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ANTI-CATHOLIC HISTORY:
HOW IT IS WRITTEN1
By Hilaire Belloc
One of the chief obstacles opposed to the defence
of the Church in modern times is the supposed
authority, each in his particular department, of those
who attack the Church. This is especially true of
Academic Authority, that is, of Authority which
bases itself upon the supposed learning (and sincerity
in teaching) of the universities.
A man with a high official position in the uni
versities is naturally supposed to be well acquainted
with his science, whatever it is, and to be honest in
his exposition of its results. Only a very few men
can enjoy such positions, and to the mass of readers
their conclusions and affirmations seem almost
necessarily true. When, therefore, a Catholic is met
by the statement that Professor So-and-So has said
this or that in Natural Science or in Philosophy,
and especially in History, which plainly damages or
contradicts our Catholic truth, the Catholic layman
is inevitably disturbed. He can reply, “I am no
expert in these matters, but my Faith tells me that
the Church is right and therefore this man must be
wrong. ” But such a reply is of little service against
opponents who of course do not admit the premises,
1 An examination of Prof. Bury’s A History of Freedom of Thought,
adapted from an article appearing in the Dublin Review for Jan. 1914.
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and, what is more, it presupposes an attitude of mind
which cannot always be guaranteed. The Catholic
himself is disturbed in his own Faith by statements
made with full Academic Authority and apparently
destructive of that Faith.
This is more particularly the case to-day, because
matters requiring expert knowledge and long study
are being discussed in popular form, and affirmations
based upon such study are being put forward in cheap
books and pamphlets which circulate by the million.
Now it so happens that any particular zeal against
the Catholic Church nearly always leads the zealous
opponent thereof into bad errors of fact and state
ment, and this is more especially the case in the allimportant department of History. But the average
Catholic layman reading popular works upon history,
most of which in the English tongue suffer from an
anti-Catholic bias, is not equipped for the discovery
of their errors. He can but imagine that state
ments proceeding from men of known official position
at the universities are upon the whole true. It is
important that he should learn to mistrust such false
Authority, and to appreciate that not only is the
opponent of the Catholic Church commonly guiltv
of error in his historical statements, but that the
Academic Authority upon which he relies is unsound:
that the writing and teaching of history in our
Protestant universities consists largely in unverified
lepetition of current errors ; that even the plain
duty of accuracy m dates, names, and facts is consi era y neg.ected and all this because those very
academic writers are so certain of their official
position that they fear no external criticism. They
° °ne W11u be comPetent to expose them
save their own colleagues.
I shall here take one typical example of this
�How it is Written
3
kind of University work, and I think I shall be able
to show the reader of what stuff it is composed, how
very little reliance may be placed upon it, and what
a proper contempt he may entertain for its supposed
Authority.
The work which I shall take for my example
unites in a high degree the various characters of
such attacks upon our religion. It is called A
History of Freedom of Thought, and its author is
Professor Bury of Cambridge.
This History of Freedom of Thought is a little
book issued at a shilling. It is issued, therefore,
with the deliberate object of affecting a very wide
and popular circle of readers. It is a book definitely
intended for propaganda.
It forms part of a well-known series (The Home
University Library : Williams & Norgate) whose
whole intention consists in distributing the expert
results of Academic , study to the widest possible
public. It is a series which has done invaluable
work already in many departments of art and of
science.
The book is written by one who holds the highest
possible official position our universities can give.
Professor Bury is the head of the School of History
at the University of Cambridge. He is the official
representative of Academic History in that one of
our two great universities.
It is therefore no artificial choice which I am
making. It is an excellent and typical example of
the kind of thing we have to meet and expose
which I am taking for the purpose of this tract.
I shall first of all show how strongly opposed to
the Catholic Faith, in spirit and in diction, academic
work of this kind is. In so doing, I cannot avoid
perhaps shocking the piety of Catholic readers, for
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Anti-Catholic History :
some of the terms used by the author are frankly
shocking to our piety, and are intended to be so.
But I must quote the sentences in order to establish
my case. Next, I shall show how inaccurate and
unscholarly work of this kind can be.
The general thesis of the little book (it is less
than 250 small pages of large print) is as follows :
That reasonable inquiry upon the fate of the soul
and the nature of things was common to Pagan
antiquity : That there arose a maleficent institution,
which we know by the name of the Catholic Church,
and which institution was opposed to inquiry and
to the use of reason in these matters : That this
institution, gradually gaining ground in the so-called
‘ ‘ conversion ” of the Pagan world, extinguished the
use of reason, compelled men to a blind acceptance
of absurdities, and darkened the human mind, in
Christian Europe at least, for something like a
thousand years : That this disaster was alleviated
towards the end of the Middle Ages by some
stirrings of a renewed interest in truth : That
during the last four hundred years, as the Power of
the Church has been gradually weakened until it has
almost disappeared, the human mind has recovered
its native vigour and freedom, and has returned to
the healthy use of reason in its inquiry into all the
great and doubtful problems of philosophy.
There is nothing original about that thesis. It
is the commonplace of all those who oppose the
Catholic interpretation of history.
What I am concerned to show is, first, the strong
spirit of animosity in which that thesis is presented,
ne*t> the gross lack of accuracy and scholaruT Y
vitiates or destroys all the supposed
Authority ” of its exponent.
Here, then, are a few passages in which the anti
�How it is Written
5
Christian standpoint of this Academic Authority is
particularly emphasized apart from historical state
ments. I would beg the reader to note them, for
they are not unconnected with that violence in state
ment which leads such writers into their errors of
fact as well as of doctrine.
Upon page 25 we have the conception of the
creation of the Universe by Almighty God labelled
“ fantastic. ” Upon page 37 the difficulties of
accepting at once a God and the existence of
Evil are presented as insoluble. Upon page 40
we are requested to consider the Persons of the
Blessed Trinity “with some eminent angels and
saints discussing in a celestial smoke-room the
alarming growth of unbelief in England, and then,
by means of a telephonic apparatus, overhearing
a dispute between a Freethinker and a parson.”'
Upon page 50, to receive the “Kingdom of
Heaven” “like a little child” is to “prostrate your
intellect.” Upon page 52 the Christian Millennium
inaugurated by Constantine’s Edict is one in which
‘ ‘ reason was enchained and thought was enslaved. ”
Upon pages 63 and 64 the doctrines of Sin, Hell,
and the Last Judgment form “a solid rampart
against the advance of knowledge.” And upon a
preceding page the Faith defended by the Inquisi
tion is “nonsense.” Three pages later (67), we
again get the refrain that in the most Christian
centuries ‘ ‘ reason was enchained in the prison which
Christianity had built around the human mind.”
While upon page 72 the Faith becomes “a misty
veil woven of credulity and infantile naivete which
hung over men’s souls and protected them from
understanding either themselves or their relation to
the world.” At the opening of Chapter VI. upon
page 127, Christian theology is full of “ incon*
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Anti-Catholic History:
sistencies, contradictions and absurdities,” and upon
page 137 another Authority quoted (a French
Protestant by the way) “shows that the Christian
dogmas are essentially unreasonable. ” Four pages
further another person (this time a Cambridge don)
“examines the chief miracles related in the Gospels
and shows with great ability and shrewd common
sense that they are absurd.” Upon page 156 the
French Church was ‘ ‘ a poisonous sewer ” which the
Deists or Atheists of the eighteenth century were
right to attack. Upon page 160 Hume “ shows ”
that the arguments “adduced for a personal God
are untenable.” Kant, upon page 175, is lectured
for “ letting God in at a back-door,” and is told that
he has failed. Upon page 181 Darwin “drives a
nail into the coffin of Creation and the Fall of Man.”
Upon page 182 it is discovered that if any intelligence
had to do with the designing of the world it must
have been 1 ‘ an intelligence infinitely low. ” And
just before the end of the book, upon page 249, we
are re-assured that ‘ ‘ Reason now holds a much
stronger position than at the time when Christian
theology led her captive. ”
And so forth—we all know the kind of thing.
The eighteenth century was full of it, and much of
it survives in our own day, especially with those of
an older generation who are still among us. It is
an inevitable accompaniment, of course, to such
sentences that we have the Christian scheme described
as “mythology”; that we hear of the “delusive
conviction of our Lord and His Apostles as to the
approaching end of the world; that the Blessed
Sacrament is “ a savage rite of eating a dead god ”
(page 189). Conclusions of this kind and adjectives
suitable to them abound in the little work, and I
really need waste no more space in setting forth the
�How it is Written
7
first point which I have promised to lay before my
readers.
It will be admitted without any further labouring
of the point that the Academic Authority I am deal
ing with is in opposition. He is a clear example
of such Authority in action against the Catholic
Church.
Well, let us next examine how far that Authority
is genuine ; in other words, how far this Academic
Authority is an Authority at all.
Authority in this connection obviously depends
upon a presumption of scholarship. That is, the
Academic personage is presumed from his very
position to have had special opportunities for in
formation, to have accumulated a great number of
facts and conclusions inaccessible to the ordinary
man from lack of leisure and training, and to be
putting forward these facts and conclusions with
accuracy. He has no other source of Authority.
He does not pretend to revelation or to special
inspiration. If it can be shown that he is not
writing good history but bad history, then his pre
sumed Authority disappears, and his opposition to
the Church is of no more weight than that of any
other ill-informed or inaccurate man.
Good history means accurate history, and accuracy
in historical writings is of three kinds.
First, and least important perhaps, is the accuracy
that can be tested by established books of reference,
and more certainly by a comparison of the historian’s
work with the documents upon which it is admittedly
founded ; accuracy in dates given, in the exact
wording of quotations, and in all matters of that
kind.
Errors in these may be mere slips of the pen or
mere carelessness in proof reading, or, what is graver,
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Anti-Catholic History:
a lapse of memory. Even so, they vitiate history
and mislead the reader.
But they may also be something more. These
errors may, if they occur in sufficient number, or
are of their nature presumably due to ignorance and
not to neglect, or are made upon matters sufficiently
grave or presumed to be of common knowledge to all
expert historians, be proof of a fundamental lack of
scholarship. They may show a book to be not only
slipshod, but written without any sufficient prepara
tion or knowledge.
In other words, we can cite such errors as a proof
of thoroughly bad history according to—
(tz) the number of such errors.
If I write a short account of Queen Victoria’s;
reign with one hundred dates in it, and fifty of those
dates are wrong, that is not mere carelessness. It
is ignorance, and it is proof of my incapacity to write
on the subject at all.
(Q The inherent probability of error.
For instance, if I find a man saying that Queen
Victoria came to the throne in 1873, it
obviously
a printer’s error for 1837’; but if I find him saying
that war broke out between France and Germany
in April 1869, that is inexcusable. No man can write
July so that it looks like April, or 1869 so that it
looks like 1870, and it is exceedingly unlikely that
he would write either the month or the year wrong
by a mere slip of the pen. There is no subcon
scious action to account for such a mistake, and one
can only put it down to ignorance.
Q) The grossness of the error.
One may excuse a man for not looking up some
tiny point, or for having looked it up in some in
accurate book of reference ; but there are certain
great fixed dates in history which everybody ought
�How it is Written
9
to know, certain main facts and names with which
everybody should be acquainted, and when an
historian goes hopelessly wrong on those, one has a
right to give a loud cry. As, for instance, if a man
mentioning the Boer War shows, even by a single
allusion, that he thought the Boers were Englishspeaking, or black. Or again, if one writing on
the Bible should show by a chance phrase that he
thought it to be all by one hand.
Second, and of greater importance in the matter
■of accuracy and therefore of good history, is accuracy
in proportion, that is in the relation of one state
ment to another.
Thus, if an historian describing the Boer War
•omits or makes little of the presence of a large
element in the Cape sympathetic with the Boers, or
tells us nothing of the widespread voluntary enlist
ment in England at the beginning of the struggle,
or does not emphasize the loose formation and
peculiar method of fighting of the enemy, he is,
whether from bias or from ignorance, writing bad
history.
Every one of the facts stated may be
perfectly accurate, and yet the truth may be hidden,
or even reversed, in the process of telling. This
kind of bad history is often to be discovered in
the way in which an historian will pervert the
meaning of a document by not mentioning or by
not sufficiently emphasizing some one of its provi
sions. For instance, one might say of the great
Reform Bill of 1832 that it destroyed the popular
franchise in many towns, and was for long opposed
by that great and typically national man, the Duke
of Wellington. But to say only those two things
about it would be to mislead the reader altogether,
for the Duke of Wellington’s opposition was personal,
and later was withdrawn ; and while popular fran-
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Anti-Catholic History:
chise was destroyed in some towns, the franchise as a
whole was intended to be, and was, both more widely
extended and based upon a more popular principle
than it had been, being specially designed to include
the new great towns of industry which had hitherto
been excluded. Or again, a man might quote in
great detail Mr. Gladstone’s speeches and letters
against Home Rule, casually adding at the end of
his description, “later he greatly modified these
views.” Such an arrangement and proportion would
be a thorough perversion of history.
Errors of this kind, errors in proportion and
emphasis, proceed sometimes from bias ; sometimes
from not having read the original documents in
their entirety ; and sometimes from both. But it
will generally be conceded that, when they occur
frequently and affect the whole course of a narra
tion, they destroy the historical authority of the
narrator.
Third, and most important of all, is that kind of
accuracy which may be called ‘ ‘ accuracy in the
spirit of the narration,” that is accuracy as to the
general atmosphere of an event.
This kind of accuracy is, of course, the real test
of good history beyond all others. But it is much
the most difficult both to define and to criticise, and
where it is lacking one must exercise great care in
choosing one’s examples to show that it is lacking,
for it is not a process available to the ordinary
reader. The judgement can only be passed by one
who has covered the same field of historical reading
as has the writer whom he is examining.
Thus we cannot call an historian a bad historian
of the Battle of Waterloo simply because he shows
a great prejudice against the political aims of the
allies and a great sympathy for the political aims
�How it is Written
11
of Napoleon. But if his sympathies lead him to
present the resistance of the British squares in
Wellington’s line to the French Cavalry charges ashalf-hearted and ill-disciplined, he is a bad historian.
In order to write such bad history, it is not necessary
that he should use false language at all or set down
facts which are contrary to the truth. He has but
to modify his adjectives somewhat, or even to ascribe,
without himself vouching for it, certain motives and
a certain mental attitude in his characters, to produce
the desired effect, or to quote adverse opinion without
quoting opinion in favour of the party he is attacking.
Now, if we take these three kinds of inaccuracy
in their order and judge by them the historical value
of Professor Bury’s little book, we shall, I think, be
surprised at the result.
To take the first kind of inaccuracy : inaccuracy
in date and fact and quotation. I have said that the
numbers, the inherent probability, and the grossness
of error, are the three matters which in this connection
we are chiefly concerned with, and I think my
readers will agree, when I have run through certain
examples of this kind of thing in Professor Bury’s
book, that they are not excusable upon any plea of
mere fatigue or over-rapid work. There are too
many of them, and many of them are too serious,
for such a plea to hold.
Remember that I am quoting but a portion of
these howlers, and only such as my own limited
historical learning allows me to discover at a first
reading. Remember, further, that I am taking them
from no more than the first two hundred pages of the
book, which bring us up to modern times. Those
pages are short pages. The little essay is not a book
of reference crammed with facts ; it is a piece of pro
paganda in which the facts stated are comparatively
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Anti-Catholic History:
few, and few also the names referred to (for instance,
there is no mention of Abelard). Yet even upon
so small a scale, and under such partial conditions of
examination, thenumber of positive errors is startling.
frWe have upon page 55 Spain given as the place
of Priscillian’s execution ; it should, of course, be
Treves.
Upon page 56 Simon de Montfort the elder is
confused with his own son and called ‘f the English
man. ”
We have Lyons instead of Vienne given as the
place of Servetus’s imprisonment by the Inquisition
before he got away to Geneva.
Legate and Whiteman, the English dissenters who
were burned by the Anglicans in 1612, are set down
as having suffered in 1611.
The Decree of the Holy Office in the matter of
Galileo is put down to the month of February ; it
was given, as a fact, in March.
The statute De Hceretico Comburendo (p. 59) is
put down to 1400 ; it should be 1401.
The statute of 1677 (same page) is put down to
1676—-a year in which Parliament did not even
meet!
Jeremy Taylor s Liberty of Prophesying is dated
one year wrong.
Hume s Dialogues on Natural Religion were not
published in 1776 J there is an error of three years.
Collins, who died in 1729, is said to have “pub
lished” his Discourse in 1733 (page 141).
. Shaftesbury’s Inquiry appeared first, we are told,
m 1699. As a fact, we first find it printed in 1711.
Voltaire, we are told on p. 153, did not begin
ms campaign against Christianity until after the
middle of the eighteenth century. As a fact, the
first work of Voltaire’s to be publicly burnt for
�How zt is Written
13
attacking the Faith was so burnt in 1734- And so
forth. . . .
One might go on indefinitely quoting errors of
this kind, striking rather for their number in such
few pages than for their individual importance, and
it is conceivable that a defence might be put up for
each : in the one case it is a printer’s error; in
another a slip of the pen ; in a third a confusion
between old style and new style—though that is
hardly excusable. But with all the charity imagin
able, and with the best will in the world to excuse
the book as merely grossly careless, one cannot
explain away by mere carelessness such enormities
as a mistake of twenty years in the death of St.Augustine (page 55); a mistake of nine years
(p. 107) in so well-known and fundamental a date
as that of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
Perhaps the most amazing of this cataract of errors
is the blunder about Robespierre upon page 113.
The main dates of the French Revolution are
matters like the dates of the Battle of Hastings or
the Battle of Waterloo. Everyone is supposed to
know them who touches history at all, even in an
elementary fashion. Robespierre’s execution marks
the end of the Terror and the end of all the first
great active phase of the French Revolution. It
took place at the end of July 1794, and the prepara
tion and the celebration of the feast of the Supreme
Being was in the month before. To put it down to
April 1795 (as is done on this page 113) cannot be
a mere slip, for the month is there to prove it. A
man cannot write April for May or June, and in
April 1795 Robespierre had been dead for nearly
nine months.
I have said enough in this connection to show,
without further examination of other errors of the
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sort, that the book and its authority can be destroyed
on this score alone. But there is an even stronger
case when, we turn to the second type of error,
which I have called of graver importance, and in
which we can show that Professor Bury either quotes
documents that he has not read, or, having read
them, deliberately misinterprets them by omission
and by a lack of proportion in his statement
Personally, I incline to think that the very
numerous errors in this category are due to that
common fault in our universities, the quoting of
some modern statement about an original document
which the writer will not be at the pains of look
ing up for himself.
Turn, for instance, to the statement upon page
57, that “The Inquisition was founded by Pope
Gregory IX. about A.D. 1233.” There is a sentence
absolutely typical of the way in which this book
has been written. It was not “ about ” some vague
period or other, it was precisely in the year 1231,
that Gregory IX. incorporated with ecclesiastical
law the Imperial rescripts of eleven and seven years
earlier. It is in that year that you get the phrase
“ Inquisitores ab ecclesia,” etc. It is in the next
year, 1232, that you find a Dominican with the title
of Inquisitor. All that you get for the year 1233
is that it was the date when the system was
established in France.
Turn next to a typical statement on p. 59. It is
as follows —
That the Statute for the Punishment of Heretics
by burning, which was passed under Henry IV.,
was repealed (in) 1533 ; revived under Mary, and
finally repealed under Charles II.
Now see what a brief statement of this sort made
in a popular little book of history for general con-
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15
sumption is intended to convey ! It is intended to
convey that a cruel punishment was made law
during the Catholic Middle Ages ; that it ceased to
be law coincidently with the first efforts of Henry
VIII. against Rome, and with the year that was
the year of definite breach with the Papacy. That
when a Catholic sovereign came back in the person
of Mary Tudor, this cruel punishment was revived
and acted upon ; that finally, much later, England
having become wholly Protestant and the Civil Wars
having produced their effect, it was dropped.
Now the interesting point about this statement is,
that though, as I have said, it contains material
errors, the suggestion of historical falsehood is not
dependent upon those errors. It is perfectly true
that the old Statute was repealed under Henry VIII.
just at the moment when he was breaking from
Rome ; but what Professor Bury happens to leave
out is the fact that coincidently with the repeal of the
old Statute a new Statute (25 H. VIII. cap. 14) was
passed which carefully re-erected the punishment of
burning, and preserved it for thefuture.
It may not be common knowledge with the
popular audience to which Professor Bury addressed
himself, but it is common knowledge to the average
historical student, that heretics were burnt for their
heresy steadily during the Protestant establishment :
Butcher and Parre under Edward VI. ; Wielmacker
and Woort and Hammond and others under Eliza
beth. It is further common knowledge that many
were condemned to be burnt who saved themselves
by recanting, or were saved by deportation, or in
some other fashion. The point is that a Statute
for burning heretics was very vigorously alive, though
it was a renewed Statute and not the original Statute
of Henry IV. Professor Bury’s statement, there-
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fore, is as though one were to say of the English
Poor Law : “ Relief was provided for indigent people
by Statute out of the rates under Queen Elizabeth.
But the Statute was repealed in the first part of the
19th century. ” The actual statements would be true,
but they would convey the exact opposite of the truth.
Upon page 65 we have an almost perfect example
of this fashion in treating documents. Here are the
words: “Chemistry (alchemy) was considered a
diabolical art, and in 1317 was condemned by the
Pope. ”
There is exactly the kind of thing repeated over
and over again by men who do not take the trouble
to look up the original documents. It is utterly
inaccurate and fundamentally bad history, and one
can be perfectly certain that Professor Bury has
never so much as glanced at the original text. He
might have discovered it in the second volume of
the body of Canon law, the Lyons edition of 1779.
It is a decretal issued to protect the public from
fraud, and in particular from the fraud practised by
those who pretended to make gold and silver out of
baser metals. The decretal mentions the habit of
such tricksters as stamped with the hall mark of gold
and silver base metal resembling gold and silver,
which base metal they passed off upon the ignorant,
professing to have manufactured them in their
furnaces. The Pope condemns those who have
cheated in this fashion, not to many years penal
servitude (as a modern Court condemned the other
day a Frenchman who had similarly pretended that
he could make large diamonds), but to the paying
into his treasury of a fine in genuine gold and silver
equivalent to the amount of fraudulent metal they
had passed off on poor and ignorant people. There
is not a word about alchemy as an art being con-
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demned, let alone chemistry or any other form of
research.
Now in this case 1 am perfectly certain that
Professor Bury was acting in good faith, that is,
repeating what he had read in other books without
examination and without verifying his references.
The worse historian he !
Here is yet another example of exactly the same
kind of thing. We are told upon page 91 that
“Alexander the Sixth inaugurated censorship of
the Press by his Bull of the year 1501.”
Alexander VI. did nothing of the kind, as Pro
fessor Bury would have known if he had looked up his
original sources as an historian should. Alexander’s
Bull is a copy, word for word, of Innocent VIII.’s
Bull of four years before, which in its turn was based
upon action taken in the University of Cologne
eight years earlier. Further, Alexander’s Bull only
applied to certain German bishoprics. The first
universal censorship came fourteen years later, in •
1515. That one little statement, then, covering
but a line of type, contains a whole nest of in
accuracies, and of inaccuracies due to the fact that
our historian does not know his materials.
You have the same sort of mistake upon page 94.
The catechism of the Socinians is there ascribed to
the influence of Fausto himself. It is just the kind
of thing that looks as though it should be true ;
only, unfortunately, Fausto did not come into the
movement until after the catechism had appeared.
Two pages later on you have another typical
statement : that Charter of Charles II. given to
Rhode Island in 1663 is mentioned as confirming
the existing constitution of the place and securing to
all citizens professing Christianity a full enjoyment
of political rights. What really happened was that
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Charles II. in sending his charter to Rhode Island
repeated his own decision in favour of universal
toleration. But the colonists were concerned with
nothing save the insignificant quarrels of the in
numerable Protestant sects ; the King ultimately left
it to the Assembly of Rhode Island to decide what
it would do, and when that body issued its rules
(printed in 1719) they excluded Catholics.
It is clear that in all these examples, which I
have taken at random up and down the book, the
writer is doing what we so continually find upon the
part of academic authorities, particularly when they
are indulging in an attack upon the Catholic Church—
he is repeating what some other man of the same
kind has said before him, and that other man is
repeating something that was said before him. He
has not been at the pains of consulting original
authorities ; and the result is valueless and in
accurate history, always wrong and sometimes the
exact opposite of the truth.
When we come to the third and gravest kind of
bad history, that in which the general atmosphere is
falsified, we have, as I have said, a much harder
task than in the case of errors in dates and facts, or
of errors due to omission or ignorance of documents.
Nevertheless, the point is of such importance that
it must be dealt with, and I think it will be found
possible to show by fairly definite examples how
thoroughly the thing he is attempting to describe
has been misunderstood by the writer : how lacking
he is in the preparation necessary to a grasp of his
subject.
Let me take for my first example in this general
matter of “ atmosphere ” Professor Bury’s description
of the mediaeval attitude towards the marvellous,
the miraculous, and evidence in general.
�How it is Written
He appears to be persuaded that men in those
times and places where the Catholic Faith was
supreme had lost all sense of the value of evidence
and of the nature of reason. He seems to have
some vague confused picture in his mind of a
besotted society in which men would believe pretty
well anything they were told, and in which no
inquiry could be made into the processes of the
mind or the nature of witness and of truth.
Well, to begin with, if Professor Bury had done
what I suppose no don at our universities ever does,
that is, had read a few lines of St. Thomas in the
original, he would have found the whole argument
against miracles, the whole of the modern feeling
which he himself shares, set out with perfect
lucidity and with extraordinary terseness in the
sixth article of the 105th question of the Summa.
It is St. Thomas’s habit always to put as fully as
possible his opponent’s case before he deals with it,
and that in itself is a mediaeval habit in argument
which moderns have forgotten and would do well
to copy.
But quite apart from his ignorance of this great
text-book of the Middle Ages, the fixed idea that
mediaeval men in general were careless of philosophy
is an astonishing piece of ignorance in which our
author is evidently sunk.
For instance, almost at the outset of his little
effort (on p. 16) we are told that a man in the
Middle Ages hearing of the existence of a city
called Constantinople, and hearing also that comets
were portents signifying divine wrath, would not
have been able to distinguish the nature of the
evidence in the two cases ! Now to say that is not
so much to misunderstand the Middle Ages as to
state something wildly and ridiculously false with
�20
Anti-Catholic History:
regard to them. If ever there was a time which
pushed to excess the habit of definition and of clear
deductive thinking, the establishment of intellectual
categories and the difference between different orders
of ideas, that time was without the faintest doubt
the time between the great awakening of the twelfth
century and the moral shipwreck of the sixteenth.
You are perfectly free to say that this habit of
deductive reasoning was pushed to extremes in the.
Middle Ages: that men wasted their time upon
metaphysical vanities when they should have been
observing phenomena. That is what a good his
torian to whom the Middle Ages were antipathetic
would advance. He would thus show at once that
he knew what the Middle Ages were, and that he
disapproved of them. But to say that the men of
the Middle Ages could not distinguish between
different kinds of intellectual authority, that they
did not concern themselves with exact categories of
thought, is exactly as though you were to say that
Liverpool and Manchester to-day did not concern
themselves with machinery or the production of
material wealth. It is a false statement and bad
history. That misstatement of the whole phase of
our European past is perpetually cropping up in the
book. I have only given one example of it ; 1
might have given twenty.
It is in the same way bad general history to talk
of “the profound conviction” that those who did
not believe in the doctrines of the Church (page 52)
were damned eternally,” and to continue (page 53)
that ‘‘according to the humane doctrine of the
Christians, infants who died unbaptized passed the
rest of time in creeping on the floor of Hell. ”
It is bad history to write that, exactly as it would
be bad history to say “The English Army in 1913
�How it is Written
21
ought to have been stronger ; but then Englishmen
were fools enough to believe that one jolly English
man was worth ten foreigners.” In both cases you
are saying something for which you could easily
quote popular or exaggerated contemporary matter,
and in both cases you are saying something which
shows you ignorant of your historical “ atmosphere.”
The eminent men who preside at the War Office or
over our Foreign Affairs, those who decide, rightly
or wrongly, upon the balance of international forces
known to them and with the whole European situa
tion before them, what the military strength of
Great Britain shall be, these are our authority, and
their decision is the criterion of such things.. They
do not think or say “ one jolly Englishman is worth
ten furriners. ” Their calculation of military ex
penditure is not established upon that basis. Mean
while, it may be true that an exaggeration of the
national strength or an excessive credulity in the
national good fortune may warp the judgement even
of those eminent men. Anyone desiring to prove
the truth of such bad history could quote hundreds
of songs and speeches from the Tub in support of his
contention. He could also probably quote many an
erroneous statement proceeding from men in really
high position. None the less his statement would
be bad history.
It is precisely the same with regard to the Christian
doctrine of eternal damnation, and particularly with
regard to that most difficult of all discussions, the
relation between Faith and Will. But the sentence,
as Professor Bury puts it, is the opposite of the
truth. The ultimate authority of the Church has
never condemned all the unbaptized to eternal
damnation. To say so is simply thoroughly bad
history, and there is an end of it.
�22
A nit-Catholic History:
I will give a third example. The enormous efforts
culminating in a great war directed against the
Albigensians had, it may be presumed, some great
historical cause. On page 56 we are told what this
cause was: “The Church got far too little money
out of this anti-clerical population. ” There is history
for you !
That the loss of revenue excited a strong material
interest is true enough, but to put it forward as the
main cause of the Albigensian War is childish. It
is as though some future historian, disliking the
Manchester School of Economics, were to describe
its intellectual triumph in the middle of the nineteenth
century in England by saying that John Stuart Mill
and Cobden, as well as Bright and Peel, were cun
ningly calculating the profits they could extort from
the labouring poor. One does hear fantastic ex
aggerations or rather wild distortion of this kind on
the lips of sincere but incapable fanatics ; but to
have them set down in what purports to be sober
history, and from the pen of an historian, would be
to render that history worthless and its author
ridiculous.
I will give before concluding yet another instance
of this major error of “atmosphere” which runs
through the whole book. For the purpose of this
last illustration let me choose the few lines upon
St. Thomas upon page 69.
Every historian knows, or should know, what
the place of St. Thomas is in history. You have
in him one of the very few men who have acted as
the tutors of the human race. The more you differ
from or dislike the man or his doctrines, the more is
it your business as an historian to appreciate his
sea e , or history, like all other forms of present
ment, is a matter of proportion. St. Thomas gave
�How it is Written
23
at once a summary, an expression, and a creative
effort to all that is meant by the Christian intelli
gence, and it is plain historical sense to speak of
him as one speaks of Aristotle, of St. Augustine,
or of Bacon ; just as it is plain common sense to
call Russia or the German Empire a great power,
whether one likes or dislikes their people or govern
ments. It is mere bad history to say, as is here
said upon page 69, that St. Thomas “constructed
an ingenious” system of philosophy, and that “ the
Treatise of Thomas is more calculated to unsettle a
believing mind than to quiet the scruples of a
doubter. ”
It is not bad history because St. Thomas was
not ingenious ; it is net bad history because the
gigantic rational force of St. Thomas is incapable
of suggesting doubts ; on the contrary, St. Thomas
must, or may, like all powerful thinkers, have pro
duced reactions against his own conclusions, and
must and may, like all creative minds, have told
lesser men as much of what they should not have as
of what they should. No, to say that St. Thomas
constructed an ingenious system ” is bad history
because it is ludicrously inadequate.
It is like
describing Julius Caesar as a bald-headed man who
travelled and died prematurely ; or Shakespeare as an
English actor who flourished in the reign of James I.
So much, then, for examples of the false historical
atmosphere running throughout this little essay.
It reaches its culmination, perhaps, in the astound
ing remark that (page 90) the retention of Galileo’s
works upon the Index until 1835 was, during the
intervening centuries, “fatal to the study of natural
science in Italy”; from which one might suppose that
Professor Bury had never heard of Torricelli, let us
say, of Volta, or of Galvani !
�24
A nti- Catholic H1story
What are we to say in conclusion upon a book of
this kind? 1 think no more than to repeat the
opinion I set out at the beginning of these few
pages : the supposed Academic Authority of those
who attack the Catholic Church, as Professor Bury
has attacked it, is usually valueless, because it is
usually inaccurate and bad history. This book
shows in a particularly clear light the kind . of in
accurate and bad history which our universities are
responsible for, and it is not an unfair example of
that sort of pompous self-sufficiency in the modern
academic onslaught upon the Church, which it is the
business of every Catholic to mistrust, and I think
of every sound historical critic to ridicule. If I may
presume to counsel those who cannot make any
special study of history, I would earnestly beg them
to challenge the authority of any historical state
ment they hear which seems to conflict with their
common sense or their Faith, and at their leisure to
examine the original authorities upon which it is
based, and which are now for the most part available
to all.
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, LONDON.
n.—June 1914.
�
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Anti-Catholic history: how it is written
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Belloc, Hilaire [1870-1953]
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Place of Publication: London
Collation: 24 p. ; 19 cm.
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Catholic Truth Society
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1914
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Catholic Church
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Catholic Church-Doctrinal and Controversial Works
J.B. Bury
-
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PDF Text
Text
GOTT-NATUE
(Theophysis)
Studien fiber monistische Religion
Von
Ernst Haeckel
Alfred Kroner Verlag in Leipzig
1914
MMR
�1
�national secular society
Gott-Nat ur
(Theophysis)
Studien uber monistische Religion
Von
Ernst Haeckel
Alfred Kroner Verlag in Leipzig
1914
�,,Was kann der Mensch im Leben mehr gewinnen,
Als daB sich Gott-Natur ihm ofienbare?
Wie sie das Feste laBt zu Geist verrinnen,
Wie sie das Geisterzeugte fest bewahre!“
Goethe.
*
�Den Lesern der
„Weitratsel“
und
„Leb enswunder“
bei Vollendung seines achtzigsten Lebensjahres
und am Abschlusse seiner
naturphilosophischen Arbeit
gewidmet von
Ernst Haeckel
am 16. Februar 1914
�„Was war ein Gott, der nur von auBen stieBe,
Im Kreis das All am Finger laufen lieBe!
Ihm ziemt’s, die Welt im Innern zu bewegen,
Natur in Sich, Sich in Natur zu hegen,
So daB, was in Ihm lebt und webt und ist,
Nie Seine Kraft, nie Seinen Geist vermiBt
Goethe.
�Inhalt
Seite
Vorwort..................................................................................
7
Religion und Philosophic....................................................... 11
Erkenntnislehre...........................................................................12
Monistische Erkenntnistheorie............................................... 13
Dualistische Erkenntnistheorie
...................................19
Ldsung des Menschen-Ratsels................................................... 21
Anthropologische Fundamente des Monismus.................... 21
Losung des Seelen-Ratsels....................................................... 27
Psychologische Fundamente des Monismus........................ 27
Losung des Substanz-Ratsels................................................... 32
Kosmologische Fundamente des Monismus........................ 32
Losung des Gottes-Ratsels....................................................... 37
Theologische Fundamente des Monismus............................37
Lebensfiihrung (Ethik)............................................................... 47
Abschied . ................................................................................... 56
Anhang.
Synoptische Tabellen.
I. Monistische und Dualistische Religion............................64
II. Hauptformen des Ontheismus....................... . . • . 65
III. Trinitat der Substanz....................................................... 66
IV. Drei Richtungen der Substanzlehre................................67
V. Kritik der Erkenntniswege............................................... 68
VI. Grundrichtungen der Naturphilosophie............................ 69
VII. Ahnenreihe des Menschen: I. Halfte................................ 70
VIII. Ahnenreihe des Menschen: II. Halfte.............................. 71
�„Ist denn so schwer das Ratsel, was Gott und der Mensch
und die Welt sei?
Nein! Doch niemand hort’s gern; darum bleibt es geheim.“
Goethe.
�Vorwort.
Am Schlusse meiner wissenschaftlichen Lebensarbeit angelangt, sehe ich mich — wider Erwarten, — veranlaBt, noch
einmal in Sachen der monistischen Naturphilosophie das Wort
zu ergreifen. Die unmittelbare Veranlassung dazu geben mir
sehr zahlreiche Briefe, welche seit fiinfzehn Jahren von wiBbegierigen Lesern der „Weltratsel“ und „Lebenswunder“ an
mich gelangt sind. In diesen „Gemeinverstandlichen Studien “
hatte ich versucht, meine allgemeinen Anschauungen uber die
hochsten Fragen der Menschheit, uber Gott und Welt, Seele
und Mensch, welche ich als Naturforscher im Laufe fiinfzigjahriger Denkarbeit gewonnen hatte, einem weiteren Kreise
Gebildeter zuganglich zu machen, DaB ich damit einem wirklichen Bediirfnis der Zeit entgegengekommen war, bewies der
ungewohnliche, mir selbst ganz unerwartete Erfolg dieser Bucher.
Die moderne monistische Philosophic ist das natiirliche
Produkt einerseits aus den beispiellosen Fortschritten der gesamten Naturerkenntnis im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, anderseits aus dem stetig wachsenden Bediirfnis der Vernunft, sich
in dem Labyrinthe der dadurch gewonnenen Tatsachen zurechtzufinden und zu einem klaren einheitlichen Weltbilde zu gelangen. Da diese Weltanschauung aber mit den hergebrachten,
durch tausendjahrige Tradition geheiligten Uberzeugungen der
Religion vielfach in Widerspruch gerat und die heftigsten Angriffe der herrschenden dualistischen Philosophie hervorrief,
entspann sich alsbald ein lebhafter „Kampf um die Weltratsel“.
Einerseits wurde dieses bescheidene „Skizzenbuch“ als vollig
�— 8
—
wertlos und irrefuhrend geschmaht, andrerseits als bahnbrechend
und aufklarend uber Gebiihr gelobt. Dabei ergaben sich so
zahlreiche Widerspriiche und MiBverstandnisse auf beiden Seiten, daB ich mich fiinf Jahre spater bewogen fand, in dem Buche
uber die „ Lebenswunder “ einen Erganzungsband der „Weltratsel“ folgen zu lassen. Im Vorwort zu diesen „Gemeinverstandlichen Studien“ liber „Biologische Philosophie “ habe ich
bereits das Wichtigste dariiber mitgeteilt und in den begleitenden 22 „Synoptischen Tabellen“ die wesentlichsten Lehrsatze
der neuen Weltanschauung ubersichtlich zusammengefaBt.
