{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_16512/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_16512","id":"gutenberg_16512","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16512","summary":null,"tags":["Atheism","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Produced by The Freethought Archives, www.ftarchives.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPRODUCTION NOTES:\n\nAn Apology for Atheism by Charles Southwell (1814-1860)\nFirst published anonymously in 1846\n\nTranscribed by the Freethought Archives, www.freethought.vze.com\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAN APOLOGY FOR ATHEISM:\n\nADDRESSED TO\nRELIGIOUS INVESTIGATORS OF EVERY DENOMINATION\nBY ONE OF ITS APOSTLES.\n\n\n\n\n\"Not one of you reflects, that you ought\nknow your Gods before you worship them.\"\n\n\n\n\nLONDON:\nJ. WATSON, 5, PAUL'S ALLEY, PATERNOSTER ROW.\nAND ALL BOOKSELLERS.\n\n1846\n\n\n\n\n\nAN APOLOGY FOR ATHEISM\n\n\nIt would be absurd to doubt that religion has an important bearing on\nall the relations and conditions of life. The connexion between\nreligions faith and political practice is, in truth, far closer than is\ngenerally thought. Public opinion has not ripened into a knowledge that\nreligious error is the intangible but real substratum of all political\ninjustice. Though the 'schoolmaster' has done much, there still remain\nand hold some away among us, many honest and energetic assertors of 'the\nrights of man,' who have to learn that a people in the fetters of\nsuperstition, can never achieve political freedom. Many of these\nreformers admit the vast, the incalculable influence of Mahommedanism on\nthe politics of Constantinople, and yet persist in acting as if\nChristianity had little or nothing to do with the politics of England.\n\nAt a recent meeting of the Anti-State Church Association it was\nremarked, that 'throw what we would into the political cauldron, out it\ncame in an ecclesiastical shape'. If the newspaper report may be relied\non, there was much laughing among the hearers of those words, the deep\nmeaning of which it may safely be affirmed, only a select few of them\ncould fathom.\n\nHostility to state churches by no means implies a knowledge of the close\nand important connection between ecclesiastical and political questions.\nMen may appreciate the justice of voluntaryism in religion, and yet have\nrather cloudy conceptions with respect to the influence of opinions and\nthings ecclesiastical on the condition of nations. They may clearly see\nthat he who needs the priest, should disdain to saddle others with the\ncost of him, while blind to the fact that no people having faith in the\nsupernatural ever failed to mix up such faith with political affairs.\nEven leading members of the 'Third Estate' are constantly declaring\ntheir disinclination for religious controversy, and express particular\nanxiety to keep their journals free of everything 'strictly\ntheological.' Their notion is, that newspaper writers should endeavour\nto keep clear of so 'awful' a topic. And yet seldom does a day pass in\nwhich this self-imposed editorial rule is not violated--a fact\nsignificant as fact can be, of that connection between religion and\npolitics the author thinks has been far too little regarded.\n\nIt is quite possible the editors of newspapers have weighty reasons for\ntheir repugnance to agitate the much vexed question of religion, but it\nseems they cannot help doing so. In a leading article of this day's\n_Post_, [Endnote 4:1] we are told--'The stain and reproach of Romanism\nin Ireland is, that it is a political system, and a wicked political\nsystem, for it regards only the exercise of power, and neglects utterly\nthe duty of improvement.' In journals supported by Romanists, and of\ncourse devoted to the interests of their church, the very same charge is\nmade against English Protestantism. To denounce each other's 'holy\napostolic religion' may be incompatible with the taste of 'gentlemen of\nthe press,' but certainly they do it with a brisk and hearty vehemence\nthat inclines one to think it a 'labour of love.' What men do _con\namore_ they usually do well, and no one can deny the wonderful talent\nfor denunciation exhibited by journalists when writing down each other's\n'true Christianity.' The unsparing invective quoted above from the\n_Post_ is a good specimen. If just, Irish Romanism _ought_ to be\ndestroyed, and newspaper writers cannot be better employed than in\nhelping on the work of its destruction, or the destruction of any other\nreligion to which the same 'stain and reproach' may be fairly attached.\n\nThe author of this Apology has no spite or ill-will towards Roman\nCatholics, though opposed to their religion, and a willing subscriber to\nthe opinion of Romanism in Ireland, expressed by the _Post, because\nconvinced of its truth._ The past and present condition of that country\nis a deep disgrace to its priests, the bulk of whom, Protestant as well\nas Romanist, can justly be charged with 'regarding only the exercise of\npower, while neglecting utterly the duty of improvement.'\n\nThe intriguing and essentially political character of Romanism, it would\nbe idle to deny. No one at all acquainted with its cunningly contrived\n'system' will hesitate to characterise it as 'wickedly political,'\nproductive of nothing but mischief--a system through whose accursed\ninstrumentality millions are cheated of their sanity as well as\nsubstance, and trained like the dog to lick the hand that smites them.\nSo perfect is their degradation that literally they 'take no thought for\nto-morrow,' it being their practice to wait 'till starvation stares them\nin the face,' [5:1] and _then_ make an effort against it.\nNotwithstanding the purely Christian education of which they are taught\nto boast, nothing can exceed the superstitious recklessness displayed in\ntheir daily conduct.\n\nThe _Globe_ of Thursday, October 30th, 1845, contains an article on the\ndamage sustained by the potato crops here and in Ireland, full of matter\ncalculated to enlighten our first rate reformers, who seem profoundly\nignorant that superstition is the bane of intellect, and most formidable\nof all the obstacles which stand between the people and their rights:\none paragraph is so peculiarly significant of the miserable condition to\nwhich Romanism and Protestantism have reduced a peasantry, said to be\n'the finest in the world,' that we here subjoin it--\n\n     'The best means to arrest the progress of the pestilence in the\n     people's food have occupied the attention of scientific men. The\n     commission appointed by government, consisting of three of the most\n     celebrated practical chemists, has published a preliminary report,\n     in which several suggestions, rather than ascertained results, are\n     communicated, by which the sound portions of the root may, it is\n     hoped, be preserved from the epidemy, and possibly, the tainted be\n     rendered innoxious, and even partially nutritious. Followed\n     implicitly, their directions might mitigate the calamity. But the\n     care, the diligence, the persevering industry which the various\n     forms of process require, in order to effecting the purposes which\n     _might_ result if they were promptly adopted and properly carried\n     out, are the very qualities in which the Irish peasantry are most\n     deficient. In the present crisis, the people are more disposed to\n     regard the extensive destruction of their crops in the light of an\n     extraordinary visitation of Heaven, with which it is vain for human\n     efforts to contend, than to employ counteracting or remedial\n     applications. \"Sure the Almighty sent the potato-plague, and we\n     must bear it as well as we can!\" is the remark of many; while, in\n     other places, the copious sprinklings of holy water on the potato\n     gardens, and on the produce, as it lies upon the surface, are more\n     depended on for disinfecting the potatoes than the suggestions of\n     science, which require the application of patient industry.'\n\nDaniel O'Connell may continue to boast about Irish morale and Irish\nintellect--the handsome women, and stalwart men of his 'beloved\ncountry;' but no sensible persons will pay the least attention to him.\nIt is, at all events, too late in the day for we 'Saxons' to be either\ncajoled or amused by such nonsense. An overwhelming majority of the\nIrish people have been proved indolent beyond all parallel, and not much\nmore provident than those unhappy savages who sell their beds in the\nmorning, not being able to foresee they shall again require them at\nnight. A want of forethought so remarkable, and indolence so abominable,\nas characterize the peasantry of Ireland, are results of their religious\neducation. Does any one suppose the religion of that peasantry has\nlittle, if anything, to do with their political condition; or can it be\nbelieved they will be fit for, much less achieve political emancipation,\nwhile priests, and priests alone, are their instructors? We may rely\nupon it, that intellectual freedom is the natural and necessary\nprecursor of political freedom. Education, said Lord Brougham, makes men\neasy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to\nenslave. The Irish peasantry clamour for 'Repeal,' never considering\nthat did they get it, no essential change would be made in their social,\nmoral, or to say all in one word, _political_ condition; they would\nstill be the tool of O'Connell and other unprincipled political\nmountebanks--themselves the tool of priests.\n\nGreat has been the outcry raised against the 'godless colleges, that\nSir Robert Peel had the courageous good sense to _inflict_ on Ireland.\nProtestant as well as Romanist priests are terribly alarmed lest those\ncolleges should spoil the craft by which they live. Sagacious enough to\nperceive that whatever influence they possess must vanish with the\nignorance on which it rests, they moved heaven and earth to disgust the\nIrish people with an educational measure of which religion formed no\npart. Their fury, like 'empty space,' is boundless. They cannot endure\nthe thought that our ministers should so far play the game of\n'infidelity' as to take from them the delightful task of teaching\nIreland's young ideas 'how to shoot.' Sir Robert Inglis _christened_\nthis 'odious' measure, a 'gigantic scheme of godless education,' and a\nlarge majority of Irish Roman Catholic Prelates have solemnly pronounced\nit 'dangerous to faith and morals,' Neither ministerial allurements, nor\nministerial threats can subdue the cantankerous spirit of these bigots.\nThey are all but frantic, and certainly not without reason, for the\nIrish Colleges Bill is the fine point of that wedge which, driven home,\nwill shiver to pieces their 'wicked political system.' Whatever improves\nIrish intellect will play the mischief with its 'faith,' though not at\nall likely to deteriorate its 'morals.' The best guarantee for national\nmorality is to be found in national intelligence; nor need any one feel\nalarmed at the progress of principles and measures inimical to faith in\neither Romanism or Protestantism. Let the people of Ireland be properly\nemployed, as a preliminary to being well educated, and speedily they may\n_deserve_ to be singled out as 'the most moral people on the face of the\nearth.'\n\nAn educated nation will never tamely submit to be priest-ridden, and\nwell do Ireland's enslavers know it. The most stupid of her priests,\nequally with the shrewdest of her 'patriots,' are quite alive to the\nexpediency of teaching as facts, the fraudulent fables of the 'dark\nages.' To keep the people ignorant, or what is worse, to teach them only\nwhat is false, is the great end of _their_ training; and if a British\nministry propose anything better than the merest mockery of education,\nthey call it 'dangerous to faith and morals.'\n\nThe sage who writes 'leaders' for the _Morning Herald_, is of opinion\nthat Ireland would indeed be 'great, glorious, and free,' if its Roman\nCatholic people were to cease all efforts for Repeal, and turn good\nProtestants. But the _Herald_ does greatly err not knowing human nature\nand the source of Irish evils. It is not by substituting Protestantism\nfor Romanism that those evils are to be cured. Were every Romanist in\nIreland at once to turn 'good Protestant,' their political emancipation\nwould be far off as ever. Protestantism everywhere, like Romanism\neverywhere, is 'a political system, and a wicked political system, for\nit regards only the exercise of power, and neglects utterly the duty of\nimprovement.'\n\nReligion is the curse of Ireland. To the rival churches of that country\nmay be traced nearly all the oppressions suffered by its people, who\nnever can be materially improved till purged of their faith in priests.\nWhen that salutary work shall be accomplished, Ireland will indeed be 'a\nnation' in the secure enjoyment of political liberty. The priest-ridden\nmay talk of freedom, but can never secure it; for, as truly said by one\nof our most admired poets--\n\n          Tis man's base grovelling nature makes the priest,\n          Who always rides a superstitious beast.\n\nAnd he is a poor politician who expects to see political liberty\nachieved or enjoyed by nations made up of 'base, grovelling' specimens\nof human nature.\n\nWhat then can be thought of the first-rate reformers before alluded to,\nwho are going to emancipate every body without the least offence to any\nbody's superstition? It should be borne in memory that other people are\nsuperstitious as well as the Irish, and that the churches of all\ncountries are as much parts of 'a wicked political system' as are the\nchurches of Ireland. The judges of our own country frequently remind us\nthat its laws have a religious sanction; nay they assure us Christianity\nis part and parcel of those laws. Do we not know that orthodox\nChristianity means Christianity as by law established? And can any one\nfail to perceive that such a religion must needs be political? The\ncunning few, who make a market of delusion, and esteem nothing apart\nfrom their own aggrandisement, are quite aware that the civil and\ncriminal law of England is intimately associated with Christianity--they\npublicly proclaim their separation impossible, except at the cost of\ndestruction to both. They are sagacious enough to perceive that a people\ntotally untrammelled by the fears, the prejudices, and the wickedness of\nreligion would never consent to remain in bondage.\n\nHence the pains taken by piety-mongers to perpetuate the dominion of\nthat ignorance which proverbially is 'the mother of devotion.' What care\nthey for universal emancipation? Free themselves, their grand object is\nto rivet the chains of others. So that those they defraud of their hard\nearned substance be kept down, they are not over scrupulous with respect\nto means. Among the most potent of their helps in the 'good work' are\nchurches, various in name and character, but in principle the very same.\nAll are pronounced true by priests who profit by them, and false by\npriests who do not. Every thing connected with them bears the mark of\ndespotism. Whether we look at churches foreign or domestic, Popish or\nProtestant, that mark of the 'beast' appears in characters as legible\nas, it is fabled, the hand writing on the wall did to a tyrant of old.\nIn connection with each is a hierarchy of intellect stultifiers, who\nexplain doctrines without understanding them, or intending they should\nbe understood by others; and true to their 'sacred trust,' throw every\navailable impediment in the way of improvement. Knowledge is their\ndevil. So far as antagonism to progression goes, there is no sensible\ndifference between the hierarchies of Rome or of England, or of\nConstantinople. To diffuse the 'truth' that 'will set men free' is no\npart of their 'wicked political system.' On the contrary, they labour to\nexcite a general disgust of truth, and in defence of bad governments\npreach fine sermons from some one of the many congenial texts to be\ngathered in their 'Holy Scripture.'\n\nNor is it found that non-established priesthoods are much more disposed\nto emancipate 'mind' and oil the wheels of political progression than\nthose kept in state pay. The air of conventicles is not of the freest or\nmost bracing description. No doubt the 'voluntary principle' is\njust--only brazen faced impostors will say it is right to tax a man for\nthe support of those who promulgate doctrines abhorrent to his feelings\nand an insult to his judgment. Still, the fact is incontestable, that\nDissenting Priests are, for the most part, opposed to the extension of\npolitical rights, or, what is equal, that' knowledge which would\ninfallibly secure them. The Methodist preacher, who has the foolish\neffrontery to tell his congregation 'the flesh lusteth always contrary\nto the spirit; and, therefore, every person born into the world\ndeserveth God's wrath and damnation,' may be a liberal politician, one\nwell fitted to pilot his flock into the haven of true republicanism: but\nthe author is extremely suspicious of such persons, and would not on any\naccount place his liberty in their keeping. He has little faith in\npolitical fanaticism, especially when in alliance with the frightful\ndoctrines enunciated from conventicle pulpits, and has no hesitation in\nsaying that Anti-State Church Associations do not touch the root of all\npolitical evils. Their usefulness is great, because they give currency\nto a sound principle, but that principle, though important, is not\nall-important--though powerful, is not all-powerful. If universally\nadopted, it is questionable that any useful change of a lasting\ncharacter would be worked in the economy of politics.\n\nPriests of all religion are the same, said Dryden--the religions they\nteach are false, and in their tendency anti-progressive, say Atheists,\nwho put no trust in doctrine which involves or assumes supernatural\nexistence. Believing that supernaturalism reduced to 'system' cannot be\nother than 'wickedly political,' the Atheist, truly so called, sees no\nhope for 'slave classes,' apart from a general diffusion of\nanti-religious ideas. According to his theory, religion is in part a\ncunningly and in part a stupidly devised fable. He cannot reconcile the\nwisdom of theologians with undoubted facts, and though willing to admit\nthat some 'modes of faith' are less absurd than others, is convinced\nthey are all essentially alike, because all fundamentally erroneous.\nRousseau said 'philosophy can do nothing that religion cannot do better,\nand religion can do many things which philosophy cannot do at all.' But\nAtheists believe religion the most formidable evil with which\nprogressors have to cope, and see in philosophy that mighty agent in the\nwork of improvement so beautifully described by Curran as _the\nirresistible genius of universal emancipation_.\n\nSpeculative thinkers of so decidedly irreligious a temper are not\nnumerous. If esteemed, as happens to certain commodities, in proportion\nto their scarcity they would enjoy a large share of public respect.\nIndeed, they are so few and far between, or at least so seldom make\ntheir presence visible, that William Gillespie is convinced they are an\nanomalous species of animal, produced by our common parent 'in a moment\nof madness.' Other grave Christian writers, though horrified at\nAtheism--though persuaded its professors, 'of all earth's madmen, most\ndeserve a chain;' and, though constantly abusing them, are still unable\nto believe in the reality of such persons. These, among all the\nopponents of Atheism and Atheists, may fairly claim to be considered\nmost mysterious; for, while lavishing on deniers of their Gods every\nkind of sharp invective and opprobrious epithet, they cannot assure\nthemselves the 'monsters' did, or do actually exist. With characteristic\nhumour, David Hume observed 'There are not a greater number of\nphilosophical reasonings displayed upon any subject than those which\nprove the existence of Deity, and refute the fallacies of Atheists, and\nyet the most religious philosophers still dispute whether any man can be\nso blinded as to be a speculative Atheist;' 'how (continues he) shall we\nreconcile these contradictions? The Knight-errants who wandered about to\nclear the world of dragons and of giants, never entertained the least\ndoubt with regard to the existence of these monsters.' [10:1]\n\nThe same Hume who thus pleasantly rebuked 'most religious philosophers,'\nwas himself a true Atheist. That he lacked faith in the supernatural\nmust be apparent to every student of his writings, which abound with\nreflections far from flattering to the self-love of religionists, and\nlittle calculated to advance their cause. Many Deists have been called\nAtheists: among others Robert Owen and Richard Carlile, both of whom\nprofessed belief in something superior to nature, something acting upon\nand regulating matter, though not itself material. [11:1] This something\nthey named _power_. But Hume has shown we may search 'in vain for an\nidea of power or necessary connection in all the sources from which we\nwould suppose it to be derived. [11:2] Owen, Carlile, and other\nAtheists, falsely so called, supposed power the only entity worthy of\ndeification. They dignified it with such appellations as 'internal or\nexternal cause of all existence,' and ascribed to it intelligence, with\nsuch other honourable attributes as are usually ascribed to 'deified,\nerror.' But Hume astonished religious philosophers by declaring that,\n'while we argue from the course of nature and infer a particular\nintelligent cause, which first bestowed, and still preserves order in\nthe universe, we embrace a principle which is both uncertain and\nuseless. It is uncertain, because the subject lies entirely beyond the\nreach of human experience. It is useless, because our knowledge of this\ncause being derived entirely from the course of nature, we can never,\naccording to the rules of just reasoning, return back from the cause\nwith any new inference, or making additions to the common and\nexperienced course of nature, establish any principles of conduct and\nbehaviour. [11:3]\n\nNor did Hume affect to consider Christianity less repugnant to reason\nthan any other theory or system of supernaturalism. Though confessedly\nfast in friendship, generous in disposition, and blameless in all the\nrelations of life, few sincere Divines can forgive his hostility to\ntheir faith. And without doubt it was hostility eminently calculated to\nexhaust their stock of patience, because eminently calculated to damage\ntheir religion, which has nothing to fear from the assaults of ignorant\nand immoral opponents; but when assailed by men of unblemished\nreputation, who know well how to wield the weapons of wit, sarcasm, and\nsolid argumentation, its priests are not without reason alarmed lest\ntheir house should be set _out_ of order.\n\nIt would be difficult to name a philosopher at once so subtle, so\nprofound, so bold, and so _good_ as Hume. Notwithstanding his heterodox\nreputation, many learned and excellent Christians openly enjoyed his\nfriendship. A contemporary critic recently presented the public with 'a\ncurious instance of contrast and of parallel,' between Robertson and\nHume. 'Flourishing (says he) in the same walk of literature, living in\nthe same society at the same time; similar in their habits and generous\ndispositions; equally pure in their morals, and blameless in all the\nrelations of private life: the one was a devout believer, the other a\nmost absolute atheist, and both from deep conviction, founded upon\ninquiries, carefully and anxiously conducted. The close and warm\nfriendship which subsisted between these two men, may, after what we\nhave said, be a matter of surprise to some; but Robertson's Christianity\nwas enlarged and tolerant, and David Hume's principles were liberal and\nphilosophical in a remarkable degree.' [12:1]\n\nThis testimony needs no comment. It clearly tells its own tale, and\nought to have the effect of throwing discredit upon the vulgar notion\nthat disgust of all religion is incompatible with talents and virtues of\nthe highest order; for, in the person of David Hume, the world saw\nabsolute Atheism co-existent with genius, learning, and moral\nexcellence, rarely, if ever, surpassed.\n\nThe unpopularity of that creed it would be vain to deny. A vast majority\nof mankind associate with the idea of disbelief in their Gods every\nthing stupid, monstrous, absurd, and atrocious. Absolute Atheism is\nthought by them the inseparable ally of most shocking wickedness,\ninvolving as it manifestly does that 'blasphemy against the Holy Ghost'\nwhich we are assured shall not be forgiven unto men 'neither in this\nworld nor in that which is to come.' Educated to consider it 'an\ninhuman, bloody, ferocious system, equally hostile to every restraint\nand to every virtuous affection,' the majority of all countries detest\nand shun its apostles. Their horror of them may be likened to that it is\npresumed the horse feels towards the camel, upon whom (so travellers\ntell us) he cannot look without _shuddering_.\n\nTo keep alive and make the most of this strong religious feeling has\never been the object of Christian priests, who rarely hesitate to make\ncharges of Atheism, not only against opponents, but each other; not only\nagainst disbelievers but believers in God. The Jesuit Lafiteau, in a\nPreface to his 'Histoire des Sauvages Americanes,' [13:1] endeavours to\nprove that only Atheists will dare assert that God created the\nAmericans. Scarcely a metaphysical writer of eminence has escaped the\n'imputation' of Atheism. The great Clarke and his antagonist the greater\nLeibnitz were called Atheists. Even Newton was put in the same category.\nNo sooner did sharp-sighted divines catch a glimpse of an 'Essay on the\nHuman Understanding' than they loudly proclaimed the Atheism of its\nauthor. Julian Hibbert, in his learned account 'Of Persons Falsely\nEntitled Atheists,' says, 'the existence of some sort of a Deity has\nusually been considered undeniable, so the imputation of Atheism and the\ntitle of Atheist have usually been considered as insulting.' This\nauthor, after giving no fewer than thirty and two names of 'individuals\namong the Pagans who (with more or less injustice) have been accused of\nAtheism,' says, 'the list shews, I think, that almost all the most\ncelebrated Grecian metaphysicians have been, either in their own or in\nfollowing ages, considered, with more or less reason, to be\nAtheistically inclined. For though, the word Atheist was probably not\noften used till about a hundred years before Christ, yet the imputation\nof _impiety_ was no doubt as easily and commonly bestowed, before that\nperiod, as it has been since.' [13:2]\n\nVoltaire relates, in the eighteenth chapter of his 'Philosophie de\nL'Histoire,' [13:3] that a Frenchman named Maigrot, Bishop of Conon, who\nknew not a word of Chinese, was deputed by the then Pope to go and pass\njudgment on the opinions of certain Chinese philosophers: he treated\nConfucius as Atheist, because that sage had said 'the sky has given me\nvirtue, and man can do me no hurt.'\n\nOn grounds no more solid than this, charges of Atheism are often erected\nby 'surpliced sophists.' Rather ridiculous have been the mistakes\ncommitted by some of them in their hurry to affix on objects of their\nhate the brand of impiety. These persons, no doubt, supposed they were\nprivileged to write or talk any amount of nonsense and contradiction.\nMen who fancy themselves commissioned by Deity to interpret his\n'mysteries,' or announce his 'will,' are apt to make blunders without\nbeing sensible of it, as did those worthy Jesuits who declared, in\nopposition to Bayle, that a society of Atheists was impossible, and at\nthe same time assured the world that the government of China, by\nVoltaire and many others considered the most ancient on earth, was a\nsociety of Atheists. So difficult it is for men inflamed by religious\nprejudices, interests, and animosities to keep clear of sophisms, which\ncan impose on none but themselves.\n\nMany Atheists conceal their sentiments on account of the odium which\nwould certainly be their reward did they avow them. But the unpopularity\nof those sentiments cannot, by persons of sense and candour be allowed,\nin itself, a sufficient reason for their rejection. The fact of a creed\nbeing unpopular is no proof it is false. The argument from general\nconsent is at best a suspicious one, for the truth of any opinion or the\nvalidity of any practice. History proves that the generality of men are\nthe slaves of prejudice, the sport of custom, and foes most bigotted to\nsuch opinions concerning religion as have not been drawn in from the\nsucking-bottles, or 'hatched within the narrow fences of their own\nconceit.' No prudent searcher after truth will accept an opinion because\nit is the current one, but rather view it with distrust for that very\nreason. The genius of him who said, in our journey to the other world\nthe common road is the safest, was cowardly as deceptive, and therefore\nopposed to sound philosophy. Like horses yoked to a team, 'one's nose in\nt'others tail,' is a mode of journeying anywhere the opposite of\ndignified, pleasant, or improving. They who are enamoured of 'the common\nroad,' unless handsomely paid for journeying thereon, must be slavish in\nfeeling, and willing submitters to every indignity sanctioned by custom,\nthat potent enemy of truth, which from time immemorial has been 'the law\nof fools.'