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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16512.txt b/16512.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..690e10b --- /dev/null +++ b/16512.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4271 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Apology for Atheism, by Charles Southwell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: An Apology for Atheism + Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination + by One of Its Apostles + +Author: Charles Southwell + +Release Date: August 11, 2005 [EBook #16512] +[Most recently updated on March 15, 2007] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN APOLOGY FOR ATHEISM *** + + + + +Produced by The Freethought Archives, www.ftarchives.net + + + + + + + + + + +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.' + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's An Apology for Atheism, by Charles Southwell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN APOLOGY FOR ATHEISM *** + +***** This file should be named 16512.txt or 16512.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/5/1/16512/ + +Produced by Freethought Archives, www.freethought.vze.com + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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