In beiden Buchern war ich bemiiht, moglichst klar und
einfach auf Grund der neuen Entwicklungslehre die wichtigsten
von jenen schwierigen Hauptfragen der monistischen Philosophie
darzustellen, deren Grundziige ich bereits 1866 in der „Generellen Morphologie der Organismen“ festgelegt und bald darauf
in der „Natiirlichen Schopfungsgeschichte“ (1868) einem groBeren Leserkreise zuganglich zu machen versucht hatte. Allein
die unermeBliche Ausdehnung des modernen Erkenntnis-Gebietes, die Unmoglichkeit, alle Seiten desselben gleichmaBig zu
durchdringen, auBerdem die Unvollkommenheit meiner person
lichen Kenntnisse und Darstellungsgabe, hinderten mich trotz
des ehrlichsten Strebens, alle Teile der gestellten Aufgabe gleich
maBig und befriedigend zu losen. So kam es, daB immer
wieder Tausende meiner wiBbegierigen Leser Anfragen uber
verschiedene, sie beunruhigende Unklarheiten und Zweifel an
mich richteten. Besonders wurde vielfach gefragt, in wieweit
die Sicherheit meiner Anschauungen wirklich begriindet und
einwandfrei sei; auch wurde getadelt, daB ich meine Hypothesen
nicht scharf genug von den feststehenden Tatsachen gesondert
habe; ferner, daB die naturwissenschaftlichen und philosophischen
Lehren die Grenzen ihrer gesonderten Gebiete iiberschritten
hatten. Namentlich betrafen diese Bedenken diejenigen Probleme, welche an den Grenzen der Philosophie und Reli
gion, der Biologie und der Physik sich vielfach kreuzen und
beriihren. Auf diese Fragen, die in zahlreichen Briefen gleicher-
�9
weise wiederkehrten, versuche ich in diesen Blattern eine gedrangte Antwort zu geben.
Was nun die gewiinschte Sicherheit der Erkenntnisse betrifft, so muB ich freilich meine freundlichen Leser bitten, stets
im Sinne zu behalten, daB dieselbe immer subjektiv bleibt.
Ich bin ein unvollkommener Mensch und daher auch bei ehrlichstem Streben nach objektiver Wahrheit immer der Moglichkeit des Irrtums ausgesetzt. Die relative Sicherheit meines hier
erneuerten „Glaubensbekenntnisses“ beruht also darauf,
daB ich sechzig Jahre hindurch die Welt und den Menschen
mit lebhaftestem Interesse durchforscht und bei dem ehrlichen
Streben nach moglichst klarer Erkenntnis der Wirklichkeit
stets im Sinne von Goethe „Gott in der Natur “ gesucht
habe; — ferner darauf, daB eine stetig wachsende Zahl von
bedeutenden Naturforschern und Philosophen zu denselben
Ergebnissen gelangt ist.
Jena am 12. Februar 1914.
�Prooemion.
„Im Namen dessen, der Sich selbst erschuf,
Von Ewigkeit in schaffendem Beruf;
In Seinem Namen, der den Glauben schafft,
Vertrauen, Liebe, Tatigkeit und Kraft;
In Jenes Namen, der, so oft genannt,
Dem Wesen nach blieb immer unbekannt:
So weit das Ohr, so weit das Auge reicht,
Du findest nur Bekanntes, das Ihm gleicht,
Und deines Geistes hochster FeuerAug
Hat schon am Gleichnis, hat am Bild genug;
Es zieht dich an, es reiBt dich heiter fort,
Und wo du wandelst, schmiickt sich Weg und Ort;
Du zahlst nicht mehr, berechnest keine Zeit,
Und jeder Schritt ist UnermeBlichkeit!“
Goethe.
(»Gott und Welt.“'
�Religion nnd Philosophie.
Die beiden groBen Gebiete unseres menschlichen Geisteslebens, welche gewohnlich als Religion und Philosophie gegeniibergestellt werden, hangen urspriinglich untrennbar zusammen.
AuBerlich zwar erscheinen beide jetzt scharf getrennt; auf
unseren modernen Universitaten steht noch heute in der Rangordnung der Fakultaten die Theologie als „Religionswissenschaft“ an erster Stelle, wahrend die Philosophie als „Weltweisheit“ die letzte Stelle einnimmt. Die Theologie soli als
„Gottesgelehrtheit“ jenen tiefsten und wichtigsten Urgrund
alles Daseins lehren, welcher unter dem vieldeutigen Begriff
„Gott“ als „hochstes Wesen“ verehrt wird. Die Philosophie
hingegen soil als umfassende „Weltweisheit“ die Fiille aller
von den einzelnen Wissenszweigen gewonnenen Erkenntnisse
in einem gemeinsamen Mittelpunkt sammeln und als „Fiirstin
der Wissenschaften “ ein einheitliches Gesamtbild der Welt
herstellen.
Vielfach wird auch der Gegensatz beider Geistesgebiete so
verstanden, daB die Religion als Glaubenslehre das hohere
Gebiet der Anschauungen umfassen soli, welches der wissenschaftlichen Behandlung verschlossen und nur der iibersinnlichen Offenbarung zuganglich sei. Die Philosophie dagegen
soil sich als universale Wissenslehre auf sicheres, durch sinnliche Erfahrung gestiitztes Wissen beschranken und von dem
schwankenden Glauben absehen. Tatsachlich ist aber dieser
Gegensatz unhaltbar, denn beide Gebiete des Denkens sind
gleicherweise unvollkommen und genotigt, die vielfachen Liicken
des erfahrungsmaBigen Erkennens durch Glaubens-Vorstellungen
auszufiillen, Im Gebiete der Religion beanspruchen dieselben
�12
als unentbehrliche „Glaubenssatze“ oder „Dogmen“ eine unbedingte und absolute Geltung, wahrend sie im Gebiete der
Philosophic als wissenschaftliche Hypothesen zwar zugelassen
werden miissen, aber immerhin nur provisorischen Wert besitzen und jederzeit in Folge fortgeschrittener Erkenntnis durch
bessere ersetzt werden konnen. Der oft betonte scharfe Gegensatz zwischen „ Glauben und Wissen“ besitzt also nicht die ihm
zugeschriebene Wichtigkeit. (Vergl. Kap. 16 der „Weltratsel“.)
Erkeimtnislehre.
Monistische (physiologische) und dualistische
(metaphysische) Erkenntnis-Theorie.
Auf dem schwierigen und dornenvollen Wege zur Erkennt
nis der Wahrheit miissen wir zunachst uns fiber dessen Ziele
und die Mittel zu ihrer Erreichung verstandigen. Wir konnen
zu einer klaren Anschauung vom wirklichen Wesen der Welt
und zum Verstandnis ihrer Ursachen nur dann gelangen, wenn
wir nicht bloB unser Objekt, die Welt, bestimmt vor Augen
haben, sondern auch unsere Fahigkeit zu ihrer Erkenntnis,
unser Subjekt, kritisch gepriift haben. Daher fordert die
moderne Philosophie mit Recht im Beginne ihrer Arbeit eine
kritische, auf Wissenschaft gegriindete „ Erkenntnis-Theorie
wahrend die altere Religion sich mit einem unkritischen, angeblich auf Offenbarung gestutzten, tatsachlich der dichtenden
Phantasie entsprungenen Glauben begniigt.
Bei der Erledigung dieser ersten Frage scheiden sich bereits
die beiden groBen Richtungen, welche die „Weltweisheit“ von
Altersher in zwei entgegengesetzte Lager fiihren, die monistische
oder naturalistische und die dualistische oder metaphysische
Erkenntnislehre. („Lebenswunder“ Kap. 1.)
Unsere monistische oder „naturwissenschaftliche“ Erkenntnistheorie betrachtet die Erkenntnis als einen physiologischen
Natur-ProzeB, dessen anatomisches Organ unser menschliches
Gehirn ist.
�13
Die herrschende dualistische oder „geisteswissenschaftliche** Erkenntnislehre hingegen erblickt in der wahren Erkenntnis einen iibernatiirlichen Vorgang, ein transszendentes
„ Wunder
Die monistische Seelenlehre, als ein Teil der
Physiologie, fordert daher zunachst eine empirische Kenntnis
und eine kritische Beurteilung unseres menschlichen Organismus
und seiner Organe, insbesondere des Gehirns, mithin eine
anthropologische Basis. Die dualistische Psychologie hin
gegen, welche die „Seele“ als ein unsterbliches und iibernatiirliches „Wesen“ betrachtet, verschmaht diese anatomisch-physiologische Kenntnis des Menschen; sie glaubt allein durch
introspektive Analyse, durch metaphysische Spekulation uber
die Erkenntnis-Tatigkeit, und durch dialektisches Spiel mit ihren
Begriffen, zur „Analysis der Wirklichkeit“ zu gelangen.
Monistische Erkenntnistheorie.
Unsere monistische und realistische Erkenntnistheorie be
trachtet als sichere Grundlage aller Wissenschaft ausschlieBlich
die Erfahrung (Empirie). Die anatomischen Organe dieser
physiologischen Tatigkeit sind zwei verschiedene Bezirke unserer
GroBhirnrinde: das Sensorium (Sinneszentrum) und das Phronema (Denkorgan). Die mikroskopischen Elementarorgane
des ersteren sind die Asthetalzellen oder inneren Sinneszellen
diejenigen des letzteren die Phronetalzellen oder Denkzellen.
Die Urquellen aller Erkenntnis sind die auBeren Sinnesorgane;
sie vermitteln direkt den Verkehr des Organismus mit der
AuBenwelt und iibertragen die hier empfangenen Eindriicke
durch die Sinnesnerven auf das innere Sinneszentrum; durch
deren Verkniipfung im Phronema (Assozion oder Assoziation)
entstehen dann die Gedanken. Urspriinglich sind alle Gedanken
und Vorstellungen a posteriori (durch Empirie) erworben. Durch
Assozion der Begriffe entstehen aber neue Erkenntnisse, die
dann scheinbar a priori (ohne vorhergehende empirische Grundlagen) auftreten. Die unbefangene physiologische Kritik dieser
natiirlichen Vorgange fiihrt zum Pantheismus.
�Exakte Erkenntniswege. Die erste Anforderung, welche
die Kritik an die Erkenntnis der Wahrheit stellt, ist moglichst
genaue oder exakte Beobachtung und Beurteilung der Tatsachenu
Im strengsten Sinne ist eine wirklich vollkommene Erkenntnis
nur in der Mathematik moglich, und in denjenigen Gebieten
der Anorgik (der anorganischen Naturwissenschaft), welche
GrbBenverhaltnisse und quantitative Beziehungen behandeln
(theoretische Physik im engeren Sinne, Astronomie, Chemie usw.).
hier ist es meistens moglich, durch Zahl und MaB eine hohe
(wenn auch nicht immer absolute) formale Genauigkeit in der
Beschreibung zu erreichen. Die Objekte der Beurteilung sind
hier meistens verhaltnismaBig einfach und in ihren charakteristischen Eigenschaften relativ gut bekannt.
Ganz anders verhalt es sich in der Biologie (der organischen Naturwissenschaft). Hier sind die Verhaltnisse der Erscheinungen meistens sehr vielseitig und verwickelt, und bieten
wegen ihrer mannigfachen qualitativen Differenzen der Untersuchung viel groBere Schwierigkeiten. Zwar ist es auch hier
vielfach moglich, die einzelnen Seiten der Erscheinungen
mit Hilfe von Zahl und MaB exakt darzustellen, das gilt aber
nicht fur das Ganze und Allgemeine. Vor allem liegt aber
der exakten Erkenntnis der Organismen der Umstand im Wege,
daB wir das Plasma oder die „lebendige Substanz“ (die materielle Basis alles Lebens, den „Lebensstoff“ im eigentlichsten
Sinne!) noch heute nur sehr wenig kennen; selbst die chemische
Natur der EiweiBkorper oder Albuminate, zu denen die millionenfach verschiedenen Plasmakorper gehoren, ist uns noch
sehr ungeniigend bekannt. Es ist daher eine gefahrliche Selbsttauschung, wenn viele Biologen ihr engeres Forschungsgebiet
noch als exakte Naturwissenschaft bezeichnen. Noch weniger
ist es zulassig, die gesamten Naturwissenschaften (zu denen doch
auch viele historische Facher gehoren) als exakte zu bezeichnen
und ihnen alle iibrigen als „Geisteswissenschaften“ gegeniiberzustellen.
Grenzen der Beobachtung. Der sicheren Genauigkeit
�15
der Erfahrung sind enge Grenzen gesetzt schon durch die Beschaffenheit unserer menschlichen Sinnesorgane (Sensilla) und
des Gehirns, in welchem die auBeren Sinneseindriicke durch
das Sensorium (die inneren „Sinnesherde“) iibersetzt und dem
benachbarten Denkorgan (Phronema) zugefiihrt werden. Im
allgemeinen besitzen unsere Sinneswerkzeuge dieselbe morphologische Zusammensetzung und die gleicbe physiologische Arbeitsweise wie die Sensillen der iibrigen Saugetiere und besonders der nachstverwandten Tierarten (speziell der Menschenaffen). Auch entwickeln sie 'sich im Keime auf dieselbe
eigentiimliche Weise; aus dieser ontogenetischen Tatsache ziehen
;wir einen sicheren SchluB auf ihre phylogenetische Entstehung
und stufenweise Entwicklung. Allein im besonderen stehen
die menschlichen Sinneswerkzeuge vielfach in bezug auf quanti
tative und qualitative Ausbildung auf einer tieferen Stufe als
bei vielen anderen Wirbeltieren. AuBerdem aber ist ihr Leistungsvermogen individuell sehr verschieden, was teils die
Folge der Anpassung (Ubung, Gewohnheit, Erziehung), teils
der Vererbung (innerhalb der Basse, des Volkes, der Familie)
ist. Eine sehr gefahrliche Grenze der Beobachtung und eine
Quelle vieler Irrtiimer ist ferner durch die folgenschweren
Sinnestauschungen gegeben. Die normalen Sinnestauschungen
(z. B. in bezug auf Licht und Farbe, Bewegung und lokalisierte
Empfindung) verfiihren zu vielen falschen Schliissen; noch vielmehr die pathologischen Sinnestauschungen, welche in Illusionen,
Halluzinationen, Wahnvorstellungen und andere Geisteskrankheiten ausarten. Deshalb ist bei alien Beobachtungen, die
moglichst exakt sein wollen, scharfste Vorsicht und Selbstkritik
geboten. Aus Mangel an solcher, wie an Erziehung des Phronema, begehen namentlich viele Naturforscher, die auf ihre
„Exaktheit“ stolz sind, die groBten Fehler. (Vgl. Weltratsel,
Kap. 16 und Lebenswunder, Kap. 13.)
Grenzen des Experimentes. Da der wissenschaftliche
Erforschungsversuch, das kunstliche „Experiment“, auch auf
Beobachtung beruht, und nur eine Frage ist, unter welchen
�16
Bedingungen irgendeine Erscheinung eintritt, so gilt dafiir
alles, was wir soeben fur die einfache direkte Beobachtung der
Naturerscheinungen angefuhrt haben. Nur ist hier in noch
hoherem Grade niichterne Selbstkritik, Vorsicht bei der Ausfiihrung und Umsicht bei der Beurteilung der Beobachtung zu
fordern. Die Philosophie des klassischen Altertums, welche
schon vor 2000 Jahren in bezug auf Denktatigkeit eine so hohe
Stufe erlangt hatte und selbst heute noch vielfach nicht iibertroffen ist, kannte die hohe Bedeutung des Experiments nicht.
Erst in den letzten drei Jahrhunderten, besonders seit Bacon und
Galilei, ist sein Wert voll erkannt und gewiirdigt worden. Die
Entwicklung der neueren „Experimental-Wissenschaften“
(Physik, Chemie, Physiologie usw.) im letzten Jahrhundert und
ihre erstaunlich fruchtbare Verwertung fiir die Technik und die
verschiedensten Kulturzwecke haben dem Experiment eine
friiher nicht geahnte Bedeutung verliehen.
Vielfach ist jedoch damit eine gefahrliche Uberschatznng
seines Wertes eingetreten, besonders durch seine Einfuhrung in
solche Wissensgebiete, in denen es nur teilweise oder gar nicht
anwendbar ist, z. B. historische Forschungen und Entwicklungslehre. Der jetzt vielgebrauchte und hochgeschatzte Begriff der
„Experimentellen Entwicklungs-Geschichte“ fiihrt vielfach irre.
Denn man kann die historischen Vorgange bei der Entwick
lung des Embryo, die nach dem Biogenetischen Grundgesetz
nur durch ihren Kausalnexus mit der phyletischen Entwicklung
der Ahnenreihe verstandlich werden, niemals durch Experimente
allein erkennen lernen; diese konnen nur den EinfluB veranderter Bedingungen auf bestimmte einzelne Vorgange feststellen, und also die Physiologie und Pathologie des Embryos
fordern. Die moderne experimentelle Entwicklungsmechanik erfreut sich aber gegenwartig, ebenso wie die Experimental Psychologie, oft deshalb groBer Beliebtheit, weil man auch ohne
geniigende allgemeine biologische Vorbildung „interessante Versuche“ anstellen und durch eine „merkwiirdige Entdeckung
einer unerklarten Tatsache“ sich Ansehen verschaffen kann.
�17
Man kann dabei der umfassenden empirischen Kenntnisse entbehren,. welche nur durch ein mehrjahriges griindliches Studium
in vergleichender Anatomie und Ontogenie, und namentlich
auch in Palaeontologie erworben werden konnen.
Vergleichende Methoden. Unter alien biologischen
Wissenschaften ist fiir unsere monistische Philosophie und
Theologie von hochster Bedeutung derjenige Zweig der Morphologie, welcher als „ Vergleichende Anatomie “ den genetischen
Zusammenhang der vielen tausend organischen Formen kennen
lehrt und ihre endlose Mannigfaltigkeit auf eine gemeinsame
[einfache Quelle zuriickfuhrt. Schon vor 130 Jahren hatte
'Goethe dazu den ersten Anfang gemacht, als er auf der Anatoffiie in Jena den Schadel des Menschen und der iibrigen Saugetiere sorgfaltig vergleichend studierte. Zu einer selbstandigen
PWissenschaft wurde die vergleichende Anatomie im Beginn des
19. Jahrhunderts durch die beiden groBen Pariser Zoologen
George Cuvier und Jean Lamarck erhoben. Ihnen ebenbiirtig
erweiterte dann in Deutschland Johannes Muller ihren Wirkungskreis, indem er die vergleichende Morphologic und Physio
logie mit der von Baer begriindeten Entwicklungsgeschichte
Rrerkniipfte.
Ihre voile Bedeutung als „ Philosophie Zoologique“ im Sinne
hmseres heutigen Monismus erhielt sie aber erst, nachdem
Rjharles Darwin (1859) die Abstammungslehre reformiert und
sein Freund Thomas Huxley (1863) sie auf den Menschen angewandt hatte. Ihre umfassendste und wirkungsvollste AusWhrung erhielt sie durch die klassische „ Vergleichende Anawmie“ von Carl Gegenbaur, dessen zahlreiche treffliche Schuler
noch heute fur ihren Ausbau erfolgreich tatig sind.
Meine eigenen wissenschaftlichen Bestrebungen haben seit
femem halben Jahrhundert das Ziel verfolgt, im Sinne dieser
groBen Meister (die zum Teil noch meine personlichen Lehrer
waren) das wundervolle Gebiet der vergleichenden Morphologie weiter auszubauen und mit Hilfe der modernen Entwicklungslehre zu einer festen Grundlage fur die gesamte
2
�18
monistische Philosophie und Religion zu gestalten. Das Programm dieser zielbewuBten Lebensarbeit habe ich 1866 in
meiner „Generellen Morphologie“ festgelegt und sie in
den vier Monographien der Radiolarien, Spongien, Medusen
und Siphoriophoren weiter ausgefiihrt. Allein das hochste mir
stets vorschwebende Ziel, darauf ein zusammenhangendes System
der monistischen Philosophie aufzubauen, habe ich zu meinem
Bedauern niemals ausfiihren konnen. Ich hoffe jedoch, daB
bald befahigtere und vom Gluck begiinstigtere Nachfolger
dieses herrliche Ziel erreichen werden. Der sicherste Weg
dazu bleibt stets die genetische und vergleichende Methode,
die kritische Verbindung von „ Beobachtung und Reflexion “,
von Empirie und Spekulation.
Historische Methoden. Im Gegensatze zu den sogenannten „exakten“ Naturwissenschaften befinden sich die Geschichtswissenschaften im engeren Sinne; sie behandeln
Erscheinungen, welche nicht unmittelbar der Beobachtung und
dem Experiment der Gegenwart zuganglich sind, sondern der
Vergangenheit angehdren. Ihre Quellen beruhen daher groBtenteils auf Uberlieferung oder Tradition; sie sind mithin dem
Zweifel, der Skepsis ausgesetzt. Soweit sich die Geschichte auf
menschliche Verhaltnisse bezieht (Urgeschichte, Volkergeschichte,
Staatengeschichte usw.), ist diese Uberlieferung um so unsicherer,
je weiter sie in der Zeit zuriickgeht; ihre Urkunden werden
um so sparlicher und unvollstandiger, je weiter sie sich im
Dunkel der Urzeit verlieren. Hier existiert keine scharfe Grenze
zwischen Tradition, Sage, Mythus und Dichtung.
Anders verhalt sich diejenige Geschichte, welche auBermenschliche: Verhaltnisse betrifft, die Stammesgeschichte der
Organismen (Phylogenie), die Geschichte der Erde (Geologie),
die Geschichte der anorganischen Gebilde, des Himmels (Astro
nomic usw.). Hier erlangen die Zeugnisse, welche sich auf reale
Beobachtungen einzelner Zustande stiitzen, durch kritische
Vergleichung und Synthese einen so hohen Grad von Wahrscheinlichkeit, daB die wissenschaftliche Hypothese fur den
�19
kritisch denkenden Naturphilosophen den Wert einer historischen Tatsache gewinnt. Das gilt ganz besonders fur die
Palaontologie und die darauf gestiitzte Stammesgeschichte, na[ mentlich diejenige des Menschen.
Introspektive Methoden. Fur die Erkenntnistheorie der
meisten Philosophen ist in erster Linie die Selbstbeobachtung die wichtigste Quelle, die Spekulation uber die verwickelten Vorgange des Seelenlebens, welche in unserem Innern stattfinden. Soweit es sich dabei um Erscheinungen des BewuBtseins handelt, ist dieser Weg der Erkenntnis durchaus berechtigt;
denn die subjektive „innere Anschauung“ unseres Selbst,
welche die Physiologie mit einer Spiegelung vergleicht, ist
hier uberhaupt der einzig mogliche Weg. Ich habe meine monistischen Ansichten uber dieses „Psychologische Zentral-Mysterium“ im 10. Kapitel der „Weltratsel“ und im 14. Kapitel der
„Lebenswunder“ eingehend dargelegt; dort ist gezeigt, daB diesea
schwierigste Problem der Seelenkunde, ebenso wie alle anderen
psychischen Phanomene, auf physikalische und chemische Prozesse im Phronema, in den Phronetalzellen der Grofihirnrinde
zuriickzufuhren sind. Auch hier liefert uns die vergleichende
und genetische Betrachtung den Schlussel zur objektiven
Losung des Weltratsels, die auf bloB subjektivem Wege ungeniigend bleibt. Das ist um so mehr zu bedenken, als gerade
auf diesem dunkeln Gebiete die Irrwege des Aberglaubens, die
spiritistischen und okkultistischen Verirrungen, sich mit groBem
Erfolge geltend machen und die dualistische Erkenntnistheorie
fordern, zu ungunsten unserer monistischen Philosophie und
vernunftgemaBen Religion.
Dualistische Erkenntnistheorie.
Die herrschende Erkenntnistheorie der Schulphilosophie ist
noch heute, ebenso wie seit zweitausend Jahren, dualistisch und
metaphysisch; im Einklang mit der Theologie behauptet sie, daB
nur ein Teil der Wissenschaft auf Erfahrung (durch die Tatigkeit der Sinnesorgane und des Gehirns) beruhe, der andere,
2*
�20
hohere Teil hingegen auf Offenbarung („Revelation oder Apocalypsis44). Dieser iibernatiirliche (supranaturalistische oder trans*
szendente) ProzeB iibersteigt unsere Vernunftfahigkeit und ist
nur direkt durch „gdttliche Inspiration4* oder durch „Intuition
des Geistes44 moglich; sie wird auch oft als „Inneres Erleben
Gottes44 gepriesen. Die Annahme einer solchen Inspiration
notigt uns zu der Vorstellung, daB die hbheren Gedanken
a priori entstanden und unmittelbar auf gottliche, iibernatiirliche
Eingebung zuriickzufiihren sind. Somit fiihrte die dualistische
Erkenntnistheorie zum Glauben an einen „personlichen Gott45,
zum Ontheismus.
Der prinzipielle Gegensatz der beiden Erkenntniswege, der
monistischen Erfahrung und der dualistischen Offenbarung
gipfelt in der Wertschatzung der Vernunft. Unsere empirische
und monistische Erkenntnislehre, wie sie heute im ganzen Ge
biete der Naturwissenschaften allein gilt, erkennt als Richtschnur ausschlieBlich die „reine Vernunft44 an. Hingegen
behauptet die dualistische Weltanschauung, wie sie noch heute
in den sogenannten „Geisteswissenschaften“ maBgebend ist, in
der Theologie und Schulphilosophie, daB daneben noch die
Forderungen des Gemiites, die Anspriiche der „praktischett
Vernunft44 gelten miissen. Beide stehen in unlosbarem Widerspruch, wie die beriihmten „Antinomien von Immanuel Kant44
zeigen (vgl. die fiinfte Tabelle unten im Anhang, S. 68, und
Kapitel 1 der „Weltratsel44).
Das Gemiit hat mit der Erkenntnis der Wahrheit gar nichts
zu tun. Die Vorstellungen vom Ubernatiirlichen und Transszendenten, die Erzahlungen von Wundern und Geisterspuk
welche hier die Erkenntnis der Wahrheit verdecken, gehoren
dem Gebiete der Dichtung an, nicht der Wissenschaft.
tere legt iiberall den kritischen MaBstab der reinen Vernunft
in der Realwelt an, wahrend die Dichtung sich mit den
Phantasiebildern der Idealwelt begniigt. Die unklaren Vor->
stellungen uber diese zwei Welten, wie sie z. B. in der neuesten
Mode-Philosophie Bergson) — mit schonen Reden, aber sehr
�21
geringer Sachkenntnis! —) erfolgreich vertritt, der Glaube an
eine „hbhere ideale Welt liber der realen Natur “ fiihren direkt
hinuber zu dem Geisterspuk der niederen Naturvolker und dem
Wunderglauben der ontheistischen Religionen.
Die reine Vernunft, deren Begriff durch Kants Kritik
(1781) in den Vordergrund der Erkenntnistheorie gestellt worden
ist, gilt in unserer monistischen Naturphilosophie nur noch in
dem Sinne, daB wir darunter die „voraussetzungslose Erkenntnis“, frei von allem Dogma, unbefangen von alien GlaubensSatzen verstehen. Kant selbst hat spater betont, daB „die
Wahrheit nur in der Erfahrung zu finden ist“ (vgl. Kap. 14
tmd 19 der „Lebenswunder“).
Losung des Menschen-Ratseis.
(Anthropologische Fundamente des Monismus.)
Die Frage vom Wesen des Menschen und seiner Stellung
in der Natur wird von Vielen mit Recht als 'die nachstliegende
und wichtigste Aufgabe der^Wissenschaft betrachtet; sie ist seit
fiinfzig Jahren endgiiltig gelost. Seiner ganzen Organisation
nach gehort der Mensch zum Stamm der Wirbeltiere (Vertebrata) und zwar zu dessen hochststehender Klasse, zu den
Saugetieren (Mammalia). In dieser Klasse wird wieder als
nochst entwickelte Gruppe die Ordnung der Herrentiere
(Primates) betrachtet, zu welcher die Halbaffen (Prosimiae), die
Affen (Simiae) und die Menschen (Homines) gehoren. Die unbefangene vergleichende Anatomie lehrt unzweideutig, daB der
Mensch in alien Beziehungen des groberen und feineren Korperbaues den Affen naher steht als alien iibrigen Tieren. Dasselbe zeigt uns die vergleichende Physiologie in bezug auf alle
Lebenserscheinungen und die vergleichende Ontogenie hinsichtlich der embryonalen Entwicklung.
Die monistische Anthropologie, gestiitzt auf das Biogenetische Grundgesetz, erblickt in der wunderbaren Formenreihe, welche der Mensch wahrend seiner individuellen Ent
�22
wicklung aus der Eizelle durchlauft, eine gedrangte und gekiirzte Wiederholung der Formenreihe, welche seine tierischen
Ahnen wahrend ihrer phyletischen Umbildung im Laufe vieler
Jahrmillionen durchlaufen haben. Die handgreiflichen Beweise
fiir diese historische Transformation liefern uns die versteinerten
Oberreste der ausgestorbenen Wirbeltiere, welche in Sedimentgebirgen der Erde begraben liegen. Die festgestellte historische
Reihenfolge, in welcher die einzelnen Klassen und Ordnungen der
Wirbeltiere nacheinander in denselben auftreten, entspricht vollkommen der Stufenleiter der historischen Entwicklung, welche
wir aus den Ergebnissen der vergleichenden Anatomie und
Ontogenie erschlieBen. Da eine andere Deutung derselben als
eine phylogenetische nicht moglich, auch gar nicht ernstlich
versucht worden ist, so erblicken wir darin den sichersten direkten Beweis fiir die Abstammung des Menschen von einer
langen Reihe ausgestorbener Wirbeltiere, zunachst Herrentiere.
Die viel umstrittene Primaten-Abstammung des Menschen
ist demnach heute keine unsichere Hypothese mehr, sondern
eine unumstoBliche historische Tatsache (vgl. unten Tab. 8).
Die dualistische Anthropologie, welche auch heute noch
in weitesten Kreisen herrschend ist, hat gegeniiber diesen hand
greiflichen „Zeugnissen fiir die Stellung des Menschen in der
Natur“ einen schweren Stand; sie sucht deren Beweiskraft mit
alien Mitteln zu leugnen oder durch falsche Deutung zu entwerten. Die spezifisch christliche Menschenkunde erblickt im
Menschen das „EbenbildGottes“; sie muB daher die verhaBte
„Affen-Abstammungu entweder direkt bestreiten oder durch das
Mysterium des „Siindenfalles“ erklaren. Die verzweifelten Anstrengungen, welche in dieser Richtung sowohl die rechtglaubige
Theologie als auch die dualistische, mit ihr verbiindete Metaphysik seit einem halben Jahrhundert gemacht hat, sind ganzlich erfolglos geblieben; sie haben nur dazu gefiihrt, unsere
Gegenstellung zu befestigen. Wir durfen daher jetzt das groBe
Menschenproblem fur definitiv gelost erklaren. Bei der
fundamentalen Bedeutung dieser wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis
�23
ist es zweckmaBig, deren wichtigste Fundamente hier nochmals
auf ihre empirische Sicherheit zu priifen.
Anatomische Fundamente (Wl. Kap. 2). Die erste und
unmittelbarste Grundlage der monistischen Menschenkunde bildet die vergleichende Anatomie oder Morphologie. Im Anfange
des 19. Jahrhunderts begriindet, hat sich diese philosophische
Wissenschaft in dessen Verlaufe zu bewunderungswiirdiger Hohe
entwickelt. Kein sachkundiger Zoologe zweifelt mehr daran,
daB der ganze Organismus des Menschen in den allgemeinen
Grundziigen mit demjenigen aller iibrigen Wirbeltiere (Vertebrata) ubereinstimmt, und in alien besonderen Eigentiimlichkeiten mit demjenigen der hochst entwickelten Klasse, der
Saugetiere (Mammalia). Unter diesen letzteren zeichnet sich
wieder die vornehmste Ordnung, die der Herrentiere (Primates)
vor den iibrigen Saugetieren durch viele und wichtige Merkmale des Korperbaues aus; die Halbaffen (Prosimiae) stellen
die altere und niedere, die Affen (Simiae) die jiingere und
hohere Stufe der Primatengruppe dar. Unter den echten Affen
fiihrt wieder eine zusammenhangende Kette von den niederen
Westaffen zu den hoheren Ostaffen hinauf, und unter diesen
bilden die schwanzlosen Menschenaffen den direkten morphologischen Ubergang zum Menschen. Diese nahe „Morphologische Verwandtschaft“ gilt ebenso fur die groberen anatomischen Verhaltnisse aller einzelnen Organe, wie fur die feineren
histologischen Verhaltnisse ihrer Gewebe und der mikroskopischen Zellen, welche diese zusammensetzen. Das sind sichere
Tatsachen von hochster Bedeutung.
Physiologische Fundamente (Wl. Kap. 3). Die Lebenstatigkeiten des menschlichen Organismus, die physiologischen
Funktionen seiner Organe, sind beim Menschen wie bei alien
anderen Tieren, an die anatomische und histologische Beschaffenheit seiner Organe gebunden und durch deren physikalische
und chemische Eigenschaften bedingt. Da deren charakteristische Grundziige bei alien Wirbeltieren im wesentlichen iibereinstimmen und von denjenigen aller iibrigen Tiere verschieden
�24
sind, so ergibt sich ohne weiteres, daB auch in dieser Hinsicht
der Mensch keine Ausnahme von den Wirbeltieren bildet.
Ebenso sind es wieder die Saugetiere, deren besondere physiologische Eigentiimlichkeiten er teilt, und unter diesen wiederum
die Affen. Namentlich gilt das von der eigentiimlichen Form
des Blutkreislaufs und der Atmung, sowie von der Ernahrung
des Jungen durch die Milch der Mutter. Da diese hohere Form
der „Brutpflegew nicht nur andere Organe beeinfluBt, sondern
auch fiir die hohere Seelentatigkeit der Saugetiere von hoher
Bedeutung ist (Mutterliebe, Familienleben, soziale und moralische
Verhaltnisse), so ist besonderes Gewicht auf diese nahe „Physiologische Verwandtschaft“ zu legen. Das sind sichere
Tatsachen.
Ontogenetische Fundamente (Wl. Kap. 4,8). Die Existenz
jeder einzelnen menschlichen Person, ebenso wie diejenige jedes
anderen, geschlechtlich erzeugten Wirbeltieres, beginnt mit dem
Momente der Befruchtung, mit dem Augenblicke, in welchem
die Eizelle der Mutter mit der Spermazelle des Vaters zusammentrifft. Beide Geschlechtszellen, gegenseitig angezogen durch eine
chemische Sinnestatigkeit (— „ErotischerChemotropismus“—),
verschmelzen dann zur Bildung einer neuen kugeligen Zelle,
der Stammzelle (Cytula). Aus dieser entstehen weiterhin durch
wiederholte Teilung oder „Furchung“ zahlreiche Zellen, die
„Furchungszellen“ (Blastomeren). Diese ordnen sich in zwei
Zellenschichten, die beiden „Primaren Keimblatter“, aus welchen
sechs „Primitivorgane“ hervorgehen. Die Art und Weise, auf
welche alle spateren Organe aus letzteren in hochst eigentiimlicher Weise sich entwickeln, ist fur alle Wirbeltiere charakteristisch; sie erfolgt beim Menschen genau so wie bei den Menschenaffen. Insbesondere ist auch die Bildung der Eihiillen und der
Plazenta (des Mutterkuchens) in beiden ganz iibereinstimmend.
Somit liefert die Keimesgeschichte (Ontogenie) vollgiiltige Beweise fur die nahe „Embryologische Verwandtschaft“ des
Menschen und der Saugetiere; und diese werden zu den schwerwiegendsten Argumenten der monistischen Philosophie, wenn
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�25
wir sie nach dem Biogenetischen Grundgesetze deuten. Wenn
unsere Anthropogenie dieselbe fur die vielbestrittene „Abstammung des Menschen vom Affen “ benutzt, so stiitzt sie sich dabei auf unbestreitbare sichere Tatsachen.
Palaontologische Fundamente. Unter alien realen und
beweiskraftigen Urkunden unserer Stammesgeschichte konnen
die Tatsachen der Palaontologie in gewisser Beziehung als die
wichtigsten angesehen werden. Denn die Versteinerungen, die
wir millionenfach in den sedimentaren Gestein-Schichten unserer
Erde angehauft finden, sind die handgreiflichen Uberreste der
ausgestorbenen Vorfahren der jetzt lebenden Organismen, also
auch des Menschen. Aber diese Erkenntnis ist erst sehr spat,
erst in der zweiten Halfte des 19. Jahrhunderts gewonnen worden, nachdem Darwin durch seine Reform der Deszendenztheorie
uns den Schlussel zum Verstandnis der Phylogenie geschenkt
hatte. Vorher bekiimmerten sich um die „Petrefaktenu fast
nur die Geologen, die in den „Leitfossilien“ wertvoile Anhaltspunkte fur die Altersbestimmung und historische Ordnung der
iibereinanderliegenden Sedimentgesteine erblickten. Die Natur
und die Beziehungen der ausgestorbenen Tiere und Pflanzen,
von deren Organisation uns die unvollstandigen fossilen Uber
reste nur unvollkommene Kunde geben, war ihnen hochst gleichgiiltig und erweckte nur das Interesse der Kuriositat. So wurde
die „Petrefaktologie“ als „anorganische Naturkunde“ mit
der Geologie verkniipft. Hingegen gehort die eigentliche
moderne „Palaontologie“, d. h. die wissenschaftliche Erkennt
nis der Organisation der ausgestorbenen Lebewesen, sowie ihrer
Verwandtschafts-Beziehungen zur gegenwartigen Fauna und Flora,
in das Bereich der Biologie. Leider haben die meisten Zoologen und Botaniker auch heute noch, wie friiher, an diesen
hochst wichtigen Tatsachen ein sehr geringes Interesse; das gilt
namentlich von jenen einseitigen „Empirischen Embryologen“
und Vertretern der „Experimentellen Entwicklungsmechanik“,
welche lediglich in der genauesten Erforschung der Keimesgeschichte, ohne kausale Beziehung zur Stammesgeschichte, ihre
�26
einzige Aufgabe erblicken. Sie bestreiten den „ Fundamen
tal en Kausalnexus zwischen Ontogenie und Phylogenie", der
in unserm „Biogenetischen Grundgesetz“ seinen einfachsten
Ausdruck findet. Viele Irrtiimer dieser modernen (sich exakt
nennenden) Embryographie und Entwicklungs-Physiologie wiirden vermieden werden, wenn sie die historische Reihenfolge der
ausgestorbenen Formen und ihre phyletischen Beziehungen zu
den lebenden Nachkommen beriicksichtigten; sichere Tatsachen von hochster Bedeutung.
Unsere Ahnenreihe. Progonotaxis hominis.
Unter diesem Titel veroffentlichte ich 1908 „Kritische Studien uber Phyletische Anthropologic" (Festschrift zur 350jahrigen Jubelfeier der Thiiringer Universitat Jena und der damit
verbundenen Ubergabe des Phyletischen Museums, am 30. Juli
1908; mit 6 Tafeln). Diese kurze Studie (60 Seiten) enthalt
eine zusammengedrangte kritische Ubersicht und Revision der
phylogenetischen Untersuchungen, welche ich 1866 in der Generellen Morphologie (Kap. 27, 28) begonnen hatte. Die erfreulichen Fortschritte, welche diese historischen Forschungen uber
die Abstammung des Menschen in den 48 seitdem verflossenen
Jahren gemacht haben, sind ersichtlich aus einer Vergleichung
der zahlreichen inzwischen erschienenen Arbeiten, und besonders
der ersten Auflage der Anthropogenie (1874) und der sechsten
Auflage (1910). Die Zahl der wichtigsten Stufen in unserer
tierischen Ahnenreihe hatte ich schon 1898 in meinem Cam
bridge-Vortrage „Uber unsere gegenwartige Kenntnis vom Ursprung des Menschen“ auf 30 fixiert; sie sind in der Festschrift
(1908) auf sechs Strecken verteilt und in Tabellen iibersichtlich
zusammengestellt. (Vgl. unten Tabelle 7 und 8, Seite 70, 71.)
