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iTftg Atheistic ffllaffarm*
VI.
‘
z 4’- ■
NATURE
AND
THE GODS.
ARTHUR B. MOSS.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT
PUBLISHING
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1 8 8 4.
PRICE
ONE
PENNY.
COMPANY,
�THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
-------------
Under this title it is proposed to issue a fortnightly publi
cation, each number of which shall consist of a lecture
delivered by a well-known Freethoug’ht advocate. Any
question may be selected, provided that it has formed the
subject of a lecture delivered from the platform by an
Atheist. It is desired to show that the Atheistic platform
is used for the service of humanity, and that Atheists war
against tyranny of every kind, tyranny of king and god,
political, social, and theological.
Each issue will consist of sixteen pages, and will be
published at one penny. Each writer is responsible only
for his or her own views.
I. “ What is the use of Prayer ?” By Annie Besant.
II. “ Mind considered as a Bodily Function.”
Alice Bradlaugh.
III. “ The Gospel of Evolution.”
ling, D.Sc.
IV. “Englxnd’s Balance-Sheet.”
laugh.
V. “The Story
of the
Soup, n.”
By
By Edward Ave-
By Charles Brad
By Annie Besant.
�NATURE AND THE GODS.
Ladies and Gentdeaien,—No word has played a more
important part in the discussion of scientific and philo
sophical questions than the word Nature. Everyone
thinks he knows the mbaning of it. Yet how few have
used it to express the same idea; indeed it has been
•employed to convey such a variety of impressions that
John Stuart Mill asserts that it has been the “fruitful
source” of the propagation of “false taste, false philo
sophy, false morality, and even bad law.” Now, I propose
in this lecture that we start with some clear ideas concern
ing the meaning of such words, upon the right understand
ing of which the whole force of my arguments depends.
What, then, is meant by the word Nature ? When used
by a materialist it has two important meanings. In its
large and philosophical sense it means, as Mr. Mill says:
‘ ‘ The sum of all ph.8enom.ena, together with the causes
which produce them, including not only all that happens,
but all that is capable of happening—the unused capabili
ties of matter being as much a part of the idea of Nature
as those which take effect.” But the wor^. Nature is often
used, and rightly used, to distinguish the “natural ” from
the “artificial” object—that is, to indicate the difference
between a thing produced spontaneously by Nature, from
a thing wrought by the skill and labor of man.
But it must not be supposed that the artificial object
forms no part of Nature. All art belongs to Nature. Art
simply means the adaptation, the moulding into certain
forms of the things of Nature, and therefore the artistic
productions of man are included in the comprehensive
’sense of the term Nature which I just now used.
�84
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
Now in Nature there is a permanent and a changeableelement, but man only takes cognisance of the changeable
or pheenomenal element; of the substratum underlying phe
nomena he knows and can know nothing whatever ; that is,
man does not know what matter and force are in them
selves in the abstract, he only knows them in the concrete,
as they affect him through the medium of his senses.
Now I allege that nearly all the mistakes of theology
have arisen from the ignorance of man in regard to Nature
and her mode of operation. Let us consider for a moment
a few facts in reference to man. Of course I don’t want to
take you back to his origin. But suppose we go back no
further than a few thousand years, we shall find that man
lived in holes in the earth; that he moved about in fear
and trembling; that not only did he fight against bis
fellow creatures, but that he went in constant fear of animals who sought him as their prey. Under these eiroirmstances he looked to Nature for assistance. He felt how
itnspeakab'ly helpless he was, and he cried aloud for help.
(Sometimes he imagined that he received what in his,
agony he had yearned for. Then it was that he thought
that Nature was most kind. Perhaps he wanted food to
eat and had tried in vain to procure it. But presently a
poor beast comes across his path, and he slays it and satis
fies his hunger. Or perhaps he himself is in danger. A
ferocious animal is in pursuit of him and he sees no means
of escape, but presently comes in view a narrow stream of
water which he can swim across, but which his pursuer
cannot. When he is again secure he utters a deep sigh of
relief. In time he makes rapid strides of progress. He
learns to keep himself warm while the animals about him
are perishing with cold; he learns to make weapons where
with to destroy l^s enemies; but his greatest triumph of
all is when he has learned howto communicate his thoughts
to his fellows. Up to now it would be pretty safe to say
that, man was destitute of all ideas concerning the existence of god or gods. But he advances one stage further,
and his thoughts begin to take something like definite
shape. He forms for himself a theoiy as to the cause of
the events happening about him. And now the reign of
the gods begins. Man is still a naked savage; as Voltaire
truly says : ‘ ‘ Man had only his bare skin, which continu
ally exposed to the sun, rain and hail, became chapped,
�NATURE AND THE GODS.
85
tanned, and spotted. The male in our continent was dis
figured by spare hairs on his body, which rendered him
frightful without covering him. His face was hidden by
these hairs. His skin became a rough soil which bore a
.forest of stalks, the roots of which tended upwards and the
branches of which grew downwards. It was in this state
that this animal ventured to paint god, when in course of
time he learnt the art of description ” (“ Philosophical Dic
tionary,” vol. ii., page 182).
Naturally enough man’s first objects of worship were
fetishes—gods of wood, stone, trees, fire, water. By-andbye, however, he came to worship living beings; in fact,
-any animal that he thought was superior in any way to.
himself was converted into an object of worship. But
none of these gods were of any assistance to him in pro
moting his advancement in the world. And neither did
he receive any assistance from the spontaneous action of
Nature. In fact he advanced in the road of civilisation
■only in proportion as he offered ceaseless war against the
hurtful forces of nature, using one force to counteract the
■destructive character of another. Think what the earth
must have been without a solitary house upon it, without
a man who yet knew how to till the soilI Must it not have
been a howling wilderness fit only for savage beasts and
brutal barbarians? In course of time, however, man
made great' strides. He began to live in communities,
which. afterwards grew into nations. He betook himself
also to the art of agriculture, and supplied himself and his
fellows with good, nutritious food. And with this growth
of man the gods underwent a similar transition. Now
instead of bowing down before fetishes, man transferred
his worship to gods and goddesses who were supposed to
dwell somewhere in the sky. And these gods were of a
•very peculiar kind. Each of them had a separate depart
ment to himself and performed only a certain class of
actions. One made the sun to shine and the trees to grow;
one had a kind of dynamite factory to himself, and manu
factured lightning and thunder; another was a god of
love ; another secretary for war; another perpetual presi
dent of the Celestial Peace Society. Some had several
heads; some had only one eye or one arm; some had
wings, while others appeared like giants, and hurled
.thunderbolts at the heads of unoffending people. But
�86
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
these gods were of no more service to man than those that
preceded them. If man advanced it was by his own effort,
by virtue of using his intelligence, by strife, warfare, and
by suffering.
Neither Nature nor the gods taught man to be truth
ful, honest, just, nor even to be clean. No god came to
tell him that he must not lie, nor steal, nor murder. All
virtues are acquired, all are the result of education. And
it was only after coming together and being criticised by
one another; men being criticised by women who no
doubt taught them that when they came a-wooing they
would have a very slight chance if they were not clean and
respectable; living in societies and being governed by
the wisest among their fellows, who were able to judge as
to what kind of actions produced the most beneficial
results, that laws against theft, adultery, and murder, and
other evil actions, were established. From Polytheism, or
belief in many gods, the next great step was to Mono
theism, or belief in one god. This was an important
transition, and meant the clearing from the heavens of
many fictitious deities. But though the monotheist
believed only in one god, that did not prevent others from
believing in an entirely different deity. The ancient Jew
worshipped Jahveh, but that did not prevent the Baalites
from having a god of their own, to whom they could
appeal in the hour of need. And just let me here observe
that the early monotheist always worshipped an anthropo
morphic or man-like deity. And he worshipped such a
god because man was the highest being of whom he had
any conception. His god was always the counterpart of
himself and reflected all the characteristics of his own
nature. Was he brutal and licentious? So was his god.
Was he in’favor of aggressive wars? Sowas his god.
Was he a petty tyrant, in favor of slavery? So was his
god. Was he a polygamist? Sowas his god. Was he
ignorant of the facts of life ? So was his god. Was he
revengeful and relentless ? So was his god.
And in whatever book we find a deity described as a
malevolent or fiendish wretch depend upon it, by what
ever name that book may be known, and by whomsoever
it may be reverenced, it was written by one who possessed
in his own person precisely the same characteristics as»
those he depicted in the character of his deity.
�NATUIIE AND TlTE GODS.
Th e Jewish, god, Jahveh, it must be understood, was not
a spiritual being, although it is sometimes pretended that
he was. No. He was a purely material being. True he
lived somewhere up above, but he made very frequent
visits to the earth. Once he walked in the garden of Eden
“in the cool of day,” or “his voice” did for him (Gen.
iii., 8). Once he stood upon a mountain, whither Moses,
Aaron, Nadab and Abihu had gone to hold a consultation
with him (Ex. xxiv., 10). Once he talked with Moses
“face to face” (Ex. xxxiii., 11).
And not only was Jahveh a material being, but on the
whole he was not a very formidable deity. In point of
truth he was a very little fellow. And by way of diversion
he was sometimes drawn about in a small box, or ark,
two feet long and three feet wide (Sam. vi., 6, 7). As
evidence that even among professional Christians to-day
Jahveh is not looked upon as a very stalwart fellow, Mr.
Edward Gibson, in the House of Commons, a short time
ago said that if Mr. Bradlaugh were admitted into that
assembly the effect of it would be that god would be
“thrown out of the window.”
And if you want to find a man with “small ideas” on
general matters it is only necessary to know the kind of
god he worships to be able to determine the intellectual
width and depth of such a man’s mind.
Why is this ? Because all ideas of god were born in
the fertile imaginations of men, and a man’s idea of god
is invariably the exact measurement of himself, morally
and intellectually. It may be urged by some Theists that
man is indebted to Jahveh for his existence, and that he
owes his moral and intellectual advancement to the fact
that this deity, through the medium of Moses and the
other inspired writers, laid down certain commandments
for his guidance in life. When it is remembered, however,
that if man is indebted in any way to Jahveh for his ex
istence, he owes him only the exact equivalent of the
benefits he has received, I think it will be seen that on the
whole man’s indebtedness to this deity is very small indeed.
Was Adam indebted to Jahveh for the imperfect nature
which compelled him to commit the so-called sin which
imperilled the future destiny of human race ? Were all
the “miserable sinners”—the descendants of the first
pair—indebted to Jahveh for their “corrupt” natures?
�88
THE ATHEISTIC PEATFORM.
If yes, what kind of god was man indebted to ? To a god
who once drowned the whole of mankind except one family ?
To a god who said that he was a jealous being who “ visir ted the sins of the father upon the children unto a third
and fourth generation (Ex. xx., 5) ? To a god who sanc
tioned slavery (Lev. xxv., 44, 45) and injustice of all
kinds ? To a god who said “ thou shalt not suffer a witch
to live” (Ex. xxii., 18), and gave instructions for men to
kill the blasphemers among their fellows (Lev. xxiv., 16) ?
To a god who told Moses to go against the Midianites and
slay every man among them, preserving only the virgins
among the women to satisfy the lustful natures of a brutal
horde of soldiers (Numbers xxxi., 7—18) ? To a god to
whom, as Shelley says, the only acceptable offerings were
the steam of slaughter, the dissonance of groans, and
the flames of a desolate land” (Dialogue between
“ Eusebes and Theosophus,” prose writings, page 300) ? I
deny that man has ever been in any way indebted to such
a god, and I say moreover that such a deity never had any
leal existence, except in the base imaginations of ignorant
and brutal men. But the next stage was from the
material to the spiritual god. Many ages must have
elapsed before this more elevating though equally absurd
belief_ became to be accepted, ^ven by a small minority of
mankind. But the time eventually did come—a time
which happily is now rapidly passing away—when intel
lectual men believed that the proposition of the existence
of god could be demonstrated to all rational minds. Some
said that god’s existence was self-evident to every intelli
gent mind; others that Nature and men could not have
come by “chance”; that they must have had a cause;
some said that the harmony existing’ in the universe proved
god’s existence; others that everybody except fools “felt
in their hearts ” that there was a god. But these imagin
ary proofs did not always convince. At last there came
forth philosophers who said that there was a mode of
reasoning, the adoption of which “leads irresistibly up to
the belief in god,” and that that mode was called the
mode a priori. Another school said that the a priori, or
reasoning from cause to effect, was an altogether fallacious
method, and that the only satisfactory mode of establish
ing god’s existence was the d posteriori, or reasoning from'
effect to cause.
�NATURE AND THE GODS.
89
Another school said that taken singly neither of these
modes of reasoning established the existence of deity, but
that both taken together “formed a perfect chain” of
reasoning that was quite conclusive on the point. Neither
of these schools, however, showed how two bad arguments
could possibly make one good one. But let me iust briefly
examine these arguments put forward so confidently by
leading Theists. The first method—d priori—invariably
takes the form of an attempt to establish what is called a
Great hirst Cause.”.
When it is said, that there must be a “first cause” to
account for the existence of Nature, such language, to say
the least, shows a total misapprehension of the meaning of
e word cause,” as used by scientific men, “ First
cause, as applied to Nature as a whole, remembering the
definition I have given, is an absurdity. Cause and effect
apply only to phenomena. Each effect is a cause of some
subsequent effect, and each cause is an effect of some
antecedent cause. The phaenomena of the universe form a
complete chain of causes and effects, and in an infinite
. regression there can be no first cause. Let me explain
what I mean more fully. For instance, here is a chainsuppose it is to form a perfect circle, every link in which
is perfect; now if you were to go round and round this
cham from now to doomsday you would never come to the
first lmk It is the same m Nature. You can go back,
and back, and back through successive causes and effects
but you will never come to a “first cause ” ; you will not
be able to say “here is the end of Nature, and here the
beginning of something else.” There is no brick wall to
mark the boundary line of Nature. You cannot “look
through Nature up to Nature’s God,”—the poet Pope not
withstanding—for Nature seems endless, and you can
neither penetrate her heights nor fathom her depths. And
1 have one other word to say in reference to this d priori
method, before finally disposing of it. It is this, that it is
an altogether unscientific method. Man knows nothing
whatever of cause except in the sense that in the imme
diate antecedent of an effect. Man’s experience is of effects •
these he takes cognisance of; of these he has some know
ledge but of cause, except as a means to an end, he has none.
But this brings me to the second mode of reasoning in
proof of God s existence, the d posteriori, and this has one
�90
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
advantage in its favor, and that is, that it is a scientific
method. It reasons from known effects up to the supposed
causes of them. Now this generally assumes the form,
no matter under what guise, of the famous 1 ‘ design argu
ment.” Dr. Paley stated it many years ago, and it has not
been much improved since his day. It is generally stated
m this way: “The world exhibits marks of design; that
design must have had a designer; that designer must be
a person ; that person is God.” A number of illustrations
are then brought forward to support this contention. For
instance, it is argued that when a man observes a watch
or a telescope, or any article that has been made to answer
a certain purpose, and the mechanism of which is sc>
adjusted as to effect the desired object, it is said that from
the marks of design or contrivance observed .in the
mechanism, he infers that these articles are the products
of some human designer. And so it is said that when we
look around the world and see how beautifully things are
designed, the eye to see, the ear to hear; how admirably
things are adapted the one to the other, are we not justi
fied by similar reasoning in concluding that these are the
productions of an almighty and infinite designer ? Briefly
stated that is the argument. Now' let me examine it.
And in the first place it will be observed that it is assumed
that- there is a great resemblance between the works of
Nature and the artistic works of man. But is this really a
fact? Man simply moulds natural objects into certain
forms; they are then called artificial objects. We know
that man designs watches and telescopes; it is a fact
within our experience. But there is not the slightest
similarity between the process of manufacture and the
natural process of growth; so that when we see various
objects of Nature, we do not conclude, however har
moniously the parts may work together, that they were
designed. We know a manufactured article from a natural
object, we could not mistake the one for the other. But
let us suppose that we did not know' that men made
watches; it is very probable that we should then think
that a watch was not made at all, but that it was a natural
object. Take an illustration. Suppose that I were to lay
a watch upon the earth somew'here in South Africa:
suppose that in a short time a savage wandering near the
spot where the watch was deposited should observe it,
�.NATURE AND THE GODS.
should take it into his hand and handle it—I am assuming’
that the savage had never seen a watch before, and was .
not aware that men designed and constructed watches— fl
think you that he would for a moment notice that it
exhibited marks of design? No, I think he would be morelikely to come to the opinion that it was alive. The design <■
argument therefore is purely an argument drawn from
experience. But what experience has man of god?
Speaking for myself I can say that I have absolutely no-1. '■'u
experience of him at all, and I am not acquainted with
anybody who has. Man does not know god as a designer
or constructor; he neither knows of his capabilities, nor
his existence; and he therefore cannot reasonably say that
god is the designer of anything.
The human eye is very often adduced by the Theist as
an illustration of design. Now nobody can deny that the
eye is a delicate, complicated, and beautiful structure ; no- '
body could fail to see and acknowledge with feelings of
admiration the wonderful adjustment and harmonious uj
working of its various parts; and all would readily ac
knowledge how admirably it is fitted to perform its func
tions. But yet to acknowledge all this is not to admit
that the eye is designed. To point to the combinations
and conditions which produce this result, without showing
that these conditions were designed, is to beg the whole
question. And it must be distinctly understood that the
onus probandi, as the lawyers say, lies with the affirmer of
the design argument and not with him who does not see
evidence in it sufficient to command belief. To show that
a thing is capable of effecting a certain result does not
prove that it was designed for that purpose.
For example. I hold this glass in my hand; I now re
lease my hold from it and it instantly falls to the ground ;
that does not surely prove either that I was designed to
hold up that glass, or that the glass was designed to fall ; | ]
on withdrawing my grasp from it. At most it only proves
that I am capable of holding it, and that when I release it,
it is impelled by the law of gravitation to fall towards the
earth.
But there is another view of this question I wish to pre
sent to you. From this argument it is not quite clear that
there is only one supreme god of the universe. Admit
tedly this is an argument based upon experience. What
�92
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
does experience teach us in respect to a person ? Simply
this. That a person must have an organisation, and a
person with an organisation must he a limited being. Has
god an organisation ? If he has not, he cannot be intelli
gent, cannot perceive, recollect, judge; and if he has,
then an organisation implies contrivance, and contrivance
implies a contriver, and this again instead of leading up to
one god, leads to an innumerable tribe of deities each
mightier and more complicated than the other.
If the Theist retorts that a person need not have an
■organisation, the Atheist at once replies that neither need
the designer of Nature be a person.
But these are not the only objections to be used against
the design argument. The d priori theologians have some
very potent arguments to advance. Mr. William Gillespie
has discovered twenty-four defects of d posteriori arguments,
and I think he has conclusively shown that all the attri
butes claimed for deity are impeached by this method.
In my humble opinion the design argument has grown
•out of the arrogance and conceit of man, who imagines
that the earth and all the things existing upon it were
•created especially for his benefit.
Suppose that I admit that there is design in Nature, the
Theist has then to account for some awkward and many
horrible designs. How will he get over the fact that
Nature is one vast battle-field on which all fife is engaged
in warfare ? What goodness will he see in the design
that gives the strong and cunning the advantage over the
weak and simple ? What beneficence will he detect in the
fact that all animals ‘‘prey” upon one another? and that
man is not exempt from the struggle ? Famine destroys
thousands ; earthquakes desolate a land; and what tongue
-can tell the anguish and pain endured by the very poor in
all great countries of the earth? Think of the “ills to
which flesh is heir.” Think of the diseases from which
so many thousands suffer. Think how many endure agony
from cancer or tumor, how many have within their bodies
parasites which locate themselves in the fiver, the muscles,
and the intestines, causing great agony and sometimes
death. Think how many are born blind and how many
become sightless on account of disease. Think of the deaf
and the dumb, and of the poor idiots who pass a dreary
mid useless existence in asylums. Then think of the acci-
�NATURE ANU THE GODS.
dents to which all men are liable. Think of the many
who are killed or injured on railways every year. Think of men and boys who injure or destroy their limbs in
machinery during the performance of their daily work.
Think of the thousands who find a premature and watery
grave. In one of our London workhouses I saw recently
a young man who had met with a dreadful accident; who
had had his hand frightfully lacerated by a circular saw,
which will prevent him from ever working again. Think
of his suffering. Think of the misery his wife and chil
dren will have to bear on account of it. It almost makes
one shed bitter tears to think of it; and yet we are to be
told, we who are striving to alleviate suffering and mit,igate the evils which afflict our fellow creatures, we are to
be told that an infinitely wise and good god designs these
things.
Oh the blasphemy of it! Surely an infinite fiend could
not do worse; and if I thought that Nature were intelli
gent, that Nature knew of the suffering she inflicted on all
kinds of living beings and had the power to prevent it, but
would not, I would curse Nature even though the curse in
volved for me a sudden and painful death. But Nature
heareth not man’s protests or appeals—she is blind to his
sufferings and deaf to his prayers.
Oh, but it’s said: “ See what harmony there is in the
Universe : ” per se there is neither harmony nor chaos in
Nature; we call that harmony which pleasantly affects us,
and that chaos which does the reverse. Some Theist may
say: “ Suppose that I grant that I cannot prove that god
exists, what then ? You cannot prove your own existence,
and yet you believe that you exist.” I am well aware that
I cannot prove my own existence; I don’t want to prove
it; it’s a fact, and it stands for itself—to me it is not a
matter of belief, it is a matter of certainty. I know that
I exist. Cannot god make the evidence of his existence as
clear as my own is to me ? If he cannot, what becomes of
his power ? and if he will not, what of his goodness ?
And it must be remembered that there are thousands of
intelligent Atheists in the world to-day. Now, either god
does not wish man to believe in him, or if he does he lacks the power to produce conviction. 0 Theist—you who
profess to be conversant with the ways of the almighty—
explain to me, now, how it is that in proportion as men
�•94
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
•cultivate their minds and reason on theological questions
that the tendency is for them to disbelieve even in the
ethereal deity of modern Theism. And it will not do in
the nineteenth century to put Jesus forward as a god. He
was no god. He possessed many good qualities, no doubt,
as a man—but not one attribute which is claimed for god.
He was neither all-wise, nor all-good, nor all-powerful, and
he was only a finite being. And how can it be pretended
by sensible persons that a finite man living on the earth,
born of a woman, and dying like any other ordinary being,
could possibly be the infinite god of the Universe ? Is it
not absurd ? I cannot believe it, and anybody with brains
that devotes a moment’s thought to the matter, must ac
knowledge either that it is incomprehensible, or that it is
monstrously absurd.
In this country we are not asked to believe in any of the
“foreign gods”—the gods of ancient Greece or Home—
the gods of China, India, or Egypt, etc.—and we need not
now discuss as to how far these deities have influenced
human conduct for good or for ill. England, as a civilised
country, is not very old. And civilisation has always
meant a banishment of the gods. While men considered
how to please the gods, they neglected in a great measure
the work of the world. As Plato said : “ The gods only
help those who help themselves.” Well they are just the
persons who do not want help ; and I shall never worship
any god who leaves the helpless and the unfortunate to
perish.
If god only “helps those who help themselves,” he
might as well leave the helping alone, because even as
we find the world to-day, the whole of life seems to be
based on the principle that, “ unto him that hath shall be
given, and he shall have in abundance, and from him that
hath not shall be taken away even that which he seemeth
to have.” The man who has a strong constitution may
struggle successfully in the world; the man with great
affluence may win an easy victory over his fellows; the
man who has plenty of “influential friends” has good
prospects ; but the poor, the weakly, the ignorant, what
hope have they—they have to suffer and toil, and toil and
suffer from the cradle to the tomb.
How is it, then, you may ask, if man has received no
assistance from without, either from Nature or the gods,
�NATURE AND THE GODS.
95
that he has achieved such splendid results in the world ?
The answer is simple enough. The great struggle for life
—the desire to get food, clothing, habitation, comfort—
these have been the motives which have urged men on.
The desire to get food caused men to till the soil, and, as
the demand increased, the methods of cultivation improved;
with improved taste came improved raiment and dwellings
for the rich; plain dress and decent habitation for the
poor. Men having given up the worship of Nature, began
to study her; they found that by diligent investigation,
and the application of their augmented knowledge, they
were able to beautify the world, and render their lives
happy. Then we began to have great scientific discoveries.
