1 10 14 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/e55ca3fdefe21dcc616b69ada9779fc5.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=B1b5fzp6BCHpQH%7Enb3i5Z851D9nrOiYc869QGSp4aa-WGPfKrrOjZCSKJGL5fRtuTfDmwdYFxBXrDxMEFWSfak2N-1THjMFTKE1Xl7fRr5LK%7EaFx9ItVx11S6NmFEUFXN2HahL0gDYx3cSyHqw%7EnsKnzO4a4qMiyy6oJl3Nr-uRG01iLnCXZ6RO02%7EiCJJdVBUM5cZgdciDG4OX4VlLmqWSJpCdCLJqeIf9m5iXK3ktRiyGJzHPICoLz6rKI0k4knsj-tBDNosrVUHjL1SBptGzvGwQxzougj4dEJ2hq-DWGFj9Bt%7ECGVxtnqD9ncTfQkqt4N99vynpSpD82Q9V6LA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 0f0ff68edb488848c4a4e6d1fc15e59a PDF Text Text NATIONALSECULARSOCIETY COMMON SENSE. BY THOMAS PAINE. Wiflj arár an fxr LONDON: FREETHOUG-HT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 63, FLEET STREET, E.C. 1884. PRICE SIXPENCE �LONDON: PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH, 63, FLEET STREET, ®.C �B "2^5 INTRODUCTION. 4 ' In the T08 'years which have passed since Thomas Paine ad­ dressed this pamphlet to the Anglo-Saxons in British North America, the extension of the territory and population has been of the grandest description. The jurisdiction of the thirteen colonies was then everywhere circumscribed by the Indian lines, and the number of the population—when the United States first declared themselves a confederation—did not exceed three mil­ lions. To-day in 88 States and in 10 territories, with an area of 3,603,844 square miles, exclusive of the Indian territory, the American Republic has a population of more than 50,000,000. When Paine penned the words now re-printed, the doctrine of independence was scarcely comprehended by any ; George Wash­ ington was a Royalist by education and association, and even the most advanced disciples of Otis shrank from breaking with the Monarchy. Paine’s “ Common Sense ” appealed, however, to the people, and their decision was swift, universal, and perma­ nent. The 4th of July was the grand answer of the American people—an answer they have never had reason to regret. The very month it was issued Washington regarded the situa­ tion as “ truly alarming,” and wrote that “ the first burst of revolutionary zeal had passed away.” Paine’s pen revived the zeal, and achieved a victory which at that time Washington’s sword was insufficient to conquer. In England the fear of Paine’s pen was widespread, as may be seen by reading the trial of the shoemaker, John Hardy, for high treason. |To-day Paine’s “ Common Sense ” has a merit beyond its mere local significance, mighty as this was, and no apology is needed for its re-publication. Chaeles Beadlaugh. ��AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION -------- ♦-------- Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor ; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appear­ ance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason. As a long and violent abuse of power is generally the means of calling the right of it in question (and in matters which might never have been thought of, had not the sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry), and as the King of England hath undertaken in his own right to support the Parliament in what he calls theirs, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either. In the following sheets the author hath studiously avoided everything which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise and the worthy need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious, or unfriendly, will cease of themselves, unless too much pains are bestowed upon their conversion. The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which their affections are interested. The laying a country desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all mankind, and extir­ pating the defenders thereof from the face of the earth, is the con­ cern of every man to whom nature hath given the power of feel­ ing ; of which class, regardless of party censure, is The Author. Philadelphia, Feb. 14, 1776. ��COMMON SENSE. -------- ♦-------- Of the Origin and Design of Government in general, with concise Remarks on the English Constitution. Some writers have so confounded Society with Government, as to leave little or no distinction between them ; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively, by uniting our affections; the latter negatively, by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society, in every state, is a blessing ; but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one ; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting, that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For, were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which, in every other case, advises him out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, Security being the true design and end of Government, it un­ answerably follows, that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us with the least expense and greatest bene­ fit, is preferable to all others. In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest; they will then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A. thousand motives will excite them thereto ; the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness; but one man might labor Out the common period of his life without accomplishing any­ thing ; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the meantime would �Common Sense. urge him from his work, and every different want call him a different way. Disease, nay, even misfortune, would be death ; for though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might be rather said to perish than to die. Thus, necessity, like a gravitation power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings of which would supersede and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen, that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attach­ ment to each other; and this remissness will point out the neces­ sity of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue. Some convenient tree will afford them a state-house, under the branches of which the whole colony may assemble to deliberate on public matters. It is more than probable that their first laws will have the title only of regulations, and be enforced by no other penalty than public disesteem. In this first parliament every man by natural right will have a seat. But as the colony increases, the public concerns will increase likewise, and the distance at which the members may be sepa­ rated will render it too inconvenient for all of them to meet on every occasion as at first, when their number was small, their habitations near, and the public concerns few and trifling. This will point out the convenience of their consenting to leave the legislative part to be managed by a select number chosen from the whole body, who are supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those have who appointed them, and who will act in the same manner as the whole body would act, were they present. If the colony continue increasing, it will become necessary to augment the number of the representatives ; and that the interest of every part of the colony may be attended to, it will be found best to divide the whole into convenient parts, each part sending its proper number; and that the elected may never form to them­ selves an interest separate from the electors, prudence will point out the necessity of having elections often; because, as the elected must by that means return and mix again with the general body of the electors in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be secured by the prudent reflexion of not making a rod for them­ selves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a com­ mon interest with every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally support each other: and on this (not the unmean­ ing name of king) depends the strength of government and the happiness of the government. Here, then, is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz., freedom and security. And however our eyes may be �Common Sense. 9 dazzled with show, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understand­ ing, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say it is right. I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz., that the more simple any thing is the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier re­ paired when disordered : and with this maxim in view I offer a few remarks on the so-much-boasted constitution of England. That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erec­ ted is granted. When the world was overrun with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious risk. But that it is im­ perfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems to promise is easily demonstrated. Absolute governments (though the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, that they are simple ; if the people suffer they know the head from which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex that the nation may suffer for years to­ gether without being able to discover in which part the fault lies ; some will say in one, and some in another, and every po­ litical physician will advise a different medicine. I know it is difficult to get over local or long-standing pre­ judices ; yet if we suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of the English constitution we shall find them to be the base remains of two ancient tyrannies, compounded with some new Republican materials. First.—The remains of monarchical tyranny in the person of the king. Secondly.—The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons of the peers. Thirdly.—The new Republican materials in the persons of the commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England. The two first being hereditary are independent of the people, wherefore, in a constitutional sense they contribute nothing to­ wards the freedom of the state. To say that the constitution of England is a union of three powers, reciprocally checking each other is farcical; either the words have no meaning or they are flat contradictions. To say that the commons are a check upon the king, presup­ poses two things : First.—That the king is not to be trusted without being looked after, or, in other words, that a thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of monarchy. Secondly.—That the commons, by being appointed for that purpose, are either wiser or more worthy of confidence than the crown. But as the same constitution which gives the commons power to check the king, by withholding supplies, gives afterwards the king a power to check the commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills, it again supposes that the king is wiser �10 Common Sense. than those whom it has already supposed to be wiser than him. A mere absurdity. There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy ; it first excludes a man from the means of informa­ tion, yet it empowers him to act in cases where the highest judg­ ment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a kiDg requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts, by unnaturally opposing and des­ troying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and useless. Some writers have explained the English constitution thus: the kiDg, they say, is one, the people another; the peers are a house in behalf of the king, the commons in behalf of the people; but this hath all the distinctions of an house divided against itself; and though the expressions be pleasantly arranged, yet when examined they appear idle and ambiguous; and it always happens that the nicest construction that words are capable of, when applied to the description of something which either can­ not exist or is too incomprehensible to be within the compass of description, will be words of sound only, and though they may amuse the ear they cannot inform the mind; for this explanation includes a previous question, viz., “ How came the king by a power which the people are afraid to trust, and always obliged to check ? ” Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power which needs checking be from God ; yet the provision which the constitution makes supposes such a power to exist. But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot or will not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a felo de se; for as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all the wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which power in the constitution has the most weight; for that will govern ; and though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it their endeavors will be ineffectual, the first moving power will at last have its way, and what it wants in speed is supplied by time. That the crown is this overbearing part of the English con­ stitution needs not be mentioned, and that it derives its whole consequence merely from being the giver of places and pensions is self-evident; wherefore, though we have been wise enough to shut and lock a door against absolute monarchy, we at the same time have been foolish enough to put the crown in possession of the key. The prejudice of Englishmen in favor of their own govern­ ment, by king, lords, and commons, arises as much or more from national pride than reason. Individuals are, undoubtedly, safer in England than in some other countries, but the will of the king is as much the law of the land in Britain as in France, with this difference, that instead of proceeding directly from his mouth it is handed to the people under the formidable shape of �Common Sense. 11 an Act of Parliament. For the fate of Charles the First hath only made kings more subtle;—not more just. Wherefore, laying aside all national pride and prejudice in favour of modes and forms, the plain truth is, that it is wholly owing to the constitution of the people, and not to the constitu­ tion of the government, that the crown is not so oppressive in England as in Turkey. An inquiry into the constitutional errors in the English form of government is at this time highly necessary : for as we are never in a proper condition of doing justice to others, while we continue under the influence of some leading partiality, so neither are we capable of doing it to ourselves while we remain fettered with an obstinate prejudice. And as a man who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge a wife, so any prepos­ session in favour of a rotten constitution of government, will disable us from discerning a good one. Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession. Mankind being originally equal in the order of creation, the equality only could be destroyed by some subsequent circum­ stances ; the distinctions of rich and poor may in a great measure be accounted for, and that without having recourse to the harsh and ill-sounding names of oppression and avarice. Oppression is often the consequence, but seldom the means, of riches ; and though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy. Bftt there is another and greater distinction, for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is, the distinction of men into kings and subjects. Male and female are the distinctions of Nature ; good and bad, the distinctions of Heaven ; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth enquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind. In the early ages of the world, according to the Scripture Chronology, there were no kings; the consequence of which was, there were no wars. It is the pride of kings which throws mankind into confusion. Holland, without a king, hath enjoyed more peace for the last century than any of the monarchical governments in Europe. Antiquity favors the same remark; for the quiet and rural lives of the first patriarchs have a happy something in them, which vanishes away when we come to the history of Jewish royalty. Government by kings was first introduced to the world by the heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the cus­ tom. It was the most prosperous invention the devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The heathen paid divine honours to their deceased kings, and the Christian world hath improved on the plan, by doing the same to its living ones. How �12 Common Sense. impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust! As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be de­ fended on the authority of Scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet ,Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by kings. All antimonarchical parts of the Scripture have been very smoothly glossed over in monarchical governments; but they undoubtedly merit the attention of countries which have their governments yet to form. “ Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,” is the Scripture doctrine of courts, yet it is no support of monarchical government, for the Jews at that time were without a king, and in a state of vassalage to the Romans. Near three thousand years passed away from the Mosaic account of the creation, till the Jews, under a national delusion, requested a king. Till then, their form of government (except in extraordinary cases, where the Almighty interposed) was a kind of Republic, administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes. Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge any being under that title but the Lord of Hosts. And when a man seriously reflects on the idolatrous homage which is paid to the persons of kings, he need not wonder that the Almighty, ever jealous of his honor, should disapprove of a form of government which so impiously invades the prerogative of Heaven. Monarchy is ranked in Scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them. The history of that transaction is worth attending to. The children of Israel being oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon marched against them with a smsll army, and victory, through the Divine interposition, decided in his favor. The Jews, elate with success, and attributing it to the generalship of Gideon, proposed making him a king, saying, “ Rule thou over us, thou and thy son, and thy son’s son.” Here was a tempta­ tion in its fullest extent: not a kingdom only, but a hereditary one. But Gideon in the piety of his soul, replied, “ I will not reign over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you.” Words need not be more explicit. Gideon doth not decline the honor, but denieth their right to give it; neither doth he compliment them with invented decla­ rations of his thanks, but in the positive style of a prophet charges them with disaffection to their proper sovereign, the King of Heaven. About one hundred and thirty years after this, they fell again into the same error. The hankering which the Jews had for the idolatrous customs of the heathen, is something exceedingly un­ accountable ; but so it was, that laying hold of the misconduct of Samuel’s two sons, who were entrusted with some secular concerns, they came in an abrupt and clamorous manner to Samuel, saying, “ Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in �Common Sense. 13 thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the other nations.” And here we cannot but observe that their motives were bad, viz., that they might be like unto other nations, i.e., the heathen; whereas their true glory laid in being as much un­ like them as possible. “Bat the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a King to judge us ; and Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them out of Egypt, even unto this day; wherewith they have forsaken me and served other gods ; so do they also unto thee. Now, therefore, hearken unto their voice, howbeit protest solemnly unto them, and show the manner of a king that shall reign over them (z.e., not of any particular king, but the general manner of the kings of the earth, whom Israel was so eagerly copying after; and notwithstanding the great difference of time, and distance, and manners, the cha­ racter is still in fashion). And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people, that asked of him a king. And he said, This shall be the manner of the king that shall reign over you ; he will take your sons and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots (this description agrees with the present mode of impressing men), and he will appoint them captains over thou­ sands, and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots; and he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers (this describes the expense and luxury as well as the oppression of kings), and he will take your fields and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants; and he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give them to his officers and his servants (by which we see that bribery, corruption and favoritism are the standing vices of kings) ; and he will take the tenth of your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work; and he will take the tenth of your sheep, and you shall be his servants ; and ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen, and the Lord will not hear you in that day.” This accounts for the continuation of monarchy; neither do the characters of the few good kings who have lived since either sanctify the title or blot out the sinfulness of the origin ; the high encomium given of David takes no notice of him officially as a king, but only as a man after God’s own heart. “Never­ theless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but we will have a King over us, that we may be like all the nations, and that our King may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.” Samuel continued to reason with them, but to no purpose ; he set before them their ingrati­ �14 Common Sense. tude, but all would not avail; and seeing them fully bent on their folly, he cried out: “I will call unto the Lord and he shall send thunder and rain (which then was a punishment, being in the time of wheat harvest), that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking you a king. So Samuel called unto the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we die not, for we have added unto our sins this evil, to ask a king.” These portions of Scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath there entered his protest against monarchical government is true, or the Scripture is false. And a man hath good reason to believe that there is as much of kingcraft as priestcraft in withholding the Scripture from the public in Popish countries. For monarchy in every instance is the Popery of Government. To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equal, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever ; and though himself might deserve some decent degree of honors of his contempo­ raries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of heredi­ tary right in kings is, that nature disproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion. Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honors than were bestowed upon them, so the givers of those honors could have no right to give away the right of posterity. And though they might say: “ We choose you for our head,” they could not, without manifest injustice to their children, say, “that your children and your children’s children shall reign over ours for ever,” because such an unwise, unjust, unnatural com­ pact might, perhaps, in the next succession, put them under the government of a rogue or a fool. Most wise men, in their private sentiments, have ever treated hereditary right with con­ tempt ; yet it is one of those evils which, when once established, is not easily removed; many submit from fear, others from super­ stition, and the most powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest. This is supposing the present race of kings in the world to have had an honorable origin; whereas it is more than probable that, could we take off the dark covering of antiquity and trace them to their first rise, we should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners or pre-eminence in subtilty, obtained him the title of chief among plunderers; and who, by increasing in power, and extending his depredations, overawed the quiet and �Common Sense. 15 defenceless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions. Yet his electors could have no idea of giving hereditary right to his descendants, because such a perpetual exclusion of themselves was incompatible with the free and unrestained principles they professed to live by. Wherefore hereditary succession in the early ages of monarchy could not take place as a matter of claim, but as something casual or complimental; but as few or no re­ cords were extant in those days, and traditionary history is stuffed with fables, it was very easy, after the lapse of a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale, conveniently timed, Mahomet-like, to cram hereditary right down the throats of the vulgar. Perhaps the disorders which threaten, or seemed to threaten, on the decease of a leader, and the choice of a new one (for elections among ruffians could not be very orderly) in­ duced many at first to favor hereditary pretensions ; by which means it happened, as it hath happened since, that what at first was submitted to as a convenience was afterwards claimed as a right. England, since the conquest, hath known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones, yet no man in his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honorable one. A French bastard landing with an armed banditti, and establishing him­ self King of England, against the consent of the natives, is, in plain terms, a very paltry, rascally original. It certainly hath no divinity in it. However, it is needless to spend much time in exposing the folly of hereditary right; if there are any so weak as to believe it, let them promiscuously worship the ass and the lion, and welcome ; I shall neither copy their humility, nor disturb their devotion. Yet I should be glad to ask, how they suppose kings came at first? The question admits but of three answers, viz., either by lot, by election, or by usurpation. If the first king was taken by lot, it establishes a precedent for the next, which ex­ cludes hereditary succession. Saul was by lot, yet the succession was not hereditary, neither does it appear from that transaction, there was any intention it ever should. If the first king of any country was by election, that likewise establishes a precedent for the next; for to say that the right of all future generations is taken away by the act of the first electors, in their choice, not only of a king but of a family of kings for ever, hath no parallel in or out of Scripture, but the doctrine of original sin, which supposes the free will of all men lost in Adam; and from such comparison (and it will admit of no other) hereditary succession can derive no glory. For as in Adam all sinned, and as in the first electors all men obeyed; so in the one all mankind are subjected to Satan, and in the other to Sovereignty: as our innocence was lost in the first, and our authority in the last; and as both disable us from re-assuming some further state and privi­ lege, it unanswerably follows that original sin and hereditary suc­ cession are parallels. Dishonorable rank! Inglorious connexion ! Yet the most subtle sophist cannot produce a juster simile. �16 Common Sense. As to usurpation no man will be so hardy as to defend it; and that William the Conqueror was an usurper is a fact not to be contradicted. The plain truth is that the antiquity of English monarchy will not bear looking into. But it is not so much the absurdity as the evil of hereditary succession which concerns mankind. Did it insure a race of good and wise men, it would have the seal of divine authority; but as it opens a door to the foolish, the wicked, and the im­ proper, it hath in it the nature of oppression. Men, who look upon themselves as born to reign, and on the others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind, their minds are easily poisoned by importance, and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignor­ ant and unfit of any throughout the dominions. Another evil which attends hereditary succession is, that the throne is liable to be possessed by a minor at any age; all which time the regency, acting under the cover of a king, has every opportunity and inducement to betray its trust. The same national misfortune happens when a king, worn out with age and infirmity, enters the last stage of human weakness. In both these cases the public becomes a prey to every miscreant who can tamper with the follies either of infancy or age. The most plausible plea which hath ever been offered in favor of hereditary succession is, that it preserves a nation from civil wars; and were this true it would be weighty ; whereas, it is the most barefaced falsity ever imposed upon mankind. The whole history of England disowns the fact. Thirty kings and two minors have reigned in that distracted kingdom since the conquest, in which time there have been (including the Revo­ lution) no less than eight civil wars and nineteen rebellions. Wherefore, instead of making for peace it makes against it, and destroys the very foundation it seems to stand on. The contest for monarchy and succession between the houses of York and Lancaster laid England in a scene of blood for many years. Twelve pitched battles, besides skirmishes and sieges, were fought between Henry and Edward. Twice was Henry prisoner to Edward, who in his turn was prisoner to Henry. And so uncertain is the fate of war, and temper of a nation, when nothing but personal matters are the ground of a quarrel, that Henry was taken in triumph from a prison to a palace, and Edward obliged to fly from a palace to a foreign land; yet, as sudden transitions of temper are seldom lasting, Henry in his turn was driven from the throne, and Edward recalled to succeed him ; the Parliament always following the strongest side. This contest began in the reign of Henry the Sixth, and was not entirely extinguished till Henry the Seventh, in whom the families were united; including a period of sixty-seven years, viz., from 1422 to 1489. In short, monarchy and succession have laid, not this or that �Common Sense. 17 kingdom only, but the world in blood and ashes. It is a form of government which the word of God bears testimony against, and blood will attend it. If we inquire into the business of a king we shall find that in iome countries they have none ; and after sauntering away their lives without pleasure to themselves or advantage to the nation, withdraw from the scene, and leave their successors to tread the same idle ground. In the absolute monarchies the whole weight of business, civil and military, lies on the king ; the children of Israel, in their request for a king, urged this plea, “ that he may judge us and go out before us, and fight our battles.” But in countries where he is neither a judge nor a general a man would be puzzled to know what is his business. The nearer any government approaches to a Republic the less business there is for a king. It is somewhat difficult to find a proper name for the government of England. Sir William Meredith calls it a Republic; but in its present state it is un­ worthy of the name, because the corrupt influence of the crown, by having all the places in its disposal, hath so effectually swal­ lowed up the power and eaten out the virtue of the House of Commons (the Republican part of the constitution), that the government of England is nearly as monarchical as that of France or Spain. Men fall out with names without understanding them, for it is the Republican, and not the monarchical, part of the con­ stitution of England which Englishmen glory in, viz., the liberty of choosing a House of Commons from out of their own body ; and it is easy to see that when Republican virtue fails slavery ensues. Why is the constitution of England sickly, but because monarchy hath poisoned the Republic, the crown hath engrossed the Commons ? In England the king hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which, in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears. A pretty business indeed, for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a-year for, and worshipped into the bargain ! Of more worth is One honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived. Thoughts on the present State of American Affairs. In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense ; and have no other prelimi­ naries to settle with the reader than that he will divest himself Of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his feelings to deter­ mine for themselves; that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day. Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between England and America. Men of all ranks have embarked in the controversy, from different motives, and with various designs ; but all have been ineffectual, and the period of debate �18 Common Sense. is closed. Arms, as the last resource, decide the contest; and the appeal was the choice of a king, and the continent hath accepted the challenge. It hath been reported of the late Mr. Pelham, who, though an able minister, was not without his faults, that on his being attacked in the House of Commons on the score that his measures were only of a temporary kind, replied: “They will last my time.” Should a thought so fatal and unmanly possess the colonies in the present contest, the name of ancestors will be remembered by future generations with detestation. The sun never shone on a cause of greater worth. It is not the affair of a city, a county a province, or of a kingdom, but of a continent—of, at least, one-eighth part of the habitable globe. It is not the concern of a day, a year, or an age ; posterity are involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed­ time of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full-grown characters. By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new era for politics is struck, a new method of thinking hath arisen. All plans, proposals, etc., prior to the 19th of April, i.e., to the commencement of hostilities, are like the almanacks of last year, which, though proper then, are superseded and useless now. Whatever was advanced by the advocates on either side of the question then terminated in one and the same point, viz., a union with Great Britain ; the only difference between the parties was the method of affecting it, the one proposing force, the other friendship ; but it hath so far happened that the first hath failed, and the second hath withdrawn her influence. As much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, which, like an agreeable dream, hath passed away and left us as we were, it is but right that we should view the contrary side of the argument, and inquire into some of the many material injuries which these colonies sustain, and always will sustain, by being connected with, and dependent on, Great Britain. To examine that connexion and dependence, on the principles of nature and common sense, to see what we have to trust to, if separated, and what we are to expect, if dependent. I have heard it asserted by some that, as America had flourished under her former connexion with Great Britain, the same connexion is necessary towards her future happiness, and will always have the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument. We may as well assert that because a child has thriven upon milk it is never to have meat, or that the first twenty years of our lives are to become a precedent for the next twenty. But even this is admitting more than is true, for I answer roundly that America would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no European power anything to do with her. The commerce by which she hath enriched herself are �Common Sense. 19 the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe. But she has protected us, say some. That she has engrossed us is true, and defended the continent at our expense as well as her own is admitted ; and she would have defended Turkey from the same motive, viz., the sake of trade and dominion. Alas! we have been long led away by ancient prejudices, and made large sacrifices to superstition. We have boasted of the protection of Great Britain, without considering that her motive was interest, not attachment; but she did not protect us from our enemies on our account, but from her enemies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on any other account, and who will always be our enemies on the same account. Let Britain waive her pretensions to the continent, or the continent throw off the dependence, and we should be at peace with France and Spain were they at war with Britain. The miseries of Hanover, last war, ought to warn us against connexions. It has lately been asserted in Parliament that the colonies have no relation to each other but through the parent country, i.e., Pennsylvania and the Jerseys, and so on for the rest, are sister colonies by the way of England ; this is certainly a very round­ about way of proving relationship, but it is the nearest and only true way of proving enemyship, if I may so call it. France and Spain never were, nor perhaps ever will be, our enemies as Americans, but as our being the subjects of Great Britain. But Britain is the parent country say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war on their families; wherefore the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach ; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase parent or mother country hath been jesuitically adopted by the king and his parasites, with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty in every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home pursues their descendants still. In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow limits of three hundred and sixty miles (the extent of England), and carry our friendship on a larger scale; we claim brotherhood with every European Christian, and triumph in the generosity of the sentiment. It is pleasant to observe by what regular gradations we sur­ mount the force of local prejudice, as we enlarge our acquaint­ ance with the world. A man born in any town in England divided into parishes, will naturally associate with his fellow­ parishioner, because their interests in many cases will be com­ mon, and distinguish him by the name of neighbor ; if he meet B2 �20 Common Sense. him but a few miles from home, he salutes him by the name of townsman ; if he travel out of the county, and meet him in any other, he forgets the minor divisions of street and town, and calls him countryman, ie., county man ; but if in their foreign excursions they should associate in France, or in any other part of Europe, their local remembrance would be enlarged into that of Englishman. And by a just parity of reasoning, all Europeans meeting in America, or any other quarter of the globe, are countrymen ; for England, Holland, Germany, or Sweden, when compared with the whole, stand in the same places on the larger scale, which the divisions of street, town and county, do on the smaller ones; distinctions too limited for continental minds. Not one third of the inhabitants, even of this province, are of English descent. Wherefore I reprobate the phrase of parent or mother country applied to England only, as being false, selfish, narrow, and ungenerous. But admitting that we were all of English descent, what does it amount to? Nothing. Britain being now an open enemy, extinguishes every other name and title ; and to say that recon­ ciliation is our duty, is truly farcical. The first king of England of the present line (William the Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and half the peers of England are descendants from the same country; wherefore by the same method of reasoning, England ought to be governed by France. Much hath been said of the united strength of Britain and the colonies; that in conjunction they might bid defiance to the world. But this is mere presumption; the fate of wars is un­ certain ; neither do the expression mean anything; for this continent never would suffer itself to be drained of inhabitants, to support the British arms in either Asia, Africa, or Europe. Besides, what have we to do with setting the world at defi­ ance ? Our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us the peace and friendship of all Europe ; because it is the interest of all Europe to have America a free port. Her trade will always be a protection, and her barrenness of gold and silver secure her from invaders. I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation to show a single advantage this continent can reap by being connected with Great Britain ; I repeat the challenge, not a single advan­ tage is derived. Our corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe, and our imported goods must be paid for, buy them where you will. But the injuries and disadvantages we sustain by that con­ nexion are without number ; and our duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instructs us to renounce the alliance, be­ cause, any submission to, or dependence on, Great Britain tends to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels, and set us at variance with nations who would otherwise seek our friend­ ship, and against whom we have neither anger nor complaint. As Europe is our market for trade, we ought to form no partial connexion with any part of it. It is the true interest of America �Common Sense. 21 to steer clear or European contentions, which she can never do, while by her dependence on Britain she is made the make-weight in the scale of British politics. Europe is too thickly planted with kingdoms to be long at peace, and whenever a war breaks out between England and any foreign power the trade of America goes to ruin, because of her connexion with Great Britain. The next war may not turn out like the last, and should it not the advocates for reconciliation now will be wishing for a separation then, because neutrality in that case would be a safer convoy than a man of war. Every thing that is right or natural pleads for a separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature, cries. It is time to part. Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America, is a strong and natural proof that the authority of the one over the other was never the design of heaven. The time, likewise, at which the continent was discovered, adds to the weight of the argument, and the manner in which it was peopled increases the force of it. The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety. The authority of Great Britain over this continent is a form of government which, sooner or later, must have an end; and a serious mind can draw no true pleasure by looking forward, under the painful and positive conviction, that what he calls “ the present constitution ” is merely temporary. As parents we can have no joy, knowing that this government is not sufficiently lasting to ensure anything which we may bequeath to posterity ; and by a plain method of argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover the line of our duty rightly we should take our children in our hands, and fix our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight. Though I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offence yet I am inclined to believe that all those who espouse the doc­ trine of reconciliation may be included within the following descriptions : Interested men, who are not to be trusted ; weak men, who cannot see ; prejudiced men, who will not see ; and a certain set of moderate men, who think better of the European world than it deserves; and this last class, by an ill-judged deliberation, will be the cause of more calamities to this conti­ nent than all the other three. It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene of sorrow ; and the evil is not sufficiently brought to their doors to make them feel the precariousness with which all American property is possessed. But let our imaginations transport us for a few moments to Boston ; that seat of wretchedness will teach us wisdom, and instruct us for ever to renounce a power in whom we can have no trust; the inhabitants of that unfortunate city, �22 Common Sense. who but a few months ago were in ease and affluence, have now no other alternative than to stay and starve, or turn out to beg. Endangered by the fire of their friends if they continue within the city, and plundered by the soldiery if they leave it. In their present condition they are prisoners without the hope of redemp­ tion, and in a general attack for their relief they would be ex­ posed to the fury of both armies. Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offences of Britain, and still hoping for the best, are apt to call out: “ Come, come, we shall be friends again, for all this.” But examine the passions and feelings of mankind, bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me whether you can hereafter love, honor, and faithfully serve the power which hath carried fire and sword into your land ? If you cannot do all these then you are only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity. Your future connex­ ion with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honor, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenience will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say you can still pass the violations over then I ask, hath your house been burnt ? Hath your property been destroyed before your face ? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on ? Have you lost a parent or child by their hands, and you yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you a judge of those who have ? But if you have, and still can shake hands with the murderers, then you are unworthy the name of husband, father, friend, or lover ; and whatever may be your rank or title in life you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant. This is not inflaming or exaggerating matters, by trying them by those feelings and affections which nature justifies, and without which we should be incapable of discharging the social duties of life, or enjoying the felicities of it. I mean not to exhibit horror for the purpose of provoking revenge, but to awaken us from fatal and unmanly slumbers, that we may pursue determinately some fixed object. It is not in the power of Britain, or of Europe, to conquer America, if she do not conquer herself by delay and timidity. The present winter is worth an age, if rightly employed, but if neglected the whole continent will partake of the misfortune; and there is no punishment which that man will not deserve, be he who, or what, or where he will, that may be the means of sacrificing a season so precious and useful. It is repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things, to all examples of former ages, to suppose that this continent can longer remain subject to any external power. The most sanguine in Britain does not think so. The utmost stretch of human wisdom cannot, at this time, compass a plan short of separation, which can promise the continent a year’s security. Reconciliation is now a fallacious dream. Nature has deserted the connexion �Common Sense. and art cannot supply her place ; for as Milton wisely expresses: “ Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep.” Every quiet method for peace hath been ineffectual. Our prayers have been rejected with disdain, and only tended to convince us that nothing flatters vanity or confirms obstinacy in kings more than repeated petitioning ; and nothing hath contri­ buted more than that very measure to make the kings of Europe absolute; witness Denmark and Sweden. Wherefore, since nothing but blows will do, for God’s sake let us come to a final separation, and not leave the next generation to be cutting of throats under the violated, unmeaning names of parent and -child. To say they will never attempt it again is idle and visionary ; we thought so at the repeal of the Stamp Act, yet a year or two undeceived us ; as well may we suppose that nations which have been once defeated will never renew the quarrel. As to government matters, it is not in the power of Britain to do this continent justice. The business of it will soon be too weighty and intricate to be managed with any tolerable degree of convenience by a power so distant from us and so very ignorant of us; for if they cannot conquer us, they cannot govern us. To be always running three or four thousand miles with a tale or petition, waiting four or five months for an answer, which, when obtained, requires five or six more to explain it, will in a few years be looked upon as folly and childishness. There was a time when it was proper, and there is a proper time for it to cease. Small islands, not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something very absurd in supposing a continent to be perpetu­ ally governed by an island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than its primary planet; and as England and America, with respect to each other, reverse the common order of nature, it is evident they belong to different systems : England, to Europe ; America, to itself. I am not induced by motives of pride, party, or resentment to espouse the doctrine of separation and independence. I am clearly, positively, and conscientiously persuaded that it is the true interest of the continent to be so ; that everything short of that is merely patchwork, that it can afford no lasting felicity, that it is leaving the sword to our children, and slinking back at a time when a little more, a little farther, would have rendered the continent the glory of the earth. As Britain hath not manifested the least inclination towards a compromise, we may be assured that no terms can be obtained worthy the acceptance of the continent, or any ways equal to the expense of blood and treasure we have been already put to. The object contended for ought always to bear some just pro­ portion to the expense. The removal of North, or the whole detestable junto, is a matter unworthy the millions we have ex­ �24 Common Sense. pended. A temporary stoppage of trade was an inconvenience which would have sufficiently balanced the repeal of all the Act» complained of, had such repeals been obtained ; but if the whole continent must take up arms, if every man must be a soldier, it is scarcely worth our while to fight against a contemptible ministry only. Dearly, dearly do we pay for the repeal of the Acts, if that is all we fight for ; for, in a just estimation, it is as great a folly to pay a Bunker Hill price for law as for land. As I have always considered the independence of the continent as an event which, sooner or later, must arise, so from the late rapid progress of thè continent to maturity, the event could not be far off. Wherefore, on the breaking out of hostilities, it was not worth while to have disputed a matter which time would have finally redressed, unless we meant to be in earnest ; otherwise it is like wasting an estate on a suit of law, to regulate the trespasses of a tenant whose lease is just expiring. No man was a warmer wisher for recon­ ciliation than myself before the fatal nineteenth1 of April, 1775 ; but the moment the event of that day was made known, I rejected the hardened, sullen-tempered Pharaoh of England for ever, and disdained the wretch that, with the pretended title of Father of his People, can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and com­ posedly sleep with their blood upon his soul. But, admitting that matters were now made up, what would be the event ? I answer, the ruin of the continent. And that for several reasons. First. The powers of governing still remaining in the hands of the king, he will have a negative over the whole legislation of the continent. And as he hath shown himself such an inveterate enemy to liberty, and discovered such a thirst for arbitrary power, is he, or is he not, a proper man to say to these colonies : “You shall make no laws but what I please ” ? And is there any in­ habitant in America so ignorant as not to know that, according, to what is called the present constitution, this continent can. make no laws but what the king gives leave to ? And is there any man so unwise as not to see (considering what has happened) he will suffer no law to be made here but such as suits his pur­ pose? We may be as effectually enslaved by the want of laws in America as by submitting to laws made in England. After matters are made up, as it is called, can there be any doubt but. the whole power of the crown will be exerted to keep this con­ tinent as low and as humble as possible ? Instead of going forward, we shall go backward, or be perpetually quarrelling or ridiculously petitioning. We are already greater than the king, wishes us to be, and will he not endeavor to make us less ? To bring the matter to one point : Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity a proper power to govern us ? Whoever says no to this question is an independent ; for independency means no more than whether we shall make our own laws, or whether the king (the greatest enemy this continent hath or can have) shall tell us : “ There shall be no laws but such as I like.” 1 Lexington. �Common Sense. 25 But the king, you will say, has a negative in England; the people there can make no laws without his consent. In point of right and good order, there is something very ridiculous, that a youth of twenty-one (which hath often happened), shall say toseven millions of people, older and wiser than himself—I forbid this or that act of yours to be law. But in this place I decline this sort of reply, though I will never cease to expose the absur­ dity of it, and only answer that England, being the king’s resi­ dence, and America not so, make quite another case. The king’s negative here is ten times more dangerous and fatal than it can be in England ; for there he will scarcely refuse his consent to a bill for putting England into as strong a state of defence as pos­ sible, and in America he would never suffer such a bill to be passed. America is only a secondary object in the system of British politics. England consults the good of this country no farther than it answers her own purpose. Wherefore her own interest leads her to suppress the growth of ours in every case which doth not promote her advantage, or in the least interfere with it. A pretty state we should soon be in under such a second-hand Government, considering what has happened! Men do not change from enemies to friends by the alteration of a name; and in order to show that reconciliation now is a dangerous doctrine, I affirm, that it would be policy in the King at this time to repeal the Acts, for the sake of reinstating himself in the government of the provinces ; in order that he may accomplish by craft and subtlety, in the long run, what he cannot do by force and violence in the short one. Reconciliation and ruin are nearly related. Secondly. That as even the best terms which we can expect to obtain, can amount to no more than a temporary expedient, or a kind of government by guardianship, which can last no longer than till the colonies come of age, so the general face and state of things, in the interim, will be unsettled and unpromising. Emigrants of property will not choose to come to a country whose form of government hangs but by a thread, and that is every day tottering on the brink of commotion and distur­ bance, and numbers of the present inhabitants would lay hold of the interval to dispose of their effects, and quit the continent. But the most powerful of all arguments is, that nothing but independence, i.e., a continental form of government, can keep the peace of the continent, and preserve it inviolate from civil wars. I dread the event of a reconciliation with Britain now, as it is more than probable that it will be followed by a revolt somewhere or other ; the consequences of which may be far mor© fatal than all the malice of Britain. Thousands are already ruined by British barbarity ! thousands more will probably suffer the same fate! Those men have other feelings than we, who have nothing suffered. All they now possess is liberty; what they before enjoyed is sacrificed to its service, and having nothing more to lose, they disdain submission. �26 ; , j •Common Sense. Besides, the general temper of the colonies towards a British government, will be like that of a youth who is nearly out of his time ; they will care very little about her. And a government which cannot preserve the peace is no government at all, and in that case we pay our money for nothing ; and pray what is it Britain can do, whose power will be wholly on paper, should a civil tumult break out the very day after reconciliation ? I have heard some men say, many of whom, I believe, spoke without thinking, that they dreaded an independence, fearing it would produce civil wars. It is but seldom that our first thoughts are truly correct, and that is the case here ; for there are ten times more to dread from a patched-up connexion than from independence. I make the sufferer’s case my own, and I protest, that were I driven from house and home, my property destroyed, and my circumstances ruined, that, as a man sensible of injuries, I could never relish the doctrine of reconciliation, or consider myself bound thereby. The colonies have manifested such a spirit of good order and obedience to continental government as is sufficient to make every reasonable person easy and happy on that head. No man can assign the least pretence for his fears on any other ground than such as are truly childish and ridiculous, viz., that one colony will be striving for superiority over another. Where there are no distinctions, there can be no superiority ; perfect equality affords no temptation. The Republics of Europe are all, and we may say always, at peace. Holland and Switzer­ land are without wars, foreign and domestic: monarchical gov­ ernments, it is true, are never long at rest; the crown itself is a temptation to enterprising ruffians at home ; and that degree of pride and insolence, ever attendant on regal authority, swells into a rupture with foreign powers, in instances where a Republican government, by being formed on more natural principles, would negociate the mistake. If there is any true cause of fear respecting independence, it is because no plan is yet laid down : men do not see their way out. Wherefore, as an opening to that business, I offer the following hints ; at the same time modestly affirming, that 1 have no other opinion of them myself, than that they may be the means of giving rise to something better. Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter. Let the assemblies be annual, with a president only. The re­ presentation more equal; their business wholly domestic, and subject to the authority of a continental congress. Let each colony be divided into six, eight, or ten convenient districts, each district to send a proper number of delegates to congress, so that each colony send at least thirty. The whole number in congress will be at least three hundred and ninety. Each congress to sit * * * * and to choose a president by the following method :—When the delegates are met, let a colony be taken from the whole thirteen colonies by lot; after which let the �Common Sense. 27 whole congress choose, by ballot, a president from out of the delegates of that province. In the next congress, let a colony be taken by lot from twelve only, omitting that colony from which the president was taken in the former congress, so proceeding on till the whole thirteen shall have had their proper rotation. And in order that nothing may pass into a law but what is satis­ factorily just, not less than three-fifths of the congress to be called a majority. He that will promote discord under a govern­ ment so equally formed as this, would have joined Lucifer in his revolt. But as there is a peculiar delicacy, from whom and in what manner this business must first arise; and as it seems most agreeable and consistent that it should come from some inter­ mediate body between the governed and the governors, that is, between the congress and the people, let a continental conference be held, in the following manner and for the following purpose:— A committee of twenty-six members of congress, viz., two for each county. Two members from each house of assembly or provincial convention; and five representatives of the people at large, to be chosen in the capital city or town of each province, for and in behalf of the whole province, by as many qualified voters as shall think proper to attend from all parts of the pro­ vince for that purpose; or, if more convenient, the representatives may be chosen in two or three of the most populous parts there­ of. In this conference thus assembled will be united the two grand principles of business, knowledge and power. The members of congress, assemblies, or conventions, by having had experience in national concerns, will be able and useful coun­ sellors ; and the whole, empowered by the people, will have a truly legal authority. The conferring members being met, let their business be to frame a continental charter, or charter of the united colonies, answering to what is called Magna Charta of England; fixing the number and manner of choosing members of congress, mem­ bers of assembly, with their date of sitting, and drawing the line of business and jurisdiction between them ; always remembering that our strength is continental, not provincial; securing freedom and property to all men ; and, above all things, the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; with such other matter as it is necessary for a charter to contain. Imme­ diately after which the said conference to dissolve, and the bodies which shall be chosen conformable to the said .charter to be the legislators and governors of the continent for the time being, whose peace and happiness may God preserve ! Amen. . Should any body of men be hereafter delegated for this or some similar purpose, I offer them the following extract from that wise observer on governments, Dragonetti:—“ The science,” says he, “ of the politician consists in fixing the true point of happiness and freedom. Those men would deserve the gratitude of ages, who should discover a mode of government that contained the �Common Sense. greatest sum of individual happiness, with the least national expense.”—Dragonetti, on “ Virtue and Rewards.” But where, some say, is the king of America ? I will tell you, friend, he reigns above, and does not make havoc of mankind, like the royal brute of Britain. Yet, that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth, placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know that so far we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king, and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown, at the conclusion of the ceremony, be demolished and scattered among the people, whose right it is. A government of our own is our natural right; and when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced that it is infinitely wiser and safer to form a constitution of our own in a cool, deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some Masaniello may * hereafter arise, who, laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge. Should the government of America return again to the hands of Britain, the tottering situation of things will be a temptation for some desperate adventurer to try his fortune; and in such a case, what relief can Britain have ? Ere she could hear the news, the fatal busi­ ness might be done, and ourselves suffering, like the wretched Britains, under the oppression of the conqueror. Ye that oppose independence now, ye know not what ye do ; ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny. There are thousands and tens of thousands who would think it glorious to expel from the continent that barbarous and hellish power which hath stirred up the Indians and negroes to destroy us ; the cruelty hath a double guilt—it is dealing brutally by us and treacherously by them. To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason forbids us to have faith, and our affections, wounded through a thousand pores, instruct us to detest, is madness and folly. Every day wears out the little remains of kindred between us and them, and can there b§ any reason to hope that, as the relationship expires, the affection will increase ; or that we shall agree better when we have ten times more and greater concerns to quarrel over than ever ? Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore to * Thomas Aniello, otherwise Masaniello, a fisherman of Naples, who, after spiriting up his countrymen in the public market-place against the oppression of the Spaniards, to whom the place was then subject, prompted them to revolt, and in the space of a day became king. �Common Sense. 29 us the time that is past? Can you give to prostitution its former innocence ? Neither can ye reconcile Britain and America. The last cord now is broken, the people of England are presenting addresses against us. There are injuries which nature cannot forgive; she would cease to be nature if she did. As well can a lover forgive the ravisher of his mistress as the continent forgive the murderers of Britain. The Almighty hath implanted in us these unextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes. They are the guardians of his image in our hearts. They distinguish us from the herd of common animals. The social compact would dissolve and justice be extirpated from the earth, or have only a casual existence, were we callous to the touches of affection. The robber and the murderer would often escape unpunished, did not the injuries which our temper sustains pro­ voke us into justice. O ye that love mankind; ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth ; every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her, Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O receive the fugitive ; and prepare in time an asylum for mankind. Of the present Ability of America, with some miscellaneous Reflexions. I have never met with a man, either in England or America who hath not confessed his opinion that a separation between the two countries would take place one time or other. And there is no instance in which we have shown less judgment than in endeavoring to describe what we call the ripeness or fitness of the continent for independence. As all men allow the measure, and vary only in their opinion of the time, let us, in order to remove mistakes, take a general survey of things, and endeavor, if possible, to find out the very time. But we need not go far, the inquiry ceases at once, for the time hath found us. The general concurrence, the glorious union of all things, prove the fact. It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies; yet our present numbers are sufficient to repel the force of all the world. The continent hath, at this time, the largest body of armed and disciplined men of any power under heaven, and is just arrived at that pitch of strength in which no single colony is able to support itself, and the whole, when united, can accom­ plish the matter ; and either more or less than this might be fatal in its effects. Our land force is already sufficient, and as to naval affairs, we cannot be insensible that Britian would r ever suffer an American man-of-war to be built while the continent remained in her hands, wherefore we should be no forwarder a hundred years hence in that branch than we are now; but the truth is, we shall be less so, because the timber of the country is every day �30 Common Sense. diminishing, and that which will remain at last will be far off and difficult to procure. Were the continent crowded with inhabitants, her sufferings under the present circumstances would be intolerable. The more sea-port towns we had, the more should we have both to defend and to lose. Our present numbers are so happily proportioned to our wants, that no man need to be idle. The diminution of trade affords an army, and the necessities of an army create a new trade. Debts we have none, and whatever we may contract on this account will serve as a glorious memento of our virtue. Can we but leave posterity with a settled form of government, an inde­ pendent constitution of its own, the purchase at any price will be cheap. But to expend millions for the sake of getting a few vile acts repealed, and routing the present ministry only, is unworthy the charge, is using posterity with the utmost cruelty; because it is leaving them the great work to do, and a debt upon their backs from which they derive no advantage. Such a thought is unworthy a man of honor, and is the true characteristic of a narrow heart and a peddling politician. The debt we may contract doth not deserve our regard, if the work be but accomplished. No nation ought to be without a debt; a national debt is a national bond, and when it bears no interest, is in no case a grievance. Britain is oppressed with a debt of upwards of one hundred and fifty millions sterling, for which she pays upwards of four millions interest. As a compen­ sation for the debt, she has a large navy ; America is without a debt and without a navy; yet, for the twentieth part of the English national debt, could have a navy as large again. The navy of England is not worth more at this time than three millions and a half sterling. The charge of building a ship of each rate, and furnishing her with masts, yards, sails, and rigging, together with a pro­ portion of eight months’ boatswain’s and carpenter’s sea stores, as calculated by Mr. Burchett, Secretary to the Navy, is as follows:— For a ship of 100 guns...................................... £35,552 90 .................................... 29 886 80 23.638 70 17,785 60 14,197 50 ................................... 10,606 40 7,758 30 5,846 20 3,710 And from hence it is easy to sum up the value, or cost rather, of the whole British navy, which, in the year 1757, when it was at its greatest glory, consisted of the following ships and guns:— �Common Sense. Ship. Guns. Cost of one. 31 Cost of all. £35,553 ............. ........... £213 318 100 6 29,886 ............. ........... 358 632 12 90 23,638 ............. ........... 283 656 12 80 17,785 ............. ............ 70 764.755 48 14,197 ............. ........... 60 496.895 35 10,606 ............. ........... 40 50 424,240 7,758 ............. ........... 40 344,110 45 3,710 ............. ........... 58 20 215,180 85 Sloops, bombs, and) fireships, one with;- 2,000 .......................... 170,000 another. J ----------Cost ......................... 8,270.786 Remains for guns .... 229,214 £3,500,0001 No country on the globe is so happily situated, or so internally capable of raising a fleet, as America. Tar, timber, iron, and cordage are her natural produce. We need go abroad for nothing. Whereas the Dutch, who make large profits by hiring out their ships of war to the Spaniards and Portuguese, are obliged to import most of the materials they use. We ought to view the building a fleet as an article of commerce, it being the natural manufactory of this country. It is the best money we can lay out. A navy, when finished, is worth more than it cost; and is that nice point in national policy in which commerce and protection are united. Let us build; if we want them not, we can sell; and by that means replace our paper currency with ready gold and silver. In point of manning a fleet people in general run into great errors. It is not necessary that one fourth part should be sailors. The “Terrible,’’privateer,Captain Death, stood thehottestengagement of any ship last war, yet had not twenty sailors on board, though her complement of men was upwards of two hundred. A few able and sociable sailors will soon instruct a sufficient number of active landsmen in the common work of a ship. Wherefore, we never can be more capable to begin on maritime matters than now, while our timber is standing, our fisheries blocked up, and our sailors and shipwrights out of employ. Men of war of seventy and eighty guns were built forty years ago in New England, and why not the same now? Ship building is America’s greatest pride, and in which she will in time excel the whole world. The great empires of the east are mostly inland, and consequently excluded from the possibility of rivalling her. Africa is in a state of barbarism, and no power in Europe hath either such an extent of coast, or such an internal supply of materials. Where nature hath given the one she has withheld 1 Mr. Paine would be a little astonished if he could to-day examine the estimates for an English ironclad. �32 Common Sense. the other. To America only hath she been liberal in both. The vast empire of Russia is almost shut out from the sea ; where­ fore her boundless forests, her tar, iron, and cordage are only articles of commerce. In point of safety, ought we to be without a fleet ? We are not the little people now which we were sixty years ago. At that time we might have trusted our property in the street, or field rather, and slept securely without locks or bolts to our doors or windows. The case now is altered, and our methods of defence ought to improve with our increase of property. A common pirate, twelve months ago, might have come up the Delaware and laid the City of Philadelphia under instant contribution for what sum he pleased, and the same might have happened to other places. Nay, any daring fellow, in a brig of fourteen or sixteen guns, might have robbed the whole continent, and carried off half a million of money. These are circumstances which demand our attention, and point out the necessity of naval protection. Some, perhaps, will say that after we have made it up with Britain, she will protect us. Can we be so unwise as to mean that she shall keep a navy in our harbors for that purpose? Common sense will tell us that the power which hath endeavored to subdue us is, of all others, the most improper to defend •us. Conquest may be effected under the pretence of friendship, and ourselves, after a long and brave resistance, be at last cheated into slavery. And if her ships are not to be admitted into our harbors, I would ask, how is she to protect us ? A navy three or four thousand miles off can be of little use, and on sudden emergencies none at all. Wherefore, if we must here­ after protect ourselves, why not do it for ourselves ? why do it for another ? The English list of ships of war is long and formidable, but not a tenth part of them are at any one time fit for service, numbers of them not in being, yet their names are pompously continued in the list, if only a plank be left of the ship; and not a fifth part of such as are fit for service can be spared on any one station at one time. The East and West Indies, Mediterranean, Africa, and other parts over which Britain extends her claim, make large demands upon her navy. From a mixture of preju­ dice and inattention, we have contracted a false notion respecting me navy of England, and have talked as if we should have the /vnole of it to encounter at once, and for that reason supposed mat we must have one as large, which not being instantly prac­ ticable, has been made use of by a set of disguised Tories to discourage our beginning thereon. Nothing can be farther from truth than this, for if America had only a twentieth part of the naval force of Britain, she would be by far an overmatch for her, because, as we neither have nor claim any foreign dominion, our own force will be employed on our own coast, where we should, in the long run, have two to one the advantage of those who had three or four thousand miles to sail over before they could attack us, and the same distance to return in order to refit and �33 Common Sense. recruit. And although Britain, by her fleet, hath a check over our trade to Europe, we have as large a one over her trade to the West Indies, which, by lying in the neighborhood of the continent, is entirely at its mercy. Some method might be fallen on to keep up a naval force in the time of peace, if we should not judge it necessary to support a constant navy. If premiums were to be given to merchants, to build and employ in their service ships mounted with twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty guns (the premiums to be in proportion to the loss of bulk to the merchants,) fifty or sixty of those ships, with a few guardships on constant duty, would keep up a suffi­ cient navy, and that without burdening ourselves with the evil so loudly complained of in England, of suffering their fleet, in time of peace, to lie rotting in the docks. To unite the sinews of commerce and defence is sound policy, for when our strength and our riches play into each other’s hands we need fear no external enemy. In almost every article of defence we abound. Hemp flourishes even to rankness, so that we need not want cordage. Our iron is superior to that of other countries. Our small arms equal to any in the world. Cannon we can cast at pleasure. Saltpetre and gunpowder we are every day producing. Our knowledge is hourly improving. Resolution is our inherent character, and courage hath never yet forsaken us. Wherefore, what is it we want ? Why is it that we hesitate ? From Britain we expect nothing but ruin. If she is once admitted to the government of America again, this continent will not be worth living in. Jealousies will be always arising ; insurrections will be constantly happening; and who will go forth to quell them ? Who will venture his life to reduce his own countrymen to a foreign obedi­ ence ? The difference between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, respecting some unlocated lands, shows the insignificance of a British government, and fully proves that nothing but continental authority can regulate continental matters. Another reason why the present time is preferable to all others is, that the fewer our numbers are, the more land there is yet unoccupied, which, instead of being lavished by the king on his Worthless dependents, may be hereafter applied, not only to the discharge of the present debt, but to the constant support of government. No nation under heaven hath such an advantage as this. The infant state of the colonies, as it is called, so far from being against, is an argument in favor of independence. We are suffi. oiently numerous, and were we more so, we might be less united. It is a matter worthy of observation that the more a country is peopled, the smaller their armies are. In military numbers the ancient far exceeded the moderns; and the reason is evident, for trade being the consequence of population, men become too much absorbed thereby to attend to anything else. Commerce dimiishes the spirit both of patriotism and military defence; and history sufficiently informs us, that the bravest achievements C �34 Common Sense. were always accomplished in the nonage of a nation. With the increase of commerce, England hath lost its spirit. The city of London, notwithstanding its numbers, submits to continued insults with the patience of a coward. The more men have to lose, the less willing they are to venture. The rich are in general slaves to fear, and submit to courtly power with the trembling duplicity of a spaniel. Youth is the seed-time of good habits, as well in nations as in individuals. It might be difficult, if not impossible, to form the continent into one government half a century hence. The vast variety of interests, occasioned by the increase of trade and popu­ lation, would create confusion. Colony would be against colony. Each being able, might scorn each other’s assistance ; and while the proud and foolish gloried in their little distinctions, the wise would lament that the union had not been formed before. Where­ fore, the present time is the true time for establishing it. The intimacy which is contracted in infancy, and the friendship which is formed in misfortune, are of all others the most lasting and honorable. Our present union is marked with both these cha­ racters ; we are young, and we have been distressed; but our concord hath withstood our troubles, and fixes a memorable era for posterity to glory in. The present time, likewise, is that peculiar time which never happens to a nation but once, viz., the time of forming itself into a government. Most nations have let slip the opportunity, and by that means have been compelled to receive laws from their conquerors, instead of making laws for themselves. First, they had a king, and then a form of government; whereas, the articles or charter of government should be formed first, and men dele­ gated to execute them afterwards; but from the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom, and lay hold of the present oppor­ tunity—to begin government at the right end. When William the Conqueror subdued England, he gave them law at the point of the sword, and until we consent that the seat of government in America be legally and authoritatively occupied, we shall be in danger of having it filled by some fortunate ruf­ fian, who may treat us in the same manner; and then, where will be our freedom ? where our property ? As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all governments to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do there­ with. Let a man throw aside that narrowness of soul, that sel­ fishness of principle, which the niggards of all professions are so unwilling to part with, and he will be at once delivered of his fears on that head. Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society. For myself, I fully and con­ scientiously believe that it is the will of the Almighty that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us; it affords a larger field for our Christian kindness. Were we all of one way of thinking, our religious dispositions would want matter for probation; and on this liberal principle, I look on the various �Common Sense. 35 denominations among us to be, like children of the same family, differing only in what is called their Christian names. In page twenty-seven I threw out a few thoughts on the pro priety of a continental charter (for I only presume to offer hints, not plans), and in this place I take the liberty of re-mentioning the subject by observing that a charter is to be understood as a bond of solemn obligation, which the whole enters into, to sup­ port the right of every separate part, whether of religion, per­ sonal freedom, or property. A firm bargain and a right reckon * ing make long friends. In a former page I likewise mentioned the necessity of a large and equal representation, and there is no political matter which more deserves our attention. A small number of electors, or a small number of representatives, are equally dangerous ; but if the number of the representatives be not only small, but unequal, the danger is increased. As an instance of this I mention the follow­ ing : When the Associators’ petition was before the House of Assembly of Pennsylvania twenty-eight members only were pre * sent; all the Bucks county members, being eight, voted against it, and had seven of the Chester members done the same, this whole province had been governed by two counties only, and this danger it is always exposed to. The unwarrantable stretch, likewise, which that House made in their last sitting, to gain an undue authority over the delegates of that province, ought to warn the people at large how they trust power out of their own hands. A set of instructions for the delegates were put together, which in point of sense and business would have dishonored a schoolboy ; and after being approved by a few, a very few, without doors, were carried into the House, and there passed in behalf of th® whole colony; whereas, did the whole colony know with what ill-will that House had entered on some necessary public measures, they would not hesitate a moment to think them un * worthy of such a trust. Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which, if continued, would grow into oppressions. Experience and right are different things. When the calamities of America required a consultation, there was no method so ready, or at that time so proper, as to appoint persons from the several Houses of As­ sembly for that purpose ; and the wisdom with which they have proceeded hath preserved this continent from ruin. But as it is more than probable that we shall ever be without a Congress, every well-wisher to good order must own that the mode for choosing members of that body deserves consideration. And I put it as a question to those who make a study of mankind, whether representation and election are not too great a power for one and the same body of men to possess? When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxima and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes. Mr. Cornwall, one of the Lords of the Treasury, treated the petition c 2 �36 Common Sense. of the New York Assembly with contempt, because that House’ he said, consisted but of twenty-six members, which trifling number, he argued, could not with decency be put for the whole. We thank him for his involuntary honesty. * To conclude : however strange it may appear to some, or how­ ever unwilling they may be to think so, matters not; but many strong and striking reasons may be given, to show that nothing can settle our affairs so expeditiously as an open and determined declaration for independence. Some of which are: First. It is the custom of nations, when any two are at war, for some other powers not engaged in the quarrel, to step in as mediators, and bring about the preliminaries of a peace; but while America calls herself the subject of Great Britain, no power, however well-disposed she may be, can offer her mediation. Wherefore, in our present state, we may quarrel on for ever. Secondly. It is unreasonable to suppose that France or Spain will give us any kind of assistance, if we mean only to make use of that assistance for the purpose of repairing the breach, and strengthening the connexion between Britain and America, be­ cause those powers would be sufferers by the consequences. Thirdly. While we profess ourselves the subjects of Britain, we must, in the eyes of foreign nations, be considered as rebels. The precedent is somewhat dangerous to their peace, for men to be in arms under the name of subjects ; we, on the spot, can solve the paradox; but to unite resistance and subjection requires an idea much too refined for common understandings. Fourthly. Were a manifesto to be published, and dispatched to foreign Courts, setting forth the miseries we have endured, and the peaceable methods we have ineffectually used for redress, declaring, at the same time, that not being able any longer to live happily or safely under the cruel disposition of the British Court, we had been driven to the necessity of breaking off all connexion with her; at the same time assuring all such Courts of our peaceable disposition towards them, and of our desire of entering into trade with them ; such a memorial would produce more good effects to this continent than if a ship were freighted with petitions to Britain. Under our present denomination of British subjects, we can neither be received nor heard abroad; the custom of all Courts is against us, and will be so until, by an independence, we take rank with other nations. These proceedings may at first appear strange and difficult; but like other steps which we have already passed over, will in a little time become familiar and agreeable; and until an indepen­ dence is declared, the continent will find itself like a man who continues putting off some unpleasant business from day to day, yet knows it must be done, hates to set about it, wishes it over, and is continually haunted with the thoughts of its necessity. ♦Those who would fully understand of what great consequenee a large and equal representation is to a State, should read Burgh’s “ Political Disquisi­ tions.’’ �Common Sense. 37 APPENDIX. „ 5 * Since the publication of the first edition of this pamphlet, or rather on the same day on which it came out, the king’s speech made its appearance in this city. Had the spirit of prophecy directed the birth of this production, it could not have brought it forth at a more seasonable juncture, or a more necessary time. The bloody-mindedness of the one shows the necessity of pursu­ ing the doctrine of the other. Men read by way of revenge. And the speech, instead of terrifying, prepared a way for the manly principles of independence. Ceremony, and even silence, from whatever motive they may arise, have a hurtful tendency, when they give the least degree of countenance to base and wicked performances ; wherefore, if this maxim be admitted, it naturally follows, that the king’s speech, as being a piece of finished villainy, deserved, and still deserves, a general execration both by the Congress and the People. Yet as the domestic tranquillity of a nation depends greatly on the chastity of what may properly be called national manners, it is often better to pass some things over in silent disdain, than to make use of such new methods of dislike as might introduce the least innovation on the guardian of our peace and safety. And, perhaps, it is chiefly owing to this prudent delicacy, that the king’s speech hath not, before now, suffered a public execration. The speech, if it may be called one, is nothing better than a wilful, audacious libel against the truth, the common good, and the existence of mankind ; and is a formal and pompous method of offering up human sacrifices to the pride of tyrants. But this general massacre of mankind is one of the privileges, and the certain consequence of kings: for as Nature knows them not, they know not her; and although they are beings of our own creating, they know not us, and are become the gods of their creators. The speech hath one good quality, which is, that it is not calculated to deceive; neither can we, even if we would, be deceived by it; brutality and tyranny appear on the face of it. It leaves us at no loss ; and every line convinces, even in the moment of reading, that he who hunts the woods for prey, the naked and untutored Indian, is less a savage than the king of Britain. Sir John Dalrymple, the putative father of a whining, Jesuitical piece, fallaciously called “The Address of the People of England to the Inhabitants of America,” hath, perhaps, from a vain sup­ position that the people here were to be frightened at the pomp and description of a king, given (though very unwisely on his part) the real character of the present one. “ But,” says this writer, “if you are inclined to pay compliments to an administration which we do not complain of ” (meaning the Marquis of Rock* ngham’s at the repeal of the Stamp Act), “ it is very unfair in ou to withhold them from that prince by whose nod alone they �38 Common Sense. were permitted to do anything.” This is Toryism with a witness! Here is idolatry even with a mask! and he who can calmly hear and digest such doctrine hath forfeited his claim to rationality— an apostate from the order of manhood—and ought to be con­ sidered as one who hath not only given up the proper dignity of man, but sunk himself beneath the rank of animals, and con­ temptibly crawls through the world like a worm. It is now the interest of America to provide for herself. She hath already a large and young family, whom it is more her duty to take care of than to be granting away her property, to sup­ port a power who is become a reproach to the names of men and Christians. Ye, whose office it is to watch over the morals of a nation, of whatsoever sect or denomination ye are of, as well as ye who are more immediately the guardians of the public liberty, if ye wish to preserve your native country uncontaminated by European corruption, ye must in secret wish a separation. But leaving the moral part to private reflexion, I shall chiefly coniine my farther remarks to the following heads:— First. That it is the interest of America to be separated from Britain. Secondly. Which is the easiest and most practicable plan, Reconciliation or Independence ? with some occasional remarks. In support of the first, I could, if I judged it proper, produce the opinion of some of the ablest and most experienced men on this continent; and whose sentiments on that head are not yet publicly known. It is in reality a self-evident position ; for no nation in a state of foreign dependence, limited in its commerce, and cramped and fettered in its legislative powers, can ever arrive at any material eminence. America doth not yet know what opulence is; and although the progress which she hath made stands unparalleled in the history of other nations, it is but child­ hood, compared with what she would be capable of arriving at, had she, as she ought to have, the legislative power in her own hands. England is, at this time, proudly coveting what would do her no good, were she to accomplish it; and the continent, hesitating on the matter, which will be her final ruin, if neglected. It is the commerce and not the conquest of America by which England is to be benefited ; and that would in a great measure continue, were the countries as independent of each other as France and Spain; because in many articles, neither can go to a better market. But it is the independence of this country of Britain or any other, which is now the main and only object worthy of contention ; and which, like all other truths discovered by necessity, will appear clearer and stronger every day. First. Because it will come to that one time or other. Secondly. Because the longer it is delayed the harder it will be to accomplish. I have frequently amused myself, both in public and private companies, with silently remarking the specious errors of those who spoke without reflecting. And among the many which I have heard, the following seems the most general, viz.: That had this �Common Sense. 39 rupture happened forty or fifty years hence, instead of now, the continent would have been more able to have shaken off the de­ pendence. To which I reply, that our military ability, at this time, arises from the experience gained in the last war, and which, in forty or fifty years’ time, would have been totally extinct. The continent would not, by that time, have had a general, or even a military officer, left; and we, or those who may succeed.us, would have been as ignorant of martial matters as the ancient Indians. And this single position closely attended to, will unan­ swerably prove, that the present time is preferable to all others. The argument turns thus: At the conclusion of the last war we had experience, but wanted numbers, and forty or fifty years hence we shall have numbers without experience ; wherefore, the proper point of time must be some particular point between the two extremes, in which a sufficiency of the former remains, and a proper increase of the latter is obtained; and that point of time is the present time. The reader will pardon this digression, as it does not properly come under the head I first set out with, and to which I shall again return by the following position, viz : Should affairs be patched up with Britain, and she to remain the governing and sovereign power of America (which, as matters are now circumstanced, is giving up the point entirely), we shall deprive ourselves of the very means of sinking the debt we have or may contract. The value of the back land, which some of the provinces are clandestinely deprived of, by the unjust exten­ sion of the limits of Canada, valued at only five pounds sterling per hundred acres, amounts to upwards of twenty-five millions Pennsylvania currency ; and the quit rents at one penny sterling per acre, or two millions yearly. It is by the sale of those lands that the debt may be sunk, without burden to any, and the quit-rent reserved thereon will always lessen, and in time will wholly support the yearly expense of government. It matters not how long the debt is in paying, so that the lands, when sold, be applied to the discharge of it; and for the execution of which, the Congress for the time being will be continental trustees. I proceed now to the second head, viz.: Which is the easiest and most practical plan, Reconciliation or Independence ? with some occasional remarks. He who takes nature for his guide is not easily beaten out of his argument, and on that ground I answer generally—that independence being a Bingle simple line contained within our­ selves, and reconciliation a matter exceedingly perplexed and complicated, and in which a treacherous, capricious court is to interfere, gives the answer without a doubt. The present state of America is truly alarming to every man who is capable of reflection. Without law, without government, without other mode of power than what is founded on, and granted by courtesy; held together by an unexampled occurrence of sentiment, which is nevertheless subject to change, and which �40 Common Sense. every secret enemy is endeavoring to dissolve. Our present condition is legislation without law, wisdom without a plan, a constitution without a name ; and what is strangely astonishing, perfect independence contending for dependence. The instance is without a precedent; the case never existed before ; and who can tell what may be the event; the property of no man is secure in the present embarrassed system of things; the mind of the multi­ tude is left at random; and seeing no fixed object before them, they pursue such as fancy or opinion starts. Nothing is criminal ; there is no such thing as treason; wherefore everyone thinks himself at liberty to act as he pleases. The Tories dared not to have assembled offensively, had they known that their lives, by that act, were forfeited to the laws of the state. A line of distinction should be drawn between English soldiers taken in battle, and inhabitants of America taken in arms. The first are prisoners, but the latter traitors. The one forfeits his liberty, the other his head. Notwithstanding our wisdom, there is a visible feebleness in some of our proceedings which gives encouragement to dissensions. The continental belt is too loosely buckled ; and if something be not done in time, it will be too late to do anything, and we shall fall into a state, in which neither reconciliation nor independence will be practicable. The Court and its worthless adherents are got at their old game of dividing the continent; and there are not wanting among us printers, who will be busy in spreading specious falsehoods. The artful and hypocritical letters which appeared, a few months ago, in two of the New York papers, and likewise in two others, are an evidence, that there are men who want either judgment or honesty. It is easy getting into holes or corners, and talking of recon­ ciliation ; but do such men seriously consider, how difficult the task is, and how dangerous it may prove, should the continent divide thereon ? Do they take within their view all the various orders of men, whose situations and circumstances, as well as their own, are to be considered therein ? Do they put themselves in the place of the sufferer whose all is already gone, and of the soldier who hath quitted all for the defence of his country ? If their ill-judged moderation be suited to their own private situations only, regardless of others, the event will convince them “that they are reckoning without their host.” Put us, say some, on the footing we were on in sixty-three. To which I answer, the request is not now in the power of Britain to comply with ; neither will she propose it; but if it were, and even should be granted, I ask, as a reasonable question, by what means is such a corrupt and faithless Court to be kept to its engagements? Another Parliament, nay, even the present, may hereafter repeal the obligation, on the pretence of its being violently obtained, or unwisely granted ; and in that case, where is our redress ? No going to law with nations; cannon are the barristers of crowns ; and the sword, not of justice, but of war, decides the suit. To be on the footing of sixty-three, it is not �Common Sense. 41 sufficient that the laws only be put on the same state, but that our circumstances, likewise, be put on the same state ; our burnt and destroyed towns repaired or built up; our private losses made good, our public debts (contracted for defence) discharged ; otherwise, we shall be millions worse than we were at that envi­ able period. Such a request, had it been complied with a year ago, would have won the heart and soul of the continent—but it is now too late, “ the rubicon is passed.” Besides, the taking up arms merely to enforce the repeal of a pecuniary law, seems as unwarrantable by the divine law, and as repugnant to human feelings, as the taking up arms to enforce obedience thereto. The object on either side does not justify the means ; for the lives of men are too valuable to be cast away on such trifles. It is the violence which is done and threatened to our persons ; the destruction of our property by an armed force ; the invasion of our country by fire and sword, which conscien­ tiously qualifies the use of arms; and the instant in which such a mode of defence became necessary, all subjection to Britain ought to have ceased ; and the independence of America should have been considered as dating its era from, and published by the first musket that was first fired against her. This line is a line of consistency ; neither drawn by caprice, nor extended by ambition; but produced by a chain of events, of which the colonies were not the authors. I shall conclude these remarks with the following timely and well-intended hints. We ought to reflect, that there are three different ways by which an independency can hereafter be effected ; and that one of those three will one day or other be the fate of America, viz. : By the legal voice of the people in Congress, by a military power, or by a mob. It may not always happen that our soldiers are citizens, and the multitude a body of reasonable men; virtue, as I have already remarked, is not hereditary, neither is it perpetual. Should an independency be brought about by the first of those means, we have every opportunity and every encourage­ ment before us to form the noblest, purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah till now. The birthday of a new world is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the event of a few months. The reflexion is awful—and in this point of view, how trifling, how ridiculous, do the little paltry cavillings of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of a world. Should we neglect the present favorable and inviting period, and an independence be hereafter effected by any other means, we must charge the consequence to ourselves, or to those rather whose narrow and prejudiced souls are habitually opposing the measure, without either inquiring or reflecting. There are reasons to be given in support of independence, which men should rather privately think of, than be publicly told of. We ought not now �42 Common Sense. to be debating whether we shall be independent or not, but anxious to accomplish it on a firm, secure, and honorable basis, and uneasy rather that it is not yet begun upon. Every day convinces us of its necessity. Even the Tories (if such beings yet remain among us) should, of all men, be the most solicitous to promote it; for, as the appointment of committees at first protected them from popular rage, so a wise and well-established form of government will be the only certain means of continuing it securely to them. Wherefore, if they have not virtue enough to be Whigs, they ought to have prudence enough to wish for independence. In short, independence is the only bond that can tie and keep us together ; we shall then see our object, and our ears will be legally shut against the schemes of an intriguing, as well as a cruel enemy. We shall then, too, be on a proper footing to treat with Britain; for there is reason to conclude that the pride of that Court will be less hurt by treating with the American States for terms of peace, than with those whom she denominates “rebellious subjects,” for terms of accommodation. It is our delaying it that encourages her to hope for conquest, and our backwardness tends only to prolong the war. As we have, with­ out any good effect therefrom, withheld our trade to obtain a redress of our grievances, let us now try the alternative by independently redressing them ourselves, and then offering to open the trade. The mercantile and reasonable part in England will be still with us, because, peace with trade is preferable to war without it; and if this offer be not accepted, other courts may be applied to. On these grounds I rest the matter. And as no offer hath yet been made to refute the doctrine contained in the former editions of this pamphlet, it is a negative proof that either the doctrine cannot be refuted, or that the party in favor of it are too numerous to be opposed. Wherefore, instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us hold out to his neighbor the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness every former dissension. Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct; and let none other be heard amoDg us than those of a good citizen, an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the rights of mankind, and of the free and inde­ pendent States of America. �Common Sense. 43 To the Representatives of the Religious Society of the People called Quakers, or to so many of them as were concerned in publishing a late Piece, intituled: “ The Ancient Testimony and Principles of the People called Quakers renewed, with respect to the King and Government, and touching the Commotions now prevailing in these and other parts of America, addressed to the People in England.'’’ The writer of this is one of those few, who never dishonor religion, either by ridiculing or cavilling at any denomination whatsoever. To God, and not to man, are all men accountable on the score of religion. Wherefore this epistle is not so properly addressed to you, as a religious, but as a political body, dabbling in matters, which the professed quietude of your principles instruct you not to meddle with. As you have, without a proper authority for so doing, put yourselves in the place of the whole body of the Quakers, so the writer of this, in order to be on equal rank with yourselves, is under the necessity of putting himself in the place of all those who approve the very writings and principles, against which your testimony is directed ; and he hath chosen this singular situation in order that you might discover in him that presumption of character which you cannot see in yourselves. For neither he nor you can have any claim or title to political representation. When men have departed from the right way, it is no wonder that they stumble and fall. And it is evident from the manner in which ye have managed your testimony, that politics (as a reli­ gious body of men) is not your proper walk ; however well adapted it might appear to you, it is, nevertheless, a jumble of good and bad put unwisely together, and the conclusion drawn therefrom, both unnatural and unjust. The two first pages (and the whole doth not make four), we give you credit for, and expect the same civility from you because the love and desire of peace is not confined to Quakerism, it is the natural as well as the religious wish of all denominations of men. And on this ground, as men laboring to establish an independent constitution of our own, do we exceed all others in our hope, end, and aim. Our plan is peace for ever. We are tired of contention with Britain, and can see no real end to it but in final separation. We act consistently, because for the sake of intro­ ducing an endless and uninterrupted peace, do we bear the evils and burdens of the present day. We are endeavoring, and will steadily continue to endeavor, to separate and dissolve a con­ nexion, which hath already filled our land with blood; and which, while the name of it remains, will be the fatal cause of future mischiefs to both countries. We fight neither for revenge nor conquest; neither from pride nor passion; we are not insulting the world with our fleets and armies, nor ravaging the globe for plunder. Beneath the shade of �44 Common Sense. our own vines are we attacked; in our own houses, and in our own land, is the violence committed against us. We view our enemies in the character of highwaymen and housebreakers; and having no defence for ourselves in the civil law, are obliged to punish them by the military one, and apply the sword in the very case where you have before now applied the halter. Perhaps we feel for the ruined and insulted sufferers in all and every part of the continent, with a degree of tenderness which hath not yet made its way into some of your bosoms. But be ye sure that ye mistake not the cause and ground of your testimony. Call not coldness of soul religion, nor put the bigot in the place of the Christian. O ye partial ministers of your own acknowledged principles! if the bearing arms be sinful, the first going to war must be more so, by all the difference between wilful attack and unavoidable defence. Wherefore, if ye really preach from conscience, and mean not to make apolitical hobby-horse of your religion, convince the world thereof, by proclaiming your doctrine to our enemies, for they likewise bear arms. Give us a proof of your sincerity by publishing it at St. James’s, to the commanders-in-chief at Boston, to the admirals and captains who are piratically ravaging our coasts, and to all the murdering miscreants who are acting in authority under the tyrant whom ye profess to serve. Had ye the honest soul of Barclay, ye would preach repentance * to your king ; ye would tell the despot of his sins, and warn him of eternal ruin. Ye would not spend your partial invectives against the injured and the insulted only, but like faithful ministers, would cry aloud and spare none. Say not that ye are persecuted, neither endeavor to make us the authors of that reproach, which ye are bringing upon yourselves, for we testify unto all men that we do not complain against ye because ye are Quakers, but because ye pretend to be, and are not Quakers. Alas! it seems by the particular tendency of some part of your testimony, and other parts of your conduct, as if all sin was reduced to, and comprehended in, the act of bearing arms, and that by the people only. Ye appear to us to have mistaken party for conscience ; because the general tenor of your actions wants uniformity ; and it is exceedingly difficult to us to give credit to many of your pretended scruples ; because we see them made by the same men, who, in the very instant that they are exclaiming against the mammon of this world, are, nevertheless, hunting after * “ Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity! thou knowest what it is to be banished thy native country, to be overruled as well as to rule, and set upon the throne: and being oppressed,thou hast reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give up thyself to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy condemnation; against which snare, as well as the temptation of those who may or do feed thee, and prompt thee to evil, the most excellent and prevalent remedy will be to apply thyself to that light of Christ which shineth in thy conscience, and which neither can, nor will flatter thee, nor suffer thee to be at ease in thy sins.” Barclay’s Address to Charles II. �Common Sense, 45 it with a step as steady as time, and an appetite as keen as death. The quotation which ye have made from Proverbs, in the third page of your testimony, that when a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh “ even his enemies to be at peace with him,” is very unwisely chosen on your part, because it amounts to a proof that the tyrant whom ye are so desirous of supporting does not please the Lord, otherwise his reign would be in peace. I now proceed to the latter part of your testimony, and that for which all the foregoing seems only an introduction, viz:— “ It hath ever been our judgment and principle, since we are called to profess the light of Christ Jesus manifested in our con­ sciences unto this day, that the setting up and putting down kings and governments is God’s peculiar prerogative for causes best known to himself ; and that it is not our business to have any hand or contrivance therein ; nor to be busy-bodies above our station, much less to plot and contrive the ruin, or overturn of any of them, but to pray for the king and safety of our nation and good of all men ; that we might live a peaceable and quiet life, in all godliness and honesty, under the government which God is pleased to set over us.” If these are really your principles, why do ye not abide by them ? Why do ye not leave that which ye call God’s work to be managed by himself ? These very principles instruct you to wait with patience and humility for the event of all public measures, and to receive that event as the divine will towards you. Wherefore, what occasion is there for your political testimony, if you fully believe what it contains ? And, therefore, publishing it proves that you either do not believe what ye profess, or have not virtue enough to practice what ye believe. The principles of Quakerism have a direct tendency to make a man the quiet and inoffensive subject of any and every govern­ ment which is set over him. And as the setting up and putting down of kings and governments is God’s peculiar prerogative, he most certainly will not be robbed thereof by us; wherefore the prin­ ciple itself leads you to approve of everything which ever happened, or may happen, to kings, as being his work. Oliver Cromwell thanks you. Charles, then, died, not by the hands of men; and should the present proud imitator of him come to the same untimely end, the writers and publishers of the testimony are bound, by the doctrine it contains, to applaud the fact. Kings are not taken away by miracles, neither are changes in governments brought about by any other means than such as are common and human ; and such as we are now using. Even the dispersion of the Jews, though foretold by our Savior, was effected by arms. Wherefore, as ye refuse to be the means on one side, ye ought not to be meddlers on the other, but to wait the issue in silence; and unless ye can produce divine authority, to prove that the Almighty, who hath created and placed this new world at the greatest distance it could possibly stand, east and west, from every part of the old, doth, nevertheless, disapprove of its being independent of the corrupt and abandoned Court of �46 • Common Sense. Britain; unless, I say, ye can show this, how can ye, on the ground of your principles, justify the exciting and stirring up the people “ firmly to unite in the abhorrence of all such writings and mea­ sures as evidence a desire and design to break off the happy con­ nexion we have hitherto enjoyed with the kingdom of Great Britain, and our just and necessary subordination to the king, and those who are lawfully placed in authority under him." What a slap of the face is here ! the men who, in the very para­ graph before, have quietly and passively resigned up the order­ ing, altering, and disposal of kings and governments into the hands of God, are now recalling their principles, and putting in for a share of the business. Is it possible that the conclusion which is here justly quoted, can any ways follow from the doctrine laid down ? The inconsistency is too glaring not to be seen; the absurdity too great not to be laughed at; and such as could only have been made by those whose understandings were darkened by the narrow and crabbed spirit of a despairing poli­ tical party; for ye are not to be considered as the whole body of the Quakers, but only as a factional or fractional part thereof. Here ends the examination of your testimony (which I call upon no man to abhor, as ye have done, but only to read and judge of fairly), to which I subjoin the following remark : “ That the setting up and putting down of kings,” must certainly mean, the making him a king, who is yet not so, and the making him no king who is already one. And pray what hath this to do in the present case? We neither mean to set up nor to put down, neither to make nor to unmake, but to have nothing to do with them. Wherefore, your testimony, in whatever light it is viewed, serves only to dishonor your judgment, and for many other reasons had better have been left alone than published. First. Because it tends to the decrease and reproach of all religion whatever, and is of the utmost danger to society, to make it a party in political disputes. Secondly. Because it exhibits a body of men, numbers of whom disavow the publishing political testimonies, as being concerned therein and approvers thereof. Thirdly. Because it hath a tendency to undo that continental harmony and friendship which yourselves, by your late liberal and charitable donations, have lent a hand to establish ; and the preservation of which is of the utmost consequence to us all. And here without anger or resentment I bid you farewell. Sincerely wishing that, as men and Christians, ye may always fully and uninterruptedly enjoy every civil and religious right; and be in your turn, the means of securing it to others; but that the example which ye have unwisely set, of mingling religion with politics, may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabi­ tant of America. �Works by CHAS. BRADLAUGH— The Freethinker’s Text-Book. Part I.¥ Section I.—“The Story of the Origin of Man, as told by the Bible and by Science.” Sec­ tion II.—“What is Religion?” “How^has it Grown ?” “God and Soul.” Bound in cloth, price 2s. 6d. Impeachment of the House of Brunswick.—Ninth edition. Is. Political Essays. Bound in cloth, 2s. 6d. Theological Essays. Bound in cloth, 3s. Hints to Emigrants, containing important information on the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. Is. Debates— Four — with the Rev. Dr. Baylee, in Liverpool; the Rev. Dr. Harrison, in London; Thomas Cooper, in London; the Rev. R. A. Armstrong, in Nottingham ; with Three Discourses by the Bishop of Peterborough and replies by C. Bradlaugh. Bound in one volume, cloth, 3s. . gji-w What does Christian Theism Teach ? A verbatim report' of two nights’ Public Debate with the Rev. A. J. Harrison. Second edition. 6d. God, Man, and the Bible. A verbatim report of a three nights’ Discussion at Liverpool with the Rev. Dr. Baylee. 6d. On the Being of a God as the Maker and Moral Governor of the Universe. A verbatim report of a two nights’ Discussion with Thomas Cooper. 6d. Has Man a Soul? A verbatim report of two nights’debate at Burnley, with the Rev. W. M. Westerby. Is. Christianity in relation to Freethought, Scepticism and Faith. Three Discourses by the Bishop of Peterborough with Special Replies. 6d. ’ Secularism Unphilosophical, Unsocial and Immoral. Threo nights’ debate with the Rev. Dr. McCann. Is. Is it Reasonable to Worship God? A verbatim report of two nights’ debate at Nottingham with the Rev. R. A. Armstrong Is. The True Story of my Parliamentary Struggle. Contain­ ing a Verbatim Report of the proceedings before the Select Committee of the House of Commons ; Mr. Bradlaugh’s Three Speeches at the Bar of the House, etc., etc. 0 6 Fourth Speech at the Bar of the House of Commons. 30th Thousand 0 May the House of Commons Commit Treason? ... 0 A Cardinal’s Broken Oath 0 1 Perpetual Pensions. Fortieth thousand ... 0 2 Civil Lists and Grants to Royal Family ... 0 1 The Land, the People, and the Coming Struggle... 0 2 Five Dead Men whom I Knew when Living. Sketches of Robert Owen, Joseph Mazzini, John Stuart Mill, Charles Sumner and Ledru Rollin ... 0 4 Cromwell and Washington: a Contrast... 0 6 Anthropology. In neat wrapper 0 4 When were our Gospels Written ? 0 6 Plea for Atheism 0 3 Has Man a Soul ? 0 2 The Laws Relating to Blasphemy and Heresy 0 6 Jesus, Shelley, and Malthus, an Essay on the Population Question 0 2 �Verbatim Report of the Trial of C. Bradlaugh before Lord Cole­ ridge for Blasphemy, in three Special Extra Numbers of the National Reformer. 6d. Verbatim Report of the Trial, The Queen against Bradlaugh and Besant. Cloth, 5s. With Portraits and Autographs of the two Defendants. Second Edition, with Appendix, containing the judgments of Lords Justices Bramwell, Brett, and Cotton. Works by ANNIE BESANT— The Freethinker’s Text-Book. Part II. “On Christianity.” Section I.—“Christianity: its Evidences Unreliable.” Section II—“Its Origin Pagan.” Section III.—“Its Morality Fallible.” Section IV.—“Condemned by its History.” Bound in cloth, 3s. 6d. History of the Great French Revolution. Cloth, 2s. My Path to Atheism. Collected Essays. The Deity of Jesus— Inspiration—Atonement— Eternal Punishment—Prayer — Re­ vealed Religion—and the Existence of God, all examiner) and rejected; together with some Essays on the Book of Common Prayer. Cloth, gilt lettered, 4s. Marriage: as it was, as it is, and as it should be. Second Edition. In limp cloth, Is. Light, Heat, and Sound. In three parts, 6d. each. Illustrated. Bound in limp cloth, Is. 6d.; cloth, 2s. The Jesus of the Gospels and The Influence of Christianity on the World. Two nights’ Debate with the Rev. A. Hatchard. Is. Social and Political Essays. 3s. 6d. Theological Essays and Debate. 2s. 6d. Fruits of Christianity ... ... ... ... q 2 The Gospel of Christianity and the Gospel of Freethought 0 2 The Christian Creed; or, What it is Blasphemy to Deny... 0 6 God’s Views on Marriage ... ... ... ... o g The Gospel of Atheism. Fifth Thousand ... ... o 2 Is the Bible Indictable ? ... ... ... ... q 2 The True Basis of Morality. A Plea for Utility as the Standard of Morality. Seventh Thousand ... ... 0 2 The Ethics of Punishment. Third Thousand ... ... 0 1 Auguste Comte. Biography of the great French Thinker, with Sketches of his Philosophy, his Religion, and his Sociology. Being a short and convenient resumd of Posi­ tivism for the general reader. Third Thousand ... 0 6 Giordano Bruno, the Freethought Martyr of the Sixteenth Century. His Life and Works. Third Thousand ... 0 1 The Law of Population: Its consequences, and its bearing upon Human Conduct and Morals. Seventieth thousand 0 6 Social Aspects of Malthusianism ... ... ... 0 q The Physiology of Home — No. 1, “Digestion”; No. 2, “Organs of Digestion”; No. 3, “Circulation”; No. 4, “Respiration”; Id. each. Together, in neat wrapper ... 0 4 Electricity and its modern applications. Four lectures. Id. each. Together, in wrapper ... ... ... 0 4 Eyes and Ears ... ... ... ... ’ q 3 Vivisection... ... ... ... ... q q The Political Status of Women. A Plea for Women’s Rights. Fourth Thousand... ... ... ... ... q 2 London: Freethought Publishing Company, 63, Fleet Street. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Common sense : with appendix and an address to Quakers Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Paine, Thomas [1737-1809] Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 46, [2] p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. First published Philadelphia: William and Thomas Bradford, 1776. Works by Bradlaugh and Besant listed on unnumbered pages at the end. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Freethought Publishing Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1884 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N526 Subject The topic of the resource Politics Republicanism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Common sense : with appendix and an address to Quakers), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Monarchy NSS Political science-History-18th century United States-Politics and Government-1775-1783 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/03e743b506736ffd0e0fa2bd8beea1c0.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=W6FksRdlSvNseIqBG4vKAzlZH9LbcXgLpTFqvI84kbVPsOrUPyymaRSphOnPO-BHXNeysJQGcHnBU4xL1hRjYA7pIZBjOyhJTWxlJvp2QEkS14voJr8oFKrMvdlEtFeYQElMhn3edAJ8%7EVqfqnz6l%7EA2-6wyg3dy7d0h3tHW72%7EnapwN3AcrK339gOSH98Z-40Ixr0yBMpCEkIreDbO2Vv17KejvoUGNQuZLmxLT0dRZS%7E5lI4D9n0han0sD6sWuiZqioeIMA9Lrh4s20pRoZq2KsJM44NhLt-1cR4GQoAdkU8WU6gauEu195JUytCWgKdWOSlinhOWcmim7FtFxzQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM c285cf878d4fb538f7a81e1b1ceb654b PDF Text Text NATIONAL SECULAR CWW A Y DISCUSSION BETWEEN MR. THOMAS COOPER AND MR. CHARLES BRADLAUGH. FIRST NIGHT. On Monday, the 1st ofFebruary, a discussion was begun at the Hail of Science between Mr. Thomas Cooper, some time Freethinker, and recent convert, also the well-known author of the “ Pur­ gatory of Suicides,” and Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, who has, for some years past, acquired a very wide spread reputation as lec­ turer under the name of “ Iconoclast,” and has devoted the time which is not occupied by his professional avocations in the elimi­ nation of secular and religious anomalies. The chair was occupied by James Harvey, Esq. The fo-low­ ing was the order of the discussion as stated in the published programme :— 1. Mr. Cooper to state the Argument for the Being of God, as the Maker of the Universe, on the First Night—and the Argu­ ment for the Being of God, as the Moral Governor of the Uni­ verse, on the Second Night; and each statement not to extend beyond half-an-hour. 2. Mr. Bradlaugh to state the Argument on the Negative side, each night; and each statement not to extend beyond half-anhour. 