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NATURE
AND THE
SUPERNATURAL ;
OR,
BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE.
—BY—
CHARLES WATTS
Editor of “ Secular Thought.”
Author of ■“ Teachings of Secularism Compared with Orthodox Christianity, ”
Evolution and Special Creation,” “ Secularism: Constructive and De
structive,” “ Glory of Unbelief,” “ Saints and Sinners : Which ?”
“ Bible Morality,” ^Christianity: Its Origin, Nature amd
Influence,’ “ Agnosticism and Christian Theism: Which is
the More Reasonable ? ” “ Reply to Father Lambert,"
‘ ‘ The Superstition of the Christian Sunday: A
Plea for Liberty and Justice,' “ The Horrors
of the French Revolution,” Ac., Ac.
CONTENTS:
1. What do we Know of Nature ?
2. The Grandeur and Potency of Nature.
3. The Supernatural.
4. What is the Supernatural ?
5. Belief and Knowledge.
6. Religion: Natural and Supernatural.
TORONTO :
" SECULAR THOUGHT ” OFFICE,
31 Adelaide St. East.
PRICE
- 10 CENTS.
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NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL;
OR,
BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE.
What do we know of Nature 1—What is nature ? Of course
most persons know what is meant by nature, in part at
all events; and the only difference in opinion or definition
that can arise will be as to its totality. There are a thou
sand facts lying all around us, and a thousand phenomena
of which we are every day eye-witnesses, that all will agree
to call nature. The question, however, does not concern
these, but others, real or imaginary, which differ somewhat
from them, arid which are supposed, therefore, to be incapable of
being classed under the same head. Those who desire to obtain
a clear and accurate idea of nature cannot do better than read
carefully Mr. John Stuart Mill’s excellent essay on the subject,
published after his death. He gives two definitions, or rather
two senses, in which we use the word in ordinary, every-day
language. The first is that in which we mean the totality of all.
existence, and the other that in which we use the term as contra
distinguished from art—nature improved by man. But it must
be borne in mind that this is still nature. Nature improved by
man is only one part of nature modified by another ; for man isas much a portion of nature as the earth on which he treads, or
the stars which glow in the midnight sky over his head. Nature,,
therefore, as we understand it, and as Mill defines it in his first
sense, is everything that exists, or that can possibly come into
existence in the hereafter—that is, all the possibilities of exis
tence, whether past, present or future. If it is asked on what
ground we include in this definition that which to-day does not
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NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL:
'exist, but may come into existence hereafter, we reply : Because
that which will be must be, potentially at least, even now. No
new entity can come into being; all that can occur is the
■commencement of some new form of existence, which has ever
Bad a being potentially anyhow. No new force can appear,
some new form of force may. But, then, that, when it comes,
will be as much a part of nature as the rest—is indeed even
now a part of nature, since it is latent somewhere in the universe.
Nature, in a word, is everything, besides which, to us, there is
and can be nothing.
We speak of human nature as though it were in some sort of
;sense superior to nature in general, which in fact it is. One part
■of nature may be higher than another according to human con
ception, for all nature is not the same in every particular. We
have inorganic nature, that is nature in which only certain
forms of force are seen in operation ; then we have vegetable,
animal, and the last, the highest of all, human nature, in which
forces are displayed not seen in any other part of nature. All
•these phenomena, however, are natural. The profound thought
•of Plato, Aristotle and Bacon, or the mighty flights of genius
manifested in the productions of Homer, Horace, Virgil, Dante,
Milton or Shakespeare, are as natural as the growth of a plant,
the rolling of a stone, the descent of the dew, or the evolution
of a world.
The question is frequently asked, What do we know of nature ?
Cur reply is that all we do know is of nature. The attempt,
therefore, that is often made to prove man ignorant of nature
is really an endeavour to prove him ignorant of everything, inas
much, as there is nothing else of which he can possibly have any
knowledge. That our knowledge of nature is at present small
we do not deny, but it is large compared with what it was, and
ano doubt it will be larger still in the future if we only devote
proper time to the manifold lessons which she is always pre
senting to earnest students. Instead of boasting of our super
abundance of knowledge, we rather lament our ignorance, but it
k is of that which can be known, not of that which is to us un
�OR, BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE.
5
knowable, and about which it is useless to enquire and idle to
speculate. With us the natural is the field of the knowable and
in this field we are content to work. So far as we have gone
we are certain of the road that we are travelling, we walk on
solid ground, and we have no fear for the future. We may err
in our interpretations of some of the facts of the universe, but.
we feel assured from past experience that further investigation®
will rectify such errors, and even while they remain they are
slight and trivial and such as are common to fallible man. If
we leave this road of Nature it can but be to wander in quag
mires, surrounded by dense fogs, with no light to guide us except
a will-o’ the-wisp.
Dr. .McCosh has said, ‘In this world there is a set of object®
and agencies which constitute a system or cosmos, which may
have relations to regions beyond [beyond what?] but is all thewhile a self-contained sphere with a space around it............ This
system we call nature.” But this very system constitutes all we
know, not possessing faculties that can take us any further.
Such a system being nature, the laws in operation in it are
natural laws, and the forces by which everything is brought t$
pass are natural forces. Our knowledge is bounded by these,
f and from them receives its limitation. To talk, therefore,regarding that which lies beyond—if even it were possible to
conceive of a beyond—must be mere speculation, nothing more.
It is sometimes objected against the position here affirmed,
that upon the principle that nature is everything and that,
whatever is done must be accomplished by natural powers and
forces, no law of nature can be broken,for that would imply that
nature can act against herself. Now the error of this objection
is in supposing that because the totality of all things is nature
therefore there can be no conflict in the various parts. Nature
as a whole cannot of course be altered, but one portion may and
does come into conflict with another. A man may use his
physical powers, which are of course natural, to do that which
produces injury on his bodily organisation, which is also quite
natural, and we say he has broken a law of nature. We do mot,.
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NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL:
however, mean that he has done anything which nature did not
give him the power to do, but that he has used his power to a
disadvantage to himself, and it may be to others. The expression,
therefore, is relative not absolute.
It is further objected that as there are certain ac(s which we
are in the habit of speaking of as being unnatural, how can any
thing be unnatural if nature includes everything ? For instance,
we say of a man who treats those of his own kith and kin
cruelly, that he acts unnaturally, and we designate certain crimes
as unnatural offences. But we do not mean by such phraseology
that these acts are super natural but infra natural, that is, they
are not higher, but lower than nature. Further, a moment’s
reflection will show that by the use of these terms we do not
intend to convey the idea, that anything has been done outside
of nature as a whole, for the very powers employed are natural
and the acts are no less so. What is meant is that a person who
so acts has pursued a course of conduct which is not in harmony
with our exalted conception of the sphere in nature to which he
Belongs. Measured by ordinary standards one part of nature is
higher than another. Man’s sphere is the highest of all that we
are acquainted with, he has intellect in a far superior degree
than any other animal, and he has evolved a moral law by which
he is supposed to regulate his conduct. Now, if instead of
conforming to the laws of his own being he descends to a
lower platform and acts in a way that is utterly out of
harmony with his exalted functions, we say that he is unnatu
ral, meaning thereby that he is descending to a lower sphere in
nature than that which we have a right to expect him to occupy.
The act that we call unnatural in him would probably be natu
ral enough in a lower animal, and therefore cannot, be outside
nature, but is only out of accord with the requirements of that
part of nature in which he plays his part. There is evidently a
legitimate function for every passion and desire of which man
finds himself possessed, and the proper use of these, according
to the purpose of nature, we call naturalwhile to divert them
from their proper object or end we say is unnatural. A man
�OR, BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE.
7
has an appetite for food which is natural, but he can starve him
self to death, which, in a sense, is natural too, and yet in another
sense we should say it was unnatural, because it was a violation
of an instinct common to us all. Suppose a starving man to be
destitute of food, and his own child, who has plenty, refuses that
aid to his parent that would save life, we should regard such a
son as an unnatural monster, not meaning thereby that he had
done anything that nature did not furnish the means of doing,
but that he had not acted according to. the higher laws of his
nature which appertain to all beings moving in his sphere. All,
therefore, that can be done, said, or thought, is and must be
natural in the widest sense of that term. Man’s beginnings
were in nature; his every act is natural, his thoughts are natu
ral, and in the end the great universe will fold him in her em
brace, close his eyes in death, and furnish in her own bosom his
last and final resting-place. Beyond her he cannot go. She was
his cradle, and will be his grave; while between the two she
furnishes the stage on which he plays his every part. And more,
she has made him, the actor, to play the part. Nature is one
and indivisible. She had no beginning, and can have no end.
She is the All-in-all. Combined in her are the One and the
Many which so perplexed the philosophers of ancient times.
The Grandeur and Potency of Nature.—The grandeur of
Nature must be obvious to all who reflect on its many
beauties. The massive rocks, the golden sunset, the glowing
stars, the rolling waves, the rippling brook, the grassy mead,
the trees with their luxuriant foliage, and the flowers of
every variety of hue, which have entranced and charmed man
kind during all ages, are but the grand treasures and sights of
Nature. The poet who has revelled in these natural gems,
painting them in words which have stirred the emotions to their
lowest and made the objects themselves stand out in clear out
line conspicuous to the reader, fascinating and enrapturing his
mental vision, is the poet of Nature, who finds in the external
universe food for his highest powers. Where is there a topic
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NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL:
more grand and ennobling ? Even that higher development of
the poetic genius, which deals, as Shakespeare did, with the
thoughts, feelings and passions of men, does but depict another
phase of Nature, profounder and more sublime, but Nature still
Milton, too, who was the poet of the supernatural so called, has
but transferred the passions and impulses of men into another
sphere, imaginary, it is true, but copied from the world of fact.
For Imagination herself cannot escape beyond the bounds of the
natural. It is said that the poet “ gives to airy nothings a local
habitation and a name but his airy nothings are simply copies
of real things, and the location he assigns to them is always a
natural one. Shakespeare’s supernatural characters are but men
—men, it may be, with some more exalted powers and some
higher attributes than men possess in the world of fact ; but
they are no less men for that, and the exaltation of their powers
is always in the direction of Nature. The philosopher whose
profound thought shall live while humanity remains on the earth,
making him who gave birth to such lofty ideas what is called
immortal, never goes beyond Nature in his deepest penetration
into the secret springs of the universe and of man.
Nature extends beyond all we can conceive of. Her glory is the
glory of the great Whole, her power the potency of the Infinite.
The highest attributes which we can imagine are hers, for from
her we borrowed our ideas of what she is, or what her possibili
ties are. Our thoughts are in Nature and of Nature. Our ideas
are pictures of her revelations to the mind of man, our sublimest
conceptions are but reproductions in mental visions of her doings
before our eyes. She is the great mother of us all; on her
breast we repose during life, and in her arms we are enfolded
in death.
Now, what is our chief business in relation to the
universe of things ? It is to learn all we can in regard to the
great laws and • mighty forces operating around us and in us
There must ever remain a field for the exercise of our faculties
in such inquiries, for Nature is unlimited in her resources, as
she is in her potency and extent.
�OR, BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE.
9
“ No man, however keen his eye,
Can into Nature’s deepest secrets pry.”
So said an old poet, and no doubt he was right. Nature’s
deepest secrets defy all investigation, for they extend to the
depths and heights of the Infinite. But that does not alter
the fact that our sole business here is to learn all we can.
Nature’s secrets are not always easily obtained. They are not
to be had for the mere asking, as Christian mercies are said to
come. Energetic research alone can draw them from her
bosom—research often accompanied with toil, pain and sorrow.
The scientific discoveries of this age show what can be done
in the way of obtaining knowledge of the powers and forces of
the universe. Those who will cast their thoughts back to the
commencement of the present century, and then reflect what has
been accomplished since that time, cannot help being startled at
the contrast between things as they then were and as they now
exist. It is not necessary to enter into detail here regarding the
tremendous onward movement that discovery and investigation
have made within that period. In these days of cheap popular
literature almost every person is acquainted with the facts. The
wonder to us is, how our fathers progressed at all in the absence
of discoveries which we deem essential to every-day life. Rail
ways, gas, the telegraph, the telephone, photography, and many
other such advantages, have all come into use during the present
century. Had any man a hundred years ago predicted the state
of things existing to-day, he would have been considered a fit
subject for a lunatic asylum. Had such results been imagined
they would have been deemed supernatural. Nature has thus
far disclosed the great events which for ages had lain hidden in
her arcana. This she has done in obedience to patient and per
sistent investigation on the part of a noble and hard-working
band of men—the devotees of science.
The discoveries already made are an indication of what is yet
to come. From what has been we may judge of what may be.
Earnest men are still pursuing their patient investigations into
Nature. They study her laws, they question her phenomena,
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NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL:
they interrogate her doings, and they never go unrewarded for
their toil and their pains. Almost every day something new is
brought to view which shall tend to lighten the load of human
woe and sorrow, and bring about harmony among mankind.
The laws of Nature are our guide in life, and the grandeur of '
Nature is our inspiration. The forces of the universe we know
only in their manifestations; but that is sufficient—more we
need not. It was a wise saying of the great German philoso
pher, Goethe : “ Man is not born to solve the problems of exist
ence ; but he must nevertheless attempt it in order that he may
know how to keep within the bounds of the knowable.” We
should aim, therefore, to be consistent students of Nature in all
her marvellous manifestations. We are, as Bacon says, ministers
and interpreters of Nature: farther than that we have no desire
to go. In trees and stars and suns and flowers, in the solid earth
and the expansive sea, in the growing plants and moving ani
mals, and, above all, in the great mind of man, we find our sole
delight, our simple care, and the basis of all our hopes for the
world and all it contains.
The Supernatural.—There has been a large number of books
written on this subject, some of them by men of eminence in
their respective departments of thought; and yet the matter is
still left in a state of obscurity. It has, of course, been dealt
with from very different standpoints, and therefore exceedingly
conflicting arguments have been brought to bear upon it. Two
able American writers, Dr. Bushnell and Dr. McCosh, have dismussed it with considerable learning and some thought, in books
which are widely read and often appealed to both in the pulpit
and through the press ; but one has always to put down these
volumes with a great degree of dissatisfaction, since nothing like
clear definition is to be found in their pages. In England the
subject has been made the theme of several large works, of hun
dreds of magazine articles, and of thousands of pulpit discourses :
and by this time, therefore, some clear idea ought to be obtained
as to the differentiation between these two spheres, if there are
�OR, relief and knowledge.
11
two ; but the whele subject is still enveloped in the densest dark
ness. There must be some cause for this, and the cause, probably,
is not far to seek. The natural we know : but the supernatural,
what is that ? Of course, as its name implies, it is something
higher than nature—something above nature. But, if there is a
sphere higher than nature, and yet often breaking through nature,
nature itself must be limited by something, and the question that
at once arises is, By what is such limitation fixed, and what is
the boundary line which marks it off and separates it from the
supernatural ? And this is just what no two writers seem to be
agreed upon. But’, further, supposing such a line to be discovered
and to be well known, so that no difficulty could arise in pointing
it out, a still more difficult problem presents itself for solution—
namely, how man, who is a part of nature, and able only to come
into contact with nature, can push his knowledge into that other
sphere Which, being non-natural, cannot be at all accessible to a
natural being ? If the supernatural region be synonymous with
the unknowable, it clearly cannot concern us, simply because we
have no faculties with which to cognise it, and no powers capable
of penetrating into its profound depths. In this case, as far as
we are concerned, there is practically no supernatural, for none
can operate on that sphere in which man lives and moves and
displays his varied and in some respects very marvellous powers.
Professor Huxley thinks that every new discovery in science
pushes the supernatural further away from us by enlarging the
boundary of human knowledge of nature.
According to many writers, the spiritual is the supernatural,
because it is not under the control of natural law. But why ?
If man be partly a spiritual being, why should not natural law
extend into the sphere of his spiritual nature ? Indeed, an able
writer on the Christian side, whose work has been enthusiasti
cally received by all religious denominations—Professor Drum
mond—has maintained this position, the very title of his book
stating the whole case : “ Natural Law in the Spiritual World.”
The great German philosopher, Kant, calls nature the realm of
sensible phenomena, conditioned by space, and speaks of an
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NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL 1
other sphere as a world above space, depleted of sense, and
free from natural law, and therefore supersensible and super
natural. But this is to make the supernatural spaceless and
timeless—in fact, a mere negation of everything, and therefore
nothing. Now, the only light in which we can look at this sub
ject, with a view to obtain anything like clear and correct views,
is that of modern science. By her the boundary of our know
ledge has been greatly enlarged, and through her discoveries we
have been enabled to obtain more sound information regarding
the laws of the universe than it was possible for our fathers, with
the limited means at their disposal, to possess. Looking at the
universe by which we are surrounded, and of which we ourselves
form a part, we see law in operation everywhere, and this law
we call natural law.
If there be a sphere where the supernatural plays a part and
exercises any control, it must clearly be in some remote region,
of which we have, and can have, no positive knowledge; and
the forces in operation must be other than those with which we
are conversant upon this earth. Science cannot recognise the
supernatural, because she has no instruments which she can bring
to bear upon, and no means at her disposal for, its investigation
She leaves to the theologian all useless speculations regarding
such a region, contenting herself with reminding him that he is,
in all such discussions, travelling outside the domain of facts into
a province which should be left to poets and dreamers, and which
belongs solely to the imagination. All law is and must be natu
ral law, from a scientific standpoint, because we can have access
to nature, and to nature only. It is impossible to get beyond her
domain, even in imagination.
The supernatural, if it exists, mnst reveal itself through nature,
for in no other way can it reach us so as to produce any impres
sion upon the human mind. But, if it come through nature, then
how can it be distinguished from the phenomena of nature ? It
will be quite impossible to differentiate between them. We are
quite precluded from saying, Nature could not do this, and is
unable to do that. No man can fix a limit to the possibilities of
�OR, BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE.
13
power in nature. She has already done a thousand things which
our forefathers would have declared impossible, and she will
doubtless in the future, under further discoveries and advances
in science, do much more which will look impossible to us. What
ever, therefore, comes through nature must be natural, for the
very reason that it comes to us in that way. And the business
of science is to interpret it in the light of natural law. Even if
she should prove herself incompetent to the task, it would only
show that some phenomena had been witnessed which had for a
time baffled explanations, not that anything supernatural had
occurred. And the business of science would be to at once di
rect itself to the new class of facts, with a view to finding the key
with which to open the lock and disclose the secret of the power
by which they were produced.
What is the Supernatural ?—According to Dr. Bushnell,
“That is supernatural, whatever it be, that is not in the
chain of natural cause and effect, or which acts on the chain
of cause and effect in nature without the chain.” But, it
may fairly be asked, is there any such cause, and if so,
where ? Is not every link in the chain that we see or can
conceive of natural ? Moreover, were there any other link
or chain, how could we recognise it or distinguish it from na
ture ? True, Dr. Bushnell attempts to explain his meaning, and in
so doing he practically gets rid of the supernatural altogether.
He says: “ If the processes, combinations, and results of our
system of nature are interrupted or varied by the action of God,
or angels, or men, so as to bring to pass that which would not
come to pass by its own internal action under the mere law of
cause and effect, such variations are in like manner supernatu
ral ” Now this reasoning is based upon the supposition that
things are brought about by some power higher than the ordinary
law of cause and effect. If this be meant to'be taken absolutely,
then we most emphatically deny it. But if, as it would seem, Dr.
Bushnell simply means cause and effect in external nature apart
from intelligent beings, that is to take far too limited a view of
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NATURE and the supernatural;
the law. For man himself is as much a creature of law as a
tree or a star, and all he does is accomplished by, not outside the
law of cause and effect. But were it otherwise, as this writer
appears to suppose, then man’s actions are all supernatural,which
is virtually giving up the supernatural altogether, in the sense
in which it is usually understood. Definitions of the superna
tural are given by the Duke of Argyle and Dr. McCosh that do
not differ greatly from that offered by Dr. Bushnell. Dr. McCosh
speaks of even miracles as not being against nature in any
other sense than that in which one natural agent may be used
against another, as water may be employed to counteract fire,
which is, in fact, to bring the supernatural into nature, and to
obliterate all distinction between them.
It is said that there are exceptional cases in which the super
natural has broken through the natural, and thus become objects
of sense in the same way as the rising and setting of the sun,
the ebb and flow of the tides, or any other natural phenomena,
and that these must be judged of by the ordinary laws of evi
dence. The reply to this, however, is that the alleged superna
tural, if it shows itself in its manifestations to man, must either
come through nature or in some other way. But there is no
other way known to us, for man cannot get on the outside of
nature even in thought. The most extravagant flights of ima
gination that we find, either in poetry or in the products of reli
gious ecstacy, are always shapen in natural moulds, either as a
whole or, what is more general, in their parts. No image formed
in the human mind can possibly be other than natural, if not in
its entirety, at least in the component parts of which it is made
up. We can conceive of a centaur, though no such thing ever
existed, or of a mermaid, though no person has ever seen one,
these being creatures purely of the imagination. They are
compound things, each part of which has been seen a hundred
times, and are formed by blending a portion of one animal with
a part of another, thus making an image which on the whole is
unnatural, but the parts of which are taken from nature. Men
speak of angels, but either they have no idea at all in their minds
�OR, BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE.
15
as to what they are speaking of, and merely use a meaningless
word, or else they think of a human being with the addition of
wings or some other abnormal appendage. It is a noteworthy
fact that those much-talked-of angelic appearances recorded in
the Bible are really descriptions of men. Its God is pictured in
a human form, and the Holy Ghost assumes the shape of a dove.
Christianity itself is represented as being a supernatural revela
tion, yet every one of its doctrines came through a natural me
dium. The writers who penned the various books of the Bible
were men, and we have but their bare assertions that what they
taught had any other than a natural origin. Even if their
honesty be proved unimpeachable, there still arises the question
as to whether they might not have been deceived. At all events,
theie is no manifestation of the supernatural, all the revelations
coming through nature. And in that very transmission they
must have become so much blended with the purely natural that
it would be impossible to distinguish the one from the other.
All this shows that we have no faculties by which the supposed
supernatural can be as much as imagined in our minds. The
moment that we fancy we think of it, we borrow our ideas from
Nature, so that even in imagination we cannot and do not tran
scend her boundaries. The fact is, man cannot travel beyond
the natural, he having no experience of anything outside or
apart from its domain. To assert that the so-called supernatural
is the cause of the natural is to allege that which is the very
reverse of what we know to be fact. If we trace what is termed
the supernatural to its origin, we shall find it end in nature.
This may appear paradoxical, but it is nevertheless true.
Mr. Moncure D. Conway very aptly says in his “ Lessons for
the Day : ” “ Supernature is a disjointed dream of nature as seen
by science. It is the morning vision of Art; the artist realises
that more ideal world with which nature is in labour. Know
ledge, Art, Poetry, enter the ideal kingdom by the door; Super
stition tries to scramble over the walls, and gets maimed in the
attempt. The supernaturalist believes that one day an iron axe
swam on the river Jordan : but at the command of knowledge
millions of tons of iron are swimming to-day on many waters.
�16
NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL ;
He says certain jars of water flushed to wine; but by culture
the rains of heaven falling on a thousand hills are turned to
wine. We want no supernature. That is mere calumny on na
ture, and caricature of the best in it. What we need is har
mony with nature,—harmony with its laws that we may have
health: sympathy with its beauty that we may be pure; obedi
ence to its conditions, that we may command its forces and in
spire them with human purpose. In nature is the constancy
which is our dependence and our development; in it the poten
tiality Reason, which is our only source of Wisdom; in it the
Love which attends the loving from the cradle to the grave.