Navigation, steam-power, telegraphy, electricity; by a
knowledge of the use of these powers man has been able
to conquer the destructive character of many natural
forces, and to transfer a world of misery into a home
of comparative comfort. And I say that the world is
indebted far more to those who built houses, made
clothes, navigated ships, made machinery, wrote books,
than to all the gods and their clerical representatives the
world has ever known. Belief in god never helped a man
to supersede the sailing vessel by the steamship, the old
coach by the railroad, the scythe by the reaping machine,
nor the fastest locomotion by the telegraph wires. Man’s
necessities ahured him on to all these achievements. One
Stephenson is worth a thousand priests—one Edison of
more value to the world than all the gods ever pictured by
the imagination. And we must not forget the men who freed
the human intellect from the fetter's of a degrading supersti
tion. We must n ot forget what the world owes to our Brunos,
our Spinozas, our Voltaires, our Paines, .our Priestleys; for
these, by teaching men to rely on their reason, have opened
out channels of thought that were previously closed, and
mines of intellectual and material wealth that have since
yielded great results. And so it must now be said that
man is master of Nature, and he finds that she is just as
good as a servant as she was bad as a master.
But the earth is not yet a Paradise. Theology is not yet
entirely banished; the debris of the decayed beliefs still
cumber our path and impede our progress. There is
even now much that remains to be done. Plenty of labor
to be performed. Ignorance, poverty, and crime and
�96
THE ATHEISTIC PLATFORM.
misery still exist and exert their evil influence in the
world. The philanthropist and the reformer have still
their work to do. The ignorant have yet to he instructed,
the hungry have yet to bo fed, the homeless have yet to be
provided for. And I have come to the opinion after years
of experience, that ignorance is the. real cause of all the
misery and suffering in the world: that that man is truly
wise who sees that it is against his own interest to do a
paltry act, to perform an evil deed. All actions carry with
them their consequences, and you can no more escape the
effects of your evil deeds than you ('an evade the law of
gravitation, or elude the grim monster Death when the
dread hour arrives.
No. If you would be happy you must act virtuously—
act as you would desire all others to do to promote your
happiness. Say to yourselves : if every one were to act
as I am doing, would the world he benefited ? and if you
come to the opinion that th<* world would not be improved
by such conduct, depend upon it your actions are not good.
Remember that once you perform a deed in Nature it is
irrevocable ; and if it is bad repentance is worse than use
less. All actions either have an evil or a good result.
Every deed leaves its indelible impress on the book of
Nature, from which no leaves can be torn and nothing can
be expunged. And remember, too, that the man who
makes his fellow-creatures happy cannot displease a god
who is good; and a god who is not good is neither deserv
ing of admiration nor service.
An infinite and all-powerful god cannot need the assist
ance of man ; but man needs the assistance of his brothers
and sisters to diffuse the glorious light of knowledge
through the world; needs assistance to alleviate suffering,
to remove injustice, and secure the possibility of freedom
and happiness for all. Therefore I urge you td abate not
your enthusiasm, but work bravely on: and when the
evening of your life approaches, with wife by your side
and your children playing joyously about you, with many
friends to cheer and thank you—then will you know that
vour life’s labor has not been in vain.
Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh, at 63, Fleet
Street, London, E.C.—1881.
�
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Nature and the gods
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Moss, Arthur B.
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Place of publication: London
Collation: [83]-96 p. ; 18 cm.
Series title: Atheistic Platform
Series number: 6
Notes: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Freethought Publishing Company
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1884
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Atheism
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Atheism
Gods
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
ORATION ON THE GODS.
BY
COLONEL ROBT. G. INGERSOLL.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.
PRICE SIXPENCE.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH
23, STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�ORATION
ON
THE
GODS.
“ An Honest God is the Noblest Work of Man.'"
Nearly every people have created a god, and the god has
always resembled his creators. He hated and loved' what
they hated and loved, and he was invariably found on the
side of those in power. Each god was intensely patriotic,
and detested all nations but his own. All these gods
demanded praise, flattery, and worship. Most of them were
pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has
ever been considered a divine perfume. All these gods
have insisted upon having a vast number of priests, and the
priests have always insisted upon being supported by the
people, and the principal business of these priests has been
to boast about their god, and to insist that he could easily
vanquish all the other gods put together.
These gods have been manufactured after numberless
models, and according to the most grotesque fashions.
Some have a thousand arms, some a hundred heads, some
are adorned with necklaces of living snakes, some are
armed with clubs, some with sword and shield, some with
bucklers, and some have wings as a cherub ; some were in
visible, some would show themselves entire, and some would
only show their backs; some were jealous, some were
foolish, some turned themselves into men, some into swans,
some into bulls, some into doves, and some into Holy
Ghosts, and made love to the beautiful daughters of men.
Some were married—all ought to have been—and some
were considered as old bachelors from all eternity. Some
had children, and the children were turned into gods and
worshipped- as their fathers had been. Most of these gods
were revengeful, savage, lustful, and ignorant. As they
generally depended upon their priests for information, their
ignorance can hardly excite our astonishment.
These gods did not even know the shape of the worlds
they had created, but supposed them perfectly flat. Some
�4
ORATION ON THE GODS.
thought the day could be lengthened by stopping the sun,
that the blowing of horns could throw down the walls of a
city, and all knew so little of the real nature of the people
they had created, that they commanded the people to love
them. Some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could
believe just as he might desire, or as they might command,
and that to be governed by observation, reason, and expe
rience is a most foul and damning sin. None of these gods
could give a true account of the creation of this little earth.
All were wofully deficient in geology and astronomy. As a
rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives,
they were far inferior to the average of American presidents..
/"XThese deities have demanded the most abject and de
grading obedience. In order to please them, man must lay
his very face in the dust. Of course, they have always been
partial to the people who created them, and have generally
shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob and
destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters.
Nothing is so pleasing to these gods, as the butchery of
unbelievers. Nothing so enrages them, even now, as to
have some one deny their existence.
Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god.
Gods were made so easy, and the raw material cost so little,
that generally the god-market was fairly glutted, and heaven
crammed with these phantoms. These gods not only
attended to the skies, but were supposed to interfere in
all the affairs of men. They presided over everybody and
everything. They attended to every department. All was
supposed to be under their immediate control. Nothing
was too small—nothing too large : the falling of sparrows,
the flatulence of the people, and the motions of the planets
were alike attended to by these industrious and observing
deities. From their starry thrones they frequently came to
the earth for the purpose of imparting information, to man.
It is related of one, that he came amid thunderings and
lightnings, in order to tell the people that they should not
cook a kid in its mother’s milk. Some left their shining
abodes to tell women that they should, or should not, have
children—to inform a priest how to cut and wear his apron,
and to give directions as to the proper manner of cleaning
the intestines of a bird.
When the people failed to worship one of these gods, or
failed to feed and clothe his priests (which was much the
same thing), he generally visited them with pestilence and
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
5
famine. Sometimes he allowed some other nation to drag I 1
them into slavery—to sell their wives and children; but - \
generally he glutted his vengeance by murdering their firstborn. The priests always did their whole duty, not only- n
in predicting these calamities, but in proving, when they
did happen, that they were brought upon the people I
because they had not given quite enough to them.
These gods differed justasthenations differed: the greatest
and most powerful had the most powerful god, while the
weaker ones were obliged to content themselves with the
very off-scourings of the heavens. Each of these gods pro
mised happiness here and hereafter to all his slaves, and
threatened to eternally punish all who either disbelieved
in his existence, or suspected that some other god might
be his.superior; but to deny the existence of all gods was, .
and is, the crime of crimes. Redden your hands with
human blood ; blast by slander the fair fame of the inno
cent ; strangle the smiling child upon its mother’s knees ;
deceive, ruin, and desert the beautiful girl who loves and
trusts you—and your case is not hopeless. For all this, 1
and for all these you may be forgiven. For all this, and j
for all these, that bankrupt court established by the gospel
will give you a discharge; but deny the existence of these |
divine ghosts, of these gods, and the sweet and tearful
face of Mercy becomes livid with eternal hate. Heaven’s I
golden gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse I
ringing in your ears, with the brand of infamy upon your
brow, commence your endless wanderings in the lurid
gloom of hell—an immortal vagrant—an eternal outcast—
a deathless convict.
One of these gods, and one who demands our love, our
admiration, and our worship, and one who is worshipped, if
mere heartless ceremony is worship, gave to his chosen
people, Tor their guidance, the following laws of war:—
“ When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then
proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be if it make thee
answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that
all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto
thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace
with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shall
besiege it. And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it
into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with j
the edge of the sword. But the women, and the little ones,
and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil
�6
ORATION ON THE GODS.
thereof shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat the
spoil of thine enemies which the Lord thy God hath given
thee. Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very
far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.
But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God
doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive
nothing that breaiheth.”
Is it possible for man to conceive of anything more per
fectly infamous ? Can you believe that such directions were
given by any being except an infinite fiend ? Remember
that the army receiving these instructions was one of inva
sion. Peace was offered upon condition that the people sub
mitting should be the slaves of the invader; but if any
should have the courage to defend their homes, to fight for
the love of wife and child, then the sword was to spare none
—not even the prattling, dimpled babe.
And we are called upon to worship such a god; to get
upon our knees and tell him that he is good, that he is
merciful, that he is just, that he is love. We are asked to
stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to trample
under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. Because we
refuse to stultify ourselves—refuse to become liars—we are
denounced, hated, traduced, and ostracised here; and this
same God threatens to torment us in eternal fire the moment
death allows him to fiercely clutch our naked, helpless souls.
Let the people hate—let the god threaten; we will educate
them, and we will despise and defy him.
The book, called the Bible, is filled with passages equally
horrible, unjust, and atrocious. This is the book to be
read in schools, in order to make our children loving, kind,
and gentle ! This is the book to be recognised in our Con
stitution as the source of all authority and justice !
Strange ! that no one has ever been persecuted by the
church for believing God bad, while hundreds of millions
have been destroyed for thinking him good. The orthodox
church never will forgive the Universalists for saying, “ God
is love.” It has always been considered as one of the very
highest evidences of true and undefiled religion to insist
that all men, women, and children deserve eternal damna
tion. It has always been heresy to say “ God will at last
save all.”
We are asked to justify these frightful passages—these in
famous laws of war—because the Bible is the word of God.
As a matter of fact, there never was, and there never can
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
7
be, an argument, even tending to prove the inspiration of
any book whatever. In the absence of positive evidence,
analogy, and experience, argument is simply impossible, and
at the very best can amount only to a useless agitation of
the air. The instant we admit that a book is too sacred to
be doubted, or even reasoned about, we are mental serfs.
It is infinitely absurd to suppose that a god would address
a communication to intelligent beings, and yet make it a
crime, to be punished in eternal flames, for them to use
their intelligence for the purpose of understanding his com
munication. If we have the right to use our reason, we cer
tainly have the right to act in accordance with it, and no
god can have the right to punish us for such action.
The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is
monstrous. It is the infamy of infamies. The idea that
faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss,
while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experi
ence merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation,
and can be believed only by that unhappy mixture of in
sanity and ignorance, called “ faith.” What man, who ever
thinks, can believe that blood can appease God ? And yet,
our entire system of religion is, based upon that belief. The
Jews pacified Jehovah with the blood of animals, and, ac
cording to the Christian system, the blood of Jesus softened
the heart of God a little, and rendered possible the salva
tion of a fortunate few. It is hard to conceive how the
human mind can give its assent to such terrible ideas, or
how any sane man can read the Bible, and still believe in
the doctrine of inspiration.
Whether the Bible is true or false, is of no consequence
in comparison with the mental freedom of the race.
Salvation through slavery is worthless. Salvation from
slavery is inestimable.
As long as man believes the Bible to be infallible, that
book is his master. The civilisation of this century is not
the child of faith, but of unbelief—the result of free
thought.
All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any
reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of
human invention—of barbarian invention—is to read it.
Read it as you would any other book; think of it as you
would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your
eyes ; drive from your heart the phantom of fear ; push from
th& throne, of yfiur brain the cowled form of superstition—
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
then read the holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you
ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom.,
goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance
and of such atrocity.
Our ancestors not only had their god-factories, but they
made devils as well. These devils were generally disgraced
and fallen gods. Some had headed unsuccessful revolts ;
some had been caught sweetly reclining in the shadowy folds
of some fleecy cloud, kissing the wife of the god of gods.
These devils generally sympathised with man. There is in
regard to them a most wonderful fact: in nearly all the the
ologies, mythologies, and religions, the devils have been
much more humane and merciful than the gods. No devil
ever gave one of his generals an order to kill children and
to rip open the bodies of pregnant women. Such barbari
ties were always ordered by the good gods. The pestilences
were sent by the most merciful gods. The frightful famine,
during which the dying child with pallid lips sucked the
withered bosom of a dead mother, was sent by the loving
gods. No devil was ever charged with such fiendish brutality.
One of these gods, according to the account, drowned an
entire world, with the exception of eight persons. The old,
the young, the beautiful, and the helpless were remorselessly
devoured by the shoreless sea. This, the most fearful tra
gedy .that the imagination of ignorant priests ever conceived,
was the act, not of a devil, but of a god, so-called, whom
men ignorantly worship unto this day. What a stain such
an act would leave upon the character of a devil ! One of
the prophets of one of these gods, having in his power a cap
tured king, hewed him in pieces in the sight of all the.
people. Was ever any imp of any devil guilty of such
savagery ?
One of these gods is reported to have given the following
directions concerning human slavery : “If thou buy a Hebrew
servant, six years shall he serve, and in the seventh he shall
go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall
go out by himself. If he were married, then his wife shall
go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and
she have borne him sons dr daughters, the wife and her
children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by hinw
self. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my mast»®
my wife, and my children, I will not go out free. ThenJhis
master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also l^ipg
y>
/
'
,s
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
J?
v
.
9
him unto the door, or unto the door-post; and his master
shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve
him for ever.”
According to this, a man was given liberty upon condition.
that he would desert for ever his wife and children. Did
any devil ever force upon a husband, upon a father, so cruel
and so heartless an alternative ? Who can worship such a
god? Who can bend the knee to such a monster ? Who
can pray to such a fiend ?
All these gods threatened to torment for ever the souls of
their enemies. Did any devil ever make so infamous a
threat ? The basest thing recorded of the devil is what he
did concerning Job and his family, and that was done by
the express permission of one of these gods, and to decide
a little difference of opinion between their “ serene high»
nesses” as to the character of “my servant Job.”
The first account we have of the devil is found in that
purely scientific book called Genesis, and is as follows:
“ Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the
field which the Lord God had made, and he said unto the
woman, Yea, hath God said, ‘Ye shall not eat of the fruit
of the trees of the garden ? And the woman said unto the
serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden j
but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden
God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch
it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye
shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day
ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman
saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was plea
sant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise,
she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto
her husband with her, and he did eat. * * * • And the
Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to
know good and evil; and now lest he put forth his hand»
and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live for ever.
Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of
Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he
drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the garden
of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword, which turned every
way to keep the way of the tree of life.”
According to this account, the promise of the devil was
fulfilled to the very letter. Adam and Eve did not die,
and they did become as gods, knowing good and evik _
�IO
ORATION ON THE GODS.
The account shows, however, that the gods dreaded edu
cation and knowledge then just as they do now. The
c.lurch still faithfully guards the dangerous tree of know
ledge,. and has exerted in all ages her utmost power to keep
mankind from eating the fruit thereof. The priests have
never ceased repeating the old falsehood and the old
threat : “ Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it,
lest ye die.” From every pulpit comes the same cry, born
of the same fear: “ Lest they eat and become as gods,
knowing good and evil.” For this reason, religion hates
science, faith detests reason, theology is the sworn enemy
of philosophy, and the church with its flaming sword still
guards the hated tree, and, like its supposed founder, curses
to the lowest depths the brave thinkers who eat and become
as gods.
If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we
not after all to thank this serpent ? He was the first school
master, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of
ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred
word “liberty,” the creator of ambition, the author of
modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress,
and of civilization.
Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action,
rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith ! Banish
me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the
fruit of the tree of knowledge !
Some nations have borrowed their gods ; of this number,
we are compelled to say, is our own. The Jews having
ceased to exist as a nation, and having no further use for a
god, our ancestors appropriated him, and adopted their devil
at the same time. This borrowed god is still an object of
some adoration, and this adopted devil still excites the ap
prehensions of our people. He is still supposed to be
setting his traps and snares for the purpose of catching our
. unwary souls, and is still, with reasonable success, waging
the old war against our god.
To me, it seems easy to account for these ideas concern- *
ing gods and devils. They are a perfectly natural produc
tion. Man has created them all, and under the same cir
cumstances would create them again. Man has not only
created all these gods, but he has created them out of the
materials by which he has been surrounded. Generally he
has modelled them after himself, and has given them hands,
feet, eyes, ears, and organs of speech. Each nation made
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
II
its gods and devils speak its language not only, but put in
their mouths the same mistakes in history, geography, astro
nomy, and in all matters of fact, generally made _ by th®
people. No god was ever in advance of the nation that
created him. The negroes represented their deities with
black skins and curly hair. The Mongolian gave to his a
yellow complexion and dark almond-shaped eyes. The
Jews were not allowed to paint theirs, or we should have
seen Jehovah with a full beard, an oval face, and an aqui
line nose. Jove was a perfect Greek, and Jupiter looked
as though a member of the Roman senate. The gods of
Egypt had the patient face and placid look of the loving
people who made them. The gods of northern countries
were represented warmly clad in robes of fur ; those of the
tropic were naked. The gods of India were often mounted
upon elephants ; those of some islanders were great swim
mers, and the deities of the Arctic zone were passionately
fond of whale’s blubber. Nearly all people have carved or
painted representations of their gods, 'and these representa
tions were, by the lower classes, generally treated as the real
gods, and to these images and idols they addressed prayers
and offered sacrifice.
In some countries, even at this day, if the people, after
long praying do not obtain their desires, they turn their
images off as impotent gods, or upbraid them in a most re
proachful manner, loading them with blows and curses.
“ How now, dog of a spirit,” they say, “ we give you lodging
in a magnificent temple, we gild you with gold, feed you with
the choicest food, and offer incense to you, yet after all this
care you are so ungrateful as to refuse us what we ask.”
Hereupon they will pull the god down and drag him through
the filth of the street. ■ If in the meantime it happens that
they obtain their request, then, with a great deal of ceremony,
'they wash him clean, carry him back and place him in his
temple again, where they fall down and make excuses for
what they have done. “ Of a truth,” say they, “we were a
little too hasty, and you were a little too long in your grant.
Why should you bring this beating on yourself? But what
is done cannot be undone. Let us not think of it any more.
If you will forget what is past we will gild you over again
brighter than before.”
Man has never been at a loss for gods. He has worshipped
almost everything, including the vilest and most disgusting
has worshipped fire, earth, air, water, light, stars,
�12
ORATION ON THE GODS.
and for hundreds of ages prostrated himself before enormous
snakes. Savage tribes often make gods of articles they get
from civilised people. The Todas worship a cow-bell. The
Kotas worship two silver plates, which they regard as hus
band and wife, and another tribe manufactured a god out of
a king of hearts.
Man having always been the physical superior of woman,
accounts for the fact that most of the high gods have been
males. Had woman been the physical superior, the powers
supposed to be the rulers of Nature would have been women,
and instead of being represented in the apparel of man, they
would have luxuriated in trains, low-necked dresses, laces, and
back-hair.
Nothing can be plainer than that each nation gives to its
god its peculiar characteristics, and that every individual gives
to his god his personal peculiarities.
Man has no ideas, and can have none, except those sug
gested by his surroundings. He cannot conceive of anything
utterly unlike what he has seen or felt. He can exaggerate,
diminish, combine, separate, deform, beautify, improve, mul
tiply, and compare what he sees, what he feels, what he hears,
and all of which he takes cognizance through the medium of
the senses ; but he cannot create. Having seen exhibitions
of power, he can say, omnipotent. Having lived, he can
say, immortality. Knowing something of time, he can say
eternity. Conceiving something of intelligence, he can say,
God. Having seen exhibitions of malice, he can say, devil.
A few gleams of happiness having fallen athwart the gloom
of his life, he can say, heaven. Pain, in its numberless
forms, having been experienced, he can say, hell. Yet all
these ideas have a foundation in fact, and only a foundation.
The superstructure has been reared by exaggerating,
diminishing, combining, separating, deforming, beautifying,
improving or multiplying realities, so that the edifice, or
fabric, is but the incongruous grouping of what man has per
ceived through the medium of the senses. It is as though
we should give to a lion the wings of an eagle, the hoofs
of a bison, the tail of a horse, the pouch of a kangaroo,
and the trunk of an elephant. We have in imagination
created an impossible monster. And yet the various parts
of this monster really exist. So it is with all the gods that
man has made.
Beyond nature man cannot go, even in thought; above nature
he cannot rise, below nature he cannot fall.
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
13
Man, in his ignorance, supposed that all phenomena were
produced by some intelligent powers, and with direct refer
ence to him. To preserve friendly relations with these
powers was, and still is, the object of all religions. Man
knelt through fear and to implore assistance, or through
gratitude for some favour which he supposed had been ren
dered. He endeavoured by supplication to appease some
being who, for some reason, had, as he believed, become
enraged. The lightning and thunder terrified him. In the
presence of the volcano he sank upon his knees. The
great forests filled with wild and ferocious beasts, the mon
strous serpent crawling in mysterious depths, the boundless
sea, the flaming comets, the sinister eclipses, the awful
calmness of the stars, and, more than all, the perpetual pre
sence of death, convinced him that he was the sport and
prey of unseen and malignant powers. The strange and
frightful diseases to which he was subject, the freezings and
burnings of fever, the contortions of epilepsy, the sudden
palsies, the darkness of night, and the wild, terrible, and
fantastic dreams that filled his brain, satisfied him that he
was haunted and pursued by countless spirits of evil. For
some reason he supposed that these spirits differed in power
—that they were not all alike malevolent—that the higher
controlled the lower, and that his very existence depended
upon gaining the assistance of the more powerful. For this
purpose he resorted to prayer, to flattery, to worship, and to
sacrifice. These ideas appear to have been almost universal
in savage man.
For ages, all nations supposed that the sick and insane
were possessed by evil spirits. For thousands of years the
practice of medicine consisted in frightening these spirits
away. Usually the priests would make the loudest and
most discordant noises possible. They would blow horns,
beat upon rude drums, clash cymbals, and in the meantime
utter the most unearthly yells. If the noise-remedy failed,
they would implore the aid of some more powerful spirit.
To pacify these spirits was considered of infinite import
ance. The poor barbarian, knowing that men could be
softened by gifts, gave to these spirits that which to him
seemed of the most value. With bursting heart he would
offer the blood of his dearest child. It was impossible for
him to conceive of a god utterly unlike himself, and he
naturally supposed that these powers of the air would be
affected a little at the sight of so great and so deep a sorrow.
�14
ORATION ON THE GODS.
It was with the barbarians then as with the civilized
now : one class lived upon and made merchandise of the
fears of another. Certain persons took it upon themselves
to appease the gods, and to instruct the people in their
duties to these unseen powers. This was the origin of the
priesthood. The priest pretended to stand between the
wrath of the gods and the helplessness of man. He was
man’s attorney at the court of heaven. He carried to the
invisible world a flag of truce, a protest and a request. He
came back with a command, with authority, and with power.
Man fell upon his knees before his own servant, and the
priest, taking advantage of the awe inspired by his supposed
influence with the gods, made of his fellow-man a cringing
hypocrite and slave. Even Christ, the supposed son of God,
taught that persons were possessed of evil spirits, and fre
quently, according to the account, gave proof of his divine
origin and mission by frightening droves of devils out of his
unfortunate countrymen. Casting out devils was his prin
cipal employment, and the devils thus damaged generally
took occasion to acknowledge him as the true Messiah;
which was not only very kind of them, but quite fortunate
for him. The religious people have always regarded the
testimony of these devils as perfectly conclusive, and the
writers of the New Testament quote the words of these imps
of darkness with great satisfaction.