Die tatsachlichen Grundlagen, auf denen sich unser phyletisches Hypothesen-Gebaude erhebt, sind wegen der groBen Liickenhaftigkeit des palaontologischen Materials natiirlich unvollstandig
und werden immer so bleiben im Einzelnen. Das hindert
�aber nicht, daB wir im Ganzen daraus gewisse Schliisse ziehen,
> die fur unsere Stammesgeschichte sichere Grundlagen liefern.
IDarunter steht in erster Linie die historische Reihenfolge,
r in der die Klassen und Ordnungen der Wirbeltiere nacheinander
puftreten. In der zweiten Halfte unserer Progonotaxis (S. 71),
.die im Silur beginnt und sich unmittelbar auf Tausende von
wohlerhaltenen Petrefakten (-handgreifliche Urkunden!—) stiitzt,
erscheinen zuerst (Millionen von Jahren hindurch!) nur Fische,
im silurischen und devonischen Schichtensystem. Erst in der
Steinkoblenzeit, im karbonischen System, treten die altesten
landbewohnenden und vierfiiBigen Vertebraten auf, salamanderahnliche Amphibien (Stegocephalen). Auf sie folgen spater
im permischen System die altesten Reptilien, eidechsen-ahnliche Tokosaurier. Erst in der dariiber abgelagerten Trias, der
altesten mesozoischen Formation, treten die Stammformen der
Saugetiere auf, die niedersten Implazentalien (Monotremen).
In der ganzen Sekundarzeit, in Trias-, Jura- und Kreide-Formation, besteht die iiberwiegende Herrschaft der Reptilien, und
erst in der nachfolgenden Tertiarzeit geht dieselbe auf die
hbheren plazentalen Saugetiere uber. Auch hier entspricht
die historische Sukzession der groBeren und kleineren Gruppen
durchaus den phyletischen Entwicklungsgesetzen; das sind si
chere Tatsachen, deren Wert nicht iiberschatzt werden kann.
Losung des Seelen- Ratseis.
(Psychologische Fundamente des Monismus.)
Die Frage vom Wesen der Seele des Menschen, von ihrem
Verhaltnis zum Korper und andererseits zu Gott, von ihrer
Fortdauer nach dem Tode, gehort zu den strittigsten Problemen
der Wissenschaft. Das zeigt sich schon darin, daB die Seelenkunde oder Psychologie von der groBeren Halfte der Fachgelehrten (den Theologen und den sogenannten „eigentlichen
Psychologen“) als eine iibernaturliche „Geisteswissenschaft“
in Anspruch genommen wird, hingegen der kleineren Halfte
�28
(den meisten Medizinern und empirischen Naturforschern) als
ein besonderer Zweig der Naturwissenschaft gilt. Naeh
meiner festen Uberzeugung ist dieser groBe „Kampf um die
Seele“ seit fiinfzig Jahren endgiiltig zugunsten dieser letzteren
entschieden. Die bewunderungswiirdigen Fortschritte der Biologie in diesem Zeitraume haben uns gelehrt, daB die „Seele“
oder der „ Geist “ des Menschen kein besonderes, vom Korper
unabhangiges „Wesenu ist, sondern eine Summe von Gehirntatigkeiten. Die vergleichende Anatomie des Gehirns hat 11ns
iiberzeugt, daB der grobere und feinere Bau, ebenso wie die
chemische Zusammensetzung des Gehirns, im allgemeinen beim
Menschen dieselben sind, wie bei alien anderen Saugetieren, im
besonderen aber gleich denjenigen der Menschenaffen. Die ver
gleichende Physiologie und Psychiatrie haben nachgewiesen,
daB die Funktionen dieses „Seelenorgans“ beim Menschen durch
dieselben Gesetze der „Psychophysikw bedingt sind, wie bei
alien anderen Wirbeltieren. Auch seine embryonale Entwick
lung erfolgt in derselben Weise; die einfache birnformige Anschwellung der primitiven Hirnblase gliedert sich iiberall auf
dieselbe Weise in drei hintereinandergelegene Hirnblasen: Vorderhirn, Mittelhirn und Hinterhirn. Die wichtigste von diesen
ist das Vorderhirn oder GroBhirn; ein Teil seiner grauen Rinde
entwickelt sich bei den hoheren Saugetieren zum Denkorgan
(Phronema). In diesem eigentlichen „Geisteswerkzeuge“ sind
die hoheren Seelentatigkeiten dergestalt lokalisiert, daB die Zerstorung einzelner Zentralteile (durch Erkrankung oder durch
physiologisches Experiment) den Verlust der einzelnen, daran
gebundenen Seelentatigkeiten bedingt (z. B. Sehvermogen, Gehor,
Sprache, Raumsinn, Willen). Daraus ergibt sich klar und unzweideutig, daB es keinen „freien Willen“ gibt und ebenso keine
personliche Unsterblichkeit der Seele.
Unsere monistische Psychologie befindet sich freilich
noch in den Kinderjahren; sie vermag viele einzelne „Seelenratsel“ nicht zu erklaren. Namentlich gilt dies vom BewuBtsein, das von vielen Philosophen und Naturforschern immer
�29
noch ate ein „unlosbares Weltratsel“ betrachtet wird. Ich habe
indessen gezeigt, daB dieses „psychologische Zentralmysterium“
nicht mehr und nicht weniger wunderbar ist als alle iibrigen
Seelentatigkeiten, und daB es gleich alien anderen Naturerscheinungen dem Substanzgesetze unterworfen ist. Vergleichende
Betrachtung unserer eigenen personlichen Seelentatigkeit iiberteugt uns bei unbefangener Selbstkritik, daB der weitaus groBte
Teil derselben tatsachlich unbewuBt verlauft; die „innere
Spiegelung“ im Phronema, welche das eigentliche Wesen des
BewuBtseins ausmacht, ist ein voriibergehender Zustand der
GroBhirnrinde (Kap. 10 der Wl.).
Die dualistische Psychologie, die „iibernatiirliche Seelenkunde“, welche immer noch in den Kreisen der Theologie und
der mit ihr verbiindeten Schulphilosophie herrschend ist, be
trachtet die Seele als ein immaterielles, selbstandiges Wesen,
welches den materiellen Korper nur zeitweise bewohnt und
jhn. beim Tode verlaBt. Zu welchen Irrungen der Vernunft
diese ,,Unsterblichkeitslehre“ fiihrt, zeigen die absurden Spuklehren des Spiritismus und Okkultismus. Sie wiirden langst
iiberwunden sein, wenn nicht das „Gespenst“ der unsterblichen
Seele eine so groBe Rolle in der praktischen Sittenlehre und
in der staatlich konzessionierten Religion spielte.
Empirische Grundlagen der monistischen
Psychologie.
Da die Erkenntnis ein Teil unserer Seelentatigkeit ist, so
bildet auch die vielumstrittene Erkenntnistheorie einen Teil
der Seelenlehre oder Psychologie. Da ferner die vorgeschrittene Psychologie in der zweiten Halfte des neunzehnten
Jahrhunderts als ein besonderes Kapitel der Physiologie er*wiesen ist, so gelten auch deren Gesetze, auf sicherer physikalischer und chemischer Basis ruhend, fur die gesamte Seelenkunde. Nun wissen wir auch sicher, daB das Gehirn beim
Menschen wie bei alien anderen Wirbeltieren das wirkliche
�30
Organ des Seelenlebens ist. Mit seiner Zerstdrung hort die
Seelentatigkeit auf. Wir wissen ferner, daB die hochststehende
Klasse der Saugetiere sich vor den anderen Wirbeltieren durch
eine hohere Entwicklung des GroBhirns auszeichnet und daB
dessen graue Rinde das eigentliche „Geistesorgan“ darstellt. Die
vergleichende Gehirnkunde der Wirbeltiere (Anatomie und
Histologie) enthiillt uns die lange Stufenleiter, in der sich
seit vielen Jahrmillionen langsam und stufenweise die verwickelten Gehirnstrukturen, entsprechend der Hohe ihrer Leistungen, historisch entwickelt haben. Die vergleichende Keimesgeschichte dieser verschiedenartigen Vertebratengehirne zeigt
uns ferner, daB sie sich samtlich aus denselben einfachen Grundlagen, aus dem blasenformigen Kopfteil des Markrohrs oder Medullarrohrs noch heute entwickeln; iiberall teilt sich dieses Urhirn
in gleicher Weise in drei primare Hirnblasen: Vorderhirn (GroBhirn), Mittelhirn (Zwischenhirn) und Hinterhirn (Kleinhirn). Nur
die erste von diesen drei Hirnblasen, das GroBhirn, ist das
Werkzeug der hoheren Geistestatigkeit; mit seiner Zerstorung
(z. B. durch Gehirnschlag, durch Erkrankung der Seelenzellen,
durch experimentelle Vernichtung) verschwindet der sogenannte
„Geist“, wahrend die vegetativen Funktionen der Ernahrung
ungestort fortgehen konnen. Mit diesen sicheren Ergebnissen
der anatomischen und genetischen Hirnforschung stehen in
volliger Ubereinstimmung die bedeutungsvollen Resultate der
vergleichenden und der experimentellen Physiologie, sowie der
Pathologie (Psychiatrie).
Unsere monistische, objektiv auf diese Erfahrungen gegriindete Seelenlehre steht in volligem Widerspruch zu der dualistischen, subjektiv erdichteten Psychologie, wie sie noch heute
durch die herrschende metaphysische Philosophie und die mit
ihr verbiindete mystische Theologie gelehrt wird. Diese ignoriert
jene grundlegenden biologischen Tatsachen vollstandig; sie
will die Tatigkeit der Seele und das Wesen des Geistes allein
durch ihre innere Selbstbeobachtung, die introspektive Methode
ergriinden. Der unversonliche Gegensatz, in welchem diese
�31
[ transszendente Seelenlehre der Metaphysiker und Theologen zu
’ der empirisch begriindeten Psychologie der Biologen und Psykchi ater steht, ist deshalb von so fundamentaler Bedeutung, weil
die erstere sich mit dem Dogma von der Unsterblichkeit der
Seele verkniipft, wahrend die letztere dasselbe ablehnen muB.
Unsterblichkeit der Seele (Athanismus).
Die erstaunlichen Fortschritte, welche die monistische Psy
chologie in dem letzten halben Jahrhundert gemacht hat, die
gesicherten Ergebnisse der objektiv urteilenden Anatomie und
Physiologie des Gehirns, insbesondere die „Keimesgeschichte
und Stammesgeschichte der Seele haben uns zu der klaren
Erkenntnis gefiihrt, daB der weitverbreitete „Glaube an die
Unsterblichkeit der Seele “ jeder wissenschaftlichen Begriindung
entbehrt. Ich habe bereits im elften Kapitel der „Weltratsel“
die schwerwiegenden Griinde zusammengestellt, welche dieses
„hdchste Gebiet des Aberglaubens“ vernichten. Allein die enge
Verknupfung desselben mit den wichtigsten Glaubenslehren des
Christentums, der zahe Widerstand, welchen diese „unzerstorbare
Zitadelle aller mystischen und dualistischen Vorstellungskreise“
alien Angriffen der kritischen und reinen Vernunft entgegensetzt, besonders aber seine hohe Bedeutung sowohl fur die
theoretische Weltanschauung wie fur die praktische Lebensfiihrung, zwingen uns, seine volligeUnhaltbarkeit ganz ausdriicklich zu betonen. Das ist namentlich deshalb notwendig,
weil der Athanismus (das herrschende „Unsterblichkeitsdogma“)
die metaphysische und dualistische Erkenntnistheorie von vornherein in ganz falsche Bahnen fiihrt; die Voraussetzung eines
selbstandigen, vom Korper unabhangigen Geistes schlieBt alles
Verstandnis der wahren Seelentatigkeit aus.
Tatsachlich ist fur die allermeisten Menschen, ebenso die
hoheren „Gebildeten“ der Gegenwart, wie die niederen Klassen
des ungebildeten Volkes, seit mehr als zwei Jahrtausenden ihre
personliche Unsterblichkeit die wichtigste von alien Fragen der
�32
„Weltratsel44; sie ist ihnen wertvoller selbst als die Frage nach
dem „lieben Gott44 und nach der Freiheit des Willens. Unzufrieden mit den vielen Mangein dieses irdischen Daseins, unbefrie*
digt von den Ergebnissen seiner miihseligen Arbeit, gequalt von
Hindernissen im Kampfe urns Dasein, verlangt der arme Mensch
nach einem hoheren besseren Leben in einem idealen „Jenseits“,
nach einem „ewigen Leben“ im Paradiese. Diese „frommen
Wiinsche44 sind im Gebiete der Dichtung vollberechtigt und
linden im schonen Reiche der Kunst ihre vielseitige Befriedigung; sie konnen auch praktisch fur viele Aufgaben der
Lebensfiihrung, insbesondere fur die Schule und Erziehung, von
groBem Nutzen sein. Die reine Vernunft, auf den unwiderleglichen Tatsachen der Biologie fuBend, iiberzeugt jedoch den
unbefangenen und ehrlichen Denker mit voller Sicherheit, daB
der Athanismus mit der klar erkannten Wahrheit vollig unvereinbar ist; die Wissenschaft kennt keine „personliche
Unsterblichkeit der Seele44. Diese schwerwiegende Uberzeugung ergibt sich fiir uns aus den unerschiitterlichen empirischen Grundlagen unserer phyletischen Psychologie.
Losung des Substanz-Ratseis.
(Kosmologische Fundamente des Monismus.)
Die Frage vom Wesen der Welt, in der wir leben, von der
Wirklichkeit der Dinge, die uns umgeben, ist die umfassendste
und allgemeinste Aufgabe der eigentlichen „Naturphilosophie44;
sie hat seit mehr als 2000 Jahren die bedeutendsten Philosophen
und Theologen beschaftigt und ist in der verschiedensten Weise
beantwortet worden. Soweit nun auch deren Anschauungen
im einzelnen auseinandergehen, so lassen sich schlieBlich doch
alle in zwei groBe Gruppen gegeniiberstellen, die monistische
und die dualistische Kosmologie.
Die monistische Kosmologie betrachtet als ihr wichtigstes Fundament die allgemeine Geltung des universalen Substanzgesetzes. Ein einziges, allumfassendes, oberstes Natur-
�33
gesetz beherrscht das ganze Weltall (Universum oder Kosmos),
und Alles ist zugleich Natur (oder Physis). In dem universalen
Begriffe der Substanz — als des „wirklichen Weltwesens“ —
vereinigt unser naturalistischer Monismus drei untrennbare
Attribute oder Grundeigenschaften: die raumerfiillende Materie
(= Stoff), die wirkende Energie (= Kraft) und die empfindende
Weltseele (= Psychom). Indessen gehen die Ansichten der
namhaftesten Naturphilosophen uber die Beziehungen dieser
drei Attribute noch sehr auseinander. Dagegen stimmen fast
Alle darin iiberein, daB die Gesetze von der „Erhaltung des
Stoffes“ (= Konstanz der Materie) und von der „Erhaltung der
Kraft“ (= Konstanz der Energie) ganz allgemein giiltig sind.
Viele verkniipfen damit auch das Gesetz von der „Erhaltung der
Empfindung“ (= Konstanz des Psychoms). Der wesentliche
Grundgedanke, in dem alle drei Konstanzgesetze sich vereinigen, ist die Bestandigkeit und Unzerstorbarkeit des Uni
versums. Bei allem Wechsel des bestandigen „Werdens und
Vergehens“ (im einzelnen!) bleibt die Quantitat der Substanz
(im ganzen!) bestandig und unzerstorbar; es gibt keinen
„Anfang der Welt“ und gibt auch kein „Ende der Welt“.
Die dualistische Kosmologie unterscheidet zwei verschiedene Welten, die nebeneinander bestehen und verschiedenen Gesetzen gehorchen. Die Natur als „Kbrperwelt“ unterliegt den festen und unabanderlichen Naturgesetzen und besitzt
keine Freiheit. Die iibernaturliche „Geisteswelt“ hingegen soil
von den festen Naturgesetzen unabhangig sein und in ihrer
Freiheit die Grenzen der ersteren iiberschreiten konnen. Dieser
kosmologische Dualismus herrscht zurzeit noch im groBten Teile
der Schulphilosophie und ist meistens eng verkniipft mit ontheistischen und metaphysischen Vorstellungen. Unsere moni
stische Kosmologie verweist ihn in das Gebiet der spiritualistischen Phantasiegebilde und der uferlosen religidsen Dichtung; aber seine wissenschaftliche Geltung miissen wir auf
das Entschiedenste bestreiten.
3
�34
Konstanz des Universum.
(Universum perpetuum mobile — „Weltratsel“ Kap, 13.)
Die Frage nach dem Begriffe und dem Wesen der Substanz
(= Hypokeimenon) gehort zu den allgemeinsten, schwierigsten
und wichtigsten Problemen der Philosophie; sie hat demgemaB
seit mehr als 2000 Jahren die verschiedenste Beantwortung
erfahren. Ich habe im 12. Kapitel der „Weltratsel“ (1899) das
monistische „Substanz-Gesetz“ an die Spitze aller Naturgesetze gestellt und dasselbe geradezu als „das wahre undeinzige“
kosmologische Grundgesetz bezeichnet. Ich vereinigte unter
diesem Begriffe zwei hochste allgemeine Gesetze verschiedenen
Ursprungs und Alters, das altere chemische Gesetz von der
Erhaltung des Stoffes (=,, Konstanz der Materie“, Lavoisier
1789) und das jiingere physikalische Gesetz von der Erqaltung der Kraft (=„Konstanz der Energie“, Robert Mayer,
1842). Das erstere, das „Konstanzprinzip der Materie“, besagt:
..Die Summe des Stoffes, welche den unendlichen Weltraum
erfiillt, ist unveranderlich“; das zweite, 53 Jahre jiingere Gesetz,
das „Konstanzprinzip der Energie “, behauptet: „Die Summe
der Kraft, welche in dem unendlichen Weltraum tatig ist und
alle Erscheinungen bewirkt, ist unveranderlich.“
Die Vereinigung dieser beiden fundamentalen „KonstanzPrinzipien“ in einem einzigen, einheitlichen ,,Substanzgesetze"
ist von hochster prinzipieller Bedeutung fur unsere monistische
Weltanschauung. GewiB sind schon lange viele denkende Naturforscher, welche nach einer harmonischen einheitlichen Welt
anschauung suchten, gleich mir zu der Uberzeugung von der
universalen Bedeutung dieser Einheit gefiihrt worden. Vielen
wird unser „monistisches Substanzgesetz“ selbstverstandlich
erscheinen. Allein diese Auffassung ist noch heute weit entfernt, sich allgemeiner Anerkennung zu erfreuen; sie wird
energisch bekampft von der ganzen dualistischen Philosophie,
von der vitalistischen Biologie, ja sogar von manchen angesehenen Physikern. Diese seltsame Tatsache erklart sich daraus^
�35
daB die beiden Konstanz-Prinzipien unmittelbar die groBe
Grundfrage vom Zusammenhang ihrer beiden Objekte: „ Materie
und Energie “ beriihren, und somit den alten Streit der materialistischen und spiritualistischen Ansichten uber das Wesen von
nStoff und Kraft“ und uber das Verhaltnis dieser beiden
Attribute der Substanz. Das Axiom von der Konstanz des
Uni versums ist nicht allein mit dem allgemeinen „Prinzip
der Kausalitat“ verkniipft, sondern beriihrt auch viele andere
wjchtige Probleme der Naturphilosophie und der Religion.
Unser „Naturalistischer Monismus“ — oder „Hylozoismus“ — griindet sich auf die Uberzeugung, daB die Substanz
als „Urgrund aller Erscheinungen“ in der untrennbaren Verbindung von Stoff und Kraft beruht, daB Materie ohne Energie
[ebensowenig gedacht werden kann, als umgekehrt Energie ohne
Materie. Dieser Grundgedanke der monistischen „IdentitatsPhilosophie“, der schon vor mehr als 2000 Jahren den groBert
Denkern der Jonischen Naturphilosophie vorschwebte, fand
Seinen ersten systematischen Ausdruck im System von Baruch
Spinoza (1670). Aber schon 90 Jahre friiher hatte als sein
Aorlaufer der gewaltige Dominikanermonch Giordano Bruno,
gestiitzt auf das neue heliozentrische Weltsystem des Kopernikus, demselben naturalistischen Pantheismus einen hochpoetischen Ausdruck gegeben (1584); zur Strafe fur diese Ketzerei
wurde er vom romischen Papste (dem von Menschenliebe beseelten „Statthalter Christi “!) 7 Jahre lang im Kerker gequalt
und dann am 17. Februar 1600 auf dem Scheiterhaufen in Rom
aebendig verbrannt. Bruno vertrat im Sinne unserer monistiachen Religion ebenso klar und entschieden den Grundgedanken
der ,, Gott-Natur’\ wie Spinoza, dessen System seinen lapidaren
Ausdruck in den drei Worten fand: „Deus sive natura“ — Gott
ist die Natur selbst.
Die Begriindung des monistischen Substanzgesetzes, welche
ich 1892 in dem Altenburger „Glaubensbekenntnis eines Naturforschers“ versucht und 1899 im 12. Kapitel der „Weltratsel“
eingehender ausgefiihrt hatte, wurde 1904 im 19. Kapitel der
3*
�36
.. Lebenswunder“ wesentlich dadurch verbessert, daB ich den
Begriff der Energie in zwei gleichgeordnete Begriffe spaltete
und die Empfindung (Psychoma) von der Kraft (oder „Arbeit“
im weitesten Sinne = „Wille“ von Schopenhauer) abloste. Die
Cberzeugung, daB die Empfindung (als unbewuBte Fuhlung oder
Asthese) ein ganz allgemeiner Vorgang in der Natur ist, wurde
schon vor mehr als 2000 Jahren von Empedokles und den
alteren „Panpsychisten“ ausgesprochen, neuerdings namentlich
von Carl Naegeli und Albrecht Rau (vgl. Kap. 19 der „Lebenswunder“). Wenn diese Anschauung, wie ich glaube, richtig ist,
dann muB man auch den beiden „Konstanz-Prinzipien4< der
Materie und Energie als drittes, koordiniertes „Erhaltungsgesetz44 das psychologische Gesetz von der „Erhaltung der
Empfindung“ (= Konstanz des Psychoms) an die Seite stellen.
Bei der eingreifenden Bedeutung, welche die daraus folgende
„Trinitat der Substanz44 besitzt, ist es zweckmaBig, hier
noch einen Blick auf die drei fundamentalen Attribute der
Substanz gesondert zu werfen (vgl. unter Tabelle 3 und 4, S. 67).
Trinitat der Substanz.
Wenn wir die Gleichberechtigung der oben angefiihrten drei
Konstanzgesetze anerkennen und die drei Attribute der Sub
stanz: 1. Materie, 2. Energie, 3. Psychom als untrennbar iiberall verbunden betrachten, so gelangen wir zu einer einfachen
Auffassung des universalen Substanzbegriffes, welche die alten
und immer noch fortdauernden Streitigkeiten zwischen Materialismus, Energetik und Panpsychismus in Harmonie versohnt.
Der Hauptfehler dieser drei sich bekampfenden Richtungen
der Naturphilosophie liegt darin, daB jede von ihnen einseitig
das eine Grundprinzip betont und die beiden anderen als
untergeordnet von diesem ersten ableitet. So will der alte
Materialismus oder die neuere Mechanistik den Stoff als
einziges Urwesen geltend machen und sowohl die Kraft als
die Empfindung ihm unterordnen. Die neuere Energetik
�37
will alle Erscheinungen aus der Kraft ableiten; sie laBt sowohl
die Materie als die Psyche nur als besondere Faile der Energie
gelten („Karma“ im Buddhismus). Die Psychomatik oder
der Pampsychismus (auch Psychomonismus in gewissem Sinne)
laBt nur die Psyche oder den „ Geist “ als alleiniges Weltwesen
gelten und will sowohl die Materie als die Energie diesem
ersten und obersten Prinzip unterordnen (gleich dem ,.Atman“
im Veda). Aus dieser exklusiven Einseitigkeit der drei SubstanzAuffassungen entspringt der immerwahrende Streit um die
ausschlieBliche Geltung eines jener drei Grundprinzipien.
Unser naturalistischer Monismus — oder „kosmischer Hylozoismus“ — vermeidet diese Einseitigkeit, indem er die drei
Grundeigenschaften aller Substanz als untrennbar verbunden
ansieht, als allgemeingiiltig (im ganzen Raume) und als unzerstorbar (in aller Zeit). Er ist also weder reiner Materialismus,
noch absolute Energetik, noch unbedingte Psychomatik; vielmehr vereinigt er diese drei Hauptrichtungen zu einer vollkommenen Einheit. Wir gewinnen dadurch eine anschauliche
Auffassung aller Erscheinungen, die von hochstem Werte fur
das Verstandnis ihrer Natur ist. Der Urgrund alles Seins,
alles Werdens und Vergehens laBt uns dann in der Universal Substanz zugleich das „hochste Wesen“ unserer monistischen
Religion erblicken, Allgott oder Pantheos. Dieser „Uni
ver sal got t“ ist ewig und unverganglich, unendlich in Raum
und Zeit; er ist unpersonlich und unbewuBt; er regiert die
Welt durch seine „ewigen, ehernen, groBen Gesetze“. Das
glaubige Gemiit findet in der Anbetung und Verehrung dieses
Allgottes ebenso voile Befriedigung, wie die reine Vernunft im
klaren Verstandnis seines WesenS und Wirkens.
Losung des Gottes-Ratsels.
Theologische Fundamente des Monismus.
Die Frage vom Wesen Gottes und vom Verhaltnis des Men
schen zu diesem „hochsten Wesen“ wird allgemein als eines
der vornehmsten und wichtigsten Probleme im menschlichen
�38
Geistesleben betrachtet. Der metaphysische „Glaube an Gott“
gilt noch heute der Mehrzahl der Menschen sowohl in theore*
tischer Hinsicht als die befriedigendste Losung des „Weltratsels‘4,
als auch in praktischer Beziehung als das wichtigste Fundament
einer geordneten sittlichen „Lebensfuhrung“. Da ich in der
zweiten Halfte der „Weltratsel“ (Kap. 15—19) meine Ansichten
dariiber eingehend behandelt habe, kann ich mich hier darauf
beschranken, meine Dberzeugung von der Sicherheit meiner
monistischen Religion zu begriinden und die Unhaltbarkeit der
ihnen entgegenstehenden dualistischen Gottes-Vorstellungen nachzuweisen. In der unten gegebenen Tabelle I (S. 64) habe ich die
wichtigsten Unterschiede der beiden theologischen Theorien, des
monistischen Pantheismus und des dualistischen Ontheismus,
in knappster Form gegeniibergestellt.
Pantheismus (Monistische Theologie).
Der Allgott oder Universalgott. (= „Deus intramundanus44.)
(= „Atheismus44 im negativen vulgaren Sinne.)
Gott und Welt sind iiberall untrennbar verkniipft; als die
letzte unerkennbare Ursache aller Dinge ist ,. Gott44 der hypothetische „Urgrund der Substanz “. Die drei fundamentalen
Attribute, welche wir als unverauBerliche, untrennbare Grundeigenschaften der universalen Substanz oder dem ganzen „Kosmos44 zugeschrieben haben, sind also zugleich die drei wesentlichsten allgemeinen Charakterziige unseres Pant he os, des All
gott es. Ob wir diesen unpersonlichen „Allmachtigenw als „GottNatur44 (Theophysis) oder als „ Allgott “ (Pantheos) bezeichnen;
ist im Grunde gleichgiiltig. Sicher ist nur, daB derselbe nicht
die anthropistischen Eigenschaften besitzt, welche der Ontheismus
oder der dualistische vulgare „Theismus“ seinem personlichen
„Lieben Gotte44 zuschreibt. Im klaren Lichte der „reinen Vernunft44 beweist uns die moderne Wissenschaft, daB der Kosmos
als Ganzes nur dem unbewuBten Naturgesetze gehorcht
Alles geschieht mit absoluter Notwendigkeit nach dem mecha-
�39
nischen „Kausalgesetz“. Dabei spielt aber der blinde Zufall
die groBte Rolle, indem mehrere Ereignisse, die in keiner
katisalen Beziehung zueinander stehen, zusammentreffen. Trotzdem ist Inirner jedes einzelne von ihnen die notwendige Folge von
bewirkenden Ursachen. (Vgl. den SchluB von Kap. 14 der „W1.“ :
„Ziel, Zweck und Zufall“.),
Ontheismus. (Dualistische Theologie.)
Der Schulgott oder Personalgott. (= „Deus extramundanus“.) (= „Theismus“ im engeren vulgaren Sinne.)
Gott und Welt sind zwei verschiedene Wesen. Der „Per’sonHche Gott" (== Schulgott) ist ein individueller Geist, der als
unsichtbarer „immaterieller Spiritus“ die Naturgesetze schafft
und beliebig andert. Gewohnlich werden diesem „Allmachtigen
Gott“ folgende Eigenschaften und Taten zugeschrieben: 1. Als
^Schopfer44 hat Gott „die Welt erschaffen44 (aus Nichts?). 2. Als
weiser „Weltherrscher“ regiert er den Weltlauf hochst zweckmafiig. (Ewiges „Werden und Vergehen44 in der Entwicklung
der Weltkorper und der Organismen?.) 3. Als moralischer Gewtzgeber hat Gott seine „Gebote“ gegeben, als bleibende Norm
Ito eine „Sittliche Weltordnung.44 (Krieg? Krankheiten? soziales
Elend?) 4. Als „ lie bender Vater44 hat er alle Verhaltnisse zum
Besten seiner „Geschopfe“ zweckmaBig geordnet. (Kampf urns
Dasein? Parasitismus?) 5. Als gerechter Richter belohnt er
die Guten und bestraft die Bosen; am „Tage des jiingsten Gerichts44 (Wann?) werden alle „wiederauferstandenen“ Menschen
in zwei groBe Haufen geschieden: die Guten (schuldlos erkannten) kommen zu „ewiger Seligkeit“ in den iiberirdischen Himmel
fWo?); die Bosen (schuldig verurteilten) werden in die untertrdische „ Hoile geworfen und ewig verbrannt.44 (Wo?)
Wir brauchen hier nicht nochmals daran zu erinnern, wie
alle diese Glaubenssatze des Ontheismus fur die reine Vernunft
unhaltbar erscheinen miissen; sie erscheinen als grobere oder
feiriere „ Anthropismen44. Die Vermenschlichung Gottes
�40
ist dabei in den mannigfaltigsten Formen ausgebildet. Den
meisten monotheistischen Religionen liegt dabei die Vorstellung
eines orientalischen Monarchen zugrunde (Jehovah im Mosaismus, Gott-Vater im Christentum, Allah im Islam). Wenn
aber vielfach dieser immaterielle Gott als „unsichtbarer Geist44
vorgestellt wird, und ihm trotzdem die menschlichen Eigenschaften des Sehens, Horens, Sprechens, Denkens usw. beigelegt
werden, so gelangt man notwendig zu dem absurden Bild eines
„gasformigen Wirbeltieres44. Denn der Mensch, der sich Gott
nach seinem Ebenbilde formt, bleibt unzweifelhaft ein echtes
Wirbeltier; und der „ Geist44, der seinen Organismus belebt,
wird tatsachlich schon seit alter Zeit gasformig oder als unsichtbarer Spiritus („0dem Gottes“) vorgestellt, ebenso wie die
„unsterbliche Seele44 des Menschen selbst. Ich hebe das Ungeniigende dieses groben Anthropomorphism us hier des
halb besonders hervor, weil viele Glaubige daran AnstoB genommen und mir „abscheuliche Blasphemie44 vorgeworfen haben.
Aber diese widersinnige Bezeichnung ist weder ein „schlechter
Witz44 von mir, noch eine „boswillige Verhohnung heiliger Gefiihle44, sondern vielmehr eine streng wissenschaftliche
Charakteristik einer weitverbreiteten Vorstellung, welche ich
selbst als Pantheist bekampfe, wahrend viele glaubige Theisten
daran zahe festhalten und sie sogar fur hochst wesentlich erklaren. (Wl. Kap. 15.)
Gott in der Anorgik.
Die vielumstrittene Losung des „Gottes-Ratsels44 wird dadurch sehr erleichtert, daB wir die Geltung des ublichen Gottesbegriffes in den beiden groBen Naturreichen kritisch vergleichen.
Wenn wir die Gesamtheit der sogenannten toten oder anorganischen Natur unter dem Begriffe des An or gon zusammenfassen und die Wissenschaft davon als Anorgik, so finden wir,
daB seit einem Jahrhundert von „ Gott44 darin nur sehr selten,
meistens aber gar nicht die Rede ist. Das gilt von der ganzen
�11
modernen Kosmologie und Astronomie, von der ganzen anorganischen Physik und Chemie, von der ganzen Geologie und
Meteorologie. Hier gilt jetzt allgemein die Uberzeugung, daB
ausschlieBlich feste, „ewige und eherne Gesetze“ das ganze
Weltgetriebe beherrschen. „Gott ist selbst das allmachtige
Natur gesetz.“ Diesem Allgott oder Pantheos werden nirgends
jene anthropistischen Eigenschaften zugeschrieben, welche der
Mensch, als „Ebenbild Gottes“ in der Biologie dem personlichen
„Schopfer“ beilegt. Die genannten, streng „physikalischen“ Wissenschaften sind also im Gesamtgebiete der Anorgik rein „pantheistisch", oder was dasselbe heiBt: „atheistisch“. Kein
Physiker oder Chemiker, kein Astronom oder Geologe spricht
in seinen Arbeiten und Vortragen jemals mehr von „Gott“,
von einem personlichen Schopfer und Regenten der anorganischen Natur. Nach Schopenhauer ist der „Pantheismus“ nur
ein hoflicher „Atheismus“ („SchluB“ des 15. Kap. der Wl.).
Der Pantheos der Anorgik, der „Allgott“ in der gesamten anorganischen Naturkunde, ist ein theistischer Ausdruck
fur unseren atheistischen Substanzbegriff. Als einheitliche „Urkraft des Weltalls“ wirkt er unbewufit in ewiger Bewegung
und Energiebetatigung. Die ganze anorganische Natur wird
durch blinde Werkursachen (Causae efficientes) beherrscht;
es gibt keine zielstrebigen Zweckursachen (Causae finales).
Demnach ist auch der ganze EntwicklungsprozeB der Welt ohne
Anfang und ohne Ende, ein kosmischer Kreislauf, der seinen
prazisen Ausdruck in dem Satze findet: „Universum perpetuum mobileu (Kap. 13 der „Weltratsel“). Es gibt keine
„Vorsehung“, keine „Sittliche Weltordnung“.
Dieser streng monistischen Auffassung wird jedoch auch
heute noch von namhaften Naturphilosophen, darunter sehr bedeutenden Physikern, widersprochen. Besonders wird dagegen
das beruhmte Entropie-Gesetz geltend gemacht, der sogenannte
„zweite Hauptsatz der mechanischen Warinetheorie". Nach
diesem „Prinzip der Dissipation “ hat unsere Welt (—wenig-.
stens unser Sonnensystem —) einmal einen Anfang seiner Be
�42
wegung gehabt (durch eine „Schopfung Gottes"?) und geht
einem endlichen Tode entgegen (durch „Warmetod?“). Indessen
ist schon vielfach darauf hingewiesen worden, daB dieser „zweite
Hauptsatz der mechanischen Warmetheorie" dem ersten (dem
Konstanz-Prinzip der Energie) in gewissem Sinne widerspricht.
Neuerdings hat namentlich Svante Arrhenius, der „das Werden
der Welten" in groBziigiger Weise beleuchtet, betont, wie der
kosmische „Strahlungsdruck“ der Dissipation entgegenwirkt, und
wie auch andere Verhaltnisse in der Entwickelung der Weltkorper die Wirkung des Entropiegesetzes wieder aufheben.
(Vgl. Kap. 13 der Wl.)
Gott in der Biologie.
Wahrend somit in alien angefiihrten Gebieten der Anorgik
(im groBen Ganzen des anorgischen „Kosmos") der „allmachtige Gott" seine Rolle ausgespielt hat und seinen Thronsitz
dem unbewuBten Naturgesetz hat einraumen miissen, hat
er seinen EinfluB in einem groBen Teile der Biologie noch behalten. Vor allem scheinen die zweckmaBigen Einrichtungen
der Organisation im Tier- und Pflanzenreich nur durch die Annahme eines vorbedachten „Zweckes" erklarbar zu sein. Die
alte dualistische und teleologische Vorstellung, daB der Schopfer
„mit Weisheit und Verstand" alle Dinge geordnet habe, scheint
hier notwendig auf den Glauben an einen „personlichen Gott"
hinzudrangen, einen „Maschinen-Ingenieur", der nach vorbedachtem Plane alle Einrichtungen zweckmaBig geordnet hat. Von
der modernen wie von der alten Theologie, und ebenso von
der mit ihr verbiindeten dualistischen Schulphilosophie, wird
diese anthropomorphe Vorstellung noch jetzt hartnackig festgehalten, trotzdem ihr Darwin seit 55 Jahren durch seine geniale Selektionstheorie den Boden vollig entzogen hat.
Einer der wesentlichsten Irrtiimer dieses biologischen
Ontheismus ist darin begriindet, daB die zweckmaBige Orga
nisation der Lebewesen (— eine rein biologische Tatsache —) auf
�43
die kosmische Entwicklung des Weltganzen und aller seiner
Teile ubertragen wird. Allein die unleugbare ZweckmaBigkeit
(— Oder besser Niitzlichkeit —) in der Organisation der Tiere
uiid Pflanzen ist nicht die Folge eines bewuBten metaphysischen
Sohopfungsplanes (eine teleologische „Entelechie“), sondern die
Folge der Anpassung, die auf der physikalischen Wechselwirkung der Organismen und ihrer Umwelt beruht; sie ist das
k notwendige Ergebnis des blinden „Kampfes ums Dasein“, der
■ seit mehr als hundert Jahrmillionen die Stammesgeschichte der
I Organischen Welt geregelt hat. Bei den hoheren sozialen Tieren
■ hat dieser unaufhorliche Kampf zur Ausbildung der Vernunft
I und zur geordneten Einrichtung der Sittengesetze in der Gesellschaft gefiihrt. Dagegen kann von einer solchen moralischen
Organisation im Weltganzen, im Gesamtgebiet der Anorgik,
nicht die Rede sein; es gibt keine allgemeine Weltvernunft,
keine uberall giiltige „sittliche Weltordnung".