\n\nEvery day experience demonstrates the fallibility of majorities. It\npalpably exhibits, too, the danger as well as the folly of presuming the\nunpopularity of certain speculative opinions an evidence of their\nfalsity. A public intellect, untainted by gross superstition, can\nnowhere be appealed to. Even in this favoured country, 'the envy of\nsurrounding nations and admiration of the world,' the multitude are\nanything but patterns of moral purity and intellectual excellence. They\nwho assure us _vox populi_ is the voice of God, are fairly open to the\ncharge of ascribing to Him what orthodox pietists inform us exclusively\nbelongs to the Father of evil. If by 'voice of God' is meant something\ndifferent from noisy ebullitions of anger, intemperance, and fanaticism,\nthey who would have us regulate our opinions in conformity therewith are\nrespectfully requested to reconcile mob philosophy with the sober\ndictates of experience, and mob law with the law of reason.\n\nA writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ [15:1] assures us 'the majority of\nevery nation consists of rude uneducated masses, ignorant, intolerant,\nsuspicious, unjust, and uncandid, without the sagacity which discovers\nwhat is right, or the intelligence which comprehends it when pointed\nout, or the morality which requires it to be done.' And yet religious\nphilosophers are fond of quoting the all but universal horror of Atheism\nas a formidable argument against that much misunderstood creed.\n\nThe least reflection will suffice to satisfy any reasonable man that the\nspeculative notions of rude, uneducated masses, so faithfully described\nby the Scotch Reviewer, are for the most part grossly absurd and\nconsequently the reverse of true. If the masses of all nations are\nignorant, intolerant, suspicions, unjust, and uncandid, without the\nsagacity which discovers what is right, or the intelligence which\ncomprehends it when pointed out, or the morality which requires it to be\ndone; who with the least shadow of claim to be accounted reasonable will\nassert that a speculative heresy is the worse for being unpopular, or\nthat Atheism is false, and must be demoralising in its influence because\nthe majority of mankind declare it so.\n\nThe Author of this Apology does not desire it may be inferred from the\nforegoing remarks, that horror of Atheism, and detestation of its\napostles, is confined to the low, the vulgar, the base, or the\nilliterate. Any such inference would be wrong, for it is certainly true\nthat learned, benevolent, and very able Christian writers, have\nsignalised themselves in the work of obstructing the progress of Atheism\nby denouncing its principles, and imputing all manner of wickedness to\nits defenders. It must indeed be admitted by the really enlightened of\nevery name, that their conduct in this particular amply justifies pious\nMatthew Henry's confessions, that 'of all the christian graces, zeal is\nmost apt to turn sour.'\n\nOne John Ryland, A.M. of Northampton, published a 'Preceptor, or General\nRepository of useful information, very necessary for the various ages\nand departments of life' in which 'pride and lust, a corrupt pride of\nheart, and a furious filthy lust of body,' are announced as the\natheist's 'springs of action,' 'desire to act the beast without control,\nand live like a devil without a check of conscience,' his only 'reasons\nfor opposing the existence of God;' in which he is told 'a world of\ncreatures are up in arms against him to kill him as they would a\nvenomous mad dog,' in which among other hard names he is called 'absurd\nfool,' 'beast,' 'dirty monster,' 'brute,' 'gloomy dark animal,' 'enemy\nof mankind,' 'wolf to civil society,' 'butcher and murderer of the human\nrace,' in which moreover he is _cursed_ in the following hearty terms:\n\n'Let the glorious mass of fire burn him, let the moon light him to the\ngallows, let the stars in their courses fight against the atheist, let\nthe force of the comets dash him to pieces, let the roar of thunders\nstrike him deaf, let red lightnings blast his guilty soul, let the sea\nlift up her mighty waves to bury him, let the lion tear him to pieces,\nlet dogs devour him, let the air poison him, let the next crumb of bread\nchoke him, nay, let the dull ass spurn him to death.'\n\nDr. Balguy in the course of a Treatise which the 'liberal' author of a\nSketch of the Denominations of the Christian World, 'considered an\nexcellent antidote against atheistical tenets,' expresses himself in the\nfollowing manner: 'Of all the false opinions which ever infested the\nmind of man, nothing can possibly equal that of atheism, which is such a\nmonstrous contradiction of all evidence, to all the powers of the\nunderstanding and the dictates of common sense, that it may well be\nquestioned whether any man can really fall into it by a deliberate use\nof his judgment. All nature so clearly points out, and so clearly\nproclaims a Creator of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, that\nwhoever hears not its voice and sees not its proofs may well be thought\nwilfully deaf and obstinately blind.'\n\nThese are notable specimens of zeal turned sour.\n\nNow, when it is considered that such writings are carefully put into\npopular hands, and writings of an irreligious character as carefully\nkept out of them, astonishment at human intolerance must cease. So far,\nindeed, from wondering that the 'giddy multitude' shrink aghast from\nAtheists we shall conceive it little short of miraculous, that they do\nnot fall upon and tear them to pieces.\n\nBeattie, another Christian doctor, towards the close of his celebrated\nEssay on the Immutability of Truth, denounces every sincere outspoken\nunbeliever as a 'murderer of human souls,' and it being obvious that the\nmurderer of a single soul must to the 'enlightened' majority of our\npeople appear an act infinitely more horrible than the butchery of many\nbodies, it really does at first view seem 'passing strange' that body\nmurderers are almost invariably hanged, whilst they who murder 'souls,'\nif punished at all, usually escape with some harmless abuse and a year\nor two's imprisonment.\n\nEven the 'tolerant' Richard Watson, Lord Bishop of Llandaff, wrote with\ncontemptuous bitterness of 'Atheistical madmen,' and in his Apology for\nthe Bible, assured Deistical Thomas Paine, Deism was so much better than\nAtheism, he (Bishop Watson) meant 'not to say anything to its\ndiscredit.'\n\nThe Rev. Mr. Ward, whose 'Ideal of a Christian Church' spread such\nconsternation in the anti-popish camp, describes his own hatred of\nProtestantism as 'fierce and burning.' Nothing can go beyond that--it is\nthe _ne plus ultra_ of bigotry, and just such hatred is displayed\ntowards Atheists by at least nine-tenths of their opponents. Strange to\nsay, in Christians, in the followers of him who is thought to have\nrecommended, by act and word, unlimited charity, who is thought to have\n_commanded_ that we judge not, that we be sat judged; the Atheist finds\nhis most active foe, his bitterest and least scrupulous maligner. To\nexaggerate their bigotry would be difficult, for whether sage or simple,\nlearned or unlearned, priests or priest-led, they regularly practise the\ndenunciation of Atheists in language foul as it is false. They call them\n'traitors to human kind,' yea 'murderers of the human soul,' and unless\nhypocrites, or much better than their sentiments, would rather see them\nswing upon the gibbet than murderers of the body, especially if like\nJohn Tawell, 'promoters of religion and Christian Missions.'\n\nRobert Hall was a Divine of solid learning and unquestionable piety,\nwhose memory is reverenced by a large and most respectable part of the\nChristian world. He ranked amongst the best of his class, and generally\nspeaking, was so little disposed to persecute his opponents because of\ntheir heterodox opinions, that he wrote and published a Treatise on\nModeration, in the course of which he eloquently condemns the practice\nof regulating, or rather attempting to regulate opinion by act of\nparliament: yet, incredible as it may appear, in that very Treatise he\napplauds Calvin on account of his conduct towards Servetus. Our\nauthority for this statement is not 'Infidel' but Christian--the\nauthority of Evans, who, after noticing the Treatise in question, says,\n'he (Bishop Hall) has discussed the subject with that ability which is\npeculiar to all his writings. But this great and good man, towards the\nclose of the same Treatise, forgetting the principles which he had been\ninculcating, devotes one solitary page to the cause of intolerance: this\npage he concludes with these remarkable expressions: \"Master Calvin did\nwell approve himself to God's Church in bringing Servetus to the stake\nin Geneva.\"'\n\nRemarkable, indeed! and what is the moral that they point? To the Author\nof this Apology they are indicative of the startling truth, that neither\neloquence nor learning, nor faith in God and his Scripture, nor all\nthree combined, are incompatible with the cruelest spirit of\npersecution. The Treatise on Moderation will stand an everlasting\nmemorial against its author, whose fine intellect, spoiled by\nsuperstitious education, urged him to approve a deed, the bare\nremembrance of which ought to excite in every breast, feelings of horror\nand indignation. That such a man should declare the aim of Atheists is\n'to dethrone God and destroy man,' is not surprising. From genuine\nbigots they have no right to expect mercy. He who applauded the bringing\nof Servetus to the stake must have deemed the utter extermination of\nAtheists a religious duty.\n\nThat our street and field preaching Christians, with very few\nexceptions, heartily sympathise with the fire and faggot sentiments of\nRobert Hall, is well known; but happily, their absurd ravings are\nattended to by none save eminently pious people, whose brains are\nunclogged by any conceivable quantity of useful knowledge. In point of\nintellect they are utterly contemptible. Their ignorance, however, is\nfully matched by their impudence, which never forsakes them. They claim\nto be considered God's right-hand men, and of course duly qualified\npreachers of his 'word,' though unable to speak five minutes without\ntaking the same number of liberties with the Queen's English. Swift was\nprovoked by the prototypes of these pestiferous people, to declare that,\n'formerly, the apostles received the gift of speaking several languages,\na knowledge so remote from our dealers in the art of enthusiasm, that\nthey neither understand propriety of speech nor phrases of their own,\nmuch less the gift of tongues.'\n\nThe millions of Christian people who have been trained up in the way\nthey should _not_ go, by this active class of fanatics, are naturally\neither opposed to reason or impervious to it. Hence, arguing with them\nis sheer waste of brains and leisure--a casting of pearls before swine.\nThey are convinced not only that the wisdom of the world is foolishness\nwith God, but that wisdom with God is foolishness with the world; nor\nwill any one affirm their 'moderation' in respect to unbelievers one\ntittle more moderate than Robert Hall's; or that they are one tittle\nless disposed than 'that good and great man,' to think those who bring\nheretics to the stake at Geneva or elsewhere, 'do well approve\nthemselves to God's Church.' Educated, that is to say, _duped_ as they\nare, they cannot but think unbelief highly criminal, and when\npracticable, or convenient, deal with it as such. Atheists would, be\n'astonished with a great astonishment' if they did not. Their crafty\nteachers adjure them to do so 'on peril of their souls;' and if, as Mr.\nJay, of Bath, said in one of his best sermons, 'the readiest way in the\nworld to thin heaven, and replenish the regions of hell, is to call in\nthe spirit of bigotry,' the Author of this Apology would not for all the\ntreasures of India stand in the shoes of these men, whose whole time and\nenergies are employed in generating and perpetuating that detestable\nspirit. But when your Rylands, and Balguys and Beatties, and Watsons and\nHalls make a merit of abusing those who cannot believe as they believe,\nwhat can be hoped or expected from the tribe of illiterate canters, who\n'go about Mawworming?'\n\nIt is nevertheless true, that Atheists have been helped to some of their\nbest arguments by adversaries. Bishop Watson, to wit, has suggested\nobjections to belief in the Christian's Deity, which they who hold no\nsuch belief, consider unanswerable. In his famous 'Apology' he desired\nto know what Paine thought 'of an uncaused cause of everything, and a\nBeing who has no relation to time, not being older to day than he was\nyesterday, nor younger to day than he will be to-morrow--who has no\nrelation to space, not being a part here and a part there, or a whole\nanywhere? of an omniscient Being who cannot know the future actions of\nman, or if his omniscience enables him to know them, of the contingency\nof human actions? of the distinction between vice and virtue, crime and\ninnocence, sin and duty? of the infinite goodness of a Being who existed\nthrough eternity, without any emanation of his goodness manifested in\nthe creation of sensitive beings? or if it be contended that there was\nan eternal creation of an effect coeval with its 'cause, of matter not\nposterior to its maker? of the existence of evil, moral and natural, in\nthe work of an Infinite Being, powerful, wise, and good? finally, of the\ngift of freedom of will, when the abuse of freedom becomes the cause of\ngeneral misery?' [20:1]\n\nThese questions imply what, to the author of this Apology, appears an\nample _justification_ of Atheism. That they flowed from the pen of a\nBishop, is one of many extraordinary facts which have grown out of\ntheological controversy. They are questions strongly suggestive of\nanother. Is it possible to have experience of, or even to imagine a\nBeing with attributes so strange, anomalous, and contradictory? To that\nquestion reason prompts an answer in the negative--It is plain that\nBishop Watson was convinced 'no man by searching can find out God.' The\ncase is, that he, in the hope of converting Deists, ventured to\ninsinuate arguments highly favourable to Atheism, whose professors\nconsider an admission of utter ignorance of God, tantamount to a denial\nof His existence. Many Christians, with more candour, perhaps, than\nprudence, have avowed the same opinion. Minutius Felix, for example,\nsaid to the Heathen, 'Not one of you reflects that you ought to know\nyour gods before you worship them.' [20:2] As if he felt the absurdity\nof pretending to love and honour an unknown 'Perhaps.' That he did\nhimself what he ridiculed in them proves nothing but his own\ninconsistency. To the Author of this Apology it seems certain, a God\nwhose being is not as our being, whose thoughts are not as our thoughts,\nand whose ways are not as our ways, is neither more nor less than the\nmerest figment of ill-regulated imagination. He is _sure_ a Being, above\nnature, can only be conceived of by itself; it being obviously true that\nthe natural cannot attain to the supernatural.\n\nThe Christian, equally with the Heathen, is open to the reproach of\nworshipping he knows not what. Yes, to idol-hating, enlightened\nChristians, may fairly be applied the severe sarcasm Minutius Felix so\ntriumphantly levelled at idol-loving 'benighted Heathens.' Will any one\nsay the Christian absolutely knows more about Jehovah than the Heathen\ndid about Jupiter? The Author believes that few, if any, who have\nattentively considered Bishop Watson's queries, will say the 'dim\nUnknown,' they so darkly shadow forth, is conceivable by any effort,\neither of sense or imagination.\n\nUnder cover, then, of what reason Christians can escape the imputation\nof pretending to adore what they have no conception of, the Author of\nthis Apology is unable to divine. The very 'book of books,' to which\nthey so boldly appeal, is conclusive against them. In its pages they\nstand convicted of idolatry. Without doubt a God is revealed by\nrevelation; but not _their_ God; not a supernatural Being, infinite in\npower, in wisdom, and in goodness. The Bible Deity is superhuman in\nnothing; all that His adorers have ascribed to Him being mere\namplification of human powers, human ideas, and human passions. The\nBible Deity 'has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he\nhardeneth;' is 'jealous,' especially of other Gods; changeful,\nvindictive, partial, cruel, unjust, 'angry with the wicked every day;'\nand altogether a Being far from respectable, or worthy to be considered\ninfinite in wisdom, power, and goodness. Is it credible that a Being\nsupernaturally wise and good, proclaimed the murderous adulterer David,\na man after his own heart, and commanded the wholesale butchery of\nCanaanites? Or that a God of boundless power, 'whose tender mercies are\nover all his works,' decreed the extermination of entire nations for\nbeing what he made them? Jehovah did all three. Confessedly a God of\narmies and Lord of Hosts; confessedly, too, a hardener of men's hearts\nthat he might destroy them: he authorised acts at which human nature\nshudders, and of which it is ashamed: yet to love, respect, yea,\nreverence Him, we are commanded by the self-styled 'stewards of his\nmysteries,' on peril of our 'immortal souls.' Verily, these pious\nanathematisers ask our credulity a little too much.' In their zeal for\nthe God of Israel, they are apt to forget that only Himself can compass\nimpossibilities, and altogether lose sight of the fact that where, who,\nor what Jehovah is, no man knoweth. Revelation (so-called) reveals\nnothing about the imagined creator of heaven and earth on which a\ncultivated intellect can repose with satisfaction. Men naturally desire\npositive information concerning the superhuman Deity, belief in whom is\nthe _sine qua non_ of all religion. But the Bible furnishes no such\ninformation concerning Jehovah. On the contrary, he is their pronounced\n'past finding out,' incomprehensible, and the like. 'Canst thou, by\nsearching, find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to\nperfection?' are questions put by an 'inspired writer,' who felt the\ncloudy and unsatisfactory nature of all human conceit about Gods.\n\nNow, a Revelation from God, at least so thinks the Author of this\nApology, might reasonably be expected to make the mode and nature of His\nexistence manifest. But the Christian Bible falls infinitely short in\nthis particular. It teaches there is a God; but throws no light on the\ndark questions, who, what, or where is God? Numerous and various as are\nScripture texts, none can be cited in explanation of a Deity no older\nto-day than he was yesterday, nor younger to-day than he will be\nto-morrow; of a Deity who has no relation to space, not being a part\nhere and a part there, or a whole anywhere: in short, of that Deity\nwritten about by Bishop Watson, who, like every other sincere Christian,\nmade the mistake of resting his religious faith on 'words without\nknowledge.'\n\nIt is to this description of faith Atheists object. They think it the\nroot of superstition, that greatest of all plagues, by which poor\nhumanity is afflicted. Are they to blame for thus thinking? The\nChristian has no mercy on the superstition of the Heathen; and should\nscorn to complain when the bitter chalice is returned to his own lips.\nAtheists believe the God of Bishop Watson a supernatural chimera, and to\nits worshippers have a perfect right to say, 'not one of you reflects\nthat you ought to know your Gods before you worship them.' These\nremarkable words, originally addressed to the Heathen, lose none of\ntheir force when directed against the Christian.\n\nNo one can conceive a supernatural Being, and what none can conceive,\nnone ought to worship, or even assert the existence of. Who worships a\nsomething of which he knows nothing, is an idolater. To talk of, or bow\ndown to it, is nonsensical; to pretend affection for it, is worse than\nnonsensical. Such conduct, however pious, involves the rankest\nhypocrisy; the meanest and most odious species of idolatry; for\nlabouring to destroy which, Atheists are called 'murderers of the human\nsoul,' 'blasphemers,' and other foolish names, too numerous to mention.\n\nIt would be well for all parties, if those who raise against Atheists\nthe cry of 'blasphemy,' were made to perceive that godless unbelievers\ncannot be blasphemers; for, as contended by Lord Brougham in his Life of\nVoltaire, blasphemy implies belief, and, therefore, Atheists who do not\nbelieve in God, cannot logically or justly be said to blaspheme him. The\nblasphemer, properly so called, is he who imagines Deity, and ascribes\nto the idol of his own brain, all manner of folly, contradiction,\ninconsistency, and wickedness. Yes, the blasphemer is he who invents a\nmonster and calls it God; while to reject belief therein, is an act both\nreasonable and virtuous.\n\nSuperstition is universally abhorred, but no one believes himself\nsuperstitious. There never was a religionist who believed his own\nreligion mere superstition. All shrink indignantly from the charge of\nbeing superstitious; while all raise temples to, and bow down before,\n'thingless names.' The 'masses' of every nation erect 'thingless names'\ninto substantial realities, and woe to those, who follow not the insane\nexample. The consequences--the fatal consequences--are everywhere\napparent. In our own country, one consequence is social disunion on the\ngrandest possible scale. Society is split up into an almost infinite\nvariety of sects, whose members imagine themselves patented to think\ntruth, and never to be wrong in the enunciation of it. This if no idle\nor frivolous charge, as the Author of this Apology can easily show.\n\nBefore him is _Sanders' News Letter and Daily Advertiser_ of Feb. 18,\n1845, which, among other curiosities, contains an 'Address of the Dublin\nProtestant Operative Association, and Reformation Society,' one sentence\nof which is--'We have raised our voices against the spirit of\ncompromise, which is the opprobrium of the age; we have unfurled the\nbanner of Protestant truth, and placed ourselves beneath it, we have\ninsisted upon Protestant ascendancy as just and equitable, because\nProtestant principles are true and undeniable.'\n\nPuseyite Protestants tell a tale the very reverse of that so modestly\ntold by their nominal brethren of the Dublin Operative Association.\nThey, as may be seen in Palmer's Letter to Golightly, 'utterly reject\nand anathematise the principle of Protestantism, as a heresy with all\nits forms, sects, or denominations.' Nor is that all our 'Romeward\nDivines' do, for in addition to rejecting utterly and cursing bitterly,\nas well the name as the principle of Protestantism, they eulogise the\nChurch of Rome because forsooth 'she yields,' says Newman in his Letter\nto Jelf, 'free scope to feelings of awe, mystery, tenderness, reverence,\nand devotedness;' while we have it on the authority of Tract 90, that\nthe Church of England is 'in bondage, working in chains, and (tell it\nnot in Dublin) teaching with the stammering lips of ambiguous\nformularies.' Fierce and burning is the hatred of Dublin Operative\nAssociation Christians to Popery, but the reader has seen exactly that\nstyle of hatred to Protestantism is avowed by Mr. Ward. Both sets of\nChristians are quite sure they are right: but (alas! for infallibility)\na third set of Christians insist that they are both wrong. There are\nPapists or Roman Catholics who consider Protestant principles the very\nreverse of true and undeniable, and treat with derisive scorn the\n'fictitious Catholicism' of Puseyite Divines.\n\nCount De Montalambert, in his recently published 'Letter to the Rev. Mr.\nNeale on the Architectural, Artistical, and Archaeological Movements of\nthe Puseyites,' enters his 'protest' against the most unwarranted and\nunjustifiable assumption of the name of Catholic by people and things\nbelonging to the actual Church of England. 'It is easy,' he observes,\n'to take up a name, but it is not so easy to get it recognised by the\nworld and by competent authority. Any man, for example, may come out to\nMadeira and call himself a Montmorency, or a Howard, and even enjoy the\nhonour and consideration belonging to such a name till the real\nMontmorencys or Howards hear something about it, and denounce him, and\nthen such a man would be justly scouted from society, and fall down much\nlower than the lowness from which he attempted to rise. The attempt to\nsteal away from us and appropriate to the use of a fraction of the\nChurch of England that glorious title of Catholic is proved to be an\nusurpation by every monument of the past and present; by the coronation\noath of your sovereigns--by all the laws which have established your\nChurch--even by the recent answer of your University of Oxford to the\nlay address against Dr. Pusey, &c., where the Church of England is\njustly styled the Reformed Protestant Church. The name itself is spurned\nat with indignation by the greater half, at least, of the inhabitants of\nthe United Kingdom. The judgment of the whole indifferent world--the\ncommon sense of humanity--agrees with the judgment of the Church of\nRome, and with the sense of her 150,000,000 of children, to dispossess\nyou (Puseyites) of this name. The Church of England, who has denied her\nmother, is rightly without a sister. She has chosen to break the bonds\nof unity and obedience; let her therefore stand before the judgment-seat\nof God and of man. Again, supposing the spirit of the Camden Society\nultimately to prevail over its Anglican adversaries; supposing you do\none day get every old thing back again; copes, letters, roodlofts,\ncandlesticks, and the abbey lands into the bargain, what will it all be\nbut an empty pageant, like the Tournament of Eglington Castle, separated\nfrom the reality of Catholic truth and unity, by the abyss of three\nhundred years of schism? The question then is, have you, the Church of\nEngland, got the picture for your frame? have you got the truth, the one\ntruth; the same truth as the men of the middle ages? The Camden Society\nsays yes; but the whole Christian world, both Protestant and Catholic,\nsays no; and the Catholic world adds that there is no truth but in\nunity, and this unity you most certainly have not. Once more; every\nCatholic will repeat to you the words of Manzoni, as quoted by M. Faber:\n'The greatest deviations are none if the main point be recognised; the\nsmallest are damnable heresies, if it be denied. That main point is the\ninfallibility of the Church, or rather of the Pope.'\n\nOur Anti-Romish priests would have us think the more and more we have\nof-faith, the more and more we have of happiness. Faith they exalt far,\nvery far, above hope or even charity. 'Oh Lord, increase our faith,' is\nthe text on which they love to enlarge. Faith is their panacea for all\nhuman ills: but their faith is worse than useless if it be not true\nfaith. And how can we so test conflicting faiths as to distinguish the\ntrue from the false? Aye, there's the rub! Undoubtedly faith is to\nreligion what the root is to the tree; and men in search of 'saving\nfaith' are naturally anxious to find it. No one desires to be eternally\npunished; and therefore, if any one embrace a false faith it is because\nhe makes the mistake of supposing it the true one. The three sets of\nChristians just adverted to, may all be equally sincere, but cannot all\nhave the true faith. Protestant principles as taught by the Dublin\nOperative Association, may be true. Anglo-Catholic principles, as taught\nby the Oxford Tractmen, may be true. Roman Catholic principles, as\ntaught by the Count de Montalambert, may be true; but they cannot all be\ntrue. It is impossible to reconcile that orthodox Papists' 'main point',\n_i.e._ the infallability of the (Romish) Church, or rather of the Pope,\nwith the 'main point' of orthodox protestants, who denounce 'the great\nharlot of Babylon,' that 'scarlet lady who sitteth upon the seven hills,\nin the most unmeasured and virulent terms. Anti-Christ is the name they\n'blasphemously' apply to the actual 'old chimera of a Pope.' Puseyite\nDivines treat his Holiness with more tenderness; but even they boggle at\nhis infallibility, and seem to occupy a position between the rival\nchurches of Rome and England analogous to that of Captain Macheath when\nsinging between two favourite doxies--\n\n          How happy could I be with either,\n            Were t'other dear charmer away;\n          But while you thus teaze me together,\n            The devil a word can I say.\n\nThe Infallibility of Popes is the doctrine insisted upon by Count De\nMontalambert as essential--as doctrine, the smallest deviation from\nwhich is damnable heresy. Believe and admit 'Antichrist' is not\nAntichrist, but God's accredited vicegerent upon earth, infinite is the\nmercy in store for you; but woe to those who either cannot or will not\nbelieve and admit anything of the kind. On them every sincere Roman\nCatholic is sure God will pour out the vials of his wrath, as if the\n'Great Perhaps,'\n\n          Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,\n          A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,\n\ncould be angry with creatures of his own creation for thinking what they\ncannot help thinking, and being what they cannot help being. Every one\nhas heard of the Predestinarian, who, having talked much of his God, was\nasked by a bystander to speak worse of the Devil if he could; but\ncomparatively few persons feel the full force of that question, or are\nprepared to admit God-worshippers in general, picture their Deities as\nif they were demons. 