Ignorance can see it only as chaos in one age, accursed in another ;
superstition can find but terror in its laws, and hope only in their
fancied overthrow by arbitrary thaumaturgy of omnipotence;
but wherever the mind of man flowers, nature flowers in re
sponse, filling every sense with beauty, giving mind and heart
their deeper satisfaction, steadily incarnating every pure ideal.”
“It is often said that mankind are fond of the marvellous;
but it is equally true that all men reverence the laws of nature.
Man’s faith in nature has always accompanied his faith in super
nature. They even whom nature daily slays still trust in her.
Their supernaturalism is never anti-natural. Miracles may have
been invented which outrage nature; but they have not taken
high place in human credence. I believe it would be found, on
investigation, that in all the miracles which have been accepted
as evidences of religion, certainly all that have been cherished
by any race, there is a mixture of the natural and supernatural.
Elijah restores the child to life by stretching his body upon it:
room was thereby left to the popular imagination to conceive of
some natural force generated by such contact. When Christ
cures a man’s blind eyes, or Vespasian heals a wounded arm,
both were said to have done it by means of spittle; so leave
was given the mind to imagine some unexplained medicinal vir
tue in that application. The means used are sometimes absurdly
inadequate ; effects the most astounding are attributed to a tone
of voice, a form of words, a touch. But these were believed to
be part r aluigl foicu.”
�OR, BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE.
IT
Belief and Knowledge.—There is a marked distinction to be
observed between belief and knowledge. We may, and do, have
faith in that of which we have no real or actual knowledge, for
we are compelled to exercise such faith in everyday life upon nu
merous topics. The point to be remembered is that, if we are judi
cial or rational, we shall be careful that our belief is not opposed
to knowledge. We may, and do, believe in countries which we have
never seen ; in the existence of persons with whom we have never
come into contact, and of countless things of which we have had
no actual experience ; but if we are wise we shall always be on
our guard against taking for granted that which is highly improb
able, to say nothing of the impossible. If a man asserted that one
thing was in two places at the same time, we should not stop to
ask for the evidence that he had to produce, because no amount of
evidence could serve to substantiate as a truth that which we
knew by the very nature of things to be impossible. Testimony is
highly valuable of course, but there are many subjects which no
amount of evidence could prove, simply because the matter is of
such a nature as not to admit of proof. Suppose, for instance,
someone had said that he had visited a country where two and
two made five, we should at once draw the inference that either
the man stated what was not true, or else that he attached a
different meaning to the words employed than that which we
are in the habit of giving to them. A man tells us that he#ias
seen a miracle, and that, therefore, he knows from experience that
the Supernatural does exist, and he brings a dozen persons to
verify his statement. What are we to do in such a case ? A
moment’s reflection may show that the testimony is unimpeach
able, while the conclusion is perfectly erroneous. The event
which he describes may have happened, but how is it to be
proved to be a miracle ? The forces in operation in its produc
tion may be to him unknown, he may never have seen them in
operation before, indeed they may be new to all mankind, but
still his evidence could simply vouch for the fact; and the cause
must be a matter for enquiry. The thing no doubt happened
in nature, for no experience can extend beyond that, and the
�18
NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL;
■assertion that the forces producing it were supernatural is a
gratuitous one, and not only not supported by the laws of evid
ence, but utterly opposed to everything that we know Belief
should have a rational basis or it is wild and chimerical. Faith
is good in its place, but it must always be confined within the
sphere of knowledge, A man can have faith in that which he
never saw and perhaps never will see : to this we do not object,
but the thing in which he has faith must be a possible one or his
faith is misplaced, and he himself deluded. Now, faith in the
■Supernatural is an unreasoning faith, pre-supposing a know edge
which we do not and cannot possess, since a knowledge of that
which lies beyond nature is an impossibility. The sphere of
faith is legitimate enough, but it is not a sphere distinct from
that of knowledge, but one which arises out of it and should
never go beyond it. We know certain things and believe others,
but the latter are always more or less connected with the former,
Faith in the order of nature is reasonable, because it is based on
experience ; faith in the supernatural is absurd because it is
opposed to all possible knowledge, not only to the knowledge
that we have, but to all that it is in any way possible for us to
have.
Of course there is a region in which speculation may be toler
ated, but it must be tolerated as speculation, nothing more. The
misfortune is that those, as a rule, who indulge in speculation
make their theories do duty as facts. They not only invest their
ideas with the importance of legitimate deductions from facts,
but give to them the value of the facts themselves. It is against
this that we protest. When men talk about matters of which
no one can know anything, they may be harmless enough as
dreamers, but when they endeavour to bend men of reason and
thought to their way of thinking, resorting sometimes even to
persecution to promulgate their idle whims, then they are dan
gerous and can no longer be regarded with impunity. Society
has to suffer for their errors; and it is the duty of every mem
ber of that society to lift up his or her voice against either their
wilful perversion of truth, or their innocent misapprehension of
�OR, BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE.
19
facts. Such, as a rule, are the orthodox believers in the super
natural, and the popular advocates of speculative views on
religion.
We may ask, and it is a very legitimate question, What effect
has it had on the world to substitute reckless belief for know
ledge and to indulge in idle speculation regarding the Super
natural ? To say the least of it, men’s minds have thereby been
diverted from the real business of life, their attention has been
taken from the things we know, and the study of which would
prove serviceable to us, to occupy their mental powers upon
matters of which no knowledge is to be attained. To say such a
course is a waste of time would be to treat the matter far too
lightly. It is much more than that. It has led to incorrect
thinking, to loose reasoning, to the drawing of false conclusions,
and to the substitution of imagination for reality. Further, the
fostering of groundless and fanatical theological beliefs has not
only caused almost endless persecutions, but it has proved a pro
lific cause of insanity. In the Philadelphia Times and Register
of Sept. 14 of last year (1889), Dr. Joseph Jones, Professor of
Clinical Medicine in the Tulane University, wrote thus:—“ The
contemplation of certain hypotheses and dogmas, held and
vehemently urged from the pulpit, by some religious sects, have,
without doubt, produced great excitement and alarm in the
minds of persons of excitable and unstable nervous organisation.
The burning eloquence and moral pictures of the religious enthu
siast and fanatic, and the horrible revelations of the melancholy
and sinister imagination of Dante, have converted the souls of
the unwary and timid into the abodes of terror and alarm.
Certain dogmas, often represented and illustrated by this fiery
language, and by the subtle power of the painter’s brush, as the
fires and tortures of a burning hell, a veritable lake of fire, where
fiery billows eternally wrap the bodies and souls of the damned,
and whose shores forever resound with the piercing, truly hope
less shrieks of those inhabitants of this earth who have failed to
unter heaven on account of the commission of personal sins ; a
veritable living devil, ever on the alert to seduce and damn the
�20
NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL ;
souls of men, women, and children, and drag the unwary down
to everlasting confusion and suffering in the bottomless pit—the
unpardonable sin—have for centuries terrified the weak and
timid devotees of certain phases of religious belief into hopeless
insanity. The violent exercises of certain religious sects, during
the performance of so-called religious exercises, such as shouting,
hopping, jumping, dancing, demoniacal ‘ holy ’ laughing, often
induce epileptic seizures, and inaugurate such conjestion and
exhaustion of the nervous structures as induce religious melan
choly and end in hopeless insanity. The hallucinations which,
in the experience of the Professor, exercise the greatest influence
on the victims of insanity are: 1. The firm belief by the victim
that he is the slave and the abject subject of the devil. To all
remonstrances the victim replies that he must obey his master,
the devil. I have observed and treated cases where the victim
of religious melancholy and hallucination has for days and
weeks refused all food because his master the devil commanded
him not to eat. In some cases, every agent and every effort to
induce the patient to take food have failed, and death has re
sulted from starvation. 2. The commission of the unpardonable
sin. 3. The eternal damnation of the human soul: lost, lost,
lost for ever.”
The lesson from experience is that theological beliefs, when
sincerely and fanatically entertained, are manifested more or less
in conduct. It is, therefore, our uuty to inculcate more reliance
upon practical knowledge and less dependence upon fanciful
beliefs. It is well known that “ knowledge is power,” to whose
magic influence the world is indebted for its progress, enabling
as it does those who possess and utilise it to fight the more ear
nestly, and with a better prospect of winning, the great battle
of life.
Religion: Natural and Supernatural.—Natural religion is ■
based on love, while so-called Supernatural religion is based
on fear. Many persons object to the use of the term religion,
and no doubt the objection would be a good one if that word
retained its old orthodox associations. There is, however, a
�OR, BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE.
21
rapidly-growing tendency to employ the word in its etymologi
cal and ethical meaning rather than in its alleged super
natural sense. Accepting religion as ethical unity, established
to promote the welfare of mankind on earth, its proper’ basis is
enlightened benevolence. This great human instinct is not
dependent upon any form of supernaturalism for its manifesta
tion ; its activity is evoked by a desire to alleviate the sufferings
of the afflicted, and to enhance the happiness of the unfortunate.
The hope of securing a fair opportunity for the exercise of this
true benevolence prompts the lover of nature to aim at correct
ing every cherished error by the substitution of a true know
ledge of the natural for the old doubtful speculations as to the
Supernatural. “ The error,” remarks a popular writer, " of the
supernatural religions is apparent, inasmuch as they possess only
artificial life, and, deprived of this, they soon succumb and
perish. Their buttresses and supports have been the despotism
of princes and the fraud and chicanery of priests. The savage
Gauls, when they entered the Senate, were awe-struck at the
majesty which stood upon the brows of the venerable Senators
One of the barbarians, however, ventured quietly to stroke the
beard of one of the Fathers of his country. The aged representa
tive of Old Rome for an instant forgot his dignity, and he
pushed the intruder violently from him. The spell was broken,
and the swords of the savages drank the life-blood of the Con
script Fathers. So has it been with many of the religions, So
long as men were awe-stricken at their mysteries, so long were
they the victims of priestcraft. When, however, men dared to
examine for themselves, when they laid their hands on the veil
it was rent from top to bottom, and the inner chamber, the
sanctum sanctorum, was found to contain little else than a mere
anthropomorphic image.”
History plainly teaches that, when Supernatural religion has
been aught more than than a system of mere belief and pro
fession, it has conduced to wrong action. The records of man
kind furnish ample proof of this. Whether it be Pagans with
their deities, Jews with their Jehovah, or Christians with their
Trinity, all such theologisms have brought forth cruelty, oppres-
�22
NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL :
sion and intolerance. Truth, virtue, and love are the three ele
ments which should go towards the foundation of Natural
religion. They formed a humanitarian religion in the case of
Buddhism ; they form the basis of the great religious humani
tarianism of Auguste Comte; they, with the great science of
man’s true education and enlightened benevolence, as promul
gated by that great philanthropist, Robert Owen, formed what
probably will be ultimately accepted as a practical religion of
daily life. The love insisted upon by Natural religion is, more
over, active love. It does not reach to the clouds, or attempt to
penetrate behind the veil of Nature into the region of the un
known and unknowable, but it aims only at instructing and
inspiring human nature, so that there may be perfect harmony
between that and external nature, and absolute peace, concord,
and kindliness between man and man. It is not anti-Christian,
in so far as the Christian believer remains true to the lessons of
love, of mercy, of justice, and of well-doing.
The Supernaturalist talks of Jesus as though he had more
than human .love for man, and a superhuman desire to effect his
welfare. The Naturalist, instead of this, maintains that the \
same high and lofty feeling of philanthropy, of brotherly love,
beats in every human bosom, and needs only wise and patient
cultivation to bring forth golden fruit. Natural religion declares
that there can be no grander impulse, no loftier, more animating
incentive, than an honest, steadfast desire to benefit the whole
human race. This is also the principle of Secularism—that of
active, practical love; of affection manifesting itself in benevo
lence, and earnest, kind efforts for the welfare of man, woman
and child.
Among the first indications we find in human history of the
supernatural feeling is fttichism—the worshipping of trees,
recks, animals, etc. If, however, fetichism were only such as is
here described, it would be Naturalism, not Supernaturalism,
inasmuch as a tree, a stone, an an.mal, a fish, or a bird, is each a
something pertaining to Nature. Such worship, however, was
given, primarily, not to the tree, etc., but to an imaginary some
thing supposed to be latent or hidden in the perceptible object
�OR, BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE.
23
adored. In this manner there gradually grew up among
primaeval men the notion of a non-natural—that is, a Super
natural—world, a world of spirits, of beings which lay, as it
were, at the back of all phenomena.
Religion, to be acceptable to the intellects of the present age„
must be recognised in its truest sense—as a binding system
between man and man—as being based on Nature, from whose*
prolific source the highest thoughts, the purest conceptions, and
the loftiest inspiration are derived. Tell us not that the Natural
is impotent to kindle within us the warmest rapture of enthusi
asm. Contemplate, for instance, the setting of the sun, and may
we not exclaim : “ How glorious, how radiant with magnificence,
yon setting sun, pouring its floods of golden light o’er half the
world ! The solid earth’s proud mountain tops are crowned ! the
lowly vales, with cities, hamlets, lonely cots, rejoice in chastened
splendour. The ocean’s mighty mass is turned to liquid fire;
above, the sky is bathed in brightness, and the clouds are melting
into molten gold. Who has not hailed the vision and confessed
its glory until the burning of these sunset fires has kindled
flames of rapture within them ? ”
Oh! man, why dost thou wander seeking peace from some
far-off and unknown God. refusing Nature’s loving sympathy ?
Oh 1 listen, whoe’er thou art, to her voice, and hearken to her
language, ’tis fraught with holiest wisdom from the fount of
truth ; listen to the soft whispers from the vernal breeze, to the
gushing of the fountain, to the wind’s low sighing or the ocean’s
melody, and thou wilt know in thy mind’s depths a sweet, a
holy, deep communing far other than thou yet hast known,
with man or other Gods. Wouldst thou worship, turn thee oft at
morn, at noon, at stilly eve—at the sunset hour, to the spacious
temple of the universe, and in thy melting sadness or thy loving
gladness revel in the nature within thee and without. Art thou
stricken, and in thy bitterness art weeping ? All nature will
look on thee lovingly, and a smile shall chase away thy spirit’s
gloom, and thou shalt feel a sympathy that shall soothingly stay
the tide of thy agony. Art thou glad ? Thy spirits buoyant,
thou shalt feel a thrilling rapture blending with thy spirits’
�24
NATURE AND THE SUPERNATURAL.
gladness, and from the hidden depths of Nature thou shalt hear
a sound of harmony exquisitely beautiful, attuned to thine own
melody.
Knowest thou not, oh man, that Nature seeks to win thy
affections by her charms, that she may feed thee with beauty and
with knowledge from the unfathomable stores of the Infinite,
that thou mayest read in thine own self the symbols of her won
drous mysteries ? As thou gazest on the mystery of the dread
and trackless depths of boundless space, thronged with its
myriad hosts of living wandering fires, oh ! readest thou not the
symbol—the boundless intellect of man—wherein thou art linked
in fellowship with the Infinite? As thou gazest on the earth.'encircling ocean as its bounding waves joyously ride foaming and
Hashing -with the rising breeze, or as thou gazest ’neath the deep
blue wave, where finny life, in playful mood, is sporting over
wealth untold of dazzling pearls, gems and gold, the spoils of
ages and the wrecks of thousand years, oh ! readest thou not the
symbol within thee again—the all-embracing bond of human
brotherhood, the high transcendent worth of pure affection, the
pricelessness of love ?
As thou gazest on the vast concave—the sky of richest azure,
shading sweetly down to softest sapphire—dost thou not/ee[
that there is purity ? And as the sapphire sky is o’erspread with
gold, and floods of sunset glory shed their living lustre o’er earth
and ocean, e’en where mortal tread hath marked no pathway,
but where life, loveliness and intelligence rejoice, oh ! hast thou
not felt in that vesper hour the pensive calm thrill through
all thy pulses, and thy spirit fill with a chastened holy stillness ?
Then, as a strength is given thee from the Mighty Infinite,
reciprocating in thy deep emotion, thou hast offered to Nature as
a grateful offering, the incense of thy spirit on the altar of thy
heart. In such a moment would not thy inmost nature all
revolt against the doctrine of our “ inborn sin ” that all within
thee is depraved ? All nature pleads the sacredness of human
nature, and all together cry, “ Holy, holy, holy is the tabernacle
•of a man.”
�
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Nature and the supernatural or, Belief and Knowledge
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Charles Watts
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Superstition
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Nature
Supernatural
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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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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Nature and the gods
Creator
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Moss, Arthur B.
Description
An account of the resource
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.
Publisher
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Freethought Publishing Company
Date
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1884
Identifier
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N503
Subject
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Atheism
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Nature and the gods), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Atheism
Gods
Nature
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JOHN STUART MH
(photographed, by permission,
from the statue on
bankmenT)
W
17, JOHNSON"
£.C.
�THE
RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION
[Founded 1899.]
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�gV>58
bJMS
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
NATURE
THE
UTILITY OF RELIGION
AND
THEISM
BY
JOHN STUART MILL
[issued for the rationalist press association, limited]
WATTS & CO.,
17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
1904
��INTRODUCTORY NOTICE
The three following Essays on Religion
were written at considerable intervals of
time, without any intention of forming a
consecutive series, and must not there
fore be regarded as a connected body of
thought, excepting in so far as they
exhibit the Author’s deliberate and ex
haustive treatment of the topics under
consideration.
The two first of these three Essays
were written between the years 1850 and
1858, during the period which intervened
between the publication of the Princi
ples of Political Economy and that of
the work on Liberty; during which
interval three other Essays—on Justice,
on Utility, and on Liberty—were also
composed. Of the five Essays written
at that time, three have already been
given to the public by the Author.
That on Liberty was expanded into the
now well-known work bearing the same
title. Those on Justice and Utility were
afterwards incorporated, with some altera
tions and additions, into one, and pub
lished under the name of Utilitarianism.
The remaining two—on Nature and on
the Utility of Religion—are now given
to the public, with the addition of a third
—on Theism—which was produced at a
much later period.
In these two first
Essays indications may easily be found I
of the date at which they were composed;
among which indications may be noted
the absence of any mention of the works
of Mr. Darwin and Sir Henry Maine in
passages where there is coincidence of
thought with those writers, or where
subjects are treated which they have
since discussed in a manner to which
the Author of these Essays would cer
tainly have referred had their works been
published before these were written.
The last Essay in the present volume
belongs to a different epoch; it was
written between the years 1868 and
1870, but it was not designed as a sequel
to the two Essays which now appear
along with it, nor were they intended to
appear all together. On the other hand,
it is certain that the Author considered
the opinions expressed in these different
Essays as fundamentally consistent.
The evidence of this lies in the fact that
in the year 1873, after he had completed
his Essay on Theism, it was his intention
to have published the Essay on Nature
at once, with only such slight revision as
might be judged necessary in preparing
it for the press, but substantially in its
present form. From this it is apparent
that his manner of thinking had under
gone no substantial change. Whatever
discrepancies, therefore, may seem to
�4
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE
remain, after a really careful comparison
between different passages, may be set
down either to the fact that the last
Essay had not undergone the many
revisions which it was the Author’s habit
to make peculiarly searching and
thorough ; or to that difference of tone,
and of apparent estimate of the relative
weight of different considerations, which
results from taking a wider view, and
including a larger number of considera
tions in the estimate of the subject as a
whole, than in dealing with parts of it
only.
The fact that the Author intended to
publish the Essay on Nature in 1873 is
sufficient evidence, if any is needed,
that the volume now given to the public
was not withheld by him on account of
reluctance to encounter whatever odium
might result from the free expression of
his opinions on religion. That he did
not purpose to publish the other two
Essays at the same time was in accord
with the Author’s habit in regard to the
public utterance of his religious opinions.
For at the same time that he was pecu
liarly deliberate and slow in forming
opinions, he had a special dislike to the
utterance of half-formed opinions. He
declined altogether to be hurried into
premature decision on any point to which
he did not think he had given sufficient
time and labour to have exhausted it to
the utmost limit of his own thinking
powers. And, in the same way, even
after he had arrived at definite conclu
sions, he refused to allow the curiosity
of others to force him to the expression
of them before he had bestowed all the
elaboration in his power upon their
adequate expression, and before, there
fore, he had subjected to the test of
time, not only the conclusions them
selves, but also the form into which he
had thrown them. The same reasons,
therefore, that made him cautious in the
spoken utterance of his opinion in pro
portion as it was necessary to be at once
precise and comprehensive in order to
be properly understood, which in his
judgment was pre-eminently the case in
religious speculation, were the reasons
that made him abstain from publishing
his Essay on Nature for upwards of
fifteen years, and might have led him
still to withhold the others which now
appear in the same volume.
From this point of view it will be seen
that the Essay on Theism has both
greater value and less than any other of
the Author’s works. The last consider
able work which he completed, it shows
the latest state of the Author’s mind, the
carefully balanced result of the delibera
tions of a lifetime. On the other hand,
there had not been time for it to undergo
the revision to which from time to time
he subjected most of his writings before
making them public. Not only there
fore is the style less polished than that of
any other of his published works, but
even the matter itself, at least in the
exact shape it here assumes, has never
undergone the repeated examination
which it certainly would have passed
through before he would himself have
given it to the world.
Helen Taylor.
�CONTENTS
PAGE
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7
UTILITY OF RELIGION
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34
THEISM
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57
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61
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62
NATURE -
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PART I.
57
INTRODUCTION
THEISM
THE EVIDENCES OF THEISM
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ARGUMENT FOR A FIRST CAUSE
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67
70
THE ARGUMENT FROM MARKS OF DESIGN IN NATURE -
72
ARGUMENT FROM THE GENERAL CONSENT OF MANKIND
THE ARGUMENT FROM CONSCIOUSNESS
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PART II.
ATTRIBUTES -
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75
•
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83
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9°
PART III.
IMMORTALITY
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PART IV.
REVELATION
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PART V.
GENERAL RESULT
102
��NATURE
“Nature,” “natural,” and the group of
words derived from them, or allied to them
in etymology, have at all times filled a
great place in the thoughts and taken a
strong hold on the feelings of mankind.
That they should have done so is not sur
prising when we consider what the words,
in their primitive and most obvious
signification, represent; but it is unfor
tunate that a set of terms which play so
great a part in moral and metaphysical
speculation should have acquired many
meanings different from the primary
one, yet sufficiently allied to it to admit
of confusion. The words have thus
become entangled in so many foreign
associations, mostly of a very powerful
and tenacious character, that they have
come to excite, and to be the symbols
of, feelings which their original meaning
will by no means justify, and which
have made them one of the most copious
sources of false taste, false philosophy,
false morality, and even bad law.
The most important application of the
Socratic Elenchus, as exhibited and im
proved by Plato, consists in dissecting
large abstractions of this description;
fixing down to a precise definition the
meaning which as popularly used they
merely shadow forth, and questioning
and testing the common maxims and
opinions in which they bear a part. It
is to be regretted that among the
instructive specimens of this kind of
investigation which Plato has left,
and to which subsequent times have
been so much indebted for whatever
intellectural clearness they have attained,
he has not enriched posterity with a dia
logue irepi <f>v(r€(D<s. If the idea denoted
by the word had been subjected to his
searching analysis, and the popular
commonplaces in which it figures had
been submitted to the ordeal of his
powerful dialectics, his successors pro
bably would not have rushed, as they
speedily did, into modes of thinking and
reasoning of which the fallacious use of
that word formed the cornerstone; a
kind of fallacy from which he was him
self singularly free.