Wenn auch gegenwartig die dualistischen Philosophen immer
noch vergeblich nach einem „Sinn des Lebens“, nach einer
hoheren „Bestimmung des Daseins“ suchen, so ist dagegen an
die Kristalle zu erinnern. Wenn in einer Salzlosung beim
Verdampfen sich feste Kristalle von ganz bestimmter geometrischer Form ausscheiden, so fragt kein Mineraloge oder Chemiker
nach einem bestimmten „Sinn oder Zweck" dieser Strukturen;
er betrachtet sie vielmehr als notwendige und selbstverstandliche Folgen ihrer chemischen Konstitution. Ganz ebenso sind
I aber auch die altesten und primitivsten Formen der Moneren
(-- wahrscheinlich einfache Plasmakiigelchen gleich den heute
noch lebenden Chrookokken und Nitrobakterien —) als individualisierte Korner aus fliissigem Plasma ausgeschieden. Ihre
weitere Entwicklung zu kernhaltigen Zellen und deren Umbildung zu Geweben, ist nicht das teleologische Produkt eines
| besti mm ten „Lebenszweckes“, sondern die mechanische Folge
ihrer chemischen Konstitution und bestandigen Wechselbeziehung
I zu ihrer Umgebung.
�-
44
-
Mechanistik und Vitalismus.
Die naive Naturanschauung des Naturmenschen unterschied
friiher allgemein zwischen toten und lebendigen Naturkbrpern;
die besonderen Lebens-Erscheinungen, die nur an den Organismen wahrzunehmen sind, vor alien spontane Bewegung, Em
pfindung, Ernahrung und Fortpflanzung wurden den Anorganen,
den sogenannten „toten Kdrpern" abgesprochen. Auch in der
Naturwissenschaft blieb dieser organische Dualismus in Geltung
und veranlaBte ihre Spaltung in zwei prinzipiell verschiedene
Zweige: Anorgik und Biologie. Das organische Leben sollte
durch eine besondere Lebenskraft (Vis vitalis) veranlaBt sein,
welche die „rohen Naturkrafte“ in ihren Dienst nahme und beim
Tode den Korper verlasse. Die groBen Fortschritte, welche
die Physik und Chemie der Anorgane einerseits, die Physio
logie und Biogenie der Organismen anderseits, in der ersten
Halfte des 19. Jahrhunderts machten, fiihrten zur Aufhebung
dieses Vitalismus und verwiesen die „iibernaturlicheu Lebens
kraft (— ebenso wie die transszendente ..Seele". mit der sie
oft identifiziert wurde —) als metaphysische „Gespenster“
in das Reich der Dichtung. Sie verlor vollends alles Ansehen,
nachdem Darwin 1859 das schwierigste „Lebensratsel“ gelost
und den Glauben an eine iibernaturliche „Schopfungu der Arten
durch die mechanistische Erklarung ihrer Entwicklung aus der
Wissenschaft entfernt hatte.
Neovitalismus. In befremdendem Gegensatze zu diesen
mechanistischen Fortschritten der modernen Biologie hat sich
im Laufe der letzten zwanzig Jahre eine mystische Richtung
anspruchsvoll geltend gemacht, welche als „Neovitalismus“ den
langst begrabenen Aberglauben der alten Irrlehre von der iibernatiirlichen Lebenskraft, den „Palavitalismus“. neuerdings
zur Geltung zu bringen sucht. Ohne irgend welche neuen
Tatsachen zu seinen Gunsten vorzubringen, suchte dieser konfuse
Neovitalismus die angebliche „ Autonomie des Lebens “, die
�45
ratselhafte „Eigengesetzlichkeit“ der organischen Prozesse, durch
eine sophistische Dialektik zur Geltung zu bringen. DaB er trotzdem ein gewisses Ansehen erlangte, erklart sich aus der bedauerlichen Zunahme der Verwirrung, in welche einerseits kurzsich tiger Spezialismus, andrerseits Unfahigkeit zu philosophischer
Beurteilung der allgemeinen Verhaltnisse, viele moderne Naturforscher fiihrt. Ich habe die Griinde, welche diesen biologischen.
Dualismus widerlegen und dagegen die prinzipielle Einheit der
organischen und der anorganischen Natur beweisen, bereits im
14. Kap. der Wl. erortert. Im 15. Kap. der Lr. ist namentlich die
damit eng verbundene Frage vom Lebensursprung besprochen.
Dieses dunkle „Lebensratsel“, die Entstehung der altesten und
einfachsten Organismen aus anorganischer Substanz ist durch
die Hypothese der Urzeugung (Archigonie) in dem dort bestimmten Sinne befriedigend gelost.
Urzeugung (Archigonie).
Die Frage von der Urzeugung, von der natiirlichen Ent
stehung des ersten organischen Lebens auf unserer Erde, gehort
noch heute zu den unklarsten und verworrensten Problemen
der ganzen „Naturgeschichte“. Viele denkende Leser, sogar
angesehene Naturforscher, halten sie noch heute fur ein hochst
schwieriges, manche sogar fur ein unlosbares Problem. In
diesem Sinne fiihrte sie 1880 E. du Bois-Reymond als das
dritte seiner „ Sieben Weltratsel“ auf. Nach meiner festen
Cberzeugung ist dieses groBe biologische Problem nur ein besonderer Teil des oben behandelten „ Substanz-Ratseis “ und ist
somit seit fiinfzig Jahren im Prinzip gelost; ich stimme darin
vollkommen mit den Anschauungen des ebenso klar denkenden
als tatsachenkundigen Botanikers Carl Naegeli iiberein, welcher
vor 30 Jahren in seinem gedankenreichen Werke „MechanischPhysiologische Begriindung der Abstammungslehreu (1884)
die betreffende Betrachtung mit dem Satze schloB: „Die Ur
zeugung leugnen heiBt das Wunder verkiinden“.
�46
Meine eigenen Untersuchungen uber Urzeugung erstrecken
sich uber den Zeitraum eines halben Jahrhunderts; sie wurden
friihzeitig dadurch hervorgerufen, daB ich (schon seit dem Jahre
1859) mit besonderer Vorliebe mich dem Studium der einfachsten
Urtiere, insbesondere der Radiolarien zuwandte. Die bedeutungsvolle Reform der Zellen-Theorie, welche damals Max
Schultze durch Aufstellung seiner Protoplasma-Theorie herbeifiihrte, und unsere gemeinsamen Studien uber , die „Sareode der
Rhizopoden“, waren dabei fur mich von bestimmendem EinfluB;
spater ganz besonders meine Beobachtungen uber Moneren
(Chromaceen, Bakterien, Protamoeben, Protogenes etc.). Ich wies
schon in der Generellen Morphologie (1866, Kap. V) auf die
hohe prinzipielle Bedeutung dieser einfachsten „Organismen
ohne Organe“ hin, deren ganzer lebendiger Korper weiter
nichts ist, als ein Stiickchen von strukturlosem Plasma und
also noch nicht einmal den Formwert einer einfachen kernhaltigen Zelle besitzt.
Das zweite Buch meiner Generellen Morphologie (1866) ent
halt sehr eingehende, kritische „Allgemeine Untersuchungen uber
die Natur und erste Entstehung der Organismen; ihr Verhaltnis
zu den Anorganen, und ihre Einteilung in Tiere und Pflanzen “
(Bd. II. S. 109—238). Die hier entwickelten Gesichtspunkte der
vergleichenden Biologie, besonders die objektive Vergleichung
der Zellenbildung und Kristallbildung, haben die fundamentale
Einheit der organischen und anorganischen Natur geniigend
dargelegt. Der ganze Bios (d. h. die gesamte Welt der Orga
nismen) ist sowohl in der Zeit, als im Raume verglichen,
nur ein ganz geringer Bruchteil des Universum, nur eine kleine
Episode in der unermesslichen Geschichte des Anorgon, der
falschlich sogenannten toten Natur.
Nun haben freilich bis jetzt die vielen Versuche, die Archigonie
experimentell zu beweisen, d. h. lebendiges Plasma aus anorgischen Kohlenstoff-Verbindungen kiinstlich herzustellen, keine
positiven Erfolge gehabt. Allein das negative Ergebnis dieser
Experimente, namentlich die beriihmten Versuche von Pasteur
�47
fiber Generatio spontanea, haben fur die Losung dieses Ratseis
nicht die geringste Bedeutung. Die meisten Biologen, die sich
damit beschaftigen, gehen von der irrtiimlichen Vorstellung
einer urspriinglichen Organisation der einfachsten Lebewesen
aus und beriicksichtigen nicht, daB diese dem strukturlosen
Korper der genannten Moneren noch ganz fehlt, ebenso wie
dem zahfliissigen Plasmaleibe vieler einfachsten Rhizopoden
(Myzetozoen) und dem stromenden homogenen Plasma innerhalb vieler Pflanzenzellen. Das Problem der Archigonie ist also
ein rein chemisches; es kommt nur darauf an, durch Katalyse kolloidaler Substanz die einfachste Form von Plasma
zu erzeugen; wenn diese fest-fliissige homogene Substanz sich
individualisiert und in kleine Kiigelchen zerfallt (— gleich den
Regentropfen in der Wolke —), haben wir Moneren; ihre
weitere Umbildung zu kernhaltigen Zellen einfachster Art ist
eine Frage der physiologischen Chemie. (Naheres im 15. Kap.
der „Lebenswunder“.)
Lebensfiihrung.
(Grundlinien der Ethik oder Sittenlehre.)
Die wichtigste praktische Aufgabe der Religion ebenso wie
der Philosophie ist die Begriindung einer verniinftigen Sitten
lehre; diese „ Ethik" soil das Gute oder die Tugend fordern
und das moglichste Gluck der Menschen erzielen. Ich habe die
Grundziige unserer monistischen Ethik bereits in den ,,Weltratseln" (Kap. 18, 19) und in den „Lebenswundern“ (Kap. 18,
19) erortert, und ihren Gegensatz zu der traditionellen Sitten
lehre der dualistischen Religion und Metaphysik scharf beJeuchtet. Ich kann mich daher hier darauf beschranken, die
Bicherheit ihrer Grundlagen zu priifen und kurz ihre Beziehungen zur Anthropologie und zur Theophysik zu erlautern. Im
iibrigen verweise ich auf die 18. Tabelle, welche am Schlusse
des 18. Kapitels der ..Lebenswunder" den „Gegensatz der mo
nistischen und der dualistischen Sittenlehre" zeigt. Unsere
monistische oder theophysische Ethik behauptet einen natur-
�48
lichen Ursprung unserer Moral, hingegen die dualistische oder
metaphysische Ethik einen iibernatiirlichen Ursprung. Aus
der umfangreichen ethischen Literatur sind namentlich die
Schriften von Ludwig Feuerbach, Herbert Spencer, Bartholomaeus Carneri und Friedrich Jodi hervorzuheben. In dem
vortrefflichen kleinen „Katechismus der monistischen Weltan
schauung “ (Brackwede 1914) hat Dr. L. Frei die wichtigsten Grundsatze der naturgemaBen Ethik, die sich auf der Grundlage unserer
einheitlichen Weltanschauung aufbauen, kurz und gemeinverstandlich zusammengefaBt.
Natiirlich gibt uns eine klare theoretische Weltanschauung
die sicherste Grundlage fur eine gute praktische Lebensfiihrung.
Allein in Wirklichkeit ist der EinfluB der ersteren auf die
letztere viel geringer, als man gewohnlich annimmt. Denn die
Richtschnur des Handelns, welches uns die Vernunft vorschreibt, wird iiberall gekreuzt durch die Wiinsche des Ge
mlites und beeintrachtigt durch die altehrwiirdigen Uberlieferungen der mystischen Glaubenslehren, sowie durch die
Macht der Leidenschaften, welche die Befriedigung der
menschlichen Bediirfnisse erzielen. Wahrend die Vernunft mit
Hiilfe der Wissenschaft die Erkenntnis des Wahren erstrebt,
sucht das Gemlit den Weg zum Guten und Schonen zu finden.
Als wertvollstes Mittel zur Forderung des menschlichen
Lebensgliickes ist vor allem die Pflege der Kunst zu betonen.
Eine unerschopfliche Quelle des edelsten Lebensgenusses ist dem
modernen Menschen in den herrlichen Gefilden der Dichtkunst
und Tonkunst, in der bildenden Kunst und im NaturgenuB, in
der Betrachtung der wunderbaren „Kunstformen der Natur “
gegeben. Wie der Kulturmensch durch diese realen Geniisse
des irdischen Lebens fur den Verlust der eingebildeten Seligkeit in einem iiberirdischen Leben entschadigt wird, das hat
namentlich David Strauss in seinem beriihmten Bekenntnis:
„Der alte und der neue Glaube“ (1872) gezeigt. Wir erinnern
nur nochmals an das unsterbliche Wort von Goethe: „Wer
Wissenschaft und Kunst besitzt, hat auch Religion. “
�49
Anthropologische Grundlagen der Ethik. Die moderne
Menschenkunde hat uns zu der sicheren Erkenntnis gefiihrt,
daB der Mensch sich aus dem Stamm der Wirbeltiere entwickelt
hat und daB alle seine morphologischen, physiologischen und
psychologischen Eigenschaften aus denjenigen der SaugetierKlasse abzuleiten sind. Die „sozialen Instinkte“ der letzteren sind durch Anpassung an ihre Lebensgewohnheiten entstanden und durch Vererbung auf alle Glieder der Klasse iibertragen; sie sind die Quelle, aus welcher die „Sitten“ der
Menschen entstanden sind. Eine lange Stufenleiter der aufsteigenden Entwicklung fiihrt uns von den niederen Instinkten
der alteren Saugetiere zu den hoheren „Sitten“ der jiingeren
Mammalien hinauf, an deren Spitze die sozialen Raubtiere
(Hunde) und Herrentiere (Menschenaften) stehen. An diese
letztern schlieBen sich dann unmittelbar die Instinkte der niedersten Menschenrassen (Wilde) an, und aus diesen sind die
hoheren moralischen Gewohnheiten der Barbaren und spater
die feineren Sitten der Kulturvolker hervorgegangen.
Sittengesetze. Die moralischen „Gesetze“, welche unsere
sittliche Lebensfiihrung bestimmen, sind demnach keine „Gebote“ eines iibernaturlichen Schulgottes, sondern niitzliche Ein
richtungen der menschlichen Gesellschaft, welche sich als zweckmaBig erwiesen und im Laufe natiirlicher Entwicklung durch
Anpassung an das geordnete Staatsleben allmahlich befestigt
haben. Gleich alien anderen Institutionen sind sie bestandigen
Umbildungen und Verbesserungen unterworfen. Das gilt auch
von dem beriihmten „kategorischen Imperativ“, den Im
manuel Kant an die Spitze seiner Moralphilosophie gestellt
hatte. Ich habe seine Unhaltbarkeit bereits im 19. Kapitel der
Weltratsel dargetan. Wilhelm Ostwald hat an dessen Stelle
seinen „energetischen Imperativ“ gesetzt, welcher in dem
Satze gipfelt: „Vergeude keine Energie, sondern verwerte sie“.
Dieser wichtige Satz ist in der Gegenwart um so mehr zu beherzigen, als unsere verfeinerte moderne Kultur die Vergeudung
wertvoller Energie in stetig zunehmendem MaBe fordert. Welche
4
�50
Kraftvergeudung wird nicht im modemen Staatsleben durch
den wahnsinnigen Militarismus geiibt, der in den stetig wachsenden Kriegsriistungen den weitaus groBten Teil des NationalVermogens verschlingt! Welche Energievergeudung fordert der
iibertriebene Luxus und der raffinierte Hedonismus der hoheren
Gesellschaftsklassen, der Prunk des Protzentums, der stets sich
iiberbietende Hang nach sinnlichen Geniissen aller Art!
Seitdem der verdienstvolle Naturphilosoph Wilhelm Ostwald
vor drei Jahren das Presidium des deutschen Monistenbundes
iibernommen, hat derselbe in seinen gedankenreichen monistischen Sonntagspredigten sowie in zahlreichen Aufsatzen der
von ihm herausgegebenen Wochenschrift: „Das monistische
Jahrhundert“ viele wichtige Probleme des praktischen Monis
mus zeitgemaB behandelt. Andere vortreffliche Aufsatze uber
monistische Ethik finden sich in der von Wilhelm Breitenbach
herausgegebenen Monatsschrift: „Neue Weltanschauung in der
Halbmonatsschrift: „Das freie Wort“ (Frankfurt a. M.); ferner
in den von Dr. Paul Carus (Chicago) redigierten englischen
Zeitschriften: „Monist“ and „Open Court“. Auch in den amerikanischen Zeitschriften „Der Freidenker“ (Milwaukee) und der
Truthseeker (New York); ferner in den deutschen Zeitschriften
„Der Freidenker“, „Die Tat“ von Diederichs usw. erscheinen
gegenwartig zahlreiche Abhandlungen, welche die Prinzipien
unserer monistischen Weltanschauung auf die verschiedensten
Probleme des menschlichen Lebens, in Soziologie und Politik,
in Padagogik und Schulbildung, fruchtbar anwenden. Ich kann
mich daher auf diese monistische Propaganda und die dort angefiihrte Literatur um so mehr beziehen, als ich selbst nicht geeignet bin, diese wichtigen Aufgaben der praktischen Philo
sophie wesentlich zu fordern. Einige Hinweise auf deren wesentlichste Satze habe ich in den 30 „Thesen zur Organisation des
Monismus “ gegeben, welche 1904 bei Gelegenheit des zehnten
internationalen Freidenker-Kongresses in Rom formuliert und
zunachst im ersten Oktoberheft des „Freien Wort“ (Frank
furt a. M.) veroffentlicht wurden. Sie sind abgedruckt im ersten
�51
Heft mciner kiirzlich von Wilhelm Breitenbach gesammelten und
herausgegebenen „ Monistischen Bausteine“ (Brackwede 1914).
Wenn wir hier von alien einzelnen Sittengesetzen und speziellen Regulativen ganz absehen, so bleibt uns an der Spitze
aller Moralphilosophie jenes hochste Pflichtgebot iibrig, das man
gewohnlich' als das „goldene Sittengesetz“ (auch als die
„goldene )Regel“ oder den „goldenen Imperativ“) bezeichnet.
Es wurde' schon vor mehr als zweitausend Jahren von den beriihmten ..Wei sen" Griechenlands und von den Religionsstiftern
Asiens (in China und Indien) mit grofiem Erfolge gelehrt. Ich
habe dieses ethische Grundgesetz bereits im 19. Kapitel
der „Weltratsel“ eingehend besprochen und gezeigt, daB sein
hochstes Ziel die Herstellung des naturgemaBen Gleichgewichts zwischen Egoismus und Altruismus, zwischen
„Eigenliebe und Nachstenliebe“ ist.lp„Was du willst, daB dir
die Leute tun sollen, das tue du ihnen auch.“ Christus sprach
dasselbe wiederholt in dem einfachen Satze aus: ^„Du sollst
deinen Nachsten lieben wie dich selbst
Dieses vornehmste Gebot des Christentums. das auch unser
Monismus anerkennt, war aber keine neue Erfindung von
Christus, sondern schon 500 Jahre vor ihm von verschiedenen
Weisen des Altertums gelehrt worden. Andererseits beging das
Christentum in seiner weiteren paulinischen Entwicklung den
groBen Fehler, daB es .das hochste Gebot^der Menschenliebe
allzu einseitig iibertrieb und vielfach die natiirlichen Rechte
des Individuums zugunsten der Gesellschaft herabsetzte. Die
beiden naturlichen Triebe des Egoismus und des Altruismus
sind aber gleichberechtigt. Wie die Selbstliebe die Erhaltung
des Individuums anstrebt, so gilt die Nachstenliebe der Er
haltung der Gesellschaft, die der Einzelmensch nicht entbehren
kann. Indem der Mensch das soziale Wohl des Staates fordert,
dessen geordnete Gesetzgebung die erste Bedingung fur hohere
Kultur ist, arbeitet er zugleich fiir sein eigenes personliches
Gluck.
4*
�52
Diesseits und Jenseits.
Von groBter Bedeutung fiir die naturgemaBe Lebensfiihrung
ist natiirlich der Verzicht auf den Unsterblichkeitsglauben. In
den „Monistischen Studien“ uber Thanatismus und Athanismus
(im 11. Kapitel der Wl.) habe ich gezeigt, daB der herrschende
Glaube an die Unsterblichkeit der personlichen Menschenseele
jeden Anhalt in der Wissenschaft verloren hat. Die Priester
der meisten dualistischen Religionen (und namentlich der christlichen) fahren freilich trotzdem fort, den Glauben an die personliche Unsterblichkeit und an ein ewiges Leben im „Paradiese“
(oder auch in der „Holle“) als eine der wichtigsten Offenbarungs-Wahrheiten zu preisen. Das unbekannte „Jenseits“ im
Himmel, mit den ewigen Freuden des Paradieses, soil den
armen Menschen fur all die Mangel und Leiden entschadigen,
welche er in dem mangelhaften „Diesseits“ auf unserer Erde
zeitlebens zu ertragen hat. Unzweifelhaft ist fiir die naiven
Glaubigen jener verheiBungsvolle „Wechsel auf die Zukunft"
ein groBer Trost und fur die leidenden Armen und Elenden ein
Palliativmittel zur Beruhigung. Aber leider ist jenes schone Versprechen nur ein reines Phantasiegebilde der Dichtung, und die
begliickende Hoffnung darauf entbehrt jeder realen Unterlage.
Unsere monistische, auf die klarste Erfahrung gegriindete
Anthropologie hat uns fest uberzeugt, daB die personliche
Existenz jedes Menschen — mit Leib und Seele — ebenso
si ch er mit seinem To de aufhort, wie sie mit der Entstehung
der Stammzelle (mit der Befruchtung der miitterlichen Eizelle
durch die vaterliche Spermazelle) begonnen hat. Demzufolge
hat unsere monistische Ethik allein die Aufgabe, dieses unser
irdisches Leben so gut und schon, so gliicklich und zufriedenstellend als moglich zu gestalten; unsere Erziehung kann keine
weitere Aufgabe haben, als unsere Jugend, von friihester Kindheit an, allein fur dieses ..Diesseits" gut zu erziehen. Der einfachste, beste und wirksamste Leitfaden dazu bleibt immer das
,,Goldene Sittengesetz“.
�53
Monistische und christliche Religion.
Der natiirliche und notwendige Gegensatz, welcher zwischen
unserer auf Wissenschaft begriindeten monistischen Religion
und den herrschenden, auf angebliche Offenbarung gestiitzten
dualistischen Religionen — in erster Linie des traditionellen
Christentums — besteht, ist in meinen friiheren naturphilosophischen Schriften, besonders aber im 17. Kapitel der „Weltratsel“ hinreichend beleuchtet worden. Hier wollen wir nur
noch besonders auf den ganz verschiedenen Wert hinweisen,
welchen in unserem modernen Kulturleben einerseits die theoretischel christliche Glaubenslehre als Weltanschauung besitzt; andererseits die praktische christliche Sittenlehre als Norm
und Richtschnur fur unsere Lebensfiihrung. Beide Aufgaben
werden zwar, der alten geheiligten Tradition entsprechend, im
christlichen Katechismus dogmatisch zusammengefaBt und in
den Kirchen zusammenhangend gelehrt; tatsachlich aber ist in
unserem heutigen Kulturleben die aberglaubische christliche
Weltanschauung vollig iiberwunden und durch die vernunftgemaBen Erkenntnisse der Wissenschaft ersetzt. Hingegen sind
die ethischen Gebote der christlichen Lebensfiihrung, soweit sie
den naturgemaBen Forderungen der Humanitat entsprechen,
wertvolle Bausteine auch fiir unsere gereinigte monistische Sit
tenlehre geblieben.
Das Christentum als Weltanschauung, als theoretische
Grundlage des allgemeinen Weltbildes, wird zwar auch heute
noch von den orthodoxen Anhangern der christlichen Religion
mit Fanatismus verteidigt. In vielen Kulturlandern, in denen
Thron und Altar zum Schutz des „ alten Glaubens“ sich verbiinden, wird die christliche Oflenbarungslehre, von der Schopfungsgeschichte des Moses im Alten Testament bis zur Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt des Christus im Neuen Testament,
als wichtigste Grundlage der Volksbildung festgehalten. Die
dualistische Kirchenlehre, ebenso die rechtglaubige evangelische,
wie die alleinseligmachende katholische, bemiihen sich, einen
�54
Weg der Versohnung ihres iiberlebten Aberglaubens mit den
entgegenstehenden Ergebnissen der modernen Naturerkenntnis
zu finden. Besonders wirksam erweist sich dabei die Sophistik
der Jesuiten, sowohl in dem alteren Thomasbunde als in dem
neueren Keplerbunde. DaB der dualistische Jesuitenbund hierbei keine Mittel der Tauschung fur zu schlecht halt, habe ich
1910 in meiner Broschiire „Sandalion“ gezeigt („Offene Ant
wort auf die Falschungsanklagen der Jesuiten “). Obgleich nun
leider diese Irrlehren des judisch-christlichen Religionsgebaudes
durch die Macht der konservativen Bildungskreise erfolgreich
unterstiitzt werden, haben sie doch tatsachlich in der modernen
Wissenschaft alien Boden verloren. Schon vor 400 Jahren
hatte Kopernikus das alte geozentrische Weltbild zerstort,
unsere Erde aus .dem Mittelpunkt der Welt entfernt und ihr
ein bescheideneres Planeten-Platzchen im Sonnensystem angewiesen. Durch Darwin wurde uns vor 50 Jahren der Weg zur
modernen Anthropogenie geoffnet, welche die anthropozentrische Weltanschauung aufhebt, den Menschen seiner angemaBten Gottahnlichkeit entkleidet und ihm seine wahre Stellung
an der Spitze der Herrentiere anweist.
Die moderne Christologie hat es sehr wahrscheinlich gemacht, daB Christus ein reines Idealbild der religiosen'"Dichtung
ist und daB er als personlicher Mensch, als „Gottessohn“ Jesus
niemals gelebt hat. 'Aber auch wenn er wirklich existiert hat,
kann seine Ansicht von Gott und Welt, von Seele und Mensch,
keinen Anspruch auf wissenschaftliche Geltung erheben. Jesus
behauptete freilich 'in gutem Glauben: „Ich bin der Weg, die
Wahrheit und das Leben“! Aber er war ein idealistischer
Schwarmer, der 'sich seine iibernatiirliche Weltanschauung auf
Grund der orientalischen Mythologie aufbaute, nicht auf
der unbefangenen Anschauung der Wirklichkeit und der klaren
Naturerkenntnis. Jesus hatte keine Ahnung von der bewunderungswiirdigen Hohe des klaren monistischen Weltbildes,
welche die griechische Naturphilosophie schon 500 Jahre vor
ihm erklommen hatte. Niemals aus den engen Grenzen von
�55
Palastina herausgekommen, hatte er keine Kenntnis von dem
hohen Wert der feineren Geisteskultur, von den kostbaren
Schatzen der Kunst und Wissenschaft, welche schon vor seiner
Zeit in Griechenland und Agypten, in Sizilien und Rom aufgespeichert waren. Da Christus unser unvollkommenes irdisches
Leben verachtete und seinen Wert nur in der Vorbereitung fur
ein besseres unbekanntes „Jenseits“ suchte, blieb ihm der Weg
zur Wahrheit verschlossen. (Vergl. Kap. 17 der „Weltratsel“.)
�Abschied
Indem ich mit den vorliegenden Studien fiber „Gott-Natur“
meine naturphilosophischen Studien abschlieBe, fiihle ich die
Verpflichtung, den zahlreichen Lesern der „Weltratsel“ und
„Lebenswunder“ zum Abschiede nicht nur meinen aufrichtigen
Dank fiir ihre Teilnahme an meiner Lebensarbeit auszusprechen,
sondern auch einige Worte der Entschuldigung, dab ich viele
der an mich gerichteten Fragen nicht befriedigend beantworten
konnte. In wenigen Tagen vollende ich mein achtzigstes Lebensjahr und iiberschreite somit die Schwelle des „biblischen
Alters “, durch welche naturgemaB der produktiven Geistesarbeit eine normale Grenze gesetzt ist. Zuriickblickend auf
den Zeitraum von sechzig Jahren, in welchem ich ununterbrochen meine wissenschaftliche Lebensaufgabe zu fordern bemiiht war, empfinde ich mit besonderer Starke den driickenden
Gegensatz zwischen dem Erstrebten und Erreichten, zwischen
den hohen Zielen, die ich mir in frischer Jugendkraft gesteckt
hatte, und den unvollstandigen Ergebnissen, die ich in fleiBiger
und gewissenhafter Arbeit wirklich erreicht habe.
Anderseits aber will ich Jnicht verschweigen, daB mich
heute der Triumph der monistischen Weltanschauung, fur welche
ich wahrend eines halben Jahrhunderts ununterbrochen gekampft habe, mit einem hohen inneren Gliicksgefiihl erfullt
Denn ich habe in diesem denkwiirdigen Zeitraum nicht nur
die gewaltigsten Fortschritte der Naturerkenntnis und der mit
ihr verkniipften Kulturarbeit als staunender Zuschauer passiv
miterlebt, sondern auch als begeisterter Mitarbeiter aktiv an
deren Ausbau mich beteiligen konnen.
�57
Die zweite Halfte des 19. Jahrhunderts wird fiir alle Zeiten
in der Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit eine der glanzendsten
Reformperioden bleiben. Die erstaunlichen Fortschritte der
Astronomie und Kosmologie, der Geologie und Palaontologie,
der Physik und Chemie, der Biologie und Anthropologie haben
in diesem Zeitraum den groBten Teil der triiben Wolken verscheucht, welche der dunkle Aberglaube des Mittelalters noch
fiber der herrschenden dualistischen Weltanschauung ausgebreitet hatte. Die ersehnte „L6sung der Weltratsel“ ist
dadurch in erfreulichster Weise gefordert worden, wie ich in
der kurzen Ubersicht am Schlusse dieses Buches (im 20. Kapitel)
gezeigt habe. Dadurch ist zugleich unser monistisches Substanzgesetz (Kapitel 12) als das allumfassende „kosmologische Grundgesetz“, zu dem „sicheren, unverriickbaren
Leitstern geworden, dessen klares Licht uns durch das dunkle
Labyrinth der unzahligen einzelnen Erscheinungen den Pfad
zeigt.“ Der sichere Ariadnefaden, den wir dabei in fester Hand
halten, ist unsere moderne Entwicklungslehre.
DaB dadurch nicht nur ein fester Boden fur die monistische
Philosophie, sondern auch fur die naturgemaBe, davon nicht
zu trennende Religion gewonnen ist, habe ich bereits 1866
in der „Generellen Morphologie“ gezeigt, in dem Jugendwerk, in welchem ich vor 48 Jahren alle wesentlichen Grundgedanken meiner spateren naturphilosophischen Arbeiten zu
einem festen Programm gestaltet hatte. Das letzte (30.) Kapitel
dieses Werkes (Band II, S. 448) ist betitelt „Gott in der
Natur“ und sucht zu zeigen, daB unser Monismus zugleich
der vollkommenste Pantheismus ist. Wenn man nun den
Gottes-Begriff — im Sinne von Giordano Bruno, von Spinoza
und von Goethe — alles personlichen Anthropismus entkleidet,
und wenn man die Spur von „Gottes Geist “ iiberall in der
Natur bewundernd und andachtsvoll erkennt, so kann man
wohl sagen, daB dieser Monismus auch der reinste Monotheismus ist. Der SchluBsatz jenes Werkes (— von dem
40 Jahre spater der dritte Teil in unverandertem wortlichen
�Abdruck unter dem Titel: „Prinzipien der generellen Mor
phologies Berlin 1906, erschienen ist —) hebt ausdriicklich hervor, daB „Gott die notwendige Ursache aller Dinge ist“. „Indem der Monismus keine anderen als die gottlichen Krafte in
der Natur erkennt, indem er alle Naturgesetze als gottliche
anerkennt, erhebt er sich zu der groBtenund erhabensten Vor
stellung, welcher der Mensch fahig ist, zu der Vorstellung der
Einheit Gottes und der Natur.“
Wie sich auf diesem einheitlichen einfachen Grundgedanken
unser „ Monismus als Band zwischen Religion und Wissenschaft “
aufbaut, habe ich vor 22 Jahren in meinem Altenburger Vortrage (1892) gezeigt und sodann im 18. Kapitel der Weltratsel
(1899) weiter ausgefiihrt. Die feste, unerschiitterliche tlberzeugung von der Wahrheit dieses „Glaubensbekenntnisses eines
Naturforschers“ hat durch meine vielen biologischen SpezialArbeiten, und namentlich durch die vier groBen Monographien
(Radiolarien, Spongien, Medusen, Siphonophoren), mit denen
ich 30 Jahre hindurch beschaftigt war, eine sichere empirische
Grundlage erhalten. Denn ich behielt bei der speziellen Ana
lyse der vielen tausend beschriebenen Lebensformen und ihrer
Entwicklung bestandig ihre Beziehungen zu dem groBen Ganzen
der Natur im Auge. Das alte Leitwort der echten Naturforschung: „ Rerum cognoscere causas“ (die wahren Ursachen
der Dinge ergriinden) fiihrte mich dann immer sicherer zur
Erkenntnis der kausalen Einheit in alien Erscheinungen, und
zu jener andachtsvollen Naturreligion, welcher der groBe Gior
dano Bruno schon vor mehr als 300 Jahren den klarsten Aus
druck in den Worten gegeben hat: „Ein Geist lebt in alien
Dingen und es ist kein Korper so klein, daB er nicht einen Teil der
gottlichen Substanz in sich enthielte.“ In demselben Sinne hat
spater Spinoza in seiner Identitatsphilosophie Gott und Natur fiir
gleichbedeutend erklart („Deus sive natura“), und kein Geringerer
als Goethe hat diesem tiefsten Grundgedanken der Theophysis in
seinen unvergleichlichen Dichtungen: Faust und Prometheus, Gott
und Welt usw. den schonsten poetischen Ausdruck gegeben.
�59
Wenn ich in meiner langen Lebensarbeit zu einer festen,
subjektiv vollkommen klaren Uberzeugung von der Wahrheit
der monistischen Naturphilosophie und Religion gelangt bin,
SO verdanke ich das nicht nur jener breiten Basis meiner naturwissenschaftlichen Forschungen und der damit verkniipften
griindlichen medizinischen Bildung, sondern auch dem gliicklichen Umstande, daB die ersteren mich auf zahlreichen Reisen
in alle Teile von Europa sowie in die interessantesten Gebiete
des siidlichen Asiens und des nordlichen Afrikas fiihrten. Da
erwarb ich mir durch lebendige Anschauung eine umfassende
Kenntnis nicht allein der unendlich formenreichen Tier- und
Pflanzenwelt unserer herrlichen Erde, sondern auch des Men
schen in seinen mannigfaltigsten Gestalten und in seinen Beziehungen zu den verschiedensten Lebensbedingungen. Ich tat
einen unbefangenen Blick auch in die verschiedenen Hauptformen der Religion und streifte dabei die Vorurteile ab, welche
uns in Europa durch die friihzeitige Anpassung an die mystischen Glaubenssatze des Christentums anerzogen werden. Die
viel betonten Gegensatze in den Glaubenslehren der drei groBen
Mediterran-Religionen — der mosaischen, der christlichen und
der mohammedanischen Religion — erweisen sich sowohl hinsichtlich der theoretischen Weltanschauung als der praktischen
Lebensfiihrung bei weitem nicht so groB, als sie von unserem
einseitig konfessionellen, orthodoxen, katholischen oder protestantischen Gesichtspunkte aus gewohnlich dargestellt werden.
Und dasselbe gilt von der buddhistischen und brahmanischen
Religion in Indien, von den alteren Religionsformen des ostlichen Asiens. Uberall kehren gewisse Grundgedanken des On
theismus in ahnlichen Formen wieder und zeigen eine lange
Stufenleiter der religiosen Entwicklung; sie beginnt mit dem
Fetischismus und Damonismus der rohen Naturvolker und
Barbaren; sie steigt ija vielen Abstufungen zu dem Polytheismus und Monotheismus der Kulturvolker hinauf (Kapitel 15
der „Weltratsel“). Die reinsten Formen dieses Ontheismus
(wie sie z. B. der evangelische Theologe Schleiermacher ent-
�60
wickelte) gehen dann unmerklich in unseren monistischen
Pantheismus fiber.
„ Gottes ist der Orient,
Gottes ist der Occident,
Nord und siidliches Gelande
Ruht im Frieden seiner Hande.“
(Goethe.)
Mit Leitworten von Wolfgang Goethe habe ich jedes einzelne der 30 Kapitel meiner Generellen Morphologie eingefiihrt
und auch in anderen Schriften habe ich oft Gelegenheit gehabt, aus seinen wunderbaren Dichtungen die schonste Form
fur den unvollkommenen Ausdruck meiner eigenen monistischen
Gedanken zu entleihen. Es geschah dies nicht bloB aus Ehrfurcht vor unserem groBten deutschen Dichter, dessen unvergleichliche Geisteserzeugnisse ich schon in friiher Jugend bewundern lernte, sondern auch in dankbarer Erinnerung daran,
daB es mir in Jena vergonnt war, ein halbes Jahrhundert hindurch in den unvertilgbaren Spuren des Geisteshelden von
Weimar zu wandeln. In den engen Raumen der alten Ana
tomie, wo Goethe die Schadeltheorie aufstellte und die Mor
phologie begrfindete, hielt ich vor 50 Jahren meine ersten
Vorlesungen fiber vergleichende Anatomie; in unserem reizenden botanischen Garten, wo er die „Metamorphose der Pflan
zen “ ausfiihrte, studierte ich die von ihm gepflanzten Baume,
darunter die beriihmte Conifere Gingko biloba, welcher er in
dem Westostlichen Divan (in Gedanken an Suleika) Unsterblich
keit verliehen hat. In den blumenreichen Waldungen des
Forstes und auf den malerischen Felsen der Kernberge genoB
ich viele hundert Male den Reiz unserer wundervollen Thiiringer Landschaft, welcher wir so viele seiner schonsten Dich
tungen verdanken. In den Ruinen der alten Lobedaburg („wo
hinter Tiiren und Toren einst lauerten Ritter und RoB“) sah
ich Goethes Blicke nach dem Wahrzeichen der Leuchtenburg
hiniiberschweifen; und am Fenster des westlichen rosenum-
�61
kranzten Schlosses von Dornburg fiihlte ich, wie hier unser
groBter Dichter den Schlangenwindungen der Saale gefolgt war.
