds. the natural consequence must be, that divine qualities are not made to occupy finite minds. but religion tells us, that the poor finite mind of man ought never to lose sight of an inconceivable being, whose qualities he can never comprehend. thus, we see, religion is the art of turning the attention of mankind upon subjects they can never comprehend. 7. religion unites man with god, or forms a communication between them; yet do they not say, god is infinite? if god be infinite, no finite being can have communication or relation with him. where there is no relation, there can be no union, communication, or duties. if there be no duties between man and his god, there is no religion for man. thus, in saying god is infinite, you annihilate religion for man, who is a finite being. the idea of infinity is to us an idea without model, without archetype, without object. 8. if god be an infinite being, there cannot be, either in the present or future world, any relative proportion between man and his god. thus, the idea of god can never enter the human mind. in supposition of a life, in which man would be much more enlightened, than in this, the idea of the infinity of god would ever remain the same distance from his finite mind. thus the idea of god will be no more clear in the future, than in the present life. thus, intelligences, superior to man, can have no more complete ideas of god, than man, who has not the least conception of him in his present life. 9. how has it been possible to persuade reasonable beings, that the thing, most impossible to comprehend, was most essential to them? it is because they have been greatly terrified; because, when they fear, they cease to reason; because, they have been taught to mistrust their own understanding; because, when the brain is troubled, they believe every thing, and examine nothing. 10. ignorance and fear are the two hinges of all religion. the uncertainty in which man finds himself in relation to his god, is precisely the motive that attaches him to his religion. man is fearful in the dark--in moral, as well as physical darkness. his fear becomes habitual, and habit makes it natural; he would think that he wanted something, if he had nothing to fear. 11. he, who from infancy has habituated himself to tremble when he hears pronounced certain words, requires those words and needs to tremble. he is therefore more disposed to listen to one, who entertains him in his fears, than to one, who dissuades him from them. the superstitious man wishes to fear; his imagination demands it; one might say, that he fears nothing so much, as to have nothing to fear. men are imaginary invalids, whose weakness empirics are interested to encourage, in order to have sale for their drugs. they listen rather to the physician, who prescribes a variety of remedies, than to him, who recommends good regimen, and leaves nature to herself. 12. if religion were more clear, it would have less charms for the ignorant, who are pleased only with obscurity, terrors, fables, prodigies, and things incredible. romances, silly stories, and the tales of ghosts and wizards, are more pleasing to vulgar minds than true histories. 13. in point of religion, men are only great children. the more a religion is absurd and filled with wonders, the greater ascendancy it acquires over them. the devout man thinks himself obliged to place no bounds to his credulity; the more things are inconceivable, they appear to him divine; the more they are incredible, the greater merit, he imagines, there is in believing them. 14. the origin of religious opinions is generally dated from the time, when savage nations were yet in infancy. it was to gross, ignorant, and stupid people, that the founders of religion have in all ages addressed themselves, when they wished to give them their gods, their mode of worship, their mythology, their marvellous and frightful fables. these chimeras, adopted without examination by parents, are transmitted, with more or less alteration, to their children, who seldom reason any more than their parents. 15. the object of the first legislators was to govern the people; and the easiest method to effect it was to terrify their minds, and to prevent the exercise of reason. they led them through winding bye-paths, lest they might perceive the designs of their guides; they forced them to fix their eyes in the air, for fear they should look at their feet; they amused them on the way with idle stories; in a word, they treated them as nurses do children, who sing lullabies, to put them to sleep, and scold, to make them quiet. 16. the existence of a god is the basis of all religion. few appear to doubt his existence; yet this fundamental article utterly embarrasses every mind that reasons. the first question of every catechism has been, and ever will be, the most difficult to resolve. (in the year 1701, the holy fathers of the oratory of vendome maintained in a thesis, this proposition--that, according to st. thomas, the existence of god is not, and cannot be, a subject of faith.) 17. can we imagine ourselves sincerely convinced of the existence of a being, whose nature we know not; who is inaccessible to all our senses; whose attributes, we are assured, are incomprehensible to us? to persuade me that a being exists or can exist, i must be first told what that being is. to induce me to believe the existence or the possibility of such a being, it is necessary to tell me things concerning him that are not contradictory, and do not destroy one another. in short, to fully convince me of the existence of that being, it is necessary to tell me things that i can understand. 18. a thing is impossible, when it includes two ideas that mutually destroy one another, and which can neither be conceived nor united in thought. conviction can be founded only upon the constant testimony of our senses, which alone give birth to our ideas, and enable us to judge of their agreement or disagreement. that, which exists necessarily, is that, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. these principles, universally acknowledged, become erroneous, when applied to the existence of a god. whatever has been hitherto said upon the subject, is either unintelligible, or perfect contradiction, and must therefore appear absurd to every rational man. 19. all human knowledge is more or less clear. by what strange fatality have we never been able to elucidate the science of god? the most civilized nations, and among them the most profound thinkers, are in this respect no more enlightened than the most savage tribes and ignorant peasants; and, examining the subject closely, we shall find, that, by the speculations and subtle refinements of men, the divine science has been only more and more obscured. every religion has hitherto been founded only upon what is called, in logic, _begging the question_; it takes things for granted, and then proves, by suppositions, instead of principles. 20. metaphysics teach us, that god is a _pure spirit_. but, is modern theology superior to that of the savages? the savages acknowledge a _great spirit_, for the master of the world. the savages, like all ignorant people, attribute to _spirits_ all the effects, of which their experience cannot discover the true causes. ask a savage, what works your watch? he will answer, _it is a spirit_. ask the divines, what moves the universe? they answer, _it is a spirit_. 21. the savage, when he speaks of a spirit, affixes, at least, some idea to the word; he means thereby an agent, like the air, the breeze, the breath, that invisibly produces discernible effects. by subtilizing every thing, the modern theologian becomes as unintelligible to himself as to others. ask him, what he understands by a spirit? he will answer you, that it is an unknown substance, perfectly simple, that has no extension, that has nothing common with matter. indeed, is there any one, who can form the least idea of such a substance? what then is a spirit, to speak in the language of modern theology, but the absence of an idea? the idea of _spirituality_ is an idea without model. 22. is it not more natural and intelligible to draw universal existence from the matter, whose existence is demonstrated by all the senses, and whose effects we experience, which we see act, move, communicate motion, and incessantly generate, than to attribute the formation of things to an unknown power, to a spiritual being, who cannot derive from his nature what he has not himself, and who, by his spiritual essence, can create neither matter nor motion? nothing is more evident, than that the idea they endeavour to give us, of the action of mind upon matter, represents no object. it is an idea without model. 23. the material _jupiter_ of the ancients could move, compose, destroy, and create beings, similar to himself; but the god of modern theology is sterile. he can neither occupy any place in space, nor move matter, nor form a visible world, nor create men or gods. the metaphysical god is fit only to produce confusion, reveries, follies, and disputes. 24. since a god was indispensably requisite to men, why did they not worship the sun, that visible god, adored by so many nations? what being had greater claim to the homage of men, than the day-star, who enlightens, warms, and vivifies all beings; whose presence enlivens and regenerates nature, whose absence seems to cast her into gloom and languor? if any being announced to mankind, power, activity, beneficence, and duration, it was certainly the sun, whom they ought to have regarded as the parent of nature, as the divinity. at least, they could not, without folly, dispute his existence, or refuse to acknowledge his influence. 25. the theologian exclaims to us, that god wants neither hands nor arms to act; that _he acts by his will_. but pray, who or what is that god, who has a will, and what can be the subject of his divine will? are the stories of witches, ghosts, wizards, hobgoblins, etc., more absurd and difficult to believe than the magical or impossible action of mind upon matter? when we admit such a god, fables and reveries may claim belief. theologians treat men as children, whose simplicity makes them believe all the stories they hear. 26. to shake the existence of god, we need only to ask a theologian to speak of him. as soon as he has said a word upon the subject, the least reflection will convince us, that his observations are totally incompatible with the essence he ascribes to his god. what then is god? it is an abstract word, denoting the hidden power of nature; or it is a mathematical point, that has neither length, breadth, nor thickness. david hume, speaking of theologians, has ingeniously observed, _that they have discovered the solution of the famous problem of archimedes--a point in the heavens, whence they move the world_. 27. religion prostrates men before a being, who, without extension, is infinite, and fills all with his immensity; a being, all-powerful, who never executes his will; a being, sovereignly good, who creates only disquietudes; a being, the friend of order, and in whose government all is in confusion and disorder. what then, can we imagine, can be the god of theology? 28. to avoid all embarrassment, we are told, "that it is not necessary to know what god is; that we must adore him; that we are not permitted to extend our views to his attributes." but, before we know that we must adore a god, must we not know certainly, that he exists? but, how can we assure ourselves, that he exists, if we never examine whether the various qualities, attributed to him, do really exist and agree in him? indeed, to adore god, is to adore only the fictions of one's own imagination, or rather, it is to adore nothing. 29. in view of confounding things the more, theologians have not declared what their god is; they tell us only what he is not. by means of negations and abstractions, they think they have composed a real and perfect being. mind is that, which is _not_ body. an infinite being is a being, who is _not_ finite. a perfect being is a being, who is _not_ imperfect. indeed, is there any one, who can form real ideas of such a mass of absence of ideas? that, which excludes all idea, can it be any thing but nothing? to pretend, that the divine attributes are beyond the reach of human conception, is to grant, that god is not made for man. to assure us, that, in god, all is infinite, is to own that there can be nothing common to him and his creatures. if there be nothing common to god and his creatures, god is annihilated for man, or, at least, rendered useless to him. "god," they say, "has made man intelligent, but he has not made him omniscient;" hence it is inferred, that he has not been able to give him faculties sufficiently enlarged to know his divine essence. in this case, it is evident, that god has not been able nor willing to be known by his creatures. by what right then would god be angry with beings, who were naturally incapable of knowing the divine essence? god would be evidently the most unjust and capricious of tyrants, if he should punish an atheist for not having known, what, by his nature, it was impossible he should know. 30. to the generality of men, nothing renders an argument more convincing than fear. it is therefore, that theologians assure us, _we must take the safest part_; that nothing is so criminal as incredulity; that god will punish without pity every one who has the temerity to doubt his existence; that his severity is just, since madness or perversity only can make us deny the existence of an enraged monarch, who without mercy avenges himself on atheists. if we coolly examine these threatenings, we shall find, they always suppose the thing in question. they must first prove the existence of a god, before they assure us, it is safest to believe, and horrible to doubt or deny his existence. they must then prove, that it is possible and consistent, that a just god cruelly punishes men for having been in a state of madness, that prevented their believing the existence of a being, whom their perverted reason could not conceive. in a word, they must prove, that an infinitely just god can infinitely punish the invincible and natural ignorance of man with respect to the divine nature. do not theologians reason very strangely? they invent phantoms, they compose them of contradictions; they then assure us, it is safest not to doubt the existence of these phantoms they themselves have invented. according to this mode of reasoning, there is no absurdity, which it would not be more safe to believe, than not to believe. all children are born atheists; they have no idea of god. are they then criminal on account of their ignorance? at what age must they begin to believe in god? it is, you say, at the age of reason. but at what time should this age commence? besides, if the profoundest theologians lose themselves in the divine nature, which they do not presume to comprehend, what ideas must man have of him? 31. men believe in god only upon the word of those, who have no more idea of him than themselves. our nurses are our first theologians. they talk to children of god as if he were a scarecrow; they teach them from the earliest age to join their hands mechanically. have nurses then more true ideas of god than the children whom they teach to pray? 32. religion, like a family estate, passes, with its incumbrances, from parents to children. few men in the world would have a god, had not pains been taken in infancy to give them one. each would receive from his parents and teachers the god whom they received from theirs; but each, agreeably to his disposition, would arrange, modify, and paint him in his own manner. 33. the brain of man, especially in infancy, is like soft wax, fit to receive every impression that is made upon it. education furnishes him with almost all his ideas at a time, when he is incapable of judging for himself. we believe we have received from nature, or have brought with us at birth, the true or false ideas, which, in a tender age, had been instilled into our minds; and this persuasion is one of the greatest sources of errors. 34. prejudice contributes to cement in us the opinions of those who have been charged with our instruction. we believe them much more experienced than ourselves; we suppose they are fully convinced of the things which they teach us; we have the greatest confidence in them; by the care they have taken of us in infancy, we judge them incapable of wishing to deceive us. these are the motives that make us adopt a thousand errors, without other foundation than the hazardous authority of those by whom we have been brought up. the prohibition likewise of reasoning upon what they teach us, by no means lessens our confidence; but often contributes to increase our respect for their opinions. 35. divines act very wisely in teaching men their religious principles before they are capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood, or their left hand from their right. it would be as difficult to instill into the mind of a man, forty years old, the extravagant notions that are given us of the divinity, as to eradicate them from the mind of him who had imbibed them from infancy. 36. it is observed, that the wonders of nature are sufficient to lead us to the existence of a god, and fully to convince us of this important truth. but how many are there in the world who have the time, capacity, or disposition, necessary to contemplate nature and meditate her progress? men, for the most part, pay no regard to it. the peasant is not struck with the beauty of the sun, which he sees every day. the sailor is not surprised at the regular motion of the ocean; he will never draw from it theological conclusions. the phenomena of nature prove the existence of a god only to some prejudiced men, who have been early taught to behold the finger of god in every thing whose mechanism could embarrass them. in the wonders of nature, the unprejudiced philosopher sees nothing but the power of nature, the permanent and various laws, the necessary effects of different combinations of matter infinitely diversified. 37. is there any thing more surprising than the logic of these divines, who, instead of confessing their ignorance of natural causes, seek beyond nature, in imaginary regions, a cause much more unknown than that nature, of which they can form at least some idea? to say, that god is the author of the phenomena of nature, is it not to attribute them to an occult cause? what is god? what is a spirit? they are causes of which we have no idea. o wise divines! study nature and her laws; and since you can there discover the action of natural causes, go not to those that are supernatural, which, far from enlightening, will only darken your ideas, and make it utterly impossible that you should understand yourselves. 38. nature, you say, is totally inexplicable without a god. that is to say, to explain what you understand very little, you have need of a cause which you understand not at all. you think to elucidate what is obscure, by doubling the obscurity; to solve difficulties, by multiplying them. o enthusiastic philosophers! to prove the existence of a god, write complete treatises of botany; enter into a minute detail of the parts of the human body; launch forth into the sky, to contemplate the revolution of the stars; then return to the earth to admire the course of waters; behold with transport the butterflies, the insects, the polypi, and the organized atoms, in which you think you discern the greatness of your god. all these things will not prove the existence of god; they will prove only, that you have not just ideas of the immense variety of matter, and of the effects, producible by its infinitely diversified combinations, that constitute the universe. they will prove only your ignorance of nature; that you have no idea of her powers, when you judge her incapable of producing a multitude of forms and beings, of which your eyes, even with the assistance of microscopes, never discern but the smallest part. in a word, they will prove, that, for want of knowing sensible agents, or those possible to know, you find it shorter to have recourse to a word, expressing an inconceivable agent. 39. we are gravely and repeatedly told, that, _there is no effect without a cause_; that, _the world did not make itself_. but the universe is a cause, it is not an effect; it is not a work; it has not been made, because it is impossible that it should have been made. the world has always been; its existence is necessary; it is its own cause. nature, whose essence is visibly to act and produce, requires not, to discharge her functions, an invisible mover, much more unknown than herself. matter moves by its own energy, by a necessary consequence of its heterogeneity. the diversity of motion, or modes of mutual action, constitutes alone the diversity of matter. we distinguish beings from one another only by the different impressions or motions which they communicate to our organs. 40. you see, that all is action in nature, and yet pretend that nature, by itself, is dead and without power. you imagine, that this all, essentially acting, needs a mover! what then is this mover? it is a spirit; a being absolutely incomprehensible and contradictory. acknowledge then, that matter acts of itself, and cease to reason of your spiritual mover, who has nothing that is requisite to put it in action. return from your useless excursions; enter again into a real world; keep to _second causes_, and leave to divines their _first cause_, of which nature has no need, to produce all the effects you observe in the world. 41. it can be only by the diversity of impressions and effects, which bodies make upon us, that we feel them; that we have perceptions and ideas of them; that we distinguish one from another; that we assign them properties. now, to see or feel an object, the object must act upon our organs; this object cannot act upon us, without exciting some motion in us; it cannot excite motion in us, if it be not in motion itself. at the instant i see an object, my eyes are struck by it; i can have no conception of light and vision, without motion, communicated to my eye, from the luminous, extended, coloured body. at the instant i smell something, my sense is irritated, or put in motion, by the parts that exhale from the odoriferous body. at the moment i hear a sound, the tympanum of my ear is struck by the air, put in motion by a sonorous body, which would not act if it were not in motion itself. whence it evidently follows, that, without motion, i can neither feel, see, distinguish, compare, judge, nor occupy my thoughts upon any subject whatever. we are taught, that _the essence of a thing is that from which all its properties flow_. now, it is evident, that all the properties of bodies, of which we have ideas, are owing to motion, which alone informs us of their existence, and gives us the first conceptions of them. i cannot be informed of my own existence but by the motions i experience in myself. i am therefore forced to conclude, that motion is as essential to matter as extension, and that matter cannot be conceived without it. should any person deny, that motion is essential and necessary to matter; they cannot, at least, help acknowledging that bodies, which seem dead and inert, produce motion of themselves, when placed in a fit situation to act upon one another. for instance; phosphorus, when exposed to the air, immediately takes fire. meal and water, when mixed, ferment. thus dead matter begets motion of itself. matter has then the power of self-motion; and nature, to act, has no need of a mover, whose pretended essence would hinder him from acting. 42. whence comes man? what is his origin? did the first man spring, ready formed, from the dust of the earth? man appears, like all other beings, a production of nature. whence came the first stones, the first trees, the first lions, the first elephants, the first ants, the first acorns? we are incessantly told to acknowledge and revere the hand of god, of an infinitely wise, intelligent and powerful maker, in so wonderful a work as the human machine. i readily confess, that the human machine appears to me surprising. but as man exists in nature, i am not authorized to say that his formation, is above the power of nature. but i can much less conceive of this formation, when to explain it, i am told, that a pure spirit, who has neither eyes, feet, hands, head, lungs, mouth nor breath, made man by taking a little clay, and breathing upon it. we laugh at the savage inhabitants of paraguay, for calling themselves the descendants of the moon. the divines of europe call themselves the descendants, or the creation, of a pure spirit. is this pretension any more rational? man is intelligent; thence it is inferred, that he can be the work only of an intelligent being, and not of a nature, which is void of intelligence. although nothing is more rare, than to see man make use of this intelligence, of which he seems so proud, i will grant that he is intelligent, that his wants develop this faculty, that society especially contributes to cultivate it. but i see nothing in the human machine, and in the intelligence with which it is endued, that announces very precisely the infinite intelligence of the maker to whom it is ascribed. i see that this admirable machine is liable to be deranged; i see, that his wonderful intelligence is then disordered, and sometimes totally disappears; i infer, that human intelligence depends upon a certain disposition of the material organs of the body, and that we cannot infer the intelligence of god, any more from the intelligence of man, than from his materiality. all that we can infer from it, is, that god is material. the intelligence of man no more proves the intelligence of god, than the malice of man proves the malice of that god, who is the pretended maker of man. in spite of all the arguments of divines, god will always be a cause contradicted by its effects, or of which it is impossible to judge by its works. we shall always see evil, imperfection and folly result from such a cause, that is said to be full of goodness, perfection and wisdom. 43. "what?" you will say, "is intelligent man, is the universe, and all it contains, the effect of _chance_?" no; i repeat it, _the universe is not an effect_; it is the cause of all effects; every being it contains is the necessary effect of this cause, which sometimes shews us its manner of acting, but generally conceals its operations. men use the word _chance_ to hide their ignorance of true causes, which, though not understood, act not less according to certain laws. there is no effect without a cause. nature is a word, used to denote the immense assemblage of beings, various matter, infinite combinations, and diversified motions, that we behold. all bodies, organized or unorganized, are necessary effects of certain causes. nothing in nature can happen by chance. every thing is subject to fixed laws. these laws are only the necessary connection of certain effects with their causes. one atom of matter cannot meet another _by chance_; this meeting is the effect of permanent laws, which cause every being necessarily to act as it does, and hinder it from acting otherwise, in given circumstances. to talk of the _fortuitous concourse of atoms_, or to attribute some effects to chance, is merely saying that we are ignorant of the laws, by which bodies act, meet, combine, or separate. those, who are unacquainted with nature, the properties of beings, and the effects which must necessarily result from the concurrence of certain causes, think, that every thing takes place by chance. it is not chance, that has placed the sun in the centre of our planetary system; it is by its own essence, that the substance, of which it is composed, must occupy that place, and thence be diffused. 44. the worshippers of a god find, in the order of the universe, an invincible proof of the existence of an intelligent and wise being, who governs it. but this order is nothing but a series of movements necessarily produced by causes or circumstances, which are sometimes favourable, and sometimes hurtful to us: we approve of some, and complain of others. nature uniformly follows the same round; that is, the same causes produce the same effects, as long as their action is not disturbed by other causes, which force them to produce different effects. when the operation of causes, whose effects we experience, is interrupted by causes, which, though unknown, are not the less natural and necessary, we are confounded; we cry out, _a miracle!_ and attribute it to a cause much more unknown, than any of those acting before our eyes. the universe is always in order. it cannot be in disorder. it is our machine, that suffers, when we complain of disorder. the bodies, causes, and beings, which this world contains, necessarily act in the manner in which we see them act, whether we approve or disapprove of their effects. earthquakes, volcanoes, inundations, pestilences, and famines are effects as necessary, or as much in the order of nature, as the fall of heavy bodies, the courses of rivers, the periodical motions of the seas, the blowing of the winds, the fruitful rains, and the favourable effects, for which men praise god, and thank him for his goodness. to be astonished that a certain order reigns in the world, is to be surprised that the same causes constantly produce the same effects. to be shocked at disorder, is to forget, that when things change, or are interrupted in their actions, the effects can no longer be the same. to wonder at the order of nature, is to wonder that any thing can exist; it is to be surprised at any one's own existence. what is order to one being, is disorder to another. all wicked beings find that every thing is in order, when they can with impunity put every thing in disorder. they find, on the contrary, that every thing is in disorder, when they are disturbed in the exercise of their wickedness. 45. upon supposition that god is the author and mover of nature, there could be no disorder with respect to him. would not all the causes, that he should have made, necessarily act according to the properties, essences, and impulses given them? if god should change the ordinary course of nature, he would not be immutable. if the order of the universe, in which man thinks he sees the most convincing proof of the existence, intelligence, power and goodness of god, should happen to contradict itself, one might suspect his existence, or, at least, accuse him of inconstancy, impotence, want of foresight and wisdom in the arrangement of things; one would have a right to accuse him of an oversight in the choice of the agents and instruments, which he makes, prepares, and puts in action. in short, if the order of nature proves the power and intelligence of the deity, disorder must prove his weakness, instability, and irrationality. you say, that god is omnipresent, that he fills the universe with his immensity, that nothing is done without him, that matter could not act without his agency. but in this case, you admit, that your god is the author of disorder, that it is he who deranges nature, that he is the father of confusion, that he is in man, and moves him at the moment he sins. if god is every where, he is in me, he acts with me, he is deceived with me, he offends god with me, and combats with me the existence of god! o theologians! you never understand yourselves, when you speak of god. 46. in order to have what we call intelligence, it is necessary to have ideas, thoughts, and wishes; to have ideas, thoughts, and wishes, it is necessary to have organs; to have organs, it is necessary to have a body; to act upon bodies, it is necessary to have a body; to experience disorder, it is necessary to be capable of suffering. whence it evidently follows, that a pure spirit can neither be intelligent, nor affected by what passes in the universe. divine intelligence, ideas, and views, have, you say, nothing common with those of men. very well. how then can men judge, right or wrong, of these views; reason upon these ideas; or admire this intelligence? this would be to judge, admire, and adore that, of which we can have no ideas. to adore the profound views of divine wisdom, is it not to adore that, of which we cannot possibly judge? to admire these views, is it not to admire without knowing why? admiration is always the daughter of ignorance. men admire and adore only what they do not comprehend. 47. all those qualities, ascribed to god, are totally incompatible with a being, who, by his very essence, is void of all analogy with human beings. it is true, the divines imagine they extricate themselves from this difficulty, by exaggerating the human qualities, attributed to the divinity; they enlarge them to infinity, where they cease to understand themselves. what results from this combination of man with god? a mere chimera, of which, if any thing be affirmed, the phantom, combined with so much pains, instantly vanishes. dante, in his poem upon _paradise_, relates, that the deity appeared to him under the figure of three circles, forming an iris, whose lively colours generated each other; but that, looking steadily upon the dazzling light, he saw only his own figure. while adoring god, it is himself, that man adores. 48. ought not the least reflection suffice to prove, that god can have none of the human qualities, all ties, virtues, or perfections? our virtues and perfections are consequences of the modifications of our passions. but has god passions as we have? again: our good qualities consist in our dispositions towards the beings with whom we live in society. god, according to you, is an insulated being. god has no equals--no fellow-beings. god does not live in society. he wants the assistance of no one. he enjoys an unchangeable felicity. admit then, according to your own principles, that god cannot have what we call virtues, and that man cannot be virtuous with respect to him. 49. man, wrapped up in his own merit, imagines the human race to be the sole object of god in creating the universe. upon what does he found this flattering opinion? we are told: that man is the only being endued with intelligence, which enables him to know the deity, and to render him homage. we are assured, that god made the world only for his own glory, and that it was necessary that the human species should come into this plan, that there might be some one to admire his works, and glorify him for them. but, according to these suppositions, has not god evidently missed his object? 1st. man, according to yourselves, will always labour under the completest impossibility of knowing his god, and the most invincible ignorance of his divine essence. 2ndly. a being, who has no equal, cannot be susceptible of glory; for glory can result only from the comparison of one's own excellence with that of others. 3rdly. if god be infinitely happy, if he be self-sufficient, what need has he of the homage of his feeble creatures? 4thly. god, notwithstanding all his endeavours, is not glorified; but, on the contrary, all the religions in the world represent him as perpetually offended; their sole object is to reconcile sinful, ungrateful, rebellious man with his angry god. 50. if god be infinite, he has much less relation with man, than man with ants. would the ants reason pertinently concerning the intentions, desires, and projects of the gardener? could they justly imagine, that a park was planted for them alone, by an ostentatious monarch, and that the sole object of his goodness was to furnish them with a superb residence? but, according to theology, man is, with respect to god, far below what the vilest insect is to man. thus, by theology itself, which is wholly devoted to the attributes and views of the divinity, theology appears a complete folly. 51. we are told, that, in the formation of the universe, god's only object was the happiness of man. but, in a world made purposely for him, and governed by an omnipotent god, is man in reality very happy? are his enjoyments durable? are not his pleasures mixed with pains? are many persons satisfied with their fate? is not man continually the victim of physical and moral evils? is not the human machine, which is represented as a master-piece of the creator's skill, liable to derangement in a thousand ways? should we be surprised at the workmanship of a mechanic, who should shew us a complex machine, ready to stop every moment, and which, in a short time, would break in pieces of itself? 52. the generous care, displayed by the deity in providing for the wants, and watching over the happiness of his beloved creatures, is called _providence_. but, when we open our eyes, we find that god provides nothing. providence sleeps over the greater part of the inhabitants of this world. for a very small number of men who are supposed to be happy, what an immense multitude groan under oppression, and languish in misery! are not nations forced to deprive themselves of bread, to administer to the extravagances of a few gloomy tyrants, who are no happier than their oppressed slaves? at the same time that our divines emphatically expatiate upon the goodness of providence, while they exhort us to repose our confidence in her, do we not hear them, at the sight of unforeseen catastrophes, exclaim, that _providence sports with the vain projects of man_, that she frustrates their designs, that she laughs at their efforts, that profound wisdom delights to bewilder the minds of mortals? but, shall we put confidence in a malignant providence, who laughs at, and sports with mankind? how will one admire the unknown ways of a hidden wisdom, whose manner of acting is inexplicable? judge of it by effects, you will say. we do; and find, that these effects are sometimes useful, and sometimes hurtful. men think they justify providence, by saying, that, in this world, there is much more good than evil to every individual of mankind. supposing the good, we enjoy from providence, is to the evil, as a _hundred to ten_; will it not still follow, that, for a hundred degrees of goodness, providence possesses ten of malignity; which is incompatible with the supposed perfection of the divine nature. almost all books are filled with the most flattering praises of providence, whose attentive care is highly extolled. it would seem as if man, to live happily here below, needed not his own exertions. yet, without his own labour, man could subsist hardly a day. to live, he is obliged to sweat, toil, hunt, fish, and labour without intermission. without these second causes, the first cause, at least in most countries, would provide for none of our wants. in all parts of the globe, we see savage and civilized man in a perpetual struggle with providence. he is necessitated to ward off the strokes directed against him by providence, in hurricanes, tempests, frosts, hail-storms, inundations, droughts, and the various accidents, which so often render useless all his labours. in a word, we see man continually occupied in guarding against the ill offices of that providence, which is supposed to be attentive to his happiness. a bigot admired divine providence for wisely ordering rivers to pass through those places, where men have built large cities. is not this man's reasoning as rational, as that of many learned men, who incessantly talk of _final causes_, or who pretend that they clearly perceive the beneficent views of god in the formation of all things? 53. do we see then, that providence so very sensibly manifests herself in the preservation of those admirable works, which we attribute to her? if it is she, who governs the world, we find her as active in destroying, as in forming; in exterminating, as in producing. does she not every moment destroy, by thousands, the very men, to whose preservation and welfare we suppose her continually attentive? every moment she loses sight of her beloved creature. sometimes she shakes his dwelling, sometimes she annihilates his harvests, sometimes she inundates his fields, sometimes she desolates them by a burning drought. she arms all nature against man. she arms man himself against his own species, and commonly terminates his existence in anguish. is this then what is called preserving the universe? if we could view, without prejudice, the equivocal conduct of providence towards the human race and all sensible beings, we should find, that far from resembling a tender and careful mother, she resembles rather those unnatural mothers, who instantly forgetting the unfortunates of their licentious love, abandon their infants, as soon as they are born, and who, content with having borne them, expose them, helpless, to the caprice of fortune. the hottentots, in this respect are much wiser than other nations, who treat them as barbarians, and refuse to worship god; because, they say, _if he often does good, he often does evil_. is not this manner of reasoning more just and conformable to experience, than that of many men, who are determined to see, in their god, nothing but goodness, wisdom, and foresight, and who refuse to see that the innumerable evils, of which this world is the theatre, must come from the same hand, which they kiss with delight? 54. common sense teaches, that we cannot, and ought not, to judge of a cause, but by its effects. a cause can be reputed constantly good, only when it constantly produces good. a cause, which produces both good and evil, is sometimes good, and sometimes evil. but the logic of theology destroys all this. according to that, the phenomena of nature, or the effects we behold in this world, prove to us the existence of a cause infinitely good; and this cause is god. although this world is full of evils; although disorder often reigns in it; although men incessantly repine at their hard fate; we must be convinced, that these effects are owing to a beneficent and immutable cause; and many people believe it, or feign believe. every thing that passes in the world, proves to us, in the clearest manner, that it is not governed by an intelligent being. we can judge of the intelligence of a being only by the conformity of the means, which he employs to attain his proposed object. the object of god, is the happiness of a man. yet, a like necessity governs the fate of all sensible beings, who are born only to suffer much, enjoy little, and die. the cup of man is filled with joy and bitterness; good is every where attended with evil; order gives place to disorder; generation is followed by destruction. if you say, that the designs of god are mysterious and that his ways are impenetrable; i answer, that, in this case, it is impossible to judge whether god be intelligent. 55. you pretend, that god is immutable! what then produces a continual instability in this world, which you make his empire? is there a state, subject to more frequent and cruel revolutions, than that of this unknown monarch? how can we attribute to an immutable god, sufficiently powerful to give solidity to his works, a government, in which every thing is in continual vicissitude? if i imagine i see a god of uniform character in all the effects favourable to my species, what kind of a god can i see in their continual misfortunes? you tell me, it is our sins, which compel him to punish. i answer, that god, according to yourselves, is then not immutable, since the sins of men force him to change his conduct towards them. can a being, who is sometimes provoked, and sometimes appeased, be constantly the same? 56. the universe can be only what it is; all sensible beings in it enjoy and suffer; that is, are moved sometimes in an agreeable, and sometimes in a disagreeable manner. these effects are necessary; they result necessarily from causes, which act only according to their properties. these effects necessarily please, or displease, by a consequence of nature. this same nature compels me to avoid, avert, and resist some things, and to seek, desire, and procure others. in a world, where every thing is necessary, a god, who remedies nothing, who leaves things to run in their necessary course,--is he any thing but destiny, or necessity personified? it is a deaf and useless god, who can effect no change in general laws, to which he is himself subject. of what importance is the infinite power of a being, who will do but very little in my favour? where is the infinite goodness of a being, indifferent to happiness? of what service is the favour of a being, who, is able to do an infinite good, does not do even a finite one? 57. when we ask, why so many miserable objects appear under the government of a good god, we are told, by way of consolation, that the present world is only a passage, designed to conduct man to a happier one. the divines assure us, that the earth we inhabit, is a state of trial. in short, they shut our mouths, by saying, that god could communicate to his creatures neither impossibility nor infinite happiness, which are reserved for himself alone. can such answers be satisfactory? 1st. the existence of another life is guaranteed to us only by the imagination of man, who, by supposing it, have only realized the desire they have of surviving themselves, in order to enjoy hereafter a purer and more durable happiness. 2ndly. how can we conceive that a god, who knows every thing, and must be fully acquainted with the dispositions of his creatures, should want so many experiments, in order to be sure of their dispositions? 3rdly. according to the calculations of their chronologists, our earth has existed six or seven thousand years. during that time, nations have experienced calamities. history exhibits the human species at all times tormented and ravaged by tyrants, conquerors, and heroes; by wars, inundations, famines, plagues, etc. are such long trials then likely to inspire us with very great confidence in the secret views of the deity? do such numerous and constant evils give a very exalted idea of the future state, his goodness is preparing for us? 4thly. if god is so kindly disposed, as he is asserted to be, without giving men infinite happiness, could he not at least have communicated the degree of happiness, of which finite beings are susceptible here below? to be happy, must we have an _infinite_ or _divine_ happiness? 5thly. if god could not make men happier than they are here below, what will become of the hope of a _paradise_, where it is pretended, that the elect will for ever enjoy ineffable bliss? if god neither could nor would avert evil from the earth, the only residence we can know, what reason have we to presume, that he can or will avert evil from another world, of which we have no idea? epicurus observed: "either god would remove evil out of this world, and cannot; or he can, and will not; or he has neither the power nor will; or, lastly, he has both the power and will. if he has the will, and not the power, this shews weakness, which is contrary to the nature of god. if he has the power, and not the will, it is malignity; and this is no less contrary to his nature. if he is neither able nor willing, he is both impotent and malignant, and consequently cannot be god. if he be both willing and able (which alone is consonant to the nature of god) whence comes evil, or why does he not prevent it?" reflecting minds are still waiting for a reasonable solution of these difficulties; and our divines tell us, that they will be removed only in a future life. 58. we are told of a pretended _scale of beings_. it is supposed, that god has divided his creatures into different classes, in which each enjoys the degree of happiness, of which it is susceptible. according to this romantic arrangement, from the oyster to the celestial angels, all beings enjoy a happiness, which is suitable to their nature. experience explicitly contradicts this sublime reverie. in this world, all sensible beings suffer and live in the midst of dangers. man cannot walk without hurting, tormenting, or killing a multitude of sensible beings, which are in his way; while he himself is exposed, at every step, to a multitude of evils, foreseen or unforeseen, which may lead him to destruction. during the whole course of his life, he is exposed to pains; he is not sure, a moment, of his existence, to which he is so strongly attached, and which he regards as the greatest gift of the divinity. 59. the world, it will be said, has all the perfection, of which it is susceptible: since it is not god who made it, it must have great qualities and great defects. but we answer, that, as the world must necessarily have great defects, it would have been more conformable to the nature of a good god, not to have created a world, which he could not make completely happy. if god was supremely happy, before the creation of the world, and could have continued to be supremely happy, without creating the world, why did he not remain at rest? why must man suffer? why must man exist? of what importance is his existence to god? nothing, or something? if man's existence is not useful or necessary to god, why did god make man? if man's existence is necessary to god's glory, he had need of man; he was deficient in something before man existed. we can pardon an unskilful workman for making an imperfect work; because he must work, well or ill, upon penalty of starving. this workman is excusable, but god is not. according to you, he is self-sufficient; if so, why does he make men? he has, you say, every thing requisite to make man happy. why then does he not do it? confess, that your god has more malice than goodness, unless you admit, that god, was necessitated to do what he has done, without being able to do it otherwise. yet, you assure us, that god is free. you say also, that he is immutable, although it was in _time_ that he began and ceased to exercise his power, like the inconstant beings of this world. o theologians! vain are your efforts to free your god from defects. this perfect god has always some human imperfections. 60. "is not god master of his favours? can he not give them? can he not take them away? it does not belong to his creatures to require reasons for his conduct. he can dispose of the works of his own hands as he pleases. absolute sovereign of mortals, he distributes happiness or misery, according to his good pleasure." such are the solutions given by theologians to console us for the evils which god inflicts upon us. we reply, that a god, who is infinitely good, cannot be _master of his favours_, but would by his nature be obliged to bestow them upon his creatures; that a being, truly beneficent, cannot refrain from doing good; that a being, truly generous, does not take back what he has given; and that every man, who does so, dispenses with gratitude, and has no right to complain of finding ungrateful men. how can the odd and capricious conduct, which theologians ascribe to god, be reconciled with religion, which supposes a covenant, or mutual engagements between god and men? if god owes nothing to his creatures, they, on their part, can owe nothing to their god. all religion is founded upon the happiness that men think they have a right to expect from the deity, who is supposed to say to them: _love me, adore me, obey me: and i will make you happy_. men, on their part, say to him: _make us happy, be faithful to your promises, and we will love you, we will adore you, and obey your laws_. by neglecting the happiness of his creatures, distributing his favours according to his caprice, and retracting his gifts, does not god break the covenant, which serves as the basis of all religion? cicero has justly observed, that _if god is not agreeable to man, he cannot be his god_. goodness constitutes deity; this goodness can be manifested to man only by the blessings he enjoys; as soon as he is unhappy, this goodness disappears, and with it the divinity. an infinite goodness can be neither limited, partial, nor exclusive. if god be infinitely good, he owes happiness to all his creatures. the unhappiness of a single being would suffice to annihilate unbounded goodness. under an infinitely good and powerful god, is it possible to conceive that a single man should suffer? one animal, or mite, that suffers, furnishes invincible arguments against divine providence and its infinite goodness. 61. according to theology, the afflictions and evils of this life are chastisements, which guilty men incur from the hand of god. but why are men guilty? if god is omnipotent, does it cost him more to say: "let every thing in the world be in order; let all my subjects be good, innocent, and fortunate," than to say: "let every thing exist"? was it more difficult for this god to do his work well, than badly? religion tells us of a hell; that is, a frightful abode, where, notwithstanding his goodness, god reserves infinite torments for the majority of men. thus after having rendered mortals very unhappy in this world, religion tells them, that god can render them still more unhappy in another! the theologian gets over this, by saying, that the goodness of god will then give place to his justice. but a goodness, which gives place to the most terrible cruelty, is not an infinite goodness. besides, can a god, who, after having been infinitely good, becomes infinitely bad, be regarded as an immutable being? can we discern the shadow of clemency or goodness, in a god filled with implacable fury? 62. divine justice, as stated by our divines, is undoubtedly a quality very proper to cherish in us the love of the divinity. according to the ideas of modern theology, it is evident, that god has created the majority of men, with the sole view of putting them in a fair way to incur eternal punishment. would it not have been more conformable to goodness, reason, and equity, to have created only stones or plants, and not to have created sensible beings; than to have formed men, whose conduct in this world might subject them to endless punishment in the other? a god perfidious and malicious enough to create a single man, and then to abandon him to the danger of being damned, cannot be regarded as a perfect being; but as an unreasonable, unjust, and ill-natured. very far from composing a perfect god, theologians have formed the most imperfect of beings. according to theological notions, god would resemble a tyrant, who, having put out the eyes of the greater part of his slaves, should shut them up in a dungeon, where, for his amusement, he would, incognito, observe their conduct through a trap-door, in order to punish with rigour all those, who, while walking about, should hit against each other; but who would magnificently reward the few whom he had not deprived of sight, in avoiding to run against their comrades. such are the ideas, which the dogma of gratuitous predestination gives us of the divinity! although men are continually repeating that their god is infinitely good; yet it is evident, that in reality, they can believe nothing of the kind. how can we love what we do not know? how can we love a being, whose character is only fit to throw us into inquietude and trouble? how can we love a being, of whom all that is said tends to render him an object of utter detestation? 63. many people make a subtle distinction between true religion and superstition. they say, that the latter is only a base and inordinate fear of the deity; but that the truly religious man has confidence in his god, and loves him sincerely; whereas, the superstitious man sees in him only an enemy, has no confidence in him, and represents him to himself as a distrustful, cruel tyrant, sparing of his benefits, lavish of his chastisements. but, in reality, does not all religion give us the same ideas of god? at the same time that we are told, that god is infinitely good, are we not also told, that he is very easily provoked, that he grants his favours to a few people only, and that he furiously chastises those, to whom he has not been pleased to grant favours? 64. if we take our ideas of god from the nature of things, where we find a mixture of good and evil, this god, just like the good and evil of which we experience, must naturally appear capricious, inconstant, sometimes good, and sometimes malevolent; and therefore, instead of exciting our love, must generate distrust, fear, and uncertainty. there is then no real difference between natural religion, and the most gloomy and servile superstition. if the theist sees god only in a favourable light; the bigot views him in the most hideous light. the folly of the one is cheerful, that of the other is melancholy; but both are equally delirious. 65. if i draw my ideas of god from theology, he appears to inspire aversion. devotees, who tell us, that they sincerely love their god, are either liars or fools, who see their god only in profile. it is impossible to love a being, the very idea of whom strikes us with terror, and whose judgments make us tremble. how can we, without being alarmed, look upon a god, who is reputed to be barbarous enough to damn us? let not divines talk to us of a filial, or respectful fear, mixed with love, which men ought to have for their god. a son can by no means love his father, when he knows him to be cruel enough to inflict upon him studied torments for the least faults he may commit. no man upon earth can have the least spark of love for a god, who reserves chastisements, infinite in duration and violence, for ninety-nine hundredths of his children. 66. the inventors of the dogma of eternal hell-torments have made of that god, whom they call so good, the most detestable of beings. cruelty in men is the last act of wickedness. every sensible mind must revolt at the bare recital of the torments, inflicted on the greatest criminal; but cruelty is much more apt to excite indignation, when void of motives. the most sanguinary tyrants, the caligulas, the neros, the domitians, had, at least, some motives for tormenting their victims. these motives were, either their own safety, or the fury of revenge, or the design of frightening by terrible examples, or perhaps the vanity of making a display of their power, and the desire of satisfying a barbarous curiosity. can a god have any of these motives? in tormenting the victims of his wrath, he would punish beings, who could neither endanger his immoveable power, nor disturb his unchangeable felicity. on the other hand, the punishments of the other life would be useless to the living, who cannot be witnesses of them. these punishments would be useless to the damned, since in hell there is no longer room for conversion, and the time of mercy is past. whence it follows, that god, in the exercise of his eternal vengeance, could have no other end than to amuse himself, and insult the weakness of his creatures. i appeal to the whole human race;--is there a man who feels cruel enough coolly to torment, i do not say his fellow-creature, but any sensible being whatever, without emolument, without profit, without curiosity, without having any thing to fear? confess then, o theologians, that, even according to your own principles, your god is infinitely more malevolent than the worst of men. perhaps you will say, that infinite offences deserve infinite punishments. i answer, that we cannot offend a god, whose happiness is infinite; that the offences of finite beings cannot be infinite; that a god, who is unwilling to be offended, cannot consent that the offences of his creatures should be eternal; that a god, infinitely good, can neither be infinitely cruel, nor grant his creatures an infinite duration, solely for the pleasure of eternal torments. nothing but the most savage barbarity, the most egregious roguery, or the blindest ambition could have imagined the doctrine of eternal punishments. if there is a god, whom we can offend or blaspheme, there are not upon earth greater blasphemers than those, who dare to say, that this same god is a tyrant, perverse enough to delight, during eternity, in the useless torments of his feeble creatures. 67. to pretend, that god can be offended at the actions of men, is to annihilate all the ideas, which divines endeavour to give us, in other respects, of this being. to say, that man can trouble the order of the universe; that he can kindle the thunder in the hands of his god; that he can defeat his projects, is to say, that man is stronger than his god, that he is the arbiter of his will, that it depends upon him to change his goodness into cruelty. theology continually pulls down, with one hand, what it erects with the other. if all religion is founded upon a god, who is provoked and appeased, all religion is founded on a palpable contradiction. all religions agree in exalting the wisdom and infinite power of the deity. but no sooner do they display his conduct, than we see nothing but imprudence, want of foresight, weakness and folly. god, it is said, created the world for himself; and yet, hitherto, he has never been able to make himself suitably honoured by it. god created men in order to have, in his dominions, subjects to render him their homage; and yet, we see men in continual revolt against him. 68. they incessantly extol the divine perfections; and when we demand proofs of them, they point to his works, in which, they assure us, these perfections are written in indelible characters. all these works are, however, imperfect and perishable. man, who is ever regarded as the most marvellous work, as the master-piece of the deity, is full of imperfections, which render him disagreeable to the eyes of the almighty being, who formed him. this surprising work often becomes so revolting and odious to its author, that he is obliged to throw it into the fire. but, if the fairest of god's works is imperfect, how can we judge of the divine perfections? can a work, with which the author himself is so little pleased, induce us to admire the ability of its maker? man, considered in a physical sense, is subject to a thousand infirmities, to numberless evils, and to death. man, considered in a moral sense, is full of faults; yet we are unceasingly told, that he is the most beautiful work of the most perfect of beings. 69. in creating beings more perfect than men, it appears, that heretofore god has not better succeeded, nor given stronger proofs of his perfection. do we not see, in many religions, that angels, have even attempted to dethrone him? god proposed the happiness of angels and men; yet, he has never been able to render happy either angels or men;--the pride, malice, sins, and imperfections of the creatures have always opposed the will of the perfect creator. 70. all religion is obviously founded upon this principle, that _god does what he can, and man what he will_. every system of religion presents to us an unequal combat between the deity on one part, and his creatures on the other, in which the former never comes off to his honour. notwithstanding his omnipotence, he cannot succeed in rendering the works of his hands such as he would have them. to complete the absurdity, there is a religion, which pretends, that god himself has died to redeem mankind; and yet, men are not farther from any thing, than they are from what god would have them. 71. nothing is more extravagant, than the part, theology makes the divinity act in every country. did he really exist, we should see in him the most capricious, and senseless being. we should be compelled to believe, that god made the world only to be the theatre of his disgraceful wars with his creatures; that he created angels, men, and demons, only to make adversaries, against whom he might exercise his power. he renders men free to offend him, malicious enough to defeat his projects, too obstinate to submit; and all this merely for the pleasure of being angry, appeased, reconciled, and of repairing the disorder they have made. had the deity at once formed his creatures such as he would have them, what pains would he not have spared himself, or, at least, from what embarrassments would he not have relieved his theologians! every religion represents god as busy only in doing himself evil. he resembles those empirics, who inflict upon themselves wounds, to have an opportunity of exhibiting to the public the efficacy of their ointment. but we see not, that the deity has hitherto been able radically to cure himself of the evil, which he suffers from man. 72. god is the author of all; and yet, we are assured that evil does not come from god. whence then does it come? from man. but, who made man? god. evil then comes from god. if he had not made man as he is, moral evil or sin would not have existed in the world. the perversity of man is therefore chargeable to god. if man has power to do evil, or to offend god, we are forced to infer, that god chooses to be offended; that god, who made man, has resolved that man shall do evil; otherwise man would be an effect contrary to the cause, from which he derives his being. 73. man ascribes to god the faculty of foreseeing, or knowing beforehand whatever will happen; but this prescience seldom turns to his glory, nor protects him from the lawful reproaches of man. if god foreknows the future, must he not have foreseen the fall of his creatures? if he resolved in his decrees to permit this fall, it is undoubtedly because it was his will that this fall should take place, otherwise it could not have happened. if god's foreknowledge of the sins of his creatures had been necessary or forced, one might suppose, that he has been constrained by his justice to punish the guilty; but, enjoying the faculty of foreseeing, and the power of predetermining every thing, did it not depend upon god not to impose upon himself cruel laws, or, at least, could he not dispense with creating beings, whom he might be under the necessity of punishing, and rendering unhappy by a subsequent decree? of what consequence is it, whether god has destined men to happiness or misery by an anterior decree, an effect of his prescience, or by a posterior decree, an effect of his justice? does the arrangement of his decrees alter the fate of the unhappy? would they not have the same right to complain of a god, who, being able to omit their creation, has notwithstanding created them, although he plainly foresaw that his justice would oblige him, sooner or later, to punish them? 74. "man," you say, "when he came from the hand of god, was pure, innocent, and good; but his nature has been corrupted, as a punishment for sin." if man, when just out of the hands of his god, could sin, his nature was imperfect. why did god suffer him to sin, and his nature to be corrupted? why did god permit him to be seduced, well knowing that he was too feeble to resist temptation? why did god create _satan_, an evil spirit, a tempter? why did not god, who wishes so much good to the human race, annihilate once for all so many evil genii, who are naturally enemies of our happiness; or rather, why did god create evil spirits, whose victories and fatal influence over mankind, he must have foreseen? in fine, by what strange fatality in all religions of the world, has the evil principle such a decided advantage over the good principle, or the divinity? 75. there is related an instance of simplicity, which does honour to the heart of an italian monk. one day, while preaching, this pious man thought he must announce to his audience, that he had, thank heaven, at last discovered, by dint of meditation, a sure way of rendering all men happy. "the devil," said he, "tempts men only to have in hell companions of his misery. let us therefore apply to the pope, who has the keys of heaven and hell; let us prevail upon him to pray to god, at the head of the whole church, to consent to a reconciliation with the devil, to restore him to favour, to reinstate him in his former rank, which cannot fail to put an end to his malicious projects against mankind." perhaps the honest monk did not see, that the devil is at least as useful as god to the ministers of religion. they have too much interest in their dissensions, to be instrumental in an accommodation between two enemies, upon whose combats their own existence and revenues depend. let men cease to be tempted and to sin, and the ministry of priests will be useless. manicheism is evidently the hinge of every religion; but unhappily, the devil, invented to clear the deity from the suspicion of malice, proves to us, every moment, the impotence or unskilfulness of his celestial adversary. 76. the nature of man, it is said, was necessarily liable to corruption. god could not communicate to him _impeccability_, which is an inalienable attribute of his divine perfection. but if god could not make man impeccable, why did he give himself the pains to make man, whose nature must necessarily be corrupted, and who must consequently offend god? on the other hand, if god himself could not make human nature impeccable, by what right does he punish men for not being impeccable? it can be only by the right of the strongest; but the right of the strongest is called violence, and violence cannot be compatible with the justest of beings. god would be supremely unjust, should he punish men for not sharing with him his divine perfections, or for not being able to be gods like him. could not god, at least, have communicated to all men that kind of perfection, of which their nature is susceptible? if some men are good, or render themselves agreeable to their god, why has not that god done the same favour, or given the same dispositions to all beings of our species? why does the number of the wicked so much exceed the number of the good? why, for one friend, has god ten thousand enemies, in a world, which it depended entirely upon him to people with honest men? if it be true, that, in heaven, god designs to form a court of saints, of elect, or of men who shall have lived upon earth conformably to his views, would he not have had a more numerous, brilliant, and honourable assembly, had he composed it of all men, to whom, in creating them, he could grant the degree of goodness, necessary to attain eternal happiness? finally, would it not have been shorter not to have made man, than to have created him a being full of faults, rebellious to his creator, perpetually exposed to cause his own destruction by a fatal abuse of his liberty? instead of creating men, a perfect god ought to have created only angels very docile and submissive. angels, it is said, are free; some have sinned; but, at any rate, all have not abused their liberty by revolting against their master. could not god have created only angels of the good kind? if god has created angels, who have not sinned, could he not have created impeccable men, or men who should never abuse their liberty? if the elect are incapable of sinning in heaven, could not god have made impeccable men upon earth? 77. divines never fail to persuade us, that the enormous distance which separates god and man, necessarily renders the conduct of god a mystery to us, and that we have no right to interrogate our master. is this answer satisfactory? since my eternal happiness is at stake, have i not a right to examine the conduct of god himself? it is only in hope of happiness that men submit to the authority of a god. a despot, to whom men submit only through fear, a master, whom they cannot interrogate, a sovereign totally inaccessible, can never merit the homage of intelligent beings. if the conduct of god is a mystery, it is not made for us. man can neither adore, admire, respect, nor imitate conduct, in which every thing is inconceivable, or, of which he can often form only revolting ideas; unless it is pretended, that we ought to adore every thing of which we are forced to be ignorant, and that every thing, which we do not know, becomes for that reason an object of admiration. divines! you never cease telling us, that the designs of god are impenetrable; that _his ways are not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts_; that it is absurd to complain of his administration, of the motives and springs of which we are totally ignorant; that it is presumption to tax his judgments with injustice, because we cannot comprehend them. but when you speak in this strain, do you not perceive, that you destroy with your own hands all your profound systems, whose only end is to explain to us the ways of the divinity, which, you say, are impenetrable? have you penetrated his judgments, his ways, his designs? you dare not assert it, and though you reason about them without end, you do not comprehend them any more than we do. if, by chance, you know the plan of god, which you wish us to admire, while most people find it so little worthy of a just, good, intelligent, and reasonable being, no longer say, this plan is impenetrable. if you are as ignorant of it as we are, have some indulgence for those who ingenuously confess, they comprehend nothing in it, or that they see in it nothing divine. cease to persecute for opinions, of which you understand nothing yourselves; cease to defame each other for dreams and conjectures, which every thing seems to contradict. talk to us of things intelligible and really useful to men; and no longer talk to us of the impenetrable ways of god, about which you only stammer and contradict yourselves. by continually speaking of the immense depths of divine wisdom, forbidding us to sound them, saying it is insolence to cite god before the tribunal of our feeble reason, making it a crime to judge our master, divines teach us nothing but the embarrassment they are in, when it is required to account for the conduct of a god, whose conduct they think marvellous only because they are utterly incapable of comprehending it themselves. 78. physical evil is commonly regarded as a punishment for sin. diseases, famines, wars, earthquakes, are means which god uses to chastise wicked men. thus, they make no scruple of attributing these evils to the severity of a just and good god. but, do not these scourges fall indiscriminately upon the good and bad, upon the impious and devout, upon the innocent and guilty? how, in this proceeding, would they have us admire the justice and goodness of a being, the idea of whom seems comforting to so many wretches, whose brain must undoubtedly be disordered by their misfortunes, since they forget, that their god is the arbiter, the sole disposer of the events of this world. this being the case, ought they not to impute their sufferings to him, into whose arms they fly for comfort? unfortunate father! thou consolest thyself in the bosom of providence, for the loss of a dear child, or beloved wife, who made thy happiness. alas! dost thou not see, that thy god has killed them? thy god has rendered thee miserable, and thou desirest thy god to comfort thee for the dreadful afflictions he has sent thee! the chimerical or supernatural notions of theology have so succeeded in destroying, in the minds of men, the most simple, dear, and natural ideas, that the devout, unable to accuse god of malice, accustom themselves to regard the several strokes of fate as indubitable proofs of celestial goodness. when in affliction, they are ordered to believe that god loves them, that god visits them, that god wishes to try them. thus religion has attained the art of converting evil into good! a profane person said with reason--_if god almighty thus treats those whom he loves, i earnestly beseech him never to think of me_. men must have received very gloomy and cruel ideas of their god, who is called so good, to believe that the most dreadful calamities and piercing afflictions are marks of his favour! would an evil genius, a demon, be more ingenious in tormenting his enemies, than the god of goodness sometimes is, who so often exercises his severity upon his dearest friends? 79. what shall we say of a father, who, we are assured, watches without intermission over the preservation and happiness of his weak and short-sighted children, and who yet leaves them at liberty to wander at random among rocks, precipices, and waters; who rarely hinders them from following their inordinate appetites; who permits them to handle, without precaution, murderous arms, at the risk of their life? what should we think of the same father, if, instead of imputing to himself the evil that happens to his poor children, he should punish them for their wanderings in the most cruel manner? we should say, with reason, that this father is a madman, who unites injustice to folly. a god, who punishes faults, which he could have prevented, is a being deficient in wisdom, goodness, and equity. a foreseeing god would prevent evil, and thereby avoid having to punish it. a good god would not punish weaknesses, which he knew to be inherent in human nature. a just god, if he made man, would not punish him for not being made strong enough to resist his desires. _to punish weakness is the most unjust tyranny._ is it not calumniating a just god, to say, that he punishes men for their faults, even in the present life? how could he punish beings, whom it belonged to him alone to reform, and who, while they have not _grace_, cannot act otherwise than they do? according to the principles of theologians themselves, man, in his present state of corruption, can do nothing but evil, since, without divine grace, he is never able to do good. now, if the nature of man, left to itself, or destitute of divine aid, necessarily determines him to evil, or renders him incapable of good, what becomes of the free-will of man? according to such principles, man can neither merit nor demerit. by rewarding man for the good he does, god would only reward himself; by punishing man for the evil he does, god would punish him for not giving him grace, without which he could not possibly do better. 80. theologians repeatedly tell us, that man is free, while all their principles conspire to destroy his liberty. by endeavouring to justify the divinity, they in reality accuse him of the blackest injustice. they suppose, that without grace, man is necessitated to do evil. they affirm, that god will punish him, because god has not given him grace to do good! little reflection will suffice to convince us, that man is necessitated in all his actions, that his free will is a chimera, even in the system of theologians. does it depend upon man to be born of such or such parents? does it depend upon man to imbibe or not to imbibe the opinions of his parents or instructors? if i had been born of idolatrous or mahometan parents, would it have depended upon me to become a christian? yet, divines gravely assure us, that a just god will damn without pity all those, to whom he has not given grace to know the christian religion! man's birth is wholly independent of his choice. he is not asked whether he is willing, or not, to come into the world. nature does not consult him upon the country and parents she gives him. his acquired ideas, his opinions, his notions true or false, are necessary fruits of the education which he has received, and of which he has not been the director. his passions and desires are necessary consequences of the temperament given him by nature. during his whole life, his volitions and actions are determined by his connections, habits, occupations, pleasures, and conversations; by the thoughts, that are involuntarily presented to his mind; in a word, by a multitude of events and accidents, which it is out of his power to foresee or prevent. incapable of looking into futurity, he knows not what he will do. from the instant of his birth to that of his death, he is never free. you will say, that he wills, deliberates, chooses, determines; and you will hence conclude, that his actions are free. it is true, that man wills, but he is not master of his will or his desires; he can desire and will only what he judges advantageous to himself; he can neither love pain, nor detest pleasure. it will be said, that he sometimes prefers pain to pleasure; but then he prefers a momentary pain with a view of procuring a greater and more durable pleasure. in this case, the prospect of a greater good necessarily determines him to forego a less considerable good. the lover does not give his mistress the features which captivate him; he is not then master of loving, or not loving the object of his tenderness; he is not master of his imagination or temperament. whence it evidently follows, that man is not master of his volitions and desires. "but man," you will say, "can resist his desires; therefore he is free." man resists his desires, when the motives, which divert him from an object, are stronger than those, which incline him towards it; but then his resistance is necessary. a man, whose fear of dishonour or punishment is greater than his love of money, necessarily resists the desire of stealing. "are we not free, when we deliberate?" but, are we masters of knowing or not knowing, of being in doubt or certainty? deliberation is a necessary effect of our uncertainty respecting the consequences of our actions. when we are sure, or think we are sure, of these consequences, we necessarily decide, and we then act necessarily according to our true or false judgment. our judgments, true or false, are not free; they are necessarily determined by the ideas, we have received, or which our minds have formed. man is not free in his choice; he is evidently necessitated to choose what he judges most useful and agreeable. neither is he free, when he suspends his choice; he is forced to suspend it until he knows, or thinks he knows, the qualities of the objects presented to him, or, until he has weighed the consequences of his actions. "man," you will say, "often decides in favour of actions, which he knows must be detrimental to himself; man sometimes kills himself; therefore he is free." i deny it. is man master of reasoning well or ill? do not his reason and wisdom depend upon the opinions he has formed, or upon the conformation of his machine? as neither one nor the other depends upon his will, they are no proof of liberty. "if i lay a wager, that i shall do, or not do a thing, am i not free? does it not depend upon me to do it or not?" no, i answer; the desire of winning the wager will necessarily determine you to do, or not to do the thing in question. "but, supposing i consent to lose the wager?" then the desire of proving to me, that you are free, will have become a stronger motive than the desire of winning the wager; and this motive will have necessarily determined you to do, or not to do, the thing in question. "but," you will say, "i feel free." this is an illusion, that may be compared to that of the fly in the fable, who, lighting upon the pole of a heavy carriage, applauded himself for directing its course. man, who thinks himself free, is a fly, who imagines he has power to move the universe, while he is himself unknowingly carried along by it. the inward persuasion that we are free to do, or not to do a thing, is but a mere illusion. if we trace the true principle of our actions, we shall find, that they are always necessary consequences of our volitions and desires, which are never in our power. you think yourself free, because you do what you will; but are you free to will, or not to will; to desire, or not to desire? are not your volitions and desires necessarily excited by objects or qualities totally independent of you? 81. "if the actions of men are necessary, if men are not free, by what right does society punish criminals? is it not very unjust to chastise beings, who could not act otherwise than they have done?" if the wicked act necessarily according to the impulses of their evil nature, society, in punishing them, acts necessarily by the desire of self-preservation. certain objects necessarily produce in us the sensation of pain; our nature then forces us against them, and avert them from us. a tiger, pressed by hunger, springs upon the man, whom he wishes to devour; but this man is not master of his fear, and necessarily seeks means to destroy the tiger. 82. "if every thing be necessary, the errors, opinions, and ideas of men are fatal; and, if so, how or why should we attempt to reform them?" the errors of men are necessary consequences of ignorance. their ignorance, prejudice, and credulity are necessary consequences of their inexperience, negligence, and want of reflection, in the same manner as delirium or lethargy are necessary effects of certain diseases. truth, experience, reflection, and reason, are remedies calculated to cure ignorance, fanaticism and follies. but, you will ask, why does not truth produce this effect upon many disordered minds? it is because some diseases resist all remedies; because it is impossible to cure obstinate patients, who refuse the remedies presented to them; because the interest of some men, and the folly of others, necessarily oppose the admission of truth. a cause produces its effect only when its action is not interrupted by stronger causes, which then weakens or render useless, the action of the former. it is impossible that the best arguments should be adopted by men, who are interested in error, prejudiced in its favour, and who decline all reflection; but truth must necessarily undeceive honest minds, who seek her sincerely. truth is a cause; it necessarily produces its effects, when its impulse is not intercepted by causes, which suspend its effects. 83. "to deprive man of his free will," it is said, "makes him a mere machine, an automaton. without liberty, he will no longer have either merit or virtue." what is merit in man? it is a manner of acting, which renders him estimable in the eyes of his fellow-beings. what is virtue? it is a disposition, which inclines us to do good to others. what can there be contemptible in machines, or automatons, capable of producing effects so desirable? marcus aurelius was useful to the vast roman empire. by what right would a machine despise a machine, whose springs facilitate its action? good men are springs, which second society in its tendency to happiness; the wicked are ill-formed springs, which disturb the order, progress, and harmony of society. if, for its own utility, society cherishes and rewards the good, it also harasses and destroys the wicked, as useless or hurtful. 84. the world is a necessary agent. all the beings, that compose it, are united to each other, and cannot act otherwise than they do, so long as they are moved by the same causes, and endued with the same properties. when they lose properties, they will necessarily act in a different way. god himself, admitting his existence, cannot be considered a free agent. if there existed a god, his manner of acting would necessarily be determined by the properties inherent in his nature; nothing would be capable of arresting or altering his will. this being granted, neither our actions, prayers, nor sacrifices could suspend, or change his invariable conduct and immutable designs; whence we are forced to infer, that all religion would be useless. 85. were not divines in perpetual contradiction with themselves, they would see, that, according to their hypothesis, man cannot be reputed free an instant. do they not suppose man continually dependent on his god? are we free, when we cannot exist and be preserved without god, and when we cease to exist at the pleasure of his supreme will? if god has made man out of nothing; if his preservation is a continued creation; if god cannot, an instant, lose sight of his creature; if whatever happens to him, is an effect of the divine will; if man can do nothing of himself; if all the events, which he experiences, are effects of the divine decrees; if he does no good without grace from on high, how can they maintain, that a man enjoys a moment's liberty? if god did not preserve him in the moment of sin, how could man sin? if god then preserves him, god forces him to exist, that he may sin. 86. the divinity is frequently compared to a king, whose revolted subjects are the greater part of mankind; and it is said, he has a right to reward the subjects who remain faithful to him, and to punish the rebellious. this comparison is not just in any of its parts. god presides over a machine, every spring of which he has created. these springs act agreeable to the manner, in which god has formed them; he ought to impute it to his own unskilfulness, if these springs do not contribute to the harmony of the machine, into which it was his will to insert them. god is a created king, who has created to himself subjects of every description; who has formed them according to his own pleasure whose will can never find resistance. if god has rebellious subjects in his empire, it is because god has resolved to have rebellious subjects. if the sins of men disturb the order of the world, it is because it is the will of god that this order should be disturbed. nobody dares to call in question the divine justice; yet, under the government of a just god, we see nothing but acts of injustice and violence. force decides the fate of nations, equity seems banished from the earth; a few men sport, unpunished, with the peace, property, liberty, and life of others. all is disorder in a world governed by a god who is said to be infinitely displeased with disorder. 87. although men are for ever admiring the wisdom, goodness, justice, and beautiful order of providence, they are, in reality, never satisfied with it. do not the prayers, continually addressed to heaven, shew, that men are by no means satisfied with the divine dispensations? to pray to god for a favour, shews diffidence of his watchful care; to pray to him to avert or put an end to an evil, is to endeavour to obstruct the course of his justice; to implore the assistance of god in our calamities, is to address the author himself of these calamities, to represent to him, that he ought, for our sake, to rectify his plan, which does not accord with our interest. the optimist, or he who maintains that _all is well_, and who incessantly cries that we live in _the best world possible_, to be consistent, should never pray; neither ought he to expect another world, where man will be happier. can there be a better world than _the best world possible_? some theologians have treated the optimists as impious, for having intimated that god could not produce a better world, than that in which we live. according to these doctors, it is to limit the power of god, and to offer him insult. but do not these divines see, that it shews much less indignity to god, to assert that he has done his best in producing this world, than to say, that, being able to produce a better, he has had malice enough to produce a very bad one? if the optimist, by his system, detracts from the divine power, the theologian, who treats him as a blasphemer, is himself a blasphemer, who offends the goodness of god in espousing the cause of his omnipotence. 88. when we complain of the evils, of which our world is the theatre, we are referred to the other world, where it is said, god will make reparation for all the iniquity and misery, which, for a time, he permits here below. but if god, suffering his eternal justice to remain at rest for a long time, could consent to evil during the whole continuance of our present world, what assurance have we, that, during the continuance of another world, divine justice will not, in like manner, sleep over the misery of its inhabitants? the divines console us for our sufferings by saying, that god is patient, and that his justice, though often slow, is not the less sure. but do they not see, that patience is incompatible with a just, immutable, and omnipotent being? can god then permit injustice, even for an instant? to temporize with a known evil, announces either weakness, uncertainty, or collusion. to tolerate evil, when one has power to prevent it, is to consent to the commission of evil. 89. divines every where exclaim, that god is infinitely just; but that _his justice is not the justice of man_. of what kind or nature then is this divine justice? what idea can i form of a justice, which so often resembles injustice? is it not to confound all ideas of just and unjust, to say, that what is equitable in god is iniquitous in his creatures? how can we receive for our model a being, whose divine perfections are precisely the reverse of human? "god," it is said, "is sovereign arbiter of our destinies. his supreme power, which nothing can limit, justly permits him to do with the works of his own hands according to his good pleasure. a worm, like man, has no right even to complain." this arrogant style is evidently borrowed from the language, used by the ministers of tyrants, when they stop the mouths of those who suffer from their violences. it cannot then be the language of the ministers of a god, whose equity is highly extolled; it is not made to be imposed upon a being, who reasons. ministers of a just god! i will inform you then, that the greatest power cannot confer upon your god himself the right of being unjust even to the vilest of his creatures. a despot is not a god. a god, who arrogates to himself the right of doing evil, is a tyrant; a tyrant is not a model for men; he must be an object execrable to their eyes. is it not indeed strange, that in order to justify the divinity, they make him every moment the most unjust of beings! as soon as we complain of his conduct, they think to silence us by alleging, that _god is master_; which signifies, that god, being the strongest, is not bound by ordinary rules. but the right of the strongest is the violation of all rights. it seems right only to the eyes of a savage conqueror, who in the heat of his fury imagines, that he may do whatever he pleases with the unfortunate victims, whom he has conquered. this barbarous right can appear legitimate only to slaves blind enough to believe that everything is lawful to tyrants whom they feel too weak to resist. in the greatest calamities, do not devout persons, through a ridiculous simplicity, or rather a sensible contradiction in terms, exclaim, that _the almighty is master_. thus, inconsistent reasoners, believe, that the _almighty_ (a being, one of whose first attributes is goodness,) sends you pestilence, war, and famine! you believe that the _almighty_, this good being, has the will and right to inflict the greatest evils, you can bear! cease, at least, to call your god _good_, when he does you evil; say not, that he is just, say that he is the strongest, and that it is impossible for you to ward off the blows of his caprice. _god_, say you, _chastises only for our good_. but what real good can result to a people from being exterminated by the plague, ravaged by wars, corrupted by the examples of perverse rulers, continually crushed under the iron sceptre of a succession of merciless tyrants, annihilated by the scourges of a bad government, whose destructive effects are often felt for ages? if chastisements are good, then they cannot have too much of a good thing! _the eyes of faith_ must be strange eyes, if with them they see advantages in the most dreadful calamities, in the vices and follies with which our species are afflicted. 90. what strange ideas of divine justice must christians have, who are taught to believe, that their god, in view of reconciling to himself the human race, guilty, though unconscious, of the sin of their fathers, has put to death his own son, who was innocent and incapable of sinning? what should we say of a king, whose subjects should revolt, and who, to appease himself, should find no other expedient than to put to death the heir of his crown, who had not participated in the general rebellion? "it is," the christian will say, "through goodness to his subjects, unable of themselves to satisfy divine justice, that god has consented to the cruel death of his son." but the goodness of a father to strangers does not give him the right of being unjust and barbarous to his own son. all the qualities, which theology ascribes to god, reciprocally destroy one another. the exercise of one of his perfections is always at the expense of the exercise of another. has the jew more rational ideas of divine justice than the christian? the pride of a king kindles the anger of heaven; _jehovah_ causes the pestilence to descend upon his innocent people; seventy thousand subjects are exterminated to expiate the fault of a monarch, whom the goodness of god resolved to spare. 91. notwithstanding the various acts of injustice, with which all religions delight to blacken the divinity, men cannot consent to accuse him of iniquity. they fear, that, like the tyrants of this world, truth will offend him, and redouble upon them the weight of his malice and tyranny. they hearken therefore to their priests, who tell them, that their god is a tender father; that this god is an equitable monarch whose object in this world is to assure himself of the love, obedience and respect of his subjects; who gives them liberty of acting only to afford them an opportunity of meriting his favours, and of acquiring an eternal happiness, which he does not owe them. by what signs can men discover the tenderness of a father, who has given life to the greater part of his children merely to drag out upon the earth a painful, restless, bitter existence? is there a more unfortunate present, than that pretended liberty, which, we are told, men are very liable to abuse, and thereby to incur eternal misery? 92. by calling mortals to life, what a cruel and dangerous part has not the deity forced them to act? thrown into the world without their consent, provided with a temperament of which they are not masters, animated by passions and desires inherent in their nature, exposed to snares which they have not power to escape, hurried away by events which they could not foresee or prevent, unhappy mortals are compelled to run a career, which may lead them to punishments horrible in duration and violence. travellers inform us, that, in asia, a sultan reigned, full of fantastical ideas, and very absolute in his whims. by a strange madness, this prince spent his time seated at a table, upon which were placed three dice and a dice-box. one end of the table was covered with pieces of silver, designed to excite the avarice of his courtiers and people. he, knowing the foible of his subjects, addresses them as follows: _slaves, i wish your happiness. my goodness proposes to enrich you, and make you all happy. do you see these treasures? well, they are for you; strive to gain them; let each, in his turn, take the box and dice; whoever has the fortune to throw sixes, shall be master of the treasure. but, i forewarn you, that he who has not the happiness to throw the number required, shall be precipitated for ever into a dark dungeon, where my justice demands that he be burned with a slow fire._ upon this discourse of the monarch, the company look at each other affrighted. no one wishes to expose himself to so dangerous a chance. _what!_ says the enraged sultan, _does no one offer to play? i tell you then you must; my glory requires that you should play. play then; obey without replying._ it is well to observe, that the dice of the despot are so prepared, that out of a hundred thousand throws, there is but one, which can gain the number required. thus the generous monarch has the pleasure of seeing his prison well filled, and his riches seldom ravished from him. mortals! this sultan is your god; his treasure is heaven; his dungeon is hell, and it is you who hold the dice! 93. divines repeatedly assure us, that we owe providence infinite gratitude for the numberless blessings it bestows. they loudly extol the happiness of existence. but, alas! how many mortals are truly satisfied with their mode of existence? if life has sweets, with how much bitterness is it not mixed? does not a single chagrin often suffice suddenly to poison the most peaceable and fortunate life? are there many, who, if it were in their power would begin again, at the same price, the painful career, in which, without their consent, destiny has placed them? they say, that existence is a great blessing. but is not this existence continually troubled with fears, and maladies, often cruel and little deserved? may not this existence, threatened on so many sides, be torn from us any moment? where is the man, who has not been deprived of a dear wife, beloved child, or consoling friend, whose loss every moment intrudes upon his thoughts? there are few, who have not been forced to drink of the cup of misfortune; there are few, who have not desired their end. finally, it did not depend upon us to exist or not to exist. should the bird then be very grateful to the fowler for taking him in his net and confining him in his cage for his diversion? 94. notwithstanding the infirmities and misery which man is forced to undergo, he has, nevertheless, the folly to think himself the favourite of his god, the object of all his cares, the sole end of all his works. he imagines, that the whole universe is made for him; he arrogantly calls himself the _king of nature_, and values himself far above other animals. mortal! upon what canst thou found thy haughty pretensions? it is, sayest thou, upon thy soul, upon thy reason, upon the sublime faculties, which enable thee to exercise an absolute empire over the beings, which surround thee. but, weak sovereign of the world; art thou sure, one moment, of the continuance of thy reign? do not the smallest atoms of matter, which thou despisest, suffice to tear thee from thy throne, and deprive thee of life? finally, does not the king of animals at last become the food of worms? thou speakest of thy soul! but dost thou know what a soul is? dost thou not see, that this soul is only the assemblage of thy organs, from which results life? wouldst thou then refuse a soul to other animals, who live, think, judge, and compare, like thee; who seek pleasure, and avoid pain, like thee; and who often have organs, which serve them better than thine? thou boastest of thy intellectual faculties; but do these faculties, of which thou art so proud, make thee happier than other animals? dost thou often make use of that reason, in which thou gloriest, and to which religion commands thee not to listen? are those brutes, which thou disdainest, because they are less strong or less cunning than thou art, subject to mental pains, to a thousand frivolous passions, to a thousand imaginary wants, to which thou art a continual prey? are they, like thee, tormented by the past, alarmed at the future? confined solely to the present, does not what you call their _instinct_, and what i call their _intelligence_, suffice to preserve and defend them, and to supply them with all they want? does not this instinct, of which thou speakest with contempt, often serve them better than thy wonderful faculties? is not their peaceful ignorance more advantageous to them, than those extravagant meditations and worthless researches, which render thee unhappy, and for which thy zeal urges thee even to massacre the beings of thy noble species? finally, have these beasts, like so many mortals, a troubled imagination, which makes them fear, not only death, but likewise eternal torments? augustus, hearing that herod, king of judea, had put his sons to death, exclaimed: _it is much better to be herod's hog, than his son_. as much may be said of man. this dear child of providence runs far greater risks than all other animals; having suffered much in this world, does he not imagine, that he is in danger of suffering eternally in another? 95. where is the precise line of distinction between man and the animals whom he calls brutes? in what does he differ essentially from beasts? it is, we are told, by his intelligence, by the faculties of his mind, and by his reason, that man appears superior to all other animals, who, in all their actions, move only by physical impulses, in which reason has no share. but finally, brutes, having fewer wants than man, easily do without his intellectual faculties, which would be perfectly useless in their mode of existence. their instinct is sufficient; while all the faculties of man scarcely suffice to render his existence supportable, and to satisfy the wants, which his imagination and his prejudices multiply to his torment. brutes are not influenced by the same objects, as man; they have not the same wants, desires, nor fancies; and they very soon arrive to maturity, while the mind of man seldom attains to the full enjoyment and free exercise of its faculties and to such a use of them, as is conducive to his happiness. 96. we are assured, that the human soul is a simple substance. it should then be the same in every individual, each having the same intellectual faculties; yet this is not the case. men differ as much in the qualities of the mind, as in the features of the face. there are human beings as different from one another, as man is from a horse or a dog. what conformity or resemblance do we find between some men? what an infinite distance is there between the genius of a locke or a newton, and that of a peasant, hottentot, or laplander? man differs from other animals only in his organization, which enables him to produce effects, of which animals are not capable. the variety, observable in the organs of individuals of the human species suffices to explain the differences in what is called their intellectual faculties. more or less delicacy in these organs, warmth in the blood, mobility in the fluids, flexibility or stiffness in the fibres and nerves, must necessarily produce the infinite diversity, which we observe in the minds of men. it is by exercise, habit and education, that the mind is unfolded and becomes superior to that of others. man, without culture and experience, is as void of reason and industry, as the brute. a stupid man is one, whose organs move with difficulty, whose brain does not easily vibrate, whose blood circulates slowly. a man of genius is he, whose organs are flexible, whose sensations are quick, whose brain vibrates with celerity. a learned man is he, whose organs and brain have been long exercised upon objects to which he is devoted. without culture, experience, or reason, is not man more contemptible and worthy of hatred, than the vilest insects or most ferocious beasts? is there in nature a more detestable being, than a tiberius, a nero, or a caligula? have those destroyers of the human race, known by the name of conquerors, more estimable souls than bears, lions, or panthers? are there animals in the world more detestable than tyrants? 97. the superiority which man so gratuitously arrogates to himself over other animals, soon vanishes in the light of reason, when we reflect on human extravagances. how many animals shew more mildness, reflection, and reason, than the animal, who calls himself reasonable above all others? are there among men, so often enslaved and oppressed, societies as well constituted as those of the ants, bees, or beavers? do we ever see ferocious beasts of the same species mangle and destroy one another without profit? do we ever see religious wars among them? the cruelty of beasts towards other species arises from hunger, the necessity of nourishment; the cruelty of man towards man arises only from the vanity of his masters and the folly of his impertinent prejudices. speculative men, who endeavour to make us believe, that all in the universe was made for man, are much embarrassed, when we ask, how so many hurtful animals can contribute to the happiness of man? what known advantage results to the friend of the gods, from being bitten by a viper, stung by a gnat, devoured by vermin, torn in pieces by a tiger, etc.? would not all these animals reason as justly as our theologians, should they pretend that man was made for them? 98. an eastern tale. at some distance from bagdad, a hermit, renowned for his sanctity, passed his days in an agreeable solitude. the neighbouring inhabitants, to obtain an interest in his prayers, daily flocked to his hermitage, to carry him provisions and presents. the holy man, without ceasing, gave thanks to god for the blessings, with which providence loaded him. "o allah!" said he, "how ineffable is thy love to thy servants. what have i done to merit the favours, that i receive from thy bounty? o monarch of the skies! o father of nature! what praises could worthily celebrate thy munificence, and thy paternal care! o allah! how great is thy goodness to the children of men!" penetrated with gratitude, the hermit made a vow to undertake, for the seventh time, a pilgrimage to mecca. the war which then raged between the persians and turks, could not induce him to defer his pious enterprise. full of confidence in god, he sets out under the inviolable safeguard of a religious habit. he passes through the hostile troops without any obstacle; far from being molested, he receives, at every step, marks of veneration from the soldiers of the two parties. at length, borne down with fatigue, he is obliged to seek refuge against the rays of a scorching sun; he rests under the cool shade of a group of palm-trees. in this solitary place, the man of god finds not only an enchanting retreat, but a delicious repast. he has only to put forth his hand to gather dates and other pleasant fruits; a brook affords him the means of quenching his thirst. a green turf invites him to sleep; upon waking he performs the sacred ablution, and exclaims in a transport of joy: "o allah! how great is thy goodness to the children of men!" after this perfect refreshment, the saint, full of strength and gaiety, pursues his way; it leads him across a smiling country, which presents to his eyes flowery hillocks, enamelled meadows, and trees loaded with fruit. affected by this sight, he ceases not to adore the rich and liberal hand of providence, which appears every where providing for the happiness of the human race. going a little farther, the mountains are pretty difficult to pass; but having once arrived at the summit, a hideous spectacle suddenly appears to his view. his soul is filled with horror. he discovers a vast plain laid waste with fire and sword; he beholds it covered with hundreds of carcases, the deplorable remains of a bloody battle, lately fought upon this field. eagles, vultures, ravens and wolves were greedily devouring the dead bodies with which the ground was covered. this sight plunges our pilgrim into a gloomy meditation. heaven, by special favour, had enabled him to understand the language of beasts. he heard a wolf, gorged with human flesh, cry out in the excess of his joy: "o allah! how great is thy goodness to the children of wolves. thy provident wisdom takes care to craze the minds of these detestable men, who are so dangerous to our species. by an effect of thy providence, which watches over thy creatures, these destroyers cut one another's throats, and furnish us with sumptuous meals. o allah! how great is thy goodness to the children of wolves!" 99. a heated imagination sees in the universe only the blessings of heaven; a calmer mind finds in it both good and evil. "i exist," say you; but is this existence always a good? "behold," you say, "that sun, which lights; this earth, which for you is covered with crops and verdure; these flowers, which bloom to regale your senses; these trees, which bend under the weight of delicious fruits; these pure waters, which run only to quench your thirst; those seas, which embrace the universe to facilitate your commerce; these animals, which a foreseeing nature provides for your use." yes; i see all these things, and i enjoy them. but in many climates, this beautiful sun is almost always hidden; in others, its excessive heat torments, creates storms, produces frightful diseases, and parches the fields; the pastures are without verdure, the trees without fruit, the crops are scorched, the springs are dried up; i can only with difficulty subsist, and now complain of the cruelties of nature, which to you always appears so beneficent. if these seas bring me spices, and useless commodities, do they not destroy numberless mortals, who are foolish enough to seek them? the vanity of man persuades him, that he is the sole center of the universe; he creates for himself a world and a god; he thinks himself of sufficient consequence to derange nature at his pleasure. but, concerning other animals, he reasons like an atheist. does he not imagine, that the individuals different from his own are automatons unworthy of the blessings of universal providence, and that brutes cannot be objects of his justice or goodness? mortals regard the happy or unhappy events, health or sickness, life or death, plenty or want, as rewards or punishments for the right use or abuse of the liberty, with which they erroneously imagine themselves endowed. do they reason in the same manner concerning the brutes? no. although they see them, under a just god, enjoy and suffer, equally subject to health and sickness, live and die, like themselves, it never occurs to them to ask by what crime, these beasts could have incurred the displeasure of their creator? have not men, blinded by their religious prejudices, in order to free themselves from embarrassment, carried their folly so far as to pretend that beasts have no feeling? will men never renounce their foolish pretensions? will they never acknowledge that nature is not made for them? will they never see that nature has placed equality among all beings she has produced? will they never perceive that all organized beings are equally made to be born and die, enjoy and suffer? finally, far from having any cause to be puffed up with their mental faculties, are they not forced to grant, that these faculties often make them more unhappy than beasts, in which we find neither opinions, prejudices, vanities, nor follies, which every moment decide the welfare of man? 100. the superiority which men arrogate over other animals, is chiefly founded upon their opinion, that they have the exclusive possession of an immortal soul. but ask them what this soul is, and they are puzzled. they will say, it is an unknown substance--a secret power distinct from their bodies--a spirit, of which they have no idea. ask them how this spirit, which they suppose to be like their god wholly void of extension, could combine itself with their material bodies, and they will tell you, they know nothing about it; that it is to them a mystery; that this combination is an effect of the omnipotence of god. these are the ideas that men form of the hidden, or rather imaginary substance, which they consider as the main spring of all their actions! if the soul is a substance essentially different from the body, and can have no relation to it, their union would be, not a mystery, but an impossibility. besides, this soul being of a nature different from the body, must necessarily act in a different manner; yet we see that this pretended soul is sensible of the motions experienced by the body, and that these two substances, essentially different, always acts in concert. you will say that this harmony is also a mystery. but i will tell you, that i see not my soul, that i know and am sensible of my body only, that it is this body which feels, thinks, judges, suffers, and enjoys; and that all these faculties are necessary results of its own mechanism, or organization. 101. although it is impossible for men to form the least idea of the soul, or the pretended spirit, which animates them; yet they persuade themselves that this unknown soul is exempt from death. every thing proves to them, that they feel, that they think, that they acquire ideas, that they enjoy and suffer, only by means of the senses, or material organs of the body. admitting even the existence of this soul, they cannot help acknowledging, that it depends entirely upon the body, and undergoes, all its vicissitudes; and yet it is imagined, that this soul has nothing, in its nature, similar to the body; that it can act and feel without the assistance of the body; in a word, that this soul, freed from the body, and disengaged from its senses, can live, enjoy, suffer, experience happiness, or feel excruciating torments. upon such a tissue of absurdities is built the marvellous opinion of the _immortality of the soul_. if i ask, what are the motives for believing the soul immortal, they immediately answer, that it is because man naturally desires to be immortal: but, because you desire a thing ardently, can you infer that your desire will be fulfilled? by what strange logic can we dare affirm, that a thing cannot fail to happen, because we ardently desire it? are desires, begotten by the imagination, the measure of reality? the impious, you say, deprived of the flattering hope of another life, wish to be annihilated. very well: may they not then as justly conclude, from _their_ desire, that they shall be annihilated, as you may conclude from _your_ desire, that you shall exist for ever. 102. man dies, and the human body after death is no longer anything but a mass incapable of producing those motions, of which the sum total constituted life. we see, that it has no longer circulation, respiration, digestion, speech, or thought. it is pretended, that the soul is then separated from the body; but to say, that this soul, with which we are unacquainted, is the principle of life, is to say nothing, unless that an unknown power is the hidden principle of imperceptible movements. nothing is more natural and simple, than to believe, that the dead man no longer lives: nothing is more extravagant, than to believe, that the dead man is still alive. we laugh at the simplicity of some nations, whose custom is to bury provision with the dead, under an idea that it will be useful and necessary to them in the other life. is it then more ridiculous or absurd to suppose, that men will eat after death, than to imagine, that they will think, that they will be actuated by agreeable or disagreeable ideas, that they will enjoy or suffer, and that they will experience repentance or delight, after the organs, adapted to produce sensations or ideas, are once dissolved. to say that the souls of men will be happy or unhappy after death, is in other words to say, that men will see without eyes, hear without ears, taste without palates, smell without noses, and touch without hands. and persons, who consider themselves very reasonable, adopt these ideas! 103. the dogma of the immortality of the soul supposes the soul to be a simple substance; in a word, a spirit. but i ask again, what is a spirit? "it is," say you, "a substance void of extension, incorruptible, having nothing common with matter." if so, how is your soul born, and how does it grow, how does it strengthen or weaken itself, how does it get disordered and grow old, in the same progression as your body? to all these questions you answer, that these are mysteries. if so, you cannot understand them. if you cannot understand them, why do you decide about a thing, of which you are unable to form the least idea? to believe or affirm any thing, it is necessary, at least, to know in what it consists. to believe in the existence of your immaterial soul, is to say, that you are persuaded of the existence of a thing, of which it is impossible for you to form any true notion; it is to believe in words without meaning. to affirm that the thing is as you say, is the height of folly or vanity. 104. are not theologians strange reasoners? whenever they cannot divine the _natural_ causes of things, they invent what they call _supernatural_; such as spirits, occult causes, inexplicable agents, or rather _words_, much more obscure than the _things_ they endeavour to explain. let us remain in nature, when we wish to account for the phenomena of nature; let us be content to remain ignorant of causes too delicate for our organs; and let us be persuaded, that, by going beyond nature, we shall never solve the problems which nature presents. even upon the hypothesis of theology, (that is, supposing an all-powerful mover of matter,) by what right would theologians deny, that their god has power to give this matter the faculty of thought? was it then more difficult for him to create combinations of matter, from which thought might result, than spirits who could think? at least, by supposing matter, which thinks, we should have some notions of the subject of thought, or of what thinks in us; whereas, by attributing thought to an immaterial being, it is impossible to form the least idea of it. 105. it is objected against us, that materialism makes man a mere machine, which is said to be very dishonourable. but, will it be much more honourable for man, if we should say, that he acts by the secret impulses of a spirit, or by a certain _i know not what_, that animates him in a manner totally inexplicable. it is easy to perceive, that the supposed superiority of _spirit_ over matter, or of the soul over the body, has no other foundation than men's ignorance of this soul, while they are more familiarized with _matter_, with which they imagine they are acquainted, and of which they think they can discern the origin. but the most simple movements of our bodies are to every man, who studies them, as inexplicable as thought. 106. the high value, which so many people set upon spiritual substance, has no other motive than their absolute inability to define it intelligibly. the contempt shewn for _matter_ by our metaphysicians, arises only from the circumstance, that familiarity begets contempt. when they tell us, that _the soul is more excellent and noble than the body_, they say what they know not. 107. the dogma of another life is incessantly extolled, as useful. it is maintained, that even though it should be only a fiction, it is advantageous, because it deceives men, and conducts them to virtue. but is it true, that this dogma makes men wiser and more virtuous? are the nations, who believe this fiction, remarkable for purity of morals? has not the visible world ever the advantage over the invisible? if those, who are trusted with the instruction and government of men, had knowledge and virtue themselves, they would govern them much better by realities, than by fictions. but crafty, ambitious and corrupt legislators, have every where found it better to amuse with fables, than to teach them truths, to unfold their reason, to excite them to virtue by sensible and real motives, in fine, to govern them in a rational manner. priests undoubtedly had reasons for making the soul immaterial; they wanted souls to people the imaginary regions, which they have discovered in the other life. material souls would, like all bodies, have been subject to dissolution. now, if men should believe, that all must perish with the body, the geographers of the other world would evidently lose the right of guiding men's souls towards that unknown abode; they would reap no profits from the hope with which they feed them, and the terrors with which they oppress them. if futurity is of no real utility to mankind, it is, at least, of the greatest utility to those, who have assumed the office of conducting them thither. 108. "but," it will be said, "is not the dogma of the immortality of the soul comforting to beings, who are often very unhappy here below? though it should be an error, is it not pleasing? is it not a blessing to man to believe, that he shall be able to enjoy hereafter a happiness, which is denied him upon earth?" thus, poor mortals! you make your wishes the measure of truth; because you desire to live for ever, and to be happier, you at once conclude, that you shall live for ever, and that you shall be more fortunate in an unknown world, than in this known world, where you often find nothing but affliction! consent therefore to leave, without regret, this world which gives the greater part of you much more torment than pleasure. submit to the order of nature, which demands that you, as well as all other beings, should not endure for ever. we are incessantly told, that religion has infinite consolations for the unfortunate, that the idea of the soul's immortality, and of a happier life, is very proper to elevate man, and to support him under adversity, which awaits him upon earth. it is said, on the contrary, that materialism is an afflicting system, calculated to degrade man; then it puts him upon a level with the brutes, breaks his courage, and shows him no other prospect than frightful annihilation, capable of driving him to despair and suicide, whenever he is unhappy. the great art of theologians is to blow hot and cold, to afflict and console, to frighten and encourage. it appears by theological fictions, that the regions of the other life are happy and unhappy. nothing is more difficult than to become worthy of the abode of felicity; nothing more easy than to obtain a place in the abode of torment, which god is preparing for the unfortunate victims of eternal fury. have those then, who think the other life so pleasant and flattering, forgotten, that according to them, that life is to be attended with torments to the greater part of mortals? is not the idea of total annihilation infinitely preferable to the idea of an eternal existence, attended with anguish and _gnashing of teeth_? is the fear of an end more afflicting, than that of having had a beginning! the fear of ceasing to exist is a real evil only to the imagination, which alone begat the dogma of another life. christian ministers say that the idea of a happier life is joyous. admitted. every person would desire a more agreeable existence than that he enjoys here. but, if paradise is inviting, you will grant, that hell is frightful. heaven is very difficult, and hell very easy to be merited. do you not say, that a _narrow_ way leads to the happy regions, and a _broad_ way to the regions of misery? do you not often say, that _the number of the elect is very small, and that of the reprobate very large_? is not grace, which your god grants but to a very few, necessary to salvation? now, i assure you, that these ideas are by no means consoling; that i had rather be annihilated, once for all, than to burn for ever; that the fate of beasts is to me more desirable than that of the damned; that the opinion which relieves me from afflicting fears in this world, appears to me more joyous, than the uncertainty arising from the opinion of a god, who, master of his grace, grants it to none but his favourites, and permits all others to become worthy of eternal torment. nothing but enthusiasm or folly can induce a man to prefer improbable conjectures, attended with uncertainty and insupportable fears. 109. all religious principles are the work of pure imagination, in which experience and reason have no share. it is extremely difficult to combat them, because the imagination, once prepossessed by chimeras, which astonish or disturb it, is incapable of reasoning. to combat religion and its phantoms with the arms of reason, is like using a sword to kill gnats; as soon as the blow is struck, the gnats and chimeras come hovering round again, and resume in the mind the place, from which they were thought to have been for ever banished. when we reject, as too weak, the proofs given of the existence of a god, they instantly oppose to the arguments, which destroy that existence, an _inward sense_, a deep persuasion, an invincible inclination, born in every man, which holds up to his mind, in spite of himself, the idea of an almighty being, whom he cannot entirely expel from his mind, and whom he is compelled to acknowledge, in spite of the strongest reasons that can be urged. but whoever will analyse this _inward sense_, upon which such stress is laid, will perceive, that it is only the effect of a rooted habit, which, shutting their eyes against the most demonstrative proofs, subjects the greater part of men, and often even the most enlightened, to the prejudices of childhood. what avails this inward sense, or this deep persuasion, against the evidence, which demonstrates, that _whatever implies a contradiction cannot exist_? we are gravely assured, that the non-existence of god is not demonstrated. yet, by all that men have hitherto said of him, nothing is better demonstrated, than that this god is a chimera, whose existence is totally impossible; since nothing is more evident, than that a being cannot possess qualities so unlike, so contradictory, so irreconcilable, as those, which every religion upon earth attributes to the divinity. is not the theologian's god, as well as that of the deist, a cause incompatible with the effects attributed to it? let them do what they will, it is necessary either to invent another god, or to grant, that he, who, for so many ages, has been held up to the terror of mortals, is at the same time very good and very bad, very powerful and very weak, unchangeable and fickle, perfectly intelligent and perfectly void of reason, of order and permitting disorder, very just and most unjust, very skilful and unskilful. in short, are we not forced to confess, that it is impossible to reconcile the discordant attributes, heaped upon a being, of whom we cannot speak without the most palpable contradictions? let any one attribute a single quality to the divinity, and it is universally contradicted by the effects, ascribed to this cause. 110. theology might justly be defined the _science of contradictions_. every religion is only a system, invented to reconcile irreconcilable notions. by the aid of habit and terror, man becomes obstinate in the greatest absurdities, even after they are exposed in the clearest manner. all religions are easily combated, but with difficulty extirpated. reason avails nothing against custom, which becomes, says the proverb, _a second nature_. many persons, in other respects sensible, even after having examined the rotten foundation of their belief, adhere to it in contempt of the most striking arguments. whenever we complain of religion, its shocking absurdities, and impossibilities, we are told that we are not made to understand the truths of religion; that reason goes astray, and is capable of leading us to perdition; and moreover, that _what is folly in the eyes of man, is wisdom in the eyes of god_, to whom nothing is impossible. in short, to surmount, by a single word, the most insurmountable difficulties, presented on all sides by theology, they get rid of them by saying, these are _mysteries_! 111. what is a mystery? by examining the thing closely, i soon perceive, that a mystery is nothing but a contradiction, a palpable absurdity, a manifest impossibility, over which theologians would oblige men humbly to shut their eyes. in a word, a mystery is whatever our spiritual guides cannot explain. it is profitable to the ministers of religion, that people understand nothing of what they teach. it is impossible to examine what we do not comprehend; when we do not see, we must suffer ourselves to be led. if religion were clear, priests would find less business. without mysteries there can be no religion; mystery is essential to it; a religion void of mysteries, would be a contradiction in terms. the god, who serves as the foundation of _natural religion_, or _deism_, is himself the greatest of mysteries. 112. every revealed religion is filled with mysterious dogmas, unintelligible principles, incredible wonders, astonishing recitals, which appear to have been invented solely to confound reason. every religion announces a hidden god, whose essence is a mystery; consequently, the conduct, ascribed to him, is no less inconceivable than his essence. the deity has never spoken only in an enigmatical and mysterious manner, in the various religions, which have been founded in different regions of our globe; he has everywhere revealed himself only to announce mysteries; that is, to inform mortals, that he intended they should believe contradictions, impossibilities, and things to which they were incapable of affixing any clear ideas. the more mysterious and incredible a religion is, the more power it has to please the imagination of men. the darker a religion is, the more it appears divine, that is, conformable to the nature of a hidden being, of whom they have no ideas. ignorance prefers the unknown, the hidden, the fabulous, the marvellous, the incredible, or even the terrible, to what is clear, simple, and true. truth does not operate upon the imagination in so lively a manner as fiction, which, in other respects, everyone is able to arrange in his own way. the vulgar like to listen to fables. priests and legislators, by inventing religions and forging mysteries have served the vulgar people well. they have thereby gained enthusiasts, women and fools. beings of this stamp are easily satisfied with things, which they are incapable of examining. the love of simplicity and truth is to be found only among the few, whose imagination is regulated by study and reflection. the inhabitants of a village are never better pleased with their parson, than when he introduces latin into his sermon. the ignorant always imagine, that he, who speaks to them of things they do not understand, is a learned man. such is the true principle of the credulity of the people, and of the authority of those, who pretend to guide nations. 113. to announce mysteries to men, is to give and withhold; it is to talk in order not to be understood. he, who speaks only obscurely, either seeks to amuse himself by the embarrassment, which he causes, or finds his interest in not explaining himself too clearly. all secrecy indicates distrust, impotence, and fear. princes and their ministers make a mystery of their projects, for fear their enemies should discover and render them abortive. can a good god amuse himself by perplexing his creatures? what interest then could he have in commanding his ministers to announce riddles and mysteries? it is said, that man, by the weakness of his nature, is totally incapable of understanding the divine dispensations, which can be to him only a series of mysteries; god cannot disclose to him secrets, necessarily above his reach. if so, i answer again, that man is not made to attend to the divine dispensations; that these dispensations are to him by no means interesting; that he has no need of mysteries, which he cannot understand; and consequently, that a mysterious religion is no more fit for him, than an eloquent discourse is for a flock of sheep. 114. the deity has revealed himself with so little uniformity in the different countries of our globe, that in point of religion, men regard one another with hatred and contempt. the partisans of the different sects think each other very ridiculous and foolish. mysteries, most revered in one religion, are objects of derision to another. god, in revealing himself to mankind, ought at least, to have spoken the same language to all, and saved their feeble minds the perplexity of inquiring which religion really emanated from him, or what form of worship is most acceptable in his sight. a universal god ought to have revealed a universal religion. by what fatality then are there so many different religions upon earth? which is really right, among the great number of those, each of which exclusively pretends to be the true one? there is great reason to believe, that no religion enjoys this advantage. division and disputes upon opinions are indubitable signs of the uncertainty and obscurity of the principles, upon which they build. 115. if religion were necessary at all, it ought to be intelligible to all. if this religion were the most important concern of men, the goodness of god would seem to demand, that it should be to them of all things the most clear, evident, and demonstrative. is it not then astonishing, that this thing so essential to the happiness of mortals, is precisely that, which they understand least, and about which, for so many ages, their teachers have most disputed? priests have never agreed upon the manner of understanding the will of a god, who has revealed himself. the world, may be compared to a public fair, in which are several empirics, each of whom endeavours to attract the passengers by decrying the remedies sold by his brothers. each shop has its customers, who are persuaded, that their quacks possess the only true remedies; and notwithstanding a continual use of them, they perceive not the inefficacy of these remedies, or that they are as infirm as those, who run after the quacks of a different shop. devotion is a disorder of the imagination contracted in infancy. the devout man is a hypochondriac, who only augments his malady by the application of remedies. the wise man abstains from them entirely; he pays attention to his diet, and in other respects leaves nature to her course. 116. to a man of sense, nothing appears more ridiculous, than the opinions, which the partisans of the different religions with equal folly entertain of each other. a christian regards the _koran_, that is, the divine revelation announced by mahomet, as nothing but a tissue of impertinent reveries, and impostures insulting to the divinity. the mahometan, on the other hand, treats the christian as an _idolater_ and a _dog_. he sees nothing but absurdities in his religion. he imagines he has a right to subdue the christian, and to force him, sword in hand, to receive the religion of his divine prophet. finally, he believes, that nothing is more impious and unreasonable, than to worship a man, or to believe in the trinity. the _protestant_ christian who without scruple worships a man, and firmly believes the inconceivable mystery of the _trinity_, ridicules the _catholic_ christian for believing in the mystery of _transubstantiation_; he considers him mad, impious, and idolatrous, because he kneels to worship some bread, in which he thinks he sees god. christians of every sect regard, as silly stories, the incarnations of _vishnu_, the god of the indies; they maintain, that the only true _incarnation_ is that of _jesus_, son of a carpenter. the deist, who calls himself the follower of a religion, which he supposes to be that of nature, content with admitting a god, of whom he has no idea, makes a jest of all the mysteries, taught by the various religions in the world. 117. is there any thing more contradictory, impossible, or mysterious, than the creation of matter by an immaterial being, who, though immutable, operates continual changes in the world? is any thing more incompatible with every notion of common sense, than to believe, that a supremely good, wise, equitable and powerful being presides over nature, and by himself directs the movements of a world, full of folly, misery, crimes and disorders, which by a single word, he could have prevented or removed? in fine, whenever we admit a being as contradictory as the god of theology, how can we reject the most improbable fables, astonishing miracles, and profound mysteries. 118. the deist exclaims: "abstain from worshipping the cruel and capricious god of theology; mine is a being infinitely wise and good; he is the father of men, the mildest of sovereigns; it is he who fills the universe with his benefits." but do you not see that every thing in this world contradicts the good qualities, which you ascribe to your god? in the numerous family of this tender father, almost all are unhappy. under the government of this just sovereign, vice is triumphant, and virtue in distress. among those blessings you extol, and which only enthusiasm can see, i behold a multitude of evils, against which you obstinately shut your eyes. forced to acknowledge, that your beneficent god, in contradiction with himself, distributes good and evil with the same hand, for his justification you must, like the priest, refer me to the regions of another life. invent, therefore, another god; for yours is no less contradictory than that of theologians. a good god, who does evil, or consents to the commission of evil; a god full of equity, and in whose empire innocence is often oppressed; a perfect god, who produces none but imperfect and miserable works; are not such a god and his conduct as great mysteries, as that of the incarnation? you blush for your fellow-citizens, who allow themselves to be persuaded, that the god of the universe could change himself into a man, and die upon a cross in a corner of asia. the mystery of the incarnation appears to you very absurd. you think nothing more ridiculous, than a god, who transforms himself into bread, and causes himself daily to be eaten in a thousand different places. but are all these mysteries more contradictory to reason than a god, the avenger and rewarder of the actions of men? is man, according to you, free, or not free? in either case, your god, if he has the shadow of equity, can neither punish nor reward him. if man is free, it is god, who has made him free; therefore god is the primitive cause of all his actions; in punishing him for his faults, he would punish him for having executed what he had given him liberty to do. if man is not free to act otherwise than he does, would not god be most unjust, in punishing man for faults, which he could not help committing. the minor, or secondary, absurdities, with which all religions abound, are to many people truly striking; but they have not the courage to trace the source of these absurdities. they see not, that a god full of contradictions, caprices and inconsistent qualities, has only served to disorder men's imaginations, and to produce an endless succession of chimeras. 119. the theologian would shut the mouths of those who deny the existence of god, by saying, that all men, in all ages and countries, have acknowledged some divinity or other; that every people have believed in an invisible and powerful being, who has been the object of their worship and veneration; in short, that there is no nation, however savage, who are not persuaded of the existence of some intelligence superior to human nature. but, can an error be changed into truth by the belief of all men? the great philosopher bayle has justly observed, that "general tradition, or the unanimous consent of mankind, is no criterion of truth." there was a time, when all men believed that the sun moved round the earth, but this error was detected. there was a time, when nobody believed the existence of the antipodes, and when every one was persecuted, who had temerity enough to maintain it. at present, every informed man firmly believes it. all nations, with the exception of a few men who are less credulous than the rest, still believe in ghosts and spirits. no sensible man now adopts such nonsense. but the most sensible people consider it their duty to believe in a universal spirit! 120. all the gods, adored by men, are of savage origin. they have evidently been imagined by stupid people, or presented, by ambitious and crafty legislators, to ignorant and uncivilized nations, who had neither capacity nor courage to examine the objects, which through terror they were made to worship. by closely examining god, we are forced to acknowledge, that he evidently bears marks of a savage nature. to be savage is to acknowledge no right but force; it is to be cruel beyond measure; to follow only one's own caprice; to want foresight, prudence, and reason. ye nations, who call yourselves civilized! do you not discern, in this hideous character, the god, on whom you lavish your incense? are not the descriptions given you of the divinity, visibly borrowed from the implacable, jealous, revengeful, sanguinary, capricious inconsiderate humour of man, who has not cultivated his reason? o men! you adore only a great savage, whom you regard, however, as a model to imitate, as an amiable master, as a sovereign full of perfection. religious opinions are ancient monuments of ignorance, credulity, cowardice, and barbarism of their ancestors. every savage is a child fond of the marvellous, who believes every thing, and examines nothing. ignorant of nature, he attributes to spirits, enchantments, and to magic, whatever appears to him extraordinary. his priests appear to him sorcerers, in whom he supposes a power purely divine, before whom his confounded reason humbles itself, whose oracles are to him infallible decrees which it would be dangerous to contradict. in religion, men have, for the most part, remained in their primitive barbarity. modern religions are only ancient follies revived, or presented under some new form. if the savages of antiquity adored mountains, rivers, serpents, trees, and idols of every kind; if the egyptians paid homage to crocodiles, rats, and onions, do we not see nations, who think themselves wiser than they, worship bread, into which they imagine, that through the enchantments of their priests, the divinity has descended. is not the bread-god the idol of many christian nations, who, in this respect, are as irrational, as the most savage? 121. the ferocity, stupidity, and folly of uncivilized man have ever disclosed themselves in religious practices, either cruel or extravagant. a spirit of barbarity still survives, and penetrates the religions even of the most polished nations. do we not still see human victims offered to the divinity? to appease the anger of a god, who is always supposed as ferocious, jealous and vindictive, as a savage, do not those, whose manner of thinking is supposed to displease him, expire under studied torments, by the command of sanguinary laws? modern nations, at the instigation of their priests, have perhaps improved upon the atrocious folly of barbarous nations; at least, we find, that it has ever entered the heads of savages to torment for opinions, to search the thoughts, to molest men for the invisible movements of their brains? when we see learned nations, such as the english, french, german, etc., continue, notwithstanding their knowledge, to kneel before the barbarous god of the jews; when we see these enlightened nations divide into sects, defame, hate, and despise one another for their equally ridiculous opinions concerning the conduct and intentions of this unreasonable god; when we see men of ability foolishly devote their time to meditate the will of this god, who is full of caprice and folly, we are tempted to cry out: o men, you are still savage!!! 122. whoever has formed true ideas of the ignorance, credulity, negligence, and stupidity of the vulgar, will suspect opinions the more, as he finds them generally established. men, for the most part, examine nothing: they blindly submit to custom and authority. their religious opinions, above all others, are those which they have the least courage and capacity to examine: as they comprehend nothing about them, they are forced to be silent, or at least are soon destitute of arguments. ask any man, whether he believes in a god? he will be much surprised that you can doubt it. ask him again, what he understands by the word _god_. you throw him into the greatest embarrassment; you will perceive immediately, that he is incapable of affixing any real idea to this word, he incessantly repeats. he will tell you, that god is god. he knows neither what he thinks of it, nor his motives for believing in it. all nations speak of a god; but do they agree upon this god? by no means. but division upon an opinion proves not its evidence; it is rather a sign of uncertainty and obscurity. does the same man always agree with himself in the notions he forms of his god? no. his idea varies with the changes, which he experiences;--another sign of uncertainty. men always agree in demonstrative truths. in any situation, except that of insanity, every one knows that two and two make four, that the sun shines, that the whole is greater than its part; that benevolence is necessary to merit the affection of men; that injustice and cruelty are incompatible with goodness. are they thus agreed when they speak of god? whatever they think, or say of him, is immediately destroyed by the effects they attribute to him. ask several painters to represent a chimera, and each will paint it in a different manner. you will find no resemblance between the features, each has given it a portrait, that has no original. all theologians, in giving us a picture of god, give us one of a great chimera, in whose features they never agree, whom each arranges in his own way, and who exists only in their imaginations. there are not two individuals, who have, or can have, the same ideas of their god. 123. it might be said with more truth, that men are either skeptics or atheists, than that they are convinced of the existence of god. how can we be assured of the existence of a being, whom we could never examine, and of whom it is impossible to conceive any permanent idea? how can we convince ourselves of the existence of a being, to whom we are every moment forced to attribute conduct, opposed to the ideas, we had endeavoured to form of him? is it then possible to believe what we cannot conceive? is not such a belief the opinions of others without having any of our own? priests govern by faith; but do not priests themselves acknowledge that god is to them incomprehensible? confess then, that a full and entire conviction of the existence of god is not so general, as is imagined. scepticism arises from a want of motives sufficient to form a judgment. upon examining the proofs which seem to establish, and the arguments which combat, the existence of god, some persons have doubted and withheld their assent. but this uncertainty arises from not having sufficiently examined. is it possible to doubt any thing evident? sensible people ridicule an absolute scepticism, and think it even impossible. a man, who doubted his own existence, or that of the sun, would appear ridiculous. is this more extravagant than to doubt the non-existence of an evidently impossible being? is it more absurd to doubt one's own existence, than to hesitate upon the impossibility of a being, whose qualities reciprocally destroy one another? do we find greater probability for believing the existence of a spiritual being, than the existence of a stick without two ends? is the notion of an infinitely good and powerful being, who causes or permits an infinity of evils, less absurd or impossible, than that of a square triangle? let us conclude then, that religious scepticism can result only from a superficial examination of theological principles, which are in perpetual contradiction with the most clear and demonstrative principles. to doubt, is to deliberate. scepticism is only a state of indetermination, resulting from an insufficient examination of things. is it possible for any one to be sceptical in matters of religion, who will deign to revert to its principles, and closely examine the notion of god, who serves as its basis? doubt generally arises either from indolence, weakness, indifference, or incapacity. with many people, to doubt is to fear the trouble of examining things, which are thought uninteresting. but religion being presented to men as their most important concern in this and the future world, skepticism and doubt on this subject must occasion perpetual anxiety and must really constitute a bed of thorns. every man who has not courage to contemplate, without prejudice, the god upon whom all religion is founded, can never know for what religion to decide: he knows not what he should believe or not believe, admit or reject, hope or fear. indifference upon religion must not be confounded with scepticism. this indifference is founded upon the absolute assurance, or at any rate upon the probable belief, that religion is not interesting. a persuasion that a thing which is pretended to be important is not so, or is only indifferent, supposes a sufficient examination of the thing, without which it would be impossible to have this persuasion. those who call themselves sceptics in the fundamental points of religion, are commonly either indolent or incapable of examining. 124. in every country, we are assured, that a god has revealed himself. what has he taught men? has he proved evidently that he exists? has he informed them where he resides? has he taught them what he is, or in what his essence consists? has he clearly explained to them his intentions and plan? does what he says of this plan correspond with the effects, which we see? no. he informs them solely, that _he is what he is_; that he is a _hidden god_; that his ways are unspeakable; that he is exasperated against all who have the temerity to fathom his decrees, or to consult reason in judging him or his works. does the revealed conduct of god answer the magnificent ideas which theologians would give us of his wisdom, goodness, justice, and omnipotence? by no means. in every revelation, this conduct announces a partial and capricious being, the protector of favourite people, and the enemy of all others. if he deigns to appear to some men, he takes care to keep all others in an invincible ignorance of his divine intentions. every private revelation evidently announces in god, injustice, partiality and malignity. do the commands, revealed by any god, astonish us by their sublime reason or wisdom? do they evidently tend to promote the happiness of the people, to whom the divinity discloses them? upon examining the divine commands, one sees in every country, nothing but strange ordinances, ridiculous precepts, impertinent ceremonies, puerile customs, oblations, sacrifices, and expiations, useful indeed to the ministers of god, but very burthensome to the rest of the citizens. i see likewise, that these laws often tend to make men unsociable, disdainful, intolerant, quarrelsome, unjust, and inhuman, to those who have not received the same revelations, the same ordinances, or the same favours from heaven. 125. are the precepts of morality, announced by the deity, really divine, or superior to those which every reasonable man might imagine? they are divine solely because it is impossible for the human mind to discover their utility. they make virtue consist in a total renunciation of nature, in a voluntary forgetfulness of reason, a holy hatred of ourselves. finally, these sublime precepts often exhibit perfection in a conduct, cruel to ourselves, and perfectly useless to others. has a god appeared? has he himself promulgated his laws? has he spoken to men with his own mouth? i am told, that god has not appeared to a whole people; but that he has always manifested himself through the medium of some favourite personages, who have been intrusted with the care of announcing and explaining his intentions. the people have never been permitted to enter the sanctuary; the ministers of the gods have alone had the right to relate what passes there. 126. if in every system of divine revelation, i complain of not seeing either the wisdom, goodness, or equity of god; if i suspect knavery, ambition, or interest; it is replied, that god has confirmed by miracles the mission of those, who speak in his name. but was it not more simple for him to appear in person, to explain his nature and will? again, if i have the curiosity to examine these miracles, i find, that they are improbable tales, related by suspected people, who had the greatest interest in giving out that they were the messengers of the most high. what witnesses are appealed to in order to induce us to believe incredible miracles? weak people, who existed thousands of years ago, and who, even though they could attest these miracles, may be suspected of being duped by their own imagination, and imposed upon by the tricks of dexterous impostors. but, you will say, these miracles are written in books, which by tradition have been transmitted to us. by whom were these books written? who are the men who have transmitted them? they are either the founders of religions themselves, or their adherents and assigns. thus, in religion, the evidence of interested parties becomes irrefragable and incontestable. 127. god has spoken differently to every people. the indian believes not a word of what he has revealed to the chinese; the mahometan considers as fables what he has said to the christian; the jew regards both the mahometan and christian as sacrilegious corrupters of the sacred law, which his god had given to his fathers. the christian, proud of his more modern revelation, indiscriminately damns the indian, chinese, mahometan, and even the jew, from whom he receives his sacred books. who is wrong or right? each exclaims, _i am in the right!_ each adduces the same proofs: each mentions his miracles, diviners, prophets, and martyrs. the man of sense tells them, they are all delirious; that god has not spoken, if it is true that he is a spirit, and can have neither mouth nor tongue; that without borrowing the organ of mortals, god could inspire his creatures with what he would have them learn; and that, as they are all equally ignorant what to think of god, it is evident that it has not been the will of god to inform them on the subject. the followers of different forms of worship which are established, accuse one another of superstition and impiety. christians look with abhorrence upon the pagan, chinese, and mahometan superstition. roman catholics treat, as impious, protestant christians; and the latter incessantly declaim against the superstition of the catholics. they are all right. to be impious, is to have opinions offensive to the god adored; to be superstitious, is to have of him false ideas. in accusing one another of superstition, the different religionists resemble humpbacks, who reproach one another with their deformity. 128. are the oracles, which the divinity has revealed by his different messengers, remarkable for clearness? alas! no two men interpret them alike. those who explain them to others are not agreed among themselves. to elucidate them, they have recourse to interpretations, to commentaries, to allegories, to explanations: they discover _mystical sense_ very different from the _literal sense_. men are every where wanted to explain the commands of a god, who could not, or would not, announce himself clearly to those, whom he wished to enlighten. 129. the founders of religion, have generally proved their missions by miracles. but what is a miracle? it is an operation directly opposite to the laws of nature. but who, according to you, made those laws? god. thus, your god, who, according to you, foresaw every thing, counteracts the laws, which his wisdom prescribed to nature! these laws were then defective, or at least in certain circumstances they did not accord with the views of the same god, since you inform us that he judged it necessary to suspend or counteract them. it is said, that a few men, favoured by the most high, have received power to perform miracles. but to perform a miracle, it is necessary to have ability to create new causes capable of producing effects contrary to those of common causes. is it easy to conceive, that god can give men the inconceivable power of creating causes out of nothing? is it credible, that an immutable god can communicate to men power to change or rectify his plan, a power, which by his essence an immutable being cannot save himself? miracles, far from doing much honour to god, far from proving the divinity of a religion, evidently annihilate the god idea. how can a theologian tell us, that god, who must have embraced the whole of his plan, who could have made none but perfect laws, and who cannot alter them, is forced to employ miracles to accomplish his projects, or can grant his creatures the power of working prodigies to execute his divine will? an omnipotent being, whose will is always fulfilled, who holds in his hand his creatures, has only to _will_, to make them believe whatever he desires. 130. what shall we say of religions that prove their divinity by miracles? how can we credit miracles recorded in the sacred books of the christians, where god boasts of hardening the hearts and blinding those whom he wishes to destroy; where he permits malicious spirits and magicians to work miracles as great as those of his servants; where it is predicted, that _antichrist_ shall have power to perform prodigies capable of shaking the faith even of the elect? in this case, by what signs shall we know whether god means to instruct or ensnare us? how shall we distinguish whether the wonders, we behold, come from god or devil? to remove our perplexity, pascal gravely tells us, that _it is necessary to judge the doctrine by the miracles, and the miracles by the doctrine; that the doctrine proves the miracles, and the miracles the doctrine_. if there exist a vicious and ridiculous circle, it is undoubtedly in this splendid reasoning of one of the greatest defenders of christianity. where is the religion, that does not boast of the most admirable doctrine, and which does not produce numerous miracles for its support? is a miracle capable of annihilating the evidence of a demonstrated truth? although a man should have the secret of healing all the sick, of making all the lame to walk, of raising in all the dead of a city, of ascending into the air, of stopping the course of the sun and moon, can he thereby convince me, that two and two do not make four, that one makes three, and that three make only one; that a god, whose immensity fills the universe, could have been contained in the body of a jew; that the eternal can die like a man; that a god, who is said to be immutable, provident, and sensible, could have changed his mind upon his religion, and reformed his own work by a new revelation? 131. according to the very principles either of natural or revealed theology, every new revelation should be regarded as false; every change in a religion emanated from the deity should be reputed an impiety and blasphemy. does not all reform suppose, that, in his first effort, god could not give his religion the solidity and perfection required? to say, that god, in giving a first law, conformed to the rude ideas of the people whom he wished to enlighten, is to pretend that god was neither able nor willing to render the people, whom he was enlightening, so reasonable as was necessary in order to please him. christianity is an impiety, if it is true that judaism is a religion which has really emanated from a holy, immutable, omnipotent, and foreseeing god. the religion of christ supposes either defects in the law which god himself had given by moses, or impotence or malice in the same god, who was either unable or unwilling to render the jews such as they ought to have been in order to please him. every new religion, or reform of ancient religions, is evidently founded upon the impotence, inconstancy, imprudence, or malice of the divinity. 132. if history informs me, that the first apostles, the founders or reformers of religions, wrought great miracles; history also informs me, that these reformers and their adherents were commonly buffeted, persecuted, and put to death, as disturbers of the peace of nations. i am therefore tempted to believe, that they did not perform the miracles ascribed to them; indeed, such miracles must have gained them numerous partisans among the eye-witnesses, who ought to have protected the operators from abuse. my incredulity redoubles, when i am told, that the workers of miracles were cruelly tormented, or ignominiously executed. how is it possible to believe, that missionaries, protected by god, invested with his divine power, and enjoying the gift of miracles, could not have wrought such a simple miracle, as to escape the cruelty of their persecutors? priests have the art of drawing from the persecutions themselves, a convincing proof in favour of the religion of the persecuted. but a religion, which boasts of having cost the lives of many martyrs, and informs us, that its founders, in order to extend it, have suffered punishments, cannot be the religion of a beneficent, equitable and omnipotent god. a good god would not permit men, intrusted with announcing his commands, to be ill-treated. an all-powerful god, wishing to found a religion, would proceed in a manner more simple and less fatal to the most faithful of his servants. to say that god would have his religion sealed with blood, is to say that he is weak, unjust, ungrateful, and sanguinary; and that he is cruel enough to sacrifice his messengers to the views of his ambition. 133. to die for religion proves not that the religion is true, or divine; it proves, at most, that it is supposed to be such. an enthusiast proves nothing by his death, unless that religious fanaticism is often stronger than the love of life. an impostor may sometimes die with courage; he then makes, in the language of the proverb, _a virtue of necessity_. people are often surprised and affected at sight of the generous courage and disinterested zeal, which has prompted missionaries to preach their doctrine, even at the risk of suffering the most rigorous treatment. from this ardour for the salvation of men, are drawn inferences favourable to the religion they have announced. but in reality, this disinterestedness is only apparent. he, who ventures nothing should gain nothing. a missionary seeks to make his fortune by his doctrine. he knows that, if he is fortunate enough to sell his commodity, he will become absolute master of those who receive him for their guide; he is sure of becoming the object of their attention, respect, and veneration. such are the true motives, which kindle the zeal and charity of so many preachers and missionaries. to die for an opinion, proves the truth or goodness of that opinion no more than to die in battle proves the justice of a cause, in which thousands have the folly to devote their lives. the courage of a martyr, elated with the idea of paradise, is not more supernatural, than the courage of a soldier, intoxicated with the idea of glory, or impelled by the fear of disgrace. what is the difference between an iroquois, who sings while he is burning by inches, and the martyr st. laurence, who upon the gridiron insults his tyrant? the preachers of a new doctrine fail, because they are the weakest; apostles generally practise a perilous trade. their courageous death proves neither the truth of their principles nor their own sincerity, any more than the violent death of the ambitious man, or of the robber, proves, that they were right in disturbing society, or that they thought themselves authorised in so doing. the trade of a missionary was always flattering to ambition, and formed a convenient method of living at the expense of the vulgar. these advantages have often been enough to efface every idea of danger. 134. you tell us, theologians! that _what is folly in the eyes of men, is wisdom before god, who delights to confound the wisdom of the wise_. but do you not say, that human wisdom is a gift of heaven? in saying this wisdom displeases god, is but folly in his sight, and that he is pleased to confound it, you declare that your god is the friend only of ignorant people, and that he makes sensible people a fatal present for which this perfidious tyrant promises to punish them cruelly at some future day. is it not strange, that one can be the friend of your god, only by declaring one's self the enemy of reason and good sense? 135. according to the divines, _faith is an assent without evidence_. whence it follows, that religion requires us firmly to believe inevident things, and propositions often improbable or contrary to reason. but when we reject reason as a judge of faith, do we not confess, that reason is incompatible with faith? as the ministers of religion have resolved to banish reason, they must have felt the impossibility of reconciling it with faith, which is visibly only a blind submission to priests, whose authority seems to many persons more weighty than evidence itself, and preferable to the testimony of the senses. "sacrifice your reason; renounce experience; mistrust the testimony of your senses; submit without enquiry to what we announce to you in the name of heaven." such is the uniform language of priests throughout the world; they agree upon no point, except upon the necessity of never reasoning upon the principles which they present to us as most important to our felicity! i will _not_ sacrifice my reason; because this reason alone enables me to distinguish good from evil, truth from falsehood. if, as you say, my reason comes from god, i shall never believe that a god, whom you call good, has given me reason, as a snare, to lead me to perdition. priests! do you not see, that, by decrying reason, you calumniate your god, from whom you declare it to be a gift. i will _not_ renounce experience; because it is a guide much more sure than the imagination or authority of spiritual guides. experience teaches me, that enthusiasm and interest may blind and lead them astray themselves; and that the authority of experience ought to have much more influence upon my mind, than the suspicious testimony of many men, who i know are either very liable to be deceived themselves, or otherwise are very much interested in deceiving others. i _will_ mistrust my senses; because i am sensible they sometimes mislead me. but, on the other hand, i know that they will not always deceive me. i well know, that the eye shews me the sun much smaller than it really is; but experience, which is only the repeated application of the senses, informs me, that objects always appear to diminish, as their distance increases; thus i attain to a certainty, that the sun is much larger than the earth; thus my senses suffice to rectify the hasty judgments, which they themselves had caused. in warning us to mistrust the testimony of our senses, the priests annihilate the proofs of all religion. if men may be dupes of their imagination; if their senses are deceitful, how shall we believe the miracles, which struck the treacherous senses of our ancestors? if my senses are unfaithful guides, i ought not to credit even the miracles wrought before my eyes. 136. you incessantly repeat that _the truths of religion are above reason_. if so, do you not perceive, that these truths are not adapted to reasonable beings? to pretend that reason can deceive us, is to say, that truth can be false; that the useful can be hurtful. is reason any thing but a knowledge of the useful and true? besides, as our reason and senses are our only guides in this life, to say they are unfaithful, is to say, that our errors are necessary, our ignorance invincible, and that, without the extreme of injustice, god cannot punish us for following the only guides it was his supreme will to give. to say, we are obliged to believe things above our reason, is ridiculous. to assure us, that upon some objects we are not allowed to consult reason, is to say, that, in the most interesting matter, we must consult only imagination, or act only at random. our divines say, we must sacrifice our reason to god. but what motives can we have to sacrifice our reason to a being, who makes us only useless presents, which he does not intend us to use? what confidence can we put in a god, who, according to our divines themselves, is malicious enough to harden the heart, to strike with blindness, to lay snares for us, to _lead us into temptation?_ in fine, what confidence can we put in the ministers of this god, who, to guide us more conveniently, commands us to shut our eyes? 137. men are persuaded, that religion is to them of all things the most serious, while it is precisely what they least examine for themselves. in pursuit of an office, a piece of land, a house, a place of profit; in any transaction or contract whatever, every one carefully examines all, takes the greatest precaution, weighs every word of a writing, is guarded against every surprise. not so in religion; every one receives it at a venture, and believes it upon the word of others, without ever taking the trouble to examine. two causes concur to foster the negligence and carelessness of men, with regard to their religious opinions. the first is the despair of overcoming the obscurity, in which all religion is necessarily enveloped. their first principles are only adapted to disgust lazy minds, who regard them as a chaos impossible to be understood. the second cause is, that every one is averse to being too much bound by severe precepts, which all admire in theory, but very few care to practice with rigour. the religion of many people is like old family ties, which they have never taken pains to examine, but which they deposit in their archives to have recourse to them occasionally. 138. the disciples of pythagoras paid implicit faith to the doctrine of their master; _he has said it_, was to them the solution of every problem. the generality of men are not more rational. in matters of religion, a curate, a priest, an ignorant monk becomes master of the thoughts. faith relieves the weakness of the human mind, to which application is commonly painful; it is much more convenient to depend upon others, than to examine for one's self. inquiry, being slow and difficult, equally, displeases the stupidity of the ignorant, and the ardour of the enlightened. such is undoubtedly the reason why faith has so many partisans. the more men are deficient in knowledge and reason, the more zealous they are in religion. in theological quarrels, the populace, like ferocious beasts, fall upon all those, against whom their priest is desirous of exciting them. a profound ignorance, boundless credulity, weak intellect, and warm imagination, are the materials, of which are made bigots, zealots, fanatics, and saints. how can the voice of reason be heard by them who make it a principle never to examine for themselves, but to submit blindly to the guidance of others? the saints and the populace are, in the hands of their directors, automatons, moved at pleasure. 139. religion is an affair of custom and fashion. _we must do as others do._ but, among the numerous religions in the world, which should men choose? this inquiry would be too painful and long. they must therefore adhere to the religion of their fathers, to that of their country, which, having force on its side, must be the best. if we judge of the intentions of providence by the events and revolutions of this world, we are compelled to believe, that he is very indifferent about the various religions upon earth. for thousands of years, paganism, polytheism, idolatry, were the prevailing religions. we are now assured, that the most flourishing nations had not the least idea of god; an idea, regarded as so essential to the happiness of man. christians say, all mankind lived in the grossest ignorance of their duties towards god, and had no notions of him, but what were insulting to his divine majesty. christianity, growing out of judaism, very humble in its obscure origin, became powerful and cruel under the christian emperors, who, prompted by holy zeal, rapidly spread it in their empire by means of fire and sword, and established it upon the ruins of paganism. mahomet and his successors, seconded by providence or their victorious arms, in a short time banished the christian religion from a part of asia, africa, and even europe; and the _gospel_ was then forced to yield to the _koran_. in all the factions or sects, which, for many ages have distracted christianity, _the best argument has been always that of the strongest party_; arms have decided which doctrine is most conducive to the happiness of nations. may we not hence infer, either that the deity feels little interested in the religion of men, or that he always declares in favour of the opinions, which best suit the interest of earthly powers; in fine, that he changes his plan to accommodate their fancy? rulers infallibly decide the religion of the people. the true religion is always the religion of the prince; the true god is the god, whom the prince desires his people to adore; the will of the priests, who govern the prince, always becomes the will of god. a wit justly observed, that _the true religion is always that, on whose side are the prince and the hangman._ emperors and hangmen long supported the gods of rome against the god of christians; the latter, having gained to his interest the emperors, their soldiers, and their hangmen, succeeded in destroying the worship of the roman gods. the god of mahomet has dispossessed the god of christians of a great part of the dominions, which he formerly occupied. in the eastern part of asia, is a vast, flourishing, fertile, populous country, governed by such wise laws, that the fiercest conquerors have adopted them with respect. i mean china. excepting christianity, which was banished as dangerous, the people there follow such superstitions as they please, while the _mandarins_, or magistrates, having long known the errors of the popular religion, are vigilant to prevent the _bonzes_ or priests from using it as an instrument of discord. yet we see not, that providence refuses his blessing to a nation, whose chiefs are so indifferent about the worship that is rendered to him. on the contrary, the chinese enjoy a happiness and repose worthy to be envied, by the many nations whom religion divides, and often devastates. we cannot reasonably propose to divest the people of their follies; but we may perhaps cure the follies of those who govern the people, and who will then prevent the follies of the people from becoming dangerous. superstition is to be feared only when princes and soldiers rally round her standard; then she becomes cruel and sanguinary. every sovereign, who is the protector of one sect or religious faction, is commonly the tyrant of others, and becomes himself the most cruel disturber of the peace of his dominions. 140. it is incessantly repeated, and many sensible persons are induced to believe, that religion is a restraint necessary to men; that without it, there would no longer exist the least check for the vulgar; and that morality and religion are intimately connected with it. "the fear of the lord," cries the priest, "is the beginning of wisdom. the terrors of another life are _salutary_, and are proper to curb the passions of men." to perceive the inutility of religious notions, we have only to open our eyes and contemplate the morals of those nations, who are the most under the dominion of religion. we there find proud tyrants, oppressive ministers, perfidious courtiers, shameless extortioners, corrupt magistrates, knaves, adulterers, debauchees, prostitutes, thieves, and rogues of every kind, who have never doubted either the existence of an avenging and rewarding god, the torments of hell, or the joys of paradise. without the least utility to the greater part of mankind, the ministers of religion have studied to render death terrible to the eyes of their followers. if devout christians could but be consistent, they would pass their whole life in tears, and die under the most dreadful apprehensions. what can be more terrible than death, to the unfortunate who are told, _that it is horrible to fall into the hands of the living god; that we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling!_ yet we are assured, that the death of the christian is attended with infinite consolations, of which the unbeliever is deprived. the good christian, it is said, dies in the firm hope of an eternal happiness which he has strived to merit. but is not this firm assurance itself a presumption punishable in the eyes of a severe god? ought not the greatest saints to be ignorant whether they are _worthy of love or hatred?_ ye priests! while consoling us with the hope of the joys of paradise; have you then had the advantage to see your names and ours inscribed _in the book of life?_ 141. to oppose the passions and present interests of men the obscure notions of a metaphysical, inconceivable god,--the incredible punishments of another life,--or the pleasures of the heaven, of which nobody has the least idea,--is not this combating realities with fictions? men have never any but confused ideas of their god: they see him only in clouds. they never think of him when they are desirous to do evil: whenever ambition, fortune, or pleasure allures them, god's threatenings and promises are forgotten. in the things of this life, there is a degree of certainty, which the most lively faith cannot give to the things of another life. every religion was originally a curb invented by legislators, who wished to establish their authority over the minds of rude nations. like nurses who frighten children to oblige them to be quiet, the ambitious used the name of the gods to frighten savages; and had recourse to terror in order to make them support quietly the yoke they wished to impose. are then the bugbears of infancy made for riper age? at the age of maturity, no man longer believes them, or if he does, they excite little emotion in him, and never alter his conduct. 142. almost every man fears what he sees much more than what he does not see; he fears the judgments of men of which he feels the effects, more than the judgments of god of whom he has only fluctuating ideas. the desire of pleasing the world, the force of custom, the fear of ridicule, and of censure, have more force than all religious opinions. does not the soldier, through fear of disgrace, daily expose his life in battle, even at the risk of incurring eternal damnation? the most religious persons have often more respect for a varlet, than for god. a man who firmly believes, that god sees every thing, and that he is omniscient and omnipresent, will be guilty, when alone, of actions, which he would never do in presence of the meanest of mortals. those, who pretend to be the most fully convinced of the existence of god, every moment act as if they believed the contrary. 143. "let us, at least," it will be said, "cherish the idea of a god, which alone may serve as a barrier to the passions of kings." but, can we sincerely admire the wonderful effects, which the fear of this god generally produces upon the minds of princes, who are called his images? what idea shall we form of the original, if we judge of it by the copies! sovereigns, it is true, call themselves the representatives of god, his vicegerents upon earth. but does the fear of a master, more powerful than they are, incline them seriously to study the welfare of the nations, whom providence has intrusted to their care? does the pretended terror, which ought to be inspired into them by the idea of an invisible judge, to whom alone they acknowledge themselves accountable for their actions, render them more equitable, more compassionate, more sparing of blood and treasure of their subjects, more temperate in their pleasures, more attentive to their duties? in fine, does this god, by whose authority kings reign, deter them from inflicting a thousand evils upon the people to whom they ought to act as guides, protectors, and fathers? alas! if we survey the whole earth, we shall see men almost every where governed by tyrants, who use religion merely as an instrument to render more stupid the slaves, whom they overwhelm under the weight of their vices, or whom they sacrifice without mercy to their extravagancies. far from being a check upon the passions of kings, religion, by its very principles, frees them from all restraint. it transforms them into divinities, whose caprice the people are never permitted to resist. while it gives up the reins to princes, and on their part breaks the bonds of the social compact, it endeavours to chain the minds and hands of their oppressed subjects. is it then surprising, that the gods of the earth imagine every thing lawful for them, and regard their subjects only as instruments of their caprice or ambition? in every country, religion has represented the monarch of nature as a cruel, fantastical, partial tyrant, whose caprice is law; the monarch god, is but too faithfully imitated by his representatives upon earth. religion seems every where invented solely to lull the people in the lap of slavery, in order that their masters may easily oppress them, or render them wretched with impunity. 144. to guard against the enterprises of a haughty pontiff who wished to reign over kings, to shelter their persons from the attempts of credulous nations excited by the priests, several european princes have pretended to hold their crowns and rights from god alone, and to be accountable only to him for their actions. after a long contest between the civil and spiritual power, the former at length triumphed; and the priests, forced to yield, acknowledged the divine right of kings and preached them to the people, reserving the liberty of changing their minds and of preaching revolt, whenever the divine rights of kings clashed with the divine rights of the clergy. it was always at the expense of nations, that peace was concluded between kings and priests; but the latter, in spite of treaties, always preserved their pretensions. tyrants and wicked princes, whose consciences continually reproach them with negligence or perversity, far from fearing their god, had rather deal with this invisible judge who never opposes any thing, or with his priests who are always condescending to the rulers of the earth, than with their own subjects. the people, reduced to despair, might probably _appeal_ from the divine right of their chiefs. men when oppressed to the last degree, sometimes become turbulent; and the divine rights of the tyrant are then forced to yield to the natural rights of the subjects. it is cheaper dealing with gods than men. kings are accountable for their actions to god alone; priests are accountable only to themselves. there is much reason to believe, that both are more confident of the indulgence of heaven, than of that of earth. it is much easier to escape the vengeance of gods who may be cheaply appeased, than the vengeance of men whose patience is exhausted. "if you remove the fear of an invisible power, what restraint will you impose upon the passions of sovereigns?" let them learn to reign; let them learn to be just; to respect the rights if the people; and to acknowledge the kindness of the nations, from whom they hold their greatness and power. let them learn to fear men, and to submit to the laws of equity. let nobody transgress these laws with impunity; and let them be equally binding upon the powerful and the weak, the great and the small, the sovereign and the subjects. the fear of gods, religion, and the terrors of another life, are the metaphysical and supernatural bulwarks, opposed to the impetuous passions of princes! are these bulwarks effectual? let experience resolve the question. to oppose religion to the wickedness of tyrants, is to wish, that vague, uncertain, unintelligible speculations may be stronger than propensities which every thing conspires daily to strengthen. 145. the immense service of religion to politics is incessantly boasted; but, a little reflection will convince us, that religious opinions equally blind both sovereigns and people, and never enlighten them upon their true duties or interests. religion but too often forms licentious, immoral despots, obeyed by slaves, whom every thing obliges to conform to their views. for want of having studied or known the true principles of administration, the objects and rights of social life, the real interests of men and their reciprocal duties, princes, in almost every country, have become licentious, absolute, and perverse; and their subjects abject, wicked, and unhappy. it was to avoid the trouble of studying these important objects, that recourse was had to chimeras, which, far from remedying any thing, have hitherto only multiplied the evils of mankind, and diverted them from whatever is most essential to their happiness. does not the unjust and cruel manner in which so many nations are governed, manifestly furnish one of the strongest proofs, not only of the small effect produced by the fear of another life, but also of the non-existence of a providence, busied with the fate of the human race? if there existed a good god, should we not be forced to admit, that in this life he strangely neglects the greater part of mankind? it would seem, that this god has created nations only to be the sport of the passions and follies of his representatives upon earth. 146. by reading history with attention, we shall perceive that christianity, at first weak and servile, established itself among the savage and free nations of europe only intimating to their chiefs, that its religious principles favoured despotism and rendered them absolute. consequently, we see barbarous princes suddenly converted; that is, we see them adopt, without examination, a system so favourable to their ambition, and use every art to induce their subjects to embrace it. if the ministers of this religion have since often derogated from their favourite principles, it is because the theory influences the conduct of the ministers of the lord, only when it suits their temporal interests. christianity boasts of procuring men a happiness unknown to preceding ages. it is true, the greeks knew not the _divine rights_ of tyrants or of the usurpers of the rights of their country. under paganism, it never entered the head of any man to suppose, that it was against the will of heaven for a nation to defend themselves against a ferocious beast, who had the audacity to lay waste their possessions. the religion of the christians was the first that screened tyrants from danger, by laying down as a principle that the people must renounce the legitimate defence of themselves. thus christian nations are deprived of the first law of nature, which orders man to resist evil, and to disarm whoever is preparing to destroy him! if the ministers of the church have often permitted the people to revolt for the interest of heaven, they have never permitted them to revolt for their own deliverance from real evils or known violences. from heaven came the chains, that were used for fettering the minds of mortals. why is the mahometan every where a slave? because his prophet enslaved him in the name of the deity, as moses had before subdued the jews. in all parts of the earth, we see, that the first legislators were the first sovereigns and the first priests of the savages, to whom they gave laws. religion seems invented solely to exalt princes above their nations, and rivet the fetters of slavery. as soon as the people are too unhappy here below, priests are ready to silence them by threatening them with the anger of god. they are made to fix their eyes upon heaven, lest they should perceive the true causes of their misfortunes, and apply the remedies which nature presents. 147. by dint of repeating to men, that the earth is not their true country; that the present life is only a passage; that they are not made to be happy in this world; that their sovereigns hold their authority from god alone, and are accountable only to him for the abuse of it; that it is not lawful to resist them, etc., priests have eternized the misgovernment of kings and the misery of the people; the interests of nations have been basely sacrificed to their chiefs. the more we consider the dogmas and principles of religion, the more we shall be convinced, that their sole object is the advantage of tyrants and priests, without regard to that of societies. to mask the impotence of its deaf gods, religion has persuaded mortals, that iniquities always kindle the wrath of heaven. people impute to themselves alone the disasters that daily befal them. if nations sometimes feel the strokes of convulsed nature, their bad governments are but too often the immediate and permanent causes, from whence proceed the continual calamities which they are forced to endure. are not the ambition, negligence, vices, and oppressions of kings and nobles, generally the causes of scarcity, beggary, wars, pestilences, corrupt morals, and all the multiplied scourges which desolate the earth? in fixing men's eyes continually upon heaven; in persuading them, that all their misfortunes are effects of divine anger; in providing none but ineffectual and futile means to put an end to their sufferings, we might justly conclude, that the only object of priests was to divert nations from thinking about the true sources of their misery, and thus to render it eternal. the ministers of religion conduct themselves almost like those indigent mothers, who, for want of bread, sing their starved children to sleep, or give them playthings to divert their thoughts from afflicting hunger. blinded by error from their very infancy, restrained by the invisible bonds of opinion, overcome by panic terrors, their faculties blunted by ignorance, how should the people know the true causes of their wretchedness? they imagine that they can avert it by invoking the gods. alas! do they not see, that it is, in the name of these gods, that they are ordered to present their throats to the sword of their merciless tyrants, in whom they might find the obvious cause of the evils under which they groan, and for whom they cease not to implore, in vain, the assistance of heaven? ye credulous people! in your misfortunes, redouble your prayers, offerings, and sacrifices; throng to your temples; fast in sack-cloth and ashes; bathe yourselves in your own tears; and above all, completely ruin yourselves to enrich your gods! you will only enrich their priests. the gods of heaven will be propitious, only when the gods of the earth shall acknowledge themselves, men, like you, and shall devote to your welfare the attention you deserve. 148. negligent, ambitious, and perverse princes are the real causes of public misfortunes. useless, unjust wars depopulate the earth. encroaching and despotic governments absorb the benefits of nature. the rapacity of courts discourages agriculture, extinguishes industry, produces want, pestilence and misery. heaven is neither cruel nor propitious to the prayers of the people; it is their proud chiefs, who have almost always hearts of stone. it is destructive to the morals of princes, to persuade them that they have god alone to fear, when they injure their subjects, or neglect their happiness. sovereigns! it is not the gods, but your people, that you offend, when you do evil. it is your people and yourselves that you injure, when you govern unjustly. in history, nothing is more common than to see religious tyrants; nothing more rare than to find equitable, vigilant, enlightened princes. a monarch may be pious, punctual in a servile discharge of the duties of his religion, very submissive and liberal to his priests, and yet at the same time be destitute of every virtue and talent necessary for governing. to princes, religion is only an instrument destined to keep the people more completely under the yoke. by the excellent principles of religious morality, a tyrant who, during a long reign, has done nothing but oppress his subjects, wresting, from them the fruits of their labour, sacrificing them without mercy to his insatiable ambition,--a conqueror, who has usurped the provinces of others, slaughtered whole nations, and who, during his whole life, has been a scourge to mankind,--imagines his conscience may rest, when, to expiate so many crimes, he has wept at the feet of a priest, who generally has the base complaisance to console and encourage a robber, whom the most hideous despair would too lightly punish for the misery he has caused upon earth. 149. a sovereign, sincerely devout, is commonly dangerous to the state. credulity always supposes a contracted mind; devotion generally absorbs the attention, which a prince should pay to the government of his people. obsequious to the suggestions of his priests, he becomes the sport of their caprices, the favourer of their quarrels, and the instrument and accomplice of their follies, which he imagines to be of the greatest importance. among the most fatal presents, which religion has made the world, ought to be reckoned those devout and zealous monarchs, who, under an idea of working for the welfare of their subjects, have made it a sacred duty to torment, persecute, and destroy those, who thought differently from themselves. a bigot, at the head of an empire, is one of the greatest scourges. a single fanatical or knavish priest, listened to by a credulous and powerful prince, suffices to put a state in disorder. in almost all countries, priests and pious persons are intrusted with forming the minds and hearts of young princes, destined to govern nations. what qualifications have instructors of this stamp! by what interests can they be animated? full of prejudices themselves, they will teach their pupil to regard superstition, as most important and sacred; its chimerical duties, as most indispensable, intolerance and persecution, as the true foundation of his future authority. they will endeavour to make him a party leader, a turbulent fanatic, a tyrant; they will early stifle his reason, and forewarn him against the use of it; they will prevent truth from reaching his ears; they will exasperate him against true talents, and prejudice him in favour of contemptible ones; in short, they will make him a weak devotee, who will have no idea either of justice or injustice, nor of true glory, nor of true greatness, and who will be destitute of the knowledge and virtues necessary to the government of a great nation. such is the plan of the education of a child, destined one day to create the happiness or misery of millions of men! 150. priests have ever shewn themselves the friends of despotism, and the enemies of public liberty: their trade requires abject and submissive slaves, who have never the audacity to reason. in an absolute government, who ever gains an ascendancy over the mind of a weak and stupid prince, becomes master of the state. instead of conducting the people to salvation, priests have always conducted them to servitude. in consideration of the supernatural titles, which religion has forged for the worst of princes, the latter have commonly united with priests, who, sure of governing by opinion the sovereign himself, have undertaken to bind the hands of the people and to hold them under the yoke. but the tyrant, covered with the shield of religion, in vain flatters himself that he is secure from every stroke of fate; opinion is a weak rampart against the despair of the people. besides, the priest is a friend of the tyrant only while he finds his account in tyranny; he preaches sedition, and demolishes the idol he has made, when he finds it no longer sufficiently conformable to the interest of god, whom he makes to speak at his will, and who never speaks except according to his interests. it will no doubt be said, that sovereigns, knowing all the advantages which religion procures them, are truly interested in supporting it with all their strength. if religious opinions are useful to tyrants, it is very evident, that they are useful to those, who govern by the laws of reason and equity. is there then any advantage in exercising tyranny? are princes truly interested in being tyrants? does not tyranny deprive them of true power, of the love of the people, and of all safety? ought not every reasonable prince to perceive, that the despot is a madman, and an enemy to himself? should not every enlightened prince beware of flatterers, whose object is to lull him to sleep upon the brink of the precipice which they form beneath him? 151. if sacerdotal flatteries succeed in perverting princes and making them tyrants; tyrants, on their part, necessarily corrupt both the great and the humble. under an unjust ruler, void of goodness and virtue, who knows no law but his caprice, a nation must necessarily be depraved. will this ruler wish to have, about his person, honest, enlightened, and virtuous men? no. he wants none but flatterers, approvers, imitators, slaves, base and servile souls, who conform themselves to his inclinations. his court will propagate the contagion of vice among the lower ranks. all will gradually become corrupted in a state, whose chief is corrupt. it was long since said, that "princes seem to command others to do whatever they do themselves." religion, far from being a restraint upon sovereigns, enables them to indulge without fear or remorse, in acts of licentiousness as injurious to themselves, as to the nations whom they govern. it is never with impunity, that men are deceived. tell a sovereign, that he is a god; he will very soon believe that he owes nothing to any one. provided he is feared, he will care very little about being loved: he will observe neither rules, nor relations with his subjects, nor duties towards them. tell this prince, that he is _accountable for his actions to god alone_, and he will soon act as if he were accountable to no one. 152. an enlightened sovereign is he, who knows his true interests; who knows, that they are connected with the interests of his nation; that a prince cannot be great, powerful, beloved, or respected, while he commands only unhappy slaves; that equity, beneficence, and vigilance will give him more real authority over his people, than the fabulous titles, said to be derived from heaven. he will see, that religion is useful only to priests, that it is useless to society and often troubles it, and that it ought to be restrained in order to be prevented from doing injury. finally, he will perceive, that, to reign with glory, he must have good laws and inculcate virtue, and not found his power upon impostures and fallacies. 153. the ministers of religion have taken great care to make of their god, a formidable, capricious, and fickle tyrant. such a god was necessary to their variable interests. a god, who should be just and good, without mixture of caprice or perversity; a god, who had constantly the qualities of an honest man, or of a kind sovereign, would by no means suit his ministers. it is useful to priests, that men should tremble before their god, in order that they may apply to them to obtain relief from their fears. "no man is a hero before his valet de chambre." it is not surprising, that a god, dressed up by his priests so as to be terrible to others, should rarely impose upon them, or should have but very little influence upon their conduct. hence, in every country, their conduct is very much the same. under pretext of the glory of their god, they every where prey upon ignorance, degrade the mind, discourage industry, and sow discord. ambition and avarice have at all times been the ruling passions of the priesthood. the priest every where rises superior to sovereigns and laws; we see him every where occupied with the interests of his pride, of his cupidity, and of his despotic, revengeful humour. in the room of useful and social virtues, he everywhere substitutes expiations, sacrifices, ceremonies, mysterious practices, in a word, inventions lucrative to himself and ruinous to others. the mind is confounded and the reason is amazed upon viewing the ridiculous customs and pitiful means, which the ministers of the gods have invented in every country to purify souls, and render heaven favourable. here they cut off part of a child's prepuce, to secure for him divine benevolence; there, they pour water upon his head, to cleanse him of crimes, which he could not as yet have committed. in one place, they command him to plunge into a river, whose waters have the power of washing away all stains; in another, he is forbidden to eat certain food, the use of which will not fail to excite the celestial wrath; in other countries, they enjoin upon sinful man to come periodically and confess his faults to a priest, who is often a greater sinner than himself, etc., etc., etc. 154. what should we say of a set of empirics, who, resorting every day to a public place, should extol the goodness of their remedies, and vend them as infallible, while they themselves were full of the infirmities, which they pretend to cure? should we have much confidence in the recipes of these quacks, though they stun us with crying, "take our remedies, their effects are infallible; they cure every body; except us." what should we afterwards think, should those quacks spend their lives in complaining, that their remedies never produced the desired effect upon the sick, who take them? in fine, what idea should we form of the stupidity of the vulgar, who, notwithstanding these confessions, should not cease to pay dearly for remedies, the inefficacy of which every thing tends to prove? priests resemble these alchymists, who boldly tell us, they have the secret of making gold, while they have scarcely clothes to cover their nakedness. the ministers of religion incessantly declaim against the corruption of the age, and loudly complain of the little effect of their lessons, while at the same time they assure us, that religion is the _universal remedy_, the true _panacea_ against the wickedness of mankind. these priests are very sick themselves, yet men continue to frequent their shops, and to have faith in their divine antidotes, which, by their own confession, never effect a cure! 155. religion, especially with the moderns, has tried to identify itself with morality, the principles of which it has thereby totally obscured. it has rendered men unsociable by duty, and forced them to be inhuman to everyone who thought differently from themselves. theological disputes, equally unintelligible to each of the enraged parties, have shaken empires, caused revolutions, been fatal to sovereigns, and desolated all europe. these contemptible quarrels have not been extinguished even in rivers of blood. since the extinction of paganism, the people have made it a religious principle to become outrageous, whenever any opinion is advanced which their priests think contrary to _sound doctrine_. the sectaries of a religion, which preaches, in appearance, nothing but charity, concord, and peace, have proved themselves more ferocious than cannibals or savages, whenever their divines excited them to destroy their brethren. there is no crime, which men have not committed under the idea of pleasing the divinity, or appeasing his wrath. the idea of a terrible god, whom we paint to ourselves as a despot, must necessarily render his subjects wicked. fear makes only slaves, and slaves are cowardly, base, cruel, and think every thing lawful, in order to gain the favour or escape the chastisements of the master whom they fear. liberty of thinking alone can give men humanity and greatness of soul. the notion of a tyrant-god tends only to make them abject, morose, quarrelsome, intolerant slaves. every religion, which supposes a god easily provoked, jealous, revengeful, punctilious about his rights or the etiquette with which he is treated;--a god little enough to be hurt by the opinions which men can form of him;--a god unjust enough to require that we have uniform notions of his conduct; a religion which supposes such a god necessarily becomes restless, unsociable, and sanguinary; the worshippers of such a god would never think, that they could, without offence, forbear hating and even destroying every one, who is pointed out to them, as an adversary of this god; they would think, that it would be to betray the cause of their celestial monarch, to live in friendly intercourse with rebellious fellow-citizens. if we love what god hates, do we not expose ourselves to his implacable hatred? infamous persecutors, and devout men-haters! will you never discern the folly and injustice of your intolerant disposition? do you not see, that man is no more master of his religious opinions, his belief or unbelief, than of the language, which he learns from infancy? to punish a man for his errors, is it not to punish him for having been educated differently from you? if i am an unbeliever, is it possible for me to banish from my mind the reasons that have shaken my faith? if your god gives men leave to be damned, what have you to meddle with? are you more prudent and wise, than this god, whose rights you would avenge? 156. there is no devotee, who does not, according to his temperament, hate, despise, or pity the adherents of a sect, different from his own. the _established_ religion, which is never any other than that of the sovereign and the armies, always makes its superiority felt in a very cruel and injurious manner by the weaker sects. as yet there is no true toleration upon earth; men every where adore a jealous god, of whom each nation believes itself the friend, to the exclusion of all others. every sect boasts of adoring alone the true god, the universal god, the sovereign of all nature. but when we come to examine this monarch of the world, we find that every society, sect, party, or religious cabal, makes of this powerful god only a pitiful sovereign, whose care and goodness extend only to a small number of his subjects, who pretend that they alone have the happiness to enjoy his favours, and that he is not at all concerned about the others. the founders of religions, and the priests who support them, evidently proposed to separate the nations, whom they taught, from the other nations; they wished to separate their own flock by distinguishing marks; they gave their followers gods, who were hostile to the other gods; they taught them modes of worship, dogmas and ceremonies apart; and above all, they persuaded them, that the religion of others was impious and abominable. by this unworthy artifice, the ambitious knaves established, their usurpation over the minds of their followers, rendered them unsociable, and made them regard with an evil eye all persons who had not the same mode of worship and the same ideas as they had. thus it is, that religion has shut up the heart and for ever banished from it the affection that man ought to have for his fellow-creature. sociability, indulgence, humanity, those first virtues of all morality, are totally incompatible with religious prejudices. 157. every national religion is calculated to make man vain, unsociable, and wicked; the first step towards humanity is to permit every one peaceably to embrace the mode of worship and opinions, which he judges to be right. but this conduct cannot be pleasing to the ministers of religion, who wish to have the right of tyrannizing over men even in their thoughts. blind and bigoted princes! you hate and persecute heretics, and order them to execution, because you are told, that these wretches displease god. but do you not say, that your god is full of goodness? how then can you expect to please him by acts of barbarity, which he must necessarily disapprove? besides, who has informed you, that their opinions displease your god? your priests? but, who assures you, that your priests are not themselves deceived or wish to deceive you? the same priests? princes! it is then upon the hazardous word of your priests, that you commit the most atrocious crimes, under the idea of pleasing the divinity! 158. pascal says, "that man never does evil so fully and cheerfully, as when he acts from a false principle of conscience." nothing is more dangerous than a religion, which lets loose the ferocity of the multitude, and justifies their blackest crimes. they will set no bounds to their wickedness, when they think it authorized by their god, whose interests, they are told, can make every action legitimate. is religion in danger?--the most civilized people immediately becomes true savages, and think nothing forbidden. the more cruel they are, the more agreeable they suppose they are to their god, whose cause they imagine cannot be supported with too much warmth. all religions have authorized innumerable crimes. the jews, intoxicated with the promises of their god, arrogated the rights of exterminating whole nations. relying on the oracles of their god, the romans conquered and ravaged the world. the arabians, encouraged by their divine prophet, carried fire and sword among the christians and the idolaters. the christians, under pretext of extending their holy religion, have often deluged both hemispheres in blood. in all events favourable to their own interest, which they always call _the cause of god_, priests show us the _finger of god_. according to these principles, the devout have the happiness to see the _finger of god_ in revolts, revolutions, massacres, regicides, crimes, prostitutions, horrors; and, if these things contribute ever so little to the triumph of religion, we are told, that "god uses all sorts of means to attain his ends." is any thing more capable of effacing every idea of morality from the minds of men, than to inform them, that their god, so powerful and perfect, is often forced to make use of criminal actions in order to accomplish his designs? 159. no sooner do we complain of the extravagancies and evils, which religion has so often caused upon the earth, than we are reminded, that these excesses are not owing to religion; but "that they are the sad effects of the passions of men." but i would ask, what has let loose these passions? it is evidently religion; it is zeal, that renders men inhuman, and serves to conceal the greatest atrocities. do not these disorders then prove, that religion, far from restraining the passions of men, only covers them with a veil, which sanctifies them, and that nothing would be more useful, than to tear away this sacred veil of which men often make such a terrible use? what horrors would be banished from society, if the wicked were deprived of so plausible a pretext for disturbing it! instead of being angels of peace among men, priests have been demons of discord. they have pretended to receive from heaven the right of being quarrelsome, turbulent, and rebellious. do not the ministers of the lord think themselves aggrieved, and pretend that the divine majesty is offended, whenever sovereigns have the temerity to prevent them from doing evil? priests are like the spiteful woman who cried _fire! murder! assassination!_ while her husband held her hands to prevent her from striking him. 160. notwithstanding the bloody tragedies, which religion often acts, it is insisted, that, without religion, there can be no morality. if we judge theological opinions by their effects, we may confidently assert, that all morality is perfectly incompatible with men's religious opinions. "imitate god," exclaim the pious. but, what would be our morality, should we imitate this god! and what god ought we to imitate? the god of the deist? but even this god cannot serve us as a very constant model of goodness. if he is the author of all things, he is the author both of good and evil. if he is the author of order, he is also the author of disorder, which could not take place without his permission. if he produces, he destroys; if he gives life, he takes it away; if he grants abundance, riches, prosperity, and peace, he permits or sends scarcity, poverty, calamities, and wars. how then can we receive as a model of permanent beneficence, the god of deism or natural religion, whose favourable dispositions are every instant contradicted by all the effects we behold? morality must have a basis less tottering than the example of a god, whose conduct varies, and who cannot be called good, unless we obstinately shut our eyes against the evil which he causes or permits in this world. shall we imitate the _beneficent, mighty jupiter_ of heathen antiquity? to imitate such a god, is to admit as a model, a rebellious son, who ravishes the throne from his father. it is to imitate a debauchee, an adulterer, one guilty of incest and of base passions, at whose conduct every reasonable mortal would blush. what would have been the condition of men under paganism, had they imagined, like plato, that virtue consisted in imitating the gods! must we imitate the god of the jews! shall we find in _jehovah_ a model for our conduct? this is a truly savage god, made for a stupid, cruel, and immoral people; he is always furious, breathes nothing but vengeance, commands carnage, theft, and unsociability. the conduct of this god cannot serve as a model to that of an honest man, and can be imitated only by a chief of robbers. shall we then imitate the _jesus_ of the christians? does this god, who died to appease the implacable fury of his father, furnish us an example which men ought to follow? alas! we shall see in him only a god, or rather a fanatic, a misanthrope, who, himself plunged in wretchedness and preaching to wretches, will advise them to be poor, to combat with and stifle nature, to hate pleasure, seek grief, and detest themselves. he will tell them to leave father, mother, relations, friends, etc., to follow him. "fine morality!" you say. it is, undoubtedly, admirable: it must be divine, for it is impracticable to men. but is not such sublime morality calculated to render virtue odious? according to the so much boasted morality of the _man_-god of the christians, a disciple of his in this world must be like _tantalus_, tormented with a burning thirst, which he is not allowed to quench. does not such morality give us a wonderful idea of the author of nature? if, as we are assured, he has created all things for his creatures, by what strange whim does he forbid them the use of the goods he has created for them? is pleasure then, which man continually desires, only a snare, which god has maliciously laid to surprise his weakness? 161. the followers of christ would have us regard, as a miracle, the establishment of their religion, which is totally repugnant to nature, opposite to all the propensities of the heart, and inimical to sensual pleasures. but the austerity of a doctrine renders it the more marvellous in the eyes of the vulgar. the same disposition, which respects inconceivable mysteries as divine and supernatural, admires, as divine and supernatural, a morality, that is impracticable, and beyond the powers of man. to admire a system of morality, and to put it in practice, are two very different things. all christians admire and extol the morality of the gospel; which they do not practise. the whole world is more or less infected with a religious morality, founded upon the opinion, that to please the divinity, it is absolutely necessary to render ourselves unhappy upon earth. in all parts of our globe, we see penitents, fakirs, and fanatics, who seem to have profoundly studied the means of tormenting themselves, in honour of a being whose goodness all agree in celebrating. religion, by its essence, is an enemy to the joy and happiness of men. "blessed are the poor, blessed are they, who weep; blessed are they, who suffer; misery to those, who are in abundance and joy." such are the rare discoveries, announced by christianity! 162. what is a saint in every religion? a man, who prays, and fasts, who torments himself, and shuns the world; who like an owl, delights only in solitude, abstains from all pleasure, and seems frightened of every object, which may divert him from his fanatical meditations. is this virtue? is a being of this type, kind to himself, or useful to others? would not society be dissolved, and man return to a savage state, if every one were fool enough to be a saint? it is evident, that the literal and rigorous practice of the divine morality of the christians would prove the infallible ruin of nations. a christian, aiming at perfection, ought to free his mind from whatever can divert it from heaven, his true country. upon earth, he sees nothing but temptations, snares, and rocks of perdition. he must fear science, as hurtful to faith; he must avoid industry, as a means of obtaining riches, too fatal to salvation; he must renounce offices and honours, as capable of exciting his pride, and calling off his attention from the care of his soul. in a word, the sublime morality of christ, were it practicable, would break all the bonds of society. a saint in society is as useless, as a saint in the desert; his humour is morose, discontented, and often turbulent; his zeal sometimes obliges him in conscience to trouble society by opinions or dreams, which his vanity makes him consider as inspirations from on high. the annals of every religion are full of restless saints, intractable saints, and seditious saints, who have become famous by the ravages, with which, _for the greater glory of god_, they have desolated the universe. if saints, who live in retirement, are useless, those who live in the world, are often very dangerous. the vanity of acting, the desire of appearing illustrious and peculiar in conduct, commonly constitute the distinguishing character of saints. pride persuades them, that they are extraordinary men far above human nature, beings much more perfect than others, favourites whom god regards with much more complaisance than the rest of mortals. humility, in a saint, is commonly only a more refined pride than that of the generality of men. nothing but the most ridiculous vanity can induce man to wage continual war against his own nature. 163. a morality, which contradicts the nature of man, is not made for man. "but," say you, "the nature of man is depraved." in what consists this pretended depravity? in having passions? but, are not passions essential to man? is he not obliged to seek, desire, and love what is, or what he thinks is, conducive to his happiness? is he not forced to fear and avoid what he judges disagreeable or fatal? kindle his passions for useful objects; connect his welfare with those objects; divert him, by sensible and known motives, from what may injure either him or others, and you will make him a reasonable and virtuous being. a man without passions would be equally indifferent to vice and to virtue. holy doctors! you are always repeating to us that the nature of man is perverted; you exclaim, "that _all flesh has corrupted its way_, that all the propensities of nature have become inordinate." in this case, you accuse your god; who was either unable, or unwilling, that this nature should preserve its primitive perfection. if this nature is corrupted, why has not god repaired it? the christian immediately assures me, "that human nature is repaired; that the death of his god has restored its integrity." how then, i would ask, do you pretend that human nature, notwithstanding the death of a god, is still depraved? is then the death of your god wholly fruitless? what becomes of his omnipotence and of his victory over the devil, if it is true that the devil still preserves the empire, which, according to you, he has always exercised in the world? according to christian theology, death is the _wages of sin_. this opinion is conformable to that of some negro and savage nations, who imagine that the death of a man is always the supernatural effect of the anger of the gods. christians firmly believe, that christ has delivered them from sin; though they see, that, in their religion, as in others, man is subject to death. to say that jesus christ has delivered us from sin, is it not to say, that a judge has pardoned a criminal, while we see that he leaves him for execution? 164. if shutting our eyes upon whatever passes in the world, we would credit the partisans of the christian religion, we should believe, that the coming of their divine saviour produced the most wonderful and complete reform in the morals of nations. if we examine the morals of christian nations, and listen to the clamours of their priests, we shall be forced to conclude, that jesus christ, their god, preached and died, in vain; his omnipotent will still finds in men, a resistance, over which he cannot, or will not triumph. the morality of this divine teacher, which his disciples so much admire and so little practise, is followed, in a whole century only by half a dozen obscure saints, and fanatics, and unknown monks, who alone will have the glory of shining in the celestial court, while all the rest of mortals, though redeemed by the blood of this god, will be the prey of eternal flames. 165. when a man is strongly inclined to sin, he thinks very little about his god. nay more, whatever crimes he has committed, he always flatters himself, that this god will soften, in his favour, the rigour of his decrees. no mortal seriously believes, that his conduct can damn him. though he fears a terrible god, who often makes him tremble, yet, whenever he is strongly tempted, he yields; and he afterwards sees only the god of _mercies_, the idea of whom calms his apprehensions. if a man commits evil, he hopes, he shall have time to reform, and promises to repent at a future day. in religious pharmacy, there are infallible prescriptions to quiet consciences: priests, in every country, possess sovereign secrets to disarm the anger of heaven. yet, if it be true that the deity is appeased by prayers, offerings, sacrifices, and penances, it can no longer be said, that religion is a check to the irregularities of men; they will first sin, and then seek the means to appease god. every religion, which expiates crime and promises a remission of them, if it restrain some persons, encourages the majority to commit evil. notwithstanding his immutability, god, in every religion, is a true _proteus_. his priests represent him at one time armed with severity, at another full of clemency and mildness; sometimes cruel and unmerciful, and sometimes easily melted by the sorrow and tears of sinners. consequently, men see the divinity only on the side most conformable to their present interests. a god always angry would discourage his worshippers, or throw them into despair. men must have a god, who is both irritable, and placable. if his anger frightens some timorous souls, his clemency encourages the resolutely wicked, who depend upon recurring, sooner or later, to the means of accommodation. if the judgments of god terrify some faint-hearted pious persons, who by constitution and habit are not prone to evil, _the treasures of divine mercy_ encourage the greatest criminals, who have reason to hope they participate therein equally with the others. 166. most men seldom think of god, or, at least, bestow on him serious attention. the only ideas we can form of him are so devoid of object, and are at the same time so afflicting, that the only imaginations they can arrest are those of melancholy hypochondriacs, who do not constitute the majority of the inhabitants of this world. the vulgar have no conception of god; their weak brains are confused, whenever they think of him. the man of business thinks only of his business; the courtier of his intrigues; men of fashion, women, and young people of their pleasures; dissipation soon effaces in them all the fatiguing notions of religion. the ambitious man, the miser and the debauchee carefully avoid speculations too feeble to counterbalance their various passions. who is awed by the idea of a god? a few enfeebled men, morose and disgusted with the world; a few, in whom the passions are already deadened by age, by infirmity, or by the strokes of fortune. religion is a check, to those alone who by their state of mind and body, or by fortuitous circumstances, have been already brought to reason. the fear of god hinders from sin only those, who are not much inclined to it, or else those who are no longer able to commit it. to tell men, that the deity punishes crimes in this world, is to advance an assertion, which experience every moment contradicts. the worst of men are commonly the arbiters of the world, and are those whom fortune loads with her favours. to refer us to another life, in order to convince us of the judgments of god, is to refer us to conjectures, in order to destroy facts, which cannot be doubted. 167. nobody thinks of the life to come, when he is strongly smitten with the objects he finds here below. in the eyes of a passionate lover, the presence of his mistress extinguishes the flames of hell, and her charms efface all the pleasures of paradise. woman! you leave, say you, your lover for your god. this is either because your lover is no longer the same in your eyes, or because he leaves you. nothing is more common, than to see ambitious, perverse, corrupt, and immoral men, who have some ideas of religion, and sometimes appear even zealous for its interest. if they do not practise it at present, they hope to in the future. they lay it up, as a remedy, which will be necessary to salve the conscience for the evil they intend to commit. besides, the party of devotees and priests being very numerous, active, and powerful, is it not astonishing, that rogues and knaves seek its support to attain their ends? it will undoubtedly be said, that many honest people are sincerely religious, and that without profit; but is uprightness of heart always accompanied with knowledge? it is urged, that many learned men, many men of genius have been strongly attached to religion. this proves, that men of genius may have prejudices, be pusillanimous, and have an imagination, which misleads them and prevents them from examining subjects coolly. pascal proves nothing in favour of religion, unless that a man of genius may be foolish on some subjects, and is but a child, when he is weak enough to listen to his prejudices. pascal himself tells us, that _the mind may be strong and contracted, enlarged and weak_. he previously observes, that _a man may have a sound mind, and not understand every subject equally well; for there are some, who, having a sound judgment in a certain order of things, are bewildered in others_. 168. what is virtue according to theology? _it is_, we are told, _the conformity of the actions of man to the will of god_. but, what is god? a being, of whom nobody has the least conception, and whom every one consequently modifies in his own way. what is the will of god? it is what men, who have seen god, or whom god has inspired, have declared to be the will of god. who are those, who have seen god? they are either fanatics, or rogues, or ambitious men, whom we cannot believe. to found morality upon a god, whom every man paints to himself differently, composes in his way, and arranges according to his own temperament and interest, is evidently to found morality upon the caprice and imagination of men; it is to found it upon the whims of a sect, a faction, a party, who believe they have the advantage to adore a true god to the exclusion of all others. to establish morality or the duties of man upon the divine will, is to found it upon the will, the reveries and the interests of those, who make god speak, without ever fearing that he will contradict them. in every religion, priests alone have a right to decide what is pleasing or displeasing to their god, and we are certain they will always decide, that it is what pleases or displeases themselves. the dogmas, the ceremonies, the morals, and the virtues, prescribed by every religion, are visibly calculated only to extend the power or augment the emoluments of the founders and ministers of these religions. the dogmas are obscure, inconceivable, frightful, and are therefore well calculated to bewilder the imagination and to render the vulgar more obsequious to the will of those who wish to domineer over them. the ceremonies and practices procure the priests, riches or respect. religion consists in a submissive faith, which prohibits the exercise of reason; in a devout humility, which insures priests the submission of their slaves; in an ardent zeal, when religion, that is, when the interest of these priests, is in danger. the only object of all religions is evidently the advantage of its ministers. 169. when we reproach theologians with the barrenness of their divine virtues, they emphatically extol _charity_, that tender love of one's neighbour, which christianity makes an essential duty of its disciples. but, alas! what becomes of this pretended charity, when we examine the conduct of the ministers of the lord? ask them, whether we must love or do good to our neighbour, if he be an impious man, a heretic, or an infidel, that is, if he do not think like them? ask them, whether we must tolerate opinions contrary to those of the religion, they profess? ask them, whether the sovereign can show indulgence to those who are in error? their charity instantly disappears, and the established clergy will tell you, that _the prince bears the sword only to support the cause of the most high_: they will tell you that, through love for our neighbour, we must prosecute, imprison, exile, and burn him. you will find no toleration except among a few priests, persecuted themselves, who will lay aside christian charity the instant they have power to persecute in their turn. the christian religion, in its origin preached by beggars and miserable men, under the name of _charity_, strongly recommends alms. the religion of mahomet also enjoins it as an indispensable duty. nothing undoubtedly is more conformable to humanity, than to succour the unfortunate, to clothe the naked, to extend the hand of beneficence to every one in distress. but would it not be more humane and charitable to prevent the source of misery and poverty? if religion, instead of deifying princes, had taught them to respect the property of their subjects, to be just, to exercise only their lawful rights, we should not be shocked by the sight of such a multitude of beggars. a rapacious, unjust, tyrannical government multiplies misery; heavy taxes produce discouragement, sloth, and poverty, which in their turn beget robberies, assassinations, and crimes of every description. had sovereigns more humanity, charity, and equity, their dominions would not be peopled by so many wretches, whose misery it becomes impossible to alleviate. christian and mahometan states are full of large hospitals, richly endowed, in which we admire the pious charity of the kings and sultans, who erected them. but would it not have been more humane to govern the people justly, to render them happy, to excite and favour industry and commerce, and to let men enjoy in safety the fruit of their labours, than to crush them under a despotic yoke, to impoverish them by foolish wars, to reduce them to beggary, in order that luxury may be satisfied, and then to erect splendid buildings, which can contain but a very small portion of those, who have been rendered miserable? religion has only deluded men; instead of preventing evils, it always applies ineffectual remedies. the ministers of heaven have always known how to profit by the calamities of others. public misery is their element. they have every where become administrators of the property of the poor, distributors of alms, depositaries of charitable donations; and thereby they have at all times extended and supported their power over the unhappy, who generally compose the most numerous, restless, and seditious part of society. thus the greatest evils turn to the profit of the ministers of the lord. christian priests tell us, that the property they possess is the property of the poor, and that it is therefore sacred. consequently they have eagerly accumulated lands, revenues, and treasures. under colour of charity, spiritual guides have become extremely opulent, and in the face of impoverished nations enjoy wealth, which was destined solely for the unfortunate; while the latter, far from murmuring, applaud a pious generosity, which enriches the church, but rarely contributes to the relief of the poor. according to the principles of christianity, poverty itself is a virtue; indeed, it is the virtue, which sovereigns and priests oblige their slaves to observe most rigorously. with this idea, many pious christians have of their own accord renounced riches, distributed their patrimony among the poor, and retired into deserts, there to live in voluntary indigence. but this enthusiasm, this supernatural taste for misery, has been soon forced to yield to nature. the successors of these volunteers in poverty sold to the devout people their prayers, and their intercessions with the deity. they became rich and powerful. thus monks and hermits lived in indolence, and under colour of charity, impudently devoured the substance of the poor. the species of poverty, most esteemed by religion, is _poverty of mind_. the fundamental virtue of every religion, most useful to its ministers, is _faith_. it consists in unbounded credulity, which admits, without enquiry, whatever the interpreters of the deity are interested in making men believe. by the aid of this wonderful virtue, priests became the arbiters of right and wrong, of good and evil: they could easily cause the commission of crimes to advance their interest. implicit faith has been the source of the greatest outrages that have been committed. 170. he, who first taught nations, that, when we wrong man, we must ask pardon of god, appease _him_ by presents, and offer _him_ sacrifices, evidently destroyed the true principles of morality. according to such ideas, many persons imagine that they may obtain of the king of heaven, as of kings of the earth, permission to be unjust and wicked, or may at least obtain pardon for the evil they may commit. morality is founded upon the relations, wants, and constant interests of mankind; the relations, which subsist between god and men, are either perfectly unknown, or imaginary. religion, by associating god with man, has wisely weakened, or destroyed, the bonds, which unite them. mortals imagine, they may injure one another with impunity, by making suitable satisfaction to the almighty being, who is supposed to have the right of remitting all offences committed against his creatures. is any thing better calculated to encourage the wicked or harden them in crimes, than to persuade them that there exists an invisible being, who has a right to forgive acts of injustice, rapine, and outrage committed against society? by these destructive ideas, perverse men perpetrate the most horrid crimes, and believe they make reparation by imploring divine mercy; their conscience is at rest, when a priest assures them that heaven is disarmed by a repentance, which, though sincere, is very useless to the world. in the mind of a devout man, god must be regarded more than his creatures; it is better to obey him, than men. the interests of the celestial monarch must prevail over those of weak mortals. but the interests of heaven are obviously those of its ministers; whence it evidently follows, that in every religion, priests, under pretext of the interests of heaven or the glory of god, can dispense with the duties of human morality, when they clash with the duties, which god has a right to impose. besides, must not he, who has power to pardon crimes, have a right to encourage the commission of crimes? 171. we are perpetually told, that, without a god there would be no _moral obligation_; that the people and even the sovereigns require a legislator powerful enough to constrain them. moral constraint supposes a law; but this law arises from the eternal and necessary relations of things with one another; relations, which have nothing common with the existence of a god. the rules of man's conduct are derived from his own nature which he is capable of knowing, and not from the divine nature of which he has no idea. these rules constrain or oblige us; that is, we render ourselves estimable or contemptible, amiable or detestable, worthy of reward or of punishment, happy or unhappy, accordingly as we conform to, or deviate from these rules. the law, which obliges man not to hurt himself, is founded upon the nature of a sensible being, who, in whatever way he came into this world, is forced by his actual essence to seek good and shun evil, to love pleasure and fear pain. the law, which obliges man not to injure, and even to do good to others, is founded upon the nature of sensible beings, living in society, whose essence compels them to despise those who are useless, and to detest those who oppose their felicity. whether there exists a god or not, whether this god has spoken or not, the moral duties of men will be always the same, so long as they are sensible beings. have men then need of a god whom they know not, of an invisible legislator, of a mysterious religion and of chimerical fears, in order to learn that every excess evidently tends to destroy them, that to preserve health they must be temperate; that to gain the love of others it is necessary to do them good, that to do them evil is a sure means to incur their vengeance and hatred? "before the law there was no sin." nothing is more false than this maxim. it suffices that man is what he is, or that he is a sensible being, in order to distinguish what gives him pleasure or displeasure. it suffices that one man knows that another man is a sensible being like himself, to perceive what is useful or hurtful to him. it suffices that man needs his fellow-creature, in order to know that he must fear to excite sentiments unfavourable to himself. thus the feeling and thinking being has only to feel and think, in order to discover what he must do for himself and others. i feel, and another feels like me; this is the foundation of all morals. 172. we can judge of the goodness of a system of morals, only by its conformity to the nature of man. by this comparison, we have a right to reject it, if contrary to the welfare of our species. whoever has seriously meditated religion; whoever has carefully weighed its advantages and disadvantages, will be fully convinced, that both are injurious to the interests of man, or directly opposite to his nature. "to arms! the cause of your god is at stake! heaven is outraged! the faith is in danger! impiety! blasphemy! heresy!" the magical power of these formidable words, the real value of which the people never understand, have at all times enabled priests to excite revolts, to dethrone kings, to kindle civil wars, and to lay waste. if we examine the important objects, which have produced so many ravages upon earth, it appears, that either the foolish reveries and whimsical conjectures of some theologian who did not understand himself, or else the pretensions of the clergy, have broken every social bond and deluged mankind with blood and tears. 173. the sovereigns of this world, by associating the divinity in the government of their dominions, by proclaiming themselves his vicegerents and representatives upon earth, and by acknowledging they hold their power from him, have necessarily constituted his ministers their own rivals or masters. is it then astonishing, that priests have often made kings feel the superiority of the celestial monarch? have they not more than once convinced temporal princes, that even the greatest power is compelled to yield to the spiritual power of opinion? nothing is more difficult than to serve two masters, especially when they are not agreed upon what they require. the association of religion with politics necessarily introduced double legislation. the law of god, interpreted by his priests, was often repugnant to the law of the sovereign, or the interest of the state. when princes have firmness and are confident of the love of their subjects, the law of god is sometimes forced to yield to the wise intentions of the temporal sovereign; but generally the _sovereign_ authority is obliged to give way to the _divine_ authority, that is, to the interests of the clergy. nothing is more dangerous to a prince, than to _encroach upon the authority of the church_, that is, to attempt to reform abuses consecrated by religion. god is never more angry than when we touch the divine rights, privileges, possessions, or immunities of his priests. the metaphysical speculations or religious opinions of men influence their conduct, only when they judge them conformable to their interest. nothing proves this truth more clearly, than the conduct of many princes with respect to the spiritual power, which they often resist. ought not a sovereign, persuaded of the importance and rights of religion, to believe himself in conscience bound to receive respectfully the orders of its priests, and to regard them as the orders of the divinity? there was a time, when kings and people, more consistent in their conduct, were convinced of the rights of spiritual power, and becoming its slaves, yielded to it upon every occasion, and were but docile instruments in its hands. that happy time is passed. by a strange inconsistency the most devout monarchs are sometimes seen to oppose the enterprises of those, whom they yet regard as the ministers of god. a sovereign, deeply religious, ought to remain prostrate at the feet of his ministers, and regard them as true sovereigns. is there upon earth a power which has a right to put itself in competition with that of the most high? 174. have princes then, who imagine themselves interested in cherishing the prejudices of their subjects, seriously reflected upon the effects, which have been, and may be again produced by certain privileged demagogues, who have a right to speak at pleasure, and in the name of heaven to inflame the passions of millions of subjects? what ravages would not these sacred haranguers cause, if they should conspire, as they have so often done, to disturb the tranquillity of a state! to most nations, nothing is more burthensome and ruinous than the worship of their gods. not only do the ministers of these gods every where constitute the first order in the state, but they also enjoy the largest portion of the goods of society, and have a right to levy permanent taxes upon their fellow-citizens. what real advantages then do these organs of the most high procure the people, for the immense profits extorted from their industry? in exchange for their riches and benefits, what do they give them but mysteries, hypotheses, ceremonies, subtle questions, and endless quarrels, which states are again compelled to pay with blood? 175. religion, though said to be the firmest prop of morality, evidently destroys its true springs, in order to substitute imaginary ones, inconceivable chimeras, which, being obviously contrary to reason, nobody firmly believes. all nations declare that they firmly believe in a god, who rewards and punishes; all say they are persuaded of the existence of hell and paradise; yet, do these ideas render men better or counteract the most trifling interests? every one assures us, that he trembles at the judgments of god; yet every one follows his passions, when he thinks himself sure of escaping the judgments of man. the fear of invisible powers is seldom so strong as the fear of visible ones. unknown or remote punishments strike the multitude far less forcibly than the sight of the gallows. few courtiers fear the anger of their god so much as the displeasure of their master. a pension, a title, or a riband suffices to efface the remembrance both of the torments of hell, and of the pleasures of the celestial court. the caresses of a woman repeatedly prevail over the menaces of the most high. a jest, a stroke of ridicule, a witticism, make more impression upon the man of the world, than all the grave notions of his religion. are we not assured that _a true repentance_ is enough to appease the deity? yet we do not see that this _true repentance_ is very sincere; at least, it is rare to see noted thieves, even at the point of death, restore goods, which they have unjustly acquired. men are undoubtedly persuaded, that they shall fit themselves for eternal fire, if they cannot insure themselves against it. but, "some useful compacts may be made with heaven." by giving the church a part of his fortune, almost every devout rogue may die in peace, without concerning himself in what he gained his riches. 176. by the confession of the warmest defenders of religion and of its utility, nothing is more rare than sincere conversions, and, we might add, nothing more unprofitable to society. men are not disgusted with the world, until the world is disgusted with them. if the devout have the talent of pleasing god and his priests, they have seldom that of being agreeable or useful to society. to a devotee, religion is a veil, which covers all passions; pride, ill-humour, anger, revenge, impatience, and rancour. devotion arrogates a tyrannical superiority, which banishes gentleness, indulgence, and gaiety; it authorizes people to censure their neighbours, to reprove and revile the profane for the greater glory of god. it is very common to be devout, and at the same time destitute of every virtue and quality necessary to social life. 177. it is asserted, that the dogma of another life is of the utmost importance to peace and happiness; that without it, men would be destitute of motives to do good. what need is there of terrors and fables to make man sensible how he ought to conduct himself? does not every one see, that he has the greatest interest, in meriting the approbation, esteem, and benevolence of the beings who surround him, and in abstaining from every thing, by which he may incur the censure, contempt, and resentment of society? however short an entertainment, a conversation, or visit, does not each desire to act his part decently, and agreeably to himself and others? if life is but a passage, let us strive to make it easy; which we cannot effect, if we fail in regard for those who travel with us. religion, occupied with its gloomy reveries, considers man merely as a pilgrim upon earth; and therefore supposes that, in order to travel the more securely, he must forsake company, and deprive himself of pleasure and amusements, which might console him for the tediousness and fatigue of the journey. a stoical and morose philosopher sometimes gives us advice as irrational as that of religion. but a more rational philosophy invites us to spread flowers upon the way of life, to dispel melancholy and banish terrors, to connect our interest with that of our fellow-travellers, and by gaiety and lawful pleasures, to divert our attention from difficulties and accidents, to which we are often exposed; it teaches us, that, to travel agreeably, we should abstain from what might be injurious to ourselves, and carefully shun what might render us odious to our associates. 178. it is asked, _what motives an atheist can have to do good?_ the motive to please himself and his fellow-creatures; to live happily and peaceably; to gain the affection and esteem of men. "can he, who fears not the gods, fear any thing?" he can fear men; he can fear contempt, dishonour, the punishment of the laws; in short, he can fear himself, and the remorse felt by all those who are conscious of having incurred or merited the hatred of their fellow-creatures. conscience is the internal testimony, which we bear to ourselves, of having acted so as to merit the esteem or blame of the beings, with whom we live; and it is founded upon the clear knowledge we have of men, and of the sentiments which our actions must produce in them. the conscience of the religious man consists in imagining that he has pleased or displeased his god, of whom he has no idea, and whose obscure and doubtful intentions are explained to him only by men of doubtful veracity, who, like him, are utterly unacquainted with the essence of the deity, and are little agreed upon what can please or displease him. in a word, the conscience of the credulous is directed by men, who have themselves an erroneous conscience, or whose interest stifles knowledge. "can an atheist have a conscience? what are his motives to abstain from hidden vices and secret crimes of which other men are ignorant, and which are beyond the reach of laws?" he may be assured by constant experience, that there is no vice, which, by the nature of things, does not punish itself. would he preserve this life? he will avoid every excess, that may impair his health; he will not wish to lead a languishing life, which would render him a burden to himself and others. as for secret crimes, he will abstain from them, for fear he shall be forced to blush at himself, from whom he cannot flee. if he has any reason, he will know the value of the esteem which an honest man ought to have for himself. he will see, that unforeseen circumstances may unveil the conduct, which he feels interested in concealing from others. the other world furnishes no motives for doing good, to him, who finds none on earth. 179. "the speculative atheist," says the theist, "may be an honest man, but his writings will make political atheists. princes and ministers, no longer restrained by the fear of god, will abandon themselves, without scruple, to the most horrid excesses." but, however great the depravity of an atheist upon the throne, can it be stronger and more destructive, than that of the many conquerors, tyrants, persecutors, ambitious men, and perverse courtiers, who, though not atheists, but often very religious and devout, have notwithstanding made humanity groan under the weight of their crimes? can an atheistical prince do more harm to the world, than a louis xi., a philip ii., a richelieu, who all united religion with crime? nothing is more rare, than atheistical princes; nothing more common, than tyrants and ministers, who are very wicked and very religious. 180. a man of reflection cannot be incapable of his duties, of discovering the relations subsisting between men, of meditating his own nature, of discerning his own wants, propensities, and desires, and of perceiving what he owes to beings, who are necessary to his happiness. these reflections naturally lead him to a knowledge of the morality most essential to social beings. dangerous passions seldom fall to the lot of a man who loves to commune with himself, to study, and to investigate the principles of things. the strongest passion of such a man will be to know truth, and his ambition to teach it to others. philosophy cultivates the mind. on the score of morals and honesty, has not he who reflects and reasons, evidently an advantage over him, who makes it a principle never to reason? if ignorance is useful to priests, and to the oppressors of mankind, it is fatal to society. man, void of knowledge, does not enjoy reason; without reason and knowledge, he is a savage, liable to commit crimes. morality, or the science of duties, is acquired only by the study of man, and of what is relative to man. he, who does not reflect, is unacquainted with true morality, and walks with precarious steps, in the path of virtue. the less men reason, the more wicked they are. savages, princes, nobles, and the dregs of the people, are commonly the worst of men, because they reason the least. the devout man seldom reflects, and rarely reasons. he fears all enquiry, scrupulously follows authority, and often, through an error of conscience, makes it a sacred duty to commit evil. the atheist reasons: he consults experience, which he prefers to prejudice. if he reasons justly, his conscience is enlightened; he finds more real motives to do good than the bigot whose only motives are his fallacies, and who never listens to reason. are not the motives of the atheist sufficiently powerful to counteract his passions? is he blind enough to be unmindful of his true interest, which ought to restrain him? but he will be neither worse nor better, than the numerous believers, who, notwithstanding religion and its sublime precepts, follow a conduct which religion condemns. is a credulous assassin less to be feared, than an assassin who believes nothing? is a very devout tyrant less tyrannical than an undevout tyrant? 181. nothing is more uncommon, than to see men consistent. their opinions never influence their conduct except when conformable to their temperaments, passions, and interests. daily experience shows, that religious opinions produce much evil and little good. they are hurtful, because they often favour the passions of tyrants, of ambitious men, of fanatics, and of priests; they are of no effect, because incapable of counter-balancing the present interests of the greater part of mankind. religious principles are of no avail, when they act in opposition to ardent desires; though not unbelievers, men then conduct themselves as if they believed nothing. we shall always be liable to err, when we judge of the opinions of men by their conduct, or of their conduct by their opinions. a religious man, notwithstanding the unsociable principles of a sanguinary religion, will sometimes by a happy inconsistency, be humane, tolerant, and moderate; the principles of his religion do not then agree with the gentleness of his character. libertines, debauchees, hypocrites, adulterers, and rogues, often appear to have the best ideas upon morals. why do they not reduce them to practice? because their temperament, their interest, and their habits do not accord with their sublime theories. the rigid principles of christian morality, which many people regard as divine, have but little influence upon the conduct of those, who preach them to others. do they not daily tell us, _to do what they preach, and not what they practise?_ the partisans of religion often denote an infidel by the word _libertine_. it is possible that many unbelievers may have loose morals, which is owing to their temperament, and not to their opinions. but how does their conduct affect their opinions? cannot then an immoral man be a good physician, architect, geometrician, logician, or metaphysician? a man of irreproachable conduct may be extremely deficient in knowledge and reason. in quest of truth, it little concerns us from whom it comes. let us not judge men by their opinions, nor opinions by men; let us judge men by their conduct, and their opinions by their conformity with experience and reason and by their utility to mankind. 182. every man, who reasons, soon becomes an unbeliever; for reason shows, that theology is nothing but a tissue of chimeras; that religion is contrary to every principle of good sense, that it tinctures all human knowledge with falsity. the sensible man is an unbeliever, because he sees, that, far from making men happier, religion is the chief source of the greatest disorders, and the permanent calamities, with which man is afflicted. the man, who seeks his own welfare and tranquillity, examines and throws aside religion, because he thinks it no less troublesome than useless, to spend his life in trembling before phantoms, fit to impose only upon silly women or children. if licentiousness, which reasons but little, sometimes leads to irreligion, the man of pure morals may have very good motives for examining his religion, and banishing it from his mind. religious terrors, too weak to impose upon the wicked in whom vice is deeply rooted, afflict, torment and overwhelm restless imaginations. courageous and vigorous minds soon shake off the insupportable yoke. but those, who are weak and timorous, languish under it during life; and as they grow old their fears increase. priests have represented god as so malicious, austere, and terrible a being, that most men would cordially wish, that there was no god. it is impossible to be happy, while always trembling. ye devout! you adore a terrible god! but you hate him; you would be glad, if he did not exist. can we refrain from desiring the absence or destruction of a master, the idea of whom destroys our happiness? the black colours, in which priests paint the divinity, are truly shocking, and force us to hate and reject him. 183. if fear created the gods, fear supports their empire over the minds of mortals. so early are men accustomed to shudder at the mere name of the deity, that they regard him as a spectre, a hobgoblin, a bugbear, which torments and deprives them of courage even to wish relief from their fears. they apprehend, that the invisible spectre, will strike them the moment they cease to be afraid. bigots are too much in fear of their god to love him sincerely. they serve him like slaves, who, unable to escape his power, resolve to flatter their master, and who, by dint of lying, at length persuade themselves, that they in some measure love him. they make a virtue of necessity. the love of devotees for their god, and of slaves for their despots, is only a feigned homage. 184. christian divines have represented their god so terrible and so little worthy of love, that several of them have thought they must dispense with loving him; a blasphemy, shocking to other divines, who were less ingenuous. st. thomas having maintained, that we are obliged to love god as soon as we attain the use of reason, the jesuit sirmond answered him, _that is very soon_. the jesuit vasquez assures us, that _it is enough to love god at the point of death_. hurtado, more rigid, says, _we must love god very year_. henriquez is contented that we love him _every five years_; sotus, _every sunday_. upon what are these opinions grounded? asks father sirmond; who adds, that suarez requires us to _love god sometimes_. but when? he leaves that to us; he knows nothing about it himself. _now_, says he, _who will be able to know that, of which such a learned divine is ignorant?_ the same jesuit sirmond further observes, that _god_ "does not command us to love him with an affectionate love, nor does he promise us salvation upon condition that we give him our hearts; it is enough to obey and love him with an effective love by executing his orders; this is the only love we owe him; and he has not so much commanded us to love him, as not to hate him." this doctrine appears heretical, impious, and abominable to the jansenists, who, by the revolting severity they attribute to their god, make him far less amiable, than the jesuits, their adversaries. the latter, to gain adherents, paint god in colours capable of encouraging the most perverse of mortals. thus nothing is more undecided with the christians, than the important question, whether they can, ought, or ought not to love god. some of their spiritual guides maintain, that it is necessary to love him with all one's heart, notwithstanding all his severity; others, like father daniel, think that, _an act of pure love to god is the most heroic act of christian virtue, and almost beyond the reach of human weakness_. the jesuit pintereau goes farther; he says, _a deliverance from the grievous yoke of loving god is a privilege of the new covenant_. 185. the character of the man always decides that of his god; every body makes one for himself and like himself. the man of gaiety, involved in dissipation and pleasure, does not imagine, that, god can be stern and cross; he wants a good-natured god, with whom he can find reconciliation. the man of a rigid, morose, bilious, sour disposition, must have a god like himself, a god of terror; and he regards, as perverse, those, who admit a placable, indulgent god. as men are constituted, organized, and modified in a manner, which cannot be precisely the same, how can they agree about a chimera, which exists only in their brains? the cruel and endless disputes between the ministers of the lord, are not such as to attract the confidence of those, who impartially consider them. how can we avoid complete infidelity, upon viewing principles, about which those who teach them to others are never agreed? how can we help doubting the existence of a god, of whom it is evident that even his ministers can only form very fluctuating ideas? how can we in short avoid totally rejecting a god, who is nothing but a shapeless heap of contradictions? how can we refer the matter to the decision of priests, who are perpetually at war, treating each other as impious and heretical, defaming and persecuting each other without mercy, for differing in the manner of understanding what they announce to the world? 186. the existence of a god is the basis of all religion. nevertheless, this important truth has not as yet been demonstrated, i do not say so as to convince unbelievers, but in a manner satisfactory to theologians themselves. profound thinkers have at all times been occupied in inventing new proofs. what are the fruits of their meditations and arguments? they have left the subject in a worse condition; they have demonstrated nothing; they have almost always excited the clamours of their brethren, who have accused them of having poorly defended the best of causes. 187. the apologists of religion daily repeat, that the passions alone make unbelievers. "pride," say they, "and the desire of signalizing themselves, make men atheists. they endeavour to efface from their minds the idea of god, only because they have reason to fear his terrible judgments." whatever may be the motives, which incline men to atheism, it is our business to examine, whether their sentiments are founded in truth. no man acts without motives. let us first examine the arguments and afterwards the motives. we shall see whether these motives are not legitimate, and more rational than those of many credulous bigots, who suffer themselves to be guided by masters little worthy of the confidence of men. you say then, priests of the lord! that the passions make unbelievers; that they renounce religion only through interest, or because it contradicts their inordinate propensities; you assert, that they attack your gods only because they fear their severity. but, are you yourselves, in defending religion and its chimeras, truly exempt from passions and interests? who reap advantages from this religion, for which priests display so much zeal? priests. to whom does religion procure power, influence, riches, and honours? to priests. who wage war, in every country, against reason, science, truth, and philosophy, and render them odious to sovereigns and people? priests. who profit by the ignorance and vain prejudices of men? priests.--priests! you are rewarded, honoured and paid for deceiving mortals, and you cause those to be punished who undeceive them. the follies of men procure you benefices, offerings, and expiations; while those, who announce the most useful truths, are rewarded only with chains, gibbets and funeral-piles. let the world judge between us. 188. pride and vanity have been, and ever will be, inherent in the priesthood. is any thing more capable of rendering men haughty and vain, than the pretence of exercising a power derived from heaven, of bearing a sacred character, of being the messengers and ministers of the most high? are not these dispositions perpetually nourished by the credulity of the people, the deference and respect of sovereigns, the immunities, privileges, and distinctions enjoyed by the clergy? in every country, the vulgar are much more devoted to their spiritual guides, whom they regard as divine, than to their temporal superiors, whom they consider as no more than ordinary men. the parson of a village acts a much more conspicuous part, than the lord of the manor or the justice of the peace. among the christians, a priest thinks himself far above a king or an emperor. a spanish grandee having spoken rather haughtily to a monk, the latter arrogantly said, "learn to respect a man, who daily has your god in his hands, and your queen at his feet." have priests then a right to accuse unbelievers of pride? are they themselves remarkable for uncommon modesty or profound humility? is it not evident, that the desire of domineering over men is essential to their trade? if the ministers of the lord were truly modest, should we see them so greedy of respect, so impatient of contradiction, so positive in their decisions, and so unmercifully revengeful to those whose opinions offend them? has not science the modesty to acknowledge how difficult it is to discover truth? what other passion but ungovernable pride can make men so savage, revengeful, and void of indulgence and gentleness? what can be more presumptuous, than to arm nations and deluge the world in blood, in order to establish or defend futile conjectures? you say, that presumption alone makes atheists. inform them then what your god is; teach them his essence; speak of him intelligibly; say something about him, which is reasonable, and not contradictory or impossible. if you are unable to satisfy them, if hitherto none of you have been able to demonstrate the existence of a god in a clear and convincing manner; if by your own confession, his essence is completely veiled from you, as from the rest of mortals, forgive those, who cannot admit what they can neither understand nor make consistent with itself; do not tax with presumption and vanity those who are sincere enough to confess their ignorance; do not accuse of folly those who find themselves incapable of believing contradictions; and for once, blush at exciting the hatred and fury of sovereigns and people against men, who think not like you concerning a being, of whom you have no idea. is any thing more rash and extravagant, than to reason concerning an object, known to be inconceivable? you say, that the corruption of the heart produces atheism, that men shake off the yoke of the deity only because they fear his formidable judgments. but, why do you paint your god in colours so shocking, that he becomes insupportable? why does so powerful a god permit men to be so corrupt? how can we help endeavouring to shake off the yoke of a tyrant, who, able to do as he pleases with men, consents to their perversion, who hardens, and blinds them, and refuses them his grace, that he may have the satisfaction to punish them eternally, for having been hardened, and blinded, and for not having the grace which he refused? theologians and priests must be very confident of the grace of heaven and a happy futurity, to refrain from detesting a master so capricious as the god they announce. a god, who damns eternally, is the most odious of beings that the human mind can invent. 189. no man upon earth is truly interested in the support of error, which is forced sooner or later to yield to truth. the general good must at length open the eyes of mortals: the passions themselves sometimes contribute to break the chains of prejudices. did not the passions of sovereigns, centuries ago, annihilate in some countries of europe the tyrannical power, which a too haughty pontiff once exercised over all princes of his sect? in consequence of the progress of political science, the clergy were then stripped of immense riches, which credulity had accumulated upon them. ought not this memorable example to convince priests, that prejudices triumph but for a time, and that truth alone can insure solid happiness? by caressing sovereigns, by fabricating divine rights for them, by deifying them, and by abandoning the people, bound hand and foot, to their will, the ministers of the most high must see, that they are labouring to make them tyrants. have they not reason to apprehend, that the gigantic idols, which they raised to the clouds, will one day crush them by their enormous weight? do not a thousand examples remind them that these tyrants, after preying upon the people, may prey upon them in their turn. we will respect priests, when they become sensible men. let them, if they please, use the authority of heaven to frighten those princes who are continually desolating the earth; but let them no more adjudge to them the horrid right of being unjust with impunity. let them acknowledge, that no man is interested in living under tyranny; and let them teach sovereigns, that they themselves are not interested in exercising a despotism, which, by rendering them odious, exposes them to danger, and detracts from their power and greatness. finally, let priests and kings become so far enlightened as to acknowledge, that no power is secure which is not founded upon truth, reason, and equity. 190. by waging war against reason, which they ought to have protected and developed, the ministers of the gods evidently act against their own interest. what power, influence, and respect might they not have gained among the wisest of men, what gratitude would they not have excited in the people, if, instead of wasting their time about their vain disputes, they had applied themselves to really useful science, and investigated the true principles of philosophy, government, and morals! who would dare to reproach a body with its opulence or influence, if the members dedicating themselves to the public good, employed their leisure in study, and exercised their authority in enlightening the minds both of sovereigns and subjects? priests! forsake your chimeras, your unintelligible dogmas, your contemptible quarrels! banish those phantoms which could be useful only in the infancy of nations. assume, at length, the language of reason. instead of exciting persecution; instead of entertaining the people with silly disputes; instead of preaching useless and fanatical dogmas, preach human and social morality; preach virtues really useful to the world; become the apostles of reason, the defenders of liberty, and the reformers of abuses. 191. philosophers have every where taken upon themselves a part, which seemed destined to the ministers of religion. the hatred of the latter for philosophy was only a jealousy of trade. but, instead of endeavouring to injure and decry each other, all men of good sense should unite their efforts to combat error, seek truth, and especially to put to flight the prejudices, that are equally injurious to sovereigns and subjects, and of which the abettors themselves sooner or later become the victims. in the hands of an enlightened government, the priests would become the most useful of the citizens. already richly paid by the state, and free from the care of providing for their own subsistence, how could they be better employed than in qualifying themselves for the instruction of others? would not their minds be better satisfied with discovering luminous truths, than in wandering through the thick darkness of error? would it be more difficult to discern the clear principles of morality, than the imaginary principles of a divine and theological morality? would men of ordinary capacities find it as difficult to fix in their heads the simple notions of their duties, as to load their memories with mysteries, unintelligible words and obscure definitions, of which they can never form a clear idea? what time and pains are lost in learning and teaching things, which are not of the least real utility! what resources for the encouragement of the sciences, the advancement of knowledge, and the education of youth, well disposed sovereigns might find in the many monasteries, which in several countries live upon the people without in the slightest degree profiting them! but superstition, jealous of its exclusive empire, seems resolved to form only useless beings. to what advantage might we not turn a multitude of cenobites of both sexes, who, in many countries, are amply endowed for doing nothing? instead of overwhelming them with fasting and austerities; instead of barren contemplations, mechanical prayers, and trifling ceremonies; why should we not excite in them a salutary emulation, which may incline them to seek the means, not of being _dead_ to the world, but of being _useful_ to it? instead of filling the youthful minds of their pupils with fables, sterile dogmas, and puerilities, why are not priests obliged, or invited to teach them truths, and to render them useful citizens of their country? under the present system, men are only useful to the clergy who blind them, and to the tyrants who fleece them. 192. the partisans of credulity often accuse unbelievers of insincerity, because they sometimes waver in their principles, alter their minds in sickness, and retract at death. when the body is disordered, the faculty of reasoning is commonly disordered with it. at the approach of death, man, weak and decayed, is sometimes himself sensible that reason abandons him, and that prejudice returns. there are some diseases, which tend to weaken the brain; to create despondency and pusillanimity; and there are others, which destroy the body, but do not disturb the reason. at any rate, an unbeliever who recants in sickness is not more extraordinary, than a devotee who neglects in health the duties which his religion explicitly enjoins. ministers of religion openly contradict in their daily conduct the rigorous principles, they teach to others; in consequence of which, unbelievers, in their turn, may justly accuse them of insincerity. is it easy to find many prelates humble, generous, void of ambition, enemies of pomp and grandeur, and friends of poverty? in short, is the conduct of christian ministers conformable to the austere morality of christ, their god, and their model? 193. _atheism_, it is said, _breaks all the ties of society. without the belief of a god, what will become of the sacredness of oaths? how shall we oblige a man to speak the truth, who cannot seriously call the deity to witness what he says?_ but, does an oath strengthen our obligation to fulfil the engagements contracted? will he, who is not fearful of lying, be less fearful of perjury? he, who is base enough to break his word, or unjust enough to violate his engagements, in contempt of the esteem of men, will not be more faithful therein for having called all the gods to witness his oaths. those, who disregard the judgments of men, will soon disregard the judgments of god. are not princes, of all men, the most ready to swear, and the most ready to violate their oaths? 194. _the vulgar_, it is repeatedly said, _must have a religion. if enlightened persons have no need of the restraint of opinion, it is at least necessary to rude men, whose reason is uncultivated by education_. but, is it indeed a fact, that religion is a restraint upon the vulgar? do we see, that this religion preserves them from intemperance, drunkenness, brutality, violence, fraud, and every kind of excess? could a people who have no idea of the deity conduct themselves in a more detestable manner, than these believing people, among whom we find dissipation and vices, the most unworthy of reasonable beings? upon going out of the churches, do not the working classes, and the populace, plunge without fear into their ordinary irregularities, under the idea, that the periodical homage, which they render to their god, authorizes them to follow, without remorse, their vicious habits and pernicious propensities? finally, if the people are so low-minded and unreasonable, is not their stupidity chargeable to the negligence of their princes, who are wholly regardless of public education, or who even oppose the instruction of their subjects? is not the want of reason in the people evidently the work of the priests, who, instead of instructing men in a rational morality, entertain them with fables, reveries, ceremonies, fallacies, and false virtues which they think of the greatest importance? to the people, religion is but a vain display of ceremonies, to which they are attached by habit, which entertains their eyes, and produces a transient emotion in their torpid understandings, without influencing their conduct or reforming their morals. even by the confession of the ministers of the altars, nothing is more rare than that _internal_ and _spiritual_ religion, which alone is capable of regulating the life of man and of triumphing over his evil propensities. in the most numerous and devout nation, are there many persons, who are really capable of understanding the principles of their religious system, and who find them powerful enough to stifle their perverse inclinations? many persons will say, that _any restraint whatever is better than none._ they will maintain, that _if religion awes not the greater part, it serves at least to restrain some individuals, who would otherwise without remorse abandon themselves to crime_. men ought undoubtedly to have a restraint, but not an imaginary one. religion only frightens those whose imbecility of character has already prevented them from being formidable to their fellow-citizens. an equitable government, severe laws, and sound morality have an equal power over all; at least, every person must believe in them, and perceive the danger of not conforming to them. 195. perhaps it will be asked, _whether atheism can be proper for the multitude?_ i answer, that any system, which requires discussion, is not made for the multitude. _what purpose then can it serve to preach atheism?_ it may at least serve to convince all those who reason, that nothing is more extravagant than to fret one's self, and nothing more unjust than to vex others, for mere groundless conjectures. as for the vulgar who never reason, the arguments of an atheist are no more fit for them than the systems of a natural philosopher, the observations of an astronomer, the experiments of a chemist, the calculations of a geometrician, the researches of a physician, the plans of an architect, or the pleadings of a lawyer, who all labour for the people without their knowledge. are the metaphysical reasonings and religious disputes, which have so long engrossed the time and attention of so many profound thinkers, better adapted to the generality of men than the reasoning of an atheist? nay, as the principles of atheism are founded upon plain common sense, are they not more intelligible, than those of a theology, beset with difficulties, which even the persons of the greatest genius cannot explain? in every country, the people have a religion, the principles of which they are totally ignorant, and which they follow from habit without any examination: their priests alone are engaged in theology, which is too dense for vulgar heads. if the people should chance to lose this unknown theology, they mighty easily console themselves for the loss of a thing, not only perfectly useless, but also productive of dangerous commotions. it would be madness to write for the vulgar, or to attempt to cure their prejudices all at once. we write for those only, who read and reason; the multitude read but little, and reason still less. calm and rational persons will require new ideas, and knowledge will be gradually diffused. 196. if theology is a branch of commerce profitable to theologians, it is evidently not only superfluous, but injurious to the rest of society. self-interest will sooner or later open the eyes of men. sovereigns and subjects will one day adopt the profound indifference and contempt, merited by a futile system, which serves only to make men miserable. all persons will be sensible of the inutility of the many expensive ceremonies, which contribute nothing to public felicity. contemptible quarrels will cease to disturb the tranquility of states, when we blush at having considered them important. instead of parliament meddling with the senseless combats of your clergy; instead of foolishly espousing their impertinent quarrels, and attempting to make your subjects adopt uniform opinions--strive to make them happy in this world. respect their liberty and property, watch over their education, encourage them in their labours, reward their talents and virtues, repress licentiousness; and do not concern yourselves with their manner of thinking. theological fables are useful only to tyrants and the ignorant. 197. does it then require an extraordinary effort of genius to comprehend, that what is above the capacity of man, is not made for him; that things supernatural are not made for natural beings; that impenetrable mysteries are not made for limited minds? if theologians are foolish enough to dispute upon objects, which they acknowledge to be unintelligible even to themselves, ought society to take any part in their silly quarrels? must the blood of nations flow to enhance the conjectures of a few infatuated dreamers? if it is difficult to cure theologians of their madness and the people of their prejudices, it is at least easy to prevent the extravagancies of one party, and the silliness of the other from producing pernicious effects. let every one be permitted to think as he pleases; but never let him be permitted to injure others for their manner of thinking. were the rulers of nations more just and rational, theological opinions would not affect the public tranquillity, more than the disputes of natural philosophers, physicians, grammarians, and critics. it is tyranny which causes theological quarrels to be attended with serious consequences. those, who extol the importance and utility of religion, ought to shew us its happy effects, the advantages for instance, which the disputes and abstract speculations of theology can be to porters, artisans, and labourers, and to the multitude of unfortunate women and corrupt servants with which great cities abound. all these beings are religious; they have what is called _an implicit faith_. their parsons believe for them; and they stupidly adhere to the unknown belief of their guides. they go to hear sermons, and would think it a great crime to transgress any of the ordinances, to which, in childhood, they are taught to conform. but of what service to morals is all this? none at all. they have not the least idea of morality, and are even guilty of all the roguery, fraud, rapine, and excess, that is out of the reach of law. the populace have no idea of their religion; what they call religion is nothing but a blind attachment to unknown opinions and mysterious practices. in fact, to deprive people of religion is to deprive them of nothing. by overthrowing their prejudices, we should only lessen or annihilate the dangerous confidence they put in interested guides, and should teach them to mistrust those, who, under the pretext of religion, often lead them into fatal excesses. 198. while pretending to instruct and enlighten men, religion in reality keeps them in ignorance, and stifles the desire of knowing the most interesting objects. the people have no other rule of conduct, than what their priests are pleased to prescribe. religion supplies the place of every thing else: but being in itself essentially obscure, it is more proper to lead mortals astray than to guide them in the path of science and happiness. religion renders enigmatical all natural philosophy, morality, legislation and politics. a man blinded by religious prejudices, fears truth, whenever it clashes with his opinions: he cannot know his own nature he cannot cultivate his reason, he cannot perform experiments. everything concurs to render the people devout; but every thing tends to prevent them from being humane, reasonable and virtuous. religion seems to have no other object, than to stupefy the mind. priests have been ever at war with genius and talent, because well-informed men perceive, that superstition shackles the human mind, and would keep it in eternal infancy, occupied solely by fables and frightened by phantoms. incapable of improvement itself, theology opposed insurmountable barriers to the progress of true knowledge; its sole object is to keep nations and their rulers in the most profound ignorance of their duties, and of the real motives, that should incline them to do good. it obscures morality, renders its principles arbitrary, and subjects it to the caprice of the gods or of their ministers. it converts the art of governing men into a mysterious tyranny, which is the scourge of nations. it changes princes into unjust, licentious despots, and the people into ignorant slaves, who become corrupt in order to merit the favour of their masters. 199. by tracing the history of the human mind, we shall be easily convinced, that theology has cautiously guarded against its progress. it began by giving out fables as sacred truth: it produced poetry, which filled the imagination of men with its puerile fictions: it entertained them with its gods and their incredible deeds. in a word, religion has always treated men, like children, whom it lulled to sleep with tales, which its ministers would have us still regard as incontestable truths. if the ministers of the gods have sometimes made useful discoveries, they have always been careful to give them a dogmatical tone, and envelope them in the shades of mystery. pythagoras and plato, in order to acquire some trifling knowledge, were obliged to court the favour of priests, to be initiated in their mysteries, and to undergo whatever trials they were pleased to impose. at this price, they were permitted to imbibe those exalted notions, still so bewitching to all those who admire only what is perfectly unintelligible. it was from egyptian, indian, and chaldean priests, from the schools of these visionaries, professionally interested in bewildering human reason, that philosophy was obliged to borrow its first rudiments. obscure and false in its principles, mixed with fictions and fables, and made only to dazzle the imagination, the progress of this philosophy was precarious, and its theories unintelligible; instead of enlightening, it blighted the mind, and diverted it from objects truly useful. the theological speculations and mystical reveries of the ancients are still law in a great part of the philosophic world; and being adopted by modern theology, it is heresy to abandon them. they tell us "of aerial beings, of spirits, angels, demons, genii," and other phantoms, which are the object of their meditations, and serve as the basis of _metaphysics_, an abstract and futile science, which for thousands of years the greatest geniuses have vainly studied. hypothesis, imagined by a few visionaries of memphis and babylon, constitute even now the foundations of a science, whose obscurity makes it revered as marvellous and divine. the first legislators were priests; the first mythologists, poets, learned men, and physicians were priests. in their hands science became sacred and was withheld from the profane. they spoke only in allegories, emblems, enigmas, and ambiguous oracles--means well calculated to excite curiosity, and above all to inspire the astonished vulgar with a holy respect for men, who when they were thought to be instructed by the gods, and capable of reading in the heavens the fate of the earth, boldly proclaimed themselves the oracles of the deity. 200. the religions of ancient priests have only changed form. although our modern theologians regard their predecessors as impostors, yet they have collected many scattered fragments of their religious systems. in modern religions we find, not only their metaphysical dogmas, which theology has merely clothed in a new dress, but also some remarkable remains of their superstitious practices, their magic, and their enchantments. christians are still commanded to respect the remaining monuments of the legislators, priests, and prophets of the hebrew religion, which had borrowed its strange practices from egypt. thus extravagancies, imagined by knaves or idolatrous visionaries, are still sacred among christians! if we examine history, we shall find a striking resemblance among all religions. in all parts of the earth, we see, that religious notions, periodically depress and elevate the people. the attention of man is every where engrossed, by rites often abominable, and by mysteries always formidable, which become the sole objects of meditation. the different superstitions borrow, from one another, their abstract reveries and ceremonies. religions are in general mere unintelligible rhapsodies, combined by new teachers, who use the materials of their predecessors, reserving the right of adding or retrenching whatever is not conformable to the present age. the religion of egypt was evidently the basis of the religion of moses, who banished the worship of idols: moses was merely a schismatic egyptian. christianism is only reformed judaism. mahometanism is composed of judaism, christianity, and the ancient religion of arabia, etc. 201. theology, from the remotest antiquity to the present time, has had the exclusive privilege of directing philosophy. what assistance has been derived from its labours? it changed philosophy into an unintelligible jargon, calculated to render uncertain the clearest truths; it has converted the art of reasoning into a jargon of words; it has carried the human mind into the airy regions of metaphysics, and there employed it in vainly fathoming an obscure abyss. instead of physical and simple causes, this transformed philosophy has substituted supernatural, or rather, _occult_ causes; it has explained phenomena difficult to be conceived by agents still more inconceivable. it has filled language with words, void of sense, incapable of accounting for things, better calculated to obscure than enlighten, and which seems invented expressly to discourage man, to guard him against the powers of his mind, to make him mistrust the principles of reason and evidence, and to raise an insurmountable barrier between him and truth. 202. were we to believe the partisans of religion, nothing could be explained without it; nature would be a perpetual enigma, and man would be incapable of understanding himself. but, what does this religion in reality explain? the more we examine it, the more we are convinced that its theological notions are fit only to confuse our ideas; they change every thing into mystery: they explain difficult things by things that are impossible. is it a satisfactory explanation of phenomena, to attribute them to unknown agents, to invisible powers, to immaterial causes? does the human mind receive much light by being referred to _the depths of the treasures of divine wisdom_, to which, we are repeatedly told, it is vain to extend our rash enquiries? can the divine nature, of which we have no conception, enable us to conceive the nature of man? ask a christian, what is the origin of the world? he will answer, that god created it. what is god? he cannot tell. what is it to create? he knows not. what is the cause of pestilence, famine, wars, droughts, inundations and earthquakes? the anger of god. what remedies can be applied to these calamities? prayers, sacrifices, processions, offerings, and ceremonies are, it is said, the true means of disarming celestial fury. but why is heaven enraged? because men are wicked. why are men wicked? because their nature is corrupt. what is the cause of this corruption? it is, says the theologian, because the first man, beguiled by the first woman, ate an apple, which god had forbidden him to touch. who beguiled this woman into such folly? the devil. who made the devil? god. but, why did god make this devil, destined to pervert mankind? this is unknown; it is a mystery which the deity alone is acquainted with. it is now universally acknowledged, that the earth turns round the sun. centuries ago, this opinion was blasphemy, as being irreconcileable with the sacred books which every christian reveres as inspired by the deity himself. notwithstanding divine revelation, astronomers now depend rather upon evidence, than upon the testimony of their inspired books. what is the hidden principle of the motions of the human body? the soul. what is a soul? a spirit. what is a spirit? a substance, which has neither form, nor colour, nor extension, nor parts. how can we form any idea of such a substance? how can it move a body? that is not known; it is a mystery. have beasts souls? but, do they not act, feel, and think, in a manner very similar to man? mere illusion! by what right do you deprive beasts of a soul, which you attribute to man, though you know nothing at all about it? because the souls of beasts would embarrass our theologians, who are satisfied with the power of terrifying and damning the immaterial souls of men, and are not so much interested in damning those of beasts. such are the puerile solutions, which philosophy, always in the leading strings of theology, was obliged to invent, in order to explain the problems of the physical and moral world? 203. how many evasions have been used, both in ancient and modern times, in order to avoid an engagement with the ministers of the gods, who have ever been the tyrants of thought? how many hypotheses and shifts were such men as descartes, mallebranche, and leibnitz, forced to invent, in order to reconcile their discoveries with the fables and mistakes which religion had consecrated! in what guarded phrases have the greatest philosophers expressed themselves, even at the risk of being absurd, inconsistent, or unintelligible, whenever their ideas did not accord with the principles of theology! priests have been always attentive to extinguish systems which opposed their interest. theology was ever the bed of procrustes, to be adapted to which, the limbs of travellers, if too long were cut off, and if too short were lengthened. can any sensible man, delighted with the sciences and attached to the welfare of his fellow-creatures, reflect, without vexation and anguish, how many profound, laborious, and subtle brains have been for ages foolishly occupied in the study of absurdities? what a treasure of knowledge might have been diffused by many celebrated thinkers, if instead of engaging in the impertinent disputes of vain theology, they had devoted their attention to intelligible objects really important to mankind? half the efforts which religious opinions have cost genius, and half the wealth which frivolous forms of worship have cost nations would have sufficed to instruct them perfectly in morality, politics, natural philosophy, medicine, agriculture, etc. superstition generally absorbs the attention, admiration, and treasures of the people; their religion costs them very dear; but they have neither knowledge, virtue, nor happiness, for their money. 204. some ancient and modern philosophers have been bold enough to assume experience and reason for their guides, and to shake off the chains of superstition. democritus, epicurus, and other greeks presumed to tear away the veil of prejudice, and to deliver philosophy from theological shackles. but their systems, too simple, too sensible, and too free from the marvellous, for imaginations enamoured with chimeras, were obliged to yield to the fabulous conjectures of such men as plato and socrates. among the moderns, hobbes, spinosa, bayle, etc., have followed the steps of epicurus; but their doctrine has found very few followers, in a world, still intoxicated with fables, to listen to reason. in every age, it has been dangerous to depart from prejudices. discoveries of every kind have been prohibited. all that enlightened men could do, was to speak ambiguously, hence they often confounded falsehood with truth. several had a _double doctrine_, one public and the other secret; the key of the latter being lost, their true sentiments, have often become unintelligible and consequently useless. how could modern philosophers, who, under pain of cruel persecution, were commanded to renounce reason, and to subject it to faith, that is, to the authority of priests; how, i say, could men, thus bound, give free scope to their genius, improve reason, and accelerate the progress of the human mind? it was with fear and trembling that even the greatest men obtained a glimpse of truth; rarely had they the courage to announce it; and those, who did, were terribly punished. with religion, it has ever been unlawful to think, or to combat the prejudices of which man is every where the victim and the dupe. 205. every man, sufficiently intrepid to announce truths to the world, is sure of incurring the hatred of the ministers of religion, who loudly call to their aid secular powers; and want the assistance of laws to support both their arguments and their gods. their clamours expose too evidently the weakness of their cause. "none call for aid but those who feel distressed." in religion, man is not permitted to err. in general, those who err are pitied, and some kindness is shewn to persons who discover new truths; but, when religion is thought to be interested either in the errors or the discoveries, a holy zeal is kindled, the populace become frantic, and nations are in an uproar. can any thing be more afflicting, than to see public and private felicity depending upon a futile system, which is destitute if principles, founded only on a distempered imagination, and incapable of presenting any thing but words void of sense? in what consists the so much boasted utility of a religion, which nobody can comprehend, which continually torments those who are weak enough to meddle with it, which is incapable of rendering men better, and which often makes them consider it meritorious to be unjust and wicked? is there a folly more deplorable, and more justly to be combated, than that, which far from doing any service to the human race, only makes them blind, delirious, and miserable, by depriving them of truth, the sole cure for their wretchedness. 206. religion has ever filled the mind of man with darkness, and kept him in ignorance of his real duties and true interests. it is only by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of religion, that we shall discover truth, reason, and morality. religion diverts us from the causes of evils, and from the remedies which nature prescribes; far from curing, it only aggravates, multiplies, and perpetuates them. let us observe with the celebrated lord bolingbroke, that "_theology is the box of pandora; and if it is impossible to shut it, it is at least useful to inform men, that this fatal box is open_." the end. the heavenly father. lectures on modern atheism. by ernest naville, corresponding member of the institute of france (academy of the moral and political sciences), late professor of philosophy in the university of geneva. translated from the french by henry downton, m.a., english chaplain at geneva. --"to this deplorable error i desire to oppose faith in god as it has been given to the world by the gospel--faith in the heavenly father." _author's letter to professor faraday_ (v. p. 193). boston: william v. spencer 1867. cambridge: press of john wilson and son. preface. these lectures, in their original form, were delivered at geneva, and afterwards at lausanne, before two auditories which together numbered about two thousand five hundred men. a swiss review published considerable portions of them, which had been taken down in short-hand, and on reading these portions, several persons, belonging to different countries, conceived the idea of translating the work when completed by the author, and corrected for publication. proof-sheets were accordingly sent to the translators as they came from the press: and thus this volume will appear pretty nearly at the same time in several of the languages of europe. the hearty kindness with which my fellow-countrymen received my words has been to me both a delight and an encouragement. the expressions of sympathy which have reached me from abroad allow me to hope that these pages, notwithstanding the deficiencies and imperfections of which i am keenly sensible, reflect some few of the rays of the truth which god has deposited on the earth, thereby to unite in the same faith and hope men of every tongue and every nation. ernest naville. geneva, _may, 1865_. note by the translator. the appearance of this translation so long after that of the original work is in contradiction to the foregoing statement of the author, that it would appear at nearly the same time with it. the delay has been due to causes beyond the translator's control--in part to the difficulty of revising the press at so great a distance from the place of publication, the translator being resident at geneva. this latter circumstance causes an exception in another particular as regards this translation, the proposal to translate the lectures having been made to the author, and kindly accepted by him, during the course of their delivery at geneva. the mere statement by the author of the numbers, large as they were, of those who formed the auditories, can give but a small idea of the enthusiasm with which they were received by the crowds which thronged to hear them, and which were composed of all classes of persons, from the most distinguished savant to the intelligent artisan. it is not to be expected that the lectures when read, even in the original, and still less in a translation, can produce the vivid impression which they made on those, who, with the translator, had the privilege of hearing them delivered,--the author having few rivals, on the continent or elsewhere, in the graces of polished eloquence; but the subjects treated are, it is to be feared, of increasing importance, not abroad only, but in england; and in fact one lecture, the fourth, is in a large measure occupied with forms of atheism which owe their chief support to english authors. in that lecture the author shows that the spiritual origin of man cannot "be put out of sight beneath details of physiology and researches of natural history," and that these not only "cannot settle," but "cannot so much as touch the question." the same lecture is occupied in part by a practical refutation of the prejudice against religion drawn from the irreligious character of many men of science. the author's subject has led him in the present work to confine his illustrations on this head to the question of natural religion: but the translator will avow that a main motive with him to undertake the labor of this translation has been the wish to prove, in the instance of the distinguished author himself, that men of incontestable eminence as metaphysical philosophers may hold and profess boldly their faith in doctrines, which many who affect to guide the religious opinions of our youth would teach them to despise as the heritage of narrow minds, and to cast away as incompatible with the highest intellectual cultivation. such doctrines are those of the fall and ruin of man by nature, the necessity for divine agency in his recovery, his need of propitiation by the sacrifice of the god-man--_l'homme-dieu_. these truths are explicitly stated by the author in his former course of lectures--_la vie eternelle_,[1] in which, while discoursing eloquently on that eternal life which is the portion of the righteous, he does not shrink from declaring his belief in its awful counterpart, the eternal condemnation of the wicked. "the offence of the cross" has not "ceased," and many finding that these are the opinions of this author, will perhaps lay down his book as unworthy of their attention: yet the editor, biographer, and expositor of the great french thinker, maine de biran, will not need introduction to the intellectual magnates of our own or of any country. the translator will be thankful, if some of those,--the youth more especially,--of his own country, who have been dazzled by the glare of false science, shall find in this work a help to the reassuring of their faith, while they learn in a fresh example that there are men quite competent to deal with the profoundest problems which can exercise our thoughts, who at the same time have come to a conviction,--compatible as they believe with principles of the clearest reason,--of the truth of those very doctrines which form the substance of evangelical christianity. in saying this, the translator is far from claiming the author as belonging to the same school of theology with himself: but differing with him on some important points, he has yet believed that this volume is calculated to be of much use in the present condition of religious thought in england, and in this hope and prayer he commends it to the blessing of him, whose being and attributes, as our god and father in jesus christ, are therein asserted and defended. geneva, _november, 1865_. footnote: [1] a translation of this work, by an english lady, has been published by mr. dalton, 28, cockspur street. contents. lecture i. page our idea of god 1 lecture ii. life without god 43 part i.--the individual 45 part ii.--society 72 lecture iii. the revival of atheism 117 lecture iv. nature 175 lecture v. humanity 245 lecture vi. the creator 297 lecture vii. the father 340 lecture i. _our idea of god._ (at geneva, 17th nov. 1863.--at lausanne, 11th jan. 1864.) gentlemen, some five-and-twenty or thirty years ago, a german writer published a piece of verse which began in this way: "our hearts are oppressed with the emotions of a pious sadness, at the thought of the ancient jehovah who is preparing to die." the verses were a dirge upon the death of the living god; and the author, like a well educated son of the nineteenth century, bestowed a few poetic tears upon the obsequies of the eternal. i was young when these strange words met my eyes, and they produced in me a kind of painful bewilderment, which has, i think, for ever engraven them in my memory. since then, i have had occasion to learn by many tokens that this fact was not at all an exceptional one, but that men of influence, famous schools, important tendencies of the modern mind, are agreed in proclaiming that the time of religion is over, of religion in all its forms, of religion in the largest sense of the word. beneath the social disturbances of the day, beneath the discussions of science, beneath the anxiety of some and the sadness of others, beneath the ironical and more or less insulting joy of a few, we read at the foundation of many intellectual manifestations of our time these gloomy words: "henceforth no more god for humanity!" what may well send a shudder of fright through society--more than threatening war, more than possible revolution, more than the plots which may be hatching in the dark against the security of persons or of property--is, the number, the importance, and the extent of the efforts which are making in our days to extinguish in men's souls their faith in the living god. this fear, gentlemen, i should wish to communicate to you, but i should wish also to confine it within its just limits. religion (i take this term in its most general acceptation) is not, as many say that it is, either dead or dying. i want no other proof of this than the pains which so many people are taking to kill it. it is often those who say that it is dead, or falling rapidly into dissolution, who apply themselves to this work. they are too generous, no doubt, to make a violent attack upon a corpse; and it is easy to understand, judging by the intensity of their exertions, that in their own opinion they have something else to do than to give a finishing stroke to the dying. present circumstances are serious, not for religion itself, which cannot be imperilled, but for minds which run the risk of losing their balance and their support. let it be observed, however, that when it is said that we are living in extraordinary times, that we are passing through an unequalled crisis, that the like of what we see was never seen before, and so on, we must always regard conclusions of this nature with distrust. our personal interest in the circumstances which immediately surround us produces on them for us the magnifying effect of a microscope: and our principal reason for thinking that our epoch is more extraordinary than others, is for the most part that we are living in our own epoch, and have not lived in others. a mind attentive to this fact, and so placed upon its guard against all tendency to exaggeration, will easily perceive that religious thought has in former times passed through shocks as profound and as dangerous as those of which we are witnesses. still the crisis is a real one. taking into account its extent in our days, we may say that it is new for the generation to which we belong; and it is worthy of close consideration. to-day, as an introduction to this grave subject, i should wish first to determine as precisely as possible what is our idea of god; to inquire next from what sources we derive it; and lastly to point out, as clearly as i may, the limits and the nature of the discussion to which i invite you. in asking what sense we must give to the word "god," i am not going to propose to you a metaphysical definition, or any system of my own: i am inquiring what is in fact the idea of god in the bosom of modern society, in the souls which live by this idea, in the hearts of which it constitutes the joy, in the consciences of which it is the support. when our thoughts rise above nature and humanity to that invisible being whom we speak of as god, what is it which passes in our souls? they fear, they hope, they pray, they offer thanksgiving. if a man finds himself in one of those desperate positions in which all human help fails, he turns towards heaven, and says, my god! if we are witnesses of one of those instances of revolting injustice which stir the conscience in its profoundest depths, and which could not on earth meet with adequate punishment, we think within ourselves,--there is a judge on high! if we are reproved by our own conscience, the voice of that conscience, which disturbs and sometimes torments us, reminds us that though we may be shut out from all human view, there is no less an eye which sees us, and a just award awaiting us. thus it is (i am seeking to establish facts) that the thought of god operates, so to speak, in the souls of those who believe in him. if you look for the meaning common to all these manifestations of man's heart, what do you find? fear, hope, thanksgiving, prayer. to whom is all this addressed? to a power intelligent and free, which knows us, and is able to act upon our destinies. this is the idea which is found at the basis of all religions; not only of the religion of the only god, but of the most degraded forms of idolatrous worship. all religion rests upon the sentiment of one or more invisible powers, superior to nature and to humanity. when philosophical curiosity is awakened, it disengages from the general sentiment of power the definite idea of the cause which becomes the explanation of the phenomena. the reason of man, by virtue of its very constitution, finds a need of conceiving of an absolute cause which escapes by its eternity the lapse of time, and by its infinite character the bounds of limited existences; a principle, the necessary being of which depends on no other; in a word a unique cause, establishing by its unity the universal harmony. so, when reason meets with the idea of the sole and almighty creator, it attaches itself to it as the only thought which accounts to it for the world and for itself. the creator is, first of all, he whose glory the heavens declare, while the earth makes known the work of his hands. he is the mighty one and the wise, whose will has given being to nature, and who directs at once the chorus of stars in the depths of the heavens, and the drop of vital moisture in the herb which we tread under foot. if, after having looked around, we turn our regard in upon ourselves, we then discover other heavens, spiritual heavens, in which shine, like stars of the first magnitude, those objects which cause the heart of man to beat, so long as he is not self-degraded: truth, goodness, beauty. now we feel that we are made for this higher world. material enjoyments may enchain our will; we may, in the indulgence of unworthy passions, pursue what in its essence is only evil, error, and deformity; but, if all the rays of our true nature are not extinguished, a voice issues from the depth of our souls and protests against our debasement. our aspirations toward these spiritual excellences are unlimited. our thought sets out on its course: have we solved one question? immediately new questions arise, which press, no less than the former, for an answer. our conscience speaks: have we come in a certain degree to realize what is right and good? immediately conscience demands of us still more. is our feeling for beauty awakened? well, sirs, when an artist is satisfied with the work of his hands, do you not know at once what to think of him? do you not know that that man will never do any thing great, who does not see shining in his horizon an ideal which stamps as imperfect all that he has been able to realize? the voice which urges us on through life from the cradle to the grave, and which, without allowing us a moment's pause, is ever crying--forward! forward! this voice is not more imperious than the noble instinct which, in the view of beauty, of truth, of good, is also saying to us--forward! forward! and, with the american poet, _excelsior!_ higher, ever higher! many of you know that instinct familiar to the _climbers of the alps_,[2] as they are called, who, arrived at one summit, have no rest so long as there remains a loftier height in view. such is our destiny; but the last peak is veiled in shining clouds which conceal it from our sight. perfection,--this is the point to which our nature aspires; but it is the ladder of jacob: we see the foot which rests upon the earth; the summit hides itself from our feeble view amidst the splendors of the infinite. these objects of our highest desires--beauty in its supreme manifestation, absolute holiness, infinite truth--are united in one and the same thought--god! the attributes of the spiritual are never in us but as borrowed attributes; they dwell naturally in him who is their source. god is the truth, not only because he knows all things, but because he is the very object of our thoughts; because, when we study the universe, we do but spell out some few of the laws which he has imposed on things; because, to know truth is never any thing else than to know the creation or the creator, the world or its eternal cause. god it is who must be himself the satisfaction of that craving of the conscience which urges us towards holiness. if we had arrived at the highest degree of virtue, what should we have done? we should have realized the plan which he has proposed to spiritual creatures in their freedom, at the same time that he is directing the stars in their courses by that other word which they accomplish without having heard it. god is the eternal source of beauty. he it is who has shed grace upon our valleys, and majesty upon our mountains; and he, again, it is (i quote st. augustine) who acts within the souls of artists, those great artists, who, urged unceasingly towards the regions of the ideal, feel themselves drawn onwards towards a divine world. god then above all is he who _is_,--the absolute, the infinite, the eternal,--in the ever mysterious depths of his own essence. in his relation to the world, he is the cause; in his relation to the lofty aspirations of the soul, he is the ideal. he is the ideal, because being the absolute cause, he is the unique source, at the same time that he is the object, of our aspirations: he is the absolute cause, because being he who _is_, in his supreme unity, nothing could have existence except by the act of his power. we are able already to recognize here, in passing, the source at which are fed the most serious aberrations of religious thought. are truth, holiness, beauty considered separately from the real and infinite spirit in which is found their reason for existing? we see thus appear philosophies noble in their commencement, but which soon descend a fatal slope. the divine, so-called, is spoken of still; but the divine is an abstraction, and apart from god has no real existence. if truth, beauty, holiness are not the attributes of an eternal mind, but the simple expression of the tendencies of our soul, man may render at first a sort of worship to these lofty manifestations of his own nature; but logic, inexorable logic, forces him soon to dismiss the divine to the region of chimeras. these rays are extinguished together with their luminous centre; the soul loses the secret of its destinies, and, in the measureless grief which possesses it, it proclaims at length that all is vanity. we shall have, in the sequel, to be witnesses together of this sorrowful spectacle. such is the basis of our idea of god: we must now discover its summit. before the thought of this sovereign being, by whose will are all things, and who is without cause and without beginning, our soul is overwhelmed. we are so feeble! the thought of absolute power crushes us. creatures of a day, how should we understand the eternal? frail as we are, and evil, we tremble at the idea of holiness. but milder accents, as you know, have been heard upon the earth: this sovereign god--he loves us. in proportion as this idea gains possession of our understanding, in the same proportion our soul has glimpses of the paths of peace. he loves us, and we take courage. he hears us, and prayer rises to him with the hope of being heard. he governs all, and we confide in his providence. when your gaze is directed towards the depths of the sky, does it never happen to you to remain in a manner terrified, as you contemplate those worlds which without end are added to other worlds? as you fix your thoughts upon the immeasurable abysses of the firmament,--as you say to yourselves that how far soever you put back the boundary of the skies, if the universe ended there, then the universe, with its suns and its groups of stars, would still be but a solitary lamp, shining as a point in the midst of the limitless darkness,--have you never experienced a sort of mysterious fright and giddiness? at such a time turn your eyes upon nearer objects. he who has made the heavens with their immensity, is he who makes the corn to spring forth for your sustenance, who clothes the fields with the flowers which rejoice your sight, who gives you the fresh breath of morning, and the calm of a lovely evening: it is he, without whose permission nothing occurs, who watches over you and over those you love. possess yourselves thoroughly with this thought of love, then lift once more your eyes to the sky, and from every star, and from the worlds which are lost in the furthest depths of space, shall fall upon your brow, no longer clouded, a ray of love and of peace. then with a feeling of sweet affiance you will adopt as your own those words of an ancient prophet: "whither shall i go from thy spirit, or whither shall i flee from thy presence? if i ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if i make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. if i take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me:"[3] then you will understand those grand and sweet words of saint augustine, some of the most beautiful that ever fell from the lips of a man: "are you afraid of god? run to his arms!" thus our idea of god is completed,--the idea of him whom, in a feeling of filial confidence, we name the father, and whom we call the _heavenly_ father, while we adore that absolute holiness, of which the pure brightness of the firmament is for us the visible and magnificent symbol. goodness is the secret of the universe; goodness it is which has directed power, and placed wisdom at its service. my object is not to teach this idea, but to defend it: it is not, i say, to teach it, for we all possess it. there is no one here who has not received his portion of the sacred deposit. this sacred idea may be veiled by our sorrows, perverted by our errors, obscured by our faults; but, however thick be the layer of ashes heaped together in the depth of our souls--look closely: the sacred spark is not extinguished, and a favorable breath may still rekindle the flame. we have considered the essential elements of which our idea of god is composed. and whence comes this idea? what is its historical origin? i do not ask what is the historical origin of religion, for religion does not take its rise in history; it is met with everywhere and always in humanity. those who deny this are compelled to "search in the darkness for some obscure example known only to themselves, as if all natural inclinations were destroyed by the corruption of a people, and as if, as soon as there are any monsters, the species were no longer any thing."[4] the consciousness of a world superior to the domain of experience is one of the attributes characteristic of our nature. "if there had ever been, or if there still anywhere existed, a people entirely destitute of religion, it would be in consequence of an exceptional downfall which would be tantamount to a lapse into animality."[5] i am not therefore inquiring after the origin of the idea and sentiment of the deity, in a general sense, but after the origin of the idea of the only and almighty creator as we possess it. in fact, if religion is universal, distinct knowledge of the creator is not so. our own past strikes its roots into the historic soil which, in the matter of creeds, is known by the name of paganism or idolatry. at first sight what do we find in the opinions of that ancient world? no trace of the divine unity. adoration is dispersed over a thousand different beings. not only are the heavenly bodies adored and the powers of nature, but men, animals, and inanimate objects. the feeling of the holiness of god is not less wanting, it would seem, than the idea of his unity. religion serves as a pretext for the unchaining of human passions. this is the case unfortunately with religion in general, and the true religion is no exception to the rule: but what characterizes paganism is that in its case religion, by its own proper nature, favors the development of immorality. celebrated shrines become the dens of a prostitution which forms part of the homage rendered to the gods; the religious rites of ancient asia, and those of greece which fell under their influence, are notorious for their lewdness. the temples of false deities, too often defiled by debauchery, are too often also dishonored by frightful sacrifices. the ancient civilization of mexico was elegant and even refined in some respects; but the altars were stained, every year, with the blood of thousands of human beings; and the votaries of this sanguinary worship devoured, in solemn banquets, the quivering limbs of the victims. let us not look for examples too far removed from the civilization which has produced our own. in the greek and roman world, the stories of the gods were not very edifying, as every one knows: the worship of bacchus gave no encouragement to temperance, and the festivals of venus were not a school of chastity. it would be easy, by bringing together facts of this sort, to form a picture full of sombre coloring, and to conclude that our idea of god, the idea of the only and holy god, does not proceed from the impure sources of idolatry. the proceeding would be brief and convenient; but such an estimation of the facts, false because incomplete, would destroy the value of the conclusion. in pagan antiquity, in fact, the abominations of which i have just reminded you did not by themselves make up religious tradition. side by side with a current of darkness and impurity, we meet with a current of pure ideas and of strong gleams of the day. almost all the pagans seem to have had a glimpse of the divine unity over the multiplicity of their idols, and of the rays of the divine holiness across the saturnalia of their olympi. it was a greek who wrote these words: "nothing is accomplished on the earth without thee, o god, save the deeds which the wicked perpetrate in their folly."[6] it was in a theatre at athens that the chorus of a tragedy sang, more than two thousand years ago: "may destiny aid me to preserve unsullied the purity of my words and of all my actions, according to those sublime laws which, brought forth in the celestial heights, have heaven alone for their father, to which the race of mortal men did not give birth, and which oblivion shall never entomb. in them is a supreme god, and one who waxes not old."[7] it would be easy to multiply quotations of this order, and to show you in the documents of grecian and roman civilization numerous traces of the knowledge of the only and holy god. listen now to a voice which has come forth actually from the recesses of the sepulchre: it reaches us from ancient egypt. in egypt, as you know, the degradation of the religious idea was in popular practice complete. but, under the confused accents of superstition, the science of our age is succeeding in catching from afar the vibrations of a sublime utterance. in the coffins of a large number of mummies have been discovered rolls of papyrus containing a sacred text which is called the _book of the dead_. here is the translation of some fragments which appear to date from a very remote epoch. it is god who speaks: "i am the most holy, the creator of all that replenishes the earth, and of the earth itself, the habitation of mortals. i am the prince of the infinite ages. i am the great and mighty god, the most high, shining in the midst of the careering stars and of the armies which praise me above thy head.... it is i who chastise and who judge the evil-doers, and the persecutors of godly men. i discover and confound the liars.... i am the all-seeing judge and avenger ... the guardian of my laws in the land of righteousness."[8] these words are found mingled, in the text from which i extract them, with allusions to inferior deities; and it must be acknowledged that the translation of the ancient documents of egypt is still uncertain enough. still this uncertainty does not appear to extend to the general sense and bearing of the recent discoveries of our savants. myself a simple learner from the masters of the science, i can only point out to you the result of their studies. now, this is what the masters tell us as to the actual state of mythological studies. traces are found almost everywhere, in the midst of idolatrous superstitions, of a religion comparatively pure, and often stamped with a lofty morality. paganism is not a simple fact: it offers to view in the same bed two currents, the one pure and the other impure. what is the relation between these two currents? a passage in a writer of the latin church throws a vivid light upon their actual relation in practical life. it is thus that lactantius expresses himself: "when man (the pagan) finds himself in adversity, then it is that he has recourse to god (to the only god). if the horrors of war threaten him, if there appear a contagious disease, a drought, a tempest, then he has recourse to god.... if he is overtaken by a storm at sea, and is in danger of perishing, immediately he calls upon god; if he finds himself in any urgent peril, he has recourse to god.... thus men bethink themselves of god when they are in trouble; but as soon as the danger is past, and they are no longer in any fear, we see them return with joy to the temples of the false gods, make to them libations, and offer sacrifices to them."[9] this is a striking picture of the workings of man's heart in all ages; for, as our author observes, "god is never so much forgotten of men as when they are quietly enjoying the favors and blessings which he sends them."[10] as regards our special object, this page reveals in a very instructive manner the religious condition of heathen antiquity. the thought of the sovereign god was stifled without being extinguished; it awoke beneath the pressure of anguish; but ordinary life, the life of every day, belonged to the easy worship of idols. it may now be asked what is the historical relation between the two currents of paganism of which we have just established the actual relation in practical life. did humanity begin with a coarse fetichism, and thence rise by slow degrees to higher conceptions? do the traces of a comparatively pure monotheism first show themselves in the most recent periods of idolatry? contemporary science inclines more and more to answer in the negative. it is in the most ancient historical ground (allow me these geological terms) that the laborious investigators of the past meet with the most elevated ideas of religion. cut to the ground a young and vigorous beech-tree, and come back a few years afterwards: in place of the tree cut down you will find coppice-wood; the sap which nourished a single trunk has been divided amongst a multitude of shoots. this comparison expresses well enough the opinion which tends to prevail amongst our savants on the subject of the historical development of religions. the idea of the only god is at the root,--it is primitive; polytheism is derivative. a forgotten, and as it were slumbering, monotheism exists beneath the worship of idols; it is the concealed trunk which supports them, but the idols have absorbed all the sap. the ancient god (allow me once more a comparison) is like a sovereign confined in the interior of his palace: he is but seldom thought of, and only on great occasions; his ministers alone act, entertain requests, and receive the real homage. the proposition of the historical priority of monotheism is very important, and is not universally admitted. it will therefore be necessary to show you, by a few quotations at least, that i am not speaking rashly. one of the most accredited mythologists of our time, professor grimm, of berlin, writes as follows: "the monotheistic form appears to be the more ancient, and that out of which antiquity in its infancy formed polytheism.... all mythologies lead us to this conclusion."[11] among the french savants devoted to the study of ancient egypt, the vicomte de rongã© stands in the foremost rank. this is what he tells us: "in egypt the supreme god was called the one god, living indeed, he who made all that exists, who created other beings. he is the generator existing alone who made the heaven and created the earth." the writer informs us that these ideas are often found reproduced "in writings the date of which is anterior to moses, and many of which formed part of the most ancient sacred hymns;" then he comes to this conclusion: "egypt, in possession of an admirable fund of doctrines respecting the essence of god, and the immortality of the soul, did not for all that defile herself the less by the most degrading superstitions; we have in her, sufficiently summed up, the religious history of all antiquity."[12] as regards the civilization which flourished in india, m. adolphe pictet, in his learned researches on the subject of the primitive aryas, arrives, in what concerns the religious idea, at the following conclusion: "to sum up: primitive monotheism of a character more or less vague, passing gradually into a polytheism still simple, such appears to have been the religion of the ancient aryas."[13] one of our fellow-countrymen, who cultivates with equal modesty and perseverance the study of religious antiquities, has procured the greater part of the recent works published on these subjects in france, germany, and england. he has read them, pen in hand, and, at my urgent request, he has kindly allowed me to look over his notes which have been long accumulating. i find the following sentence in the manuscripts which he has shown me: "the general impression of all the most distinguished mythologists of the present day is, that monotheism is at the foundation of all pagan mythology." the savants, i repeat, do not unanimously accept these conclusions: savants, like other men, are rarely unanimous. it is enough for my purpose to have shown that it is not merely the grand tradition guaranteed by the christian faith, but also the most distinctly marked current of contemporary science, which tells us that god shone upon the cradle of our species. the august form was veiled, and idolatry with its train of shameful rites shows itself in history as the result of a fall which calls for a restoration, rather than as the point of departure of a continued progress. the august form was veiled. who has lifted the veil? not the priests of the idols. we meet in the history of paganism with movements of reformation, or, at the very least, of religious transformation: buddhism is a memorable example of this; but it is not a return towards the pure traditions of india or of egypt which has caused us to know the god whom we adore. has the veil been lifted by reflection, that is to say by the labors of philosophers? philosophy has rendered splendid services to the world. it has combated the abominations of idolatry; it has recognized in nature the proofs of an intelligent design; it has discerned in the reason the deeply felt need of unity; it has indicated in the conscience the sense of good, and shown its characteristics; it has contemplated the radiant image of the supreme beauty--still it is not philosophy which has restored for humanity the idea of god. its lights mingled with darkness remained widely scattered, and without any focus powerful enough to give them strength for enlightening the world. to seek god, and consequently to know him already in a certain measure; but to remain always before the altar of a god glimpsed only by an _ã©lite_ of sages, and continuing for the multitudes the unknown god: such was the wisdom of the ancients. it prepared the soil; but it did not deposit in it the germ from which the idea of the creator was to spring forth living and strong, to overshadow with its branches all the nations of the earth. and when this idea appeared in all its splendor, and began the conquest of the universe, the ancient philosophy, which had separated itself from heathen forms of worship, and had covered them with its contempt, contracted an alliance with its old adversaries. it accepted the wildest interpretations of the common superstitions, in order to be able to league itself with the crowd in one and the same conflict with the new power which had just appeared in the world. and this sums up in brief compass the whole history of philosophy in the first period of our era. the monotheism of the moderns does not proceed historically from paganism; it was prepared by the ancient philosophy, without being produced by it. whence comes it then? on this head there exists no serious difference of opinion. our knowledge of god is the result of a traditional idea, handed down from generation to generation in a well-defined current of history. much obscurity still rests upon man's earliest religious history, but the truth which i am pointing out to you is solidly and clearly established. pass, in thought, over the terrestrial globe. all the superstitions of which history preserves the remembrance are practised at this day, either in asia or in africa, or in the isles of the ocean. the most ridiculous and ferocious rites are practised still in the light of the same sun which gilds, as he sets, the spires and domes of our churches. at this very day, there are nations upon the earth which prostrate themselves before animals, or which adore sacred trees. at this very day, perhaps at this hour in which i am addressing you, human victims are bound by the priests of idols; before you have left this room, their blood will have defiled the altars of false deities. at this very day, numerous nations, which have neither wanted time for self-development, nor any of the resources of civilization, nor clever poets, nor profound philosophers, belong to the religion of the brahmins, or are instructed in the legends which serve as a mask to the pernicious doctrines of buddha. where do we meet with the clear idea of the creator? in a unique tradition which proceeds from the jews, which christians have diffused, and which mahomet corrupted. god is known, with that solid and general knowledge which founds a settled doctrine and a form of worship, under the influence of this tradition and nowhere else. we assert this as a simple fact of contemporary history; and there is scarcely any fact in history better established. the light comes to us from the gospel. this light did not appear as a sudden and absolutely new illumination. it had cast pale gleams on the soul of the heathen in their search after the unknown god; it had shone apart upon that strange and glorious people which bears the name of israel. israel had preserved the primitive light encompassed by temporary safe-guards. it was the flame of a lamp, too feeble to live in the open air, and which remained shut up in a vase, until the moment when it should have become strong enough to shine forth from its shattered envelope upon the world. the worship of jehovah is a local worship; but this worship, localized for a time, is addressed to the only and sovereign god. to every nation which says to israel as athaliah to joash: i have my god to serve--serve thou thine own,[14] israel replies with joash: nay, madam, but my god is god alone; him must thou fear: thy god is nought--a dream![15] israel does not affirm merely that the god of israel is the only true god, but affirms moreover that the time will come when all the earth will acknowledge him for the only and universal lord. a grand thought, a grand hope, is in the soul of this people, and assures it that all nations shall one day look to jerusalem. its prophets threaten, warn, denounce chastisements, predict terrible catastrophes; but in the midst of their severer utterances breaks forth ever and again the song of future triumph: uplift, jerusalem, thy queenly brow: light of the nations, and their glory, thou![16] thus is preserved in the ancient world the knowledge of god amongst an exceptional people, amidst the darkness of idolatry and the glimmerings of an imperfect wisdom. and not only is it preserved, but it shines with a brightness more and more vivid and pure. the conception of sovereignty which constitutes its foundation, is crowned as it advances by the conception of love. at length he appears by whom the universal father was to be known of all. have you not remarked the surprising simplicity with which jesus speaks of his work? he speaks of the universe and of the future as a lawful proprietor speaks of his property. the field in which the word shall be sown is the world. he introduces that worship in spirit and in truth before which all barriers shall fall. he knows that humanity belongs to him; and when he foretells his peaceful conquest, one knows not which predominates in his words, simplicity or grandeur. now this predicted work has been done, is being done, and will be done. no one entertains any serious doubt of this. the idea of god, as it exists amongst christian peoples, bears on its brow the certain sign of victory. in many respects, we are passing through the world in times which are not extraordinary, and among things little worthy of lasting record. still great events are being accomplished before our eyes. the ancient east is shaken to its foundations. the work of foreign missions is taken up again with fresh energy. ships, as they leave the shores of europe, carry with them,--together with those who travel for purposes of commerce, or from curiosity, or as soldiers,--those new crusaders who exclaim: god wills it! and are ready to march to their death in order to proclaim the god of life to nations plunged in darkness. the advances of industry, the developments of commerce, the calculations of ambition, all conspire to diffuse spiritual light over the globe. these are noble spectacles, revealing clearly the traces of a superior design, which the mighty of this world are accomplishing, even by the craft and violence of their policy: they are the manifest instruments of a will to which oftentimes they are insensible. the knowledge of god is extending; and while it is extending, it is enriching itself with its own conquests. just as it absorbed the living sap of the doctrines of the greeks, so it is strengthening itself with the doctrines of the ancient east and of old egypt, which an indefatigable science is bringing again to light. christian thought is growing, not by receiving any foreign impulse from without, but like a vigorous tree, whose roots traverse new layers of a fertile soil. all truth comes naturally to the centre of truth as to its rallying-point; and to the universal prayer must be gathered all the pure accents gone astray in the superstitious invocations which rise from the banks of the ganges or from the burning regions of africa. the day will come, when our planet, in its revolutions about the sun, shall receive on no point of its surface the rays of the orb of day, without sending back, over the ruins of idol-temples for ever overthrown, a song of thanksgiving to the god of abraham, isaac, and jacob, become through jesus christ the god of all mankind. we know now whence comes our idea of god: it is christian in its origin. it proceeds from this source, not only for those who call themselves christians, but for all those who, in the bosom of modern society, believe sincerely and seriously in god. but little study and reflection is required for the acknowledgment that the doctrines of our deists are the product of a reason which has been _evangelized_ without their own knowledge. they have not invented, but have received the thought, which constitutes the support of their life. a mind of ordinary cultivation is free henceforward from all danger of falling into the artless error of j.j. rousseau, when he pretended that even though he had been born in a desert island and had never known a human being, he would have been able to draw up the confession of faith of the _vicaire savoyard_. the habit of historical research has dispelled these illusions. a french writer, distinguished for solid erudition, wrote not long ago: "the civilized world has received from judea the foundations of its faith. it has learned of it these two things which pagan antiquity never knew--holiness and charity; for all holiness is derived from belief in a personal, spiritual god, creator of the universe; and all charity from the doctrine of human brotherhood!"[17] religion, in its most general sense, is found wherever there are men; but distinct knowledge of the heavenly father is the fruit of that word which comes to us from the borders of the jordan,--a word in which all the true elements of ancient wisdom are found to have mutually drawn together, and strengthened each other. in the very heart of our civilization, those men of mind who succeed in freeing themselves in good earnest from the influence of this word come, oftener than not, to throw off all belief in the real and true god, if they have strength of mind enough properly to understand themselves. how is it that the full idea of the creator,--an idea which true philosophers have sought after in all periods of history, and of which they have had, so to speak, glimpses and presentiments,--how is it that this idea is a living one only under the influence of the tradition which, proceeding originally from abraham and moses, has been continued by jesus christ? it is not impossible to point out the spiritual causes of this great historical phenomenon. faith in god, in order to maintain itself in presence of the difficulties which rise in our minds, and--to come at once to the core of the question--the idea of the love of god, in order to maintain itself in presence of evil and of the power of evil on the earth, has need of resources which the christian belief alone possesses. the knowledge of the heavenly father is essentially connected with the gospel: this is the historical fact. this fact is accounted for by the existence of an organic bond between all the great christian doctrines: this is my deliberate conviction. i frankly declare here my own opinions: to do so is for me a matter almost of honor and good faith; but i declare them, without desiring to lay any stress upon them in these lectures. my present object is to consider the idea of god by itself. i isolate it for my own purposes from christian truth taken as a whole, but without making the separation in my thoughts. the thesis which i propose to maintain is common to all christians, that is quite clear; but further; in a perfectly general sense, and in a merely abstract point of view, it is a proposition maintained equally by the disciples of mahomet; it is maintained by j.j. rousseau and the spiritualist philosophers who reproduce his thoughts. it is clear in fact that just as jesus christ is the corner-stone of all christian doctrine, so god is the foundation common to all religions. before concluding this lecture i desire to answer a question which may have suggested itself to some amongst you. what are we about when we take up a christian idea in order to defend it by reasoning? are we occupied about religion or philosophy? are we treading upon the ground of faith, or on the ground of reason? are we in the domain of tradition, or in that of free inquiry? i have no great love, gentlemen, for hedges and enclosures. i know very well, better, perhaps, than many amongst you, because i have longer reflected on the subject, what are the differences which separate studies specially religious, from philosophical inquiries. but when the question relates to god, to the universal cause, we find ourselves at the common root of religion and philosophy, and distinctions, which exist elsewhere, disappear. besides, these distinctions are never so absolute as they are thought to be. you will understand this if you pay attention to these two considerations: there is no such thing as pure thought disengaged from every traditional element: there is no such thing as tradition received in a manner purely passive, and disengaged from all exercise of the reflective faculties. you think you are employed about philosophy when you shut yourself up in your own individual thoughts. a mistake! the most powerful genius of modern times failed in this enterprise. descartes conceived the project of forgetting all that he had known, and of producing a system of doctrine which should come forth from his brain as minerva sprang all armed from the brain of jupiter. now-a-days a mere schoolboy, if he has been well taught, ought to be able to prove that descartes was mistaken, because the current of tradition entered his mind together with the words of the language. it is not so easy as we may suppose to break the ties by which god has bound us all together in mutual dependence. man speaks, he only thinks by means of speech, and speech is a river which takes its rise in the very beginnings of history, and brings down to the existing generation the tribute of all the waters of the past. no one can isolate himself from the current, and place himself outside the intellectual society of his fellows. we have more light than we had on this subject, and the attempt of descartes, which was of old the happy audacity of genius, could in our days be nothing but the foolish presumption of ignorance. as for the purely passive reception of tradition, this may be conceived when only unimportant legends are in question, or doctrines which occupy the mind only as matters of curiosity; but when life is at stake, and the interests of our whole existence, the mind labors upon the ideas which it receives. religion is only living in any soul when all the faculties have come into exercise; and faith, by its own proper nature, seeks to understand. the distinction between traditional data therefore and pure philosophy is far from being so real or so extensive as it is commonly thought to be. but for lack of time, i might undertake to prove to you more at length that the labor of individual thought upon the common tradition is the absolute and permanent law of development for the human mind. we have to steer between two extreme and contrary pretensions. what shall we say to those theologians who deny all power to man's reason, and consider the understanding as a receiver which does nothing but receive the liquid which is poured into it? to those theologians who, not content with despising aristotle and plato, think themselves obliged to vilify socrates and calumniate regulus? we will tell them that they depart from the grand christian tradition, of which they believe themselves _par excellence_ the representatives. we will add that they outrage their master by seeming to believe that in order to exalt him it is necessary to calumniate humanity. again, what shall we say to those philosophers, who do not wish for truth except when they have succeeded in educing it by themselves? to those philosophers who draw a little circle about their own personal thought, and say: if truth discovers itself outside this circle we have no wish to see it; and who boast that they only are free, because they have abandoned the common beliefs? we will tell them that they are deceiving themselves by taking for their own personal thought the _dã©bris_ of the tradition of the human race. we will add that their pretended independence is a veritable slavery. a strange sort of liberty that, which should forbid those who affect it to accept a faith which appeared to them to be true, because they were not the inventors of it. listen to this wise reflection of a contemporary writer: "philosophy allows us to range ourselves on the side of platonism: why should it not also allow us to range ourselves on the side of the christian faith, if there it is that we find wisdom and immutable truth? the choice ought to seem as free and as worthy of respect on the one side as on the other; and philosophy which claims liberty for itself, is least of all warranted in refusing it to others."[18] to be free, is to look for truth wherever it may be found, and it is to obey truth wherever we meet with it. when the question therefore relates to god, or to the soul and its eternal destinies,--to the man who asks me, are you occupied with religion or philosophy? i have only one answer to give: i am a man, and i am seeking truth. a final consideration will perhaps put these thoughts in a more striking light. if you think the most important of the discussions of our day to be that between natural and revealed religion, between deism and the gospel, you have not well discerned the signs of the times. the fundamental discussion is now between men who believe in god, in the soul, and in truth, and men, who, denying truth, deny at the same time the soul and god. when these high problems are in question, periodicals and other publications, which have the widest circulation, and which gain admission into every household, bring us too often the works of writers without convictions, eager to spread amongst others the doubt which has devoured their own beliefs. they have received entire, and without losing an obole of it, the heritage of the greek sophists. they involve in fact in the same proscription socrates and jesus christ, paul of tarsus and plato of athens: they have no more respect for the opinions of descartes and leibnitz than for those of pascal and bossuet. the great question of the day is to know whether our desire of truth is a chimã¦ra; whether our effort to reach the divine world is a spring into the empty void. when the question relates to god, inasmuch as he is the basis of reason no less than the object of faith, all the barriers which exist elsewhere disappear: to defend faith is to defend reason; to defend reason is to defend faith. the unbridled audacity of those who deny fundamental truths is bringing ancient adversaries, for a moment at least, to fight beneath the same flag. what they would rob us of, is not merely this or that article of a definite creed, but all faith whatever in divine providence, every hope which goes beyond the tomb, every look directed towards a world superior to our present destinies. but take courage. this flame lighted on the earth, and which is evermore directed towards heaven, has passed safely through rougher storms than those which now threaten it; it has shone brightly in thicker darkness than that in which men are laboring so hard to enshroud it. it is not going to be extinguished, be very sure, before the affected indifference of a few wits of our day, and the haughty disdain of a few contemporary journalists. in a word, gentlemen,--to take the idea of god as it has been handed down to us, and to study its relation to the reason, the heart, and the conscience of man,--this is my proposed method of proceeding. to show you that this idea is truth, because it satisfies the conscience, the heart, and the reason--this is the object i have in view. of this object i am sure you feel the importance: nevertheless, and that we may be more alive to it still, i propose to you to sound with me the abysses of sorrow and darkness which are involved in those terrible words--"without god in the world." footnotes: [2] aux _grimpeurs des alpes_. [3] psalm cxxxix. 7-10. [4] j.j. rousseau. [5] _les origines indo-europã©ennes_, by adolphe pictet, ii. 651. [6] cleanthes, _hymn to jupiter_. [7] sophocles, _oedipus r._ [8] _handbuch der gesammten ã¤gyptischen alterthumskunde_, von dr. max uhlemann. leipzig, 1857. [9] _institutions divines_, ii. 1. [10] id. [11] _deutsche mythol._ third edition, page lxiv. [12] _annales de philosophie chrã©tienne_, t. 59, p. 228._r_. [13] _les origines indo-europã©ennes_, ii. 720. [14] j'ai mon dieu que je sers, vous servirez le vã´tre. [15] il faut craindre le mien; lui seul est dieu, madame, et le vã´tre n'est rien. [16] lã¨ve, jã©rusalem, lã¨ve ta tãªte altiã¨re! les peuples ã  l'envi marchent ã  ta lumiã¨re. [17] _etudes orientales_, par adolphe franck, p. 427. [18] barthã©lemy st. hilaire, in the _sã©ances et travaux de l'acadã©mie des sciences morales et politiques_, lxx., p. 134. lecture ii. _life without god._ (at geneva, 20th nov. 1863.--at lausanne, 13th jan. 1864.) gentlemen, i propose to examine to-day what are the consequences for human life of the total suppression of the idea of god. this suppression is the result of atheism properly so called: it is also the result of scepticism raised into a system. the soul which doubts, but which seeks, regrets, hopes, is not wholly separated from god. it gives him a large share in its life, inasmuch as the desire which it feels to meet with him, and the sadness which it experiences at not contemplating him in a full light, become the principal facts of its existence. but doubt adopted as a doctrine realizes in its own way, equally with atheism properly so called, life without god, the mournful subject of our present study. having god, the spiritual life has a firm base and an invincible hope. the vapors of earth may indeed for a moment obscure the sky. one while fogs hang about the ground; another while clouds send forth the thunder-bolt; but, above the regions of darkness and of tempest, the eye of faith contemplates the eternal azure in its unchanging calm. life has its sorrows for all; but it is not only endurable, it is blessed, when in view of the instability of all things, in view of evil, of injustice, and of suffering, there can breathe from the depths of the soul to the eternal, the holy one, the comforter, those words of patience in life and of joy in death: _my god!_ take god away, and life is decapitated. even this comparison is not sufficient; life, rather, becomes like to a man who should have lost at once both his head and his heart. the immense subject which opens before us falls into an easy and natural division: we will fix our attention successively upon the individual and upon society. part i. _the individual._ man thinks, he feels, and he wills: these are the three great functions of the spiritual life. let us inquire what, without god, would become, first, of thought, which is the instrument of all knowledge; next; of the conscience, which is the law of the will; then of the heart, which is the organ of the feelings. we will begin with thought. let us go back to the origin of modern philosophy. the labors of descartes will make us acquainted, under the form clearest for us, with a current of lofty thoughts which does honor to ancient civilization, and which has come down to us through the writings of plato and st. augustine. we have seen that descartes deceived himself, when he thought to separate himself altogether from tradition, and forgot the while how intimately men's minds are bound together in a common possession of truth. he was mistaken, because he confounded the idea, natural to the human mind, of an infinite reason, with the full idea of the creator; so attributing to the efforts of his own philosophy that gift of truth which he had received from the christian tradition. but, having so far recognized his error, listen now to this great man, and judge if he were again mistaken in those thoughts of his which i am about to reproduce to you. descartes strives hard to doubt of all things, persuaded that truth will resist his efforts, and come forth triumphant from the trial. he doubts of what he has heard in the schools: his masters may have led him into error. he doubts of the evidence of his senses: his senses deceive him in the visions of the night; what if he were always dreaming, and if his waking hours were but another sleep with other dreams! he will doubt even of the certainty of reason: what if the reason were a warped and broken instrument? reason is only worth what its cause may be worth. if man is the child of chance, his thoughts may be vain. if man is the creature of a wicked and cunning being, the light of reason may be only an _ignis fatuus_ kindled by a malicious and mocking spirit. here is a soul plunged in the lowest abysses of doubt; but it is a manly soul which seeks in doubt a trial for truth, and not a comfortable pillow on which slothfully to repose. how does descartes upraise himself? by a thought known to every one, and which was already found in st. augustine: "_cogito, ergo sum_. i think, therefore i am." deceive me who will; if i am deceived, i exist. here is a certainty protected from all assault: i am. but what a poor certainty is this! what does it avail me to have rescued my existence from the abysses of universal doubt, if above the deep waters which have swallowed up all belief floats only this naked and mortifying truth: i am; but i exist only perhaps to be the sport of errors without end. the first step therefore taken by the philosopher would be a fruitless one if it were not followed by a second. an eye is open, and says: i see; but it must have a warrant that the light by which it sees is not a fantastic brightness. no, replies descartes; reason sees a true light; and this is how he proves it: i am, i know myself; that is certain. i know myself as a limited and imperfect being; that again is certain. i conceive then infinity and perfection; that is not less certain; for i should not have the idea of a limit if i did not conceive of infinity, and the word _imperfect_ would have no meaning for me, if i could not imagine perfection, of which imperfection is but the negation. starting from this point, the philosopher proves by a series of reasonings that the conception of perfection by our minds demonstrates the real existence of that perfection: god is. he adds, that the existence of god is more certain than the most certain of all the theorems of geometry. you will observe, gentlemen, that the man who speaks in this way is one of the greatest geometricians that ever lived. he has found god, he has found the light. reason does not deceive, when it is faithful to its own laws: the senses do not deceive, when they are exercised according to the rules of the understanding. error is a malady; it is not the radical condition of our nature; it is not without limits and without remedy, for the final cause of our being is god, that is to say truth and goodness. from everlasting god was true, for ever good and just will be, says one of our old psalms. faith in the veracity of god--such is the ground of the assurance of believers; such is also the foundation on which has been raised the greatest of modern philosophies. without the knowledge of god and faith in his goodness, man remains plunged in irremediable doubt, possessing only this single, poor, and frightful certainty: i am; and i exist perhaps only to be eternally deceived. but, it has been said, and it needed no great cleverness to say it--what a strange way is this of reasoning! here is a man who first proves that god is, by means of his reason; and then proves that his reason is good because god is. his reason demonstrates god to him, and god demonstrates his reason to him: it is an argument of which any schoolboy can at once see the fallacy; it is manifestly a vicious circle. this has been said again and again by persons who have neglected a sufficiently simple consideration. the error is apparently a gross one; is it not likely that the argument has been misunderstood? ought we not to look very closely at it, before declaring that one of the most lucid minds that have ever appeared in the world left at the basis of his doctrine a fault of logic which any schoolboy can discover? self-sufficient levity of spirit is not the best means of penetrating the thought of leading minds; and it very often happens to us to fail of understanding because we have failed in respect. let us examine with serious attention, not the very words of descartes, as an historian might do, but the course of thought of which descartes is one of the most illustrious representatives. to recognize in the reason traces of god, and to show that in faith in god consists the only warrant of the reason, is not to argue in a vicious circle, because, in this way of proceeding, what we are employed in is not reasoning, but analysis; we are establishing a fact in order to ascertain what that fact implies and supposes. this fact is the natural faith which man has in his own reason, when his reason reveals to him the immediate light of evidence, or the mediate light of certainty. now, when man confides in his reason, it is not in his individual reason that he confides, for he has no doubt that what is evident for him is so also for others. if, tossed by a tempest, he were thrown upon an island of savages, he would not think that those savages, when they came to reflect, would be able to discover that the axioms of our geometry are false, or to make elements of logic which would contradict our own. we believe in a general reason, everywhere and always the same, and in which the reason of each individual participates. we believe therefore that there is a principle of truth which exists in itself, a reason which is eternal and everywhere present; in other words, we believe in god considered as the source of the universal intelligence. to believe in one's reason, is to believe in god, in this sense: the fact of the confidence which we place in our own faculty of thought, supposes a concealed faith in eternal truth. this is the analysis of which i was speaking. it is a circle if you please, but it is a circle of light, outside of which there is, as we shall see by and by, nothing but darkness and hard contradictions. you deny the existence of god. on what ground do you rest this denial? on the ground of your reason. you believe then that your reason is good, you believe it very good, since you do not hesitate to trust it, while you undertake to prove false the fundamental instincts of human nature. but you would not venture to say that this reason which you believe in with a faith so firm is your own separate reason merely, your personal and exclusive property. you believe in the universal reason; you believe in god, considered at least as the source of the understanding. the man therefore who denies god, affirms him in a certain sense at the same time that he denies him. he denies him in his words, in the external form of his thought; he affirms him in reality, as the supreme intelligence, by the very trust which he places in his own thought. our understanding is only the reflected ray of the divine verity. therefore it is that descartes, as soon as he has laid the first foundations of his system, interrupts the chain of his reasonings to trace these lines: "here i think it highly meet to pause for a while in contemplation of this all-perfect god, to ponder deliberately his marvellous attributes, to consider, admire, and adore the incomparable beauty of that immense light, at least so far as the strength of my mind, which remains in a manner dazzled by it, shall allow me to do so."[19] thus it is that while descending into the depths of the understanding, the philosopher who is supposed to be absorbed in pure abstractions, discovers all at once a sublime brightness, and exclaims with the ancient patriarch: "the lord is in this place, and i knew it not!"[20] god is everywhere; he is in the heights of heaven, he is in the depths of thought. remember those celebrated words of lord chancellor bacon: "a little knowledge inclineth the mind to atheism, but a further acquaintance therewith bringeth it back to religion." god is not demonstrated, in the ordinary sense which we attach to the word demonstrate;[21] he is pointed out[22] as the source of all light. the attempt to demonstrate god as anything else is demonstrated, by descending, that is, from higher principles until the object in view is arrived at--this attempt implies a contradiction. god is in fact the first principle, the foundation of all principles, the principle beyond which there is nothing. we may describe the process by which the human mind rises to this supreme idea; but to wish to demonstrate god by mounting higher than himself in order to look for a point of departure--this is literally to wish to light up the sun. if the sun of intelligences is extinguished, reason sets out on its way vaguely enlightened still with the remains of the light which it has reflected; but it is not long ere it is stumbling in darkness. then it is that--be not deceived about it!--the doubts which descartes called up by an act of his own will do in good earnest invade the soul. we possess a natural certainty, which does not suppose a clear view of god; we reason without thinking distinctly of the principles on which we reason, just as, when we are in a hurry, we take the shortest cut without thinking of the axiom of geometry which prescribes the straight line. but if we pass from the natural order of our thoughts into the domain of science, if we ask--what is it which guarantees to me the value of my reason? then the question is put, and many perish in the passage which separates natural faith from the domain of science,--that dangerous passage where doubt spreads out its perfidious fogs and its deceitful marshes. the moment the question is started of the worth of reason, and all the schools of scepticism do start it, our answer must be--_god_; and we must find light in this answer, or see thought invaded in its totality by an irremediable doubt. then men come to ask themselves if all be not a lie; and they speak of the universal vanity, without making the reserve of ecclesiastes.[23] there are more souls ill of this malady than are supposed to be so. many begin by setting up proudly against god what they call the rights of reason, and by and by we see this reason, which has revolted against its principle, vacillate, doubt of itself, and at last, losing itself in a bitter irony, wrap itself, with all beside, in the shroud of a universal scorn. without god reason is extinguished. what, in like case, will happen to the conscience? the conscience is a reality. i will say willingly in the style of the prophets: let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, ere i deny conscience, and disparage the sacred name of duty! yes, conscience is a reality; but god is in it: he it is who gives to it its necessary basis and its indispensable support. the conscience is the august voice of the master of the universe. god has given us the light of the understanding that we may see and comprehend some portions of the works which he has created without us: a work there is for which he would have us to be fellow-workers with him. the heaven of stars is a spectacle for the eyes of the body, a grander spectacle still for the contemplation of the mind which has understood their wondrous mechanism. we admire them; but if the stars failed to attract our admiration, no one of them on that account would cease to trace its orbit. there is another heaven, a heaven of loving stars and free, the sight of which is one day to fill us with rapture, and the realization of which is to be the work of our love and of our will. before we contemplate it we must make it; this is our high and awful privilege. the plan of the spiritual heavens is deposited in the soul, and the utterances of the conscience reveal it to the will. it is a law of justice and of love. this law is evermore violated, because it is proposed to liberty, and liberty rebels: it subsists evermore, because it is the work of the almighty. humanity, in its strange destiny, has never ceased to outrage the rule which it acknowledges, and to pronounce upon its own acts a ceaseless condemnation. the laws which are investigated by the physical sciences are the plan of the creator realized in nature: the law proposed to liberty is the plan of the creator to be realized by the community of minds. such is the explanation of the conscience: god is its solid foundation. duty and god, morality and religion, are inseparable principles; all the efforts of a false philosophy have never succeeded, and never will succeed, in disjoining them. men will never be prevented from believing that god is holy, and that his will is binding upon them: they will never be prevented from believing that holiness is divine, and that the will of god reveals itself in the admonitions of the conscience. therefore the progress of religion and the progress of morality are closely united; the morality of a people depends above all on the idea which it forms to itself of god. the conscience, in fact, at the same time that it is real and permanent in its bases, is variable in the degrees of its light. it is enlightened or obscured, according as the man's religious conceptions are pure or corrupted; and, on the other hand, when the religious worship is degraded beyond a certain limit by error and the passions, the conscience protests, and by its protest purifies the religious conceptions. it has often been said, that in the onward march of humanity, morality is separated from faith, and comes at last to rest upon its own bases. it is a notion of the eighteenth century, which, although its root has been cut, is still throwing out shoots in our time. the attempt has been made to support this theory by the great name of socrates. it is affirmed that the sage of athens, breaking the bond which connects the earth with heaven, separated duty from its primitive source. listen: placed in the alternative of either renouncing his mission or dying, it is thus that socrates addresses his judges: "athenians, i honor you and i love you, but i will obey the deity rather than you. my whole occupation is to persuade you, young and old, that before the care of the body and of riches, before every other care, is that of the soul and of its improvement. know that this it is which the deity prescribes to me, and i am persuaded that there can be nothing more advantageous to the republic than my zeal to fulfil the behest of the deity."[24] does the man who speaks in this way appear to you to have wished to break the link which connects morality with religion? he separates himself from the established religion; he pursues with his biting raillery shameful objects of worship; his conscience protests. but, while it protests, it attaches itself immediately to a higher and holier idea of that god, of whose perfections the sage of athens had succeeded in obtaining a glimpse. god then is the explanation of the conscience: he is moreover its support. it has need in sooth to be supported,--that voice which speaks within us; because it is unceasingly contradicted and denied. the spectacle which the world presents is not an edifying one; the facts which are taking place on the earth are not all of a nature to maintain the steadfastness of the moral feeling. let us imagine an example, a striking example, such as it would be easy to find realized on a small scale in more commonplace events. a peaceable population, menaced in its most sacred rights, has taken up arms in the simplest and most legitimate self-defence. i do not allow my thoughts to rest upon the soldiers who are advancing to oppress it--mere instruments as they are in the hands of their leaders--but upon the leaders themselves. one of these, without the least necessity, with a calculating coolness, to which he sacrifices all the feelings of a man, or under the sway of one of those ferocious instincts which at times gain the mastery over the soul, gives up a town, a village, to all the horrors of slaughter, pillage, and fire. the blood of the victims will scarcely, perhaps, have grown cold, the last gleams of the fire will not yet be extinct, when this man shall be receiving the praises of his superiors. men will laud the bravery and daring of his exploit; his sovereign will place upon his breast a brilliant cross, the august sign of the world's redemption; he will return to his country amidst the acclamations of the multitude, and drink in with delight the shouts of triumph which greet him as he moves on his way. for such things as these, is there to be no penalty but troublesome recollections which may sometimes be banished, and a few timid protests soon hushed by the loud voice of success? verily there are perpetrated beneath the sun acts which cry aloud for vengeance. have you never felt it--that mighty cry--rising from your own bosom, at the sight of some odious crime, or on reading such and such a page of history? and it must be so; it must be that the cry for vengeance will rise, until the soul has learnt to transform imprecation into prayer, and the desire for justice into supplication for the guilty. but if, in the presence of crime, we were forced to believe that there will never be either vengeance or pardon, the mainspring of the moral life would be broken, and humanity would at length exclaim, like brutus in the plains of philippi:--"virtue! thou art but a name!" the conscience is a reality; but its voice is troublesome, and the captious arguments which go to deny its value find support in the evil tendencies of our nature. if it has no faith in eternal justice it runs the risk of being blunted by contact with the world. so doubt takes place, doubt still deeper and more agonizing than that which bears upon the processes of the understanding. the questions which arise are such as these:--"this voice of duty--whence comes it? and what would it have? may not conscience be a prejudice, the result of education and of habit? it has little power, it seems, for it is braved with impunity. many say that it is a factitious power from which one comes at last to deliver one's self by resisting it. am i not the dupe of an illusion? i am losing joys which others allow themselves. barriers encompass me on every hand, for there are for me prohibited actions, unwholesome beauties, culpable feelings. others are free, and make a larger use of life in all directions. what if i too made trial of liberty!" here lies the temptation. when the soul aspires to become larger than conscience and more tolerant than duty, it is not far from a fall. the honest woman will be tempted to repine at the liberty of the courtesan, and the man who is bound by his word will become capable of looking with envy on the liberty of the liar. then come terrible experiences which teach at length that the unbinding of the passions is the hardest of slaveries, and that, in the struggle between inclination and duty, it is liberty which oppresses and law which sets free. happy then is he who, feeling himself to be sinking in gloomy waters, cries to that god who is able to rescue him from the abyss, and strengthens his shaken conscience by replacing it on its solid foundation. "god speaks and reigns. all rebellion is transient in its nature; justice will at length be done. justice may be slow in the eyes of the creature of a day, seeing that he who shall dispense it has eternity at his disposal." but if god be not a refuge for us from men and from the world, if, when we see all that is passing around us, we cannot cast a look beyond and above the earth, men may lose their faith in duty. and this faith is lost in fact. if there are not dead consciences, there are consciences at any rate singularly sunk in sleep. there are men for whom goodness, truth, justice, honor, seem to be a coinage of which they make use because it is current, but without for themselves attaching to it any value. these pieces of money have no longer in their eyes any visible impression, because the conception of the almighty and just god is the impression which determines duty and guarantees its value. when the necessary alliance of moral order with religious thought is denied, the reality of conscience is opposed to what are called theological hypotheses always open to discussion. it is seen well enough that men may doubt of god, but it is supposed to be impossible to doubt of conscience. this is an illusion of generous minds. those who would keep this illusion must not open the pages of the history of philosophy where the negation of duty does not occupy less space than the negation of god; they must not cast their eyes too much about them; they must also take care not to open the most widely circulated books, and the most fashionable periodicals: otherwise, as we shall see, they would not be long in finding out that this morality which they would fain have superior to all attacks, is perhaps what of all things is most attacked now-a-days, and that that conscience which it is impossible to deny is in fact the object of denials the most audacious on the part of a few of the present favorites of fame. the voice of duty is heard no doubt even when god does not come distinctly into mind; but when the questions are clearly put, if god is denied, conscience grows dim, and comes at last to be extinguished. this obscuration does not take place all at once: the potter's wheel goes on turning for a while, says an old hindoo poem, after that the foot of the artisan is withdrawn from it. but the darkening takes place gradually with time: such at least is the general rule. there are exceptional men who seem to escape this law, and to bear in their bosom a god veiled from their own consciousness. such men may be found, and even in considerable numbers, in a time like ours, when doubt is, in many cases, a prejudice which current opinion deposits on the surface of minds without penetrating them deeply. there are men all whose convictions have fallen into ruins, while their conscience continues standing like an isolated column, sole remaining witness of a demolished building. the meeting with these heroes of virtue inspires a mingled feeling of astonishment and respect. they are verily miracles of that divine goodness of which they are unable to pronounce the name. if there is a man on earth who ought to fall on both knees and shed burning tears of gratitude, it is the man who believes himself an atheist, and who has received from providence so keen a taste for what is noble and pure, so strong an aversion for evil, that his sense of duty remains firm even when it has lost all its supports. but the exception does not make the rule; and that which is realized in the case of a few is not realized long, and for all. you know those crusts of snow which are formed over the _crevasses_ of our glaciers. these slight bridges are able to bear one person who remains suspended over the abyss, but let several attempt to pass together,--the frail support gives way, and the rash adventurers fall together into the gulf. such is the destiny of those schools of philosophy in which the notion of god disappears, and of those civilizations in which the sense of god is extinguished; they fall into dark regions where the light of goodness shines no longer. after the mind and conscience, it remains for us to speak of the heart. man, an intelligent and free being, has in his reason an instrument of knowledge, and in his conscience a rule for his will. but man is not sufficient for himself, and cannot live upon his own resources. if you inquire what the word heart expresses, in its most general acceptation, you will find that it always expresses a tendency of the soul to look, out of itself, in things or persons, for the support and nourishment of its individual life. does the question concern the relations of man with his fellows? the heart is the organ of communication of one soul with another, for receiving, or for giving, or for giving and receiving at the same time, in the enjoyment of the blessing of a mutual affection. the heart is in each of us what those marks are upon the scattered stones of a building in course of construction which indicate that they are to be united one to another. the philosopher suffices for himself, the stoics used to say; the heart is the negation of this haughty maxim. from the heart proceeds love, that son of abundance and of poverty, to speak with plato, that needy one ever on the search for his lost heritage. love has wings, said again the wisdom of the greeks, wings which essay to carry him ever higher. let us extricate the thought which is involved in these graceful figures: our desires have no limits, and indefinite desires can be satisfied only by meeting with an infinite being who can be an inexhaustible source of happiness, an eternal object of love. "our heart is made for love," said saint augustine, the great christian disciple of plato: "therefore it is unquiet till it finds repose in god." from this unrest proceed all our miseries. men do not always succeed in contenting themselves with a petty prosaic happiness, a dull and paltry well-being, and in stifling the while the grand instincts of our nature. if then the heart lives, and fails of its due object; if it does not meet with the supreme term of its repose, its indefinite aspirations attach themselves to objects which cannot satisfy them, and thence arise stupendous aberrations. with some, it is the pursuit of sensual gratifications; they rush with a kind of fury into the passions of their lower nature. with others it is the ardent pursuit of riches, power, fame,--feelings which are always crying more: more! and never: enough. and the after-taste from the fruitless search after happiness in the paths of ambition and vanity is not less bitter perhaps than the after-taste from sensual enjoyments. listen to the confession of a man whose works, full as they are of beauties, are disfigured by so many impure allusions, that the author appears to have indulged, more than most others, in the giddy follies and culpable pleasures of life: if, tired of mocking dreams, my restless heart returns to take its fill of waking joy, full soon i loathe the pleasures which impart no true delight, but kill me, while they cloy.[25] here are the accents of a true confession. these are moreover truths of daily experience. i have seen--and which of you could not render similar testimony?--i have seen the sick man, deprived of all the ordinary avocations and amusements of life, and with pain for his constant companion, i have seen him find joy in the thought of his god, and feeding, without satiety, on this bread of contentment. i have seen the face of the blind lighted up by a living faith, and radiant with a light of peace, for him sweeter and brighter than the rays of the sun. but where god is wanting, and all connection is broken with the source of joy, there you shall see the richest of the rich, the most prosperous among the ambitious, the man of fame whose renown is most widely extended,--you shall see these men carrying the heavy burden of discontent. their brow, unillumined by the celestial ray, is furrowed by the lines of sadness. if you meet them in a moment of candor, these rich, ambitious, and famous men will tell you with a sigh: "all this does not satisfy; we are but pursuing chimeras." still they continue to run after these chimeras. they cry vanity! vanity! and they do not cease to pursue vanity. they flee from themselves: if they retired within themselves, they would find there ennui, inexorable ennui, which is but the sense of that place which god should fill left void in the depth of the soul. for the deceived heart, life becomes a bitter comedy. those who do not succeed in blinding themselves by the dust of thoughtless folly, end oftentimes by wrapping themselves in disdain as with a cloak; they seek a sad and solitary satisfaction in the greatness of their contempt for life. but neither does this satisfy: disdain is not a beverage, and contempt is not food. such are the destinies of the heart, to which god is wanting. but i hope, gentlemen, that you have here some remonstrances to offer. i have just spoken of the pleasures of sense, of pride, of vanity, and i have made no allusion to those affections in which the heart manifests its highest qualities. shall we forget the joys of pure love? the domestic hearth? friendship? country? do not fear that, having given myself up to a fit of misanthropy, i am come hither to blaspheme the true happinesses of life. but do the affections of earth offer us sufficient guarantees? we have need of the infinite to answer to the immensity of our desires; in the presence of those we love, have we no need of the eternal that we may lean our hearts on him? will not all human love become a source of torment, if we have no faith in the love of him who will stamp holy affections with the seal of his own eternity? a single question will suffice to enlighten us on this head. do you know the feeling of anxiety? we all know it, though in different degrees. epidemical disease may appear. the cholera has started on its course; it has left the interior of asia, and is approaching. the report is current that neighboring cities have begun to feel its ravages. those we love--in a month, in a week, where will they be? war is declared. we hear of preparations for death; the sovereigns of europe apply themselves to calculations which seem to portend torrents of blood. if war breaks out, that brother, that son, who will have to take up arms, that daughter who will one day perhaps find herself at the mercy of an unbridled soldiery----. but let us not look for examples so far away. have you no dear one in a distant land of whom you are expecting tidings? and those who are near you! to-morrow, to-day, now perhaps, while you are listening to me, a fatal malady is discovering its first symptoms----. have you received the hard lessons of death? if you see children playing, full of ruddy and joyous health, does it happen to none of you to think of another child, once the joy of your fireside, now lying beneath the sod? does it never happen to you, by a sinister presentiment, to see features you love to gaze on convulsed with agony or pale in death? and yet you must either see the death of your beloved ones, or they must lay you in the earth; for every life ends with the tomb, and we do but walk over graves. when the soul has been thus wounded by anxiety, for this poisoned wound there is one remedy, but only one: "god reigns!" nothing happens without the permission of his goodness. and of all those who are dear to us, we can say: "father, to thy hands i commit them." if we are without this trust, we shall only escape torment by levity. without god our mind is sick; our conscience and our heart are sick also, and in a way more grievous still. footnotes: [19] _mã©ditation troisiã¨me_, at the end. [20] gen. xxviii. 16. [21] _dã©montrer_. [22] "_on le montre_." [23] "vanity of vanities; all is vanity.... let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear god, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man." (eccles. i. and xii.) [24] apology. [25] si mon coeur, fatiguã© du rãªve qui l'obsã¨de, a la rã©alitã© revient pour s'assouvir, au fond des vains plaisirs que j'appelle ã  mon aide, je trouve un tel dã©goã»t que je me sens mourir. part ii. _society._ we have just studied what life without god would be for the individual. let us now direct our attention to those collections of human beings which form societies. we shall not speak here of the relations of civil with ecclesiastical authorities,--a complex question, the solution of which must vary with times, places, and circumstances. let us only remark that the distinction between the temporal and spiritual order of things is one of the foundations of modern civilization. this distinction is based upon those great words which, eighteen hundred years ago, separated the domain of god from the domain of cã¦sar. religion considered as a function of civil life; dogma supported by the word of a monarch or the vote of a body politic; the formula of that dogma imposed forcibly by a government on the lips of the governed--these are _dã©bris_ of paganism which have been struggling for centuries against the restraints of christian thought.[26] the religious convictions of individuals do not belong to the state; religious sentiments are not amenable to human tribunals; and it would be hard to say whether it is the spiritual or the temporal order of things which suffers most from the confusion of these distinct domains. religion should have its own proper life, and its special representatives; civil life ought to be set free from all tyranny exercised in the name of dogma; but religion is not the less on that account, by the influence which it exerts over the consciences of men, the necessary bond and strength of human society. "you would sooner build a city in the air," said plutarch, "than cause a state to subsist without religion." some have contested in modern times this opinion of ancient wisdom. the philosophy of the last century, as we have said already, wished to separate duty from the idea of god. it pretended to give as the only foundation for society a civil morality, the rules and sanction of which were to be found upon earth. the men of blood who for a short time governed france, gave once as the order of the day--_terror and all the virtues_: this was a terrible application of this theory. virtue rested on a decree of political power, and, for want of the judgment of god, the guillotine was the sanction of its precepts. healthier views begin now to prevail in the schools of philosophy. one of the members of the _institut de france_, m. franck, has lately published a volume on the history of ancient civilization,[27] with the express intention of showing that the conception which a people has of god is the true root of its social organization. according to the worth of the religious idea is that of the civil constitution. before m. franck, twenty years ago, a man of the very highest distinction as a public lecturer, indicated this movement of modern thought. m. edgard quinet, in his lyons course, taught that the religious idea is the very substance of civilization, and the generating principle of political constitutions. he announced "a history of civilization by the monuments of human thought," and added: "religion above all is the pillar of fire which goes before the nations in their march across the ages; it shall serve us as a guide."[28] benjamin constant exhibits in the variation of his opinions the transition from the stand-point of the last century to that of the present. he had at first conceived of his work upon religion as a monument raised to atheism, he ends by seeking in religious sentiments the condition necessary to the existence of civilized societies.[29] here is a real progress; and this progress brings us back to the thought above quoted from plutarch. in fact, take away the idea of god, and the first consequence will be that you will sacrifice all the conquests of modern civilization; the next, that you will soon have rendered impossible the existence of any society whatever. i am going to ask your close attention to these two points successively. history does not offer to our view an uninterrupted progress, as certain optimists suppose; still less does it present the spectacle of an ever-increasing deterioration, as misanthropes affirm; and lastly, it is not true, as we hear it said sometimes, that all epochs are alike, as good one as another. there are times better than those which follow them; and there are epochs less degraded than those which precede them. human societies fall and rise again; their march exhibits windings and retrograde steps, because that march is under the influence of created liberty; but when their destinies are regarded at one view, it is clearly seen that they are advancing to a determined end, because while man is in restless agitation, god is leading him on. the conquests of modern civilization are great and sacred realities. what are these conquests? let us not stay at the surface of things, but go to the foundation. societies fallen into a condition of barbarism have for their motto the famous saying of a gallic chief: woe to the vanquished! in institutions, as in manners, the triumph of force characterizes barbarous times. the right of the strongest is the twofold negation of justice and of love; and what characterizes civilization, issuing from the barbarous condition, the fragments of which it so long trails after it, is the establishment of that justice which founds states, and, upon the basis of justice, the development of the benevolence which renders communities happy. these are the two essential conditions of social progress. these conditions are necessary even to the progress of industry and of material welfare. modern civilization,--that, namely, which we so designate, while we relegate, so to speak, into the past the contemporaneous societies of the vast east,--modern civilization possesses a power unknown to antiquity. justice has a foundation in the conscience, benevolence has natural roots in the heart; but a moment has been when justice and love appeared in the world with new brightness, like rays disengaged from clouds. modern civilization was then deposited on the earth in a powerful germ, of which nothing was any more to arrest the growth. that moment was when the idea of god appeared in its fulness: modern civilization was born of the gospel. the knowledge of god strengthens justice, and the thought of the common father develops benevolence. these theses are well known; let us confine ourselves to a few rapid illustrations. there exists an institution in which has been embodied the negation of social justice--slavery. slavery is at length disappearing before our eyes from the bosom of christendom; and its final retreat is doing honor to russia, and bathing america in blood. this is perhaps the greatest of the events which the annals of history will inscribe on the page of the nineteenth century. now slavery was, in the past, an almost universal institution. the finest intellects of greece devoted a portion of their labors to its justification. rome, at the most brilliant period of its civilization, caused slaves to kill one another, in savage spectacles intended to delight the populace, or during sumptuous banquets for the amusement of wealthy debauchees![30] how has slavery disappeared little by little! how has man been rediscovered beneath that living _thing_ of which was made, one while an instrument of labor, and another while the sport of execrable passions? inquire into this history. you will find the reason and the heart making their protests heard in antiquity, but without becoming efficacious. one day all is changed, and the foundations of slavery begin to shake. at that memorable epoch you will meet with a written document, the first in which is shown in its germ the great social fact which was about to have birth. it is not an emperor's decree, it is not the vote of a body politic, it is a letter a few lines long written by a prisoner to one of his friends. the substance of this letter was: "i send thee back thy slave; but in the name of god i beg of thee to receive him as thy brother; think of the common master who is in heaven." this letter was addressed--"to philemon;" the name of the writer was paul. it is the first charter of slave emancipation. ponder this fact, gentlemen: contemplate the ancient institution of slavery shaken to its foundations, without being the object of any direct attack, by the breath of a new spirit. you will then understand how historians can tell us that the relations of states, belligerent rights, civil laws, political institutions, all these things of which the gospel has never spoken, have been, and are being still, every day transformed by the slow action of the gospel. god has appeared; justice is marching in his train. justice is the foundation of society; but without the spirit of love, justice remains crippled, and never reaches its perfection. justice maintains the rights of each; love seeks to realize the communication of advantages among all. justice overthrows the artificial barriers raised between men by force and guile; love softens natural inequalities and causes them to turn to the general good. need i tell you that the knowledge of god is a light of which the brightest ray is love to men? benevolence, that feeling natural to our hearts, is strengthened, extended, transfigured, by becoming charity;--charity, that union of the soul with the heavenly father, which descends again to earth in loving communion between all his children. the soul separated from god may be conscious of strong affections: but study well the character of a virtue which is nourished from purely human sources; you will see that it may for the most part be expressed in these terms--"to love one's friends heartily, and to hate one's enemies with a generous hatred; to esteem the honest and to despise the vicious." but that virtue which loves the vicious while it hates the vice, that virtue which will avenge itself only by overcoming evil with good, that virtue which, while it draws closer the bonds of private affections, makes a friend of every man, that virtue which we call divine, by a natural impulse of our heart--what is the source from which it flows? the following fact will sufficiently answer the question. on the faã§ade of one the hospitals of the christian world, are read these latin words, the brief energy of which our language cannot render: _deo in pauperibus_, "this edifice is consecrated to god in the person of the poor." here is the secret of charity: it discerns the divine image deposited in every human soul. but do not mistake here: we cannot love, with a love natural and direct, the rags of squalid poverty, the brands of vice, the languors and sores of sickness; but let god manifest himself, and our eyes are opened. the beauty of souls breaks forth to our view beneath the wasting of the haggard frame, and from under the filth of vice. we love those immortal creatures fallen and degraded; a sacred desire possesses us to restore them to their true destination. has an artist discovered in a mass of rubbish, under vulgar appearances, a product of the marvellous chisel of the greeks? he sets himself, with a zeal full of respect, to free the noble statue from the impurities which defile it. every soul of man is the work of art divine, and every charitable heart is an artist who desires to labor at its restoration. henceforward we can understand that love of suffering and of poverty, that passion for the galleys and the hospital, which have at times thrown christians into extravagances which our age has no reason to dread. god in the poor man, god in the sick man, god in the vicious man and the criminal; this, i repeat, is the grand secret of charity. charity passes from the heart of men and from individual practice into social customs and institutions. charity it is which, by degrees, takes from law its needless rigors, and from justice its useless tortures; which substitutes the prison in which it is sought to reform the guilty for the galley, which completes the corruption of the criminal; it is charity that opens public asylums for all forms of suffering; and that will realize, up to the limits of what is possible, all the hopes of philanthropy. if god ceases to be present to the mind and conscience of men, justice and love lose their power. without the powerful action of justice and of love, society would descend again, by the ways of corruption, towards the struggles of barbarism. observe, study well, all that is going on around us. does our civilization appear to you sufficiently solid to give you the idea that it can henceforth dispense with the foundations on which it has reposed hitherto? the sentiments of justice and of benevolence which form the double basis of the progress of society, suppose a more general sentiment which is their common support--the sentiment of humanity. the idea that man has a value in himself, that he is, in virtue of his quality as man, independently of the places which he inhabits and of the position which he occupies in the world, an object of justice and of love;--this idea includes in itself all the moral part of civilization. social progress is only the recognition, ever more and more explicit, of the value of one soul, of the rights of one conscience. now, the idea of humanity has the closest possible connection with the knowledge of god, considered as the father of the human race. ancient wisdom, superior to the worship of idols, had gained a glimpse of the fact that the philosopher is a citizen of the universe; and that famous line of terence: "i am a man, and i reckon nothing human foreign to me," excited, it is said, the applause of the roman spectators. but these were mere gleams, extinguished soon by the general current of thought. it was the pale dawn of the idea of humanity. whence came the day? i will limit the question by defining it. the idea of humanity is the idea of the worth and consequently of the rights of each individual man. it is the idea of liberty; not of liberty interpreted by passion and selfishness as the inauguration of the license which violates right, but of liberty interpreted by reason and conscience as the limit which the action of each man encounters in the right of his neighbor. we are not speaking here of the equality of political rights, which is not always a guarantee of veritable liberty. we are speaking of a social condition such that man, in the exercise of his faculties, in the manifestation of his thoughts, in his efforts for the causes which he loves, so long as he does not violate the rights of others, does not meet with an arbitrary power to arrest him. still farther to limit our subject, we shall speak of the most important manifestation of that liberty--liberty of conscience, of which religious liberty is the most ordinary and most complete manifestation. this is only one of the points of the subject, but it is a point which in reality supposes and includes all the rest. this liberty--whence does it come? it does not come from paganism. paganism, with its national religions, could only produce fanaticism or doubt. each people having its own particular religion, to exterminate the foreigner was to serve the cause of the gods of the country. a war-cry descended from the olympus of each several nation--that olympus which the gods quitted, in case of need, to take part in the quarrels of men. did reason perceive the nothingness of these national divinities? then scepticism appeared. the idea of the supreme god being unsettled with all, and wholly obscured for the crowd, when men ceased to believe in the gods of the nation, they lost all belief whatsoever. for this cause doubt prevailed so widely at the decline of the ancient world. those pantheons in which all religions were received, welcomed, protected, are the ever-memorable temples of scepticism. now you know what voice made itself heard, when the ancient civilization was enfeebled by the spirit of doubt: "henceforth there is neither greek nor barbarian, bond nor free. ye are all brethren, and for all there is one god, and one truth:" here behold the root of scepticism severed. and the same voice added: "this only god is the lawful owner of his creatures; and when you presume to do violence to the consciences which belong to him, you know not by what spirit you are animated:" here behold the fountain of fanaticism dried up. god is acknowledged; he is the master of souls: faith founds liberty. the witness to universal truth appears before rome as represented by a deputy of cã¦sar. he is a fanatic, says the roman; then he goes his way, and leaves him to be put to death. but ere long, a dull hoarse murmur of the nations, extending through all the length and breadth of the mighty empire, gives token that he who was dead is alive again, and is speaking to the general conscience. then rome starts from her sleep; rome; the politic tolerant rome, sheds rivers of blood. her tolerance allowed men to believe everything, but on condition that they believed seriously in nothing. rome was directed by the sure instinct of despotism. she did not fear the gods of the pantheon, because she could always place above them the statue of the emperor: whereas what was now in question was, while leaving to cã¦sar the things which were cã¦sar's, to place a sovereign above the emperor, and to raise a legislation above the legislation of the empire. therefore the roman city determined to give a death-blow to christianity,--to the idea of universal truth, because if that idea gained entrance into the understanding, the cause of the liberty of souls was gained. so it was that indifference became ferocious, and that doubt led back to fanaticism. i have told you whence liberty does not come; but whence comes it? whence comes liberty? ask any scholar of the lyceums of france; he will answer you, without hesitation: liberty comes from the french revolution!--no doubt, whispers an older comrade in his ear; but do not forget the philosophy of the eighteenth century which developed the principles which the revolution put in practice.--that is all very well, a protestant will say; but let us consider the grand fact of the reformation: it is from the sixteenth century that liberty has its date.--well and good, adds an historian; but do you not know that the germans were they who poured a generous and free blood into the impoverished blood of the men who had been fashioned by the slavery of the empire? i contest nothing, and i am not sufficiently well-informed to pronounce with confidence upon the action of all these historic causes. but this i venture to affirm,--that if any one thinks to fix definitely the hour when liberty was born in history, he is mistaken: for it has no other date than that of the human conscience, and i will say with m. lamartine: give me the freedom which that hour had birth, with the free soul, when first in conscious worth the just man braved the stronger![31] liberty had birth the first time that, urged by his fellow men to acts which wounded his conscience, a man, relying upon god, felt himself stronger than the world. that socrates had not studied, i fancy, in the school of the encyclopedists, and was no german either, that i know of, who said to the judges of athens, with death in prospect: "it is better to obey god than men." and when those words were repeated by the apostles of the universal truth, the death of socrates, that noble death which has justly gained for him the admiration of the universe, was reproduced in thousands and thousands of instances. children, women, young girls, old men, perished in tortures to attest the rights of conscience; and the blood of martyrs, that seed of christians, as a father of the church called it,[32] was not less a seed of liberty. liberty was not born in history; but if you wish to fix a date to its grandest outburst, you have it here; there is no other which can be compared with it. some of you are thinking perhaps, without saying so, that i am maintaining a hard paradox. to look for the source of liberty of conscience in religion, is not this to forget that the christian church has often marked its passage in history by a long track of blood rendered visible by the funereal light of the stake? i forget nothing, sirs, and i beg of you not to forget anything either. there are three remarks which i commend to your attention. it must not be forgotten that the gospel first obtained extensive success when roman society was in the lowest state of corruption, and that its representatives were but too much affected by the evils which it was their mission to combat. it must not be forgotten that there came afterwards hordes of barbarians who in a certain sense renovated the worn-out society, but who poured over the new leaven a coarse paste hard to penetrate. it must not be forgotten, lastly, that if a cause might legitimately be condemned for the faults of its defenders, there are none, no, not a single one, which could remain erect before the tribunal which so should give judgment. every cause in this world is more or less compromised by its representatives; but there are bad principles, which produce evil by their own development, and there are good principles which man abuses, but which by their very nature always end by raising a protest against the abuse. it is in the light of this indisputable truth that we are about to enter upon a discussion of which you will appreciate the full importance. sceptical writers affirm that toleration has its origin in the weakening of faith; and, drawing the consequence of their affirmation, they recommend the diffusion of the spirit of doubt as the best means of promoting liberty of conscience. we have here the old argument which would suppress the use to get rid of the abuse. persecutions are made in the name of religion; let us get rid of faith, and we shall have peace. prisons have been built and the stake has been set up in the name of god: let us get rid of god, and we shall have toleration. observe well the bearing of this mode of argument. let us get rid of fire, and we shall have no more conflagrations; let us get rid of water, and no more people will be drowned. no doubt,--but humanity will perish of drought and of cold. let us examine this subject seriously: it is well worth our while. if toleration proceeds from the enfeebling of religious belief, we ought among various nations to meet with toleration in an inverse proportion to the degree of their faith. this is a question then of history. let us study facts. recollecting first of all that ancient rome did not draw forth a germ of liberty from its scepticism, let us throw a glance over existing communities. sweden is far behind england in regard to liberty of conscience. is it that religious convictions are weaker in england than in sweden? has the religious liberty which great britain practises sprung from indifference? is it not rather that that land produces an energetic race, and that it has been so often drenched with the blood of the followers of different forms of worship, that that blood cried at length to heaven, and that the conscience of the people heard it? there is more religious liberty in france than in spain. is it the case that the true cause of the intolerance of the spanish people is a more lively and more general faith than that of the french? that is not so certain. switzerland is one of the countries in which is enjoyed the greatest liberty of opinion. is switzerland a land of indifference? was not the comparative firmness of its citizens' convictions remarked during the conflicts of the last century? do not the united states bear in large characters upon their banner this inscription: liberty of conscience? america is not distinguished as a country without religion; on the contrary, it is blamed for the excursiveness of its faith, for the multiplicity and sometimes for the extravagance of its sects. was it a sceptic that taught the inhabitants of the new world to respect religious convictions? assuredly not! william penn was shut up in the tower of london for the crime of free thought. set free from prison, he crossed the ocean. while intolerance was reigning still on both shores of the atlantic, he founded in pennsylvania a place of refuge for all proscribed opinions; and the germ has been fruitful. in vain i pass from old europe to young america; i look, i observe, and i do not see that liberty is developed in proportion to the scepticism and the incredulity of nations. i seem, on the contrary, to see that there is perhaps most liberty where there is most real faith. some may dispute the validity of these conclusions by remarking that the condition of communities is a complex phenomenon depending upon divers causes. let us simplify the question. is it not, it will be said, the literary representatives of the spirit of doubt who have demanded and founded toleration? is it not.... but it is not necessary for my supposed questioner to go on. if he is a frenchman, he will name voltaire. no doubt, freedom of opinion has been claimed by sceptics. they have served a good cause; let us know how to rejoice in the fact, and not to be unmindful of what there may have been in their work of noble impulses and generous inspirations. let us remark however that every proscribed opinion puts forth a natural claim to the liberty of which it is deprived. but it is one thing to claim for one's-self a liberty one would gladly make use of to oppress others, and it is another thing to demand liberty seriously and for all. there was, as i am glad to believe, a certain natural generosity in the motives which led voltaire to consecrate to noble causes a pen so often sold to evil. still it is impossible not to suspect that if that apostle of toleration had had a principality under his own sway, the fact of thinking differently from the master would very soon have figured among the number of delinquencies. the patriarch of ferney wrote in favor of toleration; some friends of religious indifference have pleaded the cause of liberty of conscience: the fact is certain. but other writers, animated by a living faith, have also demanded liberty for all: the fact is not less certain. some years ago, at nearly the same epoch, the pã¨re lacordaire and our own alexander vinet consecrated to this noble cause, the former the attractive brilliancy of his eloquence, the latter all the fineness of his delicate analyses. the friends of lacordaire are gathering up the vibrations of that striking utterance which proclaimed: "liberty slays not god."[33] let us gather up also the good words, which, uttered on the borders of our lake, have gained entrance far and near into many hearts. i should like to take such and such a parisian journalist, bring him into our midst, and get him to acquaint himself thoroughly with the results of our experience; i should like to conduct him to the cemetery of clarens, place him by the tomb of vinet, and tell him what that man was.--if, as he returned to his home, my journalist did not leave behind him at the french frontier, as contraband merchandise, all that he would have seen and learnt in our country, he would perhaps understand that the surest road by which to arrive at respect for the consciences of others is not indifference, but firmness of faith, in humility of heart, and largeness of thought. all the writers who have devoted their pen to the defence of the rights of the human soul have not therefore been sceptics. without continuing this discussion of proper names, let us settle what is here the true place of writers. before there are men who demand liberty and digest the theory of it, there must be other men who take it, and who suffer for having taken it. if liberty is consolidated with speech and pen, it is founded with tears and blood; and the sceptical apostles of toleration conveniently usurp the place of the martyrs of conviction. "what we want," rightly observes a revolutionary writer, "is free men, rather than liberators of humanity."[34] in fact, liberty comes to us above all from those who have suffered for it. its living springs are in the spirit of faith, and not, as they teach us, in the spirit of indifference. it is easy to understand, that where no one believes, the liberty to believe would not be claimed by any one. let us now endeavor to penetrate below facts, in order to bring back the discussion to sure principles. let us ask what, in regard to liberty of conscience, are the natural consequences of faith, and the natural consequences of scepticism. faith does appear, at first sight, a source of intolerance. the man who believes, reckons himself in possession of the right in regard to truth, and to god; he has nothing to respect in error. thus it is that belief naturally engenders persecution. this reasoning is specious, all the more as it is supported by numerous and terrible examples; but let us look at things more closely. place yourselves face to face with any one of your convictions, no matter which; i hope there is no one of you so unfortunate as not to have any. suppose that it were desired to impose upon you by force even the conviction which you have. suppose that an officer of police came to say to you, pronouncing at the same time the words which best expressed your own thoughts: "you are commanded so to believe." what would happen? if you had never had a doubt of your faith, you would be tempted to doubt it, the moment any human power presumed to impose it upon you. the feeling of oppression would produce in your conscience a strong inclination to revolt. let us analyze this feeling. you feel that it is words, not convictions, which are imposed by force; you feel that declarations extorted by fear from lying lips are an outrage to truth. you feel, in a word, that your belief is the right of god over you, and not the right of your neighbor. men respect god's right over the souls of their fellow-men, in proportion as they are intelligent in their own faith. the fanaticism which would impose words by force is not an ardent but a blind faith. in order to bring it back into the paths of liberty, it is enough to restore to it its sight. the establishment of the christian religion furnishes a great example in support of our thesis. the christians, when persecuted by the empire, had never allowed themselves to reply to the violence of power by the violence of rebellion. there came, however, and soon enough, a time when they were sufficiently numerous to defend themselves, and had withal the consciousness of their strength; but they had no will to conquer the world, except by the arms of martyrdom, and heroism, and obedience. this was not the case during a few years only, it is the history of three centuries, an ever-memorable page of human annals, in which all ages will be able to learn what are the true weapons of truth. christendom, too often forgetful of its origin, has in later times allowed the fury of persecution to cloak itself under a pretended regard for sacred interests; but the remedy has proceeded from the very evil. the christian conscience has protested, in the name of the gospel, against the crimes of which the gospel was the pretext, and the passions of men the cause. "we must bewail the misery and error of our time," already st. hilary was exclaiming, in the fourth century. "men are thinking that god has need of the protection of men.... the church is uttering threats of banishment and imprisonment, and desiring to compel belief by force,--the church, which itself acquired strength in exile and in prisons!" true faith, then, possesses a principle by which it protests against abuses which it is sought to cloak under its name, and this protest comes at last to make itself heard. faith suppressed, the passions will remain, for in order to be a saint, it is not enough to be a sceptic. the passions will look for other pretexts. will not the spirit of doubt offer them such pretexts? it seems at first sight that doubt must promote toleration, since it does not allow any importance to be attached to opinions. this is a specious conclusion, similar to that which placed in belief the source of intolerant passions. let us once more reflect a little. the first effect of doubt is certainly to dispose the mind to leave a free course to all opinions; but disdain is not the way to respect, and only respect can give solid bases to the spirit of liberty. believers are in the eyes of the sceptic weak-minded persons, whom he treats at first with a gentle and patronizing compassion. but these weak minds grow obstinate; the sceptic perceives that they do not bend before his superiority, and dare perhaps to consider themselves as his equals. then irritation arises, and, beneath the velvet paw, one feels the piercing of the claw. the sceptic has in fact a dogma; he has but one, but one he has after all--the negation of truth. the faith of others is a protest against that single dogma on which he has concentrated all the powers of his conviction. he is passionately in earnest for this negation; he feels himself the representative of an idea, of which he must secure the triumph. now come such surmisings as these: "here are men who think themselves the depositaries of truth! these pretended believers--may they not be hypocrites?" place men so disposed in positions of power; let them be the masters of society; what will follow? beliefs are a cause of disturbances: what seemed at first an innocent weakness, takes then the character of a dangerous madness. for the politician, the temptation to extirpate this madness is not far off. "what if we were to get rid of this troublesome source of agitation! if we declared that the conscience of individuals belongs to the sovereign, what repose we should have in the state! if we proclaimed the true modern dogma, namely, that there is no dogma; if silencing, in short, fanatics who are behind their age, we decreed that every belief is a crime and every manifestation of faith a revolt, what quiet in society!" the incline is slippery, and what shall hold back the sceptic who is descending it? faith carries with it the remedy for fanaticism, but where shall be found the remedy for the fanaticism of doubt? in the claims of god? god is but a word, or a worthless hypothesis. in respect for the convictions of others? all conviction is but weakness and folly. all this, be well assured, gives much matter for reflection. when i hear some men who call themselves liberal, tracing the ideal of the society which they desire, the bare imagination of their triumph frightens me, for i can understand that that society would enjoy the liberty of the roman empire, and the toleration of the cã¦sars. such are the consequences of scepticism for the leaders of a people. what will those consequences be for the people themselves? the spirit of indifference paralyzes the sources of generous sentiments, and ends in the same results as the spirit of cowardice. and do you not know the part which cowardice has played in history? if i may venture to call up here the most mournful recollections of modern times, do you not know that during the reign of terror, two or three hundred scoundrels instituted public massacres in the capital of france, in the midst of a population shuddering with fright, but who let things go? now the characteristic of indifference is the letting things go. if fanaticism has something to do with persecution, indifference has a great deal to do with it. the crimes which minds paralyzed by doubt allow to be perpetrated have besides a sadder character than those which are perpetrated by passions, which, wild and erring though they be, have a certain nobleness in their origin. if i must be bound to the stake, i had rather burn with the blind assent of a fanatical crowd, than in the presence of an indifferent populace who came to look on. for just as sceptics find all doctrines equally good, so they find all spectacles equally instructive and curious.[35] i have felt it necessary to insist on these considerations. direct attacks upon religious truth are perhaps less dangerous than the efforts by which modern infidelity endeavors to estrange us from god, by persuading us that doubt is the guarantee of liberty, and that belief rivets the chains of bondage. many consciences are disturbed by these affirmations. it concerns us therefore to know that god is the great liberator of souls, and that forgetfulness of god is the road to slavery. the faith which seeks to propagate itself by force inflicts upon itself the harshest of contradictions. the spirit of doubt, in order to become the spirit of violence, has only to transform itself according to the laws of its proper nature. and now to sum up. one of the noblest spectacles that earth can show, is that of a community animated with a true and profound faith, in which each man, using his best efforts to communicate his convictions to his brethren, respects the while that which belongs to god in the inviolable asylum of the conscience of others. but woe to the society formed by sophists, in which opinion, benumbed by doubt and indifference, arouses itself only to devote to hatred or to contempt every firm and noble conviction! to unsettle the idea of god, is to dry up its source the stream of the veritable progress of modern society; it is to attack the foundations of liberty, justice, and love. the material conquests of civilization would serve thenceforward only to hasten the decomposition of the social body. the pure idea of god is the true cause of the great progress of the modern era; religion, in its generality, is, as plutarch has told us, the necessary condition to the very existence of society. this is what remains for us to prove. "how sacred is the society of citizens," said cicero, "when the immortal gods are interposed between them as judges and as witnesses."[36] let us raise still higher this lofty thought, and say: "how sacred is human society, when, beneath the eye of the common father, the inequalities of life are accepted with patience and softened by love; when the poor and the rich, as they meet together, remember that the lord is the maker of them both; when a hope of immortality alleviates present evils, and when the consciousness of a common dignity reduces to their true value the passing differences of life!" take away from human society god as mediator, and the hopes founded in god as a source of consolation, and what would you have remaining? the struggle of the poor against the rich, the envy of the ignorant directed against the man who has knowledge, the dullard's low jealousy of superior intelligence, hatred of all superiority, and, by an almost inevitable reaction, the obstinate defence of all abuses,--in one word, war--war admitting neither of remedy nor truce. such is the most apparent danger which now threatens society. when i consider these facts with attention, i am astonished every day that society subsists at all, that the burning lava of unruly passions does not oftener make large fissures in the social soil, and overflow in devastating torrents, bearing away at once palace and cottage, field and workshop. this standing danger is drawing anxious attention, and we hear the old adage repeated: "there must be a religion for the people." there are men who wish to give the people a religion which they themselves do not possess, acting like a man who, at once poor and ostentatious, should give alms with counterfeit money. and what result do they attain? we must have a religion for the people, say the politicians, that they may secure the ends they have in view, and conduct at their own pleasure the herds at their disposal. we must have a religion for the people, say the rich, in order to keep peaceably their property and their incomes. we must have a religion for the people, say the _savants_, in order to remain quiet in their studies, or in their academic chairs. what are they doing--these men without god, who wish to preserve a faith for the use of the people? these _savants_,--they say, and print it, that religion is an error necessary for the multitudes who are incapable of rising to philosophy. where is it that they say it, and print it? is it in drawing-rooms with closed doors? is it within the walls of universities, or in scientific publications which are out of the reach of the masses? no. they say it in political journals, in reviews read by all the world; they print it at full in books which are sold by thousands of copies. their words are spreading like a deleterious miasma through all classes of society. thoughtless men! (i am unwilling to suppose a cool calculation on their part of money or of fame which should oblige me to say--heartless men), thoughtless men! they do not see the inevitable consequences of their own proceeding. the people hear and understand. the intellectual barriers between the different classes of society are gradually becoming lower: this is one of the clearest of the ways of providence in our time. do you believe that the people will long consent to hear it said that they only live on errors, but that those errors are necessary for them? do you not see that they are about to rise, and answer, in the sentiment of their own dignity, that they will no longer be deceived, and that they intend to deliver themselves also from superstition? then, all restraining barriers removed, passions will have free course; and believe me, the rising floods will not respect those quiet haunts of study in which they will have had one of their springs. the proof of this has been seen before. some men of the last century wished to destroy religion amongst decent folk, but not for the rabble: they are voltaire's words, who had too much good sense to be an atheist, but whose pale deism is sometimes scarcely distinguishable from the negation of god. "your majesty," thus he wrote to his friend the king of prussia, in january, 1757, "will render an eternal service to the human race, by destroying that infamous superstition, i do not say amongst the rabble, which is not worthy to be enlightened, and to which all yokes are suitable, but amongst honest people." a religion was necessary for the people; but voltaire and the king of prussia, the german barons, the french marquises, and the ladies who received their homage, could do without it. voltaire died before eating of the fruit of his works; and alfred de musset could only address to him his vengeful apostrophe at his tomb: sleep'st thou content, and does thy hideous smile still flit, voltaire, above thy fleshless bones?[37] voltaire was dead; but many of his friends and disciples were able to meditate, in the prisons of the terror and as they mounted the steps of the scaffold, on the nature of the terrible game which they had played--and lost. so it fares with men of letters who have no god, but who would have a religion for the people. other men there are who would have a religion for the people, being themselves the while without restraint, because they are without religious convictions. they abandon themselves to the ardent pursuit of riches, excitements, worldly pleasures. these are they who have made a fortune by disgraceful means, perhaps the public sale of their consciences, and who by their luxurious extravagance overwhelm the honest and economical working-man. these are the courtesans who parade in broad daylight the splendid rewards of their own infamy. let not such deceive themselves! the people see these things; they form their judgment of them, and if they give way to the bad instincts which are in us all, where god is not in the heart to restrain them, to their hatred is added contempt. if they are forcibly kept back from realizing their cherished hopes, they adjourn them, but without renouncing them. put away all belief in god, and you will see the action and reaction of human passions forming, as it were, a mass of opposite electricities, and preparing the thunder-peal and the furies of the tempest. then appear those disorganized societies which are terrified at their own dissolution, until a strong man comes, and, taking advantage of this very terror, takes and chastises these societies, as one chastises an unruly child. it is a story at once old and new, because, in proportion as god withdraws from human society, in that same proportion the power of the sword replaces the empire of the conscience. there must be a religion for the people! yes, sirs, but for that people, wide as humanity, which includes us all. if the existence of god is denied, man falls into despair, and society into dissolution. what then is my inference? that atheism is false. such a mode of arguing produces an outcry. "a matter of sentiment!" men exclaim. "you would build up a doctrine according to your own fancy! you do not discuss the question calmly, but appeal to interests and prejudices: you quit the domain of science, which takes cognizance only of facts and reasoning." such expressions are common enough to make it worth while to study their value. of course, science must not be an instrument of our caprice. we are bound to search for truth; and we are unfaithful to our obligations if we try to establish doctrines which serve our passions, or favor our interests, or flatter our tastes and our prejudices. but the conscience, the heart, the conditions of the existence of human society, are neither prejudices nor personal interests; they are eternal and living realities. we speak of the conscience, of the heart, of society, and they answer us: "we do not believe that there are true sciences in that domain; we only wish for facts." occasionally we hear naturalists speak in this way. we only wish for facts! then our thoughts, our feelings, our conscience are not facts! the man who will give the closest observation to the steps of a fly, or to a caterpillar's method of crawling, has not a moment's attention to give to the impulses of the heart, to the rules of duty, to the struggles of the will; and when addressed on the subject of these realities of the soul, the most certain of all realities, he will reply: "that is no business of mine, i want nothing but facts." let us pass from this aberration, and listen for a moment to other objectors. we do not deny, it is often said, the reality of our feelings. man desires happiness, and seeks it in religious belief; but this is an order of things which science cannot take account of. science has only truth for its object, and owes its own existence wholly to the reason. if it happens to science to give pain to the heart or to the conscience, no conclusion can thence be drawn against the certainty of its results. "there is no commoner, and at the same time faultier, way of reasoning, than that of objecting to a philosophical hypothesis the injury it may do to morals and to religion. when an opinion leads to absurdity, it is certainly false; but it is not certain that it is false because it entails dangerous consequences."[38] so wrote the patriarch of modern sceptics, the scotchman hume. the lesson has been well learnt; it is repeated to us, without end, in the columns of the leading journals of france, and in the pages of the _revue des deux mondes_. the adversaries of spiritual beliefs have changed their tactics. in the last century, they replied to minds alarmed for the consequences of their work: "truth can never do harm."--"truth can never do harm," retorted j.j. rousseau: "i believe it as you do, and this it is that proves to me that your doctrines are not truth." the argument is conclusive. so the adversary has taken up another position; and he says at this day:--"our doctrines do perhaps pain the heart, and wound the conscience, but this is no reason why they should be false: moral goodness, utility, happiness, are not signs by which we may know what is true." philosophy, gentlemen, has always assumed to be the universal explanation of things, and you will agree that it is on her part a humiliating avowal, that she is enclosed, namely, in a circle of pure reason, and leaves out of view, as being unable to give any account of them, the great realities which are called moral goodness and happiness. one might ask what are the bases of that science which disavows, without emotion, the most active powers of human nature. one might ask whether those who so speak, understand well the meaning of their own words; and inquire also what is the method which they employ, and the result at which they aim. one might ask whether these philosophers are not like astronomers who should say: "here are our calculations. it matters nothing to us whether the stars in their observed course do or do not agree with them. science is sovereign; it is amenable only to its own laws, and visible realities cannot be objections in the way of its calculations." let us leave these preliminary remarks, and let us come to the core of the controversy. they set the reason on one side, the conscience and heart upon the other, as an anatomist separates the organic portions of a corpse, and they say: truth belongs only to the reason; the conscience and the heart have no admission into science. listen to the following express declaration of the weightiest, perhaps, of french contemporary philosophers: "the god of the pure reason is the only true god; the god of the imagination, the god of the feelings, the god of the conscience, are only idols!"[39] it is impossible to accept this arbitrary division of the divine attributes. there is but one and the same god, the substance of truth, the inexhaustible source of beauty, the supreme law of the wills created to accomplish the designs of his mercy. the conscience, the heart, the reason rise equally towards him, following the triple ray which descends from his eternity upon our transitory existence. we cannot therefore seriously admit that god of the pure reason, separated from the god of the conscience and of the heart. still let us endeavor to make this concession, for argument's sake, to our philosopher. let us suppose that the reason has a god to itself, a god for the metaphysicians who is not the god of the vulgar. before we immolate upon his altar the conscience and the heart, it is worth our while to examine whether the statue of the god of the reason rests upon a solid pedestal. here are the theses which are proposed to us: "it is impossible for our feelings to supply any light for science. truth may be gloomy, and despair may gain its cause. virtue may be wrong, and immorality may be the true. reason alone judges of that which is." i answer: human nature has always eagerly followed after happiness. human nature has always acknowledged, even while violating it, a rule of duty. the heart is not an accident, the conscience is not a prejudice: they are, and by the same right as the reason, constituent elements of our spiritual existence. if there exist an irreconcilable antagonism between science and life; if the heart, in its fundamental and universal aspirations, is the victim of an illusion, if the conscience in its clearest admonitions is only a teacher of error, what is our position? in what i am now saying, gentlemen, i am not appealing to your feelings; the business is to follow, with calm attention, a piece of exact reasoning. if the heart deceives us, if the voice of duty leads us astray, the disorder is at the very core of our being; our nature is ill constructed. if our nature is ill constructed, what warrants to us our reason? nothing. what assures us that our axioms are good, and that our reasonings have any value? nothing. the life of the soul cannot be arbitrarily cloven in twain; it must be held for good in all its constituent elements, or enveloped wholly and entirely in the shades of doubt. if the heart and conscience deceive us, then reason may lead us astray, and the very idea of truth disappears. god is the light of the spiritual world. we prove his existence by showing that without him all returns to darkness. this demonstration is as good as another. footnotes: [26] christian states have given the force of law to institutions, such, for instance, as monogamy, which date their origin from the gospel records. here we have the normal development of civilization: religious faith enlightens the general conscience, and reveals to it the true conditions of social progress. in this order of things, it is not a question of _beliefs_, but of _acts_ imposed in the name of the interests of society. the state may take account of the religious beliefs of its subjects, and enter into such relations as may seem to it convenient with the ecclesiastical authorities: this is the basis of the system of concordats, a system which has nothing in it contrary to first principles, so long as liberty is maintained. but the establishment of _national_ religions, decreed by the temporal power and varying in different states, manifestly supposes a foundation of scepticism. for the idea of truth, one and universal in itself, is substituted the idea of decisions obligatory for those only who are under the jurisdiction of a definite political body. if the state, without pretending to decree dogma, receives it from the hands of the church, and imposes it upon its subjects, it seems at first that the temporal power has placed itself at the service of the church, but that the idea of truth is preserved. but when the question is studied more closely, it is seen that this is not the case, and that the state usurps in fact, in this combination, the attributes of the spiritual power. in fact, before protecting _the true religion_, it is necessary to ascertain which it is; and in order to ascertain the true religion, the political power must constitute itself judge of religious truth. so we come back, by a _dã©tour_, to the conception of national religions. the emperor of russia and the emperor of austria will inquire respectively which is the only true religion, to the exclusive maintenance of which they are to consecrate their temporal power. to the same question they will give two different replies; and each nation will have its own form of worship, just as each nation has its own ruler. [27] _etudes orientales_, 1861. [28] _unitã© morale des peuples modernes_,--a lecture delivered at lyons, 10 april, 1839. this lecture is inserted after the _gã©nie des religions_ in the complete works of the author. [29] franck, _philosophie du droit ecclã©siastique_, pages 117 and 118. [30] schmidt, _essai historique sur la sociã©tã© civile dans le monde romain_. bk. 1. ch. 3. [31] la libertã© que j'aime est nã©e avec notre ã¢me le jour oã¹ le plus juste a bravã© le plus fort. [32] tertullian. [33] _le pã¨re lacordaire_, by the comte de montalembert, p. 25. [34] _de l'autre rive_, by iscander (in russian). iscander is the pseudonyme of m. herzen. [35] "the man of thought knows that the world only belongs to him as a subject of study, and, even if he could reform it, perhaps he would find it so curious as it is that he would not have the courage to do so."--ernest renan, preface to _etudes d'histoire religieuse_, 1857. the author has manifested better sentiments in 1859, in the preface to his _essais de morale et de critique._ [36] _de legibus_, ii. 7. [37] dors-tu content, voltaire, et ton hideux sourire voltige-t-il encor sur tes os dã©charnã©s? [38] hume, essay viii. on liberty and necessity. [not having access to the original, i re-translate the french translation.--tr.] [39] vacherot, _la metaphysique et la science_. preface, p. xxix. lecture iii. _the revival of atheism._ (at geneva, 24th nov. 1863.--at lausanne, 18th jan. 1864.) gentlemen, the subject of the present lecture will be--the revival of atheism. and i do not employ the word 'atheism'--a term which has been so greatly abused--without mature reflection. when socrates opposed the idea of the holy god to the impure idols of paganism; when he dethroned jupiter and his train in order to celebrate "the supreme god, who made and who guides the world, who maintains the works of creation in the flower of youth, and in a vigor always new,"[40] they accused socrates of being an atheist. descartes, the great geometrician who proclaimed the existence of god more certain than any theorem of geometry, has been denounced as an atheist. when men began to forsake the temples of idols in order to worship the unknown god who had just manifested himself to the world, the christians were accused of atheism because they refused to bow down to wood and stone. such abuses might dispose one to renounce the use of the word. besides, when a word has been for a long time the signal of persecution and the forerunner of death, one hesitates to employ it. in an age when atheists were burned, generous minds would use their best efforts to prove that men suspected of atheism had not denied god, because they would not have been understood had they attempted to say--"they have denied god perhaps, but that is no reason for killing them." thence arose the sophistical apologies for certain doctrines, apologies made with a good intention, but which trouble the sincerity of history. these are the brands of servitude, which must disappear where liberty prevails. we are able now to call things by their proper names, for there exist no longer for atheism either stakes or prisons. in affirming that certain writers, some of whom are just now the favorites of fame, are shaking the foundations of all religion, one exposes no one to severities which have disappeared from our manners, one only exposes oneself to the being taxed with intolerance and fanaticism. but candor is here a duty. if this duty were not fulfilled, liberty of thought would no longer be anything else than liberty of negation; and, while truth was oppressed, error alone would be set free. let us settle clearly the terms of this discussion. it is often asserted that an atheist does not exist. does this mean that the lips which deny god, always in some way contradict themselves? does it mean that every soul bears witness to god, perhaps unconsciously to itself, either by a secret hope, or by a secret dread? this is true, as i think; but we are speaking here of doctrines and not of men. it is true again that the negation of the creator allows of the existence, in certain philosophies, of generous ideas and elevated conceptions. such men, while they put god out of existence, desire to keep the true, the beautiful, the good; they hope to preserve the rays, while they extinguish the luminous centre from which they proceed. such systems always tend to produce the deadly fruits pointed out in my last lecture; but men devoted to the severe labors of the intellect often escape, by a noble inconsistency, the natural results of their theories. therefore, in the inquiry on which we are about to enter, the term 'atheism' implies, with regard to persons, neither reproach nor contempt. it simply indicates a doctrine, the doctrine which denies god. this denial takes place in two ways: it is affirmed that nature, that is to say matter, force devoid of intelligence and of will, is the sole origin of things; or, the reality is acknowledged of those marks which raise mind above nature, but it is affirmed that humanity is the highest point of the universe, and that above it there is nothing. such are the two forms of atheism. perhaps you expect here the explanation of a doctrine which is often described as holding a sort of middle place between the negation and the affirmation of god, namely, pantheism. pantheism, in the true sense of that word, is a system according to which god is all, and the universe nothing. this extraordinary thesis is met with in india. a greek, parmenides, has vigorously sustained it. we have in it a kind of sublime infatuation. in presence of the one and eternal being thought collapses in bewilderment; and thenceforward it experiences for all that is manifold and transitory a disdain which passes into negation. in the domain of experience, all is limited, temporary, imperfect; and reason seeks the perfect, the eternal, the infinite. the doctrine of creation alone explains how the universe subsists in presence of its first cause. in ignorance of this doctrine, some bold thinkers have cut the knot which they could not untie. they have declared that reason alone is right, and that experience is wrong: the world does not exist, it is but an illusion of the mind. whence proceeds this illusion? if perfection alone exists, how comes that imperfect mind to exist which deceives itself in believing in the reality of the world? to this question the system has no answer. such is true pantheism; but it is not to dangers so noble that most minds run the risk of succumbing. what is commonly understood by pantheism is the deification of the universe. the idea of god is not directly denied, but it undergoes a transformation which destroys it. god is no longer the eternal and almighty spirit, the creator; but the unconscious principle, the substance of things, the whole. the universe alone exists; above it there is nothing; but the universe is infinite, eternal, divine. the higher wants of the reason, mingling with the data derived from experience, form an imposing and confused image, which, while it beguiles the imagination, perverts the understanding, deceives the heart, and places the conscience in peril. in a philosophical point of view, it is a contradiction of thought, which seeks the infinite being, and, being unable to discover him, gives the character of infinity to realities bounded by experience. in a religious point of view, it is an aberration of the heart, which preserves the sentiment of adoration, but perverts it by dispersing it over the universe. "pantheism," says m. jules simon, "is only the learned form of atheism; the universe deified is a universe without god."