The fact that Christ could withstand the temptations of
the devil was considered as conclusive evidence that he was
assisted by some god, or at least by some being superior to
man. St. Matthew gives an account of an attempt made by
the devil to tempt the supposed son of God; and it has
always excited the wonder of Christians that the temptation
was so nobly and ^heroically withstood. The account to
which I refer is as follows :
“Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted of the devil. And when the tempter came
to him, he said, ‘ If thou be the son of God command that
these stones be made bread.’ But he answered and said,
‘ It is written : man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then
the devil taketh him up into the holy city and.setteth him
upon a pinnacle of the temple and saith unto him, If thou
be the son of God, cast thyself down; for it is written, He
shall give his angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time
thou shalt dash thy foot against a stone.’ Jesus said unto
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
IS
him, ‘ It is written, again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy
God.’ Again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding
high mountain and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the
world, and the glory of them, and saith unto him, ‘All
these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship
me.’ ”
The Christians now claim that Jesus was God. If he
was God, of course the devil knew that fact, and yet, accord
ing to this account the devil took the omnipotent God and
placed him upon a pinnacle of the temple, and endeavoured
to induce him to dash himself against the earth. Failing in
that, he took the creator, and owner, and governor of the
universe up into an exceeding high mountain, and offered
him this world—this grain of sand, if he, the God of all
the worlds, would fall down and worship him, a poor devil,
without even a tax title to one foot of dirt! Is it possible the
devil was such an idiot ? Should any great credit be given to
this deity for not being caught with such chaff? Think of it !
The devil—the prince of sharpers—the king of cunning
—the master of finesse, trying to bribe God with a grain
of sand that belonged to God !
Is there in all the religious literature of the world anything,
more grossly absurd than this ?
These devils, according to the Bible, were of various
kinds,—some could speak and hear, others were deaf and
dumb. All could not be cast out in the same way. The
deaf and dumb spirits were quite difficult to deal with.
St. Mark tells of a gentleman who brought his son to Christ.
The boy, it seems, was possessed of a dumb spirit, over
which the disciples had no control. “Jesus said unto the
spirit, ‘ Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee come out
of him, and enter no more into him.’ ” Whereupon, the
deaf spirit (having heard what was said) cried out (being
dumb) and immediately vacated the premises. The ease
with which Christ controlled this deaf and dumb spirit
excited the wonder of his disciples, and they asked him
privately why they could not cast that spirit out. To whom
he replied : “ This kind can come forth by nothing but
prayer and fasting.” Is there a Christian in the whole world
who would believe such a story, if found in any other book ?
The trouble is, these pious people shut up their reason, and
then open their Bibles.
In the olden times, the existence of devils was universally
admitted. The people had no doubt upon that subject, and
�16
ORATION ON THE GODS.
from such belief it followed as a matter of course, that a
person, in order to vanquish these devils, had either to be a
god, or assisted by one. All founders of religions have
established their claims to divine origin by controlling evil
spirits and suspending the laws of nature. Casting out
devils was a certificate of divinity. A prophet, unable to
cope with the powers of darkness, was regarded with con
tempt. The utterance of the highest and noblest senti
ments, the most blameless and holy life, commanded but
little respect, unless accompanied by power to work miracles
and command spirits.
This belief in good and evil powers had its origin in the
fact that man was surrounded by what he was pleased to
■call good and evil phenomena. Phenomena affecting man
pleasantly were ascribed to good spirits, while those affecting
him unpleasantly or injuriously were ascribed to evil spirits.
It being admitted that all phenomena were produced by
spirits, the spirits were divided according to the pheno
mena, and the phenomena were good or bad as they affected
man. Good spirits were supposed to be the authors of good
phenomena, and evil spirits of the evil: so that the idea of
a devil has been as universal as the idea of a god.
Many writers maintain that an idea to become universal
must be true ; that all universal ideas are innate; and that
innate ideas can not be false. If the fact, that an idea has
been universal, proves that it is innate, and if the fact, that
an idea is innate, proves that it is correct, then the believers
in innate ideas must admit that, the evidence of a god
superior to nature, and of a devil superior to nature, is
exactly the same, and that the existence of such a devil
must be as self-evident as the existence of such a god. The
truth is, a god was inferred fropi good, and a devil from bad
phenomena. And it is just as natural and logical to sup
pose that a devil would cause happiness, as to suppose that
a god would produce misery. Consequently, if an intelli
gence, infinite and supreme, is the immediate author, of all
phenomena, it is difficult to determine whether such intelli
gence is the friend or enemy of man. If phenomena were
all good, we might say they were all produced by a perfectly
beneficent being. If they were all bad, we might say they
were produced by a perfectly malevolent power ; but as
phenomena are, as they affect man, both good and bad,
they must be produced by different and antagonistic spirits;
by one who is sometimes actuated by kindness, and some
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
17
times by malice ; or all must be produced of necessity, and
without reference to their consequences upon man.
The foolish doctrine, that all phenomena can be traced to
the interference of good and evil spirits, has been, and still
is, almost universal. That most people still believe in some
spirit that can change the natural order of events, is proven
by the fact, that nearly all resort to prayer. Thousands, at
this very moment, are probably imploring some supposed
power to interfere in their behalf. Some want health
restored; some ask that the loved and absent be watched
over and protected; some pray for riches ; some for rain ;
some want diseases stayed ; some vainly ask for food ; some
ask for revivals ; a few ask for more wisdom, and now and
then one tells the Lord to do as he may think best. Thou
sands ask to be protected from the devil; some, like David,
pray for revenge, and some implore, even God, not to lead
them into temptation. All these prayers rest upon, and are
produced by the idea that some power not only can, but
probably will, change the order of the universe. This belief
has been among the great majority of tribes and nations.
All sacred books are filled with the accounts of such inter
ferences, and our own Bible is no exception to this rule.
If we believe in a power superior to nature, it is perfectly
natural to suppose that such power can and will interfere in
the affairs of this world. If there is no interference, of what
practical use can such power be ? The scriptures give us the
most wonderful accounts of divine interference : Animals
talk like men; springs gurgle from dry bones ; the sun and
moon stop in the heavens in order that General Joshua may
have more time to murder; the shadow on a dial goes back
ten degrees to convince a petty king of a barbarous people
that he is not going to die of a boil; fire refuses to burn ;
water positively declines to seek its level, but stands up like
a wall; grains of sand become lice; common walking-sticks,
to gratify a mere freak, twist themselves into serpents, and
then swallow each other by way of exercise; murmuring
streams, laughing at the attraction of gravitation, run up hill
for years, following wandering tribes from a pure love of
frolic : prophecy becomes altogether easier than history ; the
sons of God become enamoured of the world’s girls; women
are changed into salt for the purpose of keeping a great event
fresh in the minds of men; an excellent article of brimstone
is imported from heaven free of duty ; clothes refuse to wear
out for forty years; birds keep restaurants and feed wanB
�18
ORATION ON THE GODS.
dering prophets free of expense; bears tear children in
pieces for laughing at old men without wigs; muscular
development depends upon the length of one’s hair; dead
people come to life, simply to get a joke on their enemies
and heirs; witches and wizards converse freely with the
souls of the departed, and God himself becomes a stone
cutter and engraver, after having been a tailor and dress
maker.
The veil between heaven and earth was always rent or
lifted. The shadows of this world, the radiance of heaven,
and the glare of hell mixed and mingled until man became
uncertain as to which country he really inhabited. Man
dwelt in an unreal world. He mistook his ideas, his dreams,
for real things. His fears became terrible and malicious
monsters. He lived in the midst of furies and fairies,
nymphs and naiads, goblins and ghosts, witches and wizards,
sprites and spooks, deities and devils. The obscure and
gloomy depths were filled with claw and wing—with beak
and hoof—with leering looks and sneering mouths—with the
malice of deformity—with the cunning of hatred, and with
all the slimy forms that fear can draw and paint upon the
shadowy canvas of the dark.
It is enough to make one almost insane with pity to think
what man in the long night has suffered ; of the tortures he
has endured, surrounded, as he supposed, by malignant
powers and clutched by the fierce phantoms of the air. No
wonder that he fell upon his trembling knees—that he built
altars and reddened them even with his own blood. No
wonder that he implored ignorant priests and impudent magi
cians for aid. No wonder that he crawled grovelling in the
dust to the temple’s door, and there, in the insanity of
despair, besought the deaf gods to hear his bitter cry of
agony and fear.
The savage, as he emerges from a state of barbarism,
gradually loses faith in his idols of wood and stone, and in
their place puts a multitude of spirits. As he advances in
knowledge, he generally discards the petty spirits, and in
their stead believes in one, whom he supposes to be infinite
and supreme. Supposing this great spirit to be superior to
nature, he offers worship or flattery in exchange for assist
ance. At last, finding that he obtains no aid from this sup
posed deity—finding that every search after the absolute must
of necessity end in failure—finding that man cannot by any
possibility conceive of the conditionless—he begins to inves-
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
í /•
il
19
tigate the facts by which he is surrounded, and to depend
upon himself.
The people are beginning to think, to reason, and to
investigate. Slowly, painfully, but surely, the gods are being
driven from the earth. Only upon rare occasions are they,
even by the most religious, supposed to interfere with the
affairs of men. In most matters we are at last supposed to
be free. Since the invention of steamships and railways, so
that the products of all countries can be easily interchanged,
the gods have quit the business of producing famine. Now
and then they kill a child because it is idolized by its
parents. As a rule they have given up causing accidents on
railroads, exploding boilers, and bursting kerosene lamps.
Cholera, yellow fever, and small-pox are still considered
heavenly weapons; but measles, itch, and ague are now at
tributed to natural causes. As a general thing, the gods
have stopped drowning children, except as a punishment for
violating the Sabbath. They still pay some attention to the
affairs of kings, men of genius, and persons of great wealth;
but ordinary people are left to shirk for themselves as best
they may. In wars between great nations, the gods still
interfere; but in prize fights, the best man, with an honest
referee, is almost sure to win.
The church cannot abandon the idea of special provi
dence. To give up that doctrine, is to give up all. The
church must insist that prayer is answered—that some power
superior to nature hears the grants and requests of the sin
cere and humble Christian, and that this same power in some
mysterious way provides for all.
A devout clergyman sought every opportunity to impress
upon the mind of his son the fact that God takes care of all
creatures ; that the falling sparrow attracts his attention, and
that his loving kindness is over all his works. Happening,
one day, to see a crane wading in quest of food, the good
man pointed out to his son the perfect adaptation of the
crane to get his living in that manner. “ See,” said he,
“ how his legs are formed for wading ! What a long, slender
bill he has ! Observe how nicely he folds his feet when
putting them in or drawing them out of the water? He
does not cause the slightest ripple. He is thus enabled to
approach the fish without giving them any notice of Ms
arrival. My son,” said he, “ it is impossible to look at
that bird without recognizing the design, as well as the
goodness of God, in thus providing the means of subsistB 2
�20
ORATION ON THE GODS.
ence.” “ Yes,” replied the boy, “ I think I see the goodness
of God, at least so far as the crane is concerned : but after
all, father, don’t you think the arrangement a little tough on
the fish ?”
Even the advanced religionist, although disbelieving in
any great amount of interference by the gods in this age of
the world, still thinks that, in the beginning, some god made
the laws governing the universe. He believes that in con
sequence of these laws a man can lift a greater weight with,
than without, a lever ; that this god so made matter, and so
established the order of things, that two bodies cannot
occupy the same space at the same time; so that a body
once put in motion will keep moving until it is stopped; so
that it is a greater distance around, than across a circle; so
that a perfect square has four equal sides, instead of five or
seven. He insists that it took a direct interposition of pro
vidence to make a whole greater than a part, and that had
it not been for this power superior to nature, twice one
might have been more than twice two, and sticks and strings
might have had only one end apiece. Like the old Scotch
divine, he thanks God that Sunday comes at the end instead
of in the middle of the week, and that death comes at the
close instead of at the commencement of life, thereby giving
us time to prepare for that holy day and that most solemn
event. These religious people see nothing but design every
where, and personal, intelligent interference in everything;
They insist that the universe has been created', and that the
adaptation of means to ends is perfectly' apparent. They
point us to the sunshine, to the flowers, to the April rain,
and to all there is of beauty and of use in the world. Did
it ever occur to them that a cancer is as beautiful in its de
velopment as is the reddest rose? That what they are
pleased to call the adaptation of means to ends, is as apparent
in the cancer as in the April rain? How beautiful the process
of digestion ! By what ingenious methods the blood is
poisoned so that the cancer shall have food ! By what won
derful contrivances the entire system of man is made to pay
tribute to this divine and charming cancer ! See by what
admirable instrumentalities it feeds itself from the surround
ing quivering, dainty flesh ! See how it gradually, but surely,
expands and grows ! By what marvellous mechanism it is
supplied with long and slender roots that reach out to the
?, most secret nerves of pain for sustenance and life ! What
* beautiful colours it presents ! Seen through the microscoj^
�ORATION ON THE GODS,
2I
a miracle of order and beauty. AU the ingenuity gf
man cannot stop its growth. Think of the amount qf
thought it must have required to invent a way by which the
life of one man might be given to produce one cancer ? Is
it possible to look upon it and doubt that there is design ini
the universe, and that the inventor of this wonderful cancer^
must be infinitely powerful, ingenious, and good ?
We are told that the universe was designed and created,
and that it is absurd to suppose that matter has existed
from eternity, but that it is perfectly self-evident that a god
has.
If a god created the universe, then, there must have been
a time when he commenced to create. Back of that time
there must have been an eternity, during which there had
existed nothing—absolutely nothing—except this supposed
god. According to this theory, this god spent an eternity, Í
so to speak, in an infinite vacuum, and in perfect idleness. A
Admitting that a god did' create the universe, the question then arises, of what did he create it ? It certainly was«
not made of nothing. Nothing, considered in the light of A
a raw material, is a most decided failure. It follows, thenBB
that the god must have made the universe out of himself, &
he being the only existence. The universe is material, and
if it was made of god, the god must have been material«
With this very thought in his mind, Anaximander, of K
Miletus, said: “ Creation is the decomposition of the in- $
finite.”
It has been demonstrated that the earth would fall to i|
the sun, only for the fact that it is attracted by other H
worlds, and those worlds must be attracted by other worlds >
still beyond them, and so on, without end. This proves ■
the material universe to be infinite. If an infinite universe ■
has been made out of an infinite god, how much of the god
is left ?
The idea of a creative deity is gradually being abandoned,
and nearly all truly scientific minds admit that matter must
have existed from eternity. It is indestructible, and the
indestructible cannot be created. It is the crowning glory
of our century to have demonstrated the indestructibility
and the eternal persistence of force. Neither matter nor
force can be increased nor diminished. Force cannot exist
apart from matter. Matter exists only in connection with
force, and consequently a force apart from matter, and
superior to nature, is a demonstrated impossibility.
it is
�22
ORATION ON THE GODS.
Force, then, must have also existed from eternity, and
could not have been created. Matter, in its countless
forms, from dead earth to the eyes of those we love, and
force in all its manifestations, from simple motion to the
* grandest thought, deny creation and defy control.
J
Thought is a form of force. We walk with the same
1
force with which we think. Man is an organism, that
| changes several forms of force into thought-force. Man is
£ a machine, into which we put what we call food, and pro
li,. duce what we call thought. . Think of that wonderful
k chemistry by which bread was changed into the divine
A tragedy of Hamlet!
E, A god must not only be material, but he must be an
Morganism, capable of changing other forms of force into
■ thought-force. This is what we call eating. Therefore, if
Shhe god thinks, he must eat, that is to say, he must of
■ necessity have some means of supplying the force with
'Ij which to think. It is impossible to conceive of a being
■ who can eternally impart force to matter, and yet have no
■ means of supplying the force thus imparted.
'
If neither matter nor force were created, what evidence
have we then of the existence of a power superior to nature ?
i The theologian will probably reply, “ We have law and
I order, cause and effect, and besides all this, matter could
1 not have put- itself in motion.”
' Suppose, for the sake of the argument, that there is
no being superior is so, then you that matter and and
Ibe an effect. If thisto nature, and have matter, force,force
have existed from eternity. Now suppose that two atoms
should come together, would there be an effect ? Yes.
Suppose they came in exactly opposite directions with equal
force, they would be stopped, to say the least. This would
effect without a being superior to nature. Now, suppose
that two other atoms, just like the first two, should come
together under precisely the same circumstances, would not
the effect be exactly the same ? Yes. Like causes produc
ing like effects is what we mean by law and order. Then
we have matter, force, effect, law, and order without a being
Superior to nature. Now, we know that every effect must
also be a cause, and that every cause must be an effect.
The atoms coming together did produce an effect, and as
"every effect must also be a cause, the effect produced by
the collision of the atoms, must as to something else have
tbeen a cause. Then we have matter, force, law, order,
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
I
23
cause, and effect, without a being superior to nature. Nothing
is left for the supernatural but empty space. His throng
is a void, and his boasted realm is without matter, without
force, without law, without cause, and without effect.
But what put all this matter in motion ? If matter ancM
force have existed from eternity, then matter must havell
always been in motion. There can be no force without
motion. Force is forever active, and there is, and there!;
can be, no cessation. If, therefore, matter and force have»
existed from eternity, so has motion. In the whole universe
there is not even one atom in a state of rest.
A deity outside of nature exists in nothing, and is nothing.
Nature embraces with infinite arms all matter and all force!
That which is beyond her grasp is destitute of both, ano
can hardly be worth the worship and adoration even of a
man.
There is but one way to demonstrate the existence of a
power independent of and superior to nature, and that is by
breaking, if only for one moment, the continuity of cause
and effect. Pluck from the endless chain of existence one
little link; stop for one instant the grand procession, and
you have shown beyond all contradiction that nature has a
master. Change the fact, just for one second, that matter
attracts matter, and a god appears.
The rudest savage has always known this fact, and for
that reason always demanded the evidence of miracle. The
founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine~
cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a
simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to
demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple
that he was superior to nature. In times of ignorance, this
was easy to do. The credulity of the savage was almost
boundless. - To him the marvellous was the beautiful, the
mysterious was the sublime. Consequently, every religion
has for its foundation a miracle—that is to say, a violation
■of nature—that is to say, a falsehood.
No one, in the world’s whole history, ever attempted to
substantiate a truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assist
ance of miracle. Nothing but falsehood ever attested itself
by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was performed,
and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and
until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the
existence of any power superior to and independent of
nature.
�24
ORATION ON THE GODS.
The church wishes us to believe. Let the church, or one
of its intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we will
believe. We are told that nature has a superior. Let this
superior, for one single instant, control nature, and we will
admit the truth of your assertions.
We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the
drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We
have read your Bible, and the works of your best minds.
We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans, and your
reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing.
We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches
for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews
and under your pulpits, and implore you for just one fact.
We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale
miracles. We want a this year’s fact. We ask only one.
Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too
ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two
thousand years. Their reputation for “ truth and veracity ”
in the neighbourhood where they resided is wholly un
known to us. Give us a new miracle, and substantiate it by
witnesses who still have the cheerful habit of living in this
world. Do not send us to' Jericho to hear the winding
horns, nor put us in the fire with Meshech, Shadrach, and
Abednego. Do not compel us to navigate the sea with
Captain Jonah, nor dine with Mr. Ezekiel. There is no
sort of use in sending us fox-hunting with Samson. We
have positively lost all interest in that little speech so
eloquently delivered by Balaam’s inspired donkey. It is
worse than useless to show us fishes with money in their
mouths, and call our attention to vast multitudes stuffing
themselves with five crackers and two sardines. We de
mand a new miracle, and we demand it now. Let the
church furnish at least one, or for ever after hold her peace.
In the olden time, the church, by violating the order of
nature, proved the existence of her God. At that time
miracles were performed with the most astonishing ease.
They became so common that the church ordered her
priests to desist. And now this same church—the people
having found some little sense—admits, not only that she
cannot perform a miracle, but insists’ that the absence of
miracle—the steady, unbroken march of cause and effect—
prove the existence of a power superior to nature. The fact
is, however, that the indissoluble chain of cause and effect
proves exactly the contrary.
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
25
Sir William Hamilton, one of the pillars of modern
theology, in discussing this very subject, uses the following
language : “ The phenomena of matter, taken by . them
selves, so far from warranting any inference to the existence
of a god, would, on the contrary, ground even an argument
to his negation. The phenomena of the material world are
subjected to immutable laws ; are produced and reproduced
in the same invariable succession, and manifest only the
blind force of a mechanical necessity.”
Nature is but an endless series of efficient causes. She
cannot create, but she eternally transforms. There was no
beginning, and there can be no end.
The best minds, even in the religious world, admit that
in material nature there is no evidence of what they are
pleased to call a god. They find their evidence in the
phenomena of intelligence, and very innocently assert that
intelligence is above, and, in fact, opposed to nature, dhey
insist that man, at least, is a special creation; that he has
somewhere in his brain a divine spark, a little portion of the
“ Great First Cause.” They say that matter cannot produce
thought, but that thought can produce matter. They tell
us that man has intelligence, and, therefore, there must be
in intelligence greater than his? Why not say, God has
intelligence, therefore there must be an intelligence greater
than his ? So far as we know there is no intelligence apart
from matter. We' cannot conceive of thought, except as
produced within a brain.
The science by means of which they demonstrate the
existence of an impossible intelligence, and an incompre
hensible power, is called metaphysics, or theology. The
theologians admit that the phenomena of matter tend, at
least, to disprove the existence of any power superior to
nature, because in such phenomena we see nothing but an
endless chain of efficient causes—nothing but the force of
a mechanical necessity. They therefore appeal to what
they denominate the phenomena of mind to establish this
superior power.
x
The trouble is, that in the phenomena of mind we find ’
the same endless chain of efficient causes, the same mechameal necessity. Every thought must have had an efficient |
cause. Every motive, every desire, every fear, hope, and
dream must have been necessarily produced. There is no
room in the mind of man for providence or chance. The |<
facts and forces governing thought are as absolute as those »
�26
ORATION ON THE GODS.
governing the motions of the planets« A poem is produced
by the forces of nature, and is as necessarily and naturally
produced as mountains and seas. You will seek in vain for
a thought in man s brain without its efficient cause. Every
mental operation is the necessary result of certain facts and
conditions. Mental phenomena are considered more com
plicated than those of matter, and, consequently, more mys
terious. Being more mysterious, they are considered better
evidence of the existence of a god. No one infers a god
¡from the simple, from the known, from what is under
stood, but from the complex, from the unknown, and in|comprehensible. Our ignorance is God, what we know is
science.
~
When we abandon the doctrine that some infinite being
created matter and force, and enacted a code of laws for
their government, the idea of interference will be lost. The
real priest will then be, not the mouthpiece of some pre
tended deity, but the interpreter of nature. From that
moment the church ceases to exist. The tapers will die
out upon the dusty altar; the moths will eat the fading
velvet of pulpit and pew ; the Bible will take its place with
the Shastras, Puranas, Vedas, Eddas, Sagas, and Korans,
and the fetters of a degrading faith will fall from the minds
•of men.
“ But,” says the religionist, “you cannot explain every-,
thing; you cannot understand everything; and that which
you cannot explain, that which you do not comprehend, is
my God.”
We are explaining more every day. We are understanding
more every day ; consequently your God is growing smaller
every day.
Nothing daunted, the religionist then insists, that nothing
can exist without a cause, except cause, and that this uncaused
cause is God.
To this we again reply: Every cause must produce an
effect, because until it does produce an effect, it is not a
cause. Every effect must in its turn become a cause.
Therefore, in the nature of things, there cannot be a last
cause, for the reason that a so-called last cause would neces
sarily produce an effect, and that effect must of necessity be
come a cause. The converse of these propositions must be
true. Every effect must have had a cause, and every cause
must have been an effect. Therefore there could have been no
first cause. A first cause is just as impossible as a last effect.
1
41
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
27
Beyond the universe there is nothing, and within the uni
verse the supernatural does not and can not exist.
The moment these great truths are understood and ad
mitted, a belief in general or special providence becomes
impossible. From that instant men will cease their vain
efforts to please an imaginary being, and will give their time
and attention to the affairs of this world. They will abandon
the idea of attaining any object by prayer and supplication.
The element of uncertainty will, in a great measure, be
removed from the domain of the future, and man, gathering
courage from a succession of victories over the obstructions
of nature, will attain a serene grandeur unknown to the dis
ciples of any superstition. The plans of mankind will no
longer be interfered with by the finger of a supposed omni»
potence, and no one will believe that nations or individuals
are protected or destroyed by any deity whatever. Science,
freed from the chains of pious custom and evangelical pre
judice, will, within her sphere, be supreme. The mind will
investigate without reverence, and publish its conclusion
without fear. Agassiz will no longer hesitate to declare the
Mosaic cosmogony utterly inconsistent with the demon
strated truths of geology, and will cease pretending. any
reverence for the Jewish scriptures. The moment science
succeeds in rendering the church powerless for evil, the real
thinkers will be outspoken. The little flags of truce carried
by timid philosophers, will disappear, and the cowardly
parley will give place to victory—lasting and universal.