According to the Platonic method,
which is still the best type of such in
vestigations, the first thing to be done
with so vague a term is to ascertain
precisely what it means. It is also a
rule of the same method that the mean
ing of an abstraction is best sought for
in the concrete—of an universal in the
particular. Adopting this course with
the word “ nature,” the first question
must be, what is meant by the “ nature ”
of a particular object, as of fire, of
water, or of some individual plant or
animal? Evidently the ensemble or
aggregate of its powers or properties :
the modes in which it acts on other
things (counting among those things the
senses of the observer), and the modes
in which other things act upon it; to
which, in the case of a sentient being,
�8
NATURE
must be added its own capacities of
feeling, or being conscious. The nature
of the thing means all this; means its
entire capacity of exhibiting phenomena.
And since the phenomena which a thing
exhibits, however much they vary in
different circumstances, are always the
same in the same circumstances, they
admit of being described in general
forms of words, which are called the
laws of the thing’s nature. Thus it is a
law of the nature of water that, under
the mean pressure of the atmosphere
at the level of the sea, it boils at 2120
Fahrenheit.
As the nature of any given thing is
the aggregate of its powers and pro
perties, so Nature in the abstract is the
aggregage of the powers and properties
of all things. Nature means the sum of
all phenomena, together with the causes
which produce them; including not only
all that happens, but all that is capable
of happening; the unused capabilities
of causes being as much a part of the
idea of Nature as those which take
effect. Since all phenomena which have
been sufficiently examined are found to
take place with regularity, each having
certain fixed conditions, positive and
negative, on the occurrence of which it
invariably happens, mankind have been
able to ascertain, either by direct
observation or by reasoning processes
grounded on it, the conditions of the
occurrence of many phenomena; and
the progress of science mainly consists
in ascertaining those conditions. When
discovered they can be expressed in
general propositions, which are called
laws of the particular phenomenon, and
also, more generally, Laws of Nature.
Thus the truth, that all material objects
tend towards one another with a force
directly as their masses and inversely as
the square of their distance, is a law of
nature. The proposition, that air and
food are necessary to animal life, if it be,
as we have good reason to believe, true
without exception, is also a law of
nature, though the phenomenon of
which it is the law is special, and not,
like gravitation, universal.
Nature, then, in this, its simplest,
acceptation, is a collective name for all
facts, actual and possible; or (to speak
more accurately) a name for the mode,
partly known to us and partly unknown,
in which all things take place. For the
word suggests, not so much the multi
tudinous detail of the phenomena, as
the conception which might be formed
of their manner of existence as a mental
whole, by a mind possessing a complete
knowledge of them : to which concep
tion it is the aim of science to raise
itself, by successive steps of generalisa
tion from experience.
Such, then, is a correct definition of
the word “ nature.” But this definition
corresponds only to one of the senses
of that ambiguous term. It is evidently
inapplicable to some of the modes in
which the word is familiarly employed.
For example, it entirely conflicts with
the common form of speech by which
Nature is opposed to Art, and natural
to artificial. For, in the sense of the
word “nature” which has just been
defined, and which is the true scientific
sense, Art is as much Nature as any
thing else; and everything which is
artificial is natural—Art has no inde
pendent powers of its own : Art is but
the employment of the powers of Nature
for an end. Phenomena produced by
human agency, no less than those which
as far as we are concerned are spon
taneous, depend on the properties of the
elementary forces, or of the elementary
�NATURE
substances and their compounds. The
united powers of the whole human race
could not create a new property of
matter in general, or of any one of its
species. We can only take advantage
for our purposes of the properties which
we find. A ship floats by the same laws
of specific gravity and equilibrium as a
tree uprooted by the wind and blown
into the water. The corn which men
raise for food grows and produces its
grain by the same laws of vegetation by
which the wild rose and the mountain
strawberry bring forth their flowers and
fruit. A house stands and holds to
gether by the natural properties, the
weight and cohesion of the materials
which compose it: a steam engine works
by the natural expansive force of steam,
exerting a pressure upon one part of a
system of arrangements, which pressure,
by the mechanical properties of the
lever, is transferred from that to another
part where it raises the weight or removes
the obstacle brought into connection with
it. In these and all other artificial opera
tions the office of man is, as has often
been remarked, a very limited one : it
consists in moving things into certain
places. We move objects, and, by doing
this, bring some things into contact
which were separate, or separate others
which were in contact; and, by this
simple change of place, natural forces
previously dormant are called into action,
and produce the desired effect. Even
the volition which designs, the intelli
gence which contrives, and the muscular
force which executes these movements,
are themselves powers of Nature.
It thus appears that we must recognise
at least two principal meanings in the
word “ nature.” In one sense, it means
all the powers existing in either the outer
or the inner world and everything which
9
takes place by means of those powers.
In another sense, it means, not everything
which happens, but only what takes
place without the agency, or without the
voluntary and intentional agency, of man.
This distinction is far from exhausting
the ambiguities of the word ; but it is
the key to most of those on which im
portant consequences depend.
Such, then, being the two principal
senses of the word “nature,” in which of
these is it taken, or is it taken in either,
when the word and its derivatives are
used to convey ideas of commendation,
approval, and even moral obligation ?
It has conveyed such ideas in all
ages. Naturum sequi was the funda
mental principle of morals in many of
the most admired schools of philosophy.
Among the ancients, especially in the
declining period of ancient intellect and
thought, it was the test to which all
ethical doctrines were brought. The
Stoics and the Epicureans, however irre
concilable in the rest of their systems,
agreed in holding themselves bound to
prove that their respective maxims of
conduct were the dictates of nature.
Under their influence the Roman jurists,
when attempting to systematise jurispru
dence, placed in the front of their expo
sition a certain Jus Naturale, “quod
natura,” as Justinian declares in the
Institutes, “ omnia animalia docuit
and as the modern systematic writers,
not only on law but on moral philosophy,
have generally taken the Roman jurists
for their models, treatises on the so-called
Law of Nature have abounded; and
references to this Law as a supreme rule
and ultimate standard have pervaded
literature. The writers on International
Law have done more than any others to
give currency to this style of ethical
speculation; inasmuch as, having no
�io
NATURE
positive law to write about, and yet
being anxious to invest the most ap
proved opinions respecting international
morality with as much as they could of
the authority of law, they endeavoured
to find such an authority in Nature’s
imaginary code. The Christian theology
during the period of its greatest ascen
dancy opposed some, though not a com
plete, hindrance to the modes of thought
which erected Nature into the criterion
of morals, inasmuch as, according to the
creed of most denominations of Chris
tians (though assuredly not of Christ),
man is by nature wicked. But this very
doctrine, by the reaction which it pro
voked, has made the deistical moralists
almost unanimous in proclaiming the
divinity of Nature, and setting up its
fancied dictates as an authoritative rule
of action. A reference to that supposed
standard is the predominant ingredient
in the vein of thought and feeling which
was opened by Rousseau, and which has
infiltrated itself most widely into the
modern mind, not excepting that portion
of it which calls itself Christian. The
doctrines of Christianity have in every
age been largely accommodated to the
philosophy which happened to be pre
valent, and the Christianity of our day
has borrowed a considerable part of its
colour and flavour from sentimental
deism. At the present time it cannot
be said that Nature, or any other
standard, is applied as it was wont to
be, to deduce rules of action with
juridical precision, and with an attempt
to make its application co-extensive with
all human agency. The people of this
generation do not commonly apply prin
ciples with any such studious exactness,
nor own such binding allegiance to any
standard, but live in a kind of confusion
of many standards ; a condition not pro
pitious to the formation of steady moral
convictions, but convenient enough to
those whose moral opinions sit lightly on
them, since it gives them a much wider
range of arguments for defending the
doctrine of the moment. But though
perhaps no one could now be found who,
like the institutional writers of former
times, adopts the so-called Law of
Nature as the foundation of ethics, and
endeavours consistently to reason from
it, the word and its cognates must still
be counted among those which carry
great weight in moral argumentation.
That any mode of thinking, feeling, or
acting, is “ according to nature ” isusually accepted as a strong argument
for its goodness. If it can be said witb
any plausibility that “ nature enjoins ”
anything, the propriety of obeying the
injunction is by most people considered
to be made out; • and, conversely, the
imputation of being contrary to nature
is thought to bar the door against any
pretension, on the part of the thing so*
designated, to be tolerated or excused;
and the word “ unnatural ” has not ceased
to be one of the most vituperative
epithets in the language. Those whodeal in these expressions may avoid
making themselves responsible for any
fundamental theorem respecting the
standard of moral obligation, but they
do not the less imply such a theorem,
and one which must be the same in sub
stance with that on which the more
logical thinkers of a more laborious age
grounded their systematic treatises on
Natural Law.
Is it necessary to recognise in these
forms of speech another distinct mean
ing of the word “nature”? Or can they
be connected, by any rational bond of
union, with either of the two meanings
already treated of? At first it may
�NATURE
seem that we have no option but to
admit another ambiguity in the term.
All inquiries are either into what is or
into what ought to be: science and
history belonging to the first division ;
art, morals, and politics to the second.
But the two senses of the word “ nature ”
first pointed out agree in referring only
to what is. In the first meaning, Nature
is a collective name for everything which
is. In the second, it is a name for
everything which is of itself, without
voluntary human intervention. But the
employment of the word “nature ” as a
term of ethics seems to disclose a third
meaning, in which Nature does not
stand for what is, but for what ought to
be, or for the rule or standard of what
ought to be. A little consideration, how
ever, will show that this is not a case of
ambiguity; there is not here a third
sense of the word. Those who set up
Nature as a standard of action do not
intend a merely verbal proposition;
they do not mean that the standard,
whatever it be should be called Nature;
they think they are giving some informa
tion as to what the standard of action
really is. Those who say that we ought
to act according to Nature do not mean
the mere identical proposition that we
ought to do what we ought to do. They
think that the word “nature” affords some
external criterion of what we should do;
and if they lay down as a rule for what
ought to be, a word which in its proper
signification denotes what is, they do so
because they have a notion, either clearly
or confusedly, that what is constitutes
the rule and standard of what ought
to be.
The examination of this notion is the
object of the present Essay. It is pro
posed to inquire into the truth of the
doctrines which make Nature a test of
11
right and wrong, good and evil, or which
in any mode or degree attach merit or
approval to following, imitating, or obey
ing Nature. To this inquiry the fore
going discussion respecting the meaning
of terms was an indispensable introduc
tion. Language is, as it were, the
atmosphere of philosophical investiga
tion, which must be made transparent
before anything can be seen through it
in the true figure and position. In the
present case it is necessary to guard
against a further ambiguity, which, though
abundantly obvious, has sometimes mis
led even sagacious minds, and of which
it is well to take distinct note before pro
ceeding further. No word is more
commonly associated with the word
“nature” than “law”; and this last word
has distinctly two meanings, in one of
which it denotes some definite portion
of what is, in the other of what ought to
be. We speak of the law of gravitation,
the three laws of motion, the law of
definite proportions in chemical combi
nation, the vital laws of organised beings.
All these are portions of what is. We
also speak of the criminal law, the civil
law, the law of honour, the law of
veracity, the law of justice ; all of which
are portions of what ought to be, or of
somebody’s suppositions, feelings, or
commands respecting what ought to be.
The first kind of laws, such as the laws
of motion and of gravitation, are neither
more nor less than the observed uni
formities in the occurrence of pheno
mena ; partly uniformities of antecedence
and sequence, partly of concomitance.
These are what, in science, and even in
ordinary parlance, are meant by laws of
nature. Laws in the other sense are the
laws of the land, the law of nations, or
moral laws ; among which, as already
noticed, is dragged in, by jurists and
�12
NATURE
publicists, something which they think ■ modes of acting are so in exactly the
proper to call the Law of Nature. Of , same degree. Every action is the
the liability of these two meanings of i exertion of some natural power, and its
the word to be confounded there can be : effects of all sorts are so many pheno
no better example than the first chapter mena of nature, produced by the powers
of Montesquieu, where he remarks that and properties of some of the objects of
the material world has its laws, the nature, in exact obedience to some law
inferior animals have their laws, and or laws of nature. When I voluntarily
man has his laws; and calls attention to use my organs to take in food, the act,
the much greater strictness with which and its consequences, take place accord
the first two sets of laws are observed ing to laws of nature : if instead of food
than the last; as if it were an inconsis I swallow poison, the case is exactly the
tency, and a paradox, that things always same. To bid people conform to the
are what they are, but men not always laws of nature when they have no power
what they ought to be. A similar con but what the laws of nature give them—
fusion of ideas pervades the writings of when it is a physical impossibility for
Mr. George Combe, from whence it has them to do the smallest thing otherwise
overflowed into a large region of popular than through some law of nature, is an
literature, and we are now continually absurdity. The thing they need to be
reading injunctions to obey the physical told is what particular law of nature they
laws of the universe, as being obligatory should make use of in a particular case.
in the same sense and manner as the When, for example, a person is crossing
moral. The conception which the a river by a narrow bridge to which there
ethical use of the word “nature ” implies, is no parapet, he will do well to regulate
of a close relation if not absolute iden his proceedings by the laws of equilib
tity between what is and what ought to rium in moving bodies, instead of con
be, certainly derives part of its hold on forming only to the law of gravitation
the mind from the custom of designat and falling into the river.
ing what is by the expression “ laws of
Yet, idle as it is to exhort people to
nature,”while the same word “law” is also do what they cannot avoid doing, and
used, and even more familiarly and em absurd as it is to prescribe as a rule of
phatically, to express what ought to be.
right conduct what agrees exactly as
When it is asserted, or implied, that well with wrong, nevertheless a rational
Nature, or the laws of Nature, should be rule of conduct may be constructed out
conformed to, is the Nature which is of the relation which it ought to bear
meant Nature in the first sense of the to the laws of nature in this widest
term, meaning all which is—the powers acceptation of the term. Man neces
and properties of all things? But in sarily obeys the laws of nature, or in
this signification there is no need of a other words the properties of things ; but
recommendation to act according to he does not necessarily guide himself by
nature, since it is what nobody can them. Though all conduct is in con
possibly help doing, and equally whether formity to laws of nature, all conduct is
he acts well or ill. There is no mode not grounded on knowledge of them,
of acting which is not conformable to and intelligently directed to the attain
Nature in this sense of the term, and all ment of purposes by means of them.
�Though we cannot emancipate ourselves
from the laws of nature as a whole, we
can escape from any particular law of
nature, if we are able to withdraw our
selves from the circumstances in which
it acts. Though we can do nothing
except through laws of nature, we can
use one law to counteract another.
According to Bacon’s maxim, we can
obey nature in such a manner as to
command it. Every alteration of cir
cumstances alters more or less the laws
of nature under which we act; and by
every choice which we make either of
ends or of means we place ourselves to a
greater or less extent under one set of
laws of nature instead of another. If,
therefore, the useless precept to follow
nature were changed into a precept to
study nature; to know and take heed of
the properties of the things we have
to deal with, so far as these properties
are capable of forwarding or obstructing
any given purpose; we should have
arrived at the first principle of all intelli
gent action, or rather at the definition of
intelligent action itself. And a confused
notion of this true principle is, I doubt
not, in the minds of many of those who
set up the unmeaning doctrine which
superficially resembles it. They per
ceive that the essential difference
between wise and foolish conduct con
sists in attending, or not attending, to
the particular laws of nature on which
some important result depends. And
they think that a person who attends to
a law of nature in order to shape his
conduct by it may be said to obey
it, while a person who practically dis
regards it, and acts as if no such law
existed, may be said to disobey it: the
circumstance being overlooked, that
what is thus called disobedience to a law
of nature is obedience to some other,
or perhaps to the very law itself,
example, a person who goes into
powder-magazine either not knowing, or
carelessly omitting to think of, the ex
plosive force of gunpowder, is likely to
do some act which will cause him to be
blown to atoms in obedience to the very
law which he has disregarded.
But, however much of its authority the
“ Naturam sequi ” doctrine may owe to
its being confounded with the rational pre
cept “Naturum observare,” its favourers
and promoters unquestionably intend
much more by it than that precept. To
acquire knowledge of the properties of
things, and make use of the knowledge
for guidance, is a rule of prudence, for
the adaptation of means to ends ; for
giving effect to our wishes and intentions,
whatever they may be. But the maxim
of obedience to Nature, or conformity to
Nature, is held up not as a simply pruden
tial but as an ethical maxim; and by
those who talk of jus natura, even as a
law, fit to be administered by tribunals
and enforced by sanctions. Right action
must mean something more and other
than merely intelligent action; yet no
precept beyond this last can be con
nected with the word “ nature ” in the
wider and more philosophical of its
acceptations. We must try it, therefore,
in the other sense, that in which Nature
stands distinguished from Art, and de
notes, not the whole course of the pheno
mena which come under our observation,
but only their spontaneous course.
Let us, then, consider whether we can
attach any meaning to the supposed
practical maxim of following Nature, in
this second sense of the word, in which
Nature stands for that which takes place
without human intervention. In Nature
as thus understood is the spontaneous
course of things, when left to themselves,
�14
NA TURE
the rule to be followed in endeavouring
to adapt things to our use ? But it is
evident at once that the maxim, taken in
this sense, is not merely, as it is in the
other sense, superfluous and unmeaning,
but palpably absurd and self-contradic
tory. For while human action cannot
help conforming to Nature in the one
meaning of the term, the very aim and
object of action is to alter and improve
Nature in the other meaning. If the
natural course of things were perfectly
right and satisfactory, to act at all would
be a gratuitous meddling, which, as it
could not make things better, must make
them worse. Or if action at all could be
justified, it would only be when in direct
obedience to instincts, since these might
perhaps be accounted part of the spon
taneous order of Nature; but to do any
thing with forethought and purpose
would be a violation of that perfect
order. If the artificial is not better than
the natural, to what end are all the arts
of life? To dig, to plough, to build, to
wear clothes, are direct infringements of
the injunction to follow nature.
Accordingly it would be said by every
one, even of those most under the in
fluence of the feelings which prompt the
injunction, that to apply it to such cases
as those just spoken of would be to
push it too far. Everybody professes to
approve and admire many great triumphs
of Art over Nature: the junction by
bridges of shores which Nature had
made separate, the draining of Nature’s
marshes, the excavation of her wells, the
dragging to light of what she has buried
at immense depths in the earth; the
turning away of her thunderbolts by
lightning rods, of her inundations by
embankments, of her ocean by break
waters. But to commend these and
similar feats is to acknowledge that the
ways of Nature are to be conquered, not
obeyed; that her powers are often
towards man in the position of enemies,
from whom he must wrest, by force and
ingenuity, what little he can for his own
use, and deserves to be applauded when
that little is rather more than might be
expected from his physical weakness in
comparison to those gigantic powers.
All piaise of Civilisation, or Art, or Con
trivance, is so much dispraise of Nature ;
an admission of imperfection which it is
man’s business and merit to be always
endeavouring to correct or mitigate.
The consciousness that whatever man
does to improve his condition is in so
much a censure and a thwarting of the
spontaneous order of Nature, has in all
ages caused new and unprecedented
attempts at improvement to be generally
at first under a shade of religious sus
picion ; as being in any case uncompli
mentary, and very probably offensive to
the powerful beings (or, when polytheism
gave place to monotheism, to the allpowerful Being) supposed to govern the
various phenomena of the universe, and
of whose will the course of nature was
conceived to be the expression. Any
attempt to mould natural phenomena to
the convenience of mankind might easily
appear an interference with the govern
ment of those superior beings; and
though life could not have been main
tained, much less made pleasant, without
perpetual interferences of the kind, each
new one was doubtless made with fear
and trembling, until experience had
shown that it could be ventured on with
out drawing down the vengeance of the
Gods. The sagacity of priests showed
them a way to reconcile the impunity of
particular infringements with the main
tenance of the general dread of encroach
ing on the divine administration. This
�NATURE
was effected by representing each of the
principal human inventions as the gift
and favour of some god. The old reli
gions also afforded many resources for
consulting the Gods, and obtaining their
express permission for what would other
wise have appeared a breach of their
prerogative. When oracles had ceased,
any religion which recognised a revela
tion afforded expedients for the same
purpose. The Catholic religion had the
resource of an infallible Church, autho
rised to declare what exertions of human
spontaneity were permitted or forbidden ;
and in default of this the case was always
open to argument from the Bible whether
any particular practice had expressly or
by implication been sanctioned. The
notion remained that this liberty to con
trol Nature was conceded to man only
by special indulgence, and as far as
required by his necessities; and there
was always a tendency, though a dimin
ishing one, to regard any attempt to
exercise power over nature beyond a
certain degree and a certain admitted
range as an impious effort to usurp divine
power and dare more than was permitted
to man. The lines of Horace in which
the familiar arts of shipbuilding and
navigation are reprobated as vetitum
nefas indicate even in that sceptical age
a still unexhausted vein of the old senti
ment. The intensity of the correspond
ing feeling in the Middle Ages is not a
precise parallel, on account of the super
stition about dealing with evil spirits with
which it was complicated; but the im
putation of prying into the secrets of the
Almighty long remained a powerful
weapon of attack against unpopular
inquirers into nature ; and the charge of
presumptuously attempting to defeat the
designs of Providence still retains enough
of its original force to be thrown in as a
15
make-weight along with other objections
when there is a desire to find fault with
any new exertion of human forethought
and contrivance. No one, indeed, asserts
it to be the intention of the Creator that
the spontaneous order of the creation
should not be altered, or even that it
should not be altered in any new way.
But there still exists a vague notion that,
though it is very proper to control this
or the other natural phenomenon, the
general scheme of nature is a model for
us to imitate; that with more or less
liberty in details, we should on the whole
be guided by the spirit and general con
ception of nature’s own ways ; that they
are God’s work, and as such perfect; that
man cannot rival their unapproachable
excellence, and can best show his skill
and joiety by attempting, in however
imperfect a way, to reproduce their like
ness ; and that, if not the whole, yet some
particular parts of the spontaneous order
of nature, selected according to the
speakers predilections, are in a peculiar
sense manifestations of the Creator’s
will—a sort of finger-posts pointing out
the direction which things in general,
and therefore our voluntary actions, are
intended to take. Feelings of this sort,
though repressed on ordinary occasions
by the contrary current of life, are ready
to break out whenever custom is silent,
and the native promptings of the mind
have nothing opposed to them but
reason; and appeals are continually
made to them by rhetoricians, with the
effect, if not of convincing opponents,
at least of making those who already
hold the opinion which the rhetorician
desires to recommend, better satisfied
with it. For in the present day it pro
bably seldom happens that anyone is per
suaded to approve any course of action
because it appears to him to bear an
�i6
NA TURE
analogy to the divine government of the
world, though the argument tells on him
with great force, and is felt by him to be
a great support, in behalf of anything
which he is already inclined to approve.
If this notion of imitating the ways
of Providence as manifested in Nature
is seldom expressed plainly and downrightly as a matter of general applica
tion, it also is seldom directly contra
dicted. Those who find it on their path
prefer to turn the obstacle rather than to
attack it, being often themselves not
free from the feeling, and in any case
afraid of incurring the charge of impiety
by saying anything which might be held
to disparage the works of the Creator’s
power. They, therefore, for the most
part, rather endeavour to show that they
have as much right to the religious argu
ment as their opponents, and that, if the
course they recommend seems to conflict
with some part of the ways of Providence,
there is some other part with which it
agrees better than what is contended for
on the other side. In this mode of
dealing with the great a priori fallacies,
the progress of improvement clears away
particular errors while the causes of
errors are still left standing, and very
little weakened by each conflict; yet by
a long series of such partial victories
precedents are accumulated, to which
an appeal may be made against these
powerful prepossessions, and which
afford a growing hope that the misplaced
feeling, after having so often learnt to
recede, may some day be compelled to
an unconditional surrender. For, how
ever offensive the proposition may appear
to many religious persons, they should
be willing to look in the face the unde
niable fact that the order of nature, in so
far as unmodified by man, is such as no
being, whose attributes are justice and
benevolence, would have made with the
intention that his rational creatures
should follow it as an example. If made
wholly by such a Being, and not partly
by beings of very different qualities, it
could only be as a designedly imperfect
work, which man, in his limited sphere,
is to exercise justice and benevolence in
amending. The best persons have always
held it to be the essence of religion that
the paramount duty of man upon earth
is to amend himself; but all except
monkish quietists have annexed to this
in their inmost minds (though seldom
willing to enunciate the obligation with
the same clearness) the additional reli
gious duty of amending the world, and
not solely the human part of it, but the
material—the order of physical nature.