[41] from the moment that the reason endeavors to see distinctly, pantheism vanishes like a deceitful glare. atheism disengages itself from the cloak which was concealing its true nature, and the mind remains in presence of nature only, or of humanity only. we will proceed to take a rapid glance at some few of the countries of europe, in order to discover and point out in them the traces of this melancholy doctrine. let us begin with france. in the year 1844, just twenty years ago, some french writers, representing the philosophy, in some measure official, of the time, united to publish a _dictionnaire des sciences philosophiques_. m. franck, the director of this useful and laborious enterprise, said in the preface to the work: "atheism has well nigh completely disappeared from philosophy; the progress of a sound psychology will render its return for ever impossible." in speaking thus, he expressed the thoughts and hopes of the school of which he remains one of the most estimable representatives. a generous impulse was animating a group of intelligent and learned young men. their hope was to translate christianity into a purely rational doctrine, to purify religious notions without destroying them, and, while endowing humanity with a vigorous scientific culture, to leave to it its lofty hopes. the object in view was to establish a philosophy founded upon a serious faith in god; and to this philosophy was promised the progressive and pacific conquest of the human race.[42] twenty years have passed, and things bear quite another aspect. to language expressive of security have succeeded the accents of anxiety and words of alarm. the cause which was proclaimed victorious is defended at this day like a besieged city. you will remark however,--that i may not leave you beyond measure discouraged by the facts of which i have to tell you,--you will remark, i say, that it is the efforts attempted in the cause of good which have helped to set me on the track of evil; it has often been the defence which has fixed my attention upon the attack. the materialism of the last century seems to have maintained a strong hold upon one part of the paris school of medicine. we do find in france a good many physicians who, like boerhave, render homage to religion, and a good many physiologists who, like the great haller, are ready to defend beliefs of the spiritual order;[43] but, among men specially devoted to the study of matter, many succumb to the temptation of refusing to recognize anything as real which does not come under the experience of the senses. this however is not one of the points which offer themselves most strikingly for our examination. the atheistic manifestations of the socialist schools have more novelty, and perhaps more importance. man is naturally a social being. good and evil have their primitive seat in the heart of individuals, but good and evil are transferred into institutions of which the influence is morally beneficial or pernicious. if socialism consists in recognizing the importance of social institutions, in cherishing ideas of progress and hopes of reform, i trust that we are all socialists. do we desire progress by the ever wider diffusion of justice and love? from the moment that, across the conscience whereon divine rays are falling, we have descried the eternal centre of light, we understand that god is the most implacable enemy of abuses. how is it then that atheism sometimes manifests itself in attempts at social reform? we may explain it, without so much as pointing out the influence, but too real, of the faults committed by the representatives of religion. faith is a principle of action; it is, as history testifies, the grand source of the progress of human society; but faith is also a principle of patience. the brow of every believer is more or less illumined by the rays of his peace who is patient because he is eternal. eager to effect good to the utmost extent of his ability, he accomplishes his work with that calm activity to which are reserved durable victories. in the impossible (for if the word impossible is not french, it is human) the believer recognizes one of the manifestations of the supreme will, and immortal hope enables him to support the evils which he does not succeed in destroying. but this is not enough for impatient reformers. ignorant of the profound sources of evil, they think that institutions can do everything, and that a change of laws would suffice to reform men's hearts; they believe that the organization of society alone hinders the realization of good and of happiness. the resignation of believers appears to them a stupid lethargy, and in their patient expectation of a judgment to come they see only an obstacle to the immediate triumph of justice on the earth. what if the nations were persuaded that there is nothing to be looked for beyond the present life, so that all that is to be done is to make to ourselves a paradise as soon as may be here below! if they were persuaded that all appeal to the judge in heaven is a chimerical hope, with what ardor would they throw themselves into schemes of revolution! thus it is that certain political innovators are led to seek in the negation of god one of their means of action. two views, therefore, essentially diverse, govern the labors of the renovators of society. the one class desire to realize, in an ever larger measure, justice and love; religious convictions are the strongest support of their work. the other class would uproot from men's minds every principle of faith, in order the more readily to obtain the realization of their theories. these two classes of men seem at times to be fighting all together in the _mãªlã©e_ of opinions. they meet, as, in the doubtful glimmer of the dawn, might meet together laborious workmen who are anticipating the daylight, and evil-doers who are fleeing from the sun. in order to form a just estimate of the labors of the socialist schools, it would be necessary to make a bold and straightforward inquiry into the object of their studies, and to discern, in the midst of mad-brained and guilty dreams, whatever flashes of light might disclose some prophetic vision of the future. this is no task of ours. it is enough for us to remark that in france, as also in the other countries of europe, the negation of god discovers itself in this order of ideas. it discovers itself at one time by an idolatry of humanity, at another by a materialistic enthusiasm for corporeal indulgences. disregarding the sensual imaginations which disgrace the works of fourrier, let us turn our attention elsewhere. m. vacherot, a sober philosopher, of high intellectual power and elevated sentiment, has lately published, unhappily, twelve hundred pages destined to maintain the thesis that god does not exist.[44] man conceives the idea of perfection, and not finding that perfection realized either in the world or in himself, he rises to the conception of a real and perfect being: such is the usual process of metaphysical reasoning. for m. vacherot, reality and perfection mutually exclude one another; this is one of his fundamental theses. this thesis does but interpret the result of our experience, by refusing us the right to raise ourselves higher. the world with which we are acquainted is imperfect; therefore--say plato, saint augustine, and descartes--the perfection of which we have the idea is realized in a being superior to the world. the world with which we are acquainted is imperfect, therefore there is a contradiction between the ideal and the real, says m. vacherot, who makes thus of the general result of experience the absolute rule of truth. to say therefore of god that he is perfect, is to affirm that he does not exist, inasmuch as the ideal is never realized. thought thus finds itself placed in a situation at once odd and violent. if god is perfect, he does not exist. if god exists, he is not perfect. the respect which we owe to the being of beings forbids us to believe in him; to affirm his existence would be to do outrage to his perfection. the author of this theory renders a worship to that ideal which does not exist, and towards which he affirms nevertheless that the world is gravitating by the law of progress. this worship is of too abstract a nature to secure many adherents; it can only become popular by taking another shape, and it does so in this way: we conceive of that perfection which in itself does not exist; it exists therefore in our thought. since the world, by the law of progress, is tending towards perfection, the world has for its end and law a thought of the human mind. the human mind therefore is the summit of the universe, and it is it that we must adore. we are here out of the region of pure abstraction, and arrive at the doctrines of the positivist school. the positive philosophy, so called because it wishes to have done with chimeras, was founded in france, a few years ago, by auguste comte. m. littrã© is at present one of its principal representatives. this writer, says m. sainte-beuve, is one of those who are endeavoring "to set humanity free from illusions, from vague disputes, from vain solutions, from deceitful idols and powers."[45] let us say the same thing in simpler terms: m. littrã© professes the doctrines of a school which ignores the creator in nature, and providence in history. to ascertain phenomena, and acquaint ourselves with the law which governs them, such, say the positivists, is the limit of all our knowledge. as for the origin of things and their destination, that is an affair of individual fancy. "each one may be allowed to represent such matters to himself as he likes; there is nothing to hinder the man who finds a pleasure in doing so from dreaming upon that past and that future."[46] "in spite of some appearances to the contrary," says m. littrã©, "the positive philosophy does not accept atheism."[47] why? because atheism pretends to give an explanation of the universe, and that after a fashion is still theology. minds "veritably emancipated" profess to know nothing whatever on questions which go beyond actual experience. they do not deny god, they eliminate him from the thoughts. the attempt is a bold one, but it fails; men do not succeed in emancipating themselves from the laws of reason. the very writer whom i have just quoted is himself a proof of this, for he absolutely proscribes every statement of a metaphysical nature, and then, three pages farther on, in the very treatise in which he makes this proscription, he speaks of the "_eternal_ motive powers of a _boundless_ universe."[48] boundless! eternal! what thoughts are these? behold the instincts of the reason coming to light! behold all the divine attributes appearing! adoration is withdrawn from god, and it is given to the universe at large. what is it which, in the universe regarded as a whole, will become the direct object of worship? another positivist, m. de lombrail, will tell us, in a work reviewed by auguste comte: "man," he says, "has always adored humanity." here, we learn, is the true foundation of all religions, and the brief summary of their history. this humanity-god has been long adored under a veil which disguised it from the eyes of its worshippers; but the time is come when the sage ought to recognize the object of his worship and give it its true name.[49] the positivist school, then, professes a complete scepticism with regard to whatever is not included in the domain of experience. but its foot slips, and it falls into the negation of god, from which it rises again by means of a humanitarian atheism. all these marks are met with again in the works of the critical school. the critics group themselves about m. renan. the praises which they lavished a while ago on a bad book by that author seem at least to allow us to point him out as their chief. they derive their name from studies in history and archã¦ology, with which we here have nothing to do. they are regarded as forming a philosophical and religious school, and it is in that connection that they claim our attention. their influence is incontestable, and still, notwithstanding, their doctrinal value is nothing. they form merely a literary branch of the positivist school engrafted upon the eclecticism of m. cousin. we find in their writings the pretension to limit science to the experimental study of nature and to humanity. we afterwards find there the pretension to understand and to accept all doctrines alike. beyond this, nothing. the critics bestow particular attention on the phenomena of religion, of art, and of philosophy; but this interest is purely historical. nothing is more curious than the successive forms of human beliefs; but the period of beliefs is over. religious faith no longer subsists except in minds which are behind the age; and philosophy, upheld in a final swoon by hegel and hamilton, has just yielded its last breath in the arms of m. cousin: so m. renan informs us.[50] to choose a side between the defenders of the idea of god and its opponents; to choose between plato and epicurus, between origen and celsus, between descartes and hobbes, between leibnitz and spinoza, would be to make one's self the don quixote of thought. an honest man may find amusement in reading the amadis of gaul; the knight of _la manche_ went mad through putting faith in the adventures of that hero. a like fate befalls those minds which are simple enough to believe still, in the midst of the nineteenth century, in the brave chimeras of former days. let us study history, let us study nature; beyond that we do not know, and we never shall know, anything. our fashionable men of letters develop their thesis with so much assurance; they lavish upon believers so many expressions of amiable disdain; they appear so sure of being the interpreters of the mind of the age, that they seem ready to repeat to young people dazzled by their success, the lesson which gilbert had expressed in these terms: between ourselves--you own a god, i fear! beware lest in your verse the fact appear: dread the wits' laughter, friend, and know your betters: our grandsires might have worn those old-world fetters; but in our days! come, you must learn respect,- content _your age to follow_, not direct.[51] to believe in god would be vulgar; to deny the existence of god would be a want of taste; the divine world must remain as a subject for poetry. so our critics speak. their direct affirmation is scepticism. but they follow the destinies of the positivist school; they do not succeed in maintaining their balance between the affirmation and negation of god. alfred de musset has described this position of the soul, and its inevitable issue. must i hope in god? must i reject all faith and all hope? between these paths how difficult the choice! ah! might i find some smoother, easier way. "none such exists," whispers a secret voice, "god _is_, or _is not_--own, or slight, his sway." in sooth, i think so: troubled souls in turn by each extreme are tossed and harassed sore: they are but atheists, who feel no concern; if once they doubted they would sleep no more.[52] the indifference of the critical philosophers is in fact only a transparent veil to atheistical doctrines. faith in god the creator is in their eyes a superstition; this is their only settled dogma. in other respects they indulge in theses the most contradictory. most generally they deify man, declaring that there is no other god than the idea of humanity, no other infinite than the indefinite character of the aspirations of our own soul. at other times they proclaim an undisguised materialism, and look for the explanation of all things in atoms and in the law which governs them. they make to themselves a two-faced idol, one of these faces being called nature, and the other humanity. what strangely increases the confusion is that all the terms of language change meaning as employed by their pen. they speak of god, of duty, of religion, of immortality; their pages seem sometimes to be extracted from mystical writings; but these sacred words have for them a totally different meaning than for the ordinary run of their readers. their god is not a being, their religion is not a worship, their duty is not a law, their immortality is not the hope of a world to come. amidst these equivocations and contradictions thought is blunted, and the sinews of the intellect are unstrung. the public, bewitched by talent and captivated by success, is deluged with writings which have the same effect as the talk of a frivolous man, or the showy tattle of a woman of the world. they give an agreeable exercise to the mind, without ever allowing it to form either a precise idea or a settled judgment. many are the clouds then on the intellectual horizon of france. glance over the recent productions of french philosophy, and you will have no difficulty in recognizing the gravity of the situation. works are multiplying with the object of defending the existence of god, providence, the immortality of the soul: dams are being raised against the rising flood of atheism.[53] and here is a fact still more significant, namely, that the historians of ideas, whether they are recurring to the most remote antiquity, or are passing in review the worst errors of modern days, cannot meet with the negation of god, without having their eyes thus turned to paris, and their attention directed to contemporary productions.[54] i hence infer, that atheism is raising its head in france, and there presenting itself under two forms. materialism is appearing principally as an heritage from the last century. the new, or rather renewed, doctrine is the adoration of man by man. we are now going to cross the rhine. a powerful thinker, hegel, had supreme sway in the last movement of speculative thought in germany. hegel's system of doctrine is enveloped in clouds. it is so ambiguous in regard to the questions which most directly concern the conscience and human interests, that it has been pretended to deduce from it, on the one hand a christian theology, and on the other a sheer atheism. there is a story, whether a true one or not i cannot say, that this philosopher when near his end uttered the following words: "i have only had one disciple who has understood me--and he has misunderstood me." a man distinguished in metaphysical research by taste, genius, and science, and who has, in that respect, devoted particular attention to germany, m. charles secrã©tan, writes with reference to the fundamental principle of the entire hegelian system: "if you ask me how i understand the matter, i will give you no answer; i do not understand it at all, and i do not believe that any one has ever understood it."[55] you will excuse me, gentlemen, from here undertaking the scientific study of so difficult a system. it will be enough for us to render the darkness visible, that is to say, to understand well what it is which the doctrine of the berlin professor, in a certain sense, renders incomprehensible. the foundation of his theory is that the universe is explained by an eternal idea, an idea which exists by itself, without appertaining to any mind. the hegelians say that the existence of an infinite mind is an inadmissible conception. they reject this mystery, and prefer to it the palpable absurdity of an idea which exists in itself, without being the act of an intelligence. this idea-god we have already encountered in the writings of m. vacherot. we shall find it again more than once as we go on. in germany, as in france, the theory only becomes popular by undergoing a transformation. the eternal idea manifests itself in the mind of man, and exists nowhere else. above this idea there is nothing. man is therefore the summit of things; it is he who must be adored. and thus it is in fact that hegel has been understood. in the spring of 1850, henri heine wrote as follows in the _gazette d'augsbourg_: "i begin to feel that i am not precisely a biped deity, as professor hegel declared to me that i was twenty-five years ago." the deification of man: such is the popular translation of the philosophy of the idea. would you have a further proof of this? the following anecdote was current in my youth, when german idealism was at the height of its popularity. a student going to call on one of his fellow-students, found him stretched on his bed, or his sofa, and exhibiting all the signs of an ecstatic contemplation. "why, what are you doing there?" inquired the visitor. "i am adoring myself," replied the young adept in philosophy. i am not examining the doctrines of hegel with reference to the history of metaphysics, and within the precincts of the school in which it occupies a large place and demands the most serious attention; i am tracing the influence of those doctrines on the public mind at large. this influence is visible in the most disastrous consequences of atheism. "it certainly is not the hegelian school alone," says m. saint-rã©nã© taillandier, "which has produced all the moral miseries of the nineteenth century, all those unbridled desires, all those revolts of matter in a fury;[56] but it sums them all up in its formulã¦, it gives them, by its scientific way of representing them, a pernicious authority, it multiplies them by an execrable propaganda."[57] it was through feuerbach principally that the evolution was to be brought about which has led the hegelian system, severely idealistic in its commencement, to favor at length _the revolts of matter run mad_. and this evolution is only natural after all. if the universe is the development of an idea, and not the work of an intelligent will, all is necessary in the world, for the development of an idea is a matter of destiny. where all is necessary, all is legitimate: the desires of the flesh as well as the laws of thought and of conscience. but, from the moment that the flesh is emancipated, it aims at absolute empire, and ends by obtaining it: this is matter of fact. feuerbach has put atheism into a definite shape, and disengaged it from all obscurity. there exists no other infinite than the infinite in our thoughts; above us there exists nothing; no law which binds us, no power which governs us: the work of modern science is to set man free from god, for god is an idol. but man thus set free from all bonds and from all duty is not, for feuerbach, the individual, but humanity. the individual owes himself to his species; "the true sage will make no more silly and fantastic sacrifices, but he will never refuse sacrifices which are really serviceable to humanity."[58] here then is still a bond, a religion, and sacrifices; the emancipation is incomplete. what is this humanity to which man owes himself? an abstraction, an idol still, an idol to be overthrown if he would obtain perfect independence. listen to the german stirmer, deducing from the doctrine its extreme consequences: "perish the people," he exclaims, "perish germany, perish all the nations of europe; and let man, rid of all bonds, delivered from the last phantoms of religion, recover at length his full independence!"[59] all the mists of abstraction have now disappeared: here we are on ground which is hideously clear. humanity is no longer in question, but the worship of _self_; it is the complete enfranchisement of selfishness. while the proud idealism of the germans was thus, by its own weight, descending into the level flats of thought, a political movement was agitating germany. simple-minded poets were celebrating atheism with an enthusiasm which seemed sincere; and, at the same time, men who are not simple-minded, journalists and demagogues, were laying hold of the irreligion as a lever with which to make a breach in the social edifice. in the year 1845, the attention of the swiss authorities was drawn to certain secret societies, composed of germans, and having for their object a revolution in germany, but which had established their basis of operations on the swiss territory. the inquiries of the police issued in the discovery of twenty-seven clubs bound together by secret correspondence. working-men were induced on various pretexts to attend meetings, of which the real object was only gradually disclosed to them. if they were reckoned worthy, they were initiated into the plan of a social reform, the basis of which was atheism.[60] one of the principal agents in this work of proselytism, guillaume marr, exclaimed: "faith in a personal and living god is the origin and the fundamental cause of our miserable social condition." and he deduced as follows the practical consequence of his theory: "the idea of god is the key-stone of the arch of a tottering civilization; let us destroy it. the true road to liberty, to equality, and to happiness, is atheism. no safety on earth, so long as man holds on by a thread to heaven.--let nothing henceforward shackle the spontaneity of the human mind. let us teach man that there is no other god than himself, that he is the alpha and the omega of all things, the superior being, and the most real reality." we have still to explain the nature of this spontaneity, free from every shackle. one of the editors of the journal conducted by marr discloses it by quoting some verses in which henri heine expresses the wish to see _great vices, bloody and colossal crimes_, provided he may be delivered from a _worthy-citizen virtue_, and an _honest-merchant morality_![61] a little later, a journal of german switzerland asserted, that in order to set free man's natural instincts and propensities, it is indispensable to destroy the idea of god.[62] these, i am well aware, are the screams of a savage madness. but after all, and be this as it may, marr was publishing his journal at lausanne in 1845, and in 1848 he was named representative of the people, by a considerable majority, in one of the largest cities of germany. and this was by no means an isolated fact. atheism showed itself in the ephemeral parliament of frankfort as a sort of party, of which m. vogt, says the _revue des deux mondes_, was the great orator.[63] the german revolution was put down by the bayonet, but the doctrines of which it had revealed the existence, left vestiges for a long time in the country of the terror which they had inspired. alarm was felt for the various interests threatened, and noble souls were stirred with compassion by the conviction forced upon them of the spiritual miseries of their brethren. a powerful reaction took place, as well in the religious as the philosophical world. this reaction has produced salutary results; but the object is not fully attained. open the journals and the reviews, and you will learn that germany is, in these days, the principal centre of materialism. it is unhappily so rich in this respect, that it can afford to engage in exportation, and to furnish professors of the school to other countries of europe. doctor bã¼chner has published, under the title of _force and matter_, a small volume which has rapidly reached a seventh edition, and has lately been translated into french.[64] materialism is there set forth with perfect arrogance, or, to speak more moderately, with perfect audacity. the author pretends to confine himself strictly within the domain of experience, and it is wonderful with what haughtiness he proscribes the researches of philosophy. it would seem therefore that the question of the nature of things ought to remain outside the circle of his studies. nevertheless, he declares matter to be eternal and the universe infinite. i ask you how long it would be necessary to have lived in order to pronounce matter eternal in the name of experience; and what journeys it would have been necessary to make, before ascertaining by means of observation that the universe is infinite. we shall have occasion to recur to this subject. meanwhile we may be very sure that experience supplies no system of metaphysics, and that materialism is a metaphysical system as strongly marked as any. when its adepts cry out, away with philosophy! they mean by that simply: we will have no good philosophy, that we may be free to make bad philosophy of our own without rivalry. a proceeding which reminds one of certain demagogues who cry with all their might, down with tyrants! and who thus succeed in making out of the fear of the tyranny of others the solid foundation of their own despotism. we find then in germany, first of all the doctrine of the idea set forth with _ã©clat_ by hegel, then atheism mixed up with political notions and projects, and lastly materialism. the elements are the same as in france, but exhibit themselves in a different order. this diversity suggests some observations worth your attention. france, setting out with the materialism of the eighteenth century, rose to that adoration of man which characterizes at the present day the greater part of its atheistical manifestations. german atheism, having as its starting-point an abstract idealism of which the adoration of man was the result, has descended to the levels of materialism.[65] we may inquire into the theory of these facts, and say why materialism rises to the adoration of man by a natural movement; and why, also by a natural movement, the adoration of man descends again to materialism. materialism infers from its principles the denial of any future to man, and not only any future, but any true value, any real existence. we are nothing but an agglomeration of molecules, ready to separate without leaving any trace of ever having been together. is not this a thing to be said sadly, as the saddest thing in the world? why then are the apostles of matter nearly always assuming the loftiest tone, and uttering shouts of triumph? it is that they feel themselves free, emancipated from that terror which has made the gods, ... that brood of idle fear fine nothings worshipped,--_why_, doth not appear; the gods--whom man made, and who made not man.[66] emancipation! such is the watchword of materialism. listen, for example, to the conclusion of baron d'holbach's _system of nature_: "break the chains," says he, "which are binding men. send back those gods who are afflicting them to those imaginary regions from whence fear first drew them forth. inspire with courage the intelligent being; give him energy; let him dare at length to love himself, to esteem himself, to feel his own dignity; let him dare to emancipate himself, let him be happy and free." strange accents these, at the close of a large philosophical treatise intended to prove that there is nothing in the universe but matter. whence proceeds the dignity of that fragment of matter which calls itself man? understand well what passes in the mind of these philosophers. in proportion as man lowers his own origin, in the same proportion,--if he does not wish to make himself a brute, in order to live as do the animals,--he exalts himself in an inevitable sentiment of pride. in vain does he give out that the material frame is everything; he feels that thought is more than the material frame; and he accords to himself the first place in the universe. the materialist ignores the eternal mind in order to emancipate himself; and whatever he may say, his real deity is not the atom, but himself. the encyclopedists, sons of an age which yielded at once to noble influences and to guilty seductions, united the worship of progress to a degrading philosophy. consider with what a feeling of pride they lowered man, and you will understand why eternal nature gave place to sacred humanity. when france had fallen into the delirium of irreligion, it was not a little dust in an earthen vase which was offered for public adoration, but they led in procession through the streets of paris a woman who was called the goddess reason. so it was that materialism ended in the adoration of man. let us endeavor to understand how the adoration of man turns again to materialism. the mind endowed with intelligence and will is more elevated in the scale of being than inert bodies. this is for us an evident truth. could one demonstrate it by reasoning? i do not know; but in contesting it, we should contradict the plainest evidence. reason is superior to matter. if, with the school which extends from pythagoras to saint augustine, and from saint augustine to descartes, we connect reason with god as its principle, the grand science of metaphysics is founded. but if reason does not rise to god, what will happen? this reason, which proclaims itself superior to matter, is not, as we have said already, the individual thought of francis, peter, or john. if an individual presented himself as being reason itself, the absolute reason, and said, "i am the truth," it would be necessary to take one of three courses. if we thought that he spoke truly, and if we received his testimony, it would be necessary to worship him, for he would be god. if it were feared that he spoke truly, and those who so feared were unwilling to acknowledge his rule, it would be necessary for them to kill him in order to endeavor to kill the truth. if it were thought that he spoke falsely, it would be necessary to watch him, and the moment he committed an act dangerous for society, to shut him up, for he would be a madman. but the philosophers make no such pretension. the reason of which they speak is the reason common to all, a reason which is not that of an individual, but that of which all rational individuals partake. this common, universal, eternal reason,--where and how does it exist? reason manifests itself by ideas, and ideas are the acts of minds. to imagine an idea without a mind of which it is the act, is the same thing as to imagine a movement without a body of which it is also the act, in a different sense. take away bodies, and there is no more movement. take away intelligences, and there are no more ideas. the philosopher who speaks of an idea which is not the idea of an intelligence, utters words which have no meaning. the reason which is not that of any created individual remains therefore absolutely inconceivable without the eternal spirit, or god. idealism is based upon this impossible conception. thus it is that thought, trying in vain to maintain itself in this abstract domain, ends by holding as chimerical the world of ideas in which it has met with nothing to which to cling. it is seized with giddiness and falls. whither does it fall? to the ground. it is always thither one falls. wearied with its efforts to find footing on shifting clouds, the human mind comes back to the _positive_ by a violent reaction. here is the secret of that haughty and derisive materialism of certain modern germans, who jeer and scoff at the lofty pretensions of philosophy. so it was that hegel brought upon the scene doctor bã¼chner and his fellows. the great conflict of the spiritual world is not, as it is often said to be, the combat of idealism against materialism. idealism begins well, and we must not refuse to acknowledge the services which it has rendered to the cause of truth. but philosophy must follow the road traced out in an ancient adage: _ab exterioribus ad interiora, ab interioribus ad superiora_.[67] if the mind does not go to the end of this royal road; if idealism, having surmounted the fascinations of the senses, remains in ideas, without ascending to the supreme mind, the worship of matter and the worship of the idea call mutually one to another, and revolve in a fatal circle. the struggle between these two forms of atheism reminds one of those duels, in which, after having satisfied honor, the adversaries breakfast together, and gather strength to combat, in case of need, a common enemy. the great combat which forms the main subject of the history of ideas is the combat between belief in god and an atheistical philosophy. whether atheism admits for its first principle an atom without a creator, or a reason without an eternal mind, is a fact very important for the history of philosophy, but the importance of which is small enough in regard to the interests of humanity. we passed the rhine in order to penetrate into germany, let us now cross the british channel, and observe what is going on in england. england, at the close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, was the principal centre of irreligion. france gave the patent of european circulation to ideas which proceeded in part from this foreign source. an active propaganda for the diffusion of impious and immoral writings had been established in great britain. a strong reaction set in, and, dating from the year 1698, we see formed various societies having for their object the diffusion of good books and respectable journals.[68] these efforts were crowned with success. england, by its zeal in the work of missions, by its sacrifices for the diffusion of the holy scriptures, and by its respect for the lord's-day,[69] assumed[70] the characteristic marks of a christian nation. grand measures adopted in the interests of liberty and humanity, placed it at the same time at the head of a seriously philanthropic civilization; but as pã¨re gratry has remarked, "more than in any other people, there are in the english people the old man and the new."[71] the strange contrasts which are presented by the political action of this double-people are found also in the productions of its thought, in which, while the spirit of piety is displayed full of life, the spirit of irreligion is also manifested with terrible energy. a book is instanced, of materialistic tendency,[72] published in 1828, of which a popular edition was printed with a view to extend the opinions which it advocated. there was sold of this edition, in a short time, more than eighty thousand copies. a thoughtful writer, mr. pearson, mentions a statistical statement, according to which english publications, openly atheistical, reached, in the year 1851, a total of six hundred and forty thousand copies.[73] if we pass from the current literature to scientific publications, we shall meet with facts of the same order. the hegelianism and the scepticism of the critical school are creeping into the works of some theologians. the theories of positivism, reduced to shape in france, have passed the channel, and have obtained in england more attention perhaps than in the country of their origin. they have been adopted by a distinguished author, mr. stuart mill; and a female writer, miss martineau, has set them forth, in her mother-tongue, for the use of her fellow-countrymen.[74] positivism is even in vogue, and has become "_fashionable_" amongst certain literary and intellectual circles in great britain.[75] in less elevated regions of the intellectual world of england, an organized sect commends itself to our attention. this sect has given to its system of doctrine the name of _secularism_. it has a social object--the destruction of the established church and the existing political order. it has a philosophy, the purport and bearing of which we will inquire of mr. holyoake. the following is the answer of the chief of the secularists:--"all that concerns the origin and end of things, god and the immortal soul, is absolutely impenetrable for the human mind. the existence of god, in particular, must be referred to the number of abstract questions, with the ticket _not determined_. it is probable, however, that the nature which we know, must be the god whom we inquire after. what is called atheism is found _in suspension_ in our theory."[76] the practical consequence of these views is, that all day-dreams relating to another world must be put aside, and we must manage so as to live to the best advantage possible in the present life.[77] hence the name of the system. _secularism_ teaches its disciples to have nothing to do with religion in any shape, that they may confine themselves strictly to the present life. it is an attempt of which the express object is to realize life without god. these doctrines formed the subject of public discussions, in london in 1853, and at glasgow in 1854. the meeting at glasgow numbered, it is said, more than three thousand persons.[78] the sect employs as its means of action open-air speeches, the publication of books and journals,[79] and assemblies for giving information and holding debates in lecture-rooms. there are five of these lecture-rooms in london. i have seen the programme, for 1864, of the meetings held at no. 12, cleveland street, under the direction of messrs. holyoake and j. clark. there are, every sunday,--a discourse at eleven o'clock, a discussion at three o'clock, a lecture at seven o'clock. the programme invites all free-thinkers to attend these meetings. some of the assemblies are public; for others a small entrance fee is demanded. london is the principal centre of the association; but it has branches all over the country, and it numbers in great britain twenty-one lecture-rooms, particularly at liverpool, manchester, birmingham, glasgow, and edinburgh.[80] secularism naturally seeks to magnify, as much as may be, its own importance; and it is not to the declarations of its apostles that we must refer in order to estimate the extent and influence of its action. at the same time the existence of a society, the avowed object of which is the diffusion of practical atheism, cannot be regarded with indifference. at the present moment the affairs of the sect would not appear to be flourishing. a year ago a secularist orator had delivered a vehement speech in favor of virtue. just as he had resumed his seat, a policeman entered the room and took him into custody. a few days afterwards the _times_ informed its readers that the orator of virtue had just been condemned for theft to twelve months' hard labor.[81] in the _secular world_ of the 1st january, 1864, mr. holyoake complains that a great many _mauvais sujets_ seem to seek in secularism a kind of cheap religion. he declares that he is going to use energetic efforts to purify the sect, and seems to intimate that he shall retire if his efforts fail. let us leave him to wrestle against the invasion of the orators of virtue, and let us pass from england into italy. while italy is seeking to deliver itself from the bayonets of austria, it is threatened with subjection to the influence of the most pernicious german doctrines. after having bent, like nearly all europe, in the eighteenth century, beneath the blast of sensualism, italy made a noble effort to renew more generous traditions. two eminent men, rosmini and gioberti, the second especially, succeeded in exciting in the youth of italy a passionate interest in doctrines in which liberty and vigor of thought were united with the confidence of faith. this intellectual movement preceded and prepared a national movement, the course of which has been precipitated by the intrigues of politics and the intervention of the arms of the foreigner. at the present time the influence of rosmini and of gioberti is on the decline. hegelianism is being installed with a certain _ã©clat_ in the university of naples. nothing warrants us in hoping that this system will not produce upon the shores of the mediterranean the same depravation of philosophic thought which it has produced in germany. in the ancient university of pisa, m. auguste conti, a brave defender of christian philosophy, steadfastly maintains the union of religion and of speculative inquiry,[82] and the centre of italy is less affected perhaps than the extremities of the peninsula by the spirit of infidelity. but as we go further north, we encounter in the writings of ferrari the utterance of a gloomy scepticism, and in those of ausonio franchi, formerly a journalist at turin, and now a professor at milan, the manifestations of an almost undisguised atheism. ausonio franchi, or rather the man who assumes that pseudonyme, is an ex-priest, who, "while maintaining severely the rule of good morals and the dignity of life,"[83] has turned with violent animosity against his former faith. he exerts some influence over the youth of italy, and has met with warm admirers in england and germany. franchi's profession of faith reduces itself to these very simple terms:--"the world is what it is, and it is _because it is_; any other reason whatever of its essence and of its existence can be nothing but a sophism or an illusion."[84] all inquiry into the origin of things is a pure chimera, and we must therefore limit ourselves to the experience of the present life, and look for nothing beyond it. the author treats with sufficient disdain arguments which satisfied descartes, newton, and leibnitz. it has seemed to me that his understanding, a little obscured by passion, misconceives the true purport of the reasonings which it rejects, and by thus impairing their force, assumes to itself the right to despise them. the religious negations of ausonio franchi do not stop at christian dogma. he denies all value to those higher aspirations of the human soul which constitute _reason_, in the philosophical meaning of the term. now, this radical negation of the reason is what those italians who do not scruple to practise it denominate _rationalism_. and this very unwarrantable use of a word is in fact only a particular case of a general phenomenon. to criticise, means to examine the thoughts which present themselves to the mind in order to distinguish error from truth. the frenchmen, who call themselves the _critics_, are men who require that the intellect shall make itself the impartial mirror of ideas, but shall renounce the while all discrimination between truth and error. the term scepticism, in its primary signification, contains the idea of inquiring, of examining; and they give the name of _sceptics_ to the philosophers who declare that there is nothing to discover, and consequently nothing to examine, or to search for! one is a _free-thinker_ only on the express condition of renouncing all such free exercise of thought as might lead to the acceptance of beliefs generally received. this is verily the carnival of language, and the _bal masquã©_ of words. these corruptions of the meaning of terms are highly instructive. doctrines contrary to the laws of human nature bear witness in this way to a secret shame in producing themselves under their true colors. just as hypocrisy is an homage which vice pays to virtue, so these barbarisms are an homage which error pays to truth. to return to italy: that beautiful and noble country has not escaped the revival of atheism. the intoxication of a new liberty, and the political struggles in which the papacy is at present engaged, will favor for a time, it may be feared, the development of evil doctrines.[85] but the lively genius of the italians will not be long in attaching itself again to the grand traditions of its past history; and the inhabitants of the land, whose soil was trodden by pythagoras and saint augustine, will not link themselves with doctrines which always run those who hold them aground sooner or later upon the sad and gloomy shores of a vulgar empiricism. we have not leisure, gentlemen, to extend our study to all parts of the globe, and besides, there are countries with regard to which information would fail me. therefore i say nothing of holland, where we should have, as i know, distressing facts to record. the silence imposed on spain upon the subjects which we are discussing would render the study of that country a difficult one. i am wanting in data regarding america. let us conclude our survey by a few words about russia. if we are warranted in making general assertions in speaking of that immense empire, we may say that the russian people, taken as a whole, is good and pious, badly instructed, and often the victim of ignorance or of superstition, but disposed to open its heart to elevated and pure influences. the clergy is ignorant, though with honorable and even brilliant exceptions. it is too much cut off from general society, and consigned to a sort of caste, of which it would be most desirable to break down the barriers, in order to allow the influence of the representatives of religion to extend itself more freely. the young nobles, and the university students in general, are, in too large a proportion, imbued with irreligious principles. various atheistical writings, those of feuerbach amongst others, have been translated into russian, printed abroad, and furtively introduced into the empire. m. herzen, a well-known writer, has published, under the pseudonyme of iscander, a work full of talent, but in which come plainly into view the worst tendencies of our time.[86] in his eyes, life is itself its own end and cause. faith in god is the portion of the ignorant crowd, and atheism, like all the high truths of science, like the differential calculus and the laws of physics, is the exclusive possession of the philosophical few. when robespierre declared atheism aristocratic, he was right in this sense, for atheism is above the reach of the vulgar; but when he concluded that atheism was false, he made a great mistake. this error, which led him to establish the worship of the supreme being, was one of the causes of his fall. when he began to follow in the wake of the _conservatives_, as a necessary consequence he would lose his power.[87] the writings of iscander have exerted a veritable influence in russia. m. herzen appears to have lost much of his repute, by the exaggerated and outrageous course he has taken in politics; but it is to be feared that the traces of his action are not altogether effaced. the russian empire has been for a long time, in the eyes of the west, only an immense garrison; but now for some years past it has been taking rank among the number of intellectual powers, and nowhere in europe is the ascending march of civilization displaying itself by signs so striking. the summons to liberty of so many millions of men, which has just been accomplished by the generous initiative of the ruling power, and with the consent of the nation, testifies that that vast social body is animated by the spirit of life and of progress. but in the solemn phase through which she is passing, russia is exposed to a great danger. she is running the risk of substituting for a national development, drawn from the grand springs of human nature, a factitious civilization, in which would figure together the fashions of paris, the morals of the _coulisses_ of the opera, and the most irreligious doctrines of the west. may god preserve her! we have passed in review some of the symptoms of the revival of atheism, and it is impossible not to acknowledge the gravity of the facts which we have established. what must especially awaken solicitude is, that the irreligious manifestations of thought have assumed such a character of generality, that the sorrowful astonishment which they ought to produce in us is blunted by habit. fashionable reviews, (i allude especially to the french-speaking public), widely-circulated journals which take good care not to violate propriety, and which could not with impunity offend the interests or prejudices of the social class from which their subscribers are recruited, are able to entertain without danger, and without exciting energetic protestations, the productions of an open, or scarcely disguised, atheism. here are ample reasons for thoughtfulness; but this thoughtfulness must not be mingled with fear. we have to do with a challenge the very audacity of which inspires me with confidence, rather than with dread. in fact all the productions of irreligious philosophy rest on one and the same thought, the common watchword, of the secularism of the english, of the rationalism of the italians, of the positivism of the french, and which may even be recognized, with a little attention, under the haughty formulas which bear the name of hegel. and the thought is this: the earth is enough for us, away with heaven; man suffices for himself, away with god; reality suffices for us, away with chimeras! wisdom consists in contenting ourselves with the world as it is. it is attempted ridiculously enough to place this wisdom under the patronage of the luminaries of our age. we are bidden, forsooth, to see in the negation of the real and living god, a conflict of progress with routine, of science with a blind tradition, of the modern mind with superannuated ideas.[88] we know of old this defiance hurled against the aspirations of the heart, the conscience, and the reason. we know the destined issue of this ancient revolt of the intellect against the laws of its own nature. there were atheists in palestine in the days when the psalmist exclaimed, "the fool hath said in his heart, there is no god."[89] there were atheists at rome when cicero wrote,[90] that the opinion which recognizes gods appeared to him to come nearest to the resemblance of truth. a poet of the thirteenth century has expressed in a latin verse the thoughts which are in vogue among a great many of our contemporaries: "he dares nothing great, who believes that there are gods."[91] there were atheists in the seventeenth century, when descartes exerted himself to confound them, and they reckoned themselves the fine spirits of their time.[92] and who, again, does not know that in the eighteenth century atheism marched with head aloft, and filled the world with its clamors. the attempt to do without god has nothing modern about it, it is met with at all epochs. the means employed now-a-days to attain this end have nothing new about them. atheism exhibits itself in history with the characters of a chronic malady, the outbreaks of which are transient crises. the moment the negation is blazoned openly, humanity protests. why? because man will never be persuaded to content himself with the earth, and with what the earth can give him: his nature absolutely forbids it. when we compare the reality with the desires of our souls, we can all say with the aged patriarch jacob: "few and evil have been the days of my pilgrimage;"[93] we can all say with lamartine: though all the good desired of man in one sole heart should overflow, death, bounding still his mortal span, would turn the cup of joy to woe.[94] and it is not the heart only which is concerned here; without god man remains inexplicable to his own reason. the spiritual creature of the almighty, free by the act of creation, and capable of falling into slavery by rebellion,--he understands his nature and his destiny; but it is in vain that the apostles of matter and the worshippers of humanity harangue him in turn to explain to him his own existence. man is too great to be the child of the dust; man is too miserable to be the divine summit of the universe. "if he exalts himself, i abase him; if he abases himself, i exalt him; and i contradict him continually, until he understands at last that he is an incomprehensible monster."[95] "the proper study of mankind is man;" and man remains an enigma for man, if he do not rise to god. so it is that our very nature is a living protest against atheism, and never allows its triumphs to be either general, or of long duration. a solid limit is thus set to our wanderings; and, to the errors of the understanding, as to the tides of the ocean, the master of things has said, "ye shall go no further." therefore atheists may become famous, but, destitute of the ray which renders truly illustrious, humanity refuses them the aureole with which it encircles the brows of its benefactors. this aureole it reserves for the sages which lead it to god, for the artists which reveal to it some of the rays of the immortal light, for all those who remind it of the titles of its dignity, the pledges of its future, the sacred laws of the realm of spirits. humanity desires to live; and to live it must believe; for it must believe in order to love and to act. atheism is a crisis in a disease, a passing swoon over which the vital forces of nature triumph. now the vital forces of humanity are neither extinct nor stupefied in our time. the world of literature is sick, and grievously sick in some of its departments; but even there again are manifesting themselves noble and powerful reactions. then look in other directions. contemplate the religious movement of society at large, the wide efforts making in the domain of active beneficence, the progressive conquests of civilization, the awakening of conscience on many subjects:--i could easily instance numerous facts in proof of what i advance, and say to you: know, by these speaking signs, a god to-day as yesterday the same--the same for aye: veiling, revealing, at his sovereign will, his glory,--and his people guarding still.[96] wrestle then against the invasion of deadly doctrines, wrestle and do not fear. if men rise against god in the name of the modern mind, of the science of the age, of the progress of civilization, do not suffer yourselves to be stunned by these clamors. let the past be to you the pledge of the future! to make of atheism a novelty, is an error. to make of it, in a general way, the characteristic of our epoch, is a calumny. footnotes: [40] xenophon, _memorab. of socrates_, bk. iv. 10. [41] _la religion naturelle_. preface. [42] emile saisset, in the _revue des deux mondes_, of march, 1845. [43] see the _lettres sur les vã©ritã©s, les plus importantes de la rã©vã©lation_, by albert de haller, translated into french by one of his grandsons. lausanne, bridel, 1846. [44] _la mã©taphysique et la science_, 2 tom. oct. 1858. [45] _notice sur m. littrã©_, page 57. [46] _paroles de philosophie positive_, page 33. [47] _idem_, page 30. [48] _paroles de philosophie positive_, page 34. [49] _aperã§us gã©nã©raux sur la doctrine positiviste_, par m. de lombrail, ancien ã©lã¨ve de l'ã©cole polytechnique. the author says in his preface: "auguste comte examined this work with the conscientious attention which he was accustomed to give to the simplest task. he desired by his useful counsels to render it worthy of publication." [50] _revue des deux mondes_, of 15th jan. 1860, page 367. [51] je soupã§onne entre nous que vous croyez en dieu. n'allez pas dans vos vers en consigner l'aveu; craignez le ridicule, et respectez vos maã®tres. croire en dieu fut un tort permis ã  nos ancãªtres. mais dans notre ã¢ge! allons, il faut vous corriger _et suivre votre siã¨cle_, au lieu de le juger. [52] entre ces deux chemins j'hã©site et je m'arrãªte. je voudrais ã  l'ã©cart suivre un plus doux sentier. il n'en existe pas, dit une voix secrã¨te: en prã©sence du ciel, il faut croire ou nier. je le pense, en effet: les ã¢mes tourmentã©es vers l'un et l'autre excã¨s se portent tour ã  tour; mais les indiffã©rents ne sont que des athã©es; ils ne dormiraient plus, s'ils doutaient un seul jour. [53] see, for example, _la religion naturelle_, by jules simon; _essai de philosophie religieuse_, by emile saisset; _de la connaissance de dieu_, by a. gratry; _la raison et la christianisme, douze lectures sur l'existence de dieu_, by charles secrã©tan; _essai sur la providence_, by ernest bersot; _de la providence_, by m. damiron; _l'idã©e de dieu_, by m. caro; _thã©odicã©e, etudes sur dieu, la crã©ation et la providence_, par amã©dã©e de magerie. [54] see, for example, the _etudes orientales_ of m. franck, the _bouddha_ of m. barthã©lemy saint-hilaire; _l'histoire de la philosophie au xviiie siã©cle_, of m. damiron. [55] _philosophie de la libertã©_, vol. i. p. 225. [56] _toutes ces rã©voltes de la matiã¨re en furie._ [57] _revue des deux mondes_, april, 1850. [58] _qu'est-ce la religion?_ page 586 of the translation of ewerbeck. [59] _revue des deux mondes_ of 15th april, 1850, p. 288. [60] general report addressed to the _conseil d'etat_ of neuchã¢tel on the secret german propaganda, and on the clubs of young germany in switzerland, by lardy, doctor of law. neuchã¢tel, 1845. [61] _pourvu qu'on le dã©livre d'une vertu bourgeoise et d'une morale d'honnãªtes nã©gociants_. blã¤tter der gegenwart fã¼r sociales leben. [62] see the _chroniqueur suisse_ of 19 jan. 1865. [63] april, 1850, p. 292. [64] _force et matiã¨re_, by louis bã¼chner, doctor in medicine: translated into french from the seventh edition of the german work, by gamper, leipzig, 1863. [65] my object is to point out the atheistical systems which are being produced in various parts of europe, and not to estimate, in a general way, the tendency of contemporary philosophies. the reader, who would understand the position occupied by materialism in relation to german thought in general, may consult with advantage, _le matã©rialisme contemporain_, by paul janet, paris, 1864; and the review of this work by m. reichlin-meldegg (_zeitschrift fã¼r philosophie_, sechsundvierzigster band). a swiss writer, m. bã¶hner, has lately published a learned work on the subject entitled: _le matã©rialisme au point de vue des sciences naturelles et des progrã¨s de l'esprit humain_, by nath. bã¶hner, member of the _sociã©tã© helvã©tique des sciences naturelles_, translated from the german, by o. bourrit, 1 vol. 8vo. (_genã¨ve, imprimerie fick_), 1861. [66] ... ces enfants de l'effroi, ces beaux riens qu'on adore, et sans savoir pourquoi, ces dieux que l'homme a faits et qui n'ont pas fait l'homme. cyrano de bergerac. [67] from outer to inner things, and from inner to higher. [68] see the report of mr. h. roberts, in the _comptes rendus du congrã¨s international de bienfaisance de londres_, vol. ii. page 95, and the 23rd _bulletin de la sociã©tã© genevoise d'utilitã© publique_, 1863. [69] par son respect pour le jour du dimanche. [70] revãªtit. [71] _la paix mã©ditations historiques et religieuses_, par a. gratry, prãªtre de l'oratoire.--septiã¨me mã©ditation: l'angleterre. [72] _the constitution of man_, by g. combe. the popular edition was printed at the expense of mr. henderson. [73] _infidelity: its aspects, causes, and agencies_, by thomas pearson. people's edition, 1854, page 263. [74] _auguste comte et la philosophie positive_, par e. littrã©, page 276. [75] "positivism, within the last quarter of a century, has become an active, and even fashionable mode of thought, and nowhere more so than amongst certain literary and intellectual circles in england." _the christ of the gospels and the christ of modern criticism, lectures on m. renan's 'vie de jã©sus,'_--by john tulloch, d.d., principal of the college of st. mary in the university of st. andrew. macmillan and co., 1864. [76] see pearson: _infidelity_, particularly page 316, and _christianity and secularism, the public discussion_--, particularly page 8. [77]--_dans le siã¨cle_. [78] vapereau's _dictionnaire des contemporains_--art. holyoake. [79] i have had in view here the first numbers of _the secular world_, and of _the national reformer, secular advocate_, for 1864. [80] _the national reformer_ of 2nd jan. 1864. [81] ms. information. [82] readers unacquainted with the italian language will find a compendious exposition of m. conti's philosophy, in a small volume published, in 1863, under the title of _le camposanto de pise ou le scepticisme_. (paris, librairies joã«l cherbuliez et auguste durand; i vol. in-18.) [83] such is the testimony rendered to him by m. aug. conti in his work, _la philosophie italienne_. (paris, joã«l cherbuliez et auguste durand; one small vol. 18mo.) [84] _le rationalisme_ (in french), published with an introduction, by m. d. bancel, brussels, 1858, page 27. [85] the learned author appears to intimate that the distractions of the papacy, consequent on its political struggles for temporal power, hinder the salutary influence which it might otherwise exercise in the suppression of evil doctrines. the translator feels it due to himself to state here, once for all, that he has no sympathy whatever with such a view of the influence of the papacy. on the contrary, he is disposed to attribute to the church of rome most of the evils which afflict, not italy only, but all the countries over which she has any power. perhaps, having "felt the weight of too much liberty" in his own church, the excellent author, fundamentally sound in his own views of christian doctrine, as is proved abundantly by his writings, has been led by a natural reaction to give too much weight to the opposite principle of authority. the concluding pages of his former work, _la vie eternelle_, indicate a mind too painfully and sensitively averse to all controversy with a corrupt church, in consideration of the acknowledged excellences of many of her individual members,--her pascals, fã©nã©lons, martin boos, girards, gratrys, and lacordaires.--_translator_. [86] _de l'autre rive_ (in russian). [87] _de l'autre rive_. v. consolatio.--this chapter is a dialogue between a lady and a doctor. i have considered the doctor as expressing the thoughts of the writer. the form of dialogue, however, always allows an author to express his thoughts, while declining, if need be, the responsibility of them. [88] _le rationalisme_, par ausonio franchi, page 19.--_force et matiã¨re_, par le docteur bã¼chner, page 262.--_paroles de philosophie positive_, par littrã©, page 36.--_la mã©taphysique et la science_, par vacherot, page xiv. (premiã¨re edition.) [89] ps. xiv. 1. [90] de naturã¢ deorum. [91] nil audet magnum qui putat esse deos. [92] see bossuet: _sermon sur la dignitã© de la religion_. [93] gen. xlvii. 9. [94] quand tous les biens que l'homme envie dã©borderaient dans un seul coeur, la mort seule au bout de la vie fait un supplice du bonheur. [95] pascal. [96] reconnaissez, _messieurs_, ã  ces traits ã©clatants, un dieu tel aujourd'hui qu'il fut dans tous les temps. il sait, quand il lui plaã®t, faire ã©clater sa gloire, et son peuple est toujours prã©sent ã  sa mã©moire. lecture iv. _nature._ (at geneva, 27th nov. 1863.--at lausanne, 25th jan. 1864.) gentlemen, the thoughts of man are numberless; and still, in their indefinite variety, they never relate but to one or another of these three objects: nature, or the world of material substances, which are revealed to our senses; created spirits, similar or superior to that spirit which is ourselves; and finally god, the infinite being, the universal creator. therefore there are two sorts of atheism, and there are only two. the mind stops at nature, and endeavors to find in material substances the universal principle of existence; or, rising above nature, the mind stops at humanity, without ascending to the infinite mind, to the creator. we have seen how clearly these two doctrines appear in contemporary literature. we have now to enter upon the examination of them, and this will afford us matter for two lectures. the word nature has various meanings; we employ it here to designate matter, and the forces which set it in motion, those forces being conceived as blind and fatal, in opposition to the conscious and free force which constitutes mind. matter and the laws of motion are the object of mechanics, of chemistry, and of physics. do these sciences suffice for resolving the universal enigma? such is precisely the question which offers itself to our examination. let us first of all determine what, in presence of the spectacle of the universe, is the natural movement of human thought, when human thought possesses the idea of god. i open a book trivial enough in its form, but occasionally profound in its contents: the _journey round my room_, of xavier de maistre. the author is relating how he had undertaken to make an artificial dove which was to sustain itself in the air by means of an ingenious mechanism. i read: "i had wrought unceasingly at its construction for more than three months. the day was come for the trial. i placed it on the edge of a table, after having carefully closed the door, in order to keep the discovery secret, and to give my friends a pleasing surprise. a thread held the mechanism motionless. who can conceive the palpitations of my heart, and the agonies of my self-love, when i brought the scissors near to cut the fatal bond?--zest!--the spring of the dove starts, and begins to unroll itself with a noise. i lift my eyes to see the bird pass; but, after making a few turns over and over, it falls, and goes off to hide itself under the table. rosine (my dog), who was sleeping there, moves ruefully away. rosine, who never sees a chicken, or a pigeon, or the smallest bird, without attacking and pursuing it, did not deign even to look at my dove which was floundering on the floor. this gave the finishing stroke to my self-esteem. i went to take an airing on the ramparts. "i was walking up and down, sad and out of spirits as one always is after a great hope disappointed, when, raising my eyes, i perceived a flight of cranes passing over my head. i stopped to have a good look at them. they were advancing in triangular order, like the english column at the battle of fontenoy. i saw them traverse the sky from cloud to cloud.--ah! how well they fly, said i to myself. with what assurance they seem to glide along the viewless path which they follow.--shall i confess it? alas! may i be forgiven! the horrible feeling of envy for once, once only, entered my heart, and it was for the cranes. i pursued them, with jealous gaze, to the boundaries of the horizon. for a long while afterwards, motionless in the midst of the crowd which was moving about me, i kept observing the rapid movement of the swallows, and i was astonished to see them suspended in the air, just as if i had never before seen that phenomenon. a feeling of profound admiration, unknown to me till then, lighted up my soul. i seemed to myself to be looking upon nature for the first time. i heard with surprise the buzzing of the flies, the song of the birds, and that mysterious and confused noise of the living creation which involuntarily celebrates its author. ineffable concert, to which man alone has the sublime privilege of adding the accents of gratitude! who is the author of this brilliant mechanism? i exclaimed in the transport which animated me. who is he that, opening his creative hand, let fly the first swallow into the air? it is he who gave commandment to these trees to come forth from the ground, and to lift their branches toward the sky!" here is a charming page, and containing, though apparently trivial in style, a good and sound philosophy. let us translate this delightful description into the heavier language of science. the intellect is one of the things with which we are best acquainted; logic is the science of thought, and logic is perhaps, among all the sciences, the one best settled on its bases. the intellect discovers itself to us in the exercise of our activity. we pursue an object, we combine the means for attaining it, and it is the intellect which operates this combination. what happens if we compare the results of our activity with the results of the power manifested in the world? when we consider in their vast _ensemble_ the means of which nature disposes, when we remark the infinite number of the relations of things, the marvellous harmony of which universal life is the produce, we are dazzled by the splendor of a wisdom which surpasses our own as much as boundless space surpasses the imperceptible spot which we occupy upon the earth. think of this: the science of nature is so vast that the least of its departments suffices to absorb one human lifetime. all our sciences are only in their very beginning; they are spelling out the first lines of an immense book. the elements of the universe are numberless; and yet, notwithstanding, all hangs together; all things are linked one to another in the closest connection. the _savants_ therefore find themselves in a strange embarrassment. they are obliged to circumscribe more and more the field of their researches, on pain of losing themselves in an endless study; and, on the other hand, in proportion as science advances, the mutual relation of all its branches becomes so manifest that it is ever more and more clearly seen that, in order to know any one thing thoroughly, it would be necessary to know all. it needs not that we seek very high or very far away for occasions of astonishment: the least of the objects which nature presents to our view contains abysses of wisdom. the acquired results of science appear simple through the effect of habit. the sun rises every day; who is still surprised at its rising? the solar system has been known a long while; it is taught in the humblest schools, and no longer surprises any one. but those who found out, after long efforts, what we learn without trouble, the discoverers, reckoned their discoveries very surprising. kepler, one of the founders of modern astronomy, in the book to which he consigned his immortal discoveries, exclaims:[97] "the wisdom of the lord is infinite, as are also his glory and his power. ye heavens! sing his praises. sun, moon, and planets, glorify him in your ineffable language! praise him, celestial harmonies, and all ye who can comprehend them! and thou, my soul, praise thy creator! it is by him, and in him, that all exists. what we know not is contained in him as well as our vain science. to him be praise, honor, and glory for ever and ever!" these words, gentlemen, have not been copied from a book of the church; they are read in a work which, as all allow, is one of the foundations of modern science. i pass on to another example, and i continue to keep you in good and high company. newton set forth his discoveries in a large volume all bristling with figures and calculations.[98] the work of the mathematician ended, the author rises, by the consideration of the mutual interchange of the light of all the stars, to the idea of the unity of the creation; then he adds, and it is the conclusion of his entire work: "the master of the heavens governs all things, not as being the soul of the world, but as being the sovereign of the universe. it is on account of his sovereignty that we call him the sovereign god. he governs all things, those which are, and those which may be. he is the one god, and the same god, everywhere and always. we admire him because of his perfections, we reverence and adore him because of his sovereignty. a god without sovereignty, without providence, and without object in his works, would be only destiny or nature. now, from a blind metaphysical necessity, everywhere and always the same, could arise no variety; all that diversity of created things according to places and times (which constitutes the order and life of the universe) could only have been produced by the thought and will of a being who is _the being_, existing by himself, and necessarily." here, sirs, are noble thoughts, expressed in noble style. i recommend you to read throughout the pages from which i have quoted a few fragments. let us now analyze the ideas of this great astronomer as thus expounded. we may note these three affirmations: 1. the universe displays an admirable order which reveals the wisdom of the power which governs it. 2. the universe lives; it is not fixed, and its variations suppose an intelligent power which directs it. 3. the variable existence of the universe shows that it is not necessary; it must have its cause in a being who is _the_ being, necessarily, by his proper nature. such are the views of newton. examine this course of thought, and see if it is not natural. observation reveals to us facts. facts in themselves, isolated facts, are nothing for the mind; but in the facts of nature, human reason discovers an order, and in that order it recognizes its own proper laws. to keep within the domain of astronomy--there is harmony between our mind and the course of the stars. if you have any doubt about this, i appeal to the almanac. we there find it stated that in such a month, on such a day, at such an hour, there will be an eclipse of the sun or of the moon. how comes the editor of the almanac to know that? he has learnt it from the savants who have succeeded in explaining the phenomena of the skies. the savant therefore can in his study meet with the intelligence which directs the universe. if he makes no mistake in his calculations, the eclipse begins at the precise hour which he has indicated. if the eclipse did not take place at the instant foreseen, no one would suspect nature of not following the course prescribed by the directing intelligence; the inference would be that there had been a fault in observation, or an error of figures on the part of the astronomer. when science, then, does its part well, the mind of man encounters another mind which is governing the world and maintaining it in order. the special science of nature stops there, as we shall explain further on; but this is not all that man requires, when he makes use of all his faculties. all is passing and changing in the domain of experience; and reason seeks instinctively the cause of changeable facts in an unchangeable being, the cause of transient phenomena in an eternal being. nature, therefore, does not suffice to account to us for itself. it demands a power to direct it, an intelligence to regulate it; an absolute eternal being as its cause. this is what reason imperatively requires; and when we possess the idea of god, nature reveals to us his power and his wisdom. this is an old argument, and they call it commonplace. it is commonplace, in fact; it has appeared over and over again in the discourses of socrates, in the writings of galen, of kepler, of newton, of linnã¦us. yes, this argument has fallen so low as to be public property, if we can say that truth falls when it shines with a splendor vivid enough to enlighten the masses. if i desired to bring together here the testimony of all the savants who have seen god in nature, the song of all the poets who have celebrated the glory of the eternal as manifested by the creation, the enumeration would be long, and i should soon tire out your patience. you can understand therefore that if there are, as the misanthrope rousseau says there are, philosophers who hold in such contempt vulgar opinions that they prefer error of their own discovery to truth found out by other people, then the ancient argument, which infers the wisdom of the creator from the order of the creation, must be the object of but small esteem with them. still i for my part take this old argument for a good one, and i mean to defend it. nature is verily and indeed a marvel placed before the observation of our minds. the growth of a blade of grass, the habits of an ant, contain for an attentive observer prodigies of wisdom. a drop of dew reflecting the beams of morning, the play of light among the leaves of a tree, reveal to the poet and the artist treasures of poetry. but too often, blinded by habit, we are unable to see; and when our mind is asleep, it seems to us that the universe slumbers. a sudden flash of light can sometimes arouse us from this lethargy. if science all at once delivers up to us some one of those grand laws which reveal in thousands of phenomena the traces of one and the same mind, the astonishment of our intellect excites in our soul an emotion of adoration. when the first rays of morning light up with a pure brightness the lofty summits of our alps; when the sun at his setting stretches a path of fire along the waters of our lake, who does not feel impelled to render glory to the supreme artist? when dark cold fogs rest upon our valleys at the decline of autumn, it only needs sometimes to climb the mountain-side, in order to issue all at once from the gloomy region, and see the chain of high peaks, resplendent with light, mark themselves out upon a sky of incomparable blue. often have i given myself the delight of this grand spectacle, and always at such a time my heart has uttered spontaneously from its depths that hymn of adoration: tout l'univers est plein de sa magnificence. qu'on l'adore, ce dieu, qu'on l'invoque ã  jamais![99] such is, in the presence of nature, the spontaneous movement of the heart and of the reason. but a false wisdom obscures these clear verities by clouds of sophisms. when your heart feels impelled to render glory to god, there is danger lest importunate thoughts rise in your mind and counteract the impulse of your adoration. perhaps you have heard it said, perhaps you have read, that the accents of spiritual song, those echoes, growing ever weaker, of by-gone ages, are no longer heard by a mind enlightened by modern science. i should wish to deliver you from this painful doubt. i should wish to protect you from the fascinations of a false science. i should wish that in the view of nature, even those who have as yet no wish to adore, with st. paul, him whose invisible perfections are clearly seen when we contemplate his works, may at least feel themselves free to admire, with socrates, "the supreme god who maintains the works of creation in the flower of youth and in a vigor ever new." let us examine a few of the prejudices which it is sought to disseminate, in order to deprive of their force the reasonings of newton, and to turn us from the opinions of kepler. it is said that science leads away from god, and that faith continues to be the lot only of the ignorant. listen on this head first of all to the italian franchi. "the class of society in which infidels and sceptics especially abound is that of savants and men of letters,--men, in short, who have gone through studies, in the course of which they have certainly become acquainted with the famous demonstrations of the existence of god. but no sooner have they examined them with their own eyes, and submitted them to the criterion of their own judgment, than these demonstrations no longer demonstrate anything; these reasonings turn out to be only paralogisms."[100] here we have the thesis in its general form: to become an infidel or a sceptic, it is enough to be a well educated man. the german bã¼chner will now show us the application of this notion to the special study of nature. "at this day, our hardest laborers in the sciences, our most indefatigable students of nature, profess materialistic sentiments."[101] the same tendencies are often manifested among french writers. the author of a recent astronomical treatise, for example, draws a veil of deceitful words over the profound faith of kepler, and takes evident pleasure in throwing into relief the tokens of sympathy bestowed unfortunately by the learned laplace upon atheism.[102] here then we have open attempts to found a prejudice against religion on the authority of science; and these attempts disturb the minds of not a few. i ask two questions on this head. is it true, in fact, that modern naturalists are generally irreligious? is it possible that the science of nature, rightly considered, should lead to atheism?[103] let us begin with the question of fact; and first of all let us settle clearly the bearing and object of this discussion. i wish to destroy a prejudice, and not to create one. i am not proposing to you to take the votes of savants, in order to know whether god exists. no. though all the universities in europe should unite to vote it dark at mid-day, i should not cease on that account to believe in the sun, and that, gentlemen, in common with you all, and with the mass of my fellow-men. i have instituted a sort of inquiry in order to ascertain whether modern naturalists have in general been led to atheistical sentiments, as some would have us believe. in appealing to the recollections of my own earlier studies and subsequent reading, i have marked the names of the men best known in the various sciences, and i have inquired what religious opinions they may have publicly manifested. i will now give you briefly the result of my labor. i have left astronomy out of the question, considering that, notwithstanding the great notoriety of laplace, we have in kepler and newton a weight of authority sufficient to counterbalance that which it is desired to connect with his name. descending to the earth, we encounter first of all the general science of our globe, or geography. in this order of studies a german, ritter, enjoys an incontestable preeminence. he is called, even in france, the "creator of scientific geography." scientific geography rests for support on nearly all the sciences: it proceeds from the general results of chemistry, physics, and geology. had then the vast knowledge of ritter turned him away from god? i had read somewhere[104] that he was one of those savants who have best realized the union of science and faith. one of my friends who was personally acquainted with him has described him to me, not only as a man who adored the creator in the view of the creation, but as an amiable and zealous christian, who exerted himself to communicate to others his own convictions. from the general study of the globe, let us pass to that of the organized beings which people its surface. does botany teach the human mind to dispense with god? let us listen to linnã¦us. i open the _system of nature_,[105] and on the reverse of the title-page i read: "o lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches."[106] i turn over a few leaves, and i meet with a table which comprises, under the title, _empire of nature_, the general classification of beings. the commencement is as follows: "eternal god, all-wise and almighty! i have seen him as it were pass before me, and i remained confounded. i have discovered some traces of his footsteps in the works of the creation; and in those works, even in the least, even in those which seem most insignificant, what might! what wisdom! what inexplicable perfection!--if thou call him _destiny_, thou art not mistaken, it is he upon whom all depends. if thou call him _nature_, thou art not mistaken, it is he from whom all takes its origin. if thou call him _providence_, thou speakest truly; it is by his counsel that the universe subsists." another great naturalist, george cuvier, takes care to point out that "linnã¦us used to seize with marked pleasure the numerous occasions which natural history offered him of making known the wisdom of providence."[107] thus modern botany was founded in a spirit of piety. has it, at a later period, made any discoveries calculated to efface from the life of vegetables the marks of divine intelligence? allow me to introduce here a personal _souvenir_. i received lessons in my youth from an old man, who, having once been the teacher of de candolle, remained his friend.[108] by a rather strange academical arrangement, m. vaucher found himself set to teach us--not botany, for which he possessed both taste and genius,[109] but a science of which he knew but little, and which he liked still less. so it came to pass that a good part of the hour of lecture was often filled up with familiar conversations. these conversations took us far away from church history, which we were supposed to be learning. the misplaced botanist reverted, by a natural impulse, to his much-loved science; and i have seen him shed tears of tender emotion, in his professor's chair, as he spoke to us of the god who made the primrose of the spring, and concealed the violet under the hedge by the wayside. therefore is the recollection of that old man not only living in my memory, but also dear to my heart. still he was a savant, an enthusiastic naturalist; and, in the broad light of the nineteenth century, he felt and spoke like linnã¦us. let us pass to the study of animals. i had the wish, some years ago, to procure the best of modern treatises upon physiology. i was directed to the work of professor mã¼ller, of berlin. this book has not lost its value,--for, this very morning, a student of our faculty of sciences came to me to borrow it, by the advice of his masters. mã¼ller was a great physiologist, and he made an open profession of the christian religion. have we not the right to conclude that he believed in god? in france, i could cite more than one name in support of my thesis; i confine myself to a single fact. the attention of the scientific world has very recently been occupied with the discoveries of m. pasteur. m. pasteur has ascertained that the decomposition of organized bodies, after death, is effected by the action of small animals almost imperceptible, the germs of which the larger animals carry in themselves, as living preparatives for their interment. the design of providence reveals itself to his understanding, and he writes: "the immediate elements of living bodies would be in a manner indestructible, if from the beings which god has created were taken away the smallest, and, in appearance, the most useless. life would thus become impossible, because the return to the atmosphere and to the mineral kingdom of all that has ceased to live would be all at once suspended."[110] in other words: i have studied facts hitherto incompletely observed, and my study has revealed to me a new manifestation of that divine wisdom of which the universe bears the impression. england possesses a naturalist of the first order, whom his fellow-countrymen take a pleasure in comparing to george cuvier--professor owen. this savant lectured, a few months ago, before a numerous auditory, on the relations of religion and natural science.[111] he is fully possessed of all the information which the times afford,--is not ignorant of modern discoveries,--is, in fact, one of the princes of contemporary science. well, gentlemen, mr. owen repeats, with reference to animals, what newton was led to say by his contemplation of the heavens, and linnã¦us by his study of the plants. he is not afraid to admire with galen the marvellous wisdom which presided over the organization of living bodies. his discourse is entitled, _the power of god in his animal creation_. the more we understand, he says, the more we admire, the more we adore. he pauses in view of the marvellous productions of nature, beside which the most delicate works of human industry appear, beneath the microscope, but coarse, rough hewings; he compares our most highly finished machines to the living machines made by the hand of god, and infers that, not to discern intelligence in the relation of means to ends, necessarily implies in the mind a defect similar to that of eyes which are unable to distinguish colors. mr. owen declares that such a state of mind and feeling in a naturalist may provoke blame from some and pity from others, and remains for him, so far as he is concerned, absolutely incomprehensible. again, do the most learned chemists find in the study of the elements of matter a revelation of atheism? m. liebig, i have been told, is one of the first chemists of our epoch. he believed he had discovered an application of chemistry to agriculture, the effect of which would be to furnish a remedy to the exhaustion of the soil. his discovery turned out false, and a more attentive study of his subject led him to ascertain that the object which he was pursuing was actually realized by divine providence in a way of which he had had no suspicion. the following is his own account of this, published in 1862: "after having submitted all the facts to a new and very searching examination, i discovered the cause of my error. i had sinned against the wisdom of the creator, and i had received my just punishment. i was wishing to perfect his work, and, in my blindness, i thought that in the admirable chain of laws which preside over life at the surface of the earth, and maintain it ever in freshness, there was wanting a link which i, feeble and impotent worm, was to supply. provision had been made for this beforehand, but in a way so wonderful, that the possibility of such a law had not so much as dawned upon the human understanding."[112] here is a confession very noble in its humility; and to this chemist, who thus renders glory to god, no one of his colleagues could say: "if you had as much science as we, you would say no more about the wisdom of the creator." let us pass on to natural philosophers. i have taken a special interest in this part of my inquiry, because i had read in the productions of a literary man of paris, that modern physics have placed those at fault who defend the doctrine of the living and true god. i inquired accordingly of a man, very well able to give me the information, whether there exists in europe a natural philosopher holding a position of quite exceptional distinction. i received for reply: "you may say boldly that, by the unanimous consent of men of science, mr. faraday, in regard both to the greatness and range of his discoveries, is the first natural philosopher living." after having thus made myself sure, therefore, on this point, i took the liberty of writing to mr. faraday the following letter: "geneva, 30th october, 1863. "sir, "i have the intention of commencing shortly, at geneva, and for an auditory of men, a course of lectures designed to combat the manifestations of contemporary atheism. to this deplorable error i desire to oppose faith in god, as it has been given to the world by the gospel, faith in the heavenly father. "one of my lectures will be specially devoted to the removal of prejudices against religion which have their origin in natural science. it is said very often, and very boldly, that modern physics and modern chemistry demonstrate the unfounded character of religious beliefs. these theses are maintained at geneva as elsewhere. i should wish to reply that natural science does not of itself turn men from god, and that without being able to give faith, it confirms the faith of those who believe: this i should wish to establish by citing names invested, in science, with an incontestable and solid renown. will you, sir, authorize me to make use of your name?" mr. faraday, in reply, sent me the following letter, dated 6th nov. 1863. "sir, ...."you have a full right to make use of my name: for although i generally avoid mixing up things sacred and things profane, i have, on one occasion, written and published a passage which accords to you this right, and which i maintain. i send you a copy of it. i hope you will find nothing in any other part of my researches, to contradict or weaken in any way whatever the sense of this passage. "i beg you to transmit my best remembrances to my friend m. de la rive...." the passage thus indicated establishes a line of demarcation, very strongly (perhaps too strongly) drawn between researches of the reason and the domain of religious truth, and contains a profession of positive faith in revelation. the author affirms that he has never recognized any incompatibility between science and faith, and makes the following declaration: "even in earthly matters i reckon that 'the invisible things of god from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead.'" a literary man of paris declares to us that natural science leads away from god: one of the first savants of our time informs us that the scientific contemplation of nature renders the wisdom of god manifest. the question is one of fact. to whom shall we give our confidence? for my part, since it is natural philosophy which is in question, i rank myself on the side of the natural philosopher. we will here terminate this review. it is time, however, which fails us, not subject-matter, for continuing it. you may have noticed that the name of no one of the savants of switzerland figures in this inquiry. nevertheless our country would have furnished a rich mine for my purpose. it contains (and it is one of its best privileges) a goodly number of savants, whom the observation of the facts of matter have not caused to forget the claims of mind, and who know how to raise their souls to the author of the marvels which they study. you will understand therefore that it has not been from anxiety for my cause, but from a motive of discretion, that i have forborne to bring into this discussion the names of men in whom we have a near interest, and many of whom perhaps are present in this assembly. i will take advantage of mr. faraday's letter to make a single exception, by naming m. de la rive. more than once, and in public, we have heard him distinctly point out the place occupied by the sciences of mind in relation to the natural sciences, and render glory to the creator. and i do not think that any one, in switzerland or elsewhere, can claim to speak with disdain, in the name of the physical sciences, of the religious convictions boldly professed by our learned fellow-countryman.[113] recollect, gentlemen, that i have not undertaken to prove the existence of god, by making appeal to the authority of men of science. all i have sought to do has been to destroy a prejudice. they tell us, and scream it at us, that the best naturalists become atheists. this is not true, as i think i have shown. there do exist atheists who cultivate the natural sciences,--no doubt of the fact. but even though half the whole number of naturalists were atheists, inasmuch as other naturalists, and those some of the greatest, find in their studies new motives to adoration, we are forced to the conclusion, that the true cause why these savants repudiate religion has nothing to do with their science. we shall come to be more strongly confirmed in this opinion, if we pass now from the question of fact to considerations of sound reason. the weakness of the human mind leads it to forget the facts with which it is not occupied. all special culture of the intellect risks consequently the paralyzing a part of our faculties. hegel, lost in abstractions, persuades himself that he will be able to construct by pure reasoning the history of nature and that of the human race. a geometrician, who no longer saw in the world anything but theorems and demonstrations, asked, after the representation of a dramatic masterpiece, "and what does that prove?" a physiologist absorbed in the study of sensible phenomena says: "where is that soul they talk of? i have never seen it." these are phenomena of the same order. this infirmity of the mind, which leads certain savants to think that the ordinary subject of their studies is everything, must not be imputed to science. a man accustomed to the exclusive observation of material phenomena, may become a materialist by the effect of his mental habits, and this really happens, in fact, in too many instances; but the study in itself is not responsible for this result. let us endeavor to prove this, by clearly defining the object of the natural sciences. when the matter of a phenomenon is given to us, the understanding proposes to itself three questions: 1. how does the fact manifest itself? what is the mode of its existence? the answer gives us the law of the phenomenon. bodies fall to the ground at a determined rate of speed: the determination of this rate is the law of their fall. 2. what is the real effective power which produces the phenomenon? this is the inquiry after the cause. 3. what is the intention which presided at the production of the phenomenon? this is the search after the object, which philosophers call the final cause. what we call understanding or explaining a fact, is answering these three questions; it is finding the law, the cause, the end. this analysis was made by aristotle, and seems to have been well made. the science of nature, as it is conceived by the moderns, does not undertake to satisfy entirely the desires of the human mind. it confines itself to the first question; it classes phenomena; it then seeks their law; arrived at this, it stops. the cause and design of things remain out of the sphere of its investigations; the question of god therefore continues foreign to it. a story is told that when buonaparte expressed his astonishment that the marquis de la place could have written a large book on the system of the universe, without making any mention of the creator, the learned astronomer replied to his sovereign: "sire, i had no need of that hypothesis." the answer is admissible if we regard only the science of nature. an astronomer has no need of god in order to follow out the series of his calculations, and compare their results with the course of the stars; a chemist has no need of god in order to ascertain the simple elements combined in composite bodies; a natural philosopher has no need of god in order to determine the laws of waves of sound or of electric currents. the science of nature does not demonstrate the existence of god; still less can it deny his existence. to deny god, it would be necessary for science to demonstrate that there is no order, and consequently no cause of the order to discover; for when we point out the harmony of the universe, we manifestly prepare a basis for the argument which, from the intelligence recognized in the phenomena, will infer the intelligence of the power which governs them. to prove that there is no order would be to prove that there is no science. for any one who well understands the value of terms, the words _atheistical science_ contain a contradiction; they signify science which proves that there is no science. such, gentlemen, is the real state of the question. our savants, when they remain faithful to their method, seek to determine the laws of phenomena, and do not occupy themselves either with the first cause of nature, or with its general object; they leave the question of god on one side. whence come then the negations of naturalists? they arise in this way: those savants who succeed in strictly confining themselves within the limits of their science are rare exceptions. almost always the _man_ introduces his thoughts into the work of the savant, and the results of his study appear to him religious or irreligious, according to his views of religion. newton ends his book with a hymn to the creator; but it is not the _mathematical principles_ of nature which have revealed to him the sovereign god. he perceives the rays of his glory because he believes in him. in the same way, the atheist thinks that his researches disprove the existence of god, because god is veiled from his soul. in both cases it is a doctrine foreign to pure natural science which gives a color to its results. self-deception is very common in this matter, and in both directions. the religious mind does not understand how it is possible to contemplate the universe, and not see inscribed upon it distinctly the name of its author; and the intrusion of atheism into the sciences of observation is veiled beneath confusions of ideas which it is of importance for us to dissipate. modern science, as we have said, stops at laws, without troubling itself with causes. the laws which determine the series of facts as they offer themselves to observation express the mode of the action of the causes. there are here two ideas absolutely distinct: the power which acts, and the manner in which it acts. if the naturalist thinks that his science is everything, he must conclude that we can know nothing beyond the laws, and that an insuperable ignorance hides from our view the power of which they express the action. but he rarely succeeds in keeping this position, and deceives his reason by confounding the laws which he discovers with the causes with which his mind is not able to dispense. he says first of all with franchi, "the universe is what it is"; this is the general formula of all the truths of experience; then he adds with the same author, "it is because it is." this _because_ means nothing, or means that laws are their own causes. if it is asked, what is the cause of the motion of the stars? they will give for answer the astronomical formulã¦ which express this motion, and will think that they have explained the phenomena by stating in what way they present themselves to observation. this is a curious example of that confusion of ideas which opens the door to atheism. an english naturalist, mr. darwin, has shown that in the successive life of animal generations, the favorable variations which are produced in the organization of a being are transmitted to its descendants and insure the perpetuity of its race, while the unpropitious variations disappear because they entail the destruction of the races in which they are produced. he tells us: "this preservation of favorable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, i call natural selection."[114] what does the author understand by law? he answers: "the series of facts as it is known to us."[115] here we have the true definition of law: it is the simple expression of the series of the facts; the cause remains to be sought for. i open the book in another part. the author is speaking of the eye; and his doctrine is that the eye of the eagle was formed by the slow transformations of an extremely simple visual apparatus. there will have been then, in the development of animal existence, first of all a rudimentary eye, then an eye moderately well formed, and then the eye of the eagle, because the favorable modifications of the organ of sight will have been preserved and increased in the course of ages. such is the series of facts, such is the law; suppose we grant it. what is the cause? the optician makes our spectacles; who made the eye of the eagle, by directing the slow transformations which at length produced it? let us listen to the author: "there exists an intelligent power, and that intelligent power is natural selection, constantly on the watch for every alteration accidentally produced in the transparent layers, in order carefully to choose such of those alterations as may tend to produce a more distinct image.... natural selection will choose with infallible skill each new improvement effected."[116] natural selection is a law; a law is the series of facts; it seems that we must seek for the power which directs this series of facts; but, lo, the series of facts itself is transformed into a power--into an intelligent power--into a power which chooses with infallible skill! the confusion of ideas is complete. the mind is on a wrong scent; it concludes that the law explains everything, and has itself no need of explanation. the idea of the cause disappears, and, as auguste comte expresses it, "science conducts god with honor to its frontiers, thanking him for his provisional services."[117] this is not perhaps the idea of mr. darwin, but it is at any rate the idea of some of his disciples, as we shall see by-and-by. thus the idea of the cause is kept out of sight. let us now see the fate to which are consigned those other requirements of the reason--the eternal and the infinite. i take up dr. bã¼chner's book, and i read: "we are incapable of forming an idea, even approximately, of the _eternal_ and the _infinite_, because our mind, shut up within the limits of the senses, in what regards space and time, is quite unable to pass these bounds so as to rise to the height of these ideas." i follow the text, and thirteen lines further on, in the same page, i read, "therefore matter and space must be eternal."[118] observe well the use which this writer makes of the great ideas of the reason. is it desired to employ them to prove the existence of god? he will have nothing to do with them. is the object in question to deny god's existence? he makes use of them; and all in the same page. this is coarse work, no doubt, and dr. bã¼chner damages his cause; but, under forms, often more subtle and more intelligent, the same sophism turns up in all systems of materialism.[119] it is affirmed that we have no real idea of the infinite, and it is sought at the same time to beguile the need which reason feels of this idea by applying it to matter. pray do not suppose that i am here attacking the natural sciences, in the interest of metaphysics. i am not attacking but defending them. i am endeavoring, as far as in me lies, to avenge them from the outrages which are offered to them by materialism, while it seeks to cover with their noble mantle its own shameful nakedness. naturalists on the one hand, and theologians and philosophers on the other, are too often at war. they are men, and as nothing human is foreign to them, they are not unacquainted either with proud prepossessions, or with jealous rivalries, or with the miserable struggles of envy: with these things the passions are chargeable. but never render the sciences responsible for the errors of their representatives. take away human frailties, and you shall see harmony established; the study of matter will thus agree with the study of mind, and the idea of nature with the idea of god. you will see all the sciences rise together in a majestic harmony. i say rise, and i say it advisedly; for the sciences also form a part of that golden chain which should unite the earth to heaven. the assertion that the science of nature leads away from god, expresses nothing but a prejudice. it is not true in fact, and on principles of right reason it is impossible: the demonstration is complete. atheism is a philosophy for which the natural sciences are in no degree responsible. we shall not undertake here the general discussion of this philosophy. let us confine ourselves to the examination of the pretence which it puts forward to find a new support in the results of modern science. the nineteenth century bestows particular attention upon history, and it is not only to the annals of the human race that it directs its investigations. geology and palã¦ontology dive into the bowels of the earth in order to ask of the ground which carries us testimony as to what it carried of old. astronomy goes yet further. it endeavors to conjecture what was the condition of our planet before the appearance of the first living being. it remarks that the sun is not fixed in the heavens, and that our earth does not twice travel over the same line in its annual revolutions. it appears that stars are seen in course of formation; it is suspected that some have wholly disappeared. nature is not fixed, but is undergoing modifications--lives, in fact. the actual state of the universe is but a momentary phase in a development which supposes thousands of ages in the past, and seems to presage thousands more in the future. these conceptions are the result of solid and incontestable discoveries. they have disturbed men's minds, but what is their legitimate import? why, newton's argument receives new force from them. from a blind metaphysical necessity, everywhere and always the same, said this great man, no variation could spring. the more it is demonstrated that the universe is in course of development and modification, the more clearly comes into view the necessity of the supreme power which is the cause of its modifications, and of the infinite intelligence which is directing them to their end. this appears to be solid reasoning, and nevertheless atheism has endeavored to strike its roots in the ground of modern discoveries. it does this in the following way. if the universe as it is, with the infinite variety of beings which people it and the marvellous relations which connect these beings mutually together, could be shown to have sprung all at once from nothing, or to have emerged from chaos at a given instant, in its full harmony, the boldest mind would not venture to regard this miracle of intelligence as the product of chance. but modern science, it is said, no longer admits of this simple explanation of things: "god created the heavens and the earth." this phrase is henceforward admissible only in the catechism. we know that all has been produced by slow degrees, starting from weak and shapeless rudiments. this grand marvel of the universe was not made all of one piece. man is of recent date; quadrupeds at a certain epoch did not exist; animals had a beginning, and plants also. the earth was once bare. formerly, it was perhaps only a gaseous mass revolving in space. in course of time, matter was condensed; in time it was organized in living cellules; in time these cellules became shapeless animals; in time these animals were perfected. time appears therefore to be the "universal factor"; and for the ancient formula, "the universe is the creation of god," we are able to substitute this other formula, the result, most assuredly, of modern science, "the universe is the work of time." in all this, gentlemen, i have invented nothing. all i have done has been to put into form the theory, the elements of which i have met with in various contemporary productions.[120] they bewilder us by heaping ages upon ages, and in order to explain nature they substitute the idea of time for the ideas of power and intelligence. they seem to suppose that what is produced little by little is sufficiently explained by the slowness of its formation. these aberrations of thought have recently been manifested in a striking manner on the occasion of the publication of mr. darwin's book. this naturalist has given his attention to the transformation of organized types. he has discovered that types vary more than is generally supposed; and that we probably take simple varieties for distinct species. his discoveries will, i suppose, leave traces strongly marked enough in the history of science. but mr. darwin is not merely an observer; he is a theorist, dominated evidently by a disposition to systematize. now minds of this character, which render, no doubt, signal services to the sciences of observation, are all like pyrrhus, who, gazing on andromache as he walked by her side, still quaffed bewildering pleasure from the view.[121] their theory is their lady-love; they love it passionately, and passionate love always strongly excites the imagination. mr. darwin then has put forth the hypothesis, that not only all animals, but all vegetables too, might have come from one and the same primitive type, from one and the same living cellule. this supposes that there was at the beginning but one single species, an elementary and very slightly defined organization, from which all that lives descended in the way of regular generation. the oak and the wild boar which eats its acorn, the cat and the flea which lodges in its fur, have common ancestors. the family, originally one, has been divided under the influence of soil, climate, food, moisture, mode of life, and by virtue of the natural selection which has preserved and accumulated the favorable modifications which have occurred in the organism. mr. darwin, i repeat, appears to me a man strongly disposed to systematize, but i do not on this account conclude that he is mistaken. the question is, what opinion we must form of his doctrine on principles of experimental science? professor owen[122] does not appear to allow it any value; m. agassiz does not admit it at all;[123] and, without crossing the ocean, we might consult m. pictet,[124] who would reply, that judging by the experimental data which we have at present, this doctrine is an hypothesis not confirmed by the observation of facts. we will leave this controversy to naturalists. what will remain eventually in their science of the system under discussion? the answer belongs to the future enlightened by experience and by the employment of a sage induction. what is the relation existing between these systematic views and the question of the creator? this is the sole object of our study. the opinions of the english naturalist are very dubious as to the vital questions of religious philosophy. i have pointed out to you the confusion of his ideas in the use which he makes of natural selection. in the text of his book, he admits, in the special case of life, the intervention of the creator for the production of the first living being, and he does not speak of man, except in an incidental sentence, which only attentive readers will take any notice of. if we do not take the liberty to look a little below the surface, we must say that mr. darwin remains on the ground of natural history. therefore i spoke to you of the aberrations of philosophic thought which have been produced _on the occasion_ of his book. these aberrations are the following: first of all, natural selection has been taken for a cause, or rather as dispensing with the necessity for a cause, by means of a confusion of ideas for which the author is responsible. the system has therefore been understood as implying, that organized beings were formed without plan, without design, by the mere action of material causes, and as the result of modifications casual at first, and slowly accumulated. divine intelligence and creative power thus seemed to be disappearing from the organization of the universe, and to disappear especially before the lapse of time and the infinitely slow action of physical causes. but while the system was taking wing, and soaring aloft, lo! the creator at the commencement of things, and man conceived as a distinct being at the highest point of nature, have risen up as two idols and paralyzed its flight. to mr. darwin, however, have speedily succeeded disciples compromising their master's authority, and addressing him in some such language as this: "you, our master, do not fully follow out your own opinions; you strain off gnats,[125] and swallow camels. it is not more difficult to see in the living cellule a transformation of matter, and in man a transformation of the monkey, than to point out in a sponge the ancestor of the horse. cast down your idols, and confess that matter developed in course of time, under favorable circumstances, is the origin of all that is." matter, time, circumstances--these things have taken the place of god. this, gentlemen, is a philosophy, properly so called, which vainly pretends to find a support in the observation of facts. geoffroy saint-hilaire, the rival of cuvier, set forth views analogous to those which mr. darwin has lately reproduced. but in his replies to the attacks which were made upon his system, he affirmed that his theory offered "one of the most glorious manifestations of creative power, and an additional motive for admiration, gratitude, and love."[126] two different interpretations may therefore be given to the system. i wish to show you that these interpretations proceed in all cases from considerations external to the system. the system in itself, as a theory of natural history, could not in any way affect injuriously the great interests of spiritual truth. in order solidly to establish this assertion, i will suppose the hypotheses of the most advanced disciples of mr. darwin to have been verified by experimental science. i take for granted that it has been proved that all plants and all animals have descended, by way of regular generation, from living cellules originally similar; and that the material particles of the globe, at a given moment, drew together to form these cellules. and now where do we stand? will god henceforward be a superfluous hypothesis? do the atheistical consequences which it is desired to draw from this doctrine proceed logically from it? most certainly not! i observe first of all that there exists a great question relative to the beginning of things. matter is perfected and organized in process of time--but whence comes matter itself? is it also formed little by little in process of time? does non-existence become existence little by little? so it is said in the preface to the french translation of mr. darwin's book. but this appertains to high metaphysics; and i pass on. if time is the factor of all progress by a necessary law, this necessity must be everywhere the same. have the elements of matter all the same age? if so, why have some followed the law of progress, and others not? why has this mud and this coal remained mud and coal, age after age, while these other molecules have risen, in the hierarchy of the universe, to the dignity of life? why have these mollusks remained mollusks throughout the succession of their generations, while others, happily transformed, have gradually mounted the steps of the ladder up to man? whence comes this aristocracy of nature? are the beings which we call inferior only the cadets of the universe, and are they too in their turn to mount all the steps of the ladder? must we admit that there is going on the continual production, not only of living cellules which are beginning new series of generations, but also of new matter, which, setting out from the most rudimentary condition, is beginning the evolution which is to raise it into life? they do not venture to put forth theses of this nature, and, in order to account for the diversity of things, recourse is had to circumstances. the diversity of circumstances explains the diversity of developments. but whence can come the variety of circumstances in a world where all is produced in the way of fatal necessity, and without the intervention of a will and an intelligence? this is the remark of newton. study carefully the systems of materialism: their authors declare that to have recourse to god in order to account for the universe is a puerile conception unworthy of science, because all explanation must be referred to fixed and immutable laws; and then you will be for ever surprising them in the very act of the adoration of _circumstances_. convenient deities these, which they summon to their aid in cases which they find embarrassing. but we will not insist on these preliminary considerations. we have allowed, for argument's sake, that all organized beings have proceeded by means of generation from cellules presenting to sensible observation similar appearances. natural history cannot prove, nor even attempt to prove, more. let us transport ourselves, in thought, to the moment at which the highest points of the continents were for the first time emerging from the primitive ocean. we see, on the parts of the soil which are half-dried, and in certain conditions of heat and electricity, particles of matter draw together and form those rudiments of organism which are called living cellules. these cellules have the marvellous faculty of self-propagation, and the faculty, not less marvellous, of transmitting to their posterity the favorable modifications which they have undergone. generations succeed one another; gradually they form separate branches. new characteristics show themselves; the organisms become complicated, and becoming complicated they separate. the vegetable is distinguished from the animal; the plant which will become the palm-tree is distinguished from the oak which is in course of formation, and the ancestor of the future bird is already different from that of the fish. we follow up this great spectacle. the ages pass, they pass by thousands and by millions, they pass by tens of millions. we need not be stinting in our allowance of time; our imagination will be tired of conceiving of it sooner than thought of supplying it. and at what shall we have arrived at last? at the universe as it has been for some few thousands of years past; at the world with its vegetables of a thousand forms, grouped by classes and series, with the families of animals, with the relations of animals to plants, with the unnumbered harmonies of nature. let us choose out one particular, on which to fix our attention. shall it be a she-goat- upstretched on fragrant cytisus to browse? this will suit our purpose, although the cytisus, unless i am mistaken, has no perfume except in m. de lamartine's verses. let us fix our attention on a cytisus with its yellow clusters hanging down, and the goat bending its pliant branches as it browses on the foliage. here is a very small detail in the ample lap of nature. let us come closer, and to help our ignorance, let us provide ourselves with a naturalist who will answer for us the questions suggested by this simple spectacle. and what have we now before us? the various relations of the animal's organization to the vegetables on which it feeds. in the organization and functions of these two living beings, in the equilibrium and movements of their frames, in the circulation of sap and of blood, we have the application of the most secret laws of mechanism, of physics, and of chemistry. then again, in the relations which the animal and the plant sustain with the ground which bears them, with the air they breathe, with the sun which enlightens them, with heat and light, with the moisture of the air and its electricity--in all this we see the universal relations which connect all the various parts of the wide universe with each one of its minutest details. in this simple spectacle we have, in fact, reciprocal relations, the balance of things, the harmony which maintains the universal life--intelligence, in short, in the organization of beings, in the characteristics which divide them, in the classes which unite them, in the relations of these classes amongst themselves;--wonders of intelligent design, of which the sciences we are so proud of are spelling out, letter by letter, line after line, the inexhaustible abysses: this is what we find everywhere. let us now come back to our primitive cellules. all the living beings which people the surface of the globe are composed materially of some of the elements of the earth's substance. the birth therefore of the first living beings could only offer to the view the bringing together of some of the elements of the soil; this is not the matter in question. the primitive cellules were to all appearance alike. weighed in scales, opened by the scalpel, placed beneath the microscope, they would have offered no appreciable difference; i grant it: it is the supposition we have agreed to make. therefore they were identical, say you. i deny it, and here is my proof: if the cellules had been identical, they would not have given, in the successive development of their generations, the diverse beings which people the world, and the relations which unite them. alike to your eyes, the cellules differed therefore by a concealed property which their development brought to light. you have told me as a matter of history how the organization of the world was manifested by slow degrees; you have given me no account of the cause of that organization. it is said in reply: "we do know the origin of those developments which you refer to a supposed intelligence. the living beings are transformed by the action of food, climate, soil, mode of life. they experience slight variations in the first instance; but these variations are established, and increase; and where you see a plan, types, and species, there is really only the result of modifications slowly accumulated. nature disposes of periods which have no limit, and everything has come at its proper time, in the course of ages." they are always proposing to us to accept of time as the substitute for intelligence. i am tempted to say with alcestis: time in this matter, sirs, has nought to do.[127] you know what intelligence is; you know it by knowing yourself. is there, or is there not, intelligence in the universe? allow me to reproduce some old questions: if a machine implies intelligence, does the universe imply none? if a telescope implies intelligence in the optician, does the eye imply none in its author? the production of a variety of the camelia, or of a new breed of swine, demands of the gardener and the breeder the patient and prolonged employment of the understanding; and are our entire flora and fauna to be explained without any intervention of mind? and if there is intelligence in the universe, is this intelligence a chemical result of the combination of molecules? is it a physical result of caloric or of electricity? it is in vain that you give to material agents an unlimited time; what has time to do here? whether the world as it now exists arose out of nothing, or whether it was slowly formed during thousands of ages, the question remains the same. with matter and time, you will not succeed in creating intelligence; this were an operation of transcendent alchemy utterly beyond our power. in the theory of _slow causes_, the adjective ends by devouring the substantive; it seems that by dint of becoming slow the causes become superfluous. a breath of reason upsets, like a house of cards, the structures of this erring and misnamed science. time has a relative meaning and value. we reckon duration as long or short, by taking human life as our measure. but they tell of insects which are born in the morning, arrive at mature age at mid-day, and only reach the evening if they are patriarchs of their race. is it not easy to conceive of beings organized for an existence such that our centuries would be moments with them, and centuries heaped together one of our hours? suppose one of these beings to be contemplating our geological periods, and slow causes will to him appear rapid causes, and the question of intelligence will be the same for him as for us. it is manifest that the attempt is being made to restore the worship of the old _chronos_, to whom the ancients had erected temples. let us look the idol in the face. time appears at first to our imagination as the great destroyer. he is armed with a scythe, and passes gaunt and bald over the ruins of all that has lived. when he lifts up his great voice and cries- mighty nations famed in story into darkness i have hurled,- gone their myriads and their glory (lo! ye follow) from the world: my dark shade for ever covers stars i quenched as on they rolled:-the beautiful, and frightened girl in the song is not singular as she exclaims in her terror: ah! we're young, and we are lovers, spare us, reaper gaunt and old![128] such is the first impression which time makes upon us. but birth succeeds to death. from an inexhaustible spring, nature sends gushing forth new products and new developments. youth full of hope trips lightly over the ground, without a thought that the ground it treads on is the vast cemetery of all past generations. if we fix our thoughts on the permanence of life and the manifestations of progress, time appears to us as the great producer. destroyer of all that is, producer of all that is to be, time has thus a double form. it is a mysterious tide, ever rising and ever receding; it is the power of death, and it is the power of life. all this, gentlemen, is for the imagination. in the view of a calm reason, time is the simply negative condition of all development, as space is the negative condition of all motion. just as without bodies and forces infinite space could not produce any motion; so, without the action of causes, ages heaped on ages could neither produce nor destroy a single atom of matter, or a single element of intelligence. time is the scene of life and of death; it neither causes to be born, nor to die. the struggle which we are now maintaining against the philosophers of matter is as ancient as science, and was going on, nearly in the same terms, more than two thousand three hundred years ago. about five hundred years before the christian era was born at clazomenã¦, a city of ionia, the son of eubulus, who was to become famous by the name of anaxagoras. he fixed his abode at athens, and the athenian people gave him a glorious surname,--they called him _intelligence_. on what account? there were taught at that time doctrines which explained the world by the transformations of matter rising progressively to life and thought, without the intervention of a mind. the philosopher anaximander gave out that the first animals had their origin in the watery element, and became modified by living in drier regions, so that man was only a fish slowly transformed. "i am quite willing to grant it," replied anaxagoras; "but for your transformations there must be a transforming principle. matter is the material of the world, no doubt; but it could not produce universal order except as ruled by intelligence." the athenians admired this discovery. for us, gentlemen, the discovery has been made a long while. let us not then be talking in this discussion about modern science and the lights of the age. our natural history is much advanced as compared with that of the greeks; but the vital question has not varied. does nature manifest the intervention of a directing mind, or do we see in it only a fortuitous aggregation of atoms? intelligence radiates from the face of nature, and it is in vain that men endeavor to veil its splendor. nevertheless i consent to forget all that has just been said, in order to intrench myself in an argument, which of itself is sufficient for the object we have in view to-day. our object is to prove that material science does not contain the explanation of all the realities of the universe. even though they had succeeded in persuading us that there is no intelligence in nature, it would still be necessary to explain the origin of that intelligence which is in us, and the existence of which cannot be disputed. whence proceeds the mind which is in ourselves? let us first of all give our attention to a strange contradiction. those savants who make of the human soul a simple manifestation of matter, are the same who wish to explain nature without the intervention of the divine intelligence. in order to keep out of view the design which is displayed in the organization of the world, they take a pleasure in finding nature at fault, and in pointing out its imperfections. still, they do not pretend to be able to do better than nature; they would not undertake the responsibility of correcting the laws of life, and regulating the course of the seasons. they do not say, "we could make a better world," but "we can imagine a world more perfect than our own." now what is our answer? simply this: "you are right." nature is not the supreme perfection, and therefore we will not worship it. how admirable soever be the visible universe, we have the faculty of conceiving more and better. we understand that the atmosphere might be purified, so that the tempest should not engulf the ships, nor the thunderbolt produce the conflagration. we dream of mountain-heights more majestic than the loftiest summits of our alps, of waters more transparent than the pure crystal of our lakes, of valleys fresher and more peaceful than the loveliest which hide among our hills. the spectacle of nature awakens in us the powers of thought, and the sentiment of beauty draws us on to the pursuit of an ideal which surpasses all realities. nature is not perfect: let us be forward to acknowledge it, and let us draw from the fact its legitimate consequence. the stream cannot rise higher than its source. if man conceives an ideal superior to nature, he is not himself the mere product of nature. by what strange contradiction is it affirmed at once that our spirit overpasses the bounds of all the realities which encompass it, and that it has not a source more elevated than those realities? listen to a thought of that weighty writer montesquieu:[129] "those who have said that a blind fatality has produced all the effects which we see in the world, have said a great absurdity; for what greater absurdity than a blind fatality which should have produced intelligent beings?" without restricting ourselves to this simple and solid argument, let us see how they will explain man by nature. for this end, we must examine the theory of the perfected monkey, which, introduced to us by the lectures of professor vogt and the spirited rejoinders of m. de rougemont, made a great noise as it descended a short time ago from the mountains of neuchã¢tel.[130] a celebrated orator said one day to an assembly of frenchmen: "i am long, gentlemen; but it is your own fault: it is your glory that i am recounting." have not i the right to say to you: "i am long, gentlemen, but it is worth while to be so; it is our own dignity which is in question." man is a perfected monkey! i have three preliminary observations to make before i proceed to the direct examination of this theory. in the first place, this definition transgresses the first and most essential rules of logic. we must always define what is unknown by what is known. this is an elementary principle. what a man is, i know. to think, to will, to enjoy, to hope, to fear, are functions of the mental life. these words answer to clear ideas, because those ideas result directly from our personal consciousness. but what is the soul of a monkey? the nature of animals is a mystery, one which is perhaps incapable of solution, and which, in all cases is wrapped in profound darkness, because the animal appears to us an intermediate link between the mechanism of nature and the functions of the spiritual life, which are the only two conceptions we have that are really clear and distinct. in taking the monkey therefore as our point of departure for the definition of man, we are defining what is clear by what is obscure. my second remark is this: if it is affirmed that there is but one species, including all the animals and man, so that man is only a monkey modified, and the monkey, in its turn, an inferior animal modified; when once we have established the reality of man we arrive at this result: all animals whatsoever are only inferior developments of humanity, living foetuses which, without having come to their full term, have nevertheless the faculty of living and reproducing themselves. the animal then is an incomplete man; a theory which raises great difficulties, but which is more serious and more easy to understand than the doctrine which would have man to be a consummation of the monkey. in fact,--and this is my third observation,--when the theory which i am examining is adopted, it must be carried out to its consequences, and the bearing of it clearly seen. man, it is said, is the consummation of the monkey. the monkey is an improvement upon some quadruped or other, and this quadruped is an improvement upon another, and so on. we must descend, in an inevitable logical series, to the most elementary manifestations of life, and thence, finally, to matter. if it is not admitted that pure matter is a man in a state of torpor, it must be admitted that man is a _mã©lange_ of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, azote, phosphorus--a _mã©lange_ which has been brought little by little to perfection. such is the final inference from the doctrine which we are examining; and there are theorists who deduce it clearly. now what is it that goes on in the minds of these savants? when the object is to banish god from nature, the creative intelligence is resolved into thousands of ages. when it is desired to get rid in man of the reality of mind, they seek to resolve the human intelligence into a long series of modifications which have caused life to spring from matter, superior animals from simpler organisms, and man from the animal. do not allow yourselves to be caught in this trap. maintain firmly, that, whatever the degree of intelligence, of will, of spiritual essence, which may exist in animals, if that element is really found in them, it demands a cause, and cannot, without an enormous confusion of ideas, be regarded as a mere perfecting of matter. in fact, a thing in perfecting itself, realizes continually more fully its own proper idea, and does not become another thing. a perfect monkey would be of all monkeys the one which is most a monkey, and would not be a man. but let us leave the animals in the darkness in which they abide for our minds, and let us speak of what for us is less obscure. our spiritual existence is a fact; it is of all facts the one which is best known to us; it is the fact without which no other fact would exist for us. and whence proceeds our spirit? to this question, natural history has no answer. it is easy to see this, though we grant once again to natural history, when made the most of by our adversaries, all that it can pretend to claim. suppose it proved, that in the historical development of nature, man has a monkey for his mother. i will grant it, and grant it quite seriously in order to ascertain what will be the influence of this hypothesis upon the problem on which we are engaged. if all monkeys were fossils, and if we had a natural history, also fossil, setting forth to us the customs and habits of these animals; if the savages that are said to be the nearest neighbors to monkeys were all fossils; we should find ourselves in presence of a progressive and continued development of beings, and, for an inattentive mind, all would be easily explained by the slow and continued action of time. but this is not the case. all the elements of nature are before our eyes, from inorganic matter up to man. we do not see that time suffices for savages to become civilized, and still less for monkeys to become men. i was, in the spring of this year, in the _jardin des plantes_ at paris, musing on the question which we are discussing, and i took a good look at the monkeys. come now, i said to myself, canst thou recognize them as thine ancestors? the question was badly put. the monkeys are not our ancestors, inasmuch as they are living at the same time with us; they can only be our cousins, and it would seem that they are the eldest branch, as they have best preserved the primitive type. but let us speak more seriously. the races of monkeys have lived as long or longer than we: it is neither time nor climate which has made men of them. recollect, i pray you, that the words 'time' and 'progress' explain nothing. there must have occurred favorable circumstances to transform the earth's substance into living cellules, and the living cellules into plants clearly marked, and into animals properly so called; and in the same way there must have been a propitious circumstance to transform the monkey into man. i think so, in fact; and this propitious circumstance well deserves to be studied with attention. man presents characteristics which distinguish him profoundly from the animal races: no one disputes it. he possesses speech; he is capable of religion; he exhibits the varied phenomena of civilization, while the animals succeed one another generations after generations in the unrecorded obscurity of a life for ever the same. suppose we admit that human phenomena presented themselves at first in a very elementary form; in rudiments of language and rudiments of religion,--although the historical sciences do not quite give this result:--still suppose the case that at a given moment a branch of the monkey species presented the germ, as little developed as you please, but real, of new phenomena. one variety of the monkey species has been endowed with speech, has become religious, capable of civilization, and the other varieties of the species have not offered the same characteristics, although they have had the same number of ages in which to develop themselves. observe well now my process of reasoning. remark attentively whether i oppose theories to facts, whether i substitute oratorical declamations for arguments. i grant the hypotheses best calculated, as commonly thought, to contradict my theses. i assume that natural history demonstrates by solid proofs that the first man was carried in the bosom of a monkey; and i ask: what is the circumstance which set apart in the animal species a branch which presented new phenomena? what is the cause? that monkey-author of our race which one day began to speak in the midst of his brother-monkeys, amongst whom thenceforward he had no fellow; that monkey, that stood erect in the sense of his dignity; that, looking up to heaven, said, my god! and that, retiring into himself, said: i!--that monkey which, while the female monkeys continued to give birth to their young, had sons by the partner of his life and pressed them to his heart; that monkey--what shall we say of it? what climate, what soil, what regimen, what food, what heat, what moisture, what drought, what light, what combination of phosphorus, what disengagement of electricity, separated from the animal races, not only man, but human society? humanity with its combats, its falls, its risings again, its sorrows and its joys, its tears and its smiles; humanity with its arts, its sciences, its religion, its history in short, its history and its hopes of immortality? that monkey, what shall we say of it? do you not see that the breath of the spirit passed over it, and that god said unto it: behold, thou art made in mine image: remember now thy father who is in heaven? do you not see that though we grant everything to the extreme pretensions of naturalists, the question comes up again whole and entire? when by dint of confusions and sophisms such theorists imagine that they have extinguished the intelligence which radiates from nature, that intelligence again confronts them in man, and there, as in an impregnable fortress, sets all attacks at defiance. mark then where lies the real problem. whether the eternal god formed the body of the first man directly from the dust of the earth; or whether, in the slow series of ages, he formed the body of the first man of the dust of the earth, by making it pass through the long series of animality--the question is a grave one, but it is of secondary importance. the first question is to know whether we are merely the ephemeral product of the encounter of atoms, or whether there is in us an essence, a nature, a soul, a reality in short, with which may connect itself another future than the dissolution of the sepulchre; whether there remains another hope than annihilation as the term of our latest sorrows, or, for the aspirants after fame, only that evanescent memory which time bears away with everything beside. this is the question. do not allow it to be put out of sight beneath details of physiology and researches of natural history, which can neither settle, nor so much as touch the problem. if therefore you fall in with any one of these philosophers of matter, bid him take this for all your answer: "there is one fact which stands out against your theory and suffices to overthrow it: that fact is--myself!" and since, to have the better of materialism, it is sufficient to understand well what is one thought of the mind, one throb of the spiritual heart, one utterance of the conscience,--add boldly with corneille's medea: i,--i say,--and it is enough. in fact, nature does not explain man, and to this conclusion has tended all that i have said to you to-day. footnotes: [97] _harmonices mundi, libri quinque._ [98] _philosophiã¦ naturalis principia mathematica._ [99] the whole universe is full of his magnificence. may this god be adored and invoked for ever! [100] _le rationalisme_, page 19. [101] _force et matiã¨re_, page 262. [102] _les mondes causeries astronomiques_ by guillemin; see p. 122 (3rd edition), where kepler is described as an intelligence "penetrated by a profound faith in nature and exalted by a noble pride." see also pages 327 and 336. [103] the question discussed in these pages must not be confounded with that of the relations between the science of nature and the documents of revelation. whether nature can be explained without god is one question. whether geology is in accordance with the language of the book of genesis is another question, as regards both its nature and its importance. this latter subject does not come within the scope of these lectures. i will merely call attention to the fact, that if nature and the sacred text are fixed elements, this is not the case with the interpretations of theologians, and the results of geology. it is difficult to pronounce upon the exact relation of two quantities more or less indeterminate. [104] in the writings of m. de rougemont, if i am not mistaken. [105] _systema naturã¦._ [106] ps. civ. 24. [107] _biographie universelle._ [108] _a. p. de candolle_, by a. de la rive, pp. 12 and 13. [109] m. vaucher's principal title to scientific distinction is his _histoire des conferves d'eau douce_, genã¨ve, an xi (1803), 4â°. [110] _comptes rendus de l'acadã©mie des sciences_ of 20 april, 1863, page 738. [111] exeter hall lectures--_the power of god in his animal creation_, pamphlet in 12mo. this remarkable lecture contains a twofold protest--against the blindness of those savants who fail to recognize the presence of god in nature; and against the pretensions of those theologians who attack the certain results of the study of nature, relying upon texts more or less accurately interpreted. [112] _chemistry applied to agriculture and to physiology_ (in german). seventh edition. introd. page 69. [113] since these words were spoken, m. de la rive has been named an associated member of the institute of france (academy of sciences), and thus elevated to the first of scientific dignities. it might be shown, i believe, that the greater number of the eight associates of the academy of sciences to be found in the world, make profession of their faith in god the creator, the almighty and holy one. the silence which others may have preserved on the subject would, moreover, be no authority for concluding that they do not share in beliefs and sentiments which they have not had the occasion perhaps of publicly expressing. [114] _on the origin of species_, page 81. fifth edition. [115] _on the origin of species_. the text is--"the _necessary_ series of facts;" but it would be to do the writer wrong to impute to him the idea that observation reveals to us what is _necessary_, in the philosophical import of the word. [116] _on the origin of species._ [117] caro, _l'idã©e de dieu_, page 47. [118] _force et matiã¨re_, page 181. [119] the bã¼chner proceeding is found again pretty exactly in _les mondes_ of m. amã©dã©e guillemin. this writer affirms (page 60 of the third edition) that science does not approach metaphysical questions; and asserts in the same page, ten lines further on, that astronomical experience leads our reason to the idea of _the eternity of the universe_. after that, he may laugh, if he will, at _lovers of the absolute_. [120] see in particular the _revue des deux mondes_, passim. [121] s'enivrait en marchant du plaisir de la voir. [122] see the lecture above mentioned. [123] _lettres sur les etats-unis d'amã©rique_, by lieutenant-colonel ferri pisani, page 400.--letter of 25 sept. 1861. [124] on the origin of species, in the _archives des sciences de la bibliothã¨que universelle_, march, 1860. [125] vous coulez des moucherons. [126] in his _principes de philosophie zoologique_, a collection of answers made by geoffroy, in the discussions of the _acadã©mie des sciences_, in 1830. [127] voyons, messieurs, le temps ne fait rien ã  l'affaire. [128] sur cent premiers peuples cã©lã¨bres, j'ai plongã© cent peuples fameux, dans un abã®me de tã©nã¨bres oã¹ vous disparaã®trez comme eux. j'ai couvert d'une ombre ã©ternelle des astres ã©teints dans leur cours. --ah! par pitiã©, lui dit ma belle, vieillard, ã©pargnez nos amours! [129] _esprit des lois_, bk. i. chap. 1. [130] _leã§ons sur l'homme_, by carl vogt (lectures delivered during the winter of 1862-1863, at neuchã¢tel and at chaux-de-fonds), 1 vol. 8vo. paris, 1865.--_l'homme et le singe_, by frã©dã©ric de rougemont, pamphlet, 12mo. neuchã¢tel, 1863. lecture v. _humanity._ (at geneva, 1st. dec., 1863.) gentlemen, man has need of god. if he be not fallen into the most abject degradation, he does not succeed in extinguishing the instinct which leads him to inquire after his creator. a false wisdom labors to still the cravings which the truth alone can satisfy; but false wisdom remains powerless, and betrays itself continually by some outrageous contradiction. here is a curious example of this: in a book which was famous in the last century, and which was called the gospel of atheism,[131] the baron d'holbach explains as follows the existence of the universe: "the universe, that vast assemblage of all that exists, everywhere presents to our view only matter and motion.--nature is the grand whole which results from the assemblage of different material substances, from their different combinations, and from the different motions which we see in the universe."[132] here is a clear doctrine: all that exists, the soul included, is nothing but matter in motion. i pass from the beginning to the end of the work, and i arrive at this conclusion: "o nature! sovereign of all beings! and ye, her adorable daughters, virtue, reason, truth! be ye for ever our sole divinities; to you it is that the incense and the homage of the earth are due."[133] if we try to translate this sort of hymn in accordance with the express definitions of the author, we shall obtain the following result: "o matter in motion! sovereign of all material substances in motion! and ye, virtue, reason, truth, who are various names of matter which moves, be ye the only divinities of that moving matter which is ourselves." yet this author was no blockhead. what then passed in his mind? he laid down the thesis of materialism: bodies in motion are the only reality. but he is all the while a man. the need for adoration is not destroyed in his soul, and he deceives himself. he defines nature as consisting wholly of matter, and when he sets himself to worship it, he entirely forgets his definition. this is not on his part a piece of philosophical jugglery, but the manifestation of the real condition of our nature, which is always giving the lie, in one direction or another, to erroneous systems. the power of wholly maintaining himself in error has not been granted to man. he who denies god is always deifying something; and all worship which is not that of the eternal and infinite mind is stultified by glaring contradictions. here is a recent example of this: we were not a little surprised a short time since to see m. ernest renan deny clearly enough the immortality of our persons, and, in the opening of the very book in which this negation appears, to find him invoking the soul of his sister at rest with god.[134] elsewhere, the same writer says that the infinite being does not exist, that absolute reason and absolute justice exist only in humanity, and he concludes his exposition of these views by an invocation of the heavenly father.[135] the baron d'holbach had put eight hundred and thirty-nine pages between his materialistic definition of the universe and his invocation of nature. now-a-days everything goes faster; and m. renan places but a few pages of the _revue des deux mondes_ between his denial of god and his prayer to the heavenly father. with this difference, which is to the advantage of the writer of the eighteenth century, the process is absolutely the same. the philosopher declares god to be an imaginary being, and the future life an illusion; but the man protests, and, by a touching illusion of the heart, the man who in his system of doctrine has neither god nor hope, finds that he has a sister in the realms eternal, and a father in the heavens. it is impossible not to see, especially in literary works destined to a success of fashion, the seductive influence of art, the precautions of prudence, the concessions made to public opinion; but we cannot wholly explain the incredible contradictions of the holbachs and renans, without allowing full weight to that need for god which shows itself even in the farthest wanderings of human thought by sudden and abrupt returns. the illusion which deifies matter in motion is gross enough. it belongs only to minds which cicero called, in the aristocratic pride of a roman gentleman, the plebeians of philosophy.[136] it requires, in fact, no great reflection to understand that truth, beauty, and goodness are neither atoms nor a certain movement of atoms. the attempt, which is to form the subject of our study to-day, that of deifying man, is a far more subtle one. let us first of all inquire into the origin of the strange worship which humanity accords to itself. nature, considered separately from the beings which receive sensible impressions from it, has neither heat nor light. in a world peopled by the blind, light would have no name. if all men were entirely paralyzed as to their sensations, the idea of heat would not exist. light and heat, regarded as existing in matter itself, without reference to sensitive organizations, are, in the opinion of our natural philosophers, only determinate movements. in the same way, if nature were without any spectator whatever, beauty would not exist; if there were nowhere any intelligence, truth would no longer be. in the same way again, if there were no wills, goodness, which is nothing else than the law of the will, would be a word deprived of all meaning. beauty expresses the object of the perceptions of the soul. truth denotes the quality of the judgments of intelligences. goodness (i speak of moral goodness) expresses a certain direction of the free will. there exists no means of causing to proceed from nature, or from matter, the attributes of the spiritual being. this is only done by imaginary transformations, by a course of arrant juggling. the flame does not feel its own heat, light does not see itself, the planets know nothing of the laws of kepler. materialism is the result of a modesty wholly misplaced which leads man to forget himself, in order to attribute gratuitously to nature realities which exist only in spiritual beings connected with nature by a marvellous harmony. in order therefore to account for the universe, we must raise ourselves above the atom in motion, and penetrate into a higher world where truth, beauty, goodness become the objects of thought. truth, beauty, goodness conduct the mind to god, their eternal source. but there is a philosophy which endeavors to stop midway in the ascent of the divine ladder, and thinks to satisfy itself in the contemplation of the true, the beautiful, the good, without connecting them with their cause. this philosophy considers the true, the beautiful, the good, as ideas which exist by themselves, without a supreme spirit of which they are the manifestation. it has received, in consequence, the name of idealism. to conceive of ideas without a mind, ideas having an existence by themselves, is a thing impossible; such a conception is expressed by words which give back a hollow sound, because they contain nothing. we have already stated this thesis; let us now confirm it by an example. a literary frenchman, m. taine, would make us understand in what manner the universe may be explained without reference to god, and by means of a pure idea. listen well, not to understand, but to make sure that you do not understand: "the universe forms a unique being, indivisible, of which all the beings are members. at the supreme summit of things, at the highest point of the luminous and inaccessible ether, pronounces itself the eternal axiom; and the prolonged resounding of this creative formula composes, by its inexhaustible undulations, the immensity of the universe. every form, every change, every movement, every idea is one of its acts."[137] m. taine is a man of humor, and the burlesque has a place in his philosophical writings; but in the words which i have just read to you he seems to have intended seriously to expound the system which replaces god by an idea. try now to form a definite conception of this universe composed of the undulations of an axiom. do you understand how an axiom undulates, and how the heavens and the earth are only the undulations of an axiom? making all allowance for rhetoric and figures, do you understand what can be the acts of an axiom, and how an axiom _pronounces itself_ without being pronounced? you do not understand it, as neither do i. such doctrines, then, as we have said, can only be the portion of a small number of thinkers who have lost, by dint of abstraction, the sentiment of reality. the ideas--truth, beauty, good--will only exist for the common order of men, under such a system, in the human mind, where we have cognizance of them; and thenceforward, the ideal, or god, is nothing else than the image of humanity which contemplates itself in a sort of mirage. thus it is that the adoration of man by man is disengaged from the high theories of idealism. let us proceed to the examination of this worship, which is cried up now-a-days in divers parts of the intellectual globe. i open the _revue des deux mondes_, of the 15th february, 1861. as the author of the article i refer to[138] appears to admit "that one assertion is not more true than another opposed to it,"[139] we will not be so simple as to ask whether he adopts the opinions which he propounds. he presents to us, in a rapid sketch, the principal tendencies of the modern mind. the modern mind is here characterized by one of its declared partisans; you will not take therefore for a wicked caricature the picture which he puts before us. here then are the thoughts of the modern mind: "there is only one infinite, that of our desires and our aspirations, that of our needs and our efforts.[140] the true, the beautiful, the just are perpetually occurring; they are for ever in course of self-formation, because they are nothing else than the human mind, which, in unfolding itself, finds and knows itself again."[141] this is only the french translation of a saying celebrated in germany: "god is not: he becomes." what we call god is the human mind. what was there at the beginning of things? the human mind, which did not know itself. what will there be in the end? the human mind, which, in unfolding itself, will have come to know itself, and will adore itself as the supreme god. if this be indeed the final object of the universe, it appears that, in the opinion of these philosophers, the consummation of all things must be near. once that humanity, faithful to their doctrine, shall have pronounced the lofty utterance, "i am god, and there is none else," the world will no longer have any reason for existing. such is the system of which we have to follow out the consequences. let us take as our point of comparison the old ideas which we are urged to abandon. we usually explain human destinies by the concurrence of two causes, infinitely distinct, since the one is creative and the other created, but both of which we hold for real: man, and god. humanity has received from its author the free power which we call will, and the law of that will which we name conscience. the law proceeds from god, the liberty proceeds from god; but the acts of the created will, when it violates its law and revolts against its author, are the creation of the creature. god is the eternal source of good, and liberty is a good; but god is not the source of evil, which is distinctly a revolt against him, the abuse of the first of his gifts. together with will, man has received understanding, and gives himself to the search after truth. truth is the object of the understanding, its divine law. error is a deviation from the law of the understanding, as evil is a deviation from the law of the will. lastly, with will and understanding, man has received the faculty of feeling. this faculty applies itself to the world of bodies, from which we receive pain or pleasure. but our faculty of feeling does not stop there. above the animal life, the mind has enjoyments which are proper to it, and the object of which is beauty. beauty is not only in nature and in works of art, it is everywhere, in whatever attracts our love. the sciences are beautiful, and the harmony of the truths which are discovered in their order and mutual dependence causes us to experience a feeling similar to that produced by the most delightful music. virtue is beautiful; it shines in the view of the conscience with the purest brightness, and, as was said by one of the ancients, if it could reveal itself to our eyes in a sensible form, it would excite in our souls feelings of inexpressible love. vice is ugly when once stripped of the delusive fascination of the passions; the vicious excesses of the lower nature are ugly and repulsive as soon as the intoxication is over. error is ugly too; there are no beautiful errors but those which contain a larger portion of truth than the prosaic verities, which are nothing else than falsehoods put in a specious way. beauty therefore is the law of our feelings, as truth is the law of our thought, and good the law of our will. we will not inquire now what secret relations shall one day bring together in an indissoluble unity of light, the good, the true, and the beautiful, and in a unity of darkness, evil, deformity, and falsehood. let it suffice to have pointed out how a threefold aspiration leads man to god, under the guidance of the conscience, the understanding, and the feelings; and that a threefold rebellion estranges him from god, by sinking him into the dark regions of deformity, error, and evil. humanity has therefore a law; it has been endowed with liberty, but that a liberty of which the legitimate end is determined. it advances towards this end, or it swerves from it. there is a rule above its acts. the thing as it is may not be the thing as it ought to be; rebellion is not obedience, and good is not evil. all these consequences are included in the idea of creation. the struggle between two opposite principles, a struggle which sums up human destiny, is a fact of which each one of us can easily assure himself in his own person. what will happen when man, sensible of the law of his nature, and conscious of this struggle, proceeds to encounter humanity? each one of us carries humanity in his own bosom. but humanity, the character of man which is common to us, and which makes the spiritual unity of our species, is found to be altered by the influence of places, times, and circumstances. our reason is encumbered by prejudices of birth and education, and by such as we have ourselves created in our minds in the exercise of our will. our sense of beauty is vitiated and narrowed by local influences and habits. our conscience is likewise subjected to influences which impair its free manifestation. every one needs to enlarge his horizon. by seeking occasions of intercourse with our fellows, we shall learn to discriminate true and eternal beauty in the diversity of its manifestations; we shall distinguish the truth from the individual prepossessions of our own minds; good and evil, disengaged from the narrownesses of habit, will appear to us in their real and enduring nature. our taste will be formed, our conscience purified, our mind enlarged; we shall more and more become men, in the high and full acceptation of the term. in order that the meeting together of the individual and of humanity may produce such fruits, god must dwell continually in the sanctuary of the conscience. the inner light is kindled in the intercourse of the soul with its creator; it is afterwards brightened and nurtured by the soul's intercourse with the traces of god which humanity reveals. but this light makes manifest within us, and without us, great darkness. we have no right to abandon ourselves to every spectacle which strikes our view. if, in presence of what is passing in the world, we are tempted to regard the prosperity of the wicked with cowardly envy; if we would fill up, for the satisfaction of our evil desires, the abyss which separates the holy from the impure, the inner voice lifts itself up and cries to us: "woe! woe to them who call evil good, and good evil."[142] god is our master, even as he is our good and our hope. the fact of the revolts of humanity can have no effect against his sovereign will. soldiers in the service of the almighty, life is for us a conflict, and duty imposes on us a combat. such, sirs, is the explanation of our destinies, an old, and, if you like, a vulgar one. let us now give our attention to the doctrine which deifies humanity, and follow out its consequences. humanity carries within its bosom the idea of truth, the love of beauty, the sense of good. what does it need more? these noble aspirations mark for it the end of its efforts. what will be wanting to a life regulated by duty, enlightened by truth, ennobled by art? what will be wanting to such a life? nothing, or everything. nothing, if the search after good, truth, and beauty leads to god. everything, if it be sought to carry it on without any reference to god, because from the moment that man desires to be the source of light to himself, the light will be changed into darkness, as we said at the beginning of this lecture. put god out of view, and good, beauty, and truth will disappear; while you will see produced the decline of art, the dissolution of thought in scepticism, the absolute negation of morality. let us consider with the attention it deserves, and in contemporary examples, this sad and curious spectacle. i open a treatise by m. taine. the english historian macaulay speaks of literary men who "have taken pains to strip vice of its odiousness, to render virtue ridiculous, to rank adultery among the elegant fashions and obligatory achievements of a man of taste." the honest englishman takes the liberty to judge and to condemn men who have made so pernicious a use of their talents. this pretension to make the conscience speak is in the eyes of the french man of letters a gothic prejudice. listen how he expresses himself on the subject: "criticism in france has freer methods.--when we try to give an account of the life, or to describe the character, of a man, we are quite willing to consider him simply as an object of painting or of science.... we do not judge him, we only wish to represent him to the eyes and to set him intelligibly before the reason. we are curious inquirers and nothing more. that peter or paul was a knave matters little to us, that was the business of his contemporaries, who suffered from his vices--at this day we are out of his reach, and hatred has disappeared with the danger--i experience neither aversion nor disgust; i have left these feelings at the gate of history, and i taste the very deep and very pure pleasure of seeing a soul act according to a definite law--."[143] you understand, gentlemen: the distinction between good and evil, as that between error and truth; these are old sandals which must be put off before entering into the temple of history; and the man of the nineteenth century, if he has taste and information, is merely an historian, and nothing more. the sacred emotion which generous actions produce in us, the indignation stirred in us by baseness and cruelty, are childish emotions which are to disappear in order that we may be free to contemplate vice and virtue with a pleasure always equal, very deep, and very pure. we have not here the aberration of a young and ill-regulated mind, but the doctrine of a school. i open again the _revue des deux mondes_, and there i encounter the theory of which m. taine has made the application: "we no longer know anything of morals, but of manners; of principles, but of facts. we explain everything, and, as has been said, the mind ends _by approving of all that it explains_. modern virtue is summed up in toleration.[144]--immense novelty! that which is, has for us the right to be.[145]--in the eyes of the modern savant, all is true, all is right in its own place. the place of each thing constitutes its truth."[146] i cut short the enumeration of these enormities. all rule has disappeared, all morality is destroyed; there is no longer any difference between right and fact, between what is and what ought to be. and what is the real account to give of all this? it is as follows: humanity is the highest point of the universe; above it there is nothing; humanity is god, if we consent to take that sacred name in a new sense. how then is it to be judged? in the name of what rule? since there is no rule: in the name of what law? since there is no law. all judgment is a personal prejudice, the act of a narrow mind. we do not judge god, we simply recount his dealings; we accept all his acts, and record them with equal veneration. all science is only a history, and the first requisite in a historian is to reduce to silence his conscience and his reason, as sorry and deceitful exhibitions of his petty personality, in order to accept all the acts of the humanity-deity, and establish their mutual connection. the deification of the human mind is the justification of all its acts, and, by a direct consequence, the annihilation of all morality. let us look more in detail at the origin and development of these notions. the individual placing himself before humanity is to accept everything: this is the disposition recommended to us, in the name of the modern mind. good and evil are narrow measures which minds behind the age persist, ridiculously enough, in wishing to apply to things. "we no longer transform the world to our image by bringing it to our standard; _on the contrary, we allow ourselves to be modified and fashioned by it_."[147] the individual goes therefore to meet humanity without any inner rule: he gives himself up, he abandons himself to the spectacle of facts. but the world is large, and history is long. even those who spend their whole life in nothing else than in satisfying their curiosity, cannot see and know everything. to what then shall be directed that vague look, equally attracted to all points for want of any fixed rule? at what shall it stop? it will rest on that which shines most brilliantly, like a moth attracted by light. now, nothing shines more brightly than success; nothing more solicits the attention. the glorification of success is the first and most infallible consequence of moral indifference. in leaving ourselves to be fashioned by the world instead of bringing it to our standard, we shall begin by according our esteem to victory. this philosophy is come to us from germany. it was set forth on one occasion, in france, with great _ã©clat_, by the brilliant eloquence of a man who has rendered signal services to philosophy, and whose entire works must not be judged of by the single particular which i am about to mention. in the year 1829, m. cousin was developing at the sorbonne the meaning of these verses of la fontaine, which introduce the fable of the wolf and the lamb: la raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure: je vais le montrer tout ã  l'heure. he had written as the programme of one of his lectures: _morality of victory_. now see how he justified this surprising title: "i have absolved victory as necessary and useful; i now undertake to absolve it as just in the strictest sense of the word. men do not usually see in success anything else than the triumph of strength, and an honorable sympathy draws us to the side of the vanquished; i hope i have shown that since there must always be a vanquished side, and since the vanquished side is always that which ought to be so, to accuse the conqueror is to take part against humanity, and to complain of the progress of civilization. we must go farther; we must prove that the vanquished deserved to be so, that the conqueror not only serves the interests of civilization, but that he is better, more moral than the vanquished, and that it is on that account he is the conqueror.... it is time that the philosophy of history should place at its feet the declamations of philanthropy."[148] these words are worth considering. when brennus the gaul was having the gold weighed which he exacted from the vanquished romans, he threw his heavy sword into the balance, exclaiming, _vã¦ victis!_ woe to the conquered! he simply meant to say that he was the stronger, and did not foresee that a gaul of the nineteenth century, availing himself of the labors of learned germany, would demonstrate that being the stronger he was on that very account the more just. but we must not wander too far from our subject. when the spectacle of the world is freely indulged in without any application to it of the measure of the conscience, what first strikes the view is success. it is necessary therefore to begin with rendering glory to success by declaring victory good. now, mark well here the conflict of the old notions with the so-called modern mind. from the old point of view, victory in the issue belongs to good, because while man is tossed in strife and tumult, god is leading him on; but the success of good is realized by conflict, and the victory is often reached only after a long series of defeats. there are bad triumphs and impious successes. what is proposed to us is, to put aside the rule of our own judgments, and to declare that victory is good in itself. the old point of view, that of the conscience, does not surrender without an energetic resistance; and that resistance shows itself in the very words of m. cousin. his thesis is, that all victory is just. his intention is therefore to _approve_ victory. why does he say _absolve_? it is the term which he employs. since the matter in question is to absolve victory, it is placed on trial. it is accused of being, like fortune and fame, at one time on the side of good and justice, at another on the side of injustice and evil. which then is the party accused? victory. who is the advocate? an eloquent professor. who finally is the accuser? do you not see? it is the human conscience; the conscience which protests in the soul of the orator against the theory of which he is enamoured, and which forces him to say _absolve_ when he should say _glorify_. and in fact the choice must be made: either to glorify victory, by treading under foot that narrow conscience which sometimes ranks itself with cato on the side of the vanquished; or to glorify conscience by impeaching the victories which outrage it. it is not sufficient, however, to sacrifice the conscience in order to rescue from embarrassment the philosophy of success. it strikes on other rocks also. the same causes are by turns victorious and vanquished, and it is hard to make men understand that, in conflicts in which their dearest affections are engaged, they must beforehand, and in all cases, take part with the strongest. it will be in vain for the philosopher to say that the swiss of morgarten were right, for that they beat the austrians; but that the heroes of rotenthurm were greatly in the wrong, because, crushed without being vanquished, they were obliged to yield to numbers, and leave at last their country's soil to be trodden by the stranger;--the children of old switzerland will find it hard to admit this doctrine. even in france, in that nation so accustomed to encircle its soldiers' brows with laurel, this difficulty has risen up in the way of m. cousin. bã©ranger, when asked for a souvenir of waterloo, replied, with drooping eyelid, tear-bedewed: never that name shall sadden verse of mine.[149] but philosophy would be worth little if it had not at its disposal more extensive resources than those of a song-writer. m. cousin therefore looked the difficulty in the face. victory is always good. but how shall young frenchmen be made to hear this with regard to that signal defeat of the armies of france? listen: "it is not populations which appear on battle-fields, but ideas and causes. so at leipzig and at waterloo two causes came to the encounter, the cause of paternal monarchy and that of military democracy. which of them carried the day, gentlemen? neither the one nor the other. who was the conqueror and who the conquered at waterloo? gentlemen, there were none conquered. (_applause._) no, i protest that there were none: the only conquerors were european civilization and the map. (_unanimous and prolonged applause._)"[150] to make the youth of paris applaud at the remembrance of waterloo is perhaps one of the most brilliant triumphs of eloquence which the annals of history record. but this rhetorical success is not a triumph of truth. there were those who were conquered at waterloo; and, to judge by what has been going on for some time past in europe, it would seem that those who were conquered are bent on taking their revenge. we may infer from these facts that all triumphs are not good, since truth may be for a moment overcome by a false philosophy tricked out in the deceitful adornments of eloquence. but let us admit, whatever our opinion on the subject, that the waterloo rock has been passed successfully; we have not yet pointed out the main difficulty which rises up in the way of this system. if victory is good, it seems at first sight that defeat is bad. but defeat is the necessary condition of victory; and being the condition of good, it seems therefore that it also is good; and the mind comes logically to this conclusion: "victory is good;--defeat is good, since it is the condition of victory;--all is good." we set out with the glorification of victory, and, lo! we are arrived at the glorification of fact. all that is, has the right to be; in the eyes of the modern savant whatever is, is right. m. cousin laid down the principle; he laid it down in a general manner in his philosophical eclecticism, of which it was easy to make use, as has in fact been done, in a sense contrary to his real intentions. our young critics, wasting an inheritance of which they do not appear always to recognize the origin, are doing nothing else, very often, than catching as they die away the last vibrations of that surpassing eloquence. in the eyes of the modern savant, everything is right and good: such is the axiom for which the labors of more than one modern historian had prepared us. we are to seek for the relation of facts one to another, that is to explain; and all that we explain, we must approve. let us follow out this thought in a few examples. it was necessary that louis xvi should be beheaded and the guillotine permanently set up, in order to manifest the result of the disorders of louis xiv, of the shameful excesses of louis xv, and of the licentious immorality of french society. it was necessary for louis xiv to be an adulterer, louis xv a debauchee, the clergy corrupt, and the nobility depraved, to bring about the shocks of the revolution. the facts mutually correspond; i explain, and i approve. in the eyes of the modern savant everything is right. it was necessary that buonaparte should throw the _corps lã©gislatif_ out of the window, that he should let loose his armies upon europe, and leave thousands of dead bodies in the snows of russia, in order to end the revolution, and extinguish the restless ardor of the french. it needed the massacres of september, the gloomy days of the terror, the anarchy of the period of the directory, to throw dismayed france into the arms of the crowned soldier who was to carry to so high a pitch her glory and her influence. the facts correspond; i explain, and i approve. in the eyes of the modern savant, everything is right. i consider the character of nero. i take him at the commencement of his reign, when, being forced to sign the death-warrant of a criminal, he exclaimed--"would i were unable to write!" and then again i regard him after he has perpetrated acts such that to apply his name in future ages to the cruellest of tyrants shall appear to them a cruel injury. what has taken place in the interval? the development of his natural character, agrippina, narcissus ... i understand the play of all the springs which have made a monster. as i am out of his clutches, my detestation vanishes with the danger. "i taste the very deep and very pure pleasure of seeing a mind act according to a definite law." i understand, i explain, i approve. in the eyes of the modern savant, everything is right. it would be impossible, gentlemen, to pursue this reasoning to its extreme limits without offending against the commonest decency. we should have to descend into blood and mire, continuing to declare the while that everything is right. i pause therefore, and leave the rest to your imaginations. open the most dismal pages of history. choose out the acts which inspire the most vivid horror and disgust, the blackest examples of ingratitude, the meanest instances of cowardice, the cases of most refined cruelty, and the most hideous debaucheries: thence let your thoughts pass to facts which bedew the eyelid with the tear of tenderest emotion, to the cases of most heroic self-devotion, to sacrifices the most humble in their greatness; and then try to apply the rule of the modern savant, and to say that all this is equally right and good, and that whatever is has the right to be. open the book of your own heart. think of one of those base temptations which assault the best of us, one of those thoughts which raise a blush in solitude; then think of the best, the purest, the most disinterested of the feelings which have ever been given to your soul; and try again to apply the rule of the modern savant, and to affirm that all this is equally good, and that all that is has the right to be. i know very well that in general these doctrines are applied to things looked at in the mass, and to the far-off past of history; but this is a poor subterfuge for the defenders of these monstrous theses. things viewed in the mass are only the assemblage of things viewed in detail. if the distinction of good and evil do not exist for general facts, how should it exist for particular facts? and how can we apply to the past a rule which we refuse to apply to the present, seeing that the present is nothing else than the past of the future, and that the facts of our own time are matter for history to our posterity? these, i repeat, are but vain subterfuges. if humanity is always adorable, it is so in the faults of the meanest of men as in the splendid sins of the magnates of the earth; it is so to-day as it was thirty centuries ago; the god in growing old does not cease to be the same. when the mind is engaged in these pernicious ways, the spring of the moral life is broken, and the practical consequence is not long in appearing. the philosophers of success, having become the philosophers of the _fait accompli_, accept all and endure all; but in another sense than that in which charity accepts all, that it may transform all by the power of love. it is the morality of philinte: i take men quietly, and as they are: and what they do i train my soul to bear.[151] these instructions are not very necessary. there will always be people enough found ready to applaud victory, and to fall in with the _fait accompli_. but is it not sad to see men of mind, men of heart too, perhaps, making themselves the theorists of baseness, and the philosophers of cowardice? there is still more to be said. from the glorification of success the mind passes necessarily, as we have just seen, to the glorification alike of all that is. it would appear at first sight that the adept in the doctrine must find himself in a condition of indifference with regard to what prejudiced men continue to call good and evil. this indifference however is only apparent. when it is granted that nothing is evil, the part of good disappears in the end. there had been formed in ancient rome, under pretence of religion, a secret society, which had as its fundamental dogma the aphorism that _nothing is evil_.[152] the members of the society did not practise good and evil, it appears, with equal indifference, for the magistrates of the republic took alarm, and smothered, by a free employment of death and imprisonment, a focus of murders, violations, false witness, and forged signatures. this fact reveals, with ominous clearness, a movement of thought on the nature of which it is easy to speculate. when man casts a vague glance over the world, extinguishing the while the inner light of conscience; when he resigns himself to the things he contemplates without applying to them any standard, what first strikes his attention, as we have said before, is success. and what next? scandal. nothing comes more into view than scandal. in a vast city, thousands of young men gain their livelihood laboriously, and devote themselves to the good of their families: no one speaks of them. a libertine loses other men's money at play, and blows out his brains: all the city knows it. honest women live in retirement; the king's mistresses form the subject of general conversation. crime and baseness hide themselves; but up to the limits of what the world calls infamy, evil delights in putting itself forward, because _ã©clat_ and noise supply the means of deadening the conscience; while, as regards the grand instincts of charity, it has been well said that--"the obscure acts of devotedness are the most magnificent." the poor and wretched shed tears in obscurity over benefits done secretly, while folly loves to display its glittering spangles, and shakes its bells in the public squares. there is in each one of us more evil than we think; but there is in the world more good than is commonly known. there are concealed virtues which only show themselves to the eye of the faith which looks for them, and of the attention which discovers them. bethink you, especially, how the laws of morality set at defiance appear again triumphant in the sorrows of repentance; those laws have their hour, and that hour is usually a silent one. let a poet of genius defile his works by the impure traces of a life spent in dissipation, and his brow shall shine in the sight of all with the twofold splendor of success and of scandal. but if, stretched on a bed of pain, he renders a tardy but sincere homage to the law which he has violated, to the truth which he has ignored, his voice will often be confined to the sick chamber; his companions in debauchery and infidelity will mount guard perhaps around his dwelling, in order to prevent the public from learning that their friend is a _defaulter_. the ball and the theatre make a noise and attract observation; but men turn their eyes from hospitals, those abodes in which, in the silence of sickness, or amidst the dull cries of pain, there germinate so many seeds of immortality. yes, sirs, evil is more apparent than good. the violations of the divine law have more _ã©clat_ than penitence. and what is the consequence? the man who abandons himself to the spectacle of the world, and who takes that spectacle for the rule of his thoughts, will see the world under a false aspect, and, in his estimation, evil will have more advantage over good than it has in reality. it will appear to him altogether dominant, and will thenceforward become his rule. from the glorification of success, we passed to the glorification of fact; from the glorification of fact, we arrive at last at the glorification of evil. we have seen how is illustrated the morality of victory. in the same current of ideas, a book famous now-a-days, and quite full of outrages to the conscience, supplies us with illustrations of the morality of falsehood. m. ernest renan, in his explanation of christianity, has applied, point after point, the theory which i have just set forth to you. in order to estimate the grand movements of the human mind, he frees himself from the vulgar prejudices which make up the ordinary morals, and abandons himself to the impression of the spectacle which he contemplates. jesus had a success without parallel. this success was based on charlatanism; and it is habitually so. to lead the nations by deceiving them is the lesson of history, and the good rule to follow. we find falsehood fortunate as matter of fact, we explain it, we approve it. whither then are we bound, under the guidance of modern science? an irresistible current is drawing us on, and causing us to leave the morals of philinthe in our rear. we are coming to those which racine has engraven in immortal traits in the person of mathan. when once conscience is put aside, all means are good in order to succeed; and the experience of the world teaches us that, to succeed, the worst means are often the best. it is not only at the theatre that such lessons are received; they come out but too commonly from the ordinary dealings of life. set a young man face to face with the world as it exhibits itself, and tell him to give himself up to what he sees, to let himself be fashioned by life. he will soon come to know that strict probity is a virtue of the olden times, chastity a fantastic excellence, and conscientious scruples an honorable simplicity. evil will become in his eyes the ordinary rule of life. when the socialist proudhon wrote that celebrated sentence, "property is robbery," there arose an immense outcry. ought there not to arise a louder outcry around a theory which arrives by a fatal necessity at this consequence: "evil is good"? but do these doctrines exercise any influence for the perversion of public morals? much; their influence is disastrous. and do the men who profess them believe them, taking the word 'believe' in its real and deep meaning? no; they often do mischief which they do not mean to do, and do not see that they do. they are intoxicated with a bad philosophy, and intoxication renders blind. it is easy to prove that these optimists, who in theory find that everything is right, are perpetually contradicting themselves in practice. address yourselves to one of them, and say to him: "your doctrine is big with immorality. you do not yourself believe it; and when you pretend to believe it, you lie." this man who tolerates everything will not tolerate your freedom of speech. he will get angry, and, according to the old doctrines, he will have the right to be so, for insult is an evil. then say to him: "here you are, it seems to me, in contradiction with your system. everything is right; the vivacity of my speech therefore is good. all that is has the right to be; my indignation is therefore a legitimate fact, and it appears to me that yours cannot be so unless you allow (an admission which would be contrary to your system) that mine is not so." if you have to do with a sensible man, he will begin to laugh. if you have met with a blockhead, he will be more angry than ever. this contradiction comes out in every page, and in a more serious manner, in the writings of our optimists. one cannot read them with attention, without meeting incessantly with the protest of their moral nature against the despotism of a false mode of reasoning. the man is at every moment making himself heard, the man who has a heart, a conscience, a reason, and who contradicts the philosopher without being aware of it. contradictions these, honorable to the writer, but dangerous for the reader, because they serve to invest with brilliant colors doctrines which in themselves are hideous. no, gentlemen, it is impossible to succeed in adoring humanity, preserving the while the least consistency of reasoning. in vain men wish to accept everything, to tolerate everything; in vain they wish to impose silence on the inner voice: that voice rebels against the outrage, and its revolt declares itself in the most manifest contradictions. the humanity-god is divided, and the affirmation-"everything is right"--will continue false as long as there shall be upon the earth a single conscience unsilenced, as long as there shall be in a single heart . . . . . that mighty hate which in pure souls vice ever must create;[153] that hatred which is nothing else than the indirect manifestation of the sacred love of goodness. the doctrine that all is equally good, equally divine, in the development of humanity, explains nothing, because humanity, torn by a profound struggle, condemns its own acts, and protests against its degradations. it cries aloud to itself that there are principles above facts, a moral law superior to the acts of the will; and all the petty clamors of a deceitful and deceived philosophy cannot stifle that clear voice. not only do these doctrines explain nothing, they do not even succeed in expressing themselves; language fails them. "everything is right and good." what will these words mean, from the time there is no longer any rule of right? how is it possible to approve, when we have no power to blame? the idea of good implies the idea of evil; the opposition of good and evil supposes a standard applied to things, a law superior to fact. he who approves of everything may just as well despise everything. but contempt itself has no longer any meaning, if esteem is a word void of signification. we must say simply that all is as it is, and abandon those terms of speech which conscience has stamped with its own superscription. we must purify the dictionary, and consign to the history of obsolete expressions such terms as good, evil, esteem, contempt, vice, virtue, honor, infamy, and the like. the doctrine which, to be consistent with itself, ought to reduce us to a kind of stupid indifference, does such violence to human nature that its advocates are incapable of enunciating it without contradicting themselves by the very words they make use of. all these extravagances are the inevitable consequence of the adoration of humanity. the humanity-god has no rule superior to itself. whatever it does must be put on record merely, and not judged: it is the immolation of the conscience. but on what altar shall we stretch this great victim? shall we sacrifice it to pure reason, to reason disengaged from all prejudice? allow me to claim your attention yet a few minutes longer. the humanity-god in all its acts escapes the judgment of the conscience. what measure shall we be able to apply to its thoughts? none. the god which cannot do evil, cannot be mistaken either. for the modern savant all is true, for exactly the same reason that all is right. the human mind unfolds itself in all directions; all these unfoldings are legitimate; all are to be accepted equally by a mind truly emancipated. furnished with this rule, i make progress in the history of philosophy. the greek democritus affirms that the universe is only an infinite number of atoms moving as chance directs in the immensity of space: i record with veneration this unfolding of the human mind. the greek plato affirms that truth, beauty, good, like three eternal rays, penetrate the universe and constitute the only veritable realities: i record with equal veneration this other unfolding of the human mind. i pass to modern times. descartes tells me that thought is the essence of man, and that reason alone is the organ of truth. helvetius tells me that man is a mass of organized matter which receives its ideas only from the senses. these two theses are equally legitimate, and i admit them both. i quit now philosophers by profession to address myself to those literary journalists who deal out philosophy in crumbs for the use of _feuilletons_ and reviews. there i find all possible notions in the most astounding of jumbles. "the villain has his apologist; the good man his calumniator.... marriage is honorable, so is adultery. order is preached up, so is riot, so is assassination, provided it be politic."[154] i contemplate with a calm satisfaction, with a very deep and very pure pleasure, these various unfoldings of the human mind; i place them all, with the same feelings of devotion, in the pantheon of the intelligence. i cannot do otherwise, inasmuch as there is no rule of truth superior to the thoughts of men, and because the human mind is the supreme, universal, and infallible intelligence. but will our mind be able to entertain together two directly opposite assertions? will contradiction no longer be the sign of error? we must come to this; we must acknowledge that the modern mind, breaking with superannuated traditions, has proclaimed the principle "that one assertion is not more true than an opposite assertion." we must proclaim that the thinker has not to disquiet himself "about the _real_ contradictions into which he may fall; and that a true philosopher has absolutely nothing to do with consistency."[155] the fear of self-contradiction may be excused in aristotle and plato, in st. anselm and st. thomas, in descartes and leibnitz. these writers were still wrapped in the swaddling clothes of old errors; the light of the nineteenth century had not shone upon their cradles; but the epoch of enfranchisement is come. these things, gentlemen, are printed now-a-days; they are printed at paris, one of the metropolises of thought! mark well whereabouts we are. we must admit--what? that all is true. but, if all is true, there is nothing true, just as if all is good, there is nothing good. there are thoughts in men's heads; to make history of them is an agreeable pastime; but there is no truth. we must not say that two contradictory propositions are equally true; that would be to make use of the old notion of truth; we must say that they are, and that is all about it. the night is approaching, the sun of intelligence is sinking towards the horizon, and thick vapors are obscuring its setting. but wait! if the humanity-god is always right, it must be that two contradictory propositions can be true at the same time, since contradictions abound in the history of human thoughts. if two contradictory propositions can be true, there is no more truth. what then is our reason, of which truth is the object? we are seized with giddiness. might not everything in the world be illusion? and myself--? listen to a voice which reaches us, across the ages, from the countries crowned by the himalayas. "nothing exists.... by the study of first principles, one acquires this knowledge, absolute, incontestable, comprehensible to the intelligence alone: i neither am, nor does anything which is mine, nor do i myself, exist."[156] what is there beneath these strange lines? the feeling of giddiness, which seeks to steady itself by language. here is now the modern echo of these ancient words. one of those writers who accept all, in the hope of understanding all, describes himself as having come at last to be aware that he is "only one of the most fugitive illusions in the bosom of the infinite illusion." one of his colleagues expresses himself on this subject as follows: "is this the last word of all?--and why not?--the illusion which knows itself--is it in fact an illusion? does it not in some sort triumph over itself? does it not attain to _the sovereign reality_, that of the thought which thinks itself, that of the dream which knows itself a dream, that _of nothingness which ceases to be so_, in order to recognize itself and to assert itself?"[157] we are gone back to ancient india. you will remark here three stages of thought. the fugitive illusion is man. the infinite illusion is the universe. the universal principle of the appearances which compose the universe is nothingness. here is the explanation of the universe! nothingness takes life; nothingness takes life only to know itself to be nothingness; and the nothingness which says to itself, "i am nothingness," is the reason of existence of all that is. i said just now that the sun was declining to the horizon. now the last glimmer of twilight has disappeared; night has closed in--a dark and starless night. yes, sirs, but there is never on the earth a night so dark as to warrant us in despairing of the return of the dawn. if the modern mind is such as it is described to us, it has lost all the rays of light; but the sun is not dead. the doctrine of non-existence and of illusion is entirely incomprehensible, in the sense in which to comprehend signifies to have a clear idea, and one capable of being directly apprehended. but, if one follows the chain of ideas as logically unrolled, in the way that a mathematician follows the transformations of an algebraical formula, without considering its real contents, it is easy to account for the origin of this theory. if the human mind has no rule superior to itself, if it is the absolute mind, god, all its thoughts are equally true, since we cannot point out error without having recourse to a rule of truth. if all doctrines are equally true, propositions directly and absolutely contradictory are equally true. if all is true, there is no truth; for truth is not conceived except in opposition to at least possible error. if there is no truth, the human reason, which seeks truth by a natural impulse belonging to its very essence, as the magnetized needle seeks the pole,--reason, i say, is a chimera. the truth which reason seeks is an exact relation of human thought to the reality of the world. if the search for this relation is chimerical, the two terms, mind, and the world, may be illusions. a fugitive illusion in presence of an infinite illusion: there is all. you see that these thoughts hang together with rigorous precision. the darkness is becoming visible to us, or, in other words, we are acquiring a perfect understanding of the origin and developments of the absurdity. put god aside, the law of our will, the warrant of our thought; deify human nature; and a fatal current will run you aground twice over--on the shores of moral absurdity, and on those of intellectual absurdity. these sad shipwrecks are set before our eyes in striking examples; it has been easy to indicate their cause. the consideration of the beautiful would give occasion to analogous observations. the human mind becoming the object of our adoration, we must give up judging it in every particular, and suppress the rules of the ideal in art, as those of morals in the conduct, and truth in the intellect. we must form a system of ã¦sthetics which accepts all, and finds equally legitimate whatever affords recreation to the humanity-god, in the great variety of its tastes. then high aspirations are extinguished, the beautiful gives place to the agreeable; and since the ugly and misshapen please a vicious taste, room must be made for the ugly in the pantheon of beauty. art despoiled of its crown becomes the sad, and often the ignoble slave of the tastes and caprices of the public. i do not insist further. the pretension of the worshippers of humanity is to make their conscience wide enough to accept all, and to have their intellect broad enough to understand all. they explain all, except these three small particulars--the conscience, the heart, and the reason. goodness and truth avenge themselves in the end for the long contempt cast upon them; and the first punishment those suffer who accept all, in the hope of understanding all, is no longer to understand what constitutes the life of humanity. let us not, sirs, be setting up altars to the human mind; for an adulterous incense stupefies it, and ends by destroying it. man is great, he is sublime, with immortal hope in his heart, and the divine aureole around his brow; but that he may preserve his greatness, let us leave him in his proper place. let us leave to him the struggles which make his glory, that condemnation of his own miseries which does him honor, the tears shed over his faults which are the most unexceptionable testimony to his dignity. let us leave him tears, repentance, conflict, and hope; but let us not deify him; for, no sooner shall he have said, "i am god," than, deprived that instant of all his blessings, he shall find himself naked and spoiled. before they deified man, the pagans at least transfigured him by placing him in olympus. at this day, it is humanity as it is upon earth that is proposed to our adoration, humanity with its profound miseries and its fearful defilements. they seek to throw a veil over the mad audacity of this attempt, by telling us of the progress which is to bring about, by little and little, the realization of our divinity. but, alas! our history is long already, and no reasonable induction justifies the vague hopes of heated imaginations. great progress is being effected, but none which gives any promise that the profound needs of our nature can ever be satisfied in this life. charity has appeared on the earth; but there are still poor amongst us, and it seems that there always will be. a breath of justice and humanity has penetrated social institutions; still politics have not become the domain of perfect truth and of absolute justice, and there seems small likelihood that they ever will. industry has given birth to marvels; we devour space in these days, but we shall never go so fast that suffering and death will not succeed in overtaking us. the great sources of grief are not dried up; the song of our poets causes still the chords of sorrow to vibrate as in the days of yore. progress is being accomplished, sure witness of a beneficent hand which is guiding humanity in its destinies; but everything tells us that the soil of our planet will be always steeped in tears, that the atmosphere which envelops us will always resound with the vibrations of sorrow. far as our view can stretch itself, we foresee a suffering humanity, which will not be able to find peace, joy, and hope, except in the expectation of new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. if there be no god above humanity, no eternity above time, no divine world higher than our present place of sojourn; if our profoundest desires are to be for ever deceived; if the cries we raise to heaven are never to be heard; if all our hope is a future in which we shall be no more; if humanity as we know it is the perfection of the universe; if all this is so, then indeed the answer to the universal enigma is illusion and falsehood. then, before the monster of destiny which brings us into being only to destroy us, which creates in our breast the desire of happiness only to deride our miseries; in view of that starry vault which speaks to us of the infinite, while yet there is no infinite; in presence of that lying nature which adorns itself with a thousand symbols of immortality, while yet there is no immortality; in presence of all these deceptions, man may be allowed to curse the day of his birth, or to abandon himself to the intoxication of thoughtless pleasure. but, a secret instinct tells us that wretchedness is a disorder, and thoughtless pleasure a degradation. let us have confidence in this deep utterance of our nature. good, truth, beauty descend as rays of streaming light into the shadows of our existence; let us follow them with the eye of faith to the divine focus from whence they proceed. all is fleeting, all is disappearing incessantly beneath our steps; but our soul is not staggered at this swift lapse of all things, only because she carries in herself the pledges of a changeless eternity. "the ephemeral spectator of an eternal spectacle, man raises for a moment his eyes to heaven, and closes them again for ever; but during the fleeting instant which is granted to him, from all points of the sky and from the bounds of the universe, sets forth from every world a consoling ray and strikes his upward gaze, announcing to him that between that measureless space and himself there exists a close relation, and that he is allied to eternity."[158] and are these sublime _pressentiments_ only dreams after all? dreams! know you not that our dreams create nothing, and that they are never anything else than confused reminiscences and fantastic combinations of the realities of our waking consciousness? what then is that mysterious waking during which we have seen the eternal, the infinite, the perfection of goodness, the fulness of joy, all those sublime images which come to haunt our spirit during the dream of life? recollections of our origin! foreshadowings of our destinies! while then all below is transitory, and is escaping from us in a ceaseless flight, let us abandon ourselves without fear to these instincts of the soul- as a bird, if it light on a sprig too slight the feathery freight to bear, yet, conscious of wings, tosses fearless, and sings, then drops--on the buoyant air.[159] footnotes: [131] _systã¨me de la nature_, published under the pseudonyme of mirabaud. [132] _systã¨me de la nature_, part i. chap. 1. [133] _ibid._ part ii. chap. 14. [134] _vie de jã©sus._ dedication. [135] _revue des deux mondes_ of 15 january, 1860. [136] plebeii philosophi qui a platone et socrate et ab eã¢ familiã¢ dissident. [137] _les philosophes franã§ais du xixe siã¨cle_, chap. xiv. [138] _hã©gel et l'hã©gã©lianisme_ par m. ed. schã©rer. [139] page 854. [140] page 852. [141] page 856. [142] isa. xx. 20. [143] _essais de critique et d'histoire_, pp. 8 and 9. [144] _revue des deux mondes_, 15 feb. 1861, page 855. [145] page 853. [146] page 854. [147] _revue des deux mondes_ of the 15th feb. 1861, page 854. [148] _introduction ã  l'histoire de la philosophie_. neuviã¨me leã§on. [149] il rã©pondit, baissant un oeil humide: jamais ce nom n'attristera mes vers. [150] _introduction ã  l'histoire de la philosophie._ treiziã¨me leã§on. [151] je prends tout doucement les hommes comme ils sont, j'accoutume mon ã¢me ã  souffrir ce qu'ils font. [152] _nihil nefas ducere, hanc summam inter eos religionem esse._ (tit. liv. lib. xxxix. c. 13.) [153] . . . . . . ces haines vigoureuses que doit donner le vice aux ã¢mes vertueuses. [154] _mã©langes de tã¶pffer._ de la mauvaise presse considerã©e comme excellente. [155] _revue des deux mondes_ of 15 feb. 1861, page 854.--_etudes critiques sur la littã©rature contemporaine_, par edmond scherer, page x. et xi. [156] sa'nkya--ka'rika', 61 and 64. the text 61 in which occur the words "nothing exists" is hard to understand, but there appears to be no doubt of the meaning of no. 64. _non sum, non est meum, nec sum ego._ [157] _etudes critiques sur la littã©rature contemporaine_, par edmond scherer.--m. sainte-beuve, p. 354. [158] xavier de maistre. [159] soyons comme l'oiseau posã© pour un instant sur des rameaux trop frãªles, qui sent ployer la branche et qui chante pourtant, sachant qu'il a des ailes.--victor hugo. lecture vi. _the creator._ (at geneva, 4th dec. 1863.--at lausanne, 27th jan. 1864.) gentlemen, man is not a simple product of nature; in vain does he labor to degrade himself by desiring to find the explanation of his spiritual being in matter brought gradually to perfection. man is not the summit and principle of the universe; in vain does he labor to deify himself. he is great only by reason of the divine rays which inform his heart, his conscience, and his reason. from the moment that he believes himself to be the source of light, he passes into night. when thought has risen from nature up to man, it must needs fall again, if its impetus be not strong enough to carry it on to god. these assertions do but translate the great facts of man's intellectual history. "there is no nation so barbarous," said cicero,[160] "there are no men so savage as not to have some tincture of religion. many there are who form false notions of the gods; ... but all admit the existence of a divine power and nature.... now, in any matter whatever, the consent of all nations is to be reckoned a law of nature." no discovery has diminished the value of these words of the roman orator. in the most degraded portions of human society, there remains always some vestige of the religious sentiment. the knowledge of the creator comes to us from the christian tradition; but the idea, more or less vague, of a divine world is found wherever there are men. cicero brings forward this universal consent as a very strong proof of the existence of the gods. the supporters of atheism dispute the value of this argument. they say: "general opinion proves nothing. how many fabulous legends have been set up by the common belief into historic verities! all mankind believed for a long time that the sun revolved about the earth. truth makes way in the world only by contradicting opinions generally received. the faith of the greater number is rather a mark of error than a sign of truth." this objection rests upon a confusion of ideas. humanity has no testimony to render upon scientific questions, the solution of which is reserved for patient study; but humanity bears witness to its own nature. the universality of religion proves that the search after the divine is, as said the roman orator, a law of nature. when therefore we rise from matter to man, and from man to god, we are not going in an arbitrary road, but are advancing according to the law of nature ascertained by the testimony of humanity. it needs a mind at once very daring and very frivolous not to feel the importance of this consideration. in our days atheism is being revived. in going over in your memory the symptoms of this revival, as we have pointed them out to you, you will perceive that the direct and primitive negation of god is comparatively rare; but that what is frequently attempted is, if i may venture so to speak, to effect the subtraction of god. any religious theory whatever is put aside as inadmissible, and with some such remarks as these: "how is it that real sciences are formed? by observation on the one hand, and by reasoning on the other. by observation, and reasoning applied to observation, we obtain the science of nature and the science of humanity. but do we wish to rise above nature and humanity? we fail of all basis of observation; and reason works in a vacuum. there is therefore no possible way of reaching to god. is god an object of experience? no. can god be demonstrated _ã  priori_ by syllogisms? no. the idea of god therefore cannot be established, as answering to a reality, either by the way of experience or by the way of reasoning; it is a mere hypothesis. we do not, however, it is added, in our view of the matter, pretend (heaven forbid!) to exclude the sentiment of the divine from the soul, nor the word _god_ from fine poetry. we accept religious thoughts as dreams full of charm. but is it a question of reality? then god is an hypothesis, and hypothesis has no admission into the science of realities." these ideas place those who accept them in a position which is not without its advantages. when a man of practical mind says with a smile, "do you happen to believe in god?" one may reply to him, smiling in turn, "have i said that god is a real being?" and if a religious man asks, "are you falling then into atheism?" one may assume an indignant tone, and say: "we have never denied god: whoever says we have is a slanderer!" so god remains, for the necessities of poetry and art. but as we cannot know either what he is, or whether he is, real life goes on in complete and entire independence of him. the taking up of this position with regard to religion may, in certain cases, be a literary artifice. in other cases it is seriously done. there are certain natures of extreme delicacy, which, touched by the breath of modern scepticism, have lost all positive faith; but their better aspirations, and an instinctive love of purity, guard and direct them, in the absence of all belief, and they do not deny that which they believe no longer. such a mind is in an exceptional position. is it yours? and would you preserve it? keep a solitary path, and do not seek to communicate your ideas to others. contact with the public, and such an unfolding even of your own thoughts as would be required in carrying on a work of proselytism, would place you under the empire of those laws which govern the human mind in these matters. now what are these laws? a poet has already answered for us this question: en prã©sence du ciel, il faut croire ou nier.[161] a famous writer expands the same thought as follows: "doubt about things which it highly concerns us to know," says jean-jacques rousseau, "is a condition which does too great violence to the human mind; nor does it long bear up against it, but in spite of itself comes to a decision one way or another, and likes better to be mistaken than to believe nothing."[162] such is the law. we have met with the pretension to maintain the mind independent of god, without either denying or asserting his existence, and we have seen how completely this pretension fails in the presence of facts. the sceptic makes vain efforts to continue in a state of doubt, but the ground fails him, and he slips into negation: he affirms that humanity has been mistaken, and that god is not. but neither does this negation succeed any the more in keeping its ground; it strikes too violently against all the instincts of our nature. the human mind is under an imperious necessity to worship something; if god fails it, it sets itself to adore nature or humanity; atheism is transformed into idolatry. recollect the destinies of the critical school and of the positive philosophy! let us now examine, with serious attention, that attempt to _eliminate_ god which is the starting-point in this course along which the mind is hurried so fatally. god is not, i grant, an object of experience. i grant it at least in this sense, that god is not an object of sensible experience. the experience of god (if i may be allowed the expression), the feeling of his action upon the soul, is not a phenomenon open to the observation of all, and apart from determined spiritual conditions. in order to be sensible of the action of god, we must draw near to him. in order to draw near to him, we must, if not believe with firm faith in his existence, at least not deny him. the captives of plato's cavern can have no experience of light, so long as they heap their raillery on those who speak to them of the sun. i grant again that god cannot possibly be the object of a demonstration such as the science of geometry requires; i grant it fully, i have already said so. every man who reasons, affirms god in one sense; and the foundation of all reasoning cannot be the conclusion of a demonstration. god therefore, in the view of science formed according to our ordinary methods, is, i grant, an hypothesis. and here, gentlemen, allow me a passing word of explanation. when i say that god is an hypothesis, i run the risk of exciting, in many of you, feelings of astonishment not unmixed with pain. but i must beg you to remember the nature of these lectures. we are here far from the calm retirement of the sanctuary, and from such words of solemn exhortation as flow from the lips of the religious teacher. i have introduced you to the ardent conflicts of contemporary thought, and into the midst of the clamors of the schools. the soul which is seeking to hold communion with god, and so from their fountain-head to be filled with strength and joy, has something better to do than to be listening to such discourses as these. solitude, prayer, a calm activity pursued under the guidance of the conscience,--these are the best paths for such a soul, and the discussions in which we are now engaged are not perhaps altogether free from danger for one who has remained hitherto undisturbed in the first simplicity of his faith. but we are not masters of our own ways, and the circumstances of the present times impose upon us special duties. the barriers which separate the school and the world are everywhere thrown down. everywhere shreds of philosophy, and very often of bad philosophy,--scattered fragments of theological science, and very often of a deplorable theological science,--are insinuating themselves into the current literature. there is not a literary review, there is scarcely a political journal, which does not speak on occasion, or without occasion, of the problems relating to our eternal interests. the most sacred beliefs are attacked every day in the organs of public opinion. at such a juncture, can men who preserve faith in their own soul remain like dumb dogs, or keep themselves shut up in the narrow limits of the schools? assuredly not. we must descend to the common ground, and fight with equal weapons the great battles of thought. for this purpose it is necessary to make use of terms which may alarm some consciences, and to state questions which run the risk of startling sincerely religious persons. but there is no help for it, if we are to combat the adversaries on their own ground; and because it is thus only that, while we startle a few, we can prove to all that the torrent of negations is but a passing rush of waters, which, fret as they may in their channel, shall be found to have left not so much as a trace of their passage upon the rock of ages. i now therefore resume my course of argument. god is neither an object of experience, nor yet of demonstration properly so called. in the view of science, as it is commonly understood, of science which follows out the chain of its deductions, without giving attention to the very foundations of all the work of the reason,--god, that chief of all realities for a believing heart, that experience of every hour, that evidence superior to all proof, god is an hypothesis. i grant it. hence it is inferred that god has no place in science, for that hypothesis has no place in a science worthy of the name. but this i deny; and in support of this denial i proceed to show that the hypothesis which it is pretended to get quit of, is the generating principle of all human knowledge. whence does science proceed? does it result from mere experience? no. what does experience teach us when quite alone? nothing. experience, separated from all element of reason, only reveals to us our own sensations. this, a scotch philosopher, hume, has proved to demonstration,--a demonstration which constitutes his glory. it is easy, without having even a smattering of philosophy, to understand quite well that science is formed by thought. now, if we did not possess the faculty of thinking, it would not be given to us by experience. thought does not enter by the eye or the ear. imagine a living body not possessed of reason: its eye will reflect objects like a mirror, its tympanum will vibrate to the undulations of the air; but it will have no thoughts, and will know nothing. is science formed by pure reason? no. no one can say what pure reason is, for the exercise of our thought is connected indissolubly with experience. but, without pausing at this consideration, let us ask what pure reason can do, if deprived of all objects of experience? one thing only, namely, take cognizance of itself. now the reason, in taking cognizance of itself, only creates logic, that is to say, the theory of the laws of knowledge. some philosophers, to be sure, have undertaken to prove that reason, by dint of self-contemplation, might arrive at the knowledge of all things. they have maintained that all the secrets of the universe are contained in our thought, and that by just reasoning one may form the science of astronomy without looking at the stars, and write the history of the human race without taking the trouble to search laboriously into the annals of the past. but these attempts to _construct_ facts, instead of observing them, have succeeded too ill to merit very serious attention. science does not proceed therefore either from pure experience or from pure reason; whence does it really come? from the encounter of experience and of reason. man observes, and he ascertains that facts are governed according to intelligent design. he creates mathematics, and discovers that the phenomena of the heavens and the earth are ruled according to the laws of the calculus. his thought meets in the facts with traces of a thought similar to his own. if any one of you doubts this, i once more appeal to the almanac. science, then, has birth only from a meeting of experience with reason; how is this meeting effected? the whole question of the origin of science is here. this encounter is not necessary; it does not result simply from perseverance in observation. the encounter of mind and of facts constitutes a discovery. the thought which has governed nature may remain long veiled from our mind. all at once perhaps the veil is lifted, and the thought of man meets and recognizes itself in the phenomena which it is contemplating. we encounter in this case the exercise of a special faculty, which is neither the faculty of observing nor the faculty of reasoning, but the faculty of discovering. when a man possesses it to a certain degree, we call him a man of genius. genius, or the faculty of discovering, is the generating principle of science. still, strange to say, this principle is scarcely pointed out by a great number of logicians. they develop at length the rules of observation and the rules of reasoning; and it seems that, in their idea, the conjunction of reason and experience is effected all alone and of necessity. i taught logic myself in this way for twenty years, until one day, thinking better upon the subject, i was obliged to say to myself (forgive me this rather trivial quotation): tu n'avais oubliã© qu'un point: c'ã©tait d'ã©clairer ta lanterne.[163] the meeting together of the understanding and of facts is a discovery; and discovery depends upon a faculty sung by poets, admired by mankind, and too little noticed by logicians--genius. genius has for its characteristic a sudden illumination of the mind, a gratuitous gift and one which cannot be purchased. but let us hasten to supply a necessary explanation. genius is a primitive fact, a gift; but the work of genius has conditions, or rather a condition--labor. labor does not replace genius, but genius does not dispense with labor; nature only delivers up her secrets to those who observe her with long patience. newton was asked one day how he had found out the system of the universe. he replied with a sublime _naã¯vetã©_: "by thinking continually about it." he so pointed out the condition of every great discovery; but he forgot the cause--the peculiar nature of his own intellect. it was necessary to be always pondering the motions of the stars; but it was necessary moreover to be isaac newton. so many had thought on the subject, as long perhaps as he, and had not made the discovery. labor, the condition of discoveries, should have as its effect to recognize the methods really appropriate to the nature of the inquiries, and to keep the mind well informed in existing science. in fact, every scientific discovery supposes a series of previous discoveries which have brought the mind to the point at which it is possible to see something new. for this reason it is that a discovery often presents itself to two or three minds at once, when there are found, at the same epoch, two or three minds endowed with the same power. they see all together because the onward progress of science has brought them to the same summit: this is the condition; and because they have the same power of vision: this is the cause. there is therefore a method for putting ourselves on the road to discovery, but no method for making the discovery itself. the man of genius sees where others do not see; and when he has seen, everybody sees after him. if, furnished with gyges' ring, you could gain access to the studies of savants at the moment when a great discovery has just been made, you would see more than one of them striking his forehead and exclaiming: "fool that i was! how could i help seeing it? it was so simple." truth appears simple when it has been discovered. discovery therefore, which has labor for its condition, is the principle of the progress of science. under what form does a discovery present itself to the mind of its author? as a supposition, or, which is the same thing, as an hypothesis. hypothesis is the sole process by which progress in science is effected. if we supposed nothing, we should know nothing. in vain should we look at the sky and the earth to all eternity, our eye would never read the laws of astronomy in the stars of heaven, nor the laws of life upon the bark of trees or in the entrails of animals. this is true even of mathematics. the contemplation, prolonged indefinitely, of the series of numbers, or of the forms of space, would produce neither arithmetic nor geometry, if the human mind did not suppose relations between the numbers and the lines, which it can only demonstrate after it has supposed them. the conditions are very clearly seen which have prepared and made possible a fruitful supposition, but the hypothesis does not itself follow of any necessity. it appears like a flash of light passing suddenly through the mind. the carpenter's saw opens a plank from end to end on the sole conditions of labor and time; but the discovery of truth preserves always a sudden and unforeseen character. archimedes leaps from a bath and rushes through the streets of syracuse, crying out, "i have found it!" why? the flash of genius has visited him unexpectedly. pythagoras discovers a geometrical theorem; and he offers, it is said, a sacrifice to the gods, in testimony of his gratitude. he thought therefore, according to the fine remark of malebranche, that labor and attention are a silent prayer which we address to the master of truth: the labor is a prayer, and the discovery is an answer granted to it. when this wholly spontaneous character of discovery is not recognized, and when it is thought that the observation of facts naturally produces their explanation, it must needs be granted that a discovery is confirmed by the very fact that it is made. but this is by no means the case. hypothesis does not carry on its brow, at the moment of its birth, the certain sign of its truth. a flash of light crosses the mind of the savant; but he must enter on a course, often a long course, of study, in order to know whether it is a true light, or a momentary glare. every supposition suggested by observation must be confirmed by its agreement with the data of experience. let us listen to a great discoverer-kepler. he is giving an account of the discovery of one of the laws which have immortalized his name. "after i had found the real dimensions of the orbits, thanks to the observations of brahe and the sustained effort of a long course of labor, i at length discovered the proportion of the periodic times to the extent of these orbits. and if you would like to know the precise date of the discovery,--it was on the eighth day of march in this year 1618 that,--first of all conceived in my mind, then awkwardly essayed by calculations, rejected in consequence as false, then reproduced on the fifteenth of may with fresh energy,--it rose at last above the darkness of my understanding, so fully confirmed by my labor of seventeen years upon brahe's observations, and by my own meditations perfectly agreeing with them, that i thought at first i was dreaming, and making some _petitio principii_; but there is no more doubt about it: it is a very certain and very exact proposition."[164] all the logic of discoveries is laid down in these lines; and these lines are a testimony rendered by one of the most competent of witnesses. you see in them the conditions of a good hypothesis: kepler has long studied the phenomena of which he wishes to find the law; he has studied them by himself, and by means of the discoveries of his predecessor brahe. the law has presented itself to his mind at a given moment, on the eighth of march, 1618. but he does not yet know whether it is a true light, or a deceptive gleam. he seeks the confirmation of his hypothesis; he does not find it, because he makes a mistake, and he rejects his idea as useless. the idea returns; a new course of labor confirms it; and so the hypothesis becomes a law, a certain proposition. such is the regular march of thought. an hypothesis has no right to be brought forward until it has passed into the condition of a law, by being duly confirmed. there are minds, however, endowed with a sort of divination, which feel as by instinct the truth of a discovery, even before it has been confirmed. it is told of copernicus, that having discovered, or re-discovered, the true system of planetary motion, he encountered an opponent who said to him: "if your system were true, venus would have phases like the moon; now she has none, and therefore your system is false. what have you to reply?"--"i have no reply to make," said copernicus, (the objection was a serious one in fact); "but god will grant that the answer shall be found."[165] galileo appeared, and by means of the telescope it was ascertained that venus has phases like the moon;--the confidence of copernicus was justified. the scientific career of m. ampã¨re, the illustrious natural philosopher, supplies an analogous fact. trusting, like copernicus, to a kind of intuition of truth, he read one day to the academy of sciences the complete description of an experiment which he had never made. he made it subsequently, and the result answered completely to his anticipations. genius is here raised to the second power, since it possesses at once the gift of discovery and the just presentiment of its confirmation; but these are exceptional cases, and in general we must say, with mithridates, that- .... to be approved as true such projects must be proved, and carried through.[166] we would encourage no one to attempt adventures so perilous, but would call to mind in a great example what is the regular march of science. newton, after he had discovered the law which regulates the motions of the heavens, sought the confirmation of it in an immense series of calculations. a true ascetic of science, he imposed on himself a regimen as severe as that of a trappist monk, in order that his life might be wholly concentrated upon the operations of the understanding; and it was not until after fifteen months of persistent labor that he exclaimed: "i have discovered it! my calculations have really encountered the march of the stars. glory to god! who has permitted us to catch a glimpse of the skirts of his ways!" and astronomy, placed upon a wider and firmer basis, went forward with new energy. it is thus that the human mind acquires knowledge. how then does hypothesis come to be made light of? how can it be seriously said that we have excluded hypothesis from the sphere of science, whereas the moment the faculty of supposing should cease to be in exercise, the march of science would be arrested; since, except a small number of principles the evidence of which is immediate, all the truths we possess are only suppositions confirmed by experiment? the reason is here: our mind forms a thousand different suppositions at its own will and fancy; and it shrinks from that studious toil which alone puts it in a position to make fruitful suppositions. we are for ever tempted to be guessing, instead of setting ourselves, by patient observations, on the road to real discoveries. it is therefore with good reason that theories hastily built up have been condemned, and lord chancellor bacon was right in thinking that the human mind requires lead to be attached to it, and not wings. hence the inference has been drawn that the simplest plan would be to cut the wings of thought, without reflecting that thenceforward it would continue motionless. because some had abused hypothesis, others must conclude that we could do without it altogether. trivial and premature suppositions have therefore discredited hypothesis, by encumbering science with a crowd of vain imaginations; but this encumbrance would have been of small importance but for the obstinacy with which false theories have too often been maintained against the evidence of facts. if ampã¨re had found his experiment fail, and had still continued to maintain his statements, he would not have given proof of a happy audacity, but of a ridiculous obstinacy. genius itself makes mistakes, and experience alone distinguishes real laws from mere freaks of our thought. we have maintained the rights of reason in the spontaneous exercise of the faculty of discovery; but let us beware how we ignore the rights of experience. it alone prepares discoveries; it alone can confirm them. a system, however well put together, is convicted of error by the least fact which really contradicts it. a greek philosopher was demonstrating by specious arguments that motion is impossible. diogenes was one of his auditory, and he got up and began to walk: the answer was conclusive. you remember, if you have read walter scott, the learned demonstration of the antiquary who is settling the date of a roman or celtic ruin, i forget which; and the intervention of the beggar, who has no archã¦ological system, but who has seen the edifice in question both built and fall to decay. reason as much as you like; if your reasonings do not accord with facts, you will have woven spider's webs, of admirable fineness perhaps, but wanting in solidity. it is time to sum up these lengthened considerations. science does not originate solely from experiment, nor does it proceed solely from reason; it results from the meeting together of experience and reason. experience prepares the discovery, genius makes it, experience confirms it. what distinguishes the sciences is not the process of invention, which is everywhere the same; but the process of control over supposed truths. a mathematical discovery is confirmed by pure reasoning. a physical discovery is confirmed by sensible observation joined with calculation. a discovery in the order of morals is confirmed by observation of the facts of consciousness. therefore it is that between the physical and moral sciences there exists a broad line of demarcation. moral facts have not less certainty than physical phenomena; but moral facts falling under the influence of liberty, all men cannot perceive them equally under all conditions. an optical experiment presents itself to the eyes, and all the spectators see it alike, if at least they have one and the same visual organization; but a case of moral experience has a personal character, and is only communicated to another person on condition that he puts faith in the testimony of his fellow. in this order of things a man can observe directly only what he concurs in producing. with this reservation, we may say that the control of moral truths is made by experience like that of physical truths. in all departments of knowledge, a thought may be held as true when it accounts for facts. and so, gentlemen, we conclude that every scientific truth is, in its origin, a supposition of the mind, the result of which is to produce the meeting together of experience and reason, and so to permit the rational reconstruction of the facts. every system is shown to be at fault by facts, if facts contradict it. when a system explains the facts, we hold it as proved just to the extent to which it explains them. this accordance of our thought with the nature of things is the mark of what we call truth. if you grant me these premises, my demonstration is completed, and it only remains for me to draw my conclusions. it is said that the idea of god can have no place in a serious science, because this idea comes neither from experience nor from reason; that it is only an hypothesis, and that hypothesis has no place in science. i reply, grounding my answer on the preceding reasonings: no science is formed otherwise than by means of hypothesis. for the solution of the universal problem there exists in the world an hypothesis, proposed to all by tradition, and which bears in particular the names of moses and of jesus christ. this hypothesis has the right to be examined. if it explains the facts, it must be held for true. the idea of god comes therefore within the regular compass of science; the attempt to exclude it is sophistical. let us separate the idea of god from the whole body of christian doctrine of which it forms part, in order that we may give it particular consideration. what is this hypothesis which bears the names of moses and jesus christ? it is that the principle of the universe is the eternal and infinite being. his power is the cause of all that exists; the consciousness of his infinite power constitutes his infinite intelligence. in himself, he is _he who is_; in his relation with the world, he is the absolute cause, the creator. this explanation of the universe is not the privilege of a few savants; it is taught and proposed to all; and this is no reason why we should despise it. if we further observe that this thought has renovated the world, that it upholds all our civilization, that thousands of our fellow-creatures raise their voice to tell us that it is only from this source they have drawn peace, light, and happiness, we shall understand perhaps that contempt would be foolish, and that everything on the contrary invites us to examine with the most serious attention an hypothesis which offers itself to us under conditions so exceptional. the hypothesis is stated. we must now submit it to the test of facts. where shall we find the elements of its confirmation? everywhere, since it is the first cause of all things which is in question: we shall find them in nature and in humanity; in the motions of the stars as they sweep through the depths of space, and in the rising of the sap which nourishes a blade of grass; in the revolutions of empires, and in the simplest elements of the life of one individual. there is no science of god; but every science, every study must terminate at that sacred name. i shall not undertake, therefore, to enumerate all the confirmations of the thought which makes of the creator the principle of the universe: to recount all the proofs of the infinite being would require an eternal discourse. we have stammered forth a few of the words of this endless discourse, by showing that, without god, the understanding, the conscience, and the heart lose their support and fall: this formed the subject of our second lecture. we saw further that reason makes fruitless attempts to find the universal principle in the objects of our experience--nature and humanity. let us follow up, although we shall not be able to complete it, the study of this inexhaustible subject, by showing that the idea of the creator alone answers to the demands of the philosophic reason. philosophy, in the highest acceptation of the term, is the search after a solution for the universal problem the terms of which may be stated as follows: experience reveals to us that the world is composed of manifold and diverse beings; and, to come at once to the great division, there are in the world bodies which we are forced to suppose inert, and minds which we feel to be intelligent and free. the universe is made up of manifold existences; this is quite evident, and a matter of experience. reason on the other hand forces us to seek for unity. to comprehend, is to reduce phenomena to their laws, to connect effects with their causes, consequences with their principles; it is to be always introducing unity into the diversity. all development of science would be at once arrested, if the mind could content itself with merely taking account of facts in the state of dispersion in which they are presented by experience. each particular science gathers up a multitude of facts into a small number of formulã¦; and, above and beyond particular sciences, reason searches for the connection of all things with one single cause. to determine the relation of all particular existences with one existence which is their common cause; such is the universal problem. this problem has been very well expressed by pythagoras in a celebrated formula, that of the _uni-multiple_. in order to understand the universe, we must rise to a unity which may account for the multiplicity of things and for their harmony, which is unity itself maintained in diversity. if you well understand this thought, you will easily comprehend the source of the great errors which flow from too strong a disposition to systematize. men of this mind attach themselves to inadequate conceptions, and look for unity where it does not exist. the barrier which we must oppose to this spirit of system is the careful enumeration of the facts which it forgets to notice. materialism looks for unity in inert and unintelligent bodies; it suffices to oppose to it one fact--the reality of mind. fatalism seeks unity in necessity. point out to it that its destiny-god does not account for the fact of repentance, for example, which implies liberty, and it is enough. the worship of humanity forces you to exclaim with pascal--a queer god, that! there is in the bitterness of this smile a sufficient condemnation of the doctrine. to seek for unity, is the foundation of all philosophy. to seek for unity too hastily and too low, is the source of the errors of absolute minds. absolute minds, however great they may be in other respects, are weak minds, in that they do not succeed in preserving a clear view of the diversity of the facts to be explained. take the problem of pythagoras; keep hold of the two extremities of the chain; never allow yourselves to deny the diversity of things, for that diversity is plainly evidenced by human experience; beware of denying their unity, because it is the foundation of reason; then search and look through the histories of philosophy: you will find one hypothesis, and one only, which answers the requirements of the problem. it goes back, as i believe, to the origin of the world; it was glimpsed by socrates, by aristotle, and plato; but, in its full light, it belongs only to men who have received the god of moses, and who have studied in the school of jesus christ. if this hypothesis explains the facts, it is sound, for the property of truth is to explain, as the property of light is to enlighten. the doctrine of the creator can alone account to us for the universe, by bringing us back to its first cause. the first cause of unity cannot be matter which could never produce mind; the first cause of unity cannot be the human mind, which, from the moment that it desires to take itself for the absolute being, is dissolved and annihilated. the unity which alone can have in itself the source of multiplicity, is neither matter nor idea, but power; power the essential characteristic of mind, and infinite, that is to say, creative power. the creator alone could produce divers beings, because he is almighty, and maintain harmony between those beings, because he is one. thus is manifested an essential agreement between the requirements of philosophy and the religious sentiment; for religion, as we said at the beginning of these lectures, rests upon the idea of divine power. reason and faith meet together upon the lofty heights of truth. but let us not enter too far into the difficulties of philosophy. let us confine ourselves to considerations of a less abstruse order. the creator is the god of nature. all the visible universe is but the work of his power, the manifestation of his wisdom. the poet of the hebrews invites to offer praise to the most high, not only men of every age and of all nations, but the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the cedars of the forest, the rain and the wind, the hail and the tempest.[167] in the language of a modern poet: thee, lord, the wide world glorifies; the bird upon its nest replies; and for one little drop of rain beings thine eye doth not disdain ten thousand more repeat the strain.[168] and such thoughts are not vain freaks of the imagination. man, the conscious representative of nature, the high-priest of the universe, feels himself urged by an impulse of his heart to translate the confused murmur of the creation into a hymn of praise to the infinite being, the absolute source of life,--to him who _is_, one, eternal,--the first and absolute cause of all existence. the creator is the god of spirits. he is not only the god of humankind; "the immense city of god contains, no doubt, nobler citizens than man, in reasoning power so weak, and in affections so poor."[169] but let us speak of what is known to us: he is the god of humankind. all nations shall one day render glory to him. mighty words have resounded through the world: "henceforth there is no longer either greek or barbarian or jew; but one and the same god for all." the idols have begun to fall; the gods of the nations have been hurled from their pedestals; they have fallen, they are falling, they will fall, until the knowledge of the only and sovereign creator shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. the creator shall one day be known of all his creatures; and in each of his creatures he will be the centre and the object of the whole soul; all the functions of the spiritual life lead on to him. what is truth, beauty, good? we have already replied to the question, but we will repeat our answer. to possess truth is to know god; it is to know him in the work of his hands, and it is to know him in his absolute power, as the eternal source of all that is, of all that can ever be, of all actual or possible truth in the mind of his creatures. truth binds us to him, "and all _science_ is a hymn to his glory."[170] he is the eternal source of beauty. he it is who gives to the bird its song, and to the brook its murmur. he it is who has established between nature and man those mysterious relations which give rise to noble joys. he it is who opens, above and beyond nature, the prolific sources of art; the ideal is a distant reflection of his splendor. and goodness, again, is none other than he; it is his plan; it is his will in regard of spirits; it is the word addressed to the free creature, which says to it: behold thy place in the universal harmony. thus a triple ray descends from the uncreated light, and before that insufferable brightness i am dazzled and bewildered. there is no longer any distinction for me between profane and sacred; i no longer understand the difference of these terms. wheresoever i meet with good, truth, beauty, be the man who brings them to me who he may, and come he whence he may, i feel that to despise in him that gleam, would be not only to be wanting to humanity, it would be to be wanting to my faith. if my prejudices or habits tend to shut up my heart or to narrow my mind, i hear a voice exclaiming to me: "enlarge thy tent; lengthen thy cords; enlarge thy tent without measure. be ye lift up, eternal gates, gates of the conscience and the heart! let in the king of glory!" all truth, all beauty, all good is he. where my god is, nothing is profane for me. to ignore any one of those rays would be to steal somewhat from his glory. oh! the happy liberty of the heart, when it rests on the author of all good and of all truth. but if the heart is at liberty, how well is it guarded too! what is the most beautiful jewel (if we may venture to use such language) in the immortal crown of this king of glory? powerful, he created power; free, he created liberty. and to the free creature, in the hour of its creation, he said: "behold! thou art made in mine own image! my will is written in thy conscience; become a worker together with me, and realize the plans of my love." and that voice--i hear it within myself. ah! i know that voice well, i know the secret attraction which, in spite of all my miseries, draws me towards that which is beautiful, pure, holy, and says to me: this is the will of thy father. but i know other voices also which speak within me only too loudly: the voice of rebellion and of cowardice, the voice of baseness and ignominy. there is war in my soul. enlightened by this inner spectacle, i cast my eyes once more over that world in which i have seen shining everywhere some divine rays; and i see that by a triple gate, lofty and wide, evil has entered thither, accompanied by error and deformity. then i understand that all may become profane; i understand that there is an erring science, a corrupting art, a moral system full of immorality. but these words take for me a new meaning. there is no sacred evil, there is no profane good; there are no sacred errors and profane truths. where god is, all is holy; where there is rebellion against god, all is evil. and so the god who is my light is my fortress also; my heart is strengthened while it is set at liberty, and i can join the ancient song of israel: jehovah is our strength and tower. yes, sirs, god is in all, because he is the universal principle of being; but he is not in all after the same manner. god is in the pure heart by the joy which he gives to it; he is in the frivolous heart by the void and the vexation which urge it to seek a better destiny; he is in the corrupt heart by that merciful remorse which does not permit it to wander, without warning, from the springs of life. god makes use of all for the good of his creatures. he is everywhere by the direct manifestation of his will, except in the acts of rebellious liberty, and in the shadow of pain which follows that evil light which leads astray from him. having said that the idea of god the creator alone satisfies the reason, and raises up, upon the basis of reason, man's conscience and heart, i should wish to show you, in conclusion, that this idea renders an account of the great systems of error which divide the human mind between them. truth bears this lofty mark, that it never overthrows a doctrine without causing any portion of truth which it may have contained to pass into its own bosom. what then,--apart from declared atheism, from the dualism which has almost disappeared, and from faith in god the creator,--are the great systems which share the human mind between them? there are two: deism and pantheism. what is deism? it is a doctrine which acknowledges that there is one god, the cause of the universe; but a god who is in a manner withdrawn from his own work, and who leaves it to go on alone. god has regulated things in the mass, but not in detail, or, to employ an expression of jean-jacques rousseau (who came at a later period to entertain better opinions), "god is like a king who governs his kingdom, but who does not trouble himself to ascertain whether all the taverns in it are good ones." the idea of a general government of god which does not descend to details--such is the essence of deism. what is pantheism, in the ordinary meaning of the word? we have already said: it is a doctrine which absorbs god in the universe, which confounds him with nature, and makes of him only the inert substance, the unconscious principle of the universe. these are the two great conceptions which wrestle, in the history of human thought, against the idea of the creator. these two systems triumph easily one over the other, because each of them contains a portion of truth which is wanting to its antagonist. they cannot support themselves because each of them has in it a portion of error. this is what we must well understand. deism contains a portion of truth; for it maintains a creator essentially distinct from the creation, or, according to an expression which i translate from an ancient indian poem: "one single act of his created the universe, and he remained himself whole and entire." this thought is true. what is the error of deism? it is that it makes a god like to a man who works upon matter existing previously to his action, and who puts in operation forces independent of himself, and which he does nothing but employ. in this way a watchmaker makes a watch which goes afterwards without him, because the watchmaker only sets to work forces which have an independent existence, and which continue to act when he has ceased his labor. we work upon matter foreign to us. the workman did not make matter, but only disposes of it, and he can never do more than modify the action of forces which do not proceed from his will, and have not been regulated by his understanding. but the being who is the cause of all cannot dispose of foreign forces which act afterwards by themselves, since there exists in his work no principle of action other than those which he has himself placed in it. deism results therefore from a confusion between the work of a creature placed in a preexisting world, and the work of the supreme will which is in itself the single and absolute cause of all. it contains an element of dualism: its god does not create; but organizes a world the being of which does not depend on him. take what is true in deism--the existence of the only god; remember that the creator is the absolute cause of the universe; and the distinction between _ensemble_ and detail will vanish, and you will understand that god is too great that there should be anything small in his eyes: god measures not our lot by line and square: the grass-suspended drop of morning dew reflects a firmament as vast and fair as ocean from his boundless field of blue.[171] in other words, take what is true in deism, and accept all the consequences of it, and you will arrive at the full doctrine of the creation. pantheism recognizes the omnipresence of god in the universe, or, if you like the terms of the school, the immanence of god; this is its portion of truth. when i open the hindoos' songs of adoration, and find therein the unlimited enumeration of the manifestations of god in nature, i find nothing to complain of. but when, in those same hymns, i see liberty denied, the origin of evil attributed to the holy one, and man cowering before destiny, instead of turning his eyes freely towards the heavenly father, then i stand only more erect and say: you forget that if your god is the cause of all, he is the cause of liberty. if liberty exists, evil, the revolt of liberty, is not the work of the creator. your system contradicts itself. you make of god the universal principle, and you are right; make of him then the author of free wills, so that he will be no longer the source of evil, and we shall be agreed. deism and pantheism therefore, pushed to their legitimate consequences, are transformed and united in the truth. and you see plainly that i am not making, for my part, an arbitrary selection in these systems. i am walking by one sole light, the light which has been given to us, and which serves me everywhere as a guiding clue:--the lord is god, and there is no other god but he. such, gentlemen, is the fundamental truth on which rests all religion, and all philosophy capable of accounting for facts. such is the grand cause which claims all the efforts which we are wasting too often in barren conflicts--the cause of god. but do i say the truth? is it the cause of god which is at stake? when a surgeon, by a successful operation, has restored sight to a blind man, we are not wont to say that he has rendered a service to the sun. this cause is our own; it is that of society at large, it is that of families, that of individuals; it is the cause which concerns our dignity, our happiness; it is the cause of all, even of those who attack it in words of which they do not calculate the import, and who, were they to succeed in banishing god from the public conscience, would, with us, recoil in terror at sight of the frightful abysses into which we all should fall together. it is time to sum up these considerations. inert and unintelligent matter is not the cause of life and intelligence. human consciences would be plunged in irremediable misery, if ever they could be persuaded that there is nothing superior to man. the universe is the work of wisdom and of power; it is the creation of the infinite mind. what can still be wanting to our hearts? the thought that god desires our good,--that he loves us. if it is so, we shall be able to understand that our cause is his, that he is not an impassible sun whose rays fall on us with indifference, but a father who is moved at our sorrows, and who would have us find joy and peace in him. this will be the subject of our next and concluding lecture. footnotes: [160] firmissimum hoc afferri videtur, cur deos esse credamus, quod nulla gens tam fera, nemo omnium tam sit immanis, cujus mentem non imbuerit deorum opinio. multi de diis prava sentiunt, id enim vitioso more effici solet; omnes tamen esse vim et naturam divinam arbitrantur.... omni autem in re consentio omnium gentium, lex naturã¦ putanda est.--_tuscul._ i. 13. [161] _in presence of heaven, we must believe or deny._ see lecture iii. [162] _profession de foi du vicaire savoyard._ [163] thou hadst only forgotten one point, and that was, to light thy lantern. [164] _harmonices mundi libri quinque_. [165] the authenticity of this reply is disputed; m. arago gives it in different terms; but the question is of small consequence here as one of historical criticism, my object being not to establish a fact, but to put an idea in a strong light by means of an example. [166] .... pour ãªtre approuvã©s de semblables projets veulent ãªtre achevã©s. [167] ps. cxlviii. [168] le monde entier te glorifie, l'oiseau te chante sur son nid; et pour une goutte de pluie des milliers d'ãªtres t'ont beni. [169] albert de haller. _lettres sur les vã©ritã©s les plus importantes de la rã©vã©lation_. lettre 2. [170] et toute la _science_ est un hymne ã  sa gloire. [171] dieu ne mesure pas nos sorts ã  l'ã©tendue. la goutte de rosã©e ã  l'herbe suspendue y rã©flã©chit un ciel aussi vaste, aussi pur que l'immense ocã©an dans ses plaines d'azur. lamartine. lecture vii. _the father._ (at geneva, 8th dec. 1863.--at lausanne, 1st feb. 1864.) gentlemen, we have proposed for solution the problem which includes all others whatsoever--the problem of the universe. what are the laws which govern the universe? they are those which are the objects of science, taking that word in its largest and most general meaning. what is the cause of the universe? the eternal power of the infinite mind. these are the two answers which we have hitherto obtained, but, as we have explained, a study is not complete if it confine itself to these two answers. when we know the law and the cause of an object submitted to our study, we further look for the end designed. this is no freak of our fancy, but the direct result of the constitution of our understanding. the universe is the creation of god. what is the design of the creation? i answer: the design of the creation is the happiness of spirits. nature is made for the spiritual beings to which it offers the condition of their life and development; spiritual beings are made for felicity. the moving spring of infinite power is goodness: this is my thesis. if i succeed in establishing it, it will follow that we shall in imagination see issuing from the supreme unity of the infinite being three rays: the power which creates the being of things; the intelligence which orders them; and the love which conducts them to their destination. it will also follow that i shall have justified the title under which these lectures were announced: power and wisdom are attributes of the creator; the father reveals himself in goodness. what shall be our method? can we enter into the counsels of god? by what means? to place our understanding in the midst of the divine consciousness, there to behold the spring of the determinations of the infinite being, were an attempt so far exceeding our capacity, that it is impossible to point out any means whatever by which it could be made. this would be to conceive of god in his eternal essence, independently of his relation to the universe, to nature, and to our reason. i do not say merely that the attempt would be fruitless; i say that we have no means of attempting this metaphysical adventure. but might we not, in looking at the work of god, discern in it the evidence of its design? this is a process which we often follow in regard to our fellow-creatures. do we wish to know the object which a man has in view in his labor? he may himself disclose that object to us directly in words, or we may endeavor to discover it. we watch him at work, and by observing the way in which he proceeds we sometimes come to know what his thoughts are, because we find ourselves in presence of the work of a mind, and we ourselves are mind. can we in the same way, by looking at the universe, that grand work, succeed in discovering its end? the way on which we are entering raises two objections, which proceed from the difficulties felt by two classes of men of opposite views; and our first business will be to rid ourselves of these preliminary difficulties. you will never succeed, it has been said to me, in proving the goodness of god, because evil is in the world. i am not inventing, gentlemen. a letter containing this challenge has been addressed to me by one of you. it is manifest, since we propose to ourselves to recognize in the work the intention of the worker, and since our thesis is the goodness of the first cause of the universe, that evil, in all its forms, sin, pain, imperfection, is the main objection which can be addressed to us. evil is real; it is a sad and great reality; i am forward to acknowledge it. any system which would prove that evil does not exist, or, which comes to the same thing, that evil is necessary, that good and evil in short are of the same nature, is an impossible, i had almost said a culpable, system. the strongest minds have worn themselves out in such attempts with no result whatever. the great leibnitz attempted an enterprise of this nature. his system consisted in extenuating evil as far as possible, and in pronouncing that amount of evil, of which he could not dissemble the existence, to be necessary. he failed. the strong intellectual armor of one of the greatest geniuses the world has ever seen was completely transpierced by the sharp and brilliant shaft of voltaire. sad reckoners of the woes which men endure, sharpening the pangs ye make pretence to cure, poor comforters! in your attempts i see nought but the pride which feigns unreal glee! o mortals, of such bliss how weak the spell! ye cry in doleful accents--"all is well!"- and all things at the great deceit rebel. nay, if your minds to coin the flattery dare, your hearts as often lay the falsehood bare. the gloomy truth admits of no disguise- evil is on the earth![172] for once, gentlemen, we will not contradict our old neighbor of ferney. yes, evil is on the earth; and it constitutes, in the question which we are discussing, the greatest of problems, the most serious of difficulties. let us listen to a modern poet: why then so great, o sovereign lord, came evil from thy forming hand, that reason, yea, and virtue stand aghast before the sight abhorred? and how can deeds so hideous glare beneath the beams of holy light, that on the lips of hapless wight dies at their view the trembling prayer? why do the many parts agree so scantly in thy work sublime? and what is pestilence, or crime, or death, o righteous god, to thee?[173] we have only to put this poetry into common prose to obtain this argument, namely,--the presence of evil in the world is not compatible with the idea of the goodness of god. here is the objection in all its force. and what is the answer? simply this, that god did not create evil. it was not he who brought crime into the world. he created liberty, which is a good, and evil is the produce of created liberty in rebellion against the law of its being. i borrow from jean-jacques rousseau the development of this thought. "if man," says he, "is a free agent, then he acts of himself; whatever he does freely enters not into the ordained system of providence, and cannot be imputed to it. the creator does not will the evil which man does, in abusing the liberty which he gives him. he has made him free in order that he may do not evil but good by choice. to murmur because god does not hinder him from doing evil, is to murmur because he made him of an excellent nature, attached to his actions the moral character which ennobles them, and gave him a right to virtue. what! in order to prevent man from being wicked, must he needs be confined to instinct and made a mere brute? no; god of my soul, never will i reproach thee with having made it in thine image, in order that i might be free, good, and happy, like thyself. "it is the abuse of our faculties which renders us unhappy and wicked. our vexations and our cares come to us from ourselves." such is rousseau's answer to the objection drawn from the existence of evil. it is a good one. it is so good that it is impossible to find a better. if we are determined not to outrage the human conscience by denying the reality of evil; if god is the sovereign good, and if there is no other principle of things than he; evil cannot be accounted for otherwise than by the rebellion of the creature. but now, rousseau's answer, excellent in itself and in the abstract, becomes profoundly inadequate, as the citizen of geneva goes on to develop his theory. evil comes from the creature; but each individual is not the exclusive source of the evils which he does and suffers. to attribute to each individual, not only the responsibility of his acts, but the origin of the evil germs which exist in his soul, is the untenable proposition of a desperate individualism. there is evidently among men a common property in evil; rousseau sees it clearly enough, but he makes vain efforts to find in the organization of society and in the condition of civilization the causes of pain and of sin. when one has come to see clearly that the source of evil is in the creature, the close mutual connection of created wills and their relations with nature present a field for long and difficult study; and rousseau has no sooner discerned the road to truth than he wanders away into byroads in which the solution of the problem escapes him. this problem, gentlemen, i have the intention and desire of studying some day, if god permit, with those of you who may be willing to undertake it with me. we shall then have to deal with an objection, or rather with a difficulty. but this difficulty, which we cannot now dispose of, must not hinder us from stating our thesis. in every well-conducted study, the propositions to be maintained must be laid down and supported before dealing with objections. if it were maintained that evil is the principle of things, it would be necessary first of all to endeavor to establish the thesis, in which the existence of good would be brought forward, and would constitute the objection. the objection would have to be answered--why has good appeared in the world? and i would just say in passing, that our libraries are full of treatises upon the origin of evil, and i have never met with one upon the origin of good. it appears therefore that reason has always admitted, by a sort of instinct, the identity of good, and of the principle of being. our thesis is that the principle of the universe is good. we are going to try to demonstrate it. afterwards the difficulty, evil, will present itself, of which it will be necessary to seek the explanation. this will be the natural sequel, and the necessary complement of the course of lectures which we are concluding to-day. i pass to another difficulty, another challenge which also has been addressed to me. your object, christians have said to me, is to establish that the principle and ground of all things is goodness. this you will not be able to do without departing from your prescribed plan, and entering upon the domain of christian faith properly so called. in your examination of the universe will you leave out of view jesus christ and his work? do you not know that it is by means of this work that the idea of the love of god has been implanted in the world, and that it is thence you have taken it? do you think to climb to the loftiest heights of thought, and to make the ascent by some other road than over the mountain of nazareth and the hill of calvary? gentlemen, i declared my whole mind on this subject at first starting. the complete idea of god demands, for its maintenance, the grand doctrinal foundations of our faith. christian in its origin, firm faith in the love of god the creator requires for its defence the armor of the gospel. but before defending this belief, we must first establish it; we must show that it has natural roots in human nature. christianity purifies and strengthens it, but it does not in an absolute sense create it. the mark of truth is that it does not strike us as something absolutely new, but that it finds an echo in the depths of our soul. when we meet with it, we seem to re-enter into the possession of our patrimony. the cross of jesus christ is without all contradiction the most transcendent proof of the mercy of the creator; but the cross of jesus christ rather warrants the christian in believing in the divine love than gives him the idea of it. we must distinguish in the gospel between the universal religion which it has restored, and the act itself of that restoration, which constitutes the gospel in the special sense of the word. now what i am here maintaining is the fact of the existence in modern society of the elements of the universal religion. i am far from sharing in the illusions of my fellow-countryman rousseau, when he affirms that even if he had lived in a desert isle, and had never known a fellow-man, he would nevertheless have been able to write the _profession de foi du vicaire savoyard_. i know very well that if i were a brahmin, born at the foot of the himalayas, or a chinese mandarin, i should not be able to say all that i am saying respecting the goodness of god. the light which we have received--i know whence it radiates; but, by the help of that light, i seek its kindred rays everywhere, and everywhere i find them in humanity. let us endeavor, then, according to our plan, to recognize in the universe the marks of the divine goodness. let us first of all interrogate the human soul, which is certainly one of the essential elements of the world; and let us interrogate it with regard to the great fact of religion. the universal religion presents to observation two principal forms of mental experience: the sense of the necessity for appeasing the divine justice, and the sense of the necessity for obtaining the help of god. the sense of the necessity for appeasing justice reveals itself in sacrifices. there are sacrifices which are merely offerings of gratitude, and freewill gifts of love. but when you see the blood of animals flowing in the temples, and not seldom human blood gushing forth upon the altars, you will be unable to escape the conviction that man, in presenting himself before the deity, feels constrained to appease a justice which threatens him. the sense of the need of help shows itself in prayer; and this must be the especial object of our study, because it is in the fact of religious invocation that we shall encounter the idea, obscure perhaps, but real, of the goodness of the first cause of the universe. prayer is a fact of the universal religion. whence is it that we derive a large part of what knowledge we have of the ancient civilizations of india and egypt? from ruins: and the chief of these ruins are the ruins of temples, that is to say, of houses of prayer. would we go further back than these monuments of stone? i interrogate those pioneers of science who are searching for the traces of antiquity in old languages,--in the ruins of speech. i inquire, for example, of my learned fellow-countryman, m. adolphe pictet: "you who have studied, with patient care, the first origins of our race--what have you discovered in the way of religion?" he replies: "when i have gone as far back as historical speculations can carry us by the aid of language, it appears to me that i no longer see temples built by the hand of man, but, beneath the open vault of heaven, i see our earliest ancestors sending up together the chant of prayer and the flame of sacrifice."[174] and now, from this remote antiquity, i come down to the paganism, in which modern civilization had its beginning. tertullian teaches us that the pagans, seeming to forget their idols, and to offer a spontaneous testimony to the truth, were often wont to exclaim--great god! good god! what in their mind was the order of these two thoughts, the thought of greatness and that of goodness? the pediment of a temple at rome bore this famous inscription, _deo optimo maximo_; and cicero explains to us that the god of the capitol was by the roman people named "very good" on account of the benefits conferred by him, and "very great" on account of his power.[175] it is the idea of goodness which here appears to be first. but let us go more directly to the root of the question: what do we gather from the universality of prayer? what is it to pray? to pray is to ask. prayer may be mingled with thanksgivings, and with expressions of adoration, but in itself prayer is a petition. this petition rises to god: and when does it so rise? in distress, in anguish. it is misery, weakness, the heart cast down, the failing will, which unite to raise from earth to heaven that long cry which resounds across all the pages of history: help!--i analyze this fact, and inquire what it means. a request is made, and for what? for strength, for tranquillity, for peace; for happiness under all its forms. and of whom is happiness asked? of goodness. justice is appeased, power is dreaded, but it is goodness which is invoked. it is so in human relations. the man who supplicates the fiercest tyrant only does so because he supposes that a fibre of goodness may still vibrate in that savage heart. take from him that thought; persuade him that the last gleam of pity is extinct in the heart to which he appeals, and you will arrest the prayer on the lips of the suppliant. there will remain for him only the silence of despair, or the heroism of resignation. to sum up:--religion is a universal fact. "there is no religion without prayer," said voltaire, and he never said better. there is no prayer without a confused, perhaps, but real, conviction of the goodness of the first cause of the universe. if you could stifle in man's heart the feeling that the principle of things is good, you would silence over the whole globe that voice of prayer which is ever rising to god. thus humanity itself testifies to the truth for which i am contending. humanity prays; it believes therefore in the goodness of god. this fact is an argument. the heart of man is organized to believe that god is good: it is the mark set by the worker himself upon his work. let us study now another of the elements of the universe. we have heard the answer of man's heart; let us ask for the answer of reason. has reason nothing to tell us respecting the intentions of the creator? let us place it in presence of the idea of god--of the infinite being, and see what it will be able to teach us. to attain my object, i must explain more particularly than as yet i have done, a word rendered frivolous by the levity of our heart, a word defiled by the disorder of our passions, and too often by the unworthiness, and worse, of poets and novelists, but which still, in its virgin purity, is ever protesting against the outrages to which it has been subjected: that word is _love_. this word has two principal meanings. in the platonic sense of it, it is the search after what is beautiful, great, noble, pure,--after what, as being of the very real nature of the soul, attracts, fills, and delights it. but there is another sort of love, which does not pursue greatness and beauty, but which gives itself; a love which seeks the wretched to enrich him, the poor to make him happy, the fallen to raise him up. these two kinds of love seem to follow different and even contrary laws. here, for instance, is a description of what often occurs in a large city.[176] a man leaves his house in the evening in order to be present at performances in which i am willing to believe that everything bears the stamp of nobleness and grandeur, or at least of a pure and wholesome taste. he experiences keen enjoyment, and that of an elevated kind. the spectacle over, he returns to his dwelling, and at a still later hour he retires at length to his repose. he has not long extinguished his luxurious tapers, perhaps, when other men, who have slept while others were seeking amusement, rise before daylight, and, lighting their small lanterns, go forth to succor the unfortunate, without witnesses and without ostentation. i have taken this example from xavier de maistre. let me give you another from scenes more familiar to ourselves. you know those pure summer mornings, when one may truly say that the alp smiles and that the mountain invites. a young man quits his dwelling at the first dawning of the day, in his hand the tourist's staff, and his countenance beaming with joy. he starts on a mountain excursion. all day long he quaffs the pure air with delight, revels in the freedom of the pasture-grounds, in the view of the lofty summits and of the distant horizons. he reposes in the shade of the forest, drinks at the spring from the rock, and when he has gazed on the alpine chain resplendent in the radiance of the setting sun, he lingers still to see- twilight its farewell to the hills delaying.[177] noble enjoyments! this young man enjoys because he loves. the spectacle of the creation speaks to his heart and elevates his thoughts. he loves that enchanting nature, which blends in a marvellous union the impressions which in human relations are produced by the strong man's majesty and the maiden's sweetest smile. on this same summer-day, another man has also risen before the sun. he is devoted to the assuaging of human miseries, and he has had much to do. he has mounted gloomy staircases; he has entered dark chambers; he has spent time in hospitals, in the midst of the pains of sickness; he has come, in prisons, to the relief of pains which are sadder still. day, as it dawned, gilded the summits of the alps, but he saw not that pure light of the morning. day, as it advanced, penetrated into the valleys, but he did not notice its progress. the sun set in his glory, but he had no opportunity to admire either the bright reflection of the waters, or the rosy tint of the mountains. and yet he too is joyful because he loves. he loves the fulfilment of stern duty, he loves poverty solaced, and suffering alleviated. here are the two kinds of love. the disciple of plato rises, far from the vulgarities of life, into the lofty regions of the ideal, and feeds on beauty. vincent de paul takes the place of a convict at the galleys that he may restore a father to his children. these two kinds of love seem to us to be contrary one to the other: the one seeks itself, and the other gives itself. still they are both necessary to life, for in order to give we must receive. in the accomplishment of the works of goodness, the soul would be impoverished and would end by drying up in a purely mechanical exercise of beneficence, had it no spring from which to draw forth the living waters. man must himself find joy in order to diffuse it amongst his fellows. but mark the incomparable marvel of the spiritual order of things! the love which gives itself is able to find its worthiest object and its purest satisfaction in the very act of kindness. there is joy in self-devotion; there is happiness in self-sacrifice: the fountain furnishes its own supplies. thus are harmonized the two contrary tendencies of the heart of man. "it is more blessed to give than to receive;" words these, of jesus christ, which, forgotten by the evangelists, have been recorded by the apostle st. paul. and since the thought is a beautiful one, it has adorned the strains of the poets: says lamartine- dost thou happiness resign to another? it is thine- larger for the largess--still![178] and victor hugo, personifying charity, makes her speak as follows: dear to every man that lives, joy i bring to him who gives, joy i leave with him who takes.[179] and because this thought is profound as well as beautiful, it has been taken up by the philosophers. "to love," said leibnitz, "is to place one's happiness in the happiness of another." here is the connecting link between platonic love and the love which is charity. hear how a christian orator comments upon these words:--"this sublime definition has no need of explanations: it is either understood at once, or it is not understood. the man who has loved understands it; and he who has not loved will never understand it. he who has loved knows that a shadow in the heart of the beloved one would darken his own: he knows that he would reckon no means too costly--watchings, labors, privations--by which to create a smile on the lips of the sorrowful; he knows that he would die to redeem a forfeited life; he knows that he would be happy in another's welfare, happy in his graces, happy in his virtues, happy in his glory, happy in his happiness. the man who has loved knows all this; he who has not loved knows nothing of it:--i pity him!"[180] but the great mistake, which seems peculiar to our nature, is that we are ever connecting happiness with the idea of receiving, and are always thinking of giving as of a loss to ourselves. we do not understand that selfishly to keep is to be impoverished, while freely to relinquish is to be enriched. yet here is the grand discovery of the spiritual life; and once this discovery made, in order that the spiritual life may attain its object, it only remains to find the strength to put it into practice. selfishness is wrong, no doubt, but it is not only wrong, it is ignorant, for it looks for happiness where it is not; and it is unhappy, for it wanders from the paths of peace. let us now apply these considerations to the infinite being, and to the problem of the end of the creation. leaving ourselves to the guidance of the laws of our reason, let us ask what object we shall be able to attribute to the creator in his work? will creation be the effect of a necessity? no, sirs, for in that case everything in the world would be a matter of fate, and liberty would remain inexplicable. if a blind power were directing the almighty will, we should return to the worship of destiny. will creation, then, be the carrying out of a design of which the motive is interest? but what conceivable interest can influence him who is the plentitude of being? or will creation be a duty? but whence should come the obligation for the being who is in himself the absolute law? creation can only be conceived of as a work of love. but of what love? of that which is the manifestation of absolute disinterestedness, of supreme liberty. allow me to introduce into this discussion some eloquent words, uttered in the year 1848, in the midst of the revolutionary agitations of paris. the problem which we are debating was treated then, in the presence of an excited crowd, by pã¨re lacordaire.[181] he is entering upon this question: what can have been the motive of the creation? and he distinguishes between love in the platonic sense of it, for which he retains the name of love, and the love which gives itself, which he designates by the term--goodness. "was it then love," he asks, "which impelled the divine will, and said to it unceasingly: go and create? is it love which we must thus regard as our first father? but, alas! love itself has a cause in the beauty of its object; and what beauty could that dead and icy shade possess before god, which preceded the universe, and to which we cannot give a name without betraying the truth?... there remained something, sirs, be very sure, more generous than self-interest, more elevated than duty, more powerful than love. search your own hearts, and if you find it hard to understand me, if your own endowments are unknown to you, listen to bossuet speaking of you:--'when god,' says he, 'made the heart of man, the first thing he planted there was goodness:' goodness; that is to say, that virtue which does not consult self-interest, which does not wait for the commands of duty, which needs not to be solicited by the attraction of the beautiful, but which stoops towards its object all the more, as it is poorer, more miserable, more abandoned, more worthy of contempt! it is true, sirs, it is true: man possesses that adorable faculty. it is not genius, nor glory, nor love, which measures the elevation of his soul,--it is goodness. this it is which gives to the human countenance its principal and most powerful charm; this it is which draws us together; this it is which brings into communication the good and the evil, and which is everywhere, from heaven to earth, the great mediating principle. see, at the foot of the alps, yon miserable _crã©tin_, which, eyeless, smileless, tearless, is not even conscious of its own degradation, and which looks like an effort of nature to insult itself in the dishonor of the greatest of its own productions: but beware how you imagine that that wretched object has not found the road to any heart, or that his debasement has deprived him of the love of all the world. no: he is beloved; he has a mother, he has brothers and sisters; he has a place at the cottage-hearth; he has the best place and the most sacred of all, just because of all he may seem to have the least claim to any. the bosom which nursed him supports him still, and the superstition of love never speaks of him but as of a blessing sent of god. such is man! "but can i say, such is man, without saying also, such is god! from whom would man derive goodness, if god were not the primordial ocean of goodness, and if, when he formed our heart, he had not first of all poured into it a drop from his own? yes, god is good; yes, goodness is the attribute which includes in it all the rest; and it is not without reason that antiquity engraved on the pediment of its temples that famous inscription, in which goodness preceded greatness." now, to say nothing of the sparkling beauty of these words, let us pause at this definite idea: the eternal, the first universal cause of all things, independently of which nothing exists, could only create under the impelling motive of the goodness which gives, and not of the love which seeks requital. this proposition is as clear in the abstract as any theorem of geometry. but we have touched the threshold of the infinite; and we never touch the threshold of the infinite without falling into some degree of bewilderment. clear as this thought is in the abstract, if we wish to analyze it in its real substance, our view is confused. you understand well that goodness increases in the proportion in which its object is diminished. we are by so much more good as we stoop to that which is poorer and more miserable. what then shall be the infinite goodness? in order to find it, we must infinitely diminish its object: and here we encounter mystery. to diminish an object infinitely is an operation impossible to our thought. this mystery is encountered even in the mathematical sciences. we take a quantity, halve it, and again halve this half, and so on without end, but we shall never obtain the infinity of smallness; for the quantity indefinitely divided will always remain indefinitely divisible. at whatever degree of division we may have arrived, between what remains and nothingness there extends always the abyss of the infinite. so i seek for the object of infinite goodness: that object must be infinitely destitute. i diminish accordingly the existence of the universe: i extinguish all the rays of its beauty; i take from it order, life, measure, color, light; i reduce it until it is nothing but formless matter, a something--i know not what--which has no longer a name. vain attempt! this nameless something, so long as it is anything, will not be _nothing_. between it and nothing there will always be the infinite. if the goodness of god is applied to any object which was existing independently of him, however poor and abject that object be conceived to have been, then god is no longer the unique, the absolute creator. if imagination will cross the abyss, we shall come of necessity to say--what? that the object of infinite love must have been non-existence. this is what the orator already quoted has done:--"all perfection supposes an object to which to apply itself. the divine goodness therefore requires an object as vast and profound as itself. god discovered it. from the bosom of his own fulness he saw that being without beauty, without form, without life, without name, that being without being which we call non-existence: he heard the cry of worlds which were not, the cry of a measureless destitution calling to a measureless goodness. eternity was troubled, she said to time: begin!" this, gentlemen, is eloquence. the thought in itself does not bear a rigorous analysis; but do not think that the lustrous beauty of the language is only a brilliant veil to what in itself is absurd. we have arrived at darkness, but it is at darkness visible; the cloud is lighted up by the ray that issues from it. our goodness, finite creatures as we are, is so much the greater as the object on which it is bestowed is less. infinite goodness must create for itself an object. it does not love nothingness, but a creature which is nothing in itself, a creature simply possible, which, before owing to it the blessings of existence, shall owe to it that existence itself. the only being that we can represent to ourselves, by a sublime image, as stooping towards nothingness, is he whose look gives life. the creature is willed for itself, or,--to quote the words of professor secrã©tan, addressed to you last year,--the foundation of nature is grace.[182] we ask: what can have been the object of creation? our reason answers: the infinite being can only act from goodness, he can have no other object than the happiness of his creatures. and now i recapitulate. we ask what is the object of creation; and whereas we cannot transport ourselves into the inaccessible light of the divine consciousness, we question the work of god in order to discern the intentions of the creator. from the fact that humanity prays, we gather the reply that man has a spontaneous belief in the goodness of the first cause of the universe. we place reason in presence of the idea of the infinite being; reason declares to us that he who is the plenitude of being could not have created except from the motive of love. we understand that god has made all for his own glory, and that his glory consists in the manifestation of his goodness. these thoughts, in their full light, belong to the gospel revelation, but they appear, under a veil, in the conceptions which lie at the basis of pagan religions. without entering the temple of idols, we may bow the knee before the pediment of the ancient sanctuary, and, beneath the open vault of heaven, adore, with the roman people, that god whose goodness takes precedence of his greatness. the direct consequence of the principles which we have just laid down is that happiness is the object of our existence. created by goodness, we can have no other end than blessedness. but beware of supposing that we can take for our guide our desire of happiness, and ourselves calculate its conditions. happiness is our end; it is the will of our father; but we must let ourselves be conducted into it. if, shutting our ears to the voice which lays upon us commands and obligations, we would take our destinies into our own hands; if we made the search after happiness our rule, understanding happiness in our own way, we should be taking for light fantastic gleams which would lead us into abysses of ruin. the unruly propensities of our heart would lead us to make ourselves the centre of the world. to "live for self" is the motto of selfishness, and the watchword of unhappiness. to live for god is the way to happiness. to live to god, that is to say, over the ruins of our shattered selfishness, to enter into order, to take our place in the spiritual edifice of charity, and to share in the joy which god allots to all his children--this is the end of our creation. once lifted to the height of this thought, we are able to understand the great struggle which rent the conscience of the ancients, because in their times the light of truth illumined only at intervals the clouds of error which covered the world. there are in man two voices; the one leading him to happiness, the other calling him to holiness. the first impulse of his nature is to start in eager pursuit of mere enjoyment; but ere long the second voice is heard, the voice of conscience, striving to arrest him in his course. if man do not obey her call, conscience becomes his chastiser. hence arises a painful struggle of conflicting feelings, and the human mind is the subject of a strong temptation to pacify itself by silencing one of the two voices. it is the history of antiquity. socrates, the wise socrates, had indeed cried aloud: woe! woe to the man who separates the just from the useful; and had warned men that happiness may be found apart from what is right and good. cicero put into beautiful latin the lessons of the grecian sage; but the torn heart of man was not long in tearing the mantle of the philosopher. from the thought, full and complete as it is, of socrates issued two celebrated sects, one of which wished to establish man's life on the basis of duty without reference to happiness; and the other on the basis of happiness without reference to duty. the stoics attached themselves to duty; but the need of happiness asserted itself in spite of them, and sought satisfaction in the gloomy pleasure of isolation, and in the savage joy of pride. the sage of these philosophers sets himself free, not only from all the cares of earth, but from all the bonds of the heart, from all natural affection. finally, by a consequence, at once sad and odd, of the same doctrine, the highest point of self-possession is to prove that man is master of himself, by the emancipation of suicide and in the liberty of death. the stoic philosopher declares himself insensible to the ills of life; he denies that pain is an evil; and, on the other hand, he claims the right to kill himself in order to escape from the ills of existence! so ended this famous school. at the same period, the herd of epicurus' followers, giving themselves over to weak and shameful indulgences, were thus in fact laboring with all their might (this is montesquieu's opinion) to prepare that enormous corruption under which were to sink together the glory of rome and the civilization of the ancient world. this struggle which rent the ancient conscience, and which still rends the modern conscience wherever the goodness of god continues veiled--this great conflict is appeased when we have come to understand that goodness is the first principle of things, that happiness is our end, and that the stern voice of conscience is a friendly voice which warns us to shun those paths of error in which we should encounter wretchedness. the conscience is the voice of the master; and the same authority which, speaking in the name of duty, bids us--"be good," adds, in the gentle accents of hope--"and thou shalt be happy." happiness, duty,--these are the two aspects of the divine will. love is the solution of the universal enigma. therefore, surprising as the thought may be, it is our duty to be happy. our profession of faith, when we look above, must be: "i believe in goodness;" and when we enter again into ourselves, our profession of faith should be: "i believe in happiness." and we do not believe in it. not to believe in happiness is the root of our ills; it is the original misery which includes all our miseries. triflers that we are, we give ourselves up to pleasure because we do not believe in joy: frivolous, we run after giddy excitement because we do not believe in peace: with hearts corrupt, we abandon ourselves to the devouring flame of the passions, because we do not believe in the serene light of true felicity. but the more the thought of god's love enters our mind, the more will faith in happiness issue from our soul as a blessed flower. happiness is the end of our being; it is the will of the father. to each one of us are these words addressed: god loves thee; be happy! if therefore (and i address myself more particularly to the younger of my hearers), if in the depth of your soul you are conscious of a sudden aspiration after true felicity, ah! do not suffer the holy flame to be extinguished, do not talk of illusions; do not, i pray you, resign yourselves to the prose of life; to a dreary and gloomy contentedness with a destiny which has no ideal. your nature does not deceive you; it is you who deceive yourselves, if you seek your own welfare in the world of foolish or guilty chimeras. listen to all the voices which speak to you of comfort; be attentive to all the words of peace. seek, labor, pray, till you are able to utter, in quiet confidence, those words of the psalmist: in peace i lay me down to rest; no fears of evil haunt my breast: in peace i sleep till dawn of day, for god, my god, is near alway: on him in faith my cares i roll; he never sleeps who guards my soul.[183] god in the heart--this it is which adds zest to our enjoyments, sanctifies our affections, calms our griefs, and which, amidst the struggles, the sorrows, and the harrowing afflictions of life, suffers to rise from the heart to the countenance that sublime smile which can shine brightly even through tears. footnotes: [172] tristes calculateurs des misã¨res humaines, ne me consolez point, vous aigrissez mes peines; et je ne vois en vous que l'effort impuissant d'un fier infortunã© qui feint d'ãªtre content. quel bonheur, o mortels, et faible et misã©rable. vous criez: "tout est bien" d'une voix lamentable; l'univers vous dã©ment, et votre propre coeur cent fois de votre esprit a rã©futã© l'erreur. il le faut avouer, le mal est sur la terre. desastre de lisbonne. [173] pourquoi donc, o maã®tre suprãªme, as-tu crã©ã© le mal si grand que la raison, la vertu mãªme s'ã©pouvantent en le voyant? comment, sous la sainte lumiã¨re, voit-on des actes si hideux, qu'ils font expirer la priã¨re sur les lã¨vres du malheureux? pourquoi, dans ton oeuvre cã©leste, tant d'ã©lã©ments si peu d'accord? a quoi bon le crime et la peste, o dieu juste! pourquoi la mort? alfred de musset, _espoir en dieu_. [174] _les origines indo-europã©ennes, ou les aryas primitifs._--the above is a _rã©sumã©_, not a verbatim quotation. [175] quocirca te, capitoline, quem propter beneficia populus romanus optimum, propter vim maximum nominavit. (_pro domo sua_, lvii.) [176] see the _voyage autour de ma chambre_ of xavier de maistre. [177] _le crã©puscule aux monts prolonger ses adieux._ [178] tout le bonheur tu cã¨des accroã®t ta fã©licitã©. [179] chã¨re ã  tout homme quel qu'il soit, j'apporte la joie ã  qui donne et je la laisse ã  qui reã§oit. and shakspeare- ".... mercy ... is twice bless'd, it blesseth him that gives, and him that takes." _merchant of venice._--[tr.] [180] lacordaire. _confã©rences de 1848._ [181] _confã©rences de 1848_, p. 78. [182] _la raison et le christianisme_: twelve lectures on the existence of god, one vol. 12mo. in the _philosophie de la libertã©_ (2 vols. 8vo.) m. secrã©tan has set forth, in a severely scientific form, the arguments of which the reader has just seen the oratorical expression from the pen of pã¨re lacordaire. this agreement is worth notice, the dates showing that no communication was possible. [183] je me couche sans peur, je m'endors sans frayeur, sans crainte je m'ã©veille. dieu qui soutient ma foi est toujours prã¨s de moi, et jamais ne sommeille. the end. * * * * * cambridge: printed by john wilson and son. superstition in all ages by jean meslier 1732 a roman catholic priest, who, after a pastoral service of thirty years at etrepigny in champagne, france, wholly abjured religious dogmas, and left as his last will and testament to his parishioners, and to the world, to be published after his death, the following pages, entitled: common sense. translated from the french original by miss anna knoop 1878 life of jean meslier by voltaire. jean meslier, born 1678, in the village of mazerny, dependency of the duchy of rethel, was the son of a serge weaver; brought up in the country, he nevertheless pursued his studies and succeeded to the priesthood. at the seminary, where he lived with much regularity, he devoted himself to the system of descartes. becoming curate of etrepigny in champagne and vicar of a little annexed parish named bue, he was remarkable for the austerity of his habits. devoted in all his duties, every year he gave what remained of his salary to the poor of his parishes; enthusiastic, and of rigid virtue, he was very temperate, as much in regard to his appetite as in relation to women. mm. voiri and delavaux, the one curate of varq, the other curate of boulzicourt, were his confessors, and the only ones with whom he associated. the curate meslier was a rigid partisan of justice, and sometimes carried his zeal a little too far. the lord of his village, m. de touilly, having ill-treated some peasants, he refused to pray for him in his service. m. de mailly, archbishop of rheims, before whom the case was brought, condemned him. but the sunday which followed this decision, the abbot meslier stood in his pulpit and complained of the sentence of the cardinal. "this is," said he, "the general fate of the poor country priest; the archbishops, who are great lords, scorn them and do not listen to them. therefore, let us pray for the lord of this place. we will pray for antoine de touilly, that he may be converted and granted the grace that he may not wrong the poor and despoil the orphans." his lordship, who was present at this mortifying supplication, brought new complaints before the same archbishop, who ordered the curate meslier to come to donchery, where he ill-treated him with abusive language. there have been scarcely any other events in his life, nor other benefice, than that of etrepigny. he died in the odor of sanctity in the year 1733, fifty-five years old. it is believed that, disgusted with life, he expressly refused necessary food, because during his sickness he was not willing to take anything, not even a glass of wine. at his death he gave all he possessed, which was inconsiderable, to his parishioners, and desired to be buried in his garden. they were greatly surprised to find in his house three manuscripts, each containing three hundred and sixty-six pages, all written by his hand, signed and entitled by him, "my testament." this work, which the author addressed to his parishioners and to m. leroux, advocate and procurator for the parliament of meziers, is a simple refutation of all the religious dogmas, without excepting one. the grand vicar of rheims retained one of the three copies; another was sent to monsieur chauvelin, guardian of the state's seal; the third remained at the clerk's office of the justiciary of st. minehould. the count de caylus had one of those three copies in his possession for some time, and soon afterward more than one hundred were at paris, sold at ten louis-d'or apiece. a dying priest accusing himself of having professed and taught the christian religion, made a deeper impression upon the mind than the "thoughts of pascal." the curate meslier had written upon a gray paper which enveloped the copy destined for his parishioners these remarkable words: "i have seen and recognized the errors, the abuses, the follies, and the wickedness of men. i have hated and despised them. i did not dare say it during my life, but i will say it at least in dying, and after my death; and it is that it may be known, that i write this present memorial in order that it may serve as a witness of truth to all those who may see and read it if they choose." at the beginning of this work is found this document (a kind of honorable amend, which in his letter to the count of d'argental of may 31, 1762, voltaire qualifies as a preface), addressed to his parishioners. "you know," said he, "my brethren, my disinterestedness; i do not sacrifice my belief to any vile interest. if i embraced a profession so directly opposed to my sentiments, it was not through cupidity. i obeyed my parents. i would have preferred to enlighten you sooner if i could have done it safely. you are witnesses to what i assert. i have not disgraced my ministry by exacting the requitals, which are a part of it. "i call heaven to witness that i also thoroughly despised those who laughed at the simplicity of the blind people, those who furnished piously considerable sums of money to buy prayers. how horrible this monopoly! i do not blame the disdain which those who grow rich by your sweat and your pains, show for their mysteries and their superstitions; but i detest their insatiable cupidity and the signal pleasure such fellows take in railing at the ignorance of those whom they carefully keep in this state of blindness. let them content themselves with laughing at their own ease, but at least let them not multiply their errors by abusing the blind piety of those who, by their simplicity, procured them such an easy life. you render unto me, my brethren, the justice that is due me. the sympathy which i manifested for your troubles saves me from the least suspicion. how often have i performed gratuitously the functions of my ministry. how often also has my heart been grieved at not being able to assist you as often and as abundantly as i could have wished! have i not always proved to you that i took more pleasure in giving than in receiving? i carefully avoided exhorting you to bigotry, and i spoke to you as rarely as possible of our unfortunate dogmas. it was necessary that i should acquit myself as a priest of my ministry, but how often have i not suffered within myself when i was forced to preach to you those pious lies which i despised in my heart. what a disdain i had for my ministry, and particularly for that superstitious mass, and those ridiculous administrations of sacraments, especially if i was compelled to perform them with the solemnity which awakened all your piety and all your good faith. what remorse i had for exciting your credulity! a thousand times upon the point of bursting forth publicly, i was going to open your eyes, but a fear superior to my strength restrained me and forced me to silence until my death." the abbot meslier had written two letters to the curates of his neighborhood to inform them of his testament; he told them that he had consigned to the chancery of st. minnehould a copy of his manuscript in 366 leaves in octavo; but he feared it would be suppressed, according to the bad custom established to prevent the poor from being instructed and knowing the truth. the curate meslier, the most singular phenomenon ever seen among all the meteors fatal to the christian religion, worked his whole life secretly in order to attack the opinions he believed false. to compose his manuscript against god, against all religion, against the bible and the church, he had no other assistance than the bible itself, moreri montaigne, and a few fathers. while the abbot meslier naively acknowledged that he did not wish to be burned till after his death, thomas woolston, a doctor of cambridge, published and sold publicly at london, in his own house, sixty thousand copies of his "discourses" against the miracles of jesus christ. it was a very astonishing thing that two priests should at the same time write against the christian religion. the curate meslier has gone further yet than woolston; he dares to treat the transport of our saviour by the devil upon the mountain, the wedding of cana, the bread and the fishes, as absurd fables, injurious to divinity, which were ignored during three hundred years by the whole roman empire, and finally passed from the lower class to the palace of the emperors, when policy obliged them to adopt the follies of the people in order the more easily to subjugate them. the denunciations of the english priest do not approach those of the champagne priest. woolston is sometimes indulgent, meslier never. he was a man profoundly embittered by the crimes he witnessed, for which he holds the christian religion responsible. there is no miracle which to him is not an object of contempt and horror; no prophecy that he does not compare to those of nostredamus. he wrote thus against jesus christ when in the arms of death, at a time when the most dissimulating dare not lie, and when the most intrepid tremble. struck with the difficulties which he found in scripture, he inveighed against it more bitterly than the acosta and all the jews, more than the famous porphyre, celse, iamblique, julian, libanius, and all the partisans of human reason. there were found among the books of the curate meslier a printed manuscript of the treatise of fenelon, archbishop of cambray, upon the existence of god and his attributes, and the reflections of the jesuit tournemine upon atheism, to which treatise he added marginal notes signed by his hand. decree of the national convention upon the proposition to erect a statue to the curate jean meslier, the 27 brumaire, in the year ii. (november 17, 1793). the national convention sends to the committee of public instruction the proposition made by one of its members to erect a statue to jean meslier, curate at etrepigny, in champagne, the first priest who had the courage and the honesty to abjure religious errors. president and secretaries. signed--p. a. laloy, president; bazire, charles duval, philippeaux, frecine, and merlin (de thionville), secretaries. certified according to the original. members of the committee of decrees and process-verbal. signed--batellier, echasseriaux, monnel, becker, vernetey, pérard, vinet, bouillerot, auger, cordier, delecloy, and cosnard. preface of the author. when we wish to examine in a cool, calm way the opinions of men, we are very much surprised to find that in those which we consider the most essential, nothing is more rare than to find them using common sense; that is to say, the portion of judgment sufficient to know the most simple truths, to reject the most striking absurdities, and to be shocked by palpable contradictions. we have an example of this in theology, a science revered in all times, in all countries, by the greatest number of mortals; an object considered the most important, the most useful, and the most indispensable to the happiness of society. if they would but take the trouble to sound the principles upon which this pretended science rests itself, they would be compelled to admit that the principles which were considered incontestable, are but hazardous suppositions, conceived in ignorance, propagated by enthusiasm or bad intention, adopted by timid credulity, preserved by habit, which never reasons, and revered solely because it is not comprehended. some, says montaigne, make the world believe that which they do not themselves believe; a greater number of others make themselves believe, not comprehending what it is to believe. in a word, whoever will consult common sense upon religious opinions, and will carry into this examination the attention given to objects of ordinary interest, will easily perceive that these opinions have no solid foundation; that all religion is but a castle in the air; that theology is but ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system; that it is but a long tissue of chimeras and contradictions; that it presents to all the different nations of the earth only romances devoid of probability, of which the hero himself is made up of qualities impossible to reconcile, his name having the power to excite in all hearts respect and fear, is found to be but a vague word, which men continually utter, being able to attach to it only such ideas or qualities as are belied by the facts, or which evidently contradict each other. the notion of this imaginary being, or rather the word by which we designate him, would be of no consequence did it not cause ravages without number upon the earth. born into the opinion that this phantom is for them a very interesting reality, men, instead of wisely concluding from its incomprehensibility that they are exempt from thinking of it, on the contrary, conclude that they can not occupy themselves enough about it, that they must meditate upon it without ceasing, reason without end, and never lose sight of it. the invincible ignorance in which they are kept in this respect, far from discouraging them, does but excite their curiosity; instead of putting them on guard against their imagination, this ignorance makes them positive, dogmatic, imperious, and causes them to quarrel with all those who oppose doubts to the reveries which their brains have brought forth. what perplexity, when we attempt to solve an unsolvable problem! anxious meditations upon an object impossible to grasp, and which, however, is supposed to be very important to him, can but put a man into bad humor, and produce in his brain dangerous transports. when interest, vanity, and ambition are joined to such a morose disposition, society necessarily becomes troubled. this is why so many nations have often become the theaters of extravagances caused by nonsensical visionists, who, publishing their shallow speculations for the eternal truth, have kindled the enthusiasm of princes and of people, and have prepared them for opinions which they represented as essential to the glory of divinity and to the happiness of empires. we have seen, a thousand times, in all parts of our globe, infuriated fanatics slaughtering each other, lighting the funeral piles, committing without scruple, as a matter of duty, the greatest crimes. why? to maintain or to propagate the impertinent conjectures of enthusiasts, or to sanction the knaveries of impostors on account of a being who exists only in their imagination, and who is known only by the ravages, the disputes, and the follies which he has caused upon the earth. originally, savage nations, ferocious, perpetually at war, adored, under various names, some god conformed to their ideas; that is to say, cruel, carnivorous, selfish, greedy of blood. we find in all the religions of the earth a god of armies, a jealous god, an avenging god, an exterminating god, a god who enjoys carnage and whose worshipers make it a duty to serve him to his taste. lambs, bulls, children, men, heretics, infidels, kings, whole nations, are sacrificed to him. the zealous servants of this barbarous god go so far as to believe that they are obliged to offer themselves as a sacrifice to him. everywhere we see zealots who, after having sadly meditated upon their terrible god, imagine that, in order to please him, they must do themselves all the harm possible, and inflict upon themselves, in his honor, all imaginable torments. in a word, everywhere the baneful ideas of divinity, far from consoling men for misfortunes incident to their existence, have filled the heart with trouble, and given birth to follies destructive to them. how could the human mind, filled with frightful phantoms and guided by men interested in perpetuating its ignorance and its fear, make progress? man was compelled to vegetate in his primitive stupidity; he was preserved only by invisible powers, upon whom his fate was supposed to depend. solely occupied with his alarms and his unintelligible reveries, he was always at the mercy of his priests, who reserved for themselves the right of thinking for him and of regulating his conduct. thus man was, and always remained, a child without experience, a slave without courage, a loggerhead who feared to reason, and who could never escape from the labyrinth into which his ancestors had misled him; he felt compelled to groan under the yoke of his gods, of whom he knew nothing except the fabulous accounts of their ministers. these, after having fettered him by the ties of opinion, have remained his masters or delivered him up defenseless to the absolute power of tyrants, no less terrible than the gods, of whom they were the representatives upon the earth. oppressed by the double yoke of spiritual and temporal power, it was impossible for the people to instruct themselves and to work for their own welfare. thus, religion, politics, and morals became sanctuaries, into which the profane were not permitted to enter. men had no other morality than that which their legislators and their priests claimed as descended from unknown empyrean regions. the human mind, perplexed by these theological opinions, misunderstood itself, doubted its own powers, mistrusted experience, feared truth, disdained its reason, and left it to blindly follow authority. man was a pure machine in the hands of his tyrants and his priests, who alone had the right to regulate his movements. always treated as a slave, he had at all times and in all places the vices and dispositions of a slave. these are the true sources of the corruption of habits, to which religion never opposes anything but ideal and ineffectual obstacles; ignorance and servitude have a tendency to make men wicked and unhappy. science, reason, liberty, alone can reform them and render them more happy; but everything conspires to blind them and to confirm them in their blindness. the priests deceive them, tyrants corrupt them in order to subjugate them more easily. tyranny has been, and will always be, the chief source of the depraved morals and habitual calamities of the people. these, almost always fascinated by their religious notions or by metaphysical fictions, instead of looking upon the natural and visible causes of their miseries, attribute their vices to the imperfections of their nature, and their misfortunes to the anger of their gods; they offer to heaven vows, sacrifices, and presents, in order to put an end to their misfortunes, which are really due only to the negligence, the ignorance, and to the perversity of their guides, to the folly of their institutions, to their foolish customs, to their false opinions, to their unreasonable laws, and especially to their want of enlightenment. let the mind be filled early with true ideas; let man's reason be cultivated; let justice govern him; and there will be no need of opposing to his passions the powerless barrier of the fear of gods. men will be good when they are well taught, well governed, chastised or censured for the evil, and justly rewarded for the good which they have done to their fellow-citizens. it is idle to pretend to cure mortals of their vices if we do not begin by curing them of their prejudices. it is only by showing them the truth that they can know their best interests and the real motives which will lead them to happiness. long enough have the instructors of the people fixed their eyes on heaven; let them at last bring them back to the earth. tired of an incomprehensible theology, of ridiculous fables, of impenetrable mysteries, of puerile ceremonies, let the human mind occupy itself with natural things, intelligible objects, sensible truths, and useful knowledge. let the vain chimeras which beset the people be dissipated, and very soon rational opinions will fill the minds of those who were believed fated to be always in error. to annihilate religious prejudices, it would be sufficient to show that what is inconceivable to man can not be of any use to him. does it need, then, anything but simple common sense to perceive that a being most clearly irreconcilable with the notions of mankind, that a cause continually opposed to the effects attributed to him; that a being of whom not a word can be said without falling into contradictions; that a being who, far from explaining the mysteries of the universe, only renders them more inexplicable; that a being to whom for so many centuries men addressed themselves so vainly to obtain their happiness and deliverance from their sufferings; does it need, i say, more than simple common sense to understand that the idea of such a being is an idea without model, and that he is himself evidently not a reasonable being? does it require more than common sense to feel that there is at least delirium and frenzy in hating and tormenting each other for unintelligible opinions of a being of this kind? finally, does it not all prove that morality and virtue are totally incompatible with the idea of a god, whose ministers and interpreters have painted him in all countries as the most fantastic, the most unjust, and the most cruel of tyrants, whose pretended wishes are to serve as rules and laws for the inhabitants of the earth? to discover the true principles of morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of gods; they need but common sense; they have only to look within themselves, to reflect upon their own nature, to consult their obvious interests, to consider the object of society and of each of the members who compose it, and they will easily understand that virtue is an advantage, and that vice is an injury to beings of their species. let us teach men to be just, benevolent, moderate, and sociable, not because their gods exact it, but to please men; let us tell them to abstain from vice and from crime, not because they will be punished in another world, but because they will suffer in the present world. there are, says montesquieu, means to prevent crime, they are sufferings; to change the manners, these are good examples. truth is simple, error is complicated, uncertain in its gait, full of by-ways; the voice of nature is intelligible, that of falsehood is ambiguous, enigmatical, and mysterious; the road of truth is straight, that of imposture is oblique and dark; this truth, always necessary to man, is felt by all just minds; the lessons of reason are followed by all honest souls; men are unhappy only because they are ignorant; they are ignorant only because everything conspires to prevent them from being enlightened, and they are wicked only because their reason is not sufficiently developed. common sense. detexit quo dolose vaticinandi furore sacerdotes mysteria, illis spe ignota, audactur publicant.--petron. satyr. i.--apologue. there is a vast empire governed by a monarch, whose conduct does but confound the minds of his subjects. he desires to be known, loved, respected, and obeyed, but he never shows himself; everything tends to make uncertain the notions which we are able to form about him. the people subjected to his power have only such ideas of the character and the laws of their invisible sovereign as his ministers give them; these suit, however, because they themselves have no idea of their master, for his ways are impenetrable, and his views and his qualities are totally incomprehensible; moreover, his ministers disagree among themselves in regard to the orders which they pretend emanated from the sovereign whose organs they claim to be; they announce them diversely in each province of the empire; they discredit and treat each other as impostors and liars; the decrees and ordinances which they promulgate are obscure; they are enigmas, made not to be understood or divined by the subjects for whose instruction they were intended. the laws of the invisible monarch need interpreters, but those who explain them are always quarreling among themselves about the true way of understanding them; more than this, they do not agree among themselves; all which they relate of their hidden prince is but a tissue of contradictions, scarcely a single word that is not contradicted at once. he is called supremely good, nevertheless not a person but complains of his decrees. he is supposed to be infinitely wise, and in his administration everything seems contrary to reason and good sense. they boast of his justice, and the best of his subjects are generally the least favored. we are assured that he sees everything, yet his presence remedies nothing. it is said that he is the friend of order, and everything in his universe is in a state of confusion and disorder; all is created by him, yet events rarely happen according to his projects. he foresees everything, but his foresight prevents nothing. he is impatient if any offend him; at the same time he puts every one in the way of offending him. his knowledge is admired in the perfection of his works, but his works are full of imperfections, and of little permanence. he is continually occupied in creating and destroying, then repairing what he has done, never appearing to be satisfied with his work. in all his enterprises he seeks but his own glory, but he does not succeed in being glorified. he works but for the good of his subjects, and most of them lack the necessities of life. those whom he seems to favor, are generally those who are the least satisfied with their fate; we see them all continually revolting against a master whose greatness they admire, whose wisdom they extol, whose goodness they worship, and whose justice they fear, revering orders which they never follow. this empire is the world; its monarch is god; his ministers are the priests; their subjects are men. ii.--what is theology? there is a science which has for its object only incomprehensible things. unlike all others, it occupies itself but with things unseen. hobbes calls it "the kingdom of darkness." in this land all obey laws opposed to those which men acknowledge in the world they inhabit. in this marvelous region light is but darkness, evidence becomes doubtful or false, the impossible becomes credible, reason is an unfaithful guide, and common sense changed into delirium. this science is named theology, and this theology is a continual insult to human reason. iii. by frequent repetition of if, but, and perhaps, we succeed in forming an imperfect and broken system which perplexes men's minds to the extent of making them forget the clearest notions, and to render uncertain the most palpable truths. by the aid of this systematic nonsense, all nature has become an inexplicable enigma for man; the visible world has disappeared to give place to invisible regions; reason is obliged to give place to imagination, which can lead us only to the land of chimeras which she herself has invented. iv.--man born neither religious nor deistical. all religious principles are founded upon the idea of a god, but it is impossible for men to have true ideas of a being who does not act upon any one of their senses. all our ideas are but pictures of objects which strike us. what can the idea of god represent to us when it is evidently an idea without an object? is not such an idea as impossible as an effect without a cause? an idea without a prototype, is it anything but a chimera? some theologians, however, assure us that the idea of god is innate, or that men have this idea from the time of their birth. every principle is a judgment; all judgment is the effect of experience; experience is not acquired but by the exercise of the senses: from which it follows that religious principles are drawn from nothing, and are not innate. v.--it is not necessary to believe in a god, and the most reasonable thing is not to think of him. no religious system can be founded otherwise than upon the nature of god and of men, and upon the relations they bear to each other. but, in order to judge of the reality of these relations, we must have some idea of the divine nature. but everybody tells us that the essence of god is incomprehensible to man; at the same time they do not hesitate to assign attributes to this incomprehensible god, and assure us that man can not dispense with a knowledge of this god so impossible to conceive of. the most important thing for men is that which is the most impossible for them to comprehend. if god is incomprehensible to man, it would seem rational never to think of him at all; but religion concludes that man is criminal if he ceases for a moment to revere him. vi.--religion is founded upon credulity. we are told that divine qualities are not of a nature to be grasped by limited minds. the natural consequence of this principle ought to be that the divine qualities are not made to employ limited minds; but religion assures us that limited minds should never lose sight of this inconceivable being, whose qualities can not be grasped by them: from which we see that religion is the art of occupying limited minds with that which is impossible for them to comprehend. vii.--every religion is an absurdity. religion unites man with god or puts them in communication; but do you say that god is infinite? if god is infinite, no finite being can have communication or any relation with him. where there are no relations, there can be no union, no correspondence, no duties. if there are no duties between man and his god, there exists no religion for man. thus by saying that god is infinite, you annihilate, from that moment, all religion for man, who is a finite being. the idea of infinity is for us in idea without model, without prototype, without object. viii.--the notion of god is impossible. if god is an infinite being, there can be neither in the actual world or in another any proportion between man and his god; thus the idea of god will never enter the human mind. in the supposition of a life where men will be more enlightened than in this one, the infinity of god will always place such a distance between his idea and the limited mind of man, that he will not be able to conceive of god any more in a future life than in the present. hence, it evidently follows that the idea of god will not be better suited to man in the other life than in the present. god is not made for man; it follows also that intelligences superior to man--such as angels, archangels, seraphims, and saints--can have no more complete notions of god than has man, who does not understand anything about him here below. ix.--origin of superstition. how is it that we have succeeded in persuading reasonable beings that the thing most impossible to understand was the most essential for them. it is because they were greatly frightened; it is because when men are kept in fear they cease to reason; it is because they have been expressly enjoined to distrust their reason. when the brain is troubled, we believe everything and examine nothing. x.--origin of all religion. ignorance and fear are the two pivots of all religion. the uncertainty attending man's relation to his god is precisely the motive which attaches him to his religion. man is afraid when in darkness--physical or moral. his fear is habitual to him and becomes a necessity; he would believe that he lacked something if he had nothing to fear. xi.--in the name of religion charlatans take advantage of the weakness of men. he who from his childhood has had a habit of trembling every time he heard certain words, needs these words, and needs to tremble. in this way he is more disposed to listen to the one who encourages his fears than to the one who would dispel his fears. the superstitious man wants to be afraid; his imagination demands it. it seems that he fears nothing more than having no object to fear. men are imaginary patients, whom interested charlatans take care to encourage in their weakness, in order to have a market for their remedies. physicians who order a great number of remedies are more listened to than those who recommend a good regimen, and who leave nature to act. xii.--religion entices ignorance by the aid of the marvelous. if religion was clear, it would have fewer attractions for the ignorant. they need obscurity, mysteries, fables, miracles, incredible things, which keep their brains perpetually at work. romances, idle stories, tales of ghosts and witches, have more charms for the vulgar than true narrations. xiii.--continuation. in the matter of religion, men are but overgrown children. the more absurd a religion is, and the fuller of marvels, the more power it exerts; the devotee thinks himself obliged to place no limits to his credulity; the more inconceivable things are, the more divine they appear to him; the more incredible they are, the more merit he gives himself for believing them. xiv.--there would never have been any religion if there had never been any dark and barbarous ages. the origin of religious opinions dates, as a general thing, from the time when savage nations were yet in a state of infancy. it was to coarse, ignorant, and stupid men that the founders of religion addressed themselves in all ages, in order to present them with gods, ceremonies, histories of fabulous divinities, marvelous and terrible fables. these chimeras, adopted without examination by the fathers, have been transmitted with more or less changes to their polished children, who often do not reason more than their fathers. xv.--all religion was born of the desire to dominate. the first legislators of nations had for their object to dominate, the easiest means of succeeding was to frighten the people and to prevent them from reasoning; they led them by tortuous paths in order that they should not perceive the designs of their guides; they compelled them to look into the air, for fear they should look to their feet; they amused them upon the road by stories; in a word, they treated them in the way of nurses, who employ songs and menaces to put the children to sleep, or to force them to be quiet. xvi.--that which serves as a basis for all religion is very uncertain. the existence of a god is the basis of all religion. few people seem to doubt this existence, but this fundamental principle is precisely the one which prevents every mind from reasoning. the first question of every catechism was, and will always be, the most difficult one to answer. xvii.--it is impossible to be convinced of the existence of god. can one honestly say that he is convinced of the existence of a being whose nature is not known, who remains inaccessible to all our senses, and of whose qualities we are constantly assured that they are incomprehensible to us? in order to persuade me that a being exists, or can exist, he must begin by telling me what this being is; in order to make me believe the existence or the possibility of such a being, he must tell me things about him which are not contradictory, and which do not destroy one another; finally, in order to convince me fully of the existence of this being, he must tell me things about him which i can comprehend, and prove to me that it is impossible that the being to whom he attributes these qualities does not exist. xviii.--continuation. a thing is impossible when it is composed of two ideas so antagonistic, that we can not think of them at the same time. evidence can be relied on only when confirmed by the constant testimony of our senses, which alone give birth to ideas, and enable us to judge of their conformity or of their incompatibility. that which exists necessarily, is that of which the non-existence would imply contradiction. these principles, universally recognized, are at fault when the question of the existence of god is considered; what has been said of him is either unintelligible or perfectly contradictory; and for this reason must appear impossible to every man of common sense. xix.--the existence of god is not proved. all human intelligences are more or less enlightened and cultivated. by what fatality is it that the science of god has never been explained? the most civilized nations and the most profound thinkers are of the same opinion in regard to the matter as the most barbarous nations and the most ignorant and rustic people. as we examine the subject more closely, we will find that the science of divinity by means of reveries and subtleties has but obscured it more and more. thus far, all religion has been founded on what is called in logic, a "begging of the question;" it supposes freely, and then proves, finally, by the suppositions it has made. xx.--to say that god is a spirit, is to speak without saying anything at all. by metaphysics, god is made a pure spirit, but has modern theology advanced one step further than the theology of the barbarians? they recognized a grand spirit as master of the world. the barbarians, like all ignorant men, attribute to spirits all the effects of which their inexperience prevents them from discovering the true causes. ask a barbarian what causes your watch to move, he will answer, "a spirit!" ask our philosophers what moves the universe, they will tell you "it is a spirit." xxi.--spirituality is a chimera. the barbarian, when he speaks of a spirit, attaches at least some sense to this word; he understands by it an agent similar to the wind, to the agitated air, to the breath, which produces, invisibly, effects that we perceive. by subtilizing, the modern theologian becomes as little intelligible to himself as to others. ask him what he means by a spirit? he will answer, that it is an unknown substance, which is perfectly simple, which has nothing tangible, nothing in common with matter. in good faith, is there any mortal who can form the least idea of such a substance? a spirit in the language of modern theology is then but an absence of ideas. the idea of spirituality is another idea without a model. xxii.--all which exists springs from the bosom of matter. is it not more natural and more intelligible to deduce all which exists, from the bosom of matter, whose existence is demonstrated by all our senses, whose effects we feel at every moment, which we see act, move, communicate, motion, and constantly bring living beings into existence, than to attribute the formation of things to an unknown force, to a spiritual being, who can not draw from his ground that which he has not himself, and who, by the spiritual essence claimed for him, is incapable of making anything, and of putting anything in motion? nothing is plainer than that they would have us believe that an intangible spirit can act upon matter. xxiii.--what is the metaphysical god of modern theology? the material jupiter of the ancients could move, build up, destroy, and propagate beings similar to himself; but the god of modern theology is a sterile being. according to his supposed nature he can neither occupy any place, nor move matter, nor produce a visible world, nor propagate either men or gods. the metaphysical god is a workman without hands; he is able but to produce clouds, suspicions, reveries, follies, and quarrels. xxiv.--it would be more rational to worship the sun than a spiritual god. since it was necessary for men to have a god, why did they not have the sun, the visible god, adored by so many nations? what being had more right to the homage of mortals than the star of the day, which gives light and heat; which invigorates all beings; whose presence reanimates and rejuvenates nature; whose absence seems to plunge her into sadness and languor? if some being bestowed upon men power, activity, benevolence, strength, it was no doubt the sun, which should be recognized as the father of nature, as the soul of the world, as divinity. at least one could not without folly dispute his existence, or refuse to recognize his influence and his benefits. xxv.--a spiritual god is incapable of willing and of acting. the theologian tells us that god does not need hands or arms to act, and that he acts by his will alone. but what is this god who has a will? and what can be the subject of this divine will? is it more ridiculous or more difficult to believe in fairies, in sylphs, in ghosts, in witches, in were-wolfs, than to believe in the magical or impossible action of the spirit upon the body? as soon as we admit of such a god, there are no longer fables or visions which can not be believed. the theologians treat men like children, who never cavil about the possibilities of the tales which they listen to. xxvi.--what is god? to unsettle the existence of a god, it is only necessary to ask a theologian to speak of him; as soon as he utters one word about him, the least reflection makes us discover at once that what he says is incompatible with the essence which he attributes to his god. therefore, what is god? it is an abstract word, coined to designate the hidden forces of nature; or, it is a mathematical point, which has neither length, breadth, nor thickness. a philosopher [david hume] has very ingeniously said in speaking of theologians, that they have found the solution to the famous problem of archimedes; a point in the heavens from which they move the world. xxvii.--remarkable contradictions of theology. religion puts men on their knees before a being without extension, and who, notwithstanding, is infinite, and fills all space with his immensity; before an almighty being, who never executes that which he desires; before a being supremely good, and who causes but displeasure; before a being, the friend of order, and in whose government everything is in disorder. after all this, let us conjecture what this god of theology is. xxviii.--to adore god is to adore a fiction. in order to avoid all embarrassment, they tell us that it is not necessary to know what god is; that we must adore without knowing; that it is not permitted us to turn an eye of temerity upon his attributes. but if we must adore a god without knowing him, should we not be assured that he exists? moreover, how be assured that he exists without having examined whether it is possible that the diverse qualities claimed for him, meet in him? in truth, to adore god is to adore nothing but fictions of one's own brain, or rather, it is to adore nothing. xxix.--the infinity of god and the impossibility of knowing the divine essence, occasions and justifies atheism. without doubt the more to perplex matters, theologians have chosen to say nothing about what their god is; they tell us what he is not. by negations and abstractions they imagine themselves composing a real and perfect being, while there can result from it but a being of human reason. a spirit has no body; an infinite being is a being which is not finite; a perfect being is a being which is not imperfect. can any one form any real notions of such a multitude of deficiencies or absence of ideas? that which excludes all idea, can it be anything but nothingness? to pretend that the divine attributes are beyond the understanding of the human mind is to render god unfit for men. if we are assured that god is infinite, we admit that there can be nothing in common between him and his creatures. to say that god is infinite, is to destroy him for men, or at least render him useless to them. god, we are told, created men intelligent, but he did not create them omniscient: that is to say, capable of knowing all things. we conclude that he was not able to endow him with intelligence sufficient to understand the divine essence. in this case it is demonstrated that god has neither the power nor the wish to be known by men. by what right could this god become angry with beings whose own essence makes it impossible to have any idea of the divine essence? god would evidently be the most unjust and the most unaccountable of tyrants if he should punish an atheist for not knowing that which his nature made it impossible for him to know. xxx.--it is neither less nor more criminal to believe in god than not to believe in him. for the generality of men nothing renders an argument more convincing than fear. in consequence of this fact, theologians tell us that the safest side must be taken; that nothing is more criminal than incredulity; that god will punish without mercy all those who have the temerity to doubt his existence; that his severity is just; since it is only madness or perversity which questions the existence of an angry monarch who revenges himself cruelly upon atheists. if we examine these menaces calmly, we shall find that they assume always the thing in question. they must commence by proving to our satisfaction the existence of a god, before telling us that it is safer to believe, and that it is horrible to doubt or to deny it. then they must prove that it is possible for a just god to punish men cruelly for having been in a state of madness, which prevented them from believing in the existence of a being whom their enlightened reason could not comprehend. in a word, they must prove that a god that is said to be full of equity, could punish beyond measure the invincible and necessary ignorance of man, caused by his relation to the divine essence. is not the theologians' manner of reasoning very singular? they create phantoms, they fill them with contradictions, and finally assure us that the safest way is not to doubt the existence of those phantoms, which they have themselves invented. by following out this method, there is no absurdity which it would not be safer to believe than not to believe. all children are atheists--they have no idea of god; are they, then, criminal on account of this ignorance? at what age do they begin to be obliged to believe in god? it is, you say, at the age of reason. at what time does this age begin? besides, if the most profound theologians lose themselves in the divine essence, which they boast of not comprehending, what ideas can common people have?--women, mechanics, and, in short, those who compose the mass of the human race? xxxi.--the belief in god is nothing but a mechanical habitude of childhood. men believe in god only upon the word of those who have no more idea of him than they themselves. our nurses are our first theologians; they talk to children of god as they talk to them of were-wolfs; they teach them from the most tender age to join the hands mechanically. have the nurses clearer notions of god than the children, whom they compel to pray to him? xxxii.--it is a prejudice which has been handed from father to children. religion is handed down from fathers to children as the property of a family with the burdens. very few people in the world would have a god if care had not been taken to give them one. each one receives from his parents and his instructors the god which they themselves have received from theirs; only, according to his own temperament, each one arranges, modifies, and paints him agreeably to his taste. xxxiii.--origin of prejudices. the brain of man is, especially in infancy, like a soft wax, ready to receive all the impressions we wish to make on it; education furnishes nearly all his opinions, at a period when he is incapable of judging for himself. we believe that the ideas, true or false, which at a tender age were forced into our heads, were received from nature at our birth; and this persuasion is one of the greatest sources of our errors. xxxiv.--how they take root and spread. prejudice tends to confirm in us the opinions of those who are charged with our instruction. we believe them more skillful than we are; we suppose them thoroughly convinced themselves of the things they teach us. we have the greatest confidence in them. after the care they have taken of us when we were unable to assist ourselves, we judge them incapable of deceiving us. these are the motives which make us adopt a thousand errors without other foundation than the dangerous word of those who have educated us; even the being forbidden to reason upon what they tell us, does not diminish our confidence, but contributes often to increase our respect for their opinions. xxxv.--men would never have believed in the principles of modern theology if they had not been taught at an age when they were incapable of reasoning. the instructors of the human race act very prudently in teaching men their religious principles before they are able to distinguish the true from the false, or the left hand from the right. it would be as difficult to tame the spirit of a man forty years old with the extravagant notions which are given us of divinity, as to banish these notions from the head of a man who has imbibed them since his tenderest infancy. xxxvi.--the wonders of nature do not prove the existence of god. we are assured that the wonders of nature are sufficient to a belief in the existence of a god, and to convince us fully of this important truth. but how many persons are there in this world who have the leisure, the capacity, the necessary taste, to contemplate nature and to meditate upon its progress? the majority of men pay no attention to it. a peasant is not at all moved by the beauty of the sun, which he sees every day. the sailor is not surprised by the regular movements of the ocean; he will draw from them no theological inductions. the phenomena of nature do not prove the existence of a god, except to a few forewarned men, to whom has been shown in advance the finger of god in all the objects whose mechanism could embarrass them. the unprejudiced philosopher sees nothing in the wonders of nature but permanent and invariable law; nothing but the necessary effects of different combinations of diversified substance. xxxvii.--the wonders of nature explain themselves by natural causes. is there anything more surprising than the logic of so many profound doctors, who, instead of acknowledging the little light they have upon natural agencies, seek outside of nature--that is to say, in imaginary regions--an agent less understood than this nature, of which they can at least form some idea? to say that god is the author of the phenomena that we see, is it not attributing them to an occult cause? what is god? what is a spirit? they are causes of which we have no idea. sages! study nature and her laws; and when you can from them unravel the action of natural causes, do not go in search of supernatural causes, which, very far from enlightening your ideas, will but entangle them more and more and make it impossible for you to understand yourselves. xxxviii--continuation. nature, you say, is totally inexplicable without a god; that is to say, in order to explain what you understand so little, you need a cause which you do not understand at all. you pretend to make clear that which is obscure, by magnifying its obscurity. you think you have untied a knot by multiplying knots. enthusiastic philosophers, in order to prove to us the existence of a god, you copy complete treatises on botany; you enter into minute details of the parts of the human body; you ascend into the air to contemplate the revolutions of the stars; you return then to earth to admire the course of the waters; you fly into ecstasies over butterflies, insects, polyps, organized atoms, in which you think to find the greatness of your god; all these things will not prove the existence of this god; they will only prove that you have not the ideas which you should have of the immense variety of causes and effects that can produce the infinitely diversified combinations, of which the universe is the assemblage. this will prove that you ignore nature, that you have no idea of her resources when you judge her incapable of producing a multitude of forms and beings, of which your eyes, even by the aid of the microscope, see but the least part; finally, this will prove, that not being able to know the sensible and comprehensible agents, you find it easier to have recourse to a word, by which you designate an agent, of whom it will always be impossible for you to form any true idea. xxxix.--the world has not been created, and matter moves by itself. they tell us gravely that there is no effect without a cause; they repeat to us very often that the world did not create itself. but the universe is a cause, not an effect; it is not a work, has not been made, because it was impossible that it should be made. the world has always been, its existence is necessary. it is the cause of itself. nature, whose essence is visibly acting and producing, in order to fulfill her functions, as we see she does, needs no invisible motor far more unknown than herself. matter moves by its own energy, by the necessary result of its heterogeneity; the diversity of its movements or of its ways of acting, constitute only the diversity of substances; we distinguish one being from another but by the diversity of the impressions or movements which they communicate to our organs. xl.--continuation. you see that everything in nature is in a state of activity, and you pretend that nature of itself is dead and without energy! you believe that all this, acting of itself, has need of a motor! well! who is this motor? it is a spirit, that is to say, an absolutely incomprehensible and contradictory being. conclude then, i say to you, that matter acts of itself, and cease to reason about your spiritual motor, which has nothing that is necessary to put it into motion. return from your useless excursions; come down from an imaginary into a real world; take hold of second causes; leave to theologians their "first cause," of which nature has no need in order to produce all the effects which you see. xli.--other proofs that motion is in the essence of matter, and that it is not necessary to suppose a spiritual motor. it is but by the diversity of impressions or of effects which substances or bodies make upon us, that we feel them, that we have perceptions and ideas of them, that we distinguish them one from another, that we assign to them peculiarities. moreover, in order to perceive or to feel an object, this object must act upon our organs; this object can not act upon us without exciting some motion in us; it can not produce any motion in us if it is not itself in motion. as soon as i see an object, my eyes must be struck by it; i can not conceive of light and of vision without a motion in the luminous, extended, and colored body which communicates itself to my eye, or which acts upon my retina. as soon as i smell a body, my olfactory nerve must be irritated or put into motion by the parts exhaled from an odorous body. as soon as i hear a sound, the tympanum of my ear must be struck by the air put in motion by a sonorous body, which could not act if it was not moved of itself. from which it follows, evidently, that without motion i can neither feel, see, distinguish, compare, nor judge the body, nor even occupy my thought with any matter whatever. it is said in the schools, that the essence of a being is that from which flow all the properties of that being. now then, it is evident that all the properties of bodies or of substances of which we have ideas, are due to the motion which alone informs us of their existence, and gives us the first conceptions of it. i can not be informed or assured of my own existence but by the motions which i experience within myself. i am compelled to conclude that motion is as essential to matter as its extension, and that it can not be conceived of without it. if one persists in caviling about the evidences which prove to us that motion is an essential property of matter, he must at least acknowledge that substances which seemed dead or deprived of all energy, take motion of themselves as soon as they are brought within the proper distance to act upon each other. pyrophorus, when enclosed in a bottle or deprived of contact with the air, can not take fire by itself, but it burns as soon as exposed to the air. flour and water cause fermentation as soon as they are mixed. thus dead substances engender motion of themselves. matter has then the power to move itself, and nature, in order to act, does not need a motor whose essence would hinder its activity. xlii.--the existence of man does not prove that of god. whence comes man? what is his origin? is he the result of the fortuitous meeting of atoms? was the first man formed of the dust of the earth? i do not know! man appears to me to be a production of nature like all others she embraces. i should be just as much embarrassed to tell you whence came the first stones, the first trees, the first elephants, the first ants, the first acorns, as to explain the origin of the human species. recognize, we are told, the hand of god, of an infinitely intelligent and powerful workman, in a work so wonderful as the human machine. i would admit without question that the human machine appears to me surprising; but since man exists in nature, i do not believe it right to say that his formation is beyond the forces of nature. i will add, that i could conceive far less of the formation of the human machine, when to explain it to me they tell me that a pure spirit, who has neither eyes, nor feet, nor hands, nor head, nor lungs, nor mouth, nor breath, has made man by taking a little dust and blowing upon it. the savage inhabitants of paraguay pretend to be descended from the moon, and appear to us as simpletons; the theologians of europe pretend to be descended from a pure spirit. is this pretension more sensible? man is intelligent, hence it is concluded that he must be the work of an intelligent being, and not of a nature devoid of intelligence. although nothing is more rare than to see man use this intelligence, of which he appears so proud, i will admit that he is intelligent, that his necessities develop in him this faculty, that the society of other men contributes especially to cultivate it. but in the human machine and in the intelligence with which it is endowed, i see nothing that shows in a precise manner the infinite intelligence of the workman who has the honor of making it. i see that this admirable machine is subject to derangement; that at that time this wonderful intelligence is disordered, and sometimes totally disappears; from this i conclude that human intelligence depends upon a certain disposition of the material organs of the body, and that, because man is an intelligent being, it is not well to conclude that god must be an intelligent being, any more than because man is material, we are compelled to conclude that god is material. the intelligence of man no more proves the intelligence of god than the malice of men proves the malice of this god, of whom they pretend that man is the work. in whatever way theology is taken, god will always be a cause contradicted by its effects, or of whom it is impossible to judge by his works. we shall always see evil, imperfections, and follies resulting from a cause claimed to be full of goodness, of perfections, and of wisdom. xliii.--however, neither man nor the universe is the effect of chance. then you will say that intelligent man and even the universe and all it encloses, are the effects of chance. no, i answer, the universe is not an effect; it is the cause of all effects; all the beings it embraces are the necessary effects of this cause which sometimes shows to us its manner of acting, out which often hides from us its way. men may use the word "chance" to cover their ignorance of the true causes; nevertheless, although they may ignore them, these causes act, but by certain laws. there is no effect without a cause. nature is a word which we make use of to designate the immense assemblage of beings, diverse substances, infinite combinations, and all the various motions which we see. all bodies, whether organized or not organized, are the necessary results of certain causes, made to produce necessarily the effects which we see. nothing in nature can be made by chance; all follow fixed laws; these laws are but the necessary union of certain effects with their causes. an atom of matter does not meet another atom by accident or by hazard; this rencounter is due to permanent laws, which cause each being to act by necessity as it does, and can not act otherwise under the same circumstances. to speak about the accidental coming together of atoms, or to attribute any effects to chance, is to say nothing, if not to ignore the laws by which bodies act, meet, combine, or separate. everything is made by chance for those who do not understand nature, the properties of beings, and the effects which must necessarily result from the concurrence of certain causes. it is not chance that has placed the sun in the center of our planetary system; it is by its very essence, the substance of which it is composed, that it occupies this place, and from thence diffuses itself to invigorate the beings who live in these planets. xliv.--neither does the order of the universe prove the existence of a god. the worshipers of a god find, especially in the order of the universe, an invincible proof of the existence of an intelligent and wise being who rules it. but this order is only a result of motions necessarily brought on by causes or by circumstances which are sometimes favorable and sometimes injurious to ourselves; we approve the former and find fault with the latter. nature follows constantly the same progress; that is to say, the same causes produce the same effects, as long as their action is not interrupted by other causes which occasion the first ones to produce different effects. when the causes, whose effects we feel, are interrupted in their action by causes which, although unknown to us, are no less natural and necessary, we are stupefied, we cry out miracles: and we attribute them to a cause far less known than all those we see operating before us. the universe is always in order; there can be no disorder for it. our organization alone is suffering if we complain about disorder. bodies, causes, beings, which this world embraces, act necessarily in the manner in which we see them act, whether we approve or disapprove their action. earthquakes, volcanoes, inundations, contagions, and famines are effects as necessary in the order of nature as the fall of heavy bodies, as the course of rivers, as the periodical movements of the seas, the blowing of the winds, the abundant rains, and the favorable effects for which we praise and thank providence for its blessings. to be astonished that a certain order reigns in the world, is to be surprised to see the same causes constantly producing the same effects. to be shocked at seeing disorder, is to forget that the causes being changed or disturbed in their action, the effects can no longer be the same. to be astonished to see order in nature, is to be astonished that anything can exist; it is to be surprised at one's own existence. what is order for one being, is disorder for another. all wicked beings find that everything is in order when they can with impunity put everything into disorder; they find, on the contrary, that everything is in disorder when they are prevented from exercising their wickedness. xlv.--continuation. supposing god to be the author and the motor of nature, there could be no disorder relating to him; all causes which he would have made would necessarily act according to their properties the essences and the impulsions that he had endowed them with. if god should change the ordinary course of things, he would not be immutable. if the order of the universe--in which we believe we see the most convincing proof of his existence, of his intelligence, his power, and his goodness--should be inconsistent, his existence might be doubted; or he might be accused at least of inconstancy, of inability, of want of foresight, and of wisdom in the first arrangement of things; we would have a right to accuse him of blundering in his choice of agents and instruments. finally, if the order of nature proves the power and the intelligence, disorder ought to prove the weakness, inconstancy, and irrationality of divinity. you say that god is everywhere; that he fills all space; that nothing was made without him; that matter could not act without him as its motor. but in this case you admit that your god is the author of disorder; that it is he who deranges nature; that he is the father of confusion; that he is in man; and that he moves man at the moment when he sins. if god is everywhere, he is in me; he acts with me; he is deceived when i am deceived; he questions with me the existence of god; he offends god with me. oh, theologians! you never understand yourselves when you speak of god. xlvi.--a pure spirit can not be intelligent, and to adore a divine intelligence is a chimera. to be what we call intelligent, we must have ideas, thoughts, will; to have ideas, thoughts, and will, we must have organs; to have organs, we must have a body; to act upon bodies, we must have a body; to experience trouble, we must be capable of suffering; from which it evidently follows that a pure spirit can not be intelligent, and can not be affected by that which takes place in the universe. divine intelligence, divine ideas, divine views, you say, have nothing in common with those of men. so much the better! but in this case, how can men judge of these views--whether good or evil--reason about these ideas, or admire this intelligence? it would be to judge, to admire, to adore that of which we can form no idea. to adore the profound views of divine wisdom, is it not to worship that of which it is impossible for us to judge? to admire these same views, is it not admiring without knowing wry? admiration is always the daughter of ignorance. men admire and worship only what they do not understand. xlvii.--all the qualities which theology gives to its god are contrary to the very essence which it supposes him to have. all these qualities which are given to god are not suited to a being who, by his own essence, is devoid of all similarity to human beings. it is true, they think to find this similarity by exaggerating the human qualities with which they have clothed divinity; they thrust them upon the infinite, and from that moment cease to understand themselves. what is the result of this combination of man with god, or of this theanthropy? its only result is a chimera, of which nothing can be affirmed without causing the phantom to vanish which they had taken so much trouble to conjure up. dante, in his poem of paradise, relates that the divinity appeared to him under the figure of three circles, which formed an iris, whose bright colors arose from each other; but having wished to retain its brilliant light, the poet saw only his own face. in worshiping god, man adores himself. xlviii.--continuation. the slightest reflection suffices to prove to us that god can not have any of the human qualities, virtues, or perfections. our virtues and our perfections are the results of our temperament modified. has god a temperament like ours? our good qualities are our habits relative to the beings in whose society we live. god, according to you, is a solitary being. god has no one like him; he does not live in society; he has no need of any one; he enjoys a happiness which nothing can alter. admit, then, upon your own principles, that god can not possess what we call virtues, and that man can not be virtuous in regard to him. xlix.--it is absurd to say that the human race is the object and the end of creation. man, charmed with his own merits, imagines that it is but his own kind that god proposed as the object and the end in the formation of the universe. upon what is this so flattering opinion based? it is, we are told, upon this: that man is the only being endowed with an intelligence which enables him to know the divine nature, and to render to it homage worthy of it. we are assured that god created the world for his own glory, and that the human race was included in his plan, in order that he might have somebody to admire and glorify him in his works. but by these intentions has not god visibly missed his end? 1. according to you, it would always be impossible for man to know his god, and he would be kept in the most invincible ignorance of the divine essence. 2. a being who has no equals, can not be susceptible of glory. glory can result but from the comparison of his own excellence with that of others. 3. if god by himself is infinitely happy and is sufficient unto himself, why does he need the homage of his feeble creatures? 4. in spite of all his works, god is not glorified; on the contrary, all the religions of the world show him to us as perpetually offended; their great object is to reconcile sinful, ungrateful, and rebellious man with his wrathful god. l.--god is not made for man, nor man for god. if god is infinite, he is created still less for man, than man is for the ants. would the ants of a garden reason pertinently with reference to the gardener, if they should attempt to occupy themselves with his intentions, his desires, and his projects? would they reason correctly if they pretended that the park of versailles was made but for them, and that a fastidious monarch had had as his only object to lodge them superbly? but according to theology, man in his relation to god is far beneath what the lowest insect is to man. thus by the acknowledgment of theology itself, theology, which does but occupy itself with the attributes and views of divinity, is the most complete of follies. li.--it is not true that the object of the formation of the universe was to render men happy. it is pretended, that in forming the universe, god had no object but to render man happy. but, in a world created expressly for him and governed by an all-mighty god, is man after all very happy? are his enjoyments durable? are not his pleasures mingled with sufferings? are there many people who are contented with their fate? is not mankind the continual victim of physical and moral evils? this human machine, which is shown to us as the masterpiece of the creator's industry, has it not a thousand ways of deranging itself? would we admire the skill of a mechanic, who should show us a complicated machine, liable to be out of order at any moment, and which would after a while destroy itself? lii.--what is called providence is but a word void of sense. we call providence the generous care which divinity shows in providing for our needs, and in watching over the happiness of its beloved creatures. but, as soon as we look around, we find that god provides for nothing. providence neglects the greatest part of the inhabitants of this world. against a very small number of men, who are supposed to be happy, what a multitude of miserable ones are groaning beneath oppression, and languishing in misery! whole nations are compelled to starve in order to indulge the extravagances of a few morose tyrants, who are no happier than the slaves whom they oppress! at the same time that our philosophers energetically parade the bounties of providence, and exhort us to place confidence in it, do we not see them cry out at unforeseen catastrophes, by which providence plays with the vain projects of men; do we not see that it overthrows their designs, laughs at their efforts, and that its profound wisdom pleases itself in misleading mortals? but how can we place confidence in a malicious providence which laughs at and sports with mankind? how can i admire the unknown course of a hidden wisdom whose manner of acting is inexplicable to me? judge it by its effects! you will say; it is by these i do judge it, and i find that these effects are sometimes useful and sometimes injurious to me. we think to justify providence by saying, that in this world there are more blessings than evil for each individual man. let us suppose that the blessings which this providence makes us enjoy are as one hundred, and that the evils are as ten per cent.; would it not always result that against these hundred degrees of goodness, providence possesses a tenth degree of malignity?--which is incompatible with the perfection we suppose it to have. all the books are filled with the most flattering praises of providence, whose attentive care is extolled; it would seem to us, as if in order to live happy here below, man would have no need of exerting himself. however, without labor, man could scarcely live a day. in order to live, i see him obliged to sweat, work, hunt, fish, toil without relaxation; without these secondary causes, the first cause (at least in the majority of countries) could provide for none of his needs. if i examine all parts of this globe, i see the uncivilized as well as the civilized man in a perpetual struggle with providence; he is compelled to ward off the blows which it sends in the form of hurricanes, tempests, frost, hail, inundations, sterility, and the divers accidents which so often render all their labors useless. in a word, i see the human race continually occupied in protecting itself from the wicked tricks of this providence, which is said to be busy with the care of their happiness. a devotee admired divine providence for having wisely made rivers to flow through all the places where men had built large cities. is not this man's way of reasoning as sensible as that of many learned men who do not cease from telling us of final causes, or who pretend to perceive clearly the benevolent views of god in the formation of things? liii.--this pretended providence is less occupied in conserving than in disturbing the world--more an enemy than a friend of man. do we see, then, that divine providence manifests itself in a sensible manner in the conservation of its admirable works, for which we honor it? if it is divine providence which governs the world, we find it as much occupied in destroying as in creating; in exterminating as in producing. does it not at every instant cause thousands of those same men to perish, to whose preservation and well-being it is supposed to give its continual attention? every moment it loses sight of its beloved creatures; sometimes it tears down their dwellings; sometimes it destroys their harvests, inundates their fields, devastates by a drought, arms all nature against man, sets man against man, and finishes by causing him to expire in pain. is this what you call preserving a universe? if we attempted to consider without prejudice the equivocal conduct of providence relative to mankind and to all sentient beings, we should find that very far from resembling a tender and careful mother, it rather resembles those unnatural mothers who, forgetting the unfortunate fruits of their illicit amours, abandon their children as soon as they are born; and who, pleased to have conceived them, expose them without mercy to the caprices of fate. the hottentots--wiser in this particular than other nations, who treat them as barbarians--refuse, it is said, to adore god, because if he sometimes does good, he as often does harm. is not this reasoning more just and more conformed to experience than that of so many men who persist in seeing in their god but kindness, wisdom, and foresight; and who refuse to see that the countless evils, of which the world is the theater, must come from the same hand which they kiss with transport? liv.--no! the world is not governed by an intelligent being. the logic of common sense teaches us that we should judge a cause but by its effects. a cause can not be reputed as constantly good, except when it constantly produces good, useful, and agreeable effects. a cause which produces good at one time, and evil at another, is a cause which is sometimes good and sometimes bad. but the logic of theology destroys all this. according to it, the phenomena of nature, or the effects which we see in this world, prove to us the existence of an infinitely good cause, and this cause is god. although this world is full of evils, although disorder reigns here very often, although men groan every moment under the fate which oppresses them, we ought to be convinced that these effects are due to a benevolent and immutable cause; and many people believe it, or pretend to believe it! everything which takes place in the world proves to us in the clearest way that it is not governed by an intelligent being. we can judge of the intelligence of a being but by the means which he employs to accomplish his proposed design. the aim of god, it is said, is the happiness of our race; however, the same necessity regulates the fate of all sentient beings--which are born to suffer much, to enjoy little, and to die. man's cup is full of joy and of bitterness; everywhere good is side by side with evil; order is replaced by disorder; generation is followed by destruction. if you tell me that the designs of god are mysteries, and that his views are impossible to understand, i will answer, that in this case it is impossible for me to judge whether god is intelligent. lv.--god can not be called immutable. you pretend that god is immutable! but what is it that occasions the continual instability in this world, which you claim as his empire? is any state subject to more frequent and cruel revolutions than that of this unknown monarch? how can we attribute to an immutable god, powerful enough to give solidity to his works, the government of a world where everything is in a continual vicissitude? if i think to see a god unchanging in all the effects advantageous to my kind, what god can i discover in the continual misfortunes by which my kind is oppressed? you tell me that it is our sins that force him to punish us. i will answer that god, according to yourselves, is not immutable, because the sins of men compel him to change his conduct in regard to them. can a being who is sometimes irritated, and sometimes appeased, be constantly the same? lvi.--evil and good are the necessary effects of natural causes. what is a god who can change nothing? the universe is but what it can be; all sentient beings enjoy and suffer here: that is to say, they are moved sometimes in an agreeable, and at other times in a disagreeable way. these effects are necessary; they result from causes that act according to their inherent tendencies., these effects necessarily please or displease me, according to my own nature. this same nature compels me to avoid, to remove, and to combat the one, and to seek, to desire, and to procure the other. in a world where everything is from necessity, a god who remedies nothing, and allows things to follow their own course, is he anything else but destiny or necessity personified? it is a deaf god who can effect no change on the general laws to which he is subjected himself. what do i care for the infinite power of a being who can do but a very few things to please me? where is the infinite kindness of a being who is indifferent to my happiness? what good to me is the favor of a being who, able to bestow upon me infinite good, does not even give me a finite one? lvii.--the vanity of theological consolations in the troubles of this life. the hope of a heaven, of a future life, is but imaginary. when we ask why, under a good god, so many are wretched, we are reminded that the present world is but a pass-way, designed to conduct man to a happier sphere; we are assured that our sojourn on the earth, where we live, is for trial; they silence us by saying that god would not impart to his creatures either the indifference to the sufferings of others, or the infinite happiness which he reserved for himself alone. how can we be satisfied with these answers? 1. the existence of another life has no other guaranty than the imagination of men, who, in supposing it, have but manifested their desire to live again, in order to enter upon a purer and more durable state of happiness than that which they enjoy at present. 2. how can we conceive of a god who, knowing all things, must know to their depths the nature of his creatures, and yet must have so many proofs in order to assure himself of their proclivities? 3. according to the calculations of our chronologists, the earth which we inhabit has existed for six or seven thousand years; during this time the nations have, under different forms, experienced many vicissitudes and calamities; history shows us that the human race in all ages has been tormented and devastated by tyrants, conquerors, heroes; by wars, inundations, famines, epidemics, etc. is this long catalogue of proofs of such a nature as to inspire us with great confidence in the hidden views of the divinity? do such constant evils give us an exalted idea of the future fate which his kindness is preparing for us? 4. if god is as well-disposed as they assure us he is, could he not at least, without bestowing an infinite happiness upon men, communicate to them that degree of happiness of which finite beings are susceptible? in order to be happy, do we need an infinite or divine happiness? 5. if god has not been able to render men happier than they are here below, what will become of the hope of a paradise, where it is pretended that the elect or chosen few will rejoice forever in ineffable happiness? if god could not or would not remove evil from the earth (the only sojourning place we know of), what reason could we have to presume that he can or will remove it from another world, of which we know nothing? more than two thousand years ago, according to lactance, the wise epicure said: "either god wants to prevent evil, and can not, or he can and will not; or he neither can nor will, or he will and can. if he wants to, without the power, he is impotent; if he can, and will not, he is guilty of malice which we can not attribute to him; if he neither can nor will, he is both impotent and wicked, and consequently can not be god; if he wishes to and can, whence then comes evil, or why does he not prevent it?" for more than two thousand years honest minds have waited for a rational solution of these difficulties; and our theologians teach us that they will not be revealed to us until the future life. lviii.--another idle fancy. we are told of a pretended scale for human beings; it is supposed that god has divided his creatures into different classes, each one enjoying the degree of happiness of which he is susceptible. according to this romantic arrangement, all beings, from the oyster to the angel, enjoy the happiness which belongs to them. experience contradicts this sublime revery. in the world where we are, we see all sentient beings living and suffering in the midst of dangers. man can not step without wounding, tormenting, crushing a multitude of sentient beings which he finds in his path, while he himself, at every step, is exposed to a throng of evils seen or unseen, which may lead to his destruction. is not the very thought of death sufficient to mar his greatest enjoyment? during the whole course of his life he is subject to sufferings; there is not a moment when he feels sure of preserving his existence, to which he is so strongly attached, and which he regards as the greatest gift of divinity. lix.--in vain does theology exert itself to acquit god of man's defects. either this god is not free, or he is more wicked than good. the world, it will be said, has all the perfection of which it was susceptible; by the very reason that the world was not the god who made it, it was necessary that it should have great qualities and great defects. but we will answer, that the world necessarily having great defects, it would have been better suited to the nature of a good god not to create a world which he could not render completely happy. if god, who was, according to you, supremely happy before the world was created, had continued to be supremely happy in the created world, why did he not remain in peace? why must man suffer? why must man exist what is his existence to god? nothing or something. if his existence is not useful or necessary to god, why did he not leave him in nothingness? if man's existence is necessary to his glory, he then needed man, he lacked something before this man existed! we can forgive an unskillful workman for doing imperfect work, because he must work, well or ill, or starve; this workman is excusable; but your god is not. according to you, he is self-sufficient; in this case, why does he create men? he has, according to you, all that is necessary to render man happy; why, then, does he not do it? you must conclude that your god has more malice than goodness, or you must admit that god was compelled to do what he has done, without being able to do otherwise. however, you assure us that your god is free; you say also that he is immutable, although beginning in time and ceasing in time to exercise his power, like all the inconstant beings of this world. oh, theologians! you have made vain efforts to acquit your god of all the defects of man; there is always visible in this god so perfect, "a tip of the [human] ear." lx.--we can not believe in a divine providence, in an infinitely good and powerful god. is not god the master of his favors? has he not the right to dispense his benefits? can he not take them back again? his creature has no right to ask the reason of his conduct; he can dispose at will of the works of his hands. absolute sovereign of mortals, he distributes happiness or unhappiness, according to his pleasure. these are the solutions which theologians give in order to console us for the evils which god inflicts upon us. we would tell them that a god who was infinitely good, would not be the master of his favors, but would be by his own nature obliged to distribute them among his creatures; we would tell them that a truly benevolent being would not believe he had the right to abstain from doing good; we would tell them that a truly generous being does not take back what he has given, and any man who does it, forfeits gratitude, and has no right to complain of ingratitude. how can the arbitrary and whimsical conduct which theologians ascribe to god, be reconciled with the religion which supposes a compact or mutual agreement between this god and men? if god owes nothing to his creatures, they, on their part, can not owe anything to their god. all religion is founded upon the happiness which men believe they have a right to expect from the divinity, who is supposed to tell them: "love, adore, obey me, and i will render you happy!" men on their side say to him: "make us happy, be faithful to your promises, and we will love you, we will adore you, we will obey your laws!" in neglecting the happiness of his creatures, in distributing his favors and his graces according to his caprice, and taking back his gifts, does not god violate the contract which serves as a base for all religion? cicero has said with reason that if god does not make himself agreeable to man, he can not be his god. [nisi deus homini placuerit, deus non erit.] goodness constitutes divinity; this goodness can manifest itself to man only by the advantages he derives from it. as soon as he is unfortunate, this goodness disappears and ceases to be divinity. an infinite goodness can be neither partial nor exclusive. if god is infinitely good, he owes happiness to all his creatures; one unfortunate being alone would be sufficient to annihilate an unlimited goodness. under an infinitely good and powerful god, is it possible to conceive that a single man could suffer? an animal, a mite, which suffers, furnishes invincible arguments against divine providence and its infinite benefactions. lxi.--continuation. according to theologians, the afflictions and evils of this life are chastisements which culpable men receive from divinity. but why are men culpable? if god is almighty, does it cost him any more to say, "let everything remain in order!"--"let all my subjects be good, innocent, fortunate!"--than to say, "let everything exist?" was it more difficult for this god to do his work well than to do it so badly? was it any farther from the nonexistence of beings to their wise and happy existence, than from their non-existence to their insensate and miserable existence? religion speaks to us of a hell--that is, of a fearful place where, notwithstanding his goodness, god reserves eternal torments for the majority of men. thus, after having rendered mortals very miserable in this world, religion teaches them that god can make them much more wretched in another. they meet our objections by saying, that otherwise the goodness of god would take the place of his justice. but goodness which takes the place of the most terrible cruelty, is not infinite kindness. besides, a god who, after having been infinitely good, becomes infinitely wicked, can he be regarded as an immutable being? a god filled with implacable fury, is he a god in whom we can find a shadow of charity or goodness? lxii.--theology makes of its god a monster of nonsense, of injustice, of malice, and atrocity--a being absolutely hateful. divine justice, such as our theologians paint it, is, without doubt, a quality intended to make us love divinity. according to the notions of modern theology, it appears evident that god has created the majority of men with the view only of punishing them eternally. would it not have been more in conformity with kindness, with reason, with equity, to create but stones or plants, and not sentient beings, than to create men whose conduct in this world would cause them eternal chastisements in another? a god so perfidious and wicked as to create a single man and leave him exposed to the perils of damnation, can not be regarded as a perfect being, but as a monster of nonsense, injustice, malice, and atrocity. far from forming a perfect god, the theologians have made the most imperfect of beings. according to theological ideas, god resembles a tyrant who, having deprived the majority of his slaves of their eyesight, would confine them in a cell where, in order to amuse himself he could observe incognito their conduct through a trap-door, in order to have occasion to cruelly punish all those who in walking should hurt each other; but who would reward splendidly the small number of those to whom the sight was spared, for having the skill to avoid an encounter with their comrades. such are the ideas which the dogma of gratuitous predestination gives of divinity! although men repeat to us that their god is infinitely good, it is evident that in the bottom of their hearts they can believe nothing of it. how can we love anything we do not know? how can we love a being, the idea of whom is but liable to keep us in anxiety and trouble? how can we love a being of whom all that is told conspires to render him supremely hateful? lxiii.--all religion inspires but a cowardly and inordinate fear of the divinity. many people make a subtle distinction between true religion and superstition; they tell us that the latter is but a cowardly and inordinate fear of divinity, that the truly religious man has confidence in his god, and loves him sincerely; while the superstitious man sees in him but an enemy, has no confidence in him, and represents him as a suspicious and cruel tyrant, avaricious of his benefactions and prodigal of his chastisements. but does not all religion in reality give us these same ideas of god? while we are told that god is infinitely good, is it not constantly repeated to us that he is very easily offended, that he bestows his favors but upon a few, that he chastises with fury those to whom he has not been pleased to grant them? lxiv.--there is in reality no difference between religion and the most sombre and servile superstition. if we take our ideas of god from the nature of the things where we find a mixture of good and evil, this god, according to the good and evil which we experience, does naturally appear to us capricious, inconstant, sometimes good, sometimes wicked, and in this way, instead of exciting our love, he must produce suspicion, fear, and uncertainty in our hearts. there is no real difference between natural religion and the most sombre and servile superstition. if the theist sees god but on the beautiful side, the superstitious man looks upon him from the most hideous side. the folly of the one is gay of the other is lugubrious; but both are equally delirious. lxv.--according to the ideas which theology gives of divinity, to love god is impossible. if i take my ideas of god from theology, god shows himself to me in such a light as to repel love. the devotees who tell us that they love their god sincerely, are either liars or fools who see their god but in profile; it is impossible to love a being, the thought of whom tends to excite terror, and whose judgments make us tremble. how can we face without fear, a god whom we suppose sufficiently barbarous to wish to damn us forever? let them not speak to us of a filial or respectful fear mingled with love, which men should have for their god. a son can not love his father when he knows he is cruel enough to inflict exquisite torments upon him; in short, to punish him for the least faults. no man upon earth can have the least spark of love for a god who holds in reserve eternal, hard, and violent chastisements for ninety-nine hundredths of his children. lxvi.--by the invention of the dogma of the eternal torments of hell, theologians have made of their god a detestable being, more wicked than the most wicked of men, a perverse and cruel tyrant without aim. the inventors of the dogma of eternal torments in hell, have made of the god whom they call so good, the most detestable of beings. cruelty in man is the last term of corruption. there is no sensitive soul but is moved and revolts at the recital alone of the torments which the greatest criminal endures; but cruelty merits the greater indignation when we consider it gratuitous or without motive. the most sanguinary tyrants, caligula, nero, domitian, had at least some motive in tormenting their victims and insulting their sufferings; these motives were, either their own safety, the fury of revenge, the design to frighten by terrible examples, or perhaps the vanity to make parade of their power, and the desire to satisfy a barbarous curiosity. can a god have any of these motives? in tormenting the victims of his wrath, he would punish beings who could not really endanger his immovable power, nor trouble his felicity, which nothing can change. on the other hand, the sufferings of the other life would be useless to the living, who can not witness them; these torments would be useless to the damned, because in hell is no more conversion, and the hour of mercy is passed; from which it follows, that god, in the exercise of his eternal vengeance, would have no other aim than to amuse himself and insult the weakness of his creatures. i appeal to the whole human race! is there in nature a man so cruel as to wish in cold blood to torment, i do not say his fellow-beings, but any sentient being whatever, without fee, without profit, without curiosity, without having anything to fear? conclude, then, o theologians! that according to your own principles, your god is infinitely more wicked than the most wicked of men. you will tell me, perhaps, that infinite offenses deserve infinite chastisements, and i will tell you that we can not offend a god whose happiness is infinite. i will tell you further, that offenses of finite beings can not be infinite; that a god who does not want to be offended, can not consent to make his creatures' offenses last for eternity; i will tell you that a god infinitely good, can not be infinitely cruel, nor grant his creatures infinite existence solely for the pleasure of tormenting them forever. it could have been but the most cruel barbarity, the most notorious imposition, but the blindest ambition which could have created the dogma of eternal damnation. if there exists a god who could be offended or blasphemed, there would not be upon earth any greater blasphemers than those who dare to say that this god is perverse enough to take pleasure in dooming his feeble creatures to useless torments for all eternity. lxvii.--theology is but a series of palpable contradictions. to pretend that god can be offended with the actions of men, is to annihilate all the ideas that are given to us of this being. to say that man can disturb the order of the universe, that he can grasp the lightning from god's hand, that he can upset his projects, is to claim that man is stronger than his god, that he is the arbiter of his will, that it depends on him to change his goodness into cruelty. theology does nothing but destroy with one hand that which it builds with the other. if all religion is founded upon a god who becomes angry, and who is appeased, all religion is founded upon a palpable contradiction. all religions agree in exalting the wisdom and the infinite power of the divinity; but as soon as they expose his conduct, we discover but imprudence, want of foresight, weakness, and folly. god, it is said, created the world for himself; and so far he has not succeeded in making himself properly respected! god has created men in order to have in his dominion subjects who would render him homage; and we continually see men revolt against him! lxviii.--the pretended works of god do not prove at all what we call divine perfection. we are continually told of the divine perfections; and as soon as we ask the proofs of them, we are shown the works in which we are assured that these perfections are written in ineffaceable characters. all these works, however, are imperfect and perishable; man, who is regarded as the masterpiece, as the most marvelous work of divinity, is full of imperfections which render him disagreeable in the eyes of the almighty workman who has formed him; this surprising work becomes often so revolting and so odious to its author, that he feels himself compelled to cast him into the fire. but if the choicest work of divinity is imperfect, by what are we to judge of the divine perfections? can a work with which the author himself is so little satisfied, cause us to admire his skill? physical man is subject to a thousand infirmities, to countless evils, to death; the moral man is full of defects; and yet they exhaust themselves by telling us that he is the most beautiful work of the most perfect of beings. lxix.--the perfection of god does not show to any more advantage in the pretended creation of angels and pure spirits. it appears that god, in creating more perfect beings than men, did not succeed any better, or give stronger proofs of his perfection. do we not see in many religions that angels and pure spirits revolted against their master, and even attempted to expel him from his throne? god intended the happiness of angels and of men, and he has never succeeded in rendering happy either angels or men; pride, malice, sins, the imperfections of his creatures, have always been opposed to the wishes of the perfect creator. lxx.--theology preaches the omnipotence of its god, and continually shows him impotent. all religion is visibly founded upon the principle that "god proposes and man disposes." all the theologies of the world show us an unequal combat between divinity on the one side, and his creatures on the other. god never relies on his honor; in spite of his almighty power, he could not succeed in making the works of his hands as he would like them to be. to complete the absurdity, there is a religion which pretends that god himself died to redeem the human race; and, in spite of his death, men are not in the least as this god would desire them to be! lxxi.--according to all the religious systems of the earth, god would be the most capricious and the most insensate of beings. nothing could be more extravagant than the role which in every country theology makes divinity play. if the thing was real, we would be obliged to see in it the most capricious and the most insane of beings; one would be obliged to believe that god made the world to be the theater of dishonoring wars with his creatures; that he created angels, men, demons, wicked spirits, but as adversaries, against whom he could exercise his power. he gives them liberty to offend him, makes them wicked enough to upset his projects, obstinate enough to never give up: all for the pleasure of getting angry, and being appeased, of reconciling himself, and of repairing the confusion they have made. had divinity formed at once his creatures such as they ought to be in order to please him, what trouble he might have spared himself! or, at least, how much embarrassment he might have saved to his theologians! according to all the religious systems of the earth, god seems to be occupied but in doing himself injury; he does it as those charlatans do who wound themselves, in order to have occasion to show the public the value of their ointments. we do not see, however, that so far divinity has been able to radically cure itself of the evil which is caused by men. lxxii.--it is absurd to say that evil does not come from god. god is the author of all; still we are assured that evil does not come from god. whence, then, does it come? from men? but who has made men? it is god: then that evil comes from god. if he had not made men as they are, moral evil or sin would not exist in the world. we must blame god, then, that man is so perverse. if man has the power to do wrong or to offend god, we must conclude that god wishes to be offended; that god, who has created man, resolved that evil should be done by him: without this, man would be an effect contrary to the cause from which he derives his being. lxxiii.--the foresight attributed to god, would give to guilty men whom he punishes, the right to complain of his cruelty. the faculty of foresight, or the ability to know in advance all which is to happen in the world, is attributed to god. but this foresight can scarcely belong to his glory, nor spare him the reproaches which men could legitimately heap upon him. if god had the foresight of the future, did he not foresee the fall of his creatures whom he had destined to happiness? if he resolved in his decrees to allow this fall, there is no doubt that he desired it to take place: otherwise it would not have happened. if the divine foresight of the sin of his creatures had been necessary or forced, it might be supposed that god was compelled by his justice to punish the guilty; but god, enjoying the faculty of foresight and the power to predestinate everything, would it not depend upon himself not to impose upon men these cruel laws? or, at least, could he not have dispensed with creating beings whom he might be compelled to punish and to render unhappy by a subsequent decree? what does it matter whether god destined men to happiness or to misery by a previous decree, the effect of his foresight, or by a subsequent decree, the effect of his justice. does the arrangement of these decrees change the fate of the miserable? would they not have the right to complain of a god who, having the power of leaving them in oblivion, brought them forth, although he foresaw very well that his justice would force him sooner or later to punish them? lxxiv.--absurdity of the theological fables upon original sin and upon satan. man, say you, issuing from the hands of god, was pure, innocent, and good; but his nature became corrupted in consequence of sin. if man could sin, when just leaving the hands of god, his nature was then not perfect! why did god permit him to sin, and his nature to become corrupt? why did god allow him to be seduced, knowing well that he would be too weak to resist the tempter? why did god create a satan, a malicious spirit, a tempter? why did not god, who was so desirous of doing good to mankind, why did he not annihilate, once for all, so many evil genii whose nature rendered them enemies of our happiness? or rather, why did god create evil spirits, whose victories and terrible influences upon the human race he must have foreseen? finally, by what fatality, in all the religions of the world, has the evil principle such a marked advantage over the good principle or over divinity? lxxv.--the devil, like religion, was invented to enrich the priests. we are told a story of the simple-heartedness of an italian monk, which does him honor. this good man preaching one day felt obliged to announce to his auditory that, thanks to heaven, he had at last discovered a sure means of rendering all men happy. "the devil," said he, "tempts men but to have them as comrades of his misery in hell. let us address ourselves, then, to the pope, who possesses the keys of paradise and of hell; let us ask him to beseech god, at the head of the whole church, to reconcile himself with the devil; to take him back into his favor; to re-establish him in his first rank. this can not fail to put an end to his sinister projects against mankind." the good monk did not see, perhaps, that the devil is at least fully as useful as god to the ministers of religion. these reap too many benefits from their differences to lend themselves willingly to a reconciliation between the two enemies ties, upon whose contests their existence and their revenues depend. if men would cease to be tempted and to sin, the ministry of priests would become useless to them. manicheism is evidently the support of all religions; but unfortunately the devil, being invented to remove all suspicion of malice from divinity, proves to us at every moment the powerlessness or the awkwardness of his celestial adversary. lxxvi.--if god could not render human nature sinless, he has no right to punish man. man's nature, it is said, must necessarily become corrupt. god could not endow him with sinlessness, which is an inalienable portion of divine perfection. but if god could not render him sinless, why did he take the trouble of creating man, whose nature was to become corrupt, and which, consequently, had to offend god? on the other side, if god himself was not able to render human nature sinless, what right had he to punish men for not being sinless? it is but by the right of might. but the right of the strongest is violence; and violence is not suited to the most just of beings. god would be supremely unjust if he punished men for not having a portion of the divine perfections, or for not being able to be gods like himself. could not god have at least endowed men with that sort of perfection of which their nature is susceptible? if some men are good or render themselves agreeable to their god, why did not this god bestow the same favor or give the same dispositions to all beings of our kind? why does the number of wicked exceed so greatly the number of good people? why, for every friend, does god find ten thousand enemies in a world which depended upon him alone to people with honest men? if it is true that god intends to form in heaven a court of saints, of chosen ones, or of men who have lived in this world according to his views, would he not have had a court more numerous, more brilliant, and more honorable to him, if it were composed of all the men to whom, in creating them, he could have granted the degree of goodness necessary to obtain eternal happiness? finally, were it not easier not to take man from nothingness than to create him full of defects, rebellious to his creator, perpetually exposed to lose himself by a fatal abuse of his liberty? instead of creating men, a perfect god ought to have created only docile and submissive angels. the angels, it is said, are free; a few among them have sinned; but all of them have not sinned; all have not abused their liberty by revolting against their master. could not god have created only angels of the good kind? if god could create angels who have not sinned, could he not create men sinless, or those who would never abuse their liberty by doing evil. if the chosen ones are incapable of sinning in heaven, could not god have made sinless men upon the earth? lxxvii.--it is absurd to say that god's conduct must be a mystery to man, and that he has no right to examine and judge it. we are told that the enormous distance which separates god from men, makes god's conduct necessarily a mystery for us, and that we have no right to interrogate our master. is this statement satisfactory? but according to you, when my eternal happiness is involved, have i not the right to examine god's own conduct? it is but with the hope of happiness that men submit to the empire of a god. a despot to whom men are subjected but through fear, a master whom they can not interrogate, a totally inaccessible sovereign, can not merit the homage of intelligent beings. if god's conduct is a mystery to me, it is not made for me. man can not adore, admire, respect, or imitate a conduct of which everything is impossible to conceive, or of which he can not form any but revolting ideas; unless it is pretended that he should worship all the things of which he is forced to be ignorant, and then all that he does not understand becomes admirable. priests! you teach us that the designs of god are impenetrable; that his ways are not our ways; that his thoughts are not our thoughts; that it is folly to complain of his administration, whose motives and secret ways are entirely unknown to us; that there is temerity in accusing him of unjust judgments, because they are incomprehensible to us. but do you not see that by speaking in this manner, you destroy with your own hands all your profound systems which have no design but to explain the ways of divinity that you call impenetrable? these judgments, these ways, and these designs, have you penetrated them? you dare not say so; and, although you season incessantly, you do not understand them more than we do. if by chance you know the plan of god, which you tell us to admire, while there are many people who find it so little worthy of a just, good, intelligent, and rational being; do not say that this plan is impenetrable. if you are as ignorant as we, have some indulgence for those who ingenuously confess that they comprehend nothing of it, or that they see nothing in it divine. cease to persecute for opinions which you do not understand yourselves; cease to slander each other for dreams and conjectures which are altogether contradictory; speak to us of intelligible and truly useful things; and no longer tell us of the impenetrable ways of a god, about which you do nothing but stammer and contradict yourselves. in speaking to us incessantly of the immense depths of divine wisdom, in forbidding us to fathom these depths by telling us that it is insolence to call god to the tribunal of our humble reason, in making it a crime to judge our master, the theologians only confess the embarrassment in which they find themselves as soon as they have to render account of the conduct of a god, which they tell us is marvelous, only because it is totally impossible for them to understand it themselves. lxxviii.--it is absurd to call him a god of justice and goodness, who inflicts evil indiscriminately on the good and the wicked, upon the innocent and the guilty; it is idle to demand that the unfortunate should console themselves for their misfortunes, in the very arms of the one who alone is the author of them. physical evil commonly passes as the punishment of sin. calamities, diseases, famines, wars, earthquakes, are the means which god employs to chastise perverse men. therefore, they have no difficulty in attributing these evils to the severity of a just and good god. however, do we not see these plagues fall indiscriminately upon the good and the wicked, upon the impious and the pious, upon the innocent and the guilty? how can we be made to admire, in this proceeding, the justice and the goodness of a being, the idea of whom appears so consoling to the unfortunate? doubtless the brain of these unfortunate ones has been disturbed by their misfortunes, since they forget that god is the arbiter of things, the sole dispenser of the events of this world. in this case ought they not to blame him for the evils for which they would find consolation in his arms? unfortunate father! you console yourself in the bosom of providence for the loss of a cherished child or of a wife, who made your happiness! alas! do you not see that your god has killed them? your god has rendered you miserable; and you want him to console you for the fearful blows he has inflicted upon you. the fantastic and supernatural notions of theology have succeeded so thoroughly in overcoming the simplest, the clearest, the most natural ideas of the human spirit, that the pious, incapable of accusing god of malice, accustom themselves to look upon these sad afflictions as indubitable proofs of celestial goodness. are they in affliction, they are told to believe that god loves them, that god visits them, that god wishes to try them. thus it is that religion changes evil into good! some one has said profanely, but with reason: "if the good god treats thus those whom he loves, i beseech him very earnestly not to think of me." men must have formed very sinister and very cruel ideas of their god whom they call so good, in order to persuade themselves that the most frightful calamities and the most painful afflictions are signs of his favor! would a wicked genii or a devil be more ingenious in tormenting his enemies, than sometimes is this god of goodness, who is so often occupied with inflicting his chastisements upon his dearest friends? lxxix.--a god who punishes the faults which he could have prevented, is a fool, who adds injustice to foolishness. what would we say or a father who, we are assured, watches without relaxation over the welfare of his feeble and unforeseeing children, and who, however, would leave them at liberty to go astray in the midst of rocks, precipices, and waters; who would prevent them but rarely from following their disordered appetites; who would permit them to handle, without precaution, deadly arms, at the risk of wounding themselves severely? what would we think of this same father, if, instead of blaming himself for the harm which would have happened to his poor children, he should punish them for their faults in the most cruel way? we would say, with reason, that this father is a fool, who joins injustice to foolishness. a god who punishes the faults which he could have prevented, is a being who lacks wisdom, goodness, and equity. a god of foresight would prevent evil, and in this way would be saved the trouble of punishing it. a good god would not punish weaknesses which he knows to be inherent in human nature. a just god, if he has made man, would not punish him for not being strong enough to resist his desires. to punish weakness, is the most unjust tyranny. is it not calumniating a just god, to say that he punishes men for their faults, even in the present life? how would he punish beings whom he alone could correct, and who, as long as they had not received grace, can not act otherwise than they do? according to the principles of theologians themselves, man, in his actual state of corruption, can do nothing but evil, for without divine grace he has not the strength to do good. moreover, if man's nature, abandoned to itself, of destitute of divine help, inclines him necessarily to evil, or renders him incapable of doing good, what becomes of his free will? according to such principles, man can merit neither reward nor punishment; in rewarding man for the good he does, god would but recompense himself; in punishing man for the evil he does, god punishes him for not having been given the grace, without which it was impossible for him to do better. lxxx.--free will is an idle fancy. theologians tell and repeat to us that man is free, while all their teachings conspire to destroy his liberty. trying to justify divinity, they accuse him really of the blackest injustice. they suppose that, without grace, man is compelled to do evil: and they maintain that god will punish him for not having been given the grace to do good! with a little reflection, we will be obliged to see that man in all things acts by compulsion, and that his free will is a chimera, even according to the theological system. does it depend upon man whether or not he shall be born of such or such parents? does it depend upon man to accept or not to accept the opinions of his parents and of his teachers? if i were born of idolatrous or mohammedan parents, would it have depended upon me to become a christian? however, grave doctors of divinity assure us that a just god will damn without mercy all those to whom he has not given the grace to know the religion of the christians. man's birth does not depend upon his choice; he was not asked if he would or would not come into the world; nature did not consult him upon the country and the parents that she gave him; the ideas he acquired, his opinions, his true or false notions are the necessary fruits of the education which he has received, and of which he has not been the master; his passions and his desires are the necessary results of the temperament which nature has given him, and of the ideas with which he has been inspired; during the whole course of his life, his wishes and his actions are determined by his surroundings, his habits, his occupations, his pleasures, his conversations, and by the thoughts which present themselves involuntarily to him; in short, by a multitude of events and accidents which are beyond his control. incapable of foreseeing the future, he knows neither what he will wish, nor what he will do in the time which must immediately follow the present. man passes his life, from the moment of his birth to that of his death, without having been free one instant. man, you say, wishes, deliberates, chooses, determines; hence you conclude that his actions are free. it is true that man intends, but he is not master of his will or of his desires. he can desire and wish only what he judges advantageous for himself; he can not love pain nor detest pleasure. man, it will be said, sometimes prefers pain to pleasure; but then, he prefers a passing pain in the hope of procuring a greater and more durable pleasure. in this case, the idea of a greater good determines him to deprive himself of one less desirable. it is not the lover who gives to his mistress the features by which he is enchanted; he is not then the master to love or not to love the object of his tenderness; he is not the master of the imagination or the temperament which dominates him; from which it follows, evidently, that man is not the master of the wishes and desires which rise in his soul, independently of him. but man, say you, can resist his desires; then he is free. man resists his desires when the motives which turn him from an object are stronger than those which draw him toward it; but then, his resistance is necessary. a man who fears dishonor and punishment more than he loves money, resists necessarily the desire to take possession of another's money. are we not free when we deliberate?--but has one the power to know or not to know, to be uncertain or to be assured? deliberation is the necessary effect of the uncertainty in which we find ourselves with reference to the results of our actions. as soon as we believe ourselves certain of these results, we necessarily decide; and then we act necessarily according as we shall have judged right or wrong. our judgments, true or false, are not free; they are necessarily determined by ideas which we have received, or which our mind has formed. man is not free in his choice; he is evidently compelled to choose what he judges the most useful or the most agreeable for himself. when he suspends his choice, he is not more free; he is forced to suspend it till he knows or believes he knows the qualities of the objects presented to him, or until he has weighed the consequence of his actions. man, you will say, decides every moment on actions which he knows will endanger him; man kills himself sometimes, then he is free. i deny it! has man the ability to reason correctly or incorrectly? do not his reason and his wisdom depend either upon opinions that he has formed, or upon his mental constitution? as neither the one nor the other depends upon his will, they can not in any wise prove his liberty. if i make the wager to do or not to do a thing, am i not free? does it not depend upon me to do or not to do it? no; i will answer you, the desire to win the wager will necessarily determine you to do or not to do the thing in question. "but if i consent to lose the wager?" then the desire to prove to me that you are free will have become to you a stronger motive than the desire to win the wager; and this motive will necessarily have determined you to do or not to do what was understood between us. but you will say, "i feel myself free." it is an illusion which may be compared to that of the fly in the fable, which, lighting on the shaft of a heavy wagon, applauded itself as driver of the vehicle which carried it. man who believes himself free, is a fly who believes himself the master-motor in the machine of the universe, while he himself, without his own volition, is carried on by it. the feeling which makes us believe that we are free to do or not to do a thing, is but a pure illusion. when we come to the veritable principle of our actions, we will find that they are nothing but the necessary results of our wills and of our desires, which are never within our power. you believe yourselves free because you do as you choose; but are you really free to will or not to will, to desire or not to desire? your wills and your desires, are they not necessarily excited by objects or by qualities which do not depend upon you at all? lxxxi.--we should not conclude from this that society has not the right to chastise the wicked. if the actions of men are necessary, if men are not free, what right has society to punish the wicked who infest it? is it not very unjust to chastise beings who could not act otherwise than they did? if the wicked act from the impulse of their corrupt nature, society in punishing them acts necessarily on its side from the desire to preserve itself. certain objects produce in us the feeling of pain; therefore our nature compels us to hate them, and incites us to remove them. a tiger pressed by hunger, attacks the man whom he wishes to devour; but the man is not the master of his fear of the tiger, and seeks necessarily the means of exterminating it. lxxxii.--refutation of the arguments in favor of free will. if everything is necessary, if errors, opinions, and ideas of men are fated, how or why can we pretend to reform them? the errors of men are the necessary results of their ignorance; their ignorance, their obstinacy, their credulity, are the necessary results of their inexperience, of their indifference, of their lack of reflection; the same as congestion of the brain or lethargy are the natural effects of some diseases. truth, experience, reflection, reason, are the proper remedies to cure ignorance, fanaticism, and follies; the same as bleeding is good to soothe congestion of the brain. but you will say, why does not truth produce this effect upon many of the sick heads? there are some diseases which resist all remedies; it is impossible to cure obstinate patients who refuse to take the remedies which are given them; the interest of some men and the folly of others naturally oppose them to the admission of truth. a cause produces its effect only when it is not interrupted in its action by other causes which are stronger, or which weaken the action of the first cause or render it useless. it is entirely impossible to have the best arguments accepted by men who are strongly interested in error; who are prejudiced in its favor; who refuse to reflect; but it must necessarily be that truth undeceives the honest souls who seek it in good faith. truth is a cause; it produces necessarily its effect when its impulse is not interrupted by causes which suspend its effects. lxxxiii.--continuation. to take away from man his free will, is, we are told, to make of him a pure machine, an automaton without liberty; there would exist in him neither merit nor virtue what is merit in man? it is a certain manner of acting which renders him estimable in the eyes of his fellow beings. what is virtue? it is the disposition that causes us to do good to others. what can there be contemptible in automatic machines capable of producing such desirable effects? marcus aurelius was a very useful spring to the vast machine of the roman empire. by what right will a machine despise another machine, whose springs would facilitate its own play? good people are springs which assist society in its tendency to happiness; wicked men are badly-formed springs, which disturb the order, the progress, and harmony of society. if for its own interests society loves and rewards the good, she hates, despises, and removes the wicked, as useless or dangerous motors. lxxxiv.--god himself, if there was a god, would not be free; hence the uselessness of all religion. the world is a necessary agent; all the beings which compose it are united to each other, and can not do otherwise than they do, so long as they are moved by the same causes and possessed of the same qualities. if they lose these qualities, they will act necessarily in a different way. god himself (admitting his existence a moment) can not be regarded as a free agent; if there existed a god, his manner of acting would necessarily be determined by the qualities inherent in his nature; nothing would be able to alter or to oppose his wishes. this considered, neither our actions nor our prayers nor our sacrifices could suspend or change his invariable progress and his immutable designs, from which we are compelled to conclude that all religion would be entirely useless. lxxxv.--even according to theological principles, man is not free one instant. if theologians were not constantly contradicting each other, they would know, from their own hypotheses, that man can not be called free for an instant. is not man supposed to be in a continual dependence upon god? is one free, when one could not have existed or can not live without god, and when one ceases to exist at the pleasure of his supreme will? if god created man of nothing, if the preservation of man is a continual creation, if god can not lose sight of his creature for an instant, if all that happens to him is a result of the divine will, if man is nothing of himself, if all the events which he experiences are the effects of divine decrees, if he can not do any good without assistance from above, how can it be pretended that man enjoys liberty during one moment of his life? if god did not save him in the moment when he sins, how could man sin? if god preserves him, god, therefore, forces him to live in order to sin. lxxxvi.--all evil, all disorder, all sin, can be attributed but to god; and consequently, he has no right to punish or reward. divinity is continually compared to a king, the majority of whose subjects revolt against him and it is pretended that he has the right to reward his faithful subjects, and to punish those who revolt against him. this comparison is not just in any of its parts. god presides over a machine, of which he has made all the springs; these springs act according to the way in which god has formed them; it is the fault of his inaptitude if these springs do not contribute to the harmony of the machine in which the workman desired to place them. god is a creating king, who created all kinds of subjects for himself; who formed them according to his pleasure, and whose wishes can never find any resistance. if god in his empire has rebellious subjects, it is god who resolved to have rebellious subjects. if the sins of men disturb the order of the world, it is god who desired this order to be disturbed. nobody dares to doubt divine justice; however, under the empire of a just god, we find nothing but injustice and violence. power decides the fate of nations. equity seems to be banished from the earth; a small number of men enjoy with impunity the repose, the fortunes, the liberty, and the life of all the others. everything is in disorder in a world governed by a god of whom it is said that disorder displeases him exceedingly. lxxxvii.--men's prayers to god prove sufficiently that they are not satisfied with the divine economy. although men incessantly admire the wisdom the goodness, the justice, the beautiful order of providence, they are, in fact, never contented with it. the prayers which they continually offer to heaven, prove to us that they are not at all satisfied with god's administration. praying to god, asking a favor of him, is to mistrust his vigilant care; to pray god to avert or to suppress an evil, is to endeavor to put obstacles in the way of his justice; to implore the assistance of god in our calamities, means to appeal to the very author of these calamities in order to represent to him our welfare; that he ought to rectify in our favor his plan, which is not beneficial to our interests. the optimist, or the one who thinks that everything is good in the world, and who repeats to us incessantly that we live in the best world possible, if he were consistent, ought never to pray; still less should he expect another world where men will be happier. can there be a better world than the best possible of all worlds? some of the theologians have treated the optimists as impious for having claimed that god could not have made a better world than the one in which we live; according to these doctors it is limiting the divine power and insulting it. but do not theologians see that it is less offensive for god, to pretend that he did his best in creating the world, than to say that he, having the power to produce a better one, had the malice to make a very bad one? if the optimist, by his system, does wrong to the divine power, the theologian, who treats him as impious, is himself a reprobate, who wounds the divine goodness under pretext of taking interest in god. lxxxviii.--the reparation of the iniquities and the miseries of this world in another world, is an idle conjecture and an absurd supposition. when we complain of the evils of which this world is the theater, we are referred to another world; we are told that there god will repair all the iniquities and the miseries which he permits for a time here below. however, if leaving his eternal justice to sleep for a time, god could consent to evil during the period of the existence of our globe, what assurance have we that during the existence of another globe, divine justice will not likewise sleep during the misfortunes of its inhabitants? they console us in our troubles by saying, that god is patient, and that his justice, although often very slow, is not the less certain. but do you not see, that patience can not be suited to a being just, immutable, and omnipotent? can god tolerate injustice for an instant? to temporize with an evil that one knows of, evinces either uncertainty, weakness, or collusion; to tolerate evil which one has the power to prevent, is to consent that evil should be committed. lxxxix.--theology justifies the evil and injustice permitted by its god, only by conceding to this god the right of the strongest, that is to say, the violation of all rights, or in commanding from men a stupid devotion. i hear a multitude of theologians tell me on all sides, that god is infinitely just, but that his justice is not that of men! of what kind, or of what nature is this divine justice then? what idea can i form of a justice which so often resembles human injustice? is it not confounding all our ideas of justice and of injustice, to tell us that what is equitable in god is iniquitous in his creatures? how can we take as a model a being whose divine perfections are precisely contrary to human perfections? god, you say, is the sovereign arbiter of our destinies; his supreme power, that nothing can limit, authorizes him to do as he pleases with his works; a worm, such as man, has not the right to murmur against him. this arrogant tone is literally borrowed from the language which the ministers of tyrants hold, when they silence those who suffer by their violences; it can not, then, be the language of the ministers of a god of whose equity they boast. it can not impose upon a being who reasons. ministers of a just god! i tell you then, that the greatest power is not able to confer even upon your god himself the right to be unjust to the vilest of his creatures. a despot is not a god. a god who arrogates to himself the right to do evil, is a tyrant; a tyrant is not a model for men. he ought to be an execrable object in their eyes. is it not strange that, in order to justify divinity, they made of him the most unjust of beings? as soon as we complain of his conduct, they think to silence us by claiming that god is the master; which signifies that god, being the strongest, he is not subjected to ordinary rules. but the right of the strongest is the violation of all rights; it can pass as a right but in the eyes of a savage conqueror, who, in the intoxication of his fury, imagines he has the right to do as he pleases with the unfortunate ones whom he has conquered; this barbarous right can appear legitimate only to slaves, who are blind enough to think that everything is allowed to tyrants, who are too strong for them to resist. by a foolish simplicity, or rather by a plain contradiction of terms, do we not see devotees exclaim, amidst the greatest calamities, that the good lord is the master? well, illogical reasoners, you believe in good faith that the good lord sends you the pestilence; that your good lord gives war; that the good lord is the cause of famine; in a word, that the good lord, without ceasing to be good, has the will and the right to do you the greatest evils you can endure! cease to call your lord good when he does you harm; do not say that he is just; say that he is the strongest, and that it is impossible for you to avert the blows which his caprice inflicts upon you. god, you say, punishes us for our highest good; but what real benefit can result to a nation in being exterminated by contagion, murdered by wars, corrupted by the examples of perverse masters, continually pressed by the iron scepter of merciless tyrants, subjected to the scourge of a bad government, which often for centuries causes nations to suffer its destructive effects? the eyes of faith must be strange eyes, if we see by their means any advantage in the most dreadful miseries and in the most durable evils, in the vices and follies by which our kind is so cruelly afflicted! xc.--redemption, and the continual exterminations attributed to jehovah in the bible, are so many absurd and ridiculous inventions which presuppose an unjust and barbarous god. what strange ideas of the divine justice must the christians have who believe that their god, with the view of reconciling himself with mankind, guilty without knowledge of the fault of their parents, sacrificed his own innocent and sinless son! what would we say of a king, whose subjects having revolted against him, in order to appease himself could find no other expedient than to put to death the heir to his crown, who had taken no part in the general rebellion? it is, the christian will say, through kindness for his subjects, incapable of satisfying themselves of his divine justice, that god consented to the cruel death of his son. but the kindness of a father to strangers does not give him the right to be unjust and cruel to his son. all the qualities that theology gives to its god annul each other. the exercise of one of his perfections is always at the expense of another. has the jew any more rational ideas than the christian of divine justice? a king, by his pride, kindles the wrath of heaven. jehovah sends pestilence upon his innocent people; seventy thousand subjects are exterminated to expiate the fault of a monarch that the kindness of god resolved to spare. xci.--how can we discover a tender, generous, and equitable father in a being who has created his children but to make them unhappy? in spite of the injustice with which all religions are pleased to blacken the divinity, men can not consent to accuse him of iniquity; they fear that he, like the tyrants of this world, will be offended by the truth, and redouble the weight of his malice and tyranny upon them. they listen, then, to their priests, who tell them that their god is a tender father; that this god is an equitable monarch, whose object in this world is to assure himself of the love, obedience, and respect of his subjects; who gives them the liberty to act, in order to give them occasion to deserve his favors and to acquire eternal happiness, which he does not owe them in any way. in what way can we recognize the tenderness of a father who created the majority of his children but for the purpose of dragging out a life of pain, anxiety, and bitterness upon this earth? is there any more fatal boon than this pretended liberty which, it is said, men can abuse, and thereby expose themselves to the risk of eternal misery? xcii.--the life of mortals, all which takes place here below, testifies against man's liberty and against the justice and goodness of a pretended god. in calling mortals into life, what a cruel and dangerous game does the divinity force them to play! thrust into the world without their wish, provided with a temperament of which they are not the masters, animated by passions and desires inherent in their nature, exposed to snares which they have not the skill to avoid, led away by events which they could neither foresee nor prevent, the unfortunate beings are obliged to follow a career which conducts them to horrible tortures. travelers assert that in some part of asia reigns a sultan full of phantasies, and very absolute in his will. by a strange mania this prince spends his time sitting before a table, on which are placed six dice and a dice-box. one end of the table is covered with a pile of gold, for the purpose of exciting the cupidity of the courtiers and of the people by whom the sultan is surrounded. he, knowing the weak point of his subjects, speaks to them in this way: "slaves! i wish you well; my aim is to enrich you and render you all happy. do you see these treasures? well, they are for you! try to win them; let each one in turn take this box and these dice; whoever shall have the good luck to raffle six, will be master of this treasure; but i warn you that he who has not the luck to throw the required number, will be precipitated forever into an obscure cell, where my justice exacts that he shall be burned by a slow fire." upon this threat of the monarch, they regarded each other in consternation; no one willing to take a risk so dangerous. "what!" said the angry sultan, "no one wants to play? oh, this does not suit me! my glory demands that you play. you will raffle then; i wish it; obey without replying!" it is well to observe that the despot's dice are prepared in such a way, that upon a hundred thousand throws there is but one that wins; thus the generous monarch has the pleasure to see his prison well filled, and his treasures seldom carried away. mortals! this sultan is your god; his treasures are heaven; his cell is hell; and you hold the dice! xciii.--it is not true that we owe any gratitude to what we call providence. we are constantly told that we owe an infinite gratitude to providence for the countless blessings it is pleased to lavish upon us. they boast above all that our existence is a blessing. but, alas! how many mortals are really satisfied with their mode of existence? if life has its sweets, how much of bitterness is mingled with it? is not one bitter trouble sufficient to blight all of a sudden the most peaceful and happy life? is there a great number of men who, if it depended upon them, would wish to begin, at the same sacrifice, the painful career into which, without their consent, destiny has thrown them? you say that existence itself is a great blessing. but is not this existence continually troubled by griefs, fears, and often cruel and undeserved maladies. this existence, menaced on so many sides, can we not be deprived of it at any moment? who is there, after having lived for some time, who has not been deprived of a beloved wife, a beloved child, a consoling friend, whose loss fills his mind constantly? there are very few mortals who have not been compelled to drink from the cup of bitterness; there are but few who have not often wished to die. finally, it did not depend upon us to exist or not to exist. would the bird be under such great obligations to the bird-catcher for having caught it in his net and for having put it into his cage, in order to eat it after being amused with it? xciv.--to pretend that man is the beloved child of providence, god's favorite, the only object of his labors, the king of nature, is folly. in spite of the infirmities, the troubles, the miseries to which man is compelled to submit in this world; in spite of the danger which his alarmed imagination creates in regard to another, he is still foolish enough to believe himself to be god's favorite, the only aim of all his works. he imagines that the entire universe was made for him; he calls himself arrogantly the king of nature, and ranks himself far above other animals. poor mortal! upon what can you establish your high pretensions? it is, you say, upon your soul, upon your reason, upon your sublime faculties, which place you in a condition to exercise an absolute authority over the beings which surround you. but weak sovereign of this world, art thou sure one instant of the duration of thy reign? the least atoms of matter which you despise, are they not sufficient to deprive you of your throne and life? finally, does not the king of animals terminate always by becoming food for the worms? you speak of your soul. but do you know what your soul is? do you not see that this soul is but the assemblage of your organs, from which life results? would you refuse a soul to other animals who live, who think, who judge, who compare, who seek pleasure, and avoid pain even as you do, and who often possess organs which are better than your own? you boast of your intellectual faculties, but these faculties which render you so proud, do they make you any happier than other creatures? do you often make use of this reason which you glory in, and which religion commands you not to listen to? those animals which you disdain because they are weaker or less cunning than yourself, are they subject to troubles, to mental anxieties, to a thousand frivolous passions, to a thousand imaginary needs, of which your heart is continually the prey? are they, like you, tormented by the past, alarmed for the future? limited solely to the present, what you call their instinct, and what i call their intelligence, is it not sufficient to preserve and to defend them and to provide for their needs? this instinct, of which you speak with disdain, does it not often serve them much better than your wonderful faculties? their peaceable ignorance, is it not more advantageous than these extravagant meditations and these futile investigations which render you miserable, and for which you are driven to murdering beings of your own noble kind? finally, these animals, have they, like mortals, a troubled imagination which makes them fear not only death, but even eternal torments? augustus, having heard that herod, king of judea, had murdered his sons, cried out: "it would be better to be herod's pig than his son!" we can say as much of men; this beloved child of providence runs much greater risks than all other animals. after having suffered a great deal in this world, do we not believe ourselves in danger of suffering for eternity in another? xcv.