If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the
destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a most
cruel and bloody farce. Age after age, the strong have
trampled upon the weak ; the crafty and heartless have en
snared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere,
in all the annals of mankind, has any god succoured the
oppressed.
Man should cease to expect aid from on high. By thy!
time he should know that heaven has no ear to hear, and no.
hand to help. The present is the necessary child of all the
past. There has been no chance, and there can be no inter
ference.
If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. If
slaves are freed, man must free them. If new truths are
discovered, man must discover them. If the naked are
clothed; if the hungry are fed ; if justice is done; if labour
is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind; if the
�28
ORATION.ON THE GODS.
defenceless are protected, and if the right finally triumphs,
all must be the work of man. The grand victories of the
future must be won by man, and by man alone.
Nature, so far as we can discern, without passion and with
out intention, forms, transforms, and re-transforms for ever.
She neither weeps nor rejoices. She produces man without
purpose, and obliterates him without regret. She knows no
distinction between the beneficial and the hurtful. Poison
and nutrition, pain and joy, life and death, smiles and tears
are alike to her. She is neither merciful nor cruel. She
cannot be flattered by worship nor melted by tears. She
does not know even the attitude of prayer. She appreciates
no difference between poison in the fangs of snakes and
mercy in the hearts of men. Only through man does nature
take cognizance of the good, the true, and the beautiful; and,
so far as we know, man is the highest intelligence.
And yet man continues to believe that there is some power
independent of and superior to nature, and still endeavours,
by form, ceremony, supplication, hypocrisy, and sacrifice, to
obtain its aid. His best energies have been wasted in the
service of this phantom. The horrors of witchcraft were all
born of an ignorant belief in the existence of a totally de
praved being superior to nature, acting in perfect indepen
dence of her laws, and all religious superstition has had for
its basis a belief in at least two beings, one good and the
other bad, both of whom could arbitrarily change the order
of the universe. The history of religion is simply the story
of man’s efforts in all ages to avoid one of these powers, and
to pacify the other. Both powers have inspired little else
than abject fear. The cold, calculating sneer of the devil
and the frown of God were equally terrible. In any event,
man’s fate was to be arbitrarily fixed for ever by an unknown
power superior to all law, and to all fact. Until this belief
is thrown aside, man must consider himself the slave of
phantom, masters—neither of whom promise liberty in this
world nor the next.
Man must learn to rely upon himself. Reading Bibles
will not protect him from the blasts of winter; but houses,
fires, and clothing will. To prevent famine, one plough is
worth a million sermons, and even patent medicines will cure
more diseases than all the prayftrs uttered since the beginning
of the world.
Although many eminent men have endeavoured to har
monize necessity and free will, the existence of evil, and
�OkAÏIOK '©W THE GObS.
«9
the infinite power and goodness of God, they have only suc
ceeded in producing learned and ingenious failures. In>
mense efforts have been made to reconcile ideas utterly
inconsistent with the facts by which we are surrounded, and
all persons who have failed to perceive the pretended recon
ciliation have been denounced as infidels, atheists, and
scoffers. The whole power of the church has been brought
to bear against philosophers and scientists in order to com
pel a denial of the authority of demonstration, and to induce
some Judas to betray Reason, one of the saviours of man
kind.
During that frightful period known as the 11 Dark Ages/*
Faith reigned, with scarcely a rebellious subject. Her
temples were “ carpeted with knees,” and the wealth of
nations adorned her countless shrines. The great painters
prostituted their genius to immortalise her vagaries, while
the poets enshrined them in song. At her bidding, man
covered the earth with blood. The scales of justice were
turned with her gold, and for her use were invented all the
cunning instruments of pain. She built cathedrals for God,
and dungeons for men. She peopled the clouds with angels
and the earth with slaves. For centuries the world was re
tracing its steps — going steadily back towards barbaric
night. A few infidels—a few heretics cried, “ Halt !” to the
great rabble of ignorant devotion, and made it’ possible for
the genius of the nineteenth century to revolutionise the
cruel creeds and superstitions of mankind.The thoughts of man, in order to be of any real worth,
must be free. Under the influence of fear, the brain is
paralysed, «and instead of bravely solving a problem for
itself, trembling adopts the solution of another. As long as
a majority of men will cringe to the very earth before some
petty prince or king, what must be the infinite abjectness of
their little souls in the presence of their supposed creator
and God ? Under such circumstances, what can their
thoughts be worth ?
The originality of repetition, and the mental vigour of
acquiescence, are all that we have any right to expect from
the Christian world. As long as every question is answered
by the word “ god,” scientific inquiry is simply impossible.
As fast as phenomena are satisfactorily explained, the
•domain of the power, supposed to be superior to nature,
must decrease, while the horizon of the known must as con
stantly continue to’ enlarge.
�3°
ORATION ON THE GUIRE
It is no longer satisfactory to account for the fall and rise
of nations by saying :—“ It is the will of God.” Such an
explanation puts ignorance and education upon an exact
equality, and does away with the idea of really accounting
for anything whatever.
Will the religionist pretend that the real end of science
is, to ascertain how, and why, God acts ? Science, from
such a standpoint, would consist in investigating the law of
arbitrary action, and in a grand endeavour to ascertain the
rules necessarily obeyed by infinite caprice.
From a philosophic point of view, science is a knowledge
of the laws of life ; of the conditions of happiness ; of the
facts by which we are surrounded, and the relations we sus
tain to men and things—by means of which, man, so to
speak, subjugates nature, and bends the elemental powers
to his will, making blind force the servant of his brain.
A belief in special providence does away with the spirit
of investigation, and is inconsistent with personal effort.
Why should man endeavour to thwart the designs of God ?
“ Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit to
his stature ?” Under the influence of this belief, man, bask
ing in the sunshine of a delusion, considers the lilies of the
field and refuses to take any thought for the morrow. Be• ' lieving himself in the power of an infinite being, who can,
at any moment, dash him to the lowest hell or raise him to
the highest heaven, he necessarily abandons the idea of ac
complishing anything by his own efforts. As long as this
belief was general, the world was filled with ignorance,
superstition, and misery. The energies of man were wasted
in a vain effort to obtain the aid of this power, supposed to
be superior to nature. For countless ages, even men were
sacrificed upon the altar of this impossible god. To please
him, mothers have shed the blood of their own babes;
martyrs have chanted triumphant songs in the midst of
flame; priests have gorged themselves with blood; nuns
have foresworn the ecstacies of love ; old men have trem
blingly implored; women have sobbed and entreated ; every
pain has been endured, and every horror has been perpe
trated.
Through the dim, long years that have fled, humanity has
suffered more than can be conceived. Most of the misery
has been endured by the weak, the loving, and the innocent.
Women have been treated like poisonous beasts, and little
children trampled upon as though they had been vermin.
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
31
Numberless altars have been reddened, even with the blood
of babes; beautiful girls have been given to slimy serpents s
whole races of men doomed to centuries of slavery, and
everywhere there has been outrage beyond the power of
genius to express. During all these years, the suffering have
supplicated ; the withered lips of famine have prayed ; the
pale victims have implored, and Heaven has been deaf and
blind.
Of what use have the gods been to man ?
It is no answer to say that some god created the worlds
established certain laws, and then turned his attention to
other matters, leaving his children weak, ignorant, and un
aided, to fight the battle of life alone. It is no solution to
declare that in some other world this god will render a few,
or even all, his subjects happy. What right have we to ex
pect that a perfectly wise, good, and powerful being will
ever do better than he has done, and is doing ? The world
is filled with imperfections. If it was made by an infinite
being what reason have we for saying that he will render it
nearer perfect than it now is ? If the infinite “ Father”
allows a majority of his children to live in ignorance and
wretchedness now, what evidence is there that he will ever
improve their condition ? Will God have more power ? Will
he become more merciful ? Will his love for his poor crea
tures increase ? Can the conduct of infinite wisdom, power,
and love ever change ? Is the infinite capable of any im
provement whatever ?
We are informed, by the clergy that this world is a kind of
school; that the evils by which we are surrounded are for
the purpose of developing our souls, and that only by suffer
ing can men become pure, strong, virtuous, and grand.
. Supposing this to be true, what is to become of those who
die in infancy ? The little children, according to this phi
losophy, can never be developed. They were so fortunate
as to escape the ennobling influences of pain and misery,
and as a consequence, are doomed to an eternity of mental
inferiority. If the clergy are right on this question, none
are so unfortunate as the happy, and we should envy only
the suffering and distressed. If evil is necessary to the de
velopment of man in this life, how it is possible for the soul
to improve in the perfect joy of paradise ?
Since Paley found his watch, the argument of “ design”'
has been relied upon- as unanswerable. The Church
teaches that this world, and all it contains, was created sub
�32
ORATION ON THE GODS.
stantially as we now see it; that the grasses, the flowers,
the trees, and all animals, including man, were special
creations, and that they sustain no necessary relation to
each other. The most orthodox will admit that some earth
has been washed into the sea ; that the sea has encroached
a little upon the land, and that some mountains may be
a trifle lower than in the morning of creation. The theory
of gradual development was unknown to our fathers; the
idea of evolution did not occur to them. That most
wonderful observer, Charles Darwin, had not then given
to the world his wonderful philosophy.
Our fathers
looked upon the then arrangement of things as the primal
arrangement. The earth appeared to them fresh from the
hands of a deity. They knew nothing of the slow evolu
tions of countless years, but supposed that the almost
infinite variety of vegetable and animal forms had existed
from the first.
Suppose that upon some island we should find a man a
million years of age, and suppose that we should find him
in the possession of a most beautiful carriage, constructed
upon the perfect model.
And suppose further that he
should tell us that it was the result of several hundred
thousand-years of labour and of thought; that for fifty
thousand years he used as flat a log as he could find,
before it occurred to him that, by splitting the log, he could
have the same surface with only half the weight; that it
took him many thousand years to invent wheels for this
log ; that the wheels he first used were solid, and that fifty
thousand years of thought suggested the use of spokes and
tire ; that for many centuries he used the wheels without
linch-pins ; that it took a hundred thousand years more to
think of using four wheels, instead of two; that for ages he
walked behind the carriage when going down hill, in order
to hold it back, and that only by a lucky chance he invented
the tongue;—would we conclude that this man, from the very
first, had been an infinitely ingenious and perfect mechanic ?
Suppose we found him living in an elegant mansion, and he
should inform us that he lived in that house for five hundred
thousand years before he thought of putting on a roof, and
that he had but recently invented windows and doors,
would we say that from the beginning he had been an infi
nitely accomplished and scientific architect ?
Does not an improvement in the things created show a
corresponding improvement in the creator ?
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
33
Would an infinitely wise, good, and powerful God, intend
ing to produce man, commence with the lowest possible ••
forms of life; with the simplest organism that can be ■
imagined, and during immeasurable periods of time, slowlyH
and almost imperceptibly improve upon the rude begin- |
ning, until man was evolved ? Would countless ages thus
be wasted in the production of awkward forms, afterwards S
abandoned ? Can the intelligence of man discover the least ?
Wisdom in covering the earth with crawling, creepin^M
horrors, that live only upon the agonies and pangs of
others ? Can we see the propriety of so constructing the |
earth, that only an insignificant portion of its surface is f
capable of producing an intelligent man ? Who can appre-;
ciate the mercy of so making the world that all animals I
devour animals ; so that every mouth is a slaughter-house, |
and every stomach a tomb ? Is it possible to discover infi
nite intelligence and love in universal and eternal carnage ?
What would we think of a father who should give a farm B
to his children, and before giving them possession should /
plant upon it thousands of deadly shrubs and vines ; should
stock it with ferocious beasts and poisonous reptiles ; should ■
take pains to put a few swamps in the neighbourhood tob
bleed malaria; should so arrange matters that the ground
would occasionally open and swallow a few of his darlings, £
and, besides all this, should establish a few volcanoes in the
immediate vicinity, that might at any moment overwhelm®
his children with rivers of fire? Suppose that this father fneglected to tell his children which of the plants were I
deadly ; that the reptiles were poisonous ; failed to say any- thing about the earthquakes, and kept the volcano business |
a profound secret, would we pronounce him angel or fiend? |
And yet this is exactly what the orthodox God has done. I
According to the . theologians, God prepared this globe I
expressly for the habitation of his loved children, and yet he |
filled the forests with ferocious beasts; placed serpents ini B
every path, stuffed the world with earthquakes, and adornedB
its surface with mountains of flame.
f
Notwithstanding all this, we are told that the world is I
perfect; that it was created by a perfect being, and is there- H
fore necessarily perfect.
The next moment, the same |
persons will tell us tnat the world was cursed; covered with |
brambles, thistles, and thorns, and that man was doomed to W
disease •tod death, simply because our poor dear mother ate I
an apple contrary to the command of an arbitrary God.
�34
ORATION ON THE GODS.
A very pious friend of mine, having heard that I had said
the world was full of imperfections, asked me if the report
was true. Upon being informed that it was, he expressed
great surprise that any one could be guilty of such pre
sumption. He said that, in his judgment, it was impossible
to point out an imperfection. “ Be kind enough,” said he,
“ to name even one improvement that you could make, if
you had the power.” “Well,” said I, “ I would make good
health catching, instead of disease.” The truth is, it is im
possible to harmonize all the ills, and pains, and agonies of
this world with the idea that we were created by, and are
watched over and protected by, an infinitely wise, powerful,
and beneficent God, who is superior to, and independent of,
nature.
The clergy, however, balance all the real ills of this life
with the expected joys of the next. We are assured that
all is perfection in heaven : there the skies are cloudless,
there all is serenity and peace. Here empires may be over
thrown ; dynasties may be extinguished in blood; millions of
slaves may toil beneath the fierce rays of the sun and the
cruel strokes of the lash, yet all is happiness in heaven.
Pestilence may strew the earth with corpses of the loved;
the survivors may bend above them in agony—yet the placid
bosom of heaven is unruffled. Children may expire vainly
asking for bread; babes may be devoured by serpents, while
the gods sit smiling in the clouds. The innocent may
languish unto death in the obscurity of dungeons; brave
men and heroic women may be changed to ashes at the
bigot’s stake, while heaven is filled with song and joy. Out
on the wide sea, in darkness and in storm, the shipwrecked
struggle with the cruel waves, while the angels play upon
their golden harps. The streets of the world are filled with
the diseased, the deformed, and the helpless; the chambers
of pain are crowded with the pale forms of the suffering,
while the angels float and fly in the happy realms of day. In
heaven they are too happy to have sympathy; too busy
singing to aid the imploring and distressed. Their eyes are
blinded, their ears are stopped, and their hearts are turned
to stone by the infinite selfishness of joy. The saved
mariner is too happy when he touches the shore to give a
moment’s thought to his drowning brothers. With the in
difference of happiness, with the contempt of bliss, heaven
barely glances at the miseries of earth. Cities are devoured
by the rushing lava; the earth opens and thousands perish ;
k
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
35
women raise their clasped hands towards heaven, but the
gods are too happy to aid their children. The smiles of the
deities are unacquainted with the tears of men. The shouts
of heaven drown the sobs of earth.
• In all ages man has prayed for help, and then helped
himself.
Having shown how man created gods, and how he became
the trembling slave of his own creation, the question naturally
arises: How did he free himself, even a little, from these
monarchs of the sky ; from these despots of the clouds ;
from this aristocracy of the air ? How did he, even to the
extent that he has, outgrow his ignorant, abject terror, and
throw off the yoke of superstition ?
Probably, the first thing that tended to disabuse his mind
was the discovery of order, of regularity, of periodicity in the
universe. From this, he began to suspect that everything
did not happen purely with reference to him. He noticed
that, whatever he might do, the motions of the planets were
always the same ; that eclipses were periodical, add that
even comets came at certain intervals. This convinced him
that eclipses and comets had nothing to do with him, and
that his conduct had nothing to do with them. He per
ceived that that they were not caused for his benefit nor
injury. He thus learned to regard them with admiration in
stead of fear. He began to suspect that famine was not sent
by some enraged and revengeful deity, but resulted often
from the neglect and ignorance of man. He learned that
diseases were not produced by evil spirits. He found that
sickness was occasioned by natural causes, and could be
cured by natural means. He demonstrated, to his own
satisfaction at least, that prayer is not a medicine. He found
by sad experience that his gods were of no practical use, as
they never assisted him, except when he was perfectly able
to help himself. At last he began to discover that his
individual action had nothing whatever to do with strange
appearances in the heavens; that it was impossible for him
to be bad enough to cause a whirlwind, ox good enough to
stop one. After many centuries of thought, he about half
concluded that making mouths at a priest would not neces
sarily cause an earthquake. He noticed, and no doubt with
considerable astonishment, that very good men were occa
sionally struck by lightning, while very bad ones escaped.
He was frequently forced to the painful conclusion (and it is
the most painful to which any human being ever was forced)
�3$
ORATION ON THE GODS.
that the right did not always prevail. He noticed that the
gods did not interfere in behalf of the weak and innocent.
He was now and then astonished by seeing an unbeliever in
the enjoyment of most excellent health.
He finally
ascertained that there could be no possible connection
between an unusually severe winter and his failure to give a
sheep to a priest. He began to suspect that the order of
the universe was not constantly being changed to assist him
because he repeated a creed. He observed that some
children would steal after having been regularly baptized.
He noticed a vast difference between religion and justice, and
that the worshipers of the same god took delight in cutting
each others’ throats. He saw that these religious disputes
filled the world with hatred and slavery. At last he had the
courage to suspect that no god at any time interferes with
the order of events. He learned a few facts, and these facts
positively refused to harmonize with the ignorant supersti
tions of his fathers. Finding his sacred books incorrect
and false in some particulars, his faith in their authenticity
began to be shaken ; finding his priests ignorant upon some
points, he began to lose respect for the cloth; this was the
commencement of intellectual freedom.
The civilisation of man has increased just to the same ex
tent that religious power has decreased. The intellectual
advancement of man depends upon how often he can ex
change an old superstition for a new truth. The Church
never enabled a human being to make even one of these
exchanges; on the contrary, all her power has been used to
prevent them. In spite, however, of the Church, man found
that some of his religious conceptions were wrong. By
reading his Bible, he found that the ideas of his god weremore cruel and brutal than those of the most depraved
savage. He also discovered that this holy book was filled
with ignorance, and that it must have been written by
persons wholly unacquainted with the nature of the pheno
mena by which we are surrounded, and now and then some
man had the goodness and courage to speak his honest
thoughts. In every age some thinker, some doubter, some
investigator, some hater of hypocrisy, some despiser of sham,
some brave lover of the right, has gladly, proudly, and
heroically braved the ignorant fury of superstition for the
sake of man and truth. These divine men were generally
torn in pieces by the worshippers of the gods. Socrates was
poisoned because he lacked reverence for some of the
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
37
deities. Christ was crucified by a religious rabble for the
crime of blasphemy. Nothing is more gratifying to a
religionist than to destroy his enemies at the command of
God. Religious persecution springs from a due admixture
of love towards God and hatrea. towards man.
The terrible religious wars that inundated the. world with
blood tended, at least, to bring all religion into disgrace and
hatred. Thoughtful people began to question the divine
origin of a religion that made its believers hold the rights
of others in absolute contempt. A few began to compare
Christianity with the religions of heathen people, and were
forced to admit that the difference was hardly worth dying
for. They also found that other nations were even happier
and more prosperous than their own. They began to
suspect that their religion, after all, was not of much real
value.
For three hundred years the Christian world endeavoured
to rescue from the “ Infidel ” the empty sepulchre of Chiist.
For three hundred years the armies of the Cross were baffled
and beaten by the victorious hosts of an impudent impostor.
This immense fact sowed the seeds oi distrust throughout
all Christendom, and millions began tp lose confidence in a
God who had been vanquished by Mohammed. The people
also found that commerce made friends where religion made
enemies, and that religious zeal was utterly incompatible
with peace between nations or individuals. Tney disco
vered that those who loved'the gods most were apt to lo’. e
men least j that the arrogance of universal forgiveness was
amazing j that the most malicious had the effrontery to pray
for their enemies, and that humility and tyranny were the
fruit of the same tree.
For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few
brave men and women of thought and genius on the one
side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other.
This is the war between Science and Faith. The few have
appealed to reason, to honour, to law, to freedom, to the
known, and to happiness here in this, world. The many
have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to
the unknown, and to misery hereafter. .The few have said,
“Think ! ” The many have said, “ Believe !”
The first doubt was the womb and the cradle of progress,
and from the first doubt man has continued to advance.
Men began to investigate and the Church began to oppose.
The astroriomer scanned the heavens, while the Church
�3§
ORATION ON THE GODS.
branded his grand forehead with the word “ Infidel,” and
now not a glittering star in all the vast expanse bears a
Christian name. In spite of all religion, the geologist pene
trated the earth, read her history in books of stone, and
found hidden within her bosom souvenirs of all ages. Old
ideas perished in the retort of the chemist, and useful truths
took their places. One by one religious conceptions have
been placed in the crucibles of science, and thus far nothing
but dross has been found. A new world has been disco
vered by the microscope; everywhere has been found the infi
nite ; in every direction man has investigated and explored,
and nowhere, in earth nor stars, has been found the footstep
of any being superior to or independent of nature. Nowhere
has been discovered the slightest evidence of any inter
ference from without.
These are the sublime truths that enabled man to throw
off the yoke of superstition. These are the splendid facts
that snatched the sceptre of authority from the hands of
priests.
In that vast cemetery, called the past, are most of the reli
gions of men, and there, too, are nearly all their gods. The
sacred temples of India were ruins long ago. Over column
and cornice; over the painted and pictured walls, cling and
creep the trailing vines. Brahma, the golden, with four
heads and four arms : Vishnu, the sombre, the punisher of
the wicked, with his three eyes, his crescent and his necklace
of skulls; Siva, the destroyer, red with seas of blood ; Kali,
the goddess ; Draupadi, the white-armed; and Chrishna, the
Christ, all passed away and left the thrones of heaven deso
late. Along We banks of the sacred Nile, Isis no longer
wandering weeps, searching for the dead Osiris. The shadow
of Typhon’s scowl falls no more upon the waves. The sun
rises as of yore, and his golden beams still smite the lips of
Memnon, but Memnon is as voiceless as the Sphinx. The
sacred fanes are lost in desert sands; the dusty mummies
are still waiting for the resurrection promised by their priests,
and the old beliefs, wrought in curiously sculptured stone,
sleep in the mystery of a language lost and dead. Odin, the
author of life and soul, Vili and Ve, and the mighty giant
Yamir, strode long ago from the icy halls of the North; and
Thor, with iron glove and glittering hammer, dashes moun
tains to the earth no more. Broken are the circles and
cromlechs of the ancient Druids ; fallen upon the summits
of the hills and covered with the centuries’ moss are the
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
3<?
sacred cairns. The divine fires of Pefsia and of the Aztecs
have died out in the ashes of the past, and there is none torekindle and none to feed the holy flames. The harp of
Orpheus is still; the drained cup of Bacchus has been
thrown aside; Venus lies dead in stone, and her white bosom
heaves no more with love. The streams still murmur, but
no Naiads bathe; the trees still wave, but in the forest aisles
no Dryads dance. The gods have flown from high Olympus.
Not even the beautiful women can lure them back, and even
Danse lies unnoticed, naked to the stars. Hushed for ever
are the thunders of Sinai; lost are the voices of the prophets,
and the land, once flowing with milk and honey, is but a desert
waste. One by one the myths have faded from the clouds ;
one by one the phantom host has disappeared, and one by
one, facts, truths, and realities have taken their places. The
supernatural has almost gone, but the natural remains. The
gods have fled, but man is here.
“ Nations, like individuals, have their periods of youth, of
manhood, and decay/’ Religions are the same. The same
inexorable destiny awaits them all. The gods, created by
the nations, must perish with their creators. They were
created by men, and like men they must pass away. The
deities of one age are the by-words of the next. The reli
gion of our day and country is no more exempt from the
sneer of the future than the others have been. When India
was supreme, Brahma sat upon the world’s throne. When
the sceptre passed to Egypt, Isis and Osiris received the
homage of mankind. Greece, with her fierce valour, swept
to empire, and Jove put on the purple of atg:hority. The
earth trembled with the tread of Rome’s intrepid sons, and
Jupiter grasped with mailed hand the thunderbolts of heaven.