In considering this subject it is neces
sary to divest ourselves of certain pre
conceptions which may justly be called
natural prejudices, being grounded on
feelings which, in themselves natural
and inevitable, intrude into matters with
which they ought to have no concern.
One of these feelings is the astonishment,
rising into awe, which is inspired (even
independently of all religious sentiment)
by any of the greater natural phenomena.
A hurricane; a mountain precipice;
the desert; the ocean, either agitated or
at rest; the solar system, and the great
cosmic forces which hold it together;
the boundless firmament, and to an edu
cated mind any single star—excite feel
ings which make all human enterprises
and powers appear so insignificant that,
to a mind thus occupied, it seems in
sufferable presumption in so puny a
creature as man to look critically on
things so far above him, or dare to
measure' himself against the grandeur of
the universe. But a little interrogation
of our own consciousness will suffice to
�NATURE
convince us that what makes these
phenomena so impressive is simply their
vastness. The enormous extension in
space and time, or the enormous power
they exemplify, constitutes their sub
limity ; a feeling in all cases, more allied
to terror than to any moral emotion.
And though the vast scale of these
phenomena may well excite wonder, and
sets at defiance all idea of rivalry, the
feeling it inspires is of a totally different
character from admiration of excellence.
Those in whom awe produces admiration
may be aesthetically developed, but they
are morally uncultivated. It is one of
the endowments of the imaginative part
of our mental nature that conceptions of
greatness and power, vividly realised,
produce a feeling which, though in its
higher degrees closely bordering on pain,
we prefer to most of what are accounted
pleasures. But we are quite equally
capable of experiencing this feeling
towards maleficent power; and we never
experience it so strongly towards most of
the powers of the universe as when we
have most present to our consciousness
a vivid sense of their capacity of inflict
ing evil. Because these natural powers
have what we cannot imitate, enormous
might, and overawe us by that one attri
bute, it would be a great error to infer
that their other attributes are such as we
ought to emulate, or that we should be
justified in using our small powers after
the example which Nature sets us with
her vast forces. For how stands the
fact? That, next to the greatness of
these cosmic forces, the quality which
most forcibly strikes every one who does
not avert his eyes from it is their perfect
and absolute recklessness. They go
straight to their end, without regarding
what or whom they crush on the road.
Optimists, in their attempts to prove
17
that “whatever is, is right,” are obliged
to maintain, not that Nature ever turns
one step from her path to avoid tramp
ling us into destruction, but that it would
be very unreasonable in us to expect
that she should. Pope’s “ Shall gravita
tion cease when you go by ? ” may be a
just rebuke to any one who should be
so silly as to expect common human
morality from nature. But if the ques
tion were between two men, instead of
between a man and a natural phenome
non, that triumphant apostrophe would be
thought a rare piece of impudence. A
man who should persist in hurling stones
or firing cannon when another man
“ goes by,” and having killed him should
urge a similar plea in exculpation,
would very deservedly be found guilty of
murder.
In sober truth, nearly all the things
which men are hanged or imprisoned
for doing to one another are nature’s
every-day performances. Killing, the
most criminal act recognised by human
laws, Nature does once to every being
that lives ; and, in a large proportion of
cases, after protracted tortures sUch as
only the greatest monsters whom we
read of ever purposely inflicted on their
living fellow-creatures. If, by an arbi
trary reservation, we refuse to account
anything murder but what abridges a
certain term supposed to be allotted to
human life, nature also does this to all
but a small percentage of lives, and does
it in all the modes, violent or insidious,
in which the worst human beings take
the lives of one another. 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
c
�iS
NATURE
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. All this Nature does with
the most supercilious disregard both of
mercy and of justice, emptying her
shafts upon the best and noblest indif
ferently with the meanest and worst;
upon those who are engaged in the
highest and worthiest enterprises, and
often as the direct consequence of the
noblest acts; and it might almost
be imagined as a punishment for them.
She mows down those on whose exist
ence hangs the well-being of a whole
people, perhaps the prospect of the
human race for generations to come,
with as little compunction as those
whose death is a relief to themselves, or
a blessing to those under their noxious
influence. Such are Nature’s dealings
with life. Even when she does not
intend to kill, she inflicts the same
tortures in apparent wantonness. In the
clumsy provision which she has made
for that perpetual renewal of animal life,
rendered necessary by the prompt termi
nation she puts to it in every individual
instance, no human being ever comes
into the world but another human being
is literally stretched on the rack for hours
or days, not unfrequently issuing in
death. Next to taking life (equal to it
according to a high authority) is taking
the means by which we live ; and Nature
does this too on the largest scale and
with the most callous indifference. A
single hurricane destroys the hopes of a
season ; a flight of locusts, or an inun
dation, desolates a district; a trifling I
chemical change in an edible root
starves a million of people. The waves
of the sea, like banditti, seize and appro
priate the wealth of the rich and the little
all of the poor with the same accompani
ments of stripping, wounding, and killing
as their human antitypes. Everything,
in short, which the worst men commit
either against life or property is perpe
trated on a larger scale by natural agents.
Nature has Noyades more fatal than
those of Carrier; her explosions of fire
damp are as destructive as human
artillery; her plague and cholera far
surpass the poison-cups of the Borgias.
Even the love of “ order,” which is
thought to be a following of the ways of
Nature, is in fact a contradiction of them.
All which people are accustomed to
deprecate as “disorder” and its conse
quences is precisely a counterpart of
Nature’s ways. Anarchy and the Reign
of Terror are overmatched in injustice,
ruin, and death by a hurricane and a
pestilence.
But, it is said, all these things are for
wise and good ends. On this I must
first remark that whether they are so or
not is altogether beside the point. Sup
posing it true that, contrary to appear
ances, these horrors, when perpetrated by
Nature, promote good ends, still, as no
one believes that good ends would be
promoted by our following the example,
the course of Nature cannot be a proper
model for us to imitate. Either it is
right that we should kill because nature
kills; torture because nature tortures ;
ruin and devastate because nature does
the like; or we ought not to consider at
all what nature does, but what it is good
to do. If there is such a thing as a
reductio adabsurdum, this surely amounts
to one. If it is a sufficient reason for
doing one thing, that nature does it, why
not another thing ? If not all things,
why anything ? The physical govern
ment of the world being full of the things
which when done by men are deemed
�NATURE
the greatest enormities, it cannot be
religious or moral in us to guide our
actions by the analogy of the course of
nature. This proposition remains true,
whatever occult quality of producing
good may reside in those facts of nature
which to our perceptions are most
noxious, and which no one considers it
other than a crime to produce artifici
ally.
But, in reality, no one consistently
believes in any such occult quality. The
phrases which ascribe perfection to the
course of nature can only be considered
as the exaggerations of poetic or devo
tional feeling, not intended to stand the
test of a sober examination. No one,
either religious or irreligious, believes
that the hurtful agencies of nature, con
sidered as a whole, promote good pur
poses, in any other way than by inciting
human rational creatures to rise up and
struggle against them. If we believed
that those agencies were appointed by a
benevolent Providence as the means of
accomplishing wise purposes which could
not be compassed if they did not exist,
then everything done by mankind which
tends to chain up these natural agencies
or to restrict their mischievous operation,
from draining a pestilential marsh down
to curing the toothache, or putting up an
umbrella, ought to be accounted im
pious ; which assuredly nobody does
account them, notwithstanding an under
current of sentiment setting in that
direction which is occasionally percep
tible. On the contrary, the improve
ments on which the civilised part of man
kind most pride themselves consist in
more successfully warding off those
natural calamities which, if we really
believed what most people profess to
believe, we should cherish as medicines
provided for our earthly state by infinite
19
wisdom. Inasmuch, too, as each genera
tion greatly surpasses its predecessors in
the amount of natural evil which it
succeeds in averting, our condition, if
the theory were true, ought by this time
to have become a terrible manifestation
of some tremendous calamity, against
which the physical evils we have learnt
to overmaster had previously operated
as a preservative. Any one, however,
who acted as if he supposed this to be
the case would be more likely, I think,
to be confined as a lunatic than rever
enced as a saint.
It is undoubtedly a very common fact
that good comes out of evil, and when it
does occur it is far too agreeable not tofind people eager to dilate on it. But, in
the first place, it is quite as often true of
human crimes as of natural calamities.
The fire of London, which is believed to
have had so salutary an effect on the
healthiness of the city, would have pro
duced that effect just as much if it had
been really the work of the furor
papisticus ” so long commemorated on
the Monument. The deaths of those
whom tyrants or persecutors have made
martyrs in any noble cause have done a
service to mankind which would not
have been obtained if they had died by
accident or disease. Yet, whatever inci
dental and unexpected benefits may
result from crimes, they are crimes,
nevertheless. In the second place, if
good frequently comes out of evil, the
converse fact, evil coming out of good,
is equally common. Every event, public
or private, which, regretted on its occur
rence, was declared providential at a
later period on account of some unfore
seen good consequence, might be
matched by some other event, deemed
fortunate at the time, but which proved
calamitous or fatal to those whom it
�20
IVA TURE
appeared to benefit. Such conflicts
between the beginning and the end, or
between the event and the expectation,
are not only as frequent, but as often
held up to notice, in the painful cases as
in the agreeable; but there is not the
same inclination to generalise on them ;
or at all events they are not regarded by
the moderns (though they were by the
ancients) as similarly an indication of
the divine purposes : men satisfy them
selves with moralising on the imperfect
nature of our foresight, the uncertainty
of events, and the vanity of human ex
pectations. The simple fact is, human
interests are so complicated, and the
effects of any incident whatever so multi
tudinous, that, if it touches mankind at
all, its influence on them is, in the great
majority of cases, both good and bad.
If the greater number of personal mis
fortunes have their good side, hardly any
..good fortune ever befel any one which
■did not give either to the same or to
some other person something to regret :
and unhappily there are many misfor
tunes so overwhelming that their favour
able side, if it exist, is entirely over
shadowed and made insignificant; while
the corresponding statement can seldom
be made concerning blessings. The
.effects, too, of every cause depend so
much on the circumstances which acci
dentally accompany it that many cases
are sure to occur in which even the total
result is markedly opposed to the pre
dominant tendency: and thus not only
evil has its good and good its evil side,
but good often produces an overbalance
of evil and evil an overbalance of good.
This, however, is by no means the
general tendency of either phenomenon.
On the contrary, both good and evil
naturally tend to fructify, each in its own
kind, good producing good, and evil,
evil. It is one of Nature’s general rules,
and part of her habitual injustice, that
“ to him that hath shall be given, but
from him that hath not shall be taken
even that which he hath.” The ordinary
and predominant tendency of good is
towards more good. Health, strength,
wealth, knowledge, virtue, are not only
good in themselves, but facilitate and
promote the acquisition of good, both of
the same and of other kinds. The person
who can learn easily is he who already
knows much : it is the strong and not
the sickly person who can do everything
which most conduces to health ; those
who find it easy to gain money are not
the poor, but the rich; while health,
strength, knowledge, talents, are all
means of acquiring riches, and riches
are often an indispensable means of
acquiring these. Again, e conveyso, what
ever may be said of evil turning into
good, the general tendency of evil is
towards further evil. Bodily illness
renders the body more susceptible of
disease; it produces incapacity of exer
tion, sometimes debility of mind, and
often the loss of means of subsistence.
All severe pain, either bodily or mental,
tends to increase the susceptibilities of
pain for ever after. Poverty is the parent
of a thousand mental and moral evils.
What is still worse, to be injured or
oppressed, when habitual, -lowers the
whole tone of the character. One bad
action leads to others, both in the agent
himself, in the bystanders, and in
the sufferers. All bad qualities are
strengthened by habit, and all vices and
follies tend to spread.
Intellectual
defects generate moral, and moral, intel
lectual ; and every intellectual or moral
defect generates others, and so on with
out end.
That much applauded class of authors,
�NA TURE
the writers on natural theology, have, I
venture to think, entirely lost their way,
and missed the sole line of argument
which could have made their speculations
acceptable to any one who can perceive
when two propositions contradict one
another. They have exhausted the
resources of sophistry to make it appear
that all the suffering in the world exists
to prevent greater—that misery exists,
for fear lest there should be misery : a
thesis which, if ever so well maintained,
could only avail to explain and justify
the works of limited beings, compelled
to labour under conditions independent
of their own will; but can have no
application to a Creator assumed to be
omnipotent, who, if he bends to a sup
posed necessity, himself makes the
necessity which he bends to. If the
maker of the world can all that he will,
he wills misery, and there is no escape
from the conclusion. The more consis
tent of those who have deemed them
selves qualified to “ vindicate the ways of
God to man ” have endeavoured to avoid
the alternative by hardening their hearts,
and denying that misery is an evil. The
goodness of God, they say, does not
consist in willing the happiness of his
creatures, but their virtue; and the uni
verse, if not a happy, is a just, universe.
But, waving the objections to this scheme
of ethics, it does not at all get rid of the
difficulty. If the Creator of mankind
willed that they should all be virtuous,
his designs are as completely baffled as
if he had willed that they should all be
happy : and the order of nature is con
structed with even less regard to the
requirements of justice than to those of
benevolence. If the law of all creation
were justice and the Creator omnipotent,
then, in whatever amount suffering and
happiness might be dispensed to the
2r
world, each person’s share of them would
be exactly proportioned to that person’s
good or evil deeds ; no human being
would have a worse lot than another,
without worse deserts ; accident or
favouritism would have no part in such
a world, but every human life would be
the playing out of a drama constructed
like a perfect moral tale. No one is able
to blind himself to the fact that the
world we live in is totally different from
this ; insomuch that the necessity of re
dressing the balance has been deemed
one of the strongest arguments for
another life after death, which amounts
to an admission that the order of things
in this life is often an example of injus
tice, not justice. If it be said that God
does not take sufficient account of
pleasure and pain to make them the
reward or punishment of the good or the
wicked, but that virtue is itself the
greatest good and vice the greatest evil,
then these at least ought to be dispensed
to all according to what they have done
to deserve them; instead of which, every
kind of moral depravity is entailed upon
multitudes by the fatality of their birth ;
through the fault of their parents, of
society, or of uncontrollable circum
stances, certainly through no fault of
their own. Not even on the most dis
torted and contrasted theory of good
which ever was framed by religious or
philosophical fanaticism can the govern
ment of Nature be made to resemble the
work of a being at once good and omni
potent.
The only admissible moral theory of
Creation is that the Principle of Good
cinnot at once and altogether subdue the
powers of evil, either physical or moral;
could not place mankind in a world free
from the necessity of an incessant struggle
with the maleficent powers, or make
�22
NATURE
them always victorious in that struggle,
but could and did make them capable of
carrying on the fight with vigour and
with progressively increasing success.
Of all the religious explanations of the
order of nature, this alone is neither
contradictory to itself nor to the facts
for which it attempts to account. Accord
ing to it, man’s duty would consist, not
in simply taking care of his own interests
by obeying irresistible power, but in
standing forward a not ineffectual auxi
liary to a Being of perfect beneficence ;
a faith which seems much better adapted
for nerving him to exertion than a vague
and inconsistent reliance on an Author
of Good who is supposed to be also the
author of evil. And I venture to assert
that such has really been, though often
unconsciously, the faith of all who have
drawn strength and support of any worthy
kind from trust in a superintending
Providence. There is no subject on
which men’s practical belief is more
incorrectly indicated by the words they
use to express it than religion. Many
have derived a base confidence from
imagining themselves to be favourites of
an omnipotent but capricious and
despotic Deity. But those who have
been strengthened in goodness by rely
ing on the sympathising support of a
powerful and good Governor of the
world have, I am satisfied, never really
believed that Governor to be, in the
strict sense of the term, omnipotent.
They have always saved his goodness at
the expense of his power. They have
believed, perhaps, that he could, if he
willed, remove all the thorns from their
individual path, but not without causing
greater harm to some one else, or frus
trating some purpose of greater importance
to the general well-being. They have
believed that he could do any one thing,
but not any combination of things; that
his government, like human government,
was a system of adjustments and com
promises ; that the world is inevitably
imperfect, contrary to his intention.1
And since the exertion of all his power
to make it as little imperfect as possible
leaves it no better than it is, they cannot
but regard that power, though vastly
beyond human estimate, yet as in itself
not merely finite, but extremely limited.
They are bound, for example, to suppose
that the best he could do for his human
creatures was to make an immense
majority of all who have yet existed be
born (without any fault of their own)
Patagonians, or Esquimaux, or something
nearly as brutal and degraded, but to
give them capacities which, by being
cultivated for very many centuries
in toil and suffering, and after many
of the best specimens of the race
have sacrificed their lives for the
purpose, have at last enabled some
chosen portions of the species to grow
into something better, capable of being
improved in centuries more into
1 This irresistible conviction conies out in the
writings of religious philosophers, in exact pro
portion to the general clearness of their under
standing. It nowhere shines forth so distinctly
as in Leibnitz’s famous Theodicee, so strangely
mistaken for a system of optimism, and, as such,
satirised by Voltaire on grounds which do not
even touch the author’s argument. Leibnitz
does not maintain that this world is the best of
all imaginable, but only of all possible, worlds ;
which, he argues, it cannot but be, inasmuch as
God, who is absolute goodness, has chosen it
and not another. In every page of the work be
tacitly assumes an abstract possibility and impos
sibility, independent of the divine power ; and,
though his pious feelings make him continue to
designate that power by the word “Omnipotence, ’
he so explains that term as to make it mean
power extending to all that is within the limits
of that abstract possibility.
�NA TURE
something really good, of which hitherto
there are only to be foun 1 individual
instances. It may be possible to believe
with Plato that perfect goodness, limited
and thwarted in every direction by the
intractableness of the material, has done
this because it could do no better. But
that the same perfectly wise and good
Being had absolute power over the
material, and made it, by voluntary
choice, what it is; to admit this might
have been supposed impossible to any
one who has the simplest notions of
moral good and evil. Nor can any such
person, whatever kind of religious phrases
he may use, fail to believe that if Nature
and man are both the works of a Being
of perfect goodness, that Being intended
Nature as a scheme to be amended, not
imitated, by man.
But even though unable to believe
that Nature, as a whole, is a realisation
of the designs of perfect wisdom and
benevolence, men do not willingly re
nounce the idea that some part of
Nature, at least, must be intended as an
exemplar, or type; that on some portion
or other of the Creator’s works the
image of the moral qualities which they
are accustomed to ascribe to him must be
impressed ; that if not all which is, yet
something which is, must not only be a
faultless model of what ought to be, but
must be intended to be our guide and
standard in rectifying the rest. It does
not suffice them to believe that what
tends to good'is to be imitated and per
fected, and what tends to evil is to be
corrected: they are anxious for some
more definite indication of the Creator’s
designs; and, being persuaded that this
must somewhere be met with in his
works, undertake the dangerous respon
sibility of picking and choosing among
them in quest of it. A choice which,
except so far as directed by the general
maxim that he intends all the good and
none of the evil, must of necessity be
perfectly arbitrary; and if it leads to any
conclusions other than such as can be
deduced from that maxim, must be,
exactly in that proportion, pernicious.
It has never been settled by any
accredited doctrine what particular de
partments of the order of nature shall be
reputed to be designed for our moral
instruction and guidance ; and accord
ingly each person’s individual predilec
tions, or momentary convenience, have
decided to what parts of the divine
government the practical conclusions
that he was desirous of establishing
should be recommended to approval as
being analogous. One such recommen
dation must be as fallacious as another,
for it is impossible to decide that cer
tain of the Creator’s works are more
truly expressions of his character than
the rest; and the only selection which
does not lead to immoral results is the
selection of those which most conduce
to the general good—in other words, of
those which point to an end which, if the
entire scheme is the expression of a
single omnipotent and consistent will, is
evidently not the end intended by it.
There is, however, one particular
element in the construction of the world
which, to minds on the look-out for
special indications of the Creator’s will,
has appeared, not without plausibility,
peculiarly fitted to afford them ; viz.,
the active impulses of human and other
animated beings. One can imagine such
persons arguing that, when the Author of
Nature only made circumstances, he may
not have meant to indicate the manner
in which his rational creatures were to
adjust themselves to those circumstances;
but that when he implanted positive
�24
AU TURE
stimuli in the creatures themselves,
stirring them up to a particular kind of
action, it is impossible to doubt that he
intended that sort of action to be prac
tised by them. This reasoning, followed
out consistently, would lead to the con
clusion that the Deity intended, and
approves, whatever human beings do;
since all that they do being the conse
quence of some of the impulses with
which their Creator must have endowed
them, all must equally be considered as
done in obedience to his will. As this
practical conclusion wras shrunk from, it
was necessary to draw a distinction, and
to pronounce that not the whole, but
only parts, of the active nature of man
kind point to a special intention of the
Creator in respect to their tonduct.
These parts, it seemed natural to suppose,
must be those in which the Creator’s
hand is manifested rather than the man’s
own; and hence the frequent antithesis
between man as God made him and
man as he has made himself. Since
what is done with deliberation seems
more the man’s own act, and he is held
more completely responsible for it than
for what he does from sudden impulse,
the considerate part of human conduct
is apt to be set down as man’s share in
the business, and the inconsiderate as
God’s. The result is the vein of senti
ment so common in the modern world
(though unknown to the philosophic
ancients) which exalts instinct at the
expense of reason ; an aberration ren
dered still more mischievous by the
opinion commonly held in conjunction
with it, that every, or almost every, feel
ing or impulse which acts promptly with
out waiting to ask questions is an instinct.
Thus almost every variety of unreflecting
and uncalculating impulse receives a
kind of consecration, except those which,
though unreflecting at the moment, owe
their origin to previous habits of reflec
tion : these, being evidently not instinc
tive, do not meet with the favour accorded
to the rest; so that all unreflecting
impulses are invested with authority over
reason, except the only ones which are
most probably right. I do not mean, of
course, that this mode of judgment is
even pretended to be consistently carried
out : life could not go on if it were not
admitted that impulses must be con
trolled, and that reason ought to govern
our actions. The pretension is not to
drive Reason from the helm, but rather
to bind her by articles to steer only in a
particular way. Instinct is not to govern,
but reason is to practise some vague and
unassignable amount of deference to
Instinct. Though the impression in
favour of instinct as being a peculiar
manifestation of the divine purposes has
not been cast into the form of a con
sistent general theory, it remains a stand
ing prejudice, capable of being stirred up
into hostility to reason in any case in
which the dictate of the rational faculty
has not acquired the authority of pre
scription.
I shall not here enter into the difficult
psychological question, what are or are
not instincts : the subject would require
a volume to itself. Without touching
upon any disputed theoretical points, it
is possible to judge how little worthy is
the instinctive part of human nature to
be held up as its chief excellence—as the
part in which the hand of infinite good
ness and wisdom is peculiarly visible.
Allowing everything to be an instinct
which anybody has ever asserted to be
one, it remains true that nearly every
respectable attribute of humanity is the
result not of instinct, but of a victory
over instinct; and that there is hardly
�NA TURE
anything valuable in the natural man
except capacities—a whole world of pos
sibilities, all of them dependent upon
eminently artificial discipline for being
realised.