--comparison between man and animals. what is the exact line of demarcation between man and the other animals which he calls brutes? in what way does he essentially differ from the beasts? it is, we are told, by his intelligence, by the faculties of his mind, by his reason, that man is superior to all the other animals, which in all they do, act but by physical impulsions, reason taking no part. but the beasts, having more limited needs than men, do very well without these intellectual faculties, which would be perfectly useless in their way of living. their instinct is sufficient for them, while all the faculties of man are hardly sufficient to render his existence endurable, and to satisfy the needs which his imagination, his prejudices, and his institutions multiply to his torment. the brute is not affected by the same objects as man; it has neither the same needs, nor the same desires, nor the same whims; it early reaches maturity, while nothing is more rare than to see the human being enjoying all of his faculties, exercising them freely, and making a proper use of them for his own happiness. xcvi.--there are no more detestable animals in this world than tyrants. we are assured that the human soul is a simple substance; but if the soul is such a simple substance, it ought to be the same in all the individuals of the human race, who all ought to have the same intellectual faculties; however, this is not the case; men differ as much in qualities of mind as in the features of the face. there are in the human race, beings as different from one another as man is from a horse or a dog. what conformity or resemblance do we find between some men? what an infinite distance between the genius of a locke, of a newton, and that of a peasant, of a hottentot, or of a laplander! man differs from other animals but by the difference of his organization, which causes him to produce effects of which they are not capable. the variety which we notice in the organs of individuals of the human race, suffices to explain to us the difference which is often found between them in regard to the intellectual faculties. more or less of delicacy in these organs, of heat in the blood, of promptitude in the fluids, more or less of suppleness or of rigidity in the fibers and the nerves, must necessarily produce the infinite diversities which are noticeable in the minds of men. it is by exercise, by habitude, by education, that the human mind is developed and succeeds in rising above the beings which surround it; man, without culture and without experience, is a being as devoid of reason and of industry as the brute. a stupid individual is a man whose organs are acted upon with difficulty, whose brain is hard to move, whose blood circulates slowly; a man of mind is he whose organs are supple, who feels very quickly, whose brain moves promptly; a learned man is one whose organs and whose brain have been exercised a long while upon objects which occupy him. the man without culture, experience, or reason, is he not more despicable and more abominable than the vilest insects, or the most ferocious beasts? is there a more detestable being in nature than a tiberius, a nero, a caligula? these destroyers of the human race, known by the name of conquerors, have they better souls than those of bears, lions, and panthers? are there more detestable animals in this world than tyrants? xcvii.--refutation of man's excellence. human extravagances soon dispel, in the eyes of reason, the superiority which man arrogantly claims over other animals. do we not see many animals show more gentleness, more reflection and reason than the animal which calls itself reasonable par excellence? are there amongst men, who are so often enslaved and oppressed, societies as well organized as those of ants, bees, or beavers? do we ever see ferocious beasts of the same kind meet upon the plains to devour each other without profit? do we see among them religious wars? the cruelty of beasts against other species is caused by hunger, the need of nourishment; the cruelty of man against man has no other motive than the vanity of his masters and the folly of his impertinent prejudices. theorists who try to make us believe that everything in the universe was made for man, are very much embarrassed when we ask them in what way can so many mischievous animals which continually infest our life here, contribute to the welfare of men. what known advantage results for god's friend to be bitten by a viper, stung by a gnat, devoured by vermin, torn into pieces by a tiger? would not all these animals reason as wisely as our theologians, if they should pretend that man was made for them? xcviii.--an oriental legend. at a short distance from bagdad a dervis, celebrated for his holiness, passed his days tranquilly in agreeable solitude. the surrounding inhabitants, in order to have an interest in his prayers, eagerly brought to him every day provisions and presents. the holy man thanked god incessantly for the blessings providence heaped upon him. "o allah," said he, "how ineffable is thy tenderness toward thy servants. what have i done to deserve the benefactions which thy liberality loads me with! oh, monarch of the skies! oh, father of nature! what praises could be worthy to celebrate thy munificence and thy paternal cares! o allah, how great are thy gifts to the children of men!" filled with gratitude, our hermit made a vow to undertake for the seventh time the pilgrimage to mecca. the war, which then existed between the persians and the turks, could not make him defer the execution of his pious enterprise. full of confidence in god, he began his journey; under the inviolable safeguard of a respected garb, he passed through without obstacle the enemies' detachments; far from being molested, he receives at every step marks of veneration from the soldiers of both sides. at last, overcome by fatigue, he finds himself obliged to seek a shelter from the rays of the burning sun; he finds it beneath a fresh group of palm-trees, whose roots were watered by a limpid rivulet. in this solitary place, where the silence was broken only by the murmuring of the waters and the singing of the birds, the man of god found not only an enchanting retreat, but also a delicious repast; he had but to extend the hand to gather dates and other agreeable fruits; the rivulet can appease his thirst; very soon a green plot invites him to take sweet repose. as he awakens he performs the holy cleansing; and in a transport of ecstasy, he exclaimed: "o allah! how great is thy goodness to the children of men!" well rested, refreshed, full of life and gayety, our holy man continues on his road; it conducts him for some time through a delightful country, which offers to his sight but blooming shores and trees filled with fruit. softened by this spectacle, he worships incessantly the rich and liberal hand of providence, which is everywhere seen occupied with the welfare of the human race. going a little farther, he comes across a few mountains, which were quite hard to ascend; but having arrived at their summit, a hideous sight suddenly meets his eyes; his soul is all consternation. he discovers a vast plain entirely devastated by the sword and fire; he looks at it and finds it covered with more than a hundred thousand corpses, deplorable remains of a bloody battle which had taken place a few days previous. eagles, vultures, ravens, and wolves were devouring the dead bodies with which the earth was covered. this sight plunges our pilgrim into a sad reverie. heaven, by a special favor, had made him understand the language of beasts. he heard a wolf, gorged with human flesh, exclaim in his excessive joy: "o allah! how great is thy kindness for the children of wolves! thy foreseeing wisdom takes care to send infatuation upon these detestable men who are so dangerous to us. through an effect of thy providence which watches over thy creatures, these, our destroyers, murder each other, and thus furnish us with sumptuous repasts. o allah! how great is thy goodness to the children of wolves!" xcix.--it is foolish to see in the universe only the benefactions of heaven, and to believe that this universe was made but for man. an exalted imagination sees in the universe but the benefactions of heaven; a calm mind finds good and evil in it. i exist, you will say; but is this existence always a benefit? you will say, look at this sun, which shines for you; this earth, which is covered with fruits and verdure; these flowers, which bloom for our sight and smell; these trees, which bend beneath the weight of fruits; these pure streams, which flow but to quench your thirst; these seas, which embrace the universe to facilitate your commerce; these animals, which a foreseeing nature produces for your use! yes, i see all these things, and i enjoy them when i can. but in some climates this beautiful sun is most always obscured from me; in others, its excessive heat torments me, produces storm, gives rise to dreadful diseases, dries up the fields; the meadows have no grass, the trees are fruitless, the harvests are scorched, the springs are dried up; i can scarcely exist, and i sigh under the cruelty of a nature which you find so benevolent. if these seas bring me spices, riches, and useless things, do they not destroy a multitude of mortals who are dupes enough to go after them? man's vanity persuades him that he is the sole center of the universe; he creates for himself a world and a god; he thinks himself of sufficient consequence to derange nature at his will, but he reasons as an atheist when the question of other animals is involved. does he not imagine that the individuals different from his species are automatons unworthy of the cares of universal providence, and that the beasts can not be the objects of its justice and kindness? mortals consider fortunate or unfortunate events, health or sickness, life and death, abundance or famine, as rewards or punishments for the use or misuse of the liberty which they arrogate to themselves. do they reason on this principle when animals are taken into consideration? no; although they see them under a just god enjoy and suffer, be healthy and sick, live and die, like themselves, it does not enter their mind to ask what crimes these beasts have committed in order to cause the displeasure of the arbiter of nature. philosophers, blinded by their theological prejudices, in order to disembarrass themselves, have gone so far as to pretend that beasts have no feelings! will men never renounce their foolish pretensions? will they not recognize that nature was not made for them? will they not see that this nature has placed on equal footing all the beings which she produced? will they not see that all organized beings are equally made to be born and to die, to enjoy and to suffer? finally, instead of priding themselves preposterously on their mental faculties, are they not compelled to admit that they often render them more unhappy than the beasts, in which we find neither opinions, prejudices, vanities, nor the weaknesses which decide at every moment the well-being of men? c.--what is the soul? we know nothing about it. if this pretended soul was of another essence from that of the body, their union would be impossible. the superiority which men arrogate to themselves over other animals, is principally founded upon the opinion of possessing exclusively an immortal soul. but as soon as we ask what this soul is, they begin to stammer. it is an unknown substance; it is a secret force distinguished from their bodies; it is a spirit of which they can form no idea. ask them how this spirit, which they suppose like their god, totally deprived of a physical substance, could combine itself with their material bodies? they will tell you that they know nothing about it; that it is a mystery to them; that this combination is the effect of the almighty power. these are the clear ideas which men form of the hidden, or, rather, imaginary substance which they consider the motor of all their actions! if the soul is a substance essentially different from the body, and which can have no affinity with it, their union would be, not a mystery, but a thing impossible. besides, this soul, being of an essence different from that of the body, ought to act necessarily in a different way from it. however, we see that the movements of the body are felt by this pretended soul, and that these two substances, so different in essence, always act in harmony. you will tell us that this harmony is a mystery; and i will tell you that i do not see my soul, that i know and feel but my body; that it is my body which feels, which reflects, which judges, which suffers, and which enjoys, and that all of its faculties are the necessary results of its own mechanism or of its organization. ci.--the existence of a soul is an absurd supposition, and the existence of an immortal soul is a still more absurd supposition. although it is impossible for men to have the least idea of the soul, or of this pretended spirit which animates them, they persuade themselves, however, that this unknown soul is exempt from death; everything proves to them that they feel, think, acquire ideas, enjoy or suffer, but by the means of the senses or of the material organs of the body. even admitting the existence of this soul, one can not refuse to recognize that it depends wholly on the body, and suffers conjointly with it all the vicissitudes which it experiences itself; and however it is imagined that it has by its nature nothing analogous with it; it is pretended that it can act and feel without the assistance of this body; that deprived of this body and robbed of its senses, this soul will be able to live, to enjoy, to suffer, be sensitive of enjoyment or of rigorous torments. upon such a tissue of conjectural absurdities the wonderful opinion of the immortality of the soul is built. if i ask what ground we have for supposing that the soul is immortal: they reply, it is because man by his nature desires to be immortal, or to live forever. but i rejoin, if you desire anything very much, is it sufficient to conclude that this desire will be fulfilled? by what strange logic do they decide that a thing can not fail to happen because they ardently desire it to happen? man's childish desires of the imagination, are they the measure of reality? impious people, you say, deprived of the flattering hopes of another life, desire to be annihilated. well, have they not just as much right to conclude by this desire that they will be annihilated, as you to conclude that you will exist forever because you desire it? cii.--it is evident that the whole of man dies. man dies entirely. nothing is more evident to him who is not delirious. the human body, after death, is but a mass, incapable of producing any movements the union of which constitutes life. we no longer see circulation, respiration, digestion, speech, or reflection. it is claimed then that the soul has separated itself from the body. but to say that this soul, which is unknown, is the principle of life, is saying nothing, unless that an unknown force is the invisible principle of imperceptible movements. nothing is more natural and more simple than to believe that the dead man lives no more, nothing more absurd than to believe that the dead man is still living. we ridicule the simplicity of some nations whose fashion is to bury provisions with the dead--under the idea that this food might be useful and necessary to them in another life. is it more ridiculous or more absurd to believe that men will eat after death than to imagine that they will think; that they will have agreeable or disagreeable ideas; that they will enjoy; that they will suffer; that they will be conscious of sorrow or joy when the organs which produce sensations or ideas are dissolved and reduced to dust? to claim that the souls of men will be happy or unhappy after the death of the body, is to pretend that man will be able to see without eyes, to hear without ears, to taste without a palate, to smell without a nose, and to feel without hands and without skin. nations who believe themselves very rational, adopt, nevertheless, such ideas. ciii.--incontestable proofs against the spirituality of the soul. the dogma of the immortality of the soul assumes that the soul is a simple substance, a spirit; but i will always ask, what is a spirit? it is, you say, a substance deprived of expansion, incorruptible, and which has nothing in common with matter. but if this is true, how came your soul into existence? how did it grow? how did it strengthen? how weaken itself, get out of order, and grow old with your body? in reply to all these questions, you say that they are mysteries; but if they are mysteries, you understand nothing about them. if you do not understand anything about them, how can you positively affirm anything about them? in order to believe or to affirm anything, it is necessary at least to know what that consists of which we believe and which we affirm. to believe in the existence of your immaterial soul, is to say that you are persuaded of the existence of a thing of which it is impossible for you to form any true idea; it is to believe in words without attaching any sense to them; to affirm that the thing is as you claim, is the highest folly or assumption. civ.--the absurdity of supernatural causes, which theologians constantly call to their aid. are not theologians strange reasoners? as soon as they can not guess the natural causes of things, they invent causes, which they call supernatural; they imagine them spirits, occult causes, inexplicable agents, or rather words much more obscure than the things which they attempt to explain. let us remain in nature when we desire to understand its phenomena; let us ignore the causes which are too delicate to be seized by our organs; and let us be assured that by seeking outside of nature we can never find the solution of nature's problems. even upon the theological hypothesis--that is to say, supposing an almighty motor in matter--what right have theologians to refuse their god the power to endow this matter with thought? would it be more difficult for him to create combinations of matter from which results thought, than spirits which think? at least, in supposing a substance endowed with thought, we could form some idea of the object of our thoughts, or of what thinks in us; while attributing thought to an immaterial being, it is impossible for us to form the least idea of it. cv.--it is false that materialism can be debasing to the human race. materialism, it is objected, makes of man a mere machine, which is considered very debasing to the human race. but will the human race be more honored when it can be said that man acts by the secret impulsions of a spirit, or a certain something which animates him without his knowing how? it is easy to perceive that the superiority which is given to mind over matter, or to the soul over the body, is based upon the ignorance of the nature of this soul; while we are more familiarized with matter or the body, which we imagine we know, and of which we believe we have understood the springs; but the most simple movements of our bodies are, for every thinking man, enigmas as difficult to divine as thought. cvi.--continuation. the esteem which so many people have for the spiritual substance, appears to result from the impossibility they find in defining it in an intelligible way. the contempt which our metaphysicians show for matter, comes from the fact that "familiarity breeds contempt." when they tell us that the soul is more excellent and noble than the body, they tell us nothing, except that what they know nothing about must be more beautiful than that of which they have some faint ideas. cvii.--the dogma of another life is useful but for those who profit by it at the expense of the credulous public. we are constantly told of the usefulness of the dogma of life hereafter. it is pretended that even if it should be a fiction, it is advantageous, because it imposes upon men and leads them to virtue. but is it true that this dogma renders men wiser and more virtuous? the nations where this fiction is established, are they remarkable for the morality of their conduct? is not the visible world always preferred to the invisible world? if those who are charged to instruct and to govern men had themselves enlightenment and virtue, they would govern them far better by realities than by vain chimeras; but deceitful, ambitious, and corrupt, the legislators found it everywhere easier to put the nations to sleep by fables than to teach them truths; than to develop their reason; than to excite them to virtue by sensible and real motives; than to govern them in a reasonable way. theologians, no doubt, have had reasons for making the soul immaterial. they needed souls and chimeras to populate the imaginary regions which they have discovered in the other life. material souls would have been subjected, like all bodies, to dissolution. moreover, if men believe that everything is to perish with the body, the geographers of the other world would evidently lose the chance of guiding their souls to this unknown abode. they would draw no profits from the hopes with which they feast them, and from the terrors with which they take care to overwhelm them. if the future is of no real utility to the human race, it is at least of the greatest advantage to those who take upon themselves the responsibility of conducting mankind thither. cviii.--it is false that the dogma of another life can be consoling; and if it were, it would be no proof that this assertion is true. but, it will be said, is not the dogma of the immortality of the soul consoling for beings who often find themselves very unhappy here below? if this should be an illusion, is it not a sweet and agreeable one? is it not a benefit for man to believe that he can live again and enjoy, sometime, the happiness which is refused to him on earth? thus, poor mortals! you make your wishes the measure of the truth! because you desire to live forever, and to be happier, you conclude from thence that you will live forever, and that you will be more fortunate in an unknown world than in the known world, in which you so often suffer! consent, then, to leave without regret this world, which causes more trouble than pleasure to the majority of you. resign yourselves to the order of destiny, which decrees that you, like all other beings, should not endure forever. but what will become of me? you ask! what you were several millions of years ago. you were then, i do not know what; resign yourselves, then, to become again in an instant, i do not know what; what you were then; return peaceably to the universal home from which you came without your knowledge into your material form, and pass by without murmuring, like all the beings which surround you! we are repeatedly told that religious ideas offer infinite consolation to the unfortunate; it is pretended that the idea of the immortality of the soul and of a happier life has a tendency to lift up the heart of man and to sustain him in the midst of the adversities with which he is assailed in this life. materialism, on the contrary, is, we are told, an afflicting system, tending to degrade man, which ranks him among brutes; which destroys his courage, whose only hope is complete annihilation, tending to lead him to despair, and inducing him to commit suicide as soon as he suffers in this world. the grand policy of theologians is to blow hot and to blow cold, to afflict and to console, to frighten and to reassure. according to the fictions of theology, the regions of the other life are happy and unhappy. nothing more difficult than to render one worthy of the abode of felicity; nothing easier than to obtain a place in the abode of torments that divinity prepares for the unfortunate victims of his eternal fury. those who find the idea of another life so flattering and so sweet, have they then forgotten that this other life, according to them, is to be accompanied by torments for the majority of mortals? is not the idea of total annihilation infinitely preferable to the idea of an eternal existence accompanied with suffering and gnashing of teeth? the fear of ceasing to exist, is it more afflicting than the thought of having not always been? the fear of ceasing to be is but an evil for the imagination, which alone brought forth the dogma of another life. you say, o christian philosophers, that the idea of a happier life is delightful; we agree; there is no one who would not desire a more agreeable and a more durable existence than the one we enjoy here below. but, if paradise is tempting, you will admit, also, that hell is frightful. it is very difficult to merit heaven, and very easy to gain hell. do you not say that one straight and narrow path leads to the happy regions, and that a broad road leads to the regions of the unhappy? do you not constantly tell us that the number of the chosen ones is very small, and that of the damned is very large? do we not need, in order to be saved, such grace as your god grants to but few? well! i tell you that these ideas are by no means consoling; i prefer to be annihilated at once rather than to burn forever; i will tell you that the fate of beasts appears to me more desirable than the fate of the damned; i will tell you that the belief which delivers me from overwhelming fears in this world, appears to me more desirable than the uncertainty in which i am left through belief in a god who, master of his favors, gives them but to his favorites, and who permits all the others to render themselves worthy of eternal punishments. it can be but blind enthusiasm or folly that can prefer a system which evidently encourages improbable conjectures, accompanied by uncertainty and desolating fear. cix.--all religious principles are imaginary. innate sense is but the effect of a rooted habit. god is an idle fancy, and the qualities which are lavished upon him destroy each other. all religious principles are a thing of imagination, in which experience and reason have nothing to do. we find much difficulty in conquering them, because imagination, when once occupied in creating chimeras which astonish or excite it, is incapable of reasoning. he who combats religion and its phantasies by the arms of reason, is like a man who uses a sword to kill flies: as soon as the blow is struck, the flies and the fancies return to the minds from which we thought to have banished them. as soon as we refuse the proofs which theology pretends to give of the existence of a god, they oppose to the arguments which destroy them, an innate conviction, a profound persuasion, an invincible inclination inherent in every man, which brings to him, in spite of himself, the idea of an almighty being which he can not altogether expel from his mind, and which he is compelled to recognize in spite of the strongest reasons that we can give him. but if we wish to analyze this innate conviction, upon which so much weight is placed, we will find that it is but the effect of a rooted habit, which, making them close their eyes against the most demonstrative proofs, leads the majority of men, and often the most enlightened ones, back to the prejudices of childhood. what can this innate sense or this ill-founded persuasion prove against the evidence which shows us that what implies contradiction can not exist? we are told, very gravely, that it is not demonstrated that god does not exist. however, nothing is better demonstrated, notwithstanding all that men have told us so far, than that this god is an idle fancy, whose existence is totally impossible, as nothing is more evident or more clearly demonstrated than that a being can not combine qualities so dissimilar, so contradictory, so irreconcilable as those which all the religions of the earth ascribe to divinity. the theologian's god, as well as the god of the theist, is he not evidently a cause incompatible with the effects attributed to him? in whatever light we may look upon it, we must either invent another god, or conclude that the one which, for so many centuries, has been revealed to mortals, is at the same time very good and very wicked, very powerful and very weak, immutable and changeable, perfectly intelligent and perfectly destitute of reason, of plan, and of means; the friend of order and permitting disorder; very just and very unjust; very skillful and very awkward. finally, are we not obliged to admit that it is impossible to reconcile the discordant attributes which are heaped upon a being of whom we can not say a single word without falling into the most palpable contradictions? let us attempt to attribute but a single quality to divinity, and what is said of it will be contradicted immediately by the effects we assign to this cause. cx.--every religion is but a system imagined for the purpose of reconciling contradictions by the aid of mysteries. theology could very properly be defined as the science of contradictions. every religion is but a system imagined for the purpose of reconciling irreconcilable ideas. by the aid of habitude and terror, we come to persist in the greatest absurdities, even when they are the most clearly exposed. all religions are easy to combat, but very difficult to eradicate. reason can do nothing against habit, which becomes, as is said, a second nature. there are many persons otherwise sensible, who, even after having examined the ruinous foundations of their belief, return to it in spite of the most striking arguments. as soon as we complain of not understanding religion, finding in it at every step absurdities which are repulsive, seeing in it but impossibilities, we are told that we are not made to conceive the truths of the religion which is proposed to us; that wandering reason is but an unfaithful guide, only capable of conducting us to perdition; and what is more, we are assured that what is folly in the eyes of man, is wisdom in the eyes of god, to whom nothing is impossible. finally, in order to decide by a single word the most insurmountable difficulties which theology presents to us on all sides, they simply cry out: "mysteries!" cxi.--absurdity and inutility of the mysteries forged in the sole interest of the priests. what is a mystery? if i examine the thing closely, i discover very soon that a mystery is nothing but a contradiction, a palpable absurdity, a notorious impossibility, on which theologians wish to compel men to humbly close the eyes; in a word, a mystery is whatever our spiritual guides can not explain to us. it is advantageous for the ministers of religion that the people should not comprehend what they are taught. it is impossible for us to examine what we do not comprehend. every time that we can not see clearly, we are obliged to be guided. if religion was comprehensible, priests would not have so many charges here below. no religion is without mysteries; mystery is its essence; a religion destitute of mysteries would be a contradiction of terms. the god which serves as a foundation to natural religion, to theism or to deism, is himself the greatest mystery to a mind wishing to dwell upon him. cxii.--continuation. all the revealed religions which we see in the world are filled with mysterious dogmas, unintelligible principles, of incredible miracles, of astonishing tales which seem imagined but to confound reason. every religion announces a concealed god, whose essence is a mystery; consequently, it is just as difficult to conceive of his conduct as of the essence of this god himself. divinity has never spoken to us but in an enigmatical and mysterious way in the various religions which have been founded in the different regions of our globe. it has revealed itself everywhere but to announce mysteries, that is to say, to warn mortals that it designs that they should believe in contradictions, in impossibilities, or in things of which they were incapable of forming any positive idea. the more mysteries a religion has, the more incredible objects it presents to the mind, the better fitted it is to please the imagination of men, who find in it a continual pasturage to feed upon. the more obscure a religion is, the more it appears divine, that is to say, in conformity to the nature of an invisible being, of whom we have no idea. it is the peculiarity of ignorance to prefer the unknown, the concealed, the fabulous, the wonderful, the incredible, even the terrible, to that which is clear, simple, and true. truth does not give to the imagination such lively play as fiction, which each one may arrange as he pleases. the vulgar ask nothing better than to listen to fables; priests and legislators, by inventing religions and forging mysteries from them, have served them to their taste. in this way they have attracted enthusiasts, women, and the illiterate generally. beings of this kind resign easily to reasons which they are incapable of examining; the love of the simple and the true is found but in the small number of those whose imagination is regulated by study and by reflection. the inhabitants of a village are never more pleased with their pastor than when he mixes a good deal of latin in his sermon. ignorant men always imagine that he who speaks to them of things which they do not understand, is a very wise and learned man. this is the true principle of the credulity of nations, and of the authority of those who pretend to guide them. cxiii.--continuation. to speak to men to announce to them mysteries, is to give and retain, it is to speak not to be understood. he who talks but by enigmas, either seeks to amuse himself by the embarrassment which he causes, or finds it to his advantage not to explain himself too clearly. every secret betrays suspicion, weakness, and fear. princes and their ministers make a mystery of their projects for fear that their enemies in penetrating them would cause them to fail. can a good god amuse himself by the embarrassment of his creatures? a god who enjoys a power which nothing in the world can resist, can he apprehend that his intentions could be thwarted? what interest would he have in putting upon us enigmas and mysteries? we are told that man, by the weakness of his nature, is not capable of comprehending the divine economy which can be to him but a tissue of mysteries; that god can not unveil secrets to him which are beyond his reach. in this case, i reply, that man is not made to trouble himself with divine economy, that this economy can not interest him in the least, that he has no need of mysteries which he can not understand; finally, that a mysterious religion is not made for him, any more than an eloquent discourse is made for a flock of sheep. cxiv.--a universal god should have revealed a universal religion. divinity has revealed itself in the different parts of our globe in a manner of such little uniformity, that in matters of religion men look upon each other with hatred and disdain. the partisans of the different sects see each other very ridiculous and foolish. the most respected mysteries in one religion are laughable for another. god, having revealed himself to men, ought at least to speak in the same language to all, and relieve their weak minds of the embarrassment of seeking what can be the religion which truly emanated from him, or what is the most agreeable form of worship in his eyes. a universal god ought to have revealed a universal religion. by what fatality are so many different religions found on the earth? which is the true one amongst the great number of those of which each one pretends to be the right one, to the exclusion of all the others? we have every reason to believe that not one of them enjoys this advantage. the divisions and the disputes about opinions are indubitable signs of the uncertainty and of the obscurity of the principles which they profess. cxv.--the proof that religion is not necessary, is that it is unintelligible. if religion was necessary to all men, it ought to be intelligible to all men. if this religion was the most important thing for them, the goodness of god, it seems, ought to make it for them the clearest, the most evident, and the best demonstrated of all things. is it not astonishing to see that this matter, so essential to the salvation of mortals, is precisely the one which they understand the least, and about which, during so many centuries, their doctors have disputed the most? never have priests, of even the same sect, come to an agreement among themselves about the manner of understanding the wishes of a god who has truly revealed himself to them. the world which we inhabit can be compared to a public place, in whose different parts several charlatans are placed, each one straining himself to attract customers by depreciating the remedies offered by his competitors. each stand has its purchasers, who are persuaded that their empiric alone possesses the good remedies; notwithstanding the continual use which they make of them, they do not perceive that they are no better, or that they are just as sick as those who run after the charlatans of another stand. devotion is a disease of the imagination, contracted in infancy; the devotee is a hypochondriac, who increases his disease by the use of remedies. the wise man takes none of it; he follows a good regimen and leaves the rest to nature. cxvi.--all religions are ridiculed by those of opposite though equally insane belief. nothing appears more ridiculous in the eyes of a sensible man than for one denomination to criticize another whose creed is equally foolish. a christian thinks that the koran, the divine revelation announced by mohammed, is but a tissue of impertinent dreams and impostures injurious to divinity. the mohammedan, on his side, treats the christian as an idolater and a dog; he sees but absurdities in his religion; he imagines he has the right to conquer his country and force him, sword in hand, to accept the faith of his divine prophet; he believes especially that nothing is more impious or more unreasonable than to worship a man or to believe in the trinity. the protestant christian, who without scruple worships a man, and who believes firmly in the inconceivable mystery of the trinity, ridicules the catholic christian because the latter believes in the mystery of the transubstantiation. he treats him as a fool, as ungodly and idolatrous, because he kneels to worship the bread in which he believes he sees the god of the universe. all the christian denominations agree in considering as folly the incarnation of the god of the indies, vishnu. they contend that the only true incarnation is that of jesus, son of the god of the universe and of the wife of a carpenter. the theist, who calls himself a votary of natural religion, is satisfied to acknowledge a god of whom he has no conception; indulges himself in jesting upon other mysteries taught by all the religions of the world. cxvii.--opinion of a celebrated theologian. did not a famous theologian recognize the absurdity of admitting the existence of a god and arresting his course? "to us," he said, "who believe through faith in a true god, an individual substance, there ought to be no trouble in believing everything else. this first mystery, which is no small matter of itself, once admitted, our reason can not suffer violence in admitting all the rest. as for myself, it is no more trouble to accept a million of things that i do not understand, than to believe the first one." is there anything more contradictory, more impossible, or more mysterious, than the creation of matter by an immaterial being, who himself immutable, causes the continual changes that we see in the world? is there anything more incompatible with all the ideas of common sense than to believe that a good, wise, equitable, and powerful being presides over nature and directs himself the movements of a world which is filled with follies, miseries, crimes, and disorders, which he could have foreseen, and by a single word could have prevented or made to disappear? finally, as soon as we admit a being so contradictory as the theological god, what right have we to refuse to accept the most improbable fables, the most astonishing miracles, the most profound mysteries? cxviii.--the deist's god is no less contradictory, no less fanciful, than the theologian's god. the theist exclaims, "be careful not to worship the ferocious and strange god of theology; mine is much wiser and better; he is the father of men; he is the mildest of sovereigns; it is he who fills the universe with his benefactions!" but i will tell him, do you not see that everything in this world contradicts the good qualities which you attribute to your god? in the numerous family of this mild father i see but unfortunate ones. under the empire of this just sovereign i see crime victorious and virtue in distress. among these benefactions, which you boast of, and which your enthusiasm alone sees, i see a multitude of evils of all kinds, upon which you obstinately close your eyes. compelled to acknowledge that your good god, in contradiction with himself, distributes with the same hand good and evil, you will find yourself obliged, in order to justify him, to send me, as the priests would, to the other life. invent, then, another god than the one of theology, because your god is as contradictory as its god is. a good god who does evil or who permits it to be done, a god full of equity and in an empire where innocence is so often oppressed; a perfect god who produces but imperfect and wretched works; such a god and his conduct, are they not as great mysteries as that of the incarnation? you blush, you say, for your fellow beings who are persuaded that the god of the universe could change himself into a man and die upon a cross in a corner of asia. you consider the ineffable mystery of the trinity very absurd nothing appears more ridiculous to you than a god who changes himself into bread and who is eaten every day in a thousand different places. well! are all these mysteries any more shocking to reason than a god who punishes and rewards men's actions? man, according to your views, is he free or not? in either case your god, if he has the shadow of justice, can neither punish him nor reward him. if man is free, it is god who made him free to act or not to act; it is god, then, who is the primitive cause of all his actions; in punishing man for his faults, he would punish him for having done that which he gave him the liberty to do. if man is not free to act otherwise than he does, would not god be the most unjust of beings to punish him for the faults which he could not help committing? many persons are struck with the detail of absurdities with which all religions of the world are filled; but they have not the courage to seek for the source whence these absurdities necessarily sprung. they do not see that a god full of contradictions, of oddities, of incompatible qualities, either inflaming or nursing the imagination of men, could create but a long line of idle fancies. cxix.--we do not prove at all the existence of a god by saying that in all ages every nation has acknowledged some kind of divinity. they believe, to silence those who deny the existence of a god, by telling them that all men, in all ages and in all centuries, have believed in some kind of a god; that there is no people on the earth who have not believed in an invisible and powerful being, whom they made the object of their worship and of their veneration; finally, that there is no nation, no matter how benighted we may suppose it to be, that is not persuaded of the existence of some intelligence superior to human nature. but can the belief of all men change an error into truth? a celebrated philosopher has said with all reason: "neither general tradition nor the unanimous consent of all men could place any injunction upon truth." [bayle.] another wise man said before him, that "an army of philosophers would not be sufficient to change the nature of error and to make it truth." [averroës] there was a time when all men believed that the sun revolved around the earth, while the latter remained motionless in the center of the whole system of the universe; it is scarcely more than two hundred years since this error was refuted. there was a time when nobody would believe in the existence of antipodes, and when they persecuted those who had the courage to sustain it; to-day no learned man dares to doubt it. all nations of the world, except some men less credulous than others, still believe in sorcerers, ghosts, apparitions, spirits; no sensible man imagines himself obliged to adopt these follies; but the most sensible people feel obliged to believe in a universal spirit! cxx.--all the gods are of a barbarous origin; all religions are antique monuments of ignorance, superstition, and ferocity; and modern religions are but ancient follies revived. all the gods worshiped by men have a barbarous origin; they were visibly imagined by stupid nations, or were presented by ambitious and cunning legislators to simple and benighted people, who had neither the capacity nor the courage to examine properly the object which, by means of terrors, they were made to worship. in examining closely the god which we see adored still in our days by the most civilized nations, we are compelled to acknowledge that he has evidently barbarous features. to be barbarous is to recognize no right but force; it is being cruel to excess; it is but following one's own caprice; it is a lack of foresight, of prudence, and reason. nations, who believe yourselves civilized! do you not perceive this frightful character of the god to whom you offer your incense? the pictures which are drawn of divinity, are they not visibly borrowed from the implacable, jealous, vindictive, blood-thirsty, capricious, inconsiderate humor of man, who has not yet cultivated his reason? oh, men! you worship but a great savage, whom you consider as a model to follow, as an amiable master, as a perfect sovereign. the religious opinions of men in every country are antique and durable monuments of ignorance credulity, of the terrors and the ferocity of their ancestors. every barbarian is a child thirsting for the wonderful, which he imbibes with pleasure, and who never reasons upon that which he finds proper to excite his imagination; his ignorance of the ways of nature makes him attribute to spirits, to enchantments, to magic, all that appears to him extraordinary; in his eyes his priests are sorcerers, in whom he supposes an almighty power; before whom his confused reason humiliates itself, whose oracles are for him infallible decrees, to contradict which would be dangerous. in matters of religion the majority of men have remained in their primitive barbarity. modern religions are but follies of old times rejuvenated or presented in some new form. if the ancient barbarians have worshiped mountains, rivers, serpents, trees, fetishes of every kind; if the wise egyptians worshiped crocodiles, rats, onions, do we not see nations who believe themselves wiser than they, worship with reverence a bread, into which they imagine that the enchantments of their priests cause the divinity to descend? is not the god-bread the fetish of many christian nations, as little rational in this point as that of the most barbarous nations? cxxi.--all religious ceremonies bear the seal of stupidity or barbarity. in all times the ferocity, the stupidity, the folly of savage men were shown in religious customs which were often cruel and extravagant. a spirit of barbarity has come down to our days; it intrudes itself into the religions which are followed by the most civilized nations. do we not still see human victims offered to divinity? in order to appease the wrath of a god whom we suppose as ferocious, as jealous, as vindictive, as a savage, do not sanguinary laws cause the destruction of those who are believed to have displeased him by their way of thinking? modern nations, at the instigation of their priests, have even excelled the atrocious folly of the most barbarous nations; at least do we not find that it never entered into a savage's mind to torment for the sake of opinions, to meddle in thought, to trouble men for the invisible actions of their brains? when we see polished and wise nations, such as the english, french, german, etc., notwithstanding all their enlightenment, continue to kneel before the barbarous god of the jews, that is to say, of the most stupid, the most credulous, the most savage, the most unsocial nation which ever was on the earth; when we see these enlightened nations divide themselves into sects, tear one another, hate and despise each other for opinions, equally ridiculous, upon the conduct and the intentions of this irrational god; when we see intelligent persons occupy themselves foolishly in meditating on the wishes of this capricious and foolish god; we are tempted to exclaim, "oh, men! you are still savages! oh, men! you are but children in the matter of religion!" cxxii.--the more ancient and general a religious opinion is, the greater the reason for suspecting it. whoever has formed true ideas of the ignorance, credulity, negligence, and sottishness of common people, will always regard their religious opinions with the greater suspicion for their being generally established. the majority of men examine nothing; they allow themselves to be blindly led by custom and authority; their religious opinions are specially those which they have the least courage and capacity to examine; as they do not understand anything about them, they are compelled to be silent or put an end to their reasoning. ask the common man if he believes in god. he will be surprised that you could doubt it. then ask him what he understands by the word god. you will confuse him; you will perceive at once that he is incapable of forming any real idea of this word which he so often repeats; he will tell you that god is god, and you will find that he knows neither what he thinks of him, nor the motives which he has for believing in him. all nations speak of a god; but do they agree upon this god? no! well, difference of opinion does not serve as evidence, but is a sign of uncertainty and obscurity. does the same man always agree with himself in his ideas of god? no! this idea varies with the vicissitudes of his life. this is another sign of uncertainty. men always agree with other men and with themselves upon demonstrated truths, regardless of the position in which they find themselves; except the insane, all agree that two and two make four, that the sun shines, that the whole is greater than any one of its parts, that justice is a benefaction, that we must be benevolent to deserve the love of men, that injustice and cruelty are incompatible with goodness. do they agree in the same way if they speak of god? all that they think or say of him is immediately contradicted by the effects which they wish to attribute to him. tell several artists to paint a chimera, each of them will form different ideas of it, and will paint it differently; you will find no resemblance in the features each of them will have given to a portrait whose model exists nowhere. in painting god, do any of the theologians of the world represent him otherwise than as a great chimera, upon whose features they never agree, each one arranging it according to his style, which has its origin but in his own brain? there are no two individuals in the world who have or can have the same ideas of their god. cxxiii.--skepticism in the matter of religion, can be the effect of but a superficial examination of theological principles. perhaps it would be more truthful to say, that all men are either skeptics or atheists, than to pretend that they are firmly convinced of the existence of a god. how can we be assured of the existence of a being whom we never have been able to examine, of whom it is impossible to form any permanent idea, whose different effects upon ourselves prevent us from forming an invariable judgment, of whom no idea can be uniform in two different brains? how can we claim to be completely persuaded of the existence of a being to whom we are constantly obliged to attribute a conduct opposed co the ideas which we had tried to form of it? is it possible firmly to believe what we can not conceive? in believing thus, are we not adhering to the opinions of others without having one of our own? the priests regulate the belief of the vulgar; but do not these priests themselves acknowledge that god is incomprehensible to them? let us conclude, then, that the conviction of the existence of a god is not as general as it is affirmed to be. to be a skeptic, is to lack the motives necessary to establish a judgment. in view of the proofs which seem to establish, and of the arguments which combat the existence of a god, some persons prefer to doubt and to suspend their judgment; but at the bottom, this uncertainty is the result of an insufficient examination. is it, then, possible to doubt evidence? sensible people deride, and with reason, an absolute pyrrhonism, and even consider it impossible. a man who could doubt his own existence, or that of the sun, would appear very ridiculous, or would be suspected of reasoning in bad faith. is it less extravagant to have uncertainties about the non-existence of an evidently impossible being? is it more absurd to doubt of one's own existence, than to hesitate upon the impossibility of a being whose qualities destroy each other? do we find more probabilities for believing in a spiritual being than for believing in the existence of a stick without two ends? is the notion of an infinitely good and powerful being who permits an infinity of evils, less absurd or less impossible than that of a square triangle? let us conclude, then, that religious skepticism can be but the effect of a superficial examination of theological principles, which are in a perpetual contradiction of the clearest and best demonstrated principles! to doubt is to deliberate upon the judgment which we should pass. skepticism is but a state of indecision which results from a superficial examination of subjects. is it possible to be skeptical in the matter of religion when we design to return to its principles, and look closely into the idea of the god who serves as its foundation? doubt arises ordinarily from laziness, weakness, indifference, or incapacity. to doubt, for many people, is to dread the trouble of examining things to which one attaches but little interest. although religion is presented to men as the most important thing for them in this world as well as in the other, skepticism and doubt on this subject can be for the mind but a disagreeable state, and offers but a comfortable cushion. no man who has not the courage to contemplate without prejudice the god upon whom every religion is founded, can know what religion to accept; he does not know what to believe and what not to believe, to accept or to reject, what to hope or fear; finally, he is incompetent to judge for himself. indifference upon religion can not be confounded with skepticism; this indifference itself is founded upon the assurance or upon the probability which we find in believing that religion is not made to interest us. the persuasion which we have that a thing which is presented to us as very important, is not so, or is but indifferent, supposes a sufficient examination of the thing, without which it would be impossible to have this persuasion. those who call themselves skeptics in regard to the fundamental points of religion, are generally but idle and lazy men, who are incapable of examining them. cxxiv.--revelation refuted. in all parts of the world, we are assured that god revealed himself. what did he teach men? does he prove to them evidently that he exists? does he tell them where he resides? does he teach them what he is, or of what his essence consists? does he explain to them clearly his intentions and his plan? what he says of this plan, does it agree with the effects which we see? no! he informs us only that "he is the one that is," [i am that i am, saith the lord] that he is an invincible god, that his ways are ineffable, that he becomes furious as soon as one has the temerity to penetrate his decrees, or to consult reason in order to judge of him or his works. does the revealed conduct of god correspond with the magnificent ideas which are given to us of his wisdom, goodness, justice, of his omnipotence? not at all; in every revelation this conduct shows a partial, capricious being, at least, good to his favorite people, an enemy to all others. if he condescends to show himself to some men, he takes care to keep all the others in invincible ignorance of his divine intentions. does not every special revelation announce an unjust, partial, and malicious god? are the revealed wishes of a god capable of striking us by the sublime reason or the wisdom which they contain? do they tend to the happiness of the people to whom divinity has declared them? examining the divine wishes, i find in them, in all countries, but whimsical ordinances, ridiculous precepts, ceremonies of which we do not understand the aim, puerile practices, principles of conduct unworthy of the monarch of nature, offerings, sacrifices, expiations, useful, in fact, to the ministers of god, but very onerous to the rest of mankind. i find also, that they often have a tendency to render men unsocial, disdainful, intolerant, quarrelsome, unjust, inhuman toward all those who have not received either the same revelations as they, or the same ordinances, or the same favors from heaven. cxxv.--where, then, is the proof that god did ever show himself to men or speak to them? are the precepts of morality as announced by divinity truly divine, or superior to those which every rational man could imagine? they are divine only because it is impossible for the human mind to see their utility. their virtue consists in a total renunciation of human nature, in a voluntary oblivion of one's reason, in a holy hatred of self; finally, these sublime precepts show us perfection in a conduct cruel to ourselves and perfectly useless to others. how did god show himself? did he himself promulgate his laws? did he speak to men with his own mouth? i am told that god did not show himself to a whole nation, but that he employed always the organism of a few favored persons, who took the care to teach and to explain his intentions to the unlearned. it was never permitted to the people to go to the sanctuary; the ministers of the gods always alone had the right to report to them what transpired. cxxvi.--nothing establishes the truth of miracles. if, in the economy of all divine revelations, i am unable to recognize either the wisdom, the goodness, or the equity of a god; if i suspect deceit, ambition, selfish designs in the great personages who have interposed between heaven and us, i am assured that god has confirmed, by splendid miracles, the mission of those who have spoken for him. but was it not much easier to show himself, and to explain for himself? on the other hand, if i have the curiosity to examine these miracles, i find that they are tales void of probability, related by suspicious people, who had the greatest interest in making others believe that they were sent from the most high. what witnesses are referred to in order to make us believe incredible miracles? they call as witnesses stupid people, who have ceased to exist for thousands of years, and who, even if they could attest the miracles in question, would be suspected of having been deceived by their own imagination, and of permitting themselves to be seduced by the illusions which skillful impostors performed before their eyes. but, you will say, these miracles are recorded in books which through constant tradition have been handed down to us. by whom were these books written? who are the men who have transmitted and perpetuated them? they are either the same people who established these religions, or those who have become their adherents and their assistants. thus, in the matter of religion, the testimony of interested parties is irrefragable and can not be contested! cxxvii.--if god had spoken, it would be strange that he had spoken differently to all the adherents of the different sects, who damn each other, who accuse each other, with reason, of superstition and impiety. god has spoken differently to each nation of the globe which we inhabit. the indian does not believe one word of what he said to the chinaman; the mohammedan considers what he has told to the christian as fables; the jew considers the mohammedan and the christian as sacrilegious corruptors of the holy law, which his god has given to his fathers. the christian, proud of his more modern revelation, equally damns the indian and the chinaman, the mohammedan, and even the jew, whose holy books he holds. who is wrong or right? each one exclaims: "it is i!" every one claims the same proofs; each one speaks of his miracles, his saints, his prophets, his martyrs. sensible men answer, that they are all delirious; that god has not spoken, if it is true that he is a spirit who has neither mouth nor tongue; that the god of the universe could, without borrowing mortal organism, inspire his creatures with what he desired them to learn, and that, as they are all equally ignorant of what they ought to think about god, it is evident that god did not want to instruct them. the adherents of the different forms of worship which we see established in this world, accuse each other of superstition and of ungodliness. the christians abhor the superstition of the heathen, of the chinese, of the mohammedans. the roman catholics treat the protestant christians as impious; the latter incessantly declaim against roman superstition. they are all right. to be impious, is to have unjust opinions about the god who is adored; to be superstitious, is to have false ideas of him. in accusing each other of superstition, the different religionists resemble humpbacks who taunt each other with their malformation. cxxviii.--obscure and suspicious origin of oracles. the oracles which the deity has revealed to the nations through his different mediums, are they clear? alas! there are not two men who understand them alike. those who explain them to others do not agree among themselves; in order to make them clear, they have recourse to interpretations, to commentaries, to allegories, to parables, in which is found a mystical sense very different from the literal one. men are needed everywhere to explain the wishes of god, who could not or would not explain himself clearly to those whom he desired to enlighten. god always prefers to use as mediums men who can be suspected of having been deceived themselves, or having reasons to deceive others. cxxix.--absurdity of pretended miracles. the founders of all religions have usually proved their mission by miracles. but what is a miracle? it is an operation directly opposed to the laws of nature. but, according to you, who has made these laws? it is god. thus your god, who, according to you, has foreseen everything, counteracts the laws which his wisdom had imposed upon nature! these laws were then defective, or at least in certain circumstances they were but in accordance with the views of this same god, for you tell us that he thought he ought to suspend or counteract them. an attempt is made to persuade us that men who have been favored by the most high have received from him the power to perform miracles; but in order to perform a miracle, it is necessary to have the faculty of creating new causes capable of producing effects opposed to those which ordinary causes can produce. can we realize how god can give to men the inconceivable power of creating causes out of nothing? can it be believed that an unchangeable god can communicate to man the power to change or rectify his plan, a power which, according to his essence, an immutable being can not have himself? miracles, far from doing much honor to god, far from proving the divinity of religion, destroy evidently the idea which is given to us of god, of his immutability, of his incommunicable attributes, and even of his omnipotence. how can a theologian tell us that a god who embraced at once the whole of his plan, who could make but perfect laws, who can change nothing in them, should be obliged to employ miracles to make his projects successful, or grant to his creatures the faculty of performing prodigies, in order to execute his divine will? is it probable that a god needs the support of men? an omnipotent being, whose wishes are always gratified, a being who holds in his hands the hearts and the minds of his creatures, needs but to wish, in order to make them believe all he desires. cxxx.--refutation of pascal's manner of reasoning as to how we should judge miracles. what should we say of religions that based their divinity upon miracles which they themselves cause to appear suspicious? how can we place any faith in the miracles related in the holy books of the christians, where god himself boasts of hardening hearts, of blinding those whom he wishes to ruin; where this god permits wicked spirits and magicians to perform as wonderful miracles as those of his servants; where it is prophesied that the anti-christ will have the power to perform miracles capable of destroying the faith even of the elect? this granted, how can we know whether god wants to instruct us or to lay a snare for us? how can we distinguish whether the wonders which we see, proceed from god or the devil? pascal, in order to disembarrass us, says very gravely, that we must judge the doctrine by miracles, and the miracles by the doctrine; that doctrine judges the miracles, and the miracles judge the doctrine. if there exists a defective and ridiculous circle, it is no doubt in this fine reasoning of one of the greatest defenders of the christian religion. which of all the religions in the world does not claim to possess the most admirable doctrine, and which does not bring to its aid a great number of miracles? is a miracle capable of destroying a demonstrated truth? although a man should have the secret of curing all diseases, of making the lame to walk, of raising all the dead of a city, of floating in the air, of arresting the course of the sun and of the moon, will he be able to convince me by all this that two and two do not make four; that one makes three and that three makes but one; that a god who fills the universe with his immensity, could have transformed himself into the body of a jew; that the eternal can perish like man; that an immutable, foreseeing, and sensible god could have changed his opinion upon his religion, and reform his own work by a new revelation? cxxxi.--even according to the principles of theology itself, every new revelation should be refuted as false and impious. according to the principles of theology itself, whether natural or revealed, every new revelation ought to be considered false; every change in a religion which had emanated from the deity ought to be refuted as ungodly and blasphemous. does not every reform suppose that god did not know how at the start to give his religion the required solidity and perfection? to say that god in giving a first law accommodated himself to the gross ideas of a people whom he wished to enlighten, is to pretend that god neither could nor would make the people whom he enlightened at that time, as reasonable as they ought to be to please him. christianity is an impiety, if it is true that judaism as a religion really emanated from a holy, immutable, almighty, grid foreseeing god. christ's religion implies either defects in the law that god himself gave by moses, or impotence or malice in this god who could not, or would not make the jews as they ought to be to please him. all religions, whether new, or ancient ones reformed, are evidently founded on the weakness, the inconstancy, the imprudence, and the malice of the deity. cxxxii.--even the blood of the martyrs, testifies against the truth of miracles and against the divine origin which christianity claims. if history informs me that the first apostles, founders or reformers of religions, performed great miracles, history teaches me also that these reforming apostles and their adherents have been usually despised, persecuted, and put to death as disturbers of the peace of nations. i am then tempted to believe that they have not performed the miracles attributed to them. finally, these miracles should have procured to them a great number of disciples among those who witnessed them, who ought to have prevented the performers from being maltreated. my incredulity increases if i am told that the performers of miracles have been cruelly tormented or slain. how can we believe that missionaries, protected by a god, invested with his divine power, and enjoying the gift of miracles, could not perform the simple miracle of escaping from the cruelty of their persecutors? persecutions themselves are considered as a convincing proof in favor of the religion of those who have suffered them; but a religion which boasts of having caused the death of many martyrs, and which informs us that its founders have suffered for its extension unheard-of torments, can not be the religion of a benevolent, equitable, and almighty god. a good god would not permit that men charged with revealing his will should be misused. an omnipotent god desiring to found a religion, would have employed simpler and less fatal means for his most faithful servants. to say that god desired that his religion should be sealed by blood, is to say that this god is weak, unjust, ungrateful, and sanguinary, and that he sacrifices unworthily his missionaries to the interests of his ambition. cxxxiii.--the fanaticism of the martyrs, the interested zeal of missionaries, prove in nowise the truth of religion. to die for a religion does not prove it true or divine; this proves at most that we suppose it to be so. an enthusiast in dying proves nothing but that religious fanaticism is often stronger than the love of life. an impostor can sometimes die with courage; he makes then, as is said, "a virtue of necessity." we are often surprised and affected at the sight of the generous courage and the disinterested zeal which have led missionaries to preach their doctrine at the risk even of suffering the most rigorous torments. we draw from this love, which is exhibited for the salvation of men, deductions favorable to the religion which they have proclaimed; but in truth this disinterestedness is only apparent. "nothing ventured, nothing gained!" a missionary seeks fortune by the aid of his doctrine; he knows that if he has the good fortune to retail his commodity, he will become the absolute master of those who accept him as their guide; he is sure to become the object of their care, of their respect, of their veneration; he has every reason to believe that he will be abundantly provided for. these are the true motives which kindle the zeal and the charity of so many preachers and missionaries who travel all over the world. to die for an opinion, proves no more the truth or the soundness of this opinion than to die in a battle proves the right of the prince, for whose benefit so many people are foolish enough to sacrifice themselves. the courage of a martyr, animated by the idea of paradise, is not any more supernatural than the courage of a warrior, inspired with the idea of glory or held to duty by the fear of disgrace. what difference do we find between an iroquois who sings while he is burned by a slow fire, and the martyr st. lawrence, who while upon the gridiron insults his tyrant? the preachers of a new doctrine succumb because they are not the strongest; the apostles usually practice a perilous business, whose consequences they can foresee; their courageous death does not prove any more the truth of their principles or their own sincerity, than the violent death of an ambitious man or a brigand proves that they had the right to trouble society, or that they believed themselves authorized to do it. a missionary's profession has been always flattering to his ambition, and has enabled him to subsist at the expense of the common people; these advantages have been sufficient to make him forget the dangers which are connected with it. cxxxiv.--theology makes of its god an enemy of common sense and of enlightenment. you tell us, o theologians! that "what is folly in the eyes of men, is wisdom before god, who is pleased to confound the wisdom of the wise." but do you not pretend that human wisdom is a gift from heaven? in telling us that this wisdom displeases god, is but folly in his eyes, and that he wishes to confound it, you proclaim that your god is but the friend of unenlightened people, and that he makes to sensible people a fatal gift, for which this perfidious tyrant promises to punish them cruelly some day. is it not very strange that we can not be the friend of your god but by declaring ourselves the enemy of reason and common sense? cxxxv.--faith is irreconcilable with reason, and reason is preferable to faith. faith, according to theologians, is consent without evidence. from this it follows that religion exacts that we should firmly believe, without evidence, in propositions which are often improbable or opposed to reason. but to challenge reason as a judge of faith, is it not acknowledging that reason can not agree with faith? as the ministers of religion have determined to banish reason, they must have felt the impossibility of reconciling reason with faith, which is visibly but a blind submission to those priests whose authority, in many minds, appears to be of a greater importance than evidence itself, and preferable to the testimony of the senses. "sacrifice your reason; give up experience; distrust the testimony of your senses; submit without examination to all that is given to you as coming from heaven." this is the usual language of all the priests of the world; they do not agree upon any point, except in the necessity of never reasoning when they present principles to us which they claim as the most important to our happiness. i will not sacrifice my reason, because this reason alone enables me to distinguish good from evil, the true from the false. if, as you pretend, my reason comes from god, i will never believe that a god whom you call so good, had ever given me reason but as a snare, in order to lead me to perdition. priests! in crying down reason, do you not see that you slander your god, who, as you assure us, has given us this reason? i will not give up experience, because it is a much better guide than imagination, or than the authority of the guides whom they wish to give me. this experience teaches me that enthusiasm and interest can blind and mislead them, and that the authority of experience ought to have more weight upon my mind than the suspicious testimony of many men whom i know to be capable of deceiving themselves, or very much interested in deceiving others. i will not distrust my senses. i do not ignore the fact that they can sometimes lead me into error; but on the other hand, i know that they do not deceive me always. i know very well that the eye shows the sun much smaller than it really is; but experience, which is only the repeated application of the senses, teaches me that objects continually diminish by reason of their distance; it is by these means that i reach the conclusion that the sun is much larger than the earth; it is thus that my senses suffice to rectify the hasty judgments which they induced me to form. in warning me to doubt the testimony of my senses, you destroy for me the proofs of all religion. if men can be dupes of their imagination, if their senses are deceivers, why would you have me believe in the miracles which made an impression upon the deceiving senses of our ancestors? if my senses are faithless guides, i learn that i should not have faith even in the miracles which i might see performed under my own eyes. cxxxvi.--how absurd and ridiculous is the sophistry of those who wish to substitute faith for reason. you tell me continually that the "truths of religion are beyond reason." do you not admit, then, that these truths are not made for reasonable beings? to pretend that reason can deceive us, is to say that truth can be false, that usefulness can be injurious. is reason anything else but the knowledge of the useful and the true? besides, as we have but our reason, which is more or less exercised, and our senses, such as they are, to lead us in this life, to claim that reason is an unsafe guide, and that our senses are deceivers, is to tell us that our errors are necessary, that our ignorance is invincible, and that, without extreme injustice, god can not punish us for having followed the only guides which he desired to give us. to pretend that we are obliged to believe in things which are beyond our reason, is an assertion as ridiculous as to say that god would compel us to fly without wings. to claim that there are objects on which reason should not be consulted, is to say that in the most important affairs, we must consult but imagination, or act by chance. our doctors of divinity tell us that we ought to sacrifice our reason to god; but what motives can we have for sacrificing our reason to a being who gives us but useless gifts, which he does not intend that we should make use of? what confidence can we place in a god who, according to our doctors themselves, is wicked enough to harden hearts, to strike us with blindness, to place snares in our way, to lead us into temptation? finally, how can we place confidence in the ministers of this god, who, in order to guide us more conveniently, command us to close our eyes? cxxxvii.--how pretend that man ought to believe verbal testimony on what is claimed to be the most important thing for him? men persuade themselves that religion is the most serious affair in the world for them, while it is the very thing which they least examine for themselves. if the question arises in the purchase of land, of a house, of the investment of money, of a transaction, or of some kind of an agreement, you will see each one examine everything with care, take the greatest precautions, weigh all the words of a document, to beware of any surprise or imposition. it is not the same with religion; each one accepts it at hazard, and believes it upon verbal testimony, without taking the trouble to examine it. two causes seem to concur in sustaining men in the negligence and the thoughtlessness which they exhibit when the question comes up of examining their religious opinions. the first one is, the hopelessness of penetrating the obscurity by which every religion is surrounded; even in its first principles, it has only a tendency to repel indolent minds, who see in it but chaos, to penetrate which, they judge impossible. the second is, that each one is afraid to incommode himself by the severe precepts which everybody admires in the theory, and which few persons take the trouble of practicing. many people preserve their religion like old family titles which they have never taken the trouble to examine minutely, but which they place in their archives in case they need them. cxxxviii.--faith takes root but in weak, ignorant, or indolent minds. the disciples of pythagoras had an implicit faith in their master's doctrine: "he has said it!" was for them the solution of all problems. the majority of men act with as little reason. a curate, a priest, an ignorant monk, will become in the matter of religion the master of one's thoughts. faith relieves the weakness of the human mind, for whom application is commonly a very painful work; it is much easier to rely upon others than to examine for one's self; examination being slow and difficult, it is usually unpleasant to ignorant and stupid minds as well as to very ardent ones; this is, no doubt, why faith finds so many partisans. the less enlightenment and reason men possess, the more zeal they exhibit for their religion. in all the religious factions, women, aroused by their directors, exhibit very great zeal in opinions of which it is evident they have not the least idea. in theological quarrels people rush like a ferocious beast upon all those against whom their priest wishes to excite them. profound ignorance, unlimited credulity, a very weak head, an irritated imagination, these are the materials of which devotees, zealots, fanatics, and saints are made. how can we make those people understand reason who allow themselves to be guided without examining anything? the devotees and common people are, in the hands of their guides, only automatons which they move at their fancy. cxxxix.--to teach that there exists one true religion is an absurdity, and a cause of much trouble among the nations. religion is a thing of custom and fashion; we must do as others do. but, among the many religions in the world, which one ought we to choose? this examination would be too long and too painful; we must then hold to the faith of our fathers, to that of our country, or to that of the prince, who, possessing power, must be the best. chance alone decides the religion of a man and of a people. the french would be to-day as good mussulmen as they are christians, if their ancestors had not repulsed the efforts of the saracens. if we judge of the intentions of providence by the events and the revolutions of this world, we are compelled to believe that it is quite indifferent about the different religions which exist on earth. during thousands of years paganism, polytheism, and idolatry have been the religions of the world; we are assured today, that during this period the most flourishing nations had not the least idea of the deity, an idea which is claimed, however, to be so important to all men. the christians pretend that, with the exception of the jewish people, that is to say, a handful of unfortunate beings, the whole human race lived in utter ignorance of its duties toward god, and had but imperfect ideas of divine majesty. christianity, offshoot of judaism, which was very humble in its obscure origin, became powerful and cruel under the christian emperors, who, driven by a holy zeal, spread it marvelously in their empire by sword and fire, and founded it upon the ruins of overthrown paganism. mohammed and his successors, aided by providence, or by their victorious arms, succeeded in a short time in expelling the christian religion from a part of asia, africa, and even of europe itself; the gospel was compelled to surrender to the koran. in all the factions or sects which during a great number of centuries have lacerated the christians, "the reason of the strongest was always the best;" the arms and the will of the princes alone decided upon the most useful doctrine for the salvation of the nations. could we not conclude by this, either that the deity takes but little interest in the religion of men, or that he declares himself always in favor of opinions which best suit the authorities of the earth, in order that he can change his systems as soon as they take a notion to change? a king of macassar, tired of the idolatry of his fathers, took a notion one day to leave it. the monarch's council deliberated for a long time to know whether they should consult christian or mohammedan doctors. in the impossibility of finding out which was the better of the two religions, it was resolved to send at the same time for the missionaries of both, and to accept the doctrine of those who would have the advantage of arriving first. they did not doubt that god, who disposes of events, would thus himself explain his will. mohammed's missionaries having been more diligent, the king with his people submitted to the law which he had imposed upon himself; the missionaries of christ were dismissed by default of their god, who did not permit them to arrive early enough. god evidently consents that chance should decide the religion of nations. those who govern, always decide the religion of the people. the true religion is but the religion of the prince; the true god is the god whom the prince wishes them to worship; the will of the priests who govern the prince, always becomes the will of god. a jester once said, with reason, that "the true faith is always the one which has on its side 'the prince and the executioner.'" emperors and executioners for a long time sustained the gods of rome against the god of the christians; the latter having won over to their side the emperors, their soldiers and their executioners succeeded in suppressing the worship of the roman gods. mohammed's god succeeded in expelling the christian's god from a large part of the countries which he formerly occupied. in the eastern part of asia, there is a large country which is very flourishing, very productive, thickly populated, and governed by such wise laws, that the most savage conquerors adopted them with respect. it is china! with the exception of christianity, which was banished as dangerous, they followed their own superstitious ideas; while the mandarins or magistrates, undeceived long ago about the popular religion, do not trouble themselves in regard to it, except to watch over it, that the bonzes or priests do not use this religion to disturb the peace of the state. however, we do not see that providence withholds its benefactions from a nation whose chiefs take so little interest in the worship which is offered to it. the chinese enjoy, on the contrary, blessings and a peace worthy of being envied by many nations which religion divides, ravages, and often destroys. we can not reasonably expect to deprive a people of its follies; but we can hope to cure of their follies those who govern the people; these will then prevent the follies of the people from becoming dangerous. superstition is never to be feared except when it has the support of princes and soldiers; it is only then that it becomes cruel and sanguinary. every sovereign who assumes the protection of a sect or of a religious faction, usually becomes the tyrant of other sects, and makes himself the must cruel perturbator in his kingdom. cxl.--religion is not necessary to morality and to virtue. we are constantly told, and a good many sensible persons come to believe it, that religion is necessary to restrain men; that without it there would be no check upon the people; that morality and virtue are intimately connected with it: "the fear of the lord is," we are told, "the beginning of wisdom." the terrors of another life are salutary terrors, and calculated to subdue men's passions. to disabuse us in regard to the utility of religious notions, it is sufficient to open the eyes and to consider what are the morals of the most religious people. we see haughty tyrants, oppressive ministers, perfidious courtiers, countless extortioners, unscrupulous magistrates, impostors, adulterers, libertines, prostitutes, thieves, and rogues of all kinds, who have never doubted the existence of a vindictive god, or the punishments of hell, or the joys of paradise. although very useless for the majority of men, the ministers of religion have tried to make death appear terrible to the eyes of their votaries. if the most devoted christians could be consistent, they would pass their whole lives in tears, and would finally die in the most terrible alarms. what is more frightful than death to those unfortunate ones who are constantly reminded that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living god;" that they should "seek salvation with fear and trembling!" however, we are assured that the christian's death has great consolations, of which the unbeliever is deprived. the good christian, we are told, dies with the firm hope of enjoying eternal happiness, which he has tried to deserve. but this firm assurance, is it not a punishable presumption in the eyes of a severe god? the greatest saints, are they not to be in doubt whether they are worthy of the love or of the hatred of god priests who console us with the hope of the joys of paradise, and close your eyes to the torments of hell, have you then had the advantage of seeing your names and ours inscribed in the book of life? cxli.--religion is the weakest restraint that can be opposed to the passions. to oppose to the passions and present interests of men the obscure notions about a metaphysical god whom no one can conceive of; the incredible punishments of another life; the pleasures of heaven, of which we can not form an idea, is it not combating realities with chimeras? men have always but confused ideas of their god; they see him only in the clouds; they never think of him when they wish to do wrong. whenever ambition, fortune, or pleasure entices them or leads them away, god, and his menaces, and his promises weigh nothing in the balance. the things of this life have for men a degree of certainty, which the most lively faith can never give to the objects of another life. every religion, in its origin, was a restraint invented by legislators who wished to subjugate the minds of the common people. like nurses who frighten children in order to put them to sleep, ambitious men use the name of the gods to inspire fear in savages; terror seems well suited to compel them to submit quietly to the yoke which is to be imposed upon them. are the ghost stories of childhood fit for mature age? man in his maturity no longer believes in them, or if he does, he is troubled but little by it, and he keeps on his road. cxlii.--honor is a more salutary and a stronger check than religion. there is scarcely a man who does not fear more what he sees than what he does not see; the judgments of men, of which he experiences the effects, than the judgments of god, of whom he has but floating ideas. the desire to please the world, the current of custom, the fear of being ridiculed, and of "what will they say?" have more power than all religious opinions. a warrior with the fear of dishonor, does he not hazard his life in battles every day, even at the risk of incurring eternal damnation? the most religious persons sometimes show more respect for a servant than for god. a man that firmly believes that god sees everything, knows everything, is everywhere, will, when he is alone, commit actions which he never would do in the presence of the meanest of mortals. those even who claim to be the most firmly convinced of the existence of a god, act every instant as if they did not believe anything about it. cxliii.--religion is certainly not a powerful check upon the passions of kings, who are almost always cruel and fantastic tyrants by the example of this same god, of whom they claim to be the representatives; they use religion but to brutalize their slaves so much the more, to lull them to sleep in their fetters, and to prey upon them with the greater facility. "let us tolerate at least," we are told, "the idea of a god, which alone can be a restraint upon the passions of kings." but, in good faith, can we admire the marvelous effects which the fear of this god produces generally upon the mind of the princes who claim to be his images? what idea can we form of the original, if we judge it by its duplicates? sovereigns, it is true, call, themselves the representatives of god, his lieutenants upon earth. but does the fear of a more powerful master than themselves make them attend to the welfare of the peoples that providence has confided to their care? the idea of an invisible judge, to whom alone they pretend to be accountable for their actions, should inspire them with terror! but does this terror render them more equitable, more humane, less avaricious of the blood and the goods of their subjects, more moderate in their pleasures, more attentive to their duties? finally, does this god, by whom we are assured that kings reign, prevent them from vexing in a thousand ways the peoples of whom they ought to be the leaders, the protectors, and fathers? let us open our eyes, let us turn our regards upon all the earth, and we shall see, almost everywhere, men governed by tyrants, who make use of religion but to brutalize their slaves, whom they oppress by the weight of their vices, or whom they sacrifice without mercy to their fatal extravagances. far from being a restraint to the passions of kings, religion, by its very principles, gives them a loose rein. it transforms them into divinities, whose caprices the nations never dare to resist. at the same time that it unchains princes and breaks for them the ties of the social pact, it enchains the minds and the hands of their oppressed subjects. is it surprising, then, that the gods of the earth believe that all is permitted to them, and consider their subjects as vile instruments of their caprices or of their ambition? religion, in every country, has made of the monarch of nature a cruel, fantastic, partial tyrant, whose caprice is the rule. the god-monarch is but too well imitated by his representatives upon the earth. everywhere religion seems invented but to lull to sleep the people in fetters, in order to furnish their masters the facility of devouring them, or to render them miserable with impunity. cxliv.--origin of the most absurd, the most ridiculous, and the most odious usurpation, called the divine right of kings. wise counsels to kings. in order to guard themselves against the enterprises of a haughty pontiff who desired to reign over kings, and in order to protect their persons from the attacks of the credulous people excited by their priests, several princes of europe pretended to have received their crowns and their rights from god alone, and that they should account to him only for their actions. civil power in its battles against spiritual power, having at length gained the advantage, and the priests being compelled to yield, recognized the divine right of kings and preached it to the people, reserving to themselves the right to change opinions and to preach revolution, every time that the divine rights of kings did not agree with the divine rights of the clergy. it was always at the expense of the people that peace was restored between the kings and the priests, but the latter maintained their pretensions notwithstanding all treaties. many tyrants and wicked princes, whose conscience reproaches them for their negligence or their perversity, far from fearing their god, rather like to bargain with this invisible judge, who never refuses anything, or with his priests, who are accommodating to the masters of the earth rather than to their subjects. the people, when reduced to despair, consider the divine rights of their chiefs as an abuse. when men become exasperated, the divine rights of tyrants are compelled to yield to the natural rights of their subjects; they have better market with the gods than with men. kings are responsible for their actions but to god, the priests but to themselves; there is reason to believe that both of them have more faith in the indulgence of heaven than in that of earth. it is much easier to escape the judgments of the gods, who can be appeased at little expense, than the judgments of men whose patience is exhausted. if you take away from the sovereigns the fear of an invisible power, what restraint will you oppose to their misconduct? let them learn how to govern, how to be just, how to respect the rights of the people, to recognize the benefactions of the nations from whom they obtain their grandeur and power; let them learn to fear men, to submit to the laws of equity, that no one can violate without danger; let these laws restrain equally the powerful and the weak, the great and the small, the sovereign and the subjects. the fear of the gods, religion, the terrors of another life--these are the metaphysical and supernatural barriers which are opposed to the furious passions of princes! are these barriers sufficient? we leave it to experience to solve the question! to oppose religion to the wickedness of tyrants, is to wish that vague speculations should be more powerful than inclinations which conspire to fortify them in it from day to day. cxlv.--religion is fatal to politics; it forms but licentious and perverse despots, as well as abject and unhappy subjects. we are told constantly of the immense advantages which religion secures to politics; but if we reflect a moment, we will see without trouble that religious opinions blind and lead astray equally the rulers and the people, and never enlighten them either in regard to their true duties or their real interests. religion but too often forms licentious, immoral tyrants, obeyed by slaves who are obliged to conform to their views. from lack of the knowledge of the true principles of administration, the aim and the rights of social life, the real interests of men, and the duties which unite them, the princes are become, in almost every land, licentious, absolute, and perverse; and their subjects abject unhappy, and wicked. it was to avoid the trouble of studying these important subjects, that they felt themselves obliged to have recourse to chimeras, which so far, instead of being a remedy, have but increased the evils of the human race and withdrawn their attention from the most interesting things. does not the unjust and cruel manner in which so many nations are governed here below, furnish the most visible proofs, not only of the non-effect produced by the fear of another life, but of the non-existence of a providence interested in the fate of the human race? if there existed a good god, would we not be forced to admit that he strangely neglects the majority of men in this life? it would appear that this god created the nations but to be toys for the passions and follies of his representatives upon earth. cxlvi.--christianity extended itself but by encouraging despotism, of which it, like all religion, is the strongest support. if we read history with some attention, we shall see that christianity, fawning at first, insinuated itself among the savage and free nations of europe but by showing their chiefs that its principles would favor despotism and place absolute power in their hands. we see, consequently, barbarous kings converting themselves with a miraculous promptitude; that is to say, adopting without examination a system so favorable to their ambition, and exerting themselves to have it adopted by their subjects. if the ministers of this religion have since often moderated their servile principles, it is because the theory has no influence upon the conduct of the lord's ministers, except when it suits their temporal interests. christianity boasts of having brought to men a happiness unknown to preceding centuries. it is true that the grecians have not known the divine right of tyrants or usurpers over their native country. under the reign of paganism it never entered the brain of anybody that heaven did not want a nation to defend itself against a ferocious beast which insolently ravaged it. the christian religion, devised for the benefit of tyrants, was established on the principle that the nations should renounce the legitimate defense of themselves. thus christian nations are deprived of the first law of nature, which decrees that man should resist evil and disarm all who attempt to destroy him. if the ministers of the church have often permitted nations to revolt for heaven's cause, they never allowed them to revolt against real evils or known violences. it is from heaven that the chains have come to fetter the minds of mortals. why is the mohammedan everywhere a slave? it is because his prophet subdued him in the name of the deity, just as moses before him subjugated the jews. in all parts of the world we see that priests were the first law-givers and the first sovereigns of the savages whom they governed. religion seems to have been invented but to exalt princes above their nations, and to deliver the people to their discretion. as soon as the latter find themselves unhappy here below, they are silenced by menacing them with god's wrath; their eyes are fixed on heaven, in order to prevent them from perceiving the real causes of their sufferings and from applying the remedies which nature offers them. cxlvii.--the only aim of religious principles is to perpetuate the tyranny of kings and to sacrifice the nations to them. by incessantly repeating to men that the earth is not their true country; that the present life is but a passage; that they were not made to be happy in this world; that their sovereigns hold their authority but from god, and are responsible to him alone for the misuse of it; that it is never permitted to them to resist, the priesthood succeeded in perpetuating the misconduct of the kings and the misfortunes of the people; the interests of the nations have been cowardly sacrificed to their chiefs. the more we consider the dogmas and the principles of religion, the more we shall be convinced that their only aim is to give advantage to tyrants and priests; not having the least regard for the good of society. in order to mask the powerlessness of these deaf gods, religion has succeeded in making mortals believe that it is always iniquity which excites the wrath of heaven. the people blame themselves for the disasters and the adversities which they endure continually. if disturbed nature sometimes causes the people to feel its blows, their bad governments are but too often the immediate and permanent causes from which spring the continual calamities that they are obliged to endure. is it not the ambition of kings and of the great, their negligence, their vices, their oppression, to which are generally due sterility, mendacity, wars, contagions, bad morals, and all the multiplied scourges which desolate the earth? in continually directing the eyes of men toward heaven, making them believe that all their evils are due to divine wrath, in furnishing them but inefficient and futile means of lessening their troubles, it would appear that the only object of the priests is to prevent the nations from dreaming of the true sources of their miseries, and to perpetuate them. the ministers of religion act like those indigent mothers, who, in need of bread, put their hungry children to sleep by songs, or who present them toys to make them forget the want which torments them. blinded from childhood by error, held by the invincible ties of opinion, crushed by panic terrors, stupefied at the bosom of ignorance, how could the people understand the true causes of their troubles? they think to remedy them by invoking the gods. alas! do they not see that it is it the name of these gods that they are ordered to present their throat to the sword of their pitiless tyrants, in whom they would find the most visible cause of the evils under which they groan, and for which they uselessly implore the assistance of heaven? credulous people! in your adversities redouble your prayers, your offerings, your sacrifices; besiege your temples, strangle countless victims, fast in sackcloth and in ashes, drink your own tears; finally, exhaust yourselves to enrich your gods: you will do nothing but enrich their priests; the gods of heaven will not be propitious to you, except when the gods of the earth will recognize that they are men like yourselves, and will give to your welfare the care which is your due. cxlviii.--how fatal it is to persuade kings that they have only god to fear if they injure the people. negligent, ambitious, and perverse princes are the real causes of public adversities, of useless and unjust wars continually depopulating the earth, of greedy and despotic governments, destroying the benefactions of nature for men. the rapacity of the courts discourages agriculture, blots out industry, causes famine, contagion, misery; heaven is neither cruel nor favorable to the wishes of the people; it is their haughty chiefs, who always have a heart of brass. it is a notion destructive to wholesome politics and to the morals of princes, to persuade them that god alone is to be feared by them, when they injure their subjects or when they neglect to render them happy. sovereigns! it is not the gods, but your people whom you offend when you do evil. it is to these people, and by retroaction, to yourselves, that you do harm when you govern unjustly. nothing is more common in history than to see religious tyrants; nothing more rare than to find equitable, vigilant, enlightened princes. a monarch can be pious, very strict in fulfilling servilely the duties of his religion, very submissive to his priests, liberal in their behalf, and at the same time destitute of all the virtues and talents necessary for governing. religion for the princes is but an instrument intended to keep the people more firmly under the yoke. according to the beautiful principles of religious morality, a tyrant who, during a long reign, will have done nothing but oppress his subjects, rob them of the fruits of their labor, sacrifice them without pity to his insatiable ambition; a conqueror who will have usurped the provinces of others, who will have slaughtered whole nations, who will have been all his life a real scourge of the human race, imagines that his conscience can be tranquillized, if, in order to expiate so many crimes, he will have wept at the feet of a priest, who will have the cowardly complaisance to console and reassure a brigand, whom the most frightful despair would punish too little for the evil which he has done upon earth. clxix.--a religious king is a scourge to his kingdom. a sincerely religious sovereign is generally a very dangerous chief for a state; credulity always indicates a narrow mind; devotion generally absorbs the attention which the prince ought to give to the ruling of his people. docile to the suggestions of his priests, he constantly becomes the toy of their caprices, the abettor of their quarrels, the instrument and the accomplice of their follies, to which he attaches the greatest importance. among the most fatal gifts which religion has bestowed upon the world, we must consider above all, these devoted and zealous monarchs, who, with the idea of working for the salvation of their subjects, have made it their sacred duty to torment, to persecute, to destroy those whose conscience made them think otherwise than they do. a religious bigot at the head of an empire, is one of the greatest scourges which heaven in its fury could have sent upon earth. one fanatical or deceitful priest who has the ear of a credulous and powerful prince, suffices to put a state into disorder and the universe into combustion. in almost all countries, priests and devout persons are charged with forming the mind and the heart of the young princes destined to govern the nations. what enlightenment can teachers of this stamp give? filled themselves with prejudices, they will hold up to their pupil superstition as the most important and the most sacred thing, its chimerical duties as the most holy obligations, intolerance, and the spirit of persecution, as the true foundations of his future authority; they will try to make him a chief of party, a turbulent fanatic, and a tyrant; they will suppress at an early period his reason; they will premonish him against it; they will prevent truth from reaching him; they will prejudice him against true talents, and prepossess him in favor of despicable talents; finally they will make of him an imbecile devotee, who will have no idea of justice or of injustice, of true glory or of true greatness, and who will be devoid of the intelligence and virtue necessary to the government of a great kingdom. here, in brief, is the plan of education for a child destined to make, one day, the happiness or the misery of several millions of men. cl.--the shield of religion is for tyranny, a weak rampart against the despair of the people. a despot is a madman, who injures himself and sleeps upon the edge of a precipice. priests in all times have shown themselves supporters of despotism, and the enemies of public liberty. their profession requires vile and submissive slaves, who never have the audacity to reason. in an absolute government, their great object is to secure control of the mind of a weak and stupid prince, in order to make themselves masters of the people. instead of leading the people to salvation, priests have always led them to servitude. for the sake of the supernatural titles which religion has forged for the most wicked princes, the latter have generally united with the priests, who, sure of governing by controlling the opinion of the sovereign himself, have charge of tying the hands of the people and of keeping them under their yoke. but it is vain that the tyrant, protected by the shield of religion, flatters himself with being sheltered from all the blows of fate. opinion is a weak rampart against the despair of the people. besides, the priest is the friend of the tyrant only so long as he finds his profit by the tyranny; he preaches sedition and demolishes the idol which he has made, when he considers it no longer in conformity with the interests of heaven, which he speaks of as he pleases, and which never speaks but in behalf of his interests. no doubt it will be said, that the sovereigns, knowing all the advantages which religion procures for them, are truly interested in upholding it with all their strength. if religious opinions are useful to tyrants, it is evident that they are useless to those who govern according to the laws of reason and of equity. is there any advantage in exercising tyranny? does not tyranny deprive princes of true power, the love of the people, in which is safety? should not every rational prince perceive that the despot is but an insane man who injures himself? will not every enlightened prince beware of his flatterers, whose object is to put him to sleep at the edge of the precipice to which they lead him? cli.--religion favors the errors of princes, by delivering them from fear and remorse. if the sacerdotal flatteries succeed in perverting princes and changing them into tyrants, the latter on their side necessarily corrupt the great men and the people. under an unjust master, without goodness, without virtue, who knows no law but his caprice, a nation must become necessarily depraved. will this master wish to have honest, enlightened, and virtuous men near him? no! he needs flatterers in those who approach him, imitators, slaves, base and servile minds, who give themselves up to his taste; his court will spread the contagion of vice to the inferior classes. by degrees all will be necessarily corrupted, in a state whose chief is corrupt himself. it was said a long time ago that the princes seem ordained to do all they do themselves. religion, far from being a restraint upon the sovereigns, entitles them, without fear and without remorse, to the errors which are as fatal to themselves as to the nations which they govern. men are never deceived with impunity. tell a prince that he is a god, and very soon he will believe that he owes nothing to anybody. as long as he is feared, he will not care much for love; he will recognize no rights, no relations with his subjects, nor obligations in their behalf. tell this prince that he is responsible for his actions to god alone, and very soon he will act as if he was responsible to nobody. clii.--what is an enlightened sovereign? an enlightened sovereign is he who understands his true interests; he knows they are united to those of his nation; he knows that a prince can be neither great, nor powerful, nor beloved, nor respected, so long as he will command but miserable slaves; he knows that equity, benevolence, and vigilance will give him more real rights over men than fabulous titles which claim to come from heaven. he will feel that religion is useful but to the priests; that it is useless to society, which is often troubled by it; that it must be limited to prevent it from doing injury; finally, he will understand that, in order to reign with glory, he must make good laws, possess virtues, and not base his power on impositions and chimeras. cliii.--the dominant passions and crimes of priestcraft. with the assistance of its pretended god and of religion, it asserts its passions and commits its crimes. the ministers of religion have taken great care to make of their god a terrible, capricious, and changeable tyrant; it was necessary for them that he should be thus in order that he might lend himself to their various interests. a god who would be just and good, without a mixture of caprice and perversity; a god who would constantly have the qualities of an honest man or of a compliant sovereign, would not suit his ministers. it is necessary to the priests that we tremble before their god, in order that we have recourse to them to obtain the means to be quieted. no man is a hero to his valet de chambre. it is not surprising that a god clothed by his priests in such a way as to cause others to fear him, should rarely impose upon those priests themselves, or exert but little influence upon their conduct. consequently we see them behave themselves in a uniform way in every land; everywhere they devour nations, debase souls, discourage industry, and sow discord under the pretext of the glory of their god. ambition and avarice were at all times the dominating passions of the priesthood; everywhere the priest places himself above the sovereign and the laws; everywhere we see him occupied but with the interests of his pride, his cupidity, his despotic and vindictive mood; everywhere he substitutes expiations, sacrifices, ceremonies, and mysterious practices; in a word, inventions lucrative to himself for useful and social virtues. the mind is confounded and reason interdicted with the view of ridiculous practices and pitiable means which the ministers of the gods invented in every country to purify souls and render heaven favorable to nations. here, they practice circumcision upon a child to procure it divine benevolence; there, they pour water upon his head to wash away the crimes which he could not yet have committed; in other places he is told to plunge himself into a river whose waters have the power to wash away all his impurities; in other places certain food is forbidden to him, whose use would not fail to excite celestial indignation; in other countries they order the sinful man to come periodically for the confession of his faults to a priest, who is often a greater sinner than he. cliv.--charlatanry of the priests. what would we say of a crowd of quacks, who every day would exhibit in a public place, selling their remedies and recommending them as infallible, while we should find them afflicted with the same infirmities which they pretend to cure? would we have much confidence in the recipes of these charlatans, who would bawl out: "take our remedies, their effects are infallible--they cure everybody except us?" what would we think to see these same charlatans pass their lives in complaining that their remedies never produce any effect upon the patients who take them? finally, what idea would we form of the foolishness of the common man who, in spite of this confession, would continue to pay very high for remedies which will not be beneficial to him? the priests resemble alchemists, who boldly assert that they have the secret of making gold, while they scarcely have clothing enough to cover their nudity. the ministers of religion incessantly declaim against the corruption of the age, and complain loudly of the little success of their teachings, at the same time they assure us that religion is the universal remedy, the true panacea for all human evils. these priests are sick themselves; however, men continue to frequent their stands and to have faith in their divine antidotes, which, according to their own confession, cure nobody! clv.--countless calamities are produced by religion, which has tainted morality and disturbed all just ideas and all sound doctrines. religion, especially among modern people, in taking possession of morality, totally obscured its principles; it has rendered men unsocial from a sense of duty; it has forced them to be inhuman toward all those who did not think as they did. theological disputes, equally unintelligible for the parties already irritated against each other, have unsettled empires, caused revolutions, ruined sovereigns, devastated the whole of europe; these despicable quarrels could not be extinguished even in rivers of blood. after the extinction of paganism the people established a religious principle of going into a frenzy, every time that an opinion was brought forth which their priests considered contrary to the holy doctrine. the votaries of a religion which preaches externally but charity, harmony, and peace, have shown themselves more ferocious than cannibals or savages every time that their instructors have excited them to the destruction of their brethren. there is no crime which men have not committed in the idea of pleasing the deity or of appeasing his wrath. the idea of a terrible god who was represented as a despot, must necessarily have rendered his subjects wicked. fear makes but slaves, and slaves are cowardly, low, cruel, and think they have a right to do anything when it is the question of gaining the good-will or of escaping the punishments of the master whom they fear. liberty of thought can alone give to men humanity and grandeur of soul. the notion of a tyrant god can create but abject, angry, quarrelsome, intolerant slaves. every religion which supposes a god easily irritated, jealous, vindictive, punctilious about his rights or his title, a god small enough to be offended at opinions which we have of him, a god unjust enough to exact uniform ideas in regard to him, such a religion becomes necessarily turbulent, unsocial, sanguinary; the worshipers of such a god never believe they can, without crime, dispense with hating and even destroying all those whom they designate as adversaries of this god; they would believe themselves traitors to the cause of their celestial monarch, if they should live on good terms with rebellious fellow-citizens. to love what god hates, would it not be exposing one's self to his implacable hatred? infamous persecutors, and you, religious cannibals! will you never feel the folly and injustice of your intolerant disposition? do you not see that man is no more the master of his religious opinions, of his credulity or incredulity, than of the language which he learns in childhood, and which he can not change? to tell men to think as you do, is it not asking a foreigner to express his thoughts in your language? to punish a man for his erroneous opinions, is it not punishing him for having been educated differently from yourself? if i am incredulous, is it possible for me to banish from my mind the reasons which have unsettled my faith? if god allows men the freedom to damn themselves, is it your business? are you wiser and more prudent than this god whose rights you wish to avenge? clvi.--every religion is intolerant, and consequently destructive of beneficence. there is no religious person who, according to his temperament, does not hate, despise, or pity the adherents of a sect different from his own. the dominant religion (which is never but that of the sovereign and the armies) always makes its superiority felt in a very cruel and injurious manner toward the weaker sects. there does not exist yet upon earth a true tolerance; everywhere a jealous god is worshiped, and each nation believes itself his friend to the exclusion of all others. every nation boasts itself of worshiping the true god, the universal god, the sovereign of nature; but when we come to examine this monarch of the world, we perceive that each organization, each sect, each religious party, makes of this powerful god but an inferior sovereign, whose cares and kindness extend themselves but over a small number of his subjects who pretend to have the exclusive advantage of his favors, and that he does not trouble himself about the others. the founders of religions, and the priests who maintain them, have intended to separate the nations which they indoctrinated, from other nations; they desired to separate their own flock by distinctive features; they gave to their votaries gods inimical to other gods as well as the forms of worship, dogmas, ceremonies, separately; they persuaded them especially that the religions of others were ungodly and abominable. by this infamous contrivance, these ambitious impostors took exclusive possession of the minds of their votaries, rendered them unsocial, and made them consider as outcasts all those who had not the same ideas and form of worship as their own. this is the way religion succeeded in closing the heart, and in banishing from it that affection which man ought to have for his fellow-being. sociability, tolerance, humanity, these first virtues of all morality are totally in compatible with religious prejudices. clvii.--abuse of a state religion. every national religion has a tendency to make man vain, unsocial, and wicked; the first step toward humanity is to permit each one to follow peacefully the worship and the opinions which suit him. but such a conduct can not please the ministers of religion, who wish to have the right to tyrannize over even the thoughts of men. blind and bigoted princes, you hate, you persecute, you devote heretics to torture, because you are persuaded that these unfortunate ones displease god. but do you not claim that your god is full of kindness? how can you hope to please him by such barbarous actions which he can not help disapproving of? besides, who told you that their opinions displease your god? your priests told you! but who guarantees that your priests are not deceived themselves or that they do not wish to deceive you? it is these same priests! princes! it is upon the perilous word of your priests that you commit the most atrocious and the most unheard-of crimes, with the idea of pleasing the deity! clviii.--religion gives license to the ferocity of the people by legitimizing it, and authorizes crime by teaching that it can be useful to the designs of god. "never," says pascal, "do we do evil so thoroughly and so willingly as when we do it through a false principle of conscience." nothing is more dangerous than a religion which licenses the ferocity of the people, and justifies in their eyes the blackest crimes; it puts no limits to their wickedness as soon as they believe it authorized by their god, whose interests, as they are told, can justify all their actions. if there is a question of religion, immediately the most civilized nations become true savages, and believe everything is permitted to them. the more cruel they are, the more agreeable they suppose themselves to be to their god, whose cause they imagine can not be sustained by too much zeal. all religions of the world have authorized countless crimes. the jews, excited by the promises of their god, arrogated to themselves the right of exterminating whole nations; the romans, whose faith was founded upon the oracles of their gods, became real brigands, and conquered and ravaged the world; the arabians, encouraged by their divine preceptor, carried the sword and the flame among christians and idolaters. the christians, under pretext of spreading their holy religion, covered the two hemispheres a hundred times with blood. in all events favorable to their own interests, which they always call the cause of god, the priests show us the finger of god. according to these principles, religious bigots have the luck of seeing the finger of god in revolts, in revolutions, massacres, regicides, prostitutions, infamies, and, if these things contribute to the advantage of religion, we can say, then, that god uses all sorts of means to secure his ends. is there anything better calculated to annihilate every idea of morality in the minds of men, than to make them understand that their god, who is so powerful and so perfect, is often compelled to use crime to accomplish his designs? clix.--refutation of the argument, that the evils attributed to religion are but the sad effects of the passions of men. when we complain about the violence and evils which generally religion causes upon earth, we are answered at once, that these excesses are not due to religion, but that they are the sad effect of men's passions. i would ask, however, what unchained these passions? it is evidently religion; it is a zeal which renders inhuman, and which serves to cover the greatest infamy. do not these disorders prove that religion, instead of restraining the passions of men, does but cover them with a cloak that sanctifies them; and that nothing would be more beneficial than to tear away this sacred cloak of which men make such a bad use? what horrors would be banished from society, if the wicked were deprived of a pretext so plausible for disturbing it! instead of cherishing peace among men, the priests stirred up hatred and strife. they pleaded their conscience, and pretended to have received from heaven the right to be quarrelsome, turbulent, and rebellious. do not the ministers of god consider themselves to be wronged, do they not pretend that his divine majesty is injured every time that the sovereigns have the temerity to try to prevent them from doing injury? the priests resemble that irritable woman, who cried out fire! murder! assassins! while her husband was holding her hands to prevent her from beating him. clx.--all morality is incompatible with religious opinions. notwithstanding the bloody tragedies which religion has so often caused in this world, we are constantly told that there can be no morality without religion. if we judge theological opinions by their effects, we would be right in assuming that all morality is perfectly incompatible with the religious opinions of men. "imitate god," is constantly repeated to us. ah! what morals would we have if we should imitate this god! which god should we imitate? is it the deist's god? but even this god can not be a model of goodness for us. if he is the author of all, he is equally the author of the good and of the bad we see in this world; if he is the author of order, he is also the author of disorder, which would not exist without his permission; if he produces, he destroys; if he gives life, he also causes death; if he grants abundance, riches, prosperity, and peace, he permits or sends famines, poverty, calamities, and wars. how can you accept as a model of permanent beneficence the god of theism or of natural religion, whose favorable intentions are at every moment contradicted by everything that transpires in the world? morality needs a firmer basis than the example of a god whose conduct varies, and whom we can not call good but by obstinately closing the eyes to the evil which he causes, or permits to be done in this world. shall we imitate the good and great jupiter of ancient paganism? to imitate such a god would be to take as a model a rebellious son, who wrests his father's throne from him and then mutilates his body; it is imitating a debauchee and adulterer, an incestuous, intemperate man, whose conduct would cause any reasonable mortal to blush. what would have become of men under the control of paganism if they had imagined, according to plato, that virtue consisted in imitating the gods? must we imitate the god of the jews? will we find a model for our conduct in jehovah? he is truly a savage god, really created for an ignorant, cruel, and immoral people; he is a god who is constantly enraged, breathing only vengeance; who is without pity, who commands carnage and robbery; in a word, he is a god whose conduct can not serve as a model to an honest man, and who can be imitated but by a chief of brigands. shall we imitate, then, the jesus of the christians? can this god, who died to appease the implacable fury of his father, serve as an example which men ought to follow? alas! we will see in him but a god, or rather a fanatic, a misanthrope, who being plunged himself into misery, and preaching to the wretched, advises them to be poor, to combat and extinguish nature, to hate pleasure, to seek sufferings, and to despise themselves; he tells them to leave father, mother, all the ties of life, in order to follow him. what beautiful morality! you will say. it is admirable, no doubt; it must be divine, because it is impracticable for men. but does not this sublime morality tend to render virtue despicable? according to this boasted morality of the man-god of the christians, his disciples in this lower world are, like tantalus, tormented with burning thirst, which they are not permitted to quench. do not such morals give us a wonderful idea of nature's author? if he has, as we are assured, created everything for the use of his creatures, by what strange caprice does he forbid the use of the good things which he has created for them? is the pleasure which man constantly desires but a snare that god has maliciously laid in his path to entrap him? clxi.--the morals of the gospel are impracticable. the votaries of christ would like to make us regard as a miracle the establishment of their religion, which is in every respect contrary to nature, opposed to all the inclinations of the heart, an enemy to physical pleasures. but the austerity of a doctrine has a tendency to render it more wonderful to the ignorant. the same reason which makes us respect, as divine and supernatural, inconceivable mysteries, causes us to admire, as divine and supernatural, a morality impracticable and beyond the power of man. to admire morals and to practice them, are two very different things. all the christians continually admire the morals of the gospel, but it is practiced but by a small number of saints; admired by people who themselves avoid imitating their conduct, under the pretext that they are lacking either the power or the grace. the whole universe is infected more or less with a religious morality which is founded upon the opinion that to please the deity it is necessary to render one's self unhappy upon earth. we see in all parts of our globe penitents, hermits, fakirs, fanatics, who seem to have studied profoundly the means of tormenting themselves for the glory of a being whose goodness they all agree in celebrating. religion, by its essence, is the enemy of joy and of the welfare of men. "blessed are those who suffer!" woe to those who have abundance and joy! these are the rare revelations which christianity teaches! clxii.--a society of saints would be impossible. in what consists the saint of all religions? it is a man who prays, fasts, who torments himself, who avoids the world, who, like an owl, is pleased but in solitude, who abstains from all pleasure, who seems frightened at every object which turns him a moment from his fanatical meditations. is this virtue? is a being of this stamp of any use to himself or to others? would not society be dissolved, and would not men retrograde into barbarism, if each one should be fool enough to wish to be a saint? it is evident that the literal and rigorous practice of the divine morality of the christians would lead nations to ruin. a christian who would attain perfection, ought to drive away from his mind all that can alienate him from heaven--his true country. he sees upon earth but temptations, snares, and opportunities to go astray; he must fear science as injurious to faith; he must avoid industry, as it is a means of obtaining riches, which are fatal to salvation; he must renounce preferments and honors, as things capable of exciting his pride and calling his attention away from his soul; in a word, the sublime morality of christ, if it were not impracticable, would sever all the ties of society. a saint in the world is no more useful than a saint in the desert; the saint has an unhappy, discontented, and often irritable, turbulent disposition; his zeal often obliges him, conscientiously, to disturb society by opinions or dreams which his vanity makes him accept as inspirations from heaven. the annals of all religions are filled with accounts of anxious, intractable, seditious saints, who have distinguished themselves by ravages that, for the greater glory of god, they have scattered throughout the universe. if the saints who live in solitude are useless, those who live in the world are very often dangerous. the vanity of performing a role, the desire of distinguishing themselves in the eyes of the stupid vulgar by a strange conduct, constitute usually the distinctive characteristics of great saints; pride persuades them that they are extraordinary men, far above human nature; beings who are more perfect than others; chosen ones, which god looks upon with more complaisance than the rest of mortals. humility in a saint is, is a general rule, but a pride more refined than that of common men. it must be a very ridiculous vanity which can determine a man to continually war with his own nature! clxiii.--human nature is not depraved; and a morality which contradicts this fact is not made for man. a morality which contradicts the nature of man is not made for him. but you will say that man's nature is depraved. in what consists this pretended depravity? is it because he has passions? but are not passions the very essence of man? must he not seek, desire, love that which is, or that which he believes to be, essential to his happiness? must he not fear and avoid that which he judges injurious or fatal to him? excite his passions by useful objects; let him attach himself to these same objects, divert him by sensible and known motives from that which can do him or others harm, and you will make of him a reasonable and virtuous being. a man without passions would be equally indifferent to vice and to virtue. holy doctors! you constantly tell us that man's nature is perverted; you tell us that the way of all flesh is corrupt; you tell us that nature gives us but inordinate inclinations. in this case you accuse your god, who has not been able or willing to keep this nature in its original perfection. if this nature became corrupted, why did not this god repair it? the christian assures me that human nature is repaired, that the death of his god has reestablished it in its integrity. how comes it then, that human nature, notwithstanding the death of a god, is still depraved? is it, then, a pure loss that your god died? what becomes of his omnipotence and his victory over the devil, if it is true that the devil still holds the empire which, according to you, he has always exercised in the world? death, according to christian theology, is the penalty of sin. this opinion agrees with that of some savage negro nations, who imagine that the death of a man is always the supernatural effect of the wrath of the gods. the christians firmly believe that christ has delivered them from sin, while they see that, in their religion as in the others, man is subject to death. to say that jesus christ has delivered us from sin, is it not claiming that a judge has granted pardon to a guilty man, while we see him sent to torture? clxiv.--of jesus christ, the priest's god. if, closing our eyes upon all that transpires in this world, we should rely upon the votaries of the christian religion, we would believe that the coming of our divine saviour has produced the most wonderful revolution and the most complete reform in the morals of nations. the messiah, according to pascal, [see thoughts of pascal] ought of himself alone to produce a great, select, and holy people; conducting and nourishing it, and introducing it into the place of repose and sanctity, rendering it holy to god, making it the temple of god, saving it from the wrath of god, delivering it from the servitude of sin, giving laws to this people, engraving these laws upon their hearts, offering himself to god for them, crushing the head of the serpent, etc. this great man has forgotten to show us the people upon whom his divine messiah has produced the miraculous effects of which he speaks with so much emphasis; so far, it seems, they do not exist upon the earth! if we examine ever so little the morals of the christian nations, and listen to the clamors of their priests, we will be obliged to conclude that their god, jesus christ, preached without fruit, without success; that his almighty will still finds in men a resistance, over which this god either can not or does not wish to triumph. the morality of this divine doctor which his disciples admire so much, and practice so little, is followed during a whole century but by half a dozen of obscure saints, fanatical and ignorant monks, who alone will have the glory of shining in the celestial court; all the remainder of mortals, although redeemed by the blood of this god, will be the prey of eternal flames. clxv.--the dogma of the remission of sins has been invented in the interest of the priests. when a man has a great desire to sin, he thinks very little about his god; more than this, whatever crimes he may have committed, he always flatters himself that this god will mitigate the severity of his punishments. no mortal seriously believes that his conduct can damn him. although he fears a terrible god, who often makes him tremble, every time he is strongly tempted he succumbs and sees but a god of mercy, the idea of whom quiets him. does he do evil? he hopes to have the time to correct himself, and promises earnestly to repent some day. there are in the religious pharmacy infallible receipts for calming the conscience; the priests in every country possess sovereign secrets for disarming the wrath of heaven. however true it may be that the anger of deity is appeased by prayers, by offerings, by sacrifices, by penitential tears, we have no right to say that religion holds in check the irregularities of men; they will first sin, and afterward seek the means to reconcile god. every religion which expiates, and which promises the remission of crimes, if it restrains any, it encourages the great number to commit evil. notwithstanding his immutability, god is, in all the religions of this world, a veritable proteus. his priests show him now armed with severity, and then full of clemency and gentleness; now cruel and pitiless, and then easily reconciled by the repentance and the tears of the sinners. consequently, men face the deity in the manner which conforms the most to their present interests. an always wrathful god would repel his worshipers, or cast them into despair. men need a god who becomes angry and who can be appeased; if his anger alarms a few timid souls, his clemency reassures the determined wicked ones who intend to have recourse sooner or later to the means of reconciling themselves with him; if the judgments of god frighten a few faint-hearted devotees who already by temperament and by habitude are not inclined to evil, the treasures of divine mercy reassure the greatest criminals, who have reason to hope that they will participate in them with the others. clxvi.--the fear of god is powerless against human passions. the majority of men rarely think of god, or, at least, do not occupy themselves much with him. the idea of god has so little stability, it is so afflicting, that it can not hold the imagination for a long time, except in some sad and melancholy visionists who do not constitute the majority of the inhabitants of this world. the common man has no conception of it; his weak brain becomes perplexed the moment he attempts to think of him. the business man thinks of nothing but his affairs; the courtier of his intrigues; worldly men, women, youth, of their pleasures; dissipation soon dispels the wearisome notions of religion. the ambitious, the avaricious, and the debauchee sedulously lay aside speculations too feeble to counterbalance their diverse passions. whom does the idea of god overawe? a few weak men disappointed and disgusted with this world; some persons whose passions are already extinguished by age, by infirmities, or by reverses of fortune. religion is a restraint but for those whose temperament or circumstances have already subjected them to reason. the fear of god does not prevent any from committing sin but those who do not wish to sin very much, or who are no longer in a condition to sin. to tell men that divinity punishes crime in this world, is to claim as a fact that which experience contradicts constantly the most wicked men are usually the arbiters of the world, and those whom fortune blesses with its favors. to convince us of the judgments of god by sending us to the other life, is to make us accept conjectures in order to destroy facts which we can not dispute. clxvii.--the invention of hell is too absurd to prevent evil. no one dreams about another life when he is very much absorbed in objects which he meets on earth. in the eyes of a passionate lover, the presence of his mistress extinguishes the fires of hell, and her charms blot out all the pleasures of paradise. woman! you leave, you say, your lover for your god? it is that your lover is no longer the same in your estimation; or your lover leaves you, and you must fill the void which is made in your heart. nothing is more common than to see ambitious, perverse, corrupt, and immoral men who are religious, and who sometimes exhibit even zeal in its behalf; if they do not practice religion, they promise themselves they will practice it some day; they keep it in reserve as a remedy which, sooner or later, will be necessary to quiet the conscience for the evil which they intend yet to do. besides, devotees and priests being a very numerous, active, and powerful party, it is not astonishing to see impostors and thieves seek for its support in order to gain their ends. we will be told, no doubt, that many honest people are sincerely religious without profit; but is uprightness of heart always accompanied with intelligence? we are cited to a great number of learned men, men of genius, who are very religious. this proves that men of genius can have prejudices, can be pusillanimous, can have an imagination which seduces them and prevents them from examining objects coolly. pascal proves nothing in favor of religion, except that a man of genius can possess a grain of weakness, and is but a child when he is weak enough to listen to prejudices. pascal himself tells us "that the mind can be strong and narrow, and just as extended as it is weak." he says more: "we can have our senses all right, and not be equally able in all things; because there are men who, being right in a certain sphere of things, lose themselves in others." clxviii.--absurdity of the morality and of the religious virtues established solely in the interest of the priests. what is virtue according to theology? it is, we are told, the conformity of men's actions with the will of god. but who is god? he is a being whom no one is able to conceive of, and whom, consequently, each one modifies in his own way. what is the will of god? it is what men who have seen god, or whom god has inspired, have told us. who are those who have seen god? they are either fanatics, or scoundrels, or ambitious men, whose word we can not rely upon. to found morality upon a god that each man represents differently, that each one composes by his own idea, whom everybody arranges according to his own temperament and his own interest, is evidently founding morality upon the caprice and upon the imagination of men; it is basing it upon the whims of a sect, faction, or party, who, excluding all others, claim to have the advantage of worshiping the true god. to establish morality, or the duties of man, upon the divine will, is founding it upon the wishes, the reveries, or the interests of those who make god talk without fear of contradiction. in every religion the priests alone have the right to decide upon what pleases or displeases their god; we may rest assured that they will decide upon what pleases or displeases themselves. the dogmas, ceremonies, the morality and the virtues which all religions of the world prescribe, are visibly calculated only to extend the power or to increase the emoluments of the founders and of the ministers of these religions; the dogmas are obscure, inconceivable, frightful, and, thereby, very liable to cause the imagination to wander, and to render the common man more docile to those who wish to domineer over him; the ceremonies and practices procure fortune or consideration to the priests; the religious morals and virtues consist in a submissive faith, which prevents reasoning; in a devout humility, which assures to the priests the submission of their slaves; in an ardent zeal, when the question of religion is agitated; that is to say, when the interest of these priests is considered, all religious virtues having evidently for their object the advantage of the priests. clxix.--what does that christian charity amount to, such as theologians teach and practice? when we reproach the theologians with the sterility of their religious virtues, they praise, with emphasis, charity, that tender love of our neighbor which christianity makes an essential duty for its disciples. but, alas! what becomes of this pretended charity as soon as we examine the actions of the lord's ministers? ask if you must love your neighbor if he is impious, heretical, and incredulous, that is to say, if he does not think as they do? ask them if you must tolerate opinions contrary to those which they profess? ask them if the lord can show indulgence to those who are in error? immediately their charity disappears, and the dominating clergy will tell you that the prince carries the sword but to sustain the interests of the most high; they will tell you that for love of the neighbor, you must persecute, imprison, exile, or burn him. you will find tolerance among a few priests who are persecuted themselves, but who put aside christian charity as soon as they have the power to persecute in their turn. the christian religion which was originally preached by beggars and by very wretched men, strongly recommends alms-giving under the name of charity; the faith of mohammed equally makes it an indispensable duty. nothing, no doubt, is better suited to humanity than to assist the unfortunate, to clothe the naked, to lend a charitable hand to whoever needs it. but would it not be more humane and more charitable to foresee the misery and to prevent the poor from increasing? if religion, instead of deifying princes, had but taught them to respect the property of their subjects, to be just, and to exercise but their legitimate rights, we should not see such a great number of mendicants in their realms. a greedy, unjust, tyrannical government multiplies misery; the rigor of taxes produces discouragement, idleness, indigence, which, on their part, produce robbery, murders, and all kinds of crime. if the sovereigns had more humanity, charity, and justice, their states would not be peopled by so many unfortunate ones whose misery becomes impossible to soothe. the christian and mohammedan states are filled with vast and richly endowed hospitals, in which we admire the pious charity of the kings and of the sultans who erected them. would it not have been more humane to govern the people well, to procure them ease, to excite and to favor industry and trade, to permit them to enjoy in safety the fruits of their labors, than to oppress them under a despotic yoke, to impoverish them by senseless wars, to reduce them to mendicity in order to gratify an immoderate luxury, and afterward build sumptuous monuments which can contain but a very small portion of those whom they have rendered miserable? religion, by its virtues, has but given a change to men; instead of foreseeing evils, it applies but insufficient remedies. the ministers of heaven have always known how to benefit themselves by the calamities of others; public misery became their element; they made themselves the administrators of the goods of the poor, the distributors of alms, the depositaries of charities; thereby they extended and sustained at all times their power over the unfortunates who usually compose the most numerous, the most anxious, the most seditious part of society. thus the greatest evils are made profitable to the ministers of the lord. the christian priests tell us that the goods which they possess are the goods of the poor, and pretend by this title that their possessions are sacred; consequently, the sovereigns and the people press themselves to accumulate lands, revenues, treasures for them; under pretext of charity, our spiritual guides have become very opulent, and enjoy, in the sight of the impoverished nations, goods which were destined but for the miserable; the latter, far from murmuring about it, applaud a deceitful generosity which enriches the church, but which very rarely alleviates the sufferings of the poor. according to the principles of christianity, poverty itself is a virtue, and it is this virtue which the sovereigns and the priests make their slaves observe the most. according to these ideas, a great number of pious christians have renounced with good-will the perishable riches of the earth; have distributed their patrimony to the poor, and have retired into a desert to live a life of voluntary indigence. but very soon this enthusiasm, this supernatural taste for misery, must surrender to nature. the successors to these voluntary poor, sold to the religious people their prayers and their powerful intercession with the deity; they became rich and powerful; thus, monks and hermits lived in idleness, and, under the pretext of charity, devoured insultingly the substance of the poor. poverty of spirit was that of which religion made always the greatest use. the fundamental virtue of all religion, that is to say, the most useful one to its ministers, is faith. it consists in an unlimited credulity, which causes men to believe, without examination, all that which the interpreters of the deity wish them to believe. with the aid of this wonderful virtue, the priests became the arbiters of justice and of injustice; of good and of evil; they found it easy to commit crimes when crimes became necessary to their interests. implicit faith has been the source of the greatest outrages which have been committed upon the earth. clxx.--confession, that golden mine for the priests, has destroyed the true principles of morality. he who first proclaimed to the nations that, when man had wronged man, he must ask god's pardon, appease his wrath by presents, and offer him sacrifices, obviously subverted the true principles of morality. according to these ideas, men imagine that they can obtain from the king of heaven, as well as from the kings of the earth, permission to be unjust and wicked, or at least pardon for the evil which they might commit. morality is founded upon the relations, the needs, and the constant interests of the inhabitants of the earth; the relations which subsist between men and god are either entirely unknown or imaginary. the religion associating god with men has visibly weakened or destroyed the ties which unite men. mortals imagine that they can, with impunity, injure each other by making a suitable reparation to the almighty being, who is supposed to have the right to remit all the injuries done to his creatures. is there anything more liable to encourage wickedness and to embolden to crime, than to persuade men that there exists an invisible being who has the right to pardon injustice, rapine, perfidy, and all the outrages they can inflict upon society? encouraged by these fatal ideas, we see the most perverse men abandon themselves to the greatest crimes, and expect to repair them by imploring divine mercy; their conscience rests in peace when a priest assures them that heaven is quieted by sincere repentance, which is very useless to the world; this priest consoles them in the name of deity, if they consent in reparation of their faults to divide with his ministers the fruits of their plunderings, of their frauds, and of their wickedness. morality united to religion, becomes necessarily subordinate to it. in the mind of a religious person, god must be preferred to his creatures; "it is better to obey him than men!" the interests of the celestial monarch must be above those of weak mortals. but the interests of heaven are evidently the interests of the ministers of heaven; from which it follows evidently, that in all religions, the priests, under pretext of heaven's interest's, or of god's glory, will be able to dispense with the duties of human morals when they do not agree with the duties which god is entitled to impose. besides, he who has the power to pardon crimes, has he not the right to order them committed? clxxi.--the supposition of the existence of a god is not necessary to morality. we are constantly told that without a god, there can be no moral obligation; that it is necessary for men and for the sovereigns themselves to have a lawgiver sufficiently powerful to compel them to be moral; moral obligation implies a law; but this law arises from the eternal and necessary relations of things among themselves, which have nothing in common with the existence of a god. the rules which govern men's conduct spring from their own nature, which they are supposed to know, and not from the divine nature, of which they have no conception; these rules compel us to render ourselves estimable or contemptible, amiable or hateful, worthy of reward or of punishments, happy or unhappy, according to the extent to which we observe them. the law that compels man not to harm himself, is inherent in the nature of a sensible being, who, no matter how he came into this world, or what can be his fate in another, is compelled by his very nature to seek his welfare and to shun evil, to love pleasure and to fear pain. the law which compels a man not to harm others and to do good, is inherent in the nature of sensible beings living in society, who, by their nature, are compelled to despise those who do them no good, and to detest those who oppose their happiness. whether there exists a god or not, whether this god has spoken or not, men's moral duties will always be the same so long as they possess their own nature; that is to say, so long as they are sensible beings. do men need a god whom they do not know, or an invisible lawgiver, or a mysterious religion, or chimerical fears in order to comprehend that all excess tends ultimately to destroy them, and that in order to preserve themselves they must abstain from it; that in order to be loved by others, they must do good; that doing evil is a sure means of incurring their hatred and vengeance? "before the law there was no sin." nothing is more false than this maxim. it is enough for a man to be what he is, to be a sensible being in order to distinguish that which pleases or displeases him. it is enough that a man knows that another man is a sensible being like himself, in order for him to know what is useful or injurious to him. it is enough that man needs his fellow-creature, in order that he should fear that he might produce unfavorable impressions upon him. thus a sentient and thinking being needs but to feel and to think, in order to discover that which is due to him and to others. i feel, and another feels, like myself; this is the foundation of all morality. clxxii.--religion and its supernatural morality are fatal to the people, and opposed to man's nature. we can judge of the merit of a system of morals but by its conformity with man's nature. according to this comparison, we have a right to reject it, if we find it detrimental to the welfare of mankind. whoever has seriously meditated upon religion and its supernatural morality, whoever has weighed its advantages and disadvantages, will become convinced that they are both injurious to the interests of the human race, or directly opposed to man's nature. "people, to arms! your god's cause is at stake! heaven is outraged! faith is in danger! down upon infidelity, blasphemy, and heresy!" by the magical power of these valiant words, which the people never understand, the priests in all ages were the leaders in the revolts of nations, in dethroning kings, in kindling civil wars, and in imprisoning men. when we chance to examine the important objects which have excited the celestial wrath and produced so many ravages upon the earth, it is found that the foolish reveries and the strange conjectures of some theologian who did not understand himself, or, the pretensions of the clergy, have severed all ties of society and inundated the human race in its own blood and tears. clxxiii.--how the union of religion and politics is fatal to the people and to the kings. the sovereigns of this world in associating the deity in the government of their realms, in pretending to be his lieutenants and his representatives upon earth, in admitting that they hold their power from him, must necessarily accept his ministers as rivals or as masters. is it, then, astonishing that the priests have often made the kings feel the superiority of the celestial monarch? have they not more than once made the temporal princes understand that the greatest physical power is compelled to surrender to the spiritual power of opinion? nothing is more difficult than to serve two masters, especially when they do not agree upon what they demand of their subjects. the union of religion with politics has necessarily caused a double legislation in the states. the law of god, interpreted by his priests, is often contrary to the law of the sovereign or to the interest of the state. when the princes are firm, and sure of the love of their subjects, god's law is sometimes obliged to comply with the wise intentions of the temporal sovereign; but more often the sovereign authority is obliged to retreat before the divine authority, that is to say, before the interests of the clergy. nothing is more dangerous for a prince, than to meddle with ecclesiastical affairs (to put his hands into the holy-water pot), that is to say, to attempt the reform of abuses consecrated by religion. god is never more angry than when the divine rights, the privileges, the possessions, and the immunities of his priests are interfered with. metaphysical speculations or the religious opinions of men, never influence their conduct except when they believe them conformed to their interests. nothing proves this truth more forcibly than the conduct of a great number of princes in regard to the spiritual power, which we see them very often resist. should not a sovereign who is persuaded of the importance and the rights of religion, conscientiously feel himself obliged to receive with respect the orders of his priests, and consider them as commandments of the deity? there was a time when the kings and the people, more conformable, and convinced of the rights of the spiritual power, became its slaves, surrendered to it on all occasions, and were but docile instruments in its hands; this happy time is no more. by a strange inconsistency, we sometimes see the most religious monarchs oppose the enterprises of those whom they regard as god's ministers. a sovereign who is filled with religion or respect for his god, ought to be constantly prostrate before his priests, and regard them as his true sovereigns. is there a power upon the earth which has the right to measure itself with that of the most high? clxxiv.--creeds are burdensome and ruinous to the majority of nations. have the princes who believe themselves interested in propagating the prejudices of their subjects, reflected well upon the effects which are produced by privileged demagogues, who have the right to speak when they choose, and excite in the name of heaven the passions of many millions of their subjects? what ravages would not these holy haranguers cause should they conspire to disturb a state, as they have so often done? nothing is more onerous and more ruinous for the greatest part of the nations than the worship of their gods! everywhere their ministers not only rank as the first order in the state, but also enjoy the greater portion of society's benefits, and have the right to levy continual taxes upon their fellow-citizens. what real advantages do these organs of the most high procure for the people in exchange for the immense profits which they draw from them? do they give them in exchange for their wealth and their courtesies anything but mysteries, hypotheses, ceremonies, subtle questions, interminable quarrels, which very often their states must pay for with their blood? clxxv.--religion paralyzes morality. religion, which claims to be the firmest support of morality, evidently deprives it of its true motor, to substitute imaginary motors, inconceivable chimeras, which, being obviously contrary to common sense, can not be firmly believed by any one. everybody assures us that he believes firmly in a god who rewards and punishes; everybody claims to be persuaded of the existence of a hell and of a paradise; however, do we see that these ideas render men better or counterbalance in the minds of the greatest number of them the slightest interest? each one assures us that he is afraid of god's judgments, although each one gives vent to his passions when he believes himself sure of escaping the judgments of men. the fear of invisible powers is rarely as great as the fear of visible powers. unknown or distant sufferings make less impression upon people than the erected gallows, or the example of a hanged man. there is scarcely any courtier who fears god's anger more than the displeasure of his master. a pension, a title, a ribbon, are sufficient to make one forget the torments of hell and the pleasures of the celestial court. a woman's caresses expose him every day to the displeasure of the most high. a joke, a banter, a bon-mot, make more impression upon the man of the world than all the grave notions of his religion. are we not assured that a true repentance is sufficient to appease divinity? however, we do not see that this true repentance is sincerely expressed; at least, we very rarely see great thieves, even in the hour of death, restore the goods which they know they have unjustly acquired. men persuade themselves, no doubt, that they will submit to the eternal fire, if they can not guarantee themselves against it. but as settlements can be made with heaven by giving the church a portion of their fortunes, there are very few religious thieves who do not die perfectly quieted about the manner in which they gained their riches in this world. clxxvi.--fatal consequences of piety. even by the confession of the most ardent defenders of religion and of its usefulness, nothing is more rare than sincere conversions; to which we might add, nothing is more useless to society. men do not become disgusted with the world until the world is disgusted with them; a woman gives herself to god only when the world no longer wants her. her vanity finds in religious devotion a role which occupies her and consoles her for the ruin of her charms. she passes her time in the most trifling practices, parties, intrigues, invectives, and slander; zeal furnishes her the means of distinguishing herself and becoming an object of consideration in the religious circle. if the bigots have the talent to please god and his priests, they rarely possess that of pleasing society or of rendering themselves useful to it. religion for a devotee is a veil which covers and justifies all his passions, his pride, his bad humor, his anger, his vengeance, his impatience, his bitterness. religion arrogates to itself a tyrannical superiority which banishes from commerce all gentleness, gaiety, and joy; it gives the right to censure others; to capture and to exterminate the infidels for the glory of god; it is very common to be religious and to have none of the virtues or the qualities necessary to social life. clxxvii.--the supposition of another life is neither consoling to man nor necessary to morality. we are assured that the dogma of another life is of the greatest importance to the peace of society; it is imagined that without it men would have no motives for doing good. why do we need terrors and fables to teach any reasonable man how he ought to conduct himself upon earth? does not each one of us see that he has the greatest interest in deserving the approbation, esteem, and kindness of the beings which surround him, and in avoiding all that can cause the censure, the contempt, and the resentment of society? no matter how short the duration of a festival, of a conversation, or of a visit may be, does not each one of us wish to act a befitting part in it, agreeable to himself and to others? if life is but a passage, let us try to make it easy; it can not be so if we lack the regards of those who travel with us. religion, which is so sadly occupied with its gloomy reveries, represents man to us as but a pilgrim upon earth; it concludes that in order to travel with more safety, he should travel alone; renounce the pleasures which he meets and deprive himself of the amusements which could console him for the fatigues and the weariness of the road. a stoical and morose philosophy sometimes gives us counsels as senseless as religion; but a more rational philosophy inspires us to strew flowers on life's pathway; to dispel melancholy and panic terrors; to link our interests with those of our traveling companions; to divert ourselves by gaiety and honest pleasures from the pains and the crosses to which we are so often exposed. we are made to feel, that in order to travel pleasantly, we should abstain from that which could become injurious to ourselves, and to avoid with great care that which could make us odious to our associates. clxxviii.--an atheist has more motives for acting uprightly, more conscience, than a religious person. it is asked what motives has an atheist for doing right. he can have the motive of pleasing himself and his fellow-creatures; of living happily and tranquilly; of making himself loved and respected by men, whose existence and whose dispositions are better known than those of a being impossible to understand. can he who fears not the gods, fear anything? he can fear men, their contempt, their disrespect, and the punishments which the laws inflict; finally, he can fear himself; he can be afraid of the remorse that all those experience whose conscience reproaches them for having deserved the hatred of their fellow-beings. conscience is the inward testimony which we render to ourselves for having acted in such a manner as to deserve the esteem or the censure of those with whom we associate. this conscience is based upon the knowledge which we have of men, and of the sentiments which our actions must awaken in them. a religious person's conscience persuades him that he has pleased or displeased his god, of whom he has no idea, and whose obscure and doubtful intentions are explained to him only by suspicious men, who know no more of the essence of divinity than he does, and who do not agree upon what can please or displease god. in a word, the conscience of a credulous man is guided by men whose own conscience is in error, or whose interest extinguishes intelligence. can an atheist have conscience? what are his motives for abstaining from secret vices and crimes of which other men are ignorant, and which are beyond the reach of laws? he can be assured by constant experience that there is no vice which, in the nature of things, does not bring its own punishment. if he wishes to preserve himself, he will avoid all those excesses which can be injurious to his health; he would not desire to live and linger, thus becoming a burden to himself and others. in regard to secret crimes, he would avoid them through fear of being ashamed of himself, from whom he can not hide. if he has reason, he will know the price of the esteem that an honest man should have for himself. he will know, besides, that unexpected circumstances can unveil to the eyes of others the conduct which he feels interested in concealing. the other world gives no motive for doing well to him who finds no motive for it here. clxxix.--an atheistical king would be preferable to one who is religious and wicked, as we often see them. the speculating atheist, the theist will tell us, may be an honest man, but his writings will cause atheism in politics. princes and ministers, being no longer restrained by the fear of god, will give themselves up without scruple to the most frightful excesses. but no matter what we can suppose of the depravity of an atheist on a throne, can it ever be any greater or more injurious than that of so many conquerors, tyrants, persecutors, of ambitious and perverse courtiers, who, without being atheists, but who, being very often religious, do not cease to make humanity groan under the weight of their crimes? can an atheistical king inflict more evil on the world than a louis xi., a philip ii., a richelieu, who have all allied religion with crime? nothing is rarer than atheistical princes, and nothing more common than very bad and very religious tyrants. clxxx.--the morality acquired by philosophy is sufficient to virtue. any man who reflects can not fail of knowing his duties, of discovering the relations which subsist between men, of meditating upon his own nature, of discerning his needs, his inclinations, and his desires, and of perceiving what he owes to the beings necessary to his own happiness. these reflections naturally lead to the knowledge of the morality which is the most essential for society. every man who loves to retire within himself in order to study and seek for the principles of things, has no very dangerous passions; his greatest passion will be to know the truth, and his greatest ambition to show it to others. philosophy is beneficial in cultivating the heart and the mind. in regard to morals, has not he who reflects and reasons the advantage over him who does not reason? if ignorance is useful to priests and to the oppressors of humanity, it is very fatal to society. man, deprived of intelligence, does not enjoy the use of his reason; man, deprived of reason and intelligence, is a savage, who is liable at any moment to be led into crime. morality, or the science of moral duties, is acquired but by the study of man and his relations. he who does not reflect for himself does not know true morals, and can not walk the road of virtue. the less men reason, the more wicked they are. the barbarians, the princes, the great, and the dregs of society, are generally the most wicked because they are those who reason the least. the religious man never reflects, and avoids reasoning; he fears examination; he follows authority; and very often an erroneous conscience makes him consider it a holy duty to commit evil. the incredulous man reasons, consults experience, and prefers it to prejudice. if he has reasoned justly, his conscience becomes clear; he finds more real motives for right-doing than the religious man, who has no motives but his chimeras, and who never listens to reason. are not the motives of the incredulous man strong enough to counterbalance his passions? is he blind enough not to recognize the interests which should restrain him? well! he will be vicious and wicked; but even then he will be no worse and no better than many credulous men who, notwithstanding religion and its sublime precepts, continue to lead a life which this very religion condemns. is a credulous murderer less to be feared than a murderer who does not believe anything? is a religious tyrant any less a tyrant than an irreligious one? clxxxi.--opinions rarely influence conduct. there is nothing more rare in the world than consistent men. their opinions do not influence their conduct, except when they conform to their temperament, their passions, and to their interests. religious opinions, according to daily experience, produce much more evil than good; they are injurious, because they very often agree with the passions of tyrants, fanatics, and priests; they produce no effect, because they have not the power to balance the present interests of the majority of men. religious principles are always put aside when they are opposed to ardent desires; without being incredulous, they act as if they believed nothing. we risk being deceived when we judge the opinions of men by their conduct or their conduct by their opinions. a very religious man, notwithstanding the austere and cruel principles of a bloody religion, will sometimes be, by a fortunate inconsistency, humane, tolerant, moderate; in this case the principles of his religion do not agree with the mildness of his disposition. a libertine, a debauchee, a hypocrite, an adulterer, or a thief will often show us that he has the clearest ideas of morals. why do they not practice them? it is because neither their temperament, their interests, nor their habits agree with their sublime theories. the rigid principles of christian morality, which so many attempt to pass off as divine, have but very little influence upon the conduct of those who preach them to others. do they not tell us every day to do what they preach, and not what they practice? the religious partisans generally designate the incredulous as libertines. it may be that many incredulous people are immoral; this immorality is due to their temperament, and not to their opinions. but what has their conduct to do with these opinions? can not an immoral man be a good physician, a good architect, a good geometer, a good logician, a good metaphysician? with an irreproachable conduct, one can be ignorant upon many things, and reason very badly. when truth is presented, it matters not from whom it comes. let us not judge men by their opinions, or opinions by men; let us judge men by their conduct; and their opinions by their conformity with experience, reason, and their usefulness for mankind. clxxxii.---reason leads men to irreligion and to atheism, because religion is absurd, and the god of the priests is a malicious and ferocious being. every man who reasons soon becomes incredulous, because reasoning proves to him that theology is but a tissue of falsehoods; that religion is contrary to all principles of common sense; that it gives a false color to all human knowledge. the rational man becomes incredulous, because he sees that religion, far from rendering men happier, is the first cause of the greatest disorders, and of the permanent calamities with which the human race is afflicted. the man who seeks his well-being and his own tranquillity, examines his religion and is undeceived, because he finds it inconvenient and useless to pass his life in trembling at phantoms which are made but to intimidate silly women or children. if, sometimes, libertinage, which reasons but little, leads to irreligion, the man who is regular in his morals can have very legitimate motives for examining his religion, and for banishing it from his mind. too weak to intimidate the wicked, in whom vice has become deeply rooted, religious terrors afflict, torment, and burden imaginative minds. if souls have courage and elasticity, they shake off a yoke which they bear unwillingly. if weak or timorous, they wear the yoke during their whole life, and they grow old, trembling, or at least they live under burdensome uncertainty. the priests have made of god such a malicious, ferocious being, so ready to be vexed, that there are few men in the world who do not wish at the bottom of their hearts that this god did not exist. we can not live happy if we are always in fear. you worship a terrible god, o religious people! alas! and yet you hate him; you wish that he was not. can we avoid wishing the absence or the destruction of a master, the idea of whom can but torment the mind? it is the dark colors in which the priests paint the deity which revolt men, moving them to hate and reject him. clxxxiii.--fear alone creates theists and bigots. if fear has created the gods, fear still holds their empire in the mind of mortals; they have been so early accustomed to tremble even at the name of the deity, that it has become for them a specter, a goblin, a were-wolf which torments them, and whose idea deprives them even of the courage to attempt to reassure themselves. they are afraid that this invisible specter will strike them if they cease to be afraid. the religious people fear their god too much to love him sincerely; they serve him as slaves, who can not escape his power, and take the part of flattering their master; and who, by continually lying, persuade themselves that they love him. they make a virtue of necessity. the love of religious bigots for their god, and of slaves for their despots, is but a servile and simulated homage which they render by compulsion, in which the heart has no part. clxxxiv.--can we, or should we, love or not love god? the christian doctors have made their god so little worthy of love, that several among them have thought it their duty not to love him; this is a blasphemy which makes less sincere doctors tremble. saint thomas, having asserted that we are under obligation to love god as soon as we can use our reason, the jesuit sirmond replied to him that that was very soon; the jesuit vasquez claims that it is sufficient to love god in the hour of death; hurtado says that we should love god at all times; henriquez is content with loving him every five years; sotus, every sunday. "upon what shall we rely?" asks father sirmond, who adds: "that suarez desires that we should love god sometimes. but at what time? he allows you to judge of it; he knows nothing about it himself; for he adds: 'what a learned doctor does not know, who can know?'" the same jesuit sirmond continues, by saying: "that god does not command us to love him with human affection, and does not promise us salvation but on condition of giving him our hearts; it is enough to obey him and to love him, by fulfilling his commandments; that this is the only love which we owe him, and he has not commanded so much to love him as not to hate him." [see "apology, des lettres provinciales," tome ii.] this doctrine appears heretical, ungodly, and abominable to the jansenists, who, by the revolting severity which they attribute to their god, render him still less lovable than their adversaries, the jesuits. the latter, in order to make converts, represent god in such a light as to give confidence to the most perverse mortals. thus, nothing is less established among the christians than the important question, whether we can or should love or not love god. among their spiritual guides some pretend that we must love god with all the heart, notwithstanding all his severity; others, like the father daniel, think that an act of pure love of god is the most heroic act of christian virtue, and that human weakness can scarcely reach so high. the jesuit pintereau goes still further; he says: "the deliverance from the grievous yoke of divine love is a privilege of the new alliance." clxxxv.--the various and contradictory ideas which exist everywhere upon god and religion, prove that they are but idle fancies. it is always the character of man which decides upon the character of his god; each one creates a god for himself, and in his own image. the cheerful man who indulges in pleasures and dissipation, can not imagine god to be an austere and rebukeful being; he requires a facile god with whom he can make an agreement. the severe, sour, bilious man wants a god like himself; one who inspires fear; and regards as perverse those that accept only a god who is yielding and easily won over. heresies, quarrels, and schisms are necessary. can men differently organized and modified by diverse circumstances, agree in regard to an imaginary being which exists but in their own brains? the cruel and interminable disputes continually arising among the ministers of the lord, have not a tendency to attract the confidence of those who take an impartial view of them. how can we help our incredulity, when we see principles about which those who teach them to others, never agree? how can we avoid doubting the existence of a god, the idea of whom varies in such a remarkable way in the mind of his ministers? how can we avoid rejecting totally a god who is full of contradictions? how can we rely upon priests whom we see continually contending, accusing each other of being infidels and heretics, rending and persecuting each other without mercy, about the way in which they understand the pretended truths which they reveal to the world? clxxxvi.--the existence of god, which is the basis of all religion, has not yet been demonstrated. however, so far, this important truth has not yet been demonstrated, not only to the incredulous, but in a satisfactory way to theologians themselves. in all times, we have seen profound thinkers who thought they had new proofs of the truth most important to men. what have been the fruits of their meditations and of their arguments? they left the thing at the same point; they have demonstrated nothing; nearly always they have excited the clamors of their colleagues, who accuse them of having badly defended the best of causes. clxxxvii.--priests, more than unbelievers, act from interest. the apologists of religion repeat to us every day that the passions alone create unbelievers. "it is," they say, "pride, and a desire to distinguish themselves, that make atheists; they seek also to efface the idea of god from their minds, because they have reason to fear his rigorous judgments." whatever may be the motives which cause men to be irreligious, the thing in question is whether they have found truth. no man acts without motives; let us first examine the arguments--we shall examine the motives afterward--and we shall find that they are more legitimate, and more sensible, than those of many credulous devotees who allow themselves to be guided by masters little worthy of men's confidence. you say, o priests of the lord! that the passions cause unbelievers; you pretend that they renounce religion through interest, or because it interferes with their irregular inclinations; you assert that they attack your gods because they fear their punishments. ah! yourselves in defending this religion and its chimeras, are you, then, really exempt from passions and interests? who receive the fees of this religion, on whose behalf the priests are so zealous? it is the priests. to whom does religion procure power, credit, honors, wealth? to the priests! in all countries, who make war upon reason, science, truth, and philosophy and render them odious to the sovereigns and to the people? who profit by the ignorance of men and their vain prejudices? the priests! you are, o priests, rewarded, honored, and paid for deceiving mortals, and you punish those who undeceive them. the follies of men procure you blessings, offerings, expiations; the most useful truths bring to those who announce them, chains, sufferings, stakes. let the world judge between us. clxxxviii.--pride, presumption, and corruption of the heart are more often found among priests than among atheists and unbelievers. pride and vanity always were and always will be the inherent vices of the priesthood. is there anything that has a tendency to render men haughty and vain more than the assumption of exercising heavenly power, of possessing a sacred character, of being the messengers of the most high? are not these dispositions continually increased by the credulity of the people, by the deference and the respect of the sovereigns, by the immunities, the privileges, and the distinctions which the clergy enjoy? the common man is, in every country, more devoted to his spiritual guides, whom he considers as divine men, than to his temporal superiors, whom he considers as ordinary men. village priests enjoy more honor than the lord or the judge. a christian priest believes himself far above a king or an emperor. a spanish grandee having spoken hastily to a monk, the latter said to him, arrogantly, "learn to respect a man who has every day your god in his hands and your queen at his feet." have the priests any right to accuse the unbelievers of pride? do they distinguish themselves by a rare modesty or profound humility? is it not evident that the desire to domineer over men is the essence of their profession? if the lord's ministers were truly modest, would we see them so greedy of respect, so easily irritated by contradictions, so prompt and so cruel in revenging themselves upon those whose opinions offend them? does not modest science impress us with the difficulty of unraveling truth? what other passion than frenzied pride can render men so ferocious, so vindictive, so devoid of toleration and gentleness? what is more presumptuous than to arm nations and cause rivers of blood, in order to establish or to defend futile conjectures? you say, o doctors of divinity! that it is presumption alone which makes atheists. teach them, then, what your god is; instruct them about his essence; speak of him in an intelligible way; tell of him reasonable things, which are not contradictory or impossible! if you are not in the condition to satisfy them; if, so far, none of you have been able to demonstrate the existence of a god in a clear and convincing way; if, according to your own confession, his essence is as much hidden from you as from the rest of mortals, pardon those who can not admit that which they can neither understand nor reconcile. do not accuse of presumption and vanity those who have the sincerity to confess their ignorance; accuse not of folly those who find it impossible to believe in contradictions. you should blush at the thought of exciting the hatred of the people and the vengeance of the sovereigns against men who do not think as you do upon a being of whom you have no idea yourselves. is there anything more audacious and more extravagant than to reason about an object which it is impossible to conceive of? you tell us it is corruption of the heart which produces atheists; that they shake off the yoke of the deity because they fear his terrible judgments. but why do you paint your god in such black colors? why does this powerful god permit that such corrupt hearts should exist? why should we not make efforts to break the yoke of a tyrant who, being able to make of the hearts of men what he pleases, allows them to become perverted and hardened; blinds them; refuses them his grace, in order to have the satisfaction of punishing them eternally for having been hardened, blinded, and not having received the grace which he refused them? the theologians and the priests must feel themselves very sure of heaven's grace and of a happy future, in order not to detest a master so capricious as the god whom they announce to us. a god who damns eternally must be the most odious being that the human mind could imagine. clxxxix.--prejudices are but for a time, and no power is durable except it is based upon truth, reason, and equity. no man on earth is truly interested in sustaining error; sooner or later it is compelled to surrender to truth. general interest tends to the enlightenment of mortals; even the passions sometimes contribute to the breaking of some of the chains of prejudice. have not the passions of some sovereigns destroyed, within the past two centuries in some countries of europe, the tyrannical power which a haughty pontiff formerly exercised over all the princes of his sect? politics, becoming more enlightened, has despoiled the clergy of an immense amount of property which credulity had accumulated in their hands. should not this memorable example make even the priests realize that prejudices are but for a time, and that truth alone is capable of assuring a substantial well-being? have not the ministers of the lord seen that in pampering the sovereigns, in forging divine rights for them, and in delivering to them the people, bound hand and foot, they were making tyrants of them? have they not reason to fear that these gigantic idols, whom they have raised to the skies, will crush them also some day? do not a thousand examples prove that they ought to fear that these unchained lions, after having devoured nations, will in turn devour them? we will respect the priests when they become citizens. let them make use, if they can, of heaven's authority to create fear in those princes who incessantly desolate the earth; let them deprive them of the right of being unjust; let them recognize that no subject of a state enjoys living under tyranny; let them make the sovereigns feel that they themselves are not interested in exercising a power which, rendering them odious, injures their own safety, their own power, their own grandeur; finally, let the priests and the undeceived kings recognize that no power is safe that is not based upon truth, reason, and equity. cxc.--how much power and consideration the ministers of the gods would have, if they became the apostles of reason and the defenders of liberty! the ministers of the gods, in warring against human reason, which they ought to develop, act against their own interest. what would be their power, their consideration, their empire over the wisest men; what would be the gratitude of the people toward them if, instead of occupying themselves with their vain quarrels, they had applied themselves to the useful sciences; if they had sought the true principles of physics, of government, and of morals. who would dare reproach the opulence and credit of a corporation which, consecrating its leisure and its authority to the public good, should use the one for studying and meditating, and the other for enlightening equally the minds of the sovereigns and the subjects? priests! lay aside your idle fancies, your unintelligible dogmas, your despicable quarrels; banish to imaginary regions these phantoms, which could be of use to you only in the infancy of nations; take the tone of reason, instead of sounding the tocsin of persecution against your adversaries; instead of entertaining the people with foolish disputes, of preaching useless and fanatical virtues, preach to them humane and social morality; preach to them virtues which are really useful to the world; become the apostles of reason, the lights of the nations, the defenders of liberty, reformers of abuses, the friends of truth, and we will bless you, we will honor you, we will love you, and you will be sure of holding an eternal empire over the hearts of your fellow-beings. cxci.--what a happy and great revolution would take place in the universe, if philosophy was substituted for religion! philosophers, in all ages, have taken the part that seemed destined for the ministers of religion. the hatred of the latter for philosophy was never more than professional jealousy. all men accustomed to think, instead of seeking to injure each other, should unite their efforts in combating errors, in seeking truth, and especially in dispelling the prejudices from which the sovereigns and subjects suffer alike, and whose upholders themselves finish, sooner or later, by becoming the victims. in the hands of an enlightened government the priests would become the most useful of citizens. could men with rich stipends from the state, and relieved of the care of providing for their own subsistence, do anything better than to instruct themselves in order to be able to instruct others? would not their minds be better satisfied in discovering truth than in wandering in the labyrinths of darkness? would it be any more difficult to unravel the principles of man's morals, than the imaginary principles of divine and theological morals? would ordinary men have as much trouble in understanding the simple notions of their duties, as in charging their memories with mysteries, unintelligible words, and obscure definitions which are impossible for them to understand? how much time and trouble is lost in trying to teach men things which are of no use to them. what resources for the public benefit, for encouraging the progress of the sciences and the advancement of knowledge, for the education of youth, are presented to well-meaning sovereigns through so many monasteries, which, in a great number of countries devour the people's substance without an equivalent. but superstition, jealous of its exclusive empire, seems to have formed but useless beings. what advantage could not be drawn from a multitude of cenobites of both sexes whom we see in so many countries, and who are so well paid to do nothing. instead of occupying them with sterile contemplations, with mechanical prayers, with monotonous practices; instead of burdening them with fasts and austerities, let there be excited among them a salutary emulation that would inspire them to seek the means of serving usefully the world, which their fatal vows oblige them to renounce. instead of filling the youthful minds of their pupils with fables, dogmas, and puerilities, why not invite or oblige the priests to teach them true things, and so make of them citizens useful to their country? the way in which men are brought up makes them useful but to the clergy, who blind them, and to the tyrants, who plunder them. cxcii.--the retraction of an unbeliever at the hour of death, proves nothing against incredulity. the adherents of credulity often accuse the unbelievers of bad faith because they sometimes waver in their principles, changing opinions during sickness, and retracting them at the hour of death. when the body is diseased, the faculty of reasoning is generally disturbed also. the infirm and decrepit man, in approaching his end, sometimes perceives himself that reason is leaving him, he feels that prejudice returns. there are diseases which have a tendency to lessen courage, to make pusillanimous, and to enfeeble the brain; there are others which, in destroying the body, do not affect the reason. however, an unbeliever who retracts in sickness, is not more rare or more extraordinary than a devotionist who permits himself, while in health, to neglect the duties that his religion prescribes for him in the most formal manner. cleomenes, king of sparta, having shown little respect for the gods during his reign, became superstitious in his last days; with the view of interesting heaven in his favor, he called around him a multitude of sacrificing priests. one of his friends expressing his surprise, cleomenes said: "what are you astonished at? i am no longer what i was, and not being the same, i can not think in the same way." the ministers of religion in their daily conduct, often belie the rigorous principles which they teach to others, so that the unbelievers in their turn think they have a right to accuse them of bad faith. if some unbelievers contradict, in sight of death or during sickness, the opinions which they entertained in health, do not the priests in health belie opinions of the religion which they hold? do we see a great multitude of humble, generous prelates devoid of ambition, enemies of pomp and grandeur, the friends of poverty? in short, do we see the conduct of many christian priests corresponding with the austere morality of christ, their god and their model? cxciii.--it is not true that atheism sunders all the ties of society. atheism, we are told, breaks all social ties. without belief in god, what becomes of the sacredness of the oath? how can we bind an atheist who can not seriously attest the deity? but does the oath place us under stronger obligations to the engagements which we make? whoever dares to lie, will he not dare to perjure himself? he who is base enough to violate his word, or unjust enough to break his promises in contempt of the esteem of men, will not be more faithful for having taken all the gods as witnesses to his oaths. those who rank themselves above the judgments of men, will soon put themselves above the judgments of god. are not princes, of all mortals, the most prompt in taking oaths, and the most prompt in violating them? cxciv.--refutation of the assertion that religion is necessary for the masses. religion, they tell us, is necessary for the masses; that though enlightened persons may not need restraint upon their opinions, it is necessary at least for the common people, in whom education has not developed reason. is it true, then, that religion is a restraint for the people? do we see that this religion prevents them from intemperance, drunkenness, brutality, violence, frauds, and all kinds of excesses? could a people who had no idea of the deity, conduct itself in a more detestable manner than many believing people in whom we see dissolute habits, and the vices most unworthy of rational beings? do we not see the artisan or the man of the people go from his church and plunge headlong into his usual excesses, persuading himself all the while that his periodical homage to god gives him the right to follow without remorse his vicious practices and habitual inclinations? if the people are gross and ignorant, is not their stupidity due to the negligence of the princes who do not attend to the public education, or who oppose the instruction of their subjects? finally, is not the irrationality of the people plainly the work of the priests, who, instead of interesting them in a rational morality, do nothing but entertain them with fables, phantoms, intrigues, observances, idle fancies, and false virtues, upon which they claim that everything depends? religion is, for the people, but a vain attendance upon ceremonies, to which they cling from habit, which amuses their eyes, which enlivens temporarily their sleepy minds, without influencing the conduct, and without correcting their morals. by the confession even of the ministers at the altars, nothing is more rare than the interior and spiritual religion, which is alone capable of regulating the life of man, and of triumphing over his inclinations. in good faith, among the most numerous and the most devotional people, are there many capable of understanding the principles of their religious system, and who find them of sufficient strength to stifle their perverse inclinations? many people will tell us that it is better to have some kind of a restraint than none at all. they will pretend that if religion does not control the great mass, it serves at least to restrain some individuals, who, without it, would abandon themselves to crime without remorse. no doubt it is necessary for men to have a restraint; but they do not need an imaginary one; they need true and visible restraints; they need real fears, which are much better to restrain them than panic terrors and idle fancies. religion frightens but a few pusillanimous minds, whose weakness of character already renders them little to be dreaded by their fellow-citizens. an equitable government, severe laws, a sound morality, will apply equally to everybody; every one would be forced to believe in it, and would feel the danger of not conforming to it. cxcv.--every rational system is not made for the multitude. we may be asked if atheism can suit the multitude? i reply, that every system which demands discussion is not for the multitude. what use is there, then, in preaching atheism? it can at least make those who reason, feel that nothing is more extravagant than to make ourselves uneasy, and nothing more unjust than to cause anxiety to others on account of conjectures, destitute of all foundation. as to the common man, who never reasons, the arguments of an atheist are no better suited to him than a philosopher's hypothesis, an astronomer's observations, a chemist's experiments, a geometer's calculations, a physician's examinations, an architect's designs, or a lawyer's pleadings, who all labor for the people without their knowledge. the metaphysical arguments of theology, and the religious disputes which have occupied for so long many profound visionists, are they made any more for the common man than the arguments of an atheist? more than this, the principles of atheism, founded upon common sense, are they not more intelligible than those of a theology which we see bristling with insolvable difficulties, even for the most active minds? the people in every country have a religion which they do not understand, which they do not examine, and which they follow but by routine; their priests alone occupy themselves with the theology which is too sublime for them. if, by accident, the people should lose this unknown theology, they could console them selves for the loss of a thing which is not only entirely useless, but which produces among them very dangerous ebullitions. it would be very foolish to write for the common man or to attempt to cure his prejudices all at once. we write but for those who read and reason; the people read but little, and reason less. sensible and peaceable people enlighten themselves; their light spreads itself gradually, and in time reaches the people. on the other hand, those who deceive men, do they not often take the trouble themselves of undeceiving them? cxcvi.--futility and danger of theology. wise counsels to princes. if theology is a branch of commerce useful to theologians, it has been demonstrated to be superfluous and injurious to the rest of society. the interests of men will succeed in opening their eyes sooner or later. the sovereigns and the people will some day discover the indifference and the contempt that a futile science deserves which serves but to trouble men without making them better. they will feel the uselessness of many expensive practices, which do not at all contribute to public welfare; they will blush at many pitiful quarrels, which will cease to disturb the tranquillity of the states as soon as they cease to attach any importance to them. princes! instead of taking part in the senseless contentions of your priests, instead of espousing foolishly their impertinent quarrels, instead of striving to bring all your subjects to uniform opinions, occupy yourselves with their happiness in this world, and do not trouble yourselves about the fate which awaits them in another. govern them justly, give them good laws, respect their liberty and their property, superintend their education, encourage them in their labors, reward their talents and their virtues, repress their licentiousness, and do not trouble yourselves upon what they think about objects useless to them and to you. then you will no longer need fictions to make yourselves obeyed; you will become the only guides of your subjects; their ideas will be uniform about the feelings of love and respect which will be your due. theological fables are useful but to tyrants, who do not understand the art of ruling over reasonable beings. cxcvii.--fatal effects of religion upon the people and the princes. does it require the efforts of genius to comprehend that what is beyond man, is not made for men; that what is supernatural, is not made for natural beings; that impenetrable mysteries are not made for limited minds? if theologians are foolish enough to dispute about subjects which they acknowledge to be unintelligible to themselves, should society take a part in their foolish quarrels? must human blood flow in order to give value to the conjectures of a few obstinate visionists? if it is very difficult to cure the theologians of their mania and the people of their prejudices, it is at least very easy to prevent the extravagances of the one and the folly of the other from producing pernicious effects. let each one be allowed to think as he chooses, but let him not be allowed to annoy others for their mode of thinking. if the chiefs of nations were more just and more sensible, theological opinions would not disturb the public tranquillity any more than the disputes of philosophers, physicians, grammarians, and of critics. it is the tyranny of princes which makes theological quarrels have serious consequences. when kings shall cease to meddle with theology, theological quarrels will no longer be a thing to fear. those who boast so much upon the importance and usefulness of religion, ought to show us its beneficial results, and the advantages that the disputes and abstract speculations of theology can bring to porters, to artisans, to farmers, to fishmongers, to women, and to so many depraved servants, with whom the large cities are filled. people of this kind are all religious, they have implicit faith; their priests believe for them; they accept a faith unknown to their guides; they listen assiduously to sermons; they assist regularly in ceremonies; they think it a great crime to transgress the ordinances to which from childhood they have been taught to conform. what good to morality results from all this? none whatever; they have no idea of morality, and you see them indulge in all kinds of rogueries, frauds, rapine, and excesses which the law does not punish. the masses, in truth, have no idea of religion; what is called religion, is but a blind attachment to unknown opinions and mysterious dealings. in fact, to deprive the people of religion, is depriving them of nothing. if we should succeed in destroying their prejudices, we would but diminish or annihilate the dangerous confidence which they have in self-interested guides, and teach them to beware of those who, under the pretext of religion, very often lead them into fatal excesses. cxcviii.--continuation. under pretext of instructing and enlightening men, religion really holds them in ignorance, and deprives them even of the desire of understanding the objects which interest them the most. there exists for the people no other rule of conduct than that which their priests indicate to them. religion takes the place of everything; but being in darkness itself, it has a greater tendency to misguide mortals, than to guide them in the way of science and happiness. philosophy, morality, legislation, and politics are to them enigmas. man, blinded by religious prejudices, finds it impossible to understand his own nature, to cultivate his reason, to make experiments; he fears truth as soon as it does not agree with his opinions. everything tends to render the people devout, but all is opposed to their being humane, reasonable, and virtuous. religion seems to have for its object only to blunt the feeling and to dull the intelligence of men. the war which always existed between the priests and the best minds of all ages, comes from this, that the wise men perceived the fetters which superstition wished to place upon the human mind, which it fain would keep in eternal infancy, that it might be occupied with fables, burdened with terrors, and frightened by phantoms which would prevent it from progressing. incapable of perfecting itself, theology opposed insurmountable barriers to the progress of true knowledge; it seemed to be occupied but with the care to keep the nations and their chiefs in the most profound ignorance of their true interests, of their relations, of their duties, of the real motives which can lead them to prosperity; it does but obscure morality; renders its principles arbitrary, subjects it to the caprices of the gods, or of their ministers; it converts the art of governing men into a mysterious tyranny which becomes the scourge of nations; it changes the princes into unjust and licentious despots, and the people into ignorant slaves, who corrupt themselves in order to obtain the favor of their masters. cxcix.--history teaches us that all religions were established by the aid of ignorance, and by men who had thu effrontery to style themselves the envoys of divinity. if we take the trouble to follow the history of the human mind, we will discover that theology took care not to extend its limits. it began by repeating fables, which it claimed to be sacred truths; it gave birth to poesy, which filled the people's imagination with puerile fictions; it entertained them but with its gods and their incredible feats; in a word, religion always treated men like children, whom they put to sleep with tales that their ministers would like still to pass as incontestable truths. if the ministers of the gods sometimes made useful discoveries, they always took care to hide them in enigmas and to envelope them in shadows of mystery. the pythagorases and the platos, in order to acquire some futile attainments, were obliged to crawl to the feet of the priests, to become initiated into their mysteries, to submit to the tests which they desired to impose upon them; it is at this cost that they were permitted to draw from the fountain-head their exalted ideas, so seducing still to all those who admire what is unintelligible. it was among egyptian, indian, chaldean priests; it was in the schools of these dreamers, interested by profession in dethroning human reason, that philosophy was obliged to borrow its first rudiments. obscure or false in its principles, mingled with fictions and fables, solely made to seduce imagination, this philosophy progressed but waveringly, and instead of enlightening the mind, it blinded it, and turned it away from useful objects. the theological speculations and mystical reveries of the ancients have, even in our days, the making of the law in a great part of the philosophical world. adopted by modern theology, we can scarcely deviate from them without heresy; they entertain us with aerial beings, with spirits, angels, demons, genii, and other phantoms, which are the object of the meditations of our most profound thinkers, and which serve as a basis to metaphysics, an abstract and futile science, upon which the greatest geniuses have vainly exercised themselves for thousands of years. thus hypotheses, invented by a few visionists of memphis and of babylon, continue to be the basis of a science revered for the obscurity which makes it pass as marvelous and divine. the first legislators of nations were priests; the first mythologists and poets were priests; the first philosophers were priests; the first physicians were priests. in their hands science became a sacred thing, prohibited to the profane; they spoke only by allegories, emblems, enigmas, and ambiguous oracles--means well-suited to excite curiosity, to put to work the imagination, and especially to inspire in the ignorant man a holy respect for those whom he believed instructed by heaven, capable of reading the destinies of earth, and who boldly pretended to be the organs of divinity. cc.--all religions, ancient and modern, have mutually borrowed their abstract reveries and their ridiculous practices. the religions of these ancient priests have disappeared, or, rather, they have changed their form. although our modern theologians regard the ancient priests as impostors, they have taken care to gather up the scattered fragments of their religious systems, the whole of which does not exist any longer for us; we will find in our modern religions, not only the metaphysical dogmas which theology has but dressed in another form, but we still find remarkable remains of their superstitious practices, of their theurgy, of their magic, of their enchantments. christians are still commanded to regard with respect the monuments of the legislators, the priests, and the prophets of the hebrew religion, which, according to appearances, has borrowed from egypt the fantastic notions with which we see it filled. thus the extravagances invented by frauds or idolatrous visionists, are still regarded as sacred opinions by the christians! if we but look at history, we see striking resemblances in all religions. everywhere on earth we find religious ideas periodically afflicting and rejoicing the people; everywhere we see rites, practices often abominable, and formidable mysteries occupying the mind, and becoming objects of meditation. we see the different superstitions borrowing from each other their abstract reveries and their ceremonies. religions are generally unformed rhapsodies combined by new doctors of divinity, who, in composing them, have used the materials of their predecessors, reserving the right of adding or subtracting what suits or does not suit their present views. the religion of egypt served evidently as a basis for the religion of moses, who expunged from it the worship of idols. moses was but an egyptian schismatic, christianity is but a reformed judaism. mohammedanism is composed of judaism, of christianity, and of the ancient religion of arabia. cci.--theology has always turned philosophy from its true course. from the most remote period theology alone regulated the march of philosophy. what aid has it lent it? it changed it into an unintelligible jargon, which only had a tendency to render the clearest truth uncertain; it converted the art of reasoning into a science of words; it threw the human mind into the aerial regions of metaphysics, where it unsuccessfully occupied itself in sounding useless and dangerous abysses. for physical and simple causes, this philosophy substituted supernatural causes, or, rather, causes truly occult; it explained difficult phenomena by agents more inconceivable than these phenomena; it filled discourse with words void of sense, incapable of giving the reason of things, better suited to obscure than to enlighten, and which seem invented but to discourage man, to guard him against the powers of his own mind, to make him distrust the principles of reason and evidence, and to surround the truth with an insurmountable barrier. ccii.---theology neither explains nor enlightens anything in the world or in nature. if we would believe the adherents of religion, nothing could be explicable in the world without it; nature would be a continual enigma; it would be impossible for man to comprehend himself. but, at the bottom, what does this religion explain to us? the more we examine it, the more we find that theological notions are fit but to perplex all our ideas; they change all into mysteries; they explain to us difficult things by impossible things. is it, then, explaining things to attribute them to unknown agencies, to invisible powers, to immaterial causes? is it really enlightening the human mind when, in its embarrassment, it is directed to the "depths of the treasures of divine wisdom," upon which they tell us it is in vain for us to turn our bold regards? can the divine nature, which we know nothing about, make us understand man's nature, which we find so difficult to explain? ask a christian philosopher what is the origin of the world. he will answer that god created the universe. what is god? we do not know anything about it. what is it to create? we have no idea of it! what is the cause of pestilences, famines, wars, sterility, inundations, earthquakes? it is god's wrath. what remedies can prevent these calamities? prayers, sacrifices, processions, offerings, ceremonies, are, we are told, the true means to disarm celestial fury. but why is heaven angry? because men are wicked. why are men wicked? because their nature is corrupt. what is the cause of this corruption? it is, a theologian of enlightened europe will reply, because the first man was seduced by the first woman to eat of an apple which his god had forbidden him to touch. who induced this woman to do such a folly? the devil. who created the devil? god! why did god create this devil destined to pervert the human race? we know nothing about it; it is a mystery hidden in the bosom of the deity. does the earth revolve around the sun? two centuries ago a devout philosopher would have replied that such a thought was blasphemy, because such a system could not agree with the holy book, which every christian reveres as inspired by the deity himself. what is the opinion to-day about it? notwithstanding divine inspiration, the christian philosophers finally concluded to rely upon evidence rather than upon the testimony of their inspired books. what is the hidden principle of the actions and of the motions of the human body? it is the soul. what is a soul? it is a spirit. what is a spirit? it is a substance which has neither form, color, expansion, nor parts. how can we conceive of such a substance? how can it move a body? we know nothing about it. have brutes souls? the carthusian assures you that they are machines. but do we not see them act, feel, and think in a manner which resembles that of men? this is a pure illusion, you say. but why do you deprive the brutes of souls, which, without understanding it, you attribute to men? it is that the souls of the brutes would embarrass our theologians, who, content with the power of frightening and damning the immortal souls of men, do not take the same interest in damning those of the brutes. such are the puerile solutions which philosophy, always guided by the leading-strings of theology, was obliged to bring forth to explain the problems of the physical and moral world. cciii.--how theology has fettered human morals and retarded the progress of enlightenment, of reason, and of truth. how many subterfuges and mental gymnastics all the ancient and modern thinkers have employed, in order to avoid falling out with the ministers of the gods, who in all ages were the true tyrants of thought! how descartes, malebranche, leibnitz, and many others have been compelled to invent hypotheses and evasions in order to reconcile their discoveries with the reveries and the blunders which religion had rendered sacred! with what prevarications have not the greatest philosophers guarded themselves even at the risk of being absurd, inconsistent, and unintelligible whenever their ideas did not correspond with the principles of theology! vigilant priests were always ready to extinguish systems which could not be made to tally with their interests. theology in every age has been the bed of procrustes upon which this brigand extended his victims; he cut off the limbs when they were too long, or stretched them by horses when they were shorter than the bed upon which he placed them. what sensible man who has a love for science, and is interested in the welfare of humanity, can reflect without sorrow and pain upon the loss of so many profound, laborious, and subtle heads, who, for many centuries, have foolishly exhausted themselves upon idle fancies that proved to be injurious to our race? what light could have been thrown into the minds of many famous thinkers, if, instead of occupying themselves with a useless theology, and its impertinent disputes, they had turned their attention upon intelligible and truly important objects. half of the efforts that it cost the genius that was able to forge their religious opinions, half of the expense which their frivolous worship cost the nations, would have sufficed to enlighten them perfectly upon morality, politics, philosophy, medicine, agriculture, etc. superstition nearly always absorbs the attention, the admiration, and the treasures of the people; they have a very expensive religion; but they have for their money, neither light, virtue, nor happiness. cciv.--continuation. some ancient and modern philosophers have had the courage to accept experience and reason as their guides, and to shake off the chains of superstition. lucippe, democritus, epicurus, straton, and some other greeks, dared to tear away the thick veil of prejudice, and to deliver philosophy from theological fetters. but their systems, too simple, too sensible, and too stripped of wonders for the lovers of fancy, were obliged to surrender to the fabulous conjectures of plato, socrates, and zeno. among the moderns, hobbes, spinoza, bayle, and others have followed the path of epicurus, but their doctrine found but few votaries in a world still too much infatuated with fables to listen to reason. in all ages one could not, without imminent danger, lay aside the prejudices which opinion had rendered sacred. no one was permitted to make discoveries of any kind; all that the most enlightened men could do was to speak and write with hidden meaning; and often, by a cowardly complaisance, to shamefully ally falsehood with truth. a few of them had a double doctrine--one public and the other secret. the key of this last having been lost, their true sentiments often became unintelligible and, consequently, useless to us. how could modern philosophers who, being threatened with the most cruel persecution, were called upon to renounce reason and to submit to faith--that is to say, to priestly authority--i say, how could men thus fettered give free flight to their genius, perfect reason, or hasten human progress? it was but in fear and trembling that the greatest men obtained glimpses of truth; they rarely had the courage to announce it; those who dared to do it have generally been punished for their temerity. thanks to religion, it was never permitted to think aloud or to combat the prejudices of which man is everywhere the victim or the dupe. ccv.--we could not repeat too often how extravagant and fatal religion is. every man who has the boldness to announce truths to the world, is sure to receive the hatred of the priests; the latter loudly call upon the powers that be, for assistance; they need the assistance of kings to sustain their arguments and their gods. these clamors show the weakness of their cause. "they are in embarrassment when they cry for help." it is not permitted to err in the matter of religion; on every other subject we can be deceived with impunity; we pity those who go astray, and we have some liking for the persons who discover truths new to us. but as soon as theology supposes itself concerned, be it in errors or discoveries, a holy zeal is kindled; the sovereigns exterminate; the people fly into frenzy; and the nations are all stirred up without knowing why. is there anything more afflicting than to see public and individual welfare depend upon a futile science, which is void of principles, which has no standing ground but imagination, and which presents to the mind but words void of sense? what good is a religion which no one understands; which continually torments those who trouble themselves about it; which is incapable of rendering men better; and which often gives them the credit of being unjust and wicked? is there a more deplorable folly, and one that ought more to be abated, than that which, far from doing any good to the human race, does but blind it, cause transports, and render it miserable, depriving it of truth, which alone can soften the rigor of fate? ccvi.--religion is pandora's box, and this fatal box is open. religion has in every age kept the human mind in darkness and held it in ignorance of its true relations, of its real duties and its true interests. it is but in removing its clouds and phantoms that we may find the sources of truth, reason, morality, and the actual motives which inspire virtue. this religion puts us on the wrong track for the causes of our evils, and the natural remedies which we can apply. far from curing them, it can but multiply them and render them more durable. let us, then, say, with the celebrated lord bolingbroke, in his posthumous works: "theology is the box of pandora; and if it is impossible to close it, it is at least useful to give warning that this fatal box is open." ***** i believe, my dear friends, that i have given you a sufficient preventative against all these follies. your reason will do more than my discourses, and i sincerely wish that we had only to complain of being deceived! but human blood has flowed since the time of constantine for the establishment of these horrible impositions. the roman, the greek, and the protestant churches by vain, ambitious, and hypocritical disputes have ravaged europe, asia, and africa. add to these men, whom these quarrels murdered, the multitudes of monks and of nuns, who became sterile by their profession, and you will perceive that the christian religion has destroyed half of the human race. i conclude with the desire that we may return to nature, whose declared enemy the christian religion is, and which necessarily instructs us to do unto others as we would wish them to do unto us. then the universe will be composed of good citizens, just fathers, obedient children, tender friends. nature has given us this religion, in giving us reason. may fanaticism pervert it no more! i die filled with these desires more than with hope. etrepigny, march 15, 1732 john meslier abstract of the testament of john meslier by voltaire; or, sentiments of the curate of etrepigny addressed to his parishioners. i.--of religions. as there is no one religious denomination which does not pretend to be truly founded upon the authority of god, and entirely exempt from all the errors and impositions which are found in the others, it is for those who purpose to establish the truth of the faith of their sect, to show, by clear and convincing proofs, that it is of divine origin; as this is lacking, we must conclude that it is but of human invention, and full of errors and deceptions; for it is incredible that an omnipotent and infinitely good god would have desired to give laws and ordinances to men, and not have wished them to bear better authenticated marks of truth, than those of the numerous impostors. moreover, there is not one of our christ-worshipers, of whatever sect he may be, who can make us see, by convincing proofs, that his religion is exclusively of divine origin; and for want of such proof they have been for many centuries contesting this subject among themselves, even to persecuting each other by fire and sword to maintain their opinions; there is, however, not one sect of them all which could convince and persuade the others by such witnesses of truth; this certainly would not be, if they had, on one side or the other, convincing proofs of divine origin. for, as no one of any religious sect, enlightened and of good faith, pretends to hold and to favor error and falsehood; and as, on the contrary, each, on his side, pretends to sustain truth, the true means of banishing all errors, and of uniting all men in peace in the same sentiments and in the same form of religion, would be to produce convincing proofs and testimonies of the truth; and thus show that such religion is of divine origin, and not any of the others; then each one would accept this truth; and no person would dare to question these testimonies, or sustain the side of error and imposition, lest he should be, at the same time, confounded by contrary proofs: but, as these proofs are not found in any religion, it gives to impostors occasion to invent and boldly sustain all kinds of falsehoods. here are still other proofs, which will not be less evident, of the falsity of human religions, and especially of the falsity of our own. every religion which relies upon mysteries as its foundation, and which takes, as a rule of its doctrine and its morals, a principle of errors, and which is at the same time a source of trouble and eternal divisions among men, can not be a true religion, nor a divine institution. now, human religions, especially the catholic, establish as the basis of their doctrine and of their morals, a principle of errors; then, it follows that these religions can not be true, or of divine origin. i do not see that we can deny the first proposition of this argument; it is too clear and too evident to admit of a doubt. i pass to the proof of the second proposition, which is, that the christian religion takes for the rule of its doctrine and its morals what they call faith, a blind trust, but yet firm, and secured by some laws or revelations of some deity. we must necessarily suppose that it is thus, because it is this belief in some deity and in some divine revelations, which gives all the credit and all the authority that it has in the world, and without which we could make no use of what it prescribes. this is why there is no religion which does not expressly recommend its votaries to be firm in their faith. ["estate fortes in fide!"] this is the reason that all christians accept as a maxim, that faith is the commencement and the basis of salvation, that it is the root of all justice and of all sanctification, as it is expressed at the council of trent.--sess. 6, ch. viii. now it is evident that a blind faith in all which is proposed in the name and authority of god, is a principle of errors and falsehoods. as a proof, we see that there is no impostor in the matter of religion, who does not pretend to be clothed with the name and the authority of god, and who does not claim to be especially inspired and sent by god. not only is this faith and blind belief which they accept as a basis of their doctrine, a principle of errors, etc., but it is also a source of trouble and division among men for the maintenance of their religion. there is no cruelty which they do not practice upon each other under this specious pretext. now then, it is not credible that an almighty, all-kind, and all-wise god desired to use such means or such a deceitful way to inform men of his wishes; for this would be manifestly desiring to lead them into error and to lay snares in their way, in order to make them accept the side of falsehood. it is impossible to believe that a god who loved unity and peace, the welfare and the happiness of men, would ever have established as the basis of his religion, such a fatal source of trouble and of eternal divisions among them. such religions can not be true, neither could they have been instituted by god. but i see that our christ-worshipers will not fail to have recourse to their pretended motives for credulity, and that they will say, that although their faith and belief may be blind in one sense, they are nevertheless supported by such clear and convincing testimonies of truth, that it would be not only imprudence, but temerity and folly not to surrender one's self. they generally reduce these pretended motives to three or four leading features. the first, they draw from the pretended holiness of their religion, which condemns vice, and which recommends the practice of virtue. its doctrine is so pure, so simple, according to what they say, that it is evident it could spring but from the sanctity of an infinitely good and wise god. the second motive for credulity, they draw from the innocence and the holiness of life in those who embraced it with love, and defended it by suffering death and the most cruel torments, rather than forsake it: it not being credible that such great personages would allow themselves to be deceived in their belief, that they would renounce all the advantages of life, and expose themselves to such cruel torments and persecutions, in order to maintain errors and impositions. their third motive for credulity, they draw from the oracles and prophecies which have so long been rendered in their favor, and which they pretend have been accomplished in a manner which permits no doubt. finally, their fourth motive for credulity, which is the most important of all, is drawn from the grandeur and the multitude of the miracles performed, in all ages, and in every place, in favor of their religion. but it is easy to refute all these useless reasonings and to show the falsity of all these evidences. for, firstly, the arguments which our christ-worshipers draw from their pretended motives for credulity can serve to establish and confirm falsehood as well as truth; for we see that there is no religion, no matter how false it may be, which does not pretend to have a sound and true doctrine, and which, in its way, does not condemn all vices and recommend the practice of all virtues; there is not one which has not had firm and zealous defenders who have suffered persecution in order to maintain their religion; and, finally, there is none which does not pretend to have wonders and miracles that have been performed in their favor. the mohammedans, the indians, the heathen, as well as the christians, claim miracles in their religions. if our christ-worshipers make use of their miracles and their prophecies, they are found no less in the pagan religions than in theirs. thus the advantage we might draw from all these motives for credulity, is found about the same in all sorts of religions. this being established, as the history and practice of all religions demonstrate, it evidently follows that all these pretended motives for credulity, upon which our christ-worshipers place so much value, are found equally in all religions; and, consequently, can not serve as reliable evidences of the truth of their religion more than of the truth of any other. the result is clear. secondly. in order to give an idea of the resemblance of the miracles of paganism to those of christianity, could we not say, for example, that there would be more reason to believe philostratus in what he recites of the life of apollonius than to believe all the evangelists in what they say of the miracles of jesus christ; because we know, at least that philostratus was a man of intelligence, eloquence, and fluency; that he was the secretary of the empress julia, wife of the emperor severus, and that he was requested by this empress to write the life and the wonderful acts of apollonius? it is evident that apollonius rendered himself famous by great and extraordinary deeds, since an empress was sufficiently interested in them to desire a history of his life. this is what can not be said of jesus christ, nor of those who have furnished us his biography, for they were but ignorant men of the common people, poor workmen, fishermen, who had not even the sense to relate consistently the facts which they speak of, and which they mutually contradict very often. in regard to the one whose life and actions they describe, if he had really performed the miracles attributed to him, he would have rendered himself notable by his beautiful acts; every one would have admired him, and there would be statues erected to him as was done for the gods; but instead of that, he was regarded as a man of no consequence, as a fanatic, etc. josephus, the historian, after having spoken of the great miracles performed in favor of his nation and his religion, immediately diminishes their credibility and renders it suspicious by saying that he leaves to each one the liberty of believing what he chooses; this evidently shows that he had not much faith in them. it also gives occasion to the more judicious to regard the histories which speak of this kind of things as fabulous narrations. [see montaigne, and the author of the "apology for great men."] all that can be said upon this subject shows us clearly that pretended miracles can be invented to favor vice and falsehood as well as justice and truth. i prove it by the evidence of what even our christ-worshipers call the word of god, and by the evidence of the one they adore; for their books, which they claim contain the word of god, and christ himself, whom they adore as a god-made man, show us explicitly that there are not only false prophets--that is to say, impostors--who claim to be sent by god, and who speak in his name, but which show as explicitly that these false prophets can perform such great and prodigious miracles as shall deceive the very elect. [see matthew, chapter xxiv., verses 5, 21-27.] more than this, all these pretended performers of miracles wish us to put faith only in them, and not in those who belong to an opposite party. on one occasion one of these pretended prophets, named sedecias, being contradicted by another, named michea, the former struck the latter and said to him, pleasantly, "by what way did the spirit of god pass from me to you?" but how can these pretended miracles be the evidences of truth? for it is clear that they were not performed. for it would be necessary to know: firstly, if those who are said to be the first authors of these narrations truly are such. secondly, if they were honest men, worthy of confidence, wise and enlightened; and to know if they were not prejudiced in favor of those of whom they speak so favorably. thirdly, if they have examined all the circumstances of the facts which they relate; if they know them well; and if they make a faithful report of them. fourthly, if the books or the ancient histories which relate all these great miracles have not been falsified and changed in course of time, as many others have been? if we consult tacitus and many other celebrated historians, in regard to moses and his nation, we shall see that they are considered as a horde of thieves and bandits. magic and astrology were in those days the only fashionable sciences; and as moses was, it is said, instructed in the wisdom of the egyptians, it was not difficult for him to inspire veneration and attachment for himself in the rustic and ignorant children of jacob, and to induce them to accept, in their misery, the discipline he wished to give them. that is very different from what the jews and our christ-worshipers wish to make us believe. by what certain rule can we know that we should put faith in these rather than in the others? there is no sound reason for it. there is as little of certainty and even of probability in the miracles of the new testament as in those of the old. it will serve no purpose to say that the histories which relate the facts contained in the gospels have been regarded as true and sacred; that they have always been faithfully preserved without any alteration of the truths which they contain; since this is perhaps the very reason why they should be the more suspected, having been corrupted by those who drew profit from them, or who feared that they were not sufficiently favorable to them. generally, authors who transcribe this kind of histories, take the right to enlarge or to retrench all they please, in order to serve their own interests. this is what even our christ-worshipers can not deny; for, without mentioning several other important personages who recognized the additions, the retrenchments, and the falsifications which have been made at different times in their holy scriptures, their saint jerome, a famous philosopher among them, formally said in several passages of his "prologues," that they had been corrupted and falsified; being, even in his day, in the hands of all kinds of persons, who added and suppressed whatever they pleased; so, "thus there were," said he, "as many different models as different copies of the gospels." in regard to the books of the old testament, esdras, a priest of the law, testifies himself to having corrected and completed wholly the pretended sacred books of his law, which had partly been lost and partly corrupted. he divided them into twenty-two books, according to the number of the hebraic letters, and wrote several other books, whose doctrine was to be revealed to the learned men alone. if these books have been partly lost and partly corrupted, as esdras and st. jerome testify in so many passages, there is then no certainty in regard to what they contain; and as for esdras saying he had corrected and compiled them by the inspiration of god himself there is no certainty of that, since there is no impostor who would not make the same claim. all the books of the law of moses and of the prophets which could be found, were burned in the days of antiochus. the talmud, considered by the jews as a holy and sacred book, and which contains all the divine laws, with the sentences and notable sayings of the rabbins, of their interpretation of the divine and of the human laws, and a prodigious number of other secrets and mysteries in the hebraic language, is considered by the christians as a book made up of reveries, fables, impositions, and ungodliness. in the year 1559 they burned in rome, according to the command of the inquisitors of the faith, twelve hundred of these talmuds, which were found in a library in the city of cremona. the pharisees, a famous sect among the jews, accepted but the five books of moses, and rejected all the prophets. among the christians, marcion and his votaries rejected the books of moses and the prophets, and introduced other fashionable scriptures. carpocrates and his followers did the same, and rejected the whole of the old testament, and contended that jesus christ was but a man like all others. the marcionites repudiated as bad, the whole of the old testament, and rejected the greater part of the four gospels and the epistles of st. paul. the ebionites accepted but the gospel of st. matthew, rejecting the three others, and the epistles of st. paul. the marcionites published a gospel under the name of st. matthias, in order to confirm their doctrine. the apostles introduced other scriptures in order to maintain their errors; and to carry out this, they made use of certain acts, which they attributed to st. andrew and to st. thomas. the manicheans wrote a gospel of their own style, and rejected the scriptures of the prophets and the apostles. the etzaites sold a certain book which they claimed to have come from heaven; they cut up the other scriptures according to their fancy. origen himself, with all his great mind, corrupted the scriptures and forged changes in the allegories which did not suit him, thus corrupting the sense of the prophets and apostles, and even some of the principal points of doctrine. his books are now mutilated and falsified; they are but fragments collected by others who have appeared since. the ellogians attributed to the heretic corinthus the gospel and the apocalypse of st. john; this is why they reject them. the heretics of our last centuries reject as apocryphal several books which the roman catholics consider as true and sacred--such as the books of tobias, judith, esther, baruch, the song of the three children in the furnace, the history of susannah, and that of the idol bel, the wisdom of solomon, ecclesiasticus, the first and second book of maccabees; to which uncertain and doubtful books we could add several others that have been attributed to the other apostles; as, for example, the acts of st. thomas, his circuits, his gospel, and his apocalypse; the gospel of st. bartholomew, that of st. matthias, of st. jacques, of st. peter and of the apostles, as also the deeds of st. peter, his book on preaching, and that of his apocalypse; that of the judgment, that of the childhood of the saviour, and several others of the same kind, which are all rejected as apocryphal by the roman catholics, even by the pope gelasee, and by the s. s. f. f. of the romish communion. that which most confirms that there is no foundation of truth in regard to the authority given to these books, is that those who maintain their divinity are compelled to acknowledge that they have no certainty as a basis, if their faith did not assure them and oblige them to believe it. now, as faith is but a principle of error and imposture, how can faith, that is to say, a blind belief, render the books reliable which are themselves the foundation of this blind belief? what a pity and what insanity! but let us see if these books have of themselves any feature of truth; as, for example, of erudition, of wisdom, and of holiness, or some other perfections which are suited only to a god; and if the miracles which are cited agree with what we ought to think of the grandeur, goodness, justice, and infinite wisdom of an omnipotent god. there is no erudition, no sublime thought, nor any production which surpasses the ordinary capacities of the human mind. on the contrary, we shall see on one side fabulous tales similar to that of a woman formed of a man's rib; of the pretended terrestrial paradise; of a serpent which spoke, which reasoned, and which was more cunning than man; of an ass which spoke, and reprimanded its master for ill-treating it; of a universal deluge, and of an ark where animals of all kinds were inclosed; of the confusion of languages and of the division of the nations, without speaking of numerous other useless narrations upon low and frivolous subjects which important authors would scorn to relate. all these narrations appear to be fables, as much as those invented about the industry of prometheus, the box of pandora, the war of the giants against the gods, and similar others which the poets have invented to amuse the men of their time. on the other hand we will see a mixture of laws and ordinances, or superstitious practices concerning sacrifices, the purifications of the old law, the senseless distinctions in regard to animals, of which it supposes some to be pure and others to be impure. these laws are no more respectable than those of the most idolatrous nations. we shall see but simple stories, true or false, of several kings, princes, or individuals, who lived right or wrong, or who performed noble or mean actions, with other low and frivolous things also related. from all this, it is evident that no great genius was required, nor divine revelations to produce these things. it would not be creditable to a god. finally, we see in these books but the discourses, the conduct, and the actions of those renowned prophets who proclaimed themselves especially inspired by god. we will see their way of acting and speaking, their dreams, their illusions, their reveries; and it will be easy to judge whether they do not resemble visionaries and fanatics much more than wise and enlightened persons. there are, however, in a few of these books, several good teachings and beautiful maxims of morals, as in the proverbs attributed to solomon, in the book of wisdom and of ecclesiastes; but this same solomon, the wisest of their writers, is also the most incredulous; he doubts even the immortality of the soul, and concludes his works by saying that there is nothing good but to enjoy in peace the fruits of one's labor, and to live with those whom we love. how superior are the authors who are called profane, such as xenophon, plato, cicero, the emperor antoninus, the emperor julian, virgil, etc., to the books which we are told are inspired of god. i can truly say that the fables of aesop, for example, are certainly more ingenious and more instructive than all these rough and poor parables which are related in the gospels. but what shows us that this kind of books is not of divine inspiration, is, that aside from the low order, coarseness of style, and the lack of system in the narrations of the different facts, which are very badly arranged, we do not see that the authors agree; they contradict each other in several things; they had not even sufficient enlightenment or natural talents to write a history. here are some examples of the contradictions which are found among them. the evangelist matthew claims that jesus christ descended from king david by his son solomon through joseph, reputed to be his father; and luke claims that he is descended from the same david by his son nathan through joseph. matthew says, in speaking of jesus, that, it being reported in jerusalem that a new king of the jews was born, and that the wise men had come to adore him, the king herod, fearing that this pretended new king would rob him of his crown some day, caused the murder of all the new-born children under two years, in all the neighborhood of bethlehem, where he had been told that this new king was born; and that joseph and the mother of jesus, having been warned in a dream by an angel, of this wicked intention, took flight immediately to egypt, where they stayed until the death of herod, which happened many years afterward. on the contrary, luke asserts that joseph and the mother of jesus lived peaceably during six weeks in the place where their child jesus was born; that he was circumcised according to the law of the jews, eight days after his birth; and when the time prescribed by the law for the purification of his mother had arrived, she and joseph, her husband, carried him to jerusalem in order to present him to god in his temple, and to offer at the same time a sacrifice which was ordained by god's law; after which they returned to galilee, into their town of nazareth, where their child jesus grew every day in grace and in wisdom. luke goes on to say that his father and his mother went every year to jerusalem on the solemn days of their easter feast, but makes no mention of their flight into egypt, nor of the cruelty of herod toward the children of the province of bethlehem. in regard to the cruelty of herod, as neither the historians of that time speak of it, nor josephus, the historian who wrote the life of this herod, and as the other evangelists do not mention it, it is evident that the journey of those wise men, guided by a star, this massacre of little children, and this flight to egypt, were but absurd falsehoods. for it is not credible that josephus, who blamed the vices of this king, could have been silent on such a dark and detestable action, if what the evangelist said had been true. in regard to the duration of the public life of jesus christ, according to what the first three evangelists say, there could be scarcely more than three months from the time of his baptism until his death, supposing he was thirty years old when he was baptized by john, according to luke, and that he was born on the 25th of december. for, from this baptism, which was in the year 15 of tiberius caesar, and in the year when anne and caiaphas were high-priests, to the first easter following, which was in the month of march, there was but about three months; according to what the first three evangelists say, he was crucified on the eve of the first easter following his baptism, and the first time he went to jerusalem with his disciples; because all that they say of his baptism, of his travels, of his miracles, of his preaching, of his death and passion, must have taken place in the same year of his baptism, for the evangelists speak of no other year following, and it appears even by the narration of his acts that he performed them consecutively immediately after his baptism, and in a very short time, during which we see but an interval of six days before his transfiguration; during these six days we do not see that he did anything. we see by this that he lived but about three months after his baptism, from which, if we subtract the forty days and forty nights which he passed in the desert immediately after his baptism, it would follow that the length of his public life from his first preaching till his death, would have lasted but about six weeks; and according to what john says, it would have lasted at least three years and three months, because it appears by the gospel of this apostle, that, during the course of his public life he might have been three or four times at jerusalem at the easter feast which happened but once a year. now if it is true that he had been there three or four times after his baptism, as john testifies, it is false that he lived but three months after his baptism, and that he was crucified the first time he went to jerusalem. if it is said that these first three evangelists really mean but one year, but that they do not indicate distinctly the others which elapsed since his baptism; or that john understood that there was but one easter, although he speaks of several, and that he only anticipated the time when he repeatedly tells us that the easter feast of the jews was near at hand, and that jesus went to jerusalem, and, consequently, that there is but an apparent contradiction upon this subject between the evangelists, i am willing to accept this; but it is certain that this apparent contradiction springs from the fact, that they do not explain themselves in all the circumstances that are noted in the narration which they make. be that as it may, there will always be this inference made, that they were not inspired by god when they wrote their biographies of christ. here is another contradiction in regard to the first thing which jesus christ did immediately after his baptism; for the first three evangelists state, that he was transported immediately by the spirit into the desert, where he fasted forty days and forty nights, and where he was several times tempted by the devil; and, according to what john says, he departed two days after his baptism to go into galilee, where he performed his first miracle by changing water into wine at the wedding of cana, where he found himself three days after his arrival in galilee, more than thirty leagues from the place in which he had been. in regard to the place of his first retreat after his departure from the desert, matthew says that he returned to galilee, and that leaving the city of nazareth, he went to live at capernaum, a maritime city; and luke says, that he came at first to nazareth, and afterward went to capernaum. they contradict each other in regard to the time and manner in which the apostles followed him; for the first three say that jesus, passing on the shore of the sea of galilee, saw simon and andrew his brother, and that he saw at a little distance james and his brother john with their father, zebedee. john, on the contrary, says that it was andrew, brother of simon peter, who first followed jesus with another disciple of john the baptist, having seen him pass before them, when they were with their master on the shores of the jordan. in regard to the lord's supper, the first three evangelists note that jesus christ instituted the sacrament of his body and his blood, in the form of bread and wine, the same as our roman christ-worshipers say; and john does not mention this mysterious sacrament. john says that after this supper, jesus washed his apostles' feet, and commanded them to do the same thing to each other, and relates a long discourse which he delivered then. but the other evangelists do not speak of the washing of the feet, nor of the long discourse he gave them then. on the contrary, they testify that immediately after this supper, he went with his apostles upon the mount of olives, where he gave up his spirit to sadness, and was in anguish while his apostles slept, at a short distance. they contradict each other upon the day on which they say the lord's supper took place; because on one side, they note that it took place easter-eve, that is, the evening of the first day of azymes, or of the feast of unleavened bread; as it is noted (1) in exodus, (2) in leviticus, and (3) in numbers; and, on the other hand, they say that he was crucified the day following the lord's supper, about midday after the jews had his trial during the whole night and morning. now, according to what they say, the day after this supper took place, ought not to be easter-eve. therefore, if he died on the eve of easter, toward midday, it was not on the eve of this feast that this supper took place. there is consequently a manifest error. they contradict each other, also, in regard to the women who followed jesus from galilee, for the first three evangelists say that these women, and those who knew him, among whom were mary magdalene, and mary, mother of james and joseph, and the mother of zebedee's children, were looking on at a distance when he was hanged and nailed upon the cross. john says, on the contrary, that the mother of jesus and his mother's sister, and mary magdalene were standing near his cross with john, his apostle. the contradiction is manifest, for, if these women and this disciple were near him, they were not at a distance, as the others say they were. they contradict each other upon the pretended apparitions which they relate that jesus made after his pretended resurrection; for matthew speaks of but two apparitions: the one when he appeared to mary magdalene and to another woman, also named mary, and when he appeared to his eleven disciples who had returned to galilee upon the mountain where he had appointed to meet them. mark speaks of three apparitions: the first, when he appeared to mary magdalene; the second, when he appeared to his two disciples, who went to emmaus; and the third, when he appeared to his eleven disciples, whom he reproaches for their incredulity. luke speaks of but two apparitions the same as matthew; and john the evangelist speaks of four apparitions, and adds to mark's three, the one which he made to seven or eight of his disciples who were fishing upon the shores of the tiberian sea. they contradict each other, also, in regard to the place of these apparitions; for matthew says that it was in galilee, upon a mountain; mark says that it was when they were at table; luke says that he brought them out of jerusalem as far as bethany, where he left them by rising to heaven; and john says that it was in the city of jerusalem, in a house of which they had closed the doors, and another time upon the borders of the tiberian sea. thus is much contradiction in the report of these pretended apparitions. they contradict each other in regard to his pretended ascension to heaven; for luke and mark say positively that he went to heaven in presence of the eleven apostles, but neither matthew nor john mentions at all this pretended ascension. more than this, matthew testifies sufficiently that he did not ascend to heaven; for he said positively that jesus christ assured his apostles that he would be and remain always with them until the end of the world. "go ye," he said to them, in this pretended apparition, "and teach all nations, and be assured that i am with you always, even unto the end of the world." luke contradicts himself upon the subject; for in his gospel he says that it was in bethany where he ascended to heaven in the presence of his apostles, and in his acts of the apostles (supposing him to have been the author) he says that it was upon the mount of olives. he contradicts himself again about this ascension; for he notes in his gospel that it was the very day of his resurrection, or the first night following, that he ascended to heaven; and in the acts of the apostles he says that it was forty days after his resurrection; this certainly does not correspond. if all the apostles had really seen their master gloriously rise to heaven, how could it be possible that matthew and john, who would have seen it as well as the others, passed in silence such a glorious mystery, and which was so advantageous to their master, considering that they relate many other circumstances of his life and of his actions which are much less important than this one? how is it that matthew does not mention this ascension? and why does christ not explain clearly how he would live with them always, although he left them visibly to ascend to heaven? it is not easy to comprehend by what secret he could live with those whom he left. i pass in silence many other contradictions; what i have said is sufficient to show that these books are not of divine inspiration, nor even of human wisdom, and, consequently, do not deserve that we should put any faith in them. ii.--of miracles. but by what privilege do these four gospels, and some other similar books, pass for holy and divine more than several others, which bear no less the title of gospels, and which have been published under the name of some other apostles? if it is said that the reputed gospels are falsely attributed to the apostles, we can say the same of the first ones; if we suppose the first ones to be falsified and changed, we can think the same of the others. thus there is no positive proof to make us discern the one from the other; in spite of the church, which assumes to deride the matter, it is not credible. in regard to the pretended miracles related in the old testament, they could have been performed but to indicate on the part of god an unjust and odious discrimination between nations and between individuals; purposely injuring the one in order to especially favor the other. the vocation and the choice which god made of the patriarchs, abraham, isaac, and jacob, in order to make for himself of their posterity a people which he would sanctify and bless above all other peoples of the earth, is a proof of it. but it will be said god is the absolute master of his favors and of his benefits; he can grant them to whomsoever he pleases, without any one having the right to complain or to accuse him of injustice. this reason is useless; for god, the author of nature, the father of all men, ought to love them all alike as his own work, and, consequently, he ought to be equally their protector and their benefactor; giving them life, he ought to give all that is necessary for the well-being of his creatures. if all these pretended miracles of the old and of the new testament were true, we could say that god would have had more care in providing for the least good of men than for their greatest and principal good; that he would have punished more severely trifling faults in certain persons than he would have punished great crimes in others; and, finally, that he would not have desired to show himself as beneficent in the most pressing needs as in the least. this is easy enough to show as much by the miracles which it is pretended that he performed, as by those which he did not perform, and which he would have performed rather than any other, if it is true that he performed any at all. for example, it is claimed that god had the kindness to send an angel to console and to assist a simple maid, while he left, and still leaves every day, a countless number of innocents to languish and starve to death; it is claimed that he miraculously preserved during forty years the clothes and the shoes of a few people, while he will not watch over the natural preservation of the vast quantities of goods which are useful and necessary for the subsistence of great nations, and that are lost every day by different accidents. it is claimed that he sent to the first beings of the human race, adam and eve, a devil, or a simple serpent, to seduce them, and by this means ruin all men. this is not credible! it is claimed, that by a special providence, he prevented the king of gerais, a pagan, from committing sin with a strange woman, although there would be no results to follow; and yet he did not prevent adam and eve from offending him and falling into the sin of disobedience--a sin which, according to our christ-worshipers was to be fatal, and cause the destruction of the human race. this is not credible! let us come to the pretended miracles of the new testament. they consist, as is pretended, in this: that jesus christ and his apostles cured, through the deity, all kinds of diseases and infirmities, giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, making the lame to walk, curing the paralytics, driving the devils from those who were possessed, and bringing the dead to life. we find several of these miracles in the gospels, but we see a good many more of them in the books that our christ-worshipers have written of the admirable lives of their saints; for in these lives we nearly everywhere read that these pretended blessed ones cured diseases and infirmities, expelled the devils wherever they encountered them, solely in the name of jesus or by the sign of the cross; that they controlled the elements; that god favored them so much that he even preserved to them his divine power after their death, and that this divine power could be communicated even to the least of their clothing, even to their shadows, and even to the infamous instruments of their death. it is said that the shoe of st. honorius raised a dead man on the sixth of january; that the staff of st. peter, that of st. james, and that of st. bernard performed miracles. the same is said of the cord of st. francis, of the staff of st. john of god, and of the girdle of st. melanie. it is said that st. gracilien was divinely instructed as to what he ought to believe and to teach, and that he, by the influence of his prayer, removed a mountain which prevented him from building a church; that from the sepulchre of st. andrew flowed incessantly a liquor which cured all sorts of diseases; that the soul of st. benedict was seen ascending to heaven clothed with a precious cloak and surrounded by burning lamps; that st. dominic said that god never refused him anything he asked; that st. francis commanded the swallows, swans, and other birds to obey him, and that often the fishes, rabbits, and the hares came and placed themselves on his hands and on his lap; that st. paul and st. pantaleon, having been beheaded, there flowed milk instead of blood; that the blessed peter of luxembourg, in the first two years after his death (1388 and 1389), performed two thousand four hundred miracles, among which forty-two dead were brought to life, not including more than three thousand other miracles which he has performed since; that the fifty philosophers whom st. catherine converted, having all been thrown into a great fire, their whole bodies were afterward found and not a single hair was scorched; that the body of st. catherine was carried off by angels after her death, and buried by them upon mount sinai; that the day of the canonization of st. antoine de padua, all the bells of the city of lisbon rang of themselves, without any one knowing how it was done; that this saint being once near the sea-shore, and calling the fishes, they came to him in a great multitude, and raised their heads out of the water and listened to him attentively. we should never come to an end if we had to report all this idle talk; there is no subject, however vain, frivolous, and even ridiculous, on which the authors of these "lives of the saints" do not take pleasure in heaping miracles upon miracles, for they are skillful in forging absurd falsehoods. it is certainly not without reason that we consider these things as lies; for it is easy to see that all these pretended miracles have been invented but by imitating the fables of the pagan poets. this is sufficiently obvious by the resemblance which they bear one to another. iii.--similarity between ancient and modern miracles. if our christ-worshipers claim that god endowed their saints with power to perform the miracles related in their lives, some of the pagans claim also that the daughters of anius, high-priest of apollo, had really received from the god bacchus the power to change all they desired into wheat, into wine, or into oil, etc.; that jupiter gave to the nymphs who took care of his education, a horn of the goat which nursed him in his infancy, with this virtue, that it could give them an abundance of all they wished for. if our christ-worshipers assert that their saints had the power of raising the dead, and that they had divine revelations, the pagans had said before them that athalide, son of mercury, had obtained from his father the gift of living, dying, and coming to life whenever he wished, and that he had also the knowledge of all that transpired in this world as well as in the other; and that esculapius, son of apollo, had raised the dead, and, among others, he brought to life hyppolites, son of theseus, by diana's request; and that hercules, also, raised from the dead alceste, wife of admetus, king of thessalia, to return her to her husband. if our christ-worshipers say that christ was miraculously born of a virgin, the pagans had said before them that remus and romulus, the founders of rome, were miraculously born of a vestal virgin named ilia, or silvia, or rhea silvia; they had already said that mars, argus, vulcan, and others were born of the goddess juno without sexual union; and, also, that minerva, goddess of the sciences, sprang from jupiter's brain, and that she came out of it, all armed, by means of a blow which this god gave to his own head. if our christ-worshipers claim that their saints made water gush from rocks, the pagans pretend also that minerva made a fountain of oil spring forth from a rock as a recompense for a temple which had been dedicated to her. if our christ-worshipers boast of having received images from heaven miraculously, as, for example, those of notre-dame de loretto, and of liesse and several other gifts from heaven, as the pretended holy vial of rheims, as the white chasuble which st. ildefonse received from the virgin mary, and other similar things: the pagans boasted before them of having received a sacred shield as a mark of the preservation of their city of rome, and the trojans boasted before them of having received miraculously from heaven their palladium, or their idol of pallas, which came, they said, to takes its place in the temple which they had erected in honor of this goddess. if our christ-worshipers pretend that jesus christ was seen by his apostles ascending to heaven, and that several of their pretended saints were transported to heaven by angels, the roman pagans had said before them, that romulus, their founder, was seen after his death; that ganymede, son of troas, king of troy, was transported to heaven by jupiter to serve him as cup-bearer that the hair of berenice, being consecrated to the temple of venus, was afterward carried to heaven; they say the same thing of cassiope and andromedes, and even of the ass of silenus. if our christ-worshipers pretend that several of their saints' bodies were miraculously saved from decomposition after death, and that they were found by divine revelations, after having been lost for a long time, the pagans say the same of the holy of orestes, which they pretend to have found through an oracle, etc. if our christ-worshipers say that the seven sleeping brothers slept during one hundred and seventy-seven years, while they were shut up in a cave, the pagans claim that epimenides, the philosopher, slept during fifty-seven years in a cave where he fell asleep. if our christ-worshipers claim that several of their saints continued to speak after losing the head, or having the tongue cut out, the pagans claim that the head of gambienus recited a long poem after separation from his body. if our christ-worshipers glorify themselves that their temples and churches are ornamented with several pictures and rich gifts which show miraculous cures performed by the intercession of their saints, we also see, or at least we formerly saw in the temple of esculapius at epidaurus, many paintings of miraculous cures which he had performed. if our christ-worshipers claim that several of their saints have been miraculously preserved in the flames without having received any injury to their bodies or their clothing, the pagans claim that the holy women of the temple of diana walked upon burning coals barefooted without burning or hurting their feet, and that the priests of the goddess feronie and of hirpicus walked in the same way upon burning coals in the fires which were made in honor of apollo. if the angels built a chapel for st. clement at the bottom of the sea, the little house of baucis and of philemon was miraculously changed into a superb temple as a reward of their piety. if several of their saints, as st. james and st. maurice, appeared several times in their armies, mounted and equipped in ancient style, and fought for them, castor and pollux appeared several times in battles and fought for the romans against their enemies; if a ram was miraculously found to be offered as a sacrifice in the place of isaac, whom his father abraham was about to sacrifice, the goddess vesta also sent a heifer to be sacrificed in the place of metella, daughter of metellus: the goddess diana sent a hind in the place of iphigenie when she was at the stake to be sacrificed to her, and by this means iphigenie was saved. if st. joseph went into egypt by the warning of an angel, simonides, the poet, avoided several great dangers by miraculous warnings which had been given to him. if moses forced a stream of water to flow from a rock by striking it with his staff, the horse pegasus did the same: by striking a rock with his foot a fountain issued. if st. vincent ferrier brought to life a dead man hacked into pieces, whose body was already half roasted and half broiled, pelops, son of tantalus king of phrygia, having been torn to pieces by his father to be sacrificed to the gods, they gathered all the pieces, joined them, and brought them to life. if several crucifixes and other images have miraculously spoken and answered, the pagans say that their oracles have spoken and given answers to those who consulted them, and that the head of orpheus and that of policrates gave oracles after their death. if god revealed by a voice from heaven that jesus christ was his son, as the evangelists say, vulcan showed by the apparition of a miraculous flame, that coceculus was really his son. if god has miraculously nourished some of his saints, the pagan poets pretend that triptolemus was miraculously nourished with divine milk by ceres, who gave him also a chariot drawn by two dragons, and that phineus, son of mars, being born after his mother's death, was nevertheless miraculously nourished by her milk. if several saints miraculously tamed the ferocity of the most cruel beasts, it is said that orpheus attracted to him, by the sweetness of his voice and by the harmony of his instruments, lions, bears, and tigers, and softened the ferocity of their nature; that he attracted rocks and trees, and that even the rivers stopped their course to listen to his song. finally, to abbreviate, because we could report many others, if our christ-worshipers pretend that the walls of the city of jericho fell by the sound of their trumpets, the pagans say that the walls of the city of thebes were built by the sound of the musical instruments of amphion; the stones, as the poets say, arranging themselves to the sweetness of his harmony; this would be much more miraculous and more admirable than to see the walls demolished. there is certainly a great similarity between the pagan miracles and our own. as it would be great folly to give credence to these pretended miracles of paganism, it is not any the less so to have faith in those of christianity, because they all come from the same source of error. it was for this that the manicheans and the arians, who existed at the commencement of the christian era, derided these pretended miracles performed by the invocation of saints, and blamed those who invoked them after death and honored their relics. let us return at present to the principal end which god proposed to himself, in sending his son into the world to become man; it must have been, as they say, to redeem the world from sin and to destroy entirely the works of the pretended devil, etc. this is what our christ-worshipers claim also, that jesus christ died for them according to his father's intention, which is plainly stated in all the pretended holy books. what! an almighty god, who was willing to become a mortal man for the love of men, and to shed his blood to the last drop, to save them all, would yet have limited his power to only curing a few diseases and physical infirmities of a few individuals who were brought to him; and would not have employed his divine goodness in curing the infirmities of the soul! that is to say, in curing all men of their vices and their depravities, which are worse than the diseases of their bodies! this is not credible. what! such a good god would desire to preserve dead corpses from decay and corruption; and would not keep from the contagion and corruption of vice and sin the souls of a countless number of persons whom he sought to redeem at the price of his blood, and to sanctify by his grace! what a pitiful contradiction! iv.--of the falsity of the christian religion. let us proceed to the pretended visions and divine revelations, upon which our christ-worshipers establish the truth and the certainty of their religion. in order to give a just idea of it, i believe it is best to say in general, that they are such, that if any one should dare now to boast of similar ones, or wish to make them valued, he would certainly be regarded as a fool or a fanatic. here is what the pretended visions and divine revelations are: god, as these pretended holy books claim, having appeared for the first time to abraham, said to him: "get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred and from thy father's house, into a land that i will show thee." abraham, having gone there, god, says the bible, appeared the second time to him, and said, "unto thy seed will i give this land," and there builded he an altar unto the lord, who appeared unto him. after the death of isaac, his son, jacob going one day to mesopotamia to look for a wife that would suit him, having walked all the day, and being tired from the long distance, desired to rest toward evening; lying upon the ground, with his head resting upon a few stones, he fell asleep, and during his sleep he saw a ladder set upon the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and beheld the angels of god ascending and descending on it. and behold, the lord stood above it, and said: "i am the lord, god of abraham thy father, and the god of isaac; the land whereon thou liest, to thee will i give it, and to thy seed. and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south and in thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. and behold, i am with thee and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land: for i will not leave thee until i have done that which i have spoken to thee of." and jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said: "surely the lord is in this place, and i knew it not." and he was afraid, and said: "how dreadful is this place! this is none other than the house of god, and this is the gate of heaven." and jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it, and made at the same time a vow to god, that if he should return safe and sound, he would give him a tithe of all he might possess. here is yet another vision. watching the flocks of his father-in-law, laban, who had promised him that all the speckled lambs produced by his sheep should be his recompense, he dreamed one night that he saw all the males leap upon the females, and all the lambs they brought forth were speckled. in this beautiful dream, god appeared to him, and said: "lift up now thine eyes and see that the rams which leap upon the cattle are ring-streaked, speckled, and grizzled; for i have seen all that laban does unto thee. now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred." as he was returning with his whole family, and with all he obtained from his father-in-law, he had, says the bible, a wrestle with an unknown man during the whole night, until the breaking of the day, and as this man had not been able to subdue him, he asked him who he was. jacob told him his name; and he said: "thy name shall be called no more jacob, but israel; for as a prince hast thou power with god and with men, and hast prevailed." this is a specimen of the first of these pretended visions and divine revelations. we can judge of the others by these. now, what appearance of divinity is there in dreams so gross and illusions so vain? as if some foreigners, germans, for instance, should come into our france, and, after seeing all the beautiful provinces of our kingdom, should claim that god had appeared to them in their country, that he had told them to go into france, and that he would give to them and to their posterity all the beautiful lands, domains, and provinces of this kingdom which extend from the rivers rhine and rhone, even to the sea; that he would make an everlasting alliance with them, that he would multiply their race, that he would make their posterity as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sands of the sea, etc., who would not laugh at such folly, and consider these strangers as insane fools! now there is no reason to think otherwise of all that has been said by these pretended holy patriarchs, abraham, isaac, and jacob, in regard to the divine revelations which they claim to have had. as to the institution of bloody sacrifices, the holy scriptures attribute it to god. as it would be too wearisome to go into the disgusting details of this kind of sacrifices, i refer the reader to exodus. [see chapters xxv., xxvii., xxyiii., and xxix.] were not men insane and blind to believe they were honoring god by tearing into pieces, butchering, and burning his own creatures, under the pretext of offering them as sacrifices to him? and even now, how is it that our christ-worshipers are so extravagant as to expect to please god the father, by offering up to him the sacrifice of his divine son, in remembrance of his being shamefully nailed to a cross upon which he died? certainly this can spring only from an obstinate blindness of mind. in regard to the detail of the sacrifices of animals, it consists but in colored clothing, blood, plucks, livers, birds' crops, kidneys, claws, skins, in the dung, smoke, cakes, certain measures of oil and wine, the whole being offered and infected by dirty ceremonies as filthy and contemptible as the most extravagant performances of magic. what is most horrible of all this is, that the law of this detestable jewish people commanded that even men should be offered up as sacrifices. the barbarians, whoever they were, who introduced this horrible law, commanded to put to death any man who had been consecrated to the god of the jews, whom they called adonai: and it is according to this execrable precept that jephthah sacrificed his daughter, and that saul wanted to sacrifice his son. but here is yet another proof of the falsity of these revelations of which we have spoken. it is the lack of the fulfillment of the great and magnificent promises by which they were accompanied, for it is evident that these promises never have been fulfilled. the proof of this consists in three principal points: firstly. their posterity was to be more numerous than all the other nations of the world. secondly. the people who should spring from their race were to be the happiest, the holiest, and the most victorious of all the people of the earth. thirdly. his covenant was to be everlasting, and they should possess forever the country he should give them. now it is plain that these promises-never were fulfilled. firstly. it is certain that the jewish people, or the people of israel--which is the only one that can be regarded as having descended from the patriarchs abraham, isaac, and jacob, and the only ones to whom these promises should have been fulfilled--have never been so numerous that it could be compared with the other nations of the earth, much less with the sands of the sea, etc., for we see that in the very time when it was the most numerous and the most flourishing, it never occupied more than the little sterile provinces of palestine and its environs, which are almost nothing in comparison with the vast extent of a multitude of flourishing kingdoms which are on all sides of the earth. secondly. they have never been fulfilled concerning the great blessings with which they were to be favored; for, although they won a few small victories over some poor nations whom they plundered, this did not prevent them from being conquered and reduced to servitude; their kingdom destroyed as well as their nation, by the roman army; and even now the remainder of this unfortunate nation is looked upon as the vilest and most contemptible of all the earth, having no country, no dominion, no superiority. finally, these promises have not been fulfilled in respect to this everlasting covenant, which god ought to have fulfilled to them; because we do not see now, and we have never seen, any evidence of this covenant; and, on the contrary, they have been for many centuries excluded from the possession of the small country they pretended god had promised that they should enjoy forever. thus, since these pretended promises were never fulfilled, it is certain evidence of their falsity; which proves, plainly, that these pretended holy books which contain them were not of divine inspiration. therefore it is useless for our christ-worshipers to pretend to make use of them as infallible testimony to prove the truth of their religion. the holy scriptures. v.--(1) of the old testament. our christ-worshipers add to their reasons for credulity and to the proofs of the truth of their testimony, the prophecies which are, as they pretend, sure evidences of the truth of the revelations or inspirations of god, there being no one but god who could predict future events so long before they came to pass, as those which have been predicted by the prophets. let us see, then, who these pretended prophets are, and if we ought to consider them as important as our christ-worshipers pretend they are. these men were but visionaries and fanatics, who acted and spoke according to the impulsions of their ruling passions, and who imagined that it was the spirit of god by which they spoke and acted; or they were impostors who feigned to be prophets, and who, in order to more easily deceive the ignorant and simple-minded, boasted of acting and speaking by the spirit of god. i would like to know how an ezekiel would be received who should say that god made him eat for his breakfast a roll of parchment; commanded him to be tied like an insane man, and lie three hundred and ninety days upon his right side, and forty days upon his left, and commanded him to eat man's dung upon his bread, and afterward, as an accommodation, cow's dung? i ask how such a filthy statement would be received by the most stupid people of our provinces? what can be yet a greater proof of the falsity of these pretended prophecies, than the violence with which these prophets reproach each other for speaking falsely in the name of god, reproaches which they claim to make in behalf of god. all of them say, "beware of the false prophets!" as the quacks say, "beware of the counterfeit pills!" how could these insane impostors tell the future? no prophecy in favor of their jewish nation was ever fulfilled. the number of prophecies which predict the prosperity and the greatness of jerusalem is almost innumerable; in explanation of this, it will be said that it is very natural that a subdued and captive people should comfort themselves in their real afflictions by imaginary hopes--as a year after king james was deposed, the irish people of his party forged several prophecies in regard to him. but if these promises made to the jews had been really true, the jewish nation long ago would have been, and would still be, the most numerous, the most powerful, the most blessed, and the most victorious of all nations. vi.--(2) the new testament. let us examine the pretended prophecies which are contained in the gospels. firstly. an angel having appeared in a dream to a man named joseph, father, or at least so reputed, of jesus, son of mary, said unto him: "joseph, thou son of david fear not to take unto thee mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the holy ghost. and she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins." this angel said also to mary: "fear not, mary, for thou hast found favor with god. and behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name jesus. he shall be great, and shall be called the son of the highest: and the lord god shall give unto him the throne of his father david. and he shall reign over the house of jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end!" jesus began to preach and to say: "repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body what ye shall put on. is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment, for your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. but seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." now, let every man who has not lost common sense, examine if this jesus ever was a king, or if his disciples had abundance of all things. this jesus promised to deliver the world from sin. is there any prophecy which is more false? is not our age a striking proof of it? it is said that jesus came to save his people. in what way did he save it? it is the greatest number which rules any party. for example, one dozen or two of spaniards or frenchmen do not constitute the french or spanish people; and if an army of a hundred and twenty thousand men were taken prisoners of war by an army of enemies which was stronger, and if the chief of this army should redeem only a few men, as ten or twelve soldiers or officers, by paying their ransom, it could not be claimed that he had delivered or redeemed his army. then, who is this god who has been sacrificed, who died to save the world, and leaves so many nations damned? what a pity! and what horror! jesus christ says that we have but to ask and we shall receive, and to seek and we shall find. he assures us that all we ask of god in his name shall be granted, and that if we have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, we could by one word remove mountains. if this promise is true, nothing appears impossible to our christ-worshipers who have faith in jesus. however, the contrary happens. if mohammed had made the promises to his votaries that christ made to his, without success, what would not be said about it. they would cry out, "ah, the cheat! ah, the impostor!" these christ-worshipers are in the same condition: they have been blind, and have not even yet recovered from their blindness; on the contrary, they are so ingenious in deceiving themselves, that they pretend that these promises have been fulfilled from the beginning of christianity; that at that time it was necessary to have miracles, in order to convince the incredulous of the truth of religion; but that this religion being sufficiently established, the miracles were no longer necessary. where, then, is their proof of all this? besides, he who made these promises did not limit them to a certain time, or to certain places, or to certain persons; but he made them generally to everybody. the faith of those who believe, says he, shall be followed by these miracles; "they shall cast out devils in my name, they shall speak in divers tongues, they shall handle serpents," etc. in regard to the removal of mountains, he positively says that "whoever shall say to a mountain: 'be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea;' it shall be done;" provided that he does not doubt in his heart, but believes all he commands will be done. are not all these promises given in a general way, without restriction as to time, place, or persons? it is said that all the sects which are founded in errors and imposture will come to a shameful end. but if jesus christ intends to say that he has established a society of followers who will not fall either into vice or error, these words are absolutely false, as there is in christendom no sect, no society, and no church which is not full of errors and vices, especially the roman church, although it claims to be the purest and the holiest of all. it was born into error, or rather it was conceived and formed in error; and even now it is full of delusions which are contrary to the intentions, the sentiments, or the doctrine of its founder, because it has, contrary to his intention, abolished the laws of the jews, which he approved, and which he came himself, as he said, to fulfill and not to destroy. it has fallen into the errors and idolatry of paganism, as is seen by the idolatrous worship which is offered to its god of dough, to its saints, to their images, and to their relics. i know well that our christ-worshipers consider it a lack of intelligence to accept literally the promises and prophecies as they are expressed; they reject the literal and natural sense of the words, to give them a mystical and spiritual sense which they call allegorical and figurative; claiming, for example, that the people of israel and judea, to whom these promises were made, were not understood as the israelites after the body, but the israelites in spirit: that is to say, the christians which are the israel of god, the true chosen people that by the promise made to this enslaved people, to deliver it from captivity, it is understood to be not the corporal deliverance of a single captive people, but the spiritual deliverance of all men from the servitude of the devil, which was to be accomplished by their divine saviour; that by the abundance of riches, and all the temporal blessings promised to this people, is meant the abundance of spiritual graces; and finally, that by the city of jerusalem, is meant not the terrestrial jerusalem, but the spiritual jerusalem, which is the christian church. but it is easy to see that these spiritual and allegorical meanings having only a strange, imaginary sense, being a subterfuge of the interpreters, can not serve to show the truth or the falsehood of a proposition, or of any promises whatever. it is ridiculous to forge such allegorical meanings, since it is only by the relations of the natural and true sense that we can judge of their truth or falsehood. a proposition, a promise, for example, which is considered true in the proper and natural sense of the terms in which it is expressed, will not become false in itself under cover of a strange sense, one which does not belong to it. by the same reasoning, that which is manifestly false in its proper and natural sense, will not become true in itself, although we give it a strange sense, one foreign to the true. we can say that the prophecies of the old testament adjusted to the new, would be very absurd and puerile things. for example, abraham had two wives, of which the one, who was but a servant, represented the synagogue, and the other one, his lawful wife, represented the christian church; and that this abraham had two sons, of which the one born of hagar, the servant, represented the old testament; and the other, born of sarah, the wife, represented the new testament. who would not laugh at such a ridiculous doctrine? is it not amusing that a piece of red cloth, exhibited by a prostitute as a signal to spies, in the old testament is made to represent the blood of jesus christ shed in the new? if--according to this manner of interpreting allegorically all that is said, done, and practiced in the ancient law of the jews--we should interpret in the same allegorical way all the discourses, the actions, and the adventures of the famous don quixote de la mancha, we would find the same sort of mysteries and ridiculous figures. it is nevertheless upon this absurd foundation that the whole christian religion rests. thus it is that there is scarcely anything in this ancient law that the christ-worshiping doctors do not try to explain in a mystical way to build up their system. the most false and the most ridiculous prophecy ever made is that of jesus, in luke, where it is pretended that there will be signs in the sun and in the moon, and that the son of man will appear in a cloud to judge men; and this is predicted for the generation living at that time. has it come to pass? did the son of man appear in a cloud? vii.--errors of doctrine and of morality. the christian apostolical roman religion teaches, and compels belief, that there is but one god, and, at the same time, that there are three divine persons, each one being god. this is absurd; for if there are three who are truly god, then there are three gods. it is false, then, to say that there is but one god; or if this is true, it is false to say that there are really three who are god, for one and three can not be claimed to be one and the same number. it is also said that the first of these pretended divine persons, called the father, has brought forth the second person, which is called the son, and that these first two persons together have produced the third, which is called the holy ghost, and, nevertheless, these three pretended divine persons do not depend the one upon the other, and even that one is not older than the other. this, too, is manifestly absurd; because one thing can not receive its existence from another thing without some dependence on this other; and a thing must necessarily exist in order to give birth to another. if, then, the second and the third persons of divinity have received their existence from the first person, they must necessarily depend for their existence on this first person, who gave them birth, or who begot them, and it is necessary also that the first person of the divinity, who gave birth to the two other persons, should have existed before them; because that which does not exist can not beget anything. nevertheless, it is repugnant as well as absurd to claim that anything could be begotten or born without having had a beginning. now, according to our christ-worshipers, the second and third persons of divinity were begotten and born; then they had a beginning, and the first person had none, not being begotten by another; it therefore follows necessarily that one existed before the other. our christ-worshipers, who feel these absurdities and can not avoid them by any good reasoning, have no other resource than to say that we must ignore human reason and humbly adore these sublime mysteries without wishing to understand them; but that which they call faith is refuted when they tell us that we must submit; it is telling us that we must blindly believe that which we do not believe. our christ-worshipers condemn the blindness of the ancient pagans, who worshiped several gods; they deride the genealogy of those gods, their birth, their marriages, and the generating of their children; yet they do not observe that they themselves say things which are much more ridiculous and absurd. if the pagans believed that there were goddesses as well as gods, that these gods and goddesses married and begat children, they thought of nothing, then, but what is natural; for they did not believe yet that the gods were without body or feeling; they believed they were similar to men. why should there not be females as well as males? it is not more reasonable to deny or to recognize the one than the other; and supposing there were gods and goddesses, why should they not beget children in the ordinary way? there would be certainly nothing ridiculous or absurd in this doctrine, if it were true that their gods existed. but in the doctrine of our christ-worshipers there is something absolutely ridiculous and absurd; for besides claiming that one god forms three, and that these three form but one, they pretend that this triple and unique god has neither body, form, nor face; that the first person of this triple and unique god, whom they call the father, begot of himself a second person, which they call the son, and which is the same as his father, being, like him, without body, form, or face. if this is true, why is it that the first one is called father rather than mother, or the second called son rather than daughter? for if the first one is really father instead of mother, and if the second is son instead of daughter, there must be something in both of these two persons which causes the one to be father rather than mother, and the other to be son rather than daughter. now who can assert that they are males and not females? but how should they be rather males than females, as they have neither body, form, nor face? that is not an imaginable thing, and destroys itself. no matter, they claim chat these two persons, without body, form, or face, and, consequently, without difference of sex, are nevertheless father and son, and that they produced by their mutual love a third person, whom they called the holy ghost, who has, like the other two, no body, no form, and no face. what abominable nonsense! as our christ-worshipers limit the power of god the father to begetting but one son, why do they not desire that this second person, and the third, should have the same power to beget a son like themselves? if this power to beget a son is perfection in the first person, it is, then, a perfection and a power which does not exist in the second and in the third person. thus these two persons, lacking a perfection and a power which is found in the first one, they are consequently not equal with him. if, on the contrary, they say that this power to beget a son is no perfection, they should not attribute it, then, to the first person any more than to the other two; for we should attribute perfections only to an absolutely perfect being. besides, they would not dare to say that the power to beget a divine person is not a perfection; and if they claim that this first person could have begotten several sons and daughters, but that he desired but this only son, and that the two other persons did not desire to beget any others, we could ask them, firstly, from whence they know this, for we do not see in their pretended holy scriptures that any one of these divine personages reveals any such assertions; how, then, can our christ-worshipers know anything about it? they speak but according to their ideas and to their hollow imaginations. secondly, we could not avoid saying, that if these pretended divine personages had the power of begetting several children, and did not wish to make use of it, the consequence would be that this divine power was ineffectual. it would be entirely without effect in the third person, who did not beget or produce any, and would be almost without effect in the two others, because they limited it. then this power of begetting or producing an unlimited number of children would remain idle and useless; it would be inconsistent to suppose this of divine personages, one of whom had already produced a son. our christ-worshipers blame and condemn the pagans because they attribute divinity to mortal men, and worship them as gods after their death; they are right in doing this. but these pagans did only what our christ-worshipers still do in attributing divinity to their christ; doing which, they condemn themselves also, because they are in the same error as these pagans, in that they worship a man who was mortal, and so very mortal that he died shamefully upon a cross. it would be of no use for our christ-worshipers to say that there was a great difference between their jesus christ and the pagan gods, under the pretense that their christ was, as they claim, really god and man at the same time, while the divinity was incarnated in him, by means of which, the divine nature found itself united personally, as they say, with human nature; these two natures would have made of jesus christ a true god and a true man; this is what never happened, they claim, in the pagan gods. but it is easy to show the weakness of this reply; for, on the one hand, was it not as easy to the pagans as to the christians, to say that the divinity was incarnated in the men whom they worshiped as gods? on the other hand, if the divinity wanted to incarnate and unite in the human nature of their jesus christ, how did they know that this divinity would not wish to also incarnate and unite himself personally to the human nature of those great men and those admirable women, who, by their virtue, by their good qualities, or by their noble actions, have excelled the generality of people, and made themselves worshiped as gods and goddesses? and if our christ-worshipers do not wish to believe that divinity ever incarnated in these great personages, why do they wish to persuade us that he was incarnated in their jesus? where is the proof? their faith and their belief; but as the pagans rely on the same proof, we conclude both to be equally in error. but what is more ridiculous in christianity than in paganism, is that the pagans have generally attributed divinity but to great men, authors of arts and sciences, and who excelled in virtues useful to their country. but to whom do our god-christ-worshipers attribute divinity? to a nobody, to a vile and contemptible man, who had neither talent, science, nor ability; born of poor parents, and who, while he figured in the world, passed but for a monomaniac and a seditious fool, who was disdained, ridiculed, persecuted, whipped, and, finally, was hanged like most of those who desired to act the same part, when they had neither the courage nor skill. about that time there were several other impostors who claimed to be the true promised messiah; amongst others a certain judas, a galilean, a theodorus, a barcon, and others who, under this vain pretext, abused the people, and tried to excite them, in order to win them, but they all perished. let us pass now to his discourses and to some of his actions, which are the most singular of this kind: "repent," said he to the people, "for the kingdom of heaven is at hand; believe these good tidings." and he went all over galilee preaching this pretended approach of the kingdom of heaven. as no one has seen the arrival of this kingdom of heaven, it is evident that it was but imaginary. but let us see other predictions, the praise, and the description of this beautiful kingdom. behold what he said to the people: the kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man who sowed good seed in his field. but while he slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hidden in a field, the which, when a man has found, he hideth again, and for joy thereof goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field. again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchantman seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all he had, and bought it. again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind; which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. it is like a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field which, indeed, is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, etc. is this a language worthy of a god? we will pass the same judgment upon him if we examine his actions more closely. because, firstly, he is represented as running all over a country preaching the approach of a pretended kingdom; secondly, as having been transported by the devil upon a high mountain, from which he believed he saw all the kingdoms of the world; this could only happen to a visionist; for it is certain, there is no mountain upon the earth from which he could see even one entire kingdom, unless it was the little kingdom of yvetot, which is in france; thus it was only in imagination that he saw all these kingdoms, and was transported upon this mountain, as well as upon the pinnacle of the temple. thirdly, when he cured the deaf-mute, spoken of in st. mark, it is said that he placed his fingers in the ears, spit, and touched his tongue, then casting his eyes up to heaven, he sighed deeply, and said unto him: "ephphatha!" finally, let us read all that is related of him, and we can judge whether there is anything in the world more ridiculous. having considered some of the silly things attributed to god by our christ-worshipers, let us look a little further into their mysteries. they worship one god in three persons, or three persons in one god, and they attribute to themselves the power of forming gods out of dough, and of making as many as they want. for, according to their principles, they have only to say four words over a certain quantity of wine or over these little images of paste, to make as many gods of them as they desire. what folly! with all the pretended power of their christ, they would not be able to make the smallest fly, and yet they claim the ability to produce millions of gods. one must be struck by a strange blindness to maintain such pitiable things, and that upon such vain foundation as the equivocal words of a fanatic. do not these blind theologians see that it means opening a wide door to all sorts of idolatries, to adore these paste images under the pretext that the priests have the power of consecrating them and changing them into gods? can not the priests of the idols boast of having a similar ability? do they not see, also, that the same reasoning which demonstrates the vanity of the gods or idols of wood, of stone, etc., which the pagans worshiped, shows exactly the same vanity of the gods and idols of paste or of flour which our christ-worshipers adore? by what right do they deride the falseness of the pagan gods? is it not because they are but the work of human hands, mute and insensible images? and what kind of gods are those which we preserve in boxes for fear of the mice? what are these boasted resources of the christ-worshipers? their morality? it is the same as in all religions, but their cruel dogmas produced and taught persecution and trouble. their miracles? but what people has not its own, and what wise men do not disdain these fables? their prophecies? have we not shown their falsity? their morals? are they not often infamous? the establishment of their religion? but did not fanaticism begin, and has not intrigue visibly sustained this edifice? the doctrine? but is it not the height of absurdity? end of the abstract by voltaire. publisher's preface. by translating into both the english and german languages le bon sens, containing the last will and testament of the french curate jean meslier, miss anna knoop has performed a most useful and meritorious task, and in issuing a new edition of this work, it is but justice to her memory [miss knoop died jan. 11, 1889.] to state that her translation has received the endorsement of our most competent critics. in a letter dated newburyport, mass., sep. 23, 1878, mr. james parton, the celebrated author, commends miss knoop for "translating meslier's book so well," and says that: "this work of the honest pastor is the most curious and the most powerful thing of the kind which the last century produced. . . . . paine and voltaire had reserves, but jean meslier had none. he keeps nothing back; and yet, after all, the wonder is not that there should have been one priest who left that testimony at his death, but that all priests do not. true, there is a great deal more to be said about religion, which i believe to be an eternal necessity of human nature, but no man has uttered the negative side of the matter with so much candor and completeness as jean meslier." the value of the testimony of a catholic priest, who in his last moments recanted the errors of his faith and asked god's pardon for having taught the catholic religion, was fully appreciated by voltaire, who highly commended this grand work of meslier. he voluntarily made every effort to increase its circulation, and even complained to d' alembert "that there were not as many copies in all paris as he himself had dispersed throughout the mountains of switzerland." [see letter 504, voltaire to d'alembert] he earnestly entreats his associates to print and distribute in paris an edition of at least four or five thousand copies, and at the suggestion of d'alembert, made an abstract or abridgment of the testament "so small as to cost no more than five pence, and thus to be fitted for the pocket and reading of every workman." [letter 146, from d'alembert.] the abbé barruel claims in his memoirs [see history of jacobinism by the abbé barruel, 4 vols. 8 vo, translated by the hon. robert clifford, f. r. s., and printed in london in 1798. the learned abbé defines jacobinism as "the error of every man who, judging of all things by the standard of his own reason, rejects in religious matters every authority that is not derived from the light of nature. it is the error of every man who denies the possibility of any mystery beyond the limits of his reason, of every one who, discarding revelation in defence of the pretended rights of reason, equality, and liberty, seeks to subvert the whole fabric of the christian religion." b. 4.] to detect in the writings of voltaire and of the leading encyclopedists, a conspiracy not only against the altar but also against the throne. he severely denounces the "last will of jean meslier,--that famous curate of etrepigni,--whose apostasy and blasphemies made so strong an impression on the minds of the populace," and he styles the plan of d'alembert for circulating a few thousand copies of the abstract of the will, as a "base project against the doctrines of the gospel." [ibid, page 145] he even asserts his belief that: "the jacobins will one day declare that all men are free, that all men are equal; and as a consequence of this equality and liberty they will conclude that every man must be left to the light of reason. that every religion subjecting man's reason to mysteries, or to the authority of any revelation speaking in god's name, is a religion of constraint and slavery; that as such it should be annihilated in order to reestablish the indefeasible rights of equality and liberty as to the belief or disbelief of all that the reason of man approves or disapproves: and they will call this equality and liberty the reign of reason and the empire of philosophy." [history of jacobinism, page 51.] the results which the abbé barruel so clearly foresaw have at length been realized. the labors of the jacobins have not been in vain, and the revolution they incited has restored france to the government of the people! "with ardent hope for the future," says president carnot in his centennial address, may 5, 1889, "i greet in the palace of the monarchy the representatives of a nation that is now in complete possession of herself, that is mistress of her destinies, and that is in the full splendor and strength of liberty. the first thoughts on this solemn meeting turn to our fathers. the immortal generation of 1789, by dint of courage and many sacrifices, secured for us benefits which we must bequeath to our sons as a most precious inheritance. never can our gratitude equal the grandeur of the services rendered by our fathers to france and to the human race. . . . the revolution was based upon the rights of man. it created a new era in history and founded modern society." this is literally true. the freethinkers of france have taught mankind the doctrines of liberty, equality, and fraternity. they have taught the dignity of human reason, and the sacredness of human rights. they have broken the bondage of the altar, and severed the shackles of the throne; and it is to be regretted that at the centennial celebration held in this city on april 30th, 1889, the appointed orator [see the centennial address of the hon. chauncey m. depew.] did not realize the grandeur of the occasion, and did not, like carnot, pay a just tribute to our allies, the reformers of europe, as well as to the fathers of the republic. but the people of america will remember what the politician has forgotten. they will remember the names and deeds of their foreign benefactors as well as of the american patriots of '76. when they recall the illustrious europeans who fought for our liberties they will remember the name of lafayette; when they think of the declaration of independence they will not forget the name of thomas jefferson; and when they speak of "the times that tried men's souls" they will recall with gratitude the name of thomas paine. although the ecclesiastical conclave at rome claims the power of working miracles in defiance of nature's laws, yet with or without miracles, they have never answered the simple arguments advanced by jean meslier; although they claim to hold the keys of paradise, and bind on earth the souls that are to be bound in heaven, yet year by year their waning power refutes their senseless boast; although they boldly assert the dogma of popish infallibility, yet the loss of the temporal power once wielded by rome, and the death of each succeeding pontiff, attest both the pope's fallibility and the pope's mortality. indeed, the successor of st. peter is but human--the sacred college at rome is but mortal; and faith and dogma cannot forever resist the influence of light and knowledge. the power of catholicism is surely declining throughout europe; and if it has become aggressive in our american cities, is it not because the friends of freedom have forgotten the well-known axiom that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"? peter eckler. new york, may 21, 1889. prefatory note by the translator some years ago a copy of john meslier fell into my hands. i was struck with the simple truthfulness of his arguments, and the thought never left me of the happy change that would be produced all over the world when the religious prejudices should be dispelled, and when all the different nations and sects would unite and lend each other a friendly hand. since i had the opportunity of hearing the speeches and lectures of liberal men, it has seemed to me that the time has come for this work of john meslier to be appreciated, and i concluded to translate it into the language of my adopted country, presuming that many would be happy to study it. in this faith i offer it now to the public, and i hope that the name of john meslier will be honored as one of the greatest benefactors of humanity. anna knoop. preface of the editor of the french edition of 1830. it is said that truth is generally revealed by dying lips. when men full of health and enjoying all the pleasures of life, exert themselves without ceasing, to excite minds and to take advantage of their fanaticism by wearing the mask of religion, it will not be without interest or importance to know what other men, invested with the same ministry, have taught under the impulse of a conscience quickened by the approach of the final hour. their confessions are more valuable because they carry with them the spirit of contrition. it is then that the truth, which is no longer obscured by narrow passions and sordid interests, presents itself in all its brilliancy, and imposes upon him who has kept it hidden during his life, the duty, and even the necessity, of unveiling it fully at his death. it is then that human speech, losing in a measure its terrestrial nature, becomes persuasive and convincing. we know this fact of a celebrated preacher who in the beginning of the revolution stood in the same pulpit which we are pleased to call the pulpit of truth, and with his hand upon his heart declared that till then he had taught only falsehood. he did more; he implored his parishioners to forgive him for the gross errors in which he had kept them, and congratulated them upon having at last arrived at a period when it was permitted to establish the empire of reason upon the ruins of prejudice. times have changed very much, it is true; however, so long as the press shall be able to combat the fatal errors of religious fanaticism, and perhaps even to some extent prevent its violence, it will be the duty of every friend of humanity to reproduce continually the full retractions which opposed the sincerity and conscience of the dying to the bad faith and hypocritical avidity of the living. guided by this intention, and ashamed to see the human race, in a land just freed from the yoke of prejudice, give birth to a disgraceful juggling which will terminate in dominating authority, and associate itself with the persecutions of which our incredulous or dissenting ancestors were the sad victims, we believe it useful to reprint the last lessons of a priest--an honest man--bequeathed to his fellow-citizens and to posterity. the service we render to philosophy will be so much the greater when we can consider as immutable, perpetual, permanent, and ready to appear in the hour of need, the edition which we are preparing of "common sense, by the priest jean meslier, and his dying confession." to do justice to these two works, to which we have added analytical notes, which will greatly facilitate our researches, we will limit ourselves by giving the imposing approbation of two philosophers of the eighteenth century--voltaire and d'alembert. they certainly understood much better the sublimity of evangelical morality, and spoke of it in a manner more worthy of its author, than did those who deified it to profit by its divinity, and who abused so cruelly the ignorance and barbarity of the first centuries, to establish, in the interest of their fortunes and power, so many base prejudices, so many puerile and superstitious practices. here is what voltaire and d'alembert thought of the curate meslier and of his work. their letters are presented here in order to excite curiosity and convince the judgment: voltaire to d'alembert. ferney, february, 1762. they have printed in holland the testament of jean meslier. i trembled with horror in reading it. the testimony of a priest, who, in dying, asks god's pardon for having taught christianity, must be a great weight in the balance of liberals. i will send you a copy of this testament of the anti-christ, because you desire to refute it. you have but to tell me by what manner it will reach you. it is written with great simplicity, which unfortunately resembles candor. voltaire to the same. ferney, february 25, 1762. meslier also has the wisdom of the serpent. he sets an example for you; the good grain was hidden in the chaff of his book. a good swiss has made a faithful abstract and this abstract can do a great deal of good. what an answer to the insolent fanatics who treat philosophers like libertines. what an answer to you, wretches that you are, this testimony of a priest, who asks god's pardon for having been a christian! d'alembert's answer. paris, march 31, 1762. a misunderstanding has been the cause, my dear philosopher, that i received but a few days since the work of jean meslier, which you had sent almost a month ago. i waited till i received it to write to you. it seems to me that we could inscribe upon the tombstone of this curate: "here lies a very honest priest, curate of a village in champagne, who, in dying, asks god's pardon for having been a christian, and who has proved by this, that ninety-nine sheep and one native of champagne do not make a hundred beasts." i suspect that the abstract of his work is written by a swiss, who understands french very well, though he affects to speak it badly. this is neat, earnest, and concise, and i bless the author of the abstract, whoever he may be. "it is of the lord to cultivate the vine." after all, my dear philosopher, a little longer, and i do not know whether all these books will be necessary, and whether man will not have enough sense to comprehend by himself that three do not make one, and that bread is not god. the enemies of reason are playing a very foolish part at this moment, and i believe that we can say as in the song: "to destroy all these people you should let them alone." i do not know what will become of the religion of christ, but its professors are in false garb. what pascal, nicole, and arnaud could not do, there is an appearance that three or four absurd and ignorant fanatics will accomplish. the nation will give this vigorous blow within, while she is doing so little outside, and we will put in the abbreviated chronological pages of the year 1762: "this year france lost all its colonies and expelled the jesuits." i know nothing but powder, which with so little apparent force, could produce such great results. voltaire to d'alembert. delices, july 12, 1762. it appears to me that the testament of jean meslier has a great effect; all those who read it are convinced; this man discusses and proves. he speaks in the moment of death, at the moment when even liars tell the truth fully. this is the strongest of all arguments. jean meslier is to convert the world. why is his gospel in so few hands? how lukewarm you are at paris! you hide your light under a bushel! d'alembert's answer. paris, july 31, 1762. you reproach us with lukewarmness, but i believe i have told you already that the fear of the fagot is very cooling. you would like us to print the testament of jean meslier and distribute four or five thousand copies. the infamous fanaticism, for infamous it is, would lose little or nothing, and we should be treated as fools by those whom we would have converted. man is so little enlightened to-day only because we had the precaution or the good fortune to enlighten him little by little. if the sun should appear all of a sudden in a cave, the inhabitants would perceive only the harm it would do their eyes. the excess of light would result only in blinding them. d'alembert to voltaire. paris, july 9, 1764. apropos, they have lent me that work attributed to st. evremont, and which is said to be by dumarsais, of which you spoke to me some time ago; it is good, but the testament of meslier is still better! voltaire to d'alembert. ferney, july 16, 1764. the testament of meslier ought to be in the pocket of all honest men; a good priest, full of candor, who asks god's pardon for deceiving himself, must enlighten those who deceive themselves. voltaire to the count d'argental. aux delices, february 6, 1762. but no little bird told me of the infernal book of that curate, jean meslier; a very important work to the angels of darkness. an excellent catechism for beelzebub. know that this book is very rare; it is a treasure! voltaire to the same. aux deuces, may 31, 1762. it is just that i should send you a copy of the second edition of meslier. in the first edition they forgot the preface, which is very strange. you have wise friends who would not be sorry to have this book in their secret cabinet. it is excellent to form youthful minds. the book, which was sold in manuscript form for eight louis-d'or, is illegible. this little abstract is very edifying. let us thank the good souls who give it gratuitously, and let us pray god to extend his benedictions upon this useful reading. voltaire to d'amilaville. aux deuces, february 8, 1762. my brother shall have a meslier soon as i shall have received the order; it would seem that my brother has not the facts. fifteen to twenty years ago the manuscript of this work sold for eight louis-d'or; it was a very large quarto. there are more than a hundred copies in paris. brother thiriot understands the facts. it is not known who made the abstract, but it is taken wholly, word for word, from the original. there are still many persons who have seen the curate meslier. it would be very useful to make a new edition of this little work in paris; it can be done easily in three or four days. voltaire to the same. ferney, december 6, 1762. but i believe there will never be another impression of the little book of meslier. think of the weight of the testimony of one dying, of a priest, of a good man. voltaire to the same. ferney, july 6, 1764. three hundred mesliers distributed in a province have caused many conversions. ah, if i was assisted! voltaire to the same. ferney, september 29, 1764. there are too few mesliers and too many swindlers. voltaire to the same. aux delices, october 8, 1764. names injure the cause; they awaken prejudice. only the name of jean meslier can do good, because the repentance of a good priest in the hour of death must make a great impression. this meslier should be in the hands of all the world. voltaire to madam de florian. aux delices, may 20, 1762. my dear niece, it is very sad to be so far from you. read and read again jean meslier; he is a good curate. voltaire to the marquis d'argence. march 2, 1763. i have found a testament of jean meslier, which i send you. the simplicity of this man, the purity of his manners, the pardon which he asks of god, and the authenticity of his book, must produce a great effect. i will send you as many copies as you want of the testament of this good curate. voltaire to helvetius. aux deuces, may 1, 1763. they have sent me the two abstracts of jean meslier. it is true that it is written in the style of a carriage-horse, but it is well suited to the street. and what testimony! that of a priest who asks pardon in dying, for having taught absurd and horrible things! what an answer to the platitudes of fanatics who have the audacity to assert that philosophy is but the fruit of libertinage! the necessity of atheism _by_ dr. d. m. brooks freethought press association new york _copyright, 1933_ by freethought press association _dedicated to_ joseph lewis in america and chapman cohen in england of whom it may be said: _"how often it has happened that one man, standing at the right point of view, has descried the truth, and, after having been denounced and persecuted by all others, they have eventually been constrained to adopt his declarations!"_--(draper.) _for the old gods came to an end long ago. and verily it was a good and joyful end of gods! they did not die lingering in the twilight--although that lie is told! on the contrary, they once upon a time laughed themselves to death! that came to pass when, by a god himself, the most ungodly word was uttered, the word: "there is but one god! thou shalt have no other gods before me." an old grim beard of a god, a jealous one, forgot himself thus. and then all gods laughed and shook on their chairs and cried: "is godliness not just that there are gods, but no god?" whoever hath ears let him hear._ _"thus spake zarathrustra"_--friedrich nietzsche contents page preface ix i. the evolution of religious beliefs 21 ii. the koran, the old and new testaments 31 iii. the prophets mohammed, jesus, and moses charlatans or victims of mental and physical disease 65 iv. soundness of a foundation for a belief in a deity 94 v. the persistence of religion 115 vi. religion and science 120 vii. religion and medicine 126 viii. religion and astronomy 148 ix. religion and geography 151 x. religion and chemistry and physics 154 xi. religion and geology, philology, and evolution 157 xii. religion and witchcraft 163 xiii. religion and morality 193 xiv. christianity and war 211 xv. christianity and slavery 214 xvi. christianity and labor 224 xvii. religion and woman 242 xviii. the philosophers and the great illusion 251 xix. the doom of religion; the necessity of atheism 269 xx. contemporary opinion 309 preface plain speaking is necessary in any discussion of religion, for if the freethinker attacks the religious dogmas with hesitation, the orthodox believer assumes that it is with regret that the freethinker would remove the crutch that supports the orthodox. and all religious beliefs are "crutches" hindering the free locomotive efforts of an advancing humanity. there are no problems related to human progress and happiness in this age which any theology can solve, and which the teachings of freethought cannot do better and without the aid of encumbrances. havelock ellis has stated that, "the man who has never wrestled with his early faith, the faith that he was brought up with and that yet is not truly his own--for no faith is our own that we have not arduously won--has missed not only a moral but an intellectual discipline. the absence of that discipline may mark a man for life and render all his work ineffective. he has missed a training in criticism, in analysis, in open-mindedness, in the resolutely impersonal treatment of personal problems, which no other training can compensate. he is, for the most part, condemned to live in a mental jungle where his arm will soon be too feeble to clear away the growths that enclose him, and his eyes too weak to find the light." the man who has allowed his mental capacities to clear his way through the dense underbrush of religious dogma finds that he has emerged into a purer and healthier atmosphere. in the bright light of this mental emancipation a man perceives the falsities of all religions in their historic, scientific, and metaphysical aspects. the healthier mental viewpoint holds up to scorn and discards the reactionary religious philosophy of morals, and the sum total of his conclusions must be that religion is doomed; and doomed in this modern day by its absolute irrelevance to the needs and interests of modern life. and this not only by the steadily increasing army of freethinkers, but by the indifference and neglect of those who still cling to the fast slipping folds of religious creeds--the future freethinkers. it was spinoza who remarked that, "the proper study of a wise man is not how to die but how to live." religious creeds can but teach how man should live, so that when he dies, he may be assured of salvation; and the important thing is not what he does to help his fellow men while he is living, but how closely he lives in conformity to a reactionary code of dogmas. religion has always aimed to smooth the sufferer's passage to the next world, not to save him for this world. freethought has dethroned the gods from the pedestal, and has replaced, not an empty idol, but an _ideal_, the ideal of a man who is his own god. it has become increasingly apparent that what men have hitherto attributed to the gods are nothing but the ideals they value and grope for in themselves. the ideal of the freethinker, the conception that places the supreme worth of human life in the expanding horizon of man's usefulness to man, is forever menaced by the supernaturalism of the theist which manifests itself in the multifarious religious sects that are the most active and constant menace to civilization and to mankind today. that religion in the past has produced suffering incalculable and has been the greatest obstacle in the advance of secular knowledge is a fact too well attested to by history to be denied by any sincere and unbiased intelligent man. that today it constitutes a cultural lag, an active menace to the best interests of humanity and the last refuge of human savagery, is the contention of the freethinker. the conception of the god-idea as held by society in general stands in the same position as the vermiform appendix does to the anatomy of man. it may have been useful in some way thousands of years ago, but today it constitutes a detriment to the well-being of the individual without offering any compensatory usefulness. agree or disagree with this contention you may, but only when you are made aware of the facts that can be brought to the aid of this conviction. just as the fundamental principle of justice is outraged when a man or an institution is condemned by jurist or popular opinion when an opportunity is not given to present the facts on both aspects of the case, just so is no man justified in making a decision between theism and atheism until he becomes acquainted with both sides of the controversy. freethought but asks a hearing and the exercise of the unbiased reason of the man who has not hitherto been made aware of its contentions. in the religious revolution of this twentieth century, the battle ground is squarely seen to be between supernaturalism and secularism. although the supernaturalists are well entrenched and fortified, it is well to remember that it is the man with vision who finally prevails. the time has passed when the freethinker could be held up to the community as an example of a base and degraded individual. no manner of pulpit drivel can delude even the unthinking masses to this misconception. the freethinker is today the one who beholds the vision, and this vision does not transcend the natural. it is a vision that is earth-bound; a vision it may be called, since it leaps the boundary of the present and infers for him what the future of a secular organization of the entire constituency of humanity will bring forth. this vision is but a product of his scientific armamentarium and is the means by which he is assured of victory over the well-entrenched and fortified position of the supernaturalists who are still creed-bound to use antiquated and useless weapons. the supernaturalist's armamentarium of god, bible, heaven, hell, soul, immortality, sin, the fall and redemption of man, prayer, creed, and dogma, leave as much impression on the mind of intelligent man as would an arrow against a battleship. and the comparison is apt, the supernaturalists have made full use of force, be it in physical warfare or in mental coercion. the freethinker has as much use for physical force and war as he has for mental coercion; both are abhorrent to him. _supernaturalism vs. secularism_--that, and that alone is the field of argument. the supernaturalist, be he the fundamentalist of whatever denomination, or the more advanced modernist, is as tenaciously clinging to the transcendental, to revelation, to the infallibility of the bible, if not in all respects at least in some (although this is a contradiction _per se_), to the interdisposition of a deity in the affairs of mankind, as were his ancestors of five hundred years ago. in these aspects as well as in the armamentarium enumerated above, the supernaturalists are agreed and are making their last stand. the secularists, the opinion of the theists to the contrary, are also agreed. it matters not what a man calls his mental process; be he infidel, sceptic, rationalist, agnostic, or atheist; he is firm in the conviction that religions of all varieties are rapidly sinking into the limbo of all other ancient superstitions. to him it is but a matter of time for the inevitable crumbling and disappearance of these superstitions, and the time involved is directly proportional to the ease and rapidity with which scientific knowledge is disseminated to men who have the mental capacity to understand the value of this knowledge and its utter destruction of all forms of supernaturalism. when man becomes fully cognizant of the fact that all the knowledge acquired by the human race has been the result of human inquiry, the result of reasoning processes, and the exercise of mind alone, then secularism will have overcome the long night of supernaturalism. and it is this mental attitude of secularism that proceeds with an ever accelerated rapidity to overcome the problems that confront humanity by substituting human inquiry for divine revelation. thus this attitude of man to proceed through life dependent only on his own resources will expand and strengthen his mentality by doing away with the inferiority complex of the god-idea. this vision of man, the master of his own destinies, the searcher for truth and the shaper of a better life for the only existence that he knows anything about, this reliance of _man upon man_, and without the supposed interference of any god, constitutes atheism in its broadest and true sense. science and reason, the constituents of secularism, are the mortal enemies of supernaturalism. secularism, however, is at a disadvantage at this stage of our mental development, since it is approached only by the calm light of the intellect. and intellect can but make an appeal to reason. if the seeds of these appeals fall on the fertile minds of mentally advanced humanity, they will flourish; if they fall on the barren ground of creed-bound minds, they take no root. recognition of facts and honest deductions are not natural to the human mind. as far as religious matters are concerned, the vast majority of men have not reached a mental maturity; they are still in the infantile state where they have not as yet learned that the sequences of events are not to be interrupted by their desires. the easier path lies in the giving way to the unstable emotions. the primitive instincts are for emotion and for loose imaginings, and these are the provinces of supernaturalism. supernaturalism arouses the stupid interests and the brutish passions, and from these are born the bitter fruits of ignorance and hatred. the secularist is one in whom the intellect is passionate, and the passions cold. the supernaturalist on the other hand reverses the order, and in him the passions are active and the intellect inert. in each man there dwells a tyrant who creates for him a deity materialized out of these factors of ignorance and fear. it is science and reason which must destroy for him this monstrous apparition. but, as yet, there is no indication that our mental development in relation to social progress has made the great strides that our purely material progress has made. the twentieth century man utilizes and enjoys the material benefits of his century, but his mental progress lies bound and drugged by the viewpoints of 2000 years ago. sir leslie stephen has declared, "how much intellect and zeal runs to waste in the spasmodic efforts of good men to cling to the last fragment of decaying systems, to galvanize dead formulæ into some dim semblance of life! society will not improve as it might when those who should be leaders of progress are staggering backward and forward with their eyes passionately reverted to the past. nay, we shall never be duly sensitive to the miseries and cruelties which make the world a place of torture for so many, so long as men are encouraged in the name of religion to look for a remedy, not in fighting against surrounding evils, but in cultivating aimless contemplations of an imaginary ideal. much of our popular religion seems to be expressly directed to deaden our sympathies with our fellow men by encouraging an indolent optimism; our thoughts of the other world are used in many forms as an opiate to drug our minds with indifference to the evils of this; and the last word of half of our preachers is, 'dream rather than work.'" there is always a great deal of discrepancy between that which is best for the gods and that which is best for the individual and for society in general. one cannot serve man perfectly and the traditional gods as well. it is, therefore, the contention of freethinkers that if man had given to the service of man all that he had given to the gods in the past, our present stage of civilization would be much in advance of where it is today. if there is anything in the discussion to follow that may seem irreverent to the reader, the author wishes to call attention that he has but presented well substantiated facts. it is not only his opinion that he is voicing, but it is the facts as he has found them recorded in the researches of numerous sincere men. finally, it is the conviction of all freethinkers that, as professor james h. leuba has stated, "it is, furthermore, essential to intellectual and moral advances that the beliefs that come into existence should have free play. antagonistic beliefs must have the chance of proving their worth in open contest. it is this way scientific theories are tested, and in this way also, religious and ethical conceptions should be tried. but a fair struggle cannot take place when people are dissuaded from seeking knowledge, or when knowledge is hidden." the cultivation of the intellect is a duty that is imposed on all men. even those who still cling to the dying beliefs must admit the force of what winwood reade said, "to cultivate the intellect is therefore a religious duty; and when this truth is fairly recognized by men, the religion which teaches that the intellect should be distrusted and that it should be subservient to faith, will inevitably fall." when the principles of freethought shall have dispelled the intellectual cloud of the god-idea and the vanishing dream of a heaven which has too long drawn men's eyes away from this earth, then, and then only, will these words of cicero have widespread meaning: "men were born for the sake of men, that each should assist the others." the necessity of atheism chapter i the evolution of religious beliefs _to early man, the gods were real in the same sense that the mountains, forests, or waterfalls which were thought to be their homes were real. for a long time the spirits that lived in drugs or wines and made them potent were believed to be of the same order of fact as the potency itself. but the human creature is curious and curiosity is bold. hence, the discovery that a reported god may be a myth._ max carl otto. the geologists estimate that the age of the earth is somewhere between 80 and 800 millions of years; that the neanderthal race existed for more than 200,000 years; that between 40,000 and 25,000 years ago, as the fourth glacial period softened towards more temperate conditions, a different human type came upon the scene and exterminated homo neanderthalensis. these first "true men" descended from some more ape-like progenitors and are classed by ethnologists with the same species as ourselves, and with all human races subsequent to them under one common, specific term, homo sapiens. the age of cultivation began with the neolithic phase of human affairs about 10,000 or 12,000 years ago; about 6000 or 7000 years ago men began to gather into the first towns and to develop something more than the loose-knit tribes which had hitherto been their highest political organization. altogether, there must have elapsed about 500,000 years from the earliest ape-like human stage of life on this planet to the present time. it necessarily follows that the age of our present civilization is by no means that which the bible stipulates, but is merely an atom in the vast space-time of this earth. the reason for this disparity is that with the development of the mind of man throughout the ages there was conceived also his self-made religious systems, based on a subjective interpretation of the universe, and not on an objective one, devoid of emotional bias. "primitive man did not understand the natural cause of shadows, echoes, the birth and death of vegetable and animal organisms. of this ignorance religion was born, and theology was evolved as its art of expression." (_draper._) our story takes us back some twelve thousand years to neolithic man. squatting in his rude hovel or gloomy cave, he listens to the sounds of a storm without. the howling of the wind, the flashes of lightning, and crashing of thunder give rise to that elemental emotion--fear. fear was always with him, as he thought of the huge stones that fell and crushed him, and the beasts which were so eager to devour him. all things about him seemed to conspire for his death: the wind, lightning, thunder, rain and storm, as well as the beasts and falling trees; for in his mind he did not differentiate animate from inanimate objects. slowly, through his groping mind there evolved the thought, due to past experience, that he could not contend with these things by physical force, but must subdue them with magic; his magic consisted of the beating of crude drum-like instruments, dances, and the mumbling of words. upon falling asleep he dreams, and awakening, he finds that he is still in the same place where he had lain the night before. yet, he is certain that during the night he had traveled to his favorite wood and killed an animal whose tender flesh he was still savoring. since the conception of a dream was as yet foreign to him, the logical conclusion he arrived at was that he had both a body and a spirit. if he possessed a body and a spirit, then all things about him, he reasoned, must likewise possess a similar spirit. some spirits, he felt, were friendly; some, hostile to him. the hostile spirits were to be feared; but that powerful factor, "hope," had at last entered into his mind, and he hoped to be able to win them over to the camp of friendly spirits. in this manner, man passed from the stage of contending against the spirits to one of placating them. it was believed that certain men carried more favor with the spirits than others, and these became the original priests, called the "shamans." another expedient for warding off evil spirits was by means of the fetish. the primitive fetish was an object containing an active friendly spirit, which, if worn by the individual, protected him from the evil spirits. in a short while the manufacture of fetishes became a sacred profession, and the men who were thought to fashion the best ones became the professional holy men of the period, the priests. at first, idols were used to drive away the evil spirits, and then, the conception changed to one of attracting the good spirits to man. from the individual fetish man passed to tribal ones, which in their first form were huge boulders and trees. as the primitive mind gained cunning, it slyly smeared the surface of the idol with oily substances, hoping that the spirit, like some wild beast, would come and lick, be gratified, and remain in the idol. when some favorable signs denoted that a good spirit had entered into the idol, it was regularly smeared with oils and then blood, in the hope that the spirit would be pleased sufficiently to remain there permanently. as time went on, it became a custom, a rite, and the spirit having performed to the satisfaction of the tribe, ways were invented to manifest their gratitude. instead of smearing the idol with blood, it was thought more fitting that an animal be killed and offered to the good spirit contained within the idol. in this manner arose the beginning of "sacrifice." it was at this time, when man began to persuade the idols or spirits to do things for his benefit that religion began. slowly, slowly, down through the ages, as the mind of man progressed, his self-made religious conceptions advanced. he now worshiped idols, and these idols were his gods. the celts, the babylonians, the greeks, the romans, all had their idols. all were certain that their gods were the true ones, and that the others were all inferior and even false gods. but, is the modern worshipper who is contemptuous of the ancients very different from them? the centuries pass by, and in their wake is man's self-conceived religion. now, some men take the prerogative in the manufacture of religion, and there evolve brahmanism, jainism, buddhism, hinduism, confucianism, taoism, and zoroastrianism, all inspired, all supernatural, and with their myriads of followers who believed and still believe that theirs is the only true creed. very recently, in the time-scale of our development, man adopted the methods of "big business," and the religion of many gods and idols, polytheism, has given way to one supreme god, monotheism. man found that it made for simplicity and saved his valuable time if he worshiped one god, instead of obeying the hitherto many. the "chosen people" took it upon themselves to bring the next divinely concocted conception of a supreme god, and they manufactured the creed of judaism. after many years, a rift arose among the jews, and the sectarians were defeated and expelled. foiled in their first object, they cast aside the laws of moses and offered the hebrew religion without the hebrew ceremonies to the greek and roman world. jesus was the man who prepared the way for this remarkable event. when mohammed conceived the divine conception that he would follow in the footsteps of his brother-prophets, moses and jesus, the latest of the major religions was revealed. at the present time, the hebrews and christians, although worshiping the same jehovah, are disputing with each other, and indeed, amongst themselves, with regard to the various attributes, amorous pursuits, and lineal descendants of the godhead. jehovah himself appears to be on the decline and his unity is steadily disintegrating into a paradoxical trinity. but we are progressing, for in 1300 years no new prophet has arisen, and no new divine revelation is perturbing our race; the old ones, however, are causing quite enough disturbance. it would be of value for the modern religionist who believes that the worship of a deity in our own age is far removed from the worship of an idol by our savage ancestors, to retrace his steps and compare the savage mind worshiping his particular idol and a so-called civilized mind of today worshiping his deity. the savage prayed to his idol, that is, he _begged_. he begged the idol to watch over his flock or his fields. the modern prays, that is he begs of his idol, his deity, to prosper his business, to guard his life, and, as one of my "super-devout" acquaintances recently informed me, on the eve of an important golf match, for the deity to give him endurance; in other words, "to cut down his golf score." the savage voiced his incantations; the modern sings hymns, that is he flatters. there is still a great deal of the charlatanry of the magician in the construction of the houses of prayer, with the sunlight shut out and only filtering through the leaded and multi-colored panes, the semidarkness, the solemnity, the rise and swell of the organ; all things combined to overcome the senses, to play upon the emotions, and to subdue the reason. the savage made sacrifices to his idols, that is, he paid tribute, chiefly out of fear, but partly in the hope of getting something better in return. the modern does not offer human or animal sacrifice, it is true; but it must be borne in mind that the wealth of the savage consisted of his sheep, oxen, oils, and wines, not money. today, the devout offer a sacrifice of money to the deity. we are all familiar with the requests of religious institutions for gifts, which nearly always finish with the phrase, "and the lord will repay you many fold." in other words, sacrifice part of your worldly goods to the idol, and he will repay with high interest. he will give in return long life and much riches. the savage was afraid to utter the real name of his god, it was taboo. the modern says, "take not the name of the lord in vain." even today, the followers of moses consider it taboo to utter the name of jehovah except in prayer. the present-day methods of worship are no different from those of the savage; the method of supplication has changed with the advance of the years, but the fundamental ideas at the base of all worship are just as crude today as they were 4000 years ago. primitive man was no more a fetishist than is the modern catholic. the latter still wears medals and images suspended from the neck and pinned to the inner clothing. moreover, a survey of the various religions extant indicates that the religious factor is no less prevalent today than it was in primitive societies. in greenland, one finds, that through nearly all of its vast area religion has no place, but that is chiefly the result of its being largely uninhabited. in alaska, the population is for the most part catholic, although the natives are animists. in canada, 33 per cent are catholic, the rest are mainly protestant. in the united states, 20 per cent are catholic, 3.5 per cent are jewish, and the remainder are protestants. mexico, central and south america, are almost entirely roman catholic. in europe, russia was until recently dominantly greek orthodox; the scandinavian peninsula, the english isles, and central europe are dominantly protestant, while france, portugal, spain, italy, and the rest of the countries bordering the mediterranean sea are catholic. the rest of the continent is divided between jews and mohammedans. in asia, the entire vast area of siberia is only sparsely settled and its religions include animism, taoism, and christianity. in china, we find the land of three truths, confucianism, taoism, and buddhism. india, tibet, and burma are dominated by hinduism and buddhism; arabia, persia, and the rest of the continent are mohammedan. in japan, there are the shintoists. the east indies, where the population is native, are animistic. in australia, the dominant religion is protestantism. in north africa, the west coast inhabitants are mohammedans, while the abyssinians are christians. there are some coptic christians, in egypt, while in the congo and south african countries down to the cape settlements, the natives are animists. the cape settlements themselves are protestants. more concretely, it is estimated that 10.7% of the inhabitants of the globe are protestants; 16.2% are catholics; 7.1% are greek orthodox; 10% are animists; 1.4% are shintoists; 18.2% are confucians and taoists; 12.8% are hindus; 8.4% are buddhists; 13.4% are moslems; and 1.8% are hebrews and unclassified sects. truly, a religious babel! and 10% of all the inhabitants of the globe, about the same number of people who profess to protestantism, are animists. this is the lowest stage of primitive religion, and millions of humans are still quagmired in the sloth of a primitive faith which once must have been the faith of all human beings. the mohammedan, the jew, the christian, will readily agree that the animism, the fetishism, and idolatry of the savage were man-made foolish beliefs. they can readily perceive that there was nothing supernatural, nothing revealed, in such beliefs; but they do not realize that to him, in his infantile development, the fetish and the idol were just as supernatural and superior as the modern conception of a supreme being. in each age man creates his god, in his own image, and within the confines of his own mental development. the mind of man has expanded so that it has conquered more and more of his environment; it has grown and wrested from nature those secrets which constitute his civilization. along with this has progressed the conception of a deity, but only to a certain extent. the mind has embellished the outward appearance of its gods, consolidated them, and built upon them intricate systems of theology, upon which feed vast hordes of clergy; but the basic conception, the fundamental principle, that there must be something supernatural to explain something which we cannot explain at the present moment, that conception still drugs the mind of man. primitive man did not understand the meaning of lightning, thunder, shadows, echoes, etc., and he placed these among the supernatural phenomena. the modern mind explains these phenomena, understands the laws governing their production. yet, it is this same modern mind which persists in going back to our savage ancestors and their mental sloth, by attributing the myriads of phenomena which still elude its present stage of mental development, to a particular idol, this time, a supreme being. brahmanism, jainism, buddhism, hinduism, confucianism, taoism, zoroastrianism, hebrewism, mohammedanism, christianity--which is the true religion? let us suppose for a moment that an inhabitant of mars, if there be such, were by a "miracle" to be transported to this earth and endowed with the mental capacity of the average inhabitant of the earth (a thing which perhaps would not be so flattering to our guest), were to be approached by a zealot of each one of these faiths, who hoped to convert this stranger to its ranks. since the factor of coercion by force of environment to which each of these earthlings was subject would naturally be absent, the martian would be in a position to make a fair choice. how much would the visitor be impressed by the statements of the christian, mohammedan, or jew, when advised that unless he embraced their particular creed, he would be damned to eternal torture in their particular hell? if a christian were to accost him and endeavor to put the fear of god into him, and if our visitor, being from mars, already knew that of the world's population, only about 27 per cent are christians, and the other 73 per cent are non-christians, is it logical to suppose that he would ever be convinced that an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent, supreme being would select only one quarter of his children whom he had created for redemption, with the infallible knowledge that nearly three-quarters of them would be confined to hell for not believing what he could have made them believe if he were truly omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent? would he not rather reply that on his planet such a "father" who would select some of his children for rewards, and maliciously torture his other children, would not be designated as a god but a devil? were the martian to be further informed that each one of god's children was represented in actual figures by hundreds of millions and that these have been living on the planet earth for hundreds of thousands of years, and were the visitor to contemplate the vast incomprehensible number of souls that have been confined to hell by such a father, might he not cut his visit short? he would be apt to repeat with james mill, "think of a being who would make a hell, who would create the human race with the infallible foreknowledge and therefore with the intention that the great majority of them should be consigned to horrible and everlasting torment." i believe that our guest would assert that if such a being actually existed and demanded worship, he would certainly have revealed his true belief to the first man adam, and therefore saved his children an inestimable amount of suffering. were the visitor to be further pressed by the zealot with the vision of eternal hell, i believe he would retort that there is no reason for god to punish those who doubt or deny faith in his existence, since it is his own doing; and if he desired each one of his children to worship him according to the precepts of a certain creed, he surely would have instilled that creed into man's make-up together with the rest of his characteristics. undoubtedly, he would not esteem any creed which damned the human intellect by cursing the doubts which are the necessary consequence of its exercise, or the creed which cursed the moral faculty by asserting the guilt of honest error. if our visitor would but glance at the history, the evolution, of religious beliefs, he would realize and soundly assert that all religions are human in their origins, erroneous in their theories, and ridiculous in their threats and rewards. chapter ii the koran and the old and new testaments _the jews emerge into history, not a nation of keen spiritual aspirations and altruistic ethics, but that pagan people, worshipping rocks, sheep and cattle, and spirits of caves and wells, of whom the old testament, tending towards its higher ideal, gives fragmentary but convincing evidence_. james t. shotwell. _consider jahveh. cruel god of a horde of nomadic invaders settling in a land of farmers, he had his images, ranging in elaboration from an uncut mazzebah or asherah, to a golden bull. he was plural by place and tribe and function. what did the prophetic movement do with his sacred powers? it identified his taboos with a written constitution_. horace m. kallen. _the mental attitude of these priest-dominated ancestors of ours is amazing. they were like children in the hands of unscrupulous teachers. in reading these old chronicles it is impossible not to be shocked by the incongruity ever arising out of the juxtaposition of theory and practice_. llewelyn powys. our martian visitor, having withstood the blasts of the zealot, is approached by a mohammedan who places in his hands the koran and tells him that it is a divinely inspired revelation, as revealed by allah through his prophet, mohammed. having already had some experience with earthly religionists, the martian is disposed to avail himself of the historical evidence regarding the life of mohammed. he finds that mohammed, from all accounts, was a demagogue, a charlatan, and a victim of mental disease. it strikes him strangely that such an individual should be chosen by allah as his disciple on earth to make known his commands. he notes mohammed's appearance on earth in 600 a.d. and wonders why the creator should have procrastinated for such a long time; but decides to read the revelations anyhow. he discovers that "from the literary point of view, the koran has little merit. declamation, repetition, puerility, a lack of logic, and incoherence strike him at every turn. he finds it humiliating to the human intellect to think that this mediocre literature has been the subject of innumerable commentaries and that millions of men are still wasting time in absorbing it." a hebrew next takes his turn at this obstinate guest and sets before him the old testament. again, the martian is informed that it is an inspired book actuated by god. in his attempt to find the historical evidence corroborating this book, the martian finds that authentic history begins for the israelites with the constitution of saul's monarchy about 1100 b.c. all that precedes this--the deluge, the dispersal of mankind, abraham, jacob, joseph, the captivity in egypt, moses, joshua, and the conquest of canaan, is more or less mythical. in the old testament, our martian reads the first chapter, glances at the chronology, and is immediately bewildered since he has a fair knowledge of our scientific advances. as he reads on, he becomes aware of a host of errors, contradictions, and manifest absurdities. when he questions the zealous hebrew, he comes in contact with what he is informed is concordism, which he perceives is a false science that consists in determining, at any cost, a perfect harmony between modern science and the knowledge possessed by god's people. he is thus told that the days of creation were not days at all, but periods; although the bible mentions the morning and evening of each day. delving further in this most holy of revelations, he learns that god is represented in a manner most unworthy of what such a being should be represented. he finds the lord walking in the cool of the evening, showing his hind quarters to moses, ordering abominable massacres, and punishing chiefs who had not killed enough people. on further perusal, there is revealed, "a great deal of oriental bombast, incoherence and absurdity, that the marvels recounted are often ludicrous or grotesque." in a chance moment, when the hebrew had relaxed his hold for a second, a vile heretic points out to the visitor (_exodus xxii, 18_): "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!" and explains the witchcraft delusion to him. from a comparison between exodus xxxiv and exodus xx, he is at a loss to decipher which are the true commandments that the lord gave to moses. the first five books of the pentateuch, he finds, are attributed to moses, although they contain the account of the latter's death. on inquiry, he learns that this is still maintained by the synagogue. his martian intellect is unable to comprehend the logic of a god who would demand human and animal sacrifice, and the story of abraham about to sacrifice his son isaac fills him with disgust. his estimate of the mentality of jehovah receives a severe jolt when he reads in leviticus xvi, "herewith shall aaron come unto the holy place with a young bullock for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. he shall put on the holy linen coat, and he shall have the linen breeches upon his flesh, and he shall be girded with the linen girdle, and with the linen mitre shall he be attired; they are the holy garments; and he shall bathe his flesh in water and put them on. and he shall take of the congregation of the children of israel two he-goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering. and aaron shall present the bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and he shall make atonement for himself and for his houses. and he shall take the two goats and set them before the lord at the door of the tent of the meeting." our visitor reads on to leviticus xviii, after which he must stop to question the hebrew, for here he finds, "none of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness; i am the lord. the nakedness of thy father, even the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover; she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. the nakedness of thy father's wife shalt thou not uncover; it is thy father's nakedness. the nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover. the nakedness of thy son's wife--the nakedness of the wife of thy father--the nakedness of thy father's sister, thy mother's sister, the nakedness of thy daughter-in-law, thy brother's wife, the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, thou shalt not uncover. and unto a woman separated by her uncleanliness thou shalt not approach to uncover her nakedness. thou shalt not be carnally with thy neighbor's wife, to defile thyself with her. thou shalt not be with mankind as with womankind. and thou shalt not be with any beast to defile thyself thereto; neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto; it is confusion." the martian, totally aghast, is constrained to exclaim that he cannot believe that a deity should find it necessary to place this in a divine revelation. the hebrew zealot relents somewhat to explain that perhaps this was not revealed, but found its way into the divine text as a moral lesson to the primitive tribes for which it was written. to this, our guest counters with the remark that if this be a parable of manners and morals, then, from what he observes on the earth, we, earthlings, have certainly outgrown the need for such coarse and obscene statements made some 2000 years ago; and that on mars, although the inhabitants are not blessed with such divine revelations, common sense and reason have taught their most primitive men the same lessons in morality while they were yet in their infancy. reflecting on this maze of contradictions, the martian determines to analyze the old testament and the hebrew religion in the same manner that he would investigate any other problem presented to him. thirty-five hundred years ago, the hebrews were a pastoral, primitive people inhabiting the wilderness known today as the arabian desert. their religion was that of all other primitive peoples--animism, an illusion which made primitive man recognize everywhere spirits similar to his own spirit. they worshiped the spirits of the sun and the moon, the mountains and rocks, as well as the spirits of the dead. it appears certain that the barrenness of this desert land necessitated these wandering tribes to migrate to adjacent areas of greater fertility. to the north lay the fertile valleys of the tigris and euphrates and the coast of the mediterranean sea; to the west lay the land of the egyptians. time and time again, these bedouin tribes hurled themselves against the inhabitants of the northern fertile valleys. babylonia, to the northeast, was the first country to be invaded, and later canaan to the northwest. successful at times in establishing themselves in babylonia and canaan, they were at other times driven back into the desert when the native inhabitants in turn attacked the invaders. migrating into egypt in search of food, they were made a captive nation and escaped again into the desert when the egyptians were engaged in fighting the savage invaders from libya. the leader of this flight from egypt was the prophet moses. the martian decides to investigate the character and deeds of this influential figure at another time. it is probable that the exodus gave the proper stimulus for the beginnings of a distinctive hebrew religion, and was the reason for their finally establishing themselves in canaan, with jehovah as their chief deity. it has often been proclaimed that the value of judaism has been in first establishing a religion of monotheism; but it must not be forgotten that centuries before the hebrews escaped into the desert, the egyptians were tending to monotheism. it is known that one god was exalted over all the rest in egypt, and that as far back as 1375 b.c. king ikhnaton made the religion of egypt an absolute monotheism. the hebrews, in proclaiming their yahveh as the one and supreme deity, were but following what they had assimilated from the egyptians. the faith of these desert marauders, at the time of their entrance into canaan, was as crude and savage as the hebrews themselves. brought into contact with the gods of the phoenicians and babylonians, their yahveh underwent a change, as have all other creeds since that time when brought into contact with another creed. the final idea of yahveh accepted by the hebrews was not the product of a sudden revelation but of a gradual evolution. the hebrews, about the twelfth century b.c., gained access into canaan, and at first were successful in warfare, so that under king david they presented the aspect of a united nation. however, following the extravagant reign of king solomon, the nation was embroiled in a revolution, and the land was divided into two kingdoms--israel in the north, judah in the south. these two tiny kingdoms were habitually at war with each other and, finally, in 722 b.c. israel was conquered, while in 586 b.c., judah was defeated and its population either scattered or taken into captivity. in 538 b.c., cyrus of persia conquered babylonia and set the exiles free. returning to their own land, the exiles took back with them the law code which the priests had manufactured for them. then began a period of priestly domination and corruption, a period of subjugation to rome, of insurrection against rome, and the capture and destruction of jerusalem in 70 a.d. with the capture of jerusalem, the hebrew nation was finally dispersed. just as the martian was able to trace the evolution of the hebrews from the stage of the marauding tribes of the arabian desert who wandered into egypt, canaan, and babylonia, and finally established a kingdom for themselves which was dispersed by rome; just so could he trace the evolution of their religious beliefs from their incipient crudities to their not too great refinement at 70 a.d. this evolution of the hebrew religion is best exemplified by an analysis of the old testament itself. there are several canons, or official collection of books which comprise the old testament. the jews and protestants accept fewer books than the roman catholics. the jewish canon consists of those so-called sacred books of which the synagogue possessed hebrew texts about a century before the christian era. "about 150 b.c. the sacred books of the jews were translated into greek for the use of those egyptian jews who could not read hebrew. this translation is called the septuagint, from a tradition that seventy or seventy-two translators had worked upon it." (_salomon reinach, "orpheus._") the earliest manuscripts of the hebrew bible date only from the tenth century a.d., but there are very much older manuscripts of the greek and latin translations in existence. at the time of jesus christ, three divisions of the old testament were recognized. these were, the law, the prophets, and the other scriptures. the first five books, genesis, exodus, numbers, leviticus, and deuteronomy, are known as the pentateuch, and are attributed to moses himself; although, as has been noted, they contain the account of his death. this conception of the mosaic origin of the pentateuch was accepted by the israelites as early as the fifth century b.c. and has been maintained by the synagogue since that time. following the example of the hebrews, the christian churches accepted this version as to origin, and the roman catholic church still upholds this view. the jewish synagogue and the various christian churches further hold that the old testament is a collection of works inspired or dictated by god. even as late as 1861, the famous dean burgon, in a sermon preached at oxford university, declared, "the bible is none other than the voice of him that sitteth upon the throne. every book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every syllable of it, every letter of it, is the direct utterance of the most high. the bible is none other than the word of god, not some part of it more, some part of it less, but all alike the utterance of him who sitteth upon the throne, faultless, unerring, supreme." the martian compared this statement with the words of the scholar loisy, "if god himself wrote the bible, we must believe him to be either ignorant or untruthful." as he delves further into the intricacies of the construction of the bible, our visitor perceives that the old testament gradually evolved from the tenth century to the second century b.c., and in its present form is mainly a fifth century compilation, so distorting the facts that it has taken scholars one hundred and fifty years to get them straight. "it may rightly be said that there is not a single book in the bible which is original in the sense of having been written by one man, for all the books are made up of older documents or pre-existing sources which were combined with later materials, undergoing, in this way, several revisions and editions at the hands of different scribes or compilers. deep traces have therefore been left upon the text of the bible by these several stages of expansions, additions, modifications, revisions, and incorporations--they appear to the scholar of biblical literature much like the striations grooved in the rocks by large glaciers to the student of geology." (_trattner, "unravelling the book of books._") the martian ascertains that to most thinking men it has become very obvious that the bible is the work of man, and not the inspiration of a god; that an increasing number of liberal theologians are discarding the theory of the divine inspiration of the bible. he likewise clearly perceives that there are as yet many men that have given this matter but little thought; with the divine inspiration looming up as a corner stone in the hebrew faith he realizes that it behooves him to carry his investigations further. the christians, accepting the old testament as a book dictated by god, had fixed the age of the earth as 4004 b.c. the harm done by the christian ecclesiastics in attempting to force science to conform to the ridiculous concept of the construction of the universe as contained in the bible, and as interpreted by the church, the martian considers in a further chapter. scientists incline to the view that the earth has existed as a separate planet for something like two thousand million years (2,000,000,000). the rocks give a history of 16,000,000,000. just as in the study of the origin of primitive beliefs, one finds that man made his gods and invented all that they are reported to have said, so a study of the old testament reveals that the ancient hebrew invented his god, and manufactured the vast mass of myth and fable that are recorded as the words and deeds of god. throughout the ages, the words of these ancient hebrews have been taken as the words of a god. "everything goes to show that the hebrew literature was produced like other literatures. hebrews were not the first to tell tales. when they did come to write 'for our learning' they borrowed from other people. the only reason why anything more than a literary attention is paid to these old jewish writings is that jesus was a jew. when christianity was founded--a difficult date to fix--there was no such thing as a bible. the old brahmans and buddhists had holy scriptures; the egyptians had a book of the dead, and the sayings of khuenaten; the persians had the zend-avesta; the chinese had sacred books. they were all as sacred as the jewish books. priests made them sacred. priests generally rewrote and edited them, even if they had not originally imagined them. there is nothing to guide the man of common sense save knowledge and reason. every priest swears his religion and his scriptures are true. but they cannot all be true. if the first are true, then the jews are past further consideration, for they were not the first in the field with sacred writings.... holy scriptures are merely jewish classics. we have had to accept these old writings of the hebrews as holy and inspired because the priests said so, and for no other reason whatsoever. there is no other reason." assuming the existence of a deity, a man exercising his common sense would be compelled to deny that the old testament is inspired of god, because it abounds in stupidities and errors such as no god could inspire. "but because the jews accumulated these writings, the subsequent adopters of christianity, realizing that jesus was a jew, and had been a professing jew, promptly annexed these tales of fancy and of fear, of muddled, sensual, silly things and said they must be accepted with the teachings of jesus. and in the course of time, people had to believe these old jewish writings were the word of god." (_w. h. williamson, "thinker or believer_.") the hebrews had as one of their gods, yahveh, whom they endowed with their qualities; qualities inherent in a primitive people: jealousy and might, trickery and fickleness. they evolved a worship that contained in a modified form many of the ceremonials that they witnessed when they came into contact with the babylonians and phoenicians. their bible they maintained to be a collection of books which appeared at intervals, with divine inspiration, during a thousand years of jewish history. similarly, they insisted that moses wrote the pentateuch, that judges, kings, and chronicles go back to the times they describe, that the prophecies were added from the ninth century onward, and so on. the martian found that not a single book of the old testament is older than the ninth century b.c. and that in the fifth century b.c. all the older books and fragments were combined together into the old testament as we have it, and were drastically altered so as to yield a version of early jewish history which is not true. the manipulation of the hebrew writings by the jewish priests had for its object to represent the jewish priesthood, and its rights and customs, as having been established in the days of moses. deuteronomy and leviticus have been classed as priestly forgeries. nearly every occurrence, from the creation of the world to the death of moses, is related twice and, in some cases, three times; and as the pentateuch is supposed to have been written by moses one must assume that moses had double and triple vision. chronicles, ezra, and nehemiah are impudent forgeries of the fourth century, giving a totally false version of the events. the martian finds that the terms used for these fabrications are "redaction" or "recension," but, in his understanding, he finds the word most descriptive of the process to be forgery. "the main point is that practically all the experts assure you that in scores of material points the old testament history has been discredited, and has only been confirmed in a few unimportant incidental statements; and that the books are a tissue of inventions, expansions, conflations, or recensions dating centuries after the event." the martian in his analysis becomes aware of instances related in the old testament that on his planet would have to be termed forgeries,--deliberate falsifications or fabrications of documents or of the signature to them. "now the far greater part of the more learned clerical authorities on the bible say that many books of the old testament pretend to be written by men who did not write them; that many books were deliberately written as history when the writers knew that they were not history; and that the old testament as a whole, as we have it, is a deliberate attempt to convey an historical belief which the writers knew to be false. but these learned authorities do not like the word forgery. it is crude." (_joseph mccabe, "the forgery of the old testament."_) they veil the meaning of this word in the elegance, the subtlety, the resources, of diplomatic language. they talk of certain books in terms of "their legendary character," "their conformity to a scheme," and "their didactic purpose." to the martian these are but an extremely polite description of what he would call a forgery. a theologian in speaking of david states that "keen criticism is necessary to arrive at the kernel of fact," and, "the imaginative element in the story of david is but the vesture which half conceals, half discloses certain facts treasured in popular tradition." the martian thinks this is polite language, but the word forgery is much more concise and to the point, and he finds an excellent example of this described by joseph mccabe in "the forgery of the old testament." he states, "some time ago we recovered tablets of the great persian king, cyrus, and professor sayre gives us a translation of them, and he compares them, as you may, with the words of daniel, 'in that night was belshazzar, the king of the chaldeans, slain, and darius the median took the kingdom.' the tablets of cyrus describe the taking of babylon, and are beyond the slightest suspicion. the persians had adopted the babylonian custom of writing on clay, then baking the brick or tablet, and such documents last forever. and these and other authentic and contemporary documents of the age which 'daniel' describes show: 1. that belshazzar was not the king of babylon. 2. that the name of the last king was nabonidos. 3. that the city was taken peacefully, by guile, not by bloodshed. 4. that it was cyrus, not darius the median, who took it. 5. that darius, who is said (xi, 1) by daniel to have been the son of "ahasuerus" (xerxes), was really his father. 6. that all the babylonian names in daniel are absurdly misspelt and quite strange to the writer. 7. that the writer described the chaldeans in a way that no writer could have done before the time of alexander the great. it is now beyond question that the man who wrote daniel, and pretended to be alive in 539 b.c. (when babylon fell), did not live until three or four centuries later. the book is a tissue of errors, as we find by authentic documents and by reading the real babylonian names on the tablets." the martian discovers glaring instances of forgery in the book of isaiah and the psalms of david, which, while they pretend to have been written by isaiah and david, are really compilations by various writers. similarly, he finds that the book of esther has been pronounced by scholars as a clumsy forgery of the second century, and that the story of the slaying of goliath by david is not consistent with the unlegendary tradition that the slayer of goliath was elhanan, and the period of this adventure not in saul's but in david's reign. the book of psalms, although attributed to king david, was not written by king david; and the book of proverbs, although attributed to solomon, was not written by king solomon. the book of genesis relates the mythical traditions of the hebrews from the creation of the world to the death of joseph. "a french physician of the eighteenth century, astruc, was the first scholar to point out that the two principal designations of god in genesis, elohim and jahveh, are not used arbitrarily. if we place side by side the passages in which god is called elohim, and those in which he is called by the other name, we get two perfectly distinct narratives, which the author of the pentateuch, as we possess it, has juxtaposed rather than fused. this one discovery suffices to discredit the attribution of these books to moses, who could not have been an unintelligent compiler, and also discredits the theory of the divine inspiration of the bible text. a comparison of the two narratives shows that all which relates to the creation of eve, the garden of eden, and adam's transgression, exists only in the jehovist text. thus it is evident that two versions of the creation are given in genesis. but there are traces in the old testament of a third legend, akin to that of the babylonians, in which marduk creates the world by virtue of a victory over the waters of chaos (tiamat). this conception of a conflict between the creator and hostile forces was contrary to the monotheistic thesis, and has disappeared from our two versions of genesis; but the suppression sufficiently proves that it was very ancient and had long been accepted." the martian finds that theologians have attempted to crawl out of desperate situations in their interpretation of the old testament by a method of reading into a passage or extracting out of it ideas altogether foreign to its original intent. this method they call "allegory." by means of this process they have been able to extract any meaning which suits their purposes, and by this method of juggling could prove anything. a classic example is that licentious piece of literature called the "song of solomon," in which it is claimed that a woman's breasts, thighs, and belly are the symbols of the union of jahveh and the synagogue. continuing his researches, the martian notices a number of passages in the old testament that lead him to the conclusion that the hebrews were originally polytheists. the name elohim, he finds, is plural (singular, eloah), meaning the gods. again, in another passage of genesis, god is described as saying, "let us make man in our image (i, 26)," and further on, "the man is become as one of us." it becomes evident to him that the hebrews, like their neighbors, worshiped "baalim" or the gods of the heathens. the "teraphim," the etymology of which is unknown, were little portable idols which seem to have been the lares of the ancient hebrews. david owned some (i samuel xix, 13-16), and the prophet hosea, in the eighth century before christ, seems still to have considered the "teraphim" as indispensable in worship (hos. iii, 4). these evidences of polytheism and fetichism in the people of israel destroy, in the mind of the martian, the claim of these people to have been faithful from their earliest origin to a spiritual monotheism. rather does he find that they took the religions of other peoples with whom they came in contact. the old testament contains numerous instances of the practice of magic. moses and aaron were magicians who rivalled pharaoh's magicians (ex. vii, 11-20); and balaam was a magician who pronounced incantations against israel and afterwards passed over to the service of jehovah. jacob resorted to a kind of sympathetic magic to procure the birth of a speckled sheep (gen. xxx, 39). "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," is written in exodus xxii, 18, and this phrase offered an affirmation of the reality of witchcraft during the period of the witchcraft delusion. the martian notes that the sentence, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," has caused more suffering, torture, and death than probably any other sentence ever framed. his mind revolts at the stupidity and the slavish adherence to so-called authority of the human mind, which is manifested in this example of what occurred in the period of the witchcraft delusion, when the words of an ignorant and barbaric hebrew were taken by christian followers to be the words of a god. and yet our martian guest recognizes that in this day all men are aware of the fallacy of this utterance in a book which is still claimed to be infallible. the martian then considers the many ancient hebrew rites and religious taboos that have come down through the ages, and are still practiced in a modified form by the modern hebrew. thus, in the old testament, there are numerous instances recorded of the practices of slaughtering of innocent animals who were offered as peace offerings to yahveh. as time passed, the practice of slaughtering and then burning the sacrificial animal gave way to the practice of only giving the blood of the animal as an offering. this custom has come down to the present day in the modern worship of jehovah; the blood of animals is still forbidden to the modern hebrew. therefore, the orthodox jew has the neck of the chicken slit by a "shochet" who allows the blood to drip to the ground--a modern blood offering to the gods. the explanations given by the rabbis of our day are spurious. similarly, the orthodox jew of our time still persists in salting the meat before cooking, a process which is intended to remove the blood, which is the portion of the gods. the reason that the pious jew abstains from pork leads to the consideration of totemism as found in the old testament. totemism is a kind of worship rendered to animals and vegetables considered as allied and related to man. the worship of animals and plants is found as a survival in all ancient societies and is the origin of the belief in the transmigration of souls. totemism seems to have been as widespread as the animism from which it is derived, and has been closely intertwined in the development of religious beliefs. totemism in a modified form is found in the old testament where animals speak on occasion, as the serpent in genesis, or balaam's ass. in the most remote periods it is probable that every clan had at least one totem animal which might no more be killed or eaten than the human individuals of the clan. the totem was protected by taboo. the totem was sacred and in this capacity it was looked upon as a source of strength and holiness, and to live beside it and under its protection was considered as a righteous custom. in certain communities the idea that it was necessary to abstain from eating certain totems survived the progress of material civilization. the cow is taboo to the hindus, the pig is taboo to the mohammedans and to the jews. the pious jew abstains from pork because his remote ancestors, five or six thousand years before our era, had the wild boar as their totem. this is the origin of this alimentary taboo; among the ancient hebrews it arose, and only comparatively recently has it been suggested that the flesh of these taboo animals was unwholesome. in the eighteenth century, philosophers propagated the erroneous notion that if certain religious legislators had forbidden various aliments, it was for hygienic motives. even renan believed that dread of trichinosis and leprosy had caused the hebrews to forbid the use of pork. to show the irrational nature of this explanation, it will be enough to point out that in the whole of the bible there is not a single instance of an epidemic or a malady attributed to the eating of unclean meats; the idea of hygiene awoke very late in the greek world. to the biblical writers, as to contemporary savages, illness is supernatural; it is an effect of the wrath of spirits. primitive man ascribed all diseases either to the wrath of god, or the malice of an evil being. the curing of disease by the casting out of devils and by prayers were the means of relief from sickness recognized and commanded by the old testament. the hygienic explanation of an alimentary prohibition as still insisted upon by the rabbis is entirely erroneous and marks the expounder of such an explanation as one who is entirely ignorant of the evolution of religious beliefs. the entire matter is well stated in one sentence by reinach, "nothing can be more absurd, generally speaking, than to explain the religious laws and practices of the remote past by considerations based on modern science." the martian is able to trace some curious customs that were exhibited by the ancient hebrews as well as most other ancient peoples, and which have persisted to this day. the customs remain the same, the meanings have become lost in the blind adherence to custom. it is known that the old jewish mourning customs originated with the desire for protection from the liberated spirit of the deceased. the loud cries uttered by the mourners were thought to frighten away the spirits. the change of dress, the covering of the head with ashes, and the shaving of the hair of the mourners were done with the purpose of making themselves unrecognizable to the spirits. hence, the custom still prevails of wearing the mourning veil. the covering of mirrors when death occurs in the household may well be an attempt to prevent the spirit from lingering in the vicinity. similarly, even today, the orthodox jew, in case of grave illness in his family, changes the given name of the sufferer. to confuse the evil spirit causing the disease? further survivals of totemism as found in the old testament are illustrated by the worship of the bull and the serpent. portable gilded images of bulls were consecrated and hosea protested against the worship of the bull in the kingdom of israel (hos. viii, 5; x, 5). the famous golden calf of the israelites, which was the object of moses' anger, was a totemic idol. the worship of the serpent was practiced by moses himself (num. xxi, 9). a brazen serpent was worshiped in the temple of jerusalem, and was only destroyed by hezekiah about 700 b.c. (2 kings xviii, 4). the ancient hebrews, as well as their neighbors, were phallic worshipers. to primitive people it is but a natural phase to have the phallus become the exponent of creative power, and as such to be worshiped. to these primitive minds there was nothing immoral in genuine phallic worship. signs of phallicism among the ancient hebrews can be clearly pointed out; the serpent was a phallic symbol. "that the serpent was the phallus is proved by the bible itself. the hebrew word used for serpent is 'nachash,' which is everywhere else translated in the bible in a phallic sense, as in ezekiel xvi, 36, where it is rendered 'filthiness' in the sense of exposure, like the 'having thy boseth naked' of micah." (_j. b. hannay, "christianity, the sources of its teaching and symbolism."_) the ark itself was a feminine symbol, and phallicism would explain why moses made an ark and put in it a rod and two stones. "the eduth, the shechina, the tsur, and the yahveh were identical; simply different names for the same thing, the phallus. they occupied the female ark with which they formed the double sexed life symbol. the hebrew religion had thus a purely phallic basis, as was to be expected from a ritual and symbolism derived from two extremely phallic nations, babylon and egypt." (_j. b. hannay, ibid._) an intelligent reading of exodus xxxiv, 13, and 1 kings xiv, 23 and 24, will prove the above contention. once more our martian guest is besieged by the hebrew zealot to examine the divine revelation of his religion. this time the martian notes, "i, yahveh, thy god, am a jealous god, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations" (deut.), which seems to him to savor of a cruel and monstrous being. he cannot perceive of a just being favoring slavery (ex. xi), or of a merciful father ordering human sacrifice (ex. xiii), (lev. xxvii, 29), (num. xiii, 3). he is dumbfounded to find references to cannibalism (lev. xxvi, 14-16-28; deut. xxviii, 53-58; jer. xix, 9; ezek. v, 10; kings vi, 26-29-33). a benevolent being, he reasons, would not sanction war and destruction of the captured enemy, yet there are instances of this (deut. xxi, 10-14; deut. xx, 13-14; deut. vii, 1-2-16). the reading of numbers v, 11-29, and deuteronomy xxii nauseated him. the hebrew zealot, observing the utter disgust with which the reader was regarding his revelation, is obliged to explain to the bewildered barbarian unbeliever that the old testament is the foundation for all of our morals and that without it we would have developed into a very shocking and immoral race. since the visitor wishes to remain courteous he proceeds, but with a great deal of hesitation, to further examine the revelation of god. at this point he is assured that this work is read in most schools and taught to small children. however, our guest is again disillusioned; for no sooner does he arrive at genesis, xii, 11-20, than he finds that abraham, good abraham, the pure, the father of all hebrews, makes of the sacred relationship of marriage a means of personal gain and safety by betraying his own wife. now it is the martian's turn to inquire of the hebrew whether the latter had ever read this story to his own daughter? or, the story of abraham's affair with hagar, his handmaiden? was the hebrew's young daughter aware that isaac, son of abraham, was as ready and willing to prostitute his wife for protection for himself as was his father abraham? the martian is puzzled by the word "sporting" in genesis, xxvi, 8-11, and is informed of its meaning. a few moments after reading genesis xix, 1-7, he informs his would-be converter that if lot had lived in mars and had offered his daughters to appease the mob, the account of that incident would never have found its way into any work on morals. moreover, he failed utterly to see how the account of lot's daughters getting him into a drunken state, followed by a statement such as, "thus were both the daughters of lot with child by their father," could ever have any moral value. the story of jacob, leah, and rachel does not appeal to this infidel martian, since he still believes that integrity and faithfulness are virtues. yet, in his endeavor to respect the courtesy due to his host, he reaches for pencil and pad, and notes the various moral lessons he had derived thus far from the old testament. he wrote lust, incest, infidelity, and prostitution; arriving at the story of dinah, genesis xxxiv, 1-2, he wrote that in addition to those vices already listed, rape should be given a prominent place. the stories of joseph and potiphar's wife, judah and tamar, king david and his wives, the rape of tamar by her brother ammon, did not impress the martian as stories for the delectation of children, since he was crude enough to hold that anything which would shock the mind of a child, could not have any moral value and would thus be automatically excluded from any religion. he, therefore, returned the volume to the hebrew with the remark that as an adult he found the stories of de maupassant and balzac more interesting, even though they belonged to the same genre. our guest now repaired to one of our golf courses where, during the interval of a few hours, the fresh air, the sunshine, and exercise dispelled the mental nausea which the reading of the old testament had occasioned in him. returning to his quarters, he is approached by one of the christian brethren and the new testament is placed in his hands with these remarks, "the christian recognizes that in the old testament the jews have given to the christian world its greatest heritage." the fact that in exchange for this priceless heritage, the christians have given to the jews a series of persecutions unequaled in the annals of human warfare is explained by the quality of the brotherhood of man that naturally manifests itself after a complete conversion to the bible's precepts. the old testament contains the first revelations of god; the new testament, the last revelations. our christian brother "forgets" to remind the visitor that the difference of opinion regarding these two testaments of god has caused more sorrow, bloodshed, harm, devilment, misery, and devastation than any other single item in the life and history of the human race. the martian is hard pressed to reconcile the fact that mohammedanism six hundred years after the appearance of christianity triumphed over christianity in a great portion of the earth's surface; yet he is informed that christianity is _the_ religion of god, that allah made the mohammedans, jehovah the jews, the trinity the christians, and the rest of the believers were illegitimate children of the above gods, was the only conclusion he could reach. in a few moments the myth of christ begins to unfold itself before his eyes in the gospels of matthew, mark, luke, and john, the acts of the apostles, and the apocalypse. he finds, "the so-called messianic texts which are supposed to prefigure jesus in the old testament have all been either misunderstood or deliberately misinterpreted. the most celebrated is that in isaiah vii, 14, which predicts that a virgin shall bear a son, emmanuel, but the word, al-mah, which the septuagint rendered "virgin" means in hebrew a young woman, and this passage merely deals with the approaching birth of a son to the king or the prophet himself. this error of the septuagint is one of the sources of the legend relating to the virginal birth of jesus. as early as the second century a.d. the jews perceived it and pointed it out to the greeks, but the church knowingly persisted in the false reading, and for over fifteen centuries she has clung to her error." his attentive reading convinces him that not one of the gospels is the work of an eyewitness to the scenes recorded; a little side investigation reveals that there were a great many writings called gospels, from which the church finally adopted four, guaranteeing their inspiration and absolute veracity, no doubt because they were in favor in four very influential churches, matthew at jerusalem, mark at rome or at alexandria, luke at antioch, and john at ephesus. moreover, what the gospels tell him, he perceives is what different christian communities believed concerning jesus between the years 70 and 100 a.d. in matthew xxvi, 39, mark xiv, 35, and luke xxii, 42, there are words such as those jesus is supposed to have uttered during the slumber of these very same apostles. this occurrence enlightens him as to what st. augustine meant when he wrote, "i should not believe in the gospel if i had not the authority of the church for so doing." if the documents are stuffed with the authority of the church, these gospels cannot be utilized for a history of the real life of jesus. a study of the epistles of st. paul reveals that st. paul taught that sin and death came into the world by adam's fall. in spite of a diligent search the martian found no mention of this in the words ascribed to jesus. from st. paul's utterances he learns that christ came to redeem mankind by his voluntary oblation of himself. he was the son of god! paul, not knowing that in the future a special form of conception would be superimposed on jesus, states that he was of human birth. the martian determined to ascertain what effect the teachings of st. paul have had on christianity. he learns that, "ever since st. paul, the ruling idea of christianity has been that of the redemption of man, guilty of a prehistoric fault, by the voluntary sacrifice of a superman. this doctrine is founded upon that of expiation; a guilty person must suffer to atone for his fault; and that of the substitution of victims, the efficacious suffering of an innocent person for a guilty one. both are at once pagan and jewish ideas; they belong to the old fundamental errors of humanity. yet, plato knew that the punishment inflicted on a guilty person is not, nor should it be, a vengeance; it is a painful remedy imposed on him for his own benefit and that of society. at about the same period athenian law laid down the principle that punishment should be as personal as the fault, thus st. paul founded christian theology on two archaic ideas which had already been condemned by enlightened athenians of the fourth century before our era, _ideas which no one would dream of upholding in these days, though the structure built upon them still subsists_." in chapter v of the first epistle of st. john, these words strike the visitor, "there are three that bear witness in heaven, the father, and the word, and the holy ghost, and these three are one." if these two verses are authentic, they would be an affirmation of the doctrine of the trinity, dating from the first century, at a time when the gospels, the acts, and st. paul ignore it. it was first pointed out in 1806 that these verses were an interpolation, for they do not appear in the best manuscripts, notably all the greek manuscripts down to the fifteenth century. the roman church refused to bow to evidence. the congregation of the index, on january 13, 1897, with the approbation of leo xiii, forbade any question as to the authenticity of the text relating to the "three heavenly witnesses." it appeared strange to the martian that a god should need the lies of his disciples to be incorporated in a divine revelation. but his confusion was even greater when he read, "we worship one god in trinity, and trinity in unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance--and yet, they are not three eternals, but one eternal, not three almighties, but one almighty. so, the father is god, the son god, and the holy ghost god, and yet they are not three gods, but one god.... the father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. the son is of the father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten. the holy ghost is of the father and of the son, neither made nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.... and in this trinity, none is afore or after the other; none is greater or less than another; but the whole three persons are coeternal together and coequal." he thought this would make a great puzzle, truly an insoluble conundrum, to take back to bewilder his martian friends. however, he was able to comprehend the remarks of vigilantius, "who returned from a journey in italy and the holy land disgusted with official christianity. he protested vehemently against the idolatrous worship of images, the legacy of paganism to the church, a practice directly opposed to that of the mosaic law which jesus came, not to destroy, but to fulfill. it was idle to reply that these images were the scriptures of the illiterate, that they were not the object of, but the stimulus to, worship. experience showed that the majority of the faithful confounded (as indeed they still do) the sign with the thing signified." (_salomon reinach, "orpheus."_) the result of the critical examination of the new testament by the martian is that just as most of the old testament books are not only anonymous but highly composite productions, that as certain writings traditionally ascribed to moses, david, solomon, daniel, and others are utterly lacking in the necessary evidences in support of authorship, but bear unmistakable evidence of having gone through a long compilatory process; so does each gospel, despite its seeming unity, give evidence of being a composite literary product. scholars have agreed that mark first set forth the doings of jesus and "it was out of mark that both matthew and luke took the framework of their own writings, cleverly fitting into its arrangement their own distinctive material and coloring the whole by their own individual treatment." (_trattner, "unravelling the book of books."_) it is estimated that mark was written shortly before the romans destroyed jerusalem in 70 a.d. "this means that a chasm of 30 or 40 years separates mark's written document from the ministry of jesus--a long enough time to create a plastic body of oral teachings and a highly colored tradition embellished with fanciful stories." luke was a greek physician living somewhere on the shores of the ægean sea. he had been a friend of paul, just as mark had been with peter. luke had no personal acquaintance with jesus and had to get his information from what others said, or from what the friends of "eye-witnesses" had seen. the gospel of "matthew" is an anonymous composition which, on analysis, has been found to incorporate nearly fifty per cent of what is found in mark. it is now believed by many scholars to have been written between the years 75 and 80 a.d. at antioch not, of course, by the apostle matthew, but by some unknown editor. the fourth gospel, the gospel of john, is vastly different in style, arrangement, and in the description of the words, actions, and general spiritual character of jesus. many scholars believe that it was written in the city of ephesus, somewhere around the year 100 a.d. "church tradition ascribed it to the apostle john, the son of zebedee, one of the fishermen whom jesus called to be a disciple. years ago this view was easily entertained, but there now exists too much refractory evidence against assigning this greek gospel to an aramaic-speaking galilean. that an untutored fisherman could have written so elaborate and so highly philosophical an account of jesus has always presented a thorny problem. and so to most scholars john's authorship of the fourth gospel is unthinkable." not one of the gospels is the work of an eyewitness, and the four gospels do not complete each other; they contradict each other; and when they do not contradict, they repeat each other. the christ of john is a totally different person from the christ of mark, matthew, and luke. loisy, in his "_quelques lettres_," states, "if there is one thing above others that is obvious, but as to which the most powerful of theological interests have caused a deliberate or unconscious blindness, it is the profound, the irreducible incompatibility of the synoptical gospels, and the fourth gospel. if jesus spoke and acted as he is said to have spoken and acted in the first three gospels, he did not speak and act as he is reported to have done in the fourth." the martian is forced to the conclusion that the new testament, with its version of the virgin birth, elizabeth, the cousin of mary, zacharias and the angel gabriel, jesus and the sinner, are on par with the eroticism of the old testament. the interpolations, the myth, and fable also compare with the first revelation, and, in his opinion, he prefers andersen's fairy tales, or æsop's fables. meanwhile, a protestant brother mentions the name of luther, and the conclusions he draws are that the exciting cause of the reformation was an extravagant sale of indulgences conceded to the german dominicans. the augustinians grew jealous of the dominicans, and an augustinian monk, martin luther, affixed to the door of wittenberg cathedral ninety-five articles against the abuse of indulgences. this started the fray in germany with luther at the head of this heresy. the gravest difference of opinion had to do with the communion. "luther retained one-half of the mystery, and rejected the other half. he confesses that the body of jesus christ is in the consecrated element, but it is, he says, as fire is in the red-hot iron. the fire and the iron subsist together. this is what they called impanation, invination, consubstantiation. thus, while those they called papists ate god without bread, the lutherans ate god and bread; soon afterwards came the calvinists, who ate bread and did not eat god." in short, luther was in harmony with the roman church in nothing but the doctrines of the trinity, baptism, the incarnation, and the resurrection. luther thought it was time to abolish private mass. he pretended the devil had appeared to him and reproached him for saying mass and consecrating the elements. the devil had proved to him, he said, that it was idolatry. luther declared that the devil was right and must be believed. the mass was abolished in wittenberg, and soon afterwards throughout saxony; the images were thrown down, monks and nuns left their cloisters, and, a few years later, luther married a nun called catharine von bora. this tale did not greatly impress our guest. a catholic brother, not to be outdone, extols the glories of his universal church, and the martian again sets out to investigate. this time he finds: the quotations in the new testament which the catholic creed interprets as giving divine authority to its representatives on earth is a late interpolation; the trinity as stated above is a paradox which no rational being can understand, and its dogmas and idolatry are consistent with a civilization of 4000 years ago. a study of the lives of its popes put to shame the statement that they could possibly be the earthly representatives of a benevolent being. "in the ninth and tenth centuries the papacy passed through a period of shameful disorder. the rome of john x was a cloaca in which the popes set the example of the worst misconduct." (for a good short account of the lives of the popes, see draper's, "history of the intellectual development of europe.") during the complete control by the church of civilization in europe, it has retarded the progress of humanity for at least 2000 years, and its precepts and fundamental principles are today detrimental to the advance of mankind. it has to its credit a long series of judicial murders for differences of opinion. the crusades, instigated by the popes and seconded by the monks, cost millions of lives and exhausted the resources of christian europe; they aggravated fanaticism, exaggerated the worship of saints and relics to the point of mania, and encouraged the abuse of and traffic in indulgences. there had never been a single opinion persecuted by the church in the middle ages the adoption of which would not have brought about a diminution of her revenues; the church has always primarily considered her finances. the papacy was responsible for the inquisition, and it actively encouraged and excited its ferocity. it gave birth to the witchcraft mania. the first grand inquisitor, torquemada, received the congratulations of the pope. it diabolically applauded the st. bartholomew massacre, and instigated the numerous religious wars that tore europe asunder, and was the cause of the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and incalculable suffering. with such savage alacrity did it carry out its object of protecting the interests of religion that between 1481 and 1808 it had punished three hundred and forty thousand persons, and of these, nearly 32,000 had been burnt. "it is perfectly certain that the catholic church has taught, and still teaches that intellectual liberty is dangerous, that it should be forbidden. it was driven to take this position because it had taken another. it taught, and still teaches, that a certain belief is necessary to salvation. it has always known that investigation and inquiry led, or might lead, to doubt; that doubt leads, or may lead, to heresy, and that heresy leads to hell. in other words, the catholic church has something more important than this world, more important than the well-being of man here. it regards this life as an opportunity for joining that church, for accepting that creed, and for the saving of your soul. if the history of the world proves anything, if proves that the catholic church was for many centuries the most merciless institution that ever existed among men. we, too, know that the catholic church was, during all the years of its power, the enemy of every science. it preferred magic to medicine, relics to remedies, priests to physicians. it hated geologists, persecuted the chemists, and imprisoned the naturalists, and opposed every discovery of science calculated to improve the condition of mankind. there is no crime that the catholic church did not commit, no cruelty that it did not reward, and no virtue that it did not persecute. it was the greatest and most powerful enemy of human rights. in one hand, it carried an alms dish, and in the other, a dagger. it argued with the sword, persecuted with poison, and convicted with faggot." r. g. ingersoll, "_rome or reason_." "from the time of newton to our own day, the divergence of science from the dogmas of the church has steadily increased. the church declared that the earth is the central and most important body in the universe, that the sun and moon and stars are tributary to it. on these points she was worsted by astronomy. she affirmed that a universal deluge had covered the earth; that the only surviving animals were such as had been saved in the ark. in this, her error was established by geology. she taught that there was a first man who, some 6000 or 8000 years ago, was suddenly created or called into existence in a condition of physical and moral perfection, and from that condition he fell. but anthropology has shown that human beings existed far back in geological time, and in a savage state but little better than that of the brute.... convicted of so many errors, the papacy makes no attempt at explanation. it ignores the whole matter. nay, more, relying on the efficacy of audacity, although confronted by these facts, it lays claim to infallibility." the persecutions of bruno, galileo, and copernicus, together with the facts hitherto stated, did not impress the martian with the "infallibility" of the church. the only great spiritual power that could have interposed to prevent the outbreak of the world war was the papacy. pope pius x had his nuncio admonish the austrian emperor, but he failed even to get an audition from that old imbecile. the next pope, benedict xv, was under the influence of a majority of pro-german cardinals. he strove to remain neutral. he attempted to solace the belgians with words, but he did not reprove the murderous invaders. he protested against the new and devilish methods of warfare but he did not condemn, he did not excommunicate those that used them. had the papacy lost its much-used power of commanding kings and nations, and had it lost its greatest threat, a threat which hitherto could have thrown the masses of its adherents into a panic, the threat of excommunication? no, the papacy still blessed the banners of the armies, just as it did during the middle ages, and sent its adherents out to slaughter; but first took great care that the minds of the devout be completely drugged with the poison of its creed. a creed that told its followers that do what you might, no matter how dastardly that act might be, so long as you repent and confess your sins, life everlasting will be the reward. what is the value of a church that has claimed the moral leadership of the world when such things can happen? now that the martian has become acquainted with the three major religions which dominate the world, judaism, christianity, and mohammedanism, and has been amazed and shocked at the significance of their teachings in the history of civilization, his curiosity is further aroused, and he decides to obtain some information of the respective personalities responsible for the amassing of devotees to these creeds, all "infallible," and all detrimental to progress. this time his interest leads him to ancient and contemporary sources, of a literal rather than verbal nature; sources dealing with the three most influential prophets in the history of mankind, jesus, moses, and mohammed. chapter iii the prophets mohammed, jesus, and moses charlatans or victims of mental and physical disease _the prophet or seer is a man of strong imaginative powers, which have not been calmed by education. the ideas which occur to his mind often present themselves to his eyes and ears in corresponding sights and sounds.... prophets have existed in all countries and at all times; but the gift becomes rare in the same proportion as people learn to read and write_. winwood reade. religious apologists are forever reminding us that we must interpret both the lives and the works of their prophets and recorders in the spirit and meaning of the ages in which they lived. to this i agree; but the apologists have so mutilated the meaning of the words of the seers and built about them such a mass of nonsense, myth, and fable that it becomes nearly impossible after the lapse of centuries to differentiate the actual man from the fabled man. but there are certain facts that do come down to us recorded by disinterested observers from which can be derived finally some conception of their mode of life, and the content and significance of their teachings. although time causes great changes in customs and manners, it only effects a negligible variation in the vast majority of diseases which affect the body and mind of man. we know from the examination of the skeletal remains of prehistoric man that the diseases of the bone of thousands of years ago were similar in their manifestations to those same diseases of bone of today. from the writings of the early egyptian, greek, and roman physicians we identify diseases by their symptoms, and recognize that the symptoms of these diseases have not changed throughout the ages. therefore, with the knowledge of the signs and symptoms of various diseases which we have today, we can safely assert that if an ancient complained of the same group of signs and symptoms (which is now termed a "disease complex"), he was suffering from the same disease which we can identify in modern man. what applies to physical disease is just as applicable to mental disease. in speaking of mental disease, it is important for the layman to keep in mind a few fundamental principles held by the physician. the physician in speaking of mental disease means a more or less permanent departure from the normal or usual way of thinking, acting, or feeling. in the examination of a patient with mental disease the physician looks for delusions, illusions, and hallucinations. a delusion is a false belief, concerning which the individual who holds it is unable to admit evidence such as would be admitted by ordinary individuals. an illusion is a deception of the senses, a misinterpretation of sensory impressions; the normal person can be convinced of this deception. the mirage, for example, is an optical illusion which has a starting point in an external stimulus. a hallucination is a deception of any of the five senses, in which there is no starting point but it is fabricated in a disordered mind. illustrations of hallucinations are the hearing of voices when none are present, smelling of odors, the seeing of visions in a vacuum. with the elementary understanding of fundamental symptoms of mental diseases as a point of departure, let us consider the cases of mohammed, jesus, and moses, three of the most influential prophets in the history of civilization. mohammed of the three, mohammed should be considered before the others for several reasons. first, there is no question regarding the actual existence of mohammed. we know that he was born at mecca about 571 a.d. and died at medina on june 8th, 632 a.d. from the facts of his life and the religion which he founded we are able to see the manner in which legend and superstition were superimposed on its original simple form. the historical records of his life and teachings are easier of access since he is nearer our time than the other two prophets, and we can get a better understanding of his character. it was gibbon who said, "it may be expected that i should balance his faults and his virtues, that i should decide whether the title of enthusiast or impostor more properly belongs to that extraordinary man.... at the distance of twelve centuries, i darkly contemplate his shade through a cloud of incense." in attempting to peer through this cloud of religious incense we find the following facts: in the city of mecca, probably in august, in the year 571, mohammed, the prophet of allah, was born. there seems little doubt that he was descended from those lofty koreish, whose opposition, which at first nearly succeeded in holding his name in perpetual oblivion, eventually caused him to emerge into the light of deathless fame. his birth was surrounded by all manner of signs and omens, we are told. the labor of his mother, amina, was entirely painless, earthquakes loosed the bases of mountains and caused great bodies of water, whose names were unfortunately not specified, to wither away or overflow; the sacred fire of zoroaster which, under the jealous care of the magi, had spouted ceaseless flames for nearly a thousand years, was extinguished. all the idols in the world except the kaaba tumbled to earth. immediately after the babe was born an ethereal light dazzled the surrounding territory, and, on the very moment when his eyes were first opened, he lifted them to heaven and exclaimed: "god is great! there is no god but allah and i am his prophet!" all these poetic fancies have been appropriately denounced by christian scribes, who have claimed that nature would never have dignified the birth of a pagan like mohammed with such marvelous prodigies as undoubtedly attended the advent of christ. however, mohammed was born shortly after the death of his father. at the age of six his mother died also, and he spent the first ten years among the bedouins under the care of a foster-mother named halima. at the age of four it was noticed that the child had signs of convulsive seizures which later commentators thought were of an epileptic nature. he was brought up under the care of his uncle abu talib, and his early manhood was spent in caring for the flock and in attending caravan expeditions. when the prophet was twenty-five years old, his uncle secured for him a position with a caravan owned by a wealthy widow, khadija. thanks to mohammed's keen business sense the caravan was highly successful, and he was induced to personally report his success to khadija. that lady, a wealthy widow of forty years, and the mother of three children, was highly pleased at mohammed's story. as she listened to the proof of his business ability and fondly scanned his large, nobly formed head, his curling coal-black hair, his piercing eyes, and his comely form, it naturally occurred to her that this vigorous and handsome young fellow would make an excellent successor to her deceased husband. she had her way and they were married. during the next fifteen years mohammed led a tranquil life. his future was provided for and he had plenty of leisure to occupy himself as he chose. in these years mohammed and his wife continued to be conventional worshipers of idols, who nightly performed rites in honor of various gods and goddesses, among whom were allah and his female consoler al-lat. and so, by the year 610, mohammed, at the age of forty, was nothing more than a respectable but unknown tradesman who had experienced no extraordinary crises, whose few existing utterances were dull and insipid, and whose life seemed destined to remain as insignificant and unsung as any other arab's. at this time, he began to retire for days at a time to a cave in the foothills of mount hira, a hill several miles north of mecca. meanwhile his business languished. as the months passed, he still continued to act in the same incomprehensible manner; it was noticed that little by little certain members of his immediate family attended him to his refuge or gathered with him in some one of their houses. this continued for several years until it was rumored that mohammed, the camel driver, was confidently claiming the honor of having made a great discovery; namely, that "there is no god but allah, and mohammed is his prophet." by what process of thought had mohammed come to exalt allah not merely above all arabian gods, but above the gods of all times? furthermore, why was he so certain of his own intimate association with allah? we can understand this if we consider mohammed in the light of a victim of mental disease. one account informs us that as mohammed was wandering near the cave at mount hira, "an angel from the sky cried to him, 'o mohammed, i am gabriel!'" he was terrified and hurried home to impart his experience to his wife. "i see a light," he said to his wife, "and i hear a sound. i fear that i am possessed." this idea was most distressing to a pious man. he became pale, haggard; he wandered about on the hill near mecca crying for help to god. more than once he drew near the edge of the cliff and was tempted to hurl himself down, and so put an end to his misery at once. he lived much in the open air, gazing on the stars, watching the dry ground grow green beneath the gentle rain. he pondered also on the religious legends of the jews, which he had heard related on his journeys; and as he looked and thought, the darkness was dispelled, the clouds disappeared, and the vision of god in solitary grandeur rose within his mind, and there came upon him an impulse to speak of god. there came upon him a belief that he was a messenger of god sent on earth to restore the religion of abraham, which the pagan arabs had polluted with idolatry, the jews in corrupting their holy books. at the same time he heard a voice, and sometimes he felt a noise in his ears like the tinkling of bells or a low deep hum, as if bees were swarming round his head. at this period of his life the chapters of the koran were delivered in throes of pain. the paroxysms were preceded by depression of spirit, his face became clouded, his extremities turned cold, he shook like a man in an ague, and he called for coverings. his face assumed an expression horrible to see, the vein between his eyebrows became distended, his eyes were fixed, his head moved to and fro, as if he was conversing, and then he gave forth the oracle or sura. the hitherto mentally and emotionally normal trader, husband, and father was thus suddenly swept off his feet and carried irresistibly away on a mighty tide. his perturbed spirit now soared to the heights of heaven, now plunged into the chasms of hell. moments of ethereal bliss would be followed by periods of profoundest melancholy. "it is related that the angel gabriel, who thus far had labored only in the field of christian endeavor, was chosen by allah as bearer of the divine revelation to mohammed. one day, while the trader-poet was wrestling with his doubts among the foothills of mount hira, he saw a wondrous apparition floating downward on celestial wings. 'thou art god's prophet, and i am gabriel,' announced the awe-inspiring guest before he departed to receive the blessing of allah for having so successfully executed the heavenly command. gabriel was a very valuable ambassador, for through the to-and-fro journeying of this indefatigable messenger allah was able to remain at ease in heaven, thus keeping up the appearance of intangible, majestic remoteness so necessary for dignified gods. and thus mohammed came into his own. from that moment mohammed looked upon himself as allah's vice regent, through whom allah's incontestable decrees were to be given to man." (_mohammed_--_r. f. dibble._) mohammed's every doubt had now vanished, his soul was completely at ease, and from his lips there burst the wildly exultant chant, "there is no god but allah and mohammed is his prophet." the obliging gabriel, he said, had borne him on a winged steed over medina to the temple of jerusalem, and from there he continued his celestial journey until he was carried completely out of this world to those ethereal realms of bliss where the seven heavens are. up and up he flew, while he carefully noted the order of precedence of those prophets whose model he had proclaimed himself to be. jesus and john were in the second or third--he was not quite sure which--moses was in the sixth, while abraham alone had the supreme distinction of residing in the seventh heaven. there, at the apex of indescribable glory, mohammed had entered the awful presence of his maker, who, after some chit-chat, charged him to see that all moslems should hereafter prostrate themselves in prayer toward the temple of solomon five times a day. the truth of this narrative rests upon two solid facts: from that day to this, all devout moslems have continued to bow themselves five times daily in prayer, and sceptics may still see, upon the rock where stands the mosque of omar in jerusalem, the identical print of the prophet's foot where he leaped upon the heavenly charger. his thoughts, whether conceived in a white heat of frenzy, or with deliberate coolness and sly calculations for the main chance, were probably not written down in any definite manner during his lifetime. it is not even certain whether he could read or write. he delighted in the appellation, "the illiterate prophet," possibly on account of his humility and possibly because he knew that inspired ignorance had been the indisputable prerogative of all successful prophets in the past. indeed, the very fact that he was unlearned was rightly supposed to increase the miraculous nature of his revelations. as he tossed the divine emanations from his lips, they were sometimes recorded by hireling scribes upon palm leaves, leather, stones, the shoulder blades or ribs of camels and goats. but often they were not immediately written down at all; the prophet would go around spouting forth his utterances to his followers, who, trained from infancy to memorize verses and songs of every sort with infallible precision, would piously commit them to memory. such is the koran, and through its instrumentality, allah the wise, the only wise, revealed his immutable decrees: to the good, the rewards of a paradise that utterly beggared the christian heaven; to the bad, the punishments of a hell that contained an infinity of such refined tortures of heat, and even of cold as neither the most imaginatively gifted jew or christian had yet conceived. reinach aptly states, "it is humiliating to the human intellect to think that this mediocre literature has been the subject of innumerable commentaries and that millions of men are still wasting time in absorbing it." over one hundred and sixty million are adherents of the koran. in an objective analysis, excluding the emotional factors of religious bias, mohammed would as unquestionably be considered a victim of mental disturbances as an individual living in our own day and manifesting the same symptoms. mohammed was the subject of illusions, hallucinations, and delusions. he had suicidal tendencies, and he had alternating periods of exhilaration and depression. to simply assert that he was an epileptic does not explain these symptoms. for epileptics cannot throw a fit at will. however, we know that ten per cent of epileptics develop mental diseases, no particular psychosis but a loss of mental and moral sense. there are two types of individuals who can produce seizures such as mohammed was wont to evoke at will. one type is the hysterical, and the other is that degraded individual who for the sake of collecting alms will place a piece of soap in his mouth, enter a crowded street, fall to the ground, and proceed to foam at the mouth and twist and contort himself as an epileptic does. that is the charlatan, the faker, and that brings us to the second aspect of his (mohammed's) character. "outside of arabia, paganism was in general disrepute. the dissolute and declining romans were cracking lewd jokes in the very faces of their gods, the myriad followers of confucius, buddha and zoroaster were either too remote or too helpless to matter in one way or another. talmudic judaism and oriental christianity despised idolatry and worshipped the same jehovah, even though they disputed with each other, and indeed, among themselves, concerning the various attributes, amorous pursuits, and lineal descendants of the godhead. now, to one who chose to regard himself as a prophet, monotheism had distinct advantages over polytheism." (_mohammed--r. f. dibble._) in the first place, it was rather confusing to attempt to obey the behests of conflicting deities; in the second place, the different prophets of jehovah in judaism and christendom had, so far as mohammed knew, been uniformly successful, for he was familiar with the glorious history of abraham, moses, and david, and he always held to the perverse conception that jesus was not crucified. however deep in the dumps prophets may have been on occasion, they have invariably believed one thing: victory for their particular cause would inevitably come. neither an unbroken series of worldly failures nor the chastisement of his god have ever shaken the faith of a first-class prophet in himself or, as he would doubtless prefer to say, in his divinity. arabia, broken, unorganized, inglorious, idolistic arabia, obviously lacked one supreme being whose prerogative was greater than all other supreme beings, and that being, in turn, needed a messenger to exploit his supremacy. the messengers who had served jehovah had certainly prospered well; but jehovah himself appeared to be on the decline. his unity was steadily disintegrating into a paradoxical trinity. why, therefore, not give allah, the leading icon in arabia, an opportunity? such considerations quite probably never entered the head of mohammed with any definiteness; yet his behavior for the rest of his days seems to indicate that these, or similar conceptions, were subconsciously egging him on. of certain facts, moreover, he was definitely aware. he may have had little or no formal education, but his memory was retentive and capacious, and his caravan journeys, together with the scores of conversations he had held at the yearly fairs, as well as at mecca, with many cultivated strangers, had packed his mind with a mass of highly valuable matter. in these ways he had learned both the strength and the weakness of the jews and christians; their fanatical enthusiasm and despairs; their spasmodic attempts to proselytize as well as the widespread defection from their faiths. "since his conception of religion was largely personal, for he looked upon moses, jesus, and the rest of the prophets as merely capable men who had founded and promulgated religions; and since arabia had no pre-eminent ruler, why should he not seize the reins of power and carry on the great tradition of prophethood? what a magnificent opportunity beckoned, and how fortunate that he had been the first to recognize the call! by keeping only what was best of the arabic faith, the kaaba and the black stone, and by a judicious selection of the most feasible ideas which lay imbedded in jewish and christian precepts, he might establish a code that would supersede all others, and then might dictate to all arabs alike. what prophets had done, he would also do and do better." (_mohammed--r. f. dibble._) such are the thoughts of a charlatan and _a_ demagogue. if mohammed actually had such ideas, we can never know; but a study of his further actions and conquests surely shows that he must have had something of the same trend of thought in mind. his "fits" before the oncoming of a new sura have been mentioned. eventually, he so perfected his technique that he could throw a cataleptic fit and produce a message without any previous preparation. he would drum up a crowd with his ludicrous snortings and puffings until the resounding cry, "inspiration hath descended on the prophet!" assured him that he had a sufficiently large audience to warrant the out-spurting of a new sura. while in a room that was obviously empty, he declared that all seats were occupied by angels; he cultivated suave and benign expression; he flattered and astounded his followers by telling them facts which he had presumably acquired through private information; he took the most painstaking care of his person, painting his eyes and perfuming his entire body daily, and wearing his hair long. ayesha, one of the prophet's wives, remarked that the prophet loved three things: women, scent and food, and that he had his heart's content of the first two, but not of the last. in fact, mohammed, himself, argued that these two innocuous diversions intensified the ecstasy of his prayers. in the koran's description of heaven so much emphasis was put on food that a jolly jew objected on the grounds that such continual feasting must of necessity be followed by a purgation. the prophet, however, swore that it would not even be necessary to blow the nose in paradise, since all bodily impurities would be carried off by a perspiration "as odoriferous as musk." when his wife khadija was dying he comforted her with the assurance that she, together with three other well-known women, the virgin mary, potiphar's wife, and "kulthum," moses' sister, would occupy his chamber in paradise. on mohammed's escape to medina, a long series of holy wars began which, like all holy wars, were characterized by extreme brutality. the koran of the period contains such pacific doctrines as these: "the sword is the key of heaven and hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of god, a night spent in arms is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer; whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven. at the day of judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion, and odoriferous as musk; and the loss of limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim ... god loveth not the transgressors; kill them wheresoever ye find them." mohammed, no less than many other religiously-minded emperors and tsars, appears to have conducted himself in battle according to the wise principle that a head without a halo is infinitely more desirable than a halo without a head. yet he was profoundly convinced that the ultimate victory of islam depended upon the sword. the koran of this period breathes defiance against the enemies of islam on almost every page. its profuse maledictions, once confined to the evildoers of mecca, now include all unbelievers everywhere. when mohammed once had captured a fortress inhabited by a tribe of jews, his judgment was, "the men shall be put to death, the women and children sold into slavery, and the spoil divided amongst the army." then, trenches were dug, some seven hundred men were marched out, forced to seat themselves in rows along the top of the trenches, beheaded, and then tumbled into a long gaping grave. meanwhile, the prophet looked on until, tiring of the monotonous spectacle, he departed to amuse himself with a jewess whose husband had just perished. he continued these conquests until, at his death, in 632, he was the master of nearly all arabia and revered almost as a god. yet, when omar, his first lieutenant, captured jerusalem in 636, he ensured the conquered jews and christians free exercise of their religion, and the security of their persons and their goods. but when the crusaders took jerusalem in 1099, they massacred all the mohammedans, and burnt the jews alive. it is estimated that 70,000 persons were put to death in less than a week to attest the superior morality of the christian faith. the successors of mohammed, the caliphs, in less than a century conquered syria, egypt, babylonia, persia, turkestan, spain, northern africa, sicily, and southern france. today, 160,000,000 are followers of mohammed,--a man who began as a humble religious leader, and ended as an adroit politician and powerful general; a man who hid during battles, who often broke faith with friend and foe alike, a charlatan and demagogue of general intellectual incompetency, and a victim of mental disease. jesus when we come to consider the life of jesus, a far different and more intricate problem is met with. none but the most illogical and purposely ignorant of religious apologists will admit that the life of jesus has been misrepresented by his followers to suit their particular aims. had the followers of the moralist epictetus or the rabbi hillel written lives of these two teachers they would be quite similar to the reputed life of jesus. the moral sentiments attributed to christ in the gospels were borrowed from the jewish rabbis and the numerous cults that flourished in that age. the birth, death, and resurrection of christ is quite similar to the myths of that time concerning the savior gods adonis, isis, osiris, attis, mithra, and a multitude of others. (_for a full exposition of the subject, the reader is referred to e. carpenter, "pagan and christian creeds."