'Recognise,' exclaims the Roman Catholic Priest,\n'the \"main point\" of our holy apostolic religion, or God will judge and\neternally punish you.' The priests of nearly all religional\ndenominations ascribe to Deity the low grovelling vindictive feelings\nwhich agitate and disgrace themselves. If Roman Catholic principles are\ntrue and undeniable, none but Roman Catholics will be saved from the\nwrath to come. If Anglo-Catholic principles are true and undeniable,\nnone but Anglo-Catholic will be saved from the wrath to come. If\northodox Protestant principles are true and undeniable, none but\northodox Protestants will be saved from the wrath to come. Thus do\nreligionists\n\n                              Grunt and groan,\n          And curse all systems but their own;\n\nNever scrupling to assure the advocates of those systems a hell is\nwaiting to receive them. Agreeing in little else save disagreement, the\n'main point' of this class of believers is a matter of little\nconsequence to that class of believers, and no matter at all to a third\nclass of believers. Look at the thousand-and-one sects into which the\nChristian world is divided. 'Some reject Scripture; others admit no\nother writings but Scripture. Some say the devils shall be saved, others\nthat they shall be damned; others that there are no devils at all. Some\nhold that it is lawful to dissemble in religion, others the contrary.\nSome say that Antichrist is come, some say not; others that he is a\nparticular man, others that he is not a man, but the devil; and others\nthat by Antichrist is meant a succession of men. Some will have him to\nbe Nero, some Caligula, some Mohammed, some the Pope, some Luther, some\nthe Turk, some of the tribe of Dan, and so each man according to his\nfancy will make an Antichrist. Some only will observe the Lord's day,\nsome only the Sabbath; some both, and some neither. Some will have all\nthings in common, some not. Some will have Christ's body only in Heaven,\nsome everywhere; some in the bread, others with the bread, others about\nthe bread, others under the bread, and others that Christ's body is the\nbread, or the bread his body. And others that his body is transformed\ninto his divinity. Some will have the Eucharist administered in both\nkinds, some in one, some not at all. Some will have Christ descend to\nhell in respect of his soul, some only in his power, some in his\ndivinity; some in his body, some not at all. Some by hell understand the\nplace of the damned, some _limbus partum_, others the wrath of God,\nothers the grave. Some will make Christ two persons, some give him but\none nature and one will; some affirming him to be only God, some only\nman, some made up of both, some altogether deny him. Some will have his\nbody come from Heaven, some from the Virgin, some from the elements.\nSome will have our souls mortal, some immortal; some bring them into the\nbody by infusion, some by traduction. Some will have souls created.\nbefore the world, some after; some will have them created altogether,\nothers severally; some will have them corporeal, some incorporeal; some\nof the substance of God, some of the substance of the body. So\ninfinitely are men's conceits distracted with a variety of opinions,\nwhereas _there is but one Truth_, which every man aims at, but few\nattain it; every man thinks he hath it, and yet few enjoy it.' [27:1]\n\nThe chiefs of these sects are, for the most part, ridiculously\nintolerant; so many small Popes, who fancy that whomsoever they bind on\nearth shall be bound in heaven, and whomsoever they loose on earth shall\nbe loosed in heaven. They remorselessly cobble the true faith, without\nwhich to their 'sole exclusive heaven,' none can be admitted;\n\n          As if religion were intended,\n          For nothing else but to be mended,\n\nand rarely seem so happy as when promising eternal misery to those who\nreject their chimeras. Even Dissenting ministers, from whom better\nthings might be expected, have been heard to declare at public meetings,\ncalled by themselves for the purpose of sympathising with, and\nsupporting one of themselves who was suffering for 'conscience sake,'\nthat when they spoke of liberty to express opinions, they meant such\nliberty for religionists, not irreligionists. When learned and 'liberal'\nDissenters gratuitously confess this species of faith, none have a right\nto be surprised that the 'still small voice of truth' should be drowned\namid the clamour of fanaticism, or that Atheists should be so recklessly\nvillified.\n\nBut wisdom, we read, is justified of her children; and to the wise of\nevery nation the Atheist confidently appeals. He rejects religion,\nbecause religion is based on principles of imaginative ignorance. Bailly\ndefines it as 'the worship of the unknown, piety, godliness, humility,\nbefore the _unknown_.' Lavater as 'Faith in the supernatural, invisible,\n_unknown_.' Vauvenargus as 'the duties of men towards the _unknown_.'\nDr. Johnson as 'Virtue founded upon reverence of the unknown, and\nexpectation of future rewards and punishments.' Rivarol as 'the science\nof serving the _unknown_.' La Bruyere as 'the respectful fear of the\nunknown.' Du Marsais, as 'the worship of the _unknown_, and the practice\nof all the virtues.' Walker as 'Virtue founded upon reverence of the\n_unknown_, and expectation of rewards or punishments: a system of divine\nfaith and worship as opposed to other systems.' De Bonald as 'Social\nintercourse between man and the _unknown_.' Rees as 'the worship or\nhomage that is due to the _unknown_ as creator, preserver, and with\nChristians as redeemer of the world.' Lord Brougham as 'the subject of\nthe science called Theology:' a science he defines as 'the knowledge and\nattributes of the _unknown_;' which definitions agree in making the\nessential principle of religion a principle of ignorance. That they are\nsufficiently correct definitions will not be disputed, and upon them the\nAtheist is satisfied to rest his case. To him the worship or adoration\nof what is confessedly _unknown_ is mere superstition; and to him\nprofessors of theology are 'artists in words,' who pretend to teach what\nnobody has any conception of. Now, such persons may be well-intentioned;\nbut their wisdom is by no means apparent. They must be wonderfully\ndeficient of the invaluable sense so falsely called 'common.' Idolisers\nof 'thingless names,' they set at naught the admirable dictum of Locke,\nthat it is 'unphilosophic to suppose names in books signify real\nentities in nature, unless we can frame clear and distinct ideas of\nthose entities.'\n\nTheists of every class would do well to calmly and fully consider this\nrule of philosophising, for it involves nothing less than the\ndestruction of belief in the supernatural. The Jupiter of Mythologic\nHistory, the Allah of Alkoran, and the Jehovah of 'Holy Scripture,' if\nentities at all, are assuredly entities that baffle human conception. To\n'frame clear and distinct ideas of them' is impossible. In respect to\nthe attribute of _unknowability_ all Gods are alike. They are all\nsupernatural; and the merely natural cannot attach rational ideas to\nnames assumed to stand for something above nature. It is easy to talk\nabout seeing the Creator in creation, looking through nature up to\nnature's God, and the like, but very difficult to have any idea whatever\nof a God without body, parts, or passions; that is to say, the God set\nforth in one of the Church of England's Thirty-Nine Articles.\n\nNo such God can be believed to exist by reasoners who rigidly abide by\nJohn Locke's rule of philosophising, and if it be urged that he, the\nauthor of the rule, was a Theist and a Christian--our answer is, that in\nsuch case, like many other philosophers, he practically gave the lie to\nhis own best precept.\n\nBooks have been written to exhibit the difficulties of (what priests\nchoose to call) Infidelity; and without doubt unbelief _has_ its\ndifficulties. But according to a universally recognised rule of\nphilosophising, of two difficulties we are in all cases to choose the\nleast. From a rule so palpably just no one can reasonably depart, and\nthe Atheist, while freely admitting a great difficulty on his own side,\nis satisfied there can be demonstrated an infinitely greater difficulty\non the side of his opponents. The Atheist labours to convince mankind\nthey are not warranted by the general course of Nature in assigning to\nit a Cause, inasmuch as it is more in accordance with experience to\nsuppose Nature the uncaused cause, than to imagine, as religionists do,\nthat there is an uncaused cause of Nature.\n\nTheologians ask, who created Nature? without adducing satisfactory\nevidence that Nature was created, and without reflecting that if it is\ndifficult to believe Nature self-existent, it is much more difficult to\nbelieve some self-existent Super-nature, capable of producing it. In\ntheir anxiety to get rid of a natural difficulty, they invent a\nsupernatural one, and accuse Atheists of 'wilful blindness,' and\n'obstinate deafness,' for not choosing so unphilosophic a mode of\nexplaining universal mystery. Call upon them to define their\n'all-creative Deity,' and they know not what to answer. Ask them who,\nwhat, or where He is, and at once you have them on the hip; at once you\nspy their utter ignorance, and reduce them to a condition very similar\nto that of Master Abraham Slender, when with stammering lips he 'sings\nsmall like a woman.' To assume everything they are always ready; but to\nprove anything concerning their Immense Supernatural, they are never\nprepared. Regularly drilled to argue in a circle, they foolishly imagine\neverybody else should do the same, and marvel at the man who rigidly\nadheres to just rules of philosophising and considers experience of\nnatural derivation a far safer guide than their crude, undigested,\nextravagant, contradictory notions about the confessedly _unknown_.\n\nThe rule of philosophising just adverted to--that rule which forbids us,\nin any case, to choose the greater of two difficulties--is of immense\nimportance, and should be carefully considered by every one anxious to\narrive at correct conclusions with respect to theology. For if believers\nin God do depart from that rule--if their belief necessarily involve its\nviolation--to persist in such belief is to persist in what is clearly\nopposed to pure reason. Now, it has been demonstrated, so far as words\ncan demonstrate any truth whatever, that the difficulty of him who\nbelieves Nature never had an author, is infinitely less than the\ndifficulty of him who believes it had a cause itself uncaused. In the\n'Elements of Materialism,' an unequal but still admirable work by Dr.\nKnowlton, a well-known American writer, this question of comparative\ndifficulty is well handled, and the Author of this Apology conceives\nmost satisfactorily exhausted.\n\n'The sentiment,' says the Doctor,' that a being exists which never\ncommenced existence, or what is the same thing, that a being exists\nwhich has existed from all eternity, appears to us to favour Atheism,\nfor if one being exist which never commenced existence--why not\nanother--why not the universe? It weighs nothing, says the Atheist, in\nthe eye of reason, to say the universe appears to man as though it were\norganised by an Almighty Designer; for the maker of a thing must be\nsuperior to the thing made; and if there be a maker of the universe\nthere can be no doubt, but that if such maker were minutely examined by\nman, man would discover such indications of wisdom and design that it\nwould be more difficult for him to admit that such maker was not caused\nor constructed by a pre-existing Designer, than to admit that the\nuniverse was not caused or constructed by a Designer. But no one will\ncontend for an infinite series of Makers; and if, continues the Atheist,\nwhat would, if viewed, be indications of design, are no proofs of a\ndesigner in the one case, they are not; in the other; and as such\nindications are the only evidence we have of the existence of a Designer\nof the universe, we, as rational beings, contend there is no God. We do\nnot suppose the existence of any being, of which there is no evidence,\nwhen such supposition, if admitted, so far from diminishing would only\nincrease a difficulty, which at best is sufficiently great. Surely, if a\nsuperior being may have existed from all eternity, an inferior may have\nexisted from all eternity; if a great God sufficiently mighty to make a\nworld may have existed from all eternity, of course without beginning\nand without cause, such world may have existed from all eternity,\nwithout beginning, and without cause.' [31:1]\n\nThese are 'strong reasons' for Atheism--they prove that Theists set at\nnought the rule of philosophising which forbids us to choose the greater\nof two difficulties. Their system compels them to do so, for having no\nother groundwork than the strange hypotheses that time was when there\nwas no time--something existed when there was nothing, which something\ncreated everything; its advocates would be tongue-tied and lost if\nreduced to the hard necessity of appealing to facts, or rigidly\nregarding rules of philosophising, which have only their reasonableness\nto recommend them. They profess ability to account for nature, and are\nof course exceedingly eager to justify a profession so presumptuous.\nThis eagerness betrays them into courses, of which no one bent on\nrejecting whatever is either opposed to, or unsanctioned by experience,\ncan possibly approve. It is plain that of the God they tell us to\nbelieve 'created the worlds,' no man has any experience. This granted,\nit follows that worship of such fancied Being is mere superstition.\nUntil it be shown by reference to the general course of things, that\nthings had an author, Himself uncreated or unauthorised, religious\nphilosophers have no right to expect Atheists to abandon their Atheism.\nThe duty of priests is to reconcile religion with reason, if they can,\nand admit their inability to do so, if they cannot.\n\nRomanists will have nothing to do with reason whenever it appears at\nissue with their faith. All sects, as sects, play fast and loose with\nreason. Many members of all sects are forward enough to boast about\nbeing able to give a reason for the faith that is in them; but an\noverwhelming majority love to exalt faith above reason. Philosophy they\ncall 'vain,' and some have been found so filled with contempt for it, as\nto openly maintain that what is theologically true, is philosophically\nfalse; or, in other terms, that the truths of religion and the truths of\nphilosophy have nothing in common. According to them, religious truths\nare independent and superior to all other truths. Our faith, say they,\nif not agreeable to _mere_ reason, is infinitely superior to it. Priests\nare 'at one' on the point. Dissenting and Protestant, as well as\nRomanising priests, find it convenient to abuse reason and extol faith.\nAs priests, they can scarcely be expected to do otherwise; for reason is\na stern and upright judge, whose decrees have hitherto been unfavourable\nto religion. Its professors who appeal to that judge, play a part most\ninconsistent and dangerous, as is evident in the case of Origen\nBachelor, who more zealous and candid than prudent, declared the real\nand only question between Atheism and Theism a question of fact,\nreducing it to these terms--'Is there reason, all things considered, for\nbelieving that there is a God, an intelligent cause of things, infinite\nand perfect in all his attributes and moral qualities? [32:1]\n\nNow, the reader has seen that the hypothesis of 'an intelligent cause of\nthings' involves difficulties, greater, infinitely greater than the\n_one_ difficulty, involved in the hypothesis that things always existed.\nHe has seen the folly of explaining natural, by the invention of\nsupernatural mystery, because it manifestly violates a rule of\nphilosophising, the justness of which it would be ridiculous to dispute.\nHaving clearly perceived thus much, he will perhaps think it rather 'too\nbad' as well as absurd, to call Atheists 'madmen' for lacking faith in\nthe monstrous dogma that nature was caused by 'something amounting to\nnothing' itself uncaused.\n\nThere is something. That truth admits not of being evidenced. It is,\nnevertheless, accepted. It is accepted by men of all religious opinions,\nequally with men of no religious opinions. If any truth be self evident\nand eternal, here is that truth. To call it in question would be worse\nthan idle. We may doubt the reality of an external world, we may be\nsceptical as to the reality of our own bodies, but we cannot doubt that\nthere is something. The proposition falls not within the domain of\nscepticism. It must be true. To suppose it false is literally\nimpossible. Its falsehood would involve a contradiction, and all\ncontradiction involves impossibility. But if proof of this were needed,\nwe have it in the fact that no man, sage or simple, ever pretended to\ndeny there is something. Whatever men could doubt or deny they have\ndoubted or denied, but in no country of the world, in no age, has the\ndogma--there is something, been denied or even treated as doubtful. Here\nthen Atheists, Theists, and Polytheists agree. They agree of necessity.\nThere is no escape from the conclusion that something is, except we\nadopt the unintelligible dogma there is nothing, which no human being\ncan, as nothing amounts to nothing and of what amounts to nothing no one\ncan have an idea. To define the word something by any other word, would\nbe labour in vain. There is no other word in any language whose meaning\nis better understood, and they who do not under stand what it means, if\nsuch persons there be, are not likely to understand the meaning of any\nword or words whatever. Ideas of nothing none have. That there is\nsomething, we repeat, must be true; all dogmas or propositions being\nnecessarily true whose denial involves an impossibility. What the nature\nof that something may be is a secondary question, and however determined\ncannot affect the primary dogma--things are things whatever may be their\nindividual or their aggregate nature. Nor is it of the least consequence\nwhat name or names we may see fit to give things, so that each word has\nits fixed and true meaning. Whether, for example, we use for the sign of\nthat something which is, the word Universe, or God, or Substance, or\nSpirit, or Matter, or the letter X, is of no importance, if we\nunderstand the word or letter used to be merely the sign of that\nsomething. Words are only useful, when they are the signs of true ideas;\nevidently therefore, their legitimate function is to convey such ideas;\nand words which convey no ideas at all, or what is worse, only those\nwhich are false, should at once be expunged from the vocabularies of\nnations. Something is. The Atheist calls it matter. Other persons may\nchoose to call it other names; let them. He chooses to call it this one\nand no other.\n\nThere ever has been something. Here again, is a point of unity. All are\nequally assured there ever has been something. Something is, something\nmust always have been, cry the religions, and the cry is echoed by the\nirreligious. This last dogma, like the first, admits not of being\nevidenced. As nothing is inconceivable, we cannot even imagine a time\nwhen there was nothing. Atheists say, something ever was, which\nsomething is matter. Theists say, something has been from all eternity,\nwhich something is not matter, but God. They boldly affirm that matter\nbegan to be. They affirm its creation from nothing, by a something,\nwhich was before the universe. Indeed, the notion of universal creation\ninvolves first, that of universal annihilation, and second, that of a\nsomething prior to everything. What creates everything must be before\neverything, in the same way that he who manufactures a watch must exist\nbefore the watch. As already remarked. Atheists agree with Theists, that\nsomething ever has been; but the point of difference lies here. The\nAtheist says, matter is the eternal something, and asks proof of its\nbeginning to be. The Theist insists that matter is not the eternal\nsomething, but that God is, and when pushed for an account of what he\nmeans by God, he coolly answers, a Being, having nothing in common with\nanything, who, nevertheless, by his Almighty will created everything.\n\nIt may without injustice be affirmed, that the sincerest and strongest\nbelievers in this mysterious Deity, are often tormented by doubts, and,\nif candid, must own they believe in the existence of many things with a\nfeeling much closer allied to certainty than they do in the reality of\ntheir 'Great First Cause, least understood.' No man can be so fully and\nperfectly satisfied there is a God in heaven as the Author of this\nApology cannot but be of his own existence on earth. No man's faith in\nthe imaginary is ever half so strong as his belief in the visible and\ntangible.\n\nBut few among professional mystifiers will admit this, obviously true as\nit is. Some have done so. Baxter, of pious memory, to wit, who said, 'I\nam not so foolish as to pretend my certainty be greater than it is,\nbecause it is dishonour to be less certain, nor will I by shame be kept\nfrom confessing those infirmities which those have as much as I, who\nhypocritically reproach with them. _My certainty that I am a man is\nbefore my certainty that there is a God._'\n\nSo candid was Richard Baxter, and so candid are _not_ the most part of\nour priests, who would fain have us think they have no more, and we\nought to have no more, doubt about God's existence than our own.\nNevertheless, they write abundance of books to convince us 'God is,'\nthough they never penned a line in order to convince us, we actually\nare, and that to disbelieve we are is a 'deadly sin.'\n\nCould God be known, could his existence be made 'palpable to feeling as\nto sight,' as unquestionably is the existence of matter, there would be\nno need of 'Demonstrations of the existence of God,' no need of\narguments _a priori_ or _a posteriori_ to establish that existence.\nSaint John was right; 'No man hath seen God at any time,' to which 'open\nconfession' he might truly have added, 'none ever will,' for the unreal\nis always unseeable. Yet have 'mystery men' with shameless and most\ninsolent pertinacity asserted the existence of God while denying the\nexistence of matter.\n\nDefine your terms, said Locke. Atheists do so, and where necessary\ninsist upon others following the philosophic example. On this account\nthey are 'ugly customers' to Priests, who, with exceptions, much dislike\nbeing called upon to explain their idealess language. Ask one to define\nthe word God and you stagger him. If he do not fly into a passion deem\nyourself fortunate, but as to an intelligible definition, look for\nnothing of the sort. He can't furnish such definition however disposed\nto do so. The incomprehensible is not to be defined. It is difficult to\ngive an intelligible account of an 'Immense Being' confessedly\nmysterious, and about whom his worshippers admit they only know, they\nknow nothing, except that\n\n                              'He is good,\n          And that themselves are blind.'\n\nSpinoza said, _of things which have nothing in common, one cannot be the\ncause of the other;_ and to the Author of this Apology, it seems\neminently unphilosophic to believe a Being having nothing in common with\nanything, capable of creating or causing everything. 'Only matter can be\ntouched or touch;' and as the Christian's God is not material, his\nadorers are fairly open to the charge of superstition. An unknown Deity,\nwithout body, parts or passions, is of all idols the least tangible; and\nthey who pretend to know and reverence him, are deceived or deceivers.\nKnowledge of, and reverence for an object, imply, the power of\nconceiving that object; but who is able to conceive a God without body,\nparts, or passions?\n\nIn this Christian country where men are expected to believe and called\n'infidel' if they cannot believe in a 'crucified Saviour,' it seems\nstrange so much fuss should be made about his immateriality. All but\nUnitarian Christians hold as an essential article of faith, that in him\ndwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily, in other words, that our\nRedeemer and our Creator; though two persons are one God. It is true\nthat Divines of our 'Reformed Protestant Church,' call everything but\ngentlemen those who lay claim to the equivocal privilege of feasting\nperiodically upon the body and blood of Omnipotence. The pains taken by\nProtestants to show from Scripture, Reason and Nature, that Priests\ncannot change lumps of dough into the body, and bumpers of wine into the\nblood of their God, are well known and appreciated. But the Roman\nCatholics are neither to be argued nor laughed out of their 'awful\ndoctrine' of the real presence, to which they cling with desperate\nearnestness. Proselytes are apt to misunderstand, and make sad mistakes\nabout, that doctrine. Two cases are cited by Hume in his 'Essay of the\nNatural History of Religion,' which he announces as 'pleasant stories,\nthough somewhat profane.' According to one, a Priest gave inadvertently,\ninstead of the sacrament, a counter, which had by accident fallen among\nthe holy wafers. The communicant waited patiently for some time,\nexpecting that it would dissolve on his tongue, but finding that it\nstill remained entire, he took it off. I hope, said he, to the Priest,\nyou have not made a mistake; I hope you have not given me God the\nFather, he is so hard and tough that there is no swallowing him. The\nother story is thus related. A famous General, at that time in the\nMuscovite Service, having come to Paris for the recovery of his wounds,\nbrought along with him a young Turk whom he had taken prisoner. Some of\nthe doctors of the Sorbonne (who are altogether as positive as the\ndervises of Constantinople) thinking it a pity that the poor Turk should\nbe damned for want of instruction, solicited Mustapha very hard to turn\nChristian, and promised him for encouragement, plenty of good wine in\nthis world and paradise in the next. These allurements were too powerful\nto be resisted; and therefore having been well instructed and\ncatechised, he at last agreed to receive the sacraments of baptism and\nLord's Supper. Nevertheless, the Priest to make everything sure and\nsolid, still continued his instructions, and began the next day with the\nusual question, _How many God's are there? None at all_, replied\nBenedict, for that was his new name. _How! None at all?_ Cries the\nPriest. _To be sure_, said the honest proselyte, _you have told me all\nalong that there it but one God; and yesterday I ate him._\n\nThis is sufficiently ridiculous; and yet if we fairly consider the whole\nquestion of divinity there will be found no more absurdity in the notion\nof our Benedict eating the Creator, than in Jews crucifying Him. Both\nnotions involve materiality. A God without body, parts, or passions,\ncould no more be nailed upon a cross than taken into the stomach. And if\nit be urged there is something awful in the blasphemy of him who talks\nof swallowing his God, the Author of this Apology can as conscientiously\nurge that there is something very disgusting in the idea of a murdered\nDeity.\n\nLocke wrote rather disparagingly of 'many among us,' who 'will be found\nupon inquiry, to fancy God in the shape of a man sitting in heaven, and\nhave other absurd and unfit conceptions of him.' As though it were\npossible to think of shapeless Being, or as though it were criminal in\nthe superstitious to believe 'God made man after his own image.' A\n'Philosophical Unbeliever,' who made minced meat of Dr. Priestley's\nreasonings on the existence of God, well remarked that 'Theists are\nalways for turning their God into an overgrown Man. Anthropomorphites\nhas long been a term applied to them. They give him hand and eyes, nor\ncan they conceive him otherwise than as a corporeal Being. We make a\nDeity ourselves, fall down and worship him. It is the molten calf over\nagain. Idolatry is still practised. The only difference is that now we\nworship idols of our own imagination before of our hands.' [37:1]\n\nThis is bold language, but if the language of truth and soberness no one\nshould take offence at it. That Christians as well as Turks 'have had\nwhole sects earnestly contending that the Deity was corporeal and of\nhuman shapes,' is a fact, testified to by Locke, and so firmly\nestablished as to defy contradiction. And though every sincere\nsubscriber to the Thirty Nine Articles must believe, or at least must\nbelieve he believes in Deity without body, parts, or passions, it is\nwell known that 'whole sects' of Christians do even now 'fancy God in\nthe shape a man sitting in heaven, and entertain other absurd and unfit\nconceptions of him.'\n\nMr. Collibeer, who is considered by Christian writers 'a most ingenious\ngentleman,' has told the world in his treatise entitled 'The Knowledge\nof God,' that Deity must have some form, and intimates it may probably\nbe the spherical; an intimation which has grievously offended many\nlearned Theists who consider going so far 'an abuse of reason,' and warn\nus that 'its extension beyond the assigned boundaries, has proved an\nample source of error.' But what the 'assigned boundaries' of reason\nare, they don't state, nor by whom 'assigned.' That if there is a God,\nHe must have some form is self-evident; and why Mr. Collibeer should be\n'called over the coals' by his less daringly imaginative brethren, for\npreferring a spherical to a square or otherwise shaped Deity, is to my\nunderstanding what God's grace is to their's.