3. Not more than a quarter of an hour to be allowed for reply and counter-reply, to the end. 4. No written speeches to be delivered, and no long extracts from printed books or papers to be read on either side. 5. The chair to be taken at seven o’clock, and the Discussion to conclude, as nearly as possible, at ten, each evening. The Chairman said : I have consented to take the chair to-night, both by request of Mr. Cooper and some friends, and with the consent of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh; and I think I shall have your consent also during the discussion which takes place this evening. You well know that the duty and power of a chairman is very limited, being entirely confined to the preservation of order; and unless he has the support of those over whom he presides, his authority is of little avail. I trust, therefore, that you will listen to the arguments that will be addressed to you to-night. There must, of course, be great difference of opinion on every abstract question, �2 otherwise there would be no reason for discussion ; so that every lady and gentleman who comes here may be presumed to have formed an opinion beforehand ; but trusting^ your forbearance, I have no doubt that we shall be able to get through the business of the evening without any unseemly interruption. I feel it is a very important matter that we have under discussion, respecting not only us who have met to take a part, but humanity in general. It is “ Whether there be a God ?” And I hope that whatever arguments may be adduced, you will patiently hear the speaker to the end (hear, hear), that a speech shall not be inter­ rupted in the middle of a sentence; that you will listen thought­ fully and decide candidly. If we act on this principle, if we en­ tertain this spirit, we shall be conscious that we have not lost our evening. I am sure that you will hear both parties fully out, and support any decision at which I may arrive under the circumstances (hear, hear.) Mr. Cooper will occupy half-anhour in introducing the subject—“For the Being of God, as Maker of the Universe, and for the Being of God as the Gover* nor of the Universe.” Mr. Bradlaugh will then state the Argu­ ment on the Negative side, and will also occupy half-an-hour. After that each speaker will occupy a quarter of an hour, or as much less time as he pleases. In that case, it is the more neces­ sary that a speaker should not be stopped in the midst of a sen­ tence which the argument may require to be completed; nor should be be called to time at the exact moment the quarter of an hour has elapsed. I mention this that no gentleman may think I am dealing with one more favourably than the other. I now call on Mr. Cooper, who will take the affirmative of each statement, to sta*e the case on his side, but not to exceed a period of time beyond half-an-hour. (Hear and cheers.) Mr. Cooper then rose, and was received with cheers. He said : Eight years have elapsed since I stood in this Hall. It was on the 13th of February, 1856, when I told my audience that I could not lecture on Sweden, the subject which had been an­ nounced. I told them that my mind was undergoing a change. This hall was closed against me. I need not say why. Mr. Bendall was ill, and the Hall in John Street was shut, so I was left without the means of earning bread. After awhile I was allowed to go down into the cellar of the Board of Health and copy letters —seventy words for a penny. It was drudgery, and poor Frank Grant, who is since dead, and a well known person also since deceased, said to me—“ Why, it is enough to madden a man like you 1” But a man who could undergo two years’ imprisonment in the cause of truth, was not to be deterred by drudgery. Mr. Bendall applied to me. It was before he was struck down with paralysis. I did not apply to him, but he came to me, and told me I must come to this Hall. Now, during the years I lectured �3 here, there were few men whom I respected more than Mr. Ben­ dall, so I recommenced here on the 21st of September, 1856, and concluded on the 13th of May, 1858. I began with the “ Design Argument,” and continued to lecture in this hall for a year and nine months. An hour was allowed for discussion. For five years and eight months. I have maintained my convictions : one year and eight months I was in Scotland, and four years in Eng­ land. I have lectured in chapels, on platforms, in churches and in pulpits. Owing to the kindness of Mr. Bendall. who has given the use of this hall for two nights—this night and Wednesday night —I am again enabled to addiess you. I am accompanied by some Christian friends and ministers of the gospel. I assure you I address you in the spirit of kindness, although I think some of you have not said the best things of me, or allowed the best things to be said of me (hear and dissent.) I come, then, out of kindness to you to propose this argument for the being of God. It is an argument carrying me to the very door of the proposi­ tion that accompanies it, and one which I have revolved in my mind during the five years and eight months that I have been absent from you. It has been repeated to you so often, it has been talked about so constantly, that there can be no mistake about it. I am. I know that I exist; I am conscious of it. I, a reasoning, conscious, intelligent, personal existence. But I have not had this personal, conscious, intelligent existence very long. I have not long existed, but something must have existed before me. Something must have always existed ; for if there had been never anything in existence, there must have been nothing still, and because nothing cannot make something—something alone makes, originates, causes something to exist. Thus far, then, I think we are all agreed. I have said I am a personal, conscious, intelligent existence. Now either this personal, conscious, intel­ ligent existence has always existed, or it began to be. If it began to be, it has had a cause—indeed, if it has not always existed, but began to exist, it must have had a cause, and must have been either intelligent or non-intelligent. But non-intelligence can­ not create intelligence. You might as well tell me that the moon is made of green cheese, or the sun of Dorset butter, that an oak leaf is the Atlantic ocean, or that Windsor Castle is London Bridge, as to tell me that non-intelligence can cause to exist a thoroughly conscious, perfect intelligence. Therefore, this per­ sonal, conscious intelligence is itself the result or the effect of an intelligence pre-existing, which is the cause from which I derive my existence, the same to which men make reference when they speak of God. But I discern that there is everywhere not only something that has always existed everywhere, I discern also that there is no such a thing as “ nowhere there never was “nowhere,” there cannot be “nowhere.” �4 Do you feel inclined to dispute this proposition ? Try, then, to imagine ‘nowhere.” Where will you go?—beyond the great solar system ? You may go on for millions and millions of miles, still there is somewhere. If you try to imagine nowhere, you gradually begin to apprehend that there is “ every­ where,” and that intelligence always has existed everywhere. You say, then, that something has always existed everywhere. Can you conceive of that something having existed for nothing ? Then there is no such thing as nothing; there never was nothing ; there never could have bern nothing. Something must always have been, and been everywhere. If we decide thus, we have a right to say that something is not only everywhere, but on every point of everywhere; and if this chain of reasoning be broken, there is no line of demarcation to separate one part from the other. So we come to the idea of motion. I am gifted with certain senses, and I come to discern motion by a comparison of the relation of different objects to each other. I observe motion to be an attribute of master. By a conscious intuition, we are able to perceive, and, by the aid of reason, to discern that this personal existence, this preceding cause, is everywhere present, that it is an eternal, conscious, nnderived, uncreated, uncaused Being whom men worship and call God. (Cheers.) So by this personal, con­ scious intelligence, men have communication with, and can per­ ceive the outward features of this natural universe. But this material universe is not the something that has always existed, because it is in parts, because it is divisible, and the parts are moveable one among the other, and not only moveable in the sense of motion, but separable in the sense of change. Thus the fleshly clothing of this body is constantly changing. Our bodies are not now the bodies we had in infancy, nor those which we had ten years ago the same as we have now. But by the exercise of the will, which is a part of intelligence, and thia wifl'Ucting on matter—matter is separable and moveable. So that man is not one underived, uncreated, eternal existence. Yet by his intelligent will, with the assistance of his organised body, which of itself cannot move matter, he can mould it into various shapes and perform wonderful results—fitting, shaping, adapting; aud although we judge by these results that a man is exercising the power of intelligence, we cannot see him exercising it. You never saw a man contrive. You never saw a man design. Yon cannot see that. It is only by analogy that you can judge of it. There are three forces by which he acts—know­ ledge, consciousness, and testimony, and by the aid of these be is constantly designing and contriving. If you come to observe the fashion of an object, although you see no maker, yet when you inspect it and observe the various parts of which it is composed, their suitability and fitness for the purpose they �fulfil, then you presume that intelligence has been at work there, and you recognise its operation, although you could not see it contrive or design. If I come to a piece of a fashion apparently the most complicated, yet more remarkable when you understand it, seeing how simple are the principles of its construction, then is my admiration called forth. And when I look on the curiously wrought body, and mark all its various parts ; when I examine this eye with its wonderful lenses and pulleys, when I look over this hand with all its wonderful contrivances of adaptation and fit­ ness, as to render man lord of the endless plain and the wide mountain--even of the universe; and still when I look on the wonderful contrivances in the forms of the animals in creation, and wonder at their entire adaptation to the wants of each—eyes and lungs fitted to changes of the atmosphere, and yet so little change in the atmosphere itself, and when I look at “ this brave over­ hanging firmament fretted with golden fires,” and see their systems extend for millions and millions of miles pursuing their several ends, and going their refulgent round—I am filled with thoughts which make me humble, and I come to the conclusion that this universe has its conscious, personal, and intelligent designer; that he exists, that he is the author of my intelligence, that he is the author of the intelligence of the millions that sur­ round me. He exists. I did not always exist, that, therefore, he is all-intelligent, and must be the author of the universe. Finally, that since my will has such power over matter that he must be uncontrollable, and, therefore, all-powerful, since he has been able to produce this universe, he is over my existence, over your existence, and over every existence; that he is the great un­ created, underived cause whom men reverence, and whom I call God. Mr. Cooper resumed his seat amidst very warm plaudits. Mr. Bradlaugh rose and said : Sir, I have listened with con­ siderable attention, and with some disappointment, to the brief address which has been delivered to us in proof of the position which Mr. Cooper has taken upon himself to affirm this evening, which position, if I understand it rightly, is that there is an all­ wise, all-existent, all powerful, underived, uncaused, personal, conscious, and intelligent being whom he (Mr. Cooper) calls God. If saying it amounts to proof, then undoubtedly Mr. Cooper has demonstrated his position ; but if anything approaching to logical demonstration be required here this evening, then I shall respect­ fully submit that it has been utterly and entirely wanting in the speech to which we have just listened. (Cheers and dissent.) Mr. Cooper tells us that something has always existed everywhere— some one thing, some one existence, some one being. All his speech turns upon that. All his words mean nothing, except in so far as they go to support that point. Just notice the conse- �quenceg involved in the admissions contained in his affirmation that there is only one existence. If God always was one exist­ ence, one eternal, omnipresent existence, beside whom nothing else existed, what becomes of the statement made by Mr. Cooper to-night, that the material universe is not that infinite existence, but exists biside it ? There are thus two existences—the one everywhere, and the other existing somewhere, although nowhere remains for it. The one infinite is everywhere, beyond it there cannot be any existence, and the finite universe has to exist out­ side everywhere where existence is not. I will take it to be true as put by Mr. Cooper, that this same one existence, which has existed everywhere from eternity, is without motion, because, as he says, motion implies going or moving from point to point: existence being everywhere has nowhere to go; because it is always everywhere, and it cannot move from point to point any­ where. Just see, then, the lamentable position in which he places Deity. If Deity be everywhere, and Deity, as he puts it to you, made the universe, if made at all, it must have been somewhere, it cannot have been on one of the points occupied by Deity, for Mr. Cooper would hardly argue that two existences can occupy the same point at the same time, from which it would result that it cannot be in everywhere, and it cannot be anywhere else, because there is nowhere else for it. There can have been no making, because there was nothing to be made, everything being already in existence, and there being not the slightest vacuum for anything more. But the difficulty is more apparent when you come to weigh his words. Surely if the word making means anything, it involves the notion of some act; and if so, how can you have an action without motion ? I should, indeed, like my friend to explain this. He has evidently some very different notions from those which I have. I want to know how we can have the action of making without motion. I want to know how Deity, which as Deity has been always motionless, has ever moved to make the universe. We will examine the position still further. My friend says that these are arguments derivable from the fact of consciousness, and in illustration of this, he says—“ I exist. I am a personal, conscious, intelligent being. I have not been always, and, therefore, there must have been some time i when I began to be. I am intelligent^ but have not been always, and, therefore, I must have been caused by an intelligent being, because non-intelligence cannot originate or create intelligence.” Whether he meant non-intelligence and intelligence as positive existences, it is exceedingly difficult to understand, and it would be worth while, if we are to follow out the argument, that Mr. Cooper should explain that to you, or else you will perhaps make some mistake about it. What does he mean, I ask, by non-intel­ ligence ? So far as I understand intelligence, it is a quality of a �4 mode of existence varying in various modes of existence, and we only know mode of existence as finite. We cannot conceive the quality to be infinite, which we only know as appertaining to a mode—that is, to the finite. I want Mr. Cooper to tell me how I can reason from such a premiss, which only regards intelligence as a quality of mode—of the finite, up to what he puts to you as a quality of the absolute. I confess that on a subject like this some difference may be expected, and my opponent may rely on the authority of great names ; but I say that I have not relinquished my right to examine these great problems, and work out the result if it be possible for my reason to attain them. He says, then, that non-intelligence cannot form intelligence. I don’t wish to make mere verbal objections, or I might put it to him that I do not understand what he means by intelligence being formed at all. I must trouble him to make this point as clear to my mind as it is to himself—before such an argument will con­ vince me much more is required. I have no doubt that such an argument must have come to my friend’s mind in some clearer form before it carried conviction to him. He says, “ This personal, intelligent, conscious being had a cause.” Yes ! I suppose every effect must have had a cause. He tells us that analogy is a good guide in working out a reasonable result. He uses it himself, but he does not mean to say that by analogy, he argues back from effect to cause, and that, from himself, he would go back to an uncaused cause. “What exists merely as a cause exists for the sake of something else, and, in the accomplishment of that end, it consummates its own existence.” “ A cause is simply everything without which the effect would not result, and all such concurring, the effect cannot but result.” According to these passages from Sir William Hamilton, “that which exists as cause exists for the sake of something else.” Effect is thus the sequel to cause, and causes are but the means to ends. The only way of dealing with this question of cause and effect is to put it frankly that every cause of which we can take cognisance, is, at the same time, effect and cause, and that there is no cause on which we can lay a finger, that is not the effect of cause pre* cedent, to it—yon have an unbroken chain. I defy my friend to maintain the proposition that, without discontinuity, there can be origination. If he doesnot, his argument falls to the ground. But I really labour under considerable difficulty arising from the fact that my friend has used a large number of words and terms without explaining to you or to me what he meant by them ? I really must trouble him by pleading my ignorance as to the meaning which he attaches to the word uncaused caudb, for I frankly allow that my reason doesinot enable me to comprehend the word un­ caused as applied to existence. I conceive existence only modal of existence itself—the absolute I cannot conceive. I am not ' & 1 a 1 I 1 �8 enabled by my reason to go beyond modes of existence. I am not able by the aid of my intelligence to go beyon'd phenomena, and so reach the noumenon. Until he has enabled me to attach to these words, which he has used so gliby, a meaning of a definite kind, I must confess my inability to appreciate his reasoning. He would say that there is non-intelligence as well as intelli­ gence. If he does not mean that, his words have no meaning. He has said that non-intelligence could not produce intelligence. That God by his will caused it. But how if intelligence be everywhere—infinite, one, eternal—if you cannot limit its dura­ tion in point of time or its extent in point of space, if it is so in­ definite that to follow it as far as the faintest trace of it can be observed, it is. infinitely intelligent, how can you talk about non-intelligence at all ? If intelligence is everywhere, then nonintelligence is not possible. My friend worked up his argument to a strange sort of climax, that the personal, conscious, eternal, infinite, omnipotent, intell'gent being was what most men wor­ shipped and called God. I take exception to that, and say that the word God does not, in the mind of any one, express that, and that in the minds of the majority of men it exprtsses something very different from that. Indeed, so far as I have been able to ascertain, the great mass of human kind have precisely opposite notions when they are using the word God. All their ideas concerning God comprehend the idea of human and fallible action, and are held in connection with creeds involving contra­ dictions innumerable. The word God is the result of old tradi­ tions coming from one generation to another, from father to son, from generation to generation. In no case is it the out-growth of the unaided intelligence of the man who makes use of it. To put it further. I say there are no two men who use the word God in the same sense, and that it is a mere term which expresses no fixed idea. It does not admit the preciseness of a definition, nor can it be explained with an accuracy to admit the test of in­ quiry. The idea expressed by the word bears in most cases some relation to what has gone before, and is useful when appealing to the popular mind to cover deficiencies in the illogical argu­ ments addressed to it to account for the universe. Our friend passed from the argument from consciousness to what is generally known as the argument from design. He said that, having seen the result of man’s contrivance, if he met with a piece of work fashioned after a peculiar mariner with a view to a particular end, he should expect from analogy some contriver for it. But sup­ pose he had never seen any result of contrivance at all—how much would his argument help him ? In that case he must en­ tirely fail, and in this how little does design help him here ? To affirm origination from design of already existing substance, and by analogy it is only of this he can give us any illustration, in­ �9 volves a manifest contradiction. The argument distinguishes not the absolute from the material, the conditioned. It is the finite which he tells you is God, and yet cannot be God. There is an utter want of analogy. It is impossible to reason from design of that which is already existing, and thus to prove the creation of that which before did not exist. There is not a particle of analogy between these two propositions. But further, if it were needful to argue on it, if our friend had put before you the design argument, it is still utterly wanting as an argument for an infinite Deity, being "one entirely from analogy. Analogy cannot demonstrate the infinite wisdom, or the infinite, the eternal existence of God. It cannot demonstrate infinity of sub­ stance, for to reason from finite effects as illustrations, analogy only takes you back by steps each time a little way, and to a finite cause. To assert an origin is simply to break a chain of causes and effects without having any warrant for it, except to cover your own weakness. The argument falls with this; you cannot demonstrate the infinity of Deity ; for, admitted a finite effect, how can you from it deduce an infinite cause ? Thus the omnipresence of Deity remains unproved. If the substance of Deity cannot be demonstrated infinite, neither can his attributes; so that, so far as the proof goes, his wisdom and power may be limited ; that is, there is no evidence that he is either omniscient or omnipotent. When our friend talks about having, proved an all-powerful, all-wise self-existence, he simply misrepresents what he has tried to do, and he should not use a phrase which does not, and cannot bear the slightest reference to the argu­ ment. So far, then, we take exception to the speech which he has given us to-night. By whatever means my friend has at­ tained his present conclusions, he must surely have gained the convictions upon some better ground than those which he has expressed here to-night, unless, indeed, we are to suppose him. to have changed without any reasoning at all. (Cheers.) I wish, before concluding, to point out to you that in the position I have taken up I do not stand here to prove that there is no God. If I should undertake to prove such a proposition, I should de­ serve the ill words of the oft-quoted psalmist applied to those who say there is no God. I do not say there is no God, but I am an Atheist without God. To me the word God conveys no idea, and it is because the word God, to me, never expressed a clear and definite conception—it is because I know not what it means—it is because I never had sufficient evidence to compel my acceptance of it, if I had I could not deny it—such evidence, indeed, I could not resist—it is for these reasons that I am Atheist, and ask people to believe me not hypocrite but honest, when I wtell them that the word “ God ” does not, to my mind, express an eternal, infinite, omnipotent, intelligent, per­ �10 Sonal, conscious being, but is a word without meaning and of none effect, other than that it derives from the passions and prejudices of those who use it. And when I look round the world, and find in one country a church with one faith, in another country, another creed, and in another a system contradicting each—no two men agreeing as to the meaning of the word—but cursing, clashing, quarrelling, and excommunicating on account of its meaning, relying on force of arms rather than on force of reason—I am obliged to suppose that deficiency of argument has left them no other weapon with which to meet the power of reason. In this brief debate, it would be folly to pretend while we may combat the opposite opinion we shall succeed in con­ vincing each other; but let me ask that to which ever side we may incline, we may use our intelligence as free from pre­ judice as possible, so that we may better understand what force of each other’s reasonings. Let us agree, it we can, in the clear and undoubted meaning expressed in the terms we use. There was a time when men bowed before the word God with­ out thought and without inquiry. Centuries have gone by, and the great men of each age have cast light on what was hitherto dark. Philosophy has aided our intelligence, and stripped from the name of God much of the force which it had previously held. It is in the hope that this progress of human thought may be more rapid and of higher use, and that, from out of debate, fresh truths may be gained, that it may teach men to rely upon them­ selves, and so make their lives better the longer they live.. It is with this hope that I have taken the position of to-night. Mb. Bradiaugh resumed his seat amidst general applause, and some manifestations of dissent, which lasted for several seconds. Mr. Cooper : I am very sorry to see all that—I am very sorry to hear it. I do not want any man to clap his hands for me. I came here to reason. I did not come here simply to meet Mr. Bradlaugh. I wished to see appointed representative men. It is to them and to you that I want to speak. I have nothing to do with Mr. Bradlaugh’s personal opinions. He says he is not here to take the negative—to prove the non-existence of God. If he reads the bill which I hold in my hand, it will tell him that Mr. C. Bradlaugh will take the negative. But he says he is not here to take the negative—that he is not here to produce an argument that there is no God. He knows nothing about God. (Hear and cheers.) Now, what is the meaning of that cheer ? (Cries of go on with your argument.) Now, I am afraid it is of no use : you are not disposed to argue—to reason, but the argument remains, notwithstanding—(cries of question.) This is the ques­ tion. I want you to be less excited. We are here to form some opinion as to the truth, and not to be crowing over ^ch other. Mr. Bradlaugh said that I said there was only one existence �11 always—T never said eo. Then, according to him, “he talked about millions of existences without motion.” But I said with­ out motion such as matter has. I suppose the meaning of what he said was, There may be many kinds of motion beside the motion of matter.” Then Mr. Bradlaugh said that I talked of more than one existence being on one point. There may be a thousand existences on one point for anything that I know. I do not know why there cannot be only one existence on one point, I did not say there could be only one existence on one point. Expressions of the kind I never used. Then, he said, action implies motion; but what I Baid was, that God had no motion such as matter. He was kind enough to tell us what existence and non-existence were—what intelligence and non-intel­ ligence meant—but I thought we all knew these things pretty well before. Then, he says, existence is a quality of a mode. Man, he says, is fiuite; he cannot perceive that existence can be infinite. That is a kind of Spinozaism. I wish he would tell me what he means by “mode.” He says that I said non-intelligence could form intelligence. I never used such a word—(cries of oh ! oh!) I never said anything so nonsensical—(loud cries of oh ! oh !) I said that non-intelligence could not create—that it could not originate. I never used the word form. Then again, “ Analogy was a good guide ”—but he said no more about that, and then ha quoted Sir W. Hamilton to the effect, that cause was that with­ out which effect would not result. “ There is no cause,” he says, “ on which you can lay a finger, aud not say that it is both cause and effect,” and he defies me to break the chain of causation­ cause and effect I suppose he means. He next quotes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a passage which says—there is an infinite chain of finite things. Why, it is an utter contradiction. Every man has intelligence enough to perceive that. What we mean by uncognised is that there is something unknown, uncognised if you please. There can be no question about that. He com­ plains of the time being taken up with such words, and he goes on to say—“ My reason does not enable me to comprehend the uncognised.” Certainly it don’t. More than that, I am very sorry he cannot comprehend it. But there are many things which we cannot comprehend. The light for instance. We cannot com­ prehend what it is to be everywhere present, but we apprehend it. There are millions of things which we cannot comprehend, but we can apprehend them. Then, he says, we talk about nonmtelligence and intelligence, because he contends God does not exercise any amount of ability. Among men, he says, God means something that is traditional, and which has no reason to support it. That has nothing to do with the question. Suppose, he says, I had never seen the result of design—how could I, by the help of reason, arrive at it ? It cannot, he says, be. No cause, he sayq �12 can exist without causing a result. The result of design is part of our intelligence and experience. There is a modification of existence only—it is not proved that everywhere existed. But Mr. Bradlaugh knows that existence is being, and he knows, he says, that, unless you can substantiate the assertion that it has always existed, it does not show that he was all-wise. We reason from this personal, conscious intelligence of man, to the fact that God had created millions of conscious, intelligent beings—that he was the author of all existence—that he was intelligent—we do not reason from man’s finite nature. We see in the manifestations of his will the type of a higher will, of a nature that is supremacy. The argument is untouched. Something has always existed, as personal, conscious, intelligent beings exist—either intelligence or non-intelligence must have produced them : but non-intelligence cannot create, cannot originate. You might as well tell me that there is no such thing as existence, as to try by sneers, and ask­ ing me what I mean by intelligence, to say that God does not exist. I say that I exist—that the world exists—that God made it. We have come here to establish this. We come here to reason for the existence of God. It is of no use to say that there was never nothing to make it out of. Our argument is mistaken.' Mr. Bradlaugh has not taken up the argument. The bill is before me in which he is stated to take the negative, but he has not taken the negative; he simply says he knows not whether there is a God or not. (Cheers.) Mr. Bradlaugh : We want the argument for the existence of God! He (Mr. Cooper) is quite right. We do want it. We have not had it yet. He says I am bound to prove a negative, and relies on the wording of the bill. This is hardly fair. The bill is Mr. Cooper’s own fram ng, unaltered by me. I only tried to have one word different, and that was refused. Mr Cooper : You should not want to hide your name. [Some disorder occurred at this point of the debate, when]— The Chairman interposed and said : I beg that no reference may be made to anything which might lead to any wrong feeling. Mr Bradlaugh : My friend, if he wishes the argument ad- ■ hered to, should have himself made no reference to matters which were altogether beside it. Let him remember what is the subject chosen for discussion, and adhere to that alone. He says that, according to the bill, I am to take the negative side. It has been my lot in life to be present at the trial of many issues, but I never heard that the defendant had more to do than rebut the case sought to be made against him. I will take, as example, an instance, such as when a man had stolen any article, or committed some act for which he might incur penalties. It was the duty of the counsel employed in such a case simply to negative the evidence which was brought to support the case. The onus pro- �13 bandi to-night lies with my friend, and the only task that lies upon me here is to show that he has not succeeded in performing the duty which he came here to perform. He has declined to explain certain terms used by him, on the ground that everybody knew them. Surely he might have enlightened my ignorance; and, at any rate, he had no right to assume that everybody un­ derstood them after my declaration to the contrary. He has used words on the construction of which the whole argument depends, and he has failed to explain to us the meaning he intended to ex­ press. He might have enlightened my ignorance as to the mean­ ing of words he used ; but, instead of that, he has called on me by way of retort to explain some words used by myself. Now, by “mode,” I mean a phase of conditioned existence. This glass is cne mode Of existence, and the water, which I have poured out of it, is another mode of existence. “ Quality” is an attribute or characteristic. It is some characteristic, or number of charac­ teristics, which enables or enable me to distinguish one mode from another. If he wishes any better explanation that it is possible to give, I shall be happy to supply him with it. When he was asked for explanations, he said it was sufficient that he had said it. Now if non-intelligence cannot create intelligence, how do you come to the conclusion that intelligence can create non-intelligence ? Why is one less possible than the other, or why is one less reasonable than the other ? If intelligence be everywhere, then non-intelligence—where is that ? In this kind of argument, by asserting without warranty that intelligence is everywhere, and non-intelligence somewhere, you contradict your­ self. Then, my friend says, “create” is a word everybody under­ stands. He confesses that he did not understand me in quoting from Hamilton, or when I urged that creation and destruction were alike impossible. Now we are utterly unable to construe it in thought as possible, that the complement of existence has either been increased or diminished—we cannot conceive no­ thing becoming something, or something becoming nothing. The words creation and destruction are, to me, without mean­ ing. When our friend uses these words, he should not pre­ sume that the majority of the audience comprehend the meaning he wished to put upon them, or still less that they apprehended it- He says he does not come to speak to me but to you; but, for such as have elected me to appear on their behalf, I ask for those definitions. But Mr. Cooper says he never did assert that there was only one existence always. Well, then, does he mean that his argument admitted the possibility of two existences occupying the same space ? And if one be every­ where, where can the other be 1 Oh ! says my friend, there may be a thousand existences of different natures on one point, though, if one be all-powerful, it is hard to imagine it exercising power �14 over other existences having nothing of common nature, and with which it can have no relativity. Will he tell me how this can be ? He puts the matter thus to you, and he is bound to give you some explanation of it. He says, with regard to motion, that he did not say that one existence had no motion. I must trouble him, when he rises again, to tell me what he means by motion, for I really do not know. I thought I had some notion of it when he began his speech, but now I think he has no meaning for it. I am bound to concede to him that the words represent in his mind some ideas he intends to express; but when I question him on the words he uses, they represent simply confusion of thought. When I ask him the meaning of uncaused cause, he says he cannot comprehend it, but can apprehend it like light and life ; and he asserted that you can no more comprehend light and life that you can uncaused cause. If he wished to choose illustrations destructive of his own argument, he could not have adduced one better adapted to that purpose. He says that I cavil with words, but the argument is made up of words. If you knock all these words to pieces, where does the argument lie 1 If there be your uncaused cause at all, according to you it is substance, which substance I define as being that existence which we can conceive per se, and the conception of which does not involve the conception of any thing else as antecedent to it. Life may be defined as organic functional activity. You cannot give any definition of uncaused cause—you might as well say a square triangle, or a triangular circumference, or sweet number three. Now, I am placed in this difficulty, that Mr. Cooper, not prepared to prove his position, calls on me to take up the attack. We want, he says, the demonstration of God’s non-existence. There is always a great difficulty in trying to do too much ; but I will endeavour to do what is possible—i.e., to demon­ strate to you that there is no such being as the God my friend argues for—namely, a God everywhere, whose existence being in­ finite, precludes the possibility of conceiving any other ex’stence, but in proof of whom is involved the conception of another existence created in addition to everything, and which exists somewhere beyond everywhere—a God who, being infinitely intelligent, precludes the possibility of conceiving existence with­ out intelligence, and yet beside whose infinite intelligence, nonintelligent substance exists. Nothing is easier than to prove the negative of this, if that is what my friend means. I will endea­ vour, for a moment, to do so. I may be ineffective. Our friend says that God is all-powerful and all-wise. Now either intelli­ gence manifests power and wisdom, or it does not. My lriend says that it does, because he seeks to demonstrate power and wisdom from the intelligence he discovers in existence. Surely if it be assumed that intelligence is evidence of power and �15 wisdom, the lack of or absence of intelligence must be evidence ot deficiency of power and wisdom. My friend says there is nonintelligence, and I say that non-intelligence demonstrates want of power and want of wisdom in creating substance without in­ telligence. Intelligence is either good or bad. Our friend savs it is good because it helps him to make out God’s attribute of ail goodness. If it is good, then the absence of intelligence must be the reverse; and if non-intelligence is bad, it must be that the Creator either had not the will or desire to make existence infi­ nitely intelligent. My friend says that there is non-intelligent existence, and he says that God had all-power and all-knowledge. God must, therefore, have been without the desire, in which case he would not be all-good. Our friend says I have misquoted Coleridge. Coleridge says, without discontinuity, there can be no origination, and my argument is that you are lost in the con­ templation ot the chain of causes and effects, and that you can have no conception of creation or of origination, and, therefore, must be without the conception of God. (Cheers.) Me. Cooper : Mr. Bradlaugh has told us that it has been his lot in life to be at the trial of many issues. Now we are not lawyers, and cannot say how far this experience may serve the argument. My friend said there was one word which he had tried to get in the bill. He should never put on a great hat, and put on a great name if he did not earn it. I never called myself by a great name in my life. If I have had a name, I was content to receive it from others. I never called myself either Icono­ clast or I fiddlestick—(Cries of order, oh I oh 1 and cheers.) Well, if you do not like this, you should not have encouraged it. He says I should have enlightened his ignorance. I have often stooped to enlighten him. When he was only a boy here of eighteen years old, I had marked out his course. He asks how we come to the conclusion that non-intelligence does not create. I did not think that Charles Bradlaugh would have asked a ques­ tion of that kind, I thought he had more sense. I did not sup­ pose that any one in this assembly—any man of common-sense, had need to ask such question. I said I should teach him. I am doing my best to teach him. “ Everybody cannot judge well the reason why he contrives.” But I should have thought that all reasonable men would have seen that clearly enough. They have personal intelligence. But, then, he says non-intelli rence annihilates intelligence which is everywhere. That is not so. He says also that creation is a word without any meaning for him. It means, however, an act of God—of the great existence. But he wants definitions; and, again, he says since there has been that intelligence existing everywhere, there must have been two existences occupying the same space. I never indicated such an argument in the slightest way. I simply spoke of all other �16 existences being moved, separate from, and derived. I have not spoken those words that have been imputed to me. I never said such words. He wants to know what is the motion of matter. He cannot conceive what matter is and what is motion. But why has he been talking about motion if he does not understand it ? He has given us his ideas of motion. He fails to perceive what is matter, and what is meant by the motion of matter. But there is matter enough in this room—there is matter enough before us. If he does not understand what is meant, I go further and ask what it is ? I am. to understand by a definition which he has given of life, that it is organic functional activity. He has explained to me that this was life. He said the remark that it was uncognised cause, could not be apprehended. Will he define what he means by organic functional activity? He is not bound to believe me, but if he does not give some more pre­ cise explanation, it simply comes to nothing. He has not come to any conclusion. He says there cannot be an uncognised cause ; that it is as unmeaning as a triangular square, or a triangular circumference, or sweet number three. He has mentioned Sir William Hamilton and others. I should have relied upon such men as Butler, Sir Isaac Newton, L .eke, Samuel Clarke. When these great men spoke, I should have thought it might be admitted that it would do. ’ Oh I no. This was certainly a modest way of talking. Well, it was the wrong way. It is the wrong sort of modesty. He says I have endeavoured to prove the possibility of any other existence. I have not. I have proved that something also is in existence—that it must be intelligent, and must exist in part everywhere. Stop. Take the argument—take hold of it—take it to pieces. It con­ vinces my own mind. It has passed through my mind fully and clearly. I said that God was all-powerful and wise. I do not want to misrepresent, but I want to tell you what Mr. Bradlaugh did say, and my reply to it. He says that either there is everywhere intelligence, or that there is somewhere where there is no intelligence. He says that non-intelligence cannot create intelligence. He says that in some part of everywhere, there is non-intelligence. Because I had said that non-intelligence exists, he denies that God exists everywhere intelligent. But he must be intelligent, because he created all the intelligence that exists—because He created every derived intelli­ gence. Now, with regard to the moral argument of God’s goodness, we have nothing to do with that to-night. If we come to that, it must be on Wednesday. Then his goodness as a moral governor of the universe comes into question. Now, I did not say that Mr. Bradlaugh had misquoted Coleridge, What I said was, that Coleridge never taught me that an infinite chain of finite intelligences could have existed. I say that Samuel Taylor �17 Coleridge never maintained any such thing in his life. Coleridge was a great believer in God. (Hear and laughter.) No sneer or laughter, I assure you, disturbs me. I exist ; and I have not al­ ways existed. Something has always existed. I am conscious of an intelligent existence. If it began to be, it was caused to be by some other existence, and must have been so caused. If any person can persuade himself that non-intelligence can cause existence, intelligent, personal, conscious existence, let him show me that he believes, and that he maintains such a doctrine. I need go no further at present—-there are just these steps in the j argument. Here is the argument, and if our friend does not give us the argument for the non-existence of God—that is, the nega­ tive of the question—I have shown that I exist, and that, having begun to exist, something must have existed before me. I am intelligent, personal, conscious, and so the something which al­ ways has existed was personal, conscious, intelligent. It has always been or began to be. If it began to be, it has cause, and the cause must be either intelligent or non-intelligent. I say that non-intelligence cannot be an intelligent creator, an origina­ tor, has no reason, will, judgment, can’t contrive, cannot be a cause. Therefore, I know that my existence, that personal, conscious, in­ telligent existence proceeds from that uncaused, underived, un­ created intelligence, whom all men reverence and I call God. I want that disproved. (Applause.) Mr. Bradlaugh: Were the Danes and the Germanic forces on either bank of the river Eider to turn their backs to each other and fire, they would stand in about the same relation as Mr. Cooper and myself. He will not give definitions, and he attaches different meanings to the words he uses to those which I attach to them. How are we, therefore, to arrive at any con­ clusion that will be instructive or useful ? He says that he has often been able to teach me, and if this is so, he should not have relinquished the office of teacher to-night; but I confess that if he has taught me, it has been at the greatest possible distance between himself and myself. The opportunities have certainly been often sought by myself for instruction at Mr. Cooper’s hands, but I have only been favoured once or twice. My friend urges that he does not put himself forward under a name he has not won, and though these topics have but little to do with to-night’s debate, I can say that I have fairly won the right to use my nom de guerre Iconoclast. I have won fame for it with d fficulty, and maintained my right to use it despite many a pang. My opponent, though but one consequence can arise from his stipulation, has compelled me to print my name—that consequence is an increased difficulty in my business life. But for this I do not care. Though, unfortunately, placed in this disadvantage, I print my name and answer for myself, although I am really �18 surprised that a man with the love of God and strength of truth, with ability, with learning all upon his side, cannot allow me my poor folly, if folly it be, and bear with me and my nom de plume. He says, “ I will not give definitions.” I say, in reply, you cannot—that you do not know the force and relevance of the words you use, and you simply don’t tell us because you do not know. I tell you in the clearest manner that, from your last speech, you have no notion of the accurate meanings of the words you used—you talk about “ other and separate, and derived,” and seem not to know that the words are contradictory. Derived existence must be relative, cannot be separate iu sub­ stance. At least a teacher in using philosophic language to a scholar ought to have put it more clearly. Let us see. He says there is one existence, infinite, intelligent. He says everybody knows that it is more possible for intelligence to create nonintelligence, than for non-intelligence to create intelligence. I say sthis has no meaning. I defined intelligence as a quality of a |mode of existence, and cannot understand quality creating subIstance. He has not told us what was meant by uncaused cause; |and if he will not take intelligence to be a quality of a mode of | existence, he has not told us what it is. He says there is intel| ligent existence now, therefore its cause is intelligent. You j might as well tell us for our information that this glass is hard, | and, therefore, its cause must be a hard existence, and then you I might as fairly say that because that glass is hard, its cause is i eternal hardness. There is no relevance whatever between argu| ments founded on phenomena and the noumenon which it is sought to demonstrate. It is no use my friend denying the > truth of any one definition, unless he is prepared to give us a I better, so that you can compare the one with the other if you please. ? Our friend says that intelligence can create non-intelligence, but | this involves a contradiction of the most striking character. For I if intelligence is infinite, non-intelligence is impossible, and for 1 infinite intelligence to create non-intelligence is for it to annihi* late itself. My friend appeals to everybody’s knowledge, but the I whole force of his appeal lies in his confusion of existence and its J qualities. Intelligence is a quality of a mode—mode is neither ing finite nor eternal, and the attribute cannot be greater than the I mode it pertains to. You can have no knowledge of existence § other than by mode, and can have no knowledge whatever of I different existences of which one is all-powerful, all-wise, and | everywhere present; and the other is, or others are, somewhere | where this one is not. My friend calls on me to prove that difg ferent kinds of existence do not exist at the same time upon the 1 same point. I think it is for the man who talks about these | existences, and not for me, to show what he means. By Creation s Mr. Cooper says he means an act of God; if this is what “ create - �19 * * * > means, and if he explains it to you in such terms, then is every act of God a creation ? Our friend surely won’t say that, and if he means some one particular act of God, he must enable me to identify it. I am not dealing with the moral argument as to God as Governor, but if the argument on design as manifesting intel­ ligence is relevant, so far it strikes at the want of power, want of wisdom of God. Is it not an illustration of the poverty of my friend’s logic, and the weak efforts that are made to sustain a weak case, when an argument is attempted to be conveyed in such terms as I fiddlestick (cheers), although a pretty tune might be played on it ? He says he does not know what I mean by organic functional activity, and asks me to explain. Well, suppose I could not tell, that would not explain what is an uncaused cause, I will, however, try to show that I have not given an improper definition of life. By organic functional activity, I mean the totality of activity resulting from or found with the functions of each organism. My friend comprehends that which I term organism in the vegetable and animal kingdom. If he tells me that he does not know what I mean by organism, I can only refer him by way of illustration to the organism of a tree or of a man ; and by organism I mean the totality of parts of such tree or man. It is possible that a better versed man than my­ self might make this more clear; but it is not for my friend to shelter himself under my want of knowledge, and to say he will not give definitions while he requires them from me. Well, he says, “ I exist; something has existed. It has not existed always. It has been originated.” I take exception to the word. I do not understand the word origin in reference to existence. He says he will not define it. I do not know whether he means by origination coming into existence where it was before. If so, I tell him that the conception of this is impossible, that the ap­ prehension of it is impossible, that he has used a form of words which convey nothing of meaning either to you or to me. But when we tell him that we do not understand an uncaused cause, he says he don’t understand a scholar without modesty. Well, then, Locke understood it, he says, and a great many other great names understood it. Will he tell us how they understood it 1 Surely I have a right to ask him how they apprehended it. He uses the phrase, and I have surely a right to assume the onus of proof to be with him. When he does not or will not give us a lefinition, I believe it is because he cannot. If he has a great -esson to teach, I cannot suppose that he would be guilty of the folly of withholding from you all the information that he had, or could obtain ; but I am bound to suppose it is from his utter inability to give you any, that he is wholly unprepared, either with facts or arguments. If intelligence be a quality of mode, then in so putting it you have entirely overridden the question of �intelligence as existence, or as infinite attribute of existence. It is for my friend to make clear his position to you. I know that to many of you it may seem mere word play, but it is word play which strikes at the root of the question. What does he mean, when he says there may be a thousand existences beside God 1 Does he mean that there may be a thousand existences scattered and separate ? What does separate mean? It means clear from, and distinct, and having no link in common with. If there are a thousand such existences separate, then God is not infinite ; and if not, our friend’s argument comes to nothing. I find it difficult to see how my friend can understand that he has proved his case. I find it more difficult still to conceive how holding at one period other opinions, he could have been carried away from those other opinions by such arguments as these. Surely we have a. right to ask him to make this matter as clear to us as it is to himself. The argument which convinced him, should convince us, each individual here. God is personal ? What does this word personal mean in relation to the infinite 1 God conscious ? Con­ scious of what ? Has he an immutable consciousness? Was he always conscious of the existence of the universe ?—that is, did he know it to exist before it was created, or has his consciousness been modified by the creation? Was God conscious of the material universe when it yet was not ? If yes, how could he e know a thing to be which was not yet in being ? If God’s consciousness was once without the fact of the universe, and if God’s f ‘ consciousness is capable of change, what becomes of the immu| tability of God ? Tell me how it was supplemented since ; tell me | how something has been added since? You dexterously play | with terms which you cannot explain, and hope to affirm by asser­ tion what you cannot demonstrate by argument. (Cheers.) Me. Cooper: I have a note about teaching Mr. Bradlaugh. Well, I am teaching him now, I cannot help it. He d;d not care ! Well, a quee” word that for young lads. I do not wonder that he is unfortunate. Most people are unfortunate who do not care. He is unfortunate, now where is the worst misfortune, I cannot say. One does not like to talk about these things. Well, he wants to know why he should be compelled to believe in God, and why his little folly should not be granted to him ? Well, he wil find that out some day (cheers and hisses), he must expect it (renewed expressions of dissent); now do not get into a bad temper ; he complains that he cannot demonstrate, that I do not know the use of the terms I use. Then he says derived from, and separate cause. Really, I thought I saw a great many persons sepa­ rate from one another before me, and we separate from them. I cannot understand this curious kind of definition. I cannot. Then again, intelligence is a quality of personal, conscious existence. Well, I spoke of it so. You may call it an attribute, �or use the word how you please. Why did I say that God could create ? Because his will must be all powerful. I was talking of our intelligence, of our will. We have intelligence. I talked about the power of man’s will as a part of bis personal, conscious, and intelligent existence. It is therefore a power in G d, and must be uncontrollable. That power, therefore, must be all powerful. I have not confused the quality of existence. I never did. But I want Mr. Bradlaugh to answer the arguments adduced. The question, he says, is an attribute or mode, and not of existence. What is the meaning of that ? I said it was not an argument for to-night. For the moral argument,*lhe right time will be Wednes­ day night. I said we must not bring it on to-night. I said it ia impossible for a thing to come into exis ence when it was not before. Has he not come into existence, and have not millions of people come into existence where they were not before ? Now, I do not know whatryou mean by this :—“ Is it reasonable to sup­ pose something separate over which no power can be exercised ? That glass is separate from me, aad yet I can exercise power over it.” (Cries of prove it, cheers and dissent). I wish you would rea­ son and would not clap your hands. If you do, I can only say it is sheer nonsense. What does personal, eternal, infinite consci usness mean ? Has God’s consciousness ever changed ? All things are present to his mind, and always must have been present to him from his very nature. But I must ask my friend what life is. He has not made me to comprehend what life is, although he defines it as organic functional activity. There is no man can comprehend life. What is man’s life ? What is angel life ? —it is in vain to tell me about organic functional activity—what is vegetable life ? And now, since you twit me with absence of duration where it was never before, am I to understand that in­ telligence is a quality of mode, and not a quali y of substance, or that separate means something over which no power can be exercised ? Where is the sense of it ? How am I to understand it? I believe now I have mentioned every thing of importance. Mr. Bradlaugh : My friend’s last question is, where was the sense of it ? If it applies to his own speech, I will tell him nowhere— it really displayed none from beginning to-end. Our friend must have ability to know the difference between unconditioned exist­ ence and modal existence; or if he has not the ability he is not justified in championing the cause for which he is argu­ ing. What he argues for, is not conditioned existence, but for God, the absolute. If he does know for what he is arguing, or knows and will not explain—or if he has not the ability to define my terms, he should not have come here to teach you. In other words, he should not, if wise, pretend to an ignorance which seta before us incoherent statements like those he has made in lieu of the proof he was bound to furnish. I will show you presently �22 how little he was able to take the part as affirming the being of God as maker of the universe; and how much he attempts to conceal in taking that part. He says that God is immutable, and all (things are now present to him, and ever have been present to ; him. He says this must have been according to God’s very i nature, but he did not trouble us with a word of reason for this I startling statement. His affirmation is, that God was as equally I conscious of the universe before the creation, as after. But to | say there was a time when the material universe did not exist, f ? and yet that at that time God was conscious of its existence—is » absurd, and an utter contradiction. How could God be conscious ! that the universe was when it was not ? The phrase is so ludicrously self-contradictory, that my friend could not have thought at all when he u*tered it. If God were at any time without conscious­ ness of the material universe, and afterwards became conscious of the new fact of the origination or creation of the universe, then there was a change in God’s consciousness, which could not be immutable, as my friend contends. It would be supple­ mented by the new fact. I cannot understand what he means when he talks of the immutability of God’s consciousness being a necessity of his nature. Surely such a word as nature implies the very reverse of immutability. And if not, I should be glad to know in what meaning my friend used a word which in com­ mon acceptation implies constant mutation. In dealing with the question of separate existence, Mr. Cooper says, that you and I are separate from each other. We are separate modes of the same existence, but are not separate existences. Does he mean that the universe is separate from God in the same way that we are from each other ? If not, this is a subterfuge. He does not seem to know himself where the sense of his argument lies. Then he says, “ I am separate from this glass, but I can exerc se power over it.” Here is the illustration of mode—of mode, in whica there is common substance, common existence, but it is not an illustration having any analogy. It is only because he will not think that there is a difference between relative and absolute terms, or see that we are each using words in opposite senses. This discussion is degenerating into talk on one side, and repetition on the other. He says again he is an existence, I say ' he is a mode of existence. I have already defined existence as ’ identical with that substance, which is that which exists per se, ■ and the conception of which does not involve the conception of an.y other existence as antecedent to it. Mr. Cooper has not dis­ puted this definition. He claims for God such existence, and yet says he himself is an existence. If he means that he is a separate existence from God—if he says that he is separate and exists per se, then I do not, I repeat, understand his meaning. I want an explanation from him. He cannot exist per se, for he says �23 that he did not always exist, He cannot urge that he came into existence from himself, or he would argue that he existed, and did not exist at the same time. His existence can only be conceived relatively as a mode of existence, such existence being in truth before its mode, and existing after this mode shall have ceased. He is not existence, but only a condition of exist­ ence, having particular attributes by which he is distinguished from other conditions of the same existence. He says that it is nonsense when two men stand on the same platform to discuss an important matter, and use the same words in a different sense’. It is undoubtedly nonsense, when one of the disputants passes over all the definitions of the words without disputing them, or supplying others. Does he mean to say that he admits the defini­ tions I have given ? If he does, the way he speaks of them clearly shows that his arguments are based on, and prove only modes of existence, and do not prove existence absolute, so that he has admitted the whole point for which I am contending (cheers). He says separate existences can exercise power over each other. I ask him to show me how, because I have told him it is im­ possible to think of two existences distinct and independent of each other—that it is equally impossible to conceive that two sub- , stances having nothing in common, can be the cause of or affect Eone another. He says then that man’s will has furnished him t with the basis for arguing for God’s power. He reasons up to the | will of God from the will of man. But if man’s will be, as 1? declare it to be, the result of causes compelling that will, and if God’s will is to be fairly taken as analogical to man’s will, then| God’s will also results from causes compelling his will. But in this case, the compelling cause must be more powerful than God, and thus the supremacy of God’s power is destroyed (cheers). & I know that in this it is possible I may be arguing beside | the question, because our friend does not take reasonable pains | to make any explanation as to the value which he attaches to = the meaning of his words. Le* us see how his demonstration breaks down:—God’s will and consciousness are identified by my friend. God’s consciousness, according to him, has never changed, and never can change. God belore creation must have been conscious that he intended to create, but if his conscious-, ness has never changed, he must have been always intending to ; create, and the creation could never have commenced. Or, Gocl . must have been always conscious that he had created, iD which case there never could have been a period when he had yet to create. He must either at some time have been conscious that the material universe did not exist, or he must have been con­ scious that it always existed. In the last case, there could be no creation ; and in the first, if God’s consciousness were unchangedJ j the universe would not yet exist to him. I am not responsible?; �24 for the peculiar absurdity of this sentence. God either always willed to make, or he never willed to make. But he could not have always willed to make, because otherwise there would have been some time in existence preceding the act of