_) the evidence for the point of view that jesus was actually a historic character is so slight that such scholars as j. m. robertson, prof. w. b. smith, professor drews, dr. p. l. couchoud, and many others deny the historic reality of christ on the ground that the gospels are totally unreliable as history, that paul bears no witness to a human jesus, and that the pagan and jewish writers are strangely silent about the messiah jesus. there are in existence only twenty-four lines from jewish and pagan writers referring to jesus. these include a reference in tacitus' annals, and brief references by suetonius and pliny the younger. these three references are considered spurious by many scholars, and even if they were all to be accepted it would mean that the total pagan testimony as to the historicity of jesus is confined to three very vague and brief references written a century after the reputed time of jesus. the longest reference to jesus is in the writings of the jewish historian, josephus. the passage referring to jesus in his "jewish antiquities" has been considered as spurious even by conservative scholars. a group of scholars has always deemed it very probable, however, that this spurious reference may have replaced an unfavorable reference to jesus in the original. working on this theory, dr. eisler has purged of interpolations this work by a painstaking and scholarly investigation. however, it must be pointed out that with regard to jesus' actual existence, what divided the christians and non-christians was not the question whether or not jesus existed; but the vastly more pertinent and essentially different question whether or not the obscure galilean carpenter, executed by a roman governor as king of the jews, was really a superhuman being who had overcome death, the longed-for-savior of mankind, foretold by the prophets, the only-begotten son of god himself. to the jews, jesus was indeed a heretic and an agitator of the lower orders; to the pagans, he was a magician who through sham miracles and with subversive words had incited the people to rebellion, and as a leader of a gang of desperate men had attempted to seize the royal crown of judæa, as others had done before and after him. the non-christian writers referred to jesus as a wizard, a demagogue, and a rebel. we are fortunate, at this date, to have brought to our attention a masterful work by dr. robert eisler, a work which will be as revolutionary to the study of christianity as was darwin's "origin of the species" in the realms of science; and, similarly, the former work will be the basis upon which much progress will be made in a great field. dr. eisler unfolds a great mass of hitherto unknown information concerning the life, the actual appearance, and the doings of jesus. he definitely establishes the proof of jesus' actual existence, and makes clear many hitherto obscure utterances and deeds of this prophet. the descriptions which follow are based on the material in this work of dr. eisler, "the messiah jesus." in the complete statement of josephus on pilate's governorship, we find, "at that time there appeared a certain man of magical power, if it is permissible to call him a man, whom certain greeks call a son of god, but his disciples, the true prophet, said to raise the dead, and heal all diseases. his nature and his form were human; a man of simple appearance, mature age, small in stature, three cubits high, _hunchbacked_, with a long face, long nose, and meeting eyebrows, so that they who see him might be affrighted, with scanty hair but with a parting in the middle of his head, after the manner of the nazarites, and with an undeveloped beard. only in semblance was he superhuman for he gave some astonishing and spectacular exhibitions. but again, if i look at his commonplace physique, i, for one, cannot call him an angel. and everything whatsoever he wrought through some invisible power, he wrought through some word and a command. some said of him, 'our first law giver is risen again, and displays many healings and magic arts. others said, 'he is sent from god.' howbeit in many things he disobeyed the law and kept not the sabbath according to our fathers' custom. "and many of the multitude followed after him and accepted his teachings, and many souls were excited, thinking that thereby the jewish tribes might be freed from roman hands. but it was his custom most of the time to abide over against the city on the mount of olives, and there, too, he bestowed his healings upon the people. and there assembled unto him of helpers one hundred and fifty, and a multitude of the mob. "now, when they saw his power, how he accomplished whatsoever he would by a magic word, and when they had made known to him their will, that he should enter into the city, cut down the roman troops, and pilate and rule over us, he disdained us not. and having all flocked into jerusalem, they raised an uproar against pilate, uttering blasphemies alike against god and against cæsar. "and when knowledge of it came to the jewish leaders, they assembled together, with the high priests and spake, 'we are powerless and too weak to withstand the romans. but seeing that the 'bow is bent,' we will go and impart to pilate what we have heard, and we shall be safe, lest he hear of it from others and we be robbed of our substance and ourselves slaughtered, and the children of israel dispersed. "and they went and imparted the matter to pilate, and he sent and had many of the multitude slain. and he had that wonder-worker brought up, and after instituting an inquiry concerning him, he passed this sentence upon him, 'he is a malefactor, a rebel, a robber thirsting for the crown.' and they took him and crucified him according to the custom of their fathers." such is the history of jesus as contrasted with the myth of jesus in the new testament. this description of the actual appearance of jesus for the first time gives us a clue to the mental and physical characteristics of this prophet. it must be borne in mind that at the time that jesus achieved manhood, his people and his nation were under the complete domination of rome, and oppressed by a race whom the jews looked upon as cursed barbarians and idolaters. the country was overrun with religious zealots who stormed over the cities and villages preaching the immediate destruction of the world and the proximity of the long-awaited coming of the messiah. the fact that jesus had to bear the hard fate of a deformed body may go far in helping to explain this remarkable character. it is common knowledge how frequently weak and deformed children have to suffer from the cruelty and neglect of environment, a factor which cannot but produce a peculiar reaction on the childish mind which has a far-reaching effect in later life. this accounts for jesus' indifference towards his mother and brothers; of a delicate constitution, he must have suffered from insults a great deal more than the others, which throws some light on the severe punishment demanded by jesus for comparatively harmless insults. under such circumstances it is easy to explain how every "neighbor," and next-of-kin, although to the weak naturally an "enemy," came to be included in the sphere of that all-embracing love which is the nucleus of jesus' teaching. for the cripple has to face the dilemma either of warping everything into a powerful, misanthropic hatred, or else to overcome this feeling of revenge for the high moral superiority of a plato, mendelssohn, or a kant. jesus chose the latter of the two courses, and we may well imagine that it was not at golgotha that he had the first occasion to cry out, "father, forgive them for they know not what they do!" in the case of jesus, the whole paradoxical thought of his being the vicarious sin-offering and world redeemer can best be understood as the solution, proposed in the deutero-isaiah, of the question which had occupied job--to wit: why must the innocent suffer? if the maimed in body refuse to consider himself as forsaken by his god, as a sinner punished for some guilt of which he is unconscious, he cannot but assume that there is such a thing as a vocation to suffering, and believe in the inscrutable plan of salvation in which his own life and sufferings are called upon to play some part. nothing but this conviction of being thus elected can afford him the desired compensation for his depressed and hampered ego. a repressed nature of this type will, in seeking such a compensation, escape from the harsh reality into the realm of dreams. this is the basis of what the physician recognizes in hysteria, and in the mental disease termed "dementia præcox." the glorious daydreams of the millennium, the time of bliss when all strife and all hate will disappear from the earth, when all the crooked will be made straight, find their best explanation in this peculiarity. they console the suffering and heavy-laden for the bitter reality which, in the light of the old messianic prophecies, appears only as a nightmare, promptly to be chased away by the dawn of a new day, a new, a perfect era. the davidic jesus, in spite or rather because of his servile form, feels that he is himself the secret incognito king of that wonderful realm, the monarch whom god some time in the future, nay, right here and before the passing of the present generation, will transform while at the same time "revealing" his kingdom. it is but natural that in the mental development of such individuals they should seek to be great, glorious, and to achieve the supernatural, since they, themselves, are denied the ordinary satisfactions. if, in addition, such individuals believe that they have had a divine call, if the disability of the body so preys on the mind that the sensitive structure gives way to delusions, then there results an aberration from the normal and usual processes of thought,--to be sure not the rabid, violent form of mental disease, but yet a deviation from the normal manner of thinking. such was the case with the prophet jesus. afflicted in body but endowed with a sensitive mind, exposed to an unusual environment of seething unrest and political ferment, and firmly convinced in the current fancies regarding the approaching destruction of the world, the conquest of the evil power, and the reign of god, jesus became the subject of a delusion that he was the only true messiah who had been presaged by the prophets of old. the greatest difficulty encountered in every attempt to present the life and work of jesus according to the evidence of his own words preserved in the sources is the sharp, irreconcilable contradiction between the so-called "fire and sword" sayings on the one side, and the beatitudes on the peacemakers and the meek, the prohibition to kill, to be angry, to resist wrong, and the command to love one's enemy, contained in the sermon on the mount, on the other. in the early period of his messianic career, the period of the sermon on the mount, jesus was a thorough quietist. but if we realize that the delusion that he was "the messiah" had entered his mind so vehemently that he firmly believed that the end of the world was imminent, and that it was his duty to save as many as possible, we can understand his acquiescence to the violence which followed. moreover, he was clearly forced to the fatal road by the idea that he must set on foot a movement of hundreds of thousands, the picture of the exodus from egypt with the fantastic figures given in the old testament. the messianic rising he was to initiate could not be regarded as realized if he left the country with a band of some hundred elect. if he wished, however, to put at least two-fifths of the population in motion, the method of sending out messengers had proved altogether unsatisfactory. he must try the effect of his own words in a place where, and at a time when, he was sure to reach the greatest multitude of his people. that could only be in jerusalem, at the time of the great pilgrimage at the feast of the passover. moreover, the desired result could only be obtained of course if he openly proclaimed himself to be the messiah. then it was that the prophet of quiet reversed his words and armed his disciples. jesus was fully aware of the illegality of this arming of his disciples and of his own direction to purchase a weapon; none the less, he saw no escape from this bitter necessity. the prediction of the prophet must be fulfilled, according to which the righteous servant of the lord must be numbered among the lawless transgressors. true it is that he did not lead the revolt himself, but tarried with his disciples at the last supper at a house near by the fighting. when he becomes aware that his secret hiding place on the mount of olives has been betrayed, jesus hopes for a miracle from god up to the last. captured, he is led away to the palace of the high priest's family on the mount of olives, where, while jesus is questioned by the high priest, peter, unrecognized, warms himself at the fire in the courtyard and thrice denies his master. he was then taken to the roman governor's court-martial, where sentence was passed and he was led off to the place of execution and there deserted by all his followers except a few galilean women. then was heard the last despairing cry of the desolate, dying martyr, "my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?" thus ended the career of this deformed prophet with the sensitive deluded mind; a martyr who attempted only to effect reforms amongst his own people, in his own small locality. moses with regard to the life, the deeds, and the words of the prophet moses we have no history; only myth and legend. the existence of moses is not demonstrated by the biblical books which are falsely ascribed to him, yet we cannot be certain that such a character did not exist. in any event, we must judge his character from the writings ascribed to him. the legend of the child cast upon the waters is to be found in the folklore of all nations. this legend, concerning moses, relates that one day pharaoh's daughter, while bathing with her maids in the nile, found a hebrew child exposed on the waters in obedience to a new decree. she adopted the boy, gave him an egyptian name, and brought him up in her palace as a prince. she had him educated and the fair inference is that he was schooled in the culture of the egyptians. the royal lady made of the hebrew slave-child an egyptian gentleman. yet, although his face was shaved, and outwardly he appeared to be an egyptian, at heart he remained a hebrew. one day, when he was grown, moses went slumming among his own people to look at their burdens, and he spied an egyptian smiting a hebrew. he was so overcome by passion at this scene that he killed the man on the spot. the crime became known, there was a hue and cry raised, and the king had a search made for moses with the intention of slaying him. with all hope of a career in egypt ended, moses escaped to the peninsula of sinai, and entered the family of an arab sheik. the peninsula of sinai lies clasped between two arms of the red sea. it is a wilderness of mountains covered with a thin, almost transparent coating of vegetation which serves as pasture to the bedouin flocks. among the hills that crown the high plateau there is one which at the time of moses was called the "mount of god." it was holy ground to the egyptians, and also to the arabs, who ascended as pilgrims and drew off their sandals when they reached the top. now is it strange that sinai should have excited reverence and dread? it is indeed a weird land. vast and stern stand the mountains, with their five granite peaks pointing to the sky. avalanches like those of the alps, but of sand, not of snow, rush down their naked sides with a clear tinkling sound. a peculiar property resides in the air, the human voice can be heard at a surprising distance and swells out into a reverberating roar, and sometimes there rises from among the hills a dull booming sound like the distant firing of heavy guns. let us attempt to realize what moses must have felt when he was driven out of egypt into such a harsh and rugged land. imagine this man, the adopted son of a royal personage, who was accustomed to all the splendor of the egyptian court, to the busy turmoil of the streets of the metropolis, to reclining in a carpeted gondola or staying with a noble at his country house. in a moment all is changed. he dwells in a tent, alone on the mountain side, a shepherd with a crook in his hand. he is married to the daughter of a barbarian; his career is at an end. he realizes that never again will he enter that palace where once he was received with honor, where now his name is uttered only with contempt. never again will he discourse with grave and learned men in his favorite haunts, and never again will he see the people of his tribe whom he loves and for whom he endures this miserable fate. they will suffer but he will not help them; they will mourn, but he will not hear them. in his dreams he hears and sees them. he hears the whistling of the lash and the convulsive sobs and groans. he sees the poor slaves toiling in the fields and sees the daughters of israel carried off to the harem with struggling arms and streaming hair. he sees the chamber of the woman in labor, the seated, shuddering, writhing form, the mother struggling against maternity, dreading her release, for the king's officer is standing by the door, ready, as soon as a male child is born, to put it to death. the arabs who gave him shelter were also children of abraham, and they related to him legends of the ancient days. they told him of the patriarchs who lay buried in canaan with their wives; they spoke of the god whom his fathers had worshiped. then, as one who returns to a long lost home, the egyptian returned to the faith of the desert, to the god of abraham, isaac, and jacob. as he wandered on the mountain heights, he looked to the west and saw a desert; beyond it lay canaan, the home of his ancestors, a land of peace and soon to be a land of hope. for now, new ideas rose tumultuously within him. _he began to see visions and to dream dreams._ he heard voices and beheld no form; he saw trees which blazed with fire and yet were not consumed. he became a prophet and entered into the ecstatic stage. _that is, he began to have illusions and hallucinations._ dwelling on the misery and suffering of his people, his mind becomes deluded with the idea that he has been chosen by his new-found god to liberate his people from the tyranny of their oppressors. meanwhile the king had died, and a new pharaoh had ascended the throne. moses returns to egypt to carry out the great designs which he had formed. he announces to the elders of his people, to the heads of the houses, and the sheiks of the tribes that the god of abraham had appeared to him in sinai and had revealed his true name. it was jehovah. he had been sent by jehovah to egypt to bring away his people, to lead them to canaan. in company with his brother, aaron, moses asked pharaoh to liberate the children of israel, but after several vain attempts to dazzle pharaoh with his skill as a magician, he was met with an obstinate refusal. moses before pharaoh descends to the level of a vulgar sorcerer, armed with a magic wand, whose performances only draw our smiles. this charlatanry having been unsuccessful, the wizard connives with his accomplice jehovah to have inflicted upon the egyptians the ten plagues. then the loving and kind father, having killed innumerable egyptians, as the story relates, so terrorizes the minds of his other children in egypt, that pharaoh is finally convinced that he must allow the chosen people to leave his domain. the israelites quitted egypt carrying away with them the gold and silver of their oppressors. they then entered the desert. the magic art of moses enabled them to pass dry-footed through the red sea, whereas the pharaoh who was pursuing them was engulfed with his whole army. again the chosen people are liberated by means of the death of multitudes of egyptians. truly, jehovah at that time must have loved them well, or did some other deity form the egyptians? it matters not that the crossing of the red sea and the drowning of pharaoh are romantic incidents, not only unknown to the egyptian texts, but even to the earliest of hebrew prophets. it matters not, for the story is the important thing, even though it is an inspired story, inspired by the jehovah who tortured and killed the egyptians to show how well he loved _his_ people. this wild west story, with its multitudes of slaughters, proceeds to the wilderness of sinai; and there again, the prophet moses goes into a secret seance and finally announces that god had delivered laws to him, which had been issued from the clouds. what a great showman was this prophet! barnum must have been a devoted admirer of moses, for moses was the first to create the two-ring circus; for these laws given by jehovah are described in two places, and the circus varies in both places. exodus xx and exodus xxxiv are the two texts which differ considerably. to further convince the children of israel, moses tells them the story of how he had cajoled jehovah into allowing him to see what no man had hitherto seen, the form of jehovah, for it appears that jehovah was so pleased with this murderer, charlatan, and wizard that he allowed him to glimpse his hind quarters. at least, jehovah had a sense of humor! what a bag of tricks this prophet had at his command! the prophet waves his arms and tugs at his gown, and lo and behold! the lord has spoken! the following is a specimen of the revelations which the lord is supposed to have dictated to moses. (leviticus xiv, 25.) "the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering and put it upon the tip of the _right_ ear of him who is to be cleansed and upon the thumb of his _right_ hand, and upon the great toe of his _right_ foot, and the priest shall pour of the oil into the palm of his own _left_ hand and shall sprinkle with his _right_ finger some of the oil that is in his _left_ hand seven times before the lord." surely, it must have been a god with a superior mentality who dictated this, for it surpasses our feeble comprehension. and we can well imagine jehovah's wrath when the priest confuses his _right_ and _left_. twirling his arms again, moses gives forth this oracle (numbers xv, 37-41): "and the lord spake unto moses, saying, 'speak unto the children of israel, and bid them that they make them a fringe upon the corner of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of each corner a cord of blue, etc., etc." jehovah chooses blue as the divine color. royal purple. divine blue. then there is the familiar myth of the prophet's tapping of the rock to bring forth water in the desert; the story of the manna; the tale of the doves. thus can the fabled life of moses be divided into two stages, the early period of illusions, hallucinations, and delusions, and the later stage of wizardry, charlatanry, and demagoguery. neither must we think that we moderns are the first to peer through this sham, for what the israelites thought of these laws appears from the bitter criticism of moses and aaron, which the haggadah put into the mouth of the rebel korah. "when we were given the ten commandments, each of us learnt them directly from mount sinai; there were only the ten commandments and we heard no orders about 'offering cake' or 'gifts to priests' or 'tassels.' it was only in order to usurp the dominion for himself and to impart honor to his brother aaron, that moses added all this." moses, jesus, and mohammed--these prophets whose adherents number hundreds of millions, about whom there has been built up those vast systems of theology,--what is there of the divine in their characters? what supernatural in their deeds? what wisdom poured forth from their lips which did not come from other philosophers? what immense structures have been founded on these shifting sands, on this morass of ignorance and childish fable? how long can these structures endure, aided by the bolstering up of the theologists, and how long must it be before the light of reason will pierce these foundations of blindness and force them to topple over? how much longer before humanity can begin to build on a sound foundation? moses, jesus, and mohammed; revolutionists three. moses at the head of a weak, squabbling, and disgruntled group of hebrew desert marauders. jesus sanctioning the insurrection against rome. mohammed at the head of his arabian marauders. if the freethinkers firmly believe that in them dwell the hope for a better humanity, for an exhilarated progress, for universal freedom and liberty for all mankind, and emancipation from fear and superstition, then they, too, must destroy. they must first undo the wrong before they can proceed to build on a right foundation. they must build on the corner stone that all religion is human in its origin, erroneous in its theories, and ridiculous in its threats and rewards. religion is the greatest impediment to the progress of human happiness. chapter iv soundness of a foundation for a belief in a deity _it is better to bury a delusion and forget it than to insult its memory by retaining the name when the thing has perished_. f. h. bradley. _a thousand miraculous happenings have been honoured by the testimony of the ancients, which in later times under a more exacting and sceptical scrutiny can no longer be believed. inherent in man's nature is his disposition to be gulled.... emotion is encouraged to supplant cool reason, fanaticism to supplant tolerance. not by such means can our race be saved_. llewelyn powys. our interplanetary visitor is firmly convinced that all religion, no matter what its antiquity or its modernity may be, is an invention of our groping earthly minds. it occurs to him that it would be interesting and proper to lay aside all theology, all creed, all the superficial trappings placed by man about his conceptions of a deity, and consider only the basic god-idea. the literature on the subject revealed to him that even on this broad and basic principle not all religionists were agreed. he found a threefold classification: (1) those who held to the belief in an anthropomorphic personal god who was benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent. (2) those who saw in the constitution of our universe an impersonal supreme power, who had created the universe, but who had not given us any revelation, and thus has no need for worship by prayer and sacrifice. (3) those who very recently conceived of the deity as a "cosmic force," an "ultimate," or as a mathematical or physical law. such are the hypotheses of jeans and eddington. the martian set about, therefore, with the principle that, "god is a hypothesis, and as such, stands in need of proof." (1) the belief in a personal god: the martian, as our guest, had by this time had ample opportunity to survey our civilization, and to acquaint himself with the things with which god in his goodness had endowed his earthly children. a proponent of a personal god informs him that his deity is an infinite personal being of consciousness, intelligence, will, good, unity, and beauty; the supreme, the infinite personality, who was loving, benevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient. like the american from missouri, the visitor hastened to see for himself the marvelous workings of such an exalted being, for surely such a being, with such attributes as he was credited with, would certainly be in an excellent position to bestow great gifts upon his earthly children. the martian is informed that the vast majority of our inhabitants, no matter what their geographical distribution may be, are suffering from a "financial depression" brought on by the last world war. war and cruelty are synonymous in the mind of our seeker for god; and immediately, there arises a conflict between the conception of an omnipotent, all-wise and loving god and one who would permit war and cruelty. fearing that he has not comprehended the meaning of an omnipotent being, he turns to the lexicon for verification, only to learn that it means an all-powerful being. how, then, could an omnipotent being permit wholesale and private murder? is he not rather a demon than a god? on the other hand, if this being is not omnipotent, then he is a useless god, and there is no need for all the fears which religion breeds, no need for creed and worship. every war, particularly this last one, is an indictment of god. "god's in his heaven, all's right with the world," is seemly only to minds drugged with an irrational creed. "if there is a god, he is quite careless of human well-being or human suffering. the deaths of a hundred thousand men mean no more to him than the deaths of a hundred thousand ants. a couple of million men locked in a death struggle on the battlefield is only a replica of the struggle that has been going on in the animal world throughout time. if there be a god, he made, he designed all this. he fashioned the hooks for the slaughter, the teeth for the tearing, the talons for destruction, and man with his multiplied weapons of destruction has but imitated his example. a world without god, and in which humanity is gradually learning the way to better things, is an inspiration to renewed effort after the right. a world such as this, with god, is enough to drive insane all with intelligence enough to appreciate the situation." (_chapman cohen: "war, civilization and the churches."_) when the martian investigated the annals of the world war he found, despite the opportunities providence had had of showing its benevolence, the affair of the sinking of the _lusitania_, the torpedoing of hospital ships, vessels that were not engaged in fighting but in bringing home wounded men who had fought in "god's cause." he found descriptions of the slaughter of men and women and children in air raids, and he naturally concludes that the "providence of god" is an insult to the earthly intelligence. greatly disturbed, he picks up one of our newspapers and the stories of hate and racial antagonism rear their ugly heads. these, together with jealousy and fear, seem to him to be the outstanding features of our attitudes. a benevolent, loving, omnipotent father, guiding our destinies, yet allowing such monstrosities to exist! the conundrum grows deeper as he proceeds. it is a bright day, and the martian is aware of a head-ache brought on by the effort to understand the ways of earthlings, and therefore decides to drive through the city streets. yet this drive affords him no relaxation, for on every side two diametrically opposed sights meet his keen eyes--luxury and poverty. poverty and starvation, yet the lord's prayer: "our father which art in heaven, give us this day our daily bread!" no martian father would allow his children to starve; if he did, the law would fine him and imprison him. since these earthlings are neglected by their heavenly father, and are powerless to indict him, the least they could do would be to stop paying tribute to him. if the god of these earthlings bothers not about them, why should they trouble about god? the son of god who could once create a miraculous batch of fish to satisfy a few fishermen, can do nothing to help these starving millions! aloud he muses, "is there no place on earth which is free from this contradiction?" his automobile happens to stop in front of an immense edifice marked "hospital," and his curiosity is sufficiently aroused to cause him to alight and enter. the physician in charge courteously asks his distinguished visitor to inspect this refuge for those suffering with pain. he remembers that a religionist had told him that disease is a visitation of the lord for our sins, in the same breath with which he had added that the lord was loving and compassionate. if that were so, then this was the ideal place to witness the infinite goodness and compassion of the creator of all earthlings. but, the first scene to meet his gaze was that of a woman in childbirth. the torture, the excruciating pain, and the mental anguish of the human female before his eyes, defied his martian power of expression. this process of birth, it was explained to him, was not a pathological one, nor a disease, but a physiological function. to this, the martian could not refrain from replying, "from your own words, doctor, it is readily understood that your women experience a torture more acute, more nerve-wracking, and of longer duration than your jesus experienced during his crucifixion. and your world commiserates and sheds oceans of tears when they contemplate the anguish of jesus on the cross; but no mention is made of the agony which is the fate of every woman who brings another human being into this 'best of worlds.'" "but, my dear martian," exclaims the physician, "the heavenly father has ordained that in anguish shall woman bring forth her young." the other deliberated on the compassion of the benevolent father in silence, and continued on his rounds through the hospital. nearby was the crib containing a baby of a few days, suffering with a congenital heart disease. the infant's lips were blue, so was the body blue, and the gasping for breath and heaving of the small chest were pitiful to behold. "this infant," nonchalantly remarked the physician, "was born with a greatly defective heart. it will live for a few days, it will thirst for air, it will have intense air-hunger, the lungs will fill with fluid and then it will drown in its own secretions." the martian recalled the time he had plunged under the water and remained there too long; vividly, he remembered the thirst for air, the seeming bursting of the lungs, the compression and vise-like grip of the muscles of the throat and chest, and he could not help exclaiming, "benevolent, compassionate being!" the physician continued, "this child," pointing to a beautiful, robust boy of ten years, "was in perfect health, until he fell in the street and received a minor cut which the parents treated with home remedies, but which in a few days was diagnosed as tetanus." and the doctor went on to explain that the compassion of the lord is great when this occurs, for the child gets convulsions, the jaws become locked, and beads of cold sweat stand out on the child's forehead in his anguish; the convulsions increase in severity and in duration so that finally they are continuous and the child lies with the heels and back of the head only touching the bed, the rest of the body is arched. the convulsions then become so severe that the body is so bent backwards at times that the head and trunk touch the heels. the misery of such a child is sufficient to cause a physician to lose his reason. again the martian murmurs, "verily, the compassion of the lord is beyond understanding." the child in the next bed had just become paralyzed by an attack of poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis). the martian observes how the lord in his compassion saved a certain number of these children upon whom he vents his anger for their sins, by inflicting upon them this hideous disease. he saves their lives, but to serve as an everlasting reminder, as a covenant between them and their lord, he paralyzes their limbs. the spectacle of these children attempting to move, making intense effort to move paralyzed limbs, was the most revolting and heart-breaking sight that he had ever witnessed. this time, too, the martian remarked, "verily, the lord in his infinite wisdom and goodness strange tasks does perform." the physician then informed him of the many men and women who have died of cancer. a large number of these individuals had reached a period in life where they could just afford to relax from their struggles for mere sustenance; men and women who had reached a calm lake after journeying through troubled and tortuous waters; who had fought the "good fight," and had won the just reward of resting after their labors. but no, the lord must trouble them for their sins. a group of these sufferers is shown to the martian, and the normal course of this disease is explained. this time all he can do is to protest that he firmly asserts that not one of our savage chiefs, even were he of the most primitive tribe, of the cruelest imagination, of the most base and insane nature, would nor could conceive of such torture as the loving father conceived when he decided upon cancer as a visitation for our sins. the roasting of a witch alive is but a mere trifle compared to the long-drawn-out agony, the slow wasting, the anguish of a cancer patient watching himself sink to death. and when death mercifully releases this sufferer from his hellish torture the preacher murmurs, "lord, thy will be done." the martian talks for a few moments with a sufferer from this disease and ascertains that the latter is a devout and true religionist, that he has been a good, moral church-goer, and has lived strictly according to the tenets of his creed, that he firmly and passionately believes that he has lived so that he will merit the reward of heaven, an everlasting sojourn in a land where there is no pain and suffering. and yet, this devout religionist, when he was informed that he had an incurable cancer, traveled the length and breadth of his land, from one surgeon to another, allowing himself to be cut to pieces, in order that he might remain on this earth but a moment longer. to stay and suffer the tortures of the damned when he might go to heaven and get his reward in the land where there is no pain! "i wonder," mused the martian, "did the grim spectre of death finally instill a grain of scepticism into his mind?" later, in the quiet of his chambers, he reviews the day's impressions--cruelty, hate, fear, jealousy, racial antagonism, poverty, luxury, disease, pain, superstition, church, religion, and intolerance. "if we suppose that the universe is the creation of an omnipotent and benevolent god, it becomes necessary to ask how pain and evil arise. pain and evil are either real or unreal. if they are real then god, who, being omnipotent, was bound by no limitations and constrained by no necessities, willfully created them. but the being who willfully creates pain and evil cannot be benevolent. if they are unreal, then the error which we make when we think them real is a real error. there is no doubt that we believe we suffer. if the belief is erroneous, then it follows that god willfully called falsehood into existence and deliberately involved us in unnecessary error. it follows once again that god cannot be benevolent. "if we regard pain and evil as due to the wickedness of man and not as the creation of god, we are constrained to remember that man himself is one of god's creations (god being conceived as all creative), and received his wickedness, or his capacity for it, from whom? if we say that man had no wickedness to begin with but willfully generated wickedness for himself, we have to face the double difficulty of accounting for: (a) how man, who is an emanation from god, can will with a will of his own which is not also a piece of god's will; and (b) how a benevolent god could, assuming pain and evil to be a purely human creation, deliberately allow them to be introduced into a world that knew them not, when it was open to him to prevent such introductions." (_c. e. m. joad, "mind and matter."_) he had seen that crime and immorality exist now, just as they had existed before the belief in one personal god, and just as they promise to exist beyond our time. he had scrutinized evidence revealing the incontestable fact that most criminals were religious, and absolutely and proportionately, a smaller number of criminals were non-believers in a personal deity. judging by these alone, a belief in a benevolent, loving, omniscient, omnipotent, and compassionate being could not be sustained. furthermore, if such a god ever existed, he certainly would have revealed his true religion to the first man, adam. if he required prayer to satisfy his vanity, he surely would have told adam how, when, why, and where to pray. then again, once having neglected to inform his first model about all this, since he is omnipotent, he would certainly have instilled into the minds of men "the" true creed so that no doubt could have ever entered into any one's mind. what a universe of suffering he would have saved! the martian is aware that a great number of earthlings hold that every event must have a cause, therefore the universe must have had a cause, which cause was god. everything as it now exists in the universe is the result of an infinite series of causes and effects. everything that happens is the result of something else that happened previously and so on backwards to all eternity. applying this reasoning that everything is the effect of some cause, and that a cause is the effect of some other causes, the theists work back from effect to cause and from cause to effect until they reach a first cause. by predicating a first cause, however, the theist removes the mystery a stage further back. this first cause they assume to be a cause that was not caused and this first cause is god. such a belief is a logical absurdity, and is an example of the ancient custom of creating a mystery to explain a mystery. if everything must have a cause, then the first cause must be caused and therefore: who made god? to say that this first cause always existed is to deny the basic assumption of this "theory." moreover, if it is reasonable to assume a first cause as having always existed, why is it unreasonable to assume that the materials of the universe always existed? to explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy. the effect noted in any particular case is not of necessity related to a single cause, and science gives no assurance that causes and effects can be traced backward to a simple first cause. a man is so unfortunate as to contract pneumonia. what is the cause? an infection of the respiratory tract by the pneumococcus. it is not quite so simple as to ultimate causation. the person afflicted was harboring these germs in his nose and throat, and his resistance was weakened by wetting his feet. the day was cold and his shoes were thin. the humidity and temperature were such that rain fell. the temperature and humidity were caused by air currents hundreds of miles distant from the scene, and so ad infinitum. in this series of complications where may we discern a first cause? when applied to the much more difficult problem of physical phenomena, we can conceive of an endless cycle of causes, but we cannot conceive of a first cause. "cause and effect are not two separate things, they are the same thing viewed under two separate aspects.... if cause and effect are the expressions of a relation, and if they are not two things, but only one, under two aspects, 'cause' being the name for the related powers of the factors, and 'effect' the name for their assemblage, to talk, as does the theist, of working back along the chain of causes until we reach god, is nonsense." (_chapman cohen: "theism or atheism."_) a great many theists attempt to deduce the existence of an invisible creator and ruler of the universe from the visible features of nature such as the design, regularity of movement and structure, and the various aspects of beauty which one may find in studying natural objects. this argument from design in nature has been overruled by a study of the evolutionary processes. paley based his argument on the assertion of a mind behind phenomena, the workings of which could be seen in the forms of animal life. the theists no longer use paley's original arguments, but a great deal of the theistic arguments are still based on his assumptions. from the humanistic point of view, and the theist bases his entire arguments from design in nature from the humanistic view, an understanding of the merciless character of organic evolution shows clearly that the forces at work in nature are full of waste, there are numerous plans that are futile, there is an unrelenting preying of one form of life upon the other, and it is not always the "higher" form that is victor; there are myriads of living organisms coming to life only to perish before reaching an age at which they can play their part in the perpetuation of the species; and there is a universe of pain and misery that serves no useful purpose. the impartial eye of science observes ugliness as well as beauty, disorder as well as order, in nature. if there is evidence of design in a rose, there is at least as much evidence of design in the tubercle bacillus, and the tetanus bacillus. whatever in nature produced the peacock produced the itch-mite; whatever produced man produced the spirochete of syphilis. if this earth is evolving for the better, the past is still vivid in all its cruelty. the old and familiar argument from design and beauty in nature is so inconsistent with the facts at hand, that most theists have abandoned this attitude, and the retreat from this position has been turned into a veritable rout by the steady advance of scientific knowledge. god could by exercising his omnipotence reveal his existence with overpowering conviction at any moment; yet, men have been searching for centuries for just the slightest evidence of his presence. the martian, moreover, holds that the entire argument is irrelevant, for even if he grants that there is a supernatural being that fashions that which we behold at work in the universe, how can we say that he designed all this without first knowing what his intention was? only by knowing the intention in the mind of a supernatural being before the act, can we infer that something was designed. when the theist finds intention and design in nature he is but reading his own feeling and desires into nature. considering the universe as a whole, the martian fails to find anything that suggests a conscious and purposive god, and certainly nothing to suggest a being that considers the welfare of man. the individual is not much interested in god as manifested in nature, what he is vainly seeking is _god as providence_; he is seeking an intelligence that his clergy tell him is devoted to his welfare, an intelligence that will guide his stumbling efforts, that will relieve him from war and misery, that will shield the innocent from pain and poverty. he finds that his clergy cannot point to one clear trace of the action of god in human affairs. in the whole long record of man's career the finger of god cannot be found pointing to one well-substantiated fact. the martian considers the theistic argument that it would be impossible to have an orderly universe merely resulting from the inherent properties of natural forces, and that "directivity" is necessary to keep the universe on its present track. keeping in mind the scientific conception of the universe and the knowledge at hand concerning the atoms and their properties, it is inconceivable that any other arrangement than the present one should have resulted. the martian cannot marvel as most earthlings do that the present order exists as it does; the marvel to him would be if any other order should be or that any radical alteration in it should occur. he perceives that the state of the universe at any moment is the result of all the conditions then prevailing, and that the natural forces possess the capacity to produce the universe as we see it. it matters not what the ultimate nature of these forces may be, electrons, protons, electricity, or wave energy; these material forces possess the capacity to produce the universe as we see it. if these forces do not possess this capacity it is indeed difficult for the martian to conceive in what way even a "directing and supreme mathematician" an "ultimate," or any supernatural power however designated could produce this capacity. unless the capacity for producing the universe as we see it existed in the atoms themselves, no amount of direction could have produced it. the property of the atom and its combinations to produce the material universe is therefore inherent in the atoms themselves and does not necessitate the operation of a deity. the order manifest in the universe is the necessary consequence of the persistence of force. if a supernatural, intelligent force existed, the martian believes that the claims of the theist could in no way be better substantiated than if this controlling force would in some way manifest an inhibitive influence and prevent certain things occurring which would have transpired but for his interference. such manifestations have not occurred. it is impossible for the theist to show any instance in which the normal consequences of known forces did not transpire in which the aberration could not be accounted for by the operation of other known forces. a "law" of nature is not a statute drawn up by a legislator; it is the interpretation and the summation which we give to the observed facts. the phenomena which we observe do not act in a particular manner because there is a law; but we state the "law" because they act in that particular manner. it cannot be said that the laws of nature are the result of a lawmaker; it cannot be affirmed that a supreme intelligence told things in nature to act just that way and no other. if the theist claims that a supreme intelligence issued laws for his own pleasure and without any reason, then he must admit that there is something which is not subject to law and the train of natural law is interrupted. if it is claimed that a supreme intelligence had a reason for the laws which he gave, the reason being to create the best possible universe, then it follows that god himself was subject to law and there is no advantage in introducing god as an intermediary. this contention would make it appear that there is a law outside and anterior to the divine edicts, and god does not serve the purpose of the theist since he is not the ultimate lawgiver. the anthropomorphic conception of god, our martian finds, is now denied by most cultured theists; nevertheless, they still maintain a belief in a deity endowed with consciousness. professor h. n. wieman states that, "god is superhuman, but not supernatural. he is a present, potent, operative, observable reality.... he is more worthy of love than any other beloved ... he is one to whom men can pray and do pray, and who answers prayer." this can be understood to be not greatly removed from the fundamentalists' conception of god, but when he continues to say, "god is that interaction between individuals, groups, and ages which generates and promotes the greatest possible mutuality of good," and "it responds to prayer and is precisely what answers prayer, when prayer is answered," the personal "he" has suddenly changed to the unpersonal "it." emotions and intelligence are connected with nerve structures in all sentient beings that we have experience and knowledge of. how can we attribute these qualities to a being who is described to us as devoid of any nerve structure? in former ages the theist saw god in the color and construction of a flower, in the starry heavens, and in a sunset or sunrise. the biologists have driven the theists from this misconception, the physicists have explained the phenomena of sunset and sunrise, and with the advance of astronomy the heavens no longer proclaim the glory of god, and the theistic arguments have shifted from worlds to atoms. at the present moment the vision of god has narrowed down to a perception of the divine intelligence noted in the design of the atom. astronomy, physics, geology, chemistry, medicine, psychology, ethics, aesthetics, and the social sciences have left no room for a theistic explanation of the universe. the mystics who proclaim god in their intuitive trances are being crowded out into the light of reason by the researches of psychologists. there are still many gaps in our knowledge, and if the theist persists in finding the manifestation of a supreme being in these vague zones of our present ignorance, he is at the mercy of the science of the future. science is concerned with mind as much as it is with the material aspects of atoms and stars, hence the sciences of psychology, ethics, and aesthetics. the entire universe is the province of science and it is rapidly providing a scientific interpretation of all the contents of the universe. it may well be a few more centuries before the scientific explanation is partially complete, but it must be kept in mind that science as we conceive the term is less than 2500 years old, and out of this infantile period, at least 1000 years must be deducted for the intellectual stagnation of the dark ages. in tracing the retreat of the clergy from the arguments from the first cause, the arguments from design, causation, and directivity, the martian recalls the words of vivian phelips, "how is it that god allowed earnest and learned divines to commit themselves to arguments in proof of his existence, the subsequent overthrow of which has been a potent cause for unbelief?" "the finite mind cannot expect to understand the infinite," retorts a theist to our martian. "what manner of reasoning is this," asks our martian, "that denies my finite mind the right to question the 'proofs' of the existence of an infinite, when these same 'proofs' are derived by finite minds? the theist cannot infer god from the cosmic process until he can discover some feature of it which is unintelligible without him." (2) the belief in a deity, but the rejection of revelations, theology, priestcraft, and church. to the martian the opinion held by these individuals presented two difficulties. first, if the adherents of this hypothesis considered their deity as a providence which took an active part in the life of this world, then the objections heretofore stated against belief in a personal god are still valid. secondly, if they considered this being as only a creator, who then leaves this world to its own resources, they are only assuming a philosophical existence behind phenomena. such a being, they believe, they deduce intellectually. but actually who created this creator? they assume a god who remains always hidden behind phenomena, but such a god has no connection with the god that the religious man worships and to whom he prays for guidance and for blessings, for actual interference in the life of this world. such theories impress our visitor as but a feeble attempt at new concepts of the same hypothetical deity, and it seemed to him that we already had sufficient ideas of god to trouble our earthly minds. (3) the god of the physicists. it was brought to the martian's attention that two scientists, sir arthur eddington, a british astronomer, and sir james jeans, a mathematical physicist, had still another concept of god. according to eddington, "phenomena all boil down to a scheme of symbols, of mathematical equations." he admits that this mathematics of nature does not explain anything. they do not define reality, they only define the relations that exist between the phenomena of reality. so far does he go, and then his limited mind, our martian perceives, meets an obstacle that he cannot explain. he, therefore, abandons the formula and returns to the human mind which has conceived this formula. from the "spiritual essence of man's nature," he assumes the spiritual nature of the cosmos itself, which he finds in what religion has known for centuries as god. to him, it is impossible to explain the universe except in terms of spirit. professor jeans insists that in the equations which reveal the relations between phenomena, there may reside also the revelation of the ultimate which these phenomena express. he believes that there may exist "a great architect of the universe who is a pure mathematician." however, the martian argues, "is it not a fact that in your earthly experience, you have created your gods in your own image? your savages created god in the only fashion their mental capacities could supply, in the shape of an idol; now the modern physicist creates his god in the light of his own intimate vision, which is that of a mathematician! this is just another attempt to formulate an hypothetical existence of a supernatural being." the theologians, by this time thoroughly aroused, lay down a verbal barrage, and learned jesuits place before the visitor a recent publication entitled, "the question and answer" by hilaire belloc. the author, acting as the mouthpiece of the roman catholic church, attempts to prove two things: namely, whether god is, and that the witness to revelation is the roman catholic church. were it not for the fact that the work was published by permission of the church, one could logically suppose from its arguments that the author was attempting to give the answer, "no," to the question propounded, as to whether god is. there is one sentence, however, to which the martian agrees: this one, "but religions, though not very numerous, considering the vast spaces of time over which we can study them, and the vast number of millions to which they apply, differ and contradict each other; on which account, any one approaching this problem for the first time, and being made acquainted at the outset with the variety of religions, would naturally conclude that every religion is man-made, and every religion an illusion." on reading the opening remarks, the martian exclaims, "this earthling plainly tells us at the beginning that he will make his theories fit in with his conclusion! he informs us that he does not seek the truth, no matter where it may lead, but he only deems it necessary to fit ideas, no matter how distorted, in order that the final conclusion will simulate what he deliberately sets out to prove." mr. belloc's statement, "how many men will agree that wanton cruelty, treason to family or the state, falsehood for private gain, breach of faith, are admirable?" strikes the martian as absurd when viewed in the light of the historical annals of the church itself. mr. belloc's creed must have considered these very vices as virtues, judging from the actions of his church. in calling the roman catholic church the witness to revelation, the author continues with, "yet, that it should suffer from men's hatred and persecution." if god has divinely ordained this institution as his church on earth, and in his omnipotence and omniscience allows this church to be hated, then how do the religionists assume that their god is a god of love? the author tells us that he is a god of hate, such a god as was conceived of by the barbarians and the hebrews--cruel, vengeful, and monstrous. does not this apologist confuse his god with his devil? then again, has it not occurred to this apologist that he is in all futility attempting to prove something which is a contradiction within itself? if god is, and is benevolent, is it not logical to assume (since the theologians assume all sorts of attributes to this deity) that he would not have constructed the minds of men when he created them so as to desire to doubt his being; would not have tortured the minds of men with cruel doubt as to his existence? if he is omnipotent, it would have been just as easy to instill into the minds of men only the strongest desire to believe in his reality; and even that would not be necessary had he so arranged matters that by his everlasting presence he would reveal himself or his deeds to man in such a conclusive manner that even the feeblest of intellects could not doubt his existence. if he is omniscient, as the parable asserts, that not a hair falls from the head of man, not a sparrow dies without his knowledge, it must therefore be apparent that he created man with the foreknowledge that man would doubt his existence. this is a contradiction in itself. the martian notes that in the entire length of the work not a reference is made to the time-worn theological defense, "the revelation" which the church has always claimed for its scriptures. appended as an afterthought, as an apology, as it were, for the philosophical defense and not the theological, the jesuit father reminds the reader of its messiah, jesus and the new testament. the jesuit states, "the new testament writings, considered merely as trustworthy historical documents, inform us that--" but at this point the martian interrupted the speaker, for the audacity of any learned man terming the new testament writings "historical" was beyond his comprehension. it brought forcibly to his attention the great change which the apologies for the church had undergone, and the new methods which they assumed. the old theological defense of the deity was gone; not even philosophy was deemed strong enough support for the present day. how the church had fallen! the church which had persecuted, anathematized, burned, and tortured the scientist, the geologist, the astronomer, the geographer, the biologist, the chemist, and the physician; this same church in its last extremus, casts aside theology as its weapon and its appeal to the minds of the sceptics whom they aim to convert. the church casts aside its own theology, having learned by bitter experience and recanting of opinions, bulls, and infallible statements by infallible popes, and now succumbs to the opinions it has formerly anathematized. in the present age the church calls science to its aid, and utterly disregards its obsolete theology which it still practices, and attempts, by means of the misinterpretation of scientific facts and statements of a few men such as eddington and jeans, to force science into some illogical and unscientific concordance with the conception of a supreme being. ironically it occurs to the martian that the shades of hypatia, bruno, galileo, copernicus, vanini, darwin, and the vast numbers of waldenses, albigenses, huguenots, jews, and the victims of the inquisition and the witch hunt, must, as they contemplate the present tactics of that holy institution, the church, find some consolation in the depths of that hell to which the church consigned them. the martian logically deduces that by employing science for its defense, the church admits the impotence of "divine revelation," in this age, to convince even its own adherents of the problematical existence of a divine being. _theology is no longer recognized as authoritative even by theologians!_ will the theologians now discard their theology based on the supernatural, and build a system of theology based on science? is this all that is left to the theologian: that he must use the pitiful "theology of gaps"? that is, wherever there are gaps in scientific knowledge, the theologians insert their idea of god! this is but the replacing of the question mark with a meaningless label. chapter v the persistence of religion _we believe what we believe, not because we have been convinced by such and such arguments, but because we are of such and such a disposition._ c. e. m. joad. _the mind of the ordinary man is in so imperfect a condition that it requires a creed; that is to say, a theory concerning the unknown and the unknowable in which it may place its deluded faith and be at rest._ winwood reade. _generations followed and what had been offered as hypothetical theological suppositions were through custom and tradition taken for granted as unquestioned truth._ llewelyn powys. the martian has had his attention drawn to the statement that religion in some form or other has existed from most primitive times down to the present day. the theologians point to this as a proof of the existence of a supreme being. an investigation of this assertion leads the martian to the conclusion that religions have continued to exist mainly because of the power which inherited superstitions wield over mankind. men are born with a marked tendency towards superstitions. certain isolated families of men are born with an inherited tendency towards tuberculosis. most of these are born, not with an active tuberculosis, but some as yet imperfectly understood tendency, a defect in their protoplasmic make-up that renders them an easy prey to the tubercle bacillus if they are exposed to it. similarly, generations of men have been born with a weakened mental vitality towards superstition; a weakened mental capacity that renders their minds an easy prey to that fear which manifests itself in superstition, creed, religion--the god-idea. it was karl marx who remarked that, "the tradition of all the generations of the past weighs down like an alp upon the brain of the living." since the days of our racial childhood, our beliefs have been handed down from generation to generation, and they have persisted since in all ages it was forbidden to question their existence. man has persuaded himself that it is so just because he has said it for so long and so often. the force of repetition is great; it is, in fact, taken by a vast majority of men as the equivalent of proof. most men have to accept their religions ready made. their daily tasks leave them no time or opportunity for a personal search. the toil for bread is incessant, there is not sufficient leisure to verify the sources of their religious beliefs. moreover, the ecclesiastic's answers to the riddles of life are easier, by far, to grasp than the answers of science. these two factors, of innate mental inertia and force of repetition, are well manifested by the present tactics of advertising. the manufacturer of any product well knows that constant repetition and the dangling of his product before the eyes of the public will lead to a widespread acceptance of the advertising slogans propounded for his article. the force of so-called authority has aggravated this mental inertia. it takes a tremendous amount of will power and mental courage for any individual to assert an opinion that runs counter to the accepted mode of thinking. it is much easier and much more pleasant to give oneself passively to that delusion of grandeur, that delusion that pleasantly drugs the mind with the assumption that there is a supreme being who is personally interested in our well-being; a providence who, like a school master, at his pleasure dispenses rewards and punishments; as immortality, heaven and hell. so firmly has this become entrenched in the minds of men that the irrationalities which manifest themselves against such a conception make no impression. schopenhauer well states, "nothing is more provoking, when we are arguing against a man with reasons and explanations, and taking all pains to convince him, than to discover at last that he _will_ not understand, that we have to do with his _will_." the martian, knowing the widespread extent of religious beliefs and their supposed influence in our daily lives, is prepared to find in our annals a vast literature that would attest to the overwhelming benefits that mankind had derived from his religious beliefs. he is amazed to find that the little good which religion had accomplished, had occurred at the time when our race was in its infancy. just as fear is instilled into the mind of the child to protect it from the dangers of its environment before the child has reached the age when it can use its reason for protection, just so had religion, by its implantation of fear, served its purpose in the days of our racial childhood. the child, however, as soon as it learns to reason, replaces those fears by a logical comprehension of the laws governing his environment. but in religious matters this fear has clung to man tenaciously; and while at first serving a protective function, at the present stage of civilization constitutes an embryonic impediment. the assertion of ecclesiastics that without the aid of religious learning and influence our civilization would have been retarded is a statement that a study of the development of man shows to be directly opposed to the facts; that religion has been the greatest impediment in the road to progress. this will be shown in the subsequent chapters. the oft-repeated assertion that, during the middle ages, ecclesiastic influence was the saving grace is well refuted by dr. william j. robinson: "we are told by the church apologists that during the middle ages the priests and monks kept up the torch of learning, that, being the only literate people, they brought back the study of the classics. historically speaking, this is about the most impudent statement that one could imagine. it was the church that retarded human progress at least one thousand years, it is the church that put a thick, impenetrable pall over the sun of learning and science, so that humanity was enveloped in utter darkness, and if the priests and monks later learned to read and write (from the arabs, jews, and greeks exiled from constantinople after 1453), it is because they wanted to keep the power in their hands; the people they did not permit to learn either to read or write. _even the reading of the bible, bear in mind, was considered a crime._ we are told that the priests and monks built hospitals and gave alms to the poor. having gotten enormous tracts of the best land into their hands, so that the people were starving, they were willing to throw a bone occasionally to the latter. it cost them nothing and it gave them a reputation for charity. they built enormous monasteries with well filled cellars, and lived on the fat of the land, while the people lived in wretched hovels, working their lives away for a crust of bread. the beasts, the domestic animals lived a more comfortable life than did the men, women, and children of the people. and the church never, never raised a finger to ameliorate their condition. it kept them in superstitious darkness and helped the temporal lords--for a long period the spiritual were also the temporal lords--to keep them in fear, subjection and slavery." the martian being an impartial observer examined what had been done by christianity for the intellectual and material advancement of humanity during her long reign, and what had been done by science and purely secular knowledge in its brief period of activity, the period when science and secular knowledge had partially liberated themselves from ecclesiastical domination. he came to the conclusion that in instituting a comparison he had established a contrast. chapter vi religion and science _science, then, commands our respect, not on the basis that its present assumptions and deductions are absolutely and for all time true, but on the ground that its method is for all time true--the method of discovery, the method of observation, research, experimentation, comparison, examination, testing, analysis and synthesis._ maynard shipley, "the war on modern science." _in the bare three and one-half centuries since modern science began, the churches had conducted an unremitting crusade against it. that much of this crusade had turned into a rear-guard action was due less to the weakness of the defenders of the faith than to the invulnerability of their non-resistant victim._ horace m. kallen, "why religion?" some sixty years ago in the "dogmatic constitution of the catholic faith," the church stated, "but never can reason be rendered capable of thoroughly understanding mysteries as it does those truths which form its proper subject. we, therefore, pronounce false every assertion which is contrary to the enlightened truth of faith.... hence, all the christian faithful are not only forbidden to defend as legitimate conclusions of science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith, especially when condemned by the church, but are rather absolutely bound to hold them for errors wearing the deceitful appearance of truth. let him be anathema.... "who shall say that human sciences ought to be pursued in such a spirit of freedom that one may be allowed to hold true their assertions even when opposed to revealed doctrine." can anything stronger be said to discourage research, investigation, experiment, and retard progress? and only sixty years ago! it is but the restatement of what the church has uttered so many times and for so long--that all knowledge, material as well as spiritual, is to be found in the bible as interpreted by the church. it was this myth which had stultified the mind of man for 1500 years (during the period in which the church was dominant); it was this that had killed the urge to search and seek for the truth, which is the goal of all science, the means by which humanity is set on the road to progress. this was the damnable precept foisted on the minds of men which enslaved them throughout the ages, and from which we are just emerging. this was the precept that plunged the world into the dark ages, and retarded the advance of mankind for centuries. this is the reason that it is utterly impossible for the intellectually honest scientist, and for that matter any individual, to reconcile science with religion. on the one hand, that of religion, we have the forces of intolerance, superstition, and the endeavor to besmirch, repress, and ridicule every advance favorable to mankind; to cloak with meaningless words obsolete rites, to stand in the way of human progress, because it does not permit men to think boldly and logically. science, on the other hand, does not hesitate to tear down old conceptions, and has only one motive, the ultimate truth. religion has the purpose of keeping the masses in the narrow and false path of only accepted doctrines. the true scientist is the man with the open mind, one who will discard the worthless and accept only the proven good. the religionist closes his mind to all facts which he is unwilling to believe, everything which will endanger his creed. religion teaches the individual to place all hope, all desire, in a problematical hereafter. the stay on earth is so short compared to the everlasting life to come, that of what interest is this life; all things are vain. the misery, the suffering, of his fellow men leave him cold; he can only think of living in the light of his narrow creed so that he may gain his future reward. how well this philosophy has fitted in with the schemes of the select few for the control of the many! truth to the scientific mind is something provisional, a hypothesis that for the present moment best conforms to the recognized tests. it is an evolving conception in a constantly changing universe. it is not that science has attained true conclusions; not that the evidence at hand must remain immutable; but that the scientific method of analyzing and formulating assumptions on the basis of discovery, on ascertained facts, is a superior method to the closed "infallible" method of "revelation." these assumptions, based upon the known facts, lead to a working hypothesis which in turn develops into a theory. if the theory is adopted it must account for the facts known. but the theory is not held as final, it is always changed or abandoned if necessary to conform to the new discovered data. science welcomes the critical attitude that leads to the refinement of its theories. there may be today various theories held by scientists in which they are mistaken, but the question of the _method_ by which they arrive at conclusions can no longer be under consideration with regard to its validity. to the scientific mind, knowledge is something to be arrived at by study and research. to the religionist, knowledge is something that is contained in an infallible and supernatural statement or insight. religion exalts the transcendental; science manipulates only the material. to the consistent religionist, his belief, as such, determine the fact; to the scientist it is the evidence that establishes the fact. to the religionist truth is something that is unchanging, that is fixed, final, and heretical to question. confronted with a constantly changing universe, he would delude himself that his inner convictions give him a finality concerning his evolving environment. it is therefore not so much science that the religionist is fighting, but the _scientific method_. this scientific method of approach, he rightly perceives, has so pervaded our mode of thinking that it is the subtle and most disintegrating force that is shattering the religious foundations. dr. james t. shotwell, speaking of the scientific method, concludes, "but whatever strictures philosophy may pass upon the _conclusions_ of science, as merely relative and provisional, there is no clearer fact in the history of thought, that its _attitudes_ and _methods_ have been at opposite poles from those of religion. it does no good to blink the fact, established as it is by the most positive proofs of history and psychology. science has made headway by attempting to eliminate mystery so far as it can. religion, on the other hand, has stressed mystery and accepted it in its own terms. science is the product of bold adventure, pushing into the realm of the mysterious to interpret its phenomena in terms of the investigator; religion enters this same realm to give itself up to the emotional reactions. science is the embodiment of the sense of control, religion yields the control to that power which moves in the shadow of the woods by night, and the glory of the morning hills.... "science does not justify by faith, but by works. it is the living denial of that age-long acceptance which we accord to the mystery--as such. it renounces authority, cuts athwart custom, violates the sacred, rejects the myths. it adjusts itself to the process of change whose creative impulse it itself supplies. not _semper idem_ but _semper alterum_ is the keynote of science. each discovery of something new involves the discarding of something old. above all, it progresses by doubting rather than by believing." (_james t. shotwell: "the religious revolution of to-day."_) _there has never been an advance in science of widespread importance which in some manner or other endangered some mouldy religious concept, that the church has not bitterly opposed; an advance which in time has proven of inestimable benefit for all mankind. a glance at the history of human progress will reveal scores of such instances._ the two rival divisions of the christian church, protestant and catholic, have always been in accord on one point, that is, to tolerate no science except such as they considered to be agreeable to the scriptures. it was the decree of the lateran council of 1515 that ordered that no books should be printed but such as had been inspected by the ecclesiastical censors, under pain of excommunication and fine. it is easily understood that having declared the bible to contain all knowledge both scientific and spiritual, and then passing a decree ordering no books to be printed which did not agree on all points with the church's interpretation of the bible, the church was in absolute control of all thought, both written and spoken. it was to no advantage for the scholar to investigate any new fields, for all knowledge which was possible for the mind to discover had already been revealed in the scriptures. thus declared the church. we understand why it was that copernicus did not permit his book to be published until he was dying. we understand also that when galileo and bruno had the courage of their convictions, and gave voice to their beliefs, they were persecuted. galileo was made to recant a discovery that the youngest of children now takes for granted. bruno was burnt at the stake. we know that astronomy was at a standstill under church domination, chemistry was forbidden, and the study of natural philosophy was contradicted; while anthropology, which showed on what mythical foundations the story of the fall of man rests, was squelched. the attitude of the church on geography was hostile to the truth, as witness the persecutions of those who dared to venture that the earth was round. botany, mathematics, and geometry, as well as the natural sciences, slumbered. geology, which proved that the earth was more than 6000 years old, was anathematized; archeologists had the greatest difficulty to expound the truth concerning the antiquity of the human race. in purely civil matters, the clergy opposed fire and marine insurance on the ground that it was a tempting of providence. life insurance was regarded as an act of interference with the consequence of god's will. medicine met the most strenuous of opposition. it is impossible in this short study to analyze the specific forms of retardation which the church exhibited to all of these branches of learning, whose only endeavor it was to search for the truth, to state the facts, and to alleviate and make more bearable man's sojourn on this earth. however, a few of the many instances of retardation on the part of the church will be pointed out. chapter vii religion and medicine _now, when physiologists study the living brain of an ape, they have no grounds for supposing that they are dealing with a dual structure. the brain is not a tenement inhabited by a spirit or soul. the spirit or soul is but a name for the manifestations of the living brain. the leading neurologists of the world are agreed that the same is true of the human brain. it was only when they abandoned the dual conception--an inheritance from the dark ages of medicine--that they began to understand the disorders of man's mind and how to treat them._ _modern medicine thus strikes at the very root of christian doctrine. for, if man is truly mortal, if death ends all, if the human soul is but the manifestation of the living brain, as light and heat are the manifestations of a glowing bar of steel, then there can be no resurrection of the dead. man has the seeds of immortality in him, but the gift is for the race, not for the individual._ sir arthur keith. medicine and religion have been closely associated from the most pristine time. primitive medicine had its origin in conjunction with the most primitive of religious conceptions, namely, animism; an illusion that made primitive man recognize in all things, and everywhere, spirits such as his supposed spirit; a belief that the world swarms with invisible spirits which are the cause of disease and death. and thus primitive medicine is inseparable from primitive modes of religious belief. all these phenomena which we consider today natural--the rustling of leaves in a forest, the crash of thunder, the flash of lightning, winds, clouds, storms, and earthquakes--were to primitive man the outward and visible signs of angry gods, demons, and spirits. similar spirits caused disease and death, and these evil spirits that produced disease and death were to be placated and cajoled by man, just as he did his other deities, by magic, by burnt offerings, and sacrifice. the first holy man, the first priest, was the "shaman," and it was his duty not only to placate and cajole the spirits that were thought to control the physical well-being of the individual members of the tribe; but it was his duty also, by the exercise of his magic, to alleviate and cure illness by exorcism. the "shaman" was therefore the first medicine man, the first witch doctor, the first physician. he relied chiefly upon psychotherapy as does the modern witch doctor of christian science. medicine could not begin to be medicine until it was disassociated from magic, religion, and theology. this struggle has been going on from the time of the "shaman" to the present moment. primitive medicine stands midway between magic and religion, as an attempt to safeguard health by control of so-called supernatural processes, and the warding off of evil influences by appeal to the gods. in all primitive societies, priest, magician, and medicine man were one and the same; and medicine remained stationary until it could divorce itself completely from religion. primitive medicine, then, springs from folklore, legends, credulity, and superstitions; the same forces that give rise to all forms of religious beliefs. huxley has stated, "science commits suicide when it adopts a creed," and from the earliest of times those men who had a scientific trend of mind realized this, however vaguely, and have attempted to divorce science from religion. the science of medicine has been divorced from superstition, but its twin brother religion lies as firmly bogged in the mire of superstition today as it did in the days of the incantations of the first theologist, the "shaman." and it is due to this close association of religion and medicine that ideas of the greatest scientific moment have been throttled at birth or veered into a blind alley through some current theological lunacy. medicine has advanced through its disassociation with supernaturalism, while religion still remains the last refuge of human savagery. and so it had been that throughout those long, sterile, and barbarous ages primitive man ascribed all diseases either to the wrath of god, or the malice of an evil being. with the rise of the greek philosophers, the human mind for the first time began to throw off the fogs of superstition. in greece, 500 years before christ, hippocrates developed scientific thought and laid the foundations of medical science upon observation, experience, and reason. under his guidance, medicine for the first time was separated from religion. he relieved the gods of the responsibility for disease and placed it squarely upon the shoulders of man. his findings were passed on to the school of alexandria, and there medical science was further developed. at this stage of history all advances stopped, and for the following reason: with the coming of christianity this science, as well as all others, was stultified. a retrogression took place to the ideation of the most primitive of men, namely, the conception of physical disease as the result of the wrath of god, or the malice of satan, or by a combination of both. the old testament attributes such diseases as the leprosy of miriam and uzziah, the boils of job, the dysentery of jehoram, the withered hand of jeroboam, the fatal illness of asa, and many other ills, to the wrath of god, or the malice of satan. the new testament furnishes such examples as the woman "bound by satan," the rebuke of the fever, the casting out of the devil which was dumb, the healing of persons whom "the devil oftimes casteth into the fire," and various other episodes. christian theology then evolved theories of miraculous methods of cure, based upon modes of appeasing the divine anger, or of thwarting satanic malice. the curing of disease by the casting out of devils, by prayers, were the means of relief from sickness recognized and commanded by the bible. thus christianity perverted the beginning of a science of medicine to a system of attempted cure of disease by fraud. the treatment of disease descended to the cures found in holy and healing wells, pools, and streams; in miracles and the efficacy that was to be found in the relics of saints. instead of reliance upon observation, experience, and thought, attention was directed toward supernatural agencies. in contrast to the greek physicians who were attempting to lay a scientific foundation, we have the christian idea prevailing that the water in which a single hair of a saint had been dipped was to be used as a purgative; water in which st. remy's ring had been dipped cured lunacy; oil of a lamp burning before the tomb of st. gall cured tumors; wine in which the bones of a saint had been dipped cured fevers; st. valentine cured epilepsy; st. christopher cured throat disease; st. eutropius, dropsy; st. ovid, deafness; st. vitus, st. anthony, and a multitude of other saints, the maladies which bear their names. "in the year 1585, in the town of embrun, france, the male generative organ of st. foutin was greatly revered. a jar was placed beneath his emblem to catch the wine with which it was generally anointed; the wine was left to sour, and then it was known as the 'holy vinegar.' the women drank it in order to be blessed with children." (_joseph lewis, "voltaire."_) enormous revenues flowed into various monasteries and churches in all parts of europe from relics noted for their healing powers. the ecclesiastics perceived that the physician would interfere with these revenues and gifts of the shrines, and deemed it the will of god to persecute and condemn physicians. st. ambrose declared, "the precepts of medicine are contrary to celestial science, watching and prayer." st. augustine declared, "all diseases of christians are to be ascribed to these demons, chiefly do they torment fresh baptized christians, yea, even the guiltless, new-born babe." gregory of nazianzus declared that bodily pains are provoked by demons, and that medicines are useless, but that they are often cured by the laying on of consecrated hands. st. niles and st. gregory of tours gave examples to show the sinfulness of resorting to medicine instead of trusting to the intercession of saints. even as late as 1517, pope leo x, for a consideration, issued tickets bearing a cross and the following inscription, "this cross measured forty times makes the height of christ in his humanity. he who kisses it is preserved for seven days from falling sickness, apoplexy, and sudden death." the council of le mons, in 1248, forbade monks to engage in surgery. at the beginning of the twelfth century, the council of rheims forbade monks to study medicine; and shortly after the middle of the twelfth century, pope alexander iii forbade monks to study or practice medicine. in the thirteenth century, the dominican order forbade all ecclesiastics to have any connection with medicine; and when we remember that the policy of the church had made it impossible for any learned man to enter any other profession, the only resource left for a scholar was the church; so effectively did the church kill all scientific endeavors. the reformation made no sudden change in the sacred theory of medicine. the church of england accepted the doctrine of "royal touch," and in a prayer book of that period is found a service provided for that occasion which states that "they (the kings), shall lay their hands on the sick, and they shall recover." pestilences were taught to be punishments inflicted by god on society for its shortcomings. modern man has no conception of the ravages of infections and epidemics that swept over europe in the middle ages, and to a lesser extent, until less than fifty years ago. tacitus described the plague in rome thus: "houses were filled with dead bodies, and the streets with funerals.... alike, slaves and plebeians were suddenly taken off amidst lamentations of their wives and children, who, while they mourned the dead, were themselves seized with the disease, and, perishing, were burned on the same funeral pyre." in 80 a.d. an epidemic swept rome causing 10,000 deaths daily. during the ages until the present century, wave after wave of pestilence swept over europe. the plague in 1384 a.d. took no less than 60 million lives. it was estimated that twenty-five per cent. of the population of the then known world perished in that one epidemic. between 1601 and 1603, 127,000 died of the plague in moscow. the epidemic of 1630 took 500,000 lives in the venetian republic; milan alone lost 88,000. in 1605, london lost 69,000; 70,000 died in vienna in 1679; the following year prague lost 83,000, all from this disease. the horrors of such visitations are beyond description, and can scarcely be imagined. for a time, attempts were made to collect and bury the dead. wagons would pass through the streets at night collecting the victims. the drivers, benumbed with drink, frequently failed to ascertain whether death had occurred. living patients, desperately ill, were piled into the wagons with corpses beneath, about, and on them. these gruesome loads were dumped pell-mell into huge pits hastily dug for the purpose. in some instances, living victims crawled out of these pits and survived to tell the tale. as the epidemics progressed, attempts to dispose of the dead were abandoned. putrefying bodies were everywhere. whole cities were left desolate, the few survivors having fled. it is not to be wondered at that such epidemics swept over europe when it was taught that these were the vengeance of god. how could it be discovered that the real causes were the crowded conditions and bad sanitation of the cities, the squalor, the misrule, and gross immorality occasioned by the holy wars, when hordes of soldier-bandits plagued the countryside? the devout continued to live in their squalor, to trust in the lord, and to die by the millions. in all pestilences down to the present time, the church authorities, instead of aiding and devising sanitary measures, have preached the necessity of immediate atonement for offenses against the almighty. the chief cause of the immense sacrifice of lives in these plagues was of course the lack of hygienic precautions. but how could this be discovered when, for ages, living in filth was regarded by great numbers of holy men as an evidence of sanctity! st. hilarion lived his whole life long in utter physical uncleanliness. st. athanasius glorifies st. anthony because he had never washed his feet. st. abraham's most striking evidence of holiness was that for fifty years he washed neither his hands nor his feet; st. sylvia never washed any part of her body save her fingers; st. euphraxia belonged to a convent in which the nuns religiously abstained from bathing; st. mary of egypt was eminent for filthiness; st. simeon stylites was in this respect unspeakable--the least that can be said is that he lived in ordure and stench intolerable to his visitors. for century after century the idea prevailed that filthiness was akin to holiness. another stumblingblock hindering the beginnings of modern medicine and surgery, was the theory regarding the unlawfulness of meddling with the bodies of the dead. the dissection of the human body was prohibited since the injury to the body would prevent its resurrection on the last day. andreas vesalius was the pioneer in the movement for increased knowledge of anatomy, and in 1543, when his work appeared, he was condemned to death by the inquisition as a magician. he escaped this fate by undertaking a pilgrimage to jerusalem only to be shipwrecked on the island of zante when he attempted to return, and there died in misery and destitution. in the year 1853, cholera, after having committed serious ravages in many parts of europe, visited scotland. it was evident to most thinking people that, due to the extreme poverty and squalor of most of the scottish towns at that time, a great number of people would necessarily succumb to this disease unless stringent sanitary measures were instituted immediately. instead, the scotch clergy proposed to combat this scourge with prayer and fasting, which would have lowered the resistance to this disease by producing physical exhaustion and mental depression. they proposed the ordering of a national fast day in which the people were to sit the whole day without nourishment in their churches and retire to their beds at night weeping and starved. then it was hoped that the deity would be propitiated, and the plague stayed. to give greater effect to this fast day, they called upon england to help them, and the presbytery of edinburgh dispatched a letter to the english minister, requesting information as to whether the queen would appoint a national fast day. the english minister, to his credit, advised the presbytery of edinburgh that it was better to cleanse than to fast, and cleanse they must swiftly or else, in spite of all prayers and fastings of a united but inactive nation, the cholera would devastate them. there are today, in this twentieth century, two pestilences which could be wiped from the face of the earth. "there are two pestilences which thus unfortunately involve moral conceptions. they are the plagues of syphilis and gonorrhea. against them medicine has developed methods of control. they could be eradicated, but as yet civilization has not advanced entirely beyond the ancient idea that disease is imposed by god as a measure of vengeance for our sins. it still rejects protection, when without it these plagues will continue to exact death and suffering on a scale which probably exceeds that of any one of the medieval plagues. those who today look upon syphilis and gonorrhea as punishment for sin have not progressed beyond the ideas of medieval europe. "ignorance and bigotry are the twin allies of the plagues of syphilis and gonorrhea. medicine and civilization advance and regress together. the conditions essential to advance are intellectual courage and a true love for humanity. it is as true today as always in the past that further advances or even the holding of what has already been won, depend upon the extent to which intellectual courage and humanity prevail against bigotry and obscurantism." (_haggard, "devils, doctors, and drugs."_) as a result of the lack of control of these plagues there are in the world at the present moment thousands of children suffering from congenital syphilis who would never have been born but for the desire of christians to see sinners punished. with regard to the spread of sex knowledge, the clergy's attitude is dangerous to human welfare. the artificial ignorance of sex subjects which orthodox christians attempt to enforce upon the young is extremely dangerous to mental and physical health. the young are much less likely to act wisely when they are ignorant, than when they are instructed. these two venereal diseases are no more controlled under the moral standards of today than they were two centuries ago, and yet medical science offers for these diseases what it can offer for few others; both a prevention and a cure. and it is due to the ignorance and the bigotry of the theists that the spread of sex knowledge is hampered so that a sane conception of sex and the prevention of venereal disease does not eradicate these diseases. the theists have, therefore, without sense or justice, founded their morality on disease; neglecting the fact that all disease is immoral in the widest sense, since it is detrimental to the happiness of man, and that no one disease is more so than another. the morality of the body is health--not disease. so much for the actual facts and reality. in passing to the theoretical, we again see the truth of the statement that religion is the last resort of human savagery. to postulate that a supreme being is omnipotent, omniscient, and all-loving, and then to assume that he inflicts disease on his children as punishment for sin is a sadistic mental aberration. in his omniscience he full well knows beforehand what each of his children will do. he foreordains their sins and then punishes his children for sins that he wills them to commit. it is just as if a syphilitic father should punish his syphilitic child because the child has that congenital disease for which the father is responsible. if the theist insists that his deity is all that he claims him to be, then it is only logical that instead of man asking his god for forgiveness, what actually should be is that god should ask the forgiveness of man for his bungling and error. christianity has attempted from its inception to eradicate the sexual instinct and in so doing has antagonized an instinct that is as fundamental as that of self-preservation. all it has accomplished is a distortion. the church, by claiming that it alone was privileged to regulate sexual desires, has done one of two things to each of its adherents. it has either made him a hypocrite or driven him insane. much of the insanity in this country could be overcome were religion and sex permanently divorced; and an immediate amount of inestimable good could be accomplished when one considers that fifteen per cent of all mental disease is caused by syphilis. physical disease having been considered as a malicious trick of satan, it was but natural that the disease of the mind was also attributed to satanic intervention. the conception that insanity was a brain disease, and that gentleness and kindness were necessary for its treatment, was throttled by christian theology for fifteen centuries. instead the ecclesiastic burdened humanity with a belief that madness was largely possession by the devil. hundreds of thousands of men and women were inflicted with tortures both physical and mental. it was not until 1792 that the great french physician penel, and william tuke in england, placed the treatment of mental disease on a rational and scientific basis. and this, in spite of such ecclesiastical attacks as were seen in the _edinburgh review_ of that period. these two men, penel and tuke, were the first acknowledged victors in a struggle of science for humanity which lasted nearly two thousand years. the clergy resisted jenner when he introduced vaccination, and yet the application of this measure of defense against disease has probably saved more lives than the total of all the lives lost in all wars. the clergy maintained that "smallpox is a visitation from god, and originates in man, but cowpox is produced by presumptious, impious men. the former, heaven ordained, the latter is perhaps a daring and profane violation of our holy order." in the seventeenth century, the jesuit missionaries in south america learned from the natives the value of the so-called peruvian bark in the treatment of ague. in 1638, quinine, derived from this bark, was introduced into europe as a cure for malaria. it was stigmatized as "an invention of the devil." the ecclesiastical opposition to this drug was so strong that it was not introduced into england until 1653. the medieval christians saw in childbirth the result of a carnal sin to be expiated in pain as defined in genesis. accordingly the treatment given the child-bearing woman was vastly worse than the mere neglect among the primitive peoples. her sufferings were augmented by the fact that she was no longer a primitive woman and child-bearing had become more difficult. in these "ages of faith" which could be better called the "ages of filth," nothing was done to overcome the enormous mortality of the mother and child at birth. attempts, however, were made to form intra-uterine baptismal tubes by which the child, when it was locked by some ill chance in its mother's womb, could be baptized and its soul saved before the mother and child were left to die together. but nothing was done to save their lives. no greater crimes were ever committed in the name of civilization, religious faith, and smug ignorance than the sacrifice of the lives of countless mothers and children in the first fifteen centuries after christ among civilized mankind. approaching our own time, we have the example of dr. james y. simpson, professor of obstetrics at the university of glasgow about 1850, first administering an anesthetic to alleviate the pain of childbirth. he was bitterly opposed by the clergy on the ground that it was impious to attempt to escape from the curse pronounced against all women in genesis. it was dr. simpson who, in defending this humanitarian practice, asserted that opposition, particularly on theological grounds, had been presented against every humane innovation in the past. when paul ehrlich, in 1910, announced his discovery of salvarsan for the treatment of syphilis, the clergy again were horror-struck that man should interfere with a visitation of the lord. the resistance to the spread of information concerning contraception, commonly known as birth control, is an example of the church's dominance of government today; and yet this information is as vital to the welfare of humanity as is the control of cancer. in 1926, our newspapers carried conspicuous headlines, "episcopal church joins catholic to gag birth control"; four years later, 320 bishops of the episcopal church met in london, and by a majority of 3 to 1 voted in favor of contraception when "there is morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence." the bishops had by this time become well aware of the insistence of secular opinion towards this movement, and having done their best to prevent this progressive movement for the past one hundred years, they finally accepted defeat, proving once again that religion has never accepted anything that science has shown to be a fact or of benefit to humanity until it was compelled to do so to save its face. the infallible church, however, still persists in its opposition and in the encyclical of pope pius xi, published in january, 1931, it is said, "the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children. those who, in exercising it, deliberately frustrate its natural power, and purpose, are against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious." so speaks the infallible pope, but the great majority of physicians hold that there are few things more perilous to mental health, intellectual efficiency, moral equanimity, and physical well-being than prolonged denial of the sex urge for the average, normal human being. every physician can furnish numerous case histories to substantiate the statement that continual sexual abstinence is prejudicial to the health and happiness of the man and woman, and is the causation of hundreds of semiderelicts and psychoneurotics. furthermore, the rising tide of insanity in this country would be stemmed were religion and sex permanently divorced. today the modern clergy still endeavor to explain natural phenomena by supernatural theories, and while they do not assign preternatural powers to witches and demons, they yet persist in attempting to pervert facts of science, and delude themselves with faith in some supernatural force. the clergy state that the physician cures disease through the mediation of god, the physician merely playing the part of the agent of god, through whom the real cure is effected. is anything more ridiculous and at the same time more contradictory, than to suppose that an all-powerful god should have to appoint an intermediary to perform his work? and if it is only by god's will and aid that a cure takes place, then it follows that god must be willing for the individual to be cured; why in the name of reason, did he not prevent the initial step, the contracting of the disease? what a mass of suffering, of mental anguish might thus have been spared us! thus, this omnipotent being either did not desire to spare us this misery and suffering, in which case he must surely be a monster incarnate; or, on the other hand, he is powerless to halt it, and thus cannot be omnipotent. while the clergy maintain that a cure is only effected by god's will, the physician knows otherwise. the physician accomplishes his cures alone, and definitely cures and saves the lives of human beings by his own skill, intelligence, and application of methods which have been developed by the exercise of secular knowledge, not theological nonsense. when man is so unfortunate as to contract an infection of the appendix, and that inflammation succeeds to pus-formation so that this diseased and non-essential part of the human anatomy is on the point of rupturing and causing a fatal peritonitis, it is not by god's will and intervention that a cure is effected, but by the intervention of the surgeon who removes the diseased part. if man depended upon god's will to save him, as he did in the past, the appendix would rupture, peritonitis would set in, and despite prayers and sacrificial offerings, the deity would exact his life. when an innocent infant, in the first few weeks of life, develops an intussusception (an infolding of the bowel which causes an acute obstruction), the prayers and supplication of the parents avail not a particle; if the surgeon did not save the infant's life by operating and removing the obstruction, the benevolent being would allow the child to die. the adult who develops a hernia, which is due to a defect in the construction of the human body, which is assigned to an omniscient being who still persists in forming bodies that are defective, and this hernia becomes strangulated (twisted), the deity sits calmly by in omnipotent inaction, while the prompt interference of the surgeon saves the individual's life. when the surgeon observes a superficial cancerous growth, or an internal growth which can be removed in its entirety, does he trust to the lord to halt this pernicious development? no, the surgeon does not consult god, but resorts to his own knowledge and skill to save a human life. the diphtheritic child who is strangling to death with a diphtheritic membrane in its throat is not permitted by the physician to be left to the benevolent being's will, nor to the prayers of the parents. the physician's prayer is the diphtheria antitoxin, which in his hands is the life-saving device. when the physician administers quinine for malaria, or salvarsan for syphilis, he effects cures for these diseases by using agents to which the clergy strenuously objected when they were first introduced. and when the ecclesiastic attributes to the deity whatever laws man has been able to evolve out of his own experience and wisdom, he establishes, fallaciously, the corollary that if god is responsible for the cures, he is also responsible for the non-cures. then what of the countless number that died of disease before man evolved those cures, and what of the wholesale murder of his children in the past ages? do certain diseases still baffle the physician? surely it is less often than the pestilences of old which baffled sacrifice and prayer. the cruelest laws ever devised by man have more equity and benevolence in them than the appalling and irrational jurisprudence of the deity. do certain diseases as yet remain to plague man? then it is only because religion has for the past 2000 years been the greatest obstacle in the development of cures for these diseases. every single individual, in the past 2000 years, who has succumbed to a disease for which medical science has no cure, has died directly at the hands of religion. the obstruction which religion has placed on the development of medical science has laid at its feet the responsibility for the deaths of countless millions throughout the ages. the religionist replies that man's mind cannot fathom the will of god. which is an irrational statement for it is a well established fact, and indeed, a criterion of insanity, that when the deranged are confronted with facts which are conclusive and with creations of the imagination, they cannot differentiate fact from fancy, and maintain, instead, that fancy is the real fact. the religionists are guilty of the same breach of reason. they suffer with what may be termed, "dementia religiosa." the remarkable feature of the latter disease is its wide prevalence. dr. haggard in his book, "devils, drugs, and doctors," declares, "the early and medieval christians accepted the doctrine of the power of demons in the lives of men; they saw this power particularly in the demoniac production of diseases. they believed in miracles and especially in the miraculous healing of diseases. the demonological belief of the christians was inherited from the doctrine of the jews, who were believers in demons and the 'possession by the devil.' jesus himself cured by casting out of devils. following his example, christians everywhere became exorcists. jewish demonology was continued among christian converts, and the belief in supernatural interpositions in human affairs was widely accepted. _nothing has retarded the growth of scientific medicine during the past 2000 years so much as the iron grip of theology in maintaining practices based on belief in this supernatural origin of disease._" the fabled curing of disease by casting out devils, and the new testament recordings of jesus's conviction that disease was caused by evil spirits, have had an inestimable detrimental result on the development of medical science. the fact that jesus believed in the demoniacal production of diseases and cured them by exorcism was deemed so important by the author of the gospel according to mark that he has actually recorded the aramaic words jesus was reported to have used in addressing his patients. in mark v:41, jesus is reported to have given the command "talitha cumi" to a little jewish girl whom her parents believed dead. in mark vii:34, jesus is reported as uttering the magical word "ephphatha," as he "put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue" in behalf of "one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech." an excellent and timely illustration of what occurs when secular knowledge has not yet replaced ecclesiastical ignorance and bigotry, particularly in the field of medicine, is furnished by an article from one of philadelphia's leading newspapers, _the evening bulletin_, of december 23, 1932. we quote it verbatim: "faith healers arrested; two charged with choking to death 5-year-old girl, linden, texas, dec. 23, 1932. despite a purported confession, officers to-day continued an investigation of the death of a five-year-old girl, allegedly at the hands of two itinerant preachers who sought to 'drive out the devil' they believed responsible for her partial paralysis. murder charges were filed against paul oaks and his brother, coy oaks, and precautions taken to prevent possible mob vengeance. sheriff nat curtright said the accused men admitted they had choked the child to death in an attempt to cure her. officers said the preachers had been conducting meetings in rural communities and had preached on the subject of faith healing. george wilson, a neighbor, officers said, found the two men kneeling over the prostrate form of the child. they ordered him to leave, declaring he was a 'devil.' he said the child's father was in the room." medieval exorcism still practised in one of the leading nations of the world! in america, which prides itself on its scientific advances, towards whom the rest of the world looks for guidance in scientific discoveries and practices! to have retarded the growth of medicine for the past 2000 years! think of the strides made in medicine in the past hundred years, and dwell on the comfort humanity derives from it, in contrast to the filth, misery, and pestilences of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. would so much progress have been possible had man still persisted in the belief that disease was due to demoniac intervention, and that the sum total of all knowledge humanly possible was contained in the bible? it is no longer necessary for children to choke to death with diphtheria. yellow fever, and small pox in civilized countries are, or could be, wiped from the face of the earth. malaria is controlled; tuberculosis will shortly be a rarity; typhoid fever and cholera have been eradicated wherever there is sanitation; erysipelas can be controlled; hydrophobia prevented; childbirth fever has lost its tremendous mortality; tetanus can be checked; syphilis and gonorrhea can be controlled; diabetes and pernicious anemia can be controlled; surgery is reclaiming vast multitudes and restoring to useful and happy lives thousands who would have hitherto died. so much has been done; but it is especially true that there is as much, at least, yet to be done. but all this has been achieved so recently. what might not have been won had not the minds of men been polluted from infancy, warped by the first professional holy men, the religionists, the priests? had the idea of a supernatural force been allowed to die in the dark ages, as it surely would have, as man's mind expanded and developed, humanity would today find itself more advanced on the road to progress. but as it was, the myth of religion was foisted on the superstitious brain, and man resigned himself to his fate, and lived in such a manner as to please this hypothetical supernatural being. the inevitable result was the abject misery, both material and spiritual, of europe during the period when the church was in absolute control. if this myth and mystification had died with the dead ages, as it should have done, what a fitter place to live in this world would be today! consider the needless misery and the agony of those who died of the various plagues; and think of the advanced stage of medicine of alexandria, three hundred years before the christian era, where the physicians were welcomed to the famous library by the emperors. the state gave them their livelihood and their duties were to advance medicine by study and research. anatomy was studied and dissection was allowed. with the coming of christianity, the remnants of this library were destroyed, and with them went all progress in that field. if such had been the enlightened state in egypt three hundred years before christianity appeared, then why had not science made the same progress then as it does now? because, to the knowledge stored in the library at alexandria had not been added a progression of learning, a continued process of research; if this had not been halted by christianity, how much vaster would our achievements be today? it was not necessary for all of those millions to have been the victims of plagues, of inquisitions, of witchcraft burnings, of religious persecutions and wars. the sorrow and pain brought to untold numbers throughout the centuries could have been prevented; and would have been if man had been interested in the welfare of his fellowmen instead of the glorification of an almighty being. future generations may well declare religion to have been the curse of humanity. the church had cursed the human intellect by cursing the doubts which are the necessary consequence of its exercise. she had cursed even the moral faculty by asserting the guilt of honest error. medicine which has for its sole objects the alleviation of man's sufferings, to cure them when possible, to relieve more often the pains and ills which make this life a living hell, what might it not have accomplished ages ago had religion not interfered with its progress? whatever cures are known, and preventions that are practiced now, could have been common knowledge centuries ago. and what of the multitudes that perished who might have been saved, and what of the misery which might have been prevented, had not this curse fallen upon man? since 1906, there have been only five deaths from yellow fever in the united states. outbreaks of cholera and plague are unknown. in former years, puerperal fever took the lives of from five to fifty of each one hundred parturient mothers. at present, an average of one out of 1250 mothers dies of this infection following childbirth. deaths from many diseases are less than one-tenth of their former number. these include wound infections, diphtheria, scarlet fever, malaria, dysentery, typhoid, small pox, and many dietary and metabolic diseases. since 1880, the medical sciences have accomplished a total net saving of human life from all diseases which, if equally distributed among the population, would add sixteen years to the life span of each person. in 1880, the average duration of human life, that is, the average age at which death occurred, was 41.78 years. in 1925, the average duration of life was 58.29 years. in other words, those born at this time live on the average 16.5 years longer than those born at any time prior to 1880. in a population of 120,000,000 this would mean a total of 1,920,000,000 additional years of life. such a figure is as difficult to conceive of as are the interstellar spaces. this is one contribution, numerically expressed, which medical science and its offspring, preventive medicine, have made to humanity in the short space of fifty years. indeed if, as the religionists believe, there is a god, he could not have punished his subjects more than by instilling in them the "dementia religiosa." if the church had not taught that the sum total of all knowledge was contained in the bible, and prohibited, on pain of death and confiscation of property, the promulgation of any discoveries, men would have reasoned as they are accustomed to at the present day, and we would not be 2000 years behind in all branches of learning. but there has never been an advance in science of widespread importance, which in some manner endangered some mouldy religious concept, that the church has not bitterly opposed; an advance which in time has proven of inestimable good for all mankind. (a glance at the history of human progress will reveal scores of such instances.) the opposition to medicine, as previously noted, is only one of many examples which might have been chosen. in proportion, as the grasp of theology upon education tightened, medicine declined, and in proportion, as the grip relaxed, medicine developed. chapter viii religion and astronomy in the early church, astronomy, like other branches of science, was looked upon as futile, since the new testament taught that the earth was soon to be destroyed and new heavens created. the heavenly bodies were looked upon by the theologians as either living beings possessing souls, or as the habitation of the angels. however, as time passed, the geocentric doctrine, the doctrine that the earth is the center of the universe and that the sun and planets revolve about it, was the theory that held the highest respect. copernicus, in 1543, was first to bring clearly before the world the then astounding theory that the earth and planets revolve about the sun. but not until he was on his deathbed did he dare to publish it, for he well knew the opposition with which it would be met. even then he published it with an apologetic lie by a friend osiander, that copernicus had propounded the doctrine of the earth's movement not as a fact, but as a hypothesis. "thus was the greatest and most ennobling, perhaps, of scientific truths--a truth not less ennobling to religion than to science--forced in coming before the world, to sneak and crawl." (_white: "history of warfare of science with theology."_) during the next seventy years the matter slumbered, until galileo upheld the copernican doctrine as the truth, and proved it to be the truth by his telescope. immediately the church condemned the statements of copernicus and forbade galileo to teach or discuss them. all books which affirmed the motion of the earth were forbidden, and to read the work of copernicus was declared to risk damnation. all branches of the protestant church, lutheran, calvinist, anglican, vied with each other in denouncing the copernican doctrine. one man, giordano bruno dared to assert the truth in the hearing of the papacy. for this heresy he was hunted from land to land, finally trapped in venice, imprisoned at rome, burned alive, and his ashes scattered to the winds! against galileo, the war against the copernican theory was concentrated. his discoveries were declared to be deceptions, and his announcements blasphemy when, in 1610, he announced that his telescope had revealed the moons of the planet jupiter. in 1615, galileo was summoned before the inquisition at rome, and forced to promise that he would "relinquish altogether the opinion that the sun is the center of the world, and immovable, and that the earth moves, nor henceforth to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatsoever verbally or in writing." pope paul v solemnly rendered the decree that "the doctrine of the double motion of the earth about its axis and about the sun is false and entirely contrary to holy scripture." the climax of this instance of the infallibility of the church occurred when in his seventieth year galileo was again brought before the inquisition; he was forced to abjure under threats of torture and imprisonment by command of pope urban a truth which, in this day, is taken for granted by the youngest of children. galileo was then kept in exile for the rest of his days, died, and was buried ignobly, apart from his family, without fitting ceremony, without monument or epitaph. as late as 1873 there was published, in st. louis, a work by a president of a lutheran teachers' seminary in which he stated that the earth is the principal body of the universe, that it stands fixed, and that the sun and moon only serve to light it. astronomy brings forth a noble array of men who have, by their intense desire for the truth, persevered against the church, and in spite of the vilest opposition of that church, brought to the attention of man laws that have given a meaning and order to our universe. copernicus escaping persecution only by death; bruno burned alive; galileo imprisoned; kepler reviled, and newton bitterly attacked. in this manner has religion aided astronomy! chapter ix religion and geography the ancient greeks, especially the pythagoreans, plato, and aristotle, had evolved theories of the earth's sphericity, which, while vague, were basic for subsequent accurate ideas that developed later. when christianity sprang into existence eusebius, st. john chrysostom, and cosmos evolved a complete description of the earth. they considered the earth as a parallelogram, flat, and surrounded by four seas, as a kind of house, with heaven as its upper story and the earth as its ground floor. to the north of the earth was a great mountain; at night the sun was pushed into a pit and pulled out again in the morning, with heaven as a loft and hell as a cellar. in the atlantic ocean, at some unknown distance from europe, was one of the openings into hell, into which a ship sailing to this point, would tumble. the terror of this conception was one of the chief obstacles of the great voyage of columbus. luther, melanchthon, calvin, and zwingli held to the opinion that a great firmament, or floor, separated the heavens from the earth; that above it were the waters and angels, and below it, the earth and man. during the time that the sphericity of the earth was still undecided, another question arose that was considered of far greater importance, namely, the conception of the antipodes and the problem of deciding whether human beings existed on the earth's opposite side. it was lactantius who asked, "is there any one so senseless as to believe that there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads? that the crops and trees grow downward? that the rains and snow and hail fall upwards toward the earth? i am at a loss as to what to say of those, who, when they have once erred, steadily persevere in their folly, and defend one vain thing by another." st. augustine insisted that men could not be allowed by the almighty to live there, since, if they did, they could not see christ at his second coming, descending through the air. in the eighth century, a bishop virgil of salzburg dared to assert that there were men living in the antipodes. he was strongly attacked by st. boniface of germany, who appealed to pope zachary for a decision. the pope, as the infallible teacher of christendom, made the following response: he declared it, "perverse, iniquitous, and against virgil's soul." and again another infallible statement by the infallible pope zachary became a doctrine of the church. in italy, in 1316, peter of abano, famous as a physician, promulgated the opposite view to that of the church, for which he was persecuted by the inquisition, and barely escaped with his life. in 1327, cecco d'ascoli, an astronomer, was burned alive at florence for daring to assert that men lived in the antipodes. the difficulties that beset columbus are well known. how he was hounded both in portugal and in spain by the clergy; and even after his discovery of america, the papacy still maintained its theory of the flatness of the earth and the nonsense of the antipodes. pope alexander vi and pope julius ii attempted to settle the disputes between spain and portugal by drawing some remarkable maps that may still be found; but no one dares to disturb the quiet of the ridiculous bulls that the popes issued on this dispute. in 1519 magellan made his famous voyage and proved the earth to be round and that men actually lived in the antipodes. but the force of ecclesiastical stultification was so great, as it is today, that men still believed the opposite view for two hundred years after the voyage of magellan. chapter x religion and chemistry and physics the establishment of christianity, beginning a new evolution of theology, arrested the normal development of the physical sciences for more than 1500 years. the work begun by aristotle and carried on to such a high state of relative perfection by archimedes, was stifled by the early christians. an atmosphere was then created in which physical science could not grow. the general belief derived from the new testament was that the end of the world was at hand, and the early church fathers poured contempt upon all investigators of the science of nature. then, too, for science there was established an insurmountable barrier, in that the most careful inductions of science from ascertained facts must conform to the view of nature given in the myth and legends of the bible. for 1500 years science was forced to confine itself to a system of deducing scientific truth from scriptural texts. it was the accepted word of the clergy that science was futile and dangerous which led to the discrediting of roger bacon's works. in 1163 pope alexander iii forbade the study of physics to all ecclesiastics, which of course, in that age, meant prohibition of all such scientific studies to the only persons likely to follow them. roger bacon was first to practice extensively the experimental method of science. through his researches the inventions of clocks, lenses, and the formula for extracting phosphorus, manganese, and bismuth were brought to light. bitterly attacked by the clergy, he attempted to defend himself by stating that much which was ascribed to demons resulted from natural means. this statement but added fuel to the flame. for in 1278 the authorities of the franciscan order assembled at paris, solemnly condemned bacon's teachings, and the general of the franciscans, jerome of ascoli, afterwards pope, threw him into prison, where he remained for fourteen years. at the age of eighty, he was released from prison declaring, "would that i had not given myself so much trouble for the love of science." "sad is it to think of what this great man might have given to the world had ecclesiasticism allowed the gift. he held the key to treasures which would have freed mankind from ages of error and misery. with his discoveries as a basis, with his method as a guide, what might not the world have gained! nor was the wrong done to that age alone; it was done to this age also.... thousands of precious lives shall be lost, tens of thousands shall suffer discomfort, privations, sickness, poverty, ignorance, for lack of discoveries and methods which, but for this mistaken dealing with roger bacon and his compeers, would now be blessing the earth." (_white: "warfare of science."_) centuries afterwards, for stating the same claim, namely, that much which was attributed to demons, resulted from natural causes, cornelius agrippa, weyer, flade, loos, bekker, and a multitude of other investigators and thinkers, suffered confiscation of property, loss of position, and even torture and death. in the latter half of the sixteenth century, john baptist porta, who was the first to show how to reduce the metallic oxides and thus laid the foundation of several important industries, was summoned to rome by pope paul ii, and forbidden to continue his researches. both in protestant and catholic countries instruction in chemistry and physics was discouraged by church authorities, and in england the theologians strenuously opposed the royal society and the association for the advancement of science. francis bacon and boyle were denounced by the clergy, and lavoisier was sent to the scaffold by the parisian mob. priestley had his home, his library, instruments, and papers containing the results of long years of scientific research burned by a birmingham mob that had been instigated by anglican clergymen. he was driven into exile, and the mob would have murdered him if they could have laid their hands upon him. yet, in spite of the opposition of the clergy, an opposition of such force that one may well wonder how these tender embryonic sciences could have withstood the terrific ecclesiastical onslaughts, the truths of chemistry and physics continued to diffuse themselves among the intelligent observers. the value to humanity of these two sciences is now established as inestimable. chapter xi religion and geology, philology and evolution _the human race has suffered three grave humiliations: when copernicus showed that the earth was not the center of the universe; when darwin proved that man's origin was not the result of direct creation; when freud explained that man was not the master of his own thoughts or actions_. llewelyn powys. in the writings of the greek and roman philosophers are found the germinal concepts of geological truths. but as christianity took control of the world instead of a steady progression of knowledge in this field there was a distinct retrogression. according to the prevailing belief the earth was soon to be destroyed and the collecting of knowledge was futile and any study of its nature was vain. st. jerome stated that the broken and twisted crust of the earth exhibited the wrath of god against sin. tertullian asserted that fossils resulted from the flood of noah. a scientific explanation of fossil remains was attempted by de clave, bitaud, and de villon in the seventeenth century. the theological faculty of paris protested against the scientific doctrine as unscriptural, destroyed their treatises, and banished their authors from paris. in the middle of the eighteenth century buffon, in france, produced a thesis attempting to state simple geological truths. the theological faculty of the sorbonne dismissed him from his high position and forced him to print a recantation stating, "i declare that i had no intention to contradict the text of the scripture; that i believe most firmly all therein related about the creation, both as to order of time and matter of fact. i abandon everything in my book respecting the formation of the earth and generally all which may be contrary to the narrative of moses!" the doctrine which buffon abandoned is now as firmly established as that of the earth's rotation upon its axis. yet, in his day, it was heatedly asserted by ecclesiastics that the scientific doctrine that fossils represent animals which died before adam contradicts the theological doctrine of adam's fall, and the statement that death entered the world by sin--and this objection was further strengthened when the ecclesiastics became cognizant that geology had proved that the earth was vastly older than the 6000 years determined by archbishop ussher's interpretation of the old testament. about 1580, there was published by authority of pope gregory xiii, the roman martyrology, revised in 1640 under pope urban viii, which declared that the creation of man took place 5199 years before christ. in 1650, archbishop ussher announced after careful study that man was created 4004 years before the christian era. but, this proving too vague, dr. john lightfoot, vice-chancellor of the university of cambridge, assured the world that, "heaven and earth, centre and circumference, were created together, in the same instant, and clouds full of water ... and this work took place and man was created by the trinity on the 23d of october, 4004 b.c. at nine o'clock in the morning." when the egyptologists, assyriologists, archeologists, and anthropologists showed that man had reached a far advanced stage of civilization long before the 6000 years given as the age of the earth, their efforts were ridiculed by the clergy, and these scientists were forced to bring their findings before the world in the face of the well known methods of ecclesiastical opposition. at a very early period in the evolution of civilization men began to ask questions regarding language, and the answers to these questions were naturally embodied in the myths, legends, and chronicles of their sacred books. language was considered god-given and complete. the diversity of language was firmly held to be explained by the story of the tower of babel; and since the writers of the bible were merely pens in the hand of god the conclusion was reached that not only the sense, but the words, letters, and even the punctuation proceeded from the holy spirit. at the end of the seventeenth century, the ecclesiastical contention that the hebrew punctuation was divinely inspired seemed to be generally disproven. the great orthodox body of "religiosa dementia" fell back upon the remainder of the theory that the hebrew language was the first of all languages which was spoken by the almighty, given by him to adam, transmitted through noah to the world after the deluge, and that the confusion of tongues was the origin of all other tongues. it has only been in comparatively recent time, and in spite of the opposition of the clergy, that language has been accepted as the result of evolutionary processes in obedience to laws more or less clearly ascertained. babel thus takes its place quietly among the other myths of the bible. in a purely civil matter, the infallible church from its inception had displayed a marked hostility to loans at interest. from the earliest period the whole weight of the church was brought to bear against the taking of interest for money. pope leo the great solemnly adjudged it a sin worthy of severe punishment. in the thirteenth century, pope gregory ix dealt an especially severe blow at commerce by his declaration that even to advance on interest the money necessary in maritime trade was damnable usury. the whole evolution of european civilization was greatly hindered by this policy. religion and evolution darwinism, which at first was declared by the clergy to be brutal, degrading, atheistic, and anti-christian, is now included as part of the bible teaching. in a similar manner, the copernican theory, the theory of gravitation, the nebular hypothesis, the theory of uniformity in geology, and every scientific advance has been opposed on the same grounds; that is, that these are against the teachings of the christian church. and how many galileos, brunos, and darwins, and other would-be benefactors to the human race have died mute because of this opposition and fear of persecution by the church? in 1877, an eminent french catholic physician, dr. constantin james, published an elaborate answer to darwin's book. he called it, "on darwinism, or the ape man." a copy was sent to pope pius ix, who was so pleased with it that he sent the author a reply in which he stated that it "refutes so well the aberrations of darwinism, a system which is repugnant at once to history, to the traditions of all peoples, to exact science, to observed facts, and even to reason itself, would seem to need no refutation did not alienation from god and the leaning toward materialism, due to depravity, eagerly seek support in all this tissue of fables." the protestant clergy were no less vigorous in their opposition. in our own country it was opposed by dr. noah porter, president of yale college, and most bitterly by the rev. dr. hodge and the rev. dr. duffield, both leading authorities at princeton university. fundamentalism in the united states furnished the spectacle of the trial, in 1925, of a school teacher named scopes, for teaching the theory of evolution. dayton, tennessee, became the laughingstock of the educated world, and the derision with which this effort to obstruct knowledge at this late date was met with by the comments of the press in this country and abroad is at least encouraging. but it is an excellent example of what effect religious obscurantism may exert in backward sections of our country. dr. max carl otto, considering the implications of evolution, calls attention to the following: "take the evolution of living forms. the more we learn about biological history the clearer it becomes that the process has been, from the human point of view, incredibly bungling and wasteful. there have been futile experiments without number; highly successful achievements have been thrown aside; one type of life after another has arisen and has pushed up a blind alley to extinction. if there is a god whose method has been evolution, then seemingly his slogan was 'we'll fight it out along this line if it takes a billennium' but, unlike grant, he has always surrendered. in this maelstrom, the human species, as thomas huxley said--'plashed and floundered amid the general stream of evolution, keeping its head above water as best it might, and thinking neither of whence nor whither.' many volumes have been written to give a purposive interpretation of the rise and evolutionary ramifications of living forms. the course of evolution itself is their refutation." when the churches could no longer ignore the rising tide of secular opinion, they resorted to compromise and called to their aid a certain number of intellectually dishonest scientists. the attempt to harmonize christianity and evolution can only be accounted for in terms of either dishonesty or stupidity. "and that is true of the whole range of science. science is, in fact, atheistic or nothing. it knows nothing of god, it does not bother about god, its triumphs are achieved by leaving god out of account." (_c. cohen_.) what has heretofore been mentioned is but a mere trifle when one considers the vast number of similar incidents in which religion has played the rôle of barrier to progress. these examples, though few, are sufficient to impress the mind of any clear-minded, intelligent individual with the conviction, in spite of all the sophistry and casuistry of the ecclesiastical apologies, that progress in this world has taken place in direct proportion to the degree that the mind of man has liberated itself from the control of theology and the myth of religion. chapter xii religion and witchcraft _better that a man's body should be destroyed than his soul. the worst death of the soul is freedom to err_. st. augustine. _it would be hard to calculate the perilous import of so treacherous an utterance, an utterance the latent sentiment of which has been responsible for i know not how much human agony. menacing indeed to human happiness was such a claim, and in the course of time when the corporate body of the church became all-powerful in christendom, it put into tyrannical practice what had been but a theological theory_. llewelyn powys. it is the purpose of this chapter to trace the origin of witches, wizards, and devils, the widespread belief in them at the time of pagan rome, and the manner in which these were incorporated into christian theology. with the rise of christianity and the gain of political power by its adherents, the perverted pagan idea of witchcraft became the source of the most terrible persecutions in the bloody history of religion. the numerous references to witches and devils in both the old and new testaments established the authority for the organized religious mania that scourged both roman catholic and protestant europe, and extended its tentacles into the new england colonies. instigated by ecclesiastics, and carried into effect by the intellectual serfs, their adherents, hundreds of thousands of "witches" were tortured and burned during the sway of the witchcraft delusion. with the bible as an inspiration, the clergy inflamed the superstitious minds of the masses of that time with the conception of a ceaseless strife between the kingdom of god and the kingdom of satan for possession of their souls and their bodies. we of the present age may readily wonder how such a belief could have had so firm a grasp on the minds of our ancestors. perhaps we will be tempted to attribute it to the ignorance of that time, particularly to the ignorance of the untutored masses. on the contrary, this does not approximate the actual situation. history reveals that the greatest minds of that age, men eminent in law, letters, and philosophy, not only defended this conception strenuously, but even engaged in the extermination of "witches." that men of such superior intellect could defend such a barbaric institution, which today is revolting to our senses, necessitates the conclusion formulated at the end of this chapter. * * * * * the ancient greeks and romans believed that it was possible by supernatural means to inflict evil on their fellowmen, and all the sects of philosophers admitted this, with the exception of the epicureans, who denied the existence of evil spirits. the magicians, in greece and rome, were at times punished because they injured men and not because they offended the gods. during the latter period of pagan rome, some of the emperors passed laws against the magicians, if it was proven that by casting the horoscope the magicians had ascertained what was, according to their belief, the most auspicious time to start a rebellion against their rule. the emperors, however, notably marcus aurelius and julian, were the patrons of magicians who foretold coming events to them. the public methods of foretelling the future, such as the oracle of the gods, formed part of their religion. when the first christians came into rome and spread christianity throughout the empire, they were inspired by an intense religious enthusiasm. they thought much less of the civil than of the religious consequence of magic, and sacrilege seemed much more terrible in their eyes than anarchy. the christians found in rome a vast polytheistic religion in contrast to their own in which the entire world was divided into the kingdom of god and the kingdom of satan. for them the world seemed to be teeming with malignant demons, who had in all ages persecuted and deluded mankind. "according to these christians, the immediate objects of the devotions of the pagan world were subsidiary spirits of finite power and imperfect morality; angels, or, as they were then called, demons, who acted the part of mediators, and who, by permission of the supreme and inaccessible deity, regulated the religious government of mankind. the christians had adopted this conception of subsidiary spirits, but they maintained them to be not the willing agents, but the adversaries of the deity; and the word demon, which among the pagans, signified only a spirit below the level of a divinity, among the christians signified a devil." (_lecky._) "this notion seems to have existed in the very earliest period of christianity; and in the second century, we find it elaborated with the most minute and detailed care. tertullian, who wrote in that century, assures us that the world was full of these evil spirits, whose influence might be descried in every portion of the pagan creed. if a christian in any respect deviated from the path of duty, a visible manifestation of the devil sometimes appeared to terrify him. the terror which such a doctrine must have spread among the early christians may be easily conceived. they seemed to breathe an atmosphere of miracles. wherever they turned they were surrounded and beleaguered by malicious spirits, who were perpetually manifesting their presence by supernatural arts. watchful fiends stood beside every altar, they mingled with every avocation of life, and the christians were the special objects of their hatred. all this was universally believed, and was realized with an intensity which, in this secular age, we can scarcely conceive. the bearing of this view upon the conception of magic is very obvious. among the more civilized pagans, magic was mainly a civil, and in the last days of the empire, a political crime. in the early church, on the other hand, it was esteemed the most horrible form of sacrilege effected by the direct agency of evil spirits. it included the whole system of paganism, explained all its prodigies, and gave a fearful significance to all its legends. when the church obtained the direction of the civil power, she soon modified or abandoned the tolerant maxims she had formerly inculcated; and in the course of a few years, restrictive laws were enacted, both against jews and heretics." (_lecky._) constantine, after his conversion to christianity, enacted laws against the magicians. these were made more rigid under constantius, his son, but suspended under julian. these persecutions were renewed by valentinian, spasmodically carried on to a slight extent, and then lapsed. during the period that elapsed between the sixth and thirteenth centuries the executions for sorcery were comparatively rare. it is to be borne in mind, then, that magic as existing in pagan rome was part of the religious conceptions of the romans. the oracle as well as the various demons, which to them signified what the word "angel" signifies to us now, formed an elaborate system of mythology and idolatry. the early christians coming into contact with these conceptions, at first found an insurmountable difficulty in spreading their beliefs among the rural inhabitants of the roman empire. polytheism was dominant while their monotheism was as yet a persecuted belief. the road of least resistance was compromise, and so this vast system of polytheism was perverted, while seemingly accepted into their beliefs, by making these "angels," "demons," as we now understand the word. since the early christians were dominated by a belief in constant satanic presence, these demons were said to be the "hosts of satan." it was firmly believed that the arch-fiend (satan) was forever hovering about the christians, but it was also believed that the sign of the cross, or a few drops of holy water, or the name of mary, could put him to an immediate and ignominious flight. "in the twelfth century, however, the subject passed into an entirely new phase. the conception of a witch, as we now conceive it, that is to say of a woman who had entered into a deliberate compact with satan, who was endowed with the power of working miracles whenever she pleased, and who was continually transported through the air to the sabbath, where she paid her homage to the evil one--first appeared. the panic created by the belief at first advanced slowly, but after a time with a fearfully accelerated rapidity. thousands of victims were sometimes burnt alive in a few years. every country in europe was stricken with the wildest fever. hundreds of the ablest judges were selected for the extirpation of this crime. a vast literature was created on the subject, and it was not until a considerable portion of the eighteenth century had passed away that the executions finally ceased. the vast majority of those accused of witchcraft were women, and again the bible furnished the authority for the belief that women were inherently wicked. that the fathers of the church believed this is exemplified by the statement of chrysostom in which he said that women were a 'necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, and a painted ill.'" (_lecky._) at this period the conception of a witch is radically different from that which was prevalent in the era prior to this one. the popular belief of the witchcraft ages, a belief sanctioned by most of the learned men of the time, was that the earth swarmed with millions upon millions of demons. they multiplied by reproduction in the usual way, by the accession of the souls of wicked men, of women dying in childbirth, of children still-born, of men killed in duels. the air was filled with them, and one was always in danger of inspiring them with the air, of swallowing them in food and drink. most christian writers and legendists said that there were so many of them they could not be counted, but wierus took a census of them and reported that there were only 7,505,926 divided into seventy-two companies, each commanded by a captain or prince. they could make themselves hideous, or beautiful, as suited their purposes, and assume any shape. while capable of appearing at any time, they preferred the night between friday and saturday. any human being who gave up to them his immortal soul could command their services for a certain time. occasionally general conferences took place, at the pleasure of satan, which were attended by all the demons and all the witches. "these 'sabbaths' were held on the brocken or other high mountain. upon the spot where they met, nothing would ever grow afterwards, as their hot feet burnt all the fecundity out of the soil. in france, england, and the american colonies, it was supposed that witches made their trips on broomsticks; in spain and italy it was believed that they twirled on the back of the devil himself, who, for the occasion, transformed himself into male goat. on no account would a witch, when starting for a sabbath, go out through the open door or window; she would pass through the keyhole or up the chimney. while they were gone, inferior demons assumed their shape, and lay in their beds, feigning illness. assembled on the brocken, the devil, as a double-headed goat, took his seat on the throne. his subjects paid their respects to him, kissing his posterior face. with a master of ceremonies appointed for the occasion, he made a personal examination of all the wizards and witches, to see if they had the secret mark about them by which they were stamped as the devil's own. this mark was always insensible to pain, and it was the sure proof of witchery when found by the inquisitor. any witches found by the devil not so marked received the mark from him then and there, also a nickname. then they all sang and danced furiously. if a stranger came to be admitted, silence reigned while he denied his salvation, spat upon the bible, kissed the devil, and swore absolute obedience to him. singing and dancing was resumed, a mythical formula being used in the singing. when tired, they sat down and told of their evil deeds; those who had not been bad enough were scourged by satan himself with thorns and scorpions until they could neither sit nor stand. then came a dance by thousands of toads who were conjured out of the ground and standing on their hind legs kept time to the music satan evoked from bagpipes or a trumpet. they could all talk, and asked the witches to give them the flesh of unbaptized babes for food. the witches promised to do so. the devil told them to remember and keep their word and then stamped his foot, and the frogs disappeared instantly into the earth. next came a most disgusting banquet, except for a few of the most wicked witches, to whom were given rich viands on golden plates and expensive wines in crystal goblets. then came more dancing; those who did not care for that amused themselves by mocking the sacrament of baptism. for this purpose the toads were again called up and sprinkled with filthy water, the devil making the sign of the cross, while the witches repeated a formula as absurd as that used in ordinary baptisms. sometimes the devil made the witches take off their clothes and dance before him, each with a cat tied around her neck, and another dangling behind as a tail. sometimes, again, there were lascivious orgies. at cock-crow, all disappeared; the sabbath was over." (_"the story of the inquisition"--freethought press association._) this conception of a witch continued from the twelfth century to the time witch-burning ceased. with this idea of a witch being constantly instilled into the minds of their listeners, the clergy set loose fervidly religious mobs to scourge the countries of innocent women. with the entire world divided into the "hosts of heaven" and the "hosts of satan," with witches abounding in the air, in the water, and in the food, and with their immortal souls at stake, the frenzied population found evidences of witchcraft in all manner of happenings. "pope after pope set the seal of his infallibility upon the bloody persecutions. at length came innocent viii who, on the 7th of december, 1484, sent forth his bull summis desiderantis. of all documents ever issued from rome, imperial and papal, this, doubtless, first and last, caused the greatest shedding of innocent blood. yet no document was ever more clearly dictated by conscience. inspired by the scriptural command, 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,' pope innocent exhorted the clergy of germany to leave no means untried to detect sorcerers, and especially, those who by evil practice destroy vineyards, gardens, meadows, and growing crops. these precepts were based upon various texts of scripture, especially upon the famous statement in the book of job; and to carry them out, witch-finding inquisitors were authorized by the pope to scour europe, especially germany, and a manual was prepared for their use, the witch-hammer, malleus maleficarum." (_white: "warfare of science."_) another important and much discussed department was the connection between evil spirits and animals. that the devil could assume the form of any animal he pleased, seems to have been generally admitted, and it presented no difficulty to those who remembered that the first appearance of that personage on earth was as a serpent, and that on one occasion a legion of devils had entered into a herd of swine. saint jerome also assures us that in the desert st. anthony had met a centaur and a faun, a little man with horns growing from his forehead, who were possibly devils, and at all events, at a later period, the "lives of the saints" represent evil spirits in the form of animals as not infrequent. lycanthropy, however, or the transformation of witches into wolves, presented more difficulty. the history of nebuchadnezzar and the conversion of lot's wife were, it is true, eagerly alleged in support of its possibility; but it was impossible to forget that st. augustine appeared to regard lycanthropy as a fable, and a canon of the council of ancyra had emphatically condemned the belief. on the other hand, that belief has been very widely diffused among the ancients. it had been accepted by many of the greatest and most orthodox theologians, by the inquisitors who were commissioned by the popes, and by the law courts of most countries. the evidence on which it rested was very curious and definite. if the witch was wounded in the form of an animal, she retained that wound in her human form, and hundreds of such cases were alleged before tribunals. sometimes the hunter, having severed the paw of his assailant, retained it as a trophy; but, when he opened his bag, he discovered in it only a bleeding hand, which he recognized as the hand of his wife. a french judge named boguet, at the end of the sixteenth century, devoted himself especially to the subject and burnt multitudes of lycanthropes. he wrote a book about them and drew up a code in which he permitted ordinary witches to be strangled before they were burnt, but excepted lycanthropes who were to be burnt alive. now let us examine on what authority the popes and afterwards the reformers so rigorously persecuted the "witches." both the old and the new testaments are riddled with references to witches, wizards, and devils. for example, this passage from exodus xxii 18, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." from matthew viii 28-32, "there met him two possessed with devils coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. and, behold, they cried out, saying, 'what have we to do with thee, jesus, son of god? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?' and there was a good way off from them a herd of many swine feeding. so the devils besought him, saying, 'if thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. and he said unto them, 'go!' and when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine. and behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea and perished in the waters." the old testament, therefore, definitely commands its adherents to kill, and the new testament gives a brilliant example of its chief magician, jesus, exorcising devils from men and driving them into swine. there are numerous passages of the bible which speak of the devil, the devil and his angels, spirit of an unclean devil, dumb spirit, foul spirit, unclean spirit, evil spirit, witch, witchcraft, wizards, necromancers, satan, the tempter, prince of the power of the air, prince of devils, etc. these passages in the bible were at once the chief source and sanction of the terrible atrocities which extended over several centuries and have come to be known, taken collectively, as the "witchcraft persecutions." the devil, with his subordinate demons and the human beings who sold their souls to him, were supposed to be both capable and guilty of blighting the crops; causing the lightning; bringing destructive storms; withholding the rain; drying up cows; killing domestic and wild beasts; afflicting the nations with pestilence, famine, and war; causing all manner of diseases; betwitching men, women, and children; planting doubts in the mind and weeds in the fields; and in brief, doing about everything that was disagreeable to man in general, or that offended the priests as a caste. thus buttressed by the bible, and with the nearly entire current of church literature setting in the same direction, it is no wonder that the witchcraft delusion became one of the most appalling, if not the most appalling, fact in the development of the christian religion. there is extant no other record of destruction and cruel slaughter growing out of such beliefs in supernatural persons and powers that can ever begin to tell such a story of degradation and mercilessness as the record made by the christian church. theologians laid stress especially upon the famous utterances of the psalmist that "all the gods of the heathens are devils," and st. paul, "the things which the gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to the devils." those suspected of heresy and witchcraft must confess; they were to be tortured until they did confess. this made suspicion equivalent to confession and conviction. in the witch "trial" the victim must not only incriminate herself but her accomplices, or all whom she "knew" to be in partnership with the devil. she was bound to be tortured until she had given the names or described the persons of those she had seen at the "witches' sabbath." then they would be put to the torture and the process repeated. it was not in human nature long to bear the awful pain; soon the leading questions of the inquisitors would be answered as they wanted them answered. it would be incredible were it not attested by such a multitude of witnesses, that men could honestly believe that testimony so extorted had the slightest value. but it is indisputable that hundreds of thousands of human beings were sent to a cruel death on this utterly worthless "evidence." as few people realize the degree in which these superstitions were encouraged by the church that claims infallibility, i may mention that the reality of this particular crime was implied and its perpetrators anathematized by the provincial councils or synods of troyes, lyons, milan, tours, bourges, narbonne, ferrar, saint malo, mont corsin, orleans, and grenoble; by the rituals of autun, chartres, perigueux, evreux, paris, chalons, bologna, troyes, beauvais, meaux, rheims, etc., and by the decrees of a long series of bishops. the infection was everywhere--germany, spain, portugal, france, italy, england, scotland, and even america was scourged. it has been estimated that one hundred thousand perished in germany from the middle of the fifteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth century. pope gregory ix wrote a great mass of nonsense to the bishop and other chiefs urging stringent methods against the stedingers, frieslanders, inhabiting the country between weser and zeider zee. he wrote, "the devil appears to them (the stedingers) in different shapes, sometimes as a goose or duck, and at other times in the figure of a pale, black-eyed youth, with a melancholy aspect, whose embrace fills their hearts with eternal hatred against the holy church of christ. this devil presides at their sabbath when they all kiss him and dance around him. he then envelops them in total darkness, and they all, male and female, give themselves up to the grossest and most disgusting debauchery." the infallible pope of rome! the result was that the stedingers, men, women, and children, were slain, the cottages and woods burned, the cattle stolen and the land laid waste. the pope's letter is a fair example of the theological literature of the time; the slaughter of the stedingers an average illustration of the evangelistic methods of the church. millions of men, women, and children were tortured, strangled, drowned, or burned on "evidence" that today would be accepted nowhere unless by a court and jury composed of the inmates of a lunatic asylum, if even by them. it is unnecessary to say that the more severe the persecution, the more widespread did witchcraft become. every person tortured accused others and whole communities went mad with grief and fear and superstition. no amount of human evidence establishing the actual whereabouts of the accused at the time they were asserted by the witness on the rack to have been at the sabbath would avail. the husbands were told that they had seen or held only the devil-created semblance of their wives. the originals were with satan under the oak. the confessions of tens of thousands of witches are to be found in europe's judicial records of the period of the inquisition. "the protestant reformers zealously seconded the exertions of rome to extirpate witchcraft; they felt that they must prove that they were as orthodox as the catholics, and were as loyal to the bible. no one urged their fundamental ideas more than did luther, calvin, beza, the swedish lutherans, casaubon, wesley, richard baxter, the mathers,--all stood loyally by rome." (_lecky._) at lisbon, a horse whose master had taught him many tricks, was tried in 1601 and found guilty of being possessed by the devil, for which he was burned. the witchcraft mania proper in england began in the sixteenth century and reached its climax in the early part of the seventeenth century. sir matthew hale, the great jurist, sanctioned the delusions and passed sentences of death by burning. queen elizabeth made witchcraft a capital offense in england; and king james i wrote a book on the subject, and lent his personal aid and royal support to the persecutions. joan of arc, the noblest of all the victims of this belief, perished by english hands, though on french soil, and under the sentence of a french bishop. in scotland, during the sixteenth century, as well as the seventeenth, were seen the most horrible examples of what domination of superstitious minds by ecclesiastics could do. "nothing was natural, all was supernatural. the entire course of affairs was governed, not by their antecedents, but by a series of miracles. going still further, they claimed the power (the clergy) not only of foretelling the future state, but also of controlling it; and they did not scruple to affirm that, by their censures, they could open and shut the kingdom of heaven. as if this were not enough, they also gave out that a word of theirs could hasten the moment of death, and by cutting off the sinner in his prime, could bring him at once before the judgment seat of god. "the scotch clergy preached that, 'hell was created before man came into the world. the almighty,' they did not scruple to say, 'having spent his previous leisure in preparing and completing this place of torture, so that, when the human race appeared, it might be ready for their reception.' "of all the means of intimidation employed by the scotch clergy none was more efficacious than the doctrines they propounded respecting evil spirits and future punishment. on these subjects, they constantly uttered the most appalling threats. the language which they used was calculated to madden men with fear and to drive them to the depths of despair. "it was generally believed that the world was overrun by evil spirits who went not only up and down the earth, but also lived in the air, and whose business it was to tempt and hurt mankind. their number was infinite, and they were to be found at all places and in all seasons. "at their head was satan himself, whose delight it was to appear in person ensnaring or terrifying every one he met. with this object, he assumed various forms. one day he would visit the earth as a black dog, on another day as a raven, on still another day he would be heard in the distance roaring like a bull. he appeared sometimes as a white man in black clothes, and sometimes he became a black man in black clothes, when it was remarked that his voice was ghastly, that he wore no shoes, and that one of his feet was cloven. his stratagems were endless. for, in the opinion of divines, his cunning increased with his age; and having been studying for more than 5000 years, he had now attained to unexampled dexterity. he could, and he did, seize both men and women and carry them away through the air. usually he wore the garb of laymen, but it was said that, on more than one occasion, he had impudently attired himself as a minister of the gospel. at all events, in one dress or other, he frequently appeared to the clergy, and tried to coax them over to his side. in that, of course, he failed; but out of the ministers thus tempted, few indeed could withstand him. he could raise storms and tempests. he could work, not only on the mind, but also on the organs of the body, making men hear and see whatever he chose. of his victims, some he prompted to suicide, others to commit murder. still, formidable as he was, no christian was considered to have attained to a full religious experience unless he had literally seen him, talked to him, and fought with him. "the clergy were constantly preaching about him, and preparing their audiences for an interview with their great enemy. the consequence was that the people became almost crazed with fear. whenever the preacher mentioned satan, the consternation was so great that the church resounded with sighs and groans. they believed that the devil was always and literally at hand; that he was haunting them, speaking to them, and tempting them. the clergy boasted that it was their special mission to thunder out the wrath and curses of the lord. in their eyes the deity was not a beneficent being, but a cruel and remorseless tyrant. they declared that all mankind, a very small portion only excepting, were doomed to eternal misery. "the scotch clergy taught their hearers that the almighty was sanguinary, and so prone to anger that he raged even against walls and houses, and senseless creatures, wreaking his fury more than ever, and scattering desolation on every side. "the people, credulous and ignorant, listened and believed. "for in scotland as elsewhere, directly the clergy succeeded in occupying a more than ordinary amount of public attention, they availed themselves of that circumstance to propagate those ascetic doctrines which, while they strike at the root of human happiness, benefit no one except the class which advocates them; that class, indeed, can hardly fail to reap the advantages from a policy which by increasing the apprehensions to which the ignorance and timidity of men make them liable, does also increase their eagerness to fly for support to their spiritual advisers; and the greater their apprehension, the greater the eagerness." (_buckle: "the history of civilization in england."_) james i of england had become imbued with the idea of witchcraft while in scotland, and he believed that his stormy passage on his return from denmark was due to witches. this storm was the origin of one of the most horrible of the many horrible scotch trials on record. one dr. fian was suspected of having aroused the wind and a confession was wrung from him by torture which, however, he almost immediately retracted. every form of torture was in vain employed to vanquish his obduracy; the bones of his legs were broken into small pieces in the boot. all the torments that scottish law knew of were successively applied. at last, the king (who personally presided over the tortures) suggested a new and more horrible device. the prisoner, who had been removed during the deliberation, was brought in and "his nails upon his fingers were riven and pulled off with an instrument, called in scottish a 'turkas,' which in england we call a 'payre' or 'pincers' and under everie nayle there was thrust in two needles over, even up to the heads. so deeply had the devil entered his heart, that he utterly denied all that which he avouched," and he was burnt unconfessed. and this from a king of england! the methods of obtaining a confession were as follows: if the witch was obdurate, the first, and it was said, the most effective method of obtaining confession was by what was termed "waking her." an iron bridle or hoop was bound across her face with four prongs which were thrust into her mouth. it was fastened behind to the wall by a chain, in such a manner that the victim was unable to lie down, and in this position she was sometimes kept for several days, while men were constantly with her to prevent her from closing her eyes for a moment in sleep. partly in order to effect this object, and partly to discover the insensible mark which was the sure sign of a witch, long pins were thrust into her body. at the same time, as it was a saying in scotland that a witch would never confess while she could drink, excessive thirst was added to her torments. some prisoners have been "waked" for five nights, one it is said, even for nine. the physical and mental suffering of such a process was sufficient to overcome the resolution of many, and to distract the understanding of not a few. but other and perhaps worse tortures were in reserve. the three principal ones that were habitually applied were the "pennywinks, the boot, and the caschielawis." the first was a kind of thumbscrew; the second was a frame in which the leg was inserted, and in which it was broken by wedges driven in by a hammer; the third was also an iron frame for the leg, which was from time to time heated over a brazier. fire-matches were sometimes applied to the body of the victim. we read in a contemporary legal register, of one man who was kept for forty-eight hours in "vehement torture" in the caschielawis; and of another who remained in the same frightful machine for eleven days and nights, whose legs were broken daily for fourteen days in the boots, and who was so scourged that the whole skin was torn from his body. this was, it is true, censured as an extreme case, but it was only an excessive application of the common torture. the witches were commonly strangled before they were burnt, but this merciful provision was very frequently omitted. an earl of wear tells how, with a piercing yell, some women once broke half-burnt from the slow fire consuming them, struggled for a few moments with a despairing energy among the spectators, but soon with shrieks of blasphemy and wild protestations of innocence sank writhing in agony amid the flames. but just picture this scene for a moment! the horror of such a scene! what a crime for one human to commit against another! a burnt offering to the gods! how well pleased the almighty god must have been with the stench of burning human flesh rising to his nostrils. and how well he must have rewarded his faithful servants, for was this not done in his name? "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." as lecky points out in his famous work on the "history of european morals," such incidents are but illustrations of the great truth that when men have come to regard a certain class of their fellow creatures as doomed by the almighty to eternal and excruciating agonies, and when their theology directs their minds with intense and realizing earnestness to the contemplation of such agonies, the result will be an indifference to the suffering of those whom they deem the enemies of their god, as absolute as it is perhaps possible for human nature to attain. it is a historical fact that in 1591, a lady of rank, eufame macalyane, sought the assistance of agnes sampson for the relief of pain at the time of birth of her two sons. agnes sampson was tried before king james for her heresy, was condemned as a witch, and was burned alive on the castle hill of edinburgh. it is generally said that the last execution in scotland was in 1722, but captain burt, who visited the country in 1730, speaks of a woman who was burnt as late as 1727. as late as 1736, the divines of the associated presbytery passed a resolution declaiming their belief in witchcraft, and deploring the scepticism that was then general. the pilgrim fathers brought to our shores the seeds of the witchcraft delusion at a time when it was rapidly fading in england, and again history furnishes us with an example of a people with strong religious instincts who, being freed from their persecutors, became in turn the most violent persecutors of those that did not profess their particular creed. it was particularly due to the preaching of cotton mather that a panic of fear was created through the new england colonies. mrs. ann hibbons was tried before the great and general court of massachusetts, sentenced and hanged on the 19th of june, 1656. "goody oliver" was executed as a witch on november 16th, 1688. there were twenty murders in 1692, and these before a civil court. the trials took place before the illegal court of oyer and terminer, appointed by governor phipps, at the instigation of the lieutenant-governor and chief justice stoughton, and joseph dudley, formerly governor, and the chief judge of the court which, in 1688, had sent "goody oliver" to her death at the gallows. cotton mather defended this practice in his book, "the wonders of the invisible world," and increase mather, the father of cotton, was equally as strenuous in the "witch hunt." increase mather survived this massacre thirty years, and his son, five years longer, but there is hardly a word of regret or sympathy to be found anywhere, even in their private diaries and correspondence. these executions in massachusetts form one of the darkest pages in the history of america. it is not surprising that the clergy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries supported both in practice and theory the witchcraft delusion, but when we find the ablest minds of the laity bursting into print with a vehement defense of this belief, it is difficult for us, in the present day, to conceive of such folly. and yet, today, we have able minds defending a precept of which the witchcraft delusion is but a part. "the defenders of the belief (witchcraft), who were men of great and distinguished talent, maintained that there was no fact in all history more fully attested, and that to reject it would be to strike at the root of all historical evidence of the miraculous." (_lecky._) the subject was examined in tens of thousands of cases, in almost every country in europe, by tribunals which included the acutest lawyers and ecclesiastics of the ages, on the scene and at the time when the alleged acts had taken place, and with the assistance of innumerable sworn witnesses. the judges had no motive whatever to desire the condemnation of the accused, and as conviction would be followed by fearful death, they had the strongest motives to exercise their power with caution and deliberation. the whole force of public opinion was directed constantly and earnestly to the question for many centuries, and although there was some controversy concerning the details of witchcraft, the fact of its existence was long considered undoubted. for many centuries the ablest men were not merely unwilling to repudiate the superstition, but they often pressed forward earnestly and with the utmost conviction to defend it. indeed, during the period when witchcraft was most prevalent there were few writers of real eminence who did not, on some occasion, take especial pains to throw the weight of their authority into the scales. st. thomas aquinas was probably the ablest writer of the thirteenth century, and he assures us that diseases and tempests are often the direct act of the devil; and the devil can transform men into any shape and transport them through the air. gerson, the chancellor of the university of paris, and, as many think, the author of "the imitation," is justly regarded as one of the master minds of his age; he too, wrote in defense of this belief. "these men," he wrote, "should be treated with scorn, and indeed, sternly corrected, who ridicule theologians whenever they speak of demons, or attribute to demons any effects, as if these things were entirely fabulous. this error has arisen among some learned men, partly through want of faith, and partly through weakness and imperfection of intellect." bodin was unquestionably the most original political philosopher who had arisen since machiavelli, and he devoted all his learning and acuteness to crushing the rising scepticism on the subject of witches. the truth is that in those ages ability was no guarantee against error; for the single employment of the reason was to develop and expand premises that were furnished by the church. and this statement is as valid today as it was three hundred years ago. bodin was esteemed, by many of his contemporaries, the ablest man who had then arisen in france, and the verdict has been but little qualified by later writers. amid all the distractions of a dissipated and an intriguing court, and all the labors of a judicial position, he had amassed an amount of learning so vast and so various as to place him in the very first rank of the scholars of his nation. he has also the greater merit of being one of the chief founders of political philosophy and political history, and of having anticipated on these subjects many of the conclusions of our own day. in his judicial capacity he had presided at some trials of witchcraft. he had brought all the resources of his scholarship to bear upon the subject, and he had written a great part of his "demonomanie des sorciers" before the appearance of the last work of wier. john wier was a physician of cleves who had in 1563 published a work which he called, "de præstigus dæmonum." he was quite convinced that the world was peopled by crowds of demons, who were constantly working miracles among mankind; and his only object was to reconcile his sense of their ubiquity with his persuasion that some of the phenomena that were deemed supernatural arose from disease. "wier," said bodin, "had armed himself against god. his book was a tissue of 'horrible blasphemies.' for the word of god is very certain that he who suffers a man worthy of death to escape, draws the punishment upon himself, as the prophet said to king ahab, that he would die for having pardoned a man worthy of death. for no one had ever heard of pardon accorded to sorcerers." such were the opinions which were promulgated towards the close of the sixteenth century by one of the most advanced intellects of one of the leading nations of europe at that time; promulgated, too, with a tone of confidence and of triumph that shows how fully the writer could count upon the religious sympathies of his readers: the "demonomanie des sorciers" appeared in 1581. with a man of the caliber of bodin writing the above, it is not to be wondered at that the mobs were so active in the "witch hunt." for as lecky cites, "although the illiterate cannot follow the more intricate speculations of their teachers, they can catch the general tone and character of thought which these speculations produce, and they readily apply them to their own sphere of thought." in 1587, montaigne published the first great sceptical work in the french language. the vast mass of authority which those writers loved to array, and by which they shaped the whole course of their reasoning, is calmly and unhesitatingly discarded. the passion for the miraculous, the absorbing sense of diabolical capacities, have all vanished like a dream. the old theological measure of probability has completely disappeared, and is replaced by a shrewd secular common sense. the statements of the witches were pronounced intrinsically incredible. the dreams of a disordered imagination, or the terrors of the rack, would account for many of them; but even when it is impossible to explain the evidence, it is quite unnecessary to believe it. "after all," montaigne said, "it is setting a high value upon our opinions to roast men alive on account of them." "it was the merit of montaigne to rise, by the force of his masculine genius, into the clear world of reality; to judge the opinions of his age, with an intellect that was invigorated but not enslaved by knowledge; and to contemplate the systems of the past, without being dazzled by the reverence that had surrounded them. he was the first great representative of the modern secular and rationalistic spirit. the strong predisposition of montaigne was to regard witchcraft as the result of natural causes, and therefore, though he did not attempt to explain all the statements which he had heard, he was convinced that no conceivable improbability could be as great as that which would be involved in their reception." (_lecky._) thirteen years after montaigne, charron wrote his famous treatise on wisdom. in this work he systematized many of the opinions of montaigne. voltaire treated the whole subject with a scornful ridicule and observed that, "since there had been philosophers in france, witches had become proportionately rare." in 1681, joseph glanvil, a divine who in his day was very famous, took up the defense of the dying belief. "the sadducismus triumphatus," which he published, is probably the ablest book ever published in defense of the superstition, and although men of the ability of henry more, the famous philosopher casaubon, the learned dean of canterbury, boyle and cudworth, came to his defense, the delusion was fast losing ground. lecky points out that by this time, "the sense of the improbability of witchcraft became continually stronger, till any anecdote which involved the intervention of the devil was on that account generally ridiculed. this spirit was exhibited especially among those whose habits of thought were most secular, and whose minds were least governed by authority." but the belief did not become extinguished immediately. in france, in 1850, the civil tribunal of chartres tried a man and woman named soubervie for having caused the death of a woman called bedouret. they believed she was a witch, and declared that the _priest_ had told them she was the cause of an illness under which the woman soubervie was suffering. they accordingly drew bedouret into a private room, held her down upon some burning straw, and placed a red-hot iron across her mouth. the unhappy woman soon died in extreme agony. the soubervies confessed, and indeed, exulted in their act. at their trials they obtained the highest possible characters. it was shown that they had been actuated solely by superstition, and it was urged that they only followed the highest ecclesiastical precedent. the jury recommended them to mercy, and they were only sentenced to pay twenty-five francs a year to the husband of the victim, and to be imprisoned for four months. in 1850!! a great many may remember the "hex" murder case near lancaster, pennsylvania, in 1930! this is scarcely different from an incident which had occurred in 1892 in wemding, germany: an hysterical woman was "exorcised" by the capuchin father aurelian, who accused a peasant woman of bewitching him. * * * * * the foregoing has shown that witchcraft is not an isolated incident in the history of christianity, as the ecclesiastics would have us believe, but is a vital part of their religion. witchcraft bears the same relation to christianity that an arm bears to the body; neither can be removed without destroying the symmetrical aspect of the whole. witchcraft is an integral part of the christian religion, but its falsity has become so obvious that even the most devout have had to abandon it. yet the other precepts are still maintained; and in the bible which is claimed to be infallible, something is forgotten and discarded, something is declared to be ridiculous. and yet they call the bible infallible. again, if witchcraft is given up, why not the chief witch of the bible, the devil? yet if this be yielded, then the idea of atonement, the central doctrine of the christian church, must also go. "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." if this be god's word, did god err when he said it? if he erred, he probably did so in many other things; if he did not christians must either still maintain the witchcraft delusion or deny the bible delusion. the witchcraft delusion is denied and forgotten, and no one thinks of quoting, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." but the bible delusion despite all manner of ecclesiastical sophistry still maintains that man was created miraculously some 6000 years ago from the dust of the earth, that woman was made from a bone taken from the side of man, that language came into existence in the course of a single night, that god instituted a horrible massacre of the people by drowning because they did not come up to his expectations. it maintains miracles, virgin births, resurrections from the dead, and a literal heaven and hell. again, in the new testament, matthew tells how the chief magician of the new testament, jesus, exorcised the devils from men and drove them into swine. what could be more explicit? if men were possessed of devils in jesus' time, what has happened to these devils now? surely, jesus could not misinterpret his own words or deeds, if the religionists contend that we are now misinterpreting the bible? if they state that his recorders were in error, then they admit the error of the entire bible, for it is illogical for one part to be true and another to be false, when both are components of an infallible statement. "but they who abandon belief in maleficent demons and in witches as also, for this follows, in beneficent agents, such as angels, find themselves in a serious dilemma. for to this are such committed: if jesus who came that he might destroy the devil, and who is reported, among other proofs of his divine ministry, to have cast out demons from the 'possessed human beings,' and in one case, to have permitted a crowd of infernal agents to enter into a herd of swine; if he verily believed that he did these things, and if it be true that the belief is a superstition limited to the ignorant or barbaric mind, then what value can be attached to any statement that jesus is reported to have made about the spiritual world?" (_edward clodd: "pioneers of evolution."_) the old adage that a chain is just as strong as its weakest link is very apt in this case. a belief in witches is part of the bible; and if the civilized world rejects that concept, it must reject the bible, for it is no longer infallible, since it is in error. disregarding the internal evidence which declares the bible to be spurious, and the scientific advances which have proven the bible to be a myth and a fable, if man still insists on "revealed religion" he must admit that sorcery and witchcraft are an integral part of the bible teaching. he must still either believe in witchcraft or disbelieve all of the bible. for again, one part cannot be true and another false of an infallible statement. i thoroughly and emphatically agree with john wesley who, in 1769, wrote, "the english in general, and indeed most of the men of learning in europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere old wives' fables. i am sorry for it, and i willingly take this opportunity of entering my solemn protest against this violent compliment which so many that believe in the bible pay to those who do not believe it. i owe them no such service. i take knowledge that these are at the bottom of the outcry which has been raised, and with such insolence spread through the land, in direct opposition, not only to the bible, but to the suffrage of the wisest and best of men in all ages and nations. they well know (whether christians know it or not) _that the giving up of witchcraft is in effect giving up the bible_." lecky, in that masterful work, "the rise and influence of rationalism in europe," from which i have so freely quoted, states, "a disbelief in ghosts and witches was one of the most prominent characteristics of scepticism in the seventeenth century. yet, for more than fifteen hundred years it was universally believed that the bible established in the clearest manner, the validity of the crime, and that an amount of evidence, so varied and so ample as to preclude the very possibility of doubt, attested its continuance and its prevalence.... in our own day, it may be said with confidence, that it would be altogether impossible for such an amount of evidence to accumulate around a conception which has no substantial basis in fact." and yet today, in the twentieth century, we do have an amount of "evidence" accumulated around a conception which had no substantial basis of fact. what a perfect analogy presents itself between one precept of revealed religion and religion in its entirety. in the seventeenth century, scepticism confined itself to a disbelief in witchcraft, one particular of revealed religion; in the twentieth century, scepticism expands and reveals the absurdity of all revealed religion. just as when we read the annals of witchcraft today we sicken with the horror of this insane conception, so will posterity in the none too distant future, perhaps three more centuries, do for _all religion_ what three centuries did for witchcraft. just so will they regard revealed religion in its entirety as we look upon the one factor, the _witchcraft delusion_. men came gradually to disbelieve in witchcraft because they learned gradually to look upon it as absurd. this new tone of thought appeared first of all in those who were least subject to theological influences, and soon spread through the educated laity, and last of all, took possession of the clergy. so shall it be with all religions. a belief that was held for 1500 years, in the comparatively insignificant period of 100 years, sinks into oblivion; for the last judicial execution occurred in switzerland in 1782; and the last law on the subject, the irish statute, was repealed in 1821. it is not, therefore, too much of a stretch of the imagination to conceive what the inhabitants of this planet will think of all religion 300 years from now. we have the sterling example of the witchcraft delusion before us. yes, despite the otherwise brilliant men of today who still maintain the bible delusion, and the "hedgers," that group of religious apologists who form those various sects, such as the unitarians, the humanists, etc. they are but the middle ground; they are but the intermediate between the delusionists and those that maintain the philosophy that eventually must triumph, the philosophy of atheism. when we think back to that group of capable men headed by bodin, gerson, and joseph glanvil, who turned their ability and learning to the defense of the witchcraft delusion, we find the answer to that ever-present response which the confused of this age give when confronted with the incompatabilities in their religion, namely, "oh, well, more brilliant men than i believe in this delusion." bodin, gerson, and glanvil could not bolster up a dying belief; and the bodins, gersons, and glanvils of today cannot long bolster up the dying belief in all religions ... no matter what their ability or capacities may be. the handwriting is on the wall; the past teaches us what the future may be, but there is still much work to be done. chapter xiii religion and morality _the current religion is indirectly adverse to morals, because it is adverse to the freedom of the intellect. but it is also directly adverse to morals by inventing spurious and bastard virtues._ winwood reade, "martyrdom of man." it had been formerly asserted by theologians that our moral laws were given to man by a supernatural intuitive process. however, professor e. a. westermarck's "origin and development of the moral ideas," and similar researches, give a comprehensive survey of the moral ideas and practices of all the backward fragments of the human race and conclusively prove the social nature of moral law. the moral laws have evolved much the same as physical man has evolved. there is no indication whatsoever that the moral laws came from any revelation since the sense of moral law was just as strong amongst civilized peoples beyond the range of christianity, or before the christian era. joseph mccabe, commenting on professor westermarck's work states, "all the fine theories of the philosophers break down before this vast collection of facts. there is no intuition whatever of an august and eternal law, and the less god is brought into connection with these pitiful blunders and often monstrous perversions of the moral sense, the better. what we see is just man's mind in possession of the idea that his conduct must be regulated by law, and clumsily working out the correct application of that idea as his intelligence grows and his social life becomes more complex. it is not a question of the mind of the savage imperfectly seeing the law. it is a plain case of the ideas of the savage reflecting and changing with his environment and the interest of his priests." justice is a fundamental and essential moral law because it is a vital regulation of social life and murder is the greatest crime because it is the greatest social delinquency; and these are inherent in the social nature of moral law. "moral law slowly dawns in the mind of the human race as a regulation of a man's relation with his fellows in the interest of social life. it is quite independent of religion, since it has entirely different roots in human psychology." (_joseph mccabe: "human origin of morals."_) in the mind of primitive man there is no connection between morality and the belief in a god. "society is the school in which men learn to distinguish between right and wrong. the headmaster is custom and the lessons are the same for all. the first moral judgments were pronounced by public opinion; public indignation and public approval are the prototypes of the moral emotions." (_edward westermarck: "origin and development of the moral ideas."_) moral ideas and moral energy have their source in social life. it is only in a more advanced society that moral qualities are assumed for the gods. and indeed, it is known that in some primitive tribes, the gods are not necessarily conceived as good, they may have evil qualities also. "if they are, to his mind, good, that is so much the better. but whether they are good or bad they have to be faced as facts. the gods, in short belong to the region of belief, while morality belongs to that of practice. it is in the nature of morality that it should be implicit in practice long before it is explicit in theory. morality belongs to the group and is rooted in certain impulses that are a product of the essential conditions of group life. it is as reflection awakens that men are led to speculate upon the nature and origin of the moral feelings. morality, whether in practice or theory, is thus based upon what is. on the other hand, religion, whether it be true or false, is in the nature of a discovery--one cannot conceive man actually ascribing ethical qualities to his gods before he becomes sufficiently developed to formulate moral rules for his own guidance, and to create moral laws for his fellowmen. the moralization of the gods will follow as a matter of course. man really modifies his gods in terms of the ideal human being. it is not the gods who moralize man, it is man who moralizes the gods." (_chapman cohen: "theism or atheism."_) in the formation of the old testament, the moralization of yahveh led to the creation of a god who coincided more with the morality of the later writers, the god elohim. "rather must we say that morality begins in human social relations and passes from them to the relations maintained with the other life and with the gods. or, if one prefers to consider ghosts and gods as inseparable elements of the primary organism, then we should say that morality is born in that all-embracing psychical atmosphere. but it does not follow from that fact that the rise and development of morality are conditioned by belief in gods and in immortality. merely human relations are sufficient to the production of ethical appreciations. the invisible ghosts and gods would never have been thought interested in the morality of the tribe, had not the leaders realized the importance of courage, of loyalty, of respect for neighbors' possessions, and the other elementary virtues. it is when the disastrous consequences of their absence became evident that the gods were made to sanction these virtues. god or no god, immortality or no immortality, the essential morality of man would have been what it is." (_j. h. leuba: "belief in god and immortality."_) the best that is in man is generated in the experiences of his daily life. the attributing of moral qualities to the gods was a much later development in the evolution of the moral ideas. at this stage of our development man is fortified by a sense of human fellowship, and in practice, as well as in theory, has long since given up the assumption that he needed superhuman beliefs. he has fully recognized the independence of morality from superhuman beliefs. james mill and j. s. mill taught the greatest happiness of the greatest number as the supreme object of action and the basis of morality. and it was this conception that introduced the new ethical principles of duty to posterity. this conception is a much nobler one than the religious interpretation of morality to consist in mainly defining what man's duty to god is; a morality whose chief selfish inspiration is not the helping of one's fellowmen but the saving of one's own soul. a secular morality teaches that what man thinks, says, and does lives after him and influences for good or ill future generations. this is a higher, nobler, and greater incentive to righteousness than any life of personal reward or fear of punishment in a future life. there are today a rapidly growing number of eminent moral teachers who condemn the clinging to the belief of personal existence after death as a hindrance to the best life on earth. professor j. h. leuba, in his work, "the belief in god and immortality," concludes that, "these facts and considerations indicate that the reality of the belief in immortality to civilized nations is much more limited than is commonly supposed; and that, if we bring into calculation all the consequences of the belief, and not merely its gratifying effects, we may even be brought to conclude that its disappearance from among the most civilized nations would be, on the whole, a gain." there are few educated men nowadays who would claim that morality cannot exist apart from religion. theists are desperately attempting to harmonize a primitive theory of things, with a larger knowledge and a more developed moral sense. morality is fundamentally the expression of those conditions under which associated life is found possible and profitable, and that so far as any quality is declared to be moral its justification and meaning must be found in that direction. "our alleged essential dependence upon transcendental beliefs is belied by the most common experiences of daily life. who does not feel the absurdity of the opinion that the lavish care for a sick child by a mother is given because of a belief in god and immortality? are love of father and mother on the part of children, affection and serviceableness between brothers and sisters, straight-forwardness and truthfulness between business men, essentially dependent upon these beliefs? what sort of person would be the father who would announce divine punishment or reward in order to obtain the love and respect of his children? and if there are business men preserved from unrighteousness by the fear of future punishment, they are far more numerous who are deterred by the threat of human law. most of them would take their chances with heaven a hundred times before they would once with society, or perchance with the imperative voice of humanity heard in the conscience." (_leuba._) the primary motive of moral standards and practices is man's desire to seek happiness and avoid pain. and so it is not strange that morality has become stronger as the power of religion has weakened. "right through history it has been the social instincts that have acted as a corrective to religious extravagances. and it is worth noting that with the exception of a little gain from the practice of casuistry, religions have contributed nothing towards the building up of a science of ethics. on the contrary, it has been a very potent cause of confusion and obstruction. fictitious vices and virtues have been created and the real moral problems lost sight of. it gave the world the morality of the prison cell, instead of the tonic of the rational life. and it was indeed fortunate for the race that conduct was not ultimately dependent upon a mass of teachings that had their origin in the brains of savages, and were brought to maturity during the darkest period of european civilization.... and we know that the period during which the influence of christian theism was strongest, was the period when the intellectual life of civilized man was at its lowest, morality at its weakest, and the general outlook hopeless. religious control gave us heresy hunts, jew hunts, burning for witchcraft, and magic in place of medicine. it gave us the inquisition and the _auto da fe_, the fires of smithfield, and the night of st. bartholomew. it gave us the war of sects, and it helped powerfully to establish the sect of war. it gave us life without happiness, and death cloaked with terror. the christian record is before us, and it is such that every church blames the others for its existence. quite as certainly we cannot point to a society that has been dominated by freethinking ideals, but we can point to their existence in all ages, and can show that all progress is due to their presence. we can show that progressive ideals have originated with the least, and have been opposed by the most religious sections of society." (_cohen._) the puerile conception of heaven and the savage conception of hell are still, in modified form, deemed necessary for a religious morality. why it should be necessary for a supreme intelligence to make all things straight in another world, that he could more convincingly rectify in this one, is a conception which has escaped the reason of a freethinker, but has been very profitable to those on earth that lead their adherents to believe that they hold the keys to our future abodes. winwood reade in his "martyrdom of man," discussing the moral value of the fears of hell-fire, states, "a metaphysical theory cannot restrain the fury of the passions; as well attempt to bind a lion with a cobweb. prevention of crime, it is well known, depends not on the severity, but on the certainty of retribution. the supposition that the terrors of hell-fire are essential or even conducive to good morals is contradicted by the facts of history. in the dark ages there was not a man or woman from scotland to naples, who doubted that sinners were sent to hell. the religion which they had was the same as ours, with this exception, that everyone believed in it. the state of europe in that pious epoch need not be described. society is not maintained by the conjectures of theology, but by those moral sentiments, those gregarious virtues which elevated men above the animals, which are now instinctive in our natures and to which intellectual culture is propitious. for, as we become more and more clearly enlightened, we perceive more and more clearly that it was with the whole human population as it was with the primeval clan; the welfare of every individual is dependent on the welfare of the community, and the welfare of the community depends on the welfare of every individual." the teachings of christianity towards marriage furnishes a well known example of a reactionary philosophy of morals. the views of st. paul on marriage are set forth in i corinthians vii 1-9: 1. now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2. nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. 3. let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence; and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 4. the wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband; and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. 5. defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that satan tempt you not for your incontinency. 6. but i speak this by permission, and not of commandment. 7. for i would that all men were even as i myself. but every man has his proper gift of god, one after this manner, and another after that. 8. i say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them to abide even as i. 9. but if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn. these precepts furnish an example of the harm that can be done when man follows the absurd and unsocial decrees of an ascetic individual written in a barbaric age and maintained as law in a more advanced period. the enlightened physician holds that it is not good for a man not to touch a woman; and one wonders what would have become of our race if all women had carried st. paul's teaching, "it is good for them if they abide even as i," into practice. bertrand russell, in his "marriage and morals," has gone to the root of the matter when he states, "he does not suggest for a moment that there may be any positive good in marriage, or that affection between husband and wife may be a beautiful and desirable thing, nor does he take the slightest interest in the family; fornication holds the center of the stage in his thoughts, and the whole of his sexual ethics is arranged with reference to it. it is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake." but then it is too much to expect of a man living nearly two thousand years ago to have known the psychology of the emotions, but we do know the great harm that his ascetic principles have done. st. paul took the standpoint that sexual intercourse, even in marriage, is regrettable. this view is utterly contrary to biological facts, and has caused in its adherents a great deal of mental disorder. st. paul's views were emphasized and exaggerated by the early church and celibacy was considered holy. men retired into the desert to wrestle with satan, and when their abnormal manner of living fired their imagination with erotic visions, mutilated their bodies to cleanse their souls. "there is no place in the moral history of mankind of a deeper or more painful interest than this ascetic epidemic. a hideous, sordid, and emaciated maniac, without knowledge, without patriotism, without natural affections, passing his life in a long routine of useless and atrocious self-torture, and quailing before the ghastly phantoms of his delirious brain, had become the ideal of the nations which had known the writings of plato and cicero, and the lives of socrates and cato." (_lecky: "history of european morals."_) this concept that the closest of association between man and wife is an obnoxious deed, has strewn its evil influence down through the ages to the present day. the stealth and obscurity placed upon sexual matters has had its roots so firmly fixed in our manner of dealing with this purely normal function, that at this late date medical science is just beginning to eradicate the evils. it is now well recognized by educators and physicians and all clear-thinking individuals that it is extremely harmful for men, women, and children to be kept in artificial ignorance of the facts relating to sexual affairs. the obscurantism placed upon sexual matters has caused more physical and mental distress than most of our organic diseases. the physician is constantly correcting the abnormal conceptions that exist. the sex act had become something in the nature of a crime which could not be avoided, instead of assuming the manifestation of the consummation of the greatest love and tenderness that can exist between two individuals keenly attuned to the natural desires of a natural act. "the love of man and woman at its best is free and fearless, compounded of body and mind in equal proportions, not dreading to idealize because there is a physical basis, not dreading the physical basis lest it should interfere with the idealization. to fear love is to fear life and those who fear life are already three parts dead." (_bertrand russell: "marriage and morals."_) religion has brutalized the marital relations, and lecky, dealing with this subject, states, "the tender love which it elicits, the holy and beautiful domestic qualities that follow in its train, were almost absolutely omitted from consideration. the object of the ascetic was to attract men to a life of virginity, and as a necessary consequence marriage was treated as an inferior state. it was regarded as being necessary, indeed, and therefore justifiable, for the propagation of the species, and to free men from great evils; but still as a condition of degradation from which all who aspired to real sanctity could fly. to 'cut down by the axe of virginity the wood of marriage' was, in the energetic language of st. jerome, the end of the saint; and if he consented to praise marriage it was merely because it produced virgins." indeed, the entire ascetic attitude was well summed up by st. jerome when exhorting heliodorus to desert his family and become a hermit; he expatiated with foul minuteness on every form of natural affection he desired him to violate: "though your little nephew twine his arms around your neck, though your mother, with dishevelled hair and tearing her robe asunder, point to the breast with which she suckled you, though your father fall down on the threshold before you, pass over your father's body ... you say that scripture orders you to obey parents, but he who loves them more than christ loses his soul." it has only been with the advance of secular literature that the degrading assumption of st. paul that marriage is to be regarded solely as a more or less legitimate outlet for lust has been discarded, and the act of love as applied to marriage has come to have any meaning. and in this modern day the conception of the relationship of the sex act to marriage is far from being on the high plane where it rightly belongs. bertrand russell comments, "marriage in the orthodox christian doctrine has two purposes: one, that recognized by st. paul, the other, the procreation of children. the consequence has been to make sexual morality even more difficult than it was made by st. paul. not only is sexual intercourse only legitimate within marriage, but even between husband and wife it becomes a sin unless it is hoped that it will lead to pregnancy. the desire for legitimate offspring is, in fact, according to the catholic church, the only motive which can justify sexual intercourse. but this motive always justifies it, no matter what cruelty may accompany it. if the wife hates sexual intercourse, if she is likely to die of another pregnancy, if the child is likely to be diseased or insane, if there is not enough money to prevent the utmost extreme of misery, that does not prevent the man from being justified in insisting on his conjugal rights, provided only that he hopes to beget a child." what effect has christianity had upon our moral life, upon crime, drug-addiction, sexual immorality, prostitution, and perversion? these blights upon our moral character existed long before christianity, and after christianity. but what effectual check has christianity contributed? the agitation concerning increased crime after the recent world conflict has brought this subject to the fore, and aroused a great deal of discussion and consideration of this problem. in its relation to religion, we have but one undeniable fact to bring before the thinking public. an examination of the statistics of penal institutions reveals that practically all criminals are religious. _absolutely and proportionately smaller numbers of criminals are freethinkers._ although church members nowhere constitute even half the population outside the prisons, they constitute from eighty to ninety-five per cent of the population inside the prison. this can be verified by reference to any census of any penal institution. as strangely as this may strike a great many readers, just so strange did it appear at one time to the multitude that the earth was round. (it is 500 years since the earth was proven to be round, yet there is a large colony of christians near chicago officially maintaining that the earth is as flat and four-cornered as the bible states.) neither christianity nor any religious creed has proved an effectual check on civil crime. the prostitute has been hounded and abused by ecclesiastics since biblical times, yet, it is only true to say that the religionist is not vitally interested in prostitution. outwardly, he may pour forth a verbal barrage of condemnation, but if he believes he can save her immortal soul, ahunting he goes. he does not attempt to ameliorate the social welfare of this poor, degraded individual, as he thinks; her pitiful condition in the "everlasting present" on this earth interests him not at all, although it is this existence about which he raves, his only interest is in redeeming her soul not her body. if when the religionist tells the prostitute that only those who believe in christ as god, in his virgin birth, and in his resurrection in the body, will go to heaven, and she agrees and repents--all is well; the religionist has saved a soul, and the prostitute goes about her business of spreading hideous venereal disease to others whose souls are saved by believing in christ as a god. her soul is saved and safe, but the scholar, the poet, the scientist, the benefactor to mankind, all those who make this life bearable and livable, their souls must roast in hell forever if they do not believe in the creed. divine justice? the greatest number of prostitutes are religious, yet prostitution continues to flourish. the ecclesiastic condemns the prostitute as the cause, never stopping to think that the cause must have an effect, and that prostitution is but the effect. the cause is our economic conditions. prostitution is purely a medico-social problem, and the more the ecclesiastic keeps his hands off the problem the sooner will the condition be remedied to its best. attempts to repress prostitution without changing the economic organization will always result in failure. prostitution has always existed and will continue to exist until our economic system has undergone a radical change. so long as girls have to fight with starvation or with beggarly wages, so long as men are deterred from early marriage by inability to support a family, and so long as many married men remain polygamous in their tastes, just so long will prostitution exist. but we have seen that the clergy is never anxious to interfere with the "rights of the few to tyrannize the many," and since prostitution is an economic problem, religion never has, and never will be, of any help in this case. (aside from the fact that there are many instances of a few centuries ago where the church in a period of temporary financial distress has owned well paying brothels.) when we think of morality we are apt to concentrate more on sexual morality than on the more obtuse moral duties. religion has from time immemorial been held up to our minds as a great force in the production of this morality. that is another myth. in our own country it is a trite phrase that a man has a "puritan code of ethics," or as "straight laced as a puritan." when the puritan fathers landed in this country, they began an existence that has revealed to the world for all time the value of a "burning religious zeal." in a sense they showed this zeal in regard to the witchcraft delusion. coming as they did, to avoid religious persecution in their own native country, they should have established a colony which for meekness and beneficence would have shown the value of a true religious fervor. instead, the persecuted immediately became the persecutors--again proving the worth of a mind that is imbued with a dominating religious zeal. secondly, the principal vocation and recreation of these fathers was their religion. it is only reasonable to suppose that in such a truly religious atmosphere morality should have reached its zenith of perfection. what actually happened is well illustrated in a very informative and case reporting work by rupert hughes, the novelist, "facts about puritan morals": "everybody seems to take it for granted that the behavior of the early settlers of new england was far above normal. nobody seems to take the trouble to verify this assumption. the facts are amazingly opposite. the puritans admitted incessantly that they were exceedingly bad. the records sustain them.... the puritans wallowed in every known form of wickedness to a disgusting degree. considering the extremely meagre population of the early colonies, they were appallingly busy in evil. i do not refer to the doctrinal crimes that they artificially construed and dreaded and persecuted with such severity that england had to intervene: the crimes of being a quaker, a presbyterian, which they punished with lash, with the gallows, and with exile. i do not refer to their inclusion of lawyers among keepers of disorderly houses, and people of ill-fame. i refer to what every people, savage or civilized, has forbidden by law: murder, arson, adultery, infanticide, drunkenness, theft, rape, sodomy, and bestiality. the standard of sexual morality among the unmarried youth was lower in puritan england than it is today for both sexes. "it is important that the truth be known. is religion, is church membership, a help to virtue? the careless will answer without hesitation, yes! of course. the statistics, when they are not smothered, cry no! "if church-going keeps down sin, then the puritans should have been sinless because they compelled everybody to go to church. they actually regarded absence from church as worse than adultery or theft. they dragged prisoners from jail under guard to church. they whipped old men and women bloodily for staying away. they fined the stay-at-homes and confiscated their goods and their cattle to bankruptcy. when all else failed they used exile. disobedience of parents was voted a capital offense and so was sabbath-breaking even to the extent of picking up sticks. "yet, as a result of all this religion, the sex life of the puritan was abnormal.... their sex sins were enormous. their form of spooning was 'bundling,' an astonishing custom that permitted lovers to lie down in bed together in the dark, under covers. they were supposed to keep all their clothes on, but there must have been some mistake somewhere for the number of illegitimate children and premature children was stupefying. dunton tells us that there hardly passed a court day in massachusetts without some convictions for fornication, and although the penalty was fine and whipping, the crime was very frequent. "nothing, i repeat, would have surprised the puritans more than to learn that their descendants accepted them as saints. they wept, wailed, and refused to be comforted. they were terrified and horrified by their own wickedness. the harsh, granite puritan of our sermons, on statues and frescoes, was unknown in real life. the real puritan zealot spent an incredible amount of his time in weeping like a silly old woman. famous puritan preachers boast of lying on a floor all night and drenching the carpet with their tears. their church services according to their own accounts, must have been cyclones of hysteria, with the preacher sobbing and streaming, and the congregation in a state of ululant frenzy, with men and women fainting on all sides. "the authorities are the best possible, not the reports of travelers or the satires of enemies, but the statements of the puritans themselves, governors, eminent clergymen, and the official records of the colonies. hereafter, anybody who refers to the puritans as people of exemplary life, or morality above the ordinary, is either ignorant or a liar. in our own day, there is an enormous amount of crime and vice among the clergy. most horrible murders abound, by ministers, of ministers, and for ministers. published and unpublished adulteries, seductions, rapes, elopements, embezzlements, homosexual entanglements, bigamies, financial turpitudes, are far more numerous than they should be in proportion to the clerical population. "governor bradford breaks out in his heart-broken bewilderment and unwittingly condemns the whole spirit and pretense of puritanism. the puritans fled from the wicked old world for purity's sake, they were relentless in prayer, they were absolutely under the control of the church and clergy, and yet, their governor says that sin flourished more in plymouth colony than in vile london! "if our people are wicked nowadays because they lack religion, what shall be said of the puritans who were far more wicked, though they lived, moved, and had their being in an atmosphere so surcharged with religion that children and grown persons lay awake all night, sobbing and rolling on the floor in search of secret sins that they could not remember well enough to repent? it is well to remember that there has perhaps never been in history a community in which christianity had so perfect a laboratory in which to experiment. "the very purpose of the colony was announced as the propagation of the gospel. the bible was the law book. the colony lacked all the things on which preachers lay the blame for ungodliness; yet, every infamy known to history, from fiendish torture to luxurious degeneracy flourished amazingly. this ancient and impregnable fact has been ignored. the records have been studiously veiled in a cloud of misty reverence, and concealed under every form of rhetoric known to apologists." we can only conclude that religion does not seem to act as an effectual check against sexual immorality. furthermore, high moral principles can be inculcated without any religious background, and have been in spite of religion. a man who is moral because of his reason and his sensibilities, and his comprehension of the necessary social structure of the world is a far better citizen than the man who feebly attempts a moral life because he expects a mythical existence in a delusional heaven or wishes to avoid hell-fire. a secular code of morals based upon the best experiences of communal and national life would place its highest obligation not to a deity but to the welfare of all fellowmen. chapter xiv christianity and war "instead of diminishing the number of wars, ecclesiastical influence has actually and very seriously increased it; we may look in vain for any period since constantine in which the clergy as a body exerted themselves to repress the military spirit, or to prevent or abridge a particular war with an energy at all comparable to that which they displayed in stimulating the fanaticism of the crusades, in producing the atrocious massacres of the albigenses, in embittering the religious contests that followed the reformation." (_lecky._) any institution that can sanction war is the most immoral institution that the mind of man can imagine. that an institution which claims to have under its guidance the moral activity of this earth, has instituted and condoned war is a known historical fact. that the church has blessed the banners of opposing factions, and has gloried in the butchering of innocent heretics, no manner of present disregard for the facts and apology can refute and redeem. the religious and civil wars, the massacre of the albigenses and other sects, the massacre of st. bartholomew, are still alive in the memories of historians and still rankle. the crusades were a bloody blot in the none too peaceful times of the middle ages. christianity hurled itself at mohammedanism in expedition after expedition for nearly three centuries. millions of men perished in battle, hunger, and disease, and every atrocity the imagination can conceive of disgraced the warriors of the cross. when one crusade failed, a papal bull instigated the next. taxes were imposed to defray the expenses, and europe was so drained of men and money that it was threatened with social bankruptcy and annihilation. the inquisition between 1481 and 1808 had punished 340,000 persons, and of these, nearly 32,000 had been burnt. this was the result of the declaration that "the inquisition is an urgent necessity in view of the unbelief of the present age." the church forgot to mention the vast amount of wealth that accrued to her by these means. but we need not turn to the dead ages for material, for the present still firmly holds its war memories. "armenians massacred by turks and kurds; christians slaughtered by mohammedans is a horror as hideous in the name of religion as in the name of war. the persecution of jews by christians in the name of christ is diabolical. the atrocities inflicted on christian belgium by christian germany stains the teuton's hand as red as the turk's, but with a difference. the teuton outraged his own 'holy women,' despoiled and murdered his own 'sisters in christ,' while the mohammedan hordes perpetrated their nameless infamies on those whom they believed to be the imps of satan. mercifully, call these things the logical crimes of a state of war! then we must admit that savagery still is more powerful than religion, and we must concede that no religion so far has achieved the success that one might reasonably expect of a divine institution." (_bell: "woman from bondage to freedom."_) the world war proved the utter worthlessness of christianity as a civilizing force. the nations engaged were not fighting non-christians; germany, austria, russia, england, belgium, servia, italy, and the united states are all christian nations. they all worship the same god, they are all brothers in christ, but that did not prevent their cutting each other's throats on the battlefield. their common religious belief did not render the war less bitter nor less bloodthirsty. is it not a fact that if the christian nations of the world would only live at peace together, war would be impossible? neither mohammedan nations nor japan could threaten. when the christian speaks of the brotherhood of man, he means a brotherhood of _believers_ only. what kind of brotherhood did christians bestow on jews or heretics in the middle ages? was it the brotherhood of man that christianity bestowed on the conquered mexican and peruvian nations, and on the indians of our own country? if christianity had expended as much energy in teaching its adherents the fundamentals of a sane social life, as it did to prepare mankind for a mythical life in heaven, civilization would be today greatly in advance of where it is. does any one believe that jew, mohammedan, catholic, and protestant can long live in peace together? common social needs bring mankind together but religion drives them apart. there can never be a lasting peace until the myth of god is dispelled forever from the minds of men. then and then only, can the adjustment between economic and political forces lead to a permanent peace. chapter xv christianity and slavery _nothing during the american struggle against the slave system did more to wean religious and god-fearing men and women from the old interpretation of scripture than the use of it to justify slavery._ andrew dickson white. the christian church has had the audacity, in modern times, to proclaim that it had abolished slavery and the slave trade. it is difficult to understand how any "righteous" man could make that contention remembering that it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that slavery became illegal in christian countries, with one exception, abyssinia, the oldest of the christian countries, which still maintains slavery. in our own country, a nation had to be embroiled in a civil war before slavery could be abolished. abolished by christianity in the nineteenth century, when christianity has been dominant in most civilized countries since the third century, and when the traffic in human flesh flourished right through those centuries in which christianity was most powerful! a reference to the facts show that this claim is as spurious as many others which the ecclesiastics have boldly affirmed throughout the ages. for not only is this contrary to the truth, but it is an undeniable fact that it was only by the aid and sanction of the theological forces that slavery was able to degrade our civilization as long as it did. on referring to that legend which has been the source of most of our suffering and inhumanity, the bible, a direct sanction for slavery is given in the old testament. leviticus xxv gives explicit instructions as to where and from whom slaves should be bought, and sanctions the repulsive feature of separation of the slave from his family. leviticus xxvii gives the "price" of human beings. the koran, which the christians look upon as a ridiculous smattering of utterances of a spurious prophet, sets a superior example to the christian "divine revelations." "god hath ordained that your brothers should be your slaves, therefore, let him whom god hath ordained to be the slave of his brother, his brother must give him of the clothes wherewith he clotheth himself, and not order him to do anything beyond his power.... a man who illtreats his slave will not enter paradise.... whoever is the cause of separation between mother and child by selling and giving, god will separate him from his friends on the day of resurrection." the new testament follows the old testament, and there is nowhere to be found in its contents anything to suggest the elimination of this practice. jesus did not condemn this practice, but accepted slavery as he accepted most institutions about him, and all superstitions. the teachings of paul on the question of slavery are clear and explicit. pope leo, in his letter of 1888 to the bishop of brazil, remarks: "when amid the slave multitude whom she has numbered among her children, some led astray by some hope of liberty, have had recourse to violence and sedition, the church has always condemned these unlawful efforts, and through her ministers has applied the remedy of patience...." st. peter was addressing himself especially to the slaves when he wrote, "for this is thankworthy, if for conscience towards god a man endures sorrows, suffering wrongfully." the church certainly saw nothing wrong with slavery when she preached patience to her slaves. it did not condemn slavery, but condemned the slaves for revolting. this in 1888! in the "encyclopedia of religion and ethics" is found: "there is no explicit condemnation in the teaching of our lord.... it remains true that the abolitionist could point to no one text in the gospels in defense of his position, while those who defended slavery could appeal at any rate to the letter of scripture." it is true that slavery existed under pagan civilization, but there it represented a phase of social development, while christian slavery stood for a deliberate retrogression in social life. it was seneca who said, "live gently and kindly with your slave, and admit him to conversation with you, to council with you, and to share in your meals." think of what would have occurred if one of our philosophers had admonished a slave-holding christian in the above manner. "we are apt to think of the ancient slave as being identical with the miserable and degraded being that disgraced christian countries less than a century ago. this, however, is far from the truth. the roman slave did not, of necessity, lack education. slaves were to be found who were doctors, writers, poets, philosophers, and moralists. plautus, phædrus, terence, epictetus, were slaves. slaves were the intimates of men of all stations of life, even the emperor. certainly, it never dawned on the roman mind to prohibit education to the slave. that was left for the christian world, and almost within our own time." (for a good account of the close association of christianity with slavery see, "_christianity, slavery, and labor," chapman cohen._) in rome, the slave kept his individuality, and outwardly there was no distinction in color and clothing; there was very little sound barrier between the slave and the freeman. the slave attended the same games as the freeman, participated in the affairs of the municipality, and attended the same college. the ancients kept the bodies of their slaves in bondage, but they placed no restraint upon the mind and no check upon his education. it has even been said that the slave class of antiquity really corresponded to our free laboring class. it is also well known that a well-conducted slave, by his own earnings, was able to purchase his freedom in the course of a few years. there can be no comparison, therefore, between pagan and christian slavery, except to the detriment of the latter. the christian slave trade represents one of the most frightful and systematic brutalities the world has ever known. the contrast between the pagan and christian slavery is even more marked when the dependence of the christian slave upon the good nature of his master is considered. compare this with the decrees of the roman emperors: "masters were prohibited sending their slaves into the arena without a judicial sentence. claudius punished as a murderer any master who killed his slave. nero appointed judges to hear the complaints of slaves as to ill-treatment or insufficient feeding. domitian forbade the mutilation of slaves; hadrian forbade the selling of slaves to gladiators, destroyed private prisons for them, and ordered that they who were proved to have ill-treated their slaves be forced to sell them. caracalla forbade the selling of children into slavery." "all that need be added to this is that the later christian slavery represented a distinct retrogression, deliberately revived from motives of sheer cupidity, and accompanied by more revolting features than the slavery of ancient times." (_chapman cohen._) in the "history of ethics within organized christianity" is recorded, "the church, as such, never contemplated doing away with slavery as such, even though stoicism had denounced it as 'contra mundum.' nowhere does the early church condemn slavery as an institution. kindness to the slave is frequently recommended, but this was done quite as forcibly, and upon a much broader ground by the pagan writers. it would be indeed nearer the truth to say that the christians who wrote in favor of the mitigation of the lot of the slave were far more indebted to pagans than to christian influence." the church itself owned many slaves, advised its adherents to will their slaves to her, and was the last to liberate the slaves which she owned. yet, the apologists for the church would have us believe that she was instrumental in the destruction of slavery, when it is a fact that there is nowhere a clear condemnation of slavery on the part of the church. h. c. lea in his "studies of the church history" says, "the church held many slaves, and while their treatment was in general sufficiently humane to cause the number to grow by voluntary accretions, yet it had no scruple to assert vigorously their claim to ownership. when the papal church granted a slave to a monastery, the dread anathema, involving eternal perdition, was pronounced against anyone daring to interfere with the gift; and those who were appointed to take charge of the lands and farms of the church, were especially instructed that it was part of their duty to pursue and recapture fugitive bondsmen." it must not be assumed that the catholic church was the only ecclesiastical body to condone slavery, or that it was only the traffic in black slaves that flourished a few hundred years ago. "in the seventeenth century, thousands of irish men, women and children, were seized by the order or under the license of the english government, and sold as slaves for use in the west indies. in the calendar of state papers, under various dates, between 1653-1656, the following entries occur: 'for a license to sir john clotworthy to transport to america 500 natural irishmen.' a slave dealer, named schlick, is granted a license to take 400 children from ireland for new england, and virginia. later, 100 irish girls and a like number of youths are sold to the planters in jamaica. "had the church been against slavery it would have branded it as a wrong, and have set the example of liberating its own slaves. it did neither. nay, the church not only held slaves itself, not only protected others who held slaves, but it thundered against all who should despoil its property by selling or liberating slaves belonging to the church. the whole history of the christian church shows that it has never felt itself called upon to fight any sound institution, no matter what its character, so long as it favored the church. slavery and serfdom, war, piracy, child labor, have all been in turn sanctioned." (_chapman cohen: "christianity, slavery, and labor."_) in abyssinia, the influence of christianity has been dominant for a longer period of time than anywhere else in the world. the population of abyssinia is at least ten million, and of this population not less than one-fifth, probably more, are slaves. in 1929, lady kathleen simon published her book entitled, "slavery," dealing with the slave trade of the world. in this work it is pointed out that slave-owning is an integral part of the religion of the country, and that opposition to the abolition of slavery comes principally from the priesthood which considers itself the guardian of the mosaic law, and regards slavery as an institution ordered by jehovah. slave raids are constant in this country, and are accompanied by the greatest brutality and cruelty. vast areas are depopulated by these raids and even at this date, gangs of slaves may be seen by travelers, with the dead and dying bodies of those that have fallen strewn along the roadside. "the slave trade in abyssinia is open, its horrors are well known, and it is supported by the christian church of the country. such is slavery in the most christian country in the world today, the country which has the longest christian history of any nation in the world. its existence helps us to realize the value of the statement that the power of christianity in the world destroyed the slave trade. slavery flourishes in the oldest of christian countries in the world, backed up by the church, the old bible, and the new testament. it has all the horrors, all the brutalities, all the degradations of the slave trade at its worst. such is christian abyssinia, and such, but for the saving grace of secular civilization, would be the rest of the world." (_chapman cohen._) the slave system that arose in christian times, created by and continued by christians in the most christian of countries, provides the final and unanswerable indictment of the christian church. slavery was unknown to the africans until it was introduced by the christian portuguese. in 1517 the spaniards began to ship negro slaves to hispaniola, cuba, jamaica, and porto rica. john hawkins was the first englishman of note to engage in the traffic, and queen elizabeth loaned this virtuous and pious gentleman the ship _jesus_. english companies were licensed to engage in this trade and during the reign of william and mary it was thrown open to all. between 1680 and 1700, it has been said that 140,000 negroes were imported by the english-african company, and about 160,000 more by private traders. between 1700 and 1786, as many as 610,000 were transported to jamaica alone. in the hundred years ending 1776, the english carried into the spanish, french, and english colonies three million slaves. the cruelty experienced by these human cargoes on their transportation defies description. the chaining, the branding, the mutilation, the close quarters, the deaths by suffocation and disease, are a sterling example of man's inhumanity to man when his conscience is relieved by finding support of his inhumane actions sanctioned in that most holy of holies, the bible. exclusive of the slaves who died before leaving africa, not more than fifty out of a hundred lived to work on the plantations. ingram's "history of slavery" calculates that although between 1690 and 1820 no less than 800,000 negroes had been imported to jamaica, yet, at the latter date, only 340,000 were on the island. slavery in america received the same sanction by the religionists which it received on the continent. george whitefield, the great methodist preacher, was an earnest supporter of slavery. when the importation of slaves finally ceased the states began the new industry of breeding slaves; the leading state for this breeding, and the one which contained the largest number of stud farms, was virginia. lord macaulay, in a speech delivered before the house of commons on february 26, 1845, said: "the slave states of the union are of two classes, the breeding states, where the human beast of burden increases, and multiplies, and becomes strong for labor; and the sugar and cotton states to which these beasts of burden are sent to be worked to death. bad enough it is that civilized man should sail to an uncivilized quarter of the world where slavery existed, should buy wretched barbarians, and should carry them away to labor in a distant land; bad enough! but that a civilized man, a baptized man, a man proud of being a citizen of a free state, a man frequenting a christian church, should breed slaves for exportation, and if the whole horrible truth must be told, should even beget slaves for exportation, should see children, sometimes his own children, gambolling from infancy, should watch their growth, should become familiar with their faces, and should sell them for $400 or $500 a head, and send them to lead in a remote country a life which is a lingering death, a life about which the best thing that can be said is that it is sure to be short; this does, i own, excite a horror exceeding even the horror excited by that slave trade which is the curse of the african coast. and mark, i am speaking of a trade as regular as the trade in pigs between dublin and liverpool, or as the trade in coals between the tyne and the thames." it has been estimated that the members and ministers of the orthodox churches in the south owned no less than 660,000 slaves. thomas paine, in 1775, when he wrote his article on "justice and humanity," was the first to demand emancipation in a lucid manner. the campaign for liberation of the slaves was therefore inaugurated by a freethinker, and triumphantly closed by another freethinker, abraham lincoln. in this manner did the church abolish slavery. with characteristic disregard for the truth, the religionists have laid claim to lincoln, which claim has been amply refuted; but we are still awaiting the church's claim to paine as one of her devotees. "and, truly, the case against christianity is plain and damning. never, during the whole of its history has it spoken in a clear voice against slavery; always, as we have seen, its chief supporters have been pronounced believers. they have cited religious teaching in its defence, they have used all the power of the church for its maintenance. naturally, in a world in which the vast majority are professing christians, believers are to be found on the side of humanity and justice. but to that the reply is plain. men are human before they are christians; both history and experience point to the constant lesson of the many cases in which the claims of a developing humanity override those of an inculcated religious teaching. "but the damning fact against christianity is, not that it found slavery here when it arrived, and accepted it as a settled institution, not even that it is plainly taught in its 'sacred' books, but, that it deliberately created a new form of slavery, and for hundreds of years invested it with a brutality greater than that which existed centuries before. a religion which could tolerate this slavery, argue for it, and fight for it, cannot by any stretch of reasoning be credited with an influence in forwarding emancipation. christianity no more abolished slavery than it abolished witchcraft, the belief in demonism, or punishment for heresy. it was the growing moral and social sense of mankind that compelled christians and christianity to give up these and other things." (_c. cohen: "christianity, slavery, and labor."_) chapter xvi christianity and labor _the mortgage which the peasant has on heavenly property guarantees the mortgage of the bourgeois on the farms._ marx. _the same christ, the same buddha, the same isaiah, can stand at once for capitalism and communism, for liberty and slavery, for peace and war, for whatever opposed or clashing ideals you will. for the life and the power of a church is in the persistent identity of its symbols and properties. meanings change anyhow, but things endure. the rock upon which a church is founded is not the word of god; the rock upon which a church is founded is the wealth of men._ horace m. kallen, "why religion?" during the middle ages the heads of the church exercised all the rights of a feudal lord, and were even more tenacious of their privileges. the serfs were prohibited from migrating from one part of the country to another. the daughter of a serf could not marry without the consent of the lord, who frequently demanded payment for permission; or, worse still, the infamous "right of the first night." the serf was bonded in a hundred different ways, and it is significant of the esteem in which the church was held that in every peasant revolt which occurred, there was always a direct attack on the church. professor thorold rogers, writing of the twelfth century, gives the following picture of the poorer classes: "the houses of these villagers were mean and dirty. brickmaking was a lost art, stone was found only in a few places. the wood fire was on a hob of clay. chimneys were unknown, except in castles and manor houses, and the smoke escaped through the door or whatever other aperture it could reach. the floor of the homestead was filthy enough, but the surroundings were filthier still. close by the door stood the mixen, a collection of every abomination--streams from which, in rainy weather, fertilized the lower meadows, generally the lord's pasture, and polluted the stream. the house of the peasant cottager was poorer still. most of them were probably built of posts wattled and plastered with clay or mud, with an upper storey of poles reached by a ladder." "what the lord took he held by right of force; what the church had it held by force of cunning. and as, in the long run, the cunning of the church was more powerful than the force of the robber-lord, the priesthood grew in riches until its wealth became a threat to the whole of the community. in england, in the thirteenth century, the clergy numbered one in fifty-two of the population, and the possessions of the church included a third of the land of england. no opportunity was lost by the church to drain money from the people whether they were rich or poor. the trade done in candles, and sales of indulgences brought in large sums of money, and there were continuous disputes between the clergy and the king and the pope as to the divisions of the spoil. the picture of the church watching over the poor, sheltering them from wrong, tending them in sickness, and relieving them in their poverty will not do. it is totally without historic foundation. when the poor revolted, and apart from the great revolts, there were many small and local outbreaks, the anger of the poor was directed as much against the church as it was against the nobles." (_c. cohen: "christianity, slavery, and labor."_) when the downtrodden masses of spain, mexico, and russia revolted against the tyranny which had held them in the slough of medieval degradation, they likewise, in recent times, proved that they realized that their submission was as much caused by the church, allied as it is with the state, as by the government itself. the church did attend the sick, but its trade was in the miracle cures and prayers, and so they very much resembled men hawking their own goods, and attending to their own business. and there is the plain, historic fact, that in defense of its miracle cures it did what it could to obstruct the growth of both medical and sanitary science. it did give alms but these constituted but a small part of what it had previously taken. through all the changes of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, it is impossible to detect anxiety on the part of the churches, roman catholic or protestant, to better the status of, or improve the condition of, the working classes. whatever improvements may have come about, and they were few enough, came independently of christianity, organized or unorganized. controversies about religious matters might, and did, grow more acute; controversies about bettering the position of the working classes only began with the breaking down of christianity. and when, as in germany, there occurred a peasants' revolt, and the peasants appealed to luther for assistance, he wrote, after exhorting the peasants to resignation, to the nobles: "a rebel is outlawed of god and kaiser, therefore who can and will first slaughter such a man does right well, since upon such a common rebel every man is alike the judge and executioner. therefore, who can shall openly or secretly smite, slaughter and stab, and hold that there is nothing more poisonous, more harmful, more devilish than a rebellious man." and in pre-revolutionary france, the church saw unmoved a state of affairs almost unimaginable, so far as the masses of the people were concerned, in their misery and demoralization. and this at a time when half the land of france, in addition to palaces, chateaux, and other forms of wealth were possessed by the nobility and clergy, and were practically free from taxation. a contemporary observer writes, "certain savage-looking beings, male and female, are seen in the country, black, livid, and sunburnt, and belonging to the soil which they dig and grub with invincible stubbornness. they stand erect, they display human lineaments, and seem capable of articulation. they are, in fact, men. they retire at night into their dens, where they live on black bread, water and roots. they spare other human beings the trouble of sowing." in pre-revolutionary france, the clergy, counting monks and nuns, numbered, in 1762, over 400,000, with total possessions estimated at two thousand million pounds, producing an annual revenue of about one hundred and forty millions. the clergy were free from taxation and the higher members of the order possessed all the rights and privileges of the feudal nobility. to the end the church in france, as in our day, in pre-revolutionary russia, remained the champion of privilege and misgovernment. in england, during the latter half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, developed the english manufacturing system. woman-and child-labor were common in both mines and factories. the regular working hours were from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m., with six full days' labor per week. one investigator remarks: "it is a very common practice with the great populous parishes in london to bind children in large numbers to the proprietors of cotton-mills in lancashire and yorkshire, at a distance of 200 miles. the children are sent off by waggon loads at a time, and are as much lost for ever to their parents as if they were shipped off for the west indies. the parishes that bind them, by procuring a settlement for the children at the end of forty days, get rid of them for ever; and the poor children have not a human being in the world to whom they can look up for redress against the wrongs they may be exposed to from these wholesale dealers in them, whose object it is to get everything they can possibly wring from their excessive labor and fatigue." in the mines conditions were still worse, and a report in 1842 states: "children are taken at the earliest ages, if only to be used as living and waving candlesticks, or to keep rats from a dinner, and it is in pits of the worst character, too, in which most female children are employed. it would appear from the practical returns obtained by the commissioner, that about one-third of the persons employed in coal mines are under eighteen years of age, and that much more than one-third of this proportion are under thirteen years of age." in certain mines there was no distinction of sex so far as underground labor was concerned. the men worked entirely naked and were assisted by females of all ages, from girls of six years to women of twenty-one, who were quite naked down to the waist. but if oppression was rife, education at a low ebb, and misery prevalent, the religion of the people was receiving attention. the period was, in fact, one of revival in religion. the wesleyan revival was in full swing, and evangelical christianity was making great advances. between 1799 and 1804 there were founded, "the british and foreign bible society," "the london missionary society," and "the mission to the jews." when the education bill of 1819 came before the house of lords, out of eighteen bishops who voted on the measure, fifteen voted against it! thus the religionists were most active during the period when a condition approximating white slavery existed. and why should this not have been so, when the church is not interested in the social and economic status of its adherents during their existence on this planet, but is avowedly concerned with deluding its devotees into a mythical belief in a life hereafter? the greatest number of slaves and the greatest degradation of workers is to be found in those times and places where religious superstition is most powerful. in our own country, as well as in england, the labor movement has developed not merely outside the range of organized christianity, but in the teeth of the bitterest opposition to it. christianity, since it came into power, has always preached to the poor in defense of the privileges and possessions of the rich. in a recent publication by jerome davis, which is entitled "labor speaks for itself on religion," the author has compiled the opinions of labor leaders in the united states, canada, great britain, russia, germany, czechoslovakia, mexico, china, austria, australia, belgium, and japan. it is a terrific indictment by labor against organized religion. the author tells us, "here is labor speaking for itself, and in the by and large it feels that the church has not understood or helped it to secure justice. the majority believe that the church has a capitalistic bias. it is a class institution for the upper and middle classes." this is putting the matter rather mildly when one considers their grievances expressed in their own words. again jerome davis asks, "is it possible that our church leaders are to some extent blinded by current conventional standards? are they so busy sharing the wealth of the prosperous with others in spiritual quests that they fail to see some areas of desperate social need? do they to some degree unconsciously exchange the gift of prophecy for yearly budgets and business boards?" james h. maurer, the president of the pennsylvania federation of labor, speaks for labor and the title of his subject is, "has the church betrayed labor?" mr. maurer's opinion follows: "a worker living from hand to mouth, and lucky if he is not hopelessly in debt besides, working at trip-hammer speed when he has work, with no security against enforced idleness, sickness, and old age, can hardly be expected to become deeply interested in, or a very enthusiastic listener to sermons about lot's disobedient wife, who because she looked back was turned into a pillar of salt. he is far more concerned about his own overworked and perhaps underfed wife who, due to the strain of trying to raise his family on a meager income that permits of no rest or proper medical care, is slowly but surely turning into a corpse. to go to a church and listen to a sermon about the sublimeness of being humble and meek, that no matter how desperate the struggle to live may be one should be contented and not envy the more fortunate, because god in his infinite wisdom has ordained that there shall be rich and poor and that no matter how heavy one's burdens on this earth, one should bear them meekly and look for reward in the world to come and remember that god loves the poor--such sermons naturally sound pleasing to the ears of the wealthy listeners, and the usual reward is a shower of gold and hearty congratulations by the sleek and well-fed members of the congregation. but to an intelligent worker such sermons sound like capitalistic propaganda, upon which he is constantly being fed by every labor-exploiting concern in the country, and quite naturally he tries to avoid getting an extra dose of the same kind of buncombe on sunday.... "in churches, men have listened for nearly two thousand years to lessons and sermons about 'the brotherhood of man,' 'the forging of swords of war into plowshares of peace,' 'man is his brother's helper,' 'peace on earth, good will toward men,' 'thou shalt not kill,' we are taught to say the lord's prayer, and ask for heaven on earth, and yet, at every war opportunity, with a very few noble exceptions, the church, at the command of the war lords, has scrapped its peace sentiments and turned its back to the prince of peace and heaven on earth and has shouted itself hoarse for hell on earth. and then the spokesmen of the churches of each nation at war have had the impudence to pray to a just god and ask him to play favorites, to use his infinite power on their side and join in the mad slaughter of his own beloved children. and those slaughtered are the workers, and their folks at home naturally wonder why the one big international peace organization on earth, the church, at the crack of the war demon's whip, deserts its principles of 'thou shalt not kill,' and 'peace on earth,' and helps to stampede its followers in the very opposite direction." mr. maurer points out that labor's struggle to have a federal child labor amendment to the constitution ratified by the various state legislatures, and to have such legislation enacted as the workmen's compensation laws, mothers' pensions, and old age pensions, received no support from the clergy. he concludes by citing this occurrence: "for a good illustration of what the church is sometimes guilty of let us take a glimpse at what happened in detroit, during the month of october, 1926, when the american federation of labor was holding its annual convention there. nearly every church in detroit sent invitations to prominent labor officials to speak in their churches before bible classes, sunday schools, and young men's christian associations. most of the invitations were accepted by the labor officials, including president green of the a. f. of l. as soon as the big employers learned about the program they not only frowned upon the idea of allowing their sacred temples to be contaminated with representatives of the working class, but put both feet down as hard as they could on the proposition. did the clergymen stand firm when men with dollars talked? to their everlasting shame they did not. ninety-five percent of them bowed to the will of mammon and the representatives of labor were barred from the sacred temples erected in the name of god and the lowly nazarene, proving conclusively to the minds of the average citizen who controls the churches and whom they serve. small wonder that many workers have a poor opinion of the church, and that so many pews are empty." j. b. s. hardman, the editor of _the advance_, the official journal of the amalgamated clothing workers, gives us his opinion regarding the religion of labor. "it lulls the social underdog with a sham consolation for the oppression and exploitation which are his lot, and furnishes the exploiter and oppressor with graceful distraction and absolution from his daily practice and meanness. this is the actual basis of church activity to-day. the religion of labor is godless, for it seeks to restore the divinity of man." james p. thompson, the national organizer of the industrial workers of the world, heads his article for jerome davis, "religion is the negation of the truth," and in his militant manner proclaims "this organization designed to praise god and help him run the universe is known as the church. the established church has always been on the side of the rich and powerful. its robed representatives, pretending to be godlike and favorites of god, having special influence with him, have ever functioned as the moral police agents of the ruling classes. at one time or another, they have asked god to bless nearly everything, from the slave driver's lash to murderous wars. thus they strive to extend the blessings of god to the infamies of men. "to-day, under capitalism, they teach the working class the doctrine of humility: tell them that if they get a slap on one cheek to turn the other, and, 'blessed are the poor.' they tell us to bear the cross and wear the crown, that we will get back in the next world what is stolen from us in this. in other words, they try to chloroform us with stories of heaven while the robbers plunder the world. for this support the ruling classes donate liberally to the church. the organized robbers and organized beggars support each other." james p. noonan, vice-president of the american federation of labor, asks a pertinent question, "labor observes an increasing tendency on the part of the church to regulate what man may eat, drink, or smoke, where and how he shall spend his sundays, the character and kind of amusements he may participate in, and various other activities, many of which seem more or less trivial; all of which leads the average worker to ponder rather seriously just why it is that the church can vigorously advocate and promote legislation seeking to curtail his liberty to enjoy, in his own way, the limited number of leisure hours at his disposal, and yet turn a deaf ear to the cry of tortured men, women, and children for relief from the curse of low wages, long hours, and scores of other industrial conditions and abuses which inevitably pave the way for numberless cases of moral turpitude." james s. woodsworth, a former minister, speaking for the canadian labor party, exclaims: "the church--a class institution--what does the church do to help me and those like me? the church supported by the wealthy, yes, 'he who pays the piper calls the tune.' the well-groomed parson, with his soft tones prophesying smooth things, well, i'm glad i'm not in his shoes!" james simpson, secretary of the canadian labor party, makes this statement: "i found that the conditions which called for radical change if the social and economic security of the people was going to be established did not concern the church. as an institution it was concerned in establishing an outlook upon life that would induce men to do the right, but, if the right was not done, there was very little distinction drawn between the wrong-doer and the right-doer. this lack of distinction did not apply so much to what were re-regarded as moral indiscretions as it did to the larger failures to recognize man's relationship to man in the industrial and commercial activities of life. labor thinks the church is insincere. it is an exceptional case for a minister to take a stand on the side of the workers, even when the issue between the employers and employees is a clear case of the former trying to enforce conditions upon the latter which are unfair and inhuman." a. fenner brockway, the political secretary of the independent labor party in england, writes in this manner: "the hymns of the church are obsolete; the sermons are very rarely worth listening to; the forms of worship are unrelated to life; and such inspiration as comes from the devotion and beauty of some church services and buildings can be found ever more intimately and fully in the silences and beauty of nature." george lansbury is another englishman speaking for british labor, and he tells us that, "ordinary working people in britain think very little about churches, or about religion. years ago i was asked, 'why don't people accept religion? why don't the masses go to church?' i said then, as i say now, 'they, the masses, believe we christians do not believe what we say we believe." lenin, trotzky, lunacharsky, and yaroslavsky, are the speakers for russian labor in soviet russia. their attitude toward church and religion is well known.... arthur crispien, president of the german social democratic party, gives us his opinion. "men should not look upon this earth as a vale of tears and fly from rude realities to a world of phantasms; they should embrace the beauties of the world, and realize and fulfill their social rights and duties. our work lies in this world. as to the other, each is at liberty to decide according to his needs." karl mennicke, another former minister, points out the attitude of german labor. "for modern labor the feeling that human life is first of all a matter of eternal life, and only secondarily a matter of this world, has been entirely lost. the high-strung eschatologic mood, or expectation of jesus, has no sounding board in the masses of the proletariat of to-day. the christian epoch in history is obviously on its way to extinction. the eschatological mood of christianity has been a handicap, and still is, for the christian community has difficulty finding an organic relationship to the creative problems of social life." emanuel radl speaks of labor and the church in czechoslovakia. "in general the churches play a far lesser part in our public life than in the united states. people are accustomed to speak of the churches as exploded institutions that are factors only among the uneducated classes. the churches are not measuring up in understanding and helping the poor." robert haberman, representing the mexican labor party, gives a clear-cut summation of the tyranny that the clergy of that country yoked upon the masses and the retardation that it has produced. it furnishes striking and conclusive evidence of the harm that is done when the church and state are still integrally intertwined. there is no better example of the efforts of a reactionary clergy to keep the masses in poverty and ignorance than is this study of the church in modern mexico. mr. haberman gives an account of the church activities in old mexico and coming to the present, "by the year 1854, the church had gained possession of about two-thirds of all the lands of mexico, almost every bank, and every large business. the rest of the country was mortgaged to the church. then came the revolution of 1854, led by benito juarez. it culminated in the constitution of 1857, which secularized the schools and confiscated church property. all the churches were nationalized, many of them were turned into schools, hospitals, and orphan asylums. civil marriages were made obligatory. pope pius ix immediately issued a mandate against the constitution and called upon all catholics of mexico to disobey it. ever since then, the clergy has been fighting to regain its lost temporal power and wealth. it has been responsible for civil wars and for foreign intervention." under the rule of diaz, the constitution was disregarded and the church was permitted to regain most of its lost privileges. "the church bells rang out at sunrise to call the peons out, with nothing more to eat than some tortillas and chili, to work all day long in the burning fields, until sunset when the church bells rang again to send them home to their mud huts. during their work they were beaten. on sundays they were lashed and sent bleeding to mass. after church they had to do faenas (free work) for the church, in the name of some saint or other--either to build a new church or do some special work for the priests. it is no wonder then, that after the revolution against diaz, in many places, as soon as the peons were told they were free, their first act was to climb up the church steeples and smash the bells. after that, they rushed inside the churches and destroyed the statues and paintings of the saints. during the whole period of havoc and exploitation, _not once_ was the voice of the church heard in behalf of the downtrodden. illiteracy amounted to eighty-six percent. but the church helped the further enslavement of the workers. there was not a church ceremony, birth, marriage, or death, that did not cost money. the worker had to borrow for each; and the more he borrowed, the more closely he riveted upon himself the chains of peonage.... the present conflict started in february, 1926, when archbishop jose mora del rio, head of the church in mexico, issued a statement in the press declaring war against the constitution." gideon chen, speaking for chinese labor asserts: "the christian church in china, brought up in a western greenhouse, with all its achievements and shortcomings, does not speak a language intelligible to the labor world." karl kautsky, the austrian representative of labor, takes the attitude that, "the less labor as a whole has to do with church questions and the less it is interested in the churches, the more successful will be its strife for emancipation." otto bauer, another representative of austrian labor, makes the assertion: "capitalism forces the worker into the class struggle. in this class struggle he comes across the clergy and finds it the champion of his class adversary. the worker transfers his hate from the clergyman to religion itself, in whose name this clergyman is defending the social order of the middle classes. in austria the bourgeois parties take advantage of the belief of hundreds of thousands of proletarians in a lord in heaven to keep them in subjection to their earthly masters." ernest h. barker, the general secretary of the australian labor party, holds forth in an article entitled, "the church is weighed and found wanting." he is quite emphatic in his statements. "the attitude of the labor movement in australia to the church is one of supreme indifference. there is little or no point of contact between the two and apparently neither considers the other in its activities and plan of campaign.... the church preaches the brotherhood of man. what brotherhood can exist between the wealthy receiver of interest, profit, and rent and the struggling worker who sees his wife dragged down by poverty and overwork, and his children stunted and dwarfed physically and intellectually--between the underworked and overfed commercial or industrial magnate and the underfed, overworked denizen of the slums? ... the church is put on trial in the minds of men. they ask, 'what did the church do when we sought a living wage, shorter hours of work, safer working conditions, abolition of sunday work, abolition of child labor?' the answer is an almost entirely negative one. the few instances when church officials have helped are so conspicuous as to emphasize the general aloofness.... in how many of the advanced ideas of our time has the church taken the lead? is it not renowned for being a long way in the rear rather than in the vanguard of progressive thought and action? it resents any challenge to its ideas, doctrines, or authority." emile vandervelde, the leader of the belgian labor party, discusses the personal religious convictions of the labor leaders in france and belgium. "today as yesterday the immense majority are atheists, old-fashioned materialists, or at least agnostics, to whom it would never occur to profess any creed, no matter how liberal it might be." toyohiko kogawa, the secretary of the japan labor federation, says: "labor considers the church too other-worldly. it thinks it has no concern with the interests of labor; and that the church has lost her aim in this world and is looking up only into heaven. and labor forgets where to go, loses its sense of direction. so labor stops thinking about religion, and religion stops thinking about industry. the church has no principle of economics, and labor has no religious aspiration." the opinions of these men who are daily in contact with the problem of social justice the world over surely furnish a tremendous amount of information regarding both the unconcern of religion upon the furtherance of social justice and its actual negative and harmful influence. the devout sherwood eddy, a sincere and noble exponent of social justice, is forced to exclaim; "but i saw that there would be much more opposition from professing christians if i preached a gospel of social justice, than ever there had been from so called 'heathen' nations in calling them to turn from their idols. indeed, mammon is a much more potent idol, it is more cruel, smeared with more human blood, than kali of siva. they sacrifice goats to kali and we shudder; we sacrifice men to mammon and justify our 'rights.' in simple fact, though they are not worthy of mention, i have met with more opposition and misrepresentation, ten times over, in 'christian' america, than i ever met in fifteen years in india, or in repeated visits to china, turkey, or russia." (_sherwood eddy: "religion and social justice."_) religious philosophy is slave philosophy; it teaches of a god who is personally interested in the individual and who will reward present misery with future bliss. the demoralizing effect of this infamous fraud is apparent everywhere. if a worker is constantly assailed with this nonsense from the pulpit, the result is the production in him of a mental as well as a physical slavery; it aggravates his mental inertia, and the force of repetition achieving its effects, he soon resigns himself to his present miserable state drugged with the delusion of a better life in the hereafter. he believes that his destiny is predetermined by god and that he will be rewarded in heaven for his sufferings on earth. what a marvelous opiate the ecclesiastics have been injecting into the minds of the masses! it is not to be wondered at, therefore, that capital has aided throughout the ages and has stood by religion. the irony of the situation lies in the fact that the slave will fight so valiantly for his tyrannical master, that the unscrupulous few who derive all the benefits, can, like a malignant parasite, suck the life-blood of its victims while their still living prey submits without a struggle! the worker, inebriated with his religious delusion, calmly allows his very substance to be the means through which his parasitic employer grows fat. "that was the net result of christianity, and of the activity of the christian church in spreading abroad a spirit of kindliness, humanity and brotherhood! the coquetry of christianity with labor within the last generation or two is only what one would expect. but it is clear that the one constant function of christianity has been to encourage loyalty to existing institutions, no matter what their character so long as they were not unfriendly to the church. slavery and the oppression of labor continued while christianity was at its strongest and wealthiest; its own wealth derived from the oppression it encouraged. slavery died out when social and economic conditions rendered its continuance more and more difficult. and the conditions of labor improved when men ceased to talk of a 'providential order,' of 'god's decree,' and dismissed the evangelical narcotic served out by the church, and began to realize that social conditions were the products of understandable and modifiable natural forces." (_c. cohen: "christianity, slavery and labor."_) chapter xvii religion and woman _she was the first in the transgression therefore keep her in subjection._ * * * * * _fierce is the dragon and cunning the asp; but woman has the malice of both._ st. gregory of nazianzum. _thou art the devil's gate, the betrayer of the tree, the first deserter of the divine law._ tertullian. _what does it matter whether it be in the person of mother or sister; we have to beware eve in every woman._ _how much better two men could live and converse together than a man and a woman._ st. augustine. _no gown worse becomes a woman than the desire to be wise._ luther. _the bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation._ elizabeth cady stanton. it is noticed in most calculations of churchgoers that women have remained attached to the churches in a far higher proportion than men. the proportion of women in the churches is vastly greater than their proportion in the general population. most of the men who still passively attend their churches do so under the pressure of professional interest or social or domestic influence. the degree of religiosity has always been associated with the free play of the emotions and woman being more imaginative and emotional than man, it seems clear that this strong emotional factor in woman accounts, at least partly, for the greater proportion of women as churchgoers. and this, be it noted, lies not in any inherent inferiority in the mental make-up of woman, but rather in the environmental influences that until very recently shaped woman's education in such a manner that it was little adapted to strengthening her reason, but rather calculated to enhance her emotionalism. ecclesiastic historians have a notorious habit of viewing pre-christian times for the single biased purpose of only stating the aspects of that civilization which they deemed inferior to that exerted by christianity. researches have established fairly well the position of women in the egyptian community of 4000 years ago. it is no exaggeration to state that she was free and more honored in egypt 4000 years ago, than she was in any country of the earth until only recently. scholars assure us that, at a period which the bible claims the earth was just coming into being, the egyptian matron was mistress of her home, she inherited equally with her brothers, and had full control of her property. she could go where she liked and speak to whom she pleased. she could bring actions in the courts and even plead in the courts. the traditional advice to the husband was, "make glad her heart during the time that thou hast." contrast this position of woman in the community and society in general with the statement given in mrs. e. cady stanton's "history of woman's suffrage," in which she speaks of the status of the female of the species in boston about the year 1850. "women could not hold any property, either earned or inherited. if unmarried, she was obliged to place it in the hands of a trustee, to whose will she was subject. if she contemplated marriage, and desired to call her property her own, she was forced by law to make a contract with her intended husband by which she gave up all title or claim to it. a woman, either married or unmarried, could hold no office or trust or power. she was not a person. she was not recognized as a citizen. she was not a factor in the human family. she was not a unit, but a zero in the sum of civilization.... the status of a married woman was little better than that of a domestic servant. by the english common law her husband was her lord and master. he had the sole custody of her person and of her minor children. he could punish her 'with a stick no bigger than his thumb' and she could not complain against him.... the common law of the state [massachusetts] held man and wife to be one person, but that person was the husband. he could by will deprive her of every part of his property, and also of what had been her own before marriage. he was the owner of all her real estate and earnings. the wife could make no contract and no will, nor, without her husband's consent, dispose of the legal interest of her real estate.... she did not own a rag of her clothing. she had no personal rights and could hardly call her soul her own. her husband could steal her children, rob her of her clothing, neglect to support the family: she had no legal redress. if a wife earned money by her own labor, the husband could claim the pay as his share of the proceeds." with such a contrast in mind, it is indeed difficult to see where the truth of the assertion lies when it is stated that the status of woman was indeed pitiful until christianity exerted its influence for her betterment. and it is again curious to note that after a period of nearly 2000 years of christian influence it was left for a sceptic such as mrs. stanton and her sceptical co-workers to bring about an amelioration of the degrading position of woman in christian society. the degrading picture of womankind as depicted in the old testament is well known to anyone who has glanced through this storehouse of mythology. it would be well for the multitude of devout female adherents of all creeds to take the time, just a little of the time they give to the plight of the poor, benighted heathen and read some of the passages in the old testament dealing with their lot. the entire history of woman under the administration of these "heaven-made" laws is a record of her serviture and humility. in the 24th chapter of deuteronomy we find the right of divorce given to the husband. "let him write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand and send her out of his house." the discarded wife must acquiesce to "divine justice." but if the wife is displeased, is there any justice? under no clause of the divorce law could the wife have a divorce on her part. none but the husband could put her asunder from him. in the 22d chapter of deuteronomy is enacted the law for "test of virginity," which states that, "if any man take a wife, and is disappointed in her, and reports, 'i found her not a maid,' then, her father and mother shall bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate." the gynecological elders then go into a "peeping tom's" conference and "if virginity be not found for the damsel: then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of the city shall stone her with stones that she die." most probably the male partner in her "crime" was the first to cast the largest stone. the law laid down in the 12th chapter of leviticus may have been intended for hygienic purposes but it is cruel and degrading to women because it assumes that the parturient woman who has borne a female child is twice as impure as one who has borne a male child. the "law of jealousies" as described in the 5th chapter of numbers is a good example of the mentality of the writers of this "divine revelation." god in his infinite wisdom had caused to be written for him, that to test whether a woman has laid carnally with another man, the priest shall, "take holy water in an earthen vessel, and of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take and put it in the water ... the bitter water that causeth the curse, and shall cause the woman to drink the water." the divine revelation then continues with, "if she be defiled, her belly shall swell and her thigh shall rot." but after all, god did not know that in the dust of the tabernacle sprawled the germs of dysentery, cholera, and tuberculosis, and a few other such mild infections. or did the divine father know that even a self-respecting germ could not inhabit the filthy floor of the tabernacle? consequently, it is not to be wondered at that in the "good old days of the old-fashioned woman," the acme of hospitality was the giving of wife or daughter to a visitor for the night. it was not religion that put an end to this barbarous custom; it was the advance of civilization; not the religious force, but the place rational thinking assumed in the life of people. the following is a description of a religious riot which took place in alexandria during the early days of the church: "among the many victims of these unhappy tumults was hypatia, a maiden not more distinguished for her beauty than for her learning and her virtues. her father was theon, the illustrious mathematician who had early initiated his daughter in the mysteries of philosophy. the classic groves of athens and the schools of alexandria equally applauded her attainments and listened to the pure music of her lips. she respectfully declined the tender attentions of lovers, but, raised to the chair of gamaliel, suffered youth and age, without preference or favor, to sit indiscriminately at her feet. her fame and increasing popularity ultimately excited the jealousy of st. cyril, at that time the bishop of alexandria, and her friendship for his antagonist, orestes, the prefect of the city, entailed on her devoted head the crushing weight of his enmity. in her way through the city, her chariot was surrounded by his creatures, headed by a crafty and savage fanatic named peter the reader, and the young and innocent woman was dragged to the ground, stripped of her garments, paraded naked through the streets, and then torn limb from limb on the steps of the cathedral. the still warm flesh was scraped from her bones with oyster-shells, and the bleeding fragments thrown into a furnace, so that not an atom of the beautiful virgin should escape destruction." the cruelty of man when spurred on by the mania of religious zeal! in more historic times there are numerous instances of the tyranny exercised over women by the feudal system. feudalism, composed as it was of military ideas and ecclesiastical traditions, exercised the well known "rights of seigniory." these "rights" comprised a jurisdiction which is now unprintable, and had even the power to deprive woman of life itself. a history of the licentiousness of the monks and the early popes would fill a great number of volumes; and indeed, many are the volumes which have been devoted to this subject. it will suffice to point out only a few representative incidents. in 1259, alexander iv tried to disrupt the shameful union between concubines and the clergy. henry iii, bishop of liege, was such a fatherly sort of individual that he had sixty-five "natural children!" william, bishop of padreborn, in 1410, although successful in reducing such powerful enemies as the archbishop of cologne, and the count of cloves by fire and sword, was powerless against the dissolute morals of his own monks, who were chiefly engaged in the corruption of women. indeed, the swiss clergy in 1230, frankly stated that they "were flesh and blood, unequal to the task of living like angels." the council of cologne, in 1307, tried in vain to give the nuns a chance to live virtuous lives; to protect them from priestly seduction. conrad, bishop of wurzburg, in 1521, accused his priests of habitual "gluttony, drunkenness, gambling, quarrelling, and lust." erasmus warned his clergy against concubinage. the abbot of st. pilazo de antealtarin was proved by competent witnesses to have no less than seventy concubines. the old and wealthy abbey of st. albans was little more than a den of prostitutes, with whom the monks lived openly and avowedly. the duke of nuremburg, in 1522, was concerned with the clerical immunity of monks who night and day preyed upon the virtue of the wives and daughters of the laity. the church openly carried on a sale of indulgences in lust to ecclesiastics which finally took the form of a tax. the bishop of utrecht in 1347 issued an order prohibiting the admittance of men to nunneries. in spain, conditions became so intolerable that the communities forced their priests to select concubines so that the wives and daughters would be safe from the ravages of the clergy. "the torture, the maiming, and the murder of elgira by dunstan illustrates further, amongst thousands and thousands of similar bloody deeds, the diabolical brutality of superstition perpetuated in the name of christianity upon women in the earlier centuries of our epoch. indeed, religious superstition always has contrived to rob, to pester, to deceive, and to degrade women." (_bell: "women from bondage to freedom."_) during the middle ages, the ages in which the church was in complete domination of all forms of endeavor, the status of woman was no better than the general conditions of the time. this age of faith is characterized by "the violence and knavery that covered the whole country, the plagues and famines that decimated towns and villages every few years, the flood of spurious and indecent relics, the degradation of the clergy and monks, the slavery of the serfs, the daily brutalities of the ordeal and the torture, the course and bloody pastimes, the insecurity of life, the triumphant ravages of disease, the check of scientific inquiry and a hundred other features of medieval life." (_joseph mccabe: "religion of woman."_) the church was chiefly responsible for the terrible persecutions inflicted on women on the ground of witchcraft and this must be taken into calculation when one considers what woman owes to religion. the reformation reduced woman to the position of a mere breeder of children. during the sway of puritanism woman was a poor, benighted being, a human toad under the harrow of a pious imbecility. the pioneers in the modern woman movement in this country were, of course, mrs. stanton, mrs. gage, and miss susan b. anthony. in their "history of woman suffrage" they comment on the vicious opposition which the early workers encountered in new york. "throughout this protracted and disgraceful assault on american womanhood the clergy baptised every new insult and act of injustice in the name of the christian religion, and uniformly asked god's blessing on proceedings that would have put to shame an assembly of hottentots." and while the clergy either remained silent or heaped abuse on this early movement, such freethinkers as robert owen, jeremy bentham, george jacob holyoake, and john stuart mill in england entered the fray wholeheartedly in behalf of the emancipation of woman. in france it was michelet and george sand that came to their aid. in germany it was max sterner, büchner, marx, engels, and liebknecht. in scandinavia it was ibsen and björnson. the battle was begun by freethinkers in defiance of the clergy and it was only when the inevitable conquest of this movement was manifest that any considerable number of clergy came to the aid of this progressive movement. the righting of the wrongs imposed on womankind therefore had been started not only without the aid of the churches but in face of their determined opposition. it was not the clergy that discovered the injustice that had been done to women throughout the centuries, and when it was finally pointed out to them by sceptics, it was the rare ecclesiastic that could see it so and attempt to right the wrong. r. h. bell, in tracing this struggle of woman in her publication, "woman from bondage to freedom," has this pertinent remark to make. "if there are any personal rights in this world over which church and state should have no control, it is the sexual right of a woman to say, 'yes' or 'no.' these and similar rights are so deeply imbedded in natural morality that no clear-headed, clean-hearted person would wish to controvert them.... enforced motherhood, through marriage or otherwise, is a mixed form of slavery, voluntary motherhood is the glory of a free soul." in the age-long struggle for freedom, woman's most rigorous antagonist has always been the church. chapter xviii the philosophers and the great illusion _but the powers of man, so far as experience and analogy can guide us, are unlimited; nor are we possessed of any evidence which authorizes us to assign even an imaginary boundary at which the human intellect will, of necessity, be brought to a stand._ buckle. there has been an effort made in certain religious publications to imply that there is a dearth of thought and thinkers beyond the pale of theism. the subsequent examination of the theological beliefs of great minds will show that there has never been a lack of brilliant thinkers who have not sought truth apart from the dominant faith of their age. it was socrates, i believe, who first asked if it was not a base superstition that mere numbers will give wisdom. granting this truth, it certainly cannot be claimed that the philosophers of any time constituted a majority of any population, nor that the philosopher, as such, was not greatly in advance of the mental status of the populace of his particular age. it would seem appropriate to briefly comment on the opinions of the philosophers, both ancient and modern, concerning their views on "man's giant shadow, hailed divine." in former ages, philosophy was the handmaiden of theology. from the time of socrates and plato, and throughout the medieval ages, the foremost task of the philosopher seemed to be to attempt the proof of the existence and nature of god, and the immortality of the soul. the leading thinkers of the seventeenth century, hobbes, descartes, spinoza, leibnitz, and malebranche, liberated philosophy from its bondage to theology. the criticism of kant of the philosophical foundations of belief destroyed the "theological proofs," and modern thinkers now spend little time on the question of the existence and nature of god and the soul. modern philosophy has been completely secularized, and it is a rare occasion to find a philosopher dwelling on the problems of god and immortality. this question in philosophy, as in all other branches of thought, is utterly irrelevant and at present there is less insistence on god and more on the world, man, morals, and the conditions of social life. it cannot be denied that we are under a heavy obligation intellectually to the greek philosophers. and it may be that the fruitful efforts of those minds were largely due to their unhampered intellectual freedom. they had no "holy books" and few authorities to check their free speculation and hence these greek thinkers furnish the first instance of intellectual freedom, from which arose their intelligent criticism and speculation. "they discovered skepticism in the higher and proper significance of the word, and this was their supreme contribution to human thought." (_james harvey robinson: "the mind in the making."_) we know the teachings of socrates only through his disciple plato, as socrates wrote nothing himself. from this source we gather that socrates firmly upheld the right and necessity of free thought. he was mainly a moralist and reformer, and attempted to prove the existence of god by finding evidence of design in nature. he rejected the crude religious ideas of his nation, was opposed to anthropomorphism, but considered it his duty to conform publicly to this belief. in his old age, he was charged with rejecting the gods of the state, and was sentenced to death. the philosophy of plato has given rise to diverse interpretations and there are those who, on reading the dialogues, believe that it is not amiss to state that in certain utterances there is ground to hold that plato argued for the pragmatic value of a belief in god and personal immortality; that he does not stress the truth of the matter, but argues mainly for the benefit which the state derives from the belief; that such theistic beliefs cannot be demonstrated, and may well be but a craving and a hope, yet it will be of no harm to believe. he inferred the existence of god from what he considered the intelligence and design manifested in natural objects. mainly, however, plato's theism was founded upon his doctrine of a universe of ideas, and as no one today holds that ideas are self-existing realities, the foundation of his theism is destroyed. james harvey robinson, in his "mind in the making," discusses the influence of plato, and remarks, "plato made terms with the welter of things, but sought relief in the conception of supernal models, eternal in the heavens, after which all things were imperfectly fashioned. he confessed that he could not bear to accept a world which was like a leaky pot or a man running at the nose. in short, he ascribed the highest form of existence to ideals and abstractions. this was a new and sophisticated republication of savage animism. it invited lesser minds than his to indulge in all sorts of noble vagueness and impertinent jargon which continue to curse our popular discussions of human affairs. he consecrated one of the chief foibles of the human mind, and elevated it to a religion." the philosophy of aristotle is commonly known to be the reverse of plato's. plato started with universals, the very existence of which was a matter of faith, and from these he descended to particulars. aristotle, on the other hand, argued from particulars to universals, and this inductive method was the true beginning of science. the accumulated knowledge of his age did not furnish him facts enough upon which to build and he had to resort to speculation. it does not detract from the stupendous achievement of this man that the clergy of the middle ages, in control of the few isolated centers of learning, looked upon the philosophy of aristotle as final and considered his works as semi-sacred, and in their immersion in un-reason and unreality, exalted as immutable and infallible the absurdities in the speculations of a mind limited to the knowledge of centuries before theirs. in the attempt to explain plant and animal life, aristotle formulated the theory that a special form of animating principle was involved. the "élan vital" of bergson and the theory of joad are modern reiterations of this conception. aristotle is not quite consistent when he attempts to give us his theistic beliefs. at times god is, for him, a mysterious spirit that never does anything and has not any desire or will. elsewhere, he conceives god as pure energy; a prime mover unmoved. certain modern physicists still cling to this aristotelian god. this conception of a deity was far from the beliefs of his age, and it is not strange that aristotle was charged with impiety and with having taught that prayer and sacrifice were of no avail. he fled from athens and shortly afterwards died in exile. these three supreme greek thinkers, socrates, plato, and aristotle, have not contributed a single argument for the existence of a supreme being which is now not discredited. socrates relied on the now outmoded argument from design; and only in a greatly modified form are the arguments of plato and aristotle accepted by modern theists. holding such heretical views in an age when history was a frail fabric of legends, and the scientific explanation of nature in its extreme infancy, what would their views be today? in the consideration of the greek thinkers of lesser importance one finds that they were continually storming against the religious conceptions of the populace. the philosophers were ever unpopular with the credulous. "damon and anaxagoras were banished; aspasia was impeached for blasphemy and the tears of pericles alone saved her; socrates was put to death; plato was obliged to reserve pure reason for a chosen few, and to adulterate it with revelation for the generality of his disciples; aristotle fled from athens for his life, and became the tutor of alexander." (_winwood reade: "the martyrdom of man."_) anaxagoras, the friend and master of pericles, euripides, and socrates, was accused by the superstitious athenians of atheism and impiety to the gods. he was condemned to death and barely escaped this fate through the influence of pericles; which resulted in the accusation of atheism against pericles. euripides was accused of heresy, and aeschylus was condemned to be stoned to death for blasphemy and was saved from this fate by his brother aminias. the philosophy of parmenides was distinctly pantheistic, and pythagoras, who attempted to purify the religion of the greeks and free it from its absurdities and superstitions, was exiled for his scepticism. democritus, a materialist and atheist of 2500 years ago, formulated a mechanical view of phenomena in accordance with which everything that happens is due to physical impacts. "such a materialism was a great liberation from superstition; and had it survived in its integrity, the path of european wisdom would have been vastly different from what it was. what the path would have been, we are beginning to see to-day, for since the nineteenth century we have been treading it more or less consistently but by no means so gallantly and courageously as democritus." (_g. boas: "the adventures of human thought."_) democritus and the epicureans strove to deliver men from their two chief apprehensions: the fear of the gods, and the fear of death; and in so doing rejected the religious beliefs and substituted a rational and scientific conception of the universe. it was xenophanes, the voltaire of greece, who brought to the attention of his countrymen the discovery that man created the gods in his own image. he attacked the conceptions of the greek deities with these words, "mortals deem that the gods are begotten as they are, and have clothes like theirs, and voice and form ... yes, and if oxen and horses or lions had hands, and could paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and make their bodies in the image of their several kinds.... the ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; the thracians say theirs have blue eyes and red hair." considering greek philosophy in its entirety, we see that it was naturalistic rather than supernaturalistic, and rationalistic rather than mystical. these gifted men saw no clear indication for the existence of a supreme being; very few of them speak of the deity in the role of providence and fewer still believed in personal immortality. professor boas, in contrasting asiatic mythology with greek philosophy, remarks: "the asiatic myths assumed the existence of beings beyond the world, not subject to mundane laws, who made and controlled the course of events. there was no reason why they should have made a world. they seemed to be living as divine a life without it as with it. the question was one which persisted in asiatic thought, and when christianity became dominant in europe, much of its theologians' time was spent in answering it. the only plausible answer then was that god made the world because he felt like it. for no reason could be given sufficiently compelling to sway the will of the omnipotent. but such an answer was unsatisfactory to the greek. in his philosophy all this is changed. no god steps out of the machine to initiate cosmic history. the first cause is a physical substance, some material thing, which operates by the laws of its own nature. its every movement is theoretically open to the scrutiny of reason. and hence, a scientific rather than a religious answer can be given to every question." at the beginning of the christian era, the cultured romans were stoics or epicureans. the poet lucretius was an epicurean who regarded the belief in the gods as a product of the terrors of primitive man and recommended that the mind should be emancipated from the fear of the gods and argued against the immortality of the soul. seneca, epictetus, and marcus aurelius were stoics. cicero insinuates that the gods are only poetical creations, that the popular doctrine of punishment in a world to come is only an idle fable, and is uncertain whether the soul is immortal. seneca wrote against the religion of his country, and the philosophy of cultured romans of the time of the physician galen tended towards atheism. the prime factor of greek philosophy was the insistence on intelligence and knowledge, and by these means it reached its pinnacle of reasoning. the blight that exterminated all scientific progress, with the fall of the roman empire, carried with it the neglect of the greek thinkers. similar to the retrogression of scientific thought, traced in former chapters, is the corresponding retrogression in philosophic thought. in place of the free inquiry of the greeks we see arising the theology of clement of alexandria, origen, st. augustine, and finally that of st. thomas aquinas. at the time of st. augustine most of the cultural greek writings had disappeared in western europe. the greatest store of greek thought was in the hands of the arab scholars and led to a marked scepticism, as we see manifested in the writings of the spanish moors. it is significant that during the "age of faith" in europe no philosopher of merit arose, and the only philosophy permitted was the puerile scholastic-aristotelic. this scholastic philosophy, hemmed in between metaphysics and theology, sought to reconcile plato, plotinus, and aristotle with the needs of orthodoxy, and split hairs over subtle essences and entities. francis bacon impeaches, in this manner, the medieval philosophers: "having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors, as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter and infinite agitation of wit spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books." the sole preoccupation of medieval philosophy seemed to be conjectures as to what would happen to man after death, and the entire system of thought was based on authority. the medieval philosopher turned in disdain from the arduous path of investigation of actual phenomena and confidently believed that he could find truth by easy reliance upon revelation and the elaboration of dogmas. a few brave minds rebelled against this unnatural imprisonment of the intellect, with the usual consequences. peter abelard was condemned for his scepticism at a council at sens in 1140; the philosophy of john scotus erigena was condemned for its pantheistic ideas by a council at sens in 1225; and the pantheistic views of bruno had much to do with his martyrdom in the year 1600. montaigne, the pioneer of modern scepticism, gave voice to his repugnance for dogmas in his brilliant essays, in which he stated that all religious opinions are the result of custom; and that he doubted if, out of the immense number of religious opinions, there were any means of ascertaining which were accurate. bacon, hobbes, locke, and descartes were the inaugurators of a school of thought which is characterized by its practical spirit; and while these men professed theistic beliefs, their systems of thought had done much, when applied and amplified by their followers, to undermine that belief. these men furnished the source of a later agnosticism. thomas hobbes agreed with bacon and galileo that all knowledge starts from experience, and, carrying out the inductive method of bacon, he produced his "leviathan" in 1651. it was promptly attacked by the clergy of every country in europe. hobbes says of the immortality of the soul, "it is a belief grounded upon other men's sayings that they knew it supernaturally; or that they knew those who knew them, that knew others that knew it supernaturally." locke concerned himself with a philosophic inquiry into the nature of the mind itself, and was looked upon as a destroyer of the faith. descartes based his philosophy on the rejection of authority in favor of human reason for which his works were honored by being placed on the index in 1663. hume, with the publication of the highly heretical "treatise on human nature," threw consternation into the ranks of the theists. his theory of knowledge played havoc with the old arguments for belief in god and immortality of the soul. his works were widely read and were instrumental in leading to the philosophical agnosticism of the nineteenth century. spinoza's religious views seemed in his time little short of atheism and brought him the hostility of both jews and christians, to which was added the excommunication from the synagogue. in his philosophy god and nature are equivalent terms and it is pantheistic only in the sense that if man is to have a god at all, nature must be that god, and whatever man considers godlike must be found in nature. spinoza recognizes no supernatural realm and denies the survival of personal memory. professor g. boas, in his "adventures of human thought," discusses the attitude of public opinion of the time of spinoza. "he was the arch-atheist, the materialist, the subverter of all that was held most dear by the reigning powers. it was only after the french revolution that he came into his own when certain germans, captivated by neo-platonism, emphasized the pantheistic element in him. but by then christianity had ceased to be a dominant intellectual force and had become what it is today, a folk belief." in the "tractus theologico-politicus," spinoza states: "when people declare, as all are ready to do, that the bible is the word of god teaching men true blessedness and the way of salvation, they evidently do not mean what they say, for the masses take no pains at all to live according to scripture, and we see most people endeavoring to hawk about their own commentaries as the word of god, and giving their best efforts, under the guise of religion, to compelling others to think as they do. we generally see, i say, theologians anxious to learn how to wring their inventions and sayings out of the sacred text, and to fortify them with divine authority." in france, pierre bayle cleverly satirized the absurdity of dogma, and la mettrie, an army physician, was exiled for the publication of his "man a machine." he insisted that if atheism were generally accepted society would be happier. his views were taken up and expanded by such atheists as helvetius, d'holbach, d'alembert, and diderot, who taught that morality should be founded on sociology and not on theology. the publication of their encyclopædia incurred the fierce opposition of the church. of voltaire's anti-clericism little need be said, except to recall our debt to his victory over ecclesiasticism and superstition. his assertion that "a fanaticism composed of superstition and ignorance has been the sickness of all the centuries," still holds too great an extent of truth. his denial of miracles, the supernatural efficacy of prayer, and the immortality of the soul earned for him the undying enmity of the clergy. condorcet, another deist, was the successor of voltaire in the encyclopædic warfare. the "critique of pure reason" of kant demolished the ontological and the cosmological arguments for the existence of god and showed the weakness in the teleological argument. he demonstrated that all the current arguments for god and immortality; the entire basis of rational proof of religious beliefs; were invalid. the theists protested vehemently, and showed their superiority by calling their dogs "immanuel kant." in his "critique of practical reason," however, he went on to restore the credit of religion through the moral sense, the "categorical imperative," and, as certain commentators have stated, after having excluded god from the cosmos, he attempted to find him again in ethics. holding that the moral sense is innate and not derived from experience, he reduced the truth of religion to moral faith. kant believed that he found a divine command in his own conscience; but the science of ethics now gives a natural account of moral laws and sentiments. the study of the evolution of our moral ideas has, today, destroyed kant's theory of an innate and absolute moral sense. when franklin showed the nature of lightning, the voice of god was displaced from that of thunder. the sciences of ethics and psychology, like modern franklins, show plainly that conscience is no more the voice of god than is thunder. schopenhauer, commenting on kantian theology, offers the suggestion that kant was really a sceptic, but became frightened when he contemplated what he thought would happen to public morals if belief were to be denied to the masses. nietzsche speaks of kant: "with the aid of his concept of 'practical reason,' he produced a special kind of reason, for use on occasions when reason cannot function: namely, when the sublime command, 'thou shalt,' resounds." in his old age kant became more bold, and perhaps voiced his true views, for we find that in "religion within the limits of pure reason," he is actively antagonistic to ecclesiasticism, so much so that, for publishing this work, he was censured by the prussian king, who wrote, "our highest person has been greatly displeased to observe how you misuse your philosophy to undermine and destroy many of the most important and fundamental doctrines of the holy scriptures and of christianity." indeed, many a man approaching kant with a firm theistic belief finds his belief somewhat shaken by kantian logic. schopenhauer's "will" has nothing in common with the god-idea as commonly held, and he was bitterly anti-theistic. in a dialogue entitled "religion," he places these words in the mouth of his character philalethes: "a certain amount of general ignorance is the condition of all religions, the element in which alone they can exist. and as soon as astronomy, natural science, geology, history, the knowledge of countries and peoples, have spread their light broadcast, and philosophy finally is permitted to say a word, every faith founded on miracles and revelation must disappear; and philosophy takes its place." hegel's deification of thought or reason left no room for personal immortality, and his query, "do you expect a tip for having nursed your ailing mother, and refrained from poisoning your brother?" is well known. a vague conception of a deity whose existence can be proved, if it can be proved at all, only by the abstruse arguments of a hegel is not a god of practical service to the theists. schelling was pantheistic, and feuerbach played havoc with the philosophic evidence for god and immortality and treated all religions as a dream and an illusion. herbert spencer, james mill, j. s. mill, and huxley popularized the agnostic standpoint. spencer in his "first principles" argues in this manner: "those who cannot conceive of a self-existent universe, and therefore assume a creator as the source of the universe, take for granted that they can conceive a self-existent creator. the mystery which they recognize in this great fact surrounding them on every side, they transfer to an alleged source of this great fact, and then suppose that they have solved the mystery. but they delude themselves. self-existence is inconceivable; and this holds true whatever be the nature of the object of which it is predicated. whoever agrees that the atheistic hypothesis is untenable because it involves the impossible idea of self-existence, must perforce admit that the theistic hypothesis is untenable if it contains the same impossible idea.... if religion and science are to be reconciled, the basis of reconciliation must be this deepest, widest, and most certain of all facts, that the power which the universe manifests to us is inscrutable." nietzsche, the great liberator of modern thought, vigorously opposed religious morality, the influence of christianity, and all religious beliefs. "when the natural consequences of an action," he wrote, "are no longer looked upon as natural, but are considered to be produced by the phantasms of superstition, by 'god,' 'ghosts,' and 'souls,' and appear as 'moral' consequences, as rewards, punishments, guidance and revelation, then the whole basis of knowledge is destroyed; and the greatest possible crime against humanity has been committed." william james, claimed as a supporter of religion, argues that our inner experience makes us cognizant of a spiritual world. the advance of psychological research does not deal kindly with this contention, and such works as leuba's "psychology of religious mysticism" give a rational explanation of the mystic state. moreover, james did not give his support to monotheism. "that vast literature of proofs of god's existence," he stated, "drawn from the order of nature, which a century ago seemed so overwhelmingly convincing, today does little more than gather dust in the libraries, for the simple reason that our generation has ceased to believe in the kind of god it argued for. whatever sort of god may be, we know today that he is nevermore that mere external inventor of 'contrivances' intended to make manifest his 'glory' in which our great-grandfathers took such satisfaction." james claimed to be a pluralist in the sense that there are several or many spiritual beings above us, and his writings lead one to believe that he was not convinced that man, as a distinct personality, survives the grave. royce rejected all the current arguments for god and immortality and argues for the mysticism of internal experience. eucken offers no support to theologians; and bergson does not seem to express a clear belief in a personal god or personal immortality. coming to the more popular of contemporary philosophers one finds that, just as the greek philosophers reasoned outside the pale of the then held beliefs which were theistic, so do these modern philosophers reach conclusions that are outside the pale of organized religion of today. george santayana is a materialist and sceptic who, in his "reason in religion," reveals his scepticism and frowns upon personal immortality. "it is pathetic," he comments, "to observe how lowly are the motives that religion, even the highest, attributes to the deity, and from what a hard-pressed and bitter existence they have been drawn. to be given the best morsel, to be remembered, to be praised, to be obeyed blindly and punctiliously, these have been thought points of honor with the gods, for which they would dispense favors and punishments on the most exhorbitant scale.... the idea that religion contains a literal, not a symbolic, representation of truth and life is simply an impossible idea. whoever entertains it has not come within the region of profitable philosophizing on that subject." bertrand russell, considered by some the keenest philosophical mind of the present age, is an agnostic who maintains "the objections to religion are of two sorts, intellectual and moral. the intellectual objection is that there is no reason to suppose any religion true; the moral objection is that religious precepts date from a time when men were more cruel than they are now, and therefore tend to perpetuate inhumanities which the moral conscience of the age would otherwise outgrow." the italian philosopher benedetto croce is an atheist who states that philosophy removes from religion all reason for existing. c. e. m. joad is a young english philosopher who repeatedly predicts the disappearance in the near future of the present forms of theistic beliefs. m. c. otto holds to "an affirmative faith in the non-existence of god." william p. montague discards all organized religions for a "promethean religion." john dewey is a naturalistic philosopher who will have nothing to do with supernatural causation and insists that all things be explained by their place and function in the environment. his philosophy is permeated with the secular ideal of control of the external world. what consolation does organized religion receive from the views of such modern philosophers as russell, alexander, joad, croce, santayana, dewey, otto, montague, sellars, and the randalls? the views of an intellectual incompetent, such as bryan was, are spread widecast, but few know the extent of the scepticism of edison, luther burbank, albert einstein, paul ehrlich, ernst haeckel, robert koch, fridjof nansen, and swante arrhenius. what consolation can the theists derive from the religious views of shelley, swinburne, meredith, buchanan, keats, george eliot, thomas hardy, mark twain, and anatole france? in the not far distant past deism and pantheism served as a polite subterfuge for atheism. there is a growing tendency in this present age to dress one's atheistic belief in an evening suit, and for the sake of social approbation call such a belief "religious humanism." a quotation from the associated press, appearing recently in one of our magazines, states the need for this "new religion" as being the inadequacy of the religious forms and ideas of our fathers, and the new creed to be: "religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created. "religion must formulate its hopes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method. "the distinction between the sacred and secular can no longer be maintained. "religious humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of a man's life, and seeks its development and fulfilment in the here and now. "in place of the old attitudes involved in worship and prayer, the humanist finds his religious emotions exprest in a heightened sense of personal life and in a cooperative effort to promote social well-being. "there will be no uniquely religious emotions and attitudes of the kind hitherto associated with belief in the supernatural. man will learn to face the crises of life in terms of his knowledge of their naturalness and probability. reasonable and manly attitudes will be fostered by education and supported custom. "we assume that humanism will take the path of social and mental hygiene, and discourage sentimental and unreal hopes and wishful thinking. "the goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which the people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. "the time has come for widespread recognition of the radical changes in religious thoughts throughout the modern world. science and economic change have disrupted the old beliefs. "religions the world over are under the necessity of coming to terms with new conditions created by a vastly increased knowledge and experience." professors john dewey, e. a. burtt, and roy wood sellars are among the signers of this statement. it is an excellent and comprehensive statement, but one is left wondering why the name "religious humanism"? it is difficult to become enthusiastic when one realizes that these men take to themselves the thunder of the atheists of the past, and under the misnomer, "religious," place before the public what all atheists of the past ages have been preaching. it is most gratifying to perceive that such distinguished men as signed this statement are frank enough to admit the extent of the religious revolution, and determined enough to take a hand in the clearing away of the débris that clutters the crumbling of all religious creeds. yet it is only fair to point out that this statement contains nothing that would not be recognized by those intrepid atheists of the past, and little more than they urged in their time. i refer to those brilliant french atheists la mettrie, helvetius, d'holbach, d'alembert, and diderot. chapter xix the doom of religion; the necessity of atheism _one should recall the charge of atheism directed against the keenest thinkers of antiquity and the greatest of its moral reformers. but what was personal and incidental in the past, depending largely upon the genius and inspiration of seers and leaders, has now become a social movement, as wide as science_. james t. shotwell. _the drift from god is a movement of events, a propulsion of vital experience, not a parade of words to be diverted by other words_. max carl otto. in the babylonian and assyrian mythologies we have the chief deities as ishtar, tammuz, baal, and astarte. in the phrygian religion we have the goddess cybele and her husband attis. among the greeks we have the goddess aphrodite and the god adonis. the persians had their mithra. adonis and attis flourished in syria. in the egyptian religion was found the goddess isis and the god osiris. the semites have their jehovah, the mohammedans their allah, and the christians the goddess mary, the god the father, and a son jesus. christianity has divided itself into catholicism and protestantism; and when protestantism gave the right of interpretation of the bible to each individual, there were evolved such forms of protestantism as christian science, holy rollerism, seventh day adventism, swedenborgianism, and the cults of the doukhobors, the shakers, the mennonites, the dunkards and the salvation army. in the early days of the church were seen the wrangling of sects, the incomprehensible jargon of arians, nestorians, eutychians, monotheists, monophysites, mariolatrists, etc. today we behold the incomprehensible jargon of the first-mentioned sects. christ, born of an immaculate virgin, died for mankind, arose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. buddha, who lived over 500 years before jesus, was born of the virgin maya, which is the same as mary. maya conceived by the holy ghost, and thus buddha was of the nature of god and man combined. buddha was born on december 25, his birth was announced in the heavens by a star, and angels sang. he stood upon his feet and spoke at the moment of his birth; at five months of age he sat unsupported in the air; and at the moment of his conversion he was attacked by a legion of demons. he was visited by wise men, he was baptized, transfigured, performed miracles, rose from the dead, and on his ascension through the air to heaven, he left his footprint on a mountain in ceylon. the hindu savior, krishna, was born of a virgin 600 years before christ. a star shone at his birth which took place in a cave. he was adored by cowherds who recognized his greatness, he performed miracles, was crucified, and is to come to judge the earth. christ died for mankind,--so did buddha and krishna. adonis, osiris, horus, and tammuz, all virgin-born gods, were saviors and suffered death. christ rose from the dead, so have krishna and buddha arisen from the dead and ascended into heaven. so did lao kium, zoroaster, and mithra. a star shone in the sky at the births of krishna, rama yu, lao tsze, moses, quetzalcoatl, ormuzd, rama, buddha, and others. christ was born of a virgin, so was krishna and buddha. lao tsze was also born of a virgin. horus in egypt was born of the virgin isis. isis, with the child horus on her knee, was worshiped centuries before the christian era, and was appealed to under the names of "our lady," "queen of heaven," "star of heaven," "star of the sea," "mother of god," and so forth. hercules, bacchus, and perseus were gods born by mortal mothers. zeus, father of the gods, visited semele in the form of a thunderstorm and she gave birth, on the 25th of december, to the great savior and deliverer, dionysis. mithra was born of a virgin, in a cave, on the 25th of december. he was buried in a tomb from which he rose again. he was called savior and mediator and sometimes figured as a lamb. osiris was also said to be born about the 25th of december; he suffered, died, and was resurrected. hercules was miraculously conceived from a divine father and was everywhere invoked as savior. minerva had a more remarkable birth than eve; she sprang full-armed from the brow of jupiter. he did this remarkable feat without even losing a rib. the chinese tien, the holy one, died to save the world. in mexico, quetzalcoatl, the savior, was the son of chimalman, the virgin queen of heaven. he was tempted, fasted forty days, was done to death, and his second coming was eagerly looked for by the natives. the teutonic goddess hertha, was a virgin, and the sacred groves of germany contained her image with a child in her arms. the scandinavian goddess frigga was a virgin who bore a son, balder, healer and savior of mankind. when one considers the similarity of these ancient pagan legends and beliefs with christian traditions if one believes with justin martyr, then indeed the devil must have been a very busy person to have caused these pagans to imitate for such long ages and in such widespread localities the christian mysteries. indeed, edward carpenter comments, "one has only, instead of the word 'jesus' to read dionysis or krishna or hercules or osiris or attis, and instead of 'mary' to insert semele or devaki or alcmene or neith or nona, and for pontius pilate to use the name of any terrestrial tyrant who comes into the corresponding story, and lo! the creed fits in all particulars into the rites and worship of a pagan god." a legend stated that plato, born of perictione, a pure virgin, suffered an immaculate conception through the influences of apollo (b.c. 426). the god declared to ariston, to whom she was about to be married, the parentage of the child. st. dominic, born a.d. 1170, was said to be the offspring of an immaculate conception. he was free from original sin and was regarded as the adopted son of the virgin mary. st. francis, the compeer of st. dominic, was born a.d. 1182. a prophetess foretold his birth; he was born in a stable; angels sang forth peace and good will into the air, and one, in the guise of simeon, bore him to baptism. the egyptian trinities are well known: thus, from amun by maut proceeds khonso; from osiris by isis proceeds horus; from neph by saté proceeds anouké. the egyptians had propounded the dogma that there had been divine incarnations, the fall of man, and redemption. in india, centuries before christianity, we find the hindu trinity; brahma, vishnu, and siva. in the institutes of manu, a code of civil law as well as religious law, written about the ninth century before christ, is found a description of creation, the nature of god, and rules for the duty of man in every station of life from the moment of birth to death. professor james t. shotwell when speaking of paganism reminds us, "who of us can appreciate antique paganism? the gods of greece or rome are for us hardly more than the mutilated statues of them in our own museums; pitiable, helpless objects before the scrutiny and comments of a passing crowd. venus is an armless figure from the louvre; dionysos does not mean to us divine possession, the gift of tongues, or immortality; attis brings no salvation. but to antiquity the 'pagan' cults were no mockery. they were as real as polynesian heathenism or christianity to-day." (_james t. shotwell_: "_the religious revolution of to-day._") it is seen, therefore, that from time immemorial, man does not discover his gods, _but invents them_. he invents them in the light of his experience and endows them with capacities that indicate the stage of man's mental development. religion is not the product of civilized man. man inherits his god just as he inherits his physical qualities. the idea of a supernatural being creating and governing this earth is a phantom born in the mind of the savage. if it had not been born in the early stages of man's mental development, it surely would not come into existence now. history proves that as the mind of man expands, it does not discover new gods, but that it discards them. it is not strange, therefore, that there has not been advanced a new major religious belief in the last 1300 years. all modern religious conceptions, no matter how disguised, find their origin in the fear-stricken ignorance of the primitive savage. a christian will admit that the gods of others are man-made, and that their creed is similar to the worship of the savage. he looks at their gods with the vision of a civilized being; but when he looks at his own god, he forgets his civilization, he relapses centuries of time, and _his_ mental viewpoint is that of the savage. christianity, with its primitive concepts, can make its adherents firm in the belief of great monstrosities. when its adherents believed that the bible sanctioned the destruction of heretics and witches, they were certainly doing things from a christian standpoint. it was this standpoint that justified an embittered denunciation of evolution at one time and then recanting, adopted it as a part of the bible teaching. when the spaniards blotted out an entire civilization in south america, when catholics butchered protestants, or protestants butchered catholics, they were all justified from the christian standpoint. man has been living on this planet some 500,000 years. jesus appeared less than 2000 years ago to save mankind. what of those countless millions of men that died before christ came to save the world from damnation? if the christian creed, that except a man believes in the lord jesus christ he cannot be saved, is maintained, then it must be that those millions of human beings who lived before christ and had no chance to believe, are in hell-fire. it is probable that one of the factors that turned primitive man's attention away from his cruel and short, earthly existence to the thought of a more lengthy and less cruel existence in a hereafter, was the extreme uncertainty and short duration of his own life. and this primitive trend of thought that turns man's mind from the here and now to a contemplation of a mythical hereafter persists to this day, produces the same slavish resignation. this false release from the actualities constitute a mental aberration which we see in the hysterical and weak-minded. when such an individual is confronted by problems that tax his mental strength, if that individual has not strength of mind to reason and to persevere so that he overcomes his environmental difficulties, he will seek an avenue of escape in a fanciful existence which the physician recognizes in hysteria and certain forms of mental disease. so, throughout the ages, man has sought release from the realities of his existence into a fanciful and pleasantly delusional flight into a hereafter. "there is no salvation in that sickly obscurantism which attempts to evade realities by confusing itself about them. safety lies only in clarity and the struggle for the light. no subliminal nor fringe of consciousness can rank in the intellectual life beside the burning focal center where the rays of knowledge converge. the hope must be in following reason, not in thwarting it. to turn back from it is not mysticism, it is superstition. no; we must be prepared to see the higher criticism destroy the historicity of the most sacred texts of the bible, psychology analyze the phenomena of conversion on the basis of adolescent passion, anthropology explain the genesis of the very idea of god. an where _we_ can understand, it is a moral crime to cherish the un-understood. (_james t. shotwell_: "_the religious revolution of today._") religious beliefs are clearly mental aberrations from which it is high time that the progress of knowledge should lead to a logical cure. man is steadily overcoming and conquering his environment; the uncertainty of life and cruelty are much diminished as compared with the past ages, but man has not as yet fully utilized the means of an emancipating measure from his mental enslavement and fear of his environment." chapman cohen, in his "theism or atheism," clearly states: "we know that man does not discover god, he invents him, and an invention is properly discarded when a better instrument is forthcoming. to-day, the hypothesis of god stands in just the same relation to the better life of to-day as the fire drill of the savage does to the modern method of obtaining a light. the belief in god may continue awhile in virtue of the lack of intelligence of some, of the carelessness of others, and of the conservative character of the mass. but no amount of apologizing can make up for the absence of genuine knowledge, nor can the flow of the finest eloquence do aught but clothe in regal raiment the body of a corpse." religion arose as a means of explanation of natural phenomena at a time when no other explanation of the origin of natural phenomena had been ascertained. god is always what spinoza called it, "the asylum of ignorance." when causes are unknown, god is brought forward; when causes are known, god retires into the background. in an age of ignorance, god is active; in an age of science, he is impotent. history attests this fact. "the single and outstanding characteristic of the conception of god at all times, and under all conditions is that it is the equivalent of ignorance. in primitive times it is ignorance of the character of the natural forces that leads to the assumption of the existence of gods, and in this respect the god idea has remained true to itself throughout. even to-day, whenever the principle of god is invoked, a very slight examination is enough to show that the only reason for this being done is our ignorance of the subject before us." (_chapman cohen._) the belief in god is least questioned where civilization is lowest; it is called into the most serious question where civilization is most advanced. it is clear that had primitive man known what we know today about nature, the gods would never have been born. "the suspicious feature must be pointed out that the belief in god owes its existence, not to the trained and educated observation of civilized times, but to the uncritical reflection of the primitive mind. it has its origin there, and it would indeed be remarkable, if, while in almost every other direction the primitive mind showed itself to be hopelessly wrong, in its interpretation of the world in this particular respect, it has proved itself to be altogether right." (_chapman cohen._) all intelligent men admit that human welfare depends upon our knowledge and our ability to harness the forces of nature. "i myself," writes llewelyn powys, "do not doubt that the good fortune of the human race depends more on science than on religion. in all directions the bigotry of the churches obstructs amelioration ... as long as the majority of men rely upon supernatural interference, supernatural guidance, from a human point of view all is likely to be confusion.... trusting in god rather than in man it is in the nature of these blind worshippers to oppose every advance of human knowledge. it was they who condemned galileo, who resisted darwin and who to-day deride the doctrines of freud." science has given us an account of the operation of the universe _sans_ god, and investigation has also given us a clear conception of the evolution of all religious beliefs from the crude conceptions of the savage to the but little altered form of the modern conception. "if we are to regard the god idea as an evolution which began in the ignorance of primitive man, it would seem clear that no matter how refined or developed the idea may become, it can rest on no other or sounder basis than which is presented to us in the psychology of primitive man. each stage of theistic belief grows out of the proceeding stage, and if it can be shown that the beginning of this evolution arose in a huge blunder, i quite fail to see how any subsequent development can convert this unmistakable blunder into a demonstrable truth." (_chapman cohen._) men of today are trying to force themselves to believe that there must be something true in that which had been believed by so many great and pious men of old. but it is in vain; intellect has outgrown faith. they are aware of the fallacy of their opinions, yet angry that another should remind them of it. and these men who today are secretly sceptics, are loudest in their public denunciation of others who publicly announce their scepticism. in ancient greece, when the philosophers came into prominence, zeus was superseded by the air, and poseidon by the water; in modern times, all hitherto supernatural events are being explained by physical laws. plato regarded it as a patriotic duty to accept the public faith although he full well knew the absurdities of that faith. today, there are many platos that hold to the same conviction. the freethinkers hold to the view of xenophanes who denounced the public faith as an ancient blunder which had been converted by time into a national imposture. all religion is a delusion which transfers the motives and thoughts of men to those who are not men. no ecclesiastic has as yet offered a satisfactory answer as to why there has been a marvelous disappearance of the working of miracles, and why human actions alone are now to be seen in this world of ours. we are witnessing today what happened in the roman empire during the decline of polytheism. draper states: "between that period during which a nation has been governed by its imagination, and that in which it submits to reason, there is a melancholy interval. the constitution of man is such that, for a long time after he has discovered the incorrectness of the ideas prevailing around him, he shrinks from openly emancipating himself from their dominion, and, constrained by the force of circumstances, he becomes a hypocrite, publicly applauding what his private judgment condemns. where a nation is making this passage, so universal do these practices become that it may be truly said hypocrisy is organized. it is possible that whole communities might be found living in this deplorable state." and, indeed, in our own country we are witnessing an example of this very thing. religion has led to widespread hypocrisy. our religious influences have created a race of men mentally docile and obedient to the dictates of tyrannical ecclesiasticism. it has created a fear of truth, and our minds are still brutish and puerile in our methods of reasoning. credulity has led to stultification, and stultification of the mind is the bitter fruit which we have been reaping for thousands of years. there are probably hundreds of thousands of men and women in these united states that give lip-service to their creed, but deep in the recesses of their minds a small voice cries to them and shames them, for as soon as they reason, they become sceptics. how can we know the actual number of earthlings that are sceptics? it is impossible in our present state of development. religious persecution today is just as active as it was during the middle ages. surely, a man is not burned at the stake for his scepticism in this age; but is he not done to death? if the grocer, the butcher, the doctor, the lawyer, the scholar, the business man, were to boldly announce his scepticism, what would happen to him? the answer is well known to all. immediately, each of his religious customers would take it upon himself to act as a personal inquisition. the sceptic would be shunned socially, he would be ignored, his wares would be sought after elsewhere, and he would suffer. his wife, his family, his children, would suffer with him, for our economic scheme makes the would-be sceptic dependent upon the whims of the majority believers. he is forced to hold his tongue, or else is tortured. are not the wants of his family, the hunger, and ostracism torture? thus thousands are forced into hypocrisy. many others, although they have outgrown all fear of the god of orthodoxy, the fear of the god of social pressure remains. there are embodied in all creeds three human impulses: fear, conceit, and hatred; and religion has given an air of respectability to these passions. religion is a malignant disease born of fear, a cancer which has been eating into the vitals of everything that is worth while in our civilization; and by its growth obstructing those advances which make for a more healthful life. morally and intellectually, socially and historically, religion has been shown to be a pernicious influence. some of these influences falling into these classifications have been considered in previous chapters. the modern christian, in his amusing ignorance, asserts that christianity is now mild and rationalistic, ignoring the fact that all its so-called mildness and rationalism is due to the teaching of men who in their own day were persecuted by all orthodox christians. "historically, churches have stood on the side of the powers that be. they have defended slavery or have held their tongues about it. they have maintained serfdom and kept serfs. they have opposed every movement undertaken for the liberation of the masses of men; the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity are the creations of the camps of their enemies, of the rationalists of the eighteenth century, and the liberals and socialists of the nineteenth century. they have defended and condoned the industrial exploitation of children. they have fought bitterly the enfranchisement of women. they have justified unjust war. they have fought with book and bill and candle and fagot every new great step in the advancement of science from gravitation to evolution. wardens, ever since constantine gave the schools of antiquity into the keeping of the christian bishops, of the education of the people, they have fought with all their power the establishment of free public schools and the spread of literacy and knowledge among the people." (_horace m. kallen: "why religion."_) if christianity has made any progress in the assimilation of doctrines that are less barbarous than heretofore, they have been effected in spite of the most vigorous resistance, and solely as a result of the onslaught of freethinkers. throughout the ages, when a thinking man had questioned the how and why of any secular problem, so long as that problem had no direct or indirect bearing upon religion, or upon any branch of knowledge that was assumed to be infallibly foretold in the bible, that man was unmolested. the problems falling into the above classification were extremely small due to the strongly defended theological lunacy that asserted itself in the declaration that all knowledge both spiritual and material was contained in the bible as interpreted by the church. man, however, when he broached his religious doubts, was regarded as the most sinful of beings, and it was forbidden him to question and yield to the conclusions that his mind evolved. think of the irony and tragedy of this self-enslavement of the human mind! there is one characteristic that man prides himself as having apart from all lower animals, his ability to reason and to think. is it his superior musculature and brute strength that has placed man upon his present pinnacle of advanced civilization, or is it his mental development, his mind, that has taught him to harness the forces of nature? has not his mind so co-*ordinated his movements that he has enslaved those forces of nature to be his aid? and yet, if mind is one thing that has enabled man to pull himself out of the morass of brute life, why has it been that man himself has been so persistently decrying and degrading the efforts of that mind? the answer is, that religion has provided the shackles and securely and jealously enslaved the mind. with the aid of his religious beliefs man has been ensnared into a mental prison in which he has been an all too willing captive. surely it is easier to believe than to think. napoleon, himself a sceptic, was cognizant of this slave philosophy. "what is it," he is reported to have asked, "that makes the poor man think it is quite natural that there are fires in my castle when he is dying of cold? that i have ten coats in my wardrobe while he goes naked? that at each of my meals enough is served to feed his family for a week? it is simply religion, which tells him that in another life i shall be only his equal, and that he actually has more chance of being happy than i. yes, we must see to it that the doors of the churches are open to all, and that it does not cost the poor man much to have prayers said on his tomb." how well the ecclesiastical psychologists have grasped this fact, and how well they have fashioned a strong chain for the mind out of this weakness of human minds! church and government have been well aware of this psychology, and have fought constantly the spread of freethought literature to the masses. professor bury, in his "history of freedom of thought," speaking of england, tells us, "if we take the cases in which the civil authorities have intervened to repress the publication of unorthodox opinions during the last two centuries, we find that the object has always been to prevent the spread of free thought among the masses." think but a moment how well the above is borne out by the attitude of the church in the stand that it took during the middle ages, when she prohibited the reading of the bible by any person except her clergy. when she prohibited the printing of all books except those that she approved of; books that minutely agreed in all details with the phantastic fables of her bible were the only ones allowed to be printed. the church also strenuously objected to the printing of bibles in the languages of the masses. that most efficient shackle to the mind, that precept that there was no knowledge, whether material or spiritual, that was not contained in the bible, how strenuously the church upheld that doctrine! and in our own day, the ridiculous assumption that "mysteries" (a special form of ignorance) are the special province of the church. considering these few examples as well as all ecclesiastical endeavor, no rational mind can escape the fact that that primeval curse, religion, has had for its object, down through the centuries, the sadistic desire to enslave and trample on the mind of man. it has been a defensive measure on the part of the church, for she well recognizes that once the mind is free, it will free itself of the shackles of religion also. nor is this all. i execrate the enslavement of the mind of our young children by the ecclesiastics. is anything so pitiful to behold as the firm grasp that the church places on the mind of the youngest of children? children at play, children of four and five years of age, will be heard to mention with fearful tones various religious rites, such as baptism and confirmation, and to perform in their manner these rites with their dolls. fear! fear! instilled into the minds of the impressionable children! think of the degradation that the ecclesiastics practice when they insist that from the time a child is out of its infancy its instruction shall be placed in their hands. they take the most precious possession of man, his mind, and mould it to their desire. the mind of a child is plastic, it is like a moist piece of clay and they mould it and form it to their desire. warped and poured into the ecclesiastic mould of fear, the mind of the child becomes set and fixed with the years. then it is too late for rational thinking, as far as religious matters go, the mind of the adult is firmly set in the form that the ecclesiastic has fashioned for him in his youth. it is impossible for the adult so taught to reason clearly and rationally concerning his religion; the mould is too strong, the clay has set, reason cannot penetrate into that hardened form. that is why it is almost impossible for the adult who has been exposed to this mental moulding from his infancy to break away from the fears and superstitions learned on his mother's knee. if christianity, hebrewism, mohammedanism, or any other creed is true, its truth must be more apparent at the age of twenty-five than it is at the age of five. why does the ecclesiastic not leave off his advances until the child reaches a mature age, an age when he can reason? then, if theism is true, he can accept it with a reasoning mind, not a blindly faithful mind. the theist realizes, however, that belief is at one pole, reason at the other. belief, creed, religion, are ideations of the primitive mind and the mind of the child; reason is the product of mature thought. schopenhauer remarked that, "the power of religious dogma when inculcated early is such as to stifle conscience, compassion, and finally every feeling of humanity." it is an undeniable fact that if the clergy would but leave their tainted hands off the minds of our children until they would have reached a mature age, there would be no religious instinct. religious instinct is a myth. give me but two generations of men who have not been subjected to this religious influence in childhood, and there will be a race of atheists. the ecclesiastic has from earliest times taken the standpoint that the masses of people are of crude susceptibility and clumsy intelligence, "sordid in their pursuits and sunk in drudgery; and religion provides the only means of proclaiming and making them feel the high import of life." (_schopenhauer._) thus the theist is led to the conclusion that the end justifies the means. theism is a hypothesis which, among other things, attempts an explanation of the universe. the theist recognizes a creator who created the universe and is responsible for its operation. the atheist clearly perceives that the assumption of a creator does not advance him in the slightest degree towards the solution of the mysterious problem of the universe. the oft-repeated question still admits of no answer, "who created the creator"? it is an absurd answer to reply that the creator created himself, yet, even if this is granted, may not the universe have created itself? if the theist puts forward the statement that god has always existed, the atheist may well reply that if god has always existed, why can he not say that the universe has always existed? the atheist is not concerned with the creation of the universe; to him it presents a problem which is beyond the comprehension of his present mental capacities. he comprehends the fact of its being, and that is as far as he or any rational mind can go. atheism confines itself to a refutation of theism, and avoids the theistic fallacy of assuming without any proofs or reasonable arguments to substantiate the assumption of an intelligent, omnipotent, omniscient, anthropomorphic, and anthropocentric creator. the theistic assumption has but retarded the advance of practical knowledge, and prepared the soil for superstition and the countless terrors of religious beliefs. atheism, as far as a rational explanation of the universe is covered, although it does not offer an explanation of the "ultimate," or "the riddle of the universe," does insist that any view held be one that shall be based on truth and conformity to reality. it further maintains that if a view be propagated it should be held in the same position that any scientific proposition is held. it must be open to verification; if it be verified as any scientific theory is verified, it will be accepted in part, or in toto, and be proven to be true or displaced by a closer approximation to the truth. to certain types of men there may be a negative attitude expressed in this credo, which leaves the mind unsatisfied. this is but an emotional bias and has nothing to do whatsoever with the attainment of truth. a delusion may be more comforting than the truth, but that does not necessitate the conclusion that a delusion may be of more ultimate benefit than a constant striving for the truth. it has often been said that atheism, in that negative aspect, places a question mark upon our problems. however, while a question mark may indicate a negative value, it may also prove to be a mental provocative. a period placed at the end of a problem denotes that it has been definitely solved. in connection with the origin of the universe, no period can be placed at the end of that problem, and since we are awaiting the solution, it is much more to the interest of further advances to place the question mark there, than to consider the matter solved. surely, sufficient instances have been enumerated in this discussion to show the stultification and retardation that ensues when an institution maintains an insistence that a problem be held to conform in any of its explanatory aspects to a preconceived infallible statement, or considers a problem not to exist, or closes its eyes to the inconsistencies in an explanation which is being maintained by mental persuasion and force. when the bible was considered as containing the answer to all our problems we have seen what the result was. if atheism places a question mark upon the problem of the universe, it does so in a constructive manner; for that mark points to the direction in which a logical solution may be possible. such is the mental attitude of the scientist. he places an interrogation point upon his problems and that mark is the impetus, the mental stimulus, that leads him on to take infinite pains in his labors and, as time passes, each question mark is replaced by knowledge; it is knowledge and knowledge alone, reason not faith, that furnishes the period. it was haeckel who asserted that, "the most dangerous of the three great enemies of reason and knowledge is not malice, but ignorance, or perhaps, indolence." the question mark as applied to a problem that is recognizably not solved is a signpost to the knowledge that time must bring. the spurious period placed at the end of a problem is the death warrant for that problem and there it must lie devitalized by ignorance and indolence. it has often been affirmed that what we see in this universe is phenomena, and all explanations but interpret the manifestations of these phenomena. what is in back of and beyond these phenomena may never be known, and if it be known, would be of no further use to us. it is equally as true that if we but see phenomena and our mental capacities deny us a conception of the reality beyond phenomena, yet, we have a growing knowledge of the laws that govern these phenomena. and it is a comprehensive knowledge of these invariable laws that govern the universe that are of universal value. these laws have been ascertained by the questioning mental attitude, and not by a futile reliance on faith. human knowledge has expanded immensely in the last fifty years, and this by the purely scientific method, the materialistic method, and the questioning attitude. the value of these findings when they can be converted into practical applications in industry are well known to all. we have added nothing to our store of knowledge except by the exercise of our mentality and reason. the application of the scientific method to the workings of the mind has made more progress in explaining the mind in the brief period of fifty years than philosophical deductions had made in the past two thousand years. every new fact that has been discovered has fitted into the mechanistic scheme of the universe, and not one new fact has been disclosed that suggested anything beyond nature. the theistic interpretation of the universe has been completely discredited by the scientific investigations. science has brought to the confines of invariable laws multitudes of problems that had hitherto been supposed to point to "spiritual" interference. theology has been driven out of the open spaces of reason and still persists in clinging to the twilight zone of the present unknown, only to be driven from its precarious position constantly by our increasing knowledge and with increasing rapidity from shadow to shadow. there has been an increasing tendency shown by physicists to consider that matter and energy are interchangeable, and that the one ultimate reality is energy. if this be so, we are still dealing with an ultimate that is a material reality. the nobel prize in medicine for the year 1932 was awarded to two british investigators, sir charles scott sherrington, professor of physiology at oxford university, and dr. edgar douglas adrian, professor of physiology at cambridge university. their researches seem to have settled definitely a problem that has long been a bone for contention. nerve energy has been shown conclusively to be of an electric type of energy. the old question of whether mind was part of the material world has been shown by these experiments to be answered in the affirmative. there is no duality, mind and matter are one, and mind is but a special property of highly specialized matter. it is with a great deal of regret that the freethinker contemplates the attitude of such scientists as jeans, eddington, millikan, and the philosopher professor whitehead. their hesitation to divorce themselves completely from all conceptions of a supernatural force leads to a great deal of confusion. an acquaintance with the writings of einstein brings one the certainty that he is as much in accordance with the attitude of freethought as is the most militant atheist. the "cosmic sense" and "totality of existence" of einstein is as far removed from the conception of a yahveh as is the mentality of an australian black man from that of einstein's mental grasp. similarly with the cosmic consciousness expressed in the writings of jeans, eddington, and whitehead. with characteristic disregard for the truth certain modern theologians have grasped this cringing attitude of the above-mentioned men and have stressed their viewpoints by a dishonest interpretation that these men actually give a scientific certitude to their own theologic creeds and dogmas. nothing can be further from the truth. the freethinker would have each theologian who tells his adherents that these men lend credence to their beliefs to consider the following: if the above-named men would be asked if they believed in a deity who actively interposed his will and influence in the lives of men, as is commonly expressed in the term "providence," if they ascribed to the belief in personal immorality, if they themselves believed in the existence of a "soul," if they ascribed to the statement that "prayer" influenced the opinion of an all-powerful being to intercede for them in their problems and grief, if they believed that the bible was a book dictated by god, or that a god caused to be written for him his "revelations"; that heaven and hell exist in the meaning that theologians assure their adherents that they do; that sin and morality is what theologians still hold it to be; that there has been a "fall" and therefore the necessity for a "redemption" of man; and that creed and dogma are necessary factors in the worship of a deity,--what would their answers be? eddington, jeans, einstein, and whitehead would answer these questions exactly as would the most militant atheists. the mental attitude of these men can best be explained when one considers certain similarities between theological asceticism and scientific asceticism. and it is the duty of the freethinker clearly to point out why this confusion has arisen. during the ages of faith, the world beheld a swarm of men and women who retired from the grim realities of a world which at that time was made abhorrent to all sensitive men by the most exacting insistence of theologians that "faith" was the all necessary ingredient of life, and that closed its eyes completely to the degrading actualities of life that this insistence led to. multitudes of men retired to the desert and to the protective walls of monasteries. there, by constant privations, fastings, continual prayer, flagellation, and introspection, they spent their lives. these ascetic individuals by these means were enabled to enter what may be called a "theologic trance" and their subsequent hallucinations, illusions, and delusions gave to them what they deemed to be a transcendental insight into the construction of the universe and what was expected between "fallen" and debased man and his omnipotent creator. these men keenly apprehended what some today, in a gentler age, have called "cosmic consciousness." i do not mean to imply that these before-mentioned scientists have applied such a rigor to their lives. what is meant to be stated is that these men by their research and comprehension of the vastness of the universe stand in awe and fear before this brain-benumbing aspect. modern astrophysics, to one who attempts to comprehend its vastness, imposes on the mind but a faint comprehension of the vastness of the universe in space, time, and size; but imposes a deep conviction of the infinitesimal meaning of our planet earth, both as to size and its relation to the millions of related heavenly bodies. the evolution of man on our planet in this broad conception of space and time is most infinitesimal. it has been just a few hours ago in this widened conception of time that halley's comet was excommunicated from the skies by pope calixitus iii, who looked upon this comet as one of unheard-of magnitude and from the tail of which was flung down upon the earth, disease, pestilence, and war. most certainly the minds of jeans and eddington carry in their recesses a vast amount of knowledge that was not common to men living in 1456, the year in which the above-mentioned comet caused such consternation. much as one admires the superiority of the minds of these present-day physicists, yet one cannot help but think that if our present rate of progress meets no serious obstacle, then in another five hundred years, the attitude of awe of jeans and eddington towards the vastness of our universe will be held in some similar position to which jeans and eddington now hold the misguided conception of halley's comet in the year 1456. the mind of man is just beginning to emerge from its swaddling clothes and we cannot assume to judge what its broadest capabilities may be. certain great modern minds, therefore, when they contemplate this vastness of astrophysics are apt to dwell a bit too literally on the "music of the heavenly spheres," and under the influence of these celestial harmonies fall into the trance of scientific asceticism. men who can no longer seriously hold to a belief in an anthropomorphic god, the soul and immortality are apt to allow themselves when in this mood to emotionalize their knowledge; and these same men are the ones who would in their scientific endeavors be the first to eliminate all emotions from their reasoning efforts in their laboratories. one seems justified, therefore, in stating that this conception of "cosmic consciousness" is but another instance of the mere illusions of a craving heart. discussing the question as to whether science and religion conflict, the physicist professor bazzoni, of the university of pennsylvania, in a recent work "energy and matter," makes the following pointed comment: "some scientists resort to metaphysics and make contact with a kind of mysticism which may be taken for a religious belief at precisely that point where ignorance prevents further progress along sound scientific lines. the primitive medicine man appealed to the gods to explain the precipitation of rain and the phase changes of the moon, and some modern scientists appeal to metaphysics and mysticism to explain the limits of the infinite and the nature of electricity." he further cautions theologians against placing undue emphasis on the opinions of scientists when they express their minds on religious topics, and he remarks: "they (the laity) should realize that in the spiritual field the opinion of an eminent scientist has exactly the same weight as the opinion of any other cultivated and thoughtful individual." when the scientist examines with the impartial mind of the laboratory the science of the origin of religious beliefs and delves into the complicated intricacies of religious history, he becomes as convinced as any other thoughtful individual that the facts of science and history are deadly to religion. moreover, as man contemplates the construction and forces at work in the universe he still must exclaim, "end, beginning, or purpose, it knows not of." the theologians are devoting a great deal of their time to the writings of physicists who venture into the field of theology. it may be that in this manner they can divert attention from the drastic findings concerning all religious beliefs that the anthropologists and psychologists are patiently accumulating. "many physicists and biologists like pupin, millikan, oliver lodge, j. arthur thomson, and henry fairfield osborn, have recently blossomed forth as liberal theologians. they are still emotionally attached to the older religious faith. they are aware that modern physics and biology have abandoned doctrines that once were hostile to religious claims. they, therefore, proclaim that there is no further conflict between religion and science. in so doing, however, they show themselves abysmally ignorant of all that anthropology and psychology have done to study religion and religious man scientifically. they show their ignorance of the philosophy that has built upon such data. they do not realize that the present-day conflict between religious faith and science is no longer with a scientific explanation of the world, but with a scientific explanation of religion." (_j. h. randall and j. h. randall, jr.: "religion and the modern world."_) the cultured greeks and romans had their omnipotent gods and these have long ago died a death of ridicule. at a time when beauty and sculpture were at their height the religion of these ancient artists was absurd. similarly, with some of our modern scientists, their religion has not kept pace with their intellect. their emotions have overbalanced their reason in this field. professor h. levy, of the university of london, tersely remarks: "the assertion of contemporary scientists, who state that the universe is a fickle collection of indeterminate happenings, and a great thought in the mind of its architect, a pure mathematician, serves merely to divert the activity of the scientific brain from its concentration on the contradictions and confusions of the all too real outward world to a state of passive and unreal contemplation." (_professor h. levy: "the universe of science."_) among the theologians, some at least have learned the futility of waxing indignant at each new scientific hypothesis that encroached, as they thought, within their domain. a great many liberal theologians have as yet not learned the extreme danger to their theology in grasping at some concept of science that for the present moment does not appear to be detrimental to their theology, or, as they think, seems to bolster up their particular creed. "the enthusiasm aroused in certain theological circles by recent developments in mathematical physics," states dr. m. c. otto, "seems to me to indicate just one thing, that these theologians felt themselves to be in so desperate a state that a floating straw assumed the appearance of a verdure-clad island. i am of the opinion that all persons who would work for a more decent and happy existence for themselves and for their fellows must turn their backs upon religion just to the extent that religious leadership seeks spiritual renewal in these hallucinations of despair." (_drs. wieman, macintosh, and otto: "is there a god?"_) it is only proper to point out that what certain emancipated minds are trying to reconstruct as a basis of religious belief is not what is held by the masses as their conception of religion. in a recent clear and frank statement of the religious revolution, john herman randall and john herman randall, jr., state: "such beliefs, even so fundamental a one as belief in god, must stand their chances with the philosophic interpretation men give their experience.... the really revolutionary effect of the scientific faith, so far as religion is concerned, has been not its new view of the world, but its new view of religion. reinterpretations of religious belief have been unimportant compared with reinterpretations of religion itself. for those who have come to share the scientific world-view, even more for those who have absorbed the spirit of scientific inquiry, it has been impossible to view religion as a divine revelation entrusted to man. it has even been impossible to see it as a relation between man and a cosmic deity. religion has rather appeared a human enterprise, an organization of human life, an experience, a social bond, and an inspiration." (_j. h. randall and j. h. randall, jr.: "religion and the modern world."_) to the man who literally entreats his deity, "our father, who art in heaven, grant us our daily bread," the above reinterpretation of what is meant by religion can have no meaning. to the cultivated mind that comprehends what is meant, the above interpretation is what he conceives of as his social secular activities for the betterment of his fellowmen. a living philosophy of life is a much better name for this attitude than is the misnomer "religion," and avoids a great deal of confusion. some of our "scientists on a holiday," as they have been facetiously called when they stepped into a field in which they had not become well acquainted with the ground, have proceeded to lend assurance that god _is_ by subtracting so drastically from what is generally attributed to the conception of god, that there is nothing much left to what they conceive as what god _means_. they have stripped the conception of what has been heretofore regarded as fundamental, namely, the conception that god is a superhuman personality or mind. in mr. whitehead's philosophy, god is spoken of as, "god is not concrete, but he is the ground for concrete actuality." i believe such confusion of language may have been in the mind of dr. m. c. otto when he remarked: "some persons endeavor more than ever to make necessary distinctions to keep meanings as clear as possible; and to have an eye on the tendency of language to become its own object. other persons repudiate these obligations. they act as if it were a virtue to love darkness rather than light if your intentions are good. under their manipulations conceptions are dimmed or replaced by vague intimations. one boundary line after another is obliterated until the whole substance of things swims in mists." history has illustrated that the greatest source of evil on this planet has arisen from the fact that physical phenomena for which our limited mental capacities were not able to formulate a logical solution, were ascribed to preternatural causes. from this original stem arose religion and the church, the two greatest obstacles which have been a burden to mankind for 2000 years and a barrier to all progress which has made life endurable and desirable. the lower man is in the scale of civilization, the more does he call in the supernatural to explain all the happenings and experiences of his life. when he had been beset by an intellectual failure he had been thrown back to religion. lacking the courage and mental capacity to proceed further against obstacles he succumbed to the drug of religious explanations. the need was not for a narcotic, but for a stimulant. the mental stimulant was provided for man in the form of science. science is but organized knowledge, and it is this knowledge that has elevated man to the position where he is now, his own god. when difficulties confront him in this age, he blames them upon his own ignorance and incompetence. and, when he sets about to overcome these difficulties, he does not rely on divine revelation or supernatural aid or on miracles; he relies on his reason. he knows that when a problem eludes his mental capacity, it is not the supernatural which eludes him but some natural force, some law which he has not been able to grasp as yet. there is no resignation in this attitude; only resolute, peaceful patience. the problem that he cannot solve at present will yield to his reason eventually. the ecclesiastic is well aware that science is his natural and implacable enemy. he knows that every time the bounds of exact knowledge are widened, the domain of religion is narrowed. man's knowledge of the universe is still incomplete, but it is certainly more complete than it was fifty years ago; and when we consider what that knowledge was a few thousand years ago, it is no breach of logic to state that all natural processes, in the course of time, will be brought into the confines of invariable laws. sir arthur keith clearly states: "the ancient seeker, to explain the kingdom of life, with man as its regent, had to call in the miracle of creation. the modern seeker finds that although life has the appearance of the miraculous, yet all its manifestations can be studied and measured, and that there is a machinery at work in every living thing which shapes, evolves, and creates. his inquiries have led him to replace the miracle of creation by the laws of evolution. "whichever department of the realm of nature the man of science has chosen for investigation, the result has always been the same; the supernatural has given place to the natural, superstition is succeeded by reason. the world has never had such armies of truth seekers as it now has. those equipped with ladders of science have so often scaled the walls which surround cities of ignorance that they march forward in the sure faith that none of nature's battlements are impregnable." in the last analysis, if we reach a point in thinking where we cannot proceed further, a fathomless landmark, must we revert to the theological error of "thinking," and assume it must be of supernatural character? because the unknown in the past has been assigned to the supernatural is no indication for us also, in the present age, to relegate the unknown to divine cause. it is unseemly that minds that have emancipated themselves should go just so far--as far as _their own reason_ can explain the unknown--and when their limited reason can go no further to revert back to the primitive stage where solution is considered impossible to man save it be "revealed to him by god." if man's mind is free, if no coercion of any kind is placed on its exercise, it will expand and unravel what at present is still fathomless. give man endless centuries and ample opportunities and he will unravel the miracles of development and growth just as he has done other miracles which at first seemed impossible of rational solution. for how much longer will man be a slave to his inferiority complex with regard to his own rational capacities? if faith is vital to man, why not relate it to that which at least holds a promise of solution? man's mind has not as yet arrived at the point which might give even the slightest indication of its ultimate exhaustion. we cannot assume the knowledge of what man's fullest capacities are. all things must unravel themselves with the progress of his mind, those things that he cannot explain now, he must not assign to a superhuman force; man must use his reasoning faculties to investigate and search for the truth so that these unknown may become part of the known. again to quote sir arthur keith: "only eighty years have come and gone since the anatomist obtained his first glimpse of the structural complexity of the human brain; it will take him eight thousand years and more to find out the exact part played by every departmental unit of this colossal system of government which carries on the mental life of a human being. _we have no reason to think there is anything supernatural in its manifestation._ as our knowledge of the brain accumulates, the names and terms we now use will give place to others which have a more precise meaning. in our present state of ignorance we have to use familiar and loose terms to explain the workings of the brain--such words as "soul," "spirit," "heart," "superstition," and "prejudice." these manifestations of the mind will be dissected and made understandable." science has as yet not fully explained the origin of life on earth, but there is reason to believe that it will do so in the future. the laws governing the production of life itself are under investigation in the laboratories and it is highly probable that this law will be unraveled at some future date. it will be interesting for our posterity to witness the confusion of the ecclesiastics and their attempted confirmation of this fact in the bible; their finding of some obscure phrase that will be interpreted by them as a prediction of the fact in the bible. the theists have maintained, as we have seen, many false beliefs that have cost the lives of innumerable men and suffering incalculable; beliefs which they themselves have subsequently recognized as false but relinquished only by the onslaught of rising secular knowledge. it was the ecclesiastic who pointed to the god-dictated phrase, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," and the various precepts that have been enumerated in the preceding chapters. surely sufficient evidence has been noted to convince a thinking being that reason is a better guide than theism. belief is the antithesis of reason; reason is rationality; religious belief is clearly mental abnormality. if a religionist is asked what he thinks of a secular institution which vigorously condemns and persecutes inquiry, experiment, and truth, he will reply with the logical answer. when it is pointed out to him that religion has done and still is doing this, he will hem and haw until he manufactures some illogical answer. it has been stated that the more we think, the less we believe; and that the less we think, the more we believe. the christian will analyze the creed of the mohammedan and find it ridiculous; the mohammedan analyzes the creed of the christian and in turn finds it ridiculous. that is thinking. but does the mohammedan or the christian analyze as critically each his own belief? will he endeavor to analyze it at all? that is believing. the ecclesiastic concerns himself not with truth or knowledge; it is creed which is his shrine. he definitely is at war with knowledge and he wants to learn only such things as fit in with his preconceived notions and prejudices. when the minds of men are from infancy perverted with these ideals, how can mankind build a virile race? it is often asserted that the alleged universality of the belief in god is an argument for its truth. but what of the fact that men had everywhere come to the conclusion that the earth was flat, and yet a wider and truer knowledge proved that universal belief to be false! in the discussion of witchcraft, it has been shown that a delusion may be as widespread as a truth. during the tenth and eleventh centuries, the spanish moors had recognized the sphericity of the earth and were teaching geography from globes in their common schools. rome, during the same ages, was asserting in all its absurdity the flatness of the earth. it was not until almost five hundred years later that rome was forced to see its absurdity and then only when the enlightened world mocked at its error. in this twentieth century, certain enlightened men are teaching the absurdity and harmfulness of a belief in a deity. must it take five hundred years for all mankind to come to a similar conclusion? may it not well be that in a few centuries our posterity will view belief in a deity in the same light that we in this age view the church's insistence that the earth was flat? the god idea has been one of the most divisive and anti-social notions cherished by mankind. in fact it has been asserted that the idea of god has been the enemy of man. it has driven multitudes of men and women into the unnatural asceticisms and wasted lives of the convent and abbey. it has taxed the economic resources of every nation. every church, no matter of what creed, is a pathetic monument of god-ridden humanity which has been built by the pennies sweated by the poor, and wrested from them by fraudulent promises of reward, appeals to fear, and the pathetic human tendency to sacrifice. the theologians have in their arguments resorted to philosophy. the consequence of this transference of the idea of god to the sphere of philosophy is the curious position that the god in which people believe is not the god whose existence is made the product of an experimental argument, and the god of the argument is not the god of belief. "it is a nice question," remarks walter lippmann, "whether the use of god's name is not misleading when it is applied by modernists to ideas so remote from the god men have worshipped. plainly the modernist churchman does not believe in the god of genesis who walked in the garden in the cool of the evening and called for adam and his wife who had hidden themselves behind a tree; nor in the god of exodus who appeared to moses and aaron and seventy of the elders of israel, standing with his feet upon a paved walk as if it were a sapphire stone; nor even in the god of the fifty-third chapter of isaiah who in his compassion for the sheep who had gone astray, having turned everyone to his own way, laid on the man of sorrows the iniquity of us all." (_walter lippmann: "a preface to morals."_) it is one kind of god that is being set up in argument, and it is really another god that is being depended upon and believed. the philosophical conception of a deity that may be in control of phenomena is an impersonal physical law, and has nothing to do with the conception of a personal deity to whom people pray for active intervention in their troubles. religious belief is a monstrous apparition; the philosophy of atheism is a solid structure laboriously founded on solid rock. the philosophy of atheism had temporarily failed in previous ages, since the knowledge of those ages did not furnish facts enough upon which to build. at the present, although our knowledge is far from complete and the surface has only been scratched, yet sufficient facts have been unearthed to reveal that there is no supernatural and the greatest hope of advancement lies in the philosophy of atheism. a philosophy that builds upon a foundation of purely secular thought, that leaves the idea of god completely discarded as a useless and false relic of bygone days, is the essence of atheism. "atheism is more than the speculative philosophy of a few, that it is in sober truth the logical outcome of mental growth. so far as any phase of human life can be called inevitable, atheism may lay claim to being inescapable. all mental growth can be seen leading to it, just as we can see one stage of social development giving a logical starting point for another stage, and which could have been foretold had our knowledge of all the forces in operation been precise enough. atheism is, so to speak, implicit in the growth of knowledge, its complete expression is the consummation of a process that began with the first questionings of religion. and the completion of the process means the death of supernaturalisms in all forms. circumstances may obstruct its universal acceptance as a reasoned mental attitude, but that merely delays, it does not destroy the certainty of its final triumph." (_c. cohen._) the philosophy of atheism leads man to a critical, analytical, and logical examination of his environment, and it is this that has lead to all of our advances. religion creates a stunted standard of reasoning. the pathetic cry of st. augustine, "but if i was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me, where i pray thee, o my god, where, lord, or when was i, thy servant innocent?" typifies the major concern of the narrow, egotistical mystic. from the time that the ideas of the later greek philosophers had been forgotten until the present time, man has floundered in a sea of supernaturalism. it is high time that man faced his realities with fortitude in his own mentality, and when he does this, there will be produced a race of men who will seek for truth, for truth's sake, a race of supermen who will lead the world intellectually. it is to russia that all eyes will turn in the next few generations. at the present, she is going through the throes of childbirth. she is immature, and as a child she staggers. the abuse and ridicule heaped upon her now is but the repetition of that given by all frightened societies of past ages, when they contemplated new ideas which their immature minds could not fathom. but russia will emerge in the not too distant future, and the infant will shortly reach maturity; and that maturity may set a standard for those timid and frightened societies that at present look with dilated eyes upon her daring. the age is approaching when the god idea in its entirety will be classed with the gods of the egyptians and babylonians, when surplices and sacramental plate will be exhibited in museums; when nurses will relate to children the legends of the christian mythology, as they now tell them fairy tales. the gods of monotheism will join the gods of polytheism and yahveh and his associates will occupy in the minds of men the position now held by the gods of olympus. to our ancestors jupiter and yahveh will have the same significance. "in a little time the cathedrals and churches will have taken upon themselves the proud, poetical glamour of abandoned temples. men and women will enter them with reverent indulgence as they now in meditative mood visit the few remaining pantheons of the pagan worship." (_llewelyn powys_: "_an hour on christianity._") the age is approaching when the current idea of the hereafter will be accounted a strange and selfish idea, just as we smile at the savage chief who believes that his station will be continued in the world beneath the ground, and that he will there be attended by his concubines and slaves. the age is fast approaching when love, not fear, will unite the human race. in that age, the _ideal_, not the _idol_, will be truth, and the one faith, not religion, but a sincere and lofty conception of the dignity and resourcefulness of the human mind; and an overwhelming desire to aid in the progress of all mankind, the extinction of disease, the perfection of genius, the perfection of love, and, therefore, the abolition of war, the exploration of the infinite, and the conquest of creation. such an age can never come to be during the maljurisdiction of a theistic philosophy. it can only come into being when the vast majority of men are by the force of advancing knowledge made aware of the truth of the atheistic philosophy. an english observer, c. e. m. joad, remarks: "the churches, no doubt, will continue to function for a time, but they will be attended increasingly, and in the end exclusively, by ignorant men, women, and children. already, a stranger attending an average church of england service would almost be justified in assuming that the churches, like theatre matinées, were kept up for the benefit of women and children. so far as present indications go, it seems not unlikely that science will deliver the coup de grace to organized christianity within the next hundred years." we have caught a glimpse of what theism has done, and what the philosophy of atheism might have done, and will yet achieve. has man profited by having remained in his mental infancy so long? atheism is an emancipating system of thought that frees the mind from myths, fables, and childish fancies. there can be no inquisition, no witchcraft delusion, no religious wars, no persecutions of one sect by another, no impediment to science and progress, no stultification of the mind, as a result of its teachings. the philosophy of atheism teaches man to stand on his own feet, instills confidence in his reasoning powers, and forces him to conquer his environment. it teaches him not to subject himself and debase himself before mythical superhuman powers, for his reason is his power. the march from faith to reason is the march on which dwells the future hope of a really civilized mankind. atheism teaches man to endeavor constantly to better his own condition and that of all of his fellowmen, to make his children wiser and happier; it supplies the powerful urge to add something new to the knowledge of mankind. and all this, not in the vain hope of being rewarded in another world, but from a pure sense of duty as a citizen of nature, as a patriot of the planet on which he dwells. this is no cold and cheerless philosophy; it is an elevating and ennobling ideal which may console him in his afflictions and teach him how to live and how to die. it is a self-reliant philosophy that makes a man intellectually free, and this mental emancipation allows him to face the world without fear of ghosts and gods. it relates solely to facts, while theism resorts to opinions that are grounded only upon emotionalism. joseph lewis has well noted that, "atheism does not believe that man's mission on earth is to love and glorify god, but it does believe in living this life so that when you pass on, the world will be better for your having lived." the history of the past ages informs us what the world was like with god. the progress of secular knowledge and science have given us measures by which we could produce a better society than has ever existed under the obstructionism of the gods. "the knowledge exists by which universal happiness can be secured, the chief obstacle to its utilization for that purpose is the teaching of religion. religion prevents our children from having a rational education; religion prevents us from removing the fundamental causes of war; religion prevents us from teaching the ethics of scientific cooperation in place of the old fierce doctrines of sin and punishment. it is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age, but if so, it will be necessary to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion." (_bertrand russell._) it is interesting to contemplate the changes that may occur in our civilization in the next few centuries. on the one hand we have that long period of sterile time, 15,000 years, for the stage of neolithic man, and on the other the vast material progress of the past three hundred years. we may not be able to discern with clarity in what direction changes will occur, but in one aspect we can discern a well-marked tendency. that is the inevitable conquest of the philosophy of atheism. and with this conquest can be clearly seen that it would give to this earth a much sounder foundation upon which to build our progress, and that long-delayed freedom, the emancipation of the mind from all myths and fables. the inevitableness of atheism has been well summed up by chapman cohen: "looking at the whole course of human history, and noting how the vilest and most ruinous practices have been ever associated with religion, and have ever relied upon religion for support, the cause for speculation is, not what will happen to the world when religion dies out, but how human society has managed to flourish while the belief in the gods ruled.... "substantially, we have by searching found out god. we know the origin and history of one of the greatest delusions that ever possessed the human mind. god has been found out; analytically and synthetically we understand the god-idea as previous generations could not understand it. it has been explained, and the logical consequence of the explanation is atheism." man is fast attaining a mastery of his environment, and his religious creeds are becoming as irrational to him as the witchcraft delusion. religion with its burden of fear ties him to the dead ages. but knowledge not only supplies him with power, but also furnishes him with courage, and that courage will aid him in freeing himself from that fear--religion. religion is doomed to occupy the same place in history as the institution of slavery. lies and imposture, no matter how powerfully sustained, can be dispelled by knowledge. the church will destroy itself with its own poison. knowledge and courage spell the doom of religion. chapter xx contemporary opinion _the vanguard_ _let us make no mistake--great minds are skeptical.... the strength and the freedom which arise from exceptional power of thought express themselves in skepticism.... a mind which aspires to great things and is determined to achieve them is of necessity skeptical_. nietzsche. bertrand russell my own view on religion is that of lucretius. i regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. i cannot, however, deny that it has made _some_ contributions to civilization. it helped in early days to fix the calendar, and it caused egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they became able to predict them. these two services i am prepared to acknowledge, but i do not know of any others. max carl otto it is my conviction that the happiest and noblest life attainable by men and women is jeopardized by reliance upon a superhuman, cosmic being for guidance and help. i know, of course, that god has been defined in various terms. i do not choose among them. for it seems to me indisputable that those who turn to god, however god be defined, do so because, consciously or unconsciously, they seek there the satisfaction of wants, the worth of living, and security for what they passionately prize, which they have not found and despair of finding in the human venture as they know it. reliance upon god for what life does not afford, has, in my opinion, harmful consequences. it diverts attention from the specific conditions upon which a better or a worse life depends; it leads men to regard themselves as spectators of a course of events which they in reality help to determine; it makes the highest human excellence consist in acquiescence in the supposed will of a being that is defined as not human, a being that is above the driving force of impulse, that does not experience vacillating moods or conflicting desires, that is never harassed by doubts or misled by ignorance.... theism is in essence repressive, prohibitory, ascetic. the outcome of its influence is that expertness in practical living and expertness in evaluating life, instead of uniting to take advantage of a common opportunity, are set against each other. this is the profound dualism which remains to be mastered. it can be mastered by the concentration upon human needs and powers. john dewey the method we term "scientific" forms for the modern man (and a man is not modern merely because he lives in 1931) the sole, dependable means of disclosing the realities of existence. it is the sole authentic mode of revelation. this possession of a new method, to the use of which no limits can be put, signifies a new idea of the nature and possibilities of experience. it imports a new morale of confidence, control, and security. c. e. m. joad all through the century (nineteenth), whenever and wherever there is a movement for change and betterment, the clergy are found opposing it. in this they are merely carrying on the tradition of their order. when one looks back over history, one realizes that there is scarcely any discovery which science has made for human advancement and happiness which churchmen and theologians have not violently opposed. not content with burning each other, they burnt the men who discovered the earth's motion, burnt the men who made the first tentative beginnings of physics and chemistry, burnt the men who laid the foundations of our medical knowledge.... bad as has been the church's record in the past, it is not greatly improved in the present.... for two thousand years teachers and preachers have striven, by inculcating the principles and precepts of christianity, to mould men's character and to improve their conduct; yet we still have our prisons, our judges, and our wars, and it remains today, as it has done for two thousand years past, an arguable question whether men are better or worse than they were before christianity was introduced. william pepperell montague if we will for a moment imagine the bible to have come suddenly to our attention today, unencumbered by a tradition of divine authority, and with no more sacredness than a newly discovered writing of ancient china or egypt, we can see quite readily that it would occur to nobody who took the work merely on its merits either to accept it as scientifically and historically true, or to twist its statements into a far-fetched allegory of the truth. religion will be _outmoded_; and its tidings of escape to another and better world will ring cold in the ears of those who love this. the new worldliness that religion must face is based on the faith that there is not only no _place_ for heaven, but no _need_ for it. humanity, adolescent at last, has tasted the first fruits of the victory of secular intelligence over nature, and dreams grandly of far greater victories to come. irwin edman the hope of the world certainly lies in intelligence. certainly, there is no hope anywhere else. i cannot look to anything so remotely definable as god for aid, nor do i ever regret not being able to do so. walter lippmann many reasons have been adduced to explain why people do not go to church as much as they once did. surely the most important reason is that they are not so certain that they are going to meet god when they go to church. if they had that certainty they would go. if they really believed that they were being watched by a supreme being who is more powerful than all the kings of the earth put together, if they really believed that not only their actions but their secret thoughts were known and would be remembered by the creator, and ultimate judge of the universe, there would be no complaint whatever about church attendance. the most worldly would be in the front pews, and preachers would not have to resort so often to their rather desperate expedients to attract an audience. if the conviction were there that the creed professed was invincibly true, the modern congregation would not come to church, as they usually do today, to hear the preacher and to listen to the music. they would come to worship god. h. l. mencken alone among the great nations of history we have got rid of religion as a serious scourge, and by the simple process of reducing it to a petty nuisance. for men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt. the more stupid the man, the larger his stock of adamantine assurances, the heavier his load of faith. when copernicus proved that the earth revolved around the sun, he did not simply prove that the earth revolved around the sun, he also proved that the so-called revelation of god, as contained in the old testament, was rubbish. the first fact was relatively trivial: it made no difference to the average man then, as it makes no difference to him today. but, the second fact was of stupendous importance, for it disposed at one stroke of a mass of bogus facts that had been choking the intelligence and retarding the progress of humanity for a millennium and a half.... i believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind; that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overborne by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking. horace m. kallen it is a significant trait of history that the times and nations most distinguished for piety are also most distinguished for backwardness. czarist russia, and contemporary spain are near examples, but illustrations may be drawn from any part of the world; the southern states of the united states of america, for instance. everywhere the scope and intensity of belief in the supernatural seem to be directly proportional to the misery and weakness of the believer (one compensates for the other). freedom of speech and of press and discussion which means generally restraint of all interference in the amicable threshing out of conflicting opinions, means, with respect to religious beliefs, refraining from talking, writing or discussing candidly at all. in every society belief in the supernatural is privileged belief, and there accrue to it all the advantages and disadvantages of privilege.... but mystics and religionists are not silent. on the contrary, they become, having passed through a religious experience, voluble. albert einstein i do not believe we can have any freedom at all in the philosophical sense, for we act not only under external compulsion, but also by inner necessity.... i cannot imagine a god who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modelled after our own, a god, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. neither can i believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. it is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature. luther burbank our lives as we live them are passed on to others, whether in physical or mental forms tinging all future lives forever. this should be enough for one who lives for truth and service to his fellow passengers on the way. no avenging jewish god, no satanic devil, no fiery hell is of any interest to him. the scientist is a lover of truth for the very love of truth itself, wherever it may lead. every normal human being has ideals, one or many, to look up to, to reach up to, to grow up to. religion refers to the sentiments and feelings; science refers to the demonstrated everyday laws of nature. feelings are all right, if one does not get drunk on them. prayer may be elevating if combined with works, and they who labor with head, hands, or feet have faith and are generally quite sure of an immediate and favorable reply. those who take refuge behind theological barbed wire fences, quite often wish they could have more freedom of thought, but fear the change to the great ocean of scientific truth as they would a cold bath plunge. sir arthur keith certainly the creative power which is at work bears no resemblance to the personal god postulated by the hebrews, and the modern man of science cannot fit him into the scheme of the world as he knows it. he has to try to reconceive god, and when he has done so, nothing but an unsatisfying abstraction is left. it is unsatisfying because even the greatest men of science, although they possess the intellects of giants, have still the hearts of children. and children cling to that which is endowed with a human shape and has been given the warmth of living flesh. h. levy a structure of absolute moral and religious beliefs erected initially as beyond criticism, imposed upon a changing society from above rather than emerging from below, has no affinity with science, whatever personal solace and comfort it may provide, for it assumes that the facts of life, including the material facts of the world, can be compassed within a rigidly prescribed framework. it has taken several centuries of history for the scientific movement to be emancipated from just these cramping human assumptions. the writings of many scientists show, alas, that the emancipation has not yet been completed. j. b. s. haldane we know very little about what may be called the geography of the invisible world. the religions, if i may continue the metaphor, have covered the vacant spaces of its map with imaginary monsters; the philosophies have ruled them with equally imaginary parallels of latitude. but both have affirmed, in opposition to the so-called practical man, that the meaning of the visible world is to be found in the invisible. that has been the secret of their success. they have failed when they tried either to describe the details of the visible world or to dictate the details of conduct in it. the churches are half empty today because their creeds are full of obsolete science, and their ethical codes are suited to a social organization far simpler than that of today. howard w. haggard, m. d. when in the fifth century the roman empire fell at the hands of the barbarians, rational medicine ceased altogether in europe. although the christian religion survived, the christian theology of that time denied liberty of conscience and taught superstitions and dogma. it was bitterly hostile to the scientific spirit. all knowledge necessary to man's salvation, physical as well as spiritual, was to be found in the bible as the church interpreted the bible. since the teachings of the church were supposed to be sufficient for all needs, there was no excuse for observations and experimental investigations. the inquisitive spirit was wholly suppressed, the rigorous methods of greek logic were for many centuries lost from european civilization, and intelligent thought was replaced by revelation, speculation, tradition, and subservience to the written word of the bible, to the writings of saints, and later, in medical matters, to the work of galen. the theological beliefs of the time became the controlling influence in western civilization. harry elmer barnes there has never been any religious crisis of this kind before, and any attempt at exact comparisons with the past are here bound to be misleading and distorting. even the extreme assailant of pagan religions, like lucretius, had no basis for the critical attitude as the contemporary sceptic. the bitter attack of lucretius upon supernatural religion was based mainly upon assumptions and intuitions, as incapable of proof at the time as were the most extreme pietistic views of his age. today the situation has been profoundly altered. contemporary science, especially astrophysics, renders the whole set of assumptions underlying the anthropomorphic and geocentric supernaturalism of the past absolutely archaic and preposterous. our scientific knowledge has undermined the most precious tales in the holy books of all peoples. the development of biblical criticism has discredited the dogma of direct revelation and unique nature of the hebrew bible. textual scholarship has been equally devastating to the sacred scriptures which form the literary basis of the other world religions. it avails one nothing to deny these things, for they are actually undeniable. we must face the implied intellectual revolution honestly and see what is to be done about it. george jean nathan to be thoroughly religious, one must, i believe, be sorely disappointed. one's faith in god increases as one's faith in the world decreases. the happier the man, the farther he is from god. rupert hughes it is important that the truth be known. is religion, is church membership a help to virtue? the careless will answer without hesitation, "yes!" of course. the statistics, when they are not smothered, cry, "no!" hu shih on the basis of biological, sociological, and historical knowledge, we should recognize that the individual self is subject to death and decay, but the sum total of individual achievement, for better or for worse, lives on in the immortality of the larger self; that to live for the sake of the species and posterity is religion of the highest kind; and that those religions which seek a future life either in heaven or in the pure land, are selfish religions. dr. frankwood e. williams in these difficult times we are told that we should go to the temple, that we should get in touch with god. we do not need the temple. we do not need to get in touch with "god." we need to get in touch with each other. william floyd this bible bears every evidence of being a book like every other book, conceived by man, written by man, altered by man, translated by man, printed by man, but--and this is where it differs from every other book--the bible is swallowed by man. and it has disagreed with him; man has not digested it properly through lack of sufficient dissection of its parts. it has been taken with a spiritual sauce that has disguised its real flavor. anything in the bible, no matter how raw, is taken as god's food. it is used to demonstrate problems of diet which do not provide a balanced ration; it is accepted by the gullible though contradicted by the revelations of geology, astronomy, anthropology, zoology, and biology. taken as prescribed by the doctors of divinity, the bible is a poisonous book. llewelyn powys the idea of an incarnation of god is absurd: why should the human race think itself so superior to bees, ants, and elephants as to be put in this unique relation to its maker? christians are like a council of frogs in a marsh or a synod of worms on a dung hill croaking and squeaking, "for our sakes was the world created." theodore dreiser and why again, composed though we may be of this, that, and the other proton, electron, etc., etc., why should we not in some way be able to sense why we are as we are--assembled as we are of the same ultimate atoms and doing as we do? why? good god--surely in the face of all this sense of aliveness and motion, and this and that, there should be some intimation of why? but no--none. upton sinclair it is a fact, the significance of which cannot be exaggerated, that the measure of the civilization which any nation has attained is the extent to which it has curtailed the power of institutionalized religion. there are a score of great religions in the world, each with scores or hundreds of sects, each with its priestly orders, its complicated creed and ritual, its heavens and hells. each has its thousands or millions or hundreds of millions of "true believers"; each damns all the others, with more or less heartiness, and each is a mighty fortress of graft. * * * * * _the middle guard_ _it is terrible to die of thirst at sea. is it necessary that you should salt your truth that it will no longer quench thirst_? nietzsche. * * * * * alfred north whitehead indeed, history, down to the present day, is a melancholy record of the horrors which can attend religion: human sacrifice, and, in particular, the slaughter of children, cannibalism, sensual orgies, abject superstition, hatred as between races, the maintenance of degrading customs, hysteria, bigotry, can all be laid at it's charge. religion is the last refuge of human savagery. robert andrews millikan the anthropomorphic god of the ancient world--the god of human passions, frailties, caprices, and whims is gone, and with him the old duty to propitiate him, so that he might be induced to treat you better than your neighbor. can anyone question the advance that has been made in diminishing the prevalence of these medieval, essentially childish, and essentially selfish ideas? the new god is the god of law and order; the new duty, to know that order and to get into harmony with it, to learn how to make the world a better place for mankind to live in, not merely how to save your individual soul. however, once destroy our confidence in the principle of uniformity, our belief in the rule of law, and our effectiveness immediately disappears, our method ceases to be dependable, and our laboratories become deserted. albert c. dieffenbach the plain truth is, thousands upon thousands of men and women have gone out of the church. they take no stock in its obsolete teachings to which they once subscribed in order to become members. after great tribulation, they have made their declaration of religious independence. they have taken the right turn for their own salvation. the churches as a whole do not know that today there is a violent intellectual revolution among all people who think. the so-called theism that is embalmed in the old theology and is still preached is utterly defunct for many persons of this generation. like it or not, that is a fact. dr. charles w. eliot the creeds of the churches contain conceptions of god's nature and of his action toward the human race which are intolerable to the ethical mind of the twentieth century. the conception of one being, human or divine, suffering, though innocent, for the sins of others, is revolting to the universal sense of justice and fair dealing. no school, no family, no court, would punish the innocent when the guilty were known. this conception of god is hideous, cruel, insane, and no christian church which tolerates it can be efficient in the promotion of human welfare and happiness. public domain works from the university of michigan digital libraries.) transcriber's notes: 1. several misprints (including greek) were corrected. a full list of corrections can be found at the end of the text. misspelling and inconsistencies in the french quotations, unless otherwise noted, have been preserved. 2. footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of chapters. 3. footnote 138 had no footnote marker within the text; the reference was added in a possible place. 4. symbol of a hand pointing right has been replaced with a right arrow: ==>. modern atheism under its forms of pantheism, materialism, secularism, development, and natural laws. by james buchanan, d. d., ll. d., divinity professor in "the new college," edinburgh, and author of "the office and work of the holy spirit," etc. boston: _gould and lincoln_, 59 washington street. new york: sheldon, blakeman & co., cincinnati: george s. blanchard. 1857. entered according to act of congress, in the year 1856, by _gould and lincoln_, in the clerk's office of the district court of the district of massachusetts. electro-stereotyped by _g. j. stiles & company_, 23 congress street, boston. prefatory note. the contents of this volume originally constituted about one half of a work, entitled "faith in god and modern atheism compared, in their essential nature, theoretic grounds, and practical influence." simultaneously with the first issue of that work in scotland, the five principal chapters in this volume were published separately, accompanied with the announcement that _each was complete in itself_. the hint thus given by the author, has been acted upon by the present publishers. on examining the whole work, it was found to be divided into four sections. of these, the third was devoted exclusively to "_modern atheism_." it embraced the five chapters already alluded to, together with a general introduction and four shorter chapters. it appeared, in fact, to be a complete treatise by itself; and it is now presented to the american public in the conviction that such a work is peculiarly demanded by the present state of religious opinion in this country. the author is one of the most distinguished divines of the free church of scotland. in 1845, he was appointed professor of apologetic theology in the new college, edinburgh; and, on the death of dr. chalmers, in 1847, he was translated to the chair of systematic theology thus made vacant. in the former position, it became his duty to prepare a complete course of lectures on natural religion. his work on "faith in god," &c., contains, in an altered form, adapted to general readers, the substance of those lectures. respecting this work, the british press generally has spoken in the highest terms. the distinguished geologist, hugh miller, says, in the _edinburgh witness_: "it is one of, at once, the most readable and solid which we have ever perused;" and the _news of the churches_, the organ of the free church, describes it as "a work of which nothing less can be said than that, both in spirit and substance, style and argument, it fixes irreversibly the name of its author as a leading classic in the christian literature of britain." an american critic says: "his succinct analysis of the doctrines held by the various schools of modern atheism are admirable, and his criticisms on their doctrines original and profound; while his arguments in defence of the christian faith against philosophical objectors are unsurpassed by those of any modern writer. clear, vigorous, logical, learned, and strong as a titan, he fairly vanquishes all antagonists by pure mental superiority; never understating their views or evading their arguments, but meeting them in all their force and _crushing_ them." another critic says: "it is a great argument for theism and against atheism, magnificent in its strength, order, and beauty.... the style is lucid, grave, harmonious, and every way commensurate with the dignity and importance of the subject.... the chapter on pantheism is admirable. regarding it as 'the most formidable rival of christian theism at the present day,' dr. buchanan seems to have specially addressed himself to the task of exposing and refuting this error. his statement of spinoza's system is beautifully clear." the reader will find that there is no exaggeration in these encomiums. hugh miller, always felicitous in his choice of words, has exactly described the two leading characteristics of "modern atheism," by the phrase "readable and solid." every one who begins the book will find himself drawn strongly onward to the end; and no one can rise from its perusal without a conviction that it contains a weight of argument against _all_ the forms of atheism such as never before has been combined in one book. should the reception of this volume by the public furnish sufficient encouragement, it is the intention of the publishers to issue the remainder of the work ("faith in god," &c.), in uniform style. boston, _december_, 1856. contents. page introduction, 9 chapter i. modern atheism, 15 chapter ii. theories of development, 45 section i. theory of cosmical development,--"the vestiges," 47 section ii. theory of physiological development,--"telliamed," --physio-philosophy, 61 section iii. theory of social development,--auguste comte, 84 section iv. theory of ecclesiastical development,--j. h. newman, 116 chapter iii. theories of pantheism, 129 section i. the system of spinoza, 142 section ii. material pantheism, 161 section iii. ideal pantheism, 167 chapter iv. theories of materialism, 189 section i. distinct forms of materialism, 192 section ii. propositions on materialism, 207 section iii. relations of materialism to theology, 235 chapter v. theory of government by natural laws,--volney,--combe, 249 section i. the doctrine of natural laws and second causes, 252 section ii. the constitution of man in its relation to the government of god, 254 section iii. the efficacy of prayer, 283 chapter vi. theories of chance and fate, 303 chapter vii. theories of religious liberalism, 323 chapter viii. theories of certitude and skepticism, 333 chapter ix. theory of secularism, 361 introduction. a treatise on the being and perfections of god, as the creator and governor of the world, can scarcely be adapted to the exigencies of modern society, unless it be framed with express reference to the existing forms of unbelief, and the prevailing tendencies both of philosophical thought and of popular opinion. it is quite possible, indeed, to construct a scheme of evidence on this subject out of the ample materials which the storehouse of nature affords, without entering into any discussion of the questions, whether physical or metaphysical, which have been raised respecting it. but this method, although it might be sufficient for many, perhaps for most, of our readers--for all, indeed, who come to the study of the subject with reflective but unsophisticated minds--could scarcely be expected to meet the case or to satisfy the wants of those who stand most in need of instruction; the men, and especially the young men, in all educated communities, who, imbued with the spirit of philosophical speculation, and instructed, more or less fully, in the principles of modern science, have been led, under the influence of certain celebrated names, to adopt opinions which prevent them from seriously considering any theological question, and to regard the whole subject of religion with indifference or contempt, as one that lies beyond the possible range of science,--the only legitimate domain of human thought. in such cases (and they are neither few nor unimportant), it may be useful and even necessary to neutralize those adverse presumptions or "prejudicate opinions," which prevent them from considering the evidence to which theism appeals, and to review the various theories from which they spring, so as to show that they afford no valid reason for discarding the subject, and no ground for alleging that it is not fit _to go to proof_. it is true that we must ultimately rely, for the establishment of our main positions, on that body of natural and historical evidence, which depends little, if at all, on any of the theories of philosophical speculation, or even on any of the discoveries of physical science; but it is equally true that the evidence, however conclusive in itself, cannot be expected to produce conviction unless it be candidly examined and weighed; and if there be anything in the existing state of public opinion which leads men to regard the whole subject with indifference or suspicion, to conceive of it as a problem insoluble by the human faculties, and to treat theology as a fond fancy or a waking dream, it were surely well to examine the grounds of such opinions, to expose their fallacy so as to counteract their influence, and to refute those theories which prevent men from judging of the evidence as they would on any other topic of inductive inquiry. in adopting this course, we are only following the footsteps of the profound author of the "analogy," who finding it, he knew not how, "to be taken for granted, by many persons, that christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry," set himself, in the first instance, to prove "that it is not, however, so clear a case that there is nothing in it;"--this preliminary proof being designed to neutralize objections, and to disburden the subject of all adverse presumptions, so as to be judged on its own proper and independent merits. we are imitating, too, the example of another sagacious writer on a kindred theme, who thought that "apologists had paid too little attention to the _prejudices_ of their opponents, and had been too confident of accomplishing their object at once, by an overpowering statement of the direct evidence, forgetting that the influence of prejudice renders the human mind very nearly inaccessible to both evidence and argument."[1] if this method was ever necessary or expedient, it is peculiarly so in the present age. opinions are afloat in society, and are even avowed by men of high philosophical repute, which formally exclude theology from the domain of human thought, and represent it as utterly inaccessible to the human faculties. they amount to a denial, not merely of its truth, but of its very possibility. they place it among the dreams of the past--with the fables of the genii, or the follies of alchemy, or the phantoms of astrology. they intimate, in no ambiguous terms, not only that catholicism is effete, and christianity itself dead or dying, but that theology of every kind, even the simplest and purest form of theism, must speedily vanish from the earth. admitting that the religious element was necessarily developed in the infancy of the species, and that its influence was alike inevitable and salutary during the world's minority, when it was placed provisionally "under tutors and governors," they proclaim that mankind have outgrown the vestments which suited them in earlier times, and that now they must "put away childish things." that such sentiments have been publicly avowed, that they have been proclaimed as the scientific results of speculative thought, and that they have been widely circulated in the vehicles both of philosophic discussion and of popular literature, will be proved by evidence, equally sad and conclusive, in the succeeding chapters; in the meantime we refer to them merely for the purpose of showing that, in so far as their influence prevails, they must necessarily tend, unless they be counteracted by some effective antidote, to generate such a prejudice against the whole scheme of theology, whether natural or revealed, as may be expected, especially in the case of young, inexperienced, and ardent minds, to prevent them from entertaining the subject at all, or examining, with serious and candid interest, any kind or amount of evidence that might be adduced in regard to it. for this reason, we propose to review the various theories or systems which may be said to embody and exhibit these prevailing tendencies, to meet our opponents on their own chosen ground, and to subject their favorite speculations to a rigorous and sifting scrutiny; and this, not for the purpose of proving our fundamental position, for that must rest on its proper and independent evidence, but simply with the view of neutralizing the adverse presumptions which prevent many from considering its claims, and proving that it is a subject that demands and deserves their serious and sustained attention. taking a comprehensive view of european science and literature during the last half century, we may discern the great currents, or chief tendencies, of speculative thought, in so far as it bears on the evidences and doctrines of religion, in several distinct but closely related systems of opinion, which, whether considered severally or collectively, must exert, in proportion to their prevalence, a powerful influence on the side of atheism. these systems may be divided generally into _two_ great classes, according as they relate to the _substance_ or to the _evidence_ of theism, to the _truths_ which it involves, or the _proofs_ to which it appeals. the interval between the first and second french revolutions may be regarded as the season during which the theories to which we refer were progressively developed, and ultimately consolidated in their existing forms. the germ of each of them may have existed before, and traces of them may be detected in the literature of the ancient world, and even in the writings of mediæval times; nay, it might not be too much to affirm that in the systems of oriental superstition, and in the schools of grecian skepticism, several of them were more fully taught in early times than they have yet been in modern europe, and that the recent attempts to reconstruct and reproduce them in a shape adapted to the present stage of civilization, have been poor and meagre in comparison with those more ancient efforts of unenlightened reason. what modern system of skepticism can rival that of sextus empiricus? what code of pantheism, french or german, can be said to equal the mystic dreams of the vedanta school? what godless theory of natural law can compete with the epicurean philosophy, as illustrated in the poetry of lucretius? the errors of these ancient systems have been revived even amidst the light of the nineteenth century, and prevail to an extent that may seem to justify the apprehension, frequently expressed on the continent of late years, of the restoration of a sort of semi-paganism in modern europe; and it is still necessary, therefore, for the defence of a pure theism, to reëxamine those ancient forms of error which have reäppeared on the scene after it might have been supposed that they had vanished for ever. for the very tenacity with which they cleave to the human mind, and their perpetual recurrence at intervals along the whole course of the world's history, show that there must be something in the wants, or at least in the weaknesses of our nature, which induces men to tolerate and even to embrace them. but the chief danger, as we conceive, lies in those new, or at least newly organized, theories that have only recently received their full development in the inductive and scientific pursuits which constitute the peculiar glory of modern times; and which, commencing with the era of bacon and descartes, and gradually matured by newton, leibnitz, and their successors, have at length issued in the construction of a solid fabric of science. to theism there is no danger in science, in so far as it is true, for all truth is self-consistent and harmonious; but there may be much danger in the use that is made of it, or in the spirit in which it is applied. in the hands of bacon, and newton, and boyle, the doctrine of natural laws was treated as an ally, not as an antagonist, to theology; in the hands of comte it becomes a plea for atheism; and even in the hands of combe an argument against a special providence and the efficacy of prayer. here the danger is the greater just by reason of the acknowledged truth and practical value of the inductive philosophy; for its certainty is so well ascertained, and its manifold uses so generally appreciated, that if it shall come to be regarded as incompatible with the recognition of god and religion, society will soon find itself on the verge of universal atheism. and this is the fearful issue to which the more recent schools of speculation are manifestly tending. the first french revolution was brought about by the labors of men who fought against christianity, at least ostensibly, under the banner of deism or natural religion; the second revolution was consummated under the auspices, not of a deistic, but of an atheistic philosophy. the school of voltaire and rousseau has given place to the school of comte and leroux. the difference between the two indicates a rapid and alarming advance. it may not be apparent at first sight, or on a superficial survey; but it will become evident to any one who compares the two french encyclopædias, which may be regarded as the exponents of the reigning philosophy of the two great revolutionary eras. the first, the encyclopedie of d'alembert, voltaire, and diderot, sought to malign and extirpate christianity, while it did frequent homage to natural theology; the second, the "nouvelle encyclopedie" of pierre leroux and his coadjutors, proclaims the deification of humanity, and the dethronement of god! footnotes: [1] bishop butler, "analogy," preface, p. ii. dr. inglis, "vindication of the christian faith," p. vi. modern atheism. chapter i. general view of atheism. before entering on a detailed discussion of the theories to which it appeals, it may be useful to offer some general reflections on atheism itself, its generic nature and specific varieties, its causes and springs, whether permanent or occasional, and its moral and social influence, as illustrated alike by individual experience and by public history. by atheism we mean any system of opinion which leads men either to _doubt_ or to _deny_ the existence, providence, and government of a living, personal, and holy god, as the creator and lord of the world. in its practical aspect, it is that state of mind which leads them to _forget_, _disown_, or _disobey_ him. we are met, however, at the outset, by a previous question, _whether atheism be a real or even a possible thing?_ a question which was wont to be discussed by divines under the head, _an dentur athei?_[2] and which has recently been revived by the strong protestations of some philosophic writers, who deny not only the existence, but the very possibility of atheism. on this point the policy which infidels have pursued has been widely different at different times. on some occasions, they have sought to exaggerate the number of atheists, claiming as their own adherents or allies a large majority of the intellectual classes, as well as whole tribes or nations of barbarians, in order to impress the public mind with the conviction that belief in god is neither natural nor universal; at other times, they have sought to allay the prejudice which avowed atheism seldom fails to awaken, by disclaiming much that had been imputed to them, by professing a sort of mystic reverence for the spirit of nature, and by denying that their speculations involve a disbelief in god. in following these opposite courses at different times, they have been actuated by a politic regard to the exigencies of their wretched cause, and have alternately adopted the one or the other, just as it might seem, in existing circumstances, to be more expedient either to brave or to conciliate public opinion. it is incumbent, therefore, on every enlightened advocate of christian theism to exercise a prudent discretion in the treatment of this topic, and to guard equally against the danger either of being led to exaggerate the extent, or of being blinded to the existence of the evil. nor is it difficult to discover a safe middle path between the opposite extremes: it is only necessary to define, in the first instance, what we mean when we speak of theism or atheism respectively, and then to ascertain, in the second place, whether any, and what, parties have avowed principles which should fairly serve to connect them with the one system or with the other. a clear conception of the radical principle or essential nature of atheism is indispensable; for without this, we shall be liable, on the one hand, to the risk of imputing atheism to many who are not justly chargeable with it--a fault which should be most carefully avoided;[3] and equally liable, on the other hand, to the danger of overlooking the wide gulf which separates religion from irreligion, and theism from atheism. there is much room for the exercise both of christian candor and of critical discrimination, in forming our estimate of the characters of men from the opinions which they hold, when these opinions relate not to the vital truths of religion, but to collateral topics, more or less directly connected with them. it is eminently necessary, in treating this subject, to discriminate aright between systems which are essentially and avowedly atheistic, and those particular opinions on cognate topics which have sometimes been applied in support of atheism, but which may, nevertheless, be held by some _salvâ fide_, and without conscious, still less avowed, infidelity. and hence buddæus and other divines have carefully distinguished between the radical principles or grounds of atheism, and those opinions which are often, but not invariably, associated with it.[4] but it is equally or still more dangerous, on the other hand, to admit a mere nominal recognition of god as a sufficient disproof of atheism, without inquiring what conception is entertained of his nature and perfections; whether he be conceived of as different from, or identical with, nature; as a living, personal, and intelligent being, distinct from the universe, or as the mere sum of existing things; as a free creator and moral governor, or as a blind destiny and inexorable fate. these are vital questions, and they cannot be evaded without serious detriment to the cause of religion. a few examples will suffice to prove our assertion. m. cousin contends that _atheism is impossible_, and assigns no other reason for his conviction than this,--that the existence of god is necessarily implied in every affirmation, and may be logically deduced from the premises on which that affirmation depends.[5] his reasoning may possibly be quite conclusive _in point of logic_, in so far as it is an attempt to show that the existence of god _ought_ to be deduced from the consciousness of thought; but it cannot be held conclusive as to _the matter of fact_, that there is no atheism in the world, unless it can be further shown that all men know and acknowledge his existence as a truth involved in, and deducible from, their conscious experience. yet he does not hesitate to affirm that "every thought implies a spontaneous faith in god;" nay, he advances further, and adds that even when the sage "denies the existence of god, still his words imply the idea of god, and that belief in god remains unconsciously at the bottom of his heart." surely the denial or the doubt of god's existence amounts to atheism, however inconsistent that atheism may be with the natural laws of thought, or the legitimate exercise of speech. yet the bold paradox of cousin was neither an original discovery nor an unprecedented delusion. it was taught, in a different form, but with equal confidence, by several writers belonging to the era of the first french revolution. thus helvetius, in his work on man, says expressly: "there is no man of understanding who does not acknowledge _an active power in nature; there is, therefore, no atheist_. he is not an atheist who says that _motion is god_; because, in fact, motion is incomprehensible, as we have no clear idea of it, since it does not manifest itself but by its effects, and because by it all things are performed in the universe. he is not an atheist who says, on the contrary, that _motion is not god_, because motion is not a being, but a mode of being. they are not atheists who maintain that motion is essential to matter, and regard it as the invisible and moving force that spreads itself through all its parts," "as the universal soul of matter, and the divinity that alone penetrates its substance. are the philosophers of this last opinion atheists? no; they equally acknowledge an unknown force in the universe. are even those who have no ideas of god atheists? no; because then all men would be so, because no one has a clear idea of the divinity."[6] a more recent writer, the abbé lamennais, is equally explicit, and very much for the same reasons: "the atheist himself has his own notion of god, only he transfers it from the creator to the creation; he ascribes to finite, relative, and contingent being the properties of the necessary being; he confounds the work with the workman. matter being, according to him, eternal, is endowed with certain primitive, unchangeable properties, which, having their own reason in themselves, are themselves the reasons of all successive phenomena;" and "it matters little whether he rejects the _name_ of god or not," or "whether he has, or has not, an explicit knowledge of him;" he cannot but acknowledge an eternal first cause.[7] and so a whole host of pantheistic spiritualists will indignantly disclaim the imputation of atheism, and even attempt to vindicate spinoza himself from the odious charge.[8] nay, some of the grossest materialists, such as atkinson and martineau, while they explicitly deny the existence of a living personal god, will affirm that pantheism is not atheism.[9] now, unquestionably, if by theism we mean nothing more than the recognition of an active power in nature,--such a power as may or may not be identified with motion, and as may be designated indifferently as the divinity, or as the soul of the world,--the possibility of atheism may be effectually excluded; but this only serves to show the indispensable necessity of a correct definition of the terms which are employed in this discussion, since it is perfectly manifest that they are not used in the same sense by the contending parties, and that consequently the disputants are not arguing about the same thing. for pantheism, whatever form it may assume, and whatever language it may adopt, can be regarded in no other light than as a system of atheism, by all who have any definite conception of what is meant when we either affirm or deny the existence and government of a living, intelligent, personal god. as atheism has appeared in several distinct forms, it is necessary to consider both its _generic nature_ and its _specific varieties_. it may be defined, generally, as that state of mind which involves either _the denial_ or _the doubt_ of the existence and government of god as an all-perfect being, distinct from the created universe; or which leads to the habitual forgetfulness and wilful neglect of his claims as our creator, preserver, and lord. this state of mind, whether evinced by words or by actions, contains in it the essence of atheism, and it is recognized in scripture, in each of its two aspects, as an evil alike natural and prevalent. the words of the psalmist, "the fool hath said in his heart, no god,"[10] whether they be interpreted as the expression of an _opinion_ or of a _wish_, indicate in either case the existence of that state of mind which has just been described, and which may issue either in practical or speculative atheism, according to the temperament of individual minds, and the influences which are brought to bear upon them. the same inspired writer has said,[11] that "the wicked through the pride of his countenance will not seek after god; god is not in all his thoughts;"--"he hath said in his heart, god hath forgotten; he hideth his face; he will never see it."--"wherefore doth the wicked contemn god? he hath said in his heart, thou wilt not require it;" and these words exhibit a graphic delineation, of that state of mind in which occasional thoughts of god are neutralized by habitual unbelief, and the warnings of conscience silenced by the denial of a supreme moral government. in like manner, when the apostle tells the ephesian converts that at one time "they were _without god_ in the world,"[12] and the galatians, that "when they knew not god, they did service unto them which by nature are no gods;" when he further speaks of some as "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of god," as "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof," as "professing that they know god, but _in works denying him_;"[13]--in all these statements we see the generic nature of that ungodliness which cleaves as an inveterate disease to our fallen nature, and which, whether it appears only in the form of practical unbelief and habitual forgetfulness, or assumes the more daring aspect of avowed infidelity, contains in it the essence of atheism. while such is its _generic nature_, we must further discriminate between its specific varieties; for it does not always wear the same aspect, or rest on the same grounds. it may be divided, first of all, into _speculative_ and _practical_ atheism: the former implying a denial, or a doubt of the existence and government of god, either openly avowed or secretly cherished; while the latter is perfectly compatible with a nominal religious profession, and consists in the habitual forgetfulness of god and of the duties which arise out of his relation to us as his creatures and subjects. speculative atheism is comparatively rare; practical atheism is widely prevalent, and may be justly regarded as the grand parent sin, the universal characteristic of fallen humanity.[14] it is not atheism in profession, it is atheism in practice. those who are chargeable with it may "profess that they _know_ god, but in works they _deny_ him." as distinguished from theoretical or speculative atheism, it is fitly termed _ungodliness_. it does not necessarily imply either the denial or the doubt of the existence or government of god, but consists mainly in the forgetfulness of his character and claims. speculative atheism always implies habitual ungodliness; but the latter may exist where the former has never been embraced, and has even been openly and sincerely disclaimed. yet such is the _connection_ between the two, that speculative atheism invariably presupposes and perpetuates practical ungodliness; and that the latter has also a tendency to produce the former, since the habitual disregard of god in the practical conduct of life indicates a state of mind in which men are peculiarly exposed to the seductions of infidelity and prone to yield to them, especially in seasons of revolutionary excitement or of prevailing epidemic unbelief. it would be wrong to rank every ungodly man among professed or even conscious atheists, for he may never have denied or even doubted the existence and government of god; yet it were equally wrong to represent or treat him as a true believer, since he shows that, practically, "god is not in all his thoughts;" and hence the necessity of our _first_ distinction between [transcriber's note: original had "beetween"] _theoretical_ or _speculative_, and _practical_ or _habitual_ atheism. speculative atheism, again, is either _dogmatic_ or _skeptical_. it is _dogmatic_, when it amounts to an affirmation, either that there is no god, or that the question of his existence is necessarily insoluble by the human faculties. atheism has been distinguished from anti-theism; and the former has been supposed to imply merely the non-recognition of god, while the latter asserts his non-existence. this distinction is founded on the difference between _unbelief_ and _disbelief_;[15] and its validity is admitted in so far as it discriminates merely between dogmatic and skeptical atheism. but anti-theism is maintained, in the strictest sense of the term, where it is affirmed either that there is no god, or that the existence of the supreme being _cannot_ in any circumstances become an object of human knowledge. in each of these forms, atheism is dogmatic; it denies the existence of god, or it denies the possibility of his being known. but there is also a _skeptical_ atheism, which does not affirm absolutely either that there is no god, or that the knowledge of god is necessarily excluded by the limitations of human reason, but contents itself with saying, "_non-liquet_,"--_i.e._, with denying the sufficiency of the evidence. it answers every appeal to that evidence by saying that, however satisfactory it may be to the minds of some, it does not carry conviction to the minds of all, and that for this reason it may be justly regarded as doubtful or inconclusive. these two forms of atheism--the dogmatic and the skeptical--are widely different from each other; they rest on distinct grounds, and they require, therefore, to be discussed separately, each on its own peculiar and independent merits. the dogmatic atheist feels no force in the arguments which are directed merely against his skeptical ally; for, strong in his own position and confident in his ability to maintain it, he is conscious of no speculative doubt, and affirms boldly what he unhesitatingly believes. the skeptical atheist, again, feels no force in the arguments which are directed against a dogmatic system such as he utterly disclaims; he is equally unwilling to affirm either that there is, or that there is not, a god: he takes refuge in doubt, and refuses alike to affirm or to deny; his only plea is, the want or the weakness of evidence on either side. from this radical difference between the two forms of speculative atheism, there arises a necessity for discussing each of them on its own merits; and yet, although theoretically they may be easily distinguished, it will be found that practically they are often conjoined, since the same mind will often fluctuate between the two, and shift its ground by betaking itself alternately to the one or the other, according to the exigencies of the argument. assail the dogmatic atheist with the unanswerable statement of john foster, that it would require nothing less than omniscience to warrant the denial of a god, and he will probably defer to it so far as to admit that he cannot prove his negative conclusion, but will add that he is not bound to do so, and that all that can be reasonably required of him is to show that the evidence adduced on the opposite side is insufficient to establish the divine existence, or that the phenomena which supply that evidence may be as well, or more satisfactorily, explained in some other way. assail, in like manner, the skeptical atheist with the self-evident truth that, even on his own principles, he is not entitled to assume or to act upon the assumption, that _there is no god_, since the result of his reasonings is _doubt_ merely, and such doubt as implies that there _may be_ a creator, governor, and judge, he will probably defer to it so far as to admit that this is the only logical result of his system, but will add that, where there is no conclusive evidence on either side, there can be no moral obligation to a religious life, and no guilt in living "without god in the world." it will be found, too, that, distinct as these two forms of speculative atheism may appear to be, yet they have often been made to rest on a common ground, and the self-same arguments have been adduced in support of both. thus the doctrine of materialism, the theory of development, and the system of natural laws, have all been applied by the dogmatic atheist to justify his denial of the existence and government of god, on the ground that all the phenomena of nature may be accounted for without the supposition of a supreme mind; while the very same doctrines or theories have been also applied by the skeptical atheist to justify, not his _denial_, but his _doubt_, and to vindicate his verdict of "_non-liquet_" on the evidence adduced. and as the same arguments are often employed by both parties in support of their respective views, so they make use, for the most part, of the same objections in assailing the cause of theism; insomuch that it would be impossible, and even were it possible it would be superfluous, to attempt a formal refutation of either, without discussing those more general principles which are applicable to both. for this reason, we propose to examine in the sequel the various theories which have been applied in support alike of dogmatic and of skeptical atheism, so as to illustrate the grounds that are common to both, while we consider also the distinctive peculiarities of the two systems, and more particularly the grounds of religious skepticism. besides the radical distinction between dogmatic and skeptical atheism, we must consider the difference between _the four great leading systems_ which have been applied to account for the existing order of nature, without the recognition of a living, intelligent, personal god. there are many specific varieties of atheism; but, ultimately, they may be reduced to _four_ classes. the _first_ system assumes and asserts the eternal existence of the cosmos; that is, of the present order of nature, with all its laws and processes, its tribes and races, whether of vegetable or animal life; and affirms that the world, as now constituted, never had a beginning, and that it will never have an end. this has been called the aristotelian hypothesis, because aristotle, while he spoke of a supreme mind or reason, maintained not only the eternity of matter, but also the eternity of "substantial forms and qualities." the _second_ system affirms, not the eternal existence of the cosmos,--for the commencement of the existing order of nature is admitted to be comparatively recent,--but the eternal existence of matter and motion; and attempts to account for the origin of the world and of the races by which it is peopled, either by ascribing it, with epicurus, to a fortuitous concourse of atoms, or, with more modern speculatists, to a law of progressive development. this has been called the epicurean hypothesis, because epicurus, while nominally admitting the existence of god, denied the creation of the world, and ascribed its origin to atoms supposed to have been endued with motion or certain inherent properties and powers, and to have been self-existent and eternal. the _third_ system affirms the coëxistence and coëternity of god and the world; and, while it admits a distinction between the two, represents them as so closely and necessarily conjoined, that god can be regarded only as the soul of the world,--superior to matter, as soul is to body, but neither anterior to it, nor independent of it, and subject, as matter itself is, to the laws of necessity and fate. this has been called the stoical system; since the stoics, notwithstanding all their sublime moral speculations and their frequent recognition of god, taught that god sustains the same relation to the world as the soul of man does to his body. the _fourth_ system denies the distinction between god and the world, and affirms that all is god, and god is all; that there exists only _one substance_ in the universe, of which all existing beings are only so many modes or manifestations; that these beings proceed from that _one_ substance, not by creation, but by emanation; that when they disappear, they are not destroyed, but reäbsorbed; and that thus, through endless cycles of change, of reproduction and decay, it is one and the same eternal being that is continually modified and manifested. this has been called the pantheistic hypothesis, and it is exemplified, on a large scale, in the speculations of the brahmins in india, and, in europe, in those of spinoza and his numerous followers. if this be a correct analysis of speculative atheism, in so far as it assumes a positive or dogmatic shape, we have only to conjoin with it the peculiar characteristics of that which is merely skeptical, and we shall obtain a comprehensive view of the whole subject, which may serve as a useful guide in the selection and treatment of the topics which demand our chief attention in the prosecution of this inquiry. it is necessary, however, in discussing this subject, to bear in mind that there is a wide difference between systems of atheism, such as we have briefly described, and certain doctrines which have sometimes been associated with it, or even applied in its support or vindication. these doctrines may have been connected, historically, with the promulgation and defence of atheistic views; they may even seem to have a tendency adverse to the evidence or truths of christian theism; but they must not on that account be summarily characterized as atheistic, nor must those who have at any time maintained them be forthwith classed among avowed infidels.