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WITH SOME REMARKS ON
PROFESSOR TYNDALL’S ADDRESS AT BELFAST.
BY
CHARLES BRAY,
Author of ‘ The Philosophy of Necessity' ‘A Manual of Anthropology or
Science of Man,' ‘ The Education of the Feelings,' Ac.
“ Things are to each man according as they seem to him.”—Anaxagoras.
“ The eye sees only what it brings the power to see.”— T. Carlyle.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SOOTT,
NO. II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
1875.
Price Ninepence.
�- LONDON:
PRINTED DY C. W., RBYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET,
HAYMARKET, IV.
�'*.-*«*
*
TOLERATION.-*'
“"[JI VERY man,” says t>r. Johnson, “has a right
P J to his own opinion, and^fevery Ong else »has a
right to knock him down for it.” * <1 do nofc know %
whether this is the meaning he gives »to Toleration in
his dictionary, but it pretty correctly expresses both
its theory and practice in his day. Witness the brute
who knocked down Shelley. The^toet one day in Italy
was asking for his letters at the post-office, and gave in ,
his name—“ What! ” said an Englishman present,11 are ,
you that d—d Atheist Shelley ? ” an$. knocked him down, .
endangering his life ; no doubt understanding toleration in the above Johnsonian sense. I need not say that
such an outrage would not be permitted in the present
day, neither could it take place if it would, not so much
from any alteration of theory or opinion on the subject .
as from an entire alteration of, feeling; and it is- our
feelings, not the intellect, that rule us. The instincts
of the multitude are often in advance of the reason,t
and it is the imperceptible growth of the moral sense
and not the intellect that determines conduct. ‘It would,
be impossible in the present day to re-light the fires of
Smithfield or to burn a Witch; and yet there can be no
doubt that, from an intellectual point of view, both the
Inquisition and the Witch burners were only acting
consistently in accordance with their creed. It is the
moral judgment of the world that has condemned the
creed; logically it is as sound as ever.
It is true the age does not notv admit of persecution;
or, if it does, only in a very restrained and modified
sense. People are avoided or sent to Coventry for
certain opinions, that are supposed to militate against
�6
Toleration: ‘with Some Remarks on
what is now considered “ good society; ” but i( the
naughty man, who does not believe in anything,” is
well received. In this, however, there is no thought of
toleration; few know even the meaning of the word.
Let us then inquire what is toleration, and if it be
really a virtue or not ?
Religiozcs Toleration.
Toleration in a dictionary sense is bearing, enduring,
allowance of what is not approved, liberty to teach
religious opinions different to the Established Church.
It is in the latter sense—in a religious sense—that
toleration is best known to the Dissenters, because they
have suffered legally from the want of it. But is
religious toleration a virtue—i.e., is it right or wrong ?
From the Boman Catholic point of view it must be
wrong ; from the Protestant it is right. The Roman
Catholic, as we are told by Archbishop Manning in the
June number of the Contemporary Review, not only
believes in the moral and divine certainty of his reve
lation—i.e., the Christian revelation—but he also
believes that a necessary provision has been made for
the safe custody, the proper interpretation, and full
understanding of this revelation in his own church,
“ divinely founded, divinely preserved from error, and
divinely assisted in the declaration of the truth.” He
believes that the voice of the living Church at this hour
is no other than the voice of the Holy Spirit. That
the decrees of the nineteen General Councils, by which
the present Canon and other fundamental dogmas have
been established, are also undoubtedly the voice of the
Holy Spirit. The Roman Catholic Church, whether
dispersed or gathered in one CEcumenical Council, is
pronounced to be infallible ; and every one who shall
deny such a Council to be (Ecumenical is excommuni
cated—i.e., damned to all eternity, Now, how any one
who believes that God has not only given us a revela-
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast.
7
tion, but his Spirit also to guard and interpret it, can
consistently tolerate any other doctrine, I cannot con
ceive. But the authority of the Roman Catholic Church
and of its (Ecumenical Councils have been profanely
denied by the Protestants, who say that, inasmuch as
the members of these Councils differed in opinion, they
could not all have the Holy Ghost, and to say that it
dwelt with the majority is a pure assumption. (See
Article 21 of the Church of England.)
But it is not the Catholics only who have persecuted
and who have burnt people to death in order to inspire
them with a proper faith. Protestants also have done
so ; “ and if he that believeth shall be saved, and he that
believeth not shall be damned,” and if belief is in our
own power, I cannot see how we can be justified in not
taking every step, even the most extreme, to promote
that faith which alone leads to salvation. For what is
the suffering of an hour or two here at the stake com
pared to an eternity of such burning in hell with the
devil and his angels ? Intolerance, therefore, is a virtue
in a Roman Catholic and in all who believe that they
have infallible truth, and that all men can believe that
truth if they are so disposed. But it has been dis
covered that slow burning at the stake, even with green
wood, which gives more time for faith and repentance,
does not tend to clear the judgment and enable people
to see what they could not see before. The error, how
ever, both of Catholic and Protestant, was not in the
want of toleration, but in the dogma that belief is in
our own power, and that we can believe what we like,
whereas we cannot believe that to be black which
appears to us to be white, or in any of the various steps
between, although we should be burned for it both here
and hereafter. Persecution may make hypocrites, but
it cannot make us believe that which appears to us to
be incredible. It has been the gradual perception and
recognition of this truth by the wise that has given the
tone to society, and made the foolish—i.e.-, the multi
�8
Toleration: with Some Remarks on
tude—more tolerant. Protestantism proclaimed the right
of private judgment; and when people really took the
liberty to think for themselves, and did not leave it to
their church or chapel, the consequences were exactly
what might have been expected—viz., that no two people
ever do think alike. This was more manifest among
the Scotch—reasoning and theological people—than
among the English. A small band of Presbyterians had
seceded from a small body that had itself seceded from
the National Church. The suffering remnant, we are
told, dwindled away until it was composed but of two
persons, an old man and an old woman. “ I suppose,
Janet,” said a scoffer to the dame, “that you believe
yourself and John to be now the only true members of
Christ’s Kirk.” “Weel mon,” she replied, “I’m nae
so sure of John.” It is this tendency to divide—the
right of private judgment having been conceded—that
makes toleration almost a necessity in religion.
The altered tone of Society as illustrated in Professor
Tyndall’s late Address at Belfast.
The last meeting of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science furnishes a complete illustra
tion of this. Galileo was imprisoned and Giordano
Bruno burnt for much less heresy than that displayed
by the President of the Association in the Annual
Address. The Spectator is a clever journal, but it
admits no science that cannot be strained through its
rather old and narrow theological sieve, and it says :—■
“ Professor Tyndall will be much less persecuted for
denying the existence of God than he would be for
denying the value of Monarchy, and may defend Atheists
with much less abuse than communists or oligarchs.
English ‘ society ’ nowadays holds two things to be
divine, Property and the Usual.”
But is Professor Tyndall’s Address Atheism or a
defence of Atheists ? In the Spectator's view it may
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast.
9
be, with others it may be only a step towards a more
complete understanding of the character of God. The
anthropomorphic view must give place to one in which
God must be “All in All,” and not a part only of
nature or the universe ; “ for,” as St. Paul says, “ there
are diversities of operation, but the same God worketh
all in all.” “ God,” as Victor Cousin says, “must be
everything or nothing.” A priori, we must feel that
the Infinite must contain everything; and science, a pos
teriori, is now only beginning to recognise this view.
Professor Tyndall says, “Is there not a temptation to
close to some extent with Lucretius, when he affirms
that ‘ Nature is seen to do all things spontaneously of
herself, without the meddling of the Gods ? ’ or with
Bruno, when he declares that Matter is not ‘ that mere
empty capacity which philosophers have pictured her to
be, but the universal mother who brings forth all things
as the fruit of her own womb ? ’ ” “ Abandoning,” he
says, “ all disguise, the confession I feel bound to make
before you is that I prolong the vision backward across
the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern
in that Matter, which we in our ignorance, notwith
standing our professed reverence for its Creator, have
hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and
potency of every form and quality of life.” “The
teaching of the whole lecture is,” says the Spectator,
“ that, so far as science can ascertain, Matter—expanding
that word to include Force as one of its attributes—is
the Final Causeand it says “ that the result of such
a philosophy, if universally accepted, would be evil, or
rather, to avoid theological terminology, would be
injurious to human progress, we have no doubt.” Then
why tolerate it ? “ Because,” says the Spectator, “ that,
if it be true, the injury is no argument against its
diffusion ; for the injury, whatever its amount, is less
than that which must proceed from the deliberate lying
of the wise, or from the existence of that double creed,
an exoteric and esoteric one, which is the invariable
�io
Toleration : with Some Remarks on
result of their silence or their limitation of speech to a
circle of the initiated.” But the question is, -if true,
can it possibly be evil, or injurious to human progress ?
I think not; and the result of this philosophy appears
to me to lead, not only to the destruction of much that
now stands in the way of real religion, and that tends
to Atheism, but it would also lead to the most important
of all truths. Thus what is “Lucretius denying God
and deifying nature ” but saying with Pope that—
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
and that this body and soul, as far as we can see, are
inseparable. It is the recognition of the fact, not of a
God in Nature, but that God is Nature and Nature is
God, and that the government of the Universe by a
separate Being is altogether untenable. The Spectator
says that it is Professor Tyndall’s opinion “ that the
Unknown and the Unknowable is discovered, and is
‘ Matter,’ ” and that this Matter “ is the ultimate source
of all things, and its own first cause.” In this I think
the Spectator does not truly represent the Professor.
Both Matter and Spirit are mere phenomena, that is,
modes of manifestation of the Great Unknown and
Unknowable. As Professor Huxley says, “For, after
all, what do we know of this terrible ‘ Matter,’ except as
a name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states
of our own consciousness ? And what do we know of
that ‘ Spirit ’ over whose threatened extinction by Matter
a great lamentation is arising like that which was heard
at the death of Pan, except that it is also a name for an
unknown and hypothetical cause, or condition, of states
of consciousness ? In other words, matter and spirit are
only names for the imaginary substrata of groups of
natural phenomena.” * There is no reason to suppose
that Tyndall disagrees on this subject with his brother
Professor. Elsewhere than in his Address he tells us
* ‘On the Physical Basis of Life. ’
�Professor Tyndall’s Address at Belfast. 11
that Matter is “ essentially mystical and transcendental.”
And this is true, for what do we really know about it
that enables us to say that it differs essentially from
Spirit ? We know only our own consciousness, that is,
to know and to be conscious are the same things, and
this consciousness tells us nothing of Matter but as the
cause of our varied consciousness ; as Mill tells us, these
groups of external natural phenomena, of which Matter
is the supposed substratum, are mere “ possibilities of
sensation.” Tyndall admits with Spencer that, “ Our
states of consciousness are mere symbols of an outside
entity which produces them and determines the order of
their succession, but the real nature of which we can
never know.” Both Matter and Mind are phenomenal,
and are the mere modes of action of the common “ sub
stance ”—the Great Unknown which underlies both.
When we talk of material and immaterial as indicating
a difference, per se, we are talking of what we know
nothing ; Matter is known to us only in its modes of
action, and Mind as consciousness.
The Spectator (in “The Stronghold of Materialism )
says that, “whatever Matter may be, it is at bottom the
fruit rather than the germ of mind.” But to set up the
rival claims of Spiritualism and Materialism under such
conditions of our knowledge is simply absurd—it is talk
ing of that of which we really know nothing certain. All
we know is that we never find Matter without Force, or
Life without Matter, or Mind without Matter. Tyndall
says, “ Man the object is separated by an impassable gulf
from man the subject.” Is it not rather the fact that
the active and passive principle—the body and soul of
Nature—are one and inseparable. God is the Universe,
and the Universe is God. In the Church of the Latter
Days, says St. Simon, man is to feel and realise the
divinity of his whole nature, material as well as spiritua .
And what is the important truth to which this
absorption of Nature into God, or the deification o
Nature points ? Why, that not only the moral laws,
�12
Toleration: with Some Remarks on
or man’s relation to his fellow man, are divine, but that
the physical laws are so also; for man’s relation to
Nature is his relation to God, and his well-being will be
assured in proportion as he studies these divine laws of
Nature, and acts in complete conformity and harmony
with their invariable sequence. Follow Nature, that is,
obey God. Professor Tyndall’s Address, when carried
out to its legitimate consequences, does not land us in
Atheism, but just the reverse; it leads through Nature
up to Nature’s God, or, rather, to the fact that God and
Nature are One; that God is All in All. If the per
petual changes in the combination of Molecules are
enough by themselves to produce all the varying forms
of inanimate and animate existence, God is the source
of all power and cause of all change. It is not Force
that is persistent, but His Will, consciously or auto
matically displayed. The argument, which I have used
elsewhere, put briefly is this. We know of Mind or
Consciousness only as a Force, and we know of that
which acts upon Mind, and of which it is the correlative,
only as Force, and as all these forces—of Heat, Light,
Magnetism, Electricity, Attraction, Repulsion, Chemical
Affinity, Life 'and Mind—so-called separate forces for
the sake of convenience in classification—all change
into each other, there is therefore but One, and as this
tends always to a given purpose, or acts with design, it
must be intelligent; and, if intelligent, conscious or
automatic, i.e., originally conscious ; and the conscious
action of Power or Force is Will. All Power is, there
fore, or was, Will Power, and 11 Causation the Will, Crea
tion the Act of God; ” that is, the Act of that which
underlies all Force, or of which it is the Force, variously
named Noumenon, Substance, Life, Being, the Very God.
The only knowledge we have of Force, or Power, or
Causation is that exercised by our own minds which we
call Will Power; and the connection between that
power and what it effects is one of purpose—a purely
mental one. In mind joined with structure—and we
�Professor TyndalPs Address at Belfast. 13
know of no other mind, for the mind of the universe is
inseparable from the structure of the universe, both
being equally an evolution or emanation from God : or
rather being God Himself—mental acts frequently re
peated pass from the conscious to the unconscious state ;
the original purpose is continued in the act, and the act
repeated without the sense or consciousness of it. Judg
ing by analogy, and of great things by small, this is
probably the source of General Causation. We find in
variable sequence only, and no reason why this sequence
should take place in the recognised order than in any
other. We can trace no necessary connection between
cause and effect; and the great probability is that it
was originally established and is maintained to effect a
given purpose, as in the action of our own wills, and
that this originally conscious action has passed in the
ages into the unconscious or automatic. Specific pur
poses have passed into general laws, and it is thus :
The Universal Cause
Acts not by partial but by general laws.*
What we call the Laws of Nature are nothing more
than unconscious or automatic Will Power.
In trying, then, to comprehend the mystery of what
is called “Evil”—i.e., pain, in all its different degrees,
both mental and bodily—we must take into considera
tion not only this automatic or unconscious action of
law, but also that it is not the partial but the general—
not man, but humanity—we have to consider. As the
innumerable cells of which the body is composed are to
man, so is man to the great body of humanity. As
each cell in the body gives up its life to another, and
the rapidity with which it does so increases the vitality
of the individual man, so it is in the great body of
humanity. But man is only the last and most perfect
form of enjoyment; we have to consider the whole of
* See “Note on Professors Huxley and Clifford,” at the
end.
�14
Toleration : with Some Remarks on
the animal creation spreading a fine network of nerve
over the whole world. The natural function of nerve is
pleasurable sensibility, and pain is the exception, not
the law : the pains not being as one in a hundred to the
pleasures. The aggregate of pleasurable sensations con
stitutes happiness. The difference between the optimist
and pessimist is one, therefore, of the simplest rule in
arithmetic. We cannot look upon this question from the
individual point of view. Individuals are only indi
viduals to our forms of thought. Underneath the whole
of sensitive existence lies one common force or “ sub
stance,” and life—all life—is only a form or mode of
this. The lilies that spread themselves over the surface
of the water, each in its separate existence so beautiful
a development, have under the water but one common
root.
The pains, of which individually so much is
made, are as much swallowed up in the happiness of
the whole as in the pain or “ sacrifice ” we are all called
upon to make of our lower nature to the highest pur
poses of existence. As increased fineness of nervous
texture seems necessary to the increase of sensibility, so
pain would seem to be the only guardian to so wonder
fully complicated a structure. Man quarrelling with
pain is like a child quarrelling with its nurse for keeping
it out of the fire, or a schoolboy with his schoolmaster,
for pain is a better teacher than pleasure.
There can be no exception to general laws, as both
instinct—which is organised experience—and reason
depend upon the uniformity and invariableness of such
laws, and all men’s actions depend upon his knowledge
of, and adaptation to, this uniformity. Exceptions,,
like eleemosynary charity, would sap the springs of
self-reliance and self-dependence, the foundation of all
manhood. •
There is another mystery also upon which the above;
views of the automatic action of mind throws some light.
The evolution of Mind from Matter, “ the passage,”
says Professor Tyndall, “ from the physics of the brain
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast. 15
to the corresponding facts of consciousness, is unthink
able.” Physical Force is Automatic Mind, and when
under the molecular action of the brain, or other condi
tions, at present not well known to us, it resumes its
consciousness, no inexplicable gulf is passed of Mind
from Matter, but Mind has simply passed from the
automatic state to its originally conscious state. There
is no such thing as blind force or a Mindless Universe,
only a Soul of Nature and its body, like our own, acting
automatically in its physical functions. Mind, under
the action of the brain, not only resumes its conscious
ness, but takes a specific character which we call Intel
ligence and Feeling—forms of thought and impulses to
action which fit us as individuals to do our part in the
world in which we live. Intelligence, as known to us,
is thus a mere form which Universal Mind takes for
specific purposes, and we have no right whatever to
assume that what we call Intelligence exists in the
Universal Mind in the form in which it is known
to us.
This subject illustrates more forcibly than any other
the necessity for Toleration, and the folly of dogma
tising. The question has many sides, all leading to the
Unknown. The Materialist and the Positivist stop far
short of the deductions which I think I have drawn
legitimately, and the Theist makes a god after his own
image, with his own feelings, passions, and modes of
thought or intelligence : both, in my opinion, are
equally wrong, and we require the utmost limit of free
thought and full toleration on a subject on which we
all know so little; but it is well said that controversy
is to truth what the polish is to the diamond—it makes
it shine the brighter.
Not only this most difficult of all subjects, but most
questions appear simple to him only who knows little
about them. All are many-sided and appear clearest
to him who sees but one side, or, at least, but few; and
dogmatism and intolerance are, generally, in proportion
�16
Toleration: with Some Remarks on
to the extent, not of a person’s knowledge, but of his
ignorance.
The Eye sees only what it brings the power to see.
It used to be thought that the mind was a tabula
rasa, upon which anything could be written by educa
tion ; no allowance was made for difference in natural
faculty; but now it is pretty generally acknowledged
that, although things without us may be the same to all
people, they are seen and apprehended in proportion to
the greater or less perfection of our instrument of
thought. If a man is blind we do not expect him to
see, but if he is equally blind in some of his mental
faculties, we expect him to see with them just the same.
This blindness is recognised in those who cannot dis
tinguish colours, but notin any other of our perceptions.
Sir David Brewster found that one in eighty-nine were
colour blind, and this was thought to be an imperfection
in the organ of sight—the eye; but this is a mistake,
the defect is in the brain—in the absence or deficiency of
the part upon which the sense of colour depends. This
may be seen by any one who chooses to look. The same
absence of brain may cause equal blindness in all our
other mental powers, both perceptive and reflective.
The consequence is that all people necessarily see things
differently according to their natural powers of appre
hending. The worst of it is that we are seldom or ever
aware of our deficiencies; a specialist and physicist,
with great perceptive power, may see further into a mill
stone than most other people, but he may be utterly
deficient in the reasoning power • and a metaphysician
may have great reasoning power, but may reason in
correctly from want of power to collect and appreciate
correct data to reason upon. Experience has shown the
folly of believing that because a person is clever in one
department, his judgment may be equally trusted out of
his special department. Specialists, in physical science
especially, are but too often both narrow and intolerant.
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast. 17
In all departments the focus of people’s mental eyes
differs : some can perceive only details, others only gene
rals, while others look only at the inner nature of all
they see. Consequently the evidence of such diverse
observers is as contradictory as their diverse mental
powers. I have known persons with a wonderful memory,
well stored in scientific facts, and in facts of Natural
History and History, with great power of language, and
great orators, but blind or almost blind in the reasoning
power, and therefore utterly without Judgment. The
world seldom recognises such deficiencies, if a man is a
clever talker, still seldomer does the man himself. “ It
would cost me,” says Lord Lytton, in his Speeches just
published, “ immense labour to acquire the ready, cool
trick of words with little knowledge and no heart in
them, which is necessary for a Parliamentary debater.”
And yet it is such clever Parliamentary debaters, such
heaven-born ministers I with “ little knowledge and no
heart in them,” to whom we entrust the power to
govern the world. “ The World embraces,” says Profes
sor Tyndall in his Address, “ not only a Newton, but a
Shakespeare—not only a Boyle, but a Raphael—not
only a Kant, but a Beethoven—not only a Darwin, but a
Carlyle.” It is these differences, dependent upon the
difference in the development of brain, recognised at
a glance by those who have made cerebral physiology
their study, that make us feel that Toleration is a
necessity, and that all that a wise man will be justified
in doing will be to try to make another see a thing in
the light he sees it, and if he fails he will bear it, that
is, tolerate it. It was almost a generation before the
savans on the Continent could see things as Sir I. New
ton saw them. If the wise man likes to console him
self with the reflection suggested to us by Carlyle, viz.,
“ that Great Britain consists of twenty-one millions of
inhabitants—mostly fools,” he can do so, but he had
better keep that opinion to himself, as to give expression
to it is a mode of intolerance not much more justifi
able than knocking a man down a la Dr. Johnson.
B
�18
Toleration : with Some Remarks on
It is difficult, however, to prevent this mode of con
solation suggesting itself when we consider how Gall’s
Great Discoveries are treated by the Physiologists of
the present day. They appear to be utterly ignored by
them, or quite forgotten, and yet they have given to
the world the only intelligible and practical system of
mental and moral philosophy it has yet known. At
the British Association Meeting at Belfast, in Section D
for Anatomy and Physiology, the leading Physiologists,
in opposition to Dr. Byrne, Dean of Clonfert, declared
that the cerebrum is a single organ, with no more
separation of function in its lobes than is the case with
the lobes of the liver; so that the long life of Gall, a
man superior in every way to any of them, was spent in
vain, and all that his followers have seen and discovered
since, for nearly one hundred years now, of the functions
of the brain, is all a delusion. Among the “Problems
of Life and Mind,” there is, perhaps, nothing more
wonderful than this. Either the leading men of science
in all departments, who filled Combe’s book of Testi
monials in 1836 in favour of Phrenology, were either
grossly ignorant, or the physiologists of the present day
must be so. To say that Phrenology is not a certain
science, that mind cannot be weighed and measured, or
as yet given in foot-pounds, is quite beside the mark,
for as much is known of the functions of the brain as of
any other organ. The brain of the civilised man ex
ceeds that of the savage by thirty cubic inches—thirty
cubic inches more of organised experience—of instinct
or feeling, of intuition or intelligence, and yet all this,
we are told, is contained in a single organ, with, of
course, a single function. There is no such case of
“ reversion,” or of a return to ignorance on record as this,
and there is no excuse for it, as every one who has eyes
may, if he pleases, compare the functions of the brain
with its development. There are few people who do
not know, or who may not discover upon inquiry, some
one who is colour blind, and they will always find in
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast. 19
the centre of the eyebrow a deficiency of brain as
compared with others who can distinguish colours. The
connection between other faculties and organs are not
S3 easy to discriminate, but they may be found with
care and patience. Huxley, who ought to be our great
leader in this matter, speaks of an organ of consciousness
as if it were generally admitted, whereas the vividness
of consciousness is always in proportion to the size of
the organ with which each separate faculty and feeling
is found to be connected. There may be, and probably
is, an organ that gives us the intuition of the “I,” or
feeling of identity. What is called self-consciousness
or reflection on consciousness, depends upon the reason
ing faculties, which the brutes do not appear to
possess; they possess, however, most of the other in
tellectual faculties that man has, and some of them in
even a greater degree, and are as much capable of a
train of thought as he is, and of communicating it, as
it is very evident they have a language of their own.
Huxley, however, admits that as, “ in other cases,
function and organ are proportional, so we have a
right to conclude it in with the brain.” He does not,
however, appear yet to have compared function and
organ in the brain ; if he had, perhaps, he would be able
to tell the Phrenologists where they are wrong, and how
it is that the lives of several generations of clever men
have been quite thrown away. Dr. Carpenter, however,
is not so reticent; he has examined, and has come to
the conviction that if the intellect is in the brain at all,
i.e,. in the cerebrum, it is in the back of the head and
not in the front. He appears to think that Dr. Ferrier
has put us into the right road at last, and that, as by
taking off the skull, and other altogether abnormal con
ditions, a dog may be made to wag his tail and roll his
eyeballs, and show other such-like wonderful special
indications of intellect and feeling when parts, of the
brain are artificially stimulated, we are justified in
assuming, from this admirable mode of proceeding, that
�20
Toleration: with Some Remarks on
this intellect is in the back of the head, and not in the
front or forehead; and it was this original discovery of
his, he tells us, now twenty-five years ago, that com
pletely smashed phrenology and phrenologists !
It is not the Intellect that determines judgment so
much as Feeling, and it is not what we Imow but what
we feel that ordinarily determines conduct. A man
generally tells you what he feels rather than what he
thinks upon important subjects.
Indeed, very few
people think at all—they absorb their opinions from
the mental and moral atmosphere around them, and
speculative opinions are accepted, not from the argu
ments on which they rest, but from a predisposition to
receive them. We think according to the mode of this
age and country, and we dress our minds as we dress
our bodies in the fashion of the period. Tyndall’s
Address would not have been received twenty-five years
ago.
The extent to which feeling influences judgment is
well known and acknowledged in certain familiar cases,
but it is less recognised in others, where not quite
so potent.
The lover’s feeling for his mistress, for instance, and
the tendency he has to transfer all the best qualities
of his own mind to the object of his affections; the
perfection which the mother sees in her little fluffy,
squabby infant darling, and all its pretty ways, each one
believing there never was such a baby before; and
singular enough every woman sees every woman’s
folly but her own. We can all see, and laugh up our
sleeves at such follies, unless, indeed, we are too greatly
the victims, and then it is no laughing matter, par
ticularly if we are expected to qualify to nurse as well
as to admire.
All our feelings are liable to deceive us in the same
way in proportion to their strength ; our fears as well as
our hopes, our hates as well as our loves, all influence
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast. 21
and warp the judgment, and tend to make us intolerant.
A man feels justly or kindly, not in proportion to his
familiarity with the truths of Christianity, but in pro
portion as his conscientious or benevolent feelings are
strong or weak; and his feeling towards his religion is
very much like a child’s for its doll: he makes an idol of
it, however wooden it is, and loves it all the better if it
has no brains, or has lost an eye or even its head, or all
its body has branned away. Religious people thus
clothe their god in all the gorgeous imagery of an
Eastern despotic monarch, sitting on a throne in some
spot in this Infinite Universe of suns and stars, which
they call Heaven, invested with passions like their own,
angry, jealous, partial, greedy of praise, creating all
things for his own glory, doing what is right and kind
towards his creatures only when he is bothered into it by
repeated importunity, and when you refuse to acknow
ledge and to bow down to this their god,—to this
image which they have set up, they call you an Atheist,
and you are committed to the fiery furnace of their
wrath. This is the worst and narrowest phase of dog
matism, fanaticism, and intolerance, and yet it is much
too common. It is this, our dependence upon feeling,
and often upon good feeling, rather than upon intellect,
that makes Toleration so difficult to practise—a man
may have nothing to give in support of his views but his
feeling on the subject, and as he knows that the feeling
is a good one, he looks upon any attack upon his
opinions as a personal attack upon himself. It was thus,
as Thackeray tells us in his “ Lectures on the Georges,
with good old stupid George the Third. This was how
he reasoned: “ I wish nothing but good, therefore every
man who does not agree with me is a traitor and a
scoundrel,” and as far as he was able he treated them as
such. It was for him to command, “ In this way you
shall trade, in this way you shall think ; these neigh
bours shall be your allies whom you shall help, these
others your enemies whom you shall slay at my orders ,
�'Ll
rl deration : with Some Remarks on
in this way you shall worship God.” Who can wonder
that under such guidance, aided by the Tories and a
“ heaven-born ” Minister with a head about the size of
a pin’s, we should have spent 1,200 millions in trying to
stay the march of Progress and in putting the Holy
Alliance in its place.
The conscientious bigot, James the Second, thought
that to differ from him in opinion was to doubt his word
and call him a liar, and, although unexpressed, this is
too frequently the tone of people generally—particu
larly of good and shallow people. They reason in this
way, as illustrated above: “You differ from me; I know
I mean well, you cannot therefore mean well as you
differ from me, and you must therefore be a scoundrel,”
—confounding feeling and intellect. If, therefore, you
differ from them on any point whatever, but especially
on Theological grounds, they regard the fact of your
differing from them as proof, not merely that you are
intellectually stupid, but that you are morally depraved.
This kind of intolerance is certainly less than it was
some twenty years since, when the slightest tendency to
free thought was represented as a wish to free yourself
from the restraints of Religion ; and the belief that an
Almighty and Infinitely Benevolent Creator of Hell was
a contradiction could only be held by those who were
afraid that they should go there.
The wise are always tolerant, and the ignorant are
intolerant, generally in proportion to their ignorance.
The whole history, not only of Religion but of Science,
shows the necessity for Toleration. In Religion, the
sphere of the occult and transcendental, we have good
and wise men on all sides; and in Science, prejudice
very much obscures the eyesight. The study of Human
Nature shows us that the power to form a correct
opinion depends 'upon natural capacity, and the degree
of cultivation such powers have received; upon how
people feel as well as think, and that people cannot be
made to think and feel alike. “ To submit our conclu-
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast. 23
sions,” says Lewes, “to the rigorous test of evidence,
and to seek the truth, irrespective of our preconcep
tions, is the rarest and most difficult of intellectual
virtues.” (Problems of Life and Mind, p. 472). A
dogmatic manner is therefore felt to be not only
unwise but ungentlemanly, and the custom now of
good society is shortly to give an opinion, without
defending it, and we have little controversy.
The
Pall Mall Gazette, October 28, 1874, saysThe
modern peculiarity known as 'many-sidedness’ is
strictly in harmony with the characteristics of an age
in which much that has been hitherto regarded as
certain is proved to be questionable, while no certainty
of any kind is brought forward to supply the place of
that which is destroyed. Not long since, the ability to
see more than one side of a question, and the candour
which confesses to so doing, would have been branded
as half-heartedness. Now, these attributes are reckoned
as valuable as they are amiable.” Is there, however,
really nothing to fear from “ half-heartedness,” and
may not this suppression of all feeling lead to indiffer
ence towards truth itself ? The highest feeling we have,
and the most desirable to cultivate, is the love of truth
and light, and are we ever to be indifferent, or ever
appear to be indifferent, to it? “Fiat justitia, ruat
ccelum,” should be our motto.
And yet it is certain that at the present time, where
the general tendency is not towards indifference,. it is
towards intolerance and even persecution. This is the
natural feeling, only to be overcome by cultivation. It
is natural—1st. Because, in difference of opinion, if
others are right we are wrong, unless, which few sus
pect, another side’of the same question is seen. . 2n .
Because, we think we raise ourselves by depreciating or
depressing others, and certainly relatively we appear
taller. 3rd. As members of the human family we
cannot avoid being responsible for others’ errors, an as
the end of persecution is, in our opinion, to pu own
error, it has the appearance of standing up for ru .
�24
Toleration: with Some Remarks on
Full and complete Toleration is only to be found with,
the highest culture and the wisdom that that culture
ought to bring, but does not always. Knowledge inva
riably shows so many sides to every question that it
cannot but make people tolerant, and truth, when
divested of feeling and quietly expressed, has always the
best chance of acceptance. Truth has always a natural
advantage, but this is destroyed immediately force or
any element of persecution is introduced. We are
bound to listen quietly and respectfully to all earnest
opinion, feeling certain that if we differ from good and
clever men, that there is some side of the question we
have not yet seen. “ Whatever retards a spirit of inquiry
is favourable to error, and whatever promotes it is
favourable to truth,” says the Rev. Robert Hall.
Although, therefore, we are bound to stand up for what
we consider to be the truth, regardless of consequences,
yet the conviction is forced on us that the interests
of truth are best promoted by complete Toleration.
Full, and free, and open discussion must be allowed on
all subjects, and perfect toleration for all opinions, as
long as they remain opinions, but when opinions turn to
practice, then toleration ceases to be a duty, and the
■community has a right to step in and insist that such
action or practice shall be in accordance with its sup
posed interests ; and whether any action is so or not can
only be determined by the voice of the majority. Every
one, then, has the right to his opinion as long as it
remains opinion, but when a man proceeds to put his
opinion into practice he must accept what the majority,
not what he, thinks right, and Compromise thus becomes
the law of progress. There can, however, be no com
promise in opinion, which must be left perfectly free to
make the minority the majority by argument; to cut
off the heads of the minority, which is the prevailing
custom in a neighbouring country, can scarcely be said to
be giving it a fair chance of getting that acceptance
for the truth which is generally at first in a minority.
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast. 2 5
In fact the government of a country by the majority is
only safe when the rights and interests of the minority
are protected by a Constitution.
The indictment under which Socrates was con
demned at Athens, as reported by Zenophon at the
commencement of the Memorabilia, ran thus:—“ Socrates
is guilty of crime, inasmuch as he does not believe in
those gods in which the city believes, but introduces other
novelties in regard to the gods; he is guilty also, inas
much as he corrupts the youth.” We have laid down
the axiom that Socrates had a perfect right to believe
in whatever gods he liked; with respect to the cor
ruption of the youth by the spread of his opinions, I
hold that truth must never be judged by its supposed
consequences, and that the inferred “Corruption ” could
only be dealt with when it showed itself in actions
opposed to the good of the community. Every one
must not only have full toleration for his opinions but
full liberty to spread whatever he believes to be true, or
otherwise full, free, and open discussion, by which truth
is tested, would be impossible. “Freedom of thought
and expression,” says Dr. J. W. Draper, “is to me the
first of all earthly things.” Error is best met in
open daylight and not when driven into dark corners.
We cannot give too wide scope to our conviction that
“ Magna est veritas et prevalebit.”
�NOTE ON
PROFESSORS HUXLEY AND CLIFFORD.
Professor Huxley, in his Lecture “ On the Hypothesis
that Animals are Automata,” published in the Fort
nightly Review for November, lays down these proposi
tions, that:—
I. “ The brain is the organ of sensation, thought,
and emotion, that is to say, some change in the condition
of the matter of this organ is the invariable antecedent
of the state of consciousness to which each of these terms
is applied.”
II. “The movements of animals are due to the
change of form of the muscles, which shorten and
become thicker; and this change of form in a muscle
arises from a motion of the substance contained within
the nerves which go to the muscle.”
III. “ The sensations of animals are due to the motion
of the substance of the nerves which connect the sensory
organs with the brain.”
IV. “ The motion of the matter of a sensory nerve
may be transmitted through the brain to motor nerves,
and thereby give rise to a contraction of the muscles
to which these motor nerves are distributed ; and this
reflection of motion from a sensory into a motor nerve
may take place without volition, or even contrary to it.”
Here everything is made to arise from, and to be
due to, motion, but motion is nothing in itself; it is the
mere transference of a body from one point of space to
another, and is inseparable from the thing moving.
How, then, can it be the cause of anything, or be trans
mitted ? How can you pass on nothing, or a condition,
inseparable from the thing of which it is the condition ?
You cannot transmit motion without transmitting the
thing moving with it. It is the cause of motion that is
transferred. That which causes motion in one body is
transmitted, and causes motion in another. This cause
�Note.
27
or active principle we call Force, and is the force of
some entity unknown, but is as measurable and as in
destructible as Matter itself. It is regarded as a
mere abstraction, but it is an abstraction only so
far as it is the force or power of some thing or entity
unknown. It is this loose mode of speaking by
nearly all physicists — of transmitting motion, &c.,
that leads to all sorts of confusion, both in physics and
metaphysics; it obscures the active principle (spirit),
and gives undue prominence and importance to the
passive (matter), whereas matter never originates any
thing, but merely conditions or determines the specific
mode of action of the active principle, Force. We have
an illustration of this kind of confusion in Professor
Clifford’s “ Body and Mind,” in the December Fort
nightly. He says, “ it is not a right thing to say that
the mind is force, because if the mind were a force we
should be able to perceive it.” Now no force is ever
perceived by us, it is known to us in physics only as
a mode of motion ; but when physical force is sub
jected to the molecular action of the brain and becomes
conscious force or mind, it is known to us then
directly as consciousness, and not secondarily as a
mode of motion; but it is not the less persistent
or known to us from what it does. Thus Professor
Clifford himself tells us:—“In voluntary action what
takes place is that a certain sensation is manipu
lated by the mind, and conclusions are drawn from it,
and then a message is sent out which causes certain
motions to take place. Now the character of the person
is evidently determined by the nature of this manipula
tion.” If the mind can manipulate, it must possess
power or force to do it. How he reconciles this with
the assertion afterwards “ that if anybody says that the
will influences matter, the statement is not untrue, but
it is nonsense. The will is not a material thing, it is
not a mode of material motion. Such an assertion
belongs to the crude materialism of the savage. Now
the only thing which influences matter is the position
�28
Note.
of surrounding matter or the motion of surrounding
matter.” He is evidently here in the usual muddle of
the physicists and materialists about motion being trans
mitted instead of the cause of motion. Huxley also
says, “ there is no proof that any state of consciousness
is the cause of change in the motion of the matter of
the organism.” Now the Will and Motives are states of
consciousness, and however high the authority, although
myself a Necessitarian, I am not prepared to admit that
the Will has no power over a man’s body, and that the
Will itself is not governed by motives. The mental
states are, with me, links in the chain of causation, and
I do not see that this is inconsistent with the fact that
consciousness is dependent upon molecular action.
Surely the volitional centres consciously put other parts
of the brain in motion. Whence is Memory but from
the conscious effort to put the brain in motion, and
thus recall other mental states ? If a man receives
an insult and, in a passion, knocks another down,
surely the consciousness of the insult and the passion
must have something to do with “the motion of the
matter of the organism.” Professor Huxley does not
mean to assert, I suppose, that exactly the same
motion could be made to take place automatically,
by the mere stimulation of the organs, without the aid
of consciousness ? The brain contains an enormous
amount of potential energy which is put in motion by
the Will, and becomes conscious by the Will setting the
brain in motion—th'e Will, of course, being subject to
the law of persistent force. In this sense we are auto
mata, being worked by the same force or spiritual
power, which everywhere else is working to purpose.
Should the Professor take to_ the study of Mesmerism,
in which, of late, he appears to have shown some slight
interest, he will ascertain with more correctness the
power that conscious Will can exercise, not only upon our
organisations but upon that of others, silently, at con
siderable distances, and without any apparent medium
of communication.
�Note.
29
When we say the Mind is Force we mean, not that it
is any of the recognised physical forces, but is composed
of that unknown something which is the active cause of
all things.
Herbert Spencer says :—“ That no idea or feeling arises,
save as the result of some physical force expended in
producing it, is fast becoming a commonplace of science.”
I think this will not be disputed, as we are all more or
less conscious of the extent to which mental effort, or
strong emotion, draws upon the physical forces of the
body. Each idea or feeling consumes or absorbs a cer
tain amount of physical force, which, as consciousness, is
no longer attended by a mode of motion, but it is not
the less persistent.
But Professor Clifford does not appear to be always
quite consistent. Thus in one place (p. 724, ’ ortnightly
F
Review) he tells us “ he is speaking of voluntary actions—
those actions in which the person is consulted, and
which are not done by his body without his leave,” and
yet in another he says, “ we are to regard the body as a
physical machine, which goes by itself according to a
physical law, that is to say, is automatic.” It can have
no voluntary action then. And he consequently tells
us “ that the mind is to be regarded as a stream of
feelings which runs parallel to, and simultaneous with,
a certain part of the action of the body, that is to say,
that particular part of the action of the brain in which
the cerebrum and the sensory tract are excited.” But we
are told that it is wrong to say the mind is a force;
of what then is the mind, regarded as a stream of
feeling, composed ? “ The actual reality,” the Professor
tells us, “ which underlies what we call matter is not the
same thing as the mind, is not the same thing as our
perception, but it is made of the same stuff. To use
the words of the old disputants, we may say that matter
is not of the same substance as mind, not homoousion,
but it is of like substance, it is made of similar stu
differently compacted together, Tiomoi-ousion.
But the question is, What becomes of “this stream of
�3°
Note.
feelings” which, runs parallel to, and simultaneous with,
the action of the brain ? Where does it come from, and
where does it go to ? As to the former, the Professor
says ‘‘the reality which we perceive as matter is that
same stuff which, being compounded together in a par
ticular way, produces mind.” The “ stream of feelings ”
then comes, we presume, from the body, compounded
by the molecular action of the brain. As thought or
feeling, then, is something—an entity, as much as mat
ter is—the question is, What becomes of it ? Upon
this most interesting question the Professor attempts to
throw no light. The mind is not force, he says, and it
is not therefore persistent as force; and he does not
seem to think any answer is required, although, if it
is the same stuff as matter, it must be equally inde
structible. A materialistic friend of mine, of some
note, from whom I have just heard on this subject, is
more consistent, if more wrong. He says, “Huxley is
quite right, thoughts are not things; matter thinks,
but does not think things, but of things : the conscious
ness in a will or effort is not a thing nor a power, but
the mere sense accompaniment of the physical action.”
This is a curious inversion of the real state of things,
as coming from a Philosopher. We know “ thoughts,”
but we know nothing of “ things ” until things become
thoughts. Thus, as Professor Huxley tells us, “ The
great fact insisted upon by Descartes, that no likeness
of external things is, or can be, transmitted to the mind
by the sensory organs, but that between the external
cause of a sensation and the sensation there is in
terposed a mode of motion of nervous matter, of
which the state of consciousness is no likeness, but a
mere symbol, is of the profoundest importance. It is
the physiological foundation of the doctrine of the
relativity of knowledge, and a more or less complete
idealism is a necessary consequence of it.” But what is
this “ sense accompaniment ” of the physical action to
which my friend alludes ? It must be something or
nothing. Professor Clifford seems to think it is some-
�Note.
31
thing as to -where it comes from, but nothing as to
where it goes to. When we come to consider where
thoughts and feelings go to, then we shall come to
occupy that ground of which the Spiritualists now make
such superstitious uses. Professor Clifford says, “We
are obliged to assume that along with every motion of
matter, whether organic or inorganic, there is some fact
which corresponds to the mental fact in ourselves. The
mental fact in ourselves is an exceedingly complex
thing: so also our brain is an exceedingly complex
thing. We may assume that the quasi-mental fact
which corresponds and which goes along with the motion
of every particle of matter is of such inconceivable sim
plicity, as compared with our own mental fact, with
our consciousness, as the motion of a molecule of mat
ter is of inconceivable simplicity when compared with
motion in our brain.”
“ This doctrine is not merely a speculation, but a
result to which all the greatest minds that have studied
this question in the right way have gradually been
approximating for a long time.”
This presence of Universal Mind, as an accompani
ment and cause of motion, I have endeavoured to
teach in my own way. I have endeavoured to show
that body—whatever that may be—and mind, from the
lowest form to the highest, are inseparable. The
Religious World has allied itself with the Spiritual only,
but the Physical must be taken equally into account.
We shall no more succeed in putting Spiritualism above
Materialism than Materialism above Spiritualism. They
must go together; some common ground must be found
on which both can meet. It is the opinion, Roden
Noel tells us, of both Schelling and Hegel that con
sciousness and matter are not absolutely divorced, but
radically identical, although superficially diverse.
PRINTED BY C. NT. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY-STREET, HAYMARKET; 77.
�
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Toleration: with some remarks on Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast
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Bray, Charles [1811-1884]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 31 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Includes six pages of Notes on Professors Huxley and Clifford.
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Thomas Scott
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1875
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CT129
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Religious toleration
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Conway Tracts
John Tyndall
Toleration
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PUBLISHED
BY THOMAS
SCOTT,
11 THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD.)
LONDON, S.E.
1875.
Price Threepence.
SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
•
NOVEMBER, 1875.
HE Archbishop of Canterbury deserves pre
cedence of all meaner folk, both by right of
his primacy in the Church, and by right of
having talked more than any of his brother
Bishops during the past month. He has been
delivering his soul upon the intricate subject of
“ Christian unity,” and, as a proof of the unity, we
suppose, upon “ Church and Dissent,” also on Foreign
Missions. The readers of this series will fully
understand the deep reverence with which should be
received all the utterances of England’s primate, and
they will not share in the evil sentiments of the
Stockwhip, an Australian Free Thought paper, which
profanely says that the Archbishop’s logic is not
�2
always faultless, and that some of his arguments are
sophisms, while others are fallacies. So, with child
like faith, let us incline our hearts to listen to his
Grace. On the subject of Christian unity the
Archbishop was extremely facetious; he made jokes
about his own enormous correspondence, and caused
“ renewed laughter ” by speaking of a Bishop who
lived “ in a place where it was dark a great portion
of the year, and as a man cannot sleep during the
whole of that long night, he naturally writes letters.”
What a useful Bishop! not being able to be always
asleep, he fills up the intervals of slumber with letter
writing ! But also, what an injurious Bishop, for
these same letters take up so much of the English
Archbishop’s time, that he finds it difficult to visit
his diocese as much as he should do. Might not the
letter-writing and somnolent Bishop leave his See,
and take ship to some other diocese F However, it
seems that the letter-writing of this Father-in-God,
together with the like—but less voluminous—writing
from many other Bishops, is a proof of Christian
unity, and of the desire of all Churches to enter into
—or bind closer already existing — bonds with
Canterbury. Then, not only is our Primate over
whelmed with the number of letters, but he is also
very busy in managing a number of thoughts.
“ Every man has an opinion of his own nowadays,
and I am not sorry that he should have. I think it
is a wholesome sign that men think for themselves.
But then it does not make the management of their
various thoughts at all more easy.” But, in the
name of common sense, who asks the Archbishop of
Canterbury to manage his, or her, thoughts ? And
how does he do it, and why ? This is as superfluous
as the Bishop of the dark region, and is, in very
truth, a work of supererogation. It would be deeply
interesting to see the Archbishop at work, managing
people’s thoughts : does he do it by “good words ?”
�n
O
It is pleasant, at least, to be assured that the Arch
bishop is “ not sorry ” that people should have
opinions of their own, but does he really mean that
Free Thought “ is a wholesome sign ? ” However,
as “ every man, and I must almost say, every woman ”
has an opinion, “ it becomes more difficult than ever
to keep them altogether. That is my special mission
—to try and keep people on good terms with one
another.” Is the Archbishop making fun of us
again ? there is no “ renewed laughter ” in the
report, and yet it is impossible to forget that the
speaker is the Archbishop of a Church which has
just had passed a Public Worship Bill, and whose
officers are already appealing to the secular LawCourts to crush out one division of the very united
Christian body. Neither is it easy to avoid the re
flection : “ If this be the special mission of the
Archbishop, what a terrible failure his Grace makes
of it; ” for the various opinions which it is his duty
to manage are clashing together with such vigour
and such fierceness, that the Church is rent in all
directions, and is bleeding to death from the wounds
inflicted by her own children. The Primate winds
up by saying that he is continually being warned
about “ detestable heresies,” and that “ if I were a
nervous person, which, thank God, I am not, I should
be frightened out of my wits.” The Church of
England is to be congratulated on having so cool and
careless a hand upon her helm, to guide her through
the waves which rise higher day by day, and past
the rocks which threaten her on every side. The
day following the discourse of Christian unity, found
our Archbishop discussing Christian divisions. Now,
our Primate is not jocund; he is belligerent; he is
self-asserting; it is “ the Primate of all England ”
who speaks, and none must dare gainsay, “We are
in very difficult times—very difficult times indeed.
(Our Archbishop is not a Demosthenes.) We have
�4
got a number of people who are very anxious to pull
down the good works which we have undertaken.”
This is true Christian humility; we desire to do
good, but these Gentiles, these outer-court dogs,
they are trying to hinder us, and to mar our work.
There are the philosophers, the sceptics ; but “ those
who entertain these opinions are in a very small
minority.” True, 0 Archbishop! the thinkers are
always in a small minority, but the thinkers rule never
theless, and this small minority moulds the majority,
and when they say “ go,” the world goes, and when
they say “ come,”, the world comes. Luther was in
a minority, but Luther conquered Rome; all Refor
mations begin in the labours of the minority, because
all Reformers are a few steps in advance of the
crowd, and from their vantage-ground on the moun
tain top, they proclaim the coming of the rising sun,
whose first rays have not yet reached the dwellers in
the valleys below. But the sun rises, and the minority
becomes the majority. The Archbishop cares little
for the thinkers ; he dismisses, in a curt sentence,
“ modern philosophy, and modern theorists as to the
regeneration of society ; ” but to an Archbishop, with
several palaces, society needs no regeneration; the
sorrows, the agonies, of humanity touch him not; the
archiepiscopal throne remains unmoved. But now
Dr. Tait attacks the Dissenters: “ Christian unity ”
is forgotten : it was spoken of yesterday, and yester
day is numbered with the past. Dissenters object to
Archbishops : do they ? they had better put up with
Archbishop Tait, for there is Archbishop Manning
looming behind him, that “ I defy all the Dissenters
in Europe to get rid of.” If “ I were to depart
to-morrow ” he would be left, with “ a very old and
powerful historical system ” behind him. This is
very much like a plea ad misericordiam; it sounds
like : “ I may be bad, but he is worse, so you had
better put up with me.” The Dissenters are prayed
�to hold their hands, lest “ a worse thing happen unto ”
them. The Primate then declares : “ the seat I
occupy is a sort of rallying point for all the civilisa
tion and the reasonable religion of the world.” Alas,
for the world, with nought to rally round save the
throne of Canterbury filled by a Dr. Tait! Then the
lover of unity generously says that the Dissenters
“ keep up a sort of running fire against the Church
©f England,” but they only do it because “ it is part
of their business.” (How, this will increase Christian
unity!) True, “the Ecclesiastical Commissioners,
and all sorts of commissioners, have been cutting and
paring away at our revenues.” Poor Archbishop,
passing poor, on £15,000 a year; from our heart’s
depths we sympathise with him. Yet is there balm
in Gilead; Lord Hampton has moved for a return of
“ how much has been spent in the extension of the
Church of England during the last forty years?”
The Primate thinks that about thirty millions “ have
been added to the aggregate property of the Church
of England in the matter of repairing of churches.”