\n\nBut admitting the unfitness, and absurdity, and 'blasphemy' of such\nconceptions, it is by no means clear that any other conceptions of the\n'inconceivable' would be an improvement upon them. The Author's serious\nand deliberate opinion is, that ascribing to Deity a body analagous to\nour own, is less ridiculous than affirming he has _no_ body; nor can he\nadmire the wisdom of those Christians who prefer a partless, passionless\nGod, to the substantial piece of supernaturalism adored by their\nforefathers. Undoubtedly, the matter-God-system has its difficulties,\nbut they are trifles in comparison with those by which the\nspirit-God-system is encompassed: for, one obvious consequence of faith\nin bodiless Divinity is, an utter confusion of ideas in those who have\nit, as regards possibilities and impossibilities. The Author confidently\nsubmits that, no man having 'firm faith' in a Deity--without body parts\nand passions--can be half so wise as the famous cook of my Lord\nHoppergollop, who said,\n\n          What is impossible can't be,\n          And never never comes to pass.\n\nHe, moreover, confidently submits that, granting the existence of so\nutterly incomprehensible a Deity, still such Deity could not have caused\nnature, or matter, unless we deny the palpably true proposition of\nSpinoza, to wit--Of things which have nothing in common, one cannot be\nthe cause of the other. In harmony with this proposition, Atheists\ncannot admit the supernatural caused the natural; for, between the\nnatural and the supernatural it is impossible to imagine any thing in\ncommon.\n\nThe universe is an uncaused existence, or it was caused by something\nbefore it. By universe we mean matter, the sum total of things, whence\nall proceeds, and whither all returns. No truth is more obviously true\nthan the truth that matter, or something not matter, exists of itself,\nand consequently is not an effect, but an uncaused cause of all effects.\n\nFrom such conviction, repugnant though it be to vulgar ideas, there is\nno rational way of escape; for however much we may desire, however much\nwe may struggle to believe there was a time when there was nothing, we\ncannot so believe. Human nature is constituted intuitively or\ninstinctively to feel the eternity of something. To rid oneself of that\nfeeling is impossible. Nature, or something not nature must ever have\nbeen, is a conclusion to which, what poets call Fate--\n\n          Leads the willing and drags the unwilling.\n\nBut does this undeniable truth make against Atheism? Far from it--so\nfar, indeed, as to make for it: the reason is no mystery. Of matter we\nhave ideas clear, precise, and indispensable, whereas, of something not\nmatter we cannot have any idea whatever, good, bad, or indifferent. The\nUniverse is extraordinary, no doubt, but so much of it as acts upon us\nis perfectly conceivable, whereas, any thing within, without, or apart\nfrom the Universe is perfectly inconceivable.\n\nThe notion of necessarily existing matter seems to the Author of this\nApology fatal to belief in God; that is, if by the word God be\nunderstood something not matter, for 'tis precisely because priests were\nunable to reconcile such belief with the idea of matter's self-existence\nor eternity, that they took to imagining a 'First Cause.' In the\n'forlorn hope' of clearing the difficulty of necessarily existing\n_matter_, they assent to a necessarily existing _spirit_; and when the\nnature of spirit is demanded from these assertors of its existence they\nare constrained to avow that it is material or nothing.\n\nYes, they are constrained to make directly or indirectly one or other of\nthese admissions; for, as between truth and falsehood there is no middle\npassage, so between something and nothing there is no intermediate\nexistence. Hence the serious dilemma of Spiritualists, who gravely tell\nus their God is a Spirit, and that a Spirit is not any thing, which not\nany thing or nothing (for the life of us we cannot distinguish between\nthem) 'framed the worlds nay, _created_ as well as framed them.\n\nIf it be granted, for the mere purpose of explanation, that Spirit is an\nentity, we can frame 'clear and distinct ideas of'--a real though not\nmaterial existence, surely no man will pretend to say an uncreated\nreality called Spirit, is less inexplicable than uncreated Matter. All\ncould not have been caused or created unless nothing can be a Cause, the\nvery notion of which involves the grossest of absurdities.\n\n'Whatever is produced,' said Hume, 'without any cause, is produced by\nnothing; or, in other words, has nothing for its cause. But nothing\nnever can be a cause no more than it can be something or equal to two\nright angles. By the same intuition that we perceive nothing not to be\nequal to two right angles, or not to be something, we perceive that it\ncan never be a cause and consequently must perceive that every object\nhas a real cause, of its existence. When we exclude all causes we really\ndo exclude them, and neither suppose nothing nor the object itself to be\nthe causes of the existence, and consequently can draw no argument from\nthe absurdity of these suppositions to prove the absurdity of that\nexclusion. If everything must have a cause, it follows that upon the\nexclusion of other causes we must accept of the object itself or nothing\nas causes. But it is the very point in question whether everything must\nhave a cause or not, and therefore, according to all just reasoning\nought not to be taken for granted. [40:1]\n\nThis reasoning amounts to logical demonstration (if logical\ndemonstration there can be) of a most essential truth, which in all ages\nhas been obstinately set at nought by dabblers in the supernatural. It\ndemonstrates that something never was, never can be caused by nothing,\nwhich can no more be a cause, properly so called, than 'it can be\nsomething, or equal to two right angles;' and therefore that everything\ncould not have had a cause which the reader has seen is the very point\nassumed by Theists--the very point on which as a pivot they so merrily\nand successfully turn their fine metaphysical theories, and immaterial\nsystems.\n\nThe universe, quoth they, must have had a cause, and that cause must\nhave been a First Cause, or cause number one, because nothing can exist\nof itself. Oh, most lame and impotent conclusion! How in consistency can\nthey declare nothing can exist without a cause in the teeth of their oft\nrepeated dogma that God is uncaused. If God never commenced to be _He_\nis an uncaused existence, that is to say, exists without a cause. The\ndifference on this point between Theists and Atheists is very palpable.\nThe former say, Spirit can exist without a cause; the latter say Matter\ncan exist without a cause. Whole libraries of theologic dogma would be\ndearly purchased by Hume's profound remark--'if everything must have a\ncause, it follows that upon the exclusion of other causes we must accept\nof the object itself or of nothing as causes.'\n\nIf the God of our Deists and Christians is not matter, what is He? Upon\nthem devolves the difficult duty of answering that question. They are\nmorally bound to answer it or make the humiliating confession that they\n'ignorantly worship;' that with all their boasted certainty as to the\nexistence of their 'deified error' they can furnish no satisfactory, or\neven intelligible account of His [41:1] nature, if indeed a supernatural\nor rather Unnatural Being can properly be said to have a nature.\n\nThe author of 'Good Sense' has observed, that names which may be made to\nmean anything in reality mean nothing. Is not God a name of this class?\nOur 'state puppet showmen,' as my Lord Brougham nicknamed Priests, who\ntalk so much about Gods, forcibly remind one of that ingenious exhibitor\nof puppets, who, after saying to his juvenile patronisers--'Look to the\nright, and there you will see the lions a dewouring the dogs,' was\nasked--Which is the lion and which is the dogs?' to which query he\nreplied, 'Vichever you please, my little dears, it makes no difference\nvotsomnever.' For in exactly the same spirit do our ghostly exhibitors,\nthey who set up the state puppet show meet the inquiries of the grown\nchildren they make so handsomely (again we are under an obligation to\nLord Brougham) 'to pay for peeping.' Children of this sort would fain\nknow what is meant by the doctrines concerning the many 'true Gods' they\nhear such precious rigmaroles about in Church and Conventicle, as well\nas the many orthodox opinions of that God, whose name is there so often\n'taken in vain.' But Priests like the showman in question, answer, in\nlanguage less inelegant to be sure, but substantially the same,\n'Vichever you please, my little dears, it makes no difference\nvotsomnever.'\n\nHe who declared that the word God was invented by philosophers to screen\ntheir own ignorance, taught a valuable truth, though the Author of this\nApology never fails mentally to Substitute _quacks_ for _philosophers_.\n\nSaint Augustin more candid than modern theologians, said, 'God is a\nbeing whom we speak of but whom we cannot describe, and who is superior\nto all definitions.' Atheists on the other hand, as candidly deny there\nis any such being. To them it seems that the name God stands for\nnothing, is the archetype of nothing, explains nothing, and contributes\nto nothing but the perpetuation of human imbecility, ignorance and\nerror. To them it represents neither shadow nor substance, neither\nphenomenon nor thing, neither what is ideal nor what is real; yet is it\nthe name without full faith in which there could be no religion. If to\nthe name God some rational signification cannot be attached away goes,\nor at least away _ought_ to go, that belief in something supernatural\nwhich is 'the fundamental principle of all false metaphysics.' 'No such\nbelief can for a moment be entertained by those who see in nature the\ncause of all effects, and treat with the contempt it merits, the\npreposterous notion that out of nothing at the bidding of something, of\nwhich one can make anything, started everything.\n\nThe famous Mr. Law, in his 'Appeal to all that doubt or disbelieve the\ntruths of the Gospel,' gratuitously allows 'it is the same impossibility\nfor a thing to be created out of nothing as by nothing,' for which\nsensible allowance 'insane philosophy' owes him much. Indeed the dogma,\nif true, proves all religion false, for it strikes full at belief in a\nGod, a belief which, it cannot be too often repeated, is to religion\nwhat blood is to the brain and oxygen to the blood.\n\nMaterialism is hated by priests, because no consistent Materialist can\nstop short of disbelief in God. He believes in Nature and Nature alone.\nBy Nature he understands unity. The ONE which; includes all, and is all.\n\nThat it pertains to the nature of substance to exist; and that all\nsubstance is necessarily infinite, we are told by Spinoza, who\nunderstood by substance that which exists in itself, and is conceived\nthrough itself; _i.e._ the knowledge of which does not require the\nknowledge of anything antecedent to it.\n\nThis substance of Spinoza is just the matter of Materialists. With him\nmost likely, with them certainly, matter and substance are convertible\nterms. They have no objection to the word substance so long as it is the\nsign of something substantial; for substantiality implies materiality.\nWhether we say--Substance exists, and is conceived through itself;\n_i.e._ the knowledge of which does not require the knowledge of anything\nantecedent to it, or--Matter exists and is conceived through itself;\n_i.e._ 'the knowledge of which does not require the knowledge of\nanything antecedent to itself'--our meaning is exactly the same.\n\nTo exclude matter from our conception (if it were possible) would be to\nthink universal existence out of existence, which is tantamount to\nthinking without anything to think about. The ideas of those who try\ntheir brains at this odd sort of work, have been well likened to an\natmosphere of dust superintended by a whirlwind. They who assume the\nexistence of an unsubstantial _i.e._ immaterial First Cause, outrage\nevery admitted rule and every sound principle of philosophising. Only\npious persons with ideas like unto an atmosphere of dust superintended\nby a whirl wind would write books in vindication of the monstrously\nabsurd assumption that there exists an unsubstantial Great First Cause\nof all substantialities. Nothing can be wilder than the speculations of\nsuch 'hair brained' individuals, excepting only the speculations of\nthose sharp-sighted enough to see reason and wisdom in them.\n\nA Great Cause, or a Small Cause, a First Cause, or a Last Cause,\ninvolves the idea of real existence, namely, the existence of matter. By\ncause of itself, said Spinoza, I understand that which involves\nexistence, or that the nature of which can only be considered as\nexistent. And who does not so understand Cause? Why Gillespie and other\neminently dogmatic Christian writers whose Great First Cause cannot be\nconsidered an entity, because they assert, yes, expressly assert its\nimmateriality.\n\nIf Nature is all, and all is Nature, nothing but itself could ever have\nexisted, and of course nothing but itself can be supposed ever to have\nbeen capable of causing. To cause is to act, and though body without\naction is conceivable, action without body is not. Neither can two\nInfinites be supposed to tenant one Universe. Only 'most religious\nphilosophers' can pretend to acknowledge the being of an infinite God\nco-existent with an infinite universe.\n\nAtheists are frequently asked--What moves matter? to which question,\n_nothing_ is the true and sufficient answer. Matter moves matter. If\nasked how we know it does, our answer is, because we see it do so, which\nis more than mind imaginers can say of their 'prime mover.' They tell us\nmind moves matter; but none save the _second sighted_ among them ever\nsaw mind; and if they never saw mind, they never could have seen matter\npushed about by it. They babble about mind, but nowhere does mind exist\nsave in their mind; that is to say, nowhere but nowhere. Ask these\nbroad-day dreamers where mind is, _minus_ body? and very acutely they\nanswer, body is the mind and mind is the body.\n\nThat this is neither joke nor slander, we will show by reference to\nNo. 25 of 'The Shepherd,' a clever and well known periodical, whose\neditor, [44:1] in reply to a correspondent of the 'chaotic' tribe,\nsaid 'As to the question--where is magnetism without the magnet? We\nanswer, magnetism is the magnet, and the magnet is magnetism.' If so,\nbody is the mind and the mind is body; and our Shepherd, if asked,\n'Where is mind without the body?' to be consistent, should answer, body\nis the mind and the mind is the body. Both these answers are true or\nboth are false; and it must be allowed--\n\n          Each lends to each a borrowed charm,\n          Like pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.\n\nAsk the 'Shepherd' where is mind without the body? and if not at issue\nwith himself, he must reply, mind is the man and man is the mind.\n\nIf this be so,--if the mind is the man and the man is the mind, which\nnone can deny who say magnetism is the magnet and the magnet\nmagnetism--how, in Reason's name, can they be different, or how can the\n'Shepherd' consistently pretend to distinguish between them: yet he does\nso. He writes about the spiritual part of man as though he really\nbelieved there is such apart. Not satisfied, it would seem, with body,\nlike Nonentitarians of vulgarest mould, he tenants it with Soul or\nSpirit, or Mind, which Soul, or Spirit, or Mind, according to his own\nshowing, is nothing but body in action: in other terms, organised matter\nperforming vital functions. Idle declamation against 'fact mongers' well\nbecomes such self-stultifying dealers in fiction. Abuse of\n'experimentarians' is quite in keeping with the philosophy of those who\nmaintain the reality of mind in face of their own strange statement,\nthat magnetism is the magnet and the magnet magnetism.\n\nBut we deny that magnetism is the magnet. Those words magnetism and\nmagnet do not, it is true, stand for two things, but one thing: that one\nand only thing called matter. The magnet is an existence; _i.e._, that\nwhich moves. Magnetism is not an existence, but phenomenon, or, if you\nplease, phenomena. It is the effect of which magnetic body is the\nimmediate and obvious cause.\n\nCause implies action; and till Nonentitarians can explain how nothing\nmay contrive to cause something, they should assume the virtue of\nmodesty, even if they have it not. To rail at 'fact mongers' is,\ndoubtless, far easier than to overturn facts themselves. The 'Shepherd'\ncalls Atheists 'Chaotics' and Materialism 'the philosophy of lunacy,'\nwhich is a very free and very easy way of 'Universalising.' But\narguments grounded on observation and experience are not to be borne\ndown by hard names. Man, like the magnet, is something--he acts. Dust\nand ashes he was; dust and ashes he will be.--He may be touched, and\ntasted, and seen, and smelt. In the immateriality of _his_ composition\nno one believes; and none but Nonentitarians pretend to do so. He\nthinks--thinking is the very condition of his existence. To think is to\nlive. To the sum total of vital manifestations we apply the term mind.\nTo call mind matter, or matter mind, is ridiculous--_genuine_ lunacy. It\nwould be as wise to call motion matter and wind up the spiritual work by\nmaking nothing of both. The man who ran half round our planet in search\nof his soul did not succeed in finding it. How should he when there is\nno such thing as soul.\n\nTo evade the charge of Materialism, said Dr. Engledue, we\n(Phrenologists) content ourselves with stating that the immaterial makes\nuse of the material to show forth its powers. What is the result of\nthis? We have the man of theory and believer in supernaturalism\nquarrelling with the man of fact and supporter of Materialism. We have\ntwo parties; the one asserting that man possesses a _spirit_ superadded\nto, but not inherent in, the brain--added to it, yet having no necessary\nconnexion with it--producing material changes, yet immaterial--destitute\nof any of the known properties of matter--in fact an _immaterial\nsomething_ which in one word means nothing, producing all the cerebral\nfunctions of man, yet not localised--not susceptible of proof; the other\nparty contending that the belief in spiritualism fetters and ties down\nphysiological investigation--that man's intellect is prostrated by the\ndomination of metaphysical speculation--that we have no evidence of the\nexistence of an essence, and that organised matter is all that is\nrequisite to produce the multitudinous manifestations of human and brute\ncerebration.\n\nWe rank ourselves with the second party, and conceive that we must cease\nspeaking of 'the mind,' and discontinue enlisting in our investigations\na spiritual essence, the existence of which cannot be proved, but which\ntends to mystify and perplex a question sufficiently clear if we confine\nourselves to the consideration of organised matter--its forms--its\nchanges--and its aberrations from normal structure. [46:1]\n\nThe eccentric Count de Caylus, when on his death-bed, was visited by\nsome near relations and a pious Bishop, who hoped that under such trying\ncircumstances he would manifest some concern respecting those\n'spiritual' blessings which, while in health, he had uniformly treated\nwith contempt. After a long pause he broke silence by saying, 'Ah,\nfriends, I see you are anxious about my soul;' whereupon they pricked up\ntheir ears with delight; before, however, any reply could be made, the\nCount added, '_but the fact is I have not got one, and really my good\nfriends, you must allow me to know best_.'\n\nIf people in general had one tenth the good sense of this _impious_\nCount, the fooleries of spiritualism would at once give place to the\nphilosophy of Materialism; and none would waste time in talking or\nwriting about nonentities. All would know that what theologians call\nsometimes spirit, sometimes soul, and sometimes mind, is an imaginary\nexistence. All would know that the terms _immaterial something_, do in\nvery truth mean _nothing_. Count de Caylus died as became a man\nconvinced that soul is not an entity, and that upon the dissolution of\nour 'earthly tabernacle,' the particles composing it cease to perform\nvital functions, and return to the shoreless ocean of Eternal Being.\nPietists may be shocked by such _nonchalance_ in the face of their 'grim\nmonster,' but philosophers will admire an indifference to inevitable\nconsequences resulting from profoundest love of truth and contempt of\nsuperstition. Count de Caylus was a Materialist, and no Materialist can\nconsistently feel the least alarm at the approach of what religionists\nhave every reason to consider the 'king of terrors.' Believers in the\nreality of immaterial existence cannot be 'proper' Materialists.\nObviously, therefore, no believers in the reality of 'God' can be _bona\nfide_ Materialists, for 'God' is a name signifying something or nothing;\nin other terms, matter, or that which is not matter. If the latter, to\nMaterialists the name is meaningless--sound without sense. If the\nformer, they at once pronounce it a name too many; because it expresses\nnothing that their word MATTER does not express better.\n\nDr. Young held in horror the Materialist's 'universe of dust.' But there\nis nothing either bad or contemptible in dust--man is dust--all will be\ndust. A _dusty_ universe, however _shocked_ the poetic Doctor, whose\nwritings analogise with--\n\n          Rich windows that exclude the light,\n          And passages that lead to nothing.\n\nA universe of nothing was more to his taste than a universe of dust, and\nhe accordingly amused himself with the 'spiritual' work of imagining\none, and called its builder 'God.'\n\nThe somewhat ungentle 'Shepherd' cordially sympathises with Dr. Young in\nhis detestation of 'the Materialist's universe' of dust, and is sorely\npuzzled to know how mere dust contrives to move without the assistance\nof 'an immaterial power between the particles;' as if he supposed\nanything could be between everything--or nothing be able to move\nsomething. Verily this gentleman is as clever a hand at 'darkening\ncounsel by words without knowledge' as the cleverest of those he rates\nso soundly.\n\nWe observe that motion is caused by body, and apart from body no one can\nconceive the idea of motion. Local motion may, but general motion cannot\nbe accounted for. The Shepherd contends there is nothing more mysterious\nthan motion. There he is right; and had he said nothing is _less_\nmysterious than motion he would have been equally so.\n\nFor telling these unpalatable truths the Atheist is bitterly detested.\n'The Shepherd' is a most unorthodox kind of Pantheist; yet even he does\nnot scruple to swell the senseless cry against 'Godless infidels,' whom\nhe calls an almost infinite variety of bad names, and among other\nshocking crimes accuses them of propounding a 'dead philosophy.' Yet the\ndifference between his Pantheism and our Atheism is only perceptible to\nthe microscopic eye of super-sublimated spiritualism. The subjoined is\noffered to the reader's notice as a sample of Pantheism so closely\nresembling Atheism, that, like the two Sosias in the play, to\ndistinguish them is difficult:\n\n'What Coleridge meant by the motto (all Theology depends on mastering\nthe term nature) concerns us not. We appropriate the motto, but we do\nnot profess to appropriate it in the same sense as Coleridge\nappropriated it. Every man must appropriate it for himself. Coleridge\nperceived what every thinking mind has perceived--the difficulty of\nbelieving in two self-determining powers, viz., God and Nature, as also\nthe consequences of regarding them as identical. If Nature be one power\nand God another power, and if God be not responsible for what Nature\ndoes, then Nature is a self-subsisting God. If God and Nature be\nesteemed one universal existence, this is Pantheism, which is\ndenominated an accursed doctrine by the disciples of Sectarianism, and\nformed no part of the creed, of the great dialectician of modern times.\nThe attempt to separate God from Nature will mistify the clearest head:\nnot even Coleridge could wade the depths of this vulgar Theology. Is\nthere any man who can rest satisfied in the faith of two independent\npowers who exist together in any other sense than the two polar energies\nof a magnet, which are really one? No: and men are afraid to regard them\nas one. On the one hand they are puzzled to understand an unintelligible\nabsurdity, and on the other, they are afraid to admit a simple truism\nwhich leads to the abolition of all ceremonial forms, and lip\nprofessions of religion, and is execrated by priests and their\naccomplices on this very account. We do not pretend to understand\nanything. Every subject whatsoever is too high, too deep, and too broad\nfor us. But coming into a world where men act upon certain modes of\nreasoning, which are unsatisfactory to our minds, we battle immediately\nwith these men, like an animalcule thrown into a glass of water amongst\nother animalcules of opposite principles, and in doing so we act from\nthe impulse within which is our sole authority--that impulse within is\nthe preference we give to a mode of reasoning which begins by regarding\nthe existing of every kind and, degree as a 'perfect unity,' and making\nthe unity, responsible for every mode--the cause of every mode.' [49:1]\nThat is to say, dealing with it as what it is, the only existence; the\none, or all and in all. Can Atheists object to that? No, surely, for\nthey uniformly thus reason with respect to Nature; and unless traitors\nto their own principles, cannot object to Pantheistical philosophy _as\nhere laid down_. Atheists say, Nature never had an Author--so do\nPantheists of the 'Shepherd' school. Atheists say Nature is at once the\nwomb and grave and cause and effect of all phenomena--so do they.\nAtheists say 'death is nothing, and nothing death;' all matter breathing\nthe breath of life--so do they. Indeed, notwithstanding their talk about\nGod and Devil, they think Nature both, which amounts to denying both.\nCan Atheists do more? or can Pantheists do so much without themselves\nbeing Atheists?\n\nBut the Rev. Mr. Smith is no Atheist; at least he makes no profession of\nAtheism. _Au contraire_, he makes fine sport with those who do. Himself\na Pantheist of the all-God school, he took to calling Atheists 'ugly\nnames,' as if quite innocent that no 'thinking mind' can fail to\nperceive the downright lunacy, or something worse, of supposing a pin to\nchoose on the score of piety, between universal Deity and no Deity at\nall. The 'Shepherd' of a new philosophic flock should have known better\nthan to attempt the reform of 'vulgar theology' by setting forth the\nmystical nonsense of 'vulgar' Pantheism. All falsehood is 'vulgar'; but\nthe most 'vulgar' of falsehood is that which assumes the convenient garb\nof transcendentalism, with a view to throw dust in the eyes of 'vulgar'\nlookers-on. If Pantheists of this reverend gentleman's school are\nneither sophists nor simpletons, Materialism is neither true nor false.\nThey do not plainly write down philosophy of so strangely negative a\nkind; that would be too ridiculous; but every reader of the 'Shepherd'\nknows that, in their way, they cleverly demonstrate all doctrine--their\nown of course excepted--true _and_ false, which, no one need mount a\npair of 'universal' spectacles to see, comes to neither true _nor_\nfalse. Spiritualism receives at their hands no better treatment than\nMaterialism, nor Southcottianism than either. Southcottianism (they say)\nis true and false; Materialism is true and false; Spiritualism is true\nand false: in brief, all doctrine, positive or negative, faithful or\nunfaithful, is true and false, except the doctrine of Pantheism alias\nUniversalism, which is, bye and bye, to supersede every other. According\nto this mystically wise, but rather inconsistent school, Atheists are\nstupid as Christians, Christians stupid as Mohammedans, and Mohammedans\nstupid as nearly everybody else. These men are peculiarly fitted to make\nin the world of intellect the best possible 'arrangements for general\nconfusion.' Atheists in all but good sense, and seemingly without\nknowing it, they contrive to mix up, with skill worthy of better\nemployment, a very novel and amusing species of philosophical\nhodge-podge. Their Reverend leader or 'Shepherd' was wont to rail most\nfuriously against dogmatists, especially those of the Atheistic sort;\nbut his own dogmatism is at least a match for theirs. He did more than\ndogmatize when combatting Materialism, he from ignorance or design,\nlibelled it by putting, according to a custom 'more honoured in the\nbreach than the observance,' words into the mouths of Materialists that\nno real Materialist could utter. Take an example. In the periodical just\nreferred to and quoted from, [50:1] are these words:--'The mode of\n(matter's) existence is the only subject in dispute. The Materialist\nsays, it is an infinite collection of dead unintelligent particles of\nsand; the spiritualist, that it is the visible and tangible development\nof an infinite, eternal, omnipresent, thinking, sentient mind.' Now, the\ntruth is, Materialists contend that matter _as a whole_ cannot in\nstrictness be considered either dead or living, intelligent or\nnon-intelligent, but simply matter; which matter when in certain\nwell-known states is called dead, and when in other equally well-known\nstates is called living. If where motion is there is life, then there is\nno dead matter; for all matter, or at least all matter of which we have\nexperience, moves. To charge upon Materialists the dogma of matter's\ndeadness is a paltry trick which a writer like Mr. Smith should disdain\nto practice. Nor does it become him to lecture Atheists about their\ndogmatism, while from his own published writings can be adduced such\npassages as the following:--\n\n'We know that the two principal attributes of matter are visibility and\ntangibility, and these two properties are purely spiritual or\nimmaterial. Thus resistance is nothing but that mysterious power we call\nrepulsion--a power which fills the whole universe--which holds the sun,\nmoon, and stars in its hand, and yet is invisible.'