[16] the doctrine of philosophical necessity, which in the hands of jonathan edwards was applied, whether consistently or otherwise, in illustration and defence of christian truth, became in the hands of collins and godwin an associate and ally of anti-christian error; the doctrine of the natural mortality of the soul, which in the hands of dodwell was applied, whether consistently or otherwise, to vindicate the peculiar privileges of the christian covenant, has often been applied by infidels as a weapon of assault against the fundamental articles of natural religion itself; the doctrine of materialism, which in the hands of priestly was maintained, whether consistently or otherwise, in connection with an avowed belief in god as the creator and governor of the world, became in the hands of baron d'holbach and his associates the corner-stone of the atheistic "system of nature;" the doctrine of "natural laws," which in the hands of bishop butler is so powerfully applied in proof of a system of divine government, has become in the hands of mr. combe a plausible pretext for denying a special providence and the efficacy of prayer; and the mere fact that these doctrines have been applied to such different and even opposite uses, is a sufficient proof of itself that they are not in their own nature essentially atheistic, and that they should be carefully discriminated from the systems with which they have been occasionally associated. we are not entitled to identify them with atheism, in the case of those by whom atheism is explicitly disclaimed; and yet there may be such an apparent connection between the two, and such a tendency in the human mind to pass from the one to the other, as may afford a sufficient reason for examining these cognate doctrines, each on its proper merits, for defining the sense in which they should be severally understood, for estimating the evidence which may be adduced for or against them individually, and for showing in what way, and to what extent, they may have a legitimate bearing on the grounds of our theistic belief. for this reason, we shall bring under review, not only several systems of avowed atheism, but also various theories, not necessarily atheistic, which have been applied to the support and defence of atheism, and which have a tendency, as thus applied, to induce an irreligious frame of mind. the _causes and springs of atheism_ may easily be distinguished from _the reasons_ on which it is founded. in the present state of human nature, there is _a permanent cause_ which is abundantly sufficient to account for this species of unbelief, notwithstanding all the evidence which nature affords of the being, perfections, and providence of god. our lord explained in a single sentence the whole philosophy of unbelief, when he said that "men loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds are evil; for whoso doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." no thoughtful man can seriously reflect on his own conscious experience, without discovering, in the disordered state of his moral nature, a reason which sufficiently explains his natural aversion from god; he finds _there_ an evidence, which he can neither overlook nor deny, of his own personal turpitude and guilt; he is self-convinced and self-condemned at the bar of his own conscience; he remembers with remorse and shame many cases of actual transgression in which he resisted the dictates of reason, and resigned himself to the dominion of evil passions; and when, with these convictions and feelings, he is asked to conceive of god as a living, personal being, everywhere present, beholding the evil and the good, whose "eyes are as a flame of fire," and can discern "the very thoughts and intents of the heart;" when he conceives of such a being as his lawgiver, governor, and judge, as one who demands the homage of the heart and the obedience of the life, and who has power to enforce his rightful claims by the sanctions of reward and punishment, he will be sensible, in the first instance, of an instinctive disposition to recoil from the contemplation of his character, and a strong desire to deny, or at least to forget, his claims; and just in proportion as the idea of god becomes more vivid, or is more frequently presented to his mind, it will become the more intolerable, insomuch that he will be tempted either to banish the subject altogether from his thoughts, or, if he cannot succeed in this, to alter and modify his view of the divine character so as to bring it into accordance with his own wishes, and to obtain some relief from the fears and forebodings which it would otherwise awaken in his mind. if he should succeed in this attempt, he will fall into one or other of two opposite states of mind, which, however apparently different, do nevertheless spring from the same latent source,--a state _of security_, or a state of _servitude_. in the former, he either forgets god altogether,--"god is not in all his thoughts;" or he conceives of him as "one like unto himself," indulgent to sin, and neither strict to mark nor just to punish it: in the latter, he either "remembers god and is troubled," or, if he would allay the remorse and forebodings of an uneasy conscience, he has recourse to penance and mortification, to painful sacrifices and ritual observances, in the hope, that by these he may propitiate an offended deity. in the one case, the conflict ends in practical atheism, in the other, in abject superstition. and these two, atheism and superstition, however different and even opposite they may seem to be, are really offshoots from the same corrupt root,--"the evil heart of unbelief which departeth from the living god." in the case of the great majority of mankind, who are little addicted to speculative inquiry, or to serious thought of any kind, it may be safely affirmed that, in the absence of revelation, they will inevitably fall into one or other of these two extremes, or rather, that they will oscillate alternately between the two,--in seasons of ease and prosperity living "without god in the world," and in seasons of distress or danger betaking themselves for relief to the rites of a superstitious worship. the apostle describes at once the secret cause and the successive steps of this sad degeneracy, when, speaking of the gentiles, he says that "when they knew god, they glorified him not as god, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible god into an image made like to corruptible man."--"and even as they did not like to retain god in their knowledge, god gave them over to a reprobate mind."[17] the secret cause of all these evils was a latent "enmity against god,"--"they did not _like_ to retain god in their knowledge." from this proceeded, in the first instance, a _practical habit_ of atheism,--"they glorified him not as god, neither were thankful;" and from hence proceeded, in the second instance, the gross superstition of _polytheistic belief and worship_,--"they changed the glory of the incorruptible god into an image made like to corruptible man,"--"they changed the truth of god into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator, who is blessed forever." but, while practical atheism and blind superstition are the two extremes which divide among them the great majority of mankind, there have always been some more thoughtful and inquiring spirits, who have sought to penetrate the mysteries of their being, and to account for the present order of things. they have asked, and have attempted to answer, such questions as these: what are we? what was our origin? what is our destination? whence came this stupendous fabric of nature? is it self-existent and eternal? or did it come into being at some definite time? if not eternal, how was it produced? by chance or by design? by inevitable fate or by spontaneous will? whence the order which pervades it, and the beauty by which it is adorned? whence, above all, the evil, moral and physical, by which it is disfigured and cursed? and, in reply to these thoughtful questionings, various theories have been invented to account for the existing order of things, while not a few of the most daring thinkers have abandoned the subject in despair, and, holding it to be an insoluble problem, have resigned themselves to the cheerless gloom of skepticism. in reviewing all these speculations and theories, we must bear in mind that their authors and advocates, although more thoughtful and inquisitive than the great majority of mankind, were equally subject to the same corrupting influence,--"the evil heart of unbelief,"--and that the same cause which produced practical atheism in some, and abject superstition in others, may also have operated, but more insidiously, in producing speculative infidelity in the minds of those who are more addicted to abstruse philosophical inquiries. we must seek to get down to the root of the evil, if we would suggest or apply an effectual remedy; we must not deal with the symptoms merely, but search for and probe the seat of the disease; and if that be the disordered state of our moral nature, which gives rise to fears and forebodings as often as we think of god, no remedy will be effectual which does not remove our distrust, suspicion, and jealousy; and no argument, however conclusive, will have any practical power which does not present such views of god as to make him an object of confidence, and trust, and love. it is of vast importance that this fundamental truth should be kept steadily in view; for, as the disordered state of our moral nature is the rudimental source both of practical atheism and of popular superstition, so it is also the prolific parent of speculative infidelity in every variety of form: and as long as the remedy is not applied to the root of the disease, the atheist, if forced to relinquish one theory, will only betake himself to another, and after having gone the round of them all, will rather throw himself into the vortex of utter and hopeless skepticism, than acknowledge a god whom he cannot love, a judge whom he cannot but dread. christianity alone can supply an effectual remedy, and it is such a remedy as is fitted to cure alike the habitual ungodliness, the abject superstition, and the speculative infidelity, which have all sprung from the same prolific source. it exhibits such a view of the character and will of god as may relieve us from the fears and forebodings of guilt, and, by revealing a divine method of reconciliation, may place us in a position the most favorable for a calm and dispassionate consideration of the natural evidence in favor of his being, perfections, and moral government. but, while the grand parent cause of all atheism--whether practical or speculative, dogmatic or skeptical--is to be found in the disordered state of our own moral nature, there are other subordinate causes in operation, which may be regarded either as _incidental occasions_, or as _plausible pretexts_, for this form of unbelief. the internal causes are the primary and most powerful; but there are external influences which coöperate with these, and serve to stimulate and strengthen them. among the incidental occasions of atheism, we might mention a defective, because irreligious, education in early life, the influence of ungodly example and profane converse, and the authority of a few great names in literature or science which have become associated with the cause of infidelity; and among the plausible pretexts for atheism we might mention the inconsistencies of professed believers and especially of the clergy, the divided state of the religious world, as indicated by the multiplicity of sects, the bitterness of religious controversy, the supposed opposition of the church to the progress of science and the extension of civil and religious liberty, and the gross superstitions which have been incorporated with christianity itself in some of the oldest and most powerful states of europe. these and similar topics may be justly said to be the "loci communes of atheism," and they are often employed in eloquent declamation or indignant invective, so as to make a much deeper impression, especially on young and ardent minds, than their intrinsic weight or real argumentative value can either justify or explain. infidel writers have not been slow to avail themselves of these pretexts for unbelief, in regard alike to natural and revealed religion; and have artfully identified religion with superstition, and christianity with popery, as if there were no consistent or tenable medium between the two. and, perhaps, of all the incidental occasions or external inducements to atheism, none has exerted so much influence over reflecting minds as the wide-spread prevalence of superstition; for never was atheism more general among the cultivated classes in ancient times than in the states of greece, whose hospitable pantheon enclosed the gods of all nations, and whose inhabitants were "exceedingly given to idolatry;" and nowhere, in modern times, has atheism been more explicitly avowed or more zealously propagated than in those countries of europe which are most thoroughly subjugated to the superstitions of the papacy. in the graphic words of robert hall, "infidelity was bred in the stagnant marshes of corrupted christianity."[18] having described the nature, evinced the reality, and referred to the permanent and occasional causes of atheism, we may briefly advert to _its moral and social influence_. on this point three distinct questions have been raised: _first_, whether atheism be conducive to personal happiness? _secondly_, whether it be compatible with pure morality and virtue? and, _thirdly_, whether it be consistent with social well-being, with the authority of the laws, and the safety or comfort of the community? in considering these questions, it is necessary to remember that in no age, and in no region of the world, has speculative atheism been universal, or even so prevalent as to exhibit on a large scale a full development of its legitimate results. it has always been in a minority, and has been continually checked, modified and controlled, by the prevailing beliefs of society; and, whether these beliefs were purely religious or grossly superstitious, they have exerted a powerful influence in counteracting the native tendencies of atheistic speculation. "the effects of atheism," as mr. estlin justly observes, "we have not yet in any great degree experienced, as the mental habits of those who hold it in speculation were in general formed, before they had adopted their present principles, by the imperceptible influence of that religion which they now traduce."[19] perhaps the nearest approach to a state of prevailing atheism which has ever been exhibited in the history of the world, is to be found in france at the era of the first revolution, when christianity was publicly abjured, and the goddess of reason substituted for the god of the bible. but that even this fearful outburst of impiety did not proceed from the universal prevalence of speculative atheism among the great body of the people; that there still existed in the heart of society some germs of religious feeling, and certain instinctive or traditionary beliefs which operated as a restraint and check even during that season of revolutionary frenzy, is sufficiently evinced by the reaction which speedily occurred in the public mind, and which restored catholicism itself, as if by magic, to its wonted supremacy; while the anti-social tendency of atheism, in so far as it did prevail, was strikingly attested by the fact, that the leading actors in that fearful drama found themselves compelled to provide for the public safety by restoring at least the forms of religious worship, and to acknowledge that "if there were no god, it would be necessary to invent one."--"the true light," says the eloquent robert hall, "in which the french revolution ought to be contemplated is that of a grand experiment on human nature." "god permitted the trial to be made. in one country, and that the centre of christendom, revelation underwent a total eclipse, while atheism, performing on a darkened theatre its strange and fearful tragedy, confounded the first elements of society, blended every age, rank, and sex, in indiscriminate proscription and massacre, and convulsed all europe to its centre, that the imperishable memorial of these events might teach the last generations of mankind to consider religion as the pillar of society, the safeguard of nations, the parent of social order, which alone has power to curb the fury of the passions, and secure to every one his rights; to the laborious the reward of their industry, to the rich the enjoyment of their wealth, to nobles the preservation of their honors, and to princes the stability of their thrones."[20] in the case of individuals holding atheistic opinions, but living in the midst of christian society, the full influence of these opinions cannot be felt, nor their effects fully developed, in the presence of those restraints and checks which are imposed by the religious beliefs and observances of others. we cannot estimate their influence either on the personal happiness, or the moral character, or the social welfare of men, without taking this circumstance into account. to arrive at even a tolerable approximation to a correct judgment, we must endeavor to conceive of atheism as prevailing universally in the community, as emancipated from all restraint, and free to develop itself without let or hindrance of any kind, as tolerated by law, and sanctioned by public opinion, and unopposed by any remaining forms either of domestic piety or of public worship, as reigning supreme in every heart, and as forming the creed of every household; and thus conceiving of it as an inveterate, universal epidemic, we are then to inquire whether, and on what conditions, society would in such a case be possible, and how far the prevalence of atheism might be expected to affect the morals and welfare of mankind. the question has been raised whether atheism might not be more conducive than religion to _the personal happiness of individuals_; and some, who have confounded religion with superstition, have not hesitated to answer that question in the affirmative. the conviction that there is no god, and no moral government, and no state of future retribution, could it only be steadfastly and invariably maintained, might serve, it has been thought, to relieve the mind of many forebodings and fears which disturb its peace, and, if it could not ensure perfect happiness, might act at least as an opiate or sedative to a restless and uneasy conscience. in the opinion of epicurus and lucretius, tranquillity of mind was the grand practical benefit of that unbelief which they sought to inculcate respecting the doctrine of providence and immortality. they frequently affirmed that _fear_ generated superstition, and that superstition, in its turn, deepened and perpetuated the fear from which it sprung; that the minds of men must necessarily be overcast with anxiety and gloom as long as they continued to believe in a moral government and a future state; and that the only sovereign and effectual antidote to superstitious terror is the spirit of philosophical unbelief. similar views are perpetually repeated in the eloquent but declamatory pages of "the system of nature." but the remedy proposed seems to be subject to grave suspicion, as one that may be utterly powerless, or at the best, exceedingly precarious; for, first of all, the fears which are supposed to have generated religion must have been anterior to it, and must have arisen from some natural cause, which will continue to operate even after religion has been disowned. they spring, in fact, necessarily out of our present condition as dependent, responsible, and dying creatures; and they can neither be prevented nor cured by the mere negations of atheism; we can only be raised above their depressing influence by a rational belief and well-grounded trust in the being and character of god. again, if the denial of a providence and of a future state might serve, were it associated with a full assurance of certainty, to relieve us from _the fear_ of retribution hereafter, it must equally destroy _all hope_ of immortality, and reduce us to the dreary prospect of annihilation at death,--a prospect from which the soul of man instinctively recoils, and by which his whole life would be embittered just in proportion as he became more thoughtful and reflective. unbelief can operate as a sedative to fear only in so far as it is habitual, uniform, undisturbed by any inward misgivings or apparent uncertainty; but, in the case of men not utterly thoughtless or insensible, it is rarely, if ever, found to possess this character. it is often shaken, and always liable to be disquieted, by occasional convictions, which no amount of vigilance can ward off, and no strength of resolution repress. it is maintained only by a painful and sustained conflict, which is but ill-concealed by the vehemence of its protestations, and often significantly indicated by the very extravagance of its zeal. add to this, that atheism itself affords no guarantee against future suffering. it may deny a providence here and a judgment hereafter, it may even deny a future state of conscious existence, and take refuge in the hope of annihilation that it may escape from the dread prospect of retribution; but it cannot affirm the _impossibility_, it can only doubt the _certainty_ of these things; and in their bare possibility there is enough at once to impose an obligation to serious inquiry, and to occasion the deepest anxiety, especially in seasons of affliction or danger, which awaken reflective thought. "_atheism_," said the acute but skeptical bayle, "_does not shelter us from the fear of eternal suffering_." but, even if it did, what influence would it exert on our present happiness? would it not limit our enjoyments, by confining our views within the narrow range of things seen and temporal? would it not deprive us of the loftiest hopes? would it not repress our highest aspirations, by interdicting the contemplation of the noblest object of thought, the ideal standard of truth and excellence, the moral glory of the universe? would it not diminish the pleasure which we derive even from earthly objects, and aggravate the bitterness of every trial? how wretched must be the condition of those who are "proud of being the offspring of chance, in love with universal disorder, whose happiness is involved in the belief of there being no witness to their designs, and who are at ease only because they suppose themselves _inhabitants of a forsaken and fatherless world_!"[21] "no one in creation," said jean paul, "is so alone as the denier of god: he mourns, with an orphaned heart that has lost its great father, by the corpse of nature which no world-spirit moves and holds together, and which grows in its grave; and he mourns by that corpse till he himself crumble off from it. the whole world lies before him, like the egyptian sphynx of stone, half-buried in the sand; and the all is the cold iron mask of a formless eternity."[22] but the malign influence of atheism on personal happiness will become more apparent, if we consider its tendency to affect the _moral springs of action_, on which happiness mainly depends. the question whether atheism be compatible with moral virtue, or whether an atheist may be a virtuous man, is one of those that can only be answered by discriminating aright between the different senses of the same term. in the christian sense of virtue, which comprehends the duties of both tables of the law, and includes the love of god as well as of man, it is clear that the atheist cannot be reputed virtuous, since he wants that which is declared to be the radical principle of obedience, the very spirit and substance of true morality. but, in the worldly sense of the term, as denoting the decent observance of _relative_ duty, it is possible that he may be so far influenced by considerations of prudence or policy, or even by certain natural instincts and affections, as to be just in his dealings, faithful to his word, courteous in his manners, and obedient to the laws. but this secular, prudential morality, is as precarious in its practical influence as it is defective in its radical principle. atheism saps and undermines the very foundation of ethics. the only law which it can recognize (if that can be called a law in any sense which is not conceived of as the expression of a supreme will) is, either the greatest happiness of the individual, or the greatest happiness of the greatest number; but, whether it assumes the form of _felicitarian_ or of _utilitarian_ calculation, it degenerates into a process of arithmetic, and is no longer a code of morals. the fundamental idea of duty is awanting, and can only be supplied from a source which the atheist ignores. by denying the existence of god, he robs the universe of its highest glory, obliterates the idea of perfect wisdom and goodness, and leaves nothing better and holier as an object of thought than the qualities and relations of earthly things. he degrades human nature, by doing what he can to sever the tie which binds man to his maker, and which connects the earth with heaven. he circumscribes his prospects within the narrow range of "things seen and temporal," and thus removes every stimulus to dignity of sentiment, and every incentive to elevation of character. his wretched creed (if a series of cold negations may be called a creed) must be fatal to every disinterested and heroic virtue; let it prevail, and the spirit of self-sacrifice will give place to epicurean indulgence, and the age of martyrdom will return no more. substitute nature, or even humanity, for god, and the eternal standard of truth and holiness and goodness being superseded, every moral sentiment will be blighted and obscured. conscience has a relation to god similar to that which a chronometer bears to the sun. blot the sun from the sky, and the chronometer is useless; deny god, and conscience is powerless. and the vices which, if not subdued, were yet curbed and restrained by the overawing sense of an unseen omnipresent power, will burst forth with devastating fury, snapping asunder the feebler fetters of human law, and overleaping the barriers of selfish prudence itself; vanity and pride, ambition and covetousness, sensual indulgence and ferocious cruelty, will rise into the ascendancy, and establish their dark throne on the ruins of religion. if such be the natural and legitimate effect of atheism on the personal happiness and moral character of individuals, we can be at no loss to discover what must be its influence on society at large. for society is composed of individuals, and its character and welfare depend on the aggregate sentiments of its constituent members. the question whether atheism might not be consistent with social well-being, with the continued authority of the laws, and the general comfort of the community, is answered historically by the fact, that in modern france the reign of atheism was the reign of terror, and that in ancient rome its prevalence was followed by such scenes of proscription, confiscation, and blood, as were then unparalleled in the history of the world. the truth is that, wherever atheism prevails, government by law must give place to government by force; for law needs some auxiliary sanction; and if it be deprived of the sanction of religion, it must have recourse, for its own preservation, and the prevention of utter anarchy, to the brute power of the temporal sword. it is worse than useless to discuss, in this connection, the question, revived by bayle,[23] whether atheism or superstition should be regarded as the worst enemy to the commonwealth, for it has no relevancy to our present inquiry; we are not contending for either, we are objecting to both; and we are under no necessity of choosing the least of two evils, when we have the option of "pure and undefined religion." but we may observe, in passing, that, historically it has been found possible to keep society together, and to maintain the authority of law with a greater or less measure of civil liberty, where superstition has been generally prevalent; whereas there is no instance on record of anything approaching to national atheism, in which government by law was not speedily superseded by anarchy and despotism. and the reason of this difference may be that in every system of superstition, whether it be a corruption of natural or of revealed religion, "some faint embers of sacred truth remain unextinguished," some convictions which still connect man with the spiritual and the eternal, and which are sufficient, if not to enlighten and pacify the conscience, yet to keep alive a sense of responsibility and a fear of retribution; "certain sparks," as hooker calls them, "of the light of truth intermingled with the darkness of error," which may have served a good purpose in maintaining civil virtue and social order, although these would have been far better secured by the prevalence of a purer faith. there are some circumstances, of a novel and unprecedented nature, which impart a solemn interest to our present inquiry. at the beginning of the present century, robert hall, referring to the unbelief which preceded and accompanied the first outburst of the revolution in france, mentioned _three_ circumstances which appeared to him to be "equally new and alarming." he regarded it as the first attempt which had ever been witnessed on an extensive scale to establish the principles of atheism, as the first attempt to popularize these principles by means of a literature addressed and adapted to the common people, and as the first systematic attempt to undermine the foundations, and to innovate on the very substance of morals.[24] but if we compare the first with the new encyclopedie,--the former concocted by voltaire, d'alembert and diderot, the latter by pierre leroux and his associates,--we shall find that infidelity has assumed greater hardihood, and has appeared under less restraint in recent than in former times; while the speculations of comte and crousse are as thoroughly atheistic as those of d'holbach himself. for, however irreligious and profane voltaire and his associates might be, and however devoted to their avowed object of crushing christ and his cause, so significantly indicated by their motto and watchword, "ecrasez l'infame;"[25] yet they continued, as a party, to advocate deism, and seemed at least to oppose the bolder speculations of the author of the "systeme de la nature." both voltaire and frederick the great wrote in reply to its atheistic tenets.[26] but now, in france, these tenets are openly avowed and zealously propagated. nor is this fatal moral epidemic confined to our continental neighbors: there is too much reason to fear that it has infected, to some extent, the artisans of our own manufacturing towns, and even, in some quarters, the inhabitants of our rural districts. the communists of france have their analogues in the socialists of britain; and the periodical press, although for the most part sound, or at least innocuous, has lent its aid to the dissemination of the grossest infidelity which the continent has produced. the "leader" gives forth lewes's version of comte's philosophy; and the "glasgow mechanics' journal," a digest of his law of human progress, which is essentially atheistic.[27] nor is indigenous atheism wanting. mr. mackay in his "progress of the intellect," atkinson and martineau in their "letters on the laws of man's nature and development," and mr. g. holyoake in "the reasoner," have sufficiently proved that if atheism be an exotic, it is capable of taking root and growing up in the land of bacon, newton, and boyle. footnotes: [2] buddæi, "theses theologicæ de atheismo et superstitione," cap. i. [3] j. c. wolfius, "de atheismi falso suspectis." [4] buddæi, "theses theologicæ," cap. iii., "de dogmatibus quæ cum atheismo conjuncta sunt, aut ad eum ducunt," p. 240. [5] cousin, "introduction generale a l'histoire de la philosophie," i. 169:--"que toute pensée implique une foi spontanée à dieu, et qu'il n'y a pas d'atheisme naturel. croit-il qu'il existe, par exemple? s'il croit çela, çela me suffit,"--"il a donc foi au principe de la pensée;--or la est dieu,"--"selon moi, toute parole prononcée avec confiance, n'est pas moins qu'une profession de la foi a la pensée,--a la raison en soi,--c'est a dire a dieu." [6] m. helvetius, "treatise on man, his intellectual faculties and education: translated by w. hooper, m. d.," i. 247. [7] m. lamennais, "esquisse d'une philosophie," i. 95. [8] "spinoza is a god-intoxicated man."--novalis, quoted in t. carlyle's essays, ii. 43. [9] "letters on the laws of man's nature and development, by h. g. atkinson and harriet martineau," p. 241. [10] psalm 14: 1; 53: 1. [11] psalm 10: 4, 11, 13. [12] eph. 2: 12, [greek: atheoi en tô kosmô]. [13] gal. 4: 8; 2 tim. 3: 4; titus 1: 16. [14] estlin, "discourse on atheism," pp. 8, 19, 28. dr. chalmers, "institutes," i. 375. [15] dr. chalmers, works, "natural theology," i. 58. "the reasoner," edited by holyoake, xi. 15, 232. [16] robert hall's works, i. 58. [17] romans 1: 21, 28. [18] hall's "works," i. 128. [19] estlin's "discourse," p. 57. [20] robert hall, "modern infidelity considered," i. 38, 67. [21] robert hall on modern infidelity, i. 70. [22] t. carlyle, "essays," ii. 142. [23] p. bayle, "pensées diverses ecrites à un docteur de sorbonne a l'occasion de la _comète_," 4 vols. also his "reponse aux questions d'un provincial," ii. 688, iv. 101, 112. [24] hall on modern infidelity, i. 59, 64. [25] abbé [transcriber's note: original had "abbe"] barruel, "memoires pour servir a l'histoire du jacobinisme," i. 31, 131, 135, 184, 357. [26] abbé barruel, "memoires pour servir a l'histoire du jacobinisme," i. 22, ii. 190, 193. [27] "the leader;" a series of articles on comte's philosophy, by g. h. lewes, april 7, 10, 17, etc., etc., 1852.--"the glasgow mechanics' journal." chapter ii. theories of development. there have been various applications of the general principle of development, by means of which an attempt has been made to explain the origin of all things by natural laws, so as to exclude the necessity of any divine interposition, either for the creation of the world, or for the introduction and establishment of christianity itself. it has been applied, first, to explain the origin of worlds and planetary systems, by showing that, certain specified conditions being presupposed, there are fixed mechanical laws which might sufficiently account for the production of the earth and of the other planets and satellites of our solar system, without any special interposition of divine power at the commencement of the existing order of things. it has been applied, secondly, to explain the origin of the various tribes or races of vegetable and animal life, and especially the production of the human race, by showing that the existing types may have sprung, by a process of gradual development, from inferior races previously existing, and that these again may have been produced by the action of chemical agents in certain favorable conditions. it has been applied, thirdly, to explain all the most important phenomena of human history, and to illustrate the law which is supposed to determine and regulate the progressive course of civilization, so as to account, on natural principles, for the origin and prevalence of the various forms of religion, and even for the introduction, in its appointed season, of christianity itself, without having recourse to anything so utterly unphilosophical as the idea of a divine revelation, or the supposition of supernatural agency. and it has been applied, fourthly, to explain the order, and to vindicate the use, of those additions both to the doctrines and rites of primitive christianity, which protestants have denounced as _corruptions_, but which popish and tractarian writers defend as _developments_, of the system that was originally deposited, like a prolific germ or seed, in the bosom of the catholic church. it is the more necessary to examine the various forms of this theory, because unquestionably it can appeal to not a few _natural analogies_, which may serve, on a superficial view, to give it the aspect of verisimilitude. for many of the most signal works of god have been manifestly framed on the principle of gradual growth, and matured by a process of progressive development. we see in the natural world a small seed deposited in the earth, which, under the agency of certain suitable influences, germinates and springs up, producing first a tender shoot, then a stem, and branches, and leaves, and blossoms, and fruit; and every herb or tree, "having seed in itself," makes provision for the repetition of the same process, and the perpetuation and indefinite increase of its kind. the same law is observed in the animal kingdom, where a continuous race is produced from a single pair. and even in the supernatural scheme of revelation itself, the truth was gradually unfolded in a series of successive dispensations; the first promise being the germ, which expanded as the church advanced, until it reached its full development in the scriptures of the new testament. these and similar instances may suffice to show that, both in the natural and supernatural providence of god, he has been pleased to act on the principle of _gradual and progressive_, as contradistinguished from that of _instant and perfect_ production; and they may seem, at first sight, to afford some natural analogies in favor of the radical idea on which the various modern theories _of_ development are based. in such circumstances it would be an unwise and dangerous course either to overlook the palpable facts which nature and revelation equally attest, or to deny that they may afford signal manifestations of the manifold wisdom of god. nor is it necessary for any enlightened advocate of theism to betake himself to these expedients; he may freely admit the existence of _such_ cases of gradual development, he may even appeal to them as illustrative of the order of nature, and the design which that order displays; and the only question which he is at all concerned to discuss amounts in substance to this: whether the method of production which is pursued in the _ordinary course_ of nature can account for the _original commencement_ of the present system of things? but the state of the question, and the right application of the argument, may be best illustrated by considering each of the _four_ forms of the theory separately and in succession. section i. theory of _cosmical_ development, or of the production of worlds and planetary systems by natural law.--"the vestiges." the doctrine of a nebular cosmogony was first suggested by some observations of the elder herschell on those cloud-like appearances which may be discerned in various parts of the heavens by the aid of the telescope, or even, in some cases, by the naked eye. it assumed a more definite form in the hands of la place, although even by him it was offered, not as an ascertained discovery of science, but simply as a hypothetical explanation of the way in which the production of the planets and their satellites _might_ possibly be accounted for _by_ the operation of the known laws of nature. the explanation of the whole theory may be best understood by dividing it into two parts: the _first_ being that which attempts to account for the formation of planets and satellites, _on the assumption of the existence of a central sun_, and _of certain other specified conditions_; the _second_ being that which undertakes to account for the formation of the sun itself, on the assumption of the existence of _a diffused nebulous matter_ in space, or, as it has been aptly called, "a universal fire-mist."[28] when the theory is limited to the explanation of the origin of the planets and their satellites, the original condition of our solar system is assumed to have been widely different from what it now is; the sun is supposed to have existed for a time alone, to have revolved upon his axis, and to have been surrounded with an atmosphere expanded by intense heat, and extending far beyond the limits of our system as it now exists. this solar atmosphere revolved, like the sun itself, around its axis; but its heat, constantly radiated into sidereal space, gradually diminished, and the atmosphere being contracted in proportion as it cooled, the rapidity of its rotation was accelerated, until it reached the point at which the central attraction was overcome by the centrifugal force, and then a zone of vapor would be detached or thrown off, which might either retain its form as a nebulous ring, like the ring of saturn, or first breaking into fragments, from some want of continuity in its structure, and afterwards coalescing into one mass, might be condensed into a planet as the vapor continued to cool. these rings or planets, thus detached from the central atmospheric mass, would continue to revolve, in virtue of the force originally impressed upon them, and their motion would be nearly circular, in the same plane and in the same direction with that of the sun. the first planet, so formed, must have been that at the extreme limit of our solar system; the second the next in point of remoteness from the centre, and so on; each resulting from the operation of the same natural laws, and emerging into distinct existence at that precise point in the gradual cooling and contraction of the atmosphere at which the centrifugal became stronger than the centripetal force. but each planet might also be subjected to the same process of cooling and contracting, and might therefore throw off, under the operation of the same mechanical laws, zones of vapor more or less dense, which might consolidate into moons or satellites, and which should also revolve, like the planets, round their primary. thus, uranus has six satellites, and saturn seven; while the latter has also thrown off two zones so perfectly uniform in their internal structure that they remain unbroken, and constitute a double ring around the planet. in this _first_ form of the theory, which assumes the existence of the sun and its atmosphere, and the rotation of both round an axis, la place sought to give a scientific form to the speculations of sir william herschell on the condensation of nebulæ, by proving simply the _dynamical possibility_ of the formation of a planetary system by such means, according to the known laws of matter and motion; but he did not affirm the scientific certainty of his conjecture, and far less the actual production of the solar system in this way. he has been followed by m. comte, who has attempted to furnish, if not a complete demonstration, at least a plausible mathematical verification, of the hypothesis.[29] utterly excluding all supernatural agency in the work of creation, he equally excludes from the problem which he attempts to solve, the origin of the sun and its atmosphere; and confining himself to the task of accounting, in the way not of demonstrative certainty, but merely of plausible hypothesis, for the formation of the planets and satellites of our solar system, he conceives the theory of la place to be susceptible of such a numerical verification as is sufficient to give it a high degree of verisimilitude. assuming that the periodic time of each planet must be equal to that of the portion of the solar atmosphere of which it was formed at the era when it was thrown off, and combining the theorems of huygens on the measure of centrifugal forces with newton's law of gravitation, he establishes a simple equation between the time of the rotation of each zone or section of the solar atmosphere, and the distance of the corresponding planets. on applying this equation to the various bodies of our system, he found that the periodic time of the moon agrees, at least within the tenth of a day, with the duration of the earth's revolution, when her atmosphere is supposed to have extended to the moon; and that the periodic times of the planets maintain a similar correspondence with what must have been the duration of the solar revolution when they were severally thrown off from its atmosphere. it is the less necessary, however, to enter on a detailed exposition of his argument, because he admits that it can afford at the utmost only a probable proof of an hypothesis; and further, because it is expressly limited to the production of the planets and their satellites, while not only is the existence of the solar atmosphere presupposed, but also its existence in _a certain state_, and with _several determinate conditions_; while no account whatever is given of the origin either of the sun or its atmosphere, and none of the laws or conditions on which the whole process of development is confessedly dependent. but the author of "the vestiges" takes a much wider range, and attempts a more arduous task. he seeks to account for the origin both of suns and of solar systems by the agency of natural laws. not content with the more limited form of the theory, which m. comte holds to be the only legitimate or practical object of scientific treatment, he holds that the origin of the sun itself, and the _forms_, the _positions_, the _relations_, and the _motions_, of all the heavenly bodies, may be accounted for by supposing a previous state of matter, fluid or gasiform, subject only to the law of gravitation. the nebular cosmogony, which is well characterized by himself as his "version of _the romance of nature_," is based on the assumption that "the nebulous matter of space, previously to the formation of stellar and planetary bodies, must have been a universal fire-mist,"[30] in other words, a diffused luminous vapor, intensely hot, which might be gradually condensed into a fluid, and then into a solid state, by losing less or more of its heat. the existence of such a luminous matter being assumed, and it being further supposed that it was not entirely uniform or homogeneous, but that it existed in various states of condensation, and that it had "certain nuclei established in it which might become centres of aggregation for the neighboring diffused matter,"--the author attempts to show that on such centres a rotatory motion would be established wherever, as was the most likely case, there was any obliquity in the lines of direction in which the opposing currents met each other; that this motion would increase as the agglomeration proceeded; that at certain intervals the centrifugal force, acting on the remoter part of the rotating mass, would overcome the agglomerating force; and that a series of rings would thus be left apart, each possessing the motion proper to itself at the crisis of separation. these, again, would only continue in their annular form, if they were entirely uniform in their internal structure. there being many chances against this, they would probably break up in the first instance, and be thereafter "agglomerated into one or several masses, which would become representatives of the primary mass, and perhaps give rise to a progeny of inferior masses." in support of this theory, reference is made to the existence, at the present moment, of certain cloud-like nebulæ, or masses of diffused luminous matter, exhibiting a variety of appearances, as if they were in various degrees of condensation, and which are described as "solar systems in the process of being formed" out of a previous condition of matter. and the observations of m. plateau, of ghent, are adduced as affording an experimental verification of some parts of the theory, and, especially, as serving to explain the spherical form of the planets, the flattening at the poles, and the swelling out at the equator. it does not belong to our proper province, nor is it necessary for our present purpose, to discuss the merits of this theory, considered as a question of science. this has been already done, with various degrees of ability, but with unwonted unanimity, by some of the ablest men of the age,--by whewell, sedgwick and mason, in england, by sir david brewster and mr. miller, in scotland, and by professor dod and president hitchcock, in america.[31] but, viewing it simply in its relation to the theistic argument, we conceive that the adverse presumption which it may possibly generate in some minds against the evidence of natural theology, will be effectually neutralized by establishing the following positions: that it is _a mere hypothesis_, and one which, from the very nature of the case, is incapable of being proved by such evidence as is necessary to establish _a matter of fact_. that the progress of scientific discovery, so far from tending to verify and confirm, has served rather to disprove and invalidate the fundamental assumption on which it rests. that even were it admitted, either as a possible, or probable, or certain explanation of the origin of the present planetary systems, it would not necessarily destroy the evidence of theology, nor establish on its ruins the cause of atheism. each of these positions may be conclusively established, and the three combined constitute a complete answer to the theory of development, in so far as it has been applied in the support or defence of atheism. 1. that it is a mere hypothesis or conjecture, designed, not to establish the _historical fact_, but to explain merely the _dynamical possibility_ of the production of the planetary bodies by the operation of known natural laws, must be admitted, i think, even by its most enthusiastic admirers. it might have seemed, indeed, to have something like a basis of fact to rest upon, had the conception of the elder herschell been verified, when he announced the existence of a nebulous fluid, capable of being distinguished, by certain well-defined marks, from unresolved clusters of stars; but even then it presupposed so many postulates, which could in no way be established by experimental or historical evidence, that it could scarcely be regarded in any other light than as an ingenious speculation or a splendid conjecture. for, let it be considered, first of all, that the theory proceeds on the assumption of the existence and wide diffusion of a nebulous fluid of whose reality there is no actual proof; secondly, that it necessarily requires, also, the supposed existence of certain favorable conditions; and, thirdly, the operation of certain invariable laws; and it will be manifest at once that it is purely hypothetical throughout, and that it includes a variety of topics which never have been, and never can be made the subjects of experimental verification. for it postulates, in the words of an acute writer, "the establishment of nuclei in the body of the elemental mass, as well as the action of heat on its substance, and then seeks to explain the concentration of the nebulous particles into these nuclei by the force of gravitation, the rotation of the bodies so produced by the confluence of the nebulous fluid, the separation of a portion of the outer surface of these revolving masses in the form of rings, the disruption of these rings, and the subsequent recomposition of their fragments into separate spheres, answering to the planets and satellites of our system."[32] but even were the existence of a nebulous fluid admitted, we have no access to know what was its internal structure; we cannot determine whether it was uniform and homogeneous throughout, or whether it contained nuclei which might become centres of aggregation; we have no means of estimating the intensity of the heat which belonged to it, or of calculating the process by which it was dispersed, so as to occasion the condensation of successive portions of the mass. no eye ever saw the separation of any part of it in the form of a ring, or the disruption of that ring, or the subsequent recomposition of its fragments into a solid sphere. and even had all this been matter, not of mere conjecture, but of actual observation, it would still have left much to be explained which can only be accounted for by ascribing it to a designing intelligent cause. 2. the progress of scientific discovery, so far from tending to verify, has served rather to invalidate the fundamental assumption on which the whole theory depends. that assumption was the existence of a nebulous fluid or fire-mist, capable of being distinguished, by certain characteristic marks, from unresolved nebulæ or clusters of stars. the existence of any such fluid has become more and more doubtful, in proportion as astronomers have been enabled, with the aid of larger and better constructed telescopes, to resolve several nebulæ which had previously defied the power of less perfect instruments. we do not affirm that every cluster has been already resolved, nor is it necessary for the purposes of our argument to suppose that, at any future time, this stupendous achievement is likely to be effected; for it is a very obvious consideration, that just in proportion as our telescopic powers are enlarged so as to enable us to resolve many of the nearer nebulæ, they must also bring within the range of our extended vision _others_ more remote and hitherto unperceived, which may continue to exhibit the same cloud-like appearance as the former, until, by a new improvement of the telescope, we may succeed in separating them into distinct stars; and even then the march of discovery is not ended,--we may reasonably expect that with every fresh increase of telescopic vision, new clusters will be brought into view, and new clouds appear in the utmost verge of the horizon. but, unquestionably, the progress which has already been made in this direction affords a strong presumption in favor of the idea, that the apparent nebulosity of those masses which still appear, even to our best telescopes, as cloud-like vapors, is to be ascribed rather to the imperfection of our instruments than to any difference between them and such as have been already resolved. sir john herschell, a high authority in such a case, tells us that "we have every reason to believe, at least in the generality of cases, that a nebula is nothing more than a cluster of stars."[33] sir david brewster is equally explicit: "it was certainly a rash generalization to maintain that nebulæ differed essentially from clusters of stars, because existing telescopes could not resolve them. the very first application of lord rosse's telescopes to the heavens overturned the hypothesis; and with such unequivocal facts as that instrument has brought to light, we regard it as a most unwarrantable assumption to suppose that there are in the heavenly spaces any masses of matter different from solid bodies, composing planetary systems."[34] and professor nichol, while he gracefully acknowledges that he has "somewhat altered the views which he formerly gave to the public, as the highest then known and generally entertained, regarding the structure of the heavens," states, as the result of more mature reflection, that "the supposed distribution of a self-luminous fluid, in separate patches, through the heavens, has, beyond all doubt, been proved fallacious by that most remarkable of telescopic achievements,--the resolution of the great nebula in orion into a superb cluster of stars; and that this discovery necessitates important changes in previous speculations on cosmogony."[35] in short, lord rosse's observations at parsonstown have conclusively proved that what appeared to be a nebula was in reality a cluster of stars; and while they still leave many nebulæ unresolved, they afford a strong warrant for believing that discoveries in the same direction might be indefinitely extended in proportion to the increase of telescopic power. 3. but even were the nebular hypothesis admitted, and were the theory of development by natural laws conceived to afford a satisfactory explanation of the origin of the planetary systems, it would not follow, as a necessary consequence, that the peculiar evidence of theism--that on which it mainly depends, and to which it makes its most confident appeal--would be thereby destroyed, or even diminished. the only legitimate result of such a doctrine would seem to be, that we must distinguish aright between a work of _mediate_, and a work of _immediate_ creation. in the bible each of these is distinctly recognized. we have a specimen of the one in the creation of the first man by the direct agency of divine power; we have a specimen of the other in the creation, less direct but equally real, of all his natural posterity, through the medium of ordinary generation. men do not cease to be the _creatures_ of god because they are born of their parents, in virtue of that creative word, "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth;" and hence children are admonished "to remember _their creator_ in the days of their youth."[36] the work of creation is equally real and equally divine, whether it be effected _mediately_ or _immediately_, with or without the intervention of means, by the direct and instantaneous exertion of almighty power, or by the gradual and successive operation of second causes acting according to established laws. in the ordinary course of providence, the method of mediate production, gradual growth, and progressive development, may be observed in innumerable instances; but it can never be justly held to exclude, or even to obscure, the evidence of a presiding intelligence and a supernatural power. on the contrary, it may serve rather to enhance that evidence; since the very arrangements and provisions which have been made with a view to the reproduction of every thing after its kind, may bear on them the legible impress of a designing mind and an ordaining will. thus, year by year continually, the whole inhabitants of the world are supported by the fruits of harvest, which are produced and matured under the action of natural laws; yet every intelligent theist ascribes the result ultimately to the goodness, wisdom, and power of god, and sees in the very processes by which it is brought to pass some of the most signal proofs of these divine perfections. now, as this method is followed in the work of providence, which may be, and often has been, described as a _continuous creation,_ and yet has no tendency to destroy, or even to diminish, the evidence of a presiding intelligence in nature, so no good reason can be assigned why it _might_ not also have been adopted in the production of planets and astral systems, if so it had seemed good to supreme wisdom. if this method was adopted for the propagation of plants and animals, no reason can be given why it might not also have been adopted for the production of planets and moons; nor would it in the latter case, any more than in the former, impair the evidence of god's creative wisdom and power. for, suppose it be possible that, by a marvellous process of self-evolution, the material elements of nature might assume new forms, so as to originate a succession of new worlds and new planetary systems, without the _immediate_ or _direct_ interposition of a supernatural will; suppose that the earth and the other bodies now belonging to our own system, were generated out of a prior condition of matter, existing in a gasiform state and diffused through space as a fire-mist, subject to the ordinary action of heat and gravitation; suppose, in short, that there were laws for the generation of worlds in the larger cycles of time, just as there are laws for the generation of animals in the short ages of terrestrial life;--would a provision for such a succession of marvellous developments necessarily destroy, or even impair, the evidence for the being and perfections of god? does the generation of the animated tribes diminish the evidence of design in the actual constitution of the world? and why should a similar provision, if any such were found to exist, for the generation of stars and systems, be regarded in any other light than as an exhibition, on a still larger scale, of "the manifold wisdom of god?" let it ever be remembered that the theistic argument depends, not on _the mode of production_, but on _the character of the resulting product_. the world may have been produced mediately or immediately, with or without the operation of natural laws; but if it exhibit such an arrangement of parts, such an adaptation of means to ends, or such a combination of collocations and adjustments, as enables us at once to discern the distinctive marks of intelligent design, the evidence cannot be diminished, it may even be possibly enhanced, by the method of production. provision is made, doubtless, for the growth and development of the eye, the ear, and the hand, in the human foetus, and the process by which they are gradually formed is regulated by natural laws. but the resulting products are so exquisitely constructed, so admirably adapted to the elements of nature, and so evidently designed for the uses of life, that they irresistibly suggest the idea of wise and benevolent contrivances; and this idea is as strong and clear as it could have been had they been produced instantaneously by the _direct_ act of creative power. and so of the planets and astral systems: they may have been generated, that is, produced, in a way of natural development; yet the resulting products are such as to evince the supreme wisdom and beneficence which presided over their formation. but even this is not all. let us suppose, further, that philosophy may yet reach its extreme, and, as we humbly conceive, unattainable limit; let us suppose that it may succeed in decomposing all the chemical elements now known, by resolving them into one primary basis; let us even suppose that it may succeed in reducing all the subordinate laws of nature into one supreme and universal law; still the development of such a system as we see around us out of such materials, and by such means, would not be necessarily exclusive of the idea of god, but might afford evidence of a supreme mind, creating, combining, and controlling all things for the manifestation of his adorable perfections. we have thus seen that the theory of cosmical development is a mere hypothesis, incapable of experimental or historical proof; that the recent progress of scientific discovery has tended to disprove the fundamental assumption on which it rests; and that, even were it admitted as a possible, or, still more, as a plausible explanation of the origin of planets and astral systems, it would not serve to destroy, and scarcely, if at all, to diminish the evidence of theism. the last of these positions, if well established, might seem to supersede the necessity of discussing the hypothesis at all in connection with our present theme. but such a discussion of it as has been offered may be useful to those--and they are not a few--who, superficially acquainted with science in its more popular form, are exposed to the danger of being seduced by the authority of a few distinguished names which have unfortunately become identified with the cause of atheism. for, while the author of "the vestiges" repudiates the atheistic conclusions which some have deduced from his hypothesis, m. comte boldly avows his creed in the following revolting terms: "to minds unacquainted with the study of the heavenly bodies, astronomy has still the reputation of being a science eminently religious, as if the famous verse, 'coeli enarrant gloriam dei' ('the heavens declare the glory of god'), had preserved all its force." and, he adds, in a note, "at present, to minds that have been early familiarized with the true astronomical philosophy, the heavens declare _no other glory_ than that of hipparchus, kepler, newton, and all those who have contributed to the establishment of their laws!" the _reader_ of these laws may become illustrious, but the maker of them must be utterly ignored! section ii. theory of _physiological_ development; or the production of vegetable and animal races by natural law.--"telliamed."--physio-philosophy. the theory of development has been applied not only to explain the origin of worlds and of astral systems in the sky, but also to account for the origin of the various tribes of vegetable and animal life which exist on the earth itself. there is nothing, indeed, in any of the kingdoms of nature that may not be included in it, since the formation of all material bodies, organic or inorganic, is supposed to be sufficiently accounted for by the sole action of chemical or mechanical laws. the wide range of this theory is strikingly illustrated by the words of one whose powers of observation have added some interesting discoveries to natural history, but whose speculations on the origin of nature resemble the distempered ravings of lunacy, rather than the mature results of philosophic thought "physio-philosophy has to show," says dr. oken, "how, and in accordance indeed with what laws, the material took its origin, and, therefore, how something took its existence from nothing. it has to portray the first periods of _the world's development from nothing_; how the elements and heavenly bodies originated; in what method, _by self-evolution_ into higher and manifold forms, they separated into minerals, became finally organic, and, in man, attained self-consciousness.... physio-philosophy is, therefore, _the generative history of the world_; or, in general terms, the history of creation, a name under which it was taught by the most ancient philosophers, namely, as cosmogony. from its embracing the universe, it is plainly the genesis of moses!"[37] it will be observed that this strange speculation goes far beyond the comparatively modest conjecture of la place. it postulates _nothing_, and undertakes to account for _everything_. in flagrant opposition to the old atheistic maxim, "ex nihilo, nihil," it boldly affirms, "ex nihilo, omnia." it speaks, indeed, of "laws in accordance with which the world took its origin;" but these laws must be as abstract as those of mathematics, since they existed before matter itself; nay, more abstract, or, rather, more inconceivable still, since they existed, it would seem, even before mind! dr. oken attempts to explain the production of the world from nothing by comparing it to the evolution of arithmetical and mathematical science, out of the fundamental conception of _zero_! but, waiving this, we shall direct our attention to the only points in this theory which, in the existing state of speculative thought, can be held to have any practical interest in connection with our great theme. that theory attempts to account for the production both of the flora and the fauna of the natural world by _the process of development_ rather than by _the miracle of creation_. it proceeds on the assumption, akin to that of epicurus, that atoms or monads alone existed in the first instance; and that from these were derived, under the action of natural law and by a process of gradual development, all existing substances and beings, whether organic or inorganic, mineral, vegetable, or animal. "no organism has been created," says dr. oken, "of larger size than an infusorial point. no organism is, nor ever has one been created, which is not microscopic. whatever is larger has not been created, but developed. man has not been created, but developed." on this fundamental assumption the whole theory is based. but we must carefully distinguish between the atomic theory and the application which is here made of it. the recent discoveries of chemistry, by which all material compounds have been decomposed into their constituent elements, amounting to little more than fifty substances, which are either the primary or the proximate bases of all existing bodies, and the marvellous transformations which these elementary principles undergo, in respect alike of form, of density, of solidity, and of magnitude, under the action of natural laws,--may serve to make it credible that there is no _a priori_ impossibility in the assumption on which the atomic theory depends. had it been the will of god to call into being the various vegetable and animal races in the way of gradual evolution out of these primary monads, no enlightened theist will presume to say that it was either impossible, or inconsistent with his wisdom to do so. it must be observed, however, that the natural analogies which have sometimes been appealed to in support of this hypothesis, labor under a grievous defect when they are applied to account for the origin of the existing races, and that they are extended far beyond their legitimate limits when they are supposed to prove that these races might begin to be without any direct interposition of creative power. for, while the oak may spring from an acorn, and the largest animal from a microscopic monad, yet within the whole range of our experience both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, _the seed is produced by the organism_, and necessarily presupposes it; whence it follows, either that there must have been an eternal succession of organisms producing seed, and thereby perpetuating the race, or if this be inconceivable, still more if it can be disproved by geological or historical evidence, then that the analogy of our present experience leads us up, not to "an infusorial point" or "microscopic monad," but to a primary living organism as the commencement of each existing tribe. in the words of dr. barclay, "it will not be easy, on any principles exclusive of the vital, to answer these questions, what was the origin of the first egg, or what was the origin of the first bird? for where is the egg that comes not from a bird, and where is the bird that comes not from an egg? to the mere materialists, who exclude every species of vitality but that from organism, this problem is nearly as embarrassing as the origin of the universe itself."[38] if these views be correct, all the natural analogies would lead us to acquiesce, as dr. barclay did, in the mosaic narrative as the most philosophical account of the commencement of the present order of things. it traces up every race to a primary organism, endowed with reproductive powers; for it tells us, in regard to the flora, that god said, "let the earth bring forth grass, _the herb yielding seed_, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit _after his kind_, whose _seed is in itself_, upon the earth; and it was so." and it tells us, with regard to the fauna, that god said, "let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. and god created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, _after their kind_, and every winged fowl _after his kind_. and god blessed them, saying, _be fruitful, and multiply_, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth." here the distinction between different genera and species, and the provision that was made for the perpetuation of different races, are prominently presented; while the production, in the first instance, not of an "infusorial point" or "microscopic monad," but of a living organism capable of multiplying its kind, is expressly declared; and every race is traced up to that primary organism, in perfect consistency with the only law, whether of vegetable or animal reproduction, which is known to be in operation at the present day. and _this_ law of reproduction, so far from being exclusive of a primary act of creation, seems to presuppose and require it; for there must be a living organism before there can be vital transmission. but the theory of physiological development proceeds on a totally different supposition,--a supposition for the truth of which we have not only no historical evidence, but not even the slightest _analogical presumption_, since we have no instance of development anywhere except from a germ or seed, produced by an organism preëxisting in a state of maturity. but the exigencies of that theory demand a wide departure from all the familiar lessons of experience; and hence recourse has been had to a series of the wildest and most extravagant conjectures, such as may well justify the opinion of those who have held that the creed of certain philosophers makes a much larger demand on human credulity than that of almost any section of the christian church. for, according to that theory, the origin of the flora is first accounted for by the action of some element--probably electricity--on a certain _mucus_, which is supposed to be generated at those points where the ocean comes into contact with the earth and air; that is, on the shore of the sea at low water mark. maillet had broached the idea of the marine origin of all our present "herbs, plants, roots, and grains,"[39] at a period when the universal ocean, of which leibnitz said so much, was still the creed of some speculative minds; but it has been more recently revived, and exhibited in greater detail, though not with stronger evidence, by some writers of our own age. thus dr. oken tells us that "all life is from the sea;" that "when the sea organism, by self-elevation, succeeds in attaining into form, there issues forth from it a higher organism;" and that "the first organic forms, whether plants or animals, emerged from the shallow parts of the sea." and so the author of "the vestiges" attempts to show that new races, both of plants and animals, marine and terrestrial, may be accounted for, without any act of immediate creation, by a change or transmutation of species resulting from the agency of natural causes. "there is," as he tells us, "another set of phenomena presented in the course of our history; the coming into existence, namely, of a long suite of living things, vegetable and animal, terminating in the families which we still see occupying the surface. the question arises,--in what manner has this set of phenomena originated? can we touch at, and rest for a moment on, the possibility of plants and animals having likewise been produced in the way of natural law, thus assigning but one class of causes for everything revealed to our sensual observation? or are we at once to reject this idea, and remain content either to suppose that creative power here acted in a different way, or to believe, unexaminingly, that the inquiry is one beyond our powers?"[40] in reply to these questions, he proceeds to show that "there is a balance of probability from actual evidence in favor of _an organic creation by law_," and that "in tracing the actual history of organic beings upon the earth," as revealed by geology, we find that "these came not at once, as they might have been expected to do if produced by some special act, or even some special interposition of will, on the part of the deity; they came in a long-continued succession, in the order, as we shall afterwards see more convincingly, of progressive organization, grade following grade, till, from an humble starting-point in both kingdoms, the highest forms were realized." such is his general principle; and, without entering into the details, we may sum up his general argument by saying, in the words of another,[41] that, according to his theory, "dulse and hen-ware became, through a very wonderful metamorphosis, cabbage and spinach; that kelp-weed and tangle bourgeoned into oaks and willows; and that slack, rope-weed, and green-raw, shot up into mangel-wurzel, rye-grass, and clover." so much for the flora; and now for the _fauna_, and the transition from the one to the other. his views are thus exhibited by sir david brewster: "the electric spark, escaping from the wild elements around it, struck life into an elementary and reproductive germ, and sea-plants, the food of animals, first decked the rude pavement of the ocean. the lichen and the moss reared their tiny fronds on the first rocks that emerged from the deep; land-plants, evolving the various forms of fruit and flower, next arose,--the upas and the bread-fruit tree, the gnarled oak and the lofty cedar. animal life appeared when the granary of nature was ready with its supplies. a globule, having a new globule forming within itself, which is the fundamental form of organic being, may be produced in albumen by electricity; and as such globules may be identical with living and reproductive cells, we have the earliest germ of organic life, the first cause of all the species of animated nature which people the earth, the ocean, and the air. born of electricity and albumen, the simple monad is the first living atom; the microscopic animalcules, the snail, the worm, the reptile, the fish, the bird, and the quadruped, all spring from its invisible loins. the human similitude at last appears in the character of the monkey; the monkey rises into the baboon, the baboon is exalted to the ourang-outang, and the chimpanzee, with a more human toe and shorter arms, gives birth to man."[42] the remarks which were offered, in the previous section, on cosmical development, are equally applicable, _mutatis mutandis_, to this other form of the doctrine of creation by natural law. it might be shown, with reference to the supposed generation of plants and animals, just as it was then shown with reference to the generation of planets and astral systems, first, that the theory rests upon a mere hypothesis, which is utterly unsupported by experimental evidence; secondly, that the progress of science has hitherto afforded no ground to believe that the transmutation of species is provided for under the established constitution of nature; and, thirdly, that even were the theory admitted, it would not destroy the evidence of theism, any more than the propagation of plants and animals under the existing system, which, so far from excluding or impairing, serves rather to enhance and illustrate the proof of creative wisdom and power. in support of this last position, we might adduce the testimony of the author of "the vestiges" himself; for, referring to the idea that "to presume a creation of living beings by the intervention of law" is equivalent to "superseding the whole doctrine of the divine authorship of organic nature," he takes occasion to say, "were this true, it would form a most important objection to the law theory; but i think it is not only not true, but the reverse of the truth. as formerly stated, the whole idea of law relates only to the mode in which the deity is pleased to manifest his power in the natural world. it leaves the absolute fact of his authorship of and supremacy over nature precisely where it was." he adds, in the words of dr. buckland, "such an aboriginal constitution, so far from superseding an intelligent agent, would only exalt our conceptions of the consummate skill and power that could comprehend such an infinity of future uses under future systems, in the original groundwork of his creation."[43] but, without enlarging on those general considerations which were formerly stated, and which admit of an easy and obvious application to this _second_ form of the theory, we shall offer a few remarks bearing directly on its distinctive peculiarities, and directed to the exposure of its radical defects. the theory rests on two very precarious foundations: the assumption of _spontaneous generation_, on the one hand, and the assumption of a _transmutation of species_ on the other. each of these assumptions is necessarily involved in any attempt to account for the origin of the vegetable and animal races by natural law, without direct divine interposition. for if, after the first organism was brought into being, the production of every subsequent type may be accounted for simply by a transmutation of species, yet the production of the original organism itself, or the first commencement of life in any form, must necessarily be ascribed either to a creative act or to spontaneous generation. a new product is supposed to have come into being, differing from any that ever existed before it, in the possession of vital and reproductive powers; and this product can only be ascribed, if creation be denied, to the spontaneous action of some element, such as electricity, on mucus or albumen. in this sense the doctrine of spontaneous generation seems to be necessarily involved in the first step of the process of development, and is, indeed, indispensable, if any account is to be given of the origin of vegetable and animal life; but in the subsequent steps of the same process it is superseded by a supposed transmutation of species, whereby a lower form of life is said to rise into a higher, and an inferior passes into a more perfect organism. but we have no experience either of spontaneous generation on the one hand, or of a transmutation of species on the other. observation has not discovered, nor has history recorded, an authentic example of either. in regard to the _first_, the author of "the vestiges" anticipates this objection, and attempts to answer it. the objection is, that "a transition from the inorganic to the organic, such as we must suppose to have taken place in the early geological ages, is no ordinary cognizable fact of the present time upon earth; structure, form, life, _are never seen_ to be imparted to the insensate elements; the production of the humblest plant or animalcule, otherwise than as a repetition of some parental form, is not one of the possibilities of science."[44] such is the objection; and how does he attempt to answer it? he endeavors to show, first, that the work of creation having been _for the most part_ accomplished thousands of years ago, we have no reason to expect that the origination of life and species should be _conspicuously exemplified_ in the present day; secondly, that the comparative infrequency, or even the entire absence, of such phenomena _now_ would be no valid reason for believing that they have _never_ been exhibited heretofore, if, on other grounds, the doctrine of 'natural creation' or 'life-creating laws' can be rendered probable; and, thirdly, that even in our own times there are facts which seem to indicate the reality, or at least the possibility, of "the primitive imparting of life and form to inorganic elements."[45] now, to this elaborate argument in favor of _spontaneous generation,_ or the production of life by natural law, we answer, in the first place, that the mere fact of its being adduced in connection with the theory of development affords a conclusive proof that it is indispensable to the maintenance of that theory, that the hypothesis would be incomplete without it, and that no account can be given of creation by the mere doctrine of a _transmutation of species_. it is the more necessary to make this remark, because not a few who embrace the latter doctrine affect to disown the former, and seek to keep it out of view. but the one is as necessary as the other to a complete theory of natural development. the author of "the vestiges" felt this, and virtually acknowledges it when he undertakes the task of vindicating the credibility of spontaneous generation. but we answer, in the second place, that the method in which he performs his self-imposed task is singularly curious, and not a little instructive. he had, it must be owned, a difficult game to play. the general theory of "the vestiges" is founded on the fact that, in the ordinary course of nature, the races of plants and animals are perpetuated by propagation, according to established natural laws,--a fact which might seem to afford a strong analogical argument in favor of the supposition that the same order of nature is maintained also in the few apparently exceptional cases in which, from our defective knowledge, we are unable to trace the connection between the parent and the product. and yet the author evinces no little anxiety to make out a case in favor of "a non-generative origin of life even at the present day;" and he appeals to a class of facts, confessedly obscure, which have not been, as he thinks, satisfactorily accounted for by the law which usually regulates the production of organic beings. he refers us to the speculations of dr. allen thomson on the primitive production of infusoria,[46] to the facts which modern science, aided by the microscope, has discovered respecting the entozoa, or the creatures which live within the bodies of others, and, above all, to the experiments of mr. crosse and mr. weekes, which seemed to result in the production of a small species of insect (_acarus crossii_) from the action of a voltaic battery on a saturated solution of the silicate of potash, or the nitrate of copper, or the ferrocyanate of potassium. the reason of his anxiety to avail himself of these cases is evident. the exigencies of his theory demanded a method of accounting for the primary origin of life different from any that can be found in the common process of propagation. he saw clearly enough that his main argument, founded, as it was, on the law of hereditary transmission, could not account for the production of the first organism; and that, if he would avoid either the doctrine of _immediate creation_, which is so offensive to him, or the idea of _eternal generation_, which is utterly excluded by the clearest lessons of fossil geology, he must have recourse to the hypothesis of _spontaneous generation_. hence he attempts to account for the commencement of new species both of plants and animals, in the course of the world's history, by a transmutation of species; while, for the origin of the first species, he has recourse to the same law of development, but acting in widely different circumstances, and giving rise to what he calls "aboriginal generation," whereby the inorganic passes into the organic, and life, form, and structure, are imparted to hitherto inert materials by the action of electricity on mucus or albumen. to accomplish this twofold purpose, he felt it necessary to insist, in the first instance, on the ordinary law of generation as the established order of _mediate_ creation; while he found it equally necessary, in the second place, to insist on those apparently exceptional cases in which the connection between the germ and the product has hitherto eluded philosophical research,--and this for the purpose of showing that the original production of plants and animals was _not similar_ to the ordinary method of their propagation in any other respect than this, that in both cases the result is brought about by natural laws, without the direct interposition of any supernatural cause. now, in so far as his argument is founded on the principle of analogy,--and it is on this principle that it proceeds throughout,--we submit that it is radically vicious, and utterly inconclusive. for the vast majority of cases in which the commencement of life and organization falls under our notice being confessedly those, not of primary production, but of mediate reproduction, it is reasonable to believe that the same law governs all cases alike, whether we have been able or not to trace the origin of life to the principle of propagation, the few apparent exceptions being sufficiently accounted for by our imperfect knowledge of the causes and conditions on which they depend. besides, the argument from analogy in favor of a primary production of life by natural causes, in so far as it is founded on the present law of hereditary transmission, is radically defective, since the two cases are widely different; the one presupposing _a primary organism of the same kind_, from which others are evolved by a law of natural succession, the other exhibiting life as a new product, resulting not from any prior organism, but from the action of _causes of a totally different kind_, which are not known to be capable of giving birth either to vegetable or animal organisms under the actual constitution of nature. but suppose, even, that the _acarus crossii_ were admitted to be a real product of galvanic action on the silicate of potash, and an undeniable instance of "a non-generative origin of life," how would the illustrative example accord with the author's general theory? it might afford a specimen of aboriginal production; but how would it fit in with his favorite doctrine of _a gradual and progressive advancement_ from the lower to the higher forms of organization? the _acarus_, at first supposed to be a new and hitherto unknown creature, is now acknowledged to be one of a very familiar species,--a species which may have deposited its ova, and propagated its kind, since the commencement of the present order of things, and whose eggs might very well resist the action even of nitrate of copper, since the creature itself could live in that poisonous mixture. moreover, it belongs, in point of organization, to one of the highest orders of organisms; not to the _radiata_, not to the _mollusca_, but to the highest type of the _articulata_, the nearest to the _vertebrata_. had it been a monad,--a mere living cell,--which galvanism evolved from the solution, and had this primary product developed itself afterwards in various forms, according to the ascending scale of a progressively improving organization, it might have accorded admirably with the twofold doctrine of spontaneous generation and transmutation of species; but, unfortunately, the first process is so perfect, in the present instance, as to leave little room for the second, and we are almost tempted to hope that perhaps the clumsy and troublesome expedient of a transmutation of species may yet be superseded by the discovery of some method,--we know not what,--whereby not only the _articulata_, but the _vertebrata_, and even man himself, may be immediately produced by some new combination of nature's elemental laws![47] we have given prominence, in the first instance, to the doctrine of "spontaneous" or "aboriginal" production, because it constitutes an indispensable part of the theory of development, and because we believe that, were this clearly understood, that theory would soon sink into general discredit or total oblivion, like the kindred speculations of anaximander and anaxagoras, of the old ionic school. the experiments of ehrenberg, instituted with the view of testing the doctrine of spontaneous generation, may be said to have decided the whole question. they did not succeed, indeed, in explaining every apparently exceptional case, for some of the facts are still obscure, and will probably continue to be so, notwithstanding every extension of microscopic power, just as, in the analogous case of the nebulæ, the increase of telescopic power has enabled us to resolve not a few of them into clusters of stars, while it has served to bring others yet unresolved within the range of our vision. but they were sufficient, at least, to show that, as far as our clear knowledge extends, the one uniform law, "_omne vivum ex ovo_," universally prevails, and that the whole analogy of nature, in so far as its constitution has been ascertained, is adverse to the doctrine of spontaneous generation. ehrenberg detected the minute germs of vegetable mould, and the ova of some of the smallest animalcules; and when it is considered that these germs and ova are so tenacious of vitality that certain prolific seeds have come down to us from the age of the pharaohs in the wrappings of the egyptian mummies,--that they are widely diffused in the air and the waters, insomuch that no sooner does a coral reef appear above the level of the sea than it is forthwith covered with herbage by means of seeds wafted by the winds or deposited by the waves,--and that it is almost impossible to exclude them by any artificial expedient, since they are capable of resisting the action of boiling water and even of alcohol itself,--it cannot, we think, be denied that the few cases which still remain obscure or unexplained may be, at least, _probably_ accounted for in accordance with the same natural law which is found to be invariably established in every department to which our clear knowledge extends. in regard, again, to the supposed "transmutation of species," we are equally warranted in affirming that it is destitute of all experimental evidence, and unsupported even by any natural analogy. as the doctrine of spontaneous generation stands opposed to the maxim that _organic life can be produced only by organic life_, so the doctrine of a transmutation of species stands opposed to the equally certain maxim that _like produces like, both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms_. cuvier has demonstrated, with reference to the birds and reptiles preserved in egypt, an entire fixity and uniformity of species, in every, even the least, particular, for at least three thousand years.[48] in the actual course of nature we see no tendency to change; nay, a barrier seems to have been erected in the constitution of nature itself to prevent the possible confusion of races by promiscuous intercourse, through that provision which renders the mule incapable of reproduction. no plant has ever been found in a state of transition from a lower to a higher form; no instance has ever been produced of one of the algæ being transmuted into the lowest form of terrestrial vegetation; nor of a small gelatinous body developing itself into a fish, a bird, or a beast; nor of an ourang-outang rising into a man.[49] it is true, indeed, that "there is a capacity in all species to accommodate themselves, to a certain extent, to a change of external circumstances, this extent varying greatly according to the species. there may thus arise changes of appearance or structure, and some of these changes are transmissible to the offspring; but the mutations thus superinduced are _governed by constant laws and confined within certain limits_. indefinite divergence from the original type is not possible, and the extreme limit of possible variation may usually be reached in a short period of time; in short, species have a real existence in nature, and a transformation from one to another does not exist."[50] the whole science of natural history is based on the existence of distinct species, capable of being discriminated from each other by certain characteristic marks; and the whole art of the agriculturist and the stockbreeder proceeds on the assumption of a law, invariable in its operation, whereby "like produces like in the vegetable and animal worlds." the instances to which the author of "the vestiges" refers in support of his theory are utterly frivolous when opposed to the copious inductions to which they are opposed; and they may all be explained consistently with the _law of variation within definite limits_, as stated by dr. whewell, or by our ignorance of all the conditions involved in each particular case. nor is his argument founded on the limited range of our observation, even with its singular illustration derived from mr. babbage's calculating engine, fitted to diminish, in the slightest degree, our confidence in the general results of these inductions; for, not to mention that it amounts to nothing more than an appeal from what we do know to what we do not know, from knowledge to ignorance, from the certainties of science to the mere possibilities of conjecture, it has been well shown by mr. miller, that our range of observation is not so limited as the author of "the vestiges" would have us to believe, since "_extent of space_ is, in a matter of this kind, equivalent to _duration of time_. for, although no man has lived five hundred years, so as to observe the gradual development of the oak from the acorn in its various stages of progress, yet every man who can survey five hundred yards of an english forest, can see the oak in every stage of its growth, and need have no doubt as to the law of its progressive development. and so, had there really been such a transmutation of species as is contended for, we might expect to find, somewhere on the vastly extended sea coasts of our islands and continents, some specimens of plants or animals in a state of transition from the lower to the higher forms." we are told, indeed, in answer to this argument, that mr. babbage's engine produces numbers according to a certain law up to a particular point, and then, most unexpectedly, perhaps even unaccountably, the law of the series is changed, and the next term exhibits a striking departure from the order previously followed; and so, it is argued, it may be in nature. each organism may propagate after its kind for immense periods, so as to give the impression of this being an invariable law; but at a certain stage the order may change, and the next term in the series may differ from all that went before it. the argument--if it can be called an argument--amounts to this: mr. babbage's machine produces a _series of numbers, and of numbers only_, but according to different laws of succession; _ergo_, nature may produce in the same way, and with similar variations, _different races of plants and animals_. the argument would have been perfect if the engine had produced _something else than numbers_; if, as professor dod supposes, "while watching mr. babbage's machine, presenting to us successive numbers by the revolution of its plates, we should suddenly see one of those plates resolving itself into types, and these types arranging themselves in the order of a page of 'paradise lost,' or even of 'the vestiges of creation;'--in such a case, there might have been something in the argument; but even then, the withering question remains, is there any man in his senses who would not immediately conclude that _some new cause was now at work_?" in short, in so far as the _facts of the case_ are concerned, there is not only no known instance either of "spontaneous generation" or of "transmutation of species," but there is not even any natural analogy that can give the theory the slightest aspect of verisimilitude. the author of "the vestiges" thinks that a presumption in its favor may be derived from "the analogy of the inorganic world,"--in other words, from the supposed conversion of nebulæ into planets and astral systems by the operation of natural causes; but this analogy has been conclusively set aside by disproving the hypothesis on which it depends. he further thinks that a favorable presumption may be derived from "the analogy of the organic world,"--in other words, from the process of propagation by which the races of plants and animals are perpetuated; but the presumption thence derived, so far from being favorable, is directly opposed to his theory, since all the facts which come under our cognizance in every department of nature serve only to establish the two great maxims of natural history,--that _organic life can spring only from organic life_, and that _like produces like, both in the vegetable and animal world_. if we have succeeded in disposing of _the facts of the case_, we shall have little difficulty in exposing _the fallacy of the principles_ which are involved in the author's speculations on this subject. it is of fundamental importance, in this inquiry, to form a clear and correct conception of the precise point at issue, and of the two alternatives between which we are called to make our choice. it has been well said that "the great antagonist points in the array of the opposite lines are simply the law of development _versus_ the miracle of creation."[51] and the author of "the vestiges" virtually acknowledges this to be the real state of the question, when he says that "if we can see no _natural_ origin for species, a _miraculous_ one must be admitted."[52] now, the grand alternative being creation by miracle or creation by law, that is, creation by a natural or by a supernatural cause, we affirm that it is utterly presumptuous and unphilosophical to represent the one as less worthy of god, or more derogatory to his infinite perfections, than the other. yet the author does not hesitate to say that the _natural_ ought to be preferred to the _miraculous_ method of accounting for the origin both of planets and of their inhabitants, for this among other reasons, that the latter would be derogatory to the wisdom and power of the most high. his words are remarkable: "the eternal sovereign arranges a solar or an astral system by dispositions imparted primordially to matter; he causes, by the same majestic means, vast oceans to form and continents to rise, and all the grand meteoric agencies to proceed in ceaseless alternation, so as to fit the earth for a residence of organic beings. but when, in the course of these operations, fuci and corals are to be for the first time placed in those oceans, a particular interference of the divine power is required; and this special attention is needed whenever a new family of organisms is to be introduced,--a new fiat for fishes, another for reptiles, a third for birds; nay, taking up the present views of geologists as to species, such an event as the commencement of a certain cephalopod, one with a few new nodulosites and corrugations upon its shell, would, on this theory, require the particular care of that same almighty who willed at once the whole means by which infinity was replenished with its worlds?" ... "is it conceivable, as a fitting mode of exercise for creative intelligence, that it should be constantly paying a special attention to the creation of species, as they may be required in each situation throughout those worlds at particular times? is such an idea accordant with our general conception of the dignity, not to speak of the power, of the great author?" ... "it would be distressing to be compelled to picture the power of god as put forth _in any other manner_ than in those slow, mysterious, universal laws which have so plainly an eternity to work in."[53] such is the author's presumptuous decision on a matter which is far "too high for him." we offer the following remarks upon it: _first_ of all, let it be observed that, unless on the principle of absolute atheism, which he professes to repudiate, he cannot but acknowledge that _once_, at least, the power of god must have been put forth _in another manner_ than "in those slow, mysterious, universal laws" of which he speaks; and that, even if he could succeed in disproving "repeated interferences of creative power," he could in nowise dispense with a primitive act of direct, immediate, supernatural creation, since he does not profess to believe in the eternal existence of matter and its laws. we find, indeed, that even in the subsequent acts of a continuous, but mediate creation, he is compelled to acknowledge a supernatural power as acting, in each individual case, according to established natural laws; for he says expressly, "there cannot be _an inherent intelligence in these laws_; the intelligence appears _external to the laws_, something of which the laws are but as the expression of the will and power. if this be admitted, the laws cannot be regarded as primary or independent causes of the phenomena of the physical world. we come, in short, to a being beyond nature,--its author, its god." ... "when we speak of natural law, we only speak of _the mode in which the divine power is exercised_; it is but another phrase for _the action of the ever-present and sustaining god_."[54] it is admitted, then, _first_, that there must have been a primary act of creation, in the highest and strictest sense, by a direct and immediate interposition of divine power, at the commencement of created existence; and, _secondly_, that, even in the continuous work of creation, which is supposed to have been subsequently carried on after the method of development by established natural laws, divine agency is still equally real, although it is differently manifested, and is indispensably necessary to account for the resulting products. now, can it be reasonably asserted that the direct and immediate creation of such a being as man would be more derogatory to the wisdom and power of god than the primordial production of "a universal fire-mist," or even of "electricity and albumen?" or, will it be pretended that immediate creation of molluscs as molluscs, of fishes as fishes, of reptiles as reptiles, would be less worthy of the great author of nature than the establishment of a system which _must_ in due time give them birth, and that, too, not without the concurrence and coöperation of the divine will; for "natural law is but another phrase for _the action_ of the ever-present and sustaining god?" but, while we hold that there is no good ground for an affirmative answer to these questions, we would carefully guard against rushing to the opposite extreme, and affirming, either that the production of new races by the method of natural law was, on _a priori_ grounds, impossible, or that god might not have adopted that method, had he so pleased, in perfect consistency with the manifestation of his wisdom and power. we see that he has done so, under the actual constitution of nature, so far as the production of _individuals_ is concerned; we see not why a similar provision might not have been made for the production of _genera and species_. in either way his power and his wisdom might have been displayed. but, when we are told that the one is derogatory to the divine majesty, and the other alone consistent with the loftiest views of his perfections, we denounce the whole speculation as one that is alike presumptuous and unphilosophical, on the simple but conclusive ground that we are in no degree competent judges of the best method either of creating or of governing the world. had we been asked to say whether it was likely that, under the rule of infinite wisdom and almighty power, certain insects, reptiles, and fishes, that are unattractive to the eye, and loathsome to the fastidious taste of many, could find a place at all among the works of god, we might have thought it improbable that they should be created; but they exist notwithstanding, and the fact of their existence is enough to silence all our presumptive reasonings. and surely it is not less--it is much more--presumptuous to affirm that, existing as they do, they could not have been brought into being, without disparagement to divine wisdom, otherwise than by the action of established laws, or by a process of natural development; as if it were unworthy of god to _produce_ that for whose production he confessedly did make _provision_. but, further, we see here very strikingly exemplified the tendency of such speculations to _exclude god from all real, active, and direct connection with his works_. the dominion of natural law, which, as we shall afterwards see, is held by m. comte and mr. combe to exclude the doctrine of a special providence and the efficacy of prayer, is here extended, by the author of "the vestiges," so as to be exclusive also of any direct divine interposition in the work of creation itself, other than what may have been implied in the aboriginal production of matter and its laws, or in the subsequent concurrence of his will with the action of these laws in the established order of nature. we have said that the theory of development, as expounded in "the vestiges," is not necessarily atheistic, partly because the author professedly disclaims atheism, and partly also because, in strict logic, it might still be possible, even on the basis of that theory, considered simply in itself and apart from the speculations with which it has been associated, to construct, from the actual phenomena of nature, a valid proof for the being and attributes of god. and yet we have thought it necessary to advert to it as one of the recent speculations of science, because, whatever may be its _professed aim_, its _practical tendency_ is unquestionably hostile to the influence of religious truth. it will be found, in the great majority of cases, and especially in the case of ardent youthful minds, that this theory, when it is embraced as an article of their philosophic creed, is, to all practical purposes, tantamount to atheism. for not to insist on the consideration, so forcibly stated by others,[55] that the natural argument for the immortality of man, or for the doctrine of a future life, as implying distinct individuality and continued self-consciousness, must be materially weakened, if not entirely neutralized, by a theory of development which traces the human lineage up through the monkeys and fishes to albumen impregnated by electricity, or, further still, to a diffused nebula or universal fire-mist,--we think that the sensational and materialistic speculations with which the work abounds have a tendency to weaken the evidence for a living, personal, spiritual god, as the creator and moral governor of the world, and to diminish that reverence, confidence, and love, which these aspects of his character alone can inspire. the system of epicurus, although it contained a formal recognition of a first cause, has always been held to be practically atheistic, simply because it removed god from the active superintendence of the affairs of the world, and excluded the doctrine of a special providence and of a moral government. it was held, in the words of cicero, "epicurum verbis reliquisse deos,--re sustulisse."[56] and so, in "the vestiges," natural law is substituted for supernatural interposition, not only in the common course of providence, but in the stupendous work of creation itself. section iii. theory of _social_ or _historical_ development.--auguste comte. it might have been thought that the principle of development had exhausted its powers, and achieved its highest triumphs, when it had been applied successively to account, first, for the creation of planets and astral systems, and, secondly, for the production of vegetable and animal life; and that little could remain for it to do after it had succeeded in tracing the genealogy of man back, in a direct line through many generations, to the nebulous matter or luminous fire-mist which was diffused at the beginning of time throughout the universe. but, on a more careful study of its last and highest product,--man, with his intellectual and moral nature, his religious beliefs, his social history, and his immortal hopes,--it seemed as if there were still some phenomena which remained to be accounted for, some facts of palpable reality and great magnitude which had not yet been adequately explained. the mental faculties and their operations, the moral laws that are universally recognized and appealed to, the social institutions which have been established, the religious beliefs and feelings which have generally prevailed, and the rites of worship which have been observed in all ages and climes, were so widely different from the phenomena of mere vegetable or animal life, that they seemed to demand a distinct account of their origin; and it might not be apparent, at first sight, how they could be reduced under the same all-pervading law by which the planets were formed, so as to exclude all idea of divine supernatural interposition. this herculean task was fearlessly undertaken, however, by m. auguste comte, and it has been elaborated with singular ability in his ponderous work, the "cours de philosophie positive." m. comte's course of positive philosophy began to be delivered at paris in the winter of 1829-30, and was completed in its published form in 1842-43. it comprehends a general outline of all the branches of inductive science, and of the relations which they bear to each other; and they are expounded in a style singularly copious, clear, and forcible. he has acquired, in consequence, a high reputation as a philosophical thinker, and has already found, in our own country, some able allies, and not a few enthusiastic admirers. the "system of logic," by john stuart mill, and "the biographical history of philosophy," by g. h. lewes, are avowedly indebted to his speculations for some of their most characteristic contents; while the outline of his theory has been presented to the more popular class of readers in england through the columns of "the leader," and in scotland through those of "the glasgow mechanics' journal." it is not my intention, nor is it necessary for my present purpose, to offer any remarks on the strictly scientific portion of his voluminous work. i shall confine myself exclusively to those speculations which bear, more or less directly, on the great cause of natural and revealed religion, selecting them from all the various parts of his work, and exhibiting them, in one comprehensive view, as a compact theory of absolute and avowed atheism. the fundamental idea of his system is a supposed "law of the development of human thought," which regulates and determines the whole progress of the species in the acquisition of knowledge. this law is announced with the air of a man who has made a great discovery, and who is entitled, in consequence, to be regarded both as an original thinker, and as a benefactor to the world. "i believe," he says, "that i have discovered a grand fundamental law,"--"the fundamental law of the development of the human mind;" ... "the grand law which i have indicated in the first part of my system of positive politics, ... where i have divulged, for the first time, the discovery of this law."[57] now, what, it may be asked, is this marvellous discovery, which bids so fair both to immortalize its author and to enlighten the world? it is stated briefly in the _first_, and illustrated at greater length in the _fourth_ and following volumes of his work. the general outline of his theory is thus sketched: "that law consists in this,--that each one of our leading conceptions, every branch of our knowledge, passes successively through _three different theoretic states_: the state theological or fictitious, the state metaphysical or abstract, and the state scientific or positive. in other words, the human mind, by its nature, employs successively, in each of its researches, three methods of philosophizing, whose character is essentially different, and even _radically opposed_: first, the theological method; then, the metaphysical; and, last of all, the positive. hence three systems of philosophies, which _mutually exclude each other_. the first is the necessary starting-point of the human mind; the third is its fixed, ultimate state; the second is purely provisional, and destined merely to serve as an intermediate stage."[58] these are the _three_ great stages through which the collective mind of humanity must necessarily pass in its progressive advancement towards a perfect knowledge of truth; but of these three, the _first_, or the theological epoch, is again subdivided, and exhibited as commencing with fetishism, then advancing to polytheism, and finally consummated in monotheism. fetishism is supposed to have been the first form of the theological philosophy; and it is described as consisting in the ascription of a life and intelligence essentially analogous to our own to every existing object, of whatever kind, whether organic or inorganic, natural or artificial. it is traced to a primitive tendency, supposed to exist equally in man and in the lower animals, to conceive of all external objects as animated, and to ascribe to them the same, or similar, powers and feelings with those which belong to the living tribes themselves.[59] "let an infant, for example, or a savage, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, a dog or a monkey, behold a watch for the first time, there will doubtless be no immediate profound difference, unless in respect to the manner of representing it, between the spontaneous conception which will represent to the one and the other that admirable product of human industry as a sort of veritable animal, having its own peculiar tastes and inclinations; whence results, consequentially, in this respect, a fetishism fundamentally common to both, the former only having the exclusive privilege of being able ultimately to get out of it." this instinctive and spontaneous belief--the natural, and, indeed, the necessary result of a tendency inherent in living beings--is conceived to have been an indispensable and a most useful provision for the primeval state of man, and to have exerted a highly salutary influence on the progressive development of human thought. it is contrasted with the subsequent but more advanced stage of polytheism;[60] and the latter is held to denote a spontaneous belief in supernatural beings, distinct from and even independent of matter, since it is passively subject to their will; while the former considers matter itself as animated, and has no idea of any higher or more spiritual form of being. it is further supposed that idolatry, properly so called, belongs to fetishism only, and not at all to polytheism, for this singular, but not very conclusive reason, among others, that if polytheism be justly chargeable with idolatry because it recognizes many wills superior to nature and having power over it, catholicism would be equally liable to the same charge in respect of the homage which it renders to saints and angels![61] but fetishism is only the initial step in the process of our intellectual development; and it passes into polytheism, not suddenly and _per salium_, but slowly and gradually, through the intermediate stage of "_astrolatrie_," or the worship of the heavenly bodies. the mind is imperceptibly divested of the idea that everything around it is animated, and, by a process of real, but as yet imperfect generalization, it rises from fetishism to polytheism; in which latter system of belief an order of powers superior to nature is recognized, while as yet there is no conception of a supreme and all-perfect mind. the polytheistic system, which prevailed so universally in the ancient world, and which still prevails among heathen nations, is supposed to have been, not a _declension_ from a purer and better state, not a _corruption_ either of natural or revealed religion, but _a step in advance_ of the primary faith of mankind, a result of growing intelligence, a vast and most beneficial change in the right direction. it was the first great product of the metaphysical spirit, the result of an early but imperfect generalization; it constituted the principal era of the theological history of mankind; it was admirably adapted, and, indeed, indispensably necessary, to the exigencies of society at the time when it prevailed; it was more intensely religious than monotheism itself, since it brought man habitually into contact with a multitude of gods, whose symbols were always present and visible to the eye, while it exerted a wholesome influence on science, on poetry, on industry, on morals, and, indeed, on the whole process of man's mental and social development.[62] but polytheism, although indispensable and salutary as a provisional belief, was not destined to be permanent; it was to be superseded in due time, at least in the case of the _élite_ of humanity, by the higher and still more abstract system of monotheism, which is regarded as the natural and inevitable product of human intelligence, independently of all supernatural teaching, at a certain stage of its development. but here, as in the former instance, the change is not effected suddenly; the human mind advances gradually from polytheism to monotheism, through the intermediate stage of the idea of immutability or destiny,--an idea suggested partly by the study of the invariable order of nature, and partly by the irresistible domination of one great temporal power, such as the iron empire of rome.[63] historically, indeed, monotheism is said to have spread in europe through the jews, who derived it from egypt; but it is added that, had there been no jews, others would have given birth to a system so necessary for the development of human thought. the prevalence of monotheism, for a limited time, was useful, and even necessary, as the natural result of the great law of human progress, and the indispensable precursor of a new and brighter era; but it was temporary and provisional merely,--a stage in the onward march of development, not the ultimate landing-place of human thought. it is conceived to be radically incompatible with the recognition of invariable natural laws, and even with the exercise of the industrial arts.[64] it is, however, the last and highest form of the theological philosophy; and, having reached this stage, the human mind necessarily advances beyond it, until it arrives at a point where all theology disappears, and where it is entirely and forever emancipated from all the beliefs, the hopes, and the fears which have any reference to an invisible spiritual world. the ultimate goal of speculative thought is "the positive philosophy," which treats only of the facts of nature, and of their coördination under general laws, to the utter exclusion of all supernatural powers, and of all knowledge of causes, whether _efficient_ or _final_. but this goal cannot be reached, it seems, by a sudden or abrupt transition from the theological to the atheistic creed. there must be an intermediate stage,--the era, in short, of metaphysics,--during which the process of criticism will operate as a solvent on all previous beliefs, and by producing skepticism, in the first instance, in regard to all other systems, will tend at length to concentrate the attention of mankind exclusively on the truths of inductive science. the metaphysical philosophy is held to be the necessary, but temporary stage of transition from the theological to the positive method in science. it is destined to supersede the one, and to introduce the other. it is conceived to be equally at variance with both; and the era of its ascendency is described as a critical, destructive, revolutionary age, useful only as it delivers mankind from the shackles of former beliefs, and prepares them for the adoption of a new and purely natural system of thought. during this era of decomposition there will commence the reconstruction of human opinion on new and more solid foundations; and the transition from monotheism to positive science will be the greatest achievement of the race, greater far than the advancement from fetishism to polytheism, or even from polytheism to monotheism itself. the culminating point of human progress is absolute and universal atheism.[65] surely such a prospect may well arrest the most thoughtless, and prompt them to inquire, with some measure of moral earnestness, what _is_ this positive philosophy, this ultimate landing-place of human thought, this final goal of human progress? is it nothing else than the inductive science of bacon, but under a new and less attractive name? or is it a philosophy radically different from it, and entitled, therefore, to be regarded as an original method? the author tells us that he might have called it "natural science," or "the philosophy of nature," since it treats of facts and their laws; but that he had been induced to prefer the distinctive title of _positive_, as one better fitted to mark the contrast between it and the _negative_ character of those metaphysical and theological systems which it is destined to supersede. and yet it will be found that, in so far as it differs at all from the inductive science of bacon, it is purely _negative_, since its chief characteristic is the negation of all theology, and the entire exclusion from the domain of human knowledge, of causes, whether efficient or final. it _adds_ nothing to the sum of human thought which might not be reached by bacon's method; it only _subtracts_ whatever has reference to the divine and supernatural, and especially everything connected with the theory of causation. it makes no new contribution to the general stock, unless, indeed, it be the hitherto unknown law of development which is supposed to regulate and determine the progress of humanity from primeval fetishism to ultimate atheism; and it takes away theology, with all its ennobling beliefs and blessed hopes, not by grappling with and solving, but by merely discarding the problem both of the origin and end of the world. that this is a correct account of the new theory is evident from his own words: "the fundamental character of the positive philosophy is, to regard all phenomena as subjected to invariable natural _laws_, the precise discovery of which, and their reduction to the least possible number, is the end of all our efforts; while we regard the investigation of what are called _causes_, whether first or final, as absolutely _inaccessible and void of sense for us_." ... "we have no pretension to expound the producing causes of the phenomena, for in that we can never do more than push back the difficulty; we seek only to analyze with exactitude the circumstances of their production, and to connect them with one another by the normal relations of _succession and similitude_."--"in the positive state of science, the human mind, acknowledging the impossibility of obtaining absolute knowledge, abandons the search after the _origin and destination_ of the universe, and the knowledge of the secret _causes_ of phenomena."[66] it is thus plainly announced that the positive philosophy is the science of facts and their laws, exclusive of all reference to causes, efficient or final; and it is even admitted that theology could not be excluded, were it deemed legitimate or possible for the human mind to investigate the causes of phenomena. viewing the theory in this light, we submit the following remarks as a sufficient antidote to this daring but impotent attempt to exclude theology from the domain of human knowledge. 1. it is worthy of notice how completely the infidel party have shifted their ground and changed their tactics since the era of the first french revolution; and how utterly inconsistent are the arguments of m. comte and the positive school with those of voltaire and the encyclopedists. formerly, religion was wont to be ascribed to priestcraft; it was supposed to have been invented by fraud, supported by falsehood, and professed in hypocrisy; and the church, but especially the hierarchy of rome, was the object of incessant ridicule or malignant abuse. but now, religion is discovered to be the natural, necessary, and salutary result of the legitimate action of the human faculties in the earlier stages of their development, the initial impellent of social progress, the indispensable condition of advancing civilization; and, on the broad, general principle that sincerity of conviction is essential to wide-spread success, the theory which ascribes its origin to the fraud or the policy, whether of kings, or priests, or fanatics, is scouted as a mere delirium of voltaire, or as one of those revolutionary prejudices of his disastrous era which were alike irrational and injurious. and the church, so far from being ridiculed or maligned, is lauded above measure as the highest extant product of _human_ wisdom; catholicism is even preferred to christianity itself, as a manifest improvement on the more primitive form of faith and worship; it is declared to be the indispensable basis of the future reorganization of society, which, when it shall have been freed from all theological influence, its only point of weakness, will still survive, with its separate speculative class, its imposing public forms, and its splendid hierarchy,--an atheistic society, but still catholic and one.[67] the change, in this respect, between the opinions which prevailed, respectively, at the era of the _first_ and that of the _second_ revolution, is at once striking and instructive. it shows how variable and vacillating is the wretched creed of infidelity, and how the firm maintenance of truth will eventually compel the homage, even where it may not succeed in carrying the convictions, of speculative minds. that religion in all its successive forms, from the rudest fetishism up to the sublimest christian monotheism, has been the natural and genuine product of human intelligence, working ever onward and upward to a still higher stage of development,--that its existence was inevitable, and its influence, on the whole, highly beneficial,--and that, even when it shall have passed away, society will still be largely indebted to it for the impulse, yet unspent, which it has imparted to the cause of civilization and progress,--all this is admitted and even maintained by m. comte, in direct and often derisive opposition to the theorists who once ascribed its origin to fraud, and its prevalence to priestcraft; nay, he elevates it to the rank of a primordial and indispensable element of human progress, a necessary and legitimate result of the great law of human development. we know of no parallel instance of a change of opinion so great and sudden, unless it be the marvellous transition of certain modern rationalists who were wont to ridicule the doctrine of the trinity as absurd and incomprehensible, but who have now arrived at the conclusion that it is the fundamental law of human thought![68] still, with all this outward homage to religion, considered as a mere matter of history, the theory of m. comte is essentially and even avowedly atheistic. it is mainly designed to account for the origin of all religion, whether natural or revealed, without having recourse to the supposition either of the existence of god, or of his interposition at any time in the affairs of men. he seems to have proposed to himself a twofold object: _first_, to account for the prevalence of the various forms of natural religion and superstition, without recognizing any valid evidence for the existence of supernatural powers; and, _secondly_, to account for the origin of judaism and christianity, or, as he calls it, of monotheism, without recognizing the reality of any divine revelation. and he attempts to accomplish _both_ objects by means of the same law--a law of development which, in primitive times, produced fetishism--which then produced polytheism; then monotheism; then the metaphysical transition era, during which all theology is undergoing a process of disintegration and decay; and, last of all (the noblest, because the latest, birth of time), the positive philosophy, under whose predicted ascendancy all theology must die and be buried in everlasting oblivion. his theory is not merely anti-protestant, although it is bitterly so;[69] nor merely anti-christian, as opposed to all revelation; but it is anti-theological, as opposed to all religion. it proposes to eliminate theology from the scheme of our knowledge, by showing that it is utterly inaccessible to our faculties, and neither necessary to society nor useful to morals.[70] it anticipates the time, as being near at hand, when it shall have no existence, save on the historic page. 2. this atheistic theory rests entirely on a supposed discovery of m. comte,--the discovery of _a law of human development_, which serves at once to account for the origin and prevalence of theological beliefs in the past, and to insure their utter disappearance in the future; a law which, like the magician's wand, can raise the apparition, and then lay it again! now, of this law we affirm and undertake to prove that it is _utterly groundless_; that it has no solid basis of evidence on which it can be established; that it is contradicted by the history of the world, and opposed to our own experience at the present day. it can scarcely be imagined that a man accustomed, as m. comte has been, to the severe pursuits of science, could give publicity to a law of this kind, and claim the credit of a great original discovery, without having some plausible reasons to plead for it; and he does assign certain reasons for his belief, which are, it may be safely affirmed, as frivolous and inconclusive as any that have ever been offered in support of the most baseless revery. they may be reduced to three; the _first_, derived from our cerebral organization; the _second_, from the history of a certain portion of our species; the _third_, from the analogy of our individual experience.[71] he founds, in the first instance, on our _cerebral organization_. he is an ardent admirer of drs. gall and spurzheim, and has no scruple in avowing himself a decided materialist. it is unnecessary here to enter on a discussion of materialism, or even of phrenology,--that will be done hereafter; in the mean time it is enough merely to indicate the fact that the theory proceeds on that ground, and then to inquire _how the fundamental law of development is deduced from it_. how does the theory of materialism, or even of phrenology, were it assumed on the one side and admitted on the other, contribute to the establishment or verification of that law? suppose it to be conceded that every mental faculty or propensity has a distinct cerebral organ, or, more generally, that the brain may be divided into three parts, representing, respectively, the animal propensities, the more elevated sentiments, and the intellectual faculties; could it be rationally inferred from this concession that human nature must necessarily develop itself after a certain order or method, and especially in the precise way that is indicated in m. comte's law? would it prove that man must needs pass, in the process of his mental and social development, through _three_ distinct and successive stages,--the preparatory theological state, the transitory metaphysical state, and the final positive state? would it prove that religion must first exist as fetishism, then as polytheism, then as monotheism, and thereafter disappear from the earth altogether on the advent of m. comte? he seems to think that there is a real connection between the cerebral theory and his great fundamental law; but it is not easy for a common reader to discern or to explain it. considering the cranium, according to what he conceives to be the true anatomical theory, as simply a prolongation of the vertebral column,--the primitive centre of the whole nervous system,--he argues that the functions, intellectual and emotional, which are proper to the upper and anterior parts of it, are less energetic than the animal propensities, whose organs lie in the lower and posterior region, just in proportion as they are further removed from the spine; and that, for this reason, the latter must first come into action, then the intermediate organs of sentiment, and, last of all, the intellectual powers. and this doctrine he applies to the verification both of his otherwise admirable classification of the sciences, and of his far more doubtful law of human development. we conceive that if it were applicable at all to the problem of human progress, it might possibly be applied to indicate the probable development of an _individual mind_, in the successive stages of infancy, youth, and manhood; but that it does not admit of the same application to _the history of the race_, otherwise than by the aid of a very fanciful analogy. we have no faith in the _a priori_ methods of constructing the chart of human history, and tracing the necessary course of social progress, which have recently become so popular in germany and france. we cannot, with m. comte, undertake to solve the problem,--given three lobes of the brain, representing the propensities, affections, and intellectual powers, but differing from each other in size and situation, what will be the future history of the race,--religious, æsthetic, industrial, metaphysical, social? we cannot, with m. cousin, undertake to solve the problem,--given three terms, the finite, the infinite, and the relation between the two, what will be the development of human thought, first, in the experience of individuals, and, secondly, in the history of society?[72] all such problems are too high for us. the history of the human race must be ascertained from the authentic records and extant monuments of the past, not constructed by theories, or divined by _a priori_ speculations. but m. comte does appeal, in the second instance, to history in confirmation of his views. he is far from affirming, however, that the progress of the race, under the operation of his great law of development, has been either uniform or invariable; on the contrary, he admits, with regard to india, china, and other nations, comprising probably the majority of mankind, whose state, intellectually and socially, has been stationary for ages, that they afford little or no evidence in support of his theory; and for this, among other reasons, he confines himself to the history of what he calls the _élite_, or advanced guard of humanity, and in this way makes it a very "_abstract_" history indeed![73] beginning with greece, as the representative of ancient civilization, and surveying the history of the roman empire, and of its successors in western europe, he endeavors to show that the actual progress of humanity has been, on the whole, in conformity with his general law. he gives no historical evidence, however, of the prevalence of fetishism in primitive times; _that_ is an inference merely, depending partly on his theory of cerebral organization, and partly on the assumption that in the savage state, which is gratuitously supposed to have been the primitive condition of man, there must have been a tendency to regard every object, natural or artificial, as endowed with life and intelligence. polytheism, again, he conceives to have been a step in advance, an improvement on the preëxisting state of things, instead of being, as it really was, a declension from a purer and better faith, an aberration from the light of nature, not less than from the lessons of revelation. he conceives monotheism, whether as taught, to the jews by moses, or to the world at large by christ and his apostles, to have been the natural product of man's unaided intelligence; and he assumes this, without making a single reference to the supernatural events by which its publication, in either instance, is said to have been accompanied, or to the sacred books in which they are recorded; nay, he does not even name the founder of the christian faith, otherwise than by describing him as "the founder, real or imaginary, of this great religious system."[74] in treating, again, of the critical or destructive system of metaphysics, and of the positive or reconstructive system of the new philosophy, he adduces no evidence to show that _the same element_ is negatived by the one and restored by the other; on the contrary, were his statement true in all respects, it would only serve to prove that the theological element, which is slowly dissipated by metaphysics, is formally and finally abjured by positivism. he assumes and asserts, on very insufficient grounds, that there is a real, radical, and necessary contrariety between the facts and laws of science and the first principles of theology, whether natural or revealed; and he anticipates, therefore, that in proportion as science advances, theology must recede, and ultimately quit the field. he ought to have known that there are minds in every part of europe as thoroughly scientific as his own, and as deeply imbued with the spirit of modern inductive philosophy, who, so far from seeing any discordance between the results of scientific inquiry and the fundamental truths of theology, are in the habit of appealing to the former in proof or illustration of the latter; and who, the further they advance in the study of the works of nature, are only the more confirmed in their belief of a creative intelligence and a governing power. it may be that, in his own immediate circle at paris, there is a tendency towards atheism; but, assuredly, no such tendency exists in the highest and most scientific minds of modern europe. the faith of bacon, newton, and boyle, of descartes, leibnitz, and pascal, in regard to the first principles of theology, is still the prevailing creed of the sedgwicks, the whewells, the herschells, and the brewsters of the present day. the only plausible part of his historical survey, and that which, in our apprehension, is the most likely to make some transient impression on the popular mind, is his elaborate attempt to show, with regard to each branch of science, in detail, that it was enveloped during its infancy in a cloud of superstition; and that just in proportion as the light shone more clearly, or was more distinctly discerned, the cloud was gradually dissipated and dispersed, until, one after another, they were all emancipated from their supposed connection with supernatural causes, and reduced under fixed natural laws. confounding theology with superstition, or failing, at least, to discriminate duly between the two, m. comte draws a vivid picture of the successive inroads which science has made on the consecrated domain of religion, and represents the one as receding just in proportion as the other advances. for as the darkness disappears before the rising sun, whose earliest rays gild only the loftier mountain peaks, but whose growing brightness spreads over the lowly valleys and penetrates the deepest recesses of nature, so theology gradually retires before the advance of science, which first conquers and brings under the rule of natural law the simplest and least complicated branches, such as mechanics and astronomy; then attacks the more complex, such as chemistry and physiology; and, last of all, advances to the assault of the most difficult, such as ethics and sociology; until, having emancipated each of them successively from their previous connection with supernatural beliefs, it effects the entire elimination of theology, first from the philosophic, and afterwards from the popular creed of mankind. m. comte conceives that the religious spirit has been steadily decreasing throughout the whole course of human development, from the time when it was universal, in the form of fetishism, till it reached its most abstract, but least influential form in monotheism; and that now the period of its decline and fall has arrived, when it is subjected to the powerful solvent of a metaphysical and skeptical philosophy, and when its ultimate extinction is certain under the action of positive science. we deem this by far the most dangerous, because it is the most plausible part of his speculations; so plausible that, even where his reasonings in support of it may fail to carry the full conviction of the understanding, they may yet leave behind them a certain impression unfavorable to faith in divine things, since they appeal to many palpable facts in the history of science, too well attested to be doubted, and too important to be overlooked. the theory itself--whatever may be thought of the peculiar form which it has assumed in the hands of m. comte--cannot be regarded, in its main and essential features, as one of his original discoveries; for the general idea on which it rests had been announced with equal brevity and precision by the celebrated la place: "let us survey the history of the progress of the human mind and of its errors; we shall there see _final causes constantly pushed back to the boundaries of its knowledge_. these causes, which newton pushed back to the limits of the solar system, were, even in his time, placed in the atmosphere to explain meteoric appearances. they are nothing else, therefore, in the eyes of a philosopher, than _the expression of our ignorance of the true causes_." supposing this to be a correct account of the fact, the inference which m. comte deduces from it might seem to follow very much as a matter of course,--the inference, viz., that in proportion as science advances and succeeds in subjecting one department of nature after another to fixed and invariable laws, theology, or the doctrine of final causes, must necessarily recede before it, and, at length, disappear altogether, when human knowledge has reached its highest ultimate perfection. but is it a correct account of the fact? is it true that the doctrine of final causes is less generally admitted, or more dubiously maintained, in regard to those sciences which have already reached their maturity, than in regard to those other sciences which are still comparatively in their infancy? or is it true that it has lost instead of gaining ground by the progress of scientific discovery, so as to occupy a narrower space and to hold a more precarious footing, _now_, than it did in the earlier ages of ignorance and superstition? did final causes disappear from the view of newton when he discovered the law which regulates the movements of the heavenly bodies? did galen or did paley discard them when they surveyed the human frame in the light of scientific anatomy? or harvey, when, impelled and guided by this doctrine as his governing principle, he discovered the circulation of the blood? in what departments of nature, and in what branches of science, does the theistic philosopher or the christian divine find the clearest and strongest proofs of order, adaptation, and adjustment? is it not in those very departments of nature whose laws have been most fully ascertained? in those very branches of science which have been most thoroughly matured? did we believe comte and la place, we should expect to find that the doctrine of final causes and the science of theology could now find no footing in the domain of astronomy, of physics, or of chemistry, since in these departments the phenomena have been reduced, by many successive discoveries, to rigorous general laws; and that they could only survive for a brief time by taking refuge in the yet unconquered territory of meteorology, biology, and social science. but is it so? examine the series of bridgewater treatises, or any other recent philosophical exposition of the evidence of natural theology, and it will be apparent, on the most cursory review, that in point of fact the arguments and illustrations are derived almost entirely from _the more advanced sciences_; and that, so far from receding or threatening to disappear, final causes have only become more prominent and more striking in proportion as inquiring men have succeeded in removing the vail from any department of nature. it were easy, indeed, to cull from the records of the past many facts which might seem to give a plausible aspect to the theory of m. comte. we might be told of the early history of astronomy, when the astrologer gazed upon the heavens with a superstitious eye, and spoke of the mystic influence of the planets, and constructed the horoscope for the calculation of nativities and the prediction of future events. we might be told of the early history of anatomy, when, from the entrails of birds and animals, the _haruspex_ prognosticated the fate of empires and the fortunes of battle. we might be told of the early history of chemistry, when alchemists sought in their concoctions a panacea for all human evils, and in their crucibles an alkalest or universal menstruum. we might be told of the early history of zoölogy, when the augur watched the flight, the singing, the feeding of birds, and applied them to the purposes of divination. we might be told of aëromancy as the earliest form of meteorology, and of geomancy as the earliest form of geology.[75] and we might be told of the popular superstitions which lingered, till a very recent period, among the peasantry of our own country, and which are now gradually disappearing in proportion as the light of religion and science is diffused.[76] these facts, which appear on the surface of human history, do unquestionably prove that _there has been a process of gradual advancement_, by which each of the sciences has been, in succession, purged of its earlier errors, and placed on a more solid and enduring basis. but they prove nothing more than this: they do _not_ prove that these sciences must ultimately supersede theology, or that they have a necessary tendency towards atheism. on the contrary, we hold that they afford a valid presumption from analogy on the other side. for suppose, even, that religion, following the same law of development which determines the progress of every other branch of human knowledge, had become incorporated, in its earlier stages, with many fond and foolish superstitions, the analogy of the other sciences would lead us to conclude that, just as the reveries of astrology had passed away and given place to a solid system of astronomy,--and as the vain speculations of alchemy had been superseded by the useful discoveries of chemistry,--and as the arts of augury and divination had finally issued in the inductive science of true natural history,--so theology might also purge itself from the fond conceits which had been for a time incorporated with it, and still survive, after all superstition had passed away, as a sound and fruitful branch of the tree of knowledge. this is not the precise light, however, in which m. comte regards theology, he does not speak of it as _a distinct and independent science_, but rather as _a method of philosophy_, which has been applied to the explanation of _all_ the departments of nature; and, viewed in this light, he objects to it on the ground that positive science peremptorily demands the elimination of all causes, efficient and final, and, consequently, the exclusion of all reference to god, or to any supernatural power, in connection with the laws either of the material or moral world. this is the fundamental basis of his theory. it is assumed that the recognition of natural laws is incompatible with the belief in supernatural powers, and that these laws must be invariable and independent of any superior will. hence the supposed antagonism between theology and physical science, which is strongly affirmed by m. comte[77]; as if the laws of nature could not exist unless they were independent of the divine will, or as if the arts of industry could not be pursued, on the supposition of a providence, without sacrilegious presumption. the laws for which he contends must have had no author to establish, and can have no superior will to control them; they had no beginning, and can have no end; they cannot be reversed, suspended, or interfered with; they are necessary, immutable, and eternal, not subordinate to god, but independent of him; they are, in short, nothing less than destiny or fate, the same that cudworth describes as the democritic, physiological, or atheistic fate, which consists in "the material necessity of all things without a god."[78] now, we have no jealousy of natural laws. we believe in their existence; we believe, also, in their regular operation in the ordinary course of nature; but we deny that they must needs be _independent_ of a supreme will, and affirm that, being subordinate to that will, they are not necessarily _invariable_. they are expressly recognized and cordially maintained by divines, not less than by men of science; but in such a sense as to be perfectly compatible both with the doctrine of a primitive creation, and also with the possibility of a subsequent miraculous interposition. the westminster divines explicitly declare that "god, the first cause, by his providence, ordereth all things to fall out _according to the nature of second causes_, either necessarily, freely, or contingently;" and that "in his ordinary providence, he maketh use of means, but is free to act without, above, and against them at his pleasure."[79] but m. comte will have no laws, however regular, unless they be also invariable, and independent of any superior will. and, doubtless, if this were the sense in which science has established the doctrine of natural laws, it would be at direct variance with theology, both natural and revealed; and the antagonism between the two might afford some ground for the belief that, sooner or later, theology must quit the field. but it is not the existence of these natural laws, nor even their regular operation in the common course of providence, that is hostile to our religious beliefs,--it is only the supposition that they are unoriginated, independent, and invariable; and to assume this without proof, as if it were a self-evident or axiomatic truth, or to apply it in a process of historical deduction respecting either the past development or the future prospects of the race, is such a shameless begging of the whole question,--that we know of no parallel to it except in the kindred speculations of strauss, who assumes the same radical principle, and gravely tells us that whatever is supernatural must needs be unhistorical.[80] there is absolutely no evidence, properly historical, that there is any necessary tendency in the recognition of established natural laws to supersede theology, or to introduce an era of universal atheism. some such tendency might exist were these laws conceived of as necessary, independent, and invariable. but this hypothesis, equally unphilosophical and irreligious, is not and never has been maintained by the great body of inductive inquirers, who see no contradiction either between the established order of nature and the supposition of its divine origin, or between the operation of natural laws and the recognition of a supreme, superintending providence. nor should it be forgotten, in this connection, that the evidence in favor of theism depends not so much on _the mere laws_ as on _the dispositions and adjustments_ that are observable in nature.[81] there is, therefore, no historical proof to establish the supposed law of human development, and no rational ground to expect that the progress of inductive science will ever supplant or supersede theology. it is true that theology, although a distinct and independent science, is so comprehensive in its range that it gathers its proofs and illustrations from _every_ department of nature, and that, were it excluded from any one of these, it might, for the same reason, be excluded from all the rest; but it is not true that there is any real or necessary antagonism between the laws of nature and the prerogatives of god. on the contrary, let our knowledge advance until _all_ the phenomena both of the material and moral worlds shall be reduced under so many general laws, even then superstition might disappear, but theology would remain, and would only receive fresh accessions of evidence and strength, in proportion as the wise order of nature is more fully unfolded, and its most hidden mysteries disclosed. we scarcely know whether it is needful to advert at all to the argument in favor of his theory which m. comte founds on _the analogy of individual experience_. it is a transparent fallacy. he tells us that the race is, like an individual man, religious in infancy, metaphysical in youth, and positive--that is, scientific, without being religious--in mature manhood.[82] now, this analogical argument, to have any legitimate weight, must proceed on the assumption of two facts. the first is, that the law of individual development commences, in the case, at least, of all who belong to the _élite_ of humanity, with theology, and terminates in atheism; and the second is, that the individual is, in this respect, the type or pattern of his race, and that the experience of the one is only an outline in miniature of the history of the other. it would be difficult, we think, to establish the truth of either of these positions by evidence that could be satisfactory to any reflecting mind. we cannot doubt, indeed, for experience amply attests, that the religious sensibilities of childhood have often been sadly impaired in the progress from youth to manhood, and that, after the tumultuous excitements, whether of speculation or of passion, not a few have sought a refuge from their fears in the cold negations of atheism. but is this the law of development and progress? is it a law that is uniform and invariable in its operation? are there no instances of an opposite kind? are there no instances of men whose early religious culture had been neglected, and who passed through youth without one serious thought of god and their relation to him, but who, as they advanced in years, began to reflect and inquire, and ultimately attained to a firm religious faith? if such diversities of individual experience are known to exist, then clearly the result is not determined by any necessary or invariable law of intellectual development; but must be ascribed to other causes, chiefly of a moral and practical kind, which exert a powerful influence, for good or evil, on every human mind. montaigne speaks of an error maintained by plato, "that children and old people were most susceptible of religion, as if it sprung and derived its credit from our weakness."[83] and we find m. comte himself complaining, somewhat bitterly, that his _quondam_ friend, the celebrated st. simon, had exhibited, as he advanced in years (_cette tendance banale vers une vague religiosité_), a tendency towards something like religion.[84] cases of this kind are utterly fatal to his supposed law of individual development, and they must be equally fatal to his theory of the progress of the human race. hitherto we have considered merely the reasons which m. comte urges in support of his theory, and have endeavored to show that they are utterly incapable of establishing it as a valid scientific doctrine. it may be useful, however, to advert, in conclusion, to some considerations which afford decisive objections against it, arising from the testimony of authentic history and the plainest principles of reason. in so far as the testimony of history and tradition is concerned, nothing can be more certain than that the progress of the race has followed a very different course from that which m. comte has traced out for it by his grand fundamental law. the theory of a primitive state of ignorance and barbarism, in which a rude theology existed, in the form of fetishism, is opposed not more to the authority of scripture, the earliest record of our race, than to the unanimous voice of antiquity, which attests the general belief of mankind in a primeval state of light and innocence. there is a sad but striking contrast between the views which are generally held by the christian theist, and those which are avowed by m. comte on this subject. the christian theist admits the doctrine of a primeval revelation and a pristine state of purity and peace; m. comte maintains the doctrine of a primitive barbarism and a natural aboriginal superstition. the christian theist believes in a fall subsequent to the creation of man, and ascribes the ignorance and error, the superstition and idolatry which ensued, to the perversion and abuse of his intellectual and moral powers; m. comte affirms that man did not _fall_, that he did actually _rise_ by a process of slow but progressive self-elevation, and that, in _advancing_ from fetishism to polytheism, and from polytheism to monotheism, and from monotheism to atheism, he has all along been determined by the law of his normal development. in the view of the christian theist, revelation was the sun which shed its cheering rays on the first fathers of mankind, and which, after having been obscured, for a time, by the clouds and darkness of superstition, shines out again, clear and strong, under the dispensation of the gospel; in the view of m. comte, science is the only sun that is destined to enlighten the world,--a sun which has not yet fully risen, but which has sent before, as the harbingers of its speedy advent, a few scattered rays to gild the lofty mountain peaks, while all beneath is still buried in cimmerian darkness. the christian theist anticipates the time when the true light which now shineth shall cover the whole earth; m. comte predicts its utter and final extinction, when positive science shall have risen into the ascendant. his theory is contradicted by the history of the past; let us hope that the events of the future will equally belie his prediction. for christianity is the only hope of the world. the prospects of man would be dark indeed on the supposition of its being abolished. "there might remain among a few of the more enlightened some occasional glimpses of religious truth, as we find to have been the case in the pagan world; but the degradation of the great mass of the people to that ignorance, and idolatry, and superstition, out of which the gospel had emancipated them, would be certain and complete. this retrograde movement might be retarded by the advantages which we have derived from that system, whose influence we should continue to feel long after we had ceased to acknowledge the divinity of its source. but these advantages would by degrees lose their efficacy, even as mere matters of speculation, and give place to the workings of fancy, and credulity, and corruption. a radiance might still glow on the high places of the earth after the sun of revelation had gone down; and the brighter and the longer it had shone, the more gradual would be the decay of that light and warmth which it had left behind it. but every where there would be the sad tokens of a departed glory and of a coming night. twilight might be protracted through the course of many generations, and still our unhappy race might be able to read, though dimly, many of the wonders of the eternal godhead, and to wind a dubious way through the perils of the wilderness. but it would be twilight still; shade would thicken after shade; every succeeding age would come wrapped in a deeper and a deeper gloom; till, at last, that flood of glory which the gospel is now pouring upon the world would be lost and buried in impenetrable darkness."[85] m. comte's theory is liable to another objection, the force of which he seems, in some measure, although inadequately, to have felt and acknowledged. the three states or stages, which he describes as necessarily _successive_, are, in point of fact, _simultaneous_. they do not mark so many different eras in the course of human progress,--they denote the natural products of man's intelligence, the constituent elements of his knowledge in _all_ states of society. the theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific elements have always coëxisted. diverse as they may be in other respects, they resemble each other in this,--they are all the natural and spontaneous products of man's intelligent activity. that they were, to a certain extent, _simultaneous_ at first, and that they are _simultaneous_ still, is actually admitted by m. comte, while he conceives, nevertheless, that they are radically incompatible with each other;[86] and their coexistence hitherto is felt by him to be a serious objection to his fundamental law, which represents them not only as _necessarily successive_, but also as _mutually exclusive_. the fact is admitted, and that fact is fatal to his whole theory. for if the three methods have coexisted hitherto, why may they not equally coexist hereafter? and what ground is left for the reckless prediction that theology is doomed, and _must_ fall before the onward march of positive science? if man was able from the beginning to observe, to compare, to abstract, and to generalize, and if the fundamental laws of human thought have been ever the same, it follows that there must have been a tendency, coeval with the origin of the race, towards theological, metaphysical, and inductive speculation, and that the same tendency must continue as long as his powers remain unchanged. it can only, therefore, be a _preponderance_, more or less complete, of one of the three methods over the other two, that we should be warranted in expecting, _even under the operation of m. comte's favorite law_; and yet he boldly proclaims the utter exclusion of metaphysics, and the entire and everlasting elimination of theology, as branches of human knowledge! m. comte's theory is still more vulnerable at another point. the fundamental assumption on which it is based is utterly groundless. it amounts to this, that all knowledge of causes, whether efficient or final, is interdicted to man, and incapable of being reached by any exertion of his faculties.[87] he tells us that theology is impossible, for this reason, that, in the view of the positive philosophy, all knowledge of causes is absolutely excluded; nay, he admits that theology is inevitable if we inquire into causes at all. we know of no simpler or more effectual method of dealing with his specious sophistry on this subject, than by showing that, if his general principle be conclusive against the knowledge of god, it is equally conclusive against the knowledge of any other being or cause; just as sir james mackintosh dealt with the skeptical philosophy of hume, when, with admirable practical sagacity, he said: "as those dictates of experience which regulate conduct must be the objects of belief, all objections which attack them, in common with the principles of reasoning, must be utterly ineffectual. whatever attacks every principle of belief, can destroy none. as long as the foundations of knowledge are allowed to remain on the same level with the maxims of life, the whole system of human conviction must continue undisturbed.... skepticism has practical consequences of a very mischievous nature. this is because its _universality_ is not steadily kept in view and constantly borne in mind. if it were, the above short and plain remark would be an effectual antidote to the poison. but, in practice, it is an armory from which weapons are taken to be employed against _some_ opinions, while it is hidden from notice that the same weapons would equally cut down _every other_ conviction. it is thus that mr. hume's _theory of causation_ is used as an answer to arguments for the existence of the deity, without warning the reader that it would equally lead him to expect--that _the sun will not rise to-morrow_."[88] the exclusion of all knowledge of causes is so indispensable to m. comte's theory that he admits "the inevitable tendency of our intelligence towards a philosophy radically theological, as often as we seek to penetrate, on whatever pretext, into the intimate nature of the phenomena."[89] the exclusion of such knowledge would, of course, be fatal to theology, since, without taking some account of causes, efficient and final, we cannot rise to god as the author of the universe. but did it never occur to m. comte that the self-same principle may possibly be destructive of his present, or, at least, of his posthumous fame, as the author of the positive philosophy? for, if we can know nothing of _efficient causes_, in what sense, or on what ground, shall any one presume to ascribe the authorship of this system to m. comte? true, it may be said,--here is an effect which exhibits manifest signs of intelligence, order, and scientific skill; its parts are regularly adjusted and all directed to a common end; and, reasoning after the _teleological_ method, we must infer that it proceeded from a very clever, but somewhat eccentric mind; but, unfortunately, _final causes_ are as expressly interdicted as efficient ones; and, on the principles of his own theory, the "course of positive philosophy" can never be warrantably ascribed to the authorship of m. comte. a still more serious objection to m. comte's theory respecting the law of human development arises from the false view which it exhibits of _the nature and history of truth_, considered as the object of human knowledge. it is a favorite opinion with him, that man can have no _absolute_ knowledge; that truth is not fixed, but fluctuating; that what was believed in one age, and believed _necessarily_, according to the fundamental laws of thought, is as necessarily disbelieved in the next; and that there is no standard of truth at any time better or surer than the public opinion, or general consent, of the most advanced classes of society.[90] this theory of truth, as necessarily mobile and fluctuating, has a tendency, we think, to engender universal skepticism, even when it is stated, with various important modifications, by such writers as lamennais and morell; but, in the hands of m. comte, it becomes more dangerous still, since it represents the human race as having been from the beginning, through a long series of ages, subject to a law of development which not only _permitted_, but actually _compelled_ them to believe a lie; and thus casts a dark shade of suspicion both on the constitution of man and on the government of god. such a theory would seem also to preclude all rational calculations respecting the future progress and prospects of the race. for what ground can exist for any prognostication in regard to the ulterior advancement or ultimate destiny of man, if it be true that, in his past history, fetishism has passed into polytheism, and polytheism into monotheism, without any extraneous instruction, and by the mere action of those inherent laws to which humanity is subject? and, still more, if it be further true that even now the human mind is in a state of transition, passing through the crisis of metaphysical doubt towards the goal of positive atheism, who shall assure us that this will be its last and final metamorphosis? it does appear to us to be one of the most singular and perplexing anomalies of his elaborate system, that he can dogmatize so confidently on the _terminus ad quem_ of human progress, when from the _terminus a quo_ there has been, according to his own account, a series of variations so wonderful, and a succession of states so diverse and opposite, as those which he describes. and yet he pronounces oracularly that positive science is the ultimate landing-place of human thought, and that universal atheism is the final barrier which must needs close and terminate the long series of developments. we have spoken sternly of his system; we have no wish to speak harshly of the man. had we any disposition to do so, there is more than enough in the personal explanation, prefixed to the closing volume of his work, effectually to disarm us. we have too much sympathy with the trials of a vigorous but eccentric mind, struggling in untoward circumstances, and against an adverse tide, to maintain a position of honorable independence, to say a word that could wound the feelings or injure the prospects of a man of science. but it is not unkind to add that his life might have been a more prosperous one had he devoted himself to the pursuits of science, without assailing the truths of religion; and that his fame would have been at once more extensive and more enduring had it been left to repose on his classification or hierarchy of the sciences, without being associated with the more doubtful merits of his fundamental law of man's development. section iv. theory of _ecclesiastical_ development.--j. h. newman. this particular phase of the general theory bears less directly on the subject of our present inquiry than either of the _three_ which have already passed under review, and yet it has recently been applied in such a way as may entitle it to a passing notice. for while the theory of ecclesiastical development has a _direct_ relation only to the question in regard to the rule of faith, it has also an _indirect_ or _collateral_ relation to the truths of natural as well as of revealed religion; and this relation demands for it, especially in the existing state of theological speculation, the earnest attention of all who are concerned for the maintenance even of the simplest and most elementary articles of divine truth. the most elaborate and systematic exposition of this theory is exhibited in the "essay on the development of christian doctrine, by john henry newman;" an essay primarily directed to the discussion of the points of difference between the popish and the protestant churches, but which will be found to have an important bearing, also, on some doctrines which are common to both, and especially on the fundamental articles of natural religion itself. it is thus stated by mr. newman:[91] "that the increase and expansion of the christian creed and ritual, and the variations which have attended the process in the case of individual writers and churches, are the necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which takes possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or extended dominion; that, from the nature of the human mind, time is necessary for the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas; and that the highest and most wonderful truths, though communicated to the world once for all by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all at once by the recipients, but, as received and transmitted by minds not inspired, and through media which were human, have required only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucidation. this may be called _the theory of developments_." it is further illustrated as follows: "it is sometimes said that the stream is clearest near the spring. whatever use may fairly be made of this image, it does not apply to the history of a philosophy or sect, which, on the contrary, is more equable, and purer, and stronger, when its bed has become deep, and broad, and full. it necessarily rises out of an existing state of things, and, for a time, savors of the soil. its vital element needs disengaging from what is foreign and temporary, and is employed in efforts after freedom, more vigorous and hopeful as its years increase. its beginnings are no measures of its capabilities, nor of its scope. at first, no one knows what it is, or what it is worth. it remains, perhaps, for a time, quiescent; it tries, as it were, its limbs, and proves the ground under it, and feels its way. from time to time it makes essays which fail, and are, in consequence, abandoned. it seems in suspense which way to go; it wavers, and, at length, strikes out in one definite direction. in time it enters upon strange territory; points of controversy alter their bearing; parties rise and fall about it; dangers and hopes appear in new relations, and old principles reappear under new forms; it changes with them, in order to remain the same. in a higher world it is otherwise; but here below _to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often_."[92] in answer to the objection, "that inspired documents, such as the holy scriptures, at once determine the doctrines which we should believe," it is replied, "that they were intended to create an idea, and that idea is not in the sacred text, but in the mind of the reader; and the question is, whether that idea is communicated to him, in its completeness and minute accuracy, on its first apprehension, or expands in his heart and intellect, and comes to perfection in the course of time. nor could it be maintained without extravagance that the letter of the new testament, or of any assignable number of books, comprises a delineation of all possible forms which a divine message will assume when submitted to a multitude of minds."[93] what relation, it may be asked, can this theory respecting the development of revealed or christian truth bear to the question of the being and perfections of god? we answer, that it is founded on a general philosophical principle which may affect the truths of natural as well as those of revealed religion; and that it is applied in such a way as to show that, as it has already led to the worship of angels and saints, so it may hereafter issue in the deification of nature, which is pantheism, or in the separate worship of its component parts, which is polytheism; and, in either case, the personality and supremacy of the one only, the living and the true god, would be effectually superseded, if not explicitly denied. but, is there any real danger of such a disastrous consummation? we answer, that the mere coexistence of the theory of ecclesiastical development with the infidel speculations on the doctrine of human progress is of itself an ominous symptom; and, further, that the mutual interchange of complimentary acknowledgments between the infidel and popish parties is another, especially when both are found to coincide in some of the main grounds of their opposition to scripture as the supreme rule of faith, and when the homage which the advocates of development render to the theory of progress is responded to by glowing eulogiums from the infidel camp on the genius of catholicism as the masterpiece of human policy. but there are other grounds of apprehension, arising more directly out of the very nature of the theory of development itself. that theory has been described by dr. brownson--himself a convert to catholicism--as the product of "a _school_ formed, at first, outside of the church, but now brought within her communion," and compared, in regard to its dangerousness, with the speculations of hermes and lamennais.[94] and a still more competent judge--professor sedgwick, of cambridge[95]--has characterized it as "a monstrous compound of popery and pantheism," according to which "the catholic faith is not a religion revealed to us in the sacred books we call canonical, and in the works of the fathers which are supposed to contain the oral traditions of the apostles and their followers; but a new pantheistic element is to be fastened on the faith of men,--a principle of development which may overshadow both the _verbum dei scriptum_ and the _verbum dei non scriptum_ of the romish church, and change both the form and substance of primitive christianity." it is only justice to mr. newman to say that he appears to have been aware of this possible objection to his theory, and that he makes an attempt to obviate it. speaking of the difficulty which the church experienced in keeping "paganism out of her pale," he adverts to "the _hazard which attended on the development_ of the catholic ritual,--such as the honors publicly assigned to saints and martyrs, the formal veneration of their relics, and the usages and observances which followed." and he asks: "what was to hinder the rise of a sort of refined pantheism, and the overthrow of dogmatism _pari passu_ with the multiplication of heavenly intercessors and patrons? if what is called in reproach 'saint-worship' resembled the polytheism which it supplanted, or was a corruption, how did dogmatism survive? dogmatism is a religious profession of its own reality as contrasted with other systems; but polytheists are liberals, and hold that one religion is as good as another. yet the theological system was developing and strengthening, as well as the monastic rule, all the while the ritual was assimilating itself, as protestants say, to the paganism of former ages."[96] it seems to be admitted in these words, that, in the _past_ history of the church, the development of the catholic ritual _was_ attended with some danger of infection from paganism or pantheism; and there may be equal reason to fear that, in the _future_ history of the church, still working on the principle of development, that danger may be very considerably aggravated by the general prevalence of theories utterly inconsistent with the faith of primitive times. what the church has already done in the exercise of her developing power may be only a specimen of what she may hereafter accomplish. she has already developed christianity into a system which bears a striking resemblance to polytheism; she may yet develop it more fully, so as to bring it into accordance with philosophical pantheism; or, retaining both forms,--for they are not necessarily exclusive of each other,--she may use the first in dealing with the ignorant, and reserve the second as a sort of esoteric doctrine for minds of higher culture. nor let it be said that we are either unjust or uncharitable towards the romish church, in suggesting the possibility of some such development; for what she has already done, and what she still claims the power of doing, afford very sufficient ground for our remarks. when dr. conyers middleton published his celebrated "letter from rome," showing an exact conformity between popery and paganism, and that "the religion of the present romans is derived from that of their heathen ancestors," many liberal catholics resented the imputation as an insult to their faith; but now mr. newman not only admits the fact that the church did _assimilate_ its ritual to the paganism of former ages, but vindicates her right to do so, and ascribes to her _a power of assimilation_ to which it seems impossible to assign any limits. "there is, in truth," says this writer, "a certain virtue or grace in the gospel, which changes the quality of doctrines, opinions, usages, actions, and personal characters, which become incorporated with it, and makes them right and acceptable to its divine author, when before they were either contrary to truth, or, at best, but shadows of it."--"confiding, then, in the power of christianity to resist the infection of evil, and to _transmute the very instruments and appendages of demon worship to an evangelical use_, ... the rulers of the church from early times were prepared, should the occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction _the existing rites and customs of the populace_, as well as _the philosophy of the educated class_."--"the church can extract good from evil, or, at least, gets no harm from it. she inherits the promise made to the disciples, that they should take up serpents, and, if they drank any deadly thing, it should not hurt them."--"it has borne, and can bear, principles or doctrines which, in other systems of religion, quickly degenerate into _fanaticism or infidelity_." this marvellous power of assimilation, which made "those observances pious in christianity" that were "superstitions in paganism," advanced, rapidly in its work, and successively introduced the deification of man, the _cultus_ of angels and saints, and the beatification of mary as queen of heaven and earth. the sanctification, or rather _the deification of the nature of man_, is one of these developments. christ "is in them, because he is in human nature; and he communicates to them that nature, deified by becoming his, that it may _deify_ them." the worship of saints is another of these developments: "those who are known to be god's adopted sons in christ are fit objects of worship on account of him who is in them.... worship is the necessary correlative of glory; and, in the same sense in which created nature can share in the creator's incommunicable glory, do they also share in that worship which is his property alone." but a "new sphere" was yet to be discovered in the realms of light, to which the church had not yet assigned its inhabitant. "there was 'a wonder in heaven;' a throne was seen, far above all created powers, mediatorial, intercessory; a title archetypal; a crown bright as the morning star; a glory issuing from the eternal throne; robes pure as the heavens; and a sceptre over all. and who was the predestined heir of that majesty? who was that wisdom, and what was her name?--'the mother of fair love, and fear, and holy hope,' exalted like a palm-tree in engaddi and a rose-plant in jericho, created from the beginning before the world in god's counsels, and 'in jerusalem was her power.' the vision is found in the apocalypse, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." the deification of mary is decreed. the doctrine of her immaculate conception is a further _development_ at the present moment, and who can tell what other developments may be in store for the future? we advert to this form of the theory only in so far as it stands related to our great theme,--the existence, perfections, and prerogatives of the one only, the living and the true god; and it can scarcely be questioned, we think, that it has already introduced doctrines and practices into the church which have a manifest tendency to obscure the lustre and impair the evidence of some of the most fundamental articles of natural religion. let it still advance in the same direction, and who shall assure us that it may not develop into still grosser idolatry, or even into pantheism? why should it not develop, for example, into sun worship? "on the new system," says professor butler, "a modern growth of christian guebres might make out no feeble case; the public religious recognition of this great visible type of the true light is but a fair development of 'the typical principle;' the justifiable imitation of the guilt of heathens in its adoration is but an instance of the transforming powers of 'the sacramental principle;' while it requires but the most moderate use of the great instrument of orthodoxy, 'mystical interpretation,' to find the duty hinted (clearly enough for watchful faith, though obscurely to the blinded or undevout) in those passages that speak of a 'tabernacle for the sun,' or deity itself being 'a sun,' or the rising of 'the sun of righteousness.'... indeed, the whole body of the righteous are promised to 'shine as the sun' in the heavenly kingdom,--an expression which, though it appear superficially to refer to a period not yet arrived, the church has correctively developed into an assurance of their present beatification, and consequent right to worship; while it must be at once manifest that, if any representative emblem of the deity may demand religious prostration in our churches, the analogous emblem of the 'deified,' in the great temple of the material universe, may fairly expect a participation in that honor. it is true there is an express command, 'take heed lest, when thou seest the sun, ... thou shouldst be driven to worship them;' but so there is a command, at least as distinct and imperative, against the worship of _images_, which, mr. newman instructs us, has been repealed under the gospel, and was never more than a mere judaic prohibition, 'intended for mere temporary observance in the letter.'"[97] if it be said that, in the case of the church of rome, there is not only a process of development, but an infallible developing power, and that this affords a guaranty, strong as the divine promise itself, against that risk of error which is attendant on the ordinary methods of human teaching,--we answer, that this is a mere assumption, which requires to be proved, and that it cannot be proved in the face of the facts which attest the historical variations of the romish creed, as these are admitted and defended by mr. newman himself. for some of these variations are not consistent developments of the primitive articles of faith, but involve either a corruption or a contradiction of these very principles; and if her infallibility has not preserved her from the deification of saints, what security have we that it will preserve her from the deification of nature? if it has already introduced a christian polytheism, why may it not issue in a christian pantheism? admit the principle of development, and it may lead to the deification of man, as well as to the worship of mary; to a sacred calendar of heroes, as well as of saints.[98] it may terminate either in infidelity or in superstition, according to the mental temperament of the individual by whom it is adopted and applied. "an organ of investigation being introduced, which may be employed for any purpose indifferently, the tendency of such a theory of religious inquiry will just tell according to the spirit in which it acts. a skeptic will develop the principle into infidelity, a believer into superstition; but the principle itself remains accurately the same in both."[99] the connection between the theory of ecclesiastical development and the infidel theory of progress has not escaped the notice of many acute and profound thinkers in recent times, nor the danger resulting from it to the most fundamental articles of faith. "modern spiritualists tell us that christianity is a development, as the papists also assert, and the new testament is its first and rudimentary product; only, unhappily, as the development, it seems, may be things so different as popery and infidelity, we are as far as ever from any criterium as to which, out of the ten thousand possible developments, is the true; but it is a matter of the less consequence, since it will, on such reasoning, be _always something future_."[100] one of the most pernicious tenets of the neologists beyond the rhine is thus expressed by themselves: "christianity renews itself in the human heart, and follows _the development_ of the human mind, and invests itself with new forms of thought and language, and adopts new systems of church organization, to which it gives expression and life." ... "but are these teachers the _only_ destroyers of faith and morals? are not _they_ also chargeable with precisely the same offence who command us to submit implicitly to the so-called divinely-inspired spirit of '_one_ living infallible judge' or 'developing power'? can we have _fixed_ articles of faith and morals in this system, any more than in the other? no. '_unus utrisque error, sed variis ill[=u]det partibus._' there is the same evil in both, but it operates in different ways; in the former, every one develops for himself; in the latter, the pope develops for every one. you look with fear on the progress of rationalism; and what hope can any man derive from that of romanism?"[101] * * * * * we have examined, each on its own peculiar merits, the various forms of the theory of development which have been propounded in modern times, and applied to account for the origin of planets and astral systems, of vegetable and animal races, and of the different successive systems of human opinion and belief. we have found that, imposing as it may seem to be, and high as its pretensions are, that theory has no claim to the character of a scientific doctrine; that it is a mere hypothesis, and nothing more; a speculative figment, which may be injurious to those who thoughtlessly dally with it, but which can have no power to hurt any one who will resolutely lay hold of it, and examine its claims. "gently, softly, touch a nettle, and it stings you for your pains; grasp it, like a man of mettle, and it soft as silk remains." it is only necessary to add, that _the same general principle_ seems to be involved in _all_ the forms of this theory,--the principle, namely, that we are bound to account for the past _only_ by causes known to be in actual operation at the present day. m. comte lays it down in the following terms: "our conjectures on the origin, or formation of our world should evidently be subjected to this indispensable condition,--not to allow of the interposition of any other natural agents than those whose influence we clearly discern in our ordinary phenomena, and whose operations, _then_, would only be on a greater scale. without this rule, our work can have no truly scientific character, and we shall fall into the inconvenience, so justly made a ground of reproach to the greater number of geological hypotheses,--that of introducing, for the purpose of explaining the ancient revolutions of the globe, agencies which do not exist at the present day, and whose influence it is impossible, for that very reason, to verify or even to comprehend." the same principle is strongly stated, but with due limitation, by sir charles lyell, who insists on the explanation of all terrestrial changes by _means of causes and according to laws known to be in operation at the present day_: "during the progress of geology, there have been great fluctuations of opinion respecting the nature of the causes to which all former changes in the earth's surface are referable. the first observers conceived that the monuments which the geologist endeavors to decipher relate to a period when the physical constitution of the earth differed entirely from the present, and that, even after the creation of living beings, there have been causes in action distinct in kind or degree from these now forming part of the economy of nature. these views have been gradually modified, and some of them entirely abandoned."[102] the general principle which is involved in these and similar statements may be perfectly sound, when it is applied merely to _natural events_, occurring in the ordinary course, and according to the established constitution of the material and moral world; but it is manifestly inapplicable to _supernatural events_, such as the creation of the world, or the revelation of divine truth, since these events cannot be accounted for by any known natural cause, and must be ascribed to the immediate agency of a higher power. without some such limitation, the general principle cannot be admitted, since it would involve an egregious fallacy. we must not limit omnipotence by circumscribing the range of its possible exercise within the narrow bounds of the existing economy, or of our actual experience. we are not warranted to assume that the origin of the world, on the one hand, or the establishment of christianity on the other, may be accounted for by _natural causes_ still known to be in actual operation. in regard to _natural events_ the principle is sound, and it is rigorously adhered to by the expounder of natural theology; in regard to _supernatural events_ it can have no legitimate application, except in so far as it is combined with the doctrine of efficient and final causes, which leads us up to the recognition of a higher power. it might be safe and legitimate enough, when we find a fossil organism imbedded in the earth, to ascribe its production to the ordinary law of generation, even although we had not witnessed the fact of its birth, provided the same species is known to have existed previously; but when we find _new races_ coming into being, for which the ordinary law of derivation cannot account, we are not at liberty to apply the same rule to a case so essentially different, and still less to postulate _a spontaneous generation_, or a _transmutation of species_, for which we have no experience at all. in such a case, we can only reason on the principle that _like_ effects must have _like_ causes, that marks of _design_ imply a _designing_ cause, and that events which cannot be accounted for by _natural causes_ must be ascribed to a power distinct from nature, and superior to it. it is manifestly unreasonable to assume that nothing can be brought to pass in the universe otherwise than by the operation of the same natural laws which are now in action; or that, in the course of our limited and partial experience, we must necessarily know all the agencies that may have been at work during the long flow of time. and, in accordance with these views, sir charles lyell expressly limits the general principle to _natural events_, and shows that "geology differs as widely from cosmogony as speculations concerning the _creation of man_ differ from his _history_." footnotes: [28] "vestiges of the natural history of creation," p. 17. [29] auguste comte, "cours de philosophic positive," ii. 363, 376. the merits of this attempt are very differently estimated by two competent authorities; by professor sedgwick in the "edinburgh review," no. 82, p. 22; and by sir david brewster in the "north british review," no. 3, p. 476. [30] "vestiges," p. 11, 23. [31] whewell, "indications of a creator." sedgwick's "discourse," 5th edition. "edinburgh review," no. 82. sir d. brewster, "north british review," no. 3. professor dod, "princeton theological essays," second series. h. miller, "footprints of the creator." t. monck mason, "creation by the immediate agency of god." [32] thomas monck mason, "creation by the immediate agency of god, as opposed to creation by natural law; being a refutation of 'the vestiges,'" &c., p. 34. [33] sir john herschell, "memoir on nebulæ and clusters of stars," london philosophical transactions, 1833. "edinburgh review," no. 82, p. 19. [34] "north british review," no. 3, p. 477. [35] professor nichol, "the system of the world," preface, vi., and 108. [36] ecclesiastes 12: 1. [37] lorenz oken, m. d., "elements of physio-philosophy,"--reprinted (unfortunately) under the auspices of the ray society, london, 1847. [38] dr. john barclay, "inquiry concerning life and organization," pp. 33, 36. see also pp. 177, 235, 413, 526. [39] "telliamed; ou, entretiens d'un philosophe indien avec un missionaire françois, sur la diminution de la mer, la formation de la terre, l'origine de l'homme," 2 vols., 1748. [40] "vestiges of the natural history of creation," 6th edition, p. 90. [41] mr. hugh miller, "footprints of the creator," p. 226. [42] "north british review," 1845, p. 483. [43] "vestiges of the natural history of creation," p. 92. [44] "the vestiges," p. 104. [45] ibid. [46] todd, "cyclopædia of anatomy and physiology," article, generation. [47] mr. hugh miller, "footprints of the creator," p. 233. t. monck mason, "creation by the immediate agency of god." "princeton theological essays," second series, p. 422. [48] cuvier, "ossemens fossiles," p. 61. [49] mr. hugh miller, "footprints," p. 254. [50] dr. whewell's "indications," p. 54. [51] "footprints of the creator," p. 19. [52] "the vestiges," p. 105. [53] "the vestiges," pp. 91, 96. [54] "the vestiges," p. 9. [55] hugh miller, "footprints," pp. 13, 15. professor dod, "princeton theological essays," ii. 432. [56] cicero, "de naturâ deorum," l. ii. [57] m. comte, "cours de philosophie positive," i. 3, 6, 14; iv. viii., 653, 656, 708, 711, 723; v. 1, 9. [58] m. comte, "cours de la philosophie positive," i. 3. [59] ibid., v. 30, 42, 50, 96, 98, 101. [60] m. comte, "cours," v. 37, 75, 91, 101. [61] ibid., v. 58, 87, 94, 105, 125, 278. [62] m. comte, "cours," v. 107, 115, 119, 124, 136, 148, 162, 167, 207, 224, 229. [63] ibid., v. 128, 164, 268, 279, 281, 290. [64] m. comte, "cours," v. 297, 325, 461, 470; vi. 231. [65] m. comte, "cours," v. 479, 487, 496, 505; vi. 2. [66] comte, "cours," i. 4, 10; iv. 664, 669, 676, 702. [67] m. comte, "cours," v. 299, 326, 345; vi. 62, 72, 157, 234, 503, 864. [68] abbé maret, "theodicée chretienne," p. 218. [69] m. comte, "cours," v. 327, 344, 369, 538, 582, 684; vi. 137. [70] ibid., v. 428, 597, 684, 836; vi. 419, 521, 860. [71] m. comte, "cours," i. 44, 141; iv. 673; v. 45, 303. [72] victor cousin, "introduction a l'histoire de la philosophie," i. 121. ibid., "cours de la philosophie," iii. 2, 464. [73] m. comte, "cours," v. 3, 5, 22; vi. 32, 481. [74] m. comte, "cours," v. 382, "premier fondateur, _réel ou ideal_, de ce grand systéme religieux." [75] "encyc. britan.," articles "augury" and "divination." dr. thomson's "history of chemistry." [76] mr. h. miller's "scenes and legends of the north of scotland." [77] m. comte, "cours," i. 13; v. 461, 470; vi. 86, 126, 148. [78] dr. cudworth, "intellectual system," i. 33. [79] "westminster confession of faith," chap. v. § 2, 3. [80] strauss, "life of jesus," i. 88. henry rogers, "reason and faith," appendix, p. 96. [81] dr. chalmers' works, i. "natural theology." [82] m. comte, "cours," i. 7. [83] montaigne, "apology for raimond de sebonde," essays, ii. 148. [84] comte, "cours," vi., preface, ix. [85] dr. andrew thomson, "sermons on infidelity," p. 62. [86] m. comte, "cours," iv. 709: "je puis affirmer n'avoir jamais trouvé d'argumentation sérieuse en opposition à cette loi, depuis dix-sept ans que j'ai eu le bonheur de la decouvrir, si ce n'est celle que l'on fondait sur la consideration de la _simultaneité jusq'ici necessairement très commune_, des trois philosophies chez les mêmes intelligences." "cours," i. 27, 50, 10: "l'emploi _simultané_ des trois philosophies radicalement incompatibles,"--"la _coëxistence_ de ces trois philosophies opposées." see also iv. 683, 694; v. 28, 39, 41, 57, 171; vi. 26, 31, 34, 155. [87] m. comte, "cours," i. 14: "en considerant comme _absolument inaccessible et vide de sens pour nous_ la recherche de ce qu'on appelle les _causes, soit premières, soit finales_." [88] sir james mackintosh, "encyc., britan.," preliminary dissertation, p. 354. [89] m. comte, "cours," iv. 664. [90] ibid., vi. 728, 730, 760, 826, 835, 866. [91] newman's "essay on development," p. 27. [92] newman's "essay on development," p. 38. [93] ibid., p. 95. [94] brownson's "quarterly review," no. 1, p. 43. [95] sedgwick's "discourse," fourth edition. preface, cccxciii. [96] newman's "essay," p. 447. [97] letters of rev. w. a. butler on the "development of christian doctrine," p. 116. [98] pierre leroux, "sur l'humanite." augustus comte, "positive calendar." the author gave some account of this in an article contributed to the "north british review," may, 1851. [99] professor butler's "letters," p. 87. [100] "eclipse of faith," p. 13. [101] dr. wordsworth, "letters to m. gondon," p. 153. [102] lyell, "principles of geology," i. 75. chapter iii. theories of pantheism. at the commencement of the present century, pantheism might have been justly regarded and safely treated as an obsolete and exploded error,--an error which still prevailed, indeed, in the east as one of the hereditary beliefs of indian superstition, but which, when transplanted to western europe by the daring genius of spinoza, was found to be an exotic too sickly to take root and grow amidst the fresh and bracing air of modern civilization. but no one who has marked the recent tendencies of speculative thought, and who is acquainted, however slightly, with the character of modern literature, can have failed to discern a remarkable change in this respect within the last fifty years. german philosophy, always prolific, and often productive of monstrous births, has given to the world many elaborate systems, physical and metaphysical, whose most prominent feature is the deification of nature or of man. france, always alert and lively, has appropriated the ideas of her more ponderous neighbors, and has given them currency through educated europe on the wings of her lighter literature. and even in england and america there are not wanting some significant tokens of a disposition to cherish a kind of speculation which, if it be not formally and avowedly pantheistic, has much of the same dreamy and mystic character, and little, if any, harmony with definite views of god, or of the relations which he bears to man. one of the most significant symptoms of a reaction in favor of pantheism may be seen in the numerous republications and versions of the writings of spinoza which have recently appeared, in the public homage which has been paid to his character and genius, and in the more than philosophic tolerance--the kindly indulgence--which has been shown to his most characteristic principles. he is now recognized by many as the real founder both of the philosophic and of the exegetic rationalism, which has been applied, with such disastrous effect, to the interpretation alike of the volume of nature and of the records of revelation. in germany his works have been edited by paulus (1803) and by gfrörer (1830); in france they have been translated by emile saisset, professor of philosophy in the royal college; while a copious account of his life and writings has been published by amand saintes, the historian of rationalism in germany.[103] all this might be accounted for by ascribing it simply to the admiration of philosophical thinkers for the extraordinary talents of the man; and it might be said that his writings have been reprinted, just as those of hobbes have been recently reproduced in england, more as a historical monument of the past than as a mirror that reflects the sentiments of the present age. but it is more difficult to explain the eulogiums with which the reappearance of spinoza has been greeted, and the cordiality with which his daring speculations have been received. he has not only been exculpated from the charge of atheism, but even panegyrized as a saint and martyr! "that holy and yet outcast man," exclaimed schleiermacher,--"he who was fully penetrated by the universal spirit,--for whom the infinite was the beginning and the end, and the universe his only and everlasting love,--he who, in holy innocence and profound peace, delighted to contemplate himself in the mirror of an eternal world, where, doubtless, he saw himself reflected as its most lovely image,--he who was full of the sentiment of religion, because he was filled with the holy spirit!" "instead of accusing spinoza of atheism," says m. cousin, "he should rather be subjected to the opposite reproach."[104] "he has been loudly accused," says professor saisset, "of atheism and impiety.... the truth is that never did a man believe in god with a faith more profound, with a soul more sincere, than spinoza. take god from him, and you take from him his system, his thought, his life." "spinoza, although a jew," says the abbé sabatier, a member of the catholic clergy, "always lived as a christian, and was as well versed in our divine testament as in the books of the ancient law. if he ended, as we cannot doubt he did, in embracing christianity, he ought to be _enrolled in the rank of saints_, instead of being placed at the head of the enemies of god." contrast the language in which spinoza is now compared to thomas á kempis, and proposed as a fit subject for canonization itself, with the terms in which he was wont to be spoken of by men of former times; and the startling difference will sufficiently indicate a great change in the current of european thought. and if we add to this the contemporaneous reappearance of such writers as bruno and vanini, whose works have been reprinted by the active philosophical press of paris, we may be well assured that it is not by overlooking or despising such speculations, but by boldly confronting and closely grappling with them, that we shall best protect the mind of the thinking community from their insidious and pestilent influence. but we are not left to _infer_ the existence, in many quarters, of a prevailing tendency towards pantheism, from such facts as have been stated, significant as they are; we have explicit testimonies on the point, in a multitude of writings, philosophical and popular, which have recently issued from the continental press. in a report presented to the academy of sciences, m. franck, a member of the institute, represents pantheism as the last and greatest of all the metaphysical systems which have come into collision with revelation; and describes it as a theory, "according to which spirit and matter, thought and extension, the phenomena of the soul and of the body, are all equally related, either as attributes or modes, to the same substance or being, at once _one_ and _many_, finite and infinite,--humanity, nature, god." conceiving that the older forms of error--dualism and materialism--have all but disappeared; and that atheism, in its gross mechanical form, cannot now, as broussais himself said, "find entrance into a well-made head which has seriously meditated on nature," m. franck concludes that pantheism alone, such as has been conceived and developed in germany, is likely to have the power of seducing serious minds, and that it may for a season exert considerable influence as an antagonist to christianity.[105] m. javari gives a similar testimony. he tells us that "that great lie, which is called pantheism (_ce grand mensonge qu'on appelle le pantheisme_), has dragged german philosophy into an abyss; that it is fascinating a large number of minds among his own countrymen; and that it is this doctrine, rather than any other, which will soon gather around it all those who do not know or who reject the truth."[106] the biographer of spinoza, referring to the recent progress and prospective prevalence of these views, affirms that "the tendency of the age, in matters of philosophy, morals, and religion, seems to incline towards pantheism;" that "the time is come when every one who will not frankly embrace the pure and simple christianity of the gospel will be obliged to acknowledge spinoza as his chief, unless he be willing to expose himself to ridicule;" that "germany is already saturated with his principles;" that "his philosophy domineers over all the contemporary systems, and will continue to govern them until men are brought to believe that word, 'no man hath seen god at any time, but he who was in the bosom of the father hath revealed him;'" that it is this "pantheistic philosophy, boldly avowed, towards which the majority of those writers who have the talent of commanding public interest are gravitating at the present day;" and that "the ultimate struggle will be, not between christianity and philosophy, but between christianity and spinozism, its strongest and most inveterate antagonist."[107] and the critical reviewer of pantheism, whose essay is said to have been the first effective check to its progress in the philosophical schools of paris, gives a similar testimony. he tells us that it was his main object to point out "the pantheistic tendencies of the age;" to show that germany and france are deeply imbued with its spirit; that both philosophy and poetry have been infected by it; that this is "the veritable heresy of the nineteenth century; and that, when the most current beliefs are analyzed, they resolve themselves into pantheism, avowed or disguised."[108] a few _specimens_ of this mode of thinking may be added in confirmation of these statements. lessing, as reported by jacobi, expressed his satisfaction with the poem "prometheus," saying: "this poet's point of view is my own; the orthodox ideas on the divinity no longer suit me; i derive no profit from them: [greek: hen kai pan],--(_un et tout, the one_ and _the all_),--i know no other." schelling, in his earlier writings, while he was professor at jena, and before the change of sentiment which he avowed at berlin, represented god as the one only true and really absolute existence; as nothing more or less than being, filling the whole sphere of reality; as the infinite being (_seyn_) which is the essence of the universe, and evolves all things from itself by self-development. hegel seeks unity in every thing and every where. this unity he discovers in the identity of existence and thought, in the one substance which exists and thinks, in god who manifests and develops himself in many forms. "the absolute produces all and absorbs all; it is the essence of all things. the life of the absolute is never consummated or complete. god does not properly exist, but comes into being: 'gott ist in werden.'--_deus est in fieri_. with him god is not a person, but personality, which realizes itself in every human consciousness as so many thoughts of one eternal mind.... apart from, and out of the world, therefore, there is no god; and so, also, apart from the universal consciousness of man, there is no divine consciousness or personality. god is with him the whole process of thought, combining in itself the objective movement, as seen in nature, with the subjective, as seen in logic; and fully realizing itself only in--the universal spirit of humanity."[109] we select only two specimens from the recent literature of france; they might be multiplied indefinitely. pierre leroux, the editor of the "encyclopedie nouvelle," says, in his "essay on humanity," dedicated to the poet beranger:--"it is the god immanent in the universe, in humanity, in each man, that i adore."--"the worship of humanity was the worship of voltaire."--"what, is humanity considered as comprehending all men? is it something, or is it nothing but an abstraction of our mind? is humanity a collective being, or is it nothing but a series of individual men?"--"being, or the soul, is eternal by its nature. being, or the soul, is infinite by its nature. being, or the soul, is permanent and unchangeable by its nature. being, or the soul, is one by its nature. being, or the soul, is god by its nature."--"socrates has proved our eternity and the divinity of our nature."[110] the next specimen is a singular but very instructive one. it is derived from the treatise of m. crousse, who holds that "intelligence is a property or an effect of matter;" "that the world is a great body, which has sense, spirit, and reason;" that "matter, in appearance the most cold and insensible, is in reality animated, and capable of engendering thought." it might be amusing, were it not melancholy, to refer to one of his proofs of this position: "une horologe mesure le temps; certes, c'est là un effet intellectuel produit par une cause physique!"[111] his grand principle is the doctrine of what he calls "unisubstancisme," and it is applied equally to the nature of god and the soul of man. god is admitted, but it is the god of pantheism,--nature, including matter and mind, but excluding any higher power. "god is the self-existent being, which includes all, and beyond which no other can be imagined. the infinite is identical with the universe."--"god is and can only be the whole of that which exists. let us proclaim it aloud, that the echoes may repeat it, god, the great being, is the all, and the all is one. god is every thing that exists; the universe, that is the supreme being. in it are life eternal, power, wisdom, knowledge, perfect organization, all the qualities, in a word, that are inseparable from the divinity. beyond the universe, or apart from it, there is nothing (_neant_); above the visible world and its laws there is for man--_nullité_." it is deeply humbling to think that, in the light of the nineteenth century, and in the very centre of european civilization, speculations such as these should have found authors to publish, and readers to purchase them. need we wonder that several catholic writers on the continent, conversant with the works which are daily issuing from the press, and familiar with the state of society in which they live, have publicly expressed their apprehension that, unless some seasonable and effective check can be given to the progress of this fearful system, we may yet witness the restoration of polytheistic worship and the revival of paganism in europe?[112] the most cursory review of _the history of pantheism_[113] will serve to convince every reflecting reader that it must have its origin in some natural but strangely perverted principle of the human mind; and that its recent reappearance in europe affords an additional and very unexpected proof that, like the weeds which spring up, year after year, in the best cultivated field, it must have its roots or seeds deep in the soil. in the annals of our race, we find it exhibited in two distinct forms; _first_, as a religious doctrine, and, _secondly_, as a philosophical system. it had its birthplace in the east, where the gorgeous magnificence of nature was fitted to arrest the attention and to stimulate the imagination of a subtle, dreamy, and speculative people. the primitive doctrine of creation was soon supplanted by the pagan theory of emanation. the indian brahm is the first and only substance, infinite, absolute, indeterminate being, from which all is evolved, manifested, developed, and to which all returns and is reabsorbed. the vedanta philosophy is based on this fundamental principle, and it has been well described as "the most rigorous system of pantheism which has ever appeared." we learn from the writings of greece that a similar system prevailed in egypt, different, indeed, in form, and expressed in other terms, but resting on the same ultimate ground; and we know that christianity found one of its earliest and most formidable antagonists in the philosophical school of alexandria, which was deeply imbued with a pantheistic spirit, and which, perhaps for that reason, has recently become an object of much interest to speculative minds in france and germany. the gnostic and the neoplatonic sects maintained, and the writings of plotinus and proclus still exhibit, many principles the same in substance with those which have been recently revived in continental europe. in the earlier as well as the later literature of greece we find traces of pantheism, while the polytheistic worship, which universally prevailed, was its natural product and appropriate manifestation. the ancient orphic doctrines, which were taught in the mysteries, seem to have been based on the oriental idea of emanation. even in the masculine literature of rome we find numerous passages which are still quoted, with glowing admiration, by the pantheists of modern times.[114] there is, indeed, but too much reason to believe that the numerous references which occur in the classics to the existence of one absolute and supreme being, and which dr. cudworth has so zealously collected, with the view of proving "the naturality of the idea of god," must be interpreted, at least in many instances, in a pantheistic sense, and that they imply nothing more than the recognition of one parent substance, from which all other beings have been successively developed. we find some lingering remains of pantheism in the writings of the middle age. scot erigena, in his work, "de divisione naturæ," sums up his theory by saying: "all is god, and god is all." amaury de chartres made use of similar language. and it must have been more widely diffused in these times than many may be ready to believe, if it be true, as the abbé maret affirms, and as m. de hammer offers to prove, that the knights of the order of the temple were affiliated to secret societies in which the doctrines of gnosticism and the spirit of pantheism were maintained and cherished.[115] it reappeared in the philosophical schools of italy before the dawn, and during the early progress, of the revival of letters and the reformation of religion;[116] and even now, after three centuries of scientific progress and social advancement, it is once more rising into formidable strength, and aspiring to universal ascendancy. from this rapid survey of the history of the past, it is clear that pantheism is one of the oldest and most inveterate forms of error; that in its twofold character, as at once _a philosophy_ and _a faith_, it possesses peculiar attractions for that class of minds which delight to luxuriate in mystic speculation; and that, in the existing state of society, it may be reasonably regarded as the most formidable rival to natural and revealed religion. we are far from thinking, indeed, that the old mechanical and materialistic atheism is so completely worn out or so utterly exploded as some recent writers would have us to believe;[117] for m. comte and his school still avow that wretched creed, while they profess to despise pantheism, as a system of empty abstractions. we do think, however, that the grand ultimate struggle between christianity and atheism will resolve itself into a contest between christianity and pantheism. for, in the christian sense, pantheism is itself atheistic, since it denies the divine personality, and ascribes to the universe those attributes which belong only to the living god; but then it is a distinct and very peculiar form of atheism, much more plausible in its pretensions, more fascinating to the imagination, and less revolting to the reason, than those colder and coarser theories which ascribed the origin of the world to a fortuitous concourse of atoms, or to the mere mechanical laws of matter and motion. it admits much which the atheism of a former age would have denied; it recognizes the principle of causality, and gives a reason, such as it is, for the existing order of nature; it adopts the very language of theism, and speaks of the infinite, the eternal, the unchangeable one; it may even generate a certain mystic piety, in which elevation of thought may be blended with sensibility of emotion, springing from a warm admiration of nature; and it admits of being embellished with the charms of a seductive eloquence, and the graces of a sentimental poetry. it may be regarded, therefore, not indeed as the only, but as the most formidable rival of christian theism at the present day. we have sometimes thought that the recent discoveries of chemical science might have a tendency, at least in the case of superficial minds, to create a prepossession in favor of pantheism; for what does modern chemistry exhibit, but the spectacle of nature passing through a series of successive transmutations?--the same substance appearing in different forms, and assuming in every change different properties, but never annihilated, never destroyed; now existing in the form of solid matter, again in the form of a yielding fluid, again in the form of an elastic gas; now nourishing a plant, and entering into its very substance; now incorporated with an animal, and forming its sinews or its bones; now reduced again to dust and ashes, but only to appear anew, and enter once more into other combinations. the facts are certain, and they are sufficiently striking to suggest the question, may not nature itself be the one being whose endless transformations constitute the history of the universe? this question may be naturally suggested, and it may even be lawfully entertained; but it cannot be satisfactorily determined by any theory which leaves the evident marks of intelligence and design in the whole constitution and course of nature unaccounted for or unexplained. influenced by these and similar considerations, many thoughtful men have recently avowed their belief that the two grand alternatives in modern times are, christianity and pantheism. the abbé maret and amand saintes differ only in this: that by christianity the former means catholicism, the latter means the gospel, or the religion of the primitive church; but both agree that pantheism is the only other alternative. schlegel contrasts the same alternatives in the following impressive terms: "here is the decisive point; two distinct, opposite, or diverging paths lie before us, and man must choose between them. the clear-seeing spirit, which, in its sentiments, thoughts, and views of life, would be in accordance with itself, and would act consistently with them, must, in any case, take one or the other. either there is a living god, full of love, even such a one as love seeks and yearns after, to whom faith clings, and in whom all our hopes are centred (and such is the personal god of revelation),--and on this hypothesis the world is not god, but is distinct from him, having had a beginning, and being created out of nothing,--or there is only one supreme form of existence, and the world is eternal, and not distinct from god; there is absolutely but one, and this eternal one comprehends all, and is itself all in all; so that there is no where any real and essential distinction, and even that which is alleged to exist between evil and good is only a delusion of a narrow-minded system of ethics.... now, the necessity of this choice and determination _presses urgently upon our own time_, which stands midway between two worlds. generally, it is between _these two paths alone_ that the decision is to be made."[118] we have made the preceding remarks on purpose to show that the distinctive doctrines of pantheism, as a system different, in some respects, from the colder forms of atheism, demand the careful study of the divines and the philosophers of the present age; and that any statement of the evidence in favor of the being and perfections of god, which overlooks the prevalence of these doctrines, or makes only a cursory reference to them, must be alike defective in itself, and ill adapted to the real exigencies of european society. let this be our apology for attempting, as we now propose, to exhibit an outline of the pantheistic system, to resolve it into its constituent elements and ultimate grounds, to examine the validity of the reasons on which it rests, and to contrast it with the doctrine of christian theism, which speaks of a living, personal god, and of a distinct but dependent creation, the product of his supreme wisdom and almighty power. the task is one of considerable difficulty,--difficulty arising not so much from the nature of the subject, as from the metaphysical and abstruse manner in which it has been treated. we must follow spinoza through the labyrinth of his theological politics and his geometrical ethics; we must follow schelling and hegel into the still darker recesses of their transcendental philosophy; for a philosophy of one kind can only be met and neutralized by a higher and a better, and the first firm step towards the refutation of error is a thorough comprehension of it. but having an assured faith in those stable laws of thought which are inwoven with the very texture of the human mind, and in the validity and force of that natural evidence to which theology appeals, we have no fear of the profoundest metaphysics that can be brought to bear on the question at issue, provided only they be not altogether unintelligible. pantheism has appeared in several different forms; and it may conduce both to the fullness and the clearness of our exposition if we offer, in the first instance, a comprehensive outline of the theory of spinoza, with a brief criticism on its leading principles, and thereafter advance to the consideration of the twofold development of pantheism in the hands of materialists and idealists, respectively. section i. the system of spinoza. the pantheistic speculations which have been revived in modern times can scarcely be understood, and still less accounted for or answered, without reference to the system of spinoza. that system met with little favor from any, and with vigorous opposition from not a few, of the divines and philosophers of the times immediately subsequent to its publication. it was denounced and refuted by musæus, a judicious and learned professor of divinity at jena; by mansvelt, a young but promising professor of philosophy at utrecht; by cuyper of rotterdam; by wittichius of leyden; by pierre poiret of reinsburg; by fenelon, archbishop of cambray; by huet, bishop of avranches; by john howe, and dr. samuel clarke, as well as by many others,[119] whose writings served for a time to preserve the church from the infection of his most dangerous errors. but gradually these views became an object of speculative interest to metaphysical inquirers, and found favor even with a growing class of philosophical divines;[120] partly by reason of the strong intellectual energy with which they were conceived and announced, and partly, also, there is reason to fear, on account of a prevailing tendency to lower the authority of scripture, and to exalt the prerogatives of reason, in matters of faith. the system of spinoza, as developed in his "tractatus theologico-politicus," and, still more, in his "ethica,"--a posthumous publication,--may be said to contain the germs of the whole system both of theological and philosophical rationalism which was subsequently unfolded,--in the church, by paulus, wegscheider, and strauss,--and, in the schools, by fichte, schelling, and hegel. theological rationalism consists in making reason the sole arbiter and the supreme judge in matters of faith; in setting aside or undermining the authority of revelation, partly by denying or questioning the plenary inspiration of scripture, partly by explaining or accounting for miracles on natural principles, partly by assuming, as strauss assumes, that whatever is supernatural must necessarily be unhistorical; in reducing every article of the creed, by a new method of critical exegesis, to a mere statement of some natural fact or some moral doctrine, embellished, in the one case, by mythical legends, and accommodated, in the other, to local and temporary prejudices, but amounting substantially to nothing more than a natural development of human thought. the prolific germs of this neologian method of the interpretation of scripture are to be found every where in the writings of spinoza. philosophical rationalism, again, although often, or rather generally, blended with the theological, is yet, in some respects, distinct from it. the one has been developed in the church, the other in the schools. the former, cultivated by divines who acknowledged more or less explicitly the authority of scripture, has directed its efforts mainly to the establishment of a new method of biblical exegesis and criticism, by which all that is peculiar to revelation, as a supernatural scheme, might be enervated or explained away. the latter cultivated by philosophic speculators who were not bound by any authority, nor fettered by any subscription to articles of faith, has sought, without reference to revelation, to solve the great problems relating to god, man, and the universe, on purely natural principles; and, after many fruitless efforts, has taken refuge, at last, in the faith of pantheism and the philosophy of the absolute. the prolific germs of this method of the interpretation of nature are also to be found in the writings of spinoza. the circumstance, indeed, which, more than any other, seems to have commended his system to some of the most inquisitive minds in europe, is _its apparent completeness_. it is not a mere theory of pantheism, nor a mere method of exegesis, nor a mere code of ethics, nor a mere scheme of politics, although all these are comprehended under it; but it is a system founded on a few radical principles, which are exhibited in the shape of axioms and definitions, and unfolded, by rigorous logical deduction, in a series of propositions, with occasional scholia and corollaries, after the method of geometry; a system which undertakes to explain the rationale of _every_ part of human knowledge, to interpret alike the book of nature and the book of revelation, to determine the character of prophetic inspiration, and to account for apparent miracles on natural principles, to establish the real foundations of moral duty, and the ultimate grounds of state policy; and all this on the strength of a few simple definitions, and a series of necessary deductions from them. it is important to mark this characteristic feature of his system; for while we have directly nothing to do with by far the larger part of his speculations, which relate to questions foreign to our present inquiry, yet the fact that his ethical and political conclusions are deduced from the same principles on which his pantheistic theory is founded, serves at once to account for the extensive influence which his writings have exerted on every department of modern speculation, and also to show that, in opposing that system, we are entitled to found on the conclusions which he has himself deduced from it, for the purpose of disproving the fundamental principles on which it rests. for if, on the one hand, the principles which he assumes in his definitions and axioms do necessarily involve the conclusions which are propounded in his ethics and politics; and if, on the other hand, these conclusions are found to be at variance with the highest views of morality and government, then the more logical the process by which they have been deduced, the more certain will it be that there is some fundamental flaw in the basis on which the whole superstructure is reared. in other cases, it might be doubtful how far the consequences that may seem to be deducible from a theory could be legitimately urged in argument, especially when these consequences are disavowed by the author of it; but, in the present case, the consequences are explicitly declared, not less than the principles,--they are even exhibited as corollaries rigorously deduced from them; and thus the very comprehensiveness of the system, which gives it so much of the aspect of completeness, and which has fascinated the minds of speculative men, always fond of bold and sweeping generalizations, may be found to afford the most conclusive proof of its inherent weakness, and to show that it comes into fatal collision, at all points, not only with the doctrines of natural and revealed religion, but also with the practical duties and political rights of mankind. we may present, in brief compass, a comprehensive summary of the doctrine of spinoza. the fundamental principle of his whole theory is contained in the assumption with which he sets out,--that the entire system of being consists only of _three_ elements, "substance, attributes, and modes," and in the _definitions_ which are given of these terms respectively. with him, substance is being; not this or that particular being, nor even being in general, considered in the abstract, but absolute being,--being in its plentitude, which comprehends all existences that can be conceived without requiring the concept of any other thing, and without which no other thing can either exist or be conceived.[121] by an "attribute" he means, not substance, but a manifestation of substance, yet such a manifestation as belongs to its very essence; and, by a "mode," he means an affection of substance, or that which exists in another thing, and is conceived by means of that thing. these are the three fundamental ideas of his system.[122] the "substance" of which he speaks is god, the infinite, self-existent, eternal being, whose essential nature is defined in terms which might seem to be expressive of a great truth, for he says: "i understand by god an absolutely infinite being, that is to say, a substance constituted by an infinity of attributes, each of which expresses an eternal and infinite essence." but, on closer inspection, we find that the god of whom he speaks is not the creator and governor of the world, not a living, personal being, distinct from nature and superior to it, not the holy one and the just, possessing infinite moral perfections, and exercising a supreme dominion over his works; but, simply, absolute being, the necessary self-existent substance, whose known "attributes" are _extension_ and _thought_, and whose affections, or "modes," comprehend all the varieties of finite existence; in short, it is nature that is god, for every possible existence may be included under the twofold expression of _natura naturans_ and _natura naturata_. accordingly, the principle of _unisubstancisme_ is broadly avowed, and the very possibility of creation denied. he affirms, and, indeed, according to his definition, he is entitled to affirm, that there is not and cannot be more than _one substance_; for by "substance" he means a self-existent, necessary, and eternal being. and, on the same ground, he affirms that the creation of _such_ a substance is impossible; for, having excluded every finite thing--everything that does not exist of itself--from his definition of substance, he is warranted in saying that anything called into being by a creative act of divine power could not be a "substance," _in his sense of that term_. he sets himself to prove, by a series of propositions whose logical correctness, as deductions from his fundamental assumption, may be freely and most safely admitted, that the production of a "substance" is absolutely impossible; that between two "substances," having different "attributes," there is nothing in common; that where two things have nothing in common, the one cannot be the cause of the other; that two or more distinct things can only be discriminated from each other by the difference of the "attributes" or "affections" of their "substance;" and that, in the nature of things, there cannot be two or more substances of the same kind, or possessing the same attributes. he holds, of course, that nature is as necessary as god, or, rather, that god and nature are one; there being but one substance, appearing only in different aspects, as cause and effect, as substance and mode, as infinite and yet finite, as one and yet many, as ever the same and yet infinitely variable. it is only necessary to add, that the sole attributes of this substance which are capable of being known by our limited intelligence, and which are discerned by an immediate "intuition of reason," are two, namely, _extension_ and _thought_. we know nothing, and can know nothing, of god beyond this: he has no will, or his will is mere intelligence or thought; he has no law, or his law is merely his thought embodied in the arrangements of nature; he has no moral properties that are cognizable by the human faculties. it follows that god is not the creator of the world, for creation implies an act of will, and god has no will; that he is not the lawgiver or governor of the world, for there is no law emanating from a superior, but such only as is created by _human compact or agreement_, and there is "no natural obligation to obey god," no invariable standard of right and wrong. the principles which are thus assumed in regard to the nature of god are afterwards applied to many important questions, relating, first, to the soul of man; secondly, to the science of ethics; thirdly, to the doctrine of political right and liberty; and, fourthly, to the supposed claims of revelation. and they are carried out, with inexorable logic, into all their most revolting results. such is a concise, but, as we believe, a correct outline of the leading principles of the system of spinoza. we shall now offer a few remarks upon it, directed to the object of showing wherein consists the radical fallacy on which it rests, and what are the considerations by which thoughtful men may be most effectually secured against its pernicious influence. it has been well said by professor saisset, that the fallacy of this system does not lie in any one proposition of the series, but that it is a vicious circle throughout; that the paralogism is not in this or that part of the "ethics,"--it is everywhere; and that the germ of the whole is contained in the _definitions_, which are assumed, but not proved.[123] our attention, therefore, must be given, in the first instance, to the fundamental assumptions on which the whole superstructure is built. 1. it is assumed, without proof, that the entire system of being may be ranked under the three categories of substance, attributes, and modes. it is assumed, equally without proof, that there can be no substance which is not self-existent, necessary, and eternal, and that every being which does not possess these properties must be only a "mode" or affection of another being to whom they belong. it is further assumed, also without proof, that _extension_ and _thought_ are necessary "attributes" of the one self-existent "substance," each of the two exhibiting only a different aspect of his eternal essence, while both are equally essential and equally infinite. and, finally, it is assumed, still without proof, that nature comprehends a twofold series of existences, distinct from each other, but developed, as it were, in parallel lines,--corporeal and intellectual beings, which correspond respectively to the divine attributes of extension and thought,--which partake of the essential nature of these attributes, but exhibit them in finite and transient forms, as mere modes or manifestations of the one infinite "substance." these are some of the fundamental assumptions on which he proceeds; they are not proved, nor even attempted to be proved; for, although several are stated in the form of distinct propositions, and accompanied with a formal demonstration, the most cursory inspection of the pretended proof is sufficient to show that it consists entirely in a series of _deductions from principles previously assumed_, and that its validity must ultimately rest on the _definitions_ in which these principles are embodied. now, let any one examine these "definitions," and he will find that they are wholly arbitrary, and that he is not bound by any law of his intellectual nature to admit them, still less entitled, on any ground of experience, to assume and found upon them, as if they were self-evident or axiomatic truths. it is possible, and it may even be legitimate and useful for the purposes of philosophical speculation, to classify the various objects of human knowledge by ranging them under the categories of substance, attributes, and modes. but is it a self-evident truth, that there can be no substance in nature excepting such as is self-existent and eternal? is it a self-evident truth that man, with his distinct personality and individual consciousness, is a mere "mode" or affection of another being? is it a self-evident truth that the ape, the lizard, and the worm are equally "modes" of the same substance with the angel and the seraph? is it a self-evident truth that _extension_ and _thought_ are equally expressive of the uncreated essence and necessary "attributes" of the eternal? is it a self-evident truth that no being can exist in nature otherwise than by _development out of the divine substance_, and that the _creation_ of a distinct but dependent being is impossible? in regard to questions such as these, the appeal must lie to that common sense, or those laws of thought, which are the heritage of every thinking mind, and which cannot be cramped or fettered by the arbitrary definitions of any philosophical system whatever. these definitions must commend themselves _as true_, either by their own self-evidencing light, or by their manifest conformity with experience, before they can be assumed and founded on in any process of reasoning; and we are very sure that those which have been specified cannot be candidly examined without appearing to be, as they really are, the grossest instances of a _petitio principii_ that have ever been offered to the world. for these "definitions" constitute the foundation of the whole superstructure; they contain the germ, which is subsequently expanded and developed in a long series of propositions; and, as they are assumed without proof, while they are far from being self-evident, no amount of logical power and no effort of dialectic skill can possibly extract from them any doctrinal results, whether theological, ethical, or political, possessing greater evidence than what belongs to themselves. this is our _first_ objection. 2. the philosophical method of spinoza, as applied to our special subject, is radically vicious. it is not the inductive or experimental method; it is an argument _a priori_, a deductive process of reasoning. now, this method, suitable as it is to a certain class of subjects, such as those of geometry, in which clear and precise definitions are attainable, is either utterly inapplicable to another class of subjects, such as most of those of which spinoza treats, or it is peculiarly dangerous, especially in the hands of a daring speculator, since, in the absence of adequate definitions, he may be tempted to have recourse to such as are purely arbitrary. all the possible properties of a circle may be deduced from the simple definition of it; but it will not follow that all the possible forms of being in nature may be deduced from the definition of "substance." the reason is clear; we cannot have such a definition of substance as we may have of a circle. we do not object merely to the _geometrical form_ of his reasoning,--that is a mere accessory, and one which renders the "ethica" much more dry and less attractive than the "tractatus," in which he gives free scope to his subtle intellect, unfettered by any such artificial plan,--but we object to the essential nature of his system, to the _a priori_ and deductive method by which he attempts to solve some of the highest problems of philosophy respecting god, nature, and man. here, if anywhere, is a field of inquiry which demands for its due cultivation an enlarged experience and a patient spirit of induction. yet, with him, the starting-point of philosophy is the highest object of human thought. he begins with the idea of self-existent being, without which, as he imagines, nothing else can be conceived; and then, following the line of a descending series, he attempts to deduce from it the philosophy of the whole system of the universe![124] his metaphysics must borrow nothing from experience; his very psychology must be purely deductive. from the intuitive idea of "substance" he deduces the nature and existence of god; from the nature of god, the necessity of a divine development; from the necessity of a divine development, the existence of a universe comprising souls and bodies; and nowhere does he condescend to take notice of the facts of experience, except in two of his axioms, in which he assumes that "man thinks," and that "he feels his body to be affected in various ways." his whole philosophy resolves itself ultimately into an intellectual intuition, whose object is substance or being, with its infinite attributes of extension and thought,--an intuition which discerns its object directly and immediately, in the light of its own self-evidence, without the aid of any intermediate sign, and which is as superior, in a philosophical point of view, to the intimations of sense, as its objects are superior to the fleeting phenomena of nature. now, we submit that this method of constructing a philosophy of nature is radically vicious, and diametrically opposed to the only legitimate, the only possible way of attaining to sound knowledge. he is not content to tell us _what is_ the order of things; he aspires, forsooth, to show what the order of things _must be_. we have no wish to disparage metaphysical science; it has a natural root in human reason, and a legitimate domain in the ample territory of human thought; but we protest against any attempt to extend it beyond its proper boundaries, or to apply it to subjects which belong to the province of experience and observation. the schemes which have been recently broached in germany, and imitated in france, for constructing, at one time, a deductive psychology, at another a deductive physics, at a third a deductive ethics, at a fourth a deductive theory of progress, at a fifth a deductive history of religion, afford more than sufficient evidence that hitherto the spirit of the baconian philosophy has been little understood, and still less appreciated, by our continental neighbors; and that the efforts of the highest genius have been sadly frustrated, in attempting the impracticable task of extracting from mere reason that knowledge which can only be acquired in the school of experience. this is our _second_ objection. 3. the system of spinoza is vicious, because it applies a mere abstraction of the human mind to account for whatever is real and concrete in the universe. we have no sympathy with those who rail at all abstract ideas, as if they were imaginary essences or mere illusions; we recognize the faculty of abstraction as one of the wisest provisions of nature, and one of the most useful powers belonging to the mind of man,--a power which comes into action with the first dawn of infant intelligence, and is only matured as reason rises into manhood, till it becomes the internal spring of all philosophy and science. nor do we hold that an abstract idea is necessarily an unreality, or a mere negation; for, without reviving the controversy between the nominalists and realists, or pronouncing any decision on the intricate questions which that controversy involved, we may say, in general terms, that the idea of a circle, of a square, or of a triangle, is neither unreal nor negative, but a very positive, and, withal, intelligible thing. it is the idea of that which is essential to the nature of each of these figures respectively, and common to all possible figures of the same class, whatever may be their accidental varieties, whether in point of dimension or form. and so the idea of being or substance, although it be highly abstract, is not necessarily unreal or negative; it is the idea of _existence_, or of that which is common to everything that _is_, abstraction being made of every diversity by which one being is distinguished from another. conscious that we ourselves exist, and observing that other beings exist around us, we strike off the peculiarities which belong to individuals, and form the general idea which includes nothing but what is common to all, and yet contains a positive element, which is the object of one of the strongest convictions of the human mind.[125] the conception of infinite being contains the positive element of _being_, abstraction being made of all _limitation_ or _bounds_. that this is a real, legitimate, and useful conception, we have no disposition to deny; we cannot divest ourselves of it; it springs up spontaneously from the innermost fountain of thought. but we cannot accept the account which spinoza has given of its nature and origin, and still less can we assent to the application which he has made of it. he describes it as the idea of absolute, necessary, self-existent, eternal being; and he traces its origin, not to the combined influence of experience and abstraction, acting under the great primitive law of _causality_, but to an immediate perception, or direct _intuition, of reason_. now, we submit that the concept of _being_, and the concept of absolute _self-existent being_, are perfectly distinct from each other, and that they spring from different laws of thought. the concept of _being_ applies to everything that exists, without reference to the cause or manner of its existence; and this springs simply from experience and abstraction. the concept of _self-existent being_, which is equally suggested by the laws of our mental constitution, does not apply to everything that exists, but only to that whose existence is not originated or determined by any other being; and this concept springs also from experience and abstraction, combined, however, with the law or principle of _causality_, which teaches us that no change can occur in nature, and that nothing can ever come into being, _without a cause_, and prompts us to infer from _the fact of existence now_, the conclusion that _something must have existed from all eternity_. the origin of each of these concepts may thus be naturally accounted for by the known laws of our mental constitution, without having recourse to any faculty of _intellectual intuition_ such as spinoza describes,--a faculty independent of experience, and superior to it,--a faculty which gazes direct on absolute being, and penetrates, without the aid of any intermediate sign or manifestation, into the very essence of god. spinoza has not discriminated aright between these two concepts, in respect either of their nature or their origin. he has not overlooked, indeed, the distinction, between _abstract ideas_ and the _intellectual intuitions_, of which he speaks; but he confounds the concept of _being_ with the concept of _self-existent being_, as if the two were identical, or as if _being_ could not be predicated of anything, otherwise than as it is a "mode" or affection of the one only "substance." a sounder psychology has taught us that our conception of existence arises, in the first instance, from our own conscious experience; and that, when this conception subsequently expands into the idea of absolute being, and results in the belief of a necessary, self-existent, and eternal cause, the new element which is thus added to it may be accounted for by the _principle of causality_, which constitutes one of the fundamental laws of human thought, and which, if it may be said to resemble _intuition_ in the rapidity and clearness with which it enables us to discern the truth, differs essentially from that _immediate intuition_ of which spinoza speaks, since it is dependent on experience, and, instead of gazing direct on absolute being, makes use of intermediate signs and manifestations, by which it rises to the knowledge of "the unseen and eternal." we submit, further, that a system which rests on the mere idea of being as its sole support, cannot afford any satisfactory explanation of real and concrete existences. the idea of being is one of our most abstract conceptions; it is associated, indeed, with an invincible belief in the reality of being,--a belief which springs up spontaneously, along with the idea itself, from our own conscious experience. it is even associated with an invincible belief in necessary, self-existent, and eternal being,--a belief which springs from _the principle of causality_, or that law of thought whereby, from the fact that something exists now, we instinctively conclude that something _must_ have existed from all eternity. but neither the simple concept of being, which is derived from experience and framed by abstraction, nor the additional concept of self-existent being, which springs from the action of our rational faculties on the data furnished by experience, can afford any explanation of the nature and origin of the real, concrete existences in the universe. these must be studied in the light of their own appropriate evidence; they must be interpreted, and not divined; they cannot be inferred deductively from any, even the highest and most abstract, conception of the human mind. yet the philosophy of spinoza attempts to explain all the phenomena of the universe by the idea of absolute being; it accounts for the concrete by the abstract; it represents all individual beings as mere modes or affections of one universal substance; in other words, it _realises_ the abstract idea of thought and extension, but _denies the existence_ of bodies and souls, otherwise than as manifestations of these eternal essences. 4. the system of spinoza is vicious, because his whole reasoning on the subject of creation is pervaded by a transparent fallacy. he affirms the impossibility of creation, and attempts to demonstrate his position. but how? by proving that a "substance" cannot be produced. and why may not "a substance" be produced? because, _by the definition_, "a substance" is that which is "self-existent." in other words, a self-existent substance cannot be created,--a truism which scarcely required the apparatus of a geometrical proof by means of propositions, scholia, and corollaries, or, as professor saisset says, with laconic naïveté, "_ce qui a à peine besoin d'être demontré_." but, while the only proof that is offered extends no further than to self-existent or uncreated substance, it is afterwards applied to everything that exists, so as to exclude the creation even of that which is _not_ self-existent; and this on the convenient assumption that whatever exists must be either a "substance," or an "attribute," or a "mode." and thus, partly by an ambiguity of language, partly by an arbitrary and gratuitous assumption, he excludes the possibility of creation altogether. surely it might have occurred to him that by proving the necessary existence of an uncreated being--a doctrine held by every christian theist--he did not advance one step towards the disproof of the possibility of creation, nor even towards the establishment of his favorite theory of _unisubstancisme_; for, grant that there is an uncreated and self-existent being; grant, even, that there can be no more than _one_,--would it follow that there can be no created and dependent beings, or that they can only exist as "modes" or "affections" of that absolute essence? might they not exist as _creatures_, as _products_, as _effects_, without partaking of the nature of their cause?[126] yet, if there be one idea more than another which spinoza is anxious to extirpate, it is that of creation, and he summons the whole strength, both of his logic and sarcasm, when he has to deal with the argument from "final causes." and no marvel; for the doctrine of a creation would cut up his system by the roots. the radical difference, in fact, between theism and pantheism mainly consists in this: that the former regards creation as distinct from the creator, as the product of his omnipotent and free will, as the object of his constant providential care, as the subject of his supreme control and government; whereas the latter represents it as a necessary _emanation_ from the divine substance, as an eternal _development_ of the uncreated essence; the finite, in all its forms, being a "mode" of the infinite, and the temporary phases of nature so many transient but ever-renewed manifestations of the unchangeable and eternal. these two conceptions are diametrically opposed; they cannot admit of conciliation or compromise; and hence the daring attempt of spinoza to prove the impossibility of creation, even when he admits the existence of an infinite and eternal being. 5. the system of spinoza is vicious, because it involves erroneous conclusions respecting both the _body_ and the _soul_. he denies that they are "substances." and why? because, _by the definition_, "a substance" is that which is self-existent, and may be conceived without reference to any other being. be it so. what does this argument amount to? why, simply to this, that they are not gods. what, then, are they? created beings? no. and why? because creation is impossible, and, also, because whatever exists must be either a "substance," or an "attribute," or a "mode." what then? clearly not an "attribute," for the only attributes known to us are extension and thought, and these attributes are as infinite as "the substance" to which they belong; they must therefore be "modes" or "affections" of that "substance." but in what sense? in the sense of being created, and therefore dependent, existences, whose nature and origin cannot be conceived of or accounted for without reference to the being who produced them at first, and still continues to maintain them? no; for in that sense all theists admit the derivation and dependence of every finite being; but they must be "modes" or "affections" of the one uncreated essence, mere phenomenal manifestations of it. the soul, whose essence is thought, is a mere succession of ideas. the body is a mere "mode" of the divine "attribute" of extension; and neither the one nor the other can be described as a _distinct being_. they are affections, and nothing more, of the one infinite "substance." it is important to remark that, according to this theory, _the distinct personality of man_ is excluded, not less than _the distinct personality of god_. it is not easy, indeed, to explain this part of spinoza's theory; for he has a subtle disquisition on the relation subsisting between the soul and the body, by means of which he attempts to explain the phenomena of self-consciousness, and to show that individual personality is not necessarily inconsistent with the doctrine which represents man as a mere "mode" of the divine "substance." but one thing is clear: there is no room in the system of spinoza for the distinct personality of man, in the ordinary acceptation of that expression. the unity, especially of the human soul, its individuality, its self-consciousness, its identity, as a being, dependent, indeed, on god, but really distinct from him, must be sacrificed, if the system is to be saved; and no other being can be recognized but the absolute "substance," with its infinite "attributes" and its finite "modes." this consideration appears to us to be fatal to the whole theory. for it shows that the pantheistic speculations, which are directed against _the personality of god_, are equally conclusive, if they be conclusive at all, against _the personality of man_; that they run counter to the intuitive knowledge of the human mind; and that they cannot be embraced without doing violence to some of our clearest and surest convictions. for what clearer or surer conviction can there be than that of my own personal existence, as a distinct, self-conscious, intelligent, active, and responsible being? and yet the existence of our own bodies and souls is denied, except in so far as they are mere "modes" or affections of the one uncreated "substance," which is known, not by experience or observation, but by a transcendental faculty of intuition. and, _finally_, the system of spinoza is vicious, because the exposition of it is replete with the most manifest and glaring self-contradictions. his logical power has been so much admired, and his rigorous geometrical method so highly extolled, that his philosophy has acquired a certain _prestige_, which commends it to many ardent, speculative minds. yet there are few philosophical writers who have made a larger number of gratuitous assumptions, or who have abounded more in contradictory statements. the "antinomies" of spinoza might make the subject of an amusing, and even instructive, dissertation. thus, by way of specimen, take the following: god is extended; but, nevertheless, incorporeal. god thinks; but, nevertheless, has no intelligence. god is active; but, nevertheless, has no will. the soul is a "mode" of the divine thought; but, nevertheless, there is no analogy between god's thought and man's thought. the love of god is the supreme law of man; but, nevertheless, it is equally lawful for man to live according to appetite or to reason. the will of man, is, in no sense, free; but, nevertheless, there is a science of human ethics. man is under no natural obligation to obey god; but, nevertheless, god is his highest good. god is neither a lawgiver nor a governor; but, nevertheless, a future state is necessary, that every man may have his due. might is right, and government has power to restrain "the liberty of prophesying;" but, nevertheless, has no power to restrain "the liberty of philosophizing." these are only a few specimens of the gratuitous assumptions and flagrant contradictions with which his writings abound; but they afford a sufficient proof of the reckless character of his genius, and of the utter fallacy of the system which he promulgated as a rival, or as a substitute, for natural and revealed religion. on a review of what has been advanced, it must be manifest that the pantheistic system of spinoza is founded on principles assumed without proof, and embodied in his "definitions;" that it is constructed according to a philosophical method which is radically vicious; that it abounds in self-contradictory statements; and that it is opposed, at many points, to some of the clearest lessons of experience, and to some of the surest convictions of reason. it is a system which is not demonstrated, but merely developed. the germ of it exists in the "definitions;" deny these, and you destroy his whole philosophy. it cannot, therefore, be held sufficient to foreclose the question respecting the existence of a living, personal god, distinct from nature and independent of it; nor can pantheism, in this form, become the successful rival of christian theism, until the human mind has lost the power of discriminating between the different kinds of evidence to which they respectively appeal. section ii. material or hylozoic pantheism. in the system of spinoza, the two "attributes of _extension_ and _thought_" and the corresponding "modes" of _body_ and _soul_, were equally recognized, and were employed jointly, in connection with his favorite doctrine of unisubstancisme. they constituted the opposite poles of his theory, but were both essential to its completeness. but most of his followers, influenced by an excessive desire for simplification, have attempted to blend the two into one; and have either merged the spiritual in the corporeal, or virtually annihilated the material by resolving it into the mental. hence two distinct, and even opposite forms of pantheism,--the _material_ or _hylozoic_, and the _ideal_ or _spiritual_. the former was the first in the order of historical development, so far as modern europe is concerned. it was most in accordance with the sensational philosophy which prevailed in the school of condillac,[127] and which continued to maintain its ascendancy until it was assailed by the reviving spirit of idealism. it was the characteristic feature of the atheism of the last century, and was fully exhibited in the "systême de la nature." the recent revival of idealism has done much to check its progress, but it has not effected its destruction; on the contrary, the theory of material or hylozoic pantheism is an error as inveterate as it is ancient, and it is continually reappearing even in the light of the intellectual and spiritual psychology of the nineteenth century. this theory, although it has been propounded as a religious creed, rests mainly on a philosophical dogma. it is based ultimately on the supposition that nothing exists in the universe except _matter_ and its laws; that _mind_ is the product of material organization; and that all the phenomena of thought, of feeling, of conscience, and even of religion, may be accounted for by ascribing them to certain powers inherent in matter, and evolved by certain peculiarities of cerebral structure. this fundamental assumption, on which the whole theory of hylozoic pantheism ultimately rests, will be subjected to examination in the sequel. we think that it may be best discussed separately and apart, for this among other reasons, that it stands equally related to the old mechanical atheism and the new material pantheism, and that, in point of fact, it has been applied indifferently to the support of both. our remarks at present, therefore, will be directed, not to the refutation of materialism, but to the exposition and exposure of the pantheism which has been founded upon it. it is not easy--perhaps it might be found, on trial, to be impossible--to show that there is any real difference, except in name, between mechanical atheism and material pantheism. both equally affirm the self-existence and eternity of the universe; both equally deny the fact of creation, and the doctrine of a living, personal god, distinct from nature, and superior to it. the only apparent difference between the two consists in this,--that the former speaks more of the rude materials, and the cold, hard, unbending laws, which exist in nature; the latter speaks more of the vital powers, the subtle and ethereal forces, which are at work in her bosom, and which may seem to impart warmth and animation to a system that would otherwise be felt to be cold, inert, and deathlike. but the mechanical atheist never denied the vital powers of nature, he only attempted to account for them without an intelligent first cause; and the material pantheist has little, if any, advantage over him, except in this, that he has combined chemistry with mechanics in attempting to account for the phenomena of the universe, and has drawn his analogies from the laboratory and the crucible, the process of vegetation, and the laws of reproduction and growth, not less than from the formulæ of physical science. the theory of material pantheism runs insensibly into one or other of the forms of naked atheism to which we have already referred. ignoring the existence of mind, or of any spiritual power distinct from nature and superior to it, it must necessarily hold the eternal existence of matter; and, in this respect, it coincides entirely with the atheistic hypothesis. it may, or it may not, hold also the eternal existence of the present _order of nature_, including all the varieties of vegetable and animal life. in the one case, it harmonizes with the ancient theory of atheism, as maintained by ocellus lucanus; in the other, it must run into the modern theory of development, if it makes any attempt to account for the origin of new races, as made known by the researches of geologists. in either case, it is equivalent to atheism, and dependent on one or other of the various theories which have been applied to the defence of the atheist's creed. it is worthy of remark, in this connection, how frequently those who are the most daring and decided advocates of atheism or pantheism do nevertheless ascribe to nature many of the attributes which belong to god only. this fact is admirably illustrated by the distinguished founder of the boyle lectureship;[128] and it is abundantly confirmed by examples which have been furnished by more recent times. the author of the "system of nature," which appeared before the first french revolution, was an avowed and most reckless atheist;[129] yet he ascribes to nature most of the attributes which are usually supposed to belong to god, such as self-existence, eternity, immutability, infinitude, and unity; and if the _intellectual_ and _moral_ attributes may seem to be omitted, as they must be, to some extent, in any system of atheism, yet _thought_, _design_, and _will_, are expressly ascribed to nature.[130] and the only difference between the theist and the atheist is said to be, that the latter ascribes all the phenomena of nature "to material, natural, sensible, and known causes," while the former ascribes them to "spiritual, supernatural, unintelligible, and unknown causes;" or, in other words, "to an _occult cause_."[131] it is manifestly a matter of indifference whether this method of accounting for the phenomena of nature be called atheism or pantheism; in either aspect it is essentially the same. the more recent advocates of atheism or pantheism have often made use of similar language. m. crousse affirms that "all nature is _animated_ by an internal force which moves it;" that this is the true _spontaneity_, the _causality_, which is the origin of all sensible manifestations, for "_mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet_;" that "matter, the most cold and indifferent, is full of life, capable of engendering thought, and containing mind in it, at least _potentially_;" and that, to every man who has true insight, "the world feels, moves, speaks, and thinks."[132] the author of "the purpose of existence" makes it his grand object to show that "the evolvement of mind out of matter" is the primary law and final cause of the universe; that "this process commences with vegetation, extracting from matter the spirit of vitality;" that "this spirit is preserved amid the decay of vegetables, and transfused into animals, thus establishing the great working-principle of nature, that spirit is extracted from matter by organized bodies, and survives their dissolution."[133] of course, if matter have the power of evolving intelligent and even immortal minds by its own inherent properties and established laws, it will not be difficult to find in nature a sufficient substitute for god. but the most revolting specimen of that material pantheism, which is only another name for absolute atheism, that has recently appeared, occurs in the letters of atkinson and martineau: "we require no supernatural causes, when we can recognize adequate natural causes, _inherent in the constitution of nature_;" "nor are more causes to be admitted than are sufficient to produce any particular change or effect."--"man has his place in natural history; his nature does not essentially differ from that of the lower animals; he is but a fuller development, and varied condition, of the same fundamental nature or cause,--of _that which we contemplate as matter_, and its changes, relations, and properties. mind is the consequence or product of the material man, its existence depending on the action of the brain."--"its highest object seems to be, a sense of the infinite and abstract power,--_the inherent force and principle of nature_."[134] from these specimens it must be evident that whatever nominal distinction may exist between material pantheism and avowed atheism, they are radically identical, and that, for all practical purposes, they may be treated as one and the same. from the same specimens we may derive some useful hints respecting the essential conditions and the right conduct of the theistic argument. it is not enough to show that there must be a self-existent, eternal, and infinite first cause, for this is admitted by the advocate of material pantheism, who substitutes nature for god. it is further necessary to show that the actual phenomena of the universe cannot be accounted for by means of any properties or powers inherent in itself; and that they must be ascribed to a living, intelligent, and powerful being, distinct from nature and superior to it. the theory of materialism must be discussed on its own proper and peculiar merits, and if we find good cause to reject it, the main pillar of material pantheism will fall to the ground. in the mean time we shall only further observe, that this form of pantheism cannot be maintained without the help either of the doctrine of the eternity of matter or of the theory of development, or, rather, without the aid of both; and that, if it could be established, polytheism would be its natural product, if not its inevitable result. section iii. ideal pantheism. we have already seen that the system of spinoza equally recognized the two "attributes" of extension and thought, and the two corresponding "modes" of body and soul, in connection with the one infinite and eternal "substance." we have also seen that most of his followers have taken a one-sided view of the subject, and have either merged the spiritual into the corporeal, so as to educe a material or hylozoic pantheism, or have virtually annihilated the material by resolving it into the mental, so as to educe a system of ideal or spiritual pantheism. "in spinoza," says mr. morell, "we see the model upon which the modern idealists of germany have renewed their search into the absolute ground of all phenomena;" and there can be no doubt that his speculations contain the germ of ideal as well as of material pantheism. the historical filiation of modern pantheism cannot be satisfactorily explained, in either of its two forms, without reference to his writings; and yet its precise character, as it is developed in more recent systems, demands for its full elucidation some knowledge of the course and progress of philosophical speculation in the interval which elapsed between the death of spinoza and the subsequent developments of his theory. we cannot here attempt to trace the history of german idealism, from its source in the writings of leibnitz, through the logical school of wolfius and his successors, till it reached its culminating point in the philosophy of hegel:--we shall content ourselves with a brief reference to the fundamental principles of kant's system, which may be justly said to have contained the prolific germs, or, at least, to have determined the prevailing character, of all the subsequent speculations of the german schools. for if modern pantheism be indebted to spinoza for its _substance_, it is equally indebted to kant for its _form_; and no intelligible account can be given of the phases which it has successively assumed, without reference to the powerful influence which his philosophy, in one or other of its constituent elements, has exerted on all his successors in the same field of inquiry. the philosophy of kant has a most important bearing on the whole question as to the validity of the natural evidence for the being and perfections of god. we shall confine our attention to those parts of his system which give rise to the speculations that have issued in the recent theories of ideal or spiritual pantheism. in attempting to explain the nature and origin of the whole system of human knowledge, kant divides our intellectual being into _three_ distinct faculties,--sensation, understanding, and reason. he supposes that from sensation we derive the whole _matter_ of our knowledge; that from the understanding we derive its _form_, or the manner in which it is conceived of by us; and that from reason we derive certain general or abstract notions, which are highly useful, since they give a systematic unity to human thought, but which have no _objective validity_, that is, either no reality in nature that corresponds to them, or none, at least, that can be scientifically demonstrated. from this fundamental principle of his system it follows, that the only part of our knowledge which has any objective reality is that which is derived from our sense-perceptions, all else being purely _formal or subjective_, and arising solely from the laws of our own mental nature, which determine us to conceive of things in a particular way; and that even that part of our knowledge which is derived from sense-perception is purely phenomenal, since we know nothing of any object around us beyond the bare fact that it exists, and that it appears to us to be as our senses represent it. hence the _skeptical_ tendency of kant's speculations, in so far as the scientific certainty of our knowledge is concerned. the _practical utility_ of that knowledge is not disputed, but its _objective reality_, or the possibility of proving it, is, to a large extent, denied. still he admits a primitive _dualism_, and a radical distinction between _the subject and the object_, between the mind which thinks and the matter of its thoughts. the _matter_ comes from without, the _form_ from within; and the senses are the channels through which the phenomena of nature are poured into the mould of the human mind. all knowledge implies this combination of _matter_ with _form_, and is possible only on the supposition of the concurrent action both of the _object_ and _subject_; not that either of the two is known to us in its essence, or that their real existence can be scientifically demonstrated, for we know the subject only in its relation to the object, and the object only in its relation to the subject; but that this _relation_ necessarily requires the joint action of both, by which alone we can acquire the only knowledge of which we are capable, and which is supposed to be purely phenomenal, relative, and subjective. it is true that we are capable of forming certain grand ideas, such as that of god, the universe, and the soul; but these are the pure products of reason, the mere personifications of our own modes of thinking, and have no objective reality, at least none that can be scientifically demonstrated. but, while "the speculative reason" is held to be incompetent to prove the existence of god, "the practical reason" is appealed to; and in the conscious liberty of the soul, and its sense of incumbent moral duty,--"the categorical imperative,"--kant finds materials for reconstructing the basis and fabric of a true theology, not scientifically perfect, but practically sufficient for all the purposes of life. it was scarcely possible that philosophy could find a permanent resting-place in such a theory as this; for, while it recognized both the "object" and the "subject" as equally indispensable, the one for the _matter_, the other for the _form_, of human knowledge, it did not hold the balance even between the two. it assigned so much to the "subject," and so little to the "object," and made so large a part of our knowledge merely formal and subjective, that it could neither be regarded as a self-consistent system of skepticism, nor yet as a satisfactory basis for scientific belief. it was almost inevitable that speculative minds, starting from this point, should diverge into one or other of _three_ courses; either following the line of the "subject" exclusively, and treating the "object" as a superfluous incumbrance, so as to reach, as schulz and maimon did, a pure subjective idealism, akin to utter skepticism; or following the line of the "object," and giving it greater prominence than it had in the system of kant, so as to lay the foundation, as jacobi and herbart did, of a system of objective certitude; or keeping _both_ in view, and attempting, as fichte, schelling, and hegel did, to blend the two into one, so as to reduce them to systematic unity.[135] in kant's system a _dualism_ was admitted, a real distinction between the "subject" and "object" of thought; but he had ascribed so much to the subject, and so little to the object, that fichte conceived the idea of dispensing with the latter altogether, and constructing his whole philosophy on a purely subjective basis. since kant had taught that all objects are conceived of either according to the forms of our sensational faculty, or the categories of our understanding, or the ideas of pure reason, it seemed to be unnecessary to suppose the existence of any object distinct from the mind itself. for if it be the mind which furnishes the form of space, and gives us the idea of substance, of cause, of being, the mind alone might suffice to account for the whole sum of human knowledge. fichte was followed by schelling, and schelling by hegel, each differing from his predecessor, but all concurring in the attempt _to identify "seyn," or absolute being, with thought_, and to represent everything in the universe as a mere mode or manifestation of one infinite essence. the _identity_ of existence and thought is the fundamental principle of hegel's doctrine. with him, being and the idea of being, are the same; and being and thought are combined in the "absolute," which is at once ideal and real (l'être and l'idée). with him, the idea of god is that of _a logical process of thought_, "ever unfolding itself, but never unfolded,"--a dialectic movement rather than a divine being, which realizes itself, and reaches a state of self-consciousness in man. god, nature, and man, are but one process of thought, considered in different aspects; all finite personalities are only so many thoughts of one eternal mind; god is in man, and man is in god, and the progress of humanity, in all its stages, is a divine development. this bare outline of these systems must suffice for our present purpose, and we now proceed to offer a few remarks on the doctrine of ideal as distinguished from material pantheism. 1. the whole system of "idealism," as propounded in the german schools, is utterly baseless, and contradicts the intuitive, the universal convictions of the human mind. for what is idealism? reduced to its utmost simplicity, and expressed in the briefest formula, it amounts, in substance, to this: _that the whole universe is to us a mere process of thought_, and that nothing exists, or, at least, can be known by us, beyond _the ideas of our own minds_. and what is the ground on which it rests? it rests entirely on the assumption, that, since we can know nothing otherwise than through the exercise of our mental faculties, these faculties must be the sole sources of all our knowledge, and altogether independent of any external object. according to this theory, the mind is not informed or instructed by the universe, but the universe is created by the mind; the objective is developed from the subjective; and there is no reality anywhere except in the region of consciousness. nature is seen only as it is imaged in the mirror within; and to us it is a mere phantasmagoria, a series of phenomena, a succession of thoughts. "the sum total," says fichte, "is this; there is absolutely nothing permanent, either without me or within me, but only an unceasing change. i know absolutely nothing of any existence, not even of my own. i myself know nothing, and am nothing. images there are; they constitute all that apparently exists; and what they know of themselves is after the manner of images; images that pass and vanish without there being aught to witness their transition; that consist, in fact, of the images of images, without significance and without an aim. i myself am one of these images; nay, i am not even thus much, but only a confused image of images. all reality is converted into a marvellous dream, without a life to dream of, and without a mind to dream,--into a dream made up only of a dream itself. perception is a dream; thought--the source of all existence, and all the reality which i imagine to myself of _my_ existence, of my power, of my destination--is the dream of that dream."[136] the tendency of such speculations as these towards universal skepticism, or even absolute nihilism, with the exception only of certain fleeting phenomena of consciousness, is too apparent to require any formal proof; and it must be equally evident that they contradict some of the most universal and deeply-rooted convictions of the human mind. the ultimate ground of every system of idealism which excludes the knowledge of an external world must be one or other of these two assumptions, or a combination of both: either, that our knowledge cannot extend beyond the range of consciousness, which takes cognizance only of ideas, or of subjective mental states; or that any attempt to extend it beyond these limits, so as to embrace external objects as really existing, can only be successful on this condition,--that we _prove_, by reasoning from the subjective to the objective, that there is a necessary _logical_ connection between the state of the one and the reality of the other. each of these assumptions is equally groundless. it is true that consciousness, strictly so called, takes cognizance only of what passes within; it is not true that consciousness, in this restricted sense, is commensurate with our entire knowledge. it is true that we acquire our knowledge only through the exercise of our mental faculties; it is not true that our mental faculties are the only sources of our knowledge, nor even that, without the concurrence of certain objects, they could give us any knowledge at all. it is true that there must be a connection between the subjective and the objective; it is not true that this connection must be established by _reasoning_, or that we must _prove_ the existence of an external world distinct from the thinking mind, before we are entitled to believe in it. for a great part of our knowledge is _presentative_, and we directly perceive the objects of nature not less than the phenomena of consciousness. when it is said, in the jargon of the modern german philosophy, that "the ego has no immediate consciousness of the non-ego as existing, but that the non-ego is only represented to us in a modification of the self-conscious ego, and is, in fact, only a phenomenon of the ego,"--a plain, practical englishman, little tolerant of these subtle distinctions, might be ready, if not deterred by the mere sound of the words, to test them by a particular example. what am i to think, he might say, of my own father and mother? they are familiarly known to me. i have seen them, and talked with, them, and loved them as my own soul. i have hitherto believed that they existed, and that they were really a father and mother to me. but now i am taught that they are--mere modifications of my own mind; that they are nothing more than simple phenomena of the self-conscious ego; and that, so far from being the earthly authors of my existence, they are themselves--the creation and offspring of my own thought. and on what ground am i asked to receive this astonishing discovery? why, simply because i can be sure of nothing but the facts of consciousness. but how are _these facts proved_? they "need no proof; they are self-evident; they are immediately and irresistibly believed." be it so. i can just as little doubt of the existence of my body, of the distinct personality of my parents, and the reality of an external universe, as of any fact of consciousness. may it not be, whether we can explain it or not, that the one set of facts is as directly _presented_, and needs as little to be _proved_, as the other? 2. the doctrine of "identity" constitutes a prominent and indispensable part of the theory of idealism, and is the ground-principle of philosophical pantheism. it amounts, in substance, to the proposition, that existence and thought are _one_, that the "subject" and "object" of knowledge are _one_. "if the doctrine of identity means anything, it means that thought and being are essentially one; that the process of _thinking_ is virtually the same as the process of _creating_; that in constructing the universe by logical deduction, we do virtually the same thing as deity accomplishes in developing himself in all the forms and regions of creation; that every man's reason, therefore, is really god; in fine, that deity is the whole sum of consciousness immanent in the world."[137] it is through the medium of this doctrine of identity that idealism passes into pantheism,--not, indeed, the idealism of berkeley, which recognized, consistently or otherwise, the existence of the human mind and of the divine spirit, while it denied the independent existence of matter,--but the idealism of fichte and others, which resolved mind into a mere process of thought, a continuous stream or succession of ideas. to _such_ a theory the doctrine of identity was indispensable. its advocates were bound to show that nothing existed, or could be proved to exist, in the universe but _thought_, and that, in every case, the _subject_ and _object_ of thought might be identified as one. we find, accordingly, that from the earliest ages down to the present time, the idea of "absolute unity," or "universal identity," has been frequently exhibited in connection with the speculations of philosophical idealists. the disciples of the eleatic school in ancient greece, not less than those of the modern schools of germany, insisted on the identity of thought and its object, and regarded everything that might seem to be external to the mind as a mere illusion. it may be difficult for the british mind, familiarized from infancy with the philosophy of common sense, to grasp the idea which this doctrine involves; but, on the principles of absolute idealism, it may be easily explained, and may even seem to have some foundation in facts that must be acknowledged by all. there are _two_ cases, particularly, which may serve to illustrate, if they cannot suffice to prove, it. the first is that of the supreme intelligence, conceived as existing before the production of a created universe, when he was himself the sole "subject" and the sole "object" of thought; in other words, the absolute "subject-object." the second is that of the human consciousness, conceived as occupied solely with certain subjective mental states, when the mind may be said to be at once the "subject" and the "object" of its own thought. there are cases, then, in which mind may be regarded as a "subject-object;" the case of human consciousness, when the mind takes cognizance of its own states or acts, and the case of the divine consciousness, while as yet the created universe had not been called into being. but the question is, whether, _in all cases_, the "subject" and "object" of thought are the same? or, whether existence and thought are _universally_ identical? an affirmative answer to this question would imply, that nothing whatever exists except only in the mind that perceives it; that, according to bishop berkeley, "the existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived" is an absurd or impossible supposition; that "their _esse_ is _percipi_," that is, that their being consists in their being perceived or known; whence it would follow, as berkeley himself admits, that we have no reason to believe in the continued existence of the desk at which we write, after we have left the room in which we see it, excepting such as may arise from the supposition, that if we returned to that room we might still see it, or that in our absence it may still be perceived by some other mind. existence is identified with thought, and nothing exists save only as it is thought of. why? simply because it can become known to us only through the medium of consciousness, and that, too, in no other character than as _a phenomenon of our own minds_. that this doctrine is at direct variance with the universal convictions of mankind, is too evident to require the slightest proof. that it is _unphilosophical_, as well as _unpopular_, may be made apparent by two very simple considerations. the _first_ is, that it assumes without proof the only point in question, namely, that the objects of our knowledge are nothing but the ideas of our own minds; whereas it is affirmed, on the other side, and surely with at least an equal amount of apparent reason, that we are so constituted as to have a direct perception of external objects as well as of internal mental states. the _second_ is, that the very formula of idealism, which represents the "non-ego" as a mere modification of the conscious "ego," seems to involve a palpable contradiction; since it recognizes, in a certain sense, _the difference between the "ego and the non-ego,"_ and yet, in the same breath, annihilates that difference, and proclaims their "identity."[138] fichte admits, indeed, that we have the idea of something which is _not-self_; but instead of ascribing it to an external object, he accounts for it by a law of our mental nature, which constrains us to _create a limit_, so as to give a determinate character to our thought. the three technical formulas, therefore, which are said[139] to express, respectively,--the affirmation of self,--the affirmation of not-self,--and the determination of the one by the other,--are all equally the products of our own mental laws, and do not necessarily require the supposition of any external object; and hence it follows that self is the one only absolute principle, and that everything else that is conceived of is constructed out of purely subjective materials. the question whether the "object" be the generative principle of the "idea," or _vice versâ_, is thus superseded; for there is no longer any distinction between "object" and "subject;" existence is identified with thought; the _ego_ and the _non-ego_ unite in one absolute existence; and self becomes the sole subject-object, the percipient and the perceived, the knowing and the known. of course, on this theory, there is no knowledge of god, just as there can be no knowledge of nature, and no knowledge of our fellow-men, as distinct objective realities; it is a system of pure idealism, which, if consistently followed out, must terminate in utter _skepticism_ in regard to many of the most familiar objects of human knowledge; or, rather, in the hands of a thoroughly consequent reasoner, it must issue, as jacobi endeavored to show, in absolute _nihilism_; since we can have no better reason for believing in the existence of self than we have for believing in the reality of an external world, and the coexistence of our fellow-men. each of these beliefs is equally the spontaneous product of certain mental laws, which are just as trustworthy, and need as little to be proved, in the one case as in the other. fichte seems to have become aware of this fundamental defect of his system; and, at a later period, he attempted to give it a firmer basis by representing _self_, not as individual, but as divine, that is, as the absolute manifesting itself in man. he now admitted what, if he had not denied, he had overlooked before, an essential reality as the substratum both of the _ego_ and _non-ego;_ a reality of which all things, whether within or without, are only so many "modes" or manifestations. and it is at this point that his subjective idealism passes into pantheism, and that we mark the close affinity between his speculations and those of spinoza. there is, in some respects, a wide difference between the two; spinoza assumed, fichte denied, the existence of matter; the former affirmed substance to be the absolute and infinite essence; the latter proclaimed a spiritual universe, whose essence was the infinite reason, or the divine idea: but still, with these and other points of difference, there existed a real, radical affinity between the two systems, that of fichte, not less than that of spinoza, being based on _the identity of existence and thought_; and both systems being directed to show that there is but one absolute being, of which all phenomena, whether material or mental, are only so many modes or manifestations. 3. the philosophy of "the absolute," as applied in support of german pantheism, depends on the doctrine of "identity," and must stand or fall along with it.[140] the "absolute" is described as being at once _ideal_ and _real_, pure _being_ and pure _thought_, and as developing itself in a great variety of forms. the philosophy of the "absolute" is represented as the _only science_, properly so called: it is assumed that there can be no science of the finite, the variable, the contingent, the relative, but only of the absolute, the unchangeable, and the infinite. to constitute _this_ science, the doctrine of "identity" is indispensable; the subject and the object of thought, knowledge and being, must be reduced to scientific unity. realism and idealism are thus blended together, or rather identified in the philosophy of the "absolute." the idea of the "absolute," in which _being_ and _thought_ are identical, is the only foundation of science, and the ultimate ground of all certitude. and pantheism is inferred from this idea; for the "absolute," in which _being_ and _thought_ are identified, is properly _the sole existence_, which develops and manifests itself in a great variety of finite forms. we are not disposed to treat the philosophy of the "absolute" either with levity or with scorn. we feel that it brings us into contact with some of the most profound and most deeply mysterious problems of human thought. finite as we are, we are so constituted that we cannot avoid framing the _idea_, although we can never attain to a _comprehension_, of the infinite. there are absolute truths, and necessary truths, among the elements of human knowledge. account for them as we may, their reality cannot be reasonably denied, nor their importance disparaged. there is a tendency--and a most useful one--in the human mind, to seek unity in all things, to trace effects to causes, to reduce phenomena to laws, to resolve the complex into the simple, and to rise from the contingent to the absolute, from the finite to the infinite. there are few more interesting inquiries in the department of psychology than that which seeks to investigate the nature, the origin, and the validity of those ideas which introduce us into the region of absolute, eternal, and immutable truth; and it were a lamentable result of the erratic speculations of germany did they serve to cast discredit on this inquiry, or even to excite a prejudice against it, in the more sober, but not less profound, minds of our own countrymen. but there need be little apprehension on this score, if it be clearly understood and carefully remembered, that the philosophy of the absolute, as taught in germany and applied in support of pantheism, rests ultimately on the theory of idealism and the doctrine of identity, by which all is resolved into one absolute "subject-object," and _existence_ is identified with _thought_. _this_ system may be discarded, and yet there may still remain a sound, wholesome, and innocuous philosophy of the "absolute;" a philosophy which does not seek to identify things so generically different as _existence_ and _thought_, or to reduce mind and matter, the finite and the infinite, to the same category; but which, recognizing the differences subsisting between the various objects of thought, seeks merely to investigate the nature and sources of that part of human knowledge which relates to absolute or necessary truths. the former of these rival systems may be favorable to pantheism, the latter will be found to be in entire accordance with christian theism. the fundamental principle of philosophical pantheism is either _the unity of substance_, as taught by spinoza, or _the identity of existence and thought_, as taught, with some important variations, by fichte, schelling, and hegel. the absolute is conceived of, not as a living being to whom a proper personality and certain intelligible attributes may be ascribed, but as a vague, indeterminate _somewhat_, which has no distinctive character, and of which, in the first instance, or prior to its development, almost nothing can be either affirmed or denied. but this absolute existence, by some unknown, inherent necessity, develops, determines, and limits itself: it becomes being, and constitutes all being: the infinite passes into the finite, the absolute into the relative, the necessary into the contingent, the one into the many; all other existences are only so many modes or forms of its manifestation. here is a theory which, to say the very least, is neither more intelligible, nor less mysterious, than any article of the christian faith. and what are the proofs to which it appeals, what the principles on which it rests? its two fundamental positions are these; that finite things have no distinct existence as realities in nature, and that there exists only one absolute being, manifesting itself in a variety of forms. and how are they demonstrated? simply by the affirmation of universal "identity." but what if this affirmation be denied? what if, founding on the clearest data of consciousness, we refuse to acknowledge that _existence_ is identical with _thought_?[141] what if we continue to believe that there are objects of thought which are distinct from thought itself, and which must be _presented_ to the mind before they can be _represented_ by the mind? what if, while we recognize the idea both of the finite and the infinite, the relative and the absolute, the contingent and the necessary, we cannot, by the utmost effort of our reason, obliterate the difference between them, so as to reduce them to one absolute essence? then the whole superstructure of pantheism falls along with the idealism on which it depends; and it is found to be, not a solid and enduring system of truth, but a frail edifice, ingeniously constructed out of the mere abstractions of the human mind. the advocates of this system assume that the relations which subsist between _beings_ are the same as the relations which subsist between our _ideas_, and infer that _logic_ is sufficient to construct a system of _metaphysic_. but professor nicolas has well said, that "while it is certain we cannot know things but by the notions which we have of them, and a certain parallelism may thus be established between _what exists_ and _what we think_ of that which exists, yet from this to the _identity of being and thought_, such as pantheism requires, there is a vast distance, and we have no ground for believing that the _logical relations_ of our ideas are identical with the _real relations_ of beings. speculative pantheism is wholly built on this assumption. it describes the relations of being according to the logical relations of our thought; and it takes _logic_ for a kind of _metaphysic_. it confounds the laws of thought with the laws of being. it seeks to solve the question, what is the first being, and what are its relations to other beings? that being must necessarily be the condition of all other beings, and must virtually contain them all; nay, it must be capable of becoming all things. it must therefore be simple, indeterminate, indifferent, possessing no essential character, resembling nothing that we actually know. all this is true of our _ideas_, but not of _beings_. the highest idea,--that which is the logical condition of all others, and also the most general, the most abstract, the most indeterminate,--this idea contains all others, and by receiving this or that determination, it becomes this or that particular idea. but what is true of the _idea_ is not true of the _being_; no such vague, indeterminate, indifferent being exists; and yet pantheism confounds _the idea_ with _the being_, and rests entirely on that confusion of thought." * * * * * in bringing our review of modern pantheism to a close, we may offer a few remarks illustrative of its _nature and tendency_, whether considered as a system of speculative thought, or as a substitute for religious belief. in this view, it is important to observe, first of all, that the theory of "idealism," and the doctrine of "identity," which constitute the groundwork of the more spiritual form of pantheism, are not more adverse to our belief in the existence and personality of god, than they are to our belief in the reality of an external world, or in the existence and personality of man himself. they stand equally related to each of these _three_ topics; and, if they be accepted at all, they must be impartially applied, and consistently carried out into all their legitimate consequences, as the only philosophical solution of the whole question of ontology. perhaps this is not understood; certainly it has not been duly considered by the more superficial _litterateurs_, who have been slightly tinctured with pantheism; but it will be acknowledged at once by every consistent idealist, who understands his own philosophy, and who is honest or bold enough to carry it out into all its practical applications. he knows very well, and, if sufficiently candid, he will frankly confess, that the principles on which he founds, if they be conclusive against the existence of a living, personal god, are equally conclusive against the reality of an external world, and against the doctrine of our own personality or that of our fellow-men. with most minds, this consideration would be of itself a powerful counteractive to all that is most dangerous in the theory of idealism, were it only clearly apprehended and steadily kept in view; for an argument which proves too much is justly held to prove nothing, and that theory which leaves us no right to believe in the existence of nature, or in the distinct personality of our fellow-men, can scarcely be held sufficient to disprove the existence of god. it may be observed, further, that ideal pantheism has a strong tendency to engender a spirit either of mysticism, on the one hand, or of skepticism on the other. it terminates in mysticism when, seeking to avoid skepticism, it takes refuge in the doctrine of an "intellectual intuition," such as gives an immediate knowledge of the absolute: and it terminates in skepticism when, seeking to avoid mysticism, it rejects the doctrine of "intellectual intuition," and discovers that it has no other and no higher claims to our confidence than such as are equally possessed by any one of our common faculties, whose testimony the idealist has been taught to distrust and doubt. it is further worthy of remark, that the philosophy of the absolute, as taught in the german schools, has been applied to the whole circle of the sciences, not less than to theology, and that it has given birth to numerous speculative systems, in physics, in chemistry, in ethics, in history, and in politics, all strongly marked by the same characteristic feature--the substitution of _à priori and deductive_ speculation for the more sober and legitimate method of inductive inquiry. the province of natural science, in which, if anywhere, we should be guided by the light of experience and observation, has been rudely invaded by this transcendental philosophy, which offers to construct a theory of universal knowledge on the basis of a certain self-development of the absolute. we are indebted to mr. morell for a specimen,[142] alike amusing and instructive, of schelling's speculations on this subject. we shall not attempt to interpret its meaning, for, in sooth, we do not pretend to understand it: but one thing is clear, the laws of matter, of dynamics, of organic structure and life, the laws of knowledge, of action, and of art, are all exhibited as mere deductions or corollaries from the "idea of the absolute;" and in the name of natural science, not less than on behalf of theology, we protest against this vicious method of philosophy, and do most earnestly deprecate the substitution of fichte, schelling, and hegel, in the place of our own bacon, and boyle, and newton, as models of scientific thought. the _practical influence_ of pantheism, in so far as its peculiar tendencies are not restrained or counteracted by more salutary beliefs, must be deeply injurious, both to the individual and social welfare of mankind. in its ideal or spiritual form it may be seductive to some ardent, imaginative minds; but it is a wretched creed notwithstanding; and it will be found, when calmly examined, to be fraught with the most serious evils. it has been commended, indeed, in glowing terms, as a creed alike beautiful and beneficent,--as a source of religious life nobler and purer than any that can ever spring from the more gloomy system of theism: for, on the theory of pantheism, god is manifest to all, everywhere, and at all times; nature, too, is aggrandized and glorified, and everything in nature is invested with a new dignity and interest; above all, man is conclusively freed from all fantastic hopes and superstitious fears, so that his mind can now repose, with tranquil satisfaction, on the bosom of the absolute, unmoved by the vicissitudes of life, and unscared even by the prospect of death. for what is death? the dissolution of any living organism is but one stage in the process of its further development; and whether it passes into a new form of self-conscious life, or is reabsorbed into the infinite, it still forms an indestructible element in the vast sum of being. we may, therefore, or, rather, we must, leave our future state to be determined by nature's inexorable laws, and we need, at least, fear no being higher than nature, to whose justice we are amenable, or whose frown we should dread.[143] but, even as it is thus exhibited by some of its warmest partisans, it appears to us, we own, to be a dreary and cheerless creed, when compared with that faith which teaches us to regard god as our "father in heaven," and that "hope which is full of immortality." it is worse, however, than dreary; it is destructive of all religion and of all morality. if it be an avowed antagonist to christianity, it is not less hostile to natural theology and to ethical science. it consecrates error and vice, as being, equally with truth and virtue, necessary and beneficial manifestations of the "infinite." it is a system of syncretism, founded on the idea that error is only an incomplete truth, and maintaining that truth must necessarily be developed by error, and virtue by vice. according to this fundamental law of "human progress," atheism itself may be providential; and the axiom of a fatalistic optimism--"whatever is, is best"--must be admitted equally in regard to truth and error, to virtue and vice. it may be further observed, that modern pantheism, whether in its material or ideal form, is nothing else than the revival of some of the earliest and most inveterate principles of paganism,--the same paganism which still flourishes among the "theosophic" dreamers of india, and which exhibits its practical fruits in the horrors of hindoo superstition. for pantheism, although repeatedly revived and exhibited in new forms, has made no real progress since the time when it was first taught in the vedanta system, and sublimed in the schools of alexandria. christianity, which encountered and triumphed over it in her youth, can have nothing to fear from it in her mature age,[144] provided only that she be faithful to herself, and spurn every offered compromise. but there must be no truce, and no attempt at conciliation between the two. the pantheists of germany have made the most impudent claims to the virtual sanction of christianity; they have even dared to make use of bible terms in a new sense, and have spoken of revelation, inspiration, incarnation, redemption, atonement, and regeneration, in such a way as to adapt them to the pantheistic hypothesis. common honesty is outraged, and the conscience of universal humanity offended, by the conduct of individuals--some of them wearing the robes of the holy ministry--who have substituted the dreams of pantheism for the doctrines of jesus christ, and assailed, both from the pulpit and the press, the sacred cause which they had solemnly vowed to maintain. but even in germany itself a powerful reaction has commenced; and the learning and labors of such men as olshausen, and tholuck, and hengstenberg, may be hailed as the dawn of a better and brighter day. it may be observed, _finally_, that pantheism stands directly opposed to christian theism in several distinct respects. the following are the principal points of collision between the two: 1. pantheism denies,--christian theism affirms, the existence of a _living, personal god_, distinct from nature, and superior to it. 2. pantheism supersedes,--christian theism reveals, the doctrine of a real creation. 3. pantheism contests,--christian theism confirms, the doctrine of the constant providence and moral government of god. 4. pantheism disowns,--christian theism declares, the doctrine of _a conscious, personal immortality_. 5. pantheism rejects,--christian theism receives, the whole scheme of revelation, considered as a supernatural code of divine truth. the one accounts for its origin on the principle of natural development, the other on that of supernatural interposition. 6. pantheism has no living, self-conscious, personal god, no loving father, no watchful providence, no hearer of prayer, no object of confiding trust, no redeemer, no sanctifier, no comforter: it leaves us with nothing higher than nature as our portion here, and nothing beyond its eternal vicissitudes as our prospect hereafter. footnotes: [103] amand saintes, "histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de spinoza, fondateur de l'exegése et de la philosophie modernes." [104] m. cousin, "cours de l'histoire de la philosophie," i. 403. see also "fragmens philosophiques," preface, second edition, p. xxvii.; "nouveaux fragments," pp. 9, 160. [105] m. ad. franck, "de la certitude," preface, p. xxi. [106] m. a. javari, "de la certitude," p. 509. [107] amand saintes, "histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de spinoza," pp. 208, 210. [108] abbé maret, "essai sur le panthéisme dans les sociétés modernes," pp. 6, 11, 31. ibid., "theodicée chretiénne," pp. 437, 444, 449. [109] mr. morell's "historical and critical view," ii. 104, 153. [110] pierre leroux, "de l'humanité," i. vi. 3, 295. [111] l. d. crousse, "des principes, ou philosophie première," 2d edition, paris, 1846. [112] abbé maret, "theodicée chretienne," p. 94. [113] abbé goschler, sur "l'histoire du pantheisme." abbé maret, "essai," chap. iv. [114] pierre leroux, "de l'humanité," i. 249. m. crousse, "des principes," pp. 199, 211, 296. bayle, "pensées," iii. 67. the well-known lines of the sixth æneid, "principio coelum, ac terras, camposque liquentes," &c. are thus applied. [115] abbé maret, "essai," pp. 152, 156, 221. [116] dr. merle d'aubigné, "history of reformation," v. 84. [117] abbé maret, "essai," p. 89; "theodicée," p. 368. [118] fred. von schlegel, "philosophy of life," p. 417. see, also, dr. tholuck's remarks on the same point in the "princeton theological essays," i. 555. [119] musæus, "tractatus theologico-politicus ad veritatis lumen examinatus," 1674. regneri a mansvelt, "adversus anonymum theologico-politicum, liber singularis," 1674. francois cuyper, "arcana atheismi revelata," 1676. john bredenbourg, "enervatio tractatus theol.-polit." christ. wittichii, "anti-spinoza, sive examen," 1690. pierre poiret, "fundamenta atheismi eversa, sive specimen absurditatis spinozianæ." fenelon, "de l'existence de dieu," p. ii., c. iii., "refutation du spinozisme." huet, "la conformité de la raison avec la foi," 1692. howe, "living temple," i. 262. s. clarke, "discourse on the being and attributes of god," pp. 25, 44, 58, 80. [120] jean colerus, "vie de spinoza," reprinted by saisset, p. 4. [121] spinoza, "ethica," definitions iii., iv., v. [122] "il construit le systéme entiere des êtres avec ces trois seuls elements; la substance, l'attribut, et le mode."--"voila l'idée mere de la metaphysique de spinoza."--saisset. [123] saisset, "introduction," p. xxxix. [124] spinoza, "de intellectus emendatione." this treatise contains the exposition of his method. [125] m. f. perron, "essai d'une nouvelle theorie sur les idées fondamentales," 1843. [126] "ici, a prendre les mots dans le sens ordinaire, il semble qu'il soit demontré qui _la creation est impossible_, principe justement cher au pantheisme; tandis qu'au fond, tout ce qui est demontré, c'est que _l'etre en soi est necessairement incréé_,--verité incontestable, dont _le pantheisme n'a rien a tirer_."--prof. saisset, introduction, p. xlii. [127] m. l'abbé de condillac, "traité des sensations," 2 vols. [128] the hon. robert boyle, "theological works," ii. 79.--"a free inquiry into the received notion of nature." [129] "systême de la nature," ii. 75, 110, 115. [130] "tout est toujours dans l'ordre rélativement à la nature, où tous les êtres ne font que suivre les loix qui leur sont imposées. il est entré _dans son plans_ que de certaines terres produiroient des fruits delicieux, tandis que d'autres ne fourniroient que des épines, des vegetaux dangereux. _elle a volu_ que quelques societés produise des sages," &c.--vol. i. 265, also 267. [131] "systême de la nature," ii. 102. [132] m. crousse, "des principes," paris, 1846, pp. 81, 93: "pour qui sait voir, le monde sent, se ment, parle, et pense." [133] "the purpose of existence," pp. 85, 89. london, 1850. [134] "letters on the laws of man's nature and development." by h. g. atkinson and harriet martineau. london, 1852. [135] mr. morell, "history of philosophy," ii. 71. [136] sir wm. hamilton's edition of dr. reid's "works," p. 129. [137] mr. morell, "history of philosophy," ii. 127. m. maret, "essai sur le pantheisme," pp. 129, 133, 143, 192, 276. ibid., "theodicée," pp. 5, 123, 192, 199. [138] sir william hamilton's edition of reid's "works," p. 281. sir william does not seem to admit that there is a contradiction such as i have noted. [139] 1. "the _ego_ or _moi_ affirms _itself_." 2. "the _ego_ or _moi_ affirms a _non-ego_ or _non-moi_." 3. "the _ego_ or _moi_ affirms itself to be determined by the _non-ego_ or _non-moi_." [140] m. maret, "essai," pp. 129, 142, 146, 175, 192, 225, 276. ibid., "theodicée," pp. 193, 366, 378, 386, 394. mr. morell, "history," ii. 127, 138. [141] professor nicolas, "quelques considerations sur le pantheisme," pp. 20-31. [142] mr. morell, "history of philosophy," ii. 129. [143] m. crousse, "des principes." m. maret, "essal," pp. 69, 86, 150; "theodicée" pp. 311, 314. valroger, "etudes critiques," pp. 97, 101, 115, 151, 412. [144] m. maret, "essai sur pantheisme," p. 107. "le christianisme saura vaincre dans son âge mûr l'ennemi qu'il a terrassé en naissant." chapter iv. theories of materialism. the doctrine of materialism stands equally related to the "mechanical" form of atheism, and to the "hylozoic" form of pantheism. it is subsumed in both, and is the fundamental postulate on which they respectively depend. it has no natural affinity with the more "ideal" or "spiritual" form of pantheism. we must not conclude, however, that it has no historical connection with it. for it is instructive to mark, in tracing the history of philosophic speculation, that its course resembles not so much the uniform current of a stream, as the alternate flowing and ebbing of the tide; or, if we may change the figure, that its movement may be likened to the oscillation of a pendulum, which no sooner reaches its highest elevation on the one side, than it acquires a tendency to rush to the opposite extreme on the other. there can be little doubt that the recent revival of speculative "idealism" was the result, at least in part, of a strong reaction against the "sensational" philosophy, which had degenerated in the school of priestley at home, and in that of condillac abroad, into a system of gross and revolting materialism. for the same reason, we may now, i think, anticipate a speedy reaction the other way,--a reaction against the extravagances of "idealistic" and "transcendental" speculation, and a tendency towards a more practical and matter-of-fact philosophy. this tendency, if guided by the true spirit of the baconian method, may give a powerful impulse to inductive science in all its departments; but, if biased by partial and one-sided views, may issue either in the temporary ascendancy of the positive school, or the partial revival of some other form of materialism. some such tendency might have been expected to arise as soon as idealism should have reached its culminating point. for, on a comprehensive view of the whole history of speculative thought, we find that there are just _four_ great systems of metaphysics, which are perpetually recurring, as it were, in cycles. the first is the system of dualism,--not the dualism of christian theology, which speaks of god and nature, the creator and the creature,--but the dualism of ancient paganism, which held matter and spirit to be equally uncreated and eternal: the second is materialism, which resolves all into matter and its laws: the third is idealism, which resolves all into mind and its modifications: and the fourth is pantheism, which identifies existence with thought, and resolves all into the absolute.[145] in the present age, idealism is in the ascendant, and has risen to the height of pantheism; but, by a natural reaction, many are beginning to desiderate a more substantial and practical philosophy, while the rapid progress of physical science is directing their thoughts more and more to the wonders of the material world. in these circumstances, there may be a tendency to relapse into the materialism of the last century, which attempted to explain the whole theory of the universe by the laws of _matter_ and _motion_; or at least to embrace some modification of the positive philosophy, which excludes all _causes_, whether efficient or final, from the field of human knowledge, and confines our inquiries to the mere phenomena and laws of material nature. there are not wanting various significant indications of the existence of this tendency at the present day. it is sufficiently indicated, in some quarters, by the mere omission of all reference to mind or spirit as distinct from matter; and, in others, by elaborate attempts to explain all the phenomena of life and thought by means of physical agencies and organic laws. the writings of comte, crousse, cabanis, and broussais,[146] afford ample evidence of its growing prevalence in france; and although it has been said by a recent historian of philosophy that in england there has been no formal avowal, or at least no recognized school, of materialism, since the publication of dr. thomas brown's reply to darwin's zoönomia, yet there is too much reason to believe that it was all along cherished by not a few private thinkers, who had imbibed the spirit of hobbes and priestley; and now it is beginning to speak out, in terms too unambiguous to be misunderstood, in such works as "the purpose of existence" and the "letters" of atkinson and martineau. but apart from the opinions of individual inquirers, it must be remembered that there is a tendency in certain studies, when exclusively pursued, to generate a frame of mind which will tempt men either to adopt the theory of materialism, or at least to attach undue importance to physical agencies and organic laws. this tendency may be observed in the study of physiology, especially when it is combined with that of phrenology and animal magnetism; not that there is any necessary or strictly logical connection between these studies and materialism, for some of their ablest expounders, including cabanis, gall, and spurzheim, have explicitly disavowed that theory; but simply that, in prosecuting such inquiries, the mind is insensibly led to bestow an undue, if not exclusive, attention on the phenomena and laws of our material organization, so as to become comparatively unmindful of what is mental, moral, and spiritual in the constitution of man. for these reasons, and considering, especially, the close connection of materialism both with the mechanical atheism of the past, and the hylozoic pantheism of the present age, we deem it necessary to subject its claims to a rigorous scrutiny, in connection with the subject of our present inquiry. what, then, is the doctrine of materialism? what are the forms in which it has appeared, and what the ground on which it rests? how does it stand related to the question concerning the nature and existence of god, or the constitution and destiny of man? a brief answer to these questions will be sufficient to show that this theory cannot be safely disregarded in any attempt to construct a comprehensive and conclusive argument on the first principles of natural theology. section i. distinct forms of materialism. the doctrine of materialism has assumed several distinct phases or forms in the hands of its different advocates; and these must be carefully discriminated from each other, if we would either estimate aright their respective merits, or do justice to the parties by whom they have been severally maintained. the grossest and most revolting form of materialism is that which _identifies mind with matter_, and _thought with motion_. it denies that there is any real or radical difference between physical and moral phenomena, and affirms that life and thought are so entirely dependent on material organization, that the dissolution of the body must necessarily be the destruction of conscious existence, and that death can only be an eternal sleep. this is the doctrine of materialism which was taught in a former age, by the author of the "systême de la nature," and which has recently been revived by m. comte in france, and by atkinson and martineau in england. a few extracts will sufficiently illustrate its character and tendency. "men have evidently abused the distinction," says baron d'holbach, "which is so often made between _man physical_ and _man moral_: man moral is nothing else than that physical being considered in a certain point of view, that is, with reference to some modes of action which belong to his peculiar organization."--"the universe--that vast assemblage of everything that exists--exhibits nowhere anything else than _matter and motion_."--"if we are asked, what is man? we reply, that he is a material being, organized or framed so as to feel, to think, and to be affected in certain ways peculiar to himself, according to his organization."[147] more recently, m. comte has affirmed that "the subject of all our researches is _one_," and that "all natural phenomena are the necessary results either of the laws of extension or of the laws of motion;" while m. crousse is quite clear that "intelligence is a property or effect of matter," and that "body and spirit together constitute matter." in our own country, atkinson and martineau have not shrunk from the avowal of the same doctrine, or the adoption of the most revolting consequences that can be deduced from it. "instinct, passion, thought, are effects of organized substances."--"mind is the consequence or product of the material man; it is not a thing having a seat or home in the brain, but it is the manifestation or expression of _the brain in action,_ as heat and light are of fire, and fragrance of the flower."[148] the doctrine of materialism, as formerly taught by dr. priestley and his followers, is in some respects similar to that which we have just noticed, but in other respects differs from it, if not in its essential nature, at least in its collateral adjuncts and its practical applications. it resembles the theory of d'holbach and comte, in so far as it affirms the doctrine of _unisubstancisme_, and rejects the idea of a _dualism_ such as is implied in the common doctrine of matter and spirit. but it differs from that theory, inasmuch as it is combined, whether consistently or otherwise, with the recognition of a personal god, a resurrection from the dead, and a future state of reward and punishment. dr. priestley seems to have fluctuated for a time between two opposite extremes,--that of _spiritualizing_ matter, and that of _materializing_ mind; for, in a very remarkable passage, we find him saying, "this scheme of _the immateriality of matter_, as it may be called, or rather, _the mutual penetration of matter_, first occurred to my friend mr. mitchell on reading 'baxter on the immateriality of the soul.'"[149] but at length he settled down in the fixed belief of materialism, as he had always held the principle of _unisubstancisme_. he held throughout that "man does not consist of two principles so essentially different from each other as matter and spirit, but the whole man is of _one uniform composition_; and that either the material or the immaterial part of the universal system is superfluous."[150] he attempts, therefore, to show, that sensation, perception, and thought,--the common properties of _mind_,--are not incompatible with extension, attraction, and repulsion, which he conceives to be the only essential properties of _matter;_ that both classes of properties may possibly belong to the same subject; and that hence no second substance is necessary to account for and explain any of the phenomena of human nature. in this respect, his theory is precisely the same with that which has been already noticed; but the peculiarity by which it is distinguished from the atheistic and antichristian speculations of d'holbach and comte is twofold. in the _first_ place, while he ascribes to mere matter the power of sensation, thought, and volition, he admits that these powers, and all others belonging to matter, were communicated to it at the first, and are still continued, by the divine will, thus recognizing the doctrine both of creation and providence; and in the _second_ place, while he denies the natural immortality of the soul, and even the possibility of its conscious existence in a state of separation from the body, he does not deny the immortality of man, but receives it, as well as the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, on the authority of that divine revelation which speaks of "the resurrection of the dead," and of "a judgment to come." in these respects, his theory is widely different from that of the "systême de la nature," while the two are substantially the same in so far as they relate simply to the constitution of human nature. he is not an atheist, but a theist, and a theist, too, who, believing in revelation, admits the immortality of man, and a future state of retribution. but it must be evident that as in these respects he founds entirely on the authority of scripture, so he may be confronted with the same authority when he denies the spirituality of the soul; and in that case the question would resolve itself into one of biblical exegesis, and would fall to be decided, not by metaphysical reasoning, but by scriptural proofs. another variety of the theory is presented by dr. good in his "life of lucretius." it agrees with the doctrine of priestley in representing the soul as material; but differs from it in holding the possible existence of the soul in a separate state, during the interval between the dissolution and resurrection of the body. it speaks of the body as being composed of gross material particles; and of the soul as consisting of more subtle, refined, and ethereal matter. this modification of the theory may be illustrated by the following extract: "perception, consciousness, cognition, we continue to be told, are qualities which cannot appertain to matter; there must hence be a thinking and an immaterial principle; and man must still be a compound being. yet, why thus degrade matter, the plastic and prolific creature of the deity, beyond what we are authorized to do? why may it not perceive, why not think, why not become conscious? what eternal and necessary impediment prevents? or what self-contradiction and absurdity is hereby implied? let us examine nature as she presents herself to us in her most simple and inorganized forms; let us trace her through her gradual and ascending stages of power and perfection. in its simplest form, matter evinces the desire of reciprocal union, or, as it is commonly called, the attraction of gravitation. increase its mass, arrange it in other modifications, and it immediately evinces other powers or attractions; and these will be perpetually, and almost infinitely, varied, in proportion as we vary its combinations. if arranged, therefore, in one mode, it discloses the power of magnetism; in another, that of electricity or galvanism; in a third, that of chemical affinities; in a fourth, that of mineral assimilations. pursue its modifications into classes of a more complex, or rather, perhaps, of a more gaseous or attenuate nature, and it will evince the power of vegetable or fibrous irritability: ascend through the classes of vegetables, and you will at length reach the strong stimulative perfection, the palpable vitality of the _mimosa pudica_, or the _hedysarum gyrans,_ the former of which shrinks from the touch with the most bashful coyness, while the latter perpetually dances beneath the jocund rays of the sun. and when we have thus attained the summit of vegetable powers and vegetable life, it will require, i think, no great stretch of the imagination to conceive that the fibrous irritability of animals, as well as vegetables, is the mere result of a peculiar arrangement of simple and unirritable material atoms."--"hence, then, animal sensation, and hence, necessarily and consequently, ideas, and a material soul or spirit, rude and confined, indeed, in its first and simplest mode of existence, but, like every other production of nature, beautifully and progressively advancing from power to power, from faculty to faculty, from excellence to excellence, till at length it terminate in the perfection of the human mind."[151] according to this theory, the mind is supposed to have a real existence, as a substance distinct from the grosser forms of matter, and capable even of surviving its separation from them. it is supposed to be "a combination of the most volatile auras or gases, diffused over the whole body, though traced in a more concentrate form in some organs than in others;" and it is described as "the very texture of that separate state of existence which the infallible page of revelation clearly indicates will be ours." a form of the theory very nearly resembling this has been recently reproduced. it consists in representing the mind or spirit of man, not as a mere fleeting phenomenon of the brain, or an evanescent effect of its organization, but as a distinct substantive product, generated, indeed, from matter, and partaking, therefore, of its nature, but so exquisitely subtle and ethereal that it has no resemblance to the grosser materials of the body, and admits only of being compared with the dynamides--the imponderable elements and forces of nature. this "spirit" is generated in man by his peculiar organization, and especially by the action of the brain; it is capable of surviving the dissolution of the body, of retaining its individual consciousness after death, of passing into new spheres of being, and of rising from lower to higher states, according to a law of eternal progression. such is the theory of davis, the "poughkeepsie seer;" and such also, with some variations, is that of the author of "the purpose of existence." "matter and spirit," says davis, "have heretofore been supposed to constitute two distinct and independent substances, the latter not having any material origin." ... "instead of making material and spiritual existence totally disconnected, the object and intention of the foregoing has been to prove, by acknowledged laws and principles of matter, _the production of intelligence,_ the perfection of which is _spirit_;" to show that "the organizer uses nature and all things therein as an effect, to produce _spirit_ as an end and designed ultimate." the author of "the purpose of existence" adopts a similar view. he tells us, indeed, that "the first simple forms or states of existence are admitted to be _two_, spirit and matter,--the first the moving power, the second the moved substance;" that of the positive essence of either we can arrive at no knowledge; and that "whether spirit be a refined, etherealized portion of matter, or a distinct dynamic principle, we cannot ascertain." and yet, one of the leading objects of his work is to account for "the origin and development of the human mind;" and this he does by ascribing it to "a self-dynamic spirit which is resident in matter," and which he denominates "the spirit of vitality." the spirit exists in vegetables, and is extracted by means of the organs of the animals which feed upon them, and then, "by a delicate work of distillation, it is converted into _spirit_!"--"nature proclaims one of her great working principles to be, that _spirit is evolved out of matter, and outlives the body in which it is educated_."--"matter is full of spirit. this spirit is brought out of matter by vegetation. by means of vegetation, it is conveyed into animal frames, in which its purest essence centres in the brain.... this is no idle theory," he adds, "no vain hypothesis, for making matter think. it is a clear proposition, showing how matter is employed by the supreme intelligence for evolving, training, and educating spirit."--"we conclude that progression is the great law of the universe, the purpose for which its present arrangement was ordained; and that the object of this progression is _the evolvement of mind out of matter._" this is a new and very singular phase of materialism. it is widely different from the doctrine which was taught by the infidel writers of the last century. they had recourse to the theory of materialism chiefly with the view of excluding a world of spirits, and of undermining the doctrine of a future state: here it is applied to prove the constant development and indestructible existence of minds generated from matter, but destined to survive the dissolution of the body; nay, every particle of matter in the universe is supposed to be advancing, in one magnificent progression, towards the spiritual state. the danger now is, not that religion may be undermined by materialism, but that it may be supplanted by a fond and foolish superstition, in which the facts of mesmerism and the fictions of clairvoyance are blended into one ghostly system, fitted to exert a powerful but pernicious influence on over-credulous minds.[152] on a review of the various forms which the theory of materialism has assumed, it must be evident that we should be doing great injustice to their respective advocates, did we place them all on the same level in relation to theology, or pronounce upon them one indiscriminate censure. in the hands of d'holbach and comte, it was associated with the avowal of atheism, and the denial of a future state: in the hands of priestley, it was associated with the recognition of a god, and the christian doctrine of a resurrection: in the hands of dr. good, it was combined with the principles of theism, and even with the revealed doctrine of the separate existence of the soul during the interval between death and the resurrection: and in the hands of davis and the author of the "purpose of existence," it is exhibited in connection with a theory of progression, widely different, indeed, from the doctrine of scripture, but equally different from the infidel speculations of the last century. still, with all these shades of difference, there is _that common to all_ the forms in which it can be presented which shows that they are radically one and the same: _they all deny the existence of any generic difference between matter and mind_. confining our attention to this common element, and omitting the consideration of minor diversities, we may now inquire into the grounds on which the theory rests, and the most plausible reasons which have been urged in support of it. to some minds it has been recommended by its _apparent simplicity_. it speaks only of _one_ substance as existing in nature under various modifications. it represents the universe, so far as created being is concerned, as entirely composed of _matter_, more or less refined; and thus excludes the complication which must necessarily arise from the supposition of two substances, generically different, yet intimately and indissolubly related. the principle, therefore, which prompts us to seek unity in diversity, and to reduce, by some comprehensive generalization, a multitude of phenomena under one general law, has led some to adopt the theory of _unisubstancisme_ in preference to the opposite doctrine of _dualism_. not content with the generalization, alike safe and legitimate, which ranks both mind and matter under the generic head of _substance_, they have sought to reduce them to the same category, and to give to matter a monopoly of the universe, at least of created being. in support of their views, they remind us of the fundamental principle of philosophy as laid down by sir isaac newton, that "we are to admit no more causes of things than are sufficient to explain appearances."[153] the principle is a sound one; and the only question is, whether matter alone is sufficient to account for mental phenomena? on _this_ question the two parties are at irreconcilable variance; and the controversy cannot be determined, _brevi manû_, by the mere assumption of the simplicity and uniform composition of everything in nature; it can be settled only by an appeal to the facts as they are known to exist. it is the aim of science, undoubtedly, to reduce all compound substances to the smallest possible number of constituent elements, and all complex phenomena to the smallest possible number of general laws. but we feel that, desirable as this simplification may be, we are not warranted in identifying light with heat, or even electricity with magnetism, however closely connected with each other, simply because there are certain observed differences between them, which could not be explained, in the present state of our knowledge, consistently with any such theory of their absolute identity: and so, there are such manifest differences between mental and material phenomena, that we cannot yield to the temptation of ascribing them to one cause or origin, until it has been satisfactorily proved that the same cause is sufficient to account for appearances so diverse. it should be considered, too, in connection with this pretence of greater simplicity, that even if we could succeed in getting rid of the _dualism_ of mind and matter in the constitution of man, we never can get rid of it with reference to the universe at large, otherwise than by denying _the spirituality of god himself_: for the grand, the indestructible, the eternal _dualism_ would still remain,--the distinction between god and his works,--between the creator and the universe which he has called into being,--between the finite, contingent, and transitory, and the infinite, necessary, and eternal. and this is a distinction that cannot be obliterated, although it may be obscured, by the speculations of pantheism. another reason which has induced some to adopt, or at least to regard with favor, the theory of materialism, is--the difficulty of conceiving of the union of two substances so incongruous as mind and matter are supposed to be,--and still more the difficulty of explaining how they could have any mutual action on each other. dr. priestley largely insists on this, as well as on the former reason, as one of the main inducements which led him to abandon the commonly-received doctrine. "many doubts occurred to me," he says, "on the subject of _the intimate union of two substances so entirely heterogeneous_ as the soul and body were represented to be." and he was led to conclude, that "man does not consist of two principles so essentially different from one another as matter and spirit, which are always described as having _no one common property_ by means of which they can affect or act upon each other." in the "systême de la nature," the same argument is often urged. it is boldly and repeatedly affirmed that "an immaterial cause cannot produce motion;" and this is applied equally to the soul and to god. "how can we form an idea of a substance destitute of extension, and yet acting on our senses, that is, on material organs which are extended? how can a being without extension be capable of motion, and of putting matter into motion?"--"it is as impossible that spirit or thought should produce matter, as that matter should produce spirit or thought."[154] now, it is not denied by any,--it is admitted on all hands,--that the union between the soul and the body is a great mystery, and that we are not able, in the present state of our knowledge, to explain either the action of matter on mind, or the action of mind on matter. the mode of the union between them, and the nature of the influence which they mutually exercise, are to us inscrutable: but _the facts_ of our most familiar experience are not the less certain, because they depend on causes to us unknown, or stand connected with mysteries which we cannot solve. besides, the theory of _unisubstancisme_ itself, were it adopted, would still leave many facts unexplained, and the inmost nature of man would continue to be as inscrutable as before. there is nothing inconceivable, impossible, or self-contradictory in the supposition of a non-material or spiritual substance; nor is there any reason _a priori_ to conclude that such a substance could not be united to a material frame, although the nature of their union, and the mode of their reciprocal action, might be to us inexplicable. there is still another reason which is urged by some, derived from _the dependence of the mind on the body_, and its liability to be affected, beneficially or injuriously, by mere physical influences. "the faculty of thinking," says dr. priestley, "in general ripens and comes to maturity with the body; it is also observed to decay with it,"--"if the brain be affected, as by a blow on the head, by actual pressure within the skull, by sleep, or by inflammation, the mental faculties are universally affected in proportion. likewise, as the mind is affected in consequence of the affections of the body and brain, so the body is liable to be reciprocally affected by the affections of the mind, as is evident in the visible effects of all-strong passions,--hope or fear, love or anger, joy or sorrow, exultation or despair. these are certainly irrefragable arguments that it is properly no other than _one and the same thing_ that is subject to these affections."[155] mr. atkinson urges the same reason. "the proof that mind holds the same relation to the body that all other phenomena do to material conditions, may be found," he tells us, "in the whole circumstances of man's existence, his origin and growth; the faculties following the development of the body in man and other animals; the direction of the faculties being influenced by surrounding circumstances; the desires, the will, the hopes, the fears, the habits, and the opinions, being effects traceable to causes,--to natural causes,--and becoming the facts of history and statistics. we observe the influence of climate, of sunshine and damp, of wine and opium and poison, of health and disease." ... "when a glass of wine turns a wise man into a fool, is it not clear that the result is the consequence of a change in the material conditions?"[156] now, these facts are sufficient to show that, in the present life, there is a very close and intimate union between the soul and the body, and that they exert a reciprocal and very powerful influence. this is admitted by the firmest advocates of _spiritualism_; nay, it is necessarily involved in the doctrine which they maintain, relative to _the union_ of two distinct, but mutually dependent, principles in the present constitution of human nature. but it is far, very far, from affording any ground or warrant for the idea, that matter may be identified with mind, or thought with motion. there are certain theological considerations which, if they have not been pleaded as reasons, may yet have been felt as inducements, to the adoption of the theory of materialism. not to speak of the difficulty which has been felt in explaining "the traduction or propagation of human souls," occasionally referred to in this controversy, it is plain that many deists in the last century, and that not a few atheists still, have been induced to embrace and avow materialism, with the view of undermining the doctrine of man's immortality, and of a future state of rewards and punishments. it is equally certain that dr. priestley was influenced by his peculiar views as a socinian; for he tells us himself that the doctrine of materialism commended itself to his mind as a sure and effectual means of disproving _the preëxistence of christ_. "the consideration," he says with singular candor, "that biases me as a christian, exclusive of philosophical considerations, against the doctrine of a separate soul, is, that it has been the foundation of what appears to me to be the very grossest corruptions of christianity, and even of that very antichristianism that began to work in the apostles' times, and which extended itself so amazingly and dreadfully afterwards. i mean the oriental philosophy of the 'preëxistence of souls,' which drew after it the belief of the preëxistence and divinity of christ, the worship of christ and of dead men, and the doctrine of purgatory, with all the popish doctrines and practices that are connected with them, and supported by them."--"this doctrine (of the preëxistence of christ) is the point to which all that i have written tends, it being the capital inference that i make from the doctrine of materialism." there is also abundant reason to believe that both atheists and pantheists have had recourse to the theory of materialism with the view of excluding the doctrine of a living, personal god, and explaining all the phenomena of nature by the eternal laws of matter and motion. now, if the question stands related in any way to such themes as these,--the immortality of man, the preëxistence and divinity of christ, and the personality and spirituality of god,--it must be confessed to have at least a very high _relative_ importance, as it bears on some of the most momentous articles of our _religious faith_; and the question naturally arises, what relation it bears to the fundamental principles of theism, and how far it comports with right views of god, as the creator and governor of the world? we cannot, in the face of direct evidence to the contrary, bring an indiscriminate charge of atheism, or even of irreligion, against all the advocates of materialism. it is true that it has often, perhaps most generally, been associated with infidel opinions, and that in the hands of d'holbach, comte, and atkinson, it has been applied in support of atheism; but it is equally true, that in the hands of dr. priestley and dr. good, it is combined with the professed, and, as we believe, the sincere recognition of a personal god and of a future state. in point of fact, then, all materialists have not been atheists; and even were we convinced that materialists professing religion were illogical or inconsequent reasoners, we should not be justified in ascribing to them those consequences of their system which they explicitly disclaim and disavow. still it is competent, and it may be highly useful, to entertain the question, what are the grounds on which the theory of materialism rests? and whether, if these grounds be valid, they would not lead, in strict logic, to conclusions at variance with some of the most vital and fundamental articles of the christian faith? in attempting to discuss the merits of that theory, we propose to state, confirm, and illustrate a few propositions which are sufficient, in our opinion, to show that the grounds on which it rests, and the reasons to which it appeals, are not such as to warrant or justify any prejudice against the articles of natural or revealed religion. section ii. propositions on materialism. i. our _first_ proposition is, that the recent progress of natural science, great and rapid as it has been, has not materially altered "the state of the question" respecting the distinction between mind and matter, however much it may have extended our knowledge respecting the properties of both, and of the relation subsisting between the two. we place this proposition on the foreground, because we have reason to believe that a very different impression prevails in certain quarters, associated in some cases with the hope, in others with the apprehension, that the advances which have been made in physical science may ultimately lead to the obliteration of the old distinction between mind and matter. this impression has been deepened by every successive addition to the doctrines of physiology; and especially by the recent speculations on phrenology, animal magnetism, and clairvoyance. now, we think that these speculations, even if they were admitted into the rank of true sciences, would not materially alter the "state of the question" respecting the distinction between mind and matter, as that question was discussed in former times. take the case of phrenology. it had always been admitted that the mind has certain _external organs_, through which it receives various impressions from without, and holds communication with the sensible universe. the existence and use of these organs were held to be perfectly compatible with the doctrine that the soul itself is immaterial. phrenology appears, and professes to have discovered _certain other organs_, certain cerebral developments, which stand connected with the various functions of thought and feeling; in other words, to the _five senses_ which are universally recognized, it adds _thirty_ or _forty_ organs in the brain, not hitherto known to exist. but how does this discovery, even supposing it to be fully established, affect the state of the question respecting the radical distinction betwixt mind and matter? a material organization, in the case of man, was always admitted; and the only difference which that discovery could be supposed to make, must arise from the addition of certain organs to those which were previously established. but why should the spirituality of the soul be more affected by the one set of organs than it was by the other? the ablest advocates of phrenology have repudiated materialism. dr. spurzheim expressly disclaims it. "i incessantly repeat," says he, "that the aim of phrenology is never to attempt pointing out _what the mind is in itself_. i do not say that the organization produces the affective and intellectual faculties of man's mind, as a tree brings forth fruit or an animal procreates its kind; i only say that organic conditions are necessary to every manifestation of mind."--"if the manifestation of the faculties of the mind depend on organization, materialism, it is said, will be established.... when our antagonists, however, maintain that we are materialists, they ought to show where we teach _that there is nothing but matter._ the entire falsehood of the accusation is made obvious by a review of the following considerations. the expression 'organ' designates an instrument by means of which some faculty proclaims itself. the muscles, for example, are the organs of voluntary motion, but they are not the moving power; the eyes are the organ of sight, but they are not the faculty of seeing. we separate the faculties of the soul, or of the mind, from the organs; and consider the cerebral parts as the instruments by means of which they manifest themselves. now, even the adversaries of phrenology must, to a certain extent, admit the dependence of the soul on the body.... we are, therefore, no more materialists than our predecessors, whether anatomists, physiologists, or physicians, or the great number of philosophers and moralists, who have admitted the dependence of the soul on the body. for the materialism is essentially the same, whether the faculties of the mind be said to depend on the whole body, on the whole brain, or individual powers on particular parts of the brain; the faculties still depend on organization for their exhibition."[157] we conclude, therefore, that phrenology, even supposing it to be fully established, could not materially affect the state of the question respecting the radical distinction between mind and matter. similar remarks apply to the case of mesmerism or animal magnetism. it had always been known and admitted that the soul is liable, by reason of its connection with the body in the present state, to be affected by _certain influences_,--from light, from heat, from electricity, from the atmosphere, and from other sources. mesmerism appears, and professes to have discovered _another influence_ by which the nervous system is peculiarly affected; in other words, it merely adds a new influence to the number of those which were universally acknowledged before, it matters little whether it be the magnetism of mesmer, or the odyle of reichenbach, or the dia-magnetism of faraday. but how could this discovery, even supposing it to be fully established, affect the state of the question respecting the radical distinction between mind and matter? if we were immaterialists before, while we acknowledged the influence of the atmosphere, of light, of heat, and of electricity, may we not be immaterialists still, notwithstanding the addition of odyle to the class of _dynamides_? may we not admit the stranger, with the strange name, if suitably attested, without the slightest apprehension of thereby weakening the grounds on which we hold mind to be essentially different from matter, and incapable of being identified with it? it were a foolish and dangerous expedient, and one to which no enlightened advocate of immaterialism will have recourse, to denounce the professed discoveries either of phrenology or of mesmerism, on the ground of their supposed tendency to obliterate the distinction between mind and matter. for the fact, that certain "organs" exist, by means of which the mind acquires a large portion of its knowledge, and that certain "influences" are known to affect it from without, is too well established to be called in question; and the mere extension of that fact by the discovery of _other organs and other influences_, hitherto unknown, could have no tendency to shut us up, more than before, to the adoption of the theory of materialism. it is the part of wisdom, then, to leave ample scope and verge for the progress of physiological research in this as in every other department, and to rest in the confident persuasion that whatever discoveries may yet be made in regard to the _connection_ between mind and body, they can have no effect in disproving a _radical distinction_ between the two. and this we deem a much safer ground than that which professor gregory has adopted, when he first of all denies the possibility of defining either matter or spirit, and then leaves the existence of "a thinking principle or soul distinct from the body" to rest merely on "our instinctive consciousness."[158] we think it, in every point of view, a safer course to meet all objections by saying, that the admission of the _odylic_ or any other influence of a similar kind, would not in the least affect the grounds of our belief in the existence of an immaterial mind. we are disposed to pursue the same line of argument a step further, and to apply it to the case of "hypnotism" or "clairvoyance." it had always been known that the mind, in its present state of connection with the body, is liable to be affected by _sleep_ and by _dreams_; and the phenomena of natural sleep and of ordinary dreams were never supposed to be incompatible with the distinction between mind and body. but the hypnotist or the clairvoyant appears, and announces a state of _magnetic sleep_, with a new set of phenomena dependent on it, resembling the dreams and visions of the night. the facts are strange and startling; but, after recovering from our first surprise, we may calmly ask, what effect these facts, if established, should have in modifying our convictions respecting the essential nature of mind and matter; and we shall find that they afford no sufficient reason for relinquishing the doctrine of an "immaterial spirit," but that, on the contrary, these very facts, were they sufficiently verified, would open up a new view of the powers and activities of "spirit," such as might well fill us with wonder and awe. "i have heard, times innumerable," says professor gregory, "religious persons declare, on seeing these phenomena, that nothing could more clearly demonstrate the immateriality, and consequently the immortality of the soul. 'in _clairvoyance_,' say these persons, 'we observe the mind acting separate from the body, and entirely independent of it. how beautiful a proof of the infinite difference between _spirit_ and _matter_.'" it is a proof that we would be slow to adduce, for the facts are doubtful as well as obscure; but, for our present purpose, it is not necessary either to admit or to deny the truth of these facts; it is sufficient to say that the phenomena of mesmeric sleep and the visions of clairvoyance are not more inconsistent with the doctrine of an immaterial soul than the more familiar, but scarcely less mysterious, phenomena of natural sleep and common dreams. it is, indeed, not a little remarkable that the profound and sagacious butler expressed himself in the following terms, long before the phenomena of magnetism and clairvoyance were spoken of as subjects of scientific study: "that we have no reason to think our _organs_ of sense _percipients_ ... is confirmed by the experience of dreams, by which we find we are at present possessed of a latent, and what would otherwise be an unimagined, unknown power of perceiving sensible objects, in as strong and lively a manner, _without our external organs of sense as with them_."[159] on the whole, we think it clear that neither by phrenology, which adds merely to the number of our material "organs," nor by mesmerism, which adds _one_ to the number of the "influences" by which we are affected, nor by clairvoyance, which adds the phenomena of _magnetic_ to those of _natural_ sleep, is the state of the question materially altered from what it was before these additions were made to physiological speculation. and hence those who are well versed in our older writers on the doctrine of "spirit" and "matter," will be sufficiently furnished with weapons for repelling the more recent assaults of materialism. if any one has read and digested the treatises of dr. samuel clarke, in his replies to dodwell, collins, and leibnitz; the "free discussion" between dr. priestley and dr. price; the "examen du materialisme" by bergier, in reply to the "systême de la nature;" and the writings of andrew baxter, drew, ditton, and others, on the same subject, he will find little difficulty in grappling with the arguments of comte, atkinson, and martineau. he will see at once that the main, the fundamental question, is not materially affected by the advances which have been made in physiological discovery. these discoveries may have extended our knowledge respecting _the relations_ which subsist between the "mind" and the "body;" they have in no degree served to obliterate the _distinction betwixt the two_. in perfect consistency, however, with this conviction, we may frankly avow our opinion, that some of the older opponents of materialism adopted a method of stating their argument which appears to us to be liable to just exception, and which the progress of physical, and especially of chemical science, has tended greatly to discredit. they seem to have been apprehensive that by ascribing any peculiar properties or active powers to matter, they might incur the hazard of weakening the grounds on which they contended for the spirituality of man and the supremacy of god. thus, in the "inquiry into the nature of the human soul," by andrew baxter, the existence of any active property or power in matter is explicitly denied, and the only property which is ascribed to it is a certain passive power, or "vis inertiæ," by which it is incapable of changing its state, whether of rest or of motion. this "vis inertiæ" is not only supposed to be the sole property of matter, but is even held to be inconsistent with, and exclusive of, any active power whatever; and all the effects which are usually said to be produced by it are ascribed to the power of an immaterial being. we are told that "vis inertiæ," or "a resistance to any change of its present state, is essential to matter, and inconsistent with any active power in it;" that "all gravity, attraction, elasticity, repulsion, or whatever other tendencies to motion are observed in matter (commonly called natural powers of matter), are not powers implanted in matter or possible to be made inherent in it, but impulse or force impressed upon it _ab extra_;" and that "the cause of its motion must be sought for in something not matter, in some _immaterial cause or being_."--"gravity," for instance, "is not the action of matter upon matter, but the virtue or power of an immaterial cause or being, constantly impressed upon it." nor has this doctrine been confined to such metaphysical reasoners as andrew baxter. professor playfair tells us, that when he was introduced to dr. horsley, the bishop "expressed great respect for lord monboddo, for his learning and his acuteness, and (what was more surprising) for the soundness of his judgment. he talked very seriously of the notion of _mind being united to all the parts of matter and being the cause of motion_. so far as i could gather, dr. horsley supposes that _every atom of matter has a soul_, which is the cause of its motion, its gravitation, &c. what has made him adopt this strange unphilosophical notion i cannot tell, unless it be the fear that his study of natural philosophy should make him suspected of atheism, or at least of materialism. for it is certain that there is at present a prejudice among the english clergy that natural philosophy has a tendency to make men atheists or materialists. this absurd prejudice was first introduced, i think, by that illiberal, though learned, prelate, dr. warburton."[160] a similar opinion has been recently reproduced by dr. burnett in his "philosophy of spirits in relation to matter," in which he attempts to show that the forces and laws of nature cannot be proved to be _the result of anything inherent in matter alone_, and that they ought to be ascribed to some substantive and distinct, but immaterial and dependent _spirits_, called "the spirit of life," "the spirit of electricity," "the spirit of heat."[161]. all these statements are only so many modifications of the same theory, and they agree in denying the existence of any active powers in matter, while they ascribe the phenomena of motion, life, and thought to an immaterial principle. there is, as it seems to us, a mixture of truth and error in this theory. it affirms a great truth, in so far as it declares the impossibility of accounting for the phenomena of motion, life, and thought, without ascribing them ultimately to a spiritual, intelligent, and voluntary cause; but it adopts a dangerous, and, as we conceive, a perfectly gratuitous assumption, when it denies that matter is capable of possessing any other properties or powers than those of extension, solidity, and "vis inertiæ." we know little of the nature of those fluids, forces, or powers, which have been denominated "dynamides" or "imponderables;" but, unquestionably, they possess properties and produce phenomena very different from any that can be reasonably ascribed to mere "vis inertiæ." nor is their possession of these properties incompatible with that law, when it is correctly understood. for what is the real import of the law of "vis inertiæ?" it amounts simply to this, as stated by baxter himself, "that a resistance to any change of its present state,--whether of motion or rest,--is essential to 'matter,'" he adds, indeed, "and inconsistent with any active power in it;" but this is an assumption which is true only in a sense that would make it inconclusive with reference to the point at issue. it is true, if it means merely that matter is destitute of spontaneity and self-motion, such as belongs to living, voluntary agents; but it is not true, if it means that matter is destitute of all inherent properties and powers. indeed, the "vis inertiæ" which is ascribed to matter is itself a power, and a very formidable one; it is described by baxter himself as "a kind of positive or stubborn inactivity," as "something receding further from action than bare inactivity," for "_matter is so powerfully inactive a thing_!" now, if such a power as this may be ascribed to matter, why may it not be admitted with equal safety that god has bestowed on it certain other properties and powers, not inconsistent with this, but additional to it; and that he has established such relations and affinities between different substances as that they may act and react--mechanically or chemically--on one another? the phenomena of chemical affinity, the motions, and other changes, produced by the contact, or even the juxtaposition, of certain substances, and the variety of the resulting products, do certainly evince the operation of other powers besides that of "vis inertiæ;" and we cannot see why these powers should be ascribed to "immaterial spirits," any more than that of "vis inertiæ" itself, or why it would be a whit more dangerous to ascribe them to matter than to created _spirits_. all that is required, as it appears to us, to establish the dependence of the creature on the creator and to vindicate the truth of christian theism, is to maintain these two positions: _first_, that whatever properties or powers belong either to "matter" or to "mind," were originally conferred on them, respectively, at the time of their creation by the will of god; and, _secondly_, that by the same will, these properties and powers are continually sustained, governed, and controlled. these two positions are held by all enlightened theists, and are abundantly sufficient, if proved, to vindicate their doctrine against every assault; but we think it unwarrantable and dangerous to go further, and to ascribe, on the strength of mere gratuitous assumptions, all the activity, motion, and change which occur in the universe to created spirits or immaterial causes. these assumptions are extremely different from the common-sense notions of men, and they are utterly unnecessary for the support of any doctrine which we are concerned to defend. on the whole, we venture to conclude that the radical distinction between mind and matter has not been materially affected by the recent progress of physiological research, and that the old arguments against materialism are still available, except in so far as they were founded on a too limited view of the properties of matter, which the advancing science of chemistry has done so much, to unfold and to illustrate. ii. our _second_ proposition may be thus stated: that were we reduced to the necessity of embracing any form of the theory of "unisubstancisme," there could not be less,--there might even be greater,--reason for _spiritualizing matter_, than for _materializing mind_. on the supposition that one or other of the two must be dispensed with, the question still remains, which of them can be most easily spared? or, which of them can be most conclusively proved? mankind have generally thought that they had equally good evidence for the existence of both; that in the direct and irresistible evidence of consciousness, they had proof sufficient of a thinking, voluntary, and active spirit, and in the less direct, but not less irresistible, evidence of perception, proof sufficient of the existence of a material world. but each of these convictions has been in its turn assailed by the cavils of skepticism; and men have been asked to prove _by reasoning_ what needed, and, indeed, admitted of no _such_ proof,--the existence of matter as distinct from mind, and the existence of mind as distinct from matter. the latter is denied by materialists, the former is equally denied by idealists; and what we affirm is, that each of these opposite theories is one-sided and partial, and that, on the supposition of our being reduced to the necessity of adopting the idea of "unisubstancisme," we should still have greater reason to reduce all to the category of "spirit," than to reduce all to the category of "matter." many seem to think that it is more easy, or, perhaps, that it is less necessary, to prove the distinct existence of matter, than to prove the distinct existence of mind. they are so familiar with matter, and so continually surrounded by it, that they cannot conceive of its non-existence as possible, and scarcely think it necessary to inquire after any evidence in the case. but can it be justly said that they are more familiar with matter and its movements than they are with a living spirit within them, which feels, and thinks, and wills, and by means of which alone the phenomena of external nature itself can become known to them? if they receive the testimony of perception as a sufficient proof of the existence of matter, why should they not also receive the still more direct and immediate testimony of consciousness as a sufficient proof of the existence of mind? or, if they refuse the latter, and admit the former, are they quite sure that, on their own partial principles, they could offer any conclusive answer to the "idealism" of berkeley? that ingenious and amiable prelate will tell them that "the objects of sense cannot exist otherwise than _in a mind perceiving them_;" that "their _esse_ is _percipi_, nor is it possible that they should have any existence out of the minds, or thinking things, which perceive them;" and that "all the choir of heaven and the furniture of the earth,--in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind."[162] nay, others who are not idealists, but who believe equally in the existence of "mind" and "matter," will tell them that berkeley's arguments are conclusive, at least to the extent of showing that the existence of "matter," as a thing external to us, cannot be proved without presupposing the existence of "mind." "for what," says lord brougham, "is this matter? whence do we derive any knowledge of it? how do we assure ourselves of its existence? what evidence have we at all respecting either its being or its qualities? we feel, or taste, or smell something; that is, we have certain sensations, which make us conclude that something exists beyond ourselves." ... "but what are our sensations? the feelings or thoughts of our own minds. then what we do is this: from certain ideas in our minds, produced no doubt by, and connected with, our bodily senses, but independent of and separate from them, we draw certain conclusions by reasoning; and these conclusions are in favor of the existence of something other than our sensations and our reasonings, and other than that which experiences the sensations and makes the reasonings, passive in the one case, active in the other. that something is what we call--mind. but plainly, whatever it is, we owe to it the knowledge that matter exists; for that knowledge is gained by means of a sensation or feeling, followed by a process of reasoning; it is gained by the mind having first suffered something, and then done something. therefore, to say _there is no such thing as matter_ would be a much less absurd inference than to say _there is no such thing as mind_." ... "the truth is, that we believe in the existence of 'matter,' because we cannot help it. the inferences of our reason from our sensations impel us to this conclusion, and the steps are few and short by which we reach it. but the steps are fewer, and shorter, and of the self-same nature, which lead us to believe in the existence of mind, for of that we have the evidence within ourselves."[163] it follows that were we reduced, as we are not, to the necessity of adopting the theory of "unisubstancisme," we might with at least as good reason dispense with the existence of "matter" as with the existence of "mind;" for, in the words of dugald stewart, "it would no more be proper to say of 'mind' that it is _material_, than to say of 'body' that it is _spiritual."_[164] iii. our _third_ proposition is, that we are _not_ reduced to the necessity of adopting any theory of "unisubstancisme," since there is nothing inconceivable or self-contradictory in the supposition of two distinct substantive beings, possessing diverse properties, such as "mind" and "body," or "spirit" and "matter," are usually held to be. let any one endeavor to assign a reason for the sole, exclusive existence either of "matter" or of "spirit," or a distinct, specific ground for the opinion that they are necessarily incompatible with each other, and he will be compelled to own that the theory of "unisubstancisme," however plausible by reason of its apparent simplicity, is really nothing more than a gratuitous assumption. it cannot be admitted with reference even to _nature_ and _man_ without confounding the simplest elements of human knowledge; and with reference to _god_ and the _universe_, it is attended with still more fatal consequences, since it must lead, if consistently followed out, to undisguised pantheism. why should it be supposed that there is, or can only be, _one_ substance in nature? one substance invested with all those properties and powers which exist, in such manifold diversity, in the organic and inorganic kingdoms? the wonder might rather seem to be that any _two_ substances should be capable of accounting for such a variety of phenomena as the universe exhibits. a "dualism" is unavoidable, unless we are to materialize god as well as man; and why may there not be a "dualism" in the case of created _mind_ and _matter_, as there must be, on any supposition except that of pantheism, in the case of the uncreated mind and the material universe? we see variety and gradation in all the works of god; we see thousands of substances, simple and compound, possessing various properties, even in the inorganic world; we see different forms of life, vegetable and animal, ascending by steps of regular gradation, from the lowest to the highest; we see, in the animal kingdom, various propensities, instincts, and powers, which constitute the characteristics of distinct species; at length we rise to man, with his rational, responsible, and immortal nature. why may not man be the _nexus_ between a world of "matter" and a world of "spirits,"--man, who is equally connected with the material world by his body, and with the spiritual by his soul,--who is, as it were, "mind incarnate," spirit in flesh? and why may there not be higher spirits still, whether embodied in subtler and more refined vehicles, or existing apart from all material forms, in those other worlds which astronomy has brought to light? no reason can be assigned for a negative answer to these and similar queries, unless it be that _we cannot conceive of pure spirit without bodily form_; and this may be true, if it be meant merely to affirm that we can find no sensible image for it, nothing by which it can be represented to our sight, or pictured in our imagination, as visible things may be; but it is not true, if it be meant to imply that we have no distinct notion of "mind" or "spirit," for it is as clearly known by its properties, of thought, feeling, volition, and consciousness, as matter itself can be; and who will venture to define, or to depict, or to form any image of _the substance of matter_, apart from the properties which belong to it? we are under no necessity, then, of adopting the theory of "unisubstancisme," and we cannot found upon it in argument without building on a mere gratuitous assumption. iv. our _fourth_ proposition is, that the same reason which warrants us in ascribing certain properties and phenomena to a distinct substance called "matter," equally warrants us in ascribing certain other properties and phenomena to a distinct substance called "mind;" and that the difference between their respective properties and phenomena is so great as to justify the belief that the _substances_ are different and ought to be denominated by distinctive names. when materialists affirm, as they do, the existence of one only substantive being in nature, and represent all our mental phenomena as the mere results of physical organization, they assume that "matter," at least, is a real _entity_; that it is a _substance_ or _substratum_ in which certain powers or qualities inhere; and that its existence, as such, is evident and undeniable. we are entirely relieved, therefore, by their own admission or assumption, from the necessity of discussing the more general problem of ontology; the problem, whether we can prove the existence of _any_ being, properly so called, from a mere series of phenomena, a succession of appearances. they virtually admit, since they evidently assume, that the phenomena must have a substance under them, the qualities a substratum in which they inhere. now, the very same reason which warrants, or rather obliges them to recognize "matter" as a substance and not as a shadow,--as an _entity_ which really exists and manifests itself by its properties and effects,--must equally warrant, or rather oblige them to recognize "mind" or "spirit" also as a distinct substantive being, unless it can be shown either that its properties are the same with those of matter, or that they may be accounted for by some peculiar modification of matter, some law of physical organization. there can be no reason for admitting the existence of "matter" as a substance, which does not apply also to the existence of "mind" as a distinct substance, if it shall be found that their properties are essentially different. we know, and can know, nothing of _substance_ otherwise than by its properties or powers: we know nothing of "matter,"--it would, in fact, be to us non-existent, but for its extension, solidity, and other properties; we know nothing of "mind,"--it would equally be to us non-existent, but for its consciousness, its thoughts, feelings, and desires; and if it be right to ascribe the one set of properties to a substantive being, called "matter," it cannot be wrong to ascribe the other set of properties also to a substantive being, called "mind." if it could be shown, indeed, that the properties of the one substance might either be identified with, or accounted for, by those of the other; if animal feeling could be identified with or derived from, mere physical impulse; if intellectual thought could be reduced to material motion; if desire and aversion, hope and fear could be explained by the natural laws of attraction and repulsion, then we might blend the two substances into one, and speak of "mind" as a mere modification of "matter." but as long as the properties or powers by which alone any substance can be known are seen to be generically different, we cannot confound the substances themselves, or reduce them to one category, without violating the plainest rules of philosophical inquiry. and yet to these rules dr. priestley refers, as if they warranted the conclusions at which he had arrived. he desires his readers "to recur to the universally received rules of philosophizing, such as are laid down by sir isaac newton at the beginning of his third book of "principia." the first of these rules, as laid down by him, is that we are to _admit no more causes than are sufficient to explain appearances_; and the second is, that to _the same effect_ we must, as far as possible, assign _the same cause_." we cheerfully accept these canons of philosophical inquiry; and it is just because no one substance is sufficient, in our estimation, to account for _all_ the appearances, that we equally reject the "spiritualism" of berkeley, who would resolve all phenomena into "mind," and the "materialism" of priestley, who would resolve all phenomena into "matter." matter and mind may, indeed, be said to resemble each other in some respects,--in their being equally existent, equally created, and equally dependent; but their essential properties are generically different, for there is no identity, but a manifest and undeniable diversity, between thought, feeling, desire, volition, and conscience, and the various qualities or powers belonging to matter, such as extension, solidity, and _vis inertiæ_, or even the powers of attraction and repulsion. on the ground of this manifest difference between the properties by which alone any substance makes itself known, we hold ourselves warranted to affirm that the "mind" is immaterial, and to ascribe mental phenomena to a _distinct substantive being_, not less than the material phenomena of nature. some ingenious thinkers, on both sides of the question, have not been fully satisfied with this method of stating the grounds of our opinion. it has been said by our opponents, that if we found merely on the acknowledged difference between two sets of properties or phenomena, while we admit that the substance or substratum is in itself entirely unknown to us, or known only through the medium of the properties to which we refer,--then the dispute becomes a purely _verbal_ one, and can amount to nothing more than this, whether a _substance_ of whose essence we are entirely ignorant should be called by the name of "matter" or by the name of "spirit." but the dispute is not a purely _verbal_ one, even on the suppositions which have been stated. for it is essential to a right "philosophy of nature," that every substance possessing peculiar properties should have a distinctive name. thus, even in the material world itself, we distinguish sulphur from soda, gold from granite, and magnesia from electricity or _odyle_. why? because, while they have some properties in common, in virtue of which we rank them in the same category as "material substances," they have, severally, certain distinctive or peculiar characteristics, which forbid us to call the one by the same name as the other. and for precisely the same reason, when we find another class of properties and powers existing in certain beings, which are totally different from those belonging to mere material substances,--incapable not only of being identified with them, but also of being accounted for by means of them,--we are equally warranted in ascribing these properties to a _substance_, and in affirming that this substance, of which we know nothing except through its properties, is radically different from "matter." that there is something more than a mere _verbal_ difference between us and our opponents might seem to be admitted by themselves, when they evince so much zeal in assailing our position and defending their own; but it becomes strikingly apparent as soon as we extend our inquiry so as to embrace the grand question respecting the distinction, if any, between god and the material universe. some, again, who are substantially, at least in all important respects, on our side of the question, have not been satisfied with showing that the two sets of properties are generically different, and that the same reason exists for ascribing the one to a distinct substantive being called "mind," as for ascribing the other to a substantive being called "matter." they have been anxious to advance a step further; and to show that the two sets of properties are _mutually exclusive_, and that they could not possibly _coexist_ in the same subject. this is the declared object of baxter's work on the soul, which professes to prove that the only power belonging to "matter," namely, its _vis inertiæ_, or resistance to any change in its present state, is inconsistent with its possession of any active power. it is not held sufficient to show that the properties are generically different, and that the substances in which these properties inhere may and should be designated by distinct names, as matter and spirit, soul and body; but it must be further proved that they are so heterogeneous and inconsistent as to be mutually exclusive, and incapable of coexisting in the same substance. to a certain extent, we think this mode of reasoning may be admitted. we do not conceive that "vis inertiæ" is the only property belonging to matter, or that it is necessarily exclusive of attraction and repulsion, and the other powers which may belong to its specific varieties; but we do conceive that the "vis inertiæ" of mere matter is utterly inconsistent with the self-activity, the self-moving power, which belongs to "mind:" and we are confirmed in this conviction by the anxiety which our opponents have evinced to explain the phenomena of mind by purely mechanical laws, and to establish a system, not of _moral_, but of _material_ necessity, in opposition to the doctrine of man's spontaneity and freedom. we are further of opinion, that _extension_ cannot be predicated of "mind," without also being predicated of "thought;" and that to ascribe it to either would lead to ridiculous absurdities, such as have been noted, and perhaps caricatured, by dr. thomas brown. we think, too, that the unity and continuity of consciousness, with the intimate sense of personal identity, that belongs to all rational and responsible beings, are utterly irreconcilable with the continual flux and mutation that are incident to matter, and that they cannot be accounted for without the supposition of a distinct substance, existing the same throughout all the changes that occur in the material receptacle in which it dwells. to this extent we think that the argument is alike legitimate and valid; but when it goes beyond this, and attempts either to divest matter of all active properties, or to demonstrate that, in the very nature of things, sensation and thought could not possibly be annexed to a material substance, we think that it advances beyond the real exigencies of the case, and that it undertakes a task which is somewhat too arduous for our present powers,--a task which many of the ablest advocates of immaterialism would humbly, but firmly, decline. in this connection, it may be useful to remark that it is only with reference to this advanced and more arduous part of the general argument, that such writers as locke and bonnet, whose authority is often pleaded in opposition to our views, ever felt the slightest difficulty. they were both "immaterialists," because they both discerned the radical difference between mental and material phenomena, and because they both admitted the reasonableness of ascribing them, respectively, to a _distinct substance_. but they were not convinced by the more metaphysical arguments of those who professed to show that none of the phenomena of "mind" could possibly be exhibited by matter, or, at least, they declined to take that ground. that locke was an immaterialist is evident from many passages in his writings. "by putting together," he says, "the ideas of thinking, perceiving, liberty and power of moving themselves and other things, we have as clear a perception and notion of immaterial substances as we have of material. for putting together the ideas of thinking and willing, &c., joined to _substance_, of which we have no distinct idea, we have the idea of an immaterial spirit; and by putting together the ideas of coherent solid parts and a power of being moved, joined with _substance_, of which likewise we have no positive idea, we have the idea of matter: the one is as clear and distinct an idea as the other."[165] but notwithstanding this explicit statement, he demurred to the doctrine of those who maintained that the power of thinking could not possibly be superadded to matter, and this because he deemed it presumptuous to set limits to the divine omnipotence, or to pronounce any judgment on a question of that kind. "we have the ideas of matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know whether any mere material being thinks or no; it being impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover whether omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter, fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think.... i see _no contradiction_ in it that the first eternal thinking being should, if he pleased, give to certain systems of created senseless matter, put together as he sees fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought."[166] in these and similar passages, locke did not mean, we think, to retract or modify the doctrine which he had taught respecting the radical distinction betwixt mind and matter; he intended merely to intimate that, in adopting that doctrine, he proceeded on grounds different from those which had been assumed by some other writers; that his belief rested mainly on the essential difference between the properties belonging to the two substances, and not on the mere metaphysical arguments by which some had attempted to prove that god himself could not impart to matter the power of thinking. he shrunk from pronouncing a positive decision on _this_ one point; and yet his words have ever since been quoted with triumph by the advocates of materialism as affording a virtual sanction to _the possibility_ at least of that for which they contend. and on the same account, locke has been severely blamed by some modern "spiritualists." mr. carlyle, speaking of "hartley's and darwin's, and all the possible forms of materialism,--the grand idolatry, as we may rightly call it, by which at all times the true worship, that of the invisible, has been polluted and withstood"--adds the following characteristic remarks: "locke, himself a clear, humble-minded, patient, reverent, nay religious man, had paved the way for banishing religion from the world. mind, by being modelled in men's imaginations into a shape, a visibility, and reasoned of as if it had been some composite, divisible, and reunitable substance, some finer chemical salt, or curious piece of logical joinery, began to lose its immaterial, mysterious, divine, though invisible character: it was tacitly figured as something that might, were our organs fine enough, be _seen_. yet who had ever seen it? who could ever see it? thus, by degrees, it passed into a doubt, a relation, some faint possibility, and, at last, into a highly probably nonentity. following locke's footsteps, the french had discovered that 'as the stomach secretes chyle, so does the brain secrete thought.'"[167] the sentiments of bonnet of geneva, as stated in his "palingenesie," are substantially in accordance with those of locke, and have met with similar treatment. he is not a materialist; he admits a real distinction, as well as a close union, between the soul and the body; he speaks even of the possible existence of disembodied souls or pure spirits; he affirms the immateriality of the thinking principle; and expressly assigns his reasons for _not_ being a materialist.[168] but he appears to have thought, as locke did, that possibly the power of thinking might be superadded to matter, by the creator's omnipotent will, and that there is nothing in this supposition which could seriously affect either the doctrine of theism or the "immortality" of man. and hence he affirmed, in words which dr. priestley selected for the motto of his "disquisitions," that "if any one should ever demonstrate the soul to be material, far from being alarmed at this, we should only admire the power which could give to _matter_ the power of _thinking_." we conceive that the language both of locke and bonnet on this particular point amounts to a dangerous and very unnecessary concession. were it meant merely to affirm that god could so unite a thinking spiritual being with a material organism, as to make the two mutually dependent and subservient, this is no more than is admitted by all the advocates of immaterialism, and it is actually exhibited in the constitution of human nature. but if it were meant to admit that the power of "thinking" and "willing" might be superadded as a property or quality to matter itself, _without any substantive being other than matter as a substratum_, then we conceive it to be at variance with the grounds on which locke and bonnet themselves had previously declared their belief in the distinct existence both of matter and spirit. we shall only add, that the prejudice against our doctrine, which is founded on the union of two _substances_ apparently so heterogeneous as mind and matter in _the same person_, is, to say the least, fully counterbalanced by the difficulty, incident to the theory, of demonstrating the coexistence of _two sets of properties_, apparently so diverse and disparate as thought and extension, "vis inertiæ" and spontaneity, in _the same substance_. on the whole, we conclude that the same reason which warrants us in ascribing certain properties or phenomena to a distinct substance called "matter," equally warrants us in ascribing certain other properties or phenomena to a distinct substance called "mind;" and that the difference between their properties and phenomena is so great as to justify the belief that the substances are different, and ought to be denominated by distinctive names. v. our _fifth_ proposition is, that it is impossible to account for the phenomena of thought, feeling, desire, volition, and self-consciousness, by ascribing them, as materialists do, either to the _substance of_ "matter," or to its _form_; that is, either to the _atomic particles_ of which it consists, or to the _peculiar organization_ in which these particles are arranged. it is too manifest to admit either of doubt or denial, that the power of thinking, feeling, and willing, does not belong to every form of matter. it is not, therefore, one of its essential properties; and if it belong to it at all, it must be either a _quality superadded_ to the ordinary powers of matter, or a _product resulting_ from its configuration in an organized form. if it be a quality superadded merely to the ordinary powers of matter, then it must exist equally in every part of the mass to which it is attached; every particle of the matter in which it inheres must be sentient, intelligent, voluntary, and active; and, on this supposition, it will remain a difficult, if not desperate problem, to account for the _unity_ of consciousness by such a diversity of parts, and especially for the _continuity_ of consciousness, when the material elements are confessedly in a state of constant flux and mutation. it would seem, too, that if thought be thus connected with an extended, divisible, and mutable substance, it must be itself extended, and, of course, divisible; and, accordingly, dr. priestley does not hesitate to affirm that our _ideas_, as well as our _minds_, possess these characters. "whatever ideas," he says, "are in themselves, they are evidently produced by external objects, and must therefore correspond to them; and since many of the objects or archetypes of ideas are _divisible_, it necessarily follows that _the ideas themselves are divisible also_." ... "if the archetypes of ideas have _extension_, the ideas which are expressive of them, and are actually produced by them according to certain mechanical laws, must have extension likewise; and, therefore, the mind in which they exist, whether it be material or immaterial, must have extension also.... i am, therefore, obliged to conclude that the sentient principle in man, containing ideas which certainly have parts, and are divisible, and consequently must have extension, cannot be that simple, indivisible, and immaterial substance that some have imagined it to be, but something that has real extension, and therefore may have the other properties of matter."[169] he argues that _ideas_ must be extended and divisible because their objects or archetypes are so; and, further, that the _mind_ itself must be material, because these properties belong to the ideas which inhere in it as their subject or seat. now, _this_ argument is fairly met by the reasoning, or the ridicule, call it which you will, of dr. thomas brown: "in saying of mind that it is matter, we must mean, if we mean anything, that the principle which thinks is hard and divisible; and that it will be not more absurd to talk of the _twentieth_ part of an affirmation, or the _quarter_ of a hope, of the _top_ of a remembrance, and the north and east corners of a comparison, than of the twentieth part of a pound, or of the different points of the compass, in reference to any part of the globe. the true answer to the statement of the materialist,--the answer which we feel in our hearts, on the very expression of the plurality and divisibility of feeling,--is that it assumes what, far from admitting, we cannot even understand, and that, with every effort of attention which we can give to our mental analysis, we are as incapable of forming any conception of what is meant by the quarter of a doubt, or the half of a belief, as of forming to ourselves an image of a circle without a central point, or of a square without a single angle."[170] but the theory which supposes the soul to be extended and divisible, and its ideas, feelings, and volitions to be extended and divisible also, has given place to another, which does not represent the mental qualities as inhering in every particle of the matter with which they are associated, but rather as _the products of organization_, the results, not of the atomic elements, but of the form, or figure, into which they are cast. it seems to have been felt that it would be unsafe to ascribe the power of thinking to every particle of the brain, and it is now represented as the result or product of "the brain in action, as light and heat are of fire, and fragrance of the flower."[171] this idea is illustrated by a great variety of natural examples, in which certain effects are produced by the _arrangement of matter,_ which could not be produced by its individual particles, existing separate and apart, or combined in other forms. nor is this a new phase of the theory, or an original discovery of the present age; it was familiarly known and fully discussed[172] in the days of clarke and collins, and every similitude which is now employed to illustrate it may be found dissected in their writings. collins had undertaken to prove that "an individual power may reside in a material system which consists of separate and distinct parts,"--"an individual power which is _not_ in every one, nor in any one, of the particles that compose it, when taken apart and considered singly:" and he had adduced as an example the very similitude which atkinson employs, namely, "fragrance from the flower;" for he adds, "a rose, for example, consists of several particles, which, separately and singly, want a power to produce that agreeable sensation we experience in them when united." other instances are given; such as "the power of the eye to contribute to the act of seeing, the power of a clock to show the hour of the day, the power of a musical instrument to produce in us harmonious sounds;" these, he says, "are powers not at all resulting from any powers of _the same kind_ inhering in the parts of the system;" and he infers that "in the same manner the power of thinking, without being an aggregate of powers of the same kind, may yet inhere in a system of matter." but these examples, so far from confirming, serve rather to confute, the theory in whose support they are adduced. could it be shown, indeed, that the eye possesses _in itself_ the power of vision, and that sight results solely from its peculiar texture; or, that a clock is really an "intellectual machine," and produces an "intellectual effect;" or, that a musical instrument possesses in itself the soul of melody, and is conscious of its own sweet sounds,--then it might be possible to entertain the supposition that, _in like manner_, an organized brain may have the power of producing thought, and feeling, and will. but what is the matter of fact? let dr. clarke's answer with reference to the case of a timepiece suffice for all: "that which you call the power of a clock to show the time of the day is evidently _nothing in the clock itself_, but the figure and motion of its parts, and, consequently, not anything of a different sort or kind from the powers inherent in the parts. whereas 'thinking,' if it was the result of the powers of the different parts of the machine of the body, or of the brain in particular, would be something really inhering in the machine itself, specifically different from all and every one of the powers of the several parts out of which it resulted; which is an express contradiction, a supposing the effect to have more in it than the cause." ... "that particular and determinate _degree of velocity_ in a wheel, whereby it turns once round precisely in twelve hours, is that which you call _the power of a clock_ to show the time of the day; and because such a determinate velocity of motion is _made use of by us_ for the measure of time, is it therefore really a new quality or power distinct from the motion itself?" the same answer is equally applicable to all the other examples, and it may be stated generally as amounting to this, that "it is absolutely false in fact, and impossible in the nature of things, that any power whatsoever should inhere or reside in any system or composition of matter, different from the powers residing in the single parts."[173] the two great difficulties which adhere to the theory of materialism, and which must ever prove insurmountable, are these: first, to account for the power of thinking by means of material atoms, which are individually destitute of it; and secondly, to account for the unity and continuity of human consciousness by means of material atoms which are constantly undergoing flux and mutation. for the first end, recourse has been had to the theory which ascribes the power of thinking, not to the particles of matter, but to their order, arrangement, or organization; and for the second, the continuous sense of personal identity is supposed to be sufficiently accounted for by supposing that, as the particles which compose the brain are changed, the retiring atoms leave their share of the general consciousness as a legacy to their successors. and both these expedients for surmounting the difficulty are exquisitely caricatured in the "memoirs of martinus scriblerus," in a chapter which is justly described as "an inimitable ridicule on collins' argument against clarke, to prove the soul only a quality." the society of freethinkers, addressing martinus, propose to send him an answer to the ill-grounded sophisms of their opponents, and likewise "an easy mechanical explanation of perception or thinking."--"one of their chief arguments," say they, "is that self-consciousness cannot inhere in any system of matter, because all matter is made up of several distinct beings which never can make up one individual thinking being. this is easily answered by a familiar instance. in every _jack_ there is a _meat-roasting_ quality, which neither resides in the fly, nor in the weight, nor in any particular wheel, of the jack, but is the result of the whole composition.... and as the general quality of meat-roasting, with its several modifications, does not inhere in any one part of the jack, so neither does consciousness, with its several modes of sensation, intellection, volition, &c., inhere in any one, but is the result from the mechanical composition of the whole animal." and then, in regard to the _second_ difficulty: "the parts," say they, "of an animal body are perpetually changed, ... from whence it will follow that the idea of individual consciousness must be constantly translated from one particle of matter to another.... we answer, this is only a fallacy of the imagination. they make a great noise about this _individuality_, how a man is conscious to himself that he is the same individual he was twenty years ago, notwithstanding the flux state of the particles of matter that compose his body. we think this is capable of a very plain answer, and may be easily illustrated by a familiar example. sir john cutler had a pair of black worsted stockings, which his maid darned so often with silk, that they became at last a pair of silk stockings. now, supposing those stockings of sir john's endued with some degree of consciousness at every particular darning, they would have been sensible that they were the same individual pair of stockings, both before and after the darning!" the subject is here presented in a ludicrous point of view, and some may doubt whether this is a legitimate method of treating it. but it should not be forgotten that while _ridicule is no safe test of truth, it may be the most effective exposure of nonsense and folly_. section iii. the relations of materialism to theology. it has been generally felt and acknowledged, that the doctrine which preserves the distinction between matter and spirit, body and soul, is more in accordance with the truths of natural and revealed religion, than the opposite theory which identifies them; and that, on the other hand, a profound and serious study of these truths has a tendency to raise our thoughts above the low level of materialism, and to direct them to the contemplation of a higher and nobler world,--the world of spirits. there are many distinct points at which the theory of materialism comes into contact and collision with the truths both of natural and revealed religion. by a brief enumeration of these, the practical importance of the subject may be clearly evinced. 1. the doctrine of "the immortality of the soul" is seriously affected by the theory of materialism. that there is _some_ connection between the two is apparent from the very anxiety with which infidels have labored to undermine the doctrine of "spirit," on purpose to get rid of the doctrine of "immortality." but in stating the connection between them, we must exercise the utmost caution, lest we should unwarily place the truth on a precarious or questionable basis. in arguing for the future life of the soul, as a doctrine of natural religion, some writers have spoken as if they supposed that nothing more was needful to demonstrate its "immortality" than the bare fact of its being "immaterial," and that, by its very nature as "spirit," it is indestructible by god himself. now, we do not hold that the mere proof of its being an immaterial substance would necessarily infer its being also immortal. for ought we know, the principle of life, sensation, memory, and volition _may_ belong to an immaterial substance even in the lower animals, who are not supposed to be immortal; and the only use which we would make of its "immateriality" in connection with its "immortality," is simply this,--that not being material, _its destruction is not necessarily implied in the dissolution of the body_. it is not in the metaphysical doctrine of its immaterial nature, but in the practical evidence of its moral responsibilities and religious capacities, that we find the most satisfactory natural proof of its immortality. it is perfectly possible to hold, on the one hand, that all "immaterial substances" are not necessarily indestructible; and yet to hold, on the other hand, that _such_ an immaterial substance as the soul of man is known to be,--endowed with conscience, with intelligence, with affections and aspirations, with hopes and fears such as can find no suitable object and no adequate range within the limits of the present life,--must be destined to an immortal existence. the "immortality," for which alone we ought to contend, is such as implies neither a necessity of existence in the creature, nor its independence on the will of the creator. the _power_ of god to annihilate the soul is not called in question, but the _purpose_ of god to make the soul immortal is inferred from its nature and capacities, its aspirations and hopes and fears. and all that is necessarily implied in the doctrine of what has been called "the natural immortality of the soul" is well stated by dr. s. clarke, when he says that, "the soul may be such a substance as is able to continue its own duration forever, by the powers given to it at its first production, and the continuance of those general influences which are requisite for the support of created beings in general." mr. baxter, acute and metaphysical as he was, placed the argument substantially on the same ground. "it appears," he says, "that all substance equally, as well material as immaterial, cannot cease to exist but by an effect of infinite power.... the human soul, having no parts, must be indissoluble in its nature by anything that hath not power to destroy or annihilate it. and since it hath not a natural tendency to annihilation, nor a power to annihilate itself, nor can be annihilated by any being finitely powerful only, without an immediate act of the omnipotent creator to annihilate it, it must endlessly abide an active perceptive substance, without either fear or hopes of dying through all eternity, which is, in other words, to be immortal as to the agency of all natural or second causes, that is, 'naturally immortal.'"[174] when thus stated and limited, the argument is at once safe and valid. it is first proved that the mind is a "substance," living, perceptive, and active, which is simple and indivisible, and not capable, like matter, of being separated into parts possessing the same properties or powers; and then this distinction betwixt mind and matter is applied to prove that it cannot be _destroyed by dissolution_, as the body may be, but that if it be destroyed at all, it must be by _annihilation_. but no substance, material or immaterial, can be annihilated by any _finite or second cause_; it can be annihilated only by the will of him who created it; and the question respecting the soul of man remains, what are the indications of god's will concerning it? when this question is seriously entertained, we can hardly fail to see in the structure of its powers, in the grandeur of its capacities, in the moral and responsible consciousness which belongs to it, a strong presumptive proof of its being his purpose that it should continue to live after the dissolution of the body. the metaphysical argument is sufficient to remove preliminary objections, the moral argument furnishes a presumptive proof. the theory of materialism, as it assumes different forms, so it admits of being associated with different views respecting the future prospects of the soul. when it is held in its grossest form, it stands in a relation of direct antagonism to the doctrine of "immortality," as is apparent in the speculations of d'holbach, comte, and atkinson, who insist at large on the proof of materialism on purpose to undermine and overthrow the doctrine of immortality. the theory of materialism has been maintained by dr. priestley and others, in conjunction with a professed, and, as we believe, sincere belief in a future state of rewards and punishments. the sleep of the soul during the interval between death and the resurrection, and its ultimate awakening by an immediate and miraculous interposition of divine power, are equally held to be true,--the one on the ground of a natural evidence, the other on that of the authority of revelation. but the natural evidence is defective, since it depends entirely on the assumption that "thought" is produced by and dependent on a certain material organization, without which it could not exist; and the supernatural authority is still less to be relied on, since it _seems_, at least, to recognize the existence of disembodied spirits, and unequivocally declares that the soul cannot be killed as the body may. if the soul be material, as dr. priestley says it is, it must be, equally with the body, affected by the stroke of death; yet our lord says,--and his authority cannot be declined when the doctrine of a future resurrection is made to depend on the mere testimony of scripture,--"fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."[175] and the soul is represented as existing in a state of conscious happiness or misery, even during the interval between death and the resurrection, in the parable of the rich man and lazarus, as well as in the statement of the apostle that "he was in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with christ, which is far better."[176] in its most recent and refined form, the theory of materialism represents "mind" as a subtle product, evolved out of matter, and destined to an endless existence,--an ever-ascending progression; and in this form of it, the doctrine of a distinct, personal immortality is, no doubt, far better preserved than in its earlier and grosser forms, which spoke of the utter destruction of individual consciousness at the hour of death, and of our material particles passing merely into other kinds of organic or inorganic being. but then, it is placed on a very precarious ground,--the mere supposition of a material product, which can never be established by proof, and which, if there were no other objection to it, might well seem to be sufficiently discredited by the mere fact that it ascribes to _the effect_ properties and powers, of a very high and peculiar order, which do not exist in _the cause_. 2. the doctrine of "future rewards and punishments," or of "man's responsibility" as a subject of the divine government, is also materially affected by the theory of materialism, in some, at least, of its forms. when it is connected, as it often has been, with the doctrine of "mechanical necessity," which represents every thought, opinion, emotion, desire, and habit, as the unavoidable result of mere physical influences acting on the brain, and makes no account of the spontaneity or freedom which belongs to man as an intelligent, moral, and responsible agent, it is manifestly impossible to discover any ground for the doctrine of future rewards and punishments. and accordingly, d'holbach, comte, and atkinson describe man as if he were the mere creature of circumstances, and deny that his character could possibly have been different from what it is. but even when it is not associated with fatalism, the theory, which denies the distinct existence of the soul as a substantive being, has a tendency to shake our belief in the doctrine of a "future retribution," properly so called, since that doctrine rests on the assumption of our continued personal identity, or the unity and continuity of our consciousness, as dying yet immortal beings; whereas, if there be no "soul," or substantive spiritual being, and if the "body" be in a state of perpetual flux and mutation, it is difficult to see how _the same being that sinned can suffer_, or how the doctrine of "retribution," properly so called, can be consistently maintained. 3. the doctrine of "the spirituality" of the divine nature must be seriously affected, in different ways, by the theory of materialism. it is said in scripture that "god made man in his own image," and that he "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." deny the existence of "spirit" or "soul," as god's living image on earth, and what ground of evidence, or what help of analogy, remains for either conceiving or proving aright the existence of him who is "a spirit" and "the father of the spirits of all flesh?" and if the "spirituality" of the divine nature be called in question, many of the divine attributes must also suffer; for it is only as "a spirit" that god can be _omnipresent_, and his omnipresence is presupposed in his _omniscience_ and _omnipotence_. for these reasons, we incur the greatest risk of entertaining limited and false conceptions of god, by obliterating the distinction between "matter" and "spirit." it is, no doubt, competent, and it may even be highly useful, to entertain the question, how far the theory of materialism should be held to affect the grounds on which we believe in a living, personal, spiritual god? in answer to this question, we have no hesitation in avowing our conviction that the theory of materialism, however it may be modified, has a tendency to impair the evidence of that fundamental article of faith. god is "a spirit," and man was made "in the image of god." take away all spiritual essences; reduce every known object in nature to matter, gross or refined; let mental and moral phenomena be blended with the physical, and what remains to constitute the groundwork of a "spiritual" system, or to conduct us to the recognition of a supreme, immaterial mind? if the material body, with its peculiar organization, be capable of producing human thought, and sufficient to account for the intelligence of man, why may not the material universe, with its mysterious laws and manifold forces, be held sufficient to explain whatever marks of a higher intelligence may appear in nature? and why may we not at once embrace pantheism, and conceive of god only as "the soul of the world?" dr. priestley's reply to this question appears to us to be a mere evasion of the difficulty. in treating of "the objection to the system of materialism derived from the consideration of the divine essence," he first of all premises that "in fact we have no proper idea of any essence whatever; that our ideas concerning 'matter' do not go beyond the powers of which it is possessed, and much less can our ideas go beyond powers, properties, or attributes with respect to the divine being;" and then adds, "now, the powers and properties of the divine mind, as clearly deduced from the works of god, are not only so infinitely superior to those of the human mind, when there is some analogy between them, but so essentially different from them in other respects, that whatever term we make use of to denote the one, it must be improperly applied to the other." he specifies several points of "essential difference" between the human and the divine mind: the _first_ is, the limited intelligence of the one as contrasted with the all-comprehensive omniscience of the other; the _second_ is, the omnipotence which belongs to god, and in virtue of which he can produce, or annihilate, anything at his pleasure: the _third_ is, that "the divine essence cannot be the object of any of our senses, as everything else that we call 'matter' is." and on these grounds he concludes that "as the divine powers, so the divine nature, must be essentially different from ours, and, consequently, no common term, except such comprehensive terms as _being, nature_, &c., can be properly used to express both." he further argues that "no proof of the materiality of man can be extended, by any just analogy, to a proof or evidence of a similar materiality of the divine nature; for the properties or powers being different, the 'substance' or 'essence' (if it be any convenience to us to use such terms at all) must be different also."[177] now, we conceive this to be a mere evasion of the real difficulty: _first_, because the same mode of reasoning, if applied to the case of the human mind, would equally serve to prove that _it_ should be distinguished from matter: and, _secondly_, because the alleged _differences_ between the human and the divine mind, great and real as we admit them to be, afford no better reason for calling god a "spirit," than that which may be found in the _resemblance or analogy_ between created and uncreated intelligence. it is as true of the human as it is of the divine mind, that we know nothing of its essence, except what we learn through its properties and powers, that "it cannot be the object of any of our senses, as everything that we call 'matter' is," and that if it be right to give different and distinctive names to substances, expressive of their properties in so far as these are known to us, we are warranted in calling the human soul a "spirit" and distinguishing it from "matter," until it can be shown that the properties of both are identical. if this be denied, we cannot see on what ground the distinction between "matter" and "spirit" can be maintained with reference to god himself. dr. priestley founds, not on the _resemblance or analogy,_ but on the _essential difference_, between created and uncreated intelligence; but, in point of fact, the _difference_, great and real as it is, has no bearing on the only question at issue; it is the _resemblance or analogy_ between all thinking beings and the supreme mind that suggests the reason for classing them under the same category as "spirits," and that enables us to rise from the spiritual nature of man to the spiritual nature of god. the personality of god, as a living, self-conscious, and active being, distinct from the created universe and superior to it, is dependent on the "spirituality" of his nature; and in so far as the latter is affected by the theory of materialism, the evidence of the former must also be proportionally weakened. we find, accordingly, that many materialists have exhibited a tendency towards a pantheistic theory of nature, in which the material universe is conceived of as the "body," of which god is the "soul." some materialists, indeed, have stopped short of pantheism; but this may have arisen from their being less consequent reasoners, or more timid thinkers, than others who were prepared to follow out their principles fearlessly to all their logical results; for, assuredly, if there be no evidence sufficient to show that the "mind" is distinct from the "body," it will require a very high kind of evidence to make it certain that "god" is distinct from "nature." 4. the theory of materialism comes into direct collision, at several points, with the doctrines of revealed religion. the doctrine of scripture in regard to the "human soul" is manifestly at variance with that theory. in the earliest pages of genesis, we have an account of its creation, which, when compared with other statements and forms of expression occurring elsewhere, seems very clearly to imply that the "soul" is a distinct substantive being, possessing properties and powers peculiar to itself, and, although now united to the "body," yet capable of existing apart from it, and destined to an immortal existence hereafter.[178] that it is a distinct substantive being, connected with the body, but not dependent on it, at least in the sense of being incapable of existing apart from it, appears from various testimonies of the inspired word. god is there pleased to call himself "the father of our spirits," and that, too, in contradistinction to "the fathers of our flesh." "we have had fathers of our 'flesh' which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of 'spirits' and live?" he is called "the god of the 'spirits' of all flesh," and "the lord who formeth the 'spirit' of man within him." the historical narrative, too, of man's creation, which declares that he was "made in the image of god," and that his "soul" was infused by an immediate divine afflatus, seems to imply that there is another and a higher relation subsisting between god and the "soul" than any that subsists between god and "matter." in other passages, the soul is expressly represented as distinct and different from the body:--"fear not them which can kill the 'body,' but are not able to kill the 'soul.'" "into thy hands i commit my 'spirit,'" said our lord, just as his proto-martyr stephen said, "lord jesus, receive my 'spirit.'" there are other passages still which affirm the separate existence of disembodied spirits: "then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and 'the spirit,' shall return unto god who gave it." "a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." nay, _spiritual life_, such as clearly presupposes the continuance of conscious existence, without interruption and without end, is said to be imparted by christ to his people:--"i am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live again, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me _shall never die_."--"whoso believeth in me ... is passed from death unto life."[179] life is said to be already imparted, such a life as shall survive death, and continue without interruption and without end; and surely this is utterly inconsistent with that theory of materialism which affirms, either the annihilation of the "soul" at death, or even the cessation of its conscious existence during the interval between death and the resurrection. the revealed doctrine of "angels," or spiritual intelligences existing in other parts of the universe, is also opposed to the theory of materialism. according to the common belief, the "soul" of man is the _nexus_ between two worlds or states of being,--the world of "matter" and the world of "mind." in man the elements of both worlds are united; by his body he is connected with the world of matter, by his soul with the world of mind. death, which dissolves the union between the two, consigns the one to the dust, and introduces the other into the world of spirits. on this view, there is no difficulty in rising to the conception of higher spiritual intelligences; and the variety and gradation that are observable in all the works of god on earth may impart to that sublime conception such a measure of verisimilitude as to make it easily credible on the authority of revelation. but the theory of materialism, especially as advocated by dr. priestley, plainly excludes the existence of any order of "spiritual beings" other than the uncreated mind; for if that only is to be termed "spirit" which possesses omniscience and the power of producing anything at pleasure, it is clear that the highest angels and seraphims are no more "spirits" than the souls of men. such being the relation which subsists between the theory of materialism, and some of the most important doctrines of natural and revealed religion, it is not wonderful that a serious consideration of the latter should lead reflective men to abjure the former, or that their aversion to it should increase in proportion as their views of divine truth are extended and enlarged. not a few have yielded, in early youth, to the charm of speculative inquiry, and fondly embraced the idea of "unisubstancisme," who have lived to exchange it for a more scriptural faith. for just in proportion as men are brought under the influence of serious views of god, of the soul, and of an eternal world, in the same proportion will they become alienated, and even averse, from a theory which confounds "spirit" with "matter," obscures their conceptions of god and of the world of spirits, and degrades men to the level of the beasts that perish. this effect of new, or, at least, more vivid views of "things unseen and eternal" was instructively exemplified in the case of the late robert hall. like many an ardent speculatist, he had embraced in early life the system of materialism; and even after he had entered on the work of the ministry, he could write to a professedly christian congregation in the following terms: "i am, and have been for a long time, a materialist, though i have never drawn your attention to this subject in my preaching, because i have always considered it myself, and wished you to consider it, as a _mere metaphysical speculation_. my opinion, however, on this head, is, that the nature of man is simple and uniform, that the thinking powers and faculties are the result of a certain organization of matter,--and that after death he ceases to be conscious until the resurrection."[180] but speculative inquiry was soon to give place to spiritual faith. the death of his revered and pious father brought his mind into realizing contact with an unseen and eternal world; and, in the words of his biographer, distinguished alike for profound science and deep practical piety, "the death of mr. hall's father tended greatly to bring his mind to the state of serious thought with which he entered on the pastoral office. meditating with the deepest veneration upon the unusual excellences of a parent now forever lost to him, he was led to investigate, with renewed earnestness, the truth as well as the value of those high and sacred principles from which his eminent piety and admirable consistency so evidently flowed. he called to mind, too, several occasions on which his father, partly by the force of reason, partly by that of tender expostulation, had exhorted him to abandon the vague and dangerous speculations to which he was prone. some important changes in mr. hall's sentiments resulted from an inquiry conducted under such solemn impressions, and among these may be mentioned his renunciation of materialism, which, he often declared, he _buried in his father's grave_." footnotes: [145] m. ad. franck, "rapport a l'academie," preface, p. xxi. [146] m. comte, "cours," i. 44, 89, 141; iv. 675; v. 45, 303. m. crousse, "des principes," pp. 16, 20, 84, 88. m. cabanis, "rapports du phisique et du moral de l'homme," 3 vols. m. broussais, "traité de physiologie appliquée a la pathologie," 1828. [147] "systême de la nature," i. 2, 10, 86, 101, and _passim_. this eloquent text-book of the atheism of the last century is dissected and refuted by m. bergier in his "examen du materialisme," 2 vols. paris, 1771. [148] m. comte, "cours," i. 44, 141. m. crousse, "des principes," pp. 84, 86. atkitson and martineau, "letters on the laws of man's nature and development." [149] dr. priestley, "discoveries relating to vision, light, and colors." mr. dugald stewart, "philosoph. essays," p. 187. [150] dr. priestley, "disquisitions relating to matter and spirit;" "free discussion of the doctrine of materialism;" "correspondence between dr. priestley and dr. price." [151] dr. john mason good, "life of lucretius," prefixed to his poetical version of "the nature of things," i. xxxviii. [152] the "fictions of clairvoyance" may be studied at large in "the principles of nature and her divine revelations," by and. j. davis, the poughkeepsie seer, 2 vols.; and in "the celestial telegraph," by m. cahagnet. an attempt has been made to popularize the doctrine by introducing it into the light literature of the continent. see "memoirs of a physician, joseph balsamo," by alexander dumas, i. 15, 21, 82; ii. 50, 62, 70. whether the cases reported by dr. gregory deserve to be ranked as facts or fictions is a question which we need not wait to solve, before we reject the "revelations" of davis. [153] dr. priestley, "disquisitions," p. 2. [154] "systême de la nature," i. 97, 108. [155] dr. priestley, "disquisitions," pp. 27, 38, 60. [156] mr. atkinson, "laws of man's nature," p. 17. [157] dr. spurzheim, "philosophical principles of phrenology," pp. vi., 86, 100. professor dod, "princeton theological essays," ii. 376. [158] dr. gregory, "letters on animal magnetism," p. 57. [159] bishop butler, "analogy," p. i. c. 1, p. 170. [160] dr. john playfair, "works," i., preface, xxix. [161] c. m. burnett, m. d., "philosophy," &c. london, 1850. [162] bishop berkeley, "words," i. 80. [163] lord brougham, "discourse of natural theology," p. 238. [164] stewart, "elements of philosophy," i. 5. [165] locke's "essay," b. ii. c. 23, § 15. ibid., b. iv. c. 3, § 6. [166] locke, "letter to bishop of worcester," works, iv. 31. [167] thomas carlyle, "essays," i. 77, 214. [168] c. bonnet, "palingenesie philosophique," 4 vols., i. 7, 47, 52. [169] dr. priestley, "disquisitions," pp. 37, 38. [170] dr. thomas brown, "lectures," no. xcvi. [171] atkinson, "letters," p. 17. [172] dr. sam. clarke's "third defence," in reply to collins, pp. 5, 8, 17. [173] dr. sam. clarke, "first defence," pp. 11, 16; "second defence," pp. 4, 10. [174] dr. clarke's "letter to mr. dodwell," pp. 34, 69, 72. andrew baxter, "on the soul," i. 227, 233. [175] matthew 10: 28. [176] luke 16: 22; phil. 1: 23. [177] dr. priestley, "disquisitions," p. 103; "free discussion," pp. 66, 237. [178] flavel, "pneumatologia; or, treatise of the soul," i. 290. sir m. hale, "primitive origination of mankind," p. 309. [179] _compare_ heb. 12: 9; num. 16: 22; 27: 16; zech. 12: 1; luke 23: 43, 46; acts 7: 59; eccles. 12: 7; 2 cor. 5: 8; james 2: 26; luke 24: 39; john 10: 25; john 5: 24. [180] dr. olinthus gregory, "life of hall," works, vi. 26. chapter v. theory of government by natural laws.--volney.--combe. the theory of "natural laws" has been applied to disprove or supersede the doctrine of creation, by means of the principle of development. it has been further applied to _the government_, as well as to the _creation_, of the world; and in this connection, it has been urged as a reason for disbelieving the doctrine of god's special providence, and employed to discredit the efficacy of prayer. when thus applied, it is often associated with the recognition of the divine existence, and cannot, therefore, be ranked among systems avowedly atheistic. but from the earliest times, it has been the belief of seriously reflecting men, that a system which professedly recognizes the divine being as the creator of the world, but practically excludes him from the government of its affairs, however _theoretically_ different from atheism, is substantially the same with it.[181] it was against this epicurean atheism that howe contended in his "living temple;" an atheism which acknowledged gods, but "accounted that they were such as between whom and man there could be no conversation,--on _their_ part by providence, on _man's_ by religion." and it was against the same epicurean atheism that cudworth contended in his "intellectual system of the universe," when he grappled with the objections which had been urged against the doctrine of providence and the practice of prayer.[182] it is not wonderful that either atheists or pantheists should discard the doctrine of providence, or deny the efficacy of prayer. on their principles, there is no room for the recognition of a supreme intelligent power governing the world, or of a will capable of controlling the course of human affairs.[183] but while neither atheism nor pantheism could be expected to recognize a presiding providence, since they equally exclude a personal god, it may well seem strange that any system of theism, whether natural or revealed, should omit or oppose this fundamental truth. for the doctrine of providence may be established, _inductively_, by the very same kind of evidence to which every theist has recourse in proving the existence and perfections of the divine being; and, his existence and perfections being proved, the doctrine of providence may be inferred, _deductively_, from his character, and from the relations which he sustains towards his creatures, since it cannot be supposed that he who brought them into being, as the products of his own wisdom, goodness, and power, and endowed them with all their various properties for some great and noble end, will ever cease to care for them, or deem them unworthy of his regard. yet, strong as is the proof arising from these and similar sources, there have occasionally appeared in all ages, and especially at a certain stage in the progress of philosophical speculation, men who admitted, and even maintained, the existence of the supreme being, while they denied, nevertheless, the doctrine of providence and the efficacy of prayer. in certain stages of philosophic inquiry, there is a natural tendency, we think, or at least a strong temptation, to substitute the laws of nature in the place of god, or to conceive of him as somehow removed to a greater distance from us by means of these laws. every one must be conscious, to some extent, of this tendency in his own personal experience; he must have felt that when he first began to apprehend any one of the great laws of nature, and still more when he advanced far enough to see that every department of the physical world is subject to them, so as to exhibit a constant order, an all-pervading harmony, his views of god and providence became less impressive in proportion as the domain of "law" was extended, and that he was in imminent danger of sinking, if not into _theoretical_, at least into _practical_ atheism. "it is a fact," says dr. channing, "that science has not made nature _as expressive of god_ in the first instance or, to the beginner in religion, as it was in earlier times. science reveals a rigid, immutable _order_; and this to common minds looks much like self-subsistence, and does not manifest intelligence, which is full of life, variety, and progressive operation. men in the days of their ignorance saw an immediate divinity accomplishing an immediate purpose, or expressing an immediate feeling, in every sudden, striking change of nature, ... and nature, thus interpreted, became the sign of a present, deeply-interested deity."[184] that the scientific study of nature, and especially of certain departments of physical inquiry, has often had the effect of deadening our sense of a present and presiding deity, of obscuring or perplexing our views of the connection of god with his works, and of virtually removing him from all efficient control over the creatures of his hands, is attested, not only by the published speculations of some, but also by the inward consciousness of many more, who have never avowed infidel sentiments to others, nor even, at least articulately, to themselves. it may be useful, therefore, to inquire somewhat particularly, whether, and how far, the existence of "natural laws" and the operation of "second causes" should affect our views of the providence which god exercises over us, or of the prayers which we address to him. section i. the doctrine of natural laws and second causes. the existence of "natural laws," and the operation of "second causes," are often explicitly recognized, and always obviously implied, in scripture. revelation is not designed to explain the nature or the action of either; but it assumes the reality of both.[185] it is plainly implied in the very _first_ chapter of genesis, that, at the era of creation, god gave _a definite constitution_, implying peculiar properties and powers, to all the various classes of objects which were then called into being. he created light, with its peculiar properties; he created water, with its peculiar properties. he created everything "after its kind." the distinction between one created thing and another, such as light and water, and the distinction also between "genera" and "species," especially in the case of plants, trees, fish, fowl, cattle, and reptiles, are very strongly marked in the sacred narrative: and this distinction implies the existence of certain properties peculiar to each of these objects or classes,--properties not common to them all, but distinctive and characteristic, which made them to be, severally, what they are, and which amount to a _distinct definite constitution_. these properties, account for them as we may, are essential to their existence as distinct objects in nature, and cannot be separated from them as long as the objects themselves exist. light has certain properties, and so has water, and so has every distinct order of vegetable or animal life, which make them to be what they severally are, and which cannot be severed from them otherwise than by the destruction of their very nature. these properties are known to us by their _effects_; and hence the substances or beings to which they respectively belong are regarded by us as _causes_; and their operation as causes is regulated by certain "laws," imposed upon them by the same omnipotent will which called them into being and endowed them with all their peculiar properties and powers. the operation of these "natural causes," and the existence of certain "established laws" by which they are regulated, are explicitly recognized or obviously assumed in scripture.[186] "thou hast established the earth, and it abideth; they continue this day _according to thine ordinances_, for all are _thy servants_." the established constitution and settled order of nature, as well as the "laws," "decrees," or "ordinances" by which it is regulated, are thus explicitly recognized in scripture itself; and there are several reasons why this fact should be deliberately considered. first, because it seems to have been assumed by our opponents, that the discovery of "natural laws," and the admission of "second causes," must necessarily be adverse, and may ultimately prove fatal, to the cause of religion; or, in other words, that faith must recede just in proportion as science advances; whereas the bible speaks both of natural objects, possessing peculiar properties and powers, and also of natural laws, as god's "ordinances" both in the heavens and the earth, but speaks nevertheless of a presiding providence or governing will, without ever supposing that the two are incompatible or mutually exclusive. secondly, because some of the less intelligent members of the christian community itself seem to be influenced, to a certain extent, by the very same error which we ascribe to our opponents; and evince a very groundless jealousy of science, as if they feared that the progress of physical research might have the effect of weakening the grounds on which they believe in the care of providence and the efficacy of prayer; whereas the bible gives no countenance to any jealousies or fears of this kind, but affirms god's providential government and encourages man's believing prayer, at the very time when it founds upon and appeals to the established constitution and course of nature.[187] and thirdly, because a right apprehension of the properties and powers belonging to created beings, and of the laws to which they are severally subject, will be found to conduce largely to a clear and comprehensive view of the relation which god sustains to his works. his providence, as it is declared and exemplified in scripture, has _a necessary reference to the natural constitution of things_; and hence the westminster confession, in the spirit of the highest philosophy, and with admirable discrimination and accuracy, affirms that "god, the creator of all things, doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern, all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence;" that "by the same providence, he ordereth all things to fall out _according to the nature of second causes_, either necessarily, freely, or contingently;" and that "god in his ordinary providence maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them at his pleasure."