Thirty millions spent to make houses for the God,
who, according to the Bible, “ dwelleth not in temples
made with hands ; ” and, meanwhile, man pines and
agonises in filthy dens and hovels, and “no man
careth ” for him. When the return is made to Lord
Hampton’s motion, perhaps the Archbishop of Can
terbury will deign to move for “ a return of how
much has been spent in the education of the people,
and the improving of labourers’ dwellings, during
the last forty years.” In his speech at Maidstone, on
Eoreign Missions, the Archbishop clearly shows that
if God does care for mission work, he, just at present,
if we may judge from what is going on in Africa,
approves more of Mahomedanism than of Christianism.
But the Archbishop of Canterbury must not make
us forget the Bishop of Lincoln. Dr. Wordsworth
�6
takes up the cudgels on behalf of the licensed
victuallers, and declares that the temperance pledge
is unscriptural, that it undermines belief in the deity
of Christ, that it is therefore heretical, and that it is
“ a deadly sin for Christians to sign it.” Hereupon,
all those whose interest lies in drinking rejoice
mightily; the Licensed Victuallers’ Guardian reprints
extracts from the Bishop’s sermon, and this is, in
turn, reprinted at the end of a wine-merchant’s list.
Imagine the Bishop of Lincoln quoted to gain cus
tomers for wine, “ gin, whiskey, and rum.” Dr.
Wordsworth is certainly marvellously unfortunate;
he always appears to be doing the wrong thing. It
is curious to note that some very prominent Chris
tians must have committed deadly sin; there is the
Rev. Basil Wilberforce, for instance, the son of the
late Bishop, who raves against wine as an invention
of the devil, and who urges all Christians to sign the
pledge as a matter of duty to God. Whom is a
poor, puzzled, anxious believer to follow ? One
light of the Church urges him to do the very thing
which another light of the Church declares to be
a deadly sin. If only these good people would
settle among themselves what to say !
A very sad event has taken place. The Rev. R.
S. Hawker, vicar of Morwenstow, Cornwall, was
received into the Roman Catholic Church on his
deathbed, and was duly buried in the Roman Catholic
cemetery at Plymouth, by a Roman Catholic priest.
This is terrible for all believers in a One Holy Catholic
Church. The Lock takes it seriously to heart, and
spends nearly two columns in lamentations : besides,
who can tell how long Mr. Hawker may have been a
Roman Catholic at heart, and how many such may
there not be in our Church of England ? Is not
Bishop Claughton craftily encouraging such, by pro
claiming that the Public Worship Act is but empty
thundering, and that no Ritualists will be interfered
�7
with ? But why should Bishop Claughton bring
“balm and comfort and hope to the trembling bosom
of the foe?” The Rock is sad at heart, and fore
bodes disaster, unless all good men and true come
“to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord
against the mighty.” Poor Almighty Lord ! but the
editor of the Rock will stand by him.
No words of ours could add solemnity to the
following notice :—The Church Herald announced, at
the end of September, that “ after our next issue we
shall cease to appear.” In times past the readers of
Signs of the Times have gained much amusement from
the pages of the deceased paper, and, recording its
death, we drop a farewell tear upon its tomb.
What the Rock is to the Low Churchman, and what
the Church Herald was to the High Churchman, that
is the Christian to the “ believer.” Many gems
might be drawn from this delightful paper. In a
review of past and present the Herald says : “ The
nations of Christendom have almost without excep
tion left Christianity behind,” and not only Chris
tianity, startling as the assertion may be, nations as
nations have nothing to do with God. It is the
impelling power of the great Liberal movement of these
latter days that secular governments as such have
nothing to do with God. This is from the Herald’s
point of view, whose ideal of Christendom is that
“ Christ is the head of nations in temporal as in
spiritual affairs, and delegated his offices to others
to rule for him till he should return to occupy his
own again.” That reign of superstition is,, thanks
to liberal education, nearly over; the Church which
is considered in the light of Christ’s delegate has
ruled the world for pretty nigh two thousand years,
and in parts of it, autocratically and absolutely, and
what has come of it ? “ That the fool says in his
heart there is no God.” By confession of its
staunchest friends and adherents “ the Church is torn
�8
by internal strife, and is all powerless to meet the
dangers to overcome which is her special mission;
indeed it is a sad truth that to a great extent she has
been the cause of them,—where should be the unity
of heaven, is the discord of hell.” From it we also
learn that a new danger is added to railway travel
ing ; a plan is started for placing large texts along
the tops of houses, so that railway travellers may see
them as they whiz past. A lad, “ passing in a train
for a ‘ change of air,’ was seriously impressed by one
of these ghastly signs: it is depressing to be told,
immediately afterwards, that he died, trusting in
Jesus.” These suddenly converted people always do
die, by some strange fatality. The “ Rev. F. Baldey,
of Southsea, has over his door: ‘ When I see the
blood I will pass over you!”” Why it should do
any one the smallest good to see offensive texts of this
kind, it is hard to say. Placarding texts has become
quite a fashion in London just now, especially at the
East end. It is really hard to believe that any earnest
Christian can like to see, “ Prepare to meet thy
God,” flanked on either side by Newsome’s circus,
and the latest comic singer.
It is somewhat trying to hear that the irrepressible
Moody and Sankey have started again in America,
and are going “ to revive ” the United States. In
England their whilom friends are complaining that
they have done more harm than good, because they
have only reached the church and chapel-goers, and
they have made these discontented with less exciting
ministrations. If they will kindly persevere, and
visit each country in turn, we may then look for a
serious decrease in church-goers.
Abroad, there are signs of much disturbance. We
are pretty well accustomed to “ Burial Scandals ” at
home, but one has taken place at Montreal, Canada,
which throws all ours into the shade. “ A literary
society, known as the ‘ Canadian Institute,’ has in
�9
its library a number of books that several years ago
came under the ban of the Roman Catholic Church.”
The Bishop objected to the books, and, as the Society
did not discard them, he promptly excommunicated
the Society. A member of the Institute, one Joseph
Guibord, died, and before his death was refused the
Sacrament, he being one of the banned Society. His
widow claimed that he should be buried in a grave in
the Catholic cemetery, owned by the heirs of the
deceased. This was refused. The widow died, and
left the Institute legatee ; the Institute carried on the
lawsuit begun by the widow, and at last triumphed ;
a royal, decree was issued to bury Joseph Guibord.
Mr. Guibord was duly exhumed, and carried towards
the cemetery; but the gates were barred, and a crowd
had assembled round them. Stones were thrown;
the cross was pulled down; the hearse was driven
away. According to the last advices, an escort of
troops had been asked for to convey Joseph Guibord
to his grave, and to protect his corpse from his Chris
tian brethren.
The Bishop of Montreal has threatened to “ curse
the ground if compelled by the Privy Council to bury
Mr. Guibord.” This brings out forcibly the truth of
Mr. Gladstone’s warning that, in a conflict between
the civil power and the Pope, Catholics, though sub
jects of England, would side with the head of their
Church. It is a pity for its own sake that Trans
atlantic Vaticanism does not think it necessary to
sheath its claws in velvet, and this episode of the
nineteenth century is a curious comment on the
vaunted advance of Christian civilisation, on the power
of “ Christian charity and brotherly love over the
passions.”
In Spain, matters look very dark. The Pope’s
Nuncio has issued a letter to all the Spanish Bishops,
which has evoked much popular indignation. This
circular appears to have aroused a really strong
�10
national feeling, and it is even rumoured that the
Nuncio will have to ask for his passport. Article XI.
of the proposed Constitution states that: “ No persons
shall be molested in Spanish territory for their reli
gious opinions, nor for the exercise of their respective
worships.” This Article has much troubled the Holy
See, and the Pope, through his Nuncio, denies the
right of Spain to pass such an Article without his
consent. The Nuncio states that no worship, save'
the Roman Catholic, should be tolerated in Spain,
“ all consent to the exercise of other worships ” should
be withheld. Further, the Spanish Bishops have the
right, by the Concordat, to invoke “ the efficacy and
strength of the secular arm, wherever these might be
necessary to resist the malignity of men,” who spread
false doctrine and print heretical books. But this
promise of support is perfectly useless if religious
toleration is to exist in Spain, and the Nuncio adds
that the nation “ rejects freedom, or even toleration,
of worship, and asks with loud voice the re-establish
ment in Spain of her traditional religious unity.” It
is surely a welcome “sign of the times” that this
circular has been received with one shout of indigna
tion, and that “ the press of every colour, save the
Neo-Catholic, is up in arms.” Even Spain is not, as
she once was, the complete slave of the Papacy.
FEINTED BY C. W. RRYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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Signs of the times. November 1875
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Place of publication: London
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Thomas Scott
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1875
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CT139
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Conway Tracts
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Text
1875]
243
ARMIN, THE LIBERATOR OF GERMANY.
N August the 16th, a great
festive gathering will be held
near Detmold, at the unveiling
the colossal statue of Arminius, or
Hermann,1* Deliverer of Germany
S
the
from the Roman yoke. In the
midst of the Teutoburg Forest—on
the brow of a lofty hill, surrounded
by beech and fir-wood—stands the
figure of this national hero, on a
granite pedestal: with a foot placed
on the eagle of a Roman legion ;
holding a raised sword in his right
hand. The hill rises to an emi
nence of 1,300 feet.
The enor
mous statue itself towers some
sixty feet high.
It is turned
towards the Rhine: a doubly
significant position in our days!
Far and wide will it be visible—as
far as the Drachenfels, famed by
Siegfried’s mythic struggle; as far as
the Brocken, the traditionary seat
ofancient heathen witchcraft. Thirtysix years have passed since Ernst
von Bandel, the patriotic sculptor,
to whom the work has been a labour
of love, conceived the idea of this
great monument. Now, at last,
thanks to Bandel’s unflagging zeal
during a lifetime, the gigantic Statue
—made of iron, and screwed together
in its several parts—is finished : a
remarkable memento of the famed
battle in which the legions of Varus
were annihilated, about the year 9 of
our era.
The country all round the Grotenburg, near which the monument
stands, is replete with myth and
history. The whole mountain-range
goes by a name (‘ Osning ’) that
brings back remembrances of early
Germanic worship. There are
Hiinen-Hinge—Giant Circles—mys
O
terious remnants of large stone
structures. There are woods and
of
homesteads which, if the antiquity
of their names could be proved,
would show an unbroken link of
tradition with the very days of the
Teutoburg Battle. In more than
one sense is the ground between
the Weser and the Rhine strangely
hallowed. In the Osning stood
the Irmin-sul, or Irmin’s Column,
which Karl the Great destroyed in
his struggle against the Saxons.
That popular rhyme in Low German
speech, which is yet current:
Her men! slaDermen;
Sla Pipen ; sla Trummen !
De Keiser will kumen
Met Hamer an Stangen,
Will Her men uphangen—
is by some referred back, not to the
contest against Witukind, but to
that against Armin or Hermann him
self. Not far from the scene of the
great battle—in the cloister of Korvei—there were found, for the first
time, in the sixteenth century, those
Annals of Tacitus which contain a
graphic record of Armin’s deeds.
Again, in the Abbey of Verden,
at the end of the same century,
the Gothic translation of the Bible
by Ulfilas was discovered—the oldest
record of German speech. Truly,
in Massmann’s words, a trilogy of
things full of Teutonic interest!
A most romantic career that of
the Cheruskian Chieftain was, who
wrought the signal victory. As a
youth, he had learnt the art of war
among his country’s foes; was
placed at the head of a legion of
German auxiliaries; and by his
valour, perhaps on Danubian battle
fields in Pannonia (Hungary),
1 The modern rendering of Arminius by ‘ Hermann,’ though generally accepted, is
probably an error. More likely is the connection of that na me with Irmin (AngloSaxon: Eormen-; Old Norse: Iormun-). It may, in Simrock’s opinion, simply have
meant the common leader of the Cheruskian League—even as Irmin was perhaps a com
mon War-God of allied German tribes. Dio Cassius writes the name : ’Apglwos; Strabo:
’Amiewos.
S 2
�244
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
obtained Roman, citizenship and the
rank of a knight. The Romans that
saw him describe him as coming
from a noble stock; strong and
brave; of quick perception, and
of penetrating judgment—more so
than might be expected from a
‘barbarian’ (ultra barbarum prompltus ingenio). The ardour of his
mind was said to glow from his
face and from the glance of his
eyes. He was the son of Segimer
.—in modern German : Siegmar—
a Cheruskian leader. Armin’s wife,
whose name we learn from a Greek
source, was Thusnelda ;2 originally
betrothed against her will to another
chieftain, but secretly carried off
by her daring swain, between
whom and his father-in-law, Segest,
there was thenceforth a deadly feud.
In those days, it was the en
deavour of the Romans, after
they had conquered Gaul, and gra
dually come up from the Danubian
side, to subject also the country
between the Rhine and the Elbe.
A hundred thousand of their sol
diers kept watch and ward along
the Rhine : one half of them sta
tioned between Mainz and Bonn;
the other half between Koln and
Xanten, and down to the very shores
of the German Ocean.
Pushing
forward from the Rhine in an east
ern direction, they succeeded in
establishing, near the Lippe, a strong
fort, called Aliso—probably what is
now Else, near Paderborn. Drusus
even ventured with an expedition
as far as the Elbe; but, terrified by
the weird appearance of a gigantic
Teuton prophetess, who foretold his
approaching death, he returned, and
soon afterwards died through being
thrown from his horse. Armin’s
merit it is, by his triumph in the
Teutoburg Forest, and by a struggle
carried on for years afterwards,
to have freed this north-western
[August
region, and thus, step by step, to
have driven back the ever-encroach
ing Latin power.
It was under the Emperor Au
gustus that Quinctilius Varus, the
former Quaestor in Syria—who
had, in that capacity, put down
a Jewish insurrection with great
cruelty—was sent to the Lower
Rhine to complete the enslave
ment of the German tribes there.
A man of sybaritic tastes; who
had entered Syria poor, and left
it loaded with riches.
Not
distinguished by a statesman’s
wisdom; but apt to charm the
chieftains of a simple people
into submission to a seductive civi
lisation. This Sardanapalus on a
small scale, whilst exerting himself
to morally fetter and corrupt the
leaders, rode rough-shod over the
people ; disregarding their native
customs; dispensing Roman law
like a praetor; making the Latin
tongue resound near the Cheruskian
homesteads as the language of the
administration and of the tribunals.
His aim was, to push the wedge of
Roman dominion into the very
heart of Germany. The old plan
of Drusus was to be carried out: the
lictor’s fasces were to be promenaded
from the Rhine to the Elbe.
Of the German chieftains placed
with Varus as a means of influencing
the surrounding tribes, Armin,
Segimer, and Segest were the most
prominent—the latter a staunch
adherent of Roman rule; the two
former, as events proved, good
patriots at heart. Young Armin,
then but twenty-five years of age,
became the soul of the national
conspiracy for the overthrow of the
foreign yoke. Segest, his fatherin-law, who afterwards bore him
so deep a grudge because Thus
nelda had become Armin’s wife
in spite of the paternal pro-
2 Thusnelda’s name has been variously interpreted. The explanation given, that it
means ‘A Thousand Graces’ (Tausendhold), is no doubt a mistaken one. Others have
suggested ‘ Thursinhiid,’ which would give a martial, Bellona-like meaning of the word.
�1875]
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
test,, was excluded from the se
cret patriotic council. Soon get
ting, however, an inkling of the
occult doings, Segest,by denouncing
them to Varus, very nearly brought
about the failure of the whole
movement. On the eve of the out
break, as an earnest of his fidelity
to the Romans, he even asked to
be placed in chains, together with
Armin and the other German leaders,
until the truth would become patent.
Fortunately, Varus disbelieved the
timely warning. Under cover of
raising some auxiliaries for the
quelling of an alleged insurrection,
Armin was enabled to depart, and
at once put himself at the head of
the national rising.
Enough had the young Cheruskian seen of the superior armament
and the military science of the Ro
mans ; too well was he acquainted
with the difficulties of meeting at
one and the same time their excel
lent warlike organisation and the
strength they derived from the
bravery of German, Gaulish, and
other troops in their pay, for him
not to lay his plan cautiously, so as
to balance, to some extent, these
immense advantages of the hostile
army. His design therefore was, to
lure Varus into the depths of the
pathless Teutoburg Forest. By a
series of stratagems he fully suc
ceeded in this.
The Roman Governor, at the head
of his legions, encumbered with a
long train of baggage, was made
to enter a ground where at every
step a clearance had to be ef
fected with the axe; where thick
woods, narrow gorges, impetuous
forest-brooks offered numberless ob
stacles, and the swampy soil often
became slippery from torrents of rain.
Nature conspired, on this memorable
occasion, to render the terrors of the
wilderness more ghastly. A tem
pest of unusual fierceness broke
over the primeval forest, when Varus
245
stuck in the middle of the thicket.
Mountain-spates inundated the
ground. Trees of enormous age
fell, shaken by the storm and struck
by the lightning. The roar of
thunder smothered the cries of
those that staggered under the
weight of falling branches. In short
intervals, the blue zigzag light of
heaven lit up the mysterious re
cesses of the wood, only to fill the
minds of the Roman soldiers with
greater fear when, in the next mo
ment, all was dark again. At last,
a glimpse of sun shone through
the dark forest. Then, of a sudden,
the encircling hills resounded with
the terrific war-cries of the Ger
mans who barred every issue,
compelling their foe to a contest
in which military science went for
nothing.
We know that the Germans of
that time, though a nation of
warriors, given to continued war
like practice, and tolerably advanced
also in several branches of industry,
were armed in a very poor way.
Few wore a helmet, or harness.
Not many even had good swords ;
the quality of the iron used being
such that, after a few strokes, it
easily bent. Their shields, of great
size, were made of thin wicker
work, or of wood, not even covered
with iron or leather; but painted
over with figures—the only orna
ment they used in their war-array.
The infantry and cavalry alike car
ried a shield and a number of short
spears, which could be thrown, or
used for hand-to-hand fight. The
first ranks of their infantry used
lances of great length. The hind
ranks had only short wooden
spears, the points of which were
hardened in the fire;3 and not tipped
with iron. In a regular attack the
Germans massed their forces in
wedge-shape; but by preference
they fought in loose order, each
man displaying his gymnastic agi-
See the speech of Germanicus, in Tacitus’ Annals, ii. 14.
�246
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
lity, of which Roman writers
have noted down some remarkable
instances. The more well-to-do
among those fur- or linen-clad
Teutonic warriors wore tight suits,
which seemed to hamper them
in fighting. When their blood was
up, they therefore often put aside
their upper garments, rushing into
battle in true Berserker style—
singing their wild heroic songs.
Such was the foe that Varus had
to meet.
I rapidly pass over the details of
the Teutoburg Battle—how a hail
of short spears and arrows came
down from the hill-sides upon the
troops of Varus; ho w, after a carnage,
they gained an open space, and
hurriedly erected a fortified camp ;
how, having burnt many of the
vehicles and less necessary imple
ments, they continued their march,
but were once more led into thick
woods, when a new massacre
occurred—the foot soldiery and
the horse being wedged together in
helpless confusion. Bor three days
the attacks were resumed. The third
day brought the crowning misery of
the Romans. Many cast away their
weapons. Varus, in despair, threw
himself on his sword, and died. Of
the Prefects, Lucius Eggius bravely
defended himself to the last. His
colleague, Cejonius, surrendered.
Vala Numonius, the legate, was
killed in an attempted flight.
Caldus Caelius, made prisoner, beat
his own brains out with the chains
with which he was manacled. Three
legions were destroyed. Two eagles
fell into German hands. A third
eagle was saved from them by the
banner-bearer, who covered it with
his belt, and trod it into the morass.
The rear-guard, led by Lucius Asprenas, the nephew of Varus, fled
towards the Rhine, and was able
yet to restrain the populations on
the other side of the river from
rising in rebellion against Roman
rule.
On hearing of the disaster, Au-
[ August
gustus pushed his head against the
wall, and exclaimed: ‘ Varus! Varus I
give me back my legions!’ Such
was the fear of a new invasion of Teu
tons andKimbrians that all Germans
were removed from Rome, even
the Emperor’s bodyguard ; the city
was placed in a state of defence;
and the Imperator, letting his hair
and beard grow as a sign of dejec
tion, vowed to Jupiter a temple and
solemn games, if he would grant
better fortune to the Commonwealth.
Tiberius, then at the head of the
army in Pannonia, was in all haste
recalled for the better security of
Rome.
This great Teutoburg Battle had
freed the land between the Lower
Rhine and the Weser ; but no ad
vantage was taken of the victory
by the much-divided German tribes.
A few years afterwards, the Romans
were enabled to make a sudden
attack upon the Marsians (near
Osnabriick), during a nocturnal fes
tival of that German tribe. On the
occasion of this raid, the famous
Tanfana temple was destroyed, the
name of which has given so much
trouble to archaeologists, and which
was one of the few temples the
forest-worshipping Germans pos
sessed. Osnabriick, like the Osning
range of hills, no doubt derives its
name from the Asen, Osen, or Aesir,
the Teutonic gods: so that there
was probably a great sanctuary in
that neighbourhood, similar to the
one on Heligoland (Holy Land), or
perhaps in the isle of Riigen.
Another unexpected raid was ef
fected by young Germanicus, five
years after the Teutoburg Battle,
into Chattian (Hessian) territory.
Most probably he crossed the Rhine
near Mainz; followed the road to
wards what is now Homburg; thence
to the country where Giessen and
Marburg now are, which latter may
be what the Roman and Greek au
thors called Mattium and Marriak-dr.
Others believe Mattium to be the
present Maden, near Gudesberg.
�1875]
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
According to their cruel practice,
the Romans, during this inroad,
‘ captured or killed all that were
defenceless on account of age or
sexi The German youth had en
deavoured to offer resistance by
swimming over the river Adrana
(evidently the Edder of to-day),
and trying to prevent the erection
of a bridge; but, received by a
shower of arrows and spears, they
were driven back into the forests.
On returning from their expedition,
the Romans destroyed Mattium, the
chief place of the Chattians, and
devastated the fields. So Tacitus
himself relates.
Soon afterwards we come upon a
tragic incident in Armin’s career.
His father-in-law, Segest, compelled
by the people’s voice to side with
the national cause, had once more
turned traitor. After having suc
ceeded for a time in capturing and
placing chains upon the Liberator,
Segest was, in his turn, beleaguered
in his stronghold, with a great
many of his blood relations and fol
lowers. Among the noble women
in his fort was his own daughter,
Thusnelda, of whom he seems to
have got possession during this in
ternecine warfare. Pressed hard by
his besiegers, Segest, by a secret
message, asked the Roman general
to bring relief. Segest’s own son,
Segimund, who once had been or
dained as a priest among the Ro
mans in Gaul, but who in the year of
the great rising had torn the priestly
insignia from his forehead, and gone
over to the ‘ rebels,’ was made,
against his own conscience, to
carry the father’s message to the
Romans. In this way relief came,
and Segest was freed. But Thus
nelda was led into Roman capti
vity—‘having more of her hus
band’s, than of her father’s, spirit;
not moved to tears; not of imploring
voice; her hands folded under her
bosom; her eyes glancing down on
her pregnant body ’ (gravidum
uterum intuens).
247
Stepping forth—a man of great
personal beauty, and of towering
height,—the very image of a proud
German warrior, yet a renegade to
his fatherland—Segest held forth
in a speech which Tacitus has pre
served. In it, an attempt is made
to rebut the charge of unfaithful
ness to his country ; the traitor as
suming the part of a mediator be
tween the Romans and the Germans
—if the latter would prefer repent
ance to perdition. The speech, in
which Segest prides himself on his
Roman citizenship, conferred upon
him by the ‘ divine Augustus,’ and
in which he accuses Armin of being
‘ the robber of his daughter, the
violator of the alliance with the
Romans,’ winds up with a prayer
for an amnesty to his son Segi
mund. With regard to Thusnelda,
the heartless father added the cold
remark that she had to be brought
by force before the Roman General,
and that he may ‘judge which cir
cumstance ought by preference to
be taken into account—whether the
fact of her being pregnant by Armin,
or the fact of her being his own.
(Segest’s) offspring.’
The Romans went, in their judg
ment, by the former circumstance,
and carried Thusnelda to Ravenna,
a place of banishment for many of
their state-prisoners. It seems that
afterwards she had to reside at
Rome. Pining away under the
Italian sky, she gave birth to a son,
of the name of Thumelicus, who was
educated at Ravenna. A ‘ mocking
fate,’ Tacitus says, befel afterwards,
this son of Armin. Unfortunately,
the book containing the record is
lost.
A German drama, written
some years ago, about the real au
thorship of which there has been
much contest, but which is no
doubt by Friedrich Halm, has for
its theme the assumed fate of
Thumelik. It is called Der Fechter
von Ravenna—1 The Gladiator of
Ravenna ’—and made considerable
stir.
�248
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
Thusnelda’s misfortune forms the
subject of a splendid canvas of vast
dimensions by Professor Piloty, of
Munich. It represents her as being
led along in a triumphal entry of
Roman soldiers before the Emperor
Tiberius. At the Vienna Exhibi
tion, last year, this powerful picture
created a deep impression. We
know that in the triumph of Germanicus, Thusnelda figured with her
little son, then three years old.
Together with her, there were her
brother Segimund ; the Chattian
priest Libys ; Sesithak, the son of
the Cheruskian chief Aegimer, and
his wife Hramis, the daughter of
the Chattian chieftain Ukromer;
Deudorix (Theodorich,or Dietrich),
a brother of the Sigambrian chief
tain Melo ; and various other
German captives. Even Segest
had to show himself before the Ro
man populace, in order to swell the
triumph. There are sculptures ex
tant which Gottling thinks can be
recognised as contemporary images
of Thusnelda and Thumelik ;
Armin’s wife being represented
as wrapped up in melancholy
thoughts.
The statue of what is supposed
to be a representation of Thusnelda
is above life-size. It stands at
Florence, in the Loggia de' Lanzi.
Casts of it are at Rome and at
Dresden. Gottling regards it as
the work of the sculptor Kleomenes,
from Athens. The statue has the
German dress, as described by
Tacitus; the flowing hair of Ger
man women of old ; and the
peculiar shoes, which we know to
have been worn by Franks and
Longobards, and even later by the
[August
German people in the Middle Ages.
That which Millin, Tolken, and
Thiersch consider a smaller repre
sentation of Thusnclda, Thumelik,
and some of the other prisoners in
Germanicus’ triumph—in the Cameo
de la Sainte Chapelle at Paris—
Gottiing does not recognise as such.
In the British Museum (Roman
Antiquities, No. 43) there is a bust
which the same author looks upon
as that of Thumelik;4 but this I
believe to be a most improbable
guess.
I may mention here also that the
Teutoburg Battle, during which
Varus ran upon his own sword,
has been the subject of various
poetical attempts ; for instance, by
Klopstock and Grabbe. Heinrich
von Kleist’s drama, Die HermannsSchlacht, was written more than
sixty years ago, at the time of Ger
many’s deepest degradation, when
Napoleon ruled supreme. Kleist,
who also died from his own hand,
never had the satisfaction of seeing
his play even in print; much less
on the stage. It is, however, being
acted at present at Berlin with a
great display of scenic effects ; some
of the best German archaeologists
having lent their aid to get up a
most faithful and correct represen
tation of the costumes, arms, and
habitations of the early Teutonic
race. The run of the public on
the theatre is stated to surpass all
previous experience.
But to return to Armin’s achieve
ments. After Thusnelda had fallen
into the hands of the Romans, we
see her valiant husband, with fiery
energy, at work to rouse the Ger
man tribes. The thought of his
4 The name of Thumelicus somewhat baffles etymologists. It has been explained as
‘ Tummlichfrom tammeln—to run about quickly, or to be active and bustling; so that
it would mean Swift or Nimble. Born in captivity, Thumelicus became by law a Roman
slave; and Thymelicus was a frequent slave’s name, referring to the performances of
such slaves in the Tbymele
the open theatrical place. I would, however,
observe that Strabo gives the name of Armin’s son not as Thymelikos, but Thoumelikos
(&ovp.t\uc6s'), which he would certainly not have done, had he, as a Greek, connected it
with the Thymele. Strabo probably saw, as an eye-witness, the triumphal entry in
which Thusnelda and her son figured as captives; and he wrote before there could have
been a fixed decision as to whether little Thumelik was to become a public performer of
any kind.
�1875]
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
fatherland and his desolate home
drove him to frantic fury. In the
words of the historian, he was urged
on by the impetuosity of his nature,
as well as by his feelings of indig
nation at the fate of his wife, and
the prospect of a child of theirs
having to be born in captivity.
He sped through the Cheruskian
districts, calling for war against
Segest; for war against the Caesar.
‘ 0 the noble father I ’—he exclaimed,
in one of his patriotic harangues—
‘ 0 the great Imperator! O the
valiant Army, whose countless hands
laid hold of, and carried away, a
helpless woman ! Three legions, as
many legates, had gone down into
the dust before him (Armin). But
notin cowardly manner—not against
helpless women—but openly, against
armed men, did he make war.
There were still to be seen, in Ger
man forests, the banners of the
Romans which he had hung up
there in honour of his country’s
gods. A Segest might cultivate
the banks of a river conquered by
a foreign foe, and make his own
son resume the functions of a Ro
man priest. But the Germans as
a people would never forget that
between the Rhine and the Elbe
they had seen the fasces, the lictor’s
axes, and the togas. Other nations
there were that lived without know
ledge of Roman dominion—un
aware of its cruel executions ; un
acquainted with its oppressive im
posts. But they who had freed
themselves from such tyranny ; they
before whom Augustus, who was said
to be received into the circle of the
gods, and that egregious Tiberius,
had been unable to achieve anything
—they should not stand in fear of an
inexperienced youth and his re
bellious army. If they preferred
249
their fatherland, their parents,
their ancient laws, to a Lord and
Master, and to the new colonies
he would set up among them, then
they should rather follow Armin,
the leader of glory and freedom,
than Segest, the herald of dis
graceful bondage!’
Tacitus says of this speech that
it contains words of abuse. It con
tained only a truth not palatable to
a race which aimed at the dominion
over the world. The result of
Armin’s energetic agitation was,
that neighbouring tribes, besides
the Cheruskians, were inflamed
with patriotic ardour, and that
his uncle, Inguiomer,4 a man of
5
high standing, and of great author
ity with the Romans themselves,
was drawn into the League. True
to their policy, the Romans en
deavoured to get the better of
this new German rising by enlisting
auxiliaries among the Chaukians,
who inhabited the country now
called Eastern Friesland, and by
coming down upon the League
formed by Armin from the side of
the river Ems, as well as from the
Rhine. A colossal army and fleet
were at the command of the Roman
General. ‘ In order to divide the
enemy,’ Caecina led forty Roman
cohorts through Brukterian terri
tory to the Ems. The cavalry was
led by the Prefect Pedo to the
frontier of the Frisians. Caesar
Germanicus himself went by sea,
along the Frisian coast, at the head
of four legions. At the Ems, the
place of general appointment, the
fleet, the infantry, and the cavalry
met. Then began the work of
devastation in the country between
the Ems and the Lippe—‘ which is
not far from that Teutoburg Forest
where, according to common report,
4 Many German names have been written down by the Romans in a form which it is
difficult to recognise now. Inguiomer’s name is among the exceptions. Among the
sons of Mannus (i.e. Man), the mythic progenitor of the three chief German tribes,
there is one whose name corresponds with the first part of the name of Armin’s uncle.
In the Edda (Oegisdrecka) we find the sunny god called Ingvi-Freyr; and again, in the
heroic song of Helgakhvida, we find an Ingvi. So again, in an Anglo-Saxon genea
logical table. The ending syllable ‘ mer,’ or ‘mar,’ occurs in many German names.
�250
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
Varus and the remnants of the
legions still lay unburied.’6
The plan evidently was to sur
round the Cheruskian League; to
annihilate it at the very scene of
its earlier great triumph; or to
drive it towards the Rhine—thus
crushing it between an attack from
the East and the West. Through
swamps and morasses, over which
bridges and embankments had to
be raised, the Roman army marched
towards the fatal Tentoburg Forest.
A deep emotion seized the soldiers
when they came to the place so
hideous to them by its aspect and
memory. It was a terrible sight.
The first camp of Varus could yet
be recognised, showing, by its wide
extent and its divisions, the strength
of three legions. There was the half
sunken wall—the low ditch; indi
cating the place where the beaten
remnants of the legions had once
more attempted a resistance. In
the open spaces, bleached bones
were to be seen—scattered, or iu
heaps, even as the troops had fled,
or withstood an attack.7 Broken
spears, skeletons of horses, heads
nailed to trees; in the groves near
by, rude altars where sacrifices had
taken place : all this brought back
the harrowing incidents of the Teutoburg Battle. Some of the survivors
of the defeat, who had escaped from
the battle or from their fetters,
pointed out the most noteworthy
spots. There the legates had fallen !
There .the eagles were lost! There
Varus had received his first wound !
There he had found his death by a
sword-thrust from his own hand!
Here, Arminius had spoken from a
raised scaffolding ! Here, a gallows
had been erected for prisoners!
Here there were pits of corpses 1
On yonder spot, Arminius had wan
tonly scoffed at the Roman banners
and eagles !
[August
In melancholy mood, yet full of
wrath—as Tacitus says—the Roman
Army buried the sorry remnants of
the legions of Varus. Germanicus
himself raised the first sod for a
grave-mound. Brooding Tiberius,
always nourishing suspicion, strong
ly blamed this expedition to the
scene of the lost battle; thinking,
perhaps not without reason, that
the sight of the dead and unburied
must impress the army with greater
fear of its foe. Indeed, the new
battle which now followed was, ac
cording to Roman testimony, again
very near being lost, and remained
‘indecisive.’ That is to say, Ger
manicus hurriedly returned with
his legions to the Ems, re-embark
ing them on his fleet, whilst a por
tion of his cavalry was ordered to
follow along the shore of the Ger
man Ocean, towards the Rhine;
thus remaining wi thin hail. Caecina,
in the meanwhile, was to march
over the so-called Long Bridges—
probably the same dykes which, for
eighteen hundred years afterwards,
still led from Lingen to Kovorden,
through the Bourtang Moor.
Finding the dykes partly decayed,
Caecina had to use the shovel as well
as the sword in presence of the ha
rassing enemy. A fearful struggle
began. The Germans, with their
powerful limbs and long spears,
fought on the slippery ground and in
the morasses with wonderful agility.
From the neighbouring hill-sides,
waters were made to deviate, by
German hands, towards the place of
contest. In their heavy armature, the
Romans felt unequal to this strange
water-battle. Night at last gave
some respite, but was made hideous
by the jubilant songs of the carous
ing enemy, who filled the valleys
and the forests with the echo of their
deep-chested voices. The Romans,
‘more sleepless than watchful,’ lay
6 Tacitus, Annals, i. 6o.
7 Not far from the village of Stuckenbrock, there is a brook that still bears the name
of Knochenbach (Bones’-brook). Tradition says of it that it is so called on account of
the human bones that were frequently washed out of the ground by its waters.
�1875]
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
drearily near their palisades, or wan
dered about despairingly between the
tents. It was during that night of
terrors that Caecina, in his dream,
saw and heard Quinctilius Varus—
he rose, blood-covered, from the
morass, calling for help; yet not
accepting, but pushing back, the
proffered hand of help.
When day broke, Armin rushed
upon the Romans, shouting : c Ho !
Varus again ! and, by the same fate,
twice-vanquished legions !’ With a
body of picked men, he in person
cuts through the Roman troops; in
flicting wounds especially on their
horses. They, throwing their riders,
and trampling on the fallen men,
create confusion throughout the
ranks.
Caecina himself, flung
from his horse, is nearly surrounded,
and with difficulty saved by the
first legion. After a prolonged
massacre, darkness even brings no
end to the misery. There are no
sapper’s tools ; no tents ; no band
ages for the wounded. The food is
soiled with blood and dirt. Wail
ing and despair everywhere.
A
night alarm is created by a horse
that has got loose. The Romans,
believing that the Germans have
broken into the camp, fly towards
the gate on the opposite side, and
are only stopped at last by Caecina,
whose admonitions and prayers
had been fruitless, throwing himself
bodily on the ground to bar the
gate, whilst the tribunes and the
centurions assure the soldiers that
the alarm was a groundless one.
Had Armin’s more prudent tac
tics been carried out to the last; had
not Inguiomer’s passionate advice
to storm the Roman camp pre
vailed in the German council of
war, the legions of Caecina would
have been annihilated as those of
Varus had been. As it was, the
fortune of battle was restored to
the Romans; Armin leaving the
ground of contest unharmed, whilst
Inguiomer received a severe wound.
Caecina’s troops effected their re
251
treat. The fleet of Gernianicus,
who had taken the remainder of
the army with him, was in the
meanwhile wrecked in the German
Ocean by a storm-flood, and gene
rally believed to be lost, until that
part of the army also came back,
after many sufferings and losses.
On the Rhine, the rumour that
the Roman army was hemmed in,
and that the Germans were march
ing towards Gaul, gave rise to such
fears that the bridge over which the
retreating legions were to come
would have been pulled down, had
not Agrippina, the granddaughter
of Augustus, and wife of Germanicus, placed herself there with her
little son, the future Emperor Cali
gula, whom she had dressed in the
garb of a legionary. By personally
receiving and encouraging the re
turning soldiers, she stayed the
apprehensions, and prevented the
destruction of the bridge. So miser
ably ended a campaign which had
been destined to be a War of Re
venge for the Battle in the Teutoburg Forest.
Again we find the Romans re
turning to their plan of conquering
the country between the Rhine and
the Weser by a simultaneous attack
from the land side and from the
shores of the German Ocean. An
even more colossal army and fleet is
under the orders of their General.
Again they come with auxiliaries of
Teuton origin; but some of these—
the Angrivarians—rise in their rear.
On the Roman side there is, this
time, Armin’s own brother, Flavus —so called on account of his
flaxen or golden hair. Like Segest,
he had kept with his country’s
enemies, even after the great victory
of the German arms. There is a
pathetic account, in Tacitus’ Annals,
of an interview between the two
brothers, standing on the opposite
banks of the Weser, when Armin
endeavoured to gain over Flavus
to the national cause. The inter
view took place with Roman per-
�252
Arinin, the Liberator of Germany.
mission. Armin, after having saluted
his brother, who had lost an eye in
battle, asked him whence that dis
figuration of his face ? On hearing
of the cause, and of the reward
received for it—namely, a neck
chain, a crown, and other insignia
—the Liberator laughs scornfully
at ‘ those contemptible prizes of
slavery.’ Thereupon they speak
against one another : Flavus extol
ling Latin power, pointing to the
severe punishments that await the
vanquished, and to the mercy ex
tended to the submissive. On his
part, Armin speaks to his brother
of his country’s rights; of their
ancient native freedom; of Ger
many’s own gods; of the prayers
of their mother; of the calls of their
kith and kin. ‘Is it better,’ he
exclaims, ‘ to be a deserter from, and
a traitor against, your people, than
to be their leader and their chief
tain ? ’
Filled with anger, Golden-Hair
hurriedly asks for his horse and
weapons from those near him;
wishing to cross over with fratri
cidal purpose. With difficulty is he
restrained. Armin answers with
threats, announcing new battles;
and many sentences he uttered, be
tween his German speech, in Latin,
so that the Romans also might
understand him.
Soon the struggle recommences.
We see Cariovalda (probably ‘Heerwalt,’ i.e. Army-leader), the chief
of the Batavian auxiliaries, falling
under Cheruskian blows in a plain
surrounded by wooded hills. News
comes to the Roman General by a
German runaway that Armin has
fixed the place where he will give
battle to the Romans; that other
tribes also are assembled in the
‘Grove of Hercules’ (undoubtedly
a grove devoted to Thunar, the God
of the Tempests) ; and that a noc
[August
turnal attack upon the Roman camp
is intended. Meanwhile the bold
ness of the Germans becomes such
that one of their men who knows the
Latin tongue, spurs on his horse to
the camp wall, and with powerful
voice, in the name of Armin, makes
sundry joyful promises to those
who will desert from the Roman
Army. We hear Germanicus rousing
the courage of his troops ; Armin
on his part asks his men what else
there is to be done than ‘ to main
tain their freedom, or to die before
falling into bondage ? ’
We then see the Roman Army,
composed of many legions, and
with picked cavalry, marching for
ward with Gallic and German
auxiliaries to the Battle of Idistaviso. The locality of that battle
is not clearly fixed. Maybe, that
‘Idistaviso’ means Leister-Wiese —
the Meadow of the Deister Hills.8
In this case, the battle-field would
be near Minden. Others place it
near Vegesack, in the vicinity of
Bremen. It is reported that in
this battle Armin, easily to be
distinguished by his bravery, his
voice, and his wound, for some
time maintained the contest; rush
ing through the enemy’s bowmen,
and only stopped by the Rhaetian,
the Vindelician, and the Gallic co
horts-—all men of other nationality
than the Roman. In danger of beingsurrounded, he breaks away from
his foes by his vehement valour
and the impetuosity of his charger.
His face is smeared over with
blood—perhaps purposely done, to
avoid recognition. Some say that
the Chaukian auxiliaries of the
Romans did recognise him, but let
him pass through unhurt. Though
mercenaries themselves, they could
not harm the Deliverer—a touching
trait! In similar manner, Inguiomer saved himself. The result of
* A mythological explanation of the name of that field is, that it means the Meadow
of the Divine Virgins; or of the Walkyres—Virgins of Battle. Instead of Idistaviso,
Idiasa-Viso has been suggested to sustain this interpretation.
�1875]
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
the battle was claimed as a victory
by the Romans, who boast of a
great massacre among the van
quished Germans.
But another battle presently
followed ; the German tribes being
roused to fury by the sight of a
triumphal monument which the
Romans had raised, with an in
scription of the names of the popula
tions they thought they had van
quished. ‘The people, the nobles,
the youth, the old men, suddenly
fell upon the Roman Army,
throwing it into confusion.’ So
Tacitus says.
Armin, suffering
from a wound, is not present
during this new engagement. Inguiomer, who rushes through the
ranks, with words of cheer, is
forsaken by Fortune rather than by
his courage. Germanicus recom
mends his troops ‘ not to make any
prisoners, but to continue the carn
age, as the war could be ended only
by the extermination of that people.’
The main victory was again claimed
by the Romans, although their
cavalry fought, according to their
own testimony, indecisively.
Raising a monument of arms,
a mendacious inscription on which
spoke of a victory over ‘ the na
tions between the Rhine and the
Elbe,’ the Roman General re
turned, by way of the Ems, to
the German Ocean, when the
fleet was again wrecked, and
Germanicus, in a trireme, driven
to the Chaukian shore. With diffi
culty was he restrained from seek
ing death, accusing himself of this
misfortune. Some of his wrecked
soldiers found shelter on the Frisian
islands. Many had to be freed by
ransom from captivity among the
inhabitants of the interior. Some,
driven as far as the British shores,
were sent back by the kinglets of
that country.
Barring a few fresh Roman inroads
into Chattian and Marsian territory,
there was an end, henceforth, of
Latin power in those regions of
north-western Germany. The fol
253
lowing years are filled with the
struggle between Marobod, the
German ruler in Bohemia, who had
assumed the title of King, and
Armin, the ‘Championof Freedom.’
Suevian tribes, Semnones and
Longobards, dissatisfied with Marobod’s royal pretensions, went over
to the Liberator, whose influence
would now have been paramount,
had not dissension once more
broken out by the defection of
Inguiomer.
Priding himself on
the superior wisdom of older age,
he would not obey his younger
nephew, Armin, and went over to
Marobod; thus helping to divide
Germany from within. In the words
of the Roman historian, the different
tribes had, ‘ after the retreat of the
Romans, and being no longer
apprehensive of foreign enemies,
become jealous of each other’s
glory, and turned their weapons
against themselves, in accordance
with the custom of that nation.
The strength of the contending
populations, the bravery of the
chiefs, were equal. But Marobod’s
royal title was hateful to his
countrymen, whilst Armin, the
Champion of Freedom, possessed
their favour.’
With an army of 70,000 men and
4,000 horse, organised and officered
on the Roman system, the Markoman
King opposed the Cheruskian leader.
North and South were ranged as
foes against each other—a spectacle
too often seen in later centuries!
It is reported that Marobod, though
for some time looked upon and
treated by the suspicious Romans
as a possible enemy, who might
threaten their possessions south of
the Danube, and even Italy itself,
yet endeavoured to keep on good
terms with them. When Armin,
after the defeat of Varus, sent the
head of the Roman general as a
pledge of victory to Marobod, the
latter hastened to return it to the
Romans for honourable burial. In
the hour of Marobod’s misfortune
the Romans, however, only re-
�254
Armin, the Liberator of Germany.
membered that he had not aided
them in their contest against the
Clieruskians. Imploring—after an
indecisive battle, and much weak
ened by desertion—some succour
from Tiberius, the Markoman ruler
was refused all help ; and becoming
a fugitive, had to go, more as a
prisoner than as an exile, to that
same Ravenna, where Thusnelda
ended her days in grief, far from
her northern forest-home.
The
young Gothic duke Catualda, or
Chatuwalda, who in the meanwhile
stormed Marobod’s capital, was in
his turn expelled by another German
tribe, the Hermundures ; and flying
also to the Romans, died in distant
Gaul. Verily, a series of sad pic
tures of such discord as made the
Roman historian say that if the
gods wished to stay the impending
fate of his own nation, they should
for ever keep up dissension among
the Germans.
Still, even these dissensions,
albeit delaying, could not prevent,
the fall of the Roman Empire.
Frisian, Batavian,Markoman risings,
the latter lasting for twenty years,
followed, in course of time, upon
Armin’s struggles. And who knows
whether in the later Germanic on
slaught on Rome, the hosts of Goths,
Herulians, Longobards, may not
have marched forth to the sound of
heroic songs that praised Armin’s
deeds ?—songs probably still extant
in the ninth century, under the
Frankish Karl ; forming part of
those collected by him, but unfor
tunately lost for us.
We now rapidly come to Armin’s
end. We hear of a knavish pro
posal for poisoning him, made to
the Roman Senate by a Chattian
chieftain, Adgandester. The same
historian who describes the refusal
of the Senate to accede to poison,
considers it a simple matter that a
Chaukian leader, Gannask, was got
rid of by means not very dissimilar.
[August
The last days of the Victor of the
Teutoburg Battle are enveloped in
doubt and mystery. It is said that,
after the withdrawal of the Romans
and the overthrow of Marobod,
he, too, was suspected of aiming at
dominion, and was opposed by his
freedom-loving countrymen, against
whom he struggled with varying
success. Roman report states this
in a few lines. But it would be
difficult, in the absence of all
further testimony, to decide whe
ther the ‘ love of freedom ’ of his
opponents was a people’s spirit
of self-government, or merely
the jealousy of minor chief
tains whom the Romans would
gladly have seen fritter away all
German national cohesion.
At
last, Armin, at the age of thirty
seven, ‘ fell by the treachery of his
relations ’—that is to say, was mur
dered.
Of him Tacitus writes:—‘With
out doubt, Arminius was Germany’s
Deliverer (Arminius Liberator baud
dubie Germaniae)—one who had not
warred against the early beginnings
of the Roman people, like other
princes or army-leaders, but against
the Empire at the height of its
power. Of chequered fortune in
war, he was never vanquished in
battle. Thirty-seven years of hislife,
twelve of his power did he com
plete : his glory is still sung among
the barbarian nations ; unknown he
is to the annals of the Greeks,9 who
only admire tlieir own deeds; not
sufficiently praised is his name by
the Romans, it being our custom
to extol the past, and not to care
for the events of more recent days.’
This prai se, coming from an enemy,
is the greatest that could have been
given; and no prouder inscription
could be placed on the Memorial
which is to be inaugurated in the
Teutoburg Forest than the Latin
words : ‘ Liberator Germaniae.’
9 Still, Strabo—before the time of Tacitus—mentions Armin,
later by Dio Cassius.
Karl Blind.
The same was done
�The Development of Psychology.
405
of that theory of the secular transmission of mental acquisitions
which has become so familiar that it is now difficult to appreciate
its daring originality. Feeling, like Reason, arises out of instinct;
and emotions of the greatest complexity, power, and abstractness
are formed out of the simple aggregation of large groups of
emotional states into still larger groups through endless past ages.
Thus out of the feeble beginnings of life have been woven all
the manifestations of mind, up to the highest abstractions of
a Hegel and the infinitely complex and voluminous emotions
of a Beethoven. Well may a French writer say :—“ Si on la rapproche par la pensee des tentatives de Locke et de Condillac sur ce
sujet, la genese sensualiste paraitra d’une simplicity eufantine.”*
Hitherto the psychologist, proceeding objectively, has made no
use of consciousness ; and it is now necessary, in order to justify
the findings of the synthetic method, to examine consciousness in
the only possible way—by analysis. Setting out with the highest
conceivable display of mind, compound quantitative reasoning, he
tracks all the mental phenomena down to that which is only a
change in consciousness, the establishment of the relation of
sequence, and proves that the genesis of intelligence has advanced
in the same way as was shown in the synthesis—by the establish
ment and consolidation of relations of increasing complexity. Thus
throughout all the phenomena of mind there exists a unity of
composition; and the doctrines of innate ideas, intuitions by gift
of God, supernatural revelations, mysticism of all kinds, have the
ground cut from under them.
The very great extension of plan which Mr. Spencer’s work
received between 1855 and 1870-2 was due solely to the creation
of his own philosophy of evolution. That in its turn had its
initiative in the theory of the correlation of forces advanced by
Grove in 1842. As the new philosophy conceived all existence
to result from evolution through differentiation and integration, it was incumbent on Mr. Spencer to show that mental
phenomena, or at least the physical correlatives of them, can be
interpreted in terms of the redistribution of matter and motion,
and explained by a series of deductions from the persistence of
force. This is the task of a Physical Synthesis, which shows the
structure and functions of the nervous system to have resulted
from intercourse between the organism and its environment.
And thus is laid the coping-stone of a treatise which has defini
tively constituted Psychology a science.
With the definitive constitution of the science our inquiry,
which began with the differentiation of its subject-matter, comes
to an end. We have seen mind slowly emancipating itself from
* Ribot, “ La Psycbologie Anglaise,” p. 215.
[Vol. CI. No. CC.j—New Series, Vol. XLV. No. II.
EE
�406
The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
the barbaric Cosmos, and raised into an independent object of
speculation. Once “ differentiated’ it begins itself to unfold, and
at the same time to gather round it the at first alien facts of
sensation, appetite, and bodily feeling generally. These are in
creasingly matter of inquiry, and theories respecting them take the
hue and shape of the sciences which relate to the material world.
The science of motion evolves, and the idea of orderly sequence
enters into Psychology. Natural Philosophy rises from motion to
force, and Psychology passes from conjunction to causation. Che
mistry tears aside a corner of nature’s veil, and a shaft is sunk in a
mysterious field of mind. The sciences of organic nature receive
a forward impulse, and mind and life are joined in inextricable
union. A philosophy of the universe, incorporating all the
sciences, is created, and Psychology, while attaining increased
independence as regards the adjacent sciences, is merged in that
deductive science of the Knowable which has more widely
divorced, and yet more intimately united, the laws of matter
and of mind.
