{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_36268/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_36268","id":"gutenberg_36268","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36268","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Free thought","Heresy"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHERESY: ITS UTILITY AND MORALITY\n\nA PLEA AND A JUSTIFICATION\n\nBy Charles Bradlaugh\n\nLondon: Austin & Co., 17, Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, E.C.\n\nPrice Ninepence.\n\n\n\n\nHERESY: ITS MORALITY & UTILITY\n\nA PLEA and A JUSTIFICATION.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION\n\nWhat is heresy that it should be so heavily punished? Why is it that\nsociety will condone many offences, pardon many vicious practices, and\nyet have such scant mercy for the open heretic, who is treated as though\nhe were some horrid monster to be feared and hated? Most religionists,\ninstead of endeavouring with kindly thought to provide some solution\nfor the difficulties propounded by their heretical brethren,\nindiscriminately confound all inquirers \"in one common category of\ncensure; their views are dismissed with ridicule as sophistical and\nfallacious, abused as infinitely dangerous, themselves denounced as\nheretics and infidels, and libelled as scoffers and Atheists.\" With some\nreligonists all heretics are Atheists. With the Pope of Rome, Garibaldi\nand Mazzini are Atheists. With the Religious Tract Society, Voltaire\nand Paine were Atheists. Yet in neither of the above-named cases is\nthe allegation true. Voltaire and Paine were heretics, but both were\nTheists. Garibaldi and Mazzini are heretics, but neither of them is an\nAtheist. With few exceptions, the heretics of one generation become\nthe revered saints of a period less than twenty generations later. Lord\nBacon, in his own age, was charged with Atheism, Sir Isaac Newton with\nSocinianism, the famous Tillotson was actually charged with Atheism, and\nDr. Burnet wrote against the commonly received traditions of the fall\nand deluge. There are but few men of the past of whom the church\nboasts to-day, who have not at some time been pointed at as heretics\nby orthodox antagonists excited by party rancour. Heresy is in itself\nneither Atheism nor Theism, neither the rejection of the Church of Rome,\nnor of Canterbury, nor of Constantinople; heresy is not necessarily of\nany ist or ism. The heretic is one who has selected his own opinions, or\nwhose opinions are the result of some mental effort; and he differs from\nothers who are orthodox in this:--they hold opinions which are often\nonly the bequest of an earlier generation unquestioningly accepted; he\nhas escaped from the customary grooves of conventional acquiescence, and\nsought truth outside the channels sanctified by habit.\n\nMen and women who are orthodox are generally so for the same reason that\nthey are English or French--they were born in England or France,\nand cannot help the good or ill fortune of their birth-place. Their\northodoxy is no higher virtue than their nationality. Men are good and\ntrue of every nation and of every faith; but there are more good and\ntrue men in nations where civilisation has made progress, and amongst\nfaiths which have been modified by high humanising influences. Men are\ngood not because of their orthodoxy, but in spite of it; their goodness\nis the outgrowth of their humanity, not of their orthodoxy. Heresy is\nnecessary to progress; heresy in religion always precedes an endeavour\nfor political freedom. You cannot have effectual political progress\nwithout wide-spread heretical thought. Every grand political change in\nwhich the people have played an important part, has been preceded by the\npopularisation of heresy in the immediately earlier generations.\n\nFortunately, ignorant men cannot be real heretics, so that education\nmust be the hand-maiden to heresy. Ignorance and superstition are twin\nsisters. Belief too often means nothing more than prostration of the\nintellect on the threshold of the unknown. Heresy is the pioneer, erect\nand manly, striding over the forbidden line in his search for truth.\nHeterodoxy develops the intellect, orthodoxy smothers it. Heresy is the\nstar twinkle in the night, orthodoxy the cloud which hides this faint\ngleam of light from the weary travellers on life's encumbered pathway.\nOrthodoxy is well exemplified in the dark middle ages, when the mass of\nmen and women believed much and knew little, when miracles were common\nand schools were rare, and when the monasteries on the hill tops held\nthe literature of Europe. Heresy speaks for itself in this nineteenth\ncentury, with the gas and electric light, with cheap newspapers, with\na thousand lecture rooms, with innumerable libraries, and at least a\nmajority of the people able to read the thoughts the dead have left, as\nwell as to listen to the words the living utter.\n\nThe word heretic ought to be a term of honour; for honest, clearly\nuttered heresy is always virtuous, and this whether truth or error;\nyet it is not difficult to understand how the charge of heresy has\nbeen generally used as a means of exciting bad feeling. The Greek word\n[------] which is in fact our word heresy, signifies simply, selection\nor choice. The he etiq philosopher was the one who had searched and\nfound, who, not content with the beaten paths, had selected a new road,\nchosen a new fashion of travelling in the inarch for that happiness all\nhumankind are seeking.\n\nHeretics are usually called \"infidels,\" but no word could be more\nunfairly applied, if by it is meant anything more than that the heretic\ndoes not conform to the State Faith. If it meant those who do not\nprofess the faith, then there would be no objection, but it is more\noften used of those who are unfaithful, and then it is generally\na libel. Mahomedans and Christians both call Jews infidels, and\nMahomedans and Christians call each other infidels. Each religionist\nis thus an infidel to all sects but his own; there is but one degree\nof heresy between him and the heretic who rejects all churches. Each\nordinary orthodox man is a heretic to every religion in the world except\none, but he is heretic from the accident of birth without the virtue of\ntrue heresy.\n\nIn our own country heresy is not confined to the extreme platform\nadopted as a standing point by such a man as myself. It is rife even\nin the state-sustained Church of England, and to show this one does\nnot need to be content with such illustrations as are afforded by\nthe Essayists and Reviewers, who discover the sources of the world's\neducation rather in Greece and Italy than in Judea, who reject the\nalleged prophecies as evidence of the Messianic character of Jesus;\nwho admit that in nature and from nature, by science and by reason,\nwe neither have, nor can possibly have any evidence of a deity working\nmiracles; but declare that for that we must go out of nature and beyond\nscience, and in effect avow that Gospel miracles are always _objects_,\nnot _evidences_, of faith; who deny the necessity of faith in Jesus as\nsaviour to peoples Who could never have such faith; and who reject\nthe notion that all mankind are individually involved in the curse\nand perdition of Adam's sin; or even by the Rev. Charles Voysey, who\ndeclines to preach \"the God of the Bible,\" and who will not teach that\nevery word of the Old and New Testament is the word of God; or by the\nRev. Dunbar Heath, who in defiance of the Bible doctrine, that man has\nonly existed on the earth about 6,000 years, teaches that unnumbered\nchiliads have passed away since the human family commenced to play at\nnations on our earth; or by Bishop Colenso, who in his impeachment of\nthe Pentateuch, his denial of the literal truth of the narratives of\nthe creation, fall, and deluge, actually impugns the whole scheme of\nChristianity (if the foundation be false, the superstructure cannot be\ntrue); or by the Rev. Baden Powell, who declared \"that the whole tenor\nof geology is in entire contradiction to the cosmogony delivered from\nMount Sinai,\" and who denied a \"local heaven above and a local hell\nbeneath the earth;\" or by the Rev. Dr. Giles, who, not content with\npreceding Dr. Colenso in his assaults on the text of the Pentateuch,\nalso wrote as vigorously against the text of the New Testament; or\nby the Rev. Dr. Wall, who, unsatisfied with arguments against the\nadmittedly incorrect authorised translation of the Bible, actually wrote\nto prove that a new and corrected Hebrew text was necessary, the Hebrew\nitself being corrupt; or by the Rev. Dr. Irons, who teaches that not\nonly are the Gospel writers unknown, but that the very language in which\nJesus taught is yet to be discovered, who declares that prior to the\nEsraic period the literal history of the Old Testament is lost, who\ndoes not find the Trinity taught in Scripture, and who declares that\nthe Gospel dees not teach the doctrine of the Atonement; or by the\nlate Archbishop Whately, to whom is attributed a Latin pamphlet raising\nstrong objections against the truth of the alleged confusion of tongues\nat Babel.\n\nWe may fairly allege, that amongst thinking clergymen of the Church of\nEngland, heresy is the rule and not the exception. So soon as a\nminister begins to preach sermons which he does not buy ready\nlithographed--sermons which are the work of his brain--so soon heresy\nmore or less buds out, now in the rejection of some church doctrine or\narticle of minor importance, now in some bold declaration at variance\nwith major and more essential tenets. Even Bishop Watson's so famous for\nhis Bible Apology, declared that the church articles and creeds were\nnot binding on any man. \"They may be true, they may be false,\" he wrote.\nToday scores of Church of England clergymen openly protest against,\nor groan in silence under the enforced subscription of Thirty-nine\nunbelievable Articles. Sir William Hamilton declares that the heads of\nColleges at Oxford well knew that the man preparing for the Church \"will\nsubscribe Thirty-nine Articles which he cannot believe, who swears to\ndo and to have done a hundred articles which he cannot or does not\nperform.\"\n\nIn scientific circles the heresy of the most efficient members is\nstartlingly apparent. Against members of the Anthropological Society\ncharges of Atheism are freely levelled, and although such a charge does\nnot seem to be justified by any reports of their meetings, or by their\nprinted publications, it is clear that not only out of doors, but even\namongst their own circle it is felt that their researches conflict\nseriously with the Hebrew writ. The Society has been preached against\nand prayed against, and yet it is simply a society for discovering\neverything possible about man, prehistoric as well as modern. It has,\nhowever, an unpardonable vice in the eyes of the orthodox--it encourages\nthe utterance of facts without regard to their effect on faiths.\n\nThe Ethnological Society is kindred to the last named in many of its\nobjects, and hence some of its most active members have been direct\nassailants of the Hebrew Chronology, which, limits man's existence\nto the short space of 6,000 years; they have been deniers(sp.) of the\norigin of the human race from one pair, of the confusion of tongues\nat Babel, and of the reduction of the human race to one family by the\nNoachian deluge.\n\nGeological science has a crowd of heretics amongst its professors, men\nwho deny the sudden origin of fauna and flora; who trace the gradual\ndevelopment of the vegetable and animal kingdoms through vast periods of\ntime; and who find no resting place in a beginning of existence, but\nare obliged to halt in face of a measureless past, inconceivable in\nits grandeur. Geology, to quote the words of Dr. Kalisch, declares \"the\nutter impossibility of a creation of even the earth alone in six days.\"\nMr. Goodwin says in the \"Essays and Reviews:\" \"The school-books of the\npresent day, while they teach the child that the earth moves, yet assure\nhim that it is a little less than six thousand years old, and that it\nwas made in six days. On the other hand, geologists of all religious\ncreeds are agreed that the earth has existed for an immense series of\nyears--to be counted by millions rather than by thousands; and that\nindubitably more than six days elapsed from its first creation to the\nappearance of man upon its surface.\"\n\nAstronomy has in the ranks of its professors many of its most able minds\nwho do not believe in the sun and moon as two great lights, who cannot\naccept the myriad stars as fixed in the firmament solely to give light\nupon the earth, who refuse to believe in the heaven as a fixed firmament\nto divide the waters above from the waters beneath, who cannot by their\ntelescopes discover the local heaven above or the local hell beneath,\nalthough their science marks each faint nebulosity crossing, or\ncrossed by the range of the watcher's vision. To quote again from Mr.\nGoodwin:--\"On the revival of science in the sixteenth century, some of\nthe earliest conclusions at which philosophers arrived, were found to\nbe at variance with popular and long established belief. The Ptolemaic\nsystem of astronomy, which had then full possession of the minds of men,\ncontemplated the whole visible universe from the earth as the immovable\ncentre of things. Copernicus changed the point of view, and placing\nthe beholder in the sun, at once reduced the earth to an inconspicuous\nglobule, a merely subordinate member of a family of planets; which the\nterrestrials had, until then, fondly imagined to be but pendants and\nornaments of their own habitation. The Church, naturally, took a lively\ninterest in the disputes which arose between the philosophers ot the\nnew school, and those who adhered to the old doctrines, inasmuch as the\nHebrew records, the basis of religious faith, manifestly countenanced\nthe opinion of the earth's immobility, and certain other views of the\nuniverse, very incompatible with those propounded by Copernicus. Hence\narose the official proceedings against Galileo, in consequence of which\nhe submitted to sign his celebrated recantation, acknowledging that 'the\nproposition that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable from\nits place, is absurd, philosophically false, and formally heretical,\nbecause it is expressly contrary to the Scripture;' and that 'the\nproposition that the earth is not the centre of the world, nor\nimmovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is absurd,\nphilosophically false, and at least erroneous in faith.'\"\n\nWhy is it that society is so severe on heresy? Three hundred years ago\nit burned heretics, till thirty years ago it sent them to jail; even in\nEngland and America to-day it is content to harass, annoy, and slander\nthem. In the United States a candidate for the Governorship of a State,\nalthough otherwise admittedly eligible, was assailed bitterly for his\nsuspected Socinianism. Sir Sidney Waterlow, standing for a Scotch seat,\nwas sharply catechised as to when he had last been inside the Unitarian\nChapel, and only saved his seat by not too boldly avowing his opinions.\nLord Amberley, who was \"unwise\" enough to be honest in some of his\nanswers, did not obtain his seat for South Devon in consequence of the\nsuspicion of heresy excited against him. It is chiefly to the _odium\ntheologicum_ that Mr. Mill may attribute his rejection at Westminster;\nand it is supposed to have also damaged Sir John Lubbock in West Kent.\nI only refrain from enlarging on my own case, because I learn from the\nPress that it is chiefly the vulgarity and coarseness of my heresy with\nwhich they are indignant. To reply that I have sought to avoid being\ncoarse and vulgar is worse than useless, I am judged untried, condemned\nunheard; evidence is unnecessary in the case of a man who thus puts\nhimself outside the pale.\n\nSir William Drummond says, \"Early associations are generally the\nstrongest in the human mind, and what we have been taught to credit as\nchildren we are seldom, disposed to question as men. Called away from\nspeculative inquiries by the common business of life, men in general\npossess neither the inclination, nor the leisure to examine _what_ they\nbelieve or _why_ they believe. A powerful prejudice remains in the mind;\nensures conviction without the trouble of thinking; and repels doubt\nwithout the aid or authority of reason. The multitude then is not very\nlikely to applaud an author, who calls upon it to consider what it had\nhitherto neglected, and to stop where it had been accustomed to pass on.\nIt may also happen that there is a learned and formidable body, which,\nhaving given its general sanction to the literal interpretation of the\nHoly Scriptures, may be offended at the presumption of an unhallowed\nlayman, who ventures to hold, that the language of those Scriptures is\noften symbolical and allegorical, even in passages which both the Church\nand the Synagogue consider as nothing else than a plain statement of\nfact. A writer who had sufficient boldness to encounter such obstacles,\nand to make an appeal to the public, would only expose himself to\nthe invectives of offended bigotry, and to the misrepresentations of\ninterested malice. The press would be made to ring with declamations\nagainst him, and neither learning, nor argument, nor reason,\nnor moderation on his side, would protect him from the literary\nassassination which awaited him. In vain would he put on the\nheaven-tempered panoply of truth. The weapons which could neither pierce\nhis buckler nor break his casque, might be made to pass with envenomed\npoints through the joints of his armour. Every trivial error which\nhe might commit, would be magnified into a flagrant fault; and every\ninsignificant mistake into which he might fall, would be represented by\nthe bigotted, or by the hireling critics of the day as an ignorant, or\nas a perverse deviation from the truth.\" Both by the Statute Law and\nCommon Law, heresy is punishable, and many are punished for it even in\nthe second half of the nineteenth century. A man who has been educated\nin, or made profession of Christianity, and who shall then deny any of\nthe Thirty-nine Articles, is liable to indictment and imprisonment,\nbut this course is seldom pursued; the more common practice is for the\nChristian to avail himself of the heretic's want of belief in order to\nobject to his competency as a witness. Repeated instances have\noccurred recently in which the proposed witness has been rejected as\nuntrustworthy, because he was too honest to pretend to hold a faith he\nin truth denied. Besides such open persecution, there is the constant,\nunceasing, paltry, petty persecuting spirit which refuses to trade with\nthe heretic; which declines to eat with him; which will not employ him;\nwhich feels justified in slandering him, which seeks to set his wife's\nmind against him, and to take away the affection of his children from\nhim.