[188] "natural laws" and "second causes" are thus established by experience, and explicitly recognized in scripture. it is necessary, however, especially with reference to certain modern speculations, to discriminate between the two; and to show that while they are closely related and equally legitimate objects of philosophical inquiry, they are nevertheless radically different, as well as easily distinguishable, from each other. it is the favorite doctrine of the positive school in france that the knowledge of "causes" is utterly interdicted to man, and that the only science to which he should aspire consists exclusively in the knowledge of "phenomena," and their coördination under "general laws." m. comte explicitly avows this doctrine, and mr. mill and mr. lewes give it their implied sanction.[189] according to their theory, all science is limited to "the laws of the coexistence and succession of phenomena," and "causes" are not only unknown, but incapable of being known. and to such an extent is this doctrine carried that m. comte anticipates the possible ultimate reduction of _all_ "phenomena" to _one_ all-comprehensive, all-pervading "law," as the highest perfection of science and the decisive extinction of religion; while mr. mill, doubtful of this being possible, thinks it conceivable, at least, that there may be worlds, different from our own, in which events occur _without causes_ of any kind, and even without any _fixed law_. in regard to this theory it might well be asked, how it comes to pass that human language, which is the natural exponent of human thought, should contain, in every one of its multifarious dialects, so many expressions which denote or imply "causation," if it be true that all knowledge of causes is utterly inaccessible to the human faculties? nay, why is it that the axiom of causation needs only to be announced to command the immediate assent of the whole human race? it will be found, we believe, that even in the case of those who contend for this theory, the instinctive and spontaneous belief in "causation" is not extinguished nor even impaired; but that they seek merely _to substitute "laws" for "causes_," or rather to represent _the laws of nature_ as the only _efficient causes_ of all natural phenomena. they thus identify or confound two things which it is of the utmost consequence to discriminate and keep distinct. there is an ambiguity, however, in the common usage of the term "law," which may seem to give a plausible appearance to their theory, or at least to vail over and conceal its radical fallacy. it denotes sometimes the mere statement of _a general fact_, or the result of a comprehensive generalization, founded on the observation and comparison of many particular facts; it denotes at other times _the force or power_, whatever that may be, which produces any given set of phenomena. the "law" of gravitation, for example, is often used to denote nothing more than the _general fact_, ascertained by experience, that all bodies near the surface of the earth tend to its centre with a velocity proportioned directly to their mass, and inversely to the square of their distance; and when it is employed in _this_ sense, it determines nothing as to the "cause" which is in operation,--it affirms merely a fact, or a fact reduced to a formula, and confirmed by universal experience. but it is often transferred, at least mentally and almost perhaps unconsciously, to denote some "power" which is instinctively supposed to be in operation when any change is observed,--a "power" which may be conceived of, either as a _property_ inherent in mind or in matter, or as a _force_, such as the divine volition, acting upon it _ab extra_; and it is only in the latter of these two senses, as denoting a "cause," properly so called, and not a mere fact or law, that it can be applied to account for any phenomenon. in like manner, the "laws of motion" are merely the generalized results of our experience and observation relative to the direction, velocity, and other phenomena of moving bodies; but "motion," although it is regulated, is not produced, by these laws; it depends on a "cause," whatever that may be, which is not only distinguishable, but different from them all. yet when we speak of the "laws of motion," we may imperceptibly include, in our conception of them, that _force_ or _power_ which impels the body, as well as the mere _law_ or _rule_ which regulates its movements. it were a mere unprofitable dispute about words, did we entertain and discuss the question, whether the import of the term "law" might not be so extended as to include under it _powers_, _properties_, and _causes_, as well as the _rules_ and _conditions_ of their operation: for, even were this question answered in the affirmative, there would still be room for a real distinction between the two, and there could be no reason for saying that the knowledge of "causes," as distinguished from "laws," is wholly inaccessible to the human faculties. there is thus a real and important distinction between "laws" considered simply as general facts, and "causes" considered as efficient agents; and the two cannot be reduced to the same category, otherwise than by giving such an extension to the term "law" as shall make it comprehensive of _causation_; and even then, the distinction remains between the mere formulas of science and the actual forces of nature. "the laws of nature," says the sagacious dr. reid, "are the _rules_ according to which the effects are produced, but there must be a _cause_ which operates according to these rules. the rules of navigation never navigated a ship; the rules of architecture never built a house."[190] it might be shown, were it needful for our present purpose, that the object of science is _threefold: first_, to ascertain particular facts; _secondly_, to reduce these facts under general laws; and, _thirdly_, to investigate the "causes" by which both _facts_ and _laws_ may be accounted for. the exclusion of any one of the three would be fatal to philosophy as well as religion; and it is prohibited by the "natural laws" of the human mind, which has the capacity not only of observing particular facts, but of comparing and contrasting them so as to deduce from them a knowledge of general laws, and which is also imbued with an instinctive and spontaneous tendency to ascribe every change that is observed to some "power" or "cause" capable of producing such an effect. it might further be shown, that in every instance a "cause," properly so called, is a _substance_ or _being_ possessing certain properties or powers,--properties which may be called, if you will, the "laws" of that substance, but which necessarily include the idea of _causation_ or _efficiency_; that in the case of mere physical agency, there must be a plurality of substances so related as that the one shall act on the other in certain conditions which are indispensable to their mutual action; and that these requirements leave ample room for those manifold adjustments and adaptations on which the argument from "design," in favor of the perfections and providence of god, is founded. the mere recognition of "general laws," considered simply as the "coördination of facts," and especially as exclusive of the idea of causation or efficiency, can never satisfy the demands of reason, nor exhaust the legitimate functions of science. for, in the expressive words of sir john herschell, "it is high time that philosophers, both physical and others, should come to some nearer agreement than seems to prevail, as to the meaning they intend to convey in speaking of causes and causation. on the one hand, we are told that the grand object of physical inquiry is to explain the nature of phenomena by referring them to their _causes_; on the other, that the inquiry into 'causes' is altogether vain and futile, and that science has no concern but with the discovery of 'laws.' which of these is the truth? or are both views of the matter true _on a different interpretation of the terms_? whichever view we may take, or whichever interpretation we may adopt, there is one thing certain,--the extreme inconvenience of such a state of language. this can only be reformed by a careful analysis of the widest of all human generalizations, disentangling from one another the innumerable shades of meaning which have got confounded together in its progress, and establishing among them a rational classification and nomenclature.... a 'law' may be a _rule of action_, but it is not _action_. the great first agent may lay down a rule of action for himself, and that rule may become known to man by observation of its uniformity; but, constituted as our minds are, and having that conscious knowledge of _causation_ which is forced upon us by the reality of the distinction between _intending_ a thing, and _doing_ it, we can never substitute the 'rule' for the 'act.'"[191] but while the existence of "natural laws" and the operation of "second causes" are equally admitted, and yet duly discriminated, large room is still left for diversities of opinion or of statement in regard to _the precise relation which god sustains to his works_, and especially in regard to _the nature and method of his agency in connection with the use of "second causes_." hence have arisen the various theories which have appeared successively in the history of philosophy, and which have had for their avowed object the explanation of the _connection between god and nature_, or the conciliation of theology with science.[192] hence, first of all, the theory of "occasional causes," as taught by father malebranche, with the laudable, but, as we think, mistaken, design of vindicating the divine agency in providence by virtually superseding every other power in nature;--a theory which represents physical agencies as the mere _occasions_, and god as the sole _cause_ of all changes, which teaches that a healthy eye, with the presence of light, is not the cause of vision, but the occasion only of that divine interposition by which alone we are enabled to see, and that a man's desire or volition to walk is not the cause of his walking, but the occasion merely of that divine interposition which alone puts the proper muscles in motion. hence, secondly, the theory of "preëstablished harmony" as taught by leibnitz;--a theory which was mainly designed to explain the relation subsisting between the soul and the body, but which involves principles bearing on the general doctrine of cause and effect, and applicable to the relation subsisting between god and his works. this theory teaches that mind and body, although closely united, have no real influence on each other, that each of them acts by its own properties and powers, and that their respective operations exactly correspond to each other by virtue of a "preëstablished harmony" between the two, just as one clock may be so adjusted as to keep time with another, although each has its own moving power, and neither receives any part of its motions from the other. this theory, therefore, denies everything like causal action between mind and matter; and when it is extended, as it may legitimately be, to the relation between god and the world, it would seem to imply the coequal existence and independence of both, and the impossibility of any causal relation between the two. the manifest defects of these theories have given rise to a _third_, which, in one of its forms, has been generally adopted by divines,--the theory of "instrumental causes." this theory has assumed two distinct and very different forms. in the first, all natural effects are ascribed to powers _imparted_ to created beings, and _inherent_ in them; that is, to powers which are supposed to have been conferred at the era of creation, and to be still sustained by god's will in providence, subject, however, to be suspended or revoked according to his pleasure. in the second, which resembles in some respects the doctrine of "occasional causes," all natural effects are ascribed to powers not _imparted_, but _impressed_, not belonging to the natural agent, but communicated by impulse _ab extra_; and god's will is represented as the only efficient cause in nature. in both forms of the theory, the agency of god and the instrumentality of natural means are, in a certain sense, acknowledged; but in the _former_, second causes are apt to be regarded as if they were self-existent and independent of god; in the _latter_, second causes are apt to be virtually annulled, and all events to be regarded as the immediate effects of divine volition. both extremes are dangerous. for, on the one hand, the operation of second causes cannot be regarded as necessary and independent, without severing the tie which connects the created universe with the will of the supreme; and, on the other hand, the operation of second causes cannot be excluded or denied, without virtually making god's will _the only efficient cause_, and thereby charging directly and immediately on him, not only all the physical changes which occur in nature, but also all the volitions and actions of his creatures. in order to guard against these opposite and equally dangerous extremes, we must hold the real existence and actual operation of "second causes;" while we are careful, at the same time, to show both that whatever powers belong to any created being were originally conferred by god, and also that they are still preserved and perpetuated by him, subject to his control, and liable to be suspended or revoked, according to the pleasure of his will. we would thus have _one first_, and many second causes; the former _supreme_, the latter _subordinate_; really distinct, but not equally independent, since "second causes" are, from their very nature, subject to the dominion and control of that omniscient mind which called them into being, and which knows how to overrule them all for the accomplishment of his great designs. we are aware that some are unwilling to acknowledge the _efficiency_ of any "second causes," and seek to resolve all events, even such as are brought about by the volitions of men, into the will of god, as the only agent in nature. others, again, admitting the existence of created spirits, and their operation as real causes, are unwilling to acknowledge any active powers in _matter_, and are anxious to show that _mind_, and _mind only_, can be an efficient cause. we see no reason for this extreme jealousy of "second causes" either in the mental or the material world. in the mental world, they cannot be denied, as distinct, although subordinate and dependent, agencies, without virtually making god's will _the only cause_ in nature, and thereby representing him as the _cause of sin_, if sin, indeed, could exist on that supposition, or without destroying the distinct individuality and personal responsibility of man. man must be regarded as a distinct, though dependent, _agent_, and, as such, a real, though subordinate, _cause_; otherwise every action, whether good or evil, must be ascribed directly and immediately to the efficiency of the divine will, and _to that alone_. and in the material world, "second causes" can as little be dispensed with; for every theory, even the most meagre, must acknowledge the existence of _some_ power or property in matter, were it only the passive power or _vis inertiæ_ on which all the laws of motion depend. and if _this_ can be admitted as a power inherent in matter and inseparable from it, we cannot see why the existence of _other_ powers, not incompatible with this, should be deemed a whit more derogatory to the dominion and providence of god. in a certain sense, indeed, god's will may be said to be the first, the supreme cause of all, since nothing can happen without his permission or appointment: but, in this sense, the existence of "natural laws" and the operation of "second causes" are by no means excluded; they are only held to have been originated at first, and ever afterwards sustained by the divine will, the latter being _supreme_, the former _subordinate_. it may also be said, in a certain sense, that mind only is active:[193] for all the properties and powers of matter are the results of the divine volition, and their mode of action is regulated and determined by "laws" which god has imposed; but it were unphilosophical, as well as unscriptural, to infer from this that he is the only agent in the universe; it is enough to say that he created the system of nature, and that he still upholds and governs it by his providence. it must be evident that the speculations to which we have referred have a close connection with the argument, founded on natural evidence, for the being, perfections, and providence of god. that argument, in so far as it depends on the mutual adaptations between natural objects and the nice adjustments of natural laws, might be seriously impaired by supposing that there is really only one cause in nature; whereas the ascription of certain properties and powers to created beings, whether mental or material, can have no effect in diminishing its force, since the evidence depends not so much on the phenomena of _physical_, as on those of _moral_ causation. on the whole, we conclude that the existence of "natural laws" and the operation of "second causes" are recognized alike by the sacred writers and by sound philosophy; and that neither the one nor the other ought to be regarded as adverse to any doctrine which, as christian theists, we are concerned to defend. section ii. the constitution of man considered in its relation to the government of god. "the constitution of man considered in relation to external objects,"[194]--such is the title of a popular, and, in some respects, instructive work, which has obtained, partly through the aid of an endowment, extensive circulation among the reading class of artisans and tradesmen. written in a lucid style, and illustrated by numerous facts in natural history and philosophy, it is skilfully adapted to the capacities and tastes of common readers, and it is not wonderful that it should have exerted considerable influence on the public mind. the character of that influence, and its tendency to induce a religious or irreligious frame of spirit, has been made a matter of controversial discussion. on the one hand, mr. combe tells us that "'the constitution of man' not only admits the existence of god, but is throughout devoted to the object of expounding and proving that he exercises a real, practical, and intelligible government of this world, rewarding virtue with physical and moral well-being, and punishing vice with want and suffering." on the other hand, it is manifest, beyond the possibility of doubt or denial, that if his professed theism has subjected him to the charge of being an inconsequent thinker in some of the organs of avowed atheism,[195] his favorite arguments in support of "government by natural law" have been applied by himself, and eagerly welcomed by others, as conclusive objections to the doctrine of a special providence and the efficacy of prayer. we do not object to the limitation of his inquiry to the one point of the relation subsisting between "the constitution of man and external objects,"--that is a perfectly legitimate, and might be a highly instructive field of investigation; but we do object to his utter forgetfulness of that limitation in the progress of his work, and to his attempt to introduce a variety of other topics which are manifestly alien from his professed design. if he meant to discuss merely the relation between the constitution of man and external objects, he had nothing whatever to do with the far higher and more comprehensive doctrine respecting the relation between the constitution of man and the government of god, and, least of all, with the _revealed_ doctrines of a special providence, of a fall into a state of sin, of death as its wages, and of "spiritual influences" by which the ruin occasioned by the fall may be redressed; and yet these topics, foreign as they are to the professed design of his work, are all introduced, and treated, too, in a way that is fitted, if not designed, to shake the confidence of his readers in what have hitherto been regarded as important articles of the christian faith. it has received this significant testimony, "'combe's constitution of man' would be worth a hundred new testaments on the banks of the ganges."[196] there are _two points_, especially, on which he comes more directly into collision with our present argument: 1. he speaks as if god governed the universe _only_ by "natural laws," so as to exclude any other dispensation of providence. 2. he speaks as if the "physical and organic" laws of nature possessed the same authority and imposed the same obligation as the "moral" laws of conscience and revelation; and as if the breach or neglect of the former were _punishable_ in the same sense, and for the same reason, as the transgression of the latter. next to the omission of all reference to a future state, and the total exclusion of the connection which subsists between the temporal and the eternal under the divine government, we hold these _two_ to be the capital defects of his treatise; and it may be useful, in the present state of public opinion, to offer a few remarks upon each of them. in regard to the _first_, we need not repeat what we have already explicitly declared, that god does govern the world _in part_ by means of "natural laws" and "second causes;" but, not content with this concession, mr. combe speaks as if he governed the world _only_ by these means, to the exclusion of everything like a "special providence," or "divine influences." it is not so much in his dogmatic statements as in his illustrative examples that the real tendency of his theory becomes apparent. thus he speaks of "the most pious and benevolent missionaries sailing to civilize and christianize the heathen, but, embarking in an unsound ship, they are drowned by their disobeying a physical law, without their destruction being averted by their morality;" and, on the other hand, of "the greatest monsters of iniquity" embarking in a staunch and strong ship, and escaping drowning "in circumstances exactly similar to those which would send the missionaries to the bottom." thus, again, he speaks of plague, fever, and ague, as resulting from the neglect of "organic laws," and as resulting from it so necessarily that they could be averted neither by providence nor by prayer; and he illustrates his views by the mental distress of the wife of ebenezer erskine, and the recorded experience of mrs. hannah more.[197] it cannot be doubted, we think, that in all these cases he speaks as if god governed the world _only_ by natural laws; and that he does not recognize any special providence or any answer to prayer, but resolves all events into the operation of these "laws." now, there are evidently _two_ suppositions that may be entertained on this subject: either, that god orders _all_ events to fall out according to "natural laws" and by means of "second causes;" or, that while he _generally_ makes use of means in the ordinary course of his providence, he reserves the liberty and the power of interposing directly and immediately, when he sees cause, for the accomplishment of his sovereign will. these two suppositions seem to exhaust the only possible alternatives in a question of this kind; and, strange as it may at first sight appear to be, it is nevertheless true that neither the one nor the other is necessarily adverse to the doctrine for which we now contend. even on the first supposition,--that god orders _all_ events to fall out according to "natural laws" and by means of "second causes,"--there might still be room, not, indeed, for miraculous interposition, but for the exercise of a special providence and even for an answer to prayer; for it should never be forgotten that, among the "second causes" created and governed by the supreme will, there are other agencies besides those that are purely physical,--there are intelligent beings, belonging both to the visible and invisible worlds, who may be employed, for ought we know to the contrary, as "ministers in fulfilling his will," and whose agency may, without any miraculous interference with the established order of nature, bring about important practical results, just as man's own agency is admitted to have the power of arranging, modifying, and directing the elements of nature, while it has no power to suspend or reverse any "natural law." and if god is ordinarily pleased to make use of means, why should it be thought incredible that he may make use of the ministry of intelligent beings, whether they be men or angels, for the accomplishment of his designs? but on the second supposition,--that while he generally makes use of means in the ordinary course of his providence, he reserves the liberty and the power of interposing directly and immediately when he sees cause,--the doctrine of a special providence, including every interposition, natural or supernatural, is at once established; and we cannot see how mr. combe, as a professed believer in revelation, which must of course be regarded as a supernatural effect of "divine influence," can consistently deny god's direct and immediate agency in providence, since he is compelled to admit it at least on _two_ great occasions, namely, the creation of the world, and the promulgation of his revealed will. in regard, again, to the second capital defect or error of his system, it may be conclusively shown that he confounds, or fails at least duly to discriminate, two things which are radically different, when he speaks as if the "physical and organic laws" of nature had the same _authority_, and imposed the same obligations, as the "moral laws" of conscience and revelation, and as if the breach or neglect of the former were _punishable_, in the same sense, and for the same reason, as the transgression of the latter. the declared object of his treatise is twofold: first, to illustrate the relation subsisting between the "natural laws" and the "constitution of man;" and, secondly, to prove the _independent operation_ of these laws, as _a key to the explanation of the divine government_. in illustrating the relation between the "natural laws" and the "constitution of man," he attempts to show that the natural laws require obedience not less than the moral, and that they inflict punishment on disobedience: "the peculiarity of the new doctrine is that these (the physical, organic, and moral laws) operate independently of each other; that each requires obedience to itself; that each, in its own specific way, rewards obedience and punishes disobedience; and that human beings are happy in proportion to the extent to which they place themselves in accordance with _all_ of these divine institutions." in regard to these "natural laws,"--including the physical, the organic, the intellectual, and the moral,--_four_ positions are laid down: first, that they are independent of each other; secondly, that obedience or disobedience to each of them is followed by reward or punishment; thirdly, that they are universal and invariable; and, fourthly, that they are in harmony with the "constitution of man."[198] now, in this theory of "natural laws," especially as it is applied to the doctrines of providence and prayer, there seem to be _three_ radical defects: 1. mr. combe speaks of _obedience_ and _disobedience_ to the "physical and organic" laws, as if they _could_ be obeyed or disobeyed in the same sense and in the same way as the "moral" laws, and as if they imposed an obligation on man which it would be sinful to disregard. he has not duly considered that the moral law differs from the physical and organic laws of nature in two important respects: first, that while the former _may_, the latter _cannot_, be broken or violated by man; and secondly, that while the former does impose an imperative obligation which is felt by every conscience, the latter have either no relation to the conscience at all, or, if they have, it is collateral and indirect only, and arises not from the mere existence of such laws, but from the felt obligation of a _moral law belonging to our own nature_, which prescribes _prudence_ as a duty with reference to our personal conduct in the circumstances in which we are placed. that the "physical and organic" laws cannot be broken or violated in the same sense in which the "moral law" may be transgressed, is evident from the simple consideration that the violation of a natural law, were it possible, _would be not a sin, but a miracle_! and that these laws impose no real obligation on the conscience is further manifest, because we hold it to be perfectly lawful to counteract, so far as we can, the operation of one physical or organic law by employing the agency of another, as in the appliances of mechanics, the experiments of chemistry, and the art of navigation. when the aëronaut inflates his balloon with a gas specifically lighter than atmospheric air, or the ship-builder constructs vessels of wood or iron, so that when filled with air they shall be lighter than water, and float with their cargo on its surface, each is attempting to counteract the law of gravitation by the application of certain other related laws: but no one ever dreams of their _disobeying_ god in thus availing themselves of one physical agent to counterpoise another. the "moral law," however, cannot be treated in the same way, and that simply because it is generically different. it is true, that _indirectly_ the laws of nature, when known, may and ought to regulate our practical conduct; not, however, by virtue of any obligation imposed _by them_ on our conscience, but solely by virtue of that law of _moral prudence_ which springs from conscience itself, and which teaches us that we _ought_ so to act with reference to outward objects as to secure, so far as we can, our own safety and happiness, and the welfare of our fellow-men. but there can be no greater blunder than to confound _the laws of natural objects_ with _the law of human conduct_; and into this deplorable blunder mr. combe has allowed himself to fall. throughout the whole of his statements respecting the "natural laws," there are two things included under one name, which are perfectly distinct and separate from each other. in the first place, there are the laws which belong to the constitution of natural objects, and which regulate their mutual action on one another: in the second place, there are, in the words of a late sagacious layman, "_rules_ which the intellect of man is able to deduce for the regulation of his own conduct, by means of his knowledge of those laws which govern the phenomena of nature. these last are perfectly distinct from the former; and it is a monstrous confusion of ideas to mix them up together.... the true state of the case is this,--it is for our interest to study these natural arrangements, and to accommodate our conduct to them, as far as we know them; and in doing so, we _obey_, not those laws of nature, physical and organic, but the laws of _prudence and good sense_, arising from a due use of our moral and intellectual faculties."[199] another acute writer,[200] who states the substance of the argument in very few words, has shown that the theory of "natural laws," as taught by mr. combe, is true in one sense and false in another: "it is _true_, first, that the creator has bestowed constitutions on physical objects; in other words, the constitutions which physical objects possess were _given_ them, given during his pleasure; secondly, that the constitutions of physical objects are _definite_,--that is, they are distinct, individual, and incapable of transmutation _by natural causes_; thirdly, that no power but the power of the creator can vary their constitutions. but it is _not true_, first, that any mode of action of a physical object is otherwise inherent in it, than as it is the will of god that that object should _now_ present that mode of action. nor is it true, secondly, that it is beyond the power of god to vary, when he pleases, either temporarily or permanently, the constitution of physical objects." he further shows that, on mr. combe's principle of "natural laws" being all equally divine institutions which must be _obeyed_, "human obedience is a very complicated and perplexing affair, so complicated and so perplexing as to involve positive contradictions;" that "the very same act is required by one law, and forbidden by another, both laws being equally divine;" and that "we sometimes cannot obey both the 'organic' and the 'moral' laws." he concludes that "physical laws ought not to be confounded with laws of human conduct;" that "these we always must obey, and those we may often, without deserving blame, boldly disregard;" and that "by commingling distinct classes of 'natural laws,' mr. combe introduces into his system dangerous error and gross absurdity." 2. another radical defect in this theory of "natural laws" consists in its representing the consequences of our ignorance or neglect of them as _punishments_ in the same sense in which moral delinquencies are said to be followed by penal inflictions. there is something here which is totally at variance with the instinctive feelings and moral convictions of mankind. mr. combe affirms that each of the three great classes of "natural laws" requires _obedience_ to itself, and that each, in its own specific way, rewards obedience and punishes disobedience. and he gives, as one example, the case of the most pious and benevolent missionaries sailing to civilize and christianize the heathen, but embarking in an unsound ship, and being drowned _by disobeying a "natural law;"_ as another, the case of "a child or an aged person, stumbling into the fire, through mere lack of physical strength to keep out of it;" as another, the case of "an ignorant child, groping about for something to eat and drink, and stumbling on a phial of laudanum, drinking it and dying;" and as another, the case of "a slater slipping from the roof of a high building, in consequence of a stone of the ridge having given way as he walked upright along it."[201] in all these cases, the accident or misfortune which befalls the individual is represented as the _punishment_ connected with the neglect or transgression of a "natural law," just as remorse, shame, conviction, and condemnation may be the punishment for a moral offence. in other words, a child who ignorantly drinks laudanum is _punished with death_, in the same sense, and for the same reason, that the murderer is punished with death for shedding the blood of a fellow-creature; and the poor slater who misses his foot, and falls, most unwillingly, from a roof or parapet, is _punished with death_, just as a man would be who threw himself over _with the intention_ of committing suicide! surely there is some grave error here,--an error opposed to the surest dictates of our moral nature, and one that cannot be glossed over by any apologue, however ingeniously constructed, to show the evil effects which would follow from a suspension of the general laws of nature. for, in the words of mr. scott, it is only where "the law is previously known"--and not only so, but where the "circumstances which determine the effect might be foreseen"--that "the pleasures or pains annexed to actions can properly be termed _rewards and punishments_;" for "these have reference to the state of mind of the party who is to be rewarded or punished; it is the intention or disposition of the mind, and not the mere act of the body, that is ever considered as obedience or disobedience, or thought worthy, in a moral sense, of either reward or punishment." and as the theory is thus subversive of all our ideas of moral retribution, so it demands of man a kind of obedience which it is _impossible_ for him to render, since _all_ the laws of nature, and _all_ the states of particular things at a given time, cannot possibly be known by the ignorant many, nor even by the philosophic few. the philosopher, not less than the peasant, may perish through the explosion of a steam engine, or the unsoundness of a ship, or the casual ignition of his dwelling; and that, too, without blame or punishment being involved in either case. on mr. combe's theory, it would seem to be necessary that every one should be a man of science, if he would avoid _sin_ and _punishment_; and yet, unfortunately, the ablest man of science is not exempt, in the present state of his knowledge, from the same calamities which befall his less enlightened, but not less virtuous, neighbors. these views are strikingly confirmed by the remarks of a writer in "the reasoner," who blames mr. combe for complicating his argument unnecessarily and uselessly with some of the truths of theism, and who thinks that the doctrine of "natural laws" can only be consistently maintained on the ground of atheism. "if the system of nature," he says, "be viewed by itself, without any reference to a divine author or all-perfect creator,--merely as an isolated system of facts,--no comparison could be made, no reconciliation would be necessary, and the system of nature would be regarded as the result of some unknown cause, a combination of good and evil, and no more to be censured or wondered at for being what it is, than any single substance or fact in nature excites censure or surprise on account of its peculiar constitution.... the assumption of a supernatural being as the author and director of the laws of nature appears to me to be attended with several mischievous results. first, you make every infringement of the laws of nature an offence against the supposed divine legislator, which, to a pious and conscientious mind, must give rise to distressing remorse.... again, under this view, the penalties incurred will often be very unjust, oppressive, and cruel; as where persons are placed in circumstances that compel them to violate the laws of nature, as when they are obliged to pursue some unwholesome employment which injures their health and shortens their lives; or where the penalty is incurred by an accident, as when a person breaks a leg or an arm, or is killed by a fall; or where a person is materially or fatally injured in endeavoring to save another person from injury or death. in such cases as these, to represent the unavoidable pain or death incurred or undergone for an act of beneficence, as a punishment inflicted for a transgression of the laws of god the divine legislator, is to violate all our notions of justice and right, to say nothing of goodness or mercy, and to represent the divine being as grossly unjust and cruelly vindictive.... again, if all suffering, however unavoidably incurred, is to be regarded as a punishment from the divine legislator, to attempt to alleviate or remove the suffering thus incurred would be to fly in the face of the divine authority, by endeavoring to set aside the punishment it had inflicted; just as it would be an opposition to the authority of human laws to rescue a prisoner from custody, or deliver a culprit from punishment."[202] 3. we deem it another radical defect in mr. combe's theory of "natural laws," that he represents the _distinct existence and independent action of these laws_ as "the key to the divine government," as the one principle which explains all apparent irregularities, and accounts satisfactorily for the casualties and calamities of human life. we cannot doubt, indeed, either the wisdom or the benevolence of that constitution of things under which we live, nor dispute the value and importance of those laws according to which the world is ordinarily governed. we admit that the suspension of any one of these laws, except perhaps on some signal occasion of miraculous interposition, would go far to unsettle and derange the existing economy. but "natural laws"--whether viewed individually or collectively, and whether considered as acting independently of each other, or as mutually related and interdependent--cannot afford of themselves any key to the divine government, or any solution of the difficulties of providence. we must rise to a far higher platform if we would survey the whole scheme of the divine administration: we must consider, not merely _the independent operation_ of the several classes of "natural laws," but also their _mutual relations_, as distinct but connected parts of one vast system, in which the "physical and organic" laws are made subordinate and subservient to the "moral," under the superintendence of that supreme intelligence which makes the things that are "seen and temporal" to minister to those things which are "unseen and eternal;" we must carefully discriminate, as bishop butler has done, between the mere "natural government" which is common to man with the inferior and irresponsible creation, and the higher "moral government" which is peculiar to intelligent and accountable agents; and we must seek to know how far--the reality of both being admitted--the former is auxiliary or subservient to the latter, and whether, on the whole, the system is fitted to generate that frame of mind, and to inculcate those lessons of truth, which are appropriate to the condition of man, as a subject of moral discipline in a state of probation and trial. nothing short of this will suffice for the explanation of the divine government, or for the satisfaction of the human mind. it is felt to be a mere insult to the understandings, and a bitter mockery to the feelings, of men, to talk only of "natural laws," or even of their "independent action" in such a case, to tell a weeping mother that her child died, and died too as the transgressor of a wise and salutary "natural law" which establishes a certain relation between opium and the nervous system: for, grant that the law is wise and salutary, grant that evil would result from its abolition, grant even that it acts independently of any other law, physical or moral, still the profounder question remains, whether such an event as the death of a tender child, through the operation of a law of which that child was necessarily ignorant, can properly be regarded as a punishment inflicted by divine justice? and whether a theory of this kind can afford "a key to the government of god?" such are some of the radical and incurable defects of mr. combe's theory of "natural laws." we ascribe it to him simply because he has been the most recent and the most popular expounder of it. but it is not original, nor in any sense peculiar to him alone. he acknowledges his obligations in this respect to a manuscript work of dr. spurzheim, entitled, "a sketch of the natural laws of man;" and he refers, somewhat incidentally, to volney's "law of nature," published originally as a catechism, and afterwards reprinted under the title, "la loi naturelle; _ou, principes physiques de la morale_." the same theory, in substance, had been broached in the "systême de la nature," and _there_ it was applied in support of the atheistic conclusions of that remarkable treatise. but it may be said to have been _methodized_ by volney; and in his treatise it is exhibited in a form adapted to popular instruction.[203] there is a striking resemblance between his speculations and those of mr. combe. he, too, acknowledges the existence of god; but virtually supersedes his providence by the substitution of "natural laws." the "law of nature" is defined as "the constant order by which _god_ governs the world," and is represented as the most universal "rule of action." that law is supposed to be a command or a prohibition to act in certain cases, accompanied with the natural sanction of _reward and punishment_. after giving several examples of "natural laws," which are all merely _general facts_ or the generalized results of experience, he describes man's relation to these laws almost in the words of mr. combe. "since all these, and similar facts," he says, "are unchangeable, constant, and regular, there result for man as many true laws to which he must conform, with the express clause of a _penalty attached to their infraction_, or of a benefit attached to their observance; so that if a man shall pretend to see well in the dark, if he acts in opposition to the course of the seasons or the action of the elements, if he pretends to live under water without being drowned, or to touch fire without being burned, or to deprive himself of air without being suffocated, or to drink poison without being destroyed, he receives for each of these infractions of the 'natural laws' a corporeal _punishment_, and one that is proportioned to his offence; while, on the contrary, if he observes and obeys every one of these laws, in their exact and regular relations to him, he will preserve his existence, and make it as happy as it can be." this code of "natural laws" is then described by volney as possessing no fewer than _ten_ peculiar characteristics, which give it a decided preëminence over every other moral system, whether human or divine,--as being _primitive, immediate, universal, invariable, evident, reasonable, just, peaceful, beneficial_, and alone _sufficient_. but it is so only when viewed in connection with the miserably low and meagre system of morals with which it is avowedly associated. for when morals are described as a mere physical science, founded on man's organization, his interests and passions,--when the treatise, according to its _second_ title, is professedly an attempt to expound the _physical principles of morals_,--and when, in pursuance of this plan, all the principles of ethics are rigorously reduced to _one_, namely, the principle of self-preservation, which is enforced, as a duty, by the only sanctions of pleasure and pain,--it is not wonderful that, _for such an end_, the "natural laws" might be held sufficient: but it is wonderful that any mind capable of a moment's reflection should not have perceived that, in such a system, the cardinal idea of _deity_ is altogether omitted, or left unaccounted for, in the case of man, and that no attempt is made to explain or to account for anything that is properly _moral_ in the government of god. * * * * * on a review of these speculations, it is important to bear in mind that the existence of natural laws is not necessarily exclusive of a superintending providence. their operation, on the contrary, may afford some of the strongest proofs of its reality. for, whether considered as a scheme of _provision_ or as a system of _government_, divine providence rests on a strong body of natural evidence. in the one aspect, it upholds and preserves all things; in the other, it controls and overrules all things for the accomplishment of the divine will. considered as a scheme of government, it is either _natural_ or _moral_. to the former, all created beings without exception are subject; to the latter, only some orders of being,--such, namely, as are intelligent, voluntary, and responsible agents. in the case of man, constituted as he is, the physical, organic, intellectual, and moral laws are all combined; and he is subject, therefore, both to a _natural_ government, which is common to him with all other material and organized beings, and also to a _moral_ government, which is peculiar to himself as a free and accountable agent. the _natural_ government of god extends to all his creatures, and includes man considered simply as one of them; and its reality is proved, first, by the _laws_ to which all created things are subject, and which they have no power to alter or resist; secondly, by the _final causes_ or beneficial ends which are obviously contemplated in the arrangements of nature, and the great purposes which are actually served by them; and, thirdly, by the _necessary dependence_ of all created things on the will of him to whom they owe alike the commencement and the continuance of their being. but the natural government of god, which extends to _all_ his creatures, does not exhaust or complete the doctrine of his providence: it includes also a scheme of _moral_ government, adapted to the nature, and designed for the regulation, of his intelligent, voluntary, and responsible subjects. and the reality of a moral government may be proved, _first_, by the _moral faculty_, which is a constituent part of human nature, and which makes man "a law to himself;" _secondly_, by the _essential nature_ of virtuous and vicious dispositions, as being inherently pleasant or painful; _thirdly_, by the _natural consequences_ of our actions, which indicate a sure connection between moral and physical evil; and, _fourthly_, by the _moral atmosphere_ in which we are placed, as being members of a community in which the distinction between right and wrong is universally acknowledged, and applied in the way of approbation or censure. by such proofs, the providence of god may be shown to be a scheme both of _natural_ and _moral_ government,--two aspects of the same system which are _equally real_, yet _widely different_. but the distinction between the two, although founded on a real and radical difference, is not such as to imply that they have no relation to each other, or no mutual influence, as distinct but connected parts of the same comprehensive scheme. they are not isolated, but interpenetrating; they come into contact at many points, and _the natural is made subordinate and subservient to the moral_. for there is a beautiful gradation in the order of the established laws of nature. the physical laws are made subordinate and subservient to the organic; both the physical and organic are subservient to the intellectual; the physical, organic, and intellectual are subservient to the moral; and the intellectual and moral are subservient to our preparation for the spiritual and eternal. in the words of bishop butler, "the natural and moral constitution and government of the world are _so connected_ as to make up together but _one scheme_; and it is highly probable that the first is formed and carried on merely in _subserviency to the latter_, as the vegetable world is for the animal, and organized bodies for minds."[204] every instance of pleasure or pain arising from the voluntary actions of men, is a proof that a relation of some kind has been established between all the distinct, but independent, provinces of nature; and the invariable connection between moral and physical evil shows how the lower are made subservient to the higher departments of the divine government. apart from a scheme of moral discipline, there is no reason discernible, _à priori_, why pain should be the accompaniment or consequent of one mode of action rather than another; and the relations which have been established, in the natural constitution of things, between sin and misery, affords a strong proof not only of the _reality_ of a moral government, but of the _subordination_ of physical and organic agencies to its great designs. this relation between the _natural_ and the _moral_ government of god is admirably illustrated by bishop warburton: "the application of _natural events_ to _moral government_, in the common course of providence, connects the character of lord and governor of the intellectual world with that of creator and preserver of the material.... the doctrine of the _preëstablished harmony_,--the direction of natural events to moral government,--obviates all irreligious suspicions, and not only satisfies us that there is but _one_ governor of both systems, but that both systems are conducted by _one_ scheme of providence. to form the constitution of nature in such a manner that, without controlling or suspending its laws, it should continue, throughout a long succession of ages, to produce its physical revolutions as they best contribute to the preservation and order of its own system, just at those precise periods of time when their effects, whether salutary or hurtful to many, may serve as instruments for the government of the moral world: for example, that a foreign enemy, amidst our intestine broils, should desolate all the flourishing works of rural industry,--that warring elements, in the suited order of _natural_ government, should depopulate and tear in pieces a highly-viced city, just in those very moments when _moral_ government required a warning and example to be held out to a careless world,--is giving us the noblest as well as the most astonishing idea of god's goodness and justice.... when he made the world, the free determinations of the human will, and the necessary effects of laws physical, were so fitted and accommodated to one another, that a sincere repentance in the _moral_ world should be sure to avert an impending desolation in the _natural_, not by any present alteration or suspension of its established laws, but by originally adjusting all their operations to all the foreseen circumstances of moral agency."[205] viewed in this light, the course of providence is wonderfully adapted to the constitution of human nature, since it affords as much _certainty_ in regard to some things as is sufficient to lay a foundation for forethought, prudence, and diligence in the use of means, and yet leaves so much remaining _uncertainty_ in regard to other things as should impress us with a sense of constant _dependence_ on him "in whom we live, and move, and have our being." the constitution of nature and the course of providence in the present state seem mainly intended to teach these _two_ lessons,--first, of _diligence_ in the use of means, and, secondly, of _dependence_ on a higher power: for there is sufficient _regularity_ in the course of events to encourage human industry in every department of labor; and yet there is as much _uncertainty_, arising from the endless complication of causes and the limited range of human knowledge, as should impress us with a sense of our utter helplessness. the wisdom of god in the government of the world may be equally manifested in the _regular order_ which he has established, and which, within certain limits, man may be able to ascertain and reckon on as a ground of hopeful activity; and in the _apparent casualty_ and _inscrutable mystery_ of many things which can neither be divined by human wisdom, nor controlled by human power. it matters not whether the remaining uncertainty is supposed to arise from some classes of events not being subject to regular laws, or from our ignorance of these laws, and the variety of their manifold combinations. in either case, it is certain that, in our actual experience, and, so far as we can judge, in the experience of every creature not possessed of omniscient knowledge, these two elements are and must be combined,--such a measure of _certainty_ as should encourage industry in the use of means, and such a measure of remaining _uncertainty_ as should keep them mindful that they are not, and never can be, independent of god. section iii. the efficacy of prayer. the doctrine of providence lays a firm foundation for the duty of prayer. in the case of all intelligent, moral, and responsible beings, the mere existence of a divine government to which they are subject, would seem to imply an obligation to own and acknowledge it; and this obligation is best fulfilled by the exercise of prayer, which is a practical testimony alike to man's _dependence_ and to god's _dominion_. prayer, in its widest sense, includes the whole homage which man is capable of rendering to god as the sole object of religious worship; and it implies the recognition of all his supreme perfections and prerogatives as the creator and governor of the world. it is usually described[206] as consisting, first, in "adoration,"--in which we express our sense of his rightful supremacy and absolute perfection, and do homage to him for what he is in himself; secondly, in "thanksgiving,"--in which we express our sense of gratitude for all his kindness and care, and do homage to him for the benefits which he has bestowed; thirdly, in "confession,"--in which we express our sense of sin in having transgressed his law, and do homage to him as our moral governor and judge; and, fourthly, in "petition,"--in which we express our sense of dependence alike on his providence and grace, and do homage to him as the "father of lights, from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift." of these, the _three first_ are so evidently reasonable and becoming, so necessarily involved in the simplest idea which we can form of our relations to god and of the obligations which result from them, that few, if any, of those who admit the existence and providence of the supreme being, will deny that the sentiments themselves are appropriate to our condition, however they may doubt the necessity or the duty of giving formal utterance to them in the language of religious worship. but in regard to the _fourth_, which, if it be not the most sublime or elevated, is yet the most urgent motive to the exercise of devotion, many difficulties have been raised and many objections urged, which do not apply, at least in the same measure, to the other parts of prayer, and which, in so far as they prevail with reflecting minds, would soon lead to the practical neglect of _all_ religious worship. the practice of offering up "petitions" either for ourselves or others, with the view of thereby obtaining any benefit, whether of a temporal or spiritual kind, has been denounced, and even ridiculed, as an unphilosophical attempt to alter the established course of nature, or the preordained sequences of events. the supposition of its "efficacy" has been represented as a flagrant instance of superstitious ignorance, worthy only of the dark ages, and even as a presumptuous blasphemy, derogatory to the unchangeable character of the supreme. some have held, indeed, that while prayer can have no real efficacy either in averting evil or procuring good, it may nevertheless be both legitimate and useful, by reason of the wholesome _reflex influence_ which it is fitted to exert on the mind of the worshipper; and they have recommended the continuance of the practice on this ground, as if men, once convinced of its utter inefficacy, _would_ or _could_ continue, with any fervency, to offer up their requests to god, merely for the sake of impressing their own minds through the medium of a sort of conscious hypocrisy! we are told that david hume, "after hearing a sermon preached by dr. leechman, in which he dwelt on the power of prayer to render the wishes it expressed more ardent and passionate, remarked with great justice, that 'we can make use of no expression, or even thought, in prayers and entreaties, which does not imply that these prayers have an influence.'" this intermediate ground, therefore, is plainly untenable, and we are shut up to one or other of two alternatives: either there _is_ an "efficacy" in prayer as a means of averting evil and procuring good, such as may warrant, and should encourage, us in offering up our requests unto god; or, there _is no_ such efficacy in it, and no reason why it should be observed by any of god's intelligent creatures, whether on earth or in heaven. the principles which are applicable to the decision of this important question may be best explained, after adverting briefly to some of the particular objections which have been urged against the "efficacy of prayer." several of these objections evidently proceed on an erroneous view of the nature and object of prayer. when it is said, for example, that god, being omniscient, does not need to be informed either of the wants or the wishes of any of his creatures, the objection involves a great and important truth,--a truth which was explicitly recognized by our lord when he said, "your heavenly father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him;" but that truth is grievously misapplied when it is directed to prove that prayer is either superfluous or ineffectual, since the objection virtually assumes that the object of prayer is _to inform god of what he did not know before_, and that his omniscience is of itself sufficient to show that prayer from men or angels must needs be unavailing. when it is said, _again_, that god being immutable, his will cannot be affected or altered by the "petitions" of his creatures, this objection, like the former one, involves a great and important truth,--a truth which is also explicitly recognized in scripture when it is said that "he is without variableness or the least shadow of turning;" but this truth, too, is grievously misapplied when it is directed to prove that there can be no efficacy in prayer, since it might as well be said that the divine dispensations must be invariably the same whatever may be the conduct of his creatures _in other respects_, as that they must be the same whether men do or do not pray; or, that his procedure as a moral governor has no reference whatever either to the character or conduct of his subjects. but, in the words of dr. price, "god's unchangeableness, when considered in relation to the exertion of his attributes in the government of the world, consists, not in always acting in the same manner however cases and circumstances alter, but in always doing what is right, and varying his conduct according to the various actions, characters and dispositions of beings. if, then, prayer makes an alteration in the case of the suppliant, as being the discharge of an indispensable duty, what would in truth infer _changeableness_ in him would be, not his regarding and answering it, but his _not_ doing this."[207] when it is said, _again_, that there can be no "efficacy in prayer," because there is an established constitution and regular course of nature, by which all events, whether prosperous or adverse, are invariably determined, and which cannot be altered or modified without _a miracle_, this objection, like each of the two former, involves an important truth,--a truth which is also explicitly recognized in scripture when it speaks of "the ordinances of the heavens and the earth," and of the peculiar laws and properties of all created things; but this truth is also grievously misapplied when it is directed to prove that god's will has no efficient control over natural events, or that he has no agencies at his disposal by which he can accomplish the desires of them that seek him. in all these objections there is an apparent truth, but there is also a latent error; and the false conclusion is founded on an erroneous supposition in regard to the nature and object of prayer. for this reason, we shall endeavor to separate the truth from the error, and to lay down a few positions which may be established both by reason and scripture, and which will be sufficient to show that the doctrine which affirms the efficacy of prayer is not only credible, but true. 1. prayer, in the restricted sense in which we now speak of it, as denoting "petition" or "supplication," consists in offering up "the desires of the heart to god for things agreeable to his will." it is not a mere formal, outward homage, such as might be rendered by words, or ceremonies; it is a spiritual service, in which the mind and heart of man come into immediate converse with god himself. it is offered to him personally, as to the invisible but ever-present "searcher of hearts," who "hears the _desire_ of the humble," and whose "ear is attentive to the voice of their supplications." this implies the recognition of his omnipresence and omniscience, but these perfections of his nature do not supersede the expression of our desires in prayer, just because prayer is designed, not to increase his knowledge, but to declare our sense of dependence on his will, and to procure his grace to help us in every time of need. our petitions, too, are always bounded within certain limits, and subject to at least one indispensable condition; they are offered only "for things agreeable to his will;" and when our own will is thus, in the very act of prayer, expressly subordinated to that which is alone unerring and supreme, we acknowledge at once his rightful sovereignty and our dutiful subjection, and we are not justly chargeable with the presumption of dictating to god the course of procedure which he should pursue towards us. we are protected, too, against the evils which our own _errors in prayer_ might otherwise entail on us, for "we know not what things to pray for as we ought;" and we have an infallible security that, in the best and highest sense,--that which is most in accordance with our real welfare,--our prayers _must_ be answered, since our wills are resolved into his will; and his will, being omnipotent, cannot be resisted or frustrated in any of its designs. our assurance of the certain efficacy of our prayers is so much the greater, in proportion as we have reason to believe that the things for which we pray are agreeable to his will; and hence we are more confident in asking spiritual than temporal gifts; for the former we know to be always agreeable to his will and conducive to our own welfare, while the latter may, or may not, be good for us in our present circumstances, and must be left at the sovereign disposal of him who knows what is in man, and what is best for each of his children. 2. considering the relation in which we stand to god as his creatures and subjects, it is natural, fit, and proper that _we_ should make known our requests to him, and supplicate the aids both of his providence and grace; and if it be _our duty_ to pray, it is reasonable to believe that god will have some respect to our prayers in his methods of dealing with us; in other words, that, as a righteous moral governor, he will make a difference between the godly and the ungodly, the men who do, and the men who do not, pray. in this position it is assumed that there are certain relations, natural or revealed, subsisting betwixt us and god, in virtue of which it is our duty to acknowledge his dominion and our dependence, by supplicating the aids of his providence and grace. that such relations do subsist between god and man, is evinced alike by the light of nature and of revelation; and they cannot be discerned or realized without immediately suggesting the idea of certain corresponding obligations and duties. every one whose conscience has not been utterly seared must instinctively feel the force of that appeal, "if i be a father, where is mine honor? and if i be a master, where is my fear?" for, considering god in the very simplest aspect of his character as the creator and governor of the world, he stands related to us as the author and preserver of our being, as our rightful proprietor and constant benefactor, as our supreme lawgiver, governor, and judge; and these _natural relations_, apart altogether from the _supernatural_ which are revealed in scripture, are sufficient to lay a solid groundwork for "the duty of prayer" in the case of every intelligent being who is capable of knowing god, and acknowledging his dependence on the divine will. in such a case, prayer is felt to be a natural, fit, and becoming expression of what is known to be true, and what _ought_, as a matter of duty, to be practically avowed. now, this is the grand design of prayer; and in its real design, when that is rightly apprehended, it finds its noblest vindication. the object of prayer is, neither to _inform_ god, as if he were not omniscient, nor to alter his eternal purposes, as if he were not unchangeable, nor to unsettle the established course of nature, as if he were not "a god of order;" but simply to acknowledge his _dominion_ and our _dependence_, and to obtain from him, in the way of his own appointment, the blessings of which we stand in need. it is not unreasonable to believe that god, as the governor of the world, will have some regard to the dispositions and actions of his responsible creatures, as a reason for dealing differently with those who own, and those who disown, his supremacy; and that he may require the use of certain means, such as the exercise of prayer, with the view of our obtaining from him, in a way the most beneficial to ourselves, the blessings, whether temporal or spiritual, of which we stand in need. for if we really be the creatures of god, and, as such, dependent on his providential bounty, and subject to his righteous government, it is self-evidently natural and right that we should, as intelligent and responsible beings, acknowledge his supreme dominion and our absolute dependence by supplicating the aids both of his providence and grace. this is _our duty_, considering the relations which he sustains towards us; and if it be fit and proper that we should pray to god, if it be, in our circumstances, a duty which we owe to him, then it is most reasonable to believe that it is equally fit and proper in god to have some respect to our prayers, and to deal with us differently according as we either observe or neglect this religious duty. prayer may be regarded in one or other of two distinct aspects: either as _a duty_, the observance or neglect of which must be followed, under a system of moral government, with different results; or simply as _a means_, the use of which is productive of certain effects which are made to depend on this special instrumentality. and in either view, its "efficacy" may be affirmed on the same grounds on which we are wont to vindicate the use of _all other means_, and to enforce the observance of _all other duties_, in connection with the system of the divine government. 3. the efficacy of prayer, so far from being inconsistent with, is founded on, the immutability of the divine purposes and the faithfulness of the divine promises. god's purposes are justly held, in all other cases, to include the _means_ as well as the _ends_; and they are often fulfilled through the instrumentality of "second causes." his purpose to provide for the wants of man and beast has reference not merely to the harvest which is the result, but also to the agricultural labor by which, instrumentally, the harvest is prepared. may not "prayer" be also _a means_ ordained by god in the original constitution of the world, a means towards certain ends which are made dependent on its use? if it be such a means, then its "efficacy" is established, in the only sense in which we are concerned to contend for it; while it is shown to be _no more inconsistent_ with the immutability of the divine purposes, than any other system of _means or instruments_ that may be employed as subordinate agencies in the government of the world. this important view is strikingly illustrated in scripture. for some of the _purposes_ of god, which might have been undiscoverable in the mere light of nature, are there explicitly declared; nay, they are thrown into the form of express _promises_, to which the divine faithfulness is solemnly pledged; and yet the exercise of prayer, so far from being superseded by these promises, is rather stimulated and encouraged by them; and the believer pleads with increased fervor and confidence when he simply converts _god's promises into his own petitions_. he feels that in doing so he is taking god at his word; and that his own prayer, in so far as it is warranted by his promise, cannot be ineffectual any more than god's faithfulness can fail. thus daniel "understood by books the number of the years whereof the word of the lord came to jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish _seventy_ years in the desolation of jerusalem." he knew the lord's promise, and that the time for its fulfilment was at hand; yet so far from regarding either the immutability of the divine _purpose_, or even the infallible certainty of the divine _promise_, as a reason for neglecting prayer, as if that exercise were superfluous or vain, he was stimulated and encouraged to pray just because "he knew the word of the lord."--"and i set my face," he says, "unto the lord god, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes;" and i prayed unto the lord my god, and said, "o lord! hear; o lord! forgive; o lord! hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, o my god!"[208] thus, _again_, when the lord gave certain great and precious promises to his ancient people, assuring them that "he would sprinkle clean water upon them, and give them a new heart and a right spirit," it is added, "i will yet for this be inquired of by the house of israel to do it for them."[209] thus, _again_, when the saviour himself gave to his disciples that promise, which is emphatically called "the promise of the father," assuring them that they should be "baptized with the holy ghost not many days hence," and directing them to "wait at jerusalem until they should be endued with power from above," the apostles, so far from regarding that "promise" as superseding the exercise of "prayer," betook themselves immediately to an upper room, and "all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication;" and, at the appointed time, god's promise was fulfilled, and their prayer answered, when "they were all filled with the holy ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance." these examples are abundantly sufficient to show that prayer, so far from being inconsistent with, is founded on, the immutability of the divine _purposes_, and the faithfulness of the divine _promises_. 4. our next position is, that _the method_ in which god answers the prayers of his people may be, in many respects, mysterious or even inscrutable; but no objection to "the efficacy of prayer," which is founded on our ignorance of his infinite resources, can have any weight, especially when there are _several hypothetical solutions_, any one of which is sufficient to neutralize its force. an omnipresent, omniscient, and almighty being, presiding over the affairs of his own world, as the author, upholder, and governor of all things, may well be conceived to have infinite resources at his command,--such as we can never fully estimate,--by which he can give effect to prayer in ways that may be to us inscrutable. but our ignorance of the _mode_ is no reason for doubting the _reality_ of his interposition in answer to prayer; and even if we were unable to decide on the comparative merits of the various explanations of it which have been proposed, the mere fact that there are several solutions, at once conceivable and credible, any one of which may be sufficient, as a hypothetical explanation, to neutralize every adverse presumption, should be held tantamount to a proof that no valid or conclusive objection can be urged against it. dr. chalmers has frequently illustrated the legitimate and important uses of "hypothetical solutions" in theology; and has conclusively shown that even where they leave us at a loss to determine which of various methods of solving a difficulty is the truest or the best, they yet serve a great purpose, if they merely neutralize an objection, by showing that the difficulty in question _might_ be satisfactorily accounted for, were our knowledge more extensive or more precise.[210] now, with regard to "the efficacy of prayer," there are _four_ distinct solutions, or rather _four_ different methods of disposing of the difficulty, any one of which is sufficient to vindicate the claims of the doctrine on our faith. we shall not discuss the respective merits of these various solutions in detail, but shall merely state them, with the view of showing that there are several methods of accounting for "the efficacy of prayer" in perfect consistency with the established order of nature. the first is the theory of those who hold that there _is the same relation between prayer and the answer to prayer_ as between _cause and effect in any other sequence of nature_. prayer is supposed to be the cause, and the answer the effect; and this by an invariable law, established in the original constitution, and manifested in the uniform course, of the world. to this solution dr. chalmers seems to refer when he says, that "the doctrine of the efficacy of prayer but introduces _a new sequence_ to the notice of the mind," that "it may add another law of nature to those which have been formerly observed," and that "the general truth may be preserved, that the same result always follows in the same circumstances, although it should be discovered that prayer is one of those influential circumstances by which the result is liable to be modified."[211] now, if it be meant merely to affirm that, in the administration of his providential government, god has respect to the prayers of men as a consideration which affects their relation to him and his treatment of them, and that this rule is as invariable as any other law of nature, the principle that is involved in this solution may be admitted as sound and valid; but if it be further meant, that prayer and the answer to prayer are _in all respects_ similar to any other instance of cause and effect, it must be remembered that the answer is not the effect of the prayer, at least directly and immediately, but the effect of the divine will; and then the question suggested by dr. m'cosh--whether _causality_ can properly be ascribed to our prayers with reference to the divine will?--would claim our serious consideration. but in the former sense, as implying nothing more than that, in the original constitution and the ordinary course of providence, the same effect is given to our prayers as to _any other moral cause or condition_, it seems to be exempt from all reasonable objection, and to afford a sufficient explanation of the difficulty. the second "hypothetical solution" is that of those who hold that while god, in answering the prayers of men, does not ordinarily disturb the known or discoverable sequences of the natural world, yet his interference may be alike real and efficacious though it should take place at a point in the series of natural causes far removed beyond the limits of our experience and observation; and thus "the answer to prayer may be effectually given without any infringement on the known regularities of nature." dr. chalmers adverts to this second solution in replying to an objection which might possibly be raised against the first, namely, that "we see no evidence of the constancy of visible nature giving way to that invisible agency, the interposition of which it is the express object of prayer to obtain;" and he suggests that, in the vast scale of natural sequences, which constitute one connected chain, the responsive touch from the finger of the almighty may be given "either at a higher or a lower place in the progression," and that if it be supposed to be "given far enough back," it might originate a new sequence, but without doing violence to any ascertained law, since it occurs beyond the reach of our experience and observation. this solution we hold to be not so much an effective argument in favor of the efficacy of prayer, as a conclusive answer to a particular objection against it. it is sufficient to show that, with our very limited knowledge, we act presumptuously in deciding against the possibility of an answer to prayer such as _may_ leave the established course of nature unaltered; but there is no necessity, and no reason, for supposing that the responsive touch _can only_ be given at a point to which our knowledge does not extend, or that, were our knowledge extended, we would have less difficulty in admitting it _there_, than in holding it to be possible at any lower term in the scale of sequences. the third "hypothetical solution" is that of those who hold that a divine answer to prayer may be conveyed through _the ministry of angels_, or the agency of intelligent, voluntary, and active beings, employed by god, in subordination to his providence, for the accomplishment of his great designs. the existence of such an order, or rather hierarchy, of created intelligences is clearly revealed in scripture; and it is rendered credible, or even probable, by _the analogy of nature_, since we observe on earth a regular gradation of animal life from the insect up to man, and we have no reason to suppose that the gradation is suddenly arrested just at the point where the animal and the spiritual are combined. but not only their existence, their _active agency_ also, as "ministers fulfilling his will," as "ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation," is explicitly and frequently declared as well as exemplified in scripture; and this, too, would be, on the supposition of their existence, in strict accordance with _the analogy of nature_, which shows that the lower orders of being are placed under the care and control of the higher. mr. boyle, accordingly, makes frequent reference, in his theological treatises, to _the ministry of angels_, as subordinate agents, through whose instrumentality many of the designs of providence may be carried into effect; and president edwards enlarges on the same theme.[212] the fourth "hypothetical solution" is that of those who hold that god has so arranged his providence from the beginning as to provide for particular events as well as for general results, and especially to provide an answer to the prayers of his intelligent creatures. this solution is more general than any of the _three_ former, and may even be comprehensive of them all. it regards prayer as an element which was taken into account at the original constitution of the world, and for which an answer was provided, as the result of natural laws or of angelic agency, employed for this express end by the omniscient foreknowledge and wisdom of god. it is the solution that has obtained the sanction of some of the highest names in science and theology. "i begin," says euler, "with considering an objection which almost all the philosophical systems have started against prayer. religion prescribes this as our duty, with an assurance that god will hear and answer our vows and prayers, provided they are conformable to the precepts which he hath given us. philosophy, on the other hand, instructs us that all events take place in strict conformity to the course of nature, established from the beginning, and that our prayers can effect no change whatever, unless we pretend to expect that god should be continually working miracles in compliance with our prayers. this objection has the greater weight, that religion itself teaches the doctrine of god's having established the course of all events, and that nothing can come to pass but what god foresaw from all eternity. is it credible, say the objectors, that god should think of altering this settled course, in compliance with any prayers which men might address to him? but i remark, _first_, that when god established the course of the universe, and arranged all the events that must come to pass in it, he paid attention to _all the circumstances_ which should accompany each event, and, particularly, to _the dispositions, desires, and prayers_ of every intelligent being; and that the arrangement of all events was disposed _in perfect harmony_ with all these circumstances. when, therefore, a man addresses to god a prayer worthy to be heard, that prayer was already heard from all eternity, and the father of mercies arranged the world expressly in favor of that prayer, so that the accomplishment should be a consequence of the natural course of events. it is thus that god answers the prayers of men without working a miracle."[213] "it is not impossible," says dr. wollaston, "that such laws of nature, and such a series of causes and effects, may be originally designed that not only general provisions may be made for the several species of beings, but even _particular cases_, at least many of them, may also be provided for, without innovations or alterations in the course of nature. it is true this amounts to a prodigious scheme, in which all things to come are, as it were, comprehended under one view, estimated and laid together: but when i consider what a mass of wonders the universe is in other regards, what a being god is, incomprehensibly great and perfect, that he cannot be ignorant of anything, no not of the future wants and deportments of particular men, and that all things which derive from him, as their first cause, must do this so as to be consistent with one another, and in such a manner as to make one compact system, befitting so great an author; when i consider this, i cannot deny such an adjustment of things to be within his power. the order of events, proceeding from the settlement of nature, may be as compatible with the due and reasonable success of _my endeavors and prayers_ (as inconsiderable a part of the world as i am) as with any other thing or phenomena how great soever.... and thus the _prayers_ which good men offer to the all-knowing god, and the _neglects_ of others, may find fitting effects, already _forecasted_ in the course of nature, which possibly may be extended to the _labors_ of men and their _behavior_ in general."[214] "if ever there was a future event," says dr. gordon, "which might have been reckoned on with absolute certainty, and one, therefore, in the accomplishment of which it might appear that _prayer_ could have no room or efficacy, it was just the restoration of the jewish captives to the land and city of their fathers. and yet, so far from supposing that there was no place for prayer to occupy, among the various means that were employed to bring about that event, it was just his firm belief in the nearness and certainty of it that set daniel upon fervent and persevering supplications for its accomplishment.... with regard to the rank which daniel's prayer occupied among the various means or agencies that were to be employed in bringing about the object of it, he had good reason to believe that it was neither without a definite place, nor in itself devoid of efficacy.... he had been honored to vindicate the power and assert the supremacy of the lord god of israel; by the wisdom of his counsels and the weight of his personal character, he had paved the way for that decision in favor of the people of god to which the king of persia was soon to be brought; and the whole business of his active and most laborious life was made to bear on the interests and the liberation of his afflicted brethren. and if god had thus assigned to _the outward actions_ of his servant an important place in carrying into effect his thoughts of peace towards his penitent people, is it conceivable that he had no place in that scheme for _the holy and spiritual_ efforts of the same servant? or that the aspirations of a sanctified spirit, the travailing of a soul intent upon the accomplishment of the divine will and the manifestation of the divine glory, should be less efficient or less essential in the execution of the divine counsels, than the outward and ordinary agency of human actions? the whole tenor and the most explicit declarations of scripture stand opposed to such a supposition; nor can i understand how a devout mind should have any difficulty in conceiving that it must be so. the agency of _prayer_ is, indeed, a less obvious and palpable thing than that outward coöperation whereby mankind are rendered subservient to the accomplishment of the divine purposes. but is it not an agency of an unspeakably loftier character? is it not the coöperation of an immortal spirit, bearing the impress of the divine image, and at the moment acting in unison with the divine will? is it not befitting the character of god to set upon that coöperation a special mark of his holy approbation, by assigning to it a more elevated place among the secondary causes which he is pleased to employ? and must there not be provision made, therefore, in the general principles of his administration, for fulfilling the special promise of his word, 'the lord is nigh to all that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.'"[215] "we should blush," says bishop warburton, "to be thought so uninstructed in the nature of _prayer_, as to fancy that it can work any temporary change in the dispositions of the deity, who is 'the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.' yet we are not ashamed to maintain that god, _in the chain of causes and effects_, which not only sustains each system, but connects them all with one another, hath so wonderfully contrived, that the temporary endeavors of pious men shall procure good and avert evil, by means of that 'preëstablished harmony' which he hath willed to exist between _moral actions_ and _natural events_." "but should some frigid skeptic, therefore, dare to doubt the all-prevailing power of prayer; as if 'twere ours, with impious zeal, to try to shake the purposes of deity; pause, cold philosopher, nor snatch away the last, the best, the wretched's surest stay. look round on life, and trace its checkered plan, the griefs, the joys, the hopes, the fears of man; tell me, if each deliverance, each success, each transient golden dream of happiness, each palm that genius in the race acquires, each thrilling rapture virtuous pride inspires, tell me, if each and all were not combined in the great purpose of the eternal mind? * * * * * thus while we humbly own the vast decree, formed in the bosom of eternity, and know all secondary causes tend each to contribute to one mighty end; yet while these causes firmly fixed remain- links quite unbroken in the endless chain, so that could one be snapped, the whole must fail, and wide confusion o'er the world prevail; why may not our petitions, which arise in humble adoration to the skies, be foreordained the causes, whence shall flow our purest pleasures in this vale of woe? not that they move the purpose that hath stood by time unchanged, immeasurably good, _but that the event and prayer alike may be united objects of the same decree._"[216] on the whole, we feel ourselves warranted, and even constrained, to conclude that the theory of "government by natural law" is defective in so far as it excludes the superintendence and control of god over all the events of human life, and that neither the existence of second causes nor the operation of physical laws should diminish our confidence in the care of providence and the efficacy of prayer. footnotes: [181] cicero, "de naturâ deorum," lib. i. c. 44. [182] howe, "works," i. 104. cudworth, "intellectual system," i. 120, 144. [183] m. comte, "cours," vi. 149, 247, 295. spinoza, "tractatus theol.-politicus," pp. 57, 102, 122, 144, 150, 319. [184] dr. channing, "memoirs," ii. 439. robt. boyle, "free inquiry into the notion of nature," p. 7. [185] professor sedgwick, "discourse," fifth edition, p. cliii. mr. combe, "constitution of man," p. 417. [186] proverbs 6: 27; psalm 68: 2; 83: 14; james 3: 12; matthew 7: 16; proverbs 8: 29; job 38: 11, 33; psalm 119: 90; jeremiah 31: 35; 33: 25. [187] dr. m'cosh, "on the divine government," pp. 126, 129, 149. [188] "westminster confession," c. v., § ii., iii. [189] m. comte, "cours," iv. 663, 669; v. 259, 277; vi. 702, 780. j. s. mill, "logic," i. 397, 417, 422; ii. 109, 471. lewes, "biographical history," i. 14; iii. 55; iv. 9, 42. [190] dr. reid, "essays," iii. 44. dr. m'cosh, "divine government," 88, 91, 111, 114. [191] sir john herschell, "address to the british association," 1845. [192] dr. thos. brown, "essay on cause and effect," p. 86. dr. thos. reid, "essays," i. 136. pierre poiret, "de deo, anima, et malo." [193] dr. thomas brown, "essay on cause and effect," pp. 74, 83, 93, 108, 191. [194] george combe, esq. [195] "reasoner," xii. 21, 23. [196] holyoake, "grant and holyoake's discussion," p. 40. [197] george combe, "constitution of man," pp. 150, 155, 163, 165, 234, 343, 358. [198] mr. combe, "constitution of man," vi., ix., 25, 39, 41. [199] mr. scott, "harmony of phrenology with scripture," pp. 82, 97. [200] citizen kennedy, "nature and revelation harmonious," pp. 70, 122, 124, 131. [201] mr. combe, "constitution of man," pp. 25, 53, 306, 364. [202] f. b. barton, "the reasoner," xi. 24, 373. [203] volney, "la loi naturelle," which has been translated, and is usually appended to his "ruins of empires." [204] butler's "analogy," p. 1. c. 7. [205] warburton's "works," x. p. 8. [206] dr. price's "dissertations," p. 198. [207] dr. price, "dissertations," pp. 208, 219. [208] daniel 9: 2, 19. [209] ezekiel 36: 37. [210] dr. chalmers, "works," ii. 286. [211] ibid., 325. [212] hon. rob. boyle, "theolog. works," ii. 96, iii. 230. president edwards, "works," x. 1. [213] euler, "letters to a german princess," i. 271. [214] dr. wollaston, "religion of nature," p. 103. [215] dr. robt. gordon, "sermons," p. 369. [216] it is with melancholy pleasure that the author recalls and reproduces, after an interval of thirty years, the lines of his early college companion,--william friend durant,--a young man of high promise, removed, like his distinguished fellow-student, robert pollock, by what might seem a premature death, but for the prospect of immortality. chapter vi. theories of chance and fate. when we survey the actual course of god's providence, by which the eternal purposes of the divine mind are carried into effect, we discern immediately a marked difference between _two great classes of events_. the one comprehends a multitude of events which are so regular, stable, and constant, that we feel ourselves warranted in reckoning on their invariable recurrence, in the same circumstances in which they have been observed; they seem to be governed by an unchangeable, or at least an established law. the other comprehends a different set of events, which are so irregular and variable that they occur quite unexpectedly, and cannot be reduced to any rule of rational computation; they appear,--perhaps from our ignorance,--to be purely accidental or fortuitous. in exact accordance with this difference between the two great classes of providential events, there is a similar difference in our _internal views or sentiments_ in regard to them. we are conscious of two totally dissimilar feelings in contemplating them respectively. we have a feeling of certainty, confidence, or assurance in regard to the one; and a feeling of uncertainty, anxiety, and helplessness in regard to the other; while for an intermediate class of events, there is also an intermediate state of mind, equally removed from entire certainty and absolute doubt, arising from the various degrees of _probability_ that may seem to belong to them. these are at once natural and legitimate sentiments in the circumstances in which we are placed; for unquestionably there is much in these circumstances that is fitted to produce and cherish them all; and when they are combined,--especially when they are duly proportioned, in the case of any individual, they induce a habit or frame of mind most favorable to the recognition of god's providence, and most conducive to our welfare, by impressing us with a sense both of our _dependence_ on his supreme will, and of our _duty to be diligent_ in the use of all appointed means. but when _either_ of the two classes of events is exclusively considered, or the sentiments appropriate to them inordinately cherished, there will be a tendency, in the absence of an enlightened belief in providence, towards one or other of two opposite extremes:--the extreme, on the one hand, of resolving all events into results of physical agencies and mechanical laws, acting with the blind force of "destiny," and leaving no room for the interposition of an intelligent moral ruler; and the extreme, on the other hand, of ascribing all events to accidental or fortuitous influences, equally exempt from his control. the _former_ is the theory of "fate," the _latter_ is the theory of "chance;" and both are equally opposed to the doctrine which affirms the eternal purpose and the actual providence of an omniscient and all-controlling mind. it matters little, with reference to our present purpose, whether or not every department of nature be supposed to be equally subject to "natural laws;" for even were it so, still if these laws were either in part unknown and undiscoverable by us, or so related to each other that the results of their manifold possible combinations could not be calculated or reckoned on by human wisdom or foresight, ample room would be left for the exercise of _diligence_ within the limits of our ascertained knowledge, and yet for a sense of _dependence_ on a power which we feel ourselves unable either to comprehend or control. on the ground of analogy, we think it highly probable that every department of nature _is_ subject to regular and stable laws; and on the same ground we may anticipate that, in the progressive advance of human knowledge, many new fields will yet be conquered, and added to the domain of science. but suppose every law were discovered,--suppose, even, that every individual event should be shown to depend on some natural cause, there would still remain at least _two_ considerations which should remind us of our _dependence_. the first is our ignorance of the whole combination of causes which may at any time be brought into action, and of the results which may flow from them in circumstances such as we can neither foresee nor provide against. the second is our ignorance, equally unavoidable and profound, of the intelligent and voluntary agencies which may be at work, modifying, disposing, and directing that combination of causes, so as to accomplish the purposes of the omniscient mind. our want of knowledge in either case is a reason for uncertainty; and our uncertainty in regard to events in which we may be deeply concerned is fitted to teach us our dependence on a higher power. let it not be thought, however, that our argument for god's providence is drawn merely from man's _ignorance_, or that its strength must diminish in proportion as his knowledge of nature is extended; on the contrary, it rests on the assumption that _man knows enough to be aware that he cannot know all_, and that as long as he is not omniscient, he must be dependent on him who alone "knows the end from the beginning," and "who ruleth among the armies of heaven" as well as "among the inhabitants of this earth." it is in the invariable combination and marvellous mutual adjustment of these two elements,--the regular and the variable, the constant and the casual, the certain and the uncertain,--that we best discern the wisdom of that vast scheme of providence, which is designed at once to secure our _diligence in the use of means_, and to impress us with a sense of our _dependence on a higher power_. and the same remark may be equally applicable, _mutatis mutandis_, to the revealed constitution of things, since scripture itself exhibits certain definite truths surrounded with a margin of mystery like "lights shining in a dark place;" and while it prescribes and encourages diligence in the use of means, teaches us at the same time our dependence on the divine blessing which alone can render our efforts effectual. both elements, therefore, must be taken into account and kept steadily in view, if we would form a comprehensive conception of the method of the divine government, or a correct estimate of the wisdom with which it is adapted to the case of created and dependent, but intelligent, active, and responsible beings. but when the one is either dissevered from the other, or viewed apart and exclusively by itself, when the mind dwells on either, to the neglect of what is equally a part of the same comprehensive scheme, then we are in danger of adopting a partial and one-sided view of providence, and of lapsing into one or other of the opposite extremes,--the theory of "chance" or the theory of "fate." a few remarks on each of these theories may be neither unseasonable nor useless, if they serve to illustrate the different kinds of atheism which have sprung from them, and to place in a clear and strong light the radical difference which subsists between both, and the doctrine of providence, as it is taught and exemplified in scripture. 1. the theory of "chance," which was once the stronghold of atheism, is now all but abandoned by speculative thinkers, and exists only, if at all, in the vague beliefs of uneducated and unreflecting men. this result has been brought about, not so much by the metaphysical or even the theological considerations which were urged against the theory, as by the steady advance of science, and the slow but progressive growth of a belief in "law" and "order" as existing in every department of nature. it has been undeniably the effect of scientific inquiry to banish the idea of chance, at least from as much of the domain as has been successfully explored, and to afford a strong presumption that the same result would follow were our researches extended beyond the limits within which they are yet confined. to this extent there is truth in the reasonings of m. comte as applied to _chance_, while they have no validity or value as applied to _providence_; and we deem it a noble tribute to science when it can be said of her with truth, that she has been an effective auxiliary to religion in overthrowing the once vaunted empire of that blind power. at one time some ascribed all the works both of creation and providence to chance, and spoke of a fortuitous concourse of _atoms_ in the one case, and of a fortuitous concurrence of _events_ in the other. the atomic theory, which, as a mere physiological hypothesis, is far from being necessarily atheistic, and which has been adopted and defended by such writers as gassendus and dr. goode,[217] was applied by epicurus and lucretius to account for the fortuitous origin of existing beings, and also for the fortuitous course of human affairs. no one now, in the present advanced state of science, would seriously propose to account either for the creation of the world, or for the events of the world's history, by ascribing them to the operation of chance; the current is flowing in another direction; it has set in, like a returning tide, towards the universal recognition of "general laws" and "natural causes," such as, from their invariable regularity and uniformity, are utterly exclusive of everything like chance or accident in any department of nature. instead of ascribing the creation of the world to a fortuitous concourse of atoms, modern speculation would refer it to "a law of development" such as is able of itself to insure the production of astral systems in the firmament, and also of vegetable and animal races on the earth, without any direct or immediate interposition of a higher power; and instead of ascribing the events of history and the "progress" of humanity to a fortuitous or accidental origin, modern speculation would refer them to "a law of social or historical development," such as makes every succeeding state the natural, and, indeed, necessary product of a prior one, and places the whole order of sequences--whether physical, moral, political, or religious--under the government of "natural law," as contradistinguished from that of a "supernatural will." there is thus a manifest tendency to resile from the old theory of chance, and to take refuge in the new asylum of law, order, or destiny. there is, apparently, a wide difference between the two contrasted systems; and yet the difference may be, after all, more seeming than real: for both the old doctrine of "chance" and the new theory of "development" are compelled to assume certain conditions or qualities as belonging to the primordial elements of matter, without which it is felt that neither chance nor fate can afford a satisfactory account of the works either of creation or providence. the one party spoke more of "chance," the other speaks more of "law;" but both were compelled to feel that neither chance nor law could _of themselves_ account for the established order of nature, without presupposing certain conditions, adjustments, and dispositions of matter, such as could only be satisfactorily explained by ascribing them to a wise, foreseeing, and designing mind. in the present state of philosophical speculation, which evinces so strong a tendency to reduce everything to the dominion of "law," it may seem unnecessary to refer to the doctrine of "chance" at all; but believing as we do that there are, and ever must be, certain events in the course of life, and certain facts in the complex experience of man, which will irresistibly suggest the idea of it, even where the doctrine is theoretically disowned, we think it right to lay down a distinct and definite position on this subject, such as may serve, if duly established, at once to neutralize whatever is false and noxious in the doctrine of chance, and at the same time to preserve whatever is true and wholesome in it, as having a tendency to illustrate the actual scheme of divine providence. and the position which we are disposed to state and prepared to establish is this: that, with reference to god, as an omniscient being, there is, and there can be, no such thing as "chance;" while, with reference alike to men and angels, many events may be fortuitous or accidental, not as being independent of causes, but as depending on causes unknown, or on combinations of causes whose joint operation may result in effects absolutely undiscoverable by our limited intelligence. this position consists of _two_ parts. it affirms that with reference to god and his omniscient knowledge, there can be nothing that is fortuitous, accidental, or unexpected. it affirms, with reference to man and all created intelligences, that there may, or even must, be much uncertainty in regard to the products of natural causes, especially when they act in combination, and come into play in circumstances which we cannot foresee or control. many events may thus be casual, accidental, or unexpected to men, which are not so to the supreme governing intelligence. the first part of the position is proved by the general evidence which warrants us in ascribing omniscience, and especially an unerring prescience, to the divine mind; and it cannot be denied, without virtually ascribing _ignorance_ to god. the second part of the position is established by some of the most familiar facts of experience. we know and feel that however certain all events are to the omniscient knowledge of the most high, many of them are entirely beyond the reach of our limited foresight; and this because they are either dependent on individual causes which are unknown to us, or on a combination of various causes, too complex to admit of any rational computation in regard to their results. the "calculation of chances" has been reduced to something like scientific accuracy;[218] and it has been applied, with beneficial effect, to the insurance of life and property on land and at sea. even the casual events of human history may be said, in a certain sense, to be governed by fixed laws. the _aggregate result_ in such cases may be tolerably certain, while the _individual cases_ are very much the reverse; and hence human wisdom, proceeding on a well-ascertained body of _statistics_, may construct a scheme for securing some against the evils to which they would otherwise have been liable, by means of the sacrifices of others, who would not have been in fact, although they might have been, for ought they know, liable to the same. but what is this, if it be not a practical acknowledgement of the uncertainty in which all are placed in regard to some of the most important interests of the present life? or how can it be said that chance or accident is altogether, and in every sense, exploded, when large bodies of men are found to combine, and that, too, at a considerable personal sacrifice, for the express purpose of protecting themselves, so far as they can, from the hazards to which they are individually exposed? in the sense above explained, we cannot consent to discard "chance" altogether, either at the bidding of those who resolve everything into "natural laws," or even in deference to the authority of others who ascribe all events to divine providence. it may be true that all events, however apparently casual or fortuitous, are governed by "natural laws;" it may be equally true that all events are determined, directed, or controlled by divine providence: but as long as some events depend on causes which are certainly known, and other events on causes which are not known, or on a combination of causes whose results cannot be foreseen, so long will there be room for the distinction between the _regular_ and the _accidental_ phenomena of human experience. this distinction, indeed, is explicitly recognized in scripture itself; for while it speaks of all events as being infallibly known to god, it speaks of some events that are _accidental_ with reference to man.[219] the unknown, unforeseen, and unexpected incidents of life, which constitute all that is apparently casual or accidental, may be, and we believe they are, really subject both to natural laws and to god's providential will; but they are removed far beyond our comprehension or control; and being so, they are admirably fitted, as a part of the complex scheme of his natural and moral government, to serve one of the most important practical ends for which it is designed, by impressing us with a sense of constant dependence on a higher power, and of dutiful subjection to a superior will. but while, in this sense and to this extent, the doctrine of "chance" is retained, it must be utterly rejected as a means of accounting either for the creation or government of the world. for, on the supposition of a supreme being, there can be no _chance_ with reference to him; and without such a supposition, we cannot account for the regularity which prevails in the course of nature, and which indicates a presiding intelligence and a controlling will. . 2. but this very regularity of nature, when viewed apart from the cross accidents of life, is apt to engender the opposite idea of "fate" or "destiny," as if all events were determined by laws alike necessary and invariable, inherent in the constitution of nature, and independent of the concurrence or the control of the divine will. we are not sure, indeed, that the idea of fate or destiny is suggested solely, or even mainly, by the regular sequences of the natural world; we rather think that it is more frequently derived from those unexpected and crushing calamities which occur in spite of every precaution of human foresight and prudence, and that thus it may be identified, in a great measure, with the doctrine of chance, or, at least, the one may run into and blend with the other. but if any attempt were made to establish it by proof, recourse would be had to the established order and regular sequences of nature, as affording its most plausible verification, although they afford no real sanction to it, in so far as it differs from the christian doctrine of providence. dr. cudworth discusses this subject at great length, and makes mention of _three_ distinct forms of fatalism. the first, which is variously designated as the democritic, the physiological, or the atheistic fate, is that which teaches the material or physical necessity of all things, and ascribes all natural phenomena to the mechanical laws of matter and motion. the second, which is described as a species of divine or theistic fate, is that which admits the existence and agency of god, but teaches that he both _decrees_ and _does_, _purposes_ and _performs_ all things, whether good or evil, as if he were the only real agent in the universe, or as if he had no moral character, and were, as cudworth graphically expresses it, "_mere arbitrary will omnipotent_:" this he describes as a "divine fate immoral and violent." the third, which is also designated as a species of divine or theistic fate, is that which recognizes both the existence of god, and the agency of other beings in nature, together with the radical distinction between moral good and evil, but teaches that men are so far under necessity as to be incapable of moral and responsible action, and unfit subjects of praise or blame, of reward or punishment: this he describes as "divine fate moral and natural." these _three_ are all justly held to be erroneous or defective views of the divine government, and, as such, they are strenuously and successfully opposed.[220] but there is room for a _fourth_ doctrine, which may be designated as the christian doctrine of providence, and which combines in itself all the great fundamental truths for which dr. cudworth contends, while it leaves open, or, at least, does not necessarily determine, some of the collateral questions on which he might have differed from many of its defenders. this doctrine affirms, first, the existence and attributes of god, as a holy and righteous moral governor; secondly, the real existence and actual operation of "second causes," distinct from, but not independent of, "the first cause;" thirdly, the operation of these causes according to their several natures, so that, under god's providence, events fall out "either necessarily, freely, or contingently," according to the kind of intermediate agency by which they are brought to pass; and, fourthly, that in the case of intelligent and moral agents, ample room is left for responsible action, and for the consequent sentence of praise or blame, reward or punishment, notwithstanding the eternal decree of god, and the constant control which he exercises over all his creatures and all their actions. these four positions may be all harmoniously combined in one self-consistent and comprehensive statement; and, in point of fact, they are all included in the christian doctrine of providence, as that has been usually explained and defended by the various sections of the catholic church. not one of them is omitted or denied.[221] they seem fairly to meet, or rather fully to exhaust, the demands of dr. cudworth himself, when he says: "these three things are, as we conceive, the fundamentals or essentials of true religion, first, that all things in the world do not float without a head or governor, but that there is a god, an omnipotent understanding being, presiding over all; secondly, that this god being essentially good and just, there is something in its own nature immutably and eternally just and unjust, and not by arbitrary will, law, and command only; and lastly, that there is something [greek: eph' hêmin], or that we are _so far forth_ principals or masters of our own actions as to be _accountable_ to justice for them, or to make us guilty or blameworthy for what we do amiss, and to deserve punishment accordingly." all these fundamentals of true religion are explicitly recognized in the christian doctrine of providence, which stands out, therefore, in striking contrast with the atheistic, and even theistic, theories of fate which he condemns; and they are as zealously maintained (whether with the same _consistency_ is a different question) by edwards, chalmers, and woods, on the one side, as they ever were by cudworth, clarke, and tappan, on the other. it may be said, however, that the doctrine of providence, especially when taught in connection with that of predestination, does unavoidably imply some kind of _necessity_, incompatible with free moral agency, and that, to all practical intents, it amounts substantially to fate or destiny. but we are prepared to show that there is neither the same kind of _necessity_ in the one scheme which is implied in the other, nor the same reason for denying moral and responsible agency in the case of intelligent beings. in doing so, we must carefully discriminate, in the first instance, between the various senses in which the term _necessity_ is used. dr. waterland has given a comprehensive division of "necessity" into _four_ kinds, denominated respectively, the logical, the moral, the physical, and the metaphysical. "logical necessity" exists wherever the contrary of what is affirmed would imply a contradiction; and in this sense we call it _a necessary truth_ that two and two make four, that a whole is greater than any of its parts, and that a circle neither is nor can be a square. it amounts to nothing more than the affirmation, that the same idea or thing _is what it is_; and it relates solely to the connection between one idea and another, or between one proposition and another, or between subject and predicate. this is "logical necessity;" we cannot, with our present laws of thought, conceive the thing to be otherwise without implying a contradiction. "moral necessity," again, denotes a connection, not between one idea and another, or between the subject and predicate of a proposition, but between _means_ and _ends_. it is not necessary absolutely that any man should continue to live; but it is necessary _morally_ that, if he would continue to live, he should eat and sleep, food and rest being, according to the established constitution of nature, a _necessary condition_ or indispensable means for the support of life. there is in like manner a "moral necessity" that we should be virtuous and obedient, if we would be truly happy, virtue and obedience being, according to the established constitution of nature, an indispensable means of true and permanent happiness. this is "moral necessity" which has reference solely to the connection between _means_ and _ends_, but that connection, being ordained, is immutable and invariable. "physical necessity," again, exists wherever there is either a causal connection between antecedents and consequents in the material world, or even a coactive and compulsory constraint in the moral world. it is physically necessary that fire should burn substances that are combustible, that water and other fluids should flow down a declivity, and rise again but only to a certain level; and there is the like kind of necessity, wherever a moral agent is forced to act under irresistible compulsion,--as when the assassin seizes hold of another's arm, and thrusting a deadly weapon into his hand, directs it, by his own overmastering will, to the brain or heart of his victim. in this latter case, the unwilling instrument of his revenge or malice is not held to be the guilty party, but the more powerful agent by whom that instrument was employed. this is "physical necessity," which relates solely to the connection between cause and effect in the material world, and, in the moral, to the compulsory action of one agent on another. "metaphysical necessity," again, can be predicated of god only, and denotes the peculiar property or prerogative of his being, as existing necessarily, immutably, and eternally, or, to use a scholastic phrase, the necessary connection in his case between _essence_ and _existence_. omitting the _last_, which does not fall properly within the limits of our present inquiry, we may say with regard to _the three first_, that each of them may exist, and that each of them does really operate, in the present constitution of nature. we are subject, unquestionably, to certain "laws of thought," which we can neither repeal nor resist, and which impose upon us a logical necessity to conceive, to reason, and to infer, not according to our own whim or caprice, but according to established rules. we are equally subject to certain "conditions of existence,"--arising partly from our own constitution, partly from the constitution of external objects and the relations subsisting between the two,--which lay us under a moral necessity of using suitable means for the accomplishment of our purposes and plans. and we are still further subject to "physical necessity," in so far as our material frame is liable to be affected by external influences, and even our muscular powers may be overmastered and subordinated by a more vigorous or resolute will than our own. these _three_ kinds of "necessity" exist; they are all constituent parts of that vast scheme of government under which we are placed; and the question arises, whether, when the existence of these necessary laws is admitted, we can still maintain the doctrine which affirms the providential government of god and the moral agency of man; or whether we must not resolve the whole series of events, both in the natural and moral worlds, into the blind and inexorable dominion of destiny or fate? we answer, first, that there is nothing in any one of these three kinds of necessity, nor in all of them combined, which, when rightly understood, should either exclude the idea of divine providence, or impair our sense of moral and responsible agency. we may not be _so_ free, nor so totally exempt from the operation of established laws, as some of the advocates of human liberty have supposed: but we may be free enough, notwithstanding, to be regarded and treated as moral and accountable beings. we may be subject to certain "laws of thought," and yet may be responsible for our opinions and beliefs, in so far as these depend on our voluntary acts, on our attention or inattention to the truth and its evidence, on our use or neglect of the appropriate means, on our love or our hatred to the light. and so we may be subject to certain other laws, in various departments of our complex experience, without being either restrained or impelled by such external coaction as alone can exempt creatures, constituted as we know and feel ourselves to be, from the righteous retributions of god. we answer, secondly, that the doctrine of providence, even when it is combined with that of predestination, represents all events as "falling out according to the nature of second causes, necessarily, contingently, or freely;" nay, as falling out so "that no violence is offered to the will of the creature, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established." it follows that if there be either on earth or in heaven any free cause, or any moral and responsible agent, his nature is not changed, nor is the character of his agency altered, by that providential government which god exercises over all his creatures and all their actions; he still continues to develop, within certain limits imposed by unalterable laws, his own proper individuality, or his personal character, in its relation to the law and government of god. we answer, thirdly, that the moral and responsible agency of man cannot be justly held to be incompatible with the providence and supremacy of god, unless it can be shown that, in the exercise of the latter, god acts in the way of physical coaction or irresistible constraint, and further, that man is not only controlled and governed in his actions, but compelled to act in opposition to his own will. but no enlightened advocate either of providence or predestination will affirm that there is any "physical necessity," imposed by the divine will, which constrains men to commit sin, or that god is "the author of sin." "let no man say when he is tempted, i am tempted of god: for god cannot be tempted of evil, neither tempteth he any man. but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed."[222] we answer, fourthly, that when a "moral necessity" or _moral inability_ is spoken of by divines as making sin certain and inevitable in the case of man, we must carefully distinguish between the _constitution_ and the _state_ of human nature,--its constitution as it was originally created, and its state as it at present exists. there might be nothing in the original constitution of human nature which could interfere in any way with the freedom of man as an intelligent, moral, and responsible being; and yet, in consequence of the introduction of sin, his state may now be so far changed as to have become a state of moral bondage. but the constitution of his nature, in virtue of which he was at the first, and must ever continue to be, a moral and accountable being, remains unreversed; from being holy, he has become depraved, but he has not ceased to be a subject of moral government, and the evils that are incident to his present position must be ascribed, not to god's _creative will_, but, in the first instance, to man's voluntary disobedience, and, in the second, to a divine _judicial sentence_ following thereupon. and finally, we answer that the theory which ascribes all events, both in the natural and moral worlds, to the blind and inexorable dominion of destiny or fate, leaves altogether unexplained many of the most certain and familiar facts of human experience. there are two large classes of facts which no theory of fate can possibly explain. the first comprises all those manifest indications of provident forethought, intelligent design, and moral purpose, which appear in the course of nature, and which cannot be _accounted for_ by a blind, unintelligent, undesigning cause. the second comprises all those facts of consciousness which bear witness to the moral nature and responsible agency of man, as the subject of a government which rewards and punishes his actions, in some measure, even here, and which irresistibly suggests the idea of a future reckoning and retribution. these two classes of facts must either be ignored, or left as insoluble, by any theory which advocates blind fate or destiny, in opposition to the overruling providence and moral government of god. these answers are sufficient, if not to remove all mystery from the methods of the divine administration (for who would undertake to fathom the counsels of him "whose judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out?"), yet to show at least that a divine providence is more credible in itself, and better supported by evidence, than any theory of destiny or fate; that the facts to which the latter appeals may be explained consistently with the former, while the facts on which the former is founded must either be left altogether out of view, or at least left unexplained, if the doctrine of fate be substituted for that of providence. we have thus far compared the two theories of chance and fate, by which some have attempted to explain the system of the universe, and have contrasted both with the christian doctrine of providence. on a review of the whole discussion, we think it must be evident that the latter combines whatever is true and valuable in each of these opposite theories, while it eliminates and rejects whatever is unsound or noxious in either. it may seem strange that we should speak as if anything, either true or valuable, could be involved in the theories of chance and destiny; and, unquestionably, considered as theories designed to explain the system of the world, and to supersede the doctrine of providence, they are, in all their distinctive peculiarities, utterly false and worthless. but it seldom, if ever, happens that any theory obtains a wide-spread and permanent influence, which does not stand connected with some _partial truth_, or which cannot appeal to some _apparent natural evidence_. we have already seen that there are two distinct classes of events in nature, and two corresponding classes of sentiments and feelings in the human mind; that the latter point, respectively, to the constant and the variable, the certain and the doubtful, the causal and the casual; and that were either of the two to acquire an absolute ascendancy over us, it would naturally lead to one or other of two opposite extremes--the theory of chance, or the theory of fate. now, the doctrine of providence takes account of _both_ these classes of phenomena and feelings, so as to combine whatever is true and useful in each of the two rival theories, while it strikes out and rejects whatever is false in either, by placing all things under the government and control of a living, intelligent, personal god. it is scarcely necessary to add that the views and sentiments which the christian doctrine of providence inspires are widely different from those which must be generated by a belief either in chance or in fate, as the supreme arbiter of our destiny. the doctrine which teaches us to look up and to say, with childlike confidence, "our father which art in heaven," is worth more than all the philosophy in the world! could we only realize it as a truth, and have habitual recourse to it in all our anxieties and straits, we should feel that, if it be a deeply serious and solemn fact that "the lord reigneth," it is also, to all his trusting and obedient children, alike cheering and consolatory; and he who can relish the sweetness of our lord's words when he spake of "the birds of the air" and the "flowers of the field," will see at once that stoicism is immeasurably inferior, both as a philosophy and a faith, to christian theism.[223] footnotes: [217] dr. cudworth, "intellectual system," i. 75, 82, 106, 151; ii. 77, 334. gassendi, "syntagma." dr. j. m. goode, "lucretius," preface. [218] la place, "des probabilities." [219] eccles. 9: 11; luke 10: 31; deut. 19: 5 [220] dr. cudworth, "intellectual system," i. 33. american edition. [221] dr. john collinges, "on providence." dr. price, "dissertations." samuel rutherford, "de providentia dei." dr. charnock, "on providence." [222] james 1: 13, 14. see m'laurin's profound discourse on this text. [223] michelet has presented a graphic portrait of a stoic:--"l'individu sous la forme du stoicisme,--ramassé soi,--appuyé sur soi,--ne demandant rien aux dieux,--ne les accusant point,--_ne daignant pas même les nier_."--"_introduction à l'historie universelle_." chapter vii. theory of religious liberalism. the eclectic method of philosophy, which was first exemplified in the celebrated school of alexandria, and which has been recently revived under the auspices of m. cousin in the schools of paris, may be regarded, in one of its aspects, as the most legitimate, and, indeed, as the only practicable course of successful intellectual research. if by "eclecticism" we were to understand the habit of culling from every system that portion or fragment of truth which may be contained in it, and of rejecting the error with which it may have been associated or alloyed,--in other words, the art of "sifting the wheat from the chaff," so as to preserve the former, while the latter is dissipated and dispersed,--there could be no valid objection to it which would not equally apply to every method of inductive inquiry. but this is not the sense in which "eclecticism" has been adopted and eulogized by the parisian school. for, not content with affirming that the same system may contain both truth and error, and that it is our duty to separate the one from the other,--which is the only rational "eclecticism,"--m. cousin maintains that _error itself is only a partial or incomplete truth_; that if it be an evil, it is a necessary evil, and an eventual good, since it is a means, according to a fundamental law of human development, of evolving truth and advancing philosophy; and that thus the grossest errors may exert a salutary influence, insomuch that _atheism itself may be regarded as providential_.[224] in this form, eclecticism becomes a huge and heterogeneous system of syncretism, including all varieties of opinion, whether true or false; and it has a natural and inevitable tendency to issue in a spirit of indifference to the claims of truth, which may assume the form either of philosophical skepticism or of religious liberalism, according to the taste and temperament of the individual who embraces it. in the form of religious liberalism, it has often been exemplified in our own country by those who, averse from definite articles of faith, and prone to latitudinarian license, have studiously set themselves to disparage the importance of the peculiar doctrines of christianity, and even to obliterate the distinction between the various forms of religion, natural and revealed, by representing them all as so many varieties of the same religious sentiment, so many diverse, but not antagonistic, embodiments of the same radical principle. in the writings of pope, several expressions occur which are easily susceptible of this construction, and which have often been quoted and applied in defence of religious liberalism, notwithstanding his explicit disavowal of it in his letter to the younger racine, prefixed to the collected edition of his works. but on the continent of europe, syncretism has been much more fully developed, and fearlessly applied to every department of human thought. pushed to its ultimate consequences, it obliterates the distinction not only between truth and error, but also between virtue and vice, nay even between religion and atheism; and represents them all as constituent parts of a scheme, which is developed under a law of "fatal necessity," but which is described also as a scheme of "optimism." its range is supposed to be unlimited: for it has been applied to the history of philosophy, by cousin, to the theory of the passions, by fourier, to the doctrines of christianity, by quinet and michelet, and to the philosophy of religion, by benjamin constant. the practical result of such speculations is a growing _skepticism_ or _indifference_ in regard to the distinction between truth and error, and a very faint impression of the difference between good and evil.[225] the speculations of pierre leroux, the head, if not the founder, of the humanitarian school, are strongly tinged with this spirit: they amount to a justification of evil, an apotheosis of man.[226] we do not class these speculations among the formal systems of atheism, although they have often been associated with it; but we advert to them as specimens of that style of thinking which has a natural tendency to induce an atheistic frame of mind.[227] the profession of such sentiments is a symptom rather of incipient danger, than of confirmed disease. but that danger is far from being either doubtful or insignificant. for should the distinction between "truth and error" be obliterated or even feebly discerned, should it come to be regarded as a matter of comparative indifference whether our beliefs be true or false, should it, above all, become our prevailing habit to "call good evil, and evil good," we can scarcely fail, in such circumstances, to fall into a course of _practical atheism_; and this, as all experience testifies, will leave us an easy prey, especially in seasons of peculiar temptation and trial, to any form of _speculative infidelity_ that may happen to acquire a temporary ascendancy. if there be no dogmatic atheism involved in this state of mind, there is at least the germ of _skepticism_, which may soon grow and ripen into the open and avowed denial of religious truth. at the very least, it will issue in that heartless _indifference_ to all creeds and all definite articles of faith, which, under the plausible but surreptitious disguise of "freethinking" and "liberalism," is the nearest practical approximation to utter infidelity.[228] the system which is known under the name of religious liberalism or indifference has been recently avowed in our own country with a frankness and boldness which can leave no room for doubt in regard to its ultimate tendency. the late blanco white avowed it as his mature conviction, that "to declare any one unworthy of the name of christian because he does not agree with your belief, is to fall into the intolerance of the articled churches; that the moment the name christian is made necessarily to contain in its signification belief in certain historical or metaphysical propositions, that moment _the name itself becomes a creed_,--the _length_ of that creed is of little consequence."[229] this is the extreme on one side, and it plainly implies that _no one article of faith_ is necessary, and that a man may be a christian who neither acknowledges an historical christ, nor believes a single doctrine which he taught! but there is an extreme also on the other side, which is exemplified in the singularly eloquent, but equally unsatisfactory, treatise of the abbé lamennais,[230] in which, as _then_ an ardent and somewhat arrogant advocate of the romish church, he attempts to fasten the charge of _indifference_ or _liberalism_ on the protestant system, and to prove that there can be no true faith, and of course no salvation, beyond the catholic pale. the chief interest of his treatise depends on his peculiar "theory of certitude," to which we shall have occasion to advert in the sequel; in the meantime, we may notice briefly the grievous error into which he has fallen in treating of the faith which is necessary to salvation. he _overstates_ the case as much, at least, as it has been _understated_ by the abettors of liberalism. the latter deny the necessity of _any_ articles of faith; the former demands the implicit reception of _every_ doctrine propounded by the romish church. he repudiates the distinction between _fundamentals_ and _non-fundamentals_ in religion, and insists that, as every truth is declared by the same infallible authority, so every truth must be received with the same unquestioning faith. he forgets that while all the truths of scripture ought to be believed by reason of the divine authority on which they rest, yet some truths are more directly connected with our salvation than others, as well as more clearly and explicitly revealed. nor are we justly liable to the charge of "indifference" or "liberalism" when we tolerate a difference of opinion, on some points, among men who are, in all important respects, substantially agreed: for true toleration is the fruit, not of unbelief or indifference, but of charity and candor; and it is sanctioned in scripture, which enjoins that we should "receive those who are weak in the faith, but not to doubtful disputations," and that "every man should be fully persuaded in his own mind."[231] but it is not so much in its relation to the articles of the christian faith, as in its bearing on the different forms of true and false religion, that the theory of liberalism comes into collision with the cause of theism, and evinces its infidel tendencies. if any one can regard with the same complacency, or with the same apathetic indifference, all the varieties of religious or superstitious belief and worship; if he can discern no radical or important difference between monotheism and polytheism, or between the protestant and popish systems; if he be disposed to treat each of these as equally true or equally false, as alike beneficial or injurious in their practical influence, then this may be regarded as a sufficient proof that he is ignorant of the evidence, and blind to the claims, of truth,--a mere skeptical dreamer, if not a speculative atheist. an attempt has recently been made to place the theory of religious liberalism on a philosophical basis, by representing religion as a mere _sentiment_, which may be equally elicited and exemplified in various forms of belief and worship. several writers, following in the wake of schleiermacher, who gave such a powerful impulse to the mind of germany, have made religion to consist either in _a sense of dependence_, or in _a consciousness of the infinite_; and this sentiment, as well as the spontaneous intuitions of reason with which it is associated, is said to be alike natural, universal, and invariable, the essential principle of all religion, the root whence have sprung all the various forms of belief and worship. these varieties are supposed to be more or less rational and salutary, according to the conception which they respectively exhibit of the nature and character of god,--a conception which may be endlessly diversified by the intellect, or the imagination, or the passions of different men; while all the forms of belief are radically identical, since they all spring from the same ground-principle, and are only so many distinct manifestations of it. thus mr. parker tells us that, stripping the "religious sentiment" in man "of all accidental circumstances peculiar to the age, nation, sect, or individual, and pursuing a sharp and final analysis till the subject and predicate can no longer be separated, we find as the ultimate fact, that the religious sentiment is this,--'_a sense of dependence_.' this sentiment does not itself disclose the character, and still less the nature and essence, of the object on which it depends, no more than the senses declare the nature of _their_ objects. like them it acts spontaneously and unconsciously, as soon as the outward occasion offers, with no effort of will, forethought, or making up the mind. but the religious sentiment implies its object; ... and there is but _one religion_, though _many theologies_."[232] there is, as it appears to us, a mixture of some truth with much grave and dangerous error, in these and similar speculations. it is an important truth, and one which has been too often overlooked in treating the evidences of natural theology, that the _sentiments_ of the human mind, not less than its intuitive perceptions or logical processes, have a close relation to the subject of inquiry; but it is an error to suppose that _all_ the sentiments having a religious tendency can be reduced to _one_, whether it be called "a sense of dependence" or "a consciousness of the infinite," for there are other sentiments besides these which are equally subservient to the uses of religion, such as the sense of moral obligation, of the true, of the ideal, of the sublime, and of the beautiful. it is also an important truth, that there are spontaneous "intuitions of reason," or fundamental and invariable "laws of thought," which come into action at the first dawn of experience, and which have a close connection with the proof of the being and perfections of god; but it is an error to suppose that the proof depends _exclusively_ on these, or that it could be made out irrespective of the evidence afforded by the works of creation and providence. it is further an important truth, that the religious sentiment, or religious tendency, is natural to man, and that it may appear either in the form of religion or superstition: but it is an error to suppose that "there is but _one religion_, although _many theologies_;" for these theologies must spring from fundamentally different "conceptions of god," and what are these conceptions, in their ultimate analysis, but so many beliefs, doctrines, or dogmas, which, whether formally defined or not in articles of faith, have in them the self-same essence which is supposed to belong only to the bigotry of "articled churches?" but the fundamental, the fatal error of all these speculations, is the denial of any _stable and permanent standard of objective truth_. truth is made purely _subjective_, and, of course, it must also be progressive, insomuch that the truth of a former age may be an error in the present, and the supposed truth of the present age may become obsolete hereafter. so that there is really nothing certain in human knowledge; and "truth" may be justly described as never existing, but only _becoming_, as never possessed, though ever pursued; it is a _verité mobile_, a truth not in _esse_, but in _fieri_. hence we read in recent speculations of a "new christianity," of a "new gospel," and of "the church of the future," as if there could be any other christianity than that of the new testament, any other gospel than that of jesus christ, or any other church than that of apostolic times. i have adverted to this theory, because, while it is of little value in a speculative point of view, it is often found to exert a powerful practical influence, especially on "men of affairs," men who have travelled in various countries, or who have been employed in the arts of diplomacy and government; and who, finding religious worship everywhere, but clothed in different forms, and marking its subserviency to social and political interests, have been too prone to place all the varieties of belief in the same category, if not precisely on the same level, and to regard with indifference, perhaps even with indulgence, the grossest corruptions both of natural and revealed religion. the world is surely old enough, and its history sufficiently instructive, to prove, even to the most indifferent statesmen, that truth is always salutary, and error noxious, to the commonwealth, and that nowhere is society more safe, orderly, or stable, than in those countries which are blessed with "pure and undefiled religion." but let the opinion spread from the prince to the peasant, from the aristocracy to the artisans, from the philosopher to the public, that there is either no difference, or only a slight and trivial one, between truth and error, that it matters little what a man believes, or whether he believes at all: let the general mind of the community become indoctrinated with such lessons, and it needs no prophetic foresight to predict a crisis of unprecedented peril, an era of reckless revolution. a philosophic dreamer may affect a calm indifference, a bland and benignant liberalism; but a nation, a community, cannot be neutral or inert in regard to matters of faith: it must and will be either religious or irreligious, it must either love the truth or hate it: it is too sharp-sighted, and too much guided by homely common sense, to believe that systems so opposite as paganism and christianity, or popery and protestantism, are harmonious manifestations of the same religious principle, or equally beneficial to the state. footnotes: [224] m. cousin, "introduction," i. 318, 391, 405, 419; ii. 134. ibid., "fragmens philosophiques." preface, vii. [225] valroger, "etudes critiques," pp. 115, 126, 151, 308, 316. maret, "essai sur pantheisme," p. 249. [226] p. leroux, "sur l'humanité," 2 vols. [227] buddæus, "de atheismo et superstitione," pp. 184, 212. [228] richard bentley, "on freethinking," boyle lectures. villemandy, "scepticismus debellatus," iii. his words are remarkable:--"passim haec, aliaque generis ejusdem, placita disseminantur,--neque verum neque bonum, qualia sunt in seipsis, posse dignosci; hinc que adeo sectandam esse duntaxat cum veri, tum boni, similitudinem: quæ si stent ac valeant,--illud omne erit verum, illud omne æquum,--illud omne pium et religiosum,--illud omne utile, quod _cuiquam tale videatur_; privatam cujusque conscientiam supremam esse agendorum, vel non agendorum, normam." [229] james martineau, "rationale of religious inquiry," p. 108. [230] f. de lamennais, "essai sur l'indifference en matiere de la religion," 4 vols. paris, 1844. [231] romans 14: 1, 5. [232] theodore parker, "discourse of matters pertaining to religion," pp. 14, 17. chapter viii. theories of certitude and skepticism. we formerly adverted to the distinction between dogmatic and skeptical atheism; and, believing that the _latter_ is the form in which it is most prevalent, as well as most insidious and plausible, we now propose to review some recent theories both of certitude and skepticism, which have sometimes been applied to throw doubt on the evidence of christian theism. the academy of moral and political sciences in the french institute announced in 1843 the theory of certitude as the subject of a prize essay, and issued the following _programme_ as a guide to the competitors in the selection of the principal topics of discussion: "1. to determine the character of certitude, and what distinguishes it from everything else. for example, is certitude the same with the highest probability? "2. what is the faculty, or what are the faculties, which give us certitude? if several faculties of knowledge are supposed to exist, to state with precision the differences between them. "3. of truth and its foundations. is truth the reality itself,--the nature of things falling under the knowledge of man?--or is it nothing but an appearance,--a conception, necessary or arbitrary, of the human mind? "4. to expound and discuss the most celebrated opinions, ancient and modern, on the problem of certitude, and to follow them out into their theoretical and practical consequences. to subject to a critical and profound examination the great monuments of skepticism,--the writings of sextus, huet, hume, and kant. "5. to inquire what are, in spite of the assaults of skepticism, the certain truths which ought to subsist in the philosophy of our times." such was the comprehensive _programme_ of the french institute; and many circumstances concurred at the time to impart a peculiar interest to the competition. m. franck's volume[233] contains the report of the section of philosophy on the papers which had been prepared, and offers a careful analysis and critical estimate of their contents. various other works[234] not concerned in the competition appeared before and after it, showing how much the philosophical mind of france had been occupied with this great theme, while in britain it was attracting little or no attention. this is the most recent discussion, on a great scale, of the theory of certitude. but the question, far from being a new or modern speculation, is as old as philosophy itself, and has been perpetually reproduced in every age of intellectual activity. plato discusses it, chiefly in the theætetus, sophist, and parmenides; it was agitated by pyrrho, enesidemus, and sextus empiricus, with that peculiar subtlety which belonged to the mind of greece; and in more recent times it has reappeared in the writings of montaigne and bayle, huet and pascal, glanville, hume, and kant. even during the middle age, the controversy between the nominalists and realists had an important bearing on this subject: so that from the whole history of philosophy we derive the impression of its fundamental importance, an impression which is deepened and confirmed by the transcendent interest of the themes to which it has been applied. in our present argument, we are concerned with it only so far as it stands connected with the foundations of theology, or as the right or wrong solution of the general question might affect the evidence for the being and perfections of god. we do not propose, therefore, to offer a full exposition of the philosophy of certitude, still less to institute a detailed examination of the various theories which have been propounded respecting it. it will be sufficient for our purpose if we merely sketch a comprehensive outline of the subject, and select some of the more prominent points which have the most direct bearing on the grounds of our religious belief. thus much may be accomplished by considering, _first_, the statement of the problem, and, _secondly_, the solution of it. in regard to the _statement_ of the problem, it is necessary, in the first instance, to ascertain its precise import, by determining the meaning of the term certitude. the programme of the academy very properly places this question on the foreground, is certitude the same with the highest probability? and it is the more necessary to give precedence to this part of the inquiry, because it is notorious that there is a wide difference between the philosophical and the popular sense of certitude,--a difference which has often occasioned mutual misunderstanding between disputants, and a profitless warfare of words. in the philosophical sense of the term, that only is said to be _certain_ which is either an axiomatic truth, intuitively discerned, or a demonstrated truth, derived from the former by rigorous deduction; while all that part of our knowledge which is gathered from experience and observation, however credible in itself and however surely believed, is characterized as _probable_ only. in the popular sense of the term, certitude belongs to all those truths, of whatever kind and in whatever way acquired, in regard to which we have no reason to be in doubt or suspense, and which rest on sufficient and satisfactory evidence. a philosopher is _certain_, in his sense of the term, only of what he intuitively perceives or can logically demonstrate; a peasant is _certain_, in his sense of the term, of whatever he distinctly sees, or clearly remembers, or receives on authentic testimony. there is much reason, we think, to regret the existence of such a wide difference between the philosophical and the popular sense of an expression, which must occur so often both in speculative discussion and in the intercourse of common life. it may be doubted whether the metaphysician is entitled to borrow the language of society, and to engraft upon it an arbitrary definition of his own, different from and even inconsistent with that which it bears in common usage. nor can he plead necessity as a sufficient excuse, or the accuracy of his definition as an effectual safeguard, since, however needful it may be to discriminate between _different species_ of certitude, by marking their peculiar characteristics and respective sources, surely this might be done more safely and satisfactorily by designating one kind of it as intuitive, another as demonstrative, another as moral, or experimental, or historical, than it can be by any arbitrary restriction of the _generic_ term to one or two of the many species which are comprehended under it. no doubt there is a real distinction, and one of great practical importance, between _certitude_ and _probability_; but this distinction is not overlooked in the language of common life;--it is only necessary to determine what truths belong respectively to each: whereas when all the truths of experience, and even, in some cases, those of scientific induction, are ranked under the head of _probability_ merely, is it not evident that the language of philosophy is in this respect at variance with the prevailing sense of mankind? an attempt has sometimes been made to draw a distinction between _popular_ and _philosophical_ certitude, or, in other words, between the unreflecting belief of the many and the scientific belief of the few. thus, m. franck distinguishes certitude, first of all, from the blind faith which commences with the earliest dawn of intelligence: then, from the doubt which supervenes on the initial process of inquiry; and then, from that half-knowledge, that middle term between doubt and certainty, which is called _probability_. and m. javari speaks of certitude "as the complete demonstration, acquired by reflection, of the legitimacy of any judgment, or of the reality of any object: this is definitive and scientific certitude, which is contrasted with that belief, however strong, which springs, not from the _reflective_, but the _direct and spontaneous_ exercise of our faculties."[235] it must be evident that, according to this definition of the term, certitude, in the scientific sense of it, as the product of philosophical reflection, must be the privilege and prerogative of the few, who have been led by taste or education to cultivate the study of psychology; while the vast majority of men, who are nevertheless as _certain_ of the truths which they believe, and, to say the very least, as little liable to doubt or skepticism, as any class of philosophers whatever, must be held to have no certitude, just because they have no science. it seems to be assumed that certitude is the creation of science, the product of reflective thought; whereas it may be demonstrably shown that without certitude, science would be impossible, and that reflection can give forth nothing but what it finds previously existing in the storehouse of human consciousness. it surveys the streams of belief, and may trace up these streams to their highest springs; but it does not, it cannot, create a new truth, or give birth to a higher certitude. we have no disposition, assuredly, to underrate the value of philosophical reflection, or to disparage the science of psychology; the former may collect the materials and the latter may attempt the construction, of a goodly and solid fabric: but we cannot admit that the certainty of all our knowledge depends upon either of them, or that it is confined exclusively to the metaphysical inquirer. reflection adds nothing to the contents of human consciousness: it examines our fundamental beliefs, but originates none of them; it discerns the elements and sources of certainty, but can neither produce nor alter them. its sole province is to examine and report. if certitude, in the philosophical sense of it, belongs to the _reflex_, certainty, in the popular sense, belongs to the _direct_ and _spontaneous_, operations of the human mind. we see and believe, we remember and believe, we compare and believe, we hear and believe, and that, too, with a feeling of confidence which needs no argument to confirm it, and to which all the philosophy in the world could impart no additional strength. certitude is not the creation of philosophy, but the object of its study; it exists independently of science, and is only recognized by it; and it would still exist as a constituent and indestructible element of human consciousness were metaphysics scattered to the wind. it appears, again, to have been assumed in some recent treatises, that certitude belongs only to that portion of truth the denial of which would imply a contradiction, or amount to the annihilation of reason. is it, then, to be restricted to _necessary_ and _absolute_, as contrasted with _contingent_ and _relative_ truths? am i not as _certain_ that i see four objects before me, as that two and two make four? yet the former is a _contingent_, the latter a _necessary_ truth. is not my personal consciousness infallibly certain? and yet can it be said to belong to the head of necessary truth? surely certitude is unduly restricted when we exclude from it many of our surest and strongest convictions, which relate to truths attested by experience, but the denial of which would involve no contradiction. the question has been still further complicated by extreme opinions of another kind. it seems to have been assumed that there can be no certitude, unless we can explain the _rationale_ of our knowledge, and even account for the objects of our knowledge by tracing them up to their first cause, as the ground and reason of their existence.[236] now, if the question were, can you account for your own existence, or for the existence of the world around you, without having recourse to a supreme first cause? we would answer, no: but if the question be, can there be any certitude prior to the idea of god, not deduced from it, and capable of existing without it? we would answer, yes: the little child is certain of its mother's existence before it is capable of knowing god, and the veriest atheist is certain of his own existence and that of his fellow-men, even when he professes to doubt or to disbelieve the existence of god. it may be true that the essential nature and omniscient knowledge of god is the ultimate and eternal standard of truth and certainty, or, in the words of fenelon, that "il n'y a qu'une seule verité, et qu'une seule manière de bien juger, qui est, de juger comme dieu même;"[237] and yet it may not be true that all our knowledge is derived by deduction from our idea of god, or that its entire certainty is dependent on our religious belief. surely we may be certainly assured of the facts of consciousness, of the phenomena of nature, and of many truths, both necessary and contingent, before we have made any attempt to explain the _rationale_ of our knowledge, or to connect it with the idea of the great first cause; nay, it may be, and we believe it is, by _means_ of these inferior and subordinate truths that we rise to the belief of a supreme, omniscient mind. some writers seem to confound certitude with _infallibility,_ or at least to hold that there can be no certitude without it. the _impersonal reason_ of cousin, the _common sense_ or _generic reason_ of lamennais, and the _authoritative tradition_ of the church, have all been severally resorted to, for the purpose of obtaining a ground of certitude in the matters both of philosophy and faith, such as is supposed to be unattainable by the exercise of our own proper faculties, or by the most careful study of evidence. according to these theories, certitude belongs to our knowledge, only because that knowledge is derived from a reason superior to our own,--a reason not personal, but universal; not individual, but generic. when they are applied, as they have been, to undermine the authority of private judgment, and to supersede the exercise of free inquiry; when they are urged as a reason why we should defer to the authority of the race in matters of philosophy and to the authority of the church in matters of faith; when we are told that the certainty of our own existence depends on our knowledge of god, and that our knowledge of god depends on the _common consent_ or _invariable traditions_ of mankind,--we do feel that the grounds of certitude, so far from being strengthened, are sapped and weakened by such speculations, and that we have here a new and most unexpected application of the scottish doctrine of common sense, such as may be highly serviceable to the church of rome. protestant writers, indeed, have sometimes appealed to _common consent_ as a collateral proof, auxiliary to that which is more direct and conclusive; but they have done so merely because they regarded it as a _part of the evidence_, well fitted to prove what dr. cudworth calls "the naturality of the idea of god," and not because they confounded it with the _faculty_ by which alone that evidence can be discerned and appreciated. they never regarded it as the sole ground of certainty either in matters of philosophy or faith. nor can it be so considered by any thoughtful mind. for how can i be more assured of an _impersonal reason_ than of my own? how can i be more certain of the existence and the traditions of other men, than of the facts of my own consciousness, and the spontaneous convictions of my own understanding? or how can i be assured that, in passing from the impersonal reason to the individual mind, from the generic reason to the personal, the truth may not contract some taint of weakness or impurity from the vessel in which it is ultimately contained,--from the finite faculties by which alone it is apprehended and believed? the fact is that any attempt to prove the truth of our faculties must necessarily fail. did we set ourselves to the task of proving by argument or by authority that we are not wrong in believing in our own existence or that of an external world, or did we attempt to establish the trustworthiness of our faculties by resolving it into the veracity of god, our effort must needs be as abortive as it is superfluous, since it involves the necessity not only of proving the fact, but of _proving the proof itself_, and that, too, by the aid of the very faculties whose trustworthiness is in question! there are certain ultimate facts beyond which it is impossible to push our speculative inquiries; certain first or fundamental principles of reason, which are in themselves indemonstrable, but which constitute the ground or condition of all demonstration; certain intuitive perceptions, which are widely different from rational deductions, but which determine and govern every process of reasoning and every form of belief. to deny the _certainty_ of our intuitive perceptions, merely because we cannot prove by argument the truth of our mental faculties, would virtually amount to a rejection of all evidence except such as comes to us only through _one_ channel, and _that_ the circuitous one of a process of reasoning; while, by the constitution of our nature, we are qualified and privileged to draw it fresh, in many cases, at its spring and fountain-head. it may be as impossible for man to prove the trustworthiness of his intellectual faculties as it is for the bee to prove the truth of its marvellous instinct; but, in either case, the reason may be that any such proof is unnecessary, that it is superseded by the laws of instinct in the one, and by the laws of thought in the other, and that by these laws a better and surer provision is made for our guidance than any that could have been found in a mere logical faculty,--a natural and irresistible authority, which the skeptic may dispute, but cannot destroy, and which, however disowned in theory, must be practically obeyed. it must be evident that the _various meanings_ which have been attached to the term certitude must materially affect both the statement and solution of the general problem, and, more particularly, that they must have an important bearing on the question, whether the doctrine which affirms the being, perfections, and providence of god, should be ranked under the head of _certain_, or only of _probable_, truth. if, in making use of the term certitude, i mean to denote by it something different from the certainty which belongs to the most assured convictions of the human mind, something that arises, not from the spontaneous and direct exercise of its faculties, but from a process of reflective thought or philosophical speculation, something, in short, that is peculiar to the metaphysical inquirer, and is not the common heritage of the race at large; then, unquestionably, the problem, as thus understood, must leave out of view many of the surest and most universal beliefs of mankind,--beliefs which may be illustrated and confirmed by philosophy, but which are anterior to it in respect to their origin, and independent of it in respect of the evidence on which they severally rest. in the case of certitude, just as in the case of every similar term expressive of a simple, elementary idea, the ultimate appeal must be made to individual consciousness. no one can convey to another a conception of certitude by means of words, apart from an experimental sense of it in the mind of the latter, any more than he could give the idea of color to the blind or of music to the deaf. it is because we have had experience of it in our own breasts that we recognize and respond to the descriptions which others give of it. every one knows what it is to be _certain_ in regard to many things, just because, constituted as he is, he cannot doubt or disbelieve them. he is _certain_ of his own existence, of the existence of other men, of the facts of his familiar consciousness, of many events long since past which are still clearly remembered, of certain abstract truths which are intuitively discerned or logically demonstrated. these various objects of his thought may differ in other respects, and may occasion a corresponding difference in the _kind_ of certitude which is conceived to belong to them; but they all possess the same generic character, and admit, therefore, of being classified under the same comprehensive category, as objects of our _certain_ knowledge. in the current use both of philosophical and popular language, certitude is spoken of in a twofold sense. we speak of a belief or conviction of our own minds as possessing the character of certitude, when it is so strong, and so firmly rooted that it excludes all doubt or hesitation;--we speak also of an object or event as possessing the same character, when it is so presented to our minds as to produce the full assurance of its reality. hence the distinction between _subjective_ and _objective_ certitude. the former is a fact of consciousness; it is simply the undoubting assent which we yield to certain judgments, whether these judgments be true or false; it exists in us, and not in the objects of thought; it denotes a condition of our minds, which may, or may not, be in accordance with the actual state of things. the latter is truth or certainty considered _objectively_, as existing in the objects of our knowledge; it is independent of us and of our conceptions; it is _as_ it is, whether it be known or unknown to us; our belief cannot add to its reality, nor can our unbelief diminish or destroy it. certitude, considered as a mental state, denotes simply the strength of our conviction or belief, as distinguished from doubt or mere opinion; but, considered as an objective reality, it denotes the ground or reason existing in the nature of things for the convictions which we cherish. _subjective certitude_ is not always the index or the proof of _objective truth_, for men often believe with the strongest assurance what they find reason afterwards to doubt or to disbelieve; and the prevalence of many false beliefs, sincerely cherished and zealously maintained, raises the question, how we may best discriminate between truth and error? hence the various theories of certitude, and hence also the antagonist theories of skepticism. the theories of certitude may be reduced to _three_ classes. the _first_ places the ground of certitude in _reason_; the _second_ in _authority_; the _third_, in _evidence_, including under that term both the external manifestations of truth, and the internal principles or laws of thought by which we are determined in forming our judgments in regard to them. each of these theories, however, has appeared in various phases in the history of philosophical speculation. the individual reason of martineau, the generic reason of lamennais, the impersonal reason of cousin, the authority of the race, and the infallibility of the church, are specimens of these varieties. the theory which places the principle of certitude in reason has assumed at least two distinct shapes. in the one it discards all authority except that of private judgment or individual reason; in the other it appeals to a higher reason, which is said to be impersonal and infallible, and which is supposed to regulate and determine the convictions of the human mind. in the former shape, it appears in the speculations of martineau; in the latter, it is advocated by cousin; and in one or other of these shapes it constitutes the ground-principle of rationalism. the theory, again, which places the principle of certitude in authority has also assumed two distinct shapes. in the one it speaks of a universal consent or generic reason, the reason not of the individual but of the race to which he belongs, and exhibits a singular combination of the philosophy of common sense as taught by dr. reid and the scottish school, with the principle of authoritative tradition as taught in the popish church; in the other, it refers more specifically, not to the infallibility of the race at large, but to the infallibility of a select body, regularly organized and invested with peculiar powers, into whose hands has been committed the sacred deposit and the sole guardianship of truth, whether in matters of philosophy or faith. in both forms it is presented in the writings of m. gerbet and m. lamennais, and in both it is necessary for the full maintenance of the popish system of doctrine. the theory, again, which places the principle of certitude in evidence, admits of being exhibited in two very distinct aspects. in the one, it has been treated as if evidence were purely _subjective_, as if it belonged exclusively to thought, and not to the object of thought, or as if it depended solely on the perceptions of our minds, and not at all on any objective reality which is independent of them, and which is equally true whether it be perceived by our minds or not. in this form it is a theory of individualism, and has a strong tendency towards skepticism. in the other aspect, evidence is regarded as the sole and sufficient ground of certitude, but it is viewed both _objectively_ and _subjectively_;--_objectively_, as having its ground and reason in a reality that is independent of our perceptions, and that may or may not be perceived without being the less true or the less certain in itself;--and yet _subjectively_ also, as being equally dependent on certain principles of reason or laws of thought, without which no external manifestation would suffice to create the ideas and beliefs of the human mind, since the evidence which is exhibited externally must not only exist, but must be perceived, discerned, and appreciated, before it can generate belief: but when perceived, it produces conviction, varying in different cases in degree, and amounting in some to absolute certainty, which leaves no room either for denial or doubt. such are the three grand theories of certitude, and the several distinct forms or phases in which they have severally appeared. we have no hesitation in declaring our decided preference for the second form of the third theory,--that which resolves the principle or ground of certitude into evidence; but evidence considered both _objectively_ and _subjectively_,--_objectively_, as that which exists whether it is perceived or not, and is independent of the caprices of individual minds, and _subjectively_, as that which must be discerned before its proper impression can be produced, which must be judged of according to the laws of human thought, and which, when so discerned and judged of, imparts a feeling of assurance which no sophistry can shake and no philosophy strengthen. according to some recent theories, certitude belongs to our knowledge, only because that knowledge is derived from a reason superior to our own,--a reason not personal, but universal, not individual but generic, which, although not belonging to ourselves, is supposed to hold communication with our minds: and if this were meant merely to remind us of the limitation of our faculties, and of our consequent liability to error, or even to teach us the duty of acknowledging our dependence on a higher power, it might be alike unobjectionable and salutary; but when it is applied to undermine the authority of private judgment and to supersede the exercise of free inquiry, they have a tendency to excite suspicion and distrust in every thoughtful mind. the capital error which pervades all these speculations consists in not distinguishing aright between the _evidence_ which constitutes the ground of our belief, and the _faculty_ by which that evidence is discerned and appreciated. the generic reason of lamennais, as well as the uniform tradition of the church, may constitute, when duly improved, a branch of the objective evidence for the truth, and as such they have been applied even by protestant writers when they have appealed to _common consent_ as a collateral proof, auxiliary to that which is more direct and conclusive; but they cannot be regarded as the exclusive grounds of the certainty of human knowledge, since this arises from the fundamental, universal, and invariable laws of human thought. * * * * * the term skepticism, again, may denote either a mere _state of mind_,--a state of suspense or doubt in regard to some particular fact or opinion; or _a system of speculative philosophy_, relating to the principles of human knowledge or the grounds of human belief. in the former sense, it implies nothing more than the want of a sure and satisfactory conviction of the truth on the particular point in question. were it expressed in words, it would simply amount to a verdict of "non liquet." in the latter sense, it imports much more than this; it is not merely a _sense_ of doubt respecting any one truth, but a _system_ of doubt in regard to the grounds of our belief in all truth, a subtle philosophy which seeks to explain the phenomena of belief by resolving them into their ultimate principles, and which often terminates--in explaining them away. in both forms, it has existed, either continuously or in ever-recurring cycles, from the earliest dawn of speculative inquiry; and while it has seemed to retard or arrest the progress of human knowledge, it has really been overruled as a means of quickening the intellectual powers, and imparting at once greater precision and comprehensiveness to the matured results of science. theoretical skepticism may be divided into _three_ distinct branches: first, universal or philosophical skepticism, which professes to deny, or rather to doubt the certainty of all human knowledge; secondly, partial or religious skepticism, which admits the possible certitude of human knowledge in other respects, but holds that religious truth is either altogether inaccessible to our faculties, or that it is not supported by sufficient evidence; thirdly, a mongrel system, which combines philosophic doubt with ecclesiastical dogmatism, and which may be aptly characterized as the skeptico-dogmatic theory.[238] we agree with dr. reid in thinking that universal skepticism is unanswerable _by argument_, and can only be effectively met by an _appeal to consciousness_.[239] it might be shown, indeed, that in so far as it assumes, however slightly, the aspect of a positive or dogmatic system, it is self-contradictory and absurd; it might also be shown that doubt itself implies thought, and thought existence or reality: but the ultimate appeal must be to the facts of human consciousness, and the laws of thought which operate in every human breast. and when such an appeal is made, we can have no anxiety in regard to the result, nor any apprehension that philosophical skepticism can ever become the prevailing creed of the popular mind. there is a risk, however, of danger arising from a different source; it may not be always remembered that the theory of skepticism must be universal to be either consistent or consequent; and hence it may be _partially applied_ to some truths, while it is practically abandoned in regard to other truths, which are neither more certain nor less liable to objection than the former. thus the skeptical difficulties which have been raised against the doctrines of ontology are of such a kind that if they have any validity or force, they bear as strongly against the reality of an external world and the existence of our fellow-men, as against the doctrine which affirms the being of god: yet many will be found urging them against the latter doctrine, who do not profess to have any doubt in regard to the two former; and it is of paramount importance to show that this is a partial and therefore unfair application of their own principles, and that they cannot consistently admit the one without also admitting the other. atheism, in its skeptical form, must either be a mere _sense of doubt_ in regard to the sufficiency of the evidence in favor of the being and perfections of god; or _a speculative system_, which attempts to justify that doubt by some theory of philosophical skepticism, either partial or universal. in the _latter_ case, it may be best dealt with by showing that it affects the certainty of our common knowledge, not less than that of our religious belief, and that we cannot consistently reject theology, and yet retain our convictions on other cognate subjects of thought. in the _former_ case, it should be treated as a case of ignorance, by illustrating the evidence, and urging it on the attention of those who have hitherto been blind to its force; reminding them that their _not seeing_ it is no proof that it does not exist, and that _doubt_ itself on such a question, so nearly affecting their duty and welfare, involves a solemn obligation to patient, candid, and dispassionate inquiry. "a skeptic in religion," says bishop earle, "is one that hangs in the balance with all sorts of opinions, whereof not one but stirs him, and none sways him. a man guiltier of credulity than he is taken to be; for it is out of his belief of everything that he fully believes nothing. each religion scares him from its contrary, none persuades him to itself.... he finds reason in all opinions, truth in none; indeed, the least reason perplexes him, and the best will not satisfy him.... he finds doubts and scruples better than resolves them, and is always _too hard for himself_.... in sum, his whole life is a question, and his salvation a greater, which death only concludes, and then he--is resolved."[240] this second phase or form of skepticism, which we have designated as _partial_ or _religious skepticism_, admits the possible certitude of human knowledge in other respects, and especially in regard to secular and scientific pursuits, but holds that religious truth is either altogether inaccessible to man with his present faculties, or that its certainty cannot be evinced by any legitimate process of reasoning. these two positions are in some respects widely different, although they are often combined, and always conducive to the same result,--the practical negation of religion. many who never dream of doubting the certainty of human knowledge, in so far as it relates to their secular or scientific pursuits, are prone to cherish a skeptical spirit in regard to religious or spiritual truths; and this, not because they have examined and weighed the evidence to which theology appeals, and found it wanting, but rather because they have a lurking suspicion that men, with their present faculties, are incapable of rising to the knowledge of supernatural things, and that they could attain to no certainty, while they might expose themselves to much delusion, by entering on the inquiry at all. this is their apology for _ignoring_ religion altogether, and contenting themselves with other branches of knowledge, which are supposed to be more certain in themselves as well as more conducive to their present welfare. in this respect, it is deeply instructive to remark that infidelity has been singularly at variance with itself. at one time, in the age of herbert, human reason was extolled, to the disparagement of divine revelation; it was held to be so thoroughly competent to deal with all the truths of theology, and to arrive, on mere natural grounds, at such an assured belief in them, that no supernatural message was needed either to illustrate, or confirm, or enforce the lessons of nature: but now, when the lessons of nature herself are called in question, human reason is disparaged as incompetent to the task of deciphering her dark hieroglyphics, and while she can traverse with firm step every department of the material world, and soar aloft, as on eagle's wings, to survey the suns and systems of astronomy, she is held to be incapable alike of religious inquiry and of divine instruction! there is, indeed, a striking contrast between the high pretensions of reason in matters of philosophy, and the bastard humility which it sometimes assumes in matters of faith. but there is another, and a still more subtle, form of partial or religious skepticism. it does not absolutely deny the possibility of religious knowledge, nor does it dogmatically affirm that man, with his present faculties, can have no religious convictions; it contents itself with saying, and attempting to prove, that the certitude of religious truth cannot be evinced by any legitimate process of reasoning. it examines the proof, and detects flaws in it. it discusses, with a severe and critical logic, the arguments that have been employed to establish the first and most fundamental article of theology, the existence of god; and discarding them one by one, it reaches the conclusion that, whether true or not, it cannot be proved. strange as it may appear, these sentiments have been embraced and avowed by men who still continue to profess their belief in god and religion. some have held that proof by reasoning is impossible, but only because it is superfluous. they distinguish between _reason_ and _reasoning_; and hold that while the latter is incompetent to the task of proving the existence of god, the former spontaneously suggests the idea of a supreme cause, and imparts to it all the certainty which belongs to a direct intellectual intuition. others distinguish between the _speculative_ and the _practical_ reason; and hold that while the former cannot prove by an unexceptionable argument the existence of god, the latter affords a sufficient groundwork for religious belief and worship. others, again, speak not so much of reason or reasoning, as of _sentiment and instinct_, as the source of our religious beliefs; and instead of addressing arguments to the understanding, they would make their appeal to the feelings and affections of the heart. there is still another class of writers who resolve all human knowledge, whether relating to things secular or spiritual, into what they call the principle of faith (_foi_), and to this class belong two distinct parties who are widely different from each other in almost everything else. it is important, therefore, to mark the radical difference between their respective systems, since it is apt to be concealed or disguised by the ambiguous use of the same phraseology by both. the one party may be described as the disciples of a _faith-philosophy of reason_, the other of a _faith-philosophy of revelation_: the former resolving all our knowledge into the intuitive perceptions or first principles of the human intellect, considered as a kind of divine and infallible, though natural inspiration; the latter contending that in regard at least to the knowledge of theological truth, human reason is utterly powerless, and can only arrive at certainty by faith in the divine testimony. the two are widely different, yet there are points of resemblance and agreement betwixt them, and on this account they have sometimes been classed together under a wide and sweeping generalization. the form of partial skepticism to which these remarks apply is perhaps more common than it is generally supposed to be. on what other principle, indeed, can we account, at least in the case of religious men, for the indifference and even aversion with which they turn away from any attempt to prove by natural evidence the existence and providence of god? the prevalence of such feelings even within the christian community has been admitted and deplored by one of the most profound spiritual teachers of modern times;[241] and it can only be explained, where religion is cherished and professed, on the supposition that they regard _proof by argument_ as superfluous, either because it is superseded by the natural instincts and intuitions of the human mind, or by the authoritative teaching of divine revelation. but it ought to be seriously considered, on the one hand, that the instincts and intuitions of human reason are not altogether independent of the natural evidence which is exhibited in the constitution and course of nature; and, on the other hand, that revelation itself refers to that natural evidence, and recommends it to our careful and devout study. besides the theories of partial skepticism to which we have already referred, there is a mongrel system which seems to combine the two opposite extremes of doubt and dogmatism, and which, for that reason, may be not inaptly designated as _skeptico-dogmatic_.[242] ever since the era of the reformation, when the principle of free inquiry, and the right or rather the duty of private judgment in matters of religion, were so strenuously affirmed and so successfully maintained, there has been a standing controversy between the popish and protestant churches respecting the rival claims of reason and authority as the ultimate arbiter on points of faith. extreme opinions on either side were advanced. one party, repudiating all authority, whether human or divine, rejected alike the testimony of scripture and the decrees of the church, and, receiving only what was supposed to be in accordance with the dictates of reason, sought to establish a scheme of rationalism in connection with at least a nominal profession of christianity. the opposite party, not slow to detect the error into which extreme protestants had fallen, and intent seemingly on fastening that error on all who had separated themselves from the catholic church, affirmed and endeavored to prove that rationalism, in its most obnoxious sense, is inherent in and inseparable from the avowed principles of the reformation, and that the recognition of the right of private judgment is necessarily subversive of all authority in matters of faith. they did not see, or if they did see, they were unwilling to acknowledge that rationalism is a very different thing from the legitimate use of reason; and that while the former repudiates all authority, whether human or divine, the latter may bow with profound reverence to the supreme authority of the inspired word, and even listen with docility to the ministerial authority of the church, in so far as her teaching is in accordance with the lessons of scripture. it may be safely affirmed that the confessions and articles of all the protestant churches in europe and america do recognize the authority both of god and the church, and are as much opposed to rationalism, considered as a system which makes reason the sole standard and judge, as they are to the opposite extreme of lordly domination over the faith and consciences of men. but such a controversy having arisen, it was to be expected that while eager partisans, on the one side, might unduly exalt and extol the powers and prerogatives of reason, the adherents of romanism, which claims the sanction of infallibility for her doctrines and decrees, would be tempted to follow an opposite course, and would seek to disparage the claims of reason with the view of exalting the authority of the church. hence arose what has been called popish pyrrhonism,--a system which attempts to combine doubt with dogmatism, and to establish the certitude of religious knowledge on the sole basis of authority, which is somehow supposed to be more secure and stable when it rests on the ruins of human reason. not a few significant symptoms of a tendency in this direction have appeared from age to age. it was apparent in some of the writings, otherwise valuable, of huet, bishop of avranches; some traces of it are discernible in the profound "thoughts of pascal;" but it was reserved for the present age to elaborate this tendency into a theory, and to give it the form of a regular system. this task was fearlessly undertaken by the eloquent but versatile lamennais, while as yet he held office in the church, and was publicly honored as one who was worthy to be called "the latest of the fathers." his "essay on indifference in matters of faith," exhibits many proofs of a profound and vigorous intellect, and contains many passages of powerful and impressive eloquence. we heartily sympathize with it in so far as it is directed against that liberalism which makes light of all definite articles of faith; but we deplore the grievous error into which he has been seduced by his zeal for the authority of the church, when he attempts to undermine the foundations of all belief in the trustworthiness of the human faculties. in opposition to the claims of private judgment, he contends for the necessity of a reason more elevated and more general as the only ground of certitude, the supreme rule and standard of belief. this normal reason he finds in the doctrine and decrees of an infallible church, wherever the church is known; but where the church is yet unknown, or while it was yet non-existent in its present organized form, he seeks this more general reason in the common sense or unanimous consent of the race at large, and affirms that this is the sole ground of certitude, and the ultimate standard of appeal in every question respecting the truth or falsity of our individual opinions.[243] he holds that the authority both of the church and of the race is _infallible_; and that its infallibility neither requires nor admits of proof.[244] with the view of establishing this one and exclusive criterion of certitude, he assails the evidence of sense, the evidence of consciousness, the evidence of memory, the evidence even of axiomatic truths and first principles, and involves everything except ecclesiastical authority or general reason in the same abyss of skepticism.[245] he ventures even to affirm that "geometry itself, the most exact of all the sciences, rests, like every other, on common consent!" no wonder, then, that he should also found exclusively on _authority_ our belief in the existence and government of god. an intelligent member of his own communion propounds a very different, and much more reasonable, opinion: "il n'y a pas d'autorité morale qui n'ait besoin de se prouver ellemême, d'une maniere quelconque, et d'etablir sa legitimité. en definitive, c'est a l'individu qu'elle s'addresse, car on ne croit pas par masse, on croit chacun pour soi. l'individu reste donc toujours juge, et juge inevitable de l'autorité intellectuelle qu'il accepte, ou de celle qui s'offre a lui. nous n'avons pas a examiner si cette disposition constitutive de l'esprit humain est bonne ou mauvaise; la seule question que l'on en fait est vaine et sterile. nous sommes necessairement aménés par l'observation physchologique a constater qu'il faut que l'homme croie a la fidelité du temoignage de ses sens individuels, et à la valeur de sa raison personelle, avant de faire un pas au-dela."[246] we think it unnecessary to enter into a detailed discussion of this strange and startling theory, especially as the altered position of the writer in his relation to the church before his death may be held to indicate that to a large extent it had been abandoned by himself. nor should we have thought it worthy even of this transient notice, had we not discerned symptoms of an incipient tendency in a similar direction among some writers in the protestant ranks. it should be remembered by divines of every communion that the rational faculties of man and their general trustworthiness are necessarily presupposed in any revelation which may be addressed to them; and that in scripture itself frequent appeals are made to the works of creation and providence, as affording at once a body of natural evidence, and a signal manifestation of his adorable perfections. it were a vain thing to hope that _faith in god_ may be strengthened by a spirit of _skepticism_ in regard to reason, which constitutes part of his own image on the soul of man. it is but common justice to add that the speculations of lamennais, so far from being sanctioned, were openly censured, by some of the most distinguished of his fellow-ecclesiastics. such writers as valroger, gioberti, and the late archbishop of paris, gave forth their public protest against them, and have thereby done much to vindicate their church from the imputation of conniving at the progress of skepticism. valroger's testimony is strong and decided: "m. de lamennais pretendait que la raison individuelle est incapable de nous donner la certitude. cette pretention est, suivant, nous absurde et funeste. n'est ce pas par notre raison individuelle que la verité-arrivé a nous et devient notre bien? quel moyen plus immediat pourrons-nous avoir de saisir la verité? quel principe de connaisance ou de certitude pourrait-on placer entre nous et notre raison? et comment pourrions-nous l'employer, si ce ne'est avec notre raison? n'est ce pas une contradiction flagrante de vouloir persuader quelque chose à des hommes que l'on a declarés incapables de connaitre certainement quoi que ce soit? a quoi bon une methode, une autorité infaillible, un enseignement divin, si nous n'avons que des facultés trompeuses pour user de ces secours? nous croyons, nous, que la raison individuelle peut connaitre avec certitude toutes les verités necessaires à l'accomplissement de notre destinée. si nous avons besoin de la grace, de la revelation, de la tradition, et de l'eglise pour atteindre le bût supreme de notre vie,--sur une foule de questions subalternes, nous peuvons arriver a une certitude complete, sans recourir à aucune exterieure, à aucun secours surnaturel."[247] gioberti is equally explicit: "m. de lamennais dans sa theorie sur la certitude, confond les deux methodes, ontologique et physiologique; il les rejette toutes les deux, et leur substitue la seule methode d'autorité. mais la methode d'autorité est impossible sans un fondement ontologique, et c'est une manifeste petition de principe que d'etabler l'ontologie sur l'autorité."[248] and the late archbishop of paris,--the same who fell before the barricades, a martyr to charity if not to truth, and who seems to have had a wakeful eye on the progress of philosophic speculation,--took occasion, in a preface to the abbé maret's "theodicée," to declare that lamennais' system was obnoxious to the church, because of its opposition to the doctrine of rational certitude: "tout le monde sait que le clergé de france avait repoussé le systeme de m. de lamennais precisément à cause de son opposition a la certitude rationnelle constanment professée dans nos ecoles; et tout le monde peu savoir que les bossuet, les fenelon, les descartes out raisonné, et que nous aussi nous raisonnons et discutons avec nos accusateurs," ... "preuve irrécusable que le rationalisme et la raison sont deux choses fort differentes."[249] perrone has given a similar testimony, and we cannot doubt that the more thoughtful adherents of romanism must be sensible of the danger which is involved in any attempt to combine rational skepticism with dogmatic authority. it were well, however, if they would reconsider their position with reference to this whole question, in its more general bearings in conection with their doctrine as to the rule of faith; and weigh, with candid impartiality, the arguments which have been adduced by protestant writers on the subject.[250] footnotes: [233] m. a. franck, "rapport," paris, 1847. m. a. javary, "ouvrage couronné par l'institut," 1847. [234] m. ed. mercier, "de la certitude, dans ses rapports avec la science et la foi," 1844. m. a. vera, "problème de la certitude," 1843. abbé gerbet, "des doctrines philosophiques sur la certitude, dans leur rapports avec les fondemens de la theologie." abbé de lamennais, "du fondement de la certitude," 1826. vols. ii. and iii. of the "essai sur l'indifference en matiére de la religion." 4 vols., 1844. [235] m. franck, p. 237. m. javari, p. 28. [236] amand sainte, "vie de spinoza," p. 201. abbé lamennais, "essai sur l'indifference," iv. 256. [237] fenelon, "oeuvres spirituelles," i. _138_. [238] sextus empiricus, "adversus mathematicos," that is, dogmaticos--teachers of [greek: mathêmata]. glanville, "scepsis scientifica." hume, and montaigne, "essays." h. o'connor, "connected essays and tracts." villemandy, "scepticismus debellatus; seu, humanæ cognitionis ratio ab imis radicibus explicata; ejusdem certitudo adversus scepticos quosque veteres ac novos invicte asserta." lamennais, "essai sur l'indifference." [239] dr. reid, essays,--"on first principles," ii. 249-252, 293, 300. sir wm. hamilton, "reid," pp. 91, 101, 109. [240] bishop earle, "microcosmography," p. 120. [241] dr. john love, of glasgow, "discourses." [242] cousin, "cours," ii. 420, 422. morell, "history of philosophy," i. 251; ii. 221, 505, 522. spinoza, "tractatus theolog.-polit.," p. 267. lamennais, "essai sur l'indifference," _passim_. [243] lamennais, "essai," ii. 6, 7, 52, 60, 258. [244] ibid., ii. 9, 97, 110. [245] lamennais, "essai," ii. 59, 72, 75, 78, 80, 84, 94; iv. 255. [246] bouchitté, "histoire des preuves," p. 478. [247] valroger, "etudes critiques," p. 574. [248] gioberti, "introduction a l'etude de la philosophie," i. 592. [249] maret, "theodicée," preface, p. viii. [250] la placette, "de insanabill romanæ ecclesiæ scepticismo." chapter ix. theory of secularism.--g. j. holyoake. such is the new name under which atheism has recently appeared among not a few of the tradesmen and artisans of the metropolis and provincial towns of great britain. in literature, it is represented by mr. g. j. holyoake, the author of an answer to paley, the editor of "the reasoner," and a popular lecturer and controversialist, whose public discussions are duly reported in that periodical, and occasionally reprinted in a separate form.[251] the extensive circulation which these and similar tracts have already obtained, the number of affiliated societies which have been formed in many of the chief centres of manufactures and commerce, the zeal and boldness of popular itinerant lecturers, and the urgent demands which have been incessantly made for the extension of their machinery by means of a _propaganda_ fund, are all indications of a tendency, in some quarters, towards a form of unbelief, less speculative and more practical, but only on that account more attractive to the english mind, and neither less insidious nor less dangerous than any of the philosophical theories of atheism. we have often thought, indeed, that should atheism ever threaten to become prevalent in england, this is the form which it is most likely to assume. the english mind is eminently practical; it has little sympathy with the profundity of german or the subtlety of french speculation on such subjects. a few speculative spirits may be influenced for a time by the reasonings of comte, or the representations of "the vestiges;" but the general mind of the community will desiderate something more solid and substantial; not content with any scientific theory, however ingenious, it will demand a practical system. and we are not sure that "secularism" may not be made to appear, in the view of some, to be just such a system, since it dismisses or refuses to pronounce on many of the highest problems of human thought, insists on the necessary limitation of the human faculties, and seeks to confine both our aspirations and our thoughts to the interests and the duties of the present life. in estimating the probable influence of such a system on the public mind, we must not forget the large amount of practical irreligion which exists even in england, the strong temptation which is felt by many to escape from their occasional feelings of remorse and fear by embracing some plausible pretext for the neglect of prayer and other religious observances, and the disposition, natural and almost irresistible in such circumstances, to lend a willing ear to any doctrine which promises to relieve them of all responsibility with relation to god and a future state. the theory of secularism is adapted to this state of mind; it chimes in with the instinctive tendencies of every ungodly mind; and it is the likeliest medium through which _practical atheism_ may pass into _speculative infidelity_. mr. holyoake, it is true, abjures the name both of an _atheist_ and _infidel_. we admire the prudence of his policy, but cannot subscribe to the correctness of his reasons for doing so. "mr. southwell," he says, "has taken an objection to the term atheism. we are glad he has. we have disused it a long time.... we disuse it, because atheist is a worn-out word. both the ancients and the moderns have understood by it _one without god, and also without morality_. thus the term connotes more than any well-informed and earnest person accepting it ever included in it; that is, the word carries with it associations of immorality, which have been repudiated by the atheist as seriously as by the christian. non-theism is a term less open to the same misunderstanding, as it implies the simple non-acceptance of the theist's explanation of the origin and government of the world."[252] but "non-theism" was afterwards exchanged for "secularism," as a term less liable to misconstruction, and more correctly descriptive of the real import of the theory. "_secularists_ was, perhaps, the proper designation of all who dissented extremely from the religious opinions of the day."--"freethinking is the _secular_ sphere; drawing its line of demarcation between time and eternity, it works _for the welfare of man in this world_"--"the _secularist_ is the larger and more comprehensive designation of the atheist."[253] with all this coyness and fastidiousness about names, there can be no doubt that the character of the system is essentially atheistic: "we refuse to employ the term god, not having any definite idea of it which we can explain to others,--not knowing any theory of such an existence as will enable us to defend that dogma to others. we therefore prefer the honest, though unusual designation of atheist; not using it in the sense in which it is commonly employed, as signifying _one without morality_, but in its stricter sense of describing those _without any determinate knowledge of deity_."[254] "that the atheist does consider matter to be eternal is perfectly correct; and for this reason, no atheist could make use of such a term as that matter _originally_ possessed, or _originally_ was; whatever is eternal has no origin, beginning, or end.... organized plants and animals--man also with his noble intellect--are not _now_ at least produced by supernatural causes; and the atheist, without positively asserting that there _must_ have been a beginning to life in this earth, argues that if a plant, an animal, or a man, can be produced at this time without supernatural interference, so also a first plant, a first animal, or a first man, may have been naturally produced in this earth under the right circumstances,--circumstances which probably cannot occur in the present condition of our globe. our difficulties and our ignorance are not in the least dispelled, but on the contrary complicated and increased, by the adoption of the ancient belief in a supernatural contriver and maker, who, after existing from eternity in absolute void and solitude, suddenly proceeded to create the universe out of nothing or out of himself."[255] the editor thinks "the course to be taken is to use the term secularists as indicating general views, and accept the term atheist at the point at which ethics declines alliance with theology; always, however, explaining the term atheist to mean 'not seeing god,' visually or inferentially; never suffering it to be taken (as chalmers, foster, and many others represent it) for anti-theism, that is, hating god, denying god, as _hating_ implies personal knowledge as the ground of dislike, and _denying_ implies infinite knowledge as the ground of disproof."[256] these extracts are sufficient to illustrate the peculiar character of this popular form of infidelity. it is not a philosophical system, although philosophical terms are often employed by its advocates; it does not even profess to solve, as the theory of development does, any of the great problems of nature. we shall offer a brief statement of its distinctive peculiarities, as it is developed by mr. holyoake, and suggest some considerations which should be seriously pondered by those who may be tempted to exchange christianity for secularism. 1. the theory of secularism is a form, not of _dogmatic_, but of _skeptical_, atheism; it is dogmatic only in _denying the sufficiency of the evidence_ for the being and perfections of god. it does not deny, it only does not believe, his existence. there may be a god notwithstanding; there may even be sufficient evidence of his being, although some men cannot, or will not, see it. "they do not deny the existence of god, but only assert that they have not sufficient proof of his existence."[257] "the non-theist takes this ground. he affirms that natural reason has _not yet_ attained to (evidence of) supernatural being. he does not deny that it _may do so_, because the capacity of natural reason in the pursuit of evidence of supernatural being is not, so far as he is aware, fixed."--"the power of reason is yet a growth. to deny its power absolutely would be hazardous; and in the case of a speculative question, not to admit that the opposite views may in some sense be tenable, is to assume your own infallibility,--a piece of arrogance the public always punish by disbelieving you when you are in the right."[258] accordingly the thesis which mr. holyoake undertook to maintain in public discussion was couched in these terms:--"that we have _not sufficient evidence_ to believe in the existence of a supreme being independent of nature;"[259] and so far from venturing to deny his existence, he makes the important admission, that "_denying implies infinite knowledge as the ground of disproof_." it is admitted, then, by the secularist himself,--that there _may be_ a god,--that there may be evidence of his existence,--that it may yet be discovered in the progress of natural reason,--and that to deny any one of these possibilities would be to assume "infallibility," or to arrogate "infinite knowledge as the ground of disproof." now, we humbly conceive that there is enough in these admissions, if not to disarm the secular polemic, yet to shut up every seriously reflecting man, not, perhaps, to the instant recognition of a divine being, but certainly to the duty of earnest, patient, and persevering inquiry. it was with this view that both chalmers and foster penned those powerful passages which seem to have left some impression on the mind even of mr. holyoake, not for the purpose, as he seems to imagine, of confounding atheism with anti-theism, but for the very opposite purpose of discriminating between the two, so as to show that, the one being impossible, the _other_ can afford no security against the possible truth of religion. and every word of warning which they convey should tell with powerful effect on mr. holyoake's conscience, after the admissions which he has deliberately made, especially when he is engaged in the cheerless task of undermining the faith of multitudes in their "father which is in heaven." dr. chalmers devotes a chapter of his "natural theology" to illustrate "the duty which is laid upon men by the _possibility_ or even the _imagination_ of a god." he does not overlook, on the contrary he founds upon, the distinction between skeptical and dogmatic atheism. "going back," he says, "to the very earliest of our mental conceptions on this subject, we advert first to the distinction, in point of real and logical import, between unbelief and disbelief. there being no ground for affirming that there is a god, is a different proposition from there being ground for affirming that there is no god.... the atheist does not labor to demonstrate that there is no god; but he labors to demonstrate that there is no adequate proof of there being one. he does not positively affirm the position, that god is not; but he affirms the lack of evidence for the position, that god is. judging from the tendency and effect of his arguments, an atheist does not appear positively to refuse that a god may be; but he insists that he has not discovered himself, whether by the utterance of his voice in audible revelation, or by the impress of his hand upon visible nature. his verdict on the doctrine of a god is only that it is not proven; it is not, that it is disproven. he is but an atheist: he is not an anti-theist." mr. holyoake can scarcely fail to recognize in these words a correct and graphic delineation of his own position and sentiments. now, says dr. chalmers, "there is a certain _duteous_ movement which the mind _ought_ to take, on the bare suggestion that a god _may be_.... the certainty of an actual god binds over to certain distinct and most undoubted proprieties. but so also may the imagination of a possible god; in which case, the very idea of a god, even in its most hypothetical form, might lay a _responsibility even upon atheists_.... the very idea of a god will bring along with it an instant sense and recognition of the moralities and duties that would be owing to him. should an actual god be revealed, we clearly feel that there is a something which we _ought_ to be and to do in regard to him. but more than this: should a possible god be imagined, there is a something not only which we feel that we _ought_, but there is a something which we actually ought to do or to be, in consequence of our being visited by such an imagination.... to this condition there attaches a most clear and incumbent morality. it is to go in quest of that unseen benefactor, who, for aught i know, has ushered me into existence, and spread so glorious a panorama around me. it is to probe the secret of my being and my birth; and, if possible, to make discovery whether it was indeed the hand of a benefactor that brought me forth from nonentity, and gave me place and entertainment in that glowing territory which is lighted up with the hopes and happiness of living men. it is thus that _the very conception of a god throws a solemn responsibility after it_."[260] it is a dangerous mistake, then, to imagine either that we can ever know _that there is no god_, or that we can get rid of all responsibility by merely _doubting_ his existence. atheism, in so far as it is _dogmatic_, must, in his own language, "arrogate infinite knowledge as the ground of disproof;" and in so far as it is merely _skeptical_, it can afford no security against the fears and forebodings which _doubt_ on such a subject must necessarily awaken in every thoughtful mind. and this consideration will become only the more solemn and impressive the longer we reflect upon it. mr. holyoake, however, is far from being consistent in his various statements on this subject. for not content with saying, "most decidedly i believe that the present order of nature is insufficient to prove the existence of an intelligent creator," he adds that "_no imaginable order_, that no contrivance, however mechanical, precise, or clear, would be sufficient to prove it."[261] at one time he tells us that "an increasing party respectfully and deferentially avow their inability to subscribe to the arguments supposed to establish the existence of a being distinct from nature." at another, "we have always held that the existence of deity is 'past finding out,' and we have held that the time employed upon the investigation might more profitably be devoted to the study of humanity." again, "that central point in all religious belief--the existence of god--has not yet been approached in a frank spirit. the very terms of the assertion are as _yet_ an enigma in language, the fact is _yet_ a problem in philosophy; the world possesses _as yet_ no adequate logic for that province of our speculation which lies beyond our immediate experience."[262] "man must die to solve the problem of deity's existence."[263] "the existence of god is a problem to which the mathematics of human intelligence _seems to me_ to furnish no solution,"[264] "a problem without a solution, a hieroglyphic without an interpretation, a gordian knot still untied, a question unanswered, a thread still unravelled, a labyrinth untrod."[265] that there is here a strong expression of skeptical atheism is evident; but is there not something more? does not skeptical atheism insensibly transform itself into dogmatic, when doubt respecting the sufficiency of the evidence is combined with a denial of the possibility of any satisfactory proof, or of the capacity of the human mind to reach it, here or hereafter? yet the plea is the want of sufficient evidence now; and this plea is urged in connection with the admission that "the power of reason is yet a growth," and that although "it has not yet attained to evidence of supernatural being," the denial of it "would imply infinite knowledge as the ground of disproof." mr. holyoake does not deny that there _may be_ a god, distinct from nature and superior to it; but he denies, first of all, the sufficiency of the evidence to which we appeal, embracing here that form of atheism which is merely skeptical; and he denies, secondly, the possibility of any sufficient proof, for "no imaginable order would be sufficient," and the whole "subject exceeds human comprehension," embracing, in this instance, that form of atheism which is strictly dogmatic, if not in affirming that there is no god, yet in affirming that it is impossible he can ever be known to exist. what then becomes of his cautious limitations,--"the fact is _yet_ a problem in philosophy."--"the world possesses as _yet_ no adequate logic for that province of speculation"--"men must die to solve the problem of deity's existence?" is it still a problem, and one, too, which may after all be solved, and solved even in the affirmative? if it be, why may it not be solved before death? or what _other_ evidence will there be after death? and as to the plea of insufficient evidence, what is its precise meaning? does it mean merely that it has hitherto failed to convince himself and his associates? if so, how can he tell that it may not yet flash upon him with irresistible power, and that he too, like his former associate, mr. knight, may be able to say, "by the blessing of god, the exercise of those mental powers which he has bestowed upon me has led me to the conclusion that he exists. there is a god."[266] if it means more than this, will he say that it is insufficient for others as well as for him? but why, if others believe on the ground of that evidence, and if, according to his favorite theory, belief is _the inevitable_ result of evidence? is his belief, or theirs, the measure of truth? does he not know that multitudes have passed through the same dreary shade of unbelief in which he is still involved, and have afterwards emerged into the clear light of faith, discovering what they now wonder they had overlooked before, and saying with heartfelt humility and gratitude, "one thing i know, that whereas i was blind, now i see"?[267] but what has their belief, or his unbelief, to do with the great, the momentous fact? the truth, whatever it be, is independent of both: and it is the _truth_, and not our apprehensions of it, it is the _evidence_, and not our belief or doubt, that is the subject of inquiry. will it be affirmed, then, either that the supposed existence of god is intrinsically incredible, and as such incapable of proof, or that the evidence is insufficient, in the sense of being illogical and inconclusive? this is the ultimate ground of atheistic unbelief, and here the skeptical unites and blends with the dogmatic form of infidelity. but when driven to this last resort, and before taking up the position which it is concerned to defend, secularism puts forth certain preliminary pleas, partly in the way of self-defence, and partly with the view of exciting prejudice against the cause of theism.[268] "i make no pretence," says mr. holyoake, "to account for everything. i do not pretend to account for what i find in nature. i do not feel called upon to account for it. i do not know that i am required to account for it." ... "a man will come to me and say, can you account for this? can you account for that? now he expects me to tell him all about everything, just as though i was present at the beginning of nature, and knew all its manifestations. if i cannot do it, he will not admit my plea of ignorance;--he will not admit the propriety of my saying, i do not know." he is not bound to explain either the past or the future: "what went before and what will follow me i regard as two black impenetrable curtains, which hang down at the two extremities of human life, and which no living man has yet drawn aside.... a deep silence reigns behind this curtain; no one once within will answer those he has left without; all you can hear is a hollow echo of your question, as if you shouted into a chasm."[269] and can a mind that is capable of writing thus be content to discard religion from his thoughts on the sorry pretext that he is not bound to account for the phenomena of nature? one would expect at least a thoughtful, serious, and earnest spirit, even were it a spirit of doubt, in one surrounded with such solemn mysteries, gazing on these black impenetrable curtains, listening to the hollow echo from that awful chasm: nay, that seriousness might be expected to deepen into sadness, too intensely real to be soothed by the plea of ignorance, or assuaged otherwise than by the light of truth. but to say, "i do not pretend to account for what i find in nature," what is this but to discard the whole question, to give it up as one insoluble, at least _by him_, and to leave to others the problems which have ever exercised the noblest and most gifted minds? mr. holyoake is not bound, indeed, to explain everything, and he mistakes if he supposes that any one expects this at his hand. there are many subjects on which even a man of science must ingenuously confess his ignorance, and many more so little connected with the interests and duties of life as to have only a very slight claim on his interest and attention. but religion is not one of these: it is so closely related to the welfare and the duty of men, and has such a direct bearing on the conscience, that it demands and deserves the serious attention of all; and no one who undertakes to instruct his fellow-men, and especially when he attempts to overthrow their most sacred convictions, is entitled to turn round and say, "i do not pretend to account for what i find in nature." he is bound to give some intelligible answer to the question, what is the cause of these marvellous phenomena which i behold? and what is the ground of that religious belief which has always prevailed in the world? but mr. holyoake is deterred from any attempt to answer such questions by its amazing presumption: "the assumption is,--we may look through nature up to nature's god. that seems to me to imply a power, a capacity, an endowment, which repels me at the outset. if we are to deal with the common sense of probability, i say i am repelled by the amazing probability which is against me if i am to deal with the assumption of distinctness,--that i can look from nature up to nature's god. why, in the presence of this shadowy form of things, before which all men stand in awe and dread, in the presence of so many mysteries and marvels which art is unable to unravel, which philosophy is unable to explain, it seems to me an immense endowment when a man can say with confidence, i look through nature, and beyond nature, up to nature's god. i say the presumption of the thing does repel me."--"let the profound sense of our own littleness, which here creeps in upon us, check the dogmatic spirit and arrest the presumptuous world; we stand in the great presence of nature, whose inspiration should be that of modesty, humility, and love."--"when my friend talks so much about matter, ... his reasoning proceeds upon this very great hypothesis, namely, that _he knows_ all that matter can do, and all that it cannot do. if he does not know that, i wonder by what right he says so plainly that the wonders he observes in nature are not the work of nature, but of some being above nature. that which repels me from that aspect of the argument is its amazing presumption, the amount of knowledge it implies."[270] foster's argument against dogmatic atheism seems to have made some impression on mr. holyoake, since he makes the important admission that "the denial of a god implies infinite knowledge as the ground of disproof," but it is here retorted against dogmatic theism; and unbelief, at other times so arrogant in its pretensions, so confident in the powers of reason, and so proud of the prerogatives of man, borrows the cloak of modesty from the wardrobe of true science, and assumes an attitude of deep humility. at other times mr. holyoake does not scruple to sit in judgment on what god,--supposing such a being to exist,--could or could not do; on what he could or could not permit to be done;--he could not create a moral and responsible agent, and leave him to fall; he could not require or receive any satisfaction for sin; he could not hear or answer the prayers of his people; he could not inflict penal suffering, or allow it to be permanent. there is no presumption, it would seem, in determining what god could or could not do; but "when we stand in the great presence of nature," her inspiration should be "that of modesty and humility." but presumption does not consist in looking at what we can see, or aiming to know what may be known; and it is a bastard humility, not the true modesty of science, which would turn away from the contemplation of any truth, however sublime, that is exhibited in the light of its appropriate evidence. we are not concerned to deny that it is "a great endowment" which enables men to discern in nature a manifestation of god; it is a great endowment, but not too great for the mind of man, if he was made in "the image and likeness of god;" a small mirror may reflect the sun. is it presumptuous in the mind of man to scale the heavens, and trace the planets in their course, and calculate their distances, their orbits, and their motions in the illimitable fields of space? and if the sublime truths of astronomy are not interdicted to our faculties, simply because there is a natural evidence in the light of which they may be clearly discerned, why should it be presumptuous to look from nature up to nature's god, if in nature we behold a mirror in which his perfections are displayed? if there be presumption on either side, does it not lie rather with those who virtually deny _the power of god to make himself known_,--his power to create a world capable of exhibiting his perfections, and a mind adapted to that world capable of discerning the perfections which are therein displayed? there might be modesty, there might be humility in the ingenuous confession of ignorance, saying, "i do not know;" but there can be neither in the confidence which affirms that "no imaginable order would be sufficient" to prove the existence of god, for what is this but to say that "he knows all that matter _can_ do, and all that it _cannot_ do," or be made to do? 2. secularism admits the existence of a self-existent and eternal being, and thereby recognizes the fundamental law of _causality_ on which the theistic proof depends, while it forces upon us the question whether these attributes should be ascribed to nature or to god. "i am driven," says mr. holyoake, "to the conclusion that the great aggregate of matter which we call 'nature' is eternal, because we are unable to conceive a state of things when nothing was. there must always have been something, or there could be nothing now. this the dullest feel. hence we arrive at the idea of the eternity of matter. and in the _eternity_ of matter we are assured of the self-existence of matter, and self-existence is the most _majestic of attributes_, and _includes all others_."[271] "if natural theologians were content to stop where they prove a _superior something_ to exist, atheists might be content to stop there too, and allow theologians to dream in quiet over their barren foundling."[272] "if i supposed that the christian meant no more than that something exists independently of nature, that it may be boundless, that it may be limited, that it may be one, that it may be many beings, if i supposed nothing more than that was meant, then surely i would not occupy your time or my own in discussing a question so barren of practical consequences."--"if we reason about it, unless we take refuge in the idea of a creation which we cannot understand, we must come to the conclusion that _nature is self-existent_, and that attribute is so majestic,--the power of being independent of any ruler,--the power of being independent of the law of other beings,--seems so majestic as fairly to be supposed to _include all others_; for that which has power _to be_ has power _to act_, for the power to be is the most majestic of all forms of action."[273] it is here admitted that there must be a self-existent, independent, and eternal being, that self-existence is an attribute so majestic that it may be fairly said to include all others, that the being to whom it belongs is exempt from the conditions of other beings, and that the power _to act_ is involved in the power _to be_. it is assumed, indeed, that these attributes may belong to nature, and that nature is mere matter; but, reserving this point for the present, are we not warranted in saying that his doctrine, as stated by himself, involves the same profound mysteries, and is embarrassed by the same difficulties, which are often urged as objections to the theory of religion, and that it is, at the very least, as _incomprehensible_, as the doctrine which affirms the existence of god? suppose there were simply an equality in this respect between the theistic and atheistic hypothesis, that both were alike incomprehensible and incapable of an adequate explanation, still the former might be more credible and more satisfactory to reason than the latter, since in the one we have an intelligent and designing cause, such as accounts for the existence of other minds and the manifold marks of design in nature, whereas in the other all the phenomena of thought, and feeling, and volition, as well as all the instances of skilful adjustment and adaptation, must be resolved into the power of self-existent, but unintelligent and unconscious matter. further it is admitted, not only that we may, but that we _must_, proceed on the principle of causality, the fundamental axiom of theology; for "there _must_ always have been something, or there _could be_ nothing now." this principle or law of human thought leads him up to a region which far transcends his present sensible experience, and guides him to the stupendous height of self-existent and eternal being. it is assumed and applied to prove the self-existence and eternity of matter. but if it be a valid principle of reason, its application may be equally legitimate when it is employed, in conjunction with the manifest evidence of _moral_ as distinct from _physical_ causation, to prove the self-existence and eternity of a supreme intelligent cause. a principle such as this cannot, from its very nature, be limited within the range of our present sensible experience. we are told, indeed, that "if we look over the nature of our own impressions, we find we always shall begin with things which lie below reason, with things plainer than reason, with things which need no demonstration. such is the nature of the human mind, that we all begin in this sphere of equal knowledge, we begin under the dominion of the senses, and whatever comes within that wants no demonstration, wants no proof, wants no logic; it is the constant, it is the most indubitable, it is the most indisputable of all our knowledge. and if the question of the being of a god came within that sphere, if it was found amongst those indisputable truths, if it was found to be a matter of sense, then there would be no occasion for us to reason at all about it: it could not be a matter of controversy, because it never would be a matter of dispute."[274] certain first principles of reason are admitted, but only, it would seem, with reference to matters of sense; but why, if there be such a principle of reason as compels the atheist himself to acknowledge a self-existent and eternal being? is this a matter of sense? is it not a conclusion of reason,--founded, no doubt, on present sensible experience, but far transcending it,--and yet self-evident and irresistible as intuition itself? and if reason may thus rise from the contingent and variable to the conception and belief of the self-existent and eternal, why may it not be equally valid as a proof of a supreme, intelligent first cause? speaking of nature as self-existent and eternal, mr. holyoake ascribes such attributes to it as might seem to imply a leaning towards pantheism, rather than the colder form of mere material atheism. "it seems to me," he says, "that nature and god are one; in other words, that the god whom we seek is the nature whom we know." but he afterwards states, with clearness and precision, in what respects secularism accords with, and differs from, pantheism: "the term, god, seems to me inapplicable to nature. in the mouth of the theist, god signifies an entity, spiritual and percipient, distinct from matter. with pantheists, the term god signifies the aggregate of nature,--but nature as _a being, intelligent and conscious_. it is my inability to subscribe to either of these views which constitutes me an atheist. i cannot rank myself with the theists, because i can conceive of nothing beyond nature, distinct from it, and above it.... the theist, therefore, i leave; but while i go with the pantheist so far as to accept the fact of nature in the plenitude of its diverse, illimitable, and transcendent manifestations, i cannot go further and predicate with the pantheist _the unity of its intelligence and consciousness_!"[275] he holds, therefore, that self-existence is an attribute of nature, that this attribute is so majestic that it may be fairly held to include _all others_, and that, while intelligence and consciousness exist, he cannot affirm their _unity_ in nature, or regard "nature as a being, intelligent and conscious." whence it follows that he can give no other account of the living, intelligent, active, and responsible beings which inhabit the world, than that they came into existence, he knows not how, and that they have the ultimate ground of their existence in a necessary, underived, and eternal being, which is neither intelligent nor self-conscious! 3. secularism seeks to invalidate the proof from _marks of design_ in nature by attempting to show, either that it is _merely analogical_, and can, therefore, afford no certainty, or that, if it were certain, it could prove nothing, because, by an extension of the same principle, it must prove too much. such is the pith and substance of mr. holyoake's argument in his singular pamphlet entitled, "paley refuted in his own words." he first of all endeavors to invalidate the proof from design by assuming that it is a mere argument from _analogy_, and that at the best analogy can afford no ground of _certainty_, although it may possibly suggest a _probable conjecture_: "it may be said that _analogy_ fails to find out god, and this must be admitted, it being no more than was to be expected. the god of theology being infinite, it is no subject for analogy.... no conceivable analogy can prove a creation. creation is without an analogy.... no analogy can prove creation, because no analogy can prove what it does not contain, namely, an example of creation."[276] "analogy, the specious precursor of reason, would suggest the personality of the powers which awed and cheered man. reason sends us to facts as the only positive grounds of positive conclusions; but in the childhood of intellect and experience, _likelihood_ is mistaken for _certainty_, and _probability_ for _fact_. in the disturbed reflection of man's image on the wall, as it were, of the universe, arose the idea of god." ... "i say, if that is all you mean by your argument, that it is _merely a matter of analogy_, if it is only a matter of partial resemblance, i say you can get from it no complete proof; that if you merely found it upon partial resemblance, there is no demonstration there whatever, and your cause is no better, no sounder than i have before described it,--as being merely _your conjecture_ about a being independent of nature; it is merely a conjecture, merely a suggestion, just like my own conjecture, just like my own suggestion about nature being that one great being about which we are all concerned."[277] but not content with assailing _analogy_ as incapable of leading to any _certain_ conclusion, he changes his tactics, and seems at least to do homage to it, while he insists only on its _extension_. "the argument of _design_," he says, "is unquestionably the most popular ever developed, and the most seductive ever displayed. it has the rare merit of making the existence of god, which is the most subtle of all problems, appear a mere truism,--and the proofs of such existence, which have puzzled the wisest of human heads, seem self-evident." this tribute, however, must be read in the light of his chosen motto,--"the existence of a watch proves the existence of a watch-maker; a picture indicates a painter; a house announces an architect. see here are arguments of terrible force for children."[278] "i took up," he says, "dr. paley's book, ... and i agreed with myself to admit, as i read, whatever appeared plausible. i did so, and my objection to my author was this: upon the grounds of analogy and experience i found paley insisted that design implies a designer, that this designer must be a person, and that this person is god: but the analogy which had been the guide to his feet, and the experience which had been a lamp to his path, were suddenly abandoned, and at the very moment when their assistance seemed to promise curious revelations."--"two modes of refutation are open; to attack the _principle_, or pursue the _analogy_. geoffroy st. hilaire has taken one course. i take the other. if, in the investigation of this question, it be legitimate to employ analogy in one part, it must be legitimate to employ it in like respects in another.... analogy was paley's alpha, it must be made also his omega."[279] in pursuing this course, he makes large concessions, such as might seem at first sight to involve the very principles on which the theistic proof depends. "that design implies a designer, i am disposed to allow; and that this designer must be a person, i am quite inclined to admit. thus far goes paley, and thus far i go with him.... his general position, that design proves a personal designer, is so _natural_, so _easy_, and so _plausible_, that it invites one to admit it, to see where it will lead, and what it will prove."--"paley tells us that god is a person. he insists upon it as a legitimate inference from his premises, nor _would it be easy to disturb his conclusion_.... from paley's premises, it is the clearest of all inferences. design must have a designer, because whatever we know of designers has taught us that a designer is a person. all analogy is in favor of this inference. this is paley's reasoning upon the subject, and it is too _natural_, too _rigid_, and too _cogent_ to be escaped from."[280] here we have an _apparent_ admission of the principle on which the argument of _design_ is based, but it is _apparent_ only, and is afterwards withdrawn. it was used to serve a temporary purpose, and as soon as that purpose was served, it was thrown aside, although it had been described as "so natural, so easy, and so plausible, that it invites one to admit it," as "too _natural_, too _rigid_, and too _cogent_ to be escaped from." "when i made the admission, i was going in the footsteps of paley, and adopting his own phraseology: then i came to the conclusion to see whether it was right, and then _i gave it up_; when i found it led me to a contrary result, then i gave it up; what i supposed to be _design_ in the opening of my argument is _no longer design_. my reverend friend is wrong in supposing that _i admit design_, and yet refuse to admit the force of the _design argument_."[281] and what is the reason which now induces him to deny the existence of _design_ in nature, and to withdraw all the admissions he had previously made? why, simply because he conceives that, by a legitimate extension of the same analogy, the design argument may be pushed to a _reductio ad absurdum_, so as to prove first the existence of an _organized person_, "an animal god," and, secondly, an infinite series of such organized persons, since one such must necessarily presuppose another, and that again another, and so on _in infinitum_. for there are two stages in his extension of the analogy. in the first, it is extended so far as to show that the person to whom design is ascribed must necessarily be an organized being: in the _second_, it is still further extended, so as to show that, being organized, that person must also have had a designer or maker, since organization is held to imply design, and design to imply a designer. and thus the analogy, when extended, does not lead up to one supreme mind, the infinite and eternal creator of all things, but to an organized being, himself exhibiting marks of design in his organization, and requiring therefore, like every organism, a prior cause, and, by parity of reason, an eternal succession or infinite series of such causes. the following extracts will place the progressive steps of his argument in a clear, if not convincing light: "by reasoning from analogy, paley infers that there is a personal, intelligent being, the author of all design, whom he christens deity. but what kind of a person is a deity? if a person, is it organized like a person? whence came it? how did it originate? was it formed, as it is said to have formed us?... i ask, has the person of deity an organization? because, if it be unreasonable to suppose design without a designer, it is surely as unreasonable to suppose a person without an organization, to the full contradiction of all analogy and all experience." ... "every person is organized. no person was ever known without an organization. the term person implies it. all analogy, all experience are in favor of this truth. this is so plain as to be admitted almost before it is stated.... no person ever knew of consciousness separate from an organization in which it was produced. no man ever knew of thought distinct from an organization in which it was generated.... shelley says that 'intelligence is only known to us as a mode of _animal being_.' ... we have great authority,--the authority of universal and uncontradicted experience,--for limiting the properties of mind to organization.... if intelligence is without an organization, design may be without a designer; because there are the same experience and analogy to support the organization, as there are to support the design argument."[282] but "organization proves _contrivance_.... if, then, every known organization is redolent with contrivance, and teems with marks of design, by what analogy can we conclude that _deity's organization_ is devoid of these properties?"--"shelley thus states the case,--'from the fitness of the universe to its end, you infer the necessity of an intelligent creator. but if the fitness of the universe to produce certain effects be thus conspicuous and evident, how much more exquisite fitness to this end must exist in the author of this universe!... how much more clearly must we perceive the necessity of this very creator's creation, whose perfections comprehend an _arrangement_ far more accurate and just! the belief of an infinity of creative and created gods, each more eminently requiring an intelligent author of his being than the foregoing, is a direct consequence of the premises.'"--"hence from design, designers, and persons, we have stepped to organization and contrivance, and arrive at a contriver again."[283] such is the outline of his argument. he seems to think that if there be any flaw in it, the only assailable point must be his _extension of the analogy_: "in the chain of analogies which paley commenced, and which i have continued, i believe there is no defective link. the principle of assailment, if any, is the _extension_ of the analogies beyond the paley point.... with the extension commences my responsibility. he who proves an irrelevancy in it answers my book." this is, no doubt, a vulnerable point, but we venture to think that it is not the only one. his whole reasoning seems to proceed on an unsound view of the nature and conditions of the argument, and is radically defective in at least _three_ respects. it is not correct to say that the argument of design, is _a mere argument from analogy_. were it so, it might, like many another process of mere analogical reasoning, yield no more than a probable conclusion or a plausible conjecture. but in the case before us, the conclusion is strictly and properly an _inductive inference_. it may be suggested by the perception of _analogy_, but it is founded on the principle of _causality_. it is capable, therefore, of yielding, not a mere _probability_, but an absolute _certainty_. the fact that analogy is so far concerned in the process cannot weaken a conclusion which rests ultimately on a fundamental law of reason, the ground-principle of all induction. it is true, no doubt, that were we destitute of the conscious possession of intelligence, will, and design, we should be utterly incapable of forming these conceptions, or applying them to the interpretation of nature; and in a loose sense, it may be said that we are guided by the analogy of our own experience to the belief in an intelligent first cause; but mere analogy would not produce that belief without the great law of causality, which demands an adequate cause for every effect, nor is this law deprived of its necessary and absolute certainty merely because it comes into action along with, and is stimulated by, the perception of obvious analogies. is it not equally true, that it is only by our own mental consciousness that we are qualified to conceive of other minds, and that we are, to a certain extent, guided by analogy to the belief that our fellow-men are possessed, like ourselves, of intelligence and design? but who would say that this conclusion is no more than a _probable_ conjecture, or that, depending as it does in part on the analogy of our own experience, it cannot yield absolute certainty? in so far as it is _merely_ analogical, it might be only more or less probable; but being founded also on the law of causality, it is an inductive inference, and, as such, one of the most certain convictions of the human mind. and so the argument derived from marks of design in nature may be stated in one or other of two ways:--it may be stated _analogically_ or _inductively_. the difference between analogy and induction, which is not always duly considered, should be carefully marked. analogy proceeds on _partial_, induction on _perfect_ resemblance. the former marks a resemblance or agreement _in some respects_ between things which differ _in other respects_: the latter requires a strict and entire similarity _in those respects_ on which the inductive inference depends. the one by itself may only yield a _probable_ conjecture, but the other, when combined with it, may produce a _certain_ conviction. accordingly the design argument may be thrown either into the _analogical_ or the _inductive_ form. stated _analogically_, it stands thus: "there is an ascertained partial resemblance between organs seen in art and organs seen in nature; as, for instance, between the telescope and the eye. "it is probable from analogy that there is in some further respect a partial resemblance between organs seen in art and organs seen in nature: in art the telescope has been produced by a _contriver_, analogy makes it probable that in nature the eye also will have been produced by a _contriver_." but stated inductively, it stands thus: "if there be in nature the manifestation of supernatural contrivance, there _must_ exist a supernatural contriver. "there is in nature the manifestation of supernatural contrivance. "therefore a supernatural contriver,--god,--must exist."[284] combine the perfection of analogy with the principle of causality, and you have not only the _verisimilitude_ or _likelihood_ which prepares the way for belief, but also a positive proof resting on a fundamental law of reason. the inference of intelligence from marks of design in nature is not one of analogy, but of strict and proper _induction_; and accordingly we must either deny that there are marks of _design_ in nature, thereby discarding the _analogy_, or do violence to our own reason by resisting the fundamental law of causality, thereby discarding the inductive inference. and of these two unavoidable alternatives, mr. holyoake seems to prefer the former: he will venture to deny the existence of design in nature, rather than admit the existence of design and resist the inevitable inference of a designing cause; for he is compelled in the long run to come round to this desperate confession, "what i supposed to be _design_ in the opening of my argument is _no longer design_. my reverend friend is wrong in supposing that i _admit design_, and yet refuse to admit the force of the _design argument_." but if he mistakes the general nature and conditions of the argument when he speaks of it as if it were a mere argument from analogy, his _extension of the analogy_, and the reasonings founded on it, are equally unjustifiable and inconclusive. he forgets that analogy proceeds on a partial resemblance in _some respects_, between things which differ _in other respects_, and that even induction itself requires a perfect resemblance only _in those respects_ on which the inference depends. there may be such a resemblance between the marks of design in nature and in art as to warrant the inference of a contriver in both; and yet _in other respects_ there may be a dissimilarity which cannot in the least affect the validity or the certainty of that inference. it is only when we _extend the analogy_ beyond the inductive point, that the conclusion becomes, in some cases, merely probable, in others altogether doubtful. if we advance a step further than we are warranted to go by obvious and certain analogies, our conclusions must be purely conjectural, and cannot be accepted as inductive inferences. from what we know of this world, and of god's design in it to make himself known to his intelligent creatures, we may infer, with some measure of probability, that other worlds may also be inhabited by beings capable, like ourselves, of admiring his works, and adoring his infinite perfections; but if we go further, and infer either that all these worlds must _now_ be inhabited, or that the inhabitants must be _in all respects_ constituted as we are, we pass far beyond the point to which our knowledge extends, and enter on the region of mere conjecture. and so when mr. holyoake extends the analogy, so as to include not only the marks of design, on which the inductive inference rests, but also the forms of organization, with which in the case of man, intelligence is at presented associated, although not identified, he goes beyond the point at which analogy and induction combine to give a _certain_ conclusion, and introduces a conjectural element, which may well render his own inferences extremely doubtful, but which can have no effect in weakening the grounds of our confidence in the fundamental law, which demands an adequate cause for the marks of design in nature. mr. ferrier has shown that "the senses are only _contingent conditions_ of knowledge; in other words, it is possible that intelligences different from the human (supposing that there are such) should apprehend things under other laws, or in other ways, than those of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling; or more shortly, _our_ senses are not laws of cognition or modes of apprehension which are binding on intelligence necessarily and universally."--"a contingent law of knowledge" is defined as "one which, although complied with in certain cases in the attainment of knowledge, is not enforced by reason as a condition which _must_ be complied with wherever knowledge is to take place. knowledge is thus possible under other conditions than the contingent laws to which certain intelligences may be subject; in other words, there is no contradiction in affirming that an intelligent being may have knowledge of some kind or other without having such senses as we have."[285] the application of analogy as a principle of judgment is subject to certain well-known limitations, which cannot be disregarded without serious risk of error. they are well stated by dr. hampden: "there are two requisites in order to every analogical argument:--1. that the two, or several particulars concerned in the argument should be known to agree in some one point; for otherwise they could not be referable to any one class, and there would consequently be no basis to the subsequent inference drawn in the conclusion. 2. that the conclusion must be modified by a reference to the circumstances of the particular _to_ which we argue. for herein consists _the essential distinction between an analogical and an inductive argument_. since, in an inductive argument, we draw a general conclusion, we have no concern with the circumstantial peculiarity of individual instances, but simply with their abstract agreement. whereas, on the contrary, in an analogical argument, we draw a particular conclusion, we must enter into a consideration of the circumstantial peculiarity of the individual instance, in order to exhibit the conclusion in that particular form which we would infer. whence it follows, that whilst by induction we obtain absolute conclusions, by analogy we can only arrive at relative conclusions, or such as depend for their absolute and entire validity on the coincidence of _all_ the circumstances of the particular inferred with those of the particular from which the inference is drawn." again: "the circumstances _to_ which we reason may be considered of threefold character. they are either known or unknown. if they are known, they are either (1.) such as we have no reason to think different, in any respect from those under which our observations have been made; or (2.) such as differ in certain _known_ respects from these last. (3.) they are unknown, where we reason concerning truths of which, from the state of our present knowledge, from the nature of our faculties, or from the accident of our situation as sojourners upon earth, we are totally ignorant."[286] with these necessary limitations, suggested by the different circumstances in which analogy is applied, we shall have little difficulty in disposing of mr. holyoake's _extension_ of dr. paley's argument. not content with resemblance _in some respects_, he requires a sameness _in all_. he would exclude all dissimilarity, forgetting that analogy denotes a certain relation between two or more things which in other respects may be entirely different. we may see a resemblance between the marks of design in nature and the ordinary effects of design in art; and that perception of design gives rise to an intuitive conviction or inductive inference of a designing cause: thus far we proceed under the guidance of analogy, but on the sure ground of induction. if we go beyond this, and insist that the designing cause must be _in all respects_ like ourselves, that if we be organized, he must be organized, that if we act by material organs he must act by the same, we exceed the limits of legitimate reasoning, and enter on the region of pure conjecture. but such conjectures, groundless as they are, and revolting as every one must feel them to be, can have no effect in shaking our confidence in the valid induction by which we infer from marks of _design_ in nature the existence of a designing cause. it can scarcely be necessary to enlarge on the gratuitous assumptions on which this _extension_ of the argument is made to rest;--such as that "every person is organized," that "all power is a mere attribute of matter," that "no man ever knew of thought distinct from an organization in which it was _generated_." the only fragment of truth that can be detected in these assumptions is the fact that we have, in our present state, no experience of intelligence apart from the organization with which it is here associated: but will this warrant the inference that intelligence _cannot_ exist apart from organization, or that the one is the mere product of the other? it may be a good and valid inference from the marks of design in nature, that a designing cause must exist; for this inference, although suggested by analogy, is founded on induction, which requires a perfect resemblance only _in those respects_ on which the inference depends. but to go beyond this, and to insist that the designing cause must be organized, because we have _no experience_ of intelligence apart from organization, is to make our experience the measure of possible being, and to exclude, surely on very insufficient grounds, all notion of purely spiritual personality. in "extending the analogy beyond the paley point," mr. holyoake is arguing from the particular case of man to another case, which resembles it in some respects, but may differ from it in others; and similar as they are in the one point of living, designing intelligence, they may, for aught he knows, differ in many other respects. and this we hold to be a sufficient answer to his argument, especially when it is combined with the consideration that the assumptions on which that argument is based are purely gratuitous, namely, that "every person is organized," and that there is no "thought distinct from an organization in which it is _generated_." by these assumptions, his theory connects itself with the grossest materialism; and that subject has been sufficiently discussed in a separate chapter. but in truth we regard the whole discussion on organization as a huge and unnecessary excrescence on his argument, for he would have come to his point quite as effectually, and much more directly, had he said nothing at all about an organized being, and insisted merely on one, whether material or spiritual, possessing powers of intelligence, contrivance, and design; for it is evidently on the existence of such a being, and not on the arrangements or adaptations of his organic parts, that his main argument depends, namely, that such a being implies also a contriver, and that again another, and so on in an endless series. whatever force belongs to his argument lies here: it consists, not in the evidence of design arising from material organization, but in the necessity of a cause adequate to account for a being possessing intelligence, purpose, and will. the existence of an endless series of such beings is impossible, and the supposition of it is absurd; and mr. holyoake himself admits a self-existent, underived, and eternal being,--a being exempt, therefore, from all the conditions of time and causality to which others are subject,--while he ascribes the origin of intelligent, self-conscious beings to nature, which is "neither intelligent nor self-conscious," rather than to god, the father of spirits, himself a spirit, infinite, omniscient, and almighty. he ascribes the existence of intelligent, self-conscious, personal moral agents to a power called _nature_, which he cannot venture to call "a person," nor even "an animal being," and of which he "cannot predicate with the pantheist the unity of its intelligence and consciousness." his theory, in so far as it is intelligible, seems to have a stronger affinity with pantheism than he appears to suppose. were he to define the meaning of the word nature,--a word so often used in a vague, indefinite sense,[287]--he would find that his idea bears a close resemblance to that of the german school,[288] who speak of the first being as the _indifference of the different_,--a certain vague, undetermined, inexplicable entity, possessing no distinctive character or peculiar attributes, whose existence is necessary, but not as a living, self-conscious, and active being, while it is the cause of all life and intelligence and activity in the universe; in short, a mere abstraction of the human mind. to some such cause, if it can be called a cause, mr. holyoake ascribes all the phenomena of the universe; or he leaves them utterly unaccounted for, and takes refuge in an eternal series of derived and dependent beings, without attempting to assign any reason for their existence. he undertakes to account for nothing. he leaves the great problem unsolved, and discards it as insoluble. "mr. harrison demanded of me, where the first man came from? i said, i did not know; i was not in the secrets of nature." "i cannot accept, says one, the theory of progressive development, it is so intricate and unsatisfying." "if something must be self-existent and eternal, says another, why may not matter and all its properties be that something?" "the atheist holds that the universe is an endless series of causes and effects _ad infinitum_, and therefore the idea of a _first_ cause is an absurdity and a contradiction."[289] in short, the eternity of the world is assumed, the origin of new races is left unexplained, and no account whatever is given of the order which everywhere exists in nature. in the last resort, he takes refuge in the plea of _ignorance_. his only answer is, "i do not know, i am not in the secrets of nature." but how does his extension of paley's argument justify the position which he now assumes? or how can it invalidate the admissions which he had previously made? that extension of the argument, even were it supposed to be legitimate, amounts simply to this, that a designer must be an organized being, and, as such, must have had a cause. but what analogy suggests, or what law of reason requires, an _infinite series_ of such causes? and what is there in this extension of the argument that should exclude the idea of a first cause? it is thought, indeed, that by connecting intelligence with organization, we may succeed at least in excluding his infinity, his omnipresence, and other attributes which are ascribed to the most high: but the main stress of the argument rests not on the fact of organization, but on the supposed necessity of _an endless series_ of contrivers to account for the existence of any one intelligent being, whether organized or not is of little moment. now, this is a mere assumption, an assumption entirely destitute of proof, an assumption which is not necessarily involved even in the proposed extension of the analogy: for all that the analogy, however extended, can possibly require is a cause adequate to the production of designing minds, and that cause may be a self-existent, underived, and eternal being. let the analogy be extended ever so far, it must reach a point at which we are compelled, by the fundamental law of _causality_, to rise to a self-existent being, exempt from all conditions of time, space, and causality. mr. holyoake admits the very same truth in regard to nature which we maintain in regard to god: "i am driven to the conclusion that nature is eternal, because we are unable to conceive a state of things when nothing was.... and in the eternity of matter, we are assured _of the self-existence_ of matter, and self-existence is the most majestic of all attributes, and includes all others;" it is "the power of being _independent of the law of other beings_." now, what is there in the proposed extension of the analogy that should exclude the idea of a self-existent first cause, or shut us up to the admission of an endless series of designing causes? and still further, what is there in the proposed extension of the analogy which should invalidate the argument from design, or induce mr. holyoake to _give it up_, and to withdraw the concessions which he had previously made in regard to it? these concessions must be supposed to have been honestly made in deference to the claims of truth, and they are not in the least affected by the extension of the analogy. it is still true, if it ever was, _that order prevails in nature_; and this is admitted: "if by atheism is meant the belief that all that we see in nature is the result _of chance_, of a fortuitous concourse of atoms, nothing would be so absurd as atheism. nothing can be more evident than that _law and order_ prevail in nature, that every species of matter, organic or inorganic, is impressed with certain laws, according to which all its properties and movements are regulated.... in denying, therefore, the existence of a personal, intelligent deity, we do not admit that there is any chance, contingency, or disorder in nature: we do not deny, but absolutely affirm, the constant and universal operation of _law and order_. this we do, because it is a matter of fact of obvious and daily experience."[290] again, it is still true, if it ever was, that _design implies a designer_; and this, says mr. holyoake, "i am disposed to allow; and that this designer must be a person, i am quite inclined to admit. thus far goes paley, and, therefore, thus far i go with him. his general position, that design proves a personal designer, is so _natural_, so _easy_, and so _plausible_, that it invites one to admit it.... paley insists upon it as a legitimate inference from his premises, nor would it be easy to disturb his conclusion.... this is paley's reasoning upon the subject, and it is too _natural_, too _rigid_, and too _cogent_ to be escaped from." now, what is there in the proposed extension of the analogy that can invalidate either of these admissions, or that should induce us to set aside both? extend the analogy ever so far, it is still true that _law and order_ prevail in nature, that design implies a _designer_, and that a designer must be a _person_. and how does mr. holyoake save his consistency? simply by stretching the analogy till it snaps asunder; he begins by extending, and ends in destroying it; he admits it at first, merely "to see where it will lead and what it will prove," and finding that it must imply an organized designer, and an endless series of such beings, "he gives it up," and denies the existence of _design_ altogether. there is a _hiatus,_ it would seem,--an impassable gulf,--between the admission that _law and order_ prevail in nature, and the conclusion that _law and order_ are manifestations of _design_: "what i supposed to be design in the opening of my argument is _no longer design_. my reverend friend is wrong in supposing that i admit design, and yet refuse to admit the force of the _design argument_," on the supposition, then, that _law and order_ are manifestations of _design_, the design argument might be valid and conclusive: but "_no conceivable order_" could prove the existence of god; why? because no conceivable order could be a manifestation of _design_. but how is this proved by the extension of the analogy? does it not amount to a denial of the analogy itself? and is it not an instructive fact that his abortive attempt to disprove the design argument, results, not in the denial of the _inductive inference_, but in the exclusion of the very _analogy_ which he proposed to extend, not in shaking the validity of the proof, but in disputing the fact on which it is based? the extension of the analogy cannot prove either that law and order are _not_ manifestations of design, or that there may be design without a personal designer; all that it could prove, even were it legitimate, would be the existence of an _organized_ instead of a _spiritual_ being, which, on the supposition of its self-existence,--a supposition which is not excluded by the argument, since that majestic attribute, which may be fairly held to "include all others," is expressly admitted,--neither requires nor admits of an infinite series of contrivers. 4. secularism denies the truth of a special providence, and also the efficacy of prayer, while it justly holds both to be indispensable for the purposes of practical religion. the importance of these doctrines is strongly declared, and sometimes illustrated with much apparent feeling, by mr. holyoake himself: "there is more mixed up with the question than the mere fact as to whether some being exists independently of nature; for instance, if any man would debate whether there existed a divine being, whether a providence, who was the father of his creatures, whom we could propitiate by prayer in our danger, from whom we could obtain light in darkness, and help in distress,--if any man debated a proposition like this, i should say there was much of great practical utility about it.... if you tell me god exists, that he is a power, a principle, or spirit, or light, or life, or love, or intelligence, or what you will,--if he be not a father to whom his children may appeal, if he be not a providence whom we may propitiate, and from whom we can obtain special help in the hour of danger,--i say, practically, it does not matter to us whether he exists or not."[291] "the great practical question is, whether there exists a deity to whom we can appeal, who is the father of his children, who is to be propitiated by prayer, and who will render us help in the hour of danger and distress." with the spirit of these remarks every believer will cordially sympathize. he knows that there can be no practical religion without faith in providence and confidence in prayer; for "he that cometh to god must believe that he is, and that he is _the rewarder_ of them that diligently seek him." mr. holyoake does not err in supposing that this is the general belief of christians, or that it is explicitly sanctioned in scripture. he may, and we think he does err in his interpretation of the bible doctrine, and the inferences which he deduces from it; but assuredly christianity would be robbed of its most attractive and endearing attributes, were it represented as silent on the paternal character of god and his providential care. he is right in saying that "the providence man needs, the providence the old theologies gave him, was a personal providence, an available help.... i care only to add, that there is hardly any feature in the christian system which is so seductive as this doctrine of a special providence.... do you not know that in all your appeals your success depends upon your telling all orders of people that there is one in heaven who cares for them, that every prayer will be answered, that every hair of their head is numbered, that not a sparrow falls to the ground without their heavenly father's knowledge, and are not they worth more than many sparrows?"[292] he sees the necessity, and seems to feel the attractiveness, of the doctrine; yet he denies its truth: why? because it is contradicted, as he conceives, by experience. he adduces his own personal experience, and then appeals to the experience of his fellow-men: "i once prayed in all the fervency of this same religion. i believed once all these things. i put up prayers to heaven which i cannot conceive how humanity could have refused to respond to,--prayers such as if put up to me i must have responded to. i saw those near and dear to me perishing around me; and i learned the secret i care no longer to conceal, that man's dependence is upon his courage and his industry, and dependence upon heaven there seems to be none."[293] such was his private experience; and facts of public notoriety are appealed to in confirmation: "it has long seemed to me the most serious libel on the character of the deity to assume for one moment that he interferes in human exigencies. a mountain of desolating facts rises up to shame into silence the hazardous supposition? was not the whole land a short time ago convulsed with horror at the fate of the _amazon_? there was not a wretch in the whole country whose slumbering humanity would not have been aroused in the presence of that dismal calamity." ... "how is it that liberty is in chains all over europe, if god be still interposing in human affairs? if the older doctrine were true, if our brother's blood still cried to god from the ground, the patriot would be released from the dungeon, and the tyrant would descend from the throne he has polluted."--"science has shown us that we are under the dominion of general laws, and that there is no special providence, and that prayers are useless, and that propitiation is vain; that whether there be a deity independent of nature, or whether nature be god, it is still _the god of the iron foot_, that passes on without heeding, without feeling, and without resting; that nature acts with a fearful uniformity, stern as fate, absolute as tyranny, merciless as death; too vast to praise, too inexplicable to worship, too inexorable to propitiate, it has no ear for prayer, no heart for sympathy, no arm to save."[294] in these and similar appeals to the facts of individual or common experience, the scriptural doctrine of providence and prayer is supposed to be very different from what it really is, and stated without any of the qualifications which are expressly declared by the sacred writers. --it is nowhere declared in scripture that _every_ prayer must receive an immediate answer, whatever may be the object for which it is presented, or the spirit in which it is offered. on the contrary it is expressly written, "if i regard iniquity in my heart, the lord will not hear me." "but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering; for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed: for let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the lord." "ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it on your lusts."[295] --it is nowhere declared in scripture that man is to obtain whatever he asks, irrespective of that sovereign will which is guided by unerring wisdom as well as infinite love. on the contrary, prayer is an expression of dependence and subjection, and must ever be qualified by submission to his sovereignty: "nevertheless not my will, but thine be done."[296] --it is nowhere declared in scripture that providence will suspend, or that prayer will counteract, the operation of the general laws of nature, excepting only in the case of those to whom a promise of miraculous power was vouchsafed. on the contrary, these laws are declared to be stable and permanent: "thou hast established the earth, and it abideth: they continue this day according to thine ordinances: for all are thy servants;" and any wilful neglect or violation of these laws is a sinful _tempting_ of providence, even when it may seem to be sanctioned by a perverse application of scripture itself; for the saviour himself was solicited on this wise, "if thou be the son of god, cast thyself down; for _it is written_, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone;" but he answered, "_it is written_ again, thou shalt not _tempt_ the lord thy god."[297] --it is nowhere declared in scripture that providence will secure, or prayer obtain, exemption from the afflictions and calamities of life. on the contrary it is written, "many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the lord delivereth him out of them all." "in the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, i have overcome the world." "if ye endure chastening, god dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" "now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." "we glory in tribulations also; knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope." "for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." "and we know that _all things_ work together for good to them that love god!... who shall separate us from the love of christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? nay, in _all these things_ we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."[298] --it is nowhere declared in scripture that providence will award, or that prayer may hope to secure, a regular and equal distribution of good and evil in the present life. on the contrary the present state is described as a scene of probation, trial, and discipline, which is preparatory to a state of retribution hereafter: "i saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there. i said in mine heart, god shall judge the righteous and the wicked; for there is a time for every purpose and for every work." "because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. though a sinner do evil a hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely i know that it shall be well with those that fear god, which fear before him: but it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before god."[299] "this is the faith and patience of the saints;" a faith which is often staggered, a patience which may be ready to fail, in the view of the darker aspects of providence; for many a true believer may say, "as for me, my feet were almost gone, my steps had well-nigh slipped; for i was envious at the foolish, when i saw the prosperity of the wicked;" and even "the spirits of just men made perfect" sing the song, "o lord! how long?" --it is nowhere declared in scripture that providence excludes the aid of science, or that prayer supersedes the diligent use of ordinary means. on the contrary it is written, "when wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul, discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee;" and believers are required to be "not slothful in business," while they are "fervent in spirit, serving the lord."[300] on all these points, so clearly involved in the christian doctrine of providence and prayer, mr. holyoake's argument rests on assumptions which are utterly groundless, and hence he imagines that the doctrine is contradicted by experience, when a more scriptural view of it would be sufficient to obviate all his objections. he reasons as if there could be no truth in the doctrine of a special providence, and no efficacy in prayer, unless _every_ petition were immediately heard and answered; unless the cry of nature in distress were sufficient to ward off the stroke of disease and bereavement, and to avert all the calamities of life; unless the operation of the general laws of nature were forthwith suspended; unless the present state of trial and discipline were converted into one of strict and impartial retribution; and unless man's wisdom and man's agency were to be superseded altogether by dependence on a higher power. but not one of these suppositions has any place in the doctrine of scripture on the subject. it speaks of a special providence, but not such as is incompatible with the constant operation of natural laws; it ascribes a certain efficacy to prayer, but not such as implies a miraculous interference with the ordinary course of nature, and still less an exemption from affliction, or an equal distribution of good and evil in the present life. if it be said that such being the doctrine of scripture, it can afford little or no consolation, since it holds out no hope of sure and instant relief in circumstances of distress and danger, may we not ask, is there no comfort in knowing that our affairs are under the superintendence of a being everywhere present, infinitely wise and good, whose ear is ever open to our cry, who is able to do for us exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask, and who has promised to sustain us in all our trials, to sanctify us by means of them, and to make all things work together for our good? is there no comfort in being able to say, "god is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble, therefore will not we fear though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea." "the lord is my shepherd, i shall not want. yea, though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death, i will fear no evil, for thou art with me." "the lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom"?[301] is there not enough for all the purposes of practical religion in the assurance, "ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; ... for if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" "your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. seek ye first the kingdom of god, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you"?[302] and when the believer is enabled in any measure to comply with the injunctions of scripture,--"cast thy burden on the lord, and he will sustain it," "commit thy way unto him, and he will bring it to pass," "be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto god, and the peace of god, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through christ jesus,"--does he not know experimentally that it is faith in a living, personal god,--the god of providence, and the hearer of prayer, and not the desolate doctrine of nature,--"the _god of the iron foot_, stern as fate, absolute as tyranny, and merciless as death,"--that can sustain him under every trial, and nerve him with fresh vigor for the "battle of life"? mr. holyoake refers to his own experience, and appeals to the experience of his fellow-men, in confirmation of his _negative_ conclusion in regard to a special providence and the efficacy of prayer. but what weight is due to his testimony in such a case? is it sufficient to countervail the experience of all in every age--"the great cloud of witnesses"--who have unanimously declared that "the lord hath not forsaken them that seek him," and that "he hath not said to the seed of jacob, seek ye my face in vain"? which is entitled to the greater weight, the testimony of mr. holyoake, or that of the psalmist, "i waited patiently for the lord, and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry;" or that of the prophet, "i cried by reason of mine affliction unto the lord, and he heard me: out of the belly of hell cried i, and thou heardest my voice: when my soul fainted within me i remembered the lord, and my prayer came in unto thee into thine holy temple;" or that of the apostle, "for this thing i besought the lord thrice, that it might depart from me; and he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness"?[303] a cry for help may not be "the prayer of faith," but the utterance of an unsubdued and rebellious will, and can afford no test, therefore, of the truth of the doctrine of scripture. but "science," says mr. holyoake, "is the providence of life, and spiritual dependence may be attended with material destruction." he would substitute, therefore, the science of man for the providence of god, and secular _diligence_ for spiritual _dependence_. but is there no room for both? are they necessarily incompatible or mutually exclusive? why should the science of man be opposed to the providence of god, or secular industry to religious faith? all christians combine the two; why should mr. holyoake seek to divorce them? what is science? it is "the well-devised method of using nature; it is in this that science is the providence of man. it is not pretended that science is a perfect dependence; on the contrary, it is admitted to be narrow and but partially developed; but it is the only special dependence that man has."[304] and is the _wise use of nature_ inconsistent with religion? is it the exclusive monopoly of atheism? or is spiritual dependence necessarily incompatible with industrial pursuits? who have been the most scientific and the most industrious members of the community, the small band of atheists, or the great body of christians? to the latter belong all the advantages which science, or the wise use of nature, can secure, while they have _besides_ a providence, distinct from nature and superior to it, whose wakeful eye never slumbers, and whose ear is ever open to their cry. 5. secularism seeks to supersede religion, and to substitute _morality_ in its stead,--but a _morality_ which leaves men irresponsible for their belief, their passions, and even their actions, to any superior power. "the histories of all ages," says mr. holyoake, "and the bitter experience of mankind, prove the pernicious influence of piety. it seems a more useful work cannot be performed than to sweep away the assumed foundations of all religions." "i deem it inimical to human welfare, and should no more proceed to supply a new religion than the people who had just interred the cholera would think of raising a plague.... religion is a distraction of social progress; once removed, no wise man will desire its restoration." "but one question remains to be answered, if religion is not our proper business, what is? i answer, _morality_!... by religion i understand a system of human duties, commencing from a god: by morality a system of human duties, commencing from man. religion asks but one question, is an act pleasing to deity? morality makes the wiser inquiry, is an act useful to man? the standard of religion varies with fickle creeds; the standard of morality is _utility_."[305] "there exist (independently of scriptural religion) guarantees of morality in human nature, in intelligence, and utility." "morality, that system of human duties commencing from man, we will keep distinct from religion, that system of human duties assumed to commence from god."[306] "nature refers us to science for help, and to humanity for sympathy; love to the lovely is our only homage, study our only praise, quiet submission to the inevitable our _duty_, and work is our only worship."[307] "we, by establishing morals independently of scriptural authority, and basing them on secular considerations,--more immediate, more demonstrative and universal,--attain a signal benefit; for when inspiration is shaken, or miracles fail you, or prophecy eludes the believer, he breaks away, and probably falls into vice; while we hold the thinker by the thousand relations of natural affection, utility, and intelligence, which the christian distrusts.... a man may do good because it is honest, because it is useful, because it is commanded by human law, because it is humane, because it is polite, because it is a noble pleasure."[308] of course, when morality is thus divorced from religion there can be no responsibility to a higher power, and man is not accountable to any one for his belief, his passions, his will, his character or conduct, except in so far as his _actions_ may trench on the rights of others, and render him amenable to civil or criminal law. and mr. holyoake, at one time an associate and fellow-laborer of robert owen, still cleaves to the doctrine that his belief is entirely dependent on evidence, and that his character is, to a large extent, determined by the circumstances of his condition. an attempt is thus made to establish the ethics of atheism on the ruins of religion. but to one who calmly reflects on the subject, it must be evident that a scheme of morals founded on the negation of all religious belief can have none of that authority which belongs to the expression of a superior will, and must be utterly destitute of all sanctions excepting such as may be found in the _natural_ consequences of our conduct. its only standard is _utility_; and _utility_ must be interpreted by every man for himself, according to his own taste and inclination. the word _duty_ is used, but there is nothing in the system to account for the _idea_ which that word is intended to convey, nothing to explain or justify the meaning of the phrase, _i ought_. for why _ought_ i to do this, or refrain from that? because it is _useful_? because it is conducive to _happiness_? because it will be followed by certain natural consequences? but if i love the pleasures of sin, if i prefer them to every other kind of enjoyment, if i am willing to accept the consequences and to say, "evil, be thou my good," what is there in the system of secular ethics that should oblige me to forego my favorite indulgences, or that can impress me with the conviction that i _ought_ to do so? true i may suffer, and suffer much, as the drunkard and the libertine do, in the way of natural consequence, and it may be prudent to be temperate in the indulgence of my sensual appetites; there may even be a sense of inward degradation, and a politic regard to the opinions of my fellow-men, which will operate to some extent as a restraining influence; but if i be destitute of a sense of _duty_, and willing to brave all hazards and accept all consequences, secularism has nothing to say to me, and is utterly powerless to govern or control me otherwise than by physical coercion or the power of brute force. but admit the idea of god as a moral governor, and of conscience as his vicegerent in my soul, view the law of my moral nature as the authoritative expression of his supreme will, and instantly i recognize a master whom i _ought_ to obey, and a course of conduct which it is my _duty_ to pursue, irrespective alike of my personal propensities and of all possible consequences. the "categoric imperative" within is felt to be a far more solid ground, as well as a much stronger sanction, of duty, than any that can be found in the mere consequences of my actions; while it accounts for the innate sense of right and wrong, and the sentiments of remorse, and shame, and fear which conscious guilt inspires. but mr. holyoake shifts the question from this broad general ground, which is common to all earnest inquirers after truth, and seeks to entangle us in a collateral, but subordinate, discussion respecting the relation between morality and scripture. he proposes to show that "there exist, _independently of scriptural religion_, guarantees of morality in human nature," and that "morals may be established _independently of scriptural authority_." but this is not the question: the question is a wider and more comprehensive one, namely, whether a system of morals can be established apart from the recognition of god, and independently of _any_ expression, natural or supernatural, of his supreme and authoritative will? mr. holyoake is bound to return and defend an affirmative to _this_ question, and is not at liberty to take refuge in the mere denial of the absolute dependence of morals on "scriptural authority." the idea of _duty_ may be involved in the principles of natural religion, and these may be presupposed and assumed in revelation; but to make out his case, he must attempt to show that neither natural nor revealed religion is necessary to establish and sanction a code of ethics, and that the natural consequences of our actions are sufficient _of themselves_, and without reference to the law of a supreme will, to awaken and sustain a sense of moral obligation. in point of fact, christianity does not represent the duties of morality as dependent on its own _sole_ authority. it sanctions these duties, it illustrates their nature, it enforces their observance by new and powerful motives; but it presupposes the existence of conscience, as god's vicegerent in the heart, and appeals to "a law" by which every man is "a law to himself." the _law revealed_ in scripture is binding by reason of the authority of the lawgiver; but not more binding than the law written on the heart, without which we should be incapable alike of moral instruction and of moral government. the question, then, is not whether morality be entirely dependent on the authority of scripture, but whether it be so independent of religion as to be equally authoritative and binding with or without the recognition of god? and if this be the real question at issue, few will be bold enough to affirm either that the nature of moral duty is in no wise affected, or that its foundation is in no degree weakened, by the non-recognition of god and his supreme will. the will of god may not be the ultimate ground of duty, but it is the expression of the essential holiness of his nature, which is the unchangeable standard of rectitude. the supposition of his non-existence, therefore, or even the skeptical atheism which doubts, without venturing to deny, the reality of his being, deprives morality of its only absolute support, and leaves it to depend on the fluctuating opinions or the capricious tastes of individual minds. it affects both the _nature_ and the _extent_ of moral duty, by resolving it into a mere regard to utility, and excluding a large class of duties which religion sanctions, while it deprives every other class of their sacred character as acts of obedience to god. it shuts out some of the most powerful and impressive motives to virtuous conduct, by relieving men from a sense of responsibility to a higher power, by excluding the idea of a future retribution, and still more by keeping out of sight the attributes, alike august and amiable, of a living personal god, everywhere present, beholding the evil and the good, an omniscient witness and an impartial judge. christianity leaves all the _secular_ motives to morality intact and entire, and only superadds to these certain _spiritual_ motives of far higher power. it neither supersedes the lessons of experience nor abjures all regard to utility; but by revealing our relation to god, it extends, and elevates, and purifies our sense of duty. in vain does mr. holyoake pretend that by basing morals on secular considerations, he attains a signal benefit, and that he "holds the thinker by the thousand relations of natural affection, utility, and intelligence, _which the christian distrusts_;" for not one of these "relations" is excluded by the scheme of revealed religion, not one of them is _denied_ by the christian; and if he may be said to _distrust_ them, it is only because he holds them to be _insufficient_, without a belief in god, to maintain a pure morality in the world. but he can say, with at least as much earnestness as any secularism can feel, "whatsoever things are _true_, whatsoever things are _honest_, whatsoever things are _just_, whatsoever things are _pure_, whatsoever things are _lovely_, whatsoever things are of _good report_; if there be _any_ virtue, and if there be _any_ praise, think of these things;" and he feels that far from weakening, he greatly enhances, the force of that appeal, when he adds, "and perfect holiness _in the fear of the lord_." 6. secularism professes to be "the positive side of atheism," and to be better than religion at least for this world, because it pays a preëminent, if not an exclusive, regard to the _duties of the present life_. this is, perhaps, the most dangerous aspect of the doctrine. it prescribes a course of systematic ungodliness, a practical disregard of the future, and an engrossing attention to things seen and temporal, as if these were virtues in which mankind are greatly deficient, and as if their general prevalence would be a prelude to a secular millennium, or the commencement of an atheistic paradise. but the purely _negative_ part of the system, however accordant with the natural tendencies of men, is felt to be in itself somewhat unattractive; it must be associated, therefore, with some _positive_ element, some _practical aims_, such as may give it a hold on the interest and a claim on the zealous support of its adherents. "under this conviction," says mr. holyoake, "the secularist applied himself to the reinspection of the general field of controversy, and the adoption of the following rules, among others, has been the consequence: 1. to disuse the term _atheist_, since the public understand by that word one who is without god and also without morality, and who wishes to be without both. 2. to disuse the term _infidel_, since christians understand by that term one who is unfaithful or treacherous to the truth.... 3. to recognize, not as a matter of policy merely, but as a matter of fact, the sincerity of the clergy and the good intentions of christians generally.... 4. to seek the maxims of duty in the relations of man to society and nature, and, as the _christian spectator_ did us the honor to admit, 'to preach nature and science, morality and art: nature, the only subject of knowledge; science, the providence of life; morality, the harmony of action; art, the culture of the individual and of society.'" "we therefore resolved to choose a new name (secularism), which should express the _practical and moral_ element always concealed in the word atheism.... secularism seeks the personal law of duty, the sphere of duty, and the power by which duty may work independently. the law is found in natural, utilitarian, and artistic morals. the sphere is this, to work with our first energies in this life, for this life,--for its growth, culture, development, and progress. the power is discovered in science, the providence of life, and intelligence."[309] "by 'secularism' is meant giving the precedence to the duties of this life over those which pertain to another life;--attention to temporal things should take precedence of considerations relating to a future existence." "the _positive_ side of our views is a more recent development of our own." "we seek the coöperation of all who can agree to promote present human improvement by present human means."[310] ... "if there are other worlds to be inhabited after this life, those persons will best be fitted for the enjoyment of them who have made the welfare of humanity their business in this. but if there are not other worlds, men are essentially losers by neglecting the enjoyment of this. hence aristippus was truly wise, who agreed with socrates in dismissing, as wholly unprofitable, all those speculations which have no connection with the business of life." "this life being the first in certainty, we give it the first place in importance; and by giving human duties in relation to men the _precedence_, we secure that all interpretations of spiritual duty shall be in harmony with human progress." "secularism is the philosophy of the things of time. a secularist is one who gives primary attention to those subjects, the issues of which can be tested by the experience of this life. the secularist principle requires that precedence should be given to the duties of this life over those which pertain to another world."[311] secularism, then, professes to be the _positive_ or _practical_ side of atheism, and it claims to be better than religion at least for this world, because it pays a preëminent, if not exclusive, regard to the duties of the present life. we cannot consider this "new development" of an old system, in connection with its recent change of name, and the reasons that are assigned for it, without seeing that the force of public opinion, whether well or ill founded, has compelled its advocates to alter their tactics at least in two respects: they are anxious to withdraw from offensive prominence the _negative_ articles of their creed, and to put forward the _positive_ elements of truth which may still survive after the ruin of religion; and they evince a disposition, somewhat new, to conciliate the christian community, by admitting the sincerity of the clergy and the good intentions of believers generally, and inviting their coöperation in plans of secular improvement. but atheism still lurks under the disguise of secularism; and men of earnest religion are not likely to be tempted to any close alliance or active coöperation with those who misrepresent the character of that god in whom they believe, and of that saviour in whom they trust. there may be some nominal christians, however, already as unconcerned about the future and devoted to the present life, as mr. holyoake himself could wish them to be, who will eagerly grasp at this "new development," as a plausible pretext for continuing in their present course; for "with the exception of those who compose the real church of christ, whose faith is not a mere name and an unthinking assent to christianity, but a real, living, constant power over their life, the _whole world is practically secularist_, and is living solely by the light of _the present_, and under the impulse of the motives which it supplies."[312] for "secularism is only the latin term for the old saxon worldliness: secularism has more elements of union than perhaps any other phase of infidelity; it has the worldliness of mere nominal christians, as well as of real infidels."[313] they are really _secularists_, but as yet they may not be at ease in their _secularism_. there may be a secret monitor within, which reminds them occasionally of death, and judgment, and eternity; and the rapid flight of time, or the incipient sense of disease, or the ever-recurring instances of mortality, may awaken them to transient thoughts of another life for which it were well to be better prepared. what they want is a theory,--of plausible aspect and easy application,--which might serve to quell these rising thoughts, and allay their foreboding fears; and just such a theory they may seem to find in the proverbial maxim of secularism, "work _in_ this life, _for_ this life." we are not sure, however, that even with such men the zeal of the new _propaganda_ will be altogether successful. it may seem to some to be out of place, and may even excite a sense of the ludicrous. "just fancy for a moment," says the author already quoted, "some missionary of this principle going into the royal exchange at london, or the stock exchange at leeds or bradford, or the cloth-halls of any of our manufacturing towns, summoning around him the merchants and the brokers, and then beginning with much earnestness and point to urge them _not_ to live for eternity, but to be very careful about the present life: insisting that it was very, very doubtful if earth were not all,--the present existence the whole of human existence; and that therefore until there was more certainty they had better make the most of this; be industrious and prudent, and make themselves as comfortable as possible; get as much money as they could honestly, and by no means let any dread of retribution hereafter fetter them in any of their actions here. why, these merchants would turn away laughing and saying, 'either the man is mocking us, or he is mad: that is just what we are doing with all our might.' they would see at least that mr. holyoake's teaching is very different from that of him who said, 'take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? but seek ye _first_ the kingdom of god and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.' 'for what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?' and marking that vast difference, they will feel, at least, that no man is entitled to address them as rational beings in the style of secularism, unless he can give them an _absolute assurance_ that there is and can be no future state of existence,--that the _present_ is man's _only_ life, and that death is an eternal sleep." but does mr. holyoake give, or pretend to give, any such _assurance_? "we do not say," he tells us, "that every man ought to give an _exclusive_ attention to this world, because that would be to commit the old sin of dogmatism, and exclude the possibility of another world, and of walking by a different light from that by which alone we are able to walk. but as our _knowledge_ is confined to this life, and testimony, and conjecture, and probability are all that can be set forth with respect to another life, we think we are justified in giving _precedence_ to the duties of this state, and of attaching _primary_ importance to the morality of man to man." it is not _certain_, then, that there is no future life; it is even _possible_ that there may be one; the supposition is not in itself incredible, it may even have "testimony, conjecture, and probability" in its favor:--some attention to it, therefore, cannot be forbidden without "committing the old sin of dogmatism, and excluding the possibility of another world;" but its comparative uncertainty is urged as a reason for "giving _precedence_ to the duties of this state, and attaching _primary_ importance to the morality of man to man." the question would seem to be, not whether _any_ attention should be bestowed on a future life, but whether it should be less or more than the attention which we bestow on the present world. it is a question of degree; and the settlement of that question is made to hinge entirely on the comparative uncertainty of our prospect after death. suppose it were more uncertain, might not the magnitude of the interests that must be involved in a new and untried existence hereafter, and which must be measured on the scale of eternity, be more than sufficient to counterbalance the difference? "let us be only fully convinced that our present life is (or may be) the beginning of an _eternal duration_, and how irresistibly are we urged to a mode of conduct answerable to that _accession of importance_ which our present condition in the world derives from the peculiar point of view in which we then contemplate it!"[314] but, in point of fact, can it be reasonably said that _the future of our present life_ is in any respect more certain than our prospects after death: "what is our life? is it not like a vapor, which appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away?" and yet, in spite of its proverbial uncertainty, is it not a fundamental principle of secularism that "true life begins in renunciation," and that "the _future_ must rule the _present_?" extend these maxims, which are of unquestionable authority with reference to the present life, to our prospects beyond the grave, whether they be regarded as certain, or probable, or possible only, and they will abundantly vindicate the position that our conduct now and here should be regulated to some extent by a regard to what may be before us. in both cases alike, present gratification must give place to future safety, and _self-denial_, according to the shrewd remark of franklin, is neither more nor less in the case of a prudent man than _self-owning_, the recognition of his own dignity, and the preference of a greater and more permanent to a smaller and transitory good. it might still, therefore, be alike our interest and our duty to have _some_ regard to a possible future in the scheme of our present life. and aware of this mr. holyoake solaces himself, and attempts to sustain the spirits of his friends with the assurance, "whatever is likely to secure your best interests here will procure for you the same hereafter,"--a strange inversion of the scriptural maxim, for it practically amounts to this, "seek first the things of this world, and the kingdom of heaven shall be added unto you." and he states the ground or reason of his confidence in this respect: "if there be other worlds to be inhabited after this life, those persons will best be fitted for the enjoyment of them who have made _the welfare of humanity their business in this_." to make "the welfare of humanity their business in this life," is a duty which may be discharged by the christian not less than the secularist, and perhaps with all the greater zeal in proportion to his estimate of men as responsible and immortal beings, all passing on, like himself, to an interminable future. but if there be another state of being after death, will he be best prepared for it who lives "without god" in this world, without serious forethought in regard to his eternal prospects, without any deliberate preparation for his certain and solemn change? or will it be a consolation to him _then_ to reflect that he disbelieved or doubted now, and that he exerted his talents and spent his life on earth in undermining the faith of his fellow-men, and weakening their impressions of things unseen and eternal? mr. holyoake seems to imagine that whether there be or be not a future state after death, secularism is the "safest side," and he puts the alternative thus: "if there are other worlds to be inhabited after this life, those persons will best be fitted for the enjoyment of them who have made the welfare of humanity their business in this. but if there are not other worlds, men are essentially losers by neglecting the enjoyment of this." on either supposition, it would seem, the secularist has the advantage of the christian: on the one, because he and not the christian, "makes the welfare of humanity his business;" on the other, because he, and not the christian, has the true "enjoyment" of the present life. it might be difficult to prove either of these convenient assumptions, or to show that there is anything in christianity to prevent, anything in atheism to promote, the care of humanity on the one hand, or the enjoyment of life on the other. on the contrary, all experience testifies that religion is the only sure spring of philanthropy, and that, on the whole, none have a sweeter enjoyment of the present life than those who can look abroad on the works of nature and say, "my father made them all," and who can look forward to death itself with "a hope full of immortality." it is true, that the serious expectation of a future state must impose a certain restraint on the indulgence of our appetites and passions; but is it such a restraint as is injurious even to our temporal welfare? is it not the dictate of enlightened prudence, were we to look no further than to the present life? mr. holyoake himself repudiates the language which the apostle puts into the mouth of the unbeliever, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,"--language which is expressive of what would be the natural tendency of men, were they assured of non-existence hereafter, but which mr. holyoake rejects, with something like virtuous indignation, saying, "that is the sentiment of the sensualist: it is not the sentiment of a man who is at all conscious that right and wrong are inherent in human nature, that there are wide distinctions between virtue and vice." this is not the sentiment of the man who comprehends that if we do well, it will be well with us, that if we do harm, the evil influence will follow us; who sees distinctly that "our acts, if good, our angels are," and "if ill, our fatal shadows that walk by us still."[315] it is not the apostle's sentiment nor the sentiment of any believer; it is, as mr. holyoake says, "the sentiment of the sensualist;" but it is represented as the natural offspring of unbelief in regard to a future state, just as sensualism is naturally generated and fostered by unbelief in regard to those moral principles which have respect to the present life; and if these principles may and should exert a controlling influence over our conduct, even to the extent of imposing restraint and self-denial with a view to our welfare in time, may they not be expected to be all the more powerful when we include also our welfare in eternity? and may it not thus become manifest that "godliness hath the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come?" it would be difficult to say in what respect believers "neglect the enjoyment of this life," or are "essentially losers" by their religion. they will gratefully ascribe to it their highest and purest happiness; and rather than part with it they will cheerfully submit to "the loss of all other things," and even to persecution and martyrdom itself. but it is asked, "if christianity be false, is it nothing that you are troubled with a thousand anxieties and cares about what shall become of you after death? if christianity be false, is it nothing that day after day you have the fear of death before your eyes? if christianity be false, it makes you slaves while you live, and cowards in death."[316] we might answer, if christianity be _true_, what then? but we prefer a different course: we say that the reality of a future state is in nowise dependent on the truth of christianity, however much we may be indebted to christianity for our certain knowledge of it; that even on the principles of atheism there is no security against the everlasting continuance of self-consciousness, any more than there is against the inevitable stroke of death; that christianity in either case assumes the fact, and addresses men as dying yet immortal creatures, while it reveals a way in which those "who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage" may be delivered from that fear, and raised to "a hope full of immortality." as death is not created or called into being by christianity, so neither is the awful future which lies beyond it: the secularist not less than the christian has to do with it. mr. holyoake seems, at least occasionally, to be sensible of this solemn truth. "i am as much concerned," he says, "as this reverend gentleman can be, as to what shall be _the issue of my own condition in the future_; i am as much concerned _in the solution of this question_ as he is himself; and i believe that the view i entertain, or that any of us may entertain, _conscientiously_, will be our justification in that issue, if we should come to want justification. when we pass through the inexorable gates of the future; when we pass through that vestibule where death stands opening his everlasting gates as widely to the pauper as to the king; when we pass out here into the _dim mysteries of the future_, to confront, it may be, the interrogations of the eternal,--i apprehend _every man's responsibility will go with him_, and no second-hand opinions will answer for us."[317] is there not something here that should arrest the attention and awaken the anxiety even of the secularist himself? he sees before him the inevitable event of death, and beyond it "the dim mysteries of the future;" he _may be_ called to "confront the interrogations of the eternal," and then "every man's responsibility will go with him." surely there is enough in the bare _possibility_ of such a prospect to justify more than all the interest which has ever been expended upon it even by the most "anxious inquirer." but, haunted by these solemn thoughts, mr. holyoake takes refuge in the other alternative of his dilemma: "if there are other worlds, those will best be fitted for the enjoyment of them who have made the welfare of humanity their business in this." secular philanthropy is the best, and only needful, preparation. with this any belief in regard to the future is unnecessary, without it no belief will be of any avail: for "the view which any of us may entertain, conscientiously, will be our justification in that issue, if we should come to want justification;" "no second-hand opinions will answer for us. nothing can justify us, nothing can give us confidence, but the _conscientious nature_ of our own conclusions; nothing can give us courage but _innocence_; nothing can serve our turn but having believed according to _the best of our judgment_, and having followed those principles which _seem to us_ to be the truth." he takes refuge, then, first in his _good works_, and secondly in the _sincerity_ of his convictions, as the sole grounds of his confidence in the prospect of "confronting the interrogations of the eternal!" is it wonderful,--such being his only hope in death,--that when cholera appeared in london, and multitudes were suddenly removed by that appalling visitation, he should have felt it necessary to deliver a series of lectures,--now reprinted as "the logic of death,"--"with a view to the assurance of his friends?" might there not be some among them who would shrink from a future judgment on the ground of their "innocence" or "good works," and many more who would feel that they were making an awful venture in leaving their eternity to depend on the mere _sincerity_ of their convictions, in whatever way these convictions may have been formed, and whether they were _true or false_? and could they be reassured or comforted by any other article of the secular creed? they might be told, as mr. holyoake tells them, "i am not an unbeliever, if that implies the rejection of christian truth, since all i reject is christian error:" i reject "the fall of man, the atonement, the sin of unbelief, the doctrine of future punishment; a disbeliever in all these doctrines, why should i fear to die?" but the more thoughtful among them, all who were really in earnest, might desiderate something more; they might see that _disbelief_, however dogmatic, does not amount to _disproof_, and that the _real ground of fear_ is not in the least removed by it. does his question imply, that if these doctrines were _true_, he would have just reason to fear death? or does it mean merely, that whether they be true or false, he can have no reason to fear death, simply because he _disbelieves_ them? on the former supposition, how vast the difference between the secularist and the christian? the one would have reason to fear because these doctrines are or may be true; the other believes them to be true, and finds in that very belief a deliverance from the fear of death, and a firm ground of confidence and hope! on the latter supposition,--which we believe to be the correct one,--what an amazing confidence must that man possess in the _sincerity_ of his convictions, the _conscientiousness_ of his judgment, and the rigid _impartiality_ of his inquiries after truth, who can peril his eternal prospects on the mere fact that he _disbelieves_ these doctrines, whether they be _true_ or _false!_ suppose that disbelief may diminish the intensity of his fears, can it alter the real state of the case, or remove the only just ground of apprehension and anxiety in regard to the future? the truth of these doctrines is not dependent either on our belief or disbelief; and in the way of _natural consequence_, even were there no additional penal infliction, they may vindicate themselves hereafter in the case of those who neglect or disbelieve them here, by leaving them destitute of all the advantages which flow only from the cordial reception of the truth. thus much at least would be in entire accordance with the analogy of our experience with reference to the interests of the present life; for we do suffer, even now and here, in consequence of our ignorance, or neglect, or practical disbelief of truth,--and it may be so hereafter, in the way simply of inevitable natural consequence, but much more in the way of righteous penal retribution, if there be any truth in that _philosophy of unbelief_, so true to nature and so solemnly proclaimed, "this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil; for every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, _lest his deeds should be reproved_."[318] * * * * * we have endeavored to estimate the claims of secularism, and to examine the foundations on which it rests. in doing so, we have not denied either the right or the duty of any man to inquire and to decide for himself on his own solemn responsibility. we admit as fully as mr. holyoake himself, that personal responsibility implies the right, or rather the duty, of inquiry. he has our entire sympathy when he says, "it is my business to take care, if i walk _from time to eternity_, that i walk by that light which satisfies my own understanding. if it were true that any of you would take my place, _if we should eventually find ourselves at the bar of god_, and i should find myself to be made answerable for the opinions which i entertain, or for beliefs which i had in time, if any of you, or all of you, would take my place, and answer for me, then i might be content to take your opinions, then i might stand on the side of the world: but what does it matter to me what newton believed, what locke believed, or what the world believes, unless the world will answer for me if i believe as the world believes?" but while the right of inquiry is frankly admitted, it can scarcely be denied that the mind may be biased by prejudice and involved in error; and the ultimate question is, not, what are your opinions? but, what are the grounds on which they rest?--not, what is your belief? but, what is the truth? mr. holyoake is the coryphæus of his party. as a popular writer and speaker, his talents and zeal, devoted to a better cause, might have fitted him for extensive usefulness, and rendered him a benefactor to his country. as it is, no man in england rests under a heavier load of responsibility. he has placed himself at the head of the _propaganda_ of popular infidelity. is it yet too late for him to reconsider his opinions, and retrace his steps? for his own sake, for the sake of those who are near and dear to him, for the sake of the multitudes who must be influenced, for good or evil, by his speeches and writings, let him lay to heart the solemn words of sir humphrey davy;--"i envy no quality of mind or intellect in others,--not genius, power, wit, or fancy: but if i could choose what would be most delightful, and i believe most useful to me, i should prefer _a firm religious belief_ to every other blessing; for it makes life a discipline of goodness, creates new hopes when all earthly hopes vanish, and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights, calling up the most delightful visions, where the sensualist and skeptic view only gloom, decay, and annihilation." "attempt how vain,- with things of earthly sort, with aught but god, with aught but moral excellence, truth, and love to satisfy and fill the immortal soul! to satisfy the ocean with a drop;- to marry immortality to death; and with the unsubstantial shade of time to fill the embrace of all eternity." the end. footnotes: [251] george jacob holyoake, "paley refuted in his own words," third edition. london, 1850. townley and holyoake, "a public discussion on the being of a god," third thousand. london, 1852. grant and holyoake, "christianity and secularism; a public discussion held on six successive thursday evenings," seventh thousand. london, 1853. [252] "the reasoner," new series, no. viii. 115. of this serial it is said (xii. 6, 81), "the reasoner, which was established in 1846, has come to be regarded as the accredited organ of freethinking in great britain. indeed, for a long time, it has been the principal professed exponent of these views, _addressed to the working and thinking classes_." [253] ibid., xi. 15, 222; xii. 4, 6, 49, 81. [254] "the reasoner," xii. 4, 50. [255] ibid., xi. 18, 271. [256] ibid., xi. 15, 232. [257] "the reasoner," xii. 24, 376. [258] ibid., new series, pp. 9, 130. [259] ibid., xi. 24, 368. [260] dr. chalmers' "works," i. 64. [261] "paley refuted," p. 12. [262] grant and holyoake, "discussion," pp. 5. 8, 221. [263] "the reasoner reasoned with," p. 13. "holyoake's reply to dr. forbes of glasgow." [264] "the logic of 'logic of death,'" p. 10. [265] "paley refuted," p. 37. [266] townley and holyoake, "discussion," p. 13. [267] "the converted atheist's testimony." [268] townley and holyoake, "discussion," pp. 56, 57. [269] holyoake, "logic of death." [270] townley and holyoake, "discussion," pp. 22, 37, 55. [271] holyoake, "logic of death." [272] "paley refuted," p. 31. [273] townley and holyoake, "discussion," pp. 17, 24. [274] townley and holyoake, "discussion," p. 25. [275] holyoake, "logic of death." [276] holyoake, "paley refuted," p. 37. [277] townley and holyoake, "discussion," pp. 23, 47. [278] de grimm, title page of "paley refuted." [279] holyoake, "paley refuted," pp. 8, 11. [280] holyoake, "paley refuted," pp. 19, 23. [281] townley and holyoake, "discussion," p. 27. [282] holyoake, "paley refuted," pp. 19, 24, 25. [283] ibid., pp. 26, 32, 39. see also townley and holyoake, "discussion," pp. 27, 29, 34, 43, 45. [284] townley and holyoake, "discussion," pp. 7, 414. [285] prof. ferrier, "institutes of metaphysic," epistemology, prop. xxii. p. 377, also pp. 381, 385, 506. [286] dr. hampden, "essay on the philosophical evidence of christianity," pp. 60, 64. [287] robert boyle, "theological works," on the term "nature." [288] professor nicolas, "quelques considerations sur le pantheisme," pp. 30, 33, 35, 38. [289] "the reasoner," xi. 8, 119, 23, 356. new series, pp. 9, 141. [290] "the reasoner," xi. 23, 357. [291] townley and holyoake, "discussion," pp. 16, 59. [292] grant and holyoake, "discussion," pp. 80, 81. [293] ibid., pp. 66, 80. [294] townley and holyoake, "discussion." p. 58. [295] psalm 66: 18; james 1: 6; 4: 3. [296] matt. 26: 39. [297] psalm 119: 90; matt. 4: 6. [298] psalm 34: 19; john 16: 33; heb. 12: 7, 11; rom. 5: 3; 2 cor. 4: 17; rom. 8: 28, 35, 37. [299] eccles. 3: 16, 17; 8: 11. [300] proverbs 2: 10; rom. 12: 11. [301] psalm 46: 1, 2; 23: 1, 4; 2 tim. 4: 18. [302] matt. 7: 7, 11; 6: 32, 33. [303] psalm 40: 1; jonah 2: 2, 7; 2 cor. 12: 8. [304] grant and holyoake, v. 8, 40, 50, 57. [305] "paley refuted," p. 38, 43. [306] grant and holyoake, "discussion," pp. v. 7. [307] townley and holyoake, "discussion," p. 58. [308] grant and holyoake, "discussion," p. 223. [309] grant and holyoake, "discussion," pp. 4, 221. [310] ibid., v., vi. 7. [311] holyoake, "paley refuted," p. 43. grant and holyoake, "discussion," pp. 7, 8. [312] "modern atheism, or the pretensions of secularism examined," p. 59. [313] logic of "logic of death," p. 4. [314] dr. hampden, "philosophical evidence of christianity," p. 28. [315] holyoake and grant, "discussion," p. 125. [316] "modern atheism," p. 14. [317] townley and holyoake, "discussion," p. 18. [318] john 3: 20, 21. important literary and scientific works, published by _gould and lincoln_, 59 washington street, boston. * * * * * annual of scientific discovery; or, year book of facts in science and art. by david a. wells, a. m. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. this work, commenced in the year 1850, and issued in the month of january, annually, embraces an enumeration and description of every important invention, discovery, or scientific theory, reported during the year. each volume is distinct in itself, and contains entirely new matter, with a fine portrait of some person distinguished for his attainments in science and art. lake superior; its physical character, vegetation, and animals. by l. agassiz, and others. one volume, octavo, elegantly illustrated. cloth, $3.50. the plurality of worlds. new edition. with a supplementary dialogue, in which the author's reviewers are reviewed. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. this masterly production, which has excited so much interest in this country and in europe, will now have increased attraction in the supplement, in which the author's reviewers are triumphantly reviewed. comparative anatomy of the animal kingdom. by prof. c. th. von siebold and h. stannius. translated, with notes, additions, &c., by waldo j. burnett, m. d. one vol., octavo, cloth, $3.00. this is unquestionably the best and most complete work of its class ever yet published. works by hugh miller. the footprints of the creator; or, the asterolepis of stromness. with illustrations. memoir of the author by louis agassiz. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. my schools and schoolmasters; or, the story of my education. with and elegant likeness. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. this is a personal narrative of a deeply interesting and instructive character, concerning one of the most remarkable men of the age. the old red sandstone; or, new walks in an old field. illustrated with plates and geological sections. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. first impressions of england and its people. with a fine engraving of the author. 12mo, cl., $1.00. a thrillingly interesting, and very instructive book of travels; presenting the most perfectly life-like views of england and its people, to be found in the language. dr. buckland said, "he would give his left hand to possess such powers of description as this man." the natural history of the human species. its typical forms and primeval distribution. by charles hamilton smith, with an introduction, containing and abstract of the views of blumenbach, prichard, bachman, agassiz, and other writers of repute. by samuel kneeland, jr., m. d. with elegant illustrations. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. it is a book of learning, and full of interest, and may be regarded as among the comparatively few real contributions to science.--[christian witness. thesaurus of english words and phrases. so classified and arranged as to facilitate the expression of ideas, and assist in literary composition. by peter mark roget. revised and edited, with a list of foreign words defined in english, and other additions, by barnas sears, d. d., president of brown university. a new american, from the late stereotype london edition, with additions and improvements. 12mo, cloth, $1.50. this edition contains important additions of words and phrases not in the english edition, making it in all respects more full and perfect than the author's edition. the work has already become one of standard authority, both in this country and in great britain. the elements of geology. adapted to schools and colleges. with numerous illustrations. by j. r. loomis, lewisburg university, pa. 12mo, cloth, 75 cts. it is surpassed by no work before the american public. we hope that every teacher among our readers will examine the work and put the justness of our remarks to the test of his judgment and experience.--m. b. anderson, ll. d.--[pres. of rochester university, n. y. this is just such a work as is needed for all our schools. it should take its place as a text-book in all the schools of the land.--[n. y. observer. the earth and man. by prof. arnold guyot. with illustrations. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. influence of the history of science upon intellectual education. by william whewell, d. d. 16mo, cloth, 25 cents. principles of zoölogy. with illustrations. by louis agassiz and augustus a. gould. 12mo, cloth, $1. this work places us in possession of information half a century in advance of all our elementary works on this subject.--prof. james hall. a work emanating from so high a source hardly requires commendation to give it currency. simple and elementary in its style, full in its illustrations, comprehensive in its range.--[silliman's journal. the best book of the kind in our language.--[christian examiner. zoology is an interesting science, and is here treated with a masterly hand.--[scientific american. the landing at cape anne; or, the charter of the first permanent colony on the territory of the massachusetts company. now discovered and first published from the _original manuscript_. by john wingate thornton. octavo, cloth, $1.50. geological map of the united states and british provinces. with an explanatory text, geological sections, and plates of the fossils which characterize the formations. by jules marcou. two volumes. octavo, cloth, $3.00. ==> the map is elegantly colored, and done up with linen cloth back, and folded in octavo form, with thick cloth covers. knowledge is power. a view of the productive forces of modern society, and the results of labor, capital and skill. by charles knight. with numerous illustrations. american edition. revised, with additions, by david a. wells, editor of the "annual of scientific discovery." 12mo, cloth, $1.25. cyclopædia of anecdotes of literature and the fine arts. a choice selection of anecdotes of the various forms of literature, of the arts, of architecture, engravings, music, poetry, painting and sculpture, and of the most celebrated literary characters and artists of different countries and ages, &c. by kazlitt arvine, a. m. with numerous illustrations. 725 pages, octavo, cloth, $8.00. this is unquestionably the choicest collection of anecdotes ever published. it contains three thousand and forty anecdotes, and more than one hundred and fifty illustrations. it is admirably adapted to literary and scientific men, to artists, mechanics, and others, as a dictionary for reference, in relation to facts on the numberless subjects and characters introduced. kitto's popular cyclopædia of biblical literature. condensed from the larger work, by the author john kitto, d. d. assisted by james taylor, d. d. with _over_ 500 _illustrations_. octavo, 812 pp., cloth, $8.00. this work answers the purpose of a commentary, while at the same time it furnishes a complete dictionary of the bible, embodying the products of the best and most recent researches in biblical literature, in which the scholars of europe and america have been engaged. it is not only intended for ministers and theological students, but is also particularly adapted to parents, sabbath-school teachers, and the great body of the religious public. history of palestine. with the geography and natural history of the country, the customs and institutions of the hebrews, etc. by john kitto, d. d. with upwards of 200 illustrations. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. beyond all dispute this is the best historical compendium of the holy land, from the days of abraham to those of the late pasha of egypt, mehemet ali.--[edinburgh review. ==> in the numerous notices and reviews, the work has been strongly recommended, as not only admirably adapted to the family, but also as a text-book for sabbath and week day schools. chambers's cyclopædia of english literature. two large imperial octavo volumes of 1400 pages; with upwards of 300 elegant illustrations. by robert chambers. embossed cloth, $5.00. this work embraces about one thousand authors, chronologically arranged and classed as poets, historians, dramatists, philosophers, metaphysicians, divines, etc., with choice selections from their writings, connected by a biographical, historical, and critical narrative; thus presenting a complete view of english literature from the earliest to the present time. let the reader open where he will, he cannot fail to find matter for profit and delight. the selections are gems--infinite riches in a little room; in the language of another, "a whole english library fused down into one cheap book!" chambers's miscellany of useful and entertaining knowledge. by william chambers. with illustrations. ten vols., 16mo, cloth, $7.00. chambers's home book and pocket miscellany. a choice selection of interesting and instructive reading for the old and the young. six vols. 16mo, cloth, $3.00. this work is fully equal, if not superior, to either of the chambers's other works in interest, containing a vast fund of valuable information, furnishing ample variety for every class of readers. chambers's repository of instructive and amusing papers. with illustrations. 16mo, cloth, bound, 4 vols. in two, $1.75; and 4 vols. in one, $1.50. valuable works published by gould and lincoln, 59 washington street, boston. * * * * * the christian's daily treasury. a religious exercise for every day in the year. by e. temple. a new and improved edition. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. a work for every christian. it is indeed a "treasury" of good things. the school of christ; or, christianity viewed in its leading aspects. by the rev. a. l. r. foote, author of "incidents in the life of our saviour," etc. 16mo, cloth, 50 cents. the christian life, social and individual. by peter bayne, m. a. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. the demand for this extraordinary work, commencing before its publication, is still eager and constant. there is but one voice respecting it; men of all denominations agree in pronouncing it one of the most admirable works of the age. god revealed in the process of creation, and by the manifestation of jesus christ. including an examination of the development theory contained in the "vestiges of the natural history of creation." by james b. walker, author of "philosophy of the plan of salvation." 12mo, cloth, $1.00. philosophy of the plan of salvation. by an american citizen. an introductory essay, by calvin e. stowe, d. d. new improved edition, with a supplementary chapter. 12mo, cloth, 75 cts. this book is generally admitted to be one of the best in the english language. the work has been translated into several different languages in europe. a capital book to circulate among young men. a wreath around the cross; or, scripture truths illustrated. by a. morton brown, d. d. recommendatory preface, by john angell james. beautiful frontispiece. 16mo, cloth, 60 cents. the better land; or, the believer's journey and future home. by rev. a. c. thompson. 12mo, cloth, 85 cents. a most charming and instructive book for all now journeying to the "better land," and especially for those who have friends already entered upon its never-ending joys. the mission of the comforter. with copious notes. by julius charles hare. with the notes translated for the american edition. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. dr. wayland's university sermon delivered in the chapel of brown university. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. the religions of the world. and their relations to christianity. by frederick denison maurice, a. m., professor of divinity, king's college, london. 16mo, cloth, 60 cts. sacred rhetoric; or, composition and delivery of sermons. by henry j. ripley, professor in newton theological institution. including professor ware's hints on extemporaneous preaching. 12mo, 75 cts. the preacher and the king; or, bourdalone in the court of louis xiv. an account of that distinguished era, translated from the french of l. f. bungener. with an introduction by the rev. george potts, d. d. new edition, with a fine likeness, and a sketch of the author's life. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. it combines substantial history with the highest charm of romance. its attractions are so various that it can hardly fail to find readers of almost every description.--[puritan recorder. the priest and the huguenot; or, persecution in the age of louis xv. translated from the french of l. f. bungener. 2 vols., 12mo, cloth, $2.25. ==> this is truly a masterly production, full of interest, and may be set down as one of the greatest protestant works of the age. footsteps of our forefathers. what they suffered and what they sought. describing localities and portraying personages and events conspicuous in the struggles for religious liberty. by james g. miall. thirty-six fine illustrations. 12mo, $1.00. an exceedingly entertaining work. the reader soon becomes so deeply entertained that he finds it difficult to lay aside the book till finished.--[ch. parlor mag. a work absorbingly interesting, and very instructive.--[western lit. magazine. memorials of early christianity. presenting, in a graphic, compact, and popular form, memorable events of early ecclesiastical history, etc. by james g. miall. with numerous elegant illustrations. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. ==> this, like the "footsteps of our forefathers," will be found a work of uncommon interest. works by john harris, d. d. the pre-adamite earth. contributions to theological science. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. man primeval; or, the constitution and primitive condition of the human being. with a fine portrait of the author. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. patriarchy; or, the family. its constitution and probation; being the _third_ volume of "contributions to theological science." $1.25. the great teacher; or, characteristics of our lord's ministry. with an introductory essay. by h. humphrey, d. d. 12mo, cloth, 85 cts. the great commission; or, the christian church constituted and charged to convey the gospel to the world. introductory essay by w. r. williams, d. d. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. zebulon; or, the moral claims of seamen. 18mo, cloth, 25 cts. philip doddridge. his life and labors. by john stoughton, d. d., with beautiful illuminated title-page and frontispiece. 16mo, cloth, 60 cents. the evidences of christianity, as exhibited in the writings of its apologists, down to augustine. by w. j. bolton, of gonville and caius college, cambridge. 12mo, cloth, 80 cents. works by dr. tweedie. glad tidings; or, the gospel of peace. a series of daily meditations for christian disciples. by rev. w. k. tweedie, d. d. with elegant illustrated title-page. 16mo, cloth, 63 cts. the morn of life; or, examples of female excellence. a book for young ladies. 16mo, cloth. _in press._ a lamp to the path; or, the bible in the heart, the home, and the market place. with an elegant illustrated title-page. 16 mo, cloth, 63 cts. seed time and harvest; or, sow well and reap well. a book for the young. with an elegant illustrated title-page. 16mo, cloth, 63 cts. ==> the above works, by dr. tweedie, are of uniform size and style. they are most charming, pious, and instructive works, beautifully gotten up, and well adapted for "gift-books." works by john angell james. the church member's guide; edited by j. o. choules, d. d. new edition. with an introductory essay by rev. hubbard winslow. cloth, 33c. christian progress. a sequel to the anxious inquirer. 18mo, cloth, 31c. ==> one of the best and most useful works of this popular author. the church in earnest. seventh thousand. 18mo, cloth, 40 cents mothers of the wise and good. by jabez burns, d. d. 16mo, cloth, 75 cents. we wish it were in every family, and read by every mother in the land.--[lutheran observer. my mother; or, recollections of material influence. by a new england clergyman. with a beautiful frontispiece. 12mo, cloth, 75 cents. this is one of the most charming books that have issued from the press for a long period. "it is," says a distinguished author, "one of those rare pictures painted from life with the exquisite skill of one of the 'old masters,' which so seldom present themselves to the amateur." the excellent woman. with an introduction by rev. w. b. sprague, d. d. containing twenty-four splendid illustrations. 12mo, cloth, $1.00; cloth, gilt, $1.75; extra turkey, $2.50. ==> this elegant volume is an appropriate and valuable "gift book" for the husband to present the wife, or the child the mother. memories of a grandmother. by a lady of massachusetts. 16mo, cloth, 50 cents. the marriage ring; or, how to make home happy. by john angell james. beautiful illustrated edition. 16mo, cloth, gilt, 75 cents. a beautiful volume, and a very suitable present to a newly-married couple.--[n. y. christian intelligencer. works by william r. williams, d. d. religious progress; discourses on the development of the christian character. 12mo, cloth, 85 cts. this work is from the pen of one of the brightest lights of the american pulpit. we scarcely know of any living writer who has a finer command of powerful thought and glowing, impressive language than he.--[dr. sprague, alb. atl. lectures on the lord's prayer third edition. 12mo, cloth, 85 cts. their breadth of view, strength of logic, and stirring eloquence place them among the very best homilitical efforts of the age. every page is full of suggestions as well as eloquence.--ch. parlor mag. miscellanies. new improved edition. _price reduced._ 12mo, $1.25. amos lawrence. diary and correspondence of the late amos lawrence; with a brief account of some incidents in his life. edited by his son, william r. lawrence, m. d. with fine steel portraits of amos and abbott lawrence, an engraving of their birth-place, a fac-simile page of mr. lawrence's hand-writing, and a copious index. octavo edition, cloth, $1.60. royal duodecimo edition, $1.00. this work was first published in an elegant octavo volume, and sold at the unusually low price of $1.50. at the solicitation of numerous benevolent individuals who were desirous of circulating the work--so remarkably adapted to do good, especially to young men--_gratuitously_, and of giving those of moderate means, of every class, an opportunity of possessing it, the royal duodecimo, or "_cheap edition_," was issued, varying from the other edition, only in a reduction in the size (allowing less margin), and the _thickness_ of the paper. within six months after the first publication of this work, _twenty-two thousand_ copies had been sold. this extraordinary sale is to be accounted for by the character of the man and the merits of the book. it is the memoir of a boston merchant, who became distinguished for his great wealth, but more distinguished for the manner in which he used it. it is the memoir of a man, who, commencing business with only $20, gave away in public and private charities, _during his lifetime more_, probably than any other person in america. it is substantially an _autobiography_, containing a full account of mr. lawrence's career as a merchant, of his various multiplied charities, and of his domestic life. "we have by us another work, the 'life of amos lawrence.' we heard it once said in the pulpit, 'there is no work of art like a noble life,' and for that reason he who has achieved one, takes rank with the great artists and becomes the world's property. we are proud of this book. we are willing to let it go forth to other lands as a specimen of what america can produce. in the old world, reviewers have called barnum the characteristic american man. we are willing enough to admit that he is a characteristic american man: he is one fruit of our soil, but amos lawrence is another. let our country have credit for him also. the good effect which this life may have in determining the course of young men to honor and virtue is incalculable."--mrs. stowe, in n. y. independent. "we are glad to know that our large business houses are purchasing copies of this work for each of their numerous clerks. its influence on young men cannot be otherwise than highly salutory. as a business man, mr. lawrence was a pattern for the young clerk."--boston traveller. "we are thankful for the volume before us. it carries us back to the farm-house of mr. lawrence's birth, and the village store of his first apprenticeship. it exhibits a charity noble and active, while the young merchant was still poor. and above all, it reveals to us a beautiful cluster of sister graces, a keen sense of honor, integrity which never knew the shadow of suspicion, candor in the estimate of character, filial piety, rigid fidelity in every domestic relation, and all these connected with and flowing from steadfast religious principle, profound sentiments of devotion, and a vivid realization of spiritual truth."--north american review. "we are glad that american biography has been enriched by such a contribution to its treasures. in all that composes the career of 'the good man,' and the practical christian, we have read few memoirs more full of instruction, or richer in lessons of wisdom and virtue. we cordially unite in the opinion that the publication of this memoir was a duty owed to society."--national intelligencer. "with the intention of placing it within the reach of a large number, the mere cost price is charged, and a more beautifully printed volume, or one calculated to do more good, has not been issued from the press of late years."--evening gazette. "this book, besides being of a different class from most biographies, has another peculiar charm. it shows the inside life of the man. you have, as it were, a peep behind the curtain, and see mr. lawrence as he went in and out among business men, as he appeared on change, as he received his friends, as he poured out, 'with liberal hand and generous heart,' his wealth for the benefit of others, as he received the greetings and salutations of children, and as he appeared in the bosom of his family at his own hearth stone."--brunswick telegraph. "it is printed on new type, the best paper, and is illustrated by four beautiful plates. how it can be sold for the price named is a marvel."--norfolk co. journal. "it was first privately printed, and a limited number of copies were distributed among the relatives and near friends of the deceased. this volume was read with the deepest interest by those who were so favored as to obtain a copy, and it passed from friend to friend as rapidly as it could be read. dr. lawrence has yielded to the general wish, and made public the volume. it will now be widely circulated, will certainly prove a standard work, and be read over and over again."--boston daily advertiser. [june 1st, 1856. supplementary catalogue of valuable works, recently published. * * * * * the camel: his organization, habits and uses, considered with reference to his introduction into the united states. by george p. marsh, late u. s. minister at constantinople. 16mo, cloth. 75 cents. this book treats of a subject of great interest, especially at the present time. it furnishes a more complete and reliable account of the camel than any other in the language: indeed, it is believed that there is no other. it is the result of long study, extensive research, and much personal observation on the part the author; and it has been prepared with special reference to the experiment of domesticating the camel in this country, now going on under the auspices of the united states government. it is written in a style worthy of the distinguished author's reputation for great learning and fine scholarship. dr. grant and the mountain nestorians. by rev. thomas laurie. with a portrait, map of the country, and illustrations. 12mo, cloth. price $1.25. third edition revised. this edition has been thoroughly revised by the author, with the view of making the work scrupulously accurate. the map is the first correct one of the nestorian country yet published. the work itself is one of the most permanently valuable of its class, while it presents a full view of the life and labors of the heroic missionary whose name it bears; it also makes the reader familiar with the striking features of a country which, both in ancient and modern times, has been memorable in history. it embraces the scene of xenophon's immortal anabasis, the site of nineveh, that mighty seat of ancient civilization, and the cities of kars and erzerum, so recently the scene of deadly strife between the russians and the allies. analytical concordance to the holy scriptures; or, the bible presented under distinct and classified heads or topics. by john eadie, d. d., ll. d., author of "biblical cyclopedia," "ecclesiastical cyclopedia," "early oriental history," "dictionary of the bible," etc. etc. one volume. octavo. p. 886. (in press.) the subjects are arranged as follows, viz.: agriculture, animals, architecture, army, arms, body, canaan, covenant, diet and dress, disease and death, earth, family, genealogy, god, heaven, idolatry, idols, jesus christ, jews, laws, magistrates, man, marriage, metals and minerals, ministers of religion, miracles, occupations, ordinances, parables and emblems, persecution, praise and prayer, prophecy, providence, redemption, sabbaths and holy days, sacrifice, scriptures, speech, spirits, tabernacle and temple, vineyard and orchard, visions and dreams, war, water. the object of this concordance is to present the entire scriptures under a certain classified and exhaustive heads. it differs from and ordinary concordance, in that its arrangement depends no on words, but on subjects, and the verses are printed in full. its plan does not bring it at all into competition with such limited works as those of gaston and warden; for they select doctrinal topics principally, and do not profess to comprehend, as we do, the entire bible. the work also contains a synoptical table of contents of the whole work, presenting in brief a system of biblical antiquities and theology, with a very copious and accurate index. the value of this work to ministers and sabbath school teachers can hardly be over-estimated; and it needs but to be examined to secure the approval and patronage of every bible student. transcriber's list of corrections location original corrected chapter i. abbe lamennais abbé lamennais atheoi en tôkosmô atheoi en tô kosmô distinction beetween distinction between abbe barruel abbé barruel chapter ii. it it it is artifical artificial christain christian chapter iii. en kai pan hen kai pan puelques quelques chapter viii. puruits pursuits chapter ix. endles endless public domain works from the university of michigan digital libraries.) [illustration: robert patterson] fables of infidelity and facts of faith: being an examination of the evidences of infidelity. by rev. robert patterson, d. d. revised and enlarged. cincinnati: western tract society. entered according to act of congress, in the year 1875, by western tract society, in the office of the librarian of congress, washington, d. c. stereotyped by ogden, campbell & co., 176 elm st., cincinnati. contents. chapter i. page. did the world make itself? 7 eternity of matter. disproved by its composite nature. disproved by its motion. evolution only a big perpetual motion humbug. work of a designer in the structure of the eye. the eye-maker sees over a wide field and far. the eye-maker sees perfectly. chapter ii. was your mother a monkey? 34 the divine fact of evolution quite different from the atheistic theory. state the question sharply--why? darwin's answer. the ancestral monkey, fish, squirt. natural selection. intended to exclude god. 1. _the history of the theory._ indian; phoenician; greek; popish; la place's theory; the vestiges of creation. herbert spencer's contradictory theory. the evolutionists' hell. spontaneous generation--two theories; the conflicting theories of progress; tremaux; lamarck; the climatal; darwin's; huxley's; parson's; mivart's; hyatt's; cope's; wallace's; the gods; denounced by the princes of science. agassiz's deliverance against it. imperfection of the theory eked out. huxley's protoplasm. tyndall's potency of life in matter. buchner's matter and force. lubbock's origin of civilization. consequences of the brutal origin of man. propagandism of atheism. 2. _the theory illogical and incoherent._ darwin admits insufficiency of proof. useless as an explanation of nature. self-contradictory; _e. g._, protoplasm. wallace's self-contradictions. incoherency of the denial of design with the assertion of progress. failure of alleged facts to sustain the theory. does not account for the origin of anything. wild assumptions made by darwin. erroneous assumption of the tendency of natural selection to improve breeds. assumption of infinite possibility of progress in finite creatures. 3. _an unfounded theory._ no evidence of the facts possible. none ever alleged, save gulliver's. domestication disproves transmutation--horses; pigeons; dogs. the egyptian monuments. the mummied animals. the geological record. the limits of geological time. 4. _embryology._ testimony of scientists: 1. embryology only analogical. 2. embryos _not_ all alike. 3. four distinct plans of structure. 4. germs always true to the breed. 5. _gradations of species._ lamarck's statement. birth descent not inferable from gradation. no such imperceptible blending in nature. the fact of the present existence of distinct species. sterility of hybrids. geological species distinct. the intermediate forms not found. the gradation does not begin with the lowest forms. four kingdoms from the beginning. the new species began with the giants. the gaps fatal to the theory. the abyss between death and life. the gulf between the plant and the animal. the gaps between species which will not breed together. the gaps between air breathers and water breathers, &c. the great gulf between the brute and the man. natural selection could not have deprived a monkey of hair. nor have given a human brain. the brain-worker contravenes natural selection at every step. civilization the contradiction of natural selection. morality and religion the direct contraries of natural selection. tendency immoral, degrading, and atheistic. chapter iii. is god everybody, and everybody god? 91 pantheism described. an antiquated hindooism. a jesuitical atheism. grossly immoral. a practical atheism. chapter iv. have we any need of the bible? 112 civilization and the bible. revelation not impossible. the mythical theory. the inner light. many ignorant of god. heathen morality--plato's. infidel morality--paine's. chapter v. who wrote the new testament? 147 the bible not just like any other book. two modes of investigation. did the council of nice make the bible? the mythical theory. the evidence of celsus. the fragment hypothesis. the bank signature book. could the new testament be corrupted? chapter vi. is the gospel fact or fable? 169 the nature of historical evidence; letters; monuments. contemporary letters of peter, pliny and john. prove the existence of churches. and their worship, holiness, and sufferings. chapter vii. can we believe christ and his apostles? 190 the gospel a unit; must take or refuse it all. apostles' testimony circumstantial. witnesses numerous and independent. confirm their testimony with their blood. chapter viii. prophecy, 210 political--napoleon's--wrong. presidential candidates. draper's dogma of youth and decrepitude of nations. statesmen prophets. general claim for all genius. instances of secular prediction: cayotte's of the french revolution. the oracles of apollo. vettius valens' twelve vultures. spencer's of the disruption of the american union. saint malachi's prophecies. mohammed's prophecies. seneca's of the discovery of america. dante's of the reformation. plato's of shakespeare. symbolical language of prophecy. anybody may predict downfall of nations. an awful truth if it be true. but bible predictions circumstantial--egypt; babylon; nineveh; judea. predict life and resurrection. the arabs; jews; seven churches; messiah. chapter ix. moses and the prophets, 266 god the author of the bible. every other book inspired? connection of bible history and morality. hume's sophism. miracles being violations of laws of nature, contrary to an unalterable experience. no testimony can reach to the supernatural. records of facts not judged by your notions. rationalistic explanation of the miracles. bible account of creation unscientific. antiquity of man. the anachronisms of the pentateuch. bishop colenso's blunders: the universality of the deluge. joshua causing the sun to stand still. cain's wife. increase of jacob's family in egypt. the number of the first-born. the fourth generation. the bishop's blunders in camp life. sterility of the wilderness. population of the promised land. modern discoveries in bible lands. egyptian monuments of joseph. assyrian ethnology and genesis, chaps. x. and xi. sennacherib's conquest of palestine. belshazzar's kingship. the moabitic inscriptions, and omri and ahab. the samaritan pentateuch. the character of the books--austere. variety of writers and unity of plan. contained the surveys, and the laws of the nation. introduced new and republican usages. moses' law in advance of modern social science. testimony of the jewish nation. testimony of christ. the lost books. the law abolished by the gospel. the imperfect morality of old testament. polygamy, slavery, and divorce. the education of the world a gradual process. the imprecations of scripture. chapter x. infidelity among the stars, 335 scientific objections to the bible. the infinity and self-existence of the universe. disproved by its evident limits. its composite materials. its steady loss of heat. buffon's explosion of planets. the nebular theories. the fiction of homogeneous matter. the contradictory theories. the perpetual motion machine. contrary to facts of astronomy. contradicted by astronomers. impossibility of any cosmogony. chapter xi. daylight before sunrise, 378 infidel objections to genesis. the hindoo chronology. the egyptian chronology. the bible age of the earth. the solid firmament. light before the sun. chapter xii. telescopic views of scripture, 423 the source of the water of the deluge. the stars fighting against sisera. the astronomers of the great pyramid. the grand motion of the sun. the formation of dew. the multitude of the stars. the descent of the heavenly city. chapter xiii. science or faith? 466 must faith fade before science? scientists as partial as other people. have no such certainty as is claimed. 1. _mathematical errors._ the infinite half inch, etc. the doctrine of chances. no mathematical figures in nature. the french metric system. the lowell turbine wheel. 2. _errors of astronomy._ kant's predictions; le verrier's. herschel's enumeration of errors. sun's distance; other measurements. the moon's structure and influence. la place's proposed improvement. the sun's structure, heat, etc. the sizes, distances, and densities of the planets. errors about the nebulæ. errors about comets. the cosmical ether. the cold of infinite space. from this chaos springs the theory of development. 3. _errors of geology._ no _fact_ of geology anti-biblical. all anti-biblical theories based on an _if_. no geological measure of _time_. all calculations of time by geologists, which have been tested, have proved erroneous--the danish bogs; the swiss lake villager; horner's nile pottery; the raised beaches of scotland; lyell's blunder in the delta of the mississippi; sir wm. thompson's exposure of the absurdity of the evolutionists' demands for time. conflicting geological theories--the wernerian, huttonian, and diluvian theories; the catastrophists and progressionists; eleven theories of earthquakes; nine theories of mountains; false geology of america; scotland kicked about too. 4. _errors of zoology._ lamarck's vestiges; tremaux; darwin's contradictions; huxley; mivart, and wallace. blunders of the french academy, denouncing quinine, vaccination, lightning rods, and steam engines. uncertainty of science increases in human concerns. second-hand science founded on somebody's say so. 5. _all science founded on faith._ reason also based on faith. this life depends on faith. we demand truths of which science is ignorant. all our chief concerns in the domain of faith. religion the most experimental of the sciences. the only science which can make you happy. try for yourself. preface. this is not so much a volume upon the evidences of christianity, as an examination of the evidences of infidelity. when the infidel tells us that christianity is false, and asks us to reject it, he is bound of course to provide us with something better and truer instead; under penalty of being considered a knave trying to swindle us out of our birthright, and laughed at as a fool, for imagining that he could persuade mankind to live and die without religion. suppose he had proved to the world's satisfaction that all religion is a hoax, and all men professing it are liars, how does that comfort me in my hour of sorrow? scoffing will not sustain a man in his solitude, when he has nobody to scoff at; and disbelief is only a bottomless tub, which will not float me across the dark river. if infidels intend to convert the world, they must give us some positive system of truth which we can believe, and venerate, and trust. a glimmering idea of this necessity seems lately to have dawned upon some of them. it is quite possible that they have also felt the want of something for their own souls to believe; for an infidel has a soul, a poor, hungry, starved soul, just like other men. at any rate, having grown tired of pelting the church with the dirtballs of voltaire and paine, they begin to acknowledge that it is, after all, an institution; and that the bible is an influential book, both popular and useful in its way. mankind, it seems, will have a church and a bible of some sort; why not go to work and make a church and a bible of their own? accordingly they have gone to work, and in a very short time have prepared a variety of ungodly religions, so various that the worldly-minded man who can not be suited with one to his taste must be very hard to please. discordant and contradictory in their positive statements, they are agreed only in negatives; denying the god of the bible, the resurrection of the dead, and judgment to come. nevertheless each discoverer or constructor presents his system to the world with great confidence, large claims to superior benevolence, vast pretensions to learning and science, and no little cant about duty and piety. wonderful to tell, some of them are very fond of clothing their ungodliness in the language of scripture. no pains are spared to secure the wide spread of these notions. prominent infidels are invited to deliver courses of scientific lectures, in which the science is made the medium of conveying the infidelity. scientific books, novels, magazines, daily newspapers, and common school books, are all enlisted in the work. the disciples of infidelity are numerous and zealous. it would be hard to find a factory, boarding-house, steamboat or hotel where twelve persons are employed, without an infidel; and harder still to find an infidel who will not use his influence to poison his associates. these systems are well adapted to the depraved tastes of the age. the business man, whose whole soul is set on money-making and spending, is right glad to meet the secularist, who will prove to him on scientific principles, that a man is much profited by gaining the whole world, even at the risk of his soul, if he has such a thing. the young and ill-instructed professor of christianity, whose longings for forbidden joys are strong, has a natural kindliness toward nationalism, which befogs the serene light of god's holy law, and gives the directing power to his own inner liking. the sentimental young lady, who would recoil from the grossness of the deist, is attracted by the poetry of pantheism. infidelity has had, in consequence, a degree of success very little suspected by simple-minded pastors and parents, and which is often discovered too late for remedy. this book is written to expose the _folly_ of some of these novel systems of infidelity--leaving others to show their wickedness. it may surprise some who would glory in being esteemed fiends, to learn that they are only fools. if they should be awakened now to a sense of the absurdities which they cherish as philosophy, it might save them from awaking another day to the shame and everlasting contempt of the universe. i have not taken up all the cavils of infidelity. their name is legion. nor have i troubled my readers with any which they are not likely to hear. leaving the sleeping dogs to lie, i have noticed only such as i have known to bark and bite in my own neighborhood, and know to be rife here in the west. they are stated, as nearly as possible, in the words in which i have heard them in public debate, or in private conversation with gentlemen of infidel principles. i have made no references to books or writers on that side, save to such as i am assured were the sources of their sentiments. in such cases i have named and quoted the authors. where no such quotations are noticed it will be understood that i am responsible for the fairness with which i have represented the opinions which are examined. it is not my design to fight men of straw. every historical or scientific fact adduced in support of the arguments here used is confirmed by reference to the proper authority. but it has not been deemed needful to crowd the pages with references to the works of christian apologists. the christian scholar does not need such references; while to those for whose benefit i write, their names carry no authority, and their arguments are generally quite unknown. one great object of my labor will be gained if i shall succeed in awaking the spirit of inquiry among my readers, to such an extent as to load them to a prayerful and patient perusal of several of the works named on the next page. they have heard only one side of the question, and will be surprised at their own ignorance of matters which they ought to have known. books on the evidences are not generally circulated. ministers perhaps have some volumes in their libraries; but in a hundred houses, it would be hard to find half a dozen containing as many as would give an inquiring youth a fair view of the historical evidences of the truth of the gospel. nor, where they are to be found, are they generally read. being deemed heavy reading, the magazine, or the newspaper is preferred. ministers do not in general devote enough of their time to such sound teaching as will stop the mouths of gainsayers. i have been assured by skeptical gentlemen, who in the early part of their lives had attended church regularly for twenty-two years, that during all that time they had never heard a single discourse on the evidences. moreover, the protean forms of infidelity are so various, and many of its present positions so novel, that books or discourses prepared only twenty years ago miss the mark; and rather expose to the charge of misrepresentation, than produce conviction. new books on infidelity are needed for every generation. the lectures expanded into this volume were delivered in cincinnati, in 1858. replying to different, and discordant systems of error, whose only bond is opposition to the gospel, they are necessarily somewhat disconnected. no attempt was made to mold them into a suit of royal armor, but merely to select a few smooth pebbles from the brook of truth, which any christian lad might sling at the giant defiers of the armies of the living god. having proved acceptable for this purpose, and a steadily increasing demand for repeated editions wearing out the original plates, the author has been requested by british and american publishers to revise the work in the light of the recent discoveries of science. this he has attempted; with what success the reader will judge. conscious of its many defects, yet grateful to god for the good which he has done to many souls by its instrumentality, the author again commends the book to the father of lights, praying him to use it as a mirror to flash such a ray of light into many dark souls as may lead them into the light of the knowledge of the glory of god in the face of jesus christ. san francisco, march 30, 1875. * * * * * the author having been repeatedly asked by inquirers for the names of books on the evidences of christianity, subjoins a list of those easily accessible in the west. it is not supposed that any one inquirer will read all these; but it is well to read more than one, since the evidence is cumulative, and it is impossible for any writer to present the whole. having a list of several works, the inquirer who can not obtain one may be able to procure another. there are many other works on the evidences on the shelves of all our principal booksellers. _modern atheism_, by james buchanan, ll. d. _typical forms and special ends in creation_, by james mccosh, ll. d., and george dickie, m. d. _religion and geology_, edward hitchcock, ll. d. _the architecture of the heavens_, j. p. nichol, ll. d. _the christian philosopher_, thomas dick, ll. d. _natural theology_, william paley, d. d. _the analogy of religion, natural and revealed, to the constitution and course of nature_, joseph butler, d. c. l. _the bridgewater treatises_, whewell, chalmers, kidd, &c. _the comprehensive commentary_, william jenks, d. d. _the cause and cure of infidelity_, rev. david nelson. _a view of the evidences of christianity_, william paley, d. d. _the eclipse of faith_, ascribed to henry rogers. _the restoration of belief_, ascribed to isaac taylor. _lectures on the evidences of christianity_, university of virginia. _the divine authority of the old and new testaments asserted_, j. leland, d. d. _the bible commentary._ _an apology for the bible, in a series of letters to thomas paine_, r. watson. _a view of the internal evidence of the christian religion_, s. jenyns. _a letter to g. west, esq., on the conversion of st. paul_, lord lyttleton. _observations on the history and evidence of the resurrection of jesus christ_, gilbert west, esq. _difficulties of infidelity_, faber. _dissertations on the prophecies_, thos. newton, d. d. _an introduction to the critical study of the scriptures_, t. h. horne, vol. i. _the evidences of christianity_, charles petit mcilvaine, d. d. _rawlinson's historical evidences._ _modern skepticism_, by joseph barker. _haley's discrepancies of the bible_, w. g. holmes, chicago. _the superhuman origin of the bible_, rogers. _christianity and positivism_, mccosh. _the supernatural in relation to the natural_, mccosh. _aids to faith_, appleton & co. _modern skepticism_, randolph & son. _modern doubt_, christlieb. _alexander's evidences of christianity._ chapter i. did the world make itself? _understand, ye brutish among the people; and, ye fools, when will ye be wise? he that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see? he that chastiseth the heathen, shall he be not correct? he that teacheth man knowledge, shall he not know?_--psalm xciv. 8, 9. has the creator of the world common sense? did he know what he was about in making it? had he any object in view in forming it? does he know what is going on in it? does he care whether it answers any purpose or not? strange questions you will say; yet we need to ask a stranger question: had the world a creator, or did it make itself? there are persons who say it did, and who declare that the bible sets out with a lie when it says, that "in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth." whereas, say they, "we know that matter is eternal, and the world is wholly composed of matter; therefore, the heavens and the earth are eternal, never had a beginning nor a creator." but, however fully the atheist may know that matter is eternal, we do not know any such thing, and must be allowed to ask, how do _you_ know? as you are not eternal, we can not take it on your word. the only reason which anybody ever ventured for this amazing assertion is this, that "all philosophers agree that matter is naturally indestructible by any human power. you may boil water into steam, but it is all there in the steam; or burn coal into gas, ashes, and tar, but it is all in the gas, ashes, and tar; you may change the outward form as much as you please, but you can not destroy the substance of anything. wherefore, as matter is indestructible, it must be eternal." profound reasoning! here is a brick fresh from the kiln. it will last for a thousand years to come; therefore, it has existed for a thousand years past! the foundation of the argument is as rotten as the superstructure. it is not agreed among all philosophers that matter is naturally indestructible, for the very satisfactory reason that none of them can tell what matter in its own nature is. all that they can undertake to say is, that they have observed certain properties of matter, and, among these, that "it is indestructible by any operation to which it can be subjected in the ordinary course of circumstances observed at the surface of the globe."[1] the very utmost which any man can assert in this matter is a negative, a want of knowledge, or a want of power. he can say, "human power can not destroy matter;" and, if he pleases, he may reason thence that human power did not create it. but to assert that matter is eternal because man can not destroy it, is as if a child should try to beat the cylinder of a steam engine to pieces, and, failing in the attempt, should say, "i am sure this cylinder existed from eternity, because i am unable to destroy it." but not only is the assertion of the eternity of matter unproven, and impossible to be proved, it is capable of the most demonstrable refutation, by one of the recent discoveries of science. the principle of the argument is so plain that a child of four years old can understand it. it is simply this, that all substances in heaven and earth are compounded of several elements; but no compound can be eternal. we say to our would-be philosophers, when you tell us that matter is eternal, how does that account for the formation of this world? what is this matter you speak of? this world consists not of a philosophical abstraction called matter, nor yet of one substance known by that name, but of a great variety of material substances, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, sulphur, iron, aluminum, and some fifty others already discovered.[2] now, which of these is the eterna-matter you speak of? is it iron, or sulphur, or clay, or oxygen? if it is any one of them, where did the others come from? did a mass of iron, becoming discontented with its gravity, suddenly metamorphose itself into a cloud of gas, or into a pail of water? or are they all eternal? have we fifty-seven eternal beings? are they all eternal in their present combinations? or is it only the single elements that are eternal? you see that your hypothesis--that matter is eternal--gives me no light on the formation of this world, which is not a shapeless mass of a philosophical abstraction called matter, but a regular and beautiful building, composed of a great variety of matters. was it so from eternity? no man who was ever in a quarry, or a gravel pit, will say so, much less one who has the least smattering of chemistry or geology. do you assert the eternity of the fifty-seven single substances, either separate or combined in some other way than we now find them in the rocks, and rivers, and atmosphere of the earth? then how came they to get together at all, and particularly how did they put themselves in their present shapes? each of them is a piece of matter of which _inertia_ is a primary and inseparable property. matter _of itself_ can not begin to move, or assume a quiescent state after being put in motion. will you tell us that the fifty-seven primary elements danced about till the air, and sea, and earth, somehow jumbled themselves together into the present shape of this glorious and beautiful world, with all its regularity of day and night, and summer and winter, with all its beautiful flowers and lofty trees, with all its variety of birds, and beasts, and fishes? to bring the matter down to the level of the intellect of the most stupid pantheist, tell us in plain english, _did the paving stones make themselves?_ for the paving stones are _made_ out of a dozen different chemical constituents, and each one is built up more ingeniously than the house you live in. _now, did the paving stones make themselves?_ no conviction of the human mind is more certain than the belief that every combination of matter proves the existence of a combiner, that every house has had a builder, and that every machine has had a maker. no matter how simple the combination, if it be only two laths fastened together by a nail, or two bricks cemented with mortar, or the sole of an old pegged boot, all the atheists in the world could not convince you that those two laths, or those two bricks, or those two bits of leather existed in such a combination from all eternity. if any wise philosopher tried to persuade you that for anything you could tell they might have been always so, you would reply, "no, sir! you can't cram such stuff down my throat. even a child's common sense shows him that those two laths were not always so nailed together; that those two bricks were not always so placed, one on the top of the other; and that those two pieces of old sole leather were not always pegged together in the sole of a boot." there is no conviction more irresistible than our belief that _no compound can possibly be eternal_. but the universe is the greatest of all compounds. everything in it is compound. chemists speak of simple substances, or elements of matter, and it is well enough to separate the elements of things in our thoughts, for the sake of distinct consideration, and to speak of the properties of pure oxygen, or of pure hydrogen, or of pure carbon, or of pure gold, or of pure iron, or of pure silver. but then we should always remember that there is nothing pure in the world, that there is no such thing in nature as any substance consisting only of a single element, pure and uncombined with others. just as your gold eagle is not pure gold, but alloyed with copper, everything in nature is alloyed. everything in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth, is compound. the air you breathe, simple as it seems, is composed of three gases, and is besides full of what huxley calls "a stirabout" of millions of seeds of animalculæ and motes of dust visible in the sunbeam. that hydrant water you are about to swallow is a rich aquarium full of all manner of monsters, which the oxy-hydrogen microscope will exhibit to your terrified gaze, devouring each other alive. should you get rid of them by evaporating your water, your chemist will tell you that still your pure water must be a compound of oxygen and hydrogen. there is no help for it. many years ago some astronomers fancied they had found clouds, or nebulæ, of gas, quite simple and uncompounded with anything else, a great many millions of miles away in the sky. they were so very far away that they thought nobody would ever be able to fly so far to bottle up a specimen of that gas and bring it back here to earth and analyze it, to find out whether it was pure and simple, or compound. so they felt quite safe in affirming that there was the genuine, simple, homogeneous gas, in the nebulæ, with which almighty god had nothing whatever to do, but which had first made itself and then had condensed into our present world. but unfortunately for this brilliant discovery the spectroscope opened windows into the nebulæ, and showed very plainly that they were on fire; and fire is a compound; it can not burn without fuel and something to support the combustion; so that settled the alleged simplicity of the nebulæ. it is now demonstrated, therefore, that every known substance existing in nature is a compound, and therefore can not be eternal. and the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. no number of finite existences can be eternal. the universe, then, can not be eternal. suppose, however, that, for the sake of argument, we should grant our atheistic world-builder his materials, away off beyond the rings of saturn, or the orbit of uranus (since he seems to like to have his quarries a good way off from his building), would he be any nearer the completion of his world-making? as cornwallis declared that the conquest of india resolved itself ultimately into a question of bullocks, the prime consideration in the construction of the world, after you have got your materials, is that of transportation. when one beholds the three great stones in the temple of baalbec, each weighing eleven hundred tons, built into the wall twenty feet high, and a fourth in the quarry, a mile away, nearly ready for removal, he asks, "how did the builders move those immense stones, and raise them to their places?" and when we behold the quarry out of which these stones were taken, and all the other quarries of the world, and all the everlasting mountains, and the whole of this solid earth, and boundless sea, brought, as our theorists affirm, from far beyond the orbit of the most distant planet, we raise the question of transportation, and demand some account of the wagon and team which hauled them to their places. we can not get rid of the necessity for transportation by evaporating the building stones into gas, for a world of gas weighs just as many tons as the world made out of it. before we can make a world we must have _power_; but we can never get power out of the world to build itself. the atheists' world is only a great machine. the first law of mechanics is that action and reaction are equal; consequently machinery can never create power. you will never lift yourself by pulling at your boot-straps; much less can a machine lift and carry itself. it is no matter how big you make the wheels of your machine, as big as the orbits of the planets if you like, still it is only a machine, unless it has a mind in it; and your big machine can no more create power than a little machine as small as a lady's watch. nor does it make the least difference in respect to making power, of what materials your perpetual motion peddler makes his machine--whether of a skein of silk on a reel in a bottle, or of steel and zinc electro magnets running upon diamond points, or whether he melts up his steel, and zinc, and diamonds into red hot fire mist; it is still only a machine, made of these materials, as destitute of power as the smaller machines made out of it. the atheists' universe is only a big machine, and no machine can create power, no more than a paving stone. it has been, however, proposed to manufacture power by the law of gravitation, according to which all bodies attract each other, directly in proportion to their mass, and inversely as the square of their distances. this law appears to prevail as far as our observation extends through space; and our world builders affirm that it must have operated eternally, and that not only were the separate parts of our earth thus drawn together, but that all the orbs of heaven were caused to revolve under its influence. suppose, however, we grant that matter was eternal, and the force of gravitation eternally operating upon it, would that sufficiently account for the building up of even our own little planetary system? by no means. the unresisted force of gravitation would, in far less than an eternity, draw all things together toward the center of gravity of the universe. we should not have separate stars, and suns, and planets, and moons, revolving in orderly orbits, but one vast mass of matter, in which all motion had long since ceased. there must be some power of resistance to gravitation, and nicely balanced against it, a centrifugal force--no matter whether you call it heat, light, or electricity, or by any other name--from which balance of power the movements of the universe are regulated. but here again we arrive at the same conclusion from the balance of power to which we were before driven by the combination of matter--regulated power proclaims a regulator, a governor. power belongeth unto god. in world-building we need not only a quarry of materials, and power for transportation, but a head to plan their arrangement. for, as ten thousand loads of brick and stone dumped down higgledy piggledy will not build a house, neither will ten thousand millions of materials poured into a chaos make a world like this earth, arranged in order and beauty. it is grossly absurd to imagine that the inanimate materials of the earth arranged themselves in their present orderly structure. absurd as it seems to every man of common sense, there are persons claiming to be philosophers who not only assert that they did, but will tell you how they did it. one class of them think they have found it out by supposing every thing in the universe reduced to very fine powder, consisting of very small grains, which they call atoms; or, if that is not fine enough, into gas, of which it is supposed the particles are too fine to be perceived; and then by different arrangements of these atoms, according to the laws of attraction and electricity, the various elements of the world were made, and arranged in its present form. suppose we grant this gassy supposition, that the world millions of ages ago existed as a cloud of atoms, does that bring us any nearer the object of getting rid of a creator than before? the atoms must be material, if a material world is to be made from them; and so they must be extended; each one of them must have length, breadth and thickness. the atheist, then, has only multiplied his difficulties a million times, by pounding up the world into atoms, which are only little bits of the paving stones he intends to make out of them. each bit of the paving stone, no matter how small you break it, remains just as incapable of making itself, or moving itself, as was the whole stone composed of all these bits. so we are landed back again at the sublime question, _did the paving stones make themselves, and move themselves?_ others will tell you that millions of years ago the world existed as a vast cloud of fire mist, which, after a long time, cooled down into granite, and the granite, by dint of earthquakes, got broken up on the surface, and washed with rain into clay and soil, whence plants sprang up of their own accord, and the plants gradually grew into animals of various kinds, and some of the animals grew into monkeys, and finally the monkeys into men. the fire mist they stoutly affirm to have existed from eternity. they do not allege that they remember that (and yet as they themselves are, as they say, composed body and soul of this eternal fire mist, they ought to remember), but only that there are certain comets which occasionally come within fifty or sixty millions of miles of this earth, which they suppose may be composed of the fire mist which they _suppose_ this world is made of. a solid basis, truly, on which to build a world! a cloud in the sky, fifty million of miles away, may possibly be fire mist, may possibly cool down and condense into a solid globe; therefore, this fire mist is eternal, and had no need of a creator; and our world, and all other worlds, may possibly have been like it; therefore, they also were never created by almighty god. such is the atheist's ground of faith. the thinnest vapor or the merest supposition will suffice to risk his eternal salvation upon; provided only it contradicts the bible and gets rid of god. we can not avoid asking with as much gravity as we can command, where did the mist come from? did the mist make itself? where did the fire come from? did it kindle of its own accord? who put the fire and mist together? was it red hot enough from all eternity to melt granite? then why is it any cooler now? how could an eternal red heat cool down? if it existed as a red hot fire mist from eternity, until our atheist began to observe it beginning to cool, why should it ever begin to cool at all, and why begin to cool just then? fill it as full of electricity, magnetism and odyle as you please; do these afford any _reason_ for its very extraordinary conduct? the utmost they do is to show you _how_ such a change took place, but they neither tell you _where the original matter came from_, nor _why its form was changed_. change is an effect, and every effect requires a cause. there could be no cause outside of the fire mist; for they say there was nothing else in the universe. then the cause must be in the mist itself. had it a mind, and a will, and a perception of propriety? did the mist become sensible of the lightness of its behavior, and the fire resolve to cool off a little, and both consult together on the propriety of dropping their erratic blazing through infinite space, and resolve to settle down into orderly, well-behaved suns and planets? in the division of the property, _what became of the mind_? did it go to the sun, or to the moon, or to the pole star, or to this earth? or, was it clipped up into little pieces and divided among the stars in proportion to their respective magnitudes; so that the sun may have, say the hundredth part of an idea, and the moon a faint perception of it? did the fire mist's mind die under this cruel clipping and dissecting process; or is it of the nature of a polypus, each piece alive and growing up to perfection in its own way? has each of the planets and fixed stars a great "soul of the world" as well as this earth, and are they looking down intelligently and compassionately on the little globe of ours? had we not better build altars to all the host of heaven and return to the religion of our acorn-fed ancestors, who burned their children alive, in honor of the sun, on sun-days? an aqueous solution of this difficulty of getting rid of almighty god, is frequently proposed. it is known that certain chemical solutions, when mixed together, deposit a sediment, or precipitate, as chemists call it. and it is supposed that the universe was all once in a state of solution, in primeval oceans, and that the mingling of the waters of these oceans caused them to deposit the various salts and earths which form the worlds in the form of mud, which afterward hardened into rock, or vegetated into trees and men. thus, it is clearly demonstrated that there is no need for the creator if--if--if--we only had somebody to make these primeval oceans--and somebody to mix them together![3] the development theory of the production of the human race from the mud, through the mushroom, the snail, the tortoise, the greyhound, the monkey and the man, which is now such a favorite with atheists, if it were fully proved to be a fact, would only increase the difficulty of getting rid of god. for either the primeval mud had all the germs of the future plants and monkeys, and men's bodies and souls, in itself originally, or it had not. if it had not, where did it get them? if it had all the life and intelligence in the universe in itself, it was a very extraordinary kind of god. we shall call it the _mud-god_. our atheists then believe in a god of muddy body and intelligent mind. but if they deny intelligence to the mud, then we are back to our original difficulty, with a large appendix, viz: _the paving stones made themselves first and all atheists afterward._ the whole theory of development is utterly false in its first principles. from the beginning of the world to the present day, no man has ever observed an instance of the spontaneous generation of life. there is no law of nature, whether electric, magnetic, odylic, or any other, which can produce a living plant or animal, save from the germ or seed of some previous plant or animal of the same species. nor has a single instance of the transmutation of species ever been proved. every beast, bird, fish, insect and plant brings forth after its kind, and has done so since its creation. no law of natural philosophy is more firmly established than this, _that there is no spontaneous generation, nor transmutation of species._ it is true there is a regular gradation of the various orders of animal and vegetable life, rising like the steps of a staircase, one above the other; but gradation is no more caused by transmutation than a staircase is made by an ambitious lower step changing itself into all the upper ones. to refer the origin of the world to the laws of nature is absurd. law, as johnson defines it, is a rule of action. it necessarily requires an acting agent, an object designed in the action, means to attain it, and authoritative enforcement of the use of those means by a lawgiver. are the laws of nature laws given by some supposed intelligent being, worshiped by the heathen of old, and by the atheists of modern times, under that name? or do they signify the orderly and regular sequence of cause and effect, which is so manifest in the course of all events? if, as atheists say, the latter, this is the very thing we want them to account for. how came the world to be under law without a lawgiver? where there is law, there must be design. chance is utterly inconsistent with the idea of law. where there is design there must, of necessity, be a designer. matter in any shape, stones or lightnings, mud or magnets, can not think, contrive, design, give law to itself, or to any thing else, much less bring itself into existence. there is no conceivable way of accounting for this orderly world we live in but one or other of these two: either an intelligent being created the world, or--_the paving stones made themselves_. "here are two hypotheses, of which the oldest is admitted to offer a full and consistent explanation of all the facts of science. there can be no better cause for any given formation than that god created it so. men of science, however, allege that creation (out of nothing) is 'scientifically inconceivable;' but this is only throwing dust in our eyes; of course, science can not _verify_ it, neither can it verify any other theory of causation. the question is whether reason can accept the fact, though science can not even imagine the process? if not, there is nothing for us but the _eternity of matter_, for evolution itself has to face the very same difficulty when asked to account for its primal germ. it is surely more conceivable that god created the first matter out of nothing, than that nothing evolved something out of itself, by an imminent law of its nature. this point, however, our scientific men are sadly given to shirking. they profess in general not to hold the eternity of matter, but they have nothing to suggest for its origin. they accept it as the starting point of evolution, and decline to speculate on its cause. this, as dr. christlieb observes of bauer's kindred system of criticism, is 'beginning without a beginning--everything is already extant'. we may as well start with species, as with protoplasm, if the inquiry is not to be pushed beyond the fact. the evolutionist is bound to answer whether the process is eternal, or how it began to be. either it had a beginning or it had not; if it had, creation out of nothing is conceded, and there is nothing left to dispute. it is puerile to except to the _frequency_ of creative acts on the ordinary hypothesis of specific origin, because it is freely open to science to reduce the several 'kinds' to the lowest _minimum_ it can experimentally establish. moreover--besides the utter inconsequence of such purely relative ideas as _often_ and _rare_--it is far more reasonable that an eternal, personal author of creation should watch over his work to shape and diversify it at his pleasure, than that, after a single act, he should relapse into _inertia_ like the hindu brahmin. to concentrate the whole evidence of design in one original act, ages upon ages ago, with no opening for after interference, undermines belief in a personal designer, simply because it leaves him nothing to do."[4] leaving these brutish among the people who assert the latter, to the enjoyment of their folly, let us ascertain what we can know of the great creator of the heavens and the earth. god refers the atheists of the psalmist's days to their own bodies for proofs of his intelligence, to their own minds for proofs of his personality, and to their own observation of the judgments of his providence against evil-doers for proofs of his moral government. our text ascribes for him perception and intelligence: _he that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?_ it does not say, he has an eye or an ear, but that he has the knowledge we acquire by those organs. and the argument is from the designed organ to the designing maker of it, and is perfectly irresistible. a blind god could not make a seeing man. let us look for a little at a few of the many marks of design in this organ to which god thus refers us. we shall first observe the mechanical skill displayed in the formation of the eye, and then the optical arrangements, or rather a few of them, for there are more than eight hundred distinct contrivances already observed by anatomists in the dead eye, while the great contrivance of all, the power of seeing, is utterly beyond their ken. i hold in my hand a box made of several pieces of wood glued together, and covered on the outside with leather. inside it is lined with cotton, and the cotton has a lining of fine white silk. you at once observe that it is intended to protect some delicate and precious article of jewelry, and that the maker of this box must have been acquainted with the strength of wood, the toughness of leather, the adhesiveness of glue, the softness and elasticity of cotton, the tenacity of silk, and the mode of spinning and weaving it, the form of the jewel to be placed in it, and the danger against which this box would protect it--ten entirely distinct branches of knowledge, which every child who should pick up such a box in the street would unhesitatingly ascribe to its maker. now, the box in which the eye is placed is composed of seven bones glued together internally, and covered with skin on the outside, lined with the softest fat, enveloped in a tissue compared with which the finest silk is only canvas, and the cavity is shaped so as exactly to fit the eye, while the brow projects over like a roof of a veranda, to keep off falling dust and rain from injuring it while the lid is open; and the eyebrows, like a thatch sloping outward, conduct the sweat of the brow, by which a man earns his bread, away around the outer cover, that it may not enter the eye and destroy the sight. if it were preposterous nonsense to say that electricity, or magnetism, or odyle, contrived and made a little bracelet box, how much more absurd to ascribe the making of the cavity of the eye to any such cause. let us next look at the shape of the eye. you observe it is nearly round in its section across, and rather oval in its other direction, and the cavity it lies in is shaped exactly to fit it. now there are eyes in the world angular and triangular, and even square; and as you may readily suppose, the creatures which have them can not move them; to compensate for such inconvenience, some of them, as the common fly, have several hundred. but, unless our heads were as large as sugar hogsheads, we could not be so furnished, and we must either have movable eyes or see only in one direction. accordingly, the contriver of the eye has hung it with a hinge. now there are various kinds of hinges, moving in one direction, and the maker of the eye might have made a hinge on which the eye would move up and down, or he might have given us a hinge that would bend right and left, in which case we should have been able merely to squint a little in two directions. but to enable one to see in every direction, there is only one kind of hinge that would answer the purpose--the ball and socket joint--and the former of the eye has hung it with such a hinge, retaining it in its place partly by the projection of the bones of the face, and partly by the muscles and the optic nerve, which is about as thick as a candlewick, and as tough as leather. most of you have seen a ship, and know the way the yards are moved, and turned, and squared by ropes and pulleys. the rigging of the eye, though not so large, is fully as curious. there is a tackle, called a muscle, to pull it down when you want to look down; another tackle to pull it up when you have done; one to pull it to the right, and another to the left; there is one fastened to the eyeball in two places, and geared through a pulley which will make it move in any direction, as when we roll our eyes; and the sixth, fastened to the under side of the eye, keeps it steady when we do not need to move it. then the eyelids are each provided with appropriate gearing, and need to have it durable too, for it is used thirty thousand times a day; in fact every time we wink. if god had neglected to place these little cords to pull up the eyelash, we should all have been in the condition of the unfortunate gentleman described by dr. nieuwentyt, who was obliged to pull up his eyelashes with his fingers whenever he wanted to see. there is, too, another admirable piece of forethought and skill displayed by the former of the eye, in providing a liquid to wash it, and a sponge to wipe it with, and a waste pipe, through the bone of the nose, to carry off the tears which have been used in washing and moistening the eye. now what absurdity to say that a law of nature, say gravity, or electricity, or magnetism has such knowledge of the principles of mechanics as the eye proclaims its former to have--that it could make a choice among multitudes of shapes of eyes and kinds of joints, and this choice the very best for our convenience; and that having known and chosen, it could have manufactured the various parts of this complicated machine. such a machine requires an intelligent manufacturer; and yet we have only as yet been looking at the dead eye, paying no regard to sight at all. even a blind man's eye prove an intelligent creator. let us now turn our thoughts to the instrument of sight. the optic nerve is the part of the eye which conveys visions to the mind. suppose, instead of being where you observe it, at the back part of the eye, it had been brought out to the front, and that reflections from objects had fallen directly upon it. it is obvious that it would have been exposed to injury from every floating particle of dust, and you would always have felt such a sensation as is caused by a burn or scald when the skin peels off, and leaves the ends of the nerves exposed to the air. the tender points of the fibers of the optic nerve, too, would soon become blunted and broken, and the eye, of course, useless. how, then, is the nerve to be protected, and yet the sight not obstructed? if it were covered with skin, as the other nerves are, you could not see through it. for thousands of years after men had eyes and used them, they knew no substance, at once hard and transparent, which could answer the double purpose of protection and vision. and to this day they know none hard enough for protection, clear enough for vision, and elastic enough to resume its form after a blow. but men did the best they could, and put a round piece of brittle but transparent glass in a ring of tougher metal for the protection of the hands of a watch; and he who first invented the watch crystal thought he had made a discovery. now, observe in the eye, that forward part is the watch glass; the cornea, made of a substance at once hard, transparent and elastic--which man has never been able to imitate--set into the sclerotica, that white, muscular coat which constitutes the white of your eye, acts as a frame for the cornea, and answers another important purpose, as we shall presently see. [illustration: structure of the human eye] but, supposing the end of the nerve protected by the glass, we might have had it brought up to the glass without any interposing lenses or humors, as, in fact, is nearly the case with some crustacea. we can not well imagine all the inconveniences of such an eye to us. if we could see distinctly at all, we could not see much farther or wider than the breadth of the end of the nerve at once. our sight would then be very like that faculty of perceiving colors by the points of the fingers, which some persons are said to possess. in that case, seeing would only be a nicer kind of groping, and our eyes would be more conveniently fixed on the points of our fingers; or, as with many insects, on the ends of long antennae. such a form of eye is precisely suited to the wants of an animal which has not an idea beyond its food, which has no business with any object too large for its mouth, and whose great concern is to stick to a rock and catch whatever animalculæ the water floats within the grasp of its feelers. but for a being whose intercourse should be with all the works of god, and whose chief end in such intercourse should be to behold the creator reflected in his works, it was manifestly necessary to have a wider and larger range of vision; and, therefore, a different form of eye. both these objects, breadth of field combined with length of range, are obtained by placing the optic nerve at the back of the eye, and interposing several lenses, through which objects are observed. by this arrangement a visual angle is secured, and all objects lying within it are distinctly visible at the same time. this faculty of perceiving several objects at the same time is a special property of sight which tends greatly to enlarge our conceptions of the knowledge of him who gave it. a man who never saw can have no idea of it. he can not taste two separate tastes at once, nor smell two distinct smells at once; nor feel more than one object with each hand at once; and if he hears several sounds at the same time, they either flow into each other, making a harmony, or confuse him with their discord. yet we are all conscious that we see a vast variety of distinct and separate objects at one glance of our eyes. i think it is manifest that the former of such an eye not only intended its owner to observe such a vast variety of objects, but from the capacity of his own sight to infer the vastly wider range of vision of him who gave it. besides the breadth of the field of vision, we also require length of range for the purpose of life. the thousand inconveniences which the short-sighted man so painfully feels are obvious to all. yet it may tend to reconcile such to their lot to know that thousands of the liveliest and merriest of god's creatures can not see an inch before them. small birds and insects, which feed on very minute insects, need eyes like microscopes to find them; while the eagle and the fish hawk, which soar up till they are almost out of sight, can distinctly see the hare or the herring a mile below them, and so must have eyes like telescopes. we, too, need to observe minute objects very closely, as when we read fine print, or when a lady threads a fine needle at microscope range; but, if confined to that range, we could not see our friends across the room, or find our way to the next street. again, in traveling we need to see objects miles away, and at night we see the stars millions of miles away; but then, if confined to the long range, we should be strangers at home, and never get within a mile of any acquaintance. now, how to combine these two powers, of seeing near objects and distant ones with the same eye, is the problem which the maker of the eye had to solve. let us look how man tried to solve it. a magnifying lens will collect the rays from any distant object, and convey them to a point called the focus. then suppose we put this glass in the tube of an opera-glass, or pocket spy-glass, and look through the eye-hole and the concave lens, properly adjusted, in front of it, we shall see the image of the object considerably magnified. but suppose the object draws very near, we see nothing distinctly; for the rays reflected from it, which were nearly parallel while it was at a distance, are no longer so when it comes near, but scatter in all directions, and those which fall on the lens are collected at a point much nearer to the lens than before, and the eye-glass must be pushed forward to that focus. accordingly, you know that the spy-glass is made to slide back and forward, and the telescope has a screw to lengthen or shorten the tube according to the distance of the objects observed. another way of meeting the case would be by taking out the lens, and putting in one of less magnifying power, a flatter lens, for the nearer object. now, at first sight, it would seem a very inconvenient thing to have eyes drawing out and in several inches like spy-glasses, and still more inconvenient to have twenty or thirty pairs of eyes, and to need to take out our eyes, and put in a new set twenty times a day. the ingenuity of man has been at work hundreds of years to discover some other method of adapting an optical instrument to long and short range, but without success. now, the former of the eye knew the properties of light and the properties of lenses before the first eye was made; he knew the mode of adjusting them for any distance, from the thousands of millions of miles between the eye and the star, to the half-inch distance of the mote in the sunbeam; and he had not only availed himself of both the principles which opticians discovered, but has executed his work with an infinite perfection which bungling men may admire, but can never imitate. the sclerotic coat of the eye, and the choroid which lies next it are full of muscles which, by their contraction, both press back the crystalline lens nearer the retina, and also flatten it; the vitreous humor, in which the crystalline lens lies, a fine, transparent humor, about as thick as the white of an egg, giving way behind it, and also slightly altering its form and power of refraction to suit the case. thus, that which the astronomer, or the microscopist, performs by a tedious process, and then very imperfectly, we perform perfectly, easily, instantly, and almost involuntarily, with that perfect compound microscope and telescope invented by the former of the human eye. surely, in giving us an instrument so admirably fitted for observing the lofty grandeur of the heavens and the lowlier beauties of the earth, he meant to allure us to the discovery of the perfections of the great designer and former of all these wondrous works. but there is another contrivance in the eye, adapted to lead us further to the consideration of the extent of the knowledge of its power. we are placed in a world of variable lights, of day and night, and of all the variations between light and darkness. we can not see in the full blaze of light, nor yet in utter darkness. had the eye been formed to bear only the noonday glare, we had been half blind in the afternoon, and wholly so in the evening. if the eye were formed so as to see at night, we had been helpless as owls in the day. but the variations of light in the atmosphere may be in some measure compensated, as we know, by regulating the quantity admitted to our houses--shutting up the windows. when we wish to regulate the admission of light to our rooms, we have recourse to various clumsy contrivances; paper blinds, perpetually tearing, sunblind rollers that will not roll, venetian blinds continually in need of mending, awnings blowing away with every storm, or shutters, which shut up and leave us in entire darkness. a self-acting window, which shall expand with the opening of light in the mornings and evenings, and close up of its own accord as the light increases toward noon, has never been manufactured by man. but the former of the eye took note of the necessities and conveniences of the case, and besides giving a pair of shutters to close up when we go to sleep, he has given the most admirable sunblinds ever invented. the nerve of the eye at the back of its chamber can not see without light, and its light comes through the little round window called the pupil, or black of the eye--which is simply a hole in the iris, or colored part. now this iris is formed of two sets of muscles: one set of elastic rings, which, when left to themselves, contract the opening; and another set at right angles to them, like the spokes of a wheel, pulling the inner edge of the iris in all directions to the outside. in fact it is not so much a sunblind, as a self-acting window, opening and closing the aperture according to our need of light, and doing this so instantaneously that we are not sensible of the process. it is self-evident that the maker of such an eye was acquainted with the properties of light, and the alternations of night and day, as well as with the mechanical contrivances for adjusting the eye to these variable circumstances. he has given us an eye capable of seeking knowledge among partial darkness, and of availing itself for this purpose of imperfect light; an apt symbol of our mental constitution and moral situation in a world where good and evil, light and darkness, mix and alternate. perhaps some one is ready to ask, what is the use of so many lenses in the eye? it seems as if the crystalline lens and the optic nerve were sufficient for the purpose of sight, with the cornea simply to protect them. what is the use of the aqueous humor and the vitreous humor? light, when refracted through the lens, becomes separated into its component colors--red, yellow, green, blue, and violet; and the greater the magnifying power of the lens, and the brighter the object viewed, the greater the dispersion of the rays. so that if the crystalline lens of the eye alone were used, we should see every white object bluish in the middle, and yellowish and reddish at the edges; or, in vulgar language, we should see starlight. this difficulty perplexed sir isaac newton all his life, and he never discovered the mode of making a refracting telescope which would obviate it. but m. dolland, an optician, reflecting that the very same difficulty must have presented itself to the maker of the eye, determined to ascertain how he had obviated it. he found that the maker of the eye had a knowledge of the fact that different substances have different powers of refracting or bending the rays of light which pass through them, and that liquids have generally a different power of refraction from solids. for instance, if you put a straight stick in water, the part under water will seem bent at a considerable angle, while if you put the stick through a little hole in a pane of glass it will not seem so much bent. he further discovered that oil of cassia had a different power of refraction from water, and the white of an egg still a different power. he discovered also that the first lens of the eye, the aqueous humor, is very like water; that the crystalline lens is a firm jelly, and that the vitreous humor is about the consistency of the white of an egg. the combination of these three lenses, of different powers of refraction, secures the correction of their separate errors. he could not make telescope lenses of jelly, nor water; therefore, he could not make a perfect achromatic telescope, but he learned the lesson of mutual compensations of difficulties which the maker of the eye teaches the reflecting anatomist, and procuring flint and crown glass of different degrees of refraction, he arranged them in the achromatic lens so as nearly to remedy the defect. i think that you will at once admit that dolland's attempt to remedy the evils of confused sight in the telescope indicated a desire to obtain a precise and correct view of the objects; and that his success in constructing an instrument, nearly perfect, for the use of astronomers, gave evidence that he himself had a clear idea of that perfect and accurate vision which he thus attempted to bestow on them. shall we then imagine any inaccuracy in the sight of him, who not only desired, but executed and bestowed on us, an instrument so perfectly adapted to the imperfections of this lower world, and whose very imperfections are the materials from which he produces clear and perfect vision? no! in god's eye there are no chromatic refractions of passions, or prejudice, or party feeling, or self-love. he sees no reflected or refracted light. o father of light! with whom is no variableness, or shadow of turning, open our eyes to behold thee clearly! our text thus leads us to a knowledge of god's character, from the structure of the bodies he has given us. he that formed my eye sees. though my feeble vision is by no means a standard or limit for his omniscience, yet i may conclude that every perfection of the power of sight he has given me existed previously in him. has he endowed me, a poor puny mortal, the permanent tenant of only two yards of earth, with an eye capable of ranging over earth's broad plains and lofty mountains, of traversing her beauteous lakes and lovely rivers, of scanning her crowded cities, and inspecting all their curious productions, and specially delighting to investigate the bodily forms of men, and their mental characters displayed on the printed page? has he given me the principle of curiosity, without which such an endowment were useless? then most undoubtedly he has himself both the desire to observe all the works of his hands, and the power to gratify that desire. the former of the eye must of necessity be the great observer. wheresoever an eye is found of his handiwork, and wheresoever sight is preserved by his skill, let the owner of such an instrument know that if he can see, god can, and as surely as he sees, god does. if it is possible for us to behold many objects distinctly at once, it is not impossible for god to behold more. if he has given us an eye to look from earth to heaven, then his eye sees from heaven to earth. if i can see accurately, god's inspection is much more impartial. and if he has given me the power of adjusting my imperfect vision to the varying lights and shades of this changing scene, let me not dream for a moment that he is destitute of a corresponding power of investigating difficulties, and penetrating darknesses, and bringing to light hidden works and secret things. god is light. in him is no darkness at all. neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and opened to the eyes of him with whom i have to do. he has seen all my past life--my faults, my follies, and my crimes. when i thought myself in darkness and privacy, god's eye was upon me there. in the turmoil of business, god's eye was upon me. in the crowd of my ungodly companions, god's eye was upon me. in the darkness and solitude of night, god's eye was upon me. and god's eye is on me now, and will follow me from this house, and will watch me and observe all my actions, on--on--on--while god lives, and wheresoever god's creation extends. "o god, thou has searched and known me; thou knowest my down sitting and mine uprising; thou understandest my thoughts afar off. thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways for there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo! o lord, thou knowest it altogether. thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. such knowledge is too wonderful for me! it is high, i can not attain unto it; whither shall i go from thy spirit? and whither shall i flee from thy presence? if i ascend up into heaven, thou art there, if i make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there! if i take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. if i say, 'surely the darkness shall cover me,' even the night shall be light about me; yea the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day, the darkness and the light are both alike to thee." footnotes: [1] reid's chemistry, ii. § 37. [2] johnson's turner's chemistry, § 341. [3] it might be supposed that such a theory is too palpably absurd to be believed by any save the inmates of a lunatic asylum, had not the writer, and hundreds of the citizens of cincinnati, seen a lecturer perform the ordinary experiment of producing colored precipitates by mixing colorless solutions, as a demonstration of the self-acting powers of matter. common sense, being a gift of god, is righteously withdrawn from those who deny him. [4] john bull. chapter ii. was your mother a monkey? in the previous chapter we saw the evidences of god's skill and wisdom in the adaptations of nature, fitting the organs of animals for hearing, walking, and eating, and especially in the structure of the human eye. this has long been owned by candid minds as an unanswerable argument, demonstrating the being of god by the works of his hands. but since that chapter was written a school of scientists has arisen, of whom mr. darwin is at present the most popular, claiming to be able to show how all the species of living things can evolve, not only their eyes, but their legs and wings and lungs, and every part of them, from a little bit of primeval life stuff, called protoplasm, by the influence of natural selection. mr. darwin owns that the formation of an eye is rather a tough job for a little pin point germ of protoplasm; but he has no doubt that it has been done, and he writes several books to show us how. we propose to look into this self-evolving process, as he and his brother evolutionists describe their theory. it is necessary, right here at the outset, to distinguish the theory of the evolutionists from the great fact of evolution. almighty god created the world, not only for his own pleasure, but also for his own glory, that men and angels might learn to know him by his works. creation is thus god's great object lesson for men and angels to learn. but learning is a process, gradual, slow, from one step to another. therefore the object lesson must not be precipitated all in a heap upon the infantile intellects of the learners, but unfolded by degrees. geologists assure us that so it was in the past; that first the lifeless strata were deposited; next, light was evolved; afterward, fishes, and marine reptiles, and birds; then came the carboniferous or plant era; afterward the mammalia; last of all man. you observe here an ascending scale of creation, beginning with first principles and simple forms, and ascending to the most complicated; a series of experiments in god's great lecture-room, illustrative of the various steps of the evolution of the divine idea. but six thousand years before geology was born moses described this same evolution of creation, in the first chapter of genesis. as he could not have learned it from any science known in his day, god himself must have shown it to him. the divine idea is still in process of evolution for our instruction. we behold it in the continual formation of new strata by the destruction of the old; in the chemical combinations of the elements of the air, sea, and earth; in the evolution of the grass from the seed, and of the oak from the acorn; in the development of the insect germ into the caterpillar, and the butterfly; in the hatching of the egg into the chicken; and in the growth of the infant into the man. we observe also a divine development of society, an advance of civilization, a providential guidance of history, and a fall and disorder among mankind, with a process of redemption, medical, educational, political and religious, for the human race. the whole process, therefore, of the creation, natural history, and moral government of the world, is the development of a divine idea, according to a divine plan, by the direct or mediate efficacy of divine power, for the accomplishment of the divine purpose as revealed to us in the divine word, the holy scriptures. galen taught that the study of physiology was a divine hymn. this divine development is to be clearly and sharply distinguished from the atheistic theory of evolution. they differ in the following particulars: 1. the divine development of the world is a great fact; the theory of atheistic evolution is only a baseless theory, a fiction. 2. the divine development begins in the beginning, with god, creating the heavens and the earth; but the theory of atheistic evolution has no beginning, asserting the eternal existence of a changing world. 3. the divine development is the unfolding of an intelligent plan, showing the adaptation of means to ends for the accomplishment of a purpose; the atheistic theory of evolution denies plan, purpose, adaptation and final cause. 4. the divine development is conducted, and continually reinforced by the will of the omnipotent god; the atheistic development evolves only the forces of matter. 5. the divine development has a moral character, and terminates in the highest holiness and happiness of all obedient men and angels; but the atheistic development contemplates and promises only the evolution of animal instinct and passions, the eternal death of the individual, and, for the universe, only purposeless cycles of progress, and catastrophies of ruin. in this chapter we discuss only the theory of atheistic evolution. in the discussion of all questions affecting human life it is advantageous to trace them to their origin, and to follow them out to their practical results. thus we get a clear view of the whole subject, and are enabled to assign to it its proper influence. it is also a great benefit to the mass of mankind to conduct such discussions in plain language, and to translate the roundabout phrases, and the latinized words of scientific men, as much as we can, into the vulgar tongue; to state the subjects of discussion so as to be understood of the people. so we shall put the whole business of darwinism and development before you, reader, in a nutshell, by simply asking you the question at the head of this chapter, "was your mother a monkey?" what a question! well, then, your grandmother? her grandmother? or does it seem less offensive, or more likely to you to go back some thousands of years, and say your forefathers were apes? that is exactly what mr. darwin says when we translate his scientific language into the vulgar tongue: "the early progenitors of man were no doubt once covered with hair, both sexes having beards; their ears were pointed and capable of movement; and their bodies were provided with a tail having the proper muscles. the foot, judging from the condition of the great toe in the foetus, was then prehensile, and our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in their habits, frequenting some warm forest-clad land. the males were provided with great canine teeth, which served them as formidable weapons."[5] this ancient form "if seen by a naturalist, would undoubtedly have been ranked as an ape or a monkey. and as man, under a genealogical point of view, belongs to the catarhine or old world stock (of monkeys), we must conclude, however much the conclusion may revolt our pride, that our early progenitors would have been properly thus designated."[6] so here you have your genealogy, name and thing fully described. mr. darwin thinks it is quite an honorable pedigree: "thus we have given to man a pedigree of prodigious length, but not, it may be said, of noble quality. * * * unless we willfully close our eyes, we may, with our present knowledge, approximately recognize our parentage, nor need we feel ashamed of it. the most humble organism is something much higher than the inorganic dust under our feet; and no one with an unbiased mind can study any living creature, however humble, without being struck with enthusiasm at its marvelous structure and properties."[a] there are people, however, who do not grow enthusiastic at the idea of their long-tailed progenitors; but there is no accounting for taste in such matters! for elderly people, who do not take so enthusiastically to monkeys as his junior readers, mr. darwin has provided a rather less gymnastic ancestry. how would you like to have a fish for your forefather? if it were one of neptune's noble tritons, or the philistine fish-god, dagon, or a mermaid, it might not be so repulsive as the ape; or even a twenty-pound salmon, flashing its silver and blue in the sunlight as it spins the line off the reel, might not be so utterly disgusting as the monkey burlesque of humanity. but, alas! mr. darwin has been sent to this proud nineteenth century as the prophet to teach us humility, and here is the scientific statement of the structure of our fishy forefathers: "at a still earlier period the progenitors of man must have been aquatic in their habits, for morphology plainly tells us that our lungs consist of a modified swim bladder which once served as a float. these early predecessors of man thus seen in the dim recesses of time must have been as lowly organized as the lancelot or amphibioxus, or even still more lowly organized."[7] that certainly is a very humble origin. we are not, however, by any means to the end of our pedigree. mr. darwin says that your codfish aristocracy are descended from a race of squirts--the squirts which you picked up on the shore and squeezed, when you were a boy, discharging these primitive babcock extinguishers upon your playfellows, irreverently regardless of the harm done the poor squirt, the ancestor of the human race. if you doubt it, here is the latest deliverance of infallible science upon the subject. he describes the ascidians: "they hardly appear like animals, and consist of a simple tough leathery sack, with two small projecting orifices. they belong to the molluscoida of huxley, a lower division of the great family of the mollusca; but they have recently been placed by some naturalists among the vermes or worms. their larvæ somewhat resemble tadpoles in shape, and have the power of swimming freely about. * * * we should thus be justified in believing that, at an extremely remote period, a group of animals existed resembling in many respects the larvæ of our present ascidians, which diverged into two great branches, the one retrograding in development and producing the present class of ascidians, the other rising to the crown and summit of the animal kingdom, by giving birth to the vertebrata."[8] thus it appears that mr. darwin deduces his origin, and that of mankind in general, from one of these ascidians, or, in plain english, makes them a race of squirts. the notion of evolution is a belief that all living beings, plants as well as animals, have not been created, but, like topsy, just grew, from the very smallest germs or spores. evolutionists inform us that all kinds of organisms have been evolved from four or five primeval germs or spores; or more consistently with their great principle, that the simple gave birth to the differentiated, from one primeval germ or egg. mr. darwin alleges four or five primal forms, acknowledging that analogy would lead him up to one. but other members of this school consistently and boldly follow up the stream to its fountain, and allege a single primeval living seed as the origin of all living things, and that this must have been a microscopic animalcule, or plant spore, of the very lowest order, which, multiplying its kind, gave birth to improved and enlarged offspring; and they, in their turn, grew, and multiplied, and differentiated into varieties; and so, in the course of endless ages, the poorer sorts perishing and the better sorts prospering, the world became filled with its existing populations, without any new creative acts of god, and without any particular providential care over the new species. the particular process according to which this multiplication and improvement took place, mr. darwin calls natural selection. every creature tends to increase and multiply; and the very slowest breeders would soon fill the earth, were their multiplication not checked by hunger, by the attacks of enemies, and by the struggle for existence. but all are not born alike strong, or swift, or of the same color; some of the same brood are better fitted to escape enemies, or to fight the battle of life, than others. these will survive, while the weak ones perish. this mr. wallace calls, the survival of the fittest. they will transmit their superior size, or swiftness, or better color, or whatever superiority they possess, to their offspring. the process will go on in successive generations, each adding an infinitesimal quantity to the stock gained by the past generation; just as breeders of improved stock increase the weight of cattle by breeding from the largest; or breeders of race-horses increase the speed by breeding from the swiftest. in this way varieties from the same family will grow into different species. and, as only those differences which are beneficial to the animal are preserved, they will grow into improved species; and, as variations of all sorts take place, so all sorts of varieties and species arise in process of time. all will thus tend to perfect themselves according to the laws of nature, and without any special oversight or care of god, or of anybody but natural selection; which mr. darwin takes special care to describe as an unintelligent selector. he defines the nature which selects to be "the aggregate action and product of natural laws," and these laws are "the sequences of events as ascertained by us." he ridicules the idea of god's special endowment of the fantail pigeon with additional feathers, or of the bull dog's jaws with strength, and says, "but if we give up the principle in the one case, if we do not admit that the variations of the primeval dog were intentionally guided in order, for instance, that the greyhound, that perfect image of symmetry and vigor, might be formed; no shadow of reason can be assigned for the belief that variations alike in nature, and the results of the same general laws which have been the groundwork through natural selection of the most perfectly adapted animals in the world, man included, were intentionally and specially guided."[9] this, then, is the grand distinctive difference of mr. darwin's mode of producing the various animals; namely, that it is unintelligent, their variations are not designed nor intended by the creator, but they are the results of a method of trial and error, producing a hit-and-miss pattern. the failures all perish, and the successes live and prosper; but there is no intentional or special guidance of god in the business. and the business includes the whole process of peopling the globe, from the creation of the first four or five germs down to the last formation of human society. god is thus dismissed from the greatest part of the world's life, including all human affairs. this is not exactly atheism in theory, but practically it amounts to much the same thing. it is this excommunication of god's agency from the management of the world, and especially from human affairs, by mr. darwin's method, which has so commended his books to the ungodly world. there is a general agreement among this class of writers, that mr. darwin has destroyed the basis of the argument for the being of god from design as displayed in the adaptations of birds and beasts to their conditions. mr. huxley says that "when he first read mr. darwin's book, what struck him most forcibly was the conviction that teleology, as commonly understood, had received its death blow at mr. darwin's hands."[10] "for the notion that every organism has been created as it is, and launched straight at a purpose, mr. darwin substitutes the conception of something which may fairly be termed a method of trial and error. organisms vary incessantly; of these variations the few meet with surrounding conditions which suit them and thrive; the many are unsuited and become extinguished. * * * for the teleologist (the christian) an organism exists, because it was made for the conditions in which it was found. for the darwinian an organism exists, because out of many of its kind it is the only one which has been able to persist in the conditions in which it was found. * * * if we apprehend the spirit of the origin of species rightly, then nothing can be more entirely and absolutely opposed to teleology, as it is commonly understood, than the darwinian theory."[11] prof. haeckel argues to the same purpose that darwin's theory leads inevitably to atheism and materialism. dr. buchner says of darwin's theory, "it is the most thoroughly naturalistic that can be imagined, and far more atheistic than that of his decried predecessor, lamarck." carl vogt also commends it because "it turns the creator, and his occasional intervention in the revolution of the earth and in the production of species, without any hesitation out of doors, inasmuch as it does not leave the smallest room for the agency of such a being. the first living germ being granted, out of it the creation develops itself progressively by natural selection, through all the geologic periods of our planet, by the simple law of descent. no new species arise by creation, and none perishes by annihilation; the natural cause of things, the process of evolution of all organisms, and of the earth itself, is of itself sufficient for the production of all we see. thus man is not a special creation, produced in a different way, and distinct from other animals, endowed with an individual soul, and animated by the breath of god; on the contrary, man is only the highest product of the progressive evolution of animal life, springing from the group of apes next below him."