Art. VII.—The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
1. Deutsche Classiker des Mittelalters, Mit Wort und Sacherkldrungen. Begriindet von Franz Pfeiffer. Erster
Band, Walther von der Vogelweide. Leipzig: F. A.
Brockhaus. 1870.
2. Das Leben Walthers von der Vogelweide. Leipzig : B. G.
Triibner. 1865.
N the history of German literature no period is more inte
resting, than that short classical epoch at the end of the twelfth
century and the beginning of the thirteenth, which gave rise to the
literature written in Middle High German. More especially does
it attract attention, because within very narrow limits it com
prises many and great names, but above all it is remarkable
because within these limits it saw the birth and death of a new
kind of poetry, a poetry of an entirely different character from
that of the old epic poems. They were grand, massive, and
objective ; the new style was light, airy, plaintive, and subjective.
To this style belongs the German Minnesong. The songs of three
hundred Minnesingers are preserved all belonging to this short
period. In their themes there is not much variety. The changes
of the seasons, and the changes of a lover’s mood do not in fact
present a wide range of subjects to the lyric poet. And most of
the Minnesongs are confined to these. But the following simile
seems true. If any one enters a wood in summer time, and listens
I
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & 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>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Armin, the liberator of Germany
Creator
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Blind, Karl
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: p. 243-254 ; 22 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Printed in double columns. Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country was a general and literary journal published in London from 1830 to 1882, which initially took a strong Tory line in politics. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Fraser's Magazine 12 (August 1875).
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[s.n.]
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1875
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CT37
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Germany
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Arminius
Conway Tracts
Germany
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national SECULAR SOOT'™
tJil£
THE DOCTRIKE
HUMAN- AUTOMATISM.
A LECTURE
(WITH ADDITIONS}
delivered before
THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
On Sunday Afternoon, 7th March, 1875.
BY
w. B. CARPENTER, LL.D., M.D.,
F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S.
CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE,
AND REGISTRAR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON. 1
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTUBE SOCIETY,
18 75,'
Price Threepence.
�SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and to
encourage the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science—
physical, intellectual, and moral,—History, Literature, and
Art; especially in their bearing upon the improvement and
social well-being of mankind.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ARE DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALE, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o’clock precisely
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-eour Lectures (in three series), ending 2nd May, 1875, will
be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket (trans
ferable, and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight single
reserved-seat tickets available for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture), as below :—
To the Shilling Reserved Seats—5s. 6d.
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s., being at the rate of Threepence
each lecture.
For tickets apply (by letter) to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry
Domville, Esq., 15 Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door
One Penny
Sixpence ■—and (Reserved
Seats) One Shilling.
�IS MAN AN AUTOMATON?
Ladies and Gentlemen,—In. introducing to you the
■question which is to be the subject of my address this
evening—the question, Is Man an Automaton ?■—it is
perhaps well that I should define, at the commencement,
the sense in which I intend to use these words ; and it will
be more convenient to take the second first—What do I
mean by an Automaton ? The word automaton is derived
■from two Greek words, which mean self-moving. Well, of
•course, man is a self-moving being, and in that sense he is
an automaton. But the word automaton, as we use it, has
& different signification. It means a structure which moves
by a mechanism, and which can only move in a certain
way. I.might take as illustrations various automata which
are exhibited from time to time—I remember to have seen
in my boyhood many remarkable collections. But I will
draw my illustration from this very hall in which we are
met. The great organ behind me is blown, I understand,
by water power. You know, I daresay, that formerly
organs were blown by manual or human power. The
bellows-blower had before him what is called a “ tell-tale,”
a little weight so hung as to indicate the amount of wind in
the organ; and his business was to work the bellows so as
■always to keep the “ tell-tale ” below a certain point On
the other hand, by a piece of mechanism constructed for
the purpose with a great deal of skill, the organ is now
blown by water-pressure. The water-pressure so acts, that
when the organist requires a large supply of wind, as when
he is playing loud through a great many pipes, the bellows
�4
move faster ancl supply that wind ; while, on the otherhand, when he plays softly, and little wind is required, the
bellows move more slowly. If that apparatus were incased
in the frame of a human figure, and made to work the
bellows-handle up and down, we should call it an auto
maton.
.
Now, let us see on what the working of that automaton
depends. It depends, in the first place, upon its structure.
The mechanist who has constructed that apparatus has soarranged the play of its various parts, that it shall work
with the' power communicated to it, in accordance with the
oro-anist’s requirements. Then its working depends upon
the force supplied by the water-pressure; that force being •
made, by the construction of the machine, to exert itself
in moving the bellows at the rate determined by the playing
of the organist. Without a sufficient water-pressure the
machine will not work; and when the organist ceases to
touch the keys, the movement of the ■ bellows comes to a>
stand. There you have then a machine which is moved,
on the one hand, by a certain power, and the action of
which is regulated by another set of circumstances external
to itself. Now that is, I think, what we mean by an
automaton—a machine which has within itself the power
of motion, under conditions fixed for it, but not by it A
watch, for instance, is an automaton. You wind it upand give it the power of movement; while you make it
regulate itself by its balance, which you can so adjust as to
make it keep accurate time. Any piece of mechanism of
that sort, self-moving and self-regulating, is an automaton.
But then all these machines are made to answer certain
purposes, and cannot go beyond. They are entirely de
pendent, first, upon their original construction, secondly,
upon the force which is applied to them, and thirdly, upon
the conditions under which that force is .made to act. -^he
question then is, whether Man is a machine of that kind .
his original constitution, derived from his ancestry, in the
first place, shaping the mechanism of his body; and in the
second place, the circumstances acting upon him through the
whole period of his growth, and modifying the formation ot
his body, also, in the same manner, determining the con
stitution of his mind. Are we to regard the whole subse-
�5
(mental aS Wel1 as bodily) of eacp individual,
with his course of action in the world, as a necessary
consequence or resultant of these conditions—as strictly
•determined by his inherited and acquired organisation, and
-by the external circumstances which act upon it?
We must now consider what we understand by Man. I
do not mean Man according to the zoologist’s definition—
• a Vertebrate animal, belonging to the class Mammalia,
older Bimana, genus and species Homo sapiens ; but Man
as he is familiarly known to us, and as we have to regard
him m our present inquiry-the bodily man and the mental
man. We cannot help separating these two existences in
thought, although my own course of study has been directed
o the investigation of the nature of their relation. The
-metaphysician considers man simply in his mental aspect;
ih/^
eltCiallng With the organs of sensation;
d the mode in which man acquires his knowledge of the
external wor d through those organs; nor can°he help
cea mg with the subject of voluntary action, and with the
movements which express mental emotions. The physio
logist, on the other hand, looks simply at the body of man-and yet he cannot help dealing with the physiological con
ditions of mental activity—the way in which we become
conscious of the impressions made upon the organs of sense
appatatim °dVritl111011
Upon the muscu1^
appaiatus. A little consideration will shew that we mav
justly regard the body of man as the instrument by which
ns mind comes into relation with the external world. We
exteraTworld Z m/3a.ns/omething distinct from the
personalitZ
convenieilt to call that
feels think?7?
^tm term Ago. This Ego-which
eels thinks, reasons judges, and determines—receives
all its impressions of the external world through the
Ze ZZ Z °f
Again’ a11
action of
e E^o upon the external world—including in that term
the mmds m other men—is exerted through the instru
mentality of the body. What am I doing "at the ZseZ
time?—endeavouring to excite in your minds certain Ideas
meais ?f paSSmg throufh W own. How do I do so?—by
means of my organs of speech, which are regulated bv
my nervous system; that apparatus being the instrument
' '
�6
through which my mind expresses my ideas in spoken
laimuao'e. The sounds I utter, transmitted to you by
vibrations of the air falling upon your ears, excite m the
nerves with which those organs are supplied certain changes
which are propagated through them to the sensonum, that
wonderful organ through the medium of which a certain
state of consciousness is aroused in your minds; and my aim
is, by the use of appropriate words, to suggest to your minds
the ideas I desire to implant in them.
Such is the aspect under which I would have you con
sider Man’s body this evening. I do not say it is the only
aspect: but it best suits our present discussion to consider
the body as the instrument by which the mind of each
individual is made conscious of what is taking place
around him, and by which he is able to act upon the ex
ternal world; thus becoming the instrument of communi
cation between one mind and another. To illustrate what
I would have you keep before you strongly—that the Mind
is the essential Ego—I will ask your attention to one or
two facts of very familiar experience. It must have hap
pened to most of you to have formed impressions of other
individuals without any knowledge of their bodily appear
ance. We do not know them m the flesh at all, but we
know them intimately, or think we do, in the spirit.. 1
remember, in the year 1851, the year of the first, great
. Exhibition, being told that a number of the Telegraph
establishments in the country having given their clerks a
free ticket to London, to enable them to go up and see
the world’s fair—as it was called—m Hyde Park almost
every clerk on first coming to Town before going; to the
great Exhibition, went down to the telegraph office in
city to fraternise with his chum. You P^^ably know that
telegraph clerks very soon find out who is at the o
end.” Several clerks occasionally work a particulai ^s
ment, and each comes to know in half a dozen
w
has - gone on.” They recognise the style of telegjaphm,,
just as you would recognise the handwilting
+o i;ve
After a'little there is some one whom eachcomess wlike
better than others; A communicates individually with_ ,
and B with A; and beginning with the exchange>of lrttfe
friendly messages at odd times, intimacies, I have been
�7
assured, of the most fraternal kind, frequently spring up
between those who have never seen each other. I daresay,
now that young ladies are employed in telegraphing—and
a most fitting employment it is for them—some more
tender relations may spring up in the same manner.
Take again another illustration—the way in which our
sympathies are aroused with an author, when we come to
. know his mind as presented in his writings. A great many
of you felt when Dickens died, as if you had lost a personal
friend—one with whose mind your own had grown into
dose relation, whose thoughts had exercised a most valu
able influence on yours, and whom you felt to be nearer
to you than many so-called friends.
Let me give you an instance from my own experience.
I have been for some years a great admirer of an American
writer, whose books I have read with the deepest interest,
because I found in these books expressions of some of my
own best thoughts, a great deal better put forth than I
could put them forth myself—the products of a similar
course of scientific inquiry, worked out with the aid of
great poetic insight and a great fund of human sympathy,
—a large human capacity altogether. In his writings I
have felt as if I had one of my nearest and truest friends.
Circumstances lately drew forth a letter from him to myself,
in which he did me the honour to say that I had been his
teacher in science; but I felt he was completely my master
in everything that gives the best expression to scientific
thoughts. Now if I were to go to America, the first man
with whom I should seek to make acquaintance, with the cer
tainty that we should meet as old personal friends, is Oliver
Wendel Holmes.—I do not speak of Ralph Waldo Emer
son, because we have long been personal friends. In the
preface to a book I have lately received from him, he'sums
up all I have been now saying in these pregnant words—
“ Thoughts rule the world.”
Thus it is the mind that reciprocates the mind, much
more than the body reciprocates the body. The body is
the symbol of the mind, just as spoken or written words
are symbols of ideas ; and when we think of a friend whom
we know personally, we combine with the conception of
his personality our whole knowledge and conception of his
�8
character. When yon say, “ I met my friend so and so in
the street,” you do not mean you met simply his body, but
that you met the man—the whole man. But when you
say that you know a man “ by sight” only, you mean that
you know his outside body and nothing more.
In considering the body as the instrument of the mind,
I shall shew you, first, the large amount of automatism in
the human body, as to which I want you to have clear
ideas. I do not wish, for any purpose whatever, to lead
you away from this truth. I wish that you should be in the
position yourselves to appreciate facts, so as not to be led
away by one-sided statements. I desire particularly that
my statements should not be one-sided; and so far as time
will allow, I will place before you the whole of the moat
important considerations relating to this subject.
We must separate our body into two parts; and shall
first consider the part that is most important as the instru
ment of our mind—that which physiologists call the apparratus of animal life. This takes in the nervous system—
the recipient of impressions made by the external world
upon our organs of sense, the instrument through which
these impressions are enabled to affect our conscious minds,
and conversely the medium through which our minds ex
press themselves in action on our bodies. Then, again,
there is the muscular apparatus, which is called into action
through the nervous system, and the framework of bones
and joints by which this muscular apparatus gives move
ment to the several parts of the body.
But this “apparatus of animal life” cannot be maintained
in its integrity, and cannot perform the actions which it is
adapted to execute, without certain conditions. It must be
maintained by nutrition, because it is always wearing and
wasting by its very action, and is. in constant need of
repair; and the material for this repair must be supplied
by the blood-circulation. Again, the power it puts forth is
dependent upon the operation of oxygen on the material of
its tissues or of the blood which circulates through them;
and this is as essential a condition as the pressure of water
is upon the bellows of the organ.
Then the circulation of the blood involves the prepara
tion of the blood from food, and its exposure to the atmo-
�9
■sphere in the lungs, so as to get rid of the carbonic
■acid which is the product of the chemical change that
generates nervo-muscular energy, and may take in a fresh
supply of oxygen ; and hence there is required an apparatus
of organic life. This apparatus consists of all the organs
which take in the food, which digest it, prepare it, and
convert it into blood, those which circulate the blood, and
also those which subject the blood to the influence of the
air. The working of this apparatus in man involves the
action of certain nerves and muscles•, though it is not so with
many of the lower animals, which are provided with a much
simpler mechanism. In the case of man we have the need
of muscles to take in and swallow the food, and of muscles
to move the coats of the stomach in the process of its
digestion; and we require a powerful muscle—the heart
•—to circulate the blood through the body by the alternate
contraction of its several chambers; while powerful muscles
of respiration alternately fill and empty the lungs.
Now, the first point I would lay stress upon is, that
all these actions are essentially and originally automatic.
When I say originally, I mean from the very beginning—
from the moment when the child comes into the world, or
oven before. We know that the first thing the new-born
infant does is to draw a long breath; and from that time
breathing never ceases,—the cessation of breathing being
the cessation of life. The heart’s action has been going
on for months before birth; and its entire suspension for
■& very short time, whether before or after birth, would
bring the whole vital activity of the body to an end.
These motions are executed by the nervo-muscular
apparatus, in a way that does not involve our conscious
ness at all. We do not even know of our heart’s action
unless it be very violent, or we be in such a position that
we feel it knocking against our side. But still it is going
on regularly and tranquilly, though it may not be felt
from one day’s end to another. We cannot stop it, if we
would, by-any effort of the will; but it is affected by our
'©motional states.
So, again, we do not know that we are breathing, unless
we attend to it. The moment that we direct our attention
to it, we become aware of the fact; but if we are studying
a2
�10
closely, or listening to a discourse, or attending to some
piece of music, or, indeed, doing anything that engages our
consciousness, we are no more aware of our breathing than
we are during sleep. This shews you, then, that when
breathing goes on regularly the action is purely automatic.
But we have a very considerable control over our muscles
of respiration. If my respiratory movements were as purely
automatic as those of an insect, I could not be addressing
vou to-night; because the whole act of speech depends upon
the regulation of those movements. We must have such
power over the muscles, as to be able to breathe forth succes
sive jets, as it were, of air, which, by the apparatus of arti
culation, are converted into sounding words. Though we
have power over the respiratory organs to a certain extent,
we cannot “ hold our breath” many seconds. In the West
Indies the overworked negroes used formerly to try to
commit suicide by holding their breath, but could not do
it, except by doubling their tongues back so as to stop the
aperture of the glottis; for the impulse and' necessity forbreathing became so imperative, that they could no longer
resist the tendency to draw in a breath. Thus, whilst, we
have a certain voluntary control over this act of breathing,
so as to be enabled to regulate it to our purposes, we can
not suspend its automatic performance long enough to
interfere seriously with the aeration of the blood.
Let me briefly notice some of our other automatic
actions. In the act of swallowing, which properly begins
at the back of the throat, the “swallow” lays hold of the
food or the drink brought to it by the muscles of the mouth,,
and carries this down into the stomach. We are quit®
unconscious of its passage thither, unless we have taken
a larger morsel or something hotter or colder than ordinary.
This is an instance of purely automatic action. If you
carry a feather, for instance, a little way clown into the
“swallow,” it is laid hold of and carried down involuntarily,
unless drawn back with your fingers.
Take as another instance, the act of coughing. What
does that proceed from ? You may have allowed a drop of
water or a crumb of bread to “go the wrong way,” and get
into the air-passages. It has no business there, and will
excite a cough. This consists, in the first place, in the-
�closure of the glottis—the narrow fissure which gives
passage to the air—and then in a sort of convulsive action
of the expiratory muscles, which sends a blast of air
through the aperture, that serves to carry away the
offending substance. Nothing can be more purpose-like
than that action, yet it is purely automatic. You cannot
help it. You may try to stifle a cough for the sake of the
audience or the lecturer, but the impulse is too strong for
you. You see, then, the purely involuntary nature of this
action. The person who feels inclined to cough may
endeavour to overcome the automatic tendency by an
effort of his will. He may succeed to a certain degree,
but cannot always do so.
Now, although we cannot voluntarily stifle a cough when
it is strongly excited, we can cough voluntarily, with no
excitement at all. You can cough, if you choose, to interrupt
the lecturer, as in the House of Commons coughing is some
times used to put down a troublesome speaker; and little
coughs are sometimes got up to give signals to some friend
privately. Or, again, the lecturer, who may feel his voice
husky in consequence of some little mucus in his throat,
wishes to clear it away; its presence does not excite the
movement, but he coughs intentionally to get rid of it.
Now, I would have you fix your attention on these two
points : in the first place, coughing as an involuntary move
ment excited by a stimulus in the throat; and in the second
place, as a voluntary movement executed by a determinate
effort. This distinction is the key to the whole study of
the nature of the relation between the mind of man and
his muscular apparatus.
The automatic movements of which I have been speaking
depend upon a certain part of the nervous centres, which
does not enter into the structure of the brain properly so
called; namely, the medulla oblongata, or the upward
prolongation of the spinal marrow—the spinal cord, as
physiologists call it—into the skull (a, figs. 1, 2).
The effect of the stimulus or irritation in the windpipe
may not be felt as tickling; for coughing will take place in
a state of profound insensibility. An impression is made
upon the nerves which go to the medulla oblongata, and
in that centre' excites a change. It is the fashion now to call
�12-
this change a “movement of moleculesbut it is nothing ■
more than a name for
the action excited there,
;of the nature of which
we know very little. I
• do not think that this
expression is really very
much better than the old
doctrine of “vibrations”
put forth by Hartley
& more than a century ago.
The change thus excited
produces a converse ac
tion in the mo tor.nerves
which go to the muscles,
and thus calls forth the
combined muscular move
ment of which I have
spoken. This is a typi
Fig. 1.—Under Surface oe Brain.— cal example of what the
a. Medulla oblongata, cut off from physiologist terms
the spinal cord; b, pons varolii; c, “reflex action.”
infundibulum; d, portion of the
The whole Spinal Cord
convoluted surface of the cerebrum;
■ e, portion of the same laid open, is a centre of “ reflex
shewing the difference between the action,” in virtue of the
grey or ganglionic substance of the grey or ganglionic mat
convolutions, and the white or fibrous
substance; /, cerebellum; 1, olfac ter it contains, in addi
tory ganglion; 2, optic nerves; 3-9, tion to the white strands
which form the connec
successive cranial nerves.
tion between the spinal nerves and the brain j and this grey
matter is present in different parts of the cord in different
amounts, in proportion to the size of the nerves connected
with each. Each ordinary spinal nerve contains both
sensory and motor fibres, bound up in the same trunk, blit
these are separate at its roots (fig. 3) ; and a part of each
set of fibres has its centre in the grey matter of the spinal
cord itself, whilst another part is continued into its white
strands. Although, however, we speak of “ sensory
fibres, we do not mean that impressions on them always
call forth sensations. For in the case of many involuntary
acts, ascertain impression is made on the sensory nerve,
�■:I3
.and a reflex influence excited by this. acts through the
corresponding motor nerve without calling forth any sen
sation. Ah impression is conveyed towards the ganglionic
centre, which possesses a
• power of reflexion — not
reflection in the mental
sense, but in the optical
sense of the reflection of fffy'
rays from a mirror. If we
break any part' of this
a nervous circle,” ‘ as Sir
Charles Bell called it, its
action is destroyed.' Cut
the sensory ' nerves, and
no reflex action can be
excited. Cut the motor
nerves? and no muscular
contraction can be called
forth. Destroy the centre, Fig. 2.—Vertical Section of Brain
THROUGH ITS MIDDLE PLANE;
and you will not have the shewing the relation of the Cere
reflexion. The complete brum A and the Cerebellum B, to
nervous circle is necessary the Sensori-motor Tract, which
for the performance of may be considered as the upward
extension of the
every one of these reflex a, and includes medulla oblongata,
the parts lettered
actions. • ■
cl, e,f -, at h is shewn in section the
What I want first to corpus callosum, or great transverse
impress upon you is, that commissure uniting the two cere
the reflex movements im bral hemispheres; and at g the
longitudinal
connect
mediately concerned in the ing the frontcommissure, parts of
and back
maintenance of Organic ’ each; i, optic nerve.
life all take place through
this lower portion of the nervous system, which has no
necessary connection with either sensation or will. That
is to say, that if there were no higher part of the nervous
System than the spinal cord, we should still have reflex
action without the Ego having anything to do with it.
■ -I may illustrate this by the act of sucking, which in
volves a curious combination of respiratory movements with
movements of the lips. This act can be performed without
any brain at all; for infants have come into the world with. out the brain, properly so-called—with nothing higher than.
�14
the prolongation of the spinal cord—and have sacked,
-pibreathed, and even cried
for some hours; and all the
true brain has beenremoved
experimentally from new
born puppies, which still
Fig. 3.—Transvep.se Section of
Spinal Cord ; shewing its grey or sucked at the finger when
ganglionic core, enclosed in its moistened with milk and
white strands; a, r, anterior or put between their lips. This
motor roots;
r, posterior or shews how purely automatic
sensory roots.
these actions are.
But we now come to that other class of movements—
namely, those properly belonging to the apparatus of
Animal life—which are concerned in the obtaining of food and in carrying on ordinary
locomotion. I have to shew you to what a
large extent, among some of the lower ani
mals, these movements are originally auto
matic ; and, on the other hand, to inquire
into their nature in Man.
We will go to the class of Insects and their
allies the Centipedes, as giving the best illus
tration of the primary automatic movements
of animal life. Here (fig. 4) is a diagram of a
Centipede. Every child who has dug in the
ground knows the “ hundred-legs,” and is
pretty sure to have chopped one in two, and.
noticed that each half continues to run. This
is in virtue of the ganglion existing in every
joint of the body, which is the centre of the
reflex action of the legs belonging to it, and
which keeps each joint in motion even after
it is separated from the body. If one of these
creatures is cut into half a dozen pieces, every
one of them will continue to run along. But,
again, if we divide the nervous cord which
connects the ganglia, the sight of an obstacle
Fig. 4.—Gan may cause the animal to stop the movement
gliated Ner of its fore legs, yet the hind legs will continue
vous Cord of to push it on. If you take out the middle por
Centipede.
tion of the chain of ganglia, the legs of that
�15
part will not move J but the legs of the front part will move
or not, according to the direction of the ganglia of the head,
•which seem to control the action of the other ganglia in vir
tue of their connection with the eyes; and the legs of the
hind part will continue to move as before.
When one of these creatures goes out of the way of an
•object before it, we may assume that it sees the object;
for although we have no absolute proof that insects do
see anything, I cannot see that there is any disproof of a
conclusion to which all analogy points. Certainly it seems
to me that if I try to catch a fly, and if it jumps or flies
away, or if I go out and try to catch a butterfly with a
net, and it flies off, it does so because it sees the net.
Those who have watched bees, when a storm is coming on,
flying straight down from many yards’ distance to the en
trance of the hive, can scarcely help concluding that they see
the entrance. At any rate, it is not proved that they do not.
Well, then, the Centipede avoids an obstacle. A visual
impression is made on the eyes, and by their agency is.com
municated to the large ganglia in the head; the reflex
action of which controls that of the other ganglia, and
directs the movement of the body.
We find that the size of these cephalic ganglia in flying
Insects has a very close relation to the development of their
eyes; the eyes being most highly developed in the most
active insects, and the ganglia connected with them the
largest; while the general movements of these insects are
most obviously guided by their sight. Here is a clear case
of Original or primary automatism; because these actions
are all performed by the insect almost immediately that it
comes forth from the chrysalis or pupa state; as soon as
its wings have dried, it begins to fly; and obviously sees
and avoids obstacles just as well as if it had been practising
these movements all its life.
Then, in the case of Insects, we notice that very remark
able uniformity of action, which we characterise as “instinc
tive.” They execute most remarkable constructions after a
Certain plan or pattern, with such extraordinary uniformity
and absence of guidance from experience, that we infer
that they must have inherent in them a tendency to
perform those actions.
�16
We see this in the case of hive bees, which are distin
guished for theii* elaborate architecture, and for their rem arkable domestic economy. I do not say that there is no
rationality in insects, and that there is nothing done with
conception and purpose; because some of their actions seem
to indicate this, especially those which are described in
recent accounts of ants given by Mr. Belt in his “ Naturalist
in Nicaragua.” Sir John Lubbock’s experiments also cer
tainly do seem to indicate a power of adaptation to changes of
circumstances that were not likely to have frequently oc
curred naturally in the history of the race, so as to have
become habitual—changes brought about by human agency,
so foreign to the ordinary habits and instincts of the crea
tures, that we can scarcely attribute their consequent action
to anything but a conscious adaptation to these ends. Bub
this is a matter to be still cleared up—how far experience
modifies the actions of insects. As a general fact, I may say
that they carry Automatism to its very highest extreme. .
To give another illustration—the Mantis religiosa (fig. 5),.
an insect which is allied to the crickets and grasshoppers, but
which does not habitu
ally either jump or fly.
It is a very savage insect,
and lies in wait for its
prey like a tiger. You
can see the curious form
of the long fore-legs,
which act as arms, and
are waved about in the
air; and it rests on the
two hinder pairs of legs.
Now, observe that the
front pair are supported^,
upon a very long first
segment of the thorax;
the two other segments
bearing the wings and
the two other pairs of
legs. Each of these
he centre of the move
ments of the limbs attached to it. The insect is always
�IT
lying in wait; and if any unlucky insect comes sufficiently
near, the arms dose round it and dig-in a pair of hooks,
with which the feet are furnished. By this act the unfor
tunate victim is soon put out of existence. Now if the
head Of this Mantis be cut off, the arms still go on moviim
-the
aild if anything is brought
Wife! their reach, they impress the hooks upon whatever
&SSSP’ Fhe 6FS Simply direct their action>the a^ion
itself being dependent on the ganglion from which the
nerves of these members proceed. Further, if we cut off that
«Vision and separate it from the hind part of the bodyithe
same thing will go on If anything is put within its grasp,
the arms close round it and impress the hooks with just
W game automatic action as we see in the Venus’s fly-trap.
Not only
but if you try to upset the body, it will
balance, and rise again upon the hind kgs.
Ibis shews you how completely automatic the move
ments are. The name of Mantis religiosa is derived from
the curious attitude in which this insect habitually livesT? -tS TT prayer’ We have not this insect
Britain; but the French call it the Prie Dieu
is equivalent to religiosa. •
’
C°nie thS 10A7r Vertebrate animals, of which
We my take the Frog as the best illustration. Its Spinal
’V
�18
Cord may be considered as the representative of the chain
of ganglia in the centipede ; the principal difference being
that its ganglionic matter forms a continuous tract, instead
of being broken up into distinct segments. But we find in the
head, instead of the one pair of ganglia connected with the
eyes, a series of ganglia connected with the several Organs
of sense, together with two masses of which we have no
distinct represent*
It
atives among the
lower animals —
namely, the cere
brum and the cere
bellum. The rela
tion of these to the
other
ganglion»
centres is shewn in
tig. 6, which represents the brain oi
the Turtle; A being
the olfactive lobe,,
or ganglion of smell,
from which proceed
the olfactory nerve»;
B the cerebrum; C
the optic lobe or
ganglion of sight,
from which proceed
the optic nerves;
D, the cerebellum;
and E, the spinal
cord. In mOTi
fishes the cerebrum
is actually smaller
Tig. 7.—Diagram of Brain, shewing the than the optic lobes;
relations of its principal parts: a, spinal but as we ascend in
cord; b, b, cerebellum divided so as to lay the series towards
open the fourth ventricle, 4, which sepa man, we find it borates it from the medulla oblongata ;
c, corpora quadrigemina ; d, optic thalami; coming relatively
f, corpora striata, forming the sensori-motor larger and larger;
tract; g, g, cerebral hemispheres ; h, corpus so that it covers-in
callosum; i, fornix; 1,1, lateral ventricles;
piJes the series
Hr
3, third ventricle; 5, fifth ventricle.
�19
«f ganglionic centres lying along the floor of the skull.
These sensori-motor ganglia, (fig. 7, c, d, f), though com
monly regarded as appendages to the cerebrum, really con
stitute the fundamental portion of the brain; they may be
regarded as an upward continuation of the spinal cord; and
I have been accustomed to designate this whole series of
centres (excluding the cerebrum and cerebellum) as the
axial cord In this all the nerves of sense terminate, and
irom it all the nerves of motion arise, the cerebrum having
only an indirect connection with either.
°
The proportional size of the Cerebrum in different animals
compared with that of their axial cord, corresponds so
closely with the manifestations of intelligence (that is, the
'^itentional adaptation of means to ends, under the Guid
ance o experience) as contrasted with blind unreasoning
instinct, that there can be no doubt of its being the instn”
Xnent of the reasoning faculty. The cerebrum attains its
maximum size and complexity in Man ; on the other hand,
111} froS it is relatively much smaller than in the turtle •
and it would seem that the actions of this animal are pro
wled for almost entirely by the reflex power of its auto
matic apparatus—namely, the spinal cord with the ganglia
Z-ITe’rJ.1Su?P°?e that we divide tlie spinal cord in the
»Welle of the back, between the fore legs and the hind le^s
•what nappens? We find that the animal can no longer move
tte hind legs by any power of its own, but that they can be
made to move by pinching the skin of the foot. If acid
SS put on one leg, the other will try to wipe it off: and a
Wimber of movements of that kind are called forth by
»famuli of various kinds. Yet we feel justified in saying
A® frog does not feel them. We know, as a matter of
penence that if a man receives a severe injury to his
—
Wy Often in
Md also, I
through his^tT5’ am0I1S tlle.slliPPing “ ‘he docks&h his stukmg some projecting object in falling
8o,T oomF,eteIy paralysed. He hal no feeling £
tat shock
power of moving them. But after the
S a„fe?„?fl, hera7dent has passed off- if y°u “»He
the lei »™fnhlS feet’ or aPPly a hot plate to them,
« +u-e£S a^e drawn UP- The man will tell you he feels
othmg whatever, and would not know what had taken
�20
■ place if he did not see the movement. A case of this bir d
occurred to the celebrated surgeon, John Hunter, who asked
a man, 11 Do you feel this in your legs'?”“ No, sir,” he
replied, (e but my legs do.” That was not scientifically
correct, because his legs could not be properly said to feel
that of which the Ego was unconscious ; but it expressed
the fact that the irritation called’forth a respondent motion.
■ • There is only one other mode of explaining this action';
namely, that by dividing the spinal cord.we have made a
second Ego—a new centre of sensation—in the lower part
of the cord. In that case we make as many Egos in the
centipede as we cut the body in pieces; and we might make
three separate Egos in the frog—the head, the upper part of
the trunk with the fore-legs, and the lower part with the
hind legs, each acting independently. This seems, to me
inconceivable; I entirely go with those who maintain that
these actions are provided for by a purely automatic
mechanism.
' .
. - A” still more remarkable fact is, that if we remove
• the higher nervous centres, leaving only the Spinal Cord,
and with it the Cerebellum (which appears to have the
■ power of combining or co-ordinating the movements), we
find that the general actions of locomotion are per
formed as in the uninjured animal. Thus the frog will
continue to sit up in its natural position ; and if we throw
it into the water it will strike out with its limbs and swim,
just as if the whole nervous system.was intact. * This is
■ the case also with the Dytiscus marginalis, a water-beetle,
which, when the ganglia of the head have been removed,
' will remain unon a hard substance without any movement;
' yet, if dropped into water, will begin to strike out, swim
ming in the usual way, but without any. avoidance o±
obstacles. So the frog, if a stimulus is applied, will jump
- just as if the brain had been left. If put on the hand it sits
. there perfectly quiet, and would remain so unless stimulated
to action; but if the hand be inclined very gently and slowly,
so that the frog would naturally slip oil', the creature s *pre"
feet are shifted on to the edge of the hand until he can just
prevent himself from falling. If. the turning of the hand be
■ slowly continued, he mounts up with great care and deli
beration, putting first one leg forward and then the other,
�.21;
nnial he balances himself with perfect precision upon the
edge; ancl if the turning of the hand is continued, over he
goes through the opposite set of operations, until he comes
to be seated in security upon the back of the hand. All
this is done after the brain proper has been removed,
shewing how completely automatic this action is. Another
remarkable fact is, that if you stroke one particular part of
the skin, the frog will croak.
*
.. .
Precisely parallel experiments were made by Flourens.
By removing the brain of a Pigeon he found that the anwal
retained its position, and would fly when thrown into the
air* If the optic ganglia were left, he found evidence that
animal either saw, or that its movements were guided by
impressions received through its eyes. The head of the
pigeon would move round and round if a light was moved
round in front of the eyes. So in the frog it was found that,
if the optic ganglia were left, it would avoid obstacles placed
in front of it, when excited to jump.
Thus we see how completely automatic these movements,
are, and how entirely they are dependent on the reflex
■action of the axial cord, the Cerebrum not being necessary
for their performance. The removal of that organ, how
ever, seems to deprive the animal of all spontaneity; it
remains at rest unless excited to move, and seems to do
nothing with a purpose.
Let us now go to Man, and examine the nature of his
movements. You have all seen a child learning to walk.
You know that it does not get upon its legs to walk all at
©nee, like a newly-dropped lamb ; but that its muscles have
to be trained, and this training is a very long process. The
child learning to walk, as Paley says, is the greatest
posture-master in the world. It requires a long course
■bf experience to acquire the power of moving its limbs in
® proper .manner to execute the successive steps; but far
more training is required in balancing. This balancing
of the body is one of the most curious things in our
mechanism. No automaton has ever been made to walk.
I once saw an automaton that professed to walk; but it had
only a gliding motion; and upon looking at the feet I found
some concealed springs beneath, so that neither foot was
ever really lifted.
�22
The act of walking requires a. continual shifting, of the
centre of gravity from side to side, so as to keep it over
the base during every step; and it is this shifting from side
to side, that constitutes the great difficulty, in. the act of
walking. Almost every muscle in the body is in action in
the maintenance of our balance and in the forward move
ment. The muscles of the eyes, even, are in operation in
keeping our gaze fixed upon what is before us, and thus
guiding our onward movement. But when this movement
has been once acquired, it goes on unconsciously. If you.are
walking with a friend and engaged in earnest conversation,
you may walk a mile and not be the least conscious all the
time of your having been successively advancing one leg
after another; and you do exactly the same thing, while
walking in a state of mental abstraction. So, again, you
are guided by your sight, when you have once set out,
along the line you are accustomed to take. I am in the
habit of walking down the Regent’s Park every lawful, day,
as you call it in Scotland, to my office at the University of
London. I frequently fall into some train of thought—as
latelv about this lecture; and I follow on that train of
thought, not only unconscious of the movements of my legs,
but unaware of the directing action of my vision. Yet I
know that my eyes have been directing me. When I have
come into the crowded streets, I have not. run against my
fellow passengers, or knocked myself against a lamp-post.
My legs have been moving the whole time, and have
brought me to my destination, sometimes to my surprise.
This must have been the experience of all of you who are
accustomed frequently to walk along a certain line. It has
even been the case that when you have set out with the
intention of departing from your accustomed line, for some
little business or other, and have , fallen into a tram ot
thought, through pre-formed association you keep m the
habitual line. After getting half way down a street you
suddenlv find that you have not gone out of your way, as
you intended to do. I regard such habitual action as
purely automatic; not primarily, but secondarily automatic,
the automatism not being original but acquired. . Ihis. is
the most universal of all forms of acquired automatic action
�23
in Man—not only the motion of the limbs, but the direction
of their movements by the sight.
The act of walking may become so automatic as to be
performed during sleep. Soldiers fatigued by a long march
continue to plod onward when sound asleep. If there are
Bo obstacles they go steadily onwards, just like the centi
pede when its head has been cut off. The Indian punkahpullers—men who are engaged the whole day pulling a
string backwards and forwards, to move the great fan
which produces a current of air in every room—often go
on as well when they are asleep as when they are awak®.
These are two instances of acquired automatism; and I
might add a great many more, because everything that
becomes habitual to a man is occasionally performed auto
matically in the state called absence of mind. Thus when
& gentleman goes up to his dressing-room to dress for a
party, the first thing he commonly does is to take out his
Wtch and lay it on the table. The next thing he often
does— I have done it myself—is to wind up his watch,
as if he was retiring for the night. I have known a
case in which the gentleman completed his undressing
and then went to bed-; so that when his wife came in
Search of him, he was comfortably resting from his day’s
Work. That was a case of pure automatism ; and I could
relate many more instances of the same kind, but you
must all have noticed such things in your own experience.
A particular manual operation can be done, if it is one not
requiring the constant direction of the mind, quite autoinatically. A man can plane a board, for instance, or work
his loom, while his mind is entirely occupied in another
direction. A musician will play a piece of music, and yet
maintain a continuous conversation at the same time.
There is a very amusing and suggestive book which I
recommend you to peruse, “ The Autobiography of Robert
Moudin, the Conjurer,” who describes the training by which
he prepared himself for the performance of various of his
feats of dexterity. Amongst other things, he tells us that
he devoted a great deal of time and attention in early life
to the acquirement of the faculty of being able to read a
book continuously, and at the same time to keep up balls
in the air. He brought himself to be able to keep up four
�24'
balls in the air, without detaching his mind from his book
for a moment. He could continue the tram of thought
that the book suggested, without giving his attention at
all to the keeping up of the balls; this action being only
a more elaborate form of the trained automatism that 1
have spoken of. The thought occurred to him, when
writing his autobiography, that he would try whether,
after thirtv years’ cessation from this performance, he
could still execute it. He stops, and then continues his
memoii-: “ I have tried this, and find I can keep up three
balls ” There, I believe, the nervo-muscular combination
that was required, had come by early training to be a part of
his physical constitution, and had been kept up by nutrition.
Whatever, in fact, we learn to do in the period of growth, .
we can continue to do without practice after the growth
has been completed; whilst acquirements that we make
subsequently are more easily lost when we are out o
practice.” I think all experience shews that; and I believe it
is for this physiological reason—that the bodily and mental
constitution'acquired during the period of growth becomes
“a second nature,” and is maintained throughout life,
whilst any modification it may undergo afterwards is some
thing superadded to that basis, and is the first to decline
when the habit of action ceases.
.
We now pass to the other part of our subject—the rela
tion between the higher part of our nature, the Ego, and
these automatic actions. What I shall endeavour to shew
you very briefly is this, that the whole of the neryomuscular apparatus concerned in executing the mandates
of the mind acts as a framed automaton. Anything which
' we mentally determine to do “we will, as we say. In
using the word “will” I do not mean a separate faculty,
I mean the Ego in a state of action. The Ego determines
to do a certain action, and commands the automaton to do it
*The will does not, as physiologists used to believe, thio
itself into a particular set of muscles; but says to the auto
maton, “do this,” and it does it. There are manF
which the Ego desires to do, but which he cannot make the
automaton do for want of training. For instance, manyof
you may strongly desire to be able to play a musical instru
ment. You may be able to read the music, and by watchmo
�25
a performer may see precisely how to do it, but you cannot
do it, simply for want of training. The same is the case with
a great many other actions which we can only acquire by
practice. Again, you may wish to do something physicallv
impossible. The Ego may earnestly desire and intend to
make some great effort—to take a great leap, for instance, to
save his life. He may will to hang on to a cord as long as
xaay be necessary to prevent his falling from a height.
The Ego wills this with all his energy; but his muscles will
not. obey him, because it is not in their nature to maintain
their tension for longer than a certain period.
Let me give you a little experiment that I think every
One will find instruction in performing on himself; it
occurred to me while lecturing on physiology as suited to
conduct my students exactly to the idea I wished to impress
upon them. There happened to be a bust opposite me,
and I said, “ Now, I will to look at that bust, and I will
at the same time to move my head from side to side.” I
told, them to watch my eyes, and they could all see them
rolling from side to side in their sockets,—as you can see
for yourselves by looking at your own eyes in a lookingglasSj and turning your head from side to side. You do not
feel that you are using the slightest exertion, and would not
be aware of the motion of your eyes unless you knew it
as a matter of fact, or some one else told you that you were
<at>ing so. You have said to your automaton, “Look at it”
(whatever it may be), and at the same time “ move your
head round.; ’ and the automaton rolls its eyes in the conteary direction, and thus keeps the image on the same part
•of the retina.
r
That is what I maintain to be the general doctrine of
the automatism of the body, directed and controlled by the
will;—the Ego willing the result, and leaving it to the
automaton to work it out; as when I set my automaton to
walk to a certain place, and direct my thoughts to some
thing altogether different.
kave now, in the last place, to consider how far the
Mind of man acts automatically. This is a subject con
fessedly of very great difficulty. There are those who consider that the mind of man is essentially and entirely
c ependent upon his bodily organisation, although they may
�26
still hold the separate existence of the mind. They find.it,.
indeed, very difficult to conceive that there can be anything
else than automatic action; because they see to what a
very large extent our mental activity is conditioned by the
physical constitution of the body.
The Physiologist can have no more doubt that there is a
mechanism of thought and feeling, of intellect and imagina
tion, of which the Cerebrum is the instrument, than that
there is a mechanism of instinct of which the Axial Cord is
the instrument. "When one idea suggests a second, in accor
dance with a preformed association, the second a third, and
so on, constituting what we call a “train of thought,” without
any order from ourselves, we seem fully justified by a large
body of evidence in affirming that this is the mental ex
pression of a succession of automatic changes, each causing
the next, in the ganglionic matter which forms the con
voluted surface-layer of the Cerebrum. These changes may
or may not result in bodily motion. What we call the
“ movements of expression,” are the involuntary signs of
the state of our feelings ; and so the movements executed
by sleep-walkers are the expressions of the ideas with
which their minds are possessed. So great talkers, like
Coleridge, sometimes run on automatically, when they have
got patient listeners; one subject suggesting another, with
no more exertion or direction of the will than we use in
walking along a course that has become habitual. All this
may be regarded, physiologically, as the “reflex action of
the cerebrum,” the physical mechanism of which is partly
shaped by its inherited constitution, and partly by the
training to which it has been subjected, whether by inten
tional education, or by the education of. circumstances—the
brain “ crowing to” the mode in which it is habiuually
worked, &just a's the mechanism of our bodily movement
shapes itself to the work we habitually call on it to peiform.
We constantly see that mental faculties are inherited, as
well as bodily powers ; that children brought up after the
parents’ death, shew most remarkably the mental tendencies
of one or both of them. They do a number.of things in
exactly the same manner that the parent did, have the
same moral and intellectual tendencies, and present an
extraordinarily striking resemblance in general character.
�27
This principle of the hereditary transmission of facultiesthrough the physical organisation is now generally admitted;,
and what is more, I think it is clear that many of these
Acuities and tendencies have been acquired and superin
duced, as it were, in the constitution of the parent, upon
what it originally possessed. There is one very remarkable
and too common example of this hereditary transmission,
namely, the tendency to alcoholic excess. I remember
a friend telling me he had known a man who for forty years
got up every morning with the strong apprehension of being
unable to resist that craving, which was an essential and
inherent part of his nature, inherited from the unhappy
indulgence of his father. That man fought a most heroic
fight every day of his life. Every now and then he fell,
but recovered himself; and, to my mind, fall as he did, his
recovery shewed him to possess a far higher moral nature
than that of the man who never yieids because he is never
tempted. I cite this merely as one example of acquired
tendency hereditarily transmitted; all of us are familiar
with cases more or less resembling it.
But the question is, whether the Ego is completely
under the necessary domination of his original or inherited
tendencies, modified by subsequent education ; or whether
he possesses within himself any power of directing ancl
controlling these tendencies ? It is urged by some that as
the physical structure of his Cerebrum at any one moment
is the resultant of its whole previous activity, so its reflex
action, determined by that physical structure, must be
really automatic; the only difference between a voluntary
oi’ rational, and an involuntary or instinctive action, lying
in the complexity of the antecedent conditions in the
former case, as distinguished from their simplicity in the
latter. And it is held, in like manner, by many who
look at the question from the mental side, and who do
not trouble themselves at all about the physiological aspect
of it, that a man cannot act in any other way than in
accordance with his character; and that his character at
any one moment is the general resultant of his whole
previous mental life. But even John Stuart Mill, the
most able and conspicuous advocate of this doctrine, felt
that in making every man entirely dependent upon his in
�28
herited constitution, and his subsequent “circumstances,” it
excluded all possibility of real seZ/-direction, all hope of selfimprovement ; and this, he tells us in his autobiography,
■weighed on his existence like an incubus. “ I felt,” he
says, “ as if I was scientifically proved to be the helpless
slave of antecedent circumstances, as if my character and
that of all others had been formed for us by agencies •
beyond our control, and was wholly out of our own power.”
'The way out of this darkness he found in what seems to
have struck him as a new discovery, although it was
fa.mil 13,r enough to many who had previously studied the
action of the mind,—“that we have real power over the
formation of our own character; that our will, by influenc
ing some of our circumstances, can modify our future
"habits or capacities of willing.”
Now, this I hold to be accordant with the experience of
every one who has thought and observed, without troubling
himself with philosophical theories. "VVe all perceive that
in the earlier period of our lives, our characters have been
formed for us, rather than by us. But we also recognise
the fact, that there comes a time when each Ego 'may
take in hand thé formation of his own character ; and that
it thenceforth depends mainly upon himself what course
its development shall take,-—the most valuable result of
early training being that which prepares him to be his
own master, keeping in subjection his lower appetites and
passions, and giving the most favourable direction to the
exercise of his higher faculties. And I shall now explain
to you what seems to me the process by which this is
■ effected.
Every one knows that he can determinately fix h%s
attention upon some one object of sense, to the. more or
less complete exclusion of all others. In looking at a
picture, for instance, he can examine each part of it sepa
rately; or, if he has a “musical ear,” he can single out any
one instrument in an orchestra, and follow it through its
whole performance. Now, just in the same manner we
can fix our attention upon one state of consciousness (a
thought or feeling) to the exclusion of others. Supposing
that you are endeavouring to fix your mind upon a certain
object of study, or are reading a book that requires much
�29
thought to follow it, or are trying to master a mathe
matical problem, or are desiring to work out a certain
question as to the conduct of your own lives, and you are
attracted by the coming-in of a book or a newspaper which
you would like to look at, or are distracted by noises or
the playing of a musical instrument, you feel that it is in
your power to fix and maintain your attention by a suffi
cient effort. That determinate effort is what we call an
act of the will; and I believe that the power of so fixing.
Our attention is the source of all that is highest and best
in our intellectual self-education, as, in another direction, it.
is the source of all our moral self-improvement.
The automatist will say that your doing so is merely
the result of the preponderance of one motive over the
other,—the desire to go on with your study being stronger
than the attractive or distracting influence. But if this
be the whole account of the matter, why should we have
to “ make an effort,”—to struggle against that influence ?We choose, as it seems to me, which is the thing that we
deem preferable; and we then throw the force of the Ego
into the doing of it, just like a man who makes a powerful
muscular exertion to free himself from some restraint.
And I hold that just as the Ego can turn to his own
account the automatic action of his nervo-muscular appa
ratus, regulating and directing his bodily movements, .so
ha can turn to his own account the automatic activity of
his cerebrum, regulating and directing the succession of
his thoughts, the play of his emotions. That succession
is in itself automatic; you cannot produce anything, other
wise than by utilising what may spontaneously present,
itself; and you do so by the selective attention of which I
have spoken, intensifying your mental gaze so as to make ,
the object before you call up some other, until you get
what you are seeking for. This you may readily trace
out for yourselves if you will observe your own mental
experiences, in trying to recollect something. And what
shews the essentially automatic action of the cerebral
mechanism in this familiar operation, is that after you
have been for some time trying in vain to recall some
forgotten name or some recent occurrence which has
“ escaped your memory,” it will often flash into your mind
�30
some little time afterwards, when yon have turned your
attention to something else. In the same manner many
important inventions and discoveries have proceeded from
the automatic working of the Cerebrum, set going in the
first place by the determinate fixation of the attention on
the object to be attained; the success of the result being
due to the whole previous “ training” of the organ.
The act of fixing the attention, in my belief, lies at the
foundation of all education, and is one to be fostered and
encouraged in every child. It is better to begin with only
a few minutes at a time; gradually, by encouragement, the
child comes to feel that it has a power of its own to pro
long its attention; and at last the encouragement is no
longer needed, for the child that has been judiciously
trained will exert all its determination to learn its lesson,
in spite of temptations to go out and play or to amuse itself
in any other mode. But if this determination were simply
the expression of a preponderance of motive, I do not see
why an effort should have to be made. If the motive to fix
the attention be stronger than the attraction of any other
object, or the prospective influence of the good to be
gained be more powerful than the distracting influence, the
mere preponderance of the one over the other would produce
the result. But we know and feel that the making such a
determinate effort, involves more expenditure, “ takes more
out of you,” than the continuous sustained attention when
there is no distracting influence; therefore, I say there
is something here beyond the automatic preponderance of
motive—the mark and measure of the independent exertion
of the will.
Now this power, call it what we may, is capable of being
strengthened by exercise—no power more so; neglected
children being generally most deficient in it, and most
carried away by their own impulses. No doubt a greater
power of concentration is natural to some, and a greater
mobility to others. But still I believe there is no healthy
mind in which this power is not capable of being developed
by training, just like the power of the limbs in walking. Its
possession is the foundation of all intellectual discipline;
without it we can do nothing good in intellectual study.
