2 10 16 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/6de107ecb6cb1c012e8ef8d4e1665667.pdf?Expires=1779321600&Signature=VbvDyxL9zXoEWfxe-cau2mfuM6PUUIKWj1STsFW5sjk-AFq2KgI9%7EoiYnknF%7EZZXs4e1%7E6pgvjV6nnmSNl5YZUpbeXmPX%7Eo8Vie1C6zT9hvuyps1V5WNTomKFmt%7EAeTMbDAjFRIsZJGnKv5XGqjYepA-6O7V9v-3zRGOr07527TYSGLNMD%7E9PPdMntDxAdOg3TtIsv8HTESSKCSrTV18gHxgYt3n6vpj7L8t1WXDtzcuuT3dHw15L8ufiJDf5IZRLViwqIB5bhPhf%7EiPNNf4PJUiClvZazt5Swbc%7Emw4sTuw6ehA8aMIkZeYAg6N31xq02V5RdugKu75MvAYo6IrDw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 7c494523eee86ac7949e014048d24231 PDF Text Text national secular scc7^ MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE AN AGNOSTIC’S VIEW. BY COLONEL R. G. INGERSOLL. Price Twopence. LONDON: R. FORDER, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C. �LONDON: PRINTED BY G. W. EOOTE, AT 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C. �V9 0-73 0 M374- During November and December, 1889, the North American Review printed a number of articles by repre­ sentative men on the subject of Divorce. The editor framed a series of four questions, which the various writers replied to. Colonel Ingersoll answered them seriatim and fully, without the least evasion or reserve, having a habit, not only of meaning what he says, but of saying what he means. His article is now reproduced for the benefit of English readers. It is a very important contribution to the literature of the marriage question, and it is to be hoped that those who are privileged to read it will circulate it amongst their friends and acquaintances. ��MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. Question (1). Do you believe in the principle of divorce under any circumstances ? The world for the most part is ruled by the tomb, and the living are tyrannised over by the dead. Old ideas, long after the conditions under which they were produced have passed away, often persist in surviving. Many are disposed to worship the ancient—to follow the old paths, without inquiring where they lead, and without knowing exactly where they wish to go themselves. Opinions on the subject of divorce have been for the most part inherited from the early Christians. They have come down to us through theological and priestly channels. The early Christians believed that the world was about to be destroyed, or that it was to be purified by fire; that all the wicked were to perish, and that the good were to be caught up in the air to meet their Lord —to remain there, in all probability, until the earth was prepared as a habitation for the blessed. With this thought or belief in their minds, the things of this world were of comparatively no importance. The man who built larger barns in which to store his grain was re­ garded as a foolish farmer, who had forgotten, in his greed for gain, the value of his own soul. They regarded prosperous people as the children of Mammon, and the unfortunate, the wretched, and diseased, as the favorites of God. They discouraged all worldly pursuits, except the soliciting of alms. There was no time to marry or to be given in marriage ; no time to build homes and have families. All their thoughts were centred upon the heaven they expected to inherit. Business, love, all secular things, fell into disrepute. �6 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. Nothing is said in the Testament about the families of the Apostles ; nothing of family life, of the sacredness of home; nothing about the necessity of .education, the im­ provement and development of the mind. These things were forgotten, for the reason that nothing, in the pre­ sence of the expected event, was considered of any importance, except to be ready when the Son of Man should come. Such was the feeling, that rewards were offered by Christ himself to those who would desert their wives and children. Human love was spoken of with contempt. “Let the dead bury their dead. What is that to thee ? Follow thou me.” They not only believed these things, but acted in accordance with them; and, as a consequence, all the relations of life were denied or avoided, and their obligations disregarded. Marriage was discouraged. It was regarded as only one degree above open and unbridled vice, and was allowed only in consideration of human weakness. It was thought far better not to marry—that it was something grander for a man to love God than to love woman. The exceedingly godly, the really spiritual, believed in celibacy, and held the opposite sex in a kind of pious abhorrence. And yet, with that inconsistency so characteristic of theo­ logians, marriage was held to be a sacrament. The priest said to the man who married: “ Remember that you are caught for life. This door opens but once. Before this den of matrimony the tracks are all one way.” This was in the nature of a punishment for having married. The theologian felt that the contract of marriage, if not contrary to God’s command, was at least contrary to his advice, and that the married ought to suffer in some way, as a matter of justice. The fact that there could be no divorce, that a mistake could not be corrected, was held up as a warning. At every wedding­ feast this skeleton stretched its fleshless finger towards bride and groom. Nearly all intelligent people have given up the idea that the world is about to come to an end. . They do not now believe that prosperity is a certain sign of wicked­ ness, or that poverty and wretchedness are sure, certificates of virtue. They are hardly convinced that Dives should have been sent to hell simply for being rich, or that �MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 7 Lazarus was entitled to eternal joy on account of his poverty. We now know that prosperous people may be good, and that unfortunate people may be bad. We have reached the conclusion that the practice of virtue tends in the direction of .prosperity, and that a violation of the conditions of well-being brings, with absolute certainty, wretchedness and misfortune. There was a time when it was believed that the sin of an individual was visited upon the tribe, the community, or the nation to which he belonged. It was then thought that if a man or woman had made a vow to God, and had failed to keep the vow, God might punish the entire com­ munity ; therefore it was the business of the community to see to it that the vow was kept. That idea has been abandoned. As we progress, the rights of the individual are perceived, and we are now beginning dimly to discern that there are no rights higher than the rights of the individual. There was a time when nearly all believed in the reforming power of punishment—in the beneficence of brute force. But the world is changing. It was at one time thought that the Inquisition was the savior of society; that the persecution of the philosopher was requisite to the preservation of the State; and that, no matter what happened, the State should be preserved. We have now more light. And standing upon this luminous point that we call the present, let me answer your questions. Marriage is the most important, the most sacred, con­ tract that human beings can make. No matter whether we call it a contract or a sacrament, or both, it remains precisely the same. And no matter whether this contract is entered into in the presence of magistrate or priest, it is exactly the same. A true marriage is a natural concord and agreement of souls, a harmony in which discord is not even imagined; it is a mingling so perfect that only one seems to exist; all other considerations are lost; the present seems to be eternal. In this supreme moment there is no shadow—or the shadow is as luminous as light. And when two beings thus love, thus unite, this is the true marriage of soul and soul. That which is said before the altar, or minister, or magistrate, or in the presence of witnesses, is only the outward evidence of that which has �8 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. already happened within; it simply testifies to a union that has already taken place—to the uniting of two mornings that hope to reach the night together. Each has found the ideal: the man has found the one woman of all the world—the impersonation of affection, purity, passion, love, beauty, and grace; and the woman has found the one man of all the world-—her ideal, and all that she knows of romance, of art, courage, heroism, honesty, is realised in him. The idea of contract is lost. Duty and obligation are instantly changed into desire and joy, and two lives, like uniting streams, flow on as one. Nothing can add to the sacredness of this marriage, to the obliga­ tion and duty of each to each. There is nothing in the ceremony except the desire on the part of the man and woman that the whole world should know that they are really married, and that their souls have been united. Every marriage, for a thousand reasons, should be public, should be recorded, should be known; but, above all, to the end that the purity of the union should appear. These ceremonies are not only for the good and for the protection of the married, but also for the protection of their children, and of society as well. But, after all, the marriage remains a contract of the highest possible character—a contract in which each gives and receives a heart. The question then arises, Should this marriage, under any circumstances, be dissolved ? It is easy to understand the position taken by the various Churches ; but back of theological opinions is the question of contract. In this contract of marriage the man agrees to protect and cherish his wife. Suppose that he refuses to protect; that he abuses, assaults, and tramples upon the woman he wed. What is her redress ? Is she under any obligation to him ? He has violated the contract. He has failed to protect, and, in addition, he has assaulted her like a wild beast. Is she under any obligation to him 1 Is she bound by the contract he has broken ? If so, what is the con­ sideration for this obligation ? Must she live with him for his sake ? or, if she leaves him to preserve her life, must she remain his wife for his sake ? No intelligent man will answer these questions in the affirmative. If, then, she is not bound to remain his wife for the �MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 9 husband’s sake, is she bound to remain his wife because the marriage was a sacrament ? Is there any obligation on the part of the wife to remain with the brutal husband for the sake of God ? Can her conduct affect in any way the happiness of an infinite being ? Is it possible for a human being to increase or diminish the well-being of the Infinite ? The next question is as to the right of society in this matter. It must be admitted that the peace of society will be promoted by the separation of such people. Certainly society cannot insist upon a wife remaining with a husband who bruises and mangles her flesh. Even married women have a right to personal security. They do not lose, either by contract or sacrament, the right of self-preservation; this they share in common, to say the least of it, with the lowest living creatures. This will probably be admitted by most of the enemies of divorce; but they will insist that, while the wife has the right to flee from her husband’s roof and seek protection of kindred or friends, the marriage the sacrament—must remain unbroken. Is it to the interest of society that those who despise each other should live together ? Ought the world to be peopled by the children of hatred or disgust, the children of lust and loathing, or by the welcome babes of mutual love ? Is it possible that an infinitely wise and compassionate God insists that a helpless woman shall remain the wife of a cruel wretch 1 Can this add to the joy of Paradise, or tend to keep one harp in tune ? Can anything be more infamous than for a Government to compel a woman to remain the wife of a man she hates—of one whom she justly holds in abhor­ rence ? Does any decent man wish the assistance of. a constable, a sheriff, a judge, or a church, to keep his wife in his house ? Is it possible to conceive of a more con­ temptible human being than a man who would appeal to force in such a case ? It may be said that the woman is free to go, and that the courts will protect her from the brutality of the man who promised to be her protector; but where shall the woman go ? She may have no friends; or they may be poor ; her kindred may be dead. Has she no right to build another home ? Must this woman, full of kindness, affection, health, be tied and chained to this living corpse ? Is there no future for �10 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. her ? Must she be an outcast for ever—deceived and betrayed for her whole life ? Can she never sit by her own hearth,, with the arms of her children about her neck, and with a husband who loves and protects her ? Is she to become a social pariah, and is this for the bene­ fit of society ?—or is it for the sake of the wretch who destroyed her life ? The ground has been taken that woman would lose her dignity if marriage could be annulled. Is it necessary to lose your liberty in order to retain your moral character—in order to be pure and womanly ? Must a woman,, in order to retain her virtue, become a slave, a serf, with a beast for a master, or with society for a master, or with a phantom for a master ? If an infinite being is one of the parties to the contract, is it not the duty of this being to see to it that the con­ tract is carried out ? What consideration does the infinite being give ? What consideration does he receive ? If a wife owes no duty to her husband because the husband has violated the contract, and has even assaulted her life, is it possible for her to feel towards him any real thrill of affection ? If she does not, what is there left of marriage ? What part of this contract or sacrament remains in living force ? She cannot sustain the relation of wife, because she abhors him ; she cannot remain under the same roof, for fear that she may be killed. They sustain, then, only the relations of hunter and hunted—of tyrant and victim. Is it desirable that this relation should last through life, and that it should be rendered sacred by the ceremony of a church ? Again I ask, Is it desirable to have families raised under such circumstances ? Are we in need of children born of such parents ? Can the virtue of others be preserved only, by this destruction of happiness, by this perpetual imprisonment ? A marriage without love is bad enough, and a marriage for wealth or position is low enough; but what shall we say of a marriage where the parties actually abhor each other 1 Is there any morality in this ? any virtue in this ? Is there virtue in retaining the name of wife, or husband, without the real and true relation ? Will any good man say, will any good woman declare, that a true, �MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 11 loving woman should be compelled to be the mother of children whose father she detests ? Is there a good woman in the world who would not shrink from this her­ self ; and is there a woman so heartless and so immoral that she would force another to bear that from which she would shudderingly and shriekingly shrink ? Marriages are made by men and women, not by society; not by the State; not by the Church; not by supernatural beings. By this time we should know that nothing is moral that does not tend to the well-being of sentient beings j that nothing is virtuous the result of which is not good. We know now, if we know anything, that all the reasons for doing right, and all the reasons against doing wrong, are here in this world. We should have imagination enough to put ourselves in the place of another. Let a man suppose himself a helpless woman beaten by a brutal husband—would he advocate divorces then ? Few people have an adequate idea of the sufferings of women and children, of the number of wives who tremble when they hear the footsteps of a returning husband, of the number of children who hide when they hear the voice of a father. Few people know the number of blows that fall on the flesh of the helpless every day, and few know the nights of terror passed by mothers who hold babes to their breasts. Compared with these, all the hardships of poverty borne by those who love each other are as nothing. Men and women truly married bear the suffer­ ings and misfortunes of poverty together. They console each other. In the darkest night they see the radiance of a star, and their affection gives to the heart of each perpetual sunshine. The good home is the unit of the good government. The hearth-stone is the corner-stone of civilisation. Society is not interested in the preservation of hateful homes, of homes where husbands and wives are selfish, cold, and cruel. It is not to the interest of society that good women should be enslaved, that they should live in fear, or that they should become mothers by husbands whom they hate. Homes should be filled with kind and generous fathers, with true and loving mothers; and when they are so filled the world will be civilised. Intelligence will rock the cradle; justice will sit in the courts; wisdom in the �12 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. legislative halls; and above all and over all, like the dome of heaven, will be the spirit of liberty. Although marriage is the most important and the most sacred contract that human beings can make, still, when that contract has been violated, courts should have the power to declare it null and void upon such conditions as may be just. As a rule, the woman dowers the husband with her youth, her beauty, her love—with all she has; and from this contract certainly the husband should never be released, unless the wife has broken the conditions of that contract. Divorces should be granted publicly, precisely as the marriage should be solemnised. Every marriage should be known, and there should be witnesses, to the end that the character of the contract entered into should be understood; the record should be open and public. And the same is true of divorces. The conditions should be determined, the property should be divided by a court of equity, and the custody of the children given under regulations pre­ scribed. Men and women are not virtuous by law. Law does not of itself create virtue, nor is it the foundation or fountain of love. Law should protect virtue, and law should protect the wife, if she has kept her contract, and the husband, if he has fulfilled his. But the death of love is the end of marriage. Love is natural. Back of all ceremony burns and will forever burn the sacred flame. There has been no time in the world’s history when that torch was extin­ guished. In all ages, in all climes, among all people, there has been true, pure, and unselfish love. Long before a ceremony was thought of, long before a priest existed, there were true and perfect marriages. Back of public opinion is natural modesty, the affections of the heart; and, in spite of all law, there is and forever will be the realm of choice. Wherever love is, it is pure; and everywhere, and at all times, the ceremony of marriage testifies to that which has happened within the temple of the human heart. Question (2). Ought divorced people to be allowed to marry under any circumstances 2 This depends upon whether marriage is a crime. If it is not a crime, why should any penalty be attached ? Can �MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 13 anyone conceive of any reason why a woman obtaining a divorce, without fault on her part, should be compelled as a punishment to remain forever single ? Why should she be punished for the dishonesty or brutality of another ? Why should a man who faithfully kept his contract of marriage, and who was deserted by an unfaithful wife, be punished for the benefit of society ? Why should he be doomed to live without a home ? There is still another view. We must remember that human passions are the same after as before divorce. To prevent remarriage is to give excuse for vice. Question (3). What is the effect of divorce upon the integrity of the family 2 The real marriage is back of the ceremony, and the real divorce is back of the decree. When love is dead, when husband and wife abhor each other, they are divorced. The decree records in a judicial way what has really taken place, just as the ceremony of marriage attests a contract already made. The true family is the result of the true marriage, and the institution of the family should above all things be preserved. What becomes of the sacredness of the home, if the law compels those who abhor each other to sit at the same hearth ? This lowers the standard, and changes the happy haven of home into the prison-cell. If we wish to preserve the integrity of the family, we must preserve the democracy of the fireside, the republicanism of the home, the absolute and perfect equality of husband and wife. There must be no exhibition of force, no spectre of fear. The mother must not remain through an order of court, or the command of a priest, or by virtue of the tyranny of society; she must sit in absolute freedom, the queen of herself, the sovereign of her own soul and of her own body. Real homes can never be preserved through force, through slavery, or superstition. Nothing can be more sacred than a home, no altar purer than the hearth. Question (4). Does the absolute prohibition of divorce, where it exists, contribute to the moral purity of society 2 We must define our terms. What is moral purity ? The intelligent of this world seek the well-being of them­ �14 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. selves and others. They know that happiness is the only good; and this they strive to attain. To live in accordance with the conditions of well-being is moral in the highest sense. To use the best instrumentalities to attain the highest ends is our highest conception of the moral. In other words, morality is the melody or the perfection of conduct. A man is not moral because he is obedient through fear or ignorance. Morality lives in the realm of perceived obligation, and where a being acts in accordance with perceived obligation, that being is moral. Morality is not the child of slavery. Ignorance is not the corner­ stone of virtue. The first duty of a human being is to himself. He must see to it that he does not become a burden upon others. To be self-respecting, he must endeavor to be self-sustaining. If by his industry and intelligence he accumulates a margin, then he is under obligation to do with that margin all the good he can. He who lives to the ideal does the best he can. In true marriage men and women give not only their bodies, but their souls. This is the ideal marriage; this is moral. They who give their bodies, but not their souls, are not married, whatever the ceremony may be; this is immoral. If this be true, upon what principle can a woman continue to sustain the relation of wife after love is dead 1 Is there some other consideration that can take the place of genuine affection 1 Can she be bribed with money, or a home, or position, or by public opinion, and still remain a virtuous woman ? Is it for the good of society that virtue should be thus crucified between Church and State ? Can it be said that this contributes to the moral purity of the human race 1 Is there a higher standard of virtue in countries where divorce is prohibited than in those where it is granted 1 Where husbands and wives who have ceased to love cannot be divorced there are mistresses and lovers. The sacramental view of marriage is the shield of vice. The world looks at the wife who has been abused, who has been driven from the home of her husband, and the world pities ; and when this wife is loved by some other man, the world excuses. So, too, the husband who cannot live in peace, who leaves his home, is pitied and excused. �MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 15 Is it possible to conceive of anything more immoral than for a husband to insist on living with a wife who has no love for him ? Is not this a perpetual crime ? Is the wife to lose her personality ? Has she no right of choice ? Is her modesty the property of another ? Is the man she hates the lord of her desire ? Has she no right to guard the jewels of her soul ? Is there a depth below this ? And is this the foundation of morality ? this the corner-stone of society ? this the arch that supports the dome of civilisa­ tion ? Is this pathetic sacrifice on the one hand, this sacri­ lege on the other, pleasing in the sight of heaven ? To me, the tenderest word in our language, the most pathetic fact within our knowledge, is maternity. Around this sacred word cluster the joys and sorrows, the agonies and ecstasies, of the human race. The mother walks in the shadow of death that she may give another life. Upon the altar of love she puts her own life in pawn. When the world is civilised, no wife will become a mother against her will. Man will then know that to enslave another is to imprison himself. �Works by Colonel R. G. Ingersoll, of Moses. The only complete edition in England. Accurate as Colenso, and fascinating as a novel. 132 pp. Is. Superior paper, cloth Is. 6d. Defence of Freethought. A Five Hours’ Speech at the Trial of C. B. Reynolds for Blasphemy. 6d. The Gods. 6d. Reply to Gladstone. With a Biography by J. M. Wheeler. 4d. Rome or Reason? A Reply to Cardinal Manning. 4d. Crimes against Criminals. 3d. Oration on Walt Whitman. 3d. Oration on Voltaire. 3d. Abraham Lincoln. 3d. Paine the Pioneer. 2d. Humanity’s Debt to Thomas Paine. 2d. Ernest Renan and Jesus Christ. 2d. True Religion. 2d. The Three Philanthropists. 2d. Love the Redeemer. 2d. Is Suicide a Sin? 2d. Last Words on Suicide. 2d. Some Mistakes God and the State. 2d. Why am I an Agnostic Part I. 2d. Why am I an Agnostic ? Part II. 2d. Faith and Fact. Reply to Dr. Field. 2d God and Man. Second reply to Dr. Field. 2d. The Dying Creed. 2d. The Limits of Toleration. A Discussion with the Hon. F. D. Ooudert andGrov. S. L. Woodford. 2d. The Household of Faith. 2d. Art and Morality. 2d. Do I Blaspheme ? 2d. The Clergy and Common Sense. 2d. Social Salvation. 2d. Marriage and Divorce. An Agnostic’s View. 2d. Skulls. 2d. The Great Mistake, id. Live Topics. Id. Myth and Miracle. Id. Real Blasphemy. Id. Repairing the Idols. Id. Christ and Miracles. Id. Creeds & Spirituality. Id. COL. INGERSOLL’S NEW LECTURE, ABOUT THE HOLY BIBLE. Price Sixpence. READ THE FREETHINKER, Edited by G. W. FOOTE. ■Published every Thursday. Price Twopence. London : R. Forder, 28 Stonecutter-street, E.C. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Marriage and divorce : an agnostic's view Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 15 p. ; 20 cm. Notes: No. A5 in Stein checklist (not identified or located by Stein). Publisher's advertisements on back cover. Reproduced from the North American Review. Printed by G.W. Foote. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available R. Forder Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1890?] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N374 Subject The topic of the resource Marriage Agnosticism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Marriage and divorce : an agnostic's view), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Divorce Marriage NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/e4388cf1e70834be45575fc50ab34d76.pdf?Expires=1779321600&Signature=GMJxiRlk5gEYf1ITIj14CmudmIvi339nzjNZQJehbCMNQzlT%7E%7EUrPT7zHuXMgfuMSkLHxBC-53sOljQCDN8BbrtXYNzPhPS5vqJ5SM00-9k5k9uKE0H0LuvtbaJXT7LH00eywVwA70-vY9zXjcyn8Ts8WifkXw-fe2mudaQwQ42Lce5s6p4HK7m9FcQhCkyYUtkfQO2PXRTKvLIWcYqNShOrmun1Pi22sHJV5UYeisf19siYeoRFUCs0TxLwNTpjJPG-yRaZZYyR5gjy3eSHWiOq919qEvT-a8eGLN5hh6Ju8vuWtmTVKdQMidiuQFAMkOOGgYE330U8Y8S3oMxMAA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 24130d6aa440635deab51b5713c7b3f3 PDF Text Text NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY / WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC? PRICE TWOPENCE. LONDON: FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 2 Newcastle-street, Farringdon-street, E.C. 1902. �WORKS BY The Late R. G. INGERSOLL The House of Death. Funeral Orations and Addresses, is. Mistakes of Moses, is. Cloth, 2s. 6d. The Devil. 6d. Superstition. 6d. Shakespeare. 6d. The Gods. 6d. The Holy Bible. 6d. Reply to Gladstone. With an Introduction by G. W. Foote. 4d. Rome or Reason ? A Reply to Cardinal Man­ ning. 4d. Crimes against Criminals 3dOration on Walt Whit­ man. 3d. Oration on Voltaire. 3d. Abraham Lincoln. 3d. Paine the Pioneer. 2d. Humanity’s Debt to Thomas Paine. 2d. Ernest Renan and Jesus Christ. 2d. Three Philanthropists. 2d. Love the Redeemer. 2d. The Ghosts. 3d. What Must I do to be Saved ? 2d. What is Religion ? 2d. Is Suicide a Sin ? 2d. Last Words on Suicide. 2d. God and the State. 2d. Faith and Fact. Reply to Dr. Field. 2d. God and Man. Second reply to Dr. Field. 2d. The Dying Creed. 2d. The Limits of Tolera­ tion. A Discussion with the Hon. F. D. Coudert and Gov. S. L. Woodford. 2d. Household of Faith. 2d. Art and Morality. 2d. Do I Blaspheme ? 2d. Social Salvation. 2d. Marriage and Divorce. 2d. Skulls. 2d. The Great Mistake, id. Live Topics, id. Myth and Miracle, id. Real Blasphemy, id. Why am I an Agnostic ? 2d. Christ and Miracles. id. Creeds and Spirituality. id. The Christian Religion. 