[12] whether, therefore, mr. darwin himself intends his theory to be atheistic or not, it has had the misfortune to be so viewed by the greater number of its supporters; and, accordingly, it is this view of it which we shall keep prominent in the following discussion. mr. darwin does undoubtedly intend his theory to be antagonistic to the bible account of creation and providence, and an improvement upon it; and, whether atheistic or not, it is undoubtedly anti-christian. _i. the history of the theory._ the first thing which strikes a common person on first hearing this theory is that it is a very queer notion for any christian man to invent. we are naturally curious to know how a man, educated in a christian country, could have fallen into it. but it is, in fact, no new discovery, but an old heathen superstition. some four hundred years before christ, when the world had almost wholly apostatized into idolatry, democritus, among the greeks, became offended with the vulgar heathen gods, and set himself to invent a plan of the world without them. from eastern travelers the greeks knew that the brahmins, in india, had a theory of the world developing itself from a primeval egg. he set himself to refine upon it, and imagined virtually the nebular hypothesis. he said that all matter consisted of very small atoms, dancing about in all directions, from all eternity, and which at last happened into the various forms of the present world. the ancient phoenicians held a theory that all life was from the sea; and that, as the wet mud produces all sorts of herbs in spring now, so originally it produced all manner of animals. they worshiped it as a god, and called it mot, or mud. anaximander took up the theory and carried it out in true darwinian style, alleging that the first men sprang from the ground watered by the sea, and that they had spines like sea urchins; evidently deriving them from the radiates. lucretius still further developed the theory in a poem in six books. the spread of christianity, however, hindered the spread of the doctrine, as mr. tyndall feelingly laments, until the saracens overspread the east, when some of them, it seems, favored it. but it seems to be an unlucky dogma, since, with the downfall of the power of the false prophet, the anti-christian form of science went down again. the dogma of the transmutation of species reappeared, however, in the romish church in a religious form; the old heathenism, which had never been wholly banished from the minds of men, thus reasserting itself. about the tenth century some began to teach that the bread of the communion of the lord's supper was transubstantiated, and the wine also, into the body, and blood, and soul, and divinity of our lord jesus christ. this is probably the most complete transmutation of species which has ever been imagined or described. the evolution of bread into deity is only equaled by mr. tyndall's endowment of matter with all the potencies of life and thought; a miracle differing from the popish transubstantiation only in the element of time, but in its essential nature equally supernatural. the dogma excited great discussion for centuries, and produced as many theories of transubstantiation as we now observe of evolution, keeping philosophic minds and pens busy till the dawn of modern science after the reformation. la place threw out the nebular hypothesis, which is substantially democritus' concourse of atoms, only la place endeavored to substitute circular motions under the law of gravitation, instead of democritus' chance arrangement, as a sufficient cause for the formation and motions of planets. herschel's discovery of the nebulæ was hastily laid hold of by a number of writers, and notably by the author of the vestiges of creation, as furnishing the primeval matter necessary for world-making; and till the spectroscopic discoveries of the composite nature of gaseous nebulæ, they were claimed as specimens of worlds in process of formation. la place supposed his nebulous matter to be gas in a state of white-heat combustion, compared with which the heat of the hottest fire would be a cool bath. in no other way could he dissipate the world's substance into sufficient thinness for his vortices. but spencer saw that this tremendous heat would be fatal to all forms of life, and especially to sensitive beings; and tyndall shows us that this original matter must have had all the potencies of life and sensation, and a potency of sensation means being able to feel. now the worst fate threatened against sinners in the bible is a place in the lake burning with fire and brimstone, which burns at 500° fahrenheit; but the temperature of the original fire-mist was a thousand times hotter. some of these scientists call such a fate as the bible threatens against the wicked, cruel. but here is a hell manufactured by the evolutionists infinitely worse than that of the bible; for the hell of the bible is only for the wicked, but the evolutionists' hell is indiscriminately for all, saints and sinners, and all sorts of creatures, innocent as babes unborn of any crime; yet they, or, which is the same thing, the matter containing all the potency of their sensations, that is their power of feeling, were born in this hell, and kept in it from all eternity, until it pleased the evolutionists to begin to cool it down a little. however, it was rather scientific than benevolent reasons which induced mr. spencer to reverse the order of procedure, and make his star dust cold to begin with, and to heat it up by condensation and pressure to about the temperature of molten iron; which was still an uncomfortably warm lodging for mr. tyndall's potencies of sensation for some millions of years. the division of opinion about the original nebulæ, however, still prevails; some evolutionists of the old-fashioned order still taking their nebulæ hot, while others, with spencer, prefer it cold, with star dust. as to the spontaneous generation of life, there has been less progress of opinion, though great variety has been exhibited. ovid and virgil describe the way in which a carcass produces bees. it was generally believed that putrid meat produced the maggots, till the blow-flies were discovered laying their eggs. then it was alleged that the entozoa, the worms found in the bodies of animals, were self-produced, without eggs, until the microscope discovered that one could lay 60,000 eggs. strauss, however, adhered to the idea that as the tapeworm, as he supposed, was self-produced, so man was originated by the primeval slime. so also professor vogt, and m. tremaux develop their animals from the land, and the latter accounts for their various qualities from the various qualities of their respective birthplaces, the crop being conditioned by the soil. but mr. darwin derives all his organisms from the sea. electricity in its galvanic form was for a while the agent to fire the earthly or marine mud with the vital spark; and mr. crosse's experiments were supposed instances of the creation of acarii or mites in the battery bath, until it was found that the bath contained eggs and the electricity only hatched them. some english evolutionists still adhere to the theory of spontaneous generation, but the leading germans deny any instance of it being known. huxley denies that any case of it has been established as now practicable; but supposes that if we could have been present at the beginning of the world, when all the elements were young and vigorous, we should have seen the chemical elements of the earth and air combining to form living beings, by the mere powers of their nature. if that were the fact, it would be a fact unique and unparalleled, utterly out of the course of nature, and so as contrary to the theory of evolution as if these living beings had been inspired with life by almighty god. so the theory here again is divided. two utterly irreconcilable ideas of the origin of life claim our belief--the theories of biogenesis, and of abiogenesis, the one says all life is from the egg, and has always been so; and so we have an eternal begetting of finite creatures; the other alleges the spontaneous beginning of plants and animals; a fact, if it be a fact, as unparalleled as creation, and far more miraculous. as to the history of the progress of the germs of plants and animals thus produced, we find still greater diversities of opinion, not only as to details, but as to principles. each inventor has added to, or altered, the original idea of evolution, until it has been burdened with more improvements and new patents than the sewing machine; only the evolutionary improvements bid fair to improve the theory out of existence. we have seen m. tremaux, with the autochthonic athenians, deriving the powers of improvement of plants and animals from their native soils. lamarck on the contrary, inspired all his plants and animals--fungi and frogs, and elephants and apes--with the desire of getting on in the world and improving their limbs by exercise; so the greyhound grew slim and fleet by running; the giraffe's neck elongated by reaching up to the branches of the trees on which it browsed, and the duck acquired web feet by swimming. others attributed the evolution of differences to external conditions. the negro became black by exposure to the tropical sun; the arctic hare received its coat of thick white fur from the cold climate, and the buffalo and camel their humps of fat from the sterility of their pastures at certain seasons, and the consequent need of a reserved store of fat for food for the rest of the body. mr. darwin's doctrine of natural selection refuses lamarck's notion of any conscious attempt of the plant or animal at improvement; and equally denies the power of external nature to improve anything, except by killing off poor specimens, save in that very limited range where good pastures make fat animals for a season or two. an innate power of accidental variation to a very small amount, and the slow but constant adding up of profitable variations during countless generations, with the killing off of the unimproved breeds by natural selection, is his patent populator and improver. but this theory is too slow for the nineteenth century, and so neither huxley, nor parsons, nor mivart, nor even wallace, accepts the doctrine as darwin propounds it. it is, in fact, already becoming unpopular among scientific men. lyell proposed the origination of new species by leaps; as we see great geniuses born of commonplace parents; and huxley supports that opinion, and parsons, owen and mivart coincide in this inexplicable explanation. the author of the vestiges of creation accounts for improved species from a prolongation of the period of gestation. but hyatt and cope derive them from quite the contrary process--accelerated development of gestation. mm. ferris and kolliker derive them from parthenogenesis, a mode of genesis of which our world offers no example whatever. the origin of man, with all his mental powers and religious aspirations, is the great difficulty. mr. mivart excludes man wholly from the influence of natural selection, from the time he acquired a soul. mr. wallace, rejecting the action of one supreme intelligence for everything but the origin of universal forces and laws, "contemplates the possibility that the development of the essentially human portions of man's structure and intellect may have been determined by the directing influence of some higher intelligent beings acting through natural and universal laws;"[13] _i. e._, the gods of the old heathen nations. and so after twenty-two centuries wandering over the world, we have got back to where democritus started from--to pure old heathenism. after such a history of the theory of evolution, and in presence of such contradictory presentations by its advocates, i need scarcely say that it is by no means an established scientific principle, were it not for the insolent manner in which some of them assert it as scientifically demonstrated; and denounce the bible doctrine of creation as mere superstition, "a feather bed of respectable and respected tradition," and warn off christians from any attempt to investigate theories of cosmogony; and overbear the ignorant by the array of the names of men of science who give their sanction to some phase of the theory. but let it be borne in mind that no well-established scientific principle, no demonstrated law, exhibits such contradictory and conflicting phases as those we have just witnessed. the laws of gravitation, or of chemical affinity, for instance, offer no such contradictions of their adherents; because they are founded on facts, while evolution is a mere notion, founded on ignorance and error, as we shall presently see. accordingly, by far the greater number of the greatest scientists oppose it, as utterly unscientific, and have recorded their opposition, and the reasons for it. sir john herschel and sir wm. thompson, among astronomers, have proclaimed its antagonism to the facts of physical astronomy. no new facts subversive of the foundations of faith in god as recognized in the universe by bacon, newton, boyle, descartes, leibnitz, pascal, paley and bell, have been discovered by such scientists as whewell, sedgwick, brewster, faraday, hugh miller, or our american geologists, dawson, hitchcock, and dana. nor have the deliberate and expanded demonstrations of its unscientific character by the late lamented agassiz been ever fairly met, much less overturned. i refer to these honored names for the benefit of that large class who must take their science upon faith in some scientific prophet or apostle, in default of any possibility of personal investigation of the facts. indeed, to the great majority, even of so-called scientific men, their science must be founded upon faith in the dogma of some scientific pope and council. and to such it may be reassuring, amidst the evolutionists' cries of science! science! to know that a great many of the greatest scientists, in spite of all these confused assertions, do still believe in almighty god, do call their souls their own, and hope when they die to go to heaven. as a specimen of the contempt in which this theory is held by the princes of science, read the following extract of an address by agassiz, at a recent meeting of the academy of science:[14] "as i grow older in the ranks of science," said the professor, "i feel more and more the danger of stretching inferences from a few observations to a wide field. i see that the younger generation among naturalists are at this moment falling into the mistake of making assertions and presenting views as scientific principles which are not even based upon real observation. i think it is time that some positive remonstrance be made against that tendency. the manner in which the evolution theory in zoology is treated would lead those who are not special zoologists to suppose that observations have been made by which it can be inferred that there is in nature such a thing as change among organized beings actually taking place. _there is no such thing on record._ it is shifting the ground from one field of observation to another to make this statement, and when the assertions go so far as to exclude from the domain of science those who will not be dragged into this mire of mere assertion, then it is time to protest. "he thought it was intolerant to say he was not on scientific grounds because he was not falling into the path which was occupied by those who maintain that all organized beings have been derived from a few original progenitors. other supporters of the transmutation doctrine assume that they can demonstrate the changes to have taken place by showing certain degrees of resemblance; but what they never touch is the quality and condition of those few first progenitors from which they were evolved. they assume that they contained all that is necessary to evolve what exists now. that is begging the question at the outset; for if these first prototypes contained the principle of evolution, we should know something about them from observation, and it should be shown that there are such organized beings as are capable of evolution. "i ask, whence came these properties? if this power and capacity of change is not inherent to the first progenitors, then i ask, whence came the impulses by which those progenitors which have not this power of change in themselves acquire them? what is the power by which they are started in directions which are not determined by their primitive nature? from the total silence of the supporters of the transmutation theory on these and other points, _he did not think it worth their while to take the slightest notice of this doctrine of evolution in his scientific considerations_. he acknowledged what the evolutionists had done incidentally in scientific research; none had done more than mr. darwin. he believed he had been injured woefully by his adherents. he was a far better man than most of his school made him." it is to be acknowledged, however, that many scientists are evolutionists. mr. darwin is not alone in his belief. if he were, it would not be worth while to spend time in examining it. quite a number of scientific men have fallen into it, and lecture and write commendations of it; and it has become quite popular among a certain class who do not like to accept the bible doctrine that god created man, with its necessary consequence that the creature ought to obey his creator; and they have proceeded to patch it out into completeness--for, as you observe, it is a little defective; like its own primeval squirt, it lacks a head and a tail--it has neither a beginning nor an end properly fitted to it. it takes a piece out of the middle of the universe from the management of god, but it leaves the beginning and the end totally unaccounted for; telling us neither whence came the first germs, nor whither tends the final fully developed angel. mr. darwin, though he calls one of his works, the origin of species, really avoids the question of origin. he admits the miracle of the creation of the four or five original germs of life, which, according to the evolutionists, is as unscientific as if he admitted four or five hundred. they desire to escape the operation of god altogether. moreover, he gives no account of the origin of the law of heredity, by which each being produces its like; nor yet of the origin of the power of variation, according to which profitable variations occur. here, then, is still a field in which god reigns. but it is specially with mr. darwin's admission of the creator to bestow the origin of life that evolutionists are displeased. if they admit god at the beginning of the world they see plainly that there is no possibility of getting rid of him afterward. messrs. huxley, spencer, tyndall, buchner, haeckel and vogt combine their forces accordingly to evolve the world as we find it without god's intervention. mr. huxley, perceiving that to make either man, or monkey, or nomad, you must have materials, kindly brings a little pitcher of protoplasm, which he calls the physical basis of life. it is the meat our cæsar feeds on, and indeed, for that matter, all living things. all vegetable and animal tissues are made up mostly of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen; and as the materials of which all living beings are built are the same originally, and are simply these chemical substances with a little iron, salt and lime, with their properties, he will have it that all life, including man's life and thought, is merely a development of protoplasm. this is the clay out of which all the various bricks, and tiles, and tea cups, and porcelain vases of the great world building are built. we don't need to begin with monkeys, nor fish, or pollywogs, now to develop into men, for we go down to the very bottom, since we have the stuff they all are made of, namely, protoplasm. still this clay needs a potter to mold and bake it. the difficulty about the protoplasm is that it must be _alive_. you can not get a living pollywog, no more than a living elephant, out of dead protoplasm. mr. huxley shows very well that all protoplasm consists of the same materials; in fact, that all flesh is grass, as the scripture says. the difficulty is how to convert the grass into flesh, unless by some animal eating it; or to convert the nitrogen, carbon and water into grass or grain, or any other form of protein or protoplasm, without the previous action of some plant. in short, how are we to make the chemical materials live? here mr. tyndall comes in and endows the matter of the universe with life, and with all the potency of producing bodies and souls. in his famous belfast address he says: "abandoning all disguise, the confession that i feel bound to make before you is that i prolong the vision backward, beyond the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern in this matter, which we in our ignorance, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of every form and quality of life." yet, after all this marvelous endowment of matter with all potency, we have not got quite back to the beginning. for still the questions arise, where did this almighty matter come from? who endowed it with these wonderful potencies? and how does it happen to work so well, in such orderly and regular evolution of star dust, suns, planets, pollywogs, monkeys, men and maggots, in eternal cycles, ever advancing higher and doing better and better for the race, though poorly enough, it appears, for the miserable individuals? here buchner, vogt, spencer and other materialists come in and perfect that which was lacking; showing how the star dust made itself, and how the paving stones made themselves, and are under no obligations to any creator but themselves. matter and force are all they need, and endless time in which to work, and they will account for the universe without any creator at all. everything and every person must be just as it is, according to the regular operation of the laws of nature. as buchner, vogt and spencer have given the system a head, lubbock, evans and others have supplied it with a tail, and demonstrated how society, and morals, and religion have been excogitated by the apes out of their meditations in the forests. it is a fearful and wonderful account they give us of the origin of marriage from the battles of the baboons, of the rights of property established by terrible fights for groves of good chestnuts, of the beginnings of morals from the instincts of brutes, and of the dawnings of religion, or rather of superstition, from the dreams of these animals; the result of the whole being that civilization, and society, and law, and order, and religion, are all simply the evolution of the instincts of the brutes, and that there is no necessity for invoking any supernatural interference to produce them. the termination of the whole, as far as you and i are concerned, is that "we shall fade away as the faint cloud melts into the blue ether," into the eternal sleep of death. it thus appears that there is an orderly succession and attempted adjustment of one part of the doctrine of evolution to another, and that all the various workers are cooperating toward one grand result. it is true they differ widely in their professed religious creeds and political partialities. mr. darwin avows his belief in a creator. mr. huxley votes on the london school board for the introduction of the bible into the public schools. mr. spencer is willing to allow the existence of some great unknowable mystery. some of the french and german evolutionists dispense with any reference to god, as an unnecessary hypothesis. others oppose the idea of god altogether, as inimical to progress. m. comte proposed a worship of humanity. m. strauss would worship the universe. but with all this variety of uniform, and armor, and tactics, the evolutionists are all soldiers of the same army, and are all fighting the same great battle, for the brutal origin of man, and his independence of god. from which independence of god, and brutal origin of mankind, result very important consequences. for the belief of this notion necessarily destroys all faith in the bible, and in the christianity which it reveals, and revolutionizes the basis of the civilization founded upon it, and all the laws protecting life, property, marriage and religion; which laws are based upon the belief of mankind in the dignity of man, the sacredness of human life, and the sanction of morality by the all-seeing judge of all the earth, who will reward every man according to his works. for all practical purposes it makes no great difference whether a man denies that there is any god at all, or admits that there is some kind of a god who created the world millions of years ago, and just set it a spinning to work out its destiny as best it might, but never after concerned himself about it, or its people, and never will; for nobody will ever trouble his head about a god who never troubles his head about him. most of the evolutionists are zealous advocates of their system. these propagandists have had such a degree of success in attracting public attention, in inspiring a large proportion of the secular press, besides scientific journals, as advocates of their notions, and in obtaining entrance for them into the common school books, put into the hands of our children, and into massive quartos published by state legislatures with the money of christian people, and in the prevalent corruption of public morals and breach of private trusts necessarily resulting from the evolution of these principles, that we are compelled, in self-defense, to examine the doctrine of evolution. it is all very well for mr. tyndall to warn off everybody, but evolutionists, from any investigations into cosmogony; about which he owns that they know very little now, and will not know much for some millions of years to come. but common people, who will not live so long, but who in the meantime have to live and make money, and save it, who have children to rear, and houses which they do not want burned over their heads, who have taxes to pay, increasing every year, and public plunderers to prosecute and whose ballots may be asked one of these days for the substitution of the communes of the original apes, and the red republic for these united states, all upon the alleged scientific proof for the truth of the doctrine of evolution, and the consequent abolishment of christianity--common people, i maintain, by whose money and votes this dogma is to be established, will not be debarred from asking the why and the wherefore, neither by mr. tyndall, nor by any other scientific pope. it is a little too late in the day for men who do not know their own mind from the alps to belfast, and who doubt whether god made them whenever they are dyspeptic, to stand up before the public demanding that we shut our eyes and open our mouths, and swallow every preposterous notion they think proper to proclaim as science, to the destruction of our faith in the god who made us, of our respect for our brethren of mankind, and of our hope of heaven. _ii. the illogical structure of the theory._ when men come before the world with a dogma freighted with such wide-reaching revolutions, they ought to be prepared to furnish the most irrefragable proofs of its truth, and of its obligation and authority. we should be able to establish it beyond all controversy as based on a series of facts which take their place historically in the line of the inductive sciences; about which all men of science are agreed, as all astronomers, for instance, are agreed about gravitation; and we should be able to show that each of the alleged consequences flows inevitably and logically from these established facts. ignorance, hypothesis, assumption of facts, sophisms, begging the question, and the like, are wholly impertinent in any such discussion. were they even tolerable in the field of metaphysical discussion, they must, by the rules of the positive philosophy itself, banishing all but ascertained facts from the halls of science, be excluded from this discussion of an alleged general law of nature. but when we enter on the examination of the dogma of evolution, we find its parentage among ignoble superstitions; its fundamental facts still lie in the darkness of ignorance and assumption; and its reasoning is illogical and absurd. the most prominent feature which arrests our notice as we look closely at the theory of evolution, as presented by any of its prominent atheistical advocates is, _its illogical and incoherent structure_. the writer contradicts himself. the various parts of the theory do not hang together. the alleged facts do not sustain the conclusions deduced from them. mr. darwin's books especially abound in the most intolerable assumptions of principles and facts, not only without proof, but in the face of unanswered and unanswerable objections. and the theory is useless for the purpose of its proposal. all this is utterly at variance with the method of true science. none but a mind debauched by bigoted attachment to a preconceived theory could overlook these fatal defects in the system. indeed both darwin and huxley admit that acceptance of the evidence must be preceded by belief in the principle of evolution. it is marvelous that any properly educated student of mental science should accept a theory so incoherent, in which the rents are scarcely held together by the patches. we can only exhibit a few specimens of the multitude of these fatal inconsistencies and deficiencies. the theory is useless as an explanation of the arcana of nature. mr. darwin is, by his own acknowledgment, a very ignorant man--ignorant of the very things necessary for him to know before he can construct a method of creation, and unable to explain to us what he sets out to explain. he confesses himself ignorant of the origin and laws of inheritance, by which his whole system hangs together; of the common ancestors from which he alleges all creatures are derived; of the laws of correlation of parts, though these are indispensable to development; of the reasons of the extinction of species, which is the great business, the very trade of his great agent, natural selection. he has no knowledge of the duration of past ages, though that duration is an essential element of his calculations. the spontaneous variations of plants and animals are the very mainspring of his machine; but he tells us he knows nothing of the laws governing them; nor has he any information about the creation of the primordial forms, nor about the date of beginning, or rate of progress.[15] all which are necessary to be known in order to the formation of a correct theory. again and again, when confronted with facts which his theory can not explain, he takes refuge in confessions of ignorance. when he meets facts which flatly contradict his theory of the imperceptible beneficial acquirement of organs, or of properties by inheritance--such as the sterility of hybrids, the instincts of neuter bees, the battery of the electric eel, the human eye, and the eye of the cuttle-fish, he owns that "_it is impossible to conceive_ by what steps these wondrous organs have been produced." when asked for the missing links between existing species, he refers us to the undiscovered fossiliferous strata below the silurian. so sir c. lyell refers us for a view of the apes, which developed the first men, to the unexplored geological regions of central africa! and rev. baden powell refers us, for the missing links of the chain of development, to "that enormous period of which we are, from the conditions, _precluded from knowing any thing whatever_." and as to the origin of species, the very thing the title of his book proclaims, and how the original germs varied into the four or five primeval forms, and these into the next, he says: "_our ignorance of the laws of variation is profound!_" and that is science! the christian acknowledges his ignorance of the method of creation; but he presents a sufficient cause for the existence of the facts. the evolutionist ridicules the bible account of creation as incomprehensible, and then he gives us an account which he himself owns to be incomprehensible, and which we, besides, perceive to be absurd. he proposes to explain to us the origin of species, and locates it in the geological strata of an unexplored continent, and in those remote ages of which by the conditions _we are precluded from knowing any thing whatever_! objecting to the idea of the god of the bible, as a self-existent, infinite, intelligent, omnipotent, good spirit, because of its unthinkability, messrs. spencer, tyndall, and the rest assure us of the eternal self existence of an intelligent cloud of gas, endowed with all promises and potencies, of life and thought, as a simple and intelligible substitute! belief in god almighty is only superstition, but faith in mr. tyndall's gas-god is science. mr. spencer honestly lands in the unknowable. well, then, what science have we gained of the mysteries of our origin? of the self-contradictions of evolutionists, we have an instance in huxley's treatment of the fundamental fact of his system--protoplasm. the grand question is: how does the protoplasm become alive? in his famous lecture on the subject, physical basis of life, he argues throughout, that life is a property of protoplasm; that protoplasm owes its properties to the nature and arrangement of its molecules; that there is no more need to infer or allege a faculty called vitality, to account for the production of these various properties of the protoplasm from its chemical constituents, than to infer a power called aquosity, to account for the generation of water from oxygen and hydrogen; and that our thoughts are the expression of molecular changes in that matter of life which is the source of our other vital phenomena. briefly, our minds are manufactured by our bodies. but in his more recent work, the classification of animals, 1869, without any retraction of his previous error, or acknowledgment that he has changed his mind, he flatly contradicts his physical basis, accepting and indorsing "the well-founded doctrine that life is the cause and not the consequence of organization." a still more ridiculous incoherency of the same sort is displayed in the logical department of huxley's physical basis of life; where, after trying to persuade us to put our feet on the ladder which leads in the reverse direction from jacob's, and to descend with him into the slough of materialism, and affirming that "our thoughts are the expression of molecular changes in that matter of life which is the source of our other vital phenomena;" he goes on to say, that he does not believe in materialism. and he tries to vindicate himself by asserting that "we know nothing about the composition of any body whatever as it is." and this after deducing our thoughts from the molecular changes of the protoplasm! a pretty story truly, and an impudent one! here is a man who will tell you all about how your body made your soul out of protoplasm, and in the next page acknowledges that he knows nothing about the composition of either the body or soul as it is! and yet this man will mock the believers in the bible as "smothering their minds under a respectable feather bed of tradition," because they hesitate to shut their eyes, and swallow his contradictions. mr. wallace gives us a specimen of this logical incoherence affecting if possible still more deeply the foundations of philosophic faith.[16] he heads his paragraph _matter is force_, and goes on to argue that matter is essentially force, and nothing but force; that matter, as popularly understood, does not exist. then in a couple of pages he goes on to argue "that the whole universe is not merely dependent on, but actually _is_, the will of higher intelligences, or of one supreme intelligence." but the whole tenor of his book is thus demolished; since evolution, if it means anything, means the interposition of natural law between the will of the one supreme intelligence and the universe. and on this theory mr. wallace's criticisms on mr. darwin and others are impious, being criticisms upon parts of the will of the one supreme intelligence. similar instances of self-contradiction could be given, did space permit, from almost every advocate of evolution. our space permits the exhibition of but a single instance of the inherent incoherency of the theory. there is nothing in which all the atheistic evolutionists are more emphatic than in the exclusion of design from the universe. all their arguments and sneers are leveled against the idea, that the adaptations of nature were designed or intended by an intelligent mind; and the theory of evolution is welcomed chiefly because it enables them to give some account of the order of the world, without any acknowledgment of a providence guiding it to some end or purpose. but yet all these same evolutionists proclaim progress as the great law of nature, and expend themselves with wonderful eloquence in tracing the progress of nebulæ into worlds, and of worms into men. they glory in progress of the past, and prophesy progress in the future, apparently in the most childish unconsciousness, that the very idea of progress involves design, and that the fact of progress asserts providence. nor is there any escape by alleging necessity of nature, which is merely endowing the designer of progress with omnipotence as well as omniscience. the illogical character of the theory is still further manifested by the failure of its alleged facts to sustain the consequences deduced from them. suppose all the facts alleged by the atheistic evolutionists were granted, how would they do away with the evidence of the being and government of god? as they loudly allege they do. let it be granted that all men grew up from monkeys, and the monkeys from worms, and all worms grew from invisible animalculæ, and that the animalculæ flashed into life by the chemical contact of the materials of the protoplasm, and that the protoplasm was a natural crop of the cooling globe, and that the cooling globe condensed itself out of fire mist or nebulæ or star dust, i demand to know how does all that enable me to get rid of the law of causation? it is a necessary law of my nature to believe that every effect demands an adequate cause. it is equally a law of my nature to believe that every compound, or composite substance, is an effect, that the compound did not compound itself. here is a great effect--a universe in solution, with all the chemical constituents of our globe and solar system floating in it, and all their laws of chemical affinity and proportion, and all their electrical attractions and repulsions, in full operation (else we would never get a universe to thicken down out of it); and besides, all the potencies of vegetable and animal life, and all the great powers of the human mind, in a rather vaporous condition, it is true, but still all there--socrates, seneca and solomon, moses, solon and blackstone, homer, milton and shakespeare, demosthenes, cicero and daniel webster, watt, stephenson, fulton and morse, popes, puritans and evolutionists, universities and newspapers and congresses, the united states and the british empire, and the rest of mankind--all boiled up into mr. tyndall's potencies, but all there in potency, just as truly as they ever were here in fact. well! here is a great effect just as imperatively demanding a great first cause as the world afterward formed out of it. these substances did not make themselves then, any more than the resulting persons or paving stones make themselves now, and they did not endow themselves with these potencies, nor calculate and establish these laws of chemical combination in exact proportion, nor determine scientifically the laws of gravitation and electricity and light and heat, before they came into being; which must have all been established before a single particle of the star dust could begin to cool, or to approach another. the very first idea of matter or of force we can form demands law, and law is merely another name for the divine order of nature. whatever foundation for natural religion, for faith in god as the creator and governor of the world, is afforded by the existing order of the world, it is in no degree logically weakened (though it may be practically) by viewing that order as reached by a process of evolution, since that process also must have been designed, planned, adapted to its purpose, and divinely superintended. accordingly, we find that many philosophers, and some divines, acknowledge a process of the evolution of god's great idea, and adore him for the growth alike of forests and firmaments, regarding evolution, thus conditioned, as profoundly religious. st. augustine, and st. thomas aquinas, of old, and many modern speculators, have assented to the theory of evolution as perfectly consistent with belief in god, as its author. it is utterly illogical to allege that evolution has banished final causes. grant it all its facts, and these facts proclaim god. it is evident, however, that evolutionists are not confident of the ability of the facts which they are able to allege to sustain their theory, since they are perpetually postulating assumptions necessary to their argument, but which are utterly unproved, and incapable of proof. mr. darwin is the most notorious offender against inductive science in this respect. i have now before me a list of eighty-six assumptions of this sort in the origin of species alone. those in his other works are too numerous to mention. he continually mistakes his own assertions, or even his own mere conjectures, for proof, and refers back to them, and builds further assumptions upon them accordingly; and he assumes facts unproven and incapable of proof; and principles which he must know are denied by his opponents. we can only take a few instances at random. he assumes that all dogs are developed from wolves (descent of man, page 48); that the instincts of animals are developed (page 38); that language was developed (page 53); that there is a wider interval between the lamprey and the ape than between the ape and the man, thus begging the question of man's brutality (page 34); that the savage is the original state of man (page 63); that parental instincts are the result of natural selection, after owning utter ignorance of their origin (page 77); that the ideas of glory and infamy are the workings of sympathy (page 82); the heredity of moral tastes (page 98); that the standard of morality has been rising since the giving of the ten commandments (page 99); that our ancestors were quadrupeds (page 116); that there have been thousands of generations (page 125); that breeds have the character of species (origin of species, page 411); that rudimentary organs are inherited abortions (page 424); that there are four or five original progenitors, and distant evidence of only one (page 425); he assumes descent to prove his geology (page 428); and perpetual progress toward perfection (pages 59, 140, 176, 428), in the face of his own facts of retrogression. then look at the outrageous character of the assumption that beneficial variations may be added up indefinitely, that is, to infinity. because a gymnast can leap over two horses, can his son leap over three? and his son over four? and his son over five? and can we in time breed a man who will leap to the moon? and yet the whole theory is based upon forgetfulness of the maxim, that there is a limit to all things, and of the fact, that in creatures of flesh and blood this limit is very soon reached. look again at the utterly erroneous assumption that the tendency of the struggle for life is to improve the combatants; an assumption contradicted by the whole history of famine, war, pauperism, and disease, among brutes and men. were the survivors of the irish famine of 1847, or those of the persian, or bengali famines improved by their struggle for life? it is true the fittest survived; but that was all; they were miserably emaciated and demoralized. were the peasantry of europe improved by the wars of the french revolution? on the contrary, though the fittest survived, france was obliged to lower the recruiting standard three inches. in all cases the struggle for life injures all concerned. and yet upon these two fundamental assumptions the theory is built; of which that of the indefinite accumulation of small profitable variations is outrageously impossible and absurd; and the other, of the improvement of breeds by starvation and hardships, is contrary to all observation and experience! take away these two assumptions, and the whole theory of the gradual improvement of plants and animals by such agency vanishes. there is no such power of indefinite improvement by natural selection, as mr. darwin asserts. the utmost it can do is to keep breeds up to the natural standard, or near to it, by destroying the weakest; but at the same time it weakens the strongest also. were there no other objection, this one would be fatal, that mr. darwin assigns an elevating power to a depressing agency, and asserts war, famine, hardship, and disease as his holy angels perfecting progress. mr. darwin presents the most preposterous assumptions with such coolness and apparent unconsciousness of their utter improbability to his readers, and with such an entire ignoring of the necessity of any further attestation than his own _ipse dixit_, as to warrant serious suspicions of his sanity. take, for instance, his bear and whale story. hearne reports having seen in the arctic regions a bear swimming in the water for hours, with his mouth wide open, catching flies; and mr. darwin says if the supply of flies were constant (where the winter lasts eight months of the year 40° below zero) _he can see no difficulty in the production at length of an animal as monstrous as a whale_! m. comte's disciples never suspected their master's sanity till he invented a religion for them. 2. this theory, it should be remembered, is _merely a theory_, _a mere notion_, _a hypothesis_. it is not even alleged that it is based upon facts actually discovered. the alleged facts of the cooling of the nebulæ, the chemical origin of life upon our globe, and the development of the original ascidian into the fish, and that into the monkey, and of the monkey into the man, never were witnessed by anybody, nor could they be witnessed. la place was honest enough to call his part of the theory, the nebular _hypothesis_. he had no idea of claiming for it the rank of a fact of science upon which he, or anybody else, might build a system. nor are the modern assertors of evolution able to establish a single instance of the chemical origin of life at the present day; though thousands of experiments have been made attempting that exploit, by english, french, and german chemists during the last forty years. nor has a single case of the transmutation of species ever been observed in wild animals or plants; nor has any change of species been produced in tame ones by domestication or culture. no naturalist has seen a community of apes in the process of improvement toward manhood; nor has any philologist described the first attempts of the monkeys toward the articulation of language, or the manufacture of clothing, unless we except mr. lemuel gulliver's interesting account of the yahoos. it must be acknowledged that the animals described by that accurate observer, and graphic describer, approach more nearly to those required by mr. darwin's theory than any ever seen before, or since. hence it is greatly to be desired that some scientific evolutionists should thoroughly explore those regions, investigate the manners and customs of the yahoos with the enthusiasm of a true darwinian, and minutely describe those interesting features which would enable us to decide whether they are monkeys progressing to manhood, or men brutalizing into apehood; but which mr. gulliver's lack of scientific enthusiasm for evolution prevented him from closely examining. but until the scientific standing of mr. gulliver's yahoos is determined, the theory of evolution must be assigned to the mountains of speculations, big with expectation, but which yet await the birth of their first fact. mr. darwin indeed alleges the results of domestication upon animals and plants, as producing permanent varieties as different in appearance as many which are ranked by naturalists as different species, and he alleges that natural selection carries on a similar process of improvement among wild animals and plants. but the facts of domestication are most emphatic in refusing to acknowledge any change of species of the most carefully bred animals. the efforts of breeders have been exerted for thousands of years upon the dog, the ox, the goat, the sheep, and the ass, the horse, and the camel, among animals; and upon the goose, the duck, and the pigeon, and for a shorter time, but still for two thousand years, upon the common barn-door poultry. farmers in all lands, since the deluge, have used their best exertions to improve the cereals, the fruit trees, the vines, and root crops, and vegetables, and the result has been some valuable modifications of size, shape, flavor, and fertility; but in no case whatever has any change of species been effected. all the efforts of breeders have not succeeded in making the horse specifically different from the noble animal described in the book of job four thousand years ago. the sheep has not become a goat, nor the goat a sheep, by all the pains of all the shepherds since the days of abel. the ass displays not the least tendency to become a horse, nor the goat to become a cow. mr. darwin makes great capital out of pigeons, enumerating all the varieties owned by fanciers, and showing how the indian emperors bred them a thousand years before christ. but it is strange that he does not see that this makes against his theory; since in all that time this most variable of birds has never been transmuted into any other species. the pigeon has never been changed into a crow, or a magpie, or a woodpecker, or a chicken; has never, in fact, become anything else than a pigeon. dogs are also somewhat variable in their varieties, and mr. darwin relies greatly upon supposed variations from some one assumed ancestral pair of dogs, into the greyhound, mastiff, terrier, and lapdog. but granting all these unproven variations, no instance is alleged of a dog ever becoming a cat or a lion by any care or culture. it will not do to allege, that, for anything we know to the contrary, our present breeds of domestic animals and plants may be so different from those called by the same names in ancient times as to be really different species. we do know many things to the contrary. in the tombs of the egyptians, and the sculptures of the assyrians, we have pictures of the various plants, birds, and animals, from three to four thousand years old, as well as of man, the most domestic animal of the whole. these paintings and sculptures assure us that in all those millenniums domestication has not produced the slightest change in the races of animals, plants, or men. the ethiopian has not changed his skin, nor the leopard his spots. the negro was then the same black-skinned, woolly-headed, flat-nosed, thick-lipped, long-heeled person he is to-day, as pompous, good-humored, and fond of finery. the assyrian statues are good, recognizable likenesses of eminent living jewish merchants, in london and new orleans. the old pharaohs of the monuments can be matched for face and figure any day in the bazars of cairo. the greyhound of the tombs is the same variety now used for coursing hares in the desert. the camel, the ass, and the arab, and assyrian breeds of horses, have not been at all improved in forty centuries. even mr. darwin's favorite pigeons would seem to have ceased to vary; for the carrier-pigeons let loose by sesostris, to carry the news of his coronation to all the cities of egypt, do not differ a feather from the modern egyptian carrier-pigeons. the various wild animals, and many of the plants, are represented on these monuments in great variety. among these i have noted the lotus, the papyrus, the leek, the palm, wheat, barley, and millet; the crocodile, the frog, the crane, the flamingo, the ibis, the goose, the owl, the ostrich, the peacock; and of beasts the now famous ancestral ape, ptolemy's tame lion, the leopard, the gazelle, the hippopotamus, the giraffe, and the wild boar, and many others. but there is not the least perceptible change in the corresponding species now inhabiting egypt and the desert. we can go further than the mere external appearance; for we can actually dissect specimens of the various animals, and thus satisfy ourselves whether any physiological change, amounting to a transmutation of species, has occurred, or was in progress; and the investigation has been conducted by no less a physiologist and zoologist than cuvier, whose authority in such matters no naturalist will dispute. and this is what he says: "it might seem as if the ancient egyptians had been inspired by nature, for the purpose of transmitting to after ages a monument of her natural history. that strange and whimsical people, by embalming with so much care the brutes which were the objects of their stupid adoration, have left us in their sacred grottoes cabinets of zoology almost complete. climate has conspired with art to preserve the bodies from corruption, and we can now assure ourselves with our own eyes what was the state of a good number of species three thousand years ago. * * * i have endeavored to collect all the ancient documents respecting the forms of animals, and there are none equal to those furnished by the egyptians, both in regard to their antiquity and abundance. i have examined with the greatest care the engraved figures of quadrupeds and birds upon the obelisks brought from egypt to ancient rome; and all these figures, one with another, have a perfect resemblance to their intended objects, such as they still are in our days. my learned friend, geoffrey st. hilaire, convinced me of the importance of this research, and carefully collected in the tombs and temples of upper and lower egypt as many mummies of animals as he could procure. he has brought home the mummies of cats, ibises, birds of prey, dogs, crocodiles, and the head of a bull. after the most attentive and detailed examination, not the smallest difference is to be perceived between these animals and those of the same species which we now see, any more than between human mummies and skeletons of men of the present day."[17] there is then not the first fact, or appearance of a fact, to be adduced in proof of the change of species either by domestication, or natural selection, or any other process known to man. that any such evolution of any animal, or plant, into one of another species ever occurred, is a mere empty notion, in support of which no facts can be adduced. all the animals and plants of which we know anything have remained unchanged since the beginning of man's observation of them. the theory endeavors to account for a change which never happened. it is a mere empty dream, unworthy of a serious consideration by any mind imbued with the first principle of inductive science--namely, that all science is the orderly knowledge of facts; and whose first rule is, _first ascertain your facts_. but it is urged, that though such a change has not occurred during the brief period of human history, it may have been practicable in the lengthened periods revealed by geology, and while the forces of nature were more vigorous during the youth of our planet. this, in fact, is the grand resource of the modern evolutionists--the almost infinite periods and possibilities of geology. we refuse, however, to follow mr. powell into those unexplored realms of the infinite past and discuss the possibilities of ages, of which "by the conditions we can not know anything whatever." we will go as far as the geological strata furnish us with any facts, any evidences of life, any traces of plants or animals of which corresponding species still exist, and will unhesitatingly affirm, on the authority of the most eminent geologists, that such geological representatives of existing species furnish no evidence whatever of evolution into higher forms. on the contrary, we shall show that many species have existed without the slightest change for many thousands, aye, and millions of years, sufficiently long to establish the fact of the permanence of species during the geologic ages known to man. geologists are generally agreed that the first florida coral reef is at least 30,000 years old; but agassiz asserts, uncontradicted, that the insect which built it has not altered in the least in that period, and he says regarding it: "these facts furnish evidence, as direct as we can obtain in any branch of physical inquiry, that some at least of the species of animals now existing have been in existence 30,000 years, and have not undergone the slightest change in that period." but we can go still further back, and demonstrate the permanence of vegetable structure. hugh miller says: "the oak, the birch, the hazel, the scotch fir, all lived, i repeat, in what is now britain, ere the last great depression of the land. the gigantic northern elephant and rhinoceros, extinct for untold ages, forced their way through the tangled branches; and the british tiger and hyena harbored in their thickets. cuvier framed an argument for the fixity of species on the fact that the birds and beasts of the catacombs were identical in every respect with the animals of the same kind that live now. but what, it has been asked, is a brief period of 3,000 years, when compared with the geologic ages? or how could any such argument be founded on a basis so little extended? it is, however, to no such narrow basis that we can refer in the case of these woods. all human history is comprised in the nearer corner of the immense period they measure out; and yet from their first appearance in creation till now, they have not altered a single fiber. and such on this point is the invariable testimony of paleontologic science, testimony so invariable that no great paleontologist was ever yet an asserter of the development hypothesis."[18] to the same purpose let us hear huxley's testimony, since no one will suspect him of undue respect for moses: "obviously if the earliest fossiliferous rocks now known are coeval with the commencement of life, and if their contents give us any just conception of the earliest fauna and flora, the insignificant amount of modification which can be demonstrated to have taken place in any one group of animals and plants, is quite incompatible with the hypothesis that all living forms are the results of a process of necessary progressive development entirely comprised within the time represented by the fossiliferous rocks."[19] we are fully warranted, then, in alleging, that no such transmutation of species is known to science, as an existing fact, or as having ever occurred. as to the supposition on which the evolutionists fall back, that such a miracle might have happened thousands of millions of years before the formation of the lowest rocks known to us, we might well decline the discussion of may-be's as facts of science. but there is a positive denial of unimaginable periods of time for mr. darwin's evolution to try its blundering experiments. we are empowered to say positively, no! there is no such length of time for you, mr. darwin, on this little globe at least. this rotating world had a beginning; so had our moon; and our sun, too, began to burn one day. and there are data of the revolution of these bodies, and of the secular cooling of the earth, and of the gradual combustion of the sun, and of the retardation of the earth's motions, from which sir wm. thompson (in his treatise on geological time) calculates, that our earth has not been in a fit state for plants and animals for more than a hundred millions of years; and he demonstrates the absurdity of the demand for unlimited time, as contradictory to the facts of physical astronomy. hence we deny the possibility of evolution in the infinite ages of the past. there never were any such ages on this world of ours. 4. failing to find facts, evolutionists fall back upon analogies, and support their hypothesis by the supposed analogy of the _growth of the embryos of all plants and animals from germs alleged to be originally perfectly similar_--simple protoplasm cells, which by subsequent evolution, differentiate themselves as widely as the moss from the man. the subject is too obscure for popular discussion. i can only announce the results of the latest and most authoritative researches.[20] 1. analogy is a very unsafe guide here, because the differences between the limited life of the individual, and the alleged unlimited life of the race, are precisely those of which we have no analogy. 2. it is not true that "the original substratum or material is in every instance alike," nor that the "primordial cell is in every instance the same," whether of the "lichen or the man;"[21] nor as others allege, "that chemical reagents detect no differences between them." chemical reagents are very clumsy instruments for the analysis of living beings, and their properties and powers; which are the antagonists of chemical reactions. nevertheless, heat is a well-known chemical agent, and the application of heat to a fertilized, and to an unfertilized, germ develops a whole world of difference between them. the one becomes a chicken, the other an addled egg. moreover, the application of different degrees of heat to different germs produces the most various reactions. the germs of trout are speedily killed by the moderate temperature of 65° fahrenheit, while the germs of most animalculæ and plants develop rapidly at that temperature. such instances might be multiplied, but these are sufficient to contradict the rash assertion of sameness, because a hasty observer did not take pains to discover differences. 3. there are four distinct plans of structure in the animal kingdom, and at least three, perhaps more, in the vegetable kingdom; and every germ, from the first instant when its evolution can be seen at all, is seen to develop only according to its own proper method. there is no more confusion of germs, or embryos, than of plants or animals. 4. no instance has ever been known of a germ producing an animal, or plant, of another species, by any process of stopping short of ripening, or undue prolongation of it. every seed breeds true to its kind, or not at all, or produces a deformity. embryology utterly refuses the notion of the transmutation of species. mr. darwin's various references to rudimentary organs, like the bones of a hand in the flipper of the whale, or the teats of male animals, and the like, can hardly be called arguments. he tries to account for them and fails; acknowledging ignorance of the laws of heredity. some of them he will have to be young organs in process of evolution, others organs aborted for want of exercise. in this category he ought to place the tail which he ought to have inherited from his ancestors, as he is greatly exercised to know what became of it. but it is evident that his attempts to build arguments on such things, and to account for occasional variations by atarism, are in contradiction to his principles. most of the known instances of the origination of permanent varieties were not the result of infinitesimal improvements, but were sudden and complete at once. the japan peacocks, the short-legged sheep, the porcupine man and his family, and the six-fingered men, were not at all the results of a slow process of evolution; on the contrary, they were born so, complete at once, in utter contradiction of the theory. 5. the only other line of argument, which has any show of probability, is that based upon _the gradations of the various orders of plants and animals_. not but that there are many other arguments adduced, but they are of too technical a character to be intelligible to any but zoologists, and of too little weight to demand consideration after the leading arguments are overturned. but this argument from gradation, though logically unsound, is plausibly specious, and therefore demands notice. by far the ablest exhibition of this argument is that made by lamarck, and we give it as he presents it: "the greater the abundance of natural objects assembled together, the more do we discover proofs that everything passes by insensible shades into something else; that even the more remarkable differences are evanescent, and that nature has for the most part left us nothing at our disposal for establishing distinctions, save trifling, and in some respects puerile particularities. we find that many genera among plants and animals are of such an extent, in consequence of the number of species referred to them, that the study and determination of these last have become almost impracticable. when the species are arranged in a series, and placed near to each other, with a due regard to their natural affinities, they each differ in so minute a degree from those next adjoining, that they almost melt into each other, and are in a manner confounded together. if we see isolated species, we may presume the absence of some more closely connected, and which have not yet been discovered. already there are genera, and even entire orders, nay, whole classes which present this state of things." he then goes on to present, "as a guide to conjecture," what his successors now assert as a fact: "in the first place, if we examine the whole series of known animals, from one extremity to the other, when they are arranged in the order of their natural relations, we find that we may pass progressively, or at least with very few interruptions, from beings of more simple to those of more compound structure; and in proportion as the complexity of their organization increases, the number and dignity of their faculties increase also. among plants a similar approximation to a graduated scale of being is apparent. secondly, it appears, from geological observations, that plants and animals of more simple organization existed on the globe before the appearance of those of more compound structure, and the latter were successively formed at more modern periods, each new race being more fully developed than the most perfect of the preceding one."[22] from this gradation of nature, thus stated, the evolutionists go on to infer genealogy, the birth descent of the larger from the smaller, and of the more complex from the simpler forms, as the only scientific explanation. but it is by no means the only scientific explanation of the order of nature. the best naturalists, from moses to agassiz, have regarded the order of nature as the development of the divine idea, have prosecuted their researches on that view, and have regarded that as a sufficient and scientific explanation of the gradation of plants and animals, as they actually exist. the idea of birth descent can not be logically connected with that of gradation; especially with a gradation upward. were the order of nature such as lamarck describes, how could any man logically infer the birth descent of each of its classes from the next below? here is an ironmonger's sample card of wood screws, beginning with those one-quarter of an inch long, and proceeding by gradations of one-sixteenth of an inch to those of four inches. does the gradation show that the little ones begot the big ones? it may be said the wood screws do not beget progeny. well, here is a hill containing twenty-three potatoes, weighing from half an ounce to half a pound, and quite regularly graded. did the small potatoes beget the big ones? the inference of birth descent from gradation is utterly illogical, and of a piece with the incoherency which we have seen in the other parts of the theory. it never could be inferred from the facts stated, even did nature correspond to lamarck's description. but nature does not correspond to lamarck's description. that description corresponded moderately, perhaps, to the science of his day, which was based chiefly upon external resemblances; but no scientific naturalist of the present day would accept it as a correct statement of the facts revealed by modern science. in the first place there is no such imperceptible blending and shading off of species as the description would imply, obliterating all distinctions of species, and rendering it impossible even for a naturalist to distinguish one species from another. since the time of lamarck, structure and physiology have been more studied than mere external appearances; so that from a tooth or bone cuvier or agassiz could reconstruct an animal, and indicate its internal organization, as well as its form and habits. but even in lamarck's days, and even to the most uneducated, there was no such imperceptible shading and blending as the theory requires. it is well to look here at its requirements, for they are not fully presented by its friends. mr. darwin gives us a diagram exhibiting the variation of an original species into a score or so of varieties, ending in distinct species. but this is very far, indeed, below the necessities of the case. the horse hair worm lays 8,000,000 of eggs; and the primeval germ, whatever it was, could hardly be less fertile, since fertility increases with simplicity of structure. but, taking 8,000,000 to begin with, here were as many varieties; since no two of them, or of any creature, could be exactly alike. the next generation would give 8,000,000 times as many varieties, and so on till natural selection began to thin off the feeble. but here we have, instead of a few well-marked varieties, an infinite multitude of imperceptible variations, rendering classification impossible. and as all these were only varieties of the same breed, they would breed together, and thus still more confuse the complexity, and render distinction of species impossible. for, in spite of all mr. darwin has to say about the extinction of the weaker varieties, the fact is, they are not at all extinguished, but keep their ground as well as the higher classes, or perhaps better. and if a snail, or a worm, can contrive to live now in an unimproved condition, why should its improving cousin die off? did its improvement kill it? and so of improving mollusks, and well-doing radiates, and aspiring rabbits, and all the rest. the world ought to be so full of them that no man could sort them off into species, or tell which was fish, which was flesh, and which red herring; and no pork packer could distinguish hog from dog. but instead of any such horrible confusion of a world full of mongrels, we discover a clear and well defined distinction of species, known even to the poor animals themselves, and by their instincts made known to all mankind. the creator, who created all creatures after their kind, implanted in them an instinct of breeding only with their own species; and placed a bar in the way of man's vain attempts to work confusion of species, by rendering the hybrid offspring of different species sterile, or only capable of breeding back to the pure blood. innumerable attempts have been made by fraud and force to procure cross breeds of different species of plants and animals, but always with the same result--the extinction of the progeny of the hybrid, unless bred back to nature. while a mingling of various breeds of the same species--horses, sheep, or cattle--generally increases fertility, the attempt to mingle different species, as the horse and the ass, though so similar, always produces sterile offspring. it is impossible to conceive any form in which the creator could more emphatically protest against the attempt to confuse the distinctions of species he established. god has fixed a barrier against the mixture or confusion of species by cross breeding, by ordaining the sterility of hybrids. mr. darwin labors in vain to explain away this great fact. it can not be explained into conformity with the evolution theory; for in that theory all species are only breeds or varieties of one species, and ought to increase their fertility by cross breeding. with all scientific naturalists, as with all people of common sense, this proves that species have a distinct existence in nature, and that the creator has ordained the continuance of their distinct existence; which is the denial of evolution. when mr. darwin retreats into the geologic ages, and confessing that his principle has ceased to be operative now in our world, and refers us to them for such evolution of one species from another, he abandons the fundamental principle of his school--the uniformity of nature--and falls back on christian ground the necessity for supernatural origins. he virtually admits the death or superannuation of natural selection, since it has retired from the business of species-making. but when we go back to those old geologic ages, we find that species were then not only as distinct as now, but that the distinctions were even bolder and more visible. many of them have ceased to exist, but they have left their shells, their petrified casts, and their bones, by which we can see that they stood apart in well-defined groups, without any such blending and confusion as the evolution theory asserts. over three thousand species are already classified. between every two of them there ought to be, on mr. darwin's showing, a hundred intermediate variations at the least; and between some of the more widely separated forms there ought to be thousands of intermediate varieties; as for instance between the bear and the whale; and a still greater number between the mollusk with its external shell, and the vertebrate with its internal skeleton. and we ought to find these intermediate forms closely connected with their parents and their children. for intermediate forms in another continent could not be the connecting links between the mollusks and vertebrates of a distant country, say of england. in the same strata in which we find the two ends of the chain, and lying between the two ends of the chain, we ought to find the connecting links. and we ought to find a hundred connecting links for every specimen of distinct species, since mr. darwin alleges that they must have lived and died somewhere; and we have seen they must have lived and died right there where they were born, and where they begot their progeny. the geological strata ought to be full of connecting links. but when we come to look for them they are not there. geology knows nothing about them. it has plenty of distinct, well-defined species--trilobites, and ammonites, and echinoderms, palms, ferns, firs, and mosses, all sorts of quadrupeds from a mouse to a mastodon, and all just as clean-cut and well-defined as the species of existing animals. mr. darwin can not find his connecting links between the species, which ought to have been a hundred times more plentiful than the species they connected. these connecting links are missing links. he ought to be able to overwhelm his opponents, and bury them under mountains of the bones of intermediate species. but all his friends can do is to suggest about half a dozen, while he needs three hundred thousand. he can not pay half a cent on the dollar. in his grief he turns round and abuses the defectiveness of the geological record, which he says he could never have suspected of being so defective but for this failure to meet his drafts. but he need not blame the geological record for not preserving bones of animals which never lived. geology says there never was any such confusion of species as evolution asserts. but not only does the general structure of the web of nature present a clearly striped pattern, instead of the mottled gray of the theory--neither the beginning, nor the middle, nor the end is like what the evolution theory would produce. the gradation does not begin, as the theory asserts and demands, with the monads. on the contrary, we find that there are four kingdoms of animal life--in an ascending scale--the radiate, or starfish; the mollusk or oyster; the articulate, or insect; and the vertebrate, or animals with backbones. now the evolution ought to have begun at the bottom, with the radiate, the coral, and the starfish; it should have gone upward, the coral developing into the oyster, and the oyster into the lobster, and the lobster into the salmon, and so on. but instead of that we discover, away down in the silurian strata, at the very beginning of life, _all the four kingdoms_--the radiates, the mollusks, the articulates, and the fish! evidently, then, there was no such beginning of the world as evolutionists suppose. then as we work upward along the line of march, and of the development of the divine idea, we observe that when new species were introduced, they did not work up slowly from small and weak beginnings; beginning with dwarfs and growing up to giants; but, on the contrary, the giants head the column. the geological books are full of them--sharks forty feet long, frogs as big as oxen, ichthyosaurus and plesiosaurus of fabulous proportions--were not their skeletons preserved--pterodactyles, or bats, as big as a dog, the mastodon giganteus, beside which an ordinary modern elephant is like a shetland pony beside a dray horse, ferns as big as oak trees, and mosses eighteen inches in diameter, shell fish of the nautilus order the size of dinner plates, and crustaceans, cousins to the lobster, three feet long. and all this at the very first start in life of these respective families, and in overwhelming multitudes. that was no age of small beginnings, and small progressive improvements. on the contrary, these old families, like some other old families, seem to have rather lost rank, and bulk, and influence; at least their modern representatives cut no such figure in the world as their predecessors. as we proceed along the line we meet gaps which slay the theory of genealogical descent altogether. a gap is fatal to it. if a family dies out, that is the end of it. you can not resuscitate it after a few centuries, and go on with that breed; much less can you pick up a breed quite different, and attach it to your old genealogy. but in the line of evolution we meet these fatal gaps; and no evolutionist has bridged them, because they can not possibly be bridged. the first great gap is the abyss between death and life. no human power can cross it. how could the chemical actions of dead matter infuse vitality into the first germ, or bud of a plant? for chemical actions are the antagonists of life, and constantly laboring to destroy the living organism, and finally they succeed. there is no process of evolution known to man which can carry evolution across this abyss. but till evolution crosses this gulf it can not even begin to operate. this first abyss is its grave. but, supposing life begun in the plant first, as the theory requires, there is another gap between the life of the plant and that of the animal; for all animal life is sustained by another sort of food than that which feeds the vegetable. the vegetable feeds solely on chemical, unorganized matters; the animal solely on matter organized, on some plant, or on some other animal which feeds on plants. no animal can live on the food of plants. here then is another gap which can not be bridged over, nor crossed; for the plant in process of conversion into an animal is in process of starvation, and when the process is about to be completed, it will end like the miser's horse, whose master diminished his oats darwinianly, a single grain a day, until he had brought him to live on just one grain per day, when, alas! the victim of the experiment died. and so ends evolution experiment no. 2. then we come on a multitude of gaps, breaks in the uniformity of nature, called for by the evolutionists, between the species which will not breed together. there ought to be no such species on the theory; or, if there are, there ought to be a multitude of intervening varieties toning down the interval; for instance, between the horse and the cow, and between the sheep and the hog. all the ingenuity of all the evolutionists has been tasked in vain to produce any instance of the confusion of two such species, or of the production of a new true species by the intermixture of blood. but they might just as well try to convert iron into gold, or sulphur into carbon. in fact, evolution is the modern physiological form of the old chemical superstition, alchemy, substituting for the transmutation of metals the problem of the transmutation of animals. it were endless to attempt to exhibit the impossibilities of crossing the gaps between the water-breathing fish and the air-breathing animal; between the flying-bird and the quadruped; between instinct and education; between brute selfishness and maternal affection; between the habits of the solitary and those of the gregarious, and those of the colonial insects and animals. no one of these is accounted for satisfactorily by the theory of evolution. but space forbids the attempt. we only cite one other gulf which the theory can not cross: the gulf between the brute and the man. we should rather say the three gulfs; for between man's body and that of the brute there is a gap which natural selection can not cross; another between man's intellectual powers and those of brutes; and the third, and widest of all, between his conscience and their brutal appetites. the gulf between man's body and that of any brute is marked along the whole line, from the solid basis of the feet, enabling him to stand erect, look upward and behold the stars; along the line of the stiff backbone, maintaining the dignified posture; to the hands, on which treatises have been written, displaying their wonderful superiority over those of all other creatures, and enabling man to do what no other animal has done, to fill the world with his handiworks, and alter the very face of nature with his ax, and spade, and steam engine. his tongue and organs of articulate speech alone, were there no other characteristic, proclaim him different from all other animals; none of those resembling him in outward form making the slightest attempts toward articulate language or being able to do so. man alone, of all the animals, possesses no natural covering, but is exposed naked to the inclemency of the elements. what little hair he possesses is chiefly on the breast, where it is of little use as a covering, and on the head, which in other animals is never better protected than the body. mr. darwin alleges that the first men were hairy, like apes. well, how did they lose their hair? not by natural selection, which only perpetuates _profitable_ variations; but the loss of hair to an ape would be as unprofitable as the loss of your clothes to you. not by sexual selection, for there is not the slightest evidence that nudity was ever popular in apedom. we have undoubted evidence, in the two bone needles found with the bones of the man of mentone, that the primeval men were naked, and complete proof that natural selection could not effect such a disadvantageous change had they been hairy. here, then, we have an _inferiority_ to other animals in the animal structure, strangely at variance with the general superiority, and only to be accounted for as an educational provision. but chiefly in the human head does the great outward distinction appear. the brain is the great instrument with which the mind works. you can gauge the strength of ulysses by his bow, and the bulk of the giant by the staff of his spear, which was like a weaver's beam. the brain of the largest ape is about thirty two cubic inches. the brains of the wildest australians are more than double that capacity. they measure from seventy-five inches to ninety. europeans' brains measure from ninety to one hundred inches. there are instances of esquimaux measuring over ninety. even the brain of an idiot is double the size of that of the orang-otang. but how did man get this extraordinary development of brain, far beyond his necessities? for the cave man of mentone, who hunted the bison, had as good a head as bismarck. natural selection could not develop an ape's brain in advance of his necessities. but here we have a prophetic structure; man's head developed far in advance of his necessities. here is a power at work superior to natural selection. with such an instrument man has gone to work and supplied his deficiencies. inferior to many animals in strength and speed, he has manufactured weapons, and subdued them all, asserting himself as the lord of creation, conquering even the mighty mastodon, and piercing the huge caledonian whale with his reindeer harpoon. he has remedied his want of hair by the manufacture of clothing from the spoils of his victims. he has rendered himself independent of the weather by the shelter of his house. he has ceased to be dependent on the spontaneous fruits of the forest by the cultivation of the soil, and so has become a cosmopolite, confined to no province of creation. he has constructed ships, and provisioned them for long voyages, and visited, and colonized every coast of europe, asia, africa, america, and australia. he has formed civilized societies with laws, government, and religion. he has leveled roads, navigated rivers, tunneled mountains, dug navigable canals, constructed steamboats, built railroads, invented electric telegraphs, and steam printing presses; and generally he has developed ideas of society, nationality, and of the universal brotherhood of man, not only not possible under the laws of natural selection, but in the most direct contrariety to those laws, which work only for the benefit of the individual. never under those laws could any great community of animals be formed, never could they obtain the notion of representative government, never combine their powers for any national enterprise, nor could the most hairy and muscular-tailed of mr. darwin's ancestors secure subscribers sufficient to warrant him in starting even a county newspaper. but it is in the moral sense which enables man to distinguish right from wrong, the conscience, which forbids and reproves the unbridled indulgence of the animal appetites, that we observe the grand distinction between man and the brute. there is nothing in the writings of evolutionists more pitiable than their attempts to degrade conscience into a mere gregarious instinct, an outcome of utility to the tribe, and to pleasurable sensations, resulting from the exercise of the social instincts. it would appear that these writers had so sophisticated their own minds that they have ceased to understand the fundamental, world-wide difference between right and gain, between duty and pleasure. "do justice, though the heavens fall," could never be evolved by natural selection. that is the law of the sharpest tooth, and the longest claws, and the biggest bull; the napoleonic theology, whose god is always on the side of the strongest battalions; the law of the perdition of the weak, and the survival of the strongest. in obedience to its laws the birds forsake their parents as soon as they can shift for themselves; the herd tramples down the wounded deer; the wolves devour their wounded brothers; the queen bee puts her sisters to death, and the neuters sacrifice all the males of the hive. in obedience to the laws of natural selection, the males fight for the most attractive females, and keep as many as they can, and form societies on that basis. but man has a sense of justice, and mercy, and gratitude, and love. here is an animal who knows he ought to tell truth, and do right, and honor his parents, and respect and love his brethren. whether he always does his duty or not, he feels and owns he ought to do it. justice, and mercy, and the fear of god, are not at all the attributes of brutes, and never could have been produced by the evolution of their instincts. no animal possesses any knowledge of god, nor practices any form of religious worship. religion, then, could not be the evolution of what has no existence. we have now considered the theory of the atheistical evolution of man, and of all plants and animals from one primeval germ, by the unintelligent operation of the powers of nature. we have seen that there are as many contradictory applications of the theory as there are advocates of it; that in any shape it is incoherent, illogical, and absurd; that it is destitute of any support from facts; that the alleged analogy of embryology fails to give it countenance; that the order of nature in its gradations is contradictory of the theory; that it utterly fails to account for the origin of life, for the distinctness of the four classes of the animal kingdom, for the distinctness of species which refuse to breed together, for the absence of the intermediate forms necessary to the theory; and, above all, that it can give no satisfactory account of man's bodily, mental, and moral superiority to all other animals, nor for his possession of a knowledge of god. its tendency, moreover, is inevitably to degrade man, to destroy that sense of his dignity which is the principal security of human life, to obliterate a belief in the divine origin and sanction of morality, and in the existence of a future life of rewards and punishments, and so to promote the disorganization of society, and the degradation of men to the level of brutes, living only under the laws of their brutal instincts. for all these reasons we reject the theory as unscientific, absurd, degrading to man, and offensive to the god who made him. footnotes: [5] the descent of man, p. 198, american edition. [6] the descent of man, p. 191, am. ed. [7] descent of man, p. 199, am. ed. [8] descent of man, 197, am. ed. [9] the variations of animals, etc., vol. ii. page 515. [10] lay sermons, p. 30. [11] lay sermons, 303. [12] cited by hodge in "what is darwinism?" page 73, etc. [13] natural selection, 372 a., am. ed. [14] from the _presbyterian_, december 7, 1872. [15] origin of species, 4, 10, 127, 9, 97, 100, 409, 410, 415, 423. descent of man, 192, 204, and ii.--15, 257. [16] natural selection, p. 365. am. ed. [17] theory of the earth, 123. [18] testimony of the rocks, 77. [19] address at annual meeting of the geological society, 1862. [20] agassiz's methods of study. [21] draper's human physiology, 506. [22] lyell's principles of geology, book iii., chapter 33. chapter iii. is god everybody, and everybody god? pantheism is that perversion of reason and language which denies god's personality, and calls some imaginary soul of the world, or the world itself, by his name. while pantheists are fully agreed upon the propriety of getting rid of a god who could note their conduct, and call them to account for it hereafter, and who would claim to exercise any authority over them here, they are by no means agreed, either in india, germany, or america, as to what they shall call by his name. public opinion necessitates them to say they believe in a god, but almost every one has his own private opinion as to what it is. we shall speak of it as we hear it pronounced from the lips of its prophets, here, as well as in the writings of its expounders, in europe, and asia. some of them declare, that it is some absolutely unknown cause of all the phenomena of the universe, and others, that it is the universe itself. a large class speak of it as the great soul of the world, while the more materialistic regard it as the world itself, body and soul; the soul being the sum of all the imponderable forces, such as gravitation, heat, light, electricity, magnetism, galvanism, vegetable and animal life, and especially the mesmeric influence, of which many of them regard intellect as a modification; and the body being the sum of all the ponderable substances, such as air, water, earth, minerals, vegetables, and bodies of animals and men. this creed is popularly expressed in the sentence so often heard, "god is everything, and everything is god." but this vast generalization of all things into the higher unity--this exalting of monkeys, men, snails, and paving stones to the same level of divinity--by no means meets the views of the more unphilosophical and aspiring gods and goddesses, for the very reason that it is so impartial. to deify a man and his cat by the same process is not much of a distinction to the former; and of what advantage is it to be made a god, if he does not thereby obtain some distinction? this leveling apotheosis is generally confined to the german pantheists; their more ambitious american brethren ascribe the contented humility which accepts it to the continual influence of the fumes of tobacco and lager beer. man is the great deity of the other class. renan boldly says: "for myself, i believe there is not in the universe an intelligence superior to that of man; the absolute of justice and reason manifests itself only in humanity; regarded apart from humanity that absolute exists only as an abstraction. the infinite exists only when it clothes itself in form."[23] and as the soul of man is, rather inconsistently for people who believe everything god, supposed to be superior to the rest of him, they go off into great rhapsodies of adoration of their own souls. "the doctrine of the soul--first _soul_, and second _soul_, and evermore _soul_"[24]--is the doctrine which is to regenerate the world. god, in their view, is nothing till he attains self-consciousness in man. "the universal does not attract us till housed in the individual. who heeds the waste abyss of possibility? standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mere egotism vanishes. the currents of the universal being circulate through me. i am part or particle of god." "i stand here to say, 'let us worship the mighty and transcendent soul.'" "god attains to self-consciousness only in the human soul." "honor yourself." "reverence your own individuality." "the soul of man is the highest intelligence in the universe." such are the dogmas which, under the name of philosophy, are poured forth oracularly, unsupported by reason or argument, by the prophets of the new dispensation--the last and highest achievement of the human intellect. it is very unfortunate, however, for the honor of the prophets of the nineteenth century, that this profound discovery was invented, and illustrated, patented, and peddled, by the hindoos, among the people of india, two thousand years before the divinity had struggled into self consciousness in the mighty and transcendent souls of schelling, hegel, and strauss, of atkinson, parker, or emerson. we mean to show in this lecture, that it is an _antiquated, hypocritical, demoralizing atheism_. 1. _pantheism is an antiquated heresy._--it has rotted and putrefied among the worshipers of cats, and monkeys, and holy bulls, and bits of sticks and stones, on the banks of the ganges, for more than two thousand years; yet it is now hooked up out of its dunghill, and hawked about among christian people, as a prime new discovery of modern philosophy for getting rid of almighty god. as the hindoo shasters are undoubtedly the sources from which french, german, and american philosophers have borrowed their dogmas, and as they have not had time to take the whole system, we shall edify the public by a view of this sublime theology as exhibited in the writings of the pantheistic philosophers of india, as follows: "when existing in the temporary imperfect state of _sagun_, brahm (the pantheist deity) wills to manifest the universe. for this purpose he puts forth his omnipotent energy, which is variously styled in the different systems now under review. he puts forth his energy for what? for the effecting of a creation out of nothing? 'no,' says one of the shasters, but to '_produce from his own divine substance a multiform universe_.' by the spontaneous exertion of this energy he sends forth, from his own divine substance, a countless host of essences, like innumerable sparks issuing from the blazing fire, or myriads of rays from the resplendent sun. these detached portions of brahm--these separated divine essences--soon become individuated systems, destined, in time, to occupy different forms prepared for their reception; whether these be fixed or movable, animate or inanimate, forms of gods or men, forms of animal, vegetable, or mineral existences. "having been separated from brahm in his imperfect state of _sagun_, they carry along with them a share of those principles, qualities, and attributes that characterize that state, though predominating in very different degrees and proportions; either according to their respective capacities, or the retributive awards of an eternal ordination. among others it is specially noted, that as brahm at that time had awakened into a consciousness of his own existence, there does inhere in each separated soul a notion, or a conviction, of its own _distinct_, independent, individual existence. laboring under this delusive notion, or conviction, the soul has lost the knowledge of its own proper nature--its divine origin, and ultimate destiny. it ignorantly regards itself as an inferior entity, instead of knowing itself to be what it truly is, a consubstantial, though it may be an infinitesimally minute portion of the great whole, a universal spirit. "each individual soul being thus a portion of brahm, even as a spark is of fire, it is again and again declared that the relation between them is not that of master and servant, ruler and ruled, but that of whole and part! the soul is pronounced to be eternal _a parte ante_; in itself it has had no beginning or birth, though its separate individuality originated in time. it is eternal _a parte post_; it will have no end--no death; though its separate individuality will terminate in time. its manifestation in time is not a creation; it is an effluence from the eternal fount of spirit. its disappearance from the stage of time is not an extinction of essence--a reduction to nonentity; it is only a refluence into its original source. as an emanation from the supreme, eternal spirit, it is from everlasting to everlasting. neither can it be said to be of finite dimensions; on the contrary, says the sacred oracle, 'being identified with the supreme brahm, it participates in his infinity.' "after having enumerated all the elementary principles, atoms, and qualities successively evolved from brahm, one of the sacred writings states, that though each of these had distinct powers, yet they existed separate and disunited, without order or harmonious adaptation of parts; that until they were duly combined together, it was impossible to produce this universe, or animated beings; and that therefore it was requisite to adopt other means than fortuitous chance for giving them an appropriate combination, and symmetrical arrangement. the supreme, accordingly, produced an egg, in which the elementary principles might be deposited, and nurtured into maturity." "all the primary atoms, qualities, and principles--the seeds of future worlds--that had been evolved from the substance of brahm, were now collected together, and deposited in the newly produced egg. and into it, along with them, entered the self-existent himself, under the assumed form of brahm; and then he sat vivifying, expanding, and combining the elements, a whole year of the creation, or four thousand three hundred millions of solar years! during this amazing period, the wondrous egg floated like a bubble on the abyss of primeval waters, increasing in size, and blazing refulgent as a thousand suns. at length the supreme, who dwelt therein, burst the shell of the stupendous egg, and issued forth under a new form, with a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand arms. along with him there issued forth another form, huge and measureless. what could that be? all the elementary principles having now been matured, and disposed into an endless variety of orderly collocations, and combined into one harmonious whole, they darted into visible manifestation under the form of the present glorious universe! a universe now finished, and ready made, with its entire apparatus, of earth, sun, moon, and stars. what, then, is this multiform universe? it is but a harmoniously arranged expansion of primordial principles and qualities. and whence are these? educed or evolved from the divine substance of brahm. hence it is that the universe is so constantly spoken of, even by mythologists, as a manifested form of brahm himself, the supreme, invisible spirit. hence, too, under the notion that it is the manifestation of a being who may assume every variety of corporeal form, is the universe often personified, or described as if its different parts were only the different members of a person, of prodigious magnitude, in human form. it is declared that the hairs of his body are the trees of the forest; of his head, the clouds; of his beard, the lightning. his breath is the circling atmosphere; his voice, the thunder; his eyes, the sun and moon; his veins, the rivers; his nails, the rocks; his bones, the lofty mountains![25] "the substantial fabrics of all worlds having now been framed and fitted up as the destined abodes of different orders of being, celestial, terrestrial, and infernal, the question next arises, how or by whom were produced the various organized forms which these orders of being were designed to animate? though hosts of subtle essences or souls flowed forth from brahm, all of these remain inactive till united to some form of materialism. from this necessity the gods themselves are not exempted. while the souls of men, and other inferior spirits, must be encased in tabernacles fashioned out of the grosser elements, the souls of the gods, and all other superior spirits, must be made to inhabit material forms, composed of one or other of the infinitely attenuated and invisible rudimental atoms that spring direct from the principle of consciousness. "interminable as are the incoherencies, inconsistencies, and extravagancies of the hindoo sacred writings, on no subject, perhaps, is the multiplicity of varying accounts and discrepancies more astonishing than on the present. volumes could not suffice to retail them all. brahma's first attempts at the production of the forms of animated beings were as eminently unsuccessful as they were various. at one time he is said to have performed a long and severe course of ascetic devotions, to enable him to accomplish his wish; but in vain; at another, inflamed by anger and passion at his repeated failures, he sat down and wept; and from the streaming tear drops sprang into being, as his first boon, a progeny of ghosts and goblins, of an aspect so loathsome and dreadful, that he was ready to faint away. at one time, after profound meditation, different beings spring forth: one from his thumb, another from his breath, a third from his ear, a fourth from his side. but enough of such monstrous legends."[26] there now, reader, you have the original of the development theory, with vestiges of creation enough to make half a dozen new infidel cosmogonies, besides the genuine original of pantheism, from its native soil. our western pantheists will doubtless reverence their venerable progenitors; and, should the remainder of the family find their way here in a year or two, via germany, the public will be better prepared to give a fitting reception to such distinguished visitors, including their suite of divine bulls and holy monkeys, their lustrations of cow dung, ecstatic hook swingings, burning of widows, and drowning of children, and other pantheistic philosophies, from the banks of the ganges. what an outrage of decency for such men to call themselves philosophers and christians! the relationship of american pantheism with that of india is unblushingly acknowledged by the recent pantheistic writers: "when ancient sages came to believe in the absolute goodness, justice, love, and wisdom of the deity, or providence, they fell into that peace which needed nothing, feared nothing, and therefore worshiped nothing. nothing to blame, nothing to praise; the perfect whole became one great divinity. it was so in magadha and benares; it is so in concord and boston."[27] 2. _pantheism is a system of deception and hypocrisy._--has any man a right to pervert the english language, by fixing new meanings to words, entirely different from and contrary to those in common use? if he knows the meaning of the words he uses, and uses them to convey a contrary meaning, he is a deceiver. the name god, used as a proper name, in the english tongue, means "the supreme being; jehovah; the eternal and infinite spirit, the creator and sovereign of the universe."[28] if, then, a man says he believes in god, but when forced to explain what he means by that name, says he means steam, heat, electricity, galvanism, magnetism, mesmeric force, odyle, animal life, the soul of man, or the sum of all the intelligences in the universe, he is a deceiver, and vain talker, abusing language to conceal his impiety. pantheism is simply jesuitical atheism. willing to dethrone jehovah, but unable and unwilling to place any other being in his stead, as creator and ruler of the universe, yet conscious that mankind will never embrace open atheism, pantheists profess to believe in god, only that they may steal his name to cloak their atheism. we, in common with all who believe in god, demand, that, as their divinity is, by their own confession, essentially different from god, they shall use a different word to describe it. let them call it brahm, as their brethren in india do, or any other name not appropriated to any existing being in heaven or earth, or under the earth; and let them cease to profane religion, and insult common sense, by affixing the holy name of the supreme to their thousand-headed monster. but the very perfection of jesuitism is reached, when pantheists profess their high respect for the christian religion. they do not generally speak of it as a superstition, though some of the vulgar sort do; nor do they decry its mysteries, as deists are in the habit of doing; nor, as socinians, and unitarians, and rationalists, do they attempt to reduce it to a mere code of morals. they grant it to be the highest development of humanity yet reached by the majority of the human race. the brute, the savage, the polytheistic idolater, the star worshiper, the monotheist, the christian, are all, in their scheme, so many successive developments of humanity in its upward progress. there is only one step higher than christianity, and that is pantheism. well knowing that christianity is diametrically opposed to their falsehoods, and that the bible, everywhere, teaches that the natural progress of man has ever been down from a state of holiness to idolatry and barbarism, they have yet the hardihood to profess respect for it, as a system of concealed pantheism, and to clothe their abominations in scripture language. they speak, for instance, of the "beauty of holiness in the mind, that has surmounted every idea of a personal god;" and of "god dwelling in us, and his love perfected in us," when they believe that he dwells as really in every creature: in that hog, for instance. then they will readily acknowledge that the bible is inspired. they _can accept_--that is the phrase--they can accept the book which denounces death upon those fools who, "professing themselves to be wise, change the truth of god into a lie, and worship and serve the creature more than the creator," as merely a mystic revelation of the pantheism which leaves man to "erect everything into a god, provided it is none: sun, moon, stars, a cat, a monkey, an onion, uncouth idols, sculptured marble; nay, a shapeless trunk, which the devout impatience of the idolater does not stay to fashion into the likeness of a man, but gives its apotheosis at once." oh, yes; they accept the bible as inspired--a god inspired book--inasmuch as _every_ product of the human mind is a development of deity. the bible, then, when we have the matter fully explained, is quite on a level with gulliver's travels, or emerson's address to a senior class of divinity. there is nothing, however, in this vast system of monstrosities, which fills the soul of a christian with such loathing and detestation, as to hear pantheists profess their veneration for the lord jesus, and claim him as a teacher of pantheism. if there is one object which they detest with all their hearts, it is the judge of the quick and dead, and the vengeance which he shall take upon them that know not god, and obey not the gospel. any allusion to the judgment seat of christ fills them with fury, and causes them to pour forth awful blasphemies. they know that the lord jesus repeatedly declared himself the judge of the living and the dead--that "the hour is coming in which all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth: they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation;" and that the very last sentence of his public discourses is, "and these" (the wicked) "shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal." when they drop the mask for a moment, they can accuse apostles and disciples with "dwelling with noxious exaggeration about the _person_ of christ."[29] christ, as revealed in the gospel, they hate with a perfect hatred. but when it becomes necessary to address christians, and beguile them into the deceitfulness of pantheism, the tune is changed. christ becomes the model man--"one conceived in conditions favorable to the highest perfectibility of the individual consciousness; and so possessed of powers of generalization far in advance of the age in which he lived. they can listen to and honor one of the best expounders of god and nature in the man of nazareth."[30] the vilest falsehoods of pantheism are ascribed to jesus, that those who, ignorant of his doctrine, yet respect his name, may be seduced to receive them. of him who declared, "out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, thefts, false witness, blasphemies," they have the hardihood to declare, "he saw with open eyes the mystery of the soul; alone, in all history, he estimated the greatness of man." calculating upon that ignorance of the teaching of christ which is so general among their audiences, they dare to represent the only begotten son of god as teaching pantheism: "one man was true to what is in you and me; he saw that god incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his world. he said in this jubilee of sublime emotion, 'i am divine. through me god acts; through me, speaks. would you see god, see me; or see thee when thou also thinkest as i now think.' because the indwelling supreme spirit can not wholly be got rid of, the doctrine of it suffers this perversion, that the divine nature is attributed to one or two persons, and denied to all the rest, and denied with fury." yes, truly, the divine nature is emphatically denied to all unregenerated men, and denied, too, by that divine teacher thus eulogized. hear him: "ye do the deeds of your father. then said they to him, we be not born of fornication; we have one father, even god. jesus said unto them, if god were your father, ye would love me; for i proceeded forth and came from god; neither came i of myself, but he sent me. why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye can not hear my word. ye are of your father, the devil; and the works of your father ye will do. he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh it of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it." let pantheists, then, cease to wind their serpent coils around christianity, and to defile the bible with their filthy lickings. the lord jesus will not suffer such persons to bear even a true testimony to him, and his followers will not permit them to ascribe their falsehoods to him, without reproof. let them stand out and avow themselves the enemies of christ and his gospel, as they are, and cease their abominable pretenses of giving to the world the ultimate development of christianity. what concord hath christ with belial? 3. _pantheism is a system of immorality._--it loosens all the sanctions of moral law. if there is anything upon which all pantheists are agreed, it is in the denial of the resurrection, the judgment, and the future punishment of the wicked. their whole system, in all its range, from spiritualism to phrenology, is expressly invented to get rid of god's moral government. if man is the highest intelligence in the universe, to whom should he render an account of his conduct? or who would have any right to call him to account? then, if we are developments of deity, deity can not offend against itself. further, if our development, both of body and mind, be the inevitable result of the laws of nature--of our organization and our position--man is but the creature of circumstances, and, therefore, as is abundantly argued, can not be made responsible for laws and their results, over which he has no control. "i am what i am. i can not alter my will, or be other than what i am, and can not deserve either reward or punishment."[31] before hundreds of the citizens of cincinnati, a lecturer publicly denied the right of either god or man to invade his individuality, by taking vengeance upon him for any crime whatever. thousands, who are not yet pantheists, are so far infected with the poison that they utterly deny any right of vindictive punishment to god or man. but this is not all. again and again have we listened with astonishment to men, declaring that there was no moral law--no standard of right and wrong, but the will of the community. of course it was quite natural, after such a declaration, to assert that a wife who should remain with a husband of inferior intellectuality, or unsuitable emotions, was committing adultery; that private property is a legalized robbery; and that when a citizen becomes mentally or physically unfit for the business of life, he confers the highest obligation on society, and performs the highest duty to himself, by committing suicide, and thus returning to the great ocean of being! we might think that confusion of right and wrong could not be worse confounded than this; yet there is a blacker darkness still. _the distinction between good and evil is absolutely denied._ the hindoo pantheists declare that they can not sin, because they are god, and god can not offend against himself; there is no sin--it is all _maya_--delusion. so the american and english school tells us it lives only in the obsolete theology. evil, we are told, "is good in another way we are not skilled in."[32] so says the author of "representative men." "evil," according to old philosophers, "is good in the making; that pure malignity can exist is the extreme proposition of unbelief. it is not to be entertained by a rational agent. it is atheism; it is the last profanation." "the divine effort is never relaxed; the carrion in the sun will convert itself into grass and flowers; and man, though in brothels, or jails, or on gibbets, is on his way to all that is good and true."[33] emerson, in a lecture in cincinnati, is reported by the editor of _the central herald_, as saying in his hearing: "to say that the majority of men are wicked, is only to say that they are young." "every man is indebted to his vices--virtues grow out of them as a thrifty and fruitful plant grows out of manure." "there is hope even for the reprobate, and the ruffian, in the fullness of time." if these were only the ravings of lunatics, or the dreamings of philosophers, we should never have hunted them from their hiding-places to scare your visions; but these doctrines are weekly propounded in your own city, and throughout our land, from platform and press, to thousands of your children and their school-teachers, of your work, men and your lawgivers, to your wives and daughters. again and again have our ears been confounded in the squares of new york, and the streets of philadelphia, and the market-places of cincinnati, by the boisterous cry, _what is sin? there is no sin. it is all an old story._ let men who fear no god, but who have lives, and wives, and property to lose, look to it, and say if they act wisely in giving their influence to a system which lands in such consequences. let them devise some religion for the people which will preserve the rights of man, while giving license to trample upon the rights of god; or, failing in the effort, let them acknowledge that the enemy of god is, and of necessity must be, the foe of all that constitutes the happiness of man. impiety and immorality are wedded in heaven's decree, and man can not sunder them. 4. _pantheism is virtually atheism._--it may scarce seem needful to multiply proofs on this head. how can any one imagine a being composed of the sum of all the intelligences of the universe? such a thing, or combination of things, never was distinctly conceived of by any intelligent being. can intelligences be compounded, or like bricks and mortar, piled upon each other? if they could, did these finite intelligences create themselves? if the soul of man is the highest intelligence in the universe, did the soul of man create, or does the soul of man govern it? shall we adore his soul? some pantheists have got just to this length. m. comte declares, that "at this present time, for minds properly familiarized with true astronomical philosophy, the heavens display no other glory than that of hipparchus, or kepler, or newton, and of all who have helped to establish these laws." _establish_ these laws! laws by which the heavenly bodies were guided thousands of years before kepler or newton were born. shall we then adore the souls of kepler and newton? m. comte has invented a religion, which he is much displeased that the admirers of his positive philosophy will not accept, in which the children are to be taught to worship idols, the youth to believe in one god, if they can, after such a training in infancy, and the full-grown men are to adore a grand etre, "the continuous resultant of all the forces capable of voluntarily concurring in the universal perfectioning of the world, _not forgetting our worthy auxiliaries, the animals_."[34] our anglo-saxon pantheists, however, are not quite philosophical enough yet to adore the mules and oxen, and therefore refuse worship altogether. "work is worship," constitutes their liturgy. "as soon as the man is as one with god, he will not beg. he will then see prayer in all action."[35] "labor wide as earth has its summit in heaven. sweat of the brow, and up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart; which includes all kepler calculations, newton meditations, all sciences, all spoken epics, all acted heroisms, martyrdoms, up to that agony of bloody sweat, which all men have accounted divine! oh, brother, if this is not worship, then i say, the more pity for worship; for this is the noblest thing yet discovered under god's sky." "no man has worked, or can work, except religiously."[36] "adieu, o church! thy road is that way, mine is this. in god's name, adieu!"[37] such is the theory. how faithfully acted out, you can learn from the thousands who are now, publicly, upon god's holy sabbath, working religiously upon the bridge that is to span the river, or less ostentatiously in their shops and workrooms throughout the city. within a circle of three miles' radius of the spot you now occupy, one hundred thousand intelligent beings in this christian city worship no god. the abstraction, which the pantheist calls god, is no object of worship. it is not to be loved. if it does good, it could not help it, and did not intend it. it is not to be thanked for benefits. it, the sum of all the intelligence of the universe, can not be collected from the seven spheres to receive any such acknowledgment. it can not deviate from its fated course of proceeding; therefore, says the pantheist, why should i pray? it neither sees his conduct, nor cares for it; and he denies any right to call him to account. it did not create him, does not govern him, will not judge him, can not punish him. it is no object of love, fear, worship, or obedience. it is no god. he is an atheist. he believes not in any god. hear, o israel! the lord our god is one lord. he is distinct from, and supreme over all his works. he now rules, and will hereafter judge all intelligent creatures, and will render to every one according to his works. 1. _reason declares it._ the world did not make itself. the soul of man did not make itself. the body of man did not make itself. they must have had an intelligent creator, who is god. god is known by his works to be distinct from them, and superior to them. the work is not the workman. the house is not the builder. the watch is not the watchmaker. the sum of all the works of any worker is not the agent who produced them. let an architect spend his life in building a city, yet the city is not the builder. the maker is always distinct from, and superior to, the thing made. you and i, and the universe, are made. our maker, then, is distinct from, and superior to us. one plan gives order to the universe; therefore, one mind originated it. the creator is over all his creatures. 2. _our consciousness confirms it._ if a blind god could not make a seeing man, a god destitute of the principle of self-consciousness (if such an abuse of language may be tolerated for a moment) could not impart to man the conviction, _i am_,--the ineradicable belief that i am not the world, nor any other person; much less, everybody; but that i am a person, possessed of powers of knowing, thinking, liking and disliking, judging, approving of right, and disapproving of wrong, and choosing and willing my conduct. my maker has at least as much common sense as he has given me. he that teacheth man knowledge, shall he not know? 3. _our ignorance and weakness demand a governor of the world wiser than ourselves._ the soul of man is not the highest intelligence in the universe. it can not know the mode of its own operation on the body it inhabits, much less the plan of the world's management. man may know much about what does not concern him, and about things over which he has no control; but it is the will of god that his pride should feel the curb of ignorance and impotence where his dearest interests are concerned, that so he may be compelled to acknowledge that god is greater than man. he may be able to tell the place of the distant planets a thousand years hence, but he can not tell where himself shall be next year. he can calculate for years to come the motions of the tides, which he can not control, but can not tell how his own pulse shall beat, or whether it shall beat at all, to-morrow. ever as his knowledge of the laws by which god governs the world increases, his conviction of his impotence grows; and he sees and feels that a wiser head and stronger hand than that of any creature, planned and administered them. ever as he reaches some ultimate truth, such as the mystery of electricity, of light, of life, of gravitation, which he can not explain, and beyond which he can not penetrate, he hears the voice of god therein, demanding him to acknowledge his impotence. "where is the way where light dwelleth, and as for darkness, what is the place thereof? canst thou bind the sweet influences of the pleiades, or loose the bands of orion? canst thou bring forth mazzaroth in his seasons? or canst thou guide arcturus, with his sons? knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? canst thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto thee, 'here we are?'" 4. _our consciences convince us that god is a moral governor._ the distinction between brutes and men is, that man has a sense of the distinction between right and wrong. if we find a tribe of savages, or individuals who indulge their appetites without rule, and who do wrong without any apparent remorse or shame, we designate them brutes. even those who in words deny any difference between right and wrong, do in fact admit its existence, by their attempts to justify that opinion. though weaker, or less regarded in some than in others, every man is conscious of a faculty in himself which sits in judgment on his own conduct, and that of others, approving or condemning it as right or wrong. in all lands, and in all ages, the common sense of mankind has acknowledged the existence and moral authority of conscience, as distinct from and superior to mere intellect. no language of man is destitute of words conveying the ideas of virtue and vice, of goodness and wickedness. when one attempts to deceive you by a willful lie, you are sensible not only of an intellectual process of reason detecting the error, but of a distinct judgment of disapprobation of the crime. when one who has received kindness from a benefactor, neglects to make any acknowledgment of it, cherishes no feelings of gratitude, and insults and abuses the friend who succored him, we are conscious, not merely of the facts, as phenomena to be observed, but of the ingratitude, as a crime to be detested. and we are irresistibly constrained to believe that he who taught us this knowledge of a difference between right and wrong, does himself know such a distinction; and that he who implanted this feeling of approval of right, and condemnation of wrong, in us, does himself approve the right, and condemn the wrong. and as we can form no notion of right or wrong unconnected with the idea that approbation of right conduct should be suitably expressed, and that disapprobation of wrong conduct ought also to be suitably expressed--in other words, that right ought to be rewarded, and wrong ought to be punished--so we are constrained to trace such a connection from our minds to the mind of him who framed them. this conviction is god's law, written in our hearts. when we do wrong, we become conscious of a feeling of remorse in our consciences, as truly as the eye becomes conscious of the darkness. we may blind the eye, and we may sear the conscience, that the one shall not see, nor the other feel; but light and darkness, right and wrong, will exist. the awful fact which conscience reveals to us, that we sin against god, that we know the right, and do the wrong, and are conscious of it, and of god's disapprobation of it, is conclusive proof that we are not only distinct from god, but separate from him--that we oppose our wills against his. and every pang of remorse is a premonition of god's judgment, and every sorrow and suffering which the governor of the world has connected with sin--as the drunkard's loss of character and property, of peace and happiness, the frenzy of his soul, and the destruction of his body--is a type and teaching of the curse which he has denounced against sin. 5. _the world's history is the record of man's crimes, and god's punishments._ once god swept the human race from earth with a flood of water, because the wickedness of man was great on the earth. again, he testified his displeasure against the ungodly sinners of sodom and gomorrah, by consuming their cities with fire from heaven, and leaving the dead sea to roll its solemn waves of warning to all ungodly sinners, to the end of time. by the ordinary course of his providence, he has ever secured the destruction of ungodly nations. no learning, commerce, arms, territories, or skill, has ever secured a rebellious nation against the sword of god's justice. ask the black record of a rebel world's history for an instance. egypt, canaan, nineveh, babylon, persia, greece, rome. where are they now? tyre had ships, colonies, and commerce; rome an empire on which the sun never set; greece had philosophy, arts, and liberty secured by a confederation of republics; spain the treasures of earth's gold and silver, and the possession of half the globe. did these secure them against the moral government of god? no! god's law sways the universe; that law which, with the brazen fetters of eternal justice, binds together sin and misery, crime and punishment, and lays the burden on the backs of all ungodly nations, irresistibly forcing them down--down--down the road to ruin. the vain imagination that refuses to glorify god as god, leads to darkness of heart, thence to atheism, thence to gross idolatry, onward to selfish gratification, violent rapacity, lust of conquest, and luxury, licentiousness, and effeminacy begotten of its spoils; then military tyranny, civil war, servile revolt, anarchy, famine and pestilence, and the sword of less debauched neighbors, christ's iron scepter, hurl them down from the pinnacle of greatness, to dash them in pieces against each other, in the valley of destruction; and there they lie, wrecks of nations, ruins of empires, naught remaining, save some shivered potsherds of former greatness, to show that once they were, and were the enemies of god. oh, america, take warning ere it be too late! god rules the nations. "he that chastiseth the heathen, shall he not correct you?" a day of retribution, reader, comes to you, as an individual. neither your insignificance nor your unbelief can hide you from his eye, nor can your puny arm shield you from his righteous judgment. his hand shall find out his enemies. oh, fly from the wrath to come! "seek the lord while he may be found." he is not far from every one of us. his breath is in our nostrils. his word is in our hands. "whosoever shall call on the name of the lord shall be saved." footnotes: [23] cited in pressense's _jesus christ, his life and times_. page 10. [24] emerson. [25] duff's india, pages 99-114. [26] duff's india, page 119. [27] man's origin and destiny, 293. [28] webster's dictionary. [29] emerson's address to a senior class in divinity. [30] hennell's christian theism, which shows how theists of every nation--christian, jew, mohammedan, or chinese--can meet upon common ground. [31] atkinson's letters, page 190. [32] festus, page 48. [33] swedenborg, or the mystic (quoted by pierson, 41), p. 68. [34] politique positive, vol. ii. page 60. [35] emerson. [36] carlyle--past and present. [37] carlyle--life of sterling. chapter iv. have we any need of the bible? religion consists of the knowledge of a number of great facts, and of a course of life suitable to them. we have seen three of these: that god created the world; that he governs it; and that he is able to conquer his enemies. there are others of the same sort as needful to be known. our knowledge of these facts, or our ignorance of them, makes not the slightest difference in the facts themselves. god is, and heaven is, and hell is, and sin leads to it, whether anybody believes these things or not. it makes no sort of difference in the beetling cliff and swollen flood that sweeps below it, that the drunken man declares there is no danger, and, refusing the proffered lantern, gallops on toward it in the darkness of the night. but when the mangled corpse is washed ashore, every one sees how foolish this man was, to be so confident in his ignorance as to refuse the lantern, which would have shown him his danger, and guided him to the bridge where he might have crossed in safety. some of the facts of religion lie at the evening end of life's journey; the darkness of death's night hides them from mortal eye; and living men might guide their steps the better by asking counsel of one who knows the way. if they get along no better by their own counsel in the next world than most of them do in this, they will have small cause to bless their teacher. who can tell that ignorance, and wickedness, and wretchedness are not as tightly tied together in the world to come, as we see them here? solomon was a knowing man and wise; and better than that, in the esteem of most people, he made money, and tells you how to make it, and keep it. you will make a hundred dollars by reading his proverbs and acting on them. they would have saved some of you many a thousand. of course such a man knew something of the world. he was a wide-awake trader. his ships coasted the shores of asia, and africa, from madagascar to japan; and the overland mail caravans from india and china drew up in the depots he built for them in the heart of the desert. he knew the well-doing people with whom trade was profitable, and the savages who could only send apes and peacocks. he was a philosopher as well as a trader, and could not help being deeply impressed with _the great fact_, that there was a wide difference among the nations of the world. some were enlightened, enterprising, civilized, and flourishing; others were naked savages, living in ignorance, poverty, vice, and starvation, perpetually murdering one another, and dying out of the earth. solomon noticed _another great fact_. in his own country, and in chaldea, mesopotamia, egypt, and some others, god had revealed his will to certain persons for the benefit of their neighbors. he did so generally by opening the eyes of these prophets to see future events, and the great facts of the unseen world, and by giving them messages of warning and instruction to the nations. from this mode of revelation, by opening the prophets eyes to see realities invisible to others, they were called seers, and the revelations they were commissioned to make were called visions; and revelation from god was called, in general, vision. solomon was struck with the fact that some nations were thus favored by god, and other nations were not. the question would naturally arise, what difference does it make, or does it make any difference, whether men have any revelation of god's will or not? solomon was led to observe a _third great fact_. the nations which were favored with these revelations were the civilized, enterprising, and comparatively prosperous nations. in proportion to the amount of divine revelation they had, and their obedience to it, they prospered. the nations that had no revelation from god were the idolatrous savages, who were sinking down to the level of brutes, and perishing off the face of the earth. he daguerreotypes these three great facts in the proverb: "where there is no vision the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." oh, says the rationalist, the world is wiser now than it was in solomon's days. he lived in the old mythological period, when men attributed everything extraordinary to the gods. but the world is too wise now to believe in any supernatural revelation. "the hebrew and christian religions like all others have their myths." "the fact is, the pure historic idea was never developed among the hebrews during the whole of their political existence." "when, therefore, we meet with an account of certain phenomena, or events of which it is expressly stated or implied that they were produced immediately by god himself (such as divine apparitions, voices from heaven, and the like), or by human beings possessed of supernatural powers (miracles, prophecies, etc.), such an account is so far to be considered not historical." "indeed, no just notion of the true nature of history is possible without a perception of the inviolability of the chain of finite causes, and of the impossibility of miracles."[38] a narrative is to be deemed mythical, 1st. "when it proceeds from an age in which there were no written records, but events were transmitted by tradition; 2d. when it presents, as historical, accounts of events which were beyond the reach of experience, as occurrences connected with the spiritual world; or 3d. when it deals in the marvelous, and is couched in symbolical language."[39] so also a host of others, who pass for biblical expositors, lay it down as an axiom, that all records of supernatural events are mythical, viz: fables, falsehoods, because miracles are impossible. of course, from such premises the conclusion is easy. a revelation from god to man is a supernatural event, and supernatural events are impossible; therefore, a revelation from god is impossible. but it would have been much easier, and quite as logical, to have laid down the axiom in plain words at first, that a revelation from god is impossible, as to argue it from such premises; for it is just as easy to _say_, that a revelation from god is impossible, as to _say_ that miracles are impossible; and as for _proof_ of either one or the other, we must just take their word for it. one can not help being amazed at the cool impudence with which these men take for granted the very point to be proved, and set aside, as unworthy of serious examination, the most authentic records of history, simply because they do not coincide with their so-called philosophy; and at the credulity with which their followers swallow this arrogant dogmatism, as if it were self-evident truth. let us look at it for a moment. other religions have their myths, or fables, therefore, the hebrew and christian records are fables, says the rationalist. profundity of logic! counterfeit bank bills are common, therefore none are genuine. "the fact is, the pure historic idea was never developed among the hebrews," _i. e._, moses and the prophets were all liars. that is the fact, you may take my word for it. "indeed, no just notion of the true nature of history is possible without a perception of the inviolability of the chain of finite causes, and of the impossibility of miracles" which translated into plain words is simply this: no man can understand history who believes in god almighty. "a narrative is to be deemed fabulous when it proceeds from an age in which there were no written records," such, for instance, as any account of the creation of the first man--for no event could possibly happen unless there was a scribe there to write it. or, of the fall of man--we do not know that adam was able to write, and no man can tell truth unless he writes a history. "a narrative is to be deemed fabulous when it presents, as historical, accounts of events which were beyond the reach of experience, as events connected with the spiritual world." is it not self-evident that you and i have had experience of everything in the whole universe, and whoever tells us anything which we have never seen is a liar. "when a narrative deals in the marvelous," such as xenophon's retreat of the ten thousand, herodotus' history, or gibbon's decline and fall of the roman empire, dealing as it does in such marvelous accounts as the death of half the inhabitants of the empire in the reign of galerius, or any other history of wonderful occurrence--it is of course a myth. does not every one know that nothing marvelous ever happened, or, if it did, would any historian trouble himself to record a prodigy? "or, if it is couched in symbolical language," as is every eloquent passage in thucydides, robertson, gibbon, or guizot, the records of china, and of india, the picture-writing of the peruvians, and especially the egyptian hieroglyphics, which were fondly expected to do such good service against the bible--it must be at once rejected, without further examination, as mythological and unworthy of any credit whatever. thus we are conclusively rid forever of the bible, for sure enough it is couched in symbolical language. blessed deliverance to the world! but then, alas! this great deliverance is accompanied with several little inconveniences. all poetry, three-fourths of the world's history, and the largest part of its philosophy, is couched in symbolical language, and especially the whole of the science of metaphysics, from which these very learned writers have deduced such edifying conclusions, is, from the beginning to the end, nothing but a symbolical application of the terms which describe material objects, to the phenomena of mind. alas! we must forever relinquish "the absolute," and "the infinite," and "the conditioned," with all their "affinities and potencies," up to "higher unity," and "the rhythm of universal existence," and all the rest of those perspicuous german hieroglyphics, whether entombed in their native pyramids for the amazement of succeeding generations, by fichte, schelling, or hegel, or "worshiping in the great cathedral of the immensities," "with their heads uplifted into infinite space," or "lying on the plane of their own consciousness," in the writings of carlyle, emerson, and parker. they are myths, the whole of them, for they "are couched in symbolical language;" and bauer, de wette, and strauss have pronounced every thing couched in symbolical language to be mythical. let us henceforth deliver our minds from all anxiety about history, philosophy, or religion, and stick to the price current and the multiplication table, the only accounts that are not "couched in symbolical language." such is the sort of trash that passes for profound philosophy when once it is made unintelligible, and such are the canons of interpretation with which men calling themselves philosophers and christians sit down to investigate the claims of the bible as a revelation from god. if they would speak out their true sentiments, they would say, "there can not be any revelation from god, because there is no god." but they could not call themselves professors of christian colleges, and pastors of christian churches, and reap the emoluments of such situations, if they would honestly avow their atheism. besides, the world would see too plainly the drift of their teaching; therefore it is cloaked under a profession of belief in god, the creator, who however is to be carefully prevented from ever showing himself again in the world he has made. no proof is attempted for the declaration that miracles are impossible. yet, surely, if it implies a contradiction to say so, that contradiction could be shown. that it is not self-evident is shown by the general belief of mankind that miracles have occurred. no man who believes in a supernatural being can deny the possibility of supernatural actings. the creation of the world is the most stupendous of all miracles, utterly beyond the power of any finite causes, and entirely beyond the reach of our experience, yet some of these men admit that this miracle occurred. supernatural events then are not impossible, nor unprecedented. the vain notion that god, having created the world at first, left it for ever after to the operation of natural laws, is conclusively demolished by the discoveries of geology. these discoveries established the fact recorded in scripture, that in bringing the world into its present form there were several distinct and successive interpositions of supernatural power, in the distinct and successive creations of different species of vegetable and animal life. in former periods, they tell us, the earth was so warm that the present races of men and animals could not have lived on it, and the plants and animals of that age could not live now. these very men are profuse in proving that the earth existed for ages before _man_ made his appearance upon it. this being the case, we are compelled to acknowledge the creating power of god above the laws of nature, for there is no law of nature which can either create a new species of plants or animals, nor yet change one kind into another, make an oak into a larch, or an ox into a sheep, or a goose into a turkey, or a megatherium into an elephant, much less into a man. some men have dreamed of such changes as these, but no instance of such a change has ever been alleged in proof of the notion. the most distinguished anatomists and geologists are fully agreed that no such change of one animal into another ever took place; much less that any animal ever was changed into a man. cuvier, from his comprehensive survey of the fossils of former periods, establishes the fact, "that the species now living are not mere varieties of the species which are lost." and agassiz says, "i have the conviction that species have been created successively, at distinct intervals."[40] revelations of god's special interpositions in the affairs of this world are thus written by his own finger in the fossils and coal, and engraved on the everlasting granite of the earth's foundation stones. dumb beasts and dead reptiles start forward to give their irrefutable testimony to the repeated supernatural acts of their creator in this world which he had made. every distinct species of plants and animals is proof of a distinct supernatural overruling of the present laws of nature. the experience of man is not the limit of knowledge. his own existence is a proof that the chain of finite causes is not inviolable. geology sweeps away the very foundations of skepticism, by demonstrating that certain phenomena produced immediately by god himself--the phenomena of the creation of life--have occurred repeatedly in the history of our globe. revelation is not impossible because supernatural. the world is just as full of supernatural works as of natural. nor is it incredible because it records miracles. the miracles recorded in the coal measures are as astonishing as any recorded in the bible. the rationalist next assures us, however, that any external revelation from god to man is _useless_, because man is wise enough without it. the vulgar exposition of this sentiment is familiar to every reader. "you need not begin to preach bible to me. i know my duty well enough without the bible." the more educated attempt to reason the matter after this fashion: "miraculous phenomena will never prove the goodness and veracity of god, if we do not know these qualities in him without a miracle."[41] we may remark, in passing, that there are some other attributes of god besides goodness and veracity--holiness and justice for instance--which are proved by miracles. "can thunder from the thirty-two azimuths, repeated daily for centuries, make god's laws more godlike to me? brother, no. perhaps i am grown to be a man now, and do not need the thunder and the terror any longer. perhaps i am above being frightened. perhaps it is not fear but reverence that shall now lead me! revelation! inspirations! and thy own god-created soul, dost thou not call that a revelation?"[42] it is manifest, however, that if mr. carlyle needs not the sinai thunder to assure him that the law given on sinai was from god, there were then, and are now, many who do, and some of his own sect who doubt in spite of it. if he is above the weakness of fearing god, all the world is not so. the claims of a divine teacher are as unceremoniously rejected as those of a divine revelation. "if it depends on jesus it is not eternally true, and if it is not eternally true it is no truth at all," says parker. as if eternally true, and sufficiently known, were just the same thing; or as if because vaccination would always have prevented the smallpox, the world is under no obligation to jenner for informing us of the fact. in the same tone emerson despises instruction: "it is not instruction but provocation that i can receive from another soul. what he announces, i must find true in me, or wholly reject; and on his word, or as his second, be he who he may, i can accept nothing." again says parker, "christianity is dependent on no outside authority. we verify its eternal truth in our soul."[43] his aim is "to separate religion from whatever is finite--church, book, person--and let it rest on its absolute truth."[44] "it bows to no idols, neither the church, nor the bible, nor yet jesus, but god only; its redeemer is within; its salvation within; its heaven and its oracle of god."[45] the whole strain of this school of writers and their disciples is one of depreciation of external revelation, and of exaltation of the inner light which every man is supposed to carry within him. religion is "no morrison's pill from without," but a "clearing of the inner light," a "reawakening of our own selves from within."[46] so mr. newman[47] abundantly argues that an authoritative book revelation of moral and spiritual truth is impossible, that god reveals himself within us and not without us, and that a revelation of all moral and religious truth necessary for us to know is to be obtained by _insight_, or gazing into the depths of our own consciousness. the sum of the whole business is, that neither god nor man can reveal any religious truth to our minds, or as parker felicitously expresses it, "on his word, or as his second, be he who he may, i can accept nothing." now, we are tempted to ask, who are these wonderful prodigies, so incapable of receiving instruction from anybody? and to our amazement we learn, that some forty odd years ago they made their appearance among mankind as little squalling babies, without insight enough to know their own names, or where they came from, and were actually dependent on an external revelation, from their nurses, for sense enough to find their mothers' breasts. and as they grew a little larger, they obtained the power of speaking articulate sounds by external revelation, hearing and imitating the sounds made by others. further, upon a memorable day, they had a "book revelation" made to them, in the shape of a penny primer, and were initiated into the mysteries of a, b, c, by "the instructions of another, be he who he may." there was absolutely not the least "insight," or "spiritual faculty," or "self-consciousness" in one of them, by which they then could, or ever to this hour did, "find true within them" any sort of necessary connection between the signs, c, a, t--d, o, g--and the sounds _cat_, _dog_, or any other sounds represented by any other letters of the alphabet. faith in the word of their teachers is absolutely the sole foundation and only source of their ability to read and write. on "the word of another, and as his second, be he who he may," every one of them has accepted every intelligible word he speaks or writes. there is living on martha's vineyard an old man who has never been off the island, and the extent of his knowledge is bounded by the confines of his home. he has been told of a war between the north and south, but as he had never heard the din of battle, nor seen any soldiers, he considered it a hoax. he is utterly unable to read, and is ignorant to the last degree. a good story is told of his first and only day at school. he was quite a lad when a lady came to the district, where his father lived, to teach school. he was sent, and as the teacher was classifying the school, he was called upon in turn and interrogated as to his studies. of course he had to say he had never been to school, and knew none of his letters. the schoolmistress gave him a seat on one side until she had finished the preliminary examination of the rest of the scholars. she then called him to her and drew on the blackboard the letter a, and told him what it was, and asked him to remember how it looked. he looked at it a moment, and then inquired: "h-h-how do you know it's a?" the teacher replied that when she was a little girl she had been to school to an old gentleman, who told her so. the boy eyed the a for a moment and then asked: "h-h-how do you know but he l-l-lied?" the teacher could not get over this obstacle, and the poor boy was sent home as incorrigible. mr. emerson, and the whole school of those who despise instruction, had better appoint this man their prophet of the inner light, and endow martha's vineyard as the penikese of skepticism. but the knowledge of letters is not half of their indebtedness to external revelation. for they will not deny that a fiji cannibal has just the same "insight," "spiritual faculty," "mighty and transcendent soul," "self-consciousness," or any other name by which they may dignify our common humanity, which they themselves possess. how does it happen, then, that these writers are not assembled around the cannibal's oven, smearing their faces with the blood, and feasting themselves on the limbs of women and children? the inner nature of the cannibal and of the rationalist is the same--whence comes the difference of character and conduct? and the inner light, too, is the same; for they assure us that "inspiration, like god's omnipresence, is coextensive with the race." is it not, after all, mere external revelation, in the shape of education--aye, moral and religious teaching that makes the whole difference between the civilized american and his inspired fiji brother? these gentlemen not only acknowledge, but try to repay their obligations to external revelation. as it is impossible for god to give the world a book revelation of moral and religious truth, they modestly propose to come to his assistance, it being quite possible for some men to do what is impossible for god. accordingly, we have a book revelation of moral and religious truth, from one, in his treatise on "the soul," an "external revelation" from another, in his "discourse concerning religion," a "morrison's pill from the outside," from a third, in his "past and present," and "announcements" from a fourth, which assuredly the great mass of mankind never "found true within them," else his orations and publications had not been needed to convert them. it is to be understood, then, that an "external revelation," or a "book revelation" of spiritual truth is impossible, only when it comes from god, but that these gentlemen have proved it quite possible for themselves to deliver one. in so doing they have undoubtedly attempted to meet the wishes of the greater part of mankind, who have in all lands and in all ages longed for some outward revelation from god, and testified their desire by running after all sorts of omens, auguries, and oracles, consulting witches, and treasuring sibylline leaves, employing writing mediums, and listening to spirit-rappers. the "inspiration which is limited to no sect, age, or nation--which is wide as the world, and common as god,"[48] has never produced a nation of rationalists; a fact very unaccountable, if rationalism be true; and one which might well lead these writers to acknowledge at least one kind of total depravity, namely, that inspired men should love the darkness of external revelations, and even of book revelations, and read bibles, and korans, and vedas, and "discourses concerning religion," and "phases of faith," while yet "everything that is of use to man lies in the plane of our own consciousness." surely, such a universal craving after an external revelation testifies to a felt necessity for it, and renders it probable, or at least desirable, that god would supply the deficiency. is the religious appetite the only one for which god has provided no supply? the fact is undeniable, that the grand distinction between man and the brutes presents itself right at this point. god guides animals by direct revelation--by their instincts; but having given man reason, and free will, he gives him the whole field of life for their exercise upon the indirect revelations he makes to us through the mediation of others. for all that we know of history, geography, politics, mechanics, agriculture, poetry, philosophy, or any of the common business of life, from the baking of a loaf of bread, or the sewing of a shirt, to the following of a funeral, and the digging of a grave, we are indebted to education, not to inspiration. all analogy then induces the belief that religion also will be taught to mankind by the ministry of human teachers, rather than by the direct inspiration of every individual. but we are instructed, that, "as we have bodily senses to lay hold on matter, and supply bodily wants, through which we obtain naturally all needed material things, so we have spiritual faculties to lay hold on god, and supply spiritual wants; through them we obtain all needed spiritual things." that we have both bodily senses and spiritual faculties is doubtless true; but whether either the one or the other obtain all needed things is somewhat doubtful. i can not tell how it is with mankind in boston, for i am not there; and this being a matter in which religious truth is concerned, mr. emerson will not allow me to receive instruction about it from any other soul; but i see from my window a poor widow, with five children, who has bodily senses to lay hold on matter, and supply bodily wants; yet in my opinion she has not obtained naturally all needed material things; and if there be a truth which lies emphatically in the plane of her own consciousness, it is, that she is in great need of a cord of wood, and a barrel of flour, for her starving children. i know, also, a man, to whom god gave bodily senses to lay hold on matter, and supply bodily wants, who, by his drunkenness, has destroyed these bodily senses, and brought his family to utter destitution of all needed material things. from one cause or another, i find multitudes here in poverty and destitution, notwithstanding they have bodily senses. it is reported, also, that there is a poor-house in boston, and poverty in ireland, and starvation in madeira, and famine in the inundated provinces of france, and misery and destitution in london; which, if true, completely overturns this beautiful theory. for, if, notwithstanding the possession of bodily senses, men do starve in this world for want of needful food and clothing, it is very possible that they may have spiritual faculties also, and yet not obtain through them all needed spiritual things. the second part of the theory is as baseless as the first. all men have spiritual faculties, and have not obtained by them all needed spiritual things. they have not in their own opinion, and surely they are competent judges of "what lies wholly in the plane of their own consciousness." in proof of the fact that mankind have not, in their own opinion, obtained all needed spiritual things by the use of their spiritual faculties, without the aid of external revelation, we appeal to all the religions of mankind, heathen, mohammedan, and christian. every one of these appeals to revelations from god. every lawgiver of note professed to have communication with heaven, zoroaster, minos, pythagoras, solon, lycurgus, numa, mohammed, down to the chief of the recent revolution in china. "whatever becomes of the real truth of these relations," says strabo of those before his day, "_it is certain that men did believe and think them true_." if mankind has found the supply of all their spiritual wants within themselves, would they have clung in this way to the pretense of external revelations? is not the abundance of quack doctors conclusive proof of the existence of disease, and of the need of physicians? not only was the need of an external revelation of some sort acknowledged by all mankind, but the insufficiency of the pretended oracles which they enjoyed was deplored by the wisest part of them. we never find men amidst the dim moonlight of tradition, and the light of nature, vaunting the sufficiency of their inward light; it is only amidst the full blaze of noonday christianity that philosophers can stand up and declare that they have no need of god's teaching. had such men lived in athens of old, they would have found men possessed of spiritual faculties, and those of no mean order, engaged in erecting an altar with this inscription, "_to the unknown god._" one of the wisest of the heathen (socrates) acknowledged that he could attain to no certainty respecting religious truth or moral duty, in these memorable words, "we must of necessity wait, till some one from him who careth for us, shall come and instruct us how we ought to behave toward god and toward man." the chief of the academy, whose philosophy concerning the eternity of matter occupies a conspicuous place in the creed of american heathens, had no such confidence in the sufficiency of his own powers of discovering religious truth. "we can not know of ourselves what petition will be pleasing to god, or what worship we should pay to him; but it is necessary that a lawgiver should be sent from heaven to instruct us." "oh how greatly do i long to see that man!" he further declares that "_this lawgiver must be more than man, that he may teach us the things man can not know by his own nature_."[49] whether this want of a revelation from god was real, or merely imaginary, will appear by a brief review of the opinions and practices of those who never enjoyed, and of those who reject the light of god's revelation. _they knew not god._ if there is any article of religion fundamental, and indispensable to its very existence, it is the knowledge of god. it is admitted by rationalists that the spiritual faculties are designed to lay hold on god. it has been proved in the previous chapter, and it will be admitted by all but atheists, that god is an intelligent being. and further it has been proved that god is not everything and everybody, but distinct from and supreme over all his works. besides, in this country at least, there will not be much difference of opinion as to the propriety of a rational being adoring a brute, or a log of wood, or a lump of stone. it will be allowed that such stupidity shows both ignorance and folly. now let us inquire into the knowledge of god possessed by the people who have no vision. the chaldeans, the most ancient people of whom we have any account, and who had among them the immediate descendants of noah, and whatever traditions of noah's prophecies they preserved, were probably the best instructed of the heathen. yet we find that they gave up the worship of god, adored the sun, and moon, and stars of heaven, and in process of time degenerated still further, and worshiped dumb idols. from this rock we were hewn; the common names of the days of the week, and especially of the first day of the week, will forever keep up a testimony to the necessity of that revelation which delivered our forefathers and us from burning our children upon the devil's altars on sun-days. the egyptians were reputed the most learned of mankind, and egypt was considered the cradle of the arts and sciences. in her existing monuments, hieroglyphic inscriptions, and tomb paintings, we have presented to us the materials for forming a more correct opinion of the religion and life of the egyptians than of any other ancient people; and the investigation of these monuments is still adding to our information. infidel writers and lecturers have not hesitated to allege that moses merely taught the israelites the religion of egypt; and some have had the hardihood to allege that the ten commandments are found written on the pyramids, as an argument against the necessity of a revelation. if the statement were true, it would by no means prove the conclusion. egypt was favored with divine revelations to several of her kings, and enjoyed occasional visits from, or the permanent teachings of, such prophets as abraham, jacob, joseph, and moses, for four hundred years; a fact quite sufficient to account for her superiority to other heathen nations, as well as for the existence of some traces of true religion on her monuments. but the alleged fact is a falsehood. some good moral precepts are found on the egyptian monuments, but the ten commandments are not there. it may be charitably supposed that those who allege the contrary never learned the ten commandments, or have forgotten them, else they would have remembered that the first commandment is, "thou shalt have no other gods before me;" and that pharaoh indignantly asks, "who is jehovah that i should obey his voice? i know not god:" and that the second is, "thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image," etc., and would have paused before alleging that these commands were engraved on the very temples of idols, and by the priests of the birds, and beasts, and images of creeping things which they adored. it is very doubtful if they believed in the existence of one supreme god, as most of the heathen did; but if they did, "they did not under any form, symbol, or hieroglyphic, represent the idea of the unity of god," as is fully proved by wilkinson.[50] on the contrary, the monuments confirm the satirical sketch of the poet,[51] as to the "monsters mad egypt worshiped; here a sea-fish, there a river-fish; whole towns adore a dog. this place fears an ibis saturated with serpents; that adores a crocodile. it is a sin to violate a leek or onion, or break them with a bite." cruel wars were waged between different towns, as plutarch tells us, because the people of cynopolis would eat a fish held sacred by the citizens of latopolis. bulls, and dogs, and cats, and rats, and reptiles, and dung beetles, were devoutly adored by the learned egyptians. a roman soldier, who had accidentally killed one of their gods, a cat, was put to death for sacrilege.[52] whenever a dog died, every person in the house went into mourning, and fasted till night. so low had the "great, the mighty and transcendent soul," been degraded that there is a picture extant of one of the kings of egypt worshiping his own coffin! such is man's knowledge of god without a revelation from him. the greeks, from their early intercourse with egypt, borrowed from them most of their religion; but by later connections with the hebrews, about the time of aristotle and alexander, they gathered a few grains of truth to throw into the heap of error. after the translation of the scriptures into greek, in the reign of ptolemy philadelphus, any of their philosophers who desired might easily have learned the knowledge of the true god. but before this period we find little or no sense or truth in their religion. and the same remarks will apply to the romans. their gods were as detestable as they were numerous. hesiod tells us they had thirty thousand. temples were erected to all the passions, fears, and diseases to which humanity is subject. their supreme god, jupiter, was an adulterer, mars a murderer, mercury a thief, bacchus a drunkard, venus a harlot; and they attributed other crimes to their gods too horrible to be mentioned. such gods were worshiped, with appropriate ceremonies, of lust, drunkenness, and bloodshed. their most sacred mysteries, carried on under the patronage of these licentious deities, were so abominable and infamous, that it was found necessary, for the preservation of any remnant of good order, to prohibit them. it may be supposed that the human race is grown wiser now than in the days of socrates and cicero, and that such abominations are no longer possible. turn your eyes, then, to india, and behold one hundred and fifty millions of rational beings, possessed of "spiritual faculties," "insight," and "the religious sentiment," worshiping three hundred and thirty millions of gods, in the forms of hills, and trees, and rivers, and rocks, elephants, tigers, monkeys, and rats, crocodiles, serpents, beetles, and ants, and monsters like to nothing in heaven or earth, or under the earth. take one specimen of all. there is "the lord of the world," juggernath. "when you think of the monster block of the idol, with its frightfully grim and distorted visage, so justly styled the moloch of the east, sitting enthroned amid thousands of massive sculptures, the representative emblems of that cruelty and vice which constitute the very essence of his worship; when you think of the countless multitudes that annually congregate there, from all parts of india, many of them measuring the whole distance of their weary pilgrimage with their own bodies; when you think of the merit-earning assiduities constantly practiced by crowds of devotees and religious mendicants, around the holy city, some remaining all day with their head on the ground, and their feet in the air; others with their bodies entirely covered with earth; some cramming their eyes with mud, and their mouths with straw, while others lie extended in a puddle of water; here one man lying with his foot tied to his neck, another with a pot of fire on his breast, a third enveloped in a network of ropes; when, besides these self-inflicted torments, you think of the frightful amount of involuntary suffering and wretchedness arising from the exhaustion of toilsome pilgrimages, the cravings of famine, and the scourgings of pestilence; when you think of the day of the high festival--how the horrid king is dragged forth from his temple, and mounted on his lofty car, in the presence of hundreds of thousands, that cause the very earth to shake with shouts of 'victory to juggernath, our lord;' how the officiating high priest, stationed in front of the elevated idol, commences the public service by a loathsome pantomimic exhibition, accompanied with the utterance of filthy, blasphemous songs, to which the vast multitude at intervals respond, not in the strains of tuneful melody, but in loud yells of approbation, united with a kind of hissing applause; when you think of the carnage that ensues, in the name of sacred offering--how, as the ponderous machine rolls on, grating harsh thunder, one and another of the more enthusiastic devotees throw themselves beneath the wheels, and are instantly crushed to pieces, the infatuated victims of hellish superstition; when you think of the numerous golgothas that bestud the neighboring plain, where the dogs, jackals and vultures seem to live on human prey; and of those bleak and barren sands that are forever whitened with the skulls and bones of deluded pilgrims which lie bleaching in the sun,"[53] you will be able to see an awful force of meaning in the words of our text, and to realize more fully the necessity of a revelation from god, for the preservation of animal life to man. literally, where there is no vision the people _perish_. man doth not live by bread only, but by every word which proceedeth from the mouth of god. take one other illustration of ignorance of god in the minds of those who close their eyes against the light of revelation--the heathen of europe and america, possessing that inspiration which is wide as the world, looking abroad upon all the glorious works of the great creator, and declaring there is no god. on the other hand, we have men, possessed of this same inspiration, deifying everything, and outrunning even the hindoos in the multitude of their divinities, declaring that every stick, and stone, and serpent, and snail that crawls on the earth is god, and making professions of holding spiritual communings with them all. to crown the monument of folly, the chief of the positive philosophy comes forth with a revelation from his spiritual faculties, in which by way of improving on the proverb "both are best," and of being sure of the truth, he unites atheism, and pantheism, and idolatry--teaches his child to worship idols, the youth to believe in one god, and himself and other full-grown men to adore the "resultant of all the forces capable of voluntarily contributing to the perfectioning of the universe, _not forgetting his worthy friends, the animals_." to such darkness are men justly condemned who shut their eyes against the light of god's revelation. where there is no vision the people perish intellectually. he who turns away his ears from the truth must be turned unto fables. "hear ye and give ear, be not proud, for the lord hath spoken. give glory to the lord your god before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness." _without a revelation from god, the mind of man can attain to no certainty regarding the most important of all his interests, the destiny of his immortal soul._ he knows well--for every sickness, and sorrow, and calamity declares it, and quick returning troubles will not allow him to forget--that the ruler of the world is offended with him; and conscience tells him why. the sense of guilt is common to the human race. this is, indeed, "the inspiration which knows no sect, no country, no religion, no age; which is as wide as humanity." reason asks herself, will god be always thus angry with me? shall i always feel these pangs of remorse for my sins? will misery follow me forever, as i see and feel that it does here? or shall my soul exist under god's frowns, or perish under his just sentence, even as my body perishes? does the grave hide forever all that i loved? have they ceased to be? shall we ever meet again? or must i say, "farewell, farewell! an eternal farewell!" and in a few days myself also cease to be? the only answer reason gives is--solemn silence. the wisest of men could not tell. who has not dropped a tear over the dying words of socrates, "i am going out of the world, and you are to continue in it, but which of us has the better part is a secret to every one but god." cicero contended for the immortality of the soul against the multitudes of philosophers who denied it in his day; yet, after recounting their various opinions, he is obliged to say, "which of these is true, god alone knows; and which is most probable, a very great question."[54] and seneca, on a review of this subject, says: "immortality, however desirable, was rather promised than proved by these great men."[55] the multitude had but two ideas on the subject. either their ghosts would wander eternally in the land of shadows, or else they would pass into a succession of other bodies, of animals or men. from the nakedness and desolation of unclothed spirit, and the possibility which this notion held out of some close contact with a holy and just judge, the soul shrank back to the hope of the metempsychosis, and hoped rather to dwell in the body of a brute, than be utterly unclothed and mingle with spirits. this is the delusion cherished by the people of india and many other lands to this day. how unsatisfactory to the dying sinner this uncertainty. "tell me," said a wealthy hindoo, who had given all his wealth to the brahmins who surrounded his dying bed, that they might obtain pardon for his sins, "tell me what will become of my soul when i die?" "your soul will go into the body of a holy cow." "and after that?" "it will pass into the body of the divine peacock." "and after that?" "it will pass into a flower." "tell me, oh! tell me," cried the dying man, "where will it go last of all?" where will it go last of all? aye, that is the question reason can not answer. the rejectors of the bible here are as uncertain on this all-important subject as the heathen of india. they have every variety of oracles, and conjectures, and suppositions about the other world; but for their guesses they offer no proof. when they give us their oracles as if they were known truths, we are compelled to ask, how do you know? the only thing in which they are agreed among themselves is in denying the resurrection of the body; a point which they gathered from their heathen classics. a poor, empty, naked, shivering, table-rapping spirit, obliged to fly over the world at the sigh of any silly sewing girl, or the bidding of some brazen-faced strumpet, is all that ever shall exist of washington, or newton, in the scheme of one class of bible rejectors. to obtain rest from such a doom, others fly to the eternal tomb, and inform us that the soul is simply an acting of the brain, and when the brain ceases to act, the soul ceases also. let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. but even this hog philosophy is reasonable, compared with the dogma of the large majority, that a man may blaspheme, swear, lie, steal, murder, and commit adultery, and go straight to heaven--that "many a swarthy indian who bowed down to wood and stone--many a grim-faced calmuck who worshiped the great god of storms--many a grecian peasant who did homage to phoebus apollo when the sun rose or went down--many a savage, his hands smeared all over with human sacrifice--shall sit down with moses and jesus in the kingdom of god."[56] to such wild unreason does the mind of man descend when it rejects the bible. life and immortality are brought to light by the gospel. where there is no vision, hope perishes. the only plausible creed for him who rejects it is the eternal tomb, and the heart-chilling inscription: "death is an eternal sleep!" _without a revelation from god, men are as ignorant how to live, as how to die._ they have no rule of life having either truth or authority to direct them. our anglo-saxon ancestors, of the purity of whose blood we are so proud, trusted to their magical incantations for the cure of diseases, for the success of their tillage, for the discovery of lost property, for uncharming cattle and the prevention of casualties. one day was useful for all things; another, though good to tame animals, was baleful to sow seed. one day was favorable to the commencement of business, another to let blood, and others wore a forbidding aspect to these and other things. on this day they were to buy, on a second to sell, on a third to hunt, on a fourth to do nothing. if a child was born on such a day, it would live; if on another, its life would be sickly; if on another, it would perish early.[57] their descendants who reject the bible are fully as superstitious. astrologers, and mediums, and clairvoyants, in multitudes, find a profitable trade among them; and one prominent anti-bible lecturer will cure you of any disease you have, if you will only inclose, in a letter, a lock of hair from the right temple, and--a--five dollar bill. the precepts of even the wisest men, and the laws of the best regulated states, commanded or approved of vice. in babylon prostitution was compulsory on every female. the carthaginian law required human sacrifices. when agathoclas besieged carthage, two hundred children, of the most noble families, were murdered by the command of the senate, and three hundred citizens voluntarily sacrificed themselves to saturn.[58] the laws of sparta required theft, and the murder of unhealthy children. those of ancient rome allowed parents the power of killing their children, if they pleased. at athens, the capital of heathen literature and philosophy, it was enacted "that infants which appeared to be maimed should either be killed or exposed."[59] plato, dissatisfied with the constitution, made a scheme of one much better, which he has left us in his republic. in this great advance of society, this heathen millennium, we find that there was to be a community of women and of property, just as among our modern heathens. women's rights were to be maintained by having the women trained to war. children were still to be murdered, if convenience called for it. and the young children were to be led to battle at a safe distance, "that the young whelps might early scent carnage, and be inured to slaughter." the teachings of all these philosophers were immoral. he may lie, says plato, who knows how to do it. pride and the love of popular applause were esteemed the best motives to virtue. profane swearing was commanded by the example of all their best writers and moralists. oaths are frequent in the writings of plato and seneca. the gratification of the sensual appetites was openly taught. aristippus taught that a wise man might steal and commit adultery when he could. unnatural crimes were vindicated. the last dread crime--suicide--was pleaded for by cicero and seneca as the mark of a hero; and demosthenes, cato, brutus, and cassius, carried the means of self-destruction about them, that they might not fall alive into the hands of their enemies. the daily lives of these wisest of the heathen corresponded to their teachings, so far at least as vice was concerned. the most notorious vices, and even unnatural crimes, were practiced by them. the reader of the classics does not need to be reminded that such vices are lauded in the poems of ovid, and horace, and virgil; that the poets were rewarded and honored for songs which would not be tolerated for a moment in the vilest theater of new york. recently some daily papers and broad-church preachers have taken to the canonization of heathen saints; they denounce vigorously the bigotry of any who will not open to them the gates of heaven, or who will, in general, deny salvation to good heathens. but we do not deny salvation to good heathens, or to good jews, or to good mohammedans, or to anybody who is good. god is no respecter of persons; but in every nation, he that feareth god and worketh righteousness is accepted of him. nor are we about to usurp peter's keys, and lock anybody out of heaven, or into it either; we are only acting as jurymen upon the life and conduct of men held up to our children as noble examples of a good life, in their classics, by heathens like themselves, and recommended now by christian clergymen, as fitter for the kingdom of god, than bad christians; which last may be very true, and so much the worse for the bad christians. but the question is not to be thus decided by comparisons, or by generalities; we must have specified individual heathen saints. when, however, we come to look for them, these saints and heroes prove to be only fit for the penitentiary, according to the laws of any of our states; and were they living now, and behaving themselves according to their accustomed habits, the best of them would be fortunate if they got there before they were tarred and feathered by an outraged public. socrates, seneca, and the emperor marcus aurelius, form the stock specimens trotted out of the stables of heathen morality, for the admiration and reverence of christians in this nineteenth century. but it has been well remarked of socrates, that no american lady would live with him a year without applying for a divorce, and getting it, too, upon very sufficient grounds. seneca, who wrote so beautifully upon morals, was an adulterer; and, moreover, prostituted his pen to write a defense of a man who murdered his mother. and marcus aurelius directed the murder of thousands of innocent men and women, causing young ladies to be stripped naked and torn to pieces by wild beasts, in the public amphitheater, and others to be roasted alive in red-hot iron chairs, for no other offense but that they avowed themselves christians. such are these boasted saints and heroes of heathendom. what, then, must the lives of the vulgar have been? in the very height of roman civilization, trajan caused ten thousand men to hew each other to pieces for the amusement of the roman people; and noble ladies feasted their eyes on the spectacle. in the augustan age, when the invincible armies of rome gave law to half the world, fathers were in the habit of mutilating their sons rather than see them subjected to the slavery and terrible despotism of their officers. what, then, must the state of the people of the vanquished countries have been? whole provinces were frequently given over to fire and sword by generals not reputed inhuman; and such was the progress of war and anarchy, and their never-failing accompaniments, famine and pestilence, that, in the reign of gallienus, large cities were left utterly desolate, the public roads became unsafe from immense packs of wolves, _and it was computed that one-half of the human race perished_. this was just before the toleration of christianity. god would allow the wisest and bravest of mankind to try the experiment of neglecting his gospel and living without his revelation, until all mankind might be convinced that such a course is suicidal to nations. "where there is no vision, the people perish." a brief reference to the codes of morals which the modern opposers of the bible would substitute for it in christian lands shall conclude our proof of the necessity of such a revelation of god's law to man, as shall guide his life to peace and happiness. the family is the basis of the commonwealth. destroy family confidence and family government, and you destroy society, subvert civil government, and bring destruction on the human race. mankind are so generally agreed on this subject, that adultery, even among heathens, is regarded and punished as a crime. the whole school of infidel writers and anti-bible lecturers, male and female, apologize for, and vindicate this crime. lord herbert, the first of the english deists, taught that the indulgence of lust and anger is no more to be blamed than the thirst occasioned by the dropsy, or the drowsiness produced by lethargy. mr. hobbes asserted that every man has a right to all things, and may lawfully get them if he can. bolingbroke taught that man is merely a superior animal, which is just the modern development theory, and that his chief end is to gratify the appetites and inclinations of the flesh. hume, whose argument against miracles is so frequently in the mouths of american infidels, taught that adultery must be practiced, if men would obtain all the advantages of life, and that if practiced frequently, it would by degrees come to be thought no crime at all--a prediction as true as holy writ; the fulfillment of which hundreds of the citizens of cincinnati can attest, who have heard a lecturer publicly denounce the bible as an immoral book, and in the same address declare that if a woman was married to a man, in her opinion of inferior development, it was her duty to leave him and live with another. this duty is by no means neglected, as the numerous divorces, spiritual marriages, separations, and elopements among this class of persons, testify. voltaire held that it was not agreeable to policy to regard it as a vice in a moral sense. rousseau, a liar, a thief, and a debauched profligate, according to his own printed "confessions," held the same high opinion of the inner light as our american spiritualists. "_i have only to consult myself_," said he, "_concerning what i do. all that i feel to be right, is right._"[60] in fact, the purport of this inner light doctrine is exactly as rousseau expressed it, and amounts simply to this, _do what you like._ on this lawless principle these men acted. take, for example, the chief saint on the calendar of american infidelity, whose birthday is annually celebrated by a festival in this city, and in whose honor hundreds of men, who would like to be reputed decent citizens, parade the streets of cincinnati in solemn procession--thomas paine--the author of "the age of reason," as his character is depicted by one who was his helper in the work of blaspheming god and seducing men, and whose testimony, therefore, in the eyes of an infidel, is unimpeachable--william carver. "mr. thomas paine: i received your letter, dated the 25th ult., in answer to mine, dated november 21, and after minutely examining its contents, i found that you had taken to the pitiful subterfuge of _lying_ for your defense. you say that you paid me four dollars per week for your board and lodging, during the time you were with me, prior to the first of june last; which was the day that i went up, by your order, to bring you to york, from new rochelle. it is fortunate for me that i have a living evidence that saw you give me five guineas, and no more, in my shop, at your departure at that time; but you said you would have given me more, but that you had no more with you at present. you say, also, that you found your own liquors during the time you boarded with me; but you should have said, 'i found only a small part of the liquor i drank during my stay with you; this part i purchased of john fellows, which was a demi-john of brandy, containing four gallons,' and this did not serve you three weeks. this can be proved, and i mean not to say anything i can not prove, for i hold truth as a precious jewel. it is a well-known fact that you drank one quart of brandy per day, at my expense, during the different times you boarded with me; the demi-john above mentioned excepted, and the last fourteen weeks you were sick. is not this a supply of liquor for dinner and supper." * * * "i have often wondered that a french woman and three children should leave france and all their connections, to follow thomas paine to america. suppose i were to go to my native country, england, and take another man's wife and three children of his, and leave my wife and children in this country, what would be the natural conclusion in the minds of the people, but that there was some criminal connection between the woman and myself?"[61] the death of this man was horrible. the philadelphia _presbyterian_ says: "there is now in philadelphia a lady who saw paine on his dying-bed. she informs us that paine's physician also attended her father's family in the city of new york, where in her youth she resided, and that on one occasion whilst at their house, he proposed to her to accompany him to the infidel's dwelling, which she did. it was a miserable hovel in what was then raisin street. she had often seen paine before, a drunken profligate, wandering about the streets, from whom the children always fled in terror. on entering his room she found him stretched on his miserable bed. his visage was lean and haggard, and wore the expression of great agony. he expressed himself without reserve as to his fears of death, and repeatedly called on the name of jesus, begging for mercy. the scene was appalling, and so deeply engraven on her mind, that nothing could obliterate it."--_philadelphia presbyterian_, march 17, 1857. the physician's statement has been common, many years, and corresponds with the above. so do grant thorburn's representations agree with both. and the piece published by rev. jas. inglis in his "waymarks in the wilderness," which has proved so distasteful to the paineites here, substantially agrees with all the others. it is only the truthfulness of it which is so offensive. it may be of interest to state, that the facts therein named are the recollections of old dr. mcclay, a baptist minister of known power and veracity. the fact of paine's miserable, and cowardly, and man-forsaken end is too true. let no one be foolhardy enough to follow them, rejecting to do it, a fourfold cord of strong testimony; nay, we may add, a stronger cord of fivefold testimony, as paine's nurse testifies like the rest. in the east these facts are so notorious that even infidels disown allegiance or attachment to paine, if they wish to be considered respectable. some of the severest denunciations against him, which we ever heard, have been from infidels. indeed this is more than plain from the very fact of all the infidels having forsaken paine on his death-bed. who was his doctor? a christian. who was his nurse? a christian? who were his most constant visitors and sympathizers? thorburn, mcclay, etc., christians. they went, for mercy's sake; infidels, having no "bowels of mercies," kept away. carver, jefferson, etc., were far from him in his extreme hour. the testimony of mons. tronchin, a protestant physician from geneva, who attended voltaire on his death-bed, was: that to see all the furies of orestes, one only had to be present at the death of voltaire. ("_pour voir toutes les furies d'oreste, il n'y avait qu'a se trouver a la mort de voltaire._") "such a spectacle," he adds, "would benefit the young, who are in danger of losing the precious helps of religion." the marechal de richelieu, too, was so terrified at what he saw that he left the bedside of voltaire, declaring that "the sight was too horrible for endurance."[62] and these are the saints, and apostles, and heroes of infidelity, to whose memories infidels make orations and festivals, and whose writings are reprinted in scores of editions, not only over christendom, but even in india, to teach mankind how to live and how to die! such are the lives and deaths of those who denounce the bible as an immoral book, and blaspheme the god of the bible as too unholy to be reverenced or adored! "but, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our lord jesus christ; how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. these be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the spirit." in the free love institute about to be established in our vicinity, we shall have the full development of these filthy principles and practices. let fathers and husbands look to this matter. especially let ungodly men set to work and devise some law of man capable of binding those who renounce the law of god, and with it all human authority. for there can be no law of man, unless there is a revealed law of god. "what right," says the pantheist, the fourierist, the spiritualist, the atheist, "what right have you to command me? right and wrong are only matters of feeling, and your feelings are no rule to me. the will of the majority is only the law of might, and if i can evade it, or overcome it, my will is as good as theirs. oaths are only an idle superstition; there is no judge, no judgment, no punishment for the false swearer." take away the moral sanction of law, and the sacredness of oaths, and what basis have you left for any government, save the point of the bayonet? take away the revealed law of god, and you leave not a vestige of any authority to any human law. "we hold these truths to be self-evident," said the immortal framers of the basis of the american confederation, "that all men are created equal; that they are _endowed by their creator_ with certain unalienable rights." it was well said. the rights of god are the only basis of the rights of man. one of the most sagacious of modern statesmen has borne his testimony to this fundamental truth--that religion is the only basis of social order--in words as trenchant as the guillotine which suggested them. "it is not," says napoleon, "the mystery of incarnation which i perceive in religion, but the mystery of social order. it attaches to heaven an idea of equality which prevents the rich from being massacred by the poor."[63] once in modern times, the rejectors of the bible had opportunity to try the experiment of ruling a people on a large scale, and giving the world a specimen of an infidel republic. you have heard one of them here express his admiration of that government, and declare his intention to present a public vindication of it. of course, as soon as practicable, that which they admire they will imitate, and the scenes of paris and lyons will be re-enacted in louisville and cincinnati. our bibles will be collected and burned on a dung-heap. death will be declared an eternal sleep. god will be declared a fiction. religious worship will be renounced; the sabbath abolished; and a prostitute, crowned with garlands, will receive the adorations of the mayors and councilmen of cincinnati and newport. the reign of terror will commence. the guillotine shall take its place on the fifth street market place. proscription will follow proscription. women will denounce their husbands, and children their parents, as bad citizens, and lead them to the ax; and well-dressed ladies, filled with savage ferocity, will seize the mangled bodies of their murdered countrymen between their teeth. the licking will be choked with the bodies of men, and the ohio dyed with their blood; and those whose infancy has sheltered them from the fire of the rabble soldiery will be bayoneted as they cling to the knees of their destroyers.[64] the common doom of man commuted for the violence of the sword, the bayonet, the sucking boat, and the guillotine, the knell of the nation tolled, and the world summoned to its execution and funeral, will need no preacher to expound the text, _where there is no vision, the people perish._ footnotes: [38] strauss' life of jesus, 64, 74, 87. [39] bauer's hebrew mythology. [40] see pearson on infidelity, page 93, 40th edition; and agassiz's penikese lectures. [41] newman's phases of faith, 157. [42] carlyle's past and present, 307. [43] discourse on religion, p. 209. [44] carlyle's past and present, p. 312. [45] ib. p. 37. [46] the soul, p. 342. [47] ib. p. 359. [48] parker's discourses, 171, 33. [49] plato. republic. books iv. and vi., and alcibiades ii. [50] manners and customs of ancient egyptians, second series, vol. ii. page 176, et passim. [51] juvenal, satire xv. [52] diodorus siculus, book i. [53] duff's india, page 222. [54] tusc. quæst. lib. 1. [55] seneca, ep. 102. [56] parker's discourse, 83. [57] turner's anglo-saxons, b. vii. chap. 13. [58] diodorus siculus, b. xx. chap. 14. [59] aristotle, polit. lib. vii. chap. 17. [60] horne's introduction of the scriptures, vol. i. page 25. [61] printed repeatedly in new york newspapers, and given entire in the report of the discussion between dr. berg and mr. barker. w. s. young, philadelphia, 1854. [62] _the occident_, 20th august, 1874, san francisco. [63] ardeches' life of napoleon i. 222. [64] horne's introduction to the scriptures, vol. i. page 26, where ample references to contemporary french writers are given. chapter v. who wrote the new testament? "the salutation of paul with mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle: so i write. the grace of our lord jesus christ be with you all. amen."--2 thess. iii. 17. religion rests not on dogmas, but on a number of great facts. in a previous chapter we found one of these to be, that people destitute of a revelation of god's will ever have been, and now are, ignorant, miserable, and wicked. if it were at all needful, we might go on to show that there are people in the world, who have decent clothing and comfortable houses, who work well-tilled farms and sub-soil plows, and reaping machinery, who yoke powerful streams to the mill wheel, and harness the iron horse to the market wagon, who career their floating palaces up the opposing floods, line their coasts with flocks of white-winged schooners, and show their flags on every coast of earth, who invent and make everything that man will buy, from the brass button, dear to the barbarian, to the folio of the philosopher, erect churches in all their towns, and schools in every village, who make their blacksmiths more learned than the priests of egypt, their sabbath scholars wiser than the philosophers of greece, and even the criminals in their jails more decent characters than the sages, heroes, and gods of the lands without the bible; and that these people are the people who possess a book, which they think contains a revelation from god, teaching them how to live well; which book they call the bible. this is the book about which we make our present inquiry, who wrote it? the fact being utterly undeniable, that these blessings are found among the people who possess the bible, and only among them, we at once, and summarily, dismiss the arrogant falsehood presented to prevent any inquiry about the book, namely, that "christianity is just like any other superstition, and its sacred books like the impositions of chinese, indian, or mohammedan impostors. they, too, are religious, and have their sacred books, which they believe to be divine." a profound generalization indeed! is a peach-tree just like a horse-chestnut, or a scrub-oak, or a honey-locust? they are all trees, and have leaves on them. the bible is just as like the yi king, or the vedas, or the koran, as a christian american is like a chinaman, a turk, or a hindoo. but it is too absurd to begin any discussion with these learned thebans of the relative merits of the bible as compared with the vedas, and the chinese classics, of which they have never read a single page. let them stick to what they pretend to know. the bible is a great fact in the world's history, known alike to the prince and the peasant, the simple and the sage. it is perused with pleasure by the child, and pondered with patience by the philosopher. its psalms are caroled on the school green, cheer the chamber of sickness, and are chanted by the mother over her cradle, by the orphan over the tomb. here, thousands of miles away from the land of its birth, in a world undiscovered for centuries after it was finished, in a language unknown alike at athens and jerusalem, it rules as lovingly and as powerfully as in its native soil. to show that its power is not derived from race or clime, it converts the sandwich islands into a civilized nation, and transforms the new zealand cannibal into a british shipowner, the indian warrior into an american editor, and the negro slave into the president of a free african republic. it has inspired the caffirs of africa to build telegraphs, and to print associated press dispatches in their newspapers; while the zulus, one of whom would have converted bishop colenso from christianity, if he had been a christian, are importing steel plows by hundreds every year. it has captured the enemy's fortresses, and turned his guns. lord chesterfield's parlor, where an infidel club met to sneer at religion, is now a vestry, where the prayers of the penitent are offered to christ. gibbon's house, at lake lemon, is now a hotel; one room of which is devoted to the sale of bibles. voltaire's printing press, from which he issued his infidel tracts, has been appropriated to printing the word of god.[65] it does not look as if it had finished its course and ceased from its triumphs. translated into the hundred and fifty languages spoken by nine hundred millions of men, carried by ten thousand heralds to every corner of the globe, sustained by the cheerful contributions and fervent prayers of hundreds of thousands of ardent disciples, it is still going forth conquering and to conquer. is there any other book so generally read, so greatly loved, so zealously propagated, so widely diffused, so uniform in its results, and so powerful and blessed in its influences? do you know any? if you can not name any book, no, nor any thousand books, which in these respects equal the bible--then it stands out clear and distinct, and separate from all other authorship; and with an increased emphasis comes our question, who wrote it? with all these palpable facts in view, to come to the examination of this question as if we knew nothing about them, or as if knowing them well, we cared nothing at all about them, and were determined to deny them their natural influence in begetting within us a very strong presumption in favor of its divine origin, were to declare that our heads and hearts were alike closed against light and love. but to enter on this inquiry into the origin of the book which has produced such results, with a preconceived opinion that it must be a forgery, and an imposition, the fruit of a depraved heart, and a lying tongue, implies so much home-born deceit that, till the heart capable of such a prejudice be completely changed, no reasoning can have any solid fulcrum of truth or goodness to rest on. it is sheer folly to talk of one's being wholly unprejudiced in such an inquiry. no man ever was, or could be so. as his sympathies are toward goodness and virtue, and the happiness of mankind, or toward pride and deceit, and selfishness and savageness, so will his prejudices be for or against the bible. on looking at the bible, we find it composed of a number of separate treatises, written by different writers, at various times; some parts fifteen hundred years before the others. we find, also, that it treats of the very beginning of the world, before man was made, and of other matters of which we have no other authentic history to compare with it. again, we find portions which treat of events connected in a thousand places with the affairs of the roman empire, of which we have several credible histories. now, there are two modes of investigation open to us, the dogmatic and the inductive. we may take either. we may construct for ourselves, from the most flimsy suppositions, a metaphysical balloon, inflated with self-conceit into the rotundity of a cosmogony, according to which, in our opinion, the world should have been made, and we may paint it over with the figures of the various animals and noble savages which ought to have sprung up out of its fornea, and we may stripe its history to suit our notions of the progress of such a world, and soaring high into the clouds, after a little preliminary amusement in the discovery of eternal red-hot fire-mists, and condensing comets, and so forth, we may come down upon the summit of some of this earth's mountains, say ararat, and take a survey of the bible process of world-making. finding that the creator of the world had to make his materials--a business in which no other world-maker ever did engage--and, further, that god's plan of making it by no means corresponds to our patent process and that the article is not at all like what we intend to produce when we go into the business, and that it does not work according to our expectations, we can denounce the whole as a very mean affair, and the book which describes it as not worth reading. if one wants some new subject for merriment, and does not mind making a fool of himself, and is not to be terrified by old-fashioned notions about god almighty, and is perfectly confident that god can tell him nothing that he does not know better already, and merely wants to see whether he is not trying to pass off old fables upon wide-awake people for facts--this dogmatic plan will suit him. on the other hand, if one is tolerably convinced that he does not know everything, not much of the world he lives in, less of its history, and nothing at all about the best way of making it, and that when it needs mending it will not be sent to his workshop; that he knows nothing about what happened before he was born unless what other people tell him, and that, though men do err, yet all men are not liars, that all the blessings of education, civilization, law and liberty, from the penny primer to the constitution of the united states, came to him solely through the channel of abundant, reliable testimony; that the only way in which he can ever know anything beyond his eyesight with certainty, is to gather testimony about it, and compare the evidence, and inquire into the character of the witnesses; that when one has done so, he becomes so satisfied of the truth of the report that he would rather risk his life upon it than upon the certainty of any mathematical problem, or of any scientific truth, whatever--that ninety-nine out of every hundred citizens of the united states are a thousand times more certain that the yankees whipped the british in 1776, declared the colonies free and independent states, and made washington president, than they ever will be that all bodies attract each other directly as their mass, and inversely as the squares of their distances, that the sum of the angles of any triangle is equal to two right angles, or that the earth is nearer the sun in winter than in summer--and that certainty about the bible history is just as attainable, and just as reliable, as certainty about american history, if he will seek it in the same way--and if he is really desirous to know how this book was written, which alone in the world teaches men how to obtain peace with god, how to live well, and how to die with a firm and joyful hope of a resurrection to life eternal, and what part of it is easiest to prove either true or false--then he will take the inductive mode. he will begin at the present time, and trace the history up to the times in which the book was written. he will ascertain what he can about that part of it which was last written--the new testament--and begin with that part of it which lies nearest him--the epistles. by the comparison of the documents themselves, with all kinds of history and monuments which throw light on the period, he will try to ascertain whether they are genuine or not. and from one well-ascertained position he will proceed to another, until he has traversed the whole ground of the genuineness of the writings, the truth of the story, and the divine authority of the doctrine. this is my plan of investigation; one thing at a time, and the nearest first. it is not worth while to inquire whether it be inspired by god, if it be really a forgery of impostors; nor whether the gospel story is worthy of credit, if the only book which contains it be a religious novel of the third or fourth century. we dismiss then the questions of the inspiration, or even the truth of the new testament, till we have ascertained its authors. we take up the book, and find that it purports to be a relation of the planting of the church of christ, of its laws and ordinances, and of the life, death and resurrection of its founder, written by eight of his companions, at various periods and places, toward the close of the first century. there is a general opinion among all christians that the book was composed then, and by these persons. we want to know why they think so? in short, is it a genuine book, or merely a collection of myths with the apostles' names appended to them by some lying monks? is it a fact, or a forgery? in any historical inquiry, we want some fixed point of time from which to take our departure; and in this case we want to know if there is any period of antiquity in which undeniably this book was in existence, and received as genuine by christian societies. for i will not suppose my readers as ignorant as some of those infidels who allege that it was made by the bible society. it used to be the fashion with those of them who pretended to learning, to affirm that it was made by the council of laodicea, in a. d. 364; because, in order to guard the churches against spurious epistles and gospels, that council published a list of those which the apostles did actually write, which thenceforth were generally bound in one volume. before that time, the four gospels were always bound in one volume and called "the gospel." the acts of the apostles and the epistles universally and undoubtedly known to be written by paul, to the churches of thessalonica, galatia, rome, corinth, ephesus, philippi, colosse, and to philemon, a well-known resident of that city, and those to timothy and titus, missionaries of world-wide celebrity, the first general epistle of peter, and the first general epistle of john, which were at once widely circulated to check prevailing heresies--were bound in another volume and called "the apostle." the epistle to the hebrews, being general, and anonymous, _i. e._, not bearing the name of any particular church, or person, to whom anybody who merely looked at it could refer for proof of its genuineness, as in the case of the other epistles--was not so soon known by the european churches to be written by paul. the general epistles of james, jude, and the second general epistle of peter, lying under the same difficulty, and besides being very disagreeable to easy-going christians, from their sharp rebukes of hypocrisy, and the second and third epistles of john, from their brevity, and the revelation of john, being one of the last written of all the books of the new testament, and the most mysterious--were not so generally known beyond the churches where the originals were deposited, until the other two collections had been formed. they were accordingly kept as separate books, and sometimes bound up in a third volume of apostolical writings. besides these, at the time of the council of laodicea, and for a long time before, other books, written by barnabas, clement, polycarp, and other companions and disciples of the apostles, and forged gospels and epistles attributed by heretics to the apostles, were circulated through the churches, and read by christians. the council of laodicea did, what many learned men had done before them; it investigated the evidence upon which any of these books was attributed to an apostle; and finding evidence to satisfy them, that the gospel written by luke had the sanction of the apostle paul, that the gospel of mark was revised by the apostle peter, that the epistle to the hebrews was written by paul, and the other epistles by john, jude, james, and peter, respectively, and not finding evidence to satisfy them about the revelation of john, they expressed their opinion, and the grounds of it, for the information of the world.[66] into these reasons we will hereafter inquire, for our faith in holy scripture does not rest on their canons. we are not now asking what they _thought_, but what they _did_; and we find that they did criticise certain books, reported to be written by the apostles of jesus christ some three hundred years before, approve some, and reject others as spurious, and publish a list of those they thought genuine. infidels admit this, and on the strength of it long asserted that the council of laodicea made the new testament. at length they became ashamed of the stupid absurdity of alleging that men could criticise the claims, and catalogue the names of books before they were written; and they now shift back the writing--or the authentication of the new testament--for they are not quite sure which, though the majority incline to the former--to the emperor constantine, and the council of nice which met in the year 325. why they have fixed on the council of nice is more than i can tell. they might as well say the council of trent, or the westminster assembly, either of which had just as much to do with the canon of scripture. however, on some vague hearsay that the council of nice and the emperor constantine made the bible, hundreds in this city are now risking the salvation of their souls. we have in this assertion, nevertheless, as many facts admitted as will serve our present purpose. there did exist, then, undeniably, in the year 325, large numbers of christian churches in the roman empire, sufficiently numerous to make it politic, in the opinion of infidels, for a candidate for the empire to profess christianity; sufficiently powerful to secure his success, notwithstanding the desperate struggles of the heathen party; and sufficiently religious, or if you like superstitious, to make it politic for an emperor and his politicians to give up the senate, the court, the camp, the chase, and the theater, and weary themselves with long prayers, and longer speeches, of preachers about bible religion. now that is certainly a remarkable fact, and all the more remarkable if we inquire, how came it so? for these men, preachers, prince, and people, were brought up to worship jupiter and the thirty thousand gods of olympus, after the heathen fashion, and to leave the care of religion to heathen priests, who never troubled their heads about books or doctrines after they had offered their sacrifices. in all the records of the world there is no instance of a general council of heathen priests to settle the religion of their people. how happens it then that the human race has of a sudden waked up to such a strange sense of the folly of idolatry and the value of religion? the council of nice, and the emperor constantine, and his counselors, making a bible is a proof of a wonderful revolution in the world's religion; a phenomenon far more surprising than if the secretaries of state, and the senate, and president grant should leave the capital to post off to london, to attend the meetings of a methodist conference, assembled to make a hymn book. now what is the cause of this remarkable conversion of prince, priests, and people? how did they all get religion? how did they get it so suddenly? how did they get so much of it? the infidel gives no answer, except to tell us[67] that the austerity, purity, and zeal of the first christians, their good discipline, their belief in the resurrection of the body and the general judgment, and their persuasion that christ and his apostles wrought miracles, had made a great many converts. this is just as if i inquired how a great fire originated, and you should tell me that it burned fast because it was very hot. what i want to know is, how it happened that these licentious greeks, and romans, and asiatics, became austere and pure; how these frivolous philosophers suddenly became so zealous about religion; what implanted the belief of the resurrection of the body and of the judgment to come in the skeptical minds of these heathen scoffers; and how did the pagans of italy, egypt, spain, germany, britain, come to believe in the miracles of one who lived hundreds of years before, and thousands of miles away, or to care a straw whether the written accounts of them were true or false? according to the infidel account, the council of nice, and the emperor constantine's bible-making, is a most extraordinary business--a phenomenon without any natural cause, and they will allow no supernatural--a greater miracle than any recorded in the bible. if we inquire, however, of the parties attending that council, what the state of the case is, we shall learn that they believed--whether truly or erroneously we are not now inquiring--but they believed, that a teacher sent from god, had appeared in palestine two hundred and ninety years before, and had taught this religion which they had embraced; had performed wonderful miracles, such as opening the eyes of the blind, healing lepers, and raising the dead; that he had been put to death by the roman governor, pontius pilate, had risen again from the dead, had spoken to hundreds of people, and had gone out and in among them for six weeks after his resurrection; that he had ascended up through the air, to heaven, in the sight of numbers of witnesses, and had promised that he would come again in the clouds of heaven, to raise the dead, and to judge every man according to his works; that before he went away he appointed twelve of his intimate companions to teach his religion to the world, giving them power to work miracles in proof of their divine commission, and requiring mankind to hear them as they would hear him; that they and their followers did so, in spite of persecutions, sufferings, and death, with so much success, that immense numbers were persuaded to give up idolatry and its filthiness, and to profess christianity and its holiness, and to brave the fury of the heathen mob, and the vengeance of the roman law; that a difference of opinion having arisen among them as to whether this teacher was an angel from heaven, or god, whether they should pray and sing psalms to him, as athanasius and his party believed, or only give him some lesser honor as arius and his party believed, and this difference making all the difference between idolatry on the one hand, and impiety on the other, and so involving their everlasting salvation or damnation, they had embraced the first opportunity after the cessation of persecution, and the accession of the first christian emperor, to assemble three hundred and eighteen of their most learned clergymen, of both sides, and from all countries between spain and persia, to discuss these solemn questions; and that, through the whole of the discussions, both sides appealed to the writings of the apostles, as being then well known, and of unquestioned authority with every one who held the christian name. these facts, being utterly indisputable, are acknowledged by all persons, infidel or christian, at all acquainted with history.[68] here, then, we have the books of the new testament at the council of nice well known to the whole world; and the council, so far from _giving_ any authority to them, _bowing to theirs_--both arian and orthodox with one consent acknowledging that the whole christian world received them as the writings of the apostles of christ. there were venerable men of fourscore and ten at that council; if these books had been first introduced in their lifetime, they must have known it. there were men there whose parents had heard the scriptures read in church from their childhood, and so could not be imposed upon with a new bible. the new testament could not be less than three generations old, else one or other of the disputants would have exposed the novelty of its introduction, from his own information. the council of nice, then, did not make the new testament. it was a book well known, ancient, and of undoubted authority among all christians, ages before that council. _the existence of the new testament scriptures, then, ages before the council of nice, is a great fact._ we next take up the assertions, propounded with a show of learning, that the books of the new testament, and especially the gospels, were not in use, and were not known till the third century; that they are not the productions of contemporary writers; that the alleged ocular testimony or proximity in point of time of the sacred historians to the events recorded is mere assumption, originating in the titles which biblical books bear in our canon; that we stand here (in the gospel history), upon purely mythical and poetical ground; and that the gospels and epistles are a gradually formed collection of myths, having little or no historic reality. so strauss, eichorn, de wette, and their disciples here, attempt to set aside the new testament. in plain english, it is a collection of forgeries. these assertions are absurd. in the hundred years between the death of the apostles, and the beginning of the third century, there was not time to form a mythology. the times of trajan's persecution, and that of the philosophic aurelius, and the busy bustling age of severus, were not the times for such a business. bigoted jews would not, and could not, have made such a character as jesus of nazareth; and the philosophers of that day, celsus and porphyry, for instance, hated it when presented to them as heartily as either strauss or paine. there were not wanting thousands of enemies, able and willing, to expose such a forgery. the aspect and character of the gospel narrative are totally unlike those of mythologies. hear the verdict of one who confessedly stands at the head of the roll of oriental historians: "in no single respect--if we except the fact that it is miraculous--has that story a mythical character. it is a single story, told without variations; whereas myths are fluctuating and multiform: it is blended inextricably with the civil history of the times, which it everywhere reports with extraordinary accuracy; whereas myths distort or supersede civil history: it is full of prosaic detail, which myths studiously eschew: it abounds with practical instruction of the simplest and purest kind; whereas myths teach by allegory. even in its miraculous element it stands to some extent in contrast with all mythologies, where the marvelous has ever a predominant character of grotesqueness which is absent from new testament miracles. (this strauss himself admits, _leben jesu_, 1-67.) simple earnestness, fidelity, painstaking accuracy, pure love of truth, are the most patent characteristics of the new testament writers, who evidently deal with facts, not with fancies, and are employed in relating a history, not in developing an idea. they write that 'we may know the certainty of the things which are most surely believed' in their day. they 'bear record of what they have seen and heard.' i know not how stronger words could have been used to prevent the notion of that plastic, growing myth which strauss conceives to have been in apostolic times."[69] the character of christ exhibited in the gospels is the contrary of that of the heroes of mythology; as contrary as holiness is to sin. the invention of such a character by any man, or by the wisest set of men who ever lived, would have been a miracle nearly as great as the existence of such a person. when the character of christ was presented to the wisest men of the greeks, and romans, and hebrews, so far from admiring him as a hero, they crucified him as an impostor, and persecuted the preachers of his gospel. there was nothing mythical in the ten persecutions; these at least were hard historical facts. every line of examination of time, place, and circumstances proves the falsehood of the mythical theory, and establishes the truth of the gospel history. the authenticity of the gospel history, and of the apostolic epistles is confirmed by the testimony of their enemies. it is a well-authenticated and undeniable fact, that, in the close of the second century, celsus, an epicurean philosopher, wrote a work against christianity, entitled, "the word of truth," in which he quotes passages from the new testament, and so many of them, that from the fragments of his work which remain, we could gather all the principal facts of the birth, teaching, miracles, death, and resurrection of jesus christ, if the new testament should be lost. if paine quotes the new testament to ridicule it, no man can deny that such a book was in existence at the time he wrote. if he takes the pains to write a book to confute it, it is self-evident that it is in circulation, and possessed of influence. so celsus' attempt to reply to the gospels, and his quotations from them, are conclusive proofs that these books were generally circulated and believed, and held to be of authority at the time he wrote. further, he shows every disposition to present every argument which could possibly damage the christian cause. in fact, our modern infidels have done little more than serve up his old objections. now nothing could have served his purpose better than to prove that the records of the history of christ were forgeries of a late date. this would have saved him all further trouble, and settled the fate of christianity conclusively. he had every opportunity of ascertaining the fact, living, as he did, so near the times and scenes of the gospel history, and surrounded by heretics and false christians, who would gladly have given him every information. but he never once intimates the least suspicion of such a thing--never questions the gospels as books of history--nor denies the miracles recorded in them, but attributes them to magic.[70] here, then, we have testimony as acceptable to an infidel as that of strauss or voltaire--in fact, utterly undeniable by any man of common sense--that the new testament was well known and generally received by christians as authoritative, when celsus wrote his reply to it, in the end of the second century. if it was a forgery, it was undoubtedly a forgery of old standing, if he could not detect it. but we will go back a step farther, and prove the antiquity of the new testament by the testimony of another enemy, two generations older than celsus. the celebrated heretic, marcion, lived in the beginning of the second century, when he had the best opportunity of discovering a forgery in the writings of the new testament, if any such existed; he was excommunicated by the church, and being greatly enraged thereat, had every disposition to say the worst he could about it. he traveled all the way from sinope on the black sea, to rome, and through galatia, bithynia, asia minor, greece, and italy, the countries where the apostles preached, and the churches to which they wrote, but never found any one to suggest the idea of a forgery to him. he affirmed that the gospel of matthew, the epistle to the hebrews, those of james and peter, and the whole of the old testament, were books only for jews, and published a new and altered edition of the gospel of luke, and ten epistles of paul, for the use of his sect.[71] we have thus the most undoubted evidence, even the testimony of an enemy, that these books were in existence, and generally received as apostolical and authoritative by christians, at the beginning of the second century, or within twenty years of the last of the apostles, and by the churches to which they had preached and written. the only remaining conceivable cavil against the genuineness of the books of the new testament is: "that they bear internal evidence of being collections of fragments written by different persons--and are probably merely traditions committed to writing by various unknown writers, and afterward collected and issued to the churches under the names of the apostles, for the sake of greater authority." this theory being received as gospel by several learned men, has furnished matter for lengthy discussions as to the sources of the four gospels. translated into english, it amounts to this, that brown, smith, and jones wrote out a number of essays and anecdotes, and persuaded the churches of ephesus, jerusalem, antioch, corinth, and the rest, to receive them as the writings of their ministers, who had lived for years, or were then living, among them; and on the strength of that notion of their being the writings of the apostles, to govern their whole lives by these essays, and lay down their lives and peril their souls' salvation on the truth of these anecdotes. as though they could not tell whether such documents were forgeries or not! it is almost incredible how ignorant dreaming book-worms are of the common business of life. most of my readers will laugh at the idea of a serious answer to such a quibble. nevertheless, for the sake of those whose inexperience may be abused by the authority of learned names, i will show them that the primitive christians, supposing them able to read, could know whether their ministers did really write the books and letters which they received from them. if you go into the citizens' bank, you will find a large folio volume lying on the counter, and on looking at it you will see that it is filled with men's names, in their own handwriting, and that no two of them are exactly alike. every person who has any business to transact with the bank is requested to write his name in the book; and when his check comes afterward for payment, the clerk can tell at a glance if the signature is the same as that of which he has a single specimen. if there has been no opportunity for him to become personally acquainted with the bank, as in case of a foreigner newly arrived, he brings letters of introduction from some well-known mutual friend, or is accompanied by some respectable citizen, who attests his identity. business men have no difficulty whatever in ascertaining the genuineness of documents. it is only when people want to dispute holy scripture that they give up common sense. holy scripture was known to be the genuine writing of the apostles, just in the same way as any other writing was known to be genuine; only the churches who received the writings of the apostles had ten thousand times better security against forgery than any bank in the union. in one of the first letters paul writes to the churches--the second letter to the thessalonians--to whom he had been preaching only a few weeks before, sent from athens, distant only some two days' journey, full of allusions to their affairs, commands how to conduct themselves in the business of their workshops, as well as in the devotions of the church, and explanations of some misunderstood parts of a former letter sent by the hand of a mutual friend--he formally gives them his signature, for the purpose of future reference, and comparison of any document which might purport to come from him, with that specimen of his autograph. he gives not the name merely, but his apostolic benediction also, in his own handwriting: _the salutation of me paul with mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle: so i write. the grace of our lord jesus christ be with you all. amen._ it shows the heart of an apostle of christ; but what concerns the present question is the remark, which every business man will in a moment appreciate, how immensely the addition of these two lines adds to the security against forgery. it is a very hard thing to forge a signature, but give a business man two lines of any man's writing besides that, and he is perfectly secure against imposition.[72] the churches to which the epistles were written, and to which the gospels were delivered, consisted largely of business men, of merchants and traders, tent makers and coppersmiths, city chamberlains, and officers of cæsar's household, and the like. does any one think such men could not tell the handwriting of their minister, who had lived among them for years; or that men who were risking their lives for the instructions he wrote them, would care less about the genuineness of the documents, than you do about the genuineness of a ten dollar check? i am not as long in this city as paul was in ephesus, nor one fourth of the time that john lived there, yet i defy all the advocates of the mythical theory of germany, and all their disciples here, to write a myth half as long as this essay, and impose it on the elders and members of my church as my writing. let it only be presented in manuscript to the congregation--there was no printing in paul's days--and in five minutes a dozen members of the church will detect the forgery, even if i should hold my peace. and were i to leave on a mission to china or india, and write letters to the church, would any of these business men, who have seen my writing, have the least hesitation in recognizing it again? do you think anybody could forge a letter as from me, and impose it on them? what an absurdity, then, to suppose that anybody could write a gospel or epistle, and get all the members of a large church to believe that an apostle wrote it. the first christians, then, were absolutely certain that the documents which they received as apostolic, were really so. the church of rome could attest the epistle to them, and the gospels of mark and luke written there. the church of ephesus could attest the epistle to them, and the gospel, and letters, and revelation of john written there. and so on of all the other churches; and these veritable autographs were long preserved. says tertullian, who was ordained a. d. 192: "well, if you be willing to exercise your curiosity profitably in the business of your salvation, visit the apostolical churches in which the very chairs of the apostles still preside--in which their authentic letters themselves are recited (apud quæ _ipsæ authenticæ literæ_ eorum recitantur), sounding forth the voice and representing the countenance of each one of them. is achaia near you, you have corinth. if you are not far from macedonia, you have philippi, you have thessalonica. if you can go to asia, you have ephesus; but if you are near to italy, you have rome." there can not be the least doubt about the preservation of documents for a far longer time than from paul to tertullian--one hundred and fifty years. i hold in my hand a bible, the family bible of the gibsons--printed in 1599--two hundred and fifty-seven years old, in perfect preservation; and we have manuscripts of the scriptures twelve to fourteen hundred years old, like the sinaitic codex, perfectly legible. they were moreover directed to be publicly read in the churches, and they were publicly read every lord's day. is it credible that an impostor would direct his forgery to be publicly read? if the epistle was publicly read during paul's lifetime, that public reading in the hearing of the men who could so easily disprove its genuineness, was conclusive proof to all who heard it, that they knew it to be the genuine writing of the apostle. the primitive churches then had conclusive proof of the genuineness of the apostolic epistles and gospels. the only difficulty which now remains is the objection that they might have been corrupted by alterations and interpolations by monks, in later times. we have two securities against such corruptions, in the way these documents were given, and the nature of their contents. they were sacred heirlooms, and they were public documents. could you, or could any man, have permission to alter the original copy of washington's farewell address? would not the man who should attempt such sacrilege be torn in a thousand pieces? but washington will never be an object of such veneration as john, nor will his farewell address ever compare in importance with paul's farewell letter to the philippians. besides, these gospels and letters were public documents, containing the records of laws, in obedience to which men are daily crossing their inclinations, enduring the mockery of their neighbors, losing their money, and endangering their lives. they contained the proofs and promises of that religious faith in god and hope of heaven, for the sake of which they suffered such things. is it credible that they would allow them to be altered and corrupted? you might far more rationally talk of altering the declaration of independence, or the constitution of the united states. translated into different languages--transported into britain, germany, france, spain, italy, greece, turkey, carthage, egypt, parthia, persia, india, and china--committed to memory by children, and quoted in the writings of christian authors of the first three centuries, to such an extent, that we can gather the whole of the new testament, except twenty-six verses, from their writings--appealed to as authority by heretics and orthodox in controversy--and publicly read in the hearing of tens of hundreds of thousands every sabbath day in worship--we are a thousand times more certain that the new testament has not been corrupted, than we are that the declaration of independence is genuine. on this ground then we plant ourselves. the whole story of a late and gradual formation of the new testament, or, in plain english, of its forgery, stands out as an unmitigated falsehood in the eyes of every man capable of writing his own name. the first churches could not be deceived with forgeries for apostolic writings. nor could they, if they would, allow these writings to be corrupted. be they true or false, fact or fiction, the books of the new testament are the words of the apostles of our lord and savior jesus christ. in the next chapter we will inquire into the truth of their story. footnotes: [65] the family christian almanac for 1859, p. 57, american tract society, new york. [66] acta concitia, sub voce laodicea, canon iv. lardner vi. p. 368. [67] gibbon's decline and fall, ii. p. 267. [68] the original authorities may be found collected in the fourth volume of lardner's credibility of the gospel history; abstracts of them, with ample references, in mosheim and neander's ecclesiastical histories, and in stanley's eastern church. [69] rawlinson's _historical evidences_, page 227. [70] origen contra celsum, passim. [71] lardner, vol. ix. page 358. [72] in fact, some persons were trying to impose a letter, "as from us," containing declarations, that the day of christ was upon them. chapter vi. is the gospel fact or fable? "for they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to god from idols, to serve the living and true god; and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come."--1 thess. i. 9, 10. in the last chapter we ascertained that the gospels and epistles were not forgeries of some nameless monks of the third century--that the shopkeepers, silversmiths, tent-makers, coppersmiths, tanners, physicians, senators, town councilors, officers of customs, city treasurers, and nobles of cæsar's household, in rome, antioch, ephesus, corinth, athens, and alexandria, could no more be imposed upon in the matter of documents, attested by the well-known signatures of their beloved ministers, than you could by forged letters or sermons purporting to come from your own pastor--and that the documents which they believed to contain the directory of their lives, and the charter of that salvation which they valued more than their lives, which they read in their churches, recited at their tables, quoted in their writings, appealed to in their controversies, translated into many languages, and dispersed into every part of the known world, they neither would, nor could, corrupt or falsify. the genuineness of the copies of the new testament, which we now possess, is abundantly proved by the comparison of over two thousand manuscripts, from all parts of the world; scrutinized during a period of nearly a hundred years, by the most critical scholars, so accurately that the variations of such things as would correspond to the crossing of a t, or the dotting of an i, in english, have been carefully enumerated; yet the result of the whole of this searching scrutiny has been merely the suggestion of a score of unimportant alterations in the received text of the seven thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine verses of the new testament. this is a fact utterly unexampled in the history of manuscripts. there are but six manuscripts of the comedies of terence, and these have not been copied once for every thousand times the new testament has been transcribed, yet there are thirty thousand variations found in these six manuscripts, or an average of five thousand for each, and many of them seriously affect the sense. the average number of variations in the manuscripts of the new testament examined, is not quite thirty for each, including all the trivialities already noticed. we are, then, by the special providence of god, now as undoubtedly in possession of genuine copies of the gospels and epistles, written by the companions of jesus, as we are of genuine copies of the constitution of the united states, and of the declaration of independence. these are historic documents, of well-established genuineness and antiquity, which we now proceed to examine as to their truthfulness. there is no history so trustworthy as that prepared by contemporary writers, especially by those who have themselves been actively engaged in the events which they relate. such history never loses its interest, nor does the lapse of ages, in the least degree, impair its credibility. while the documents can be preserved, xenophon's retreat of the ten thousand, cæsar's gallic war, and the dispatches of the duke of wellington, will be as trustworthy as on the day they were written. yet some suspicion may arise in our minds, that these commanders and historians might have kept back some important events which would have dimmed their reputation with posterity, or might have colored those they have related, so as to add to their fame. of the great facts related in memoirs addressed to their companions in arms, able at a glance to detect a falsehood, we never entertain the least suspicion. if, to this be added, the correspondence of monuments, architecture, painting, statuary, coins, heraldry, and a thousand changes in the manners and customs of a people, we become as absolutely convinced of the truth of the narrative thus confirmed by these silent witnesses as if we had seen the events described. no man who visits the disinterred city of pompeii, and sees the pavements marked by the wheel ruts, has any doubt that the romans used wheeled carriages. when he sees the court-yards adorned with mosaic figures, and the walls with paintings of the gods, and of the manners of the people who worshiped them, he is profoundly impressed with the conviction that they excelled in the fine arts, and in the coarse vices of heathenism. when he visits the coliseum, that vast ruin declares that the wealth of an empire, once devoted to the gratification of the most savage passions, has been diverted into some other channel. when he visits the catacombs, and reads long lines of heathen epitaphs, with their despairing symbols of broken columns, extinguished torches, and their heart-breaking "farewell! an eternal farewell!" and then turns to the monuments of only two centuries later, and reads, "he sleeps in the lord," "he waits the resurrection to life eternal," recording the hopes of whole generations of survivors, he can not doubt the truth of the written records of the conversion of the roman empire. there is, moreover, another kind of contemporary history not so connected and regular as the formal diary or journal, which does not even propose to relate history at all, but is for that very reason entirely removed from the suspicion of giving a coloring to it; which, at the cost of a little patience and industry, gives us the most convincing confirmations of the truth, or exposures of the mistakes of historians, by the undesigned and incidental way in which the use of a name, a date, a proverb, a jest, an expletive, a quotation, an allusion, flashes conviction upon the reader's mind. i mean contemporary correspondence. if we have the private letters of celebrated men laid before us, we are enabled to look right into them, and see their true character. thus macaulay exhibits to the world the proud, lying, stupid tyrant, james, displayed in his own letters. thus voltaire records himself an adulterer, and begs his friend, d'alembert, to lie for him; his friend replies that he has done so. thus the correspondence of the great american herald of the age of reason exhibits him drinking a quart of brandy daily at his friend's expense, and refusing to pay his bill for boarding. in the unguarded freedom of confidential correspondence the vail is taken from the heart. we see men as they are. the true man stands out in his native dignity, and the gilding is rubbed off the hypocrite. give the world their letters, and let the grave silence the plaudits and the clamors which deafened the generation among whom they lived, and no man will hesitate whether or not to pronounce hume a sensualist, or washington the noblest work of god--an honest man. if we add another test of truthfulness, by increasing the number of the witnesses, comparing a number of letters referring to the same events, written by persons of various degrees of education, and of different occupations and ranks of life, resident in different countries, acting independently of each other, and find them all agree in their allusions to, or direct mention of, some central facts concerning which they are all interested, no one can rightfully doubt that this undesigned agreement declares the truth. but if, in addition to all these undesigned coincidences, we happen upon the correspondence of persons whose interests and passions were diametrically opposed to those of our correspondents, and find that, when they have occasion to refer to them, they also confirm the great facts already ascertained, then our belief becomes conviction which can not be overturned by any sophistry, that these things did occur. if whig and tory agree in relating the facts of james' flight, and william's accession, if the letters of his jacobite friends and those of the french ambassador confirm the statements of the english historian, and if we are put in possession of the letters which james himself wrote from france and ireland to his friends in england, does any man in his common sense doubt that the revolution of 1688 did actually occur? when, in addition to all this concentration and convergence of testimony, one finds that the matters related, being of public concern, and the changes effected for the public weal, the people have ever since observed, and do to this day celebrate, by religious worship and public rejoicings, the anniversaries of the principal events of that revolution, and that he himself has been present, and has heard the thanksgivings, and witnessed the rejoicings on those anniversaries, the facts of the history come out from the domains of learned curiosity, and take their stand on the market-place of the busy world's engagements. we become at once conscious that this is a practical question--a great fact which concerns us--that the whole of the law and government of a vast empire has felt its impress--that our ancestors and ourselves have been molded under its influence, and that the religion of europe and america, under whose guardianship we have grown to a prominent place among the people of earth, and may arrive at a better prominence among the nations of the saved, has been secured by that revolution. we could scarcely know whether most to pity or contemn the man who should labor to persuade us that such a revolution had never occurred, or that the facts had been essentially misrepresented. now it is precisely on this kind of evidence that we believe the great facts of the christian revolution. we have contemporary histories, formal and informal; letters, public and private, from the principal agents in it, and opposers of it, dispersed from babylon to rome, and addressed to greeks, romans, jews, and asiatics, written by physicians, fishermen, proconsuls, emperors, and apostles. we have miles of monuments, paintings, statuary, cabinets of coins, and all the heraldry of christendom. and these great facts stand out more prominently on the theater of the world's business as effecting changes on our laws and lives, and their introduction as authenticated by public commemorations, more solemn and more numerous than those resulting from the english or the american revolution. our main difficulty lies in selecting, from the vast mass of materials, a portion sufficiently distinct and manageable to be handled in a single essay. we shall be guided by the motto already announced as the rule of inductive research. one thing at a time; and the nearest first. the epistles, being nearer our own times than the gospels, claim our first notice, and first among these, those which stand latest on the page of sacred history, the letters of john; two from peter to the christians of asia; and those which paul, in chains for the gospel, dictated from imperial rome. from the abundant notices of the early christians by historians and philosophers, satirists and comedians, martyrs and magistrates, jewish, christian, and heathen, i shall select only two for comparison with the epistles and of the apostles; and both those heathen--the celebrated letter of pliny to trajan, and the well-established history of tacitus; both utterly undeniable, and admitted by the most skeptical to be above suspicion. not that i suppose that the testimony of men who do not take the trouble of making any inquiry into the reality of the facts of the christian religion is more accurate than that of those whose lives were devoted to its study; or that we have any just reason to attach as much weight to the assertions of persons, who, by their own showing, tortured and murdered men and women convicted of no crime but that of bearing the name of christ, as to those of these martyrs, whose characters they acknowledged to be blameless, and who sealed their testimony with the last and highest attestation of sincerity--their blood. considered merely as a historian, whether, as regards means of knowledge, or tests of truthfulness, by every unprejudiced mind, peter will always be preferred to pliny. but because the world will ever love its own, and hate the disciples of the lord, there will always be a large class to whom the history of tacitus will seem more veritable than that of luke, and the letters of pliny more reliable than those of peter. for their sakes we avail ourselves of that most convincing of all attestations--the testimony of an enemy. what friends and foes unite in attesting must be accepted as true. the facts which we shall thus establish are not, in the first instance, those called miraculous. we are now ascertaining the general character for truthfulness of our letter writers and historians. if we find that their general historic narrative is contradicted by that of other credible historians, then we suspect their story. but if we find that, in all essential matters of public notoriety, they are supported by the concurred testimony of their foes, and that the narrative of the miracles they relate bears the seals of thousands who from foes became friends, from conviction of its truth, then we receive their witness as true. even in paul's day, heathen greek writers bore testimony to the apostles, what manner of entering in they had unto the converts of thessalonica; and how they turned to god from idols, to serve the living and true god, and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead--even jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come. pliny wrote forty years later. pliny, the younger, was born a. d. 61, was prætor under domitian, consul in the third year of trajan, a. d. 100, was exceedingly desirous to add to his other honors that of the priesthood; was accordingly consecrated an augur, and built temples, bought images, and consecrated them on his estates; was, in a. d. 106, appointed governor of the roman provinces of pontus and bithynia[73]--a vast tract of asia minor, lying along the shores of the black sea and the propontis; and including the province anciently called mysia, in which were situated pergamos and thyatira, and in the immediate vicinity of sardis and philadelphia. pliny reached his province by the usual route, the port of ephesus; where john had lived for many years, and indited his letters, a. d. 96, scarcely ten years before. the letters of peter to the strangers scattered through pontus, galatia, cappadocia, asia, and bithynia, bring us to the same mountainous region, eight hundred miles distant from judea; whence, in earlier days, our savage ancestors received those phoenician priests of baal, whose round towers mark the coasts of ireland nearest to the setting sun; and whence, about the period under consideration, came the heralds of the sun of righteousness, who brought the "_leabhar eoin_"[74] which tells their children of him in whom is the life and the light of men. natives of these countries had been in jerusalem during the crucifixion of jesus, and, though only strangers, had witnessed the darkness, and the earthquake, and had heard the rumors of what had come to pass in those days; and on the day of pentecost had mingled with the curious crowd around the apostles, and heard them speak, in their own mother tongues, of the wonderful works of god. the remainder of the story of their conversion we gather from the letters of peter, john, and pliny. "pliny, to the emperor trajan, wisheth health and happiness:[75] "it is my constant custom, sire, to refer myself to you in all matters concerning which i have any doubt. for who can better direct me when i hesitate, or instruct me when i am ignorant? "i have never been present at any trials of christians, so that i know not well what is the subject matter of punishment, or of inquiry, or what strictures ought to be used in either. nor have i been a little perplexed to determine whether any difference ought to be made upon account of age, or whether the young and tender, and the full grown and robust, ought to be treated all alike; whether repentance should entitle to pardon, or whether all who have once been christians ought to be punished, though they are now no longer so; whether the name itself, although no crimes be detected, or crimes only belonging to the name ought to be punished. "in the meantime, i have taken this course with all who have been brought before me, and have been accused as christians. i have put the question to them, whether they were christians. upon their confessing to me that they were, i repeated the question a second and a third time, threatening also to punish them with death. such as still persisted, i ordered away to be punished; for it was no doubt with me, whatever might be the nature of their opinion, that contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought to be punished. there were others of the same infatuation, whom, because they are roman citizens, i have noted down to be sent to the city. "in a short time the crime spreading itself, even whilst under persecution, as is usual in such cases, divers sorts of people came in my way. an information was presented to me, without mentioning the author, containing the names of many persons, who, upon examination, denied that they were christians, or had even been so; who repeated after me an invocation of the gods, and with wine and frankincense made supplication to your image, which, for that purpose, i have caused to be brought and set before them, together with the statues of the deities. moreover, they reviled the name of christ. none of which things, as is said, they who are really christians can by any means be compelled to do. these, therefore, i thought proper to discharge. "others were named by an informer, who at first confessed themselves christians, and afterward denied it. the rest said they had been christians, but had left them; some three years ago, some longer, and one or more above twenty years. they all worshiped your image, and the statues of the gods; these also reviled christ. they affirmed that the whole of their fault or error lay in this: that they were wont to meet together, on a stated day, before it was light, and sing among themselves alternately, a hymn to christ as a god, and bind themselves by a sacrament, not to the commission of any wickedness, but not to be guilty of theft, or robbery, or adultery; never to falsify their word, nor to deny a pledge committed to them, when called upon to return it. when these things were performed, it was their custom to separate, and then to come together again to a meal, which they ate in common, without any disorder; but this they had forborne since the publication of my edict, by which, according to your command, i prohibited assemblies. after receiving this account, i judged it the more necessary to examine two maid servants, which were called ministers, by torture. but i have discovered nothing besides a bad and excessive superstition. "suspending, therefore, all judicial proceedings, i have recourse to you for advice; for it has appeared to me a matter highly deserving consideration, especially upon account of the great number of persons who are in danger of suffering. for many of all ages, and every rank, of both sexes likewise, are accused, and will be accused. nor has the contagion of this superstition seized cities only, but the lesser towns also, and the open country. nevertheless, it seems to me that it may be restrained and arrested. it is certain that the temples, which were almost forsaken, begin to be frequented. and the sacred solemnities, after a long intermission, are revived. victims, likewise, are everywhere brought up, whereas, for some time, there were few purchasers. whence, it is easy to imagine, what numbers of men might be reclaimed, if pardon were granted to those who shall repent." * * * * * "trajan to pliny, wisheth health and happiness:[76] "you have taken the right course, my pliny, in your proceedings with those who have been brought before you as christians; for it is impossible to establish any one rule that shall hold universally. they are not to be sought after. if any are brought before you, and are convicted, they ought to be punished. however, he that denies his being a christian, and makes it evident in fact, that is, by supplicating to our gods, though he be suspected to have been so formerly, let him be pardoned upon repentance. but in no case, of any crime whatever, may a bill of information be received without being signed by him who presents it, for that would be a dangerous precedent, and unworthy of my government." i must request my reader now to procure a new testament, and read, at one reading, the first general epistle of peter, the first general epistle of john, and the seven epistles to the churches in ephesus, smyrna, pergamos, thyatira, sardis, philadelphia, and laodicea--only about as much matter as four pages of _harper's magazine_, or half a page of the _commercial_--that he may be able to do the same justice to the apostles as to the governor. he will thus be able to see the force of the various allusions to the numbers, doctrines, morals, persecutions, and perseverance of the christians, contained in those letters; the object which i have in view being, to establish their authenticity by proving the truthfulness of their allusions to these things. if you think this too much trouble, please lay down the book, and dismiss the consideration of religion from your thoughts. if the letters of the apostles are not worth a careful reading, it is of no consequence whether they are true or false. 1. these letters take for granted, that the fact of the existence of large numbers of christians, organized into churches, and meeting regularly for religious worship, at the close of the first century, is a matter of public notoriety to the world. here, in countries eight hundred miles distant from its birthplace, in the lifetime of those who had seen its founder crucified, we find christians scattered over pontus, galatia, cappadocia, asia, and bithynia--churches in seven provincial cities, the sect well known to pliny, before he left italy, as a proscribed and persecuted religion, the professors of which were customarily brought before courts for trial and punishment--though he had not himself been present at such trials--and now so numerous in his provinces, that a great number of persons, of both sexes, young and old, of all ranks, natives and roman citizens, professed christianity. others, influenced by their example and instruction, renounced idolatry; victims were not led to sacrifice; the sacred rites of the gods were suspended, and their temples forsaken. the existence, then, of churches of christ, consisting of vast numbers of converted heathens, at the close of the first century, is in no wise mythological or dubious. it is an established historical fact. the epistles of the apostles stand confirmed by the epistles of the governor and the emperor. 2. the second great fact presented in the epistles, and confirmed by the letters of the governor and the emperor, is, that the worship of the christian church then was essentially the same which it is now. we find these christians of the first century commemorating the death and resurrection of christ, and rendering divine honors to him; the "stated day" on which they assembled for worship, and the "common meal," are as plain a description of the "disciples coming together upon the first day of the week, to break bread," as a heathen could give in few words. their terms of communion too, to which they pledged their members by a sacrament, "not to be guilty of theft, robbery, or adultery; never to falsify their word, or deny a pledge committed to them," find their counterpart in every well-regulated church at this day. the articles of the christian faith, then, are not the "gradual accretions of centuries," nor is the "redemptive idea, as attaching to christ, a dogma of the post-augustine period." the churches of the first century commemorated the death and resurrection of jesus, as that of a divine person, "singing the hymn to him as a god," which their descendants sing at this day around his table: "forever and forever is, o god, thy throne of might, the scepter of thy kingdom is a scepter that is right, thou lovest right, and hatest ill; for god, thy god, most high, above thy fellows hath with th' oil of joy anointed thee." and the question will force itself upon our minds, and can not be evaded, how did these apostles persuade such multitudes of heathens to believe their repeated assertions of the death, resurrection, and glory of jesus? in the space of three octavo pages, peter refers to these facts eighteen times. john, in like manner, repeatedly affirms them. the christian religion consists in the belief of these facts, and a life corresponding to them. now, how did the apostles persuade such multitudes of heathens to believe a report so wonderful, profess a religion so novel, renounce the gods they had worshiped from their childhood, and all the ceremonies of an attractive, sensual religion; "temples of splendid architecture, statues of exquisite sculpture, priests and victims superbly adorned, attendant beauteous youth of both sexes, performing all the sacred rites with gracefulness; religious dances, illuminations, concerts of the sweetest music, perfumes of the rarest fragrance," and other more licentious enjoyments, inseparable from heathen worship. how did they persuade them to exchange all this for the assembly before daybreak, the frugal common meal, the psalm to christ, and the commemoration of the death of a crucified malefactor? if we add, that they commemorated his resurrection, by observing the lord's day, the question comes up, how did they come to believe that he was risen from the dead? could a few despised strangers, or a few citizens if you will, persuade such a community, purely by natural means, to believe such a report, to care whether the syrian jew died or rose, or to commemorate weekly, by a solemn religious service, either his death or resurrection? it is evident they believed what they commemorated. how did they come to do so? but whether we can answer the question or not, the fact stands out as indisputable, that not merely the writers of the epistles and gospels, and a few enthusiasts, but an immense multitude of all ages, of both sexes, and of every rank--the whole membership of the primitive churches--did believe in the death, resurrection, and glory of the lord jesus, and did render to him divine worship. the second great fact, affirmed in the epistles, stands confirmed by the testimony of the heathen governor, and of the roman emperor. 3. a mere theory of a new religion, unconnected with practice, may be easily received by those who care little about any, so long as it brings no suffering or inconvenience. but the religion of these christians was, as you see, a practical religion. if their new worship required a great departure from the worship of their childhood, their christian morals required a still greater departure from their former mode of life. i need not remind you of the moral codes of socrates, plato, and aristides, who taught that lying, thieving, adultery, and murder were lawful; nor how much worse than the theory of the best of the heathen were the lives of the worst; nor how unpopular to persons so educated would be such teaching as this--"forasmuch then as christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin: that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of god. for the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries; wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the living and the dead." "lay aside all malice, and guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings." "whosoever abideth in christ sinneth not. whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. little children, let no man deceive you. he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. he that committeth sin is of the devil." so sharp, and stern, and strictly virtuous is apostolic religion, as displayed in these letters. is it possible then that these converted heathens did really even approach this standard of morality? did this gospel of christ actually produce any such reformation of their lives? you have the testimony of apostates, eager to save their lives by giving such information as they knew would be acceptable to the persecutor; you have the testimony of the two aged deaconesses, under torture; you have the unwilling, but yet express, testimony of their torturer and murderer, that all his cruel ingenuity could discover nothing worse than an excessive superstition and culpable obstinacy. what, then, does this philosophic inspector of entrails, and adorer of idols, call an excessive superstition and culpable obstinacy? why, they bound themselves by the most solemn religious services, not to be guilty of theft, robbery, or adultery; not to falsify their word, nor deny a pledge committed to them; and when some senseless blocks of brass were carried on men's shoulders, into the court-house, to represent a mortal man, they would not adore them, nor pray to them; no, not though this philosopher compiled the liturgy, and set the example. for this refusal, and this alone, he ordered them away to death. doubtless they heard, in their hearts, the well-known words, "let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evil-doer, or as a busybody in other men's matters. but if any man suffer as a christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify god on this behalf." the morality of the epistles, then, was not a merely a fine theory, but an actual rule of life. the moral codes of the apostles were received as actually binding on the members of the churches of the first century. in this all-important matter of the rule of a good life--the fruits by which the tree is known--the integrity, authority, and success of the apostles, in turning licentious heathens into moral christians, is authenticated by the unwilling testimony of their persecutors. the epistles of the apostles stand confirmed, as to their ethics, by the letters of trajan and pliny. 4. the only other fact to which i call your attention, from among the multitude alluded to in these letters, is the cost at which these converts from heathenism embraced this new religion. every one who renounced heathenism, and professed the name of christ, knew very well that he must suffer for it. "beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you, but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of christ's sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad with exceeding joy;" this was the welcome of the bithynian convert into the church of christ. persecution by fire and sword was then the common lot of the church. "i have never been present at any trials of the christians," says the governor. such trials were well known to him it seems. he was not sure whether he should murder all who ever had borne the name of christ, or only those who proved themselves to be really his disciples, by refusing to revile him, and return to idolatry; and the merciful emperor commands him to spare the apostates. above twenty years before--in a. d. 86--there were apostates from the persecuted religion. in a. d. 90, john had written, "they went out from us, that it might be made manifest they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out that it might be made manifest that they were not all of us." so it seems pliny thought: "they all worshiped your image, and other statues of the gods; these also reviled christ. none of which things, as is said, they who are really christians can by any means be compelled to do." what these means were he tells us: "i put the question to them, whether they were christians. upon their confessing to me that they were, i repeated the question a second and a third time, threatening, also, to punish them with death. such as still persisted, i ordered away to be punished." what is very remarkable, it was, it seems, "usual in such cases, for the crime to spread itself, even whilst under persecution." in the face of such dangers, these heathen would still profess faith in christ, and when they might have saved their lives by reviling him, refused to do so. from the published rescript of the emperor, approving of pliny's course, and condemning to death all who were convicted of being really christians; from the public circulars of the apostles, warning them of "fiery trials," "satan casting some of them into prison," and exhorting them to "be faithful unto death;" and from such comments on these as the torture and public execution of aged women as well as men--the terms of discipleship were well known to the whole world. yet we see that in the face of all this, "great numbers of persons, of both sexes, and of all ages, and of every rank," in pliny's opinion, were so steadfast in their faith, that "they were in great danger of suffering." here, then, is another well-attested fact, in which the testimony of the apostles stands confirmed by the signatures of the bithynian governor, and the roman emperor--a fact which stands forth clear, prominent, most undoubted, without the smallest trace of anything mythological or misty about it--that, in a. d. 106, great numbers of converted heathens did suffer exile, torture, and death itself, rather than renounce christ; and that it was well known that the christian faith enabled its professor to overcome the world. these four great facts of the later epistles, being thus established beyond dispute, in pursuance of our plan, we ascend the stream of history some forty years, to the time of the earlier epistles, when paul lay in the prætorian prison, and his faithful companion, luke, wrote the continuation of his narrative of the things most surely believed among the christians; when "apostles were made as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things;" and christians "were made a gazing stock both by reproaches and afflictions;" "were brought before kings and rulers, and hated of all nations for christ's name sake;" "endured a great fight of afflictions;" were "for his sake killed all the day long, and accounted as sheep for the slaughter;" "were made a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men." we remove the field of our investigation from a remote province of asia, to one equally remote from judea, and far more unfavorable for the growth of the religion of a crucified jew, to the proud capital of the world, imperial rome. the time shall be shortly after the burning of the city, in a. d. 64, and during the raging of the first of those systematic, imperial, and savage persecutions through which the church of christ waded, in the bloody footsteps of her lord, to world-wide influence, and undying fame. our historian shall be the well-known tacitus; and the single extract from his history, one of which the infidel gibbon says:[77] "the most skeptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth of this important fact, and the integrity of this celebrated passage of tacitus." i shall not insert quotations from paul or luke; that were merely to transcribe large portions of the epistles and gospels, which whoever will not carefully peruse, disqualifies himself for forming a judgment of their veracity. the confirmation of the four facts already established, of the existence, worship, morals, and sufferings of the disciples of christ; and these facts as well known within thirty years after his death, will sufficiently appear by the perusal of the following testimony of tacitus.[78] after relating the burning of the city, and nero's attempt to transfer the odium of it to the sect "commonly known by the name of christians," he says: "the author of that name was christ, who, in the reign of tiberius, was put to death as a criminal, under the procurator, pontius pilate. but this pestilent superstition, checked for a while, broke out afresh, and spread not only over judea, where the evil originated, but also in rome, where all that is evil on the earth finds its way, and is practiced. at first, those only were apprehended who confessed themselves of that sect; afterward, _a vast multitude_ discovered by them; all of whom were condemned, not so much for the crime of burning the city, as for their enmity to mankind. their executions were so contrived, as to expose them to derision and contempt. some were covered over with the skins of wild beasts, that they might be torn to pieces by dogs; some were crucified; while others, having been daubed over with combustible materials, were set up for lights in the night time, and thus burned to death. for these spectacles nero gave his own gardens, and, at the same time, exhibited there the diversions of the circus; sometimes standing in the crowd as a spectator, in the habit of a charioteer; and, at other times, driving a chariot himself; until at length these men, though really criminal, and deserving of exemplary punishment, began to be commiserated, as people who were destroyed, not out of regard to the public welfare, but only to gratify the cruelty of one man." we add no comment on this remarkable passage. take up your new testament and read the contemporary history--acts xxii. to the end of the book--and the letters of paul from rome, to philemon, titus, the ephesians, philippians, colossians, and the second to timothy, written when the aged prisoner was ready to be offered, and the time of his departure, amidst such scenes and sufferings, was at hand. then form your own opinion as to the origin and nature of that faith in jesus which enabled him to say: "none of these things move me, neither count i my life dear unto me, that i may finish my course with joy, and the testimony which i have received of the lord jesus." "i know in whom i have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which i have committed to him against that day." whatever may be your opinion of the apostle's hope for the future, you must acknowledge that we have ascertained, beyond contradiction, these four facts of the past: 1. that without the power of force, or the help of governments, and in spite of them, the apostles did convert vast multitudes of idolaters from a senseless worship of stocks and stones, to the worship of the one living and true god; a thing never done by the preachers of any other religion before or since. 2. that without the help of power or civil law, and solely by moral and spiritual means, they did persuade multitudes of licentious heathens to give up their vices, and obey the pure precepts of the morality contained in their epistles; a thing never done by the preachers of any other religion before or since. 3. that these converts were so firmly persuaded of the truth of their new religion, that, with the choice of life and worldly honor, or a death of infamy and torture before them, multitudes deliberately chose to suffer torture and death rather than renounce the belief in one god, obedience to his laws, and the hope of eternal life through jesus christ, which they had learned from the sermons and letters of these apostles; a thing never done by the professors of any other religion before or since.[79] 4. the faith which produced such an illumination of their minds; which caused such a blessed change in their lives; which filled them with joy and hope, and enabled them even to despise torture and death, was briefly this: "that christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day, according to the scriptures; that he ascended up into heaven, and will come again to judge the world, and reward every man according to his works; and that whosoever believes these things in his heart, and confesses them with his mouth, shall be saved; and he that believeth them not shall be damned." it is a fact, then, indisputably proven by history, that the new testament does teach a religion which can enlighten men's minds, reform their lives, give peace to their consciences, and enable them to meet death with a joyful hope of life eternal. it has done these things in times past, and is doing them now. these are its undoubted fruits. reader, this faith may be yours. it will work the same results in you as it has done in others. like causes ever produce like effects. jesus waits to deliver you from your sins, to fill you with joy and peace in believing, and make you abound in hope, by the power of the holy ghost. he has promised, if you will ask it, "i will give them a heart to know me, that i am the lord." footnotes: [73] lardner vii. page 18, _et seq._ [74] pronounced laar owen--john's book. [75] lib. x. ep. 97, lardner vii. 22. [76] lib. x. ep. 98, lardner vii. 24. [77] decline and fall, vol. ii. page 407. [78] lib. xv. chap. 44. [79] the sufferings of the jews, under antiochus, are no exception. they suffered for their faith in the true god, the messiah to come, and a resurrection to life eternal. chapter vii. can we believe christ and his apostles? "that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life * * * that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you."--1 john i. 1. we have seen that the companions of jesus wrote the books of the new testament; that their statements of the existence, worship, morals, and faith of the christian church are confirmed by their enemies, and that multitudes of heathens were turned from vice to virtue by the belief of the testimony of these men. they testified that jesus christ did many wonderful miracles, died for our sins, and rose again from the dead; that they saw, and felt his body, and ate, and drank, and conversed with him for forty days after his resurrection; that he ascended up to heaven in their sight; that he sent them to tell the world that he will come again in the clouds of heaven, with his mighty angels, to judge the living and the dead; that he who believes these things and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. this is their statement. the question is, can we believe them? 1. the first thing which strikes us in their testimony is, that it stands out utterly different from all other religions. there is nothing in the world like it, not even its counterfeits. the great central fact of christianity--that christ died for our sins, and rose again from the dead--stands absolutely alone in the history of religions. the priests of baal, brahma, or jupiter, never dreamed of such a thing. the prophets of mohammedanism, mormonism, or pantheism, have never attempted to imitate it. the great object of all counterfeit christianity is to deny it. there is no instance in the whole world's history of any other religion ever producing the same effects. we demand an instance of men destitute of wealth, arms, power, and learning, converting multitudes of lying, lustful, murdering idolaters, into honest, peaceable, virtuous men simply by prayer and preaching. when the infidel tells us of the rapid spread of mohammedanism and mormonism--impostures which enlist disciples by promising free license to lust, robbery, and murder, and retain them by the terror of the scimeter and the rifle ball; which reduce mankind to the most abject servitude, and womanhood to the most debasing concubinage; which have turned the fairest regions of the earth to a wilderness, and under whose blighting influence commerce, arts, science, industry, comfort, and the human race itself, have withered away--he simply insults our common sense, by ignoring the difference between backgoing vice and ongoing virtue; or acknowledges that he knows as little about mohammedanism, as he does about christianity. the gospel stands alone in its doctrines, singular in its operation, unequaled in its success. 2. the next important point for consideration is, that the christianity preached by christ and his apostles is a whole--a single system, which we must either take or leave--believe entirely, or entirely reject it as an imposture. there is no middle ground for you to occupy. it is all true, or all false. for instance, you can not take one of paul's epistles and say, "this is true," and take another of the same man's letters, containing the very same religion, and say, "this is false." if you accept the very briefest of paul's letters, that to philemon, containing only thirteen sentences on private business, you accept eleven distinct assertions of the authority, grace, love, and divinity of our lord. nor can you say you will accept peter's letters and reject paul's; for you will find the very same facts asserted by the one as by the other; and moreover, peter indorses "all the epistles of our beloved brother paul" as on the same pedestal of authority with the other scriptures. you can not say, "i will accept the letters and reject the history," for the letters have no meaning without the history. they are founded upon it, and assume or allege its facts on every page. were the gospels lost, we could collect a good account of the birth, teaching, death, resurrection, ascension, and almighty power of the lord christ from paul's epistles; and these letters are just as confident in alleging the miraculous part of the history as the gospels themselves. neither can you gain any advantage by saying, "i accept the gospels, but reject the letters," for there is not a doctrine of the new testament which is not taught in the very first of them, the gospel by matthew. further, the gospels contain the most solemn authentication of the commissions of the apostles, so that whoever rejects their teaching, brings upon himself guilt equal to that of rejecting christ himself. "lo, i am with you alway"--"he that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me"--"whosoever will not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. verily i say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of sodom and gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city." it is, if possible, more absurd to attempt to dissect the morality of the gospel from its history, and to say, "we are willing to receive the christian code of morals as a very excellent rule of life, and to regard jesus as a rare example of almost superhuman virtue, but we must consider the narrative of supernatural events interwoven with it as mythological," _i. e._, false. which is much the same as to say, "we will be very happy to receive your friend if he will only cut his head off." of what possible use would the christian code of morals be without the authority of christ, the lawgiver? if he possessed no divine authority, what right has he to control your inclination or mine? and if he will never return to inquire whether men obey or disobey his law, who will regard it? do you suppose the world will be turned upside down, and reformed, by a little good advice? nay, verily, the world has had trial of that vanity long enough. "we must all appear before the judgment seat of christ, that every one may receive the things done in the body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. knowing, therefore, _the terrors of the lord_, we persuade men." take away the miraculous and supernatural from the gospel history, and there is nothing left for you to accept. there is no political economy nor worldly morality in it. it is wholly the history of a supernatural person, and every precept of his morality comes with a divine sanction. further, you know nothing of either his life or his morality but from the gospel history, and if the record of the miracles which occupy three-fourths of the gospels be false, what reason have you to give any credit to the remainder? for, as the german commentator, de wette, well says, "the only means of acquaintance with a history is the narrative we possess concerning it, and beyond that narrative the interpreter can not go. in these bible records, the narrative reports to us only a supernatural course of events, which we must either receive or reject. if we reject the narrative, we know nothing at all about the event, and we are not justified in allowing ourselves to invent a natural course of events of which the narrative is totally silent." so, you see, you can not make a christ to suit your taste, but must just take the christ of the gospel, or reject him. if you reject the testimony of christ and his apostles as false, and say you can not believe them in matters of fact, how can you respect their morality? of all the absurdities of modern infidelity, the respectful language generally used by its advocates in speaking of christ and his apostles is the most inconsistent. he claimed to be a divine person, and professed to work miracles. the infidel says he was not a divine person, and wrought no miracles. the consequence is unavoidable--such a pretender is a blasphemous impostor. and yet they speak of him as a "model man," an "exemplar of every virtue." what! an impostor a model man? a blasphemer and liar an exemplar of every virtue? is that the infidel's notion of virtue? why, the devils were more consistent in their commendations of his character, "we know thee who thou art, the holy one of god." let our modern enemies of christ learn consistency from their ancient allies. we have also learned from our master to refuse all hypocritical, half-way professions of respect for his character and teachings from those whose business is to prove him a deceiver, and whose object in speaking respectfully of such a one can only be to gain a larger audience, and a readier entrance for their blasphemy among his professed disciples. from every man who professes respect for christ's character, and for the morality which he and his apostles taught, we demand a straightforward answer to the questions: "when he declared himself the son of god, the judge of the living and the dead, did he tell the truth, or did he lie? when he promised to attest his divine commission by rising from the dead on the third day, had he any such power, or did he only mean to play a juggling imposture? is jesus the christ the son of the living god, or a deceiver?" there is no middle ground. he that is not with him is against him. the case is just the same with regard to the witnesses of his miracles, death, and resurrection. they either give a true relation of these things, or they have manufactured a series of falsehoods. how can we believe anything from persons so habituated to lying as the narrators of the mighty works of jesus must be, if those mighty works never were performed? how can we accept their code of morals if we refuse to believe them when they speak of matters of fact? is it possible to respect men as moral teachers, whom we have convicted of forging stories of miracles that never occurred, and confederating together to impose a lying superstition on the world? for this is plainly the very point and center of the question about the truth of the bible, and i am anxious you should see it clearly. a fair statement of this question is half the argument. the question then is simply this, was jesus really the divine person he claimed to be, or was he a blasphemous impostor? when the apostles unitedly and solemnly testified that they had seen him after he was risen from the dead, that they ate and drank with him, that their hands had handled his body, that they conversed with him for forty days, and that they saw him go up to heaven, did they tell the truth or were they a confederated band of liars? there is no reason for any other supposition. they could not possibly be deceived themselves in the matters they relate. they knew perfectly whether they were true or not. we are not talking about matters of dogma, about which there might be room for difference of opinion, but about matters of fact--about what men say they saw, and heard, and felt--about which no man of common sense could possibly be mistaken. "that which we have seen with our eyes, which we have heard, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life * * * that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you." such is their language. we must either take it as truth, or reject it as falsehood. it is utter nonsense to talk of the intense subjectivity of the jewish mind, and the belief of the apostles that the messiah would do wonders when he came, and the powerful impressions produced by the teaching of jesus on their minds. we are not talking about impressions on their minds, but about impressions produced on their eyes, and ears, and hands. did these men tell the truth when they told the world that they did eat and drink with jesus after he rose from the dead, or did they lie? that is the question. 3. it is a hard matter to lie well. a liar has need of a good memory, else he will contradict himself before he writes far. and he needs to be very well posted up in the matters of names, dates, places, manners and customs, else he will contradict some well-known facts, and so expose his forgery to the world. therefore writers of forgeries avoid all such things as much as possible, and as surely as they venture on specifications of that sort they are detected. a man who is conscious of writing a book of falsehoods does not begin on this wise: "now in the fifteenth year of the reign of tiberius cæsar, pontius pilate being governor of judea, and herod being tetrarch of galilee, and his brother philip tetrarch of iturea and of the regions of trachonitis, and lysanias tetrarch of abilene, annas and caiphas being high priests, the word of god came unto john, the son of zacharias, in the wilderness." here in one sentence are twenty historical, geographical, political, and genealogical references, every one of which we can confirm by references to secular historians. the enemies of the lord have utterly failed in their attempts to disprove one out of the hundreds of such statements in the new testament. the only instance of any _public political event_ recorded in the gospel, said not to be confirmed by the fragments of secular history we possess, is luke's account of a census of the roman empire, ordered by augustus cæsar. were it so that luke stood alone in his mention of this, surely his credit as a historian would be as good for this fact, as the credit of tacitus, when he states matters of which suetonius makes no mention, or of pliny, when he relates things not recorded by tacitus. but we can account for the want of corroborative history in this instance, when we know that all the history of dion cassius, from the consulships of antistius and balbus to those of messala and cinna--that is, for five years before and five years after the birth of christ--is lost; as also livy's history of the same period. it is certain that some one did record the fact, for suidas, in his lexicon upon the word _apographe_, says, "that augustus sent twenty select men into all the provinces of the empire to take a census, both of men and property, and commanded that a just proportion of the latter should be brought into the imperial treasury. and this was the first census." to object to the gospel history, that everything contained in it of the doings of christ and his apostles in judea, is not recorded by the historians of greece and italy, is much the same as to say that there are a multitude of facts recorded in d'aubigne's history of the reformation in germany, of which hume and macaulay make no mention in their histories of england. how should they?--treating of different countries, and for the most part of different periods, and writing civil and not church history? does anybody go to macaulay to look for the history of the westminster assembly, or to bancroft for an account of the great revival in new england? or is the veracity of baillie, or edwards suspected, because political history does not concern itself much about religion? it is enough that not a single statement of the gospel history has ever been disproved. i might give you quotations from the enemies of the christian faith, from josephus the jew, and celsus, and porphyry, heathen philosophers, and from the emperor julian, the apostate--who, having been raised a christian, became a heathen, and used all his ingenuity to overturn the religion of christ--expressly admitting the principal miracles recorded in the gospel. but i attach no such importance to the testimony of this class of persons as to suppose that it should be placed, for one moment, on a level with the testimony of the apostles, or that their testimony to the facts of the life and death of christ needs any confirmation from such witnesses. we have such overwhelming evidence of the sincerity and truth of the witnesses chosen by god to bear testimony to the resurrection of christ, as we never can have of the credibility of any secular historian whatever. you will remember that these are the writers whose accounts of the existence, the faith and worship, the numbers and morals of the christian church, we have seen so strikingly confirmed by their enemies; and we now inquire, can we believe the other part of their history to be as true? these are the men who taught the heathen a pure christian morality, one principal article of which was, "lie not one to another, seeing ye have put off the old man with his deeds"--"all liars shall have their portion in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone"--and we are to inquire if they themselves lied; lied publicly, lied repeatedly, if the very business of their lives was to propagate falsehood, and if they died with a lie in their right hands. you will remember that we proved conclusively that the belief of the death and resurrection of jesus did turn immense multitudes of wicked men to a life of virtue, and now we are to inquire if the belief of a lie produced this blessed result, and whether, if so, there be any such thing as truth in the world, or any use in it? 4. of no other series of events of ancient history do we possess the same number of records by contemporary historians, as of the life, death, and resurrection of the lord jesus. we have four direct systematic memoirs of him by four of his companions; and we have a collection of letters by four others, in which the events of the memoirs are continually referred to. at the mouth of two or three witnesses any man's property and life will be disposed of in a court of justice, but here we have the testimony of eight eye-witnesses of the facts they relate, and they refer to five hundred other persons, the greater part of whom were then alive, who had also seen and heard christ after his resurrection. these eight persons give us their separate and independent statements of those things they deemed worthy of record in the life and death of christ, and of the sayings and doings of several of his friends and enemies. now every person knows that it is impossible to make two crooked boughs tally, or two false witnesses agree. you never saw two lying reports of any considerable number of transactions agree, unless the one was copied from the other. it is evident that the gospels were not copied from each other, for they often relate different events, and when they relate the same occurrence, each man relates those parts of it which he saw himself, and which impressed him most. yet the utmost ingenuity of infidelity has utterly failed to make them contradict each other in any particular. here are eight witnesses to the truth of the same story, four of whom in their letters make occasional allusions to the facts of the history as being perfectly well known, and therefore needing only to be alluded to, yet these cursory references fit into the history with every mark of truthfulness. does the history of matthew, written at jerusalem, tell us that jesus took peter, and james, and john up into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them? peter, in his letter, written from babylon, says, "we were eye-witnesses of his majesty. we were with him in the holy mount."--2 peter ii. 10. if the history tells how paul was beaten and cast into prison at philippi, and his feet made fast in the stocks, and that, nevertheless, he manfully defended his birthright as a roman citizen, and made the tyrannical magistrates humble themselves, and apologize for their illegal conduct, we find paul himself, in a letter to a neighboring church, appealing to their knowledge of the facts, "that after we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at philippi, we were bold in our god to speak unto you the gospel of god with much contention. for our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile. for neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak for covetousness."--1 thessalonians ii. 2. hundreds of such undesigned coincidences may be found in the new testament, confirming the veracity of the several historians and letter writers, and giving that impression of the naturalness and truth of the story, which can neither be described nor disputed. the reader who desires to prosecute this interesting branch of the evidences of christianity will find an ample collection of these coincidences in paley's horæ paulinæ. this agreement of independent writers is the more remarkable, as the writers were persons of very various degrees of education, of different professions and ranks of life, born in different countries, and writing from various places in italy, greece, palestine, and assyria, without any communication with each other. matthew was an officer of customs in galilee; mark a hebrew citizen of jerusalem; luke a greek physician of antioch; james and john owned and sailed a fishing smack on lake tiberias; jude left his thirty-nine acres of land, worth nine thousand denarii, to be farmed by his children when he went forth to preach the gospel; and college-bred paul carried his sturdy independence in his breast, and his sail needles in his pocket, and dictated epistles, and cut out marquees and lug-sails in the tent factory of aquila, paul & co., at corinth. several of his letters were written in a dungeon in rome; the last of peter's is dated at babylon; matthew's gospel was penned at jerusalem, and john's gospel and epistles were written at ephesus. the agreement of eight such witnesses, of such different pursuits, and so scattered over the world, in the relation of the same story, in all its leading particulars, together with their variety of style and manner, and their various relations of minor incidents, yet without a single contradiction, are most convincing proofs that they all tell truth. nothing but truth could be thus told without contradiction. the fact that some considerable difficulties and many minor obscurities in these brief though pregnant narratives, prevent the combination of eight accounts so independent in their sources, and various in their style, and design, and auditors, into a flowing historical novel, a homogeneous mass, rounded and squared to our ideas of mathematical precision, is only an additional proof of their truth to nature, which abhors mathematical, as much as truth does rhetorical figures. like the variety of expression used by american, german, french, and polish witnesses in our courts of justice, testifying the same facts in their native idioms, though in english words, the apparent discrepancy, but actual harmony, becomes the most decisive test of the absence of any collusion, and consequently of the verity of the facts which such various witnesses unite in testifying. especially will any such apparent discrepancy resolve itself into our own unskillfulness or ignorance, when we remember that the mists of ages, and the drapery of a strange language, and world-wide removal of residence, and the turning of the world upside down by the progress of christian civilization, and our consequent ignorance of the thousand little details of every-day life, well known to the writer and his immediate readers, and of the force of expressive idioms, perfectly familiar to them--have rendered us not near so capable of detecting inaccuracies, as those contemporary writers and opponents, who allowed them--if they existed--to pass unchallenged. like those antique coins, whose rust-dimmed and abbreviated inscriptions exercise the patience and historic lore of the antiquarian, though neither are needed to declare the precious material, this very rust of antiquity, through which his patience has penetrated, becomes one of the inimitable marks of historic verity. every year throws some new light on texts difficult to us from our ignorance of those manners, customs, names, and places, which infidel malice and christian piety have combined to explore; and from the ruins of nineveh and the sepulchers of egypt we receive unlooked-for testimonies to the minute accuracy of the penmen of the bible. 5. the manner in which the apostles published their testimony to the world bears every mark of truthfulness. deception and forgery skulk, and try to spread themselves at first in holes and corners, but he that doeth truth cometh to the light. had the apostles been conscious of falsehood, would they have dared to assert that jesus was risen from the dead in the very streets of the city where he was crucified? in the temple, the most public place of resort of the jews who saw him crucified? and to the teeth of the very men who put him to death? if conscious of falsehood, would they have dared, before the chief priests, and the council, and all the senate of israel, to assert that "the god of our fathers raised up jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. him hath god exalted with his right hand to be a prince and a savior, to give repentance to israel, and remission of sins. and we are his witnesses of these things, and so is also the holy ghost which god hath given to them that obey him."--acts v. 30. would paul, had he been conscious that he was relating falsehood, have dared to appeal to the judge, before whom he was on trial for his life, as to one who knew the notoriety of these facts, "for the king knoweth of these things, before whom also i speak freely; for i am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him: for this thing was not done in a corner."--acts xxvi. 26. would such appeals have been suffered to pass uncontradicted had the statements of the apostles been false? the boldness of their manner, however, of telling their story, is little, compared with the boldness of the design which they had in view in telling it; which was nothing less than to convert the world. now the idea of proselyting other nations to a new religion was absolutely unknown to the world at that time. the greeks and romans never dreamed of any such thing. they would sometimes add a new god to their old pantheon, but the idea of turning a nation to the worship of new deities was never before heard of. the jews were so indignant at the project, that when paul hinted it to them, they cried, "away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live." and this new and strange idea, of conquering the world for a crucified man, is taken up by a few private citizens, who resolve to overturn the craft by which priests have their wealth, and to bring the kingdoms of the world to become the kingdoms of our lord and of his christ. impostors would never have appealed to their power of working miracles as the apostles did; nor could enthusiasts have done so without instant exposure. it is remarkable, that while in addressing those who believed their divine commission, they rarely allude to it (fourteen of the epistles make no allusion to apostolic miracles), but dwell on a subject of far greater importance--a holy life--they never hesitate to confront a simon magus, or a schismatical church at corinth, or a persecuting high priest and sanhedrim with this power of the holy ghost. "tongues," says paul, "are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not;" and this is true of all other miracles. this marks the difference between real miracles and those of pretenders; who have never attempted to establish a new religion by them, or to convert unbelievers hostile to their claims and able to examine them, without immediate exposure. but you never heard of an impostor standing up before the tribunal of his judges and alleging the miraculous cure of a well-known public beggar, lame from his mother's womb, whom they had seen at the church gate every sabbath for forty years, and bringing the man into court after such a fashion as this, "if we this day be examined of the good deed done unto the impotent man, by what means he is made whole, be it known unto you all, and to all the people of israel, that by the name of jesus christ of nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom god raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand before you whole." such an appeal was unanswerable. "beholding the man that was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it." nay, they were compelled to acknowledge "that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in jerusalem--we can not deny it."--acts iv. the denial of the miracles of the gospel is a modern invention of the enemy. the scribes, and priests, emperors, and philosophers of the first centuries, who had the best opportunity of proving their falsehood, were unable to do so. the persecutors and apostates, whose malice against the church knew no bounds, never dared to utter a charge of deception against the apostles. why, then, you ask, did they not all become christians? because miracles can not convert any man against his will. christianity is not merely a belief in miracles, but the love of christ, and a life of holiness. there are many readers of this book who would not turn from their sins if all the dead in spring grove cemetery would rise to-morrow to warn them from hell. god does not intend to force any man to become a christian. he just gives evidence enough to try you, whether you will deal honestly and fairly with your own soul and your god, and if you are determined to hate christ and his holy religion, you shall never want a plausible excuse for unbelief; as it is written, "unto them which are disobedient, christ is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense." these ancient enemies of christ acknowledged the reality of his miracles, but attributed them to magical power, or the help of satan. the jews said that he had acquired the power of miracles by learning to pronounce the incommunicable name of god. modern infidels deny all his miracles save the greatest--the turning of men from their sins. they can not deny that; they can not ascribe it to the power of satan or of magic, for they do not believe in either; but they follow as nearly in the footsteps of their fathers as possible, when they tell us that multitudes of men, in every age, and in every land, have been turned from falsehood to truth by the belief of a lie, and from vice to virtue by the example of an impostor! 6. but the strongest proof of the truth of the facts of the gospel is the existence, the labors and sufferings of the apostles themselves. nobody denies that such men lived, and preached, and were persecuted on account of their preaching that jesus died and rose again. now, if this was a falsehood, what motive had they to tell it? it was very displeasing to their rulers who had crucified him, and who had every inclination to give them the same treatment. to preach another king, one jesus, to the romans, was to bring down the power of the empire upon them. nothing could be more absurd in the eyes of the grecian philosophers than to speak of the resurrection of the body. nor could any plan be devised more certain to arouse the fury of the pagan priesthood, than to denounce the craft by which they had their wealth, and to preach that they are no gods which are made by hands. the most degraded wretch, who perishes by the hand of the hangman is not so contemptible in our eyes, as the crucified malefactor was in the eyes of the roman people; nor could anything more disagreeable to the jewish nation be invented than the declaration, that the gentiles should become partakers of the kingdom of god. what then should induce any man in his senses to provoke such an opposition to a new religion, and to make it so contemptible and disagreeable to those whom he sought to convert, if he were manufacturing a lie to gain power and popularity? the religion they preached was not adapted to please sensual men, nor to allow its preachers in sensual gratifications. "our exhortation," says paul--and every reader of the new testament knows that he says truth--"our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor of guile." infidels admit that they preached a pure morality. but it is a long time since men learned the proverb, "physician, heal thyself." "thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?" it could not, then, be to obtain license for lust that these men preached holiness. there is only one other conceivable motive which should induce men to confederate together for the propagation of falsehood--the design of making money by it. but their new religion made no provision for any such thing. one of their first acts was to desire the church to elect deacons who might manage its money matters, and allow them to give themselves wholly to prayer and to the ministry of the word. twenty-five years after that they could appeal to the world that "even to this present hour, we" (the apostles) "both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place, and labor working with our hands; being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: we are counted as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things to this day." their book opens with the story of their master's birth in a stable, with the manger for his cradle, and one of its last pictures is that of his venerable apostle chained in a dungeon, and begging his friend to bring his old cloak from troas, and to do his diligence to come before winter. unpopular, pure, and penniless, if the gospel story were not true, how could it have had preachers? they at least believed it. the last and most convincing testimony which any man can give to the truth of a statement of fact is to suffer rather than deny it. many have wondered why god allowed his dear servants to suffer so much persecution in the first ages of the church. one principal reason was to give future ages an irresistible proof of the sincerity and faithfulness of the witnesses for christ. the apostles lived lives of persecution and suffering for the name of jesus; sufferings which they might have avoided if they had only abstained from preaching any more in this name. but, said they, "we can not but speak of the things which we have seen and heard." one who had no personal acquaintance with jesus, and whose first interview with him was while he was breathing out threatening and slaughter against the disciples of the lord, is converted and called to be an apostle; and behold the prospect jesus presents to him, "i will show him _how great things he must suffer for my name_." "the holy ghost testifieth," says paul, "that in every city bonds and afflictions abide me. yet none of these things move me." that at least was a true prophecy. "seven times," says clement, "he was in bonds, he was whipt, he was stoned; he preached both in the east and west, leaving behind him the glorious report of his faith, and so having taught the whole world righteousness, and for that end traveled even to the utmost bounds of the west, he at last suffered martyrdom by the command of the governors, and went to his holy place, having become a most eminent pattern of patience to all ages."[80] hear his own appeal to those who envied his authority in the church, "are they ministers of christ, i am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths often. of the jews five times received i forty stripes save one. thrice was i beaten with rods, once was i stoned, thrice i suffered shipwreck, a night and a day i have been in the deep: in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness."--1 corinthians ii. 23. man can give no higher proof of his veracity, than a life such as this, unless it is to seal it with his blood; and this crowning testimony to the truth the apostles gave. save the aged disciple, who, after torments worse than death, survived to address the persecuted church as, "your companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of jesus christ," they all suffered martyrdom for the truth of the gospel history. let me again remind you that the gospel is not a collection of dogmas, but a relation of facts; that these twelve men did not preach the death and resurrection of jesus, because they had read them in a creed, but because they had seen them with their own eyes; that they lived holy lives of toil, and hardship, and poverty, and suffering, in preaching these facts to the world; and that they died painful and shameful deaths as martyrs for their truth. you admit these things. then i demand of you, "what more could either god or man do to convince you of their truthfulness?" the faithful and true witness himself has given you this last, undeniable test of veracity. with the certainty of an ignominious death before him, he solemnly swears to the truth of this fact, and dies for it. "and the high priest answered and said unto him, i adjure thee by the living god, that thou tell us whether thou be the christ, the son of god? jesus saith unto him, thou hast said. hereafter ye shall see the son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." unbeliever, are you prepared to meet him there, and prove him a perjured impostor? footnotes: [80] wake's trans. of clement, ep. ad cor. v. chapter viii. prophecy. "in fifty years all europe will be either cossack, or republican." so prophesied the most sagacious of modern politicians, by the inspiration of genius, calculating the prospects of the future by the light of his past experience. this prediction of napoleon's is a very fair specimen of the oracles of human sagacity; which always overlooks the most stupendous facts--such as the conversion of an empire--and the commonest experiences--such as the birth of a brace of conflicting twins from the womb of the rachel of revolution, when history happens to predict the failure of the self-elected conquering savior. man learns to believe whatever he fondly desires, to expect what he believes, and to predict what he expects. his predictions are the mirrors which photograph his own moods of mind, rather than views through a telescope directed to the distant cloud-capped mountains of futurity. but it is confidently asserted that the science of party politics is simply the exercise of the gift of prophetic vision on the theater of civil life; and that a sagacious politician is, within his own sphere, a prophet. he applies the conditions of the past, so far as he knows them, to the calculation of the future. his success proves his sagacity, not his supernatural inspiration. why should religious predictions be attributed to a different power? for the very simple and satisfactory reason, that the great majority of the calculations of party politicians are failures, while the predictions of the bible are verified by the event. name a dozen leaders of american politics during the last half century, and you name half a score of disappointed presidential candidates, whose unfinished monuments prevent the kindly green sward of oblivion from vailing their disappointments, and check the prayer of the passing pilgrim that they may rest in peace; while of the last half dozen who have occupied the presidential chair, and guided the destinies of the most progressive half of the world, not a single man had been suggested by the political leaders even ten years before his election. no wonder politicians become shy of prediction. but it is alleged, that while on a field so contracted as to become the arena of mere personal partialities it is confessedly difficult to predict the future, on the wider field of the world's great interests, the well-known uniformity of human passions and interests render their results calculable to the sagacious statesman. thus draper argues, that nations, like the individuals composing them, have fixed periods of growth, manhood, decay, decrepitude, and death--more or less rapid, according to the stock and situation. those who accept that dogma argue that all that is necessary in order to predict the fate of a nation is a correct calculation of its present age; whether of childhood, manhood, or senility. it is wonderful how rashly men will risk their reputation for common sense on the sound of a plausible analogy, which, even were it valid, would not justify the inference drawn from it. for, suppose that there were as fixed laws of national as of individual life, can any man predict the period of the life of any individual, much less his destiny? may not the life of the nation be as liable to accidents and diseases as that of the individual? but the claim has been actually made, that the skillful statesman, or philosophic observer, is able to foresee, and foretell, even such accidents. dean stanley quotes mill as suggesting an ordinary sign of statesmanship in modern times: "to have made predictions often verified by the event, seldom or never falsified by it." others give a still wider range to prophetic inspiration. they tell us that all genius is prophetic, inasmuch as it grasps general laws, universal in their range, and unvariable in their operation, the application of which to particular events constitutes prediction. the hebrew prophets were sagacious observers of human nature, and made very shrewd calculations of the future progress of events by a careful induction of the invariable laws of nature from the history of the past. but there was nothing supernatural in that. every poet, philosopher, and statesman is more or less of a prophet. indeed foresight, like insight, is common to all men: a superior degree of this common possession constitutes the prophet. men of profound insight, or of extensive foresight, are equally rare in all departments of science. ignorance ascribes to supernatural inspiration the sagacity derived from extensive observation of nature and history; while philosophy traces to the same source the inspiration of moses and mohammed, of isaiah and apollo, of the principia, paradise lost, and the apocalypse, of rothschild, napoleon, and bismarck. some geniuses expend themselves in poems, some in paintings, others in predictions. all are alike imperfect and fallible. once in centuries, perhaps, we are astonished by the advent of a master, while occasional less perfect attempts and shrewd guesses keep the fires of ambition alive in the human breast. but if this were a correct account of the case we should have our best prophets as the result of our widest observations of nature and history; the best should come last. the prophets of this nineteenth century should be far ahead of moses in prophetic foresight, standing as they do on the summit of the observatory built by the experience of forty centuries. whereas, as a matter of fact, the world knows nothing about these modern prophets, or their predictions. the instances alleged by rationalists are contemptibly trivial when compared with the bible predictions. contrast, for instance, cayotte's alleged prediction, that the fate of charles would befall louis xvi., and that the rabble would fill paris with anarchy--with daniel's grand historic outline of the four great empires; or with our savior's detailed prediction of the siege of jerusalem. cayotte's guess commanded no respect, even while the coming event cast its shadow before it; nor did he profess to utter it in the name of the great disposer of all events as the seal and authentication of a revelation of moral duty to man; and so it was of no value to those threatened by the calamity. but our lord's predictions were so authoritative in their tone, and so definite in their details, that they enabled his disciples to escape the impending destruction at that time; and their fulfillment has furnished a decisive proof of his divine foresight to all generations. we are told by men who could not read one of apollo's oracles to save their lives, nor recite one of isaiah's prophecies to save their souls, that apollo's oracles, no less than isaiah's, were inspired. could such persons be prevailed upon to read carefully any single prophetic book of scripture, with the historic facts to which it refers, or even the briefest abridgment of these facts, such as that contained in the comprehensive commentary, they would not thus expose their ignorance alike of heathen and christian oracles. the differences between them are too numerous to be easily enumerated. the oracles of the heathen are always sources of gain to their prophets. the ancient pythoness must have a hecatomb, the writing medium a dollar, and the modern pythoness of the platform a dime. but under the inspiration of god even a balaam becomes honest, and the leprosy of naaman marks the sordid gehazi and his seed forever. the oracles of the heathen are always immoral in their tendency. from the first spiritual communication through the serpent medium in the tree of knowledge, down to the last spiritual marriage rapped out by the oracle, they are all in favor of pride, ambition, lying, lust, and murder. the oracles of god begin with a prohibition of curiosity, pride, covetousness, and theft: "in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." and they are uniformly of the same tenor, forbidding, reproving, threatening vice, and encouraging virtue, down to the last: "blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city; for without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." this last mark--falsehood--belongs to all heathen oracles, from the first utterance by the serpent, down to the last response rapped out by the medium. take any one heathen oracle of which we have any definite account--and the number is very small--and you will find that, if it is not "as equivocal as apollo," _it is false_. for instance, dean stanley very confidently refers to certain heathen oracles, "the fulfillment of which, according to cicero, could not be denied without a perversion of all history. such was the foreshadowing of the twelve centuries of roman dominion, by the legend of the apparition of the twelve vultures to romulus, which was so understood 400 years before its accomplishment." comparing the prophetic predictions with such fables, he says: "_it is not that they are more exact in particulars of time and place_; none can be more so than that of the twelve centuries of the roman empire."[81] the oracle thus exalted to a level with the predictions of our lord and his apostles is quoted by censorinus,[82] a. d. 238, from varro, who died b. c. 28. varro stated that he had heard vettius, no common augur, of great genius in disputing, a match with any of the most learned, say, "if it was so, as the historians related, as to the auguries of the founding of the city of romulus and the twelve vultures, since the roman people had passed 120 years safe, it would reach 1,200." dean stanley misquotes the oracle, and does injustice to the old heathen prophet. he spake no word whatever about _dominion_; all he dared conjecture for his city was _safety_. even that is put in a highly hypothetical mood. the augury begins with an "if," regarding the apocryphal story of romulus and the twelve vultures. but whether the fable of the vultures be true or not, the augury of twelve centuries of safety deduced from it is undeniably false, whether it refers to the material city, or to the political constitution then established. the city then built was burnt by brennus, the gaul. its successor was taken and plundered by alaric, in a. d. 410; again by genseric, and the vandals, in 455; and again by the ostrogoths, in 546. thus the material city was repeatedly taken and destroyed during the twelve centuries succeeding its founding. if the augury referred to the duration of the political constitution then instituted, every school-boy knows that half a dozen revolutions falsified the prediction. if, however, it be alleged that it referred to the ultimate fate of the city of rome, that it should cease to exist after twelve centuries, it is self-evidently false; for now, after the lapse of twenty-six centuries, rome is larger, its people more numerous, and its territory wider than it was for centuries after romulus saw the twelve vultures. thus god "frustrateth the tokens of the liars." yet men who have read roman history, and whose business it is to read their bibles, continue to cite vettius valens as a prophet, and to compare his false auguries with the predictions of the scriptures of truth! this is only one of a number of such secular predictions confidently cited by the learned dean as having been as minute and specific as those of scripture, and undeniably fulfilled. but a scholar of his own church has examined his references and alleged facts, and the result is, that not a single instance remains of the fulfillment of any definite prediction given by the original writers; and where the transcriber and the dean have helped them out to a more definite prediction, it has proved a false prophecy, as in the case of sterling's and spence's prediction of the year of the disruption of the union of the united states. dr. pusey summarizes this discussion in his work on daniel (p. 637), from which we extract and condense the following paragraphs on this subject: "dean stanley produces a certain number of alleged predictions in secular history, as counterparts of the predictions of _the political events_ of their own, and the surrounding nations," in the hebrew prophets, _i. e._ (in religious language), "of god's judgments upon both for their sins against himself and their fellow-men." he says, "every one knows instances, both in ancient and modern times, of predictions which have been uttered, and fulfilled, in regard to events of this kind. sometimes such predictions have been the results of political foresight. many instances will occur to students of history. even within our own memory the great catastrophe of the disruption of the united states of america _was foretold, even with the exact date, several years beforehand_. sometimes there has been an anticipation of some future epoch in the pregnant sayings of eminent philosophers and poets; as for example the intimation of the discovery of america by seneca; or of shakespeare by plato; or the reformation by dante. sometimes the result has been produced by the power of divination, granted in some inexplicable manner to ordinary men. of such a kind were many of the ancient oracles, the fulfillment of which, according to cicero, could not be denied without a perversion of history. such was the foreshadowing of the twelve centuries of roman dominion by the legend of the apparition of the twelve vultures to romulus, which was so understood 400 years before its actual accomplishment. such, but with less certainty, was the traditional prediction of the conquest of constantinople by the mussulmans; the alleged predictions by archbishop malachi, whether composed in the eleventh or sixteenth centuries, of the series of popes down to the present time; not to speak of the well-known instances which are recorded both in french and english history. but there are several points which at once place the prophetic predictions on a different level from any of these. _it is not that they are more exact in particulars of time and place_; none can be more so than that of the twelve centuries of the roman empire; and our lord himself has excluded the precise knowledge of times and seasons from the widest and highest range of prophetic vision." (jewish church, 463. the bible: its form and substance, pages 80, 82.) "it might safely be admitted," says dr. pusey, "that the outward predictions of time and place are of the body, rather than of the soul of prophecy, yet as indications that he revealed himself, who alone could know long before what he willed to bring to pass by his providence, the predictions of the hebrew prophets are not to be paralleled by any human history. "definite predictions of the hebrew prophets have been instanced above. dr. stanley's instances of secular fulfillment are unhappy." he then proceeds to examine in their turn the political, poetic, popish, mohammedan, and heathen oracles quoted by dean stanley. _i. the political predictions._ sterling, as quoted by mr. spence, so far from predicting the great catastrophe of the disruption of the united states _at the end_ of the four years, says that no wise man would predict anything even within those four years. "it appears to me that amid so many elements of uncertainty as to the future, both from the excited state of men's minds in the states themselves, and the complication of surrounding circumstances, no wise man would venture to foretell the probable issue of american affairs during the next four years." (on the american union, page 14.) and this was written amid all the heavings which preceded the bursting of the volcano. it followed, after statesmen had, one after another, seen the elements of that disruption. the probability of the severance of the north and south has been a speculation to which the older of us have long been familiar. and now [1864] who would venture to predict the time of the close of that sad war? (first edition.) now [1865] that it has come to an end americans taunt europeans with their want of foresight in their anticipations as to its issue. the _times_ correspondent retorts as to false anticipations of americans--(1) that the issue would not interfere with slavery; (2) that there would be separation without bloodshed; (3) that the war would last only some ninety days; (4) that the united states would break up into fragments (northern); (5) they contemplated that the interests of trade would suffice for the harmony of north and south when separated, etc., etc. june 6, 1865. europeans almost universally anticipated the success of the south. so little did the human sagacity of men really sagacious, with intimate knowledge of the strength of the different parties, their numbers, resources, and all the calculations as to modern warfare, enable them to anticipate within half a year the result of a war, which, through the vivid description of it, and clear knowledge, was carried on almost under their eyes. and these men would have us to suppose that hebrew prophets, living in the center of a small people, could, with mere human knowledge, foretell with absolute certainty the overthrow of flourishing empires, when at the acme of their power! _ii. the so-called prophecies of s. malachi._ these have long been recognized to be a forgery, unmeaning except for the immediate purpose for which they were "forged by the partisans of the cardinal simoncelli, one of the candidates for the tiara, who was designated by the words 'de antiquitate orbis,' because he was of orvieto, in latin, 'orbs vetus.'" (biog. unv'l v. wion.) menestrier published a refutation of the pretended prophecies of s. malachi, paris, 1689, written with much solidity. don feijoo also refuted these pretended prophecies in his _teatro critico_. the noveau dictionnaire historique, by mm. chaudon and delaudine, speaks of the "errors and anachronisms with which this impertinent list swarms." "the forgetfulness of common sense makes itself felt in a few pages. those who have set themselves to explain these too noted insipidities, always find some allusion, forced or probable, in the country, name, arms, birth, talents of the popes, the cardinalatory dignities they had borne, etc.; _e. g._, the prophecy which related to urban the eighth was, _lilium et rosæ_." it was fulfilled to the very letter, say these absurd interpreters, for that pope had in his coat of arms bees, which suck lilies and roses. (art. malachi and wion.) iii. dr. pusey proceeds to examine the process by which a prediction of _the conquest of constantinople_ has been manufactured for the false prophet, mohammed. "in the mosque of sultan mohammed the second," says v. hammer, "which was finished a. d. 1469, there stands, to the right of the main door, on a marble slab, on an azure field, in gold raised characters, the tradition of the prophet relating to constantinople. 'they _will conquer_ constantinople; and blessed the prince, blessed the army which shall fulfill this.'" (constant v. d. bosporos i. 393.) or (as he renders more exactly in gesch d. osm. reich, p. 523), "the best prince is he who conquers it, and the best army, his army." this tradition, being above eight centuries after mohammed, has, of course, no value. it reappears in a different form in ockley, the conquest being presupposed, rather than prophesied. ockley says (history of saracens, ii. 128), "mohammed having said, 'the sins of the first army which takes the city of the cæsar are forgiven.'" ockley referring only vaguely to bokhari, who, early in the third century, after mohammed selected 7,000 traditions which he held to be genuine, out of some 267,000, i applied to my friend, m. reinaud, professor of arabic at paris, and member of the institute, not doubting that with his large knowledge he would be able to point out to me the passage in the _sahih_. this, with his well-known kindness, he has done, amid his many labors. it puts an end to all questions about prophecy. the passage is this: as omm heram has related to us that she heard the prophet say, "the first army of my people which shall war by sea will acquire merits with god, omm heram said, 'i said, o apostle of god, i will be among them.' he said, 'thou shalt be among them.' then the prophet said, 'the first army of my people which shall attack the city of the cæsar, their sins shall be forgiven them.' then i said, 'i will be with them, o apostle of god.' he said, 'no!'" m. reinaud adds, "there is no question but that mohammed conceived the idea of the invasion of the roman empire, and of the kingdom of persia by his disciples. he himself shortly before his death tried his strength against the roman forces in syria. but the passage does not say what ockley makes him say. it does not say that constantinople would be taken." the other prophecy referred to by von hammer is as follows: "have you heard of a city of which one side is land, the two others sea? they said, 'yea, o apostle of god.' he said, 'the last hour will not come without its being conquered by 70,000 sons of isaac. when they come to it they will not fight against it with weapons and engines of war, but with the word, there is no god but god, and god is great!' then will one side of the sea walls fall; and at the second time the second; and at the third time the wall on the land side; and they will enter in with gladness." the framer of this prophesy expected the walls of constantinople to fall like those of jericho, which he must have had in mind. he expected it to fall before arabs, "sons of isaac," not before turks. * * * yet, contrary to the expectation, and the prophecy, it did fall before the turks, after having been seven times besieged by the arabs, and four times by the turks; by whom it was taken a. d. 1453. the framer of the prediction anticipated that the representatives of the followers of the prophet would be arabs to some indefinite period, near the last hour; he expected a miraculous destruction of constantinople; it was besieged seven times by those before whose war-cry he expected it to fall. it did not fall before those before whom he said it would fall; it fell in an ordinary way, not in that predicted; it was besieged in the way in which he said it would not be besieged; lastly, it fell, but its walls fell not. _every detail of the prediction is contrary to the fact._ as for the mere capture, it befalls all great cities in turn; so that a prediction of the capture of any great city would be the safest of all prophecies. but the prediction did not anticipate, what is now certain, that as soon as christian jealousies permit, before the end of the world, it will be wrested from its captors. iv. the legend of romulus and the vultures, and the falsehood of the prediction based upon it, have been exposed on a previous page. v. in regard to seneca's alleged prediction of the discovery of america, it was exceedingly vague; and was wholly based on the undoubted knowledge of its existence by the ancient egyptians, and by plato, proclus, marcellus, ammianus, marcellinus, diodorus, aristotle, and plutarch; whose assertions influenced columbus to undertake the search for it. nothing could be more certain than that such a continent would be rediscovered. but in the only indication which seneca gives us of its location he erred; for thule is still the utmost land northward, no new continent having been discovered, nor remaining to be discovered, toward the north pole. vi. as to the heathen oracles we have already spoken enough. vii. "the anticipation of shakespeare by plato amounts to this, that he makes socrates compel his friends to admit, 'that it belongs to the same man, how to compose comedy and tragedy, and that he who is by skill a composer of tragedies is also a composer of comedies.' (sympos fin.) * * * but it is mere confusion to speak of this as _anticipation_. plato does not say that there would be any greater combination of the two talents than there had been; he does not even say that the highest excellence in one involved excellence in the other; he simply says that the two faculties belonged to the same mind. according to his maxims, if true, it would be rather marvelous that they were not more frequently combined than that they were remarkably in one mind." viii. "those best read in dante are at a loss to find in him any trace of a prediction of the reformation. dante, with his firm faith in all roman doctrine, could not have imagined or anticipated such a disruption as luther's. dean stanley corrects an unimportant misprint or two in the second edition of his book, on the ground of the above statements. he does not even attempt to supply a passage from dante. i have looked for one in vain." yet such a collection of errors, absurdities, falsehoods, and impostures is gravely presented, in this nineteenth century, by a learned clergyman, as comparable in regard to exact fulfillment with the oracles of god. it is not intended here to discuss the question of the continuance of prophetic powers in the church. if, as many believe, the promise in joel ii. 28--"it shall come to pass in the last days, saith god, that your sons and your daughters shall prophesy," etc.--is a promise not yet exhausted, predictions given by the holy spirit may have been given through christians in former times, and may still be given. but if such be the fact, these are not secular predictions; but spiritual and supernatural, and of the same class with those of scripture; they are therefore not to be cited by rationalists as examples of secular prediction. but it is objected that "the prophecies of scripture are as obscure as the oracles; are all wrapped up in symbolical language; that many of them have a double meaning; that no two interpreters are agreed as to the meaning of the unfulfilled predictions; and that no man can certainly foretell any future event by means of them." the objection proceeds on a total mistake of the nature and design of prophecy, which is not to unvail the future for the gratification of your curiosity, but to give you direction in your present duty; precisely the reverse of the oracles referred to, which proposed to tell their votaries what should happen, but rarely condescended to direct them how to behave themselves so that things might happen well. the larger part of the prophecies of scripture is taken up with directions to men how to regulate their conduct, rather than with information how god means to regulate his. there is just as much of the latter as is sufficient to show us that the god who gave the bible governs the world, and even that always urges the same moral lesson: "say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with him, for he shall eat the fruit of his doings." "woe to the wicked; it shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him." whenever a vision relates to what god will do in the distant future, it is dark and mysterious; but whenever any directions are given necessary for our immediate duty, then the "vision is written and made plain on tables, _that he may run that readeth it_." the possessors of a clearly engrossed title-deed have surely no reason to complain that the president has chosen that his seal appended to it shall consist of a device, which, by reason of its being hard to read, and harder to imitate, secures both himself and them against forgery. the double meaning of some prophecies is a double check. so far from resembling the equivocations of heathen oracles, by taking either of two opposite events for a fulfillment, they require both of two corresponding ones; and some prophecies, like a master key, open several successive events, and thus show that the same mind planned both locks and key. when the prediction is fulfilled all mystery vanishes, and men see plainly that thus it was written; that is to say, men who look; for the man who will not open his eyes will never see anything that it concerns him to know. but the man who thinks that it concerns him so much to know what god will do with the world a hundred years after he is dead, that unless the prophecies of the bible are all made plain to him, he will neither read god's word, nor obey his law, may go on his own way. we expound no mysteries to such persons; for it is written, "none of the wicked shall understand." as to the objection taken from the symbolical language of prophecy, and which seems to a number of our modern critics so weighty that they remove to the purely mythologic ground everything "couched in symbolical language," and account nothing to be prediction unless "literal history written in advance"--i would merely ask, how is it possible to reveal heavenly things to earth-born men but by earthly figures? do you know a single word in your own, or any other language to express a spiritual state, or mental operation, that is not the name of some material state, or physical operation, used symbolically? heart, soul, spirit, idea, memory, imagination, inclination, etc., every one of them a figure of speech--a symbol. nay, is there a letter in your own, or in any other alphabet, that was not originally a picture of something? i demand to know in what way god or man could teach you to know anything you have never seen, but by either showing you a picture of it, or telling you what it is like? that is simply by type or symbol; these are the only possible media of conveying heavenly truth, or future history to our minds. when, therefore, the skeptic insists that prophecy be given literally, in the style of history written in advance, he simply requires that god would make it utterly unintelligible. we can gather clear and definite ideas from the significant hieroglyphics of symbolical language, but the literalities of history written in advance would be worse to decipher than the arrow-headed inscriptions of nineveh. just imagine to yourself alexander the great reading guizot, instead of daniel; or hildreth, as being less mysterious than ezekiel; and meeting, for instance, such a record as this: "in the year of christ, 1847, the united states conquered mexico and annexed california." "in the year of christ--what new olympiad may be that?" he would say. "the united states of course means the states of the achæn league, but on what shore of the euxine may mexico and california be found?" what information could aristotle gather from the record that, "in 1857, the transatlantic telegraph was in operation?" could all the augurs in the seven-hilled city have expounded to julius cæsar the famous dispatch, if intercepted in prophetic vision, "sebastopol was evacuated last night, after enduring for three days an infernal fire of shot and shell?" nay, to diminish the vista to even two or three centuries, what could oliver cromwell, aided by the whole westminster assembly, have made of a prophetic vision of a single newspaper paragraph of history written in advance, to inform them that, "three companies of dragoons came down last night from berwick to southampton, by a special train, traveling 54-1/2 miles an hour, including stoppages, and embarked immediately on arrival. the fleet put to sea at noon, in the face of a full gale from the s. w.?" why, the intelligible part of this single paragraph would seem to them more impossible, and the unintelligible part more absurd, than all the mysterious symbols of the apocalypse. the world has accepted god's symbols thousands of years ago, and it is too late in the day for our reformers to propose new laws of thought, and forms of speech, to the human race. david's prophetic lyrics, christ's graphic parables, isaiah's celestial anthems, ezekiel's glorious symbols, and solomon's terse proverbs, will be recited and admired, ages after the foggy abstractions of mystified metaphysicians have vanished from the earth. the thirst of passion, the cup of pleasure, the fountain of the water of life, the blood of murder, the rod of chastisement, the iron scepter, the fire of wrath, the balance of righteousness, the sword of justice, the wheels of providence, the conservative mountains, the raging seas of anarchy, and the golden, brazen, and iron ages, will reflect their images in truth's mirror, and photograph their lessons on memory's tablet, while the mists of the "positive philosophy," "the absolute," and "the conditioned," float past unheeded, to the land of forgetfulness. god's prophetic symbols are the glorious embodiments of living truths, while man's philosophic abstractions are the melancholy ghosts of expiring nonsense. the prophetic symbols are sufficiently plain to be distinctly intelligible _after_ the fulfillment, as we shall presently see; sufficiently obscure to baffle presumptuous curiosity before it. had they been so written as to be fully intelligible beforehand, they must have interfered with man's free agency, by causing their own fulfillment. they hide the future sufficiently to make man feel his ignorance; they reveal enough to encourage faith in the god who rules futurity. the revelation of future events, however, is not the principal design of the prophecies of the bible; they bear witness to god's powerful present influence over the world now. for god's prophecy is not merely his foretelling something which will certainly happen at some future time, but over which he has no control--as an astronomer foretells an eclipse of the sun, but can neither hasten nor hinder it--but it is his revealing of a part of his plan of this world's affairs, to show that god, and not man, is the sovereign of this world. for this purpose he tells beforehand the actions which wicked men, of their own free will, will commit, contrary to his law, and the measures he will take to thwart their designs, and fulfill his own. nay, he declares he will so manage matters that, without their knowledge, and even contrary to their intentions, heathen armies, and infidel scoffers shall serve his purposes, and show his power; while yet they are as perfectly voluntary in all their movements as if they, and not god, governed the world. every fulfilled prophecy thus becomes an instance and evidence of a supernatural government; and is, to a thinking mind, a greater miracle than casting mountains into the sea. the style of prophecy corresponds to this design. it is not by any means apologetic, or supplicating; but, on the contrary, majestic, convincing, and terrifying to the ungodly. "_remember this and show yourselves men. bring it again to mind, o ye transgressors. for i am god, and there is none else. i am god, and there is none like me. declaring the end from the beginning, and from, ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying_, 'my counsel shall stand, and i will do all my pleasure.'"[83] infidels feel the power of this manifestation of god in his word; and are driven to every possible denial of the fact, and evasion of the argument drawn from it. they feel instinctively that bible prophecies are far more than mere predictions. they would rather endow every human being on earth with the power of predicting the future than allow the god of heaven that power of ruling the present which these prophecies assert. hence the attempt to admit their predictive truth, and yet deny their divine authority, by ascribing them to human sagacity. transatlantic steam navigation has produced a remarkable change in the tone of infidel writers and speakers in regard to the prophecies of the bible. you could not converse long with an infidel on this subject, a few years ago, until he would assure you, with all confidence, that the prophecies were all written after their fulfillment, and so were not prophecies at all. but now that travelers of all classes, scoffers, sailors, and doctors in divinity, scientific expeditions, and correspondents of daily papers, have flooded the world with undeniable attestations that many of them are receiving their fulfillment at this day, none but the most grossly ignorant and stupid attempt to deny that the prophecies of the bible were written thousands of years since, and that many of them have since been accomplished; and that so many have been fulfilled that their accomplishment can not be ascribed to chance. but the force of the argument for the divine inspiration of the prophets is met by the assertion, that there is nothing supernatural in prophecy, and that it is only one form of the inspiration of genius applying the general laws of nature. calculating securely on that profound ignorance of the bible which characterizes their followers, modern writers inform them that "none of the prophets ever uttered any distinct, definite, unambiguous prediction of any future event which has since taken place, which a man without a miracle could not equally well predict." it is alleged that the prophecies, in predicting the overthrow of the nations of antiquity, predicted nothing beyond the ken of human sagacity, enlightened by a careful study of the experience of the past, and the invariable laws of nature; that it requires no inspiration to foretell the decay of perishing things; that the invariable progress of all things, empires as well as individuals, is first upward, through a period of youthful vigor and energy, then onward through a period of ripe maturity, and then downward, through a gradual decay, and final dissolution, to the inevitable grave. the world's history is but a history of the decline and fall of nations. 1. now, if this be true, it is an awful truth for the infidel, for _it sweeps away the last vestige of a foundation of his hope for eternity_. the only reason any unbeliever in revelation could ever give, or that modern rationalists do give, for their hope of a happy eternity, is the analogy of nature--the alleged constant progress of all things toward perfection in this world. it is an awkward truth that individually we must die, and the worms crawl over us; but then the wretched fate of the individual was to be compensated by the glorious progress of the race onward and ever onward and upward; from the fungus to the frog, and from the frog to the monkey, from the monkey to the man, from the noble savage wild in woods, to the pastoral tribe, thence to the empire and the federal republic, and finally to the reign of individual and passional attraction, and union with the sum of all the intelligences of the universe, through a constant progress toward infinite perfection. but, alas! it seems it was a false analogy, an ill-observed fact, a delusion; the course of nature is all the other way. the tendency of all perishing things is not to perfection, but to perdition; and it needs no inspiration to tell that man's loftiest towers, and strongest cities, and proudest empires will come to ruin; or that the most polished, powerful, and populous nations of antiquity will dwindle down into turks, moors, and egyptians. here is a fact of awful omen. death reigns in this world of ours; death moral, social, political, and physical, has ever trampled upon man, proud man, learned man, civilized man, over all the plans of man, over every man, and over every association of men, even the largest, the widest, the mightiest. and now the infidel, having taken away our hope of help from heaven, comes with the serpent's hiss, and fiendish sneer, to taunt the perishing world with this miserable truism--that the tendency of everything on earth is to perdition, and that it needs no inspiration to tell it. truly it does not. were that all the prophets of god had to tell us--as it is all the prophets of infidelity can prophecy--we had as little need for the one as for the other. earthquake and hurricane, volcano and valley flood, autumn frosts and winter blasts, fever, consumption, war, and pestilence, the grave-yard and the charnel-house, the parthenon and the pyramids, the silent cities of colorado, and the buried palaces of assyria, unite to attest this awful doom. but what reason has the skeptic to believe that this invariable law of nature shall ever be repealed, and this inevitable progress of all things to perdition be arrested? why may not men be as selfish, and filthy, and grasping, and murderous in the other world, as they are in this? why may not the course of nature be as fatal to the sinner's prosperity there as it is here? why may not the progress of the proud empires and spheres of futurity be such as the skeptic declares the progress of the past to have been, so invariably toward dissolution and death, that it shall need no inspiration to predict its course downward, downward, ever downward, to endless perdition? stand forward, skeptic, and point the world to an instance in which an ungodly nation has stemmed this all-destroying torrent of ruin; or acknowledge that all you can promise the nations of the world to come, from your experience of the invariable laws of nature, is _perdition, endless perdition_. 2. it is manifest, however, that this destruction of nations and desolation of empires must have had a beginning some time or other. nations could not perish before they had grown, nor empires be destroyed till they had accumulated; and during all this period of their growth and vigor the experience of mankind would never lead them to predict their ruin. the sagacious observer, beholding babylon, nineveh, damascus, and tyre, growing and flourishing during a period of a thousand years past, could have had no reason from such an experience to expect anything else than a thousand years of prosperity to come. especially impossible is it for human sagacity, enlightened by experience, to predict _unexampled_ desolations, destructions such as the world had never witnessed. _now the predictions of the bible are predictions of unexampled desolations, and unparalleled ruin of empires._ the desolation of any extensive region of the earth, or the overthrow of any great nation, was an event absolutely unknown to the world when the prophets of the bible began to utter their predictions; unless the skeptic will allow the truth of the bible record of the prediction and execution of the deluge, and the destruction of sodom. war and conquest had indeed caused some provinces to change masters; one nation had made marauding invasions on others, and carried off cattle and slaves; but the result of the greatest military operation of which we have any record, at the commencement of the prophetic era--the conquest of palestine by the israelites--so far from desolating the region, or exterminating the people, had been merely to increase its productiveness, and to drive its former occupants to new settlements, where at that era they were fully able to cope with their former conquerors. whatever the experience of thirty centuries may have since taught the nations concerning the certainty of the connection between national crime and national ruin, a long-suffering god had not then given any such signal examples of it, as those of which he gave warning by the prophets. the course of the nations and cities founded after the deluge had been regularly onward and prosperous, and they were just rising to the maturity of their power and splendor when jonah, micah, hosea, and isaiah, began to pronounce their sentences. they denounced desolation and solitude against nations more populous than this continent, one of whose cities enumerated more citizens than some of our proud commonwealths, and displayed buildings, a sight of whose crumbling ruins is deemed sufficient recompense for the perils of a journey of six thousand miles. the hundred churches of cincinnati could all have been conveniently arranged in the basement of the temple of belus; on the first floor our hundred thousand non-church-going citizens might have assembled to listen to a lecture on spiritualism from some eloquent chaldean soothsayer; and the remaining seven stories would have still been open for the accommodation of the natives of the original queen city. every product of earth was trafficked in the markets of tyre; a single jewish house imported annually more gold than all the banks of this continent possess; and the whole coinage of the united states since 1793 would want a hundred millions of dollars of the value of the golden furniture of a single temple in babylon. in fact, in the suburbs of babylon or nineveh, washington or cincinnati would have been insignificant villages; and the stone-fronted brick palaces of broadway and the fifth avenue would make passable stables and haylofts for the mansions of thebes or petra. so far, therefore, from being the teaching of experience, there was nothing more utterly unexampled and unparalleled than the complete desolation of any nation at the time the prophets of israel predicted such things. if the world has grown wiser since regarding the decline and fall of empires, it has gathered the best part of its sagacity from the prophecies. the degradation of the seed of ham, and the colonization of asia by the descendants of japhet, were however undeniably predicted by noah long before any examples or experiences of such things had occurred. centuries after the degradation of canaan had been predicted, his descendants were powerful, prosperous, and colonizing the shores of the world. but god foresaw, and compelled their ancestor to foretell, the corruption of the blood which would reduce his descendants to be servants of servants to their brethren; and now the ruins of their cities, and of the people descended from canaan, are proverbial alike in the libraries and slave markets of the world. but on the other hand, the colonization of the world by the descendants of japhet was as particularly predicted by noah as the degradation of the canaanites; and this can not be called a prediction of destruction, but rather of great prosperity: "god shall enlarge japhet." every emigrant ship which discharges its cargo at new york, and every new prairie farm in america, and every sheep ranch in australia, and every new cattle kraal in south africa fulfills the prediction: "he shall dwell in the tents of shem." the various greek, roman, english, and russian empires of asia attest the truth. from the volga to the amour, and from hong kong to singapore, and from the ganges to the indus, japhet to-day dwells in the tents of shem. 3. the prophecies of the bible are not vague general denunciations of natural decline and extinction to all the nations of the world, which, if they were merely the exposition of a universal _natural_ law of national death, they would be; nor yet the application of any such natural and inevitable law to some particular nation, denouncing its destruction, without any specification of time, manner, instrument, or cause of its infliction. they are all the applications of _moral law_--sentences pronounced on account of national wickedness. in every case the prophecy charges the crimes, and specifies the punishment, selected by the judge of all the earth. the nations selected as examples of divine justice are as various as their sentences are different; covering a space as long as from eastport to san francisco, and climes as various as those between canada and cuba; peopled by men of every shade of color and degree of capacity, from the negro servant of servants, to the builders of the coliseum, and the pyramids. they minutely describe, in their own expressive symbols, the nations yet unfounded, and kings unborn, who should ignorantly execute the judgments of the lord. they predict the futures of over thirty states, _no two of which are alike_; each prediction embracing a large number of minute particulars, any one of which was utterly beyond the range of human sagacity. to predict that a man will die may require no great sagacity; but to tell the year of his death, that he will die as a criminal, allege the crime for which he will be sentenced, the time, place, and manner of his execution, and the name of the sheriff who will execute the sentence, is plainly beyond the skill of man. such is the character of bible predictions. zedekiah's sentence was thus pronounced; and thus, too, the sentences of nations doomed to ruin for their crimes are recorded in the bible, that men may know that the mouth of the lord hath spoken them. if, for instance, a prophet should declare that new york should be overturned, and become a little fishing village, and that her stones and timber, and her very dust, should be scraped off and thrown into the east river; that philadelphia should become a swamp, and never be inhabited, from generation to generation; that columbus should be deserted, and become a hog-pen; that louisville should become a dry, barren desert; and new orleans be utterly consumed with fire, and never be built again; that learning should depart from boston, and no travelers ever pass through it any more; that new england should become the basest of the nations, and no native american ever be president of the union, but that it should be a spoil and a prey to the most savage tribes; and that the russians should tread washington under foot for a thousand years; but that god would preserve pittsburg in the midst of destruction--and if all these things should come to pass, would any man dare to deny that the prophet spake not the dictates of human sagacity, or the calculations of genius, but the words of god? to attempt to illustrate the divine wisdom displayed in a system of connected predictions, covering the destiny of the nations of the world, and extending from the dawn of history to the end of time, by presenting two or three instances of the fulfillment of specific predictions, would be something like exhibiting a fragment of a column as a monument of the skill of the architect of a temple; yet, as such a fragment may excite the curiosity of the traveler to visit the structure whence it was taken, i shall present two or three prophecies in which specific predictions are given, concerning the _geographical, political, social, and religious condition_ of three of the great nations of antiquity--_egypt, judea, and babylon_--the fulfillment of which is spread over the surface of empires and the ruins of cities, patent to all travelers at the present hour, and abundantly attested in many volumes.[84] could human sagacity have calculated that egypt--the most defensible country in the world, bounded on the south by inaccessible mountains, on the east by the red sea, on the west by the trackless, burning desert; able to defend the mouths of her river with a powerful navy, and to drown an invading army every year by the inundation of the nile; which had not only maintained her independence, but extended her conquests for a thousand years past, whose victorious king, apries, had just sent an expedition against cyprus, besieged and taken gaza and sidon, vanquished the tyrians by sea, mastered phoenicia and palestine, and boasted that not even a god could deprive him of his possessions--egypt, which had given arts, sciences, and idolatry to half the world, and which had not risen to the full height of its world-wide fame, or the extent of its influence for twenty-five years after the prediction[85]--that egypt should be invaded, conquered, spoiled, become a prey to strangers and evermore to strangers, never have a native prince, sink into barbarism, renounce idolatry, and become famous for her desolations? yet the bible predictions are specific on all these matters: "_i will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the wicked: and i will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers: i the lord have spoken it. thus saith the lord god; i will also destroy the idols, and i will cause the images to cease out of noph; and there shall be no more a prince of the land of egypt._"[86] let infidels read the fulfillment of these predictions, as described by infidels: "such is the state of egypt. deprived twenty-three centuries ago of her natural proprietors, she has seen her fertile fields successively a prey to the persians, the macedonians, the romans, the greeks, the arabs, the georgians, and at length the race of tartars distinguished by the name of the ottoman turks. the mamelukes, purchased as slaves and introduced as soldiers, soon usurped the power and selected a leader. if their first establishment was a singular event, their continuance is not less extraordinary; they are replaced by slaves brought from their original country."[87] says gibbon: "a more unjust and absurd constitution can not be devised than that which condemns the natives of the country to perpetual servitude under the arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. yet such has been the state of egypt about five hundred years. the most illustrious sultans of the baharite and beyite dynasties were themselves promoted from the tartar and circassian bands; and the four and twenty beys, or military chiefs, have ever been succeeded, not by their sons, but by their servants."[88] mehemet ali cut off the mamelukes, but still egypt is ruled by the turks, and the present ruler (ibrahim pasha) is a foreigner. it is needless to remind the reader that the idols are cut off. neither the nominal christians of egypt, nor the iconoclastic moslem, allow images to appear among them. the rivers, too, are drying up. in one day's travel forty dry water-courses will be crossed in the delta; and water-skins are needed now around the ruined cities whose walls were blockaded by greek and roman navies. "_it shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for i will diminish them, that they shall no more bear rule over the nations._"[89] every traveler will attest the truth of this prediction. the wretched peasantry are rejoiced to labor for any who will pay them five cents a day, and eager to hide the treasure in the ground from the rapacious tax-gatherer. i have seen british horses refuse to eat the meal ground from the mixture of wheat, barley, oats, lentiles, millet, and a hundred unknown seeds of weeds and collections of filth, which forms the produce of their fields. for poverty, vermin, and disease, egypt is proverbial. let us hear a scoffer's testimony, however: "in egypt there is no middle class, neither nobility, clergy, merchants, nor landholders. a universal air of misery in all the traveler meets points out to him the rapacity of oppression, and the distrust attendant upon slavery. the profound ignorance of the inhabitants equally prevents them from perceiving the causes of their evils, or applying the necessary remedies. ignorance, diffused through every class, extends its effects to every species of moral and physical knowledge. nothing is talked of but intestine troubles, the public misery, pecuniary extortions, and bastinadoes."[90] the objector perhaps will allege in extenuation the modern improvements now in progress, the suez canal, the railroads, the steamboats on the nile, the bridge across the nile at cairo, and the sugar and cotton plantations. but if these were as evident tokens of progress in egypt, as they would be in america, they would not in the least invalidate the facts of the past degradation of egypt for centuries. but these speculations of the khedive are of no advantage to the people; rather, on the contrary, do they afford him additional opportunities of exacting forced labor from the miserable peasants. i have seen the population of several villages, forced to leave their own fields in the spring, to march down to an old, filthy canal, near cairo, and almost within sight of the gate of the palace, men, and women, and little boys, and girls, like those of our sabbath-schools, scooping up the stinking mud and water with their hands, into baskets, carrying them on their heads up the steep bank, beaten with long sticks by the taskmasters to hasten their steps; while steam dredges lay unused within sight. egypt is still the basest of the nations. here, then, we have conclusive proof of the fulfillment at this day of four distinct, specific, and improbable bible predictions: concerning the country, the rulers, the religion, and the people of egypt. let us note now a distinct and totally different judgment pronounced against the transgressors of another land. pre-eminent in inflicting destruction on others, her retribution was to be extreme. degradation and slavery were to be the portion of the learned egyptians, but utter extinction is the doom of mighty babylon. it is written in the bible concerning the land where the farmer was accustomed to reap two hundred-fold: "_cut off the sower from babylon, and him that handleth the sickle in the time of harvest. * * * every purpose of the lord shall be performed against babylon, to make the land of babylon a desolation without an inhabitant. * * * behold the hindermost of the nations shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert. * * * because of the wrath of the lord it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate._"[91] proofs in abundance of the fulfillment of these predictions present themselves in every volume of travels in assyria and chaldea. "those splendid accounts of the babylonian lands yielding crops of grain of two and three hundred fold, compared with the modern face of the country, afford a remarkable proof of the _singular desolation_ to which it has been subjected. the canals at present can only be traced by their decayed banks. the soil of this desert consists of a hard clay, mixed with mud, which at noon becomes so heated with the sun's rays, that i found it too hot to walk over it with any degree of comfort."[92] "that it was at some former period in a far different state is evident from the number of canals by which it is traversed, now dry and neglected; and the quantity of heaps of earth, covered with fragments of brick and broken tiles, which are seen in every direction--the indisputable traces of former cultivation."[93] "the abundance of the country has vanished as clean away as if the besom of desolation had swept it from north to south; the whole land, from the outskirts of babylon to the farthest stretch of sight, lying a melancholy waste. _not a habitable spot appears for countless miles._"[94] as the desolation of the country was to be extraordinary, so the desolation of the city of babylon was to be remarkable. when the prophet wrote, its walls had been raised to the height of three hundred and fifty feet, and made broad enough for six chariots to drive upon them abreast. from its hundred brazen gates issued the armies which trampled under foot the liberties of mankind, and presented their lives to the nod of a despot, who slew whom he would, and whom he would allowed to live. twenty years' provisions were collected within its walls, and the world would not believe that an enemy could enter its gates. nevertheless, the prophets of god pronounced against it a doom of destruction as extraordinary as the pride and wickedness which procured it. tyre, the london of asia, was to _become a place for the spreading of nets_,[95] and the infidel volney tells us its commerce had declined to _a trifling fishery_; but even that implies some few resident inhabitants. rabbah, of ammon, was to become _a stable for camels and a couching place for flocks_.[96] lord lindsay reports that "he could not sleep amidst its ruins for the bleating of sheep, that the dung of camels covers the ruins of its palaces, and that the only building left entire in its acropolis is used as a sheepfold."[97] yet sheepfolds imply that the tents of their arab owners are near, and that some human beings would occasionally reside near its ruins. but desolation, solitude, and utter abandonment to the wild beasts of the desert is the specific and clearly predicted doom of the world's proud capital. the most expressive symbols are selected from the desert to portray its desertion. "_babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the chaldees' excellency, shall be as when god overthrew sodom and gomorrah. it shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there: but wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. and the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces._"[98] every traveler attests the fulfillment of this strange prediction. "it is a tenantless and desolate metropolis," says mignon; who, though fully armed, and attended by six arabs, could not induce them by any reward to pass the night among its ruins, from the apprehension of evil spirits. so completely fulfilled is the prophecy, "_the arabian shall not pitch his tent there._" the same voice which called camels and flocks to the palaces of rabbah, summoned a very different class of tenants for the palaces of babylon. rabbah was to be a sheepfold, babylon a menagerie of wild beasts; a very specific difference, and very improbable. one of the later persian kings, however, after it was destroyed and deserted, repaired its walls, converted it into a vast hunting-ground, and stocked it with all manner of wild beasts; and to this day the apes of the spice islands, and the lions of the african deserts, meet in its palaces, and howl their testimony to the truth of god's word. sir r. k. porter saw two majestic lions in the mujelibe (the ruins of the palace), and fraser thus describes the chambers of fallen babylon: "there were dens of wild beasts in various places, and mr. rich perceived in some a strong smell, like that of a lion. bones of sheep and other animals were seen in the cavities, with numbers of bats and owls." various destructions were predicted for babylon. "_i will make it a habitation for the bittern, and pools of water_,"[99] says one prophecy. "_her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness_,"[100] says another. how can such contradictions be true? says the scoffer. but the scoffer's contradiction is a fact. god can cause the most discordant agencies to agree in effecting his purpose. babylon is alternately an overflowed swamp, from the inundations of the obstructed euphrates, and an arid desert, under the scorching rays of an eastern sun. says mignon: "morasses and ponds tracked the ground in various places. for a long time after the subsiding of the euphrates great part of this place is little better than a swamp." at another season it was "a dry waste and burning plain." even at the same period, "one part on the western side is low and marshy, and another an arid desert."[101] another, and widely different agent, to be employed in the destruction of the great center of tyranny and idolatry, is thus specifically and definitely indicated in the prediction: "_behold, i am against thee, o destroying mountain, saith the lord, which destroyest all the earth: and i will stretch out my hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain. and they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate forever, saith the lord._"[102] "there is one fact," says fraser, "in connection with the most remarkable of these relics (the birs nimrod), which we can not dismiss without a few more observations. all travelers who have ascended the birs have taken notice of the singular heaps of brick-work scattered on the summit of this mound, at the foot of the remnant of the wall still standing. to the writer they appeared the most striking of all the ruins. that they have undergone the most violent action of fire is evident from the complete vitrification which has taken place in many of the masses. yet how a heat sufficient to produce such an effect could have been applied at such a height from the ground is unaccountable. they now lie on a spot elevated two hundred feet above the plain, and must have fallen from some much more lofty position, for the structure which still remains, and of which they may be supposed originally to have formed a part, bears no marks of fire. the building originally can not have contained any great proportion of combustible materials, and to produce so intense a heat by substances carried to such an elevation would have been almost impossible, for want of space to pile them on. nothing, we should be inclined to say, short of the most powerful action of electric fire, could have produced the complete, yet circumscribed, fusion which is here observed. although fused into a solid mass, the courses of bricks are still visible, identifying them with the standing pile above, but so hardened by the power of heat, that it is almost impossible to break off the smallest piece; and, though porous in texture, and full of air-holes and cavities, like other bricks, they require, on being submitted to the stone-cutter's lathe, the same machinery as is used to dress the hardest pebbles."[103] the doom of nineveh, the great rival and predecessor of babylon, was also predicted as the result of two apparently contradictory agencies--an overrunning flood and a consuming fire. but both these antagonistic elements conspired to devour her. the river, with an overrunning flood, swept away a large portion of the walls. the besiegers entered through the breach, and set the city on fire. the charcoal, burnt beans, and slabs of half-calcined alabaster, in the british museum, demonstrate the fulfillment of the prediction. egypt was to be reduced to slavery and degradation. babylonia to utter barrenness and desolation; but a different and still more incredible doom is pronounced in the bible upon judea and its people. the land was to be emptied of its people, and remain uncultivated, retaining all its former fertility, while the people were to be scattered over all the earth, yet never to lose their distinct nationality, nor be amalgamated with their neighbors: "_i will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and i will not smell the savor of your sweet odors. and i will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. and i will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths._"[104] "_until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. but yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil-tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves._"[105] "_the generation to come, of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, * * * wherefore hath the lord done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?_"[106] it is superfluous to adduce proof of the undeniable and acknowledged fulfillment of these predictions, but as an example of the way in which god causes scoffers to fulfill the prophecies, let us again hear volney: "i journeyed in the empire of the ottomans, and traversed the provinces which were formerly the kingdoms of egypt and syria. i enumerated the kingdoms of damascus and idumea, of jerusalem and samaria. this syria, said i to myself, now almost depopulated, then contained a hundred flourishing cities, and abounded with towns, villages, and hamlets. what has become of so many productions of the hand of man? what has become of those ages of abundance and of life? _great god! from whence proceed such melancholy revolutions? for what cause is the fortune of these countries so strikingly changed? why are so many cities destroyed?_ why is not that ancient population reproduced and perpetuated? a mysterious god exercises his incomprehensible judgments. he has doubtless pronounced a secret malediction against the earth. he has struck with a curse the present race of men in revenge of past generations."[107] the malediction is no secret to any who will read the twenty ninth chapter of deuteronomy; nor is the avenging of the quarrel of god's covenant confined to the sins of past generations. the philosopher who would understand the fates of cities and empires should read the prophecies. the word of god specifies no less distinctly and definitely the destiny of the jewish than of the babylonian capital, but fixes on a widely different kind of destruction. babylon was never to be built again, but devoted to solitude; busy tyre to become a place for spreading nets; the caravans, which once brought the wealth of india through petra, were to cease, and the doom was to "cut off him that passeth by and him that returneth." but jerusalem, it was predicted, should long feel the miseries of a multitude of oppressors, should never enjoy the luxury of a solitary woe, but "_be trodden down of the gentiles_."[108] saracens, tartars, turks, and crusaders, gentiles from every nation of the earth, fulfilled the prediction of old, even as hosts of pilgrims from all parts of the earth do at this day. so minute and specific are the predictions of scripture, that the fate of particular buildings is accurately defined. one temple to the living god, and only one, raised its walls in this world, which he had made for his worship. its frequenters perverted it from its proper use of leading them to confess their sinfulness, to seek pardon through the promised savior to whom its ceremonies pointed, and to learn to be holy, as the god of that temple was holy. they hoped that the holiness of the place would screen them in the indulgence of pride, formality, and wickedness. the temple of the lord, instead of the lord of the temple, was the object of their veneration. but the doom went forth. "_therefore for your sakes shall zion be plowed as a field, and jerusalem shall become as heaps, and the mountain of the house like the high places of the forest._" history has preserved, and the jews to this day curse the name of the soldier, terentius rufus, who plowed up the foundations of the temple. it long continued in this state. but the emperor julian the apostate conceived the idea of falsifying the prediction of jesus, "_behold your house is left unto you desolate_,"[109] and sent his friend alypius, with a roman army, and abundant treasure, to rebuild it. the jews flocked from all parts to assist in the work. spades and pickaxes of silver were provided by the vanity of the rich, and the rubbish was transported in mantles of silk and purple. but they were obliged to desist from the attempt, for "horrible balls of fire breaking out from the foundations with repeated attacks, rendered the place inaccessible to the scorched workmen, and the element driving them to a distance from time to time, the enterprise was dropped."[110] such is the testimony of a heathen, confirmed by jews and christians. the inclosures of the mosque of omar, forbidding them all access to the spot on which it stood, leave it desolate to the jews to this day. i have seen them (in 1872) kissing a few large stones, supposed to belong to its foundations or sub-structures, from the outside; for which miserable privilege they were obliged to pay their oppressors. on approaching the spot from the zion gate, right across mount zion to the temple ruins, our way lay through a plowed field of young barley, and gardens of cauliflowers hedged with enormous rows of cactus. to this day zion is plowed as a field. 4. no sane man can believe that such minute and accurate predictions of various and improbable events could be the result of human calculations; yet there is another feature of the bible prophesies still farther removed beyond the reach of human sagacity, and that is, remarkable and unaccountable _preservation amidst the general ruin_. if, as skeptics allege, destruction is the natural and inevitable doom, then preservation is supernatural and miraculous--a miracle of divine power controlling nature; and its prediction is a miracle of divine wisdom. now the prophecies of the bible contain several very definite, and widely different predictions of the preservation of people and cities from the general destruction. we shall refer in this case also to those of whose fulfillment there can be no manner of doubt, for the facts are palpable and undeniable at the present day. the prediction of the character and fate of the arabs stands out a remarkable contrast to the predictions of the destruction of the surrounding nations. of their ancestor, ishmael, it was predicted: "he will be a wild man; his hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren."[111] the nomad and warlike habits of the sons of ishmael are here distinctly predicted; and the singular anomaly which exempts them alone, of all the people of the earth, from the law, "they that take the sword, shall perish by the sword." the unconquered arab laughs alike at the persian, greek, roman, turkish, and french invaders of his deserts, levies tribute on all who enter his territory, and dwells to-day, a free man, in the presence of all his brethren, as god foretold. of the israelitish nation god predicted, that it should be a peculiar, distinct people, separate from the other nations of the world: "_lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations._"[112] in apparent contradiction to this separation, he further threatened to punish them for their sins, by dispersing them over the world: "_i will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you._"[113] "_for lo, i will command, and i will sift the house of israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the last grain fall upon the earth._"[114] it was further threatened, as if to make sure of their national destruction: "_and among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shall have none assurance of thy life._"[115] contrary to all appearances, and in spite of all this dispersion and persecution, it is predicted that israel shall still exist as a nation, and be restored to the favor of god, and that prosperity which ever accompanies it: "_and yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, i will not cast them away, neither will i abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for i am the lord their god._"[116] here are four distinct predictions, of national peculiarity, universal dispersion, grievous oppression, and remarkable preservation. the fulfillment is obvious, and undeniable. you need no commentary to explain it. go into any clothing-store on western row, or into the synagogue in broadway, and you will see it. the infidel is sorely perplexed to give any account of this great phenomenon. how does it happen that this singular people is dispersed over all the earth, and yet distinct and unamalgamated with any other? how does it happen that for eighteen hundred years they have resisted all the influences of nature, and all the customs of society, and all the powers of persecution, driving them toward amalgamation, and irresistible in all other instances? in the face of the power of the chinese empire, in spite of the tortures of the spanish inquisition, amid the chaos of african nationalities, and the fusion of american democracy, in the plains of australia, and in the streets of san francisco, the religion, customs, and physiognomy of the children of israel are as distinct this day as they were three thousand years ago, when moses wrote them in the pentateuch, and shishak painted them on the tombs of medinet abou. how does the infidel account for it? it will not do to allege the favorite story about purity of blood and caucasian race; for the question is, how does it happen that this people, and this people alone, have kept the blood pure; while all other races are so mingled that no other race can be found pure on earth? besides, lest any should suppose such a cause sufficient for their preservation, another nation, descended from the same father and the same mother--the children of jacob's twin brother--has utterly perished, and there is not any remaining of the house of esau. human sagacity, with all the facts before its face, can not give any rational account of the causes of this anomaly. it can not tell to-day why this people exists separate from, and scattered through all nations, from kamschatka to new zealand; how, then, could it foretell, three thousand years ago, this singular exception to all the laws of national existence? while the sun and moon endure, the nation of israel shall exist as god's witness to god's word, an undeniable proof that the mouth of the lord hath spoken it. a very peculiar feature of the desolation of israel was the _desolation_, but not the _destruction_ of the cities. in most cases of the desolations of war, the cities have been burned and the buildings destroyed. there is no shelter for man or beast in the mounds of rubbish which cover the ruined cities of assyria. where the buildings have not been destroyed, or have been rebuilt, they have again been inhabited; as we see in the cases of rome, constantinople, jerusalem, and many others. but on the cities of israel it was written that god's curse should go forth "till the cities should be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be left utterly desolate." but for a long time the literal fulfillment of this prediction was not witnessed, as the cities on this side the jordan had been mostly reduced to ruins. the richest and most populous part of the land, however, was the land of bashan; where, in a territory of about thirty miles by twenty, sixty cities still remain standing to attest the wonderful fertility of the soil and industry of the people. "and though the vast majority of them are deserted, _they are not ruined_. * * * many of the houses in the ancient cities of bashan are perfect, as if only finished yesterday. the walls are sound, the roofs unbroken, the doors, and even the window shutters in their places."[117] from two hundred to five hundred houses have been found perfect in some of these cities; and from the roof of the castle of salcah, dr. porter counted thirty towns and villages dotting the plain, many of them perfect as when first built; "yet for more than five centuries there has not been an inhabitant in one of them." so sure is every word of god. take another instance of preservation, so remarkable amid the surrounding destruction, that it arrested the attention and admiration of the author of the decline and fall of the roman empire, skeptic and scoffer though he was. the seven churches of seven of the most considerable cities of asia were then, as the churches of christ still are, the salt of the earth. ten righteous men would have averted god's judgments from sodom. jesus pronounced the sentences of these churches seventeen hundred and sixty years ago, and the present condition of the cities attests the divine authority of the record containing them. they are various and specific. three were to be utterly destroyed. against two no special threatening is denounced. to the remaining two promises of life and blessing are given. ephesus, famous for its magnificence, the busy avenue of travel, the seat of the temple of diana, long the residence of an apostle, and afterward of christian bishops--"one of the eyes of asia"--as it stood first on the roll of cities, first receives the doom of abused privileges: "_i will remove thy candlestick out of its place, unless thou repent._" says gibbon: "the captivity and ruin of the seven churches of asia was consummated (by the ottomans) a. d. 1312; and the barbarous lords of ionia and lydia still trample on the monuments of classic and christian antiquity. in the loss of ephesus the christians deplored the fall of the first angel, and the extinction of the first candlestick of the revelation. _the desolation is complete_, and the temple of diana or the church of mary will equally elude the search of the curious traveler."[118] since gibbon's day the foundations of the temple have been discovered twelve to fourteen feet below the soil; but no church of christ remains to illuminate the minds of the few squalid and lazy dwellers in the village of aisayalouk. one cobbler's stall represented the whole manufacturing industry of ephesus; and four boys playing a game like drafts, with pebbles, in front of it seemed the only public likely to patronize its theater, as i took note of its people and their occupations, in 1872. then leaving the storks in their nests, on the top of the ruined arches of its great aqueduct, to proceed toward the ruins of the great theater, we tried in vain to procure horses or asses for the ladies; found the only road so filled with water from the recent rains as to be impassable, and were fain to plunge on foot through the plowed fields till we reached the elevation on which it was erected. here we surveyed its rock-hewn seats, capable of accommodating an audience larger than that of all the theaters of new york; but there was no longer a voice to cry, "great is diana of the ephesians!" the sea has forsaken the harbor, which is now a pestilential morass. we passed through the ruins of the custom-house, now miles inland, and found a single turkish soldier on guard. the peasants who cultivate some parts of the plain come from distant villages, and fever, filth, and beggary reign in ephesus. had the twenty thousand patrons of the drama, in the thirty-one theaters of new york, honored the theater of laodicea with their presence, its polite citizens would have accommodated them all on the reserved seats, retiring themselves to ten thousand less commodious sittings, and to two less gigantic theaters. while yet busy in the erection of their splendid places of public amusement, jesus said, "_i will spew thee out of my mouth._" "the circus, and three stately theaters of laodicea, are peopled with wolves and foxes," says gibbon. the church was spewed out of christ's mouth, and the city too. it has been overturned by earthquakes, and is now nothing but a series of magnificent ruins, from which, however, ample evidence may be collected of its former magnificence. those of the aqueduct, the theater, and the amphitheater, are remarkable; in the latter an inscription has been found showing that it was in course of erection when the lord dictated the warning to its people. but the warning was unheeded, and now the whole space inside the city walls is strewn with fragments of columns and pedestals. a lydian capitalist once deposited in the vaults of sardis more specie than is now in circulation in this whole continent. but jesus said, "_thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead. if, therefore, thou shalt not watch, i will come upon thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour i will come upon thee._" "sardis," says gibbon, "is a miserable village." a later writer (durbin) tells us that the turks say, "every one who builds a house in sardis dies soon, and avoid the spot." arundell, in his account of his visit to the seven churches, says: "if i were asked what impresses the mind most strongly on beholding sardis, i should say, its indescribable _solitude_, like the darkness of egypt, that could be felt. so deep the solitude of the spot, once the lady of kingdoms, produces a feeling of desolate abandonment in the mind which can never be forgotten." connect this feeling with the message of the apocalypse to the church of sardis, "thou hast a name that thou livest, and _art dead_, and then look around and ask, where are the churches? where are the christians of sardis? the tumuli beyond the hermus reply, '_all dead!_'--suffering the infliction of the threatened judgment of god for the abuse of their privileges. let the unbeliever, then, be asked, is there no truth in prophecy?--no reality in religion?" only twenty-seven miles north of this desolate metropolis, the manufactories of thyatira dispatch weekly to smyrna, cloths, as famous over asia for the brilliancy and durability of their hues as those which lydia displayed to the admiration of the ladies of philippi. two thousand two hundred greek christians, two hundred armenian, and a protestant church under the care of the missionaries of the american board of commissioners of foreign missions, assemble every sabbath to commemorate the resurrection of him who said to the church of thyatira: "_i will put upon you no other burden; but that which ye have already hold fast till i come._" the fragrant citron (_bergamot_) still flourishes around the birthplace of galen; but the ruins of the famous library of 200,000 manuscripts are far less durable memorials of the city of booksellers than those beautifully dressed skins, which, taking their name (_pergamena_) from the place of their manufacture, will preserve the name and fame of pergamos as long as parchment can preserve man's memorials, or god's predictions. though famous for fragrance, physic, and philosophy, pergamos was infamous for idolatry, licentiousness, and persecution; yet still endeared to jesus as the scene of the martyrdom of faithful antipas, and the dwelling-place of a hidden church; and widely different sentences are recorded against those opposite classes. the public memorials are to perish, but the hidden word to endure. "the fanes of jupiter and diana, and venus and esculapius (worshiped under the symbol of a live snake), were prostrate in the dust, and where they had not been carried away by the turks to cut up into tombstones or pounded into mortar, the corinthian columns and the ionic, the splendid capitals, the cornices and the pediments, all in the highest ornament, were thrown in unsightly heaps,"[119] is the comment on the threatening of jesus, "_i will fight against them_--the idolaters--_with the sword of my mouth_." the 3,000 greek and 300 armenian christians, and even the 10,000 turkish inhabitants of the modern pergamos, have received hundreds of copies of the promise, "_to him that overcometh will i give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it._" but whether the hidden church of pergamos shine forth or not, gibbon was inaccurate in stating, in the face of facts, that "the god of mohammed without a rival is invoked in the mosques of pergamos and thyatira." god's providence is as discriminating as his prophecy, though unbelief may overlook both. we have noted here instances of the prediction of remarkable destruction to sardis, ephesus, and laodicea; of continued existence to pergamos and thyatira; let us now note a prediction of remarkable escape and preservation from the universal doom. if it requires no inspiration to prophecy destruction--the universal fate of humanity, according to the infidel--surely it requires more than human skill to say that any city shall escape this universal fate, and more than human power to avert this destruction. of philadelphia, but twenty-five miles distant from the ruins of sardis, jesus said, and the bible records the prophecy: "_i know thy works: behold, i have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. behold, i will make them of the synagogue of satan, which say they are jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, i will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that i have loved thee. because thou hast kept the word of my patience, i will also keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. behold, i come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. him that overcometh will i make a pillar in the temple of my god; and he shall go no more out: and i will write upon him the name of my god, and the name of the city of my god, which is new jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my god: and i will write upon him my new name._" "philadelphia alone," says gibbon, "has been saved by prophecy, or courage. at a distance from the sea, forgotten by the emperors, encompassed on all sides by the turks, her valiant sons defended their religion and their freedom alone for fourscore years, and at length capitulated with the proudest of the ottomans. among the greek colonies and churches of asia, philadelphia is still erect--_a column in a scene of ruins_--a pleasing example that the paths of honor and safety may be the same." in the pages of this eloquent writer it would be hard to discover another instance of unqualified hearty commendation of soldiers or sufferers for christianity and liberty, such as gibbon here bestows on philadelphia's valiant sons. but it was written, "_i will make them come and worship before thy feet_," and the skeptic and scoffer must fulfill the word of jesus; even as the unbelieving mohammedan also does, when he writes upon it the modern name, allah sehr--_the city of god._ _a majestic solitary pillar_, of high antiquity, arrests the eye of the traveler, and reminds the worshipers in the six modern churches of philadelphia of the beauty and faithfulness of the prophetic symbol. heaven and earth shall pass away, but jesus' word shall not pass away. improbable to human sagacity as this preservation must have seemed, the resurrection of a fallen city is more utterly beyond man's vision. in the bible, however, tribulation and recovery were foretold to smyrna: "_fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. be thou faithful unto death, and i will give thee a crown of life._" "the populousness of smyrna is owing to the foreign trade of the franks and armenians," says the scoffer. no matter to what it is owing, he who dictated the bible foresaw it, and made no mistake in foretelling it. says arundell: this, the other eye of asia, is still a very flourishing commercial city, one of the very first in the present turkish empire in wealth and population, containing 130,000 inhabitants. the continued importance of smyrna may be estimated from the fact that it is the seat of a consul from every nation in europe. the prosperity of smyrna is now rather on the increase than the decline, and the houses of painted wood, which were most unworthy of its ancient fame and present importance, are rapidly giving way to palaces of stone rising in all directions; and, probably, ere many years have passed, the modern town may not unworthily represent the ancient city, which the ancients delighted to call the crown of ionia. commercial activity and architectural beauty, however, are but a small part of the glorious destiny of the community to which jesus says, "i will give thee a crown of life." mark twain suggests that the prophecy refers to the church, rather than to the city; but forgets to remind us that the church of christ is well represented and crowned with life in smyrna. god's predictions regard the vital part of communities, the spiritual forces; these, vigorous and outspreading, secure the material progress. close the bible house, printing presses, and schools of america, and real estate would not be worth much more than in asia. the lord christ rules this world. his blessing has revived both the church and the city of smyrna, according to his promise. in 1872 i found its harbor busy with coasting craft and ocean steamers, and its railroad doing a brisk business. smyrna is a live city. deliverance from the curse of sin, and communion with the lord of life, alone can secure either a nation's or an individual's immortality. smyrna possesses the gospel of salvation. several devoted english and american missionaries proclaim salvation to its citizens. from its printing presses thousands of copies of the word of life issue to all the various populations of the turkish empire. a living church of christ in smyrna holds forth, for the acceptance of the dying nations around her, that crown of life promised and granted by the word of god, not to her only, but to all who love his appearing and his kingdom. 5. this is the grand distinction of god's word of prophecy, _that it is the word of life_. it is the only word which promises life, the only word which bestows it on fallen humanity. recognizing no inevitable law of destruction but the sentence of god, no invariable law of nature superior to the counsel of jehovah, nor any progress of events which his almighty arm can not arrest and reverse, it points a despairing world to sin as the cause of all destruction, to satan as the author of sin, to ungodly men in league with him as the foes of god and man, and to christ pledged to perpetual warfare with such until the last enemy be destroyed. this word of prophecy tells us, that the battle-fields messiah has won are earnests of that great victory; points to the columns which he has preserved erect amid scenes of ruin, as assurances that he is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto god by him; goes to the graveyards where fallen smyrnas, idolatrous saxons, debased sandwich islanders, and cannibal new zealanders have buried the image of the living god, and in jesus' name proclaims, "_i am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live_;" and, amid the very ruins of destroyed cities, and the crumbling heaps of their perished memorials, beholds the assurances that satan's rule of ruin shall not be perpetual, anticipates the day when the course of sin and misery shall be reversed, and teaches adam's sons to face the foe, and chant forth that heaven-born note of victorious faith, "_oh, thou enemy! destructions are come to a perpetual end._" come forth, trembling skeptic, from the cave of thy dark invariable experience of death and destruction, and from the vain sparks of thy misgiving hopes of an ungodly eternity to come less miserable than the past, and lift thine eyes to this heavenly sunrising on the dark mountain tops of futurity, the like of which thou didst never dream of in all thy pantheistic reveries. search over all the religions of the world--the hieroglyphics of egypt, the arrow-headed inscriptions of assyria, the classic mythologies of graceful greece and iron rome, the monstrous shasters of thine indian pundits, or the more chaotic clouds of thy german philosophies--in none of them wilt thou ever find this divine thought, _an end of destructions--a perpetual end_. cycles of ruin and renovation, and of renovation and ruin, vast cycles, if you will, but evermore ending in dire catastrophies to gods and men--an everlasting succession of death and destructions--is the fearful vista which all the religions of man, and thine own irreligion, present to thy terrified vision. but thou wast created in the image of the living god, and durst not rest satisfied with any such prospect. now i come in the name of the lord to tell thee, that "god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him _should not perish, but have everlasting life_;" and i demand of thee that thou acknowledge this promise of life everlasting to be the word of that living god, and to show cause, if any thou hast, why thou dost relinquish thy birthright, and spurn the gift of everlasting life which is in christ jesus our lord? but, if thou hast no sufficient cause why thou shouldest choose death rather than life, then hear, and your soul shall live, while i relate the promise which god hath made of old to our fathers, and hath fulfilled to us, their children, by raising up his son, jesus christ, from the dead, and sending him to bless you, by turning away every one of you from your iniquities. for there can be no deliverance from misery and destruction but by means of delivery from sin and satan. it is quite in agreement with the manner of our deliverance from any of the evils of our fallen condition, that our deliverance from the power of sin and satan be effected by the agency of a deliverer. our ignorance is removed by the knowledge of a teacher, our sickness by the skill of a physician, the oppressed nation hails the advent of a patriotic leader, and oppressed humanity acknowledges the fitness and need of a divine deliverer, even by the ready welcome it has given to pretenders to this character, and by the longing desire of the wisest and best of men for a divinely commissioned savior; a desire implanted by the great prophecy, which stands at the portal of hope for mankind, in the very earliest period of our history, that "_the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head_," and so leave man triumphant over the great destroyer. the prophecies regarding the messiah are so numerous, pointed, various, and improbable, as to set human sagacity utterly at defiance; while they are also connected so as to form a scheme of prophecy, which gradually unrolls before us the advent, the ministry, the death, resurrection, and ascension of the lord, the progress of his gospel over all the world, and the blessed effects it should produce on individuals, families, and nations. it closes with a view of the second coming of jesus to conquer the last of his enemies, and take possession of the earth as his inheritance. i can only lop off a twig or two from this blessed tree of life, in the hope that the fragrance of the leaves may allure you to take up the bible, and eat abundantly of its life-giving promises. as i have in the previous chapters abundantly proved the veracity of the new testament history, i shall now with all confidence refer to its account of the birth, life, and death of jesus, as illustrating the prophecies. the time, the place, the manner of his birth, his parentage and reception, were plainly declared, hundreds of years before he appeared. when herod had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where christ should be born, and they said unto him, "in bethlehem of judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: _and thou bethlehem, in the land of judah, art not the least among the princes of judah: for out of thee shall come a governor, that shall rule my people israel._" the first verse of this chapter records the fact, "now when jesus was born in bethlehem of judea." the throne of judah was to be occupied by strangers, and the line of native princes was to cease upon the coming of this governor, and not till his coming: "_the scepter shall not depart from judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until shiloh shall come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be._" on the day of his crucifixion the rulers of the jews made this formal and public announcement of the fact, "we have no king but cæsar." he was to address a class of people whom no other religious teacher had condescended to notice before, and very few save those sent by him ever since: "_the spirit of the lord god is upon me; because the lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek: he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound._" hear jesus' words: "come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and i will give you rest. go and show john again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, _and the poor have the gospel preached to them_. and blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me." yet, notwithstanding his feeding of thousands, and healing of multitudes, and teaching of the lowest of the people, it was foretold he should be unpopular: "_he is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not._" the brief records are: "then all the disciples forsook him and fled." "then began peter to curse and to swear, saying, i know not the man." "pilate saith unto them, ye have a custom, that i should release unto you one at the passover: will ye therefore that i release unto you the king of the jews? then cried they all again, saying, not this man, but barabbas. now barabbas was a robber." all the prophets agree in predicting that for the sins of his people, and to atone for their guilt, he should be put to death by a shameful public execution: "_in the midst of the week messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself. he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. they pierced my hands and my feet._" the record says: "the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." "and when they were come to the place which is called calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. then said jesus, _father, forgive them; for they know not what they do._" the one grand unparalleled fact, one which demands the hope of dying men for a victory over the great destroyer, and a resurrection from the tomb--the fact that one man born of a woman died, and did not see corruption, but rose again from the dead and went up into heaven, and dieth no more--forms the theme of many a prophetic psalm of triumph: "_thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor wilt thou give thine holy one to see corruption. thou wilt show me the path of life. thou wilt make me full of joy with thy countenance. thou hast ascended on high. thou hast led captivity captive._" often did jesus predict this prodigy before friend and foe: "_sir, we remember that that deceiver said, when he was yet alive, after three days i will rise again._" the last chapters of the gospels relate the proofs by which he convinced his incredulous disciples that the prophecy was fulfilled: "behold my hands and my feet, that it is i myself. handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. and when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet. and while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he saith unto them, have ye here any meat? and they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and of an honey comb. and he took it and did eat before them; and said unto them, thus it is written, and thus it behooved christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at jerusalem. and ye are witnesses of these things. and behold i send the promise of my father upon you, but tarry ye in the city of jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high. and he led them out as far as to bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. and while he was blessing them he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. and while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel, which said, ye men of galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." with your own eyes you shall see the fulfillment of this prophecy. every eye shall see him. the clouds of heaven shall then reveal the vision now sketched on the page of revelation: "and i saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. and i saw the dead, small and great, stand before god; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. and the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works. and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. this is the second death. and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. and i saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. and i john saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down from god, out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. and i heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, behold the tabernacle of god is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and god himself shall be with them, and be their god. and god shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying: neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away. and he that sat upon the throne said, _behold, i make all things new._ and he said unto me, write, for these words are true and faithful." footnotes: [81] jewish church, 463, 4. the bible, 80. [82] de die natali, c. 17, cited in pusey on daniel, 642. [83] isaiah, chap. xlvi. 8-11. [84] newton on the prophecies, and keith on the prophecies, are to be found in all respectable libraries. the former contains valuable extracts from ancient historians; the latter from the journals and engravings of travelers. [85] wilkinson's ancient egyptians, i. 169. herodotus, ii. 169. [86] ezekiel, chap. xxx. [87] volney's travels, i. 74, 103. [88] decline and fall, chap. lix. [89] ezekiel, chap. xxix. [90] volney, i. 190. [91] jeremiah, chaps. l. and li. [92] mignon's travels, 31. [93] trans. bombay lit. soc. i. 123. [94] porter's babylonia, ii. 285. [95] ezekiel, chap. xxvi. [96] ezekiel, chap. xxv. [97] lindsay's travels, ii. 78, 117. [98] isaiah, chap. xiii. [99] isaiah, chap. xiv. [100] jeremiah, chap. li. [101] mignon, 139. [102] jeremiah, chap. li. [103] fraser's mesopotamia, page 145. [104] leviticus, chap. xxvi. [105] isaiah, chap. vi. [106] deuteronomy, chap. xxix. [107] volney's ruins of empires, book i. [108] luke, chap. xxi. [109] micah, chap. iii. matthew, chap. xxii. [110] ammianus marcellus, 23d chap. i. [111] genesis, chap. xvi. 12. [112] numbers, chap. xxiii. [113] leviticus, chap. xxvi. [114] amos, chap. ix. [115] deuteronomy, chap. xxviii. [116] leviticus, chap. xxvi. [117] porter's giant cities of bashan, passim. [118] decline and fall, chap. lxiv. [119] macfarlane's seven apocalyptic churches. chapter ix. moses and the prophets. in the foregoing chapters we have found, that we have great need of god's teaching; that he has sent his son, jesus christ, to show us the way of life; that the gospel preached by him and his apostles has proved itself the power of god, by saving men from their sins; and that this gospel is truly recorded in the new testament. from these facts, already settled, we proceed, according to our plan of investigation, to examine those which may be more obscure; to examine the old testament by the light of the new. the great majority of jews and christians have always believed, that the world was in as great need of god's teaching before the coming of christ as it has been since; that god did put his words into the mouths of certain persons, called prophets; and that he caused them to tell them truly to their neighbors; that he enabled these prophets to make predictions of future events beyond the skill of man to calculate, and to do miracles which the power of man could not perform, as proofs that they spake the word of god; that he caused them truly to record in writing a great many of these revelations, and so much of the history of the times in which, and of the people to whom, they were given, as was needful for a right understanding of them; that he has so managed matters since, as that these revelations and narratives have been faithfully preserved in the books of the old testament; that we are bound to believe these revelations to be true, not because we can otherwise demonstrate their truth, but because god, who can not lie, has declared it; and that we are bound to do the things they command, not merely because we see them to be right, but because god commands us. it is needful to consider the divine authority of the old testament distinctly from that of the new, not only because it is a distinct subject in itself, and because our plan of investigation leads us backward from the known and established fact of the divine authority of the new testament to the discovery or disproof of the like character in the old; but because a great many persons admit, in words at least, that christ was a teacher sent from god, who, either in so many words, or in effect, deny the divine authority of the old testament. some of the modern rationalists have revived the creed of the gnostics of the first century--that the hebrew jehovah was a being of very different character from the deity revealed by jesus christ. they will extol to the skies the world-wide benevolence, compassion and kindness of the gospel of christ, in contrast with the alleged national pride, bigotry, and exclusiveness of the hebrew prophets. others are desirous of appearing remarkably candid in bestowing on the old testament a liberal commendation as a collection of religious tracts of merely human origin, and of various degrees of merit; some of them of extraordinary literary excellence, well suited to the infancy of the human intellect, and highly useful in their time in raising men from fetichism and idolatry to the worship of one god; but which, containing many errors along with this grand truth, have been set aside by the more perfect teachings of christ and his apostles, much in the same way as the old ptolemaic astronomy was displaced by the discoveries of newton. others still are willing to acknowledge the old testament as inspired, provided we will allow shakespeare and the koran to be inspired also. besides all these, there are several scores of scholars anxious to conceal its nakedness under theories of inspiration made and trimmed in a great many styles, but all cut from the same doctrine, to wit, that god revealed his truth aright to moses and the prophets, but they went wrong in the telling of it. now, all these notions are refuted by the fact, that god is the author of the bible. when we say that god is the author of the bible, and that it carries with it a divine authority because it is the word of god, we do not mean that god is the author of every saying in it, and that every sentiment recorded in it is god's mind, any more than we mean to make d'aubigne responsible for every sentiment of priests, popes and monks which he has faithfully recorded in his history of the reformation. on the contrary, we find, in the very beginning of the bible, a very full expression of the devil's sentiments recorded in the devil's own words--_ye shall not surely die_--and they are not one whit less devilish and lying, though recorded in the bible, than when expounded by any modern universalist preacher. but we mean that it is very true that the devil was the preacher of that first universalist sermon: and that god thought it needful to let mankind know the shape of the doctrine, the character of the preacher, and the consequences of listening to error; and therefore directed moses to record it truly for the information of all whom it may concern. so there are many other sayings of wicked men, and even of good men, recorded in the bible, which are very false; but the bible gives a true record of them, by god's direction, that we may not be ignorant of satan's devices. nor, when we say that god directed the prophets what to write, and how to write it, so that they did not go wrong in the writing of his word, do we mean that he also so guided every piece of their behavior, as that they never went wrong in doing their own actions; nor that the sins of the saints, recorded in the bible, are anything the less sinful for being recorded there, or for being performed by men who ought to have known better. there is not a perfect man upon the earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not. if the bible had left the faults of its writers undiscovered it would not have been a true history. but these very writers of the bible tell us their own transgressions, under the direction of the spirit of god; a thing writers in general are very shy about. moses tells us how he spake unadvisedly with his lips, and was punished for it. david's penitential psalms record the bitter tears he wept over his transgression; tears which could not wash out the sentence against the man after god's own heart--_the sword shall never depart from thy house_. an overburdened people, a rotten court, a falling empire, continual strife, a family of scolding women, and a foolish son--might have been considered sufficient marks of god's displeasure, without causing the wisest of men to pen, and publish to the world, such a minute record of his madness, folly and misery, as we find in ecclesiastes. but these shipwrecked mariners were divinely directed to pile up the sad memorials of their errors on the reefs where they were wrecked, as beacons of warning to all inexperienced voyagers on life's treacherous sea. the light-house is built by the same authority as the custom-house, and is even more necessary. now let us take note of the objects of our investigation. we are not in search of the literary beauty or poetic inspiration of the bible; but we inquire by what right does it command our obedience? nor are we about to inquire whether, when we have tried the bible at the tribunal of our reason, we shall give it a diploma to commend it to the patronage of other critics; but whether it comes to us attested by such evidence of being the word of god, that our reason shall reverently bow down before it as a higher authority, and seek light from it by which to judge of all spiritual and moral matters. attempts are continually made to confuse these great questions, by concessions of the literary excellence of the bible, on the part of those who deny its divine authority. for instance, one of the modern oracles of infidelity says, and his admirers incessantly repeat the grand discovery: "the writings of the prophets contain nothing above the reach of the human faculties. here are noble and spirit-stirring appeals to men's conscience, patriotism, honor and religion; beautiful poetic descriptions, odes, hymns, expressions of faith almost beyond praise. but the mark of human infirmity is on them all, and proofs or signs of miraculous inspiration are not found in them."[120] but what do the toiling millions of earth care about beautiful poetic descriptions of a heaven and a hell that have no reality? or what does it signify to you or me, reader, that the bible raises its head far above the other cedars of earthly literature? if its top reaches not to heaven, can it make a ladder long enough to carry us there? the bible contains predictions beyond the reach of the human faculties, as we have fully proved. these predictions at least are from god, and have no mark of human infirmity on them. it does not at all meet this question to grant that the bible is inspired, just as every work of genius is inspired; nor to profess that they believe the bible to be from god, just as every pure and holy thought, and every good work, proceed from him. when the assertors of the divine authority of the bible speak of it as inspired, they mean that it is so as no other book is; and when they speak of it as coming from god, they mean that it does not come simply as a gift of god's bounty, as the soldier's land-warrant comes from the government; but that it comes like the laws of congress, carrying authority with it to command our obedience. we feel no interest whatever in the discussion of an inspiration, "like god's omnipotence, not limited to the few writers claimed by the jews, christians and mohammedans, but as extensive as the race;"[121] or perhaps as extensive as all creation, and leading us to regard even "the solemn notes of the screech owl" as inspired.[122] what manner of use could the bible be to an ignorant soul groping its way to truth and holiness, or to a dying sinner hastening to the judgment seat of god, if it were true, that "the bible's own teaching on the subject is that everything good in any book, person or thing, is inspired? milton and shakespeare, and bacon and the canticles, the apocalypse and the sermon on the mount, and the eighth chapter of the romans are all inspired. how much inspiration they respectively contain must be gathered from their results."[123] this liberal grant of inspiration, alike to moses and mohammed, to christ and to shakespeare, is evidently a denial of divine authority to any of them. if hamlet, and the sermon on the mount, and the koran, are all of a like divine authority, or all alike without any, it is merely a matter of taste whether i worship at niblo's or the tabernacle, or keep a harem in my house or a prayer-meeting. most men, however, find it hard to believe that christ and mohammed taught exactly the same religion, or that the church and the theater are precisely equal and alike in their influences on the heart and life; and so they reject several of these inspired men, and cleave to the one they like best. whereas, if this theory be true, they ought not to act in such a disrespectful way toward any inspired man; but ought to attend the church, the theater and the harem with equal regularity, and serve god, mammon and belial with equal diligence. "oh," it is replied, "they are not all inspired in the same degree. it does not follow that because byron, and shakespeare, and paul are all inspired, that their writings will produce exactly the same results, or that they are alike suitable for every constitution and temper. how much inspiration they severally possess must be determined by their results. the tree is known by its fruits; and experience is the price of truth." but truth may be bought too dear. i am sick and need some medicine, but know not exactly what kind, or how much to take. "here," says my rationalist friend, "is a whole drug store for you. every drawer, and pot, and bottle is full of medicine. help yourself." but, my good sir, how am i to know what kind will suit me? there are poisons here, as well as medicines; and i can not tell the difference between arsenic and calomel. one of my neighbors died the other day from swallowing oxalic acid instead of glauber's salts. be kind enough to put the poisons on one shelf, and the medicines on the other, or, at least, to label them, so that i may know which to choose and which to refuse. "oh," says my rationalist friend, "this distinction between medicines and poisons is all an antiquated, vulgar prejudice. what you call poisons are really medicines. medical virtue is not confined to the few specifics recognized by the homeopathics, the regular faculty, or the hydropathics, but is as extensive as the world. everything on earth has a medical virtue; but how much, and of what sort, must be determined by experience. in fact, you must try for yourself whether any particular drug will kill you, or cure you. so here is the whole drug store to begin your cure with." a valuable gift, truly! "in the day we eat thereof, our eyes will be opened, and we shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." i think, reader, you and i will let somebody else try that experiment. "why should men throw away their common sense, and swallow everything as inspired?" says another friend of the rationalistic school. "god has given us reason to discern between good and evil, and commanded us to use it. _prove the spirits, whether they be of god._ _i spake as to wise men._ _judge ye what i say_, is the language of scripture. the right of private judgment is the inalienable inheritance of protestants. i am for examining the bible according to the principles of reason and truth. 'that only is to be regarded as true and valid which is matter of personal conviction.' the old testament is in many places contrary to my convictions of truth and reason. i find that it consists of a great variety of treatises of various degrees of merit. even in the same book it presents often strange contrasts--sublime moral precepts on one page; on the next, solemn requirements of frivolous ceremonies, utterly unworthy of god; or solemn narrations of miraculous interferences with the established course of nature, which, taken literally, are absolutely incredible. the judicious reader must therefore discriminate between those divine precepts of morality which were infused into the minds of the hebrew sages, and those jewish prejudices which their education and character inclined them to regard as equally important; and he must divest the narrative of facts as they actually occurred, from the national legends and traditions which the compilers of the pentateuch added to adorn the history." this, it will be seen, at once raises another and very important question, namely: by what standard are the writings of the old testament to be judged? or rather it settles the question by taking it for granted, that every inquirer is to judge them according to his own notions of reason and truth. but this does not help me out of my difficulty; for it supposes me already to possess the knowledge, and the virtue, which a revelation from god is needed to communicate. if i am able, by my own reason, to construct a perfect standard of morals to judge the bible by, what need have i for the bible revelation? and if i have the right to refuse obedience to any commands i may judge frivolous or unreasonable, before i know whether they came from god or not, and am bound to obey only those which agree with my notions of right, what authority has the law of god? a revelation from god which should submit its truths to be judged by the ignorance, and its commands by the inclinations, of sinful men, would by that very submission declare its worthlessness. the use of a divine revelation is either to tell us some truth of which we are ignorant, or to enjoin some duty to which we are disinclined. besides, it is not possible to make any such dissection of the moral precepts of the bible, from the miraculous history which forms their skeleton, as will leave them either truth or authority. it is the miraculous history that gives sanction to the divine morality, and without it the ten commandments would have no more hold on any man's conscience than the wise saws which poor richard says. take, for instance, one of the first and most important of the bible moralities--the sacredness of marriage--which is wholly based upon a narrative of events utterly unparalleled; and, if judged by the usual course of nature, perfectly incredible. the original difference in the formation of man and woman, and god's making at first one man and one woman, and joining them together with his blessing, constitute the reasons, and consecrate the pledge of marriage. "_for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother_--although the claims of the parental relation are very strong--_and cleave to his wife_--with whom it may be he has but a few weeks' acquaintance--_and they two shall be one flesh_. _what therefore god hath joined together let no man put asunder._" but if the cause had no existence, save in the brain of some antediluvian novel-writer, and god did not so unite them, the consequence is only a notion also, and any man may leave his wife whenever he likes. by far the most incredible narrative in the bible is contained in the first verse: "_in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth._" all the other miracles recorded in it sink into familiarity compared with this stupendous display of the supernatural. to the believer of this first great miracle none of its subsequent narratives can seem incredible. but it is precisely upon this unexampled and incredible narrative that the whole structure of bible morality is built. if this extraordinary narrative be rejected as false, all the moral precepts of the bible are not worth a feather. the morality of the bible, then, stands or falls with its history of god's supernatural works among men. it has been argued, that no amount of testimony can authenticate accounts of miracles; since a miracle, being a violation of the laws of nature, is contradicted by an unalterable experience, but only supported by fallible human testimony. but every step of this sophism is in error. a miracle can not be proven to be any more a violation of the laws of nature, than the existence of the nature regulated by laws. it may be more unusual, but not more supernatural. the restoration of life to a dead man is no greater violation of the laws of nature than the first bestowal of life on dead matter. were the resurrections as common as childbirths nobody would consider them violations of the laws of nature. moreover, our knowledge of the laws of nature is not based upon my experience, or yours, but upon the testimony of our teachers; which, so far from being uniform and invariable as to the supremacy of the commonplace in nature, is perfectly conclusive as to the repeated occurrence of the miraculous. the miracles of scripture are better authenticated than the facts of science. scientific men talk a great deal of nonsense about the laws of nature, as if they were the only agents known in this world. but every man knows that he himself possesses the power to control the laws of nature, by bringing a higher law to arrest a lower; as when the power of vegetation arrests the law of gravitation, and sends the drop of rain which had trickled down the outside of the bark of the pine, climbing up again a hundred feet; or as when the power of animal life converts a hundred weight of grass into a leg of mutton; or as when the power of the human intellect transforms a pound of zinc into telegrams, or a ton of niter and sulphur into death and destruction. now if man can thus control and use the laws of nature for human purposes, why can not the god who made him so cunning do as much? aye, and as much more as god is greater than man? but we are told that no testimony can prove that any wonderful work has been wrought by god. "no testimony can reach to the supernatural; testimony can apply only to apparent sensible facts; testimony can only prove an extraordinary, and perhaps inexplicable, phenomenon or occurrence; that it is due to supernatural causes is entirely dependent on the previous belief or assumption of the parties."[124] but when christ said, "if i cast out devils by the spirit of god, then the kingdom of god is come unto you;" or when he said, at the grave of lazarus, to martha, "said i not unto thee that if thou wouldest believe thou shouldest see the glory of god?" can we not believe our lord's testimony, that he cast out devils, and raised the dead, by the direct intervention of god? he appeals to his miracles as evidences of his divine authority: "the works that i do in my father's name, they bear witness of me." "if i do not the works of my father, believe me not. but if i do though ye believe not me, believe the works; that ye may know and believe that the father is in me, and i in him."[125] now i demand to know whether this testimony of our lord is not to be believed? and whether he does not directly claim to work miracles by the immediate power of god? the testimony of the man whom god authenticates, by enabling him to do such miracles as those of moses and of christ, is conclusive as to the power by which they are wrought. so you read in exodus iii. that god commissioned moses to work miracles as signs of his divine commission, and seals of his testimony recorded in the bible. if we proceed now to examine the facts of this history, it is evident, that neither your reason or mine, nor our personal convictions, can be any rule of what is true and valid. the most that reason can say about history is, that the story seems probable; but so does any well-written novel; or that it is improbable; but truth is often stranger than fiction; and every genuine history relates wonderful events. neither does our personal knowledge enable us to tell what was the original historical fact, how much was added by the hebrew prejudices of moses, and which are the legends with which it was afterward adorned; for neither you nor i were there to see. nor can any two of those critics, who have undertaken to divide the facts from the fables according to their personal convictions of what is true and valid, agree upon any common principle of gleaning, or in gathering in their results. and if they could, the crop would not be worth barn-room; for the only conclusion in which they seem at all likely to agree is, that the story of creation in the beginning of the book is a myth, like one of ovid's metamorphoses; and that the prophecy of the resurrection, at the end, is another; and that there are a great many legends in the middle. now, if so, why winnow such chaff? but while the jewish people exist as a distinct race, it is impossible rationally to deny some extraordinary origin of their extraordinary character and customs; and the bible is the only history which pretends to tell it. the utter failure of rationalistic criticism to give any rational account of the facts which must be admitted to account for the existence of the jews as a distinct people, is ludicrously apparent in the attempts generally made to explain the miraculous narratives of the bible. the tree of good and evil was a poisonous plant, like the poison oak, or the machineal tree, under which our first parents fell asleep, and dreamed about the temptation, and the fall. the shining face of moses was the natural effect of electricity. zechariah's vision was the smoke of the lamps of the golden candlestick in the temple. the wise men of the east were some peddlers who presented toys to the child jesus; and the star which went before, their servant carrying a torch. the angels who ministered to christ in his temptation were a caravan bearing provisions. the transfiguration was an electric storm. the plagues of egypt, the passage of the red sea, and the miracles of the desert, were merely natural phenomena, dextrously used by moses and aaron to suit their purpose. it is alleged that these enthusiastic patriots, full of the superstitions of an early age, which attributed all prodigies to god, and placed all heroes under his guidance, succeeded by their fiery eloquence in inspiring their captive countrymen with the love of liberty; and had political dexterity enough to create a faction in their favor in the egypt cabinet. then taking advantage of a fortunate succession of calamities arising from natural causes--such as an extraordinary rising of the nile, in consequence of which it was more deeply colored than usual with the red mud of nubia, and overflowed the country to a greater extent than usual, leaving on its retreat numerous ponds, which, of course, bred swarms of frogs and gnats, and raised malaria, spreading various sicknesses over the land, both to man and beast; a devastating visit of locusts, the well-known scourge of africa; a remarkable thunder-storm, accompanied with hail, causing great havoc of growing crops, as such hail-storms always do; followed by the chamsin, or dust-storm from the desert, darkening the air with clouds of dust and sand; and by an extraordinary mortality, the natural result of these various causes--they persuaded the superstitious egyptians that these calamities were tokens of the displeasure of the god of the hebrews, and improved the opportunity to escape, while the resources of the egyptians were exhausted, and their minds confounded by these various misfortunes. leading them to that part of the red sea south of suez, where a succession of shoals stretch across from the egyptian to the arabian side, they crossed safely at low water, while the egyptian army perished by the rising of the tide; and the israelites betaking themselves to a wandering, pastoral life in the wilderness of arabia, lived, as the bedouins do at this day, on the milk of their flocks and the manna which was spontaneously produced by the tamarisk trees of sinai; where they remained until they had framed a civil and religious code, and whence they prosecuted their conquests in various directions for fifty years, until their invasion of palestine. this is the sum of what, with various modifications, rationalist writers and preachers present us, as the genuine historic basis of the mosaic narrative. it really does seem to have been very fortunate for the israelites that so many misfortunes should happen to fall upon their oppressors, all in one season, and just at the time that men of such cleverness as moses and aaron were among them; and that the egyptians should luckily have imbibed the superstition, that all nature was under the direction of a supreme moral governor, who was able and willing to wield all the elements for the punishment of oppressors. it was also very lucky for these poor, overworked, and oppressed slaves--the class which in all other ages and countries suffers most from hard times--that they should have escaped unhurt by these calamities; for if they had suffered by them as well as the egyptians, they could not have persuaded them that god favored israel. here one can not but wonder that these learned egyptians, whose colleges of priests were planted on the banks of the nile, and who had made the climate, soil, and productions of their native land their constant study, should have been so ignorant of these natural causes of the plagues--so easily discovered nowadays by anybody who makes a summer trip to egypt--as to be terrified into emancipating their slaves by a stormy season. just imagine to yourself a couple of abolitionist lecturers proceeding to lexington and commanding the slaveholders of kentucky to liberate their slaves immediately, on pain of the ohio being muddy during high water, and the swamps of the river-bottom being full of frogs and musquitoes! but this interpretation does not reach the climax of absurdity till our rationalist punch, by way of signalizing his deliverance from egyptian bondage, makes pharaoh and his army forget that the tide ebbs and flows in the red sea, raises the tide over a shoal faster than cavalry could gallop from it, gathers an annual crop of twenty millions of bushels of manna from the thorn-bushes of sinai, and feeds three millions of men, women, and children for forty years upon purgative medicine!!! "we must then give up the problem as insoluble; for if reason be insufficient to give authority to the bible, and criticism fails to discover its truth, how are we to know that it possesses either?" just as you would discover the truth of any other history, or the authority of any other law. you do not say, "the tale of the successive swellings of the catawba, the yadkin, and the dan--three times in a fortnight, in february, 1781, immediately after the american army had retreated across these rivers, preventing cornwallis and the british forces from crossing till the little handful of weary and famished patriots had escaped--savors of the marvelous and leans so much toward the superstition of a special providence, that it must be rejected as not historical." you inquire if there be sufficient testimony to the fact. you do not say, "the revised statutes present internal evidence of being a collection of political tracts by various authors, written at different times, differing also in style, and of various degrees of merit, many of them contrary to my inmost personal convictions; therefore i can not acknowledge them as true and valid." you simply ask if this be a true copy of the laws passed by the legislature and signed by the governor? our inquiry about the truth of the history, and the authority of the laws of the bible, must be of the same kind--an inquiry after testimony. is this book genuine or a forgery? is it a true history or a lying romance? have we any testimony on the subject? but it is alleged that the book contains in itself evidence of having been written in an unscientific age, and in an unhistorical manner; and, particularly, that its statements of the creation of the world, and of mankind, only six thousand years ago, are refuted by the discoveries of geology; which show us, that the world is many millions of years old, and that man has been on this world at least one hundred thousand years. in support of this last assertion, geologists refer to the remains of the lake dwellings in switzerland; to skeletons of men found in caves, with bones of animals now extinct; to flint tools and weapons found in gravel beds, said to be of remote antiquity; to bones found deep in the mississippi bottom; and to the monuments of egypt. in replying to this objection, we have first to say that we have elsewhere, in this volume, shown that the bible nowhere alleges that god created the earth only six thousand years ago, but in many places emphatically affirms the contrary. in the second place, as to the antiquity of man, the bible nowhere says, that adam was the first human being whom god created; nor that he and his posterity were the only intelligent beings occupying this world before our tenancy of it; nor that we are even now the exclusive occupants. on the contrary, it makes very distinct allusions to other races, capable of assuming serpentine, swinish, and human bodies, and of meddling disastrously in earthly affairs in former times; though, as it does not profess to teach us truths which do not concern us, it gives us no narration of the creation or history of pre-adamite animals or men. but there is no more ground of objection against the bible for neglecting to give us a history of pre-adamite men, if there were such men, than for neglecting to describe the pre-adamite animals, or the coal measures, or the nebulæ, or the climate, soil, population, and politics of jupiter. the bible has one great object--to teach men how to be holy and happy; and it can not be shown that the chronicles of the pre-adamites, if they kept chronicles of their alleged savage state, would help us in the acquisition of holiness. no discoveries, then, which geologists may make of pre-adamite races of men, can at all affect the credit of moses' account of the creation of adam, and of the history of his family. they may fill museums, if they please, with their flint arrow-heads and axes, they may pile up pyramids of stone mortars, they may perhaps some day discover an old-world bronze railroad, and bronze-clad or copper-bottomed steamboats, they may produce pre-adamic electric, aeronautic engines, and magnetic sewing machines, or bone needles, we care not which; and we will admire them, and confess that they are very curious, and perhaps very old; but unless they can show that adam was descended from these old-world folks, we have no biblical quarrel with them. like moses, we will let them rest in peace. but we would remark, thirdly, that no such discoveries have yet been made. no human bone, implement, or monument, has yet been discovered which can be proved to be more ancient than adam, or nearly so ancient. there is not a single indisputable fact to show, that any of the tools, bones, or monuments; alleged in this discussion, is of any specific date whatever, save that the danish bogs came down to the date of the danish invasion of ireland in the eleventh century; the burnt corn of the swiss lake dwellings was probably that which julius cæsar describes the helvetians as burning preparatory to their invasion of gaul; and the monuments of egypt, for which bunsen claimed twenty thousand years, are now acknowledged by the best egyptologists to reach not quite to 3000 b. c. as to the bone found at the base of the bluff at memphis, it was not found _in situ_, and probably was washed out of some indian grave at the top, and buried in the _debris_. the abbeville skull[126] _had a fresh tooth in it_, for which thirty-five thousand years was claimed, until examination by a competent committee exposed the deception. where there is a good paying demand for pre-adamite skulls, there will always be a good supply. dr. dowler calculates the age of a skeleton of an indian, found at the depth of sixteen feet in digging the gas works at new orleans, at fifty thousand years; while the u. s. coast surveying department show that the whole delta is not more than four thousand four hundred years old. these gross errors, which affront our common sense, wherever we are able to test geological calculations, fill us with mistrust of their allegations of evidence, which, from the nature of the case, we can not test. of this class is the discovery of human bones in caves containing the bones of cave bears, rhinocerii, mammoths, and other extinct animals. the argument is that man and these animals lived at the same time. very well, what time was that? there is no evidence to show that it was a hundred thousand years ago. the siberian hunters fed their dogs on the flesh of a mammoth they found frozen in mud bluffs at the mouth of the lena, and its hair and wool are now in the museum of st. petersburg. dr. warren's _mastodon giganteus_ had some bushels of pine and maple twigs, in excellent preservation, in its stomach, when exhumed in orange county, new york; and you may see for yourself the vegetable fiber found in its teeth in his museum in boston.[127] does any one believe that the vegetable fiber and maple twigs have kept their shape one hundred thousand years? the mammoth found in the ditch of the tezcucoco road must have fallen in after the incas had dug that ditch. the indians have a tradition that their fathers hunted a huge deer with a hand on his face, which slept leaning against the trees. and there is good geological reason for believing that the final extinction of the mammoth, the european rhinoceros, and their contemporaries, was caused by the change of climate in northern europe, asia, and america, caused by the elevation of these northern lands, which has been going on since the tenth century, and which, about three centuries ago, closed the polar sea, rendering greenland uninhabitable. the juxtaposition, then, of the bones of man and extinct animals is no proof of the remote antiquity of either. and no proof has been made from the nature or depth of the overlying deposits. the shape, size, and general character of the skulls alleged to be of such remote antiquity give no countenance to the theory of man's brutal origin; which is the great thing to be gained by giving him a remote antiquity. the enghis skull is in no way inferior to many good modern indian skulls; and the man of mentone stood six feet one in his stocking soles (if he wore stockings), having a good john bull head between his shoulders, with a facial angle equal to that of generals grant or von moltke; and in fact being a fine old gallic gentleman, all of the good old times. geologists, however, lay stress on the cumulative character of the evidence they produce; owning that no single fact is conclusive, but claiming that credence should be given to the accumulation of facts. but no accumulation of ciphers will amount to anything. all the alleged facts are found to be fatally defective either in authenticity or definiteness. no multitude of doubts can assure us of the certainty of a fact or assertion. the evidence for the pre-adamite antiquity of man is only a gathering of facts doubtful, and wholly indeterminate, without any element of proof of remote antiquity.[128] but there is a source of evidence of the most undeniable character, to which we may appeal for a decision of the subject. the law of population is as certain as any other law of nature; and it tends to the regular increase of mankind. population tends to double itself every twenty-five years, as we see in the united states. in less favored countries the rate is not so rapid. in europe it doubles every fifty years; and nowhere in less than two centuries. and the result is, that if the human race had existed on this earth under existing laws of nature, as the evolutionists allege, for one hundred thousand years, not only must they have multiplied until their bones would have covered the earth, and filled the sea, but, as sir john herschel shows, they would have formed a vertical column, having for its base the whole surface of the earth, and for its height three thousand six hundred and seventy-four times the sun's distance from the earth![129] the existing population of the globe corresponds pretty well to the natural increase of three pairs in forty centuries, which is something near to the bible chronology. the laws of population, then, inexorably refuse the indefinite, or even the remote antiquity of mankind, and vindicate moses as a writer of truthful history. the alleged anachronisms of the pentateuch have been adduced as testimony that it could not have been written till long after the time of moses. these alleged anachronisms are generally the insertion of a modern name of a city instead of the ancient name, or an explanatory addition which would not have been necessary in the days of moses. now if all these cases could be proved, they would at most only show that the scribes who copied the manuscripts in later ages had inserted these explanatory changes or additions, under proper authority. everybody's common sense will tell him, that moses did not narrate his own death in the last chapter of deuteronomy; but it is none the less true though joshua, or some other prophet, added that postscript. but hengstenberg has[130] examined these alleged anachronisms in detail, and shown that the objectors allow themselves to interpolate into the text a meaning of their own in order to show the inaccuracy of the bible. for instance, genesis xii. 6, "the canaanite was then in the land," they maintain could only be written after the canaanites had been driven out. they interpolate _still_, which is not in the text. but they entirely mistake the meaning of the passage, which refers to an earlier statement of the same fact, chapter x. 15, to show that abraham, the heir of the promise, came as a stranger and a pilgrim to a land preoccupied by a powerful people, who are again mentioned, chapter xiii. 7, for the purpose of showing how lot and abraham came to be so crowded as to separate. another of the prominent instances is the name of the ancient city of hebron, which, in the book of joshua, is said to have been anciently called kirjath-arba. but numbers xiii. 22, which states that hebron was built seven years before zoan in egypt, and was the residence of ahiman, sheshai, and talmai, the sons of anak, shows that the writer was well acquainted with the history of the place, and genesis xxxv. 27 shows that hebron was the first name, and that it had two other names added to it, both after the time of abraham, since mamre was his contemporary, and the anakim lived centuries later. this may stand for a specimen of the alleged anachronisms of the pentateuch. but now comes bishop colenso with his slate and pencil to demonstrate to us that, no matter who wrote it, or by what external authority it is commended, the pentateuch is so full of arithmetical errors, and of impossible narratives, in its accounts of common affairs, as well as in its miraculous stories, that not only is it not the word of god, but that it is not even a truthful history, and stands self-convicted of being a collection of fables. of course, if that can be proved, there is an end of the matter, though it would still seem strange that it should have been left for the bishop to discover moses' ignorance of arithmetic, and of camp-life among the arabs. nevertheless the very novelty of a bishop assaulting the bible in such a style has secured for him a large number of readers, many of them ignorant enough to believe his assertions, though too indolent to test his calculations, or even to read the passages he criticises. this renders some notice of his criticisms necessary according to our plan of considering objections according to their popularity, rather than according to their merit. for, on examining the bishop's objections to the bible, they are all found to arise from want of science, want of sense, or ignorance of scripture--an inability to read the scriptures in their original hebrew, or even to cite them correctly in english. in some criticisms he contrives to compile these three kind of blunders into a single chapter, making a mosaic of very amusing reading indeed. of course we can only give specimens of his peculiar style of attack on the bible; for to expose all his blunders would require some volumes as large as his own. but we shall select illustrative instances of the bishop's blunders from each of the departments indicated above. as a specimen of the bishop's blunders in science, let us take the first which he offers--his attempt to convict moses of a contradiction to geology in his account of the deluge. bishop colenso declares that the bible teaches that the deluge was universal, and that this is contradicted, among other things, by certain geological discoveries, in auvergne, of volcanic cones of light cinders, which would have been swept away by any such flood. aye, if they had only been there at that time! but eli de beaumont, a learned geologist, not convicted of so many blunders as the bishop, alleges that the whole of the system of teanarus, including the elevation of stromboli, and ætna, has been formed since the catastrophe of the principal alps; and that the volcanoes of auvergne and the vivarrus are of post-adamic origin.