It is only in a highly artificialised con
dition of human nature that the notion
grew up, or, I believe, ever could have
grown up, that goodness was natural :
because only after a long course of arti
ficial education did good sentiments
become so habitual, and so predominant
over bad, as to arise unprompted when
occasion called for them. In the times
when mankind were nearer to their
natural state, cultivated observers re
garded the natural man as a sort of wild
animal, distinguished chiefly by being
craftier than the other beasts of the field;
and all worth of character was deemed
the result of a sort of taming ; a phrase
often applied by the ancient philosophers
to the appropriate discipline of human
beings. The truth is that there is hardly
a single point of excellence belonging to
human character which is not decidedly
repugnant to the untutored feelings of
human nature.
If there be a virtue which more than
any other we expect to find, and really
do find, in an uncivilised state, it is the
virtue of courage. Yet this is from first
to last a victory achieved over one of the
most powerful emotions of human nature.
If there is any one feeling or attribute
more natural than all others to human
beings, it is fear ; and no greater proof
can be given of the power of artificial
discipline than the conquest which it has
at all times and places shown itself
capable of achieving over so mighty and
so universal a sentiment. The widest
difference no doubt exists between one
human being and another in the facility
or difficulty with which they acquire this
25
virtue. There is hardly any department
of human excellence in which difference
of original temperament goes so far.
But it may fairly be questioned if any
human being is naturally courageous.
Many are naturally pugnacious, or
irascible, or enthusiastic, and these
passions when strongly excited may
render them insensible to fear. But
take away the conflicting emotion, and
fear reasserts its dominion : consistent
courage is always the effect of cultiva
tion. The courage which is occasionally,
though by no means generally, found
among tribes of savages is as much the
result of education as that of the
Spartans or Romans. In all such tribe?
there is a most emphatic direction of the
public sentiment into every channel of
expression through which honour can be
paid to courage and cowardice held up to
contempt and derision. It will perhaps
be said that, as the expression of a senti
ment implies the sentiment itself, the
training of the young to courage pre
supposes an originally courageous people.
It presupposes only what all good
customs presuppose—that there must
have been individuals better than the
rest who set the customs going. Some
individuals, who like other people had
fears to conquer, must have had strength
of mind and will to conquer them for
themselves. These would obtain the
influence belonging to heroes, for that
which is at once astonishing and
obviously useful never fails to be ad
mired : and partly through this admira
tion, partly through the fear they them
selves excite, they would obtain the
power of legislators, and could establish
whatever customs they pleased.
Let us next consider a quality which
forms the most visible and one of the
most radical of the moral distinctions
�26
NA TURE
between human beings and most of the
lower animals ; that of which the absence,
more than of anything else, renders men
bestial—the quality of cleanliness. Can
anything be more entirely artificial ?
Children, and the lower classes of most
countries, seem to be actually fond of
dirt: the vast majority of the human
race are indifferent to it : whole nations
of otherwise civilised and cultivated
human beings tolerate it in some of its
worst forms, and only a very small
minority are consistently offended by it.
Indeed, the universal law of the subject
appears to be that uncleanliness offends
only those to whom it is unfamiliar, so
that those who have lived in so artificial
a state as to be unused to it in any form
are the sole persons whom it disgusts in
all forms. Of all virtues this is the most
evidently not instinctive, but a triumph
over instinct. Assuredly neither cleanli
ness nor the love of cleanliness is natural
to man, but only the capacity of acquir
ing a love of cleanliness.
Our examples have thus far been taken
from the personal, or, as they are called
by Bentham, the self-regarding virtues,
because these, if any, might be supposed
to be congenial even to the uncultivated
mind. Of the social virtues it is almost
superfluous to speak, so completely is
it the verdict of all experience that
selfishness is natural. By this I do not
in any wise mean to deny that sympathy
is natural also ; I believe, on the contrary,
that on that important fact rests the pos
sibility of any cultivation of goodness
and nobleness, and the hope of their
ultimate entire ascendancy. But sym
pathetic characters, left uncultivated and
given up to their sympathetic instincts,
are as selfish as others. The difference
is in the kind of selfishness : theirs is not
solitary but sympathetic selfishness;
rego'isme a deux, a trois, or a quatre; and
they may be very amiable and delightful
to those with whom they sympathise, and
grossly unjust and unfeeling to the rest
of the world. Indeed, the finer nervous
organisations which are most capable of
and most require sympathy have, from
their fineness, so much stronger impulses
of all sorts that they often furnish the
most striking examples of selfishness,
though of a less repulsive kind than that
of colder natures. Whether there ever
was a person in whom, apart from all
teaching of instructors, friends or books,
and from all intentional self-modelling
according to an ideal, natural benevolence
was a more powerful attribute than
selfishness in any of its forms, may
remain undecided. That such cases are
extremely rare every one must admit,
and this is enough for the argument.
But (to speak no further of self-control
for the benefit of others) the commonest
self-control for one’s own benefit—that
power of sacrificing a present desire to a
distant object or a general purpose which
is indispensable for making the actions
of the individual accord with his own
notions of his individual good; even this
is most unnatural to the undisciplined
human being: as may be seen by the
long apprenticeship which children serve
to it; the very imperfect manner in
which it is acquired by persons born to
power, whose will is seldom resisted, and
by all who have been early and much
indulged; and the marked absence of
the quality in savages, in soldiers and
sailors, and in a somewhat less degree in
nearly the whole of the poorer classes in
this and many other countries. The prin
cipal difference, on the point under con
sideration, between this virtue and others,
is that although, like them, it requires
a course of teaching, it is more susceptible
�NA TURE
than most of them of being self-taught.
The axiom is trite that self-control is only
learnt by experience ; and this endow
ment is only thus much nearer to being
natural than the others we have spoken
of, inasmuch as personal experience,
without external inculcation, has a certain
tendency to engender it. Nature does
not of herself bestow this, any more than
other virtues; but nature often ad
ministers the rewards and punishments
which cultivate it, and which in other
cases have to be created artificially for
the express purpose.
Veracity might seem, of all virtues, to
have the most plausible claim to being
natural, since, in the absence, of motives
to the contrary, speech usually conforms
to, or at least does not intentionally
deviate from, fact. Accordingly, this is
the virtue with which writers like
Rousseau delight in decorating savage
life, and setting it in advantageous con
trast with the treachery and trickery of
civilisation. Unfortunately this is a mere
fancy picture, contradicted by all the
realities of savage life. Savages are
always liars. They have not the faintest
notion of truth as a virtue. They have
a notion of not betraying to their hurt,
as of not hurting in any other way,
persons to whom they are bound by
some special tie of obligation; their
chief, their guest, perhaps, or their
friend: these feelings of obligation being
the taught morality of the savage state,
growing out of its characteristic circum
stances. But of any point of honour
respecting truth for truth’s sake they
have not the remotest idea; no more
than the whole East and the greater
part of Europe ; and in the few countries
which are sufficiently improved to have
such a point of honour it is confined to
a small minority, who alone, under any
27
circumstances of real temptation, prac
tise it.
From the general use of the expression
“natural justice,” it must be presumed
that justice is a virtue generally thought
to be directly implanted by Nature. I
believe, however, that the sentiment of
justice is entirely of artificial origin; the
idea of natural justice not preceding but
following that of conventional justice.
The farther we look back into the early
modes of thinking of the human race,
whether we consider ancient times
(including those of the Old Testament)
or the portions of mankind who are still
in no more advanced a condition than
that of ancient times, the more com
pletely do we find men’s notions of
justice defined and bounded by the
express appointment of law. A man’s
just rights meant the rights which the
law gave him : a just man was he who
never infringed, nor sought to infringe,
the legal property or other legal rights of
others. The notion of a higher justice,
to which laws themselves are amenable,
and by which the conscience is bound
without a positive prescription of law, is
a later extension of the idea, suggested
by, and following the analogy of, legal
justice, to which it maintains a parallel
direction through all the shades and
varieties of the sentiment, and from
which it borrows nearly the whole of its
phraseology. The very words justus and
justilia are derived from jus, law.
Courts of justice, administration of
justice, always mean the tribunals.
If it be said that there must be the
germs of all these virtues in human
nature, otherwise mankind would be
incapable of acquiring them, I am ready,
with a certain amount of explanation, to
admit the fact. But the weeds that dis
pute the ground with these beneficent
�28
NATURE
germs are themselves not germs, but
rankly luxuriant growths, and would, in
all but some one case in a thousand,
entirely stifle and destroy the former,
were it not so strongly the interest of
mankind to cherish the good germs in
one another, that they always do so, in
as far as their degree of intelligence
(in this as in other respects still very
imperfect) allows. It is through such
fostering, commenced early, and not
counteracted by unfavourable influences,
that, in some happily circumstanced
specimens of the human race, the most
elevated sentiments of which humanity
is capable become a second nature,
stronger than the first, and not so much
subduing the original nature as merging
it into itself. Even those gifted organisa
tions which have attained the like excel
lence by self-culture owe it essentially to
the same cause; for what self-culture
would be possible without aid from the
general sentiment of mankind delivered
through books, and from the contempla
tion of exalted characters, real or ideal ?
This artificially created, or at least artifi
cially perfected, nature of the best and
noblest human beings is the only nature
which it is ever commendable to follow.
It is almost superfluous to say that even
this cannot be erected into a standard of
conduct, since it is itself the fruit of a
training and culture the choice of which,
if rational and not accidental, must have
been determined by a standard already
chosen.
This brief survey is amply sufficient to
prove that the duty of man is the same
in respect to his own nature as in respect
to the nature of all other things—namely,
not to follow but to amend it. Some
people, however, who do not attempt to
deny that instinct ought to be subordi
nate to reason, pay deference to Nature
so far as to maintain that every natural
inclination must have some sphere of
action granted to it, some opening left
for its gratification. All natural wishes,
they say, must have been implanted for
a purpose: and this argument is carried
so far that we often hear it maintained
that every wish which it is supposed to
be natural to entertain must have a
corresponding provision in the order of
the universe for its gratification; inso
much (for instance) that the desire of an
indefinite prolongation of existence is
believed by many to be in itself a
sufficient proof of the reality of a future
life.
I conceive that there is a radical
absurdity in all these attempts to dis
cover, in detail, what are the designs of
Providence, in order, when they are dis
covered, to help Providence in bringing
them about. Those who argue, from
particular indications, that Providence
intends this or that, either believe that
the Creator can do all that he will or
that he cannot. If the first supposition
is adopted—if Providence is omnipotent,
Providence intends whatever happens,
and the fact of its happening proves that
Providence intended it. If so, every
thing which a human being can do is
predestined by Providence and is a fulfil
ment of its designs. But if, as is the
more religious theory, Providence intends
not all which happens, but only what is
good, then indeed man has it in his
power, by his voluntary actions, to aid
the intentions of Providence; but he
can only learn those intentions by con
sidering what tends to promote the
general good, and not what man has
a natural inclination to; for, limited as,
on this showing, the divine power must
be, by inscrutable but insurmountable
obstacles, who knows that nun could.
�NATURE
have been created without desires which
never are to be, and even which never
ought to be, fulfilled ? The inclinations
with which man has been endowed, as
well as any of the other contrivances
which we observe in Nature, may be the
expression not of the divine will, but of
the fetters which impede its free action;
and to take hints from these for the
guidance of our own conduct may be
falling into a trap laid by the enemy.
The assumption that everything which
infinite goodness can desire actually
comes to pass in this universe, or at
least that we must never say or suppose
that it does not, is worthy only of those
whose slavish fears make them offer the
homage of lies to a Being who, they
profess to think, is incapable of being
deceived and holds all falsehood in
abomination.
With regard to this particular hypo
thesis, that all natural impulses, all
propensities sufficiently universal and
sufficiently spontaneous to be capable of
passing for instincts, must exist for good
ends, and ought to be only regulated,
not repressed; this is of course true of
the majority of them, for the species
could not have continued to exist unless
most of its inclinations had been directed
to things needful or useful for its pre
servation. But unless the instincts can
be reduced to a very small number
indeed, it must be allowed that we have
also bad instincts which it should be the
aim of education not simply to regulate,
but to extirpate, or rather (what can be
done even to an instinct) to starve
by disuse. Those who are inclined to
multiply the number of instincts, usually
include among them one which they call
destructiveness: an instinct to destroy
for destruction’s sake. I can conceive
no good reason for preserving this, any
29
more than another propensity which, if
notan instinct, is very like one—what has
been called the instinct of domination ;
a delight in exercising despotism, in
holding other beings in subjection to our
will. The man who takes pleasure in
the mere exertion of authority, apart
from the purpose for which it is to
be employed, is the last person in whose
hands one would willingly entrust it.
Again, there are persons who are cruel
by character, or, as the phrase is,
naturally cruel; who have a real pleasure
in inflicting, or seeing the infliction of
pain. This kind of cruelty is not mere
hardheartedness, absence of pity or re
morse; it is a positive thing; a par
ticular kind of voluptuous excitement.
The East and Southern Europe have
afforded, and probably still afford,
abundant examples of this hateful pro
pensity. I suppose it will be granted
that this is not one of the natural in
clinations which it would be wrong to
suppress. The only question would be,
whether it is not a duty to suppress the
man himself along with it.
But even if it were true that every one
of the elementary impulses of human
nature has its good side, and may by a
sufficient amount of artificial training be
made more useful than hurtful; how
little would this amount to, when it must
in any case be admitted that without
such training all of them, even those
which are necessary to our preservation,
would fill the world with misery, making
human life an exaggerated likeness of
the odious scene of violence and tyranny
which is exhibited by the rest of the
animal kingdom, except in so far as
tamed and disciplined by man. There,
indeed, those who flatter themselves
with the notion of reading the purposes
of the Creator in his works ought in
�3°
NATURE
consistency to have seen grounds for
inferences from which they have shrunk.
If there are any marks at all of special
design in creation, one of the things
most evidently designed is that a large
proportion of all animals should pass
their existence in tormenting and de
vouring other animals. They have been
lavishly fitted out with the instru
ments necessary for that purpose; their
strongest instincts impel them to it, and
many of them seem to have been con
structed incapable of supporting them
selves by any other food. If a tenth
part of the pains which have been ex
pended in finding benevolent adaptations
in all nature had been employed in
collecting evidence to blacken the
character of the Creator, what scope for
comment would not have been found in
the entire existence of the lower animals,
divided, with scarcely an exception, into
devourers and devoured, and a prey to a
thousand ills from which they are denied
the faculties necessary for protecting
themselves ! If we are not obliged to
believe the animal creation to be the
work of a demon, it is because we need
not suppose it to have been made by a
Being of infinite power. But if imitation
of the Creator’s will as revealed in nature
were applied as a rule of action in this
case, the most atrocious enormities of the
worst men would be more than justified
by the apparent intention of Providence
■that throughout all animated nature the
strong should prey upon the weak.
The preceding observations are far
from having exhausted the almost infinite
variety of modes and occasions in which
the idea of conformity to nature is intro
duced as an element into the ethical
appreciation of actions and dispositions.
I he same favourable prejudgment follows
the word “nature” through the numerous
acceptations in which it is employed as
a distinctive term for certain parts of the
constitution of humanity as contrasted
with other parts. We have hitherto con
fined ourselves to one of these accepta
tions, in which it stands as a general
designation for those parts of our mental
and moral constitution which are sup
posed to be innate, in contradistinction
to those which are acquired; as when
nature is contrasted with education; or
when a savage state, without laws, arts,
or knowledge, is called a state of nature;
or when the question is asked whether
benevolence, or the moral sentiment, is
natural or acquired; or whether some
persons are poets or orators by nature
and others not. But, in another and a
more lax sense, any manifestations by
human beings are often termed natural
when it is merely intended to say that
they are not studied or designedly
assumed in the particular case; as when
a person is said to move or speak with
natural grace; or when it is said that a
person’s natural manner or character is
so and so; meaning that it is so when he
does not attempt to control or disguise
it. In a still looser acceptation, a person
is said to be naturally that which he was
until some special cause had acted upon
him, or which it is supposed he would
be if some such cause were withdrawn.
Thus a person is said to be naturally
dull, but to have made himself intel
ligent by study and perseverance; to be
naturally cheerful, but soured by misfor
tune; naturally ambitious, but kept down
by want of opportunity. Finally, the
word “natural,” applied to feelings or
conduct, often seems to mean no
more than that they are such as are
ordinarily found in human beings ; as
when it is said that a person acted, on
some particular occasion, as it was
�NA TURE
natural to do; or that to be affected in
a particular way by some sight, or sound,
or thought, or incident in life, is perfectly
natural.
In all these senses of the term, the
quality called natural is very often con
fessedly a worse quality than the one
contrasted with it; but whenever its
being so is not too obvious to be
questioned, the idea seems to be enter
tained that by describing it as natural
something has been said amounting to a
considerable presumption in its favour.
For my part, I can perceive only one
sense in which nature, or naturalness, in
a human being, is really a term of praise ;
and then the praise is only negative—
namely, when used to denote the absence
of affectation. Affectation may be de
fined,the effort to appear what one is not,
when the motive or the occasion is not
such as either to excuse the attempt or
to stamp it with the more odious name
of hypocrisy. It must be added that the
deception is often attempted to be
practised on the deceiver himself as well
as on others ; he imitates the external
signs of qualities which he would like to
have, in hopes to persuade himself that
he has them. Whether in the form
of deception or of self-deception, or of
something hovering between the two,
affectation is very rightly accounted a re
proach, and naturalness, understood as
the reverse of affectation, a merit. But
a more proper term by which to express
this estimable quality would be sincerity :
a term which has fallen from its original
elevated meaning, and popularly denotes
only a subordinate branch of the cardinal
virtue it once designated as a whole.
Sometimes also, in cases wheretheterm
“ affectation ” would be inappropriate,
since the conduct or demeanour spoken
of is really praiseworthy, people say, in
disparagement of the person concerned,
that such conduct or demeanour is not
natural to him; and make uncompli
mentary comparisons between him and
some other person, to whom it is natural:
meaning that what in the one seemed
excellent was the effect of temporary
excitement, or of a great victory over
himself, while in the other it is the
result to be expected from the habitu il
character. This mode of speech is not
open to censure, since nature is here
simply a term for the person’s ordinary
disposition, and if he is praised it is not
for being natural, but for being naturally
good.
Conformity to nature has no con
nection whatever with right and wrong.
The idea can never be fitly introduced
into ethical discussions at all, except,
occasionally and partially, into the
question of degrees of culpability. To
illustrate this point, let us consider the
phrase by which the greatest intensity of
condemnatory feeling is conveyed in
connection with the idea of nature—the
word “ unnatural.” That a thing is un
natural, in any precise meaning which
can be attached to the word, is no
argument for its being blamable ; since
the most criminal actions are to a being
like man not more unnatural than most
of the virtues. The acquisition of virtue
has in all ages been accounted a work of
labour and difficulty, while the descensus
Averni, on the contrary, is of proverbial
facility; and it assuredly requires in
most persons a greater conquest over a
greater number of natural inclinations to
become eminently virtuous than tran
scendently vicious. But if an action, or
an inclination, has been decided on
other grounds to be blamable, it may be
a circumstance in aggravation that it is
unnatural—that is, repugnant to some
�32
NA TURE
strong feeling usually found in human
beings ; since the bad propensity, what
ever it be, has afforded evidence of being
both strong and deeply rooted, by having
overcome that repugnance. This pre
sumption, of course, fails if the individual
never had the repugnance; and the
argument, therefore, is not fit to be
urged unless the feeling which is violated
by the act is not only justifiable and
reasonable, but is one which it is
blamable to be without.
The corresponding plea in extenuation
of a culpable act because it was natural,
or because it was prompted by a natural
feeling, never, I think, ought to be
admitted. There is hardly a bad action
ever perpetrated which is not perfectly
natural, and the motives to which are
not perfectly natural feelings. In the
eye of reason, therefore, this is no
excuse, but it is quite “natural” that it
should be so in the eyes of the multi
tude ; because the meaning of the ex
pression is, that they have a fellow
feeling with the offender. When they
say that something which they cannot
help admitting to be blamable is never
theless natural, they mean that they can
imagine the possibility of their being
themselves tempted to commit it. Most
people have a considerable amount of in
dulgence towards all acts of which they
feel a possible source within themselves,
reserving their rigour for those which,
though perhaps really less bad, they can
not in any way understand how it is
possible to commit. If an action con
vinces them (which it often does on very
inadequate grounds) that the person who
does it must be a being totally unlike
themselves, they are seldom particular in
examining the precise degree of blame
due to it, or even if blame is properly
due to it at all. They measure the
degree of guilt by the strength of their
antipathy; and hence differences of
opinion, and even differences of taste,
have been objects of as intense moral
abhorrence as the most atrocious crimes.
It will be useful to sum up in a few
words the leading conclusions of this
Essay.
The word “ nature ” has two principal
meanings : it either denotes the entire
system of things, with the aggregate of all
their properties, or it denotes things as
they would be, apart from human
intervention.
In the first of these senses, the
doctrine that man ought to follow nature
is unmeaning; since man has no power
to do anything else than follow nature ;
all his actions are done through, and in
obedience to, some one or many of
nature’s physical or mental laws.
In the other sense of the term, the
doctrine that man ought to follow nature,
or, in other words, ought to make the
spontaneous course of things the model
of his voluntary actions, is equally
irrational and immoral.
Irrational, because all human action
whatever consists in altering, and all
useful action in improving, the spon
taneous course of nature.
Immoral, because the course of natural
phenomena being replete with every
thing which when committed by human
beings is most worthy of abhorrence, any
one who endeavoured in his actions to
imitate the natural course of things
would be universally seen and acknow
ledged to be the wickedest of men.
The scheme of Nature, regarded in its
whole extent, cannot have had, for its
sole or even principal object, the good of
human or other sentient beings. What
good it brings to them is mostly the
result of their own exertions. What
�NA TURE
soever, in nature, gives indication of
beneficent design proves this benefi
cence to be armed only with limited
power; and the duty of man is to co
operate with the beneficent powers, not
by imitating, but by perpetually striving
33
to amend, the course of nature—and
bringing that part of it over which we can
exercise control more nearly into con
formity with a high standard of justice
and goodness.
D
�UTILITY OF RELIGION
It has sometimes been remarked how
much has been written, both by friends
and enemies, concerning the truth of
religion, and how little, at least in the
way of discussion or controversy, con
cerning its usefulness. This, however,
might have been expected; for the truth,
in matters which so deeply affect us, is
our first concernment. If religion, or
any particular form of it, is true, its
usefulness follows without other proof.
If to know authentically in what order of
things, under what government of the
universe, it is our destiny to live were
not useful, it is difficult to imagine what
could be considered so. Whether a
person is in a pleasant or in an un
pleasant place, a palace or a prison, it
cannot be otherwise than useful to him
to know where he is. So long, therefore,
as men accepted the teachings of their
religion as positive facts, no more a
matter of doubt than their own existence
or the existence of the objects around
them, to ask the use of believing it
could not possibly occur to them. The
utility of religion did not need to be
asserted until the arguments for its truth
had in a great measure ceased to con
vince. People must either have ceased
to believe, or have ceased to rely on the
belief of others, before they could take
that inferior ground of defence without a
consciousness of lowering what they were
endeavouring to raise. An argument
for the utility of religion is an appeal
to unbelievers, to induce them to prac
tise a well-meant hypocrisy; or to semi
believers, to make them avert their eyes
from what might possibly shake their
unstable belief; or finally to persons in
general, to abstain from expressing any
doubts they may feel, since a fabric of
immense importance to mankind is so
insecure at its foundations that men
must hold their breath in its neighbour
hood for fear of blowing it down.
In the present period of history, how
ever, we seem to have arrived at a time
when, among the arguments for and
against religion, those which relate to its
usefulness assume an important place.