3d- Orders to the amount of 5s. and ibpwards sent post free. London: THE FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING Co., Ltd., 2 Newcastle Street, Farringdon Street, E.C. �WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC ? ------- ♦------- The same rules or laws of probability must govern in religious questions as in others. There is no subject— and can be none—concerning which any human being is under any obligation to believe without evidence. Neither is there any intelligent being who can, by any possibility, be flattered by the exercise of ignorant credulity. The man who, without prejudice, reads and understands the Old and Old Testaments will cease to be an orthodox Christian. The intelligent man who investigates the religion of any country without fear and without pre­ judice will not and cannot be a believer. Most people, after arriving at the conclusion that Jehovah is not God, that the Bible is not an inspired book, and that the Christian religion, like other religions, is the creation of man, usually say : “ There must be a Supreme Being, but Jehovah is not his name, and the Bible is not his word. There must be somewhere an over-ruling Providence or Power.” This position is just as untenable as the other. He who cannot harmonise the cruelties of the Bible with the goodness of Jehovah, cannot harmonise the cruelties of Nature with the goodness and wisdom of a supposed Deity. He will find it impossible to account for pesti­ lence and famine, for earthquake and storm, for slavery, for the triumph of the strong over the weak, for the countess victories of injustice. He will find it impos­ sible to account for martyrs—for the burning of the good, the noble, the loving, by the ignorant, the malicious, and the infamous. How can the Deist satisfactorily account for the sufferings of women and children ? In what way will �4 he justify religious persecution—the flame and sword of religious hatred ? Why did his God sit idly on his throne and allow his enemies to wet their swords in the blood of his friends ? Why did he not answer the prayers of the imprisoned, of the helpless ? And when he heard the lash upon the naked back of the slave, why did he not also hear the prayer of the slave ? And when children were sold from the breasts of mothers, why was he deaf to the mother’s cry ? It seems to me that the man who knows the limita­ tions of the mind, who gives the proper value to human testimony, is necessarily an Agnostic. He gives up the hope of ascertaining first or final causes, of comprehend­ ing the supernatural, or of conceiving of an infinite personality. From out the words Creator, Preserver, and Providence, all meaning falls. The mind of man pursues the path of least resistance, and the conclusions arrived at by the individual depend upon the nature and structure of his mind, on his experi­ ence, on hereditary drifts and tendencies, and on the countless things that constitute the difference in minds. One man, finding himself in the midst of mysterious phe­ nomena, comes to the conclusion that all is the result of design; that back of all things is an infinite personality —that is to say, an infinite man ; and he accounts for all that is by simply saying that the universe was created and set in motion by this infinite personality, and that it is miraculously and supernaturally governed and pre­ served. This man sees with perfect clearness that matter could not create itself, and therefore he imagines a creator of matter. He is perfectly satisfied that there is design in the world, and that, consequently, there must have been a designer. It does not occur to him that it is necessary to account for the existence of an infinite personality. He is perfectly certain that there can be no design without a designer, and he is equally certain that there can be a designer who was not designed. The absurdity becomes so great that it takes the place of a demonstration. He takes it for granted that matter was created, and that its creator was not. He assumes �5 that a creator existed from eternity, without cause, and created what is called “matter” out of nothing; or, whereas there was nothing, this creator made the some­ thing that we call substance. Is it possible for the human mind to conceive of an infinite personality ? Can it imagine a beginning-less being, infinitely powerful and intelligent ? If such a being existed, then there must have been an eternity during which nothing did exist except this being; because, if the universe was created, there must have been a time when it was not, and back of that there must have been an eternity during which nothing but an infinite personality existed. Is it possible to imagine an infinite intelligence dwelling for an eternity in infinite nothing ? How could such a being be intelligent ? What was there to be intelligent about ? There was but one thing to know—namely, that there was nothing except this being ? How could such a being be powerful ? There was nothing to exercise force upon. There was nothing in the universe to suggest an idea. Relations could not exist—except the relation between infinite intelligence and infinite nothing. The next great difficulty is the act of creation. My mind is so that I cannot conceive of something being created out of nothing. Neither can I conceive of any­ thing being created without a cause. Let me go one Stop further. It is just as difficult to imagine something being created with, as without, a cause. To postulate a cause does not in the least lessen the difficulty. In spite of all, this lever remains without a fulcrum. We cannot conceive of the destruction of substance. The stone can be crushed to powder, and the powder can be ground to such a fineness that the atoms can only be distinguished by the most powerful microscope, and we can then imagine these atoms being divided and subdivided again and again ; but it is impossible for us to conceive of the annihilation of the least possible imaginable fragment of the least atom of which we can think. Consequently, the mind can imagine neither creation nor destruc­ tion. From this point it is very easy to reach the �6 generalisation that the indestructible could not have been created. These questions, however, will be answered 'by each individual according to the structure of his mind, accord­ ing to his experience, according to his habits of thought, and according to his intelligence or his ignorance, his prejudice or his genius. Probably a very large majority of mankind believe in the existence of supernatural beings, and a majority of what are known as civilised nations, in an infinite per­ sonality. In the realm of thought majorities do not determine. Each brain is a kingdom, each mind is a sovereign. The universality of a belief does not even tend to prove its truth. A large majority of mankind have believed in what is known as God, and an equally large majority have as implicitly believed in what is known as the Devil. These beings have been inferred from phenomena. They were produced for the most part by ignorance, by fear and by selfishness. Man in all ages has endeavored to account for the mysteries of life and death, of substance, of force, for the ebb and flow of things, for earth and star. The savage, dwelling in his cave, subsisting on roots and reptiles, or on beasts that could be slain with club and stone, surrounded by count­ less objects of terror, standing by rivers, so far as he knew, without source or end, by seas with but one shore, the prey of beasts mightier than himself, of diseases strange and fierce, trembling at the voice of thunder, blinded by the lightning, feeling the earth shake beneath him, seeing the sky lurid with thev olcano’s glare—fell prostrate and begged for the protection of the Unknown. In the long night of savagery, in the midst of pesti­ lence and famine, through the long and dreary winters, crouched in dens of darkness, the seeds of superstition were sown in the brain of man. The savage believed, and thoroughly believed, that everything happened in reference to him ; that he by his actions could excite the anger, or by his worship placate the wrath, of the Unseen. He resorted to flattery and prayer. To the �7 best of his ability, he put in stone, or rudely carved in wood, his idea of this God. For this idol he built a hut, a hovel, and at last a cathedral. Before these images he bowed, and at these shrines, whereon he lavished his wealth, he sought protection for himself and for the ones he loved. The few took advantage of the ignorant many. They pretended to have received messages from the Unknown. They stood between the helpless multitude ajnd the gods. They were the carriers of flags of truce. At the court of heaven they presented the cause of man, and upon the labor of the deceived they lived. The Christian of to-day wonders at the savage who bowed before his idol; and yet it must be confessed that the god of stone answered prayer and protected his worshippers precisely as the Christian’s God answers prayer and protects his worshippers to-day. My mind is so that it is forced to the conclusion that substance is eternal; that the universe was without beginning and will be without end ; that it is the one eternal existence; that relations are transient and evanescent; that organisms are produced and vanish; that forms change—but that the substance of things is from eternity to eternity. It may be that planets are born and die, that constellations will fade from the infinite spaces, that countless suns will be quenched— but the substance will remain. The questions of origin and destiny seem to be beyond the powers of the human mind. Heredity is on the side of superstition. All our ignorance pleads for the old. In most men there is a feeling that their ancestors were exceedingly good and brave and wise, and that in all things pertaining to religion their conclusions should be followed. They believe that their fathers and mothers were of the best, and that that which satisfied them should satisfy their children. With a feeling of reverence they say that the religion of their mother is good enough and pure enough and reasonable enough for them. In this way the love of parents and the reverence for ancestors have unconsciously bribed the reason �8 and put out, or rendered exceedingly dim, the eyes of the mind. There is a kind of longing in the heart of the old to live and die where their parents lived and died—a ten­ dency to go back to the homes of their youth. Around the old oak of manhood grow and cling these vines. Yet it will hardly do to say that the religion of my mother is good enough for me, any more than to say the geology, or the astronomy, or the philosophy of my mother is good enough for me. Every human being is entitled to the best he can obtain ; and if there has been the slightest improvement on the religion of the mother, the son is entitled to that improvement, and he should not deprive himself of that advantage by the mistaken idea that he owes it to his mother to perpetuate, in a reverential way, her ignorant mistakes. If we are to follow the religion of our fathers and mothers, our fathers and mothers should have followed the religion of theirs. Had this been done, there could have been no improvement in the world of thought. The first religion would have been the last, and the child would have died as ignorant as the mother. Progress would have been impossible, and on the graves of ancestors would have been sacrificed the intelligence of mankind. We know, too, that there has been the religion of the tribe, of the community, and of the nation, and that there has been a feeling that it was the duty of every member of the tribe or community, and of every citizen of the nation, to insist upon it that the religion of that tribe, of that community, of that nation, was better than that of any other. We know that all the prejudices against other religions, and all the egotism of nation and tribe, were in favour of the local superstition. Each citizen was patriotic enough to denounce the religions of other nations and to stand firmly by his own. And there is this peculiary about man : he can see the absur­ dities of other religions while blinded to those of his own. The Christian can see clearly enough that Mohammed was an imposter. He is sure of it, because the people �9 of Mecca who were acquainted with him declared that he was no prophet; and this declaration is received by Christians as a demonstration that Mohammed was not inspired. Yet these same Christians admit that the people of Jerusalem who were acquainted with Christ rejected him ; and this rejection they take as proof positive that Christ was the Son of God. The average man adopts the religion of his country, or, rather, the religion of his country adopts him. He is dominated by the egotism of race, the arrogance of nation, and the prejudice called patriotism. He does not reason—he feels. He does not investigate—he believes. To him the religions of other nations are absurd and infamous, and their gods monsters of ignorance and cruelty. In every country this average man is taught, first, that there is a supreme being ; second, that he has made known his will; third, that he will reward the true believer ; fourth, that he will punish the unbeliever, the scoffer and the blasphemer; fifth, that certain ceremonies are pleasing to his god; sixth, that he has established a church; and seventh, that priests are his representatives on earth. And the average man has no difficulty in determining that the god of his nation is the true God ; that the will of this true God is contained in the sacred scriptures of his nation ; that he is one of the true believers, and that the people of other nations—that is, believing other religions—are scoffers ; that the only true church is the one to which he belongs; and that the priests of his country are the only ones who have had or ever will have the slightest influence with this true God. All these absurdities to the average man seem self-evident propositions; and so he holds all the other creeds in scorn, and congratulates himself that he is a favourite of the one true God. If the average Christian had been born in Turkey, he would have been a Mohammedan; and if the average Mohammedan had been born in New England and educated at Andover, he would have regarded the damnation of the heathen as the “ tidings of great j°y-” �IO Nations have eccentricities, peculiarities, and halluci­ nations, and these find expression in their laws, customs, ceremonies, morals, and religions. And these are in great part determined by soil, climate, and the countless circumstances that mould and dominate the lives and habits of insects, individuals, and nations. The average man believes implicitly in the religion of his country, because he knows nothing of any other and has no desire to know. It fits him because he has been deformed to fit it, and he regards this fact of fit as an evidence of its inspired truth. Has a man the right to examine, to investigate, the religion of his own country—the religion of his father and mother ? Christians admit that the citizens of all countries not Christian have not only this right, but that it is their solemn duty. Thousands of missionaries are sent to heathen countries to persuade the believers in other religions not only to examine their superstitions, but to renounce them, and to adopt those of the mission­ aries. It is the duty of a heathen to disregard the religion of his country and to hold in contempt the creed of his father and of his mother. If the citizens of heathen nations have the right to examine the foundations of their religion, it would seem that the citizens of Christian nations have the same right. Christians, however, go further than this; they say to the heathen: You must examine your religion, and not only so, but you must reject it; and, unless you do reject it, and, in addition to such rejection, adopt ours, you will be eternally damned. Then these same Christians say to the inhabitants of a Christian country: You must not examine; you must not investigate; but whether you examine or, you must believe, or you will be eternally damned. If there be one true religion, how is it possible to ascertain which of all the religions the true one is ? There is but one way. We must impartially examine the claims of all. The right to examine involves the necessity to accept or reject. Understand me, not the right to accept or reject, but the necessity. From this conclusion there is no possible escape. If, then, we �II have the right to examine, we have the right to tell the conclusion reached. Christians have examined other religions somewhat, and they have expressed their opinion with the utmost freedom—that is to say, they have denounced them all as false and fraudulent, have called their gods idols and myths, and their priests impostors. The Christian does not deem it worth while to read the Koran. Probably not one Christian in a thousand ever saw a copy of that book. And yet all Christians are perfectly satisfied that the Koran is the work of an impostor. No Presbyterian thinks it is worth his while to examine the religious systems of India; he knows that the Brahmins are mistaken, and that all their miracles are falsehoods. No Methodist cares to read the life of Buddha, and no Baptist will waste his time Studying the ethics of Confucius. Christians of every sort and kind take it for granted that there is only one true religion, and that all except Christianity are abso­ lutely without foundation. The Christian world believes that all the prayers of India are unanswered ; that all the sacrifices upon the countless altars of Egypt, of Greece, and of Rome were without effect. They believe that all these mighty nations worshipped their gods in vain ; that their priests were deceivers or deceived ; that their ceremonies were wicked or meaningless ; that their temples were built by ignorance and fraud, and that no god heard their songs of praise, their cries of despair, their words of thankfulness; that on account of their religion no pestilence was stayed ; that the earthquake and volcano, the flood and storm, went on their ways of death—while the real God looked on and laughed at their calamities and mocked at their fears. We find now that the prosperity of nations has depended, not upon their religion, not upon the goodness or providence of some god, but on soil and climate and commerce, upon the ingenuity, industry, and courage of the people, upon the development of the mind, on the spread of education, on the liberty of thought and action ; and that in this mighty panorama of national life reason has built and superstition has destroyed. �12 Being satisfied that all believe precisely as they must, and that religions have been naturally produced, I have neither praise nor blame for any man. Good men have had bad creeds, and bad men have had good ones. Some of the noblest of the human race have fought and died for the wrong. The brain of man has been the trysting-place of contradictions. Passion often masters reason, and “ the state of man, like to a little kingdom, suffers then the nature of an insurrection.” In the discussion of theological or religious questions, we have almost passed the personal phase, and we are now weighing arguments instead of exchanging epithets and curses. They who really seek for truth must be the best of friends. Each knows that his desire can never take the place of fact, and that, next to finding truth, the greatest honor must be won in honest search. We see that many ships are driven in many ways by the same wind. So men, reading the same book, write many creeds and lay out many roads to heaven. To the best of my ability, I have examined the religions of many countries and the creeds of many sects. They are much alike, and the testimony by which they are substantiated is of such a character that to those who believe is promised an eternal reward. In all the sacred books there are some truths, some rays of light, some words of love and hope. The face of savagery is some­ times softened by a smile—the human triumphs and the heart breaks into song. But in these books are also found the words of fear and hate, and from their pages crawl serpents that coil and hiss in all the paths of men. For my part, I prefer the books that inspiration has not claimed. Such is the nature of my brain that Shakespeare gives me greater joy than all the prophets of the ancient world. There are thoughts that satisfy the hunger of the mind. I am convinced that Humboldt knew more of geology than the author of Genesis; that Darwin was a greater naturalist than he who told the story of the Flood ; that Laplace was better acquainted with the habits of the sun and moon than Joshua could have been, and that Haeckel, Huxley, and Tyndal �13 know more about the earth and stars, about the history of man, the philosophy of life—more that is of use, ten thousand times—than all the writers of the sacred books. I believe in the religion of reason—the gospel of this world ; in the development of the mind, in the accumu­ lation of intellectual wealth, to the end that man may free himself from superstitious fear, to the end that he may take advantage of the forces of nature to feed and clothe the world. Let us be honest with ourselves. In the presence of countless mysteries; standing beneath the boundless heaven sown thick with constellations; knowing that each grain of sand, each leaf, each blade of grass, asks of every mind the answerless question ; knowing that the simplest thing defies solution ; feeling that we deal with the superficial and the relative, and that we are for ever eluded by the real, the absolute—let us admit the limitations of our minds, and let us have the courage and the candor to say: We do not know. The Christian religion rests on miracles. There are no miracles in the realm of science. The real philo­ sopher does not seek to excite wonder, but to make that plain which was wonderful. He does not endeavor to astonish, but to enlighten. He is perfectly confident that there are no miracles in nature. He knows that the mathematical expression of the same relations, contents, areas, numbers and proportions must forever remain the same. He knows that there are no miracles in chemistry; that the attractions and repulsions, the loves and hatreds, of atoms are constant. Under like conditions, he is certain that like will always happen ; that the product has been and forever will be the same ; that the atoms or particles unite in definite, unvarying proportions—so many of one kind mix, mingle, and harmonise with just so many of another, and the surplus will be forever cast out. There are no exceptions. Substances are always true to their natures. They have no caprices, no prejudices, that can vary or control their action. They are “ the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.” �i4 In this fixedness, this constancy, this eternal integrity, the intelligent man has absolute confidence. It is use­ less to tell him that there was a time when fire would not consume the combustible, when water would not flow in obedience to the attraction of gravitation, or that there ever was a fragment of a moment during which substance had no weight. Credulity should be the servant of intelligence. The ignorant have not credulity enough to believe the actual, because the actual appears to be contrary to the evidence of their senses. To them it is plain that the sun rises and sets, and they have not credulity enough to believe in the rotary motion of the earth—that is to say, they have not intelligence enough to comprehend the absur­ dities involved in their belief, and the perfect harmony between the rotation of the earth and all known facts. They trust their eyes, not their reason. Ignorance has always been and always will be at the mercy of appear­ ance. Credulity, as a rule, believes everything except the truth. The semi-civilised believe in astrology, but who could convince them of the vastness of astronomical spaces, the speed of light, or the magnitude and number of suns and constellations ? If Hermann and Humboldt could have appeared before savages, which would have been regarded as a god ? When men knew nothing of mechanics, nothing of correlation of force, and of its indestructibility, they were believers in perpetual motion. So when chemistry was a kind of sleight-of-hand, or necromancy, something accomplished by the aid of the supernatural, people talked about the transmutation of metals, the universal solvent, and the philosopher’s stone. Perpetual motion would be a mechanical miracle; and the transmutation of metals would be a miracle in chemistry; and if we could make the result of multiplying two by two five, that would be a miracle in mathematics. No one expects to find a circle the diameter of which is just one-fourth of the circumference. If one could find such a circle then there would be a miracle in geometry. �i5 In other words, there are no miracles in any science. The moment we understand a question or subject, the miraculous necessarily disappears. If anything actually happens in the chemical world, it will under like condi­ tions happen again. No one need take an account of this result from the mouths of others: all can try the experiment for themselves. There is no caprice, and no accident. It is admitted, at least by the Protestant world, that the age of miracles has passed away, and, consequently, miracles cannot at present be established by miracles ; they must be substantiated by the testimony of wit­ nesses who are said by certain writers—or, rather, by uncertain writers—to have lived several centuries ago ; and this testimony is given to us, not by the witnesses themselves, not by persons who say that they talked with those witnesses, but by unknown persons who did not give the sources of their information. The question is : Can miracles be established except by miracles ? We know that the writers may have been mistaken. It is possible that they may have manufac­ tured these accounts themselves. The witnesses may have told what they knew to be untrue, or they may have been honestly deceived, or the stories may have been true as first told. Imagination may have added greatly to them, so that after several centuries of accre­ tion a very simple truth was changed to a miracle. We must admit that all probabilities must be against miracles, for the reason that that which is probable cannot by any possibility be a miracle. Neither the probable nor the possible, so far as man is concerned, can be miraculous. The probability therefore says that the writers and witnesses were either mistaken or dis­ honest. We must admit that we have never seen a miracle ourselves, and we must admit that, according to our experience, there are no miracles. If we have mingled with the world we are compelled to say that we have known a vast number of persons—including ourselves— to be mistaken, and many others who have failed to tell �the exact truth. The probabilities are on the side of our experience, and, consequently, against the miraculous ; and it is a necessity that the free mind moves along the path of least resistance. The effect of testimony depends on the intelligence and honesty of the witness and the intelligence of him who weighs. A man living in a community where the supernatural is expected, where the miraculous is sup­ posed to be of almost daily occurrence, will, as a rule, believe that all wonderful things are the result of super­ natural agencies. He will expect providential inter­ ference, and, as a consequence, his mind will pursue the path of least resistance, and will account for all phenomena by what to him is the easiest method. Such people, with the best intentions, honestly bear false witness. They have been imposed upon by appear­ ances, and are victims of delusion and illusion. In an age when reading and writing were substantially unknown, and when history itself was but the vaguest hearsay handed down from dotage to infancy, nothing was rescued from oblivion except the wonderful, the miraculous. The more marvellous the story, the greater the interest excited. Narrators and hearers were alike ignorant and alike honest. At that time nothing was known, nothing suspected, of the orderly course of nature —of the unbroken and unbreakable chain of causes and effects. The world was governed by caprice. Every­ thing was at the mercy of a being, or beings, who were themselves controlled by the same passions that dominate man. Fragments of facts were taken for the whole, and the deductions drawn were honest and monstrous. It is probably certain that all the religions of the world have been believed, and that all the miracles have found credence in countless brains ; otherwise they could not have been perpetuated. They were not all born of cunning. Those who told were as honest as those who heard. This being so, nothing has been too absurd for human credence. All religions, so far as I know, claim to have been miraculously founded, miraculously preserved, and mira- �i7 culously propagated. The priests of all claimed to have messages from God, and claimed to have a certain authority, and the miraculous has always been appealed to for the purpose of substantiating the message and the authority. If men believe in the supernatural, they will account for all phenomena by an appeal to supernatural means or power. We know that formerly everything was accounted for in this way except some few simple things with which man thought he was perfectly acquainted. After a time men found that under like conditions like would happen, and as to those things the supposition of Supernatural interference was abandoned ; but that inter­ ference was still active as to all the unknown world. In other words, as the circle of man’s knowledge grew, supernatural interference withdrew, and was active only just beyond the horizon of the known. Now, there are some believers in universal special providence™that is, men who believe in perpetual inter­ ference by a supernatural power, this interference being for the purpose of punishing or rewarding, of destroying or preserving, individuals and nations. Others have abandoned the idea of providence in ordinary matters, but still believe that God interferes on great occasions and at critical moments, especially in the affairs of nations, and that his presence is manifest in great disasters. This is the compromise position. These people believe that an infinite being made the universe and impressed upon it what they are pleased to call “ laws,” and then left it to run in accordance with those laws and forces ; that as a rule it works well, and that the divine Maker