Rome fell, and Christians from her territory, with the red
sword of war, carved out the ruling nations of the world,
and now Christ sits upon the old throne. Who will be his
successor ?
Day by day religious conceptions grow less and less
intense. Day by day the old spirit dies out of book and
creed. The burning enthusiasm, the quenchless zeal- of the
early Church have gone, never, never to return. The cere
monials remain, but the ancient faith is «fading out of the
human heart. The worn-out arguments fail to convince,
and denunciations that once blanched the faces of a race
excite in us only derision and disgust. As time rolls on, the
miracles' grow mean and small, and the evidences our
�40
ORATION ON THE GODS,.
fathers thought conclusive utterly fail to satisfy us. There
is an “irrepressible conflict” between religion and science,
and they cannot peaceably occupy.the same brain nor the
same world.
While utterly discarding all creeds, and denying the truth
of all religions, there is neither in my heart nor upon my
lips a sneer for the hopeful, loving, and tender souls who
believe that from all this discord will result a perfect har
mony; that every evil will in some mysterious way become a
good, and that above and over all there is a being who, in
some way will reclaim and glorify every one of the children
of men ; but for the creeds of those who glibly prove
that salvation is almost impossible; that damnation is
almost certain ; that the highway of the universe leads to
hell, who fill life with fear, and death with horror; who
curse the cradle and mock the tomb ;—it is impossible to
entertain other than feelings of pity, contempt, and scorn.
Reason, Observation, and Experience—the Holy Trinity
of Science—have taught us that happiness is the only good :
that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy
is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this belief
we are content to live and die. If, by any possibility, the
existence of a power superior to and independent of nature
shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to
kneel. Until then, let us stand erect.
Nothwithstanding the fact that Infidels in all ages have
battled for the rights of man, and have at all times been the
fearless advocates of liberty and justice, we are constantly
charged by the Church with tearing down without building
again. The Church should by this time know that it is
utterly impossible to rob men of their opinions. The
history of religious persecution fully establishes the fact that
the mind necessarily resists and defies every attempt to con
trol it by violence. The mind necessarily clings to old ideas
until prepared for the new. The moment we comprehend
the truth, all erroneous ideas are of necessity cast,aside.
A surgeon once called upon a poor cripple and kindly
offered to render him any assistance in his power. The
surgeon began to discourse very learnedly upon the nature
and origin of disease; of the curative properties of certain
medicines ; of the advantages of exercise, air, and light, and
of the various ways in which health and strength could be
restored. These remarks were so full of good sense, and
discovered so much profound thought anti accurate know
�ORATION ON THE GODS.
41
ledge, that the cripple, becoming thoroughly alarmed, cried
out, “Do not, I pray you, take away my crutches. They
are my only support, and without them I should be miser
able indeed !” “I am not going,” said the surgeon, “ to take
away your crutches; I am going to cure you, and then you
will throw the crutches away yourself.”
For the vagaries of the clouds the Infidels propose to
substitute the realities of earth; for superstition, the
splendid demonstrations and achievements of Science ; and
for theological tyranny, the chainless liberty of Thought.
We do not say that we have discovered all; that our
doctrines are the all-in-all of truth. We know of no
end to the development of man.
We cannot unravel
the infinite complications of matter and force.
The
history of one monad is as unknown as the universe ; one
drop of water is as wonderful as all the seas; one leaf as all
the forests ; and one grain of sand as all the stars.
We are not endeavouring to chain the future, but to free
the present. We are not forging fetters for our children,
but we are breaking those our fathers made for us. We are
the advocates of inquiry, of investigation, and thought.
This of itself is an admission that we are not perfectly satis*
fied with all our conclusions.
Philosophy has not the
egotism of faith.
While superstition builds walls and
creates obstructions, science opens all the highways of
thought. We do not pretend to have circumnavigated
everything, and to have solved all difficulties, but we do
believe that it is better to love men than to fear gods; that
it is grander and nobler to think and investigate for yourself
than to repeat a creed, or quote scripture like a religious
parrot, with the countenance of a dyspeptic owl. We are
satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth, while
men worship a tyrant in heaven. We do not expect to
accomplish everything in our day; but we want to do what
good we can, and to render all the service possible in the
holy cause of human progress. We know that doing away
with gods and supernatural persons and powers is not an
end. It is a means to an end: the real end being the
happiness of man.
Felling forests is not the end of agriculture. Driving
pirates from the sea is not all there is of commerce.
We are laying the foundations of the grand temple of the
future—-not the temple of all the gods, but of all the people
—wherein, with appropriate rite's, will be celebrated the
�42
ORATION ON THE GODS.
religion of Humanity. We are doing what little we can to
hasten the coming of the day when society shall cease profamishpd1; H°natireS Td Kmendicants~gorged indolence and
crowned1 mdustry~iru^ln
and superstition robed and
shah
for the time when the useful
shall be the honourable ; when the true shall be the beautih Atnd/hen ?^S0N’ thJoned upon the world’s brain, shall
be the King of kings and God of gods.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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Oration on the gods
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 42 p. ; 17 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from Stein's checklist (Item 28g). Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Annotations in pencil and red crayon. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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[1877]
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N378
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God
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Gods
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
FICTITIOUS GODS.
BY ARTHUR
B.
MOSS.
N all countries belief in gods has arisen from the igno
rance and impatience of man. The complex pheno
mena of the universe he could not explain; everything
appeared to him to be shrouded in mystery ; his whole
nature was weighed down by fear ; and, instead of patiently
studying nature, he set himself the task of manufacturing
gods and devils, to whom he referred as the source of all
events in the universe. His first objects of worship were
fetiches—gods of wood, stone, trees, fire, water. In course
of time, however, he began to worship living beings, whom
he considered to have powers and qualities infinitely trans
cending his own. With the development of the human
mind came a change of belief respecting the gods ; and
with-the. decay of fetichism grew up a belief in Polytheism
—that is, a belief in a number of gods and goddesses ruling
over and superintending various departments of nature.
This belief is far more natural to the human mind than the
modern idea of one ruling and controlling power in the
universe. “Though,” says John Stuart Mill, “I have defined
the problem of natural theology to be that of the existence
of God, or of a God, rather than of gods, there is the
amplest historical evidenc^lhat the belief in gods is im
measurably more natural t^the human mind than the
belief in one author and ruler of nature, and that this more
elevated belief is, compared with the former, an artificial
product, requiring (except when impressed by early educa
tion) a considerable amount of intellectual culture before it
could be reached.” And so men worshipped numberless
gods and goddesses, and each had control over certain
departments in nature. One was master of the wind and
the storm; another made the sun to shine, the trees to
grow, and the heavenly bodies to move in perfect order;
another was the god of war; another the perpetual president
I
�2
FICTITIOUS GODS.
of the Celestial Peace Society. Some of these gods had
innumerable heads ; some had only one eye or one arm ;
others had wings; others, like serpents, dragged their weary
lengths upon the earth; some appeared like giants, and
hurled thunderbolts at the heads of offending peoples; some
were invisible spirits, and others were visible in the form of
man.
The progress of human knowledge has shattered into
fragments belief in such gods or goddesses as Jupiter, Jove,
Apollo, Venus, etc. ; and this has given place to belief in
one God, called in different countries by the names of
Brahma, Buddha, Allah, Jehovah, or Jesus. But if the old
gods were merely chimeras, resulting from the desire of
man to explain the cause of all things “ in heaven above or
earth beneath,” without understanding them, are we quite
sure that this one remaining God is any more a reality than
the sham gods of the past? Are we sure that the pheno
mena of the universe cannot be explained without reference
to God ? We are told now that there exists but one God,
and that, though he is called by a variety of names, he is,
in reality, but one and the same being. When asked what
are the distinguishing characteristics of this God, theologians
tell us that he is an infinite spirit, that he has existed from
all eternity, that he is all-powerful and all-wise, and that he
is infinite in goodness and mercy.
Though there are millions who believe in the existence of
Brahma, Buddha, and Allah, a careful study of the religions
of India and Turkey will satisfy us that each of these gods
is destitute of many of the qualities that are ascribed to the
Author and Governor of the Universe. Neither of them is
all-mighty, or all-wise, or all-good. Each of them has many
qualities which belong only tq^snan. They hate and love
alternately, and are pleased with the sacrifice of innocent
blood. They are jealous, and abhor none so much as those
who despise them.
But in England we are told that
Jehovah is the only true God, and that Jesus is his son.
We are informed that the Bible contains a true description
of Deity, and that the part of it called the New Testament
records the life and teachings of Jesus, who was God and
the Son of God at the same time, and belief or disbelief in
whom will determine our everlasting destiny in another
world.
We turn to the Bible to study the character and doings
�FICTITIOUS GODS.
3
of Jehovah, who sometimes was known by the name of
Elohim, the great “I Am.” To our astonishment and
disgust, we find that, instead of the Jewish Deity being an
“ infinite spirit,” he is represented as a petty tribal God,
possessing all the worst characteristics of the people out of
whose imagination he grew. He is a visible God, who
sometimes walks in a garden at the “ cool of day,” or hides
himself behind a burning bush, or has an occasional inter
view with one of his chief priests on the summit of a moun
tain, or a quiet meal with another at an obscure inn. He
is a jealous, vacillating, vindictive being, who does many
barbarous things to gratify his own personal vanity. He is
neither wise nor just, and is utterly powerless against nations
with “ chariots of iron.” Such a God, then, cannot be
the one whom men allege they worship as the author of
the universe. Must we turn, then, to Jesus as God? He
was no God; he was a man, and nothing more. Though
he is alleged to have been brought miraculously into the
world, and taken out of it in an equally mysterious way, he
did nothing to lead the people who knew him to suppose
that he was a God. On the contrary, the Jews thought him
a blaspheming impostor, who deserved to die an igno
minious death. It took some time for the idea of the
divinity of Jesus to grow in the minds of men. In his
“ Philosophical Dictionary” (page 405) Voltaire says: “The
Socinians, who are regarded as blasphemers, do not recog
nise the divinity of Jesus Christ. They dare to pretend—
with the philosophers of antiquity, with the Jews, the
Mohammedans, and most other nations—that the idea of a
God-man is monstrous ; that the distance from God to man
is infinite; and that it is impossible for a perishable body to
be infinite, immense, or eternal. They have the confidence
to quote Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, in their favour, who,
in his ‘ Ecclesiastical History,’ book i., chapter 9, declares
that it is absurd to imagine the uncreated and unchangeable
nature of Almighty God taking the form of man. They
cite the fathers of the Church, Justin and Tertullian, who
have said the same thing—Justin in his Dialogue with
Triphonius, and Tertullian in his Discourse against Praxeas.
They quote from St. Paul, who never calls Jesus Christ
God, and who calls him man very often. They carry their
audacity so far as to affirm that the Christians passed three
entire ages in forming by degrees the apotheosis of Jesus,
�4
FICTITIOUS GODS.
and that they only raised this astonishing edifice by the
example of Pagan's, who had deified mortals. At first,
according to them, Jesus was only regarded as a man in
spired by God, and then as a creature more perfect than
others. They gave him, some time after, a place above the
angels, as St. Paul tells us.
Every day added to his
greatness. He in time became an emanation proceeding
from God. This was not enough : he was born before time.
At last he was made God substantial with God. Crellius,
Volquelsius, Natalis, Alexander, and Hornbeck have
supported all these blasphemies by arguments which
astonish the wise and mislead the weak. Above all, Faustas
Socinus spread the seeds of this doctrine in Europe, and at
the end of the sixteenth century a new species of Chris
tianity was established.”
Some of the utterances of Jesus would lead us to suppose
that he made pretensions to being God, such as “ I and my
Father are one,” “ Before Abraham was I am
and, when
tempted by the Devil, he said : “ Thou shalt not tempt the
Lord thy God.” But other declarations which he made
go to show that at times, at least, he was more rational, and
professed only to be a man. But, if Christians say that
Jesus was “the very God of very God,” it is sufficient to
answer that he possessed none of the attributes which are
said to belong to Deity, for no amount of argument could
induce a rational being to believe that a finite man could
be either omnipotent, omniscient, or omnipresent. How
can it be said either that Jesus was born, or that he died,
if he were God ? Can an eternal being either begin or
cease to be? And when Jesus was on earth, roaming
about hither and thither, and preaching and performing the
wonders that are related of him, was he also at the same
time filling every particle of space in the universe, ruling
and governing the mighty forces of nature, taking cogni
sance of every crime that was perpetrated, hearing and
answering the prayers of the righteous, and meting out
deserved punishment to the wicked ? After he was cruci
fied was the universe without a ruler and governor for two
days, while the God Jesus lay dead in the silent tomb?
The truth is, all the talk of the clergy in support of the
Divinity of Jesus is but a farrago of nonsense; we are
forced, therefore, to conclude that Jesus, in common with
the others named above, is a fictitious God.
�FICTITIOUS GODS.
5
There yet remains another conception of Deity which it
is necessary for us to consider. After all the erroneous
conceptions with which we have just dealt have been swept
clean out of the human mind, many persons still cling to
the belief that there must exist in the infinite expanse a
Supreme Being, who superintends the working of nature,
and in whose mighty power are the destinies of all men.
This belief is supported by four general arguments :—
1. That there is a general consent among mankind
that such a Being exists.
2. That there must have been a “ first cause to
nature,” and that God is the “first cause.”
3. That the universe shows marks of design, that
design implies a designer, and that God is the designer
of the universe.
4. That man is conscious of the existence of God.
1. The mere fact that there now exist thousands of
Atheists is overwhelming proof that the supposition that
mankind generally consents to the existence of God is erro
neous. Moreover, if there were a universal belief in the
existence of God, there is abundance of proof that this
belief is not in the God whom pure Theists profess to wor
ship, but in a being of varying attributes, according to the
climatic conditions, food, and education of the individuals
who manifest belief.
2. “First cause,” as applied to nature as a whole, is
absurd. So far as man can ascertain, nature is infinite; and
in an infinite regression there can be no first cause. • Cause
and effect are terms which apply only to phenomena, to the
changeable element in nature. Man knows nothing of
cause and effect, except in relation to other causes and
effects which have preceded them, and without which they
could not have happened. But in what sense can God be
called “first cause”? To know whether he is “first,” we
must carry the inquiry further back, as the child frequently
does, and ask, “ What caused God ?” and, if the theologian
says that God is without cause, we at once ask whether it is
not far more reasonable to suppose that nature—which
appears to be infinite, and which it is impossible to con
ceive either as beginning or ceasing to be—is without cause
—that is, infinite and eternal—than to say that God is, the
�6
FICTITIOUS GODS.
uncaused causer of nature, without defining what is meant
by God? In truth, man can have no idea of God, if by God
is meant an infinite being. What is an idea ? It is an
image on the mind. The human mind is, as it were, a
mirror upon which nothing is reflected but the external
object of nature. Man has never had any ideas but thosewhich result from the study and observation of nature. If
we say to a man, “ Think of a horse, or an elephant, or a
man,” he at once pictures these beings, which he has seen
on his mind ; but, if he were asked to picture some being
that he had not seen or heard described, or seen a repre
sentation of, he could not do it. In like manner, man can
never give an intelligible idea of God, because, in point of
truth, he has no idea of God. His highest conception is of
a great man; consequently, God has always been fashioned
after his maker, man.
3. It has often seemed strange to me that a philosopher like
John Stuart Mill should have considered the “Design Argu
ment ” as having great force. To me the argument appears
to be exceedingly weak. First, it is alleged that things,
wrought by human ingenuity show marks of design ; but
they only manifest these marks to persons who know some
thing of human workmanship. An intelligent man can see
that a watch has been designed : he judges that its mechan
ism is arranged by an intelligent being to effect a certain
definite purpose ; but, then, he invariably concludes thusbecause he knows something of the designers of watches.
A savage would not conclude that a watch was designed by
an intelligent being; he would be more likely to think it
was alive. But what analogy is there between something
made out of materials by man and a product of nature ?
Who would ever conclude that a blade of grass had been
designed, or a tree, or a mountain? Surely no one. Theo
logians, however, tell us that a designer must be “ intelli
gent,” that an “intelligent being” must be a person, and that
such a person is God. If man needed a designer because
he is “ intelligent,” does not God need a designer because
he is “ intelligent ” ? And would not this lead, not to one
god, but to an infinite series of gods, each greater and more
complicated than the other? Theologians often illustrate
the “ Design Argument ” by reference to the human eye.
They could not well choose a worse illustration. Thou
sands of people have eyes without sight; hundreds of thou-
�FICTITIOUS GODS.
7
sands have weak eyes, and are compelled to call science to
their aid, in order that they may see small objects at all.
Surely an infinitely good God is not the intelligent designer
•of all eyes—the weak, the blind, as well as the strong ?
But if nature is designed, how can the author of it be
•said to combine the attributes of infinite wisdom and
•goodness ? Do not animals live upon each other ? Is
there not a struggle for existence continuously going on, in
which the weak go to the wall ? What justice is there in
this? An “intelligent designer” of earthquakes pestilence,
famine, wars, volcanic eruptions, is surely not all-good !
Nature in her mode of action is perfectly reckless. As
John Stuart Mill says : “Nature impales men, breaks them
-as if on the wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild beasts,
burns them to death, crushes them with stones like the first
Christian martyr, starves them with hunger, freezes them
with cold, poisons them by the quick or slow venom of her
•exhalations, and has hundreds of other hideous deaths in
reserve such as the ingenious cruelty of a Nabis or a
Domitian never surpassed.” Is it nature that does this, or
is it the “ intelligent designer ” of nature ? And how can a
being be called good who is the author of such wickedness?
It is said that the order of the universe demonstrates design.
Per se there is neither order nor disorder in the universe ;
but man calls that order which is comformable to his own
happiness, and that disorder which causes him misery. Yet
■everything in the universe acts according to its own inherent
properties, and could not act otherwise: the same causes
produce the same effects in never-ending succession; and
earthquakes and volcanoes follow as necessarily from their
causes as a tree, uprooted by the wind, falls into the stream
because it cannot maintain its equilibrium. The Design
Argument, then, must not be taken only when it points to
■a good designer : everything must be taken into account ;
-for it is palpably unfair to take the fair things of nature,
■improved by the art of man, and then argue for a wise and
■beneficent Deity creator of them. The Theist must take
the Design Argument all round : he must not cull the good
things out of Nature’s garden to serve his purpose, else the
Atheist must insist upon his accounting for the wide waste
outside that is pregnant with evils ineradicable.
4. It is not true that all men are conscious of the exist
ence of God. I am unconscious of any such existence,
�FICTITIOUS GODS.
and thousands of Atheists and Agnostics are alike uncon
scious. Feeling never can prove anything on a subject like
this. Consciousness can never extend to the “unknow
able.” And so I proclaim myself to be “without God” in
the world—a disbeliever in all the gods that men have ever
preached. But I am a firm believer in man and in his
power to advance. We have had enough of the gods: they
have stood in our path and hindered our progress long
enough. With our poet, Saladin, let me exclaim :—
“ ’Tis not for man to look on high
For Eden’s fabled glow,
But to clear away the weeds and make
A Paradise below,
And to make the world around him
More holy and more true,
And a nobler world to live in
Than e’er his father knew.
“ Oh, had man placed his heaven
On earth instead of sky,
And had he but discarded God
For Man to live and die,
With untold glory in his heart,
High grandeur on his brow,
He had himself, poor dreamer,
Been god-like long ere now.”
J
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BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
Bible Horrors ; or, True Blasphemy
The Bible God and his Favourites
The Secular Faith ...
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Is Religion Necessary or Useful ?
Health, Wealth, and Happiness
The Old Faith and the New ...
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Printed and Published at The Secular Review Office,
84, Fleet Street, London.—Price One Penny.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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Title
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Fictitious gods
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Moss, Arthur B.
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 8 p. ; 19 cm.
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God
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Gods
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Text
THE
GODS1
AN
ORATION
BY
COL. R. G. INGERSOLL.
Price Sixpence.
o'r;
LONDON:
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$
R. FORDER, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
$
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NATIONAL secular SOCIETY
ORATION ON THE GODS
BY
COL. R. G. INGERSOLL.
^onbau:
R. FORDER, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
1893.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY G. W. FOOTE,
AT 14 CI.ERKENWELL GREEN, E.C
�Oration on the Gods.
“An Honest God is the Noblest Work of Man.’
Nearly every people have created a god, and the god
has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved
what they hated and loved, and he was invariably
found on the side of those in power. Each god was
intensely patriotic, and detested all nations but his
own. All these gods demanded praise, flattery, and
worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice,
and the smell of innocent blood has ever been con
sidered a divine perfume. All these gods have insisted
upon having a vast number of priests, and the priests
have always insisted upon being supported by the
people, and the principal business of these priests has
been to boast about their god, and to insist that he
could easily vanquish all the other gods put together
These gods have been manufactured after number
less models, and according to the most grotesque
fashions. Some have a thousand arms, some a hundred
heads, some are adorned with necklaces of living
snakes, some are armed with clubs, some with sword
and shield, some with bucklers, and some have wings
as a cherub ; some were invisible, some would show
themselves entire, and some would only show their
backs ; some were jealous, some were foolish ; some
turned themselves into men, some into swans, some
into bulls, some into doves and some into Holy Ghosts,
and made love to the beautiful daughters of men.
Some were married—all ought to have been—and some
were considered as old bachelors from all eternity.
Some had children, and the children were turned into
gods and worshipped as their fathers had been. Most
of these gods were revengeful, savage, lustful, and
�4
Oration on the Gods.
ignorant. As they generally depended upon their
priests for information, their ignorance can hardly
excite our astonishment.
These gods did not even know the shape of the
worlds they had created, but supposed them perfectly
fiat. Some thought the day could be lengthened by
stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could
throw down the walls of a city, and all knew so little
of the real nature of the people they had created, that
they commanded the people to love them. Some were
so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just
as he might desire, or as they might command, and
that to be governed by observation, reason and experi
ence is a most foul and damning sin. None of these
gods could give a true account of the creation of this
little earth. All were wofully deficient in geology
and astronomy. As a rule they were most miserable
legislators, and as executives, they were far inferior
to the average of American presidents
These deities have demanded the most abject and
degrading obedience. In order to please them, man
must lay his very face in the dust. Of course, they
have always been partial to the people who created
them, and have generally shown their partiality by
assisting those people to rob and destroy others, and. to
ravish their wives and daughters.
Nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery
of unbelievers. Nothing so enrages them, even now,
as to have someone deny their existence.
Few nations have been'so poor as to have but one
god. Gods were made so easy, and the raw material
cost so little, that generally the god-market was fairly
glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms.
These gods not only attended to the skies, but were
supposed to interfere in all the affairs of men. They
presided over everybody and everything. They
attended to every department. All was supposed to
be under their immediate control. Nothing was too
small—nothing too large : the falling of sparrows, the
flatulence of the people, and the motions of the planets
were alike attended to by these industrious and
observing deities. From their starry thrones they
�Oration on the Gods.
5
frequently came to the earth for the purpose of
imparting information to man. It is related of one,
that he came amid thund erings and lightnings, in
order to tell the people that they should not cook a
kid in its mother’s milk. Some left their shining
abodes to tell women that they should, or should not,
have children—to inform a priest how to cut and wear
his apron, and to give directions as to the proper
manner of cleaning the intestines of a bird.
When the people failed to worship one of these gods,
or failed to feed and clothe his priests (which was
much the same thing), he generally visited them with
pestilence and famine. Sometimes he allowed some
other nation to drag them into slavery—to sell their
wives and children ; but generally he glutted his
vengeance by murdering their firstborn. The priests
always did their whole duty, not only in predicting
these calamities, but in proving, when they did happen,
that they were brought upon the people because they
had not given quite enough to them.
These gods differed just as the nations differed : the
greatest and most powerful had the most powerful god,
while the weaker ones were obliged to content them
selves with the very off-scourings of the heavens.