We are in an age of weak beliefs, and in
which such belief as men have is much
more determined by their wish to be
lieve than by any mental appreciation of
evidence. The wish to believe does not
arise only from selfish, but often from
the most disinterested, feelings; and,
though it cannot produce the unwaver
ing and perfect reliance which once
existed, it fences round all that remains
of the impressions of early education;
it often causes direct misgivings to fade
away by disuse; and, above all, it induces
people to continue laying out their lives,
according to doctrines which have lost
part of their hold on the mind, and
to maintain towards the world the same,
or a rather more demonstrative, attitude
�UTILITY OF RELIGION
of belief than they thought it necessary
to exhibit when their personal conviction
was more complete.
If religious belief be indeed so neces
sary to mankind as we are continually
assured that it is, there is great reason to
lament that the intellectual grounds
of it should require to be backed by
moral bribery or subornation of the
understanding. Such a state of things
is most uncomfortable, even for those
who may, without actual insincerity,
describe themselves as believers; and
still worse as regards those who, having
consciously ceased to find the evidences
of religion convincing, are withheld from
saying so lest they should aid in doing
an irreparable injury to mankind. It is
a most painful position, to a conscien
tious and cultivated mind, to be drawn
in contrary directions by the two noblest
of all objects of pursuit—truth and the
general good. Such a conflict must
inevitably produce a growing indiffer
ence to one or other of these objects,
most probably to both. Many who
could render giant’s service both to
truth and to mankind, if they believed
that they could serve the one without
loss to the other, are either totally para
lysed, or led to confine their exertions to
matters of minor detail, by the apprehen
sion that any real freedom of speculation,
or any considerable strengthening or
enlargement of the thinking faculties of
mankind at large, might, by making
them unbelievers, be the surest way to
render them vicious and miserable.
Many, again, having observed in others
or experienced in themselves elevated
feelings which they imagine incapable of
emanating from any other source than
religion, have an honest aversion to any
thing tending, as they think, to dry up
the fountain of such feelings. They,
35
therefore, either dislike and disparage all
philosophy, or addict themselves with
intolerant zeal to those forms of it in
which intuition usurps the place of
evidence, and internal feeling is made
the test of objective truth. The whole
of the prevalent metaphysics of the
present century is one tissue of suborned
evidence in favour of religion; often of
Deism only, but in any case involving a
misapplication of noble impulses and
speculative capacities, among the most
deplorable of those wretched wastes of
human faculties which make us wonder
that enough is left to keep mankind
progressive, at however slow a pace. It
is time to consider, more impartially
and therefore more deliberately than is
usually done, whether all this training to
prop up beliefs which require so great
an expense of intellectual toil and in
genuity to keep them standing, yields
any sufficient return in human well
being ; and whether that end would not
be better served by a frank recognition
that certain subjects are inaccessible to
our faculties, and by the application of
the same mental powers to the strength
ening and enlargement of those other
sources of virtue and happiness which
stand in no need of the support or
sanction of supernatural beliefs and in
ducements.
Neither, on the other hand, can the
difficulties of the question be so promptly
disposed of as sceptical philosophers are
sometimes inclined to believe. It is not
enough to aver, in general terms, that
there never can be any conflict between
truth and utility; that, if religion be
false, nothing but good can be the conse
quence of rejecting it. For, though the
knowledge of every positive truth is an
useful acquisition, this doctrine cannot
without reservation be applied to negative
�UTILITY OF RELIGION
truth. When the only truth ascertain
able is that nothing can be known, we
do not, by this knowledge, gain any
new fact by which to guide ourselves;
we are, at best, only disabused of our
trust in some former guide-mark, which,
though itself fallacious, may have pointed
in the same direction with the best indi
cations we have, and if it happens to be
more conspicuous and legible, may have
kept us right when they might have been
overlooked. It is, in short, perfectly
conceivable that religion may be morally
useful without being intellectually sus
tainable ; and it would be a proof of
great prejudice in any unbeliever to deny
that there have been ages, and that there
are still both nations and individuals,
with regard to whom this is actually the
case. Whether it is the case generally,
and with reference to the future, it is the
object of this paper to examine. We
propose to inquire whether the belief in
religion, considered as a mere persuasion,
apart from the question of its truth, is
really indispensable to the temporal wel
fare of mankind; whether the usefulness
of the belief is intrinsic and universal,
or local, temporary, and, in some sense,
accidental; and whether the benefits
which it yields might not be obtained
otherwise, without the very large alloy
of evil, by which, even in the best form
of the belief, those benefits are qualified.
With the arguments on one side of
the question we are all familiar : religious
writers have not neglected to celebrate
to the utmost the advantages both of
religion in general and of their own
religious faith in particular. But those
who have held the contrary opinion have
generally contented themselves with in
sisting on the more obvious and flagrant
of the positive evils which have been en
gendered by past and present forms of
I
religious belief. And, in truth, mankind
have been so unremittingly occupied in
doing evil to one another in the name of
religion, from the sacrifice of Iphigenia
to the Dragonnades of Louis XIV. (not
to descend lower), that for any immediate
purpose there was little need to seek
arguments further off. These odious
consequences, however, do not belong to
religion in itself, but to particular forms
of it, and afford no argument against the
usefulness of any religions except those
by which such enormities are encouraged.
Moreover, the worst of these evils are
already in a great measure extirpated
from the more improved forms of
religion; and as mankind advance in
ideas and in feelings, this process of
extirpation continually goes on: the
immoral or otherwise mischievous con
sequences which have been drawn from
religion are, one by one, abandoned,
and, after having been long fought for as
of its very essence, are discovered to be
easily separable from it. These mis
chiefs, indeed, after they are past, though
no longer arguments against religion,
remain valid as large abatements from its
beneficial influence, by showing that
some of the greatest improvements ever
made in the moral sentiments of man
kind have taken place without it and in
spite of it, and that what we are taught
to regard as the chief of all improving in
fluences has in practice fallen so far
short of such a character that one of the
hardest burdens laid upon the other good
influences of human nature has been
that of improving religion itself. The
improvement, however, has taken place;
it is still proceeding, and for the sake of
fairness it should be assumed to be com
plete. We ought to suppose religion to
have accepted the best human morality
which reason and goodness can work out,
�UTILITY OF RELIGION
37
The first question is interesting to
everybody; the latter only to the best;
but to them it is, if there be any differ
ence, the more important of the two.
We shall begin with the former, as being
that which best admits of being easily
brought to a precise issue.
To speak first, then, of religious belief
as an instrument of social good. We
must commence by drawing a distinction
most commonly overlooked. It is usual
to credit religion as such with the whole
of the power inherent in any system of
moral duties inculcated by education and
enforced by opinion. Undoubtedly
mankind would be in a deplorable state
if no principles or precepts of justice,
veracity, beneficence, were taught
publicly or privately, and if these virtues
were not encouraged, and the opposite
vices repressed, by the praise and blame,
the favourable and unfavourable, senti
ments of mankind. And since nearly
everything of this sort which does take
place takes place in the name of religion ;
since almost all who are taught any
morality whatever have it taught to them
as religion, and inculcated on them
through life principally in that character;
the effect which the teaching produces as
teaching, it is supposed to produce as
religious teaching, and religion receives
the credit of all the influence in human
affairs which belongs to any generally
accepted system of rules for the guidance
and government of human life.
Few persons have sufficiently con
sidered how great an influence this is ;
what vast efficacy belongs naturally to
1 Analysis of the Influence ofNatural Religion any doctrine received with tolerable
on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind. By unanimity as true, and impressed on the
Philip Beauchamp. See Autobiography, pp. 69- mind from the earliest childhood as duty.
71. This work, I believe, is really by George
A little reflection will, I think, lead us to
Grote, the Historian of Greece, and friend and
the conclusion that it is this which is the
fellow-student of Mill. He read and analysed
great moral power in human affairs, and
it in the MS. so early as 1822.—II.T.
from philosophical, Christian, or any
other elements. When it has thus freed
itself from the pernicious consequences
which result from its identification with
any bad moral doctrine, the ground is
clear for considering whether its useful
properties are exclusively inherent in it, or
their benefits can be obtained without it.
This essential portion of the inquiry
into the temporal usefulness of religion
is the subject of the present Essay. It
is a part which has been little treated of
by sceptical writers. The only direct
discussion of it with which I am
acquainted is in a short treatise, under
stood to have been partly compiled from
manuscripts of Mr. Bentham,1 and
abounding in just and profound views;
but which, as it appears to me, presses
many parts of the argument too hard.
This treatise, and the incidental remarks
scattered through the writings of M.
Comte, are the only sources known to
me from which anything very pertinent
to the subject can be made available for
the sceptical side of the argument. I
shall use both of them freely in the
sequel of the present discourse.
The inquiry divides itself into two
parts, corresponding to the double aspect
of the subject; its social, and its in
dividual aspect. What does religion do
for society, and what for the individual ?
What amount of benefit to social
interests, in the ordinary sense of the
phrase, arises from religious belief? And
what influence has it in improving and
ennobling individual human nature ?
�UTILITY OF RELIGION
that religion only seems so powerful be
cause this mighty power has been under
its command.
Consider first the enormous influence
of authority on the human mind. I am
now speaking of involuntary influence;
effect on men’s convictions, on their per
suasion, on their involuntary sentiments.
Authority is the evidence on which the
mass of mankind believe everything
which they are said to know, except facts
of which their own senses have taken
cognisance. It is the evidence on which
even the wisest receive all those truths of
science, or facts in history or in life, of
which they have not personally examined
the proofs. Over the immense majority
of human beings the general concurrence
of mankind, in any matter of opinion, is
all-powerful. Whatever is thus certified
to them they believe with a fulness of
assurance which they do not accord even
to the evidence of their senses when the
general opinion of mankind stands in
opposition to it. When, therefore, any
rule of life and duty, whether grounded
or not on religion, has conspicuously re
ceived the general assent, it obtains a
hold on the belief of every individual,
stronger than it would have even if he
had arrived at it by the inherent force of
his own understanding.
If Novalis
could say, not without a real meaning,
4‘ My belief has gained infinitely to me
from the moment when one other human
being has begun to believe the same,”
how much more when it is not one other
person, but all the human beings whom
one knows of. Some may urge it as an
objection, that no scheme of morality has
this universal assent, and that none,
therefore, can be indebted to this source
for whatever power it possesses over the
mind. So far as relates to the present
age, the assertion is true, and strengthens
the argument which it might at first seem
to controvert; for exactly in proportion
as the received systems of belief have
been contested, and it has become known
that they have many dissentients, their
hold on the general belief has been
loosened, and their practical influence on
conduct has declined; and since this
has happened to them, notwithstanding
the religious sanction which attached to
them, there can be no stronger evidence
that they were powerful not as religion,
but as beliefs generally accepted by man
kind. To find people who believe their
religion as a person believes that fire
will burn his hand when thrust into
it, we must seek them in those Oriental
countries where Europeans do not yet
predominate, or in the European world
when it was still universally Catholic.
Men often disobeyed their religion in
those times, because their human
passions and appetites were too strong
for it, or because the religion itself
afforded means of indulgence to breaches
of its obligations; but, though they dis
obeyed, they, for the most part, did not
doubt. There was in those days an
absolute and unquestioning complete
ness of belief, never since general in
Europe.
Such being the empire exercised over
mankind by simple authority, the mere
belief and testimony of their fellow
creatures; consider next how tremendous
is the power of education; how unspeak
able is the effect of bringing people up
from infancy in a belief, and in habits
founded on it. Consider also that in
all countries, and from the earliest ages
down to the present, not merely those
who are called, in a restricted sense of
the term, the educated, but all, or nearly
all, who have been brought up by parents,
or by any one interested in them, have
�UTILITY OF RELIGION
been taught from their earliest years
some kind of religious belief, and some
precepts as the commands of the
heavenly powers to them and to man
kind. And as it cannot be imagined
that the commands of God are to young
children anything more than the com
mands of their parents, it is reasonable
to think that any system of social duty
which mankind might adopt, even though
divorced from religion, would have the
same advantage of being inculcated from
childhood, and would have it hereafter
much more perfectly than any doctrine
has at present, society being far more
disposed than formerly to take pains for
the moral tuition of those numerous
classes whose education it has hitherto
left very much to chance. Now, it is
especially characteristic of the impres
sions of early education that they possess
what it.is so much more difficult for later
convictions to obtain—command over
the feelings. We see daily how powerful
a hold these first impressions retain over
the feelings even of those who have
given up the opinions which they were
early taught. While, on the other hand,
it is only persons of a much higher
degree of natural sensibility and intellect
combined than it is at all common to
meet with, whose feelings entwine them
selves with anything like the same force
round opinions which they have adopted
from their own investigations later in
life; and even when they do, we may
say with truth that it is because the
strong sense of moral duty, the sincerity,
courage, and self-devotion which enabled
them to do so, were themselves the fruits
of early impressions.
The power of education is almost
boundless : there is not one natural in
clination which it is not strong enough to
coerce, and, if needful, to destroy by
39
disuse. In the greatest recorded victory
which education has ever achieved over
a whole host of natural inclinations
in an entire people—the maintenance
through centuries of the institutions of
Lycurgus—it was very little, if even at
all, indebted to religion : for the Gods
of the Spartans were the same as those
of other Greek States; and though, no
doubt, every State of Greece believed
that its particular polity had at its first
establishment some sort of divine sanc
tion (mostly that of the Delphian oracle),
there was seldom any difficulty in obtain
ing the same or an equally powerful
sanction for a change. It was not
religion which formed the strength of
the Spartan institutions : the root of the
system was devotion to Sparta, to the
ideal of the country or State; which,
transformed into ideal devotion to a
greater country, the world, would be
equal to that and far nobler achieve
ments. Among the Greeks generally
social morality was extremely indepen
dent of religion. The inverse relation
was rather that which existed between
them; the worship of the gods was
inculcated chiefly as a social duty, inas
much as, if they were neglected or
insulted, it was believed that their dis
pleasure would fall not more upon the
offending individual than upon the State
or community which bred and tolerated
him. Such moral teaching as existed in
Greece had very little to do with religion.
The gods were not supposed to concern
themselves much with men’s conduct to
one another, except when men had con
trived to make the gods themselves an
interested party, by placing an assertion
or an engagement under the sanction of a
solemn appeal to them, by oath or vow.
I grant that the sophists and philoso
phers, and even popular orators, did
�40
UTILITY OF RELIGION
their best to press religion into the
service of their special objects, and to
make it be thought that the sentiments
of whatever kind, which they were
engaged in inculcating, were particularly
acceptable to the gods; but this never
seems the primary consideration in any
case save those of direct offence to the
dignity of the gods themselves. For
the enforcement of human moralities
secular inducements were almost exclu
sively relied on. The case of Greece is,
I believe, the only one in which any
teaching, other than religious, has had
the unspeakable advantage of forming
the basis of education; and though
much may be said against the quality of
some part of the teaching, very little can
be said against its effectiveness. The
most memorable example of the power
of education over conduct is afforded
(as I have just remarked) by this excep
tional case; constituting a strong pre
sumption that in .other cases early
religious teaching has owed its power
over mankind rather to its being early
than to its being religious.
We have now considered two powers,
that of authority and that of early educa
tion, which operate through men’s in
voluntary beliefs, feelings, and desires,
and which religion has hitherto held
as its almost exclusive appanage. Let
us now consider a third power which
operates directly on their actions, whether
their involuntary sentiments are carried
with it or not. This is the power of
public opinion; of the praise and blame,
the favour and disfavour, of their fellow
creatures; and is a source of strength
inherent in any system of moral belief
which is generally adopted, whether con
nected with religion or not.
Men are so much accustomed to give
to the motives that decide their actions
more flattering names than justly belong
to them that they are generally quite un
conscious how much those parts of their
conduct which they most pride them
selves on (as well as some which they
are ashamed of) are determined by the
motive of public opinion. Of course,
public opinion for the most part enjoins
the same things which are enjoined by
the received social morality; that
morality being, in truth, the summary of
the conduct which each one of the
multitude, whether he himself observes
it with any strictness or not, desires that
others should observe towards him.
People are therefore easily able to flatter
themselves that they are acting from the
motive of conscience when they are
doing in obedience to the inferior motive
things which their conscience approves.
We continually see how great is the
power of opinion in opposition to con
science; how men “follow a multitude
to do evil ”; how often opinion induces
them to do what their conscience dis
approves, and still oftener prevents them
from doing what it commands. But
when the motive of public opinion acts
in the same direction with conscience,
which, since it has usually itself made the
conscience in the first instance, it for the
most part naturally does; it is then, of
all motives which operate on the bulk of
mankind, the most overpowering.
The names of all the strongest passions
(except the merely animal ones) mani
fested by human nature are each of them
a name for some one part only of the
motive derived from what I here call
public opinion. The love of glory ; the
love of praise; the love of admiration ;
the love of respect and deference ; even
the love of sympathy, are portions of its
attractive power. Vanity is a vituperative
name for its attractive influence generally,
�UTILITY OF RELIGION
when considered excessive in degree.
The fear of shame, the dread of ill repute
or of being disliked or hated, are the
direct and simple forms of its deterring
power. But the deterring force of the
unfavourable sentiments of mankind
does not consist solely in the painfulness
of knowing oneself to be the object of
those sentiments; it includes all the
penalties which they can inflict: ex
clusion from social intercourse and from
the innumerable good offices which
human beings require from one another;
the forfeiture of all that is called success
in life; often the great diminution or
total loss of means of subsistence;
positive ill offices of various kinds,
sufficient to render life miserable, and
reaching in some states of society as far
as actual persecution to death. And
again the attractive or impelling influ
ence of public opinion includes the
whole range of what is commonly meant
by ambition ; for, except in times of law
less military violence, the objects of
social ambition can be attained only by
means of the good opinion and favour
able disposition of our fellow-creatures;
now, in nine cases out of ten, would
those objects be even desired were it not
for the power they confer over the senti
ments of mankind. Even the pleasure
of self-approbation, in the great majority,
is mainly dependent on the opinion of
others. Such is the involuntary influence
of authority on ordinary minds that per
sons must be of a better than ordinary
mould to be capable of a full assurance
that they are in the right, when the world
—that is, when their world—thinks them
wrong ; nor is there, to most men, any
proof so demonstrative of their own
virtue or talent as that people in general
seem to believe in it. Through all depart
ments of human affairs regard for the
4’
sentiments of our fellow-creatures is in
one shape or other, in nearly all
characters, the pervading motive. And
we ought to note that this motive is
naturally strongest in the most sensitive
natures, which are the most promising
material for the formation of great virtues.
How far its power reaches is known by
too familiar experience to require either
proof or illustration here. When once
the means of living have been obtained,
the far greater part of the remaining
labour and effort which takes place on
the earth has for its object to acquire
the respect or the favourable regard of
mankind; to be looked up to, or at all
events not to be looked down upon, by
them. The industrial and commercial
activity which advances civilisation, the
frivolity, prodigality, and selfish thirst of
aggrandisement which retard it, flow
equally from that source. While, as an
instance of the power exercised by the
terrors derived from public opinion, we
know how many murders have been
committed merely to remove a witness
who knew and was likely to disclose
some secret that would bring disgrace
upon his murderer.
Any one who fairly and impartially
considers the subject will see reason to
believe that those great effects on human
conduct which are commonly ascribed
to motives derived directly from religion
have mostly for their proximate cause the
influence of human opinion. Religion
has been powerful not by its intrinsic
force, but because it has wielded that
additional and more mighty power. The
effect of religion has been immense in
giving a direction to public opinion ;
which has, in many most important
respects, been wholly determined by it.
But without the sanctions superadded by
public opinion its own proper sanctions
�42
UTILITY OF RELIGION
have never, save in exceptional charac
ters, or in peculiar moods of mind,
exercised a very potent influence, after
the times had gone by, in which divine
agency was supposed habitually to
employ temporal rewards and punish
ments. When a man firmly believed
that, if he violated the sacredness of a
particular sanctuary, he would be struck
dead on the spot, or smitten suddenly
with a mortal disease, he doubtless took
care not to incur the penalty ; but when
any one had had the courage to defy the
danger, and escaped with impunity, the
spell was broken. If ever any people
were taught that they were under a
divine government, and that unfaithful
ness to their religion and law would be
visited from above with temporal
chastisements, the Jews were so. Yet
their history was a mere succession of
lapses into Paganism. Their prophets
and historians, who held fast to the
ancient beliefs (though they gave them
so liberal an interpretation as to think it
a sufficient manifestation of God’s dis
pleasure towards a king if any evil
happened to his great grandson), never
ceased to complain that their countrymen
turned a deaf ear to their vaticinations ;
and hence, with the faith they held in a
divine government operating by temporal
penalties, they could not fail to anticipate
(as Mirabeau’s father, without such
prompting, was able to do on the eve of
the French Revolution) laculbutegenerate;
an expectation which, luckily for the
credit of their, prophetic powers, was
fulfilled; unlike that of the Apostle John,
who, in the only intelligible prophecy in
the Revelations, foretold to the city of
the seven hills a fate like that of Nineveh
and Babylon; which prediction remains
to this hour unaccomplished. Unques
tionably the conviction which experience
in time forced on all but the very
ignorant, that divine punishments were
not to be confidently expected in a tem
poral form, contributed much to the
downfall of the old religions, and the
general adoption of one which, without
absolutely excluding providential inter
ferences in this life for the punishment
of guilt or the reward of merit, removed
the principal scene of divine retribution
to a world after death. But rewards and
punishments postponed to that distance
of time, and never seen by the eye, are
not calculated, even when infinite and
eternal, to have, on ordinary minds, a
very powerful effect in opposition to
strong temptation. Their remoteness
alone is a prodigious deduction from
their efficacy on such minds as those
which most require the restraint of
punishment. A still greater abatement
is their uncertainty, which belongs to
them from the very nature of the case :
for rewards and punishments adminis
tered after death must be awarded not
definitely to particular actions, but on a
general survey of the person’s whole life,
and he easily persuades himself that,
whatever may have been his peccadilloes,
there will be a balance in his favour at
the last. All positive religions aid this
self-delusion. Bad religions teach that
divine vengeance may be bought off by
offerings or personal abasement; the
better religions, not to drive sinners to
despair, dwell so much on the divine
mercy that hardly any one is compelled
to think himself irrevocably condemned.
The sole quality in these punishments
which might seem calculated to make
them efficacious, their overpowering mag
nitude, is itself a reason why nobody
(except a hypochondriac here and there)
ever really believes that he is in any very
serious danger of incurring them. Even
�UTILITY OF RELIGION
the worst malefactor is hardly able to
think that any crime he lias had it in his
power to commit, any evil he can have
inflicted in this short space of existence,
can have deserved torture extending
through an eternity. Accordingly, re
ligious writers and preachers are never
tired of complaining how little effect
religious motives have on men’s lives and
conduct, notwithstanding the tremendous
penalties denounced.
Mr. Bentham, whom I have already
mentioned as one of the few authors
who have written anything to the purpose
on the efficacy of the religious sanction,
adduces several cases to prove that
religious obligation, when not enforced
by public opinion, produces scarcely any
effect on conduct. His first example is
that of oaths. The oaths taken in courts
of justice, and any others which, from
the manifest importance to society of
their being kept, public opinion rigidly
enforces, are felt as real and binding
obligations. But university oaths and
custom-house oaths, though in a religious
point of view equally obligatory, are in
practice utterly disregarded even by men
in other respects honourable. The uni
versity oath to obey the statutes has
been for centuries, with universal acquies
cence, set at nought; and utterly false
statements are (or used to be) daily and
unblushingly sworn to at the Custom
house by persons as attentive as other
people to all the ordinary obligations of
life—the explanation being that veracity
in these cases was not enforced by
public opinion. The second case which
Bentham cites is duelling; a practice
now in this country obsolete, but in full
vigour in several other Christian coun
tries ; deemed and admitted to be a sin
by almost all who, nevertheless, in obedi
ence to opinion, and to escape from
43
personal humiliation, are guilty of it.