\n\nFor those who do not believe this, I will instance two clergymen of\nthe Church of England: one (who as my teacher when a boy) set a kind\nfather's heart against me, and drove me further in heresy than I then\ndreamed of marching; and the other, who in cruel wickedness tried to\nwound me as a man through the feelings of my wife and children, whom\nhe most vilely and basely slandered. The first is yet unpunished, the\nsecond escaped condign punishment only by writing himself down libeller,\nand praying pardon for the slanderous coinage of his brain. And yet\nthis latter Church of England clergyman, who had written a strong letter\nthanking me for my generous forbearance, and who from his own pulpit\npretended to express his sorrow, is actually the first and only man in\nmy neighbourhood to cry \"Atheist\" against me, when I mingle in political\nlife, and he thinks the phrase may wound and injure me.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY\n\nIt requires a more practised pen than mine to even faintly sketch the\nprogress of heresy during the past three centuries, but I trust to\nsay enough to give the reader an idea of its rapid growth and wide\nextension. I say of the past three centuries, because it is only during\nthe past three hundred years that heresy has made the majority of its\nconverts amongst the mass of the people. In earlier times heretics were\nnot only few, but they talked to the few, and wrote to the few, in the\nlanguage of the few; and indeed it may be fairly said, that it is only\nduring the last hundred years that the greatest men have sought to\nmake heresy \"vulgar;\" that is, to make it common. One of our leading\nscientific men admitted recently that he had been reproved by some of\nhis more orthodox friends, for not confining to the Latin language such\nof his geological opinions as were supposed to be most dangerous to the\nHebrew records. The starting-point of the real era of popular heresy may\nbe placed at the early part of the sixteenth century, when the memories\nof Huss and Ziska (who had really inoculated the mass with some spirit\nof heretical resistance a century before) aided Luther in resisting\nRome.\n\nMartin Luther, born at Eisleben in Saxony, in 1483, was one of the\nheretics who sought popular endorsement for his heresy, and who\nfollowing the example of the Ulrich Zuingle, of Zurich, preached to the\npeople in rough plain words. While others were limited to Latin, he rang\nout in plain German his opposition to Tetzel and his protectors. I know\nthat to-day, Martin Luther is spoken of by orthodox Protestants as if\nhe were a saint without blemish, and indeed I do not want to deprive\nthe Christian Church of the honour of his adherence; he is hardly good\nenough and true enough for a first-class heretic. Yet in justification\nof my ranking him even so temporarily amongst the heretics of the\nsixteenth century, it will be sufficient to mention that he regarded\n\"the books of the Kings as more worthy of credit than the books of the\nChronicles,\" that he wrote as follows:--\"The book of Esdras I toss into\nthe Elbe.\" \"I am so an enemy to the book of Esther I would it did not\nexist.\" \"Job spake not therefore as it stands written in his book.\" \"It\nis a sheer _argumentum fabulae_\" \"The book of the Proverbs of Solomon has\nbeen pieced together by others,\" of Ecclesiastes \"there is too much of\nbroken matter in it; it has neither boots nor spurs, but rides only in\nsocks.\" \"Isaiah hath borrowed his whole art and knowledge from David.\"\n\"The history of Jonah is so monstrous that it is absolutely incredible.\"\n\"The Epistle to the Hebrews is not by St. Paul, nor indeed by any\nApostle.\" \"The Epistle of James 1 account the writing of no Apostle,\"\nand \"is truly an Epistle of sham.\" The Epistle of Jude \"allegeth sayings\nor stories which have no place in Scripture,\" \"of Revelation I can\ndiscover no trace that it is established by the Holy Spirit.\" If Martin\nLuther were alive to-day, the Established Church of England,\nwhich pretends to revere him, would prosecute him in the English\nEcclesiastical Courts if he ventured to repeat the foregoing phrases\nfrom her pulpits. What would the writers who attack me for coarseness,\nsay of the following passage, which occurs with reference to Melancthon,\nwhom Luther boasts that he raised miraculously from the dead?\n\"Melancthon,\" says Sir William Hamilton, to whose essay I am indebted\nfor the extracts here given, \"had fallen ill at Weimar from contrition\nand fear for the part he had been led to take in the Landgrave's\npolygamy: his life was even in danger.\" \"Then and there,\" said Luther,\n\"I made our Lord God to smart for it. For I threw down the sack before\nthe door, and rubbed his ears with all his promises of hearing prayer,\nwhich I knew how to recapitulate from Holy Writ, so that he could\nnot but hearken to me, should I ever again place any reliance on his\npromises.\" Martin Luther, with his absolute denial of free-will, and\nwith his double code of morality for princes and peasants--easy for one\nand harsh for the other--may be fairly left now with those who desire\nto vaunt his orthodoxy; here his name is used only to illustrate the\npopular impetus given to nonconformity by his quarrel with the papal\nauthorities. Luther protested against the Romish Church, but established\nby the very fact the right for some more advanced man than Doctor Martin\nto protest in turn against the Lutheran Church. The only consistent\nchurch in Christendom is the Romish Church, for it claims the right to\nthink for all its followers. The whole of the Protestant Churches are\ninconsistent, for they claim the right to think and judge against Rome,\nbut deny extremer Nonconformists the right to think and judge against\nthemselves. Goethe, says Froude, declares that Luther threw back the\nintellectual progress of mankind by using the passions of the multitude\nto decide subjects which should have been left to the learned. I do not\nbelieve this to be wholly true, for the multitude once having their ears\nfairly opened, listened to more than the appeal to their passions, and\nexamined for themselves propositions which otherwise they would have\naccepted or rejected from habit and without inquiry. Martin Luther's\npublic discussions with pen and tongue, in Wittemberg, Augsburg,\nLiebenwerd, and Lichtenberg, and the protest he encouraged against Rome,\nwere the commencement of a vigorous controversy, in which the public\n(who heard for the first time sharp controversial sermons preached\npublicly in the various pulpits by Lutheran preachers on free-will and\nnecessity, election and predestination, &c.) began to take real part and\ninterest; and which is still going on, and will in fact never end until\nthe unholy alliance of Church and State is everywhere annulled, and each\nreligion is left to sustain itself by its own truth, or to fall from\nits own weakness, no man being molested under the law on account of his\nopinions on religious matters. While Luther undoubtedly gave an impetus\nto the growth of Rationalism by his own appeal to reason and his\nreliance on reason for himself, it is not true that he contended for the\nright of general freedom of inquiry, nor would he have left unlimited\nthe privileges of individual judgment for others. He could be furious in\nhis denunciations of reason when a freer thinker than himself dared to\nuse it against his superstitions. It is somewhat remarkable that while\non the one hand one man, Luther, was detaching from the Church of Rome\na large number of minds, another man, Loyola, was about the same time\nengaged in founding that powerful society (the Society of Jesuits),\nwhich has done so much to check free inquiry and maintain the priestly\ndomination over the human intellect. That which Luther commenced in\nGermany roughly, inefficiently, and perhaps more from personal feeling\nfor the privileges of the special order to which he belonged than\nfrom desire for popular progress, was aided in its permanent effect by\nDescartes, in England by Bacon, in France by Montaigne, and in Italy by\nBruno.\n\nFrancis Bacon, Lord Verulam, was born on the 22nd January, 1561, and\ndied 1626. His mother, Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, was a woman\nof high education, and certainly with some inclinations favourable to\nFreethought, for she had herself translated into English some of the\nsermons on fate and free-will of Bernard Ochino, or Bernardin Ochinus,\nan Italian Reforming Heretic, alike repudiated by the powers at Rome,\nGeneva, Wittemberg, and Zurich. Ochino, in his famous disquisition\n\"touching the freedom or bondage of the human will, and the\nforeknowledge, predestination, and liberty of God,\" after discussing,\nwith great acuteness, and from different points of view, these important\ntopics, comes to the conclusion that there is no outlet to the mazes of\nthought in which the honest speculator plunges in the endeavour to\nsolve these problems. Although, like other writers of that and earlier\nperiods, many of Bacon's works were published in Latin, he wrote and\npublished also in English, and if I am right in numbering him as one of\nthe heretics of the sixteenth century, he must be also counted a vulgar\nheretic--i.e., one who wrote in the vulgar tongue, who preached his\nheresy in the language which the mass understood. Lewes says, \"Bacon and\nDescartes are generally recognised as the Fathers of Modern Philosophy,\nalthough they themselves were carried along by the rapidly-swelling\ncurrent of their age, then decisively setting in the direction of\nscience. It is their glory to have seen visions of the coming greatness,\nto have expressed in terms of splendid power, the thoughts which were\ndimly stirring the age, and to have sanctioned the new movement by\ntheir authoritative genius.\" Bacon was the populariser of that method of\nreasoning known as the inductive, that method which seeks to trace\nback from the phenomena of the moment to the eternal noumenon or\nnoumena--from the conditioned to the absolute. Nearly two thousand years\nbefore, the same method had been taught by Aristotle in opposition to\nPlato, and probably long thousands of years before the grand Greek,\npre-historic schoolmen had used the method; it is natural to the human\nmind. The Stagirite was the founder of a school, Bacon the teacher and\npopulariser for a nation. Aristotle's Greek was known to few, Bacon's\neloquent English opened out the subject to the many whom he impregnated\nwith his own confidence in the grand progressiveness of human thought.\nLewes says; \"The spirit of his philosophy was antagonistic to Theology,\nfor it was a spirit of doubt and search; and its search was for visible\nand tangible results.\" Bacon himself, in his essay on Superstition,\nsays: \"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety,\nto laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral\nvirtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these,\nand erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men: therefore Atheism\ndid never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as\nlooking no further; and we see the times inclined to Atheism, as the\ntime of Augustus Caesar were civil times; but superstition hath been\nthe confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new _primum mobile_ (the\nfirst motive cause), that ravisheth all the spheres of government.\" It\nis true that he also wrote against Atheism, and this in strong language,\nbut his philosophy was not used for the purpose of proving theological\npropositions. He said: \"True philosophy is that which is the faithful\necho of the voice of the world, which is written in some sort under the\ndictation of things, which adds nothing of itself, which is only the\nrebound, the reflection of reality.\" It has been well said that the\nwords \"Utility and Progress\" give the keynotes of Bacon's teachings.\nWith one other extract we leave his writings. \"Crafty men,\" he says,\n\"contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for\nthey teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and\nabove them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor\nto believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse; but to\nweigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed,\nand some few to be chewed and digested. Reading maketh a full man;\nconference a ready man; and writing an exact man; and therefore, if a\nman write little, he need have a great memory; if he confer little, he\nneed have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much\ncunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise;\npoets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral,\ngrave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.\" He was the father of\nexperimental philosophy. In one of his suggestions as to the force\nof attraction of gravitation may be found the first aid to Sir Isaac\nNewton's later demonstrations on this head; another of his suggestions,\nworked out by Torricelli, ended in demonstrating the gravity of the\natmosphere. But to the method he so popularised may be attributed the\ngrandest discoveries of modern times. It is to be deplored that the\nmemory of his moral weakness should remain to spoil the praise of his\ngrand intellect.\n\nLord Macaulay, in the _Edinburgh Review_, after contrasting at some\nlength the philosophy of Plato with that of Bacon, said;--\"To sum up\nthe whole: we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to\nexalt man into a god. The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to provide\nman with what he requires while he continues to be man. The aim of the\nPlatonic philosophy was to raise us far above vulgar wants. The aim of\nthe Baconian philosophy was to supply our vulgar wants. The former aim\nwas noble; but the latter was attainable. Plato drew a good bow; but,\nlike Acestes in Virgil, he aimed at the stars; and therefore, though\nthere was no want of strength or skill, the shot was thrown away. His\narrow was indeed followed by a track of dazzling radiance, but it struck\nnothing. Bacon fixed his eye on a mark which was placed on the earth and\nwithin bowshot, and hit it in the white. The philosophy of Plato began\nin words and ended in words--noble words in deed-words such as were to\nbe expected from the finest of human intellects exercising boundless\ndominion over the finest of human languages. The philosophy of Bacon\nbegan in observations and ended in arts.\"\n\nIn France the political heresy of Jean Bodin--who challenged the\ndivine right of rulers; who proclaimed the right of resistance\nagainst oppressive decrees of monarchs; who had words of laudation for\ntyrannicide, and yet had no conception that the multitude were entitled\nto use political power, but on the contrary wrote against them--was\nvery imperfect, the conception of individual right was confounded in the\nhabit of obedience to monarchical authority. Bodin is classed by Mosheim\namongst the writers who sowed the seeds of scepticism in France; but\nalthough he was far from an orthodox man, it is doubtful if Bodin ever\nintended his views to be shared beyond the class to which he belonged.\nTo the partial glimpse of individual right in the works of Bodin add\nthe doctrine of political fraternity taught by La Boetie, and then this\npolitical heresy becomes dangerous in becoming popular.\n\nThe most decided heretic and doubter of the sixteenth century was\none Sanchez, by birth a Portuguese, and practising as a physician\nat Toulouse; but the impetus which ultimately led to the spread and\npopularity of sceptical opinions in relation to politics and theology,\nis chiefly due to the satirical romances of Rabelais and the essays\nof Montaigne. \"What Rabelais was to the supporters of theology,\" says\nBuckle, \"that was Montaigne to the theology itself. The writings of\nRabelais were only directed against the clergy, but the writings of\nMontaigne were directed against the system of which the clergy were the\noffspring.\"\n\nMontaigne was born at Bordeaux 1533, died 1592. Louis Blanc says of\nhis words, \"Et ce ne sont pas simples discours d'un philosophe a des\nphilosophes. Montaigne s'addresse a tous.\" Montaigne's words were not\nthose of a philosopher talking only to his own order, he addressed\nhimself to mankind at large, and he wrote in language the majority could\neasily comprehend. Voltaire points out that Montaigne as a philosopher\nwas the exception in France to his class; he having succeeded in\nescaping that persecution which fell so heavily on others. Montaigne's\nthoughts were like sharp instruments scattered broadcast, and intended\nfor the destruction of many of the old social and conventional bonds; he\nwas the advocate of individualism, and placed each man as above society,\nrather than society as more important than each man. Montaigne mocked\nthe reasoners who contradicted each other, and derided that fallibility\nof mind which regarded the opinion of the moment as infallibly true,\nand which was yet always temporarily changed by an attack of fever or\na draught of strong drink, and often permanently modified by some new\ndiscovery. Less fortunate than Montaigne, Godfrey a Valle was burned for\nheresy in Paris in 1572, his chief offence having been that of issuing a\nwork entitled \"De Arte Nihil Credendi.\"\n\nHeresy thus championed in France, Germany, and England, had in Italy its\nsixteenth century soldiers in Pomponatius of Mantua, Giordano Bruno, and\nTelesio, both of Naples, and in Campanella of Calabria, a gallant band,\nwho were nearly all met with the cry of \"Atheist,\" and were either\nanswered with exile, the prison, or the faggot.\n\nPomponatius, who was born 1486 and died 1525, wrote a treatise on the\nSoul, which was so much deemed an attack on the doctrine of immortality\ndespite a profession of reverence for the dogmas of the Church, that\nthe work was publicly burned at Venice, a special bull of Leo X. being\ndirected against the doctrine.\n\nBernard Telesio was born at Naples in 1508, and founded there a school\nin which mathematics and philosophy were given the first place. During\nhis lifetime he had the good fortune to escape persecution, but sites\nhis death his works were proscribed by the Church; Telesio was chiefly\nuseful in educating the minds of some of the Neapolitans for more\nadvanced thinking than his own.