interferes only in cases of accident, pr at moments when the machine fails to accomplish the original design. There are others who take the ground that all is natural; that there never has been, never will be, never can be, any interference from without, for the reason that Nature embraces all, and that there can be no without or beyond. The first class are Theists pure and simple; the �i8 second are Theists as to the unknown, Naturalists as to the known; and the third are Naturalists without a touch or taint of superstition. What can the evidence of the first class be worth ? This question is answered by reading the history of those nations that believed thoroughly and implicitly in the supernatural. There is no conceivable absurdity that was not established by their testimony. Every law or every fact in nature was violated. Children were born without parents; men lived for thousands of years; others subsisted without food, without sleep ; thousands and thousands were possessed with evil spirits, controlled by ghosts and ghouls ; thousands confessed themselves guilty of impossible offences, and in courts, with the most solemn forms, impossibilities were substantiated by the oaths, affirmations, and confessions of men, women, and children. These delusions were not confined to ascetics and peasants, but they took possession of nobles and kings; of people who were at that time called intelligent; of the then educated. No one denied these wonders, for the reason that denial was a crime punishable generally with death. Societies, nations, became insane—victims of ignorance, of dreams, and, above all, of fears. Under these conditions human testimony is not, and cannot be, of the slightest value. We now know that nearly all of the history of the world is false, and we know this because we have arrived at that phase or point of intel­ lectual development where and when we know that effects must have causes, that everything is naturally produced, and that, consequently, no nation could ever have been great, powerful, and rich, unless it had the soil, the people, the intelligence, and the commerce. Weighed in these scales, nearly all histories are found to be fictions. The same is true of religions. Every intelligent American is satisfied that the religions of India, of Egypt, Greece and Rome, of the Aztecs, were and are false, and that all the miracles on which they rest are mistakes. Our religion alone is excepted. Every �i9 intelligent Hindoo discards all religions and all miracles except his own. The question is When will pceple see the defects in their own theology as clearly as they perceive the same defects in every other ? All the so-called false religions were substantiated by miracles, by signs and wonders, by . prophets and martyrs, precisely as our own. Our witnesses are no better than theirs, and our success is no greater. If their miracles were false, ours cannot be true. Nature was the same in India as in Palestine. One of the corner-stones of Christianity is the mir­ acle of inspiration, and this same miracle lies at the foundation of all religions. How can the fact of. in­ spiration be established ? How could even the inspired man know that he was inspired ? If he was influenced to write and did write, and did express thoughts and facts that to him were absolutely new, on subjects about which he had previously known nothing, how could he know that he had been influenced by an infinite being ? And if he could know, how could he convince others ? What is meant by inspiration ? Did the one inspired set down only the thoughts of a supernatural being ? Was he simply an instrument, or did his personality color the message received and given ? Did he.mix his ignorance with the divine information, his prejudices and hatreds with the love and justice of the deity ? If God told him not to eat the flesh of any beast that dieth of itself, did the same infinite being also tell him to sell this meat to the stranger within his gates ? A man says that he is inspired—that God appeared to him in a dream, and told him certain things. Now, the things said to have been communicated may have been good and wise; but will the fact that the communication is good or wise establish the inspiration ? If, on the other hand, the communication is absurd or wicked., will that conclusively show that the man was not inspired ? Must we judge from the communication ? In other words, is our reason to be the final standard ? How could the inspired man know that the communi­ cation was received from God ? If God in reality should �20 appear to a human being, how could this human bein°know who had appeared ? By what standard would he judge . Upon this question man has no experience ; he is not familiar enough with the supernatural to know gods even if they exist. Although thousands have pre­ tended to receive messages, there has been no message m which there was, or is, anything above the invention 0 ,man< There are just as wonderful things in the unin­ spired as in the inspired books, and the prophecies of the heathen have been fulfilled equally with those of the Judaean prophets. If, then, even the inspired man cannot certainly know that he is inspired, how is it possible for him to demonstrate his inspiration to others ? The last solution of this question is that inspiration is a mir­ acle about which only the inspired can have the least knowledge, or the least evidence, and this knowledge and this evidence not of a character to convince even the inspired. There is certainly nothing in the Old or the New Testament that could not have been written by unin­ spired human beings. To me there is nothing of any particular value in the Pentateuch. I do not know of a solitary scientific truth contained in the five books com­ monly attributed to Moses. There is not, as far as I know, a line in the book of Genesis calculated to make a human being better. The laws contained in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are for the most part puerile and cruel. Surely there is nothing in any of these books that could not have been produced by unin­ spired . men. Certainly there is nothing calculated to excite intellectual admiration in the book of Judges or in the wa.rs of Joshua ; and the same may be said of Samuel, Chronicles, and Kings. The history is extremely childish, full of repetitions, of useless details, without the slightest philosophy, without a generalisation born of a wide sur­ vey. Nothing is known of other nations; nothing im­ parted of the slightest value; nothing about education, discovery, or invention. And these idle and stupid annals are interspersed with myth and miracle, with flattery for kings who supported priests, and with curses �21 and denunciations for those who would not hearken to the voice of the prophets. If all the historic books of the Bible were blotted from the memory of mankind, nothing of value would be lost. Is it possible that the writer or writers of First and Second Kings were inspired, and that Gibbon wrote “ The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ” without supernatural assistance ? Is it possible that the author of Judges was simply the instrument of an infinite God, while John W. Draper wrote “ The Intellectual Develop­ ment of Europe ” without one ray of light from the other world ? Can we believe that the author of Genesis had to be inspired, while Darwin experimented, ascertained, and reached conclusions for himself? Ought not the work of a God to be vastly superior to that of a man ? And if the writers of the Bible were in reality inspired, ought not that book to be the greatest of books? For instance, if it were contended that certain statues had been chiselled by inspired men, such statues should be superior to any that uninspired man has made. As long as it is admitted that the Venus de Milo is the work of man, no one will believe in inspired sculptors—at least until a superior statue has been found. So in the world of painting. We admit that Corot was uninspired. Nobody claims that Angelo had super­ natural assistance. Now, if some one should claim that a certain painter was simply the instrumentality of God, certainly the pictures produced by that painter should be superior to all others. I do not see how it is possible for an intelligent human being to conclude that the Song of Solomon is the work of God, and that the tragedy of “ Lear ” was the work of an uninspired man. We are all liable to be mistaken, but the Iliad seems to me a greater work than the book of Esther, and I prefer it to the writings of Haggai and Hosea. ^Eschylus is superior to Jeremiah, and Shakes­ peare rises immeasurably above all the sacred books of the world. It does not seem possible that any human being ever tried to establish a truth—anything that really happened �22 by what is called a miracle. It is easy to understand how that which was common became wonderful by accre­ tion—by things added, and by things forgotten—and it is easy to conceive how that which was wonderful became by accretion what was called supernatural. But it does not seem possible that any intelligent, honest man ever endeavored to prove anything by a miracle. As a matter of fact, miracles could only satisfy people who demanded no evidence; else how could they have believed the miracle ? It also appears to be certain that, even if miracles had been performed, it would be im­ possible to establish that fact by human testimony. In other words, miracles can only be established by miracles, and in no event could miracles be evidence except to those who were actually present; and in order for miracles to be of any value, they would have to be perpetual. It must also be remembered that a miracle actually performed could by no possibility shed any light on any moral truth, or add to any human obligation. If any man has ever been inspired, this is a secret miracle, known to no person, and suspected only by the man claiming to be inspired. It would not be in the power of the inspired to give satisfactory evidence of that fact to anybody else. The testimony of man is insufficient to establish the supernatural. Neither the evidence of one man nor of twelve can stand when contradicted by the experience of the intelligent world. If a book sought to be proved by miracles is true, then it makes no difference whether it was inspired or not ; and if it is not true, inspiration cannot add to its value. The truth is that the Church has always—unconsci­ ously, perhaps—offered rewards for falsehood. It was founded upon the supernatural, the miraculous, and it welcomed all statements calculated to support the foun­ dation. It rewarded the traveller who found evidences of the miraculous, who had seen the pillar of salt into which the wife of Lot had been changed, and the tracks of Pharoah’s chariots on the sands of the Red Sea. It heaped honors on the historian who filled his pages with �23 the absurd and the impossible. It had geologists and astronomers of its own, who constructed the earth and the constellations in accordance with the Bible. With sword and flame it destroyed the brave and thoughtful men who told the truth. It was the enemy of investiga­ tion and of reason. Faith and fiction were in partner­ ship. To-day the intelligence of the world denies the mira­ culous. Ignorance is the soil of the supernatural. The foundation of Christianity has crumbled, has disappeared, and the entire fabric must fall. The natural is true. The miraculous is false. �FREETHOUGHT PUBLICATIONS. THE AGE OF REASON (The Twentieth Century Edition). By Thomas Paine, With a Biographical Introduction and Annotations. By G. W. Foote. And a Beautiful ortrait of Paine. Price 6d. Postage of single copies, 2d. Bound in cloth, Is. 6d. THE BIBLE HANDBOOK for Freethinkers and Inquiring Christians. Edited by G. W. Foote and W. P. Ball. A new edition, revised, and handsomely printed. Cheap Edition, paper covers, Is. 6d. ; cloth, 2s. 6d. FLOY ERS OF FREETHOUGHT. First Series. Fiftyone Selected Articles and Essays ; 221 pages. Cloth, 2s. 6d.; postage 3d. Second Series (cloth), 2s. 6d. BIBLE ROMANCES. By G. W. Foote. The Second (Revised) Edition Complete. 160 Pages. Bound in Cloth. Price Two Shillings. CRIMES OF CHRISTIANITY. Chapters :—(1) Christ to Constantine. (2) Constantine to Hypatia. (3) Monkery, (4) Pious Forgeries. (5) Pious Frauds. (6) Rise of the Papacy. (7) Crimes of the Popes. (8) Persecution of the Jews. (9) The Crusades. 224 pp., cloth, 2s. 6d.; postage 3d. Hundreds of references are given to standard authorities. No pains have been spared to make the work a complete, trustworthy, final, unanswer­ able Indictment of Christianity. The Tree is judged by its Fruit. FOREIGN MISSIONS : Their Dangers and Delusions. Bv C. Cohen. Price 9d. GRAND- OLD BOOK, THE. A Reply to the Grand Old Man. An Exhaustive Answer to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone s Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture, Is. Bound in cloth, Is. 6d., postage lid. Published Every Thursday, “THE FREETHINKER.” One of Liveliest and Most Outspoken Journals in the World. Edited by G. W. Foote. Price Twopence. the Send for Specimen Copy. Post Free, With Catalogue of the Company’s Publications. The Freethought Publishing Company, Limited, 2 Newcastle St., Farringdon St., E.C. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Why am I an agnostic? Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 23 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher's advertisements inside front cover and on back cover. No. 93d in Stein checklist. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Freethought Publishing Company Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1902 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N413 Subject The topic of the resource Agnosticism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Why am I an agnostic?), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Agnosticism NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/9a6614aa4e32e506592f6e8ac0ce5348.pdf?Expires=1779321600&Signature=ECCnrpFFuWKbblRZ3ozgU7eDkdVPDyMxduunTWH56pMQZI-tREiCQnNLbj69Hz5x1sJIVvQas8z6mZ-9FQHkdC-D5e-mfDNv6YWgBvEodIxdXYUsrc9CrJ1Wfm%7EOrooqLR3O9eIBCU5fNc2jYh0HECs-hf6Tgb4ybcDHqC8Do-b2Pf1Ufw0oLkWyCX9FQ0W55OMNC-XRNl-elByqPBOv8lVbL8xDfC62khwj3C9%7EubnD8kGLj93i2HbmTJ05WyrtWFZvQO4WcwCOphpa%7Eq94DDjJlsdSVhrWXkjlQ0xkn5kapckxNHPx8g%7EwA4OrO85J%7EM3CuF52dmtkspMaV-ANwQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 808ec0848457e086da0b0464311c6f8d PDF Text Text NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY. BY SAMUEL LAING, Author of “Modern Science and Modern ThoughtilA Modern Zoroastrian,” “Problems of the Future,” etc. ISSUED FOR THE Jress OmmifteL London : WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET St. Price One Penny. �OUR PROPAGANDIST PRESS COMMITTEE. This Committee has been formed for the purpose of assisting in the production and circulation of liberal publications. The members of the Committee are Mr. G. J. Holyoake, Dr. Bithell, Mr. F. J. Gould, Mr. Frederick Millar, and Mr. Charles A. Watts. It is thought that the most efficient means of spreading the principles of Rationalism is that of books and pamphlets. Many will read a pamphlet who would never dream of visiting a lecture hall. At the quiet fireside arguments strike home which might be dissipated by the excitement of a public debate. The lecturer wins his thousands, the penman his tens of thousands. The aim of the various writers will be to obtain converts by persuasiveness rather than undue hostility towards the popular creeds. All who are in sympathy with the movement are earnestly re­ quested to contribute towards the expenses as liberally as their means will allow. The names of donors will not be published without their consent. On the ist of January of each year a report and balance-sheet will be forwarded to subscribers. The books of the Committee are always accessible to donors. Contributions should be forwarded to Mr. Charles A. Watts, 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C. Cheques should be crossed “Central Bank of London, Blackfriars Branch.” PUBLICATIONS ISSUED FOR THE COMMITTEE BY MESSRS. WATTS & CO. Agnostic Problems. Being an Examination of Some Questions ■of the Deepest Interest, as Viewed from the Agnostic Standpoint. By R. Bithell, B.Sc., Ph.D. Cheap Popular Edition, cloth, 2s. 6d. post free. Agnosticism and Immortality. By S. Laing, author of “ Modern Science and Modern Thought,” etc. id., by post ij^d. Special terms for quantities. Humanity and Dogma. By Amos Waters, id., by post i%d. .Special terms for quantities. LIBERTY OF BEQUESTS COMMITTEE. 'This Committee has been formed for procuring the passing of a law legalising bequests for Secular and Free Thought purposes. As the law now stands, all legacies left for the diffusion and main­ tenance of Secular or Free Thought principles can be confiscated. Subscriptions in furtherance of the object of this Committee may ,be sent to Mr. Charles A. Watts, 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C., or to the care of the Hon. Secretary, Mr. H. L. Braekstad, 138, Loughborough Park, London, S.W. �AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY. a To be, or not to be, that is the question ”—a question which has been asked before and after Hamlet, in all ages and countries where mankind has risen from blank savagery to thought and intelligence. The love of life, the horror of annihilation, are instincts common to men and to the whole animal creation. In civilised man this instinct rises beyond the vague terror of death and fear of the unknown. He “ looks before and after his sense of justice longs for a future life to redress the wrongs and sufferings of the present one; his affections crave for a sight of faces which he has loved and lost; all the feelings of his complex nature cry out for some assurance of a continued existence. On the other hand, all positive knowledge and experience fail to give him this assurance, and rather tell him that, as his individual existence began with birth, so it will terminate with death. How stands this most momentous of all problems in the light of modern science, and of that development of it which is fast invading modern thought under the compendious term of “ Agnosticism ” ? To attack a problem we must begin by clearly defining its conditions. What do we mean when we talk of a “ future life ” and of “ immortality ” ? Clearly, for all practical purposes, we mean a life in which we retain our personal identity and individual consciousness. To be absorbed in some metaphysical essence, or soul of the universe, as some tiny rivulet is in the pathless ocean, is tantamount to annihilation. Extremes meet, and the Nirvana, which is the ultimate goal of the most �2 AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY. purely metaphysical religion, that of Buddhism, lands us practically in the same conclusion as that of the Mate­ rialist, to whom life and consciousness are but functions of particular modes of cell-motions. It is important to keep this distinction well in mind, for it bears upon the next stage of the inquiry—viz., what are the historical facts of the problem ? What are the views of it which have been entertained by different nations and in different ages ? Do they show such a general consensus of opinion as may establish at any rate a frima facie case for any definite conclusion, and show it to be a necessary product of the evolution of the human mind ? Or are they so conflicting as to neutralise one another, and show that no common con­ clusion holds the field, which remains open for inquiries conducted with all the latest resources of modern know­ ledge ? The answer must be that the latter is undoubt­ edly the true state of the case. If we take immortality to mean the preservation of conscious personal identity after death, the majority of mankind have had no such belief. The countless millions of Brahmins and Buddhists do not get nearer to it than to assume some vague absorption into the soul of the universe, after more or less transmigration through other forms of life. Plato and his followers had much the same idea, in a more refined and philoso­ phical form, of an unconscious pre-existence in the universal- spirit before birth, and return to it after death —a speculation which we find in the creeds of almost all our modern poets, and which is stated with much force and precision by Wordsworth in his ode on “Immortality.” Other nations, such as the Chinese and Japanese, have no distinct ideas on the subject beyond a vague veneration for departed ancestors, and their educated classes accept either the Agnosticism, pure and simple, of Confucius, or some vague concep­ tion of Buddhistic philosophy. The lower classes, and savage and semi-civilised races generally, have a sort of rude faith in ghosts, which are scarcely distinguishable from the evil spirits in which unknown or injurious forces of Nature are personified. The first dawn of a belief in a continued personal �AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY. 3 existence after death is found in the interments of the neolithic period, in which weapons and food were de­ posited for the use of a departed chief in the happier hunting-ground of another world, and slaves were sacri­ ficed so as to give him an appropriate retinue. From this germ arose the Egyptian creed, which was for so many centuries by far the most powerful and practical exemplification of a belief in a future existence by a great civilised nation. They looked, as Herodotus tells us, on their tombs as their permanent abodes, and the homes in which they lived as mere temporary occu­ pations. Their idea was that every existence, animate or inanimate, consisted of two parts, the material body and the seol, or incorporeal spirit, which could wander about in dreams, and, after death, continue a shadowy existence, living on shadowy food, and taking pleasure in shadowy geese and kine and other belongings. But this seol must have a corporeal body, or semblance of its old material self, as a basis for its existence, and hence the care and expense which were lavished on mummies and on paintings on the walls of tombs. It is remarkable that, wherever the faith in a personal immortality of the soul has been at all strong, it has been associated with an equally strong faith in the resurrection of the body. The old Egyptians and the early Christians equally shared this belief; and even in the more shadowy mythology of the Greek and Roman world due funeral rites to the body were considered necessary to save the departed soul from wandering, as a shivering, bodiless ghost, on the banks of the melan­ choly Styx. Another remarkable nation, the Jews, entirely ignored the idea of a future existence—a most singular circum-, stance, considering that they were so long in contact with the Egyptians, with whom it was the pervading fact of their daily life, and that the Jews were supposed to be a chosen people, specially instructed by Jehovah. And yet nothing can be clearer than that, from the time of Moses down to that of Ecclesiastes—and even later, as held by the Sadducees, the conservative aristocracy, who clung most tenaciously by the old law—the pure Jewish faith was that death was annihilation, and rewards �4 AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY. and punishments were dispensed either to the individual in this life or to his posterity. Nothing can be more explicit than the words of Ecclesiastes which are put in the mouth of the great preacher, King Solomon, as the result of his long expe­ rience and deep wisdom : “ A living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward.” And again : “ There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest.” It is not a little surprising that a religion like Chris­ tianity, in which eternal life and future rewards and punishments are such essential elements, should have originated from the matter-of-fact and almost Materialistic creed of Mosaic Judaism. Orthodox theologians will,, of course, say that it was because it pleased God to con­ ceal these things from former generations, and to teach them for the first time by a new revelation. The retort is obvious : if Jehovah were a just and benevolent Deity,, why should he mislead his own chosen people by allowing Moses, Abraham, and other pious patriarchs after his own heart, to believe and teach the direct opposite of these essential truths ? But the retort, however obvious, is effective only against the idolaters of the Bible; for its sincere students it is more to the purpose to observe that the assumption that these Christian dogmas are taught by Divine inspiration is met at the very outset by this staggering objection. What Jesus, St. Paul, and the Apostles taught respecting the immortality of the soul was this: that our personal identity after death would be preserved by a resurrection of the body, which was to take place in the lifetime of some of the existing generation. This is stated over and over again in the most distinct and positive terms, and, if the prophecy failed, there is absolutely nothing in the New Testament to teach us anything certain as to any future life. The last judgment is, in like manner, inextricably mixed up with the advent of Jesus in a cloud, with a trumpet and angels, within the prescribed time. Now, it is historically certain that the prophecy was a mistake; 1800 years have elapsed, and the end of the �AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY. 5 world, the bodily resurrection, and the Day of Judgment, as described by Jesus and St. Paul, have not come. It is equally certain that, scientifically, no resurrection of the material body is possible. Death resolves the atoms and energies of which it was composed into new and simpler forms, which enter into totally different combi­ nations. What becomes, then, of the superstructure of a personal identity after death, when it is based on two pillars which have crumbled into dust? It is.as though it had never been made, and the fact remains that in no religion of ancient or modern times can we find any reliable information, or general consensus of opinion, as to that greatest of all mysteries—what may be “ behind the veil.” If from Theology we fall back on Science, we have real and accurate information up to a certain point; but the final step escapes us. We know in the most precise and accurate manner that all we call soul, spirit, thought, memory, will, perception, and con­ sciousness are indissolubly connected with definite motions of minute cells in the cortex or grey enveloping matter of the brain. Given the motions of given cells, and the corresponding effects will follow with the same certainty as if we were nothing but an electric battery, with nerves for conducting wires. And, conversely, without the proper inducing motions of nerve-cells the effects will not follow. This has been proved by such innumerable experiments that I shall confine myself to noticing a few which have the most direct bearing on the question of soul or personal identity. Memory is clearly at the bottom of this feeling of personality. It links together past perceptions, and makes us feel that they are not isolated phenomena, but have an unity and connection, as having happened to one and the same person—viz., ourselves. Now, it is quite possible to obliterate portions of the memory by destroying portions of the grey matter of the brain appro­ priated for remembering that particular class of impres­ sions. For instance, there is in the back part of the brain a tract of grey matter, connected by a collection of fine conducting wires, called the optic nerve, with the retina, which enables us to see. Surrounding this is another tract of grey matter, connected with the former, �6 AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY. which serves as a sort of register office for messages sent from the eye to the central telegraph office—or, in other words, which is appropriated to the memory of visual perceptions. Destroy the first or central office, and we can no longer see. Leave it untouched, but destroy the second or register office, and we can see, but no longer remember what is seen. In like manner with the sense of hearing: there is a central office by which we hear, and a connected register office by which we remember what we have heard. Destroy the latter, and all memory of all we have ever heard passes away from us. Memory, therefore, is clearly proved to be not merely a general function of the brain en masse, but a special function of special portions of the brain, told off for the purpose of converting mechanical impressions received from the outer world, through the senses, into registered messages, which form the raw material of what we call memory, which is itself the substratum of consciousness. The will is another faculty which is commonly attri­ buted to personal identity, and yet it also is indissolubly associated with brain motion. Nothing can well be more mechanical than straining the eye to look at a black wafer stuck on a white wall. And yet, by this purely mechanical process, a state called hypnotism can be frequently induced, in which the will is apparently lost, and the will of another personality—that of the operator—is substituted for it. Thus, in the well-known experiment of Dr. Braid, a puritanical old lady, to whom dancing was an invention of Satan, was sent capering about the room to a reel tune, when told to do so by the Doctor. Nay, further, it is shown, by the careful experiments scientifically conducted at the Salpetriere by eminent French physicians, that a suggestion to an hypnotised patient may affect his or her brain move­ ments in such a way as to give rise to the corresponding actions of nerves and muscles weeks after the suggestion was made and the hypnotic state had passed away. Thus a moral person may be irresistibly impelled to commit an atrocious crime on a specified person at a specified date, which would have been utterly repugnant to the