\n\nThis is what our Rev. Pantheist calls one of Spiritualism's 'splendid\narguments,' and splendidly absurd it certainly is; quite equal,\nconsidered as a provocative of mirth, to Robert Owen's sublimest\neffusions about that very mysterious and thoroughly incomprehensible\npower which 'directs the atom and controuls the aggregate of nature.'\nBut the argument though 'splendid,' is false. Who is ignorant that\nresistance is _not_ a power at all, though we properly enough give the\nname resistance to one of matter's phenomena. Only half crazed\nSpiritualists would confound phenomena with things by which they are\nexhibited. Matter under certain circumstances resists, and under certain\nother circumstances attracts. But neither repulsion nor attraction\nexists, though we see every day of our lives that matter does repel and\ndoes attract. Its doing so proves it is able to do so, and proves\nnothing more. Mr. Smith says, 'if we want repose for our minds upon this\nsubject we may find it; but it can only be found in the universal mind.'\nHe does not however explain the co-existence of universal mind with\nuniversal matter. He does not tell us how two universals could find room\nin one universe.\n\n'We are gravely assured (by spiritualising Pantheists among the rest)\nthat God is something out of time and space; but since our knowledge is\nintuition comprehended under conception, we cannot have any knowledge of\nthat which is not received into the imaginary recipients of time and\nspace, and consequently God is not an entity.\n\n'But here comes the jugglery--reason forms the idea of the soul or a\nsubstance out of nature, by connecting substance and accident into\ninfinite and absolute substance. What is that verbiage, but that the\nreason gives the name of soul to something that does not exist at all?'\n\n'Reason forms the idea of God or of Supreme Intelligence out of Nature,\nby connecting action and reaction into infinite and absolute\nconcurrence. What is God out of Nature? Where is out? Where is God? What\nis God?--an absolute nothing.'\n\n'For an imagination to exist there must be two properties or qualities\ncoming in contact with each other to produce that imagination. For these\ntwo properties or qualities to exist there must be matter for them to\nexist in; and for matter to exist there must be space for it to exist\nin, and so on. Matter might exist without two different properties to\nproduce an imagination; but neither two properties nor one property can\nexist without matter for it to exist in. Man may exist for a time as he\ndoes when he is dead without an imagination; but the imagination cannot\nexist without the material man. Matter cannot become non-existent, but\nthe imagination can and does become so. Matter therefore is the reality\nand the imagination a nonentity, an unsubstantial idea; or an\nimagination only.' [52:1]\n\nThe anonymous writer of the passages here given within inverted commas\nclearly draws the line of demarcation between the real and the unreal.\nHis remarks on imagination are specially important. Theologians do not\nseem to be aware that imagination is a modification of mind, and mind\nitself a modification of sensibility--no sensations--no thought--no\nlife. Though awkwardly expressed, there is truth in the dogma of\nGassendi--_ideas are only transformed sensations._ All attempts to\nconceive sensibility without organs of sense are vain. As profitably\nmight we labour to think of motion where nothing exists to be moved, as\nsensibility where there is no organ of sense. We often see organs void\nof sensibility, but who ever saw, or who can imagine sensibility\nindependent of organs? Pantheists and other Divinitarians write about\nmind as if it were an existence; nay, they claim, for it the first place\namong existences, according to 'mere matter' the second. The 'Shepherd'\nplainly tells us mind is a _primary_ and matter a _secondary_ existence.\nHaving conjured up an Universal Mind God, it was natural he should try\nto establish the supremacy of mind--but though a skilful logician he\nwill be unable to do so. Experience is against him. On experience of\nnatural operations Materialists base their conclusion that matter\nwithout mind is possible, and mind without matter is impossible. It has\nbeen proved that even the modification of mind called imagination is\nindebted for all its images, yea, for its very existence as imagination,\nto the material world.\n\nD'Alembert states in the Discourse prefixed to the French Encyclopaedia\nthat 'the objects about which our minds are occupied are either\nspiritual or material, and the media employed for this purpose are our\nideas either directly received or derived from reflection'--which\nreflection he tells us 'is of two kinds, according as it is employed in\nreasoning on the objects of our direct ideas, or in studying them as\nmodels for imitation.' And then he tells us 'the imagination is a\ncreative faculty, and the mind, before it attempts to create, begins by\nreasoning upon what it sees and knows.' He lauds the metaphysical\ndivision of things into Material and Spiritual, appending however to\nsuch laudation these remarkable words--'With the Material and Spiritual\nclasses of existence, philosophy is equally conversant; but as for\nimagination, her imitations are imitations entirely confined to the\nmaterial world.'\n\nDes Cartes, in his second 'Meditation,' says--_Imaginari nihil aliud est\nquam rei corporeos figuram seu imaginem contemplari_--which sentence\nindicates that he agreed with D'Alembert as to the exclusive limitation\nof imagination to things material and sensible.\n\nThe same opinion seems to have been held by Locke, who in the concluding\nchapter of his 'Essay on the Human Understanding,' states as something\ncertain, and therefore beyond dispute, that 'the understanding can only\ncompass, first--the nature of things as they are in themselves, their\nrelations and manner of operation--or secondly, that which man ought to\ndo, as a rational and voluntary agent, for the attainment of any end,\nespecially happiness--or thirdly, the ways and means by which the\nknowledge of both the one and the other of these is attained and\ncommunicated.'\n\nAdam Smith too, in book 5, c. 1, of his 'Wealth of Nations,' assures us\nthe ancient Greek philosophy was divided, into three branches--Physics,\nEthics, and Logic; and after praising such general division of\nphilosophy, as being perfectly agreeable to the nature of things, says\nthat, 'as the human, mind and the Deity, in whatever their essence may\nbe supposed to consist, are parts of the great system, of the universe,\nand parts too, productive of the most important effects, whatever was\ntaught in the ancient schools of Greece concerning their nature, made a\npart of the system of Physics.'\n\nDr. Campbell, in his 'Philosophy of Rhetoric,' ventures to assign 'local\nhabitation,' as well as 'name' to spirit itself. Nay, he makes something\nof Deity, and the Soul; for spirit, says he, which here comprises only\nthe Supreme Being and the human Soul, is surely as much included under\nthe idea of natural object as body is, and is knowable to the\nphilosopher purely in the same way--by observation and experience.\n\nIt would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of these\nopinions--they are eminently worthy of attention. If God is a\nspirit--and spirit 'is surely as much a natural object as body is'--the\nidea of something supernatural cannot for one instant be entertained. If\nGod is really no more than a 'part' of the great system of the universe,\nto immaterialise Him is absurd, inconsistent, and idolatrous. Let it be\ngranted that God is 'part of nature, and a part too, productive of most\nimportant effects;' and what Logician will be fool-hardy enough to\ndeclare Him without body, parts, or passions?\n\nNor are Locke's _dicta_ as to the compass of the understanding easier to\nbe explained away than these of Dr. Campbell and Adam Smith. If we\ncannot know more than 'the nature of things as they are in themselves,'\ntheir relations, manner of operation, &c. only ignorant or cunning men\nwill pretend acquaintance with the supernatural. That nothing natural\ncan possibly conceive what is above nature is indeed so palpably true as\nto deserve a place among philosophical axioms. Imagination itself,\nhowever lofty, wild, or daring its flights, cannot quit the\nuniverse--matter is its prison, where, like Sterne's starling, it is\n'caged and can't get out.' Fortunately, however, imagination, though a\nprisoner, has abundance of room to legitimately exercise itself in. But,\nis it not obvious that if, as Des Cartes and D'Alembert contended, the\n'imitations of imagination are imitations entirely confined to the\nmaterial world,' all conceits about a Supernatural somebody, or\nSupernatural somebodies, are necessarily false, because of purely\nnatural origin, and should be viewed as at best 'mere cobwebs of\nlearning, admirable indeed, for the fineness of the thread and work, but\nof no substance or profit.' [54:1]\n\nIt is unfortunate for Theologians that the fundamental principle of\ntheir 'science' either cannot be comprehended, or, if comprehended,\ncannot be reconciled with any known principle of nature. 'God is,' they\npompously declare; but what He is they are unable to tell us, without\ncontradicting themselves and each other. Some say God must be material;\nsome say, nay, He must be no such thing; some will have Him spiritual,\nothers immaterial, others again neither spiritual nor material, nor\nimmaterial, nor even conceivable. Some say, if a Spirit, He can only be\nknown by His place and figure; some not. Some call Him the author of\nSin, some the permitter of sin, while some are sure He could not\nconsistently, with his own perfections, either authorize sin or grant to\nsinners a permit. Some say He made the Devil, others that the Most Low\nbedevil'd himself; others that He created Him angelic and upright, but\ncould not keep him so. Some say He hardens men's hearts, others that\nthey harden their own hearts; others again, that to harden men's hearts\nis the Devil's peculiar and exclusive privilege. Some say He has\nprepared a Hell for all wicked people, others that Hell will receive\nmany good as well as tricked, while others cannot believe either the\njust or the unjust, the faithful or the unfaithful, will be consigned to\nperdition and made to endure torments unutterable by a God 'whose tender\nmercies are over all his works.' Some affirm His omnipotency, some deny\nit; some say He is no respecter of persons, some the reverse. Some say\nHe is Immensity, others that He fills Immensity; others that He don't\nfill anything, though 'the Heaven, of Heavens cannot contain Him;'\nothers again, that He neither contains nor is contained, but 'dwells on\nhis own thoughts.' Some say He created matter out of nothing; some say\nit is quite a mistake--inasmuch as creation meant bringing order out of\nchaos. Some say He is not one person, but three persons--the Father, the\nSon, and the Holy Ghost, which together constitute Godhead; others that\nHe is 'one and indivisible,' while others believe Him 'our father which\nart in heaven,' but will have nothing to do with the Son and the Holy\nGhost, Unitarians, for example, one of whose popular preachers in the\ntown of Manchester, was about twelve months ago charged with having in\nthe course of a single sermon 'killed, two Gods, one Devil, and slacked\nout Hell Fire.'\n\nThe names of Newton and Clarke are held in great esteem by all who are\nfamiliar with the history of mechanical and metaphysical philosophy. As\na man of science, there is no individual, ancient or, modern, who would\nnot suffer by comparison with Sir Isaac Newton; while common consent has\nassigned to Dr. Samuel Clarke the first place among religious\nmetaphysicians. It would be difficult, if not impossible; to cite any\nother Theists of better approved reputation than these two, and\ntherefore we introduce them to the reader's notice in this place; for as\nthey ranked among the most philosophic of Theists, it might be expected\nthat their conceptions of Deity, would be clear, satisfactory, and\ndefinite.--Let us see, then, _in their own writings_, what those\nconceptions were.\n\nNewton conceived God to be one and the same for ever, and everywhere,\nnot only by his own virtue or energy, but also in virtue of his\nsubstance--Again, 'All things are contained in him and move in him, but\nwithout reciprocal action.' (_sed sine mutua passione_) God feels\nnothing from the movements of bodies; nor do they experience any\nresistance from his universal presence. [56:1]\n\nPause reader, and demand of yourself whether such a conception of Deity\nis either clear, satisfactory, or definite,--God. is _one_.--Very\ngood--but one _what_? From the information, 'He is the same for ever and\neverywhere,' we conclude that Newton thought him a Being. Here however,\nmatter stops the way; for the idea of Being is in all of us inseparably\nassociated with the idea of substance. When told that God is an 'Immense\nBeing,' without parts, and consequently unsubstantial, we try to think\nof such a Being; but in vain. Reason puts itself in a _quandary_, the\nmoment it labours to realise an idea of absolute nothingness; yet\nmarvellous to relate, Newton did distinctly declare his Deity 'totally\ndestitute of body,' and urged that _fact_ as a _reason_ why He cannot be\neither seen, touched, or understood, and also as a _reason_ why He ought\nnot to be adored under any corporeal figure!\n\nThe proper function of 'Supernaturality or Wonder,' according to\nPhrenologists, is to create a belief in the reality of supernatural\nbeings, and begets fondness for news, particularly if extravagant. Most\nlikely then, such readers of our Apology as have that organ 'large' will\nbe delighted with Newton's rhodomontade about a God who resists nothing,\nfeels nothing, and yet with condescension truly divine, not only\ncontains all things, but permits them to move in His motionless and\n'universal presence'; for 'news' more extravagant, never fell from the\nlips of an idiot, or adorned the pages of a prayer-book.\n\nBy the same great _savan_, we are taught that God governs all, not as\nthe soul of the world, but as the Lord and sovereign of all things; that\nit is in consequence of His sovereignty He is called the Lord God, the\nUniversal Emperor--that the word God is relative, and relates itself\nwith slaves--and that the Deity is the dominion or the sovereignty of\nGod, not over his own body, as those think who look upon God as the soul\nof the world, but over slaves--from all which _slavish_ reasoning, a\nplain man who had not been informed it was concocted by Europe's pet\nphilosopher, would infallibly conclude some unfortunate lunatic had\ngiven birth to it. That there is no creature now tenanting Bedlam who\nwould or could scribble purer nonsense about God than this of Newton's,\nwe are well convinced--for how could the most frenzied of brains imagine\nanything more repugnant to every principle of good sense than a\nself-existent, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent Being, creator of all\nthe worlds, who acts the part of 'universal emperor,' and plays upon an\ninfinitely large scale, the same sort of game as Nicholas of Russia, or\nMohammed of Egypt plays upon a small scale. There cannot be slavery\nwhere there is no tyranny, and to say as Newton did, that we stand in\nthe same relation to a universal God, as a slave does to his earthly\nmaster, is practically to accuse such God, at reason's bar, of\n_tyranny_. If the word of God is relative, and relates itself with\nslaves, it incontestably follows that all human beings are slaves, and\nDeity is by such reasoners degraded into the character of universal\nslave-driver. Really theologians and others who declaim so bitterly\nagainst 'blasphemers,' and take such very stringent measures to punish\n'infidels,' who speak or write of their God, should seriously consider\nwhether the worst, that is, the least religious of infidel writers, ever\npenned a paragraph so disparaging to the character of that God they\naffect to adore, as the last quoted paragraph of Newton's. If even it\ncould be demonstrated that there _is_ a super-human Being, it cannot be\nproper to clothe him in the noblest human attributes--still less can it\nbe justifiable in pigmies, such as we are, to invest Him with odious\nattributes belonging only to despots ruling over slaves. Besides, how\ncan we imagine a God who is 'totally destitute of body and of corporeal\nfigure,' to have any kind of attributes? Earthly emperors we know to be\nsubstantial and common-place sort of beings enough, but is it not sheer\nabuse of reason to argue as though the character of God were at all\nanalogous to theirs; or rather, is it not a shocking abuse of our\nreasoning faculties to employ them at all about a Being whose existence,\nif it really have an existence, is perfectly enigmatical, and allowed to\nbe so by those very men who pretend to explain its character and\nattributes? We find no less a sage than Newton explicitly declaring as\nincontestable truth, that God exists necessarily--that the same\nnecessity obliges him to exist always and everywhere--that he is all\neyes, all ears, all brains, all arms, all feeling, all intelligence, all\naction--that he exists in a mode by no means corporeal, and yet this\nsame sage, in the self-same paragraph, acknowledges God is _totally\nunknown to us_.\n\nNow, we should like to be informed by what _reasonable_ right Newton\ncould pen a long string of 'incontestible truths,' such as are here\nselected from his writings, with respect to a Being of whom, by his own\nconfession, he had not a particle of knowledge. Surely it is not the\npart of a wise man to write about that which is 'totally unknown' to\nhim, and yet that is precisely what Newton did, when he wrote about God.\n\nThere is, however, one remark of his respecting the God he thought\nnecessarily existed, worthy of notice, which is, that 'human beings\nrevere and adore Gad on account of his (supposed) sovereignty, and\nworship him like his slaves;' for to all _but_ worshippers, the practice\nas well as principle of worship does appear pre-eminently slavish.\nIndeed, the Author has always found himself unable to dissociate the\nidea of worshipping beings or things of which no one has the most remote\nconception, from that of genuine hypocrisy. Christians despise the rude\nHeathen for praying to a Deity of wood or stone, whom he soundly cudgels\nif his prayer is not granted; and yet their own treatment of Jehovah,\nthough rather more respectful, is equally ridiculous. When praying, they\nlay aside truth, sincerity, and sanity. Their language is the language\nof fawning, lying, imbecile, cowardly slaves. Intending to exalt, they\ndebase the imaginary object of their adoration. They presume Him to be\nunstable as themselves, and no less greedy of adulation than\nThemistocles the Athenian, who, when presiding at certain games of his\ncountrymen, was asked which voice pleased him best? _'That,'_ replied\nhe, _'which sings my praises.'_ They love to enlarge on 'the moral\nefficacy of prayer,' and would have us think their 'omnipotent tyrant'\nbest pleased with such of his 'own image' as best 'sing his praises.' Of\ntheir 'living God' they make an amplified Themistocles, and thus reduce\n(conscientiously, no doubt,) the Creator to a level with His creature.\n\nThe author is without God; but did he believe there is one, still would\nhe scorn to _affect_ for Him a love and a reverence that nothing natural\ncan feel for the supernatural; still would he scorn to _carry favour_\nwith Deity by hypocritical and most fulsome adulation.\n\nFinely did Eschylus say of Aristides--\n\n          To be and not to seem is this man's maxim;\n          His mind reposes on its proper wisdom,\n          And wants no other praise.\n\nTell us, ye men of mystery, shall a God need praises beneath the dignity\nof a man? Shall the Creator of Nature act less worthily than one of his\ncreatures? To do God homage, we are quite aware, is reckoned by\nChristians among their highest duties. But, nevertheless, it seems to us\nimpossible that any one can love an existence or creature of which he\nnever had any experience. Love is a feeling generated in the human\nbreast, by certain objects that strike the sense--and in no other\nconceivable way can love be generated! But God, according to Newton, is\nneither an _object_ nor a _subject_, and though, all eyes, all ears, all\nbrains, all arms, all feeling, all intelligence, and all action, he is\n_totally unknown to us_. If Christians allow this to be a true\ndescription of the God they worship, we wish to understand how they can\nlove Him so vehemently as they affect to do--or how they can pay any\nother than _lip_ homage to so mysterious a Deity? It is usual for slaves\nto feign an affection for their masters that they do not, cannot\nfeel--but that believers in a God should imagine that he who 'searcheth\nall hearts,' can be ignorant of what is passing in theirs, or make the\ntremendous mistake of supposing that their _lip homage_, or interested\nexpressions of love, are not _properly_ appreciated by the Most High\nGod, and 'Universal Emperor,' is indeed very strange. To overreach or\ndeceive a God who created the heavens and the earth, is altogether\nbeyond the power of puny mortals. Let not therefore those who bend the\nknee, while the heart is unbent, and raise the voice of thankful\ndevotion, while all within is frost and barrenness, fancy they have\nstolen a march upon their Deity; for surely _if_ the lord liveth, he\njudgeth rightly of these things. But it were vain to expect that those\nwho think God is related to his creatures as a despot is related to his\nslaves, will hope to please that God by aught save paltry, cringing, and\ndishonestly despicable practices. Yet, no other than a despotic God has\nthe great Newton taught us to adore--no other than mere slaves of such a\nGod, has he taught us to deem ourselves. So much for the Theism of\nEurope's chief religious philosopher. Turn we now to the Theism of\nDr. Samuel Clarke.\n\nHe wrote a book about the being and attributes of God, in which he\nendeavoured to establish, first, that 'something has existed from all\neternity;' second, that 'there has existed from eternity some one\nunchangeable and independent Being;' third, that 'such unchangeable and\nindependent Being, which has existed from all eternity, without any\nexternal cause of its existence, must be necessarily existent;' fourth,\nthat 'what is the substance or essence of that Being, which is\nnecessarily existing, or self-existent, we have no idea--neither is it\npossible for us to comprehend it;' fifth, that 'the self-existent Being\nmust of necessity be eternal as well as infinite and omnipresent;'\nsixth, that 'He must be one, and as he is the self-existent and original\ncause of all things, must be intelligent;' seventh, that 'God is not a\nnecessary agent, but a Being endowed with liberty and choice;' eighth,\nthat 'God is infinite in power, infinite in wisdom, and, as He is\nsupreme cause of all things, must of necessity be a Being infinitely\njust, truthful, and good--thus comprising within himself all such moral\nperfections as becomes the supreme governor and judge of the world.'\n\nThese are the leading dogmas contained in Clarke's book--and as they are\ndeemed invincible by a respectable, though not very numerous, section of\nTheists, we will briefly examine the more important of them.\n\nThe dogma that _something has existed from all eternity_, as already\nshown, is perfectly intelligible, and may defy contradiction--but the\nreal difficulty is to satisfactorily determine _what that something is_.\nMatter exists; and as no one can even imagine its non-existence or\nannihilation, the materialist infers _that_ must be the eternal\nsomething. Newton as well as Clarke thought the everlasting Being\ndestitute of body, and consequently without parts, figure, motion,\ndivisibility, or any other such properties as we find in matter--_ergo_,\nthey did not believe matter to be the eternal something; but if not\nmatter, again we ask, what can it be? Of bodilessness or incorporiety no\none, even among those who say their God is incorporeal, pretend to have\nan idea. Abady insisted that _the question is not what incorporiety is,\nbut whether it be?_ Well, we have no objection to parties taking that\nposition, because there is nothing more easy than to dislodge those who\nthink fit to do so--for this reason: the advocates of nothing, or\nincorporiety, can no more establish by arguments drawn from unquestioned\nfacts, that incorporiety _is_ than they can clearly show _what_ it is.\nIt has always struck the Author as remarkable that men should so\nobstinately refuse to admit the possibility of matter's necessary\nexistence, while they readily embrace, not only as possibly, but\ncertainly, true, the paradoxical proposition that a something, having\nnothing in common with anything, is necessarily existent. Matter is\neverywhere around and about us. We ourselves are matter--all our ideas\nare derived _from_ matter--and yet such is the singularly perverse\ncharacter of human intellect that, while resolutely denying the\npossibility of matter's eternity, an immense number of our race embrace\nthe incredible proposition that matter was created in time by a\nnecessarily existing Being who is without body, parts, passions, or\npositive nature!\n\nThe second dogma informs us that this always-existing Being is\nunchangeable and independent. One unavoidable inference from which is\nthat Deity is itself immoveable, as well as unconnected with the\nuniverse--for a moveable Being must be a changeable Being by the very\nfact of its motion; while an independent Being must be motiveless, as it\nis evident all motives result from our relationship to things external;\nbut an independent Being can have no relations, and consequently must\nact without motives. Now, as no human action can be imagined without\nnecessary precursors in the shape of motives, reasoning from analogy, it\nseems impossible that the unchangeable and independent Being, Clarke was\nso sure must ever have existed, could have created the universe, seeing\nhe could have had no _motive_ or _inducement_ to create it.\n\nThe third dogma may be rated a truism--it being evidently true that a\nthing or Being, which has existed from eternity without any external\ncause of its existence, must be self-existent; but of course that dogma\nleaves the disputed question, namely, whether matter, or something not\nmatter, is self-existent, just where it found it.\n\nThe fourth dogma is not questioned by Atheists, as they are quite\nconvinced that it is not possible for us to comprehend the substance or\nessence of an immaterial Being.\n\nThe other dogmas we need not enlarge upon, as they are little more than\nrepetitions or expansions of the preceding one. Indeed, much of the\nforegoing would be superfluous, were it not that it serves to\nillustrate, so completely and clearly, Theistical absurdities. The only\ndogma worth overturning, of the eight here noticed, is the _first_, for\nif that fall, the rest must fall with it. If, for example, the reader is\nconvinced that it is more probable matter is mutable as regards _form_,\nbut eternal as regards _essence_, than that it was willed into existence\nby a Being said to be eternal and immutable, he at once becomes an\nAtheist--for if matter always was, no Being could have been before it,\nnor can any exist after it. It is because men in general are shocked at\nthe idea of matter without beginning and without end, that they so\nreadily embrace the idea of a God, forgetting that if the idea of\neternal matter shock our sense of the _probable_, the idea of an eternal\nBeing who existed _before_ matter, _if well considered_, is sufficient\nto shock all sense of the _possible_.\n\nThe man who is contented with the universe, who stops at _that_ has at\nleast the satisfaction of dealing with something tangible--but he who\ndon't find the universe large enough for him to expatiate in, and whirls\nhis brains into a belief that there is a necessarily existing something\nbeyond the limits of a world _unlimited_, is in a mental condition no\nreasonable man need envy.\n\nOf the universe, or at least so much of it as our senses have been\noperated upon by, we have conceptions clear, vivid, and distinct; but\nwhen Dr. Clarke tells us of an intelligent Being, not _part_ but\n_creator_ of that universe, we can form no clear, vivid, distinct, or,\nin point of fact, _any_ conception of such a Being. When he explains\nthat it is infinite and omnipresent, like poor Paddy's famed ale, the\nexplanation 'thickens as it clears;' for being ourselves _finite_, and\nnecessarily present on one small spot of our very small planet, the\nwords _infinite_ and _omnipresent_ do not suggest to us either positive\nor practical ideas--of course, therefore, we have neither positive nor\npractical ideas of an infinite and omnipresent Being.\n\nWe can as easily understand that the universe ever did exist, as we now\nunderstand that it does exist--but we cannot conceive its absence for\nthe millionth part of an instant--and really it puzzles one to conceive\nwhat those people can be dreaming about who talk as familiarly about the\nextinction of a universe as the chemist does of extinguishing the flame\nof his spirit-lamp.