\n\nThis was well illustrated in the case of Thomas Campanella, born 1568,\nwho, attracted by the teachings of Telesio, wrote vigorously against the\nold schoolmen and in favor of the new philosophy. Despite an affected\nreverence for the Church of Rome, Campanella spent twenty-seven years\nof his life in prison. Campanella has been, as is usually the case with\neminent writers, charged with atheism, but there seems to be no fair\nfoundation for the charges He was a true heretic, for he not only\nopposed Aristotle; but even his own teacher Telesio. None of these\nmen, however, yet strove to reach the people, they wrote to and of one\nanother, not to or of the masses. It is said that Campanella was fifty\ntimes arrested and seven times tortured for his heresy.\n\nOne Andrew de Bena, a profound scholar and eminent preacher of the\nChurch of Rome, carried away by the spirit of the time, came out into\nthe reformed party; but his mind once set free from the old trammels,\nfound no rest in Luther's narrow church, and a poetic Pantheism was the\nresult.\n\nJerome Cardan, a mathematician of considerable ability, born at Pavia\n1601, has been fiercely accused of atheism. His chief offence seems\nto have been rather in an opposite direction; astrology was with him a\nfavourite subject. While the strange views put forward in some of his\nworks served good purpose by provoking inquiry, we can hardly class\nCardan otherwise than as a man whose undoubted genius and erudition were\nmore than counterbalanced by his excessively superstitious folly.\n\nGiordano Bruno was born near Naples about 1550. He was burned at Rome\nfor heresy on the 17th February, 1600. Bruno was burned for alleged\natheism, but appears rather, to have been a Pantheist. His most\nprominent avowal of heresy was the disbelief in eternal torment and\nrejection, of the common orthodox ideas of the devil. He wrote chiefly\nin Italian, his vulgar tongue, and thus effectively aided the grand\nmarch of heresy by familiarising the eyes of the people with newer and\ntruer forms of thought. Bruno used the tongue as fluently as the pen.\nHe spoke in Italy until he had roused an opposition rendering flight the\nonly possibly escape from death. At Geneva he found no resting place,\nthe fierce spirit of Zuingle and Calvin was there too mighty; at Paris\nhe might have found favour, with the King, and at the Sorbonne, but\nhe refused to attend mass, and delivered a series of popular lectures,\nwhich won many admirers; from Paris he went to England, where we find\nhim publicly debating at Oxford and lecturing on theology, until he\nexcited an antagonism which induced his return to Paris, where he\nactually publicly discussed for three days some of the grand problems\nof existence. Paris orthodoxy could not permit his onslaughts on\nestablished opinions, and this time it was to Germany Bruno turned\nfor hospitality; where, after visiting many of the different states,\nlecturing freely but with general success, he drew upon himself a\nsentence of excommunication at Helmstadt. At last he returned to Italy\nand spoke at Padua, but had at once to fly thence from the Inquisition;\nat Venice he found a resting place in prison, whence after six years\nof dungeon, and after the tender mercy of the rack, he was led out to\nreceive the final refutation of the faggot. There is a grand heroism\nin the manner in which he received his sentence and bore his fiery\npunishment. No cry of despair, no prayer for escape, no flinching at\nthe moment of death. Bruno's martyrdom may favourably contrast with the\nhighest example Christianity gives us.\n\nIt was in the latter half of the sixteenth century, that Unitarianism\nor Socinianism assumed a front rank position in Europe, having its chief\nstrength in Poland, with considerable force in Holland and England.\nIn 1524, one Lewis Hetzer had been publicly burned at Constance, for\ndenying the divinity of Jesus; but Hetzer was more connected with the\nAnabaptists than with the Unitarians. About the same time a man named\nClaudius openly argued amongst the Swiss people, against the doctrine\nof the trinity, and one John Campanus contended at Wittemberg, and other\nplaces, against the usually inculcated doctrines of the Church, as to\nthe Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.\n\nIn 1566, Valentine Gentilis, a Neapolitan, was put to death at Rome, for\nteaching the superiority of God the Father, over the Son and the Holy\nGhost. Modern Unitarianism appears to have had as its founders or chief\npromoters, Laelius Socinus, and his nephew Faustus Socinus; the first\nhaving the better brain and higher genius, but marred by a timid and\nirresolute character; the second having a more active nature and bolder\ntemperament. From Cracow and Racow, during the latter half of this\ncentury, the Unitarians (who drew into their ranks many men of advanced\nminds.) issued a large number of books and pamphlets, which were\ncirculated amongst the people with considerable zeal and industry.\nUnitarianism was carried from Poland into Transylvania by a physician,\nGeorge Blandrata, and a preacher Francis David, or Davides, who obtained\nthe support and countenance of the then ruler of the country. Davides,\nunfortunately for himself, became too unitarian for the Unitarians; he\nadopted the extreme views of one Simon Budnffius, who, in Lithuania,\nentirely repudiated any sort, of religious worship in reference to\nJesus. Budnaeus was excommunicated by the Unitarians themselves, and\nDavides was imprisoned for the rest of his life. As the Unitarians were\npersecuted by the old Romish and new Lutheran Churches, so they in turn\npersecuted seceders from and opposers of their own movement. Each\nman's history involved the widening out of public thought; each act\nof persecution illustrated a vain endeavour to check the progress of\nheresy; each new sect marked a step towards the destruction of the old\nobstructive faiths.\n\nAbout the close of the sixteenth century, Ernestius Sonerus, of\nNuremberg, wrote against the doctrine of eternal torment, and also\nagainst the divinity of Jesus, but his works were never very widely\ncirculated. Amongst the distinguished Europeans of the sixteenth century\nwhom Dr. J. F. Smith mentions as either atheists or favouring atheism,\nwere Paul Jovius, Peter Aretin, and Muretus. Rumour has even enrolled\nLeo X. himself in the atheistical ranks. How far some of these men had\nwarranted the charge other than by being promoters of literature\nand lovers of philosophy, it is now difficult to say. A determined\nresistance was offered to the spread of heretical opinions in the South\nof Europe by the Roman Church, and it is alleged that some thousands of\npersons were burned or otherwise punished in Spain, Portugal, and Naples\nduring the sixteenth century. The Inquisition or Holy Office was\nin Spain and Portugal the most prominent and active persecutor, but\npersecution was carried on vigorously in other parts of Europe by the\nseceders from Rome. Zuingle, Luther, and Calvin, were as harsh as the\nPope towards those with whom they differed.\n\nMichael Servetus, or Servede, was a native of Arragon, by profession a\nphysician; he wrote against the ordinary doctrines of the Trinity, but\nwas far from ordinary Unitarianism.\n\nHe was burned at Geneva, at the instance of Calvin. Calvin was rather\nfond of burning heretical opponents; to the name of Servetus might be\nadded that of Gruet, who also was burned at the instance of Calvin, for\ndenying the divinity of the Christian religion, and for arguing against\nthe immortality of the soul.\n\nIt is worth notice that while heresy in this sixteenth century began\nto branch out openly, and to strike its roots down firmly amongst the\npeople, ecclesiastical historians are compelled to record improvement\nin the condition of society. Mosheim says, \"In this century the arts\nand sciences were carried to a pitch unknown to preceding ages, and from\nthis happy renovation of learning, the European churches derived the\nmost signal and inestimable advantages.\" \"The benign influence of true\nscience, and its tendency to improve both the form of religion and the\ninstitutions of civil policy, were perceived by many of the states.\"\nThe love of literature is the most remarkable and characteristic form\nof advancing civilisation. Instead of being the absorbing passion of\nthe learned few, it becomes gradually the delight and occupation of\nincreasing numbers. This cultivation of literary pursuits by the mass\nis only possible when enough of heresy has been obtained to render their\nscope of study wide enough to be useful. Rotterdam gave life to the\npolished Erasmus, Valentia to Ludovico Vivez, Picardy to Le Fevre, and\nFrance to Rabelais.\n\nIn the latter half of this century, giants in literature grew out,\ngiants who wrote for the people. William Shakespeare wrote even\nfor those who could not read, but who might learn while looking and\nlistening. His comedies and tragedies are at the same time pictures\nfor the people of diverse phases of English life and character, with a\nthereunto added universality of pourtrayal and breadth in philosophy,\nwhich it is hardly too much to say, that no other dramatist has ever\nequalled. Italy boasts its Torquato Tasso, whose \"Jerusalem Delivered,\"\nthe grand work of a great poet, marks, like a mighty monument, the age\ncapable of finding even in a priest-ridden country, an audience amongst\nthe lowest as well as the highest, ready to read and sing, and finally\npermeated with the poet's outpourings. In astronomy, the name of\nTycho Brahe stands out in the sixteenth century like one of the first\nmagnitude stars whose existence he catalogued.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY\n\nThe seeds of inquiry sown in the sixteenth century resulted in a\nfruitful display of advanced opinions during the next age. In the page\nof seventeenth century history, more names of men, either avowedly\nheretics, or charged by the orthodox with heresy, or whose labours\ncan be shown to have tended to the growth of heresy, may probably be\nrecorded than can be found during the whole of the previously long\nperiod during which the Christian Church assumed to dominate and control\nEuropean thought. The seventeenth century muster-roll of heresy is\nindeed a grand one, and gloriously filled. One of its early martyrs was\nJulius Caesar Vanini, who was burned at Toulouse, in the year 1619, aged\n34, as \"an impious and obstinate Atheist.\" Was he Atheist, or was he\nnot? This is a question, in answering which the few remains of his works\ngive little ground for sharing the opinion of his persecutors. Yet\nmany writers agree in writing as if his Atheism were of indisputable\nnotoriety. He was a poor Neapolitan priest, he preached a sort of\nPantheism; unfortunately for himself, he believed in the utility of\npublic discussion on theological questions, and thus brought upon his\nhead the charge of seeking to convert the world to Atheism.\n\nIn 1611, two men, named Legat and Whitman, were burned in England for\nheresy. \"But,\" says Buckle, \"this was the last gasp of expiring bigotry;\nand since that memorable day, the soil of England has never been stained\nby the blood of a man who has suffered for his religious creed.\"\n\nPeter Charron, of Paris, ought perhaps to have been included in the\nsixteenth century list, for he died in 1603, but his only known work,\n\"La Sagesse,\" belongs to the seventeenth century, in which it circulated\nand obtained reputation.\n\nHe urged that religion is the accidental result of birth and education,\nand that therefore variety of creed should not be cause of quarrel\nbetween men, as such variety is the result of circumstances over which\nthe men themselves have had no control; and he urges that as each sect\nclaims to be the only true one, we ought to rise superior to all sects,\nand without being terrified by the fear of future punishment, or\nallured by the hope of future happiness, \"be content with such practical\nreligion as consists in performing the duties of life.\" Buckle, who\nspeaks in high terms of Charron, says, \"The Sorbonne went so far as\nto condemn Charron's great work, but could not succeed in having it\nprohibited.\"\n\nRene Descartes Duperron, a few years later than Bacon (he was born in\n1596, at La Haye, in Touraine, died 1650, at Stockholm) established the\nfoundations of the deductive method of reasoning, and applied it in a\nmanner which Bacon had apparently carefully avoided. Both Descartes\nand Bacon addressed themselves to the task of substituting for the old\nsystems, a more comprehensive and useful spirit of philosophy; but while\nBacon sought to accomplish this by persuading men to experiment and\nobservation, Descartes commenced with the search for a first and\nself-evident ground of all knowledge. This, to him, is found in\nconsciousness. The existence of Deity was a point which Bacon left\nuntouched by reason, yet with Descartes it was the first proposition he\nsought to prove. He says, \"I have always thought that the two questions\nof the existence of God and the nature of the soul, were the chief\nof those which ought to be demonstrated rather by philosophy than by\ntheology, for although it is sufficient for us, the faithful, to believe\nin God, and that the soul does not perish with the body, it does not\nseem possible ever to persuade the infidels to any religion unless we\nfirst prove to them these two things by natural reason.\" To prove this\nexistence of God and the immortality of the soul, Descartes needed\na firm starting point, one which no doubt could touch, one which\nno argument could shake. He found this point in the fact of his own\nexistence. He could doubt everything else, but he could not doubt that\nhe, the thinking doubter, existed. His own existence was the primal\nfact, the indubitable certainty, which served as the base for all other\nreasonings, hence his famous \"Cogito ergo sum:\" I think, therefore I am.\nAnd although it has been fairly objected that Descartes did not exist\nbecause he thought, but existed and thought; it is nevertheless clear\nthat it is only in the thinking that Descartes had the consciousness of\nhis existence. The fact of Descartes' existence was, to him, one above\nand beyond all logic, Evidence could not add to the certitude, no\nscepticism could impeach it. Whether or not we agree with the Cartesian\nphilosophy, or the reasonings used to sustain it, we must admire the\nfollowing four rules which he has given us, and which, with the view\nof consciousness in which we do not entirely concur, are the essential\nfeatures of the basis of a considerable portion of Descartes' system;--\n\n\"1. Never to accept anything as true but what is evidently so; to admit\nnothing but what so clearly and distinctly presents itself as true, that\nthere can be no reason to doubt it.\n\n\"2. To divide every question into as many separate parts as possible,\nthat each part being more easily conceived, the whole may be more\nintelligible.\n\n\"3. To conduct the examination with order, beginning by that of objects\nthe most simple, and therefore the easiest to be known, and ascending\nlittle by little up to knowledge of the most complex.\n\n\"4. To make such exact calculations, and such circumspections as to be\nconfident that nothing essential has been omitted.\"\n\n\"Consciousness being the basis of all certitude, everything of which you\nare clearly and distinctly conscious must be true: everything which you\nclearly and distinctly conceive, exists, if the idea involve existence.\"\n\nIt should be remarked that consciousness being a state of condition of\nthe mind, is by no means an infallible guide? Men may fancy they have\nclear ideas, when their consciousness, if carefully examined, would\nprove to have been treacherous. Descartes argued for three classes of\nideas--acquired, compounded, and innate. It is in his assumption of\ninnate ideas that you have one of the radical weaknesses of his system.\nSir William Hamilton points out that the use of the word idea by\nDescartes, to express the object of memory, imagination, and sense,\nwas quite a new usage, only one other writer, David Buchanan, having\npreviously used the word idea with this signification.\n\nDescartes did not write for the mass, and his philosophy would have\nbeen limited to a much narrower circle had its spread rested on his own\nefforts. But the age was one for new thought, and the contemporaries and\nsuccessors of Descartes carried the Cartesian logic to extremes he had\nperhaps avoided, and they taught the new philosophy to the world in a\nfearless spirit, with a boldness for which Descartes could have given\nthem no example. Descartes, who in early life had travelled much more\nthan was then the custom, had probably made the personal acquaintance\nof most of the leading thinkers of Europe then living; it would be\notherwise difficult to account for the very ready reception given by\nthem to his first work. Fortunately for Descartes, he was born with a\nfair fortune, and escaped such difficulties as poorer philosophers must\nneeds submit to. There is perhaps a _per contra_ side. It is more\nthan possible that if the needs of life had compelled him, Descartes'\nscientific predilections might have resulted in more immediate advantage\nto society. His philosophy is often pedantic to weariness, and his\nscientific theories are often sterile. The fear of poverty might have\nquickened some of his speculations into a more practical utterance.\nBuckle reminds us that Descartes \"was the first who successfully applied\nalgebra to geometry; that he pointed out the important law of the sines;\nthat in an age in which optical instruments were extremely imperfect,\nhe discovered the changes to which light is subjected in the eye by\nthe crystalline lens; that he directed attention to the consequences\nresulting from the weight of the atmosphere, and that he detected the\ncauses of the rainbow.\" \"Descartes,\" says Saintes, \"throwing off the\nswaddling clothes of scholasticism, resolved to owe to himself alone the\nacquisition of the truth which he so earnestly desired to possess. For\nwhat else is the methodical doubt which he established as the starting\npoint in his philosophy, than an energetic protest of the human mind\nagainst all external authority? Having thus placed all science on a\nphilosophical basis, no matter what, he freed philosophy herself from\nher long servitude, and proclaimed her queen of the intellect. Hence\nevery one who has wished to account to himself for his existence, every\none who has desired to know himself to know nature, and to rise to\nits author; in a word, all who have wished to make a wise use of their\nintellectual faculties, to apply them, not to hollow speculations which\nborder on nonentity, but to sensible and practical inquiries, have taken\nand followed some direction from Descartes.