Look, now, at the moral side, and see how it operates
�there. We begin by saying, “ I ought not” to do so and
SOj*—assuming a moral standard. Take the case, which is
unfortunately so common a one, of a man who has a strong
temptation to alcoholic indulgence. He .knows perfectly
well that an habitual yielding to that temptation will be
his ruin. I have heard of a man who said that if a glass
of spirits was put before him, and he knew that the pit of
hell was yawning between, he must take it. This is an
instance of the overpowering attraction it has for some
individuals ; but this generally results from habit; and it
is over the formation of habits that the will can exert its
greatest power, by fixing the attention on one set of motives
to the exclusion of other motives. I do not say that a man
can bring motives before his mind. He cannot do that—
we can only take what comes into our minds; but he can
direct his thoughts in a certain line, as it were, so as to
find them. He can think of his family or the future, and
80 exclusively fix his attention on the consequences, as to
withdraw it from the immediate attraction. That I take
to be the best mode. A struggle goes on in the mind of
many a man subject to temptation; but if he has strength
of principle enough to resist the immediate tendency to
wrong action, and so gets time to deliberate, he may thus
Herve himself for the conflict. Many good resolutions are
formed—we know what place is said to be paved with them
and we hope to realise them. We determine in ourselves
that we will avoid particular indulgences. We may have
Some strong disposition to apply our powers to ill uses, to
play some mean trick, or something of that kind. Most of
us have temptations of self-interest—not less strong be
cause not pecuniary,-—as to gain credit that does not belong
to us, and so on. We hold back—•“ puli ourselves together ”
is the phrase of the present time—and summon all our
resolution and determination not to yield. There is some
thing more, here, than mere preponderance of motive; for
we determinately direct our attention to the reasons why
we should or should not do the particular act. I believe
that in such cases the mind is best withdrawn from the
temptation, fixing the attention upon something else. That
is the real secret of victory. By fixing our mind upon the
object, and saying “I won’t do it.” the temptation still
�32
keeps haunting us. I have known many a struggle of this
kind relieved by the determination to follow an entirely
different course. We know that in cases of insanity, where
a man is led by, physical disorder to take a miserable view
of everything relating to himself, the medical man sends
him abroad, where he is attracted by a new set of objects
—something which prevents his mind from brooding over
his gloomy thoughts; and in that way, as his physical health
improves, the man comes to feel that he can voluntarily
transfer his attention from them to objects of interest
round him. This, I believe, is the manner in which we
should distract our minds from anything we feel and know
to be unworthy of our attention;—we should find out
something more worthy, and pursue it with determination.
I ask you to take as your guiding star, as it were, in the
conduct of your lives, these four words—“I am,” “ I ought,”
“I can,” “I will.”—“I am” is the expression of reflection
and self-consciousness, the looking-in upon our own trains
of thought. If we do not feel “ I am" we do not think of
ourselves and our own nature—we surrender ourselves. “ I
ought"—expresses the sense of moral obligation. By steadily
fixing our attention on the “I ought,” the course of action
is first directed right, and its continuance m that path
becomes habitual. “ Turn to the right and keep straight
on,” and you will find the doing so easy in proportion.
Every right act, every struggle of the will against wrong, is
the exercise of a power which strengthens with use, and
will make the next act easier to you. On the other hand,
every time you surrender your will to the temptations of
self-interest, or sensual gratification, or anything that turns
you from the straight path, there is a loss of power which
makes the next effort more difficult. Then, “I can"—the
consciousness of power, is the foundation of all effort.
And, lastly, it is not enough to say, “ I ought to do it, and
I can do it,” but we must will to do it. The “ I am,” “ I
ought,” “I can,” “I will,” of the Ego, can train the
mental as well as the bodily Automaton, and make it do
anything it is capable of executing.
�
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The doctrine of human automatism : a lecture (with additions) delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday afternoon, 7th March, 1875
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Carpenter, William Benjamin
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. : ill. ; 18 cm.
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Free will
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Automatism
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Text
A
DISCOURSE
ON THE
SERVICE OF GOD,
DELIVERED BY
Professor F. W. NEWMAN,
AT THE
FREE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, CROYDON,< LONDON
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD?
LONDON, S.E.
■ 1875.
Price Threepence.
�LONDON:
PRINTED BY C. W. BEYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET,
HAYMARKET.
�THE
SERVICE OF GOD.
“0 Lord, truly I am thy servant. I am thy servant, and
the son of thy handmaid. Thou hast broken my bonds. ”—
Psalm cxvi. 16.
ELIGION has a long history. It is perhaps as
old as human nature. At every time it reflects
our moral and intellectual state. It is barbarous in
our barbarism. It is puerile, while our intellects are
immature. It becomes more manly with our manlier
thoughts, pure and tender with our more refined
morals. The rude or savage man, who discovers in
the vast world Powers greater than himself and
older than the solid globe, easily believes that some
gods are kindly and others cruel. The God who
gives genial harvests and healthful seasons is the
good God; but the power who wields the hurricane
and the lightning seems to be a demon. We know,
as a fact, particular tribes to have argued frankly,
that it is not necessary to concern ourselves about the
good God, who is sure to be kind. The only matter
of importance (they said) is, to propitiate the evil
demons, and avert their anger. Thus, as a matter of
policy, demon-worship is put forward as the cardinal
task of religion.
But wherein does this worship or service consist ?
It is assumed that the mighty Being who sometimes
crushes feeble man, crushes him through malevolence
and cruelty. Such a Being is likely to be proud,
vain, jealous; easily affronted, but appeased by sub
mission, by gifts and by flattery. Therefore the
service of the god becomes like to that of an earthly
tyrant. Worship paid to one somewhat lower in
B
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The Service of God.
morals than ourselves is degrading to the votary and
demoralizing. No one can say into what depths of
cruelty to man such fantastic service may descend f
once the ceremonies of worship are systematized and
receive traditional sanction from national usages and
law.
Thus, in order that worship or service to God may
be healthful, rightful, elevating, ennobling, the first
essential condition is, that we believe God to be Setter
than ourselves ; not merely more powerful, but better,
in every sense in which we can understand goodness’
It needs no high effort of thought, no especial power
of insight, to establish as a sure foundation, that, if
a Supreme God have any moral character at all, his
morality must be nobler than ours. In any case our
petty vices are in him simply impossible. He cannot
be irritable, jealous, thinking of his own honour, capricious, malignant, fickle, fantastic. He does not
need offerings of food or of flowers, roast flesh or
honey-cakes, garlands of leaves, nor crowns of gold.
He needs no house built for his dwelling-place or
sleeping-rooms. He will not wear robes of State,
though they be woven for him of fine purple and
edged with gold . brocade. What then can we do to
serve such a Being, who wants for himself nothing
at our hands ?
It is within the compass of the humblest intellect,
so soon as man or woman thinks freely and defi
nitely, to make sure, that if God desire us to serve
him, it is not for his advantage or comfort or pride,
but for our benefit. We ought to revere him; why ?’
Because we are the better for revering him. But
again, why so F Because reverence intrinsically
befits us, if he indeed be supreme in goodness and
wisdom, as well as in duration and power. For one
who is still a child to look up with admiration to a
loving father, is always good, because a mature man
is far higher in wisdom and goodness than a child;
�The Service of God.
7
but reverence of one naan for another man is not, as
such, intrinsically good, and may be pernicious.
Reverence rightly directed, towards one who unques
tionably deserves it, softens, chastens, and confirms
moral character, and has no element of servility in
it. To have no object whom we revere generally
belongs to self-conceit, flippancy, shallowness of heart.
“ To be Reverent is Wisdom,” says a philosophic
Greek poet; and the voice of mankind classes irre
verence among vices. Yet (as above said) to revere
a God, to whom we attribute mean vices, is evil and
not good. That religion may be beneficial, it must
be pure; that it may be. pure, criticism of it must be
free; no worship of false gods is endurable to true
piety. If it be possible sincerely to adore a being
morally below us (which may greatly.be doubted),
.such worship is at best a galling slavery. But when
the worshipper discerns that his God is supremely
good, and deserves to be loved with all the heart and
soul, his chains drop off, and he may justly cry:
“ Thou hast broken my bonds. Thy service is perfect
freedom. Oh tell me what I am to do. Speak,
Lord! for thy servant heareth. Blessed are they
who do thy commandments. Lord 1 teach me thy
statutes. Oh that I could hear thy voice ! ”
But no voice from heaven is heard in reply to such
aspirations. The wisdom of God draws out our own
powers, and, to do this, never dictates as an earthly
preceptor, but works on our hearts and intellects by
many an inward experience and many an outward
event. That elementary religion which we call Pagan
can hardly now be recognized by us as religion at all.
We may contemptuously call it “carnal ordinances,”
so long as it is external and corporate. But from
the day that religion is treated as no longer a cor
porate affair to be transacted by a priest or a church,
but a matter internal to the individual soul,—thence
forward it is nearly true to say that each of us has to
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The Service of God.
earn his own religious beliefs. Morals are dictated
to us by the human race in the most critical matters;
but neither mankind nor any individual can profitably
dictate on spiritual religion. At most one may con
fidentially tell to another his inward convictions, and
how his doubts and difficulties were removed; but
different minds are liable to (what may be called}
different diseases, and are relieved by different reme
dies. It is lovely and truly hopeful when, in opening
youth, ardent hearts aspire to dedicate life to the
service of God; yet nothing is commoner than for
the worshipper, after a glow of zealous devotion, to
lament that his earthly heart cannot keep it up.
Then he inquires, “ Is there any means of sustaining
religious affection, so that I may always feel that I
love God, as I did feel for a little while ? Is it a sin
that I am cold and dead, when I know that I ought
to rejoice in his supreme goodness ? ” This is but
one of many ways in which sincere hearts are dis
quieted ; yet a few words may here be in place.
We must not mistake religious emotion for religion.
Reverence implies a definite position of the under
standing and the moral judgment. This ought to be
a permanent state, which shows itself whenever the
thought of the Most High recurs to the mind. But
every emotion is transitory. Each is most healthy
when most spontaneous. To excite feeling artificially
is unhealthful, and tends to increase deadness. It
suffices to have the conviction deep in our under
standings that God deserves to be loved; we cannot
always have love to Him active and sensible. But
to say this is not to say half of what truth seems to
demand. The religious affections are good in their
place; they are right (as above said) because they
intrinsically befit us ; in greater or less intensity they
are necessary to religion. But as we must refuse to
believe that God, like a weak, vain man, is jealous
for his own honour, so must we beware of the stealthy
�The Service of God.
g
idea that he resents coldness or exacts gratitude.
The religious affections are not the service of God.
Religion itself is the true service of God, and it is
exhibited mainly in right conduct towards man. This,
in my apprehension, is the cardinal doctrine which
the Church of the Future has to make prominent,
and, as it were, bear aloft upon her flag. It certainly
has not been duly prominent in the past, and is very
often flatly denied. As the Hebrew prophets repre
sented Jehovah saying, “ I need not your sacrifices of
bullocks and rams: if I am hungry, I will not ask
food of you,” so must we now insist that God is not
benefited by our psalms and hymns, nor is less
glorious or less blessed, if defrauded of our praise
and gratitude. On our own account it is good to
draw near to him and worship inwardly ; but to
make the service of God consist in this is, at bottom,
the same error as to identify the useless and selfish
life of a hermit with religious life.
That-wise religion has its highest and ultimate goal
in right behaviour towards our fellow-men is not dis
tinctly expressed in the Hebrew or Christian Scrip
tures ; yet (I think) is often implied by Christian
Apostles and by Jesus himself; also in the celebrated
passage of Micah, which sums up man’s duty to God
in justice and mercy, and humility or sobriety before
God. It seems impossible to find books richer in
urgent exhortations concerning outward conduct than
the Apostolic Epistles and the three first Gospels.
Nevertheless, all the books of the New Testament are
so overlaid with notional matter that the historical
Christian Church was seduced into making doctrines
and creeds paramount. In consequence men, cele
brated as eminent philosophers, have imagined that
in Christianity practical virtue is disesteemed. That
ceremonies may and do choke and bury true religion
is a familiar thought to all who honour the name
Protestant. That theories, doctrines, controversies,
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The Service of God.
religious emotion and efforts to kindle emotion may
be mischievous in the same way, many Protestants
are not duly aware. Theology, as science or art, is
but a means; our social perfection is the end which
theology ought to subserve. To attain such perfection
as men and women can attain in their mutual rela
tions is the highest service of God.
A misconception of this statement is more than
possible, and must be carefully guarded against. Mis
conception may arise out of the common distinction
between personal vice and crimes or offences against
society; also between personal virtue and social
virtue. We must not mistake such outward action
as alone the law of the land can command, or even
such, as alone society can claim from us, for the sub
stance of religious life. Every personal vice, in truth,
makes us worse citizens, nor do any virtues so redound
in blessing to society as purely spiritual virtues. The
earliest scientific treatise on morals known to the
Western world maintained that justice included all
virtue, for to be defective in any virtue was a fraud
on society. Justice, strictly interpreted, was identical
with righteousness. There is truth in this.
To do an act of kindness is acceptable to our neigh
bours, but to do it ungraciously may destroy all plea
sure from it and nearly all its value. It is not the
outward act only which kindles gratitude or affection,
but the act as indicating the temper of the doer. The
dullest of us is, after all, a spiritual being; we love
men for their goodness, even more than for their
usefulness to ourselves. If destitute, we covet sup
plies necessary to life; but man does not love for
bread alone. We wish for respect, for good-will, for
friendliness. We are quick to discern when another
is contemptuous, proud, selfish, ungoverned, grasping.
All vices, however internal and hidden away, are dis
agreeable to us ; and, if they abound in our neigh
bours, lessen our happiness and even our sense of
�The Service of God.
11
security. Sensual vice, it need hardly be insisted, is
manifestly pernicious to others as well as to the vicious
person. A drunkard is a bad husband, a bad father,
a bad son, a bad citizen in general. The seducer of
female virtue is pernicious in the highest degree; the.
man of impure life is a centre of corruption and a
propagator of misery. Gluttony is the greatest cause
of disease, and variously incapacitates us. Those who
make their gain by encouraging vice are among the
very worst citizens. To foster hatred within, of that
which would degrade us without, to simplify our habits
so as to be contented with little, may seem at first
purely personal virtues, yet without them we are not
armed against temptation, nor competent for warfare
with social misery. Hence a Christian Apostle re
garded spiritual virtues collectively as the weapons
and armour of God, for battle against the wicked
spirits who domineer in the world. In this noble
combat we need to put on not only tender mercies,
patience, and universal good-will, but also those vir
tues of the soldier—hardihood and self-denial, fru
gality and bravery. Paul is represented (in substance,
I doubt not, correctly) as leaving with the elders of
Ephesus his last solemn charges, and, as it were, his
dying words: “ I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold,
or apparel: yea, ye yourselves know that these hands
have ministered to my necessities and to them that
were with me. I have showed you that so labouring
ye ought to support the weak, and remember those
words of the Lord Jesus,—It is more blessed to give
than to receive.” Some one has said that Jesus
kindled on earth an enthusiasm of humanity. To me
it is clear that through the whole book, which we call
the New Testament, there burns an enthusiasm for
moral perfection. Our task in this later age is to cull
the noblest flowers of Christian precepts, just as did
the Apostles from the Prophets and Psalmists who had
preceded them, avoiding the errors incident to the
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The Service of God.
earlier era, and adding whatever wisdom the long
lapse of time has bequeathed to us.
Is then the service of God, as interpreted by Chris
tian Apostles, quite identical with that to which we
now ought to exhort one another ? Not quite iden
tical, I think. They believed that King Messiah
would return in the clouds of heaven, to set up a
rule of righteousness on earth. They saw the gross
injustices of princely power and institutions founded
on conquest; but to defeat iniquity enthroned in
high station seemed to them far too hard a task for
any one but the Lord from heaven. To behold the
kingdoms of this world under the reign of God and
his Christ was the sight for which their hearts ached ;
but the only work for others to which they believed
themselves called, was, to prepare the elect,—a small
remnant of mankind,—for entering into God’s king
dom. We cannot blame them as weak in faith,
because they despaired of overthrowing organized
violence without miraculous intervention. In fact,
the primitive gospel or good news announced, what
long experience has convicted as an error ;—namely,
that the Lord Messiah himself would very shortly
descend from heaven with innumerable angels and a
trumpet sound, to claim his rightful. royalty over
earth, and trample down the wicked princes who
ruled by the unseen might of Satan, God’s arch
enemy. Then would come the times of refreshing from
the presence of the Lord ; then righteousness would
flourish, and all the prophecies be gloriously fulfilled.
Reluctantly, slowly, and by necessity, Christians at
length resigned this splendid vision, and learned that
to leave political affairs to the management of bad
men was not the part of wisdom and duty : but
alas 1 forthwith arose an insatiable ambition to invest
Church Officers with the wealth, power, and prero
gatives of Pagan princes. Out of this has flowed a
total perversion of Christianity, and, for 1500 years,
�The Service of God.
T3
incessant conflicts which abounded with misery and
innumerable moral evils; yet probably were inevit
able in some other shape, if they had not come in this
shape. From her more than millennial agony Chris
tendom emerges far stronger and far wiser. We
now discern what has been the error. True religion
ought to consecrate all our worldly action, not to dis
parage, to decry, and to desecrate the world. Herein
is the pivot of our new departure. We need to
revert to an older wisdom, which taught* that
“ God hath granted to us on this earth a small plot;
and this is that which we must cultivate and glorify.”
Religious action does not consist in propagating
religious opinions, nor even in cherishing religious
emotions; but in being good and doing good. To
desecrate the word secular, is akin to desecrating
marriage ; each should be ennobled, not disparaged.
This world is not to be abandoned to men selfishly
greedy and ambitious, but is to be defended and
rescued from them by the concordant efforts of God’s
true servants. Unjust and corrupting institutions,
evil laws, reckless government, are not to be left
unmolested. Since bad law is of all bad things most
widely and deeply efficacious for evil, while good law
is of all good influences the mildest and most
effective for good; therefore, to purify laws and
institutions is a primary mode of establishing the
kingdom of God on earth. In no other way can the
roots of moral evil be torn up. It has often been
said, that three days’ drunkenness, fostered by ambi
tion to aid electioneering intrigues, undo the work of
three years’ preaching. This is but one illustration
out of fifty, and not at all the strongest, denoting
how futile is a moral crusade,- if it will not attack
political villainies. Hitherto, among Protestants, all
national progress in morals has been retarded, just
'2,'irdp'njv eAa%es ‘ Tavrriv Koffp.n,
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The Service of God.
in proportion as they have recalled from the first
Christian ages the doctrine that the saint is not a
citizen of this world; that the kingdoms of this
world are incurably wicked ; that the devil and his
angels are to be left in possession of political princi
pality ; that Christians have nothing to do with
making the national institutions just, and the law
moral. The doctrine of Geneva, of Scotland and of
the English Puritans, took a course which avoided
this rock of offence, but ran upon another, nearly as
Rome has done,—a rock which we mis-call Theo
cracy : but the Lutherans, and the Anglican Evan
gelicals, the Moravians, the Quietists, and other sects,
with many estimable persons, in striving to recover
the original position of the Christian Church, over
looked both our vast differences of circumstance, and
the glaring fact that that Church erred in expecting
the speedy overthrow of political wrong by a miracu
lous intervention. Without full self-consciousness or
any clear knowledge of the past, all the Churches of
England are now waking to their duty of purifying
the fountains of our daily life. Herein lies the germ
of a new religion ; new to us, if in some sense old.
There are those who believe that this new religion is
what Jesus meant to teach (but his words, say they,
have been garbled),—that when from human sym
pathy one man relieves another, who is a captive, or
sick, or hungry, or naked, though he do it without
dreaming to serve God or thinking of God at all, yet
the Supreme Judge recognizes it as service done to
himself. This is neither place nor time for inquiring
into the truth of the interpretation. Suffice it to
say, that goodness is amiable, with or without reli
gious thought; that man needs our services, and
God does not need our love any more than our
flattery, and that in affectionate, dutiful or merciful
acts towards our fellow-men we best become joint
workers with God. This is the earliest religion
�The Service of God.
15
possible to childhood, the only religion which can
commend itself to the barbarian conscience.
Will any one call it a poetical fiction, that all the
universe, inorganic, brute or barbarian, is doing the
work of God, obeying his command, fulfilling his
service ? alike the suns and planets, the elements and
seasons, the beasts and birds, tribes of savages and
ignorant masses of men ? God makes the very
wrath of man to praise him, out of discord bringing
harmony. How much more ought we to recognize
as his servants that vast army of mute toilers, the
poor of every nation, prevalently simple and ignorant,
and despised as “ the herd of mankind,” though
often nobly unselfish and gloriously heroic ? The
same may be said of the patient inventors and perfectors of mechanical and other civilizing art. Let
no man despise man; for we are all of one blood,
though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Adam
acknowledge us not. The love of God embraces us
all; therefore it is very fit, right, and our bounden
duty, to study the benefit of this human family as
our highest service to the common Father. Serving
man we best serve God; he that will be greatest
among us, let him be the servant of all. In that
service is love and joy; love, which is forgetful of
self; joy, in the lofty faith, which is sure that Right
must triumph.
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & 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>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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A discourse on the service of God
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Newman, Francis William [1805-1897]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 15 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Delivered by Professor F.W. Newman, at the Free Christian Church, Croydon, London. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by C.W. Reynell.
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Thomas Scott
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1875
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CT133
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Sermons
God
Christian Life
Conway Tracts
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Text
SPIRITUAL GAMBLING:
OR,
THE CALCULATION OF PROBABILITIES
IN RELIGION.
A CLERGYMAN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Sixpence.
��SPIRITUAL GAMBLING.
HE temper which prompts a man in matters theo
deter his antagonist from a
Tof logical to by holding before him the given course
thought
terrible conse
quences of unbelief if certain doctrines should turn out
to be true, will show itself from time to time until the
controversies which feed it shall have received their
ultimate solution. That it should show itself at the
present time, when blows dealt on traditional opinions,
as such, fall thick and fast, is not at all surprising ; but
we should scarcely have looked for it in a journal
which, although not among the sprightliest and most
entertaining, has seldom failed to place before its
readers solid and wholesome food, and which has
been marked for a long series of years by its candid
assertion of the right to examine all disputed questions
with the single reference not to consequences but to
truth.
This has been especially the case in its dealings with
the New Testament Scriptures. The idea that any one
should be deterred from examining them as he would
examine any other book, because the consequences of
reaching a wrong conclusion may be fatal, has been
dismissed as ridiculous. It has asserted that neither
pre-pbssession nor authority should be suffered to
influence our estimate of the evidence on which our
judgment must rest. It has asserted the incompetence
of the Anglican communion 11 to say that a doctrine or
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Spiritual Gambling,
a fact is true because it forms part of their teaching,
because it has come down to them from antiquity, and
because to deny it is sin.” It has dealt summarily
with Paley’s notion that traditional Christianity rests
on the veritable testimony of twelve independent
witnesses, whose teaching and attestations are preserved
to us in four genuine narratives, written by the authors
whose names they bear. The remarkable common
element which runs through three of these narratives
constitutes, we have been told, “ a resemblance too
peculiar to be the result of accident, and impossible to
reconcile with the theory that the. writers were inde
pendent of each other.” The reader was left in no
doubt of the author’s meaning. He was asked to say
what he would think if in two or more accounts of the
same events he were “ to read the same incidents told
in the same language ” and “ related in words which,
down to unusual and remarkable terms of expression,
were exactly the same.”
“ Suppose, for instance, the description of a battle :
If we were to find but a single paragraph in which
two out of three correspondents, agreed verbally, we
should regard it as a very strange coincidence. If all
three agreed verbally, we should feel certain it was
more than accident. If throughout their letters there
was a recurring series of such passages, no doubt would
be left in the mind of anyone that either the three
correspondents had seen each other’s letters, or that
each had before him some common narrative which he
had incorporated in his own account; .... and were
the writers themselves, with their closest friends and
companions, to swear that there had been no inter
communication and no story pre-existing of which they
had made use, and that each had written bona fide from
his own original observation, an English jury would
sooner believe the whole party perjured than persuade
themselves that so extraordinary a coincidence should
have occurred.”
�Spiritual Gambling.
5
These remarks were applied directly to the Synoptic
Gospels,—the conclusion being that, as these pheno
mena were manifested by those documents, we have in
them, so far as they are thus identical, not three narratives,
but one narrative, and that, too, a narrative written by
neither of the so-called Synoptic Evangelists, but exist
ing before them as common material on which they
worked, unless indeed we suppose that they met and
drew up their history together. These facts alone, it
was asserted, furnished a full justification for examining
these alleged independent narratives as we would
examine any other human compositions; and the whole
point of the writer was that all were bound to satisfy
themselves on the subject by a keen and rigid scrutiny,
no matter what might be the consequences.
It is scarcely necessary to say that this writer is the
historian whose name appeared on the cover of Fraser’s
Magazine as the Editor, until the appearance of the
number for September 1874, in which the Rev.
Malcolm MacColl comes forward to counteract, neutra
lise, or destroy the effect of the method and counsels of
Mr Froude. It is not, of course, pretended that
magazines or journals generally should profess the
infallibility which prevents a paper like the Times
from admitting that it has made or can make a
mistake; but if there is to be a change of method or
principle in the conduct of a review, it would be well
to avow it. If this avowal had been made in the case
of Fraser’s Magazine, when Mr Froude’s name ceased
to appear on the cover, we could have said nothing.
As it is, we have simply to note the fact that the
journal has been used in order to deter men from walk
ing on the road in which, according to Mr Froude, it
is our duty to walk.
Mr MacColl’s subject is the anonymous work on
Supernatural Religion, of which the Dublin Review has
promised to furnish, some day or other, a refutation
which shall show its egregious ignorance and thorough
�6
Spiritual Gambling.
worthlessness.* Such refutation as Mr MacColl can pro
duce he honestly produces at once. He further admits
that the author’s mind 11 appears to be not more dis
tinguished by a sincere love of truth than by (what is
perhaps even more rare) a conscientious thorough-going
logic which” generally “faces boldly . . . the con
clusions, whatever they may be—to which his pre
mises inevitably lead-” His object is to show “the
vulnerable points, and even fatal fissures, in the reason
ing by means of which the author arrives at his con
clusions.” This he is perfectly justified in attempting :
but he prefaces his criticism with an alternative, the
legitimacy of which is rather assumed than proved.
“ Of any Christianity which is not dogmatic, history,”
Mr MacColl tells us, “ knows nothing. The morality
of the Gospel divorced from its dogmas may be admir
able and beautiful; but it is not Christianity in any
* The author of this work assuredly needs no defence from me ;
nor should I have felt called upon here to take notice of the
criticisms with which Dr Lightfoot has chosen to begin his assault
upon that work in the Contemporary Review. Dr Lightfoot may in
subsequent papers have something important to say on the main
arguments and strong points of the book ; and if this should be
the case, we shall be bound to listen to him attentively, and to
examine his reasoning with impartiality. But the course which he
has taken lies open to grave objection, in the interests of the
belief which he seeks to support. If the author of Supernatural
Reliyion be in any way a formidable antagonist—if his arguments
respecting the evidential value of miracles have any cogency—if
the genuineness of the fourth gospel or of the other three be a
point of any importance, then assuredly these questions should be
grappled with at once. Whether of the two writers Dr Lightfoot
be, or be not, the more punctiliously accurate scholar, is, for those
who are really in earnest in the controversy, of little consequence
or none. Nor does it show any wisdom to be unduly impressed
by imputations of defective scholarship made by one theologian
against another, inasmuch as in any given case it is at the least
possible that the point alleged may turn out to be an open ques
tion, and possible also that the assailant himself may be proved to
be in the wrong. That this may be so in Dr Lightfoot’s case is
probably not unlikely, if we may judge from Mr Fennell’s very
able and dispassionate letter in the Examiner for December 19,
1874. Probably, unprejudiced readers will think that Dr Light
foot’s objections and criticisms have been effectually disposed of
by the author of Supernatural Religion himself in the Fortnightly
Review for January 1875.
�Spiritual Gambling.
7
real sense.” He therefore cordially agrees with the
writer of Supernatural Religion “in reprobating the
abortive efforts of many among us to whittle away the
characteristic dogmas of Christianity, one by one, and
yet retain the withered husk as a religion capable
of influencing human conduct. Christianity is a divine
revelation undiscoverable by human reason, though not
necessarily on that account unreasonable; or it is a
pernicious superstition. Its founder is very God,
miraculously born, miraculously restored to life after
undergoing a literal death, miraculously living for
■evermore in a world unseen and spiritual, and in that
case no dogma of Christianity is antecedently impro
bable .... or Christ is not what the creed of Christen
dom has always represented him; in which case Chris
tianity is an imposture, and no arguments derived from
the beauty of its moral precepts can justify us in
upholding it for a single hour.”
Mr MacColl enters parenthetically a gentle protest
against the phrase Ecclesiastical Christianity, used by
the author of Supernatural Religion, “as if there were
a Christianity which is not ecclesiastical; ” but from all
who, in historical criticism, look only for truth, the
string of alternatives put forth by Mr MacColl calls for
the strongest and most emphatic condemnation. Here
we have, ranged against each other, an array of tremen
dous and appalling conditions, which, if we allow our
selves to be impressed by either set, must affect the
precision of our scrutiny and the impartiality of our
judgment. If Mr MacColl had contented himself with
dichotomy, there would have been no need to gainsay
him. Not much is gained or lost by asserting that
Christianity either is a divine revelation or it is not,
that its founder is very God or he is not; but it is
quite another thing to propound the dilemma that it is
either a divine revelation or a pernicious imposture,—■
still less defensible is it to parade this dilemma in the
sight of people whose minds are likely to be stimulated
�8
Spiritual (gambling.
by it, not to examine into facts, but to forecast the
terrible results which may follow the rejection of the
utterances of God himself,—in other words, to indulge
in the vice of spiritual gambling, a vice to which man
kind has shown itself prone in almost all ages and all
lands., That Mr MacColl has not resorted to the most
offensive forms of this time-honoured manoeuvre, we
gladly acknowledge ; but he shows himself an apt’ dis
ciple in that unwholesome school in which Bishop Butler
stands pre-eminent, when he leads people to enter on
the. inquiry with the wish to find that Christianity is a
divine revelation rather than the wish to discover its
imposture. The fact is that the two wishes are equally
out of place, and equally wrong. It is a mere question
of fact, and it is unjudicial to wish the facts to be any
thing but what they are. If it be asserted that the
alleged dogmas of Christianity are undiscoverable by
human reason, the fact that they are thus undiscoverable
must be capable of proof j but it is also obvious that
the fact can neither be completely established nor
thoroughly disproved except through an examination of
all the religious and philosophical systems of the world
past or present. At once then we are launched on a
vast historical inquiry; and the question is whether we
are to enter upon it in a spirit of feverish apprehension
lest we should find ourselves in an abyss of torment if,
when we come to die, we have not reached the right
conclusion, or in the quiet temper which feels that so
long as we search honestly we must be obeying the law
of the God of truth. If the former be meant, we
should be told so openly, and then the advice given would
assume some such form as this : “You are beings en
dowed with a rational mind, capable of sifting and weigh
ing evidence, and prompted by a natural desire to sift and
weigh it which is intensified by the importance of the
subjects demanding attention. The matter which most
demands your attention is your religion. The society
calling itself the Christian Church comes before you
�Spiritual' Gambling.
9
with certain doctrines and certain books. It is your
business to find out whether these books are genuine and
these doctrines true ; but remember that both alike tell
you of a divine revelation sanctioned by astounding
marvels as well as by fearful penalties for those who
reject it, and terrible will be the lot of the human
soul which, when its course on earth is done, finds that
it has refused to believe the words of God himself.
Still it is your bounden duty to satisfy yourself by the
exercise of your reason, and you are further responsible
for the path in which your reason guides you.”
Except in the case of the few brave minds which
cannot be scared from looking all alternatives and
dilemmas boldly in the face, such talk as this is a
virtual shutting of the door to all inquiry. Among the
vast majority of men the gambling instinct will, under
such conditions, assert itself and carry everything before
it. Even if the Supernatural Revelation may not in
fact have been given, still it will do them no harm to
believe that it has been given. If, on the other hand,
it has been given, they will by their acceptance have
avoided giving offence to a Being who may condemn
them to endless misery if they refuse to believe it.
Such men, it is clear, will never think at all. Whether
the religion which may thus be produced and grow up in
them will have any substantive value, is another question.
As we have no intention of gambling after this
fashion, we approach the issue of fact. Is it true that
history knows nothing of any Christianity which is not
dogmatic ? Assuredly such an assertion as this is not
to be taken for granted on the mere word of Mr
MacColl or of any one else. Is it, further, quite certain
that dogmatic Christianity is all of one kind, and that
if, say, in the first century, or the first half of the first
century, we find dogmas in a moral or religious system
which is called Christian, these dogmas at once establish
the identity of that religion with the religion of Hilde
brand or Calvin, Luther or Loyola 1 When, again, did
�io
Spiritual Gambling.
Christianity, in any shape or form, begin? Was it
fairly instituted when the twelve, we are told, were sent
forth by Jesus to go and preach repentance and remis
sion of sins among the lost sheep of the house of Israel ?
Was it in existence when after the Resurrection they
received from him, as it is said, a larger commission ?
If so, had the dogmas then been promulgated which Mr
MacColl deems essential to traditional Christianity ?
By his own admission, the only book which gives any
thing like a connected history of the Christian society
for perhaps a generation after the Crucifixion, is the
Acts of the Apostles. It would surely be no hard task
to schedule the doctrines contained in that book; but
if this were done in the words of the book without cur
tailment, modification, or addition, would the picture
be altogether satisfactory to Mr MacColl or to Arch
bishop Manning ? Can it be asserted that the terms in
which Jesus is spoken of throughout that book propound
his divinity in the sense in which it is defined by the
Nicene Council ? But we may go further. Mr Mac
Coll reprobates the abortive efforts made by many to
whittle away the characteristic dogmas of Christianity,
one by one, and yet retain the withered husk as a reli
gion capable of influencing human conduct. Does he
find these characteristic dogmas in the Epistle of St
James, assuredly one of the oldest documents (whether
genuine or not) belonging to the Christian Church?
Here we have the morality of the gospel, we need not
say divorced from, but apart from the dogmas which
are now identified with Christianity; are we to say
then that, though the epistle may be admirable and
beautiful, it is not Christian in any real sense ? To be
sure, if we regard the morality of this writer, whoever
he may have been, as “ withered husk,” we come very
near to the straw to which this epistle was likened by
Luther j but unquestionably the writer imagined him
self to be putting forth a system of religion capable of
influencing human conduct; and it is altogether more
�Spiritual Gambling.
11
open to us to say that it is this religion which has done
all the good ever achieved in Christendom, than it is for
Mr MacColl to put forth alternatives which are un
necessary and, it’ may be, immoral. In short, so long
as the epistle bearing the name of James exists, and so
long as it is allowed by the orthodox to be a genuine
portion of the New Testament canon, so long must it
be admitted that a Christianity without dogmatism (in
Mr MacColl’s sense of the word) is known to history.
We come to the next alternative. Christianity is a
Divine Revelation undiscoverable by human reason, or'
it is a pernicious superstition. The propositions may
he taken separately. If it should turn out that Christ
ianity, in whatever form, is a pernicious superstition,
we shall be sorry for it; hut the conclusion does not
follow if the first question be answered in the negative.
That question is strictly and wholly a question of fact.
The doctrines of Christianity are undiscoverable by
human reason, or they may be discovered by it. It is
obviously impossible to answer this question except by
scheduling the doctrines and then comparing them with
the doctrines of all the religious systems which the
world has seen. The task may be Herculean, but it is
one which Mr MacColl is bound to have gone through
before asserting his negative.
The first part of the anonymous work on Super
natural Religion is a very able argument in disproof of
the positions maintained on the subject of miracles by
writers like Mr Mozley and Archbishop Trench. This
position confines them, he contends, within a vicious
circle. The Divine Rounder of Christianity performs
the miracles which attest the truth of his teaching, and
these miracles in their turn prove his divinity, while at
the same time other miracles betray only their origin
from the father of lies, and are wrought in support of
the kingdom of evil. Further, he contends that
whether in the Old Testament or in the New the
appeal is always made from miracles to reason. If the
�12
Spiritual Gambling.
miracles are wrought in support of any doctrine which,
in Mr Mozley’s words, “ is contrary to our moral
nature or to a fundamental principle of religion,” they
are to be unhesitatingly rejected; but the act of rejection
is the act of the mind, in other words, of reason, and
thus the so-called support of revelation by miracles
becomes superfluous.
But whatever may be its ability, the argument is
scarcely needed; or, rather, the orthodox citadel may
perhaps be best assailed by challenging them to produce
the doctrines of Christianity which are undiscoverable
by human reason. If among them we reckon the
notion of a Paradise, of a Ball, of a Flood, and a new
peopling of the earth, all these are found in the tradi
tions of Aryan and Semitic tribes alike. If we look
to the personal history of the Founder of Christianity,
we find a series of incidents related of scores of Hindu
and Greek heroes or deities. If we refer to the Cruci
fixion and Resurrection, we may find in Bunsen’s
volumes on “God in History” a list of murdered
and risen gods, each of whom, like Jesus, is born
at the winter solstice, and wins his victory after
the vernal equinox. In the same volumes the reader
will see quoted a passage from the rune-song of Odin,
which sets forth the advanced eucharistic doctrine of
later Christendom. The god “ offers himself to him
self on that tree of which no man knows from what
root it springs,”—almost the very words of many a
Christian hymn in glorification of the mysterious and
life-giving cross. If we regard the idea of Mediation,
we find it in the Persian Mithras as clearly as in that
of the second person of the Christian Trinity; nor can
it be said that the doctrine of a future life is more dis
tinctive of Christendom than it was of the religious
system of the ancient Land of the Nile. All this has,
of course, been said again and again; but it must be
repeated with obstinate pertinacity, so long as writers
who proclaim themselves the defenders of Christianity
�Spiritual Gambling.
13
continue to assert the essential difference of things
which are in their nature identical. The plan is a very
old one, and we should be sorry to say that it has of
late years been adopted by any with a definite con
sciousness of its unsoundness ; but we cannot shut our
eyes to the inconsistencies in which such writers have
found themselves involved on the subject whether of
doctrines or of miracles. Among these inconsistencies
those of the late Dean Milman are strangely prominent.
In his opinion there was an essential and unmistakeable
difference between the miracles recorded in the gospels
and all other miracles whatsoever; and yet he could lay
special stress on the fact that on the mind of the time
these miracles produced no permanent impression what
ever. Wonder after wonder is noted by the Virgin
Mother, as by others, who are said to have witnessed
them, and by her, as well as by them, all seem in a few
weeks or a few days to have been forgotten. The truth
is that, just as the dogmas of Christendom are found
elsewhere, so the miracles struck no new chord and roused
no new sensation; and thus we come to the conclusion
that Christianity is not a Divine Revelation of doctrines
undiscoverable by human reason’, although it by no means
follows that this negative answer justifies a negation of
the fact of Divine Revelation. The question turns on
the meaning of the name, and that meaning may perhaps
best be found in the term “Education of the World.”
We thus see at once the absurdity of the alternative
that, if Christianity be not a revelation of the kind
required by Mr MacColl, it must be a pernicious super
stition. What if Christianity be one of the phases
through which the Great Teacher is leading the human
mind onwards to fresh measures of knowledge and
goodness ? * What if the many forms which Christianity
* This is, in fact, admitted by Butler, when he asserts that
natural religion was the product of a divine revelation. Looking
to this statement, we can be under no doubt as to the sense inwhich the term Revelation was used by Butler in some parts 3
his work. Mr MacColl seems to have altogether forgotten this
most important admission.
�14
Spiritual Gambling,
has assumed be simply the necessary results of certain
ideas and notions, the entry of which into the mind of
man was, from the conditions in which he found him
self, inevitable ? Is not this precisely the language
which all sensible and sober-minded men, even amongst
orthodox Christians, use in reference to Buddhism °or
Mahometanism, or even Brahmanism ? Is it thought a
wise or a temperate thing to stigmatise any of these
systems absolutely as pernicious superstitions? Must
not our judgment be formed by an estimate of the
aggregate good or harm which they may have done in
the world 1 To say that Mahometanism has made
Arabs worse than it found them, that Brahmanism from
the first did nothing but corrupt the Hindu mind, that
Gautama Buddha in his protest against Brahmanic
ceremonialism conferred no boon on the millions who
embraced his faith, is simply to utter falsehoods which
all but the narrowest and most ignorant of the so-called
orthodox would acknowledge to be monstrous. Every
one of these systems has done a certain amount of
good, some of them have done a large amount of good.
The same may be said of Christianity; and the remark
applies to all these systems, without reference to their
alleged supernatural origin. The good (or the harm),
done by each is simply a question of fact, and in each
case probably the judicial historian will allow that the
good far outweighs the harm. How will the question
be affected, if we admit that each was ushered in by a
solemn array of miracles and wonders ?
Still more invidious (the word is forced on us) is
Mr MacColl’s effort to involve his readers in a maze
which shall bring them to the conclusion that Jesus
Christ must be either Almighty God, all wise, all
powerful, and all good, or an impostor and a knave.
If there be mischief in all gambling, in this kind of
gambling there is something inexpressibly shocking.
The case with which we are dealing is much as follows.
A man appears in Judea, who sets 'his face against the
�Spiritual Gambling.
15
popular religion. He charges it with heartless formal
ism, and its professors with deliberate insincerity: he
proclaims the universal fatherhood of God, and he
invites all who are weary and heavy-laden to take
refuge in His love. He insists on the paramount need
of a voluntary obedience to His law, and of a complete
conformity of the will of man to the will of his Maker.
With this Heavenly Father of all mankind he asserts
himself to be in a direct relation ; but he has not less
claimed a direct relation between Him and the children
of Adam. He may, .however, have used language
which in its mystic enthusiasm might be capable of
indefinite expansion of meaning. After a short public
ministry, during which according to one account or set
of accounts the common people heard him gladly, he
falls a victim to the bigotry of the ecclesiastical rulers ;
and in course of time, (it is impossible to say how
soon), there gathers round his person a theology, the
main features of which are marvellously like the
features of other theological systems. What possible
justification or excuse can we have for calling this man
a knave, because some centuries later those who called
themselves his followers saw in him the Only Begotten
Son, existing from all eternity with God, and of one
substance with the Almighty Father 1 Mr MacColl is
perfectly well aware that no such claim can be found
in the Synoptic gospels, or can even be drawn from
them except by inferences absurdly strained.
He
knows also that, if he betakes himself to the fourth
gospel, he is at once confronted with the question of the
age and authenticity of that gospel; and to parade that
gospel before us as a reason for propounding an alter
native as unnecessary as it is horrible, is simply to
throw dust in our faces. The very words used by Mr
MacColl that the founder of Christianity is very God,
miraculously born, miraculously restored to life after
undergoing a literal death, miraculously living for ever
more in a world unseen, may be applied to Adonis,
�16
Spiritual Gambling.
Osiris, Baldur, Memnon, to say nothing of a host of
other deities. It is to this issue that the self-styled
orthodox champions are more and more forcing the
controversy. If they have any reason to dread the
result, the responsibility of so driving it on lies on
themselves ; and I can but repeat here the question
which I have already put in my remarks on Dr
Farrar’s Life of Christ.* I have there quoted a striking
passage from Mr Mahaffy, which alone would be
sufficient to disprove the assertion that Christianity
consists of a series of doctrines undiscoverable by
human reason, unless we choose to affirm that the re
ligion of the ancient Egyptians was also a revelation of
doctrines similarly undiscoverable. In fact they are
the same doctrines, and precisely the same incidents
are found in the story of their virgin-born, crucified,
and risen god, who is their judge of departed souls.
On what principle, as I have already asked, are we to
say that in this case, and in every other, these incidents
are all false, but that in the case of Jesus they are all
true? We may affirm this, if we please ; but the
affirmation will be as much an assumption as the
hypothesis of the Ptolemaic system that the sun
revolved round the earth. If it should be discovered
that the assertion in the one case is worth no more
than it is in the other, and if mischief result from the
discovery, the burden must lie on those who have
insisted on driving the question to a false issue.
If I have spoken of Dr MacColl’s dilemmas and
alternatives as specimens of spiritual gambling, I have
admitted that with him the gambling has not assumed
its most offensive form. Bishop Butler is a greater
offender; but an examination of the difference between
him and Mr MacColl only shows how hopelessly the
spiritual gamblers are at variance with one another.
Throughout Mr MacColl’s paper his supreme effort is
to drive his readers into the orthodox belief (that is,
* Page 29.
�Spiritual Gambling.
17
his own belief), on the ground that nature leaves them,
and must leave them, in perpetual darkness, and that
on all subjects connected with God and the relations of
men with God it has nothing whatever to say. The
statements are of vital importance.
Mr MacColl,
having quoted a passage in which the author of
“ Supernatural Religion,” speaking of the beneficent
government of God as exhibited in the universe, and
in the world around us, lays stress on the duty of a
reverent conformity with his laws as so exhibited,
exclaims, “ Admirable advice ! But how does it square
with the argument against supernatural religion 1 It
is simply inconsistent with it, for it is an appeal to
faith, not to 'reason; to revelation not to nature. Of
such a being as the author here describes, reason apart
from faith and nature apart from revelation tell us
nothing at all. When I look abroad upon the face of
nature and of human society, I behold traces innumer
able of what looks exceedingly like caprice or malice ”
(of course, on the part of the Maker of the Universe,—
otherwise the words would have no meaning). “ I see
fools in command of empires, and riches and honours
heaped on those who least deserve them. I see virtue
clad in rags and festering with sores, while vice is
arrayed in purple and fine linen, and fares sumptuously
every day. I see wretches who have proved themselves
a curse to mankind, suffered to flourish and prosper,
and allowed to die peacefully on their pillows; while,
on the other hand, men eminently qualified in mind
and disposition to benefit their race, are hurried out of
life in the midst of their usefulness by a whiff of cold
wind, or the stumble of a horse, or the folly of a tipsy
engine driver. . . . Nor is it any answer to reply that
all this is because men disobey the wise laws of the
creator. For it is not those who disobey who are
always punished. The innocent constantly suffer for
the guilty, while the latter go unpunished and not
unfrequently rewarded.”
�18
Spiritual Gambling.
Whether this he a true picture of the world generally,
we need not now trouble ourselves to inquire. The
point to be noted is this, that religion supernaturally
revealed is, according to Mr MacColl, in direct antagon
ism with all the conclusions to be drawn from a
scrutiny of the natural world, that the latter can tell us
nothing of a righteous and loving God, and therefore
that natural religion is a misnomer, or a title for a con
ception which has no existence. With this position
the whole argument of Butler’s Analogy is in entire
contradiction. We may take our choice, but we cannot
maintain both ; and if we abandon Butler’s ground, it
becomes absurd, and even monstrous, to say that the
difficulties in the way of accepting Christianity are
difficulties of the same kind as those which meet us in
the way of natural religion, and that nature would lead
us to look for that system of divine government by
rewards and punishments (the latter being endless),
which in point of fact we find revealed. Mr MacColl’s
argument, put briefly, is, that Nature points only to the
existence of a very mighty, very wise, but very mali
cious and capricious demon. In short, his view of the
Cosmos is precisely that which Mr J. S. Mill has put
forth in the Essays which have been published since
his death. But the argument of Butler is that essen
tially the same system is set before us by natural
and by revealed religion; and if it be not this, it is
simply nothing. If it be not true that “ the beginnings
of a righteous administration may beyond all question
be found in nature ; ” if it be not true that these begin
nings “ show that the Author of nature is not indifferent
to virtue and vice—so that were a man, laying aside
the proper proof of religion, to determine from the
course of nature only whether it were most probable
that the righteous or the wicked would have the advan
tage in a future life, there can be no doubt but that he
would determine the probability to be that the former
would ; ” if it be not true that 11 the course of nature
�Spiritual Gambling.
19
furnishes us'with a real practical proof of the obliga
tions of religion; ”—then Butler has absolutely no
ground to stand upon, and every copy of his “Analogy”
becomes simply so many pounds or ounces avoirdupois
of rubbish. The very solemnity of his appeal to the
atheist or the doubter lies in this : Christianity is to
him not a contradiction of natural religion, as it is to
Mr MacColl, but “ a republication ” of it. “ It instructs
mankind in the moral system of the world. . . . And,
which is very material, it teaches natural religion in its
genuine simplicity.”* All that it does further is to
acquaint us “ with some relations we stand in, which
could not otherwise have been known ” f—these being
the relations definitely drawn out in the Nicene Creed,
or in other symbols of the Church.
Thus far, the point (and it is one of vital importance)
which we have to note is that the general view taken
by Mr MacColl is absolutely irreconcileable with the
conclusions which Butler employs as the indispensable
foundation of his whole argument from analogy. We
cannot, however, stop here. Nature, Butler argues,
affixes penalties, physical or moral, or both, to the
commission of certain acts, or to persistence in certain
•courses of conduct, and that too without reference to
the knowledge or the ignorance of the offender. Know
ledge will not enable him to steer clear of the conse
quences ; ignorance will not be taken as a plea barring
or even mitigating punishment. There is every reason,
he argues, for holding that the same law holds good in
the spiritual world. “ If Christ be indeed the Mediator
between God and man—i.e., if Christianity be true ; if
he be indeed our Lord, our Saviour, and our God, no
one can say what may follow, not only the obstinate,
but the careless disregard to him in those high relations.
Nay, no one can say what may follow such disregard,
even in the way of natural consequence.”
Throughout, there is not the slightest ambiguity in
* “ Analogy,” Part II., ch. i., § 1.
f Ibid, Part II., ch. i., § 2.
�.20
Spiritual Gambling.
Butler’s argument. We see precisely what he is driv
ing at; and this conclusion is a direct appeal to that
which must be termed the “gambling ” spirit in man
kind. We may assume (indeed, Mr MacColl would
allow) that Christianity includes the several churches
and sects of Christendom, except perhaps Unitarians.
If so, it follows that the system of all these Churches
and sects must be at bottom the same. All insist on
belief in Jesus Christ as God, all set forth the same
warnings and sanctions against unbelief or wrong
belief. But Latin Christendom has a summary and
more merciful way of dealing with both. It denounces
unbelief and wrong belief as sins—the former, and pos
sibly also the latter, as deadly sin. It forbids to its
members the exercise of reason on matters belonging
strictly to faith. It assures them of its power to carry
them safely through all dangers, and to bring them
finally to the haven of eternal rest and love. Exam
ination is unnecessary; indeed, to enter upon it is
wantonly to risk our salvation ; for if the work be cut
short by an accident at a point which falls short of the
necessary degree of Christian faith, eternal damnation
must be the consequence. With Butler all this is
changed. He is addressing persons who, in his belief,
have come to wrong conclusions, or who, refusing to
come to any conclusion at all, declare themselves
neutral. In either case he holds over them “ the terrors
of the Lord.” “ Christianity,” he asserts, “ being sup
posed either true or credible, it is unspeakable irrever
ence, and really the most presumptuous rashness, to
treat it as a light matter. It can never justly be
esteemed of little consequence till it be positively
proved false. Nor do I know a higher and more im
portant obligation which we are under than that of
examining most seriously into the evidence of it, sup
posing its credibility, and of embracing it, upon sup
position of its truth.”
Now, it is clear that examination is impossible for
�Spiritual Gambling.