patient’s normal nature. �AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY. 7 In like manner, visible things may be rendered invis­ ible, and invisible things visible, by this hypnotic sug­ gestion. And, what is even more extraordinary and more directly materialistic, these suggested emotions and perceptions may be transferred into one another by the action of a magnet. A case is recorded in Binet and Fere’s volume on the Salpetriere experiments in which a patient told to hate one of the doctors endeavoured to strike him; but, on a magnet being held near the back of her head, hate was changed into love, and she tried to embrace him. Another case is interesting as bearing on the question of personal identity. A female patient, -On being told that she was one of the doctors, imme­ diately assumed his gait and manner, and stroked an imaginary moustache; and, being asked if she knew her real self, replied : “ Oh, yes, there is an hysterical patient of that name who is not over-wise.” The same phenomenon of a dual personality is fre-quently found in persons who have received some injury to the brain, and are subject to trances. They have two personalities—one of a real, the other of a trance life, which are quite distinct and each unconscious of the •other; so that Smith may be alternately Jones or Smith, .as he falls into or awakes from a succession of trances. In other words, the brain is like a barrel organ, which plays one tune in its normal state and a different one when the stops have been altered by some abnormal influence. In short, the last word of physiological science is that all which we call soul, mind, conscious­ ness, or personality, are functions of matter and motion. Observe, however, that, when we ticket the facts with the word function, we explain nothing, but simply sum up the results by affirming that, as far as human experi­ ence goes, the two phenomena go necessarily and inevit­ ably together. There is another class of experiments recorded by the eminent French physician, M. Binet, in the columns of the Open Court, which bears very directly on this .question of a conscious personality. It is not uncommon with hysterical patients to find portions of the body or particular limbs which are subject to what is called .ansesthesia. That is, they are insensible to pain, as in �8 AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY. the case of chloroform, and cut off from all connection with the conscious self, as completely as if they were external pieces of matter. But, if certain motions are suggested to the paralysed limb, the same results will follow as if they had been dictated by will and accom­ panied by consciousness. Thus, if a pen be put in the ansesthetic hand between the thumb and the index finger, without the subject seeing or being in any way conscious of it, he will seize it, and his other fingers and arm assume the attitude necessary for writing. Suppose, next, we make the pen write a familiar word, such as the subject’s name ; after a short interval, the unconscious and paralysed hand will write the word over again, some­ times five or six times. And, what is still more extra­ ordinary, if we purposely write the word with a wrong or superfluous letter, when the subject repeats the word the anaesthetic hand will hesitate when it comes to the mistake, and, after several attempts, frequently end by correcting it. Now, in this experiment we have clearly proved, as Binet says, an unconscious perception, an unconscious reasoning and memory, and an unconscious volition. It is clear, therefore, that, in such a case, the essential elements, not merely of unconscious reflex movements of nerve and muscle, but of all that we are accustomed to consider as mind or spirit, have been reduced to un­ conscious or mechanical conditions. As Huxley puts it, you may suppress consciousness, and yet all physiolo­ gical phenomena will continue to be performed auto­ matically just as before; objects will continue to be perceived, unconscious reasonings will develop, followed by acts of adaptation. This is not “ Agnosticism,” but science and hard fact, with which the orthodox believers in soul or spirit have to reckon, just as much as those who fail to discover in the problem anything that can be solved by human faculty. In fact, no one can state this more explicitly than one of the ablest of modern theo­ logians, Principal Caird, in his sermon preached before the British Medical Association in 1888, in which he says : “ Of the thoughts, emotions, volitions, which in endless multiplicity and variety constitute our conscious life, there is not one which is not correlated to some �AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY. 9 physical change or motion in the brain-matter of the thinker; and, as far as we know, the growth, develop­ ment, decline, the healthy or morbid action of the human mind, is invariably connected with corresponding changes of nervous or brain tissue.” But Dr. Caird, who is not a mere commonplace theologian, but candid, sincere, and. thoroughly acquainted with the latest discoveries of science, falls back on two arguments to refute the con­ clusions of Materialism—the first scientific, the second metaphysical. The first invokes the principle of the “ Conservation of Energy.” Dr. Caird argues that the soul, as distinct from the body, is an energy, and, there­ fore, indestructible. In the first place, if it were true, it would point rather to the Brahminical and Buddhistic doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and ultimate merger in the one universal and eternal energy. But the premise involves the fallacy so common in all theo­ logical arguments, that known to theologians as the petitio principn. It assumes a soul which is at one and the same time immaterial and material. That is, imma­ terial as being subject to none of the ordinary laws of matter, such as gravity, form, and extension; material as being subject to the law of indestructibility, which is known to us only as another attribute of ordinary matter and energy. If there be a soul or spirit, how do we know that this law applies to it; or, if it did, that it is not transformed into some sort of dead or potential energy after the active energy comes to an end with the disso­ lution of the material frame, in association with which we alone have any knowledge of it ? For there is no fact more certain than that we have absolutely no know­ ledge of any soul apart from this association. No man of sane mind will assert that he has any recollection of anything that occurred before he was born, or that he has received any authentic message from any world of spirits inhabited by the dead. The last word of science is—“ Behind the veil.” The second or metaphysical argument is that the very existence of matter implies thought. We know nothing of matter and motion in themselves, but only as they appear to us, which is after they have been transfigured, by something antecedent to and independent of them, �IO AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY. which we call thought or consciousness. It is argued, therefore, that all phenomena require us to assume the existence of an universal mind in which they are con­ ceived, and that, to constitute the reality of the outward world, the presence and the comparing, discriminating and unifying activity of thought is pre-supposed. There­ fore, there is an universal, eternal thought or soul of the universe, which, expressed in anthropomorphic language, is called God, of whom we may say, with St. Paul: “ Of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things.” This seems a stupendous superstructure of assertion to raise on the slender foundation that, as a matter of fact, according to the experience of the inhabitants of our tiny planet, thought or consciousness, and brain or nerve motion, do commonly, though, as we have seen, not invariably, go together. It is not by any means clear, even in man’s limited sphere of knowledge, which of the two is the post hoc and which the propter hoc; and no real assurance can result from the double guess - first, that our own mind is the propter hoc, or originat­ ing fact of our own existence; and, secondly, that, if so, the same is true of all existence in the universe. The fact is that these metaphysical solutions of the mysteries of the universe never give any certain assur­ ance even to the acutest philosopher, and to the great mass of mankind they are not even intelligible. More­ over, it is to be remarked that, even if philosophers could establish the truth of their proposition as to mind and thought, it would not take us one step further towards proving what is the real object of our hopes and fears —the continuance of our personal identity after death. On the contrary, Dr. Caird’s whole argument tends to the conclusion of Brahmins, Buddhists, and Platonists that individual existences come from, and return to, the great universal soul or energy of the universe, like the waves which rise and fall, rippling for an instant the surface of the pathless ocean. To carry this one step further and arrive at a personal God, with intelligence and feelings like those of a magnified man, even such an acute reasoner as Dr. Caird has to fall back on wishes rather than reasons. He finds that “ a God outside of knowledge, the dark, impenetrable background of the �AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY. II phenomenal world,” is not 11 the boon he wants,” and he accordingly postulates something nearer to him and more in accordance with his personal aspirations and feelings. But wishes are not proofs, and there are many things which, although we desire them ever so ardently, do not come to pass. What can be more intense or more legi­ timate than the longing of a mother to receive some message from a lost child ?—and yet it has never been gratified. How many lovers have been parted, how many minds extinguished, in the full maturity of powers which might have benefitted mankind, and where are their hopes and fears, their ardent affections, their far-reaching plans ? Buried in the grave, where there is “ no work, nor device, nor knowledge ” beyond that “ undiscovered bourne from which no traveller returns.” And it is to be noticed that, even if we were to admit as proved the arguments for a personal God and an inspired revelation, we should not be one step advanced towards any certain assurance of a personal immortality. For what this personal God is assumed to teach us by His inspired record in the Bible is this : Firstly, by the Old Testament, that there is no future life; secondly, by the New Testament, that there is a future life, but coupled with the condition of a resurrection of the body within the lifetime of a generation who have all been dead for 1800 years. Clearly there is nothing in this which approaches within a hundred miles of anything like certain and definite knowledge. What, then, is the attitude of Agnosticism towards this great question of personal immortality ? All gnostic forms of religions and philosophies—that is, all systems which teach that the question is knowable, and within the range of human faculties, either with or without the aid of revelation—break down under critical and candid investigation. If I were placed in the position of a conscientious juryman, who was told that the court is competent and the case closed, and that I was bound to deliver a verdict “Aye” or “No” upon the evidence as it stands, I should feel constrained, however reluctantly, to say “ No.” But this would not be my true deliver­ ance. I should much prefer to return a verdict of “Not proven,” or rather I should say the court has no jurisdic- �12 AGNOSTICISM AND IMMORTALITY. tion, and should walk out without giving any verdict at all. This an Agnostic may do with perfect good faith. He believes that our little knowable world is encircled by a great Unknowable, in which all things are possible. He stands, like the Ulysses of the poet, on the margin of that great ocean beyond the setting sun, on which so many millions of millions have embarked, and not one has returned. He, too, like the rest, must soon follow, and turn his prow westwards. What fate is in store for him ? Shall the gulfs wash him down and merge forever his frail bark of hopes in the fathomless depths of a sleep where there are no dreams; or shall he perchance arrive at some fortunate islands of the West where' he may survive in some newer and better life, “ See the great Achilles whom we knew,” and, dearer than the great Achilles, once more behold the faces of those whom he has loved and lost ? He knows not: no voice on earth, no message from thq dead, ever reaches him, and one thing only remains— to possess his soul with patience, and to oppose “ one equal temper of heroic hearts ” to the decrees of destiny and of the irrevocable future. But in the meantime he may dream his dreams and indulge in his visions without fear of contradiction, and without vitiating his manhood by pretending to believe as certain where there is no certainty. Surely this is better than to pin his faith on assurances of certainty which break down under the first touch of the Ithuriel spear of candid and critical investigation, and leave him either shivering in the cold creed of “ dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return,” or wrapped in an unhealthy mantle of prejudices and prepossessions, impervious to the invigorating breezes of truth, of candour, and of sincerity. �WATTS & CO.’S LIST. A Lay Sermon. By S. Laing (Author of “ Modern Science and Modern Thought and “A Modern Zoroastrian ”). This booklet is an impartial and vigorous statement of the attitude of Agnosticism towards Christianity, and sets forth the moral advantages likely to accrue from the acceptance of Agnosticism. Single copies 6d, by post 7d; 13, 5s post free ; 50, 18s carriage paid. Agnosticism and Christianity. Thoughtful, lucid, practical, liberal in sentiment, and high in moral tone. It is a delightful little book, which does the spirit and the temper good to read, for it is large in charity, never offensive, and most welcome in counsel......... full of thought most lucidly expressed.—Secular Review. Agnostic Morality. By R. Bithell, B.Sc., Ph.D. Single copies 6d, by post 7d ; 13, 5s post free ; 50s, 18s carriage paid. “ Agnostic Morality ” is excellent....... Dr. Bithell has a fair grasp of the subject, and much perspicacity.—Progress. By B. Russell. A Concise and Popular Exposition, in Language Understanded of the People. 4d, by post 5d. The Case for Agnosticism. The Popular Faith Exposed. By Julian. This is a critical and scholarly examination of Orthodox Christianity, and is strongly recommended. Single copies 6d, by post 7^5 13, 5s post free ; 50, 18s carriage paid. Bible Words: Human, not Divine. By Julian. This is a pamphlet setting forth, in common-sense language, and free from exaggeration and vituperation, the most glaring absurdities and contradictions of the Bible. Price 3d, by post 3%d ; 13, 2s 6d post free ; 50, 9s carriage paid. The Future of Morality, as Affected by the Decay of Prevalent Religious Beliefs. By M. S. Gilliland, Single copies 4d, by post 4%d; 13, 3s 6d post free ; 50, 12s carriage paid. The Confession of Agnosticism. By G. M. McC. Chapter I. Introductory. Chapter II. Misconceptions. Chapter III. Fundamentals. Chapter IV. The Perfect Life. Chapter V. The Other Side of Agnosticism. Chapter VI. Faith and Manners. Single copies 6d, by post 7d ; 13, 5s post free ; 50, 18s carriage paid. The Excellent Religion. An Essay on the Relations be­ tween Agnosticism, the Polar Theory of Being, and the Higher Theism. By G. C. Griffith-Jones (Lara). Single copies 6d, by post 7d ; 13, 5s post free 5'50, 18s carriage paid. A Friendly Correspondence with Mr. Gladstone about Creeds. By S. Laing. This pamphlet contains the Articles of the Agnostic Creed drawn up at the request of Mr. Gladstone. 6d, by post 7d. London : Watts & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C. �Demy 8vo, handsomely bound in cloth, price 2s. 6d. post free, CHEAP POPULAR EDITION OF AGNOSTIC PROBLEMS. BEING AN EXAMINATION OF SOME QUESTIONS OF THE: DEEPEST INTEREST, AS VIEWED FROM THE AGNOSTIC STANDPOINT. By RICHARD BITHELL, B.Sc., Ph.D. The volume is fascinatingly interesting, remarkably complete, and sothoroughly explains the Agnostic position that the merest tyro in metaphysics may grasp its contents....... “Agnostic Problems” has filled a gap that had remained too long open ; and, without any desire to flatter Dr. Bithell, it may be truthfully said that it has filled it with such solid material that it will re­ quire more than all the united strength of the opponents of Agnosticism to shatter one single stone of the substantial edifice thus put together. The work is one that ought to be read by every thinking man, be he Christian, Jew, Agnostic, or Atheist.—Secular Review. Handsomely bound in cloth, price is. 6d., by post is. 8d., Stepping-Stones to Agnosticism. By F. J. GOULD. With Introduction by G. J. Holyoake. Contents.—I. Ecce Deus; or, A New God. II. Miracles Weighed in the Balances. III. Our Brother Christ. IV. The Immortal Bible. V. The Noble Path. VI. Agnosticism Writ Plain. Bound in cloth, price 2s., by post 2s. 3d., AGNOSTIC FIRST PRINCIPLES. Being a Critical Exposition of the Spencerian System of Thought. By ALBERT SIMMONS (Ignotus). With Preface by Richard Bithell, B.Sc., Ph.D. London : Watts & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Agnosticism and immortality Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Laing, Samuel [1812-1897] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 12 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Issued for the Propagandist Press Committee. Publisher's list inside and on back cover. Date of publication from Cooke, Bill. The blasphemy depot (RPA, 2003), Appx. 1. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Watts & Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1890] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N428 Subject The topic of the resource Agnosticism Immortality Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Agnosticism and immortality), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Agnosticism Immortality NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/62d3528316601b71d06dead15744cfee.pdf?Expires=1779321600&Signature=aT6dsetvnQH6rFaeY5wHhzvyTM9kWGuTI2CJDSf86Me5Ec9RGSjkhJ3U1cIIXrbM2Ct6WF0KpLnyBCchxGO9yeIzo%7E-PbAV0rJ12jLAdQa3pCNlrxzjv054R%7E6TQStWgbF3C4v4OzEVd9gD5tINmq3NX56EqvJhxLYpSY-71EA2MHlxR0pL0WrnTnSL2hoMSDr-dBDK-fmbM0nePsuXgVhKFV3sAC2zwi1vYJwYbPvkGNWtfmCvV%7E461cIn33M6t4U4GH8m1v0%7EhY0IXbcl3QYADyIxM18xd7uePquQr1ZU5y7CXzEFjjrw3sM8bA6WrzIGIE7KXwFjW3L3O%7EwWPNQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 27cd7d425e8712431a4470e175273041 PDF Text Text AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIAN THEISM I Which is the More Reasonable ? « By CHARLES WATTS. CONTENTS: (1) What is Agnosticism? (2) Its Relation to the Universe and Christian Theism ; (3) Is it sufficient to satisfy man’s intellectual requirements? The Natural and the Supernatural. Price Ten Cents. SECULAR THOUGHT OFFICE, Toronto, Ont. �omhmm �AGNOSTICISM & CHRISTIAN THEISM : WHICH IS THE MORE REASONABLE ? I. WHAT IS AGNOSTICISM ? This is pre-eminently a critical age, when the right to examine teach­ ings submitted for our acceptance is more than ever recognized. In the light of modern thought, no subject is too sacred for honest criti­ cism, and no opinion too ancient for reasonable investigation. Rea-on is now rapidly taking the place of blind belief, and serfdom to authority issyielding to the influence of mental freedom. Christian Theism as taught by the Churches has been so long regarded by its adherents as being the embodiment of absolute truth, that to in any way question its pretensions has been condemned as almost an unpar­ donable sin. Every new philosophy that has challenged the positive claims of Theism has been avoided and misrepresented apart from its -pertinency and value. This has been the case particularly with the philosophy of Agnosticism. It will, therefore, be interesting to in­ quire, What is this Agnostic phase of thought ? In answering this question, the reply will be classified under three divisions—(1) What is Agnosticism ? (2) Its relation to the Universe and Christian Theism; and (3) Is it sufficient' to satisfy man’s intellectual require­ ments 1 What is Agnosticism ? The word is one that has become tolerably familiar to a large section of society in sound, if not in its strictest philosophical signification. It has come into use within the last few years, and has achieved a great popularity. Friends arid foes alike employ it—the former to approve it and the latter to condemn it, and both to describe a certain phase of thought which is recognised as being very extensive. Like most technical phrases, the term is derived from the Greek, and signifies “ not knowing.” An Agnostic, therefore, is one who confesses that he has no knowledge upon those subjects to which his Agnosticism is applicable. �4 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIAN THEISM : Although the word Agnostic is comparatively new, that which it represents is as old as humanity. Men are not now for the first time discovering that there are questions which lie altogether beyond their gnosis or knowledge. That discovery was made at the dawn of human thought. A knowledge of his own ignorance was one of the qualities which Socrates boasted that he possessed, and which distinguished him. in such a marked manner from his wily antagonists, the Sophists ; and at Athens, two thousand years ago, St. Paul is said to have found an altar, the remaining one of many, dedicated to an “ Unknown God.”' The limits of human knowledge have been recognized by the foremost, men of the race in all lands and in every age. Before the mighty mysteries of the universe the greatest thinkers have stood awe-stricken,, aghast and dumb. The intellect has again and again been paralyzed in its ineffectual attempts to read the riddles of existence, before which those of the Sphinx are lost in their insignificance ; and no GEdipus hasyet been found competent to the task of furnishing the solution. “ Alli things,” said the schoolmen, “ run into the inscrutable,”—a thought equivalent to one to be found in Professor Tyndall’s “ Belfast Address.”' Therein that eminent scientist says : “ All we see around and all wefeel within us....... have their unsearchable roots in a cosmical life....... an infinitesimal span of which is offered to the investigation of man.”' Thus it will be seen that Agnosticism is an old friend with a new name,, and perhaps a few additional qualities. We meet with it under certain, forms in the pages of the history of every age. The profoundest intel­ lects have been familiar with its character, and have not felt themselves ashamed to confess to the attitude of mind which it represents. It should be distinctly understood that Agnosticism is not to be in any way confounded with ignorance as that phrase is used in every-day life. Herein consists ©ne of the errors into which our orthodox op­ ponents are continually falling. They use the words Agnosticism and general ignorance as if they were synonymous, which is misleading, to say ^the least of it—that is, unless the latter term be employed as the direct /antithesis of omniscience. No one pretends to know everything, and the knowledge of many persons is considerably less than they in their own opinion imagine. It is stated that an admirer of Dr. Johnson began on one occasion to praise him for the great extent of his know­ ledge. “Pooh,” said Johnson, “you would say I had great knowledge even though you did not think so.” “ And,” rejoined the admirer, “ you would think so even though I did not say it.” The fault of �WHICH IS THE MORE REASONABLE ? 5 'Over-estimating our own knowledge is very common, and frequently begets an egotism of a very dangerous nature. Invariably, the less a man knows the more dogmatic he becomes, and the weaker the evidence upon which his convictions are based the more positively will he assert them to be true. It should require no extensive self-examination to convince the careful thinker that, even if he knew all that can be known upon every subject within the range of human gnosis, still then the domain into which his knowledge does not extend would be infinitely large compared with that small sphere which his information has covered. In that larger province he is an Agnostic, and it would be very unfair to designate him an ignorant person on that account. Therefore, although Agnosticism means “ not knowing,” it is in no way the equivalent of general ignorance. The word Agnostic, however, in its philosophical sense, has a still broader meaning. An Agnostic is not simply a person who is profossedly ignorant concerning many subjects upon which other persons pretend to have an extensive knowledge ; but he maintains that there are problems the solution of which by man is impossible at the present stage of his mental development. Further, an Agnostic is one who limits the human mind by the measure of its capacity. That the finite can never become infinite is probably a matter about which there can be no difference of opinion, inasmuch as such a statement is a self-evident truth, or as axiomatic as a proposition of Euclid. On the other hand, a mind which is less than infinite cannot possess all knowledge. The ■consequence is, that there must always remain a wide field beyond the range of the human faculties. In relation to that field every man must be Agnostic, for the simple reason that his knowledge cannot penetrate therein. Even the most orthodox believer proclaims his Agnosticism, in a sense—that is, he admits that there are subjects which he not only does not know, but which, from their very nature, he can never know, since they relate to that which lies outside the sphere of thought. As Herbert Spencer observes : “ At the utmost reach of discovery there arises, and must ever arise, the question, What lies beyond ? ” (“First Principles.”) And that beyond does not diminish, but rather widens, •as knowledge increases ; for, the more we know, the more we discover we have to learn. “ The power which the universe manifests to us,” remarks the same writer, “ is utterly inscrutable.” Why should there be any hesitation in admitting this truth ? No one looks upon it as derogatory to human nature to admit that his power is limited, and �6 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIAN THEISM : that there are things which he cannot do. Why, therefore, should it beconsidered humiliating to confess that man’s knowledge, is limited, and that there are topics which he does not and cannot know ? Not simply that he has not advanced sufficiently in intellectual research to grapple with them, but that they lie completely outside his sphere of thought. In nature we can never know more than phenomena; and yet thesevery phenomena involve the necessity of the existence of something which is their ground and support—that something being to us un­ knowable. The unknown is postulated in the very terms we are com­ pelled to use when speaking of the unknown. “ The senses,” as Lewes observes, “perceive only phenomena; never noumena” (“History of Philosophy ”). This opinion is not of modern origin, since Anaxagoras maintained it, and Plato gave it his support. Thus it will be seen that Agnosticism is not only not synonymous with what is generally termed ignorance, but that it is compatible with the very highest and most profound knowledge of which the human mind is capable. Agnosticism being a philosophical, or certainly a quasi-philosophical, question, must be judged of in the same manner as any other subject of philosophy. Dogmatism is out of place in regard to it, and those who accept its teachings must be content to practise humility and to lay aside all arrogant assumptions of their great superiority to other men whose views may not be identical with their own. As the ancient philosopher observed : “We are never more in danger of being sub­ dued than when we think ourselves invincible.” The object of the whole Agnostic system is to learn, as far as possible, the limits of the human mind in reference to the acquisition of knowledge, and, having, done this, to use every effort to effect improvement wherever it is possible, and to leave the useless and impracticable labour of sowing the wind to those who seek to know the unknowable and to perform the impossible. Wesley, in one of his hymns referring to the death of Christ, says : “ Impassive he suffers, immortal he dies ”■—that is, in­ capable of suffering, he did suffer; incapable of dying, he did die. Now, is not this the very height of absurdity ? And yet, in reality, it is not a whit more absurd than much that is put forth by those who claim a knowledge of matters which lie beyond the sphere of human reason. Agnostics, refusing to profess a knowledge they cannot com­ mand, aim to differentiate the knowable from the unknowable, and then devote their time and energies to widening the sphere of that within human gnosis. Whatever else is possible, it is certain that we �WHICH IS THE MORE REASONABLE? 