The third case is that of illicit sexual
intercourse, which in both sexes stands
in the very highest rank of religious sins,
yet, not being severely censured by
opinion in the male sex, they have in
general very little scruple in committing
it; while in the case of women, though
the religious obligation is not stronger,
yet, being backed in real earnest by
public opinion, it is commonly effectual.
Some objection may doubtless be
taken to Bentham’s instances, considered
as crucial experiments on the power of
the religious sanction; for (it may be
said) people do not really believe that in
these cases they shall be punished by
God, any more than by man. And this
is certainly true in the case of those
university and other oaths, which are
habitually taken without any intention of
keeping them. The oath, in these
cases, is regarded as a mere formality,
destitute of any serious meaning in the
sight of the Deity; and the most scrupu
lous person, even if he does reproach
himself for having taken an oath which
nobody deems fit to be kept, does not in
his conscience tax himself with the guilt
of perjury, but only with the profanation
of a ceremony. This, therefore, is not a
good example of the weakness of the
religious motive when divorced from
that of human opinion. The point
which it illustrates is rather the tendency
of the one motive to come and go with
the other, so that, where the penalties of
public opinion cease, the religious motive
ceases also. The same criticism, how
ever, is not equally applicable to Ben
tham’s other examples—duelling and
sexual irregularities. Those who do
these acts—the first by the command of
public opinion, the latter with its indul
gence—really do, in most cases, believe
�44
UTILITY OF RELIGION
that they are offending God. Doubtless,
they do not think that they are offending
him in such a degree as very seriously to
endanger their salvation. Their reliance
on his mercy prevails over their dread of
his resentment: affording an exemplifica
tion of the remark already made, that
the unavoidable uncertainty of religious
penalties makes them feeble as a
deterring motive. They are so, even in
the case of acts which human opinion
condemns ; much more with those to
which it is indulgent. What mankind
think venial, it is hardly ever supposed
that God looks upon in a serious light;
at least by those who feel in themselves
any inclination to practise it.
I do not for a moment think of deny
ing that there are states of mind in which
the idea of religious punishment acts
with the most overwhelming force. In
hypochondriacal disease, and in those
with whom, from great disappointments
or other moral causes, the thoughts and
imagination have assumed an habitually
melancholy complexion, that topic,
falling in with the pre-existing tendency
of the mind, supplies images well fitted
to drive the unfortunate sufferer even to
madness. Often, during a temporary
state of depression, these ideas take such
a hold of the mind as to give a per
manent turn to the character ; being the
most common case of what, in sectarian
phraseology, is called conversion. But
if the depressed state ceases after the
conversion, as it commonly does, and
the convert does not relapse, but per
severes in his new course of life, the
principal difference between it and the
old is usually found to be that the man
now guides his life by the public opinion
of his religious associates, as he before
guided it by that of the profane world.
At all events, there is one clear proof how
little the generality of mankind, either
religious or worldly, really dread eternal
punishments, when we see how, even at
the approach of death, when the remote
ness which took so much from their
effect has been exchanged for the closest
proximity, almost all persons who have
not been guilty of some enormous crime
(and many who have) are quite free from
uneasiness as to their prospects in
another world, and never for a moment
seem to think themselves in any real
danger of eternal punishment.
With regard to the cruel deaths and
bodily tortures which confessors and
martyrs have so often undergone for the
sake of religion, I would not depreciate
them by attributing any part of this
admirable courage and constancy to the
influence of human opinion. Human
opinion, indeed, has shown itself quite
equal to the production of similar firm
ness in persons not otherwise distin
guished by moral excellence ; such as
the North American Indian at the stake.
But if it was not the thought of glory in
the eyes of their fellow-religionists which
upheld these heroic sufferers in their
agony, as little do I believe that it was,
generally speaking, that of the pleasures
of heaven or the pains of hell. Their
impulse was a divine enthusiasm—a self
forgetting devotion to an idea : a state of
exalted feeling, by no means peculiar
to religion, but which it is the privilege
of every great cause to inspire; a
phenomenon belonging to the critical
moments of existence, not to the ordi
nary play of human motives, and from
which nothing can be inferred as to the
efficacy of the ideas which it sprung
from, whether religious or any other, in
overcoming ordinary temptations and
regulating the course of daily life.
We may now have done with this
�UTILITY OF RELIGION
branch of the subject, which is, after all,
the vulgarest part of it. The value of
religion as a supplement to human laws,
a more cunning sort of police, an
auxiliary to the thief-catcher and the
hangman, is not that part of its claims
which the more high-minded of its
votaries are fondest of insisting on ; and
they would probably be as ready as any
one to admit that, if the nobler offices
of religion in the soul could be dispensed
with, a substitute might be found for so
coarse and selfish a social instrument as
the fear of hell. In their view of the
matter, the best of mankind absolutely
require religion for the perfection of their
own character, even though the coercion
of the worst might possibly be accom
plished without its aid.
Even in the social point of view, how
ever, under its most elevated aspect,
these nobler spirits generally assert the
necessity of religion, as a teacher, if not
as an enforcer, of social morality. They
say that religion alone can teach us what
morality is; that all the high morality
ever recognised by mankind was learnt
from religion; that the greatest unin
spired philosophers in their sublimest
flights stopped far short of the Christian
morality, and, whatever inferior morality
they may have attained to (by the assist
ance, as many think, of dim traditions
derived from the Hebrew books, or from
a primaeval revelation), they never could
induce the common mass of their fellow
citizens to accept it from them. That
only when a morality is understood to
come from the gods do men in general
adopt it, rally round it, and lend their
human sanctions for its enforcement.
That, granting the sufficiency of human
motives to make the rule obeyed, were it
not for the religious idea we should not
have had the rule itself.
45
There is truth in much of this, con
sidered as matter of history. Ancient
peoples have generally, if not always,
received their morals, their laws, their
intellectual beliefs, and even their prac
tical arts of life, all in short which tended
either to guide or to discipline them, as
revelations from the superior powers, and
in any other way could not easily have
been induced to accept them. This
was partly the effect of their hopes and
fears from those powers, which were of
much greater and more universal potency
in early times, when the agency of the
gods was seen in the daily events of life,
experience not having yet disclosed the
fixed laws according to which physical
phenomena succeed one another. In
dependently, too, of personal hopes and
fears, the involuntary deference felt by
these rude minds for power superior to
their own, and the tendency to suppose
that beings of superhuman power must
also be of superhuman knowledge and
wisdom, made them disinterestedly desire
to conform their conduct to the pre
sumed preferences of these powerful
beings, and to adopt no new practice
without their authorisation either spon
taneously given, or solicited and ob
tained.
But because, when men were still
savages, they would not have received
either moral or scientific truths unless
they had supposed them to be supernaturally imparted, does it follow that
they would now give up moral truths any
more than scientific because they be
lieved them to have no higher origin than
wise and noble human hearts ? Are not
moral truths strong enough in their own
evidence, at all events to retain the belief
of mankind when once they have
acquired it ? I grant that some of the
precepts of Christ as exhibited in the
�46
UTILITY OF RELIGION
Gospels—rising far above the Paulism
which is the foundation of ordinary
Christianity—carry some kinds of moral
goodness to a greater height than had
ever been attained before, though much
even of what is supposed to be peculiar
to them is equalled in the meditations of
Marcus Antoninus, which we have no
ground for believing to have been in any
way indebted to Christianity. But this
benefit, whatever it amounts to, has been
gained. Mankind have entered into the
possession of it. It has become the
property of humanity, and cannot now
be lost by anything short of a return to
primaeval barbarism. The “ new com
mandment to love one another”/ the
recognition that the greatest are those
who serve, not who are served by,
others; the reverence for the weak and
humble, which is the foundation of
chivalry, they and not the strong being
pointed out as having the first place in
God’s regard, and the first claim on their
fellow-men; the lesson of the parable of
the Good Samaritan; that of “he that
is without sin let him throw the first
stone”; the precept of doing as we
would be done by; and such other
noble moralities as are to be found,
mixed with some poetical exaggerations,
and some maxims of which it is difficult
to ascertain the precise object; in the
authentic sayings of Jesus of Nazareth :
these are surely in sufficient harmony
with the intellect and feelings of every
good man or woman to be in no danger
of being let go, after having been once
acknowledged as the creed of the best
1 Not, however, a new commandment. In
justice to the great Hebrew lawgiver, it should
always be remembered that the precept, to love
thy neighbour as thyself, already existed in the
Pentateuch ; and very surprising it is to find it
there. (See John xiii. 34, Levit. xix. 18.)
and foremost portion of our species.
There will be, as there have been, short
comings enough for a long time to come
in acting on them ; but that they should
be forgotten, or cease to be operative on
the human conscience, while human
beings remain cultivated or civilised,
may be pronounced, once for all, im
possible.
On the other hand, there is a very real
evil consequent on ascribing a super
natural origin to the received maxims of
morality. That origin consecrates the
whole of them, and protects them from
being discussed or criticised. So that if,
among the moral doctrines received as a
part of religion, there be any which are
imperfect—which were either erroneous
from the first, or not properly limited and
guarded in the expression, or which, un
exceptionable once, are no longer suited
to the changes that have taken place in
human relations (and it is my firm belief
that in so-called Christian morality
instances of all these kinds are to be
found), these doctrines are considered
equally binding on the conscience with
the noblest, most permanent, and most
universal precepts of Christ. Wherever
morality is supposed to be of supernatural
origin, morality is stereotyped; as law is,
for the same reason, among believers in
the Koran.
Belief, then, in the supernatural, great
as are the services which it rendered in
the early stages of human development,
cannot be considered to be any longer
required, either for enabling us to know
what is right and wrong, in social
morality, or for supplying us with motives
to do right and to abstain from wrong.
Such belief, therefore, is not necessary
for social purposes, at least in the coarse
way in which these can be considered
apart from the character of the individual
�UTILITY OF RELIGION
human being. That more elevated
branch of the subject now remains to be
considered. If supernatural beliefs are
indeed necessary to the perfection of the
individual character, they are necessary
also to the highest excellence in social
conduct: necessary in a far higher sense
than that vulgar one which constitutes
it the great support of morality in
common eyes.
Let us, then, consider what it is in
human nature which causes it to require
a religion; what wants of the human
mind religion supplies, and what qualities
it developes. When we have understood
this, we shall be better able to judge
how far these wants can be otherwise
supplied, and those qualities, or qualities
equivalent to them, unfolded and brought
to perfection by other means.
The old saying, Primus in orbe Deos
fecit timor, I hold to be untrue, or to con
tain, at most, only a small amount of truth.
Belief in gods had, I conceive, even in
the rudest minds, a more honourable
origin. Its universality has been very
rationally explained from the spon
taneous tendency of the mind to attribute
life and volition, similar to what it feels
in itself, to all natural objects and
phenomena which appear to be self
moving. This was a plausible fancy, and
no better theory could be formed at first.
It was naturally persisted in so long as
the motions and operations of these
objects seemed to be arbitrary, and in
capable of being accounted for but by
the free choice of the Power itself. At
first, no doubt, the objects themselves
were supposed to be alive; and this
belief still subsists among African fetish
worshippers. But as it must soon have
appeared absurd that things which could
do so much more than man, could not or
would not do what man does, as for
47
example to speak, the transition was
made to supposing that the object pre
sent to the senses was inanimate, but
was the creature and instrument of an
invisible being with a form and organs
similar to the human.
These beings having first been be
lieved in, fear of them necessarily
followed ; since they were thought able
to inflict at pleasure on human beings
great evils, which the sufferers neither
knew how to avert nor to foresee, but
were left dependent, for their chances of
doing either, upon solicitations addressed
to the deities themselves. It is true,
therefore, that fear had much to do with
religion; but belief in the gods evidently
preceded, and did not arise from, fear:
though the fear, when established, was
a strong support to the belief, nothing
being conceived to be so great an offence
to the divinities as any doubt of their
existence.
It is unnecessary to prosecute further
the natural history of religion, as we
have not here to account for its origin in
rude minds, but for its persistency in the
cultivated. A sufficient explanation of
this will, I conceive, be found in the
small limits of man’s certain knowledge
and the boundlessness of his desire to
know. Human existence is girt round
with mystery: the narrow region of our
experience is a small island in the midst
of a boundless sea, which at once awes
our feelings and stimulates our imagina
tion by its vastness and its obscurity.
To add to the mystery, the domain of
our earthly existence is not only an
island in infinite space, but also in
infinite time. The past and the future
are alike shrouded from us : we neither
know the origin of anything which is nor
its final destination. If we feel deeply
interested in knowing that there are
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UTILITY OF RELIGION
myriads of worlds at an immeasurable,
and to our faculties inconceivable, dis
tance from us in space; if we are eager
to discover what little we can about
these worlds, and when we cannot know
what they are, can never satiate our
selves with speculating on what they may
be; is it not a matter of far deeper inte
rest to us to learn, or even to conjecture,
from whence came this nearer world
which we inhabit—what cause or agency
made it what it is, and on what powers
depends its future fate ? Who would not
desire this more ardently than any other
conceivable knowledge, so long as there
appeared the slightest hope of attaining
it ? What would not one give for any
credible tidings from that mysterious
region, any glimpse into it which might
enable us to see the smallest light
through its darkness, especially any
theory of it which we could believe, and
which represented it as tenanted by a
benignant and not a hostile influence?
But since we are able to penetrate into
that region with the imagination only,
assisted by specious but inconclusive
analogies derived from human agency
and design, imagination is free to fill up
the vacancy with the imagery most con
genial to itself; sublime and elevating if
it be a lofty imagination, low and mean
if it be a grovelling one.
Religion and poetry address them
selves, at least in one of their aspects, to
the same part of the human constitution:
they both supply the same want, that of
ideal conceptions grander and more
beautiful than we see realised in the
prose of human life. Religion, as dis
tinguished from poetry, is the product
of the craving to know whether these
imaginative conceptions have realities
answering to them in some other world
than ours. The mind, in this stage,
eagerly catches at any rumours respect
ing other worlds, especially when de
livered by persons whom it deems wiser
than itself. To the poetry of the super
natural comes to be thus added a
positive belief and expectation, which
unpoetical minds can share with the
poetical. Belief in a god or gods, and
in a life after death, becomes the canvas
which every mind, according to its
capacity, covers with such ideal pictures
as it can either invent or copy. In that
other life each hopes to find the good
which he has failed to find on earth, or
the better which is suggested to him by
the good which on earth he has partially
seen and known. More especially, this
belief supplies the finer minds with
material for conceptions of beings more
awful than they can have known on
earth, and more excellent than they
probably have known. So long as human
life is insufficient to satisfy human aspira
tions, so long there will be a craving for
higher things, which finds its most
obvious satisfaction in religion. So long
as earthly life is full of sufferings, so long
there will be need of consolations, which
the hope of heaven affords to the selfish,
the love of God to the tender and
grateful.
The value, therefore, of religion to the
individual, both in the past and present,
as a source of personal satisfaction and
of elevated feelings, is not to be dis
puted. But it has still to be considered
whether, in order to obtain this good, it
is necessary to travel beyond the boun
daries of the world which we inhabit;
or whether the idealisation of our earthly
life, the cultivation of a high conception
of what it may be made, is not capable
of supplying a poetry, and, in the best
sense of the word, a religion, equally
fitted to exalt the feelings, and (with the
�UTILITY OF RELIGION
same aid from education) still better
calculated to ennoble the conduct, than
any belief respecting the unseen powers.
At the bare suggestion of such a possi
bility, many will exclaim that the short
duration, the smallness and insignificance
of life, if there is no prolongation of it
beyond what we see, makes it impossible
that great and elevated feelings can con
nect themselves with anything laid out
on so small a scale : that such a concep
tion of life can match with nothing
higher than Epicurean feelings, and the
Epicurean doctrine, “ Let us eat and
drink, for to-morrow we die.”
Unquestionably, within certain limits,
the maxim of the Epicureans is sound,
and applicable to much higher things
than eating and drinking. To make
the most of the present for all good
purposes, those of enjoyment among the
rest; to keep under control those mental
dispositions which lead to undue sacri
fice of present good for a future which
may never arrive; to cultivate the habit
of deriving pleasure from things within
our reach, rather than from the too eager
pursuit of objects at a distance; to think
all time wasted which is not spent either
in personal pleasure or in doing things
useful to oneself or others: these are
wise maxims, and the “carpe diem” doc
trine, carried thus far, is a rational and
legitimate corollary from the shortness of
life. But that because life is short we
should care for nothing beyond it, is not
a legitimate conclusion; and the supposi
tion, that human beings in general are
not capable of feeling deep, and even the
deepest, interest in things which they will
never live to see, is a view of human
nature as false as it is abject. Let it be
remembered that, if individual life is
short, the life of the human species is
not short; its indefinite duration is
49
practically equivalent to endlessness; and,
being combined with indefinite capability
of improvement, it offers to the imagina
tion and sympathies a large enough
object to satisfy any reasonable demand
for grandeur of aspiration. If such an
object appears small to a mind accus
tomed to dream of infinite and eternal
beatitudes, it will expand into far other
dimensions when those baseless fancies
shall have receded into the past.
Nor let it be thought that only the
more eminent of our species, in mind
and heart, are capable of identifying their
feelings with the entire life of the human
race. This noble capability implies, in
deed, a certain cultivation, but not
superior to that which might be, and
certainly will be if human improvement
continues, the lot of all. Objects far
smaller than this, and equally confined
within the limits of the earth (though
not within those of a single human life),
have been found sufficient to inspire
large masses and long successions of
mankind with an enthusiasm capable of
ruling the conduct and colouring the
whole life. Rome was to the entire
Roman people for many generations as
much a religion as Jehovah was to the
Jews; nay, much more, for they never
fell off from their worship as the Jews
did from theirs. And the Romans,
otherwise a selfish people, with no very
remarkable faculties of any kind except
the purely practical, derived, nevertheless,
from this one idea a certain greatness of
soul, which manifests itself in all their
history where that idea is concerned and
nowhere else, and has earned for them
the large share of admiration, in other
respects not at all deserved, which has
been felt for them by most noble-minded
persons from that time to this.
When we consider how ardent a
E
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UTILITY OF RELIGION
sentiment, in favourable circumstances
of education, the love of country has
become, we cannot judge it impossible
that the love of that larger country, the
world, may be nursed into similar
strength, both as a source of elevated
emotion and as a principle of duty. He
who needs any other lesson on this sub
ject than the whole course of ancient
history affords, let him read Cicero de
Officiis. It cannot be said that the
standard of morals laid down in that
celebrated treatise is a high standard.
To our notions it is on many points un
duly lax, and admits capitulations of
conscience. But on the subject of duty
to our country there is no compromise.
That any man with the smallest pre
tensions to virtue could hesitate to sacri
fice life, reputation, family, everything
valuable to him, to the love of country is
a supposition which this eminent inter
preter of Greek and Roman morality
cannot entertain for a moment. If, then,
persons could be trained, as we see they
were, not only to believe in theory that
the good of their country was an object
to which all others ought to yield, but to
feel this practically as the grand duty of
life, so also may they be made to feel the
same absolute obligation towards the
universal good. A morality grounded
on large and wise views of the good of
the whole, neither sacrificing the in
dividual to the aggregate nor the
aggregate to the individual, but giving
to duty on the one hand and to freedom
and spontaneity on the other their proper
province, would derive its power in the
superior natures from sympathy and
benevolence and the passion for ideal
excellence: in the inferior, from the
same feelings cultivated up to the
measure of their capacity, with the super
added force of shame. This exalted
morality would not depend for its
ascendancy on any hope of reward ; but
the reward which might be looked for,
and the thought of which would be a
consolation in suffering, and a support in
moments of weakness, would not be a
problematical future existence, but the
approbation, in this, of those whom we
respect, and ideally of all those, dead or
living, whom we admire or venerate.
For the thought that our dead parents
or friends would have approved our con
duct is a scarcely less powerful motive
than the knowledge that our living ones
do approve it; and the idea that
Socrates, or Howard, or Washington, or
Antoninus, or Christ, would have sympa
thised with us, or that we are attempting
to do our part in the spirit in which they
did theirs, has operated on the very best
minds, as a strong incentive to act up to
their highest feelings and convictions.
To call these sentiments by the name
morality, exclusively of any other title, is
claiming too little for them. They are a
real religion; of which, as of other
religions, outward good works (the ut
most meaning usually suggested by the
word “morality”) are only a part, and are
indeed rather the fruits of the religion
than the religion itself. The essence of
religion is the strong and earnest direction
of the emotions and desires towards an
ideal object, recognised as of the highest
excellence, and as rightfully paramount
over all selfish objects of desire. This
condition is fulfilled by the Religion of
Humanity in as eminent a degree, and
in as high a sense, as by the supernatural
religions even in their best manifesta
tions, and far more so than in any of
their others.
Much more might be added on this
topic; but enough has been said to con
vince any one, who can distinguish
�UTILITY OF RELIGION
between the intrinsic capacities of human
nature and the forms in which those
capacities happen to have been histori
cally developed, that the sense of unity
with mankind, and a deep feeling for the
general good, may be cultivated into a
sentiment and a principle capable of ful
filling every important function of religion
and itself justly entitled to the name. I
will now further maintain that it is not
only capable of fulfilling these functions,
but would fulfil them better than any
form whatever of supernaturalism. It is
not only entitled to be called a religion :
it is a better religion than any of those
which are ordinarily called by that title.
For, in the first place, it is dis
interested. It carries the thoughts and
feelings out of self, and fixes them on an
unselfish object, loved and pursued as an
end for its own sake. The religions
which deal in promises and threats
regarding a future life do exactly the
contrary : they fasten down the thoughts
to the person’s own posthumous interests;
they tempt him to regard the perfor
mance of his duties to others mainly as
a means to his own personal salvation;
and are one of the most serious obstacles
to the great purpose of moral culture,
the strengthening of the unselfish and
weakening of the selfish element in our
nature; since they hold out to the
imagination selfish good and evil of such
tremendous magnitude that it is difficult
for any one who fully believes in their
reality to have feeling or interest to spare
for any other distant and ideal object.
It is true, many of the most unselfish of
mankind have been believers in super
naturalism, because their minds have not
dwelt on the threats and promises of
their religion, but chiefly on the idea of
a Being to whom they looked up with a
confiding love, and in whose hands they
5i
willingly left all that related especially to
themselves. Butin its effect on common
minds, what now goes by the name of
religion operates mainly through the
feelings of self-interest. Even the Christ
of the Gospel holds out the direct
promise of reward from heaven as a
primary inducement to the noble and
beautiful beneficence towards our fellow
creatures which he so impressively incul
cates. This is a radical inferiority of
the best supernatural religions, compared
with the Religion of Humanity, since
the greatest thing which moral influences
can do for the amelioration of human
nature is to cultivate the unselfish feel
ings in the only mode in which any
active principle in human nature can be
effectually cultivated—namely, by habitual
exercise; but the habit of expecting to
be rewarded in another life for our con
duct in this makes even virtue itself no
longer an exercise of the unselfish
feelings.
Secondly, it is an immense abate
ment from the worth of the old religions
as means of elevating and improving
human character, that it is nearly, if not
quite, impossible for them to produce
their best moral effects, unless we sup
pose a certain torpidity, if not positive
twist, in the intellectual faculties. For it
is impossible that any one who habitually
thinks, and who is unable to blunt his
inquiring intellect by sophistry, should
be able without misgiving to go on
ascribing absolute perfection to the
author and ruler of so clumsily made
and capriciously governed a creation as
this planet and the life of its inhabitants.