\n\nThe unsatisfactory character of all speculations having for their object\n'nonentities with formidable names,' should long ere this have opened\nmen's eyes to the folly of _multiplying causes without necessity_--\nanother rule of philosophising, for which we are indebted to\nNewton, but to which no religious philosophiser pays due attention.\nNewton himself, in his Theistical character, wrote and talked as though\nmost blissfully ignorant of that rule. The passages given above from his\n'Principia' palpably violate it. But Theists, however learned, pay\nlittle regard to any rules of philosophising, which put in peril their\nfundamental crotchet. If they did, Atheism would need no apologist, and\nTheism have no defenders; for Theism, in all its varieties, presupposes\na supernatural Causer of what experience pronounces natural effects.\n\nThe Author is aware that 'Natural Theologians' seek to justify their\nrebellion against the rules of philosophising, to which the reader's\nattention has been specially directed, by appealing to (what they call)\nevidences of design in the universal fabric. But though they think so\nhighly of the design argument, it is not the less true that that\nargument rests on mere assumption of a disputed fact; that even though\nit were proved the universe was designed, still whether designed by one\nGod, two Gods, or two million of Gods, would be unshown; and that Paley,\n'the most famous of natural Theologians'--Paley, who wrote as never man\nwrote before on the design question, has been satisfactorily refuted _in\nhis own words_. [63:1]\n\nA distinguished modern Fabulist [63:2] has introduced to us a\nphilosophical mouse who praised beneficent Deity because of his great\nregard for mice: for one half of us, quoth he, received the gift of\nwings, so that if we who have none, should by cats happen to be\nexterminated, how easily could our 'Heavenly Father,' out of the bats\nre-establish our exterminated species.\n\nVoltaire had no objection to fable if it were symbolic of truth; and\nhere is fable, which, according to its author, is symbolic of the little\nregarded truth, that our pride rests mainly on our ignorance, for, as he\nsagely says, 'the good mouse knew not that there are also winged cats.'\nIf she had her speculations concerning the beneficence of Deity would\nhave been less orthodox, mayhap, but decidedly more rational. The wisdom\nof this pious mouse is very similar to that of the Theologian who knew\nnot how sufficiently to admire God's goodness in causing large rivers\nalmost always to flow in the neighbourhood of large towns.\n\nTo jump at conclusions on no other authority than their own ignorant\nassumptions, and to Deify errors on no other authority than their own\nheated imaginations, has in all ages been the practice of Theologians.\nOf that practice they are proud, as was the mouse of our Fabulist.\nClothed in no other panoply than their own conceits; they deem\nthemselves invulnerable. While uttering the wildest incoherencies their\nself-complacency remains undisturbed. They remind one of that ambitious\ncrow who, thinking more highly of himself than was quite proper,\nstrutted so proudly about with the peacock's feathers in which he had\nbedecked himself.--Like him, they plume themselves upon their own\negregious folly, and like him should get well _plucked_ for their pains.\n\nLet any one patiently examine their much talked of argument from design,\nand he will be satisfied that these are no idle charges. That argument\nhas for its ground-work beggarly assumptions and for its main pillar,\nreasoning no less beggarly. Nature must have had a cause, because it\nevidently is an effect. The cause of Nature must have been one God;\nbecause two Gods, or two million Gods, could not have agreed to cause\nit. That cause must be omnipotent, wise, and good, because all things\nare double one against another, and He has left nothing imperfect. Men\nmake watches, build ships or houses, out of pre-existing metals, wood,\nhemp, bricks, mortar, and other materials, therefore God made nature out\nof no materials at all. Unassisted nature cannot produce the phenomena\nwe behold, therefore such phenomena clearly prove there is something\nsupernatural. Not to believe in a God who designed Nature, is to close\nboth ears and eyes against evidence, therefore Atheists are wilfully\ndeaf and obstinately blind.\n\nThese are samples of the flimsy stuff, our teachers of what nobody\nknows, would palm upon us as argument for, yea demonstration of, the\nBeing and Attributes of God.\n\nDesign, said Shelley, must be proved before a designer can be\ninferred--the matter in controversy, is the existence of design in the\nuniverse, and it is not permitted to assume the contested premises and\nthence infer the matter in dispute. Insidiously to employ the words\ncontrivance, design and adaptation, before these circumstances are\napparent in the universe, thence justly inferring a contriver, is a\npopular sophism against which it behoves us to be watchful.\n\nTo assert that motion is an attribute of mind, that matter is inert,\nthat every combination is the result of intelligence, is also an\nassumption of the matter in dispute.\n\nWhy do we admit design in any machine of human contrivance? simply\nbecause innumerable instances of machines having been constructed by\nhuman art are present to our mind--because we are acquainted with\npersons who could construct such machines; but if having no previous\nknowledge of any artificial contrivance, we had accidently found a watch\nupon the ground, we should have been justified in concluding that it was\na thing of nature, that it was a combination of matter with whose cause\nwe were unacquainted, and that any attempt to account for the origin of\nits existence would be equally presumptuous and unsatisfactory. [64:1]\n\nThe acuteness and, accuracy of this reasoning can only be disputed by\npersons wedded to system, who either lack capacity to understand what is\nadvanced in opposition to it, or,\n\n          Being convinced against their will,\n          Are of the same opinion still.\n\nExperience, the only safe guide on religious as well as other topics,\nlends no sanction to belief in design apart from material agency. By\nartfully taking for granted what no Atheist can admit and assuming cases\naltogether dissimilar to be perfectly analogous, our natural theologians\nfind no difficulty in proving that God is, was, and ever will be; that\nafter contemplating His own perfections, a period sufficiently long for\n'eternity to begin and end in,' He said, let there be matter, and there\nwas matter; that with Him all things are possible, and He, of course,\nmight easily have kept, as well as made, man upright and happy, but\ncould not consistently with his own wisdom, or with due regard to his\nown glorification. Wise in their generation, these 'blind leaders of the\nblind' ascribe to this Deity of their own invention, powers impossible,\nacts inconceivable, and qualities incompatible; thus erecting doctrinal\nsystems on no sounder basis than their own ignorance; deifying their own\nmonstrous errors, and filling the earth with misery, madness, and crime.\n\nThe writer who declared theology _ignorance of natural causes reduced to\nsystem_, did not strike wide of the true mark. It is plain that the\nargument from design, so vastly favoured by theologians, amounts to\nneither more nor less than ignorance of natural causes reduced to\nsystem. An argument to be sound must be soundly premised. But here is an\nargument whose primary premise is a false premise--a mere begging of the\nvery question in dispute. Did Atheists _admit_ the universe was\ncontrived, designed, or adapted, they could not _deny_ there must have\nbeen at least one Being to contrive, design, or adapt; but they see no\nanalogy between a watch made with hands out of something, and a universe\nmade without hands out of nothing--Atheists are unable to perceive the\nleast resemblance between the circumstance of one intelligent body\nre-forming or changing the condition of some other body, intelligent or\nnon-intelligent, and the circumstance of a bodiless Being creating all\nbodies; of a partless Being acting upon all parts; and of a passionless\nBeing generating and regulating all passions. Atheists consider the\ngeneral course of nature, though strangely unheeded, does proclaim with\n'most miraculous organ,' that dogmatisers about any such 'figment of\nimagination,' would, in a rational community, be viewed with the same\nfeelings of compassion, which, even in these irrational days, are\nexhibited towards confirmed lunatics.\n\nThe Author was recently passing an evening with some pleasant people in\nAshton-under-Lyne, one of whom related that before the schoolmaster had\nmuch progress in that _devil dusted_ neighbourhood, a labouring man\nwalking out one fine night, saw on the ground a watch, whose ticking was\ndistinctly audible; but never before having seen anything of the kind he\nthought it a living creature, and full of fear ran back among his\nneighbours, exclaiming that he had seen a most marvellous thing, for\nwhich he could conceive of no better name than CLICKMITOAD. After\nrecovering from their surprise and terror, this 'bold peasant' and his\nneighbours, all armed with pokers or ether formidable weapons, crept up\nto the ill-starred ticker, and smashed it to pieces.\n\nThe moral of this anecdote is no mystery. Our clickmitoadist had never\nseen watches, knew nothing about watches, and hearing as well as seeing\none for the first time, naturally judged it must be an animal. Readers\nwho may feel inclined to laugh at his simplicity, should ask themselves\nwhether, if accustomed to see watches growing upon watch trees, they\nwould feel more astonished than they usually do when observing crystals\nin process of formation, or cocoa-nuts growing upon cocoa-nut trees; and\nif as inexperienced with respect to watches, or works of art, more or\nless analogous to watches, they would not under his circumstances have\nacted very much as he did. Admirably is it said in the unpublished work\nbefore referred to, that the analogy which theologians attempt to\nestablish between the contrivances of human art and the various\nexistences of the universe is inadmissable. We attribute these effects\nto human intelligence, because we know beforehand that human\nintelligence is capable of producing them. Take away this knowledge, and\nthe grounds of our reasoning will be destroyed. Our entire ignorance\ntherefore of the Divine Nature leaves this analogy defective in its most\nessential point of comparison.\n\nSupposing, however, that theologians were to succeed in establishing an\nanalogy between 'the contrivances of human art and the various\nexistences of the universe,' is it not evident that Spinoza's axiom--of\nthings which having nothing in common one cannot be the cause of the\nothers--is incompatible with belief in the Deity of our Thirty-Nine\nArticles, or, indeed, belief in _any_ unnatural Designer or Causer of\nMaterial Nature. Only existence can have anything in common with\nexistence.\n\nNow an existence, properly so called, must have at least two attributes,\nand whatever exhibits two or more attributes is matter. The two\nattributes necessary to existence are solidity and extension. Take from\nmatter these attributes, and matter itself vanishes. This fact was\nspecially testified to by Priestley, who acknowledged the primary truths\nof Materialism though averse to the legitimate consequences flowing from\ntheir recognition.\n\nAccording to this argument, then, nothing exists which has not solidity\nand extension, and nothing is extended and solid but matter, which in\none state forms a crystal, in another a blade of grass, in a third a\nbutterfly, and in other states other forms. The _essence_ of grass, or\nthe _essence_ of crystal, in other words, those native energies of their\nseveral forms constituting and keeping them what they are, can no more\nbe explained than can the _essentiality_ of human nature.\n\nBut the Atheist, because he finds it impossible to explain the action of\nmatter, because unable to state why it exhibits such vast and various\nenergies as it is seen to exhibit, is none the less assured it\n_naturally_ and therefore _necessarily_ acts thus energetically. No\nAtheist pretends to understand how bread nourishes his frame, but of the\n_fact_ that bread does nourish it he is well assured. He understands not\nhow or why two beings should by conjunction give vitality to a third\nbeing more or less analogous to themselves, but the _fact_ stares him in\nthe face.\n\nOur 'sophists in surplices,' who can no otherwise bolster up their\nsupernatural system than by outraging all such rules of philosophising\nas forbid us to choose the greater of two difficulties, or to multiply\ncauses without necessity, are precisely the men to explain everything.\nBut unfortunately their explanations do for the most part stand more in\nneed of explanation than the thing explained. Thus they explain the\norigin of matter by reference to an occult, immense, and immensely\nmysterious phantasm without body, parts or passions, who sees though not\nto be seen, hears though not to be heard, feels though not to be felt,\nmoves though not to be moved, knows though not to be known, and in\nshort, does everything, though not to be _done_ by anything. Well might\nGodwin say the rage of accounting for what, like immortal Gibbs, is\nobviously unaccountable, so common among 'philosophers' of this stamp,\nhas brought philosophy itself into discredit.\n\nThere is an argument against the notion of a Supernatural Causer which\nthe Author of this Apology does not remember to have met with, but which\nhe considers an argument of great force--it is this. Cause means change,\nand as there manifestly could not be change before there was anything to\nchange, to conceive the universe caused is impossible.\n\nThat the sense here attached to the word cause is not a novel one every\nreader knows who has seen an elaborate and ably written article by Mr.\nG.H. Lewes, on 'Spinoza's Life and Works,' [68:1] where effect is\ndefined as cause realised, the _natura naturans_ conceived as _natura\nnaturata_; and cause or causation is defined as simply change. When,\nsays Mr. Lewis, the change is completed, we name the result effect. It\nis only a matter of naming.\n\nThese definitions conceded accurate, the conclusion that neither cause\nnor effect _exist_, seems inevitable, for change of being is not being\nitself, any more than attraction is the thing attracted. One might as\nphilosophically erect attraction into reality and fall down and worship\n_it_, as change, which is in very truth, a mere \"matter of naming.\" Not\nso the things changing or changed: _they_ are real, the prolific parent\nof all appearance we behold, of all sensation we experience, of all\nideas we receive; in short, of all causes and of all effects, which\ncauses and effects, as shown by; Mr. Lewis, are merely notional, for \"we\ncall the antecedent cause, and the sequent effect; but these are merely\nrelative conceptions; the sequence itself is antecedent to some\nsubsequent change, and the former antecedent was once only a sequent to\nits cause, and so on.\" Now, to reconcile with this theory of causation,\nthe notion of an\n\n          Eternal, mighty, causeless God,\n\nmay be possible, but the Author of this Apology cannot persuade himself\nthat it is. His poor faculties are unequal to the mighty task of\nconceiving the amazing Deity in question, whom Sir Richard Blackmore, in\nhis Ode to Jehovah, describes as sitting on an 'eternal throne'--\n\n          Above the regions of etherial space,\n          And far extended frontier of the skies;\n          Beyond the outlines of wide nature's face,\n          Where void, not yet enclosed, uncultivated lies;\n          Completely filling every place\n          And far outstretching all imaginary space.\n\nStill less has he the right to pretend acquaintance with a process of\nreasoning by which such\n\n          Eternal, mighty, causeless God\n\ncan be believed in consistently with the conviction that cause is effect\nrealised, and means only CHANGE.\n\nAncient Simonides, when asked by Dionysius to explain the nature of\nDeity, demanded a day to 'see about it,' then an additional two days,\nand then four days more, thus wisely intimating to his silly pupil, that\nthe more men think about Gods; the less competent they are to give any\nrational account of them.\n\nCicero was sensible and candid enough to acknowledge that he found it\nmuch easier to say what God was not, than what he was. Like Simonides,\nhe was _mere_ Pagan, and like him, arguing from the known course of\nnature, was unable, with all his mastery of talk, to convey positive\nideas of Deity. But how should he convey to others what he did not,\ncould not, himself possess? To him no revelation had been vouchsafed,\nand though my Lord Brougham is quite sure, without the proof of natural\nTheology, revelation has no other basis than mere tradition, we have\neven better authority than his Lordship's for the staggering fact that\nnatural Theology, without the prop of revelation, is a 'rhapsody of\nwords,' mere jargon, analogous to the tale told by an idiot, so happily\ndescribed by our great poet as 'full of sound and fury, signifying\nnothing.' We have a Rev. Hugh M'Neil 'convinced that, from external\ncreation, no right conclusion can be drawn concerning the _moral_\ncharacter of God,' and that 'creation is too deeply and disastrously\nblotted in consequence of man's sin, to admit of any satisfactory result\nfrom an adequate contemplation of nature.' [69:1] We have a Gillespie\nsetting aside the Design Argument on the ground that the reasonings by\nwhich it is supported are 'inapt' to show such attributes as infinity,\nomnipresence, free agency, omnipotency, eternality, or unity,' belong in\nany way to God. On this latter attribute he specially enlarges, and\nafter allowing 'the contrivances we observe in nature, may establish a\nunity of _counsel_, desires to be told' how they can establish a unity\nof _substance_. [69:2] We have Dr. Chalmers and Bishop Watson, whose\ncapacities were not the meanest, contending that there is no natural\nproof of a God, and that we must trust solely to revelation.' [69:3] We\nhave the Rev. Mr. Faber in his 'Difficulties of Infidelity,' boldly\naffirming that no one ever did, or ever will 'prove without the aid of\nrevelation, that the universe was designed by a single designer.'\nObviously, then, there is a division in the religious camp with respect\nto the sufficiency of natural Theology, unhelped by revelation. By three\nof the four Christian authors just quoted, the design argument is\ntreated with all the contempt it merits. Faber says, 'evident design\nmust needs imply a designer,' and that 'evident design shines out in\nevery part of the universe.' But he also tells us 'we reason\nexclusively, if with the Deist we thence infer the existence of one and\n_only_ one Supreme Designer.' By Gillespie and M'Neil, the same truth is\ntold in other words. By Chalmers and Watson we are assured that, natural\nproof of a God there is none, and our trust must be placed _solely_ in\nrevelation; while Brougham, another Immense Being worshipper, declares\nthat revelation derives its chief support from natural Theology, without\nwhich it has 'no other basis than vague tradition.'\n\nNow, Atheists agree with Lord Brougham as to the traditionary basis of\nScripture; and as they also agree with Chalmers and Watson with respect\nto their being no natural proof of a God, they stand acquitted to their\nown consciences of 'wilful deafness' and 'obstinate blindness,' in\nrejecting as inadequate the evidence that 'God is' drawn either from\nNature, Revelation, or both.\n\nIt was long a Protestant custom to taunt Roman Catholics with being\ndivided among themselves as regards topics vitally important, and to\ndraw from the fact of such division an argument for making Scripture the\nonly 'rule of faith and manners.' Chillingworth said, 'there are Popes\nagainst Popes, councils against councils, some fathers against others,\nthe same fathers against themselves--a consent of fathers of one age\nagainst a consent of fathers of another age, the church of one age\nagainst the church of another age. Traditive interpretations of\nScripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found. No\ntradition but only of scripture can derive itself from the fountain, but\nmay be plainly proved, either to have been brought in in such an age\nafter Christ; or that in such an age it was not in. In a word, there is\nno sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to\nbuild on. [70:1] And after reading this should 'any considering man' be\nanxious to know something about the Scripture on which alone he is to\nbuild, he cannot do better than dip into Dr. Watt's book on the right\nuse of Reason, where we are told 'every learned (Scripture) critic has\nhis own hypothesis, and if the common text be not favourable to his\nviews a various lection shall be made authentic. The text must be\nsupposed to be defective or redundant, and the sense of it shall be\nliteral or metaphorical according as it best supports his own scheme.\nWhole chapters or books shall be added or left out of the sacred canon,\nor be turned into parables by this influence. Luther knew not well how\nto reconcile the epistle of St. James to the doctrine of justification\nby faith alone, and so he could not allow it to be divine. The Papists\nbring all their Apocrypha into their Bible, and stamp divinity upon it,\nfor they can fancy purgatory is there, and they find prayers for the\ndead. But they leave out the second commandment because it forbids the\nworship of images. Others suppose the Mosaic history of the creation,\nand the fall of man, to be oriental ornaments, or a mere allegory,\nbecause the literal sense of those three chapters of Genesis, do not\nagree with their theories.\n\nThese remarks are certainly not calculated to make 'considering men' put\ntheir trust in Scripture. Coming from a Protestant Divine of such high\ntalent and learning, they may rather be expected to breed in\n'considering men' very unorthodox opinions as well of the authenticity\nas the genuineness of _both Testaments_, and a strong suspicion that\nChillingworth was joking when he talked about their \"sufficient\ncertainty.\" The author of this Apology has searched Scripture in vain\nfor 'sufficient certainty,' with respect to the long catalogue of\nreligious beliefs which agitate and distract society. Laying claim to\nthe character of a 'considering man,' he requires that Scripture to be\n_proved_ the word of a God before appealed to, as His Revelation; a feat\nno man has yet accomplished. Priests, the cleverest, most industrious,\nand least scrupulous, have tried their hands at the pious work, but all\nhave failed. Notwithstanding the mighty labours of our Lardner's and\nTillemont's and Mosheim's, no case is made out for the divinity of\neither the Old or New Testament. 'Infidels' have shown the monstrous\nabsurdity of supposing that any one book has an atom more divinity about\nit than any other book. Those 'brutes' have completely succeeded in\nproving that Christianity is a superstition, no less absurd than\nMohammedanism, and to the full as mischievous. To us, we candidly avow\nthat its doctrines, precepts, and injunctions appear so utterly opposed\nto good sense, and good government, that we are persuaded even if it\nwere practicable to establish a commonwealth in harmony with them at\nsun-rise it would infallibly go to pieces before sunset. The author has\nread that Roman augurs rarely met to do the professional without\nlaughing at each other, and he is bothered to understand how Christian\npriests contrive to keep their countenances, amid the many strong\ntemptations to mirth, by which, in their official capacity they are\nsurrounded. No doubt very many of them laugh immoderately in private, by\nway of revenge for the gravity they are constrained to assume in public.\nIt is well known that hypocrites are most prone to an affectation of\nsanctity; which marvellously steads them in this world, happen what may\nin the world to come. Nine-tenths of those who make a parade of their\npiety, are rotten at heart, as that Cardinal de Crema, Legate of Pope\nCalixtus 2nd, in the reign of Henry 1st, who declared at a London Synod,\nit was an intolerable enormity, that a priest should dare to consecrate,\nand touch the body of Christ immediately after he had risen from the\nside of a strumpet, (for that was the decent appellation he gave to the\nwives of the clergy), but it happened, that the very next night, the\nofficers of justice, breaking into a disorderly house, found the\nCardinal in bed with a courtezan; an incident, says Hume, [72:1] \"which\nthrew such ridicule upon him, that he immediately stole out of the\nkingdom; the synod broke up, and the canons against the marriage of its\nclergymen, were worse executed than ever.\"\n\nChristian practice is after all, the best answer to Christian theory.\nMen who think wisely, do not it is true, always act wisely; but\ngenerally speaking, the moral, like the physical tree, is known by its\nfruit, and bitter, most bitter, is the fruit of that moral tree, the\nfollowers of Jesus planted. Notwithstanding their talk about the pure\nand benign influence of their religion, an opinion is fast gaining\nground, that Bishop Kiddor was right, when he said, 'were a wise man to\njudge of religion by the lives of its professors, perhaps, Christianity\nis the last he would choose.'\n\nNo unprejudiced thinker who is familiar with the history of religion\nwill deny, that of all priests in this priest-ridden world Christian\npriests are the worst. Though less potent they are not much less proud\nor ambitious than when Pope Pascal II. told King Henry I. that all\necclesiastics must enter into the church through Christ and Christ\nalone, not through the civil magistrate or any profane laymen. Nor are\nthey less jealous of such as would fain reduce the dimensions of their\n'spiritual jurisdiction,' than when that haughty Pope reminded his king\nthat 'priests are called God in Scripture as being the vicars of God;'\nwhile in consideration for the poor and the oppressed, modern priests\nare disadvantageously distinguished, from those 'vicars of God,' who\ntrod upon the necks of emperors and kings, made or unmade laws at\npleasure, and kept Europe, intellectual Europe, in unreasoning,\nunresisting subjection. The reader who agrees with Milton that\n\n          To know, what every day before us lies,\n          Is the prime wisdom,\n\nwill in all likelihood not object to cast his eyes around and about him,\nwhere proofs of modern priestly selfishness are in wonderful abundance.\nBy way of example may be cited the cases of those right reverend Fathers\nin God the Bishops of London and Chester, prelates high in the church;\ndisposers of enormous wealth with influence almost incalculable; the\nformer more especially. And how stand they affected towards the poor? By\nreference to the _Times_ newspaper of September 27th, 1845, it will be\nseen that those very influential and wealthy Bishops are supporters _en\nchef_ of a 'Reformed Poor Law,' the 'virtual principle' of which is 'to\nreduce the condition of those whose necessities oblige them to apply for\nrelief, below that of the labourer of the _lowest class_.' A Reformed\nPoor Law, having for its 'object,' yes reader, its object, the\nrestoration of the pauper to a position below that of the independent\nlabourer.' This is their 'standard' of reference, by rigid attention to\nwhich they hope to fully carry out their 'vital principle,' and thus\nbring to a satisfactory conclusion the great work of placing 'the pauper\nin a worse condition than the independent labourer.' It appears, from\nthe same journal, that in reply to complaints against their dietary, the\nCommissioners appointed to work the Reformed Poor Law, consider that\ntwenty-one ounces of food daily 'is more than the hard working labourer\nwith a family could accomplish for himself by his own exertions.' This,\nobserves a writer in the _Times_, being the Commissioners' reading of\ntheir own 'standard,' it may be considered superfluous to refer to any\nother authority; but, as the Royal Agricultural Society of England have\nclubbed their general information on this subject in a compilation from\na selection of essays submitted to them, we are bound to refer to such\nwitnesses who give the most precise information on the actual condition\nof the _independent labourer_, with minute instructions for his general\nguidance, and the economical expenditure of his income. 'He should,'\nthey say, 'toil early and late' to make himself 'perfect' in his\ncalling. 'He should _pinch and screw_ the family, even in the _commonest\nnecessaries_,' until he gets 'a week's wages to the fore.' He should\ndrink in his work 'water mixed with some powdered ginger,' which warms\nthe stomach, and is 'extremely cheap.' He should remember that 'from\nthree to four pounds of potatoes are equal in point of nourishment to a\npound of the best wheaten bread, besides having the great advantage of\n_filling_ the stomach. He is told that 'a lot of bones may always be got\nfrom the butchers for 2d., and they are never scraped so clean as not to\nhave some scraps of meat adhering to them.' He is instructed to boil\nthese two penny worth of bones, for the first day's family dinner, until\nthe liquor 'tastes _something_ like broth.' For the second day, the\nbones are to be again boiled in the same manner, but for _a longer\ntime_. Nor is this all, they say, 'that the bones, if again boiled for a\n_still longer_ time, will _once more_ yield a nourishing broth, which\nmay be made into pea soup.'