[131] so the bishop's geology does not contradict what he thinks the bible says after all. on the contrary, so far from geology contradicting a universal deluge, the best geologists speak of every part of the earth having been repeatedly under the sea, and they collect its fossils on the tops of the mountains. but the bishop ought to know that hundreds of years ago, before geology was born, some of the most learned bishops and theologians of his own church, as well as some of the chief scholars of the dissenters, following the most learned of the hebrew rabbis, did not believe that the bible taught that the deluge was universal. for instance, bishop stillingfleet, in his great work, _origines sacra_, says: "i can not see any urgent necessity from the scriptures to assert that the flood did spread over all the surface of the earth. that all mankind, those in the ark excepted, were destroyed by it, is most certain, according to the scriptures. the flood was universal as to mankind, but from thence follows no necessity at all of asserting the universality of it as to the globe of the earth, unless it be sufficiently proved that the whole earth was peopled before the flood; which i despair of ever seeing proved." matthew poole says: "where was the need of overwhelming those regions of the earth in which there were no human beings? it would be highly unreasonable to suppose that mankind had so increased before the deluge as to have penetrated to all the corners of the earth. it is indeed not probable that they had extended themselves beyond the limits of syria and mesopotamia. absurd it would be to affirm that the effects of the punishment, inflicted upon men alone, applied to those places in which there were no men. if, then, we should entertain the belief that not so much as the hundredth part of the globe was overspread with water, still the deluge would be universal; because the extirpation took effect upon all the part of the globe then inhabited." nor does the language of the bible necessarily convey the idea that the whole surface of the globe was covered with water. dathe, professor of hebrew (in his _opuscala ad crisin_, edited by rosenmuller, 1795), says: "interpreters do not agree whether the deluge inundated the whole earth or only the regions then inhabited. i adopt the latter opinion. the phrase _all_ does not prove the inundation to have been universal. it appears that in many places _kol_ is to be understood as limited to the thing or place spoken of. hence all the animals introduced into the ark were only those of the region inundated." but the most literal rendering of the language of moses does not necessitate our belief that when he says that the waters covered the whole earth, _arets_, he meant the whole globe. the common bible meaning of this word is land, country, or region, as the perpetually recurring phrases, the land, _arets_, of havilah, the land of nod, the land of ethiopia, the land of goshen, the land of egypt, the land of canaan, which occurs three hundred and ninety times, may convince every reader beyond the possibility of mistake. how now, from this word being used by moses, could this learned bishop conclude that he necessarily meant to describe the globe? moses says, "the waters prevailed upon and covered the whole country." the bishop translates, "covered the whole globe;" evidently in order to make moses commit a blunder. but reference is made to the expression, "all the high hills under the whole heavens were covered;" which the bishop will have it meant all the mountains under the moon. but the popular use of the word "heavens," in moses' day, had as little reference to universal space, as the word earth, or land, had to the whole globe. it meant simply the visible heavens over any place; and its extent was defined by the extent of the earth those visible heavens covered. thus moses himself defines it, deuteronomy iv. 32: "ask from the one side of heaven unto the other." deuteronomy xxviii. 8: "thy heaven over thee shall be as brass." deuteronomy ii. 25: "this day i will begin to put the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven." and so commonly throughout the bible, "the clouds of heaven," "the fowls of heaven," refer to the optical heavens. such is the meaning in genesis. noah describes the deluge as it appeared to him, as covering all the hills within the horizon of observation, and moses copies noah's log-book. the geologist adds his testimony to the existing evidences of the recent submergence of a large region of persia and turkey around the caspian sea, and its subsequent elevation. but it is no part of our business to show in what way god produced the deluge. geology shows us, however, that the submergence of parts of the earth beneath the sea, and their subsequent elevation, is the most common of all geological phenomena; almost all existing continents and islands having been submerged. the bishop is as far behind the age in his astronomy as in his geology. he blindly follows the infidels of the last century in their attack on joshua's miracle, arresting the sun and moon, as inconsistent with their science; which taught the immobility of the sun and moon, it seems, and was entirely ignorant of the modern discovery of the grand motions of the fixed stars, including our sun, and of the dependence of all the planets, including our earth and moon, upon that grand motion for the motive power of their revolutions.[132] one wonders from what college the bishop came out ignorant of facts known to the boys of american common schools. a great many of the bishop's blunders are occasioned by want of sense. the process is very simple. the sacred history is very brief. only the headings of things are recorded. much must be supplied by the common sense of the reader. the manners of the east are very different from ours. three thousand years have greatly changed the face of the country. ignore all this, and interpret the pentateuch as though it consisted of the letters of our own correspondent, and you will find difficulties on every page. such is the style of colenso's criticism. assume that moses gives a full and complete chronicle of all events which have happened since the creation, and then dispute the recorded facts because it can easily be shown he omitted many. but the bishop has not the honor of discovering this method, or of founding this school of criticism. we have heard village critics of the loom and the forge discuss such questions as are handled by colenso, and the essays and reviews, and often with much more acuteness and penetration. with what _eclat_ has our village critic unhorsed the itinerant preacher with the inquiry, what became of the forks belonging to the nine and twenty knives which ezra brought back from babylon? but was, alas! himself routed in the moment of triumph by the inquiry as to the sex of the odd clean beasts of noah's sevens. how often has our village blacksmith critic requested a sermon upon the genealogy of melchizedek, which the minister agreed to furnish when our blacksmith could tell him the foundry which manufactured tubal cain's hammer and anvil. lot's wife, the witch of endor, jonah's whale, the sundial of ahaz, and the population of nineveh, were all duly discussed, together with the bodies in which the angels dined with abraham. did the loaves and fishes miraculously multiply in numbers, or increase in size? where did the angel get the flour to bake the cake for elijah? did our lord catch the fish by net, or by miracle, which he used in the lord's dinner on the shore of the sea of galilee. but _the_ question--which we marvel beyond measure that the bishop overlooks--always was, where did cain get his wife? this is the fundamental question for such critics. the difficulty, it will be perceived, lies across the very threshold of the history. how did he stumble over it without record of his misadventure? it recurs, however, on every page. if the bishop will only answer that question, and introduce us politely to cain's wife, i will engage that she will answer most of these other difficult questions. had seth a wife? how could noah and his three sons build a ship larger than the great eastern? we can imagine the roars of laughter with which the bigger school-boys will greet the serious exhibition of their old tests of dullness, in a printed book, and by a learned bishop, as objections to the inspiration of the bible. but the bishop does actually devote chapter v. to the impossibility of moses addressing all israel; chapter vi. to the extent of the camp compared with the priest's duties; chapter xx. to the grave difficulty of the three priestly families consuming the offerings of some millions of people; which surely to a bishop of the church of england should not be an unparalleled feat. such chapters enable us to appreciate the mental caliber of our critic, and excuse us from argument with a man incapable of interpreting popular phrases. he would prove the associated press dispatches all a myth, because it is impossible for the house of commons to appear at the bar of the house of lords--six hundred men to stand on four square yards of floor; for mcclellan to address the army of the potomac, which extended along a line of thirty miles; for grant and sherman--two men--to capture vicksburg and thirty thousand prisoners! manifestly impossible. the most specious of all the sophistry spread over the volume is that contained in the seventeenth chapter, regarding the increase of jacob's family, of seventy persons, to a nation of two or three millions, in egypt, during the two hundred and fifteen years to which he confines the bondage. but it is only another case of cain's wife. the pentateuch gives us the list of jacob's children and their wives, but makes no formal mention in that place of their servants and retainers. these, in abraham's times, amounted to three hundred fencible men, or a population of fifteen hundred; who would have increased in jacob's time to several thousands, capable of defending the border land of goshen against the marauding bedouin. and this population could easily increase to the three millions of the exodus, at the same ratio in which the population of the united states is now increasing; so that it is a mere superfluity of naughtiness for the bishop to deny what the sacred historian so emphatically asserts: "that the people were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and the land was filled with them." but the bishop utterly ignores the people of the _clan_, and taking his slate and pencil ciphers out the impossibility of jacob's _family_ amounting to so many. and yet it is not impossible that in the four hundred and thirty years which the sacred historian so precisely asserts as the period of their sojourn in egypt, exodus xii. 40, the family alone might have multiplied as fast as the family of the famous jonathan edwards, which, in a hundred years after his death, numbered two thousand souls. peter cartwright, the venerable methodist minister, celebrated his eighty-seventh birthday on the first of september, 1871, at pleasant plains, sangamon county, illinois, surrounded by one hundred and twenty children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. now, if this family of two persons could so increase in eighty-seven years, why could not jacob's family, of seventy persons, increase in equal ratio? in that case, even in the two hundred and fifteen years to which the bishop limits the sojourn in egypt, the israelites would have amounted to over eight millions. if it be objected that this was a case of special blessing, we answer that the israelites are expressly asserted to have been specially and wonderfully multiplied. there is, therefore, no improbability in moses' numbers. the bishop ascribes to moses another of his own blunders; this time, however, in reading his bible in plain english, which correctly translates the hebrew--exodus xiii. 2. the lord commands moses and israel to "sanctify to him every male that openeth the womb, both of man and beast," from the time of the death of the first-born of the egyptians. the impropriety of _ex post facto_ legislation, the reason assigned for this law, and the grammatical meaning of the language in the present tense, all combine to show that the law is prospective; and the number of the first-born, twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-five, afterward given in numbers, shows plainly that this is the meaning, being about the proper increase of thirteen months. but the bishop strangely blunders into the notion that this is the number of all the first-born of israel; only about one in forty-five or fifty, and therefore argues against the historical veracity of the pentateuch. a good many of the bishop's blunders arise in this way from misreading his bible. he makes another blunder of this kind, and as usual charges it on moses, in his misreading of leviticus xxiii. 40, as if directing israel to make booths of palm branches and willows at the feast of tabernacles, instead of bearing the palms of victory in triumph into the temple of god. the son of the chief rabbi of london ridicules the bishop's hebrew scholarship here, saying that any jewish child could have set him right; but had he read even his english translation carefully he need not have blundered here. in connection with the subject of the numbers of the people we notice his tacit assumption--that moses records everything necessary for a statistical table--in his criticisms on the numbers of the danites and levites, chapters xviii. and xvi.; and on judah's family, chapter ii. he takes it for granted that because the exodus took place in the lifetime of the fourth generation of some of the sons of jacob, therefore there were none but four generations born in the two hundred and fifteen years to which he confines the bondage, and none but those whose names are recorded. this is a blunder of the same sort as if he should mistake the list of the british peerage for a census of all the families of great britain, and calculate the average duration of human life by the ages of the duke of wellington and lord palmerston. but here we have a wonderful instance of the providence which often makes objectors refute themselves. the chapter on judah's family (ii.) shows that in forty-two years judah had grandchildren ten or twelve years old; as many syrians, persians, and hindoos have at this day. but if six generations could thus be born in syria, or india, in a century, why not in egypt? and 1 chronicles vii. 20, 21 enumerates ten generations of the sons of ephraim; giving ample opportunity for the biblical increase. another set of the bishop's blunders is occasioned by his utter ignorance of camp-life, especially among the arabs. in chapter viii. he assumes that all the people had tents, and the bishop orders them made of leather. but he concludes they could not possibly get them, nor if they had them could they carry them. by and by he provides them with two millions of cattle, however; and it is likely each of them had a skin, and was able to carry it for a while, while the hebrews dwelt in the booths of the encampments they still commemorate in the feast of tabernacles. but the word "tents" is the common phrase for any kind of shelter in scripture, including even houses in the expression, "to your tents, o israel," used in the days of david. in chapter ix. he discusses the probability of their obtaining arms in egypt. a week with one of the union armies would show him how speedily freedmen can provide themselves with arms and learn tactics; and a short residence in ireland would teach him the utter impossibility of preventing a discontented people from arming themselves even with firearms; much more when every grove furnished artillery. he protests that all egypt could not furnish lambs enough for the passover; because in natal an acre will only graze one sheep, forgetting that moses was not raising sheep in natal, but in the best of the land of goshen, which, if as fertile as the county of dorset in england, would easily keep five millions of sheep. in chapter x. he insists on the impossibility of giving warning of the passover, and subsequent march, in one day, to a population as large as london, scattered over two or three counties. has he forgotten the straws carried over all ireland in one night, and the chupatties of the indian mutiny? the negro insurrection of charleston was known by the negroes of louisiana two days before their masters received the intelligence by mail. critics know little of the power of the love of freedom. but there is no reason for the bishop's supposition that all the preparations for leaving were made in one day, save his own mistake of the hebrew of exodus xii. 12, as referring to the night of the day on which god spake to moses, instead of the night of the day of which he was speaking, as the slightest reflection on the context shows. in chapter xi. the bishop assumes the functions of major-general, and masses his army--rank, and file, wagon train, hospital, commissariat, contrabands, droves of cattle, and camp followers--into a mass of fifty front and twenty-two miles long. very naturally he gets into a tremendous jam, out of which we have no intention of extricating him; merely remarking that bishops do not make good generals, and that arab sheikhs do not march in that way. they scatter themselves and their cattle over the whole country for forty or fifty miles, and have no confusion; and attend moreover to moses' sanitary camp regulations, in their several encampments. in chapter xii. he exerts himself to starve the cattle for want of pasture and water; garbling moses' account of the wilderness for that purpose, deuteronomy viii. 15, "beware that thou forget not jehovah, thy god, who led thee through the great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, _where there was no water_." here he stops, as if this was all that referred to the subject. but when we turn to the passage, we find that he omits the most material part of the speech. for moses goes on to say, in the hearing of all israel, who could certainly have contradicted him had the fact not been well known to them, "who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint." moses' account is quite self-consistent, and the bishop's garbling of it is dishonest. there were districts of arabia so dry and sterile that but for this miraculous supply both men and beasts had perished; but the greater part of the country was simply uninhabited pasture land, sufficiently productive even now to support several arab tribes; and much better wooded and watered then. the monuments of egypt abundantly testify the number and power of its shepherd kings, who pastured their flocks upon it in their successive invasions of egypt. the bishop says, chapter xiii., that the climax of inconsistencies between facts and figures is reached when we come to the notice by the lord to israel, contained in exodus xxiii. 29, "i will not drive them, the canaanites, out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beasts of the field multiply against thee." the argument is that a population of two millions was assigned to a territory of only eleven thousand square miles; and consequently would be more dense than the population of the agricultural region of england, where there is no danger of wild beasts multiplying. but the objection is again based on a blunder, and a garbling of the text of scripture. had the bishop done himself and his readers the justice to complete the passage which he has half cited, by inserting the next two verses, he could have read verse thirty-one: "and i will set thy bounds from the red sea even to the sea of the philistines, and from the desert unto the river," _i. e._, the euphrates, as other passages show, genesis xv. 18. that is to say, a territory five hundred miles long by one hundred miles broad, or fifty thousand square miles, was to be occupied by two millions of people. that is about the present population, and all travelers testify that three-fourths of it lies desolate. prof. porter saw seventy deserted towns and villages in bashan alone. but for the rifle and gunpowder the wild beasts would now overpower the inhabitants. by a wonderful providence, contemporaneously with these attacks, the lord has raised up an army of scholars, travelers, and archæologists, whose explorations illustrate the bible in a remarkable manner, throwing new light upon its history, poetry, and prophecy. it is refreshing to turn from the cavils of ignorant criticism to the clear light of discovered facts and imperishable monuments. the bible history has recently received a wonderful amount of illustration and confirmation from the researches of scholars and discoverers amid the ruins of egypt, persia, and assyria; completely exploding the theory that this history was a comparatively recent composition, written long after the events which it records, and betraying its want of genuineness by the anachronisms and errors of description of historical and natural events with which it abounds. wherever it differed from the statements of any greek, or other heathen historian, it was forthwith alleged that moses was wrong, and the profane author was right; and for a long time nobody could bring any evidence on the other side, because there were no contemporary records; the oldest heathen historian being a thousand years later than moses. but by some strange inspiration, the lord set a multitude of explorers to work upon the monuments of egypt, deciphering the hieroglyphics which had so long puzzled the world, digging into the mounds which had for centuries covered the ruined palaces and cities of persia and assyria, and bringing to europe ship-loads of recovered statues, marbles, cylinders, mummies, obelisks, papyrii, covered with all manner of pictures and inscriptions, civil, religious, and political, contemporary with the bible history, and setting the best scholars of europe to decipher and translate them. they are only, as yet, in the middle of their labors, but already so much has been discovered as to warrant the assertion that before they have finished they will furnish full corroboration of all the great outlines of old testament history. egypt was the first to come forward in furnishing her quota of commentary to the corroboration of the books of moses. hengstenberg's _egypt and the books of moses_, wilkinson's _ancient egyptians_, and osburn's _monumental history of egypt_, furnish almost a commentary upon moses' account of egyptian affairs, confirming every biblical allusion to egypt as historically correct, and revealing to us even the natural causes of the seven years high nile and plenteous harvests; in the overflow of the great central lake in nubia wearing away the embankment; and of the seven years subsequent low nile and famine, by the drought consequent on this immense drainage. the very titles of joseph as, "director of the full and empty irrigating canals," "steward of the granaries," etc. etc., are still to be read on his tomb at sakkarah,[133] and much more of the same sort. f. newman ridicules the bible narrative of shishak's expedition against rehoboam as a mere fictitious embellishment of an otherwise tame narrative;[134] but egyptologists, like stuart, poole, and brugsch, have examined the inscription of shishak, at karnak, and allege that it fully corroborates the scripture history.[135] some of the most obscure portions of the bible, which have long been stumbling-blocks to commentators and historians, are now thus illuminated by the light of modern discoveries of monuments and inscriptions found in the ruins of the ancient cities of persia and assyria, upon which they in turn cast such light as to enable the discoveries of layard and rawlinson to assume an intelligible coherency. the tenth and eleventh chapters of genesis, written a thousand years before herodotus or manetho, and which rationalistic commentators were so long "unable to verify by their own consciousness," and which were therefore consigned to the realm of mythology, are now acknowledged by the first scholars and discoverers to stand at the head of the page of reliable history, and to form the basis of all scientific ethnography. the diversity of languages among mankind seems not to have attracted the attention of the greek philosophers. when modern inquirers began to investigate the matter, they were well-nigh confounded by the multitude of dialects and languages. the labor of three generations of scholars has been expended upon philology, the most ancient monument of mankind. and the result is that all the various languages of earth have at length been classified under three tongues--the shemitic, the aryan, and the turanian. but this most recent discovery of comparative philology was narrated by moses thirty centuries ago, with the historical account of the origin of the division of the primeval family into three separate colonies, colonizing the earth after their families and after their tongues.--genesis x. 32. the discovery of this coincidence fills bunsen with astonishment. "comparative philology," he says, "would have been compelled to set forth as a postulate the supposition of some such division of languages in asia, especially on the ground of the relation of the egyptian language to the shemitic, even if the bible had not assured us of the truth of this great historical event. it is truly wonderful; it is a matter of astonishment; it is more than a mere astounding fact that something so purely historical, and yet divinely fixed--something so conformable to reason, and yet not to be conceived of as a mere natural development--is here related to us out of the oldest primeval period, and which now for the first time, through the new science of philology, has become capable of being historically and philosophically explained." the brief, yet definite, assertions of the hamitic origin of the old empire of babylon, and of an asiatic cush or ethiopia, which have been so repeatedly charged against the bible as blunders, even by some profound scholars, have been vindicated by the recent discoveries in the mounds of chaldea proper of multitudes of inscriptions in a language which sir h. rawlinson affirms "is decidedly cushite or ethiopian," and the modern languages to which it makes the nearest approaches are those of southern arabia and abyssinia. the old traditions have then been confirmed by comparative philology, and both are side lights to scripture. * * * "the primitive race which bore sway in chaldea proper is demonstrated to have belonged to this ethnic type."[136] "the conquest of palestine is recorded on the annals of sennacherib, and the cylinder of tiglath-pileser describes his invasion of palestine. the names of jehu, of amaziah, of hezekiah, of omri, ahaz, and uzziah have been made out. _the very clay which sealed the treaty between the kings of judah and assyria, with the impresses of their joint seals upon it, is preserved in the nineveh gallery._ the library of assurbanipal, in twenty thousand fragments, contains among other scientific treatises, such as astronomical notices, grammatical essays, tables of verbs, genealogies, etc., an historico-geographical account of babylonia and the surrounding countries. as far as these fragments have been translated, the district and tribal names given in the bible correspond very closely with them."[137] but this is not the only illustration and confirmation which these old assyrian monuments offer to the sacred writings. from the first invasion of the assyrians, under tiglath-pileser, to the restoration of israel from babylon, and the rebuilding of the temple, under darius, the bible history is full of references to the assyrian, babylonian, and persian monarchies, and their affairs with israel and judah. and the inscribed tablets, cylinders, and temple tablets, and statues, are full of references which directly or indirectly elucidate and corroborate the bible history, attesting to skeptics the truthfulness of its wonderful narrative; the very stones of nineveh, and the ruined palaces of babylon and assyria, crying out in vindication of the veracity of the bible. already so much has been discovered as to fill several volumes, to which we must refer the reader for details.[138] one of the alleged historical errors greatly insisted on by rationalistic commentators was the statement by daniel, that belshazzar was king of babylon when it was taken by the medo-persians, and that he was slain at the storming of the city. herodotus and berosus had stated that nabonnidus was king, and that he was not in the city then, but was afterward taken prisoner and treated generously by cyrus. these accounts seemed contradictory; and as herodotus and berosus were generally esteemed respectable historians, the rationalists ridicule daniel as an erroneous writer of history. but one of sir h. rawlinson's discoveries has vindicated the prophet, and also explained how the historians were truthful too. w. taylor, one of rawlinson's assistants, discovered an inscribed cylinder in ur of the chaldees containing an account of the reign of this very nabonnidus, which sir henry describes in a letter to the _athenæum_, (1854, page 341): "the most important facts, however, which they disclose are that the eldest son of nabonnidus was named bel-shar-ezar, and that he was admitted by his father to a share in the government." this name is undoubtedly the belshazzar of daniel, and thus furnishes a key to the explanation of that great historical problem which has hitherto defied solution. we can now understand how belshazzar, as _joint-king_ with his father, may have been governor of babylon when the city was attacked by the combined forces of the medes and persians, and may have perished in the assault which followed; while nabonnidus, leading a force to the relief of the place, was defeated, and was obliged to take refuge in borsippa, capitulating after a short resistance, and being subsequently assigned, according to berosus, to an honorable retirement in carmania. a minute coincidence also is thus brought to light, showing the accuracy of the inspired historian in one of the details of his narrative. belshazzar elevates him to the position of grand vizier, or prime minister, which, under ordinary circumstances, would be the _second_ place of dignity in the empire. but daniel represents the king as raising him to the _third_ place, which we now see to be strictly correct, since belshazzar himself was the second in rank. thus the weapons discharged against the bible ever recoil upon the heads of its assailants. not only among the monuments of the great historic nations do we now discover corroborations of scripture, the records and monuments of even obscure nations are most strangely turning up and being discovered, after lying unnoticed for centuries, as if god had reserved their testimony for the time when it would be needed and valued. the bible does not refer to the history of the surrounding nations, save in connection with their relations to israel; but it is surprising to see how many of these references are corroborated by recent discoveries. the bible, for instance, describes[139] omri as establishing a kingdom with his capital at samaria, and he and his son, ahab, making war on mesha, king of moab, conquering him and making him pay an annual tribute of one hundred thousand lambs and one hundred thousand rams, with the wool. but it came to pass that when ahab was dead that the king of moab rebelled against the king of israel. now amid the perpetual wars of the petty kingdoms of asia, and after the utter extirpation of the moabitish nation, the chances were millions to one against our recovering any historical monuments whatever of that people; and almost infinite against recovering any which should coincide with the half dozen allusions to them in the bible. but mr. klein discovered in the ruins of dibon, one of the ancient cities of moab, and capt. warren recovered, the fragments of the now famous moabite stone, on which, in the old samaritan characters, we read: "i, mesha, son of jobin, king of moab. my father reigned over moab thirty years, and i reigned after my father. i erected this altar unto chemosh, who granted me victory over mine enemies, the people of omri, king of israel, who, together with his son, ahab, oppressed moab a long time--even forty years,"[140] etc. but space forbids even the enumeration of the corroborations of bible history from the days of abraham to the time of the first census of the roman empire, when cyrenius was governor of syria the second time. in every instance where its monuments have spoken of biblical affairs they have confirmed the accuracy of the bible history. the history of great britain, or of the united states, is not more authentic than, and not so accurate as, the long line of history recorded in the bible. no important error has been proven in any of its historical statements of the world's history for forty centuries. this accuracy contrasted with the acknowledged errors of the best historians, is proof to every candid mind of divine direction and help to the sacred writers. sweeping away, then, these cobwebs, we open the volume and form our opinion of its genuineness and authenticity from its own internal evidences--its nature and contents--and from the way in which it was used by the hebrew nation. it is important at the outset to know how long these documents have undoubtedly existed. no one denies that they were in existence eighteen hundred years ago. indeed, the first literary attack on them which has been recorded was made about that time; and josephus' defense of the scriptures against apion still exists. the very same writings which the protestant churches now acknowledge as canonical, and none other, were then acknowledged to be of divine authority by the jews. it is true they bound their bibles differently from ours, but the contents were the very same. they made up their parchments of the thirty-nine books in twenty-two rolls or volumes, one for every letter of their alphabet; putting judges and ruth, the two books of samuel, the two books of kings, the two books of chronicles, ezra and nehemiah, jeremiah's prophecy and lamentations, and the twelve minor prophets, in one volume respectively. they also distinguished the five books of moses as, _the law_; the psalms, proverbs, ecclesiastes, and song of solomon as, _the psalms_; and all the remainder as, _the prophets_.[141] moreover, it is well known that two hundred and eighty-two years before the christian era, these writings were translated into greek and widely circulated in all parts of the world. they were, in fact, not only popular, but received as of divine authority by the jews at that time, read in their synagogues in public worship, and regarded with sacred reverence. how did they come to receive them in this manner? these writings were not only acknowledged by the jews; their bitterest enemies--the samaritans--owned the divine authority of the five books of moses, and preserve an ancient copy of them, differing in no essential particular from the hebrew version, to this day. the samaritans always bore to the hebrews such a relation as mohammedans do to christians, and the hebrews returned the grudge with interest: "for the jews have no dealings with the samaritans." these heathen babylonians, four centuries or more before the christian era, were somehow induced to receive the pentateuch as of divine authority, and to frame some sort of religion upon it. their enmity to the jews is conclusive proof that, since that time, neither jews nor samaritans have altered the text; else the manuscripts would show the discrepancy. these books are not such as any person would forge to gain popularity, or to make money by. there is nothing in them to bribe the good opinion of influential people, or catch the favor of the multitude. on the contrary, their stern severity, and unsparing denunciation of popular vice and profitable sin must have secured their rejection by the jewish people, had they not been constrained by undeniable evidence to acknowledge their divine authority. they set out with the assertion of the divine authority of the law of moses, and everywhere sharply reprove princes, priests, and people for breaking it. the prophets, so far from seeking popularity, are foolhardy enough to denounce the bonnets, hoops, and flounces of the ladies, and to cry, woe! against the regular business of the most respectable note-shavers,[142] to croak against the march of intellect, and shake public confidence in the prosperity of their great country,[143] to ally themselves with fanatic abolitionists, and introduce agitating political questions into the pulpit; crying, _woe to him that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work._[144] to crown all, they organized abolition clubs to procure immediate emancipation, and published incendiary proclamations in the cities of the slaveholders,[145] and, strange to say, they were allowed to escape with their lives; and their writings were held sacred by the children of those very men and women they so unsparingly denounced; a conclusive proof that the calamities they predicted had compelled them to acknowledge these prophets as the heralds of god. the proof must have been conclusive, indeed, which compelled the jews to acknowledge the writings of the prophets as sacred. another very striking feature of these writings is, their mutual connection with each other. they were written at various intervals, during a period of a thousand years' duration, by shepherds and kings, by prophets and priests, by governors of states and gatherers of sycamore fruit; in deserts and in palaces, in camps and in cities, in egypt and syria, in arabia and babylon; under the iron heel of despotic oppression, and amid the liberty of the most democratic republic the world ever saw; yet, circumstances, and lapse of time, they ever hold to one great theme, always assert the same great principles, and perpetually claim connection with the writers who have preceded them. there is nothing like this in the histories of other nations. two centuries will work such changes of opinion, that you can not find nowadays any historian who approves the sentiments of pepys or clarendon, whatever use he may make of their facts. but the historians of the bible not only refer to their predecessors' writings, but refer to them as of acknowledged divine authority. thus the very latest of these books gives the weight of its testimony to the first--"_and they set the priests in their divisions, and the levites in their courses for the service of god, which is at jerusalem, as it is written in the book of moses._"[146] and daniel spake of the books of moses as well known when he says, "_therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the law of moses the servant of god._"[147] the shortest book in the old testament--the prophecy of obadiah, consisting only of twenty sentences--contains twenty-five allusions to the preceding histories and laws. the last of the prophets shuts up the volume with a command to "_remember the law of moses._" in fact, just as the epistles prove the existence and acknowledged authority of the gospels; so do the prophets prove the existence and acknowledged authority of the law of moses. they were acknowledged not merely by one generation of the jewish people, but by the nation during the whole period of its national existence; and they are of such a character, that they must then, and now, be taken as one whole--all accepted, or all rejected together. the reader of the old testament will speedily find that these writings are not merely a connected history of the nation, of great general interest, like bancroft's or macaulay's, but of no such special interest to any individual as to force him, by a sense of self-interest, or the danger of loss of liberty or property, to correct their errors. on the contrary, every farmer in palestine was deeply concerned in the truth and accuracy of the bible; for it contained not only the general boundaries of the country, and of the particular tribes, like the survey of the maine boundary, or of mason and dixon's line, but it delineated particular estates, also, and was, in fact, the report of the surveyor-general, deposited in the county court for reference, in case of any litigation about sale or inheritance of property.[148] the genealogies of the tribes and families were also preserved in these writings; and on the authenticity and correctness of these records, the inheritance of every farm in the land depended; for as no lease ran more than fifty years, every farm returned to the heirs of the original settler at the year of jubilee.[149] thus every jewish farmer had a direct interest in these sacred records; and it would be just as hard to forge records for the county courts of ohio, and pass them off upon the citizens as genuine, and plead them in the courts as valid, as to impose at first, or falsify afterward, the records of the commonwealth of israel. this will appear more clearly when we consider that they contained also the laws of the land--the constitution of the united states of israel, with the statutes at large--according to which every house, and farm, and garden in the whole country was possessed, every court of justice was guided,[150] every election was held, from the election of a petty constable, to that of governor of the state,[151] and the militia enrolled, mustered, officered, and called out to the field of battle.[152] these laws prescribed the way in which every house must be built, regulated the weaver in weaving his cloth, and the tailor in making it, and the cooking of every breakfast, dinner and supper eaten by an israelite over the world, from that day to this.[153] now, let any one who thinks it would be an easy matter to forge such a series of documents, and get people to receive and obey them, try his hand in making a volume of acts of assembly, and passing it off upon the people of ohio for genuine. let him bring an action into one of the courts, and persuade the judges to give a decision in his favor, upon the strength of his forged or falsified statutes, and then he may hope to convince us that the laws of moses are simply a collection of religious tracts, which came to be held sacred through lapse of time, nobody knows how or why. nor were these laws, and the usages thus established, common, and such as the people would be ready easily to adopt. on the contrary, moses repeatedly asserts, and all ancient history shows, that they were quite peculiar to the hebrew people then; and they are to this day confined to the republics which, like our own, have drawn their ideas from the bible. it is enough to name the common law and trial by jury; the armed nation; the right of free public assembly, free speech, free passport, and free trade; the election of civil, judicial, and military officers by universal suffrage; the division of the land in fee-simple among the whole people; the rights of women to hold real estate in their own right, to speak in public assemblies, and to prophetic functions; and the support of religion by the voluntary offerings of the people. our own republic resembles israel as a daughter her mother. the land of liberty was the bible country. the first republic which the world ever saw was designed by almighty god, and revealed to the world in the bible, and by the example of the united states of israel. from that pattern our forefathers copied all the grand features of our glorious republic--the equitable distribution of the land, in fee-simple, among the people; securing them, by the jubilee, against the introduction of feudal tenure, and landlordism; the abolition of a standing army, and the defense of the country by the militia; the election of all officers, civil and military, from the town constable, and the justice of the peace, up to the president of the republic, the lord jehovah himself, by universal suffrage--and the federal union of the twelve tribes into one nation, with township, county, and state governments, with a common law, common schools, and the equality of all citizens before the law; the right of naturalization; sanitary and social institutions, such as modern philanthropists are only beginning to dream of, for the elevation of the people; and all this avowedly held in trust for all mankind, as a fountain of blessings for all the families of the earth. no such ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity, ever existed among the wisest heathen nations--the egyptians, persians, greeks, or romans. on the face of the whole earth there never was, and there is not to-day, a free republic outside of the light and liberty of the bible. the so-called republics of athens and rome were hideous aristocracies, and tyrannies. from the bible the men of the continental congress learned the grand truth, which they emblazoned on the forefront of their immortal declaration of independence, "that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" thus planting the rights of man upon the only immovable basis--the throne of the eternal god. but there were other features of the mosaic legislation so far in advance of the ideas of our modern materialism as not to have been even yet suggested in our social congresses, nor even dreamt of by our most advanced christian philanthropists, in their endeavors after the elevation of the masses. moses' idea was the prevention of pauperism, and of the conflict between labor and capital, and of the gambling speculating fever, and the formation of an independent, intelligent, joyous, religious, healthy, and thrifty people, well-bred, well-fed, well-lodged, able to fight their foes on the battle-field, to reap their ridge on the harvest-field, to enjoy the blessings of healthy families, and to rejoice before the lord. a volume would be needed to develop the social bearings of the laws of the hebrews. we can only suggest for consideration the laws regarding inalienability of the homestead, and the bankrupt law; the laws of marriage and inheritance; the laws of servitude and wages; the sanitary laws regarding building, clothing, bathing, eating, and contagion; the protection of the rights of animals; the dispersion of the educated class; and the three great national festivals, during which the whole people were released from the labors of the field, and of the kitchen, and enjoyed during the eight summer days of each picnic such an excitement of social enjoyment, religious fervor, and political patriotism, as modern christendom anticipates in the millennium, but which neither church nor state has, as yet, systematically attempted to nurture. that the hebrews did not obey the law, and so did not enjoy the happiness obedience would have secured, is only what god foresaw, and foretold repeatedly, with solemn warning of the disastrous degradation to which disobedience to god's laws must ever reduce man. nevertheless, even their very imperfect conformity to these institutions gave them such superiority of blood and breeding to their ungodly neighbors, that they have survived the most powerful nations, and, in spite of dispersion, exile, disfranchisement, and persecution, they exist as a distinct people, superior intellectually, commercially, and morally to all the heathen nations at this day. how much higher had been their position had they fully obeyed the law. our argument is, that this law of liberty, equality, fraternity, and religion, was worthy of our father in heaven, and a seed of blessing to all the families of the earth. to a jew living before the coming of christ, the unanimous testimony of his nation, confirmed by all the commemorative observances of the sacrifices, the passover, the sabbath, and the jubilee, by the reading of the law and the prophets, and the singing of the historical psalms in the temple and the synagogues, by the execution of the laws of moses in the courts, and by the very existence of his nation as a distinct people, separate from all the other nations--could leave no doubt that laws so peculiar and beneficent must have been enacted by a wisdom superior to that of man, and their observance imposed by divine authority; nor that the miracles by which these laws were authenticated, and the national existence of the people of israel was secured, were genuine, and divine. the chain of historical and internal evidence is too strong to be broken, while the jewish nation exists. but yet this historical and internal evidence of the authority of the old testament is but the smallest part of that which we possess, who have the testimony of christ on this subject. for this testimony removes the question from the mists of antiquity, and even from the debatable ground of historic certainty, and resolves the whole process of searching for, and comparing and examining a host of second-hand witnesses, into the easy and certain one of hearing the author himself say, whether he acknowledges this book to be his or not. christians receive the old testament as the word of god, because jesus says so. now, reader, it is of the utmost importance that you should stop just here, and give a plain, confident answer to these questions: dost thou believe upon the son of god? is jesus the messiah of whom moses in the law, and the prophets, did write? are you perfectly satisfied of the truth of the new testament, and willing to venture your eternal salvation upon the words of christ contained in it? for, if not, of what use is it for you to trouble yourself about the old testament? you might as well waste your time in examining the genuineness of the bills of a broken bank; they may be genuine or they may be forgeries; but who cares? they will never be paid. if the first promises of the bank of heaven, to send the messiah eighteen hundred years ago, have been fulfilled, its other paper may be also valuable; if not, it must be equally worthless. if the new testament be not of divine authority, you may place the prophets on the same shelf with the poems of ossian; and then follows the serious consequence, that there is not a grain of hope left for you or for any man on earth. if jesus be indeed an almighty savior, and if he has indeed risen from the dead, then, through the power of his mighty love, your filthy soul may be washed from its sins, and your mortal body may be raised from the rottenness of the grave. but if christ be not risen, you are yet in your sins. you have no notion that any of the gods of the heathen, or the precepts of the koran, can purify your heart. you know well that infidelity never sanctified any of your comrades. conscience tells you that you are not any better now than you were a year ago, but worse. you are yet in your sins; and in them you must live and die! aye, while your immortal soul lives, while the laws of human nature continue, you must carry those brands of infamy on your character, and daily progress from bad to worse; sinking deeper and deeper in the contempt of all intelligent beings; and, were there no other avenger, in the remorse and despair of your own mind, you must experience the horrors of perdition. jesus, able to save to the uttermost, all that come unto god by him, is your only hope. there is none other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved. if his gospel be true, you may be saved; if it is false, you must be damned. if you have the shadow of a doubt of the truth of the new testament, go over the subject again; re-read the former chapters of this book; pray to god for light and truth; above all, read the book again and again; and if, in your case, as in that of one of the most famous teachers of german neology--de wette--the careful study of the new testament impels you to rush through all the mists of doubt to the higher standpoint of a lofty faith, and the sunshine of real religion; and if with him you can now say, "only this one thing i know, that in no other name is there salvation than in the name of jesus christ the crucified, and that for humanity there is nothing higher than the incarnation of deity set before us in him, and the kingdom of god established by him,"[154] you may then go on with your inquiry into the divine authority of the old testament. with the master himself before you, the author, the inspirer, by whom, and for whom, the prophets spake, and to whom all the scriptures point, you will not think of wasting time in examining second-hand evidence; but go direct to jesus himself. his testimony will not be merely so much additional testimony--another candle added to the chandelier by whose light you have perused the evidences of the scriptures; it will shine out on your soul as the light of the sun of righteousness with healing on his wings. every word from his lips will awaken in your heart the voice from heaven, "_this is my beloved son. hear him._" what saith christ, then, respecting the old testament? the moment you open the new testament to make this inquiry, you are met by a reference to the old. "_the book of the generation of jesus christ, the son of david, the son of abraham_," is its formal title; and the most cursory perusal tells you that you have taken up, not a separate and independent work, which you can profitably peruse and understand without much reference to some foregoing volumes--as one might read abbott's life of napoleon without needing at the same time to study the history of the crusades--but that you have taken up a continuation of some former work--the last volume in fact of the old testament--and that you can not understand even the first chapter without a careful reading of the foregoing volumes. before you have finished the first chapter you meet with the most unequivocal assertion of the harmony of the gospels and the prophecies, and of the divine authority of both--"_now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the lord by the prophet_," etc. the whole tenor of the new testament corresponds to this beginning, teaching that the birth, doctrine, miracles, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and second coming of the lord, are the fulfillments of the old testament promises and prophecies; of which no less than a hundred and thirty-nine are expressly quoted, beginning with moses and ending with malachi. we can not explain this by saying, with the mythical school of interpreters, that this was merely the opinion of the writers of the gospels and of the jews of their age; whose longings for the messiah led them to imagine some curious coincidences between the events of christ's life and the utterances of these ancient oracles to be ready fulfillments; and that christ did not deem it needful in all cases to undeceive them. for to suppose that christ--the truth--would sanction or connive at any such sacrilegious deception, is at once to deprive him, not only of his divine character, but of all claim to common honesty. so far from the jews longing for any such events as those which fulfilled the prophecies, they despised the messiah in whom they were fulfilled, and refused to believe in him; and his disciples were as far from the gospel ideal of the messiah, when jesus needed to reproach them with, "_o fools, and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets have spoken._"[155] it was not the jews, nor yet the disciples, but the lord himself who perpetually insisted on the divine authority of the old testament as the _word_ of his father, and the sufficient attestation of his own divine character, after this manner: "_ye have not his word abiding in you; for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. * * * had ye believed moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. but if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?_"[156] his first recorded sermon contains a remarkable and solemn attestation to the divine authority of the old testament, and of his own relation to it as its substance and supporter, "_think not that i am come to destroy the law, and the prophets: i am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. for verily i say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled._"[157] the whole of this discourse is an exposition of the true principles of the old testament, stripping off the rubbish by which tradition had made void the law of god, and enforcing its precepts by the sanction of his divine authority. and in one of his last discourses after his resurrection: "_beginning at moses, and the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. * * * and he said unto them, these are the words which i spake unto you, while i was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures._"[158] in this distinct enumeration of the whole of the scriptures of the old testament; in the assertion that they all treated of him, and that their principal predictions were fulfilled in him; and in his bestowal of divine illumination to enable them to understand these divine oracles--we have such an indorsement of their character by the truth himself, as must command the faith and obedience of every believer in him. had no objections been raised against particular doctrines or features of the old testament, we should stop here; perfectly satisfied with the attestations to the truth of its history, given by the continual references, and to the authority of its precepts, by the solemn formal declarations of the son of god. but some popular objections to its completeness and perfection demand a brief notice. 1. the general character of the old testament being then ascertained beyond doubt, our first inquiry must be as to the integrity and completeness of the collection. for it is manifest that their divine authority being admitted, any attempt to add to them any human writings, or to take away those which were from god, would be a crime so serious in its consequences, that it could not escape the notice of him who severely rebuked even the verbal traditions by which the jews made void the law of god. now we are told by some that a great many inspired books have been lost; and they enumerate the prophecy of enoch; the book of the wars of the lord; the book of joshua; the book of iddo the seer; the book of nathan the prophet; the acts of rehoboam; the book of jehu, the son of hanani; and the five books of solomon, on trees, beasts, fowls, serpents, and fishes; which are alluded to in the bible. if the case were so, it is difficult to see what objection could be raised against the divine authority of the books we have, because of the divine authority of those we have not; for it is not supposed that one divinely inspired book would contradict another. nor yet can we see how the loss of these books should disprove their inspiration, much less the inspiration of those which remain, any more than the want of a record of the multitude of words and works of jesus himself which were never committed to writing,[159] should be an argument against the divine authority of the sermon on the mount. it will hardly be asserted that god is bound to reveal to us everything that the human race ever did, and to preserve such records through all time, or lose his right to demand our obedience to a plain revelation of his will; or that we do well to neglect the salvation of our own souls until we obtain an infallible knowledge of the acts of rehoboam. but there is not the shadow of a proof that any of these were inspired books, or that some of them were books at all. the bible nowhere says that enoch wrote his prophecy, or that solomon read his discourses on natural history; nor of what religious interest they would have been to us any more than the hard questions of the queen of sheba, and his answers to them. though the loss of these ancient chronicles may be regretted by the antiquarian, the christian feels not at all concerned about it; knowing as he does, on the testimony of christ, that the holy scriptures, as he and his apostles delivered them to us, contain all that we need to know in order to repent of our sins, lead holy lives, and go to heaven; and that we have the very same bible of which jesus said: "_they have moses and the prophets; let them hear them. * * * if they hear not moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead._"[160] 2. another objection is, that the religion of the old testament was essentially different from that of the new. it is at once acknowledged, that the light which christ shed on our relations to god, and to our brethren of mankind, is so much clearer than that of the old testament that we see our duties more plainly, and are more inexcusable for neglecting them, than those who had not the benefit of christ's teaching. and no objection can be raised against god for not sending his son sooner, or for not giving more light to the world before his coming, unless it can be shown that he is debtor to mankind, and that they were making a good use of the light he gave them. so that the question is not, did god give as full and expanded instructions to the church in her infancy as he has given in her maturity? but, did he give instructions of a different character? it is not, did christ reveal more than moses? but, did christ contradict moses? and here, at the very outset, we are met by christ's own solemn formal disclaimer of any such intention: "_think not that i am come to destroy the law and the prophets. i am not come to destroy, but to fulfill._" and as to the actual working of the christian religion, when paul is asked, "_is the law then against the promises of god?_"[161] he indignantly replies, "_god forbid!_" but it is urged, "judaism is not christianity. you have changed the sabbath, abolished the sacrifices, trampled upon the rules of living, eating, and visiting only with the peculiar people, you neglect the passover, and drop circumcision, the seal of the covenant, all on the authority of christ. do you mean to say that these are not essential elements of the old testament religion?" undoubtedly. outward ceremonies of any kind never were essential parts of religion. "_i will have mercy and not sacrifice_," is an old testament proverb, which clearly tells us that outward ceremonies are merely means toward the great end of all religion. "_the law_," says the holy ghost, by the pen of paul, "_was our schoolmaster to bring us to christ_." the bread of heavenly truth is served out to god's children now on ten thousand wooden tables, instead of one brazen altar; but it is made of the same corn of heaven, it is dispensed by the same hand of love, to a larger family, it is true, but received and eaten in the exercise of the very same religious feelings, by any hearer of the gospel in new york, as by abraham on moriah. by faith in christ the sinner now is justified, "_even as abraham believed god, and it was imputed to him for righteousness._" so says one who knew both law and gospel well. "_do we then make void the law through faith? god forbid! yea, we establish the law!_" the epistles to the romans and to the hebrews are just demonstrations of this truth, that the law was the blossom, the gospel the fruit. but it is alleged that the religion of the old testament could not but be defective, as it wanted the doctrines of immortality and the resurrection; of which, it is alleged, the old testament saints were ignorant. it were easy to prove, from their own words and conduct, that job, abraham, david, and daniel, were not ignorant of these great doctrines.[162] but the manner in which our lord proves the truth of the resurrection, by a reference to it as undeniably taught in the old testament, must ever silence this objection. "_but as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by god, saying, i am the god of abraham, the god of isaac, and the god of jacob? god is not the god of the dead, but of the living._"[163] 3. but it is objected the hebrew jehovah tolerated and approved polygamy, slavery, and divorce; and, in general, a low code of morals among the hebrews. but we demand to know what standard of morals our objectors adopt? that of the ancient oriental world in which israel lived? then the laws of jehovah were very far in advance of that age. the slave had his blessed sabbath rest secured to him; which is more than modern civilization can secure for her railway slaves; his master was forbidden to treat him cruelly; and the maid-servant's honor was protected by the best means then known; while the sacred writings held up for example the primitive example of marriage, interposed the formality of a legal document before divorce, and elevated the family far above the degraded state of the heathen around them. but the objector falls back on the morals of christendom, the civilization of the nineteenth century, and judges the laws of moses by that standard. very well. this is simply to say that our ideas have been raised to the standard of christianity; and then the objection is that the laws of moses are not so spiritual and elevated as the precepts of christ. our lord himself asserts the same thing. he says moses tolerated divorce because of the hardness of the people's hearts; but from the beginning it was not so. and paul (hebrews viii. 6, 7) alleges the imperfection of moses' law as a good reason for the introduction of a better covenant. the bible itself then recognizes an advance from good to better, the path of the just shining more and more unto the perfect day. but then it is asked, is god the author of an imperfect law? could god give a defective code of morals? the question entirely misses the design of god's revelation as a process of educating his children. suppose we ask, could god speak hebrew--a language so defective in philosophical terms? god must condescend to the mental, and even, in some degree, to the moral level of mankind if he is to reach us at all. all education must begin low, and rise from step to step. the a, b, c of morals must be first learned. the whole analogy of providence shows this to be god's method of procedure. the kingdom of god is like the growing seed; first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. gradual, and even slow, progress is the law of nature. our modern civilization, which is so proudly invoked, is very far indeed from any such perfection as might enable us to look down upon moses' legislation with contempt. we have only to name our standing armies and conscriptions; our national promises to pay debts, which no one ever expects to pay; our laws regarding drunkenness, and our revenues derived from the licenses for the sale of liquors; the utter failure of our attempts to put down betting, gambling, and stock and gold speculations, prostitution, bribery, frauds, and plundering of the public funds; to convince ourselves that there are many things law can not do, even in this nineteenth century of civilization. our little progress, such as it is, has not been made all at once, or by one great advance. god gives mankind blessings by degrees. he gave the mariner's compass to the fourteenth century, the printing press and america to the fifteenth, the bible in the vulgar tongue to the sixteenth, parliamentary government to the seventeenth, the steam engine to the eighteenth, railroads and the telegraph to the nineteenth. one might as well cavil at his providence for not giving the hebrews sewing machines, hoe's printing presses, and daily newspapers, when they entered into canaan, as for delaying to give them the elements of christian civil law, and social life, before they were able to value and to use them. as it was, moses' law was so far in advance of their own ideas of propriety, and so far in advance of those of all the people around them, that they were continually falling back from it, and rebelling against it, and subjecting themselves to the discipline which god had threatened for disobedience. thus they were kept ever looking upward to a higher model. their transgressions must be confessed as sins, and atoned for by bloody sacrifices, declaring the transgressor worthy of death. their consciences were educated to the idea of holiness, an idea utterly wanting among the heathen; and the law became a powerful motive power, urging them to higher and holier lives, and preparing them to receive the higher and holier example and precepts of christ. the imperfection, then, of the law of moses, so far from being an evidence of the human origin of the bible, is a mark of the infinite wisdom of the great lawgiver in adapting his legislation to the condition of his people; and while tolerating for the time then present an imperfect state of society, just as at this time he tolerates a christendom far below the gospel standard, yet implanting in the minds of his people principles of righteousness and love which were certain eventually to raise them to the high level of the kingdom of god. this, then, is simply an instance of the general law of divine development. 4. again, however, it is contended, "that the morality of the old testament was narrow and bigoted; requiring, indeed, the observance of charity to the covenant people, but allowing israel to hate all others as enemies, and as well expressed in the text, _thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy._"[164] but let it be noticed, that this is no text of scripture, nor does our lord so quote it. he does not say it is so written, but, _ye have heard it said by them of old time_. the first part is god's truth; the second is the devil's addition to it, which christ clears away and denounces. it were easy to quote multitudes of passages from the old testament, commanding israel to show kindness to the stranger, and a whole host of promises, that in them all the families of the earth should be blessed; any one of which would sufficiently refute the foolish notion, that the morality of the old testament was geographical, and its charity merely national. but the simple fact, that the most sublime sanction of world-wide benevolence which ever fell even from the lips of christ himself, was uttered by him as the sum and substance of the teachings of the old testament, conclusively confutes this dogma. the golden rule was no new discovery, unless its author was mistaken, for he says: "_therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them_: for this is the law and the prophets."[165] he declares the very basis and foundation of the whole old testament religion to be those eternal principles of godliness and charity, which he quotes in the very words of the law: "_then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, master, which is the great commandment in the law? jesus said unto him, thou shalt love the lord thy god with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. this is the first and great commandment. and the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets._"[166] the law and the prophets, then, taught genuine world-wide benevolence, christ being witness; and the moral law of the old testament is the moral law of the new testament, if we may believe the lawgiver. 5. still, it is alleged, "it can not be denied that the writers of the old testament breathed a spirit of vindictiveness, and imprecated curses on their enemies, utterly at variance with the precepts of the gospel, which command us to bless and curse not; and even in their solemn devotions uttered sentiments unfit for the mouth of any christian; nor that their views of the character of god were stern and gloomy, and that they represented the hebrew jehovah as an unforgiving and vengeful being, utterly different from the kind and loving father whom christ delighted to reveal." this, if the truth were told, is the grand objection to the old testament. the holy and righteous sin-hating god, presented in its history, is the object of dislike. the god who drowned the old world, destroyed sodom and gomorrah by fire from heaven, commanded the extermination of the lewd and bloody canaanites, thundered his curses against sinners of every land and every age, saying, "_cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them_," requiring all the people to say _amen_,[167] is not the god whom universalists can find in their hearts to adore. a mild, easy, good-natured being, who would allow men to live and die in sin without any punishment, would suit them better. they try to think that he is altogether such an one as themselves, and an approver of their sin. but it is worth while to inquire whether the father of our lord jesus christ be in this respect anything different from the hebrew jehovah, or whether the gospel has in the least degree lessened his displeasure against iniquity. paul thought not that he was a different person, when he said: "_we know him who hath said, vengeance belongeth unto me, i will recompense, saith the lord._"[168] jesus thought not that he was more lenient to sinners when he cried, "_woe unto thee, chorazin! woe unto thee, bethsaida! * * * thou, capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell * * * it shall be more tolerable for the land of sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee._"[169] it is not in the old testament, but in the new, that we are told that jesus himself shall come "_in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not god, and that obey not the gospel of our lord jesus christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the lord, and from the glory of his power._"[170] it is not an old, bigoted hebrew prophet giving a vision of the hebrew jehovah, but the beloved disciple who leaned on jesus' breast, picturing the savior himself, who says: "_he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; and his name is called the word of god. and the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. and out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; and he treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of almighty god._"[171] let no man imagine that the new testament offers impunity to the wicked, or that the old testament denies mercy to the repenting sinner, or that christ exhibited any other god than the god of abraham, isaac and jacob--the same hebrew jehovah who _commands the wicked to forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and to return unto the lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our god, for he will abundantly pardon_.[172] it is exceedingly strange that those who dwell upon the paternal character of god, as a distinctive feature of christ's personal teaching, should have forgotten that the hymns of the old testament church, a thousand years before his coming, were full of this endearing relation; that it was by the first hebrew prophet that the hebrew jehovah declared, "_israel is my son, even my first-born; and i say unto thee, let my son go, that he may serve me_;"[173] and that by the last of them he urges israel to obedience by this tender appeal: "_if i be a father, where is mine honor?_"[174] it was not christ, but david--one of those gloomy, stern, hebrew prophets--who penned that noble hymn to our father in heaven, which christ illustrated in his sermon on the mount: "the lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. he will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. he hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities; for as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy to them that fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. like as a father pitieth his children, so the lord pitieth them that fear him."--psalm ciii. it is utter ignorance of the old testament which prompts any one to imagine that it presents any other character of god than "_the lord, the lord god, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty._"[175] this is the name which god proclaimed to moses, and this is the character which he proclaimed in christ, when he cried on the cross: "_my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me? but thou art holy, o thou that inhabitest the praises of israel._"[176] justice and mercy are united in christ dying for the ungodly. it is untrue to say that the prophets of the old testament were actuated by a spirit of malice, or of revenge for personal injuries as such, in praying for, or prophesying destruction on the inveterate enemies of god and his cause.[177] of all scripture characters, david has been most defamed for vindictiveness; but surely never was man more free from any such spirit, than the persecuted fugitive, who, with his enemy in his hand in the cave, and his confidential advisers urging him to take his life, cut off his skirt instead of his head; and on another occasion prevented the stroke which would have smitten the sleeping saul to the earth, and sent back even the spear and the cruse of water, the trophies of his generosity. when cursed himself, and defamed as a vengeful shedder of blood by the benjamite, he could restrain the fury of his followers, protect the life of the ruffianly traitor, and thus appeal to god as the witness of his innocence: "o lord, my god! if i have done this, if there be iniquity in my hands, if i have rewarded evil to him that was at peace with me, yea i have delivered him that without cause was mine enemy."[178] it is true that he does bitterly curse several living persons; of whom it is observable that some had done him no sort of personal injury; as doeg the edomite--the nana sahib of his day--who anticipated the scenes of cawnpore, in the streets of nob, by mercilessly butchering unoffending men, helpless women, and innocent babes. but surely no friend of humanity can imagine that it is improper that the chief magistrate of israel, anointed for the very purpose of being a terror to evil doers, should express his righteous indignation against such atrocities; nor confound such public execration with the petty gnawings of private revenge. still less can the fearer of god doubt the propriety of his expressing by the mouth of his prophet, that displeasure he signally displayed by his providence, scathing and blasting the accursed wretch into a terror to all bloody and deceitful men who shall read their own warning in his doom. "god shall likewise destroy thee forever, he shall take thee away and pluck thee from thy dwelling, and root thee out of the land of the living."[179] we have the most solemn assurance, that every one of the historical incidents of scripture is recorded for our instruction, and that every prophecy gives a lesson to all ages. "_now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come._"[180] the imprecations of the bible against individual sinners are the gibbets on which these malefactors are hung up for warning to all men to flee the crimes that brought them to that fate. it is put beyond the possibility of doubt, by the combined testimony of the lord and his apostles, that by far the greater number of the curses which david uttered, he spoke in the person of christ himself, of whom he was a type; and with direct reference to the crimes and punishment of his enemies. thus the sixty-ninth psalm, and the one hundred and ninth, pre-eminently the cursing psalms, are most explicitly and repeatedly asserted by christ, by peter, and by john, to belong to christ, and to express his very words: "_this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the holy ghost by the mouth of david spake before concerning judas, which was guide to them that took jesus. * * * for it is written in the book of psalms, let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein. and, his bishopric let another take._"[181] if any one feels reluctant to imagine that such cursings should fall from the lips of the merciful savior, let him remember that the most awful curse which shall ever fall on the ears of terrified men shall be pronounced by jesus himself, "_depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels._"[182] the solemn facts of the bible will not accommodate themselves to our likes and dislikes. christ loves righteousness and hates iniquity; in the bible he takes leave to say so, and he expects his people to share his feelings, and to be willing to express them on fit occasions. personal revenge, and curses for mere personal injuries, are forbidden in the new testament as well as in the old. but it was an apostle of jesus christ who cried, "_if any man love not the lord jesus christ, let him be accursed. though we or an angel from heaven bring any other gospel unto you, let him be accursed._"[183] nor until we can in some measure feel this holy indignation against sin, and this burning desire to see all tyranny, superstition, bribery, licentiousness, and profanity, crushed and banished from the earth, can we pray in truth "_thy kingdom come._" still less can we be prepared for the rejoicings of heaven over the conquest of the enemies of god and man: "_rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for god hath avenged you on her._" reader, you hope to go to heaven; but it may be a different place from what you dream of. did you ever study the employment of the saints there? are you washed from your sins? is your mind purified from your carnal notions? unless a man be born again he can not see the kingdom of god. are your likes and dislikes, your sentiments and sympathies, your understanding and your will, all brought into subjection to christ? can you heartily love and adore a sin-hating, sin-avenging god? or do you shrink back in terror or dislike from god's denunciations of wrath against the wicked? would your benevolence lead you to deal alike with the righteous and the wicked; and to abhor the thought of destroying them that destroy the earth? then how will you join in the hallelujahs of heaven; for god's judgments are the themes of thanksgiving and praise from saints and angels there, and this is their song: "_hallelujah, salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, unto the lord, our god, for true and righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hands. and again they said, hallelujah! and her smoke rose up for ever and ever. and the four and twenty elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped god that sat on the throne, saying, amen! hallelujah! and a voice came out of the throne, saying, praise our god, all ye his servants; and ye that fear him, both small and great. and i heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, hallelujah!_ for the lord god omnipotent reigneth."[184] and now, if this be the character of god, if he be indeed one who hates iniquity, and punishes impenitent sinners, we need not wonder that those who spake his word should utter imprecations, either in the old testament or in the new; but rather bless the mercy which warns before justice strikes, which hangs the red lantern over the abyss, and which seeks by the terrors of the lord to persuade men from perdition. the curses of the bible are denounced against the enemies of god, with the design of showing sinners their danger, and leading them to repentance. the conclusion, then, of our investigation is, that the old testament is the word of god no less than the new; that it is in no respect contrary to it; that all its parts--the law and the prophets, and the psalms--are of divine authority; that all its contents were written by divine direction, whether prophecy or history, ceremony or morality, promise or threatening, curses or blessings. it is of the old testament principally that the holy ghost declares: "_all scripture is given by inspiration of god, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of god may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works._"[185] footnotes: [120] parker's absolute religion, p. 205. [121] parker's discourses on religion, p. 161. [122] macknight's doctrine of inspiration, p. 161, and seq. [123] macknight's doctrine of inspiration, p. 192, etc. [124] essays and reviews, page 121. [125] john, chap. x. 25, 38. [126] annual of scientific discovery, 1864, p. 254. annual cyclopædia, 1863, p. 377. [127] mastodon giganteus, boston, 1855, p. 199. [128] for a fuller discussion of the subject, and references to the authorities, which our space here forbids, i must refer the curious reader to the _princeton review_, vol. xl. no. 4, where i have noticed every fact bearing on the subject up to that date; merely adding that no new fact, establishing man's remote antiquity, has been established up to this date, september 21, 1874. [129] familiar lectures, page 456. [130] authenticity of the pentateuch, ii. 150. [131] creation's testimony to its god. london, 1867, page 338. [132] see this subject more fully discussed in chapter xii., telescopic views of scripture. [133] osburn's monumental history. [134] hebrew monarchy, 160. [135] prof. rawlinson's modern skepticism, 285. [136] ancient monarchies i. 65. [137] w. r. cooper, secretary biblical archæological society, in _faith and free thought_, page 257. [138] rawlinson's illustrations of scripture. [139] 2 kings, chap. iv. 2 chronicles, chap. xx. [140] recovery of jerusalem, page 496, gunsberg's essay. [141] josephus against apion, book i. sect. 8. horne's introduction chap. ii. sect. 1. [142] isaiah, chap. iii. 16. ezekiel, chap. xviii. 12. [143] jeremiah, chaps. xxi., and xxii. 16. [144] jeremiah, chap. xxii. 13. [145] jeremiah, chap. xxxiv. [146] ezra, chap. vi. 18. [147] daniel, chap. ix. 11. [148] joshua, chaps. xiii.-xix. [149] 1 chronicles, chaps. i.-ix. leviticus, chap. xxv. [150] exodus, chap. xxi. 6. deuteronomy, chap. i. 16; chap. xix. [151] exodus, chap. xviii. 21. [152] deuteronomy, chap. xx. numbers, chap. x. 9. [153] deuteronomy, chap. xxii. 8, 11, 12. leviticus, chap. xi. [154] preface to exposition of the apocalypse. [155] luke, chap. xxiv. 25. [156] john, chap. v. 38, 39, 46, 47. [157] matthew, chap. v. 17, 18. [158] luke, chap. xxiv. throughout. [159] john, chap. xx. 30. [160] luke, chap. xvi. 29. [161] galatians, chap. iii. 21. [162] job, chap. xix. 25. psalm xvi. 10. hebrews, chap. xi. 13-16. daniel, chap. xii. 2, 3. [163] matthew, chap. xxii. 31, 32. [164] matthew, chap. v. 43. [165] matthew, chap. vii. 12. [166] matthew, chap. xxii. 35-40. [167] deuteronomy, chap. xxvii. 26. [168] hebrews, chap. x. 30. [169] matthew, chap. xi. [170] 2 thessalonians, chap. i. [171] revelation, chap. xix. [172] isaiah, chap. lv. [173] exodus, chap. iv. 22. [174] malachi, chap. i. [175] exodus, chap. xxxiv. [176] psalm xxii. [177] 2 timothy, chap. iv. 14. [178] psalm vii. [179] psalms vii. and lii. and 2 samuel, chaps. xvi., xxi. and xxii. [180] 1 corinthians, chap. x. [181] john, chap. ii. 17; chap. xv. 25; chap. xix. 28. acts, chap. i. 20. [182] matthew, chap. xxv. 41. [183] galatians, chap. i. 9. 1 corinthians, chap. xvi. 22. revelation, chaps. xix., xx. and xxi. [184] revelation, chaps. xix., xx. and xxi. [185] 2 timothy, chap. iii. 16, 17. chapter x. infidelity among the stars. a little or superficial knowledge of philosophy may incline a man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.--bacon. when skeptics, who are determined not to believe in the bible, find the historical evidences of its genuineness, authority, and inspiration, impregnable against the assaults of criticism, they turn their attention to some other mode of attack, and of late years have selected their weapons from the physical sciences. the argument thus raised is, that the bible can not be the word of god, because it asserts facts contrary to the teachings of science. of this warfare voltaire may be considered the leader, in his celebrated attack on the chemical processes recorded in scripture; in which he exposed himself to the ridicule of all the chemists and metallurgists in europe, by denying the possibility of dissolving the golden calf; the solution of gold being actually found in every gilder's shop in paris, and known even to coiners and forgers, for hundreds of years before he made this notable discovery. the result was ominous. the whole circle of the sciences has been ransacked for such arguments, and especially has every new discovery been hailed by skeptics as an ally to their cause, until further acquaintance has demonstrated that the stranger, too, was in alliance with religion. thus, when a few years ago, geology began to upheave his titanic form, he was eagerly greeted as a being undoubtedly not of celestial, but rather of subterranean, or even of infernal origin, willing to employ his gigantic powers in the assault upon heaven, and able to overwhelm the bible and the church under the ruins of former worlds. but now that skeptics have discovered the proofs he gives of the presence of the almighty on this world of ours, they are getting shy of his acquaintance, and are cultivating the society of some still more juvenile visitors from the chambers of animal magnetism and biology. the same scene will doubtless be acted over again; and these infantile strangers, when able to give distinct utterance to the facts of their developed consciousness, will bear testimony to the truth of god. such objections to the bible are very rarely brought forward by truly scientific men. it is a phenomenon, like the advent of a great comet, to find a man profoundly versed in science attack the bible. your third or fourth rate men of learning attain distinction in this field. an anti-bible writer or lecturer has generally been promoted to that high eminence from the school-room, or the editorial sanctum of an unsuccessful newspaper; or his patients have not sufficiently appreciated his physic; or he has failed in getting a patent right for his wonderful perpetual motion; or possibly he has enlarged his practical knowledge of science in the laboratory of some college, or has had his head turned by being asked to hear the mathematical recitations during the sickness of some professor. but to hear of men like galileo, kepler, boyle, newton, and leibnitz, or lyell, mantell, herschel, agassiz, hitchcock, faraday, balbo, nichol, or rosse, heading an attack upon christianity, would be an unprecedented phenomenon. such men are profoundly impressed with the thorough agreement between the facts of nature rightly observed, and the declarations of the bible rightly interpreted. it is equally rare to hear of a specialist in any department of science assume atheistic ground in that department; though a few of that class are willing to believe that some other department of science, of which they have no personal knowledge, favors infidelity. even huxley, with all his nonsense about the identical composition of the protoplasm of the mutton chop, and that of the lecturer, denies, and disproves, spontaneous generation, and votes in the london school board for the reading of the bible. the leading infidel writers, such as comte and spencer, are not distinguished by any personal scientific researches and discoveries; they are merely collectors and retailers, at second-hand, of other men's discoveries. the original scientific explorers and discoverers are few and modest. nevertheless, the other class, being both the most numerous and the most noisy, make up by loquacity for their deficiency of science, and counterbalance their ignorance by their assurance. such writers, assuming that they have outstripped all the philosophers of former days, will tell you how foolishly david, and kepler, and bacon, and newton, and herschel dreamed of the heavens declaring the glory of the lord, and the firmament showing his handiwork; "while at the present time, and for minds properly familiarized with true astronomical philosophy, the heavens display no other powers than those of natural laws, and no other glory than that of hipparchus, of kepler, of newton, and of all who have helped to discover them." theology belongs only to the infancy of the human intellect; metaphysical philosophy is the amusement of youth; but the full-grown man has learned to relinquish both religion and reason, and comes to the "positive state of science in which the human mind, acknowledging the impossibility of obtaining absolute knowledge, abandons the search after the origin and destination of the universe, and the knowledge of the secret causes of phenomena." the crown of modern science is ultimately to be placed upon the brow of atheism; but long before that eagerly desired achievement, the old bible theology is to be buried beyond the possibility of a resurrection, under mountains of natural laws, and monuments of scientific discovery. these assertions, confidently made, and perseveringly reiterated in the ears of ungodly men ignorant of the facts, of impetuous youths eager to throw off the restraints of religion, of christians weak in the faith, and even poured into the unsuspecting mind of childhood, produce the most painful results; and it becomes the imperative duty of the bishops of the church of christ not to allow them to pass unchallenged, but to convince the gainsayers, and stop the mouths of these unruly and vain talkers; or, if that be not possible, to make their folly manifest to all men. the implements for such a service are well tried and abundant, and the difficulty lies only in making a proper selection. at first view, the extinction of religion by science seems very unlikely. it is as unlikely that any thing that an infidel says about religion should be true, as that a blind man should describe the sun correctly, or even read a chapter accurately, with the book open before him? i shall show you presently that learned infidels make the grossest blunders respecting the plainest scripture records of scientific facts. it is very unlikely that infidels, who lay no claim to prophetic inspiration, should make any predictions about religion more reliable than those they have been telling so abundantly for two hundred years past, respecting the immediate overthrow of christianity and the bible; which, nevertheless, has been going on conquering new kingdoms every year, its missionaries outstripping scientific ardor in exploring the mysteries of african geography, honorably receiving the prizes which the infidel volney instituted for philological proficiency, and printing bibles from voltaire's printing-press. and it is very unlikely that these physical sciences, so long worshipers in the temple of god, should now become impious; as unlikely as that hitchcock, or mccosh, or hodge, or barnes should now, in their old days, renounce the bible, and blaspheme god. what! astronomy, and zoology, and botany, and ethnography, that were suckled at the breast of the bible, raise their hands against the mother that bore them! incredible! these sciences made an early profession of religion; taught sabbath-school in the days of job, zophar, and elihu; wrote sacred poetry, and were licensed to preach, in the days of solomon; poured forth prophetic raptures in the days of uzziah, jotham, ahaz, and hezekiah; wrote volumes on the politics of christianity in babylon, and painted glorious visions of the victories of the lamb of god, and dazzling views of the landscapes of paradise restored, in patmos; employed the gigantic intellect of newton, the elegant pen of paley, the eloquence of chalmers, herschel's heaven-piercing eye, and miller's muscular arm, to guard the outer courts of the sanctuary, while they sung sublime anthems to the music of david's harp within. have they now, after such a life of devotion, relinquished all these sublimities and beatitudes, taken lodgings in the sty, and renounced their faith in god, and hope of heaven, for the infidel maxim, "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die?" god forbid! on the contrary, all matured science glorifies its creator. as a specimen of the testimony of matured science to religion, let us look at the progress of astronomy, as it has successively swept away one atheistic theory after another, answered anti-bible objections, and illustrated promises couched in heavenly figures, long incomprehensible to the church. if, in order to present something like a fair outline of the bearings of astronomy on modern atheism, we should have occasion to repeat, expand, and illustrate some things already introduced in previous chapters, the repetition won't hurt us. a good story is nothing the worse for being twice told; and the story of our opponents is nothing but a ceaseless repetition of the atheism of twenty centuries. the progress of astronomical science has swept away the alleged facts on which all systems of atheism have been based. 1. _it has refuted the fundamental dogma of atheism, that the universe is infinite, and therefore self-existent._ the assertion is confidently made by atheists and pantheists, that the universe has no boundaries; not merely none which we can see, but that it actually fills all immensity; suns succeeding suns, and firmament clustering beyond firmament, throughout infinite space. it is indispensable for the atheist not only to assert, but to prove this to be the fact, if he would convince himself, or any other person, that the universe had no creator, but exists by the necessity of its own nature; for that which exists by the necessity of its own nature must exist in all time, and in every place. no reason can be given why self-existent suns, planets, and moons should exist in any one portion of space, and not exist in any other similar portion of space. for if such a reason could be given, that reason must show a cause for their existence in the one place, and their non-existence in another; and that cause must have existed before the universe, and must have been a cause sufficient to produce the effect. this sufficient cause includes ability to produce, wisdom to arrange, and force to put in motion all the powers of the universe; qualities which reside only in an intelligent being. this is the cause which the bible asserts when it says, "in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth," and which atheists deny when they assert that "the universe is eternal and infinite." now, this fundamental article of the creed of infidels is utterly incapable of proof. if the fact were really so, they never could prove it. they acknowledge no revelation from an infinite understanding, but found their belief on the knowledge of a number of finite and ignorant beings. before they are competent to pronounce upon the extent of the universe, they must explore it thoroughly; which, when they shall have done, they will have demonstrated that it has boundaries, seeing they have discovered them; but, if they have not thoroughly explored the universe, they can not say that it is infinite, because they do not know. the very utmost, then, which could possibly be asserted on the matter would be, not that the universe has no boundaries, but that man has never reached them. as in the case of ocean soundings, if we can not find bottom, we are not therefore to conclude that there is none, but that our line is not long enough, or our lead not heavy enough to reach it. it were a logical absurdity to say, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts--that any number of finite parts could compose an infinite universe. each sun or planet is a finite object, and any possible number of them can be counted in a sufficient time. it is impossible that any number can be infinite; for we are not using the word infinite here in the loose sense in which it is used by mathematicians, when they speak of an infinite series; that is, a series which, though it has no end, has a beginning; but in the strict sense of something having neither beginning nor end. a beginning of the universe, either in space or time, is the very thing the atheist denies. the same objection applies to the allegation, that infinite space is full of ether, air, gas, nebulæ, or any other kind of matter. it is an assertion incapable of proof; and therefore thoroughly unscientific; as all infidel theories are. but if it could be proven that every part of space accessible to our telescopes is full of an ether whose undulations transmit light, as we believe it can, that would be only a proof of the finitude of matter. that ether consists of parts whose movements can be measured and numbered; and no possible multitude of such parts can amount to the infinite. while reason thus enables us to show this dogma of the infinity of the universe to be theoretically improbable, and logically irrational, science has lately taken a more decisive step, and demonstrated it to be actually false. the universe has boundaries, and we have seen them. the proof is simple, and easily demonstrable. that broad band of luminous cloud which stretches across the heaven, called the milky way, consists of millions of stars, so small and distant that we can not see the individual stars, and so numerous that we can not help seeing the light of the mass; just as you see the outline of the forest at a distance, but are unable to distinguish the individual trees. besides this mass of stars to which our solar system belongs, there are thousands of smaller similar clouds in various parts of the heavens, which have successively been shown to consist of multitudes of stars. but all around these star-clouds the clear blue sky is discovered by the naked eye. now, it is easy to perceive, that if all the regions of infinite space were filled either with self-luminous suns, or planets capable of reflecting light, or luminous nebulæ, or comets of gaseous consistency, at such distances as the milky way, or any other star-cloud demonstrates to be safe and practicable, we should see no blue sky at all; but the whole vault of heaven would present that whitish light resulting from the mingling of the rays of multitudes of stars, planets, and comets, which the milky way does actually exhibit. no matter how small or how distant these stars, _if they were only infinitely numerous_, it is impossible that there could be any point in the heavens unilluminated by their rays, even although the stars themselves were invisible to our eyes, or even to our telescopes. the whole heaven would be one vast milky way. or rather, as humboldt reasons, "if the entire vault of heaven were covered with innumerable strata of stars, one behind the other, as with a widespread starry canopy, and light were undiminished in its passage through space, the sun would be distinguished only by its spots, the moon would appear as a dark disc, and amid the general blaze not a constellation would be visible."[186] it would appear also to follow, as a necessary consequence, that such an infinite multitude of blazing suns must generate a heat compared with which the general conflagration would be cool and comfortable. but the telescope shows us a state of matters vastly different from this. it shows us, in fact, that space, so far from being occupied with suns and stars, is mostly empty. our universe is only a little island in the great ocean of infinite space. though the telescope discovers multitudes of stars where the naked eye sees none, yet they are, in far the greater number of instances, "_seen projected on a perfectly dark heaven, without any appearance of intermixed nebulosity_."[187] and even through the milky way, and the other nebulæ, the telescope penetrates, through "_intervals absolutely dark, and completely void of any star, of the smallest telescopic magnitude_."[188] it may assist us to understand the full import of this declaration, to remember that lord rosse's large telescope clearly defines any object on the moon's surface as large as the custom house. its power of penetrating space surpasses our power of imagination, but is represented by saying, that light, which flashes from san francisco to london quicker than you can close your eye and open it again, requires _millions of years_ to travel to our earth from the most distant star-cloud discoverable by this telescope.[189] if a galaxy like this of ours existed anywhere within this amazing distance, that telescope would discover its existence. it has, in fact, augmented the universe visible to us, 125,000,000 times, and thus made us feel that not merely this world, which constitutes our earthly all, and yon glorious sun, which shines upon it, but all the host of heaven's suns, and planets, and moons, and firmaments, which our unaided eyes behold, are but as a handful of the sand of the ocean shore compared with the immensity of the universe. but ever, and along with this, it has shown us the ocean as well as the shore, and revealed boundless regions of darkness and solitude stretching around and far away beyond these islands of existence. the telescope, then, enlarges and confirms our views of the extent of the unoccupied portions of space. if there were only one dark point of the heavens no larger than the apparent magnitude of the smallest star, this one unoccupied space would sufficiently disprove the infinity of the universe, inasmuch as there would be a portion of space of boundless length, and of a diameter not less than the diameter of the earth's orbit, say 190,000,000 miles, in which stars might exist, as they do in its borders, but yet do not. but the argument becomes utterly overwhelming, when the attempt is made to calculate the proportion of space occupied by the stars to that left unoccupied. whether we take herschel's computation, that the nebulæ cover one two hundred and seventieth part of the superficies of the visible heaven,[190] or struve's supposition of the existence of a star subtending no measurable angle, in every part of the visible sky as large as the surface of the moon, the vast disproportion of the universe, to the space in which it is placed, forces itself upon our notice. for, upon the largest of these computations, the proportion of existence to empty space is mathematically proved to be not greater than as the cube of one to the cube of two hundred and sixty-nine; that is to say, there is room for 19,395,109 such universes as this of ours in that small part of infinite space open to the view of herschel's telescopes. but when we come to consider the vastness of these regions of darkness, over which no light has traveled for twenty millions of years, and remember also that astronomers have looked clear through the nebulæ, and find that they bear no more cubical proportion to the infinite darkness behind them than the sparks of a chimney do to the extent of the sky against which they seem projected, so far from imagining the universe to be infinite, we stand confounded at its relative insignificance, and are convinced that it bears no more proportion to infinite space than a fishing-boat does to the atlantic ocean. there is no possible evasion of this great fact, by any contradictory hypothesis. it can not be objected "that stars may exist at infinite distances, whose light has not yet reached the limits of our universe." if they do, they did not exist from eternity, for there is no possible distance over which light could not have traveled, during eternal duration. but their eternal existence is the very thing which the atheist is concerned to prove. grant that infinite space is filled with worlds _which had a beginning_, and their necessary existence instantly falls, and we are compelled to seek for a cause of their beginning of existence; that is to say, a creator. nor will it answer the purpose to say, "that for anything we know to the contrary, these dark regions may be filled with dark stars." if the fact were so, it is equally fatal to the dogma of self-existence. some stars shine; others are dark. why so? wherefore this difference? variety is an effect, and demands a prior cause. were there only two stars in the sky, or two substances on the earth, and those unlike in any particular, that plurality, and that variety, would prove that they could not be infinite or self-existent, but dependent upon some cause for their existence, and for their variety of form. but we do know many things contrary to the notion that the dark regions of infinite space may be full of dark stars. light is not the only indication of the presence of a star. the attraction of gravity, which is wholly independent of light, is a proof quite as certain and satisfactory to the astronomer. the presence of stars and planets too faint to be discovered by the naked eye, and of one, the planet neptune,[191] as far distant from the planet disturbed by its attraction as the earth is from the sun, was ascertained, and its place pointed out by adams and le verrier, _before it was seen_. if the dark interplanetary spaces, then, were full of dark attracting bodies, the perturbations of the other planets would discover their existence. so the presence of some invisible stars at much greater distances from their visible associates has been discovered by bessel,[192] and it is quite possible that a dark firmament may yet be discovered, containing as great a number of dark stars as we now behold of luminaries; another group of islets in the ocean of infinite space. but the very facts which will prove their existence will disprove their infinity; for we can know their presence only by their perturbation of the proper motions of the visible stars; but if infinite space were full of dark bodies, the visible stars would have no room to move at all. it is easily demonstrable, that if infinite space were filled with dark stars, the equilibrium and coherence of our galaxy, and of all other clusters of stars, would be destroyed. the existence of nebulæ, and clusters, and the revolutions of the binary stars, are conclusive proof that the dark parts of infinite space are not full of dark attracting bodies. nor can the atheist here raise his usual argument from unknown facts, and say that, "far beyond the range of our most powerful telescopes, a boundless expanse of firmaments may exist." it concerns not our present argument whether such exist or not. whatsoever discoveries may be made to eternity, of firmaments, ten thousand times ten thousand times larger than we now behold, _they can never bear the smallest proportion to the infinite space in which they exist_. beyond these islets will extend gulfs and oceans immeasurable. our argument, however, has no concern with the unknown possible, but with the actual fact--visible to the naked eye and confirmed by the telescope--that there is a portion of space in which millions of universes such as this might exist with safety, yet they do not. worlds, therefore, do not exist by the necessity of their own nature, wherever there is room for them, but must have had some pre-existent, external, and supernatural cause of their existence in this place and not in other places. this implies choice--will--god. the physical refutation of the self-existence of the universe is completed by the discovery, _that all the orbs of heaven, as well as the earth, are in motion, and that an orderly and regulated motion_.[193] the fact need not be illustrated, for it is not denied. the consequence is inevitable. that which is self-existent must be unchangeable; for change is an effect, and demands a cause; and the cause must exist before the effect, and produce it. whatsoever is changeable, then, is a product of a prior cause, and so not self-existent. but every part of the universe is changeable, for it is in motion, which is a change of place; and, therefore, is not self-existent, but the product of a prior cause. professor fick, who was some time since called from zurich to fill the professorship of physiology at wurzburg, and who is known by his experiments on muscular physics, in a recent work on the transformation of force, brings out the argument in proof of the non-eternity of our universe in a new form. he shows that heat is continually being lost by radiation; and when mechanical force is converted into heat _some_ of that heat can never be brought back to be mechanical force. and as this change from mechanical force to heat is ever going on, all force must at last turn into heat, in which case all difference of temperature would be lost and universal stagnation and death would be the result. he then concludes in the following words, which we quote from _nature_, macmillan's weekly: "we are come to this alternative; either in our highest, or most general, our most fundamental scientific abstractions some great point has been overlooked; or the universe will have an end, and must have had a beginning; could not have existed from eternity, but must at some date, not infinitely distant, have arisen from something not forming part of the chain of natural causes, _i. e._, must have been created."[194] to this it has been replied, that motion is the normal condition of matter; arising from the force of gravitation, acting in and upon the various bodies composing the universe; and mathematical calculations have been attempted to show how vortices, and spiral motions, could be produced by the force of gravitation, and the mutual resistances of the atoms originally composing the universe. but this attempt is easily seen to be a failure. the attraction of gravitation alone can not possibly produce any such motion as we behold in the heavens; nor can it originate, nor sustain, any kind of eternal motion whatever. for the attraction of gravitation is always in right lines; but there is no rectilinear motion in the heavens; all celestial motions are curvilinear. nor can the attraction of gravitation account for the maintenance of any kind of eternal motion. its tendency is to draw all bodies to the center of gravity, and to keep them there, in one vast heap, by the force of their mutual attraction; thus bringing all motion to an eternal rest. to this it is now replied that motion is the equivalent of light, heat, electricity, and chemical reaction; all of which are convertible into motion. these are properties of matter, and inseparable from it, and so as eternal as itself. we have already disproved the eternity of matter; but if, for the sake of argument, it were granted, yet would not the regulated and orderly motions of the universe be thereby accounted for. for these forces either exactly balance the force of gravitation, or they do not. if they do not, and their repulsion prevails, by even the slightest degree, the particles of matter had been driven away into infinite space millions of years ago, and suns, and planets, and atheistic philosophers, would have vanished like the baseless fabric of a vision. but if the attraction of gravitation had prevailed, by even the weight of an ounce, long ages ago sun, moon and stars would have rushed together into one vast mountain mass, whose attraction would have been so great, that no living creature could move upon its surface, and whose parts would be compressed into a density compared with which quicksilver would be lighter than cork. but if, on the other hand, it be alleged, that these inherent forces of matter exactly balance its power of gravitation--with which they have no other apparent relation--then the argument is irresistible, that these grains of sand and drops of water and globes of granite being unequal to such calculations, there was some calculating engineer at work arranging the motions of the stars. no mechanical law is a sufficient cause for this motion. to allege that a power of orderly, regulated motion--and there is no other sort of motion in heaven or earth--is an inherent property of matter, is simply to insult our common sense, and overturn the foundation of all reason. for we have no knowledge of matter, and can have none, more certain than we have of the constitution of our own minds, which requires us to trace up every change among material objects to _the energy and will of a person_ capable of planning and effecting the change. to refer us to the law of gravity is not to give us a cause for the motions of the heavenly bodies, but only a _name_; for law is only _a rule of action_. we demand a lawgiver--an agent--a _force_, capable of producing effects. when the law of projectiles makes a cannon-ball, and projects it, we will believe that the law of gravity made the worlds, and moves them. "descending within the mind's interior chambers, i find no conviction so sure of the existence of an external world, as is my belief in the reality of _power_--of something that sustains succession, and causes order. again, then, whence this idea, and what is it? what this attribute with which i endow material laws, and raise them into _forces_? now, in my apprehension, the strictest scrutiny can not obtain for these inquiries any reply save one; we _primarily_ connect the idea of _power_ with no change or movement, except an act or determination of the free will; but from such acts, that idea is inseparable. if, therefore, in order to explain the progress of material things, we require the agency of _efficient causes_, is not this a direct and solemn recognition--through all form and transiency--of the necessity of an _ever-present creative power_; a power requisite and necessary to uphold--to renew the universe every moment--or, rather, to prolong creation by the persistence of the creative act? and, in very truth, startling though it be, such is the only and ultimate scientific idea of the divine omnipresence. law is not even the almighty's minister; the order of the material world, however close and firm, is not merely the almighty's ordinance. the _forces_, if so we name them, which express that order, are not powers which he has evolved from the silences, and to whose guardianship he has committed all things, so that he himself might repose. no! above, below, around, _there_ is god; there his universal presence, speaking to finite creatures, in finite forms, a language which only the living heart can understand. in the rain and sunshine; in the soft zephyrs; in the cloud, the torrent, and the thunder; in the bursting blossom, and the fading branch; in the revolving season, and the rolling star; there is the infinite essence, and the mystic development of his will."[195] 2. _scientific astronomy inexorably demolishes the atheistic scheme for the arrangement of the solar system by accident, commonly known as buffon's cosmogony._ "buffon supposed that the force of a comet falling obliquely on the sun has projected to a distance a torrent of the matter of which it is composed, as a stone thrown into a basin causes the water which it contains to splash out. this torrent of matter, in a state of fusion, has broken into several parts, which have been arrested at different distances from the sun, according to their density, or the impetus they received. they then united in spheres, by the effect of the motion of rotation, and condensing by cold, have become opaque and solid planets and satellites."[196] this formation of worlds by accident, it is true, gave no reason for the form of their orbits, for their rotation on their axes, in one direction, and that, too, the direction of their motion, nor for several other matters, of which infidels make little account, but about which plain men like to ask, namely: where did the sun come from? what melted it down into a fluid state, fit to be splashed about? where did the comet come from? and who threw it with so correct an aim through infinite space as exactly to hit the sun _in an oblique direction_. creation, it seems, was nearly missed, after all. this chaotic theory never gained much respect from men of science, though its simplicity speedily opened its way among the vulgar, and it has ever been a favorite with the most ignorant class of infidels, numbering thousands of warm advocates, even at the present day. it was thought to be very much corroborated by the discovery of the asteroids, and their supposed formation by the explosion of a larger body. there is a certain proportion observed in the distances of the orbits of the planets from each other--a breadth or gauge, as it were, on the celestial railroad. but there was the breadth of a track between the orbits of mars and jupiter on which no train ran, and this vacancy excited the curiosity of astronomers. in the first seven years of this century, three very small planets were discovered, running near this track; and dr. olbers, the discoverer of pallas, finding that they were nearly in the same track, and sometimes crossed each other, and that they were diminutively small--bearing about the same proportion to a regular planet which a hand-car does to a freight train--imagined that they were formed by the explosion of a large planet; that the boiler of the large locomotive had burst, the fragments had all lighted upon the track again, in the shape of hand-cars, and the hand-cars had magnanimously resolved to keep running, and do the business of the line; and that, as there must have been material enough in the original planet to make some thousands of them, more would be discovered by watching two depots, at the crossings of the tracks, in the constellations virgo and the whale, where they must all pass. in fact, he did himself find another, very near one of these nodes; more recently many others have been found; and astronomers now expect to hear of one or two more every year. at first sight his theory seemed strengthened by every new discovery. it is true, reflecting men could not help wondering at such a marvelously regular explosion as would produce beautiful little orderly planets, going so regularly too, and all by accident. they never heard of the blowing up of a palace producing cottages, or the explosion of a steamboat throwing off the hurricane deck in the shape of whaleboats, or the bursting of a locomotive producing model engines, or even hand-cars. however, as the theory removed god out of sight, it was generally accepted and freely used by infidels, to show that the world had no need of a creator. but astronomers saw, that as each new asteroid had a track of its own, and ran to a different terminus, and the roads in which they ran were of different gauges and grades--one little asteroid, pallas, running up and down a track inclined thirty-five degrees, just as speedily as the others--every new discovery increased the difficulty of accounting for their origin by explosion. but the discovery of the planet hygeia, at a vast distance from the others, utterly overturned the explosion theory. loomis says: "the difficulties in the way of our regarding these small planets, as fragments of a single body, were well nigh-insuperable before the discovery of hygeia. this last discovery has probably given the death-blow to the theory of olbers. the orbit of hygeia completely incloses the orbits of several of the asteroids, its perihelion distance--that is, its least distance from the sun--exceeding the aphelion--or greatest distance--of flora by _twenty-five millions of miles_. _no change of position of the orbits could, therefore, bring these orbits to a coincidence._"[197] the matter has been finally settled by the greatest of modern mathematicians, le verrier, who has subjected the eccentricities, distances, and inclinations of the orbits of the asteroids to a mathematical investigation, the result of which is as follows: "in the present state of things, these eccentricities and these inclinations are totally incompatible with olbers' hypothesis, which supposed that the small planets--some of which were discovered even in his day--were produced from the wreck of a larger star, which had exploded. the forces necessary to launch the fragments of a given body in such different routes (whose existence we should be obliged to suppose) would be of such an improbable intensity, that the most limited mathematical knowledge could not but see its absurdity." he concludes the memoir by advancing four propositions, "which forever annihilate olbers' hypothesis."[198] 3. _the progress of astronomical discovery has utterly refuted the notion of creation by natural law, known as the development theory, or the nebular hypothesis._ scientific infidels knew that there was too much order and regularity in the motions of the planets to allow any rational mind to ascribe these motions to accident, according to buffon's notion. they saw that these movements must be regulated by law. la place, an eminent mathematician, saw that there are at least five great regularities pervading the system, for which buffon's theory gave no reason: 1. the planets all move in elliptical orbits, nearly circular. they might, on the contrary, have been as elongated as those of comets. 2. they revolve in orbits nearly in the plane of the sun's equator. they might have revolved in orbits inclined to it at any angle, or even in the plane of his poles. 3. they revolve around the sun all in the same direction, which is the direction of his rotation on his axis. 4. they rotate on their axes, also, so far as known, in the same direction. 5. the satellites (with the exception of those of uranus) revolve around their primary planets, and also rotate on their axes, in the same normal direction. it was evident, even to the believers in chance, that so many regularities were not produced by accident. la place found, by computing the chances by the formula of probabilities, that the chances were two millions to one against these regularities happening by chance, _and four millions to one in favor of these motions having a common origin_. the grand phenomenon being a motion of rotation in the whole system, of which the rotation of the sun is the central part, he thought if he could account for this, he could explain all the rest. he set out by supposing, that the sun and planets originally existed as a vast cloud of gaseous matter, intensely heated--a vast fire-mist--placed in a region of space much cooler, and that this cloud, by gradual cooling, and the pressure of its parts, settled down into solid forms. it was supposed that some portions of this cloud would begin to cool sooner than others, and so become solid sooner, and that the hot gas, rushing to the solid part, would form a vortex, which would set the cloud in motion around its center. as the speed of its rotation would increase, and the outside condense and grow solid before the inside, the cloud would whirl off the rings of solid matter, which would keep revolving in the same orbits in which they were cast off, and would revolve faster and faster as they grew cooler and more solid, till they broke up, by the force of their velocity, into smaller pieces; which fragments, in their turn, repeated the process, until the present number of planets and their satellites was produced.[199] this theory differs from buffon's much as a low pressure engine, deriving most of its power from the condenser, differs from one of high pressure. la place does not explode the boiler to make his planets, but merely runs his train so fast as to break an axle every now and then, when the wheel runs off with the velocity it has got, and keeps its track as well as if it had an engineer to guide it, grows into a little locomotive by dint of running, and after a while breaks an axle too--breaking is a hereditary failing of these suns and planets that had no god to make them--and the wheels thus thrown off supply it with moons and rings, like saturn's. the illustration is not nearly so absurd as the theory, inasmuch as a locomotive is an incomparably less complicated contrivance than a planet. however the nonsense was cradled in the halls of philosophy by means of antiquity, and distance. as no fiction was too marvelous for the credence of the greek, if it were only a hundred years old, or located beyond the euxine, so to our development philosopher any impossibility may be accepted, if it can only be dissolved into gas, and located a good many millions of miles away; and to make it an article of faith on which he will risk his soul, it is only necessary to give it a remote antiquity. no papist ever insisted more on antiquity as the solvent of all absurdity. antiquity, distance, and expansion are his trinity, with which all absurdities become scientific facts. herschel had discovered numbers of nebulæ, or luminous clouds, in the distant heavens shining with a distinct light, but which, with the highest magnifying power he could apply, presented no trace of stars. some nebulæ, it is true, his largest telescope resolved, like our own milky way, into beds of distinct stars; but there were others--for instance, one in the belt of orion--visible to the naked eye as a cloud, but which his forty feet telescope only displayed as a larger cloud, without any shape of stars. now, reasoning upon the matter, he found that if these nebulæ were composed of stars as large as those distinctly visible, they must be immensely distant to be indistinguishable by his telescope, and exceedingly numerous and close together to give a cloud of light visible to the naked eye. in fact, the suns of those firmaments must be so close to each other as to present a blaze of glory, and complexities of revolution inconceivable to the dwellers on earth. but as this daring idea seemed incredible, even to his giant mind, he thought the appearance of these nebulæ might be more rationally accounted for by supposing that they were not stars at all, but simply clouds of gaseous matter, like the matter of comets, from which he supposed that stars were formed by a long process of condensation and solidification. he thought this theory was favored by the fact, that nebulæ are generally seen in those portions of the heavens that are not thickly strewn with stars; and also by the various forms of these clouds. some were merely loose clouds, without any definite form; others seemed gathering toward the center. in some, of a roundish, or oval form, the central mass seemed well defined. in a few, the process seemed nearly complete, a bright star shining in the midst of a faint nebulous halo. here, then, it was said, we see the whole progress of the growth of stars; their development from the gaseous nebulous fluid into solid, brilliant suns. la place accepted herschel's discoveries as conclusive proof of the truth of his theory, and it was generally accepted by the scientific world. oddly enough, infidels seem not to have noticed that those appearances of _condensation toward the center_, which seemed to herschel so strongly in favor of his theory of the nebulous fluid, were diametrically opposed to la place's requirements of _condensation at the circumference_; and these two contradictory notions were supposed to support each other, and to furnish a solid basis for the development hypothesis. this theory, as stated by herschel, and expounded by nichol, dick, and other christian writers, _is not necessarily atheistical_. on the contrary, they allege that it furnishes us with greater evidences of the power of god, and gives us higher ideas of his wisdom, to suppose a system of creation by development, under natural law, than by a direct exercise of his will. undoubtedly, had god so pleased he could have made suns from fire-mists, according to some plan which his infinite wisdom could devise, and his omnipotent power could execute; but it is beyond the possibilities even of omniscience and omnipotence to make worlds, or to make anything but nonsense, according to la place's plan. had god so pleased, to make firmaments grow as forests do, and if he should please to enable us to discover such celestial growth in some distant part of heaven, we should have the same kind of evidence of his being, power, wisdom, and goodness in this creation by natural law which we now have from his providence by natural law, in the growth of the fruits of the earth, and as much greater an amount of it as the heavens are greater than the earth. the first beginning of primeval elements demands a creator. the contrivance of the law of development proclaims a contriver. the force by which it operates--whether that of gravity or chemical reaction--must be the force of an agent. _the development theory, then, fails to account for the origin of the universe, or even of our own world._ herbert spencer, its most eloquent expounder, admits this. he says: "it remains only to point out that while the genesis of the solar system, and of countless other systems like it, is thus rendered comprehensible, the ultimate mystery continues as great as ever. the problem of existence is not solved; it is simply removed farther back. the nebular hypothesis throws no light on the origin of diffused matter; and diffused matter as much needs accounting for as concrete matter. the genesis of an atom is not easier to conceive than the genesis of a planet. nay, indeed, so far from making the universe a less mystery than before, it makes it a greater mystery. creation by manufacture is a much lower thing than creation by evolution. a man can put together a machine, but he can not make a machine develop itself. the ingenious artisan, able as some have been, so far to imitate vitality as to produce a mechanical piano-forte player, may in some sort conceive how, by greater skill, a complete man might be artificially produced; but he is unable to conceive how such a complex organism gradually arises out of a minute, structureless germ. that our harmonious universe once existed potentially as formless, diffused matter, and has slowly grown into its present organized state, is a far more astonishing fact than would have been its formation after the artificial method vulgarly supposed. those who hold it legitimate to argue from phenomena to noumena, may rightly contend that the nebular hypothesis implies a first cause as much transcending 'the mechanical god of paley,' as this does the fetish of a savage."[200] the nebular hypothesis, then, can not exist without god. however, as it seems to remove him to a great distance from this present world, both in space and time, it has become popular with atheists. the nebular hypothesis, as presented by atheists, _imagines a state of primeval matter as simple, or homogeneous, of which science presents no example, in heaven or on earth_. this homogeneous condition of matter is the very foundation of the theory. spencer reasons at great length, that all progress is from the simple to the differentiated. and it is indispensable for the atheists to prove that the primeval world was composed of matter perfectly simple and homogeneous. if they alleged that it was composed of several ingredients, nobody would believe them that this compound was eternal. there is no conviction of common sense stronger than that every compound has been put together by some compounder. they could not persuade a child that a plum pudding made itself, or that a steamship filled with passengers existed so from eternity, much less a planet with a much larger crew and company. they therefore alleged that the first matter of the universe was perfectly homogeneous and simple. when common people objected that no such thing was to be seen in this world nowadays, since all things here--stones, water, air, earth, plants, animals--are compounded and built up out of a great variety of matters, they claimed that this is the result of the growth of our planet; but that the nebulæ, which astronomers see far away in the sky, are young suns and planets, just beginning to condense, and that the gas they consist of is the genuine, simple, homogeneous matter out of which this world, and all worlds, originally made themselves. they thought the nebulæ were so very far away that nobody would ever go there to see and come back to contradict them; and so they were quite safe in pointing to them as examples of homogeneous matter. now one does not see, if the nebula had been exactly what the development men assert--_simple, homogeneous matter_--_how they could ever have made such a composite world as this out of it_, or indeed how they could make anything but itself out of it. no chemical actions or reactions can begin in a simple substance; there must always be at least two simple substances to make a compound. heating or cooling a simple substance will never make it a compound. you may heat water in a boiler and cool it again as often as you please, but your heating and cooling will never make coffee out of it, unless you put coffee into it. so you may heat and cool your simple nebula to all eternity, but you will never get coffee out of it, much less coffee and coffee-pot, china and company, with the biscuits and butter; all which, and a great deal more, our philosophers contrive to churn out of the primeval homogeneous nebula. but the progress of science has enabled us to show that the nebulæ, far from being simple, homogeneous matter, are compounded of as many ingredients as the flame of your lamp or gas light, which is combined of half a score of different substances. by the discovery of spectrum analysis we are able to analyze the chemical composition of the most distant flames, to tell whether they proceed from solids or gases in a state of combustion, and what are the gases and minerals consumed in them. as space forbids the details of this discovery here, i can only state the results, namely that some of the nebulæ consist of clouds of small solid stars, of which the nebula in orion is an instance; but others consist of flames of gases, in all cases compound, and showing, besides the oxygenated flame, the lines which declare the presence of hydrogen, and of several metals. thus it is proved, that no such eternal, homogeneous nebulæ are to be found in heaven, and consequently nobody could ever make worlds out of a substance which had no existence. this theory of development was always _a mere notion, a castle in the air_, and never could be anything more. to say that it was mere moonshine would be to give it far too respectable a standing; for moonshine has a real existence, and may be seen and felt. but nobody ever saw or felt a homogeneous nebula. indeed, its inventor never pretended that he, or anybody else, ever saw one; or saw it sailing off into moons, and planets, and suns, or ever would see any such thing. no scientific man has ever pretended that it was an established fact, or anything more than a theory, a notion. young people, who are invited to hazard their souls on the strength of this miscalled scientific theory, should remember that it is not science, which means something a man knows, but merely a theory, which is some notion which he imagines. _it is an unsatisfactory notion._ it does not answer the purpose of its inventors. as we have already seen, it gives us no account of the origin of the homogeneous matter of the nebula. it gives no answer to the questions, how did it get to be so hot, while all the space around it was so cold? is the fire that heated it burning still, or is it exhausted for want of fuel? were the germs of all the plants and animals in it while it was blazing at a white heat? if they were, how did they escape being burnt to ashes? if they were not, where did they come from? for there was nothing but that nebula then in existence. did it contain within itself all the principles of things, all the forces now found in the worlds which grew out of it? if so, how came they there? if not, how did attraction, and repulsion, vegetable life, animal life, intellect, and free will, work themselves into that cloud of homogeneous gas? professor tyndall thus exposes the absurdity of the supposition that the nebula contained the elements of mind: "for what are the core and essence of this hypothesis? strip it naked and you stand face to face with the notion that not alone the more ignoble forms of animalcular or animal life, not alone the noble forms of the horse and lion, not alone the exquisite and wonderful mechanisms of the human body, but the human mind itself--emotion, intellect, will, and all these phenomena, were once latent in a fiery cloud. surely the mere statement of such a notion is more than a refutation."[201] _it was only one of several contradictory notions._ thus a writer in the _atlantic monthly_, so far from accepting the notion that the sun and earth are solidifying and cooling down, as explanatory of the facts revealed by astronomy and geology, infers the very contrary from the acknowledged facts, namely, that we are coming up to the nebular condition, rather than developing from it. he writes as follows: "the earth is progressing by excessively slow changes toward the solar and nebulous condition. its history is a repetition of the solar, and a time must arrive when the surface, becoming incandescent, will be obscured only by casual dark pits in a brilliant atmosphere, a _souvenir_ of the present darkness of the crust; yet during a certain period, within fixed limits of gravitating force and heat of mass, the human race may continue to exist; progressing, we may suppose, in force and fineness of organization. the race will perish, perhaps, in the order of nature, by failure or insufficient number of offspring, a principal cause of the extinction of superior races. the earth must become lone and voiceless long before the incandescence of the crust. science may follow it into the condition of an attendant star, and then of an expanding nebula. "in the cosmos all movements are cyclical, and recurrent, without change, save interchange among forms of motion. a universe which is, in its total, the same to-day as yesterday, and always, would appear idle and dull if it were not the footstool of divine force, upon which the creative will maintains a certain equipoise, necessary to the continued production of spiritual forms." _it is an impracticable notion, contrary to the first principle of mechanics, that action and reaction are equal._ the grand requirement of the system--power to work the engine--can never be raised by la place's, nor by any other mechanical plan. the cooling cloud of fire-mist is simply a very big machine, and no machine can generate power to work itself. if la place could have somehow or other got power for the motion of rotation outside of his cloud, he might have made it revolve, and scatter off great lumps of the lightest outside stuffs, as your grindstone scatters off drops of water when you turn it rapidly; but, having no such power, his theory is a plan to make the grindstone turn itself. it is, therefore, precisely of the same value as any one of the hundred of ingenious schemes for creating power by machinery, of the perpetual motion men, in defiance of the first law of mechanics, that action and reaction are equal. moreover, he proposes to raise the power by making the gas cool at one part of the surface faster than at another, and so to make a vortex around that spot, which would set the whole mass to revolving. but no conceivable reason can be alleged why the homogeneous mass should begin to cool at one place faster than another, or indeed why an eternally hot mass should ever begin to cool at all. but, letting that pass, to make the required vortex for the rotation of the whole mass, it should not begin to cool at any part of the surface, but at the center, where, as every engine driver who ever saw a condenser, and every woman who ever cooled a dish of mush knows, it could not possibly begin to cool till the outside mass had become cold; and so no motion could be produced. this is so well known in the machine shops that it is rare to find a machinist own the theory. but even a more fatal objection has been raised by one of the most eloquent expounders of the theory. mr. spencer shows us that the mass, condensing under the influence of gravitation, so far from cooling _must necessarily evolve heat_. he is perfectly clear and decided on this matter, _that the condensing mass could never, by any possibility, begin to cool, but must begin to heat, and go on heating till it burst out in a blaze_. he says: "heat must inevitably be generated by the aggregation of diffused matter into a concrete form; and throughout our reasonings we have assumed that such generation of heat has been an accompaniment of nebular condensation."[202] "while the condensation and the rate of rotation are progressively increasing, the approach of the atoms necessarily generates _a progressively increasing temperature_. as this temperature rises light begins to be evolved, and ultimately there results a revolving sphere of fluid matter radiating intense light and heat--a sun."[203] this, it will be perceived, is exactly the reverse of the original nebular theory of a cooling globe, or spheroid of homogeneous nebular matter, diffused by intense heat, and cooling down into suns, and moons, and planets. so far as the spencer system is accepted, it displaces la place's theory, and the inventor accordingly works out a new theory of his own, and equally inconsistent with known facts and principles. but as mr. spencer candidly owns that his scheme can neither generate matter nor force, as we have already seen, it needs no further discussion in this connection. the fact is simply this, a chemical perpetual motion is as impossible as a mechanical one. the discovery of the convertibility of forces shows this. the development theory of the generation of motion by processes of the self-heating or the self-cooling of the machine, or by chemical actions and reactions, is, in its last analysis, only a big perpetual motion humbug. even were the rotation, and the cooling process, to take place, as is supposed, _no such results would proceed from these combined operations as the case requires_; for, according to the theory, as the cooling and contracting rings revolve in the verge of a vortex of fluid less dense than themselves, one of these two results must take place: either, as is most probable, from their exceeding tenuity, the rings will break at once into fragments, when, instead of flying outward, they will sink toward the center, and, as long as they are heavier than the surrounding fluid, _they will stay there_; and, as the cooling goes on on the outside, so will the concentration of the heavier matter, till we have _one_ great spheroid, with a solid center, liquid covering, and gaseous atmosphere. a vortex will never make, nor allow to exist beyond its center, planets heavier than the fluid of which it is composed. the other alternative, and the one which la place selected, was the supposition that the cooling and contracting rings did not at first break up into pieces, but retained their continuity; but, contrary to all experience and reason, he supposed that these cooling rings kept contracting and widening out from the heated mass, at the same time. the only fluid planetary rings which we can examine--those of saturn--have been closing in on the planet since the days of huygens, and eventually will be united with the body of the planet. every boy who has seen a blacksmith hoop a cart-wheel has learned the principle, that a heated ring contracts as it cools, and in doing so presses in upon the mass around which it clings. but, according to this nebular notion, the fire-mist keeps cooling and shrinking up, while the rings, of the very same heat and material, keep cooling faster, and widening out from it; a piece of schismatical behavior without a parallel among solids or fluids, either in heaven or earth, or under the earth. plateau's illustration of the mode in which centrifugal force acts in overcoming molecular attraction, has been cited as a demonstration of the truth of the nebular hypothesis. the conditions, however, are entirely different. by means of clock-work he caused a globule of oil to rotate in a mixture of alcohol and water _of the same density_, thus entirely getting rid of the power of gravitation; and by increasing the velocity he caused it to flatten out into a disc, and finally to project a multitude of minute drops, which continued their revolutions so long as the fluid in which they floated kept revolving by the motion of the rotating spindle, _the divergent drops, the central mass, and the surrounding fluid, being all the while of the same density_. but the essential conditions of the nebular theory are, that _the central mass_ exert an attraction of gravitation upon all its parts, and _therefore be denser than the surrounding ether or empty space_, and that _the cooling and contracting rings be of a different density from the rest of the mass_. their divergence from the more fluid portion is supposed to arise from their growing denser. and reclus shows[204] that the divergent drops owe their existence to the _expansion_, not to the _contraction_, of the globule of oil. this experiment, then, contradicts the theory, so far as it is applicable. plateau himself never adduced this experiment in support of the nebular theory; but having, by way of illustration, spoken of the revolving drops as satellites, and finding that expression misunderstood, he corrected the error in a subsequent paper. he says: "it is clear that this mode of formation is entirely foreign to la place's cosmogonic hypothesis; therefore we have no idea of deducing from this little experiment, which only refers _to the effects of molecular attraction_, and _not to those of gravitation_, any argument in favor of the hypothesis in question; an hypothesis which _in other respects we do not adopt_."[205] _it was always contrary to the facts of astronomical science._ it has accordingly been repudiated by the most eminent astronomers. sir john herschel declares that the appearance of those groups, or clusters, of stars, supposed to be formed by the condensation of nebulæ is quite different from that depicted by this theory, and that no traces of the ring-making process is visible among them. he thus describes the appearances of these groups; exactly the contrary of that demanded by the theory, which he emphatically disclaims, from the presidential chair of the british association for the advancement of science. "if it is to be regarded as demonstrated truth, or as receiving the smallest support from any observed numerical relations which actually hold good among the elements of the primary orbits, i beg leave to demur. assuredly it receives no support from the observation of the effects of sidereal aggregation as exemplified in the formation of globular and elliptic clusters, supposing them to have resulted from such aggregation. for we see this cause working out in thousands of instances, to have resulted, _not_ in the formation of a single large central body, surrounded by a few smaller attendants disposed in one plane around it, but in systems of infinitely greater complexity, consisting of multitudes of nearly equal luminaries, grouped together in a solid elliptic or globular form. so far then as any conclusions from our observations of nebulæ can go, the result of agglomerative tendencies _may_ indeed be the formation of families of stars of a general and very striking character, but we see nothing to lead us to presume its further result to be the surrounding of those stars with planetary adherents."[206] _this theory is contradicted by the peculiarities of our solar system._ the orbits of the comets being inclined at all angles to the sun's equator, are often out of the plane of his rotation, and so in the way of the theory. the moons of uranus revolve in a direction contrary to all the other bodies, and fly right into the face of the theory. according to the nebular theory, the outer planets, first cast off from the sun, ought to be lighter than those nearer him, as these had longer pressing near the middle of the mass; and the sun himself, having been pressed by the weight of all the rest of the system, should be the densest body of the whole. and the author of _the vestiges of creation_, in expounding the theory, manufactures a set of facts to suit it, and tells his readers that the planets exhibit a progressive diminution in density from the one nearest the sun to that which is most distant. our solar system could not have lasted thirty years had that been the case. the earth, venus, and mars, are nearly of the same density. uranus is more dense than saturn, which is nearer the sun. neptune is more dense than either. the sun, which ought to be the heaviest of all, according to the theory, is only one-fourth the density of the earth. la place himself has demonstrated that these densities and arrangements are indispensable to the stability of the system. but they are plainly contradictory to his theory of its formation.[207] the palpable difference of luminosity between the sun and the planets, which, as they are all made of the very same materials, and by the same process, according to this theory, ought to be equally self-luminous, is in itself a self-evident refutation of the nebular hypothesis, or of any other process of creation by mere mechanical law. "the same power, whether natural or supernatural, which placed the sun in the center of the six primary planets, placed saturn in the center of the orb of his five secondary planets; and jupiter in the center of his four secondary planets; and the earth in the center of the moon's orbit; and, therefore, had this cause been a blind one, _without contrivance or design_, the sun would have been a body of the same kind with saturn, jupiter, and the earth; that is, _without light or heat_. why there is one body in our system qualified to give light and heat to all the rest, i know no reason, but because the author of the system thought it convenient." so says the immortal newton.[208] the great expounder of modern science--humboldt--is equally explicit in enumerating the decisive marks of choice and will in the construction of the solar system, and in contemptuously dismissing the notion of development and creation by natural law from the halls of science. "up to the present time, _we are ignorant, as i have already remarked, of any internal necessity--any mechanical law of nature_--which (like the beautiful law which connects the square of the periods of revolution with the cube of the major axis) represents the above-named elements--the absolute magnitude of the planets, their density, flattening at the poles, velocity of rotation, and presence or absence of moons--of the order of succession of the individual planetary bodies of each group, in their dependence upon the distances. although the planet which is nearest the sun is densest--even six or eight times denser than some of the exterior planets: jupiter, saturn, uranus, and neptune--the order of succession in the case of venus, the earth, and mars, is very irregular. the absolute magnitudes do, generally, as kepler has already observed, increase with the distances; but this does not hold good when the planets are considered individually. mars is smaller than the earth; uranus smaller than saturn; saturn smaller than jupiter, and succeeds immediately to a host of planets, which, on account of their smallness, are almost immeasurable. it is true, the period of rotation generally increases with the distance from the sun; but it is in the case of mars slower than in that of the earth, and slower in saturn than in jupiter."[209] "_our knowledge of the primeval ages of the world's physical history does not extend sufficiently far to allow of our depicting the present condition of things as one of development._"[210] sir david brewster adds his testimony as follows: "geology does not pretend to give us any information respecting the process by which the nucleus of the earth was formed. some speculative astronomers indeed have presumptuously embarked in such an inquiry; but there is not a trace of evidence that the solid nucleus of the globe was formed by secondary causes, such as the aggregation of attenuated matter diffused through space; and the _nebular theory_, as it has been called, though maintained by a few distinguished names, has, we think, been overturned by arguments which have never been answered. sir isaac newton, in his four celebrated letters to dr. bentley, has demonstrated that the planets of the solar system could not have been thus formed and put in motion round a central sun."[211] 4. _astronomy not only exposes the folly of past cosmogonies, but demonstrates the impossibility of framing any true theory of creation, and thus refutes all future cosmogonies._ the grand error of all cosmogonies lies in the arrogant assumption, on which every one of them must be founded, _that the theorist is acquainted with all substances, and all forces in the universe_, and with all the modes of their operation; not only at the present period, and on this earth, but in all past ages, and in worlds in widely different, and utterly unknown situations; for, if he be ignorant of any substance, or of any active force in the universe, his generalization is avowedly imperfect, and necessarily erroneous. that unknown force must have had its influence in framing the world. its omission, then, is fatal to the theory which neglects it. a theory of creation, for instance, which would neglect the attraction of gravitation would be manifestly false. but there are other forces as far reaching, whose omission must be equally fatal; for instance, the power of repulsion. a conviction of this truth has given rise to a constant effort to simplify matters down to the level of our ignorance, by reducing all substances to one, or at most two simple elements, and all forces to the form of one universal law; but the progress of science utterly blasts the attempt. instead of simplifying matters, the very chemical processes undertaken with that view revealed new substances, and every year increases our knowledge of nature's variety. no scientific man now dreams of one primeval element. in the same way, astronomy, which, it was boasted, would enable us to account for all the operations of the universe, by reducing all motion to one mechanical law, has revealed to us the existence of other forces as far reaching as the attraction of gravitation, and more powerful; and substances whose nature and combinations are utterly unknown. but every cosmogony is just an attempt to simplify matters, by ignoring the existence of these unknown substances, and mysterious forces; a process which science condemns, as utterly unphilosophical and absurd. astronomy has shown us _our ignorance of the substances_, or _materials_, _of our own little globe_. it has demonstrated that the whole body of the earth must have an average density equal to iron. as the rocks near the surface are much lighter, those toward the center must be heavier than iron, to make up this density. of what, then, do they consist? the geologist says he does not know. no geologist ever saw them. no mortal ever will see them, and report their chemical constitution, their dip, and the arrangement of their strata, to the american association for the advancement of science. the very utmost "we can say is that they are unlike anything with which we are acquainted." very well; then be pleased to have the decency to abstain from telling us how the world was made, when you don't know what it is made of. the sun's heat, at its surface, is 300,000 times greater than at the surface of the earth, but a tenth of this amount, collected in the focus of a lens, dissipates gold and platinum in vapor. when the most vivid flames which we can produce are held up in the blaze of his rays, they disappear. if a cataract of icebergs, a mile high, and wider than the atlantic ocean, were launched into the sun with the velocity of a cannon-ball, the small portion of the sun's heat expended on our earth would convert that vast mass into steam as fast as it entered his atmosphere without cooling its surface in the least degree. "the great mystery, however, is to conceive how so enormous a conflagration (if such it be) can be kept up. every discovery in chemical science here leaves us completely at a loss, or rather seems to remove farther the prospect of probable explanation."[212] yet, the sun is the nearest of the fixed stars, and by far the best known, and most nearly related to us. in fact, we are dependent on his influences for life and health. but if the theorist _can not tell his substance, or the nature and cause of the light and heat he sends us_, how can he presume so far on the world's credulity as to present a theory of his formation? "astronomical problems accumulate unsolved upon our hands, because we can not, as mechanicians, chemists, or physiologists, experiment on the stars. are they built of the same material as our planet? are saturn's rings solid, or liquid? has the moon an atmosphere? are the atmospheres of the planets like ours? are the light and heat of the sun begotten of combustion? and what is the fuel which feeds these unquenchable fires? these are questions, which we ask, and variously answer, _but leave unanswered after all_."[213] but, till he can answer these, and a thousand questions like these, let no man presume to describe the formation of these unknown orbs. comets constitute by far the greatest number of the bodies of our solar system. arago says seven millions frequent it, within the orbit of uranus.[214] they are the largest bodies known to us, stretching across hundreds of millions of miles. they approach nearer to this earth than any other bodies, sometimes even involving it in their tails, and generally exciting great alarm among its inhabitants. but the nature of the transparent luminous matter of which they are composed is utterly unknown. as they approach the sun, they come under an influence directly the opposite of attraction. the tail streams away from the sun, over a distance of millions of miles, _and yet the rate of the comet's motion toward the sun is quickened_, as though it were an immense rocket, driven forward by its own explosion. further, while the body of the comet travels toward the sun, sometimes with a velocity nearly one-third of that of light, the tail sends forth coruscations in the opposite direction, with a much greater velocity. the greatest velocity with which we are acquainted on earth is the velocity of light, which travels a million of times faster than a cannon-ball, or at the rate of 195,000 miles per second; but here is a substance capable of traveling twenty-three times faster, and here is a force propelling it, twenty-three times greater than any which exists on earth. its existence was first discovered by the coruscations of the comet of 1807. "in less than one second, streamers shot forth, to two and a half degrees in length; they as rapidly disappeared, and issued out again, sometimes in proportions, and interrupted, like our northern lights. afterward the tail varied, both in length and breadth; and in some of the observations, the streamers shot forth from the whole expanded end of the tail, sometimes here, sometimes there, in an instant, two and a half degrees long; _so that within a single second they must have shot out a distance of 4,600,000 miles_."[215] similar exhibitions of this unknown force were made by the comet of 1811, by halley's comet, and several others. in these amazing disclosures of the unknown forces of the heavens, do we not hear a voice rebuking the presumption of ignorant theorists, with the questions, knowest _thou_ the ordinances of heaven? canst _thou_ set the dominion thereof in the earth? hear one of the most distinguished of modern astronomers expound the moral bearings of such a discovery: "the intimation of a new cosmical power--i mean of one so unsuspected before, but which yet can follow a planet through all its wanderings--throws us back once more into the indefinite obscure, and checks all dogmatism. how many influences, hitherto undiscovered by our ruder senses, may be ever streaming toward us, and modifying every terrestrial action. and yet, because we had traced one of these, we have deemed our astronomy complete! deeper far, and nearer to the root of things, is that world with which man's destiny is entwined."[216] we can have no reason, save our own self-sufficient arrogance, to believe that the discovery of these two forces exhausts the treasures of infinite wisdom. humboldt thus well refutes the folly of such an imagination: "the imperfectibility of all empirical science, and the boundlessness of the sphere of observation, render the task of explaining the forces of matter by that which is variable in matter, an impracticable one. what has been already perceived, by no means exhausts that which is perceptible. if, simply referring to the progress of science in our own times, we compare the imperfect physical knowledge of robert boyle, gilbert, and hales, with that of the present day, and remember that every few years are characterized by an increasing rapidity of advance, we shall be better able to imagine _the periodical and endless changes which all physical sciences are destined to undergo. new substances and new forces will be discovered._"[217] thus, all true science, conscious of its ignorance, ever leads the mind to the region of faith. its first lesson, and its last lesson, is humility. it tells us that every cosmogony, which the children of theory so laboriously scratch in the sand, must be swept away by the rising tide of science. when we seek information on the great questions of our origin and destiny, and cry, "where shall wisdom be found, and what is the place of understanding?" the high priests of science answer, in her name, "it is not in me; the measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea." we receive this honest acknowledgment as an inestimable boon. we are saved thereby the wearying labor of a vain and useless search after knowledge which lies not in her domain. we come down to the bible with the profound conviction that science can give us no definite information of our origin, no certainty of our destiny, and but an imperfect acquaintance with the laws which govern this present world. if the bible can not inform us on these all-important questions, we must remain ignorant. science declares she can not teach us. the word of god remains, not merely the best, but absolutely the only, the last resource of the anxious soul. the bible gives us no theory of creation. it simply asserts the fact, that "in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth," but does not tell us _how_ he did so. the knowledge could be of no use to us, for he never means to employ us as his assistants in the work of creation. nor could we understand the matter. the force by which he called the worlds into being, and upholds them in it, exists in no creature. "he stretcheth forth the heavens alone. he spreadeth abroad the earth by himself." "he upholdeth all things by the word of his power." but it presents anxious, careworn, humbled souls with something infinitely more precious than cosmogonies; even an explicit declaration of the love toward them of him who made these worlds. "thus saith the lord, thy redeemer, and he who formed thee from the womb: i am the lord, who maketh all things; who stretcheth forth the heavens alone, and spreadeth abroad the earth, by myself." "he healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. he telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them all by their names. great is our lord, and of great power; his wisdom is infinite!" yes, the creator of heaven and earth, who upholds all things by the word of his power, became a man like you, and dwelt on earth, and suffered the sorrow, the shame, the pain, the death, that sinful man deserved; and when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. from that heavenly throne his voice now sounds, reader, in your ear, "come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and _i will give you rest_." footnotes: [186] cosmos iii. 138. [187] herschel's outlines, chap. xvii. sec. 887. [188] cosmos iii. 197. [189] nichol's architecture of the heavens, 9th ed. p. 180. [190] cosmos iv. 292. [191] nichol's contemplations on the solar system, xxx. [192] cosmos iii. 253. [193] herschel's outlines of astronomy, chap. xvi. [194] _new york evangelist_, may 5, 1870. [195] nichol's architecture of the heavens, 9th edition, 272. [196] pontecoulant in _system of the world_, p. 70. [197] progress of astronomy, 70. [198] memoirs of the french academy, by m. le verrier; from _the annual of scientific discovery_, for 1855, p. 376. [199] herschel's outlines of astronomy, p. 558, ed. of 1853. [200] illustrations of universal progress, page 298. [201] fragments of science and scientific thought, p. 163. [202] illustrations of progress, page 292. [203] illustrations of progress, page 34. [204] the earth, page 256. [205] taylor's scientific memoirs, vol. v., cited in mccosh's typical forms and special ends in creation, p. 403. [206] opening address to the british association, 1845. [207] taking water as the unit of density, mercury is 6.71; venus, 5.11; earth, 5.44; mars, 5.21; saturn, 0.76; uranus, 0.97; neptune, 1.25; the sun, 1.37.--cosmos iv. p. 447. [208] newton's optics, iv. p. 438. [209] cosmos, iv. p. 425. [210] cosmos, iii. p. 28. [211] more worlds than one, p. 45. [212] herschel's outlines, vi. sect. 400. [213] dr. george wilson, f. r. s. e., in edinburgh phil. journal, v. p. 53. [214] somerville's connection of the physical sciences, p. 360. [215] dick's sidereal heavens, chap. xx. [216] nichol's solar system, p. 76. [217] cosmos, iii. p. 27. chapter xi. daylight before sunrise. in the last chapter we saw astronomy demonstrating our need of a revelation from god. in this we shall see how it illustrates and confirms that revelation. seen through the telescope, the bible glows with celestial splendor. even its cloudy mysteries are displayed as clouds of light, and its long misunderstood phrases are resolved, by a scientific investigation, into galaxies of brilliant truths, proclaiming to the philosopher that the book which describes them is as truly the word of god as the heavens which it describes are his handiwork. if, once in a century, a profound practical astronomer is found denying the inspiration of the bible, he will either acknowledge, or discover himself, not familiar with its contents. for the most part, the charges brought against the bible, of contradicting the facts of astronomy, are based upon misstatements and mistakes of its teachings, and so do not fall within the range of the telescope, or the department of the observatory. the sabbath-school teacher, and not the astronomer, is the proper person to correct such errors. a few months' instruction in the bible class of any well-conducted sabbath-school would save some of our popular anti-bible lecturers from the sin of misrepresenting the word of god, and the shame of hearing children laugh at their blunders. a favorite field for the display of their knowledge of science, and ignorance of the art of reading, by our modern infidels, is the bible account of creation, in the first chapter of genesis, which is alleged to be utterly irreconcilable with the known facts of astronomy and geology. leaving the latter out of view, for the present, the astronomical objections may all be arranged under four heads. first: that the bible account of the creation of man, only some six or seven thousand years ago, must be false; because the records of astronomical observations, taken more than seventeen thousand years ago, by the hindoos and egyptians, are still in existence, and have been verified. second: that the light of some of the stars, now shining upon us, and especially of some of the distant nebulæ, must have left them millions of years ago, to have traveled over the vast space which separates them from us, and be visible on our globe now; whereas, the bible teaches that the universe was created only some six or seven thousand years ago. third: that the bible represents god as creating the sky a solid crystal, or metallic sphere, or hemisphere (they are not agreed which), to which the stars are fastened, and with which they revolve around the earth; which every school-boy knows to be absurd. fourth: that the bible represents god as creating the sun and moon only two days before adam, and as creating light before the sun, which is also held to be absurd. 1. the first of these objections--that the hindoos and egyptians made astronomical observations thousands of years before adam, and that the accuracy of these observations has been verified by modern calculations--_is simply untrue_. no such observations were ever made. the pretended records of such have been proved, in the case of the hindoo astronomy, to be forgeries, and in the case of the egyptian records, blunders of the discoverers. there is not an authentic uninspired astronomical observation extant for two thousand years after adam. the objection, however, is worth noticing, and its history worth remembering, as a specimen of the way in which ignorant men swallow impudent falsehoods, if they only seem to contradict the word of truth. when the labors of oriental scholars had made the vedas and shasters--the sacred books of the hindoos--accessible to european philosophers, a wonderful shout was raised among infidels. "here," it was said, "is the true chronology. we always knew that man was not a degenerate creature, fallen from a higher estate, some few thousand years ago, but that he has existed from eternity, in a constant progress toward his present lofty position; and now we have the most authentic records of the most ancient and civilized people in the world--the people of india--reaching back for millions of years before the mosaic cosmogony, and allowing ample time for the development of the noble savage into the cultivated philosopher. these records have every mark of truth, giving minute details of events, and histories of successive lines of princes; and, moreover, record the principal astronomical facts of the successive periods--eclipses, comets, positions of stars, etc.--which attest their veracity. henceforth, the hebrew records must hide their heads. neither as poetry nor history can they pretend to compare with the vedas." the hindoo shasters were accordingly, for a time, in high repute, among people who knew very little about them. even dr. adam clarke was so far led away with the spirit of the age, as to pollute his valuable commentary by the insertion of the _gitagovinda_, after the chaldee targum on the song of solomon; where the curious reader can satisfy himself as to the scientific value of such pantheistic dotings. by the infidels of britain and america they were appealed to as standard works of undoubted authority; and hundreds, who declared that it was irrational credulity to believe in the bible, risked their souls on the faith of the vedas, _of which they never had read a single sentence_! now, when we remember that these veracious chronicles reach back through _maha yugs_ of 4,320,000 years of mortals, a thousand of which, or 4,320,000,000, make a _kalpa_ or one day of the life of brahma, while his night is of the same duration, and his life consists of a hundred years of such days and nights, about the middle of which period the little span of our existence is placed; that among the facts of the history are the records of the seven great continents of the world, separated by seven rivers, and seven chains of mountains, four hundred thousand miles high (reaching only to the moon); of the families of their kings, one of whom had a hundred sons, another only ten thousand, another sixty thousand, who were born in a pumpkin, nourished in pans of milk, reduced to ashes by the curse of a sage, and restored to life by the waters of the ganges; and that among the astronomical observations, by which the accuracy of these extraordinary facts is confirmed, are accounts of deluges, in which the waters not only rose above the tops of earth's mountains, but above the seven inferior and three superior worlds, _reaching even to the pole star_[218]--we may well wonder at the faith which could receive all this as so true, that on the strength of it they rejected the miracles of the bible as false. even voltaire ridiculed these stories. but a visionary man, named baillie, calculated the alleged observations backward, and found them sufficiently correct to satisfy him that all the rest of the story was equally true. it never seems to have occurred to him, that if he could calculate eclipses _backward_, so could the hindoos. it is just as easy to calculate an eclipse, or the position of a planet, backward as forward. if i watch the motion of the hands of a clock accurately, and find that the little hand moves over the twelfth of a circle every hour, and the large hand around the circle in the same time, and that the large hand, now at noon, covers the little one, i can calculate, that at sixteen minutes and a quarter past three it will nearly cover it again; but then, it is just as easy to count that the two hands were covered at sixteen minutes and a quarter before nine that morning, or that they were exactly in line at 6 a. m. if my clock would keep going at the same rate for a thousand years, i could predict the position of the hands at any hour of the twenty-ninth of march, of the year 2857; but it is evident that the very same calculation applied the other way would show the position that the hands would have had a thousand years ago, or five thousand years ago, just as well. and if i were to allege that my clock was made by tubal cain, before the flood, and for proof of the fact declare, that on the first of january, 3857 b. c., at 6 o'clock p. m., i had seen the two hands directly in line, and some wiseacre were to calculate the time, and find that at that hour the hands ought to have been just in that position, and conclude thence that i was undoubtedly one of the antediluvians, and the clock no less certainly a specimen of the craft of the first artificer in brass and iron, the argument would be precisely parallel to the infidel's argument from the tirvalore tables, and the astronomy of the vedas. but suppose my clock ran a little slow; say half a minute in the month, or so; or that it was made to keep sidereal time, which differs by a little from solar time, and that i did not know exactly what the difference was; it is evident that on a long stretch of some hundreds or thousands of years, i would get out of my reckoning, and the hands would not have been in the positions i had calculated. now, this was just what happened with the brahmins and their calculations. the clock of the heavens keeps a uniform rate of going, but they made a slight mistake in the counting of it; and so did their infidel friends. but our modern astronomers have got the true time, set their clocks, and made their tables by it; and on applying these tables to the pretended hindoo observations, find that they are all wrong, and that no such eclipses as they allege ever did occur or possibly could have happened in our solar system.[219] so the hindoo astronomy is now consigned to the same tomb with the hindoo chronology and cosmogony, except when a missionary, on the banks of the ganges, exhibits it to the pupils of his english school, as a specimen of the falsehoods which have formed the swaddling bands of pantheism. failing in the attempt to substitute brahminism for christianity, infidels beat a retreat from india, and went down into egypt for help. here they made prodigious discoveries of the scientific and religious truths believed by the worshipers of dogs and dung beetles, recorded upon the coffins of holy bulls, and the temples sacred to crows and crocodiles. the age was favorable for such discoveries. napoleon and his savans cut out of the ceiling of a temple, at denderah, in egypt, a stone covered with uncouth astronomical, astrological, and hieroglyphic figures, which they insisted was a representation of the sky at the time the temple was built; and finding a division made between the signs of the crab and the lion, and marks for the sun and moon there, they took it into their heads that the sun must have entered the zodiac at that spot, on the year this zodiac was made; and, calculating back, found that must be at least seventeen thousand years ago. hundreds of thousands visited the wonderful antediluvian monument, in the national library, in paris, where it had been brought; and where infidel commentators were never wanting to inform them that this remarkable stone proved the whole bible to be a series of lies. a professor of the university of breslau published a pamphlet, entitled _invincible proof that the earth is at least ten times older than is taught by the bible_. scores of such publications followed, and for forty years infidel newspapers, magazines, and reviews kept trumpeting this great refutation of the bible. from these it descended to the vulgar, with additions and improvements; and it is now frequently alleged as proving that "ten thousand years before adam was born, the priests of egypt were carving astronomy on the pyramids." there is scarcely one of my french or german readers who has not heard of it. it did not shake the skeptic's credulity in the least that no two of the savans were agreed, by some thousands of years, how old it was--that they could not tell what the egyptian system of astronomy was--_and that none of them could read the hieroglyphics which explained it_. whatever might be doubtful, of one thing they were all perfectly sure, that it was far older than the creation. but in 1832 the curious egyptian astronomy was studied, and it appeared that the sun and moon were so placed on the zodiac to mark the beginning of the year there; and the dividing line fenced off one half of the sky under the care of the sun, while the other was placed under the moon's patronage. then it was discovered that the positions of the stars were represented by the pictures of the gods whose names they bore--jupiter, saturn, etc.--and by calculating the places of these pictures back, it was found that this zodiac represented their places in the year of our lord 37; the year of the birth of nero, a great temple-builder and repairer. finally, champollion learned to read the hieroglyphics, and the names, surnames, and titles of the emperors tiberius, claudius, nero, and domitian were found on the temple of denderah; and on the portico of the temple of esneh, which had been declared to be a few thousand years older than that of denderah, were found the names of claudius and antoninus pius; while the whole workmanship and style of building have satisfied all antiquarians that these buildings were erected during the declining days of art in the roman empire. the roman title, _autocrat_, engraved on the zodiac itself, attests its antiquity to be not quite two thousand, instead of seventeen thousand years. but, not satisfied with merely demolishing the batteries of infidelity, astronomy has been employed to ascertain the dates of numbers of events recorded on egyptian monuments to have happened to one or other of the pharaohs, "beloved of ammon, and brother of the sun," when such a star was in such a position. mr. poole has spent years in gathering such inscriptions, and in calculating the dates thus furnished. the astronomer royal, at greenwich, mr. airy, has reviewed the calculations, and finds them correct. wilkinson, the great egyptologist, agrees with their conclusions. and the result is, that _the astronomical chronology of the egyptian monuments sustains the bible chronology_.[220] geology comes forward to confirm the testimony of her elder sister, and assures us, that the alleged vast antiquity of the egyptian monuments is impossible, as it is not more than 5,000 years since the soil of egypt first appeared above water, as a muddy morass.[221] the learned adrian balbo thus sums up the whole question: "no monument, either astronomical or historical, has yet been able to prove the books of moses false; _but with them, on the contrary, agree, in the most remarkable manner, the results obtained by the most learned philologists and the profoundest geometricians_."[222] 2. to the second objection--that astronomers have discovered stars whose light must have been millions of years traveling to this earth, and that consequently these stars must have existed millions of years ago, and therefore the bible makes a false declaration when it says the universe was created only some six or seven thousand years ago--i reply by asking, _where does the bible say so?_ "what," says our objector, "is not that the good old orthodox doctrine of christians and commentators? do they not unanimously denounce geologists and astronomers as heretics, for asserting the vast antiquity of the earth?" we shall see presently that no such unanimity of denunciation has ever existed, and that some of the most ancient and learned christian commentators taught the antiquity of the earth, from the bible, before geology was born. but that is not the question before us just now. we are not asking what the good old orthodox doctrine of christians, or the unanimous opinion of commentators may have been; but what is the reading of the bible--_what does this book say?_--not, "what does somebody think?" "well," replies our objector, "does not the bible say, in the first of genesis, that god created the heavens and the earth in six days, and adam on the sixth; and are not chronologists agreed that that was not more than seven thousand years ago, at the very utmost?" if the bible had said that god created the heavens and the earth in six days, and that the end of that period was only seven thousand years ago, it would by no means follow that the beginning of it was only a few hours before that; for every bible reader knows, that the most common use of the word _day_, in scripture, is to denote, not a period of twenty-four hours, but a period of time which may be of various lengths.[223] in this very narrative (genesis ii. 5) it is used to denote the whole period of the six days' work: "in the day the lord god made the earth and the heavens." does it mean just twenty-four hours there? in the first of genesis, its duration is defined to consist of "the evening and the morning." before our infidel chronologist finds out the bible date of creation, he must be able to tell us _of what length was the evening which preceded the first morning_, and with it constituted the first day? god has of set purpose placed stumbling-blocks for scoffers at the entrance and the exit of the bible, as a rebuke to pride and vain curiosity.[224] the duration of the seventh day is also hidden from man. it is god's sabbath, on which he entered when he ceased from the work of creation, a rest which still continues, and which he invites us to enter into (hebrews iv. 1-5) as a preparation for the eternal rest. god's rest day has already lasted six thousand years, and no man can tell how much longer it may last. perhaps his working days were each as long. but if our objector had read the bible attentively, he would have seen that it _does not say that god created the heavens and the earth in six days_. before it begins to give any account of the six days' work, it tells us of a previous state of disorder; and going back beyond that again, it says: "_in the beginning_, god created the heavens and the earth." it is as self-evident that this _beginning_ was before the six days' work, as that the world must have existed before it could be adjusted to its present form. how long before, the bible does not say, nor does the objector pretend to know. it may have been as many millions of years as he assigns to the stars, or twice as many, for anything he knows to the contrary. he must have overlooked the first two verses of the bible, else he had never made this objection; which is simply a blunder, arising from incapacity to read a few verses of scripture correctly. but it is replied, "does not the bible say, in the fourth commandment, 'in six days the lord made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is,'" etc.? true. but we are speaking just now of a very different work--the work of _creation_. if any one does not know the difference between _create_ and _make_, let him turn to his dictionary, and webster will inform him that the primary literal meaning of _create_ is, "to produce; to bring into being from nothing; to cause to exist." the example he gives to illustrate his definition is this verse, "in the beginning god _created_ the heavens and the earth." but the primary meaning of _make_ is, "to compel; to constrain;" thence, "to form of materials;" and he illustrates the generic difference between these two words by a quotation from dwight: "god not only _made_, but _created_; he not only made the work, but the materials." both words are as good translations of the hebrew originals, _bra_, and _oshe_, as can be given. if any of my readers has not a dictionary he can satisfy himself thoroughly as to the different meanings of these two words, and of their equivalents in the original hebrew, by looking at their use in his bible. thus, he will find _create_ applied to the creation of the heavens and the earth, in the beginning, when there could have been no pre-existent materials to make them from; unless we adopt the atheistic absurdity, of the eternity of matter--that is to say, _that the paving stones made themselves_.[225] then it is applied to the production of animal life--verse twenty-one--which is not a product or combination of any lifeless matter, but a direct and constant resistance to the chemical and mechanical laws which govern lifeless matter: "god created great whales, and every living creature that moveth."[226] next it is applied to the production of the human race, as a species distinct from all other living creatures, and not derived from any of them. "god _created_ man in his own image."[227] it is in like manner applied to all god's subsequent bestowals of animal life and rational souls, which are directly bestowed by god, and are not in the power of any creature to give. "thou sendest forth thy spirit: they are _created_." "remember now thy _creator_, in the days of thy youth."[228] in all these instances, the use of the word determines its literal meaning to be what webster defines it: "to bring into being from nothing." the metaphorical use of the word is equally expressive of its literal meaning, for it is applied to the production of new dispositions of mind and soul utterly opposite to those previously existing. "create in me a clean heart;" which god thus explains: "a new heart will i give you, and a new spirit will i put within you; and i will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and i will give you an heart of flesh."[229] the hebrew word _bra_ has as many derivative meanings as our english word _create_; as we speak of "creating a peer," "long abstinence creating uneasiness," etc.; but these no more change the primitive idea in the one case than in the other. from this word _create_, the bible very plainly distinguishes the words _make_ and _form_, using them as the complement of the former, in many passages which speak of both creation and making. thus, man was both created and made. his life and soul are spoken of as a creation; his body as a formation from the dust; his deputed authority over the earth also implies a primal creation, and subsequent investiture; and so both terms are applied to it. so the words _make_ and _form_ are applied to the production of the bodies of animals from pre-existing materials, while animal life is ever spoken of as a product of creative power. but, that we may see that these processes are distinct, and that the words which express them have distinctive meanings, _the author of the bible takes care to use them both_ in reference to this very work, in such a way that we can not fail to perceive he intends some distinction, unless we suppose that he fills the bible with useless tautologies. for instance, "on the seventh day, god rested from all his work, which god _created_ and _made_." "these are the generations of the heavens and the earth, when they were _created_; in the day the lord god _made_ the earth and the heavens." "but now thus saith the lord that _created_ thee, jacob, and he that _formed_ thee, o israel." "for thus saith the lord that _created_ the heavens, god himself, that _formed_ the earth, and _made_ it; he hath established it; he _created_ it not in confusion; he _formed_ it to be inhabited."[230] in all these passages _creation_ is clearly distinguished from _formation_ and _making_, if the bible is not a mass of senseless repetitions. if _create_, and _make_, and _form_, have all the same meaning, why use them all in the same verse? these, and many similar passages, show that the bible teaches the work of _creation_--calling things into being--to be previous to and distinct from the work of _making_--forming of materials already created. between these two widely different processes--of the original creation of the universe, and the subsequent preparation of the habitable earth, by the six days' work--two intervening periods are indicated by scripture, both of indefinite length. the first of these is that which intervened between the original creation and the period of disorder indicated in the second verse. the second is that disordered period during which the earth continued without form and void. that original chaos which some would find in the second verse, never had any existence, save in the brains of atheistic philosophers. it is purely absurd. god never created a chaos. man never saw it. the crystals of the smallest grain of sand, the sporules of the humblest fungus on the rotten tree, the animalculæ in the filthiest pool of mud, are as orderly in their arrangements, as perfect after their kind, and as wisely adapted to their station, as the angels before the throne of god. and as man never saw, so he has no language to describe, a state of original disorder; for every word he can use implies a previous state of regularity; as disorder tells of order dissolved; confusion of previous forms melted together. so the poets who have tried to describe a chaos have been obliged to represent it as the wreck of a former state. both the bible language and the bible narrative correspond to the philosophy and philology of the case; for, by the use of the substantive verb, in the past tense, implying progressive being, according to the usual force of the word in hebrew, we are told literally, "the earth _became_ without form and void." god did not create it so, but after it was created, and by a series of revolutions not recorded, it became disordered and empty. the holy spirit takes care to explain this verse, by quoting it in jeremiah iv. 23, as the appropriate symbolical description of the state of a previously existing and regularly constituted body politic, reduced to confusion by the calamities of war. again, he explains both the terms used in it in isaiah xxxiv. 11, by using them to describe, not the rude and undigested mass of the heathen poet, but the wilderness condition of a ravaged country, and the desolate ruins of once beautiful and populous cities: "he will stretch out upon it the line of _confusion_, and the stones of _emptiness_." in both these cases the previous existence of an orderly and populous state is implied. and finally, we are expressly assured, that the state of disorder mentioned in the second verse of genesis i., was not the original condition of the earth--isaiah xlv. 18--where the very same word is used as in genesis i. 2, "he created it not, _teu_, _disordered_, in _confusion_." the period of the earth's previous existence in an orderly state, or that occupied by the revolutions and catastrophes which disordered its surface, is not recorded in scripture. the second period is that of disorder, which must have been of some duration, more or less, and is plainly implied to have been of considerable length, in the declaration that "the spirit of the lord moved"--literally, _was brooding_ (a figure taken from the incubation of fowls)--"upon the face of the waters." but no portion of scripture gives any intimation of the length of this period. if, then, astronomers and geologists assert that the earth was millions, or hundreds of millions of years in process of preparation for its present state, by a long series of successive destructions and renovations, and gradual formations, _there is not one word in the bible to contradict that opinion_; but, on the contrary, very many texts which fully and unequivocally imply its truth. but, as the knowledge of the exact age of the earth is by no means necessary to any man's present happiness, or the salvation of his soul, it is nowhere taught in the bible. god has given us the stars to teach us astronomy, the earth to teach us geology, and the bible to teach us religion, and neither contradicts the other. this is no new interpretation evoked to meet the necessities of modern science. the jewish rabbins, and those of the early christian fathers who gave any attention to criticism, are perfectly explicit in recognizing these distinctions. the doctrine of the creation of the world only six or seven thousand years ago is a product of monkish ignorance of the original language of the bible. but clement of alexandria, chrysostom, and gregory nazianzen, after justin martyr, teach the existence of an indefinite period between the creation and the formation of all things. basil and origen account for the existence of light before the sun, by alleging that the sun existed, but that the chaotic atmosphere prevented his rays from being visible till the first day, and his light till the third.[231] augustine, in his first homily, represents the first state of the earth, in genesis i. 1, as bearing the same relation to its finished state, that the seed of a tree does to the trunk, branches, leaves, and fruit. horsley, edward king, jennings, baxter, and many others, who wrote during the last two centuries, but before the period of geological discovery, explained the second verse substantially as did bishop patrick, a hundred and fifty years ago. "how long all things continued in confusion, we are not told. _it might have been, for anything that is here revealed, a very great while._"[232] some persons, however, have supposed that the chaos of the second verse succeeded immediately to the creation of the first, and that the six days' work in like manner followed that instantaneously, or at least after a very brief interval, because the records of these cycles are connected by the word _and_, which, they think, precludes the idea of any lengthened periods or intervals. but the slightest reflection upon the meaning of the word will show that _and_ can not of itself be any _measure_ of time, its use being to indicate merely _sequence_ and _connection_. when used historically, it always implies an interval of time; for there can be no succession without an interval; but the length of that interval must be determined from the context, or some other source. a very cursory perusal of the bible, either in english or hebrew, will show that very often in its brief narratives, the interval indicated by _and_, and its hebrew originals, is a very long time. the descent of jacob and his children into egypt is connected with the record of their deaths, in the very next verse, by this word _and_, which thus includes nearly the lifetime of a generation. that event, again, is connected with a change of dynasty in egypt, and the oppression and multiplication of the israelites there, recorded in the next verse, by the same word, _vau_, _and_; while the period over which it reaches was over two hundred years.[233] so in the brief record of the family of adam, after reciting the birth of seth, the historian adds, in the next verse, "and to seth also was born a son, and he called his name enos;" while the interval thus indicated by the word _and_ was a hundred and five years. the command to build the ark, recorded in the last verse of the sixth chapter of genesis, is connected with the command to enter into it, in the first verse of the seventh chapter, by this same word _and_, although we know, from the nature of the case, that the interval required for the construction of such a huge vessel must have been considerable; and from the third verse of the sixth chapter, we learn that it was a hundred and twenty years. so the births and deaths of the antediluvians are connected by this same word _and_, throughout the fifth chapter of genesis; while the interval, as we see from the narrative, was often eight or nine hundred years. the descent of the holy spirit upon christ, to qualify him for judging the world, is connected with the actual discharge of that office, in the destruction of antichrist by the breath of his mouth, by this word _and_,[234] although the interval has been over eighteen hundred years. if in the records of the generations of mortal men, the word _and_ is customarily employed as a connecting link in the narrations of events separated by an interval of hundreds of years, it is quite consistent with the strictest propriety of language to employ it, with an enlargement proportioned to the duration of the subject of discourse, to connect intervals of millions, in the narrative of the generations of the heavens and the earth. the bible uniformly attributes the most remote antiquity to the work of creation. so far from supposing man to be even approximately coeval with it, the emphatic reproof of human presumption is couched in the remarkable words, "where wast thou, when i laid the foundations of the earth?" in majestic contrast with the frail human race, moses glances at the primeval monuments of god's antiquity, as though by them he could form some faint conceptions even of eternity, and sings, "before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the universe, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art god."[235] the very word here used, _the beginning_, is in itself an emphatic refutation of the notion that the work of creation is only some six or seven thousand years old. geologists have been unable to invent a better, and have borrowed from the bible this very form of speech, to designate those strata beyond which human knowledge can not penetrate--_the primary formations_. but, with far greater propriety, the holy spirit uses this word with regard to ages, compared with which the utmost range of the astronomer's or geologist's reasonings is but as the tale of yesterday. for this word, in bible usage, marks the last promontory on the boundless ocean of eternity; the only positive word by which we can express the most remote period of past duration. it is not a date--a point of duration. it is a period--a vast cycle. it has but one boundary; that where creation rises from its abyss. created eye has never seen the other shore. it is that vast period which the bible assigns to the manifestations of the word of god, "whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting." carrying our astonished gaze far back beyond the era of his creature, man, and ages before the "all things" that were made by him, the bible places this _beginning_ on the very shore of the eternity of god, when it declares, "_in the beginning_ was the word, and the word was with god, and the word was god."[236] thus, both by the use of the imperfect tense, _was_, denoting continued existence, and by the connection of this _beginning_ with the eternity of the word, does the bible teach us to dismiss from our thoughts all narrow views of the period of duration employed in manifesting the glory of the self-existent eternal one, and to raise our conceptions to the highest possible pitch, and then to feel, that far beyond the grasp of human calculation lies that _beginning_ which includes the years of the right hand of the most high, and is even used as one of the names of the eternal: "i am the beginning _and the ending, saith the lord, who is, and who was, and who is to come_--the almighty."[237] in another bible exhibition of the eternity of the son of god, we are conducted from that _beginning_, downward, stage by stage, from those periods of remote antiquity prior to the formation of water, the upheaval of the mountains, the alluvial deposits, the subsidence of the existing sea basins, and the adornment of the habitable parts of the earth, to that comparatively recent event, the existence of the sons of men. our ideas of the eternity of the love of christ are thus enhanced, by the vastness of the ages which stretch out between the human race and that beginning when he was, as it were, "the lamb slain from before the foundations of the world." "the lord possessed me _in the beginning of his way_, _before his works of old_. i was set up from everlasting, _from the beginning, or ever the earth was_. when there were no depths, i was brought forth; when there were no fountains, abounding with water; before the mountains were settled, before the hills, was i brought forth; while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world when he prepared the heavens, i was there; when he described a circle upon the face of the deep; when he established the clouds above; when he strengthened the fountains of the deep; when he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment; when he appointed the foundations of the earth: then was i by him, as one brought up with him; and i was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him: rejoicing in the habitable parts of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men."[238] let the geologist, then, penetrate as deeply as he can into the profundities of the foundations of the earth, and bring forth the monuments of their hoary antiquities: we will follow with the most unfaltering faith, and receive with joy these proofs of his eternal power and godhead. let the astronomer raise his telescope, and reflect on our astonished eyes the light which flashed from morning stars, on the day of this earth's first existence, or even the rays which began to travel from distant suns, millions of years ere the first morning dawned on our planet: we will place them as jewels in the crown of him who is the bright and morning star. they shall shed a sacred luster over the pages of the bible, and give new beauties of illustration to its majestic symbols. but never will geologist penetrate, much less exhaust, the profundity of its mysteries, nor astronomer attain, much less explore, the sublimity of that beginning revealed in its pages; for eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, either the antiquity, or the nature, or the duration of the things which god hath prepared for them that love him. human science will never be able to reach the bible era of creation. it is placed in an antiquity beyond the power of human calculation, in that sublime sentence with which it introduces mortals to the eternal: "_in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth._" 3. the third objection we have named is equally unfounded. _the bible nowhere teaches that the sky is a solid sphere, to which the stars are fixed, and which revolves with them around the earth._ i know that infidels allege that the word _firmament_, in the first chapter of genesis, conveys this meaning. it does not. neither the english word, nor the hebrew original, has any such meaning. as to the meaning of the english word, i adhere to the dictionary. infidels must not be allowed to coin uncouth meanings for words, different from the known usage of the english tongue, for which webster is undeniable authority. his definition of _firmament_ is, "the region of the air; the sky, or heavens. in scripture, the word denotes an expanse--a wide extent; for such is the signification of the hebrew word, coinciding with _regio_, _region_, and _reach_. the original, therefore, does not convey the sense of solidity, but of stretching--extension. the great arch or expanse over our heads, in which are placed the atmosphere and the clouds, and in which the stars _appear_ to be placed, and are _really_ seen." the word _firmament_, then, conveys no such meaning as the infidel alleges, to any man who understands the english tongue. no hebrew speaking man or woman ever did, or ever could understand the original hebrew word _reqo_ in any other sense than that of _expanse_; for the verb from which it is formed means to extend, or spread out, as even the english reader may see, by a few examples of its use, in the following passages of scripture; where the english words by which the verb _reqo_ is expressed, are marked in italics. "then did i beat them small as the dust of the earth, and did stamp them as the mire of the street, and _did spread them abroad_." "the goldsmith _spreadeth it over_ with gold." "thus saith the lord: he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that _spread forth_ the earth." "i am the lord, that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, and _spreadeth abroad_ the earth by myself." "to him that _stretcheth out_ the earth above the waters." "the censers of these sinners against their own souls, let them _make them broad_ plates, for a covering for the altar. _and they were made broad._" "hast thou with him _spread out_ the sky;"[239] or, in humboldt's elegant rendering, "the pure ether, _spread_ (during the scorching heat of the south wind) as a melted mirror over the parched desert."[240] we might refer to the opinions of lexicographers, all unanimous in ascribing the same idea to the word; but the authorities given above are conclusive. the meaning, then, of the hebrew word rendered firmament is so utterly removed from the notion of compactness, or solidity, or metallic or crystalline spheres, that it is derived from the very opposite; the fineness or tenuity produced by processes of expansion. science has not been able to this day to invent a better word for the regions of space than the literal rendering of the original hebrew word used by moses--_the expanse_. the inspired writers of the new testament, though they found the world full of all the absurdities of the greek philosophy, and their greek translations of the bible continually using the word _stereoma_, which expressed these notions, _never used it_ but once, and then not for the sky, but for the _steadfastness of faith_ in christ. their thus using it once shows that they were acquainted with the word, and its proper meaning, and that their disuse of it was intentional; while their disuse of it, and choice of another word to denote the heavens, proves decisively that they disapproved of the absurdity which it was understood to express. now, whether you account for this fact by admitting their inspiration, or by alleging that they drew their language from the hebrew original, and not from the greek translation, it is in either case perfectly conclusive as to the scriptural meaning of the word. indeed, it is marvelous how any man who is familiar with his bible, and knows that the scriptures usually describe the sky by metaphors conveying the very opposite ideas to those of solidity or permanence--as, "stretched out like a curtain," "spread abroad like a tent to dwell in," "folded up like a vesture," and the like--should allow himself to be imposed on by the impudent falsehood of voltaire, that the bible teaches us that the sky is a solid metallic or crystal hemisphere, supported by pillars. those beautiful figures of sacred poetry in which the universe is represented as the palace of the great king, adorned with majestic "pillars," and "windows of heaven," whence he scatters his gifts among his expectant subjects in the courts below, have been grossly abused for the support of this miserable falsehood. we are assured, that so ignorant was moses of the true nature of the atmosphere, and of the origin of rain, that he believed and taught that there was an ocean of fresh water on _the outside_ of this metal hemisphere, which covered the earth like a great sugar-kettle, bottom upward, and was supported on pillars; and at the bottom of the ocean were trap-doors, to let the rain through; which trap-doors in the metal firmament are to be understood, when the bible speaks of the windows of heaven. now, the bottom of an ocean is an odd place for windows, and a trap-door is rather a strange kind of watering-pot; and if moses put the ocean of fresh water on the _outside_ of his metal hemisphere, he must have changed his notions of gravity materially from the time he planned the brazen hemisphere for the tabernacle, which he turned mouth upward, and put the water in the _inside_. while such writers are quite clear about the metal trap-doors and the ocean, they have not yet fully fathomed the construction and arrangement of the pillars. whether the bible teaches that they are "pillars of salt," like lot's wife, or of flesh and blood, like "james, cephas, and john," or such "iron pillars and brazen walls" as jeremiah was against the house of israel--whether they consisted of "cloud and fire," like the pillar moses describes in the next book as floating in the sky over the camp of israel, or are "pillars of smoke," such as ascend out of the wilderness--whether they are those "pillars of the earth which tremble" when god shakes it, or "the pillars of heaven which are astonished at his reproof"--whether they are the pillars of the earth and its anarchical inhabitants, which asaph bore up, or are composed of the same materials as paul's "pillar and basis of the truth," or the pillars of victory which christ erects "in the temple of god"[241]--they have not yet decided. whether the hebrews understood these pillars to be arranged on the outside of the metal hemisphere, and if so, to imagine any use for them there; or in the inside, and in that case whether they kept the sky from falling upon the earth, or only supported the earth from falling into the sky, these learned men are by no means agreed. having trampled the pearl into fragments, their attempts to combine them into another shape are more amusing than successful; and it is hard to say which of the seven opinions ascribed to the bible by infidel commentators is least probable. that opinion, however, will, doubtless, after more vigorous and protracted rooting, be discovered and greedily swallowed amid grunts of satisfaction; an appropriate reward of such laborious stupidity. the absurdities of the greek philosophers were not drawn from the bible. had the greeks read the bible more, they would have preserved the common sense god gave them a great deal longer, and would not, while professing themselves to be wise, have become such fools as to adore blocks and stones, and dream of metal firmaments. but they turned away their ears from the truth, and were turned unto such fables as infidels falsely ascribe to the bible. a thousand years before the cycles and epicycles of the ptolemaic astronomy were invented, and before learned greeks had learned to talk nonsense about crystal spheres, and trap-doors in the bottom of celestial oceans, the writers of the bible were recording those conversations of pious philosophers concerning stars, and clouds, and rain, from which galileo derived the first hints of the causes of barometrical phenomena. the origin of rain, its proportion to the amount of evaporation, and the mode of its distribution by condensation, could not be propounded by humboldt himself with more brevity and perspicuity than they are expressed by the idumean philosopher: "he maketh small the drops of water; they pour down rain according to the vapor thereof, which the clouds do drop and distill upon man abundantly. also, can any understand the spreadings of the clouds, or the noise of his tabernacles?"[242] the cause of this rarefaction of _cold water_ is as much a mystery to the british association as it was to elihu; and even were all the mysteries of the electrical tension of vapors disclosed, "the balancings of the clouds" would only be more clearly discovered to be, as the bible declares, "the wonderful works of him who is perfect in wisdom." but the gravity of the atmosphere, the comparative density of floating water, and its increased density by discharges of electricity, were as well known to job and his friends as they are to the wisest of our modern philosophers. "he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven, _to make weight to air, and regulate waters by measure, in his making a law for the rain, and a path for the lightning of thunder_."[243] three thousand years before the theory of the trade winds was demonstrated, or before maury had discovered the rotation and revolutions of the wind-currents, it was written in the bible, "the wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about to the north. _and the wind returneth again, according to his circuits._"[244] thousands of years before newton, galileo, and copernicus were born, isaiah was writing about the "orbit of the earth," and its insignificance in the eyes of the creator of the host of heaven.[245] job was conversing with his friends on the inclination of its axis, and its equilibrium in space: "he spreadeth out the north over the empty space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing."[246] so far from entertaining the least idea of the waters of the atmosphere being contained either on the outside or the inside of a metal or solid hemisphere, the writers of the bible never once use, even figuratively, any expression conveying it. on the contrary, the well-known scriptural figures for the fountains of the rain, are the soft, elastic, leathern waterskins of the east, "the bottles of the clouds," or the wide, flowing shawl or upper garment wherein the people of the east are accustomed to tie up loose, scattering substances.[247] "he bindeth up the waters in his thick cloud, and the cloud is not rent under them." "who hath bound the waters in a garment;" "as a vesture thou shalt change them;" or the loose, flowing curtains of a royal pavilion; or the extended covering of a tent: "his pavilion around him were dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies;" "the spreadings of the clouds, and the noise of his tabernacle;" "he spread a cloud for a covering."[248] instead of the notion of a single ocean, the "number of the clouds" is proverbial in the scriptures[249] for a multitude; and in direct opposition to the permanence of a vast metallic arch, the chosen emblems of instability and transitoriness, and of the utmost rapidity of motion, suitable even for the chariot of jehovah, are selected from the heavens.[250] in short, there is not the slightest vestige of any foundation in scripture for the notions long afterward introduced by the greek philosophers. yet christians, who have read these passages of scripture over and over again, allow themselves to give heed to infidels, who have not, asserting, without the shadow of proof, that moses taught absurdities which were not invented for a thousand years after his death. the bible gives hints of many profound scientific truths; it teaches no absurdities; _and, instead of countenancing the notion that the sky is a solid metal hemisphere, it teaches, both literally and figuratively, directly the contrary_. 4. we come now to the fourth objection, _that the bible represents god as creating light before the sun_, which is supposed to be an absurdity, _and as creating the sun, moon, and stars only two days before adam_. this is the only astronomical objection to the bible account of creation which has any foundation of scripture statement to rest upon; but we shall soon see that here, also, infidels have not done themselves the justice of reading the bible with attention. i have already corrected that confusion of ideas and carelessness of perusal which confounds the two distinct and different words, _create_ and _make_, so as to make both mean the same thing. god _created_ the heavens, as well as the earth, _in the beginning_; a period of such remote antiquity that, in bible language, it stands next to eternity. the sun and moon then came into being. through what changes they passed, or when they were endowed with the power of giving light to the universe, the bible nowhere declares; but on the fourth day, it tells us, they _were made lights_, or, literally, _light-bearers_, to this earth. the comparatively insignificant place allotted to the stars, in the narrative of this earth's formation, corresponds, with the strictest propriety, to the nature of the discourse; which is not an account of the system of the universe, but of the process of preparation of this earth for the abode of man. compared with the influences of "the two great light-bearers," those of the stars are very insignificant; since the sun sheds more light and heat on the earth in one day, than all the fixed stars have done since the creation of adam. it is evident, from the words, that moses is not speaking either of their original creation, or of their actual magnitude, but of their appointment and use in relation to us, when he says, "and god made two great light-bearers (the greater light-bearer to rule the day, and the lesser light bearer to rule the night), and the stars. and god set them in the firmament of the heavens, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and the night, and to divide the light from the darkness." neither here nor elsewhere does he say they were _created_ at this time, but in all the subsequent references uses other words, such as "prepared," "divided," "made," "appropriated," "made for ruling," "gave;" a studious omission, which shows that the author of the bible had not forgotten how long it was since he had called them into being. _the bible, then, does not say that god created the sun and stars only two days before adam._ another correction of careless bible reading is necessary, that we may be satisfied about what the bible _does not say_, ere we begin to defend what it does say. the bible does not say, nor lead us to believe, that the darkness spoken of in the second verse of the first of genesis had existed from eternity. darkness is not eternal; it requires the exercise of creative power for its production. light is the eternal dwelling of the word of god.[251] the darkness which brooded over our earth, at the period of its formation, is very plainly described in the bible as a temporary phenomenon, incident to, and necessary for, the birth of ocean. it is confined by the adverb of time, _when_, to the period of condensation, upheaval, and subsidence, occupied by the birth of that gigantic infant, "_when_ it burst forth as though it had issued from the womb; _when_ i made the cloud a garment for it, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it, and broke up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors."[252] the sun may have shone for millions of years before upon the earth, or might have been shining with all his brilliance at that very time, while not a single ray penetrated the thick darkness of the vapors in which earth was clothed. but whether or not, darkness must, from its very nature, be limited, both in space and time. to speak of infinite and eternal darkness is as unscriptural as it is absurd. the source of light is uncreated and eternal.[253] further--if my readers are not tired with these perpetual corrections of careless reading and mistaken meaning--the light called into existence in the third verse of the first chapter of genesis is as evidently a different word from _the two lights_ spoken of in the fourteenth verse, as the singular is different from the plural; and the thing signified by it is as distinct from the things spoken of in the fourteenth verse, as the abstract is from the concrete; as, when i say of the first, "light travels 195,000 miles per second," but mean a totally distinct subject when i say, "extinguish the lights." the hebrew words are even more palpably different, the word for _light_, in the third verse, being _aur_, while the words for _the lights_, in the fourth day's work, are _maurt_ and _at emaur_; words as distinct in shape and sense as our english words, _light_ and _the lighthouses_. the locality of the light of the third verse is, moreover, wholly different from that of the light-bearers of the fourteenth verse. that was placed on earth--these in heaven. it was of the earth alone the writer was speaking, in the second verse; the earth alone is the subject of the following verses. it was the darkness of earth that needed to be illuminated; but there is not the remotest hint, in any portion of scripture, that any other planet or star was shrouded in gloom at this time. but, on the contrary, we are most distinctly informed that the wonders which god was performing in this world at that very time were distinctly visible amid the cheerful illumination of other orbs, "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of god shouted for joy,"[254] as this earth emerged from its temporary darkness. it was not from the light of heaven, but out of this darkness of earth, that god, who still draws the lightning's flash from the black thunder-cloud, commanded the light to shine.[255] and it was upon this earth, and not throughout the universe, that it produced alternate day and night. to extend this command for the illumination of the darkened earth, so as to mean the production of light in general, and the lighting of the most distant telescopic, and even invisible stars--which are neither specified in the command itself, nor by any necessity of language or scripture implied in it, but, on the contrary, excluded, by the express scripture declarations of the pre-existence of light, and of morning stars--is an outrage alike against all canons of criticism, laws of grammar, and dictates of common sense. the command, "let there be light," had respect to this earth only. the bible does represent this earth as illuminated at a time when the sun was not visible from its surface--perhaps not visible at all. now, if any one will undertake to scoff at the bible for speaking of light without sunshine, or of the sun shining upon a dark earth--as infidels abundantly do--we demand that he tell us, what is light, and how is it connected with the sun? if he can not, let him cease to scoff at matters too high for him. if he can tell us, he knows that the retardation of encke's comet, which every year falls nearer and nearer the sun, has discovered the existence of an attenuated ether in the expanse or firmament; and that the experiments of arago on the polarization of light have finally demonstrated that our sensation of light is exerted by a series of vibrations or undulations of this fluid,[256] he will then be able to perceive the propriety with which the author of light and of the bible speaks, not of _creating_ light, as if it were a material substance, but of _forming_ or commanding its display. and he will be better able to comprehend the beauty and scientific propriety with which he selected the active participle of the verb _to flow_, as the name for the undulations of this fluid; for the primary meaning of the hebrew verb _ar_ is, _to flow_, or, when used as a noun, _a flood_. "it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the _flood_ of egypt."[257] and of the like import are the nouns, _iar_ and _aur_, formed from it. "who is this that covereth up like a _flood_, whose waters are moved like the rivers?"[258] the philosopher, even though he be a skeptic, will cease to mock the bible when he reads there, that 6000 years ago its author termed light _the flowing--the undulation_. "in the words of the 'son of god,' and the 'son of man,' no less than in his works, with all their adaptation to the circumstances of the times and persons to whom they were originally delivered, are things inexplicable--concealed germs of an infinite development, reserved for future ages to unfold."[259] to the man of learning and reflection, this progressive fullness, and unfathomable depth of the scripture, is a most conclusive proof that it was dictated by him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. but the ignorant scoffers--the great majority--will mock on, and speak evil of the things they know not. their mockery is founded on two assumptions, which they believe to be irrefutable; that the sun is the only possible source of light to the earth; and that it is impossible for the sun to exist without illuminating the earth. unless they can _prove_ both of these assumptions to be true, they can not prove the bible account of creation to be false, nor even show it to be impossible. neither of these assumptions can possibly be proved true; for none of them can explore the universe, to discover the sources of light, nor put the sun through every possible experiment, to discover that his light is an inseparable quality. the only thing infidels can truly allege against the bible account of the origin of light is, _their ignorance of the process_. the argument is simply this: "god could not cause light without sunshine, _because i don't know how he did it_. nor _can i understand_ how the sun shone on a dark earth; therefore, it is impossible." these arguments from ignorance need no other answer than the questions, do you know how the sun shines at all? is your ignorance the measure of god's wisdom? but i shall demonstrate the utter falsehood of both these assumptions, by showing the actual existence of many sources of light besides the sun, and the perfect possibility of the existence of the sun without sunshine, and of sunshine without any light reaching the earth. thus, both the alleged _impossibilities_ upon which the argument against the truth of the bible is based will be removed, and the gross ignorance of natural science displayed by professedly scientific scoffers at the bible exposed. light, so far from being solely derived from the sun, exists in, and can be educed from, almost any known substance. even children are familiar with the light produced by the friction of two pieces of quartz; and no one needs to be informed how light may be produced by the combustion of inflammable substances. but the number of these substances is far greater than is generally supposed, and light can be produced by processes to which we do not generally apply the idea of burning. resins, wool, silks, wood, and all kinds of earths and alkalies, are capable of emitting light in suitable electrical conditions; so that the surface of our earth may have been a source of light in past ages, as it even now is,[260] near the poles and the equator, flashing its aurora borealis and aurora australis, and sending out its belts of zodiacal light,[261] far into the surrounding darkness. schubert, quoted by kurtz, says: "may not that polar light, which is called the aurora of the north, be the last glittering light of a departed age of the world, in which the earth was inclosed in an expanse of aerial fluid, from which, through the agency of electric magnetic forces, streamed forth an incomparably greater degree of light, accompanied with animating warmth, almost in a similar mode to what still occurs in the luminous atmosphere of our sun?" again, the metallic bases of all the earths are highly inflammable. a brilliant flame can be produced by the combustion of water. all the metals can be made to flash forth lightnings, under suitable electric and magnetic excitements. the crystals of several rocks give out light during the process of crystallization. thousands of miles of the earth's surface must once have presented the lurid glow of a vast furnace full of igneous rocks. even now, the copper color of the moon during an ellipse shows us that the earth is a source of light.[262] the mountains on the surface of venus and the moon, and the continents and oceans of mars, attest the existence of upheaval and subsidence, and of volcanic fires, capable of producing such phenomena, and of course of sources of light in those planets, such as exist on the earth. we know, then, most certainly, that there are many other bodies capable of producing light besides the sun. that god could command the light to shine out of darkness, and convert the very ocean into a magnificent illumination, the following facts clearly prove. "capt. bonnycastle, coming up the gulf of st. lawrence, on the seventh of september, 1826, was roused by the mate of the vessel, in great alarm, from an unusual appearance. it was a starlight night, when suddenly the sky became overcast, in the direction of the high land of cornwallis county, _and an instantaneous and intensely vivid light, resembling the aurora, shot out of the hitherto gloomy and dark sea_, on the lee bow, which was so brilliant that it lighted everything distinctly, even to the mast-head. the light spread over the whole sea, between the two shores, and the waves, which before had been tranquil, now began to be agitated. capt. bonnycastle describes the scene as that of _a blazing sheet of awful and most brilliant light_. a long and vivid line of light, superior in brightness to the parts of the sea not immediately near the vessel, showed the base of the high, frowning, and dark land abreast; the sky became lowering, and more intensely obscure. long tortuous lines of light showed immense numbers of large fish, darting about as if in consternation. the topsail yard and mizzen boom were lighted by the glare, as if gas-lights had been burning directly below them; and until just before daybreak, at four o'clock, the most minute objects were distinctly visible."[263] the other assumption, that the sun could not possibly have existed without giving light to the earth, is contradicted by the most familiar facts. the earth and each of the planets might have been, and most probably were, surrounded by a dense atmosphere, through which the sun's rays could not penetrate. it is not at all necessary to prove that such was the fact. i am only concerned to prove the _possibility_; for the infidel's objection is founded on the presumed _impossibility_ of the coexistence of a dark earth and a shining sun. any person who has ever been in pittsburg, glasgow, or the manufacturing districts of england, and has seen how the smoke of even a hundred factory chimneys will shroud the heavens, can easily comprehend how a similar discharge, on a larger scale, from the thousands of primeval volcanoes,[264] would cover the earth with the pall of darkness. by the eruption of a single volcano, in the island of sumbawa, in 1815, the air was filled with ashes, from java to celebes, darkening an area of more than 200,000 square miles; and the darkness was so profound in java, three hundred miles distant from the volcano, that nothing equal to it was ever witnessed in the darkest night.[265] those who have witnessed the fogs raised on the banks of newfoundland, in the gulf of st. lawrence, and in the bay of san francisco, by the mingling of currents of water of slightly different temperatures, can be at no loss to conceive the density of the vapors produced by the boiling of the sea around and over the multitude of volcanoes[266] which have produced the countless _atolls_ of the pacific, and by the vast upheavals of thousands of miles of heated rocks of the primary formations into the beds of primeval oceans. while such processes were in progress, it was impossible but that darkness should be upon the face of the deep.[267] even now, a slight change of atmospheric density and temperature would vail the earth with darkness. we see this substantially done every time that god "covereth the light with clouds, and commandeth it not to shine by the cloud that cometh betwixt," although the sun continues to shine with all his usual splendor. to understand how there may be a day without sunshine, we need only conceive the whole earth temporarily enveloped in the vapors of the unastronomical atmosphere of peru, thus described by humboldt: "a thick mist obscures the firmament in this region for many months, during the period called _tiempo de la garua_. not a planet--not the most brilliant stars of the southern hemisphere--are visible. it is frequently almost impossible to distinguish the position of the moon. if, by chance, the outline of the sun's disc be visible during the day, it appears devoid of rays, as if seen through colored glasses. according to what modern geology has taught us to conjecture concerning the ancient history of our atmosphere, its primitive condition in respect to its mixture and density _must have been unfavorable to the transmission of light_. when we consider the numerous processes which, in the primary world, may have led to the separation of the solids, fluids, and gases around the earth's surface, the thought involuntarily arises, _how narrowly the human race escaped being surrounded with an untransparent atmosphere_, which, though not greatly prejudicial to some classes of vegetation, would yet have completely vailed the whole of the starry canopy. all knowledge of the structure of the universe could then have been withheld from the inquiring spirit of man."[268] the sun, then, may have shone with all his brilliancy, for thousands of years, and a single ray never have penetrated the darkness upon the face of the deep. but we will go further, and show that so far from light being an essential property of suns, it is a very variable attribute, and that in several cases suns have ceased, and others begun, to shine, before our eyes. the fixed stars are self-luminous bodies, similar to our sun, only immensely distant from us. their numbers, magnitudes, and places, are known and recorded. but new stars have frequently flashed into view, where none were previously seen to exist; and others have gradually grown dim and disappeared, without changing their place; and a few which had disappeared have reappeared in the same spot they formerly occupied; while others have changed their color since the era of astronomical observation. in short, there is no permanence in the heavens, any more than on the earth; but a perpetual progress and change is the destiny of suns and stars, of which the most conspicuous indication is the variability of their powers of giving light, of which i shall transcribe a few instances. "on the eleventh of november, 1572, as the illustrious danish astronomer, tycho, was walking through the fields, he was astonished to observe a new star in the constellation cassiopea, beaming with a radiance quite unwonted in that part of the heavens. suspecting some delusion about his eyes, he went to a group of peasants, to ascertain if they saw it, and found them gazing at it with as much astonishment as himself. he went to his instrument, and fixed its place, from which it never after appeared to deviate. for some time it increased in brightness--greatly surpassed sirius in luster, and even jupiter. it was seen by good eyes in the daytime; a thing which happens only to venus, under very favorable circumstances; and at night it pierced through clouds which obscured the rest of the stars. after reaching its fullest brightness, it again diminished, passed through all degrees of visible magnitude, assuming in succession the hues of a dying conflagration, and then finally disappeared." "it is impossible to imagine anything more tremendous than a conflagration that could be visible at such a distance."[269] astronomers now recognize a class of such _temporary stars_, which have appeared from time to time in different parts of the heavens, blazing forth with extraordinary luster, and after remaining awhile, apparently immovable, have died away, and left no trace.[270] twenty-one of such appearances of new suns are on record.[271] still further, many familiar suns have ceased to shine. "on a careful re-examination of the heavens, _many stars are found to be missing_."[272] "there are many well authenticated cases of the disappearance of old stars, whose places had been fixed with a degree of certainty not to be doubted. in october, 1781, sir william herschel observed a star, no. 55 in flamstead's catalogue, in the constellation hercules. in 1790 the same star was observed by the same astronomer, but since that time no search has been able to detect it. the stars 80 and 81 of the same catalogue, both of the fourth magnitude, have likewise disappeared. in may, 1828, sir john herschel missed the star no. 42, in the constellation virgo, which has never since been seen. examples might be multiplied, but it is unnecessary."[273] the demonstration of the variableness of the light-giving power of suns is completed by the phenomena of the class called _variable stars_; though the best astronomers are now agreed that _variability, and not uniformity_, in the emission of light, is the general character of the stars.[274] but the variations which occur before our eyes impress us more deeply than those which require centuries for their completion. sir john herschel has observed, and graphically described, one such instance of variation of light. "the star eta argus has always hitherto been regarded as a star of the second magnitude; and i never had reason to regard it as variable. in november, 1837, _i saw it, as usual_. judge of my surprise to find, on the sixteenth of december, that _it had suddenly become a star of the first magnitude_, and almost equal to rigel. it continued to increase. rigel is now not to be compared with it. it exceeds arcturus, and is very near equal to alpha centauri, being, at the moment i write, the fourth star in the heavens, in the order of brightness."[275] it has since passed through several variations of luster. humboldt gives a catalogue of twenty-four of such stars whose variations have been recorded. "a strange field of speculation is opened by this phenomenon. here we have a star fitfully variable to an astonishing extent, and whose fluctuations are spread over centuries, apparently in no settled period, and with no regularity of progression. what origin can we ascribe to these sudden flashes and relapses? what conclusions are we to draw as to the comfort or habitability of a system depending for its supply of light and heat on such an uncertain source? speculations of this kind can hardly be termed visionary, when we consider that, from what has been before said, we are compelled to admit a community of nature between the fixed stars and our own sun; and when we reflect, that geology testifies to the fact of extensive changes having taken place, at epochs of the most remote antiquity, in the climate and temperature of our globe; changes difficult to reconcile with the operation of secondary causes, such as a different distribution of sea and land, but which would find an easy and natural explanation in a slow variation of the supply of light and heat afforded by the sun himself."[276] "i can not otherwise understand alterations of heat and cold so extensive as at one period to have clothed high northern latitudes with a more than tropical luxuriance of vegetation, and at another to have buried vast tracts of europe, now enjoying a genial climate, and smiling with fertility, under a glacier crust of enormous thickness. such changes seem to point to causes more powerful than the mere local distribution of land and water can well be supposed to have been. in the slow secular variations of our supply of light and heat from the sun, _which, in the immensity of time, may have gone to any extent, and succeeded each other in any order, without violating the analogy of sidereal phenomena which we know to have taken place_, we have a cause, not indeed established as a fact, but readily admissible as something beyond a bare possibility, fully adequate to the utmost requirements of geology. a change of half a magnitude on the luster of our sun, regarded as a fixed star, spread over successive geological epochs--now progressive, now receding, now stationary--_is what no astronomer would now hesitate to admit as a perfectly reasonable and not improbable supposition_."[277] the most eminent astronomers are perfectly unanimous in their deductions from these facts. they regard _variability as the general characteristic of suns and stars, our own sun not exempted_. "we are led," says humboldt, "by analogy to infer, that as the fixed stars _universally_ have not merely an apparent, but a real motion of their own, so their surfaces or luminous atmospheres are generally subject to those changes (in their "light process") which recur, in the great majority, in extremely long, and therefore unmeasured, and probably undeterminable periods, or which, in a few, recur without being periodical, as it were, by a sudden revolution, either for a longer or a shorter time." and he asks, _why should our sun differ from other suns?_ in reference to the extinction of suns, he says: "what we no longer see is not necessarily annihilated. it is merely the transition of matter into new forms--into combinations which are subject to new processes. dark cosmical bodies may, by a renewed process of light, again become luminous."[278] in confirmation of the fact adduced in support of this view, by la place, "that those stars which have become invisible, after having surpassed jupiter in brilliancy, have not changed their place during the time they continued visible," he adds, "the luminous process has simply ceased." bessel asserts[279] that, "_no reason exists for considering luminosity an essential property of these bodies._" and nichol sums up the matter in the following emphatic words: "no more is light _inherent_ in the sun than in tycho's vanished star; and with it and other orbs, a time may come when, through the consent of all the powers of nature, he shall cease to be required to shine. _the womb which contains the future is that which bore the past._"[280] here, then we behold astronomy presenting to our observation facts and processes so similar to those which revelation presents to our faith, that all those men who are most profoundly versed in her lore, reasoning solely from the facts of science, and without any reference to the bible, unanimously conclude that there was such a state of darkness and confusion before our era, as the bible declares--that its causes were most probably such as the bible implies--and that the sudden illuminating of dark bodies, and their extinction, and even re-illumination, are facts so perfectly well authenticated as matters of observation in regard to other suns, that no reasonable man can hesitate to believe any credible assurance that our sun has passed through such a process. with what feelings, then, are we to regard men who, in defiance of the most common facts, and in contradiction to the demonstrations of science, blaspheme the god of truth as a teacher of falsehood, because he speaks of light distinct from that of the sun? surely, such men are those whom he describes as "having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of god, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts. in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not."[281] these facts, of the sudden kindling of stars, their gradual passage through all the hues of a dying conflagration, and their final extinction, and present blackness of darkness, are facts of fearful omen to the enemies of god. they are the original threatenings of heaven, whence the fearful language of bible warning is derived. they attest its truth, and illustrate its import. the favorite theory of the unbeliever is the uniformity of nature. "where," says he, "is the promise of christ's coming to judgment; for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were since the beginning of the world?" but the telescope dispels the illusion, exhibits the course of nature as a succession of catastrophes, displays the conflagration of other worlds, and the extinction of their suns, before our eyes, and asks, _why should our sun differ from other suns?_ it is not the preacher, but the philosopher, who has turned prophet, when--looking back on the period when the siberian elephant and rhinoceros were frozen amid their native jungle, and icebergs visited the plains of india--he proclaims, "_the womb that bore the past contains the future._" the threatenings of god's word are invested with a mantle of terrible literality by the facts we have been contemplating. raised at the day of resurrection, in these bodies, and with these senses, and this capability of rejoicing in the light, and shuddering and pining amid outward gloom, physical darkness will be the terrible prison of those who chose darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. the father of lights shall withdraw his blessed influences from the hearts, the dwellings, the eyes, of those who say to him, "depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." the sun shall cease to vivify god's corn, and wine, and oil, which ungodly men consume upon their lusts. the moon shall cease to shine upon the robber's toil, and the stars to illumine the adulterer's path. the light of heaven shall cease to gild the field of carnage, where men perform the work of hell. in the very midst of your worldliness and business, unbeliever, when you are in all the engrossment of buying and selling, and planting and building, and marrying and giving in marriage, without warning or expectation, "the sun shall go down at noon, and the stars shall be darkened in the clear day." as in the warning and example given to the enemies of the lord in egypt, thick darkness, that may be felt, shall wind its inevitable chains around you, preventing your escape from the judgment of the great day, and giving you a fearful foretaste of that "blackness of darkness for ever" of which you are now forewarned in the word of truth. "the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from the heavens, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; and then shall appear the sign of the son of man in the heavens, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn; and they shall see the son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory." "cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." "hear ye, and give ear; be not proud, for the lord hath spoken. give glory to the lord, your god, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains; and while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness." "i am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."[282] footnotes: [218] duff's india, 127. [219] somerville's connection of the physical sciences, p. 83. [220] poole's horæ egyptiacæ. [221] henri l'egypte pharonique. [222] atlas ethnographique, eth. i. [223] see cruden's concordance, art. _day_. [224] dan., chap. xii. 10. job, chap. xxxviii. 4. col., chap. ii. 18. [225] chap. i. _did the world make itself?_ [226] genesis, chap. i. 21. [227] genesis, chap. i. 27. [228] psalm civ. 30. eccl., chap. xii. 1. [229] psalm li. 10. ezekiel, chap. xxxvi. 26. [230] genesis, chap. ii. 1-5. isaiah, chap. xliii. 1-7; chap. xlv. 1, 2. [231] wiseman's lectures on the connection of science and revealed religion, 1-297. [232] commentary on genesis, i. 2. [233] exodus, chap. i. 5, 8. [234] isaiah, chap. xi. 3, 4. [235] psalm xc. [236] john, chap. i. 1. [237] revelation, chap. i. 8. [238] proverbs, chap. viii. 22. [239] samuel, chap. xxii. 43. isaiah, chap. xl. 19; chap. xliv. 24; chap. xlii. 5. psalm cxxxvi. 6. numbers, chap. xvii. 38. job, chap. xxxvii. 18. [240] cosmos v. 2, p. 60. [241] genesis, chap. xix. 26. exodus, chap. xiii. 20; chap. xxxiii. 10. jeremiah, chap. i. 18. galatians, chap. ii. 7. song, chap. iii. 6. job, chap. ix. 6; chap. xxvi. 11. psalm lxxv. 3. 1 timothy, chap. iii. 15. revelation, chap. iii. 12. [242] job, chap. xxxvi. 27. [243] job, chap. xxviii. 24--literal reading. [244] ecclesiastes, chap. i. 6. [245] isaiah, chap. xl. [246] job, chap. xxvi. 7. [247] ruth, chap. iii. 15. [248] job, chap. xxxviii. 37; chap. xxvi. 8; chap. xxxviii. 9; chap. xxxvi. 29. psalm cv. 39; lxxvii. 17. [249] isaiah, chap. xliv. 22. jeremiah, chap. iv. 13. job, chap. xxxviii. 37. proverbs, chap. xxx. 4. [250] ecclesiastes, chap. xi. 4. psalm civ. 3. matthew, chap. xxix. 30. [251] isaiah, chap. xlv. 7. 1 john, chap. i. 5. daniel, chap. ii. 22. 1 timothy, chap. vi. 16. [252] job, chap. xxxviii. 9, 10. literally, _in my making_, etc. [253] revelation, chap. xxi. 23; chap. xxii. 5. isaiah, chap. lx. 19. [254] job, chap. xxxviii. 7. [255] 2 corinthians, chap. iv. 6. [256] somerville's connection of the physical sciences, sec. 19-23. [257] amos, chap. viii. 8. [258] jeremiah, chap. xlvi. 7. genesis, chap. xli. 1-18. see parkhurst's hebrew lexicon, sub voce. [259] neander. [260] cosmos, vol. i. p. 196. [261] annual of scientific discovery. 1856. [262] cosmos, vol. i. p. 196. nichol's solar system, 184. [263] somerville's connection of physical sciences, 288. [264] cosmos, vol. i. p. 250. [265] lyell's principles of geology, 465. [266] cosmos, vol. i. p. 250. [267] cosmos, vol. i. pp. 198, 216. [268] cosmos, vol. iii. p. 139. [269] nichol's solar system, 188. connection of physical sciences, 363. [270] herschel's outlines, sec. 827. [271] cosmos, vol. viii. p. 210. [272] herschel's outlines, sec. 832. [273] mitchell's planetary and stellar worlds, 294. [274] cosmos, vol. iii. p. 253. [275] astronomical observations, 351. [276] herschel's outlines, sec. 830. [277] astronomical observations, 351. [278] cosmos, vol. iii. pp. 222-232. [279] cosmos, vol. iii. p. 246. [280] solar system, 190. [281] ephesians, chap. iv. 18. 2 corinthians, chap. iv. 4. [282] matthew, chap. xxiv. 29. john, chap. viii. 12. jeremiah, chap. xiii. 15. matthew, chap. xxii. 13 and chap. xxv. 30. chapter xii. telescopic views of scripture. no kind of knowledge is more useful to man than the knowledge of his own ignorance; and no instrument has done more to give him such knowledge than the telescope. faith is the believing of facts we do not know, upon the word of one who does. if any one knows everything, or thinks he does, he can have no faith. a deep conviction of our own ignorance is, therefore, indispensable to faith. the telescope gives us this conviction in two ways. it shows us that we see a great many things we do not perceive, tells us the size and the distances of those little sparks that adorn the sky, and leads us to reason out their true relations to our earth. then it tells us, that what we see is little of what is to be seen; that our knowledge is but a drop from the great ocean, a rush-light sparkling in the vast darkness of the unknown. it tells us, that we do not see right, and that we do not see far; and that there may be things, both in heaven and earth, not dreamed of in our philosophy. further, it confirms the bible testimony concerning the facts of its own province, by removing all improbability from some of its most wonderful narratives, attesting the accuracy of its language, and confirming, by some of its most recent discoveries the truth of its statements. our space will only allow us to select five illustrations of the tendency of faith in the telescope, to produce faith in the bible. 1. one of the latest astronomical discoveries throws light upon one of the most ancient scientific allusions of the bible, and one which has perplexed both commentators and geologists; _that which hints at the second causes of the deluge_. not that it is at all needful for us to be able to tell where god almighty procured the water to drown the ungodly sinners of the old world, before we believe his word that he did so; unless, indeed, somebody has explored the universe, and knows that there is not water enough in it for that purpose, or that it is so far away that he could not fetch it; for, as to the fact itself, geology assures us that all the dry land on earth has been drowned, not only once, but many times. it is not the province of the commentator, but of the geologist, to account for the phenomenon. several solutions of the difficulty of finding water enough for the purpose have been proposed. one of these supposes that some of the internal caverns of the earth are filled with water, which, when heated by neighboring volcanic fires, would expand one twenty-third of its bulk, and flow out, and raise the ocean. when the volcanic fire was burnt out, and the water cooled, it would of course contract to its former dimensions, and the ocean recede. these caverns they suppose to be meant by "the fountains of the great deep," in genesis vii. 11. but the bible describes another, and plainly a very important source of the waters of the deluge, in the rain which fell for forty days and forty nights. at present, all the water in our atmosphere comes from the sea, by evaporation; and the quantity is too insignificant to cover the globe to any considerable depth. divines and philosophers were perplexed to give any adequate explanation of this language, and considered it simply as noah's description of the appearance of things as viewed from the ark, rather than an accurate explanation of the actual causes of the deluge. now, it is certainly true, that the bible does describe things as they appear to men. it is, however, beginning to be discovered, that these popular appearances are closely connected with philosophical reality. our purblind astronomy and prattling geology may be as inadequate to expound the mysteries of the bible philosophy as was the incoherent science of strabo and ptolemy. the experience of another planet, now transacting before our eyes, admonishes us not to limit the resources of omnipotence by our narrow experience, or to suppose that our young science has catalogued all the weapons in the arsenal of the almighty. the planet saturn is surrounded by a revolving belt, consisting of several distinct rings, containing an area a hundred and forty-six times greater than the surface of our globe, with a thickness of a hundred miles. from mechanical considerations it had been proved, that these rings could not be of a uniform thickness all around, else when a majority of his seven moons were on the same side, the attraction would draw them in upon him, on the opposite side; and once attracted to his surface, they could never get loose again, if they were solid.[283] it was next ascertained that the motions of the moons and of the rings were such, that if the inequality was always in the same place, the same result must follow; so that the ring must be capable of changing its thickness, according to circumstances. it must be either composed of an immense number of small solid bodies, capable of shifting freely about among themselves, or else be fluid. finally, it has been demonstrated that this last is the fact; that the density of this celestial ocean is nearly that of water; and that the inner portion, at least, is so transparent, that the planet has been seen through it.[284] "the ring of saturn is, then, a stream or streams of fluid, rather denser than water, flowing about the primary."[285] the extraordinary fact, which shows us how god can deluge a planet when he pleases, i give not in the words of a divine, but of a philosopher, whose thoughtless illustration of scripture is all the more valuable, that it is evidently unintentional. "m. otto struve, mr. bond, and sir david brewster, are agreed that saturn's third ring is fluid, that this is not of very recent formation, and that it is not subject to rapid change. and they have come to the extraordinary conclusion, that the inner border of the ring has, since the day of huygens, been gradually approaching to the body of saturn, and that we may expect, sooner or later--perhaps in some dozen years--to see the rings united with the body of the planet. _with this deluge impending, saturn would scarcely be a very eligible residence for men, whatever it might be for dolphins._"[286] knowing, as we most certainly do, that the fluid envelopes of our own planet were once exceedingly different from the present,[287] here is a possibility quite sufficient to stop the mouth of the scoffer. let him show that god did not, or prove that he could not, suspend a similar series of oceans over the earth, or cease to pronounce a universal deluge impossible. 2. that sublime ode, in which deborah describes _the stars in their courses as fighting against sisera_[288] has been rescued from the grasp of modern scoffers, by the progress of astronomy. it has been alleged as lending its support to the delusions of judicial astrology; by one class desiring to damage the bible as a teacher of superstition, and by another to help their trade. the bible reader will doubtless be greatly surprised to hear it asserted, that the bible lends its sanction to this antiquated, and, as he thinks, exploded superstition. he knows how expressly the bible forbids god's people to have anything to do with it, or with its heathenish professors. "thus saith the lord, learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the heathen are dismayed at them."[289] and they will be still more surprised to learn, that those who object against the bible, that it ascribes a controlling influence to the stars, are firm believers in reichenbach's discovery of _odyle_; an influence from the heavenly bodies so spiritual and powerful, that they imagine it able to govern the world, instead of god almighty.[290] the passage thus variously abused is a description, in highly poetic strains, of the battle between the troops of israel and those of sisera; of the defeat of the latter, and of an earthquake and tempest, which completed the destruction of his exhausted troops. the glory of the victory is wholly ascribed to the lord god of israel; while the rain, the thunder, lightning, swollen river, and "the stars in their courses," are all described, in their subordinate places, as only his instruments--the weapons of his arsenal. "lord, when thou wentest out of seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped down water; the mountains also melted from before the lord, even that sinai, from before the lord god of israel." then, after describing the battle, she alludes to the celestial artillery, and to the effects of the storm in swelling the river, and sweeping away the fugitives who had sought the fords: "they fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against sisera; the river kishon swept them away; that ancient river, the river kishon."[291] after describing some further particulars the hymn concludes with an allusion to the clearing away of the tempest and the appearance of the unclouded sun over the field of victory: "so let all thine enemies perish, o lord; but let them that love thee be as the sun, when he goeth forth in his might." where is there the least allusion here to any controlling influence of the stars? you might just as well say, "the bible ascribes a controlling influence over the destinies of men, to the river kishon;" for they are both spoken of, in the same language, as instruments in god's hand for the destruction of his enemies. but it is objected, "even by this explanation you have the bible representing the stars as causing the rain." not so fast. if a man were very ignorant, and had never heard of anything falling from the sky but rain, he might think so. and if the bible did attribute to the stars some such influence over the vapors of the atmosphere, as experience shows the moon to possess over the ocean, are you able to demonstrate its absurdity? deborah, however, when she sang of the stars _in their courses_ fighting against sisera, was describing a phenomenon very different from a fall of rain--was, in fact, describing a fall of ærolites upon the army of sisera. multitudes of stones have fallen from the sky, and not less than five hundred such falls are recorded. "on september 1, 1814, a few minutes before midday, while the sky was perfectly serene, a violent detonation was heard in the department of the lot and garonne. this was followed by three or four others, and finally by a rolling noise, at first resembling a discharge of musketry, afterward the rumbling of carriages, and lastly that of a large building falling down. stones were immediately after precipitated to the ground, some of which weighed eighteen pounds, and sunk into a compact soil, to the depth of eight or nine inches; and one of them rebounded three or four feet from the ground." "a great shower of stones fell at barbatan, near roquefort, in the vicinity of bordeaux, on july 24, 1790. a mass fifteen inches in diameter penetrated a hut and killed a herdsman and bullock. some of the stones weighed twenty-five pounds, and others thirty pounds." "in july, 1810, a large ball of fire fell from the clouds, at shahabad, which burned five villages, destroyed the crops, and killed several men and women."[292] astronomers are perfectly agreed as to the character of these masses, and the source whence they come. "it appears from recent astronomical observations that the sun numbers among his attendants not only planets, asteroids, and comets, but also immense multitudes of meteoric stones, and shooting stars."[293] ærolites are, then, really stars. they are composed of materials similar to those of our earth; the only other star whose materials we can compare with them. they have a proper motion around the sun, in orbits distinct from that of the earth. they are capable of emitting the most brilliant light, in favorable circumstances. some of them are as large as the asteroids. one, of 600,000 tons weight, passed within twenty-five miles of the earth, at the rate of twenty miles a second. a fragment of it reached the earth.[294] "that ærolites were called _stars_ by the ancients is indisputable. indeed, anaxagoras considered the stars to be only stony masses, torn from the earth by the violence of rotation. democritus tells us, that invisible dark masses of stone move with the visible stars, and remain on that account unknown, but sometimes fall upon the earth, and are extinguished, as happened with the stony star which fell near aegos potamos."[295] when deborah, therefore, describes the _stars in their courses_ as fighting against sisera, it is an utterly unfounded assumption to suppose that she has any allusion to the baseless fancies of an astrology everywhere condemned by the religion she professed, when a simple and natural explanation is afforded by the fact, that stars do fall from the heavens to the earth, and _that they do so in their courses_, and just by reason of their orbital motion; and that the ancients both knew the fact, and gave the right name to those bodies. let no reasonable man delude himself with the notion that god has no weapons more formidable than the dotings of astrology, till he has taken a view of the arsenals of god's artillery, which he has treasured up against the day of battle and of war. here it may be well to notice the illustration which the remarkable showers of meteors, particularly those of november, 1833, shed upon several much ridiculed texts of scripture. scientific observation has fully confirmed and illustrated the scientific accuracy of the bible in such expressions as, "the stars shall fall from heaven;" "there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp;" "and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind." whatever political or ecclesiastical events these symbols may signify, there can be no question, now, that the astronomical phenomenon used to prefigure them is correctly described in the bible. most of my readers have seen some of these remarkable exhibitions; but for the sake of those who have not, i give a brief account of one. "by much the most splendid meteoric shower on record, began at nine o'clock, on the evening of the twelfth of november, 1833, and lasted till sunrise next morning. it extended from niagara and the northern lakes of america, to the south of jamaica, and from 61° of longitude, in the atlantic, to 100° of longitude in central mexico. shooting stars and meteors of the apparent size of jupiter, venus, and even the full moon, darted in myriads toward the horizon, _as if every star in the heavens had darted from their spheres_." they are described as having been as frequent as the flakes of snow in a snow-storm, and to have been seen with equal brilliancy over the greater part of the continent of north america.[296] the source whence these meteors proceed is distinctly ascertained to be, as was already remarked with regard to the ærolites, a belt of small planetoids, revolving around the sun in a little less than a year, and in an orbit intersecting that of the earth, at such an angle, that every thirty-three years, or thereabouts, the earth meets the full tide on the twelfth of november. these meteors are true and proper stars. "all the observations made during the year 1853 agree with those of previous years, and confirm what may be regarded as sufficiently well established: the cosmical origin of shooting stars."[297] 3. the language of the bible with respect to _the circuit of the sun_ is found to have anticipated one of the most sublime discoveries of modern astronomy. true to the reality, as well as to the appearance of things, it is scientifically correct, without becoming popularly unintelligible. there is a class of aspirants to gentility who refuse to recognize any person not dressed in the style which they suppose to be fashionable among the higher classes. a glasgow butcher's wife, in the highlands, attired in all the magnificence of her satins, laces, and jewelry, returned the courteous salute of the little woman in the gingham dress and gray shawl with a contemptuous toss of the head, and flounced past, to learn, to her great mortification, that she had missed an opportunity of forming an acquaintance with the queen. so a large class of pretenders to science refuse to become acquainted with bible truth, because it is not shrouded in the technicalities of science, but displays itself in the plain speech of the common people to whom it was given. they will have it, that because its author used common language, it was because he could not afford any other; and as he did not contradict every vulgar error believed by the people to whom he spoke, it was because he knew no better; and because the hebrews knew nothing of modern discoveries in astronomy, geology, and the other sciences, and the bible does not contain lectures on these subjects, the god of the hebrews must have been equally ignorant, and the bible consequently beneath the notice of a philosopher. you will hear such persons most pertinaciously assert, that moses believed all the absurdities of the ptolemaic astronomy; that the earth is the immovable center, around which revolve the crystal sphere of the firmament, and the sun, and moon, and stars, which are attached to it, after the manner of lamps to a ceiling; and that he, and the world generally in his day, had not emerged from the grossest barbarism and ignorance of all matters of natural science. yet these very people will probably tell you, in the same conversation, of the wonderful astronomical observations made by the egyptians, ten thousand years before the days of adam! so beautiful is the consistency of infidel science. but when you inquire into the source of their knowledge of the philosophy of the ancients, you discover that they did not draw it from the writings of moses, of which they betray the grossest ignorance, nor of any one who lived within a thousand years of moses' time. voltaire is their authority for all such matters. he transferred to the early asiatics all the absurdities of the later greek philosophers, and would have us believe that moses, who wrote before these greeks had learned to read, was indebted to them for his philosophy. of the learning of the ancient patriarchs voltaire does not tell them much, for a satisfactory reason. yet it might not have required much learning to infer, that the eyes, and ears, and nerves of men who lived ten times as long as we can, must have been more perfect than ours; that a man who could observe nature with such eyes, under a sky where stoddart now sees the ring of saturn, the crescent of venus, and the moons of jupiter, with the naked eye,[298] and continue his observations for eight hundred years, would certainly acquire a better knowledge of the appearance of things than any number of generations of short-lived men, called away by death before they have well learned how to observe, and able only to leave the shell of their discoveries to their successors; that unless we have some good reason for believing that the mind of man was greatly inferior, before the flood, to what it is now, the antediluvians must have made a progress in the knowledge of the physical sciences, during the three thousand years which elapsed from the creation to the deluge, much greater than the nations of europe have effected since they began to learn their a, b, c, about the same number of years ago; and that though noah and his sons might not have preserved all the learning of their drowned contemporaries, they would still have enough to preserve them from the reproach of ignorance and barbarism; at least until their sons have succeeded in building a larger ship than the ark, or a monument equal to the great pyramid. the astronomer royal of scotland[299] has demonstrated, that in this imperishable monument, erected four thousand years ago, the builders, who took care to keep it alone, of all the buildings of egypt, free from idolatrous images or inscriptions, recorded with most laborious care, in multiples of the earth's polar diameter, a metric system, including linear and liquid measures, and a system of weights based on a cubical measure of water of uniform temperature; which uniform temperature they took the utmost care to preserve. he shows further, that they were acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes, with the density of the earth, and with the earth's distance from the sun; or at least calculated it at what proves to be nearly a mean of our discordant calculations; and that they were acquainted with problems just beginning to attract the attention of the science of europe. when we know that the chaldeans taught the egyptians the expansive power of steam, and the induction of electricity by pointed conductors; that from the most remote antiquity the chinese were acquainted with decimal fractions, electro-magnetism, the mariner's compass, and the art of making glass; that lenses have been found in the ruins of nineveh, and that an artificial currency was in circulation in the first cities built after the flood;[300] that astronomical observations were made in china, with so much accuracy, from the deluge till the days of yau, b. c. 2357, that the necessary intercalations were made for harmonizing the solar with the lunar year, and fixing the true period of 365-1/4 days; and that similar observations were conducted to a like result within a few years of the same remote period, in babylon;--if the reader does not conclude that the world may have forgotten as much ancient lore during eighteen hundred years of idolatrous barbarism before the coming of christ, as it has learned in the same number since, he will, at least, satisfy himself that the ancient patriarchs were not ignorant savages.[301] "whole nations," says la place, "have been swept from the earth, with their languages, arts, and sciences, leaving but confused masses of ruins to mark the place where mighty cities stood. their history, with a few doubtful traditions, has perished; _but the perfection of their astronomical observations marks their high antiquity, fixes the periods of their existence, and proves that even at that early time they must have made considerable progress in science_."[302] the infidel theory, that the first men were savages, is a pure fiction, refuted by every known fact of their history. that, however, is not the matter under discussion. we are not inquiring now, what moses and the prophets _thought_, but what the author of the bible _told them to say_. the scribe writes as his employer dictates. "i will put my words in thy mouth," said god to jeremiah. "my tongue is as the pen of a ready writer," said david. the prophets began, not with "thus saith isaiah," but "thus saith the lord." unless the word of god was utterly different from all his other works, it must transcend the comprehension of man in some respects. the profoundest philosopher is as ignorant of the cause of the vegetation of wheat as the mower who cuts it down; but their ignorance of the mysteries of organic force is no reason why the one may not harvest, and the other eat and live. just so god's prophets conveyed previous mysteries to the church, of the full import of which they themselves were ignorant; even as daniel heard but understood not. the prophets, to whom it was revealed, that they did not minister to themselves, but to us, inquired and searched diligently into the meaning of their own prophecies; which meaning, nevertheless, continued hid for ages and generations.[303] if the prophets of the old economy might be ignorant of the privileges of the gospel day, of which they prophesied, at god's dictation, they might very well be ignorant, also, of the philosophy of creation, and yet write a true account of the facts, from his mouth. let us suppose, then, that the ancient hebrews and their prophets were, if not quite as ignorant of natural science as modern infidels are pleased to represent them, yet unacquainted with the discoveries of herschel and newton; and, as a necessary consequence, that their language was the adequate medium of conveying their imperfect ideas, containing none of the technicalities invented by philosophers to mark modern scientific discoveries; and that god desired to convey to them some religious instruction, through the medium of language; must we suppose it indispensable for this purpose that he should use strange words, and scientific phrases, the meaning of which would not be discovered for thirty-three hundred years? could not dr. alexander write a sabbath-school book, without filling it full of such phrases as "right ascension," "declination," "precession of the equinoxes," "radius vector," and the like? or, if some wiseacre did prepare such a book, would it be very useful to children? perhaps even we, learned philosophers of the nineteenth century, are not out of school yet. how many discoveries are yet to be made in all the sciences; discoveries which will doubtless render our fancied perfection as utterly childish to the philosophers of a thousand years hence as the astronomy of the greeks seems to us; and demand the use of technical language, which would be as unintelligible to us as our scientific nomenclature would have been to aristotle. if god may not use popular speech in speaking to the people of any given period, but must needs speak the technical language of perfect science, and if science is now, and always will be, of necessity, imperfect, we are led to the sage conclusion, that every revelation from god to man must always be unintelligible! does it necessarily follow, that because the author of the bible uses the common phrases, "sun rising," and "sun setting," in a popular treatise upon religion, that therefore he was ignorant of the rotation of the earth, and intended to teach that the sun revolved around it? he is certainly under no more obligation to depart from the common language of mankind, and introduce the technicalities of science into such a discourse, than mankind in general, and our objectors in particular, are to do the like in their common conversation. now, i demand to know whether they are aware that the earth's rotation on its axis is the cause of day and night? but do you ever hear any of them use such phrases as "earth rising," and "earth setting?" but if an infidel's daily use of the phrases, "_sun rising_," "_sun setting_," and the like, does not prove, either that he is ignorant of the earth's rotation as the cause of that appearance, or that he intends to deceive the world by those phrases, why may not almighty god be as well informed and as honest as the infidel, though he also condescends to use the common language of mankind? do you ever hear astronomers, in common discourse, use any other language? i suppose lieut. maury, and herschel, and le verrier, and mitchell, know a little of the earth's rotation; but they, too, use the english tongue very much like other people, and speak of sunrise and sunset; yet nobody accuses them of believing in the ptolemaic astronomy. hear the immortal kepler, the discoverer of the laws of planetary revolution: "we astronomers do not pursue this science with the view of altering common language; but we wish to open the gates of truth, without affecting the vulgar modes of speech. we say with the common people, 'the planets stand still, or go down;' 'the sun rises, or sets;' meaning only that so the thing appears to us, although it is not truly so, as all astronomers are agreed. how much less should we require that the scriptures of divine inspiration, setting aside the common modes of speech, should shape their words according to the model of the natural sciences, and by employing a dark and inappropriate phraseology about things which surpass the comprehension of those whom it designs to instruct, perplex the simple people of god, and thus obstruct its own way toward the attainment of the far more exalted end to which it aims." it is evident, then, that god not only may, _but must_, use popular language in addressing the people, in a work not professedly scientific; and that if this popular language be scientifically incorrect, such use of it neither implies his ignorance nor approval of the error. but it may be worthy of inquiry whether this popular language of mankind, used in the bible, be scientifically erroneous. if the language be intended to express an absolute reality, no doubt it is erroneous to say the sun rises and sets; but if it be only intended to describe an appearance, and the words themselves declare that intention, it can not be shown to be false to the fact. now, when the matter is critically investigated, these phrases are found to be far more accurate than those of "earth rising," and "earth setting," which infidels say the author of the bible should have used. for, as up and down have no existence in nature, save with reference to a spectator, and as the earth is always down with respect to a spectator on its surface, neither rising toward him, nor sinking from him, in reality, nor appearing to do so, unless in an earthquake, the improved phrases are false, both to the appearance of things, and to the cause of it. whereas, our common speech, making no pretensions to describe the causes of appearances, can not contradict any scientific discovery of these causes, and therefore can not be false to the fact; while it truly describes all that it pretends to describe--the appearance of things to our senses. and so, after all the outcry raised against it by sciolists, the vulgar speech of mankind, used by the author of the bible, must be allowed to be philosophical enough for his purpose, and theirs; at least till somebody favors both with a better. though we are in no way concerned, then, to prove that every poetical figure in scripture, and every popular illustration taken from nature, corresponds to the accuracy of scientific investigation, before we believe the bible to be a revelation of our duty to god and man, yet it may be worth while to inquire, further, whether we really find upon its sacred pages such crude and egregious scientific errors as infidels allege. we have seen in the last chapter, that they are not able to read even its first chapter without blundering. indeed, they generally boast of their ignorance of its contents. it is a very good rule to take them at their word, and when they quote scripture, to take it for granted _that they quote it wrong_, unless you know the contrary. the first thing for you to do when an infidel tells you the bible says so and so, is to get the book, and see whether it does or not. you will generally find that he has either misquoted the words, or mistaken their meaning, from a neglect of the context; or perhaps has both misquoted and mistaken. then, when you are satisfied of the correct meaning of the text, and he tells you that it is contrary to the discoveries of science, the next point is to ask him, _how do you know?_ you will find his knowledge of science and scripture about equal. both these tests should be applied to scientific objections to the bible, as they are all composed of equal parts of biblical blunders, and philosophical fallacies. in the objection under consideration, for instance, both statements are wrong. the bible does not represent the earth as the immovable center of the universe, or as immovable in space at all. it does not represent the sun and stars as revolving around it. nor are the facts of astronomy more correctly stated. it is not the bible, but our objector, that is a little behind the age in his knowledge of science. if we inquire for those texts of scripture which represent the earth as the immovable center of the universe, we shall be referred to the figurative language of the psalms, the book of job, and other poetical parts of scripture, which speak of the "foundations of the earth," "the earth being established," "abiding for ever," and the like, when the slightest attention to the language would show _that it is intended to be figurative_. the accumulation of metaphors and poetical images in some of these passages is beautiful and grand in the highest degree; but none, save the most stupid reader, would ever dream of interpreting them literally. take, for instance, psalm civ. 1-6, where, in one line, the world is described as god's house, with beams, and chambers, and foundations; but in the very next line the figure is changed, and it is viewed as an infant, covered with the deep, as with a garment. "bless, the lord, o my soul. o lord my god, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honor and majesty: who coverest thyself with light, as with a garment; who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain; _who layeth the beams of his chambers upon the waters_: who walketh upon the wings of the wind: who maketh his angels spirits: his ministers a flaming fire: _who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever_. thou coveredst it with the deep, as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains." but if any one is so gross as to insist on the literality of such a passage, and to allege that it teaches the absolute immobility of the earth, let him tell us what sort of immobility the third verse teaches, and how a building could be stable, the beams of whose chambers are _laid upon the waters_--the chosen emblems of instability. "he hath founded it upon the seas: he hath established it upon the floods," says the same poet, in another psalm--xxiv 1. this, and all other expressions quoted as declaring the immobility of the earth _in space_, are clearly proved, both by the words used, and the sense of the context, to refer to an entirely different idea: namely, _its duration in time_. thus, ecclesiastes i. 4, "one generation passeth away, and another cometh; but the earth abideth forever," is manifestly contrasting the duration of earth with the generations of short-lived men, and has no reference to motion in space at all. again, in psalm cxix. 89-91, our objectors find another bible declaration of the immobility of the earth in space: "for ever, o lord, thy word is settled in heaven; thy faithfulness is unto all generations; thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. _they continue to this day_, according to thine ordinances." the same permanence is here ascribed to the heavens (to which, as our objectors argue, the bible ascribes a perpetual revolution) as to the earth. the next verse explains this permanence to be _continuance to this day_; durability, not immobility. that the word _establish_ does not necessarily imply fixture, is evident from its application, in proverbs viii. 28: "he _established_ the clouds," the most fleeting of all things. nor is the hebrew word _kun_ (whence our english word, cunning), inconsistent with motion; else, the psalmist had not said that "a good man's footsteps are _established_ by the lord."[304] "he _established_ my goings." wise arrangement is the idea, not permanent fixture. the same remarks apply to psalm xciii. 1; xcvi. 10; 1 chronicles xvi. 30, and many other similar passages. "the world is established, that it can not be moved; thy throne is established of old: thou art from everlasting." where the establishment, which is contrasted with the impossible removal, and which explains its import, is evidently not a local fixing of some material seat, in one place, but the everlasting duration of god's authority. the idea is not that of position in space, at all, but of continued duration. space does not allow us to quote all the passages which refer to this subject; but after an examination of every passage in the bible usually referred to in this connection, and of a multitude of others bearing upon it, i have no hesitation in saying, that it does not contain a single text which asserts or implies the immobility of the earth in space. the notion was drawn from the absurdities of the greek philosophy, and the superstitions of popery, but was never gathered from the word of god. but it is alleged that other passages of scripture do plainly and unequivocally express the motion of the sun, and his course in a circuit; as, for instance, the nineteenth psalm: "in them he hath set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. his going forth is from the end of heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it." and again, in the account of joshua's miracle, in the tenth chapter of his book, it is quite evident that the writer supposed the sun to be in motion, in the same way as the moon, for he commanded them both to stand still: "sun, stand thou still upon gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of ajalon. and the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies." now, it is said, if the writer had known what he was about, he would have known that the sun was already standing still, and would have told the earth to stop its rotation. and if the earth had obeyed the command, we should never have heard of the miracle; for, as the earth rotates at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, the concussion produced by such a stoppage would have projected joshua, and israelites, and amorites, beyond the moon, to pursue their quarrel among the fixed stars. when we hear men of some respectability bring forward such stuff, we are constrained to wonder, not merely were they ever at school, but if they ever traveled in a railroad car, or whether they suppose their hearers to be so ignorant of the most common facts as to believe that there is no way of bringing a carriage to a stand but by a sudden jerk, or that god is more stupid than the brakeman of an express train. we will do them the justice, however, to say, that they did not invent it, but merely shut their eyes, and opened their mouths, and swallowed it for philosophy, because they found it in the writings of an infidel scoffer, and of a neological professor of theology[305]--an edifying example of infidel credulity! let it be noticed, that in neither of these texts, nor in any other portion of scripture, does the bible say a single word about the revolution of the sun _round the earth_, as the common center of the universe; on which, however, the whole stress of the objection is laid. the passages do not prove what they are adduced to prove. they speak of the sun's motion, and of the sun's orbit, _but they do not say that the earth is the center of that orbit_. these texts, then, do not prove the author of the bible ignorant of the system of the universe. the objection is based upon utter ignorance of one of the most important and best attested discoveries of modern astronomy; the grand motion of the sun and solar system through the regions of space, and the dependence of the rotation of all the orbs composing it, upon that motion. it is not the author of the bible who is ignorant of the discoveries of modern astronomy--when he speaks of the orbit of the sun, and his race from one end of the heavens to the other, and of the need of a miraculous interposition to stop his course for a single day--but his correctors, who have ventured to decry the statements of a book which commands the respect of such astronomers as herschel and rosse, while ignorant of those elements of astronomy which they might have learned from a perusal of the books used by their children in our common schools. for the benefit of such, however, i will present a brief explanation of the grounds upon which astronomers are as universally agreed upon the belief of the sun's motion around a center of the firmament, as they are upon the belief of the revolution of the earth round the sun. when you are passing in a carriage, at night, through the street of a city lighted up by gas-lamps in the streets, and lights irregularly dispersed in the windows, or passing in a ferry-boat, from one such city to another, at a short distance from it, you observe that the lights which you are leaving appear to draw closer and closer together, while those toward which you are approaching widen out, and seem to separate from each other. if the night were perfectly dark, so that you could see nothing but the lights, you could certainly know not only that you were in motion, but also to what point you were moving, by carefully watching their appearances. so, if all the fixed stars were absolutely fixed, and the sun and planets, including our earth, were moving in any direction--say to the north--then the stars toward which we were moving would seem to widen out from each other, and those which we were leaving would seem to close up; so that the space which appeared between any two stars in the south, in a correct map of the heavens, a hundred years ago, would be smaller, and that between any two stars in the north would be larger, than the space between the same stars upon a correct map now. now, such changes in the apparent positions of stars are actually observed. the stars do not appear in the same places now as they did a hundred years ago. the fixed stars, then, are either drifting past our solar system, which alone remains fixed; or, the fixed stars are all actually at rest, and our sun is drifting through them; or, our solar system and the so-called fixed stars are both in motion. one or other of these suppositions must be the fact. the first is simply the old ptolemaic absurdity, only transferring the center of the universe to the sun. the second is contrary to the observed fact, that multitudes of the stars, which were supposed to be fixed, are actually revolving around each other, in systems of double, triple and multiple suns. and both are contrary to the first principles of gravitation; for, as every particle of matter attracts every other, directly as the mass, and inversely as the square of the distance, if any one particle of matter in the universe is in motion, the square of its distance from every other particle varies, and its attraction is increased in one direction, and diminished in another; and so every particle of matter in free space, as far as the force of gravitation extends, will be put in motion too. but our earth, and the planets, and the double and triple stars, are in motion, and the law of gravitation extends to every known part of the universe; therefore every known particle of matter in the universe is in motion too, our sun included. the third supposition, then, is most indisputably true; our solar system, and all the heavenly bodies, are in motion. to this conclusion all the observed facts conform. the bible does say that the sun moves, and moves in a curve. all mathematicians prove that it must of necessity do so. all astronomers assert that it does so. the unanimous verdict of the scientific world is thus rendered by nichol: "_as to the subject itself, the grand motion of the sun, as well as its present direction, must be received now as an established doctrine of astronomy._"[306] but the discovery was anticipated, three thousand years ago, by the author of the bible. but, as will readily be perceived, the difficulty of determining either the direction or the rate of this motion is immensely increased in this case; for we are now not like persons riding in a carriage, watching the fixed lights in the street to determine our direction and rate of progress; but we are watching the lamps of a multitude of carriages, moving at various distances, and with various velocities, and, for anything we can tell at first sight, in various directions. we are on board a steamer, and are watching the lights of a multitude of other steamers, also in motion; and it is not easy to find out, in the darkness, how either they or we are going. if each were pursuing its own independent course, without any common object or destination, the confusion would be so great that we could learn nothing of the rate or direction either of our own motion or theirs. but astronomers are not content to believe that the universe is governed by accident. the whole science is based upon the assumption, that a presiding mind has impressed the stamp of order and regularity upon the whole cosmos. they are deeply convinced that god's law extends to all god's creation; that all his works display his intelligence, as well as his power, and proceed according to a wise plan. having seen that all the stellar motions previously known are orderly motions, in circular or elliptical orbits, and that the most of the solid bodies belonging to our own system revolve in one direction, they reasoned from analogy, that this might be the case with the sun and the fixed stars, and went to work with great diligence, to see whether it was or not; and, by comparing a great multitude of observations, ancient and modern, made both in the northern and southern hemispheres, and on all sorts of stars, they have come to the conclusion, that our sun, and all the bodies of the solar system, are flying northward, at the rate of three millions three hundred and thirty-six thousand geographical miles a day--five thousand times faster than a railway express train--toward the constellation hercules, in r. a. 259° dec. 35°. further, as the direction of this motion is slowly and regularly changing, just as the direction of the head of a steamer in wearing, or of a railway train running a curve, it is certain that the sun is moving, not in a straight line, but in a curve. the revolution of the sun in such an orbit was known to the author of the bible when he wrote, "_his circuit_ is to the end of heaven." the direction of the circumference of a circle being known, that of its center can be found; for the radius is always a tangent to the circumference, and the intersection of two of these radii will be the center; so that, if we certainly knew the sun's orbit to be circular, or nearly so, we could calculate the center. but as we do not certainly know its form, we can not certainly calculate the center; we can only come near it. and as we know that the line which connects the circumference with the center of the sun's orbit, runs through the group of stars known as the pleiades, or the cluster; and as all the stars along that line seem to move in the same direction--a different direction from that of the stars in other regions, just as they must do if they and we were revolving around that group--argelander and others have concluded, with a high degree of probability, that the grand center around which the sun and our firmament revolve, is that constellation which the author of the bible, more than three thousand years ago, called _kyme_--_the pivot_. it would require a greater knowledge of electro-magnetism than most of my readers possess, to explain the connection of the earth's rotation with the sun's grand movement. i will merely state the facts. electro-magnetism is induced by friction. the regions of space are not empty, but filled with an ether, whose undulations produce light; and this ether is sufficiently dense to retard the motions of comets. the friction, produced by the rapid passage of the sun and solar system through this ether, must be immense, and is one source of electricity, and the principal source of electro-magnetism. this kind of electricity differs from the other kinds, in that _its action is always at right angles to the current, and tends to produce rotation in any wheel, cylinder, or sphere, along whose axis it flows_.[307] the sun, and all the planets, traveling in the direction of their poles, the current is of course in the direction of the axis; and the result is, that while the sun moves along his grand course, he and all the bodies of the system will rotate, by the influence of the electro-magnetism generated by that motion; and if he stops, his and their rotation stops too. day and night on earth are produced by the sun's motion causing the earth's rotation. you can see the principle illustrated by the child who runs along the street with his windmill, to create a current, which will make it revolve. the author of the bible made no mistake when, desiring to lengthen the day, he commanded the sun to stand still. it is not the creator, but his correctors, who are ignorant of the mechanism of the universe. thus, these long-misunderstood and much-assailed scriptures are not only vindicated, but far more than vindicated, by the progress of astronomical discovery. it not only proves the language of the bible to be correct; it assures us that it is divine. the same hand which formed the stars to guide the simple peasant to his dwelling, at the close of day, and to lead the mighty intellects of newton and of herschel among the mysteries of the universe, formed those expressions which, to the peasant's eye, describe the apparent reality, and, to the astronomer's reason, demonstrate the reality of the appearance of the heavens, and are thus, alike to peasant and philosopher, the _oracles of god_. nor is this the only instance of such bible oracles. thousands of years before philosophers knew anything of the formation of dew, moses described it exactly, and noticed how it differed from the rain which drops down, while the dew evaporates. "my doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall _distill_ as the dew."--deuteronomy xxxii. 2. solomon described the cycloidal course of the wind, and recorded it in ecclesiastes long before admiral fitzroy's discovery; as he also anticipated the doctrine of aqueous circulation in his pregnant proverb: "unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again."--ecclesiastes i. 7. job declared the law of pneumatics when he declared that "god maketh _weight_ for the winds." long before madler, the celebrated russian astronomer, published his remarkable opinion: "i regard the pleiades as the central group to the whole astral system, and the fixed stars, even to its outer limits, marked by the milky way; and i regard alcyone as that star of all others, composing the group which is favored by most of the probabilities as being the true central sun of the universe," moses tells us they were known as "the hinge, or pivot," of the heavens; and god asks, "canst thou bind the secret influences of the pleiades?" though peter was no geologist, and probably incapable of calculating the ratio of the central heat, he tells us that the heavens and the earth are "reserved unto fire," literally, "stored with fire." equally in advance of modern medical science, thousands of years before our modern discoveries, the author of the bible declared that "the life is in the blood," and spoke of the slow combustion of starvation exactly in the language of the most recent physiology, "they shall be _burnt_ with hunger, and devoured with burning heat."--deuteronomy xxxii. 24. here we have scientific truth not discovered for centuries by our men of science, but revealed by prophets--scientific discovery, in advance of science--predictions of the future progress of the human intellect, no less than revelations of the existing motions of the stars. he who wrote these oracles knew that the creatures to whom he gave them would one day unfold their hidden meaning (else he had not so written them), and in the light of scientific discovery, see them to be as truly divine predictions of the advance of science, as the prophecies of jeremiah and ezekiel, read among the ruins of thebes or babylon, are seen to be predictions of the ruin of empires. man's discoveries fade into insignificance in the presence of such unfolding mysteries; and we are led to our bibles, with the prayer, "open mine eyes, that i may behold wondrous things out of thy law." 4. the ancient charter of the church was written in the language of one of the most recent astronomical discoveries, thirty-six hundred years before herschel and rosse enabled us to understand its full significance: "he brought him forth abroad, and said unto him, _look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, so shall thy seed be._"[308] the scenery was well calculated to impress abraham's mind with a sense of the ability of christ to fulfill a very glorious promise, by a very improbable event; but the illustration was as well calculated as the promise to test the character of that faith which takes god's word as sufficient evidence of things not seen; for, if the promise was a trying test of faith, so was the illustration. before this, god had promised that his seed should be as the dust of the earth; and afterward he declared it should be as the sand of the seashore; the well-known symbol of a multitude beyond all power of calculation. to couple the stars of heaven with the sand upon the seashore in any such connection as to imply that the stars too were innumerable, or that their number came within any degree of comparison with the ocean sands, must have seemed to abraham in the highest degree mysterious, even as it has appeared to scoffers, in modern times, utterly ridiculous; for, though the first glance at the sky conveys the impression that the stars are really innumerable, the investigations of our imperfect astronomy seem to assure us that this is by no means the case. and, as the patriarch sat, night after night, at his tent door, and, in obedience to the command of christ, counted the stars, and made such a catalogue of them as his chaldean preceptors had used, he would very speedily come to the conclusion, that so far as he could see, they were by no means innumerable; for the catalogue of hipparchus reckons only one thousand and twenty-two as visible to one observer, and the whole number visible in both hemispheres by the naked eye does not exceed eight thousand.[309] and even if we suppose, that these old patriarchs had better eyes, as we know they had a clearer sky, than modern western observers, and that abraham saw the moons of jupiter, and stars as small, still the number would not seem in the least degree comparable with the number of the sands upon the seashore--whereof a million are contained in a cubic inch,[310] a number greater than the population of the globe in a square foot,[311] while the sum total of the human race, from adam to this hour, would not approach to the aggregate of the sands of a single mile. though the stars of a size too small to be visible to our eyes, are much more numerous than the larger stars, yet even up to the range of view possessed by ordinary telescopes, they are by no means innumerable. in fact, they are counted and registered, and the number of the stars of the ninth magnitude, which are four times as distant as the most distant visible to our eyes--so distant that their light is five hundred and eighty-six years in traveling toward us--is declared to be exactly thirty-seven thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine. abraham's sense and abraham's faith must have had many a conflict on this promise, as the faith and the sense of many of his children, especially the scientific portion of them, have since, when reading such portions as this; and those other scriptures which represent it as an achievement of omniscience, that "he telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names."[312] it is indeed remarkable how god delights to test the faith of his people, and to stumble the pride of fools, by presenting this mysterious truth, of the innumerable multitude of the stars, in every announcement of the wonderful works of him who is perfect in wisdom. infant astronomy stretched out her hands to catch the stars, and count them. many a proud infidel wondered that moses could be so silly as to suppose he could not count the stars, and the believer often wondered what these words could mean. but faith rests in the persuasion of two great truths: "god is very wise," and "i am very ignorant." the increase of knowledge, by widening the boundaries of our ignorance, seemed for a time to render the difficulty even greater. the increased power of herschel's telescope, and his discovery of the constitution of the milky way, mark an era in the progress of astronomy, and enlarge our views of the extent of the universe, to an extent inconceivable by those who have not studied the science. where we see only a faint whitish cloud stretching across the sky, herschel's telescope disclosed a vast bed of stars. at one time he counted five hundred and eighty-eight stars in the field of his telescope. in a quarter of an hour, one hundred and sixteen thousand passed before his eye. in another portion, he found three hundred and thirty-one thousand stars in a single cluster.[313] he found the whole structure of that vast luminous cloud which spans the sky, "to consist entirely of stars, _scattered by millions, like glittering dust_, on the background of the general heavens." yet still it was not supposed to be at all impossible to estimate their numbers. even this distinguished astronomer, a few years ago, computed it at eight or ten millions. schroeter allowed twenty degrees of it to pass before him, and withdrew from the majestic spectacle, exclaiming, "what omnipotence!" he calculated, however, that the number of the stars visible through one of the best telescopes in europe, in 1840, was twelve millions; a number equaled by a single generation of abraham's descendants, far below the power of computation, and utterly insignificant, as compared with the sands of the sea. had our powers of observation stopped here, the great promise must still have seemed as mysterious to the astronomer, as it once seemed to the patriarch. but if either the father of the faithful, or the father of sidereal astronomy, had deluded himself with the notion, that he fully comprehended either the words or the works of him who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working, and argued thence that, because the revealed words and the visible works seemed not to correspond, they were really contradictory, he would have committed the blunder of modern infidels, who assume that they know everything, and that as god's knowledge can not be any greater than theirs, every scripture which their science can not comprehend must be erroneous. the grandest truths, imperfectly perceived in the twilight of incipient science, serve as stumbling-blocks for conceited speculators, as well as landmarks on the boundaries of knowledge to true philosophers, who will ever imbibe the spirit of newton's celebrated saying: "i seem to myself like a child gathering pebbles on the shore, while the great ocean of knowledge lies unexplored before me;" or the profound remark of humboldt: "what is seen does not exhaust that which is perceptible." but the progress of science was not destined merely to coast the shore of this ocean. in 1845, lord rosse, and a band of accomplished astronomers, commenced a voyage through the immensities, with a telescope which has enlarged our view of the visible universe to one hundred and twenty-five million times the extent before perceived, and displayed far more accurately the real form and nature of objects previously seen. herschel's researches into the architecture of the heavens, which have justly rendered his name immortal as the science he illustrated, had revealed the existence of great numbers of _nebulæ_--clouds of light--faint, yet distinct. he supposed many of these to consist of a luminous fluid, pretty near to us; at least, comparatively so; for to believe that they were stars, so far away as to be severally invisible in his forty feet telescope, while yet several of these clouds are distinctly seen by the naked eye, involved the belief of distances so astounding, and of multitudes so incredible, and of a degree of closeness of the several stars so unparalleled by anything which even he had observed, that his imagination and reason failed to meet the requirements of such a problem. the supposition was, however, thrown out by this gigantic intellect, that these clouds might be firmaments; that the bible word _heavens_ might be literally plural; and more than that, he labored in the accumulation of facts which tended to confirm it. he disclosed the fact, that several of these apparent clouds, which, to very excellent telescopes, displayed only a larger surface of cloudy matter, did, in the reflector of his largest telescope, display themselves in their true character, as globular clusters, consisting of innumerable multitudes of glorious stars; and, moreover, that, stretching away far beyond star, or milky way, or nebulæ, he had seen, in some parts of the heavens, "a stippling," or uniform dotting of the field of view, by points of light too small to admit of any one being steadily or fixedly examined, _and too numerous for counting_, were it possible so to view them! what are these? millions upon millions of years must have elapsed ere that faint light could reach our globe, from those profundities of space, though it travels like the lightning's flash. if they are stars, the sands of the seashore are as inferior in numbers as the surface of earth is inferior in dimensions to the arch of heaven. but if these faint dots and stipplings are not single stars!--if they are star-clouds--galaxies--firmaments, like our milky way--our infinity is multiplied by millions upon millions! imagination pants, reason grows dizzy, arithmetic fails to fathom, and human eyes fear to look into the abyss. no wonder that this profound astronomer, when a glimpse of infinity flashed on his eye, retired from the telescope, trembling in every nerve, afraid to behold. and yet this astounding supposition is a literal truth; and the light of those suns, whose twilight thus bowed down that mighty intellect in reverent adoration, now shines before human eyes in all its noonday refulgence. one of the most remarkable of these nebulæ--one which is visible to a good eye in the belt of orion--has been disclosed to the observers at parsontown as a firmament; and minute points, scarce perceptible to common telescopes, blaze forth as magnificent clusters of glorious stars, so close and crowded, that no figure can adequately describe them, save the twin symbol of the promise, "the sand by the seashore," or "the dust of the earth." "there is a minute point, near polaris," says nichol, "so minute, that it requires a good telescope to discern its being. i have seen it as represented by a good mirror, blazing like a star of the first magnitude; and though examined by a potent microscope, clear and definite as the distinctest of these our nearest orbs, when beheld through an atmosphere not disturbed. nay, through distances of an order i shall scarcely name, i have seen a mass of orbs compressed and brilliant, so that each touched on each other, _like the separate grains of a handful of sand_, and yet there seemed no melting or fusion of any one of the points into the surrounding mass. each sparkled individually its light pure and apart, like that of any constituent of the cluster of the pleiades."[314] "the larger and nearer masses are seen with sufficient distinctness to reveal the grand fact decisive of their character, viz: that they consist of multitudes of closely related orbs, forming an independent system. in other cases we find the individual stars by no means so clearly defined. through effect, in all probability, of distance, the intervals between them appear much less, the shining points themselves being also fainter; while the masses still further off _may be best likened to a handful of golden sand, or, as it is aptly termed, star dust_; beyond which no stars, or any vestige of them, are seen, but only a patch or streak of milky light, similar to the unresolved portions of our surrounding zone."[315] to say, then, that the stars of the sky are actually innumerable is only a cold statement of the plainest fact. hear it in the language of one privileged to behold the glories of one out of the thousands of similar firmaments: "the mottled region forming the lighter part of the mass (the nebula in orion) is a very blaze of stars. but that stellar creation, now that we are freed from all dubiety concerning the significance of those hazes that float numberless in space, how glorious, how endless! behold, amid that limitless ocean, every speck, however remote or dim, a noble galaxy. lustrous they are, too; in manifold instances beyond all neighboring reality--beyond the loftiest dream which ever exercised the imagination. the great cluster in hercules has long dazzled the heart with its splendors, but we have learned now that among circular and compact galaxies, a class to which the nebulous stars belong, there are multitudes which infinitely surpass it--nay, that schemes of being rise above it, sun becoming nearer to sun, until their skies must be one blaze of light--a throng of burning activities! but, far aloft stands orion, the pre-eminent glory and wonder of the starry universe! judged by the only criticism yet applicable, it is perhaps so remote that its light does not reach us in less than fifty or sixty thousand years; and as at the same time it occupies so large an apparent portion of the heavens, how stupendous must be the extent of the nebula. it would seem almost as if all the other clusters hitherto gauged were collected and compressed into one, they would not surpass this mighty group, _in which every wisp--every wrinkle--is a sand-heap of stars_. there are cases in which, though imagination has quailed, reason may still adventure inquiry, and prolong its speculations; but at times we are brought to a limit across which no human faculty has the strength to penetrate, and where, as now, at the very footstool of the secret throne, we can only bend our heads, and silently _adore_. and from the inner adyta--the invisible shrine of what alone is and endures--a voice is heard: "hast thou an arm like god? canst thou thunder with a voice like him? canst thou bind the sweet influences of the pleiades, or loosen the bands of orion? canst thou bring forth mazzaroth in his seasons? canst thou guide arcturus and his sons?[316] he telleth the number of the stars: he calleth them all by their names. great is our lord, and of great power; his understanding is infinite."[317] thus, nobly does science vindicate scripture, and display the wisdom and power of the lord of hosts, whose kingdom extends through all space, and endures through all duration. he who called these countless hosts of glorious orbs into being is abundantly able to multiply, to an equally incalculable number, the humble sands which line the oceans of terrestrial grace, the brilliant stars which shall yet adorn the heavens of celestial glory. all, of every nation, who shall partake of abraham's faith, are abraham's children. they are christ's, and so abraham's seed, and heirs, according to this promise.[318] when the great multitude, which no man can number, out of every nation, and tongue, and people, stand before the throne of god, and cause the many mansions of our father's house to re-echo the shout, "salvation to our god which sitteth on the throne, and to the lamb," the answering hallelujahs of the most distant orbs shall expound the purport of that solemn oath to abraham and abraham's seed: "by myself have i sworn, saith the lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing i will bless thee, and _in multiplying i will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore_."[319] 5. it is not probable that the mysteries of the distant heavens, _or of those future glories of the redeemed which the bible employs them to symbolize_, will ever be fully explored by man, or adequately apprehended in the present state of being. but it is most certain that god would not have employed the mysteries of astronomy so frequently as the symbols of the mysteries of the glory to be revealed, had there not been some correspondence between the things which eye hath not seen, and these patterns shown in the mount. so habitual, indeed, is the scripture use of these visible heavens as the types of all that is exalted, pure, cheering, and glorious, that, to most christians, the word has lost its primary meaning, and the idea first suggested to their minds by the word _heaven_ is that of future glory; yet their views of the locality and physical adornments of the many mansions of their father's house are dim and shadowy, just because they do not acquaint themselves sufficiently with the divine descriptions in the bible, and the divine illustrations in the sky. the bible would be better understood were the heavens better explored. "i go," said jesus, "to prepare a _place_ for you." the bodies of the saints, raised on the resurrection morn, will need a _place_ on which to stand. the body of the lord, which his disciples handled, and "saw that a spirit had not flesh and bones, as they saw him have," is now resident in a place. where he is, there shall his people be also. why, then, when the bible employs all that is beauteous in earth, and glorious in heaven, to describe the adornments of the palace of the king of kings, should we hesitate to believe that the power and wisdom of god are not exhausted in this little earth of ours, but that other worlds may as far transcend ours in glory, as many of them do in magnitude?--or, to allow that the glorious visions of ezekiel and john were not views of nonentities, or mere visions of clouds, or of some incomprehensible symbols of more incomprehensible spiritualities, but actual views of the existing glories of some portion of the universe, presented to us as vividly as the dullness of our minds and the earthliness of our speech will permit? it is certain that the recent progress of astronomical discovery has revealed celestial scenery which illustrates some of the most mysterious of these visions. it has long been known, that "one star differeth from another star in glory," and that the orbs of heaven shine with various colors. sirius is white, arcturus red, and procyon yellow. the telescope shows all the smaller stars in various colors. under the clear skies of syria their brilliance is vastly greater than in our climate. "_one star shines like a ruby, another as an emerald, and the whole heavens sparkle as with various gems._"[320] but the discovery of the double and triple stars has added a new harmony of colors to these coronets of celestial jewels. these stars generally display the complementary colors. if the one star displays a color from the red end of the spectrum, the other is generally of the corresponding shade, from the violet end. for instance, in o2 cygni, the large star is yellow, and the two smaller stars are blue; and so in others, through all the colors of the rainbow. "it may be easier suggested in words," says sir john herschel, "than conceived in imagination, what a variety of illumination two stars--a red and a green, or a yellow and a blue one--must afford a planet circulating around either, and what cheering contrasts and grateful vicissitudes a red and a green day, for instance, alternating with a white one, and with darkness, must arise from the presence or absence of one, or other, or both, from the horizon."[321] but suppose one of the globular clusters--for instance, that in the constellation hercules--thus constituted; its unnumbered thousands of suns, wheeling round central worlds, and exhibiting their glories to their inhabitants; "skies blazing, with grand orbs scattered regularly around, and with a profusion to which our darker heavens are strangers;" the overhead sky, seen from the interior regions of the cluster, _must appear gorgeous beyond description_. in the strictest literality it might be said to the dwellers in such a cluster, "thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw herself." the surrounding walls of such a celestial palace must seem indeed "garnished with all manner of precious stones." sapphire, emerald, sardius, chrysolite, and pearl, must seem but dim mirrors of its glorious refulgence. under its ever rising suns the gates need not be shut at all by day, "for there shall be no night there." that glorious place now exists, though far away. but the lord of these hosts has said, "behold, i come quickly." he will not tarry. a thousand times faster than the swiftest chariot, our solar system and the surrounding firmament wing their flight toward that same glorious cluster in hercules. as our firmament approaches, under the guidance of omnipotent wisdom, it too must fly to meet our sun, with a velocity increasing with an incalculable ratio. the celestial city will then be seen to descend from heaven. once within the sphere of its attractions, our sun and surrounding planets will feel their power. their ancient orbits and accustomed revolutions must give way to the higher power. old things must pass away, and all things become new. a new heaven, no less than a new earth, will form the dwelling of righteousness. these are no longer the visions of prophecy merely, but the sober calculations of mathematical science, based upon a foundation as solid as the attraction of gravitation, and as wide as the existence of that ether whose undulations convey the light of the most distant stars; for, so surely as that attraction is efficient, must all the firmaments of the heavens be drawn more closely together; and as certainly as they revolve not in empty space, but in a medium capable of retarding encke's comet three days in every revolution, must that retarding medium bring their revolutions to a close. "and so," said herschel, casting his eye fearlessly toward future infinities, "we may be certain that the stars in the milky way will be gradually compressed, through successive stages of accumulation, until they come up to what may be called the ripening period of the globular cluster." unnumbered ages may be occupied with such a grand evolution of celestial progress, beyond our power of calculation; but will the changes of created things, even then, have come to an end? hear again the voice, not of the prophet, but of the astronomer: "around us lie stabilities of every order; but it is _stability_ only that we see, not _permanence_." as the course of our inquiry has already amply illustrated, even majestic systems, that at first appear final and complete, are found to resolve themselves into mere steps or phases of still loftier progress. verily, it is an astonishing world! change rising above change--cycle growing out of cycle, in majestic progression--each new one ever widening, like the circles that wreathe from a spark of flame, enlarging as they ascend, finally to become lost in the empyrean! and if all that we see, from earth to sun, and from sun to universal star-work--that wherein we best behold images of eternity, immortality and god--if that is only a state or space of a course of being rolling onward evermore, what must be the creator, the preserver, the guide of all!--he at whose bidding these phantasms came from nothingness, and shall again disappear;--whose name, amid all things, alone is _existence_--i am that i am? "of old hast thou laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands; they shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment: as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end. the children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee." psalm cii. 25 "and i saw a new heaven, and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. and i john saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down from god out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. and i heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, behold the tabernacle of god is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and god himself shall be with them, and be their god." revelation xxi. * * * * * reader, is this glorious heaven your inheritance? is this unchangeable jehovah your god? are you looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of god? is it your daily prayer, even so, lord jesus, come quickly? footnotes: [283] kendall's uranography, 268. [284] annual of scientific discovery, 1856, p. 380. [285] ibid. 1852, p. 376. [286] ibid. 1856, p. 377. [287] cosmos, vol. i. pp. 198-215. [288] judges, chap. v. [289] jeremiah, chap. x. [290] some of my readers may deem any notice of such a subject, in the nineteenth century, entirely unnecessary; but having lived for some years within sight of the dwelling of a woman who publicly advertised herself in the newspapers as a professor of astrology, and seen the continual flow of troubled minds to the promised light--the humble serving-girl stealing up the side entrance, and the princely chariot discharging its willing dupes at the door, and rolling hastily away, to await them at the corner--i know of a certainty that folly is not yet dead. there are women, aye, and men too, who are above the folly of reading the bible, but just wise enough to pay five dollars for, and spend hours in the study of an uncouth astrological picture, representing a collocation of the stars, which was never witnessed by any astronomer. there are men who would not give way to the superstition of supposing that their destiny was regulated by the will of almighty god, yet who believe that every living creature's fate is regulated by the aspect of the stars at the hour of his nativity; the same stars always causing the same period of life and mode of death; though every day's experience testifies the contrary. the same stars presided over the birth of the poor soldier, who perished in an instant at austerlitz; of his imperial master, who pined for years in st. helena; of the old gentleman who died in his own bed, of gout; and of the batch of puppies, whereof old towser was the only surviving representative, the other nine having found their fate in the horse-pond, in defiance of the controlling stars. they were all born at the same hour, and under the same auspices, and destined to the same fate, by the laws of astrology. yet half a dozen professors of astrology find patrons enough in each of our great cities to enable them to live and to pay for advertising in the daily papers. [291] judges, chap. v. [292] dick's celestial scenery, p. 57, applegate's edition, where many such instances are related. [293] vaughn's report to the american association for the advancement of science, in annual of scientific discovery for 1855, p. 364. [294] somerville's connection of the physical sciences, 382. [295] cosmos, vol. i. p. 122; vol. iv. p. 569. [296] somerville's connection of the physical sciences, 383. [297] annual of scientific discovery, 1854, p. 361. [298] letter to herschel, from oroomiah, in persia--annual of scientific discovery, 1854, p. 367. [299] _life and work in the great pyramid_, by piazzi smyth, f. r. s., ll. d. [300] "these tablets (of unbaked clay, with inscriptions, found in the tombs of erech, the city of nimrod--genesis, chap. x. 10--and deciphered by rawlinson) were, in point of fact, the equivalent of our bank notes, and prove that a system of artificial currency prevailed in babylon and persia at an unprecedentedly early age; centuries before the introduction of paper and writing." _rawlinson, in news of the churches, february, 1858, p. 50._ [301] wilkinson's manners and customs of the egyptians, vol. iii. p. 106; cosmos, vol. i. pp. 173, 182; chinese repository, vol. ix. p. 573; williams' middle kingdom, vol. ii. p. 147. [302] somerville's connection of physical sciences, 82. [303] daniel, chap. xii. 8. 1 peter, chap. i. 10. ephesians, chap. i. 3. [304] psalm xl. 1, and xxxvii. 23, margin. [305] m. voltaire; m. cheneviere; theol. essays, vol. i. p. 456. [306] humboldt's cosmos, vol. i. p. 139; herschel's outlines, 380; kendall's uranography, 205. [307] somerville's connection of the physical sciences, 171, 337, 315; architecture of the heavens, 286. [308] genesis, chap. xv. 5. [309] cosmos i. 140. [310] ehrenberg computes that there are forty-one millions of the shells of animalculæ in a cubic inch of bilier slate. [311] annual of scientific discovery, 1860, p. 341. [312] psalm cxlvii. 4. [313] dick's sidereal heavens, 59; herschel's outlines. [314] architecture of the heavens, 62. [315] architecture of the heavens, 64. these unresolved milky streaks and patches have since been discovered to be true nebulæ, or phosphoric clouds, in some way connected with their adjacent stars. [316] architecture of the heavens, 144. [317] job, chap. xxxviii. 31. psalm cxlvii. 4. [318] genesis, chap. xxii. 16. [319] galatians, chap. iii. 14, 29. gen. xxii. 16, 17. [320] architecture of the heavens, 217. [321] architecture of the heavens, 77, 130. chapter xiii. science, or faith? "faith is destined to be left behind in the onward march of the human intellect. it belongs to an infantile stage of intellectual development, when experience, dependent on testimony, becomes the slave of credulity. children and childish nations are prone to superstition. religion belongs properly to such. hence the endless controversies of religious sects. but as man advances into the knowledge of the physical sciences, and becomes familiarized with mathematical demonstration and scientific experiment, he demands substantial proofs for all kinds of knowledge, and rejects that which is merely matter of faith. the certainties of science succeed the controversies of creeds. science thus becomes the grave of religion, as religion is vulgarly understood. but science gives a new and better religion to the world. instead of filling men's minds with the vague terrors of an unknown futurity, it directs us to the best modes of improving this life."--"this life being the first in certainty, give it the first place in importance; and by giving human duties in reference to men the _precedence_, secure that all interpretations of spiritual duty shall be in harmony with human progress."--"nature refers us to science for help, and to humanity for sympathy; love to the lovely is our only homage, study our only praise, quiet submission to the inevitable our duty; and truth is our only worship."--"our _knowledge_ is confined to this life; and _testimony_, and _conjecture_, and _probability_, are all that can be set forth in regard to another."--"preach nature and science, morality and art; _nature, the only subject of knowledge_; morality, the harmony of action; art, the culture of the individual and society."[322] or, if you will insist upon preaching religion, support it "with such proofs as accompany physical science. this i have always loved; for i never find it deceives me. i rest upon it with entire conviction. there is no mistake, and can be no dispute in mathematics. and if a revelation comes from god, why have we not such evidence for it as mathematical demonstration?" such is the language now used by a large class of half-educated people, who, deriving their philosophy from comte, and their religion from the _westminster review_, invite us to spend our sabbaths in the study of nature in the fields and museums, turn our churches into laboratories, exchange our bibles for encyclopedias, give ourselves no more trouble about religion, but try hard to learn as much science, make as much money, and enjoy as much pleasure in this life as we can; because we _know_ that we live now, and can only _believe_ that we shall live hereafter. i do not propose to take any notice here of the proposal of secularism--for that is the new name of this ungodliness--to deliver men from their lusts by scientific lectures, and keep them moral by overturning religion. that experiment has been tried already. but it is worth while to inquire, is science really so positive, and religion so uncertain, as these persons allege? is a knowledge of the physical sciences so all-sufficient for our present happiness, so attainable by all mankind, and so certain and infallible, that we should barter our immortality for it? and, on the other hand, are the great facts of religious experience, and the foundations of our religious faith, so dim, and vague, and utterly uncertain, that we may safely consign them to oblivion, or that we can so get rid of them if we would? the object of this chapter is to refute both parts of the secularist's statement; to show some of the uncertainties, errors, contradictions, and blunders of the scientific men on whose testimony they receive their science; and to exhibit a few of the facts of religious experience which give a sufficient warrant for the christian's faith. scientific observations are made by fallible men exposed to every description of error, prejudice and mistake; men who can not possibly divest themselves of their preconceived opinions in observing facts, and framing theories. lord bacon long ago observed that "the eye of the human intellect is not dry, but receives a suffusion from the will and the affections, so that it may be almost said to engender any science it pleases. for what a man wishes to be true, that he prefers believing." "if the human intellect hath once taken a liking to any doctrine, either because received and credited, or because otherwise pleasing, it draws everything else into harmony with that doctrine, and to its support; and albeit there may be found a more powerful array of contradictory instances, these, however, it does not observe, or it contemns, or by distinction extenuates, and rejects."[323] a prejudiced observer sees the facts distorted and exaggerated. "thus it is that men will not see in the phenomena what alone is to be seen; in their observations they interpolate and expunge; and this mutilated and adulterated product they call a fact. and why? because the real phenomena, if admitted, would spoil the pleasant music of their thoughts, and convert its factitious harmony into a discord. in consequence of this many a system professing to be reared exclusively on observation and fact, rests, in reality, mainly upon hypothesis and fiction. a pretended experience is indeed the screen behind which every illusive doctrine regularly retires. 'there are more false facts,' says cullen, 'current in the world than false theories.' fact, observation, induction, have always been the watchwords of those who have dealt most extensively in fancy."[324] we propose, therefore, to show that, _i. the students of the physical sciences have no such certain knowledge of their facts and theories as secularists pretend._ 1. mathematical science relating merely to abstract truth is supposed to possess powers of demonstration, and capability of scientific certainty superior to all other kinds of knowledge, but the moment we begin to apply it to any existing facts we enter the domain of liability to errors as numerous as our fallible observations of these facts; and when we attempt to apply mathematical demonstration to the infinite, and to enter the domain of faith, in which as immortals we are chiefly concerned, it baffles, deceives, and insults our reason. take the following illustrations: let an infinite whole be divided into halves; the parts must be either finite or infinite. but they can not be finite, else an infinite whole would consist of a finite number of parts; neither can they be infinite, being each less than the infinite whole. again: it is mathematically demonstrable, that any piece of matter is infinitely divisible. a line therefore of half an inch long is infinitely divisible, or divisible into an infinite number of parts. thus we have an infinite half inch. further, for a moving body to pass a given point requires some time; and to pass an infinite number of points must require an infinite number of portions of time, or an eternity; therefore, as half an inch contains an infinite number of points, it will require eternity to pass half an inch. again: it is mathematically demonstrable, that a straight line, the asymptote of a hyperbola, may _eternally approach_ the curve of the hyperbola and _never meet_ it. but no axiom can be plainer than that if two lines continually approach each other they must at length meet. here is a demonstration contradicting an axiom; and no man has ever yet shown the possibilities of reconciling them, nor yet of denying either side of the contradiction. again: it is a fundamental axiom, contained in the definition of a circle, that it must have a center; but the non-existence of this center is mathematically demonstrable, as follows: let the diameter of the circle be bisected into two equal parts; the center must be in one, or the other, of these parts, or between them. it can not be in one of these parts, for they are equal; and, therefore, if it is in the one, it must also be in the other, and thus the circle would have two centers, which is absurd. neither can it be between them, for they are in contact. therefore the center must be a point, destitute of extension, something which does not occupy or exist in space. but as all existences exist in space, and this supposed center does not, it can not be an existence; therefore it is a non-existence. in like manner it has been mathematically demonstrated,[325] that motion, or any change in the rate of progress in a moving body, is impossible; because in passing from any one degree of rapidity to another, all the intermediate degrees must be passed through. as when a train of cars moving four miles an hour strikes a train at rest, the resulting instantaneous motion is two miles an hour; and the first train must therefore be moving at the rate of four, and at the rate of two miles an hour at the same time, which is impossible. and so the ancients demonstrated the impossibility of motion. thus the non-existence of the most undeniable truths, and the impossibilities of the most common facts are mathematically demonstrable; and the proper refutation of such reasoning is, not the scientific, but the common sensible; as when plato refuted the demonstration of the impossibility of motion, by getting up and walking across the floor. in the hyperbola we have the mathematical demonstration of the error of an axiom. in the infinite inch we behold an absurdity mathematically demonstrated. so that it appears we can give mathematical demonstration in support of untruth, impossibilities and absurdities; and our reason can not discover the error of the reasoning! alas, for poor humanity, if an endless destiny depended upon such scientific certainty! yet mathematical reasoning about abstract truth is universally conceded to be less liable to error than any other form of scientific analysis. this line, then, is too short to fathom the ocean of destiny; too weak to bear inferences from even the facts of common life. attempts have indeed been made to apply mathematics to the facts of life in what is called the doctrine of chances. by this kind of calculation it can be shown, that the chances were a thousand millions to one that you and i should never have been born. yet here we are. but when we begin to apply mathematics to the affairs of every-day life, we immediately multiply our chances of error by the number and complexity of these facts. the proper field of mathematics is that of magnitude and numbers. but very few subjects are capable of a mathematical demonstration. _no fact_ whatever which depends on the will of god or man can be so proved. for mathematical demonstration is founded on necessary and eternal relations, and admits of no contingencies in its premises. the mathematician may demonstrate the size and properties of a triangle, but he can not demonstrate the continuance of any actual triangle for one hour, or one minute, after his demonstration. and if he could, how many of my most important affairs can i submit to the multiplication table, or lay off in squares and triangles? it deals with purely ideal figures, which never did or could exist. there is not a mathematical line--length without breadth--in the universe. when we come to the application of mathematics, we are met at once by the fact that there are no mathematical figures in nature. it is true we speak of the orbits of the planets as elliptical or circular, but it is only in a general way, as we speak of a circular saw, the outline of its teeth being regularity itself compared with the perturbations of the planets. we speak of the earth as a spheroid, but it is a spheroid pitted with hollows as deep as the ocean, and crusted with irregular protuberances as vast as the himalaya and the andes, in every conceivable irregularity of form. its seas, coasts, and rivers follow no straight lines nor geometrical curves. there is not an acre of absolutely level ground on the face of the earth; and even its waters will pile themselves up in waves, or dash into breakers, rather than remain perfectly level for a single hour. its minuter formations present the same regular irregularity of form. even the crystals, which approach the nearest of any natural productions to mathematical figures, break with compound irregular fractures at their bases of attachment. the surface of the pearl is proportionally rougher than the surface of the earth, and the dew-drop is not more spherical than a pear. as nature then gives no mathematical figures, mathematical measurements of such figures can be only approximately applied to natural objects. the utter absence of any regularity, or assimilation to the spheroidal figure, either in meridianal, equatorial, or parallel lines, mountain ranges, sea beaches, or courses of rivers, is fatal to mathematical accuracy in the more extended geographical measurements. it is only by taking the mean of a great many measurements that an approximate accuracy can be obtained. where this is not possible, as in the case of the measurements of high mountains, the truth remains undetermined by hundreds of feet; or, as in the case of the earth's spheroidal axis, bessel's measurement differs from newton's, by fully eleven miles.[326] the smaller measures are proportionately as inaccurate. no field, hill, or lake, has an absolute mathematical figure; but its outline is composed of an infinite multitude of irregular curves too minute for man's vision to discover, and too numerous for his intellect to estimate. no natural figure was ever measured with absolute accuracy. all the resources of mathematical science were employed by the constructors of the french metric system; but the progress of science in seventy years has shown that _every element_ of their calculations was erroneous. they tried to measure a quadrant of the earth's circumference, supposing the meridian to be circular; but schubert has shown that that is far from being the case; and that no two meridians are alike; and sir john herschel, and the best geologists, show cause to believe that the form of the globe is constantly changing; so that the ancient egyptians acted wisely in selecting the axis of the earth's rotation, which is invariable, and not the changing surface of the earth, as their standard of measure. the astronomer royal, piazzi smyth, thus enumerates the errors of practice, which they added to those of their erroneous theory: "their trigonometrical survey for their meter length has been found erroneous, so that their meter is no longer sensibly a meter; and their standard temperature of 0° centigrade is upset one way for the length of their scale, and another way for the density of the water employed; and their mode of computing the temperature correction is proved erroneous; and their favorite natural reference of a quadrant of the earth is not found a scientific feature capable of serving the purpose they have been employing it for; and even their own sons show some dislike to adopt it fully, and adhere to as much of the ancient system as they can."[327] but coming down to more practical and every-day calculations, in which money is invested, how very erroneous are the calculations of our best engineers, and how fatal their results. nineteen serious errors were discovered in an edition of _taylor's logarithms_, printed in 1796; some of which might have led to the most dangerous results in calculating a ship's place, and were current for thirty-six years. in 1832 the _nautical almanac_ published a correction which was itself erroneous by one second, and a new correction was necessary the next year. but in making this correction a _new error was committed of ten degrees_.[328] who knows how many ships were run ashore by that error? nor can our american mathematicians boast of superior infallibility to the french or british. in computing the experiments which were made at lowell (for a new turbine wheel), it was found that when the gate was fully open, the quantity of water discharged through the guides was _seventy per cent. of the theoretical discharge_. (an error of thirty per cent.) the effect of the wheel during these experiments was eighty-one and a half per cent. of the power expended; but when the gate was half open the effect was sixty-seven per cent. of the power, while the discharge through the guides eleven per cent. more than the theoretical discharge. but when the opening of the gate was still further reduced to one-fourth of the full opening, the effect was also reduced to forty-five per cent. of the power, while the discharging velocity was raised to _forty-nine per cent. more than that given by the theory_.[329] an unscientific man would hardly call that good guessing; but it was the best result of labored and expensive scientific calculation. no wonder the _london mechanics' magazine_ says: "more can be learned in this way (testing engines in the workshop) in half an hour, than can be derived from the theoretical instructions, however good, in a year." so much for the infallibility of a mathematical demonstration. in regard even to the very limited circle of our relations which can be measured by the foot rule, and the small number of our anxieties which may be resolved by an equation, if by mathematical accuracy be meant anything more than tolerable correctness, or by mathematical demonstration a very high degree of probability, mathematical certainty is all a fable. 2. _astronomy._ the omniscience and prescience of the human intellect have been largely glorified by some infidel lecturers, upon the strength of the accuracy with which it is possible to calculate and predict eclipses, and to the disparagement of bible predictions. and this glorification has been amazingly swollen by le verrier's prediction in 1846 of the discovery of the planet neptune. but the prediction of some unknown motion would form a more correct basis for a comparison of the prophecies of science with those of scripture; such, for instance, as immanuel kant's prediction of the period of saturn's rotation at six hours twenty-three minutes fifty-three seconds; "which mathematical calculation of an unknown motion of a heavenly body," he says, "_is the only prediction of that kind in pure natural philosophy_, and awaits confirmation at a future period." it is a pity that this unique scientific prediction should not have had better luck, for the encouragement of other guessers; but after waiting long and vainly, for the expected confirmation, it was finally falsified by herschel's discovery of spots on the surface of the planet, and observation of the true time, ten hours sixteen minutes forty-four seconds.[330] this, however, was not his only astronomical prediction. he predicted that immense bodies in a transition state between planets and comets, and of very eccentric orbits, would be found beyond the orbit of saturn, and intersecting it, but no such bodies have been discovered. uranus and neptune have no cometary character whatever, their orbits are less eccentric than others and do not intersect, nor approach within millions of miles of saturn's orbit. the verification of le verrier's prediction affords even a more satisfactory proof of the necessarily conjectural character of astronomical computations of unknown quantities and distances. the planet neptune has not one-half the mass which he had calculated; his orbit, which was calculated as very elliptical, is nearly circular; and the error of the calculation of his distance is three hundred millions of miles![331] "let us then be candid," says loomis, "and claim no more for astronomy than is reasonably due. when in 1846 le verrier announced the existence of a planet hitherto unseen, and when he assigned it its exact position in the heavens, and declared that it shone like a star of the eighth magnitude, and with a perceptible disc, _not an astronomer of france, and scarce an astronomer in europe, had sufficient faith in the prediction to prompt him to point his telescope to the heavens_. but when it was announced that the planet had been seen at berlin, that it was found within one degree of the computed place, that it was indeed a star of the eighth magnitude, and had a sensible disc--then the enthusiasm not only of the public generally, but of astronomers also, was even more wonderful than their former apathy. the sagacity of le verrier was felt to be almost superhuman. language could scarce be found strong enough to express the general admiration. the praise then lavished upon le verrier was somewhat extravagant. _the singularly close agreement between the observed and computed places of the planet was accidental._ so exact a coincidence could not reasonably have been anticipated. if the planet had been found even ten degrees from what le verrier assigned as its probable place, _this discrepancy would have surprised no astronomer_. the discovery would still have been one of the most remarkable events in the history of astronomy, and le verrier would have merited the title of first astronomer of the age."[332] nevertheless, astronomy from the comparative simplicity of the bodies and forces with which it has to deal, and the approximate regularity of the paths of the heavenly bodies, may be regarded as the science in which the greatest possible certainty is attainable. it opens at once the widest field to the imagination, and the noblest range to the reason; it has attracted the most exalted intellects to its pursuit, and has rewarded their toils with the grandest discoveries. these discoveries have been grossly abused by inferior minds, ascribing to the discoverers of the laws of the universe the glory due to their creator; and boasting of the power of the human mind, as if it were capable of exploring the infinite in space, and of calculating the movements of the stars through eternity. persons who could not calculate an eclipse to save their souls, have risked them upon the notion that, because astronomers can do so with considerable accuracy, farmers ought to reject the bible, unless its predictions can be calculated by algebra. it may do such persons good, or at least prevent them from doing others harm, to take a cursory view of the errors of astronomers; errors necessary as well as accidental. sir john herschel, than whom none has a better right to speak on this subject, and whose devotion to that noble science precludes all supposition of prejudice against it, devotes a chapter to _the errors of astronomy_,[333] which he classifies and enumerates: "i. external causes of error, comprehending such as depend on external uncontrollable circumstances; such as fluctuations of weather, which disturb the amount of refraction from its tabulated value, and being reducible to no fixed laws, induce uncertainty to the amount of their own possible magnitude. "ii. errors of observation; such as arise for instance from inexpertness, defective vision, slowness in seizing the exact instant of the occurrence of a phenomenon, or precipitancy in anticipating it; from atmospheric indistinctness, insufficient optical power in the instrument, and the like. "iii. the third, and by far the most numerous class of errors, arise from causes which may be deemed instrumental, and which may be divided into two classes. "the first arises from an instrument not being what it professes to be, which is _error of workmanship_. thus if an axis or pivot, instead of being as it ought, exactly cylindrical, be slightly flattened or elliptical--if it be not exactly concentric with the circle which it carries--if this circle so called be in reality not exactly circular--or not in one plane--if its divisions, intended to be precisely equidistant, shall be in reality at unequal intervals--_and a hundred other things of the same sort_. "the other subdivision of instrumental errors comprehends such as arise from an instrument not being placed in the position it ought to have; and from those of its parts which are made purposely movable not being properly disposed, _inter se_. these are _errors of adjustment_. some are unavoidable, as they arise from a general unsteadiness of the soil or building in which the instruments are placed.[334] others again are consequences of imperfect workmanship; as when an instrument, once well adjusted, will not remain so. but the most important of this class of errors arise from the non-existence of natural indications other than those afforded by astronomical observations themselves, whether an instrument has, or has not, the exact position with respect to the horizon, and the cardinal points, etc., which it ought to have, properly to fulfill its object. "now, with regard to the first two classes of error, it must be observed, that in so far as they can not be reduced to known laws, and thereby become the subjects of calculation and due allowance, _they actually vitiate in their full extent the results of any observations in which they subsist_. with regard to errors of adjustment, not only the possibility, _but the certainty of their existence in every imaginable form, in all instruments_, must be contemplated. _human hands or machines never formed a circle, drew a straight line, or executed a perpendicular, nor ever placed an instrument in perfect adjustment, unless accidentally, and then only during an instant of time._" the bearing of these important and candid admissions of error in astronomical observations upon all kinds of other observations made by mortal eyes, and with instruments framed by human hands, in every department of science, is obvious. no philosophical observation or experiment is absolutely accurate, or can possibly be more than tolerably near the truth. the error of a thousandth part of an inch in an instrument will multiply itself into thousands, and millions of miles, according to the distance of the object, or the profundity of the calculation. our faith in the absolute infallibility of scientific observers, and consequently in the absolute certainty of science, being thus rudely upheaved from its very foundations by sir john herschel's crowbar, we are prepared to learn that scientific men have made errors great and numerous. to begin at home, with our own little globe, where certainty is much more attainable than among distant stars, we have seen that astronomers of the very highest rank are by no means agreed as to its diameter. its precise form is equally difficult to determine. newton showed that an ellipsoid of revolution should differ from a sphere by a compression of 1/230. the mean of a number of varying measurements of arcs, in five different places, would give 1/299. the pendulum measurement differs very considerably from both, and "no two sets of pendulum experiments give the same result."[335] the same liability to error, and uncertainty of the actual truth, attends the other modes of ascertaining this fundamental measurement. a very small error here will vitiate all other astronomical calculations; for the earth's radius, and the radius of its orbit, are the foot-rule and surveyor's chain with which the astronomer measures the heavens. but this last and most used standard is uncertain; and of the nine different estimates, it is certain that eight must be wrong; and probably that all are erroneous. for example, encke, in 1761, gives the earth's distance from the sun at 95,141,830 encke, in 1769, 95,820,610 lacaille, 76,927,900 henderson, 90,164,110 gillies and gould, 96,160,000 mayer, 104,097,100 le verrier, 91,066,350 sir john herschel, 91,718,000 humboldt, 82,728,000[336] here now is the fundamental standard measure of astronomy; and nine first-class astronomers are set to determine its length; but their measurements range all the way from seventy-seven to one hundred and four millions of miles--a difference of nearly one-fourth. why the old-fashioned finger and thumb measure used before the carpenter's two-foot rule was invented never made such discrepancies; it could always make a foot within an inch more or less; but our scientific measurers, it seems, can not guess within two inches on the foot. their smaller measurements are equally inaccurate. lias says the aurora borealis is only two and a half miles high; hood and richardson make its height double that, or five miles; olmsted and twining run it up to forty-two, one hundred, and one hundred and sixty miles![337] when they are thus inaccurate in the measurement of a phenomenon so near the earth, how can we believe in the infallibility of their measurements of the distances of the stars and the nebulæ in the distant heavens? the moon is the nearest to us of all the heavenly bodies, and exercises the greatest influence of any, save the sun, upon our crops, ships, health and lives, and consequently has had a larger share of astronomical attention than any other celestial body. but the most conflicting statements are made by astronomers regarding her state and influences. there is no end to the controversy whether the moon influences the weather; though one would think that question, being rather a terrestrial one, could easily be decided. schwabe says herschel is wrong in saying that the years of most solar spots were fruitful; but wolf looks up the zurich meteorological tables, and confirms herschel. in _ferguson's astronomy_, the standard text-book of its day, we are informed that "some of her mountains (the moon's) by comparing their height with her diameter, are found to be three times higher than the highest hills on earth." they would thus be over fifteen miles high. but sir wm. herschel assures us that "the generality do not exceed half a mile in their general elevation." _transactions of the royal society_, may 11, 1780. beer and madler have measured thirty-nine whose height they assure us exceed mont blanc. but m. gussew, of the imperial observatory at wilna, describes to us, "a mountain mass in the form of a meniscus lens, rising in the middle to a height of seventy-nine english miles."[338] as this makes the moon lopsided, with the heavy side toward the earth, the question of an atmosphere, and of the moon's inhabitability is reopened; and the discussion seems to favor the man in the moon; only he keeps on the other side always, so that we can not see him. the best astronomers have gravely calculated the most absurd problems--for instance the projection of meteorites from lunar volcanoes; poisson calculated that they would require an initial velocity of projection of seven thousand nine hundred and ninety-five feet per second; others demanded eight thousand two hundred and eighty-two; olbers demanded fourteen times as much; but la place, the great inventor of the nebular theory, after thirty years' study fixed it definitely at seven thousand eight hundred and sixty-two! it appears that the absurdity of the discharging force of a part greater than the attracting force of the whole never occurred to him.[339] this same la place supposed, that he could have placed the moon in a much better position for giving light than she now occupies; and that this was the only object of her existence. as this was not done he argued that her waxing and waning light was a proof that she was not located by an omniscient creator. he says he would have placed her in the beginning in opposition to the sun, in the plane of the ecliptic, and about four times her present distance from us, with such a motion as would ever maintain that position, thus securing full moon from sunset to sunrise, without possibility of eclipse. but lionville demonstrates that "if the moon had occupied at the beginning the position assigned her, by the illustrious author of the _mecanique celeste_, she could not have maintained it but a very short time."[340] in short, la place's hypothetical calculations generally have proved erroneous when applied to any existing facts; and we have no reason to attach more value to his nebular theory calculations. the sun is the principal orb of our system, and by far the most conspicuous, and the most observed of all observers, astronomers included. but we have seen already how contradictory their measurements of his distance, and their observations of the influence of his spots. far more conflicting are the theories as to his constitution, of which indeed we may truly say very little was known before the application of photography and the spectroscope to heliography within the last seven years. one astronomer fixed the period of his rotation at twenty-five days, fourteen hours, and eight minutes; another at twenty-six days, forty-six minutes; another at twenty-four days, twenty-eight minutes.[341] in regard to the sun's heat, a matter fundamental to the nebular theory, the calculations differ widely, and some of them must be grossly erroneous. m. vicaire called the attention of the french academy, at a recent meeting, to this unsatisfactory condition of science. father secchi estimates it at eighteen million fahrenheit; while pouillet says it ranges from two thousand six hundred and sixty-two to three thousand two hundred and one; and others range from two hundred thousand downward. the most singular thing is that these results are derived from observations or radiations made by apparatus identical in principle.[342] but waterston calculates the temperature of the solar surface at above ten, and probably twelve million fahrenheit.[343] now what feeds these enormous fires? the old opinion of astronomy, that the sun was a mass of fire, was assailed by sir wm. herschel, who maintained that it was in the condition of a perpetual magnetic storm. this notion was altered into the belief of a central dark body, surrounded by a stratum of clouds, outside of which is a photosphere of light and heat; which some made one thousand five hundred miles in depth, others four thousand. outside of this was another layer of rose-colored clouds. to this theory arago, sir john herschel and humboldt assented. but le verrier declares that the facts observed during late eclipses are contrary to this theory, and a new theory is slow in process of construction, to be demolished in its turn by later observations.[344] one of the most recent theories is that the fuel is furnished by a stream of meteorites, planetoids, and comets, falling in by the power of attraction, and being speedily converted into gas flames; a process the very reverse of the theory of the evolution of the solid celestial bodies from gas. but it is pretty evident from these conflicting theories that nobody knows anything certainly as to the materials of the sun, or the fuel which feeds his flames. but if the very best astronomers do not know of what he is made, is it not too great a demand upon our credulity to ask us to believe that they can tell how he was made? the size, density, and distances of the planets, which form such essential elements in the calculations of the nebular theory of evolution, are equally uncertain. ten or twelve years ago mercury was believed to be nearly three times as dense as the earth (2.94); and the theory of evolution was partly based upon this assumed fact. but hausen now finds that it is not half so dense; that, as compared with the earth, it is only 1.22; and that its mass is less than half (5/12) of what had been confidently calculated.[345] corrections of the masses and densities of other planets are also offered. still wider differences prevail in calculating the velocities of these bodies; velocities _calculated_ and found to correspond with the theory of evolution. bianchini gives the period of the rotation of venus at twenty-four days, eight hours; but schroeter says it is not as many hours as bianchini gives days; that it is only twenty-three hours and twenty minutes. sir wm. herschel can not tell which is right, or whether both are wrong.[346] from such imperfect and erroneous calculations astronomers have deduced what they called a _law_, which holds the same place in nature that the blue laws of connecticut maintain in history; and which like them have imposed upon the credulous. titius and bode imagined that they had discovered that, "when the distances of the planets are examined, it is found that they are almost all removed from each other by distances which are in the same proportion as their magnitudes increase." and this _law_ played an important part in introducing the theory of evolution, which, it was alleged, exactly corresponded with such an arrangement. but more accurate calculations and recent discoveries have dissipated the supposed order of progression. humboldt says of it, it is "a law which scarcely deserves this name, and which is called by lalande and delambre a play of numbers; by others a help for the memory. * * * in reality the distances between jupiter, saturn, and uranus approximate very closely to the duplication. nevertheless, since the discovery of neptune, which is much too near uranus, the defectiveness in the progression has become strikingly evident." and olbers rejects it, as "contrary to the nature of all truths which merit the name of laws; it agrees only approximately with observed facts in the case of most planets, and what does not appear to have been once observed, not at all in the case of mercury. it is evident that the series, 4, 4+3, 4+6, 4+12, 4+48, 4+96, 4+192, with which the distances should correspond, is not a continuous series at all. the number which precedes 4+3 should not be 4; _i. e._, 4+0, but 4+3/2. therefore between 4 and 4+3 there should be an infinite number, or as wurm expresses it, for _n_=1, there is obtained from 4+2^{n-2}.3; not 4, but 5-1/2."[347] thus this so-called law is erroneous in both ends, and defective in the middle. finally it has been utterly abolished by the discovery of the planet vulcan, which does not correspond to any such law.[348] if the theory of evolution then corresponds to bode's law, as its advocates alleged, it corresponds to a myth. about the nebulæ which have played so large a part in the atheistic world building, our astronomers are utterly at variance. sir john herschel says they are far away beyond the stars in space. but the melbourne astronomer, m. le seur, suggests that the star eta and the nebulous matter are neighbors; that the nebulous matter formerly around it, which has recently disappeared, while the star has blazed up into flames, is being absorbed and digested by the star. this has happened before, thirty years ago, to that star. why may not our sun also absorb and burn up nebulæ. but if so, what becomes of the rings of the nebular theory? the light of the stars is almost the only medium through which we can observe them, and it would naturally be supposed that astronomers would be at pains to have clear views of light. but the most surprising differences of statement regarding it exist among the very first astronomers. they do not see it alike. herschel says a herculis is red; struve says it is yellow. they dispute about its nature, motion, and quantity. some astronomers believe the sun to be the great source of light, at least to our system. but nasmyth informs the royal astronomical society that "the true source of latent light is not in the solar orb, but in space itself, and that the grand function of the sun is to act as an agent for the bringing forth into existence the luciferous element, which element i suppose to be diffused throughout the boundless regions of space."[349] the nature of light is however still as great a mystery as when job demanded, "where is the way where light dwelleth?" the undulatory theory of light, now generally accepted, assumes that light is caused by the vibrations of the ether in a plane transverse to the direction of propagation. in order to transmit motions of this kind, the parts of the luminiferous medium must resist compression and distortion, like those of an elastic solid body; its transverse elasticity being great enough to transmit one of the most powerful kinds of physical energy, with a speed in comparison with which that of the swiftest planets of our system is inappreciable, and its longitudinal elasticity immensely greater--both of these elasticities being at the same time so weak as to offer no perceptible resistance to the motion of the planets, and other visible bodies.[350] is the velocity of light uniform? or, if variable, is the variation caused by the original difference of the projectile force of the different suns, stars, comets, etc.? or by the different media through which it passes? arago alleges that light moves more rapidly through water than through air; but brequet asserts that the fact is just the reverse.[351] both admit that its velocity varies with the medium. jacobs alleges that during the trigonometrical survey of india he observed the _extinction_ of light reflected through sixty miles of horizontal atmosphere.[352] how, then, can astronomers make any reliable calculations of the velocity of light reaching us through regions of space filled with unknown media? newton calculated the velocity of light at one hundred and fifty-five thousand five hundred and fifty-five and five-ninth miles a second; but encke shows he erred thirty per cent. other eminent astronomers make the time of the passage of light from the sun all the way from eleven to fourteen minutes, instead of newton's seven or eight. busch reckons its velocity at one hundred and sixty-seven thousand nine hundred and seventy-six miles; draper one hundred and ninety-two thousand; struve two hundred and fifteen thousand eight hundred and fifty-four. wheatstone alleges that electric light travels at the rate of two hundred and eighty-eight thousand miles a second; but frizeau's calculations and measurements give only one hundred and sixty-seven thousand five hundred and twenty-eight for the light of oxygen and hydrogen.[353] thus we have a variation of one hundred and twenty thousand miles a second in all calculations of sidereal distances. humboldt tries to reconcile these differences by the suggestion, that no one will deny, that lights of different magnetic or electric processes may have different velocities; a fact which throws all sidereal astronomy into inextricable confusion, and sets aside all existing time tables on sidereal railroads. they are no more agreed as to its composition after it reaches us than as to its velocity. newton taught that it consisted of seven colors; wallaston denies more than four; brewster reduces the number to three--red, yellow, and blue. newton measures the yellow and violet, and finds them as forty to eighty. fraunhofer makes the proportion twenty-seven to one hundred and nine. wallaston's spectrum differs from both. field says, "no one has ventured to alter either estimate, and no one who is familiar with the spectrum will put much faith in any measurement of it, by whosoever and with what care soever made."[354] he says white light is composed of five parts red, three yellow, and eight blue; which differs wholly from brewster, who gives it three parts red, five yellow, and two of blue. equally wild are their calculations of the quantity of light emitted by particular stars. radeau calculates vulcan's light at 2.25 that of mercury; lias, from the same observations, at 7.36, nearly three times as much.[355] sir john herschel calculates that _alpha centauri_ emits more light than the sun; that the light of sirius is four times as great, and its parallax much less; so that by such a calculation sirius would have an intrinsic splendor sixty-three times that of the sun. but wallaston only calculates his light at one-fourth of this amount; and steinheil makes it only one two-hundredth part of the former estimate.[356] astronomers have lately been comforting the world with the assurance that we have little to fear from comets; that the superstitious fear of the comets prevalent in the past was ill founded, because comets are so very thin that we might pass through one without its breaking up anything. but that, as principal leitch shows us, is not the only question. "we know that the most deadly miasmata are so subtle that it is impossible to detect them by any chemical tests, and a very homeopathic dose of a comet, in addition to the elements of our own atmosphere, might produce the most fatal effects."[357] the phenomena indicative of cosmical processes are out of the range of astronomical observation. we can only observe those indicated by light, and gravitation; but how small a proportion of the formative processes of our own world indicate themselves by these two classes of phenomena! how few of the chemical, vegetative, animal, moral, social, or even geological processes, now progressing under our own observation, could give us notice of their existence by the two channels of light and gravitation? how, then, can philosophers ever learn the process of building worlds like our own in which many other powers are at work? astronomers are not all agreed as to the existence of a cosmical ether; nor do those who assert it agree as to its properties. what is its nature, density, power of refraction and reflection of light, and resistance to motion? what is its temperature? is it uniform, or like our atmosphere, ever varying? these are manifestly questions indispensable to be answered before any theory of the development of worlds is even conceivable. but of the properties of this all-extending cosmical atmosphere, which is the very breath of life of the development theory, astronomers present the most conflicting statements. professor vaughan says, "if such a body exists, it is beyond our estimation of all that is material. it has no weight, according to our idea of weight; no resistance, according to our idea of calculating resistance by mechanical tests; no volume, on our views of volume; no chemical activity, according to our experimental and absolute knowledge of chemical action. in plain terms, it presents no known re-agency by which it can be isolated from surrounding or intervening matter."[358] or, in plainer terms, we know nothing about it. the only fact about it which astronomers have ventured to specify and calculate is its temperature; for upon this all the power of the development world-making process depends. but they are very far from any agreement; indeed, they are much farther apart than the equator from the poles. stanley finds the temperature of absolute space--58°; arago--70°; humboldt--85°; herschel--132°; saigey--107°; pouillet, to be exact to a fraction--223-6/10° below the freezing point; though when it gets to be so cold as that one would think he would hardly stay out of doors to measure fractions of a degree. but poisson thinks he is over 200° too cold, and fixes the temperature accurately, in his own opinion, 8-6/10°. moreover, he alleges that there is no more uniformity in the temperature of the heavens than in that of our own atmosphere, owing to the unequal radiations of heat from the stars; and that the earth, and the whole solar system, receive their internal heat from without, while passing through hot regions of space.[359] from this chaos of conflicting assertions of unknown facts the theory of development develops itself. its fundamental postulate is the difference of temperature between the nebulæ and the surrounding space. but the fact is that nobody knows what is the temperature of either space or nebulæ, nor is anybody likely ever to know enough of either to base any scientific theory upon. astronomy will never teach men how to make worlds; nor is it of the least consequence that it does not; since we could not make them, even if we knew how. from these specimens of the errors and contradictions of the best astronomers, the teachers upon whose accuracy we depend for our faith in science, we can see, that though the pope and the infidel savans may claim infallibility, yet after all the savant is just as infallible as the pope, viz: he is right when he is right, and he is wrong when he is wrong, and that happens frequently and common folks can not always tell when. there is no such thing, then, as infallible science upon faith, in which i can venture to reject god's bible, and risk my soul's salvation. science is founded on faith in very fallible men. 3. _geology_, one of the most recent of the sciences, and in the hands of infidel nurses one of the most noisy, has been supposed to be anti-christian. the supposition is utterly unfounded. such of its facts as have been well ascertained have demonstrated the being, wisdom, and goodness of an almighty creator, with irresistible evidence. nor, though a wonderful outcry has been raised about the opposition between the records of the rocks and the records of the bible, regarding the antiquity of the earth, has any one yet succeeded in proving such an opposition, for the plain reason that neither the bible nor geology says how old it is. they both say it is very old. the bible says, "in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth;" and by the use which it makes of the word _beginning_, leaves us to infer that it was long before the existence of the human race.[360] if the geologist could prove that the earth was six thousand millions of years older than adam, it would contradict no statement of the bible. the bible reader, therefore, has no reason to question any well ascertained fact of geology. but when infidels come to us with their geological _theories_ about the mode in which god made the earth, or in which the earth made itself, and how long it took to do it, and tell us that they have got scientific demonstration from the rocks that the bible account is false, and that our old traditions can not stand before the irresistible evidence of science, we are surely bound to look at the foundation of facts, and the logical superstructure, which sustain such startling conclusions. now it is remarkable that every infidel argument against the statements of the bible, or rather against what they suppose to be the statements of the bible, is based, not on the _facts_, but upon the _theories_, of geology. i do not know one which is based solely on facts and inductions from facts. every one of them has a wooden leg, and goes hobbling upon an _if_. take for example the argument most commonly used--that which asserts the vast antiquity of the earth--a thing in itself every way likely, and not at all contrary to scripture, if it could be scientifically proved. but how does our infidel geologist set about his work of proving that the earth is any given age, say six thousand millions of years? a scientific demonstration must rest upon _facts_--well ascertained facts. it admits of _no suppositions_. now what are the facts given to solve the problem of the earth's age? the geologist finds a great many layers of rocks, one above the other, evidently formed below the water, some of them out of the fragments of former rocks, containing bones, shells, and casts of fishes, and tracks of the feet of birds, made when these rocks were in the state of soft mud, and altogether several miles thick. he has a great multitude of such facts before him, but they are all of this character. not one of them gives him the element of _time_. they announce to him a succession of events, such as successive generations of fishes and plants; but not one of them tells how long these generations lived. the condition of the world was so utterly different then, from what it is now, that no inference can be drawn from the length of the lives of existing races, which are generally also of different species. the utmost any man can say, in such a case, is, _i suppose_, for there is no determinate element of time in the statement of the problems, and so no certain time can appear in the solution. here is a problem exactly similar. a certain house is found to be built with ten courses of hewn stone in the basement, forty courses of brick in the first story, thirty-six courses in the second, thirty-two in the third; with a roof of nine inch rafters covered with inch boards, and an inch and a half layer of coal tar and gravel; how long was it in building? would not any school-boy laugh at the absurdity of attempting such a problem? he would say, "how can i tell unless i know whence the materials came, how they were conveyed, how many workmen were employed, and how much each could do in a day? if the brick had to be made by hand, the lumber all dressed with the hand-saw and jack-plane, the materials all hauled fifty miles in an ox-cart, the brick carried up by an irishman in a hod, and the work done by an old, slow-going, jobbing contractor, who could only afford to pay three or four men at a time, they would not get through in a year. but if the building stone and sand were found in excavating the cellar, if the brick were made by steam and came by railroad, a good master builder, with steam saw and planing mills, steam hoists, and a strong force of workmen, would run it up in three weeks." so our geologist ought to say; "i do not know either the source of the materials of the earth's strata, nor the means by which they were conveyed to their present positions; therefore i can not tell the time required for their formation. if the crust of the earth was created originally of solid granite, and the materials of the strata were ground down by the slow action of frost and rain, and conveyed to the ocean by the still slower agencies of rivers and torrents--hundreds of millions of ages would not effect the work. but if the earth was created in such a shape as would rationally be considered the best adapted for future stratification; if its crust consisted of the various elements of which granite and other rocks are composed; if these materials were ejected in a granular or comminuted form, and in vast quantities by submarine volcanoes generated by the chemical action of these elements upon each other; and if, after being diffused by the currents of the ocean, and consolidated by its vast pressure, the underlying strata were baked and melted and crystallized into granite[361]--a very few centuries would suffice. until these indispensable preliminaries are settled, geology can make no calculations of the length of time occupied by the formation of the strata." but instead of saying so, he _imagines_ that god chose to make the earth out of the most impossible materials, by the most unsuitable agencies, and with the most inadequate forces; and that therefore a long time was needed for the work. in short, to revert to our illustration of the house-building, he _supposes_ that almighty god built the earth with the ox-team, and employed only the same force in erecting the building, which he now uses for doing little jobbing repairs. almost all geological computations of time are made upon the supposition that only the same agents were at work then which we see now, that they only wrought with the same degree of force, and that they produced just the same effects in such a widely different condition of the earth as then prevailed. it takes a year say to deposit mud enough at the bottom of the sea to make an inch of rock now; _and if mud was deposited no faster_ when the geological strata were formed, they are as many years old as there are inches in eight or nine miles depth of strata. but this is not the scientific proof we were promised. how does he prove that mud was deposited at just the same rate then as now? the very utmost he can say is that it is a very probable supposition. i can prove it a very improbable supposition. but it is enough for my present purpose to point out that, probable or improbable, it is _only supposition_. no proof is given or can possibly be given for it. any conclusion drawn from such premises can be only a _supposition_ too. and so the whole fabric of geological chronology, upon the stability of which so many infidels are risking the salvation of their souls, and beneath which they are boasting that they will bury the bible beyond the possibility of a resurrection, vanishes into a mere _unproved notion_, based upon an _if_. it is truly astonishing, that any sober-minded person should allow himself to be shaken in his religious convictions by the alleged results of a science so unformed and imperfect, as geologists themselves acknowledge their favorite science to be. "the dry land upon our globe occupies only _one-fourth_ of its whole superficies. all the rest is sea. how much of this fourth part have geologists been able to examine? and how small seems to be the area of stratification which they have explored? we venture to say not one _fiftieth part of the whole_."[362] "abstract or speculative geology, were it a perfect science, would present a history of the globe from its origin and formation, through all the changes it has undergone, up to the present time; describing its external appearance, its plants and animals at each successive period. _as yet, geology is the mere aim to arrive at such knowledge_; and when we consider how difficult it is to trace the history of a nation, even over a few centuries, we can not be surprised at the small progress geologists have made in tracing the history of the earth through the lapse of ages. to ascertain the history of a nation possessed of written records is comparatively easy; but when these are wanting, we must examine the ruins of their cities and monuments, and judge of them as a people from the size and structure of their buildings, and from the remains of art found in them. this is often a perplexing, always an arduous task; _much more so is it to decipher the earth's history_."[363] "the canoes, for example, and stone hatchets found in our peat bogs afford an insight into the rude arts and manners of the earliest inhabitants of our island; the buried coin fixes the date of some roman emperor; the ancient encampments indicate the districts once occupied by invading armies, and the former method of constructing military defenses; the egyptian mummies throw light on the art of embalming, the rites of sepulture, or the average stature of ancient egypt. this class of memorials yields to no other in authenticity, but it constitutes a small part only of the resources on which the historian relies; whereas in geology it forms the only kind of evidence which is at our command. for this reason _we must not expect to obtain a full and connected account of any series of events beyond the reach of history_."[364] "there are no calculations more doubtful than those of the geologist."[365] in fact, no truly scientific geologist pretends that it stands on the same level with any authentic history, much less with the bible record; inasmuch as the discovery of a single new fact may overturn the whole theory. "it furnishes us with no clew by which to unravel the unapproachable mysteries of creation. these mysteries belong to the wondrous creator, and to him only. we attempt to theorize upon them, and to reduce them to law, and all nature rises up against us in our presumptuous rebellion. a stray splinter of cone bearing wood--a fish's skull or tooth--the vertebra of a reptile--the humerus of a bird--the jaw of a quadruped--_all_, _any_ of these things, weak and insignificant as they may seem, become in such a quarrel too strong for us and our theory--the puny fragment in the grasp of truth forms as irresistible a weapon as the dry bone did in that of samson of old; and our slaughtered sophisms lie piled up, 'heaps upon heaps,' before it."[366] the history of the progress of geology furnishes abundant proof of the truth of these admissions of weakness and fallibility. in almost every instance when we have had the opportunity of testing geological calculations of time they have proved to be erroneous; and sometimes grossly erroneous. the lake dwellings of switzerland, which were once alleged to be at least fifteen thousand years old, are found surrounded by heaps of burnt corn; illustrating cæsar's account of the burning of their corn by the helvetians, preparatory to the invasion of gaul, which he repelled. the peat bogs of denmark, surrounding stumps of oak, beech, and pine, claimed to be successive growths, and at least twelve thousand five hundred years old, have been compared with a piece of primeval bog and forest, on the earl of arran's estate, in scotland, which corresponds perfectly to the danish bog; but which shows the three growths not successive, but contemporaneous, at different levels; the bog growing as well as the trees. and the frequent discovery of danish remains of the stone and bronze ages in the old danish forts and battle-fields of ireland fixes their historical period at the era of the danish invasion; some of these stone and bronze weapons being found on the battle-field of clontarf, dating a. d. 827. skeletons of warriors with gold collars, bronze battle-axes, and flint arrow heads are quite common in the irish bogs. the absence of iron, on which so great a theory of the stone, bronze, and iron ages as successive developments of civilization has been raised, is easily accounted for by the perishable nature of iron when exposed to moisture. but that this celtic race used iron also, as well as bronze and stone, is proved incontestably by the discovery, in 1863, of the slag of their iron furnaces, among a number of flint weapons, and celtic skulls, at linhope, in northumberland; the iron itself having perished by rust.[367] the pottery, glass, and handmills found beside these skulls show that their owners were by no means the degraded savages supposed to represent the so-called stone age. horner's nile pottery, discovered at a depth of sixty feet, and calculated to be twelve thousand years old, and fragments found still deeper in this deposit, and calculated at thirty thousand years, were found to be underlaid by still deeper layers, producing roman pottery; and in the deepest boring of all, at the foot of the statue of rameses ii., the discovery of the grecian honeysuckle, marked on some of these mysterious fragments, which they had claimed as pre-historic, proved that it could not be older than the greek conquest of egypt. sir robert stephenson found in the neighborhood of damietta, at a greater depth than mr. horner reached, a brick bearing the stamp of mohammed ali.[368] the shifting currents of all rivers flowing through alluvial deposits bury such things in a single season of high water. the raised beaches of scotland are quite conspicuous geological features of the highlands, and have furnished themes for calculations of their vast antiquity. here and there human remains had been discovered in them, but no link could be had to connect them otherwise than geologically with history. geologists, accordingly, with their visual generosity of time, assigned them to the pre-adamite period. but recently the missing link has been found, and these progenitors of tubal cain, and the pre-adamites generally, are found to have been in the habit of supping their broth out of roman pottery! lyell, the acknowledged prince of geologists, is famous for his chronological blundering; of which his calculations of the age of the delta of the mississippi is a very good american example. he calculates the quantity of mud in suspension in the water, and the area and depth of the delta, and says it must have taken sixty-seven thousand years for the formation of the whole; and if the alluvial matter of the plain above be two hundred and sixty-four feet deep, or half that of the delta, it must have required thirty-three thousand five hundred years more for its accumulation, even if its area be estimated at only equal to the delta, whereas it is in fact larger.[369] he makes no allowance for tidal deposits. but brig. gen. humphrey, of the united states surveying department, goes over lyell's calculations, and shows that instead of 3,702,758,400 cubic feet of mud brought down by the mississippi, as estimated by lyell, the actual amount is 19,500,750,000,000; that the rate at which the delta is now advancing into the gulf is fifty feet per annum, and that the age of the delta and alluvial deposit is four thousand four hundred, instead of lyell's one hundred thousand five hundred years.[370] we might go on and give a dozen such instances of geological miscalculations of time did space permit; but these are enough to disabuse us of any faith in such calculations. with such specimens before us of the miscalculations of the smaller periods by geologists, we are not surprised to find that they grossly exaggerate the larger cycles of time. the necessities of the evolution of the ascidian into the snail, of the snail into the fish, and of the fish into the lizard, of the lizard into the monkey, and of the monkey into the man, by slow and imperceptible changes, demanded an almost infinite length of time; and the geologists of that school accordingly asserted the existence of animal life upon our globe for hundreds of thousands of millions of years. but sir wm. thompson, one of the first mathematicians, demonstrates[371] the impossibility of any such length of time being spent in the process of cooling our little globe. beginning with their own assumption, of a globe of molten granite cooling down to the present state, he proves that the earth can not have been in existence longer than a hundred millions of years; and of course that plants and animals have existed on it a much shorter time; as for the greater part of that period it was too hot for them. the geologists are now becoming ashamed of their poetical cycles, and some acknowledge that their chiefs blundered egregiously in their calculations. the principles of geology seem to be as unsettled as its facts. there is no agreement upon any of its theories. the history of its theories, like that of their framers, begins with their birth, and ends with their burial. each new theory placed the tombstone upon the preceding, and inscribed it with the brief record of the antediluvian, "and he died." a busy time they must have had with their wernerian, huttonian, and diluvian hypotheses; not to mention the hutchinsonian theory, the animal spirits flowing from the sun, the vegetative power of stories, and other sage and serious facts and theories, theological and philosophical, invented to account for the world's creation. "no theory," says lyell, "could be so far-fetched or fantastical as not to attract some followers, provided it fell in with the popular notion." "some of the most extravagant systems were invented or controverted by men of acknowledged talent." a more amusing exhibition of philosophical absurdity can not be found than those chapters which he devotes to "the historical progress of geology,"[372] unless perhaps the scientific discussions of the erudite acquaintances of lemuel gulliver. let it not be supposed that the progress of inductive science, and the prevalence of the baconian philosophy have banished absurdities and contradictions from the sphere of geology. it would require a man of considerable learning to find three geologists agreed, either in their facts, or in their theories. in a general way, indeed, we have the catastrophists, with hugh miller, overwhelming the earth with dire convulsions in the geological eras, and upheaving the more conservative lyell and the progressionists; who affirm that all things continue as they were from the beginning of the world. and there is perhaps a general agreement now that the underlying _primitive_ rocks, so called, are not primitive at all, as geologists thought twenty years ago; but, like the foundations of a chicago house, have been put in long after the building was finished and occupied. but then comes the question how they were inserted--whether as elie de beaumont thinks, the mountains were upheaved by starts, lever fashion, or, as lyell affirms, very gradually, and imperceptibly, like the elevation of a brick house by screws.[373] nor is there the least likelihood of any future agreement among them; inasmuch as they can not agree either as to the thickness of the earth's solid crust which is to be lifted, or the force by which it is to be done? hopkins proves by astronomical observation that it is eight hundred miles thick. lyell affirms that at twenty-four miles deep there can be no solid crust, for the temperature of the earth increases one degree for every forty-five feet, and at that depth the heat is great enough to melt iron and almost every known substance. but then there is a difference between philosophers about this last test of solidity--those who believe in wedgewood's pyrometer, which was the infallible standard twenty years ago, asserting that the heat of melted iron is 21,000° fahrenheit; while professor daniells demonstrates by another infallible instrument that it is only 2,786° fahrenheit;[374] which is rather a difference. in one case the earth's crust would be over two hundred miles thick, in the other twenty-four. but then comes the great question, what is below the granite? and a very important one for any theory of the earth. it evidently underlies the whole foundation of speculative geology, whether we assume with de beaumont and humboldt, that "the whole globe, with the exception of a thin envelope, much thinner in proportion than the shell of an egg, is a fused mass, kept fluid by heat--a heat of 450,000° fahrenheit, at the center, cordier calculates--but constantly cooling, and contracting its dimensions;" and occasionally cracking and falling in, and "squeezing upward large portions of the mass;" "thus producing those folds or wrinkles which we call mountain chains;" or, with davy and lyell, that the heat of such a boiling ocean below would melt the solid crust, like ice from the surface of boiling water--and with it the whole theory of the primeval existence of the earth in a state of igneous fusion, its gradual cooling down into continents and mountains of granite, the gradual abrasion of the granite into the mud and sand which formed the stratified rocks, and all the other brilliant hypotheses which have sparked out of this great internal fire. instead of an original central heat he supposes that "we may _perhaps_ refer the heat of the interior to chemical changes constantly going on in the earth's crust."[375] now if the very foundations of the science are in such a state of fusion, and floating on a _perhaps_, would it not be wise to allow them to solidify a little before a man risks the salvation of his soul upon them? the various theories are contradictions. the igneous theory assault the aqueous theory with the greatest heat; while the aqueous theorists pour cold water, in torrents, upon the igneous men. the shocks of conflicting glacier theories have shaken the alps and convulsed all north america; and have not yet ceased. there are eleven theories of earthquakes, which have been, and are still, such energetic agents in geology; and the whole eleven afford not the least rational idea of their causes; nor of any means of preventing, predicting, or escaping their ravages. the best geologists have described fossil tracks as the footprints of gigantic birds, which others equally as authoritative pronounce the tracks of frogs and lizards. indeed, a good part of every geological treatise, and of the time of every association of geologists, is taken up with refutations of the errors of their predecessors. there are no less than nine theories of the causes of the elevation of mountains; some scoop out the valleys by water; others by ice; others heave up the mountains by fire; and some by the chemical expansion of their rocks; while others still upheave them by the pressure of molten lava from beneath; and others again make them out to be the wrinkles of the contraction of the supposed crust of the liquid interior. of all these theories an able geologist says: "the many proposed theories of mountain elevation are based upon assumptions which unfortunately are not true; but that is an unimportant matter to the majority of our speculating geologists; and one never seen by the inventors of the theories, who allow themselves to be led captive by a poetic imagination, instead of building their inductions upon field observations. "thus, to suppose that mountains are elevated by a wedge like intrusion of melted matter is to give to a fluid functions incompatible with its dynamic properties. so also the supposition that the igneous rocks were intruded, as solid wedges separating and lifting the crust, is opposed to the fact that no apparent abrasion, but generally the closest adhesion, exists at the line of contact of the igneous and stratified rocks. equally fatal objections may be advanced against the other theories."[376] multitudes of the alleged facts of infidel geologists are as apocryphal as their theories. thus in a recent ponderous quarto volume, the production of half a dozen philosophers, this identical impossible theory--of the cooling of the earth's crust down to solidity, while an irresistible central heat remains below--is presented to the world as an ascertained fact; we are informed of the discovery of a human skull fifty-seven thousand years old, _in good preservation_; asked to believe that two tiers of cypress snags could not be deposited in the delta of the mississippi in less than eleven thousand four hundred years; and to calculate that the delta of the nile must have been a great many ages in growing to its present size, because it is quite certain that for the last three thousand years _it has never grown at all_.[377] it were easy to fill a volume with such mistakes of geologists, but my limits restrict me to a few specimens. silliman's journal, in a review of "_the geology of north america_, by julius marcoe, u. s. geologist, and professor of geology in the federal polytechnic school of switzerland; quarto, with maps and plates," says: "the author describes the mountain systems of north america as _he supposes they must be_, according to the theoretical views of elie de beaumont." "thus one single fossil--that one a species of pine, and only very much resembling the _pinites fleurotti_ of dr. monguett--_establishes_ a connection between the new red of france, and that of america. this is a very strong word for a geologist to use on evidence so small, _and so uncertain_, with the fate of four thousand or five thousand feet of rock at stake, and the beds beneath, containing 'perhaps belemnites.' the prudent observer would have said, _establishes nothing_; and such is the fact." "_on such evidence_ a region over the rocky mountains, which is one thousand miles from north to south, and eight hundred miles from east to west, is for the most part colored in the maps as triassic. such a region would take in quite a respectable part of the continent of europe." "we now know beyond any reasonable doubt, that all the country from the platte to the british possessions, and from the mississippi to the black hills, is occupied by cretaceous and tertiary rocks. and as regards the region from the platte southward to the red river, very far the largest part _is known to be not triassic_, while it is possible the trias may occur in some parts of it." "it is unfortunate in its bearing on the progress of geological science to have false views about some five hundred thousand miles of territory, and much more besides, spread widely abroad through respectable journals, and transactions of distinguished european societies."[378] one can not but sympathize with the poor abused rocky mountains, tormented and misrepresented for a thousand miles by this french geologist. but our american patriotism may be partially pacified when we find that europe fares no better; and that great britain, and old scotland, hugh miller's own cradle, which has been the very lecture room of geologists, has nevertheless been most grossly misrepresented in all books and maps, up till the last decade. the _edinburgh review_, a competent authority, says (no. cxxvii.): "the new light which has been thus thrown on the history of the geological series of scotland (by sir roderick murchison), showing that great masses of crystalline rocks, called primary, and supposed to be much more ancient than the silurian system, are here simply metamorphosed strata of that age, may with justice be looked upon as one of the most valuable results which have been attained by british geologists for many years." a very just remark indeed! if only geologists would learn a little modesty from this discovery, which completely turns upside down their old world-building process of grinding down all the upper strata out of the molten granite, and gives us, instead, the baking of the strata into crystalline rocks; a process exactly the reverse of the former, and of that asserted by the theory of evolution. there is no prospect of any cessation of the war of geological theories. 4. _zoology._ equally hostile to each other are the expounders of the development of man from the monkey. as ishmaelites their hand is against every man. each is a law in theorizing unto himself. their contendings may well teach us caution. lamarck set those right who preceded him. the author of the _vestiges of creation_ outstripped lamarck, and mr. darwin sets both aside; while he in his turn is severely censured by m. tremaux, and has all his reasoning controverted in favor of the new theory. lamarck believed in spontaneous generation; darwin does not. the author of the _vestiges of creation_ expounded a law of development, and mr. darwin replaces it by natural selection. m. tremaux has repudiated the origin which mr. darwin has assumed, and insists on our believing that, not water, but the _soil_, is the origin of all life, and therefore of man. with him there is no progress; all creatures have reached their resting place. but man rises or sinks, according to the more ancient or recent soil he dwells upon. professor huxley is unwilling to abandon his idea that life may come from dead matter, and is not disposed to accept of mr. darwin's explanation of the origin of life by the creator having, at first, breathed it into one or more forms. while accepting of mr. darwin's theory of a common descent for man with all other creatures, he not only differs from him as to the beginning, but he admits that there is no gradual transition from the one to the other. he acknowledges that the structural differences between man and even the highest apes are great and significant; and yet because there is no sign of gradual transition between the gorilla, and the orang, and the gibbon, he infers that they all had a common origin; whereas the more natural conclusion from the facts would be that they had separate beginnings. mr. wallace, whose claims are admitted to be equal to these of mr. darwin, as the propounder of the theory of the origin of species by natural selection, has firmly asserted that, with all its resources, natural selection is utterly inadequate to account for the origin and structure of the human race.[379] thus they go, biting and devouring each other, until at last it becomes a reproduction of the kilkenny cats, and there is nothing left but the tails. we have only to wait, and the current infidel theory will certainly be exposed and demolished next year, by the author of some equally impossible theory. not merely individual scientists, but the most learned societies have blundered. "has not the french academy pronounced against the use of quinine and vaccination, against lightning rods and steam engines? has not reaumer suppressed peysonnel's 'essay on corals,' because he thought it was madness to maintain their animal nature? had not his learned brethren decreed, in 1802, that there were no meteors, although a short time later two thousand fell in one department alone; and had they not more recently still received the news of ether being useful as an anæsthetic with sure and unanimous condemnation?"[380] if space permitted we could go over the circle of the sciences, and show that a similar state of uncertainty and exposure to error exists in them all. we have, however, confined our attention to those whose certainty is now most loudly vaunted, and whose theories are most largely used as the basis of infidelity. nor have we by any means exhausted the list of errors and contradictions of these. a volume as large as this would be required to present the list of several hundred errors, absurdities, contradictions, and mutual refutations of scientists, in the physical sciences, now before me; errors not sought after, but incidentally observed and noted in the spare hours' reading of a busy professional life. it is worthy of notice, that the uncertainties of science increase just in proportion to our interest in it. it is very uncertain about all my dearest concerns, and very positive about what does not concern me. the greatest certainty is attainable in pure mathematics, which regards only ideal quantities and figures; but biology--the science of life--is utterly obscure. the astronomer can calculate with considerable accuracy the movements of distant planets, with which we have no intercourse; but where is the meteorologist bold enough to predict the wind and weather of next week, on which my crops, my ships, my life may depend? heat, light, and electricity may be pretty accurately measured and registered, but what physician can measure the strength of the malignant virus which is sapping the life of his patient? the chemist can thoroughly analyze any foreign substance, but the disease of his own body which is bringing him to the grave, he can neither weigh, measure nor remove. science is very positive about distant stars and remote ages, but stammers and hesitates about the very life of its professors. 4. such, then, are a few of the uncertainties, imperfections, and positive and egregious errors of science at its fountain head. to the actual investigator infallible certainty of any scientific fact is hardly possible, error exceedingly probable, and gross blunders in fact and theory by no means uncommon. but how greatly diluted must the modified and hesitating conviction possible to an actual observer become, when, as is generally the case, a man is not an actual observer himself, but _learns his science at school_. such a person leaves the ground of demonstrative science, and stands upon faith. the first question then to be proposed to one whose demonstrative certainty of the truths of physical science has disgusted him with a religion received on testimony and faith, is, how have you reached this demonstrative certainty in matters of science? are you quite sure that your certainty rests not upon the testimony of fallible and erring philosophers, but solely upon your own personal observations and experiments? to take only the initial standard of astronomical measurements--the earth's distance from the sun. have you personally measured the earth's radius, observed the transit of venus in 1769, from lapland to tahiti at the same time, calculated the sun's parallax, and the eccentricity of the earth's orbit? would you profess yourself competent to take even the preliminary observation for fixing the instruments for such a reckoning? were you ever within a thousand miles of the proper positions for making such observations? or have you been necessitated to accept this primary measure, upon the accuracy of which all subsequent astronomical measurers depend, merely upon hearsay and testimony, and subject to all those contingencies of error and prejudice, and mistakes of copyists, which, in your opinion, render the bible so unreliable in matters of religion? or to come down to earth. you are a student of the stone book, with its enduring records graven in the rock forever; and perhaps have satisfied yourself that "under the ponderous strata of geological science the traditionary mythology and cosmogony of the hebrew poet has found an everlasting tomb." but how many volumes of this stone book have you perused personally? you are quite indignant perhaps that theologians and divines, who have no practical or personal knowledge of geology, should presume to investigate its claims. have you personally visited the various localities in south america, siberia, australia, india, britain, italy, and the south seas, where the various formations are exhibited; and have you personally excavated from their matrices the various fossils which form the hieroglyphics of the science? have you, in fact, ever seen one in a thousand of these minerals and fossils _in situ_? or are you dependent on the tales of travelers, the specimens of collectors, the veracity of authors, the accuracy of lecturers, aided by maps of ideal stratifications, in rose-pink, brimstone-yellow, and indigo-blue, for your profound and glowing convictions of the irresistible force of experimental science, and of the shadowy vagueness of a religion dependent upon human testimony? to come down considerably in our demands, and confine ourselves to the narrow limits of the laboratory. you are a chemist perhaps, and proud, as most chemists justly are, of the accuracy attainable in that most palpable and demonstrative science. but how much of it is experimental science _to you_? how many of the nine hundred and forty-two substances treated of in turner's chemistry have you analyzed? one-half? one-tenth? would you face the laughter of a college class to-morrow upon the experiment of taking nine out of the nine hundred, reducing them to their primitive elements, giving an accurate analysis of their component parts, and combining them in the various forms described in that, or any other book, whose statements, because experimentally certain, have filled you with a dislike of bible truths, which you must receive upon testimony? in fact, do you know anything worth mention of the facts of science upon your own knowledge, except those of the profession by which you make your living? or, after all your boasting about scientific and demonstrative certainty, have you been obliged to receive the certainties of science "upon faith, and at second-hand, and upon the word of another;" and to save your life you could not tell half the time who that other is, by naming the discoverers of half the scientific truths you believe? what! are you dependent on hearsay, and probability, for any little science you possess, having in fact never obtained any personal demonstration or experience of its first principles and measurements, nor being capable of doing so? then let us hear no more cant about the uncertainty of a religion dependent upon testimony, and the certainties of experimental science. whatever certainty may be attainable by scientific men--and we have seen that is not much--it is very certain you have got none of it. the very best you can have to wrap yourself in is a second-hand assurance, grievously torn by rival schools, and needing to be patched every month by later discoveries. your science, such as it is, _rests solely upon faith_ in the testimony of philosophers, often contradictory and improbable, and always fallible and uncertain. 5. nor would you cease to be dependent upon faith could you personally make all the observations and calculations of demonstrative science. the knowledge of these facts does not constitute science; it is merely the brick pile containing the materials for the building of science. science is knowledge systematized. but if the parts of nature were not arranged after a plan, the knowledge of them could not be formed into a system. chaos is unintelligible. our minds are so constituted that we look for order and regularity, and can not comprehend confusion. we possess this expectation of order before we begin to learn science, and without it would never begin the search after a system of knowledge. all scientific experiment is but a search after order, and order is only another name for intelligence--for god. deprive us of this fundamental faith in cause and effect, order and regularity--of reason, in short--and science becomes as impossible to man as to the orang-outang. _all science, even in its first principles, rests upon faith._ not only science, reason, also, is founded upon faith; for we can not prove by reason the truths which form the data of reasoning. the intuitions of the mind, which form the postulates necessary to the first process of reasoning, are believed, not proven. when the wise fool attempted to prove his own existence by the celebrated sophism, "i think, therefore i exist," he necessarily postulated his existence in order to prove it. how did he know that there was an "i" to think? and how did he know that the "i" thought? certainly not by any process of reasoning, but by faith. he believed these truths; but could never reason them into his consciousness. faith, then, underlies reason itself. we may now proceed to inquire whether or not faith, which we have found so prevalent even among those who repudiate it, is a thing to be ashamed of; or if it be a sufficiently certain and reliable basis for human life and conduct. 1. we are met at the very outset by the great fact that god has so constituted the world and everything in it, that _in all the great concerns of life we are necessitated to depend on faith_; without any possibility of reaching absolute certainty regarding the result of any ordinary duty. we sow without any certainty of a crop, or that we may live to reap it. we harvest, but our barns may be burned down. we sell our property for bank-bills, but who dare say they will ever be paid in specie? we start on a journey to a distant city, but even though you insure your life, who will insure that fire, or flood, or railroad collision may not send you to the land whence there is no return? science is the child of yesterday; but from the beginning of the world men have lived by faith. before science was born, cain tilled his ground without any mathematical demonstration that he should reap a crop. abel fed his flock without any scientific certainty that he should live to enjoy its produce; and tubal cain forged axes and swords without any assurance that he should not be plundered of his wages. all the experience of mankind proves that experimental certainty regarding the most important business of this life is impossible. by what process of philosophical induction is religion alone put beyond the sphere of faith and hope? if religious duties are not binding on us, unless religion be scientifically demonstrated, then neither are moral obligations; for these two can not be separated. is it really so, that none but scientific men are bound to tell the truth, and pay their debts; and that a person may not fear god, and go to heaven, unless he has graduated at college? the common sense of mankind declares that we live by faith, not by science. 2. _we demand the knowledge of truths of which science is profoundly ignorant._ science is but an outlying nook of my farm, which i may neglect and yet have bread to eat. faith is my house in which all my dearest interests are treasured. of all the great problems and precious interests which belong to me as a mortal and an immortal, science knows nothing. i ask her whence i came? and she points to her pinions scorched over the abyss of primeval fire, her eyes blinded by its awful glare, and remains silent. i inquire what i am? but the strange and questioning _i_ is a mystery which she can neither analyze nor measure. i tell her of the voice of conscience within me--she never heard it, and does not pretend to understand its oracles. i tell her of my anxieties about the future--she is learned only in the past. i inquire how i may be happy hereafter--but happiness is not a scientific term, and she can not tell me how to be happy here! poor, blind science! 3. _all our dearest interests lie beyond the domains of science, in the regions of faith._ science treats of things--faith is confidence in persons. take away the persons, and of what value are the things? the world becomes at once a vast desert, a dreary solitude, and more miserable than any of its former inhabitants the lonely wretch who is left to mourn over the graves of all his former companions--the last man. solitary science were awful. could i prosecute the toils of study alone, without companion or friend to share my labors? would i study eternally with no object, and for no use; none to be benefited, none to be gratified by my discoveries? though you hung maps on every tree, made every mountain range a museum, bored mines in every valley, and covered every plain with specimens, made vesuvius my crucible, and opened the foundations of the earth to my view--yet would the discovery of a single fresh human footprint in the sand fill my heart with more true hope of happiness, than an endless eternity of solitary science. i can live, and love, and be happy without science, _but not without companionship, whose bond is faith_. faith is the condition of all the happiness you can know on earth. law, order, government, civilization, and family life, depend not upon science, but upon confidence in moral character--upon faith. in its sunshine alone can happiness grow. it is faith sends you out in the morning to your work, nerves your arms through the toils of the day, brings you home in the evening, gathers your wife and your children around your table, inspires the oft-repeated efforts of the little prattler to ascend your knee, clasps his chubby arms around your neck, looks with most confiding innocence in your eye, and puts forth his little hand to catch your bread, and share your cup. undoubting faith is happiness even here below. need you marvel, then, that you must be converted from your pride of empty, barren science, and casting yourself with all your powers into the arms of faith, become as a little child before you can enter into the kingdom of heaven? 4. but religion is not founded upon faith as distinct from observation and experiment. _it is the most experimental of all the sciences._ there is less of theory, and more of experience in it than in any other science. its faith is all practical. it is a great mistake to suppose that faith is the opposite pole of experience. on the contrary, experience is the fruit which ripens from the blossom of faith. we have seen how an underlying conviction of the existence of an intelligent planner and upholder of the laws of nature is the source of all scientific experiment, and systematized knowledge. a similar underlying conviction of the existence of a moral governor of the world is the source of all religious experience. _he that cometh to god must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of those that diligently seek him._ but this fundamental axiom believed, long trains of experience follow; of every one of which you can be, and actually are, infinitely more certain than of any fact of physical science. your eyes, your ears, your touch, your instruments, your reason, may be deceived; but your consciousness can not. if your soul is filled with joy, that is a _fact_. you know it, and are as sure of it as you are that the sun shines. if you feel miserable, you are so. a sense of neglected duty, a consciousness that you have done wrong, and are displeased with yourself for it; a certainty that god is displeased with you for wrong-doing, and that he will show his displeasure by suitable punishment; the tenacious grasp of vicious habits on your body and soul, and the fearful thought that by the law of your nature these vipers, which you vainly struggle to shake off, will forever keep involving you more closely in their cursed coils--these are _facts of your experience_. you are as certain that they give you disquiet of mind, when you entertain them, as that the sea rages in a tempest; and that you can no more prevent their entrance, nor compel their departure, nor calm nor drown the anxiety they occasion, than you can prevent the rising of the tempest, dismiss the thunder-storm, or drown etna in your wine-glass. of these primary facts of moral science, and of others like them, you possess the most absolute and infallible certainty from your own consciousness. they result from the inertia of moral matter, which, when put into a state of disturbance, has no power of bringing itself to rest; as expressed in the formula, _there is no peace, saith my god, to the wicked._[381] let us now go out of your own experience, as you must do in every other science, into the region of observation, and study a few of the other phenomena of religion. your comrade, jones, has taken to drinking of late, and also to going with you to sunday lectures, and in the evening to other places of amusement. he has, however, been warned that the next time he comes drunk to the workshop he will be discharged; and as he is a clever young fellow, and knows more about the bible than you, having gone to sabbath-school when a boy, and is able to use up the saints cleverly, you would be sorry to lose his company. so you set on him to go with you to hear a temperance lecture, hoping that he may be induced to take the pledge; for if he does not you fear he will soon lie in the gutter. he curses you, and himself too, if ever he listens to any such stuff; and refuses to go. you can easily gather a hundred other illustrations of the great law of the moral repulsion between vice and truth, expressed in the following formula: "_this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. for every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved._"[382] your life, however, is but a long illustration of this principle. have you not willingly remained in ignorance of the contents of the bible, because you dislike its commands? there is another fact of the same science--there, in the gutter before you, wallowing in his own vomit, covered with rags, besmeared with mud, smelling worse than a hog, his bruised and bleeding mouth unable to articulate the obscenities and curses he tries to utter. "is it possible that can be bill brown! why, only three years ago we worked at the same bench. it was he who introduced me to the sunday institute; as clever a workman and as jovial a comrade as i ever knew, but would get on a spree now and again. he had a good father and mother, got considerable schooling, had good wages, got married to a clever girl, and had two fine children. is it possible he could make such a beast of himself in such a short time?" yes, quite possible, and more, quite certain. not only in his case, but in all others, the law of moral gravitation is universal and infallible. "_evil men and seducers wax worse and worse._"[383] the degradation may not always be in this precise form, nor always as speedy; as all heavy bodies do not fall to the same place, nor with like rapidity. but it is always as certain and always as deep, and will one day be far more public. fix it firmly in your mind. it concerns you more than all the science you will ever know. you, too, are in the course of sin, and you know it. you have already begun to fall. come again into this room. "what, into a prayer-meeting? i don't go to such places." but, if you want to study the phenomena of religion scientifically, you should go to such places; just as if you want to study geology, you should go to the places where the strata are exposed to view. i do not ask you to speak, and to ask people to pray for you, but only to look on and listen. if you are a philosopher i wish you to cease dogmatizing about fanaticism, and enthusiasm, and the ignorance, and credulity of believers, at least until you philosophically examine the evidence upon which they believe. you can set aside, if you please, their unfounded beliefs concerning matters beyond their capacity, and also their confident hopes for futurity. what i wish you to examine is their _actual experience of religion_, as they severally relate it. for as we have seen, the facts of consciousness are just as certain, and as ascertainable, as the facts discovered by our senses; and there is no reason in the world why we should not pursue the study of religion in the same way that we gain a knowledge of science; namely, by collecting and studying the facts accumulated by those who have made experiments, and have obtained a practical knowledge of the matter. there are here, as you see, a great number of religious experimenters. they are also of very various conditions of life, and of various degrees of education. many of them are moreover well known to you, so that you are in a favorable position for forming a fair judgment of their discoveries. there is your comrade smith, hopkins who does the hauling for your establishment, lawyer hammond, professor edwards, whose chemical lectures you attend, dr. lawrence, who lectured before the lyceum last winter, mr. heidenberger, who wrote a series of articles on comte's positive philosophy for the investigator, mrs. bridgman, your aunt polly, who nursed you during your typhoid fever, and a great many others whom you know quite well. professor edwards leads in prayer, and gives a brief address. you never dreamt that he was hoaxing you when he told you of his chemical experience; have you any reason to offer for believing that he now solemnly, and in the presence of god, lies to you and to this assembly, when he tells you of the peace he has found in believing in christ, and the happiness he experiences in uniting with his brethren in the worship of god? or is he more liable to error in noting the fact of his mental joy or sorrow, than in observing the effect of the extraordinary ray in double refraction? if not, the fact that he has felt this religious experience, is just as certain as the fact, that he has seen polarized light. there is your comrade smith, whom you have known for years, actually got up to speak in meeting. you are surprised; but listen: "neighbors and friends, most of you know i never cared much about religion, and was often given to take more liquor than was good for me, and then i would fight and curse awful bad. i knew as well as anybody that it wasn't right, and always felt bad after a spree, and many a time i said i would turn over a new leaf, and be good. but it was all no use, for as soon as any of the fellows would come around after me, i always went along with them, till at last i gave it up and said it was no use to try. still, whenever any of my acquaintances died, i felt scared like; and i kept away as far as i could from churches and preachers and such like, because i could not bear to think about god and judgment to come. well, about five weeks ago my little minnie set on me one sabbath morning to carry her to church, and to please the little creature--for she is as pert a darling as you could see anywhere--i told my wife to get her ready, and we would go. she seemed as if she would cry, and kept talking to herself all the way. when we got into the church the singing almost upset me, for i had not been to a church since i was a little fellow, just before father and mother died. but it seemed as if it was the same tune, and as if the tune brought them all back, and as if i saw them again and all the family, and heard mother sing as she used to, and i forgot church and everything, and thought i was a little fellow playing about on the floor just as i used to do when i was a happy child. when they stopped i was so sorry, and wished i could just be as innocent and as happy as i was then. well, it seemed like the preacher had been reading my thoughts, for he gave out for his text, '_verily, verily, i say unto you, unless a man be born again he can not see the kingdom of god._' he began to preach how jesus can give us new hearts, and save us from our sins; that his blood cleanses from all sin; that he is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto god through him. the tears came into my eyes, and i could hardly keep my mouth shut till i got out. when i got home i knelt down, and cried to jesus to save me from my sins; and my wife prayed too, and we cried for mercy. the lord heard us, and i felt light and happy, and i went to church again, and sung with the rest. and the best of it is, the lord delivered me from the drink; as i told a man who asked where i was going to-day, and i told him i was going to prayer-meeting, for i had got religion now. he said there were a great many religions, and most of them wrong, and a great many people said all religion was only a notion, and preaching only nonsense. i says to him, 'look here, stranger, do you see that tavern there?' 'yes,' says he. 'well,' says i, 'do you see me?' 'i do, of course,' says he. 'well,' says i, 'every little fellow in these parts knows that so long as tom smith had a quarter in his pocket he could never pass that tavern without having a drink. all the men in jefferson could not stop him. now look here,' says i, 'there is my week's wages, and i can go past, and thank god i don't feel the least like drinking, for the lord jesus has saved me from it. if you call that a notion, it is a mighty powerful notion, and it is a notion that has put clothes on my children's backs, and plenty of good food on my table, and songs of praise to the lord in my mouth. _that's a fact, stranger._ glory be to god for it. and i would recommend you to come to prayer-meeting with me, and maybe you would get religion too. a great many people are getting religion now.'" his last remark is certainly very true. there are so many, and of such various characters and grades of life, and in so many places, that every reader can easily find several tom smiths of his own acquaintance, whose conversions display all the essential facts of this case, and prove that: 5. the facts of religious experience _are better attested, and more unobjectionable_ than those of any other science. unless they can be shown to be unreasonable or impossible, we are bound to receive them, when presented by the experimentists who have discovered them, though personally we may not have any such experience; just as we believe the chemists, or the astronomers who relate their discoveries which personally we have not observed. but the facts of religion are _by no means unreasonable_. they can not be shown to contradict any known law of the human mind. it is true they are mysterious. but so are the facts of physical science--heat, light, electricity, gravitation. of either, we may be quite certain that such phenomena exist, and utterly ignorant of the mode of their operation. it were as utterly unphilosophical to deny that almighty god could impart nervous energy to the languid limbs of your sick neighbor, because you are ignorant of its origin and means of transmission, as to deny that god could impart spiritual electricity to his paralyzed soul, because you are ignorant of the mode in which he bestows it. and ignorance is all that you can plead in this case. you must just admit that having tried an experiment which you have not, your religious friend has a right to know more than you. moreover, the facts of religion are presented for belief upon _the most abundant and reliable testimony_. in physical science you must rely on the testimony of a very few observers--the great bulk even of scientific men having no opportunity of testing the facts themselves, and being well satisfied if any fact is confirmed by the testimony of two or three philosophers--and this testimony often contradictory, and always fallible, as the discordant results of their experiments prove. but here you have a great multitude of experimentists, in every city and village of the land, of every variety of intellect and education, prosecuting the same course of experiments, and all arriving at the same results. they do not all confess the _same_ sins, but they all felt the power of _some_ sin, and felt miserable in their guilt. and however they may differ in their external circumstances, their inward constitution, or in their views of the outward part of religion, there is no difference among them about the great facts of their religious experience. they all believed the faithful saying that christ jesus came into the world to save sinners, cried to god for mercy through him, and received peace of mind, grace to live a new life, and to delight in the worship of god. do you know any science which has been prosecuted by one-hundredth part of this number of inquirers? which has been confirmed by one-thousandth part of this number of experimenters? or any experiment tried with such uniform and unfailing success as this, "_whosoever shall call on the name of the lord shall be saved?_"[384] why then do you hesitate to admit the correctness of these facts? is it because you perceive they lead to results which you dislike? they do lead to results. they are effects and tell us of a cause. they are powerful effects, and proclaim a powerful cause. they are moral and spiritual effects, and assure us of the existence of a moral and spiritual agent who has caused them. they are holy effects, and convince your sinful soul that they are produced by a holy being. but they are also benevolent, life-giving, blessed effects, and proclaim that god is love. the lord, the spirit, is as plainly declared in the facts of religious experience, as the creator is in the creation of the universe; and it were as rank atheism to attribute these orderly and blessed results to chance or to evil passions, as to attribute the cosmos to blind fate, or to the beasts that perish. he is as much an enemy to his happiness who denies the one, as a foe to his reason who rejects the other. dear reader, why should you not believe in, 6. _the only science which can make you happy?_ which can bestow peace of mind, nerve you to conquer your evil habits, enable you to live a holy and happy life, and to die with a blessed hope of a glorious resurrection? you know there is no science which makes any such offers, or which you would believe if it did. but the bible unfolds a science which does, and enables you to believe it too. the facts of religious experience give most convincing evidence of the reality and power of the grace of god. it were as easy to persuade a christian that he had produced this change of heart and life by the excitement of his own feelings, as that he had kindled the sun with a lucifer match. and the character of the work and the worker assures him that it will not be left unfinished. his faith receives these facts of religious experience as the first installments upon god's bonds, and as pledges for the payment of the remainder of his promises. the joy and peace which god gives him now, prove most satisfactorily his ability and willingness to give him larger measures of these enjoyments when he is capable of receiving them. just as we have good reason to believe that he who has made the sun to rise out of darkness will guide him onward in his course to perfect day, have we also good reason to believe that he that hath begun the good work of his grace in us will perform it until the day of jesus christ. christ is in us the hope of glory. this eternal life, which is begun in our souls, is so much superior to mere animal vitality, that we can not doubt that he who has given us the greater, will also give us the lesser, and quicken our mortal bodies also, by his spirit which dwelleth in us. we know that our redeemer liveth. 7. and now, in conclusion, dear reader, we ask you not to take these things on our testimony, nor yet on our experience; _but to try for yourself_. oh taste and see that the lord is good. come see the savior who has saved us, and be saved by him too. there is nothing more dangerous, unless resisting the evidence of the truth as it is in jesus, than acknowledging this to be truth without immediately obeying the gospel. god requires your immediate and cordial acceptance of christ to save you from your sins. he tells you that the only way of escape from your sins now and from hell hereafter is through him; for there is none other name given under heaven or among men whereby you must be saved. he promises to hear your prayer and give you his holy spirit to work in you the work of faith with power, if you will only and earnestly ask. "_ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: what man is there of you whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? if ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?_"[385] thus you will come to possess an actual experimental knowledge of the most excellent of the sciences. in the present begun enjoyment of eternal life you will, not merely believe in, but positively _know_, its author, the only true god, and jesus christ whom he hath sent. you will rest in no fallible and erring testimony of man's wisdom, but your faith will stand in the power of god. you will be able to say, "_now we believe not because of thy sayings: for we have heard him ourselves, and_ know _that this is indeed the christ, the savior of the world._"[386] hear god's own warrant and invitation to your poor, thirsty soul, to forsake your vanities and come and be eternally blessed in christ. have the witness in yourself and be a living proof of the blessed reality of religion. "ho every one that thirsteth! come ye to the waters! and he who hath no money! come ye, buy and eat! yea, come! buy wine and milk without money and without price. wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. incline your ear and come unto me: hear and your soul shall live: and i will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of david. behold! i have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and a commander to the people: behold! thou shall call nations that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee, because of the lord thy god, and for the holy one of israel, for he hath glorified thee. "seek ye the lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our god for he will abundantly pardon. for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the lord. for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. for as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and return not thither again, but water the earth, and cause it to bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which i please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto i sent it. for ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace. the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the fields shall clap their hands. instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: _and it shall be to the lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off._" footnotes: [322] holyoak's discussion with grant and tonney. [323] bacon novum organum, i. xlix. xlvi. [324] sir w. hamilton's lectures, i. 53. [325] journal of speculative philosophy, i. 20. [326] humboldt, _cosmos_, vol. i. p. 7, 156. [327] our inheritance in the great pyramid, 356. [328] annual of scientific discovery, 1852. [329] annual of scientific discovery, 1852. [330] _cosmos_, 4, 518. dick's _celestial scenery_, chap. iii. sec. 7. [331] _cosmos_, 1, 75. loomis' _progress of astronomy_, pp. 34, 40 [332] loomis' _progress of astronomy_, p. 34, etc. [333] _outlines of astronomy_, iii. sec. 13, 140. [334] thus several of the best telescopes in the world are rendered nearly useless by the passage of heavy railroad trains in their vicinity. [335] somerville's physical sciences, vi. [336] cosmos iv. 477. phillips' address to the british association, 1865. [337] north british review, lxv. [338] annual of scientific discovery, 1864, 158. [339] cosmos i. 109. [340] cosmos iv. 501. [341] cosmos iv. 378. [342] harper's magazine, june, 1872, p. 149. [343] annual scientific discovery, 1864, 134. [344] cosmos iii. 40; iv. 363. annual, 1861, 395, 396. [345] cosmos iv. 474. [346] kendall's uranography, p. 11. [347] cosmos, 443-5. [348] north british review, no. lxv. [349] annual of scientific discovery, 1852, 119. [350] annual of scientific discovery, 1854, 150. [351] cosmos iii. 115. [352] annual of scientific discovery, 1860. [353] annual of scientific discovery, 1852, 139. [354] annual of scientific discovery, 1864, 166. [355] plurality of worlds, xii. [356] north british review, lxv. [357] god's glory in the heavens, 168. [358] annual scientific discovery, 1863, 324. [359] cosmos iv. 378. [360] see this proved chapter xi., _daylight before sunrise_. [361] see the possibility of such a source of volcanic action, of such a formation of plutonic rocks, proved by lyell. _principles_, chaps. xxxii. and xii. [362] sir david brewster, k. h., d. c. l., f. r. s., _more worlds than one_, p. 56. [363] _rudiments of geology_, w. & r. chambers, p. 10. [364] lyell's _principles of geology_, p. 3. [365] miller, _old red sandstone_, p. 25. [366] hugh miller, _footprints of the creator_, p. 313. [367] american cyclopædia, 1863, p. 374. annual of scientific discovery, 1861, p. 351. [368] london quarterly review, 1866, no. 51, p. 240. [369] lyell's second visit to the united states. [370] _the advance_, chicago, may 28, 1868. [371] geological time. [372] _principles_, chaps. iii. and iv. [373] _principles_, chap. xi. [374] _principles_, p. 530. [375] _principles_, chap. xxxi. [376] chambers' cyclopædia art. appalachians. [377] types of mankind, 329, 335, 338. [378] the american journal of science and art, edited by profs. silliman and dana, xxvi. 235, 300. [379] frazer--blending lights, p. 113. [380] de vore's _modern magic_, 58. [381] isaiah, chap. xlviii. 22. [382] john, chap. iii. [383] 2 timothy, chap. iii. read the whole chapter. [384] romans, chap. x. read the chapter. [385] the sermon on the mount. read it all. [386] john, chap. iv. [the end.] transcriber's notes: missing punctuation, including periods, hyphens, and commas, has been added. obvious typographical errors have been corrected. variations in spelling have been left as in the original in the following words: coveredst coverest orang-otang orang-outang water-skin waterskin the following words use an oe ligature in the original: foetus phoenician phoebus phoenicians phoenicia the spelling of the last name of scottish astronomer john pringle nichol has been corrected throughout the text. the spelling of the last name of french naturalist jean-baptiste lamarck has been corrected throughout the text. the spelling of the last name of french physicist claude-servais-mathias pouillet has been corrected throughout the text. the spelling of the last name of hellenistic astrologer vettius valens has been corrected throughout the text. the spelling of the last name of french mathematician urbain jean joseph le verrier has been corrected throughout the text. a series of three asterisks * * * represents an ellipsis in the text. shorter and longer rows of asterisks have been standardized to three asterisks. the carat ^ character indicates that the following numbers (enclosed in {} brackets) are superscripted in the original. the mathematical formula 4+3/2 is rendered 4 + 1-1/2 in the original. footnote 15 reads "origin of species, 4, 10, 127, 9, 97, 100, 409, 410, 415, 423. descent of man, 192, 204, and ii.--15, 257." the page number "9" is probably a typographical error, but it has been left as in the original. 