making, which there could not have been, because God is immutsne, and could not have changed—there could never have been making without change—without change there never was intention preceding act, nor act preceding intention, and there could never have been manifested that power which he argues for as demonstrating Deity. I appeal to the audience to think for themselves, and I ask them whether our friend has adduced any reasonable evidence for God as the maker and creator of the universe ? I ask whether he has not put before you an unintelligible jumble of words without any relation to the question ? I ask you whether he can fairly be regarded as presenti’ g the united intellect of that muster-roll of names which he has given as arguing from design in favour of Deity. How can he claim to be a teacher, who cannot explain words he uses, or does not know the meaning of the words his opponent uses ? I simply claim to be a student. I admit I have not that confidence in myself that enables Mr. Cooper to regard himself as impregnably entrenched and en­ camped, so secure that nobody can touch him. When one sends a stone through the window of his argument, he says it is not broken, and when the doors are battered down he declares that they still stand. I admit so far he is better off than I am. If he can convince you, and if that conviction be worth anything, I can only ask when he taunts me about the trial of issue, whether this is not the most momentous issue that man can have to try ? I ask not as a lawyer, but as a man. He must meet the question fairly and honestly, and without a taunt, or before I have done he will have full payment for all the taunts he gives. (Loud cheers.) Mr Cooper: When Mr. Bradlaugh says that the doot-s have been battered down, and a stone sent through the window—I say I never said a word about doors or windows. When he says I will not teach—I say he will not learn. (Cheers and confusion.) When he says I wish he would not fling such big words at me —I say his words are so big they split my ears, as they make such a terrible noise. (Cheers and hisses.) I hardly know what be was saying when he was talking—(loud cries of question) Now we are all to the question. (Laughter and oh ! oh !) Who is that silly man that says question ? You should have brought your brains in here, and not come without them. (Hisses and confusion.) Mr. Bradlaugh says I ought to know there is a difference in condition. That is what I argue for. He says I have not the ability to discern it, and, therefore, should not have come here. He says I know it all or 1 conceal it. I have never �been in the habit of concealing things in my life. “All,” he repeats, “ is present to the mind of God, that is his conscious­ ness.” I said it was present to his mind because he is always. If my friend tries to show that it is not, let him show it. Pre­ sent to his consciousness! He asks—How can it be present to his consciousness when it has not existed—how can anything be present to my conscience that has passed away from existence? There is memory, and he knows that must exist to all eternity— that is how it is present to his consciousness, so that his immut­ ability and his consciousness are essential, he being perfectly wise. Show me how that can be, says Mr. Bradlaugh. We are separate modes of the same existence; that glass is a mode of existence. What is separate 1—the mode ? A jumble of words—indeed, I call this gibberish. What is this eibberish that tells us that intel­ ligence is a mode, or rather a quality of existence ? Show what is mode ? How are we the same existence as that glass ? Please to enlighten me. He talks of those listening to mere talk from me. I really do not know what he is talking about sometimes. Then he says it is nonsense for two men on the same platform to use two words in a different sense. Why there is no debate if we can agree. I don’t want to use words in the sense that myself and a glass are the same substance. If there are two existences, one acting on the other, you say it is an affirmation and was not proved. .Well, but it did not follow, he says, that God was al­ ways creating because his conscience was immutable. “ It don’t show that he should do anything ; acts of will are not tied to the proof of his consciousness; that can be consciousness something else, not will, that may be done.” Why that is playing with ' words. Then, again, he says because conscience is immutable — make affirmation that bis will is immutable. Now I want my argument answered. (Cheers and hisses.) He asks what we mean. Why, if he cannot bring forward a better argument than he has afforded us to-night, he cannot argue it. I exist; but something must have always existed. I am a personal, conscious, intelligent existence. You know what it is, or you could not ask such a question. You did so for a puzzle, perhaps. It is an act of intelligence to ask the question. Oh ! but I am asked to define what intelligence is, and when I define it, then to define the definition. Organic functional activity, he repeats. I have no explanation of it. Did you define that definition ? (Cries of yes, yes, and no, no.) Well, you know there is a personal, con­ scious intelligence—either there was always existence, or it began to exist. Then whatever has come into existence must have a cause. Non-intelligence can’t create intelligence. Conceive it, if you can. That which can’t be needs no proof. Justas if one could perceive than a thing can’t be, and yet it necessarily exists. So non-intelligence cannot create intelligence. “Our friend has not �26 A | | / ' shown that it can.” He says he does not know the meaning of the word create. “He has not shown what he means,” Mr. Bradlaugh says, “ by personal, conscious, intelligent existence.” That it has always been, that it is derived from some personal, conscious, intelligent always existent being. Well, I mean that, if you like. (Cheers.) Mr. Bradlaugh : My friend, in conclusion, said I had not shown that non-intelligence could create intelligence. Consider­ ing that I have repeatedly declared that I do not know the mean­ ing of the word create, I think my friend must be rather san­ guine to suppose that I would undertake to enlighten him upon this point. It does not lie upon me to prove that non-intelligence can create intelligence, but on my friend, who affirmed a con­ tradiction in terms, to prove it. This statement of my disincli­ nation does not help his inability. If I am lame, it don’t prove that he can walk without crutches. But Mr. Cooper says that in representing to you God’s consciousness as immutable, I do injustice to his views; that, although all things are perpetually present to God's consciousness—God need not, and does, nut, he says, always will to create. But surely such a declaration is entirely without evidence, and nowise improves Mr. Cooper’s position. If there was any period when God did not will to ^create, then he must have changed when he varied his will to the act of creating. But I want to know how a thing can be present 'when it is non-existent ? If all things were always present to God, all things must have always existed. To God there never could be a time when they did not exist. There never was to him a time when it was necessary to create—he could not have created that which to him had ever existed. He said, he did not understand what I meant, when I talked of intelligence being quality of mode. He said it is a quality of existence, a quality of substance, and therefore God, who created substance, must be intelligent, his intelligence was a quality of all existence. Not all, for he says there are some existences, or some parts of sub­ stance that are not intelligent. Then intelligence is a quality of existence, and it is not! Because existence, according to Mr. Cooper, may be, and is with it and without it. Now, I say that intelli­ gence being a quality of mode of existence, that in various modes we find varying qualities. All intelligence is not of the same degree, but varies as the modes differ. They differ as by their Various characteristics. It is by difference of quality that you distinguish the one mode from the other. If intelligence b’e infi­ nite, there can be only one kind of it, and of one degree; it can never be lesser or greater. But intelligence varies according tv mole. You find different degrees or ii te’ligence ma ues" . * different organisations. (Heat, hear). It must therefore be, if Mr. Cooper’s logic be worth anything, that one kind of intelli­ �27 gence creates like ; then, seeing that no two men are alike organised or intelligent, there must be as many different Gods to create as there are different intelligences. I am driven to this line of argument by the absurdity of my friend’s speeches. I can­ not believe but that he must know better ; if he does not, little indeed can he have read the elaborate essays of modern thinkers—little can he have examined the terms used by great men from whom he professes to quote. Little indeed can he have read either the volumes of Hamilton or Berkeley, or of the men whose ideas be professes to put before us. Surely the philoso­ phy of the unconditioned has formed, at some time or other, a reading lesson for my friend. He declares that he has the ability of teaching one so ignorant as he believes myself to be ; but when he uses words so irrelevant and so void of meaning, I am obliged to assume that he uses them ignorantly, or he would be more heedful of giving their meaning. He says that the glass and himself are different existences : he cannot understand their being different modes of the same substance. His understand­ ing must be sadly deficient, if he cannot distinguish between the characteristics of this mode and that one and that each mode has more or less different qualities with the same substance. Here, theD, in each quality my friend will have something by which he can in thought separate modes, but he cannot in thought give a separate existence to the substance of each mode, because he well knows that the same substance as this glass, in another mode, might have gone to form an intelligent being at some period of existence. If he says he does not know what he means by his own words, then, by obtuseness of intellect he is incapacitated as a public teacher, or it is evident he dare not use the plain meanings of technical language, because he is afraid of its logical consequences. Then he says that God, who is everywhere present, yet besides whom there is somewhere where he is not—that he has a consciousness of existence passed away. I deny that there ever was existence which has since passed away. I take a firm stand on this, and I sub­ mit that the two phrases, “ creation,” and “ existence or substance passed away,” are utterly without meaning. Our friend, surely if he meant anything, cannot have meant existence that had ceased to be—that something could never become nothing, yet he alks of existence passed away—he speaks of existence as no longer existing. If he means that God’s range of observation is limited, and that it did not come within his range of observation, then I can understand it; but if he means this, then he abandons the attribute of omniscience for Deity. It is difficult really to guess what interpretation he wishes to be put upon his words. If there is anything which does not exist always to God, it can never have existed, as my friend denies the possibility of anything �23 beaming n th’ng, Therefore, to speak of anything which has passed out of existence, is to use words without sense or relevance. (Laughter and cheers.) Our friend says that he did not know that the window was knocked out and the portal carried away. I am afraid he is the only one in this room in so blissful a state of ignorance. He complains of my loud voice. I am always desirous to limit my voice to the place in which I speak, and not to give offence. But I am apt to remember my subject rather than my voice. I am apt to remember alone the cause in which I am speaking rather than the manner of speech. I know that there is much in my address capable of improvement; and if my friend wishes to reprove me, let it be by the contrast between us. His better chosen phraseology, courteous and patient demeanour, quiet and kindly bearing, will, coupled with his calmness while I am replying, be more effective than any verbal rebuke. (Loud cheers.) It was now a quarter to ten, Mr. Cooper begged to be informed by the chairman as to a point of order. He said that, in his discus­ sion with Joe Barker, the order was that the person who opened the discussion for the night closed it. The Chairman, in reply, said :—I think that the best way is to adopt a rule. I understand from the paper, the order of speaking is to be alternate speeches of a quarter of an hour each. I think it best that the person opening should not speak last. There will be two more speeches. Mr. Cooper will speak for a quarter of an hour, and Mr. Bradlaugh will speak for the following quarter of an hour, when the discussion will terminate to-night. Mr. Cooper : I told you I came here in a friendly spirit, but as this is the last time I shall have to address you, I must say I have been grieved to observe a contrary spirit in you. I wish that you could behave not like an audience of bagmen, and could sit without clapping hands or making ejaculations, and crying up some person, whether he' has sense or not. (Cheers, hisses, and confusion.) Why need you come her'e? You say you want truth, then why can’t we discuss truth with all proper patience and kindness, and not be clapping each other, with jeers, because; I suppose our friend understands sarcasm, which you Londoners ‘ like so very much ? I am old and used to you. I used to see all that thing before. (Cheers, shouts, and hisses.) Well, I will sit down if you do not want to hear me. (Cries of sit down, go on with your argument.) I discovered that sauce for goose was not sauce for gander here. (Cheers, hisses, and laughter.) Do not be so very hard on a poor man. “He cannot understand a word of Greek,” I thought every body knew that. “But it was wrong to bring into existence that which had no existence before.” Mr. Bradlaugh c nnot understand, and as he does not, he wants . a definition.^ I did not say that God was always willing. I did �29 not say there never was a period when he did not will a certain thing. He may will something at one period, and some'hiag at another period. But, then, we are told it did not follow that he either should or did exist always. I repeat, that things may have been present to his conscious intelligence before he created them. It happens not to be mine, but Plato’s universe, that is, Plato’s language—“ all things are present to his conscious intel­ ligence before he created them.” Our friend goes on, “ I am an old fashioned reader of old fashioned men.’’ He tells me “ if it be a quality of existence, it is a quality of all existence.” There are different qualities of the same existence, there is only one intelligence ; but, says Mr. Bradlaugh, if God be infinite, there must be different Gods. If there be different men and different intelligences, if he can create them anywhere, does it follow that they do not understand ? Does he not understand this logic ? He must know better than I speak that it must be so. (Hear.) Some poor man said “ hear.” Well, I came to you as friends, I came maintaining your sincerity. I never called you infidel, because that term is generally used to signify blackguard. I never spoke ill of you, I never questioned your sincerity, I do not question Mr. Bradlaugh’s sincerity. We come with the belief that God exists. We believe it to be a most important belief, and most important it is if it be true. I see no reason for calling this glass and my­ self different modes of the same existence. There may be some men here who think otherwise, but that is not proving they are modes of the same existence. Well, existence that has passed away may yet exist somewhere, although it is not present to my vision. It is in my conscious intelligence, everything I have been acquainted with. That is my meaning. I think it is clear enough, but before I sit down, I will re-state my argument. I am told that I argued inconsistently and unmeaningly. I will try again, while I am in possession of the time, as it is the last opportunity I shall have to-night. I exist. I say it for yourself now. I exist. I have not always existed. Something must have always existed. If there never had been a period when nothing existed, there must have been nothing still. I am conscious of a personal, intelligent existence, which must have always existed, otherwise it began to be. It must have had a cause, and that cause must have been intelligent or not; non-intelligence cannot create intelligence. Show me how it was. “ Show me how you can infer the possi­ bility of intelligence,” &c., is what I have been asking every time I rose to speak to-night. But he has not done it. I cannot see how he can perceive that non-intelligence could bring intelligence into existence. Since there was that always in existence, I must have belief in another act of consciousness that I have exercised, for I am certain from the observation of my own intelligence, that something has always existed everywhere, in every, part of �So everywhere. Therefore, there are no lines of demarcation—it has no motion such as you affirm of matter. I do not say that it has no motion at all. It don’t need to move to one point of every­ where, that is already in every part of everywhere, and there is everywhere. And now I have clearly arrived in my own mind, at the knowledge of an uncaused existence. It has become clear to my perceptions that as this existence was everywhere, it was omni-present, all-powerful, uncreated, underived, per­ sonal, conscious, reasonable existence. Then, I turn even towards J this material universe. It cannot be the something that always was. I know that I exist now. I know that at two years old I existed. I recognise change, and I know that I have changed ; that this universe changes, and therefore it can’t be that which has always existed. I said I could move, mould, shape, fit, and design matter. I can recognise the results of design, although I cannot see the act of the mind. I reason by analogy, from my personal, conscious existence, that men are contriving and designing; if I find their composition to consist of parts and peculiar fashions adapted and fitted for the purpose it fulfils, and if the principle on which it worked were simple, I should admire it, and by the aid of reason, conclude that it had a personal, conscious, and intelli­ gent existence for its designer and contriver. Then, I look at this curiously formed body, the bodies of animals; and I remem­ ber the power of this hand, and when I look through a telescope at those shining bodies in the heaven, and see their immensity, and recognise them by the light of reason to be themselves the suns of other systems, I then say he is al'-intelligent, since all­ intelligence must have come from him—he only existed from all eternity—he is the author of all things. Whatever exists must have been by his will, and by his power, therefore he is uncon­ trollable by aDy other will, and therefore he is maker of this universe. I have said that he is not the mode, but that he exists simply by his will, and in him we live, move, and have our being—therefore, in him is my being and your being, and the being of every animal, and that they can be kept in existence only by One Almighty, all-wise, and everywhere present, self-existing, self-created, underived, uncognised, personal, conscious, intelligent being, whom I worship, and men call God. I have re-stated my argument. If any one seeks to overturn it, let him go through it step by step. No person has done so here. No person can do it. It is an argument that shall not pass away, but must come every day before your eyes, and possibly to your minds. (Cheers.) Mb. Bradlaugh : Our friend says something exists, that the universe exists. I reply, that if something now exists, you cannot conceive when it did not exist. The supposition that there ever was a period when the universe began to be, is introduced and assumed without the slightest warrant for such an assumption. �31 You cannot limit its existence, you canmt limit its duration. He says something is everywhere, but that the universe is finite in extent, as it is, according to his view, finite in duration. He can­ not in thought put a limit as to how long the universe has existed, or how far it extends. The duration and extent of existence are alike illimitable. Then, he says that substance is not naturally intelligent, and that the intelligence we find must result from infinite intelligence. I have endeavoured during this argument j to explain to him that intelligence was a word that could only be j properly used in the sense of a quality of a mode, in the same way i that you would use the word hardness, broadness; and that as you could not say it was all broad, or all hard, no more could you say it was all intelligence, or without intelligence. I must confess that I have never listened to any argument more pre­ tentiously and less ably put, than that of my friend to-n’ght. There was only one part of it that would, if complete, have deserved any reply, and that he took imperfectly from Gilles­ pie, where you may see what his argument ought to have been, for it is there put as clearly and comprehensively as possible. He says, he comes here to talk to us in a friendly way. He would assume that we had imported into this debate that which lacks friendliness. If it be so, I regret it. But, when he is asked the meaning of one term, he says he was not bound to tell us that, and when a definition is given by me, and the argument is approached on that basis, he says hemeant no such thing. He has said he will not reproach you as infidels, for that infidels are iden­ tified with blackguards. Infidel does not mean blackguard. It means without faith, outside the faith, against the faith. Mr. Cooper is infidel to every faith but his own. I am but in one degree more an infidel, and surely we are none the more blackguards because we are opposed to the faith which he preaches. I am not ashamed of the word infidel. Nobler men than ever I can hope to be, truer men than I in my highest aspirations can pretend to be, have been content to be classed among those who had that name applied to them, and they have won it proudly in the age in which they lived. There have been heroes in every age—infidels, if you please —but I declare them heroes in the mental battle fields who have been able to hold their own in life, assailed though they were by calumny when the grave had received them. Our friend says that he cannot tell why I speak of a glass and myself as different modes of the same substance, but in my first speech I took pains to define what I meant by substance. If he had a better defini­ tion, he should, in justice to his subject, have presented it to us ; it was not for him to say he would not give it, and then to say “ I don’t understand my opponent.” But he says that “ some­ thing could never have been produced from nothing. Intelligence exists, and must therefore have been created by an all-wise intelli- �32 | gent Deity.” “ TV ere is either no existence without intelligence, |or there is existence without intelligence.” My friend declares all |existence is not alike intelligent, but that some is unintelligent, |and in this I urge that he contradicts himself. If Mr. Cooper gis right in declaring that there is any substance non-intelligent, [(then it can only be (on the hypothesis that God is infinite intelli| gence) by supposing God in such case, and so far, to have anni^■hilated his intelligence. But, if there is anv substance non- ( intelligent, then intelligence is not infinite, and the God my friend I ' contends for does not exist. If God brought into existence that f which was not himself, but something different from himself, he ! ■ must have brought something not out of himself, but something ; out of nothing! He contradicts his own argument, and indulges in the strangest assertions The universe is moveable, God is not. He does not give us the slightest reason for this statement. He declares that God is the master of the universe, but does not even show you that he understands the relevancy of the argument addressed to him. When he used the phrase, he must have meant either that what God created was the same as himself, or different from himself. It could not have been the same as him­ self, otherwise there would have been no discontinuity, no break— there would have been, nothing to distinguish the creator from the created—no break of continuity to enable us -to conceive creation possible. Nor could that which God created have been different from himself, unless my opponent is prepared to con­ tend that things which have nothing in common with each other can be the cause of, or affect one another.. This shows that Mr. Cooper has not well considered the terms he employs. If our friend bases any argument for God’s existence upon his intelli­ gence, let him explain what he means. It is not enough for him to take cognisance of the universe, and so cognise certain effects. All those finite effects do not aid him one step towards the infi­ nite. His design argument was a structure without a founda­ tion. You have seen how little our friend can understand the meaning of his own words. He has talked about his trials, and yet he asked how I could talk about my misfortunes. I have not yet talked of them. I have not said how men, when I was yet at an early age, for these opinions drove me out from home, , and from all that I loved and was dear to me, and threw me within ! eight of the truth, where I have had since the happiness of striv­ ing for that truth—lifting up the banner of our cause, showing that true men may be made truer, and the world be better worth living in than it was before the struggle. (Cneers.) | �SECOND NIGHT. ON GOD AS MORAL GOVERNOR OF THE UNIVERSE. At seven o’clock precisely Mr. Harvey, the Chairman, accornp^ nied by Mr. Cooper, Mr. Bradlaugh, and several representative friends, came upon the platform, and were received with loud cheers. The Hail was not quite so crowded as on the first night, but was well filled in every part. The Chairman : I have to announce that the discussion will now commence. With your permission I willread the subject from the printed progran&rie. The argument on the first night was as to the Being of God, to-night -it is for the Being of God as Moral Governor of the Universe. As before, each speaker will occupy half-an-hour and no more for his first speech, or as much shorter, a period as he may think proper, and afterwards a quarter of ap hour each. I must again ask the audience to give me their confidence. I hope they will abstain from unnecessary cheering or calls of time. If either speaker should get out of order, I will remind him of it. I have no doubt, if you will listen to the speakers tilt they have concluded, you will have an evening of instruction, and be able to appreciate their arguments. Mr. Cooper : If there is one word of more importance to me than any*other that could be mentioned—one word of more im­ portance to me—to human beings, than any other, that word is duty—duty, a word, I say, that is all-important to me. We are not talking of the duty of pigs, of dogs, of rabbits, weasels, snails, butterflies, bullocks, or elephants—duty belongs to man. Crea­ tures have no duty. We never talk of the duty of a snail, of a horse, of a cat, of a bullock. Duty belougs to man. (Cries of yes, yes, and question.) Well, the parties of your side who pro­ fess a philosophic duty, seem to think that there is no such thing as duty connected with religion. ‘Who told them so? We believe that there is a duty of religion, though we ought to obey our own convictions. Well, but you say we are as moral as you are on the other side—we follow duty. My question is to, a person who talks about moral duty as a result of philosophy. Is he a perfect mau? Is any of you a perfect man? If you are, send your name to the Times, and be sure you have it put in the second column, where they put all the curious advertisements— �34 indeed, you might take a house in Belgrave Square, and people would come to see you if you were a perfect man. But no; really I am not a perfect man, nor you. There are none of you perfect men. Then, I say you, each of us, breaks his sense of duty again and again. You get out of temper with your wives and children—you ill use them very likely—you say something that grieves them very much. Oh, it’s all right—you were out of temper ! You wonder at yourself for striking her; well, but whenever any one has struck, or ill used, or trampled on you, you come to a conviction of another kind. In two or three days, perhaps, after you have been guilty of this misconduct, you are sorry. You say, “ what a scandal to have used my wife so.” I should not have done so. But you have done this often. You say, I must not do these things again. You accuse yourself, you threaten to flog yourself. What is all this ? But perhaps you are a shopkeeper; no matter what the article is that you sell. A.person comes into your shop: perhaps he is fastidious. You think he has come in to get something as cheap as he can. There is nothing doing. You show your articles. You say to your­ self, what am I to do with this man ? He has spent a quarter of an hour in your shop, you seem to have had some time waiting upon him. Something begins to say to you, “ rent and taxes must be paid.” He seems to want the article. Yes, it’s a very well manufactured article. Yes, is the reply, what will you take for it ? You hesitate; you say to yourself, “I must, I will have as much as I can get for it.” He pays you your price, and you are struck with wonder. So off he goes. You have charged him pretty well. It comes up in your mind that day. You say to yourself, I have to support a family—it is very difficult to support a family, also to pay rent and taxes. So you reason against rates and taxes—wife and children—it beggars you—and so on. Again, you fall into habits of drink. Some sensible fellow said to you one day—Turn teetotaler. Depend upon it he was a sensible fellow who said that—gave you that advice. You thought it was rather hard at first; you tried it, however, and you found how effectual it was. When you got up in the morning you said, “ How light I feel—how comfortable I am. I am not a slave to drink, I do not wallow in the sty, a sleep does not oppress me now as it did before. One day last summer, wnen it was very hot, there was an excur­ sion to Gravesend. You wanted relaxation. Young people are rather fond of that, so you went on the excursion, and you stopped now and then to see the country. At last you saw somebody take a glass of porter. You were thirsty. He asked you to have one, as you were one of the party. Well, you are over-persuaded. You take one You felt it was wrong, a bad step. But why, how could this be ? I need take no more. But �85 you do drink another glass, and your thirst is not slaked. Then somebody said to you, take a drop of something short, that will queneh your thirst. And so you do, and your senses come short. You get into bed. You have burning; a great drum thunder­ ing through your head. But conscience comes up, and then you say—“ I am a brute again. I have gone into drunkenness again.” How was it that you felt condemnation ? How was it you felt condemnation as a husband, a father, or a man—all that condemnation ? Iam sure you could not help it. I do not,ear® whether you call yourself Atheist, Deist, Sceptic, Freethinker, or whatever you call yourself, you could not help it. It is a part of your nature, of a moral nature that you have different from the inferior animals, that you should have remorse for doing wrong. You threaten to flog yourself, to lacerate yourself for it. A man may continue to offend against this something. Stop, what do you mean by a moral nature ? We talk about defining words. It is quite necessary to define this word. I remem* her Robert Cooper being present here so long ago as March, 1856, about the time that I was avowing a change in my opinions, and another time in John Street. He did notreply to me in a speech, but he did so in a pamphlet. In that pamphlet, he showed that he did not understand what I have said. “ Man has an immoral nature, and, therefore, he has a moral government where he has an immoral nature.” If that was the amount of his acquaintance with the form of moral philosophy, it showed he knew nothing about the matter in the philosophic sense. Man has not an immoral nature, but a moral nature. It is called “ moral Bense ” by Shaftesbury, “ moral reason ” by Reid, consciousness by Butler, and is a power within man which warns him of what is right and what is wrong. It don’t matter where he is—where he lives—what land he possesses —what language he speaks, or what colour he is—he is sure to ask of it, and the reply is infallible, What is right and what is wrong ? Oh ! but that is not consciousness, says the other side. We say there is no such power.* It is a thing of education, you say. It depends on how a man has been instructed. “ Your conscience is not my conscience, one man’s conscience is not another’s.’’ The conscience of a Jew is not that of a Christian ; the conscience of a civilised man is not the same as that of a savage. “ It is a thing of education.” To be sure ! Well, but somebody says I cannot understand what conscience is. What is this moral nature ? Let us try to understand. It is a faculty in man that discerns that there is right and wrong, and testi­ mony is infallible—a faculty, no doubt, that needs to be educated. You cannot educate it in animals—it is not there. There must be a right for a man to do right, a wrong to do wrong, each of which his spiritual nature recognises and distinguishes. I shall, �36 of course, contend!, that we have in this Christian country the highest moral teaching in Christianity itself; and if this were denied, a high moral sense, which some of my friends would attri­ bute to the discernment of reason. Moral sense, I say, is the clearest and strongest discernment of moral nature—it discerns to practise what is right; that virtue, truth, honour, and so on de­ serve praise, and in their very nature confer their own reward; that the practise of vice, error, which we call wickedness, sin, and trangre^sions deserve punishment. Man has this moral sense. He has not an immoral nature, which says that virtue deserves punishment and error reward. Robert Cooper, therefore, did not know what he was talking about. There is this faculty in man—it is part of his intellectual nature. Conscience responds to it more or less ; and as he is a free agent, so he can resist and sin against it, which he does easily, so that he sears it as with a red hot iron, and he may sin on till he is steeped to the lips in vice; still there it is. For instance, a man meets another who looks very hard at him in the street. He bolts down the next entry. He says, “ that man knows me.’’ He wishes it was dark so that nobody would know him, and when it is dark, and he is in bed, he pulls down the sheet over his face. Criminals have made these confessions. Oh ! says somebody, you don’t call that conscience; didn’t Palmer, that Rugby fellow, die as hard as iron ; he could not have what you call conscience ? Now, I wish you would listen to a person of extreme credibility, who had it from that criminal himself—viz., Mr. Goodacre, the clergyman who attended Palmer every night in the gaol. When Palmer went back to the gaol after the trial, he was as hard as iron. But the last night came—he was in the condemned cell. The chap­ lain spoke to him, but it was, so to speak, like pouring water upon a duck’s back. There was no conversion. The clergyman goes to his lodgings, and prays to bring the unhappy criminal to a sense of his situation. He felt also that he could not go to bed; doubt pressed upon his mind as to whether he had said all that he ought to have said, for before eight o’clock the next morning all would be over. “ I may not,” said this gentleman to himself—“I may not have said all that I ought to say—I must say all that I can.” He went back and knocked at the prison door—by law the chaplain can get admission into the gaol at any hour. This is the rela­ tion given by the gentleman, which exactly illustrates the case in point. He entered the cell where the wretched man was. “I am come to speak to you,” said the chaplain. “ I must come and speak to you. You are a great sinner. I am come to say that there is pardon for you,” and he alluded to the thief who was * pardoned on the cross. “ Will you try,” he exclaimed, “ and con­ fess your sin, and you may yet find pardon.” It had such an effect on Palmer that he asked—“ How pardon ? If I should confess about �37 my wife, I should have to confess about my brother too.” Why, returned the chaplain, and did you murder your brother also ? And Palmer clung to the bed stock with both hands, and groaned as if he would rend his soul. That groan was the voice of con­ science. He had sinned against his conscience. But you say this was not remorse for crime, for this was nor. in his character. Just imagine to yourself an old lion who entered into a corner of the wilderness, and groaning because he had killed so many antelopes, or a cat into the chimney corner, because she had killed so many mice! How does this happen but because we have this moral nature ? What does it tell us that vice and wickedness are wrong, that untruthfulness, tyranny, despotism, sensuality, all deserve blame and punishment—that virtue, honour, goodness, self-denial, benevolence, deserve praise and reward—in a word, it is a dictate of the mind of man ? How comes this to be, but that there is a moral governor to whom we are accountable ? We cannot get rid of the responsibility. Deny it as we please, it is there ; it follows the moral governor exists. We look on his moral government. We see organic law punishing man for sin. We sin; punishment fearfully suddenly overtakes the wicked. Men speak and talk about it. We see vice triumphant, men wading through blood and gaining a throne ; kings grasping liberty by the neck, and as each moment rolls on dishonesty, violence, and weakness successful. Well, say you, is it part of the moral government that we see the rich getting wealth and the poor growing poorer, and virtue and poverty suffering to­ gether? You look on the great man. There is happiness, you exclaim, and you say, “ this is not right according to the principles of your moral government.” You can only come to this conclu­ sion at last, and that is my conclusion, that he could only resist the sense of moral conviction, he could only disobey this sense of responsibility, because God’s moral government has only begun, and is not completed. There must be a state where wrong will be righted—where no four millions of black slaves shall be lorded over by white men—no bad men sit on thrones, no good men be imprisoned. There must be a state of equality. What we see in progress here must be worked out finally. We see in all these things around about us proof that man i° a being of pro­ gress, and which shows that he cannot be limited to this state of existence. This cannot be the be-all and the end-all. I con­ clude that this is only the beginning, and that we are going on; that this life is not the conclusion of our existence—that a moral governor exists, that his moral government has begun progressing « towards perfection. We cannot deny that it is here. You say there is no moral government. Then why are you punished : has not sin its penalty ? Why this discontent, this uneasiness, if there be no hereafter, no accountability ? When you see a throne �88 like Louis Napoleon’s, who will say there is no hereafter ? If there were not, why not act like great Caesar himselt ? Cato could have aided him, and Caesar drove him to suicide. Why is all this if there be no moral government ? What does it prove ? This, that a moral governor exists. (Cheers.) Mr. Bradlatjgh : I am delighted to be able to pay the speaker who has just sat down, the only compliment that has seemed his due during the time he has spoken since the commencement of this discussion. It is that he has occupied, with a degree of skill which I am utterly unable to imitate, a large portion of your time, but without the slightest relevance to the question which we are met to discuss. It says a great deal for the presence of mind of any speaker, seriously to address an audience not in the spirit of comedy, but in all solemnity, for so long a period without touching the subject. It says a great deal for his tact when he can get through twenty-eight minutes of the time in talking altogether beside the question, and put into the last two minutes a sort of preface to the topic for debate in lieu of a serious argu­ ment. Last evening we had but little approach to discussion, and were I content to leave the question where my friend has left it this evening, we should have no discussion at all. There has not been a particle of evidence adduced by him for the existence of a moral governor of the universe (hear, hear, and cheers). In all that he has said there is not a scintilla of evidence, but in lieu we have some hopes, but however patent his hopes, and however certain his prophecy, the facts he has stated are evidence only to himself and not to me. I fancied that my friend was to state the argument for, and affirm the being of God, as moral governor of the universe. If he has done anything at all, the most that he has effected was to allege, without evidence, that there was such a person or being as he called moral governor of the universe ; some such thing as that which he called a moral nature, and that is some evidence for the existence of some being who gave that moral nature to the individual possessing it. That is the fullest possible extent to which he has carried his argument. He was obliged to qualify it, such as it was, with numerous admissions. He admitted that this faculty which he callad moral sense or conscience, was a faculty requiring education ; but then he says— “ It is a faculty which discerns that there is right and that there is wrong.” I submit, on the other hand, that a man has no separate faculty, but that his conscience is the result of the education of the whole of his faculties—that man has no sepa­ rate conscience other than is the result of the condition in which all his faculties may be at any one time of his life, none certainly that would enable him to judge right and wrong independently of his education. I submit that a child newly born is without any such faculty, that it is entirely destitute of any faculty that �39 would enable it to judge right and wrong, and that that which my friend calls moral nature, I repeat, is but the result of the education of all the faculties in man—further, that what he calls man’s moral nature, if any one chooses to examine the matter closely, will be found to vary with tribes, countries, and climates, vary even with the same individuals at various periods of their lives, and from such a varying, shifting standard you are to pro­ duce the evidence of an immutable Deity as moral governor of the world. If it be po-sible to effect such a demonstration, my friend will have to display a talent for logic which he has not manifested during this debate. Let us see whether his facts were correct. I submit, even if they were, they were worth nothing, as being irrelevant; that if everything he said were true, from Alpha to Omega, then it is not worth anything. But I submit that what he alleged as facts, are not so. “ Did you ever hear,” asks my friend, “ of a lion that was stricken with remorse over the numerous animals he has slaughtered ?” Did you ever hear of a Thug who, having committed murders by the score, felt joy rather than remorse for his conduct ? What conscience taught him that he was more sacred to his deities for the skill displayed in his mur­ ders ? Our friend, who certainly manifested a more philosophic conception of words than he w as able to manifest on the last night of discussion, might have given us a novel definition of conscience had he read some essays on the practices of Thuggee, which he might have found in some of our old review—I have several of these passing through my mind at the present moment —he would have also found some extremely serviceable evidence taken before a parliamentary commission, upon the terrible prac­ tice of strangling prevailing among the Thugs of India. He would have found how faithful wives and good mothers to their children could regard the taking away human life as a positive virtue, and a matter deserving praise and reward, and that the more murders they committed, the holier the devotees of Bowanee regarded themselves. So far from being like Palmer, groaning as though he would rend his heart, these Thugs regarded murder as matter of absolute virtue, making them better men and women than, according to their belief, they could be otherwise. If this stood alone it would be enough to at least neutralise all that our friend put before you, but we shall be able to deal with this question of the moral governance of the universe hereafter more effectually than this. The whole of our friend’s argument was founded on what he calls man’s moral nature. I submit that if his facts had been true, they would not be much evidence on the subject. But he has cleverly tried to turn the tables on myself. He said, if there were not this remorse, this uneasiness, this misery, what inducement would you atheists have to be virtuous 1 But suppose I showed this was not the subject for debate—sup­ �40 pose I should urge, as I might have done, that it was only to introduce an excuse for the occupation of time, that this point was urged, and suppose I did not choose to take up the question, how much would that advance my friend’s case ? He was to prove the existence of a moral governor for the universe. And as he has not chosen to battle on his own ground, he requires that I should breach his fortress, aud storm it for him. I will therefore accept the issues that he has laid before you. But before doing so, permit me to point you to one or two matters that seem to strike against the moral governance of God. Is there a moral governor rewarding virtue. How then is vice in luxury while virtue is starving ? How can you account for this, that when two thousand women kneel in one church, that he permitted them to be burnt and suffocated there ? If you cannot deal with these two thousand, I will put before you millions instead of thousands. Instead of these women dying in sudden anguish, rushing round the church, and crying out to God for mercy, who showed them none, I will point to millions in the world dying slowly from poverty, that strikes them down in lingering misery, and whom God pities no". This gr -at fact meets you in the face, that if there be a governor, he allows human beings to come into the world faster than food for them, and that starvation and misery strike myriads down to die of disease amidst squalid misery. You may tell me that poverty constituted a crime; it is a disgrace to the world that it is so. God the moral governor of the universe ! When in the square of Warsaw women and children prayed to God for help, for life, for moral strength, when they besought him to hear their prayer for liberty, and to alleviate their sufferings, you will hardly tell me that God was moral governor of the universe when he permitted the Cossack’s lance point to drink the blood from their breasts as answer to their praying. You will not say that God is governor, and yet that this happened without punish­ ment on the guilty. But you say that because these wrongs are not redressed here, they will be hereafter. Who made you prophet for kingdom come? Who gave you the right to require us to look mildly and contentedly upon all evils here, on the ground that they will be put right in another world ? You tell me that when a man is starved to death in this world, he will be led in the next, when he can eat no longer ; or that if he is unjustly put here in the prison cell, that it is what God pleases, and that God will set all this right at some future time. Set it right 1 How can you hope that ? He it is, if governor, who causes the child to be born in poverty and misery, and without power to extricate itself, and helpless to contend against the woe surrounding it. He kept its parents starving, that they might give the unfortunate babe a wretched physique. It was he who made the only instructor of the child, the police or the magistrate. He brought the child » �41 from the cradle to the gallows, with a hempen cord round its neck —he who initiated it into the world helpless to avoid the crime— he who ended its career there, helpless to escape the retribution. You make God do all this ill, then you tell me I am a blasphemer (loud cheers and hisses, which were protracted for some time). It is you, and not I, who is blaspheming—you, whenyouaffirm that God rules and that innumerable wrongs result; it is you and not I who affirm that God rewards vice with imperial purple, virtue with threadbare fustian; it is you, and not I, who affirm that God deals thus unfairly with his people.. And when the earth­ quake—as that at Lisbon—comes, when it rends not merely the mansion of the rich but the hovel of the poor, and when after rending these, it leaves thousands dying from plague and starva­ tion in the streets of a great city whose inhabitants it thus steeped in ruin and misery, by that which you say is the act of God—don’t tell me of one or more acts apparently beneheent as illustrating his goodness and sense, until you deal with th&se acts so clearly malevolent. Do not tell me that God punishes the wrong-doer here, or if you do, I will ask you why you drag another world of punishment out of the future ? Don’t tell me of some wicked men stricken dowu in the streets to die by God’s decree, for if you do, then do I sav, that God is unjust in smiting a few and sparing the majority. Your argument lor God’s moral power is at an end unless you can explain why the imperial mur­ derer is spared and the ragged wretch is stricken. (Cheers, hisses, and confusion). If you want to hiss, wait till I have said some­ thing better to deserve it. The Chairman: I beg that you will keep Order. Mr. Bradlaugh : You shall have enough to hiss for when I shall have said what I wish to say against your threadbare theology, and it is indeed that wh ch I impeach. (Cheers, and cries of question and time). The Chairman : It'gentlemen will be quiet and not cheer so or cry question, all will be able to hear. I will call time when it is proper to call time (Cheers) Mr. Bradlaugh: You ask me why I do not steal; why I do not lie; why I do not, like a neighbouring scoundrel, aspire to a kingdom, bieaking oaths and shedding Mood togain my point. I will endeavour to tell you why, but to do this, I must take up your position that vice must be punished and virtue rewarded in some future .state. I will say that from the Atheist’s point of view that is not so. All mere punishment for crime past is in itself a crime, a wrong, and is omy to be defended in so far as it goes to the prevention of crime future, but not in so far as it can be regarded as vengeance lor crime past. The Atheist view is not that crime should be punished by some overlooking judge, but that it carries with it its own punishment in limiting �42 man’s present happiness and increasing his present misery. The Atheist does not argue that virtue will gain him Heaven hereatter, but declares that it spreads happiness around the virtuous doer here, and makes happiness for him because it makes hap­ piness amongst his fellows—honesty, truth, manhood, virtue, work their own reward in rendering happy the doer of them, and in spreading pleasure in the circle in which he moves. You admit that God suffers rascals to climb into thrones, and permit his clergy, who at least should know his will, to pray to him to keep them there. You who know that God has permitted a great country to be heavily taxed for the support of a clique of rascals who perpetrated the coup d'etat, and inaugurated the reign of the imperial scoundrel who now rules in God’s name, aad as God’s anointed. You say he is going to punish in the next world the man who thus climbed into a throne in this, when we know, if your argument be true, he could not have ciimbed there without G >d’s help. God knew beforehand the designs of the man "ho broke his solemn oath to the young Republic; but this man could not have perjured himseli without God’s permission, if he be 'he omnipotent governor you say, any more than he could have climbed to a thione without his aid. God then, according to you, must have helped this cri­ minal here in order to punish him some other time. Is that so ? If these are your views of God as moral governor of the universe, I give way at once. They are unanswerably absurd. But does this dispose of the question ? I do not think it does. I should like our friend, when he pleases to deal with the question in vyhat he calls its philosophic sense, to be a little more profuse of his explanations than he was inclined to be during the discussion of last evening. As to the moral teaching of Christ, he will find no one more ready than I am to con­ sider that question. But we have nothing to do with Christ here to-night, any more than we have to do with Mahomet, Moses, or Zoroaster. If he wants to tell me that Christ has given us a moral system without reproach, I will reply that under no system of morality which can pretend to be without blemish, is so much vice permitted. Christianity is a system which teaches submission to injury; courting wrong, and volun­ teering yourself for oppression. I will tell him, that at present I pa^s it by, because it is not the subject of our argument; it is no part of the argument, and is at least a mistake, unless he introduces it for the purpose of evading the real question, as also the question arising on his allegation of man’s free agency. If he would discuss to-night Christian morality, he might have put it forward fairly as a subject for disenssion, when I should be ready to meet him. He tells me that he is a free agent. He had much better have supported his argument on both evenings �43 by some facts, instead of relying on naked allegations. I will endeavour to show him the most convincing testimony of free agency that could be required. He says that man is a free agent, for he can sin against his conscience. I say that he cannot sin-rman cannot resist the circumstances that result in volition. As to this he has had no freedom of selection. What are these cir­ cumstances ? First his org nisation, then the education affect­ ing that organisation to the moment of volition. I say that no man is perfectly free to choose his education, or the organi­ sation educated up to the moment of volition. To talk, there­ fore, of man sinning against his conscience—itself the result of education—is to tell you the grossest absurdity that could be put before you. Well, Samuel Taylor Coleridge says that any act to be a sin must be originated in the will entirely apart from and independent of all circumstance extrinsic to the will. I say there is not this volition preceding any act resulting from the will, but that all volition is the result of various circum­ stances conducing to the wil’. Then our friend somewhat abruptly refers to the thief on the cross who got into paradise. I will admit, if he wants to try the question according to Bible Christianity, the greatest rascals on earth are the most likely to be rewarded in heaven ; and if that establishes anything in favour of moral governance of the world by God, then the New Testament, corroborated by the Old, shows that those who have been liars, thieves, and murderers, have got into heaven by God’s grace, while some of those who have been especially truthftal and honest became the others’ victims on earth, and were kept out of heaven. If any of you doubt that, however, I will abandon it, as the only evidence is that of the Bible, which for me is indefensible, though for him it is unanswerable. God is an immutable being, our friend says, and yet declares that his moral government is begun but not completed. He urges that because vice is triumphant here, that this must be set right hereafter, that God the immutable will change his mode of governance, that slavery he e is to be compensated by eternal freedom hereafter. If this is to be taken as evidence of future and more complete moral governance, it must also be taken that the moral government is at present incomplete, and therefore is no evidence of ability in the governor to govern more perfectly. He either lacks desire or ability. One supposition denies his goodness, the other his power. Then you say, “ that the wicked who escape here shall be sent to hell fire hereafter.” I am obliged, you add, to admit that the moral government is incomplete, but these rascals will be punished by and by, though before this takes place, though before this retribution comes, they will be dead. Good men will be rewarded in the next world who have starved in this. Have not men who made the world resound with the fame of their intellect and utility �44 of their philosophy, died in garrets neglected and uncared for! Have they not been villified and calumniated for centuries—men whose brows were bound with laurel, the fruit of their own selfreliant genius in this world, and oh, by-and-by, God will reward them. The men who have struggled for liberty have been stricken down, and have died despairing, while you have been obliged to admit vice triumphant, despite the moral governor. What, I ask, is the object of the war that is raging only a few hundred miles from where we stand ? Does it rage for the rights of man, for his liberties, for any great principle, or for the purpose of setting up one piece of state tinsel against another ? Who is it that keeps this strife up—who starves to pay for this—the people, those whom you tell me are God’s people, whom God cares for, whom God helps ? Never till they help themselves—never till they are able to strike for themselves—never till they upraise themselves. For those who tell me of a moral government by God, I will turn to them the whole map of the world, each page of its history, and I challenge you to show me any people whom God ever helped until they helped themselves. (Cheers.) Amongst the tribes of uncivilised people, or even amidst more favoured nations, where there was the more ignorance the people were more on their knees praying and less on their feet thinking. It was there where men were more trodden down, were more serfs, more slaves; there was always a priesthood to help the king, but never the people. Where then is the moral government of the universe ? Not by God. Where even the governance of society ? Not by God but man, by human intellect; not by Church edict, but by human thought; not by a moral government outside the world, which teaches right and wrong according to a standard that can never be altered; but rather by the advancing knowledge of each hour which, with better in f ormation, discovers evil to -morrow where it is yet unseen to-day, and finds truth to-day where yesterday belief bad found no trace of it. Mankind must be saved by the development of its common humanity, and we strive in this to advance with certain steps to the great truths scattered in the depths of the mighty unknown around us. We seek to gather not pearls, sapphires, rubies, and diamouds, but truths, that we may build them into a priceless moral diadem, and therewith crown the whole human race. (Loud Cheers.) Mb. Cooper : (Cries of “ go on, Tommy.’’) I will be very much obliged if you will never clap your hands any more when I rise. I feel really tired of complaining thus, and I might as well not occupy your time in this matter, for I am tired of this childish sort of work, and if anything could disgust me more it would be this silly laughter. Thomas Cooper is not a man to be laughed at. I have been a long time on this platform £.I. was never a disgrace to it (nor any other) when I was on it. Tnever deserted a good prin- �45 ci pie that once impressed me; I do not know why you are to treat me in this manner. I think a man of fifty-nine years of age ought to have some reverence. You have (turning to Mr. Bradlaugh) just complained before sitting down that every speech delivered by me as yet was beside the mark—as if a man could live fiftynine years and then argue as if he talked nonsense whenever he opened his mouth. I have not heard an argument—not a frag­ ment of an argument, in answer to what I have stated. Mr. Bradlaugh says the most I have done is to affirm that man was not a moral nature. There are many faculties, he says, but the child has no faculty. That is no argument. In answer, I say the child has faculties, but does not display them, that everybody knows, and no one can deny it. Then “God cannot be immutable because he creates mutable creatures. He must be mutable because the creatures must be mutable.” Where is the contradic­ tion ? Then he proceeds, “ If what I said were facts, they were, not facts.” How has that been shown? Because something wa^z done amongst Thugs. I have not heard about the Thugs. I know nothing about these young women who were glad they had com­ mitted more murders than others. They exulted in it. Now if any man says there is no moral sense in Thugs, I should like to have some conversation with him before I believed him. I appeal to you and not to Thugs. He said, I cleverly tried to throw my friend off, to turn the tables on him, and some person imme­ diately said “ hear.” Do you mean to call me a liar ? I never had Mr. Bradlaugh in my thoughts. I will re-affirm that he said that I would introduce anything to occupy the time. He com­ menced by stating that I had manifested something like a philo­ sophic apprehension of the meaning of words which had no mean­ ing, and that I was trying to keep your attention from the ques­ tion. Well, there are only the Thugs’before us at present. There is only an appeal to persons’ nature—we are talking of acts ; we are going to what our friend says appears to be complete disproof of the moral government of the universe. He has not dealt with that fact, that great fact, which you must feel to be fact yourself. I mean conscience. Can any one of you tell me that he does not feel when he is sinnin'g against his conscience ? Why then do you read with such zest the confessions of criminals, the workings of the human mind, the convictions of a marl that he is a scoundrel, a bloodthirsty villain? “ Oh, sinning against conscience is the greatest absurdity that can be mentioned.” Is it ? Strange procla­ mation this in the middle of the 19th century. If this is philoso­ phy, I do not know what the world will say to it. Abolish all the laws of government! What is the use of them ? Well, a man cannot sin against conscience. Do you see what it is you defend (hear, hear). Will you have the kindness not to cheer a sentence of that sort without thinking ? Then we heard about �46 2,000 women whom God shut in and delivered up to the most terrible of deaths. Then again, I was esteemed a person who had pretended to look into the future. Will our freind say that God showed them no mercy ? That is a very large undertaking for my friend. Then there is the poverty of millions born into the world and no food to support them. I say plenty of food, but men are bad one to another. Man is an enemy to man. What sort of government would you have ? Had you rather that man had been