\" It is almost amusing when\nphilosophers criticise their predecessors. Mons. Henri Bitter denies to\nDescartes any originality of method or even of illustration, while Hegel\ndescribes him as the founder of modern philosophy, whose influence\nupon his own age and on modern times it is impossible to exaggerate. To\nattempt to deal fully and truly with Descartes in the few lines which\ncan be spared here, is impossible; all that is sought is to as it were\ncatalogue his name in the seventeenth century list. Whether originator\nor imitator, whether founder or disciple, it is certain that Descartes\ngave a sharp spur to European thought, and mightily hastened the\nprogress of heresy. It is not the object or duty of the present writer\nto examine or refute any of the extraordinary views entertained by\nDescartes as to vortices. Descartes himself is reported to have said\n\"my theory of vortices is a philosophical romance.\" Science in the last\nthree centuries has travelled even more rapidly than philosophy; and\nmost of the physical speculations of Descartes are relegated to the\nregion of grandly curious blunderings. There is one point of error held\nby Descartes sufficiently entertained even to-day--although most often\nwithout a distinct appreciation of the position--to justify a few words\nupon it. Descartes denied mental faculties to all the animal kingdom\nexcept mankind. All the brute kingdom he regarded as machines without\nintelligence. In this he was logical, even in error, for he accorded\na soul to man which he denied to the brute. Soul and mind with him are\nidentified, and thought is the fundamental attribute of mind. To admit\nthat a dog, horse, or elephant can think, that it can remember what\nhappened yesterday, that it can reason ever so incompletely, would be to\nadmit that that dog, horse, or elephant, has some kind of soul; to avoid\nthis he reduces all animals outside the human family to the position of\nmachines. To-day science admits in animals, more or less according to\ntheir organisation, perception, memory, judgment, and even some sort of\nreason. Yet orthodoxy still claims a soul for man even if he be a madman\nfrom his birth, and denies it to the sagacious elephant, the intelligent\nhorse, the faithful dog, and the cunning monkey. His proof of the\nexistence of Deity is thus stated by Lewes:--\"Interrogating his\nconsciousness, he found that he had the idea of God, understanding by\nGod, a substance infinite, eternal, immutable, independent, omniscient,\nomnipotent. This, to him, was as certain a truth as the truth of his\nown existence. I exist: not only do I exist, but exist as a miserably\nimperfect finite being, subject to change, greatly ignorant, and\nincapable of creating anything. In this, my consciousness, I find by\nmy finitude that I am not the All; by my imperfection, that I am not\nperfect. Yet an infinite and perfect being must exist, because infinity\nand perfection are implied as correlatives in my ideas of imperfection\nand finitude. God therefore exists: his existence is clearly proclaimed\nin my consciousness, and can no more be a matter of doubt, when fairly\nconsidered, than my own existence. The conception of an infinite being\nproves his real existence; for if there is not really such a being, I\nmust have made the conception; but if I could make it, I can also unmake\nit, which evidently is not true; therefore there must be, externally to\nmyself an archetype from which the conception was derived. All that we\nclearly and distinctly conceive as contained in anything, is true of\nthat thing. Now we conceive, clearly and distinctly, that the existence\nof God is contained in the idea we have of him--_Ergo_, God exists.\" It\nmay not be out of place to note at this demonstration, that the Jesuit\nwriter, Father Hardouin, in his \"Atheists Unmasked,\" as a recompense for\nthis demonstration of the existence of Deity, places Descartes and\nhis disciples, le Grand and Regis, in the first rank of atheistical\nteachers. Voltaire, commenting on this, remarks, \"The man who had\ndevoted all the acuteness of his extraordinary intellect to the\ndiscovery of new proofs of the existence of a God, was most absurdly\ncharged with denying him altogether.\" Speaking of the proof of the\nexistence of Deity, \"Demonstrations of this kind,\" says Froude, \"were\nthe characteristics of the period. Descartes had set the example of\nconstructing them, and was followed by Cudworth, Clarke, Berkeley, and\nmany others besides Spinoza. The inconclusiveness of the method may\nperhaps be observed most readily in the strangely opposite conceptions\nformed by all these writers of the nature of that Being whose existence\nthey nevertheless agreed, by the same process, to gather each out of\ntheir ideas. It is important, however, to examine it carefully, for it\nis the very keystone of the Pantheistic system. As stated by Descartes,\nthe argument stands something as follows:--God is an all-perfect Being,\nperfection is the idea which we form of Him, existence is a mode of\nperfection, and therefore God exists. The sophism, we are told, is only\napparent, existence is part of the idea--as much involved in it as the\nequality of all lines drawn from the centre to the circumference of a\ncircle is involved in the idea of a circle. A non-existent all-perfect\nBeing is as inconceivable as a quadrilateral triangle. It is sometimes\nanswered that in this way we may prove the existence of anything,\nTitans, Chimaeras, or the Olympian gods; we have but to define them as\nexisting, and the proof is complete. But this objection is summarily set\naside; none of these beings are by hypothesis absolutely perfect, and,\ntherefore, of their existence we can conclude nothing. With greater\njustice, however, we may say, that of such terms as perfection\nand existence we know too little to speculate. Existence may be an\nimperfection for all we can tell, we know nothing about the matter.\nSuch arguments are but endless _petitiones principii_--like the\nself-devouring serpent, resolving themselves into nothing. We wander\nround and round them, in the hope of finding some tangible point at\nwhich we can seize their meaning; but we are presented everywhere\nwith the same impracticable surface, from which our grasp glides off\nineffectual.\"\n\nThomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury, is one of those men more often freely\nabused than carefully read; he was born April 5th, 1588, died 1679. He\nwas \"the subtlest dialectician of his time,\" and one of the earliest\nEnglish advocates of the materialistic limitation of mind; he denies the\npossibility of any knowledge other than as resulting from sensation; his\ndoctrine is in direct negation of Descartes' theory of innate ideas, and\nwould be fatal to the orthodox dogma of mind as spiritual. \"Whatever\nwe imagine,\" he says, \"is finite. Therefore, there is no idea, no\nconception of anything we call infinite.\" In a brief pamphlet on his\nown views, published in 1680, in reply to attacks upon him, he writes,\n\"Besides the creation of the world there is no argument to prove a\nDeity,\" and \"that it cannot be decided by any argument that the world\nhad a beginning;\" but he professes to admit the authority of the\nMagistrate and the Scriptures to override argument. He says that he does\nnot \"believe that the safety of the state depends upon the safety of the\nchurch.\" Some of Hobbes' pieces were only in Latin, others were issued\nin English. In one of those on Heresy, he mentions that by the statute\nof 1 Edward VI. cap 12, there is provision for the repeal of all former\nacts of parliament \"made to punish any manner of doctrine concerning\nreligion.\"\n\nIn the following extracts the reader will find the prominent features of\nthat sensationalism which to-day has so many adherents:--\"Concerning the\nthoughts of man, I will consider them first singly, and afterwards in\na train or dependence upon one another. Singly they are every one a\nrepresentation or appearance of some quality or other accident of a body\nwithout us, which is commonly called an object. Which object worketh\non the eyes, ears, and other parts of a man's body, and by diversity of\nworking, produceth diversity of appearances. The original of them all\nis that which we call sense, for there is no conception in a man's\nmind which hath not at first totally or by parts been begotten upon the\norgans of sense. The rest are derived from that original.\" The effect\nof this is to deny any possible knowledge other than as results from the\nactivity of the sensative faculties, and is also fatal to the doctrine\nof a soul. \"According,\" says Hobbes, \"to the two principal parts of\nman, I divide his faculties into two sorts--faculties of the body, and\nfaculties of the mind. Since the minute and distinct anatomy of the\npowers of the body is nothing necessary to the present purpose, I\nwill only sum them up in these three heads--power nutritive, power\ngenerative, and power motive, Of the powers of the mind there be two\nsorts--cognitive, imaginative, or conceptive, and motive. For the\nunderstanding of what I mean by the power cognitive, we must remember\nand acknowledge that there be in our minds continually certain images or\nconceptions of the things without us. This imagery and representation\nof the qualities of the things without, is that which we call our\nconception, imagination, ideas, notice, or knowledge of them; and the\nfaculty, or power by which we are capable of such knowledge, is that\nI here call cognitive power, or conceptive, the power of knowing or\nconceiving.\" All the qualities called sensible are, in the object that\ncauseth them, but so many several motions of the matter by which it\npresseth on our organs diversely. Neither in us that are pressed are\nthey anything else but divers motions; for motion produceth nothing but\nmotion. Because the image in vision, consisting of colour and shape, is\nthe knowledge we have of the qualities of the objects of that sense;\nit is no hard matter for a man to fall into this opinion that the same\ncolour and shape are the very qualities themselves, and for the same\ncause that sound and noise are the qualities of the bell or of the air.\nAnd this opinion hath been so long received that the contrary must needs\nappear a great paradox, and yet the introduction of species visible and\nintelligible (which is necessary for the maintenance of that opinion)\npassing to and fro from the object is worse than any paradox, as being\na plain impossibility. I shall therefore endeavour to make plain these\npoints. That the subject wherein colour and image are inherent, is not\nthe object or thing seen. That there is nothing without us (really)\nwhich we call an image or colour. That the said image or colour is but\nan apparition unto us of the motion, agitation, or alteration which the\nobject worketh in the brain, or spirits, or some internal substance of\nthe head. That as in visions, so also in conceptions that arise from the\nother senses, the subject of their inference is not the object but\nthe sentient. Strange to say Hobbes was protected from his clerical\nantagonists by the favour of Charles II., who had the portrait of the\nphilosopher of Malmesbury hung on the walls of his private room at\nWhitehall.\n\nLord Herbert, of Cherbury (one of the friends of Hobbes) born 1581, died\n1648, is remarkable for having written a book \"De Veritate,\" in favour\nof natural--and against any necessity for revealed--religion; and yet at\nthe same time pleading a sort of special sign or revelation to himself\nin favour of its publication.\n\nPeter Gassendi, a native of Provence, born 1592, died 1655, was one of\nthe opponents of Descartes and of Lord Herbert, and was an admirer\nof Hobbes; he advocated the old philosophy of Epicurus, professing\nto reject \"from it everything contrary to Christianity.\" \"But,\" asks\nCousin, \"how could he succeed in this? Principles, processes, results,\neverything in Epicurus is sensualism, materialism, atheism.\" Gassendi's\nworks were characterised by great learning and ability, but being\nconfined to the Latin tongue, and written avowedly with the intent of\navoiding any conflict with the church, they gave but little immediate\nimpetus to the great heretical movement. Arnauld charges Gassendi\nwith overturning the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, in his\ndiscussion with Descartes, and Leibnitz charges Gassendi with corrupting\nand injuring the whole system of natural religion by the wavering nature\nof his opinions. Buckle says, \"The rapid increase of heresy in the\nmiddle of the seventeenth century is very remarkable, and it greatly\naided civilisation in England by encouraging habits of independent\nthought.\" In February 1646, Boyle writes from London, \"There are few days\npass here, that may not justly be accused of the brewing or broaching of\nsome new opinion. If any man have lost his religion, let him repair to\nLondon, and I'll warrant him he shall find it: I had almost said too,\nand if any man has a religion, let him but come hither now and he shall\ngo near to lose it.\"\n\nAbout 1655, one Isaac La Peyrere wrote two small treatises to prove that\nthe world was peopled before Adam, but being arrested at Brussels, and\nthreatened with the stake, he, to escape the fiery refutation, made\na full recantation of his views, and restored to the world its dearly\nprized stain of natural depravity, and to Adam his position as the first\nman. La Peyrere's forced recantation is almost forgotten, the opinions\nhe recanted are now amongst common truths.\n\nBaruch D'Espinoza or Benedict Spinoza, was born Nov. 24,1632, in\nAmsterdam; an apt scholar, he, at the early age of fourteen, had\nmastered the ordinary tasks set him by his teacher, the Babbi Morteira,\nand at fifteen puzzled and affrighted the grave heads of the synagogue,\nby attempting the solution of problems which they themselves were\nwell content to pass by. As he grew older his reason took more daring\nflights, and after attempts had been made to bribe him into submissive\nsilence, when threats had failed to check or modify him, and when even\nthe knife had no effect, then the fury of disappointed fanaticism found\nvent in the bitter curse of excommunication, and when about twenty-four\nyears of age, Spinoza found himself outcast and anathematised. Having no\nprivate means or rich patrons, and differing in this from nearly every\none whose name we have yet given our hero subsisted as a polisher\nof glasses, microscopes, &c., devoting his leisure to the study of\nlanguages and philosophy. There are few men as to whom modern writers\nhave so widely differed in the description of their views, few who have\nbeen so thoroughly misrepresented. Bayle speaks of him as a systematic\nAtheist. Saintes says that he laid the foundations of a Pantheism\nas destructive to scholastic philosophy as to all revealed religion.\nVoltaire repeatedly writes of Spinoza as an Atheist and teacher of\nAtheism. Samuel Taylor Coleridge speaks of Spinoza as an Atheist, and\nprefaces this opinion with the following passage, which we commend to\nmore orthodox, and less acute writers:--\"Little do these men know what\nAtheism is. Not one man in a thousand has either strength of mind,\nor goodness of heart to be an Atheist. I repeat it--Not one man in a\nthousand has either goodness of heart, or strength of mind, to be, an\nAtheist.\" \"And yet,\" says Froude, \"both in friend and enemy alike, there\nhas been a reluctance to see Spinoza as he really was. The Herder and\nSchleiermacher school have claimed him as a Christian, a position\nwhich no little disguise was necessary to make tenable; the orthodox\nProtestants and Catholics have called him an Atheist, which is still\nmore extravagant; and even a man like Novalis, who, it might have been\nexpected, would have said something reasonable, could find no better\nname for him than a 'Gott trunkener mann,' a God intoxicated man; an\nexpression which has been quoted by everybody who has since written on\nthe subject, and which is about as inapplicable as those laboriously\npregnant sayings usually are. With due allowance for exaggeration, such\na name would describe tolerably the transcendental mystics, a Toler, a\nBoehmen, or a Swedenborg; but with what justice can it be applied to the\ncautious, methodical Spinoza, who carried his thoughts about with him\nfor twenty years, deliberately shaping them, and who gave them at last\nto the world in a form more severe than with such subjects had ever\nbeen so much as attempted before? With him, as with all great men, there\nwas no effort after sublime emotions. He was a plain, practical person;\nhis object in philosophy, was only to find a rule by which to govern his\nown actions and his own judgment; and his treatises contain no more than\nthe conclusions at which he arrived in this purely personal search, with\nthe grounds on which he rested them.\" Spinoza, who was wise enough to\nknow that it was utterly useless to expect an unfettered examination of\nphilosophical problems by men who are bound to accept as an infallible\narbiter any particular book, and who knew that reasonings must be of a\nvery limited character which took the alleged Hebrew Revelation as the\ncentre and starting point for all inquiry, and also as the circling,\nlimitation line for all investigation--devoted himself to the task\nof examining how far the ordinary orthodox doctrines as to the\ninfallibility of the Old Testament were fairly maintainable. It was for\nthis reason he penned his \"Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,\" wherein\nhe says--\"We see that they who are most under the influence of\nsuperstitious feelings, and who covet uncertainties without stint or\nmeasure, more especially when they fall into difficulty or danger,\ncannot help themselves, are the persons, who, with vows and prayers and\nwomanly tears, implore the Divine assistance; who call reason, blind,\nand human wisdom vain; and all, forsooth, because they cannot find\nan assured way to the vanities they desire.\" \"The mainspring of\nsuperstition is fear; by fear too is superstition sustained and\nnourished.\" \"Men are chiefly assailed by superstition When suffering\nfrom fear, and all they then do in the name of a vain religion is, in\nfact, but the vaporous product of a sorrowful spirit, the delirium of\na mind overpowered by terror.\" He proceeds, \"I have often wondered that\nmen who boast of the great advantage they enjoy under the Christian\ndispensation--the peace, the joy they experience, the brotherly love\nthey feel towards all in its exercise--should nevertheless contend with\nso much acrimony, and show such intolerance and unappeasable hatred\ntowards one another. If faith had to be inferred from action rather than\nprofession, it would indeed be impossible to say to what sect or creed\nthe majority of mankind belong.