Ja, ein besonders giitiges Geschick schenkte mir das auserlesene
Gluck, daB ich vor 30 Jahren mir auf demselben malerischen
Erdenfleck (am rechten Leutra-Ufer, damals Kartoffelfeld) mein
bescheidenes Hauschen — die Villa Medusa — erbauen durfte,
auf welchem Goethe 100 Jahre friiher eine Zeichnung von dem
schrag gegeniiberliegenden „Schillergarten“ und der Leutrabriicke entworfen hatte.
Uberall lebt in Jena wie in Weimar der wahrhaft „unsterbliche“ Geist von Goethe lebendig fort; und iiberall sehen wir,
wie dieser „groBe Heide von Weimar“ (der sich selbst als
„dezidierten Nichtchristen“ bekannte) in seiner „Gott-Natur“
den theophysischen Grundgedanken unseres heutigen Monis
mus vorwegnahm. So kann ich denn diese meine letzte
Studie uber monistische Philosophie und Religion auch nur
mit seinen Worten schlieBen:
„GewiB, es gibt keine schonere Gottesverehrung als
diejenige, welche aus dem Wechselgesprach mit der
Natur in unserm Busen entspringt!“
�Nachwort.
Diejenigen Leser der „Weltratsel“ und „Lebenswunder
welche an den vorstehenden „ Studien fiber monistische Religion “
ein tieferes Interesse finden und eine weitere Begriindung meiner
beziiglichen Anschauungen in meinen friiheren Schriften aufzusuchen
wiinschen, kann ich besonders auf folgende Werke verweisen:
I. Generelle Morphologie der Organismen, 1866 (Berlin, G. Rei
mer). 2 Bande. Da dieses Werk schon lange vergriffen ist, wurde
1906 sein dritter Teil in wortlichem Abdruck unter dem Titel „Prinzipien der generellen Morphologie “ herausgegeben.
II. Natiirliche Schopfungsgeschichte ; Gemeinverstandliche wissenschaftliche Vortrage uber die Entwickelungslehre, 1868, Berlin,
G. Reimer. (Elfte Auflage 1908.) Mit 30 Tafeln.
III. Systematische Phylogenie. Entwurf eines natiirlichen
Systems der Organismen auf Grund ihrer Stammesgeschichte. 1894
bis 1896. Berlin, G. Reimer. 3 Bande.
IV. Anthropogenie; Entwicklungsgeschichte des Menschen.
Erster Teil: Keimesgeschichte. Zweiter Teil: Stammesgeschichte.
1874. Leipzig, W. Engelmann. (Sechste Auflage, 2 Bande, 1910.
Mit 30 Tafeln und 500 Holzschnitten.)
V. Gemeinverstandliche Vortrage uber Entwickelungslehre
1902. Bonn, Emil StrauB. 2 Bande.
VI. Der Monismus als Band zwischen Religion und Wissen
schaft. Glaubensbekenntnis eines Naturforschers, vorgetragen in
Altenburg 1892. — 15. Auflage, 1912. Leipzig, Alfred Kroner.
VII. Alte und neue Naturgeschichte. Festrede zur Ubergabe
des Phyletischen Museums an die Universitat Jena, 1908. (Mit
Verzeichnis der Druckschriften.) Jena, Gustav Fischer.
VIII. Unsere Ahnenreihe (Progonotaxis Hominis). Kritische
Studien fiber Phyletische Anthropologie. Festschrift. Mit 6 Tafeln.
Jena 1908, Gustav Fischer.
�Aahang.
Synoptische Tabellen
zum Verstandnis der Studien uber
Monistische Religion.
(Vergleiche die 4 Tabellen in der GroBen Ausgabe der „Weitratsel“, 1899;
und die 22 Tabellen in der GroBen Ausgabe der „Lebenswunder“, 1904.)
I. Tabelle: Monistische und Dualistische Religion.
Theophysik (Pantheos) und Theomystik (Ontheos).
,11. Tabelle: Hauptformen des Ontheisinus.
(Monotheismus, Amphitheismus, Triplotheismus, Polytheismus).
III. Tabelle: Trinitat der Substanz.
(Materie, Energie, Psychom).
IV. Tabelle: Drei Richtungen der Substanzlehre.
(Materialismus, Energetik, Psychomatik).
V. Tabelle: Eritik der Erkenntniswege.
Monistische und Dualistische Erkenntnistheorie.
VI. Tabelle: Grundrichtungen der Naturphilosophie.
Monistische und Dualistische Kosmologie.
VII. Tabelle: Ahnenreihe des Menschen,
Erste Halfte: Ohne fossile Urkunden.
will. Tabelle: Ahnenreihe des Menschen.
Zweite Halfte: Mit fossilen Urkunden.
�Erste Tabelle. Monistisehe und dualistische Religion.
Prinzipien der Theophysik.
Prinzipien der Theomystik.
Allgott. Pantheos.
„Deus intramundanus".
Uni ver sal-Gott.
Kosmischer Urgrund der Welt.
(Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Goethe.)
Schulgott. Ontheos.
„Deus extramundanus“.
Personal-Gott.
Anthropistischer Urgrund der Welt.
(Jehovah, Christus, Allah.)
1. Gott ist die Natur selbst, ewig
und unverganglich wie diese.
1. Gott ist ewig und erzeugt als
Schopfer die vergangliche Natur.
2. Gott ist selbst das Naturgesetz,
unbewufit, unabanderlich („Universum perpetuum mobile11).
2. Gott bestimmt als Gesetzgeber
mit BewuBtsein die Naturgesetze und
kann sie beliebig abandem.
3. Gott besitzt keinen freien Willen
und keine Willkiir.
3. Gott besitzt unbeschrankte Frei
heit des Willens und ist „allmachtig“.
4. Gott ist an die „ewigen ehernen
Naturgesetze“ gebunden und kann
keine Wunder tun; es gibt keine
„ubernatiirlichen Wunder".
4. Gott kann jederzeit und iiberall
Wunder tun und die Naturgesetze
willkiirlich durchbrechen; es gibt wirkliche „iibematurliche Wunder“.
5. Gott als universale Substanz ist
iiberall und jederzeit an die Trinitat
der Attribute (Materie, Energie,
Psychom) gebunden; die Entwick
lung der zweckmaBigen Organisa
tion ist ein Produkt der Anpassung
und Auslese (Selection).
5. Gott hat als weiser und zweckmaBig handelnder Weltregent alle
Dinge mit Weisheit und Verstand
eingerichtet; als geschickter „Maschinen-Ingenieur“ hat er alle Ein
richtungen (im Anorgon und im Bios!)
planvoll geschaffen.
6. Gott als blindesSchicksal(Fatum)
ist an das universale, Alles beherrschende Kausalgesetz gebunden. Es
gibt in der Entwieklung des Univer
sum keine „gottliche Vorsehung",
keine „sittliche Weltordnung“.
7. Gott ist kein „allgerechter Rich
ter", kennt keinen Unterschied von
„Gut und Bose". Die Tugend belohnt sich selbst; die „Siinde“ be
straft sich selbst. Es gibt in Wirklichkeit kein „Jiingstes Weltgericht".
6. Gott als „liebender Vater“ ist
iiberall fur das Wohl seiner „Geschopfe" besorgt; behiitet sie als
„Vorsehung“ vor Gefahren und leitet
ihr Wohl umsichtig durch eine „sittliche Weltordnung".
7. Gott als „ strenger Richter" und
Weltregent wacht uber der Befolgung
seiner „Gebote“, belohnt die „Guten“
und bestraft die „Bbsen“. Am Ende
folgt (— fiir alle Lebewesen? —) ein
„ Jiingstes Weltgericht “.
Naturalistischer
Gottes-Begriff.
Transszendenter
Gottes-Begriff.
�65
Zweite Tabelle.
Ilauptformen des Ontlieismus.
Grundvorstellung: Gott ist eine individuelle Personlichkeit, welche als
Selbstandiges Subjekt auBerhalb der Welt besteht; Schopfer der Natur.
(Deus extramundanus = Schulgott = Personal-Gott.)
I. Monotheismus. Eingotterei.
I. Ein hochstes Wesen in einem
I. A. Naturalistischer Mono einzigen herrschenden Natur-Objekt
theismus.
verkorpert, beherrscht alles Ubrige.
A I. Solarismus(=Heliotheismus)
I, A. Die Sonne oder der Mond ist
Sonnen-Kultus.
das hochste Wesen, das Alles
A 2. Lunarismus (— Selenotheisschafft und belebt (Quelle
mus) Mondkultus.
aller Energie).
I. B. Anthropistischer Mono
I. B. Das hochste Wesen ist ein
theismus. (Anthropomoreinziger personlicher Gott und
pher Theismus).
menschenahnlich denkend.
B 1. Mosaismus (Jiidischer Mo
Bl. Moses: „Ich bin der Herr dein
notheismus: Jehovah (JaGott, du sollst nicht andere
veh) 1800 v. Chr.
Gotter haben neben mir“.
B 2. Christianismus (ChristB 2. Christus: Gott ist der Geist
licher Monotheismus).
der Liebe.
B 3. Islam (Mohammedan. Mo
B 3. Mohammed: „Gott ist der
notheismus : Allah) 600 n.Chr.
alleinige Gott“ (unsichtbar).
II. Amphitheismus. Zweigotterei.
II. Zwei hochste Wesen („Gott
und Teufel“ — „Gutes und boses
II. A. Altindische
Zweigotterei:
Wisehnu (= Erhalter) gegen Prinzip“) kampfen gegeneinander um
die Weltregierung.
Schiwa (= Zerstorer).
II. B. Altagyptische Zweigotterei:
Vom Standpunkt der reinen Ver
Osiris (gut) gegen Typhon.
nunft betrachtet erscheint der Amphi
II. C. Altpersische Zend-Religion:
theismus als die rationellste Form
Ormudz (Licht) gegen Ahri des Personal-Theismus; denn er erman (Finsternis).
klart den tatsachlich iiberall vorhanII. D. Althebraische Zweigotterei:
denen Kampf der Gegensatze.
Aschera gegen Moloch.
(Vergl. Kap. 15 der Weltratsel.)
III. Triplotheismus.
III. Drei hochste Wesen beherrschen die Welt: Der „Dreieinige Gott“
Dreigotterei
erscheint in drei verschiedenen (an= Trinitatslehre, Dreieinigkeit.
thropomorphen) Personen.
III. A. Altindische
Dreigotterei:'
Ill A. Brahma (Schopfer), WiAlte Bramahnen - Religion:
schnu(Erhalter) undSchiwa
Trimurti (= Drei-Einheit).
(Zerstorer).
III. B. Altchaldaische Trinitat: Ilu
IIIB. Anu(= Chaos, Weitsubstanz),
(■= Urquelle der Welt).
Bel (Ordner der Welt), Ao
(Weltgericht, himmlisch.Licht).
III. C. Christliche DreieinigkeitsIll C. Gottvater (Schopfer), Gotteslehre. Trinitat der drei
sohn (Jesus Christus), Heiliger
christlichen Personen.
Geist (?).
IV. Polytheismus. Vielgotterei.
IV. Viele hochste Wesen beherrDamonismus in *mannigfaltigster schen die Welt und leiten die GeGestalt.
schicke der Menschen.
Der monistische Pantheismus,
im Gegensatze zu alien obenstehenden Formen des Ontheismus (— der
jjSchulgotterei" oder des „Personal-Theismus“ —) findet iiberall
„Gott in der Natur“ (kein personliches hochstes Wesen).
5
�66
Dritte Tabelle.
Trinitat der Substanz.
tJbersicht uber die drei wesentlichen, untrennbar verknfipften Grundeigenschaften (>; Essential-Attribute “) aller Substanz (der anorgiscben
ebenso wie der organischen). — (Vgl. Kapitel 19 der „Lebenswunder“; daselbst Tabelle 19 in der groBen Ausgabe.)
A. Materie — Stoff
(Hyle oder Weltstoff = Prakriti der alten Inder.)
Alle Substanz (anorgische und organische) ist ausgedehnt („Extensum11) und daher raumerfiillend.
Einseitig betont vom monistischen Materialismus (Holbach,
Buchner) und von der modernen Mechanistik (der meisten Chemiker).
B. Energie = Kraft
(Dynamis oder Weltkraft = Karma der alten Inder.)
Alle Substanz (anorgische und organische) ist beweglich (kraftbegabt)
und daher wirksam.
Einseitig betont von der monistischen Energetik (Ostwald) und der
alteren Dynamik (Leibniz).
C. Psychom = Empfindung
(Asthesis oder Weltseele — Atman der alten Inder.)
Alle Substanz (anorgische und organische) ist empfindlich und reizbar
(— und also „belebt“ im weitesten Sinne! —).
Einseitig betont vom monistischen Psychomonismus (Ernst Mach,
Max Verworn) und dem alteren Idealismus (Platon, Berkeley).
Die fundamentalen Erscheinungen der Gravitation'oder Schwerkraft
in der Physik, der Affinitat oder „Wahlverwandtschaft“ in der Chemie,
finden ihre tiefere (panpsychistische) Erklarung durch die Annahme, daB
alle Materie (Masse und Ather) nicht nur Energie, sondern auch Ffihlung besitzt: die Gravitation beruht auf quantitativer, die Affinitat auf
qualitativer Unterscheidung der Umgebung.
NB. Die hier iibersichtlich dargestellte Theorie von der universalen
Trinitat der Substanz (— den drei untrennbaren Grundeigenschaften
aller anorgischen und organischen Korper —) ist zuerst in dem Buche fiber
die „Lebenswunder“ (1904) erschienen. Sie diirfte viele wichtige Pro
bleme (Gravitation, Wahlverwandtschaft) besser erklaren, als die
altere Theorie von der Binit at der Substanz (zwei Attribute: Einheit
von Materie und Energie), welche ich im AnschluB an Spinoza 1892 aufgestellt hatte (1. c.).
�67
Vierte Tabelle.
Drei Grundrichtungen der Substanzlehre.
(Drei Attribute der Substanz oder des „Kraftstoffes“.)
I. Materie
(= Stoff = Hyle)
II. Energie
(— Kraft = Arbeit)
III. Psychom
(= Urseele — Fiihlung)
Weltstoff.
Weltkraft.
Welts eele.
Materialistisches Prinzip
Dynamisches Prinzip
(Prakriti, Sankhya). (Karma, Buddhismus).
Materialismus
Energetik
(— Hylismus)
(= Energielehre)
(Ausdehnung).
(Wille).
Psychistisches Prinzip
(Atman im Veda)
Psyehomatik
(= Panpsychismus)
(Empfindung).
Raumerfiillendes
Wirkende Arbeit,
Unterscheidende
Substrat aller
Funktion aller
Fiihlung aller
Substanz
Substanz
Substanz
(Hypokeimenon)
(Energie)
(Asthesis)
(Zuriickfiihrung allesSeins (Zuriickfiihrung allesSeins (Zuriickfuhrung allesSeins
und Werdens auf Materie und Werdens auf Energie und Werdens auf Psyche
oder Stoff).
oder Kraft).
oder Seele).
Zwei Urzustande.
Zwei Urzustande.
Zwei Urzustande.
I. A. Ather
II. A. Spannkraft
III. A. Anziehung
(Weltather = Lichtather) Potentielle Energie
Attraktion, Neigung,
„gespannte Materie"
„Arbeitsfahigkeit“
„Liebe der Elemente"
Struktur kontinuierlich
(nicht atomistisch)
Ruhende Kraft
Lust-Gefiihl
Imponderable
Energie der Lage.
Positiver Tropismus.
Substanz.
I. B. Masse
„Verdichtete Materie"
Struktur atomistisch
(Diskrete Teilchen)
Ponderable
Substanz.
II. B. Triebkraft
Aktuelle Energie
„ Arb eitsleistung “
Lebendige Kraft
Wirkende Energie der
Bewegung.
III. B. Abstofiung
Repulsion, Widerstand,
„HaB der Elemente “
Unlust-Gef uhl
Negativer Tropis
mus.
Alle Substanz besitzt Aus Alle Substanz besitzt
Alle Substanz besitzt
dehnung (Extensio)
Kraft oder Energie und Fiihlung oder Empfindung
und fiillt Raum aus. wirkt auf ihre Umgebung.
fiir ihre Umgebung.
Konstanz der Materie
Konstanz der Energie Konstanz des Psychoms
Universalgesetz von der Universalgesetz von der Universalgesetz von der
„Erhaltung
„ Erhaltung
„ Erhaltung
des Stoffes".
der Kraft".
der Fuhlung".
5*
�68
Funfte Tabelle.
Kritik der Erkenntms-Wege.
Physikalische Erkenntnis-Theorie.
Monistischer Erkenntnisweg.
Grundlage: Erfahrung
(Empirie).
Metaphysische Erkenntnis-Theorie.
Duaiistischer Erkenntnisweg.
Grundlage: Offenbarung
(Revelation).
1. Die Erkenntnis der Wahrheit
ist ein natiirlicher Vorgang (ein
physikalischer oder genauer physiologischer ProzeB).
1. Die Erkenntnis der Wahrheit
ist ein iibernaturlicher Vorgang
(ein metaphy sischer oder transszendenter ProzeB).
2. Die Erkenntnis ist gleich alien
anderen Naturerscheinungen dem universalen Substanz-Gesetz (dem
kosmischen Konstanz-Prinzip) unterworfen. Vgl. Tabelle III. u. IV.
2. Die Erkenntnis ist nur zum Teil
eine Naturerscheinung und somit vom
Substanz-Gesetz abhangig; zum an
deren Teil ist sie ein autonomer
geistiger Vorgang.
3. Die Physiologie und Pathologie
der Erkenntnis zeigt, daB ihr anatomisches Werkzeug ein raumlich
begrenztes Gebiet der GroBhirnrinde
ist, das Denkorgan (Phronema).
3. Die Physiologie und Pathologie
der Erkenntnis lehrt, daB sie als
hohere „Geistestatigkeit“ von ihrem
anatomischen Organ, dem Phronema,
teilweise unabhangig ist.
4. DasErkenntnis-Organ(Phronema) umfaBt die Gesamtheit der
„Assozions-Zentren« und ist durch besonderen histologischen Bau von den
angrenzenden sensorischen und motorischen Zentren der GroBhirnrinde
verschieden.
4. DasErkenntnis-Organ(Phronema) hat als „Assozions-Zentrum“
bloB die Bedeutung eines Teiles des
„Geistes-Instrumentes“ und wird von
dem freien immateriellen Geiste selbstandig regiert (— unabhangig von
der histologischen Struktur).
5. Die zahlreichen Zellen, welche
das Phronema zusammensetzen — die
Phronetalzellen — sind die eigentlichen Elementar-Organelle des
Erkenntnis-Prozesses; auf ihrer normalen physikalischen Beschaffenheit
und chemischen Zusammensetzung
beruht dieMoglichkeit der Erkenntnis.
5. Die zahlreichen Phronetalzellen
(die mikroskopischen Elementarteile
des Phronema) sind zwar unentbehrliche Werkzeuge des ErkenntnisVorganges, aber nicht dessen reale
Faktoren; sie sind abhangig vom
immateriellen Geiste, bloB Bestandteile seines Instrumentes.
�69
Sechste Tabelle.
Grundrichtungen der Naturphilosophie.
Monistische Kosmologie.
Dualistische Kosmologie.
Theorie der einheitlichen Gesamtwelt. (Alles lebt.)
1. Natur allein ist Alles!
Theorieder zwei verschiedenen
Welten. (Lebende und tote Natur.)
1. Natur und Geist sind getrennt!
1. Monismus. Organische und an©rgische Natur sind zwei untrennbar
verbundene Gebiete des einheitlichen
Universum.
2. Mechanismus (Biologischer Mo
nismus). Die sogenannten Lebenserscheinungen werden durch dieselben
physikalischen und chemischen Krafte
bedingt, wie samtliche Vorgange in
der sogenannten leblosen oder anorgischen Natur.
3. Kausalitat. Die Ursachen aller
Erscheinungen sind mechanische (unbewuBte) Werkursachen (Causae
efficientes). Die zweckmaBigen Ein
richtungen in dem Organismus sind
die Folgen der Anpassung und Selektion im Kampf urns Dasein.
4. Die Physik (im weitesten Sinne,
mit EinschluB der Chemie als „ Physik
der Atome“) beherrscht das Gesamtgebiet der Natur; die Physiologie ist
nur ein Teilgebiet der Physik (Or
ganische Physik).
5. Das Plasma, welches als „Lebendige Substanz “ die besonderen
Lebenserscheinungen bewirkt, ist als
stickstoff haltige Kohlenstoff-Verbindung die einzige materielle Basis der
Lebenstatigkeit; das organischeLeben
ist nur eine besonders verwickelte
Form der Plasma-Physik.
6. Die Urzeugung (Archigonie),
als spontane Entstehung von lebendigem Plasma aus anorgischen Kohlenstoff-Verbindungen, wird durch die
Vergleichung der Moneren mit fliissigen Krystallen verstandlich.
1. Dualismus. Organische und anorgische Natur sind zwei wesentlich
getrennte Gebiete des zweiheitlichen
Universum.
2. Vitalismus (Biologischer Dualis
mus). Die Lebenserscheinungen wer
den durch eine besondere Lebenskraft
(Vis vitalis) geleitet, eine iibernaturliche Richtkraft, welche die physikalischen und chemischen Krafte
zielbewuBt dirigiert (Entelechie).
3. Teleologie (Finalitat). Die Ur
sachen der Lebenserscheinungen sind
nur zum Teil mechanische Werkur
sachen; zum anderen Teil sind sie
zielstrebige Zweckursachen (Causae
finales) von einer iibernaturlichen
kosmischen Intelligenz bestimmt.
4. Die Physik (mit EinschluB der
Chemie) ist nur in der Anorgik allmachtig; in der Biologie tritt ihr die
„Autonomie des Lebens“ entgegen;
daher ist die Physiologie nur zum
Teil der Physik unterworfen.
5. Das Plasma (als die universale
„Lebendige Substanz") ist zwar iiberall
in den Lebenserscheinungen tatig;
aber seine chemische Zusammensetzung ist nicht deren einzige Ursache; vielmehr ist ihre Funktion von
der Lebenskraft abhangig (= Kosmische Intelligenz).
6. Die Urzeugung (Archigonie)
hat niemals stattgefunden; denn
immer haben Organismen unabhangig
von den Anorganen existiert; oder
sie sind durch ein ubernatiirliches
Wunder erschaSen worden.
�70
Siebente Tabelle.
Ahnenreihe des Menschen.
Erste Halfte: Ohne fossile Urkunden, vor der Silurzeit.
Hauptstrecken der
Progonotaxis
I. Erste Strecke:
Protisten-Alinen
Einzellige Urwesen.
1. 2. Protoph yta.
Urpflanzen
(Plasmodom).
3.-5. Protozoa
Urtiere
(Plasmophag).
Stammgruppen
der Ahnenreihe
Lebende
Verwandte der Wichtigste Momente
der Stammesgeschichte
Gegenwart
1. Monera
1. Chromacea Plasmakornchen, durch
Kernlose Ur(Chroococcus) Urzeugung (Archigonie)
zellen
entstanden.
2. Algaria
2. Paulotomea Alteste Kernzellen, d.
Einzellige Algen (Protococcus)
Kernsonderung (Karyogonie) entstanden.
3. Lobosa
3. Amoebida AmoeboideZellen, durch
Amoebinen
(Leucocyta)
Metasitismus entstan
den.
4. Flagellata
4. Monadina GeiBelzellen mit FlimGeiBelinfusorien (Zoomonades) merbewegung.
5. Blastaeades
5. Catallacta Hohlkugeln, derenWand
Hohlkugeltiere
(Blastula)
eine einfache Zellschicht ist.
II. Zweite Strecke:
6. Gastrula
6. Gastraeades
Urdarmtiere (Pemmatodiscus
Hydra)
7. Platodaria 7. Cryptocoela
<
Wirbellose
Urplattentiere
(Convoluta)
Metazoen.
8. Turbellaria 8. Rhabdocoela
, Strudelwiirmer
(Vortex)
6.-8. Coelenteria
' 9. Provermalia 9. Gastrotricha
Niedertiere
(Ichthydium)
Urwurmtiere
(ohne Leibeshohle,
ohne After).
10. Frontonia
10. Enteropneusta
Kiemendarm•
9.—11. Vermalia
(Balanoglossus)
wiirmer
Wurmtiere
(mit Leibeshohle, mit ll.Prochordonia 11. Copelata
Urchordatiere
(Chordula)
After).
Becher, dessen Wand
2 Zellschichten bilden,
Urdarm und Urmund.
Bilaterale Symmetric
erscheint.
Ein Paar Nephridien
treten auf.
Darm mit 2 Offnungen:
Mund und After.
Kiemendarm tritt auf,
mit Kiemenspalten.
12. Prospondylia 12. Amphioxides
AmphioxusUrwirbeltiere
larven
13. Leptocardia 13. Amphioxus
Alteste, kieferlose Wir
Branchiostoma
Lanzelottiere
beltiere, mit unpaarer
Nase, ohne paarige
' 14. Archicrania 14. Ammocoetes
GliedmaBen.
Urschadeltiere (Prickenlarve)
12. 13. Acrania
Schadellose.
15. Marsipo- 15. Petromyzon
(Bdellostoma)
branchia.
14. 15. Cyclostoma
Kieferlose Schadeltiere. . Prickentiere
Innere Gliederung, Metamerie tritt auf. Ein
Paar Kiemenspalten.
Zahlreiche Kiemenspalspalten. Perichorda.
Gewebebau epithelial.
Einfache Hirnblase und
Urschadel tritt auf.
Gewebebau mesenchy
mal.
Gehirn gliedert sich in
drei Blasen.
liivertebratenAhnen.
III. Dritte Strecke:
Monori’IiinenAhnen.
Chorda erscheint und
sechs Primitiv-Organe.
�71
Achte Tabelle.
Ahnenreihe des Menschen.
Zweite Halite: Mit fossilen Urkunden, in der Silurzeit beginnend.
Hauptstrecken der
Progonotaxis
Stammgruppen
der Ahnenreihe
IV. Vierte Strecke:
16. Selachii
Urfische
Lebende
Verwandte der Wichtigste Momente
der Stammesgeschichte
Gegenwart
16. Notidanides
(Chlamydoselachus)
17. Polypterides
(Accipenserides)
18. Ceratodina
(Protopterus)
19. Perennibranchia
(Salamandrina)
20. Rhynchocephalia
(Ureidechsen)
Bildung von Hautknochen (Zahne, Fischschuppen).
Verknocherte Wirbelsaule.
Schwimmblase verwandelt sich in Lunge.
Ubergang vom Wasser
leben zum Landleben.
21. Monotrema
Gabeltiere
21. Ornitliodelphia
(Echidna)
22. Marsupialia 22. Didelphia
Beuteltiere
(Didelphys)
23. Mallotheria 23. Insectivora
Urzottentiere (Insektenfresser)
Haarkleid und Milchdriisen erscheinen.
Ovipara.
Milchzitzen und Peri
neum. Vivipara.
Placenta und Chorion
treten auf. Beutel wird
riickgebildet.
VI. Sechste Strecke: ' 24. Lemuravida
Halbaffen
Primaten25. Lemurogona
Ahnen.
Voraffen
Herrentiere.
- 26. Dysmopitheca
Saugetiere der TertiarWestaffen
zeit, mit Plazenta, lebendig gebarend, ohne 27. Cynopitheca
Ostaffen
Beutelknochen,
unit
Kletterbeinen und
28. Anthropoides
Greifhanden.
Menschenaffen
24. 25. Prosimiae
Halbaffen
29. Pithe
canthropi
26. 27. Simiae
Affenmenschen
Voll affen
24. Lemurides Verwandlung der Kral(Lemur, Stenops) len in Nagel.
25. Tarsiades Verwandlg. d. Mallopla(Tarsius)
centa in Discoplacenta.
26. Platyrrhinae Tympanicumringformig
(Nyctipithecus) Nasen-Septum breit.
Fischartige
Ahneii.
16.—18. Fische
(Pisces).
Mit 2 Paar vielstrahligen
S chwimmflossen.
19. 20. Tetrap oda.
Vierfiifiige und kaltbliitige. Mit 2 Paar
fiinfzehigen Kriechbeinen.
V. Fiinfte Strecke:
MammalienAhnen.
Niedere Saugetiere der
Sekundarzeit.
(Mesozoisch: 21. Trias,
22. Jura, 23. Kreide.)
28.—30. Anthropomorpha
Menschenaffen
<
<
17. Ganoides
Schmelzfische
18. Dipneusta
Lurchfische
19. Amphibia
Lurche
20. Reptilia
Schleicher
Oberhautverhornt. Am
nion und Allantois erscheinen.
27. Catarrhinae Tympanicum rohrfor(Cercopithecus) mig, Nasen-Septum
schmal.
28. Hylobatides Riickbildung d. Schwan(Gibbon)
zes.
Kreuzbein mit
5 Wirbeln.
29. Anthro- Verwandlung des Affenpitheca
gehirns in MenschenGorilla, Schimp., gehirn.
Orang-Utan)
30. Hominides 30. Weddales Ausbildung der artikuMenschen
(Wilde Natur- lierten Sprache.
menschen)
�Alfred Kroner Verlag in Leipzig
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�Alfred Kroner Verlag in Leipzig
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Victorian Blogging
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Gott-Natur (Theophysis); Studien über monistische Religion
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Haeckel, Ernst Heinrich Philipp August [1834-1919]
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Place of publication: Leipzig
Collation: 71, [1] p. ; 25 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Signature on title page: 'Mr. Joseph McCabe (16 Elm Grove, Cricklewood) London N.W. Freundschaftlicht Ernst Haeckel'. Publisher's advertisements on unnumbered page at the end. Publisher's leaflet inserted loose at p. 25.
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[s.l.]
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1914
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N182
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Theology
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Monism
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8dfc2874782cead3db19e6df504b95b2
PDF Text
Text
Pamphlets for the Million—No. 6
2
^onalsecuursocety *e£
LIBERTY OF MAN,
WOMAN, AND CHILD
By R. G. INGERSOLL
London:
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
�PUBLISHERS’ NOTE
This famous Lecture of Colonel Ingersoll is taken from the
Dresden edition of his works (12 vols.; ,£6 net), which was
published in America shortly after his death. In this country
nearly all his principal lectures and essays, apart from his legal
addresses, are included in the series of Lectures and Essays
issued in three parts at is. net each (by post is. 2Xd.; the
three parts 3s. 6d.), or in one volume, handsomely bound, at
6s. net (by post 6s. 6d.)
xvi+ 139 pp.; cloth, 2s. 6d. net, by post 2s. iod.; paper cover,
is. 6d. net, by post is. gd.
THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD.
by r.
McMillan.
Bishop W. M. Brown, D.D., of Galion, Ohio, U.S.A.,
recently paid the following remarkable tribute to this fasci
nating work :—
“ I regard this book as being worth many times its
weight in gold. I have read it five times, and am expect
ing to re-read a chapter almost every week during the
rest of my life. It was written by an aged scientist for a
young girl who desired to know about the origin of the
world. Its exceptional value consists in the fact that it
covers a very important, extensive, and difficult field of
a scientific character in language which is free from
technical terms. I regard it as being one of the most
interesting and illuminating books that I have ever read.
I wish that I had read such a book when I was young.
It would have had a great and beneficial influence upon
my life.”
London : Watts & Co., Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C.4.
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN,
AND CHILD
LIBERTY SUSTAINS THE SAME RELATION TO MIND THAT
SPACE DOES TO MATTER.
HERE is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is
the child of Intelligence.
1 he history of man is simply the history of slavery,
of injustice and brutality, together with the means by
which he has, through the dead and desolate years,
slowly and painfully advanced. He has been the sport
and prey of priest and king, the food of superstition
and cruel might. Crowned force has governed ignorance
through fear. Hypocrisy and tyranny—two vultures—
have fed upon the liberties of man. From all these
there has been, and is, but one means of escape—intel
lectual development. Upon the back of industry has
been the whip. Upon the brain have been the fetters
of superstition. Nothing has been left undone by the
enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every
cruelty and outrage, has been practised and perpetrated
to destroy the rights of man. In this great struggle
every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been
punished. Reading, writing, thinking, and investi
gating have all been crimes.
Every science has been an outcast.
All the altars and all the thrones united to arrest the
forward march of the human race. The king said that
mankind must not work for themselves. The priest
T
�4
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
said that mankind must not think for themselves. One
forged chains for the hands, the other for the soul.
Under this infamous regime the eagle of the human
intellect was for ages a slimy serpent of hypocrisy.
The human race was imprisoned. Through some of
the prison bars came a few struggling rays of light.
Against these bars science pressed its pale and thought
ful face, wooed by the holy dawn of human advancement.
Bar after bar was broken away. A few grand men
escaped and devoted their lives to the liberation of
their fellows.
Only a few years ago there was a great awakening
of the human mind. Men began to inquire by what
right a crowned robber made them work for him. The
man who asked this question was called a traitor.
Others asked, By what right does a robed hypocrite
rule my thought? Such men were called infidels. The
priest said, and the king said, Where is this spirit of
investigation to stop? They said then, and they say
now, that it is dangerous for man to be free. I deny it.
Out on the intellectual sea there is room enough for
every sail. In the intellectual air there is space enough
for every wing.
The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave,
and a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.
Every man should stand under the blue and stars,
under the infinite flag of nature, the peer of every other
man.
Standing in the presence of the Unknown, all have the
same right to think, and all are equally interested in
the great questions of origin and destiny. All I claim,
all I plead for, is liberty of thought and expression.
That is all. I do not pretend to tell what is absolutely
true, but what I think is true. I do not pretend to tell
all the truth.
I do not claim that I have floated level with the
heights of thought, or that I have descended to the very
depths of things. I simply claim that what ideas I have,
I have a right to express; and that any man who denies
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
5
that right to me is an intellectual thief and a robber.
That is all.
Take those chains from the human soul. Break those
fetters. If I have no right to think, why have I a brain ?
If I have no such right, have three or four men, or
any number, who may get together, and sign a creed,
and build a house, and put a steeple upon it, and a bell
in it—have they the right to think? The good men, the
good women, are tired of the whip and lash in the realm
of thought. They remember the chain and faggot with
a shudder. They are free, and they give liberty to
others. Whoever claims any right that he is unwilling
to accord to his fellow-men is dishonest and infamous.
In the good old times our fathers had the idea that
they could make people believe to suit them. Our
ancestors, in the ages that are gone, really believed that
by force you could convince a man. You cannot change
the conclusion of the brain by torture, nor by social
ostracism.
But I will tell you what you can do by
these, and what you have done. You can make hypo
crites by the million. You can make a man say that
he has changed his mind; but he remains of the same
opinion still. Put fetters all over him; crush his feet
in iron boots; stretch him to the last gasp upon the holy
rack; burn him, if you please, but his ashes will be of
the same opinion still.
Our fathers in the good old times—and the best thing
I can say about them is that they have passed away—
had an idea that they could force men to think their
way. That idea is still prevalent in many parts, even
of this country. Even in our day some extremely
religious people say: “We will not trade with that
man; we will not vote for him; we will not hire him if
he is a lawyer; we will die before we will take his
medicine if he is a doctor; we will not invite him to
dinner; we will socially ostracise him ; he must come to
our church; he must believe our doctrines; he must
worship our god, or we will not in any way contribute
to his support.”
�6
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
In the old times of which I have spoken they desired
to make all men think exactly alike. All the mechanical
ingenuity of the world cannot make two clocks run
exactly alike, and how are you going to make hundreds
of millions of people, differing in brain and disposition,
in education and aspiration, in conditions and surround
ings, each clad in a living robe of passionate flesh—how
are you going to make them think and feel alike? If
there is an infinite God, one who made us, and wishes
us to think alike, why did he give a spoonful of brains
to one and a magnificent intellectual development to
another ? Why is it that we have all degrees of intelli
gence, from orthodoxy to genius, if it was intended that
all should think and feel alike?
I used to read in books how our fathers persecuted
mankind. But I never appreciated it. I read it, but
it did not burn itself into my soul. I did not really
appreciate the infamies that have been committed in
the name of religion, until I saw the iron arguments
that Christians used. I saw the thumbscrew—two little
pieces of iron, armed on the inner surfaces with pro
tuberances, to prevent their slipping; through each end
a screw uniting the two pieces. And when some man
denied the efficacy of baptism, or, maybe, said, “ I do
not believe that a fish ever swallowed a man to keep
him from drowning,” then they put his thumb between
these pieces of iron, and, in the name of love and
universal forgiveness, began to screw these pieces
together. When this was done, most men said, “ I will
recant.” Probably I should have done the same.
Probably I would have said : “ Stop, I will admit any
thing that you wish; I will admit that there is one god
or a million, one hell or a billion; suit yourselves; but
stop.”
But there was now and then a man who would not
swerve the breadth of a hair. There was now and then
some sublime heart willing to die for an intellectual
conviction. Had it not been for such men, we would
be savages to-night. Had it not been for a few brave,
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
7
heroic souls in every age, we would have been cannibals,
with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our flesh,
dancing around some dried snake fetich.
Let us thank every good and noble man who stood so
grandly, so proudly, in spite of opposition, of hatred and
death, for what he believed to be the truth.
Heroism did not excite the respect of our fathers.
The man who would not recant was not forgiven. They
screwed the thumbscrews down to the last pang, and
then threw their victim into some dungeon, where, in
the throbbing silence and darkness, he might suffer the
agonies of the fabled damned. This was done in the
name of love—in the name of mercy—in the name of
the compassionate Christ.
I saw, too, what they cajl the Collar of Torture.
Imagine a circle of iron, and on the inside a hundred
points almost as sharp as needles. This argument was
fastened about the throat of the sufferer. Then he
could not walk, nor sit down, nor stir without the neck
being punctured by these points. In a little while the
throat would begin to swell, and suffocation w^uld end
the agonies of that man. This man, it may be, had
committed the crime of saying, with tears upon his
cheeks, “ I do not believe that God, the father of us
all, will damn to eternal perdition any of the children
of men.”
I saw another instrument, called the Scavenger’s
Daughter. Think of a pair of shears with handles, not
only where they now are, but at the poirfts as well, and,
just above the pivot that unites the blades, a circle of
iron. In the upper handles the hands would be placed;
in the lower, the feet; and through the iron ring, at
the centre, the head of the victim would be forced. In
this condition he would be thrown prone upon the earth,
and the strain upon the muscles produced such agony
that insanity would in pity end his pain.
This was done by gentlemen who said : “ Whosoever
smiteth thee upon one cheek turn to him the other also.”
I saw the Ra' k. This was a box like the bed of a
�8
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
wa&&on> with 3 windlass at each end, with levers, and
ratchets to prevent slipping-; over each windlass went
chains; some were fastened to the ankles of the sufferer;
others to his wrists. And then priests, clergymen^
divines, saints, began turning these windlasses, and
kept turning, until the ankles, the knees, the hips, the
shoulders, the elbows, the wrists of the victim, were all
dislocated, and the sufferer was wet with the sweat of
agony. And they had standing by a physician to feel
his pulse. What for? To save his life? Yes. In
mercy? No; simply that they might rack him once
again.