a moral agent and have no choice ? But you know that you have a choice, you feel that you can choose, you are sensible of it. “ God cannot make us free.” Indeed. And you say, “ subject at the same time.” You allude to the punishment which is inflicted upon men by God in conformity with the organic formation of their bodies. “ Millions in poverty.” Yes, indeed, many of them suffering deeply. Some, however, are poor by their own fault. Some men are idle and will not work, others spend their wages, others beat their wives, and others are dishonest. Among the rich there are dishonest also, so there are dishonest among the poor, and so suffering comes by a man’s own fault, folly, or vice, as the case may be. But, says Mr. Bradlaugh, there were 2,000 women burnt out of existence. The attention drawn to that topic was something extraordinary to be addressed to men’s judgments. He says, did moral government exist then, but then 12,600 persons have died since we came into this room, 84,000 odd, or 32 millions eyery year. Men die in suffering and great pain. Those 2.000 left children, brothers, relatives, so have the 2,000 that die hourly. But who complains of the order of life ? Can you tell me of any particularly good son that would like his father to live for ever ? How can we believe in a world constituted as this is of men and animals—who will say that life should be perpetual 1 Now think of these 2,000 poor women, they were free beings, those priests also, whom they say acted so cruelly, delivered them over to the Virgin, and all that sort of thing, but God is not to force man to be good if he be a free agent. I am asked who made me a prophet of the moral nature as well as of God’s declaration ? I feel this con­ demnation, and I know by it what is wrong. I feel some great constitutional disease. In the progressive nature of men there must be moral disease. They would not be governed without it. God does not train up children to be slaves. I am not to talk about blasphemy, for there was a hiss when it was mentioned, and you cheered Mr. Bradlaugh in his sallies against Deity, so that I should not wonder to hear a hiss when you hear it affirmed that God trains up a child for happiness. I say God has a moral government, and that he makes free beings. Men act on each other’s circumstances. The mere talk about they could not choose where they were born, that they could not choose their food, that they were under the control of circumstances, is mere talk and �nothing more. Circumstances do not altogether control me. I have trampled on circumstances a hundred times. Men do right and wrong, we are actuated by it. We sin against our conscience, where should be the absurdity of God’s government being begun and net completed? If God exists,he exists from all eternity, and he has made millions of beings who exist also. Is it to be denied that one object of his government is that he purposes these beings for a higher state? This higher state stands before them an eternity of happiness if they will conduct themselves properly in this state of trial. I may here take notice that I have been faithful to my part of the engagement. Mr. Bradlaugh has some­ times spoken so loudly I never thought I had a right to say that has nothing to do with the question. But I see my time is gone by, and I must reserve what I have to say. Mr Bradlaugh : I frankly and unreservedly retract the com­ pliment I paid my friend for his ability in evading the subject. It would be improper in me to persist in tendering him a compli­ ment which he repudiates. I also frankly confess I now do not know for what purpose the first speech was delivered at all, and this the more because the second speech has not improved the position. Our friend has been kind enough to express his opi­ nion, that it is hardly fair towards a speaker to urge that his speech has nothing to do with the question. Surely my friend wants me to offer my opinion on his speech. I have done so; and if any ot the audience agree with my view, so much the worse for the speech, because it would show that it produced on the mind of more than one person an impression, that our friend had not proved anything which he had proposed to affirm. As to the moral faculty in a child, Mr. Cooper says the child has no faculty for some years. I ask whether children up to a certain ace are without aid from the moral government, and whether they are not in more need of it than men with matured faculties ? I ask him whether his argument does not altogether break down when needed most ? He says that I based an argument on the fact of man being mutable, whilst God is urged to be immutable. This is not so. Our friend had urged that men were imperfect— and I put it to you that we con d hardly expect an imperfect result from a perfect creation and a perfect creator—a being with ability to make perfect if he pleased. If I have not made this clear to you before, I hope I have done so now. Mr. Cooper declares that he has not heard much about the Thugs hugging, and that I must bring this hugging business closer to you. My friend boasts that this argument is very wide and without effect. I cannot very well oblige my friend by dwelling at any great length on this phase of human error and crime; for I cannot do him the injustice to suppose that, in hw endeavours to judge fairly of moral nature, he should purposely have left out the �48 history of a large portion of mankind when generalising on the whole, so that he might make out an argument for the moral government of the world, 14 The Thugs,” he says, “ are a long way off.” So was Jesus Christ a long way off. If any ad­ verse argument is implied in being a long way off. I retort’ that they are not so far away as Moses, so distant as David, so far away as Jonah or Jeremiah. I am not quite so far off as these, and I must tell him if he will dispute the fact of Thugee strang­ ling, he must do so boldly. I will undertake to affirm it. If he does not know whether the facts he talks about are facts, he ought not to challenge them by inuendo. The audience will be able to judge for themselves, whether my friend did not leave them with an equivocal sort of denial which may mean either admission of their verity or allegation that they are not correct. Say you do not know anything about these facts, or that you do not believe; if you say you do not believe them, I will undertake to prove them. It may fairly be that, however well a man may be read, be cannot be presumed to know everything, and your ignorance is no weapon in my hand. Does he take pains to tell you what he means by the word sin, or what he means by the word conscience ? He has not done so, yet persists in speaking of morality, as though it always and everywhere had one meanir g. Here it is immoral to have two wives. In Turkey it is not immoral to have two wives. The consciences of the men who commit polygamy in Turkey, do not burthen them with re­ morse, because they have committed what we here should term a crime. I object to the word sin, because theologians have at­ tached a cant meaning to it which I deny. My friend has not told you his definition. He uses it as though it conveyed a meaning in which you are all agreed. An act which a man could not help committing, is not a sin. The wretch who steals a loaf of bread because starvation, ignorance, poverty, misery, squalor, and degradation have surrounded him, is not even in your eyes so guilty as a person of better education and better circumstances. I will put it to you further, that there are many cases in every­ day life, when the same act condemned in one instance, so far from being regarded as culpable, finds precisely the contrary ver­ dict in another. If this be so, our friend’s d:scernment of the moral government of God is exceedingly short-sighted. How, • then, does he speak of a common standard for judging right and • wrong ? I will take you to a great many decent men and women who would rather prefer stealing to being atheists, and who would regard it as a greater crime to entertain such opinions as I hold than to be guilty of theft. To me it is no sin against my conscience. It reproves me not; on the contrary, the mode in which my faculties have been educated makes me believe it an honour to hold and avow these views. He is not dealing with �49 you fairly when he puts it that men have a common standard of right and wrong. He said, why deal with the two thousand sq sadly burned, and not with millions dying around us ? That was what I did. It was only in one or two short sentences I referred to the Chili catastrophe, in a few words that I dealt with the two thousand, and then especially commented on the millions killed by poverty and disease. My friend replies—the case of the two thousand poor women startles us from the relief in which it stands out from the great picture of millions that are stricken down, that are crushed by poverty—which poverty, he says, only exists by men’s misdoings, but which I say exists, if there is a moral governor of the universe, because he keeps it there. For whose misdoing is a poor child born of weak parents, for whose mis­ doing are the parents starving in an unhealthy home with in- 1 sufficient clothing, wretched surroundings, squalid, and with teaching worse than none ? On whom are we to charge all this? On the father, on the mother? This cannot be, because both father and mother are but a part of the squalor, wretchedness, and misery that existed before them. Then does God the moral governor of the universe allow all this, never stopping the pain—never checking the evil ? Our friend has made a most extraordinary admission. He says these things result from man’s misdoing. We will take it that a man does wrong'sometimes—he does it, then, in spite of God or by his permission, or by his instigation ; but he cannot do it in spite of God, for Mr. Cooper says that God is omnipotent, therefore it is impossible to do anything against his power—against his will. The wrong doer must either be instigated to the wrong doing by God, or permitted by God to do it; but God being infinite in his will to permit, would be to compel. It is the same to instigate as to leave the path for a man to do wrong, who without this could not help but do right. All wrong and misery exist by God’s wish or against it. But it cannot exist against God’s wish if he be all-powerful; nor does Mr. Cooper think ev.il exists against God’s wish, for he makes God remedy hereafter that which he might prevent here. God, all-powerful, has the ability to prevent misery; God, omniscient, knows how to exercise this ability; and God, all-good, would desire to exercise it. The population problem, which would take too long to fairly examine in this debate, is pregnant with weighty arguments on this head. Poverty exists; and God’s existence, or his power, or his wisdom * or his goodness stands impeached by it. It would take many evenings to debate this point fairly, but he does not go beyond bare assertion, or advance one word of argument about it. He could not conceive how a good son could wish his father to live forever. If I understand the meaning of this aright—it would be that all who wished their fathers to live for ever must be bad �50 gons. (Hear and laughter.) He says, this life is a probation for some other state. Which other ? What has he to say except that the present state is so terribly wicked, so full of treachery and bloodshed and evil, that he is not heard to express a hop® to make it better, but is obliged to go to some other world as an .« escape from this ? (Laughter and cheers.) i Mr. Cooper : So in spite of all I have said about the impropriety jf of it, the want of wisdom of the thing, the decency of doing it, I i Mr. Bradlaugh commences again in the same manner. He must II retract his compliment. He is utterly at a loss to account for the I,1! first speech; he passes on to say that he must chastise me. I should say, that that was consummate impudence. Seeing that he approved of the hisses, he must have great confidence in his powers of effrontery in conduct like this. (Cries of no, no, he told you to be less excited)—and he turned round and told this person who cheered me that he was wrong. (Cries of no, no). I did not say the child had no moral faculty. I said he did not display that faculty. He said that an imperfect man was hardly to be ex­ pected from an imperfect maker. If he could conceive God at all, he must be a perfect God, and he could not wish any other God, but if he saw anything bad, he would say that he was not com­ petent to be the framer of the universe. I say there is only one framer of the universe, God invisible, everywhere present, all-wise, existent always, an almighty, all-holy being. He knows that that all-wise and holy being cannot make a being as perfect as himself. You might as well expect him to make a triangular circumference. “All-being,” he says, “would be perfect.” Why waste time on words of this sort ? Our friend then said, he would make it clear what he meant, when he said, there was no sinning against conscience. Then he told me about men having two wives in Turkey; that men had no sense of mora­ lity, and that there were men in England who had two wives and did not think it immoral. We think they do wrong. He says an act which man cannot help committing is no sin. If I were disposed to indulge in humour, I should exclaim, a Daniel come to judgment. A man cannot commit a sin in doing what he cannot help ; if it is no law to him, he cannot transgress the law. It is no sin to commit an act. (Cries of question). I did not say that »il men and women in England had the same standard of judging of right and wrong. I said no to that, and I said the moral faculty had to be educated. Every faculty has to be educated. I was not talking about the millions who suffer death through poverty. * was talking of the millions that die naturally in an hour. There such a thing as memory. I did not attribute evil to God because He never limited or checked it. He talked of weak parents and the injustice of punishment of sin. Do we not see reasons in the - organic punishment for moral crimes that man can bring disease �on his children and on himself? Yon say why does God dothat? Does not vice visit itself? What do you do with that fact ? You say you cannot take a fact out of the world. Well, it is there. God says that sin is sinful, that it is abominable in his sight, it is unholy ; he gives it strong punishment here and everywhere. If man will not regard himself, he may as regards his children. Give me an idea whether or not there can be any moral government where there is no freedom, no will, no possibility of transgression. Show me that. I cannot understand it. I understand moral government to mean a government of moral agents by a moral governor. Moral government means that there are laws to observe, he must have special rules, that is, the governed must know he has a government, that is to say, there must be law. What is the sanction of law ?—punishment. Abolish punishment, and you abolish law virtually. Just conceive that the Queen abolished all punishment for crime. Let recognised justice go on. Well, there is a trial to-night, there is the judge in his scarlet robes, the barristers in their wigs and gowns, the jury in the jury box. It is a murderer that is to be tried. He is convicted—what follows ? The judge puts on his black cap, and sentences the murderer to death. The keeper then lets him go into the street. A robber is sentenced to ten years, or twenty perhaps ; he rushes out of the box and joins his companions in the streets. Then at nisi prius, it is a horse case, lying seems inseparable from a horse case. Throughout the whole case there is lying, sticking to your false­ hood throughout. You are convicted of perjury, and there is no punishment. How long will this go on ? There is law then, and there is a penalty which is the sanction of law. Then there is a governor, good government if there is a law, and if you abolish law you abolish government. For God to permit suffering and wrong is not for him to will or to wish it. I may permit several things, I do not will them. The father does, the mother does, the wife does—in all relations of life we often permit that which we do not will in the active sense. If we come to the philosophic nature of things, yes; and in the broad sense of language we permit many things that we do not will. So it is from the moment that life commences, and for ever. Mr. Bradlaugh knew very well what I meant. (Cheers.) Why do you clap your hands at my saying this ? Is it a dignified way to come here ? I expected to have something like reasonable discussion, and I have to complain that the argument was never touched. (Hear, dissent, and cries of “not by you.’’) If any one of you will tell me where the argu­ ment was touched, I will be much obliged to him. (Cheers and hisses.) What is the use of encouraging all this vulgar stuff? (Hisses.) It is not like reasonable men that want to come to the truth. There was something that Mr. Bradlaugh said before, that I meant to touch upon, but had not time. He said, that from the �52 Atheist’s stand-point, vice should not be punished or virtue rewarded. Punishment was only to be inflicted so far as it is preventive. It is to be remedial. May it not be so when he visits the sin of the parents upon the children 1 Is there not 3 warning ? But then we are told that vice works its own punish­ ment and virtue its own reward. Why then complain of Louis Napoleon ? Should he not be punished according to that theory ? I cannot see that vice works its own punishment there. I love Mazzini with all my heart. He is the greatest man I have ever known in my life. Is virtue rewarded in his mournful life ? Tyrants on thrones and clergy to help them 1 What does Louis Napoleon care about clergy?—he makes instruments of them. He does not believe them any more than did the first Napoleon. There was also some observation in a former speech about the ignorant being oftener on their knees than on their feet. The Kaffirs and the lowest races in the world. But that is not in the round of my reasoning even if it were true. Mr. Bradlaugh : Our friend puts it that he did not say the child had no moral faculty, but he said the child did not display it. I am sorry I misunderstood him. I will wait for the present till the report comes out, but I fancy that my comment upon the old man as upon the child did not misapply. How do you know that the child has got this faculty before it is manifested ? By what fact do you discover what is not displayed ? You certainly have not displayed that faculty of putting things clear, or you would have tried— Mr. Cooper : That is your impudence. Mr. Braelaugh:—Tried to give us some reasons for supposing that a child has what you call the faculty for judging what you call right and wrong, and yet having this faculty disp!ays it not. You said that God cannot make another being as perfect as himself, because you say he is infinite—and he cannot make another infinite. If that is a fair argument, it destroys the doctrine of creation altogether. If God cannot create another infinite, neither can he add to his own infinity. To add a finite universe to infinity is equally as absurd as to add an infinite. If God’s ability to create a being as perfect as himself is limited, then he is not omnipotent. If he is omnipotent, there can be no such limitation. You say that sin is a transgression of law; law has two meanings, one scientific as expressing invariable sequence, and the other moral, as command. You cannot trans­ gress the one and the other ; you can the right or duty to dis­ obey ; command depends upon who gives the command—with what sanction it is given—whether it be good or bad to obey or not to obey. There are many statute laws at the present time which it is perfect virtue to break, and no sin to disobey. Mr. Cooper : That won’t do. �53 i { •j f i ? ? Mb. Bradlaugh : Then my friend says vice visits itself on children, and asks, How does the Atheist deal with that ? He finding, whether there be a God or not, a moral governor or not, that children begotten of diseased parents are born in a diseased state ; strives to educate the parents to observe physical laws— to know the sequences on which health depends, and to carry out this law so as to ensure health as the result of the physical law. As an Atheist, he knows that where there is a child born into the world and the conditions of health have been known and observed by its parents, the child is more healthy, whether there be a God or not. You say that moral government implies that there are special rules established by the inoral governor. If a man break these rules unconsciously, is there a penalty? My friend contends, as I understand him, that those who sin not knowing the law, escape the penalty. The rules of God—do all know them ? Yes or no. If all do not know them, what becomes of this special government ? Some are ignorant. Again, is God able to make all know them ? If yes, and he only teaches partially, he is unjust, for He requires from one a higher duty than from another. You say there is a difference between per­ mitting error and willing it. The illustration of the father or mother permitting without willing has no analogy. No argument founded on man can conduct you to a demonstration for the character of Deity. If your assertion of God’s will as infinite betrue, there is no permission without his will, and the will of any other cannot be in opposition, because he is omnipotent. If all things be from God, is it not a fair query how augjht can exist except by God’s will? He says ihe good are to live for ever :did he say where or how ? Is it to be in the moon for ever, or in the sun for ever, or where ? My friend simply appealed to your prejudices, the prejudices created by your religious education, when he spoke this. He knew that he meant nothing by it— he did not know any­ thing about living for ever anywhere. When he says that his moral nature leads him to hope that when he fiuds that this life is imperfect—that God is able to make another, which he hopes will be better, but he don’t know how it is to be, where it is to be, or indeed whether it is to be at all, he has not given us a partide of information about it. Now, however, he finds it convenient, having said that he was going to take the broad view of the question, to take you abroad altogether—and he desires to take you into the next world, which he would have you examine in preference to the subject, but we have not that before us, but tojudge of his Deity as moral governor. He could not have been more unfortunate than wheu he went to the Kaffirs in his speech, who have no knowledge of this moral government which he sets up. There are the Kiffirs, the Dyaks of Rajah Brook, and many other nations of the world, who have no conception of a �54 future state of existence, who have no conception of God as sepa­ rate, apart, and distinct from the universe, and who, therefore, they do not pray to. He has used such a defence to-night as will rather defeat his argument for the existence of God. It is either good or bad that men should know ot God’s existenceIf it was good, then God should give all men that knowledge ; if > he did not, he himself was not all good—that is, was not God. I admit that my friend is right when he says I did not hit his argu- J ment. I tried as hard as I was able, but it is hard to hit nothing. - (Cheers.) Why blame Louis Napoleon, and praise Mazzini ? I complain of him whom I hold to be a scoundrel, because I hope to make the rest of the world avoid his vices—and because I dare to wake up a nation to a desire for liberty, whom God lets sleep in political slavery. Mazzini, whom I love and honour as much as you can—whose truth I have learned to revere as much, as you have learned to revere it—when you ask me what reward this man has, I say that his reward is in his own honour, in his honest truthfulness, in the love for humanity he expresses, which makes thousands love him. He has no fears such as possess that man, that vagabond of the Tuileries, with his baud against every man ; but this exile, almost prisoner, this recluse, this man shut out from the world, his life of truth gives me the highest hope, for he gains and gives sympathy forth to the world and to the noblest in the world. You tell me of your God. Why does he allow one to be hunted by police, and keep the other in a posi­ tion to drive Europe before him with the edge of his sword ? Why doesjiGod permit the armies of this crowned scoundrel of France to protect those Roman bandits, who keep daily open the bloody wounds of wretched Italy ? I did not bring Napoleon or Mazzini into the debate, but if you want an argument against God’s moral government, take that sink of vice and crime, Rome, the birthplace of your Christian faith, and source of all your Christian frauds ; Rome, the cancer in the womb of Italian liberty. You shall have my sympathy with liberty and truth wherever needed, but we rather forget in this the subject for debate. We come here to discuss one theme which our friend has entirely neglected. We ought to have some evidence of God’s moral - government of the world. So far as our friend is concerned, every theme has been selected but this, and except reading from his memorandum book the pencil notes which he has made, my argument he has met by simplv saying that “he cannot understand." He cannot understand the meanings of the words he uses himself, any more than the argument which he heard used against him. And he tells you of my weakness and my impudence, but each man has the right to say his b st in his own way. Age carries with it no respect here, other than it Warrants by matured thought. Mr. Cooper’s past service carries �55 with it no respect here, unless he continues it by present duty.' The speech which must not provoke laughter is sober and earnest utterance, and the service which finds respect is sterling honest i work. Let our friend rely not on the past, not on old certificates of respect, but on the services he performs now, in bringing truth before you, speaking to your hearts and educating your brains, developing your intellects, and enlarging your humanity. When he does this he will have done something entitling him to reproach you if you fail in respect, and he will save himself the need of reproaching you at all, for he will win, as I do now, your warmest sympathy. (Loud Cheers.) Mr. Coopee : I go on to follow the plan which I suppose to be the right one. He claims to do the same thing. I think this the right plan to take up every sentence uttered, and to show that they are not to the point, that they are instead, great non­ sense, and don’t bear on the argument, and are simply false con­ clusions. I suppose that to be my plain duty. I come here to argue for the being of God as moral governor of the universe; Mr, Bradlaugh comes here to argue that there is no moral govern­ ment. I spoke of children having a faculty. He asks how I know that children have a faculty? Isav by watching its develop­ ment. He says sin is not transgression of the law, for law con­ sists of command and sequence. What has that to do with the position ? I know that law is command, and there is sequence, which is punishment, if you do not obey. But how does that ■overthrow the truth of sin being a transgression of the law ? If children are born without a faculty, how come they to ever dis­ cern whether there is a God or not ? Indeed, that is?the question between us—whether there is a God or not. Do not all men know God’s laws ? If he says we see this inequality of punish­ ment, he would ask what is God ab mt 1 I say that all human beings know more or less of God’s law. He says that of some, more than others, God requires duty without reason. I say no: where precept has not been given to man, God does not expect him to fulfil. There is no teaching of any sort that I am aware of against this. I never learned among any class of persons any other belief in God, but that he dealt with all al ke. Io that sense, there was no such inconsistency of philosophy. But Mr. Bradlaugh said I was not to talk of myse.f. When I was talking cf permission, I did not mean instigation. I did not mean any •such thing as “to will it.” I was not also to talk of analogy between men’s nature and God’s, between toe intelligence of man and that of God. I say again that permission does not mean instigation. He says it does. I say it don’t. He 3aid something about “ living forever.” Why does he affect not to know what every one else knew, why affect to be so stupid ? “ How ndid I know that there was an hereafter ?” Because life is not so �56 perfect as my moral nature. I call will choice, and my moral nature is so strong on these points that I am obliged to attend to them. All men are aware of this hereafter, and their conscience in regard to it troubles all. But then he says, “ Where is this future life to be ? Is it to be here or elsewhere ?” I am not anxious about that; I know that the judge of all the earth will do right. I am sure that the God who made me will do right ; I am, therefore, not anxious. I am sure that it will be right. I cannot speak to what will be appointed to me. I may particu­ larly call your attention to the strange remark made by Mr. Bradlaugh, when he instanced what he called a fact, that the Kaffirs had no hope of a future state, and . that all ignorant peo­ ple are oftener on their knees than on their feet. He says he has proved such a deficiency as will overthrow my argument for God’s existence. I showed that man is forgetful, and he says that overthrows my argument. I said that the argument had not been met, and he said he had nothing to meet. Here are those representative men on this platform. Is the argument to he dismissed in this manner ? Is that to go forth from this plat­ form as an argument ? And then what he says about the glass being of the same existence as that of man. (Cries of no no.) I cannot help being surprised at all this gibberish. (Cries of question, hisses, and cheers.) Why, you are not fit to listen to the question. (Hisses, and some confusiou.) I am appealing to representa'ive men What is the use of argument, if this is argu­ ment ? He treats the question as he likes. He tells us that he had a mission, and he said that all precognition was an utter absurdity. But the argument of the moral sense was the greatest argument that could be brought for the existence of a moral government. It has convinced others, and it has convinced me. That was the way in which such men as Clark and G Hespie, to whom Mr. Bradlaugh referred, arrived at the knowledge of moral governance. He said “that I said what I said before was there, only that it was not there.’’ But if these great men held those doctrines which I defend, if thousands of other great men have held them ; if these arguments have passed through rhe strongest minds of Englishmen, men who have done such mighty things in mathematics, men of such disciplined intellect, that there is a God * as maker and moral governor of the universe, I am compelled , to remind him that the argument was neither touched nor answered, and that all this “flibertigibbet ” is not argument. Is this to be the close ? Can you offer no further argument? Are you who assemble here to accept that as argument ? Will you try to argue thequestion out or—(Cries of hear and his-es ) Thankyou for nothing. He complains of the order of moral government, and he talks of L >uis Napoleon as having been success'ul while Mazzni ishunted by police, and he says the reason he does so is to rouse the �57 nation. It is a queer nation that—when one reflects on its meanness, its littleness, its lickspittleness, one feels contempt instead of admi­ ration for a Frenchman at this time of day. (Cheers and hisses, which, lasted for some seconds). Show me any six men whom you talk about—you may tell me that I am talking of the body of Frenchmen in the streets of Paris, but I say that they are unworthy as a nation to enjoy liberty. But in reply to my question, how is Mazzini rewarded ? You say by his own sense of honour and truth. Why do you then say that he is neglected ? What is there to complain of that things were not right ? Why, according to this, it is right after all. But no, says my friend, it is not right. My friend blows hot and cold at the same time. Either the con­ science of such men is guilty, and that things are not right in this world, or they are. Which will he have ? He has chosen to take the latter conclusion with respect to these two cases. Why do such things exist, but because there is a moral government and we are moral agents ? Then he talks of Rome, or rather he says, “We can talk about Rome.” That is not my religion, that is not where I am. I always hated her for her bigotry and her tyrannies, and if I were a Roman Catholic and wished to put down Freethought, I should perhaps have to arrest you first. But that is not my religion. I do not come from Rome. He then complains of my reading notes. But please come to this fact, that you have a conscience. I say you know it, and that you cannot conceal the fact from yourselves, that when you do wrong there is an inward chiding; you cannot shake it off. How came you to have it there? and for the future if there is no moral government, all will soon, be over. “Men reasoned,” and we are told further, that all sensible men laughed at the notion of immortality I professed. But he was sure that he would enjoy this world and everything that he could have in it as well, whether there was no future, and he referred to broad history But whatever he may say, I say you sin against conscience, and you are rebuked by your moral sense. Oh, but he says “ There is no such thing.” I say there is, that if you do harm to your wife and children, or to your neighbour; if you commit d shonesty, you know that you blame yourself—the faculty, the moral faculty blames you. How could yon have it if there were no accountability—no moral government? How comes it there ? It has not been esteemed so very ridiculous by some of the greatest men that ever lived. It was said that when argu* ments would not convince Pascal, the moral feeling did. It is ou record of Emmanuel Kant, the great German philosopher, that when the design argument, and the argument a priori failed to convince him, the moral sentiment convinced him. It was the testimony of Liebig that he was convinced by the moral argument When nothing else could convince him. “ I feel this moral power Within me, he said; “ I cannot destroy it, I cannot see it, it " • : i • < > �58 impels me, it controls me, it blames me. Why is it so, if this be the be-all and end-all, and there is no moral government ?” (Hear, and cheers.) Mr. Bradlaugh : It is not true that it convinced Locke, Newton, or Samuel Clarke. They take lines of argument opposed to each other. The illustration is not a fair one, any more than the quotation from Plato was a correct one. I am surprised at Mr. Cooper’s lamentable blunder as to laws, as denoting in­ variable sequence, telling me that law means command, and that the sequence follows the breach as punishment. Now, with fiftynine years of experience, to make such a sad blunder when his distinction of law as command and law as sequence were put before you in my speech, is at least most extraordinary. I cannot believe that he has been serious. He surely cannot be so ignorant of the commonest terms with which thinkers deal; or, if he is so igno­ rant, I am justified in standing up in this debate and saying that he has no right to discuss these subjects at all. If he does not understand the argument, if he does not understand the ipeaning of words, then I say that he is unfit to argue; and if he does un­ derstand them, his speech is worse than worthless, because wil­ fully evasive. Mr. Cooper : I do not know what you are referring to. Mr. Bradlaugh : I will do him the justice to say that he did not, in his last speech, refer to the subject we have met to discuss. I think I will also do him the justice to say that it was the strangest and most incoherent speech I ever heard, and I am free to add that in his attempts to demonstrate Deity he has broken down lamentably. (Hear, and cheers.) Mr. Cooper rose, and was understood to say that this was downright impudence. Mr. Bradlaugh : I did not interrupt when he was talking about gib' erish. I have a right to comment on his speech in my own way—in the way that seems to me best. I asked him how he knew that the moral faculty existed in children. He says by watching its development. He took no pains to tell you what he meant. I will try to do so. The basis for this so-called faculty is organisation, differing in each individual—that organi­ sation is educated, and this education also varies with each. Therefore this so-called faculty is ultimately resultant from development of organisation. That basis must be limited and varied. It varies perceptibly in different races of mankind. There is a different development to each individual, and this education of organisation helps to make up what we call con­ science, this conscience varying in its exercise in different spheres, and by different individuals. Faculty I say it is not, it is only a condition, the result of all these circumstances, but -is never independent of them. This alleged moral laculty never �59 existed without these, either in children, men, or women, at any age. Then our friend said that all human beings knew more or less of God’s laws—some knew more, he says, some knew less. Well, if that is so, if some had abundance, and some were deficient, then God has been unkind either to them to whom he has given but little knowledge, or to those to whom he has given much. The knowledge of God’s laws must be either good or bad. If it is good for all to have a complete knowledge, then there is in­ justice in giving to some more, to some less: if it is bad to have the knowledge, then there is injustice in giving it to any. In either case you have an argument against the moral government. Then our friend goes on to say, “ The future does not trouble me.” He knows what kind of service will be allotted to him by God or by any one competent to make the allotment. I can tell him one kind of service which will certainly not be allotted to him, and that is, the task of proving that there is a God—or the moral character of his government. (Cheers.) That duty will never more be allotted to him. (Cheers.) Our friend was good enough to tell us that it was the strongest effort of his mind this demonstration of moral sense, and that he had made it so clear that there was hardly any use in his arguing the question with me about it. I will wait till the report shall be in print—that will speak for itself. I did not refer to last night till he took the opportunity of introducing it. I would not have brought it forward because there remained no point needing comment. I can well conceive a man lamenting during the day over a defeat, and trying again to-night to talk it into a semblance of victory. You referred to Mazzini, and asked why I complained. You say— “ Oh, but it is right or it is wrong.” Why use this term right er wrong ? If you use them, the one as conducing to happiness, the other as producing a state of pain, I can unde’-stand what you mean. It is a state of happiness for a man to work for good—to work for truth—the development of truth amongst his fellows ; he finds happiness in so doing. But it is a source of pain to him to know there is so much evil yet to be undone You can believe the man more happy who does right than he who commits a wrong, and this whether there be a God or not. But God, my friend says, is all-good—that which results from him is there­ fore all-good—it must be all-good, as no tvd can come from an in­ finite God. Adieism is in the world, and it mu-t come from some source, as out of nothing nothing can come. God is the source of all, it must therefore come from God, therefore Atheism is from God ; but God is good, therefore Atheism i< good. And n w for the French. They are a queer nation, says our friend He has been told so perhaps, but those who bave been am mg them think otherwise. Queer they are, but the men who are most queer amongst them are the men who are most under the domi- �60 Stance of theology, and least under the influence of Freethought. I have found that men who are least under the influence of the priest are the men who have been best d'spnsed to bring about a better state of things for their country. These are not the men you speak of in such unwarrantable language. There are men who bend before the rising sun, who bow before the crown, but these are not the men developed by thought and truth. There are men ■who have been mbdeveloped by the misgovernment of kings and priests ordained by God, who left them without moral thought, and destitute of manhood. Those men whom you call lick­ spittles—men in Paris, men at Lyons, men at Bourdeaux, in the North and in the South—are men speaking for their country, men working for liberty, hoping to attain it for their own country and for others. Men are now striving for liberty again in France. (Cheers.) Then you come to Borne. Is that so far from your religion that you can afford to attack it ? Rotten branch, you do well to shun the stem from which you spring (Loud cheering.) Matricidal son, you do nobly to plant the dagger of calumny in the breast of the mother church which bore you How well pleased her son should be to cover her with odium; but where would be your church without its early gospel forgeries—where your Christian establishments, your bishoprics, your evidences, your prisons, your revenues, all things that go to make up your faith, if they bad not been treasured up, garnished, furbished in Rome ? You say you are not Roman Catholic, and that Roman Catholics will burn men—so will Protestants. Protestants have burned Roman Catholics. There is a place not so far as Caff'rar'a, there is Newgate, where Protestant Christian noble­ men piled up stones on men of the Romish faith until the blood gushed from their forehead and finger-ends because they would not plead before judges who had pre-determined to condemn them. You tell me you do not—I answer, you do not, because you dare not do such things now. It is within the brief span of your own lifetime, when you were but little older than I am now, that dissenting clergymen sentenced Richard Carlile and Robert Taylor to Oakham, Giltspur Street, and Newgate, and harassed Carlile’s family with starvation for holding such opinions I now hold. (Loud cheers.) You could not do all this to-day, because the stream of human thought is rushing onward, and would drown your fires if you dared kindle them. You are only losing |; time in advocating the past, because new thought is more powerful thau old faith—it has trampled out your faggots. Make not J a boast over Roman Catholics, both fruit of one tree—rotten fruit I admit; both are laden with poison, both have given to the world a heritage—slavery, tyrants, and chains. It is left for the republic of human intellect to erect a better state of things. (Loud and protracted cheering.) * 1 �61 Mb. Cooper : I am returning to the affirmation with which he sets out. He says that Locke, Newton, and Clark oppose each other upon this question. I say they don’t. He said what I quoted from Plato is not in Plato. I say it is. What use in trying to persuade people that I do not understand my own argument ? I said I did not understand what Bradlaugh said about command and sequence. He knew he said that I did not , understand my own argument. He asked me how did I know i that men in this world in various nations and situations had i; more or less knowledge of God’s law ? I said I knew it by their acts, and then he said it was unkind that God did not reveal to them the law. He could not; and only when this great moral world should be destroyed, would there be justice done. If men transgressed the law, says Mr. Bradlaugh, they should not be punished for it in this state, he will have no doubt about it in the next state. So my friend will argue that the virtuous are more happy even in this world, and yet nothing is right. Can you understand this reasoning ? He asked me not to blow hot and cold. It is the most stupid talk I ever heard in the world. He first tells me that it is right, and then that it is wrong. I cannot understand all this- The men in France and the priests are so and so. Yes. Why? Because they bowed to the dominance of the priests, and not because of theology in general I have it on the testimony of a gentleman who went to live in a house in Bordeaux to commence an undertaking as an agriculturist. He commenced by giving some books to the peasantry on bis estate. They bowed as they received them, and appeared thankful. In three days, however, they came back to him, and politely re­ quested that they might see the governor of the farm. The Pere [Mr. Cooper pronounced this word with accent on the last syllable, a circumstance which caused some laughter and surprise, which it is necessary to explain, that a portion of the following speech of Mr. Bradlaugh’s may be understood.] The Pert was a priest in the village, who, he said, told him that they did not read such books because of their religion, and they very seldom made acquain­ tance with anything beside theology. The great mass of them bow to the domination of the priest; and so these lickspittles exist in France, and are, according to my friend, made under God’s moral government. Has he shown that any other government will account for the various arguments that have been adduced? As this is the last time I shall address you, I will simply appeal to your consciences again. You have a conscience, every man has a conscience, to which he is responsible in the first instance. You need not smile—it will not be a smiling matter if, on your death-bed, your conscience tells you that I am right and that you are wrong. We will all have to meet it. Every one of us. I have talked before of death-beds, and there was no indisposition �62 to listen to me then. If morality is not taught in this room now, it ought to be. It used to be. You have a conscience which has dictates, and which, if you do not obey it, flogs you. If you vio­ late conscience, on your death-bed it will not be a happy one. You say there is no future. You may contrive to allay the gnawings of conscience in some degree—you will not kill them. They will be there up to the last. You had better listen to con­ science before it is too late. The more you ponder on this fact, the more you will begin to see that there is a moral nature, and the more clearly you will apprehend that there must be a moral governor. I wish I had pondered more on this fact in my early life. It began with that point of government—it began in John Street in a discussion upon one of Mr. Owen’s propositions, that man is the creature of circumstances. He was laughed at when he said there was no praise or blame. In the controversy, I began to blame myself and praise others. Why, I began to ask, do you praise such men as Louis Blanc, Mazzini, and Kossuth when their name is mentioned, and execrate Louis Napoleon? Praise and blame I We cannot help it. It is no use telling me there is no such thing as sinning against conscience—there is something which you cannot get rid of, which cannot be sot out of the mind, which cannot be got out of the heart. You go about with this conscience, with the certainty that it is there perpetually —a tribunal within you. If you reflect on it, the more you will feel convinced that moral government exists. I reflected, and I said, what I have ever since maintained, that there exists a moral government for man, whose head is the Governor and Creator of the Universe. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Bradlaugh: It would be impossible to demonstrate to­ night that my remarks, in reference to Locke, Newton, and Samuel Clark, were well founded. A quarter of an hour will not suffice for that purpose. But I will take occasion to say something in respect of what has been said to come from Plato. It is very curious that, in the “ Timaeus ” which I hold in my hand, there is a passage precisely the opposite to that which my friend quoted, and I have not been able to find any thing like the sentence he quoted from Plato. What I do find is in opposition to what he has attributed to Plato. I take pains to be moderately correct before I challenge an assertion made in this way. (Mr. Cooper here interrupted ) He tells me the passage is there, and when I discover a passage having an opposite meaning, he "a;ks me where ' it is. You first quoted the passage which you say is in J^'ato, and f • it is for you to point it out. Mr. Cooper : I don’t know what you are talking about. Mr. Bradlaugh : You soon will know what I am talking about if you are indecent enough to continually interrupt. If i you do not begrudge me this last speech, at least keep quiet. If > 1 �63 fifty-nine years have not taught you the advantage of imitating younger men by listening patiently to opposite opinions, such a lesson may be taught you here to-night. Mr. Cooper: Hold your impudence. (Loud cries of “Keep your temper.”) r Mr. Bradlaugh: With regard to the agricultural population, that of England would be as little likely to preserve and read the works of Paine or of Cobbett, as were the agriculturists of the South of France to read works that were not recognised by the Roman Catholic Church. I submit that no greater illustration in favour of my friend could be drawn from the conduct of the agriculturists in France, than I could draw, on the contrary, from the agricultural population in this country, and even in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, where the people are ignorant in the extreme, many of them in these enlightened days being unable to read or write. They have plenty of clergymen—* take Harwich and for miles round, it is a place where you will find, an agricultural population as ignorant, as pious, and as poor as any in England. Our friend again appealed to conscience, without having devoted one thought to the way in which he accounted for conscience. Never having permitted himself to explain one of the points challenged by me, he talks about conscience as if it had never been referred to in my speeches. Feeling that his posi­ tion was weak, and knowing that he had made nothing of it, he comes to the old and oft-tried death-bed argument to frighten those whom he cannot convince. (Cheers.) I ask you, will you think yourselves the better men that you are frightened into this conscience dogma, which you could not reasonably believe, and which you are asked to accept from fear, though you rejected it when you said there was not evidence enough to convince you ? When he thus deals with death-beds, is it, does he think, to have some effect on the conclusion of the debate ? If he search for death­ bed arguments, he may find enough for his own refutation. He has appealed to the cross, and I accept his challenge, and ask him what were the dying words of Christ himself? “ My God! my God ! why hast thou forsaken me ?” If he who claimed to be God and man was so deserted in his dying moments, what hope ? Better recommend salvation by your own manly thought your own efforts for the development of human hap­ piness. My friend says that morality used to be taught in this room when he was here, and implies that the reverse is now the case. What call you morality ? Is that a moral act which tends to the greatest happiness of the greatest number according to the knowledge of the actor ? No other definition can you give. I challenge all of you who stand before me whether in every lecture, teaching, or preaching by me—if you will have it so, whether the burthen of my lecture has not been the inculcation of morality ? j �64 c II 3 s' t t S n b b d> v I tj S< tl V C( v> g tl Hi C ft r< ci P al T h W h d J it •' it The Freethinkers have not fallen away from the cause of truth and morality. When you presume to deal with myself and my audience her -, as if we were schoolboys still and you teacher, you should be prepared with solid instruction as justification for your presumption, and when you wish men not to laugh at you, you should have some reason better than your age—something more argumentative than impudence. You should, at least, km w better what you are talking about. (Loud cries of question, question, hear, hear, and cheers.) When the construction of terms is referred to, and you tell me more than twice that you do •«. not understand the difference between sequence and command, I am obliged to tell you that you do not understand the commonest rudimeuts of language, and are unfitted to conduct a grave discussion ; and when 5 ou say you “ never did say so and so,” that you have a short nn mory. I can only add that you are either unable to argue at ail, or you are disingenuously concealing what you know would be fatal to your position. (Cheers.) There has not been, I repeat, an attempt by you at logic or argument. How is it that the friends whom I saw around Mr. Cooper last night have this evening fled from his flag ? I saw la^t evening, and I was pleased to see sitting on that side, men of intellect, men of talent—equal to the task of weighing the force of an argument, addressed to them, and. knowing the exact value of words. How is it that they were brought here to wait on victory, but have not returned here to witness the fray, now the hope for victory has become defeat ? Is it because there was not on the part of the Chr.stian advocate even the shadow of a pretence of having advanced any­ thing in favour of his side the question ? It is because they came here seeking in me one who was, as you have declared, too igno­ rant to meet you, but notwithstanding I am now here to fulfil my part, and show that even my ignorance transcends your knowledge. " Mr. Cooper : Is that argument ? Mr Bradlaugh : I know it is not argument, but it is as good argument as “gibberish;” it is as good argument and quite as forcible as the “ impudence,” or that you did not come here to meet Charles Bradlaugh; that you are not to be answered because you are fifty-nine years of age. It would have been better for both of us to have discussed carefully, and to have reasoned together step by step till we reached the height of this great argument which, deserves great discussion; but when an attempt is made to override discussion, I am obliged to turn round, and to show thecause of such hardiness which lies either in his utter inability or his desire to avoid the question altogether. (Cheers). I leave the matter in your hands. I admit that I am not the ablest or the fittest represen­ tative the Freethought party might have put forward. But although I am not the best I have honestly upheld the principles �/ -of those who trusted their cause to me, and if I have failed, I have failed in consequence of the weakness of th* advocate; but you, with the cause of God on your side, and boasting of your great intellect, you thinking you had only a poor piece of igno­ rance to combat—I say you have only made a shadow of a de­ fence. On your side has been all the pretence. I remember when at the Wigan Hail, at the U. P. Kirk, Glasgow, at Man­ chester, and here you refused to meet me. (Loud cries of question, question, cheers, and hisses ) Why, there is not a shred of the question left. (Great cheering.) I say again it was in the public Hall at Wigan, it was in the U. P. Kirk, Glasgow, in this Hall of Science, in the chapel at Manchester, that you told me I was too ignorant to be met, that I could not understand the meaning of a&s® AStow, I words. We have to-night an illustration of your learning when, sdj .hi ■_ I in the language most commonly spoken throughout Europe and edF I the world, we hear the word p'ere (father) pronounced pary rfjae^ I (laughter), proving the extent of your erudition. It would have been improper for me to deal with this stupid blunder if he had not been used to boast of the acquisition of fourteen lan­ guages, and summoned the world as scholars to hear his champion ■wnttw’ | lectures. Are you then the Christian who placards the walls of r*®?drio I cities professing to meet all Freethinkers in England with a view 3V!TOOtjf’ | to convert their doubts ? Are you^ar excellence the person who &MT«Sif': I has read every book carefully to find evidence and argument for sow -sift I the existence of God, who claim to be teacher and preacher of ■shgfirf-9- I Christian doctrine, bridging over centuries of history with irre­ f4d;«»S# | fragable evidences ? It is to be hoped that when it is necessary i ,m»* o* I to find a champion for the tottering orthodoxy and an argument MOV-S^Ilf I in favour of a blind belief, some abler representative will be found i .atflWB by the Christian body to whom to trust the marshalling of its forces for another defeat. ----- o----a .tM . Mr. Bradlaugh sat down amidst loud cheering, which was re­ newed again and again. This concluded the discussion, and a yyMhi'dT formal vote of thanks having been passed to the chairman, the meeting separated. ^aimp �’T- APPENDIX* e f j ( 1 * t 5 d S 1 J 3 ft rl c P a £ . n hd dj| it|j A PLEA FOR ATHEISM, CrTTLESPiE says that £*an Atheist propagandist seems a non* descript monster created by nature in a moment of madness.” Despite this opinion, it is as the propagandist of Atheism that I pen the following lines, in the hope that I may succeed in removing some few of the many prejudices which have been created against not only the actual holders of Atheistic opinions, but also against those wrongfully suspected of entertaining such ideas. Men who have been famous for depth of thought, for excellent wit, or great genius, have been recklessly assailed as Atheists, by those who lacked the high qualifications against which the spleen of the calumniators was directed. Thus, not only has Voltaire been without ground accused of Atheism, but Bacon, Locke, and Bishop Berkeley himself, have, amongst others, been denounced by thoughtless or unscrupulous pietists as inclining to Atheism, the ground for the accusation being that they manifested an inclination to improve human thought. It is too often the fashion with persons of pious reputation to speak in unmeasured language of Atheism as favouring immorality, and of Atheists as men whose conduct is necessarily vicious, and who have adopted atheistic views as a desperate defiance against a Deity justly offended by the ‘ badness of their lives. Such persons urge that amongst < the proximate causes of Atheism are vicious training, im- ■ ; moral and profligate companions, licentious living, and the < like. Dr. John Pye Smith, in his “ Instructions on Christian Theology,” goes so far as to declare that“ nearly all the Atheists upon record have been men of extremely debauched and vile conduct.” Such language from the Christian advocate is not surprising, but there are others who, professing great desire , the spread of Ereethought, �A PLEA FOR ATHEISM. . : ■ r 3 and with pretensions to rank amongst acute and liberal thinkers, declare Atheism impracticable, and its teachings cold, barren, and negative. In this brief essay I shall except to each of the above allegations, and shall en­ deavour to demonstrate that Atheism affords greater possi­ bility for human happiness than any system yet based on Theism, or possible to be founded thereon, and that the lives of true Atheists must be more virtuous, because more human, than those of the believers in Deity, the humanity of the devout believer often finding itself neutralised by a faith with which it is necessarily in constant collision. The devol ee piling the faggots at the auto da fe of an heretic, and that heretic his son, might, notwithstanding, be a good father in every respect but this. Heresy, in the eyes of the believer, is highest criminahty, and outweighs all claims of family or affection. Atheism, properly understood, is in nowise a cold, barren negative; it is, on the contrary, a hearty, fruitful affirmation of all truth, and involves the positive assertion and action of highest humanity. Let Atheism be fairly examined, and neither condemned —its defence unheard—on the ex parte slanders of the professional preachers of fashionable orthodoxy, whose courage is bold enough while the pulpit protects the sermon, but whose valour becomes tempered with discretion when a free platform is afforded and discussion claimed ; nor misjudged because it has been the custom to regard Atheism as so unpopular as to render its advocacy impolitic. The best policy against all prejudice is to assert firmly the verity. The Atheist does not say “ There is no God,” but he says, “ I know not what you mean by God; I am without idea of God ; the word ‘ God ’ is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and the conception of which, by its affirmer, is so imperfect that he is unable to define it to me.” If you speak to the Atheist of God as creator, he answers that the conception of creation is impossible. We are utterly unable to construe it in thought as possible that the complement of existence has been either increased or diminished, much less can we con­ ceive an absolute origination of substance. We cannot con­ ceive either, on the one hand, nothing becoming something, ■■ . - ’ �A PLEA FOR ATHEISM. or oil the other, something becoming nothing. The Theist who speaks of God creating the universe, must either sup­ pose that Deity evolved it out of himself, or that he pro­ duced it from nothing. But the Theist cannot regard the ■ universe as evolution of Deity, because this would identify Universe and Deiiy, and be Pantheism rather than Theism. There would be no distinction of substance—in fact no crea1 tion. Nor can the Theist regard the universe as created out of nothing, because Deity is, according to him, necessa­ rily eternal and infinite. His existence being eternal and infinite, precludes the possibility of the conception of vacuum to be filled by the universe if created. No one can even think of any point of existence in extent or duration and say, here is the point of separation between the creator and the created. Indeed, it is not possible for the Theist to imagine a beginning to the universe. It is not possible to conceive either an absolute commencement, or an absolute termination of existence; that is, it is impossible to con­ ceive beginning before which you have a period when the universe has yet to be; or to conceive an end, after which the universe, having been, no longer exists. It is impos­ sible in thought to originate or annihilate the universe. The Atheist affirms that he cognises to-day effects, that these are at the same time causes and effects—causes to the effects they precede, effects to the causes they follow. Cause is simply everything without which the effect would not result, and with which it must result. Cause is the means to an end, consummating itself in that end. The Theist who argues for creation must assert a point of time, that is, of duration, when the created did not yet exist. At this point of time either something existed or nothing;, but something must have existed, for out of nothing no­ thing can come. Something must have existed, because the point fixed upon is that of the duration of something. This something must have been either finite or infinite if finite, it could not have been God, and if the something were infinite, then creation was impossible, as it is impos­ sible to add to infinite existence. j If you leave the question of creation and deal with the ‘ government of the universe, the difficulties of Theism are ? by no means lessened. The existence of evil is then a terrible stumbling-block to the Theist. Pain, misery, �A PLEA FOR ATHEISM. crime, poverty, confront the advocate of eternal goodness,, and challenge with unanswerable potency his declaration of Deity as all-good, all-wise, and all-powerful. Evil is either caused by God, or exists independently; but it cannot be caused by God, as in that case he would not be all-good; nor can it exist independently, as in that case he would nofe be all-powerful. Evil must either have had a beginning, or it must be eternal; but, according to the Theist, it can­ not be eternal, because God alone is eternal. Nor can it have had a beginning, for if it had it must either have ori­ ginated in God, or outside God; but, according to the Theist, it cannot have originated in God, for he is all-good, and out of all-goodness evil cannot originate; nor can evil have originated outside God, for, according to the Theist, God is infinite, and it is impossible to go outside of or beyond infinity. To the Atheist this question of evil assumes an entirely different aspect. He declares that evil is a result, but not a result from God or Devil. He affirms that by conduct founded on knowledge of the laws of existence it is possible to ameliorate and avoid present evil, and, as our knowledge increases, to prevent its future recurrence. Some declare that the belief in God is necessary as a check to crime. They allege that the Atheist may commit murder, lie, or steal without fear of any consequences. To try the actual value of this argument, it is not unfair to ask—Do Theists ever steal? If yes, then in each such theft, the belief in God and his power to punish has been inefficient as a preventive of the crime. Do Theists ever lie or mur­ der ? If yes, the same remark has further force—hell-fire fail­ ing against the lesser as against the greater crime. The fact is that those who use such an argument overlook a great truth—i.e., that all men seek happiness, though in very diverse fashions. Ignorant and miseducated men often mistake the true path to happiness, and commit crime in the endeavour to obtain it. Atheists hold that by teaching mankind the real road to human happiness, it is possible to keep them from the by-ways of criminality and error. Atheists would teach men to be moral now, not because God offers as an inducement reward by and by, but because in the virtuous act itself immediate good is ensured to the doer and the circle surrounding him. Atheism would preserve �A. PLEA FOR ATHEISM. man from lying, stealing, murdering now, not from fear of an eternal agony after death, but because these crimes make this life itself a course of misery. While Theism, asserting God as the creator and governor - of the universe, hinders and checks man’s efforts by de. daring God’s will to be the sole directing and controlling j power, Atheism, by declaring all events to be in accordance with natural laws—that is, happening in certain ascertain­ able sequences — stimulates man to discover the best condi­ tions of life, and offers him the most powerful inducements to morality. While the Theist provides future happi­ ness for a scoundrel repentant on his death-bed, Atheism affirms present and certain happiness for the man who does his best to live here so well as to have little cause for re­ penting hereafter. Theism declares that God dispenses health and inflicts disease, and sickness and illness are regarded by the Theist as visitations from an angered Deity, to be borne with meek­ ness and content. Atheism declares that physiological knowledge may preserve us from disease by preventing our infringing the law of health, and that sickness results not as the ordinance of offended Deity, but from ill-ventilated dwellings and workshops, bad and insufficient food, exces­ sive toil, mental suffering, exposure to inclement weather, and the like—all these finding root in poverty, the chief source of crime and disease ; that prayers and piety afford no protection against fever, and that if the human being be kept without food he will starve as quickly whether he be Theist or Atheist, theology being no substitute for bread. J* * Iconoclast. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Discussion between Mr Thomas Cooper and Mr Charles Bradlaugh Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cooper, Thomas Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [London] Collation: 65, [5] p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Includes appendix: A plea for atheism / "Iconoclast" i.e. Charles Bradlaugh. (5 unnumbered pages at end). Annotations in pencil and crayon. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1864?] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N083 Subject The topic of the resource Atheism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Discussion between Mr Thomas Cooper and Mr Charles Bradlaugh), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Atheism God-Proof NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/e9d251061049dd89e1f0a5108bbb2bdd.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=lfCKFihEv%7EpJU0h7zkcxzEp4BM%7EHS%7EIbO8ICTPpsRG-LnesRUPgm%7El8IFq1s6zkwAflQPT22ZW3ayN3IpB7Kncxi9x4Rj6L7R4wi03fHnqsWq7dMpI8GS9LXQB7eDQ1Rzj9KqWMQ%7EgzaTG6Z44aJpnOvcOXq7p0HYUs4%7EY%7ES5ltKWRquVioHlj5YLIPgraHpNXkXKCGytmtnoH1LNIvtnTUPj9N%7EvP3z5WsnlthLjxwUx5UmPW2zVwKdCZoCZNa6HptHpfvWtRiEpNzkhb0xr14aFGSOCHcekSruDP-OuGybfHv8I2qaZuztb2c45fv1doowFVS2E25IIML8Afz39w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 5c69a8d9d69e624f857e13aba9b1728b PDF Text Text NATIONAL secular society HUMANITY’S GAIN from UNBELIEF. BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. [Reprinted from the “North American Review” of March, 1889.J LONDON: •FREETHOUGrHT PUBLISHING- 63 FLEET STREET, E.C. 1 8 8 9. PRICE TWOPENCE. COMPANY, �LONDON : PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH, 63 ELEET STREET, E.C. �HUMANITY’S GAIN FROM UNBELIEF. As an unbeliever, I ask leave to plead that humanity has been real gainer from scepticism, and that the gradual and growing rejection of Christianity—like the rejection of the faiths which preceded it—has in fact added, and Will add, to man’s happiness and well being. I maintain that in physics science is the outcome of scepticism, and that general progress is impossible without scepticism on matters of religion. I mean by religion every form of belief which accepts or asserts the supernatural. I write as a Monist, and use the word “nature ” as meaning all phenomena, every phenomenon, all that is necessary for the happening of any and every phenomenon. Every religion is constantly changing, and at any given time is the measure of the civilisation attained by what Guizot described as theywszte milieu of those who profess it. Each religion is slowly but certainly modified in its dogma and practice by the gradual development of the peoples amongst whom it is professed. Each discovery destroys in whole or part some theretofore cherished belief. No religion is suddenly rejected by any people ; it is rather gradually out-grown. None see a religion die ; dead religions are like dead languages and obsolete customs; the decay is long and—like the glacier march—is only perceptible to the careful watcher by comparisons extending over long periods. A superseded religion may often be traced in the festivals, ceremonies, and dogmas of the religion which has replaced it. Traces of obsolete religions may often be found in popular customs, in old wives’ stories, and in children’s tales. �4 humanity’s GAIN FROM UNBELIEF. It is necessary, in order that my plea should be under­ stood, that I should explain what I mean by Christianity ; and in the very attempt at this explanation there will, I think, be found strong illustration of the value of unbelief, Christianity in practice may be gathered from its more ancient forms, represented by the Roman Catholic and the Greek Churches, or from the various churches which have grown up in the last few centuries. Each of these churches calls itself Christian. Some of them deny the right of the others to use the word Christian. Some Christian churches treat, or have treated, other Christian churches as heretics or unbelievers. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants in Great Britain and Ireland have in turn been terribly cruel one to the other; and the ferocious laws of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, enacted by the English Protestants against English and Irish Papists, are a disgrace to civilisation. These penal laws, enduring longest in Ireland, still bear fruit in much of the political mischief and agrarian crime of to-day. It is only the tolerant indifference of scepticism that, one after the other, has repealed most of the laws directed by the Established Christian Church against Papists and Dissenters, and also against Jews and heretics. Church of England clergymen have in the past gone to great lengths in denouncing non­ conformity ; and even in the present day an effective sample of such denunciatory bigotry may be found in a sort of orthodox catechism written by the Rev. F. A. Gace, of Great Barling, Essex, the popularity of which is vouched by the fact that it has gone through ten editions. This catechism for little children teaches that “ Dissent is a great sin ”, and that Dissenters “ worship God according to their own evil and corrupt imaginations, and not ac­ cording to his revealed will, and therefore their worship is idolatrous ”. Church of England Christians and Dissent­ ing Christians, when fraternising amongst themselves, often publicly draw the line at Unitarians, and positively deny that these have any sort of right to call themselves Christians. In the first half of the seventeenth century Quakers were flogged and imprisoned in England as blasphemers ; and the early Christian settlers in New England, escaping from the persecution of Old World Christians, showed scant mercy to the followers of Fox and Penn. It is �humanity’s gain from unbelief. 5 customary, in controversy, for those advocating the claims of Christianity, to include all good done by men in nomi’ nally Christian countries as if such good were the result of Christianity, while they contend that the evil which exists prevails in spite of Christianity. I shall try to make out that the ameliorating march of the last few centuries has been initiated by the heretics of each age, though I quite concede that the men and women denounced and per­ secuted as infidels by the pious of one century, are fre­ quently claimed as saints by the pious of a later genera­ tion. What then is Christianity ? As a system or scheme of doctrine, Christianity may, I submit, not unfairly be gathered from the Old and New Testaments. It is true that some Christians to-day desire to escape from submis­ sion to portions, at any rate, of the Old Testament; but this very tendency seems to me to be part of the result of the beneficial heresy for which I am pleading. Man’s humanity has revolted against Old Testament barbarism; and therefore he has attempted to disassociate the Old Testa­ ment from Christianity. Unless Old and New Testaments are accepted as God’s revelation to man, Christianity has no higher claim than any other of the world’s many religions, if no such claim can be made out for it apart from the Bible. And though it is quite true that some who deem themselves Christians put the Old Testament completely in the background, this is, I allege, because they are out-growing their Christianity. Without the doctrine of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, Christianity, as a religion, is naught; but unless the story of Adam’s fall is accepted, the redemption from the consequences of that fall cannot be believed. Both in Great Britain and in the United States the Old and New Testaments are forced on the people as part of Christianity; for it is blasphemy at common law to deny the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be of divine authority; and such denial is punishable with fine and imprisonment, or even worse. The rejection of Christianity intended throughout this paper, is therefore the rejection of the Old and New Testaments as being of divine revelation. It is the rejection alike of the authorised teachings of the Church of Rome and of the Church of England, as these may be found in the Bible, the creeds, the encyclicals, �6 HUMANITY S GAIN FKOM UNBELIEJ’. the prayer book, the canons and homilies of either or both of these churches. It is the rejection of the Christianity of Luther, of Calvin, and of Wesley. A ground frequently taken by Christian theologians is that the progress and civilisation of the world are due to Christianity; and the discussion is complicated by the fact that many eminent servants of humanity have been nominal Christians, of one or other of the sects. My allegation will be that the special services rendered to human progress by these exceptional men, have not been in consequence of their adhesion to Christianity, but in spite of it; and that the specific points of advantage to human kind have been in ratio of their direct opposition to precise Biblical enactments. A. S. Farrar says1 that Christianity “ asserts authority over religious belief in virtue of being a supernatural communication from God, and claims the right to control human thought in virtue of possessing sacred books, which are at once the record and the instrument of the communi­ cation, written by men endowed with supernatural inspira­ tion ”. Unbelievers refuse to submit to the asserted authority, and deny this claim of control over human thought: they allege that every effort at freethinking must provoke sturdier thought. Take one clear gain to humanity consequent on unbelief, i.e., in the abolition of slavery in some countries, in the abolition of the slave trade in most civilised countries, and in the tendency to its total abolition. I am unaware of any religion in the world which in the past forbade slavery. The professors of Christianity for ages supported it; the Old Testament repeatedly sanctioned it by special laws ; the New Testament has no repealing declaration. Though we are at the close of the nineteenth century of the Christian era, it is only during the past three-quarters of a century that the battle for freedom has been gradually won. It is scarcely a quarter of a century since the famous emancipa­ tion amendment was carried to the United States Constitu­ tion. And it is impossible for any well-informed Christian to deny that the abolition movement in North America was most steadily and bitterly opposed by the religious bodies in the various States. Henry Wilson, in his “Itise and 1 Farrar’s “ Critical History of Fieethought ”, �humanity’s GAIN from unbelief. 7 Fall of the Slave Power in America ” ; Samuel J. May, in his “Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict ” ; and J. Greenleaf Whittier, in his poems, alike are witnesses that the Bible and pulpit, the Church and its great influence, were used against abolition and in favor of the slave­ owner. I know that Christians in the present day often declare that Christianity had a large share in bringing about the abolition of slavery, and this because men pro­ fessing Christianity were abolitionists. I plead that these so-called Christian abolitionists were men and women whose humanity, recognising freedom for all, was in this in direct conflict with Christianity. It is not yet fifty years since the European Christian powers jointly agreed to abolish the slave trade. What of the effect of Christianity on these powers in the centuries which had preceded ? The heretic Condorcet pleaded powerfully for freedom whilst Christian France was still slave-holding. For many centuries Christian Spain and Christian Portugal held slaves. Porto Rico freedom is not of long date; and Cuban emancipation is even yet newer. It was a Christian King, Charles 5th, and a Christian friar, who founded in Spanish America the slave trade between the Old World and the New. For some 1800 years, almost, Christians kept slaves, bought slaves, sold slaves, bred slaves, stole slaves. Pious Bristol and godly Liverpool less than 100 years ago openly grew rich on the traffic. During the ninth century Greek Christians sold slaves to the Saracens. In the eleventh century prostitutes were publicly sold as slaves in Rome, and the profit went to the Church. It is said that William Wilberforce, the abolitionist, was a Christian. But at any rate his Christianity was strongly diluted with unbelief. As an abolitionist he did not believe Leviticus xxv, 44-6; he must have rejected Exodus xxi, 2-6 ; he could not have accepted the many permissions and injunctions by the Bible deity to his chosen people to capture and hold slaves. In the House of Commons on 18th February, 1796, Wilberforce reminded that Christian assembly that infidel and anarchic France had given liberty to the Africans, whilst Christian and monarchic England was “obstinately continuing a system of cruelty and injustice”. Wilberforce, whilst advocating the abolition of slavery, found the whole influence of the English Court, and the �8 HUMANITY S GAIN FBOM UNBELIEF. great weight of the Episcopal Bench, against him. George III, a most Christian king, regarded abolition theories with abhorrence, and the Christian House of Lords was utterly opposed to granting freedom to the slave. When Christian missionaries some sixty-two years ago preached to Demerara negroes under the rule of Christian England, they were treated by Christian judges, holding commission from Christian England, as criminals for so preaching. A Christian commissioned officer, member of the Established Church of England, signed the auction notices for the sale of slaves as late as the year 1824. In the evidence before a Christian court-martial, a missionary is charged with having tended to make the negroes dissatisfied with their condition as slaves, and with having promoted discontent and dissatisfaction amongst the slaves against their lawful masters. For this the Christian judges sentenced the Demerara abolitionist missionary to be hanged by the neck till he was dead. The judges belonged to the Estab­ lished Church ; the missionary was a Methodist. In this the Church of England Christians in Demerara were no worse than Christians of other sects : their Boman Catholic Christian brethren in St. Domingo fiercely attacked the Jesuits as criminals because they treated negroes as though they were men and women, in encouraging “two slaves to separate their interest and safety from that of the gang ”, whilst orthodox Christians let them couple pro­ miscuously and breed for the benefit of their o wners like any other of their plantation cattle. In 1823 the Royal Gazette (Christian) of Demerara said : “We shall not suffer you to enlighten our slaves, who are by law our property, till you can demonstrate that when they are made religious and knowing they will continue to be our slaves.” When William Lloyd Garrison, the pure-minded and most earnest abolitionist, delivered his first anti-slavery address in Boston, Massachusetts, the only building he could obtain, in which to speak, was the infidel hall owned by Abner Kneeland, the “infidel” editor of the Boston Investigator, who had been sent to gaol for blasphemy. Jlvery Christian sect had in turn refused Mr. Lloyd Garri­ son the use of the buildings they severally controlled. |jloyd Garrison told me himself how honored deacons of �humanity’s GAIN UHOM UNBELIEF. 9 a Christian Church, joined in an actual attempt to hang him. When abolition was advocated in the United States in 1790, the representative from South Carolina was able to plead that the Southern clergy “did not condemn either slavery or the slave trade ” ; and Mr. Jackson, the repre­ sentative from Georgia, pleaded that “from Genesis to Revelation ” the current was favorable to slavery. Elias Hicks, the brave Abolitionist Quaker, was denounced as an Atheist, and less than twenty years ago a Hicksite Quaker was expelled from one of the Southern American Legislatures, because of the reputed irreligion of these abolitionist “ Friends ”. When the Fugitive Slave Law was under discussion in North America, large numbers of clergymen of nearly every denomination were found ready to defend this infamous law. Samuel James May, the famous aboli­ tionist, was driven from the pulpit as irreligious, solely because of his attacks on slaveholding. Northern clergy­ men tried to induce “silver tongued” Wendell Philips to abandon his advocacy of abolition. Southern pulpits rang with praises for the murderous attack on Charles Sumner. The slayers of Elijah Lovejoy were highly reputed Christian men. Guizot, notwithstanding that he tries to claim that the •Church exerted its influence to restrain slavery, says (“European Civilisation”, vol. i., p. 110) : “It has often been repeated that the abolition of slavery among modern people is entirely due to Christians. That, I think, is saying too much. Slavery existed for a long period in the heart of Christian society, without its being particularly astonished or irritated. A multitude of causes, and a great development in other ideas and principles of civilisation, were necessary for the abolition of this iniquity of all iniquities.” And my contention is that this “development in other ideas and principles of civilisation ” was long retarded by Governments in which the Christian Church was dominant. The men who advocated liberty were imprisoned, racked, and burned, so long as the Church was strong enough to be merciless. The Rev. Francis Minton, Rector of Middlewich, in his recent earnest volume1 on the struggles of labor, admits 1 “ Capital and Wages”, p. 19. �10 humanity’s gain from unbelief. that “ a few centuries ago slavery was acknowledged throughout Christendom to have the divine sanction.......... Neither the exact cause, nor the precise time of the decline of the belief in the righteousness of slavery can be defined. It was doubtless due to a combination of causes, one probably being as indirect as the recognition of the greater economy of free labor. With the decline of the belief the abolition of slavery took place.” The institution of slavery was actually existent in Christian Scotland in the 17th century, where the white coal workers and salt workers of East Lothian were chattels, as were their negro brethren in the Southern States thirty years since; they “ went to those who succeeded to the property of the works, and they could be sold, bartered, or pawned”? “There is”, says J. M. Robertson, “no trace that the Protestant clergy of Scot­ land ever raised a voice against the slavery which grew up before their eyes. And it was not until 1799, after republican and irreligious France had set the example, that it was legally abolished.” Take further the gain to humanity consequent on the unbelief, or rather disbelief, in witchcraft and wizardry. Apart from the brutality by Christians towards those suspected of witchcraft, the hindrance to scientific initia­ tive or experiment was incalculably great so long as belief in magic obtained. The inventions of the past two centuries, and especially those of the 18th century, might have benefitted mankind much earlier and much more largely, but for the foolish belief in witchcraft and the shocking ferocity exhibited against those suspected of necromancy. After quoting a large number of cases of trial and punish­ ment for witchcraft from official records in Scotland, J. M. Robertson says: “The people seem to have passed from cruelty to cruelty precisely as they became more and more fanatical, more and more devoted to their Church, till after many generations the slow spread of human science began to counteract the ravages of superstition, the clergy resist­ ing reason and humanity to the last ”. The Rev. Mr. Minton1 concedes that it is “ the advance 2 of knowledge which has rendered the idea of Satanic 1 “ Perversion of Scotland,” p. 197. 2 “ Capital and Wages ”, pp. 15, 16. �HUMANITY S GAIN FROM UNBELIEF. 11 agency through the medium of witchcraft grotesquely ridiculous”. He admits that “ for more than 1500 years the belief in witchcraft was universal in Christendom ”, and that “ the public mind was saturated with the idea of Satanic agency in the economy of nature ”. He adds: “ If we ask why the world now rejects what was once so unquestioningly believed, we can only reply that advancing knowledge has gradually undermined the belief ”. In a letter recently sent to the Pall Mall Gazette against modern Spiritualism, Professor Huxley declares, “that the older form of the same fundamental delusion—the belief in possession and in witchcraft—gave rise in the fifteenth,, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries to persecutions by Chris­ tians of innocent men, women, and children, more extensive, more cruel, and more murderous than any to which the Christians of the first three centuries were subjected by the authorities of pagan Borne.” And Professor Huxley adds : “No one deserves much blame for being deceived in these matters. We are all intellectually handicapped in youth by the incessant repetition of the stories about possession and witchcraft in both the Old and the New Testaments. The majority of us are taught nothing which will help us to observe accurately and to interpret observations with due caution.” The English Statute Book under Elizabeth and under James was disfigured by enactments against witchcraft passed under pressure from the Christian churches, which Acts have only been repealed in consequence of the disbelief in the Christian precept, ‘1 thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”. The statute 1 James I, c. 12, condemned to death “all persons invoking any evil spirits, or con­ sulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feed­ ing, or rewarding any evil spirit ”, or generally practising any “infernal arts”. This was not repealed until the eighteenth century was far advanced. Edison’s phono­ graph would 280 years ago have insured martyrdom for its inventor; the utilisation of electric force to transmit messages around the world would have been clearly the practice of an infernal art. At least we may plead that unbelief has healed the bleeding feet of science, and made the road free for her upward march. �12 humanity’s gain from unbelief. Is it not also fair to urge the gain to humanity which has been apparent in the wiser treatment of the insane, consequent on the unbelief in the Christian doctrine that these unfortunates were examples either of demoniacal possession or of special visitation of deity? For centuries under Christianity mental disease was most ignorantly treated. Exorcism, shackles, and the whip were the penalties rather than the curatives for mental maladies. From the heretical departure of Pinel at the close of the last century to the position of Maudsley to-day, every step illustrates the march of unbelief. Take the gain to humanity in the unbelief not yet complete, but now largely preponderant, in the dogma that sickness, pesti­ lence, and famine were manifestations of divine anger, the results of which could neither be avoided nor pre­ vented. The Christian Churches have done little or nothing to dispel this superstition. The official and authorised prayers of the principal denominations, even to-day, reaffirm it. Modern study of the laws of health, experiments in sanitary improvements, more careful applications of medical knowledge, have proved more efficacious in preventing or diminishing plagues and pestilence than have the intervention of the priest or the practice of prayer. Those in England who hold the old faith that prayer will suffice to cure disease are to-day termed “peculiar people”, and are occasionally indicted for manslaughter when their sick children die, because the parents have trusted to God instead of appealing to the resources of science. It is certainly a clear gain to astronomical science that the Church which tried to compel Galileo to unsay the truth has been overborne by the growing unbelief of the age, even though our little children are yet taught that Joshua made the sun and moon stand still, and that for Hezekiah the sun-dial reversed its record. As Buckle, arguing for the morality of scepticism, says1 : “ As long as men refer the movements of the comets to the immediate finger of God, and as long as they believe that an eclipse is one of the modes by which the deity expresses his anger, they will never be guilty of the blasphemous presump­ tion of attempting to predict such supernatural appearances. 1 “ History of Civilisation,’’ vol. i, p. 345. �HUMANITY S GAIN FROM UNBELIEF. 13 Before . they could dare to investigate the causes of these mysterious phenomena, it is necessary that they should believe, or at all events that they should suspect, that the phenomena themselves were capable of being explained by the human mind.” As in astronomy so in geology, the gain of knowledge to . humanity has been almost solely in measure of the rejection of the Christian theory. A century since it was almost universally held that the world was created 6,000 years ago, or at any rate, that by the sin of the first man, Adam, death commenced about that period. Ethnology and Anthropology have only been possible in so far as, adopting the regretful words of Sir W. Jones, “intelligent and virtuous persons are inclined to doubt the authenticity of the accounts delivered by Moses concerning the primi­ tive world ”. Surely it is clear gain to humanity that unbelief has sprung up. against the divine right of kings, that men no longer believe that the monarch is “God’s anointed” or that “the powers that be are ordained of God”. In the struggles for political freedom the weight of the Church was mostly thrown on the side of the tyrant. The homilies of the Church of England declare that “even the wicked rulers have their power and authority from God ”, and. that “such subjects as are disobedient or rebellious against their princes disobey God and procure their own damnation ”. It can scarcely be necessary to argue to the citizens of the United States of America that the origin of their liberties was in the rejection of faith in the divine right of George III. Will any one, save the most bigoted, contend that it is not . certain gain to humanity to spread unbelief in the terrible doctrine that eternal torment is the probable fate of the great majority of the human family? Is it not gain to have diminished the faith that it was the duty of the wretched and the miserable to be content with the lot in life which providence had awarded them ? If it stood alone it would be almost sufficient to plead as justification for heresy the approach towards equality and liberty for the utterance of all opinions achieved because of growing unbelief. At one period in Christendom each Government acted as though only one religious faith could be true, and as though the holding, or at any rate the �14 humanity’s gain from unbelief. making known, any other opinion was a criminal act deserving punishment. Under the one word “ infidel”, even as late as Lord Coke, were classed together all who were not Christians, even though they were Mahommedans, Brahmins, or Jews. All who did not accept the Christian faith were sweepingly denounced as infidels and therefore //ors de la loi. One hundred and forty-five years since, the Attorney-General, pleading in our highest court, said1 : “What is the definition of an infidel? Why, one who does not believe in the Christian religion. Then a Jew is an infidel.” And English history for several centuries prior to the Commonwealth shows how habitually and most atrociously Christian kings, Christian courts, and Christian churches, persecuted and harassed these infidel Jews. There was a time in England when Jews were such infidels that they were not even allowed to be sworn as witnesses. In 1740 a legacy left for establishing an assembly for the reading of the Jewish scriptures was held to be void2 because it was “ for the propagation of the Jewish law in contradiction to the Christian religion”. It is only in very modern times that municipal rights have been accorded in England to Jews. It is barely thirty years since they have been allowed to sit in Parliament. In 1851, the late Mr. Newdegate in debate3 objected “that they should have sitting in that House an individual who regarded our Redeemer as an impostor”. Lord Chief Justice Raymond has shown4 how it was that Christian intolerance was gradually broken down. “A Jew may sue at this day, but heretofore he could not; for then they were looked upon as enemies, but now commerce has taught the world more humanity.” Lord Coke treated the infidel as one who in law had no right of any kind, with whom no contract need be kept, to whom no debt was payable. The plea of alien infidel as answer to a claim was actually pleaded in court as late as 1737.5 In a solemn judgment, Lord Coke says6: “ All infidels are in law perpetui inimici; for between them, as 1 Omychund v. Barker, 1 Atkyns 29. 2 D’Costa v. D’Pays, Arab. 228. 3 3 Hansard cxvi. 381. 4 1 Lord Raymond’s reports 282, Wells v. Williams. 5 Ramkissenseat v Barker, 1 Atkyns 51. 6 7 Coke’s reports, Calvin’s case. �humanity’s gain from unbelief. 15 with, the devils whose subjects they be, and the Christian, there is perpetual hostility ”. Twenty years ago the law of England required the writer of any periodical publica­ tion or pamphlet under sixpence in price to give sureties for £800 against the publication of blasphemy. I was the last person prosecuted in 1868 for non-compliance with that law, which was repealed by Mr. Gladstone in 1869. Up till the 23rd December, 1888, an infidel in Scot­ land was only allowed to enforce any legal claim in court on condition that, if challenged, he denied his infidelity. If he lied and said he was a Christian, he was accepted, despite his lying. If he told the truth and said he was an unbeliever, then he was practically an outlaw, incompetent to give evidence for himself or for any other. Fortunately all this was changed by the Royal assent to the Oaths Act on 24th December. Has not humanity clearly gained a little in this struggle through unbelief ? For more than a century and a-half the Roman Catholic had in practice harsher measure dealt out to him by the English Protestant Christian, than was even during that period the fate of the Jew or the unbeliever. If the Roman Catholic would not take the oath of abnegation, which to a sincere Romanist was impossible, he was in effect an outlaw, and the “jury packing” so much com­ plained of to-day in Ireland is one of the habit survivals of the old bad time when Roman Catholics were thus by law excluded from the j ury box. The Scotsman of January 5th, 1889, notes that in 1860 the Rev. Dr. Robert Lee, of Grey friars, gave a course of Sunday evening lectures on Biblical Criticism, in which he showed the absurdity and untenableness of regarding every word in the Bible as inspired ; and it adds : “We well remember the awful indignation such opinions inspired, and it is refreshing to contrast them with the calm­ ness with which they are now received. Not only from the pulpits of the city, but from the press (misnamed religious) were his doctrines denounced. And one eminent U.P. minister went the length of publicly praying for him, and for the students under his care. It speaks volumes for the progress made since then, when we think in all probability Dr. Charteris, Dr. Lee’s successor in the chair, differs in his teaching from the Confession of Faith much more widely than Dr. Lee ever did, and yet he is considered supremely orthodox, whereas the stigma of heresy was attached to the other all his life.” �16 humanity’s gain from unbelief. And this change and gain to humanity is due to the gradual progress of unbelief, alike inside and outside the Churches. Take from differing Churches two recent illustrations: The late Principal Dr. Lindsay Alexander, a strict Calvinist, in his important work on “ Biblical Theology”, claims that “ all the statements of Scripture are alike to be deferred to as presenting to us the mind of God ”. Yet the Rev. Dr. of Divinity also says: “We find in their writings [i.e., in the writings of the sacred authors] statements which no ingenuity can reconcile with what modern research has shown to be the scientific truth— i.e., we find in them statements which modern science proves to be erroneous.” At the last Southwell Diocesan Church of England Con­ ference at Derby, the Bishop of the Diocese presiding, the Rev. J. G. Richardson said of the Old Testament that “ it was no longer honest or even safe to deny that this noble literature, rich in all the elements of moral or spiritual grandeur, given—so the Church had always taught, and would always teach—under the inspiration of Almighty God, was sometimes mistaken in its science, was sometimes inaccurate in its history, and sometimes only relative and accommodatory in its morality. It assumed theories of the physical world which science had abandoned and could never resume; it contained passages oi narrative which devout and temperate men pronounced dis­ credited, both by external and internal evidence; it praised, or justified, or approved, or condoned, or tolerated, conduct which the teaching of Christ and the conscience of the Christian alike condemned.” Or, as I should urge, the gain to humanity by un­ belief is that “the teaching of Christ ” has been modi­ fied, enlarged, widened, and humanised, and that “the conscience of the Christian ” is in quantity and quality made fitter for human progress by the ever increasing additions of knowledge of these later and more heretical days. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Humanity's gain from unbelief Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Reprinted from the North American Review of March 1889. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Freethought Publishing Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1889 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N095 Subject The topic of the resource Atheism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Humanity's gain from unbelief), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Atheism NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/ad2e5247ae1649781210545c1cdfd2ae.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=RK18ES4hy1Sb%7EviKeOqry7MMIg0fcpZ7%7EAiZmcpNFGLQQJdqrWmHPQxXxlj-9p78Nta5Lg1JXxBB6bXJ2Zf1cFlCDL1QNxvF6O0SzgxCj%7EWeN4OBP-oBBypKeHxY6F%7EZMkL%7E0en3ttj5QdDA0fxcTOSY8IY6RxsTLDyibh1Kik0n4zhMEhLKNN%7ERWa68B39y2s-EhGr0C5Sg77w8hFthXu9jwPqUaIQSLUge%7EoIkKyu0OErt1m59i6WGydtmZSp44O926ZgodSUYfEOiMZwccIoD3Kn1fvv1BTjU%7ECvCgoKJ%7Ec3kk7MVZEosf9XvJPEnYrsMTNq-xWKFJc68ULQUiA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM b8ee05afcc4f58f1591070a4d60fe6be PDF Text Text NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY IS THERE A GOD? By CHARLES BRADLAUGH. The initial difficulty is in defining the word “ God ”. It is equally impossible to intelligently affirm or deny any pro­ position unless there is at least an understanding, on the part of the affirmer or denier, of the meaning of every word used in the proposition. To me the word “God” standing alone is a word without meaning. I find the word repeatedly used even by men of education and refine­ ment, and who have won reputation in special directions of research, rather to illustrate their ignorance than to ex­ plain their knowledge. Various sects of Theists do affix arbitrary meanings to the word “ God ”, but often these meanings are in their terms self-contradictory, and usually the definition maintained by one sect of Theists more or less contradicts the definition put forward by some other sect. With the Unitarian Jew, the Trinitarian Christian, the old Polytheistic Greek, the modern Universalist, or the Calvinist, the word “God” will in each case be intended to express a proposition absolutely irreconcilable with those of the other sects. In this brief essay, which can by no means be taken as a complete answer to the question which forms its title, I will for the sake of argument take the explanation of the word “God” as given with great carefulness by Dr. Robert Elint, Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh, in two works directed by him against Atheism. He defines God (“ Antitheistic Theories,” p. 1,) as “a supreme, self-existent, omnipotent, omniscient, righteous and benevolent being who is dis­ tinct from and independent of what he has created ” ; and (“Theism”, p. 1,) as “a self-existent, eternal being, in­ finite in power and wisdom, and perfect in holiness and goodness, the maker of heaven and earth”; and (p. 18,) “the creator and preserver of nature, the governor of nations, the heavenly father and judge of man ” ; (p. 18,) �2 IS THERE A GOD ? “ one infinite personal ” ; (p. 42,) “ the one infinite being ” who “is a person—is a free and loving intelligence”; (p. 59,) “the creator, preserver, and ruler of all finite beings”; (p. 65,) “not only the ultimate cause, but the supreme intelligence”; and (p. 74,) “the supreme moral intelligence is an unchangeable being”. That is, in the above statements “ God” is defined by Professor Flint to be : M supreme, self-existent, the one infinite, eternal, omni­ potent, omniscient, unchangeable, righteous, and benevolent, per­ sonal being, creator and preserver of nature, maker of heaven and earth ; who is distinct from and independent of what he has created, who is a free, loving, supreme, moral intelligence, the governor of nations, the heavenly father and judge of man. The two volumes, published by William Blackwood and Son, from which this definition has been collected, form the Baird Lectures in favor of Theism for the years 1876 and 1877. Professor Flint has a well-deserved reputation as a clear thinker and writer of excellent ability as a Theistic advocate. I trust, therefore, I am not acting unfairly in criticising his definition. My first objection is, that to me the definition is on the face of it so self-contradictory that a negative answer must be given to the question, Is there such a God ? The association of the word “ supreme ” with the word “ infinite ” as descriptive of a “ personal being ” is utterly confusing. “Supreme” can only be used as expressing comparison between the being to whom it is applied, and some other being with whom that “ supreme ” being is assumed to have possible points of comparison and is then compared. But “ the one infinite being ” cannot be compared with any other infinite being, for the wording of the definition excludes the possibility of any other infinite being, nor could the infinite being—for the word “one” may be dispensed with, as two infinite beings are unthink­ able—be compared with any finite being. “ Supreme” is an adjective of relation and is totally inapplicable to “the infinite”. It can only be applied to one of two or more finites. “Supreme” with “omnipotent” is pleonastic. If it is said that the word “supreme” is now properly used to distinguish between the Creator and the created, the governor and that which is governed, then it is clear that the word “supreme” would have been an inappli­ cable word of description to “theone infinite being ” prior to creation, and this would involve the declaration that the �IS THERE A GOD? 3 exact description of the unchangeable has been properly changed, which is an absurdity. The definition affirms “creation”, that is, affirms “ God” existing prior to such creation—i.e., then the sole existence; but the word “ supreme ” could not then apply. An existence cannot be described as “highest” when there is none other ; there­ fore, none less high. The word “ supreme” as a word of description is absolutely contradictory of Monism. Yet Professor Flint himself says (“Anti-Theistic Theories”, p. 132), “ that reason, when in quest of an ultimate expla­ nation of things, imperatively demands unity, and that only a Monistic theory of the universe can deserve the name of U philosophy ”. Professor Flint has given no explanation of the meaning he attaches to the word “ self-existent ”. Nor, indeed, as he given any explanation of any of his words of description. By self-existent I mean that to which you cannot conceive antecedent. By “infinite” I mean immeasurable, illimitable, indefinable ; i.e., that of which I cannot predicate extension, or limitation of extension. By ‘(eternal ” I mean illimitable, indefinable, i.e., that of which I cannot predicate limitation of duration or progression of duration. “ Nature ” is with me the same as “ universe ”, the same as “ existence ”; i.e., I mean by it: The totality of all phenomena, and of all that has been, is, or may be neces­ sary for the happening of each and every phsenomenon. It is from the very terms of the definition, self-existent, eternal, infinite. I cannot think of nature commencement, discon­ tinuity, or creation. I am unable to think backward to the possibility of existence not having been. I cannot think forward to the possibility of existence ceasing to be. I have no meaning for the word “ create ” except to denote change of condition. Origin of “universe” is to me absolutely unthinkable. Sir William Hamilton (“ Lectures and Dis­ cussions,” p. 610) affirms: that when aware of a new ap­ pearance we are utterly unable to conceive that there has originated any new existence ; that we are utterly unable to think that the complement of existence has ever been either increased or diminished; that we can neither conceive no­ thing becoming something, or something becoming nothing. .Professor Flint’s definition affirms “God ” as existing “ dis­ tinct from, and independent of, what he has created ”. But what can such words mean when used of the “ infinite ? ” �IS THERE A GOD ? Does “distinct from” mean separate from? Does the “ universe ” existing distinct from God mean in addition to ? and in other place than ? or, have the words no meaning ? Of all words in Professor Flint’s definition, which would be appropriate if used of human beings, I mean the same as I should mean if I used the same words in the highest possible degree of any human being. Here I maintain the position taken by John Stuart Mill in his examination of Sir W. Hamilton (p. 122). Righteous­ ness and benevolence are two of the words of descrip­ tion included in the definition of this creator and governor of nations. But is it righteous and benevolent to create men and govern nations, so that the men act crimi­ nally and the nations seek to destroy one another in war? Professor Flint does not deny (“Theism,” p. 256) “ that God could have originated a sinless moral system”, and he adds: “I have no doubt that God has actually made many moral beings who are certain never to oppose their own wills to his, or that he might, if he had so pleased, have created only such angels as were sure to keep their first estate ”. But it is inaccurate to describe a “ God ” as right­ eous or benevolent who, having the complete power to originate a sinless moral system, is admitted to have origi­ nated a system in which sinfulness and immorality were not only left possible, but have actually, in consequence of God’s rule and government, become abundant. It cannot be righteous for the “omnipotent” to be making human beings contrived and designed by his omniscience so as to be fitted for the commission of sin. It cannot be benevo­ lent in “ God ” to contrive and create a hell in which he is to torment the human beings who have sinned because made by him in sin. “ God ”, if omnipotent and omnis­ cient, could just as easily, and much more benevolently, have contrived that there should never be any sinners, and, therefore, never any need for hell or torment. The Bev. B. A. Armstrong, with whom I debated this question, says:— “ ‘Either,’ argues Mr. Bradlaugh, in effect, ‘God could make a world without suffering, or he could not. If he could and did not, he is not all-good. If he could not, he is not all-powerful.’ The reply is, What do you mean by all-powerful? If you mean having power to reconcile things in themselves contradictory, we do not hold that �IS THERE A GOD ? 5 God is all-powerful. But a humanity, from the first en­ joying immunity from suffering, and yet possessed of no­ bility of character, is a self-contradictory conception.” That is, Mr. Armstrong thinks that a “sinless moral system from the first is a self-contradictory conception ”. It is difficult to think a loving governor of nations arranging one set of cannibals to eat, and another set of human beings to be eaten by their fellow-men. It is im­ possible to think a loving creator and governor contriving a human being to be born into the world the pre-natal victim of transmitted disease. It is repugnant to reason to affirm this “free loving supreme moral intelligence” planning and contriving the enduring through centuries of criminal classes, plague-spots on civilisation. The word “unchangeable ” contradicts the word “ crea­ tor”. Any theory of creation must imply some period when the being was not yet the creator, that is, when yet the creation was not performed, and the act of creation must in such case, at any rate, involve temporary or permanent change in the mode of existence of the being creating. So, too, the words of description “governor of nations” are irreconcileable with the description “un­ changeable ”, applied to a being alleged to have existed prior to the creation of the “nations”, and therefore, of course, long before any act of government could be exercised. To speak of an infinite personal being seems to me pure contradiction of terms. All attempts to think “person” involve thoughts of the limited, finite, conditioned. To describe this infinite personal being as distinct from some thing which is postulated as “what he has created” is only to emphasise the contradiction, rendered perhaps still more marked when the infinite personal being is described as “intelligent”. The Rev. R. A. Armstong, in a prefatory note to the report of his debate with myself on the question “Is it reasonable to worship God?”, says: “I have ventured upon alleging an intelligent cause of the pheonomena of the universe, in spite of the fact that in several of his writings Mr. Bradlaugh has described intelligence as im­ plying limitations. But though intelligence, as known to us in man, is always hedged within limits, there is no diffi­ culty in conceiving each and every limit as removed. In �6 IS THERE A GOD? that case the essential conception of intelligence remains the same precisely, although the change of conditions revolutionises its mode of working.” This, it seems to me, is not accurate. The word intelligence can only be accurately used of man, as in each case meaning the totality of mental ability, its activity and result. If you eliminate in each case all possibilities of mental ability there is no “conception of intelligence” left, either essential or otherwise. If you attempt to remove the limits, that is the organisation, the intelligence ceases to be thinkable. It is unjustifiable to talk of “ change of conditions ” when you remove the word intelligence as a word of application to man or other thinking animal, and seek to apply the word to the unconditionable. As an Atheist I. affirm one existence, and deny the possi­ bility of more than one existence; by existence meaning, as I have already stated, “the totality of all pheenomena, and of all that has been, is, or may be necessary for the happening of any and every pluenomenon ”. This exist­ ence I know in its modes, each mode being distinguished in thought by its qualities. By “mode” I mean each cognised condition; that is, each pheenomenon or aggre­ gation of phenomena. By “quality” I mean each charac­ teristic by which in the act of thinking I distinguish. The distinction between the Agnostic and the Atheist is that either the Agnostic postulates an unknowable, or makes a blank avowal of general ignorance. The Atheist does not do either; there is of course to him much that is yet unknown, every effort of inquiry brings some of this within reach of knowing. With “the unknowable” con­ ceded, all scientific teaching would be illusive. Every real scientist teaches without reference to “God” or “the unknowable ”. If the words come in as part of the yesterday habit still clinging to-day, the scientist conducts his experiments as though the words were not. Every operation of life, of commerce, of war, of statesmanship, is dealt with as though God were non-existent. The general who asks God to give him victory, and who thanks God for the conquest, would be regarded as a lunatic by his Theistic brethren, if he placed the smallest reliance on God’s omnipotence as a factor in winning the fight. Cannon, gunpowder, shot, shell, dynamite, provision, men, horses, means of transport, the value of these all estimated, �IS THERE A GOD? 7 then the help of “ God ” is added to what is enough with­ out God to secure the triumph. The surgeon who in performing some delicate operation relied on God instead of his instruments—the physician who counted on the unknowable in his prescription—these would have poor clientele even amongst the orthodox; save the peculiar people the most pious would avoid their surgical or medical aid. The “God” of the Theist, the “unknowa­ ble” of the Agnostic, are equally opposed to the Atheistic affirmation. The Atheist enquires as to the unknown, affirms the true, denies the untrue. The Agnostic knows not of any proposition whether it be true or false. Pantheists affirm one existence, but Pantheists declare that at any rate some qualities are infinite, e.g., that existence is infinitely intelligent. I, as an Atheist, can only think qualities of phsenomena. I know each pheno­ menon by its qualities. I know no qualities except as the qualities of some phenomenon. So long as the word “ God ” is undefined I do not deny “ God”. To the question, Is there such a God as defined by Professor ..Plint, I am compelled to give a negative reply. If the word “ God ” is intended to affirm Dualism, then as a Monist I negate “ God ”. _ The attempts to prove the existence of God may be divided into three classes:—1. Those which attempt to prove the objective existence of God from the subjective notion of necessary existence in the human mind, or from the assumed objectivity of space and time, interpreted as the attributes of a necessary substance. 2. Those which *{ essay to prove the existence of a supreme self-existent cause, from the mere fact of the existence of the world by the application of the principle of causality, starting with the postulate of any single existence whatsoever, the world, or anything in the world, and proceeding to argue back­ wards or upwards, the existence of one supreme cause is held to be regressive inference from the existence of these effects”. But it is enough to answer to these attempts, that if a supreme existence were so demonstrable, that bare entity would not be identifiable with “God”. “A demonstration of a primitive source of existence is of no formal theological value. It is an absolute zero.” 3. The argument from design, or adaptation, in nature, the fitness of means to an end, implying, it is said, an �8 IS THERE A GOD? architect or designer. Or, from the order in the universe, indicating, it is said, an orderer or lawgiver, whose intelli­ gence we thus discern. But this argument is a failure, because from finite instances differing in character it assumes an infinite cause absolutely the same for all. Divine unity, divine per­ sonality, are here utterly unproved. 11 Why should we rest in our inductive inference of one designer from the alleged phenomena of design, when these are claimed to be so varied and so complex ? ” If the inference from design is to avail at all, it must avail to show that all the phenomena leading to misery and mischief, must have been designed and intended by a being finding pleasure in the production and maintenance of this misery and mischief. If the alleged constructor of the universe is supposed to have designed one beneficent result, must he not equally be supposed to have designed all results? And if the inference of benevolence and goodness be valid for some instances, must not the in­ ference of malevolence and wickedness be equally valid from others ? If, too, any inference is to be drawn from the illustration of organs in animals supposed to be specially contrived for certain results, what is the inference to be drawn from the many abortive and incomplete organs, muscles, nerves, etc., now known to be traceable in man and other animals ? What inference is to be drawn from each instance of deformity or malformation? But the argument from design, if it proved anything, would at the most only prove an arranger of pre-existing material; it in no sense leads to the conception of an originator of substance. There is no sort of analogy between a finite artificer arranging a finite mechanism and an alleged divine creator originating all existence. Brom an alleged product you are only at liberty to infer a producer after having seen a similar product actually produced. PRICE ONE PENNY. London: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh, 63, Fleet Street, London, E.C.—1887. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Is there a god? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [n.d.] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N096 Subject The topic of the resource Atheism God Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Is there a god?), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Atheism God NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/425147319123b75e45aacea1cab04313.