\" He laid down that \"No one is bound by\nnatural law to live according to the pleasure of another, but that every\none is by natural title the rightful asserter of his own independence,\"\nand that \"he or they govern best who concede to every one the privilege\nof thinking as he pleases, and of saying what he thinks.\" Criticising\nthe Hebrew prophets, he points out that \"God used no particular style\nin making his communications; but in the same measure as the prophet\npossessed learning and ability, his communications were either concise\nand clear, or on the contrary, they were rude, prolix, and obscure.\" The\nrepresentations of Zechariah, as we learn from the accounts themselves,\nwere so obscure that without an explanation they could not be understood\nby himself; and those of Daniel were so dark, that even when explained,\nthey were still unintelligible, not to others only, but also to the\nprophet himself. He argues entirely against miracles, as either contrary\nto nature or above nature, declaring any such to be \"a sheer absurdity,\"\n\"_merum esse absurdum_\" Of the Scriptures themselves he points out that\nthe ancient Hebrew is entirely lost. \"Of the authors, or, if you please,\nwriters, of many books, we either know almost nothing, or we entertain\ngrave doubts as to the correctness with which the several books are\nascribed to the parties whose names they bear.\" \"Then we neither know on\nwhat occasion, nor at what time those books were indited, the writers\nof which are unknown to us. Further, we know nothing of the hands into\nwhich the books fell; nor of the codices which have furnished such a\nvariety of readings, nor whether, perchance, there were not many other\nvariations in other copies.\" Voltaire says of Spinoza, \"Not only in the\ncharacter of a Jew he attacks the New Testament, but in the character\nof a scholar he ruins the Old.\" The logic of Spinoza was directed to the\ndemonstration of one substance with infinite attributes, for which one\nsubstance with infinite attributes he had as equivalent the name \"God.\"\nSome who have since followed Spinoza, have agreed in his one substance,\nbut have denied the possibility of infinite attributes. Attributes or\nqualities, they urge, are attributes of the finite or conditioned, and\nthat you cannot have attributes of substance except as attributes of its\nmodes. You have in this distinction the division line between Spinozism\nand Atheism. Spinoza recognises infinite intelligence, but Atheism\ncannot conceive intelligence except in relation as quality of the\nconditioned, and not as the essence of the absolute. Spinoza denied\nthe doctrine of freewill, as with him all phenomena are of God, so he\nrejects the ordinary notions of good and evil. The popular views of\nSpinoza in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were chiefly derived\nfrom the volumes of his antagonists; men learned his name because\npriests abused him, few had perused his works for themselves. To-day we\nmay fairly say that Spinoza's logic and his biblical criticisms gave a\nvigour and force to the heresy of the latter half of the seventeenth\nand beginning of the eighteenth century; a directness and effectiveness\ntheretofore wanting.\n\nAs for the Bible, there was no longer an affected reverence for every\nyod or comma, church traditions were ignored wherever inconsistent with\nreason, and the law itself was boldly challenged when its letter was\nagainst the spirit of human progress.\n\nOne of the greatest promoters of heresy in England was Ralph Cudworth,\nborn 1617, died 1688. He wrote to combat the atheistical tenets\nwhich were then commencing to obtain popularity in England, and was a\ncontroversialist so fair and candid in the statement of the opinions of\nhis antagonists, that he was actually charged with heresy himself, and\nthe epithets of Arian, Socinian, Deist, and even Atheist were freely\nlevelled against him. \"He has raised,\" says Dryden, \"such strong\nobjections against the being of a God and Providence, that many think he\nhas not answered them.\" The clamour of bigotry seems to have discouraged\nCudworth, and he left many of his works unprinted. Cousin describes him\nas \"a Platonist, of a firm and profound mind, who bends somewhat under\nthe weight of his erudition.\"\n\nThomas Burnet, born 1635, died 1715, a clergyman of the Church of\nEngland, who, though high in favour with King William and the famous\nArchbishop Tillotson, is said to have been shut out from preferment in\nthe church chiefly, if not entirely, on account of his many heterodox\nviews. He did not accept the orthodox notions on the Mosaic account of\nthe creation, fall, and deluge. Regarding the account of the fall as\nallegorical, he argued for the ultimate salvation of everyone, and of\ncourse denied the doctrine of eternal torment.\n\nIn a curious passage relating to the equivocations of a large number\nof the clergy in openly taking the oath of allegiance to William III.,\nwhile secretly supporting James as King, Burnet says, \"the prevarication\nof too many in so sacred a matter contributed not a little to fortify\nthe growing atheism of the time.\"\n\nAs Descartes and Spinoza had been foremost on the continent, so was\nLocke in England, and no sketch of the progress of heresy during the\nseventeenth century would be deserving serious regard which did not\naccord a prominent place to John Locke, whom G. H. Lewes calls \"one of\nthe wisest of Englishmen,\" and of whom Buckle speaks as \"an innovator in\nhis philosophy, and an Unitarian in his creed.\" He was born in 1632,\nand died 1704. Locke, according to his own fashion, was a sincere and\nearnest Christian; but this has not saved him from being furiously\nassailed for the materialistic character of his philosophy, and many\nhave been ready to assert that Locke's principles \"lead to Atheism.\" In\npolitics Locke laid down, that unjust and unlawful force on the part of\nthe government might and ought to be resisted by force on the part of\nthe citizens. He urged that on questions of theology there ought to\nbe no penalties consequent upon the reception or rejection of any\nparticular religious opinion. How far those were right who regarded\nLocke's metaphysical reasoning as; dangerous to orthodoxy may be, judged\nby the following extract on the origin of ideas:--: \"Follow a child from\nits birth and observe the alterations that time makes, and you shall\nfind, as the mind by the senses comes more and more to be furnished with\nideas, it comes to be more and more awake; thinks more, the more it\nhas matter to think on. After some time, it begins to know the objects,\nwhich being most familiar with it, have made lasting impressions. Thus\nit comes, by degrees, to know the persons it daily converses with, and\ndistinguish them from strangers; which are instances and effects of its\ncoming to retain and distinguish the ideas the senses convey to it;\nand so we may observe, how the mind, by degrees improves in these,\nand advances to the exercise of those other faculties of enlarging,\ncompounding, and abstracting its ideas, and of reasoning about them, and\nreflecting upon all these.\n\n\"If it shall be demanded then, when a man begins to have any ideas? I\nthink the true answer is, when he first has any sensation. For since\nthere appear not to be any ideas in the mind, before the senses have\nconveyed any in, I conceive that ideas in the understanding are coeval\nwith sensation; which is such an impression or emotion, made in some\npart of the body, as produces some perception in the understanding. It\nis about these impressions made on our senses by outward objects, that\nthe mind seems first to employ itself in such operations as we call\nperception, remembering, consideration, reasoning, &c.\n\n\"In time, the mind comes to reflect on its own operations, about the\nideas got by sensation, and thereby stores itself with a new set of\nideas, which I call ideas of reflection. These are the impressions that\nare made on our senses by outward objects, that are extrinsical to the\nmind; and its own operations, proceeding from powers intrinsical and\nproper to itself, which, when reflected on by itself, becoming also\nobjects of its contemplation, are, as I have said, the original of all\nknowledge. Thus the first capacity of human intellect is, that the mind\nis fitted to receive the impressions made on it, either through the\nsenses, by outward objects, or by its own operations, when it reflects\non them. This is the first step a man makes towards the discovery of\nanything, and the groundwork whereon to build all those notions which\never he shall have naturally in this world. All those sublime thoughts\nwhich tower above the clouds, and reach as high as heaven itself, take\ntheir rise and footing here: in all that good extent wherein the mind\nwanders, in those remote speculations, it may seem to be elevated with,\nit stirs not one jot beyond those ideas which sense or reflection have\noffered for its contemplation.\n\n\"In this part, the understanding is merely passive; and whether or no it\nwill have these beginnings, and, as it were, materials of knowledge, is\nnot in its own power. For the objects of our senses do, many of them,\nobtrude their particular ideas upon our minds, whether we will or no;\nand the operations of our minds will not let us be without, at least,\nsome obscure notions of them. No man can be wholly ignorant of what he\ndoes when he thinks. These simple ideas, when offered to the mind,\nthe understanding can no more refuse to have, nor alter, when they are\nimprinted, nor blot them out and make new ones itself, than a mirror can\nrefuse, alter, or obliterate the images or ideas which the objects\nset before it do therein produce. As the bodies that surround us\ndo diversely affect our organs, the mind is forced to receive the\nimpressions, and cannot avoid the perception of those ideas that are\nannexed to them.\"\n\nThe distinction pointed out by Lewes between Locke and Hobbes and\nGassendi, is that the two latter taught that all our ideas were derived\nfrom sensations, while Locke said there were two sources, not one\nsource, and these two were sensation and reflection. Locke was in style\na more popular writer than Hobbes, and the heretical effect of the\ndoctrines on the mind not being so immediately perceived in consequence\nof Locke's repeated declarations in favour of Christianity, his\nmetaphysical productions were more widely read than those of Hobbes; but\nLocke really teaches the same doctrine as that laid down by Robert Owen\nin his views on the formation of character; and his views on sensation,\nas the primary source of ideas, are fatal to all notions of innate\nideas and of freewill. Voltaire, speaking of Locke, says:--\"'We shall,\nperhaps, never be capable of knowing whether a being purely material\nthinks or not.' This judicious and guarded observation was considered\nby more than one divine, as neither more nor less than a scandalous and\nimpious declaration, that the soul is material and mortal. Some English\ndevotees, after their usual manner, sounded the alarm. The superstitious\nare in society what poltroons are in an army--they both feel and\nexcite causeless terror. The cry was, that Mr. Locke wished to overturn\nreligion; the subject, however, had nothing to do with religion at all;\nit was purely a philosophical question, and perfectly independent of\nfaith and revelation.\"\n\nOne clergyman, the Rev. William Carrol, wrote, charging Atheism as the\nresult of Locke's teachings. The famous Sir Isaac Newton even grew so\nalarmed with the materialistic tendency of Locke's philosophy, that when\nJohn Locke was reported sick and unlikely to live, it is credibly stated\nthat Newton went so far as to say that it would be well if the author of\nthe essay on the Understanding were already dead. In 1689, one Cassimer\nLeszynski, a Polish knight, was burned at Warsaw for denying the being\nand providence of a God; but there are no easy means of learning whether\nthe charge arose from prejudice on the part of his accusers, or whether\nthis unfortunate gentleman really held Atheistic views.\n\nPeter Bayle, born at Carlat, in Foix, 1647, died in Holland, 1706, was a\nwriter of great power and brilliancy and wide learning. Without standing\navowedly on the side of scepticism, he did much to promote sceptical\nviews amongst the rapidly growing class of men of letters. He declared\nthat it was better to be an Atheist, than to have a false or unworthy\nidea of God; that a man can be at the same time an Atheist and an honest\nman, and that a people without a religion is capable of good order.\nBayle's writings grew more heretical towards the latter part of his\ncareer, and he suffered considerable persecution at the hands of the\nChurch, for having spoken too plainly of the character of David. He said\nthat \"if David was the man after God's own heart, it must have been\nby his penitence, not by his crimes.\" Bayle might have added, that the\nrecord ot David's penitence is not easily discoverable in any part of\nthe narrative of his life.\n\nMatthew Tindal, born 1656, died 1733, was, though the son of a clergyman\nof the Established Church, one of the first amongst the school of\nDeistical writers who became so prominent in the beginning of the\neighteenth century. Dr. Pye Smith catalogues him as \"an Atheist,\" but\nwe know no ground for this. He was a zealous controversialist, and\ncommencing by attacking priests, he continued his attack against\nthe revelation they preached. He was a frequent writer, but his\n\"Christianity as old as the Creation\" is his chief work, and the one\nwhich has provoked the greatest amount of discussion. It was published\nnearly at the close of his life, and after he had seen others of his\nwritings burned by the common hangman. Dr. Matthew Tindal helped much to\nshake belief in the Bible, those who wrote against him did much more; if\nno one had replied to Tindal, his attacks on; revelation would have\nbeen read by few, but in answering the heretic, Bishop Waterland and his\n_confreres_ gave wider circulation to Tindal's heresy.\n\nJohn Toland was born Nov. 30,1670, at Londonderry, but was educated in\nScotland. He died 1722. His publications were all about the close of\nthe seventeenth and commencement of the eighteenth centuries, and the\nability of his contributions to popular instruction may be judged by\nthe abusive epithets heaped upon him by his opponents. While severely\nattacking the bulk of the clergy as misleaders of the people, and while\nalso assailing some of the chief orthodox notions, he yet, either in\norder to escape the law, or from the effect of his religious education,\nprofessed a respect for what he was pleased to call true Christianity,\nbut which we should be inclined to consider, at the least, somewhat\nadvanced Unitarianism. At last, however, his works were ordered to be\nburned by the common hangman, and to escape arrest and prosecution he\nhad to flee to the Continent. Dr. J. Pye Smith describes Toland as a\nPantheist, and calls his Pantheisticon \"an Atheistic Liturgy.\" In one of\nToland's essays he laments \"how hard it is to come to a truth yourself,\nand how dangerous a thing to publish to others.\" The publications ot\nToland were none of them very bulky although numerous, and as most\nof them were fiercely assailed by the orthodox clergy, they helped to\nexcite popular interest in England, in the critical examination of the\nScriptures and the doctrines therein taught.\n\nBesides the few authors to whom attention is here drawn, there were\nnumerous men who--each for a little while, and often coming out from\nthe lower ranks of the people themselves--stirred the hitherto\nalmost stagnant pool of popular thought with some daring utterance or\nextravagant statement. Fanatics some, mystics some, alchemists some,\nmaterialists some, but all crude and imperfect in their grasp of the\nsubject they advocated, they nevertheless all helped to agitate the\nhuman mind, to render it more restless and inquiring, and thus they all\npromoted the march of heresy.\n\nOne feature of the history of the seventeenth century shows how much\nphilosophy had gained ground, and how deep its roots were striking\nthroughout the European world--viz., that nearly all the writers wrote\nin the vulgar tongue of their country, or there were published editions\nof their works in that tongue. A century earlier, and but few escaped\nfrom the narrow bonds of learned Latin: two centuries before, and none\ngot outside the Latin folios; but in this century theology, metaphysics,\nphilosophy, and politics are discussed in French, German, English, and\nItalian. The commonest reader may peruse the most learned author, for\nthe writing is in a language which he cannot help knowing.\n\nThere were in this century a large number of writers in England and\nthroughout Europe, who, taking the Bible as a starting-point and\nlimitation for their philosophy, broached wonderful theories as to\ncreation, &c, in which reason and revelation were sought to be made\nharmonious. Enfield, a most orthodox writer, in his \"History of\nPhilosophy\" says, \"Who does not perceive, from the particulars which\nhave been related concerning these Scriptural philosophers, that\ntheir labours, however well intended, have been of little benefit to\nphilosophy? Their fundamental error has consisted in supposing that the\nsacred Scriptures were intended, not only to instruct men in all things\nnecessary to their salvation, but to teach the true principles of\nphysical and metaphysical science.\" How pregnant the admission that\nrevelation and science cannot be expected to accord--an admission which\nin truth declares that in all philosophical research it is necessary\nto go beyond the Bible, if not to go against it--an admission which\ninvolves the declaration, that so long as men are bound by the letter of\nthe Bible, so long all philosophical progress is impossible.\n\nIn this century the English Church lost much of the political power it\nhad hitherto wielded. It was in 1625, that William, Bishop of Lincoln,\nwas dismissed from the office of Lord Keeper, and since his day no\necclesiastic has held the great seal of England, and to-day who even\nin the Church itself would dream of trying to make a bishop Lord\nChancellor? The church lost ground in the conflict with Charles, but\nthis it might perhaps have recovered, but it suffered irretrievably loss\nof prestige in its struggle with William.