21
those who have never heard of the subject to be
examined, and who are never brought within reach of
the evidence. For Englishmen—perhaps for Euro
peans generally—he might say that it is so brought,
and that all that is needed may be found within the
boards of the New Testament; but it is not the case
with the vast majority of all mankind. For Christianity
in the passage just quoted, Buddhism, Brahmanism, or
Mahometanism might be substituted in the streets of
Nankin, the bazaars of Benares, and the mosques of
Mecca; and the same terrors—in other words, the same
appeal to the gambling spirit of man—may be made
there to those who hesitate, to accept the system of
Gautama, the theology of the Puranas, or the Suras of
the Prophet of Medina. The absurdity of this is, how
ever, ' less monstrous than the course which Butler
recommends to his real or supposed opponents. For
them, the first and foremost duty is that of serious
examination of the evidence on which rests the fabric
of traditional or ecclesiastical Christianity—in other
words, it is their business and their duty to ascertain
what changes the system or religion called Christianity
may have undergone since the time of its institution.
They have to determine, further, when and how it was
instituted. They must obtain an accurate knowledge
of the actual aims and desires of the founder. In order
to do this, they must scrutinise the narratives which
profess to tell the story of his life: they must see
whether they are written by the writers whose names
they bear—whether they are independent narratives—
whether the narrators, from their associations and their
education generally, are to be regarded as trustworthy
witnesses—whether their reports are generally consis
tent, and whether they are borne out by other evidence,
so far as it may have come down to us. They must
further determine how far the ideas entertained of this
founder by his followers have been modified in course
of time in the way of exaggeration or in any other di-
�22
Spiritual Gambling.
rection. They are to enter on this examination with
absolute conscientiousness, not in the least questioning
the goodness or justice or love of God ; for the exam
iner in question might reply that really the subject had
for him nothing to do with those divine qualities, but
was concerned wholly with historical facts, with the
authorship and the credibility of the gospels, and with
the growth of that which is called Christian theology.
Let us imagine the examination begun and carried
out by one who starts with thorough orthodoxy, but
with a determination to be guided strictly by the
evidence, and to give his judgment in accordance with
the truth of facts, so far as it is possible to ascertain
them. Let us imagine him slowly and unwillingly
driven to the conclusion that the gospels were not
written by the writers whose names they bear; that the
synoptic gospels are not, as a whole, three independent
narratives, but that they were either drawn up by a
conclave of writers who, having met together, agreed
to use the same words, or else were derived from some
document common to the three, but written we know
not by whom, or where, or when; moreover, that
these alleged histories are the work of men who had
little or no idea of the value of evidence—men whose
associations deprived them of the power of weighing it,
and to whom the idea of miracle carried with it no
notion of anything extraordinary —- men who were
familiar with the idea of evil spirits to whom they
ascribed all the phenomena of lunacy—men -who held
themselves fully acquainted with the gradations of the
angelic hierarchy and the functions of all the classes of
demons; that there is no reason for supposing that any
narrative of the ministry of Jesus was put together for
some thirty years or more after the crucifixion, and that
the fourth gospel was composed very much later ; that
this fourth gospel gives an account of his ministry which
it is impossible to reconcile with that of the synoptics;
that the portrait of Jesus here given corresponds in very
�Spiritual Gambling.
23
fe< indeed of its features with the picture drawn of
him in the other gospels; that, so far as we may see,
the ideas entertained of Jesus in the third or fourth
century were not entertained of him in the first; that in
the generation which immediately followed his death,
and in which one or two of his personal disciples are
said to have been most prominent, we find a Chris
tianity almost wholly free from dogmatism (as in the
epistle bearing the name of James), and that the dog
matism contained in it is extremely different from that
of the Nicene Council; that the great change in the
position of some of the Christian disciples of the first
century was wrought by Paul of Tarsus, and that in
the writings attributed even to him we find a theology
differing widely from that which generally passes for
the ordinary creed of Christendom; that when we
come to look into the matter of the gospels, we find a
large number of serious inconsistencies and contradic
tions, that the story of the nativity and early years of
Jesus as narrated in the third gospel cannot be recon
ciled with the story told in the first, and that the
general framework of the narrative, in the miraculous
conception and incarnation, in the nativity and visit of
the Magi, in the lives of demoniacs or the raising of
the dead, in the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension,
is much the same as that which is found in the legends
of the gods of many other countries besides Judea.
All these are conclusions reached by the supposed ortho
dox inquirer, after ample study and grave deliberation,
on common matters of fact. Taken together, they may
be fairly said to constitute the serious examination
which Butler regards as the most important obligation
incumbent on any or all of us. And yet, what is the
result? It has been undertaken earnestly and rever
ently ; it has been carried on patiently; it has been
completed slowly, perhaps, and reluctantly. The con
clusion is, that in the four gospels we have not four
independent narratives mutually supporting each other,
�24
Spiritual Gambling.
but two distinct narratives which are practically in
complete contradiction; that not one of the gospels was
written by the person whose name it bears; that the
name of the writer of the document which the synoptic
evangelists used in common is unknown; that we know
no more of the time when that document was composed;
that of Jesus himself we know only enough to be sure
that the picture drawn of him in the fourth gospel is
not a true picture; and that the twelve independent
witnesses who are supposed to establish the truth of
traditional Christianity vanish into thin air. All
these, it must be repeated, are answers to questions
of fact. With morality and the conduct of life they
have, it would seem, no concern. Yet they have
brought the orthodox examiner to a standing-ground
which makes it impossible for him to profess the
Christianity whether of Bishop Butler or of Mr Mac
Coll ; and, according to the author of the “Analogy,”
he has incurred the most terrible of moral or spiritual
penalties because he has honestly carried out the inj unc
tions which hade him examine seriously the evidences
of Christianity. From the intellectual conclusions
reached on purely historical questions never-ending
damnation may follow, so Butler seems to tell us, as
naturally as gout and other diseases may follow from
persistence in debauchery. Assuredly Butler never
meant this. He honestly thought that he had fairly
examined the evidence himself, and that all who
examined it would be brought to the same conclusion
as his own. Had he thought that the result would be
different with honest men honestly acting in accordance
with his own advice, probably his eyes would have
been opened, and he would have seen that the system
set forth in his “Sermons on Human Nature” needed
no supplementing with the perilous gambling of his
“ Analogy,” He would have seen the thorough worth
lessness of a religion based on a cold calculation of
probabilities as to whether Christianity be true or false,
�Spiritual Gambling.
25
or whether Jesus be a god who can punish or a man
who besought his fellow-men to trust themselves to the
love and mercy of his Heavenly Father. He might then
have pictured to himself the Maker of all worlds and
all men as looking down on his creatures, before whom
he had placed historical evidence which was more or
less sure to lead honest men, honestly examining it,
into conclusions which he had banned as damnable,
and as damning them accordingly; and he would have
been horrified by an image which he would have
allowed to be in harmony only with the nethermost hell.
The truth is, that this gambling is ludicrously
uncalled-for, and that it has no place, and can find no
room, in those Sermons on which the fame of Butler
must really rest. The system set forth in those
Sermons has no need of Incarnation, Mediation,
Sacrifice, Atonement, or any other dogma common
to the creed of Christendom and the mythologies of
Semitic and Aryan tribes; and the question is, whether
Butler, as the author of the Sermons, is to be regarded
as beyond the bounds which, in his “Analogy,” he
seems to define as the limits of salvation. In the
former, the man seems to speak freely and from his
own inmost conviction; and the gist of what he says
is, that everyone in every land who loves God and does
what is right is accepted by Him. Is it so in the
“Analogy ? ”
Thus far the champions of traditional dogmatic
Christianity have been sedulous in their efforts to
bring men to accept their own belief through fear of
the awful consequences which they may incur by re
jecting it, if it should turn out to be true. The picture
so drawn seems to relate chiefly to man and to his
condition in a future state of existence. Let us for a
moment reverse the picture, and with all reverence
contemplate the spirit or disposition which it attri
butes to the Being whom these champions of Christen
dom proclaim to be perfectly Holy, Wise, Just, and
�26
Spiritual Gambling.
Merciful. It represents him, in fact, as looking upon
mankind, and seeing among a section of them which
bears the name of Christian a large proportion sitting
down to calculate the consequences of accepting or
rejecting an alleged miraculous and dogmatic revela
tion, with the understanding that they are bound to
be religious if it be true, and, as it would seem, not
bound if it be untrue. What would be the value,
even in human eyes, of such a religion as this ? From
what deep spiritual yearning can it be said to spring ?
By what generous motive can it be said to be animated ?
The self-styled orthodox have been loud in their expres
sions of horror at the profaneness of those whom they
denounce as unbelievers. It is time that those who
seek only to know the Truth, and to obey the laws of
Truth and Righteousness, should point out the far
greater profaneness of which these orthodox persons
are themselves guilty. Nothing, it is obvious, can be
more profane than a picture which represents the
Divine Being as looking with approval on men who
profess to love him, or rather to accept a certain belief
about him, because they are afraid of the consequences
of rejecting it, and again as regarding with wrath those
who earnestly hold it to be their duty to “do justly,
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God,” if these
should have convinced themselves that the narratives
of the gospels are not historically trustworthy. Such
modes of thought and speech can be only demoralizing;
and, in face of the present aspect of scientific discus
sion, they betray nothing less than absolute infatuation.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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Spiritual gambling: or the calculation of probabilities in religion
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PDF Text
Text
THE PENTATEUCH
AND BOOK OF
JOSHUA
IN FACE OF
THE SCIENCE AND MORAL SENSE
OF OUR AGE.
By a PHYSICIAN.
“ Zufallige Geschichtswahrheiten konnen der Beweis von nothwendigen
Vernunftswahrheiten nie werden.”—“ Contingent historical statements can
never be vouchers for necessary intellectual truths.”—Lessing.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
1875.
Price. Sixpence.
�LONDON:
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET,
HAYMARKET, W.
�THE
PENTATEUCH
AND BOOK OP
JOSHUA.
INTRODUCTION.
ITH every wish to find the Bible all it is
commonly said to be, against the per
suasions of earlier years, and near the end of a
long life, the writer feels bound to own that a
somewhat careful study of so much of the Hebrew
Scriptures as falls within the limits of the Penta
teuch and Book of Joshua leaves him with the
conviction that this portion of the Bible, at least,
is not any Word of God, gives no true account of
God’s dealings with the world, and enjoins little
or nothing that is calculated to edify or to raise
man in the scale of his proper humanity. On
the contrary, and passing for the moment the
incongruities, contradictions, and impossibilities
in which it abounds, Ideas of the Supreme are
everywhere encountered that were derogatory to
man, and averments made that gainsay know
ledge and reason, whilst misdeeds are commanded
and condoned that outrage humanity, and shock
�vi
Introduction.
the moral sense of our age. The Bible, however,,
is scarcely read without a foregone conclusion in
respect of its origin and import; still more
rarely is it perused with the amount of general,
scientific, historical, and archaeological lore that
are indispensable to a right understanding of its
text—truths which have led a late lamented great
biblical critic to ask: How many even of the
educated Laity understand the Bible—how many
of the Clergy understand—how many of them are
willing to understand it ?
*
I.
It is long, however, since it was definitely
shown that the Pentateuch, so persistently as
cribed to Moses, could neither have been written
by him nor by any one of his presumed age, but
must be the work of men who lived long—very
long—after the great mythical leader and legisla
tor;! and it maybe confidently maintained that all
subsequent critical inquiry by the competent and
candid, has not only substantiated, but has greatly
enlarged the scope and significance of this con
clusion. Writing, in the proper sense of the
word, appears not to have been practised by the
Jews in times so relatively recent as the days of
David. The Hebrew word for ink is of Persian
derivation, and the art of writing on prepared
sheep and goat skins among them dates from no
more remote an age than that of the Babylonian
captivity. The very character in which all the
Hebrew writing we possess has reached us, is
* Strauss, Der alte und der neue Glaube.
f Spinoza, Tract. Theologico-Politicus, 4to, Hamb., 16/0.
Eng. version, 8vo, Lond., 1868.
�Introduction.
vii
Chaldsean, and only came into use after the Exile.
A few slabs and pillars rudely cut in Intaglio,
and in a more ancient character, are all we possess
from which an idea can be formed of the kind of
writing that was practised in the earlier ages of
their existence by the Semitic tribes inhabiting
Western Asia.
How long the legends, which enter so largely
into the constitution of the Hebrew writings
proper, floated among the people before they
were reduced to writing, it is impossible to say ;
but the date at which they acquired the shape in
which they have reached us, is now hardly doubt
ful. These writings have, in fact, been brought
ever near and nearer to times concerning which
we have something like reliable records, whilst
the events of which theyspeak and the personages
who figure in them, so long regarded as historical
realities, are seen in the same measure to resolve
themselves into phantoms, with no more of sub
stance or reality than the dreams of the poet or
the visions of the Seer.
II.
Every addition of late years made to our know
ledge of the early history of mankind seems to
make it more and more certain that though we
seem to have so much, yet have we in reality
less of reliable information about the Hebrews in
the earlier periods of their existence than of
many others among the nations of antiquity.
The pious people who in person or by delegate
are at the present moment so busy excavating in
Palestine and Babylonia with a view to demon
strate the divine origin and historical truth of
�Vlll
Introduction.
the Hebrew Scriptures, seem verily to be pur
suing their work to their own discomfiture. It
is the reverse of the picture they would show
that mostly appears. All the evidences of cul
ture and civilisation brought to light of late from
the ruined cities of Asia Minor prove their
inhabitants to have been well advanced in polity,
and the arts of life, in mechanics, engineering,
and the rudiments of astronomical science, whilst
the Israelites were still wandering Nomads in
search of settled homes; nor, save in music, have
they yet distinguished themselves otherwise
than as petty traders and magnificent money
dealers. Some parts of the Hebrew Scriptures,
the most important of all in their far-reaching
after influence, lose their presumed character of
Revelations from God entirely, and appear to be
derived from the same source as the mythical
tales of the Babylonians;—source whence, in
the days of the Captivity, the sons of Israel
obtained the whole of the narratives that figure
in the earlier parts of the Book of Genesis.
The Garden in Eden, the Tree of Life, the Ser
pent, the Flood and the Ark, and much besides,
turn out to be neither history nor original
Revelation from Jehovah to the Jews, but stories
found among neighbours, their superiors in war
at all times as they were also in letters, until,
after contact with their conquerors and teachers,
the great lyrical and rhapsodical writers called
prophets,—the Isaiahs, Jeremiahs, Micahs, and
others,—appeared in the late days of the Kings.
�Introduction.
ix
III.
The Individuals, again, the personages with
whom through their names we are made so
familiar in the Bible story of patriarchal times,
turn out, under the light supplied by critical
inquiry, to be nothing more than mythical per
sonifications. Abraham, who comes from Ur of the
Chaldees, is discovered to be a NAME never borne
by any individual, but a generic Title applicable,
if applicable at all, to God, the Universal Father.
He is the Rock, as Sarah his wife is the Cavern,
whence the Hebrew people sprang. Abraham is,
in fact, a word of like significance with the
Dyaus, Zeus, and Deus of the Aryan race. He is
the Heaven-God, the active principle in nature,
as Sarah is the Heaven-Goddess, the passive
principle; the pair being parents of the laughing
Isaac (Istzack the laugher), wedded to Rebekah
(Fruitfulness), counterparts of the ’'HeXtos and
Ika of the Greeks.
Jacob, the Son of Isaac, so distinguished a
figure in the Hebrew story, like Abraham, is also
the embodiment of a name, fitted with a character
in correspondence with its import. Jacob is the
heel-holder, the tripper up, as he is made the
deceiver of his blind old father, the filcher of the
blessing and superseder of his brother. He is
another, yet a counterpart of Abraham, “ the
friend of God; ” nay, he is more than Abraham ;
for after a wrestling bout with his Deity he is
complimented with his name, and instead of Jacob
is called Israel, being thereafter always spoken of
as the Father of the Israelites.
Moses and Aaron, in like manner, are personi
fications of names in consonance with incidents
�X
Introduction.
attached to their legendary history ;—that of
Moses, which is believed to be old, being plainly
enough connected with his fabled rescue from the
water, that of Aaron, which is certainly modern,
' from the office assigned him about the Altar and
Ark of the Covenant (pns Ahrun.) The very
latest researches, however, have given us a Baby
lonian Moses, Sargon by name, who may very
possibly be the original of the Hebrew leader.
Sargon, it is said, was by his mother placed in a
cradle of rushes daubed with bitumen, and
launched on the Euphrates, but was rescued
by a water-carrier, and by him brought up as
his son.
*
IV.
What the absolute age of these names and the
personages they are assumed to represent, may
be, is questionable; but of this we are well
assured, that of the Jacob-legend there is not a
trace to be found until we come down to postDavidic times ; the latest researches of a critical
kind seeming to show that the whole series of
legends in which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
figure, are products of days posterior to the
secession of Israel from Judah. It was after this
disastrous event, and when the States were waging
an internecine war, that the scribes of the two
great religious as well as political parties into
which the country had split—the Elohists and
Jehovists—took to tampering with each other’s re
cords, and their poets to producing those wonderful
lyrics laudatory of their God and themselves, on
the one hand, and those libellous tales of rape
* Smith, ‘ Assyrian Discoveries,’p. 224, 8vo, Load., 1875.
I
�Introduction.
xi
snurder, and arson, in disparagement of their
■enemies on the other.
*
Then it was that El, Bel, Baal, or Isra-El—
other forms of El, chief God of the Hebrews in
the olden time—was set up under the form of the
Bull by the Israelites at Shechem and Dan, in
the kingdom of Ephraim, and Jehovah, the latest
■conception of Deity by the Jewish priesthood,
was established as Supreme God, with his sole
lawful shrine at Jerusalem, the capital of Judah.
Under what material form Jehovah was repre
sented we are left in doubt; everything that
would have satisfactorily informed us on the
subject having been expunged from the record,
although enough remains incidentally scattered
through the Scriptures, to satisfy us that neither
was this God without his similitude, and that
the interdict against making an image of their
Deity must therefore be one of the latest pro
ducts of the Jewish legislation.
V.
The exodus from Egypt under the conditions
and in the proportions specified we have shown
to be physically impossible; and, recognising no
interruption of the laws of nature, which we hold
to be the laws of God, we have referred all the
miracles in which Jehovah is made to glorify him
self, and to show how far he exceeds the Gods of
Egypt in power, together with the dramatic pas
sages between Moses and Pharaoh as prologues to
that event, to the realm of legendary myth.
* Vide Bernstein on the Origin of the Legends of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob ; one of Mr. Scott’s Series of Papers ; a
striking production, but held by competent judges to push
matters to excess. •
�xii
Introduction.
VI.
The Decalogue, still so persistently assigned to
the remote age of Moses, even by advanced
Biblical critics, we have spoken of as an eclectic
summary, the product of much more modern
times, emanating as surely from Mount Zion in
the City of Jerusalem, in the peaceful days of
Hezekiah in all likelihood, as it most certainly
did not come viva voce from God on Mount Sinai
“ all on a quake.” The accompaniments of the
assumed delivery thence, as described, suffice of
themselves to relegate the story to the limbo of
the mythical.
VII.
That the conquest and settlement of the Land
of Canaan, to conclude, were not effected at the
time and in the manner set forth in some parts of
the Book of Joshua, appears plainly enough on
the face of that incongruous and contradictory
document itself; and more and more persuaded
as we are of the relatively modern composition
of the Pentateuch, we grow more and more sus
picious that the accounts we have of the feats
of Joshua are after models found in the history
of the Babylonian Empire. The chronicles lately
deciphered of the doings of more than one of the
Kings of Babylon and Assyria; the vast numbers
slain; the extraordinary amount of the booty
collected; the tale of the woman made captive,
&c.; may very well have served as prototypes
from which the writer of Joshua drew, having
made himself master during his captivity of the
cuneiform inscriptions that still abound.
*
* Vide Smith, Op. cit.
�Introduction.
xiii
VIII.
The history of the Children of Israel, therefore,
as it is delivered in the Pentateuch, is, in truth,
nothing more than the mythical tale of a barba
rous people, steeped in sensuality, superstition,
ignorance, and cruelty; their God a demon delight
ing in blood, requiring the first-born of man and
beast to be sent to him in the smoke of the altar
as his most acceptable oblation, and having a lamb
supplied him night and morning throughout the
year by way of food ! Among a people with such
conceptions of Deity and such a Cult, with ances
tors like Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Rebekah,
and with heroes and heroines having the stamp of
the Eleazars and Deborahs, the Samsons, Judiths,
Jaels, Jephthas, and, coming down to the really
historical times of David and Solomon, what
could have been the character of the religious,
moral and social usages and principles that pre
vailed ? The question suggests the only possible
reply. Yet, strange to say, the blood-stained
annals and barbarous lives of this extraordinary
people have been taken by the modern world as
the foundation of its religious ideas, and as fit
introduction to its moral conceptions.
IX.
But shall we, living in this nineteenth century
of the era from which we date, continue to look
to a source of the kind for such knowledge of the
Being and Attributes of God as may be attained
by man; for guidance in the service that might
be acceptable to the Supreme, and in the conduct
that were becoming in our dealings with one
another? Shall we, who think of God as All
�XIV
Introduction.
Pervading Cause, persist in viewing the Book as
his revealed word and will, which tells of the
Earth created in six days, and of its fashioner,
like a foredone workman, “resting on the seventh
day and hallowing it,” when we know most posi
tively that the Earth was not created in six days,
necessarily conclude that God never rests, and
believe that to him all days must be hallowed
alike ? Shall we, with the better knowledge
we possess, go on putting into the hands of our
children the book that narrates how God came
down from heaven to walk in his Garden in the cool
of the Evening, and at sundry other times, to ascer
tain how things were going on below; how he
cursed the creatures he had made in his own
image, as said; repented him of what he had
done in creating man at all, and brought a flood
of water on the Earth to drown all that breathed ?
Shall we, who measure our distance from the Sun
and the fixed Stars, calculate their masses, weigh
them as in a balance, analyse their light, and
thereby learn that they all are Units in One
Stupendous Whole, continue to look with respect
on tales that tell of the arrest of the Sun and
Moon in their apparent path through heaven, to
the end that a barbarous horde may have light
effectually to exterminate the unoffending people,
they have come—by God’s command, too, as said
-—to plunder and to murder ? It were surely time
to quit us of such worse than childish folly.
Reflection and candour alike compel us to say
that the teachings of the Pentateuch, in almost
every particular, have to be set aside if we would
escape erroneous conceptions of nature and of
almost all that civilised man associates with the
�Introduction.
xv
name of God and Religion. If the Bible is to be
continued as one of the instruments available in
the education of our children, it should be care
fully weeded of so much that is false and offen
sive, and be used in a negative rather than a
positive sense as a means of instruction; the un
worthy behaviour of Abraham and Isaac with
their wives, and of Jacob and Rebekah with the
father and husband, among other instances, being
pointed out as examples religiously to be shunned;
the recommendation we find in the New Tes
tament, “ Not to give heed to Jewish fables ”
(Titus i. 14), being at all times steadily kept
in view.
X.
As hitherto apprehended, Religion can be said
to have brought nothing but misery on the
world at large. Deeds of a dye that shock
humanity have been committed from first to last
in its name, and unreason has still been seen in
the seat of reason so often as aught presumed to
be due to God has come into question. Of old
it said:—“ If thy brother, thy son, or thy
daughter, the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend
that is as thine own soul, entice thee saying ;—
Let us go and serve other Gods [t.e., differ from
thee in thy creed and would have thee follow
their’s], thou shalt not consent to him nor
hearken to him; neither shalt thou spare him,
but thou shalt surely kill him; thy hand shall
be first upon him, afterwards the hands of all
the people, and thou shalt stone him with stones
that he die.” In later days it has excavated the
dungeon, built the torture-chamber and furnished
�xvi
Introduction.
it with the rack, lighted the slow fire about the
stake to consume, drenched the battle-field with
blood, and driven into exile from their home and
country the best and noblest of their kind.
XI.
Yet is the Religious Sense as certainly an
element in the constitution of man as his bodily
frame. But emotional in its nature it is Blind,
and requires association with those other emo
tional and intellectual faculties proper to man
from which it has hitherto been dissevered,
before it can conduce to good and advantageous
issues. Happily the world is slowly emerging
from its dream about the Jews being the chosen
people of God and the medium of his oracles to
mankind. The Hebrew Scriptures are now
known to be but one among many other books
to which a divine original, and sacred character
is ascribed by the peoples among whom they
took shape. The Sole Revelation which God
ever made he still makes to man; and this the
truly educated have at length begun to see lies
open for perusal by all of cultured mind in the
Book of Nature, from which alone can we, with
out fear of being led astray, know aught of what
God is, of that wherein the Providential order
of the world consists, and of that which is
required of us as agents responsible to God
through our fellow-men for our deeds. “ Ancient
creeds and time-honoured formulas,” says a great
writer, “ are yielding as much to internal pres
sure as to external assault. The expansion of
knowledge is loosening the very earth clutched
by the roots of creeds and churches. Science is
�Introduction.
xvii
penetrating everywhere, and slowly changing
men’s conceptions of the world and of man’s
destiny. Some considerable thinkers are there
fore of opinion that Religion has played its part
in the evolution of humanity, whilst others—
and I hold with these—believe that it has still a
part to play, and will continue to regulate the
evolution. To do so, however, it must express
the highest thought of the time. It must not
attempt to imprison the mind, nor force on our
acceptance, as explanations of the Universe,
dogmas which were originally the childish
guesses at truth by barbarous tribes. It must
no longer put forward principles which are
unintelligible and incredible, nor make their
unintelligibility a source of glory, and a belief
in them a higher virtue than belief in demon
stration. Instead of proclaiming the nothing
ness of this life, the worthlessness of human
love, and the impotence of the human mind, it
will proclaim the supreme importance of this
life, the supreme value of human love, and the
grandeur of the human intellect.”*
With every word of this who in the present
day will not sympathise ? But the Religious
Sense, as we have but just said, is blind, and
cannot be trusted to regulate, the evolution of
humanity. On the contrary, Religion, as com
monly understood, must itself consent to regula
tion, and descend to a lower place than it has
hitherto held in our Western civilisation. As
represented in the most powerful of all the
formulated systems in which it has yet been
G-. H. Lewes’s ‘.Problems of Life and Mind.’ Vol. I.
�xviii
Introduction.
seen, religion shows itself at the present
moment antagonistic to the peace of the State
and the Family, as well as to all Evolution—it
gives Discord a seat at the home-hearth, and
would stem the tide of human progress if it
could ; and it is more than questionable whether
there exists any other system that would not be
disposed to do as much, and to lead the evolu
tion on to some devious or narrow way ending
in a preserve of its own. But Religion is not,
in fact, as in these later ages it has been made,
the prime factor in the moral life of man.
Justice, mercy, truthfulness, integrity, reverence,
and steadfastness—the moral element in human
nature, in a word, outcome of the higher emo
tional powers in blended action with enlightened
understanding, are of far more moment in the
aggregate life of humanity than any conceivable
form of religious belief and observance. The
Idea of God is the GOAL, not the starting point,
in the evolution of mankind, and only presents
itself in a guise that can be held worthy of its
object in societies the most advanced in moral
and intellectual development. Then, but not till
then, comes the conclusion that the sole yet all
sufficing service that can be rendered to God by
man is study of his laws, which are the laws of
Nature; as obedience to their behests is the sum
of man’s duties to God, to himself, and to his
kind. It would indeed be well could an end now
be made of the folly men commit when they
personify God, endow him with feelings and
passions after the pattern of their own, and
attach significance and a literal meaning to
Eastern tales, the product of rude and ignorant
�Introduction.
xix
ages of the world. It were surely good did men
now acknowledge that God, ubiquitous essence,
in and over all, never spoke in human speech to
man ; was never jealous of other Gods, for there
be none such; never cursed the creature who had
come into being in conformity with his laws, nor
the ground that fed him ; never repented of
aught that was as it was through him, and never,
in abnegation of his universal fatherhood, elected
one among the nations that people the earth to
be his own and the medium of his oracles to the
rest of mankind.
XII.
The works of De Wette, Vatke, Von Bohlen,
Kuenen, Colenso, Davidson, and Kalisch, to name
a few among a number we have read, following
in the wake of Spinoza, Astruc, Simon, Eichhorn,
and others, have gone far to exhaust what may
be spoken of as the criticism of the letter and
structure of the Bible. That several hands have
had part in the composition of this wonderful
book ; that the text as it stands is the product
of dissimiliar minds; was written at various
times in different ages, and has been derived
from different and often discrepant sources—
mythical, legendary, and documentary,—is no
longer doubtful, but a demonstrated fact. Bern
stein, moreover, if his conclusions stand the test
of criticism, will have farther shown the very
free play the writers of the Pentateuch have
sometimes given to their inventive faculties.
In suggesting grounds for some of the tales,
and pointing to historical personages poorly
disguised under slightly altered names, he will
�XX
Introduction.
also have fixed beyond the possibility of question,
as it seems, the date at which certain parts of the
Bible commonly believed to be among the oldest,
were actually written; and this, it may almost be
needless to say, is not the mythical age of the
Patriarchs and Moses, of which so little or rather
nothing is known, but the really historical times
of Solomon and the Kings. Bernstein might
thus in a sense be said to have done for the part
of the Old Testament, to which we refer, what
F. C. Baur and the Tubingen School have done
for the New. In his hands Jehovist and Elohist
present themselves as Judahite and Ephraimite;
and even as in the Synoptic Gospels and the Acts
of the New Testament we find records of the
differences between Petrinists and Paulinists, so,
in the Old, instead of the word of God, we have
but evidence of the conflicting views and hostile
feelings of the followers of El-Elijon, Belitan or
Baal, and Jahveh.
XIII.
Among ourselves Biblical criticism, in any
acceptable sense of the term, can scarcely be said
to have existed until the present day. We had
Commentaries and Expositions of the Scrip
tures, indeed, in almost endless succession from
after the middle of the last to the middle of
the present century; but these were all more
or less alike, and after the same rigidly orthodox
and uncritical pattern : the Jews were the chosen
people of God, the vessels of his word and will
to the world; the Pentateuch was the work of
Moses, who had the Ten Commandments direct
from the mouth of God, and written besides with
�xxi
Introduction.
his finger on two tables of stone—and there an
End; Doubt was sin; Question was Atheism;
and as for criticism there was, there could be
none. But the Spirit of Time and of Progress
Sitzend am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit
Wirkend der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid,
*
had been at work all the while, and found a voice
at length from an unexpected quarter in the able
Textual Criticism of the Pentateuch and Book
of Joshua by no less a personage than a dignitary
in the Church, the Bishop of Natal.
XIV.
Though not without something like a herald
of its coming, in the volume entitled ‘ Essays and
Reviews/ Dr. Colenso’s book fell like a thunder
bolt from a clear sky among his clerical brethren,
and took the laity at large, aroused to something
like an interest in the matters discussed, not a
little by surprise. “ Replies ” to the criticisms
of the Bishop by clergymen were not wanting, as
matter of course. But these were found less satis
factory to the more intelligent of the laity than
their authors imagined they would prove. This
element in the outside world had outgrown its
relish for the old style of Scriptural Exposition,
and was not satisfied with the assurance that the
Bishop of Natal’s objections were not new and
had all been answered long ago. They desired
to see something like a demonstration of the truth
* Sitting at Time’s murmuring loom,
Weaving the living garb of God.
C
�xxii
Introduction.
that this was so, and were minded that a work
so ably and conscientiously composed should be
met by arguments of a bettter kind than unsup
ported assertion, evasion, and abuse.
Accordingly, at the suggestion of alate Speaker
of the House of Commons, the Right Hon. J. E.
Denison, and after consultation with the Arch
bishop of York, a Committee of gentlemen,
Dignitaries and others of scholarly attainments
in the Church, was formed for the purpose of inves
tigating and satisfactorily replying to the matters
called in question,—and these amounted to
nothing less, in fact, than the Inspiration and
Historical Truth of the Sacred Scriptures of the
Old and New Testament, and their consonance
as formulated Word of God with the Word of
God as announced in the truths of Science and
the religious and moral consciousness of educated
man. Such, at all events, was the great and
worthy object which it was understood Mr.
Denison had in view when he broached the sub
ject of an exhaustive Commentary to the Clergy
of his Church. “ It seemed to him,” says Mr.
Cook, the writer of the Preface to the first
volume of ‘The Speaker’s Commentary,’ when
at length it made its appearance, “ that in the
midst of much controversy about the Bible, there
was a want of some Commentary in which the
latest information might be made accessible to
men of ordinary culture. It seemed desirable
that every educated man should have access to
some work which might enable him to under
stand what the original Scriptures really say and
mean, and in which he might find an explanation
of any difficulties which his own mind might
�Introduction.
xxiii
suggest, as well as of any new objections raised
against a particular book or passage.
“ Although the difficulties of such an under
taking were very great, it seemed right to make
the attempt to meet a want which all confessed
to exist, and the Archbishop accordingly under
took to form a Company of Divines, who, by a
judicious distribution of labour amongst them,
might expound, each, the portion of Scripture
for which his studies might best have fitted him.”
XV.
This is all clear and to the point: we were to
be furnished with a simple, truthful interpreta
tion of the Bible by able men, from the point of
view supplied by the latest and most advanced
critics and scholars of the day, in consonance with
the science and moral sense of the age. But wherein
the great difficulties hinted at, though not more
particularly specified, consisted, and whence the
long delay of seven years (!) that intervened
between the conception and the execution of the
project, the writer of the preface does not say.
A Company of learned Divines had been formed,
•ample funds had been subscribed, an eminent
publisher had been engaged, and by him carte
blanche was given to the foreign bookseller in
particular to supply the parties engaged, “ to
expound the portion of Scripture for which their
studies might best have fitted them,” with all
they required in the shape of literature. How
can we doubt that these gentlemen went to work
with a will ? They were to have liberal pay,
they had been furnished with books in abun
dance, and the opportunity to distinguish them
�xxiv
Introduction.
selves in the interesting field of Biblical criticism
lay before them. But time flew by—a year, two
years, four, six, seven years ! elapsed, and all this
while the public at large had no intimation,
through their work, of what the learned men
were about. Not a line in the shape of Note or
Comment to help men of “ ordinary culture ” to
understand the Scriptures of the Jews had seen
the light in all that time. But rumours were
rife of great and even unsurmountable difficul
ties having arisen in the course of the projected
enterprise. Nor was the nature of these kept
altogether from the public ear. The workers
specially engaged had discovered, one after
another, as was said, that the task they had
undertaken could not conscientiously be carried
out to the issue they had believed possible when
they undertook it. They had been led by the
hands of their Dutch, and German, and English
brethren, to “ the tree that grew in the midst of
the garden,” they had seen that the fruit it bore
“ was pleasant to the sight,” and was “ fruit to be
desired to make men wise.” They had “ put forth
them hands, taken of the fruit, and eaten,” and
lo ! “ their eyes were opened and they knew that
they were naked.”
When they now met one another and the “ Com
pany,” their superiors, in conclave, it was not as
Marcus Tullius tells us he thought the Haruspices
of his day could only meet, to laugh, but with
grave looks and bated breath. Colenso and
the free critics were not after all the men of straw
they had been supposed to be, and not to be slain
with lathen swords and pointless spears; they
were rather found like the “ well-greaved Greeks ”
�Introduction.
xxv
in panoply of proof, their line compact and as
little assailable as it seemed on the flanks as in
front. For awhile—a long while, therefore, there
must have appeared nothing for it but retreat
from an untenable position,—or, could it have
been the bolder and nobler alternative that pre
sented itself, and gave the pause—“ to speak
truth and shame the Devil,” as the saying goes ?
If this were ever contemplated it certainly has
not been followed. And yet there was a great
opportunity for the Clergy of the Anglican
Church to show themselves as exponents of the
Bible on at least as high a level as their con
tinental Protestant brethren. Mr. Cook in his
preface acknowledges the want of a real Commen
tary ; but he and his colleagues have not given
it. Retreat from the position forced on them,
perchance, rather than willingly assumed, must
have been the contemplated course. Silence
breaks no bones, it is said?, and the “ Speaker and
his Commentary” would perhaps pass out of
mind and be relegated to the limbo of things for
gotten. But the thought of retreat—if it ever
were a thought—was vain. The outside world
grew clamorous for its 1 Commentary,’ and some
thing must be done to satisfy it. The “ conscience
that makes cowards of us all ” had procured a
respite of seven years, indeed, but the business
must be faced at last. If the workers first en
gaged had disqualified themselves through the
pains they had taken to execute their task in the
best possible way, the way, too, that was held
desirable ; and as they in entering on it had be
lieved it could be done, but as they had been
brought to see that it could not truthfully and
�x±vi
Introduction,
without reservation be accomplished, others might
be found who took a different view of the matter.
There were orthodox as well as heterodox com
mentators in plenty—there were Hengstenbergs
as well as Hupfelds, Delitzsches as wellasColensos.
Why not take them for guides? Or if even the
least liberal of these were too outspoken for our in
sular orthodoxy, why not fall back on the good
old-fashioned English style of the Browns and
Henrys, the Doyleys and Mants, and give expla
nations by simple iteration of the text, discover
harmony amid discord, and congruity in discre
pancy ; to say nothing of so much that could
safely be referred to the inscrutable will of God7
and that passed the power of human comprehen
sion ? The workers first selected could not be
suffered to make victims of themselves, and have
their names enrolled beside those:—.
Die thoricht g’nug ihr voiles Herz nicht wahrten,—
Dem Pobel ihr Gefiihl, ihr Schauen offenbarten,
[Und die] man hat von je gekreutzigt und verbrannt.
*
They would too obviously be acting under the
segis of Hierarchs of the Church who would be
compromised with them, of Dignitaries who
had no taste for martyrdom, and who doubtless
thought “of the fish, and the leeks and the
onions, the cucumbers, the melons, and the garlick, which they did eat freely in Egypt.” Of
others, also, conscientious enough in their ortho
* Who have been fools enough not to keep their minds tc>
themselves, but to the people have revealed their hearts,
their thoughts, and for their pains have hitherto been crucified,
and burned.
�Introduction.
xxvii
doxy, having minds cast in a believing mould,
unfamiliar with the fruit of the tree that grew
in the midst of the garden, who did not see why
the sworn and salaried officers of a system should
be held bound to say aught in disparagement of
the grounds on which it rested, and who could
not be persuaded that there was not a perfectly
legitimate and even proper way of escaping from
the dilemma in which they had become involved
by the strike among their workmen.
Many and anxious, we must conceive, were the
consultations that now were held, deep and long
the discussions as to what had best be done, that
followed. It was even thought, as reported, that
Escape from the dead-lock might be found through
Counsel out of doors, as there was none within ;
a suggestion which led to an interview with a
late lamented Dean, not one of “ The Company
for he having eaten of the fruit of the marvellous
tree in years gone by, and spoken somewhat freely
of the Patriarchs, was held too /ar acZ-van ecZ for
such Society. But from this liberal writer came
little comfort. He is said rather to have en
joyed the difficulty in which his learned brethren
had become involved, he even chuckled over their
distress; but assured them he could help them
with no advice; it was their business, not his,
and they must get through the work they had
undertaken as they best could.
To proceed, indeed, was matter of necessity :
a Commentary and Exposition must be forth
coming ; but why need it be of the kind that
was contemplated by the Speaker ? It might be
of a sort that would satisfy the many and such
as had no misgivings ; and the few—the doubters
�xxviii
Introduction.
and such as were dissatisfied—might be left to
their doubts and dissatisfaction. A dangerous
course as concerns the future, though meeting
the most pressing want of the hour; for reac
tion inevitably follows, and the recoil is not
always comparable to the gentle lapping of the
summer sea, but sometimes comes like the up
heaval wave laden with destruction.
XVI.
The work, then, had to be gone on with, and
a fresh staff of workers to be found; and this,
not without difficulty nor without a second
secession in more than one instance, by report at
the time, was at length got together. But such
must have been the obstacles still encountered,
we must needs surmise, that before any real
progress could be made, seven years had passed
away! for it was at the end only of this long
period of incubation that the first instalment of
the ‘ Speaker’s Commentary ’ saw the light.
XVII.
And here we avail ourselves of the appre
ciation of the work by a distinguished conti
nental Biblical critic and scholar, Dr. A. Kuenen,
Professor of Theology in the University of
*
Leyden.
After premising that much is to be
learned from the work, especially by laymen, for
whose benefit it was written; that the composers
of it are learned men, and farther—yet hardly
•in keeping with what he goes on to say—that
* See Three Notices of the ‘Speaker’s Commentary’ from
the Dutch of A. Kuenen, by J. Muir, D.C.L., one of Mr.
Scott’s Series of Papers.
�Introduction.
xxix
they have shown an able apprehension of what
they had to do, he continues : “ But they lack
one thing; and this vitiates the whole. They
are not free. The apologetic aim of the work is
never lost sight of, and constantly operates to
disturb the course of the enquiry. It is, in one
word, Science such as serves a purpose that is
here put before us. The writers place them
selves in opposition to the Critics of the Penta
teuch, depreciate their arguments, make sport
in the well-known childish manner of their
mutual differences, and try to refute them with
reasonings which they themselves in any other
case would reject as utterly insufficient or regard
as unworthy of notice. None of them sins in
this respect so navvely and grossly (sterk) as Dr.
Harold Browne, the Bishop of Ely. But they
are miserable, far-fetched, and unnatural suppo
sitions to which he treats us...............Dogmatical
considerations have clouded the understanding
and exegetical perception of this apologist, and on
fitting occasions his fellow-labourers do not fall
short of him in this respect. If I am not deceived,
this ‘Commentary,’ entirely against the inten
tions of those who planned it, will, before all
things, have powerfully contributed to make
Biblical criticism indigenous in England.”
With the work of so thorough a critic and
accomplished scholar as Dr. Colenso, and the
excellent Introduction to the Study of the Old
Testament of such a Hebraist as Dr. Samuel
Davidson (to name but two among several others),
at command, it cannot fairly be said that Bibli
cal criticism had not already become indigenous
among us. It was, indeed, well established, though
�XXX
Introduction.
rare, but all the more firmly rooted from having
grown in the light of freedom, truthfulness, and
competence; and though ignored by the Clergy
at large, who shut their eyes to it themselves and
denounce it from their pulpits as impiety, it is by
no means without its influence among us.
“ When, after reading the Introductions to the
several Books and the Notes to the ‘Speaker’s
Commentary,’ ” continues Dr. Kuenen, “ I reflect
how much time, labour, and money have been
expended on the writing and printing of this
work, I receive a painful impression. Here
learned theologians, and such, too, as are high
dignitaries in the Church, come forward as instructors of the participators in their religious belief,
and all that these learn from them they must
afterwards unlearn. Many faults in the autho
rised version, indeed, are amended, and points of
an archaeological and geographical nature are
illustrated. But such is not the question here.
The point of importance is this : Do the contri
butors to the work make their learning subser
vient to the diffusion of a sound [i.e., a truthful
and reasonable] method of estimating the Bible ?
The reverse is the fact. They regard it as their
duty to maintain that which appears to them to
be the sound [i.e., the orthodox] view, and to reject
all more reasonable conceptions as unbelieving
and sacrilegious. Now and then, indeed, the
truth is too powerful for them, and they find
themselves forced to give up the correctness of
the Biblical narrative, but the concessions form
the exception. As a rule, the traditional view is
maintained, even in cases where it may be said
to be absolutely untenable ; and then the diffi-
�Introduction.
xxxi
culti.es are either passed over in silence or are not
recognised in their real force, or are answered
with childish arguments. But it will one day
become manifest that that which the adverse
critics already know must before long become
known to all, and that it is fearless criticism
alone which opens up the access to Israel’s sanc
tuaries. Magna est veritas et prcevalebit.”
XVIII.
So far Dr. Kuenen, the studied moderation of
whose adverse criticism is conspicuous. But the
Doctor is still a theologian, although a Liberal
one, It is habit and the prospect he enjoys from
his Professor’s Chair that enable him to speak of
fearless criticism of the Record the Israelites have
left of themselves in their Pentateuch and his
torical books as opening up the access to any
sanctuary. We who write here as Physician,
as Naturalist, cannot see the matter in the same
light as Dr. Kuenen; and do not scruple to avow
that the purpose of the Exposition which followsis to aid, in so far as this is possible, in disabusing
the public mind of the false conceptions it enter
tains of so much of the Bible as falls within the
Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua; to which
portions of the Hebrew Scriptures, we would
have it understood, is our criticism intended to
apply. We are behind none in our apprecia
tion of the beauties that abound in many
parts of the writings of the Lyrists and Rhapsodists of Israel'—though neither are we blind to
their blemishes—but we deny in toto that we have
either in these, in the so-called Five Books of
Moses, or in the historical writings that precede
�xxxii
Introduction.
the Psalms, any true account of God’s govern
ment of the world. We are even bold enough
to believe that he who accompanies us through
our exposition will scarcely fail, however reluc
tantly, to arrive at the same conclusion.
XIX.
The laity of this country, we believe, were
really looking for a perfectly truthful and autho
ritative exposition of the Bible, of the Hebrew
Scriptures especially; and a great opportunity
undoubtedly presented itself for the production of
such a work; but it has not only been neglected :
it may even be said to have been abused. The
most cursory perusal of so much of the ‘ Speaker’s
Commentary ’ as applies to the Pentateuch and
Book of Joshua, will enable any one possessed of
the mere Alphabet of Biblical criticism to see that
the writers do but “ keep their promise to the
ear and break it to the hope.” The intelligent
inquirer will gain from them none but the most
unsatisfactory responses to his most pressing
questions,—if perchance he finds response at all
—and the ignorant be only confirmed in his
ignorance, his errors, and his superstitions. The
views of the great liberal enlightened critics of
the Continent and our own country, men of
unblemished lives, the purest piety and ripest
scholarship, are scarcely noticed, the conclusions
of science ignored, and the moral blemishes
passed by unheeded, whilst nothing absolutely is
ever said that will help men of “ ordinary cul
ture ” to know more of what the “ original Scrip
tures really say and mean ” than the text itself
supplies. Iteration of a proposition in other
�Introduction.
xxxiii
terms is no demonstration of its meaning or its
truth; and where the exposition is not simply of
the old-fashioned orthodox and now untenable
character, it is hardly ever of a kind that will
enable the reader to see the matter referred to
in any more reasonable and acceptable light.
XX.
Dr. Kuenen in this notice of the first and
second volumes of the ‘New Commentary’ gives
a few examples of the perfunctory way in which
the Speaker’s Exegetes proceed in their work ;
*
and we, too, had got together some samples of the
chaff they present so carefully sifted from the grain
of truth and common sense, for illustration in this
direction. But they would be out of place here.
We, however, add below, the very First and One
among the Last of Bishop Harold Browne’s com
ments to Genesis, by way of justification of aught
we have said that seems disrespectful.f
* Vide Three Criticisms, &c., already quoted.
t Gen. i. 1. In the beginning. ‘Not “ first in order,” but
“ in the beginning of all things,” says the Bishop. ‘ The
same expression is used in John i. 1, of the existence of
the “ Word of God :” “In the beginning was the Word.”
The one passage illustrates the other, though it is partly
by the contrast of thoughts. The Word was when the
world was created.’ The reader may be left to make what
he can out of such a style of exposition ; for how the
mystical assertion of the Neo-platonic author of the Fourth
Gospel that “ In the beginning was the Word,” should be
brought in to throw light on the simple statement of the
writer of Genesis, that God in the beginning created the
heaven and the earth, passes our faculty of understanding.
Was the note introduced for any end but to give Dr.
�xxxiv
Introduction.
XXI.
The Exposition of the Pentateuch and Book of
Joshua that follows, it may be needless to say, is
conceived in a totally different spirit from that
which has guided the writers of the ‘ Speaker’s
Commentary.’ Holding that “ suppression of the
truth is near akin to assertion of the false]’ and
that truth can never be dangerous save to error,
Harold Browne an opportunity of showing at the very
cutset the out-and-out orthodox flag under which he was
enlisted I
Gen. xlvii. 8, 9. “ And Pharaoh said unto Jacob :
How old art thou? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh : The
days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and
thirty years.” To the words
Pilgrimage, the Bishop
appends this gloss, 1 Literally my sojournings.’ ‘Pharaoh
asked of the days of the years of his life ; he replies by
speaking of the days of the years of his pilgrimage. Some
have thought that he called his life a pilgrimage because
he was a nomad, a wanderer in lands not his own ; but in
reality the patriarchs spoke of life as a pilgrimage or
sojourning, because they sought another country, that is
a heavenly. Earth was not their home, but their journey
homewards.’ Now the Bishop of Ely—when he wrote, the
Bishop of Winchester now (for orthodoxy unflinching
brings preferment)—knows full well that the patriarchs
never spoke of their lives in any such sense. They had
no idea of any state of existence after the present life ;
and when in later days the children of Israel, after con
tact as slaves with a people entertaining an idea of the
kind, did attain to it, the place to which they went
after death was not thought of as a heavenly home
of light and love and joy, but a dark and dismal pit
under the earth, called Scheol, whence the Hell of the
modern world, peopled by Satan and his angels, and fur
nished with its burning lake of brimstone and other
appliances as a place of punishment for the wicked. Was
it not in some sort the Bishop’s duty to inform his readers
of so much ?
�Introduction.
xxxv
we have not hesitated to give expression to the
views that are most adverse to the idea of the
Divine Original of the Hebrew Scriptures, and
of the Israelites, in the earlier periods of their
history at all events, as worthy recipients of the
oracles of God. So much progress had been
made in Comparative Mythology and the Science
of Religion of late years, that it did not appear
so difficult to us to discover what “ the original
Scriptures really say and mean,” as it seems to
have done to the writer of the Preface to the
‘ Speaker’s Commentary.’ Unfettered by foregone
conclusions, having subscribed no Articles, and
sworn allegiance to no system of doctrine, but
under the guidance of such lights as the somewhat
miscellaneous reading we have indulged in has
supplied, we have striven to give -a thoroughly
truthful exposition of so much of the Bible as
has come under our scrutiny ; the result being, as
the tenor of this Introduction will already have
made manifest, that this extraordinary Book is
but one among a number of other Books held
sacred by the followers of the several religious
systems of which they are the exponents; that
though its literary merits may be more, it has no
higher title to be held a Revelation from God
than any one of these; that its contents are not
always of a kind calculated to raise our estimate
of the people among whom it took its rise, or to
prove beneficial to ourselves, and that it enun
ciates no such Ideas of God and his providential
government of the world as can be accepted by
civilised man.
�xxxvi
Introduction.
XXII.
The world of to-day does, in truth, stand in
need of more than the ablest and most outspoken
exposition of any Book expressing the Religious
Ideas, the Social Usages, and the Guesses at
Scientific Truth of a bygone age. It is waiting for
a Bible of its Own Day,—a great Intellectual
Survey of Nature, Nature’s Laws and Nature’s
God, as Revealed in the Universe of things
apprehended by the Mind of Man. Veniat, veniat,
cito veniatI
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY-STREET, HAYMARKET, V>'.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & 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>
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The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua in face of the science and moral sense of our age
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Willis, Robert
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Place of publication: London
Collation: xxxvi p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. This is the Introduction of a work originally published in several parts. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, London.