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=Gmwx5pPaaZ8LBMMfdOFTeWeWG5xmtEFujSVUNVRxTxUCHUvLYs%7EBvyA8nk4%7EePOkiG2G%7EFqepRxb8YNGwVooP5pTg6GDnyOP%7EmKxOTcG8Fg2rhWGnub6roetOggTZ6ouP5WM6r5yEpuy3-j7DGtFMGK5isB-q6TRUK0Olb-zK-fnS4tB1IJ3QoOyWj%7E355Gn508dqgGLDHlXanL%7Er27ELzzGvund%7Ecz7iulWoN-Koe2e5Y2qDtVKQEDKxuj15P1%7ErMgq4JFQFOPBhgobU0ZKnz71GVq%7E3ea%7EMhS8FgDyXbf3TS8fBUAkRxh5iCS5OaPVISJKZ7HFS1UKnPU-CslAvw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 8177eb544bfab33763c540e0b3799ed8 PDF Text Text LABOURS PRAYER. BY C. BBADLAUGH. “ Give us thisday our daily bread ” is the entreaty addressed by the tiller of the soil to the “ Otr Father,” who has pro­ mised to answer prayer. And what answer cometh from heaven to this the bread winner’s petition? Walk amongst the cotton workers of Lancashire, the clothweavers of Yorkshire, the Durham pit men, the Staffordshire puddlers, the Cornish miners, the London dock labourers, go any­ where where hands are roughened with toil, where foreheads are bedewed with sweat of work, and see the Lord’s res­ ponse to the prayer, the fatlrer’s answer to his children! The only bread they get is the bread they take; in their hard struggle for life-sustenance, the loaves come but slowly, and heaven adds not a crust, even though the worker be hungry, when he rises from his toil-won meal. Not even the sight of pale faced wife, and thin forms of half starved infants can move to generosity the Ruler of the world. The labourer may pray, but, if work be scant and wages low, he pines to death while praying. His prayer gives no relief, and misery’s answer is the mocking echo to his demand. It is said by many a pious tongue that God helps the poor; the wretchedness of some of their hovel houses, found, alas ! too often in the suburbs of our wealthiest cities, grimy, black, squalid, and miserable; the threadbare raggedness of their garments ; the unwholesomeness of the food they eat; the poisoned air they breathe in their narrow wynds and filthy alleys; all these tell how much God helps the poor. Do you want to see how God helps the poor ? go into any police court when some little child-thief is brought up for �2 labour’s prayer. hearing; see him shoeless, with ragged trousers, thread» bare, grimy, vest, hardly hanging to his poor body, shirt that seems as though it never could have been white, skin dull brown with dirt, hair innocent of comb or brush, eye ignorantly, sullenly-defiant, yet downcast; born poor, born wretched, born in ignorance, educated amongst criminals, crime the atmosphere in which he moved ; and society, his nurse and creator, is now virtuously aghast at the depra­ vity of this its own neglected nursling, and a poor creature whom God alone hath helped. Go where the weakly wife in a narrow room huddles herself and little children day after day : and where the husband crowds in to lie down at night: they are poor and honest, but their honesty bars not the approach of disease, fever, sorrow, death—God helps not the line of health to their poor wan cheeks. Go to the country workhouse in which is temporarily housed the worn out farm labourer, who, while strength enough re­ mained, starved through weary years with wife and several children on eight shillings per week—it is thus God helps the poor. And the poor are taught to pray for a continu­ ance of this help, and to be thankful and content to pray that to-morrow may be like to-day, thankful that yester­ day was no worse than it was, and content to-day is as good as it is. Are there many repining at their miseries, the preacher, with gracious intonation, answers rebukingly that God, in his wisdom, has sent these troubles upon them as chastisement for their sins. So, says the church, all are sinners, rich as well as poor, but rich sinners feel the chastising rod is laid more lightly on their backs than it is upon those of their meaner brethren. Week-day and Sunday it is the same contrast; one wears fustian, the other broadcloth, one prepares for heaven in the velvet cushioned pew, the other on the wooden benches of the free seats. In heaven it will be different—all there above are to wear crowns of gold and fine linen, and, therefore, here below the poor man is to be satisfied with the state of life into which it has pleased God to call him. The pastor who tells him this, looks upon the labourer as an inferior �LABOUR. S PRAYER. S animal, and the labourer by force of habit regards the great landowner and peer, who patronises his endeavours, as a being of a superior order. Is there no new form of prayer that labour might be taught to utter, no other power to ■which his petition might be addressed ? Prayer to the un­ known for aid gives no strength to the prayer. In each beseeching, he loses dignity and self-reliance, he trusts to he knows not what, for an answer which cometh, he knows ■not when, and mayhap may never come at all. Let labour pray in the future in another fashion and at another altar. Let labourer pray to labourer that each may know labour’s rights, and be able to fulfil labour’s duties. The size of the loaf of daily bread must depend on the amount of the daily wages, and the labourer must pray for better wages. But his prayer must take the form of earnest, educated en­ deavour to obtain the result desired. Let workmen, in­ stead of praying to God in their distress, ask one another why are wages low? how can wages be raised? can we raise our own wages? having raised them, can we keep them fixed at the sum desired ? what causes produce a rise and fall in wages ? are high wages beneficial to the labourer ? These are questions the pulpit has no concern with. The reverend pastor will tell you that the “ wages of sin is death,” and will rail against “filthy lucrebut he has no incli­ nation for answering the queries here propounded. Why are wages low? Wages are low because the wage-winners crowd too closely. W ages are low because too many seek to share one fund. Wages are lower still because the . ’abourer fights against unfair odds; the laws of the country overriding the laws of humanity, have been enacted with­ out the labourer’s consent, although his obedience to them is enforced. The fund is unfairly distributed as well as too widely divided. Statutes are gradually being modified, and the working man may hope for ampler justice from the employer in the immediate future than was possible in the past, but high and healthy wages depend on the work­ ing man himself. Wages can be raised by the working classes exereising a moderate degree of caution in increase �4 LABOUR’S PRAYER. ing their numbers. Wages must increase when capital in­ creases more rapidly than population, and it is the duty of the working man, therefore, to take every reasonable pre­ caution to check the increase of population, and to accelerate the augmentation of capital. Can working-men, by combination, permanently raise the rate of wages ? One gentleman presiding at a meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science for the discussion of the labour question, very fairly said, “ It is not in the power of the men alone, or of the masters alone, or of both combined, to say what shall be the amount of wages at any particular time in any trade or country. The men and the masters are, at most, competitors for the division at a certain rate, of a certain fund, provided by [themselves and] others—that is, by the consumers. If that fund is small, no device can make the rate of profit or rate of wages higher.” This is in theory quite correct, if it means that no device can make the total divisible greater than it is, but not if it refers to the increase of profit or wages by partial distribution. In practice, although it is true that if the fund be small and the seekers to share it be many, the quotient to each must be necessarily very small, yet it is also true that a few of the competitors—i.e.t the capitalists, may and do absorb for their portions of profits an improper and unfairly large amount, thus still further reducing the wretchedly small pittance in any case receivable by the mass of labourers. It is warmly con­ tended that the capitalist and labourer contend for division of the fund appropriable in fair and open field; that the capitalist has his money to employ, the man his labour to sell ; that if workmen are in excess of the capitalist’s requirements, so that the labourer has to supplicate for employment, wages cannot rise, and will probably fall; but that if, on the contrary, capital has need to invite additional labourers, then wages must rise. That is the law of supply and demand brought prominently forward. In great part this is true, but it is not true that capital and labour com­ pete in fair and open field, any more than it is true that a< �labour’s prayer. yron-elad war vessel, with heavy ordnance, would compete in fair field with a wooden frigate, equipped with the materiel in use thirty years ago. Capital is gold-plated, and carries too many guns for unprotected labour. The intelligent capitalist makes the laws affecting master and servant, which the uneducated labourer must obey, but has no effective voice to alter. The capitalist forms the govern­ ment of the country, which in turn protects capital against labour; this government the labourer must sustain, and dares not modify. The capitalist does combine, and has combined, and the result of this combination has been an unfair appropriation of the divisible fund. Why should not the labourer combine also ? The answer is truly that no combination of workmen can increase the rate of wages, if at the same time the number of labourers increases more rapidly than the capital out of which their wages must be paid. But the men may combine to instruct one another in the laws of political economy; they may combine to apply their knowledge of those laws to the contracts be­ tween employer and employed. They may combine to compel the repeal of unjust enactments under which an un­ fair distribution of the labour fund is not only possible, but certain. Organisations of labourers are, therefore, wise and necessary: the object of such organisations should be the permanent elevation and enfranchisement of the mem­ bers. No combination of workmen, which merely dictates a temporary cessation from labour, can ultimately and per­ manently benefit the labourer; while it certainly imme­ diately injures him and deteriorates his condition, making his home wretched, his family paupers. Nor can even co­ operative combination, praiseworthy as it certainly is, to procure for the labourer a larger share of the profits of his labour, permanently benefit him, except in so far that temporarily alleviating his condition, and giving him lei­ sure for study, it enables him to educate himself: unless, at the same time, the co-operator is conscious that the in­ crease or reduction in the amount of wages depends entirely on the ratio of relation preserved between population and �labour’s prayer. its means of subsistence, the former always having a tendency to increase more rapidly than the latter. It is with the problem of too many mouths for too little bread that the labourer has really to deal: if he must pray, it should be for more bread and for fewer mouths. The answer often given by the workman himself to the advocate of Malthusian views is, that the world is wide enough for all, that there are fields yet tfnploughed broad enough to bear more corn than man at present could eat, and that there is neither too little food, nor are there too many mouths ; that there is, in fact, none of that over-population with which it is sought to affright the working-man. Over-population in the sense that the whole world is too full to contain its habitants, or that it will ever become too full to contain them, is certainly a fallacy, but over-population is a lamentable truth in its relative sense. We find evidences of over-population in every old country of the world. The test of over-population is the existence of povei’ty, squalor, wretchedness, disease, ignorance, misery, and crime. Low rate of wages, and food dear, here you have two certain indices of relative over­ population. Wages depending on the demand for and supply of labourers, wherever wages are low it is a certain sign that there are too many candidates for employment in that phase of the labour market. The increased cost of pioduction of food, and its consequent higher price, also mark that the cultivation has been forced by the numbers of the people to descend to less productive soils. Poverty is the test and result of over-population. It is not against some possible increase of their numbers, which may produce possibly greater affliction, that the working men are entreated to agitate. It is against the _ existing evils which afflict their ranks, evils alleged by sound students of political economy to have already resulted from inattention to the population question, that the ener­ gies of the people are sought to be directed. The operation . the law of population has been for centuries entirely agnoie by those who have felt its adverse influence most severely. It is only during the last thirty years that any �labour’s prayer. pf the working classes have turned their attention to the question; and only during the last few years that it has been to any extent discussed amongst them. Yet all the prayers that labour ever uttered since the first breath of human life, have not availed so much for human happiness as will the earnest examination by one generation of this,; the greatest of all social questions, the root of all political problems, the foundation of all civil progress. Poor—man must be wretched. Poor—he must be ignorant. Poor— he must be criminal: and poor he must be till the cause of poverty has been ascertained by the poor man himself, and its cure planned by .the poor man’s brain, and effected by the poor man’s hand Outside his own rank none can save the poor. Others may show him the abyss, b ut he must avoid its dangerous brink himself. Others may point out to him the chasm, but he must build his own bridge over. Labour’s prayer must be to labour’s head for help from labour’s hand to strike the blow that severs labour’s chain, and terminates the too long era of labour’s suffering. During the last few years our daily papers, and various periodicals, magazines, and reviews have been more fre­ quently, and much less partially, devoted than of old to the discussion of questions relating to the labourer’s condition, and the means of ameliorating it. In the Legislative As­ sembly debates have taken place which would have been impossible fifty years since. Works on political economy are now more easily within the reach of the working man than they were some few years ago. People’s editions are now published of treatises on political economy which half a century back the people were unable to read. It is now possible for the labourer, and it is the labourer’s duty, to make himself master of the laws which govern the produc­ tion and distribution of wealth. Undoubtedly there is much grievous wrong in the mode of distribution of wealth, by which the evils that afflict the poorest strugglers are often specially and tenfold aggravated. The monopoly of land, the serf state of th$ labourer, are points requiring �iiABOtritsr PAAYEte. energetic agitation. The grave and real question is, ho^S ever, that which lies at the root of all, the increase of wealth as against the increase of those whom it subsists. The leaders of the great trades’ unions of the country, if hey really desire to permanently increase the happiness of the classes amongst whom they exercise influence, can speedily promote this object by encouraging their members to discuss freely the relations of labour to capital; not moving in one groove, as if labour and capital were neces­ sarily antagonistic, and that therefore labour must always have rough-armed hand to protect itself from the attacks of capital; but, taking new ground, to inquire if labour and capital are bound to each other by any and what ties, ascer­ taining if the share of the labourer in the capital fund depends, except so far as affected by inequality in distribu­ tion, on the proportion between the number of labourers and the amount of the fund. The discussing, examining, and dealing generally with these topics, would necessarily compel the working man to a more correct appreciation of his position. Any such doctrine as that ‘ ‘ the poor shall never cease out of the landor that we are to be content with the station in life into which it has pleased God to call us ; or that we are to ask and we shall receive, must no longer avail. Schiller most effectively answers the advocates of prayer— “ Help, Lord, help ! Look with pity down! A paternoster pray; What God does, that is justly done, His grace endures for aye.” u Oh, mother! empty mockery, God hath not justly dealt by me: Have I not begged and prayed in vain; What boots it now to pray again ?” Labour’s only and effective prayer must be in life action for its own redemption ; action founded on thought, crude thought, and sometimes erring at first, but ultimately developed into useful thinking, by much patient experi­ menting for the right and true* � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Labour's prayer Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Date of publication from the Selection of Bradlaugh's political pamphlets / John Saville (New York: 1970). Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1865] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N097 G5678 Subject The topic of the resource Labour Social problems Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Labour's prayer), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Labour Movement-England-History-19th Century Wages Working Classes https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/bf51d1fe908d7f25339604a28adf46e6.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=scCvnFvmDNkW8KiX-0r9qW-jzfNJV%7EG4cEmWdeKD73BHnPKlrG6IhXie%7EmBJ6l0097XuXizqEgq5XeXycWiUG5469KkscIleTYppFo7i%7EEboU3j31HeuK86V2RjF9cIhS3DtfnhF9aLZqPf5yCVNc-7gRyqrNO-Jj%7Ekw6e7p%7E0RQkommPH742Rx1%7ES0vIKLjrAnPcmxhCH%7EJoriS71PHHnR7ih2VWia4RWOJ5SDi8Qy2ejVpTcvDu3kdAGKZBAFJBjSBPSyP3MY69Cu%7EcK0iSGfmPCv4oukDG7RuTHTGGD4F%7Epea5lRE%7EwViYtDB6IZeV-uAOaH%7EbFCg6NE18zLMZw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 5fbc9e292c88dfe78331c2ddc850e248 PDF Text Text g X2^7 0 ?B NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY NEW LIFE OF DAVID. BY i CHARLES BRADLAUGH. [revised edition.] LONDON: FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING 63, FLEET STREET E.C. 1 8 8 4. PRICE TWOPENCE. COMPANY. �LONDON: PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH, 63, FLEET STREET, E.C. �NEW LIFE OF DAVID. -------------- _ In compiling a biographical account of any ancient per­ sonage, impediments often arise from the uncertainty, party bias, and prejudiced coloring of the various tra­ ditions out of which the biography is collected. Here no such obstacle is met with, no such bias can be imagined, for, in giving the life of David, we extract it from an all­ wise God’s perfect and infallible revelation to man, and thus are enabled to present it to our readers free from any doubt, uncertainty, or difficulty. There is perhaps the fear that the manner of this brief sketch may be adjudged to be within the operation of such common law as wisely protects the career of the saints from mere sinful common-sense criticism; but as the matter is derived from the authorised version for which England is in­ debted to James, of royal and pious memory, this new life of David may be safely left to the impartial judgment of Mr. Justice North, aided by the charitable and pious counsel of Sir Hardinge Giffard. The latter, who has had more than one criminal client for whom he has most ably pleaded, might be relied on to make out a strong, if not a good, case for punishing any one who is unfair to the man after God’s own heart. Mr. Justice Stephen has furnished me with some slight guide in his notice of Voltaire’s play called “ David ” :— “ It constitutes, perhaps, the bitterest attack on David’s character ever devised by the wit of man, but the effect is produced almost exclusively by the juxtaposition, with hardly any alteration, of a number of texts from different parts of David’s history. It would be a practical impossibility to charge a jury in such a case, so as to embody Lord Coleridge’s view of the law. The judge would have to say : “ It is lawful f.o say that David was a murderer, an adulterer, a treacherous �4 NEW LIFE OF DAVID. tyrant who passed his last moments in giving directions for assassinations; but you must observe the decencies of contro­ versy.. You must not arrange your facts in such a way as to mix ridicule with indignation, or to convey too striking a contrast between the solemn character of the documents from which the extracts are made, and the nature of the extracts themselves, and of the facts to which they relate.” It is in the spirit of this paragraph that I have penned the present life. The father of David was Jesse, an Ephrathite of Bethle­ hem Judah, who had either-eight sons, (1 Samuel c. xvi., w. 10 and 11, and c. xvii., v. 12), or only seven (1 Chronicles, c. ii., vv. 13 to 15), and David was either the eighth son or the seventh. Some may think this a difficulty, but such persons will only be those who rely on their own intellectual faculties, or who have been misled by arithmetic. If you are in any doubt, consult some qualified divine, and he will explain to you that there is really no difference be­ tween eight and seven when rightly understood with prayer and faith, by the help of the spirit. Arithmetic is an utterly infidel acquirement, and one which all true believers should eschew. The proposition that three times one are one is a fundamental article of the Christian faith. When young, David tended his father’s sheep, and apparently while so doing he gained a character for being cunning in playing, a mighty valiant man, a man of war and prudent in matters. He obtained his reputation as a soldier early and wonderfully, for he was “but a youth;” and God’s most holy word asserts that when going to fight with Goliath, he tried to walk in armor and could not, because he was not accustomed to it (1 Samuel c. xvii., v. 39 c. f. Douay version). Samuel shortly prior to this anointed David, who, while yet a lad, had been selected by the (Lord to be King of the Jews in place and stead of Saul, who had wickedly disobeyed the commands of the Lord, who in his infinite love and mercy had said (1 Sam., c. 15, v. 3): “ Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” Saul, however, behaved unrighteously, for he “ spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, i and of the failings, and the lambs, and all that was good, * and would not utterly destroy them.’’ This not unnaturally �NKW LIFE 01* DAVID. 5 irritated and annoyed the Lord. “ Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be King : for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments,” and the Lord bid Samuel fill a “horn with oil,” and sent Samuel, who anointed David the son of Jesse in the midst of his brethren, and the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. If a man takes to spirits his life will probably be one of vice, misery, and misfor­ tune ; and if spirits take to him, the result in the end is nearly the same. Every evil deed which the Bible records as having been done by David was after the spirit of the Lord had so come upon him. Saul being King of Israel, an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.. The devil has, it is said, no love for music, and Saul was recommended to have David to play on a harp, in order that harmony might drive this evil spirit back to the Lord who sent it. The Jew’s harp was played successfully, and Saul was often relieved from the evil spirit by David’s ministrations. There is nothing miraculous in this; at the People’s Concerts many a working man has beenrelieved from the “bluedevils” by a stirring chorus, a merry song, or patriotic anthem; and on the contrary many evil spirits have been aroused by the most unmusical performances of the followers of General Booth. David was appointed armor-bearer to the King; but curiously enough, this office does not appear to have interfered with his duties as a shepherd; indeed, the care of his father’s sheep took precedence over the care of the king’s armor, and in the time of war he “ went and returned to feed his father’s sheep.” Perhaps his ■“ prudence in matters ” induced him thus to take care of himself. A Philistine, one Goliath of Gath (whose height was six cubits and a span, or about nine feet six inches, at a low computation) had defied the armies of Israel. This Goliath was (to use the vocabulary of a reverend sporting corres­ pondent to a certain religious newspaper) a veritable cham­ pion of the heavy weights. He carried in all about two cwt. of offensive and defensive armor upon his person, and his challenge had great weight. None dared accept it amongst the soldiers of Saul until the arrival of David, who brought some food for his brethren. David volnnteered to fight the giant, but Elias, David’s brother, having �6 NEW LIFE OF DAVID. mocked the presumption of the offer, and Saul objecting’ that the venturesome lad was not competent to take part in a conflict so dangerous, David related how he pursued a n lion and a bear, how he caught him, by his beard and slew ' him. Which animal it was that David thus bearded the i text does not say. The Douay says it was “a lion or a bear.” To those who have chased the king of the.forests or studied the habits of bears, the whole story looks, on an attentive reading, “very like a whale.” David was permitted to fight the giant; his equipment was simple, a ) * sling and stones, and with these, from a distance, he slew the giant. Some suggest that the weapon Goliath fell under was the long bow. This suggestion is rendered pro­ bable by the book itself. One verse says that David slew the Philistine with a stone, another verse says that he slew him with the giant’s own sword, while in 2 Samuel c. xxi., v. 19, we are told that Goliath the^Gittife”was slain by Elhanan. Our translators, who have great regard for our faith and more for their pulpits, have kindly inserted the words “the brother of ” before Goliath. This emendation saves the true believer from the difficulty of understanding how Goliath of Gath could have been killed by different \ men at different times. David was previously well known to Saul, and was much loved and favored by that monarch. He was also seen by the king before he went forth to do battle with the gigantic Philistine. Yet (as if to verify the proverb that kings have short memories for their friends) Saul had forgotten his own armor-bearer and much-loved harpist, and ’was obliged to ask Abner who David was. Abner, captain of the king’s host, familiar with the person of the armor-bearer to the king, of course knew David well; he therefore answered: “As thy soul liveth, 0 king, I cannot tell.” David, having made known his parentage, was appointed to high command by Saul; but the Jewish women over-praised David, and thus dis­ pleased the king. One day the evil spirit from the Lord came upon Saul and he prophesied. Men often talk great nonsense under the influence of spirits, which they some­ times regret when sober. It is, however, an interesting4It tyl fact in ancient spiritualism to know that Saul prophesied I I with a devil in him. Under the joint influence of the devil i and prophecy, Saul tried to kill David with a javelin, and this was repeated, even after David had married the king’s �NEW LIFE OF DAVID. 7 daughter (whose wedding he had secured by the slaughter of two hundred men). Saul then asked his son and ser­ vants to kill David; but Jonathan, Said’s son, loved David, ‘ ‘ And Saul hearkened unto the voice of Jonathan: and Saul sware, As the Lord liveth, he shall not be slain.” It is interesting as showing the utility of oaths that after having thus sworn Said was more determined than ever to kill David. To save his own life David fled to Naioth, and Saul sent there messengers to arrest David; but three sets of the king’s messengers having in turn all become pro­ phets, Said went himself, and the spirit of the Lord came upon him also, and he stripped off his clothes and pro­ phesied as hard as the rest, “laying down naked all that day and all that night.” David lived in exile for some time in godly company, having collected round him every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented. Saul made several fruitless attempts.<to effect his capture, with no better result than that he twice placed himself in the power of David, who twice showed the mercy to a cruel king which he never conceded to an unoffending people. David having obtruded himself upon Achish, King of Gath, doubtful of his safety, feigned madness to cover his retreat. He then lived a precarious life, sometimes levying a species of black mail upon defence­ less farmers. Having applied to one farmer to make bim some compensation for permitting the farm to go unrobbed, and his demand not having been complied with, David, who is a man after the heart of God of mercy, immediately determined to murder the farmer and all his household for their wicked reluctance in submitting to his extortions. The wife of farmer Nabal compromised the matter. David '''accepted her person ” and ten days after Nabal was found dead in his bed. David afterwards went with 600 men and lived under the protection of Achish, King of Gath, and while thus residing (being the anointed one of God who says, “ Thou shalt not steal ”) he robbed the inhabitants of the surrounding places. Being also obedient to the statute, “Thou shall do no murder,” hs slaughtered, and left neither man nor woman alive to report his robberies to King Achish; and as he “ always walked in the ways ” of a God to whom “ lying lips are an abomination,” he made false reports to Achish in relation to his actions. Of �NEW LINE OF DAVID. course this was all for the glory of God, whose ways are not as our ways. Soon the Philistines were engaged in another of the constantly recurring conflicts with the Israelites. Who offered them the help of himself and band ? Who offered to make war on his own countrymen ? David, the man after God’s own heart, who obeyed God’s statutes and who walked in his ways, to do only that which was right in the sight of God. The Philistines rejected the traitor’s aid, and prevented the consnnmm.fion of this baseness. While David was making this un­ patriotic proffer of his services to the Philistines, his own city of Ziglag was captured by the Amalekites, who were doubtless endeavoring to avenge some of the most unjusti­ fiable robberies and murders perpetrated by David and his followers in their country. David’s own friends evidently thought that this misfortune was a retribution for David’s crimes, for they spoke of stoning him. The Amalekites had captured and carried off everything, but they do not seem to have maltreated or killed any of their enemies. David was less merciful. He pursued them, recaptured the spoil, and spared not a man of them, save 400 who escaped on camels. In consequence of the death of Saul, David was elevated to the throne of Judah, while Ishbosheth, a son of Saul, was made king of Israel. But Ishbosheth having been assassinated, David slew the assassins, when they, hoping for reward, brought him the news, and he reigned ultimately over Israel also. As religious readers are doubtless aware, the Lord God of Israel, after the time of Moses, usually dwelt on the top of an ark or box, between two figures of gold; and on one occasion David made a journey with his followers to Baal, to bring thence the ark of God. They placed it on a new cart drawn by oxen. On the journey the oxen stumbled, and consequently shook the cart. One of the drivers, whose name was Uzzah, possibly fearing that God might be tumbled to the ground, took hold of the ark, apparently in order to steady it, and prevent it from overturning. God, who is a God of love, was much displeased that any one should presume to do any such act of kindness, and killed Uzzah on the spot as a punishment for his sin. This shows that if a man sees the Church of God tumbling down, he should never try to prop it up; if it be not strong enough to save itself, the sooner it falls the better �NEW LIFE OF DAVID. 9 for humankind—that is, if they keep away from it while it is falling. David was much displeased that the Lord had killed Uzzah; in fact, David seems to have wished for a monopoly of slaughter, and always manifested dis­ pleasure when any killing was done unauthorised hy himself. Being displeased, David would not take the ark to Jerusalem, but left it in the house of Obed Edom; then, as the Lord proved more kind to Obed Edom than he had done to Uzzah, David determined to bring the ark away, and did so, dancing before the ark in a state of semi-nudity, for which he was reproached by Michal. Lord Campbell’s Act is intended to hinder the publication of indecencies, but the pages of the Book which the law affirms to be God’s most holy word do not come within the scope of the Act, and lovers of obscene language may therefore have legal gratification so long as the Bible shall exist. The God of Israel, who had been leading a wandering life for many years, and who had “walked in a tent and in a tabernacle,” and “from tent to tent,” and “from one tabernacle to another,” and “who had not dwelt in any house” since the time that he brought the Israelites out of Egypt, was offered “ an house for him to dwell in,” but he declined to accept it during the lifetime of David, although he promised to permit the son of David to erect him such an abode. David being now a powerful monarch, and having many wives and concubines, saw one day the beautiful wife of one of his soldiers. To see with this licentious monarch was to crave for the gratification of his lust. The husband Uriah was fighting for the king, yet David was base enough to steal his wife’s virtue during Uriah’s absence in the field of battle. “ Thou shalt not commit adultery ” was one of the commandments, yet we are told by God of this David, that he was one ‘ ‘ who kept my command­ ments, and who followed me with all his heart to do only that which was right in mine eyes” (1 Kings, c. xiv., v. 8). David having seduced the wife, sent for her husband, wishing to make him condone his wife’s dishonor. In modern England under a Stuart or a Brunswick, Uriah might have become a Marquis or a Baron. Some hold that virtue in rags is less worth than vice when coroneted. Uriah would not be thus tricked, and David, the pious David, coolly planned, and without mercy caused to be executed, the treacherous murder of Uriah. God is all­ �10 NEW LIFE OF DAVID. just; and David having committed adultery and murder, God punished and killed an innocent child, which had no part or share in David’s crime, and never chose that it should be born from the womb of Bathsheba. After this king David was even more cruel and merciless than before. Previously he had systematically slaughtered the inhabitants of Moab, now he sawed people with saws, cut them with harrows and axes, and made them pass through brick-kilns. Yet of this man, God said he “did that which was right in mine eyes.” So bad a king, so treacherous a man, a lover so inconstant, a husband so adulterous, was of course a bad father, having bad children. We are little surprised, therefore, to read that his son Amnon robbed of her virtue his own sister, David’s daughter Tamar, and that Amnon was afterwards slain by his own brother, David’s son Absalom, and we are scarcely astonished that Absalom himself, on the house-top, in the sight of all Israel, should complete his father’s shame by an act worthy a child of God’s select people. Yet these are God’s chosen race, and this is the family of the man “who walked in God’s ways all the days of his life.” God, who is all-wise and all-just, and who is not a man that he should repent, repented that he had made Saul’ king because Saul spared one man. In the reign of David the same good God sent a famine for three years on the descendants of Abraham, and upon being asked his reason for thus starving his chosen ones, the reply of the Deity was that he sent the famine on the subjects of David because Saul slew the Gibeonites. Satisfactory reason!—because Oliver Cromwell slew the Eoyalists, God will punish the subjects of Charles the Second. One reason is, to profane eyes, equivalent to the other, but a bishop or even a rural dean would soon show how remarkably God’s justice was manifested. David was not behindhand in justice. He had sworn to Said that he would not cut off his seed—2.0., that he would not destroy Saul’s family. He therefore took two of Saul’s sons, and five of Saul’s grandsons, and gave them up to the Gibeonites, who hung them. Strangely wonderful are the ways of the Lord! Saul slew the Gibeonites, therefore years afterwards God starves Judah. The Gibe­ onites hang men who have nothing to do with the crime of Saul, except that they are his descendants, and then we are told “the Lord was intreated for the land.” The �NEW LIFE OF DAVID. II anger of the Lord being kindled against Israel, he, want­ ing some excuse for punishing the descendants of Jacob, moved David to number his people. The Chronicles say that the tempter was Satan, and pious people may thus learn what there is of distinction between God and Devil. Philosophers would urge that both personifications are founded in the ignorance of the masses, and the continu­ ance of the myth will cease with the credulousness of the people. David caused a census to be taken of the tribes of Israel and Judah. There is a trival disagreement of about 270,000 soldiers between Samuel and Chronicles, but readers must not allow so slight an inaccuracy as this to stand between them and heaven. What are 270,000 men when looked at prayerfully ? That any doubt should arise is to a devout mind at the same time profane and preposterous. Statisticians suggest that 1,570,000 soldiers form a larger army than the Jews are likely to have possessed; but if God is omnipotent, there is no reason to limit his power of miraculously increasing or decreasing the armament of the Jewish nation. David, it seems, did wrong in numbering his people, but we are never told that he did wrong in robbing or murdering their neighbors, or in pillaging peaceful agriculturists. David said: “I have sinned,” and for this an all-merciful God brought a pesti­ lence on the people, and murdered 70,000 Israelites, for an offence which their ruler had committed. The angel who was engaged in this terrible slaughter stood some­ where between heaven and earth, and stretched forth his hand with a drawn sword to destroy Jerusalem itself; but even the bloodthirsty Deity of the Bible “repented him of the evil,” and said to the angel: “It is enough.” Many volumes might be written to answer the enquiries—where did the angel stand, and on what ? Of what metal was the sword, and where was it made ? As it was a drawn one, where was the scabbard ? and did the angel wear a sword-belt ? Examined in a pious frame of mind, much holy instruction may be derived from the attempt to solve these solemn problems. David now grows old and weak, and at last his deathhour comes. Oh! for the dying words of the Psalmist I What pious instruction shall we derive from the death-bed scene of the man after God’s own heart I Listen to the last words of Judah’s expiring monarch. You who have �12 NEW LIFE OF DAVID. been content with the pions frauds and forgeries perpe­ trated with reference to the death-beds and dying words of the great, the generous, the witty Voltaire; the manly, the self-denying, the incorruptible Thomas Paine; the humane, simple, child-like man, yet mighty poet, Shelley— you who have turned away from these with unwarranted horror—come with me to the death-couch of the special favorite of God. Bathsheba’s child stands by his side. Does any thought of the murdered Uriah rack old David’s brain, or has a tardy repentance effaced the bloody stain from the pages of his memory? What does the dying David say ? Does he talk of cherubs, angels and heavenly choirs ? Nay, none of these things passes his lips. Does he make a confession of his crime-stained life, and beg his son to be a better king, a truer man, a more honest citizen, a wiser father ? Nay, not so—no word of sorrow, no sign of regret, no expression of remorse or repentance escapes his lips. What does the dying David say ? This foul monster whom God has made king; this redhanded robber, whose life has been guarded by “our Father which art in Heaven; ” this perjured king, whose lying lips have found favor in the sight of God, and who, when he dies, is safe for Heaven. It is written: “ There shall be more joy in heaven before God over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine righteous men.” Does David repent ? Nay, like the ravenous wolf, which, tasting blood, is made more eager for the prey, he too yearns for blood; and with his dying breath begs his son to bring the grey hairs of two old men down to the grave with blood. And this is God’s anointed king, the chief one of God’s chosen people. The learned and pious Puffendorf explains that David having only sworn not himself to kill ‘Shimei (1 Kings ii. 8) there was no perjury on the part of David in persuad­ ing Solomon to contrive the killing from which David had sworn to personally abstain. David is alleged to have written several Psalms, but of this there is little evidence beyond pious assertion. In one of these the psalmist addresses God in pugilistic phrase°l°gy, praising Deity that he had smitten all his enemies on the cheek-bone, and broken the teeth of the ungodly. In these days when “muscular Christianity ” is not without advocates, the metaphor which presents God as a sort of �NEW LIFE OF DAVID. 13 magnificent Benicia Boy may find many admirers. In the eighteenth Psalm, David describes God as with “smoke coming out of his nostrils and fire out of his mouth,” by which “coals were kindled.” He represents God as coming down from heaven, and says: “he rode upon a cherub.” The learned Parkhurst gives a likeness of a one-legged, four-winged, four-faced animal, part lion, part bull, part eagle, part man, and if a cloven foot be any criterion, part devil also. This description, if correct, will give some idea to the faithful of the wonderful character of the equestrian feats of Deity. In addition to a cherub, God has other means of conveyance at his disposal, if David be not in error when he says that the chariots of the Lord are 20,000. In Psalm xxvi. the writer adds hypocrisy in addition to his other vices. He has the impudence to tell God that he has been a man of integrity and truth, and that he has avoided evil-doers, although, if we are to believe Psalm xxxviii., the hypocrite must have already been subject to a loathsome disease—a penalty consequent on his licentious­ ness and criminality. In another Psalm, David the liar tells God that “ he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight.” To understand David’s pious nature we must study his prayer to God against an enemy (Psalm cix., w. 6-14) : “ Set thou a wicked man over him; and let Satan stand at his right hand. When he shall be judged, let him be con­ demned : and let his prayer become sin. Let his days be few : and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be con­ tinually vagabonds, and beg : let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath ; and let the strangers spoil his labor. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him : neither let their be any to favor his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord; and let not the sin' of his mother be blotted out.” A full consideration of the life of David must give great help to the orthodox in promoting and sustaining faith. While spoken of by Deity as obeying all the statutes and keeping all the commandments, we are astonished to find that murder, theft, lying, adultery, licentiousness, and �14 NEW LIFE OF DAVID. treachery are amongst the crimes which may be laid, to his .charge. David was a liar, God is a God of truth ; David was merciless, God is merciful, and of long suffering; David was a thief, God says: “Thou shalt not steal;” David was a murderer, God says : ‘‘ Thou shalt do no mur­ der;” David took the wife of Uriah, and “ accepted” the wife of Nahal, God says : “ Thou shalt not covet thy neigh­ bor’s wife.” Yet, notwithstanding all these things, David was the man after God’s own heart! Had this Jewish monarch any redeeming traits in his character ? Was he a good citizen? If so, the Bible has carefully concealed every action which would entitle him to such an appellation. Was he a kind and constant husband ? To whom ? To which of his many wives and mistresses ? Was he grateful to those who aided him in his hour of need? Bather, like the serpent which, half-frozen by the wayside, is warmed into new life in the traveller’s breast, and then treacherously stings his succorer with his poisoned fangs, so David robbed and murdered the friends and allies of the King of Gath, who afforded him protection against the pursuit of Saul. Does his patriotism outshine his many vices ? Does his love of country efface his many misdoings ? Not even this. David was a heartless traitor who volun­ teered to serve against his own countrymen, and would have done so had not the Philistines rejected his treacherous help. Was he a good king? So say the priesthood now; but where is the evidence of his virtue ? His crimes brought plague and pestilence on his subjects, and his reign is a continued succession of wars, revolts, and assassinations, plottings and counterplots. The life of David is a dark blot on the page of human ’ history, fit in companionship for the biographies of Con­ stantine the Great and Henry VIII.; but it is through David that the genealogies of Jesus are traced, and with­ out David there would be no Christian faith. �Works sold by the Freetliought Publishing Com­ pany, 63, Fleet Street, London, E.C. Postage must be sent with Orders less than One Shilling in value. Cheques should be crossed “ London and South- Western Bank.” Bradlaugh., Charles—(See also Biternational Series.) Genesis : its Authorship and Authenticity. Cloth, gilt, pp. 341, 5s. The Freethinker’s Text-Book. Part I. Section I.—“ The Story of the Origin of Man, as told by the Bible and Science.” Sec­ tion II.—« What is Religion “ How has it Grown ?” “ God and Soul.” Bound in cloth, price 2s. 6d. Impeachment of the House of Brunswick. Ninth edition. Is. Political Essays. Bound in cloth, 2s. 6d. Theological Essays. Bound in cloth, 3s. Hints to Emigrants, containing important information on the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. Is. Debates—All Verbatim Reports. Four—with the Rev. Dr. Baylee, in Liverpool ■ the Rev. Dr. Harrison, in London ; Thomas Cooper, in London ; the Rev. R. A. Armstrong, in Nottingham; with Three Discourses by the Bishop of Peterborough, and Replies by C. Bradlaugh. Bound in one volume, cloth, 3s. What does Christian Theism Teach ? Two nights’ Public Debate with the Rev. A. J. Harrison. 6d. God, Man, and the Bible. Three nights’ Discussion, at Liverpool, with the Rev. Dr. Baylee. 6d. God as the Maker and Moral Governor of the Universe. Two nights’ Discussion with Thomas Cooper. 6d. Has Man a Soul ? Two nights’ Debate, at Burnley, with the Rev. W. M. Westerby. Is. Christianity in relation to Freethought, Scepticism, and Faith. Three Discourses by the Bishop of Peterborough, with Special Replies. 6d. Secularism Unphilosophical, Unsocial, and Immoral. Three nights’ Debate with the Rev. Dr. McCann. Is. Is it.Reasonable to Worship God ? Two nights’ Debate, at Not­ tingham, with the Rev. R. A. Armstrong. Is. �Bradlaugii, Charles {continued)—• Pamphlets— s. d. The True Story of my Parliamentary Struggle. Contain­ ing a Verbatim Report of the proceedings before the Select Committee of the House of Commons; Mr. Bradlaugh’s Three Speeches at the Bar of the House etc., etc. ... 0 & Fourth Speech at the Bar of the House of Commons. 30th Thousand ... ... ... ... ... 0 | May the House of Commons Commit Treason ? ... ... 0 £ Correspondence with Sir Stafford Northcote, M.P. ... 0 2 John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough—“Mob,” “Scum,” and “Dregs” ... ... ... ... ...0 2 A Cardinal’s Broken Oath ... ... ... ... 0 1 Perpetual Pensions. Fortieth thousand ... ... 0 2 Civil Lists and Grants to Royal Family ... ... 0 1 Real Representation of the People ... ... ... 0 2 Letter to Albert Edward Prince of Wales, on Freemasonry 0 1 Why do Men Starve ? ... ... ... ...0 1 Jesus, Shelley, and Malthus: an Essay on the Population Question ... ... ... ... ... 0 2 Poverty and its effect upon the People ... ... 0 1 Labor’s Prayer ... ... ... ... ... 0 1 The Land, the People, and the Coming Struggle ... 0 2 India. A lecture ... ... ... ... ... 0 1 Five Dead Men whom I Knew when Living. Sketches of Robert Owen, Joseph Mazzini, John Stuart Mill, Charles Sumner, and Ledru Rollin... ... • ... ... 0 4 Cromwell and Washington: a Contrast ... ... 0 G Anthropology. In neat wrapper ... ... ... 0 4 When were our Gospels Written ? ... ... ... 0 6 Plea for Atheism ... ... ... ... ... 0 3 Has Man a Soul ? ... ... ... ... ... 0 2 Is there a God? ... ... ... ... ... 0 1 Who was Jesus Christ? ... ... ... , ...01 What did Jesus Teach ? ... ... ... ... 0 1 The Twelve Apostles ... ... .. ..0 1 The Atonement ... ... ... ... ...0 1 Life of David ... ... ... ... ... 0 2 Life of Jacob ... ... ... ... ... 0 1 Life of Abraham ... ... ... ... ... 0 1 Life of Moses ... ... ... ... ... 0 1 Life cf Jonah ... ... ... ... ...0 1 A Few Words about the Devil . . ... ... 0 1 Were Adam and Eve our First Parents ? ... ... 0 1 Heresy: its Morality and Utility. A Plea and a Jus: ification ... ... ... ... ... ... 0 9 The Laws Relating to Blasphemy and Heresy ... ... 0 6 Verbatim Report of the Trial of C. Bradlaugh before Lord Cole­ ridge for Blasphemy, in Three Special Extra Numbers of the National Reformer. 6d. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource New life of David Description An account of the resource Edition: Rev. ed. Place of publication: London Collation: 14, [2] p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Annotations in pencil. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher's list on unnumbered pages at the end. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891] Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Freethought Publishing Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1884 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N098 Subject The topic of the resource Bible Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (New life of David), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Hebrew Bible King David NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/fe3bdc2c234c7261f15cb53eb21b8228.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=b4CjqNojfyz6cwppHN%7EvBeCfqxzmfyEFtCtmWP-Ln9rRw%7Eji6OTFFemEkxnqXQp4zV6sNb13z97UgnusEBT0m3sjpd12LXpI9RA%7Ec7xlFtxmxWxaJfS5Yro2KZLaAkpDQbCeFZwed8l5qcQBFfPOu2cGm22sE9XvbffsyXUudti22hUVXye84lGlAoO60wwZwQIBW19wP7JH9oi0pxQwlnxtEsNdDWu4doZrbeEy9Bgg3DWZyq1zmlgx9UesG7iFkGXcYmj%7E%7EBMVKDPd5NaNNxoyvJDp8hm5s%7E0yWmDvuhLXJMl7z6oKcy3GGJB0cEl-ozCI1TAE1%7E0XJhDZKRWhNg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 212361c2434527130255a9486667c0ec PDF Text Text NO W NATlONALSECUlARSOCffil-Y NEW LIFE OF JACOB. BY C. BRADLAUGH. It is pleasant work to present to the reader sketches of God’s chosen people. More especially is it an agreeable task to recapitulate ^the in­ teresting events occurring during the life of a man whom God has loved. Jacob was the son of Isaac; the grandson of Abraham. These three men were so free from fault, their lives so unobjectionable, that the God of the Bible delighted to be called the “ God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” It is true Abraham owned slaves, was not exact to the truth, and, on one occasion, turned his wife and child out to the mercies of a sandy desert. That Isaac in some sort followed his father’s example and disingenuous practices,, and that Jacob was without manly feeling, a sordid, selfish, unfraternal cozener, a cowardly trickster, a cunning knave, but they must never­ theless have been good men, for God was “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” The name Jacob js n0^ inappropriate. Kalisch says—“ This appellation, if taken in its obvious etvmological meaning, implies a deep ignominy : for the root from which it is derived signifies to deceive, to defraud, and in such a despicable meaning the same form of the word is indeed used elsewhere. (Jeremiah ix., v. 3.) Jacob would, therefore, be nothing else but the crafty impostor; in this sense Esau, in the heat of his animosity, in fact clearly explains the word, “justly is his name called Jacob (cheat) because he has cheated me twice.” (Genesis xxvii., v. 36.) According to the ordinary orthodox Bible chronology, Jacob was born about 1836 or 1837 b.c., that is, about 2168 years from “in thebegin­ ning,” his father Isaac being then sixty years of age. There is a diffi­ culty connected with Holy Scripture chronology, which would be in­ superable were it not that we have the advantage of spiritual aids m elucidation of the text. This difficulty arises from the fact that tim chronology of the Bible, in this respect, like the major portion o Bible history, is utterly unreliable. But we do not look to the Old or New Testament for mere common-place, every-day facts; or if we do, severe will be the disappointment of the truth-seeker; we look there for mysteries, miracles, paradoxes, and perplexities, and have no dif­ ficulties in finding the objects of our search. Jacob was born, together with his twin brother, Esau, in consequence of special entreaty ad­ dressed by Isaac to the Lord on behalf of Rebekah, to whom he had been married about nineteen years, and who was yet childless. Infidel physiologists (and it is a strange, though not unaccountable fact, that all who are physiologists are also in so far infidel) assert that prayer would do 1’ttle to repair the consequence of such disease, or such �NEV' LIFE OF JACOB. 2 abnormal organic structure, as would compel sterility. But our able clergy are agreed that the Bible was not intended to teach us science; or, at any rate, weSbve learned that its attempts in that direction are miserable failures. Its mission is to teach the unteachabie ; to enable us to comprehend the incomprehensible. Before Jacob was born, God decreed that lie and his descendants should obtain the mastery over Esau and his descendants, “ the elder shall serve the younger.”* The God of the Bible is a just God, but it is hard for weak'flesh to discover the justice of this proemial decree, which so sentenced to servitude the children of Esau before their father’s birth. Jacob came into the world holding by his brother’s heel, like some eowardly knave in tWfe$battle of life, who, not daring to break a gap in the hedge of conventional prejudice, which bars his path, is yet ready enough to follow some bolder warrior, and to gather the fruits of his courage. “ And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field: and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.” One day, Esau returned from his hunting, faint and wearied to the very point of death. He was hungry, and came to Jacob, his twin and only brother, saying, “ Feed me, I pray thee ”f ‘‘ for I am exceedingly faint.In a like case would not any man so entreated immediately offer to the other the best at his command, the more especially when that other is his only brother, born at the same time, from the same womb, suckled at the same breast, fed under the same roof? But Jacob was not a man and a brother, he was one of God’s chosen people, and one who had been honoured by God’s prenatal selection. £‘ If a man come unto me and hate not his brother, he cannot be my disciple.” So taught Jesus the Jew, in after time, but in this earlier age .Jacob the Jew, in practice, anticipated the later doctrine. It is one of the misfortunes of theologv, if not its crime, that profession of love to God is often accompanied with bitter and active hate of man. Jacob was one of the founders of the Jewish race, and even in this their pre­ historic age, the instinct for driving a hard bargain seems strongly de­ veloped. “ Jacob said ” to Esau, “ Sell me this day thy birthright.” The famished man vainly expostulated, and the birthright was sold for a mess of pottage. If to-day one man should so meanly and cruelly take advantage of his brother's necessities to rob him of his birthright, all good and honest men would shun him as an unbrotherly scoundrel, and most contemptible knave; yet, less than 4.000 years ago, a very dif­ ferent standard of morality must have prevailed. Indeed, if God is unchangeable, divine notions of honour and honesty must to-day be widely different from those of our highest men. God approved and endorsed Jacob's conduct. His approval is shown by his love, after­ wards expressed for Jacob, his endorsement by his subsequent atten­ tion to Jacob's welfare. We may learn from this tale, so preg-nnt with instruction, that any deed which to the worldly and sensible man appears like knavery while understood literally; becomes to the devout and prayerful man an act of piety, when understood * Genesis, chap, xxv., v. 23. ■ f Ibid, chap, xxv., v. 30. | Douay Version. �NEW LIFE OF JACOB. 3 spiritually. Much faith is required to thoroughly understand this; per example—it looks like swindling to collect poor children’s half­ pence and farthings in the Sunday schools for missionary purposes abroad, and to spend thereout two or three hundred pounds in an annual jubilatory dinner for well-fed pauper parsons at home ; and so thought the noble Lord who wrote to the Times under the initials S. G. O. If he had possessed more faith and less sense he would have seen the piety and completely overlooked the knavery of the transac­ tion. Pious preachers and clever commentators declare that Esau despised his birthright. I do not deny that they might back their declaration by scripture quotations, but fitlo deny the narrative ought to convey any such impression. Esau’s words were, “ Behold lam at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright be to me?” Isaac growing old, and fearing from his physical infirmities the near approach of death, was anxious to bless Esau before he died, and directed him to take quiver and bow and go out in the field to hunt some venison for a savory meat, such as old Isaac loved. Esau departed, but when he had left his father’s presence in order to fulfil his request, Jacob appeared on the scene. Instigated by his mother, he, by an abject stratagem, passed himself off as Esau. With a savory meat prepared by Rebekah, he came into his father’s presence, and Isaac said, “ Who art thou, my son ? ” Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. The Lord loved Jacob, yet Jacob lied to his old blind father, saying, “ I am Esau thy first-born.” Isaac had some doubts : these are manifested by his inquiring how it was that the game was killed so quickly. Jacob, whom God loved, in a spirit of shameless blasphemy replied, “ Because the Lord thy God brought it to me.” Isaac still hesitated, fancying that he recognised the voice to be the voice of Jacob, and again questioned him, saying, “Art thou my very son Esau? ’ God is the God of truth and loved Jacob, yet Jacob said, “ I am.” Then Isaac blessed Jacob, believing that he was blessing Esau : and God permitted the fraud to be successful, and himself also blessed Jacob. In that extraordinary composition known as the Epistle to the Hebrews, we are told that by faith Isaac blessed Jacob. But what faith had Isaac ? Faith that Jacob was Esau ? His belief was produced by deceptive appearances. His faith resulted from false representations. And there are very many men in the w o'rid who have no better foundation for their religious faith than had Isaac when he blessed Jacob, believing him to be Esau. In the Douay Bible I find the following note on this remarkable narrative“ St. Augustine (L. contra mendacium, c. 10J, treating at large upon this place, excuseth Jacob from a lie, because this whole passage was mysterious, as relating to the preference which was afterwards to be given to the Gentiles before the carnal Jews, which Jacob, by prophetic light, might under­ stand. So far it is certain that the first birthright, both by divine election and by Esau’s free cession, belonged to Jacob; so that :p there were any lie in the case, it would be no more than an officious and venial one.” How glorious to be a patriarch, and to have a real saint labouring years after your death to twist your lies into truth by aid of prophetic light. Lying is at all times most disreputable, but at �4 NEW LIFE OF JACOB. the deathbed the crime is rendered more heinous. The death hour would have awed many men into speaking the truth, but it had little effect on Jacob. Although Isaac was about to die, this greedy knave cared not, so that he got from the dying man the sought-for prize. God is said to love righteousness and hate iniquity, yet he loved the iniquitous Jacob, and hated the honest Esau. All knaves are tinged more or less with cowavdice. Jaaob was no exception to the rule. His brother, enraged at the deception practised upon Isaac, threatened to kill Jacob. Jacob was warned by his mother and fled. Induced by Rebekah, Isaac charged Jacob to marry one of Laban’s daughters. On the way to Haran, where Laban dwelt, Jacob rested and slept. While sleeping he dreamed ; ordinarily, dreams have little significance, but in the Bible they are more important. Some of the most weighty and vital facts (?) of the Bible are communicated in dreams, and rightly so ; if the men had been wideawake they would have probably rejected the’revelation as absurd. So much does that prince of darkness, the devil, influence mankind against the Bible in the day time, that it is when all is dark, and our eyes are closed, and the senses dormant, that God’s mysteries are most” clearly seen and understood. Jacob “saw in his sleep a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top thereof touching heaven; the angels also of God ascending and descending by it, and the Lord leaning upon the ladder.”* In the ancient temples of India, and in the mysteries of Mithra, the seven-stepped ladder by which the spirits ascended to heaven is a prominent feature, and one of probably far higher antiquity than the age of Jacob. Did paganism furnish the groundwork for the patriarch’s dream? “No man hath seen God at any time.” God is “invisible.” Yet Jacob saw’ the invisible God, whom no man hath seen or can see, either standing above a ladder or leaning upon it. True, it was all a dream. Yet God spoke to Jacob, but perhaps that was a delusion too. We find by scripture, that God threatens to send to some “ strong delusions that they might believe a lie ancl be damned.” Poor Jacob was much frightened; as any one might be, to dream of God leaning on so long a ladder. What if it bad broken, and the dreamer underneath it? Jacob’s fears were not so powerful but that his shrewdness and avarice had full scope in a sort of half-vow, half-contract, made in the morning. Jacob said, “ If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I shall come again to my father’s house in peace, then shall the Lord be mv God.” The inference deducible from this conditional statement is, that if God failed to complete the items enumerated by Jacob, then the latter would have nothing to do with him. Jacob was a shrewd Jewr, w'ho would have laughed to scorn the preaching “ lake no thought, saving, w’hat shall we eat? or, what shall we drink? or, wherewithal shall we be clothed ? ” After this contract Jacob went on his journey, and reached the 'lipuse of his mother’s brother, Laban, into whose service he entered. u Diamond cut diamond ” would be an appropriate heading to the tale * Genesis, c. xxviii., vv. 12 and 13, Douay version �5 NEW LIFE OF JACOH. which gives the transactions between Jacob the Jew and Laban the son of Nahor. Laban had two daughters. Rachel, the youngest, was “ beautiful and well-favoured; ” Leah, the elder, was <£ blear-eyed.” Jacob served for the pretty one; but on the wedding day Laban made a feast, and when evening came gave Jacob the ugly Leah instead of the pretty Rachel. Jacob being (according to Josephus) both in drink and in the dark, it was morning ere he discovered his error. After this Jacob served for Rachel also, and then the remainder of the chapter of Jacob’s servitude to Laban is but the recital of a series of frauds and trickeries. Jacob embezzled Laban’s property, and Laban misappropriated and changed Jacob’s wages. In fact, if Jacob had not possessed the advantage of divine aid, he would probably have failed in the endeavour to cheat his master, but God, who says “ thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, nor anything that is thy neighbour’s,” en­ couraged Jacob in his career of covetous criminalty. At last Jacob, having amassed a large quantity of property, determined to abscond from his employment, and taking advantage of his uncle’s absence at sheepshearing, “ he stole away unawares,” taking with him his wives, his children, flocks, herds, and goods. To crown the whole, Rachel, worthy wife of a husband so fraudulent, stole her father’s gods. In the present day the next phase would be the employment of Mr. Serjeant Vericute, of the special detective department, and the issue of bills as follows:— “ONE HUNDRED SHEKELS REWARD. Absconded, with a. large amount of property, JACOB, THE JEW. Information to be given to Laban, the Syrian, at Haran, in the East, or to Mr. Serjeant Vericute, Scotland Yard.” But in those days, God’s ways were not as our ways. God came to Laban in a dream and compounded the felony, saying, “ Take beed thou speak not anything harshly against Jacob.”* This would probably prevent Laban giving evidence in a police court against Jacob, and thus save him from transportation or penal servitude. After a re­ conciliation and treaty had been effected between Jacob and Laban, the former went on his way “ and the angels of God met him.” Angels are not included in the circle with which I have at present made ac­ quaintance, and I hesitate, therefore, to comment on the meeting be­ tween Jacob and the angels. Balaam’s ass, ata later period, shared the good fortune which was the lot of Jacob, for that animal also had a meeting with an angel. Jacob was the grandson of the faithful Abra­ ham to whom angels also appeared. Perhaps angelic apparitions are limited to asses and the faithful. On this point I do not venture to assert, and but timidly suggest. It is somewhat extraordinary that Jacob should have manifested no surprise at meeting a host of angels. Still more worthy of note is it that our good translators * Genesis, c. xxxi.. v. 24, Douay version. �6 NEW LIFE OF JACOB. elevate the same words into “ angels” in verse 1, which they degrade into “messengers” in verse 3. John Bellamy, in his translation, says the “angels” were not immortal angels, and it is very probable John Bellamy was right. Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau, and heard that the latter was coming to meet him followed by 400 men. Jacob, a timorous knave at best, became terribly afraid. He, doubtless,, remembered the wrongs inflicted upon Esau, the cruel extortion of the birthright, and the fraudulent obtainment of the dying Isaac's blessing. He, therefore, sent forward to his brother Esau a large present as a peace offering. He also divided the remaindei- of his flocks, herds, and goods, into two divisions, that if one were smitten, the other might escape ; sending these on, he was left alone. While alone he wrestled with either a man, or an angel, or God. The text says “ a man,” the heading to the chapter says “an angel,” and Jacob himself says that he has “ seen God face to face.” W hether God, angel, or man, it was not a fair wrestle, and were the present editor of Bell’s Life referee, he would, unquestionably, declare it to be most unfair to touch “ the hollow of Jacob’s thigh” so as to put it “ out of joint,” and conse­ quently, award the result of the match to Jacob. Jacob, notwithstanding the injury, still kept his grip, and the apocryphal wrestler, finding him­ self no match at fair struggling, and that foul play was unavailing, now trie 1 entreaty, and said, “Let me go, for the day breaketh.” Spirits never appear in the day time, when if they did appear, they could be seen and examined; they are often more visible in the twilight, in the darkness, and in dreams. Jacob would not let go, his life’s in­ stinct for bargaining prevailed, and probably, because he could get nothing else, he insisted on his opponent’s blessing, before he let him go. In the Roman Catholic version of the Bible there is the following ’ note :—“ Chap, xxxii., v. 24. A man, etc. This was an angel in human shape, as we learn from Osee (c. xii. v. 4). He is called God (xv. 28 and 30), because he represented the son of God. This wrestling, in which Jacob, assisted by God, was a match for an angel, was so ordered (v. 28) that he might learn by this experiment of the divine assistance, that neither Esau, nor any other man, should have power to hurt him.” How elevating it must be to the true believer to con­ ceive God helping Jacob to wrestle with his own representative. Read prayerfully, doubtless, the spiritual and inner meaning of the text (If it have one) is most transcendental. Read sensibly, the literal and only meaning the text conveys is, that of an absurd tradition of an ignorant age. On the morrow Jacob met Esau. “ And Esau ran to, meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him; an&tliey wept.” “ And he said, Wlitat meanest thou by all this drove which I met ? And he said, these are to find grace in the sight of my lord.” “ And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself.” The following expressive comment, from the able pen of Mr. Holyoake, deserves transcription:—“ The last portion of the history of �NEW LIFE OF JACOB. 