This was done, remember, in the name of civilisation;
in the name of law and order; in the name of mercy;
in the name of religion; in the name of the most merciful
Christ.
Sometimes, when I read and think about these fright
ful things, it seems to me that I have suffered all these
horrors myself. It seems sometimes as though I had
stood upon the shore of exile and gazed with tearful
eyes towards home and native land; as though my nails
had been torn from my hands, and in the bleeding quick
needles had been thrust; as though my feet had been
crushed in iron boots; as though I had been chained
in the cell of the Inquisition and listened with dying
ears for the coming footsteps of release; as though I
had stood upon the scaffold and had seen the glittering
axe fall upon me; as though I had been upon the rack
and had seen, Bending over me,the white faces of hypo
crite priests; as though I had been taken from my fire
side, from my wife and children, taken to the public
square, chained ; as though faggots had been piled about
me; as though the flames had climbed around my limbs
and scorched my eyes to blindness; and as though my
ashes had been scattered to the four winds by all the
countless hands of hate. And when I so feel, I swear
that while I live I will do what little I can to preserve
and to augment the liberties of man, woman, and child.
It is a question of justice, of mercy, of honesty, of
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
f)
intellectual development. If there is a man in the world
who is not willing to give to every human being every
right he claims for himself, he is just so much nearer a
barbarian than I am. It is a question of honesty. The
man who is not willing to give to every other the same
intellectual rights he claims for himself is dishonest,
selfish, and brutah
It is a question of intellectual development. Whoever
holds another man responsible for his honest thought
has a deformed and distorted brain. It is a question of
intellectual development.
A little while ago I saw models of nearly everything
that man has made. I saw models of all the water craft,
from the rude dug-out in which floated a naked savage
—one of our ancestors—a naked savage, with teeth
two inches in length, with a spoonful of brains in the
back of his head—I saw models of all the water craft
of the world, from that dug-out up to a man-of-war,
that carries a hundred guns and miles of canvas—from
that dug-out to the steamship that turns its brave prow
from the port of New York, with a compass like a
conscience, crossing three thousand miles of billows
without missing a throb or beat of its mighty iron
heart.
I saw at the same time the weapons that man has
made, from a club, such as was grasped by that same
savage when he crawled from his den in the ground
and hunted a snake for his dinner; from that club to
the boomerang, to the sword, to the cross-bow, to
the blunderbuss, to the flint-lock, to the cap-lock, to
the needle-gun, up to a cannon cast by Krupp, capable
of hurling a ball weighing two thousand pounds through
eighteen inches of solid steel.
I saw, too, the armour from the shell of a turtle,
that one of our brave ancestors lashed upon his breast
when he went to fight for his country; the skin of a
porcupine, dried with the quills on, which this same
savage pulled over his orthodox head, up to the shirts
of mail that were worn in the Middle Ages, that laughed
A 2
*J
�io
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
at the edge of the sword and defied the point of the
spear; up to a monitor clad in complete steel.
I saw, at the same time, their musical instruments,
from the tom-tom—that is, a hoop with a couple of
strings of raw hide drawn across it—from the tom
tom, up to the instruments we have to-day, that make
the common air blossom with melody.
I saw, too, their paintings, from a daub of yellow
mud to the great works which now adorn the galleries
of the world. I saw, also, their sculpture, from the
rude god with four legs, a half-dozen arms, several
noses, and two or three rows of ears, and one little,
contemptible, brainless head, up to the figures of to-day
—to the marbles that genius has clad in such a personal
ity that it seems almost impudent to touch them without
an introduction.
I saw their books—books written upon skins of wild
beasts—upon shoulder-blades of sheep—books written
upon leaves, upon bark, up to the splendid volumes
that enrich the libraries of our day. When I speak of
libraries, I think of the remark of Plato: “A house
that has a library in it has a soul.”
*
I saw their implements of agriculture, from a crooked
stick that was attached to the horn of an ox by some
twisted straw, to the agricultural implements of this
generation, that make it possible for a man to cultivate
the soil without being an ignoramus.
While looking upon these things I was forced to say
-that man advanced only as he mingled his thought
with his labour—only as he got into partnership with
the forces of nature—only as he learned to take ad
vantage of his surroundings—only as he freed himself
from the bondage of fear—only as he depended upon
* himself—only as he lost confidence in the gods.
I saw at the same time a row of human skulls,
from the lowest skull that has been found, the Neander
thal skull skulls from Central Africa, skulls from the
Bushmen of Australia—skulls from the farthest isles of
the Pacific Sea—up to the best skulls of the last genera-
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
n
tion—and I noticed that there was the same difference
between those skulls that there was between the pro
ducts of those skulls, and I said to myself : “ After all,
it is a simple question of intellectual development.”
There was the same difference between those skulls, the
lowest and highest skulls, that there was between the
dug-out and the man-of-war and the steamship, between
the club and the Krupp gun, between the yellow daub
and the landscape, between the tom-tom and an opera
by Verdi.
1 he first and lowest skull in this row was the den in
which crawled the base and meaner instincts of man
kind, and the last was a temple in which dwelt joy,
liberty, and love.
It is all a question of brain, of intellectual develop
ment.
If we are nearer free than were our fathers, it is
because we have better heads upon the average, and
more brains in them.
Now, I ask you to be honest with me. It makes no
difference to you what I believe, nor what I wish to
prove. I simply ask you to be honest. Divest your
minds, for a moment at least, of all religious prejudice.
Act, for a few moments, as though you were men and
women.
Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest,
if there was one, at the time this gentleman floated
in the dug-out, and charmed his ears with the music
of the tom-tom, had said: “That dug-out is the best
boat that ever can be built by man; the pattern of that
came from on high, from the great God of storm and
flood, and any man who says that he can improve it
by putting a mast in it, with a sail upor\ it, is an
infidel, and shall be burned at the stake ” ; what, in your
judgment—honour bright—would have been the effect
upon the circumnavigation of the globe?
Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest,
if there was one—and I presume there was a priest,
because it was a very ignorant age—suppose this king
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LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
and priest had said : “ That tom-tom is the most beauti
ful instrument of music of which any man can conceive;
that is the kind of music they have in heaven; an angel
sitting upon the edge of a fleecy cloud, golden in the
setting sun, playing upon that tom-tom, became so
enraptured, so entranced with her own music, that in
a kind of ecstasy she dropped it—that is how we ob
tained it; and any man who says that it can be im
proved by putting a back and front to it, and four
strings, and a bridge, and getting a bow of hair with
rosin, is a blaspheming wretch, and shall die the death ”
—I ask you what effect would that have had upon
music? If that course had been pursued, would the
human ears, in your judgment, ever have been enriched
with the divine symphonies of Beethoven?
Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest
had said : “ That crooked stick is the best plough that
can be invented; the pattern of that plough was given
to a pious farmer in a holy dream, and that tv sted
straw is the ne plus ultra of all twisted things, and any
man who says he can make an improvement upon (hat
plough is an atheist”; what, in your judgment, would
have been the effect upon the science of agriculture?
But the people said, and the king and priest said :
“We want better weapons with which to kill our fellow
Christians; we want better ploughs, better music, better
paintings, and whoever will give us better weapons,
and better music, better houses to live in, better clothes,
we will robe him in wealth and crown him with honour.”
Every incentive was held out to every human being to
improve these things. That is the reason the club has
'been changed to a cannon, the dug-out to a steamship,
the daub to a painting; that is the reason that the
piece of rough and broken stone finally became a glorified
statue.
You must not, however, forget that the gentleman
in the dug-out, the gentleman who was enraptured with
the music of the tom-tom, and cultivated his land with
a crooked stick, had a religion of his own. That gentle-
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
13
man in the dug-out was orthodox.
He was never
troubled with doubts. He lived and died settled in his
mind. He believed in hell; and he thought he would
be far happier in heaven if he could just lean over
and see certain people who expressed doubts as to the
truth of his creed gently but everlastingly broiled and
burned.
It is a very sad and unhappy fact that this man has
had a great many intellectual descendants. It is also
an unhappy fact in nature that the ignorant multiply
much faster than the intellectual. This fellow in the
dug-out believed in a personal devil. His devil had a
cloven hoof, a long tail, armed with a fiery dart; and
his devil breathed brimstone. This devil was at least
the equal of God; not quite so stout, but a little
shrewder.
And do you know there has not been a
patentable improvement made upon that devil for six
thousand years?
This gentleman in the dug-out believed that God was
a tyrant; that he would eternally damn the man who
lived in accordance with his highest and grandest ideal.
He believed that the earth was flat. He believed in a
literal burning, seething hell of fire and sulphur. He
had also his idea of politics; and his doctrine was, might
makes right. And it will take thousands of years be
fore the world will reverse this doctrine, and believingly
say, “Right makes might.”
All I ask is the same privilege to improve upon that
gentleman’s theology as upon his musical instrument;
the same right to improve upon his politics as upon
his dug-out. That is all. I ask for the -human soul
the same liberty in every direction. That is the only
crime I have committed.
I say, let us think.
Let
each one express his thought. Let us become investi
gators, not followers, not cringers and crawlers. If
there is in heaven an Infinite Being, he never will be
satisfied with the worship of cowards and hypocrites.
Honest unbelief, honest infidelity, honest atheism, will
be a perfume in heaven when pious hypocrisy, no
�14
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
matter how religious it may be outwardly, will be a
stench.
1 his is my doctrine : Give every other human being
every right you claim for yourself. Keep your mind
open to the influences of nature. Receive new thoughts
with hospitality. Let us advance.
The religionist of to-day wants the ship of his soul
to lie at the wharf of orthodoxy and rot in the sun.
He delights to hear the sails of old opinions flap against
the masts of old creeds. He loves to see the joints
and the sides open and gape in the sun, and it is a
kind of bliss for him to repeat again and again : “ Do
not disturb my opinions. Do not unsettle my mind;
I have it all made up, and I want no infidelity. Let
me go backward rather than forward.”
As far as I am concerned, I wish to be out on
the high seas. I wish to take my chances with wind,
and wave, and star. And I had rather go down in the
glory and grandeur of the storm than to rot in any
orthodox harbour whatever.
After all, we are improving from age to age. The
most orthodox people in this conntry two hundred years
ago would have been burned for the crime of heresy.
The ministers who denounce me for expressing my
thought would have been in the Inquisition themselves.
Where once burned and blazed the bivouac fires of the
army of progress now glare the altars of the Church.
The religionists of our time are occupying about the
same ground occupied by heretics and infidels of one
hundred years ago. The Church has advanced in spite,
as it were, of itself. It has followed the army of pro
gress protesting and denouncing, and had to keep with
in protesting and denouncing distance. If the Church
had not made great progress, I could not express my
thoughts.
Man, however, has advanced just exactly in the pro
portion with which he has mingled his thoughts with
his labour. The sailor, without control of the wind and
wave, knowing nothing or very little of the mysterious
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
15
currents and pulses of the sea, is superstitious. So
also is the agriculturist, whose prosperity depends upon
something he cannot control. But the mechanic, when
a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of dropping on his
knees and asking the assistance of some divine power.
He knows there is a reason. He knows that something
is too large or too small; that there is spmething wrong
with his machine; and he goes to work, and he makes
it larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel will
turn. Now, just in proportion as man gets away from
being, as it were, the slave of his surroundings, the
serf of the elements—of the heat, the frost, the snow,
and the lightning—just to the extent that he has gotten
control of his own destiny, just to the extent that he
has triumphed over the obstacles of nature, he has ad
vanced physically and intellectually. As man develops
he places a greater value upon his own rights. Liberty
becomes a grander and diviner thing. As he values
his own rights, he begins to value the rights of others.
And when all men give to all others all the rights they
claim for themselves, this world will be civilised.
A few years ago the people were afraid to question
the king, afraid to question the priest, afraid to investi
gate a creed, afraid to deny a book, afraid to denounce
a dogma, afraid to reason, afraid to think.
Before
wealth they bowed to the very earth, and in the
presence of titles they became abject. All this is slowly
but surely changing. We no longer bow to men simply
because they are rich.
Our fathers worshipped the
golden calf. The worst you can say of an American
now is, he worships the gold of the calf. Even the calf
is beginning to see this distinction.
It no longer satisfies the ambition of a great man to
be king or emperor. The last Napoleon was not satis
fied with being the Emperor of the French. He was
not satisfied with having a circlet of gold about his
head. He wanted some evidence that he had something
of value within his head. So he wrote the life of Julius
Caesar, that he might become a member of the French
�16
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
Academy. The emperors, the kings, the popes, no
longer tower above their fellows.
Compare King
William with the philosopher Haeckel. The king is
one of the anointed by the most high, as they claim_
one upon whose head has been poured the divine petrol
eum of authority. Compare this king with Haeckel, who
towers an intellectual colossus above the crowned
mediocrity.
The world is beginning to pay homage to intellect,
to genius, to heart.
We have advanced. We have reaped the benefit of
every sublime and heroic self-sacrifice, of every divine
and brave act; and we should endeavour to hand the
torch to the next generation, having added a little to
the intensity and glory of the flame.
When I think of how much this world has suffered;
when I think of how long our fathers were slaves, of
how they cringed and crawled at the foot of the throne,
and in the dust of the altar, of how they abased them
selves, of how abjectly they stood in the presence of
superstition robed and crowned, I am amazed.
This world has not been fit for a man to live in fifty
years.
It was not until the year 1808 that Great
Britain abolished the slave trade. Up to that time her
judges, sitting upon the bench in the name of justice—
her priests, occupying her pulpits in the name of universal
love, owned stock in the slave ships, and luxuriated
upon the profits of piracy and murder. It was not until
the same year that the United States of America
abolished the slave trade between this land other
countries, but carefully preserved it as between the
States. It was not until the 28th day of August, 1833,
that Great Britain abolished human slavery in her
colonies; and it was not until the 1st day of January,
1863, that Abraham Lincoln, sustained by the sublime
and heroic North, rendered our flag pure as the sky in
which it floats.
Abraham Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many re
spects the grandest man ever President of the United
�LIBERTY OF MAN. WOMAN, AND CHILD
17
States. Upon his monument these words should be
written : “ Here sleeps the only man in the history of
the world who, having been clothed with almost absolute*
power, never abused it except upon the side of mercy.”
Think how long we clung to the institution of human
slavery, how long lashes upon the naked back were
a legal tender for labour performed. Think of it. The
pulpit of this country deliberately and willingly, for a
hundred years, turned the cross of Christ into a whip
ping post.
With every drop of my blood I hate and execrate
eyery form of tyranny, every form of slavery. I hate
dictation. I love liberty.
What do I mean by liberty? By physical liberty I
mean the right to do anything which does not inter
fere with the happiness of another.
By intellectual
liberty I mean the right to think right and the right to
think wrong.
Thought is the means by which we
endeavour to arrive at truth.
If we know the truth
already, we need not think. All that can be required
is honesty of purpose. You ask my opinion about any
thing ; I examine it honestly, and when my mind is
made up, what should I tell you? Should I tell you my
real thought? What should I do? There is a book
put in my hands. I am told this is the Koran;
it was written by inspiration.
I read it, and
when I get through, suppose that I think in my heart
and in my brain that it is utterly untrue, and you then
ask me, What do you think? Now, admitting that I
live in Turkey, and have no chance to get any office
unless I am on the side of the Koran, what should I
say? Should I make a clean breast, and say that upon
my honour I do not believe it? What would you think
then of my fellow-citizens if they said: “That man is
dangerous; he is dishonest”?
Suppose I read the book called the Bible, and when
I get through make up my mind that it was written
by men.
A minister asks me, “Did you read the
Bible?” I answer that I did. “Do you think it
A3
�18
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
divinely inspired ? ” What should I reply ? Should 1
say to myself, “ If I deny the inspiration of the Scrip
tures, the people will never clothe me with power ” ?
What ought 1 to answer? Ought I not to say like
a man : “ 1 have read it; I do not believe it ” ? Should
I not give the real transcript of my mind ? Or should
I turn hypocrite and pretend what I do not feel, and
hate myself forever after for being a cringing coward.
For my part, I would rather a man would tell me what
he honestly thinks. I would rather he would preserve
his manhood. I had a thousand times rather be a
manly unbeliever than an unmanly believer. And if
there is a judgment day, a time when all will stand
before some supreme being, I believe I will stand higher,
and stand a better chance of getting my case decided
in my favour, than any man sneaking through life pre
tending to believe what he does not.
I have made up my mind to say my say. I shall do
it kindly, distinctly; but I am going to do it. I know
there are thousands of men who substantially agree with
me, but who are not in a condition to express their
thoughts. They are poor; they are in business; and
they know that, should they tell their honest thought,
persons will refuse to patronise them—to trade with
them; they wish to get bread for their little children;
they wish to take care of their wives; they wish to
have homes and the comforts of life. Every such per
son is a certificate of the meanness of the community in
which he resides. And yet I do not blame these people
for not expressing their thought. I say to them : “ Keep
your ideas to yourselves; feed and clothe the ones you
love; I will do your talking for you.
The Church
cannot touch, cannot crush, cannot starve, cannot stop
or stay me; I will express your thoughts.”
As an excuse for tyranny, as a justification of slavery,
the Church has taught that man is totally depraved.
Of the truth of that doctrine the Church has furnished
the only evidence there is. The truth is, we are both
good and bad. The worst are capable of some good
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
19
deeds, and the best are capable of bad. The lowest
can rise, and the highest may fall. That mankind can
be divided into two great classes, sinners and saints,
is an utter falsehood. In times of great disaster—
called, it may be, by the despairing voices of women—
men, denounced by the Church as totally depraved,
rush to death as to a festival. By such men deeds are
done so filled with self-sacrifice and generous daring
that millions pay to them the tribute not only of admira
tion, but of tears. Above all creeds, above all religions,
after all, is that divine thing—humanity; and now
and then in shipwreck on the wide, wild sea, or ’mid
the rocks and breakers of some ciuel shore, or where
the serpents of flame writhe and hiss, some glorious
heart, some chivalric soul, does a deed that glitters
like a star, and gives the lie to all the dogmas of
superstition. All these frightful doctrines have been
used to degrade and to enslave mankind.
Away, forever away with the creeds and books and
forms and laws and religions that take from the soul
liberty and reason. Down with the idea that thought
is dangerous ! Perish the infamous doctrine that man
can have property in man. Let us resent with indigna
tion every effort to put a chain upon our minds. If
there is no God, certainly we should not bow and
cringe and crawl. If there is a God, there should be
no slaves.
LIBERTY OF WOMAN.
Women have been the slaves of slaves; and in my
judgment it took rflillions of ages for woman to come
from the condition of abject slavery up to the institu
tion of marriage. Let me say right here that I regard
marriage as the holiest institution among men. With
out the fireside there is no human advancement; with
out the family relation there is no life worth living.
Every good government is made up of good families.
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,
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
The unit of good government is the family, and any
thing that tends to destroy the family is perfectly
devilish and infamous. I believe in marriage, and 1
hold in utter contempt the opinions of those long-haired
men and short-haired women who denounce the institu
tion of marriage.
The grandest ambition that any man can possibly
have is to so live and so improve himself in heart and
brain as to be worthy of the love of some splendid
woman; and the grandest ambition of any girl is to
make herself worthy of the love and adoration of some
magnificent man. That is my idea. There is no suc
cess in life without love and marriage. You had better
be the emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she
the empress of yours, than be king of the world. The
man who has really* won the love of one good woman
in this world, I do not care if he dies in the ditch, a
beggar, his life has been a success.
I say it took millions of years to come from the
condition of abject slavery up to the condition of
marriage. Ladies, the ornaments you wear upon your
persons to-night are but the souvenirs of your mothers’
bondage.
The chains around your necks, and the
bracelets clasped upon your white arms by the thrilled
hand of love, have been changed by the wand of civilisa
tion from iron to shining glittering gold.
But nearly every religion has accounted for all the
devilment in this world by the crime of woman. What
a gallant thing that is ! And if it is true, I had rather
live with the woman I love in a world full of trouble
than to live in heaven with nobody but men.
I read in a book—and I will say now that I cannot
give the exact language, as my memory does not retain
the words, but I can give the substance—I read in a
book that the Supreme Being concluded to make a
world and one man ; that he took some nothing and
made a world and one man, and put this man in a
garden. In a little while he noticed that the man got
lonesome; that he wandered around as if he were wait
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
21
ing for a train. There was nothing to interest him;
no news; no papers; no politics; no policy; and, as
the devil had not yet made his appearance, there was
no chance for reconciliation; not even for civil service
reform. Well, he wandered about the garden in this
condition, until finally the Supreme Being made up his
mind to make him a companion.
Having used up all the nothing he originally took
in making the world and one man, he had to take a
part of the man to start a woman with. So he caused
a sleep to fall on this man—now understand me, 1 do
not say this story is true. After the sleep fell upon
this man, the Supreme Being took a rib, or, as the
French would call it, a cutfet, out of this man, and
from that he made a woman. And, considering the
amount of raw material used, I look upon it as the
most successful job ever performed. Well, after he
got the woman done, she was brought to the man,
not to see how she liked him, but to see how he liked
her. He liked her, and they started housekeeping;
and they were told of certain things they might do,
and of one thing they could not do—and, of course,
they did it. I would have done it in fifteen minutes,
and I know it. There wouldn’t have been an apple on
that tree half an hour from date, and the limbs would
have been full of clubs. And then they were turned
out of the park, and extra policemen were put on to
keep them from getting back.
Devilment commenced.
The mumps, and the
measles, and the whooping-cough, and the scarlet fever
Started in their race for man. They began to have the
toothache, roses began to have thorns, snakes began
to have poisoned teeth, and people began to divide
about religion and politics, and the world has been
full of trouble from that day to this.
Nearly all of the religions of this world account for
the existence of evil by such a story as that!
I read in another book what appeared to be an account
of the same transaction. It was written about four
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LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
thousand years before the other.
All commentators
agree that the one that was written last was the
original, and that the one that was written first was
copied from the one that was written last. But I would
advise you all not to allow your creed to be disturbed by
a little matter of four or five thousand years. In this
other story Brahma made up his mind to make the
world and a man and woman. He made the world,
and he made the man and then the woman, and put
them on the island of Ceylon. According to the ac
count, it was the most beautiful island of which man
can conceive. Such birds, such songs, such flowers,
and such verdure ! And the branches of the trees were
so arranged that when the wind swept through them
every tree was a thousand ^Eolian harps.
Brahma, when he put them there, said : “ Let them
have a period of courtship, for it is my desire and will
that true love should for ever precede marriage.” When
I read that, it was so much more beautiful and lofty
than the other that I said to myself : “ If either one of
these stories ever turns out to be true, I hope it will be
this one.”
Then they had their courtship, with the nightingale
singing, and the stars shining, and the flowers bloom
ing, and they fell in love. Imagine that courtship!
No prospective fathers or mothers-in-law; no prySng
and gossiping neighbours; nobody to say: “Young
man, how do you expect to support her? ” Nothing of
that kind. They were married by the Supreme Brahma,
and he said to them : “ Remain here; you must never
leave this island.” Well, after a little while, the man—
and his name was Adami, and the woman’s name was
Heva—said to Heva : “I believe I’ll look about a little.”
He went to the northern extremity of the island, where
there was a little narrow neck of land connecting it
with the mainland; and the devil, who is always play
ing pranks with us, produced a mirage, and when he
looked over to the mainland such hills and vales, such
dells and dales, such mountains crowned with snow,
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
23
such cataracts clad in bows of glory did he see there,
that he went back and told Heva: “The country over
there is a thousand times better than this; let us
migrate.”
She, like every other woman that ever
lived, said : “ Let well enough alone; we have all we
want; let us stay here.” But he said: “No, let us
go ”; so she followed him, and when they came to
this narrow neck of land he took her on his back like
a gentleman, and carried her over. But the moment
they got over they heard a crash, and, looking back,
discovered that this narrow neck of land had fallen
into the sea. The mirage had disappeared, and there
was naught but rocks and sand ; and then the Supreme
Brahma cursed them both to the lowest hell.
Then it was that the man spoke—and I have liked
him ever since for it: “Curse me, but curse not her; it
was not her fault, it was mine.”
That is the kind of man to start a world with.
The Supreme Brahma said : “ I will save her, b.ut not
thee.” And then she spoke out of her fulness of love,
out of a heart in which there was love enough to make
all her daughters |ich in holy affection, and said : “ If
thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me; I do not
wish to live without him; I love him.”
Then the
Supreme Brahma said—and I have liked him ever since
I read it: “I will spare you both and watch over you
and your children forever.”
Honour bright, is not that the better and grander
story ?
And from that same book I want to show you what
ideas some of these miserable heathen had—the heathen
we are trying to convert. We send missionaries over
yonder to convert heathen there, and we send soldiers
out on the plains to kill heathen here. If we can con
vert the heathen, why not convert those nearest home?
Why not convert those we can get at? Why not con
vert those who have the immense advantage of the
example of the average pioneer?
But to show you
the men we are trying to convert: In this book it says :
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LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
“ Man is strength, woman is beauty; man is courage,
woman is love. > When the one man loves the one
woman and the one woman loves the one man, the
very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that
house and sing for joy.”
They are the men we are converting. Think of it!
I will tell you, when I read these things, I say that
love is not of any country; nobility does not belong
exclusively to any race, and through all the ages there
have been a few great and tender souls blossoming
in love and pity.
In my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man.
She has all the rights I have and one more, and that
is the right to be protected. That is my doctrine. You
are married; try and make the woman you love happy.
Whoever marries simply for himself will make a mis
take ; but whoever loves a woman so well that he
says, “ I will make her happy,” makes no mistake. And
so with the woman who says, “ I will make him happy.”
There is only one way to be happy, and that is to make
somebody else so, and you cannot be happy by going
cross lots; you have got to go thg regular turnpike
road.
If there is any man I detest, it is the man who
thinks he is the head of a family—the man who thinks
he is “boss”! The fellow in the dug-out used that
word “ boss ”; that was one of his favourite expressions.
Imagine a young man and a young woman courting,
walking out in the moonlight, and the nightingale sing
ing a song of pain and love, as though the thorn touched
her heart—imagine them stopping there in the moon
light and starlight and song, and saying, “Now, here,
let us settle who is ‘ boss ! ’ ” I tell you it is an in
famous word and an infamous feeling—I abhor a man
who is “boss,” who is going to govern in his family,
and when he speaks orders all the rest to be still, as
some mighty idea is about to be launched from his
mouth. Do you know, I dislike this man unspeakably?
I hate above all things a cross man. What right has
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
25
he to murder the sunshine of a day? What right has
he to assassinate the joy of life? When you go home
you ought to go like a ray of light—so that it will,
even in the night, burst out of the doors and windows
and illuminate the darkness. Some men think their
mighty brains have been in a turmoil; they have been
thinking about who will be aiderman from the fifth
ward; they have been thinking about politics; great
and mighty questions have been engaging their minds;
they have bought calico at five cents or six, and want
to sell it for seven. Think of the intellectual strain
that must have been upon that man, and when he gets
home everybody else in the house must look out for
his comfort. A woman who has only taken care of
five or six children, and one or two of them sick, has
been nursing them and singing to them, and trying to
make one yard of cloth do the work of two, she, of
course, is fresh and fine and ready to wait upon this
gentleman—the head of the family—the boss !
Do you know another thing? I despise a stingy
man. I do not see how it is possible for a man to die
worth fifty million dollars, or ten million of dollars,
in a city full of want, when he meets almost every day
the withered hand of beggary and the white lips of
famine. How a man can withstand all that, and hold
in the clutch of his greed twenty or thirty million
of dollars, is past my comprehension. I do not see
how he can do it. I should not think he could do it
any more than he could keep a pile of lumber on the
beach where hundreds and thousands of men were
drowning in the sea.
Do you know that I have known men who would
trust their wives with their hearts and their honour,
but not with their pocket-book; not with a dollar.
When I see a man of that kind, I always think he knows
which of these articles is the most valuable. Think
of making your wife a beggar ! Think of her having
to ask you every day for a dollar, or for two dollars
or fifty cents! “What did you do with that dollar
�26
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
I gave you last week ? ” Think of having a wife that
is afraid of you ! What kind of children do you expect
to have with a beggar and a coward for their mother?
Oh, I tell you if you have but a dollar in the world,
and you have got to spend it, spend it like a king;
spend it as though it were a dry leaf and you the
owner of unbounded forests ! That is the way to spend
it! I had rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar
like a king than be a king and spend my money like
a beggar ! If it has got to go, let it go !
Get the best you can for your family—try to look
as well as you can yourself. When you used to go
courting, how elegantly you looked! Ah, vour eye
was bright, your step was light, and you looked like
a prince. Do you know that it is insufferable egotism
in you to suppose a woman is going to love you always
looking as slovenly as you can ! Think of it! Any
good woman on earth will be true to you forever when
you do your level best.
Some people tell me, “Your doctrine about loving,
and wives, and all that, is splendid for the rich, but
it won’t do for the poor.” I tell you to-night there
is more love in the homes of the poor than in the
palaces of the rich. The meanest hut with love in
it is a palace fit for the gods, and a palace without
love is a den only fit for wild beasts.
That is my
doctrine ! You cannot be so poor that you cannot help
somebody. Good nature is the cheapest commodity
in the world; and love is the only thing that will pay
ten per cent, to borrower and lender both. Do not tell
me that you have got to be rich ! We have a false
standard of greatness in the United States. We think
here that a man must be great, that he must be notori
ous ; that he must be extremely wealthy, or that his
name must be upon the putrid lips of rumour. It is
all a mistake. It is not necessary to be rich, or to
be great, or to be powerful, to be happy. The happy
man is the successful man.
Happiness is the legal tender of the soul.
�LIBERTY OF MAN. WOMAN, AND CHILD
27
Joy is wealth.
A little while ago 1 stood by the grave of the old
Napoleon—a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit
almost for a dead deity—and gazed upon the sarcopha
gus of rare and nameless marble where rest at last the •
ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade
and thought about the career of the greatest soldier
of the modern world.
I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine,
contemplating suicide. I saw him at Toulon—I saw
him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris—I
saw him at the head of the army of Italy—I saw him
crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tri-colour in his
hand—I saw him in Egypt in the shadows of the
pyramids—I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle
the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I
saw him at Marengo—at Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw
him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and
the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like
winter’s withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in de
feat and disaster—driven by a million bayonets back
upon Paris—clutched like a wild beast—banished to
Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the
force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field
of Waterloo, where chance and fate combined to wreck
the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him
at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him,
gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea.
I thought of the orphans and widows he had made—
of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of
the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his
heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would
rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden
shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine
growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple
in the kisses of the autumn sun. I would rather have
been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my
side, knitting as the day died out of the sky—with
my children upon iny knees and their arms about me
�2k
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
—1 would rather have been that man and gone down
to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust than to
have been that imperial impersonation of force and
murder known as “Napoleon the Great.”
ft is not necessary to be great to be happy; it is
not necessary to be rich to be just and generous and
to have a heart filled with divine affection. No matter
whether you are rich or poor, treat your wife as though
she were a splendid flower, and she will fill your life
with perfume and with joy.
And do you know, it is a splendid thing to think that
the woman you really love will never grow old to you.
Through the wrinkles of time, through the mask of
years, if you really love her, you will always see the
face you loved and won. And a woman who really loves
a man does not see that he grows eld ; he is not decrepit
to her ; he does not tremble; he is not old ; she always
sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand
and heart. 1 like to think of it in that way; I like
to think that love is eternal. And to love in that way
and then go down the hill of life together, and as you
go down hear, perhaps, the laughter of grandchildren,
while the birds of joy and love sing once more in the
leafless branches in the tree of age.
1 believe in the fireside. I believe in the democracy
of home. I believe in the republicanism of the family.
J believe in liberty, equality, and love.
THE LIBERTY OF CHILDREN.
If women have been slaves, what shall I say of
children—of the little children in alleys and sub-cellars;
the little children who turn pale when they hear their
father’s footsteps; the little children who run away
when they only hear their names called by the lips of
a mother ; little children—the children of poverty, the
children of crime, the children of brutality, wherever
they are—flotsam and ietsam upon the wild, mad sea
of life? My heart goes out to them, one and all.
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
29
I tell you the children have the same rights that we
have, and we ought to treat them as though they were
human beings. They should be reared with love, with
kindness, with tenderness, and not with brutality. That »
is my idea of children.
When your little child tells a lie, do not rush at him
as though the world were about to go into bankruptcy.
Be honest with him. A tyrant father will have liars
for his children; do you know that? A lie is born
of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the
other, and when you rush at a poor little boy with
a club in your hand, of course he lies.
I thank thee, Mother Nature, that thou hast put
ingenuity enough in the brain of a child, when attacked
by a brutal parent, to throw up a little breastwork
in the shape of a lie.
When one of your children tells a lie, be honest with
him; tell him that you have told hundreds of them
yourself. Tell him it is not the best way; that you
have tried it. Tell him, as the man did in Maine when
his boy left home: “John, honesty is the best policy;
I have tried both.” Be honest with him. Suppose a
man as much larger than you as you are larger than a
:hild five years old should come at you with a liberty
pole in his hand, and in a voice of thunder shout, “Who
broke that plate? ” There is not a solitary one of you
who would not swear you never saw it, or that it was
cracked when you got it. Why not be honest with
these children? Just imagine a man who deals in stocks
whipping his boy for putting false rumours afloat!
Think of a lawyer beating his own flesh and blood for
evadi-ng the truth when he makes half of his own living
that way ! Think of a minister punishing his child for
not telling all he thinks ! Just think of it !
When your child commits a wrong, take it in your
arms; let it feel your heart beat against its heart;
let the child know that you really and truly and sincerely
love it. Yet some Christians, good Christians, when a
child commits a fault, drive it from the door and say .
�3°
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
“Never do you darken this house again.” Think of
that! And then these same people will get down on
their knees and ask God to take care of the child they
have driven from home. I will never ask God to take
care of my children unless I am doing my level best in
that same direction.
But I will tell you what I say to my children : “ Go
where you will; commit what crime you may; fall to
what depth of degradation you may; you can never
commit any crime that will shut my door, my arms, or
my heart to you. As long as I live you shall have one
sincere friend.”
Do you know that I have seen some people who acted
as though they thought that when the Saviour said,
“ Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such
is the kingdom of heaven,” he had a raw-hide under
his mantle, and made that remark simply to get the
children within striking distance?
1 do not believe in the government of the lash. If
any one of you ever expects to whip your children
again, I want you to have a photograph taken of your
self when you are in the act, with your face red with
vulgar anger, and the face of the little child, with eyes
swimming in tears and the little chin dimpled with
fear, like a piece of water struck by a sudden cold wind.
Have the picture taken. If that little child should die^
I cannot think of a sweeter way to spend an autumn
afternoon than to go out to the cemetery, when the
maples are clad in tender gold, and little scarlet runners
are coming, like poems of regret, from the sad heart
of the earth—and sit down upon the grave, and look
at that photograph, and think of the flesh, now dust,
that you beat. I tell you it is wrong; it is not the
way to raise children. Make your home happy. Be
honest with them. Divide fairly with them in every
thing.
Give them a little liberty and love, and you cannot
drive them out of your house. They will want to stay
there. Make home pleasant. Let them play any game
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
31
they wish. Do not be so foolish as to say : “ You
may roll balls on the ground, but you must not roll
them on a green cloth. You may knock them with
a mallet, but you must not push them with a cue. You
may play with little pieces of paper which have
* authors ’ written on them, but you must not have
‘cards.’” Think of it! “You may go to a minstrel
show where people blacken themselves and imitate
humanity below them, but you must not go to a
theatre and see the characters created by immortal
genius put upon the stage.” Why? Well, I cannot
think of any reason in the world except “ minstrel ” is
a word of two syllables, and “theatre ” has three.
Let children have some daylight at home if you want
to keep them there, and do not commence at the cradle
and shout “Don’t!” “Don’t!” “Stop!”
That is
nearly all that is said to a child from the cradle until
he is twenty-one years old, and when he comes of age
other people begin saying “Don’t! ” And the Church
says “Don’t!” and the party he belongs to says
“Don’t! ”
I despise that way of going through this world.
Let us have liberty—just a little. Call me infidel, call
me atheist, call me what you will, I intend so to treat
my children that they can come to my grave and truth
fully say: “ He who sleeps here never gave us a
moment of pain. From his lips, now dust, never came
to us an unkind word.”
People justify all kinds of tyranny towards children
upon the ground that they are totally depraved. At
the bottom of ages of cruelty lies this infamous doctrine
of total depravity. Religion contemplates a child as a
living crime—heir to an infinite curse—doomed to
eternal fire.
In the olden time they thought some days were too
good for a child to enjoy himself. When I was a boy
Sunday was considered altogether too holy to be happy
in. Sunday used to commence then when the sun went
down on Saturday night. When the sun fell below the
�32
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
horizon on Saturday evening there was a darkness fell
upon the house ten thousand times deeper than that of
night. Nobody said a pleasant word; nobody laughed;
nobody smiled; the child that looked the sickest was
regarded as the most pious. That night you could not
even crack hickory nuts. If you were caught chewing
gum, it was only another evidence of the total depravity
of the human heart. It was an' exceedingly solemn
night. Dyspepsia was in the very air you breathed.
Everybody looked sad and mournful. I have noticed
all my life that many people think they have religion
when they are troubled with dyspepsia. If there could
be found an absolute specific for that disease, it would
be the hardest blow the Church has ever received.
On Sunday morning the solemnity had simply
increased. Then we went to church. The minister
was in a pulpit about twenty feet high, with a little
sounding-board above him, and he commenced at
“firstly,” and went on and on and on to about “twentythirdly.” Then he made a few remarks by way of
application; and then took a general view of the subject,
and in about two hours reached the last chapter in
Revelation.
In those days, no matter how cold the weather was,
there was no fire in the church. It was thought to be
a kind of sin to be comfortable while you were thanking
God. The first church that ever had a stove in it in
New England divided on that account. So the first
church in which they sang by note was torn in
fragments.
After the sermon we had an intermission. Then
came the catechism with the chief end of man. We
went through with that. We sat in a row with our
feet coming within about six inches of the floor. The
minister asked us if we knew that we all deserved to
go to hell, and we all answered “Yes.” Then we were
asked if we would be willing to go to hell if it was
God’s will, and every little liar shouted “Yes.” Then
the same sermon was preached once more, commencing
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
33
at the other end and going back. After that we started
for home, sad and solemn—overpowered with the
wisdom displayed in the scheme of the Atonement.
When we got home, if we had been good boys, and
the weather was warm, sometimes they would take us
out; to the graveyard to cheer us up a little. It did
cheer me. When I looked at the sunken tombs and the
leaning stones, and read the half-effaced inscriptions
through the moss of silence and forgetfulness, it was
a great comfort. The reflection came to my mind that
the observance of the Sabbath could not last always.
Sometimes they would sing that beautiful hymn in
which occur these cheerful lines:—
“ Where congregations ne’er break up,
And Sabbaths never end.”
These lines, I think, prejudiced me a little against
even heaven. Then we had good books that we read
on Sundays by way of keeping us happy and contented.