7 can never extend the domain of the known into the unknown by in­ dulging in wild flights of the imagination respecting the unknowable, A® Socrates wisely observes : “ Having searched into all kinds of science, we discover the folly of neglecting those which concern human life and involving ourselves in difficulties about questions which are but mere notions. We should confine ourselves to nature and reason. Fancies beyond the reach of understanding, and which have yet been made the objects of belief—these have been the source of all the dis­ putes, errors and superstitions which have prevailed in the world. Such notional mysteries cannot be made subservient to the right use of humanity.” “ Fear not to scan The deep obscure or radiant light. Heed not the man Who draws old creeds to keep thee tight. Examine all creeds, old and new : Test all with reason through and through.” II. THE RELATION OF AGNOSTICISM TO THE UNIVERSE AND TO THEISM. Agnosticism maintains that the teachings of theology relative to the origin and nature of the universe, the existence of God, and immor­ tality are simply questions of speculation, and that reason, science and general knowledge do not support their dogmatic claims. Tne theologian, on the other hand, contends that sufficient is known upon these teachings to entitle them to our credence. In the face of these two contentions, it will be profitable to ascertain as far as possible which is the correct one. When the truth upon the matter is made manifest, the wisdom of confining ourselves to the known and knowable of existence yill probably be more readily recognized. What, then, are those subjects which are dogmatized upon by the theologian, and to which our attitude is purely Agnostic ? THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE. This is a question which, to us, is involved in absolute mystery. Not only can it not be fathomed by the human mind, but no approach can be made towards the solution of the'problem by the mightiest efforts of the human intellect. We may go back millions of years in imagination, �8 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIAN THEISM : but even then we are no nearer to a beginning than we were before. Indeed, the possibility of such a beginning at all cannot be thought— in other words, is not thinkable. As Mr. Mansel observes, “ Creation is, to the human mind, inconceivable.” Precisely the same with the other alternative, of an external existence, whether of matter or spirit. It presents no idea that we can deal with intellectually, because it ^sembles nothing of which we have had, or can have, the smallest possible experience. Something must have existed from all eternity ; that is a necessary truth, from which there is no escape. And yet the how of that eternal existence lies utterly beyond the sphere of human thought. To waste time in trying to comprehend it, to say nothing of making it the subject of discussion, much less of dogmatism, is the supremest folly. Nor can we have the slightest idea as to what was, or is, the eternal existence. The dogmatic Theist ascribes it to God, and the positive Atheist declares it to be matter • but what in reality either the one or the other means, in the strictest sense, by the terms used, neither of them knows. For what is God, and what is matter < Are they the same, or are they two different existences ? The Mate­ rialist, of course, denies the existence of spirit, and hence by matter he means something other than spiritj-but what ? Matter is simply a name given to that which originates in us sensations. But all that is known of this is phenomenal, and phenomena, as before pointed out, cannot exist by themselves, but must be supported by something which underlies them. What that something is, however, no one knows, since it lies completely outside the sphere of sensation. Besides, modern science has clearly shown that the existence of which alone we can be said to have any knowledge is not matter, but force. But, then, force can only make itself manifest by motion, and where there is motion something must be moved. Say that this moving body is matter, as it probably is, and then comes the question, Which was the eternal existence, force or matter, or both ? If force, how could it exist as motion when there was nothing to be moved ? And, if matter, how could theje be motion —and we have no conception of matter without motion—in the ab­ sence of force, which is the cause of motion ? If it be contended that both—matter and force—were eternal, then have we not two absolute and infinite existences, which is a contradiction ? The Theist postulates spirit; but that only adds a fresh difficulty, as will be seen presently. Here Agnosticism at once declares the whole subject to be outside of our gnosis, and, therefore, one which does not concern us, and of which �WHICH IS THE MORE REASONABLE? nothing is known, or can be known. Mr. Herbert Spencer remarks that, on the origin of the universe, three hypotheses only are possible: —1. That it is self-existent (Atheism). 2. That it is self-created (Pan­ theism). 3. That it is created by an external agency (Theism). Mr. Spencer has, at very considerable length, examined each of these theories, and shown them all to be unthinkable. His position is, that a self-existent universe, which is a universe existing without a begin­ ning, is inconceivable. We cannot even think clearly of “ existence without beginning.” And, if we could, it would afford no kind of explanation of the universe itself. The first theory, therefore, is un­ tenable. But no less so is the second—that of a created universe. To hold this, it is necessary, in Mr. Herbert Spencer’s words, to “ conceive potential existence passing into actual existence.” Is it possible, how­ ever, to form a conception of potential existence except as something which is, in fact, actual existence—the very thing which it is not I It cannot be supposed as “nothing,” for that involves two absurdities— (1) That nothing can be represented in thought; (2) That some one nothing is so far separated from other nothings as to be capable of passing into something, Again, existence passing from one state to another without some external agency implies a “ change without a cause—a thing of which no one idea is possible.” A self-created uni­ verse is, consequently, inconceivable. There is still left the third theory —that the universe was created by some external agency. But here a difficulty arises in the attempt to think of “ the production of matter out of nothing.” Moreover, there is still greater difficulty if we suppose the creation of space. If space were created, then there was a time when it was non-existent, which is also utterly inconceivable. But suppose all these difficulties overcome, there is yet another, the greatest of all. What is the external agency referred to ? And how came it into being ? These are questions to which no satisfactory answers have been or can be given. Thus the origin of the universe belongs to a regior into which no human mind can enter, and therefore Agnosticism is the only possible attitude of thought we can consistently take with regard to the matter. THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE. In connection with this question we encounter speculations in abundance ; but demonstrative facts are nowhere to be discovered. Herbert Spencer has shown that every sensation we experience com­ pels us, whether wo will or not, to infer a cause, and this- �10 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIAN THEISM : idea of causation drives us irresistibly to a First Cause. And yet the moment we have reached it we are landed in all kinds of contradictions and absurdities. For instance, is this First Cause infinite or finite ? If infinite, it is beyond our comprehension, outside the sphere of our knowledge; and if finite, then there must be something beyond its bounds, and it is no longer the First Cause. The Duke of Argyle, in his “ Reign of Law,” observes :— “We cannot reach final causes any more than final purposes ; for every cause which we can detect there is another cause which lies be­ hind ; and for every purpose which we can see, there are other purposes which lie beyond.” By holding that the Universe is infinite, to use the words of Spencer himself, “ we tacitly abandon the hypothesis of causation altogether.” The First Cause must also be either independent or dependent. But if independent, we can have no idea of it at all, because everything we know and think of is dependent. If, however, the First Cause be dependent, then it must, being dependent, depend on something else, and that something else becomes the First Cause, to which the same argument will apply. In a similar manner, this cause must be absolute, and yet, as Mansel has shown, “ A cause cannot, as such, be absolute ; the absolute, as such, cannot be a cause.” The reason of this is very obvious; the cause, as a cause, exists only in relation to the effect. But the absolute must be out of all relation, or it would cease to be absolute. But, in truth, we cannot conceive of the absolute at all. It lies beyond the reach of finite faculties to grapple with; hence, we are compelled to relegate the entire matter to the domain of the unknowable. The power which manifests itself in the universe is utterly inscrutable, and therefore we are driven to Agnos­ ticism to find in it a solid resting-place in reference to the origin and nature of the universe. THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. This is another question which, as already demonstrated, lies beyond z the reach of finite powers. Let us glance at some of the various methods that have been pursued—indeed, are still resorted to—to prove the existence of God. The object in doing this, be it observed, is not to attempt the foolish impossibility of proving the non-existence of God. That would not be Agnosticism ; but the desire here is to indicate that the question of the existence of God is a subject upon which man, to be logical, must, from the very nature of the case be Agnostic. Demonstration of the existence of God will hardly �WHICH IS THE MORE REASONABLE ? II be contended for, except perhaps by the advocates of the a priori method, and that need not be noticed here, since few representative Theists resort to it, and fewer still have any idea what it really means. The kinds of proof that are conceivable to be relied upon in this mat­ ter are as follows :— (a) The Senses.—These, however, can never furnish an argument to prove the existence of God, inasmuch as our organs of sense have no power to perceive anything that does not belong to the mere pheno­ menal part of matter, and, hence, can never show us the noumenon underlying appearances, much less an existence which is said to be in no 5^ay material. If God has given a revelation, such revelation may be seen or heard; but this, of itself, can only prove the revelation, not God. Suppose we heard a voice, in tones of thunder which shook the earth and reached every human ear, declare “ There is a God,” it would prove nothing but the voice—not the God proclaimed. The senses would perceive a sound, to which a very definite meaning might be attached ; but the sound would not be God. It will not be denied by any intelligent Theist that God can never become an object of sense, and, therefore, that method of proof may be dismissed as totally unavailing in the case. (b) Scientific Research.—“ Canst thou by searching find out God 1” is a question that was asked some thousands of years ago, and only one answer has ever been, or probably ever can be, given, and that is a negative one. Science, mighty and potent as it is for good, much as it has done to ameliorate the condition of mankind, and great as its triumphs are likely to be in the future, can never transcend sense knowledge. All its processes are of a material character ; its instru­ ments, together with the subjects which they explore, are material, the phenomena with which it deals are material, and all its discoveries are reported to the bodily organs of sense. Beyond the physical domain of appearances no scientific investigations can ever go ; no telescope or microscope can show us a trace of spirit; nor, in fact, of that, whatever it may be, which underlies phenomena. Scientific facts may lead up to philosophical generalizations ; but such generalizations are reached by ratiocination (process of reasoning), and are no longer exclusively scientific—in fact, are in a sense altogether independent of science. A scientific fact and the interpretation of the fact are totally different things. We may use science as a means for reading the riddles of nature ; the reading, however, is not science, but philosophy; and �19 v. AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIAN THEISM : science has but helped us to the facts which process that is not scientific has to explain. The Theist tells us, with Newton, that science leads up to God ; but it will be seen that the upward road has ceased to be withm the domain of science long before its termination is reached. Logveal Reasoning.—Here, of course, it will be argued by the heist that we start on firm and solid ground. A moment’s reflection, however, will show that this is by no means the case. Our starting point and the conclusion at which we seek to arrive lie so far apart that by no process of logic can we pass from one to the other. There is, in truth, a great gulf between them, and we do not and cannot possess the means of bridging it over. Xu all mathematical reasoning we start from some axiom or necessary truth, which we find in our minds, and which, by a law of our mentation, cannot be got rid of. This we make the basis of all our reasoning and the foundation of the entire super­ structure that we desire to erect. In geometry, in arithmetic, and in logic this is equally the case. Now, all these starting points, whether they be axioms relating to space, notions regarding quantity, or mental conceptions, lie in our own minds, and are only known to us by the fact that we find them there. From these we may reason, form­ ing a long chain of logical links, until, at the end, we reach some truth of a marvellous and startling character, which is as easy of demonstra. tion as the concept or axiom with which we started. In this way Theists endeavour to reason up to God. But it requires no very profound thought to show that the process must break down before it reaches that point. For instance, there is the fact that the conclusion must be of the same quality as the starting point. If the primary truth with which we commenced be internal to our minds, so must the conclusion be at which we arrive. Beginning with ourselves, we must continue and end with ourselves, and by no possibility can we reach anything that is exterior to us. If, therefore, we reason up to a concept to which the name of God is given, we shall be as far as ever from a demonstration of his actual being. We. shall still be dealing with an idea which exists simply in our own minds, and may or may not__for here demonstration ceases and the logical argument breaks down_ be a measure of some real existence. But there is another reason why this logical process must fail. The attributes ascribed to God are of that character about which we cannot reason. However exalted the conception at which we arrive, it must be finite, relative, and condi- �\ WHICH IS THE MORE REASONABLE? 13 tioned, while God is said to be infinite, absolute, and unconditioned. It is, therefore, impossible that God can be the last term of a logical induction. Of course, this does not furnish conclusive proof that the absolute and unconditioned has no existence; it does, how■ever, prove that we cannot know everything of it, since it transcends all our powers and faculties. It belongs to a sphere to which we have no access. Hence, in all our research, investigation, and thought, we bait when we approach the domain of the unknowable, bow our heads and unfurl the banner of Agnosticism. For a person to assert positively that he knows that a God exists, who is an infinite personal being, is, in the face of the present limita­ tion of human knowledge, to betray an utter disregard of accuracy of expression. With the majority of orthodox believers, the term God is a phrase used to cover a lack of information. Persons behold certain phenomena ; the why and wherefore they cannot explain • and because to them such events are mysterious, they pause at the threshold of inquiry, and to avoid what appear to be inscrutable difficulties, allege that such phenomena are caused by God. Dr. Young, the Christian Theist, in his “Provinceof Reason,” says :— “ That concerning which I have no idea at all, is to me nothing, in -every sense nothing.............To believe in that respecting which I can form no notion is to believe in nothing; it is not to believe at all.’r This represents t-he position of Christian Theism. Although a person may picture an object in his mind from an analogous subject, it has yet to be shown how an idea can be formed of that upon which no knowledge exists, either analogous or otherwise. All notions that have been entertained of Gods have been but reflexes of human weaknesses, human desires, and human passions, and therefore do not represent an infinite personal Being. Xenophanes is reported to have said, that “ If horses and lions had hands, and should make their deities, they would respectively make a horse and a lion.” Luther, too, remarked : “ God is a blank sheet, upon which nothing is found but what you yourselves have written.” Schiller also stated : “ Man depicts himself in his Gods.” The history of the alleged God-ideas justifies the truth of those statements ; hence, we find that in different nations, at various times, the most opposite objects have been adored as deities. The sun, -moon, and stars, wood, and stone, and rivers, cows, cats, hawks, bats, /monkeys, and rattlesnakes, all have had their worshippers. Even now the professed ideas of God in Christendom are most discrepant. The �14 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIAN THEISM : God acknowledged by “ Advanced Theists ” is not the same Being in many respects as the one depicted by Talmage and his school. Neither does the object worshipped by the Deist correspond with the “Supreme Power of the Pantheist. Then, if we go to the Bible, we discover very different notions of God therein recorded. He is there described as material, and then as immaterial j first as all-wise, and then again as betraying a lack of wisdom j in one place as being all-powerful, and in another as being exceedingly weak ; at one time as being loving, merci­ ful, and unchangeable, at another as being revengeful, cruel and fickle in the extreme. Surely, to rely on such absurd and contradictory descriptions of a Being as these is more unreasonable than to frankly admit that, if God exist, he is and must be unknown to us. This is not a denial, but an honest confession that mentally no more than physically can we perform the impossible. It is alleged that the “God idea” is firmly rooted in the human mind. What folly ! What is meant in this instance by an idea ? A mental picture of something external to the individual. But where is that“ something ” corresponding with the many and varied representations of a God ? The truth is, this supposed “ idea ” is no reality whatever, but simply a vague “ idea ” of an “ idea,” of which, in fact, no idea exists. Besides, the term “ Infinite Personal Being ” is a contradiction. Personality is that which constitutes an individual a distinct being. This definition implies three requisites : First, that the person shall be a personage ; second, that he shall be distinct from other things • and thirdly, that he shall be bounded, that is, limited. But a bounded, limited being is a finite being, and, therefore, cannot be an infinite personal being. Is the assumed personality of God differentm fro mine 1 If so, where is the difference ? Furthermore, is my personality a part of God’s personality ? If it is, my personality is “ divine ; ” if it is not, then there are two personalities, neither of which can possibly be infinite, for where there are two each must be finite. Furthermore,. personality is only known to us as a part of a material organization. If, therefore, God is material, he is part of the universe. If he be a part, he cannot be infinite, inasmuch as the part cannot be equal to the whole. Personality involves intelligence, and intelligence implies ; 1. Acquirement of knowledge, which indicates that the time was when, the person who gained additional information lacked certain wisdom. 2. Memory, which is the power of recalling past events ; but with the • �WHICH IS THE MORE REASONABLE 1 15 "infinite there can be no past. 3. Hope, which is based on limited per­ ception, and which shows the uncertain condition of the mind wherein the aspiration is found. Now, if God possesses these imperfect, faculties he is finite; while, on the other hand, if they do not belong to him, he is not an intelligent being. Neither does the Theistic definition of God, as being infinite, har­ monize with our reasoning faculties. Reason is based upon experience, but an Infinite Being must be outside the domain of experience , reason implies reflection, but we cannot reflect upon infinity, because it is unthinkable ; reason implies comparison, but the Infinite Being cannot be compared, for there is nothing with which to compare him; reason implies judgment, but the finite is totally incompetent to judge of the infinite ; reason is bounded by the capacity of the mind in which it resides, but the mind to conceive the infinite must be unbounded; reason follows perception, but we have no faculties for perceiving or recognizing the infinite. Therefore, is not the Agnostic position of silence as to the unknown the more reasonable ? If it be urged that it is no part of Agnostic philosophy to consider these Theistic assump­ tions, the answer is, that if such notions are well founded on demon­ strated facts, there is no reason for the Agnostic attitude towards them. It is the proving that Theistic allegations are unsupported by observed truths which renders Agnosticism logical and justifiable. Let it be distinctly understood that it is not against the existence and nature of a God, per se, that exception is here taken—of that we know nothing, but against the positive claims urged in reference to these subjects. To these our indictment is directed. The Orthodox notion of the “ innate consciousness of God’s exist­ ence ” does not strengthen the position of the Christian Theist, for the reason that it is groundless in fact. No doubt the error upon this point has arisen with many persons through their regarding consciousness as a separate faculty of the mind, whereas James Mill, Locke, Brown and Buckle have shown it to be a condition of the mind produced by ■early training and surrounding associations. George Grote, in his Review of J. S. Mill’s Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Phi­ losophy,” aptly remarks : “ Each new-born child finds its religious creed ready prepared for him. In his earliest days of unconscious in­ fancy, the stamp of the national, gentle, phratric God, or Gods, is imprinted upon him by his elders.” Thus it happens that what are too frequently but the consequences of youthful impressions and subsequent �AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIAN THEISM : tuition are regarded as veritable realities. If this “ God idea” were innate, is it not reasonable to suppose that all persons would have it ? But there are thousands of persons who are ready to acknowledge that ey have it not; and those who profess to have it are unable to ex­ plain what it is. Probably, if a child never heard of God in the morn­ ing of life, it would have no fancies concerning him in its mature age. t is to be feared that these Theistic pretensions arise from an inade­ quate acquaintance with the now admitted natural forces. There is however, this hope, that as knowledge still more advances, dogmatism will proportionately disappear, priestcraft will yield to mental freedom, and work in controlling Nature and reliance on her prolific resources will more than ever take the place of supplicating for, and dependence on, alleged supernatural help. The once favourite argument drawn from design in the Universe affords no justification for the positive allegations of Theism. As Pro­ fessor Taylor Lewis admits :— “ Nature alone cannot prove the existence of a Deity possessed of moral attributes.” Has it ever occurred to Theists that at the very most the God of the design argument can only be a finite being, for nowhere amongst what are supposed to be the marks of design in Nature is an infinite designer indicated ? Now, a God that is finite isneither omniscient, omnipotent, nor eternal. The design argument, moreover, points to no unity in God. According to natural theology, there may be one God or hundreds of Gods. The Rev. S. Faber fairly observes : “ The Deist never did, and he never can, prove without the aid of Revelation that the Universe was designed by a single­ designer,” Paley’s well-known comparison of the eye and the telescopeproves the very opposite of that for which it was used. It should beremembered that, but for the imperfection of the eye, the telescope had not been required. Plainly, the argument may be stated thus :_ Designer of the telescope, man; designer of the eye, God ; telescope imperfect, hence its designer w^s imperfect; the eye more imperfect, since the telescope was invented to improve its power • ergo, God, the designer of eyes, was still less perfect than man, the designer of telescopes. Dr. Vaughan, in his work “The Age and Christianity,” declares : “ No attempt of any philosopher to harmonize our ideal notions as to the sort of world which it became a Being of infinite perfection to create, with the world existing around us, can ever be pronounced sue- �WHICH IS THE MORE REASONABLE? 17 -cessful. The facts of the moral and physical world seem to justify inferences of an opposite de-cription from the benevolent.” The Rev. George Gilfillan, in his “Grand Discovery of the Fatherhood,” noticing the horrors and the evils that exist around us, asks : “ Is this the spot chosen by the Father for the education of his children, or is it a den of banisment or torture for his foes ? Is it a nursery, or is it a hell ? there is nb discovery of the Father in man, in his science, philosophy, history, art, or in any of his relations.” If nothing else rebuked the dogmatic assumption of the Christian Theist, the existence of so much misery, evil, and inequality in the world, should do so. What man or woman having the power, would hesitate to use it to alleviate the affliction, to cure the wrong, and to destroy the injustice which cast such a gloom over so large a portion of society ? Let the many records of the world’s benevolence, devotion, and kindness give the reply. To lessen the pain of the afflicted, to assist the needy, to help the oppressed, are characteristics of human nature which its noblest sons and daughters have ever felt proud to manifest in their deeds of heroic self-denial. Contemplating the suc­ cess of crime, the triumph of despotism, the prevalence of want, the struggles on the part of many to obtain the mere means of existence, the appalling sights of physical deformity—beholding all these wrongs this sadness and despair, who shall dogmatically exclaim, “ All Nature proclaims a Fatherhood of of ^df?The question of immortality scarcely belongs to the same class of subjects as the others which have here been discussed; nevertheless, even upon this subject, the Agnostic position appears to me to be the correct one. Personally, I refuse to dogmatise either one way or the other; and the question, after all, is but of little consequence. Our business, for the present at all events, is with this world; and the, affairs of the next may be left until we land upon its shores, if such shores there be. To ignore the teachings said to refer to another life is not necessarily to deny the existence of that life. One thing is cer­ tain, and that is our present existence. Furthermore, experience teaches us that time is too short, duties too imperative, and consequences too important to justify us in wasting our resources and displaying a ‘disturbing anxiety about, to us, an unknown future. “ Life’s span forbids us to extend our cares, And stretch our hopes beyond our years.” �18 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIAN THEISM : DOES AGNOSTICISM SATISFY MAN’S INTELLECTUAL REQUIREMENTS 1 There are two objections frequently urged against the Agnostic posi­ tion which with some people have considerable force. The first is, that Agnosticism robs man of the great consolation and incentive imparted by the belief in the certainty of the existence of a “ Heavenly Father” and a future life. In the second place, it is contended that Agnosticism fails to satisfy the demands of the human intellect. Let us exa.m in e these objections, with a view of ascertaining whether or not they pos­ sess any weight bearing upon the present question. The first objection supposes that without Theism and its teachings there is no adequate comfort and peace for the human race ; that this life of itself is but little more than “ a vale of tears,” alike destitute of the sunshine of joy and the power of imparting happiness in every­ day life. Persons who entertain these gloomy ideas regard existence as being necessarily full of trouble, aud think that mankind are incapable with mere natural resources of enjoying a high state of felicity, and that true bliss is only to be secured by believing in God and entertaining the hope of pleasure in another world. Such morbid notions are born of a dismal faith, and find no sanction in the real healthy view of life’s mission. Existence is not a mere blank ; its condition depends largely upon the use mankind make of it. To some the world may be as a garden adorned with the choicest of flowers, and to others as a wilder­ ness covered with worthless weeds. Life of itself is not destitute of beauty, glory, solace and love. True, it is sometimes darkened with clouds, but it is also enlivened with sunshine ; it is degraded by serf­ dom, and elevated by freedom ; it is shaded by isolation, and illumin­ ated by fellowship ; it is chilled by misery and persecution, and warmed by kindness and affection ; it is blasted by poverty and want, and in­ vigorated by wealth and comfort; it is marred by shams and inequalities, and glorified by realities and equity ; it is humiliated by unequal and exce sive toil, and dignified by fair and honest labour; it has its punishments through wrong and neglect, but it has its rewards in right and correct action. The lesson of experience teaches us unmistakably that life is worth having even if Theism and the teachings in reference to a future existence be nothing more than emotional speculations. In the language of the Rev. Minot J. Savage, in his work, “ The Morals of Evolution,” “ I believe there is not a healthy man, woman, or child �WHICH IS THE MORE REASONABLE? 