7 Jacob and Esau is very instructive. The coward fear of Jacob to meet his. brother is well delineated. He is subdued by a sense of his treacherous guilt. The noble forgiveness of Esau invests his memory with more respect than all the wealth Jacob won, and all the blessings of the Lord he received. Could I change my name from Jacob to Esau, I would do it in honour of him. The whole incident has a dra­ matic interest. There is nothing in the Old or New Testament equal to it. The simple magnanimity of Esau is scarcely surpassed by any­ thing in Plutarch. In the conduct of Esau, we see the triumph of time, of filial affection, and generosity ovei’ a deep sense of execrable treachery, unprovoked and irrevocable injury.” Was not Esau a mer­ ciful, noble, generous man ? Yet God hated him, and shut him out of all share in the promised land. Was not Jacob a mean, prevaricating knave, a crafty, abject cheat ? Yet God loved and rewarded him. How great are the mysteries in this Bible representation of an all-good and all-loving God, thus hating good, and loving evil. At the time of the wrestling, a promise was made, which is afterwards repeated by God to Jacob, that the latter should not be any more called Jacob, but Israel. This promise was not strictly kept; the name “ Jacob” being used repeatedly, mingled with that of Israel in the after part of Jacob’s history. Jacob had a large family; his sons are reputedly the heads of the twelve Jewish tribes. We have not much space to notice them : suffice it to say that one Joseph, who was much loved by his father,was sold bv his brethren into slavery. This transaction does not seem to have called for any special reproval from God. Joseph, who from early life was skilled in dreams, succeeded by interpreting the visions of Pharaoh in obtaining a sort of premiership in Egypt; while filling which office, he managed to act like the Russells and the Greys of our own time. We are told that he “placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land.” Joseph made the parallel still stronger between himself and a more modern head of the Treasury Bench; he not only gave his own family the best place in tlie land, but he also, by a trick of statecraft, obtained the land for the king, made slaves of the people, and made it a law over the land of Egypt that the king should be entitled to one-fifth of the produce, always, of course, excepting and saving the rights of the priest. Judah, another brother, sought to have burned a woman by whom he had a child. A third, named Reuben, was guilty of the grossest vice, equallea only by that of Absalom the son of David; of Simeon and Levi, two more of Jacob’s sons, it is said, that “instruments of cruelty were in their habitations their conduct, as detailed in the 34th chapter of Genesis, alike shocks by its treachery and its mercilessness. After Jacob had heard that his son Joseph was governor in Egypt, but before he had journeyed farther than Beersheba, God spake unto him in the visions of the night, and probably forgetting that he had given him a new name, or being more accustomed to the old one, said, “ Jacob, Jacob,” and then told him to go down into Egypt, where Jacob died after a residence of about seventeen years, when 147 years of age. Before Jacob died he blessed, first the sons of Joseph, and then his own children, and at the termination of his blessing to Ephraim and �? NEW LIFE OP JACOB. Manasseh, we find the following speech addressed to Joseph, " Moreover I have given to thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.” This speech implies warlike pursuits on the part of Jacob, of whic-h the Bible gives no record, and which seems incompatible with his recorded life. The sword of craft and the bow of cunning are the only weapons in the use of which he was skilled. When his sons murdered and robbed the Hivites, fear seems to have been Jacob’s most prominent characteristic. It is not my duty, nor have I space here to advocate any theory of interpretation, but it may be well to mention that many learned men contend that the whole history of Jacob is but an allegory. That the twelve patriarchs but typify the twelve signs of the zodiac, as do the twelve great Gods of the Pagans, and twelve apostles of the gospels. Those curious to investigate this theory for the purpose of refutation or verification, should read the works of Sir William Drummond, M. Dupuis, and the Rev. Robert Taylor. From the history of Jacob, it is hard to draw any conclusions favourable to the man whose life is narrated. To heap additional epithets on his memory, would be but waste of time and space. I con­ clude by regretting that if God loved one brother and aated another, he should have so unfortunately selected for his love the one whose whole career shows him in a most despicable light. Printed and Published by Charles Brahlaugh and Annie Besant, at 28, Stonecutter Street, London, E.C. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource New life of Jacob Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [n.d.] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N099 Subject The topic of the resource Bible Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (New life of Jacob), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Jacob (Biblical Patriarch) NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/534b515ecfc915c523a1c5217a125592.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=CdmOYfXTziqX4iyKRDQKFx4lJdI7ySLMnJHY6%7E6lmkIY1J3KH7PSAr0vkYfrQsaCKjC8w76cOr04acOt%7EsHReowrt6PWAthlevxNzi2SaDiJ6WW-v3h%7ELCaTjJVVaDgtaIPwjMP7raj%7EA263q6MhrYgx9aEVG3xHP69O40pMq7kmCX8tqTXBy7XWOicDs6P%7EhqcX8naQAAYoPV1NNKYgTNMBTecj2PCLaJD1SHBOuNn8TqSWV-TrKFTrAvNM5-G7GXD%7EoZjVY%7ESUzsZR8svuvjBQHTN8GCgoiEok0o18Kvofo3i1IkVSOS%7ErB73%7E7WDcgojNzyrlNz-ZK5ShuF%7E1oA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 62cb12d6224e85b79e0feba4c90a3d11 PDF Text Text *' ' -t V & A ?p*v ” >y^vr'?X*irW, ?<‘ 7* "x B ^-2A bJ < OO NEW LIFE OF MOSES. BY C. BEADLAUGH The “Life of Abraham ” was presented to our readers, because, as the nominal founder of the Jewish race, his position entitled him to that honour. The “ Life of David,” because, as one of the worst men and worst kings ever known, his history might afford matter for reflection to admirers of monarchical institutions and matter for comment to the advocates of a republican form of government. The “ Life of Jacob” served to show how basely mean and con­ temptibly deceitful a man might become, and yet enjoy God's love. Having given thus a brief outline of the career of the patriarch, the king, and the knave, the life of a priest naturally presents itself as the most fitting to complement the present quadrifid series. Moses, the great grandson of Levi, was born in Egypt, not far distant from the banks of the Nile, a river world-famous for its in­ undations, made familiar to ordinary readers by the travellers who have journeyed to discover its source, and held in bad repute by strangers, especially on account of the carnivorous Saurians who infest its waters. The mother and father of our hero were both of the tribe of Levi, and were named Jochebed and Amram. The in­ fant Moses was, at the age of three months, placed in an ark of bulrushes by the river s brink. This was done in order to avoid the decree of extermination propounded bv the reigning Pharaoh against the male Jewish children. The daughter of Pharaoh, com­ ing down to the river to bathe, found the child and took compas­ sion upon him, adopting him as her son. Of the early life of Moses we have but scanty record. We are told in the New Testa­ ment that he was learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians, and * that “when he was come to years he refused” by faithf “to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.” Perhaps the record from which the New Testament writers quoted lias been lost; it is certain that the present version of the Old Testament does not contain those statements. The record which is lost may have been God’s original revelation to man, and of which our Bible may be an in­ complete version. I am little grieved by the supposition that a • Acts, c. vii, v. 21, f Hebrews, c. xi. v. 24. �2 NEW LIFE OF MOSES. revelation may have been lost, being, for my own part, more in­ clined to think that no revelation has ever been made. Josephus says that, when quite a baby, Moses trod contemptuously on the crown of Egypt. The Egyptian monuments and Exodus are both silent on this point. Josephus also tells us that Moses led the Egyptians in war against the Ethiopians, and married Tharbis, the daughter of the Ethiopian monarch. This also is omitted both in Egyptian history and in the sacred record. When Moses was grown, according to the Old Testament, or when he was 40 years of age according to the New, “ it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel,” “ And he spied an Egyptian smit­ ing an Hebrew;” “And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.” The New Testament says that he did it, “for he supposed that his brethren would understand how that God, by his hand, would deliver them.”* But this is open to the following objections :—The Old Testament says nothing of the kind;—there was no man to see the homicide, and as Moses hid the body, it is hard to conceive how he could expect the Israelites to understand a matter of which they not only had no knowledge . whatever, but which he himself did not think was known to them ;—if there were really no man present, the story of the after accusation against Moses needs explanation ;—it might be further objected that it does not appear that Moses at that time did even himself conceive that he had any mission from God to deliver his people. Moses fled from the wrath of Pharaoh, and dwelt in Midian, where he married the daughter of one Reuel or Raguel, or Jethro. This name is not of much importance, but it is strange that if Moses wrote the books of the Pentateuch he was not more exact in designating so near a relation. While acting as shepherd to his father-in-law, “ he led the flock to the back side of the desert,” and “ the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire that is, the angel was either a flame, or was the object which was burning, for this angel ap­ peared in the midst of a bush which burned with fire, but was not consumed. This flame appears to have been a luminous one, for it was a “ great sight,” and attracted Moses, who turned aside to see it. But the luminosity would depend on substance ignited and rendered incandescent. Is the angel of the Lord a substanceJsusceptible of ignition and incandesence ? Who knoweth ? If so, will the fallen angels ingnite and bum in hell ? God called unto Moses out of the midst of the bush. It is hard to conceive an in­ finite God in the middle of a bush, yet as the law of England says that we must not “deny the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testameut to be of divine authority,” in order not to break the law, I advise all to believe that, in addition to being in the middle of a bush, the infinite and all-powerful God also sat • Aets, c. vii., v. 25. �NEW LIFE OF MOSES. on the top of a box, dwelt sometimes in a tent, afterwards in a temple; although invisible, appeared occasionally; and, being a spirit without body or parts, was hypostatically incarnate as a man. Moses, when spoken to by God, “ hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.” If Moses had known that God was invisible, he would have escaped this fear. God told Moses that the cry of the children of Israel had reached him, and that he had come down to deliver them, and that Moses was to lead them out of Egypt. Moses does not seem to have placed entire confidence in the phlegomic divine communication, and asked, when the Jews should question him on the name of the Deity, what answer should he make ? It does not appear from this that the Jews, if they had so completely forgotten God’s name, had much preserved the recollection of the promise comparatively so recently made to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. The answer given according to our version is, “I am that I am;” according to the Douay, “I am who am.” God, in addition, told Moses that the Jews should spoil the Egyptians of their wealth; but even this promise of plunder, so congenial to the nature of a bill-discounting Jew of the Bible type, did not avail to overcorfie the scruples of Moses. God therefore taught him to throw his rod on the ground, and thus transform it into a serpent, from which pseudo-serpent Moses at first fled in fear, but on his taking it by the tail it resumed its original shape. Moses, with even other wonders at command, still hesitated; he had an impediment in his speech. God cured this by the appointment of Aaron, who was eloquent, to aid his brother. God directed Moses to return to Egypt, but his parting words must somewhat have damped the future legislator’s hope of any speedy or successful ending to his mission. God said, “ I will harden Pharaoh’s heart that he shall not let the people go.” On the journey back to Egypt God met Moses “ by the way in the inn, and sought to kill him.” I am ignorant as to the causes which prevented the omnipotent Deity from carrying out his intention ; the text does not explain the matter, and I am not a bishop or a D.D., and I do not therefore feel justified in putting my assump­ tions in place of God’s revelation. Moses and Aaron went t<7 Pharaoh, and asked that the Jew's might be permitted to go three days’ journey in the wilderness; but the King of Egypt not onlj refused their request, but gave them additional tasks, and in conse­ quence Moses and Aaron went again to the Lord, who told them, “I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them.” Whether God had forgotten that the name Jehovah was known to Abraham, or whether he was here deceiving Moses and Aaron, are points the solution of wdiich I leave to the faithful, referring them to the fact that Abraham called a place Jehovah* Genesis, c. xxii., v. 14. �NEW LIFE OF MOSES. Jireh. After this Moses and Aaron again went to Pharaoh and worked wonderfully in his presence. Thaumaturgy is coining into fashion again, but the exploits of Moses far exceeded any of those performed by Mr. Home or the Davenport Brothers. Aaron flung down his rod, and it became a serpent; the Egyptian magicians flung down their rods, which became serpents also; but the rod of Aaron, as though it had been a Jew money-lender or a tithe col­ lecting parson, swallowed up these miraculous competitors, and the Jewish leaders could afford to laugh at their defeated rival conjurors. Moses and Aaron carried on the miracle-working for some time. All the water of the land of Egvpt was turned by them into blood, but the magicians did so with their enchantments, and it had no effect on Pharaoh. Then showers of frogs, at the instance of Aaron, covered the land of Egypt; but the Egyptians did so with their enchantments, and frogs abounded still more plentifully. The Jews next tried their hands at the production of lice, and here—to the glory of God be it said—the infidel Egyp­ tians failed to imitate them. It is written that “ cleanliness is next to godliness,” but we cannot help thinking that godliness must have been far from cleanliness when the former so soon resulted in lice. The magicians were now entirely discomfited. The pre­ ceding wonders seem to have affected all the land of Egypt; but in the next miracle the swarms of flies sent were confined to Egyptians only, and were not extended to Goshen, in which the Israelites dwelt. The next plague in connection with the ministration of Moses and Aaron was that “ all the cattle of Egypt died.” After “all the cattle ” were dead, a boil was sent, breaking forth with blains upon man and beast. This failing in effect, Moses afterwards stretched forth his hand and smote “ both man and beast ” with hail, then covered the land with locusts, and followed this with a thick darkness throughout the land—a darkness which might have been felt. Whether it was felt is a matter on which I am unable to pass an opinion. After this, the Egyptians being terrified by the destruction of their first-born children, the Jews, at the in­ stance of Moses, borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and raiment; and they spoiled the Egyptians. The fact is, that the Egyptians were in the same position as the payers of church rates, tithes, vicars’ rates, and Easter dues : they lent to the Lord’s people, who are good borrowers, but slow when repay * ment is required. They prefer promising you a crown of glory to paying you at once five shillings in silver. Moses led th« Jews through the Red Sea, which proved a ready means of escape, as may be easily read in Exodus, which says that the Lord “ made the sea dry land ” for the Israelites, and afterwards not only over­ whelmed in it the Egyptians who sought to follow them, but, as Josephus tells us, the current of the sea actually carried to the camp of the Hebrews the arms of the Egyptians, so that the wandering �NW LIFE OF MOSES. 6 Jews might not be destitute of weapons. After this the Israelites were led by Moses into Sliur, where they were without water for three days, and the water they afterwards found was too bitter to drink until a tree had been cast into the well. The Israelites were then fed with manna, which, when gathered on Friday, kept for the Sabbath, but rotted if kept from one week day to another. The people grew tired of eating manna, and complained, and God sent fire I amongst them and burned them up in the uttermost parts of the camp; and after this the people wept and said, “ Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic; but now there is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes.’’ This angered the Lord, and he gave them a feast of quails, and while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the anger of the Lord was kindled, and he smote the Jewish people with a very great plague. * The people again in Rephidim were without water, and Moses therefore smote the Rock of Horeb with his rod, and water came out of the rock. At Rephidim the Amalekites and the Jews fought together, and while they fought Moses, like a prudent general, went to the top of a hill, accompanied by Aaron and Hur, and it came to pass that when Moses held up his hands Israel prevailed, and when he let down his hands Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands w’ere heavy, and they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat thereon, and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side and the other ou the other side, and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun, and Joshua discomfited Amalek, and his people with the edge of the sword. How the true believer ought to rejoice that the stone was so convenient, as otherwise the Jews might have been slaughtered, and there might have been no royal line of David, no Jesus, no Christianity. That stone should be more valued than the precious black stone of the Moslem; it is the corner-stone of the system, the stone which supported the Mosaic rule. God is everywhere, but Moses went up unto him, and the Lord called to him out of a mountain and came to him in a thick cloud, and descended on Mount Sinai in a fire, in consequence of which the mountain smoked, and the Lord came down upon the top of the mountain and called Moses up to him; and then the Lord gave Moses the Ten Commandments, and also those pre­ cepts which follow, in which Jews are permitted to buy their fellowcountrymen for six years, and in which it is provided that, if the slave-master shall give his six-year slave a wife, and she bear him sons or daughters, that the wife and the children shall be the pro­ perty of her master. In these precepts it is also permitted that a man may sell his own daughter for the most base purposes. Also that a master may beat his slave, so that if he do not die until a • Numbers, c. xi. �6 NEW LIFE OF MOSES. few days after the ill-treatment, the master shall escape justice be­ cause the slave is his money. Also that Jews may buy strangers and keep them as slaves for ever. While Moses was up in the mount the people clamoured for Aaron to make them gods. Moses had stopped away so long that the people gave him up for lost. Aaron, whose duty it was to have pacified and restrained them, and to have kept them in the right faith, did nothing of the kind. He induced them to bring all their gold, and then made it into a calf, before which he built an altar, and then proclaimed a feast. Man­ ners and customs change. In those days the Jews did see the God that. Aaron took their gold for, but now the priests take the people’s gold, and the poor contributors do not even see a calf for their pains, unless indeed they are near a mirror at the time when they are making their voluntary contributions. And the Lord told Moses what happened, and said, “ I have seen this people, and behold it is a stiffnecked people. Now, therefore, let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them.” Moses would not comply with God’s request, but remonstrated, and expostulated, and begged him not to afford the Egyptians an opportunity of speaking against him. Moses succeeded in changing the unchangeable, and the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people. Although Moses would not let God’s “ wrath wax hot ” his own “ anger waxed hot,” and he broke in his rage, the two tables of stone which God had given him, and on which the Lord had graven and written with his own finger. We have now no means of know­ ing in what language God wrote, or whether Moses afterwards took any pains to rivet together the broken pieces. It is almost to be wondered at that the Christian Evidence Societies have not sent missionaries to search for these pieces of the tables, which may even yet remain beneath the mount. Moses took the calf which they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon water and made the children of Israel drink of it. After this Moses armed the priests and killed 3,000 Jew's, “ and the Lord plagued the people because they had made the calf which Aaron had made.”* Moses afterwards pitched the ta­ bernacle without the camp; and the cloudy pillar in which the Lord w'ent, descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle; and the Lord talked to Moses “ face to face, as a man would to his friend.”f And the Lord then told Moses, “ Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live.”J Before this Moses and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, “ saw the God of Israel, and there w'as under his feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire stone, . . . and Upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand; also they saw God, and did eat and drink.”§ * Exodus, c. xxxii., v. 35. f c. xxxiii., v. 11. J v. 20. § c. xxiv., v. 9. �NEW LIFE OF MOSES. 7 Aaron., the brother of Moses, died under very strange circum­ stances. The Lord said unto Moses, “ Strip Aaron of his garments and put them upon Eleazar, his son, and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people and shall die there.” And Moses did as the Lord commanded, and Aaron died there on the top of the mount, where Moses had taken him. There does not appear to have been any coroner’s inquest in the time of Aaron, and the suspicious circum­ stances of the death of the brother of Moses have been passed over by the faithful. When Moses was leading the Israelites near Moab, Balak the King of the Moabites sent to Balaam in order to get Balaam to curse the Jews. When Balak’s messengers were with Balaam, God came to Balaam also, and asked what men they were. Of course God knew, but he inquired for his own wise purposes, and Balaam told him truthfully. God ordered Balaam not to curse the Jews, and therefore the latter refused, and sent the Moabitish messengers away. Then Balak sent again high and mighty princes under whose influence Balaam went mounted on an ass, and God’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he sent an angel to stop him by the way; but the angel did not understand his business well, and the ass first ran into a field, and then close against the wall, and it was not until the angel removed to a narrower place that he succeeded in stopping the donkey ; and when the ass saw the angel she fell down. Balaam did not see the angel at first; and, Indeed, we may take it as a fact of history that asses have always been the most ready to perceive angels. Moses may have been a great author, but we have little means of ascertaining what he wrote in the present day. Divines talk of Genesis to Deuteronomy as the five books of Moses, but Eusebius, in the fourth century, attributed them to Ezra, * and Saint Chrysostom says that the name of Moses has been affixed to the books without authority, by persons living long after him.f It is quite certain that if Moses lived 3,300 years ago, he did not write in square letter Hebrew, and this because the character has not existed so long. It is indeed doubtful if it can be carried back 2,000 years. The ancient Hebrew character, though probably older than this, yet is comparatively modern amongst the ancient languages of the earth. ° It is urged by orthodox chronologists that Moses was born about 1450 B.c., and that the Exodus took place about 1491 b.c. Unfor­ tunately “ there are no recorded dates in the Jewish Scripture^ that are trustworthy.” Moses, or the Hebrews, not being mentioned upon Egyptian monuments from the twelfth to the seventeenth century b.c. inclusive, and never being alluded to by any extant writer who lived prior to the Septuagint translation at Alexandria �NEW LIFE OF MOSES. (commencing in the third century b.c.), there are no extraneous aids, from sources alien to the Jewish Books, through which any information, worthy of historical acceptance, can be gathered else­ where about him or them.”* Moses died in the land of Moab when he was 120 years of age. The Lord buried Moses in a valley of Moab, over against Bethpeor, but no man knowetli of his sepulchre unto this day. Josephus says that “ a cloud came over him on the sudden and he disappeared in a certain valley.” The devil disputed about the body of Moses, contending with the Archangel Michael ;f but whether the devil or the angel had the best of the discussion, the Bible does not tell us. De Beauvoir Priaulx,J looking at Moses as a counsellor, leader, and legislator, says:—“Invested with this high authority, he announced to the Jews their future religion, and announced it to them as a state religion, and as framed for a particular state, and that state only. He gave this religion, moreover, a creed so nar­ row and negative—he limited it to objects so purely temporal, he crowded it with observances so entirely ceremonial or national— that we find it difficult to determine whether Moses merely estab­ lished this religion in order that by a community of worship he might induce in the tribe-divided Israelites that community of sentiment which would constitute them a nation; or, whether he only roused them to a sense of their national dignity, in the hope that they might then more faithfully perform the duties of priests and servants of Jehovah. In other words, we hesitate to decide whether in the mind of Moses the state was subservient to the pur­ poses of religion, or religion to the purposes of state.” The same writer observes§ that, according to the Jewish writings, Moses “ is the friend and favourite of the Deity. He is one whose prayers and wishes the Deity hastens to fulfil, one to whom the Deitv makes known his designs. The relations between God and the prophet are most intimate. God does not disdain to answer the questions of Moses, to remove his doubts, and even occasionally to receive his suggestions, and to act upon them even in opposition to his own pre-determined decrees.” * G R. Gliddon’s Types of Mankind: Mankind’s Chronology, p 711 f Jude, v. 9 J Quesliones Mosaicae, p. 438. § p. 418. PRICE ONE PENNY. London: Printed by Annib Besavt and 0 hables Beadlaugh, 63, Fleet Street, E.O � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource New life of Moses Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Date of publication from Champion of liberty (Bradlaugh Centenary, 1933), bibliography. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1861] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N100 Subject The topic of the resource Bible Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (New life of Moses), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Moses (Biblical Leader) NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/3662d5d53410b5372489ea1206356a79.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=Qv7dFnISuysYNJL1OMwvBT3ZDF8UKouzivySOvFlunYbWNCwRRcaQLnmgUTdLf%7Eq6hK6Xw3LBAU2kDtrOTuSUT92oORN4DdZRfqucFxIbrZnflBSKI1i%7ESw1KVfbDkgWPqwPa%7ErXQ7k6VV8PQd2eTfgwa0fnckOqn8l8t7v1c3RCDNhGTE5uLRd9x76n5NOw%7EnGtYH6mONNh7nReRccYn9M5AV599MoIntMT12c%7EIq7yRlurm0nom1RRTSDJj1XaDOveKIun1P3V7fyF3M8MlYXvF01k-O7H6vsKUZOqHyt-q76z2IKbIyfTbvcC7v74TRUGmi48NNstDMzg50WTLg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 97d8705d23f6bd56ddb9acc914a49354 PDF Text Text B'ZrXS NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY POVERTY: ITS EFFECTS ON THE . POLITICAL CONDITION OF TEE PEOPLE. BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. LONDON: FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING 63 FLEET STREET, E.C. 1 8 9 0. PRICE ONE PENNY. COMPANY, �Since this little pamphlet was first issued, nearly twentyfive years ago, there have been enormous changes. The Reform Bills of 1867 and 1884 have placed the suffrage in town and country in the hands of the very lowest. The working of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, has developed in the masses a higher and more acute sense of suffering as well as capacity for happiness. The incite­ ments to the poorest to require from the legislature and the executive remedies for all wrongs are loud and frequent. There are fairly good people, as well as very wild ones, who seem to think that an Act of Parliament or an Order in Council can provide food for the hungry and work for the unemployed. In 1877, I was indicted for trying to place within the reach of the very poor the knowledge necessary to the application of the arguments here outlined. From 1877 until now I have, on this ground, been the object of coarsest assailment and grossest misrepresentation. Yet, at least, I have the satisfaction of knowing that the birth-rate in this country has sensibly diminished; that an association of Church clergymen and others in the East End of London has helped in this direction; and that a respectable journal, the Weekly Times and Echo, has boldly taken the very course for which I was nearly sent to gaol. I have had, too, the advantage of reading a judicial deliverance at the Antipodes, which more than outweighs many of the hard things said of me here. My co-defendant in 1877 has, in her “Law of Population”, dealt with details necessary to be known by the very poor. This pamphlet is, as it was at first intended, only a finger-post to a possible road. 1890. �POVERTY, AND ITS EFFECT ON THE POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. ‘'•'Political Economy does not itself instruct how to make a nation rich, but whoever would be qualified to judge of the means of making a nation rich must first be a political economist.”—John Stuart Mill. “The object of political economy is to secure the means of sub­ sistence of all the inhabitants, to obviate every circumstance which might render this precarious, to provide everything necessary for supplying the wants of society, and to employ the inhabitants so as to make their several interests accord with then- supplying each other’s wants.”—Sir James Stewart. At the close of the eighteenth century, a people rose searching for upright life, who had previously, for several generations, depressed by poverty and its attendant hand­ maidens of misery, prowled hunger-stricken and discon­ solate, stooping and stumbling through the byways of existence. A terrible revolution resulted in much rough justice and some brutal vengeance, much rude right, and some terrific wrong. Amongst the writers who have since narrated the history of this people’s struggle, some penmen have been assiduous and eager to search for, and chronicle the errors, and have even not hesitated to magnify the crimes, of the rebels; while they have been very slow to recognise the previous demoralising and dehumanising tendency of the system rebelled against. In very briefly dealing with the state of the people in France immediately prior to the grand convulsion which destroyed the Bastille Monarchy, and set a glorious example of the vindication of the rights of man against opposition the most formidable that can be conceived; I hold that in this illustration of the condition of the masses in France who sought to erect on the ruins of arbitrary power the glorious edifice of civil and religious liberty, an answer may be found to the question—“What is the.effect of poverty on the political condition of the people? ” In taking the instance, of France, it is not that the writer for one moment imagines that poverty is a word without meaning in our own lands. In some of the huge aggre­ gations making up our great cities there are extremes of poverty and squalor difficult to equal in any part of the �4 civilized world. But in England poverty is happily partial, while in France in the eighteenth century outside the palaces of the nobles and the mansions of the church, where luxury, voluptuousness, and effeminacy were supreme, poverty was universal. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries travellers in France could learn from the sadness, the solitude, the miserable poverty, the dismal nakedness of the empty cottages, and the starving, ragged, population, how much men could endure without dying . On the one side a discontented, wretched, hungry mass of tax-providing slaves, and on the other a rapacious, pampered, licentious, spendthrift monarchy. This culmi­ nated in the refusal of the laborers to cultivate the fertile soil, because the tax-gatherer’s rapacity left an insufficient remnant to provide the cultivator with the merest necessaries of life. Then followed “ uncultivated fields, unpeopled villages, and houses dropping to decay; ” the great cities— as Paris, Lyons, and Bordeaux—crowded with begging skeletons, frightful in their squalid disease and loathsome aspect. Even after the National Assembly had passed some .measures of temporary alleviation, the distress in Paris itself was so great that at the gratuitous distributions' of bread ‘‘old people have been seen to expire with their hands stretched out to receive the loaf, and women waiting their turn in front of the baker’s shop were prematurely delivered of dead children in the open street ”. The great mass of the people were as ignorant as they were poor; were ignorant indeed because they were poor. Ignorance is the pauper’s inalienable heritage. Partial education to a badly fed and worse housed population is only the stimulus to the expression of discontent and disaffection. When the struggle is for the means of subsistence, and these are only partially obtained, there is little hope for the luxury of a leisure hour in which other emotions can be cultivated than those of the mere desires for food and rest—sole results of the laborious monotonousness of machine work; a round of toil and sleep closing in death—the only certain refuge for the worn-out laborer. Without the opportunity afforded by the possession of more than will satisfy the immediate wants, there can be little or no culture of the mental faculties. The toiler, when badly paid and ill-fed, is separated from the thinker. Nobly-gifted, highlycultured though the poet may be, his poesy has no charms for the father to whom one hour’s leisure means short �5 food for his hungry children clamoring for bread. At best the song like that of the Corn Law Rhymer, or the Ca Ira of Paris, serves as a hymn of vengeance. The picture gallery, replete with the finest works of our greatest masters, is rarely trodden ground to the pitman, the ploughman, the poor pariahs to whom the conceptions of the highest art-treasures are impossible. The beauties of nature are almost equally inaccessible to the dwellers in the narrow lanes of great cities. Out of your narrow wynds in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and on to the moor and mountain side, ye poor, and breathe the pure life-renewing breezes. Not so ; the moors are for the sportsmen and peers, not for peasants ; and a Scotch Duke—emblem of the worst vices of a selfish, but fast decaying House of Lords—closes miles of heather against the pedestrian’s foot. But even this paltry oppression is unheeded. Duke Despicable is in unholy alliance with King Poverty, who mocks at the poor mother and her wretched, ragged family, when from the garret or cellar in a great Babylon wilder­ ness they set out to find green fields and new life. Work days are sacred to bread, and clothes, and rent; hunger, in­ clement weather, and pressing landlord forbid the study of nature ’twixt Monday morn and Saturday night, and on Sunday God’s ministers require to teach a weary people how to die, as if the lesson were not unceasingly inculcated in their incessant toil. Oh! horrid mockery; men need teaching how to live. According to religionists, this world’s bitter misery is a dark and certain preface, “ just pub­ lished,” to a volume of eternal happiness, which for 2,000 years has been advertised as in the press and ready for publication, but which after all may never appear. And notwithstanding that everyday misery is so very potent, mankind seem to heed it but very little. The second edition of a paper containing the account of a battle in which some 5,000 were killed and wounded, is eagerly perused, but the battle in which poverty kills and maims hundreds of thousands, is allowed to rage with com­ paratively small expression of concern. “ If a war or a pestilence threatens us, every one is excited at the prospect of the misery which may result; prayers are put up, and every solemn and mournful feeling called forth; but these evils are to poverty but as a grain of sand in the desert, as the light waves that ruffle a dark sea of despair. Wars come, and go, and perhaps their greatest evils consist in their �6 aggravation of poverty by the high prices they cause ; pesti­ lences last a season and then leave us; but poverty, the grim tyrant of our race, abides with us through all ages and in a 1 circumstances. For each victim that war and pestilence have slain, for each, heart that they have racked with suffering, poverty has slain its millions whom it has first condemned to drag out wearily a life of bondage and degradation.” The poor in France were awakened by Rousseau’s start­ ling declaration that property was spoliation; they knew they had been spoiled, the logic of the stomach was con­ clusive ; empty bellies and aching brains were the pre­ decessors of a revolution which sought vengeance when justice was denied, but which full-stomached critics of later days have calumniated and denounced. Warned by. the past, ought we not to make some endeavor to give battle to that curse of all old countries -—poverty ? The fearful miseries of want of food and leisure which the poor have to endure seriously hinder their political enfranchisement. Those who desire that men and women shall have the rights of citizens, should be conscious how low the poor are trampled dowm, and how incapable poverty renders them for the performance of the duties of citizenship. The question of political freedom is really determined by the wealth or poverty of the masses; to this, extent, at any rate, that a poverty-stricken people must, if that state of pauperism has long existed, neces­ sarily be an ignorant and enslaved people. The problem is, how to remove or at least to lessen poverty,. as it is only by the diminution of poverty that the political emancipation of the nation can be rendered possible. Twenty years ago the average food of the agricultural laborer in England was about half that allotted by the gaol dietary to sustain criminal life. So that the peasant who built and guarded his master’s hay­ stack got worse fed and worse lodged than the incendiary convicted for burning it down. An anonymous writer, thirty years ago, said :— The rural population of many parts of England are, as a general rule, half-starved. They have to toil like bond­ slaves, with no leisure for amusement, education, or any other blessing which elevates or sweetens human life; and after all, they have only half enough of the very first essential of life, the working classes in the towns, are also miserably paid, often half-starved ; and are sweated to death in unhealthy sedentary diudgery, such as tailoring, cotton-spinning, weaving, etc.” �4 How can suoli poverty bo removed and prevented? “ Thero is but one possible mode of preventing any evil— namely, to seek for and romovo its cause. The cause of low wages, or in other words of Poverty, is over-population; that is, the existence of too many people in proportion to the food, of too many laborers in proportion to the capital. It is of the very first importance, that the attention of all who seek to remove poverty, should never be diverted from this great truth. The disproportion between the numbers and the food is the only real cause of social poverty. Individual cases of poverty may be produced by individual misconduct, such as drunken­ ness, ignorance, laziness, or disoaso ; but these of all other accidental influences must bo wholly thrown out of the question in considering the permanent cause, and aiming at the pre­ vention of poverty. Drunkenness and ignorance, moreover, a,re far more frequently tho effect than the cause of poverty. Population and food, like two runners of unequal swiftness chained together, advance sido by side; but tho ratio of increase of tlio former is so immensely superior to that of tho latter, that it is necessarily greatly cheeked ; and tho chocks are of course either more deaths or fewer births—that is, either positive or preventive.” Unless the necessity of the preventive or positive chocks to population bo perceived ; unless it be clearly seen, that they must operate in one form, if not in another; and that though individuals may escape them, the race cannot; human society is a hopeless and insoluble riddle. Quoting John Stuart Mill, the writor from whom the foregoing extracts have been made, proceeds— “The groat object of statesmanship should bo to raise tho habitual standard of comfort among the working classes, and to bring them into such a position as shows them most, clearly that their welfare depends upon themselves. For this purpose ho advises that there should bo, first, an ex­ tended scheme of national emigration, so as to produce a, striking and sudden improvement in the condition of the laborers loft at home, and raise their standard of comfort; also that tho population truths should bo disseminated as widely as possible, so that a powerful public fooling should bo a,wakened among tho working classes against undue pro­ creation on tho part of any individual among them- a feel­ ing which oould not fail greatly to influence individual conduct; and also that we should use every endeavor to got rid of tho present system of labor—-namely, that of employers and employed, and adopt to a. great extent that of independent or associated industry. His res,son for this is, that a, hired laborer, who has no personal interest in tho work he is �8 engaged in, is generally reckless and without foresight, living from hand to mouth, and exerting little control over his powers of procreation; whereas the laborer who has a personal stake in his work, and the feeling of independence and self-reliance which the possession of property gives, as, for instance, the peasant proprietor, or member of a co­ partnership, has far stronger motives for self-restraint, and can see much more clearly the evil effects of having a large family.” The end in view in all this is the attainment of a greater amount of happiness for humankind—the rendering life more worth the living, by distributing more equally than at present its love, its beauties, and its charms. In one of his latest publications, John Stuart Mill wrote— ‘ ‘ In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, every one who has a moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happi­ ness within his reach, he will not fail to find this enviable existence, if he escape the possible evils of life, the great sources of physical and mental suffering, such as indigence, disease, and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of objects of affection. The main stress of the problem lies, therefore, in the contest with these calamities, from which it is a rare good fortune entirely to escape, which, as things now are, cannot be obviated, and often cannot be in any material degree mitigated. Yet no one whose opinion deserves a moment’s consideration can doubt that most of the great positive evils of the world are in themselves removable, and will, if human affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced within narrow limits. Poverty, in any sense implying suffering, may be completely extinguished by the wisdom of society, combined with the good sense and providence of individuals. Even that most intractable of enemies, disease, may be in­ definitely reduced in dimensions by good physical and moral education and proper control of noxious influences, while the progress of science holds out a promise for the future of still more direct conquests over this detestable foe.” My desire is to provoke discussion of this subject amongst all classes, and I affirm, therefore, as a proposi­ tion which I am prepared to support—‘1 That the political condition of the people can never be permanently reformed until the cause of poverty has been discovered and the evil itself prevented and removed.” Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Beadlaugh, 63 Fleet St., E.C.—1890. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Poverty : its effect on the political condition of the people Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: First published 30 May 1863 in the National Reformer. - 1890 ed. has a foreword, unsigned, by Bradlaugh. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Freethought Publishing Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N102 Subject The topic of the resource Social problems Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Poverty : its effect on the political condition of the people), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English NSS Political Economy Poverty https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/b842d10258a06cf2c9e19b58b7c47821.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=jbEovjEKfauxfAflj7oT8pxyLFxaL8ZXy7hxuHhK%7EE9lC292GhUNss9ET2y3Yrz72RO2GLlKM3ZbfRQ7AI7QQ%7EDEpkZX0BVcD1NH8SH4m2mqpyZ2r-iVIMqktmb64SWf8mXJ1aCqYP3NkeV8oVUPx1dv%7ECkYsXx%7E4b5xFF8sUVbQA8laKiB4W9Fk%7EaQnb63o3w1bGman49%7Exf1YxW5VAopGgJHdHHNnyENrzjb781Q%7E8dy7tYBemnDMBBnPr1p8fAsbSg38UnfUNONIcFvhZg9FzErj-7yi-0vbfv0I5zVkI5AY4qyMrM6eSokpFZ60RX9EpRmtk8r7Q-8vYbGa4Rg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM c608985cf50ae52c38e9fc0b35b82b37 PDF Text Text 2» & NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY BwAl au< k; CL<5l v~(es REPEAL OF THE BLASPHEMY LAWS. I shall, at the next meeting of the Norwood Liberal and Radical Association, move :— “That this meeting is of opinion that all Statutes inflicting penalties for opinion (as the 9th and 10th William III, cap. 35), or placing hindrances in the way of lectures and discussions (as the 21st George III, cap. 49), ought to be forthwith repealed ”. S. HARTMANN. The following is a reprint of the speech made by Mr. Bradlaugh on this subject in the House of Commons, on 12th April, 1889 (“Hansard,” vol. 335, page 450):— Mr. Speaker, the Bill, the second reading of which I have asked the House to pass, is directed against prosecutions which are partly prosecutions at common law and partly prosecutions by Statute. The Statute is the 9th and 10th, William III, chapter 35, and that Statute enacts that any person convicted of blasphemy, shall, for the first offence, be adjudged incapable and disabled in law, to all intents and purposes whatsoever, to have, to hold, or enjoy any office or offices, employment or employments, and shall, for a second offence, be adjudged disabled from being a �( 2 ) plaintiff or defendant in any suit, or from being the guar­ dian of his own children, or from being capable of receiv­ ing any legacy, and shall be liable to imprisonment for the space of three years. The Act has been held to be supplemental to the common law. I may best describe the Statute by using the words of Lord Coleridge uttered in a case which was tried six years ago. In the course of the defence, the Statute had been described as shocking, and Lord Coleridge said— “ Some old things, and amongst them this Statute, are shocking enough, and I do not defend them.” In a judgment which Lord Justice Lindley delivered in 1885, His Lordship spoke of this Statute as cruel in its operation against the persons against whom it was directed. The Statute of 6th of George, chapter 47, which applies to Scotland, makes the offence punishable by 14 years’ transportation. Now, Mr. Justice Stephen in his “ His­ tory of the Criminal Law ”, which was written and passed through the Press in 1882, although it was published in 1883, wrote— “ Offences against religion can hardly be treated as an actually existing head of our criminal law. Prosecutions for such of­ fences are still theoretically possible in a few cases, but they have in practice become entirely obsolete.” Unfortunately, whilst. the History was passing through the Press, several prosecutions were initiated, one of which 4 was tried at Maidstone, two which were tried at the Old Bailey, and two, in one of which I was myself the de­ fendant, which were removed by certiorari to the High Court, and were tried before the present Lord Chief Justice of England. Here are two views of the law which it is my duty to submit to the House, one, the view taken by the present Lord Chief Justice of England—namely, that it is only the manner of a blasphemous libel which should be censured and that a calm, and clear, and cool statement of views could not bring a person within the operation of �( 3 ) the laws relating to blasphemy; and the other, the view which, with all submission to the great Judge, who has expressed the contrary opinion, I am afraid is the real view of the law—the other, the view which was formed by Mr. Justice Stephen and Mr. Justice Hawkins sitting in I " the Queen’s Bench Division, which was mentioned in the charge of Mr. Justice North in the trials at the Old Bailey, and which was formed in the case of the AttorneyGeneral v. Bradlaugh reported in the Weekly Reporter, | vol. 433, especially by Lord Justice Lindley. It seems to me that the real state of the law has been very fully explained by Mr. Justice Stephen in an article which appeared in the Fortnightly Review, and which was pub­ lished in examination and criticism of the charge of Lord Coleridge to the jury in the case of the Queen v. Foote and others. Mr. Justice Stephen urges that the law as it now stands is a bad law, and recommends the very measure which I am bringing before the House to-night. It is right, however, I should state Lord Coleridge’s view —the view that it is the manner and not the matter of the blasphemous libel which should be considered, before I put what I conceive is, unfortunately the real view of the law. Lord Coleridge says— “It is clear, therefore, to my mind that the mere denial of the truth of the Christian religion is not enough alone to con­ stitute the offence of blasphemy.” and he goes on to point out that all prosecutions for blas­ phemy, according to his view, tend to failure. Further on in his judgment Lord Coleridge says— “ Persecution, unless thorough-going, seldom succeeds. Ir­ ritation, annoyance, punishment which stops short of exter­ mination, very seldom alter men’s religious convictions. En­ tirely without one fragment of historical exaggeration, I may say that the penal laws which 50 or 60 years ago were enforced in Ireland were unparalleled in the history of the world. They existed 150 years ago ; they produced upon the religious con­ victions of the Irish people absolutely no effect whatever.” �( 4 ) I submit to the House that all kinds of enactments which are in the nature of persecution for opinion are enactments which fail in doing anything except driving the expression of opinion into its worst and roughest forms, and, there­ fore, ought not to be desired by anyone who has in any degree any faith in any kind of liberty. Mr. Justice Stephen, reviewing the charge of Lord Coleridge, a charge which he praises in language not too strong, says — “My only objection to it is that I fear that its merits may be transferred illogically to the law which it expounds and lays down, and that thus a humane and enlightened judgment may tend to perpetuate a bad law by diverting public attention from its defects. The law I regard as essentially and funda­ mentally bad.” Now when a learned judge, who is now engaged in trying cases, can thus describe this portion of the law, I think I can submit there is something like a prima facie case for its appeal. Lord Justice Lindley in delivering judgment in the case of the Attorney-General v. Bradlaugh says— “ It is a mistake to suppose, and I think it as well the mistake |$ * ,i' 7 should be known, that persons who do not believe in a Supreme Being are in the state in which it is now commonly supposed they are. There are old Acts of Parliament still unrepealed by H which such people can be cruelly persecuted.” And it was because Lord Justice Lindley found this law on the Statute Book, that he said he felt constrained to hold as he did in the case then before him. What is the state of the law ? I prefer to put it in the words of Mr. Jnstice Stephen than in my own. He quotes in support of his statement a large number of cases, and he says— “ The result of the examination of the authorities appears to me to be that to this day Blackstone’s definition of blasphemy must be taken ,to be true; and, if this is the case, it follows that a large part of the most serious and most important litera­ ture of the day is illegal—that, for instance, every bookseller who sells, every one who lends to his friend, a copy of Comte’s Positive Philosophy, or of Renan’s Vie de Jesu, commits a crime punishable with fine and imprisonment. It may be said that so revolting a consequence cannot be true; but, unfortunately, �( 5 ) this is not the case. I suppose no one will, or indeed can deny that if any person educated as a Christian, or having ever made profession of the Christian religion, denied that the Bible was of divine authority, even by word of mouth, he would incur the penalties of the 9 and 10 William III, c. 32. I will take a par­ ticular instance by way of illustration of this. The late Mr. Greg was not only a distinguished author, but an eminent and useful member of the Civil Service. I suppose he was educated as a Christian, and no one could have a stronger sympathy with the moral side of Christianity. In every one of his works the historical truth of the Christian history is denied : and so is the divine authority of the Old and New Testament. If he had been convicted of publishing these opinions, or even of express­ ing them to a friend in private conversation, his appointment would have become void, and he Would have been adjudged in­ capable and disabled in law to hold any office or employment whatever; in a word, he would have lost his income and his profession. Upon a second conviction, he must have been im­ prisoned for three years, and incapacitated, amongst other things to sue or accept any legacy. About this there neither is, nor can be, any question whatever.” And after a long and careful summary of the law, as laid down in many decisions, Mr. Justice Stephen winds up— “ In my own opinion the practical inference is that blasphemy and blasphemous libel should cease to be offences at common law at all, that the Statute of William III should be repealed, and that it should be enacted that no one except a beneficed clergyman of the Church of England should be liable to ecclesi­ astical censures for ‘ atheism, blasphemy, heresy, schism, or any other opinion ’. Such an abolition would not only secure com­ plete liberty of opinion on these matters, but it would prevent their recurrence at irregular intervals of scandalous prosecutions which have never in any one instance benefited anyone least of all the cause which they were intended to serve, and which sometimes afford a channel for the gratification of private malice under the cloak of religion.” • I ask this House to give effect- to what the learned Judge has said. I know there are one or two arguments which may be used to weigh heavily against me. One is, that the class for whom I speak is a comparatively small class. (Mr. DeLisle : “ Hear, hear.”) There would be no reason in denying liberty to one man, even if he stood alone. Every opinion, in every age, has been at some time small, �( 6 ) and those who hold opinions which, within 100 years have been the subject of cruel persecutions within this realm, should be the last to endorse the doctrine of persecution against those weaker than themselves. It may be urged that the severe penalties of the law are seldom enforced. It is only about 50 years ago that under this Act one man suffered nine years and eight months’ imprisonment in this country, and was also condemned to pay an enormous fine. It did not check the issue of the literature by him against which the prosecution was directed. It only had the effect of endearing him to a large number of people, and of making many purchase the writings he issued who might otherwise not have done so. I hardly like to seem to be thrusting my personal case upon the House, but I may be permitted to remind the House that the declaration has been made very formally in print that the prosecution which was directed against me, was initiated for the direct purpose of disqualifying me, under this Statute, for the term of my natural life, from taking part in the political work of the country. I submit to the House that, ruling as it does over 330,000,000 of human beings, of every kind of faith or lack of faith, it is our duty to treat all alike. What is the effect of the law as it stands ? Two years ago a legacy was left to myself and a gentleman in Manchester for the purpose of endowing an institution. We were all persons who might have been indicated as blasphemers under the law. The legacy was left for purely educational purposes, but the legacy was set aside, first of all in the Court of the Palatine of Lancaster, and next on appeal, on the ground that a bequest for such a purpose was an j illegal bequest and voidable. It may be said “ we would not object to you being allowed to utter your views, but we object to you uttering your views in an offensive language”. But if persons utter their views in an of­ fensive manner, and so as to provoke a breach of the peace, they are punishable under the law as it now stands. The fact that the law is not always enforced, the fact that �( 7 ) it is seldom enforced, the fact that Mr. Justice Stephen in his “ History of the Criminal Law ”, describes the law as obsolete, the fact that Lord Justice Lindley has referred to the law as cruel in its operation, should tend, I submit, to induce the House to grant the Second Reading of this Bill. I can quite understand it is possible that people will say that views which are different from their own should not be offensively urged, but that brings in the question of the manner of the advocate rather than that of the matter, and I put it to persons who hold this view, whether the keeping on the Statute Book of this harsh and cruel law, does not deprive' any of us, who may wish to tone and temper argument, of any fair reason for checking harsh or hasty speech or utterance. Again, let me point out that the word blasphemy for which' you punish to-day, has been an ever-changing word. It is only 240 years ago that a man, Naylor, the Quaker, of the same faith as the man (Mr. Bright) all of us in this House honored, was tried for blasphemy. George Box, William Penn, and scores of their co-workers were sent to gaol, or whipped at the cart tail as blasphemers. The Unitarians, had they lived even later than the times of which I have just spoken, would have come within the penalties of this Statute which Lord Coleridge says gives a ferocious power against people, and which Lord Justice Lindley condemns as an essentially bad law. I feel' that this is not a time of night to trespass unduly on the attention of the House. I can only appeal to the generosity of the majority, but I would point out to them the position in which they put those who differ from them when they lack generosity themselves. I have sometimes tried to argue with my friends in Prance against the strict en­ forcement some of them have put on the Anti-Clerical laws ■ they have answered me “ the Church shows us no mercy ”. It is that kind of unfortunate spirit which treats opinion as if it were a crime and thought as if it were a crime, when the very honesty of the utterance of that �thought, that expression of opinion, shows you that the persons against whom you direct your Statute, have, at least, the virtue of honesty to redeem their action from being classed as that of the ordinary criminal. It is against this unfortunate spirit I am arguing; it is for these people I am pleading to-night. I am pleading for many who have found trusts for their children cancelled, as was the case with a member of this House, honored while sitting in it because of the family to which he belonged, and for the great name and greater traditions associated with it—I mean Lord Amberley. He found his trust for his children cancelled, because the man whom he honored enough to give the trust, might have been brought within the scope of this statute. It is too late to-day to keep these penalties on the Statute Book. The Bill may not receive sanction for its second reading to-night, but it is something—and I thank the House for it—that the House has listened patiently and generously to an appeal made on behalf of an unpopular minority; and one day or other justice will have to be done, and I ask the House to do it whilst those for whom they are asked to do it are few and weak, rather than leave us to win, as win we will, that outside public opinion by the ballot which determines what the law shall be. A. Bonner, Printer, 34 Bouverie St., E.C, � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Repeal of the blasphemy laws Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bradlaugh, Charles [1833-1891] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Annotations in pencil. Reprint of speech made by Bradlaugh in the House of Commons on 12 April 1889. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available A. Bonner, Printer Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1889?] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N103 Subject The topic of the resource Blasphemy Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Repeal of the blasphemy laws), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Blasphemy-Law and Legislation-Great Britain NSS