\n\nThis is the system and this the schoolmastership expressly sanctioned by\nthe Bishops of London and Chester. In piety nevertheless these prelates\nare not found wanting. They may starve the bodies but no one can charge\nthem with neglecting the souls of our 'independent labourers.' Nothing\ncan exceed their anxiety to feed and clothe the spiritually destitute.\nThey raise their mitred fronts, even in palaces, to proclaim and lament\nover the spiritual destitution which so extensively prevails--but they\nseldom condescend to notice _physical_ destitution. When the cry of\nfamine rings throughout the land they coolly recommend rapid church\nextension, thus literally offering stone to those who ask them for\nbread. To get the substantial and give the spiritual is their practical\nChristianity. To spiritualise the poor into contentment with the\n'nourishing broth' from thrice boiled bones, and to die of hunger rather\nthan demand relief, are their darling objects. Verily, if these and men\nlike these do not grind the faces of the poor, the Author of this\nApology is unable to conceive in what that peculiar process consists. In\nScripture we are told, the bread of the poor is his life, and they who\ndefraud him thereof are men of blood; and by whom are the poor defrauded\nof their bread if not by those who, like the Bishops of London and\nChester, legislate for poverty as if it were a crime, and lend theft\nsanction to a system which, while it necessitates the wholesale pinching\nand screwing even in the commonest necessaries of life 'of independent\nlabourers,' does also necessitate the wholesale starvation of still more\nwretched paupers? Formerly our 'surplus populations' were 'killed off'\nby bullet and sabre, now they are got rid of in Poor Law Unions by a\nprocess less expensive perhaps, but not less effectual.\n\nDid Atheists thus act, did they perpetrate, connive at, or tolerate such\natrocities as were brought to light during the Andover inquiry, such\ncold blooded heartlessness would at once be laid to the account of their\nprinciples. Oh yes, Christians are forward to judge of trees by their\nfruit, except the tree called Christianity. Their great 'prophet' argued\nthat if the tree is good the fruit will be good; but when their own\nreligion is in question they give such argument the slip. The vices of\nthe Atheist they ascribe to his creed. The vices of the Christian to\nanything but his creed. Let professors of Christianity be convicted of\ngross criminality, and lo its apologists say such professors are not\nChristians. Let fanatical Christians commit excesses which admit not of\nopen justification, and the apologist of Christianity coolly assures us\nsuch conduct is mere rust on the body of his religion--moss which grows\non the stock of his piety.\n\nIt has been computed that the Spaniards in America destroyed in about\nforty-five years ten millions of human creatures, and this with a view\nof converting them to Christianity. Bartholomew Casa, who made this\ncomputation, affirms that they (the Spaniards) hanged those unhappy\npeople _thirteen in a row_, in honour of the _thirteen Apostles_, and\nthat they also gave their infants to be devoured by dogs. [75:1]\n\nCorsini, another religious author, tells us the Spaniards destroyed more\nthan fifteen millions of American aborigines, and calculates that the\nblood of these devoted victims, added to that of the slaves destroyed in\nthe mines, where they were compelled to labour, would weigh as much as\nall the gold and silver that had been dug out of them.\n\nIf these or similar horrors were perpetrated by Atheists, who can doubt\nthat Roman Catholics would at once ascribe them to the pestiferous\ninfluence of Atheistical principles. And the Author of this Apology is\nof opinion that they would be justified in so doing. When whole nations\nof professed irreligionists shall be found conquering a country, and\nhanging the aborigines of that country thirteen in a row, in honour of\nsome thirteen apostles of Atheism, their barbarity may fairly be\nascribed to their creed. Habit does much, and perhaps much of our\nvirtue, or its opposite is contingent on temperament; but no people\nentertaining correct speculative opinions could possibly act, or\ntolerate, atrocities like these. But strange to say, neither Roman\nCatholic, nor any other denomination of Christians, will submit to be\ntried to the same standard they deem so just when applied to Atheists.\nNow sauce for the goose every body knows is equally sauce for the\ngander, and it is difficult to discover the consistency or the honesty\nof men, who trace to their creed the crimes or merest peccadilloes of\nAtheists, and will not trace to their creed the shocking barbarity of\nChristians. To understand such men is easy; to admire them is\nimpossible; for their conduct in this particular palpably shocks every\nprinciple of truth and fairness. Why impute to Atheism the vices or\nfollies of its Apostles, while refusing to admit that the vices or\nfollies of Christians should be imputed to Christianity. Of both folly\nand vice it is notorious professing Christians have 'the lion's share.'\nYet the apologists of Christianity, who would fain have us believe the\nlives of Atheists a consequence of Atheism, will by no means believe\nthat the lives of Christians are a consequence of Christianity.\n\nLet no one suppose the Author of this Apology is prepared to allow that\nAtheists are men of cruel dispositions or vicious. He will not say with\nColeridge that only men of good hearts and strong heads can be Atheists,\nbut he is quite ready to maintain that the generality of Atheists are\nmen of mild, generous, peaceable studious dispositions, who desire the\noverthrow of superstition, or true religion as its devotees call it,\nbecause convinced a superstitious people never can be enlightened,\nvirtuous, free, or happy. Their love of whatever helps on civilisation\nand disgust of war are testified to even by opponents. We may learn from\nthe writings of Lord Bacon not only his _opinion_ that Atheism leaves\nmen to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation,\nall which, he justly observes, may be guides to an outward moral virtue,\nthough religion were not; but the _fact_ that 'the times inclined to\nAtheism (as the times of Augustus Caesar) were civil times.' Nay, he\nexpressly declared 'Atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men\nwary of themselves as looking no further.' [76:1] Can the same be said\nof religion? Will any one have the hardihood to say religion did never\nperturb states, or that the times inclined to religion (as the times of\nOliver Cromwell) were civil times, or that it makes man wary of\nthemselves as looking no further? During times inclined to religion more\nthan one hundred thousand witches were condemned to die by Christian\ntribunals in accordance with the holy text, thou shalt not suffer a\nwitch to live. During times inclined to religion it was usual to burn,\nbroil, bake, or otherwise murder heretics for the glory of God, and at\nthe same time to spare the vilest malefactors. During times inclined to\nreligion, it has been computed that in Spain alone no less than 32,382\npeople were, by the faithful, burnt alive; 17,690 degraded and burnt in\neffigy; and all the goods and chattels of the enormous number of 291,450\nconsigned to the chancery of the Inquisition. [77:1] In short, during\nthose 'good old times,' men yielded themselves up to practices so\nstrangely compounded of cruelty and absurdity, that one finds it\ndifficult to believe accounts of them, however well authenticated.\n\nSpeaking of the bigotted fury of certain ecclesiastics, Hippolyto Joseph\nde Costa, in his 'Narrative of the persecution' he suffered while lodged\ngratis by the Portuguese Inquisition for the pretended crime of Free\nMasonry, says, it would exceed the bounds of credulity, had not facts in\ncorroboration of it been so established by witnesses, that nothing can\nshake them. Among ecclesiastics of this denomination we may mention that\nPontiff, who, from a vile principle of hate for his predecessor, to whom\nhe had been an enemy, as soon as he ascended the Papal chair directed\nthe corpse to be taken out from the grave, had the fingers and the head\ncut off and thrown into the sea, ordered the remainder of the body to be\nburnt to ashes and excommunicated the soul. Could revenge be carried\nfarther than in this instance? The institution itself of the inquisition\nand the cruelty with which its members persecute those whom they suspect\nof tenets different from their own, may well excite surprise. In their\neyes the tortures and the death of their fancied enemies are a mere\namusement. They burn some of their prisoners alive, render their\nmemories infamous, and prosecute their children and all the connections\nof these unhappy sufferers; they deprive orphans of the inheritance of\ntheir parents, dishonour families in every possible shape, and at length\nhave recourse to the auto da fe, [77:2] on which occasion, while the\nmiserable wretches are lingering in torments, the members of the\ninquisition not only feast their eyes with this Infernal spectacle, but\nregale themselves with their friends at the expense of their unhappy\nvictims. Such are the practises of the Inquisition.\n\nWhen those Spanish Christians who amused themselves by hanging poor\nwretches, thirteen in a row, in honour of the thirteen apostles, were\ntaunted with cruelty, they boldly affirmed that as God had not redeemed\nwith his blood the souls of the Indians, no difference should be made\nbetween them and the lowest of beasts. In Irvings history of New York is\na letter written, we are told, by a Spanish priest, to his superior in\nSpain, which, 'among other curiosities, contain this question--'Can any\none have the presumption to say these savage pagans have yielded\nanything more than an inconsiderable recompense to their benefactors, in\nsurrendering to them a little pitiful tract of this dirty sublunary\nplanet in exchange for a glorious inheritance hereafter.'\n\nSuch is the conceit as well as cruelty of men who imagine themselves the\nvicegerents and avengers of Deity. In His name they burn, and slay, and\nrob without compunction or remorse; nay, when like Sir Giles Overreach,\ntheir ears are pierced by widows cries, and undone orphans wash with\ntears their thresholds, they only think what 'tis to make themselves\nacceptable in the sight of God. Believing pious ends justify any means,\nthey glory in conduct the most repugnant to every principle of decency,\nequity, and humanity.\n\nIn the cathedral of Saragossa, is a magnificent tomb, raised, in honor\nof a famous inquisitor; around it are six pillars, to each of which is\nchained a Moor preparatory to his being burnt. And if additional\nevidence were needed of human folly, and stupid disposition, like dray\nhorses to go perpetually, on 'one's nose in t'others tail,' we have it\nin the astounding fact, that when the Spanish Cortes proposed the\nabolition of the Inquisition, the populace of Spain considered such\nproposal, 'an infringement of their liberties.' [78:1] We have it on\nrespectable authority, that Torquemada in the space of fourteen years\nthat he wielded the chief inquisitorial powers, robbed, or otherwise\npersecuted eighty thousand persons, of whom about six thousand were\ncommitted to the flames.\n\nInquisitors made no secret of their hatred towards heretics; to destroy\nthem they considered a sacred duty. Far from ashamed of their cruelty\ntowards heretics, they gloried in it, as undeniable evidence of their\nenthusiasm in the cause of Christ. Simoncas, one of their most esteemed\nwriters, said, 'the heretics deserve not merely one death, but many\ndeaths; because a single death is the punishment of an ordinary heretic;\nbut these (the heretics) are deserving of punishment without mercy, and\nparticularly the teachers of the Lutheran heresy, who must by no means\nbe spared.' Pegma, another of their writers, insists, that dogmatical\nheretics should be punished with death, even though they gave the most\nunequivocal proof of their repentance.\n\nThat eminently pious monarch, Phillip the Second of Spain, so loved to\nhear heretics groan, that he rarely missed Auto da Fes; at one of which\nseveral distinguished persons were to be burnt for heresy; among the\nrest Don John de Cesa, who while passing by him, said,' Sire, how can\nyou permit so many unfortunate persons to suffer? How can you be witness\nof so horrid a sight without shuddering?' Phillip coolly replied, 'If my\nson, sir, were suspected of heresy, I should myself hand him over to the\nInquisition.' 'My detestation,' continued he, 'of you and your\ncompanions is so great, that I would act myself as your executioner, if\nno other could be found.'\n\nPhillip the Fifth, as may be seen in Coxe's Memoirs of the Kings of\nSpain, 'presented about the year 1172, three standards taken from\n'infidels' to our lady of Atocha; and sent another to the Pope, as the\ngrateful homage of the Catholic King to the head of the Church. He also,\nfor the first time, attended the celebration of an Auto da Fe, at which\nin the commencement of his reign he had refused with horror to appear,\nand witnessed the barbarous ceremony of committing twelve Jews and\nMohammedans to the flames.' So great during times inclined to religion\nwas inquisitorial power, that monarchs and statesmen of liberal\ntendencies were constrained to quail before it. It is related that a\nJewish girl, entered into her seventeenth year, extremely beautiful, who\nin a public _act of faith_, at Madrid, June 30th, 1680, together with\ntwenty others of the same nation of both sexes, being condemned to the\nstake, turned herself to the Queen of Spain, then present, and prayed,\nthat out of her goodness and clemency she might be delivered from the\ndreadful punishment of the fire. 'Great Queen,' said she, 'is not your\npresence able to bring me some comfort under my misery? Consider my\nyouth, and that I am condemned for a religion which I have sucked in\nwith my mother's milk.' The Queen turned away her eyes, declaring, she\npitied the miserable creature, but did not dare to intercede for her\nwith a single word.\n\nNot only have Roman Catholic writers defended these inquisitorial\nabominations, but, with what every Protestant must needs consider daring\nand blasphemous impiety, laboured to prove that the first Inquisitor was\nGod himself. Luis de Paramo, for instance, in his book 'De Origine et\nProgressu Officii Sanctoe Inquisitionis, ejusque dignitate et\nutilitate,' proves God to be the first Inquisitor, and that in the\nGarden of Eden was the first auto da fe.\n\nNor do these most pious casuists discover anything in Scripture which\nforbids the burning of heretics, notwithstanding such texts as\n'Whosoever sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed,' which\nthey contend inquisitors do never violate the true meaning or spirit of,\nit being evident that to burn men is not to shed their blood--thus\neluding the maxim Ecclesia non novit sanguinem. And if their right to\nburn heretics was questioned they triumphantly cited the text (as given\nin the 'Beehive' of the Romish Church) 'Whosoever doth not abide in me,\nshall be cast out of the vineyard as a branch and there wither; and men\ngather those branches and cast them into the fire and burn them.'\n\nOn this text John Andreas, Panormitamis, Hostraensii, Bernardus\nLeizenburgen, and others of the Roman Catholic casuists built up their\nproof that heretics, like grape branches, should be cast into the fire\nand burnt.\n\nThe execrable duplicity of these men is by Protestant priests made the\ntheme of unsparing invective, as if the burning of heretics and its\njustification by Scripture were crimes peculiar to Roman Catholics, when\nin point of fact both have been shamelessly committed by Christians\nrejoicing in the name of Protestants. John Calvin burnt Servetus, and\nRobert Hall, as we have seen, applauded the act. England, to say nothing\nof other countries, has had its auto da fe, as well since as before the\nReformation. Heretics were first made bonfires of in England during the\nreign of Henry the Fourth, who permitted the abomination in order to\nplease certain bishops he was under obligation to for assisting him to\ndepose Richard the Second and usurp his throne. But that the practice of\ncommitting heretics to the flame prevailed in England long after Popery\nceased to be the dominant religion is notorious. If heretics were thus\nsacrificed by Henry the Fourth to please Popish Bishops, they were also\nsacrificed by Elizabeth with a view to the satisfaction of Protestant\nBishops. Cranmer literally compelled her brother, the amiable Edward, to\nsend a half crazed woman named Joan Boacher to the stake. Elizabeth\nherself caused two Dutch Anabaptists to be burnt in Smithfield, though\nit is but just to admit that, unlike her sullen sister, she preferred\nrather to hang than to burn heretics. Lord Brougham has recently done\nmankind another valuable piece of service by painting the portrait of\nthat Protestant princess in colours at once so lively and faithful that\nnone, save the lovers of vulgar fanaticism and murderous hypocrisy, will\ngaze on it without horror. [81:1]\n\n'Mary, honoured with the title of \"bloody,\" appears to me a far more\nestimable character than her ripping-up sister Elizabeth, who, when\nMary, on her death-bed, asked her for a real avowal of her religion,\n\"prayed God\" that the earth might open and swallow her up if she was not\na true Roman Catholic.' She made the same declaration to the Duke of\nFerria, the Spanish Ambassador, who was so deceived that he wrote to\nPhilip, stating no change in religious matters would take place on her\naccession, and soon afterwards began ripping up the bellies of\nCatholics. That was quite the fashionable punishment in this and the\nsucceeding reign. I have the account, with names, dates, and reference\nof no less than 101 more Catholics who were burnt, hung, ripped up, &c.,\nby Elizabeth, and on to Charles the Second's end, than there were\nProtestants in Mary's, and all the reigns which preceded her, letting\nlying Fox count all he has got. Elizabeth, too, was by law a bastard,\nand is to this day; and so soon did her intentions appear of changing\nthe religion, that all the bishops but one refused to crown her; and\nwhen this was done, it was by the Catholic ritual. However the\nAct-of-Parliament religion was set up again; the prayer book of Cranmer\nwas set up again, after sundry alterations: it was altered too, in\nEdward's reign, yet when first made, it was duly declared to come from\nthe 'Holy Ghost;' so it was after its second polishing under Elizabeth.\nTo refuse the Queen's supremacy was death; it was death to continue in\nthat religion, which, at her coronation she had sworn to firmly believe\nand defend. It was high treason to admit or harbour, or relieve a\npriest, and hosts of these were ripped up, for, in the piety of their\nhearts, risking all to afford the consolations of their religion to the\nCatholics of England. Victim after victim came to the sacrifice, mostly\nfrom the college of Douay. It is really horrible to read of these good\nand faithful champions of their religion being hung, cut down\ninstantaneously, their bellies ripped up, their hearts cut out, their\nbodies chopped in pieces with every insult and indignity added to\ninjury, all through this reign, and then to be talked to about 'bloody\nMary,' and the 'Good Queen-Bess.' Verily, countrymen, you are vilely\ndeceived. Taking into account the rippings, and burnings, and roastings,\nand hanging; the racks, whips, fines, imprisonments, and other horrors\nof the reign of this 'Good Bess,' there was a hundred times more human\nmisery inflicted in her reign than in that of' Bloody Mary.' [82:1]\n\nThe second Catherine of Russia, though remarkable for rigid and\nscrupulous adherence to the ceremonial mummeries of her 'true church,'\nwas at the same time as remarkable for liberality of sentiment. It is\nsaid, that upon a certain occasion, being strongly advised by her\nministers to deal out severe punishment on some heretics of Atheistical\ntendencies, who had given offence by rather freely expressing their\nopinions, she laughingly said, 'Oh, fie, gentlemen fie, if these\nheretics are to be eternally miserable in the other world, we really\nought to let them be comfortable in this.'\n\nFew religious persons are liberal as this empress, whose strong good\nsense seems to have been fully a match for her bad education: that\neducation was Christian. She was taught to loathe the opinions, aye, and\nthe persons, of heretics, under which denomination may be included all\ndissenters from religious truth as it was in her, or rather in the\nchurch of which she was chief member. No other kind of teaching is\naccounted orthodox in our 'land of Bibles' than that of state paid\npriests of law established religion. Look at the true Church of\nEngland's Thirty-Nine Articles. Do they not abound in anathema, and\nliterally teem with the venom of intolerance? Do they not shock the\nbetter feelings even of those who believe them divine? The truth is, all\npriests teach religion which no wit can reconcile with reason, and very\nmany of them make their followers believe, and perhaps believe\nthemselves, that to villify, abuse, and hunt down 'infidels,' are acts\nacceptable in the sight of God. The idea of compensating poor\nunbelievers in this world by an extra quantum of comfort for the\ntorments they are doomed to suffer in the next, never enters their head.\nIndeed, not a few of them gloat with satisfaction over the prospect of\n'infidels' gnashing their teeth in that fiery gulph prepared for the\ndevil and his angels. By this odious class of fanatics neither the worm\nthat dieth not, nor the flame never to be extinguished, is deemed\nsufficient punishment for the wretch whose thoughts concerning religion\nare not as their thoughts. By them the imagined 'Creator of the Heavens\nand the earth' is dressed, up in attributes the most frightful. Witness\nthe character of Him implied in the conceit of that popular preacher who\ndeclared 'there are children in hell not a span long'--a declaration\nwhich could only be made by one whose humanity was extinguished by\ndivinity.\n\nOur pulpits can furnish many such preachers of 'a religion of charity,'\nwhile a whole army of Christian warriors might be gathered from\nmetropolitan pulpits alone, who deeming it impious to say their God of\nmercy would permit the burning of infants not a span long, do\nnevertheless, firmly believe that 'children of a larger growth' may\njustly be tormented by the great king of kings; and as _ignorantia legis\nnon excusat_ is a maxim of _human law_, so, according to them, ignorance\nof _divine_ law is no excuse whatever, either for breaking or\ndisregarding it.\n\nThe Author of this Apology was recently in Scotland, where a vast number\nof religious tracts were put into his hand, one of which contains the\nfollowing among other striking paragraphs:--\n\n'Man could, not _create_ himself, and far less can he save himself. When\nGod made him, he brought him out of nothing; when God. saves him, he\nbrings him out of a state far lower and worse than nothing. If in the\none case, then, everything depended, upon God's will and decree, much\nmore in the other. There can be no injustice here. Had God pleased, He\nmight have saved the whole world. But he did not; and thousands are now\nin hell, and shall be to all eternity.'\n\n'Hell is peopled already with millions of immortal souls doomed to fiery\nwrath; while Heaven is filled with ransomed sinners as vile, yea perhaps\nviler than they.' [83:1]\n\nIf the writer of this horrid nonsense do not blaspheme, there surely can\nbe no possibility of blaspheming. If he do not impute to his God of\nmercy cruelty and injustice the most monstrous that can enter into human\nconception, all language is void of meaning, and men had far better\ncease 'civilising,' and betake themselves to woods and wilds and\nfastnesses, to enjoy the state of mere brutishness so infinitely\npreferable to that _reasonable_ state in which they are shaken and\nmaddened by terrible dreams of a vengeful cruel God.\n\n                           Better be with the dead\n          Than on the tortures of the mind to lie\n          In restless ecstacy.\n\nBetter, far better, roam the desert or the forest like any other brutes,\nthan educate ourselves and others into the monstrous belief in a God who\nmight have saved the world and would not; who predestinates to endless\nand unutterable agonies; who has with the one hand peopled Hell with\nmillions of immortal creatures, while with the other has filled Heaven\nwith millions of ransomed sinners, as vile, yea perhaps viler than they.\n\nIn justice however to the large class of Christians under the despotic\nand truly lamentable influence of this belief, the Author is bound to\nadmit that they are far more consistent and logical in their notions of\nDeity than perhaps any other section of Theists, for it cannot properly\nbe denied that the doctrine of an Omnipotent and Prescient God destroys\nall distinction of virtue and vice, justice and injustice, right and\nwrong, among men. Let the omnipotency and prescience of a First Cause be\ngranted, the corollary of 'whatever is, is right,' is one of the most\nobvious that can flow from any proposition: the distance of any link in\nthe eternal sequence cannot lessen the connection with a First Cause,\nadmitting its Omnipotency and Prescience.\n\nThe author of these detestable paragraphs admits both. He is a rigid\nPredestinarian, which no one can be who doubts the all powerfulness or\nforeknowledge of that God whom Christians worship. Taking Scripture as\nhis guide, the Predestinarian must needs believe some are foredoomed to\nHell, and some to Hell, irrespective of all merit; it being manifestly\nabsurd to suppose one man can deserve more or less than another, in a\nworld, where all are compelled to believe, feel, and act, as they do\nbelieve, feel, and act. The disgrace attached to the memory of Judas,\nsupposing him really to have betrayed his Divine Master, has no\nfoundation in human justice, for 'surely as the Lord liveth,' he was\nforedoomed, and therefore compelled to betray him. Luther saw that\ntruth, and had the good sense to avow it. No more rational or just are\nthe denunciations of Judas than those so unsparingly heaped upon the\nJews for crucifying the Redeemer of the world, when every body must, or\nat least, should know, that admitting the world's redemption depended\nupon the Crucifixion of Christ, if the Jews had _not_ crucified him the\nworld could not have been redeemed. So far then from blackguarding Judas\nand the Jews for doing, what in the Gospel they are represented to have\ndone, we should consider them rather as martyrs in the cause of Divine\nProvidence than as villains worthy only of abhorrence and execration. To\nthe Author of this Apology it seems certain that if there is a God, such\nas the Christian delighteth to honour, nothing happens, nothing has\nhappened, nothing can happen contrary to His will. And is it not absurd\nto say that what He pre-ordains mere mortals can hinder coming to pass?\nEven the Devil, believed in by Christians, is a creature--how then could\nhe be anything else than the Creator thought fit to make him? Grant he\nis the Father of Lies, and then he will appear worthy of compassion, if\nyou reflect that he was made so by the Father of Truth. In the Tract to\nwhich such special reference has been made, it is contended that Adam\nwas made not because he chose to be made, but because God chose to make\nhim, and surely the same may be contended on the part of Judas, the\nJews, and last, though, assuredly, not least, the Devil himself. He who\nis without God cannot run into absurdities and blasphemies like these,\nwhereas he who is with one cannot keep clear of them. If consistent he\nmust clothe Him with Calvinistic attributes. To present Him stripped of\nforeknowledge, or omnipotency would outrage all just conception of that\n'Immense Being' who brought his worshippers out of nothing. And yet if\nwe allow him these attributes there is no help for us, headlong we go\ninto the dark and fathomless doctrine of predestination, than which no\nreligious doctrine is so consistent or so revolting. Receive it, and at\nonce you find yourself bound heart and brain to belief in a supernatural\nMONSTER--'a vengeful, pitiless, and Almighty Fiend, whose mercies are a\nnickname for the rage of hungry tigers.'\n\nThe believers in this terrible offspring of heated imagination,\nnaturally aim at imitating, and thus rendering themselves acceptable, to\nHim. Here is the source, whence for ages have flowed the bitter waters\nof religious intolerance. If Calvin had not worshipped a cruel God, he\nnever could have hoped to please Him by the murder of Servetius. If\nCranmer had wanted lively faith in a God who people's Hell 'with\nmillions of immortal souls,' he never would have brought Joan Bocher to\nthe stake. Full of that Christian zeal, so 'apt to tarn sour,' these men\nlived like the hermit Honorius, 'in hopes of gaining heaven by making\nearth a hell.'\n\nThe savage bigotry of an Elizabeth or a Mary, naturally resulted from\nthe notion that monarchs unquestionably ruling by Divine right, were\ncalled upon by every earthly, as well as heavenly consideration, to\nprove their zeal in the cause of God, by destroying His adversaries.\nHeretics have been consigned to dungeon and to name, for His glory, and\nHis satisfaction. All inquisitors from St. Dominic downward, have\nindignantly repelled the charge that they have punished heretics just to\nglut their own appetite for cruelty. Worshippers of a God who saith,\n'vengeance is mine,' they have felt themselves mere instruments in His\nhands; of themselves, and for themselves, they did nothing; all was for\nGod. To please Him, the Jew and the Heretic shrieked amid the flames.