19' on earth who will not join me in saying that life is worth living simply for its own sake, to-day, whether there ever was a yesterday or there ever will be a to-morrow. Have you ever stood, as I have, on a moun­ tain summit, with the broad ocean spread out at your feet on the one side, a magnificent lake or bay on the other, the valley dotted with towns, with growing fields of greenness, or turning brown with har­ vest ? Have you ever looked up at the sky at night, thick with its stars, glorious with the moon walking in her brightness ? Have you listened to the bird-song some summer morning ? Have you stood by the sea, and felt the breeze fan your weary brow, and watched the breakers curling and tumbling in upon the shore ? Have you looked into the faces of little children, seen the joy and delight they experi­ ence simply in breathing and living, beheld the love-light in their eyes,, heard their daily prattle, their laughter, their shouts of joy and play i Have you, in fact, ever tasted what life means 1 Have you realized that, with a healthy body, in the midst of this universe you are an instrument finely attuned, on which all the million fingers of the uni­ verse do play, every nerve a chord to be touched, every sense thrilling with ecstacy and joy ? No matter where I came from, no matter where I am going to, I live an eternity in this instant of time. Is it not a mistake, in the face of facts like these, to say that life is not worth, living unless it is supplemented by a heaven ? ” “ Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream.” As to the second objection, it is said that man is born to inquire ; his whole nature is bent in the direction of discovery ; curiosity to pry into the secrets of nature and being forms one of his leading character­ istics ; therefore, Agnosticism, which places a barrier to his further investigation, must be objectionable, because it fixes the limits beyond which he may not’ go. This allegation, if worth anything, must be urged, not against Agnosticism, but against the limit of human powers. To tell man that there are subjects which he can never master, not for lack of time to look into them, but because they lie in a domain to which, by the very nature of the case, he can gain no access, should certainly not be calculated to stop his inquiry with regard to matters upon which knowledge is to be obtained. The Theist believes that he can never fully comprehend God; but does that prevent him from �20 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIAN THEISM. endeavouring to learn what he can? Agnosticism has not placed limits to the human mind, but only defined them; it has not erected the barrier beyond which the human intellect cannot pass, but only described it j it has not invented the line which has separated the knowable from the unknowable, but only indicated its position. The mind of man is, therefore, free to inquire to the utmost extent of its powers, and the complaint that it cannot do more is foolish in the extreme. Agnosticism is sufficient for all the purposes of life, and more than that cannot surely be needed. There is no human duty that it is not compatible with, no human feeling that it does not allow full play to, and no intellectual effort that it would attempt to place restrictions upon. It leaves man in possession of all his mental force, seeking only to direct that force into a legitimate channel where it may find full scope for its use. In a beautiful passage in his Belfast address, Pro­ fessor Tyndall remarks : “ Given the masses of the planets and their distances asunder, and we can infer the perturbations consequent upon their mutual attrac. tions. Given the nature of disturbance in water, or ether, or air, and from the physical properties of the medium we canlinfer how its parti­ cles will be affected. The mind runs along the line of thought which connects the phenomena, and from beginning to end finds no break in the chain. But when we endeavour to pass, by a similar process, from the physics of the brain to the phenomena of consciousness, we meet a problem which transcends any conceivable expansion of the powers we now possess. We may think over the subject again and again, it eludes all intellectual presentation.” These words present a great truth, indicating, as they do, the proper scope of man’s intellectual activity. The Agnostic does not fail to carry on his investigations into Nature to the utmost extent of his ability. He seeks to wring from her secrets hidden through all the ages of the past; he pushes his inquiries from point to point, and learns all that can be known of the marvellous processes of life and mind, and only stops when he confronts the unknowable, beyond whose barrier he cannot pass. His are the fields, the groves, the woods, the sea, and all the earth contains ; the starry sky, too, is his domain to explore All nature, with its majestic varieties, lies before him, presenting sub­ jects of the keenest interest. In these he revels with delight; but the �NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 21 incomprehensible he seeks not to comprehend, the unknowable he does not make the idle attempt to know. In a word, he is a man, and he aims not at the impossible task of becoming a God. Is not this course more courageous, more dignified, and more candid than that adopted by the dogmatic theologian, who, yearning for a knowledge of the absolute, and yet failing to discover it, lacks the courage to avow his inability to achieve the impossible ? “ Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.” NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. There have been a large number of books written on this subject, some of them by men of eminence in their respective departments of thought. It has been dealt with from very different standpoints, and therefore exceedingly conflicting arguments have been brought to bear upon it. Two able American writers, Dr. Bushnell and Dr. McCosh, have discussed it with considerable learning ; but one has to put down their works with a great degree of dissatisfaction, since nothing like clear definition is to be found in their pages. In England the subject has been made the theme of several large works, of hundreds of magazine articles, and of thousands of pulpit discourses, an<J yet the whole subject is enveloped in the densest darkness. There must be some cause for this, and the cause, I think, is not far to seek. The natural we know f but the supernatural, what is that ? Of course, as its name implies, it is something higher than nature—something above nature. But, if there is a sphere higher than nature, and yet often breaking through nature, nature itself must be limited by something, and the question that at once arises is, By what is such limitation fixed, and what is the boundary line which marks it off and separates it from the supernatural ? And this is just what no two writers seem to be agreed upon. But, further supposing such a line to be discovered, and to be well known, so that no difficulty could arise in pointing it out, a still more difficult problem presents itself for solution—namely, how man, who is a part of nature, �-22 NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. and able only to come into contact with nature, can push his knowledge into that other sphere which, being non-natural, cannot be at all ac­ cessible to a natural being ? If the supernatural region be synonymous with the unknowable, it cannot clearly concern us, simply because we have no faculties with which to cognize it, and no powers capable of penetrating into its profound depths. In this case, as far as we are concerned, there is practically no supernatural, for none can operate on that sphere in which man lives and moves and displays his varied and in some respects very marvellous powers. According to many writers, the physical is the supernatural, because dt is not under the control of natural law. But why ? If man be partly a spiritual being, why should not natural law extend into the ■ sphere of his spiritual nature ? Indeed, an able writer on the Christian ■ side,-whose work has been enthusiastically received by all religious denominations—Professor Drummond—has maintained this position, the very title of his book stating the whole case : “ Natural Law in the Spiritual World.” The great German philosopher, Kant, calls nature the realm of sensible phenomena, conditioned by space, and speaks of another sphere as a world above space, depleted of sense, and free from natural law, and therefore supersensible and supernatural. But this is to make the supernatural spaceless and timeless—in fact, a mere negation of everything, and therefore nothing. Now, the only light in which we can look at this subject, with a view to obtain anything like clear and correct views, is that of modern science. By her the boundary of our knowledge has been greatly enlarged, and through her discoveries we have been enabled to obtain more sound information regarding the laws of the universe than it was possible for our fathers, with the limited means at their disposal, to possess. If there be a sphere where the supernatural plays a part and exer­ cises any control, it must clearly be in some remote region, of which we have, and can have, no positive knowledge; and the forces in v operation must be other than those with which we are conversant upon this earth. Science cannot recognize the supernatural, because she has no instruments which she can bring to bear upon, and no means at her disposal for, its investigation. She leaves to the theologian all useless . speculations regarding such a region, contenting herself with reminding him that he is. in all such discussions, travelling outside the domain of facts into a province which should be left to poets and dreamers, and �NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 23 which belongs solely to the imagination. All law is and must be natural law, from a scientific standpoint, because we can have access to nature, and to nature only. It is impossible to get beyond her domain, even in imagination. The supernatural, if it exist, must reveal itself through nature, for in no other way can it reach us so as to produce any impression upon the human mind. But, if it come through nature, then how can it be distinguished from the phenomena of nature ? It will be quite impos. sible to differentiate between them. We are quite precluded from saying, Nature could not do this, and is unable to do that. No man can fix a limit to the possibilities of power in nature. She has already done a thousand things which our forefathers would have declared im­ possible, and she will doubtless in the future, under further discoveries and advances in science, do much more which would look impossible to us. Whatever, therefore, comes through nature must be natural, for the very reason that it comes to us in that way. And the business of science is to interpret in the light of natural law. Even if she should prove herself incompetent to the task, it would only show that some phenomena had been witnessed which had for a time baffled explana­ tions, not that anything supernatural had occurred. And the business of science would be to at once direct itself to the new class of facts, with a view to finding the key with which to open and disclose the secret of the power by which they were produced. But what is nature ? Of course every man knows what is meant by nature, in part at all events ; and the only difference in opinion or de­ finition that can arise will be as to its totality. There are a thousand facts lying all around us, and a thousand phenomena of which we are every day eye-witnesses, that all will agree to call nature. The ques­ tion, however,, does not concern these, but others, real or imaginary, which differ somewhat from them, and which are supposed, therefore, to be incapable of being classed under the same head. Those who de­ sire to obtain a clear and accurate idea of nature cannot do better than read carefully Mr. John Stuart Mill’s excellent essay on the subject, published after his death. He gives two definitions, or rather two senses, in which we use the word in ordinary, every-day language. The first is that in which we mean the totality of all existence, and the other that in which we use the term as contradistinguished from art— nature improved by man. But it must be borne in mind that this is �24 NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. still . nature. Nature improved by man is only one part of nature modified by another; for man is as much a portion of nature as the earth on which he treads, or the stars which glow in the midnight sky over his head. Nature, therefore, as I understand it, and as Mill de­ fines it m his first sense, is everything that exists, or that can possibly come into existence in the hereafter—that is, all the possibilities of existence, whether past, present, or future. If I am asked on what ground I include in my definition that which to-day does not exist, but may come into existence hereafter, I reply : Because that which will be must be, potentially at least, even now. No new entity can come into being; all that can occur is the commencement of some new form of existence, which has ever had a being potentially anyhow. No new force can appear, some new form of force may. But, then, that, when it comes, will be as much a part of nature as the rest—is indeed even now a part of nature, since it is latent somewhere in the universe. Man’s beginnings were in nature ; his every act is natural, his thoughts are natural, and in the end the great universe will fold him in its embrace, close his eyes in death, and furnish in her own bosom his last and final resting-place. Beyond her he cannot go. She was his cradle, and will be his grave ; while between the two she furnishes the stage on which he plays his every part. And more, she has made him, the actor, to play the part. Nature is one and indivisible. She had no beginning, and can have no end. She is the All-in-all. Com­ bined in her are the One and the Many which so perplexed the philo­ sophers of ancient times. Charles Watts. ��DATE DUE Z7 JU L 2012 I Demco, Inc. 38-293 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Agnosticism and Christian Theism: which is the more reasonable? Description An account of the resource Place of publication: Toronto Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Watts, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [n.d.] Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [s.n.] Subject The topic of the resource Agnosticism Theism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Agnosticism and Christian Theism: which is the more reasonable?), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA1651 RA1853 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Agnosticism Theism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/b87110da396212b9a5c37ec125ad77ad.pdf?Expires=1779321600&Signature=qkkg0ZE6JPjHVwpx7GW4DrOpo8hu9Xv7IGfBsbkrb4XKS1x7J7EagT6HyFqLeG1AtgKXoYemblD0tqMqMYP4vo9RO3jVn5C9S4edSHHybw0-NIX-XPIX15l7mVepKCPTRaNARmOrM-CYBCSC50ugjIqlmYHookIAdaWKh%7EH1ixNYWdHB8r9fq46iyvdUFOTNa2dgM4EXR6ana8gQtwfYWbZATYORSj4SMYPqPcrCYtcKzOYg5rppSIxCqd5wNwtyYOP8etHTLV-j-hmlO5Au9ttzbqCzF0t0scbE9qxAtTkGd50dJvb6q5-A-rSHzpEc9ZsvYyK6IxDOkchzKyK0Fg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM bb99dc6ddd013ba11acd1dc578c4ee44 PDF Text Text 3 '1 ? 4- NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY siin-s SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE ANTAGONISTIC. BY CHARLES WATTS. The study of science, and its relation to Biblical records, should be both interesting and instructive. Science is defined as being an investigation into the phenomena of ex­ istence, and the best application of the lessons derived there­ by to the requirements of life. Science may be further described as meaning facts reduced to a system; not a fixed, cramped, and exclusive system, but one which expands with the acquirement of additional knowledge. It has been urged that we can have no complete system of science. To some extent this is true; for no science is perfect, if by perfection is meant that all that is knowable is known. But the disco­ veries that have been made, and the scientific truths that have been brought to light, are sufficient to show the fallacy of many Biblical teachings. For instance, so far as man has investigated the statements of the Bible, and the lessons of science, their antagonism to each other has become apparent. This is recognised by some professing Chris­ tians, hence they assert that the Bible does not pretend to teach science. Such a statement, however, is unfortunate for the orthodox position, inasmuch that the Bible, which is supposed to contain all that is necessary for mankind, ought to inculcate that which has proved the greatest benefit to their general improvement. The national and individual condi­ tion of society would be lamentable indeed without the advantages of science. For Christians, therefore, to assert that the Bible ignores science, is to charge their God with being neglectful of the principal wants and requirements of mankind. A book which professes to have been written under ■divine inspiration for the guidance and instruction of the human race, should not only teach science, but should ex­ pound its truths in such a concise and practical manner, that while harmonising with the facts of nature, it should •also commend itself to the judgment and intellect of the humblest of the land. But there can be no doubt that the Bible does refer to scientific subjects, only, unfortunately, in so doing, it exhibits its shortcomings by stating the very �2 opposite to what is correct. Surely when, and how, man was made, the phenomena of the solar system, and how diseases and death entered the world, are scientific ques­ tions. These, with other similar subjects, are dwelt upon in the Bible, and a reference to its statements thereon will show that science and the Bible are not on the most friendly terms. This may be expected from the history and nature of the book. It was evidently written at a remote period, by persons who possessed little or no scientific knowledge, and its teachings are alleged to be fixed for all time and all people. Progress is thus, so far, practically ignored. No matter what subsequent ages may reveal, upon the Christian hypothesis, the Biblical statements must be adhered to. This places the book in direct opposition to science, and dan­ gerous to the development of an advancing civilisation. No book whose teachings are stationary can accord with modern wants and aspirations. That which in the days of Moses might have been considered right, and in accordance with the laws of nature, science has since proved to be incorrect, and what Christ taught as natural laws, subsequent experi­ ence has shown to be in opposition to scientific discoveries. Science and the Bible, therefore, differ widely—the one being progressive, and the other stationary. Science has stamped its valuable impress on the history of the world. By its aid man is enabled to explore hitherto' unknown regions ; by its aid we can descend into the depths of the earth, and discover truths which destroy theological errors that have too long held captive the human mind ; by its aid we can not only avert many of the diseases to which “ flesh is heir to,” but can even bid the messenger of death pause in its gloomy and desolating march. Science has conferred its manifold benefits upon the king and the peasant, the weak and the strong, the healthy and the decrepit. It has transformed nations from a state of bar­ barism to partial civilisation, and stimulated man to eman­ cipate himself from the curse of degrading superftitions. That which was hid from the gaze of the ancient world has, _ by the magic wand of science, been exhibited to us in all its pleasing aspects. To-day, though separated by the broad and swelling ocean, we can in a few moments of time com­ municate with our Atlantic friends by that cable which connects nation with nation. By the mighty propelling power of steam we can, in a comparatively brief period, penetrate the very length and breadth of the land. As the �3 late Prince Albert said in 1855 : “ No human pursuits make any material progress until science is brought to bear upon them........... Look at the transformation which has gone on around us since the laws of gravitation, electricity, mag­ netism, arid the expansive power of heat have become known to us. It has altered the whole state of existence— one might say, the whole face of the globe. We owe this to science, and to science alone.” While contemplating the glorious achievements thus won, it is saddening to remember how their progress has been retarded. In ages long gone, never we hope to return, whenever a scientific truth was manifested, it was sought to be crushed, or its infantine purity was corrupted, either by despotic blindness or igno­ rant misrepresentation. The history of science has been one continual conflict with religious fanaticism and priestly intolerance. Too frequently its usefulness has been im­ paired, and its exponents have been tortured, and made to deny the evidences of their own senses. Perhaps from a theological standpoint we could not expect aught else. A study of the histories of Bible believers will scarcely justify the supposition that they would assist in those discoveries which show the errors of their faith. There have been but few revelations of any magnitude, in any important branch of science, but what have exhibited the fallacy of Bible re­ cords. The antiquity of man has been proved to be consider­ ably greater than Moses alleges ; geology has demonstrated that the world existed thousands of years anterior to the Jewish account; the Christian theory that all mankind des­ cended from one primeval pair is now given up as unreli­ able ; the astronomy of the Bible has long been exploded; the universal flood mentioned in Genesis finds no scientific supporters; the possession of devils by the human body, as believed in by Christ, is regarded as an exploded supersti­ tion ; the teaching of the New Testament that the world, and its contents, are to be destroyed by fire, has but few believers; a burning hell for the “wicked souls of the de­ parted,” is deemed too revolting and absurd to be regarded as more than a fiction. In every field the “ sacred writings” ap­ pear the very antithesis of science. Fortunately, truth has so far triumphed, that notwithstanding all opposition, science is now appreciated, and existence is regulated by its laws. The Bible but nominally exists, and its teachings are sup­ planted by those of a higher and a more practical nature. In demonstrating the difference that exists between the �4 Bible and science, the supposed creation of the world and the origin of man are the first subjects that suggest them­ selves for consideration. Accepting the chronology of the Hebrew records, there is but little difficulty in ascertaining how long man has been on the earth. For instance, in Genesis, we read that whenAdam was 130 years old his son Seth was born ; when Seth was 105, Enos was born ; when Enos was 90, Cainan was born ; when Cainan was 70, Mahalaleel was born • when Mahalaleel was 65, Jared was born; when Jared was 162, Enoch was born ; when Enoch was 65, Methusaleh was born; when Methusaleh was 187, Lamechwas born ; when Lamech was 182, Noah was born. Adding these dates up, we have from the birth of Adam to that of Noah, 1056 years ; 600 years after this, the flood appears, making from the creation of man to the flood, 1,656 years. Then reckoning from the flood to the birth of Christ, 2501, and from Christ to the present time, 1874, we have a total of 6031 years since man first appeared on the earth. Now in Exodus xx. it is said that “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is,” and in Genesis i. we read that “ God created man on the sixth day.” Thus, it is asserted, man was made six days after the creation of the heavens and earth began. Is not this adequate proof that the Bible teaches that the world and man have existed only a little over six thousand years? This was really admitted by the Rev. G. Rawlinson, Professor at Oxford, who, in his recent lecture on “ The Alleged Historical Difficulties of the Old and New Testament,” delivered for the Christian Evidence Society, said :—“ The first difficulty, really historical, which meets us when we open the volume of Scripture, is the short­ ness of the time into which all history is (or at any rate ap­ pears to be) compressed by the chronological statements, especially those of Genesis. The exodus of the Jews, is fixed by many considerations to about the fifteenth or sixteenth century before our era. The period between the flood and the exodus, according to the numbers of our English ver­ sion, but a very little exceeds a thousand years. . Conse­ quently, it has beenusual to regard Scripture as authoritatively laying it down that all mankind sprang from a single pair within twenty-five or twenty-six centuries of the Christian era; and, therefore, that all history, and not only so, but all the changes by which the various races of men were formed, by which languages developed into their numerous and �5 diverse types, by which civilisation and art emerged and gradually perfected themselves, are shut up within the narrow ■ space of 2,500 or 2,600 years before the birth of our Lord. Now, this time is said, with reason, to be quite insufficient. Egypt and Babylonia have histories, as settled kingdoms, which reach back (according to the most moderate of mo­ dern critical historians) to about the time at which. the numbers of our English Bible place the’ deluge. Consider­ able diversities of language can be proved to have existed at that date; markedly different physical types appear not much subsequently; civilisation in Egypt has, about the pyramid period, which few now place later than b.c. 2450, an advanced character; the arts exist in the shape in which they were known in the country at its most flourishing period. Clearly, a considerable space is wanted anterior to the pyramid age, for the gradual development of Egyptian life into the condition which the monuments show to have been then reached. This space the numbers of our English Bible do not allow.” That the Biblical assumptions are contradicted by sci­ ence is beyond all doubt. Turning to the great book of nature, and reading the geological lessons inscribed therein, we find, in the words of Babbage, that “ the mass of evi­ dence which combines to prove the great antiquity of the earth itself is so irresistible and so unshaken by any oppos­ ing facts, that none but those who are alike incapable of observing the facts and appreciating the reasoning can for a moment conceive the present state of its surface to have been the result of only 6,000 years of existence. Those observers and philosophers, who have spent their Jives in the study of geology, have arrived at the conclusion that there exists irresistible evidence that the date of the earth’s firstUormation is far anterior to the epoch supposed to be assigned to it by Moses; and it is now admitted by all competent persons that the formation even of those strata which are nearest the surface must have occupied vast periods, probably millions of years, in arriving at their pre­ sent state.” In reply to this, it is urged by Bible believers that a long period elapsed between the time referred to in the 1st and 2nd verses of Genesis, and that the creation spoken of in the first two chapters of that book was only a re-adapta­ tion of the chaos of a previous world. If this were so, how is it no allusion is made to animals or plants as being .existence before the time referred to by Moses ? Is it �6 not said by this writer that light was created on the first of the six days, and the sun on the fourth ? Admit this correct, and then, previous to that time, there was no light nor heat, a condition of existence which science pronounces an impossibility. Besides, have not geological investigations discovered that the remains of animals and plants found in the strata correspond with species now existing on the earth, indicating thereby that no new creation, took place 6,000 years ago ? It is also equally conclusive that man existed upon the earth long anterior to the time fixed by Moses. Professor Huxley writes : “ Sufficient grounds exist for the assumption, that man co-existed with the animals found in the diluvium, and many a barbarous race may, before all historical time, have disappeared together with the animals of the ancient world.” Sir Charles Lyell supports the statement, that “North America was peopled more than a thousand centuries ago by the human race.” Dr. Bennett Dowler claims for a human skeleton discovered in the delta of the Mississippi no less than 57,600 years. Baron Bunsen claims an antiquity for the human race of at least 20,000 years prior to the Christian era, and traces in Egypt a double Empire of hereditary kings to 5413 b.c. “It is now generally conceded,” observe Nott and Gliddon, “ that there exists no data by which we can approximate the date of man’s first appearance upon earth ; and, for aught we yet know, it may be thousands or millions of years beyond our reach. The spurious systems of Archbishop Usher on the Hebrew text, and of Dr. Hales on the Septuagint, being entirely broken down, we turn, unshackled by preju­ dice, to the' monumental records of Egypt as our best guide. Even these soon lose themselves, not in the primi­ tive state of man, but in his middle, or perhaps modern, ages; for the Egyptian Empire first presents itself to view, about 4,000 years before Christ, as that of a mighty nation, in full tide of civilisation, and surrounded by other realms and races already emerging from the barbarous stage....... These authorities, in support of the extreme age of the geological era to which man belongs, though startling to the unscientific, are not simply the opinions of a few; but such conclusions are substantially adopted by the lead­ ing geologists everywhere. And, although antiquity so extreme for man’s existence on earth may shock some pre­ conceived opinions, it is none the less certain thatlhe rapid �| 7 accumulation of new facts is fast familiarising the minds of the scientific world to this conviction. The monuments of Egypt have already carried us far beyond all chronologies heretofore adopted ; and when these barriers are once overleaped, it is in vain for us to attempt to approximate even the epoch of man’s creation. This conclusion is not based merely on the researches of such archaeologists as Lepsius, Bunsen, Birch, De Longperier, Humboldt, &c., but on those of also strictly orthodox writers, Kenrick, Hincks, Osburn, and, we may add, of all theologians who have, really mastered the monu­ ments of Egypt. Nor do these monuments reveal to us only a single race at this early epoch, in full tide of civilisa­ tion, but they exhibit faithful portraits of the same African and Asiatic races, in all their diversity, which hold inter­ course with Egypt at the present day............ In short, we know that in the days of the earliest Pharaohs, the Delta, as it now exists, was covered with ancient cities, and filled with a dense population, whose civilisation must have required a period going back far beyond any date that has yet been assigned to the deluge of Noah^or even to the creation of the world.” The Bible and science also disagree as to the time occu­ pied in the so-called creation of the world. According to the ist chapter of Genesis, this creation was accomplished in six days, and this theory is confirmed by the words of the Decalogue as given in Exodus xx. n, Mr. Priaulx says “ that in reviewing this creation we are struck by its division into days. These days, though several of them are undetermined by any revolution of the earth round the sun, were, nevertheless, no doubt, meant and understood to be natural days of twenty-four hours each.” Dr. Chalmers and Dr. Pye Smith represent the creation recorded in Genesis as begun and completed in six natural days, but as cut off from a previously-existing creation by a cha­ otic period. Geologists, on the contrary, declare that the various early strata of the earth have occupied enormous periods of time during their formation, and that even in the vegetable and animal kingdoms the extinction and creation of species have been, and are, the result of a slow and gradual change in the organic world. Now, what is the theological explanation of this antagonism between the Bible and geology? Why, it is said that the days men­ tioned by Moses were not natural days of twenty-four hours, but long periods of thousands of years. The objections to �8 this assumption are numerous. The Mosaic periods weredivided into two parts—one of light, and the other of dark­ ness. If, therefore, the day in Genesis meant a thousand years of light, the night represented the same period of darkness. Moreover, it is declared by Moses that God rested the seventh day, so that upon the hypothesis that the day was a thousand years we have the admission that for ten hundred years the universe continued its course without the aid of God. But, says Dr. Sexton, in his “Con­ cessions of Theology to Science, “the greatest objection, and one which is insurmountable to the understanding the term day in the first chapter of Genesis as a long period, and therefore the six days as including all the ages that have passed away, during which those innumerable species of plants and animals have made their appearance on our earth whose remains are embedded in the rocks, will be found in the fact that the order of creation is not the same in. the two cases. According to geology, there is a gradual progression from the lowest to the highest, plants and animals running pari passu side by side, the simplest being found in the early rocks, and the most complex in those more recently formed. In Genesis, on the other hand, the whole of the vegetable kingdom makes its appearance in one epoch, all the inhabitants of the waters in another— the two separated from each other by a long period, in which nothing was created but the sun—and the land animals in a third. Moreover, the organisms created in the last epoch include animals as low as creeping things, and as high as man, which certainly does not accord with the facts disclosed by geology; and whales, which are mammals, and therefore considerably high in the scale of existence, are represented as having made their appearance with the fishes, and long before the creeping things, which is also contrary to fact. The sun too does not exist till the epoch after the creation of plants, so that an enormous vegetation—such as the immense forests which form the present coal-beds—must have flourished in the absence of the rays of sunlight, which is a perfect impossibility. Nor is the difficulty got over by the theory that light had been previously formed, and that therefore the sun was not requisite, since the actinic part of the sun’s rays is equally as indispensable to vegeta­ tion as the luminous portion that we call light.” The Bible account of the material from which man was. m?de differs from the facts discovered by scientific investi­ �9 gation. According to Genesis, man was made from the dust of the earth; chemical analysis, on the other hand, has proved dust does not contain the elements found in the human organisation. The late Dr. Herapath, of Bristol, wrote thus boldly upon this subject :—“From our days of boyhood it has been most assiduously taught us that ‘ that man was made out of the dust of the earth and, ‘ as dust thou art, so to dust thou shalt return.’ Now, this opinion if literally true, would necessitate the existence of alumina as oneof the elements of organisedstrUcture,for no soil or earthy material capable of being employed by agriculturists, can be found without alumina existing largely in its constitution, and clay cannot be found without it. Therefore, chemistry as loudly protests against accepting the Mosaic record in a strictly literal sense, as geology, geography, astronomy, or any other of the physical sciences so absurdly dogmatised upon weekly from the pulpits, by those who have neg­ lected the study of true science, but still profess to teach us that which is beyond all knowledge. That man is not made out of the dust of the earth, but from organised material or vegetable matter, properly digested and assimilated by other organised beings, chemical science everywhere proves to us incontestably.” Prof. Carpenter asserts that two-thirds of the human body by weight is water. Such a proportion of this fluid certainly cannot be found in dust. The principal elementary substances to be found in our bodies are oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon ; these are absent from dust, except a trifling modicum of oxygen. Silicon, which is observable in dust, can scarcely be recognised in the human body. The Lamaic creed supposes man is the production of water. Priaulx suggests had the writer of Genesis adopted this theory, he would have been somewhat nearer the truth. Moses alleges that mankind have descended from one pair, named Adam and Eve. To indicate the fallacy of this, it is only necessary to refer to the fact, so unmistakably proved, that man and woman were on the earth thousands of years before the time of Adam and Eve. “ The theory,” remarks Gliddon, “ that all nations are made of one blood, is en­ tirely exploded.” Besides, if it were correct that all man­ kind emanated from the “ transgressors in the Garden of Eden,” it would be right to expect that the nearer we could trace back to the original stock, the less diversity of race distinction characteristics would be found. Such, however, is not the case. “We know,” observe Nott andGliddon,“ of �IO no archaeologist of respectable authority at the present day, who will aver that the races now found throughout the valley of the Nile, and scattered over a considerable portion of Asia, were not as distinctly and broadly contrasted at least 3,500 years ago as at this moment. The Egyptians, Canaanites, Nubians, Tartars, Negroes, Arabs, and other types, are as faithfully delineated on the monuments of the seventeenth and eighteenth dynasties, as if the paintings had been executed by an artist of our present age. Hence, nothing short of a miracle could have evolved all the multi­ farious Caucasian forms out of one primitive stock; because the Canaanites, the Arabs, the Tartars, and the Egyptians were absolutely as distinct from each other in primeval times as they are now; just as they all were then from co­ existent Negroes. Such a miracle, indeed, has been in­ vented, and dogmatically defended ; but it is a bare postu­ late, and positively refuted by scientific facts. If then the teachings of science be true, there must have been many centres of creation, even for Caucasian races, instead of one centre for all the types of humanity.” Dr. Samuel Morton states “ that recent discoveries in Egypt! prove beyond all question that the Caucasian and the ’Negro races were as perfectly distinct in that country upwards of 3,000 years ago as they are now. If then the difference which we find existing between the Negro and the Caucasian has been produced by external causes, such change must have been effected according to Bible chronology in about 1000 years. This theory is decidedly contradicted by science and experi­ ence.” Another Bible doctrine which clashes with science is, that “ by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin;” that is, that through the supposed disobedience of Adam, death was introduced as a punishment for the alleged offence. In the first place, death, so far from being a punishment, is to many “ a consummation devoutly to be wished.” Epictetus wrote : “ It would be a curse upon ears of corn not to be reaped, and we ought to know that it would be a curse upon man pot to die.” Are there not thousands who suffer a life-long state of physical pain, who have not the strength or opportunity to obtain sufficient food to satisfy the wants of nature ? To such persons as these would not death be indeed a welcome messenger ? Besides, upon the Christian hypothesis, how can death possibly be a punishment ? To be ushered into realms of �II bliss, and there to enjoy everlasting happiness, instead of remaining in this “vale of tears,” ought certainly to be accepted by the Christian as an improvement upon his con­ dition. But this theory of Adam being the cause of the introduction of death, involves a few difficulties. If death had not been introduced, could the world contain its everincreasing inhabitants ? And would it have been capable of producing provisions sufficient to support such an immense multitude? Suppose tjie serpent had not played its “ little game,” could a man that had no knowledge of swimming have fallen into the water without the chance of being drowned ? Or could a person have remained in a furnace and not be burnt to death ? Or if he were in a coal-mine during an explosion, would he escape unhurt ? Further, did the lower animals incur death through the act of Adam ? If yes, did Christ give them immortality ? Because we read, “ As in Adam all died, so in Christ shall all be made alive.” If, however, they did not incur death, it may be asked why one of their kind took a prominent part in what is termed “the fall of man?” The fact is, by our nature we must cease to live. Death is a necessity, regardless of what Adam did or did not, and man cannot but experience it while he is what he is. Change is an universal law of existence, and we are no exception to that law. As soon as we enter upon the stage of life we become subject to that change until we progress to a given point; then our organisation begins to lose its vitality, and we slowly but surely exhaust life's power, and death ensues as certain as a fire will cease to burn when no longer supplied with fuel. This condition of things has always existed so far as science can discover. But the Bible says no ; before Adam’s “ transgression ” deatlrwas not a necessary conse­ quence of life. Here, then, are antagonistic statements. Which is reliable ? If Adam were constituted similar to us, he must have been liable to death. If, on the contrary, his organisation were of an entirely different structure, how could he have been our first parent ? Children do not differ in kind from those who give them birth. So unscien­ tific does this Biblical doctrine appear even to many wellinformed clergymen that they have ceased to regard it as a literal fact. They view it as figurative language or Hebrew poetry; and it requires no great prophetic power to foretell that, when science sheds its light more fully among man­ kind, facts will take the place of the Bible, and the truths �12 of nature will supplant the teachings of an ancient and mis­ leading theology. Modern researches have unmistakeably established the fact that between science and the Mosaic account of the flood there is an absolute antagonism. The Bible states that less than five thousand years ago, God discovered “ that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil con­ tinually.” Not two thous^ad years before this, so the book, relates, God had made man pure and morally upright; had given him the advantage of divine superintendence, and. subsequently the edification of the preaching of Noah. These precautions, however, did not, according to the Hebrew narrative, prevent mankind degenerating so rapidly that the Lord repented “that he had made man, and it grieved him at his heart.” God possessed, it is said, infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, yet he either could not, or would not, devise a plan of reformation for the human race, but resolved instead upon wholesale destruction, and so drowned them all, excepFone family. This was a terrible resolve, opposed to every sentiment of justice and every feeling of benevolence. No being with a spark of humanity in his nature would be guilty of voluntarily exposing millions of creatures, men, women, and children, to the agonies and struggles of a watery grave. Surely an omnipotent God could have found other means to correct the work of his own hands without bringing “ a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven.” Besides, as a remedy and warning, the cold water process proved a failure. The people are reported as being no better after the deluge than they were before. Even Noah, upon whom God bestowed his preserving care, was not made moral by the experiment, for on landing from his excursion he immediately became intoxicated, acted indecently, and indulged in a tyrant’s curse at the expense of an unoffending posterity.. < My object, however, is not to dwell upon the inhuman character of the flood, but rather to show that the account in Genesis is utterly contrary to the result of modern inves­ tigations and the revelations of science. This fact has become so palpable that leading theologians, with a view to save the credit of the Bible story, are driven to assert that the Noachian flood was only partial. Were this assertion correct, the Bible would be in error, inasmuch as it clearly �i3 z teaches the universality of the deluge, as shown by the following extracts from Genesis, vi. and vii. : “ And the Lord said, I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth ; both man and beast, and the creep­ ing thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.” “ And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die.” “ Every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.” “ And all flesh died that moved fipon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, •died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth; and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.” Bishop Colenso says that the flood described in Genesis, whether it be re­ garded as a universal or a partial deluge, is equally in­ credible and impossible. And the Rev. Paxton Hood, in his work “ The Villages of the Bible,” remarks: “I am aware that Dr. Pye Smith and some other distinguished scholars have doubted the universality of the deluge............ I need not refer more at length to this matter than to say it seems quite unphilosophical to maintain the possibility of such a partial flood; this seems to me even more asto­ nishing than the universal.” Professor Hitchcock ob­ serves : “ I am willing to acknowledge that the language of the Bible on this subject, seems at first view to teach the universality of the flood unequivocally.” Upon the suppo­ sition that the flood was partial, it would be interesting to know what prevented the "water from finding its level ? Moreover, where was the necessity of drowning the innocent portion of the local inhabitants ? It cannot reasonably be supposed that no pure-minded women and guiltless children were to be found. Besides, it was folly building the ark and collecting the animals if this partial hypothesis were true; as Noah and his family, together with “two of every sort,” could have emigrated to those parts which the deluge was not to visit. Some of the objections to. the Mosaic account of the flood may be thus stated :— �1. Geological. The study of this science proves to demon­ stration that the present diluvian deposits found in the earth are the result of time going back far beyond the Noachian period. The evolutions in sea and on land, that for ages have been progressing, and are still in process, evidently extend in their connection to the pre-Adamite antiquity. “ This conclusion,” says the Rev. Alfred Barry, M.A., “ is the more undoubted, because so many leading geologists, Buckland, Sedgwick, &c., who once referred the ‘ diluvium’ to the one period of the historic deluge, have now publicly withdrawn that opinion.” Hugh l^ilser, in his “ Testimony of the Rocks,” says : “ In various parts of the world, such as Auvergne, in Central France, and along the flanks of Etna, there are cones of long extinct or long slumbering volcanoes, which, though of at least triple the antiquity of the Noachian deluge, and though composed of the ordinary incoherent materials, exhibit no marks of denudation. According to the calculations of Sir Charles Lyell, no devastating flood could have passed over the forest zone of Etna during the last twelve thousand years.” Alluding to the remains to be found in certain provinces of France, Kalisch, in his Genesis, observes : “ Distinct mineral formations, and an abundance of petrified vegetable and animal life bespeak an epoch far anterior to the present condition of our planet........... That extraordinary region contains rocks, consisting of laminated formations of silicious deposits ; one of the rocks is sixty feet in thickness; and a moderate calculation shows that at least 18,000 years were required to produce that single pile. All these formations, therefore, are far more remote than the date of the Noachian flood; they show not the slightest trace of having been affected or disturbed by any general deluge; their progress has been slow, but uninterrupted.” Thus geology irrefragably demonstrates that, while the earth has Men subject to many floods, it has never been visited bv one as described in the Bible. 2. The Scarcity of Water. The account says : “ And the waters prevailed exceediagly upon the earth, and all the high hills that were under the whole heavens were covered.” Further, “ the mountains were covered.” Now, the height of Mount Ararat is put down at 17,000 feet; the quantity of water, therefore, required to cover this moun­ tain would be, in the estimation of Dr. Pye Smith, Pro­ fessor Hitchcock, and many '’other eminent writers, eight �I5< times greater than what already existed. Was it supplied ? If so, whence did it come ? 3. The Size of the Ark. This vessel is alleged to have Been not more than 450 feet long, 75 feet broad, and 45 feethigh; yet it is said to have held not only Noah and his family, but “ two of every living thing of all flesh:” According to Hugh Miller, there are 1,658 known species of mammalia, 6,266 of birds, 642 of reptiles, and 550,000 of insects. Is it credible that so small a vessel as the Ark is described to have been could have furnished accommoda­ tion for this vast congregatWTL? Space, too, must have been provided for food for the occupants of the Ark. Under such crowded conditions how did ventilation ob­ tain ? The atmosphere must have been fatal, at least, to the existence of some forms of life. And whence was obtained the food to sustain for so long a period the carni­ vorous and the herbivorous animals—the swallows, ant­ eaters, spiders, and flies ? There is a little difficulty also about the light. There were, it appears, three stories in the Ark, and but one window. Now, where was the window positioned ? In the uppel^tory ? Possibly, then, the dwellers in the other two stories of the Ark were in the dark, where many of those have since been who have relied on the Bible instead of profiting by the lessons of science. 4. The Collection of Animals. The difficulties attend­ ing the narrative of collecting the live stock into one happy family are thus aptly put by Mr. T. R. R. Stebbing, M.A. : “ To achieve it he [Noah] must have gone in person, or sent expeditions^o Australia for the kangaroo and the wombat, to the frozen North for the Polar bear, to Africa for the gorilla and the chimpanzee ; the hippopota­ mus of the Nile, the elk, the bison, the dodo, the apteryx, the emeu, and the cassowary must have been brought toge­ ther by vast efforts from distant quarters....... Sheep, game, caterpillars, beasts of prey, snails, eagles, fleas, and titmice mnst all have their share of attention. Unusual pains must be employed to secure therruuninjured. They must be fed and cared for during a journey, perhaps, of thousands of miles, till they reach the ark ; they must be hindered from devouring one another while the search is continued for] rats, and bats, and vipers, jmd toads, and scorpions, and other animals which a patriarch, specially singled out as just and upright, and a lover of peace, would naturally wish �and naturally be selected to transmit as a boon to his favoured descendants.” * 5. Atmospheric and Botanical. The Bible assures us that, after the waters begsffi to subside, the inhabitants of the.'-'Ark existed for nearly eight months in a temperature “■ 3,00'G'feet above the region of perpetual snow.” It surely will not be contended' tnM this statement harmonises with science any more than the record of an olive tree retaining its life after being underlie pressure of several tons’ weight of water for nearly tfiree-qf^te^ of a year. Colenso says : “The difficulty, that so long an immersion in deep water Would kill the olive, had, no cjbubt, never occurred to the Wfiter, who may have observed that trees survived ordinary R^Urtial floods, and inferred that they would just aS well be I -able to sustain the deluge ta'which his irnaginattofrsubjected ■ them.’^ Kalisch observes It is agreed by all botanical . authorities, that, though pa^fial inundations of rivers do not Idtih.'•or. materially change the vegetation of a region, the infukldn of great quantities,of .salt water destroys it entirely for long periods. But the earth produced the olive and the vine 'immediately after the’ta&fation of the Deluge.” In addition to the discrepancies between the Bible and .Science a,bpve pointed out, tgp following may be mentioned. The Bible teaches that mai&ind has degenerated from a state of perfection; science, fn the contrary, indicates that the career of mati fias beeti'iiugressive, and that each age, profiting by d^bb'ffehce, hasten superior to its predecessor. \ The Bible affiftris that at a catain command the sun and moon stood still; science declares that such an event could * never have happened. The/B^ble asserts that all the king­ doms of the world were exhibited from a certain high mountain ; geography teaches that there are many parts of the world totally invisible frjfoc any one elevation. The Bible says that an iron axe floated on the surface of the 'water; experience proves thi^i^be impossible. The Bible alleges that the earth and all tnings therein will ultimately be destroyed by fire ; scientific.Tacts are against the truth of such an allegation. Thus it is seen that the Bible and science are so antagonistic that afcy attempt to harmonise them is hopeless. PRICE TM&PENCE. 1 —.... •- .------------ Printed and Published by C. WArrs, 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, Londo% E.C. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Science and the Bible antagonistic Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Watts, Charles [1836-1906] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: [London] Collation: 16 p. ; 17 cm. Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available [C. Watts] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [n.d.] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N675 Subject The topic of the resource Science Agnosticism Bible Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Science and the Bible antagonistic), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Agnosticism NSS Science and Religion https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/3224db3aa937b7de80b81813628c309c.pdf?Expires=1779321600&Signature=u9h-5yuDE0Tg%7EfGTWQPR14tNGsAqB8CdB70ddhSQEuINjdS1cofxcDY1qydH9ba7iylh5MwYZiGuaWOnSpjBKvKw4ql5%7ElJoE8WFtJ6W5QT%7E6yEbx-ialqE3KLoiKtWO8-ORiJ5Q%7Eo89rq1SPwYHbyP33ge1Fb08BYe%7EQKrEFPQmw--69AVSyTepWbMEJffUEy7oj92mKjGpPFrq-duxDhtLS8cqSNBdKkxGv8iK6oN6GGfq-Xr5eXnZsZB6mSgV8oVjmxL3G49DDl7Rskhg7gTqjLUBY2TcOSr6OpU3quIDh20CVcMSqNmO1EjyjcCjGzh3aKn-0rF5udvE30YA9A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 7d058292252481749b9e91f9ce8eb03e PDF Text Text THEOLOGICAL PRESUMPTION AN LETTER OPEN TO THE REV. DR. R. F. BURNS, OF HALIFAX, N.S. —BY— CHARLES WATTS Editor of “ Secular Thought.Author of “ Teachings of Secularism Compared with Orthodox Christianity,” “ Evolution and Special Creation,” “ Secularism: Constructive and De­ structive,” “ Glory of Unbelief,” “ Saints and Sinners : Which?” “Bible Morality,” ^Christianity: Its Origin, Nature and Influence,'’ “ Agnosticism and Christian Theism: Which is the More Reasonable ? ” “ Reply to Father Lambert,” “ Superstition of the Christian Sunday : A Plea for Liberty and Justice, ” ‘ ‘ The Horrors of the French Revolution,” Ac., Ac. In this Letter the following subjects are dealt with : 1. Why do the Clergy Avoid Debate 1 2. The Position of Agnosticism Towar Is Christianity. 3. Freethought and Men of Science. 4. The Dif­ ference between Facts and Opinions. 5. Christ and Heroism. 6. Christianity and Slavery. TORONTO : “ SECULAR THOUGHT ” OFFICE, 31 Adelaide St. East. PRICE - 5 CENTS. �THEOLOGICAL PRESUMP1ION. -AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REV. DR. R. F. BURNS, OF HALTFAX, N.S. Reverend Sir :—In No. 1 of The Theologue, a magazine issued apparently under the auspices of the Presbyterian College at Halifax, N.S., you have published a lengthy article purporting to be a reply to “ A Canadian Agnostic,” although it is evidently intended to refer to myself. You commence by saying:—“ For between two and three years past the Maritime Provinces have received periodical visits from the chief champion of Agnosticism in Canada.” Is it not rather surprising that a reverend gentle­ man of your position, influence, and ability should have remained so long silent and allowed this “ Canadian Agnostic ” to have made his “periodical visits,” and to have given utterance to what you are pleased to term “ unsupported statements and pitiful perversions,” without seeking to reply to him face to face, cor­ recting the mischief which you suppose that he wrought upon the minds of his hearers ? Is it not your duty as a Christian minister to “ defend the faith ” in the presence of those before whom it is attacked ? Are you not aware that the Bible enjoins, «tnd that your Master and his chief successor, St. Paul, set you the example, to “ Debate thy cause with thy neighbour himself ” ? t(Prov. 25:9). Do we not read in the “ Word of God,” “ Come now and let us reason together ” (Isaiah 1 : 18) ; also, that very •early in his career Jesus was found in the temple in the midst of doctors, “ both hearing them and asking them questions,” and that St. Paul “ disputed in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him, and spake boldly for the space of three months ” (Acts 17 : 17 ; 19: 8). Pardon me, Reverend Sir, for sasking what reason you assign for avoiding the injunction of �THEOLOGICAL PRESUMPTION. 