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY\n\nThe eighteenth century deserves that the penman who touches its records\nshall have some virility; for these records contain, not only the\nnarrative of the rapid growth of the new philosophy in France, England,\nand Germany, where its roots had been firmly struck in the previous\ncentury, but they also give the history of a glorious endeavour on the\npart of a down-trodden and long-suffering people, weakened and degraded\nby generations of starvation and oppression, to break the yoke of\ntyranny and superstition. Eighteenth century historians can write how\nthe men of France, after having been cursed by a long race of kings, who\nnever dreamed of identifying their interests with those of the people;\nafter enduring centuries of tyranny from priests, whose only Gods were\npower, pleasure, and Mammon, and at the hands of nobles, who denied\ncivil rights to their serfs; at last, could endure no longer, but\nelectrified into life by eighteenth century heresy, \"spurned under foot\nthe idols of tyranny and superstition,\" and sought \"by the influence of\nreason to erect on the ruins of arbitrary power the glorious edifice\nof civil and religious liberty.\" Why Frenchmen then failed in giving\npermanent success to their heroic endeavour, and why France, despite the\nwonderful recent progress in thought, is even yet cursed with corrupt\nimperialism and state superstition, is not difficult to explain, when we\nconsider that every tyranny in Europe united against that young republic\nto which the monarchy had bequeathed a legacy of a wretched pauper\npeople, a people whose minds had been hitherto wholly in the hands of\nthe priests, whose passions had revolted against wrong, but whose brains\nwere yet too weak for the permanent enjoyment of the freedom temporarily\nresulting from physical effort. Eighteenth century heresy is especially\nnoticeable for its immediate connection with political change. For the\nfirst time in European history, the great mass commenced to yearn\nfor the assertion in government of democratic principles. The French\nRepublican Revolution which overthrew Louis XVI. and the Bastile,\nwas only possible because the heretical teachers who preceded it,\nhad weakened the divine right of kingcraft; and it was ultimately\nunsuccessful, only because an overwhelming majority of the people were\nas yet not sufficiently released from the thraldom of the church, and\ntherefore fell before the allied despotisms of Europe, who were aided\nby the Catholic priests, who naturally plotted against the spirit which\nseemed likely to make men too independent to be pious.\n\nIn Germany the liberation of the masses from the dominion of the Church\nof Rome was effected with the, at first, active believing concurrence\nof the nation; in England this was not so, Protestantism here was the\nresult rather of the influence and interests of the King and Court, and\nof the indifference of the great body of the people. The Reformed Church\nof England, sustained by the crown and aristocracy, has generally\nleft the people to find their own way to heaven or hell, and has only\nrequired abstinence from avowed denial of, or active opposition to, its\ntenets. Its ministers have usually preached with the same force to a few\nworshippers scattered over their grand cathedrals and numerous churches\nas to a thronging crowd, but in each these there has been a lack of\nvitality in the sermon. It is only when the material interests of the\nchurch have been apparently threatened that vigour has been shown on the\npart of its teachers.\n\nIt is a curious fact, and one for comment hereafter, that while in the\nmodern struggle for the progress of heresy, its sixteenth century\npages present many most prominent Italian names, when we come to the\neighteenth century, there are but few such names worthy special notice;\nit is no longer from the extreme South, but from France, Germany, and\nEngland that you have the great array of Freethinking warriors. Those\nwhom Italy boasts too are now nearly all in the Idealistic ranks.\n\nWe commenced the list by a brief reference to Bernard Mandeville, a\nDutch physician, born at Dordrecht in 1670 and who died in 1733; a\nwriter with great power as a satirist, whose fable of the \"Bees, or\nPrivate Vices made Public Benefits,\" not only served as source for\nmuch of Helvetius, but had the double honour of an indictment at the\nMiddlesex session, and an answer from the pen of Bishop Berkeley.\n\nOne of the early, and perhaps one of the most important promoters of\nheresy in the United Kingdom, was George Berkeley, an Irishman by birth.\nHe was born on the 12th of March, 1684, at Kilcrin, and died at Oxford\nin 1753. It was this writer to whom Pope assigned \"every virtue under\nheaven,\" and of whom Byron wrote:--\n\n     \"When Bishop Berkeley said 'there was no matter,'\n     And proved it--'twas no matter what he said:\n     They say his system 'tis in vain to batter,\n     Too subtle for the airiest human head;\n     And yet who can believe it?\"\n\nA writer in the _Encyclopedia Metropolitana_ describes him as \"the\none, perhaps, whose heart was most free from scepticism, and whose\nunderstanding was most prone to it.\" Berkeley is here dealt with as one\nspecially contributing to the growth of sceptical thought, and not as\nan Idealist only. Arthur Collier published, about the same time as\nBerkeley, several works in which absolute Idealim is advocated. Collier\nand Berkeley were mouthpieces for the expression of an effort at\nresistance against the growing Spinozistic school. They wrote against\nsubstance assumed as the \"noumenon lying underneath all phenomena--the\nsubstratum supporting all qualities--the something in which all\naccidents inhere.\" Collier and his writings are almost unknown;\nBerkeley's name has become famous, and his arguments have served to\nexcite far wider scepticism than have those of any other Englishman of\nhis age. Most religious men who read him misunderstand him, and nearly\nall misrepresent his theory. Hume, speaking of Berkeley, says, \"Most of\nthe writings of that very ingenious philosopher form the best lessons\nof scepticism which are to be found, either among the ancient or modern\nphilosophers, Bayle not excepted. He professes, however, in his title\npage (and undoubtedly with great truth) to have composed his book\nagainst the sceptics, as well as against the Atheists and Freethinkers.\nBut that all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are in reality\nmerely sceptical, appears from this, that they admit of no answer,\nand produce no conviction,\" Berkeley wrote for those who \"want a\ndemonstration of the existence and immateriality of God, or the natural\nimmortality of the soul,\" and his philosophy was intended to check\nmaterialism. The key-note ot his works may be found in his declaration,\n\"The only thing whose existence I deny, is that which philosophers call\nMatter or corporeal substance.\" The definition given by Berkeley of\nmatter is one which no materialist will be ready to accept, i.e.f \"an\ninert, senseless substance in which extension, figure, and motion do\nactually exist.\" The \"Principles of Human Knowledge\" is the work in\nwhich Berkeley's Idealism is chiefly set forth, and many have been\nthe volumes and pamphlets written in reply. Whatever might have been\nBerkeley's intention as to refuting scepticism, the result of his\nlabours was to increase it in no ordinary degree; Dr. Pye Smith thug\nsummarises Berkeley's views:--\"He denied the existence of matter as a\ncause of our perceptions, but firmly maintained the existence of created\nand dependent spirits, of which every man is one; that to suppose the\nexistence of sensible qualities and of a material world, is an erroneous\ndeduction from the fact of our perceptions; that those perceptions\nare-nothing but ideas and thoughts in our minds; that these are produced\nin perfect uniformity, order, and consistency in all minds, so that\ntheir occurrence is according to fixed rules which may be called the\nlaws of nature; that that Deity is either the immediate or the mediate\ncause of these perceptions, by his universal operation on created minds;\nand that the created mind has a power of managing these perceptions,\nso that volitions arise, and all the phenomena of moral action and\nresponsibility. The great reply to this is, that it is a hypothesis\nwhich cannot be proved, which is highly improbable, and which seems to\nput upon the Deity the inflicting on man a perpetual delusion.\"\n\nThe weakness of Berkeley's system as a mere question of logic is, that\nwhile he requires the most rigorous demonstration of the existence of\nwhat he defines as matter, he assumes an eternal spirit with various\nattributes, and also creates spirits of various sorts. He creates the\nstates of mind resulting from the sensation of surrounding phenomena\ninto ideas, existing independent of the _ego_, when in truth, man's\nideas are not in addition to man's mind; but the aggregate of sensative\nability, and the result of its exercise is the mind, just as the\naggregate of functional ability and activity is life. The foundation of\nBerkeley's faith in the invisible \"eternal spirit\" in angels as \"created\nspirits,\" is difficult to discover, when you accept his argument for\nthe rejection of visible phenomena. He in truth should have rejected\neverything save his own mind, for the mental processes are clearly\nnot always reliable. In dreams, in delirium, in insanity, in temporary\ndisease of particular nerves of sensation, in some phases of magnetic\ninfluence, the ideas which Berkeley sustains so forcibly are admittedly\ndelusions. As in George Berkeley, so we have in Bishop Butler, an\nillustration of the endeavour to check the rapidly enlarging scepticism\nof this century. Joseph Butler was born in 1692, died 1752, and will be\nlong known by his famous work on the \"Analogy of Religion\" to the course\nof nature. In this place it is not our duty to do more than point out\na few features of the argument, observing that this elaborate piece of\nspecial pleading for natural and revealed religion, is evidence that\ndanger was apprehended by the clergy, from the spread of Freethought\nviews amongst the masses. A popular reply was written to provide against\nthe growing popular objection; Bishop Butler argues that \"we know\nthat we are endued with certain capacities of action, of happiness and\nmisery; for we are conscious of acting, of enjoying pleasure, and of\nsuffering pain. Now that we have these powers and capacities before\ndeath, is a presumption that we shall retain them through, and after\ndeath; indeed a probability of it abundantly sufficient to act upon,\nunless there be some positive reason to think that death is the\ndestruction of those living powers.\" It may be fairly submitted in\nreply, that here the argument from analogy is as utterly faulty, as if\nin the spring season a traveller should say of a wayside pool, it is\nhere before the summer sun shines upon it, and will be here during and\nafter the summer drought, when ordinary experience would teach him\nthat as the pool is only gathered during the rainy season in the hollow\nground, so in the dry hot summer days, it will be gradually evaporated\nunder the blazing rays of the July sun. As to the human capacities,\nexperience teaches us that they have changed with the condition of the\nbody; emotional feelings and animal passions, the gratification of which\nensured temporary pleasure or pain, have varied, have been newly felt,\nand have died out in different periods and conditions of our lives,\nand the presumption is against the complete endurance of all these\n\"capacities for action,\" &c., even during the whole life, and much\nmore strongly, therefore, against their endurance after death. Besides\nwhich--continuing the argument from analogy--my \"capacities\" having\nonly been manifested since my body has existed, and in proportion to my\nphysical ability, the presumption is rather that the manifestation which\ncommenced with the body, will finish as the body finishes. Further,\nit is fair to presume that \"death is the destruction of those living\npowers,\" for death is the cessation of organic functional activity; a\ncessation consequent on some change or destruction of organisation.\nOf course, the word \"destruction\" is not here used in any sense of\nannihilation of substance, but as meaning such a change of condition\nthat vital phenomena are no longer manifested. But, says Butler, \"we\nknow not at all what death is in itself, but only some of its effects,\nsuch as the dissolution of flesh, skin, and bones, and these effects\ndo in nowise appear to imply the destruction of a living agent.\" Here,\nperhaps, there is an unjustifiable assumption in the words \"living\nagent,\" for if by living agent is only meant the animal which dies,\nthen the destruction of flesh, skin, and bones does fairly imply the\ndestruction of the living agent, but if by living agent is intended\nmore than this, then the argument is speciously and unfairly worded. But\nbeyond this, if Bishop Butler's argument has any value, it proves too\nmuch. He says--\"Nor can we find anything throughout the whole analogy\nof nature, to afford us even the slightest presumption that animals ever\nlose their living powers.... by death.\" That is, Bishop Butler applies\nhis argument for a future state of existence, not only to man, but to\nthe whole animal kingdom; and it may be fairly conceded that there is\nas much ground to presume that man will live again, as there is that the\nworm will live again, which, being impaled upon a hook, is eaten by the\ngudgeon, or that the gudgeon will live again which, threaded as a bait,\nis torn and mangled to death by a ravenous pike, or that the pike will\nlive again after it has been kept out of water till rigid, then gutted,\nscaled, stuffed with savoury condiments, broiled, and ultimately eaten\nby Piscator and his family. Bishop Butler's argument, that because\npleasure or pain is uniformly found to follow the acting or not acting\nin some particular manner, there is presumptive analogy in favour of\nfuture rewards and punishments by Deity, appears weak in the extreme.\nAccording to Butler, God is the author of nature. Nature's laws are\nsuch, that punishment, immediate or remote, follows non-observance, and\nreward, more or less immediate, is the result of observance; and because\nGod is by Butler's argument, assumed as the author of nature, and has\ntherefore already punished or rewarded once; we are following Butler,\nto presume that he will after death punish or reward again for an action\nupon which he has already adjudicated. In his chapter on the Moral\nGovernment of God, Butler says, \"As the manifold appearances of design\nand of final causes in the constitution of the world, prove it to be the\nwork of an intelligent mind, so the particular final causes of pleasure\nand pain distributed amongst his creatures, prove that they are under\nhis government--what may be called his natural government of creatures\nendowed with sense and reason.\" But taking Bishop Butler's own position,\nwhat sort of government is demonstrated by this argument from analogy?\nGod, according to Bishop Butler's reasoning, designed the whale to\nswallow the Clio Borealis, which latter he designed to be so swallowed,\nbut which he nevertheless invested with some 300,000 suckers, to enable\nit in its turn to seize the minute animalcule on which it lives. God\ndesigned Brutus to kill Caesar, Orsini to be beheaded by Louis Napoleon.\nThese, according to Butler, would be all under the special control of\nGod's government. Deity would guide the Clio Borealis into the mouth of\nthe whale, guide the dagger of Brutus, and arrange for the enjoyment of\nthe cancan by princes of the blood royal. Bishop Butler's theory that\nour present life is a state of trial and probation, is met by the\ndifficulty, that while he assumes the justice and benevolence of God as\nmoral governor, he has the fact, that many exist with organisations and\ncapacities so originally different, that it is manifestly most unfair to\nput one and the same reward, or one and this same publishment for all.\nThe Esquimaux or Negro is not on a level at the outset of life with the\nCaucasian races. How from analogy can any one argue in favour of the\ndoctrine that an impartial judge who had started them in the race of\nlife unfairly matched, would put the same prize before all, none of the\nstarters being handicapped? Bishop Butler's argument on the doctrine\nof necessity, is that which one might expect to find from a hired _nisi\nprius_ advocate, but which is read with regret coming from the pen of a\ngentleman, who ought to be striving to convince his erring brethren by\nthe words of truth alone. He says, suppose a child to be educated from\nhis earliest youth in the principles of \"fatalism,\" what then? The reply\nis, that a necessitarian knowing that a certain education of the human\nmind was most conducive to human happiness, would strive to impart to\nhis children education of that character. That a worse \"fatalism\"\nis inculcated in the doctrine of a fore-ordaining and ever-directing\nprovidence, planning and controlling every one of the child's actions,\nthan ever was taught in necessitarian essays. That the child would be\ntaught the laws of existence, and would be shown how certain conduct\nresulted in pleasure, and certain other conduct was during life attended\nwith pain, and that the result of such teaching would be far more\nefficacious in its moral results, than the inculcation of a present\nresponsibility, and an ultimate heaven and hell, in which latter\ndoctrine, nearly all Christians profess to believe, but nearly all act\nas if it were not of the slightest consequence whether any such paradise\nor infernal region exists.\n\nHenry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, born October 1,1672, died November\n15,1751, may be taken as one of the school of polished deistical\nwriters, who, though comparatively few, fairly enough represent the\nreligious opinions of the large majority of the journalists of the\npresent day. In the course of Bolingbroke's \"Letters on the Study of\nHistory,\" a strong sceptical spirit is manifested, and he speaks in\none of \"the share which the divines of all religions have taken in the\ncorruption of history.