\nThey are not ashamed, why should they? to perform His behests. When the\nlate Duke of York was about to leave Lisbon, its Inquisitor-General\nwaited upon him, with a humble request that he would delay his departure\nfor a few days, in order to make one at an Auto da Fe, where it was\nkindly promised, some Jews should be burnt for his diversion: so cruel\nand so blind are the superstitious.\n\nQueen Mary has long been the mark at which our most eloquent Protestant\nDivines have aimed their shafts, while of her no less 'bloody' sister's\nreputation, they have been most watchful and tender. With respect to\n_her_ persecution of heretics, they preserve a death-like silence. Fear\nof damaging Protestantism deters them from exposing the enormous\nabomination of Protestant monarchs. Against the bigotry of Catholics\nthey hurl the fiercest denunciations; but if called upon to denounce as\nfiercely the bigotry of Protestants, they make us understand 'the case\nbeing altered, that alters the case.' A Popish Inquisition they abhor,\nbut see no evil in Inquisitions of their own. Smithfield Auto da Fe's,\naccording to these consistent Christians, were wrong during the reign of\nMary, and right during the reign of her pious sister, 'Good Queen Bess.'\nSuch is the justice of superstition. Its votaries knowing themselves the\nfavoured of heaven, feel privileged to outrage and trample under foot\nthe great principles of sense, propriety, and honour. Between Catholics\nand Protestants as regards these principles there is little to\ndistinguish; for in the race of abomination, they have kept pretty\nnearly neck and neck. The author of this Apology has no sympathy with\neither, but of the two much prefers Popery. There is about it a breadth\nof purpose, a grandeur, and a potency which excites some respect, even\nin the breast of an enemy. Unreasonable it assuredly is, but Christians\nwho object to it on that ground, may be told--religion was never meant\nto be reasonable; and that an appeal to rational principles will as\nlittle avail one religion as another, as little avail Protestant as\nRoman Catholic faith. All religion is unreasonable, and, moreover, to\nrationalize would be to destroy it. Hobbes could discover nothing in\nsuperstition essentially different from religion, nor can we. He deemed\ntrue religion as the religion which is fashionable, and superstition as\nthe religion which is not fashionable.\n\nSo do we, so do all absolute Atheists. The notion that false religion\nimplies the true, just as base coin implies the pure, will have weight\nwith those, and only those, who cannot detect the sophistry of an\nargument _a rubii toto caelo differentibus_; or in plain English, from\nthings entirely different presumed to be similar. Between coin and\nreligion there is no precise analogy. False coin implies true coin,\nbecause none are sceptical as to the reality of true coin, but false\nreligion does not necessarily imply true religion, because the reality\nof true religion is not only questionable, but questioned. It is not\nusual for money-dealers to be at issue as to the quality of their cash.\nThe genuine article will stand the test, and always passes muster. A\npractised ear can easily decide between the rival claims of two\nhalf-crowns, one genuine, the other spurious, thrown upon a tradesman's\ncounter. But where are the scales in which we can weigh to a nicety true\nand false religions? Where is the ear so well practised and so\ndelicately sensitive as to distinguish the true from the 'number without\nnumber' of false voices raised in their behalf? Where the eye so\nperfectly theologic, so sharp, piercing, and free of that film called\nprejudice, as to see which of our religions is the genuine article? All\nare agreed as to the genuineness of current money. All are at 'daggers\ndrawn' as to the genuineness of any one religion. That Christianity is\ntrue no Christian denies, but which is the true Christianity _has not_\nand we think _cannot_ be determined.\n\nThe knot of old fashioned politicians who call themselves Young England,\nare enamoured of 'graceful superstition.' Alarmed at the march of\nreason, and admirers of 'blind faith in mystery,' they sigh for a\nrenewal of those times when no one doubted the propriety of drowning\nwitches, or being touched for the king's evil. _Cui bono_ is the\nquestion repeatedly put to the proselytising Atheist by this modern\nantique class of persons, who cannot see the utility of destroying the\nvital principle of all religions. But if that principle is false, no\nsane man can doubt the expediency of proving it so. Falsehood may be\nuseful to individuals, but cannot tend to the moral and political\nadvancement of nations. Apologists of error find the presumed unfitness\nof their fellow creatures to appreciate truth a sufficient reason for\nnot teaching it. To raise up the populace to their own intellectual\nlevel they deem impracticable, and therefore speak down to their lowest\npassions and prejudices: like Varro they contend there are some truths\nthe vulgar had better think falsehoods, and many falsehoods they had\nbetter think truths. The consequences of such 'moral swindling' are\neverywhere visible: on all sides superstition, wild, unreasoning,\nsenseless superstition rears its hateful front, and vomits forth\nanathema on the friend of progress, humanity, and social justice. Look\nat Ireland: see to what a Pandaemonium superstition has converted 'the\nfirst flower of the land and first gem of the sea.' In that unhappy\ncountry may be seen seven or eight millions of people cheated, willingly\ndefrauded of their substance, by a handful of designing priests, who,\ndead to shame, erect the most stupid credulity into exalted virtue\n--battle in support of ignorance because knowledge is incompatible with\ntheir 'blood-cemented pyramid of greatness,' and to aggrandise\nthemselves, perpetuate the vilest as well as most palpable delusions\nthat ever assumed the mask of divine truth. Daniel O'Connell may object\nto have them called 'surpliced ruffians,' not so the philosopher, who\nsees in pious fraud on a gigantic scale, the worst species of ruffianism\nthat ever disgraced the earth.\n\nThese are no new tangled or undigested notions. From age to age the\nwisest among men have abhorred and denounced superstition. It is true\nthat only a small section of them treated religion as if _necessarily_\nsuperstition, or went quite so far as John Adams, who said, _this would\nbe the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it_. But\nan attentive reading of ancient and modern philosophical books has\nsatisfied the Author of this Apology that through all recorded time,\nreligion has been _tolerated_ rather than _loved_ by great thinkers, who\nhad _will_, but not _power_ to wage successful war upon it. Gibbon\nspeaks of Pagan priests who, 'under sacerdotal robes, concealed the\nheart of an Atheist.' Now, these priests were also the philosophers of\nRome, and it is not impossible that some modern philosophical priests,\nlike their Pagan prototypes, secretly despise the religion they openly\nprofess. Avarice, and lust of power, are potent underminers of human\nvirtue. The mighty genius of Bacon was not proof against them, and he\nwho deserves to occupy a place among 'the wisest and greatest' has been\n'damned to eternal fame' as the, 'meanest of mankind.'\n\nNor are avarice and lust of power the only base passions under the\ninfluence of which men, great in intellect, have given the lie to their\nown convictions, by calling that religion which they knew to be rank\nsuperstition. Fear of punishment for writing truth is the grand cause\nwhy their books contain so little of it. If Bacon had openly treated\nChristianity as mere superstition, will any one say that his life would\nhave been worth twenty-four hours purchase. He lived at a time when\nheresy, to say nothing of Atheism, was _rewarded_ with death. Bacon was\nnot the man to be ambitious of such a reward. Few great geniuses are.\nPhilosophers seldom covet martyrdom, and hence it came to pass that few\nof them would run the terrible risk of provoking bigotted authority by\nthe 'truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth' concerning\nreligion. In our own day the smell of a faggot would be too much for the\nnostrils of, that still unamiable but somewhat improved animal, called\nthe public. One delightful as well as natural consequence is, that\nphilosophical writers do ever and anon deal much more freely with\nreligion than its professors are _disposed_, though _compelled_, to\ntolerate. But, even now, with all our boasted liberty of conscience, not\none in one thousand of those who _think_ truth about religion dare\nexpress it. Philosophy still exhibits, in deference to popular prejudice\nand fanaticism, what the great French maximist defined as 'the\nhomage that vice pays to virtue.' Such is the rule to which, most\nfortunately for the pause of truth, there are many, and some splendid,\nexceptions. One of these is worth citing not only because of its\nintrinsic merit, but because the thing to be cited includes an opinion\nof religion, and a marked distinction between what is _pious_ and what\nis honest, that calls for especial notice. The exception referred to is\na paragraph from a paper on Saint Simonianism, written by Colonel\nThompson, and originally published in the Westminster Review, of April\n1, 1832, containing these remarkable words:--'The world wants _honest_\nlaw-givers, not pious ones. If piety will make men honest, let them\nfavour us with the honesty and keep the piety for God and their own\nconsciences. There never was a man that brought piety upon the board\nwhen honesty would do, without its being possible to trace a transfusion\nin the shape of money or money's worth, from his neighbour's pocket into\nhis. The object of puzzling the question with religion is clear. You\ncannot quarrel for sixpences with the man who is helping you the way to\nheaven. The man who wants your sixpences, therefore, assumes a religious\nphraseology, which is cant, and cant is fraud, and fraud is dishonesty,\nand the dishonest should have a mark set on them.'\n\nThere is an old story about a certain lady who said to her physician,\n'Doctor, what is your religion?' 'My religion, madam,' replied the\nDoctor, 'is the religion of all sensible men.' 'What kind of religion is\nthat?' said the lady. 'The religion, madam,' quoth the Doctor, 'that no\nsensible man will tell.'\n\nThis doctor may be taken as a type of the class of shrewd people who\ndespise religion, but will say nothing about it, lest by so doing they\ngive a shock to prejudice, and thus put in peril certain professional or\nother emoluments. Too sensible to be pious, and too cautious to be\nhonest, they must be extremely well paid ere they will incur the risk\nattendant upon a confession of irreligious faith. Like Colonel Thompson,\nthey know the world needs _honest_ lawgivers not pious ones, but unlike\nhim, they won't say so. Animated by a vile spirit of accommodation,\ntheir whole sum of practical wisdom can be told in four words--BE SILENT\nAND SAFE. They are amazed at the 'folly' of those who make sacrifices at\nthe shrine of sincerity; and while sagacious enough to perceive that\nreligion is a clumsy political contrivance, are not wanting in the\nprudence which dictates at least a warning conformity to prevailing\nprejudices.\n\nNone have done more to perpetuate error than these time serving 'men of\nthe world,' for instead of boldly attacking it, they preserve a prudent\nsilence which bigots do not fail to interpret as consent. Mosheim says,\n[90:1] 'The simplicity and ignorance of the generality in those times\n(fifth century) furnished the most favourable occasion for the exercise\nof fraud; and the impudence of imposters, in contriving false miracles,\nwas artfully proportioned to the credulity of the vulgar; while the\nsagacious and the wise, who perceived these cheats, were overawed into\nsilence by the dangers that threatened their lives and fortunes, if they\nshould expose the artifice. Thus,' continues this author, 'does it\ngenerally happen, when danger attends the discovery and the profession\nof the truth, the prudent are _silent_, the multitude _believe_, and\nimpostors _triumph_.'\n\nBeausobre, too, in his learned, account of Manicheism reads a severe\nlesson to the 'sensible _dummies_, who, under the influence of such\npassions as _fear_ and _avarice_, will do nothing to check the march of\nsuperstition, or relieve their less 'sensible,' but more honest,\nfellow-creatures from the weight of its fetters. After alluding to an\nepistle written by that 'demi-philosopher,' Synesius, when offered by\nthe Patriarch the Bishopric of Ptolemais, [91:1] Beausobre says, 'We see\nin the history that I have related a kind of hypocrisy, which, perhaps,\nhas been far too common in all times. It is that of ecclesiastics, who\nnot only do not say what they think, but the reverse of what they think.\nPhilosophers in their closet, when out of them they are content with\nfables, though they know well they are fables. They do more; they\ndeliver to the executioner the excellent men who have said it. How many\nAtheists and profane persons have brought holy men to the stake under\nthe pretext of heresy? Every day, hypocrites consecrate the host and\ncause it to be adored, although firmly convinced as I am that it is\nnothing more than a piece of bread.'\n\nWhatever may be urged in defence of such execrable duplicity, there can\nbe no question as to its anti-progressive tendency. The majority of men\nare fools, and if such 'sensible' politicians as our Doctor and the\ndouble doctrinising persecuting ecclesiastics, for whose portraits we\nare indebted to Mosheim and Beausobre, shall have the teaching of them,\nfools they are sure to remain. Men who dare not be 'mentally faithful'\nto themselves may obstruct, but cannot advance the interests of truth.\nColonel Thompson is right. In legislation, in law, in all the relations\nof life, we want _honesty_, not piety. There is plenty of piety, and to\nspare, but of honesty--sterling, bold, uncompromising honesty--even the\nbest regulated societies can boast a very small stock. The men best\nqualified to raise the veil under which truth lies concealed from vulgar\ngaze, are precisely the men who fear to do it. Oh, shame upon ye\nself-styled philosophers, who in your closets laugh at 'our holy\nreligion,' and in your churches do them reverence. Were your bosoms\nwarmed by one spark of generous wisdom, _silence_ on the question of\nreligion would be broken, the multitude cease to _believe_, and\nimposters to _triumph_. But the desire to enlighten others is lost in\nregard for yourselves, and what Mrs. Grundy may say, is sufficient to\nfrighten ye from the enunciation truth.\n\nIs superstition no evil? Is there nothing hateful, nothing against which\nunceasing war should be waged, in the degradation of those unhappy\npersons who worship idols of their own imagination? Can error be fraught\nwith good and truth with evil, that we should shrink from doing justice\nto both? Everywhere are learnedly ignorant or basely cunning men, who\nwould scare us from dealing with religious error, as all error deserves\nto be dealt with, by high-sounding jargon about the danger of freeing\nvulgar minds from the wholesome restraints of certain antiquated\nbeliefs. Themselves essentially vulgar by habit and in feeling, their\nestimate of human tendencies is of the meanest, the most grovelling\ndescription. Measuring the _chaff_ of other men by their own bushel,\nthey arrive at the pious but false conclusion that without fear of God\nthere can be no genuine love of man, and that without faith in some one\nof our five hundred and odd true religions, all the thoughts of our\nhearts would be evil continually. They insist upon it that the 'absolute\nAtheist,' if virtuous, is so by accident not design; that he can neither\nlove truth, justice, nor his neighbour, except by sheer luck, and that,\nif bad as his principles, would cut the throat of every man, woman, and\nchild who might have the misfortune to fall in his way. They argue as if\nnone can think good thoughts or purposely perform good acts unless so\nfar eaten up by superstition as always to keep in view the probable\n_rewards_, or equally probable _vengeance_ of some supernatural Being.\nFaith in human goodness, irrespective of reward and punishment, either\nhere or hereafter, sophists of this bigotted class have literally none.\nInfluenced by fanaticism and stimulated by cupidity they let slip no\nopportunity of dealing out upon such as oppose their hideous doctrines\nthe choicest sort of vituperative blackguardism. The reader knows this\nis no idle or ill-considered charge. He has seen at the commencement of\nthis Apology verbatim extracts, affecting the moral character of\nAtheists, from books written by pious Christians, so utterly disgusting\nthat only those in whom every sense of delicacy, truth, and justice has\nbeen obliterated, by a worse than savage creed, can peruse them without\nhorror.\n\nNot inaptly, we conceive, has religion been likened to a madman's robe,\nfor the least puff of reason parts it and shows the wearer's nakedness.\nThis view of religion explains the otherwise inexplicable fact that\neminent piety is usually associated with eminent imbecility. Such men as\nNewton, Locke, and Bacon are not remembered and reverenced on account of\ntheir faith. By all but peddling narrow-thoughted bigots they are held\nin honour for their science, their matter-of-fact philosophy; not their\npuerile conceits about 'airy nothings,' to which half crazed\nsupernaturalists have assigned 'a local habitation and a name.' Lord\nBacon laid down principles so remote from pious, that no man can\nunderstand and philosophise in strict accordance with them, if he fears\nto embrace Atheism. From his _Novum Organum Scientiarum_ may be\nextracted an antidote to the poison of superstition, for it is there we\nare told that _aiming at divine things through the human, breeds only an\nodd mixture of imaginations_. There we are told that _Man, the servant\nand interpreter of Nature, can only understand and act in proportion as\nhe observes or contemplates the order of nature--more he cannot do._\nThere too is set down the wise lesson that truth is justly to be called\nthe daughter, not of Authority, but Time. Bacon abhorred superstition.\nHe denounced it as the 'confusion of many states,' and for a 'religious\nphilosopher' wrote most liberally of Atheism. No one who has read his\nEssay on Superstition can doubt that he thought it a far greater evil\nthan Atheism. Any man who should now write as favourably of Godlessness\nwould be suspected of a latitudinarianism quite inimical to the genius\nand spirit of 'true religion.' The orthodox much prefer false piety to\nno piety at all. Mere honesty does not satisfy them. They insist on\nfaith in their chimerical doctrines and systems, as 'the basis of all\nexcellence.' To please them we must sacrifice truth as it is in Nature,\nat the shrine of truth as it is in Jesus, and believe what derives no\nsanction from experience. Bacon taught us to 'interpret nature,' and\nthat 'aiming at the divine through the human breeds only an odd mixture\nof imaginations;' but these hair-brained fanatics who would have us\nbelieve him _one of them_, care little for natural knowledge, and affect\ncontempt for all that concerns most intimately our 'earthly\ntabernacles.' Bacon taught us to _consider as suspicious every relation,\nwhich depends in any degree upon religion_, [93:1] but wiser than that\n'wisest of mankind,' our _real_ Christians execrate such teaching, and\nwill have nothing _good_ to do with those who walk in the light and\nhonestly act in the spirit of it. How dare they then pretend to\nsympathise with the opinions of Bacon? It is true he announced himself\nwilling to swallow all the fables of the Talmud or the Koran, rather\nthan believe this Almighty frame without a Mind; but who is now prepared\nto determine the precise sense in which our illustrious philosopher used\nthe words 'without a mind.' We believe his own interpretation altogether\nunchristian. 'To palter in a double sense' has ever been the practice of\nphilosophers who, like Bacon, knew more than they found it discreet to\nutter. But with all their discretion, Locke, Milton, and even Newton did\nnot succeed in establishing an orthodox reputation. The passages from\nLocke given in this Apology do at least warrant our opinion that it may\nfairly be doubted whether he was either a Christian or a Theist. Had he\nbeen disposed to avow Atheistical sentiments, he could not have done so,\nexcept at the imminent hazard of his life. Speculative philosophers do\nnot usually covet the crown of martyrdom, and are seldom unwilling to\nfling down a few religious sops to the Cerberus of popular bigotry. It\nwas the boast of Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemais, that when communing with\nhimself, he was always a philosopher, but when dealing with the mass of\nmankind, he was always a priest. Who knows how far John Locke followed\nthe _safe_ example. That he was a materialist his writings prove; and\nevery far sighted Theist will admit that Atheism is the natural\ntermination of Materialism. John Locke may have been a devout believer\nin 'thingless names,' to which no merely human creature can attach clear\nand distinct ideas: he may have thought the Bible had one of the said\n'thingless names' for its author, salvation for its end, and truth\nwithout mixture of error for its matter; though very probable he\naffected such belief, to shield himself from persecution; but it is\nquite certain, and may be affirmed without injustice, that he should to\nhave professed Atheism; for his own rule of philosophising is\ninconsistent with belief in any thing supernatural. While living he was\noften charged with Atheism, by opponents who understood the tendencies\nof his philosophy better than he appeared to do himself. But the Author\nof this Apology has no such mean opinion of John Locke, as to suppose\nhim ignorant that Materialism, as he taught it, is totally\nirreconcileable with that God, and that Religion in which he professed\nto believe. Belief in inconceivable entities cannot be reconciled with\ndisbelief of all entities, save those of which we can frame clear and\ndistinct ideas. Nor is it easy to persuade oneself that Locke could so\nfar have done violence to his own principles as to feel 'lively faith'\nin a 'science' with no other aim, end, or ground-work, than 'the\nknowledge and attributes of the unknown.'\n\nBy a late writer in the Edinburgh Review, we are told that 'some of the\nopinions avowed by Milton,' were so 'heterodox,' as to have 'excited\nconsiderable amazement.' We can scarcely conceive, says this writer,\nthat any one could have read his Paradise Lost without suspecting him of\nheterodoxy; nor do we think that any reader acquainted with the history\nof his life, ought to be much startled by his opinions on marriage. The\nopinions which he expressed regarding the nature of the Deity, the\neternity of matter, and the observation of the Sabbath, might, we think,\nhave caused more just surprise. [95:1] Add to this good reader,\nDr. Johnson's statement, ('Lives of the Poets,' p. 134, Art. Milton,)\nthat in the distribution of his (Milton's) hours _there was no hour of\nprayer, either solitary or with his household_; and then come, if you\ncan, to the conclusion that he was a Christian.\n\nThe piety of Newton we are not prepared to dispute. It is certain he\nmanufactured for himself a God, inasmuch as to space he ascribed the\nhonor of being His sensorium. It is equally clear that he believed\nChristianity a divine system, inasmuch as he wrote, and rushed into\nprint with, a lot of exquisite nonsense about the exquisitely\nnonsensical Apocalypse. But we defy pietists to ferret out of his\nreligious writings, any argument in defence of religion, not absolutely\nbeneath contempt; the best of them are execrably bad--mere ravings of a\ndisordered and o'erwrought intellect. 'The sublime Newton,' said\nD'Holbach, 'is but a child when he quits physical science, to lose\nhimself in the imaginary regions of theology.' He failed, nevertheless,\nto achieve the favour, or escape the wrath, of thorough-going\ntheologians who were in ecstacies at his childishness, but bitterly\ndetested him, as they detested every man who had the audacity to open up\nnew, and widen old fields, of investigation; to reject chimera and hold\nfast by fact in the pursuit of knowledge, and to teach a series of\nscientific truths, no ability can reconcile with the philosophy (?) of\nJesus and Moses, who, according to wise Dr. Epps, never intended to\nteach man NATURAL SCIENCE, which he defines to be 'God in Creation;' but\n'came to teach, in referring to natural events, SCIENTIFIC UNTRUTHS.\n[95:2]\n\nThe Author hopes that the opinions here advanced in reference to what\nmay be named the Argument from 'Authority,' as contradistinguished from\n'Time,' will make obvious to Christians themselves, that it is an unsafe\nargument, an argument which, like the broken reed, not only fails, but\ncruelly wounds the hand that rests upon it. Much evidence _has been_,\nand much more _can be_ adduced to show that no prudent, well-informed\nChristian will say anything about the sanction lent to Christianity, or\nreligion of any sort, by the writings of Newton, Milton, Bacon, and\nLocke. By admirers of such sanction, (?) this, our Apology for Atheism\nwill, no doubt, be rejected with indignant contempt, but we venture to\npredict for it better treatment at the hands of those who are convinced\nthat _untruth_ can no more be _scientific_, than truth can be\n_unscientific_, and that belief, whether in the God of Nature, the God\nof Scripture, or the Scripture itself, opposed to Philosophy, must needs\nbe opposed to Reason and Experience.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[ENDNOTES]\n\n\n[4:1] 25th of November, 1845.\n\n[5:1] Vide 'Time's' Commissioner's Letter on the Condition of Ireland,'\nNovember 28, 1843.\n\n[10:1] Essay 'of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy.'\n\n[11:1] See the Creeds of R. Owen and R. Carlile in No. 14 of the\nPromptor.\n\n[11:2] 'Essay of the Idea of Necessary Connexion.'\n\n[11:3] 'Essay of a Providence and a Future State.'\n\n[12:1] Critical remarks on Lord Brougham's 'Lives of Men of Letters and\nScience, who flourished in the time of George III.'--The Times,\nWednesday, October I, 1845.\n\n[13:1] History of American Savages.\n\n[13:2] Appendix the Second to 'Plutarchus and Theophrastus on\nSuperstition.'\n\n[13:3] Philosophy of History.\n\n[15:1] See a Notice of Lord Brougham's Political Philosophy, in the\nnumber for April, 1845.\n\n[20:1] 'Apology for the Bible,' page 133.\n\n[20:2] Unusquisque vestrum non cogitate prius se debere Deos nosse quam\ncolere.\n\n[27:1] See a curious 'Essay on Nature.' Printed for Badcock and Co., 2,\nQueen's Head Passage, Paternoster Row. 1807.\n\n[31:1] Elements of Materialism, chapter I.\n\n[32:1] Discussion on the Existence of God, between Origen Bachelor and\nRobert Dale Owen.\n\n[37:1] Answer to Dr. Priestly on the existence of God, by a\nPhilosophical Unbeliever.\n\n[40:1] Treatise on Human Nature.\n\n[41:1] This sexing is a stock receipt for mystification.--_Colonel Thompson._\n\n[44:1] The Rev. J.E. Smith.\n\n[46:1] 'An Address on Cerebral Physiology and Materialism,' delivered to\nthe Phrenological Association in London, June 20, 1842.\n\n[49:1] No 40 of 'The Shepherd.'\n\n[50:1] 'The Shepherd,' Vol. i., page 40.\n\n[52:1] Extracts from an able letter to the Editor of 'The Shepherd,' in\nNo. 23 of that periodical.\n\n[54:1] Novum Organon.\n\n[56:1] Principia Mathmatica, p. 528. Lond. edit., l726.\n\n[63:1] See a pamphlet, price Sixpence, entitled 'Paley refuted in his\nown words,' by G.J. Holyoake.'\n\n[63:2] Lessing.\n\n[64:1] See \"Extract from an unpublished work, entitled the 'Refutation\nof Deism,'\" by the late P.B. Shelley--given in the Model Republic of May\n1st, 1813.\n\n[68:1] 'Westminster Review' for May, 1843.\n\n[69:1] Lecture by the Rev. Hugh M'Neil, Minister of St. Jude's Church,\nLiverpool, delivered about seven years since, in presence of some 400 of\nthe Irish Protestant Clergy.\n\n[69:2] The necessary existence of Deity, by William Gillespie.\n\n[69:3] Page 105 of a Discussion on the Existence of God, between Origen\nBatchelor and R.D. Owen.\n\n[70:1] Quoted by Dr. Samuel Clarke, in his introduction to the Scripture\ndoctrine of the Trinity.\n\n[72:1] History of England, p. 51.\n\n[75:1] 'Dictionary of Conversions,' page 4.\n\n[76:1] Essay on Superstition.\n\n[77:1] See article 'Auto da Fe,' vol. i. of 'Recreative Review,'\npublished in 1821.\n\n[77:2] Act of Faith.\n\n[78:1] St. Foix observes, with respect to this tomb, that if the Jack\nKetch of any country should be rich enough to have a splendid tomb, this\nmight serve as an excellent model.\n\n[81:1] 'Lives of Men of Letters,' by Henry Lord Brougham.\n\n[82:1] Vol iii., page 593, 594, of 'A few hundred Bible Contradictions,\na Hunt after the Devil, and other odd matters.' By John P.Y., M.D.\n\n[83:1] No. 8 of J. Rutherford's Series of Tracts, and entitled 'Electing\nLove.'\n\n[90:1] Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. page 11.\n\n[91:1] 'Manicheisme,' tome ii, p. 568, 569.\n\n[93:1] Nov. Org., lib; ii. aph. 29.\n\n[95:1] See 'Edinburgh Review' containing a notice of Milton's 'De\nDoctrina Christiana.'\n\n[95:2] Page 55 of a Pamphlet entitled, 'The Devil.'","title":"An apology for atheism : $b addressed to religious investigators of every denomination by one of its apostles","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":39367}