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Thomas Scott
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1875
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CT143
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Bible
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Bible. O.T. Pentateuch
Conway Tracts
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Text
THE ATHANASIAN CEEED
A PLEA
FOR ITS DISUSE IN THE PUBLIC WORSHIP
OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH.
By
the
Rev. J. W. LAKE.
“ Perplexed in faith, yet pure in deeds,
At length he heat his music out,
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.”—Tennyson.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
1 8 7 5.
Price Sixpence.
��THE ATHANASIAN CREED.
HE language of a healthy theology is like that of
T Lord Bacon, ‘ if a man begins with certainties he
shall end in doubts, but if he begins with doubts he shall
end in certainties.’ ” So writes Dean Stanley in his
letter addressed some years back to the then Bishop of
London (now Archbishop Tait) on the folly and evil of
the system of exacting a rigid subscription to a code of
dogmas from the young men who were entering the
ministry, and certainly the reverent hesitations of the wise
and thoughtful pay a truer homage to Religious Truth
than do the fancied certainties of inexperienced and
thoughtless minds. Doubt is often the readiest portal
by which the Temple of Truth is entered, certainly it is
the surest if not the only road by which its innermost
shrine is reached. The doubter is one who holds God’s
Truth in such high esteem that he refuses to accept as
such, whatsoever does not bring with it satisfactory
credentials.
The Athanasian Creed breathes throughout its entire
extent a malediction on this doubting spirit, and exalts
a blind and thoughtless and unquestioning belief to the
rank of highest virtue. It formulates ideas concerning
the divine nature which were the outcome of at least
one thousand years of intense and abstruse metaphysical
speculation, which, though always earnest and passionate,
was yet very often ill-regulated, blind and fanciful.
During the progress of this speculation, the strained
intellect soared often so far beyond its proper powers
�4
The Athanasian Creed.
that the language of theology became largely destitute
of definite meaning, and yet the tabulated results of
this intricate speculation are in the creeds of the Church
of England forced on the profession and acceptance of
every worshipper, and men who have not cared to give
the subject an hour’s serious thought are summoned on
pain of everlasting perdition to express themselves con
cerning the constitution of the Godhead and the mode
of the divine existence in language of assured certainty,
and to dogmatise without the slightest hesitation concern
ing matters whose comprehension is far beyond the
utmost powers of human thought.
A revised Bible, if it should adopt the approved and ac
cepted results of biblical scholarship, (and rumour asserts
that in many particulars it will do this,) will take from
the Athanasian Creed the main and almost the sole
biblical authority it asserts for the triune delineation of
the divine nature which it sets forth, by expunging
from the revised version the celebrated text of the ‘three
witnesses,’ viz., 1 John v. 7, “there are three that bare
record in heaven,—the Father, the Word, and the Holy
Ghost, and these three are one;” this being now
universally surrendered as a fraudulent interpolation.—
True, the Athanasian Creed is essentially an ecclesiastical
formulary, but its retention by a Protestant Church
implies that it does but epitomise biblical teaching, and
with its loss of biblical sanction it must cease to exist
as an authoritative formula, even if it be retained for
the convenience of those who still choose to adopt it as
an exposition of their faith. But even under these
circumstances this creed must lose what some have con
sidered to be its most essential, and others its most
offensive, feature, viz., that damnatory clause by which
all who do not accept its statements are consigned to
everlasting perdition. The utmost that any member of
a Protestant Church can claim as a privilege of worship
is the right of stating his own formularies of religious
belief, even if these should include clauses that con
�The Athanasian Creed.
5
demned himself to perdition for non-belief, but here
his rights terminate, here his liberty ends. He must
not be allowed to claim the right of publicly condemning
others because they do not accept the essentials of his
own belief. The creed might therefore be retained for
private use, or, (without the offensive damnatory clauses)
it might even be permitted to form a portion of the
public worship of such congregations as desired to use
it.
Origin of the
use of
Creeds in Public Wopshtp.
A question here arises as to the desirability of retain
ing the recitation of formularies of dogmatic theology
as a necessary part, of public worship. Of Protestant
Churches this is the peculiarity of the Church of
England alone, and as in this church the articles and
creeds are only to be accepted as they are seen to be
in harmony and agreement with the teachings of Scrip
tures, it follows that the Bible is the container of the
essentials of all creeds, seeing that from its pages they
are presumed to have been first of all compiled. Dean
Milman, in his “History of Christianity’’ Book 3rd,
chap. 5, gives the following explanation of the intro
duction into the Christian Church of such documents
as the Athanasian formulary :—
11 Though nothing can contrast more strongly with
the expansive and liberal spirit of primitive Christianity
than the repulsive tone of this exclusive theology, yet
this remarkable phasis of Christianity seems to have
been necessary, and not without advantage to the
permanence of the religion. With the civilisation of
mankind Christianity was about to pass through the
ordeal of those dark ages which followed the irruption
of the barbarians. During this period Christianity was
to subsist as the conservative principle of social order
and the sacred charities of life . . . But in order to
preserve its own existence, it assumed of necessity
another form. It must have a splendid and imposing
�6
The Athanasian Creed.
ritual to command the barbarous minds of its new
proselytes ... It must likewise have brief and definite
formularies of doctrine. As the original languages,
and even the Latin, fell into disuse, and before the
modern languages of Europe were sufficiently formed to
admit of translations, the sacred writings receded from
general use ; they became the depositaries of Christian
doctrine totally inaccessible to the laity, and almost as
much so the lower clergy. Creeds therefore became of
essential importance to compress the leading points of
Christian doctrine into a small compass. And as the
barbarous and ignorant mind cannot endure the vague
and the indefinite, so it was essential that the main
points of doctrine should be fixed and cast into plain
and emphatic propositions. The theological language
was finally established before the violent breaking up
of society ; and no more was required of the barbarian
convert than to accept with unenquiring submission
the established formulary of the faith, and gaze in awe
struck veneration at the solemn ceremonial.”
From this it would appear that the reasons which
necessitated the first use of creeds being no longer in
existence, and a totally opposite condition of matters
prevailing, the creeds of the Church of England Prayer
Book should long since have been withdrawn from
use, and have been preserved simply as curious memen
toes of the past. At all events it is fitting that their
compulsory recitation should at once cease.
We now have the Scriptures translated into every
known tongue, both barbaric and civilised, we have
societies for their dissemination, so that Bibles are now
found in the home of every poor man and in the hands
of every child, while the machinery of tracts and Sunday
schools has of late been in ceaseless and ubiquitous
operation. Moreover, the great fundamental ideas and
doctrines of religion find adequate expression in the
legitimate acts of public worship, in the hymns and
prayers alike of petition and of praise, so that, as a
�The Athanasian Creed.
7
rule, these utterances suffice in the nonconformist
churches to keep the foundation principles of religion
well in sight without the repetition of creeds at all.
True, these principles find an expression tinged with
vagueness and variety. But with the growth of
intelligence this vagueness and variety are necessary in
order to comprehend the varied forms of thought to
which intelligence ever gives rise. Hence the creeds
that have done such signal service for rude and ignorant
ages are anachronisms in an age in which people have
intelligence and schools abound.
Of the three creeds of the Church of England Prayer
Book that attributed to Athanasius, and generally
known by his name, has long lost all power of useful
service, and exists only as a source of bigotry, dis
sension and strife. Many of the best and purest minds
leave the Church of England, and turn their backs
upon her services, because it does violence to their con
sciences to participate in worship which the insoluble
enigmas and the cruel denunciations of this creed deface.
It is the proud but hardly correct boast of the best
minds among the English clergy, that of all churches,
the Church of England is most tolerant and compre
hensive. But this is said by men who have so long
accustomed themselves to regard this creed as an
antiquated and obsolete formulary that they have
grown oblivious of its existence, and of the fact of the
weighty sanction that still invests the lightest of its
utterances as they periodically fall on the ears, or are
spoken by the voices of the English people. As the
strength of a chain is measured by its weakest link, so
the tolerance and comprehensiveness of a church is
tested by the narrowest and most exclusive of its
dogmas. And so tested, the Church of England
becomes a narrow and an intolerant church, and must
of necessity continue so to be while this creed is made
to represent its most solemn confession of faith. The
occasional use of this creed, (it being recited only at
�The Athanasian Creed.
about half a dozen Sunday services throughout the
year), points a strong argument, either for its optional
use on these occasions, or rather for its total disuse.
If, say for nine services out of ten, this creed can be
omitted and not missed, the element of worship which
its use supplies can scarcely be of sufficient importance
to warrant its continuance as a stone of stumbling and
a rock of offence to the thousands to whom it represents
a faith alien to the spirit and teachings of Jesus and
wholly unwarranted by the authority of Scripture.
It should suffice for a church that its members were
in general agreement as to certain great principles or
aims, and that consequently, in their several ways,
they were disposed to work heartily in sympathy with,
or in support of, these. The attempt to define the
forms of religious thought with too great exactitude,
turns that which should be a bond of harmony and
union into a source of discord and division. This is
the fatal error of the Athanasian Formulary. It may
command a blind allegiance, but in a thoughtful and
enlightened age it never can win an intelligent and
unanimous belief.
An objection of some considerate force lies against
the authoritative use in public worship even of the
Apostles’ and the Nicene creeds, seeing that the truths
which these contain would Eve and be reverenced
apart from the expression which they here find. And
surely, if held and reverenced for their own intrinsic
worth, these truths would rest on the firmest basis.
*
* “ It was observed of the oracle of Delphi that, during all the ages
when the oracle commanded the real reverence of Greece, the place
in which it was enshrined needed no walls for its defence. The
awful grandeur of its natural situation, the majesty of its Temple,
were sufficient. Its fortifications, as useless as they were un
seemly, were built only in that disastrous time when the ancient
feeling of faith had decayed, and the oracle was forced to rely on
its arm of flesh, on its bulwarks of brick and stone, not on its own
intrinsic sanctity. May God avert this omen from us ! ”—Letter
of Dean Stanley, when Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History,
to the Bishop of London on the state of Subscription in the
Church of England.
�The Athanasian Creed.
9
An especial objection, however, lies for several reasons
against the Athanasian Creed. Its assertions are not
only open to grave doubt, but are so worded as to be
suggestive of this doubt, while, as though its compilers
were conscious of its untenable assumptions, they have
thought fit to seek to enforce them by the most awful
threats that the human mind could conceive, or human
lips could utter.
That in which the Athanasian differs from the
Apostles’ and the Nicene creeds consists in the
elaborate definitions which it puts forth as to the con
stitution of the Divine Nature, and the anathema it
hurls against those who either will not or cannot
accept its statements. Now it has been said in praise
of Christianity that, as a religion, it won the willing
allegiance of its votaries and made its conquests by love
while Mahomedanism adopted the opposite principle
of compulsion and violence, and made many of its
conversions at the sword’s point. But surely a church
which adopts the Athanasian Creed as its central sym
bol of Faith cannot be said to work by love. For the
awful threat of everlasting perdition which this Creed
denounces against all who decline to accept its dogmas
is, by the mass of mankind who are weak enough to be
impressed by it, far more to be dreaded than even
temporal death. The latter portions of the Athanasian
Creed deal with doctrinal questions that find expression
also in the Nicene and Apostles’ symbols.
These
matters are understood in different senses by the varied
schools of ‘ High,’ ‘ Low,’ and ‘ Broad ’ Church. The
earlier portions of the Creed, however, deal with spec
ulations concerning the Divine Nature which are not
only most difficult of comprehension, but which, to the
few minds that should attempt this task, would open a
field for abstruse and interminable discussion. To
demand a belief in this creed is thus virtually to
demand from the members of the Church of England
an assertion of knowledge of that which is unknow
�IO
The Athanasian Creed.
able ! Men may thoughtlessly make this confession,
but they cannot afterwards comply with the Apostolic
injunction of ‘ giving to him that asketh a reason of
the hope that is in them,’ and on the same ground
that they have accepted the statements of this creed,
they may, in all logical consistency, accept the Romish
Sacrament of the Mass. Of late years this further step
has been repeatedly taken.
The Extra Scriptural Character of the Athanasian
Creed.
In the Church of England the Holy Scriptures are
made the ultimate test of Eaith. 1 So that whatsoever
is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not
to be required of any man that it should be believed as
an article of Eaith.’—6th Article of Church of England
Prayer Booh. In the 8th article, which ordains the
use and belief of the three creeds, it is asserted ‘ that
they may be proved by most certain warrants of
scripture.’ The proof, however, is not given, and men
are thrown back upon their own efforts to find it.
Apologists have not been wanting who have endeavoured
to set forth such scripture proof as they could find, but
this has ever been miserably insufficient, and passage
after passage of the sacred writings has been wrested
from its proper meaning in order to furnish it. The
doctrine of the Trinity, which this creed aims to
establish, was only formulated as an article of religious
faith some centuries after the New Testament was
penned. It was for the express purpose of supplying
this want of Biblical authority, and providing at least
one scripture sanction for the doctrine of the Trinity,
that the celebrated verse of the three witnesses was
interpolated in the 1st Epistle of John. But the fraud
has been detected, and valuable as its evidence could
have been made to appear on behalf of the threefold
being of God, even the committee of Revisionists have,
�The Athanasian Creed.
11
it is currently reported, made full surrender of it, and
with its absence, the doctrine of the Trinity rests
entirely upon the foundation of church authority, and
loses all clear, and definite, and undoubted scripture
proof. This is freely admitted by some of the leaders
of thought among the church clergy, especially those
of the High or Sacramental school. Dr Irons in his
little book, 1 The Bible and its Interpreters,’ has the
following observations :—
11 Let any one look at the Scripture proofs alleged
for the trinity. The expression, ‘ three persons in
one God,’ appears not in Scripture. The text con
cerning ‘ three that bear record in heaven,’ has been
much doubted; and no one could rest proof of the
trinity on a suspected verse not found in ancient
manuscripts. It becomes then a necessary work of
labour to bring together the texts which appear, on the
whole, to suggest the threefold nature of the Godhead.
During this examination, there arise texts of a contrary
kind, at least in appearance; e.g., ‘No man knoweth
of that Day,’—(words of Christ himself speaking of
the day of Judgment,) ‘ no, not the Son, but only the
father.’ Upon this, the Arian has asked, Is the son
equal to the father ? ’ Again, if, strictly, he and the
father ‘ are one’ where is the sonship ? if in some
sense ‘the father is greater than the son,’ where is
the Unity and Equality ? Of course there are orthodox
explanations of such texts. The Oneness is in the
Divinity or ‘Substance,’ the distinction lies in the
‘Persons;’ and so on. But these are not Bible ex
planations. ... We have no doubt whatever that the
church’s doctrine of the trinity is the Doctrine of
Holy Scripture, but we say that the church alone
proves it to be there. Look solemnly at the New
Testament, and see whether you might not, if you
went purely by your own judgment, arrive at a
different doctrine of the trinity from ours ? ”
This is a candid admission of the large room there
�12
The Athanasian Creed.
is for a different view to be taken of this abstruse
subject than that set forth in the Athanasian creed.
If the creed be so obscurely expressed in the Scriptures,
which alone are recognised as the fount and sanction
of religious truth, that the uninstructed Z/zy-mind
cannot find it there, surely the-church goes a long way
too far when it finds not only the items of the creed
to be therein stated, but also the threat of everlasting
perdition against all who will not accept them. The
truth is that the Athanasian creed is, to a large extent,
extra scriptural; is the product of thought-currents
which arose outside the pale of Biblical literature, and
which, in their course and progress, have only imparted
to it a slight and adventitious tinge.
Origin
of the
Creed.
This it is easy to trace to the efforts of the KeoPlatonic schools of Alexandria to find some precise
and satisfactory definition of the nature and being of
God. The Religious Systems of the Eastern world were
in Plato’s era dominated by conceptions of the purely
spiritual nature of God that were altogether foreign
and unacceptable to the tone of Western thought.
Here God was personified, conceived of and worshipped
as though he bore a human form, while in the East,
the more imaginative order of mind that there pre
vailed, regarding all forms of matter as being inherently
and essentially vile, fashioned speculations as to the
immaterial nature of God. This pure Being, they
held, could not come into contact with matter, even
for the purpose of creating and forming the world, so
this, they thought, had to be done by a secondary and
inferior God. Out of the essence of the Pure Spirit,
therefore, they conceived of emanations being evolved
termed ‘ JEons/ and from these sprung other and still
inferior beings, till at length evil spirits were produced.
One of the chief of these 2Eons, proceeding immediately
�The Athanasian Creed.
13
from the Divine essence, viz., the ‘first-born’ or ‘only
begotten’ of God, was the embodiment, or, in the
earlier stages of the conception, the personification of
Divine Wisdom, the ‘Logos,’ ‘ Word,’ or Deason of the
divine mind. This Being, it was held, made the
world, and was the actual Creator, and thus stood
midway, as it were, between its vileness and the divine
purity. Such was the position occupied by Mithras
in the Persian religion; by the ‘Logos’ in Plato’s
philosophy; by ‘Memra’ or ‘Wisdom’ among the
Jews, and the impress of this thought is plainly to be
discerned in the commencing verses of the Fourth
Gospel, and in the formularies of the Athanasian creed.
The difficulty was how to conceive of God without
degrading Him by our imperfect conceptions. In the
Eastern religions, the idea of a pure and pervading
spirit practically sublimated the idea of God into airy
nothingness. Such a Deity was practically inconceiv
able by the human mind, and unapproachable by the
thought of human worship. An unknowable God came
very near to an actual negation of God, and Pantheism
was scarcely to be distinguished from Atheism. On
the other hand, the anthropomorphic ideas of the
early Jews, were scarcely less degrading and idolatrous
than the idol worship of Egypt, and Greece and Pome,
and the problem to be considered, was how to find
some intermediate conception of Deity, which should
avoid extreme vagueness on the one hand, and gross
crudeness on the other.
Aboutfour hundred years before the Christian Era Plato
grappled with this difficulty, and attempted to frame an
intelligent conception of Deity. “ It is difficult,” he says,
in his dialogue the Timaeus, “to discover God, and when
found it is impossible to make him known to the
vulgar,” so he set forth his conception that the Godhead
was of threefold character, or presented three aspects to
our thought, viz., the Father or the Good One(nATHP
or ArA0O2): the Wisdom or Word or Worldmaking
�14
The Athanasian Creed.
God, (the Aoros, or AHMIOYPros); and the spirit
or soul of the world (YYXH rou KO2MOY), concep
tions which, developing through centuries of speculative
thought, became eventually embodied in the scholastic
theology of the third and fourth centuries of our era as the
Father, Son and Holy Ghost of the Christian Trinity.
It would be far too foreign to our present under
taking to trace these conceptions through the neo
platonic schools of Alexandria, thence into the Hebrew
Apocrypha and even into the Hebrew Canon, and so
*
into the realm of Jewish thought. Suffice it to say that,
under the influence of this philosophy, the Jews, in
the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era,
gave up their old ideas of Jehovah as a being in human
form, who walked in the garden with Adam, and
visited Noah, and dined with Abraham, and conversed
with Moses, and they said now, that it was ‘the
Memra or Angel, or Messenger or personified wisdom
of God that did this ; and just before the Christian era,
a learned Jew, Philo of Alexandria, wrote copious
commentaries on the Hebrew scriptures, explaining all
the divine manifestations there recorded by the aid of
Plato’s ‘Logos,’ or intermediate, or secondary God.
This bent of Philo’s thought is well shewn in the
following extracts from one of his treatises, ‘ De Confusione Linguarum,’ or the Confusion of Languages,
* See as an illustration of this the 8th chapter of the Book of
Proverbs (written about the era B.C. 250) where wisdom is thus
spoken of as a Divine personality having only a confused identity
with God.
‘ I Wisdom dwell with prudence and find out knowledge of witty
inventions. Counsel is mine and sound wisdom. I love them
that love me, and they that seek me early shall find me. Jehovah
possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old.
I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning or ever the earth
was. When He prepared the Heavens I was there, when he set a
compass upon the face of the deep, there was I by Him as one
brought up with Him, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always
before Him.
‘ Whoso findeth me findeth life and shall obtain the favour o
Jehovah.’
�The Athanasian Creed.
15
stated to have occurred among the builders of the
Tower of Babel.
“ The statement,” he says, “ The Lord went down to
see that city and that tower, must be listened to
altogether as if spoken in a figurative sense, for to think
that the Divinity can go towards, or go from, or go
down, or go to meet, is an impiety, ... all places
are filled at once by God, to whom alone it is
possible to be everywhere and also nowhere. Nowhere,
because He himself created place and space . . . The
‘ Divine,’ being both invisible and incomprehensible, is
indeed everywhere, but still in truth is nowhere visible
or comprehensible.” {Bohn's Edition, Vol. II., p. 29).
According to Plato the ‘Logos,’ or secondary God,
shared the moral nature as well as partook of the
physical attributes of Deity. In a passage of his
‘ Epinomis ’ he says “ The Logos or Word, divine above
all other Beings, fashioned and rendered the heavenly
bodies conspicuous in their various revolutions. This
being, a happy man will principally reverence, while
he may be stimulated by the desire of learning what
ever is within the compass of human understanding;
being convinced that he will thus enjoy the greatest
felicity in this life, and that after death he will
be translated into regions that are congenial to
virtue.”
Philo is evidently imbued with the same idea, and as
in his age a high estimate was cherished of the moral
nature of God, so this character is also imparted by him
to his conception of the ‘ Logos,’ or personified wisdom
of God. In the treatise above alluded to Philo says,
that “they who have real knowledge of God are
properly called ‘ sons of God,’ and that elsewhere
Moses so entitles them; ” and then he adds;—
“ Accordingly it is natural for those who have this
(virtuous) disposition of soul to look upon nothing as
beautiful except what is good.................. And even if
there be not as yet any one who is worthy to be called
�16
The Athanasian Creed.
a son of God, nevertheless let him labour earnestly to
be adorned according to His first-born Word (Logos),
the eldest of His angels, as the great archangel of many
names ; for He is called ‘ the authority ’ and ‘ the
name . of God, and ‘the Word/ (Logos) and ‘man
according to God’s image’ and ‘He who sees Israel.’
For even if we are not yet suitable to be called the
‘ sons of God/ still we may deserve to be called the
children of His eternal image, of His most sacred Word
(Logos,) for the image of God is His most sacred Word.”
(Bohris Edition of Philo, Vol. II., p. 31).
Such were the prevailing thought-currents of Jewish
teaching just antecedent to the Christian era. Paul,
we know, was early instructed in the wisdom of the
Jewish schools, learning it at the feet of Eabbi
Gamaliel, the grandson of the celebrated Hillel, who
was the friend and relation of Philo. Dr Heim in his
‘Jesus of Hazara/ tells us, “ that the teachings of both
Hillel and Gamaliel were tinged with Philonism ; and
that from this time forward, every material image of
God in the Old Testament, such as the mention of
His countenance, His mouth, His eye, His hand, &c.,
were carefully converted into conceptions of the divine
glory, of the indwelling presence of the Logos or Word
of God.”
As the Jewish conception of the Messiah became
more. spiritualised in its character, so it became
associated with this conception of the Logos or Divine
Word. The mind of Jesus was devotional rather than
metaphysical, practical, not speculative. These recon
dite controversies and theories exercised but small
influence upon his teaching, and possibly he knew but
little of their existence. It was very different with
Paul, whose education was steeped in Jewish tradition.
He never knew Jesus in the flesh, but he accepted
him as the spiritual Messiah, as being one with the
Logos or Divine Word. Hence the phraseology which
Philo so largely applied to the Logos, Paul applies to
�TJoe Nthanasian Creed.
Christ calls him ‘ the image of the invisible God,’
4 the first-born of every creature/ says that 4 all things
exist by him.’ 4 The Apostle Paul/ says Dr Keim, 4 a
disciple of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, was essentially
imbued with Alexandrine ideas, which he has evidently
transferred to the heart of Christianity in his teaching
concerning Christ.’ {Jesus of Nazara, Col. I. pp. 292,
293—translation').
In the commencement of the Fourth Gospel, we
have these ideas carried a step further. There we read
that 44 the Word (4 Logos’) was in the beginning, was
with God, and was God,” 44 that the world was made by
him,” and finally, that 44 the 4 Logos’ or Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as
of the only begotten of the Father.” From this period
there commenced a controversy in the Christian Church
respecting the relation in which Jesus stood to God, or
in other words, the position which the Son held with
regard to the Father, whether he was the equal, or
in any sense the inferior. In the fourth century this
controversy blazed with fierce bitterness, and interested
all classes of society. Arius championed the subordin
ate character of the Son, and Athanasius, a rival Bishop,
asserted his full equality with the Father, as a proper
part of the Godhead. The result was that a council
of bishops was convened at Nicsea in Bithynia, at
which the Emperor Constantine presided, and Athan
asius assisted as secretary, when, after a fierce, and
stormy, and protracted disputation, the Athanasian
party triumphed, and the Nicene creed, asserting the
co-equality of the Son with the Father, was compiled.
Here, too, the Holy Ghost was invested with a distinct
personality, and the doctrine of the Trinity fully
*
formulated.
Not till three centuries after this period
was the creed, that in the Book of Common Prayer is
* For the fuller elucidation of this subject,_ see a Pamphlet
by the present writer published in Mr Scott’s series, “Plato, Philo,
and Paul.”
B
�The Athanasian Creed.
ascribed to Athanasius, known to the church, and it
was then introduced in a Latin form: Athanasius
having been a Greek bishop speaking and writing in
that tongue! In the Athanasian creed, however, the
doctrines of the Deity of Christ, and of the triune
character of the Godhead, are asserted with such
emphatic and minute delineation, that few thoughtful
men, who know the fierce, and violent, and abstruse
controversies out of which these formularies sprung,
can now accept them as full, and complete, and un
doubted statements of eternal fact, much less are they
prepared to breathe the terrible malediction which this
creed calls upon them to pronounce against all who
refuse to accept its statements.
Gibbon, in reviewing the history of the times, just
prior to the Nicene council, when these controversies
with regard to the constituents of the Godhead were so
prevalent, states that “ the most sagacious of Christian
theologians, the great Athanasius himself, has candidly
confessed that, whenever he forced his understanding
to meditate on the divinity of the Logos, his toilsome
and unavailing efforts recoiled on themselves ; that the
more he thought, the less he apprehended; and the
more he wrote, the less capable was he of expressing
his thoughts.” This uncertainty, however, did not hinder
Athanasius and his party from dogmatically assert
ing their views and assuming for themselves a virtual
infallibility by persecuting all opponents in this world,
and condemning them to eternal perdition in the next!
Perplexed as were many of the advocates of the
Athanasian dogmas as to the correctness of their own
formularies, there were many who could not in any
sense receive them, and those who did receive them,
understood them in such various senses, that little or
no uniformity of opinion prevailed. Hilary, Bishop of
Poitiers, who lived at this period and wrote twelve
books in defence of the Trinity, writes as follows :—
11 It is a thing equally deplorable and dangerous, that
�The Athanasian Creed.
19
there are as many creeds as opinions among men, as
many doctrines as inclinations, and as many sources of
blasphemy, as there are faults among us, because we make
creeds arbitrarily, and explain them as arbitrarily.
The partial or total resemblance of the Father and of
the Son, is a subject of dispute for these unhappy times,
Every year, nay every moon, we make new creeds to
describe invisible mysteries. We repent of what we
have done, we defend those who repent, we anathe
matize those whom we defended. We condemn either
the doctrines of others in ourselves, or our own in that,
of others : and reciprocally tearing one another to
pieces we have been the cause of each other’s ruin.”
(Jlilariusad Constantinum, quoted by Gibbon, ch. 21.)
*
It is impossible in the limited space of a pamphlet,
to give more than the faintest indications of the abstruse
speculations, the confused thought, and the fierce
dogmatic strife out of which the formularies of the
Athanasian creed were evolved. As the creed of the
dark ages, it served possibly the useful purpose of
quieting a strife of thought that was trampling real
piety underfoot, and ended a controversy for which the
intelligence of the age was wholly unfitted, and which
had already gone very far into the realm of wild and
heated imagination. Through the long centuries in
which the asserted infahibility of the Church of Eome
kept the thoughts of men dormant, these fossilized
results of the early speculative controversies were com
paratively innocuous. But these were times of ignor
ance and spiritual serfdom, and to-day we live in an
age of intelligence, and of asserted spiritual freedom.
Christ’s religion has to-day reached to a richer fulness
of growth, and worship, to be acceptable to God or
* A namesake of Hilary’s who lived in the succeeding century,
has been credited by Dr. Waterland, with the authorship of the
Athanasian creed. This, however, is more generally ascribed to
Vigilius of Tapsus, who lived half-a-century later. Its first
appearance, however, is in the Services of the Gallican church, at
the close of the seventh century.
�20
The Athanasian Creed.
useful to man, must be offered 1 in spirit and in truth ! ’
The creed we repeat to-day should represent the highest
attainable truth, and the worshipper’s deepest and most
assured convictions. If it does not do this, it is an
empty mockery, and if it neither represents the con
victions of the worshipper, nor the truth of God, its
utterance becomes a blasphemy. Fallible men may
fall into sincere errors, but it is needless wilfulness on
their part to assert the tremendous judgments of heaven
against all who refuse to endorse them. To those who
know the origin and history of the speculative proposi
tions of the Athanasian creed, its acceptance as a
summary of revealed truth becomes increasingly difficult,
while those who have no knowledge here, and who are
simply bewildered by the ponderous perplexities of its
statements, and wonder how, if God did not reveal
them, man could have ever come to imagine them;
even these who might be willing to constrain them
selves to a formal acceptance of the creed as a state
ment of Divine incomprehensibilities on which they
were unable to fashion any opinion of their own,
would yet, if they exercised any thought at all, shrink
from endorsing those damnatory clauses that consigned
unbelievers in these incomprehensibilities, to an eternal
and hopeless doom.
The tendency, however, of the compulsory and
habitual use in public worship of complex and abstruse
formularies on questions concerning which it is im
possible for the human mind to frame any intelligent
convictions; for which implicit belief is demanded,
and from which thoughtful criticism is warned, is to
render such worship formal and insincere. The mind
which, by habit and custom, is deadened to the deform
ities that mark its utterances, is also deadened and
unimpressed by the beauties and the truths which this
worship also speaks. The ear which is attuned to
enjoy the grand harmonies of music, cannot endure to
listen to notes of jarring discord, is inexpressibly
pained by these ; so the eye trained to appreciate forms
�The Athanasian Creed.
2I
of beauty, cannot look with complacency upon the dis
tortions of ugliness, is inexpressibly pained by false
principles of art; and the taste is only healthy when
it is thus sensitive. So worship that can tolerate the
recitation of the Athanasian creed has lost all the
healthy and living spirit which true worship should
possess. It is a poor apology to say that the worship
pers in our churches are often better than the creeds
which they repeat, for it is true only in a very limited
sense. The damnatory clauses of the Athanasian creed
are cruel and ferocious, while the people who repeat
them, are kind and gentle; would not willingly harm
a brute beast, much less utter sentence of eternal
damnation against an immortal soul! But in another
and a more important sense, these people are much
worse than the creed which they repeat. This creed
at least has the virtue of being open and honest, of
meaning what it says ; but the people who glibly pro
fess a belief in it which they do not at heart feel, and
which they never think of realising to their thought,
are not open and honest, but are mean, and pitiful, and
insincere. These men are not better but worse, much
worse than their creed, and they receive to themselves
greater damnation than that which they denounce
upon others. Worship of which antiquated and tradi
tional creeds are made to form an essential part, soon
becomes mere formal worship, and those who habitu
ally take part in services of this kind, increasingly lose
the faculty of real and true worship, and words of
hope, and assurance, and penitence, and trust, fall as
thoughtlessly from their lips, as do the denunciations
which they heedlessly utter. They say, “The Lord
is my Shepherd, I shall not want,” but in their hearts
they do not feel the beautiful trust this language ex
presses, for they do not mean this either; they are
unmindful of what it is they do say, their heart is not
in their words, so their worship brings no strength, and
imparts no blessing. Such are the dangers consequent
upon giving a thoughtless credence to the Athanasian
�22
The Athanasian Creed.
Creed, and of uttering, as meaningless sounds, the
terrible denunciations which it breathes. Well would
it be if, ere they consented to do this, men would ponder
on the truly Christian spirit which breathes in Pope’s
1 Universal Prayer/
“ Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume Thy bolts to throw,
Or deal damnation round the land
On each, I judge Thy foe.”
Again this theological condemnation which marks
the public worship of the church of England sets un
consciously a very evil example. The profane language
of the streets, the swearing and cursing that there so
often offend our ears, and that constitute the customary
language of the drunken and dissipated, are indirectly
learned and imitated from the public cursing of our
churches, and while the evil habit is fostered by the
church, it will be almost impossible to eradicate it from
the masses of the people. Church cursing was the
origin of street swearing, and the terrible and offensive
adjectives with which some classes of society disfigure
their common talk, are merely theological phrases translated into the vulgar tongue. Disguise it as you may in
the conventional language of the church, if there be any
meaning to be attached to the threat of everlasting perdi
tion the common mind will come to see that it breathes
the reverse of a loving spirit, and that it is rather the
embodiment of the most cruel and malignant hatred.
Scarcely less edifying is the attempt which some
clergymen make to explain this creed in a non-natural
sense, and to make it imply the reverse of what it
plainly says. Such explanations carry dishonesty and
insincerity on their very face. And the public see
and feel this, so that the moral sanctions of society are
weakened, and truthfulness and sincerity are seen tobe least regarded in the place where, of all others, they
should be most highly reverenced.
“Some of our ablest men,” says Sir John Duke
Coleridge, late Solicitor-General, “ are relinquishing
�The Athanasian Creed.
23
their orders, finding the burden which our documents
impose on the conscience, too great to be borne: manymore, as our bishops tell us, will not undertake them.
Many sign these documents, and, at least outwardly
in some sense or other, profess to hold them, whose
real agreement with them must be of the vaguest kind,
and whose whole position is inconsistent with a
delicate sensibility to the claims of simple truth, and a
considerable scandal to those who have such sensibility,
I do not much wonder that a distinguished man told a
public meeting the other day, that he believed our
public morality and our national sense of truth and
honour, had suffered seriously from our system of im
posing religious tests to an extent which rendered
evasion of them practically necessary.” (From a Paper
on “ The Freedom of Opinion necessary in an Established
Church in a Free Country.” Macmillan's Magazine,
March 1870.)
The Church of a country should be beyond the barest
suspicion of insincerity or falsehood. The Church of
England however by the maintenance of the Athan
asian Creed in her public services, or as the pillar and
ground of her faith, is placed on the horns of a most
awkward dilemma. Either her ministers believe this
creed, and, so doing, profess and teach a religion
which does rude violence to any conception of
Christianity which would entitle it to be regarded as
the Gospel of a God of love;—or they do not believe
it in its plain natural sense, in which case they set a
sad example of insincerity to the nation.
Well might Archbishop Tillotson say of this creed
that “ he wished the Church were well rid of it.” And
since his day many of the highest minds among the
clergy have either tacitly or openly endorsed his desire.
The first use which the newly emancipated Irish Church
has made of the partial freedom with which she has
found herself invested has been to successfully protest
against the continued use of the damnatory clauses,
�24
The Athanasian Creed.
and the welfare and stability of the Church of England
is largely dependent on her speedily following so
excellent an example.
It would be very easy to quote a large number of
clerical protests against the assumption of infallibility
which this creed asserts, as well as against the specu
lative propositions it contains. In a speech in the
House of Lords on subscription, a late Bishop of
Norwich, Dr Stanley, spoke as follows, “Let me ask,
deliberately and solemnly, whether there is a single
clergyman living who believes that every individual
not keeping whole and undefiled the Catholic faith as
it is minutely defined and analysed in the Athanasian
Creed, ‘without doubt shall perish everlastingly’”?
and after pointing out the hundreds of millions of
human beings whom the anathema of this creed includes
and condemns, he adds “ I repeat solemnly that I
never met with a single clergyman who believed this
in the literal sense of the words, and for the honour of
human nature and Christianity, I trust that not one lives
in our enlightened age who would deliberately avow
that such was his belief!!
We have seen that this creed, so far as its intricate
speculations on the Divine Personality are concerned,
is extra-scriptural, that its origin lies in the thought
currents of so-called heathen faiths. We have shewn
its gradual growth and have glanced at the fierce con
troversies amid which it was finally, though far from
unanimously, formulated. And by so doing we have
set forth the large and reasonable ground that exists
for questioning and disputing its dogmatic positions.
Never has its represented the universal faith of Christ
endom, never has it won the general assent of the
clergy or laity of the English Church. Erom the days
of Tillotson downwards it has been an increasing rock
of offence, till at length it threatens to make complete
shipwreck of the church. The time has therefore fully
come, if not for its total abandonment at least for the
�The Athanasian Creed.
25
removal of its most obnoxious clauses. It may live as
a curious specimen of antique theology, but no authority
should enforce its recitation, and the removal of its
damnatory assertions would then go far to render it a
harmless as well as an antique formulary. At present
however it keeps the best and truest minds of
the country out of the ministry of the Church
of England, and it drives not a few of the laity into
open revolt against the church’s public services:
while those who do take orders, and bind themselves
to the acceptance of this extravagant formulary, do, by
so doing, taint themselves with insincerity and dis
parage their office in the public sight.
The Houses of Parliament however share largely in
the responsibility, for the creed is used by virtue of
their sanction and authority. It is therefore time for
them to act with promptness and with firmness ; it is
their duty to call upon the Church authorities to
remove this stumbling-block from the path of a true
religious freedom; to memorialise the Queen as the
legal Head of the Church to effect at least this small
measure of Church Reform, by directing the Houses of
Convocation to take this creed into their consideration,
and to make such modifications in the rubric which
relates to its public recitation, as shall effectually
remove the scandal it now constitutes.
The Athanasian Creed is no true or proper repre
sentative of Christianity, the fundamental essence of
which lies not in abstruse speculations regarding the
being and constitution of God, but in living a pure
and godly life; in catching the spirit and obeying the
teachings of Christ. Christianity is not a creed but a
life, not belief but duty. Those who are led by the
Spirit of God are the true sons of God.
“ The Divine life of the Gospels, which is the centre
of almost all modern religious speculations, must be that
by which, in the last resort, Christianity will stand or fall.
Dr Wette, the most honest, critical and keen-sighted
�2'6
The Athanasian Creed.
of commentators, has said, ‘The Historical Person of
Christ is the one unchangeable element in Christianity.’
Dean Milman has said at the close of his masterly
survey of the first fifteen centuries of the church, 1 as itis my confident belief that the words of Christ and His
alone, the primal indefeasible truths of Christianity,
shall not pass away, so I cannot presume to say that
men may not attain to a clearer and at the same time
more full and comprehensive and balanced sense of
those words than has yet been generally received in the
Christian world.” (‘ The Theology of the 19/A Century ’
by Dean Stanley. See Fraser’s Magazine, February
1865.)
“ The words that I speak unto you they are spirit
and they are life.” These, and not the formulated
creeds of churches, which expressing often the heated
fancies of one age do violence to the calmer and clearer
thought of subsequent times,—these are the true founda
tions of the Christian Church, for men of most varied
thought can reach without difficulty to a general agree
ment here. The great moral principles that should
govern and regulate the conduct of human life come as
matters of instinctive perception to all, so that when
these are made the fundamentals of a Christian faith it
becomes an easy matter for ‘ all sorts and conditions of
men,’ ‘ to profess and call themselves Christians,’ and
the doors of the Christian Church are then as widely
open as are the gates of God’s Heaven.
TURNBULL AND SPEAKS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & 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>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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The Athanasian Creed: a plea for its disuse in the public worship of the national church
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Lake, John W.
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Notes: Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by C.W. Reynell, London.
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Thomas Scott
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1875
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Christianity
Conway Tracts
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THE END OE THE EREE-WILL
CONTROVERSY.
BY
HENRY TRAVIS,
M. D.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
1 8 7 5.
Price Ninepence.
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1
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�THE END OE THE EBEE-WILL
CONTROVERSY.
GENERAL REMARKS.
THE difficulty experienced by philosophers in reference to the two opposite ideas which have been
the subjects of the Free-will Controversy, has arisen
from the fact that both are partly true and partly
false, and that the advocates of each idea have imagined
and have endeavoured to prove that their idea is
wholly true, and that the idea which they have
opposed, is wholly false. And this difference of
opinion has arisen from the defective state of mental
science, and from the consequent inability of either
party to trace and explain the mental process, or the
series of mental facts, by which both truths are made
evident—a process inscrutable to those who cannot
trace it, but very obvious to those who are able to do
so. It was by being enabled to trace distinctly the
facts of this mental process, after obtaining correct and
clear ideas respecting them, that the solution of this
great controversy was obtained. While men continued
to think and speak of mental facts in the absurd
manner in which philosophers have hitherto thought
and spoken of them; thinking and speaking of
faculties, and eveD of thoughts and feelings, as entities
and agents; and of mental facts in which there is no
action, as acts, and even, in many cases, as acts of
these imaginary entities, it was utterly impossible that
A
�2
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
they should, trace the mental processes which must be
known before the truths involved in the Free-Will
Controversy can be clearly ascertained, or that they
should understand even the most simple mental opera
tions.
THE TWO OPPOSITE IDEAS.
There is a truth of very great importance in the
idea of Free-will. And there is another truth, of very
great importance, in the idea of Philosophical Necessity.
But in each idea there is an error which is extremely
injurious. And the erroneous part of each idea is the
denial of the truth which is asserted in the other.
There is, therefore, in each idea, an affirmative part
which is true, and a negative part which is erroneous ;
and as long as philosophers contended for or against
the truth of either idea, they were, of course, defeated,
for neither idea could be established or refuted without
refuting a truth. To establish the idea of Free-will,
and to refute the idea of Philosophical Necessity, the
truth asserted in the idea of Philosophical Necessity
must be refuted. And to establish the idea of Philo
sophical Necessity, and to refute the idea of Free-will,
the truth asserted in the idea of Free-will must be
refuted. But no truth can be refuted. And therefore
the advocates and the opponents of each opinion have—
“ Found no end in wand’ring mazes lost.”
And many have imagined that there is no end to
be found, or that the solution of the mystery, if there
be any solution of it, is beyond human comprehension.
And it is so while men do not know the facts of the
subject. But when the facts are known it is found to
be extremely simple. It is merely to put together
the two truths, and by doing so, to put away the two
negations. Each idea has been, as it were, an entangle
ment of threads of white and threads of black. But
to each party in the controversy, its own entanglement
�The Two Truths.
3
has seemed to be entirely white, while that of its
opponents has appeared to be entirely black.
Each party could see error, but neither could see
truth in its opponent’s opinion. And most injurious
effects have been produced, and effects which will be
in the highest degree beneficial, and which have been
earnestly desired, have been prevented and made
impossible, in man’s social feelings and conduct, and
in the formation of his character, and through this
in human affairs generally, by these confused and
erroneous ideas in reference to two most important
truths. But the consideration of this part of the
subject must be deferred until the two truths have
been explained.
THE TWO TRUTHS.
The Eree-will party has imagined that man is him
self the primary cause of his determinations. But he
is not. The necessarian, or, to use the more recently
adopted designation, the “ Determinist ” party, has
imagined that man is not a cause at all of his deter
minations, or, in other words, that he is not an agent
in the forming of them. But he is. He is a cause,
he does act mentally, in the forming of his determina
tions. But he is not the primary cause of them; for
his agency in the forming of them is dependent upon
conditions or causation. These, then, are our two
truths— u
First. That man is an agent in the forming of his
determinations, and that he has a power of self-control.
Second. That his agency in the forming of his
determinations, or in the exercise of his power of self
control, is dependent upon conditions or causation.
But as the second truth includes the first, and as
the first is denied by the necessarians, it is not this
truth, it is the general truth, “ that man is in all
respects dependent upon causation,” which the
necessarians have maintained.
�4
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
THE FACTS OF THE SUBJECT.
To ascertain the facts in which the two truths are
immediately manifested it was necessary to trace the
mental operation by which we form determinations.
And to be able to trace this mental operation it was
necessary to have correct and clear ideas of the
mental facts which occur in it. These truths therefore
could not be clearly known while the ideas of men in
reference to these mental facts were confused and
erroneous. If those who believed that man is an
agent in the forming of his determinations could have
pointed out the manner of his agency in forming them
to those who denied that he is so, if, in other words,
they could have pointed out the facts of the mental
process by which he forms them, they would have
established the true part of their idea. And the other
party would then have had no difficulty in pointing
out that man’s agency in the forming of his determina
tions is dependent upon conditions, by tracing cause and
effect through the successive mental facts which occur
in that process. And thus the two truths would have
been made evident. And then it would not have been
difficultto findthatthey are perfectly consistent with each
other. And instead of the want of knowledge and the
confused and erroneous ideas which have existed upon
this subject, and the highly injurious effects which have
been consequent upon them, men would have had en
lightenment and clear and correct ideas in reference to
these highly important truths, and would have obtained
the highly beneficial effects, in the formation of character
and in human affairs generally, which will result from the
application of these ideas in the regulation of their social
feelings and conduct—effects which they can only vaguely
conceive and cannot appreciate while they retain the
erroneous ideas and the ill-regulated social feelings which
they must have while they do not understand this subject.
Perhaps the simplest way to point out the facts by
�Preliminary Statement.
5
which the truth that man is an agent in the forming
of his determinations is demonstrated, will be to
describe the process by which definite and correct
ideas of these facts were obtained.
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT.
I was converted while a young man from the com
mon belief in the idea of free will to belief in the
idea of philosophical necessity—to the belief that man’s
determinations are the effects of causes, and that he is
not an agent in the forming of them, that they are
always produced by the strongest motive, and that our
motives and their relative strength are produced by
internal and external conditions ; by our character (our
ideas and habits of feeling) and our constitutional
state, internal conditions ; and by the persons and
things by whom and by which we are influenced at the
time of their formation, external conditions. I was
enabled to see that the idea that man is the primary
cause of his determinations is opposed to the idea of
the government of all things by Supreme Power and
according to unchanging Laws, or to the fact or truth that
there is always a Cause for whatever occurs. For to
be the cause of our determinations is to be a personal
agent in the forming of them ; and we cannot be agents,
in any way, independently of Causation or Law. But,
having no distinct knowledge of any such agency, I
was led to think that the fact that man’s determinations
are always in agreement with the strongest motive, is
proof that he is not an agent in the forming of them ;
believing, as stated above, that our motives and their
relative strength are dependent upon internal and exter
nal conditions, and not upon any agency of ours in form
ing them. And the denial of man’s agency in the form
ing of his determinations seemed to me to be involved in
the assertion of their dependence upon causes. If the
facts of the subject could then have been pointed out I
�6
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
should have seen the error of these ideas, and should not
have remained for more than twenty years in ignorance of
a truth which man must know before he can be
enlightened upon subjects of the highest importance,
and instead of being caused to endeavour to lead others
into the same error, I should have endeavoured to
make known the truth.
And the thought and
perseverance which have been required to arrive at
the knowledge of this subject would have been given
to the advancement of the beneficial results to which
this knowledge will lead. But all has been Cause and
Effect. And a great result has been obtained. And
the good work may now be carried on which could not
advance until this preparation for it had been made.
I held this opinion, as stated, for more than twenty
years, and frequently advocated it in speaking and in
writing. But although I never met with any one who
could disprove it, either in conversation or in print,
I often felt disappointed by finding myself unsuccessful
in my endeavours to convince others of the truth of
it. It was said by believers in the free-will idea, that
they were conscious of a “ nisus,” or effort, that is, of
mental action, or agency, in the forming of their
determinations.
But I could never obtain any
explanation of this mental action. And I could not
convince my opponents that nothing of the kind
occurs. At length I began to examine what it could
be which caused them to have this idea of nisus or
effort in the forming of their determinations.
THE WILL-TO-ACT.
I first asked myself: “ What do we do when we
will ? ”
But I found, by observing what occurs
mentally when we will, that to will is not to do a
mental act, but it is to have a will to do an act. We have
a will to do an act; and what we do is the act which
we have a will to do. The will-to-act is the immediate
�The Will-to-Act.
7
mental antecedent of the act. It is an error, therefore,
to imagine that a determination, or a will-to-act, is a
mental act, or as it is commonly called, an “ Act of
Will.” These are facts, ascertained by observing our
mental experiences.
2. I next asked myself, “ What is this mental fact,
this will-to-act ? ” I found by observing, again, what
occurs within us when we have a will, that to have a
will to do an act we must have an idea of the act.
But I found that an idea of an act is not a will to do it.
We may think of an act without having a will to do
it. Still the thought is there. But in the will-to-act
we must have something more. What is this ? It
must be emotion. As when, for instance, we have a
wish, we must have an idea of that which we
desire combined with the emotion of desire; so when
we have a will to do an act, we have an idea of the act
combined with the emotional part of the will-to-act.
And as a will to do an act is a decisive impulse to do it
— an impulse which is immediately followed by the act—
we may call this emotion “ impulsive/’ A will to do
an act, then, is composed of an idea of the act combined
with impulsive emotion, and with sufficient of this
emotion to be decisive. These, again, are facts. And
they had not previously been pointed out—so far as my
knowledge of writings upon the subject extends. And
they could not be pointed out by any one who
imagined that a will-to-act is a mental act.
I substitute the words to “ determine,” and a “ deter
mination,” for to “ will,” and a “ will-to-act,” because to
“ determine ” is to do a complex mental act, to form a
determination; and to “ will ” is to have a will-to-act
—a complex mental affection; and in order to mark
this distinction, and to avoid the erroneous use of the
verb “ to will ” in the active sense. But a will-to-act
in the strict sense of the term—a decisive impulse to
do an act—is immediately followed by the contemplated
act; and a determination has reference to a con
templated act to be done at a future time—it is a
�8
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
decision or resolution to do an act when the time for
having the decisive impulse arrives. I say, a “ will-toact, ’ instead of a “ will,” to mark the distinction
between the mental fact—a will-to-act—and the
mental faculty, a power of will; that is, a power to
form a will-to-act; an important distinction, which is
frequently overlooked, or not marked, when the same
word is used in both senses.
To understand this
subject, and to convey our ideas correctly to others, it
is necessary (1) to have correct ideas, and (2) to express
them with precision. While the ideas of men in
reference to “ the will,” have been confused and
erroneous, the terms which they have employed to
express them have necessarily been the same.
man’s agency in the forming of his will-to-/ct.
3. So far I had not found any mental action—for we
do not do our thoughts or our emotions. Where, then,
is mental action to be found? Do we act mentally
when we attend, observe, consider, reason, &c. ?