Each of these gods promised happiness here and here
after to all his slaves, and threatened to eternally
punish all who either disbelieved in his existence, or
suspected that some other god might be his superior ;
but to deny the existence of all gods was, and is, the
crime of crimes. Redden your hands with human
blood ; blast by slander the fair fame of the innocent;
strangle the smiling child upon its mother’s knees;
deceive, ruin, and desert the beautiful girl who loves
and trusts you—and your case is not hopeless. For all
this, and for all these, you may be forgiven. For all
this, and for all these, that bankrupt court established
by the gospel will give you a discharge ; but deny the
existence of these divine ghosts, of these gods, and the
sweet and tearful face of Mercy becomes livid with
eternal hate. Heaven’s golden gates are shut, and you,
with an infinite curse ringing in your ears, with the
brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your
�6
Oration on the Gods.
endless wanderings in the lurid gloom of hell—an
immortal vagrant—an eternal outcast—a deathless
convict.
One of these gods, and one who demands our love,
our admiration, and our worship, and one who is
worshipped, if mere heartless ceremony is worship,
gave to his chosen people, for their guidance, the
following laws of war :
“ When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it,
then proclaim peace unto -it. And it shall be if it make thee
answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all
the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee,
and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with
thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege
it. And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine
hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of
the sword. But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle,
and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof shalt thou
take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies
which the Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus shalt thou do
unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are
not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these
people which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inherit
ance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breath eth.”
Is it possible for man to conceive of anything more
perfectly infamous ? Can you believe that such
directions were given by any being except an infinite
fiend ? Remember that the army receiving these
instructions was one of invasion. Peace was offered
upon condition that the people submitting should be
the slaves of the invader ; but if any should have the
courage to defend their homes, to fight for the love
of wife and child, then the sword was to spare none—
not even the prattling, dimpled babe.
And we are called upon to worship such a god ; to
get upon our knees and tell him that he is good, that
he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love. We are
asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and
to trample under foot all the sweet charities of the
heart. Because we refuse to stultify ourselves—refuse
to become liars—we are denounced, hated, traduced,
and ostracised here ; and this same God threatens to
torment us in eternal fire the moment death allows
�Oration on the Gods.
T
him to fiercely clutch our naked, helpless souls. Let
the people hate—let the god threaten; we will educate
them, and we will despise and defy him.
The book, called the Bible, is filled with passages
equally horrible, unjust, and atrocious This is the
book to be read in schools, in order to make our
children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book to
be recognised in our Constitution as the source of all
authority and justice.
Strange! that no one has ever been persecuted by
the church for believing God bad, while hundreds of
millions have been destroyed for thinking him good.
The orthodox church never will forgive the Universalists for saying, “ God is love.” It has always
been considered as one of the very highest evidences
of true and undefiled religion to insist that all men,
women and children deserve eternal damnation. It
has always been heresy to say “ God will at last save
all.”
We are asked to justify these frightful passages—•
these infamous laws of war, because the Bible is the word
of God. As a matter of fact, there never was, and there
never can be, an argument, even tending to prove the
inspiration of any book whatever. In the absence of
positive evidence, analogy, and experience, argument is
simply impossible, and at the very best can amount
only to a useless agitation of the air. The instant we
admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or even
reasoned about, we are mental serfs. It is infinitely
absurd to suppose that a god would address a commu,
nication to intelligent beings, and yet make it a crime,
to be punished in eternal flames, for them to use their
intelligence for the purpose of understanding his com
munication. If we have the right to use our reason,
we certainly have the right to act in accordance with
it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such
action.
The doctrine that future happiness depends on belief
is monstrous. It is the infamy of infamies. The idea
that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of
bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation,
and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd
�Oration on the Gods.
for refutation, and can be believed only by that un
happy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called
“ faith.” What man, who ever thinks, can believe that
blood can appease God ? And yet, our entire system of
religion is based upon that belief. The Jews pacified
Jehovah with the blood of animals, and, according to
the Christian system, the blood of Jesus softened the
heart of God a little, and rendered possible the salva
tion of a fortunate few. It is hard to conceive how
the human mind can give its assent to such terrible
ideas, or how any sane man can read the Bible, and
still believe in the doctrine of inspiration.
Whether the Bible is true or false is of no conse
quence in comparison with the mental freedom of the
race.
Salvation through slavery is worthless. Salvation
from slavery is inestimable,
As long as man believes the Bible to be infallible,
that book is his master. The civilisation of this century
is not the child of faith, but of unbelief—the result of
free thought.
All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince
any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and
purely of human invention—of barbarian invention—
is to read it. Read it as you would any other book ;
think of it as you would of any other ; get the bandage
of reverence from your eyes ; drive from your heart
the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your
brain the cowled form of superstition—then read the
holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for
one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom,
goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance
and of such atrocity.
Our ancestors not only had their god-factories, but
they made devils as well. These devils were generally
disgraced and fallen gods. Some had headed unsuc
cessful revolts ; some had been caught sweetly reclining
in the shadowy folds of some fleecy clouds, kissing the
wife of the god of gods. These devils generally sym
pathised with man. There is in regard to them a most
wonderful fact : in nearly all the theologies, mytho
logies, and religions, the devils have been much more
�yy',r"r
Oration on the Gods.
* h,-
9
humane and merciful than the gods. No devil ever
gave one of his generals an order to kill children and
to rip open the bodies of pregnant women. Such bar
barities were always ordered by the good gods. The
pestilences were sent by the most merciful gods. The
frightful famine, during which the dying child with
pallid lips sucked the withered bosom of a dead mother,
was sent by the loving gods. No devil was ever charged
with such fiendish brutality.
One of these gods, according to the account, drowned
an entire world, with the exception of eight persons.
The old, the young, the beautiful, and the helpless were
remorselessly devoured by the shoreless sea. This, the
most fearful tragedy that the imagination of ignorant
priests ever conceived, was the act, not of a devil, but
of a god, so-called, whom men ignorantly worship unto
this day. What a stain such an act would leave upon
the character of a devil 1 One of the prophets of one
of these gods, having in his power a captured king,
hewed him in pieces in the sight of all the people!
Was ever any imp of any devil guilty of such savagery ?
One of these gods is reported to have given the fol
lowing directions concerning human slavery :
“ If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve,
and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he
came in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he were
married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master
have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or
daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and
he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly
say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go
out free. Then his master shall bring him unto the judges;
he shall also bring him unto the door, or unto the door-post;
and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he
shall serve him for ever.”
According to this, a man was given liberty upon
condition that he would desert for ever his wife and
children. Did any devil ever force upon a husband,
upon a father, so cruel and so heartless an alternative ?
Who can worship such a God ? Who can bend the
knee to such a monster? Who can pray to such a
fiend ?
< 7'S
�10
Oration on the Gods.
All these gods threatened to torment for ever the
souls of their enemies. Did any devil ever make so
infamous a threat ? The basest thing recorded of the
Devil is what he did concerning Job and his family,
and that was done by the express permission of one of
these gods, and to decide a little difference of opinion
between their “ serene highnesses ” as to the character
of “ my servant Job.”
The first account we have of the Devil is found in
that purely scientific book called Genesis, and is as
follows :
“Now. the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the
field which the Lord God had made, and he said unto the
woman, Yea, hath God said, ‘ Ye shall not eat of the fruit of
the trees of the garden ?’ And the woman said unto the
serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden;
but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden
God hath said, “ Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch
it, lest ye die.” ’ And the serpent said unto the woman, ‘ Ye
shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye
eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil.’ And when the woman saw
that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the
eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the
fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with
her, and he did eat. . . . And the Lord God said, Behold, the
man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now,
lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life and
eat, and live for ever. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth
from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he
was taken. So he drove out the man, and he placed at the
east of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword,
which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life.”
According to this account, the promise of the Devil
was fulfilled to the very letter. Adam and Eve did
not die, and they did become as gods, knowing good
and evil.
The account shows, however, that the gods dreaded
education and knowledge then just as they do now.
The Church still faithfully guards the dangerous tree
of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost
power to keep mankind from eating the fruit thereof.
The priests have never ceased repeating the old false
hood and the old threat: “Ye shall not eat of it,
�Oration on the Gods.
11
neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” From every
pulpit comes the same cry, born of the same fear,
“ Lest they eat and become as gods, knowing good and
evil ” For this reason, religion hates science, faith
detests reason, theology is the sworn enemy of philo
sophy, and the Church with its flaming sword still
guards the hated tree, and, like its supposed founder,
curses to the lowest depths the brave thinkers who eat
and become as gods.
If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought
we not, after all, to thank this serpent ? He was the
first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the
first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human
ears the sacred word “ liberty,” the creator of ambition,
the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investi
gation, of progress, and of civilisation.
Give me the storm and tempest of thought and
action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and
faith! Banish me from Eden when you will, but first
let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge !
Some nations have borrowed their gods ; of this
number, we are compelled to say, is our own. The
Jews having ceased to exist as a nation, and having no
further use for a god, our ancestors appropriated him,
and adopted their devil at the same time. This
borrowed god is still an object of some adoration, and
this adopted devil still excites the apprehensions of
our people. He is still supposed to be setting his traps
and snares for the purpose of catching our unwary
souls, and is still, wfith reasonable success, waging the
old war against our God.
To me it seems easy to account for these ideas con
cerning gods and devils. They are a perfectly natural
production. Man has created them all, and under the
same circumstances would create them again. Man
has not only created all these gods, but he has created
them out of the materials by which he has been
surrounded. Generally he has modelled them after
himself, and has given them hands, feet, eyes, ears, and
organs of speech. Each nation made its gods and
devils speak its language not only, but put in their
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mouths the same mistakes in history, geography,
astronomy, and in all matters of fact, generally made
by the people. No god was ever in advance of the
nation that created him. The negroes represented
their deities with black skins and curly hair. The
Mongolian gave to his a yellow complexion and dark
almond-shaped eyes. The Jews were not allowed to
paint theirs, or we should have seen Jehovah with a
full beard, and oval face, and an aquiline nose. Jove
was a perfect Greek, and Jupiter looked as though a
a member of the Roman Senate. The gods of Egypt
had the patient face and placid look of the loving
people who made them. The gods of northern countries
were represented warmly clad in robes of fur ; those
of the tropics were naked. The gods of India were
often mounted upon elephants ; those of the islanders
were great swimmers, and the deities of the Arctic
zone were passionately fond of whale’s blubber.
Nearly all people have carved or painted representa
tions of their gods, and these representations were, by
the lower classes, generally treated a,s the real gods,
and to these images and idols they addressed prayers
and offered sacrifice.
In some countries, even at this day, if the people
after long praying do not obtain their desires, they
turn their images off as impotent gods, or upbraid
them in a most reproachful manner, loading them with
blows and curses. “ How now, dog of a spirit,” they
say ; “ we give you lodging in a magnificent temple,
we gild you with gold, feed you with the choicest food,
and offer incense to you, yet after all this care you are
so ungrateful as to refuse us what we ask.” Hereupon
they will pull the god down and drag him through the
filth of the street. If in the meantime it happens that
they obtain their request, then, with a great deal of
ceremony, they wash him clean, and carry him back
and place him in his temple again, where they fall
down and make excuses for what they have done. “ Of
a truth,” say they, “ we were a little too hasty, and you
were a little too long in your grant. Why should you
bring this beating on yourself ? But what is done
uannot be undone. Let us not think of it any more.
�Oration on the Gods
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If you will forget what is past, we will gild you over
again brighter than before.”
Man has never been at a loss for gods. He has wor
shipped almost everything, including the vilest and
most disgusting beasts. He has worshipped fire, earth,
air, water, light, stars, and for hundreds of ages pros
trated himself before enormous snakes. Savage tribes
often make gods of articles they get from civilised
people. The Todas worship a cow-bell. The Kotas
worship two silver plates, which they regard as husband
and wife, and another tribe manufactured a god out of
a king of hearts.
Man having always been the physical superior of
woman, accounts for the fact that most of the high
gods have been males. Had WQman been the physical
superior, the powers supposed to be the rulers of Nature
would have been women, and instead of being repre
sented in the apparel of man, they would have luxuriated
in trains, low-necked dresses, laces, and back-hair.
Nothing can be plainer than that each nation gives
to its god its peculiar characteristics, and that every
individual gives to his god his personal peculiarities.
Man has no ideas, and can have none, except those
suggested by his surroundings. He cannot conceive of
anything utterly unlike what he has seen or felt. He
can exaggerate, diminish, combine, separate, deform,
beautify, improve, multiply, and compare what he sees,
what he feels, what he hears, and all of which he takes
cognizance through the medium of the senses ; but he
cannot create. Having seen exhibitions of power, he
can say, omnipotent. Having lived, he can say immor
tality. Knowing something of time, he can say eternity.
Conceiving something of intelligence, he can say God.
Having seen exhibitions of malice, he can say Devil.
A few gleams of happiness having fallen athwart the
gloom of his life, he can say, heaven. Pain, in its
numberless forms, having been experienced, he can
say hell. Yet all these ideas have a foundation in
fact, and only a foundation. The superstructu re has
been reared by exaggerating, diminishing, combining,
separating, deforming, beautifying, improving, or mul
tiplying realities, so that the edifice, or fabric, is but
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the incongruous grouping of what man has perceived
through the medium of the senses. It is as though we
should give to a lion the wings of an eagle, the hoofs
of a bison, the tail of a horse, the pouch of a kangaroo,
and the trunk of an elephant. We have, in imagina
tion, created an impossible monster. And yet the
various parts of this monster really exist. So it is with
all the gods that man has made.
Beyond nature man cannot go, even in thought;
above nature he cannot rise, below nature he cannot
fall.
Man, in his ignorance, supposed that all phenomena
were produced by some intelligent powers, and with
direct reference to him. To preserve friendly relations
with these powers was, and still is, the object of all
religions. Man knelt through fear and to implore
assistance, or through gratitude for some favor which
he supposed had been rendered. He endeavored by
supplication to appease some being who, for some
reason, had, as he believed, become enraged. The
lightning and thunder terrified him. In the presence
of the volcano he sank upon his knees. The great
forests filled with wild and ferocious beasts, the mon
strous serpent crawling in mysterious depths, the
boundless sea, the flaming cQmets, the sinister eclipses,
the awful calmness of the stars, and, more than all, the
perpetual presence of death, convinced him that he
was the sport and prey of unseen and malignant
powers. The strange and frightful diseases to which
he was subject, the freezings and burnings of fever,
the contortions of epilepsy, the sudden palsies, the
darkness of night, and the wild, terrible, and fantastic
dreams that filled his brain, satisfied him that he was
haunted and pursued by countless spirits of evil. For
some reason he supposed that these spirits differed in
power—that they were not all alike malevolent—that
the higher controlled the lower, and that his very
existence depended upon gaining the assistance of the
more powerful. For this purpose he resorted to prayer,
to flattery, to worship, and to sacrifice. These ideas
appear to have been almost universal in savage'
man.
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For ages all nations supposed that the sick and insane
were possessed by evil spirits. For thousands of years
the practice of medicine consisted in frightening these
spirits away. Usually the priests would make the
loudest and most discordant noises possible. They
would blow horns, beat upon rude drums, clash cymbals,
and in the meantime utter the most unearthly yells.
If the noise-remedy failed, they would implore the aid
of some more powerful spirit.
To pacify these spirits was considered of infinite
importance. The poor barbarian, knowing that men
could be softened by gifts, gave to these spirits that
which to him seemed of the most value. With bursting
heart he would offer the blood of his dearest child. It
was impossible for him to conceive of a god utterly
unlike himself, and he naturally supposed that these
powers of the air would be affected a little at the sight
of so great and so deep a sorrow. It was with the
barbarians then as with the civilised now ; one class
lived upon and made merchandise of the fears of
another. Certain persons took it upon themselves
to appease the gods and to instruct the people in their
duties to these unseen powers. This was the origin of
the priesthood. The priest pretended to stand between
the wrath of the gods and the helplessness of man.
He was man’s attorney at the court of heaven. He
carried to the invisible world a flag of truce, a protest,
and a request. He came back with a command, with
authority, and with power. Man fell upon his knees
before his own servant, and the priest, taking advan
tage of the awe inspired by his supposed influence
with the gods, made of his fellow-man a cringing
hypocrite and slave. Even Christ, the supposed son of
God, taught that persons were possessed of evil spirits,
and frequently, according to the account, gave proof of
his divine origin and mission by frightening droves of
devils out of his unfortunate country-men. Casting
out devils was his principal employment, and the
devils thus damaged generally took occasion to
acknowledge him as the true Messiah, which was not
only very kind of them, but quite fortunate for him.
The religious people have always regarded the
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testimony of these devils as perfectly conclusive, and
the writers of the New Testament quote the words of
these imps of darkness with great satisfaction.
The fact that Christ could withstand the temptations
of the Devil was considered as conclusive evidence
that he was assisted by some god, or at least by some
being superior to man. St. Matthew gives an account
of an attempt made by the Devil to tempt the supposed
son of God ; and it has always excited the wonder of
Christians that the temptation was so nobly and
heroically withstood. The account to which I refer is
as follows:
“ Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to
be tempted of the devil. And when the tempter came to him,
he said, ‘ If thou be the son of God command that these stones
be made bread.’ But he answered and said, ‘ It is written :
man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’ Then the devil taketh
him up into the holy city and setteth him upon a pinnacle of
the temple and saith unto him, ‘ If thou be the son of God,
cast thyself down ; for it is written, He shall give his angels
charge concerning thee, lest at any time thou shalt dash thy
foot against a stone.’ Jesus said unto him, ‘ It is written,
again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’ Again the
devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and
sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of
them, and saith unto him, ‘ All these will I give thee if thou
wilt fall down and worship me.’ ”
The Christians now claim that Jesus was God: If
he was God, of course the Devil knew that fact, and
yet, according to this account the Devil took the omni
potent God and placed him upon a pinnacle of the
temple, and endeavored to induce him to dash himself
against the earth. Failing in that, he took the creator,
and owner, and governor of the universe up into an
exceeding high mountain, and offered him this world
—this grain of sand, if he, the God of all the worlds,
would fall down and worship him, a poor devil, with
out even a tax title to one foot of dirt! Is it possible
the Devil was such an idiot? Should any great credit
be, given to this Deity for not being caught with such
chaff ? Think of it! The Devil—the prince of sharpers
—the king of cunning—the master of finesse, trying
�Oration on the Gods.
17
to bribe God with a grain of sand that belonged
to God!
Is there, in all the religious literature of the world,
anything more grossly absurd than this ?
These devils, according to the Bible, were of various
kinds—some could speak and hear, others were deaf
and dumb. All could not be cast out in the same way.
The deaf and dumb spirits were quite difficult to deal
with. St. Mark tells of a gentleman who brought his
son to Christ. The boy, it seems, was possessed of a
dumb spirit, over which the disciples had no control.
“ Jesus said unto the spirit, ‘ Thou dumb and deaf
spirit, I charge thee come out of him, and enter no
more into him.’ ” Whereupon, the deaf spirit (having
heard what was said) cried out (being dumb) and
immediately vacated the premises. The ease with
which Christ controlled this deaf and dumb spirit
excited the wonder of his disciples, and they asked him
privately why they could not cast that spirit out. To
whom he replied : “ This kind can come forth by
nothing but prayer and fasting.” Is there a Christian
in the whole world who would believe such a story, if
found in any other book ? The trouble is, these pious
people shut up their reason, and then open their Bibles.
In the olden times, the existence of devils was uni
versally admitted. The people had no doubt upon that
subject, and from such belief it followed as a matter
of course, that a person, in order to vanquish these
devils, had either to be a god, or assisted by one. All
founders of religions have established their claims to
divine origin by controlling evil spirits and suspending
the laws of nature. Casting out devils was a certificate
of divinity. A prophet, unable to cope with the
powers of darkness, was regarded with contempt. The
utterance of the highest and noblest sentiments, the
most blameless and holy life, commanded but little
respect, unless accompanied by power to work miracles
and command spirits.
This belief in good and evil powers had its origin in
the fact that man was surrounded by what he was
pleased to call good and evil phenomena. Phenomena
affecting man pleasantly were ascribed to good spirits,
B
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Oration on the Gods.
while those affecting him unpleasantly or injuriously
were ascribed to evil spirits. It being admitted
that all phenomena were produced by spirits, the
spirits were divided according to the phenomena, and
the phenomena were good or bad as they affected man.
Good spirits were supposed to be the authors of good
phenomena, and evil spirits of the evil: so that the
idea of a devil has been as universal as the idea of
a god.
Many writers maintain that an idea to become
universal must be true ; that all universal ideas are
innate ; and that innate ideas cannot be false. If the
fact, that an idea has been universal, proves that it is
innate, and if the fact that an idea is innate proves
that it is correct, then the believers in innate ideas
must admit that the evidence of a god superior to
nature, and of a devil superior to nature, is exactly the
same, and that the existence of such a devil must be
as self-evident as the existence of such a god. The
truth is, a god was inferred from good, and a devil
from bad phenomena. And it is just as natural and
logical to suppose that a devil would cause happiness,
as to suppose that a god would produce misery. Conse
quently, if an intelligence, infinite and supreme, is
the immediate author of all phenomena, it is difficult
to determine whether such intelligence is the friend
or enemy of man. If phenomena were all good, we
might say they were all produced by a perfectly
beneficent being. If they were all bad. we might say
they were produced by a perfectly malevolent power.
But as phenomena are, as they affect man, both good
and bad, they must be produced by different and
antagonistic spirits ; by one who is sometimes actuated
by kindness, and sometimes by malice ; or all must be
produced of necessity, and without reference to their
consequences upon man.
The foolish doctrine, that all phenomena can be
traced to the interference of good and evil spirits, has
been, and still is, almost universal. That most people
still believe in some spirit that can change the natural
order of events, is proven by the fact that nearly all
resort to prayer. Thousands, at this very moment are
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19
probably imploring some supposed power to interfere
in their behalf. Some want health restored ; some
ask that the loved and absent be watched over and
protected ; some pray for riches ; some for rain ; some
want diseases stayed; some vainly ask for food ; some
ask for revivals ; a few ask for more wisdom, and now
and then one tells the Lord to do as he may think best.
Thousands ask to be protected from the devil ; some,
like David, pray for revenge, and some implore, even
God, not to lead them into temptation. All these
prayers rest upon, and are produced by the idea that;
some power not only can, but probably will, change
the order of the universe. This belief has been among
the great majority of tribes and nations. All sacred,
books are filled with the accounts of such interferences.,
and our own Bible is no exception to this rule.
If we believe in a power superior to nature, it i»
perfectly natural to suppose that such power can and
will interfere in the affairs of this world. If there is
no interference, of what practical use can such power
be ? The scriptures give us the most wonderful
accounts of divine interference : Animals talk like
men ; springs gurgle from dry bones ; the sun and
moon stop in the heavens in order that General
Joshua may have more time to murder ; the shadow
on a dial goes back ten degrees to convince a petty
king of a barbarous people that he is not going to die
of a boil; fire refuses to burn; water positively
declines to seek its level, but stands up like a wall ;
grains of sand become lice ; common walking-sticks,
to gratify a mere freak, twist themselves into serpents,
and then swallow each other by way of exercise ;
murmuring streams, laughing at the attraction of
gravitation, run up hill for years, following wandering
tribes from a pure love of frolic : prophecy becomes
altogether easier than history ; the sons of God become
enamoured of the world’s girls; women are changed’
into salt for the purpose of keeping a great event fresh:
in the minds of men ; an excellent article of brimstone
is imported from heaven free of duty ; clothes refuse
to wear out for forty years ; birds keep restaurants and
feed wandering prophets free of expense ; bears tear
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Oration on the Gods.
children in pieces for laughing at old men without
wigs ; muscular development depends upon the length
of one’s hair; dead people come to life, simply to get a
joke on their enemies and heirs ; witches and wizards
converse freely with the souls of the departed, and
God himself becomes a stonecutter and engraver, after
having been a tailor and dressmaker
The veil between heaven and earth was always rent
or lifted. The shadows of this world, the radiance of
heaven, and the glare of hell, mixed and mingled until
man became uncertain as to which country he really
inhabited. Man dwelt in an unreal world. He mis
took his ideas, his dreams, for real things. His fears
became terrible and malicious monsters. He lived in
the midst of furies and fairies, nymphs and naiads,
goblins and ghosts, witches and wizards, sprites and
spooks, deities and devils. The obscure and gloomy
depths were filled with claw and wing—with beak and
hoof—with leering look and sneering mouths—with
the malice of deformity—with the cunning of hatred,
and with all the slimy forms that fear can draw and
paint upon the shadowy canvas of the dark.