\" In another he thus deals with the question\nof the Bible:--\"It has been said by Abbadie, and others, 'that the\naccidents which have happened to alter the texts of the Bible, and to\ndisfigure, if I may say so, the scriptures in many respects, could not\nhave been prevented without a perpetual standing miracle, and that a\nperpetual standing miracle is not in the order of providence.' Now I\ncan by no means subscribe to this opinion. It seems evident to my reason\nthat the very contrary must be true; if we suppose that God acts towards\nmen according to the moral fitness of things; and if we suppose that he\nacts arbitrarily, we can form no opinion at all. I think these accidents\nwould not have happened, or that the scriptures would have been\npreserved entirely in their genuine purity notwithstanding these\naccidents, if they had been entirely dictated by the Holy Ghost: and the\nproof of this probable proposition, according to our clearest and most\ndistinct ideas of wisdom and moral fitness, is obvious and easy. But\nthese scriptures are not so come down to us: they are come down broken\nand confused, full of additions, interpolations; and transpositions,\nmade we neither know when, nor by whom; and such, in short, as never\nappeared on the face of any other book, on whose authority men have\nagreed to rely. This being so, my lord, what hypothesis shall we follow?\nShall we adhere to some such distinction as I have mentioned? Shall we\nsay, for instance, that the scriptures were originally written by the\nauthors to whom they are vulgarly ascribed, but that these authors\nwrit nothing by inspiration, except the legal, the doctrinal, and the\nprophetical parts, and that in every other respect their authority\nis purely human, and therefore fallible? Or shall we say that these\nhistories are nothing more than compilations of old traditions, and\nabridgements of old records, made in later times, as they appear to\nevery one who reads them without prepossession and with attention?\"\n\nIt has been alleged that Pope's verse is but another rendering of\nBolingbroke's views without his \"aristocratic nonchalance,\" and that\nsome passages of Pope regarded as hostile to revealed religion, were\nspecially due to the influence of Bolingbroke; and more than one critic\nhas professed to trace identities of thought and expression in order to\nshow that Pope was largely indebted to the published works of St. John.\n\nDavid Hume was born at Edinburgh, 26th April, 1711, and died 1776. He\ncreated a new school of Freethinkers, and is to-day one of the most\nesteemed amongst sceptical authors. He was a profound thinker, and\nan easy, elegant writer, who did much to give a force and solidity to\nextreme heretical reasonings, which they had hitherto been regarded as\nlacking. His heretical essays have had a far wider circulation since his\ndeath, than they enjoyed during his life. Many volumes have been issued\nin the fruitless endeavour to refute him, and all these have contributed\nto widen the circle of his readers. He adopted and advocated the\nutilitarian and necessitarian theory of morals, and wrote of ordinary\ntheism and religion, as arising from personification of unknown causes,\nfor general or special phenomena. He held and advanced the idea, which\nBuckle so fully states, and endeavours to prove in his \"History of\nCivilisation\"--viz., that general laws operate amongst peoples, and\ninfluence and determine their so-called moral conduct, much as other\nlaws do the orbits of planets, the occurrences of eclipses, &c. His\narguments against miracles, as evidences for revealed religion, remain\nunrefuted, although they have been made the subject of many attacks. He\ncontends, in effect, that in each account of a miraculous occurrence,\nthere is always more _prima facie_ probability of error, or bad faith\non the part of the narrator, than of interference with those invariable\nsequences known as natural laws, and there was really no reply in the\nconclusion of Dr. Campbell, to the effect that we have equally to\ntrust human testimony for an account of the laws of nature and for the\nnarratives of miracles, for in truth you never have the same character\nof human testimony for the latter as for the former. And, further, while\nin the case of human testimony as to natural events, it is evidence\nwhich you may test and compare with your own experience. This is not so\nas to miracles, declared at once to be out of the range of all ordinary\nexperience. \"Men,\" he says, \"are carried by a natural instinct or\nprepossession to repose faith in their senses. When they follow this\nblind and powerful instinct of nature, they always suppose the very\nimages presented to the senses to be the external objects, and never\nentertain any suspicion that the one are nothing but representatives\nof the other. But this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon\ndestroyed by the slightest philosophy, which teaches us that nothing can\never be present to the mind but an image or perception. So far, then,\nwe are necessitated by reasoning to contradict the primary instincts of\nnature, and to embrace a new system with regard to the evidence of our\nsenses. But here philosophy finds herself extremely embarrassed, when\nshe would obviate the cavils and objections of the sceptics. She can\nno longer plead the infallible and irresistible instinct of nature, for\nthat led us to quite a different system, which is acknowledged fallible,\nand even erroneous, and to justify this pretended philosophical system\nby a chain of clear and convincing argument, or even any appearance of\nargument, exceeds the power of all human capacity. Do you follow the\ninstinct and propensities of nature in assenting to the veracity of\nthe senses? But these lead you to believe that the very perception or\nsensible image is the external object--(Idealism.) Do you disclaim\nthis principle in order to embrace a more rational opinion, that the\nperceptions are only representations of something external? You here\ndepart from your natural propensities, and more obvious sentiments;\nand yet are not able to satisfy your reason, which can never find any\nconvincing argument from experience to prove that the perceptions are\nconnected with external objects--(Scepticism.)\"\n\nCharles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu, born in 1689 near Bordeaux,\ndied at Paris 1755, who earned considerable fame by his \"Lettres\nPersanes,\" is more famous for his oft-referred to work \"L'Esprit des\nLois.\" Victor Cousin describes him as \"the man of our country who\nhas best comprehended history, and who first gave an example of true\nhistoric method.\" In the publication of certain of his ideas on history,\nMontesquieu was the layer of the foundation-stone for an edifice which\nBuckle would probably have gloriously crowned had his life been longer.\nVoltaire, who sharply criticises Montesquieu, declares that he has\nearned the eternal gratitude of Europe by his grand views and his bold\nattacks on tyranny, superstition, and grinding taxation. Montesquieu\nurged that virtue is the true essence of republicanism, but misled\nby the mistaken notions of honour held by his predecessors and\ncontemporaries, he declared honour to be the principle of monarchical\ninstitutions. Voltaire reminds him that \"it is in courts that men,\ndevoid of honour, often attain to the highest dignities; and it is in\nrepublics that a known dishonourable citizen is seldom trusted by\nthe people with public concerns.\" Montesquieu wrote in favour of a\nconstitutional monarchy such as then existed in England, and his work\nshadowed forth a future for the middle class in France.\n\nFrancois Marie Arouet Voltaire, born 20th February, 1694, at Chatenay,\ndied 30th May, 1778, may be fairly written of as the man to whose\nfertile brain and active pen, to whose great genius, fierce irony,\nand thorough humanity, we owe much more of the rapid change of popular\nthought in Europe during the last century than to any other man. His\nwit, like the electric flash, spared nothing; his love for his kind\nwould have made him the protector of everything weak, his desire to\nprotect himself from the consequences of his truest utterances, often\ndims the hero-halo with which his name is surrounded. Born and trained\namongst a corrupt and selfish class, it is not wonderful that we find\nsome of their pernicious habits clinging to parts of his career. On the\ncontrary, it is more wonderful to find that he has shaken off so much of\nthe consequences of his education. Neither in politics nor in theology\nwas he so very extreme in his utterances as many deemed him, for while\nhe occasionally severely handled individual monarchs, we do not find\nhim the preacher of republicanism. On the contrary, he is often severe\nagainst some of the advanced political views of Jean Jacques Rousseau.\nHe nevertheless suggests that it might have been \"the art of working\nmetals which originally made kings, and the art of casting cannons which\nnow maintains them,\" and as a commentary on kingly conduct in the matter\nof taxation, declares that \"a shepherd ought to shear his sheep, and\nnot to flay them.\" In theological controversy he wrote as a Theist, and\ndeclares \"Atheism and Fanaticism\" to be \"two monsters which may tear\nsociety in pieces, but the Atheist preserves his reason, which checks\nhis propensity to mischief, while the fanatic is under the influence of\na madness constantly urging him on.\" For the ancient Jews, and for\nthe Hebrew records, Voltaire entertained so thorough a feeling of\ncontemptuous detestation, that in his \"Defense de mon Oncle,\" and his\narticles and letters on the Jews, we find utter disbelief in them as\na chosen people, and the strongest abhorrence of their brutal habits,\nheightened in expression by the scathing satire of his phrases. To the\nmore modern descendants of Abraham he said: \"We have repeatedly driven\nyou away through avarice; we have recalled you through avarice and\nstupidity; we still, in more towns than one, make you pay for liberty to\nbreathe the air; we have, in more kingdoms than one, sacrificed you\nto God; we have burned you as holocausts--for I will not follow your\nexample, and dissemble that we have offered up sacrifices of human\nblood; all the difference is, that our priests, content with applying\nyour money to their own use, have had you burned by laymen; while your\npriests always immolated their human victims with their own sacred\nhands. You were monsters of cruelty and fanaticism in Palestine; we have\nbeen so in Europe.\"\n\nWriting on miracles, Voltaire asks: \"For what purpose would God perform\na miracle? To accomplish some particular design upon living beings?\nHe would then, in reality, be supposed to say--I have not been able to\neffect by my construction of the universe, by my divine decrees, by my\neternal laws, a particular object; I am now going to change my eternal\nideas and immutable laws, to endeavour to accomplish what I have\nnot been able to do by means of them. This would be an avowal of\nhis weakness, not of his power; it would appear in such a being an\ninconceivable contradiction. Accordingly, therefore, to dare to ascribe\nmiracles to God is, if man can in reality insult God, actually offering\nhim that insult. It is saying to him--You are a weak and inconsistent\nbeing. It is therefore absurd to believe in miracles; it is, in fact,\ndishonouring the divinity.\"\n\nThose who are inclined to attack the character of Voltaire, should read\nthe account of his endeavours for the Calas family. How, when old Calas\nhad been broken alive on the wheel at Toulouse, and his family were\nruined, Voltaire took up their case, aided them with means, spared no\neffort of his pen or brain, and ultimately achieved the great victory\nof reversing the unjust sentence, and obtaining compensation for the\nfamily. It, then, these Voltaire-haters have not learned to love this\ngreat heretic, let them study the narrative of his even more successful\nendeavours on behalf of the Sirvens; more successful, because in this\ncase he took up the fight before an unjust judgment could be delivered,\nand thus prevented the repetition of such an iniquitous execution as had\ntaken place in the Galas case. The cowardly slanders as to his conduct\nwhen dying are not worth notice; those spit on the grave of the dead who\nwould not have dared to look in the face of the living.\n\nClaud Adrian Helvetius was born at Paris 1715, and died December 1771.\nHis best known works are \"De l'Esprit,\" published 1758; \"Essai sur\nl'Origine des Connaissances Humaines,\" 1746; \"Traite des Systemes,\"\n1749; \"Traite des Sensations,\" 1758. Rousseau wrote in reply to\nHelvetius, but when the Parliament of Paris condemned the work \"De\nl'Esprit,\" and it was in consequence burned by the common hangman,\nRousseau withdrew his refutatory volume. Helvetius argues that any\nreligion, of which the chiefs are intolerant, and the conduct of\nwhich is expensive to the state, \"cannot long be the religion of an\nenlightened and well governed nation. The people that submit to it will\nlabour only to maintain the ease and luxury of the priesthood; each\nof its inhabitants will be nothing more than a slave to the sacerdotal\npower. A religion to be good should be tolerant and little expensive.\nIts clergy should have no authority over the people. A dread of the\npriest debases the mind and the soul, makes the one brutish and the\nother slavish. Must the ministers of the altar always be armed with the\nsword of the state? Can the barbarities committed by their intolerance\never be forgotten? The earth is yet drenched with the blood they have\nspilled. Civil tolerance alone is not sufficient to secure the peace\nof nations. Every dogma is a seed of discord and injustice sown amongst\nmankind.\"\n\n\"Why do you make the Supreme Being resemble an eastern tyrant? Why make\nhim punish slight faults with eternal torment? Why thus put the name of\nthe Divinity at the bottom of the portrait of the devil? Why oppress\nthe soul with a load of fear, break its springs, and of a worshipper of\nJesus make a vile, pusillanimous slave? It is the malignant who paint a\nmalignant G-od. What is their devotion? A veil for their crimes.\"\n\n\"Let not the rewards of heaven be made the price of trifling religious\noperations, which convey a diminutive idea of the Eternal and a false\nconception of virtue; its rewards should never be assigned to fasting,\nhaircloth, a blind submission, and self-castigation. The man who\nplaces these operations among the virtues, might as well place those of\nleaping, dancing, and tumbling on the rope.\" \"Humility may be held in\nveneration by the dwellers in a monastery or a convent, it favours the\nmeanness and idleness of a monastic life. But ought the humility to\nbe regarded as the virtue of the people? No.\" Speaking of the Pagan\nsystems, Helvetius says, \"All the fables of mythology were mere emblems\nof certain principles of nature.\"\n\nBaron d'Holbach, a native of the Palatinate, born January 1723, died\n21st January, 1789, deserves special notice, as being the man whose\nhouse was the gathering place of the knot of writers and thinkers, who\nstruck light and life into the dark and deadened brain of France. He is\ngenerally reputed to have been the author of that well-known work,\nthe \"System of Nature,\" which was issued as if by Mirabaud. This work,\nalthough it was fiercely assailed at the time, by the pen of Voltaire,\nand by the _plaidorie_ of the prosecuting Avocat-General, and has\nsince been attacked by hundreds who have never read it, yet remains\na wonderfully popular exposition of the power-gathering heresy of the\ncentury, and, as far as we are aware, has never received efficient\nreply. Probably next to Paine's works, it had in England during\nthe second quarter of this century, the widest circulation of any\nanti-theological book, and this circulation extending through the\nmanufacturing ranks. In the eighteenth century Mirabaud could, in\nEngland, only be found in the hands of the few, but fifty years had\nwondrously multiplied the number of readers.\n\nJoseph Priestley was born near Leeds, 13th March, 1733, and being\ntowards the latter part of his life driven out of England, by the\npersecuting spirit evinced towards him, and which had been specially\nexcited by his republican tendencies, he died at Northumberland,\nPennsylvania, on the 6th Feb., 1804. Originally a Church of England\nclergyman, his first notable inclination to heterodoxy manifested\nitself in hesitation as to the doctrine of the atonement. He ultimately\nrejected the immortality and immateriality of the soul, argued for\nnecessitarianism, and earned considerable unpopularity by the boldness\nof some of his sentiments on political as well as theological matters.\nPriestley was one of the rapidly multiplying instances of heresy alike\nin religion and politics, but he provoked the most bitter antagonism.\nHis works were burned by the common hangman, his house, library, and\nscientific instruments were destroyed by an infuriate and pious mob.\nDespite all this, his heresy, according to his own view of it, was not\nof a very outrageous character, for he believed in Deity, in revealed\nreligion, and in Christianity, rather putting the blame on misconduct\nof alleged Christians. He said: \"The wretched forms under which\nChristianity has long been generally exhibited, and its degrading\nalliance with, or rather its subjection to a power wholly heterogeneous\nto it, and which has employed it for the most unworthy purposes, has\nmade it contemptible and odious in the eyes of all sensible men, who are\nnow everywhere casting off the very profession and every badge of it.\nEnlightened Christians must themselves, in some measure, join with\nunbelievers in exposing whatever will not bear examination in or about\nreligion.\" His writings on scientific topics were most voluminous; his\nmost heretical volumes are those on \"Matter and Spirit.\"\n\nEdward Gibbon was born at Putney, the 27th April, 1737, and died 16th\nJanuary, 1794. He was a polished and painstaking writer, aristocratic\nin his tendencies and associations, who had educated himself into a\ndisbelief in the principal dogmas of Christianity, but who loved the\npeace and quietude of an easy life too much to enter the lists as an\nactive antagonist of the Church. His works, especially the fifteenth and\nsixteenth chapters of \"The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,\" have\nbeen regarded as infidel in their tendency, rather from what has been\nleft unsaid than from the direct statements against Christianity.\nThe sneer at the evidence of prophecy, or the doubt of the reality of\nmiraculous evidences, is guardedly expressed. It is only when Gibbon can\ncouch his lance against some reckless and impudent forger of Christian\nEvidences, such as Eusebius, that you have anything like a bold\ncondemnation. A prophecy or a miracle is treated tenderly, and if\nkilled, it is rather with over-affectionate courtesy than by rough\nhandling. In some parts of his vindications of the attacked passages,\nGibbon's scepticism finds vent in the collection and quotation of\nunpleasantly heretical views of others, but he carefully avoids\ncommitting himself to very distinct personal declarations of disbelief;\nhe claims to be the unbiassed historian recording fact, and leaving\nothers to form their own conclusions. It would perhaps be most\nappropriate to express his convictions as to the religions of the world,\nin nearly the same words as he used to characterise the various modes of\nworship at Rome, \"all considered by the people as equally true, by the\nphilosopher as equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful.\"\n\nPierre John George Cabanis, born at Conac, near Breves, 6th June, 1757,\ndied 6th May, 1808, following Condillac in many respects, was one of\nthose whose physiological investigations have opened out wide fields of\nknowledge in psychology, and who did much to promote the establishment\nin France, America, and England, of a new school of Freethinkers.\n\"Subject to the action of external bodies,\" he says, \"man finds in the\nimpressions these bodies make on his organs, at once his knowledge and\nthe causes of his continued existence, for to live is to feel; and in\nthat admirable chain of phenomena which constitute his existence, every\nwant depends on the development of some faculty; every faculty by\nits very development satisfies some want, and the faculties grow by\nexercise, as the wants extend with the facility of satisfying them. By\nthe continual action of external bodies on the senses of man, results\nthe most remarkable part of his existence. But is it true that the\nnervous centres only receive and combine the impressions which reach\nthem from the bodies? Is it true that no image or idea is formed in the\nbrain, and that no determination of the sensitive organ takes place,\nother than by virtue of these same impressions on the senses strictly\nso-called? The faculty of feeling and of spontaneous movement forms\nthe character of animal nature. The faculty of feeling consists in\nthe property possessed by the nervous system of being warned by\nthe impressions produced on its different parts, and notably on its\nextremities. These impressions are internal or external. External\nimpressions, when perception is distinct, are called sensations.\nInternal impressions are very often vague and confused, and the animal\nis then only warned by their effects, and does not clearly distinguish\ntheir connection with the causes. The former result from the application\nof external objects to the organs of sense, and on them ideas depend.\nThe latter result from the development of the regular functions, or from\nthe maladies to which each organ is subject; and from these issue those\ndeterminations which bear the name of instincts. Feeling and movement\nare linked together. Every movement is determined by an impression,\nand the nerves, as the organs of feeling, animate and direct the motor\norgans. In feeling, the nervous organ reacts on itself. In movement it\nreacts on other parts, to which it communicates the contractile faculty,\nthe simple and fecund principle of all animal movement. Finally, the\nvital functions can exercise themselves by the influence of some nervous\nramifications, isolated from the system--the distinctive faculties can\ndevelope themselves, even when the brain is almost wholly destroyed, and\nwhen it seems wholly inactive. But for the formation of thoughts, it is\nnecessary that the brain should exist, and be in a healthy condition; it\nis the special organ of thought.\" Thomas Paine, the most famous Deist of\nmodern times, was born at Thetford on the 29th January, 1737, and\ndied 8th June, 1809. It will hardly be untrue to say that the famous\n\"rebellious needleman\" has been the most popular writer in Great Britain\nand America against revealed religion, and that his works, from their\nplain, clear language, have in those countries had, and still have, a\nfar wider circulation than those of any other modern sceptical author.\nHis anti-theology was allied to his republicanism; he warred alike\nagainst church and throne, and his impeachment of each was couched in\nthe plainest Anglo-Saxon. His name became at the same time a word\nof terror to the aristocracy and to the clergy. In England numerous\nprosecutions were commenced against the vendors of his political and\ntheological works, and against persons suspected of giving currency to\nhis views. The peace-officers searched poor men's houses to discover his\ndreaded works. Lancashire and Yorkshire artisans read him by stealth,\nand assembled in corners of fields that they might discuss the \"Age\nof Reason,\" and yet be safe from surprise by the authorities. Heavy\nsentences were passed upon men convicted of promulgating his opinions;\nbut all without effect, the forbidden fruit found eager gatherers. Paine\nappears to have been tinged with scepticism from his early boyhood, but\nit was as a democratic writer that he first achieved literary fame.\nHis \"Age of Reason\" was the culminating blow which the dying eighteenth\ncentury aimed at the Hebrew and Christian records. Theretofore scholarly\nphilosophers, metaphysicians, and critics had written for their fellows,\nand whether or not any of the mass read and understood, the authors\ncared but little. Now the people were addressed by one of themselves in\nlanguage startling in its plainness. Paine was not a deep examiner of\nmetaphysical problems, but he was terribly in earnest in his rejection\nof an impossible creed.\n\nCharles Prangois Dupuis was born near Chaumont, in France, the 16th\nOct., 1742, died 29th Sept., 1809. He played a prominent part in\nthe great revolutionary movement, and was Secretary to the National\nConvention. His famous work, \"L'Origine de tous les Cultes,\" is one of\nthe grand heresy marks of the eighteenth century. Himself a Pantheist,\nhe searched through the mythic traditions of the Greeks, the Egyptians,\nthe Hindoos, and the Hebrews, and as a result, sought to demonstrate a\ncommon origin for all religions. Dr. John Pye Smith classes Dupuis as an\nAtheist, but this is most certainly an incorrect classification. He did\nnot believe in creation, nor could he go outside the universe to\nsearch for its cause, but he regarded God as \"la force universelle\net eternellement active\" and which permeated and animated everything.\nDupuis was an example of a new and rapidly increasing class of\nFreethinking writers--i.e., those who, not content with doubting the\ndivine origin of the religions they attacked, sought to explain the\nsource and progress of the various systems. He urges that all religions\nfind their base in the attempts at personification of some one or\nother, or of the whole of the forces of the universe, and shows what an\nimportant part the sun and moon have been made to play in the Egyptian,\nGreek, and Hindoo Mythologies. He argues that the fabulous biographies\nof Hercules, Bacchus, Osiris, Mithra, and Jesus, find their common\norigin in the sun-worship, thus cloaked and hidden from the vulgar\nin each country. He does not attack the Hebrew Records as simply\ninaccurate, but endeavours to show clear Sabaistic foundation for many\nof the most important narratives. The works of Dupuis and Dulaure\nshould be read together; they contain the most complete amongst the many\nattempts to trace out the common origins of the various mythologies of\nthe world. In the ninth chapter of Dupuis' great work, he deals with the\n\"fable made upon the sun adored under the name of Christ,\" \"_un dieu qui\nait mange autrefois sur la terre, et qu'on y mange aujourd'hui,_\"\nand unquestionably urges strange points of coincidence. It is only\nastrologically that the 25th of December can be fixed, he argues, as the\nbirthday of Mithra and of Jesus, then born of the celestial Virgin. Our\nEaster festivities for the resurrection of Jesus, are but another form\nof the more ancient rejoicings at that season for Adonis, the sun-God,\nrestored to the world after his descent into the lower regions. He\nrecalls that the ancient Druidic worship recognised the Virgin suckling\nthe child, and gathers together many illustrations favourable to his\ntheory. Here we do no more than point out that while reason was rapidly\nreleasing itself from priestly thraldom, heretics were not content to\ndeny the divine origin of Christianity, but sought to trace its mundane\nor celestial source, and strip it of its fabulous plumage.\n\nConstantine Francis Chassebeuuf Count Volney, born at Craon in Anjou,\nFebruary 3rd, 1757, died 1820. He was a Deist. In his two great works,\n\"The Ruins of Empires,\" and \"New Researches on Ancient History,\" he\nadvances many of the views brought forward by Dupuis, from whom he\nquotes, but his volumes are much more readable than those of the author\nof the \"Origin of all Religions.\" Volney appears to have been one of the\nfirst to popularise many of Spinoza's Biblical criticisms. He denied the\nMosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. He wrote most vigorously against\nkingcraft as well as priestcraft, regarding all systems of monarchy and\nreligion as founded on the ignorance and servility, the superstition\nand weakness of the people. He puts the following into the mouth of\nMa-hommedan priests replying to Christian preachers: \"We maintain that\nyour gospel morality is by no means characterised by the perfection you\nascribe to it. It is not true that it has introduced into the world new\nand unknown virtues; for example, the equality of mankind in the eyes\nof God, and the fraternity and benevolence which are the consequence of\nthis equality, were tenets formerly professed by the sect of Hermetics\nand Samaneans, from whom you have your descent. As to forgiveness\nof injuries, it had been taught by the Pagans themselves; but in the\nlatitude you give to it, it ceases to be a virtue, and becomes an\nimmorality and a crime. Your boasted precept, to him that strikes thee\non thy right cheek turn the other also, is not only contrary to the\nfeelings of man, but a flagrant violation of every principle of justice;\nit emboldens the wicked by impunity, degrades the virtuous by the\nservility to which it subjects them; delivers up the world to disorder\nand tyranny, and dissolves the bands of society--such is the true spirit\nof your doctrine. The precepts and parables of your Gospel also never\nrepresent God other than as a despot, acting by no rule of equity; than\nas a partial father treating a debauched and prodigal son with greater\nfavour than his obedient and virtuous children; than as a capricious\nmaster giving the same wages to him who has wrought but one hour, as to\nthose who have borne the burthen and heat of the day, and preferring\nthe last comers to the first. In short, your morality throughout is\nunfriendly to human intercourse; a code of misanthropy calculated to\ngive men a disgust for life and society, and attach them to solitude and\ncelibacy. With respect to the manner in which you have practised your\nboasted doctrine, we in our turn appeal to the testimony of fact, and\nask, was it your evangelical meekness and forbearance which excited\nthose endless wars among your sectaries, those atrocious persecutions\nof what you call heretics, those crusades against the Arians, the\nManichseans, and the Protestants, not to mention those which you have\ncommitted against us, nor the sacrilegious associations still subsisting\namong you, formed of men who have sworn to perpetuate them?* Was it\nthe charity of your Gospel that led you to exterminate whole nations in\nAmerica, and to destroy the empires of Mexico and Peru; that makes you\nstill desolate Africa, the inhabitants of which you sell like cattle,\nnotwithstanding the abolition of slavery that you pretend your religion\nhas effected; that makes you ravage India whose domain you usurp; in\nshort, is it charity that has prompted you for three centuries past to\ndisturb the peaceful inhabitants of three continents, the most prudent\nof whom, those of Japan and China, have been constrained to banish you\nfrom their country, that they might escape your chains and recover their\ndomestic tranquillity?\"\n\n     * The oath taken by the Knights of the Order of Malta is to\n     kill, or make the Mahometans prisoners, for the glory of\n     God.\n\nDuring the early part of the eighteenth century, magazines and other\nperiodicals began to grow apace, and pamphlets multiplied exceedingly in\nthis country. Addison, Steele, Defoe, and Dean Swift all helped in the\nwork of popular education, and often in a manner probably unanticipated\nby themselves. Dean Swifts satire against scepticism was fiercely\npowerful; but his onslaughts against Roman Catholics and Presbyterians\nmade far more sceptics than his other writings had made churchmen.\n\nDuring the latter portion of the eighteenth century, a new phase of\npopular progress was exhibited in the comparatively lively interest\ntaken in political questions by the great body of the people inhabiting\nlarge towns. In America, France, and England, this was strongly marked;\nit is however in this country that we find special evidences of the\nconnection between heresy and progress, as contradistinguished from\northodoxy and obstructiveness manifested in the struggle for the liberty\nof the press and platform; a struggle in which some of the boldest\nefforts were made by poor and heretical self-taught men. The dying\neighteenth century witnessed, in England, repeated instances of State\nprosecutions, in which the charge of entertaining or advocating the\nviews of the Republican heretic, Paine, formed a prominent feature,\nand there is little doubt that the efforts of the London Corresponding\nSociety (which the Government of the day made strenuous endeavours to\nrepress) to give circulation to some of Paine's political opinions in\nYorkshire, Lancashire, and the North, had for result the familiarising\nmany men with views they would have otherwise feared to investigate.\nThe step from the \"Rights of Man\" to the \"Age of Reason\" was but a short\nstride for an advancing inquirer. In France the end of the eighteenth\ncentury was marked by a frightful convulsion. A people starved and\ndegraded for generations, rose in the very desperation of despair, and\nwith a mighty force broke the yoke of traditional feudalism and habitual\nmonarchic reverence; but in the case of France, the revolution was too\nsudden to be immediately beneficial or enduring, the people were as a\nmass too poor, and therefore too ignorant to wield the power so rapidly\nwrested from the class who had so long monopolised it. It is far better\nto grow out of a creed by the sure and gradual consciousness of the\ntruths of existence, than to dash off a religious garb simply from\nabhorrence of the shameful practices of its professors, or sudden\nconviction of the falsity of many of the testimonies in its favour. So\nit is a more permanent and more complete revolution which is effectuated\nby educating men to a sense of the majesty and worth of true manhood,\nthan is any mere sudden overturning a rotten or cruel usurpation.\nMonarchies are most thoroughly and entirely destroyed--not by pulling\ndown the throne, or by decapitating the king, but by educating and\nbuilding up with a knowledge of political duty, each individual citizen\namongst the people.\n\nIt is here that heresy has its great advantage. Christianity says,\n\"the powers that be are ordained of God, he that resisteth the power\nresisteth the ordinance of God.\" Heresy challenges the divine right\nof the governor, and declares that government should be the best\ncontrivance of national wisdom to promote the national weal, to provide\nagainst national want, and alleviate-national suffering--that government\nwhich is only a costly machinery for conserving class privileges, and\npreventing popular freedom, is a tyrannical usurpation of power,which it\nis the duty of true men to destroy.\n\nI have briefly and imperfectly alluded to a few of the men who stand\nout as the sign-posts of heretical progress during the sixteenth,\nseventeenth, and eighteenth centuries; in some future publication of\nwider scope fairer tribute may be paid to the memories of some of these\nmighty warriors in the Freethought army. My object is to show that the\ncivilisation of the masses is in proportion to the spread of heresy\namongst them, that its effect is seen in an exhibition of manly\ndignity and self-reliant effort which is utterly unattainable amongst a\nsuperstitious people. Look at the lazzaroni of the Neapolitan States,\nor the peasant of the Campagna, and you have at once the fearful\nillustration of demoralisation by faith in the beggar, brigand, and\nbeliever.\n\nIt is sometimes pretended that such advantages of education and position\nas the people may boast in England, their civil rights and social\nadvancement, are owing to their Christianity, but in point of fact the\nreverse is the case. For centuries Christianity had done little but\nfetter tightly the masses to Church and Crown, to Priest and Baron; the\nenfranchisement is comparatively modern. Even in this very day, in the\ndistricts where the people are entirely in the hands of the clergy of\nthe Established Church, there they are as a mass the most depraved. Take\nthe agricultural counties and the agricultural labourers: there are no\nheretical books or papers to be seen in their cottages, no heretical\nspeakers come amongst them to disturb their contentment; the\ndeputy-lieutenant, the squire, and the rector wield supreme\nauthority--the parish church has no rival. But what are the people as a\nmass? They are not men, they are not women, they lack men's and women's\nthoughts and aspirations: they are diggers and weeders, hedgers and\nditchers, ploughmen and carters; they are taught to be content with the\nstate of life, in which it has pleased God to place them.\n\nMy plea is, that modern heresy, from Spinoza to Mill, has given\nbrain-strength and dignity to every one it has permeated--that the\npopular propagandists of this heresy, from Bruno to Carlile, have been\nthe true redeemers and saviours, the true educators of the people. The\nredemption is yet only at its commencement, the education only lately\nbegun, but the change is traceable already; as witness the power to\nspeak and write, and the ability to listen and read, which have grown\namongst the masses during the last 100 years. And if to-day we write\nwith higher hope, it is because the right to speak and the right\nto print has been partly freed from the fetters forged through long\ngenerations of intellect-prostration, and almost entirely freed from the\nstatutory limitations which, under pretence of checking blasphemy and\nsedition, have really gagged honest speech against Pope and Emperor,\nagainst Church and Throne.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"Heresy: Its Utility And Morality. A Plea And A Justification","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":24971}