Evidently we do. But how do we act, or what do we
do mentally, when we attend, for instance ? When we
attend to. an idea we must have the idea. And in
attending to it we must do something. What is it that
we do ? We keep up the idea. As to look at an outward
object is to have a perception of sight and to keep it
up, so to attend to an idea is to have this idea and
to keep it up. This is evident when we observe what
occurs within us when we attend to an idea. What
psychologists have called the “ act of attention,” there
fore, is not purely a mental act. It is an active mental
operation, composed of mental affections and mental
acts. This is another fact, not described, so far as my
knowledge extends, by any writer on mental science.
4. But how does this apply to the forming of the
will-to-act ? When we have two opposing motives, say
a motive of inclination and a motive of duty or pru
dence, and when, after some hesitation, the motive of
�Man’s Agency in the Forming of his Will-to-Act. 9
duty prevails, and a will to act in accordance with this
motive is formed, have we been entirely passive during
the period of hesitation—has the predominance of the
good motive heen produced “without any effort of ours,”
or “for us, and not by us”? Or has it been produced
by means of mental action ? And, if it has been pro
duced by means of mental action, how has it been so
produced ? That we may be able to trace the mental
facts which occur in such a case we must substitute for
the indefinite term “ motive ”, and for the vague ideas
which are associated with it, another term, with ideas
which are definite and correct attached to it. When
we are said to have two opposing motives, we have in
fact two opposing indecisive impulses. And each
indecisive impulse is composed of the same elementary
mental facts as those of which a will (a decisive impulse)
to act is composed—of thought and impulsive emotion.
The difference between these impulses and a will-to-act,
is, that they have in them less of the impulsive emotion
than there is in the decisive impulse. An indecisive
impulse is an impulse which is not sufficiently strong
to be the immediate antecedent of the contemplated act.
A decisive impulse is sufficiently strong, and is inevit
ably followed by the act, when the power to do the act
exists, and when the exertion of this power is not
prevented by some external impediment—as when two
wrestlers are struggling with each other.
Now when we have resisted the temptation of an
impulse of inclination, and a decisive impulse in favour
of duty has been produced, what have we done? We
have kept up thoughts. And the effect of keeping up. a
thought is, that as we keep it up it becomes more plain
or clear, and the emotion connected with it is increased
in strength. When, for instance, we keep up a thought
which forms part of the impulse of duty, or which is
favourable to this impulse, we strengthen the emotion
which is connected with it. And while we keep up
this thought, we keep away, more or less, the thoughts
�io
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
which form part of the impulse of inclination. And by
doing so we keep down or keep away, more or less, the
emotion connected with these thoughts. And we thus
weaken the impulse of inclination. It is evident, there
fore, when we observe the mental facts which occur in
us whenwe resist and overcome an impulse of inclination,
that we first have excited in us an indecisive impulse
opposed to it—say, an impulse of duty. That we then
keep up thoughts by which the emotional part of this
impulse is strengthened; and that by doing so we at
the same time weaken the impulse of inclination. And
that by continuing to do so we at last cause the impulse
of duty to become decisive. And it is thus that we
form a determination in favour of the impulse of duty
and resist effectually the impulse of inclination which
was opposed to it. And this is what occurs when we
are said to “ struggle” against a temptation and to over
come it. And it is in the mental action of keeping up
the thoughts by which the emotional part of the good
impulse is strengthened that the “ nisus ” occurs of
which the believer in the common idea of free-will has
been vaguely conscious—not in willing, which is having
a will to do an act, but in forming our will-to-act. The
effort which occurs in the act which we form a will to
do, is another effort. It follows the decisive impulse,
and cannot be that which occurs in the mental process
by which this decisive impulse is formed. It is evident,
therefore, beyond doubt, when we are able to trace the
facts of the subject, that we are agents in the forming
of our determinations, and that necessarians, or determinists, have been in error when they have imagined
that we are not so. And we thus obtain an intelligent
knowledge of this truth, and the ability to explain it to
others, instead of the merely instinctive knowledge of it,
without the ability to explain it, which alone we can
have while we are ignorant of this mental process.
The mental acts which occur in this process are at
first instinctive and involuntary, but they presently
�Man's Agency in the Forming of his Will-to-Act. 11
"become in a manner voluntary, when we “struggle”
intentionally to overcome a temptation. But they
cannot be intelligently voluntary while we do not know
the nature of the mental process. They must be
entirely instinctive while we are ignorant and deny
that we are agents in the forming of our determinations.
But by the knowledge of this mental process our power
of self-control is elevated or advanced from the con
dition of a power which we can only exert with a vague
consciousness, to that of a power which we may exert
with intelligent perception of what we do in exerting
it. And by this knowledge the educator will acquire
a power to promote the development of this extremely
important faculty in the young, which he cannot have
while he is ignorant of the mental process by which we
exercise self-control.
There are three stages of the growth of this power.
In early childhood it does not exist—as the power , to
walk, or to speak, or to reason, &c, does not exist.
As we advance in age it becomes developed, by exercise,
as other powers are developed—“ not for us and not
by us.”
But the exercise of this power, or the
agency upon which its development depends, is very
much dependent upon outward influences, especially
upon the character and conduct of the persons by
whom the young are influenced from their birth. At
length, when good habits, of thought, and feeling, and
action, have been formed, there is little need for the
exercise of this power, but when it is needed its
influence is decisive. The determination in favour of
the good impulse is then produced at once. And finally
the triumph of education will take place when no bad
impulse shall be excited. But to attain this result a
very much better system of education will be required
than any which can exist, or can be imagined, while
men are ignorant of either of the two truths, and while
therefore they must be ignorant of their application in the
regulation of our social feelings and conduct. It is the
�12
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
necessity for the knowledge of the two truths, and of
their , application, as the basis upon which alone an
effective system of the formation of character can be con
structed, which constitutes the very great importance
of the solution of the free-will controversy.
THE CAUSES OF MAN’S AGENCY.
When we know the mental process by which we
form determinations, we may easily trace cause and
effect through every step of this mental operation.
When we resist a temptation and overcome it, we may
trace the cause of the first indecisive impulse, in
character and constitutional state and in outward in
fluences. And in like manner we may trace the cause
of the second indecisive impulse; and of the keeping
up of the thoughts which are kept up; and the
effects of keeping them up; until we arrive at the
final effect, in the forming of the decisive impulse which
we form. But while the nature of this mental operation
was unknown—and while the ideas of men in reference
to mental facts were so confused and erroneous as they
have been it could not be known,—these successions of
cause and effect could not be traced. And as the
believer in the idea of free-will could not point out or
explain the agency or exercise of power which occurs
in the forming of our determination, so the believer in
necessity could not point out the continuance of causa
tion in the mental process.
It has been said that all cannot properly be believed
to be cause and effect, because there must have been a
beginning of causation, and if all were cause and effect
we could not have any cause except as an effect of
antecedent causation, and a beginning of causation
would therefore be impossible. But there is no more
necessity, for our present purpose, to ascertain the
beginning of things, than there is to discover whether the
first hen came from an egg, or the first egg was laid by
�The Cause of Man’s Agency.
13
a hen. As it is enough for us, in reference to this
subject, to know that now we cannot have an egg without
a hen, and we cannot have a hen without an egg; so it is
enough to know that we cannot have any event or
result without a cause, and we cannot have any cause
except as an effect of antecedent causes. It is only
ignorant evasion of the difficulty to suppose that the
man is the primary cause of his agency in the forming
of his determinations, and thus to imagine that a case
of first causation occurs whenever a man forms a
determination, and that there is not one First Cause, but
that there have been, and are, and will be, millions and
millions of First Causes. To say that man is the cause
of his agency is to say that he is an agent in the producing
of it; that is, that his agency is the cause of his agency.
And in fact, his agency in the forming of his determina
tion is in part the cause of his subsequent agency in doing
what he determines to do. And after the commencement
of his agency in the forming of his determination his sub
sequent agency in this mental process is caused in part by
the agency (the mental acts) which preceded it. But for
the beginning of this agency there must be a cause. And
this cause is not his agency. It is in the internal and
external conditions of which the beginning of this
agency is the effect, the internal conditions being in
part the effects of his antecedent agency in the forming
of his character. The first mental act or movement of
his agency in the forming of a determination is the
effect of internal states of excitement which exist
before, or when, this act takes place. And these are
the effects of internal conditions of character and
constitution, and of outward influences. The second act
is the effect of the modified internal excitements which
exist after the first act, and which are, in part, the
effects of the first act. And so on. Aiid the decisive
impulse, and the bodily act which follows it, are the
effects of the internal states of excitement which exist
when it is produced.
�14
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
GENERAL PROOFS OF THE TWO TRUTHS.
Two truths which have been very puzzling to philo
sophers, although they have been known instinctively
by every one, are thus made so plain that they may be
known intelligently by all who are able to trace the
simplest mental facts. And they may be taken by
mankind in general as decisively ascertained.
In
future generations they will be clearly known by every
one.. The instinctive knowledge of both these truths
is indicated by terms which have been adopted
instinctively by mankind in general, and which are in
common use by both parties in the free will contro
versy. Persons who deny that we are agents in the
forming of our determinations speak of “ electing ” to
do so and so; “ determining ” to perform an act;
“ forming.” a wish; “ making ” a choice ; “ resisting ”
a temptation ; &c ; asserting by the use of these terms
that we are agents in the forming of our determinations,
and confounding them with the terms to “ prefer,” to
‘‘ will,” to “desire,” &c., which indicate to have a
preference, a will-to-act, a desire, etc. And persons who
imagine that we are the primary causes of our deter
minations speak of the influences by which we are
caused to determine as we do ; and ask why we have
determined as we have, that is to say, by what internal
or external cause or circumstance we have been
influenced to form the determination which we have
formed. And they employ means to cause others to
determine as they wish. They do so whenever they
request, or advise, or exhort, or in any way endeavour
to persuade others to do or not to do an act of any
kind. For their request or advice, &c., is a cause or
circumstance to influence the individual to determine
to act or to refrain from action as they desire. It has
been remarked that no one can be a consistent fatalist.
And in like manner no one can be a consistent believer
.in the common idea of free-will, or in the idea of
5
�Confused Ideas in Reference to the Two Truths. 15
philosophical necessity. Both parties know instinc
tively and state in words, and apply in practice in
stinctively, in a lame manner, the truth which they deny
in theory. But what has been needed is that both truths
should be known intelligently, and that their appli
cation should be known, and that they should be intelli
gently applied in the regulation of our social feelings and
conduct and in the formation of character. .And this
could not be while men’s knowledge of them was so
imperfect that the two opposite opinions, or either of
them, could be maintained.
CONFUSED IDEAS IN REFERENCE TO THE TWO TRUTHS.
I have met with persons who had assented to the idea
of philosophical necessity, who, when the facts of the
mental process by which we form determinations were
pointed out to them, have said that they never denied
that man is an agent in the forming of his determina
tions, and who have been surprised when passages have
been shown to them in the writings of Hobbes, Edwards,
Priestley, Mill, -Spencer, and others, in which it is
distinctly denied. One of these persons had evidently
forgotten what he thought before; for the denial had
been made and repeated in his own writings as distinctly
and forcibly as it could be made. How far there was
the same forgetfulness or confusion of thought in others,
of whose ideas upon this point there was no written or
printed record, cannot be ascertained. But the fact is
interesting, as indicating the readiness of believers in
the idea of philosophical necessity to accept the true
part of the idea of free-will, when it is plainly pointed
out and is separated from the denial of man’s dependence
upon causation. And I have met with the same readi
ness in believers in the idea of free will, to accept the
true part of the idea of philosophical necessity, when
it is plainly pointed out and is separated from the denial
of man’s agency in the forming of his determinations.
�16
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
Some necessarians have said, when they could no
longer deny man’s agency in the forming of his deter
minations, that this point is unimportant, if the truth
that his agency in forming them is dependent upon
causation is admitted. But it cannot be unimportant,
or of little importance, whether we are right or wrong in
our opinion in reference to a truth of very great importance—whether we believe and understand, or are
ignorant and deny, or only know instinctively, that we
have a power of self-control. And in reference to the
application of the true part of the necessarian idea we
shall see that it is extremely important.
The analysis of the mental process by which we
form determinations is not necessary to convince the
believer in the common idea of free-will that we are
agents in the forming of our determinations. But it
is necessary to refute those who maintain that we are
not agents in the forming of our determinations. And
it is necessary to enable those who believe that we are
so to understand what they believe upon this point, and
to be able to make this truth evident, and to explain
it, to others, who question the correctness of the belief.
We have ample proof in the experience of the past that
those who have believed this truth have not been able
to make it evident to those who have denied it.
It is argued in opposition to the idea that our agency
in the forming of our determinations is dependent upon
causation, that “if we admit that there is always a
cause for our determining as we determine, we must
admit that we can never help determining and acting
as we do, and the admission that we are agents in the
forming of our determinations is therefore unimportant.”
But when we form a good determination, instead of a
bad one which we were tempted to form, we do “ help ”
the forming of the bad determination. And it is this
which we are required to “ help,” and not the forming
of the good one which we form. The person who
excuses his wrong-doing by saying that he “ could not
�Confused Ideas in Reference to the Two Truths. 17
help it,” asserts, in other words, that he has no power
of self-control—a state of mental impotence of which
no one would wish to be accused. And as the develop
ment of this power by education is of very great
importance, the knowledge of the fact that there is such
a power in man to be exercised and developed cannot
be unimportant, or of little importance. The “ determinist ” negation is quite correct when applied to the
miserable man of whom it may be said with truth,
when he does a foolish or an unworthy act, that he
“ cannot help it.” But it is nonsense when applied to
the man who can and does help the doing of such acts.
For to help doing them is to form a determination not
to do them. It is to the credit of a man to say that he
cannot help determining and acting wisely and honour
ably, or that he has no need to exert his power of self
control in the forming of the determination to do so,
and that he could not form a determination to act
foolishly or unworthily. But to say of any one that
he “ cannot help ” determining and acting foolishly or
meanly, and that he cannot even acquire the power to
“ help ” doing so, is to assert that he is morally insane
or imbecile. And who would try, or how could any
one consistently try, to resist a temptation of any kind,
or to correct any bad habit, if he were convinced that he
is not an agent in the forming of his determinations
and therefore he cannot “help” yielding to tempta
tion, and that he cannot acquire the power to help
doing so ? But even those who deny that we are
agents in the forming of our determinations, do try to
resist temptations, and do resist them successfully.
They exert instinctively the power of which in theory
they deny the existence. But they cannot exert it
intelligently while they deny its existence, or while, in
other words, they imagine that man’s determinations
are formed “ for him and not by him.”
But again it is said that “ if the course of events is
determined by a Power which governs man in all that
B
�18
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
he does, or by Causation, it is not man who decides
what shall he done, in any case, but that every event
which occurs, including every determination and act of
every individual, is decided by this power.” But this
is nothing more than saying that there is in the universe
a Supreme Power, and that all things are overruled by
this Power, according to unchanging laws. And man’s
agency_ in the forming of his determinations, and his
possession of a power of self-control, are no more in
consistent with the dependence of this agency upon
Causation, or with the government of all things by
Supreme Power, according to unchanging Laws, than
his agency in the forming of anything else which he
forms, or his power to form or produce any other result,,
is inconsistent with his dependence upon Causation or
Supreme Power. And, in fact, dependence upon
Causation is necessary for self-control. For the power
to determine this way or that independently of Causa
tion, or without a cause or reason for determining as we
do, would not be a power of self-control. It would be
an attribute of insanity, or of an impossible state of
things worse than insanity. For even the movements
of an insane person, though not the results of self-control,
do not occur without a cause. If a man makes a piece
of mechanism, there is a cause for his making it, and
it was to be that he should make it; but nevertheless
he does make it. There is no inconsistency between
the fact that he makes it and the fact that he is caused
to make it, and that it was to be that he should make
it. And, in like manner, when a man forms a deter
mination, there is a cause for his forming it, and it was
to be that he should form it. And it is nonsense to
argue from this that he does not form it, and that he
has no power of self-control. It only follows that he
cannot form a determination, or do anything else, in
dependently of Causation, or of the Power by which all
things are over-ruled.
But again it may be said that if every event which
�Confused Ideas in Reference to the Two Truths. 19
happens was to happen, no event which occurs could
have been prevented, and no event which does not
occur could have been made to occur, and man must be
powerless in reference to the course of events. This is
the fatalist theory. But in the first place we know
that the conclusion, that man is powerless in reference
to the course of events, is not in agreement with
facts. He is continually causing events to happen
which he wishes to occur, and preventing events,
or rather imaginary events, which he wishes not to
happen. And the fact that there is always a Cause for
his doing what he does, and that it was to be that he
should do it, does not alter this, or deprive him of
power to do what he does. And secondly the logic is
defective. It is not the event which happens which
was the object of man’s preventive efforts, when these
efforts have been successful; it is the imaginary event
which does not happen, and which he prevents. And
to argue that he cannot cause an event to occur which
he does not cause to occur, is merely to argue that he
cannot at the same time cause an event to happen and
cause it not to happen, or not cause it to happen; or
that he cannot at the same time do an act and not do it.
Say to a man before he has done some act of no great
importance—“you cannot help doing that act”—and
he may show you by not doing the act that he can help
doing it. But your assertion would be a new element
of causation, added to those which existed before. Say
to him after he has done the act, that he could not help
doing it, because there was a sufficient cause for his
doing it, and it was to be that he should do it; and in
this sense you are right. Because in this you merely
assert his dependence upon Causation. You were wrong
in the first case because you denied his Power to do
what he had power to do. If in the second case you
had told him before he did the act that he could not
help doing it, he might have helped doing it. But
again, your assertion would have been a new element
�20
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
of causation. And other new antecedents would have
been required to produce your assertion, different from
those which existed. And those would have required
new antecedents to produce them. And so on ad infini
tum. To “help” doing an act, or to resist a temptation,
is not to form a determination or to exert our ptower of
self-control without a Cause. It is not to break through
“the everlasting to be”—theologically, the “divine
plan.” But it & to exert our Power of self-controL And
this fact, the exercise of self-control, is not altered by the
other fact that there was a sufficient Cause for it, and
that it “ was to be.” When a man finds that he has
determined and acted unwisely, and asserts that he
would act differently in the same circumstances upon
another occasion, he does not see that the circumstances
never can be the same—that his experience of the effects
of acting as he did would be a new circumstance, a new
element of causation—upon another occasion.
This “ can’t help it,” or fatalist, fallacy arises from
confounding the assertion of man’s dependence upon
Causation with the denial of his Power, and the assertion
of his Power with the denial of his dependence upon
Causation. There are acts which we have power to do,
and events which we have power to prevent, or which
we can “ help,” and there are acts which we have not
power to do, and events which we have not power to
prevent, or which we “ can’t help.” In this statement
we assert or deny our power. But no event can ever
occur, and no act can be done, independently of Causa
tion—our Power being of necessity subordinate to the
Supreme Power of the Universe. But to confound the
assertion of this limitation of our power—inevitable in
the nature of things—with the denial of power which
is made in the assertion that we “ can’t help it,” is to
allow ourselves to be misled by a logical fallacy into a
conclusion which is opposed to most obvious facts. To
say of an event which we have allowed to occur that
we could not help it, is to say that it is one of the class
�Confused Ideas in Reference to the Two Truths. 21
of events over which we have no Power, or to deny our
Power in reference to it. To say of an act which we
have done that there was a Cause for our doing it, and
that it “was to be ” that we should do it, is merely to
assert the truth that we are subject to causation. To
assert that man is the primary cause of his determina
tions, or, in other words, to deny that he is dependent
upon Causation in the forming of them, is to deny the
supremacy, and, in denying that, to deny the existence,
of the Supreme Power of the Universe. Freedom in
the sense of independence of causation, cannot exist, in
the nature of things. Freedom in the sense of having
power to control our wrong impulses—moral freedom—
can exist, and does exist, more or less, in all who are
not insane or imbecile.
There are cases in which it is difficult to trace the
cause of our determining as we do. In fact the believer
in the common idea of free-will, imagining that man is
himself the primary cause of his determinations, cannot
even try intelligently to trace the cause of his determin
ing as he does. But in most cases we may trace the
cause, and may find the reply to the question “ why did
you determine as you did 1 ” And in many cases even
the believer in the idea of free-will is able to trace it,
and does trace it—thus showing his instinctive know
ledge of the truth which in theory he denies. But it
is a mistake to say, as Mr Mill says in his logic, that
our determination “ comes to us from external causes, or
not at all.” And indeed Mr Mill himself speaks of
other causes. (See the chapter on “Liberty and Necessity”
“ in his work on “ Logic.”) Although our determinaation is always in part dependent upon external causes,
it is often much more dependent upon internal causes.
A wise man and a silly man will determine and act
very differently in similar external conditions. And of
course the difference is owing to (internal) differences
of character. And if in any case in which our choice
is unimportant we are unable to trace the cause of our
determining as we have determined, we may safely infer
�22
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
that there was some cause, because we know from ex
perience that in all cases of importance there is a cause.
We have thus seen that the arguments, or the logical
processes, by which men have been led to imagine that
our two truths are inconsistent with each other, are
deceptive ; and that each truth is admitted, and to some
extent applied, instinctively, even by those who deny
it. But to know a truth distinctly or intelligently, and
to be able to explain it, is very different from merely
knowing it instinctively and being unable to explain
it—the only knowledge of either truth which the
parties who believe it can have while they are unable
to point out the facts by which it is made evident.
And the intelligent application of the two truths is very
different, as we shall see, from the vague instinctive
application of them which alone can be made while the
truths are not distinctly known, and from the imperfect
and distorted application which alone can be made
when the assertion of one of them is combined with the
denial of the other.
IMPORTANCE OF THIS ANALYSIS.
The discovery of the analysis of the mental process
by which we form determinations is therefore of the
highest importance. For by ascertaining this analysis
we acquire the distinct knowledge of the two truths,
which must be known distinctly, and must be combined
with each other, in order that the foundation may be
laid of the only system of education by which the
character of man can be well-formed. And it is only
by means of this system of education, and by the
intelligent application of both these truths in the
regulation of our social feelings and conduct, or by the
character (or the ideas and habits of feeling) which this
education and application will enable man to acquire,
that a well ordered and happy state of society can be
realised. All systems of educational or social reform,
�The Application of the Two Truths.
23
therefore, which are not based upon the distinct know
ledge and the practical application of our two truths,
must fail to produce satisfactory results.
THE APPLICATION OF THE TWO TRUTHS.
It has already been stated that effects which are ex
tremely injurious in the formation of character, and
through this in human affairs generally, are produced
by the denial of man’s dependence upon Causation, in
the common idea of free-will, and by the want of
knowledge which is the cause of this denial; and that
effects which will be in the highest degree beneficial
will be produced by the distinct knowledge of this
truth, and of its application, and by the application of
it. But the beneficial effects can only be very im
perfectly obtained while the assertion of this truth is
combined with the denial of man’s agency in the
forming of his determinations, and while therefore the
injurious effects of this denial must be experienced.
A very injurious exaggeration of the inferences which
follow from each truth is produced when the denial
of either of them is combined with the assertion of the
other, or when the assertion of either truth is not
combined with the assertion of the other. From the
truth that man is an agent in the forming of his
determinations, and that he has a power of self-control,
it follows that he is a morally responsible being. But
when this truth is combined with the denial of the
truth that man’s agency in the exercise of his power is
dependent upon Causation, or is not combined with
the distinct knowledge of this truth, the idea of man’s
moral responsibility is very injuriously exaggerated;
and anger, unkindness, and vindictiveness, are excited
and justified. But when the truth that man is an
agent in the forming of his determinations is combined
with the truth that his agency in the forming of
them is dependent upon conditions or causes, our idea
�24
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
of his moral responsibility is very beneficially qualified.
And instead of the excitement and justification of
anger, unkindness, and vindictiveness, consequent
upon the exaggerated idea of man’s moral responsi
bility, we are caused, by the thought of the circum
stances by which what is displeasing to us in others
has been produced, when we keep up this thought, and
apply it in the regulation of our social feelings and
conduct, to be considerate and kind, and our ideas of
what is just to them are very beneficially modified. In
the former case we are led to imagine that it is right
that we should be unkind, and, in many cases, that we
should act with great unkindness, to those who dis
please us ; or to think it kind to be unkind. In the
latter case we know that, however we may with justice
blame and attribute demerit, and however, in the
present state of society, we may find it necessary to
punish, it is not just to be unkind ; because the object
of our displeasure must have been very injuriously
influenced in his education and by present circumstances.
And we shall discover that when society shall be
sufficiently enlightened, by the knowledge of this
subject, and shall be guided in its proceedings by
enlightened benevolence, the causes will be removed
by which what is injurious in man is produced, and
the effects will of course be prevented, and the
necessity for punishments will then be removed. And
we shall discover that punishments, although they are
indispensable in the present state of society, and are
therefore permissible, are not just, and are in many re
spects very injurious in their effects upon the character of
those who punish and of those who are punished. They
violate justice and kindness for the sake of expediency
or utility, or from necessity, created by the present
unwisely constituted state of society. But the be
ginning of the evil is in the want of knowledge and
the erroneous ideas by which the necessity for
punishments, and the spirit of unkindness, are pro
duced.
�Confused Ideas in Reference to Responsibility. 25
If with the idea that man is in all respects dependent
upon causation we combine the denial of his agency in
the forming of his determinations, we take away the basis
of the idea of his moral responsibility. And although
in the truth which we assert we have the justification
of considerate and kind feelings for all, it is the
consideration and kindness which are due to the insane
which are justified, it is not the considerate and kind
feelings due to a rational being, whose character has
been injuriously formed by means of injurious influences,
and who may still be enabled to acquire an effective
power of self-control if beneficially influenced to a
sufficient extent.
CONFUSED IDEAS IN REFERENCE TO REPONSIBILITY.
Some necessarians, or determinists, have endeavoured
to reconcile the idea of man’s moral responsibility with
their denial of his agency in the forming of his deter
minations. But to do so they have confounded the
responsibility which consists in being liable to exper
ience the consequences of our acts, which is legal or
practical responsibility, with that which is consequent
upon our ability to exercise self-control, which is moral,
responsibility.
It must be evident upon a little
consideration that the responsibility which depends
upon the possession of the power of self-control
cannot be supposed to exist when the existence of the
power upon which it depends is denied. In this
endeavour they confound the fact that punishment is
often indispensable, in the present state of things, and is
legal, and is “justified ” in this sense, and that we must
experience the consequences of our acts, that we are
practically and legally responsible; which is dependent
upon the truth that man is dependent upon causation ;
with the fact that we may be blamed, or are culpable,
when we omit to exercise our power of self-control
according to the dictates of duty, when no insuperable
obstacle prevents our doing so; which is moral
�26
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
responsibility, and is dependent upon the truth that
we have a Power of self-control, and which could not
exist if we had no such power ; but which must be
qualified, as stated, by the knowledge that our agency
in the exercise of our power of self-control is dependent
upon Causation. We have a remarkable example of this
endeavour to substitute man’s practical for his moral
responsibility, and of the confusion of ideas upon this
subject which is produced by the denial of man’s agency
in the forming of his determinations, in the chapter of
Mr Mill’s “Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s
Philosophy ” in which responsibility is considered.
“ Reponsibility means punishment,” Mr Mill says.
But it“ means punishment ” in two senses. It “ means
punishment” as deserved; which it could not be, as
we have seen, if Mr Mill were right in his denial of
man’s agency in the forming of his determinations—
moral responsibility. And it “ means punishment ”
as expedient or useful, in harmony with man’s de
pendence upon causation, a kind of responsibility which
could not exist if the negative part of the idea of
free-will were correct—practical responsibility. And
Mr Mill confounds the second kind of responsibility
with the first. In the chapter referred to, and in the
chapter on “Liberty and Necessity” in Mr Mill’s
work on “ Logic,” there are many examples of the use
of terms which are not admissible on the supposition
that man is not an agent in the forming of his
determinations, or which involve the admission, and
indicate the instinctive knowledge, of the truth which
Mr Mill denies. And those chapters are extremely
interesting studies for those to whom both our truths
are known. But they are very unsatisfactory and very
misleading to those who are in search of the truth
upon these points, and the more so on account of the
influence of the writer with many thoughtful persons.
But this influence, so far as it is injurious, will pass
away, with the progress of knowledge, leaving only
�Importance of the Application.
27
that which is beneficial—which is of great value. And
when both our truths are known men will no longer
think or write inconsistently or injuriously upon this
great subject.
IMPORTANCE OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND THE APPLICATION
OF THE TWO TRUTHS.
The influence of the intelligent application of the
two truths, as described above, in the regulation of
man’s social feelings and conduct, and in the formation
of his character, will be of the highest importance—
of importance which, to many, will be incredible and
inconceivable until the results can be seen in practical
realisation. By this application man’s benevolent feel
ings will be enlightened and developed, instead of being
to a great extent stultified and repressed, as they have
been, by the idea in which man’s dependence upon
Causation is denied, or while men, although they have
known man’s dependence upon Causation, have not
understood the application of this truth, or have not
applied it. And the ignorant feelings of unkindness
which have been excited and developed in men by the
exaggerated idea of man’s moral responsibility, and by
the erroneous ideas and the want of knowledge from
which this exaggerated idea has proceeded, will be
repressed, or will not be produced, instead of being
continually excited, as they have hitherto been. Man
will, thus, become intelligently benevolent, or kindly
disposed towards his fellow-men, instead of being
caused, as hitherto, to become ignorantly unkind, to a
great extent—a most important moral effect. And,
knowing and distinctly perceiving man’s dependence
upon Causation, he will be enabled to trace intelligently
the causes by which evil effects in man’s feelings and
conduct and in the formation of his character have
been produced, and those from which good effects in
these respects will proceed, and thus to realise a most
�28
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
important intellectual result. He will thus be enabled
to ascertain the causes and the processes of Causation by
which selfishness, untruthfulness, injustice, unkindness
in every form (including religious intolerance and per
secution), vice and crime of every description, poverty
and the fear of poverty, murders, wars (or wholesale
murders), injurious surroundings of every kind, and all
the miseries which have resulted from this combination
of satanic influences have been produced. And he
will find that they have all followed, as naturally
caused effects, from the want of distinct knowledge of the
two truths, and of their application, and from the
erroneous ideas which have been consequent upon this
want of knowledge, and from the unintelligent or
instinctive application of these erroneous ideas, in the
mis-regulation of man’s social feelings and conduct.
And, on the other hand, he will find that a series of
causes and effects the reverse of this will follow from
the distinct knowledge and the intelligent application
of our two truths. Benevolence will take the place of
selfishness, and men will become disposed to be truth
ful and just. And they will learn what will be just,
and will become disposed to fulfil the requirements
of justice, to the utmost, in the spirit of enlightened
good-will to all, or with the earnest and intelligent
desire that the happiness of every individual should
be promoted to the utmost possible extent, by the right
formation of character and by favourable outward influ
ences. And they will find that in adopting the practical
measures which are necessary to promote the highest
happiness of all, men will promote their own highest
interests or happiness in the most effectual manner,
while they fulfil their most sacred social duties, which
have hitherto been so wofully disregarded and violated
and to a great extent misunderstood. And they will form
new social arrangements, in harmony with this new
character, which will be most beneficial for all; instead
of the old social arrangements, in harmony with the
defectively formed character hitherto universal, which
�Effects of the Application.
29
are extremely injurious to all—not only to those who
are the most injured by them in their character and
surroundings, but also to those whose selfish interests
and tastes they are intended to promote and gratify.
For all are deeply injured in character and in surround
ings by the present system. It is a deep injury to be
surrounded by such characters as are formed in con
sequence of the ideas and the system which now exists,
instead of being surrounded by the characters of true
enlightenment and enlightened goodness which men
will be caused and enabled to acquire in a well-ordered
state of society. And it is a deep injury to be caused to
acquire some variety of the general character of the
present system, instead of being caused and enabled to
acquire the character of the system of true enlighten
ment and enlightened goodness. And the material
surroundings of even the highest classes—their mansions, and palaces, and the pleasure-grounds and parks
attached to them, are in many respects very inferior
combinations of circumstances, when compared with
the domestic and social arrangements, and their sur
roundings, which will he formed when the scientific
knowledge and the manual and mechanical powers of
society shall be applied under the guidance of
enlightened benevolence.
And the employments
and amusements of the wealthy are inevitably, in the
present state of things, to a great extent useless and
unsatisfactory.
The tree of evil will thus be caused to die away, from
its roots, and will disappear entirely, in due time ; and
the tree of good will be planted in the place of it. And
men will live in the midst of scenery beautified by its
presence, in an atmosphere of goodness, in the light of
intelligence, and in the midst of abundance of all
things necessary for their rational happiness. And
poverty will be known no more. For it is only as the
effect of selfishness, and unkindness, and disunion, and
gross injustice between man and man, and of the want
�30
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
of knowledge and the erroneous ideas by which this
irrational state of things is produced, that poverty and
the fear of it can exist, in a world overflowing as this is
with the material means for the production of every
kind of wealth which man can reasonably desire. And
when the various employments which are necessary for
the satisfaction of man’s wants, and of his reasonable
desires, shall be regulated by enlightened benevolence,
they will all be made attractive, as well as highly
effective; and the duties of life will be fulfilled with
willingness and pleasure. For the object of them all
will be to promote human happiness; not the selfish
mercenary object of gaining a wage, or a fee, by doing
something which we would not do if we were not paid
for doing it. It is thus, and only thus, that men will
learn how to fulfil, and will be enabled and caused to
fulfil, their social duties, according to the great rule
that we should “ do to others in all things, as we would
have others do to us,” and that they can realise the
happiness which is only to be realised by doing so.
And, before they could enter upon this course, it was
necessary, as we have seen, that the two truths which
have been the subjects of the free-will controversy, and
their application, should be distinctly known.
THE
CAUSES
OF
EVIL
AND
OF
GOOD
TO
MAN.
The discovery of the process of Causation by which
our social evils have been produced, and of that by
which they will be remedied, was opened to the world
by a necessarian. It could never have been ascertained
by a believer in the idea in which man’s dependence
upon Causation in the forming of his determinations
is denied. But when first made it was too incomplete
for general practical application, and too incomplete
to be explained, and to be received as real by the
public in general. And it was caused to be so by the
negation which in the necessarian idea is combined
�The Causes of Evil and of Good to Man. 31
with the truth upon which depends the knowledge of
the causes by which man is influenced in his determina
tions and conduct, and therefore in his agency in
producing evil or good results in his social affairs.
If man were himself the primary or independent cause
of his determinations, then, as our social evils depend
upon his conduct, and his conduct upon his deter
minations, he would be the primary or independent
cause of our social evils, and it would be useless to
look in any other direction for the cause of them.
And it would be folly to expect that he could be
influenced for good or evil by causes of any kind.
But as his agency in the forming of his determinations
is dependent upon Causation, it might be hoped that
the causes of evil and of good, in his feelings and
conduct, and in the formation of his character, and
through these in his social affairs generally, may be
ascertained, and that the causes of good may be sub
stituted for the causes of evil. It is quite certain that
until now these causes have not been1 known, even to
the believers in the truth upon which the knowledge
of them depends.
But while in ascertaining the
application of the truth upon which the knowledge
of these causes depends, the truth which should be
combined with it, and applied with it, remained
unknown, and was denied, and the denial of this
truth was combined with the assertion of the other,
the new knowledge was vitiated at its source. The
belief of the truth which was denied, which is highly
important as a cause of good, was supposed to be a
cause of evil; and the denial of this truth, which is
a powerful cause of evil, was supposed to be a power
ful cause of good. The discoverer, to a great extent,
of the causes of evil and of good to man, the late MrOwen of New Lanark, maintained that man’s character,
and his opinions, and his determinations, are formed
“for him, and not by him.” And he, therefore,
logically, and with characteristic moral courage, and
�32
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
with the best intentions, but with intellectual blind
ness and want of judgment, upon this point, con
sequent upon this erroneous idea, or rather upon the
want of knowledge by which alone this idea is
permitted to exist, maintained that man is not a
morally responsible being, that he cannot have merit
or demerit, or deserve praise or blame, in the true
sense of those terms.
Punishments and rewards he
ascertained to be extremely injurious, or powerful
causes of evil, in many respects, although indjspensable while men are so unwisely educated and placed
as they have hitherto been. It was by the application
of the truth that man is dependent upon Causation
that he was enabled to make this invaluable discovery,
so far as he made it. It was, as stated, by the denial
of the truth that man is an agent in the forming of
his determinations, &c., and by the false inferences
which follow from this denial, that the discovery was
made so incomplete, and was so far falsified, that he
could not explain it, and it could not be practically
applied on an extended scale. It was by the applica
tion of the truth that man is dependent upon
Causation—by applying it in the regulation of his
social feelings and conduct, while he was yet a boy,
that he was enabled to acquire the character of
enlightened benevolence, so far as, with his partially
erroneous ideas, he could acquire it. And, havingdone so, it was by the application of this truth, to
some extent, under the guidance of his enlightened
benevolence, in a great educational experiment, during
the first quarter of the present centruy, that results
were obtained in an adult population of from two to
three thousand of the working classes, and in many
hundreds of children, which excited the admiration
and astonishment of thousands of visitors, of all classes,
from the highest to the lowest. And he thus verified
practically his great discovery, so far as his views were
correct. But owing to the erroneous part of his
�The Causes of Evil and of Good to Man. 33
fundamental idea, all his endeavours to explain his
discovery were in vain. He did not even succeed in
enabling his disciples to understand the change of
character which he contemplated, and the means to
effect it, and the importance of it, so far as to know
that it is only by the character which will result from
the application of the truth that man is dependent
upon Causation—it is only from the intelligent applica
tion of this truth in the regulation of their social
feelings and conduct, and in the formation of their
character, and in human affairs generally—that men
can be enabled to realise a well-ordered and happy
state of society. But of course he could not know that
his own views were so far erroneous, in consequence
of a fundamental mistake, that no one could obtain
correct ideas from any explanations which he could
give. But all other systems of social reform-—all the
ideas and plans to which the name Communism or
Socialism are given, and all other schemes of reform—
are still more defective fundamentally. They are
altogether defective fundamentally. They do not
contain any indications of the knowledge by means
of which alone the character can be formed which
is indispensable for the construction of a well-ordered
and happy state of society. On the contrary they
all exhibit the want of this knowledge, and contain
conspicuous evidence, to those who understand the
subject, of having emanated from characters in which
the knowledge and the enlightened benevolence did
not exist by which alone men can be enabled to devise
and construct a well-ordered state of society, and can
be enabled to co-operate intelligently for the most
effectual promotion of the happiness of all. And
although in Mr Owen’s ideas there is much to be
corrected, which follows from the denial of man’s
agency in the forming of his determinations, and
which is very injuriously misleading, and which must
be corrected before the true parts of his ideas can be
�34
'Fhe End of the Free-Will Controversy.
understood, and accepted, and practically applied by
society, we have in the true parts of them the inspirations of the spirit of enlightened benevolence, so far
as this spirit could be obtained by the application of
the truth that man is dependent upon Causation,
while this truth was combined with the denial of man’s
agency in the forming of his determinations, and with
the consequent denial of his power of self-control and
of his moral responsibility. But neither the man nor
the system has been understood. And he did not
understand either himself or his system. Neither of
them could be understood while the two truths which
have been the subjects of the Free-will Controversy
were supposed to be inconsistent with each other, and
while, therefore, they could not be applied together
in the regulation of man’s social feelings, &c. I will
endeavour to explain this subject in another pamphlet.
But it will be well to observe in concluding, that the
statements which have been made in reference to the
effect of the application of the two truths, in the
reformation of the adult character, in those who are
sufficiently pre-disposed to acquire the new character,
and in reference to the education of the young which
will result from this application, are not speculative.
They have been practically verified so far that they
cannot be disbelieved by any one who is acquainted
with the facts of the subject.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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The end of the free-will controversy
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Travis, Henry
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 34 p. ; 18 cm.
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Thomas Scott
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1875
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Free Will
Determinism
Conway Tracts
Free Will and Determinism
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Text
THE
MYSTERY OF EVIL
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
11 THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD
LONDON, S.E.
1875.
Price Ninepence.
�LONDON:
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE FULTENEY STREET
HAYMARKET.
�THE
MYSTERY OF EVIL.HIS subject is not one of mere sectarian or"
temporary interest. It touches a depth far
deeper than even the differences which separate
disciples of Naturalism from those who profess faith
in a miraculous book revelation. The following
inquiry reaches down to the “ bed rock ” of all intel
lectual and moral life, and deals with the source and
development of force in the universe, with the nature
of human actions, and with the true fulcrum which is
to bear the leverage by which this still suffering and
disordered world is to be raised towards perfect har
mony with taw, and with the highest ideal of human
intelligence and happiness.
Orthodox guides are constantly warning their
people against this proposed line of investigation. We
are cautioned that the study of such a topic is unprac
tical and unprofitable—if not actually profane —
*
that it involves a mystery which is hopelessly inex
plicable, that attempts to solve the mystery have been
made over and over again by the “ carnal ” intellect,
but always with the same unsatisfactory result—the
mocking of our hopes, the answering of our questions
by empty echoes, which but rebuke our presumption.
This has been the favourite way of silencing the
T
* To proscribe as profane, studies beyond the comprehension of a par
ticular school or sect is a very old habit. The wisest Greek philosopher
maintained that Astronomy was a subject unfit for human inquiry, and
that the gods took it under their own special and immediate control.
B
�6
The Mystery of Evil.
questionings, the difficulties, and the fears of “ doubt
ing believers;” There can be no harm, we are told
in making qurselves acquainted, as a matter of history,
with how the loyal defenders of the faith have been
accustomed to “ hold the fort ” against the “ infidel,”
for we should ever be ready to give a reason of the
hope that is in us. But to venture to reason out the
point independently for oneself is to enter on a path
beset with danger and leading to despair. Minds of
any siamma, however, and especially if familiar with
the wonderful disclosures which science and critical
scholarship are daily making, are not likely to submit
much longer to this restraint of priestly leading
strings. They will insist on the right of testing the
most “mysterious” teachings of the church for them
selves, undeterred alike by threats of ecclesiastical
taboo in this world and of divine punishment in the
next. The light of truth—formerly claimed as the
sole prerogative of a pretended “ sacred order ”—now
finds its way as freely into the poor man’s cottage as
into the palace of the archbishop, and will, sooner or
later, compel the dullest to examine for themselves
with an urgency that cannot be repressed.
If I looked upon the question under consideration
as simply affording scope for curious speculation, I
should be content at once to relegate it for decision
to the learned hair-splitters who make it their busi
ness solemnly to adjust the distinction between
“ homoousion ” and homozousion.” But I am fully
convinced that the alleged “ mystery of evil ” is
essentially a practical question, and one upon which
hangs the true theory of the universe, a right concep
tion of man’s physical and moral relations, and a just
understanding of the nature of the human will and
human accountability. Moreover, the vulgar notions
on this subject will have to be abandoned before the
many philanthropic persons whom theological super
stitions have misled, are likely to unite in any effectual
�The Mystery of Evil.
7
attempt at man’s physical, rational, and moral eleva
tion. With all becoming reverence for the earnest
and often profound efforts of the wise and the good
in past times to master the difficulties of this subject,
we, in this age of riper learning and more extensive
scientific acquisition, occupy a vantage ground in
discussing it which was not possible to any previous
generation.
“ Evil ” is a term having a theological origin,
though it has in some measure been adopted in the
language of common life. We usually understand by
it whatever is contrary to our ideas of moral rectitude
and tends to interfere with the general happiness
of mankind physically, morally, and socially. It is
but too easy to find endlessly varied traces of the
wretchedness and wrong that seem to defy all
attempts to reconcile them with the rule of infinite
power, wisdom, and goodness in the universe.
What shall we say of the tribes and races that
have been permitted to live many centuries in inter
necine strife, ignorance, filth, and pestilence, and to
perish without contributing one thought worth pre
serving to the stock of human ideas ? And still it is
often around the haunts of the wandering savage or
the uncultivated boor, who is incapable of appreciat
ing the sublime, that nature puts forth her grandest
feats of power and beauty. Then what shall we
think of the havoc and sorrow which are the heritage
of multitudes born into the world with constitutions
naturally predisposing them to suffer pain or to
violate the sentiments of justice and humanity, and
brought up in homes that infallibly foster vice, cruelty,
and crime. Nor does it relieve the difficulty to view in
temperance, the sickly frame, the life-long disease, the
plague and the pestilence as being, directly or remotely,
penalties for the neglect of sanitary and moral laws ;
for reason will persist in asking, “ Why, if the universe
be ruled by a Being of infinite power, wisdom, and
�8
The Mystery of Evil.
love, was not this deep turbid river of misery stemmed
at the fountain ? ” Nay, there are forms of suffering
yet more appalling and that yet more perplex and
overpower us: the storm that dashes a thousand
helpless vessels in pieces in spite of every expedient
tried by the crews to escape an ocean grave; the
earthquake that engulfs towns and cities so quickly
that science and forethought are powerless to avert
it; the explosion of the mine that suddenly scorches
to death many an honest toiler and deprives many a
family of its bread-winner. And if we turn from the
fury of the unconscious elements to the conscious
and troubled inward experience of human beings, the
cloud of “ natural ills that flesh is heir to,” thickens.
The tangled affairs of social and moral life is patent
to us all. Why, in this century for instance, should
law and order, truth and right, have so little influence
upon civilised nations, to say nothing of those we
deem barbarians ? Look back, too, in history, and
behold the long perspective of prophets and martyrs,
who have sealed their loyalty to truth and righteous
ness with their blood, while the tyrants who slew
them died without one pang of remorse. Look
around and see all ages cut down, apparently at ran
dom ;—in many cases the wise and vigorous, the use
ful, the talented, and benevolent, withering away in
the morning or noontide of their days with their
gifts increasing in number and activity, while the effete
and the stupid, the besotted, the selfish, the useless,
are spared. Knavery arrayed in purple and fine
linen fares sumptuously, and at its gate honest
poverty clothed in rags, desires in vain to eat of the
crumbs that fall from the rich charlatan’s table.
Consider the millions that have innocently pined in
the dungeon, or that have been worked as beasts,
flogged as beasts, and sold as beasts. Consider the
throng of once blooming maidens ruined by heartless
human monsters. Think of nations in the first rank
�The Mystery of Evil.
9
of civilisation, bowing at the same altar, and rising
from their devotions to slay each other by weapons
of fiendish ingenuity. And with the spectacle also
before us of the greed of ambition, the vapourings
of pride, the treachery of the false, the meanness of
the little, the vices of the bad, and the frailties of
the good, the moral instinct within us cannot help
reiterating the question, “ Is this the sort of world
we should have expected under the government of a
Deity clothed with the attributes of perfection ? The
good man—crude though his ideal be—if he had the
power as he has the wish, would at once reduce this
chaos to order ; and does not the Theist believe in a
God infinitely better than the most benevolent of
men ?
An eminent living physical philosopher has said
“ Nature seems to take some care of the race, but
bestows very little on individuals.” And in brooding
on the dark side of this problem, a man of literary
note once exclaimed, in a private circle, “For the
credit of our conception of what goodness ought to
be, let us hope there is no God.” This, too, rightly
or wrongly, was the very thought put by Byron into
the mouth of Gain in his reply to Lucifer :
Why do I exist ?
Why art thou wretched ? why are all things so ?
Even He who made us must be as the Maker
Of things unhappy ! To produce destruction
Can surely never be the work of joy;
And yet my sire says He’s omnipotent.
Then why is evil ?—He being good ?
The same thought is strongly expressed by Mrs.
Browning:—
My soul is grey
With pouring o’er the total sum of ill.
*****
With such a total of distracted life
To see it down in figures on a page,
Plain, silent, clear
*
*
*
�IO
The Mystery of Evil.
*
*
*
That’s terrible
For one who is not God, and cannot right
The wrong he looks upon.
*
This problem of evil has stirred deeply inquiring
minds from the earliest times. In the ‘ Naishadha
Charita ’ (xvii. 45), a Charvaka, or materialistic
Atheist, is represented as addressing Indra and other
gods on their return to heaven from Damayantis
Svayamvara, and ridiculing the orthodox Indian doc
trines of the Vedas :—“ If there be an omniscient and
merciful God, who never speaks in vain, why does
he not, by the mere expenditure of a word, satisfy
the desires of us his suppliants ? By causing living
creatures to suffer pain, though it be the result of
their own works, God would be our causeless enemy,
whilst all our other enemies have some reason or
other for their enmity. ”f
Sophocles has lines to the same effect:—“ It is
strange that those who are impious and descendants
of wicked men should fare prosperously, while those
who are good and sprung from noble men should be'
unfortunate. It was not meet that the gods should
thus deal with mortals. Pious men ought to have
obtained from the gods some manifest advantage,
while the unjust should, on the contrary, have paid
some evident penalty for their evil deeds, and thus
no one who was wicked would have been pros
perous.” J
It may be convenient at this point to glance at
some of the methods that have been employed to
ease or remove the contradiction between the painful
phenomena of life and the credited rule of an allmighty, all-wise, and all-good Father. We shall
* ‘Aurora Leigh.’
t ‘ Additional Moral and Religious Passages, Metrically rendered
from the Sanskrit, with exact Prose Translations ”—Scott's Series.
t Quoted by Dr. Muir in the ‘Additional Moral and Religious
Passages.’
�The Mystery j)f Tvil.
ri
thus have an opportunity of detecting the fallacies
which lurk under all such methods of harmonising,
and which render them nugatory.
Epicurus, from a Theistic point of view, stated the
case very comprehensively when, in syllogistic form,
he said :—“ Why is evil in the world ? It is either
because God is unable or unwilling to remove it. If
he be unable he is not omnipotent. If he be
unwilling, he is not all-good. If he be neither able
nor willing, he is neither all-powerful nor all-good; ”*
and it is difficult to see how escape is possible from
between the horns of this dilemma on the supposition
that an infinite God exists.
The Manichseans believed good and evil or pleasure
and pain to be rival powers in the universe. This
was also virtually the Persian theory on the subject,
only the latter was clothed in oriental dress.f Bolingbroke and the sceptics of his day, accounted for the
phenomena referred to on an aesthetic principle—the
proportion of parts in the scale of sentient being.
Every animal has bodily members of varied grades
of honour and importance, and all in harmonious
subserviency to the general convenience of their
possessor. Every picture has an arrangement of
colour producing light and shade. All harmony
must consist of voices attuned from alto to bass.
Every considerable dwelling must have apartments
in the attic as well as on the ground floor, and of
greater or less capacity. So the world is formed
on a gradational plan from high intelligence, by
imperceptible degrees down to life of so doubtful a
* The great Lord Shaftesbury, in his “ Inquiry concerning Virtue,”
‘Characteristics,’Vol. II.,page 10,puts the case thus:—“If there be
supposed a designing principle, who is the cause only of good, but
cannot prevent ill which happens . . . then there can be supposed, in
reality, no such thing as a superior good design or mind, other than
what is impotent and defective; for not to correct or totally exclude
that ill . . . must proceed either from impotency or ill-will."
t Ormuzd and Ahriman. This is also the germ of the Christian
dogma of God whois “ Light,” and the Devil “ The Prince of Darkness.”