There were Milner’s History of the Waldenses, Baxter’s
Call to the Unconverted, Yahn’s Archaeology of the
Jevos, and Jenkyn’s On the Atonement. I used to read
Jenkyn’s On the Atonement. I have often thought
that an atonement would have to be exceedingly broad
in its provisions to cover the case of a man who
would write a book like that for a boy.
But at last the Sunday wore away, and the moment
the sun went down we were free. Between three and
four o’clock we would go out to see how the sun was
coming on. Sometimes it seemed to me that it was
stopping from pure meanness. But finally it went
down. It had to. And when the last rim of light
sank below the horizon, off would go our caps, and we
would give three cheers for liberty once more.
Sabbaths used to be prisons. Every Sunday was a
Bastile. Every Christian was a kind of turnkey, and
every child was a prisoner—a convict. In that dungeon
a smile was a crime.
�34
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
It was thought wrong for a child to laugh upon this
holy day. Think of that!
A little child would go out into the garden, and there
would be a tree laden with blossoms, and the little
fellow would lean against it, and there would be a
bird on one of the boughs, singing and swinging, and
thinking about four little speckled eggs, warmed by
the breast of its mate—singing and swinging, and the
music in happy waves rippling out of its tiny throat,
and the flowers blossoming, the air filled with perfume
and the great white clouds floating in the sky, and the
little boy would lean up against that tree and think
about hell and the worm that never dies.
I have heard them preach, when I sat in the pew and
my feet did not touch the floor, about the final home
of the unconverted. In order to impress upon the
children the length of time they would probably stay
if they settled in that country, the preacher would
frequently give us the following illustration : “ Suppose
that once in a billion years a bird should come from
some far distant planet, and carry off in its little bill a
grain of sand, a time would finally come when the last
atom composing this earth would be carried away; and
when this last atom was taken, it would not even be
sun up in hell.” Think of such an infamous doctrine
being taught to children !
The laugh •of a child will make the holiest day more
sacred still. Strike with hand of fire, O weird musician,
thy harp strung with Apollo’s golden hair; fill the vast
cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft
toucher of the organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until
thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves,
and charm the lovers wandering ’mid the vine-clad
hills. But know, your sweetest strains are discords
all compared with childhood’s happy laugh—the laugh
that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy.
O rippling river of laughter, thou art the blessed
boundary line between the beasts and men; and every
wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
35
of care. O Laughter, rose-lipped daughter of Joy,
there are dimples enough in thy cheeks to catch and
hold and glorify all the tears of grief.
And yet the minds of children have been polluted by
this infamous doctrine of eternal punishment. I
denounce it to-day as a doctrine the infamy of which no
language is sufficient to express.
Where did that doctrine of eternal punishment for
men and women and children come from? It came
from the low and beastly skull of that wretch in the
dug-out. Where did he get it? It was a souvenir
from the animals. The doctrine of eternal punishment
was born in the glittering eyes of snakes—snakes that
hung in fearful coils watching for their prey. It was
born of the howl and bark and growl of wild beasts.
It was born of the grin of hyenas and of the depraved
chatter.of unclean baboons. I despise it with every
drop of my blood. Tell me there is a God in the serene
heavens that will damn his children for the expression
of an honest belief ! More men have died in their sins,
judged by your orthodox creeds, than there are leaves
on all the forests in the wide world ten thousand times
over. Tell me these men are in hell; that these men
are in torment; that these children are in eternal pain,
and that they are to be punished forever and forever !
I denounce this doctrine as the most infamous of lies.
When the great ship containing the hopes and
aspirations of* the world, when the great ship freighted
with mankind goes down in the night of death, chaos,
and disaster, I am willing to go down with the ship.
I will not be guilty of the ineffable meanness of paddling
away in some orthodox canoe. I will go down with
the ship, with those who love me, and with those whom
I have loved. If there is a God who will damn his
children forever, I would rather go to hell than go to
heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant.
I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine. It
has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. It
has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned the
�36
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
imaginations of men. It has been a constant pain, a
perpetual terror to every good man and woman and
child. It has filled the good with horror and with fear;
but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base.
It has wrung the hearts of the tender; it has furrowed
the cheeks of the good. This doctrine never should be
preached again. What right have you, sir, Mr. Clergy
man, you, minister of the Gospel, to stand at the
portals of the tomb, at the vestibule of eternity, and
fill the future with horror and with fear? I do not
believe this doctrine; neither do you. If you did, you
could not sleep one moment. Any man who believes
it, and has within his breast a decent, throbbing heart,
will go insane. A man who believes that doctrine and
does not go insane has the heart of a snake and the
conscience of a hyena.
Jonathan Edwards, the dear old soul, who, if his
doctrine is true, is now in heaven rubbing his holy
hands with glee as he hears the cries of the damned,
preached this doctrine; and he said : “ Can the believing
husband in heaven be happy with his unbelieving wife
in hell? Can the believing father in heaven be happy
with his unbelieving children in hell? Can the loving
wife in heaven be happy with her unbelieving husband
ip hell?” And he replies: “I tell you, yea. Such will
be their sense of justice that it will increase rather than
diminish their bliss.” There is no wild beast in the
jungles of Africa whose reputation would not be tar
nished by the expression of such a doctrine.
These doctrines have been taught in the name of
religion, in the name of universal forgiveness, in the
name of infinite love and charity. Do not, I pray you,
soil the minds of your children with this dogma. Let
them read for themselves; let them think for them
selves.
Do not treat your children like orthodox posts to be
set in a row. Treat them like trees that need light
and sun and air. Be fair and honest with them; give
them a chance. Recollect that their rights are equal
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
37
to yours. Do not have it in your mind that you must
govern them; that they must obey. Throw away for
ever the idea of master and slave.
In old times they used to make the children go to
bed when they were not sieepy, and get up when they
were sleepy. I say let them go to bed when they are
sleepy, and get up when they are not sleepy.
But you say, this doctrine will do for the rich, but
not for the poor. Well, if the poor have to waken
their children early in the morning, it is as easy co
wake them with a kiss as with a blow. Give your
children freedom; let them preserve their individuality.
Let your children eat what they desire, and commence
at the end of a dinner if they like. That is their business,
and not yours. They know what they wish to eat. If
they are given their liberty from the first, they know
what they want better than any doctor in the world
can prescribe. Do you know that all the improvement
that has ever been made in the practice of medicine
has been made by the recklessness of patients and not
by the doctors? For thousands and thousands ot years
the doctors would not let a man suffering from fever
have a drop of water. Water they looked upon as
poison. Bui every now and then some man got reck
less and said, “I had rather die than not to slack my
thirst.” Then he would drink two or three quarts of
water and get well. And when the doctor was told of
what the patient had done, he expressed great surprise
that he was still alive, and complimented his constitu
tion upon being able to bear such a frightful strain.
The reckless men, however, kept on drinking the water,
and persisted in getting well. And finally the doctors
said : “ In a fever, water is the very .best thing you
can take.” So, I have more confidence in the voice of
Nature about such things than I have in the conclusions
of the medical schools.
Let your children have freedom, and they will fall
into your ways; they will do substantially as you do;
but if you try to make them, there is some magnificent,
�38
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
*
splendid thing in the human heart that refuses to be
driven. And do you know that it is the luckiest thing
wavpeVWhaa,PPenetf7 ,histworid that People are thal
way ? What would have become of the people five
hundred years ago if they had followed strictly the
d T ,°t u‘he doctors? The5' would all have been
nfath
M u0U1 Vthe people have becn if at any age
o thee? >,? kh3d fO"°”ed implicitl’’ tbe direction
of the Church? They would all have been idiots. It is
a splendid thing that there is always some grand man
who will not mind, and who will think for himself.
believe in allowing the children to think for them
selves. I believe in the democracy of the family. If in
this world there is anything splendid, it is a home where
all are equals.
You will remember that only a few years ago parents
would tell their children to “let their victuals^stop their
mouths. They used to eat as though it were a religious
V!ry solemn thing. Life should not be
treated as a solemn matter.• I like to see the children
..
---- —
uL und hear ea.ch One teIHn£ of the wonderful
things he has seen or heard, I like to hear the clatter
of knives and forks and <spoons mingling with their
happy voices. I had rather hear it °than any opera
that was ever put upon the boards. Let the children
Let the children
have liberty. Be honest and fair with them; be just
be tender, and they will make you rich in love and joy. ’
Men are oaks, women are vines, and children are
Howers.
The human race has been guilty of almost countless
crimes; but I have some excuse for mankind. This
world, after all, is not very well adapted to raising good
people. In the first place, nearly all of it is water. It
is much better adapted to fish culture than to the
production of folks. Of that portion which is land not
one-eighth has suitable soil and climate to produce
great men and women. You cannot raise men and
women of genius without the proper soil and climate,
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
39
any more than you can raise corn and wheat upon
the ice fields of the Arctic sea. You must have the
necessary conditions and surroundings. Man is a
product; you must have the soil and food. The
obstacles presented by nature must not be so grfeat
that man cannot, by reasonable industry and courage,
overcome them. There is upon this world only a
narrow belt of land, circling zig-zag the globe, upon
which you can produce men and women of talent. In
the southern hemisphere the real climate that man
needs falls mostly upon the sea, and the result is that
the southern half of our world has never produced a
-man or woman of great genius. In the far north there
is no genius—it is too cold. In the far south there is
no genius—it is too warm. There must be winter, and
there must be summer. In a country where man needs
no coverlet but a cloud, revolution is his normal con
dition. Winter is the mother of industry and prudence.
Above all, it is the mother of the family relation.
Winter holds in its icy arms the husband and wife and
the sweet children. If upon this earth we ever have
a glimpse of heaven, it is when we pass a home in
winter, at night, and through the windows, the curtain
drawn aside, we see the family about the pleasant
hearth; the old lady knitting; the cat playing with the
yarn; the children wishing they had as many dolls or
dollars or knives, or somethings, as there are sparks
going out to join the roaring blast; the father reading
and smoking, and the clouds rising like incense from
the altar of domestic joy. I never passed such a house
without feeling that I had received a benediction.
Civilisation, liberty, justice, charity, intellectual
advancement, are all flowers that blossom in the drifted
snow.
I do not know that I can better illustrate the great
truth that only part of the world is adapted to the
production of great men and women than by calling
your attention to the difference between vegetation in
valleys and upon mountains. In the valley you find
t
�4«
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
the oak and elm tossing their branches defiantly to the
storm, and as you advance up the mountain side the
hemlock, the pine, the birch, the spruce, the fir, and
finally you come to little dwarfed trees, that look like
other trees seen through a telescope reversed—every
limb twisted as though in pain—getting a scanty sub
sistence from the miserly crevices of the rocks. You
go on and on until at last the highest crag is freckled
with a kind of moss, and vegetation ends. You might
as well try to raise oaks and elms where the mosses
grow as to raise great men and great women where
their surroundings are unfavourable. You must have
the proper climate and soil.
A few years ago we were talking about the annexa
tion of Santo Domingo to this country. I was in
Washington at the time. I was opposed to it. I was
told that it was a most delicious climate; that the soil
produced everything. But I said : “ We do not want
it; it is not the right kind of country in which to raise
American citizens. Such a climate would debauch us.
You might go there with five thousand Congregational
preachers, five thousand ruling elders, five thousand
professors in colleges, five thousand of the solid men
of Boston and their wives; settle them all in Santo
Domingo, and you will see the second generation riding
upon a mule, bareback, no shoes, a grape-vine bridle,
hair sticking out at the top of their sombreros, with a
rooster under each arm, going to a cock fight on
Sunday.” Such is the influence of climate.
Science, however, is gradually widening the area
within which men of genius can be produced. We are
conquering the north with houses, clothing, food, and
fuel. We are in many ways overcoming the heat of
the south. If we attend to this world instead of.
another, we may in time cover the land with men and
women of genius.
I have still another excuse. I believe that man came
up from the lower animals. I do not say this as a
fact. I simply say I believe it to be a fact. Upon
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
4’
that question I stand about eight to seven, which, for
all practical purposes, is very near a certainty. When
I first heard of that doctrine I did not like it. My
heart was filled with sympathy for those people who
have nothing to be proud of except ancestors. . I
thought how terrible this will be upon the nobility of
the Old World. Think of their being forced to trace
their ancestry back to the Duke Orang Outang, or to
the Princess Chimpanzee. After thinking it all oyer,
I came to the conclusion that I liked that doctrine.
I became convinced in spite of myself. I read about
rudimentary bones and muscles. I was told that every
body had rudimentary muscles extending from the ear
into the cheek. I asked: “What are they?” I was
told: “ They are the remains of muscles, that they
became rudimentary from lack of use; they went into
bankruptcy. They are the muscles with which your
ancestors used to flap their ears.” I do not now so
much wonder that we once had them as that we have
outgrown them.
After all, I had rather belong to a race that started
from the skull-less vertebrates in the dim Laurentian
seas, vertebrates wiggling without knowing why they
wiggled, swimming without knowing where they were
going, but that in some way began to develop, and
began to get a little higher and a little higher in the
scale of existence; that came up by degrees through
millions of ages through all the animal world, through
all that ^rawls, and swims, and floats, and climbs, and
walks, and finally produced the gentleman in the dug
out; and then from this man, getting a little grander,
and each one below calling/ every one above him a
heretic, calling every one who had made a little advance
an infidel or an atheist—for in the history of this world
the man who is ahead has always been called a heretic
—I would rather come from a race that started from
that skull-less vertebrate, and came up and up and up,
and finally produced Shakespeare, the man who found the
human intellect dwelling in a hut, touched it with the
�42
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
wand of his genius, and it became a palace domed and
pinnacled; Shakespeare, who harvested all the fields
of dramatic thought, and from whose day to this there
have been only gleaners of straw and chaff—I would
rather belong to that race that commenced a skull-less
vertebrate and produced Shakespeare, a race that has
before it an infinite future, with the angel of progress
leaning from the far horizon, beckoning men forward,
upward, and onward for ever—I had rather belong to
such a race, commencing there, producing this, and
with that hope, than to have sprung from a perfect
pair upon which the Lord has lost money every moment
from that day to this.
CONCLUSION.
I have given you my honest thought. Surely investi
gation is better than unthinking faith. Surely reason
is a better guide than fear. This world should be
controlled by the living, not by the dead. The grave
is not a throne, and a corpse is not a king. Man
should not try to live on ashes.
The theologians dead knew no more than the
theologians now living. More than .this cannot be
said. About this world little is known—about another
world, nothing.
Our fathers were intellectual serfs, and their fathers
were slaves. The makers of our creeds were ignorant
and brutal. Every dogma that we have has upon it the
mark of whip, the rust of chain, and the ashes of
faggot.
. Superstition is the child of slavery. Freethought will
give us truth. When all have the right to think and
to express their thoughts, every brain will give to all
the best it has. The world will then be filled with
intellectual wealth.
As long as men and women are afraid of the Church,
as long as a minister inspires fear, as long as people
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
43
reverence a thing simply because they do not under
stand it, as long as it is respectable to lose your selfrespect, as long as the Church has power, as long as
mankind worship a book, just so long will the world
be filled with intellectual paupers and vagrants, covered
with the soiled and faded rags of superstition.
As long as woman regards the Bible as the charter
of her rights, she will be the slave of man. The Bible
was not written by a woman. Within its lids there
is nothing but humiliation and shame for her. She is
regarded as the property of man. She is made to ask
forgiveness for becoming a mothqf. She is as much
below her husband as her husband is below Christ.
She is not allowed to speak. The Gospel is too pure
to be spoken by her polluted lips.
Woman should
learn in silence.
In the Bible will be found no description of a civilised
home. The free mother, surrounded by free and loving
children, adored by a free man, her husband, was
unknown to the inspired writers of the Bible. They
did not believe in the democracy of home—in the
republicanism of the fireside.
These inspired gentlemen knew nothing of the rights
of children. They were the advocates of brute force—
the disciples of the lash. They knew nothing of human
rights. Their doctrines have brutalised the homes of
millions, and filled the eyes of infancy with tears.
There has never been upon the earth a generation
of free men and women. It is not yet time to write a
creed. Wait until the chains are broken—until dun
geons are not regarded as temples. Wait until
solemnity is not mistaken for wisdom—until mental
cowardice ceases to be known as reverence. Wait until
the living are considered the equals of the dead—until
the cradle takes precedence of the coffin. Wait until
what we know can be spoken without regard to what
'Others may believe. Wait until teachers take the place
of preachers—until followers become investigators.
Wait until the world is free before you write a creed.
/
�44
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
In this creed there will be but one word—Liberty.
Oh, Liberty, float not for ever in the far horizon—
remain not for ever in the dream of the enthusiast, the
philanthropist, and poet, but come and make thy home
among the children of men !
I know not what discoveries, what inventions, what
thoughts, may leap from the brain of the world. I
know not what garments of glory may be woven by the
years to come. I cannot dream of the victories to be
won upon the fields of thought; but I do know that,
coming from the infinite sea of the future, there will
never touch this “ bank and shoal of time ” a richer
gift, a rarer blessing, than liberty for man, for woman,
and for child.
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
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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Pamphlet
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Liberty of man, woman, and child
Creator
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 44, [4] p. ; 19 cm.
Series title: Pamphlets for the Millions
Series number: No. 6
Notes: Published for the Rationalist Press Association. Publisher's series list on unnumbered pages at the end. No. 46f in Stein checklist but with different date. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Watts & Co.
Date
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1914
Identifier
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SOME RELIGIOUS TERMS
S!MPLY_ DEFINED
(FOR THE USE OF CHILDREN)
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[issued for the rationalist press association, limited]
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London:
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E,C.
Price Threepence
�Note.—Books preceded by an X are copyright in America,
and cannot be supplied to customers in that country.
“ These splendid handbooks belong to an age of wonders.”
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From the Earliest times to John
George Forbes, M.A., F.R.S.
Locke. Vol. II: From John Locke
JfChemistry (History of). Vol. I: 2000
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to Date. By Sir Edward Thorpe,
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�NEVE
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
SOME RELIGIOUS TERMS
SIMPLY DEFINED
FOR THE USE OF CHILDREN)
BY
E. L. MARSDEN
( ISSUED FOB THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LIMITED )
London:
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1914
��FOREWORD
The result of “pious” parents beginning to teach children
at an early age theology, prayers, catechisms, etc., is that
many children learn to use words icithout having any
definite conception of their meaning.
This is intellectually
injurious, and as a rule azoakens a mere superstition founded
to a large degree on false history.
1 have here attempted to
explain in a rational manner and as simplzj as possible the
meaning of a feio of those expressions zvhich children are
constantly zcsizzg and hearing zcsed, words of whose meaning
they have but the vaguest idea.
This pamphlet is zvritten in the hope that a simple explana
tion of some of the more comznon zoords zcsed daily izi religious
instruction znay be of beziefit to the youzig, and possibly to
a few of their teachers.
E. L. M.
May, 1914.
��SOME RELIGIOUS TERMS SIMPLY
DEFINED
BIBLE TEACHING
RELIGION appears to be the only subject in which teachers make
no use of the most recent authorities and the latest discoveries.
The practice of most Christian ministers, and of many 1 other
teachers of religion, of ignoring modern Biblical criticism amounts
to a scandal. Children are given the impression that the Bible is
for us what it was for our ancestors. Congregations are kept in
ignorance of what has taken place in historical research, textual
criticism, and comparative mythology; they are not informed that,
however useful and edifying as parables the old tales of the Bible
may be, those tales have no claim to be treated as historically true.
Knowledge and research have shown that the traditional theories
about the Bible are no longer tenable ; but many children from their
earliest years are given utterly false impressions on the subject. It
is not honest to preach as if the Bible consists of absolutely trust
worthy documents when scholarship, both Christian and secular,
knows them to be otherwise. The old matter-of-course assumption
of the divinely guaranteed accuracy of the Old Testament has dis
appeared from the minds of the well-educated, and no well-informed
person treats the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as anything
but unsupported tradition.
Some few years ago the Encyclopedia Biblica was issued, the
purpose of which work was to ascertain the real facts and to state
them. This book is the work of some of the greatest of the world’s
Biblical students, and it sums up, supported by a mass of learning,
the conclusions of modern criticism. A glance at the list of con
tributors will show the large number of scholarly Churchmen who
have abandoned the theory of the literal truth of the Bible. We
5
�6
SOME RELIGIOUS TERMS SIMPLY DEFINED
learn from these volumes that the creation story originated in a
stock of primitive myths common to the Semitic races, and is almost
identical with the Babylonian myth ; that the very existence of the
Old Testament patriarchs is uncertain; that the whole book of
Genesis is not history, but a narrative based on older records, long
since lost; that the story of Joseph was, compiled in the seventh
century B.C.; that the book of Exodus is a legend; that it is
doubtful whether Moses is the name of an individual or of a clan•
that the alleged origin of the Ten Commandments is purely tradi
tional ; that it is very doubtful whether David wrote any of the
Psalms ; that everything in the Gospels is uncertain ; that we do
not know when Jesus was born, when he died, or who was his
father ; that the supposed virgin birth has no evidence in its favour;
that it is impossible to separate the truth from doubtful legend and
symbolical embroidery in any of the Gospels; that the accounts of
the Resurrection. exhibit contradictions of the most glaring kind;
that the view that the four gospels bearing the names of Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John were written by them and appeared thirty
or forty years- after the death of Jesus can no longer be maintained,
nor can they be regarded as credible narratives ; that the genuineness
of the Pauline Epistles is far from clear. These and a hundred
other conclusions can be found in the Encyclopedia Btblica, wherein
eminent Christian scholars proclaim results quite contrary to the
usual orthodox teachings.
Nevertheless, dogmas discarded by enlightened Christian ministers
continue to be taught to our children, whereas real religion, the
development and direction of the moral and spiritual feelings, is
neglected to a great extent. Highly as we may prize the Bible,
a system of instruction which makes it a fetish tends to degrade it,
and it is much to be regretted that it should be so much misused in
religious education. To treat as solemn fact every Hebrew legend
and impossible miracle, to try to harmonize Old Testament fables
of lust, slaughter, and deceit approved by Jehovah with the spirit
of the Sermon on the Mount, can do nothing but harm ; to teach
a child the story of the Fall as historically true when he will soon
know that man has not fallen, but gradually risen, can only unsettle
his mind.
If we were to exclude the idea of absolute historical accuracy in
teaching the Bible, we should eliminate much unreality and insincerity
from the moral atmosphere. It is not the book, but the conventional
superstition with which it is treated, that is at fault. Treated with
�RELIGION AND THEOLOGY
7
intelligent discrimination, it will always have its educational value,
but it cannot supply the place of instruction in real religion, in the
morals of daily life. Scripture is one thing, morality another.
Now that many ministers of all sects admit that nearly every
book in the Old Testament is of unknown authorship, and much of
it is mythical and fabulous, it is time that we should protest against
our children being taught that the: Fall, the Deluge, the plagues of
Egypt, the massacres in Canaan, etc., are part of an infallible and
divine revelation; that view is gone except for the grossly ignorant,
and to cause children to regard these stories as authentic history is
demoralizing both to teachers and taught.
RELIGION AND THEOLOGY
RELIGION is not the observance of forms and ceremonies, for men
may observe these and be wholly wanting in religious life ; nor is it
the belief in some particular creed, for men have held every kind of
orthodox creed and yet been quite impious. Religion is a state of
the heart and feelings, a state of reverence, awe, love, or dependence,
according to the character of the divine object presented to the
mind. Religion is the feeling, theology is the attempted explanation
of that feeling; hence religion must precede theology, and they may
exist independently of each other.
Questions of theology, <l historical criticism ” of Scripture, and
such subjects, are of undoubted importance, but are not matters of
religion. The end of religious education should be the development
and direction of the moral and spiritual feelings, and instruction in
the morals of daily life, leading to the victory over Self. Theology
is the supposed knowledge as to God and the unknown, and what
man believes about supernatural beings and about those things at
present inexplicable by any known laws of nature. Such beliefs
should be freely discussed, but not made the subject of ridiculous
quarrels, as no human being knows the truth about these matters ;
and it should be remembered that man’s early theological beliefs,
which we are asked to accept, were due to • thA limitations of his
knowledge and experience.'
"■"■L
�8
SOME RELIGIOUS TERMS SIMPLY DEFINED
TRUTH AND LAWS OF NATURE
Truth is the most perfect knowledge attainable concerning any
given .question, and such knowledge is what we depend upon for the
highest ends of life. Truth is acquired by experience and study, and
the only permanent truths are those of observation and inference.Formerly they were few ; but with modern scientific development
they are increasing rapidly, and they stand apart from truths derived
from supposed revelations. The latter’s durability is comparatively
short; there are everywhere traces of extinct religions once devoutly
believed. Real truths are always in harmony, not so theological
truths ; time strengthens the one and weakens the other. When we
seek truth, we are seeking a knowledge of that which is capable of
verification and proof. In science, the truth is a statement giving a
correct representation of facts; in theology, the truth is a statement
supposed to be in accordance with the particular revelation which is
accepted. Science appeals to facts ; theology appeals to supposed
miracles, and asks us to believe in a number of events contrary to
all experience, on the authority of unknown writers. “ Laws of
nature” means the invariable order in which facts occur, all facts
.being links in an endless chain of cause and effect; one single
exception to this invariable order, and it cannot be a law of nature.
Truth is founded upon laws of nature.
REVELATION AND REASON
In the history of the human race there have been many so-called
revelations ” claiming to teach us things we should not otherwise
know. Such are the Zoroastrian,. Brahman, Buddhist, Jewish,
Christian, Mohammedan; they all claim divine origin, and each
condemns the others as unreliable and incomplete. In separating
.what is true from what is false in these various revelations, or in
.accepting one of them as the only true one, we must use our
■judgment. It follows, therefore, that our reason is a higher
authority than revelation, for we cannot believe anything without
�GOD
9
the approval of our reason. (What people say they believe is a
different matter.)
In all the revelations and bibles there are many mistakes in
history and science, and numerous contradictions. Such mistakes
are natural, as all these bibles are the work of man. All we can do
is to follow the best light we have—our reason ; for even if it
sometimes leads us into error, we have nothing better to follow.
In the name of Revelation or the “ Word of God ” many of the
worst crimes have been committed, and some of the world’s noblest
men have either known nothing of it or disbelieved in it.
Many people in this country believe that the ancient Jews were
Specially favoured with a revelation ; while the Greeks, the most
advanced people of antiquity, had none. If this were true, it would
show that morality and intelligence are possible without revelation,
and are in no way dependent upon it. Those who believe in
revelation think that it makes truth known to us by “ inspiration.”
If so, these questions arise: What is inspiration ? How are inspired
thoughts distinguished from uninspired ? and, How did the selectors
choose between genuine and spurious ? These questions have never
been answered.
GOD
By the word “God” is meant the power which exists behind
the facts of the universe. If such a power exists, its nature is
unknown and unknowable. The popular idea of God is that he is
a Person who created the universe, that he knows and sees every
thing and is everywhere; also that he is just and holy. Man has
made God in his own image, consequently God has grown better as
man has improved in intelligence and character. The God of the
savage was a savage; the God of the ancient Jews, as represented
in the Old Testament, was bloodthirsty, vindictive, jealous, and
petty; the God of the Christians was a being who punished the
errors of this brief life with eternal torments. This is still the
opinion of many Christians, but it is difficult to understand how
anyone can believe this horrible doctrine. God has been known by
different names in different countries—Zeus, Jove, Ormuzd, Brahm,
Jehovah, Allah, among others ; he is also called the Supreme Being,
�10
SOME RELIGIOUS TERMS SIMPLY DEFINED
tli© Infinite, the First Cause, Nature, etc. Some people when they
say God mean a person, others an idea. Belief in several Gods was
the earliest belief of all nations. It is quite clear from the Old
Testament that the ancient Jews believed in other Gods, of whom
their God was jealous.
The sun, moon, mountains, rivers, animals, almost everything,
have been regarded as Gods, and men have prayed to them and
sacrificed to them. As mankind advanced in knowledge the belief
in Gods decreased, and now nearly all educated people believe either
in one God or in none. The old argument that, as every effect must
have a cause, the universe must have a cause which is God, is met
by the obvious rejoinder that, if every effect must have a cause, God
must also have a cause. It is just as easy or difficult to imagine
a universe without a cause as a God without a cause. The existence
of God cannot be demonstrated, but is a very general belief. Each
man makes his own God, which word represents the highest ideal
of the individual. Hence one man’s God may be better and nobler
than that of another, as each man is the measure of his own ideal
or God. Theologians who profess belief in an all-wise, all-powerful,
and all-good God have never been able to give a rational explanation
of all the pain, misery, and evil which exists in the world, and some
have believed that God allows an evil spirit, Satan, to tempt every
body. If God had wished sin to abound, what more could he have
done than to appoint a being to the office of tempting mankind at
all times and places ? Any parent who allowed his children tli
associate with bad characters would deserve censure.
PRAYER
Prayer is a supplication to God, or a desire for communion with
him. No one prays to laws of nature or to great ideals ; prayers
are always addressed to a personal God. But the idea of a God and
a person is incongruous. To be a God is to be infinite ; to be a
person is to be finite. Prayer originated in a desire to appease the
anger or secure the favour of invisible beings. When after a long
period of drought a minister prays for rain, it is in the belief that
God caused the drought, and can be persuaded to discontinue it.
As a drought does not last for ever, such prayers are apparently
�CHRISTIANITY
11
answered. It may happen that some people are praying God
to do what other people are just as earnestly praying him not
to do, and such prayers imply that God is an individual ready to
adapt himself to the convenience of everybody. There is no reason
to believe that God has any less control over the law of gravity than
over the weather, but people never pray to have the law of gravity
suspended for their benefit; they know such law is inviolable, and
they will stop praying about the weather when they learn that the
laws governing it are equally inviolable.
It is said that God demands that his creatures should continually
address him in terms of glorification and endearment. Such an
idea insults God ; a really great and good being would not constantly
want our prayers and laudations. The idea, of course, came from
the East, where sultans can only be approached with presents and
salaams. Prayer makes men look for help outside themselves, and
thus weakens their self-dependence. When we offer flattery, build
churches, give money, etc., to obtain a favour it is an attempt to
corrupt God by. bribery. It makes morality and justice of less
importance than rites, prayers, and dogmas. It is inconsistent with
any high ideal of God that he will be influenced by prayers and
praise. Public prayer is less desirable than private prayer, as it is
formal and not spontaneous, professional and not personal. Even
in the New Testament Jesus is reported as saying that we should
not pray in public (Matthew vi, 5-6).
CHRISTIANITY
It may be said that the Christian revelation has exerted more
influence in the world than any other, as it has helped to shape the
history of the first-class nations. This particular revelation is found
in a book called the Holy Bible, divided into two parts—the Old
Testament and the New Testament. It consists of sixty-six books,
written by different authors at different periods in different languages
and in different countries; these books were gradually collected into
one volume by religious councils. The Old Testament relates the
history of the Jews, their laws, customs, and wars. This history is
not materially different from that of other primitive people, and
there is no reason why it should be regarded as the “ Word of God.”
�12
SOME RELIGIOUS TERMS SIMPLY DEFINED
The New Testament consists of a number of writings collected about
one hundred-and-fifty years after the death of Jesus Christ, and of
these writings we have no knowledge of the authorship, with the
possible exception of four letters of Paul and one of James. The
titles, The Gospel according to Matthew,” etc., represent the
opinion of the editors or translators ; and probably the name of an
apostle was used to give the work greater authority. The apostles,
expecting the world would end in their lifetime, did not write their
own messages.
There were many other gospels besides those in the New
Testament; but they have been excluded as being doubtful—that
is, they did not receive the necessary number of votes in ecclesiastical
councils to be considered inspired. The books of the Bible were
written in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic; and as the original
manuscripts from which our English Bible is said to have been
translated are not in existence, we do not know that the translation
is accurate. Our translation is from the supposed copies of the lost
originals, which copies were produced possibly hundreds of years
after the originals had been lost, so that we cannot know that the
copies are reliable.
The Christian revelation teaches that humanity was originally
perfect, that it fell into sin, and that a select few may escape
through faith in the atoning death of Jesus Christ. We now know
that the human race has been ascending slowly, and that incarna
tion and atonement are world-wide myths. We also realize that the
idea of a guilty person pardoned through the atoning death of an
innocent victim has no moral value. Christianity, in the light of
modern knowledge of comparative mythology, is one member of
a large family of religions (Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Mohammedan,
etc.) which in one form or another are co-extensive with the history
of humanity. Christianity might have led on to true religion, but
has taken its place; in its petrified form it holds prisoner the forces
of real religion.
THE CANON OF THE BIBLE
The “ canon ” of the Bible consists of those books which
ecclesiastical councils have declared of divine authority; this
canon has not always been the same. The earliest Christians
�JESUS AND HIS TEACHINGS
13
regarded only the Old Testament as the word of God, and the
Apostolic Fathers apparently did not look upon the New Testament
as of equal authority with the Old. Schisms between early Chris
tians gave rise to the idea of a canon; a generally accepted word of
God was necessary, and the demand created the supply.
The first reference to a canon was in the latter half of the second
century. In 352 A.D. the canon of the Emperor Constantine was
produced, and contained the present number of books except the
book of Revelation. Many books in the Bible have been questioned
at various times. Luther did not regard the book of Revelation and
the Epistle of James as part of God’s word. The Roman Catholic
Bible contains seventy-two books, as it includes as inspired some
books that Protestants reject. Roman Catholics hold that it is the
Church that gives the Bible its authority, and do not allow private
interpretation of it; while Protestants look upon it as infallible, but
each individual must read and interpret it for himself. The Holy
Spirit does not, apparently, reveal the same meaning of the Scrip
tures to all readers ; for, in spite of the assumed infallible revelation,
all Protestants are not agreed on such important questions as
Baptism, Predestination, Eternal Punishment, Atonement, and the
Divinity of Jesus.
Apart from the fact that the meaning of the Bible is not clear to
everybody, the objection to an inspired book is that it limits the
possession of truth to one people or race, and makes it a thing of the
long past; it makes research needless, and gives the Church power
to suppress new truth. Fortunately, the Bible’s power for harm is
-decreasing now that we are beginning to regard it as the literature
■of a primitive and uninformed people. It is only worshipped as
infallible by the least educated of mankind.
JESUS AND HIS TEACHINGS
The prevailing belief about Jesus is that he was both God and
man, that he was begotten by the Holy Ghost, that he was without
■sin, that he worked miracles, and was equal to God. We have only
the word of man on the subject, and, as all religions have claimed
power to work miracles, there is no reason for treating the
miraculous element in the life of Jesus in any other wTay than
�14
SOME RELIGIOUS TERMS SIMPLY DEFINED
we treat the same in the life of Buddha, Moses, or Mohammed.
All our knowledge of Jesus is contained in broken records of a few
months in the last year of his life.
“ Towards the middle of the second century A.D. certain
documents are found to be in circulation professing to describe
the life of a religious teacher who had lived in a remote part of
the Empire more than a hundred years before. These documents
or gospels are many in number, and all of unknown authorship;
they are in the possession of an obscure and fanatical sect, and many
of them contain obvious absurdities. Gradually the more absurd are
denounced as apocryphal, and four are retained, which, together
with some letters of one of the early Christians, form the New
Testament’ of future ages.” (Joseph McCabe.)
With regard to these documents or records next to nothing is
known. Their authors, place of origin, the motives that caused
their compilation, are all matters of guesswork. The charm of the
narratives, viewed as literature, is greatly due to our magnificent
“ Authorized ” version. As contemporary writers are entirely silent
on the subject of Jesus ; as Apostolic literature knows nothing of the
Jesus of the Gospels, of his virgin birth, of his alleged miracles; as
our only knowledge of him is contained in the New Testament, the
utmost we are justified in thinking of Jesus is that he was a man of
noble life, with a remarkable influence over his fellow-men. His
undoubted sincerity in believing that he was divinely chosen to
teach the people is no proof of the truth of his belief. He believed
that the earth belonged to the devil, but that some day he (Jesus)
would be recognized as the king of kings. “ Verily, I say unto you,
this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled.” That
prophecy, uttered by Jesus himself, has not been fulfilled; it was
uttered about 1,900 years ago. He recognized Caesar’s authority,
and advised others to do the same. He did not denounce war or
slavery; but he said to his disciples : “ My peace I give unto you.”
Those who called themselves Christians, however, have not lived in
peace with one another, but have repeatedly waged war with one
another and persecuted one another ; the worst persecutors in the
world have been Christians. The teaching of Jesus is partly
responsible for this, inasmuch as he said that they who did not
believe on him would be damned ; and his followers, to save people
from damnation, tried to compel them to become Christians. This
persecution, this attempt to maintain an opinion by violence, to
conquer the reason without enlightening it, has characterized the
�THE CHURCH, CREEDS, AND CLERGY
15
larger part of Christian propaganda. The teachings of Jesus about
love, charity, brotherhood, justice, and forgiveness, although not
entirely original, embody the finest ethical code ever presented to
mankind; but an attempt to make them a universal rule of conduct
would in our present state of society be impracticable; no Christian
shapes his life on the principles of the Sermon on the Mount. He
taught that this world was of no importance, and, instead of trying
to right wrong conditions here and now, he advised non-resistance to
evil. He told those who wept and suffered to rejoice, for they would
have their reward in another world. This teaching has consoled
some people, but has prevented many from trying to right their
present wrongs. It has encouraged the rich and powerful to answer
the cry for justice by suggesting to the oppressed that they ought to
be satisfied with the reward promised in the next world. Those in
power have always encouraged religion among the poor; orthodoxy
is generally on the side of the oppressors. In spite of the fact that
the words of love and goodness spoken by Jesus have been an
immense influence for good, his theological doctrines have caused
much hatred, bloodshed, and misery.
THE CHURCH, CREEDS, AND CLERGY
The word “ church” originally meant an assembly or congrega
tion, and was at first merely an organization of fellow-believers, out
■of which has gradually arisen the distinction between clergy and
laymen. There are many Churches in Christendom, of which the
most important is the Roman Catholic. It was organized about the
time that the Roman Empire became converted to Christianity, and
the Emperor Constantine, one of the worst criminals in history, was
its first imperial head and protector. It soon became covetous,
ambitious, partisan, and intolerant, and its domination over the
■conscience and its punishment of heretics has caused an immense
amount of useless suffering.
In the sixteenth century the Church was split up chiefly through
Martin Luther, the principal author of the Reformation movement.
The seceders from the Church of Rome were called Protestants.
The Church of England dates from the time of Henry VIII, who,
■quarrelling with the Pope over a matter of divorcing his wife, founded
�16
SOME RELIGIOUS TERMS SIMPLY DEFINED
a new Church, of which he became master. In the past the
Protestant Churches have persecuted almost as much as the Roman
Church in their desire to exterminate what they looked upon as
heresy. In these days, when blind belief and superstition are not
regarded as a virtue, the Churches have not the power to persecute
except quite indirectly. Liberal and Broad Churches exist which
make little of theology and much of character, and the number of
people who look upon religion as something apart from formal ritual
is gradually increasing.