It is enough to make one almost insane with pity to
think what man in the long night has suffered ; of the
tortures he has endured, surrounded, as he supposed,
by malignant powers and clutched by the fierce
phantoms of the air. No wonder that he fell upon his
trembling knees—that he built altars and reddened
them even with his own blood. No wonder that
he implored ignorant priests and impudent magicians
for aid. No wonder that he crawled grovelling in the
dust to the temple’s door, and there, in the insanity of
despair, besought the deaf gods to hear his bitter cry of
agony and fear.
The savage, as he emerges from a state of barbarism,
gradually loses faith in his idols of wood and stone,
and in their place puts a multitude of spirits. As he
advances in knowledge, he generally discards the petty
spirits, and in their stead believes in one, whom
he supposes to be infinite and supreme. Supposing
this great spirit to be superior to nature, he offers
worship or flattery in exchange for assistance. At
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21
last, finding that he obtains no aid from this supposed
deity—finding that every search after the absolute
must of necessity end in failure—finding that man
cannot by any possibility conceive of the conditionless—
he begins to investigate the facts by which he is
surrounded, and to depend upon himself.
The people are beginning to think, to reason, and to
investigate. Slowly, painfully, but surely, the gods
are being driven from the earth. Only upon rare
occasions are they, even by the most religious, supposed
to interfere with the affairs of men. In most matters
we are at last supposed to be free. Since the invention
of steamships and railways, so that the products of all
countries can be easily interchanged, the gods have
quit the business of producing famine. Now and then
they kill a child because it is idolised by its parents.
As a rule they have given up causing accidents on
railroads, exploding boilers, and bursting kerosene
lamps. Cholera, yellow fever, and small-pox are still
considered heavenly weapons; but measles, itch, and
ague are now attributed to natural causes. As a general
thing, the gods have stopped drowning children,
except as a punishment for violating the Sabbath.
They still pay some attention to the affairs of kings,
men of genius, and persons of great wealth ; but
ordinary people are left to shirk for themselves as best
they may. In wars between great nations, the gods
still interfere ; but in prize fights, the best man, with
an honest referee, is almost sure to win.
The Church cannot abandon the idea of special
providence. To give up that doctrine, is to give up
all. The Church must insist that prayer is answered
—that some power superior to nature hears the grants
and requests of the sincere and humble Christian, and
that this same power in some mysterious way provides
for all.
A devout clergyman sought every opportunity to
impress upon the mind of his son the fact that God
takes care of all creatures ; that the falling sparrow
attracts his attention, and that his loving kindness is
over all his works. Happening, one day, to see a crane
wading in quest of food, the good man pointed out to
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Oration on the Gods.
his son the perfect adaptation of the crane to get his
living in that manner. “ See,’” said he, “ how his legs
are formed for wading ! What a long, slender bill he
has ! Observe how nicely he folds his feet when
putting them in or drawing them out of the water.
He does not cause the slightest ripple. He is thus
enabled to approach the fish without giving them any
notice of his arrival. My son,” said he, “ it is im
possible to look at that bird without recognising the
design, as well the goodness of God, in thus providing
the means of subsistence.” “ Yes,” replied the boy,
“ I think I see the goodness of God, at least so far as
the crane is concerned ; but after all, father, don’t you
think the arrangement a little tough on the fish ?”
Even the advanced religionist, although disbelieving
in any great amount of interference by the gods in
this age of the world, still thinks that, in the beginning,
some god made the laws governing the universe. He
believes that in consequence of these laws a man can
lift a greater weight with, than without a lever ; that
this god so made matter, and so established the order
of things, that two bodies cannot occupy the same
space at the same time ; so that a body once put in
motion will keep moving until it is stopped ; so that
it is a greater distance around than across a cirle ; so
that a perfect square has four equal sides, instead of
five or seven. He insists that it took a direct inter
position of providence to make a whole greater than a
part, and that had it not been for this power superior
to nature, twice one might have been more than twice
two, and sticks and strings might have had only one
end apiece. Like the old Scotch divine, he thanks
God that Sunday comes at the end instead of in the
middle of the week, and that death comes at the close
instead of at the commencement of life, thereby giving
us ¿ime to prepare for that holy day and that most
solemn event. These religious people see nothing but
design everywhere, and personal, intelligent interfer
ence in everything. They insist that the universe has
been created, and that the adaptation of means to ends
is perfectly apparent. They point us to the sunshine,
to the flowers, to the April rain, and to all there is of
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beauty and of use in the world. Did it ever occur to
them that a cancer is as. beautiful in its development
as is the reddest rose ? That what they are pleased to
call the adaptation of means to ends, is as apparent in
the cancer as in the April rain ? How beautiful the
process of digestion ! By what ingenious methods the
blood is poisoned so that the cancer shall have food !
By what wonderful contrivances the entire system of
man is made to pay tribute to this divine and charming
cancer! See by what admirable instrumentalities it
feeds itself from the surrounding quivering, dainty
flesh ! See how it gradually, but surely, expands and
grows ! By what marvellous mechanism it is supplied
with long and slender roots that reach out to the most
secret nerves of pain for sustenance and life! What
beautiful colors it presents ! Seen through the micro
scope, it is a miracle of order and beauty. All the
ingenuity of man cannot stop its growth. Think of the
amount of thought it must have required to invent a
way by which the life of one man might be given to
produce one cancer! Is it possible to look upon it and
doubt that there is design in the universe, and that the
inventor of this wonderful cancer must be infinitely
powerful, ingenious, and good ?
We are told that the universe was designed and
created, and that it is absurd to suppose that matter has
existed for eternity, but that it is perfectly self-evident
that a god has.
If a god created the universe, then there must have
been a time when he commenced to create. Back of
that time there must have been an eternity, during
which there had existed nothing—absolutely nothing
—except this supposed god. According to this theory,
this god spent an eternity, so to speak, in an infinite
vacuum, and in perfect idleness.
Admitting that a god did create the universe, the
question then arises, of -what did he create it ? It cer
tainly was not made of nothing. Nothing, considered
in the light of a raw material, is a most decided failure.
It follows, then, that the god must have made the
universe out of himself, he being the only existence.
The universe is material, and if it was made of god,
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Oration on the Gods.
the god must have been material. With this very
thought in his mind, Anaximander, of Miletus, said :
“ Creation is the decomposition of the infinite.”
It has been demonstrated that the earth would fall to
the sun, only for the fact that it is attracted by other
worlds, and those worlds must be attracted by other
worlds still beyond them, and so on, without end. This
proves the material universe to be infinite. If an
infinite universe has been made out of an infinite god,
how much of the god is left ?
The idea of a creative deity is gradually being
abandoned, and nearly all truly scientific minds admit
that matter must have existed from eternity. It is in
destructible, and the indestructible cannot be created.
It is the crowning glory of our century to have demon
strated the indestructibility and the eternal persistence
of force. Neither matter nor force can be increased
nor diminished. Force cannot exist apart from matter ;
matter exists only in connection with force ; and con
sequently a force apart from matter, and superior to
nature, is a demonstrated impossibility.
Force, then, must have also existed from eternity,
and could not have been created. Matter, in its count
less forms, from dead earth to the eyes of those we love,
and force in all its manifestations, from simple motion
to the grandest thought, deny creation and defy control.
Thought is a form of force. We walk with the same
force with which we think. Man is an organism, that
changes several forms of force into thought-force. - Man
is a machine, into which we put what we call food, and
produce what we call thought. Think of that wonderful
chemistry by which bread was changed into the divine
tragedy of Hamlet!
A god must not only be material, but he must be an
organism, capable of changing other forms of force into
thought-force. This is what we call eating. Therefore,
if the god thinks, he must eat, that is to say, he must
of necessity have some means of supplying the force
with which to think. It is impossible to conceive of a
being who can eternally impart force to matter, and yet
have no means of supplying the force thus imparted.
If neither matter nor force were createcL what ev -
�Oration on the Gods.
25
dence have we then of the existence of a power superior
to nature ? The theologian will probably reply, “ We
have law and order, cause and effect, and besides all
this, matter could not have put itself in motion.”
Suppose, for the sake of the argument, that there is
no being superior to nature, and that matter and force
have existed from eternity. Now suppose that twoatoms should come together, would there be an effect ?
Yes. Suppose they came in exactly opposite directions
with equal force, they would be stopped, to say the
least. This would be an effect. If this is so, then you
have matter, force, and effect without a being superior
to nature. Now, suppose that two other atoms, just
like the first two, should come together under precisely
the same circumstances, would not the effect be exactly
the same ? Yes. Like causes producing like effects is
what we mean by law and order. Then we have matter,,
force, effect, law, and order without a being superior to
nature. Now, we know that every effect must also be
a cause, and that every cause must be an effect. The
atoms coming together did produce an effect, and as
every effect must also be a cause, the effect produced by
the collision of the atoms, must as to something else
have been a cause. Then we have matter, force, law,
order, cause, and effect, without a being superior to
nature. Nothing is left for the supernatural but empty
space. His throne is a void, and his boasted realm is
without matter, without law, without cause, and with
out effect.
But what put all this matter in motion ? If matter
and force have existed from eternity, then matter must
have always been in motion. There can be no force
without motion. Force is for ever active, and there is,
and there can be, no cessation. If, therefore, matter
and force have existed from eternity, so has motion.
In the whole universe there is not even one atom in a
state of rest.
A deity outside of nature exists in nothing, and is
nothing. Nature embraces with infinite arms all matter
and all force. That which is beyond her grasp is
destitute of both, and can hardly be worth the worship,
and adoration even of a man.
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Oration on the Gods.
There is but one way to demonstrate the existence of
a power independent of and superior to nature, and
that is by breaking, if only for one moment, the con
tinuity of cause and effect. Pluck from the endless
■chain of evidence one little link ; stop for one instant
the grand procession, and you have shown beyond all
contradiction that nature has a master. Change the
fact, just for one second, that matterattracts matter, and
a god appears.
The rudest savage has always known this fact, and
for that reason always demanded the evidence of
miracle. The founder of a religion must be able to
turn water into wine—cure with a word the blind and
lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life. It
was necessary for him to demonstrate to the satisfaction
of his barbarian disciple that he was superior to nature.
In times of ignorance, this was easy to do. The cre
dulity of the savage was almost boundless. To him
the marvellous was the beautiful, the mysterious was
the sublime. Consequently every religion has for its
foundation a miracle—that is to say, a violation of
nature—that is to say, a falsehood.
No one, in the world’s whole history, ever attempted
to substantiate a truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the
assistance of miracle. Nothing but falsehood ever
attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle was
ever performed, and no sane man ever thought he had
performed one, and until one is performed there can be
no evidence of the existence of any power superior to
and independent of nature.
The Church wishes us to believe. Let the Church, or
■one of its intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we
will believe. We are told that nature has a superior.
Let this superior, for one single instant, control nature,
and we will admit the truth of your assertions.
We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all
the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to
hear. We have read your Bible, and the works of your
best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn
groans, and your reverential amens. All these amount
to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at
the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We
�Oration on the Gods.
27
pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits,
and implore you for just one fact. We know all about
your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We
want a this year’s fact. We ask only one. Give us one
fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The
witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand
years. Their reputation for “truth and veracity”
in the neighborhood where they resided is wholly
unknown to us. Give us a new miracle, and sub
stantiate it by witnesses who still have the cheerful
habit of living in this world. Do not send us to Jericho
to hear the winding horns, nor put us in the fire with
Meshech, Shadrach, and Abednego. Do not compel us
to navigate the sea with Captain Jonah, nor dine with
Mr. Ezekiel. There is no sort of use in sending us
fox-hunting with Samson. We have positively lost all
interest in that little speech so eloquently delivered by
Balaam’s inspired donkey. It is worse than useless to
show us fishes with money in their mouths, and call
our attention to vast multitudes stuffing themselves
with five crackers and two sardines. We demand a
new miracle, and we demand it now. Let the Church
furnish at least one, or for ever after hold her peace.
In the olden time the Church, by violating the order
of nature, proved the existence of her God. At that
time miracles were performed with the most astonish
ing ease. They became so common that the Church
ordered her priests to desist. And now this same
Church—the people having found some little sense—
admits, not only that she cannot perform a miracle,
but insists that the absence of miracle—the steady, un
broken march of cause and effect—proves the exist
ence of a power superior to nature. The fact is,
however, that indissoluble change of cause and effect
proves exactly the contrary.
Sir William Hamilton, one of the pillars of modern
theology, in discussing this very subject, uses the
following language : “ The phenomena of matter, taken
by themselves, so far from warranting an inference to
the existence of a god, would, on the contrary, ground
even an argument to his negation. The phenomena
of the material world are subjected to immutable laws ;
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Oration on the Gods.
are produced and reproduced in the same invariable
succession, and manifest only the blind force of a
mechanical necessity.”
Nature is but an endless series of efficient causes.
She cannot create, but she eternally transforms. There
was no beginning, and there can be no end.
The best minds, even in the religious world, admit
that in material nature there is no evidence of what
they are pleased to call a god. They find their evidence
in the phenomena of intelligence, and very innocently
assert that intelligence is above, and, in fact, opposed
to nature. They insist that man, at least, is a special
creation; that he has somewhere in his brain a divine
spark, a little portion of the “ Great First Cause.” They
say that matter cannot produce thought, but that
thought can produce matter. They tell us that man
has intelligence, and, therefore, there must be an
intelligence greater than his ? Why not say, God has
intelligence, therefore there must be an intelligence
greater than his ? So far as we know there is no
intelligence apart from matter. We cannot conceive
of thought, except as produced within a brain.
The science by means of which they demonstrate
the existence of an impossible intelligence, and an
incomprehensible power, is called metaphysics, or
theology. The theologians admit that the phenomena
of matter tend, at least, to disprove the existence of
any power superior to nature, because in such pheno
mena we see nothing but an endless chain of efficient
causes—nothing but the force of a mechanical necessity.
They therefore appeal to what they denominate the
phenomena of mind to establish this superior power.
The trouble is, that in the phenomena of mind we
find the same endless chain of efficient causes, the
same mechanical necessity. Every thought must have
had an efficient cause. Every motive, every desire,
every fear, hope, and dream must have been necessarily
produced. There is no room in the mind of man for
providence or chance. The facts and forces governing
thought are as absolute as those governing the motions
of the planets. A poem is produced by the forces of
nature, and is as necessarily and naturally produced as
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mountains and seas. You will seek in vain for a
thought in man’s brain without its efficient cause.
Every mental operation is the necessary result of
certain facts and conditions. Mental phenomena are
considered more complicated than those of matter, and,
consequently more mysterious. Being more mysterious,
they are considered better evidence of the existence of
a god. No one infers a god from the simple, from the
known, from what is understood, but from the com
plex, from the unknown, and incomprehensible. Our
ignorance is God, what we know is science.
When we abandon the doctrine that some infinite
being created matter and force, and enacted a code of
laws for their government, the idea of interference
will be lost. The real priest will then be, not the
mouthpiece of some pretended deity, but the inter
preter of nature. From that moment the church
ceases to exist. The tapers will die out upon the dusty
altar ; the moths will eat the fading velvet of pulpit
and pew; the Bible will take its place with the
Shastras, Puranas, Vedas, Eddas, Sagas, and Korans,
and the fetters of a degrading faith will fall from the
mind of men.
“ But,” says the religionist, “ you cannot explain
everything ; you cannot understand everything ; and
that which you cannot explain, that which you do not
comprehend, is my God.”
We are explaining more every day. We are under
standing more every day; consequently your God is
growing smaller every day.
Nothing daunted, the religionist then insists, that
nothing can exist without a cause, except cause, and
■that this uncaused cause is God.
To this we again reply : Every cause must produce
an effect, because until it does produce an effect, it is
not a cause. Every effect must in its turn become a
cause. Therefore, in the nature of things, there cannot
be a last cause, for the reason that a so-called last cause
would necessarily produce an effect, and that effect
must of necessity become a cause. The converse of
these propositions must be true. Every effect must
have had a cause, and every cause must have been an
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effect. Therefore there could have been no first cause.
A first cause is just as impossible as a last effect.
Beyond the universe there is nothing, and within
the universe the supernatural does not and can not
exist.
The moment these great truths are understood and
admitted, a belief in general or special providence
becomes impossible. From that instant men will
cease their vain efforts to please an imaginary being,
and will give their time and attention to the affairs of
this world. They will abandon the idea of attaining
any object by prayer and supplication. The element
of uncertainty will, in a great measure, be removed
from the domain of the future, and man, gathering
courage from a succession of victories over the
obstructions of nature, will attain a serene grandeur
unknown to the disciples of any superstition. The
plans of mankind will no longer be interfered with by
the finger of a supposed omnipotence, and no one will
believe that nations or individuals are protected or
destroyed by any deity whatever. Science, freed from
the chains of pious custom and evangelical prejudice,
will, within her sphere, be supreme. The mind will
investigate without reverence, and publish its con
clusion without fear. Agassiz will no longer hesitate
to declare the Mosaic cosmogony utterly inconsistent
with the demonstrated truths of geology, and will
cease pretending any reverence for the Jewish
scriptures. The moment science succeeds in rendering
the Church powerless for evil, the real thinkers will be
outspoken. The little flags of truce carried by timid
philosophers will disappear, and the cowardly parley
will give place to victory—lasting and universal.
If we admit that some infinite being has controlled
the destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a
most cruel and bloody farce. Age after age, the strong
have trampled upon the weak ; the crafty and heartless
have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent,
and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any
god succored the oppressed.
Man should cease to expect aid from on high. By
this time he should know that heaven has no ear
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31
to hear, and no hand to help. The present is the
necessary child of all the past. There has been
no chance, and there can be no interference.
If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them If
slaves are freed, man must free them. If new truths
are discovered, man must discover them. If the naked
are clothed ; if the hungry are fed ; if justice is done ;
if labor is rewarded ; if superstition is driven from the
mind ; if the defenceless are protected, and if the
right finally triumphs, all must be the work of man.
The grand victories of the future must be won by man,
and by man alone.
Nature, so far as we can discern, without passion and
without intention, forms, transforms, and re-transforms
for ever.
She neither weeps nor rejoices.
She
produces man without purpose, and obliterates him
without regret. She knows no distinction between the
beneficial and the hurtful. Poison and nutrition, pain
and joy, life and death, smiles and tears are alike to
her. She is neither merciful nor cruel. She cannot
be flattered by worship nor melted by tears. She does
not even know the attitude of prayer. She appreciates
no difference between poison in the fangs of snakes
and mercy in the hearts of men. Only through man
does nature take cognisance of the good, the true, and
the beautiful; and, so far as we know, man is the
highest intelligence.
And yet man continues to believe that there is some
power independent of and superior to nature, and still
endeavors, by form, ceremony, supplication, hypocrisy,
and sacrifice, to obtain its aid. His best energies have
been wasted in the service of this phantom. The
horrors of witchcraft were all born of an ignorant
belief in the existence of a totally depraved being
superior to nature, acting in perfect independence of
her laws, and all religious superstition has had for its
basis a belief in at least two beings, one good and the
other bad, both of whom could arbitrarily change the
order of the universe. The history of religion is
simply the story of man’s efforts in all ages to avoid
one of these powers and to pacify the other. Both
powers have inspired little else than abject fear. The
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Oration on the Gods.
cold, calculating sneer of the devil and the frown of
•God were equally terrible. In any event, man’s fate
was to be arbitrarily fixed for ever by an unknown
power superior to all law and to all fact. Until this
belief is thrown aside, man must consider himself the
■slave of phantom masters—neither of iwhom promise
liberty in this world nor the next.
Man must learn to rely upon himself. Reading
Bibles will not protect him from the blasts of winter;
but houses, fires, and clothing will.
To prevent
famine, one plough is worth a million sermons, and
«ven patent medicines will cure more diseases than all
the prayers uttered since the beginning of the world.
Although many eminent men have endeavored to
harmonise necessity and free will, the existence of
evil, and the infinite power and goodness of God, they
have only succeeded in producing learned and ingeni
ous failures. Immense efforts have been made to
reconcile ideas utterly inconsistent with the facts by
which we are surrounded, and all persons who have
failed to perceive the pretended reconciliation have
been denounced as Infidels, Atheists, and scoffers.
The whole power of the Church has been brought to
bear against philosophers and scientists in order to
•compel a denial of the authority of demonstration, and
to induce some Judas to betray Reason—one of the
saviors of mankind.
During that frightful period known as the “ Dark
Ages,” Faith reigned, with scarcely a rebellious subject.
Her temples were “ carpeted with knees,” and the
wealth of nations adorned her countless shrines. The
■great painters prostituted their genius to immortalise
her vagaries, while the poets enshrined them in song
At her bidding, man covered the earth with blood.
The scales of justice were turned with her gold, and
for her use were invented all the cunning instruments
of pain. She built cathedrals for God, and dungeons
for men. She peopled the clouds with angels and the
■earth with slaves. For centuries the world was
retracing its steps—going steadily back towards barbaric
night. A few infidels—a few heretics cried “ Halt!”
to the great rabble of ignorant devotion, and made it
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33
possible for the genius of the nineteenth century to
revolutionise the cruel creeds and superstitions of
mankind.
The thoughts of man, in order to be of any real
worth, must be free. Under the influence of fear, the
brain is paralysed, and instead of bravely solving a
problem for itself, trembling adopts the solution of
another. As long as a majority of men will cringe to
the very earth before some petty prince or king, what
must be the infinite abjectness of their little souls in
the presence of their supposed creator and God ? Under
such circumstances, what can their thoughts be worth ?
The originality of repetition, and the mental vigor
of acquiescence, are all that we have any right to
expect from the Christian world. As long as every
question is answered by the word “god,” scientific
inquiry is simply impossible. As fast as phenomena
are satisfactorily explained, the domain of the power,
supposed to be superior to nature, must decrease, while
the horizon of the known must as constantly continue
to enlarge.
It is no longer satisfactory to account for the fall
and rise of nations by saying: “ It is the will of God.”
Such an explanation puts ignorance and education
upon an exact equality, and does away with the idea
of really accounting for anything whatever.
Will the religionist pretend that the real end of
science is, to ascertain how and why God acts ?
Science, from such a standpoint, would consist in
investigating the law of arbitrary action, and in a
grand endeavor to ascertain the rules necessarily
obeyed by infinite caprice.
From a philosophic point of view, science is a
knowledge of the laws of life ; of the conditions of
happiness ; of the facts by which we are surrounded,
and the relations we sustain to men and things—by
which man, so to speak, subjugates nature, and bends
the elemental powers to his will, making blind force
the servant of his brain.
A belief in special providence does away with the
spirit of investigation, and is inconsistent with personal
effort. Why should man endeavor to thwart the
c
�34
Oration on the G-ools.
designs of God ? “ Which of you, by taking thought,
can add one cubit to his stature ?” Under the influence
of this belief, man, basking in the sunshine of a
delusion, considers the lilies of the field and refuses to
take any thought for the morrow. Believing himself
in the power of an infinite being, who can, at any
moment, dash him to the lowest hell or raise him to
the highest heaven, he necessarily abandons the idea
of accomplishing anything by his own efforts. As
long as this belief was general, the world was filled
with ignorance, superstition and misery. The energies
of man were wasted in a vain effort to obtain the aid
of this power, supposed to be superior to nature. For
countless ages, even men were sacrificed upon the
altar of this impossible god. To please him, mothers
have shed the blood of their own babes ; martyrs have
chanted triumphant songs in the midst of flame;
priests have gorged themselves with blood ; nuns have
foresworn the ecstasies of love : old men have trem
blingly implored ; women have sobbed and entreated ;
every pain has been endured, and every horror has
been perpetrated.
Through the dim, long years that have fled, humanity
has suffered more than can be conceived. Most of
the misery has been endured by the weak, the loving,
and the innocent. Women have been treated like
poisonous beasts, and little children trampled upon as
though they had been vermin. Numberless altars
have been reddened, even with the blood of babes ;
beautiful girls have been given to slimy serpents;
whole races of men doomed to centuries of slavery,
and everywhere there has been outrage beyond the
power of genius to express. During all these years,
the suffering have supplicated ; the withered lips of
famine have prayed ; the pale victims have implored,
and Heaven has been deaf and blind.
Of what use have the gods been to man ?
It is no answer to say that some god created the
world, established certain laws, and then turned his
attention to other matters, leaving his children weak,
ignorant, and unaided, to fight the battle of life alone.