�12
The Mystery of Evil.
character that it is impossible to determine whether
it be vegetable or animal. In the moral sphere,
too, there is a ladder whose top reaches the loftiest
unselfishness, and whose rounds gradually descend
to the grossest forms of moral life. It is argued
that the world would be tame and monotonous
without these inequalities in the structure of
universal life, and that it is the constant fric
tion between beings of high and low degree which
helps to give that healthful impulse to human activity
that keeps the universe from stagnating; and
unavoidable accidents but quicken the forethought
and contrivance of men to provide against such
occurrences. It will be felt, however, by the most
ordinary thinker, that such a theory utterly fails to
cover all the facts, and fails especially to account for
the more formidable sufferings of humanity. It is
but the view of an artist who lives in a one-sided and
unreal region, surrounded by plenty, who simply
looks out upon the world through a colewr de rose
medium, and projects the image of his own luxurious
home upon the landscape outside.
There is another theory popular with a large class
of airy minds, which regards evil as a modification
of good. Right and wrong, truth and falsehood pro
ceed from the same source, and are degrees of the
same thing. Lust is only a lower form of love, and
what would be described as cruelty inflicted upon
others is not intended to cause suffering as cm end,
but only occurs in some rather abrupt and uncere
monious attempt being made by a person to reach
some object much wished for. But the one who
suffers happens to be, unconsciously perhaps, an
obstacle in the way of that object being attained;
and the suffering is occasioned simply by accident,
just as we stumble against a neighbour who has
the misfortune to cross our path at the moment
when our attention is fixed on something we
�The Mystery of Evil.
13
eagerly want to get at on the opposite side of
the street. So much the worse for the neighbour if
he sustain injury by the impact, but it is no fault
of ours !•
AVhat goes by the name of meanness, according to
the same theory, springs as truly from a wish to be
happy in the mean nature as nobility does when
manifested by a noble nature. As little harm is
intended by the one nature as by the other. But it
seems only necessary to state this method of meeting
the difficulty in order to see its inadequacy. Even
granting that the misery occasioned by men to each
other were reconciled by this mode of reasoning,
there is a class of troubles which are wholly beyond
human agency and control that remains utterly
unaccounted for ; and respecting the evils which the
theory professes to explain away, the question crops
up afresh, why, if the government of the world be
conducted by a Being of infinite power, wisdom and
love, is so much distress permitted to be caused,
howeu&r casually, by men to one another ?
Perhaps the most elaborate and closely-reasoned
attempt ever made to harmonise existing evil in the
world with perfect wisdom, power, and goodness, in
a Creator, was the celebrated “ Essay on the Origin
Qf Evil,” by Archbishop King. The writer postu
lates, as an axiom, that the universe is the work of a
God of infinite intelligence, power, and goodness ;
and he deals in precisely the same manner with the
alleged existence of freedom and responsibility in
human beings. The pith of the Archbishop’s explana
tion of moral evil is contained in the following
passage: “ The less dependent on external things,
the more self-sufficient any agent is, and the more it
has the principles of its actions within itself, it is so
much the more perfect; since, therefore, we may con
ceive two sorts of agents, one which does not act
unless impelled and determined by external circum
�1’4
The Mystery of Evil.
stances, such as vegetable bodies; the other, which
have the principle of their actions within themselves,
namely, free agents, and can determine themselves to
action by their own natural power, it is plain that the
latter are much more perfect than the former; nor
can it be denied that God may create an agent with
such power as this; which can exert itself into
action without either the concourse of God or the deter
mination of external causes, as long as God preserves
the existence, power, and faculties, of that agent;
that evil arises from the uniawful Use of man s faculties ;
that more good in general arises from the donation of
such a self-moving power, together with all those
foreseen abuses of it, than could possibly have been
produced without it.”
The gist of the Archbishop’s reasoning is in ’the
words : “ Evil arises from the unlawful use of men’s
faculties.” But this is a mere begging of the
question, and a shifting rather than a settlement of
the difficulty ; for even granting the assumption putforward, the inquiry naturally recurs: Why, in a
world created and sustained by such a perfect Being
as Theism recognises, was any arrangement tolerated
by which men should exercise their faculties unlaw
fully—especially as the results are so painfully dis
cordant with our notions of happiness ? It is assumed
by the Archbishop that man and not his maker is
responsible for the moral chaos that has always
characterised the condition of the race. But this is
only a repetition of the now exploded theologioal
fiction that man was created with his faculties and
circumstances equally and entirely favourable toobedience; and that his departure from law was his
own voluntary choice—a choice determined upon by
him with a full consciousness that he ought to have
acted differently, and that he was free to have done
so. By the voluntary depravation of his own mind
and by the force of his bad example he involved all
�Fvr.1
The Mystery of Evil.
i5
his descendants in the moral and physical conse
quences of his transgression. But with the undeni
able revelations of modern scientific and historical
research before us such a view is too absurd to need
refutation. In any case we are justified in holding
that on the hypothesis of a miracle-working God,
there is no tendency to disobedience, error, or vice,
in mankind that might not have been easily checked
in its first outbreak by an act of omnipotence. The
power that is asserted to have rained manna from the
skies, arrested the setting of the sun, changed water
into wine, and raised the dead, might surely have
been exerted in a way more worthy the dignity and
goodness of an infinite God, in stopping the first
outburst of moral disorder that has filled the world
until now with cruel and deadly passions and over
whelmed millions of sensitive spirits in intense
anguish.
By the same superficial and evasive reasoning, has
this writer disposed of those calamities which cannot
owe their origin, anyhow, to the will of man. He
coolly tells us that “ it is no objection to God’s good
ness or his wisdom to create such things as are
necessarily attended with these evils . . . and that
disagreeable sensations must be reckoned among
natural evils as inevitably associated with sentient
existences, which yet cannot be avoided. If anyone
ask why such a law of union was established, namely,
the disagreeable sensations which sentient creatures
experience, let this be the answer, because there could
be no better ; for such a necessity as this follows ; and
considering the circumstances and conditions under
which, and under which only, they could have exist
ence, they could neither be placed in a better state,
nor governed by more commodious laws.” That is
to say, God in his wisdom and goodness did his best
to secure the general well-being of the universe and
signally failed, as the physical accidents and agonies
�i6
The Mystery of Evil.
endured by innocent multitudes, prove! Yet this is
a book of which a distinguished Theistic philosopher
said: “ If Archbishop King, in this performance,
has not reconciled the inconsistencies, none else need
apply themselves to the task.” If the data of Arch
bishop King as regards the existence of a personal
Deity, clothed with infinitely perfect physical and
moral attributes, and as regards the free agency of man,
had been correct, the most logical course for him
would have been to have simply admitted the hopeless
irreconcilableness of these data with the state of the
world as we find it, and to have betaken himself to
the favourite retreat of orthodoxy,—mystery,—and
spared himself the pains of elaborating a tissue of
metaphysical fallacies which only make the confusion
to be worse confounded. But I reserve his data for
fuller examination afterwards.
The only other theory, which I shall notice, as
differing from the one to be subsequently proposed,
is that of fatalistic Deism, which was held in the last
century by a large class of European philosophers,
and sought to be refuted by Butler. The following
is an epitome of the argument of this school:—The
existence of Deity, as infinite and uncreated, is a
necessary fact, intuitively perceived. If God’s exist
ence be necessary, the conditions of his existence—
physical, mental, and moral,—and the modes of its
action and development, must be alike necessary. As
the visible universe is the outcome of this necessary
existence, all the forms of being contained in the
universe must also be necessary, by which we are to
understand that we cannot conceive the possibility of
their being otherwise than they are. If so, then all
the orders of existence in the universe, proceeding
from the depths of his infinite nature and constantly
dependent upon his support, are fated to form links
in one chain of eternal and unalterable necessity, and
to be precisely as they are. Therefore the develop-
�The Mystery of Evil.
17
ment of human beings, and of every other variety of
life, is destined to assume the particular form under
which they are found to exist at any given stage of
the evolution of the universe. Consequently, what,
in the vocabulary of mortals, is called freedom, is but
an illusion,—the actions and characters of rational
beings of all degrees of intelligence and moral
culture being included in that ceaseless development
which is controlled by the same central and allembracing principle of unexplainable necessity.
*
It is further maintained by the same class of
Deists that amidst all the apparent confusion that
prevails, indications of a process of orderly develop
ments are discernible, whether we trace the con
solidation of the earth’s crust, or the progressive
advance of vegetable and animal forms upon it,
or the gradual uplifting of the human species.
This evolution, it is asserted, is either caused
and directed by some controlling Intelligence,
or is the result of chance, or arises from some
inherent spontaneous power in the universe itself.
But our conception of chance excludes it from the
rank of a causal and regulating force, for we only
understand by the term what is fortuitous, blind,
undesigning, and impotent. Again, to suppose that
some inherent spontaneous power in nature itself is
shaping and directing universal progress would be to
endow the universe with physical, rational, and moral
power; in other words, to identify it with God, or to
view it as God. Therefore, it is concluded,—these
alternatives failing to satisfy the demands of logical
consistency,—the only tenable view left is that the
framework and development of the universe, is the
work of a Deity answering to the 0eos of Homer,
who represents the God of his conception, as being
* The reader will be reminded of a remarkable passage in the
‘Prometheus Vinctus ’ of uEschylus: “Even Jove is not superior to
the Fates.”
�The Mystery of Evil.
the source of all the good and evil of life. I confess
that for a time, while my own mind was passing from
supernaturalism to naturalism, and while I believed
that my choice in dealing with “ the mystery of evil ”
lay alone between rival forms of Theism, this notion
of God as the primal cause alike of happiness and
misery was the only one which seemed co-ordinate
with all the facts, and effectually to solve the mystery.
But, as will appear later in this paper, two objec
tions ultimately arose in my mind which shook my
fatalistic Deism to its foundation. The first of these
was, that the God I thought myself bound to believe
in fell far short of the ideal of virtue and goodness
at which an average high-minded man felt himself
obliged to aim, and thus I was conscious of doing
violence to my better nature in holding to such a
faith. The second objection was that the intuitive
idea of Deity was found by me to be a gratuitous
assumption which, with other beliefs of this descrip
tion, collapsed under the unsparing analysis to which
the intuitive philosophy has been subjected by the
inductive philosophy—the latter being the only one
which seems to me to accord with the universal
principles of truth.
After the preceding statement of attempted solu
tions of this alleged mystery by Theistic and Deistic
theories, it will probably be admitted that any method
of accounting for the existence of evil based on the
twofold hypothesis of an Almighty God of omniscience,
wisdom, and goodness, and the doctrine of the free,
self-determining action of the human will, cannot
escape from the charge of mystery—or, more properly,
of palpable logical contradiction. In presence of
these two conceptions, evil must inevitably remain a '
mystery. Let them be surrendered, however, and the
mystery instantly vanishes.
When a scientific analyst discovers that a hypo
thesis fails to cover and explain all the phenomena,
�The Mystery of Evil.
he unhesitatingly abandons it, and there is no other
alternative left to an inductive theologian—if there
be such a person—when he is placed in a similar
position. The facts in the present instance are
agreed upon by all. There is a large proportion,
if not preponderance, of what is known as JBvil
in the world; and if the idea of an infinitely
wise and good personal Deity tend to embarrass
instead of allaying the difficulties we have been
examining, clearly the idea of an universal ruler
ought, in loyalty to truth, to be removed from the
category of our beliefs, let the sentimental associa
tions be ever so hallowed and strong that have
gathered round it, and the same remark applies to
the allied dogma of free will in man.
As regards the first of these points, the justice of
the course recommended is strengthened when we
consider that the existence of such an almighty
person is incapable of scientific or any other kind of
proof worthy consideration. At the same time, in
venturing this remark, I wish emphatically to dis
claim all sympathy with positive Atheism; for a
dogmatic negation of any vitalizing and controlling
force in the universe, not being itself the universe, is
almost as objectionable as the most dogmatic form of
Theism. All I contend for is, that there is no ground
for believing in what theologians call a personal God,
in other words, “ a magnified man ” invested with
certain characteristics of humanity attributed to him,
these attributes being only infinitely extended.
Doubtless Theists, and particularly Christian Theists,
will be ready to adduce in reply their usual argu
ment for the existence of a personal Deity derived
from their intuitions. This, consistently enough, is
also the stronghold of Christian faith in the doctrine
of “ a supernatural gospel,” namely, “ its felt adapta
tion to the spiritual wants of Christian believers.”
And the more rapidly and convincingly the evidences
�20
The Mystery of Evil.
of science and historical criticism accumulate on the
non-supernatural and non-Theistic side, they shut
their eyes the closer, scream the louder against “ the
wickedness of Atheistic materialism,” and plunge
deeper into the sentimental abyss of their “ intuitions.”
Here is a passage a propos, written by one of the
ablest and best read leaders of the reactionary, semi
mystic, evangelical school which owes its origin (as
opposed) to the “ fierce light ” of modern thought,
against which the writer lifts a warning voice.
“ But whether we represent a ‘ new school ’ or a
theological ‘ reaction ’ we say frankly that, in our
judgment, the exigencies of the times require that
Christian Churches, and especially Christian ministers,
should meet the dogmas of materialism and anti-super
naturalism with the most direct and uncompromising
hostility. It is not for us to permit men to suppose that we
regard the existence of the living God as an open ques
tion. Nor shall we make any deep impression on the
minds of men if our faith in Jesus Glvrist rests on
grounds that are accessible to historical, scientific, or
philosophical criticism. If we are to meet modern
unbelief successfully we must receive that direct
revelation of Christ which will enable us to say ‘ we
have heard him, we have seen him ourselves and
know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour
of the world! ’ ” The great object of this school
seems to be to make a religious “impression ” in
Evangelical fashion, and stamp out all that frustrates
their doing so, proceeding from the sceptical camp.
The historical truth or error of the thing taught
seems to be of secondary consideration provided it
can be made to dovetail with Evangelical intuitions.
These intense believers deliberately tell us that it is
of no use our calling their attention to discrepancies
in the Gospel narratives by which these sources of
Christian facts are rendered historically untrust
worthy. They assure us that such criticism is idle
�The Mystery of Evil.
21
and beside the mark, and they console themselves
with the belief that these discrepancies are only
apparent, and that if we could but compare the
original documents (which, by the way, nobody has
ever seen or can find the least trace of) instead of
the mere copies of them (these pretended copies
being all we possess), we should be immediately
convinced !
*
So in regard to the existence of a personal Deity,
instead of looking at the facts as they are, they
assure us that, if we could only know all the compli
cations of the divine government, our difficulty in
believing in their Deity would disappear. But those
who fall back on the fitness of their conception of
Deity to their intuitions as a proof of his existence,
while perhaps feeling that this argument affords
perfect satisfaction to themselves, place an insuper
able barrier against all interchange of reasoning
between themselves and those who hold opposite
convictions. Any one who hides in the recesses
of his intuitions, has sunk into a state of intel
lectual somnolency from which no argument can
wake him.
’
There are some Theistic apologists, however, who
still have unshaken faith in the argument from design,
as establishing the existence of a beneficent designer.
But the fallacy of this argument is obvious. The
premises and conclusion stand thus :—“Every object
which bears marks of design necessarily points to
the existence of an intelligent designer. The universe
is such an object, therefore it had an intelligent
designer.” But it is usually forgotten that this con
clusion is arrived at by comparing the universe with
an object—a watch for example, that can bear no
* The weak point in this intuitional argument is that it proves too
much. It is the favourite proof with large sections of the adherents
of Buddhism, Brahminism, Fire-worship, and Mahometanism respec
tively, by which these systems are all Jett to be supernatural revela
tions. Therefore by proving too much it proves nothing.
�22
The Mystery of Evil.
analogy to it. It is taken for granted that the uni
verse sustains the same relation to a personal Creator
which a piece of mechanism does to a mortal con
triver.
Now, it might be perfectly fair to compare one piece
of human handiwork with another, and infer that
both suggested the application of power and intelli
gence equal to their construction. But in comparing
the universe—there being only one, and that one
infinite, with articles of man’s invention, which are
many and finite—are we not comparing the known
with the unknown, and carrying the principle of
analogy into a region where it can have no place ?
It may be just to infer that as one work of human
arrangement naturally implies skill in the maker, so
another work bearing marks of human contrivance,
should, in like manner, suggest to us the action of a
thinking mind. But science is so far in the dark as
to the mainspring of life, motion and development in
the one universe that we should be totally unwarranted
by the laws of thought in arguing from the origin of
what is discoverable to the orgin of what is undiscover*
able
To reason, therefore, from design in the
operations of man to design in the operations of
nature is illogical and impossible.
One of the most remarkable signs of change, of
late, in the conception of Deity, among progressive
thinkers, who still cling to the skirts of recognised reli
gious institutions, is the effort that has been made to
reconcile an impersonal Power influencing and shaping
the evolution of the universe with the teachings of
the Bible. The line of thought in Mr. Matthew
Arnold’s ‘ Literature and Dogma ’ has very decidedly
this leaning. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say
* Axiom V., in the Tractates Theologico-Politicus of Spinoza is
decisive on this point. “ Things that have nothing in common with
each other cannot be understood by means of each others i.e., the.concep
tion <f the one does not involve the conception of the other."
�The Mystery of Trail.
23
that this writer labours to turn the current notion of
a personal God into ridicule, and even seeks to prove
that, at least, the ancient Hebrews were not in sym
pathy with such a notion. Some will take leave to
doubt whether Mr. Arnold’s views of the Hebrew
conception of God be not more ingenious than accu
rate, and whether he may not have foisted far-fetched
theories of his own upon the text of the Bible in his
zeal to make out his case. But, at any rate, we have
the phenomenon of a writer cherishing devotion to
the teaching of Scripture and concern for the main
tenance of the national Church, and yet sapping the
foundations of orthodoxy, and actually sneering at
the idea of faith in a personal Deity, though pro
fessed gravely by eminent bishops—the two whose
names he repeats ad nauseam throughout the essay.
Another recent book of essays, written with a
similar purpose, but in a more reverent and philo
sophic spirit, is not unworthy of notice. The author
*
is a Nonconformist minister, and a member of the
London School Board—a gentleman of marked ability
and wide culture. The peculiarity of his position is
that while, like the Broad Church clergy, conducting
his service with a liturgy and a hymn-book, fashioned
after orthodox models, he has openly renounced the
dogma of the Supernatural in his pulpit teaching, and
rejected the notion of a personal God. He has chosen
to represent himself as a “ Christian Pantheist,”—a
term which we may be excused for deeming para
doxical—and strives throughout the volume to bring
his statements into accord with certain passages in
the New Testament. The essays reveal more than an
average (as well as a discriminating) acquaintance
with ancient and modern philosophy and theology,
and with the results of modern science in relation to
* 1 The Mystery of Matter, and other Essays.’ By J. Allanson Picton,
M.A. Macmillan. 1873.
�24
The Mystery of Evil.
the nature of the Universe. His thoughts are, now
and then, diffuse, but they are always expressed with
a wealth of language and sometimes with an eloquence
•not ordinarily met with in theological disquisitions.
There are, however, as it seems to me, weak points,
I had almost said occasional contradictions, in his
reasoning, into which he may have been unconsciously
led by his unique ecclesiastical relations, but which it
is beyond the scope of the present paper to criticise
at length. Nevertheless, he forcibly opposes the old
error which made a distinction between matter and
spirit, and he reduces the Universe, with Professor
Huxley, to a unity, namely, substance, of which what
have been vulgarly described as matter and spirit are
simply the phenomena. He further boldly rejects all
theories which regard Deity as one amidst a host of
other beings, and while, with religious fervour, recog
nising the presence of an efficient though unnameable
energy as vitalising and controlling all molecular
forces, he seems, at the same time, to identify that
unkown efficient energy with universal substance,
and accords to it the right and title to be formally
worshipped. I respectfully think he is not always
clear and consistent in this part of his theme. Some
times he refers—as Spinoza himself does—to this
vitalising and all-comprehending essence as if it were
invested with attributes of intelligence, wisdom, and
goodness, without which attributes the writer’s insistance upon the worship of universal substance as deity
would be a misnomer. And yet, difficult though it be
to discover homogeneity between certain parts of
these essays, in one respect the author’s aim through
out is unmistakeable. He emphatically pronounces
against the existence of a personal Deity. Some of his
remarks in opposition to the design argument are
especially worth quoting :—
“ It is demonstrable that there must be some fallacy
in such an argument as that of Paley. For if it be
�The Mystery of Evil.
25
rigorously applied, it cannot prove what Paley cer
tainly wished to establish—the existence of an omni
potent and omniscient worker. . . . If we are to
see design only when we can compliment nature on
an apparent resemblance to operations of human skill;
and if, the moment that resemblance ceases, we are
to confess our ignorance and to refrain from carrying
the analogy further, would it not be better, seeing
’how infinitely larger is our ignorance than our know
ledge, to recognise in both bearings of the analogy
an appearance only which, though for some purposes
practically useful, is infinitely below the divine reality.
. . . Of whatever value the analogy of human
design may be, no one would think of insisting upon
its admitted imperfections as a part of the argument;
and yet, without pressing those imperfections, it is
impossible to make the argument consistent. But if
it be fairly carried out, what it proves is this, that an
omnipotent designer, intending to produce a beautiful
and perfect work, went through millions of opera
tions, when a single fiat would have sufficed; that
these operations consisted not in clearly-aimed and
economical modifications of material, but in the evolu
tion of a thousand imperfect products, amongst which
some single one might form a step to the next stage,
while all the rest were destroyed; and thus the living
material wasted was immensely greater than that
which was used; that myriads of weaklings, were
suffered to struggle together, as though omniscience
could not decide, without experiment, which were
the better worth preserving; that in each successive
modification the worker preserved, as far as was pos
sible, the form of the previous stage, until it was found
to be inconsistent with life; nay, that he carefully
introduced into each successive product parts which
had become obsolete, useless, and even dangerous—
and all not through any inevitable conditions—for
omnipotence excludes them, but in pursuit of a
�26
The Mystery of Evil.
mysterious plan, the reasons for which, as well as its
nature, are acknowledged to be utterly inscrutable.
Analogies which lead to such issues surely cannot be
of much value for the nobler aims of religion.” *
The other cause of the difficulty encountered in
probing “ the Mystery of Evil ” is the traditional
notions entertained by many, of the action of the
human will. Man is represented by the orthodox as
a “free agent ” (I except, of course, hyper-Calvinists
who now form a very small minority among Chris
tians), and the doctrine of volitional liberty has
acquired prominence in theological and philosophical
discussions; not from any practical influence the doc
trine can exert, one way or another, on the actual
conduct of life, but simply from the accident that the
question whether the will was absolutely free or deter
mined by necessity happened to be thrown to the
surface, in the fifth century, in the theological battle
between the Augustinians and the Pelagians. The
inquiry is itself interesting and important, but many
mental philosophers from that period until recently,
having a dread of the odium theologicum, have been
desirous it should be known that they were “ sound ”
on the subject, and have been particular in declaring
themselves on the orthodox side. The strong enun
ciation of one view has called forth an equally vigor
ous statement of the opposite theory, and hence
philosophers have filed off into two sharply defined
parties—libertarians and necessitarians—so that the
importance that has come to be attached to the
free-will controversy is, in a great measure, adven
titious.
The introduction of moral evil into the world, as
before stated, has been ascribed by the greater number
of Christians to the voluntary disobedience of the pro
genitor of the race. Tradition has handed down the un
scientific and unhistoric story of an original man who,
♦ ‘ Mystery of Matter,’ pp. 330, 340,345.
�The Mystery of Evil.
i7
having been severely plied with temptation in order
to test bis virtue, voluntarily broke a certain arbitrary
and positive command of his maker, and involved him
self and his posterity in tendencies to wrong-doing
which could only be corrected by supernatural means.
But, without debating the wide question of the origin
■of mankind, manifestly men are so constituted and
surrounded that limitations are placed as indubitably
upon their volitional faculty as upon their other men
tal powers. So that in no libertarian sense can we
be said to be free agents. The form a man’s charac
ter takes is necessarily dependent on his innate pre
dispositions and capacities—the form and size of
brain and cast of temperament which he derives from
his parents—and on the nature and extent of the in
fluences under which he is trained. Some natures
are constitutionally more attuned to intellectual and
moral harmony than others, and when impelled by
favourable influences from without, there is little
merit in their moving in the line of conformity to
truth and right. There are other natures that inherit
less fortunate tendencies, to whom virtue must always
be the result of conscious effort, and especially if
they be encircled with influences unfriendly to the
culture of a high and noble life. It is certain that if
such persons attain any considerable degree of good
ness, the end will be reached through the experience
.of error and folly and of the natural penalties attach
ing to both. As far as I can understand, the chief
ground of the alarm affected by a certain class of phi
losophers and theologians at the idea of human actions
being determined by necessity is the morbid and ficti
tious weight they have given to the doctrine of indi
vidual responsibility; I say morbid and fictitious, be
cause whether a man violates the laws of nature or of
society he is sooner or later made to bear more or
less of his share of responsibility in enduring the
natural punishment due to the offence. Had the
�28
The Mystery of Evil.
same amount of concern been felt by society about
their collective share of responsibility in reference to
the physical, intellectual, and moral well-being of
individuals as is felt about the influence of necessi
tarianism upon “ men’s felt sense of individual respon
sibility ” the results to the community and the race
■vyould have been much more rational and beneficial.
I am persuaded that the individual conduct of citizens
—be they good or bad—is not affected in the slightest
degree, for better or for worse, by the views they
may entertain of the philosophy of the human will.
This might be proved demonstratively did space
permit.
The kernel of this controversy, then, lies in the
inquiry, Whether the will is absolutely self-determina
tive, and capable of arbitrarily kicking the beam,
when motives present to the mind, and tending in
opposite directions, seem to be evenly balanced; or
whether, in every instance, the motive, embracing a
great variety of considerations in the mind itself as
well as in the circumstances around it, do not infal
libly determine the character of the choice that is
made. If the libertarian view be the right one, no
certainty can be ever predicated as to the effect upon
the conduct of uniformly good or bad motives, and,
consequently, the most earnest and philanthropic ex
ertions to improve the world are, at best, dishearten
ing. But since it can be demonstrated that the for
mation of human habits is governed by necessary
laws, and that these laws can be ascertained and acted
upon with the undoubted assurance that correspond
ing results may be anticipated, the labours of science
and philanthropy are animated by a well-founded
hope that they need not be expended in vain. What,
then, is “ will ” but simply that faculty or power of
the mind by which we are capable of choosing ? And
an act of will is the same as an act of choice. That
which uniformly determines the will is the motive which,
�The Mystery of Evil.
29
as it stands in the view of the mind, is the strongest.
The motive is that which excites or invites the mind
to volition, whether that be one thing singly or many
things conjointly. By necessity, in this connection, is
meant nothing more than the philosophical certainty
of the relation between given antecedents and conse
quents in the production of actions. Man, like every
other sentient being, is necessarily actuated by a
desire for happiness, according to his particular esti
mate of it. It would be a contradiction to suppose
that he could hate happiness, or that he could desire
misery for its own sake, or with a perception that it
was such. He is placed in circumstances in which a
vast variety of objects address themselves to this
predominating desire, some promising to gratify it in
a higher degree, some in a lower, some appealing to
one part of his nature and some to another. He
cannot but be attracted to those objects and those
courses of conduct which his reason or his appetites,
or both combined, assure him are likely to gratify
his desire of happiness. The various degrees or kinds
of real and apparent good, promised by different ob
jects or courses of conduct, constitute the motives
which incline him to act in pursuance of the general
desire of happiness which is the grand impulse of
his nature. Sometimes he really sees and sometimes
he imagines he sees (and as regards their influence
on the will they come to the same thing) greater
degrees of good in some objects or proposed courses
of conduct than in others; and this constitutes pre
ponderance of motive, that is, a greater measure of
real or apparent good at the time of any particular
volition. This preponderance of motive will be as is
the character of the moral agent and the circum
stances of the objects, taken conjointly. This pre
ponderance of motive will be, therefore, not only
different in different individuals, but different in
different individuals at different times. That which
�30
The Mystery of Evil.
at any particular time is or appears to promise the
greatest good, will uniformly decide the Will. This
*
necessarily flows from the tendency of a sentient
nature to seek happiness at all, and is, indeed, only a
particular application of the same general principle;
inasmuch as it would imply as great a contradiction
that a being capable of happiness should not take
that which it deems will confer, all things considered,
a greater degree of happiness rather than that which
will confer a less, as it would be to imagine it not
seeking happiness rather than the contrary, or some
happiness rather than none. This certainty of con
nection between the preponderance of motive and
the decisions of the will is what is meant by necessity,
as simply implying that the cause will as certainly
be followed by the appropriate effect in this instance
as in any instance of the mutual connection of cause
and effect whatever,f
Motive sustains a dynamical relation to will, as a
cause does to an effect in physics. Therefore the only
liberty which man possesses or can possess, is not the
liberty of willing as he will—which is an idea philo
sophically absurd—but of acting as he wills, accord
ing to the laws of necessity. Otherwise he would
be independent of cause; and, indeed, libertarians
actually assert that a motive is not the cause, but
only the occasion of choice.^ Either human volitions
are effects or they are not. If they are effects, they
are consequents indissolubly associated with the an
tecedent causes or motives which precede them;
• “ The greatest of two pleasures or what appears such, sways the
resulting action, for it is this resulting action that alone determines
which is the greatest.”—Bain on the ‘ Emotions and the Will,’ p. 447.
t This is the course of argument adopted by Edwards in his re
markable book on the Will, and it is admirably summarised by Henry
Rogers in his ‘Essay on the Genius and Writings of Edwards,’pre
fixed to the Complete Edition of his Works, pp. xx to xxiv.
I For this distinction, enforced by Drs. Clarke and Price, see remarks
in Bain’s ‘ Mind and Body,’ p. 76; also in ‘ The Refutation of Edwards,’
by Tappan.
�The Mystery of Evil.
31
and therefore “ the liberty of indifference ” is im
*
possible.
If human volitions be not effects, the
actions of men are independent of condition or rela
tion, undetermined by motives or antecedents, and
for that reason removed beyond the domain of that
principle of necessary law which is the sole guarantee
for the order’and progress of the Uni verse, f
The elimination from this problem, therefore, of
the conception of a Deity clothed with personal and
moral attributes and of the notion of a self-deter
mining will in man, liberates it from all mystery and
difficulty whatsoever; for if there be no personal
God the existence of physical evil casts no imputa
tion upon the infinite character attributed to him.
And if there be no “ liberty of indifference ” in man,
he is exempt from the charge of being, in any sense,
the originator of moral evil, as the circumstances
that constitute his motives are made for him and not
by him; and therefore the praise of virtue and the
blame of vice and, in fact, the whole theory of con
science as held by the vulgar, are annulled.
What is the distinct reality left to us, then, after
we have parted with these two inventions of fancy ?
The pith of the matter may be conveniently summed
up in a few simple propositions :—
* Definition VII. In the ‘Tractatus’ of Spinoza runs thus:—“That
thing' is said to be free which exists by the sole necessity of its own nature,
and by itself alone is determined to action. But that is necessary or
rather constrained which owes its existence to another and acts according
to certain and determinate causes.”
+ The controversy on Free Will and Necessity has, within the last
quarter of a century, passed from the region of mere theological wrang
ling into the circle of scientific studies, and has assumed to the social
and moral Reformer practical importance. The subject now claims the
attention of all who would have intelligent views of the moral condi
tion and prospects of Humanity and who seek to work hopefully for
its regeneration. It is not within the province of this Essay to par
ticularise the various recent phases of the controversy, but those who
are alive to the importance of the subject cannot fail to find intensely
interesting those chapters bearing upon it in sucii works as Mill’s
• Lximination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy,’ Bain’s ‘Com
pendium or Mental ana McrcL Science,’ and Herbert Spencer’s ‘ Study
■of Sociology.’
�32
The Mystery of Evil,
1. All we can know of the Universe is phenomena,
—(including the molecular force-centres into which
existing organisms are resolvable by scientific analysis)
—and the fixed uniformity of the laws that regulate
and control the physical and moral evolutions and
developments of universal substance; but of noumena
we can know nothing, and consequently any dogmatic
definition—positive or negative, of a primal cause, in
or beyond substance, or not in or beyond substance
—is totally unsustained by facts. Therefore the sys
tems of Theism, Deism, Pantheism, and Atheism
are mere hypotheses, which all involve unproved
assumptions. As regards the existence of any over
ruling power, we are in a state of nescience. As
regards motives and actions, all we know is the uni
form and necessary relation of sequence that exists
between them—nothing more.
2. The universe, or, at least, the portion of it with
which we have immediate acquaintance, is being
slowly and gradually developed from rudimental
elements, from confusion and discord to order and
harmony ; and this remark applies, throughout, to
physical, intellectual, and moral life. Thus it follows
that the generations of mankind, up to the present,
having been brought upon the planet before it has
reached the state of complete development and per
fect equipoise of forces, are fated to suffer those
physical trials which arise from storms, floods, earth
quakes, droughts, blights, and other casualties, which,
when the material agencies around us have attained
more perfect equilibrium, may be expected to dis
appear. There are many more physical inconveniences
experienced by the race by reason of their still
necessarily limited knowledge of the operations of
nature, of the laws of being, and of their true
relations to the world and humanity, and by reason
of the yet very imperfect stage of human culture.
It is inevitable, therefore, that numerous diseases and
�The Mystery of Evil.
33
sufferings should be encountered, which a broader
intelligence and a clearer forethought will, in the
distant future, be able to anticipate and prevent.
3. “ Evil ” is a word which originated with theolo
gians, and which, from its vagueness and ambiguity,
has introduced much of the mystification and error
that have beclouded past investigations of the subject.
In its primitive signification and as applied in theo
logy, evil had a penal character assigned to it, and it
derived that character from the childish tradition long
believed by adherents of churches, that physical dis
asters, including disease and death, were the result of
a trivial transgression committed by “ Adam.” The
same cause has been adduced to account for all the
moral obliquities which have brought pain and misery
upon the descendants of the first man. “ Sin,” which
denotes the moral side of evil, in the language of
theology, is represented as being at once an effect
and a cause of the first transgression. But with the
rejection of the idea of a personal Ruler of the world,
“ evil ” and “ sin ” in the sense in which they are
usually understood by the orthodox, are rendered
meaningless. Both these terms point back to a period
in the intellectual and moral childhood of mankind,
before the universal and uniform action of Law was
dreamt of, and when human duty was held to consist
only of a series of positive commands, formally pro
claimed by an infinite personal governor, and con
stituting his “ revealed will,” for the direction of his
creatures. And for the perpetuation of this anti
quated belief down to the present we are indebted to
stereotyped creeds, which clergymen and ministers of
religious bodies still solemnly pledge themselves to
maintain. But the light of science presents the
source of duty and the nature and standard of
morals, in our time, in an altered aspect. In this
amended view there is nothing corresponding to the
theological ideas of evil and sin in the world, at all.
�34
The Mystery of Evil.
What is caZZed evil is simply a synonym for imper
fection in the material or moral circumstances of
humanity, or in both. The earth has not yet attained
its ultimate and perfect form, and the mind
of man has not yet acquired a full and prac
tical knowledge of the working of law so as to
guard successfully against collisions with the more
violent and dangerous agencies of nature, and so as
to use nature as a minister of good. What is known
as sin or wrong-doing is nothing more than the
result of human ignorance, which is but another form,
again, of imperfection. Many acts, I am aware, are
called sinful by clerics and their votaries, but such
transgressions, though ranked by orthodox teachers as
equally obnoxious to divine displeasure with acknow
ledged natural immoralities, are found when looked
into to be only ecclesiastical sins—sins of priestly
manufacture which have no place in nature and no
recognition in the enlightened conscience. That this
is the only true account of the matter is evident
from the fact that, as men become familiar with the
uniform operations of nature in their bearing on
human welfare, the ills of life perceptibly diminish,
and the necessity of conforming, in every sphere of
existence, to natural law comes to have the force of
a safe and efficient guiding impulse. No sane being
ever did wilfully what he knew to militate against
individual or social happiness as an ulterior end, and
no one ever continued to practise habits having this
tendency a single moment after his mind became
really sensible, of the character and influence of his
doings. That acts mischievous and cruel are too
often committed there can be no doubt; but the
mischief or the cruelty is always and only accidental
to the design the malicious person has in view.
Many, it is true, persist in doing what they profess to
know is at variance with the principles of justice,
honour, and utility, and hence the apparent anomaly
�The Mystery of Evil.
35
of proper knowledge and improper conduct some
times being found united in the same person. But
the anomaly is only apparent; for the individual
professing to know what befits his relations to the
universe and to society, and yet doing what contra
dicts that knowledge, deceives himself that he
possesses suitable knowledge at all. Knoioledge, in
such a connection, is confounded with notions. A
man may have a notion or a dim idea of what he
ought to do or to be, in his imagination or his memory,
but in this instance the notion is held by the mind as
an impotent sentiment or a barren tradition, the mere
semblance of actual knowledge. The notion of a
thing is but a theoretic or hypothetical conception, and
does not penetrate the mind and touch the springs of
action. All knowledge, worthy to be so designated,
enters into us and becomes conviction, modifying
thought, feeling, and will. So that all the faults—
so-called—committed by individuals and communities
have proceeded from their not knowing better. Even
the crucifixion of the founder of Christianity is
ascribed, in the New Testament to this cause. “ I
wot,” says St. Peter, “ that ye did it ignorantly.”
This point receives irresistible confirmation on every
hand. The vast proportion of crimes of violence,
such as wife-beating, garotte-robbery, manslaughter,
and murder, are confined for the most part to one class
of society—those who live beyond the pale of education
and refinement, agencies by which feelings of decency
and humanity are fostered. And the only cause of
the difference between this social stratum and the one
above it is that the training of the better class of
people is favourable to the controlling of their
■passions, at least as regards the commission of
crimes of that hue. The sexual vices, again, are not
confined to any particular social grade. They are
probably indulged in as great a ratio by the well-to-do
as by the lower orders. But if we compare the victims
�3^
The Mystery of Evil.
of licentiousness, of whatever social grade, with the
philosophic and the devout who have been taught to
hold these vices in abhorrence, we here, again, find
the same rule hold good. The culture of the pureminded has been specially directed to the instructing
of the mind in the bad consequences of this sort of
vice, and to the habituating of the mind to the
moderation and government of animal appetencies.
In like manner the difference between the false ideas
and practices of many at one period of their lives,
and their improved ideas and practices at another,
lies alone in the fact that they have come to know
better.
The drift of this reasoning is plain. The ever
widening circle of knowledge, the knowledge of mani
fold truth in physics and morals, is the grand power by
which the upward march of Humanity is to be secured.
But, as has been already observed, knowledge, con
sidered as the great curative principle, is not. a mere
fortuitous concourse of facts, however good and useful
in themselves, thrown into the mind, any more than
food is muscular strength. Our diet must first become
assimilated with the tissues; and so knowledge, which
strengthens, renovates, and elevates, is the concen
trated essence of principles which the thoughtful
mind extracts from any given collection of facts.
This representation of the case is as consoling as
it is true; for it reveals a “silvery lining” in the
cloud of prevailing human suffering, which inspires
joy and hope as we contemplate the future of the
world. It is a law of nature that every common
bane should carry with it a common antidote, and
a careful inspection of history makes it clear that
it is the tendency of each separate species of error
and wrong-doing to wear itself out. The discovery of
imperfection, usually made through enduring the
painful results thereof, leads towards perfection in
every department of human interests. Every dis
�The Mystery of Evil.
37
comfort, physical and moral, that vexes the lot of
man, reaches a crisis; human effort is immediately
braced up to grapple with the crisis, and inventive
brains are excited to devise expedients for its removal.
Thus have all social and political improvements been
effected.
The method of viewing the problem of evil whicn
has been adopted in the preceding pages is the only
one compatible with an unruffled state of mind in
presence of the defects of our race that frequently
offer us such bitter provocation in daily life—bigotry,
cruelty, stupidity, selfishness, ingratitude, and pride.
A wise man once remarked ironically : “ There are
words in Scripture that afford me unspeakable conso
lation when I have to encounter a person who is
unreasonable and unjust. ‘ Every creature after its
kind.’ If such a man attempts to over-reach or insult
me; if he show treachery or unkindness; if he deceive
or malign me, I look at him with pity, and my sym
pathy for his misfortune in inheriting a defective
organisation, or in lacking efficient intellectual and
moral discipline, neutralises the anger I should other
wise feel towards him.” Thus the practical philosopher
remains undisturbed by the turbulent passions that
blind and warp the minds of the mass, who are
affected chiefly by superficial effects, the causes of
which they have not the patience or the capacity to
discriminate.
When the principles that have been enunciated
become intelligently and generally recognised, they
will not fail to produce a revolution in our whole
system of dealing with vice and legislating for crime.
The popular way of treating offences of all kinds at
present is as absurd as it would be, after the fashion
of our ancestors, to carry a bay-leaf as a preventive
of thunder, or to remove scrofula by hanging round
the neck a baked toad in a silk bag. Social irregu
larities of whatever kind, in a more rational age, will
D
�38
The Mystery of Evil.
no longer be visited with inflictions of corporeal pain,
whether deficient nourishment, the application of the
cat, confinement in a dismal cell, imposition of aimless
grinding labour or chains. Far less will the mur
derous propensity to kick or beat or stab or poison a •
fellow-creature, be punished by so preposterous an
instrument as the gallows or the guillotine. When
acts of violence against society come to be viewed as
the result of an imperfect nature or deficient know
ledge and culture, care will be taken by the State to
lay hold of the child through the influence of the
school, and insist by compulsion on every citizen from
tender years being taught the laws, social and legal,
under which he is expected to live. And when any
are found in riper years to give suspicion that the
lessons of their youth are overborne by innate bad
tendencies, public opinion, then enlightened as it
will be by science, will, in a spirit of philosophic
sympathy for the misfortune of the wrong-doer,
demand his prompt separation for a time, at least,
from his more fortunate neighbours, and his subjection
before any extreme manifestation of his propensity
accrues, to a beneficent regime, partly educational and
partly medical, to enable him, as far as possible, to
obtain the mastery over his besetting morbid tenden
cies, and merit a place once more, if possible, among
well-conducted members of the community. The
attempt, as now, to set the world right by teaching
theological dogmas and by the agitations of revivalistic
or ritualistic fanaticisms, or by the existing lex talionis
of our criminal law, is mere ridiculous and wasteful
tinkering. To permit a system of commerce which
offers the worst temptations for the commission of
fraud and fosters a heartless competition, that often
*
drives the honest and the weak to the wall, and then
* The noble-souled Robert Owen used to denounce it as “that
monster, competition; ” and by the way.it is worthy of remark, that
the evident tendency of social reform now is in the very wake of the
�The Mystery of Evil.
39
to treat as outcasts the victims of intemperance and
poverty which this unnatural system contributes to
produce, and punish them with the degradation of
the jail or the workhouse, is as senseless and cruel as
to sanction gins and snares in the highway and then
whip men for falling into them. These social absur
dities, arising from crass ignorance of the constitution
of man, and of physical and moral law, cannot last
for ever. They may be hallowed by prestige, pom
pous judicial ceremony, and Parliamentary prece
dent, but they belong to a transitional stage of social
life which is doomed before the triumphs of science
and philosophy. The old shallow and mischievous
scheme of reformation which exhibits a jealous Deity
consigning wrong-doers to eternal death and the ma
gistrate as “a terror to evildoers,” will be superseded
by a method of government in which the revolting
penal code now practised by civilised nations will
have no place, and in which, without exception, the
reform of the offender will be the supreme considera
tion, while the peace and safety of society will be
found to be promoted thereby. And surely such
happy anticipations for the race are a satisfactory
compensation for the sacrifice truth compels us to
make in parting with the illusions of our intellectual
childhood,—the dogmas of a personal God and a self
determining will.
The world is, indeed, racked and torn by selfish
ness, cruelty, ignorance, and folly. Communities
and individuals have writhed under burdens of sorrow
from the beginning. But manifestly the natwral
tendency of physical and moral law is not to produce
system of Owen which the “ respectable classes ” used to smile at as
Utopian. Most intelligent men are either tacitly or openly coming
round to the persuasion that “ Man is the Creature of Circumstances.
Mr. Owen probably inadvertently left out certain factors, indispensable
to the success of his “New Moral World.” But he has pointed out
for us the only true path, and the failure of his scheme was a grand
success.
�40
The Mystery of Evil.
these effects, but quite the contrary; and the com
plete happiness of the race is to be attained through
the knowledge of law and yielding submission to it.
But this great consummation can only be accom
plished by slow degrees. A thousand years in this
business is “ as a watch in the night.” If it should
be asked, why should this training to perfect virtue
and happiness be sb slow and painful, and why
should such slow and painful discipline be the only
safe and solid basis on which the progress of
humanity can be established, there is no answer
except that in the nature of things it must be so.
Suppose that we were living on some fair and perfect
planet when the earth was in its once fluid state, and
that we saw the huge animals belonging to that
geological period wallowing in the mire and obscured
by the dense fogs which then enveloped the half
formed world. If that had been our first introduc
tion to the present abode of man we should probably
have concluded, had we no previous experience of
such a state of things elsewhere, that a world of sea
and mud, with volcanoes ever and anon spouting
forth their lava and steamy vapours shutting out
the light, could never become fitted for human
habitation. But this, nevertheless, was the elemental
chaos, out of which our globe was, in the course of
countless ages, evolved. So the present development
of the moral world bears some analogy to the physi
cal state of the earth in the primeval ages. It is
still very gradually emerging out of its original intel
lectual and moral formlessness, and is yet a long
way from the harmony and beauty with which
humanity will, in future ages, be crowned. For any
one, therefore, to judge of the tendency and goal of
the universe from the seething troubles and pangs
that harass the world’s life now in its slow transition
state, would be as rash as for the imagined spectator
of the chaotic earth before man came upon it to
�The Mystery of Evil.
41
suppose that it could never be built up into a
habitable world. The error consists in judging the
whole circle of material and moral development by
the very small segment of the circle which we have
an opportunity of seeing. But a retrospect of
human history justifies the assurance that in nature
there underlies all present contradictions and incom
patibilities, a moulding principle that will eventually
transmute all incongruities into palpable consistency.
The very tardiness, therefore, of the process by which
humanity is to attain its highest possible life may be
taken as a guarantee for the permanent advance of
that life when it is realised. It is not for us now
living, or for immediately succeeding generations to
participate in this Elysium of prophetic forecast, at
least in our present state of existence; but instead
of moping Over our inevitable fate, and groaning
over the woes of the world, it is more becoming w cul
tured manhood to bear that fate with philosophic
fortitude, make the best of it, and help our. fellow
mortals to do the same. The idea of “ the Colossal
Man,” first worked by a great German writer, and
repeated in the retracted essay of Dr. Temple, looks in
the direction to which these remarks point. Humanity
must be viewed as a whole. Particular nations may
decay, but man is destined to rise to a higher plane
of being. For an indefinitely long period he is kept
under the tutelage of grievous trials, which, in the
wonderful economy of nature, have the effect of
unfolding and invigorating his powers, that he may
rise to the highest possible knowledge, and use that
knowledge in correcting his faults, so that at length
he may be brought into perfect accord with his own
noblest moral ideal, and with the general progressive
movement of the universe. Even if, for scores of
thousands of years, vast continents and islands of
savage or semi-barbarous people live and then perish,
there is no waste. Neither is there waste anywhere
�42
The Mystery of Evil.
in the laboratory of nature’s forces. Had .we seen
the germs which afterwards developed into primeval
forests, when these germs were just beginning to
sprout in the bare rocky earth, we could not have
dreamt of so mighty a use in store for them. But
could we come back to the spot centuries afterwards
when these tiny beeches and pines had grown into
giant trees, the function of the insignificant germs
would be obvious. The yearly shedding of the leaves of
the trees into which they have grown has covered with
mould the once barren surface in which they were
planted, and supplied land suitable for the sowing of our
crops. So the primeval trees in the forest of humanity,
the first races, to all appearance not worth the power
expended on their existence and support; these early
races and tribes—so unproductive for ages—have
been permitted to shed their millions of human
leaves to make soil in the moral world. The bar
barism that once reigned over the greater part of
the earth is a pledge, in the arrangements of nature,
that humanity will never, as a whole, return to
barbarism again. The child cannot grow into the
shrewd, cautious, enterprising man, but through the
tumbles and bruises of childhood and the mistakes
of passionate youth. Our measured intelligence,
charity, and tolerance in the present century, has
grown out of the ignorance, superstition, and intoler
ance of all the ages that have preceeded. The primi
tive races were allowed to live a life of low civilisa
tion, and so by the picture of wretchedness they
present for the warning of those who come after
them, prove at once a beacon of warning and an
effectual safeguard against the higher races that come
after, sinking back to the same condition. The same
consoling reflection applies to all the pains and dis
comforts which the good and the bad alike suffer in
our present condition. These untoward circumstances,
dark though they be, are not a mere waste of power,
�The Mystery of Evil.
43
but mark an epoch in universal progress—needful,
disciplinary, transitional, leading to grander issues,—
to universal conformity to the standard of universal
harmony. If in this unique development the interests
of individuals and races,—whose lot happens to be
cast in the early or intermediate periods of that
development,—are not so favoured as those of mankind
will be in the happier and more remote future, such a
consideration is subordinate, and not to be named in
comparison with the final result—the expansion,
culture, and coherent use of all the faculties of
humanity, the extinction of disease, want, strife, and
suffering of every kind ; and if such an end is only
to be gained, for a permanence, through physical and
moral suffering in preceding ages of the world, the
result may possibly well repay the cost. Nay, I
think science justifies me iji going farther. I might
venture to add that the trials to which individuals
and nations have ever been exposed in this life are
introductory to a state of being beyond the present,
when the island earth will be one in spirit with the
invisible “ summer-land,” when free and pleasant
communion between the embodied in the former
state, and the disembodied in the latter, will be
possible, when the sea of material and moral discord
that now divides the one state from the other will
be dried up, and when the last speck of imper
fection that sullied the purity and splendour of
regenerated humanity will be effaced.
In the immortal words of our Laureate :
“ 0! yet, we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubts and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When Nature makes the pile complete.
�44
The Mystery of Evil.
That not a worm is cloven in vain,
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire
Or but subserves another’s gain.
Behold we know not anything—
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last—far off—at last—to all,
And every winter change to spring.”
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET, HAYMARKET.
�
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The mystery of evil
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 44 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Misc. Tracts 4. Printed by C.W. Reynell, Little Pulteney Street, Haymarket, London. Includes bibliographical references. No author given.
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Thomas Scott
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1875
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G4869
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[Unknown]
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Ethics
Evil
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Good and Evil