3 your “ sacred book,” and the “ sublime example ” set you by Christ and St. Paul ? Are we to regard such neglect upon your part as an illustration of practical Christianity ? How many Secular halls have you gone into and “ spake boldly ” with Agnostics ? Is your absence from these “ temples and syna­ gogues ” to be ascribed to the fact that you have discovered that such “ disputing ” would not be profitable to your cause, or that for personal reasons you have found that in this, as in many other instances, it is not always wise for rev. gentlemen to at­ tempt in this practical age to emulate their Lord and Master ? While your discretion in thus “ avoiding the enemy ” may indi­ cate your sagacity, it does not show that you have too much con­ fidence in the faith you preach. Rest assured, Rev. Sir, that principles or systems that will not stand the test of honest criti­ cism in fair and gentlemanly debate, have but little claim upon the intelligence of the present day. Probably you may urge that you have come to the rescue of the Faith in the article. you have penned in The Theologue. But purely that mode of warfare can scarcely be looked upon as being either very safe or very heroic. You virtually admit, in the article in question, that you base your comments upon mere hear­ say of what your opponent is supposed to have said at periods varying from one to three years ago, and you deal with the “ reports ” of his statements where he is unable to correct or answer you. Moreover, the probability is that but few of your readers ever heard one of his lectures, and therefore they have only an ex parte account from which to judge. Now, does it not occur to you that it would have been far more heroic and “ Christlike ” in you, and would have given greater satisfaction to the public, had you attended the “ Canadian Agnostic’s ” lectures and availed yourself of the opportunity always afforded on such occasions to reply there and then ? In that case, “ the bane and antidote ” would both have been offered to those present, al­ lowing them to decide for themselves which was the bane and which was the antidote. If, however, for some reason this ^arrangement was not convenient to you, why did you omit to �4 THEOLOGICAL PRESUMPTION. accept his invitation, which was published more than once in the Halifax papers, to a public debate ? Can it be that you fail to realise the force of Milton’s opinion that truth will never suffer .in its conflict with error ? The policy adopted by the orthodox clergy of shunning public controversy may please the older members of the Churches, who unfortunately have been trained to accept their views upon trust, but it will never satisfy the young and intelligent minds seeking to know the reason why they should endorse the faith submitted to them. Blind belief and passive submission belong to the theological darkness of the past, not to the intellectual light of the present. Your article appears to me to be remarkable for its theological presumption and groundless allegations. I wish you to particu­ larly understand that I do not use the term presumption in any offensive sense whatever. It is not my custom or desire to know­ ingly initiate the very objectionable feature, too prevalent in some discussions, of unnecessarily wounding the feelings of thosewho differ from me. Such conduct too often inflames the passions but seldom wins the assent of reason. All controversy should be governed by intellectual discrimination, not by angry disputation. Truth should invariably be the goal in such con­ flicts, and the best and most dignified me'ans of reaching it is calm and kind investigation. By applying the word presump­ tion to your article I wish it to be understood that in it you make statements upon mere supposition and that you substitute opinions for facts. In no one instance throughout the article do you deign to make an effort to prove what you assert, but you urge with marvellous confidence your allegations as if they were beyond question. This, I regret to say, is a common practice with theologians; they seldom acquaint themselves with the real nature of the opinions or principles they assail, and thus they ; frequently mislead their hearers or readers with unfair conclu­ sions drawn from false premises. You say : “ Very pertinent and ' pointed was the reply of Sir Isaac Newton to the astronomer Haley when he spouted infidelity in his presence. ‘ Sir,’ said that Prince of philosophers, ‘ you have never studied these sub- �THEOLOGICAL PRESUMPTION, 5 jects and I have. Do not disgrace yourself as a philosopher by presuming to judge on questions you have never examined.’ ” If this anecdote is a fair reflex of Newton’s mind it is clear that his theology, which, by the way, was exceedingly small from an orthodox point of view, did not protect him from a fair share of egotism and conceit. This incident, however, which you have selected, has a most significant meaning in reference to your article in The Theologue, for, evidently, “ you have not studied ” with too great care the subjects upon which you therein write. For instance, where did you obtain from Agnostic philosophy a justification for your assertion that Agnosticism was “a system of accumulated negation,” and that it taught, “ we are sure only of what is present and visible ? ” This, Sir, is a pure theological fiction, caused by an utter lack of knowledge upon the part of the assertor as to the facts about which he was writing. You seem to entirely misunderstand our position as Secularists and Agnostics in reference to Christianity. It may, therefore, be of some service to inform you in a few words what that posi­ tion really is. There are three principal modes of criticising the modern Orthodox pretensions set forth on behalf of popular Christianity. First, it is alleged such pretensions are entirely destitute of truth, and that they have been of no service what­ ever to mankind. This view we certainly cannot endorse. Many of the superstitions of the world have been allied with some fact, and have in their exercise upon the minds of a portion of their devotees served, for a time no doubt, a useful purpose. In the second place, certain opponents of Christianity regard it as being deserving of immediate extinction. This, in our opinion, is unjust to its adherents, who have as much right to possess what they hold to be true as we have to entertain views which we believe to be correct. Theological faiths should be supplanted by intellectual growth, not crushed by dogmatic force. The third and, probably, the most sensible and fair mode of dealing with Christianity is to regard it as not being the only system of truth; as not having had a special origin ; as not being suited to all minds; as having fulfilled its original purpose, and as possess- �6 THEOLOGICAL PRESUMPTION. ing no claim of absolute domination. This is the true position of Secularism and of Agnosticism towards popular orthodoxy. Such a position is based upon the voice of history, the law of mental science, and the philosophy of the true liberty of thought. Having dealt with these introductory points, the main issuesin your article are reached, and here your “ sins of omission and of commission ” come glaringly to view. Your “ sins of omission ” consist mainly in your not even making the attempt to prove what you so readily assert n your article, and not in any way verifying your nu­ merous allegations. You reproduce old statements that have been refuted again and again, and leave your innocent readers to suppose that what is advanced are undisputed facts. Such an orthodox procedure may be expected from the pulpit, but it is sadly out of place in a magazine, particularly where you profess to answer an Agnostic opponent. You apparently penned the article under the impression that your Christian friends would be satisfied, without evidence of the correctness of your position, and therefore it is reasonable to suppose that your desire was to convince those who are adverse to your theological views. But surely you are not so oblivious of the intellectual activity of the times as not to recognise that for you to succeed in this laudable effort something more than vague assertion is necessary. This, Sir, is not an age of mere blind belief or of passive submission,— at least, it is not so outside the church. Facts are required, and evidence is necessary, when dealing with the Agnostic position, and it is your neglect in supplying these very essentials that constitutes, in my estimation, your “ sins of omission.” You accuse “ A Canadian Agnostic ” of misapplying the term Freethought to certain “ leaders in the departments of Science and Statesmanship, of Literature and the Arts,” but you do not furnish a single verification of your charge. What “ names ” of “leaders” has the Agnostic claimed as belonging to the Freethought ranks who were not Freethinkers ? You omit to men­ tion one in support of your statement. True, you say, “ Some �THEOLOGICAL PRESUMPTION. 7 of the names noted, e.g., Darwin, Huxley, Martineau (both Har­ riet and James), cannot be included in the Infidel class.” If, Sir, by the term “ Infidel ” you mean a disbeliever in orthodox Chris­ tianity, then undoubtedly the four persons whose names you. mention were “Infidels” in the fullest sense of the word. Is itnot a fact, wThen in 1859 Darwin published his “ Origin of. Species,” and when in 1877 he issued his “Descent of Man/’ thathe was branded by both the press and the pulpit as an “ Infidel ?” Even such a high-class journal as the Saturday Review said of the assault Darwinism made upon religion:—“ It tends to trench upon the territory of established religious belief,” and. the Quarterly Review exclaimed that the teachings of Darwin were “ absolutely incompatible, not only with single expressions in the word of God on that subject of natural science with which it is not immediately concerned, but .... with the whole representation of that moral and spiritual condition of man which is its proper subject matter.” Dr. Andrew Dickson White, in his “ Warfare of Science” (p. 149,) quotes Bishop Cummings, who wrote: “Christians should resist to the last Darwinism ; for that it is evidently contrary to Scripture.” Tne Dr. also refers (p. 147,) to the Rev. Dr. Hodge as saying,. Darwinism “is a denial of every article of the Christian faith/ In 1871 the Rev. W. Mitchell, Vice-President of the Victoria Institute, wrote : “ Any theory which comes in with an attempt to ignore design as manifested in God’s creation, is a theory, I say, which attempts to dethrone God. This the theory of Dar­ win does endeavour to do ... So far as I can understand the arguments of Mr. Darwin, they have simply been an endeavour to eject out of the idea of evolution the personal work of the deity.” Another amiable minister of the “ Gospel of love ” in 1882 went so far as'to say that Charles Darwin, who had then recently died, “ was burning in hell.” Do you not know, Sir, that both Darwin and Huxley openly and frankly avowed themselvesAgnostics ? Professor Huxley was the originator of the term as it / is at present understood, and he is now on,e of its ablest exponents. Freethought is an essential element in Agnosticism, and, there- �8 THEOLOGICAL PRESUMPTION. fore, was it not quite right to name these two scientists as Free­ thinkers? You utterly ignore these facts, which either shows that you were not acquainted with them, or else that you pur­ posely omitted to mention them. In either case the omission is not calculated to enhance your reputation as a trustworthy student and expositor of history. You mention Sir Isaac Newton, Locke, Goethe, Carlyle and others to substantiate your views upon Christianity and the Bible ; yet it is to be regretted that you make no effort to vindi­ cate in what way either of those writers refutes the position taken upon these subjects by “ A Canadian Agnostic.” Surely you do not contend that those “ burning and shining lights ” regarded orthodox Christianity as being perfect or the Bible as an infallible book. The whole tenor of Locke’s philosophy is based on know­ ledge, while theological teachings are founded on faith. Newton contended that the universe was guided by natural law, and not as your system alleges, by the alleged supernatural. As for Carlyle, Professor Tyndall and Moncure Conway have recently demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that the “ Sage of Chelsea ” was a thorough sceptic to the orthodox religion. It is clear from your article that you are under the delusion that “ A Canadian Agnostic ” sees no good in the Bible, while the fact is that he recognises much in that book which is true and useful; but he also finds much therein that is erroneous, and which would, if acted upon, be injurious both to individual and na­ tional progress. Forgive me, Rev. Sir, if I am unable to accept the ■Queen of England, or “the dying words of Sir Walter Scott” as authorities upon the true value of the Bible. The English throne •or a death bed are not the best places fiom which to obtain efficient and impartial evidence to justify claims that are contra­ dicted by investigations made at the seats of learning by such men as Davidson, Jones, Westcott and the author of “Super­ natural Religion,” while they were in health and possessing mental vigour. It is upon the candid researches of scholars like these that Freethinkers rely for the facts as to the history, na­ ture and worth of the Bible. If it be true that Walter Scott �THEOLOGICAL PRESUMPTION. 9 whispered just -before his death, “ Bring me the Book,” meaning the Bible, he did no more than probably a devout believer in the Vedas, the Zendavesta or the Koran would have done under similar circumstances. But, again, you omit to do the very thing which it was necessary you should have done in your case,— namely, to show in what possible manner such a request could prove that your Bible was superior to all other existing books. You appear to attach too much importance to the opinions of eminent men without first ascertaining upon what grounds such ■opinions are formed. This is a grave omission upon the part of a rev. gentleman in your position. Of course every person has a right to entertain his or her opinion, but its real value can only be estimated by discovering its relation to facts. Moreover, when you cite opinions in support of your contentions it is due to the cause of truth that your citations should, so far as they •affect the questions at issue, be given fairly and in full. This you have not done in your article. For instance, in reference to your testimony to the character of Christ, you only produce partial statements and thereby cause an erroneous conclusion to be arrived at. Take as an illustration of the truth of my charge the following passage from your article: “ Men the reverse of friendly to Christianity, as we understand it, such as Strauss, Theodore Parker, Renan, and Rousseau, have endorsed Richter’s judgment on Jesus,‘He is the purest among the mighty, the mightiest among the pure.’ ” Now, Sir, you ought to know that, as you have put these words, they are likely to mislead your readers. Not one of the four men you have quoted “ endorsed” what you teach from your pulpit as to the character and mission of Christ. Why did you not state that Rousseau’s “ testimony ” was put into the mouth of his “ Vicar of Savoy,” who subse­ quently adds in reference to the Gospel containing the supposed sayings and doings of Christ, “ Nevertheless this same gospel is full of incredible things, things which contradict reason, and which it is impossible for any sensible man to conceive or admit.” You might also have added that Renan in his “ Life of Jesus” says that: Christ had “no knowledge of the general conditions �10 THEOLOGICAL PRESUMPTION. of the world ” (p. 78); he was unacquainted with science, “ be­ lieved in the devil, and that diseases were the work of demons ” (pp. 79-80) ; he was “ harsh ” towards his family, and was “ no philosopher ” (pp. 81-83); he “ went to excess ’(p.174); he “ aimed less at logical conviction than at enthusiasm “ sometimes his in­ tolerance of all opposition led him to acts inexplicable and ap­ parently absurd ” (pp. 274,275); and “Bitterness and reproach became more and more manifest in his heart ” (p. 278). I have now sufficiently supplied your omissions to enable a better opportunity for a just judgment to be formed as to the worth of the opinions of your witnesses upon the character of' Christ. I would not have you mistake my objections to omissions. I grant that at times it may be right, nay necessary, to omit certain things, but the sin comes in when persons are misled by the omissions as to the facts of the matter under con­ sideration. Such is the great drawback pertaining to a large portion of your article. It bears the semblance more of special pleading, than a candid statement of the whole truth. It reads like the production of the partial theologian, instead of the work of a just and equitable reasoner. Your article is so replete with inaccurate statements, bold asser­ tions and erroneous conclusions, that it would occupy more space than I have allowed myself to deal with all of your “ sins of commission.” A few instances, however, will suffice to show your lack of historical precision and logical deduction. You say that George Washington declared, “ It is impossible to govern the world without God,” and you refer to him as if he were a Christian, whereas you should know that he was a Deist and did not in any way accept orthodox Christianity. The God in whom* Washington believed was certainly not the Bible Deity, and his religion was far more Secular than it was theological. You next insinuate that I slander the character of Christ Now, Sir, to slander is to utter that which is false and maliciouswhich I have never done in reference to Christ. Judging from his alleged biographies, I admit that he possessed some excellent traits of character, and I applaud his strong denunciation of �THEOLOGICAL PRESUMPTION. 11 certain evils of his day. Regarding him as one possessing but limited education, surrounded by unfavourable influences for in tellectual acquirements, belonging to a family not very remarkable for literary culture, retaining many of the failings of his pro­ genitors, and having but little care for the world or the things of the world, there is much to admire in the life and conduct of Jesus. But when he is raised upon a pinnacle of great­ ness, as an exemplar of virtue and wisdom, surpassing the production of any age or country, being equal to God himself , he is then exalted to a position which, in my opinion, he does not merit, and which deprives him of that credit which other­ wise he would be entitled to. True, I cannot endorse your unsupported assertion that Christ was perfect and that he “ died the death of a god,” for if your teaching be correct, he came on earth with a mission to perform, a part of which was to die on the Cross ; yet, when the time arrived for his destiny to be ful­ filled, he sought to avoid his fate, and shrank from that death which was said to give life to a fallen world. So ovei vhelmed was he with grief and anxiety of mind, that he “ began to be sorrowful and very heavy.” “ My soul,” he exclaimed, “ is sorrowful even unto death.” At last, overcome with grief, he implores his father to rescue him from the death which was then awaiting him. If Christ knew in three days he should rise again ; that his death was to be little more than a sleep of a few hours’ duration; if he were conscious that ultimately he should tri­ umph over death, wherefore all this trouble and mental suffering ? In reference to the statement of “ A Canadian Agnostic ” that Christianity is not original you exclaim : “ He however took good care not to attempt showing it.” If you will read my pamphlet on “Christianity: its Origin, Nature, and Influence,’’ you will find that I did attempt to show it; and if you require additional proof it is only for you to accept an invitation, which I now offer you, to discuss the claims of Christianity either upon the platform or through the pages of The Theologue, where your article appeared, and in Secular Thought. In speaking of Christ you remark he “ imperceptibly drew all �12 THEOLOGICAL PRESUMPTION. classes of men to him—lifted them up from the horrible pit in which they were imbedded, into heavenly places, till poverty gave place to comfort, intellectual degradation to intellectual development.” This statement is almost an unpardonable sin upon the part of a scholar who should know that “ all classes of men ” never were drawn to Christ either in the past or at the present time. Even the Rev. Dr. A. Burns, of Hamilton, Ont., admits: “ No dialectical skill, nor witchery of logic or rhetoric, can justify the attitude of the church toward the nine hundred millions who have yet to hear the first Christian sermon. On what principle can the Church affirm that Christianity is for the healing of the nations ? Do Christians believe that ? Could they make the sceptic believe that they were sincere ? ” As to your allegation that comfort and intellectual development replaced poverty and degradation under the influence of the church, history records the very opposite as being the fact; poverty and submission are the essential teachings ascribed to Christ, and during the greater part of seventeen hnndred years of Christian rule the masses throughout Christendom were the victims of want, misery, ignorance, and mental degradation. If you read Professor Draper’s “ Conflict between Religion and Science,” and “ The History of European Morals,” by Lecky, you will discover that for centuries, when Christianity was paramount and unrestrained, there was “ A night of mental and moral darkness,” as recorded by Lecky, who further adds: “Nearly all the greatest intellectual achievements of the last three centuries have been preceded and prepared by the growth of Scepticism. . . . The splendid discoveries of physical science would have been impossible but for the scientific scepti­ cisms of the school of Bacon. . . . Not till the education of Europe passed from the monasteries to the universities ; not till Mohammedan science and classical Freethought and industrial independence broke the sceptre of the Church, did the intellectual revival of Europe begin.” Equally reprehensible is it on your part to allege that the Church has been opposed to slavery and that “ its complete sup- �THEOLOGICAL PRESUMPTION. 13- pression is due mainly to the operation of Christian influences.” It would be almost impossible for a more groundless assertion than this to be uttered; and if such reckless writing is to be taken as a fair sample of the historical knowledge possessed by the clergymen of Halifax, no marvel that they avoid debate and publish their perversions of facts where no correction can be given. It is thus that theological presumption thrives and ortho­ dox errors are perpetuated. The truth is that slavery is a Bible institution, that while some professed Christians opposed the crime it was fostered by the Church, and many of those who condemned its cruelty and injustice were designated by Chris­ tians as “ Infidels.’ Lecky and Gibbon have shown that the condition of slaves was, in some instances, better before than it was after the introduction of Christianity. Prior to Christianity many of the slaves had political power, they were educated, and allowed to mix in the domestic circles of their masters, but subse­ quent to the Christian advent the fate of the slave was far more ev ere; hence, Lecky observes, “ The slave code of imperial Rome compares not unfavourably with those of some Christian countries.” (“ Hist, of Morals,” Vol. I, p. 327.) The Council of Laodicea actually interdicted slaves from Church communion without the consent of their masters. The Council of Orleans (541) ordered that the descendants of slave parents might be captured and replaced in the servile condition of their ancestors. The Council of Toledo (633) forbade Bishops to liberate slaves belonging to the Church. Jews having made fortunes by slave­ dealing, the Council of Rheims and Toledo both prohibited the selling of Christian slaves except to Christians. Slavery laws were also passed by the Council of Pavia (1082) and the Latern Council (1179). During all those ages, priests, abbots and bishops held slaves. The Abbey of St, Germain de Pres owned 80,000 slaves, and the Abbey of St. Martin de Tours 20,000. Let me suggest that you carefully read that excellent work : “ Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles,” by Parker Pillsbury, and “The American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery,” by James G. Birney, and you will then learn how the Churches op- �14 THEOLOGICAL PRESUMPTION. posed the abolition of the slave trade. It is stated in “ The Life and Times of Garrison ” that at a convention held in May, 1841, Mr. Garrison proposed : “ That among the responsible classes in the non-slaveholding States, in regard to the existence of slavery, the religious professors, and especially the clergy, stand wickedly pre-eminent, and ought to be unsparingly ex­ posed and reproved before all the people.” In a recent editorial in Voice (N.Y.) appears the following: “Even the powerful East New York M. E. Conference publicly reprimanded five of its members, one of whom was the late Rev. Dr. Curry, for the sin of attending an Abolition meeting addressed by Wendell Phillips ! This is the way Mr. Phillips found it necessary to lash the hesitating, time-serving clergy of Boston in his speech on the surrender of Sims in 1852 : ‘ I do not forget that the Church all the while this melancholy scene was passing [the surrender of the fugitive slave Sims] stood by and upheld a merciless people in the execution of an inhuman law, accepted the barbarity and baptised it Christian duty.’ ” Theodore Parker said that if the whole American Church had “ dropped through the Continent and disappeared altogether, the anti-slavery cause would have been further on.” (His Works, Vol. 6, p. 233). He pointed out that no Church ever issued a single tract among all its thousands, against property in human flesh and blood; and that 80,000 slaves were owned by Presbyterians, 225,000 by Baptists, and 250,000 by Methodists. Even Wilberforce himself declared that the American Episcopal Church “ raises no voice against the predominant evil; she palliates it in theory, and in practice she shares in it. The mildest and most conscientious of the bishops of the South are slaveholders themselves.” Your identifying Secularism with “ Robert Elsmere ” and calling it the “ Gospel of Despair ” is evidence that you do not understand what Secular philosophy really is. It is not pre­ tended that “ Robert Elsmere ” was a Secularist. Permit me to remind you that Secular principles enable a man to live a noble and a happy life and die a contented and peaceful death, with the belief that if there be another existence or a continuation of the �THEOLOGICAL PRESUMPTION. 15 present one, he is safe to realise all its advantages. With the Secularist there is no despair, no fear of hell with its inhuman tortures, but the highest consolation born of confidence in the result of meaning well and of doing well. I have now pointed out enough of your sins of omission and of commission to exhibit to the candid reader how recklessly you have written upon matters to which you clearly have not given .much thought and attention. In conclusion allow me to express a sincere hope that in future you will seek to learn the facts of anything you oppose before hastily condemning it, and that thereby you may avoid violating the Bible command not to “ bear false witness against thy neighbour.” Charles Watts. SECULARISM : Is it Founded on Reason, and is it Sufficient to Meet the Needs of Mankind ? DEBATE BETWEEN THE EDITOR OF THE EVENING MAIL (Halifax, N.S.) AND CHARLES WATTS, EDITOR OF SECULAR THOUGHT. WITH PREFATORY LETTERS BY GEO. JACOB HOLYOAKE and COLONEL R. G. INGERSOLL AND AN INTRODUCTION BY HELEN 60 pages, price 25 cents. H. GARDENER. Secular Thought Office, Toronto. �Charles Watts’ Works. THE TEACHINGS OF SECULARISM COMPARED WITH Orthodox Christianity. 96 pages. Price 25 cents. SECULARISM : IS IT FOUNDED ON REASON, AND IS IT SUFFICIENT TO MEET THE NEEDS OF MANKIND? Debate be­ tween the Editor of the Halifax Evening Mail and Charles Watts. With Prefatory Letters by George Jacob Holyoake and Colonel Ingersoll, and an Introduction by Helen H. Gardener. 60 pages, 25 cents. A REPLY to FATHER LAMBERT’S “ TACTICS of INFIDELS.” 20 cents, post free. CHRISTIANITY : ITS ORIGIN, NATURE AND INFLUENCE. 32 pages, price 15 cents. THE HORRORS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION : THEIR CAUSES. 24 pages, price 10 cents SECULARISM; DESTRUCTIVE AND CONSTRUCTIVE. 22 pages in cover ; price 10c. BIBLE MORALITY. ITS TEACHINGS SHOWN TO BE CONtradictory and Defective as an Ethical Guide. 24 pages, price 10c. AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIAN THEISM : WHICH IS THE More Reasonable ? 24 pages, price 10 cents. EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION. 10 cents. SAINTS AND SINNERS—WHICH ? 24 pages in cover : price 10c. THE SUPERSTITION OF THE CHRISTIAN SUNDAY: A Plea for Liberty and Justice. 26 pages ; price 10c. “THE GLORY OF UNBELIEF.” 22 pages in cover; price 10c. NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL; or, BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE. 24 pages, price 10 cents. THE AMERICAN SECULAR UNION ; ITS NECESSITY, AND the Justice of its Nine Demands. (Dedicated to Colonel Robert Ingersoll.) 32 pages in cover; price 10c. THEOLOGICAL PRESUMPTION : An Open Letter to the Rev. Dr- R. F Burns, of Halifax, N.S. r6 pages, price 5c. New Work by Mrs. Watts. Just published. CHRISTIANITY : DEFECTIVE AND UNNECESSARY. By Kate Eunice Watts. 24 pages, price 10 cents. Contents.—I. Why is Christianity Believed ? II. “ Our Father which art in Heaven.” III. The Fall and the Atonement. IV. The Basis and Incentive of Orthodox Christianity, V, Christianity Not a Necessity to Mankind. SECULAR THOUGHT OFFICE, TORONTO, ONT. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Theological presumption : an open letter to the Rev. Dr. R.F. Burns, of Halifax, N.S. Description An account of the resource Place of publication: Toronto Collation: 15 p. ; 22 cm. Notes: Publisher's list on back cover. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Watts, Charles, 1836-1906 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [n.d.] Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Secular Thought Office Subject The topic of the resource Agnosticism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Theological presumption : an open letter to the Rev. Dr. R.F. Burns, of Halifax, N.S.), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA841 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Agnosticism Secularism