Disagreements among believers necessitated an authoritative
expression of Church doctrine; this was the origin of “ creeds,” the
object of which was to enforce uniformity of belief and prevent
independent thinking. The oldest Christian creed is supposed to be
the Apostles’ Creed, which we know was not written by the apostles.
The fundamental beliefs of this creed are those in the Trinity, the
Virgin Birth, and the Resurrection of the Flesh. No proofs are
given; they are assumed to be true. The Nicene Creed, the
Athanasian Creed, the creed of the Greek Church, the Church of
England Creed (the Thirty-nine Articles), the Westminster Creed—
all contain statements of belief narrow and intolerant. They tend
to prevent the pursuit of truth and confine it to one sect. Our
creed should be one in accord with facts, and one which keeps
abreast of our growing knowledge. To subscribe to a creed thatforbids freedom of thought lowers the dignity of man, whose reason
is his greatest possession. A clergyman is a man who has received
Holy Orders ” from the Church. A man can become a clergyman
by passing an examination and asserting his belief in the creed of
the particular Church to which he applies for admission.
THE EARTH AND MAN
The Bible states that some six thousand years ago God created
heaven and earth and all that they contain. Science teaches us
that the earth is many millions of years old, and that there has been
for countless ages a slow growth and gradual ascent. The origin of
matter remains a mystery.
Science teaches us that man is hundreds of thousands of years
old, and is descended from the lower animals. In the structure and
�DEATH AND IMMORTALITY
17
functions of his organs he is exactly like an animal; every bone,
muscle, and organ can be paralleled in the animals ; he is composed of
the same materials, and is subject to the same laws of life and death.
The human embryo, before birth, passes through stages of develop
ment when it has gills like a fish, a tail, a body covered with hair,
and a brain like a monkey’s ; thus showing that man, in his long
existence, has climbed through all these forms to his present state.
He was not specially created, but grew slowly upwards, and his mind
or reason was evolved in the same manner as his body, the struggle
for existence having been the chief contributor to his development.
Some people still believe that he was created “ perfect.” What
they mean by “ perfect ” is probably “ as perfect as a man can be.”
Had he been perfect, he could not have fallen. It is said that God
permitted him to fall, and encouraged Satan to tempt him, the con
sequence being sin, suffering, and death for all mankind. People
believed these stories because their fathers and mothers believed
them ; but hardly any enlightened people now hold these unreasonablebeliefs.
DEATH AND IMMORTALITY
Many people fear death because they think that it is the
beginning of an irrevocable doom ; but the rational view is that it
either secures happiness or ends suffering. We can conquer death
by serving some noble cause in which we may live after we have
passed away. When we are dead we shall not miss life, and to
lose what we cannot miss is not an evil.
It is popularly believed that there is a soul or spirit temporarily
inhabiting the body, which soul continues to live after death; that
men, but not animals, have souls ; that the body cannot live without
the soul, but that the soul can live without the body. It is impos
sible for the finite human mind to form a conception of this soul,,
this spirit without form or extension. Theology teaches that at
death the soul leaves the body and goes to some other world, each
sect having its own view of what sort of place this other world is.
The view of the Christian creeds is that only those who have thetrue faith will be happy; others will go to eternal misery. Even
great and good men and women not holding the true faith will go to>
�18
SOME RELIGIOUS TERMS SIMPLY DEFINED
hell, according to this view. The desire for immortality, a conscious
personal immortality, is almost universal ; it is an extension of the
instinct of self-preservation.
We know nothing of any future life, and, although the belief in
it is very general throughout humanity, many general beliefs have
turned out to be illusions. All we can say is that we do not know.
But we can safely affirm that all that we say and do will contribute
to build the world of the future, in which we shall live again as
influences and examples, as moral and intellectual forces. In this
sense we are certainly immortal, and the knowledge should inspire
us to cultivate only what is true and noble. A future life for each
personal individual is an enormous assumption to be made without
proof, and yet all the alleged consolations of orthodox religion hang
on this. Many people believe enough to be full of anxiety and fear,
and never have complete peace ; belief to them is a source of inward
unrest and alarm. For one death-bed smoothed by orthodox beliefs
it is probable that hundreds have been turned into beds of torture.
GOOD AND BAD
ANYTHING adjusted for some purpose and efficiently accomplish
ing that purpose is “ good when it fails in that purpose it is “ bad.”
For example, a knife is good when it cuts well; a road is good when
it makes travelling easy and comfortable ; a watch is good when it
keeps time correctly. When a knife is blunt, a road uneven, or a
watch incorrect, in each case it is “bad.” Thus efficiency is good
ness, inefficiency badness ; and to know whether conduct is good or
bad the first question to be asked is what purpose social conduct is
intended to serve. Social conduct is conduct adjusted for the benefit
of society, or co-operation. Conduct which tends to draw individuals
closer together is good ; conduct which repels them from one another
is bad. To the conduct of a single individual on a desert island,
where no act of his could affect anyone but himself, the terms “ good ”
and “ bad” in a moral sense would have no meaning. Man is dependent
■on the co-operation of society, and the aim of the moral code is to
discourage actions injurious to social co-operation and to encourage
•conduct which promotes it; therefore good and bad actions may be
�THE CHIEF OBJECT OF LIFE
19
roughly defined as those which benefit or injure somebody else or
society as a whole.
Theologically, “ good ” and “ bad ” mean obedience or disobedience
to the supposed will of some God, apart from any ethical or social
value in the action itself. Adam’s crime was disobedience ; the
command not to eat of the tree of knowledge was quite a capricious
and arbitrary one ; no reason was given why he should not eat of
it, and it was a natural thing for him to think that a knowledge of
good and evil was an excellent thing to acquire. But eating the
fruit, simply because it was an act of disobedience, was so great
a crime that the whole human race was damned for it. Abraham
agreed to commit the crime of burning his son; but because this
was an act of obedience theologians hold him up as a model of
virtue.
We now realize that a “ good ” man is one who promotes the
happiness and well-being of his fellow-creatures, and that morality
does not consist in blind obedience at the expense of our conscience
and reason, especially as, even assuming the existence of a God
whom we ought to obey, we have no means of knowing his will.
THE CHIEF OBJECT OF LIFE AND THE
RELIGION OF THE FUTURE
OUR duty is to seek those things that increase and elevate life;
to learn by experience (the accumulated experience of humanity as
well as our own) what is right and what is wrong, good and bad.
We need no revelation to tell us what is right and what is wrong;
we must discover it for ourselves. Nature is the sum of all the
forces which keep the world in movement; she is our first and
oldest teacher. We obey her because we must. She has joined
cause and consequence in such a way that every act and word bears
seed. If we sow evil, we reap pain; if we sow good, we reap
happiness. The reward of goodness is to be good. If we will not
be good without future rewards and punishments, others will; and,
by the law of the survival of the fittest, theirs will be the power of
the future. What is needed is knowledge ; we must know what is
for our highest good. Knowledge will give us sympathy instead of
�20
SOME RELIGIOUS TERMS SIMPLY DEFINED
prejudice, justice and humanity instead of oppression and greed.
Knowledge will help us to make the highest use of this life, without
reference to imaginary heavens and hells of which we can know
nothing.
In accordance with the law of evolution, we progress very slowly ;
but truth will ultimately prevail, and, even if its results cause pain
to some people, they must be accepted without hesitation. Man, as
a rational being, will no longer accept his religious opinions without
a mental conviction of their truth—a conviction demanded in every
other province of knowledge. Reason and experience will replace
theology, and, free from the difficulties and mysteries generated by
dogmas, we shall no longer try to force our conscience and intel
ligence to accept ancient revelations.
But, although theology will die, religion will remain; not the
religion which consists in singing hymns and reading bibles, in
pious talk and unctuous prayers, but the religion of acting rightly
and kindly. Real religion—the sense of duty arising from our
relationship to some superior Power, even though the nature of
that Power is unknown to us—will grow stronger. Our object in
life will be to promote the well-being and happiness of our fellow
creatures, and every new truth we learn will fit us better for this
task. Sympathy will replace selfishness ; those tendencies injurious
to social life will become weaker, those which facilitate social
co-operation will become stronger. We know that all faculties and
organs are strengthened by exercise and weakened by disuse. Our
duty, then, is to cultivate the faculties that are social and sym
pathetic, and to neglect those that are not. Every good act benefits
not only others, but self ; for it strengthens the faculties by which it
is performed. Conversely, every bad act not only injures others,
but also the actor ; for it strengthens faculties which should be
unexercised and allowed to die out from disuse.
No churches for propitiating imaginary deities will be built, but
we shall propitiate our conscience by the fulfilment of duty. No
imaginary heaven will arouse hope, and no hideous phantoms of
eternal hell will terrify the mind ; but we shall face the unknowable
with calmness and without fear.
PRINTED BY WATTS AND CO., JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
�
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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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Some religious terms simply defined, for the use of children
Creator
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Marsden, E. L.
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 20 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Publisher's advertisements inside front cover. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Watts & Co.
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1914
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N474
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Religion
Education
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English
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Religious Education
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Issued by the Committee for the Repeal
of the Blasphemy Laws, South Place
Institute, Finsbury, London, E.C.
Ube (prime fllMnister anb tbe
3BIaspbein^ Xaws.
VERBATIM REPORT OF THE SPEECHES
AT THE RECENT DEPUTATION.
A deputation waited upon the Right Hon. Herbert
Asquith, M.P. (Prime Minister and First Lord of the
Treasury), at io Downing Street, on Thursday, March 26,
for the purpose of explaining the case for the repeal of the
Blasphemy Laws, and to ask the Government to provide
facilities for the passing of Mr. Holt’s Bill which is now
before the House of Commons. The Prime Minister was
accompanied by the Right Hon. Reginald McKenna
(Secretary of State for the Home Department) and the
Right Hon. Sir John Simon (Attorney-General).
The deputation, which was introduced by Mr. R. D.
Holt, M.P., consisted of Mr. William Archer, Mrs. H.
Bradlaugh Bonner, Mr. J. F. L. Brunner, M.P., Mr. Herbert
Burrows, Sir William Byles, M.P., Mr. H. G. Chancellor,
M.P., the Hon. John Collier, Mr. F. M. Cornford, Mr.
G. Lowes Dickinson, Mr. Silas K. Hocking, Mr. A. Lynch,
M.P., Dr. J. Ellis McTaggart, Mr. G. H. Radford, M.P.,
Mr. F. W. Read, Mr. Athelstan Rendall, M.P., Mr. S. H.
Swinny, Mr. A. A. Tayler, Mr. Percy Vaughan, Mr. B. W.
Warwick, Mr. Charles A. Watts, and Mr. Robert Young.
Mr. Asquith : I apologise, ladies and gentlemen, for
being so late.
Mr. Holt : Mr. Asquith, the honour of presenting this
deputation has been entrusted to me, and I should like first
of all, in the name of the whole deputation, to thank you
most warmly for your kindness in receiving us. (Hear,
hear.) We appreciate very highly the fact that you have
�2
THE PRIME MINISTER & THE BLASPHEMY LA Ik'S
received us at a time when you are naturally so busy, and I
hope we shall be able to show our gratitude by our brevity,
which I imagine will be the most acceptable form in which
we can exhibit it.
We come here to-day representing the signatories to a
document which was sent to you some time ago, and which
no doubt you have read. The signatories to that document
may, I think, be described as in the main persons carrying
a considerable amount of weight in the intellectual life of
the country. We desire to ask you to give the assistance of
the Government in removing from the Statute-book all laws
which in any form whatever put a penalty upon the holding
or the profession of opinion. We submit that, as matters
stand at present, that is not the case and that there are
actually on the Statute-book very distinct penalties upon
opinion which are in fact in certain cases enforced. I think
it can hardly be contended that there is not in practice a
penalty upon opinion, when we find that persons are punished
for certain offences only if they happen in connection there
with to have expressed heterodox opmions. It is not an
answer to a charge of religious persecution to say that the
object of that persecution is an unworthy person. I submit
that there is still religious persecution if the unworthy who
hold heterodox opinions are treated differently from the
unworthy who hold orthodox opinions.
I do not propose to take up any more of your time, Sir.
I will ask Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner, who is an expert on the
subject, to put before you as briefly as possible the objects
of this deputation.
Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner : Mr. Asquith, Sir,—My
colleagues have asked me to represent them on this matter,
partly because I happen to be Chairman of the Committee
for the Repeal of the Blasphemy Laws, and partly also
because I have had, through my father, the late Charles
Bradlaugh, close personal contact with the application of
those laws. They have thought, therefore, that I may be
able to state certain aspects of our case in asking for the
assistance of the Government in procuring the repeal of
those laws.
I do not know how far I may assume that you are familiar
with the origin and development of those laws. I would
merely remind you that they have been in existence in some
�THE PRIME MINISTER & THE BLASPHEMY LA WS
3
form or other for upwards of five hundred years. The first
was passed at the instigation of Pope Gregory XI in order
to strengthen the hands of the Catholic Church in the
suppression of heretics. Later on, when Protestantism
became in the ascendant, the same laws, with considerable
additions, were used to suppress heresy against the Protes
tant faith. The blasphemy of the fourteenth century had
become the orthodoxy of the sixteenth, and the oppressed
in their turn became the oppressors.
Prosecutions for blasphemy are usually taken under the
common law. In the year 1676 the Lord Chief Justice,
Sir Matthew Hale, in trying a man for blasphemy, said that,
Christianity being parcel of the law of England, to speak in
reproach of the Christian religion was to speak in subver
sion of the law ; and this reading was rigidly adhered to for
upwards of two hundred years. Numbers of persons were
pilloried, were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment,
and were sentenced to heavy fines. Not only were persons
imprisoned, but books such as Lord Byron’s Cain and
Shelley’s Queen Mab were said to violate the law, and even
scientific works were condemned. A volume of Lectures on
Physiology, by an eminent member of the Royal College of
Surgeons, was declared illegal because it impugned the
doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Contracts for
letting halls for lectures against Christianity were broken
with impunity; and when in 1867 an action for breach
of contract was brought, and carried on appeal to the
Court of Exchequer, four judges justified the breach on
the ground that it was impossible to deliver such lectures
without committing the crime of blasphemy. Legacies for
the propagation of opinions contrary to Christianity have
been annulled over and over again, and so late as 1903 a
legacy left to the Oldham Secular Society was declared
invalid because the bequest was not consistent with Chris
tianity.
In so far as civil proceedings are concerned, therefore,
the law has remained unchanged. So far as prosecutions
are concerned, it would appear to have been modified by the
ruling of Lord Chief Justice Coleridge in 1883. Lord
Chief Justice Coleridge, in April of that year, had two cases
before him for trial—two cases of blasphemous libel. In
•one of these my father, Mr. Bradlaugh, was a defendant,
�4
THE PRIME MINISTER & THE BLASPHEMY LA H'S
and was acquitted. In the other the defendants were
Messrs. Foote and Ramsey, who were already undergoing a
sentence of imprisonment for blasphemy passed in the
previous month by Mr. Justice North, who, with the
counsel for the prosecution, Sir Hardinge Giffard, defined
blasphemy on the old narrow lines of the law laid down by
Sir Matthew Hale. Lord Coleridge, in trying the case
before him only six weeks later, said it was no longer true
that Christianity was part of the law of the land, and that,
if the decencies of controversy were observed, even the
fundamentals of religion might be attacked without blas
phemy. This view of the law was immediately traversed
by Mr. Justice Stephen, and later by Mr. Baron Huddleston
and Mr. Justice Manisty. It was not challenged in the
courts at the time, because for twenty-five years after Lord
Chief Justice Coleridge’s judgment there was no case of
blasphemy prosecution. The next case took place in 1908,
and in the six years since then—I would respectfully ask
your attention to this—in the last six years we have had
more prosecutions for blasphemy in this country than in the
previous sixty years. In those cases the ruling of the late
Lord Coleridge has been accepted, and extended, by five
judges in succession.
I would, however, like to point out that in November
last, in Melbourne, in a libel case involving an accusation of
blasphemy, which was heard before Chief Justice Way, the
judge is reported to have said that Christianity is part of the
common law, and blasphemy, such as to speak contumeliously of Christ, is a crime. I am well aware that we do
not take our law from Australia; but it is by no means un
common for precedents to be cited from the colonies, and
even from America, in order to throw light on a confused
or doubtful point in our own law ; and the law of blasphemy
is at the present moment in an extremely confused con
dition, the reading as applied to civil cases being very
different from that as applied to criminal proceedings
during the last few years.
We desire to point out that the laws are not enforced
consistently, and that they are enforced at irregular intervals.
Sometimes, as in the case of Mr. Bradlaugh, the law is even
used as a cloak to gratify private malice. In recent prose
cutions there is not one case of any proceeding being taken
�THE PRIME MINISTER & THE BLASPHEMY LA WS
5
against a man of high position or a person of reputation.
All such are allowed to continue their arguments subversive
of Christianity without demur. The proceedings in every
case, without exception, have been taken against uncultured
men speaking at street corners, who raise a prejudice against
themselves and against the cause they advocate by their
manners and the methods they employ.
We would further point out that these men are sent to
prison solely because they are Freethinkers using offensive
arguments against Christianity. Christians may use exactly
similar arguments against Judaism or Mohammedanism or
Atheism, or even against some branch of Christianity other
than the Established Church ; and they may continue to
do so from one year’s end to another without coming within
the scope of the law. It is notorious that zealous Pro
testants do deliberately speak of the Virgin Mary in terms
grossly offensive to Roman Catholics, and Christians of a
certain type have no hesitation whatever in using coarse
and scurrilous language in speaking of Atheism in a manner
calculated to wound the feelings of other persons.
Mr. Asquith : As far as it goes, that is rather an
argument for the extension of the Blasphemy Laws so as
to cover a wider field.
Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner : I was just going to say that,
because none of those persons are put into prison, no one
is the worse ; and, if they were, no one would be the better.
All that we are asking this afternoon is that we who are not
Christians should be put on exactly the same level as those
who are Christians. We are asking for no special privileges.
We are only asking for equal treatment under the law.
In 1889 Mr. Bradlaugh brought in a Bill for the repeal of
the Blasphemy Laws—a Bill which was based upon one
drafted by Mr. Justice Stephen a few years earlier. It was
rejected upon its second reading, but Mr. Bradlaugh had
every intention to bring in the Bill again and again until
he succeeded in carrying through the House a measure
which would result in the abolition of all prosecutions for
the expression of opinion in matters relating to religion.
Mr. Asquith : I rather think I voted for his Bill.
Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner : I have the happiness and
pleasure to know that you did, Sir. It will be unneces
sary for me to add that there has been since his death—
�6
THE PRIME MINISTER & THE BLASPHEMY LA WS
which, unfortunately, took place almost immediately, and
his work was cut short in that as in other matters—nothing
further done in that way until Mr. Holt courageously under
took the task last year.
Now we are here this afternoon to ask the assistance of
the Government either in giving special facilities to Mr.
Holt, or in themselves bringing in a measure for the repeal
of those laws which the late Lord Coleridge pronounced to
be ferocious and inhuman, which Mr. Justice Stephen said
were essentially and fundamentally bad, which Lord Justice
Lindley said were cruelly persecuting, and which, he added,
judges could only hold remained unrepealed for the express
purpose of being enforced. We are here to ask your
assistance in striking off the last legal fetter on the expres
sion of opinion in matters of religion—a fetter forged five
hundred years ago. The repeal of these laws could do no
possible injury to Christianity ; it could not injure any single
human being. On the other hand, it would remove a grave
evil, by giving the Freethinkers a legal right to be honest.
At present the law denies us that right. We are honest
at our own risk. Many of us cheerfully take that risk,
although we feel that no one has any right to ask us to do
so. But, while we dojthat, we are only too conscious that
those laws create an atmosphere of such bitter prejudice
against the individual that it drives the weaker brethren to
silence and evasion. We venture to express the hope that
if you, Sir, and the Government agree with the opinions
expressed by judges, scholars, and broad-minded Church
men such as Canon Scott Holland and the Lord Bishop of
Lincoln—if you agree that these laws are bad, then we
venture to hope that you will give an ear to our appeal. If,
on the other hand, you think they are wise and just and
expedient, then personally my prayer would be that they
should be enforced according to the strict letter, first of all
against the wealthiest—those in the highest position and
those the most capable of defence—and that not until those
had been before the courts should the authorities conde
scend to use this sorry weapon against the poor,
the defenceless, the ignorant, and the worthless. (Hear,
hear.)
Professor Lowes Dickinson : Mr. Asquith, I desire to
say a few words to associate myself with the purposes of
�THE PRIME MINISTER & THE BLASPHEMY LA WS
7
this deputation. I should like especially to emphasize the
point made by Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner, that we are not
pleading for the abrogation of laws which have fallen into
desuetude, but of laws which are beginning to be put into
operation more and more. It is for that reason that this
question appears to me to be a really urgent question,
because prosecutions are increasing and not diminishing
under these laws, which I personally believe would be
advocated by very few people in this country to-day.
Mr. Asquith : How many of these prosecutions have
there been ?
Professor Lowes Dickinson : I have not the exact
number, Sir.
Mr. Asquith : Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner said they had
increased very much of late years. Have you any figures
to show the numbers?
Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner : I cannot give you the exact
figures. We have had three or four a year during the past
six years.
Mr. Asquith : In different parts of the country ?
Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner : Yes.
Mr. Asquith : These prosecutions have always been
initiated by the local authorities ?
Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner : Yes.
Mr. Asquith : Never by the Government?
Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner : No.
Professor Lowes Dickinson : These prosecutions are
now brought according to the law of blasphemy as laid
down by Lord Coleridge. It is no longer maintained
that attempts to subvert Christianity are contrary to the
laws of England. Such a contention would be contrary to
the whole facts of modern society, and if the law were
interpreted in that sense men of eminence in every occupa
tion and those holding the highest offices under the Crown
would be liable to prosecution. But I may say, as I under
stand the matter, it is not certain how this law may be
interpreted, and certainly Mr. Justice Stephen gave it as
his opinion that as things then stood a publisher could be
prosecuted for publishing the Cours de Philosophic Positive
and it is clear that numerous other books would fall under
the same ban.
Mr. Asquith : Is there any case in recent years in which
�8
THE PRIME MINISTER & THE BLASPHEMY LA WS
persons have been convicted under these laws for what I
may call blasphemy in the strict sense—that is to say,
blasphemy not accompanied by indecency or profanity of
expression ? When you talk of Comte’s work, for instance,
has there been any prosecution for any publication com
parable with that ?
Professor Lowes Dickinson : My point was that at
present it is still in dispute.
Mr. Asquith : I wanted to know if there was any case
of successful prosecution of anybody. Take Queen Mab
and Paine’s Age of Reason, both of which would have been
held in olden days to be blasphemous.
Professor Lowes Dickinson : I am not saying that there
is any recent case of the kind.
Mr. Percy Vaughan : The Queen Mab prosecution was
in the 40’s—a little more than half a century ago.
Mr. Asquith : That is the last where there is not some
element of indecency of expression, is it not ?
Professor Lowes Dickinson : I do not know of any
recent case where there was not an expression of indecency
or profanity—or rather coarse argument perhaps.
Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner : Which might have been
used by Christians without any objection being taken.
Professor Lowes Dickinson : On the point of language,
I only want to say this, that in effect this creates one law
for uneducated persons and another for educated persons;
one law for one class and another law for another class.
Because poor and uneducated men do not choose their
words with the same regard for other people’s feelings
which more educated people endeavour to show-----Mr. Asquith : I do not know that Shelley showed much
regard for other people’s feelings.
Professor Lowes Dickinson : I was not referring to
Shelley; but in recent years the prosecutions have all been
of poor men, and I think it is likely that that will continue
to be the case in the future. I am not a distinguished
person myself; but I think if I had stood up in the market
place and repeated what Mr. Stewart said at Leeds, it is
very doubtful whether I should have been prosecuted, and
if I had I think there might have been rather more public
disturbance than there was in the case of the prosecution
of Mr. Stewart. I think it is a preposterous state of the
�THE PRIME MINISTER & THE BLASPHEMY LA WS
9
law to say it shall be an offence to hurt people’s feelings,
whether about religion or anything else.
I am not myself in the habit of deliberately wounding
people’s feelings. But I am certain you cannot come
into contact with certain matters without doing so ; and
many people’s feelings are daily being wounded about
matters as to which they feel strongly. This particular
offence of wounding people’s feelings may exist in
all sorts of matters, but at present it is only punishable
by law in matters of religion. I venture to suggest that
■the ordinary Englishman feels a good deal more strongly
about politics than he does about religion. My own
feelings are exasperated daily by what I read about political
subjects, and I venture to say that if this law of blasphemy
was extended so as to cover the wounding of people’s
feelings in regard to politics the whole of the House of
•Commons would be in prison. (Laughter.)
Mr. Silas K. Hocking : Mr. Asquith, I have not very
much to say. I associate myself with this deputation
because, as what would be termed an ordinary Christian
man, I feel that those laws are out of harmony with the free
spirit of the twentieth century. I do not think any man
ought to be punished for his beliefs or unbeliefs, or for
criticizing the beliefs of other people, or for defending
strongly his own beliefs. Of course it is almost impossible,
I think, to criticize the beliefs of other people without using
what is termed offensive language. It is so in politics, and
it is equally so in religion. I myself deprecate as strongly
as anybody the use of coarse or unseemly language; but
language, like deportment, is a matter largely of taste and of
gentlemanly feeling. And it does not seem to be right that
a man should be punished just because he is not a gentle
man. Moreover, in the strict interpretation of these laws,
■if they were strictly and literally interpreted and enforced, I
fancy that a great many very respectable people, and a great
many religious people, would find themselves in the dock, or
.perhaps in prison. And as I look at the question myself, I
agree with what has been said by others—that there is as
much blasphemy, shall we say, inside the Churches as
outside. For, after all, what is blasphemy to one may be a
rsort of beatitude to another. It depends upon the point of
■view. And, consequently, these laws have to be interpreted
�IO
THE PRIME MINISTER & THE BLASPHEMY LA ITS
very loosely, it seems to me, and cannot be decided except
from the point of view of a particular individual. For
instance, a Unitarian denying the divinity of Christ—well,
many of us would say that that is blasphemy. A priest
preaching about transubstantiation—some strong Protestants
might think his language was blasphemous. So that the
whole question of these laws seems to be confused, and I dothink that the time has come in the interests of freedom of
speech—not of offensive speech or of obscene speech, at
any rate, but in the interests of speech, in the interests of
freedom of conscience—when these abuses should be swept
away. I understand that you yourself, Sir, voted for Mr.
Bradlaugh’s Bill when he brought it in; and I gather
from that that you do not need convincing by this deputa
tion.
Mr. Asquith : That was in my hot youth.
Mr. Silas K. Hocking : Well, it was in my hot youth
that he brought it in, and now that I am as old as you, Sir,
or a little older, I find myself to-day in precisely the same
position as then; and I feel as strongly about these laws of
blasphemy now as I did then. I hold no brief for the par
ticular individual whose imprisonment has brought this
case to a head ; I am not here on that ground at all. I
dissociate myself from him altogether in his views and in
the expression of his views. But in the interests of religious
freedom I submit that it is time something should be done
by the Government to remove these, as I think, objection
able laws from the Statute-book. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. S. H. Swinny : I just want to mention two points.
The first point is that we do not want to abolish prosecu
tions for obscenity or indecency under the ordinary law;
and secondly (this was suggested to me by a remark you
made), so far from these laws being a means of promoting
propriety of controversy, they have the opposite effect—that
they render it extremely difficult for those who are anxious
that their friends should keep to the decencies of contro
versy, to in any way interfere with them or object to what
they are doing. Where people, for pursuing a certain kind
of controversy, are liable to criminal prosecution, it becomes
extremely difficult for those who would have most influence
over them—that is, for those persons who agree with their
views and disagree with their methods—to object strongly
�THE PRIME MINISTER & THE BLASPHEMY LAWS ir
to the methods they pursue, for by so doing they may hold
them up as proper objects for prosecution.
Sir William Byles : Mr. Asquith, I am sure you don’t
want any more. You know all about it as well as any of
us. But there are quite a group of members of Parliament
here, and I think it has been thought that perhaps one of
us—I am the eldest—should add just one word of agree
ment with the speakers who have addressed you.
I myself come of ancestry on both sides of men and
women who have suffered for their opinions, and that has
made me an active antagonist of these restraining laws.
They are medieval in character. They are utterly out of
date, they are incongruous, and they are unfit for the
twentieth century. They are a challenge to every new-born
thought; they are an insult to every unorthodox person, and
our friend Mr. Holt has introduced a Bill in the House of
Commons, as I think you know—a very short Bill—and
we want to get it through. You know well enough the
difficulty even of getting a second reading in private
members’ time for a Bill of that kind. You have the
power to help us to pass it if we can get a majority of
members of the House of Commons. (Hear, hear.) You
are very firm in your saddle, Mr. Asquith, but you have had
a warning that the end might come rather quickly some
day-----Mr. Asquith : I do not know what you mean at all.
Sir William Byles : You have had a warning not to
defer too late to add this fresh sprig to your laurel wreath.
(Laughter.) You will have many things to your credit
when you go out; you will have much honour from your
people ; but if you were to associate yourself with this
movement for the liberation of thought from all these legal
restrictions, I think that all intellectual, thoughtful people
would be grateful.
Mr. H. G. Chancellor, M.P.: May I be allowed to say
just one word? The position of Liberal members in the
House is rather unpleasant, arising from the fact that,
although you have nothing whatever to do with the adminis
tration of these laws (they are administered locally by local
magistrates), you get all the discredit for them. And the
thing that is being said now is that under a Liberal Govern
ment more prosecutions are taking place on this ground
�j2
THE PRIME MINISTER & THE BLASPHEMY LA IVS
than during the long years of the previous administrations
of Conservative Governments. Those of us who are
Liberals, and who believe in the right to free thought,
and to whom these laws are detestable, are rather restive
under the continuance of such a state of things, and we
sincerely hope that you will see your way to giving the
necessary facilities to enable this Bill to pass into law.
Mr. Asquith : Ladies and Gentlemen, I am glad to have
the pleasure of seeing you here to-day, and of hearing what
you have had to say upon this subject. I am glad to
notice, as I should have expected, that, whatever increase
there may have been of recent years in prosecutions under
this head of the law, you realize it is not due to any action
on the part of the Executive Government. (Hear, hear.)
The matter rests entirely with the local police authorities,
and I am not aware of any case in which the Metropolitan
Police, which is under the control of my right honourable
friend the Home Secretary, has initiated proceedings in any
case of this kind.
A Member of the Deputation : There was Boulter’s
case — at Islington—which came before Mr. Justice
Phillimore.
Mr. McKenna : That was before my time.
Mr. Asquith : That is the latest, at any rate.
Mr. McKenna : I have had none during my time.
Mr. Chancellor : There was a case at Clapham
Common since that of Boulter—in 1910.
Mr. McKenna : That was a breach of the peace.
Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner : The Highbury case—
Boulter’s case—was in 1908.
Mr. McKenna : Yes, 1908.
Mr. Asquith : I only wanted to make that clear—that,
as a matter of fact, whatever increase there may have been
in such prosecutions has been due to the zeal, well or ill
directed, of the local authorities, and not to the action of
the central Government.
Well, of course, there is a great deal in all this that is
absolutely common ground among us. No one can defend
the machinery of the existing state of the law upon this
subject. It is partial, because such protection as it gives,
and such offences as it creates, are mainly in defence of
Christianity, according to the dictum of Lord Hale part of
�THE PRIME MINISTER & THE BLASPHEMY LA IYS 13.
the law of England, and I think in a more limited sense
Christianity as established by law—that is to say, as
embodied in the doctrines and discipline of the Church
of England. I do not think you could at any time have
undertaken a successful prosecution for blasphemy against
the doctrines of the dissenting sects—certainly not of the
Roman Catholic Church or of the Jewish communion ; and
our fellow subjects in India, who live under a comprehen
sive criminal code,&re, at any rate in this matter, in advance
of us. For the offence there is an offence treated impar
tially against any form of religion, whatever that form may
be. That is an obvious and unjustifiable flaw in our
existing law.
As regards the statute law, I have been looking at this
Bill of Mr. Holt’s, and I do not imagine that there is any
body who would dissent from the statement that most of
these statutes are altogether obsolete. I do not think any
of the recent prosecutions have taken place under them,
and I agree with you in thinking they might all be swept
off the book with very great advantage, or at least with no
real hurt. In fact, the real difficulty is the common law—
not the statute law made by Parliament, but the common law
as made by the judges. The interpretation of the common
law by the judges has varied from time to time. In the
eighteenth century and the early part of the nine
teenth century the publication of works like The Age of
Reason, Queen Mab, Cain, and so forth, was held to fall
within the scope of the Blasphemy Laws, and was punished
accordingly. Of late years a more restricted view has been
taken by the judges and applied by the courts. How it
originated (it is one of the many illustrations we have of
judge-made law in this country) it is difficult to say, but it
amounts to this—that, according to the dictum of Lord
Coleridge, which has been referred to several times, and in
which he was repeating, if my memory serves me rightly, a
similar decision given by his father, Mr. Justice Coleridge,
many years before, so long as the decencies are observed
the fundamentals of religion may be attacked—a statement
which would have given great trouble and disquietude to
Lord Hale, Lord Eldon, and many other of our most
eminent judges in the past. That shows, of course, a
tendency—I do not say it is other than a very beneficial
�14
the PRIME MINISTER & THE BLASPHEMY LAWS
tendency—-on the part of the judges to restrict the scope
within which this doctrine can be applied. Nowl understand
your desire to be that we should go a step further, and that
even this attenuated fragment, or relic, of the old Blasphemy
Law should altogether disappear. (Hear, hear.) And I con
fess, speaking for myself, and only for myself, I am in sym
pathy with you. (Hear, hear.) I can see no good object—
certainly no object which is bound up in any way with the
cause of religion—in the maintenance and enforcement of
these laws. (Hear, hear.) They are partial, as I have
already pointed out; they are uncertain, being differently
interpreted from generation to generation ; and I am afraid
there is a certain amount of truth in what was said by some
of the speakers to-day—that they are rarely enforced except
against comparatively ill-educated and humble persons,
which of course adds a sense of injustice—special injustice
—to a grievance which is already not inconsiderable. I
do not know of any object which they serve. I think, of
course, it is necessary to see that we do not lose any
security or safeguard that the law at present provides against
breaches of the peace—(hear, hear)—or violent or offensive
language. (Hear, hear.) That is not confined, as has
been pointed out, to the sphere of religion. There are
many other spheres of life in which, as some of us are
more or less voluntarily cognisant, offences of that kind
are probably of more frequent occurrence, but in which
they are rarely visited with any prosecution or penalty.
I see no reason myself for making any special category of
offences in regard to religious as distinguished from other
forms of controversy. I think, if the law is adequately
defined and maintained against the use of any form of lan
guage which is reasonably calculated to create a breach of
the peace, the context in which that language is used, or
the purpose for which it is used, is wholly irrelevant.
Therefore, as I say, speaking for myself—and I think the
right honourable gentleman the Home Secretary agrees with
me, and the Attorney-General too—I think that this rather
outworn and obsolete chapter in our law might very well
disappear not only from the Statute-book, but from the
common law of the land. And although, as I said a few
moments ago, the vote which I gave in favour of Mr.
Bradlaugh’s Bill was given at a much earlier stage of my
�THE PRIME MINISTER & THE BLASPHEMY LA WS 15
political existence, I see no reason to repent it, or to doubt
that if the opportunity offered I should give a similar vote
again. (Hear, hear.)
I do not know what more you want.
Sir William Byles : Facilities for the Bill.
Mr. Asquith : Oh yes, I know. But there are so many
changes in the law of this country which are desirable on
their merits that, as my friend Sir William Byles knows very
well, no Government, even with the most comprehensive
programme and with the most stable majority, not liable
to any of those accidents or incidents to which he rather
obscurely referred—(laughter)—can possibly include all of
them in its legislative projects for any given year. We have
a pretty heavy cargo to carry at present.
Sir William Byles : This is a very little thing.
Mr. Asquith : It is a little thing ; but every little counts,
and I am not at all sure that there is any room in the hold
of our ship for an additional legislative parcel, large or
small. Therefore I cannot honestly promise you anything
in the nature of Government time—which is what you
mean by this; that is what you really mean, you know—
which must be subtracted from other legislative purposes.
But sympathy and goodwill I do give you in full measure,
as far as I, at any rate, personally am concerned; and if
you can manage, in the many opportunities—the many
opportunities—which are still open to private members to
prosecute legislation which is beneficent in itself, and which
is generally desired—if you can manage to find a nook or
a cranny for this little Bill of yours, we shall be very happy
to support you to the utmost of our power. I cannot say
more than that.
Mr. R. D. Holt : It only remains for the deputation to
thank you most heartily for the way in which you have
received us, and for the speech which you have made to us.
I must say I quite appreciate your unwillingness to provide
Government time for the Bill, although it is quite obvious
—there is no use in concealing the fact—that we have no
more chance of passing that Bill unopposed after eleven at
night than we have of going off in an aeroplane; indeed,
rather the less chance of the two. Nevertheless, I should
like—and I am sure I speak on behalf of the whole depu
tation—to thank you most warmly for your sympathy and
�16 THE PRIME MINISTER & THE BLASPHEMY LA Jf'S
for your promise, and we shall live in hopes that circum
stances may enable you later on to go rather better even
than your promise.
The deputation then withdrew.
New’ and amplified edition ; 128 pp., cr. 8vo ; cloth, is. net, by
post is. 2d.; in paper cover, 6d. net, by post 7d.
PENALTIES UPON OPINION;
Or, Some Records of the Laws of Heresy
and Blasphemy.
By HYPATIA BRADLAUGH BONNER.
“ Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner carries her inquiry from early
mediaeval times up to the present. Her purpose is avowedly
propagandist, designed to excite an agitation for the repeal of
our obsolete blasphemy laws. For ready reference to enact
ments otherwise practically inaccessible her w'ork serves an
extremely useful end. It is written with much force, and under
stress of indignation against miscarriage ofjustice.”—Athenccum.
“ A very temperate little book, and it should certainly be read
by all those who have been rendered uneasy by the recent
outbreaks of police interference with the public propaganda of
unpopular minorities.”—Star.
“ Without expressing any opinion upon debatable points, we
may say that Mrs. Bonner’s history of the case is very useful
and instructive.”—Nottingham Guardian.
London : Watts & Co., 17 Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
PRINTED BY WATTS AND CO., JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
�
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The Prime Minister and the blasphemy laws : verbatim report of the speeches at the recent deputation
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Committee for the Repeal of the Blasphemy Laws
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Deputation to Mr Asquith, 26 March 1914, included William Archer, Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, and Charles A. Watts. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Committee for the Repeal of the Blasphemy Laws
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1914
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N174
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Blasphemy
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English
Blasphemy
Blasphemy-Law and Legislation-Great Britain
NSS