It is no solution to declare that in some other world
�Oration on the Gods.
35
this god will render a few, or even all, his subjects
happy. What right have we to expect that a perfectly
wise, good, and powerful being will ever do better
than he has done, and is doing ? The world is filled
with imperfections. If it was made by an infinite
being what reason have we for saying that he will
render it nearer perfect than it now is ? If the
infinite “ Father ” allows a majority of his children to
live in ignorance and wretchedness now, what evidence
is there that he will ever improve their condition ?
Will God have more power ? Will he become more
merciful ? Will his love for his poor creatures
increase ? Can the conduct of infinite wisdom, power,
and love ever change ? Is the infinite capable of any
improvement whatever ?
We are informed by the clergy that this world is a
kind of school; that the evils by which we are
surrounded are for the purpose of developing our
souls, and that only by suffering can men become
pure, strong, virtuous, and grand.
Supposing this to be true, what is to become of
those who die in infancy ? The little children,
according to this philosophy, can never be developed.
They were so unfortunate as to escape the ennobling
influences of pain and misery, and as a consequence,
are doomed to an eternity of mental inferiority. If
the clergy are right on this question, none are so
unfortunate as the happy, and we should envy only
the suffering and distressed. If evil is necessary
to the development of man in this life, how is it
possible for the soul to improve in the perfect joy of
paradise ?
Since Paley found his watch, the argument of
“ design ’’ has been relied upon as unanswerable. The
Church teaches that this world, and all it contains,
was created substantially as we now see it; that the
grasses, the flowers, the trees, and all animals,
including man, were special creations, and that they
sustain no necessary relation to each other. The most
orthodox will admit that some earth has been washed
into the sea, that the sea has encroached a little
upon the land, and that some mountains may be
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Oration on the Gods.
a trifle lower than in the morning of creation. The
theory of gradual development was unknown to our
fathers ; the idea of evolution did not occur to them.
That most wonderful observer, Charles Darwin, had
not then given to the world his wonderful philosophy.
Our fathers looked upon the then arrangement of
things as the primal arrangement. The earth appeared
to them fresh from the hands of a deity. They knew
nothing of the slow evolutions of countless years, but
supposed that the almost infinite variety of vegetable
and animal forms had existed from the first.
Suppose that upon some island we should find a man
a million years of age, and suppose that we should
find him in the possession of a most beautiful carriage,
constructed upon the perfect model. And suppose
further that he should tell us that it was the result of
several hundred thousand years of labor and of
thought ; that for fifty thousand years he used as flat a
log as he could find, before it occurred to him that, by
splitting the log, he could have thè same surface with
only half the weight ; that it took him many thousand
years to invent wheels for this log ; that the wheels
he first used were solid, and that fifty thousand years
of thought suggested the use of spokes and tire ; that
for many centuries he used the wheels without linch
pins ; that it took a hundred thousand years more to
think of using four wheels instead of two ; that
for ages he walked behind the carriage when going
down hill, in order to hold it back, and that only by a
lucky chance he invented the tongue—would we
conclude that this man, from the very first, had been
an infinitely ingenious and perfect mechanic ?
Suppose we found him living in an elegant mansion,
and he should inform us that he lived in that house
for five hundred thousand years before he thought of
putting on a roof, and that he had but recently
invented windows and doors, would we say that from
the beginning he had been an infinitely accomplished
and scientific architect ?
Does not improvement in the things created show a
corresponding improvement in the creator ?
Would an infinitely wise, good, and powerful God,
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37
intending to produce man, commence with the lowest
possible forms of life—with the simplest organism
that can be imagined—and, during immeasurable
periods of time, slowly and almost imperceptibly,
improve upon the rude beginning until man was
evolved ? Would countless ages thus be wasted in the
production of awkward forms, afterwards abandoned ?
Can the intelligence of man discover the least wisdom
in covering the earth with crawling, creeping horrors,
that live only upon the agonies and pangs of others ?
Can we see the propriety of so constructing the earth
that only an insignificant portion of its surface is
capable of producing an intelligent man ? Who can
appreciate the mercy of so making the world that all
animals devour animals, so that every mouth is a
slaughter-house and every stomach a tomb? Is it
possible to discover infinite intelligence and love in
universal and eternal carnage ?
What would we think of a father who should give a
farm to his children, and before giving them possession
should plant upon it thousands of deadly shrubs and
vines; should stock it 'with ferocious beasts and
poisonous reptiles; should take pains to put a few
swamps in the neighborhood to breed malaria ; should
so arrange matters that the ground would occasionally
open and swallow a few of his darlings, and, besides
all this, should establish a few volcanoes in the imme
diate vicinity, that might at any moment overwhelm
his children with rivers of fire ? Suppose that this
father neglected to tell his children which of the
plants were deadly ; that the reptiles were poisonous ;
failed to say anything about the earthquakes, and kept
the volcano business a profound secret, would we
pronounce him angel or fiend ?
And yet this is exactly what the orthodox God has
done.
According to the theologians, God prepared this
globe expressly for the habitation of his loved children,
and yet he filled the forests with ferocious beasts,
placed serpents in every path, stuffed the world with
earthquakes, and adorned its surface with mountains
of flame.
�38'
Oration on the Gods.
Notwithstanding all this, we are told that the world
is perfect ; that it was created by a perfect being, and
is therefore necessarily perfect. The next moment
the same persons will tell us that the world was cursed,
covered with brambles, thistles, and thorns, and that
man was doomed to disease and death, simply because
our poor dear mother ate an apple contrary to the com
mand of an arbitrary God.
A very pious friend of mine, having heard that I
had said the world was full of imperfections, asked me
if the report was true. Upon being informed that it was,
he expressed great surprise that anyone could be guilty
of such presumption. He said that, in his judgment, it
was impossible to point out an imperfection. “ Be
kind enough,” said he, “ to name even one improvement
that you could make, if you had the power.” “ Well,”
said I, “ I would make good health catching, instead of
disease.” The truth is, it is impossible to harmonise
all the ills, and pains, and agonies of this world with
the idea that we were created by, and are watched
over and protected by, an infinitely wise, powerful,
and beneficent God, who is superior to, and inde
pendent of, nature.
The clergy, however, balance all the real ills of this
life with the expected joys of the next. We are
assured that all is perfection in heaven ; there the
skies are cloudless, there all is serenity and peace.
Here empires may be overthrown ; dynasties may be
extinguished in blood ; millions of slaves may toil
beneath the fierce rays of the sun and the cruel strokes
of the lash ; yet all is happiness in heaven. Pestilence
may strew the earth with corpses of the loved ; the
survivors may bend above them in agony—yet the
placid bosom of heaven is unruffled. Children may
expire vainly asking for bread ; babes may be devoured
by serpents, while the gods sit smiling in the clouds ;
the innocent may languish unto death in the obscurity
of dungeons; brave men and heroic women may be
changed to ashes at the bigot’s stake, while heaven is
filled with song and joy. Out on the wide sea, in
darkness and in storm, the shipwrecked struggle with
the cruel waves, while the angels play upon their
�Oration on the Gods.
39
golden harps. The streets of the world are filled with
the diseased, the deformed, and the helpless; the
chambers of pain are crowded with the pale forms of
the suffering, while the angels float and fly in the
happy realms of day. In heaven they are too happy
to have sympathy ; too busy singing to aid the implor
ing and distressed. Their eyes are blinded, their ears
are stopped, and their hearts are turned to stone by the
infinite selfishness of joy. The saved mariner is too
happy when he touches the shore to give a moment’s
thought to his drowning brothers. With the indiffer
ence of happiness, with the contempt of bliss, heaven
barely glances at the miseries of earth. Cities are
devoured by the rushing lava; the earth opens and
thousands perish; women raise their clasped hands
towards heaven, but the gods are too happy to aid their
children. The smiles of the deities are unacquainted
with the tears of men. The shouts of heaven drown
the sobs of earth.
In all ages man has prayed for help, and then helped
himself.
Having shown how man created gods, and how he
became the trembling slave of his own creation, the
question naturally arises: How did he free himself,
even a little, from these monarchs of the sky ; from
these despots of the clouds ; from this aristocracy of
the air ? How did he, even to the extent that he has,
outgrow his ignorant, abject terror, and throw off the
yoke of superstition ?
Probably, the first thing that tended to disabuse his
mind was the discovery of order, of regularity, of
periodicity in the universe. From this, he began to
suspect that everything did not happen purely with
reference to him. He noticed that, whatever he might
do, the motions of the planets were always the same ;
that eclipses were periodical, and that even comets
came at certain intervals. This convinced him that
eclipses and comets had nothing to do with him. He
perceived that they were not caused for his benefit nor
injury. He thus learned to regard them with admira
tion instead of fear. He began to suspect that famine
was not sent by some enraged and revengeful deity, but
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Oration on the Gods.
resulted often from the neglect and ignorance of man.
He learned that diseases were not produced by evil
spirits. He found that sickness was occasioned by
natural causes, and could be cured by natural means.
He demonstrated, to his own satisfaction at least, that
prayer is not a medicine. He found by sad experience
that his gods were of no practical use, as they never
assisted him, except when he was perfectly able to help
himself. At last he began to discover that his indi
vidual action had nothing whatever to do with strange
appearances in the heavens; that it was impossible for
him to be bad enough to cause a whirlwind, or good
enough to stop one. After many centuries of thought,
he about half concluded that making mouths at a priest
would not necessarily cause an earthquake. He noticed,
and no doubt with considerable astonishment, that very
good men were occasionally struck by lightning,
while very bad ones escaped. He was frequently
forced to the painful conclusion (and it is the most
painful to which any human being ever was forced)
that the right did not always prevail. He noticed that
the gods did not interfere in behalf of the weak and
innocent. He was now and then astonished by seeing
an unbeliever in the enjoyment of most excellent
health. He finally ascertained that there could be no
possible connection between an unusually severe winter
and his failure to give a sheep to a priest. He began
to suspect that the order of the universe was not con
stantly being changed to assist him because he repeated
a creed. He observed that some children would steal
after having been regularly baptised. He noticed a
vast difference between religion and justice, and that
the worshippers of the same god took delight in cutting
each others’ throats. He saw that these religious
disputes filled the world with hatred and slavery. At
last he had the courage to suspect that no god at any
time interferes with the order of events. He learned
a few facts, and these facts positively refused to har
monise with the ignorant superstitions of his fathers.
Finding his sacred books incorrect and false in some
particulars, his faith in their authenticity began to be
shaken ; finding his priests ignorant upon some points,
�Oration on the Oods.
41
he began to lose respect for the cloth; this was the
commencement of intellectual freedom.
The civilisation of man has increased just to the
same extent that religious power has decreased. The
intellectual advancement of man depends upon how
often he can exchange an old superstition for a new
truth. The Church never enabled a human being to
make even one of these exchanges ; on the contrary,
all her power has been used to prevent them. In spite,
however, of the Church, man found that some of his
religious conceptions were wrong. By reading his
Bible, he found that the ideas of his god were more
cruel and brutal than those of the most depraved
savage. He also discovered that this holy book was
filled with ignorance, and that it must have been
written by persons wholly unacquainted with the
nature of the phenomena by which we are sur
rounded, and now and then some man had the
goodness and courage to speak his honest thoughts.
In every age some thinker, some doubter, some
investigator, some hater of hypocrisy, some despiser of
sham, some brave lover of the right, has gladly,
proudly, and heroically braved the ignorant fury of
superstition for the sake of man and truth. These
divine men were generally torn in pieces by the
worshippers of the gods. Socrates was poisoned
because he lacked reverence for some of the deities.
Christ was crucified by a religious rabble for the crime
of blasphemy. Nothing is more gratifying to a reli
gionist than to destroy his enemies at the command
of God. Religious persecution springs from a due
admixture of love towards God and hatred towards
man.
The terrible religious wars that inundated the world
with blood tended, at least, to bring all religion into
disgrace and hatred. Thoughtful people began to
question the divine origin of a religion that made its
believers hold the rights of others in absolute con
tempt. A few began to compare Christianity with the
religions of heathen people, and were forced to admit
that the difference was hardly worth dying for. They
also found that other nations were even happier and
�42
Oration on the Gods.
more prosperous than their own. They began to
suspect that their religion, after all, was not of much
real value.
For three hundred years the Christian world endea
vored to rescue from the “ Infidel ” the empty sepulchre
of Christ. For three hundred years the armies of the
Cross were baffled and beaten by the victorious hosts
of an impudent impostor. This immense fact sowed
the seeds of distrust throughout all Christendom, and
millions began to lose confidence in a God who had
been vanquished by Mohammed. The people also
found that commerce made friends where religion
made enemies, and that religious zeal was utterly
incompatible with peace between nations’ or indi
viduals. They discovered that those who loved the
gods most were apt to love men least; that the arro
gance of universal forgiveness was amazing ; that the
most malicious had the effrontery to pray for their
enemies ; and that humility and tyranny were the
fruit of the same tree.
For ages a deadly conflict has been waged between a
few brave men and women of thought and genius on
the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on
the other. This is the war between Science and Faith.
The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to
freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this
world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear,
to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery
hereafter. The few have said, “ Think !” The many
have said “ Believe ?”
The first doubt was the womb and the cradle of
progress, and from the first doubt man has continued
to advance. Men began to investigate and the Church
began to oppose. The astronomer scanned the heavens,
while the Church branded his grand forehead with the
word “ infidel,” and now not a glittering star in all the
vast expanse bears a Christian name. In spite of all
religion the geologist penetrated the earth, read her
history in books of stone, and found hidden within her
bosom souvenirs of all ages. Old ideas perished in the
retort of the chemist, and useful truths took their
places. One by one religious conceptions have been
�Oration on the Gods.
43-
placed in the crucibles of science, and thus far nothing
but dross has been found. A new world has been
discovered by the microscope ; everywhere has been
found the infinite ; in every direction man has investi
gated and explored, and nowhere, in earth nor stars,
has been found the footstep of any being superior to
or independent of nature. Nowhere has been dis
covered the slightest evidence of any interference from
without.
These are the sublime truths that enabled man to
throw off the yoke of superstition. These are the
splendid facts that snatched the sceptre of authority
from the hands of priests.
In that vast cemetery called the past are most of the
religions of men, and there, too, are nearly all their
gods. The sacred temples of India were ruins long
ago. Over column and cornice, over the painted and
pictured walls, cling and creep the trailing vines.
Brahma, the golden, with four heads and four arms ;
Vishnu, the sombre, the punisher of the wicked, with
his three eyes, his crescent, and his necklace of skulls ;
Siva, the destroyer, red with seas of blood ; Kali, the
goddess ; Draupadi, the white-armed ; and Chrishna,
the Christ—all passed away and left the thrones of
heaven desolate. Along the banks of the sacred Nile,
Isis no longer wandering weeps, searching for the dead
Osiris. The shadow of Typhon’s scowl falls no more
upon the waves. The sun rises as of yore, and his
golden beams still smite the lips of Memnon, but
Memnon is as voiceless as the Sphinx. The sacred
fanes are lost in desert sands ; the dusty mummies
are still waiting for the resurrection promised by
their priests, and the old beliefs, wrought in
curiously sculptured stone, sleep in the mystery
of a language lost and dead. Odin, the author of
life and soul, Vili and Ve, and the mighty giant
Yamir, strode long ago from the icy halls of the
North ; and Thor, with iron glove and glittering
hammer, dashes mountains to the earth no more.
Broken are the circles and cromlechs of the ancient
Druids ; fallen upon the summits of the hills and
covered with the centuries’ moss are the sacred cairns.
�44
Oration on the Gods.
The divine fires of Persia and of the Aztecs have died
out in the ashes of the past, and there is none to re
kindle and none to feed the holy flames. The harp of
Orpheus is still ; the drained cup of Bacchus has been
thrown aside ; Venus lies dead in stone, and her white
bosom heaves no more with love. The streams still
murmur, but no Naiads bathe ; the trees still wave,
but in the forest aisles no Dryads dance. The gods
have flown from high Olympus. Not even the beautiful
women can lure them back, and even Danae lies un
noticed, naked to the stars. Hushed for ever are the
thunders of Sinai; lost are the voices of the prophets,
and the land, once flowing with milk and honey, is but
a desert waste. One by one the myths had faded from
the clouds ; one by one the phantom hosts have dis
appeared ; and one by one facts, truths, and realities
have taken their places. The supernatural has almost
gone, but the natural remains. The gods have fled, but
man is here.
“Nations, like individuals, have their periods of
youth, of manhood, and decay.” Religions are the
same. The same inexorable destiny awaits them all.
The gods, created by the nations, must perish with
their creators. They were created by men, and like
men they must pass away. The deities of one age are
the bye-words of the next. The religion of our day
and country is no more exempt from the sneer of the
future than the others have been. When India was
supreme, Brahma sat upon the world’s throne. When
the sceptre passed to Egypt, Isis and Osiris received the
homage of mankind. Greece, with her fierce valor,
swept to empire, and Jove put on the purple of
authority. The earth trembled with the tread of
Rome’s intrepid sons, and Jupiter grasped with mailed
hand the thunderbolts of heaven. Rome fell, and
Christians from her territory, with the red sword of
war, carved out the ruling nations of the world, and
now Christ sits upon the old throne. Who will be his
successor ?
Day by day religious conceptions grow less and less
intense. Day by day the old spirit dies out of book
and creed. The burning enthusiasm, the quenchless zeal
�Oration on the Gods.
45
of the early Church have gone, never, never tc return.
The ceremonials remain, but the ancient faith is fading
out of the human heart. The worn-out arguments fail
to convince, and denunciations that once blanched the
faces of a race excite in us only derision and disgust.
As time rolls on, the miracles grow mean and small,
and the evidences our fathers thought conclusive
utterly fail to satisfy us. There is an “ irrepressible
conflict ” between religion and science, and they cannot
peaceably occupy the same brain nor the same world.
While utterly discarding all creeds, and denying the
truth of all religions, there is neither in my heart nor
upon my lips a sneer for the hopeful, loving, and tender
souls who believe that from all this discord will result
a perfect harmony ; that every evil will in some
mysterious way become a good, and that above and
over all there is a being who in some way will reclaim
and glorify every one of the children of men. But for
the creeds of those who glibly prove that salvation is
almost impossible ; that damnation is almost certain ;
that the highway of the universe leads to hell; who fill
life with fear, and death with horror ; who curse the
cradle and mock the tomb ;—it is impossible to entertain
other than feelings of pity, contempt, and scorn.
Reason, Observation, and Experience—the Holy
Trinity of Science—have taught us that happiness is
the only good : that the time to be happy is now, and
the way to be happy is to make others so. This is
enough for us. In this belief we are content to live
and die. If, by any possibility, the existence of a
power superior to and independent of nature shall be
demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel.
Until then let us stand erect.
Notwithstanding the fact that Infidels in all ages
have battled for the rights of man, and have at all
times been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice,
we are constantly charged by the Church with tearing
down without building again. The Church should
by this time know that it is utterly impossible to rob
men of their opinions. The history of religious per
secution fully establishes the fact that the mind neces
sarily resists and defies every attempt to control it by
�46
Oration on the Gods.
violence. The mind necessarily clings to old ideas
until prepared for the new. The moment we com
prehend the truth, all erroneous ideas are of necessity
east aside.
A surgeon once called upon a poor cripple and
kindly offered to render him any assistance in his
power. The surgeon began to discourse very learnedly
upon the nature and origin of disease ; of the curative
properties of certain medicines; of the advantages of
exercise, air, and light, and of the various ways in
which health and strength could be restored. These
remarks were so full of good sense, and discovered so
much profound thought and accurate knowledge, that
the cripple, becoming thoroughly alarmed, cried out,
“ Do not, I pray you, take away my crutches. They
are my only support, and without them I should be
miserable indeed !” “ I am not going,” said the sur
geon, “ to take away your crutches ; I am going to
cure you, and then you will throw the crutches awav
yourself.”
For the vagaries of the clouds the infidels propose
to substitute the realities of earth ; for superstition, the
splendid demonstrations and achievements of Science;
and for theological tyranny, the chainless liberty of
Thought.
We do not say that we have discovered all ; that our
doctrines are the all-in-all of truth. We know of no
end to the development of man. We cannot unravel
the infinite complications of matter and of force.
The history of one monad is as unknown as the uni
verse ; one drop of water is as wonderful as all the
seas ; one leaf as all the forests ; and one grain of sand
as all the stars.
We are not endeavoring to chain the future, but to
free the present. We are not forging fetters for our
children, but we are breaking those our fathers made
for us. We are the advocates of inquiry, of investiga
tion, and thought. This of itself is an admission that
we are not perfectly satisfied with all our conclusions.
Philosophy has not the egotism of faith. While super
stition builds Walls and creates obstructions, science
opens all the highways of thought. We do not pretend
�Oration on the Gods-
47
to have circumnavigated everything, and to have
solved all difficulties, but we do believe that it is
better to love men than to fear gods ; that it is grander
and nobler to think and investigate for yourself than
to repeat a creed or quote scripture like a religious
parrot, with the countenance of a dyspeptic owl. We
are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth
while men worship a tyrant in heaven. We do not
expect to accomplish everything in our day ; but we
want to do what good we can, and to render all the
service possible in the holy cause of human progress.
We know that doing away with gods and supernatural
persons and powers is not an end. It is a means to an
end, the real end being the happiness of man.
Felling forests is not the end of agriculture. Driving
pirates from the sea is not all there is of commerce.
We are laying the foundations of the grand temple
of the future—not the temple of all the gods, but of all
the people—wherein, with appropriate rites, will be
celebrated the religion of Humanity. We are doing
what little we can to hasten the coming of the day
when society shall cease producing millionaires and
mendicants—gorged indolence and famished industry
—truth in rags and superstition robed and crowned.
We are looking for the time when the useful shall be
the honorable, when the true shall be the beautiful,
and when Reason, throned upo$ the world’s brain,
shall be the King of kings and God of gods.
���WORKS BY COL. R. G. INGERSOLL.
g
(J
MISTAKES OF MOSES
...
...
...10
Superior edition, in cloth
1 f;
DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT
77.
77 o 6
Five Hours’ Speech at the Trial of C. B.
Reynolds for Blasphemy.
REPLY TO GLADSTONE. With a Biography by
J. M. Wheel er ...
...
...
..04
ROME OR REASON ? Reply to Cardinal Manning 0 4
CRIMES AGAINST CRIMINALS
...
... 0 3
AN ORATION ON WALT WHITMAN...
o 3
ORATION ON VOLTAIRE ...
. .
o 3
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
...
o 3
PAINE THE PIONEER
...
7i
0 2
HUMANITY’S DEBT TO THOMAS PAINE
7. 0 2
ERNEST RENAN AND JESUS CHRIST
0 2
THE THREE PHILANTHROPISTS
...
0 2
TRUE RELIGION ...
...
...
’7 o 2
FAITH AND FACT. Reply to Rev. Dr. Field
... 0 2
GOD AND MAN. Second Reply to Dr. Field
... 0 2
SKULLS ...
.
02
THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH
7.
*” 0 2
LOVE THE REDEEMER. Reply to Count Tolstoi 0 2
THE LIMITS OF TOLERATION
...
... 0 2
A Discussion with Hon. F. D. Ooudert and
Gov. S. L. Woodford
THE DYING CREED
o 2
DO I BLASPHEME ?
...
*7 0 2
THE CLERGY AND COMMON SENSE*’
7. 0 2
SOCIAL SALVATION
...
...
o 2
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE ...
...
*02
GOD AND THE STATE
...
...
.7. 0 2
WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?
... o 2
WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC ? Part II*”
.
o 2
ART AND MORALITY
...
...
o 2
CREEDS AND SPIRITUALITY
0 1
CHRIST AND MIRACLES
0 1
THE GREA.T MISTAKE
...
” 0 1
LIVE TOPICS
...
”*0 1
REAL BLASPHEMY
77
”*
*01
REPAIRING THE IDOLS
...
’
* 0 1
MYTH AND MIRACLE
’*’
” 0 1
Printed by G, W. Foote, 14 Clerkenweil-green, London.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Oration on the gods
Creator
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 47 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Cover title: "The gods: an oration". "Works by Col. R.G. Ingersoll" listed on back cover. No. 28j in Stein checklist. Printed by G.W. Foote.
Publisher
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R. Forder
Date
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1893
Identifier
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N354
Subject
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God
Agnosticism
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Oration on the gods), 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>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Agnosticism
Gods
NSS