1 he adoration of such a being cannot be
with the whole heart, unless the heart
is first considerably sophisticated. The
worship must either be greatly over
clouded by doubt, and occasionally quite
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UTILITY OF RELIGION
darkened by it, or the moral sentiments
must sink to the low level of the ordi
nances of Nature : the worshipper must
learn to think blind partiality, atrocious
cruelty, and reckless injustice, not
blemishes in an object of worship, since
all these abound to excess in the com
monest phenomena of Nature. It is
true, the God who is worshipped is not,
generally speaking, the God of Nature
only, but also the God of some revela
tion ; and the character of the revelation
will greatly modify and, it may be,
improve the moral influences of the
religion. This is emphatically true of
Christianity; since the Author of the
Sermon on the Mount is assuredly a far
more benignant Being than the Author
of Nature. But, unfortunately, the be
liever in the Christian revelation is
obliged to believe that the same Being
is the author of both. This, unless he
resolutely averts his mind from the
subject, or practises the act of quieting
his conscience by sophistry, involves
him in moral perplexities without end;
since the ways of his Deity in Nature
are on many occasions totally at variance
with the precepts, as he believes, of the
same Deity in the Gospel. He who
comes out with least moral damage from
this embarrassment is probably the one
who never attempts to reconcile the two
standards with one another, but con
fesses to himself that the purposes of
Providence are mysterious, that its ways
are not our ways, that its justice and
goodness are not the justice and good
ness which we can conceive and which
it befits us to practise. When, however,
this is the feeling of the believer, the
worship of the Deity ceases to be the
adoration of abstract moral perfection.
It becomes the bowing down to a
gigantic image of something not fit for
us to imitate. It is the worship of power
only.
I say nothing of the moral difficulties
and perversions involved in revelation
itself; though even in the Christianity
of the Gospels, at least in its ordinary
interpretation, there are some of so
flagrant a character as almost to out
weigh all the beauty and benignity and
moral greatness which so eminently dis
tinguish the sayings and character of
Christ. The recognition, for example,
of the object of highest worship in a
being who could make a hell, and who
could create countless generations of
human beings with the certain fore
knowledge that he was creating them for
this fate. Is there any moral enormity
which might not be justified by imita
tion of such a Deity ? And is it possible
to adore such a one without a frightful
distortion of the standard of right and
wrong ? Any other of the outrages to
the most ordinary justice and humanity
involved in the common Christian con
ception of the moral character of God
sinks into insignificance beside this
dreadful idealisation of wickedness.
Most of them, too, are happily not so
unequivocally deducible from the very
words of Christ as to be indisputably a
part of Christian doctrine. It may be
doubted, for instance, whether Chris
tianity is really responsible for atone
ment and redemption, original sin and
vicarious punishment: and the same may
be said respecting the doctrine which
makes belief in the divine mission of
Christ a necessary condition of salvation.
It is nowhere represented that Christ
himself made this statement, except in
the huddled-up account of the Resurrec
tion contained in the concluding verses
of St. Mark, which some critics (I believe
the best) consider to be an interpolation.
�UTILITY OF RELIGION
Again, the proposition that “ the powers
that be are ordained of God,” and the
whole series of corollaries deduced
from it in the Epistles, belong to St.
Paul, and must stand or fall with
Paulism, not with Christianity. But
there is one moral contradiction insepar
able from every form of Christianity,
which no ingenuity ca.i resolve, and no
sophistry explain away. It is, that so
precious a gift, bestowed on a few,
should have been withheld from the
many; that countless millions of human
beings should have been allowed to live
and die, to sin and suffer, without the
one thing needful^ the divine remedy for
sin and suffering, which it would have
cost the Divine Giver as little to have
vouchsafed to all as to have bestowed
by special grace upon a favoured
minority. Add to this that the divine
message, assuming it to be such, has
been authenticated by credentials so in
sufficient that they fail to convince a
large proportion of the strongest and
cultivated minds, and the tendency to
disbelieve them appears to grow with
the growth of scientific knowledge and
critical discrimination. He who can be
lieve these to be the intentional short
comings of a perfectly good Being must
impose silence on every prompting of
the sense of goodness and justice as
received among men.
It is, no doubt, possible (and there
are many instances of it) to worship
with the intensest devotion either Deity,
that of Nature or of the Gospel, without
any perversion of the moral sentiments ;
but this must be by fixing the attention
exclusively on what is beautiful and
beneficent in the precepts and spirit of
the Gospel and in the dispensations of
Nature, and putting all tjiat is the reverse
as entirely aside as if it did not exist.
53
Accordingly, this simple and innocent
faith can only, as I have said, co-exist
with a torpid and inactive state of the
speculative faculties. For a person of
exercised intellect there is no way of
attaining anything equivalent to it, save
by sophistication and perversion, either
of the understanding or of the con
science. It may almost always be said
both of sects and of individuals, who
derive their morality from religion, that
the better logicians they are, the worse
moralists.
One only form of belief in the super
natural—one only theory respecting the
origin and government of the universe—■
stands wholly clear both of intellectual
contradiction and of moral obliquity. It
is that which, resigning irrevocably the
idea of an omnipotent creator, regards
Nature and Life not as the expression
throughout of the moral character and
purpose of the Deity, but as the product
of a struggle between contriving good
ness and an intractable material, as was
believed by Plato, or a Principle of Evil,
as was the doctrine of the Manicheans.
A creed like this, which I have known
to be devoutly held by at least one culti
vated and conscientious person of our
own day, allows it to be believed that all
the mass of evil which exists was un
designed by, and exists not by the
appointment of, but in spite of, the Being
whom we are called upon to worship. A
virtuous human being assumes in this
theory the exalted character of a fellow
labourer with the Highest, a fellow
combatant in the great strife; con
tributing his little, which by the aggrega
tion of many like himself becomes much,
towards that progressive ascendancy, and
ultimately complete triumph of good
over evil, which history points to, and
which this doctrine teaches us to regard
�54
UTILITY OF RELIGION
as planned by the Being to whom we
owe all the benevolent contrivance we
behold in Nature. Against the moral
tendency of this creed no possible
objection can lie : it can produce on
whoever can succeed in believing it no
other than an ennobling effect. The
evidence for it, indeed, if evidence it can
be called, is too shadowy and unsub
stantial, and the promises it holds out
too distant and uncertain, to admit of its
being a permanent substitute for the
religion of humanity; but the two may
be held in conjunction : and he to whom
ideal good, and the progress of the
world towards it, are already a religion,
even though that other creed may seem
to him a belief not grounded on evidence,
is at liberty to indulge the pleasing and
encouraging thought that its truth is
possible. Apart from all dogmatic belief,
there is for those who need it an ample
domain in the region of the imagination
which may be planted with possibilities,
with hypotheses which cannot be known
to be false; and when there is anything
in the appearances of nature to favour
them, as in this case there is (for, what
ever force we attach to the analogies of
nature with the effects of human con
trivance, there is no disputing the remark
of Paley, that what is good in nature
exhibits those analogies much oftener
than what is evil), the contemplation of
these possibilities is a legitimate indul
gence, capable of bearing its part, with
other influences, in feeding and animat
ing the tendency of the feelings and
impulses towards good.
One advantage, such as it is, the
supernatural religions must always
possess over the Religion of Humanity :
the prospect they hold out to the indi
vidual of a life after death. For, though
the scepticism of the understanding
does not necessarily exclude the Theism
of the imagination and feelings, and
this, again, gives opportunity for a
hope that the power which has done so
much for us may be able and willing to
do this also, such vague possibility must
ever stop far short of a conviction. It
remains then to estimate the value of
this element—the prospect of a world to
come—as a constituent of earthly happi
ness. I cannot but think that as the
condition of mankind becomes improved,
as they grow happier in their lives, and
more capable of deriving happiness from
unselfish sources, they will care less and
less for this flattering expectation. It is
not, naturally or generally, the happy
who are the most anxious either for a
prolongation of the present life, or for a
life hereafter : it is those who never have
been happy. They who have had their
happiness can bear to part with existence;
but it is hard to die without ever having
lived. When mankind cease to need a
future existence as a consolation for the
sufferings of the present, it will have lost
its chief value to them, for themselves.
I am now speaking of the unselfish.
Those who are so wrapped up in self
that they are unable to identify their
feelings with anything w’hich will survive
them, or to feel their life prolonged in
their younger cotemporaries and in all
who help to carry on the progressive
movement of human affairs, require the
notion of another selfish life beyond the
grave, to enable them to keep up any in
terest in existence, since the present life,
as its termination approaches, dwindles
into something too insignificant to be
worth caring about. But if the Religion
of Humanity were as sedulously culti
vated as the supernatural religions are
(and there is no difficulty in conceiving
that it might be much more so), all who
�UTILITY OF RELIGION
had received the customary amount of
moral cultivation would, up to the hour
of death, live ideally in the life of those
who are to follow them; and though,
doubtless, they would often willingly sur
vive as individuals for a much longer
period than the present duration of life,
it appears to me probable that, after a
length of time different in different per
sons, they would have had enough of
existence, and would gladly lie down and
take their eternal rest. Meanwhile, and
without looking so far forward, we may
remark that those who believe the
immortality of the soul generally quit
life with fully as much, if not more,
reluctance as those who have no such
expectation. The mere cessation of ex
istence is no evil to any one : the idea is
only formidable through the illusion of
imagination which makes one conceive
oneself as if one were alive and feeling
oneself dead. What is odious in death
is not death itself, but the act of dying
and its lugubrious accompaniments : all
of which must be equally undergone by
the believer in immortality. Nor can I
perceive that the sceptic loses by his
scepticism any real and valuable consola
tion except one—the hope of reunion
with those dear to him who have ended
their earthly life before him. That loss,
indeed, is neither to be denied nor ex
tenuated. In many cases it is beyond
the reach of comparison or estimate;
and will always suffice to keep alive, in
the more sensitive natures, the imagina
tive hope of a futurity which, if there is
nothing to prove, there is as little in our
knowledge and experience to contradict.
History, so far as we know it, bears
out the opinion that mankind can per
fectly well do without the belief in a
heaven. The Greeks had anything but
a tempting idea of a future state. Their
55
Elysian fields held out very little attrac
tion to their feelings and imagination.
Achilles in the Odyssey expressed a very
natural, and no doubt a very common
sentiment, when he said that he would
rather be on earth the serf of a needy
master than reign over the whole king
dom of the dead. And the pensive
character so striking in the address of the
dying emperor Hadrian to his soul gives
evidence that the popular conception had
not undergone much variation during
that long interval. Yet we neither find
that the Greeks enjoyed life less nor
feared death more than other people.
The Buddhist religion counts probably
at this day a greater number of votaries
than either the Christian or the Moham
medan. The Buddhist creed recognises
many modes of punishment in a future
life, or rather lives, by the transmigration
of the soul into new bodies of men or
animals. But the blessing from heaven
which it proposes as a reward, to be
earned by perseverance in the highest
order of virtuous life, is annihilation;
the cessation, at least, of all conscious
or separate existence. It is impossible
to mistake in this religion the work of
legislators and moralists endeavouring to
supply supernatural motives for the con
duct which they were anxious to en
courage; and they could find nothing
more transcendent to hold out as the
capital prize to be won by the mightiest
efforts of labour and self-denial than
what we are so often told is the terrible
idea of annihilation. Surely this is a
proof that the idea is not really or
naturally terrible; that not philosophers
only, but the common order of mankind,
can easily reconcile themselves to it, and
even consider it as a good; and that it is
no unnatural part of the idea of a happy
life, that life itself be laid down, after the
�56
UTILITY OF RELIGION
best that it can give has been fully en
joyed through a long lapse of time; when
all its pleasures, even those of benevo
lence, are familiar, and nothing untasted
and unknown is left to stimulate curiosity
and keep up the desire of prolonged
existence. It seems to me not only
possible, but probable, that in a higher,
and above all a happier, condition of
human life, not annihilation but immor
tality may be the burdensome idea ; and
that human nature, though pleased with
the present, and by no means impatient
to quit it, would find comfort and not
sadness in the thought that it is not
chained through eternity to a conscious
existence which it cannot be assured that
it will always wish to preserve.
�THEISM
Part
I.—INTRODUCTION
The contest which subsists from of old
between believers and unbelievers in
natural and revealed religion has, like
other permanent contests, varied materi
ally in its character from age to age;
and the present generation, at least in
the higher regions of controversy, shows,
as compared with the eighteenth and
the beginning of the nineteenth century,
a marked alteration in the aspect of the
dispute. One feature of this change is
so apparent as to be generally acknow
ledged : the more softened temper in
which the debate is conducted on the
part of unbelievers. The reactionary
violence, provoked by the intolerance of
the other side, has in a great measure
exhausted itself. Experience has abated
the ardent hopes once entertained of
the regeneration of the human race by
merely negative doctrine—by the destruc
tion of superstition. The philosophical
study of history, one of the most im
portant creations of recent times, has
rendered possible an impartial estimate
of the doctrines and institutions of the
past, from a relative instead of an abso
lute point of view—as incidents of
human development at which it is use
less to grumble, and which may deserve
admiration and gratitude for their effects
in the past, even though they may be
thought incapable of rendering similar
services to the future. And the position
assigned to Christianity or Theism by
the more instructed of those who reject
the supernatural is that of things once
of great value, but which can now be
done without, rather than, as formerly, of
things misleading and noxious ab initio.
Along with this change in the moral
attitude of thoughtful unbelievers to
wards the religious ideas of man
kind, a corresponding difference has
manifested itself in their intellectual
attitude. The war against religious
beliefs in the last century was carried
on principally on the ground of
common sense or of logic; in the present
age, on the ground of science. The
progress of the physical science is con
sidered to have established, by conclu
sive evidence, matters of fact with which
the religious traditions of mankind are not
reconcilable; while the science of human
nature and history is considered to show
that the creeds of the past are natural
growths of the human mind, in particular
stages of its career, destined to dis
appear and give place to other convic
tions in a more advanced stage. In the
progress of discussion this last class of
considerations seems even to be super
seding those which address themselves
directly to the question of truth. Re
ligions tend to be discussed, at least by
�58
THEISM
those who reject them, less as intrinsi
cally true or false than as products
thrown up by certain states of civilisa
tion, and which, like the animal and
vegetable productions of a geological
period, perish in those which succeed it
from the cessation of the conditions
necessary to their continued existence.
This tendency of recent speculation
to look upon human opinions pre
eminently from an historical point of
view, as facts obeying laws of their own,
and requiring, like other observed facts,
an historical or a scientific explanation
(a tendency not confined to religious
subjects), is by no means to be blamed,
but to be applauded; not solely as
drawing attention to an important .and
previously neglected aspect of human
opinions, but because it has a real,
though indirect, bearing upon the ques
tion of their truth. For whatever opinion
a person may adopt on any subject that
admits of controversy, his assurance, if
he be a cautious thinker, cannot be
complete unless he is able to account
for the existence of the opposite opinion.
To ascribe it to the weakness of the
human understanding is an explanation
which cannot be sufficient for such a
thinker, for he will be slow to assume
that he has himself a less share of that
infirmity than the rest of mankind, and
that error is more likely to be on the
other side than on his own. In his
examination of evidence the persuasion
of others, perhaps of mankind in general,
is one of the data of the case—one of
the phenomena to be accounted for. As
the human intellect, though weak, is not
essentially perverted, there is a certain
presumption of the truth of any opinion
held by many human minds, requiring to
be rebutted by assigning some other real
or possible cause for its prevalence.
And this consideration has a special
relevancy to the inquiry concerning the
foundations of Theism, inasmuch as no
argument for the truth of Theism is more
commonly invoked or more confidently
relied on than the general assent of
mankind.
But while giving its full value to this
historical treatment of the religious ques
tion, we ought not, therefore, to let it
supersede the dogmatic. The most im
portant quality of an opinion on any
momentous subject is its truth or falsity,
which to us resolves itself into the
sufficiency of the evidence on which it
rests. It is indispensable that the
subject of religion should from time to
time be reviewed as a strictly scientific
question, and that its evidences should
be tested by the same scientific methods
and on the same principles as those of
the speculative conclusions drawn by
physical science. It being granted, then,
that the legitimate conclusions of science
are entitled to prevail over all opinions,
however widely held, which conflict with
them, and that the canons of scientific
evidence which the successes and failures
of two thousand years have established
are applicable to all subjects on which
knowledge is attainable, let us proceed
to consider what place there is for
religious beliefs on the platform of
science; what evidences they can appeal
to such as science can recognise, and
what foundation there is for the doc
trines of religion, considered as scientific
theorems.
In this inquiry we, of course, begin
with Natural Religion, the doctrine of
the existence and attributes of God.
THEISM.
Though I have defined the problem
of Natural Theology to be that of the
�THEISM
existence of God or of a god, rather than
of gods, there is the amplest historical
evidence that the belief in gods is
immeasurably more natural to 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 can be reached. For a
long time the supposition appeared
forced and unnatural that the diversity
we see in the operations of nature can
all be the work of a single will. To the
untaught mind", and to all minds in prescientific times, the phenomena of nature
seem to be the result of forces altogether
heterogeneous, each taking its course
quite independently of the others; and
though to attribute them to conscious
wills is eminently natural, the natural
tendency is to suppose as many such
independent wills as there are distin
guishable forces of sufficient importance
and interest to have been remarked and
named. There is no tendency in Poly
theism as such to transform itself spon
taneously into Monotheism. It is true
that in polytheistic systems generally the
Deity, whose special attributes inspire
the greatest degree of awe, is usually
supposed to have a power of controlling
the other deities; and even in the most
degraded, perhaps, of all such systems,
the Hindoo, adulation heaps upon the
divinity who is the immediate object of
adoration epithets like those habitual to
believers in a single god. But there is
no real acknowledgment of one governor.
Every god normally rules his particular
department, though there may be a still
stronger god, whose power when he
chooses to exert it can frustrate the
purposes of the inferior divinity. There
59
could be no real belief in one Creator
and one Governor until mankind had
begun to see in the apparently confused
phenomena which surrounded them a
system capable of being viewed as the
possible working out of a single plan. This
conception of the world was perhaps
anticipated (though less frequently than
is often supposed) by individuals of ex
ceptional genius, but it could only
become common after a rather long
cultivation of scientific thought.
The special mode in which scientific
study operates to instil Monotheism in
place of the more natural Polytheism is
in no way mysterious. The specific
effect of science is to show by accumula
ting evidence that every event in nature
is connected by laws with some fact or
facts which preceded it, or, in other
words, depends for its existence on some
antecedent; but yet not so strictly on
one as not to be liable to frustration or
modification from others; for these dis
tinct chains of causation are so entangled
with one another; the action of each
cause is so interfered with by other
causes, though each acts according to its
own fixed law; that every effect is truly
the result rather of the aggregate of all
causes in existence than of any one only;
and nothing takes place in the world of
our experience without spreading a per
ceptible influence of some sort through
a greater or less portion of nature, and
making perhaps every portion of it
slightly different from what it would have
been if that event had not taken place.
Now, when once the double conviction
has found entry into the mind—that every
event depends on antecedents; and at
the same time that to bring it about
many antecedents must concur, perhaps
all the antecedents in nature, insomuch
that a slight difference in any one of
�6o
THEISM
them might have prevented the
phenomenon, or materially altered its
character—the conviction follows that
no one event, certainly no one kind of
events, can be absolutely preordained or
governed by any Being but one who
holds in his hand the reins of all Nature,
and not of some department only. At
least, if a plurality be supposed, it is
necessary to assume so complete a con
cert of action and unity of will among
them that the difference is for most pur
poses immaterial between such a theory
and that of the absolute unity of the
Godhead.
The reason, then, why Monotheism
may be accepted as the representative of
Theism in the abstract is not so much
because it is the Theism of all the more
improved portions of the human race, as
because it is the only Theism which can
claim for itself any footing on scientific
ground. Every other theory of the
government of the universe by super
natural beings is inconsistent, either with
the carrying on of that government
through a continual series of natural
antecedents according to fixed laws, or
with the interdependence of each of
these series upon all the rest, which are
the two most general results of science.
Setting out, therefore, from the scientific
view of nature as one connected system,
or united whole—united not like a web
composed of separate threads in passive
juxtaposition with one another, but
rather like the human or animal frame,
an apparatus kept going by perpetual
action and reaction among all its parts
—it must be acknowledged that the
question, to which Theism is an answer,
is at least a very natural one, and issues
from an obvious want of the human
mind. Accustomed as we are to find, in
proportion to our means of observation,
a definite beginning to each individual
fact; and since, wherever there is a be
ginning, we find that there was an ante
cedent fact (called by us a cause), a fact
but for which the phenomenon which
thus commences would not have been,
it was impossible that the human mind
should not ask itself whether the whole,
of which these particular phenomena are
a part, had not also a beginning, and, if
so, whether that beginning was not an
origin; whether there was not something
antecedent to the whole series of causes
and effects that we term Nature, and but
for which Nature itself would not have
been. From the first recorded specula
tion this question has never remained
without an hypothetical answer. The
only answer which has long continued to
afford satisfaction is Theism.
Looking at the problem, as it is our
business to do, merely as a scientific in
quiry, it resolves itself into two questions.
First: Is the theory which refers the
origin of all the phenomena of nature to
the will of a Creator consistent or not
with the ascertained results of science ?
Secondly, assuming it to be consistent,
will its proofs bear to be tested by the
principles of evidence and canons of
belief by which our long experience of
scientific inquiry has proved the necessity
of being guided ?
First, then : there is one conception of
Theism which is consistent, another
which is radically inconsistent, with the
most general truths that have been made
known to us by scientific investigation.
The one which is inconsistent is the
conception of a God governing the
world by acts of variable will. The one
which is consistent is the conception of
a God governing the world by invariable
laws.
The primitive, and even in our own
�THE EVIDENCES OF THEISM
day the vulgar, conception of the divine
rule is that the one God, like the many
gods of antiquity, carries on the govern
ment of the world by special decrees,
made pro hac vice. Although supposed
to be omniscient as well as omnipotent,
he is thought not to make up his mind
until the moment of action; or at least
not so conclusively, but that his in
tentions may be altered up to the very
last moment by appropriate solicitation.
Without entering into the difficulties of
reconciling this view of the divine govern
ment with the prescience and the per
fect wisdom ascribed to the Deity, we
may content ourselves with the fact that
it contradicts what experience has taught
us of the manner in which things actually
take place. The phenomena of nature
do take place according to general laws.
They do originate from definite natural
antecedents. Therefore, if their ultimate
origin is derived from a will, that will
must have established the general laws
and willed the antecedents. If there be
a Creator, his intention must have been
that events should depend upon ante
cedents and be produced according to
fixed laws. But this being conceded,
there is nothing in scientific experience
inconsistent with the belief that those
laws and sequences are themselves due
to a divine will. Neither are we obliged
to suppose that the divine will exerted
itself once for all, and, after putting a
power into the system which enabled it
to go on of itself, has ever since let it
alone. Science contains nothing repug
nant to the supposition that every event
which takes place results from a specific
volition of the presiding Power, provided
that this Power adheres in its particular
volitions to general laws laid down by
itself. The common opinion is that this
hypothesis tends more to the glory of the
61
Deity than the supposition that the
universe was made so that it could go
on of itself. There have been thinkers,
however—of no ordinary eminence (of
whom Leibnitz was one)—who thought
the last the only supposition worthy of
the Deity, and protested against likening
God to a clockmaker whose clock will
not go unless he puts his hand to the
machinery and keeps it going. With
such considerations we have no concern
in this place. We are looking at the
subject not from the point of view of
reference, but from that of science ; and
with science both these suppositions as
to the mode of the divine action are
equally consistent.
We must now, however, pass to the
next question. There is nothing to dis
prove the creation and government of
Nature by a sovereign will; but is there
anything to prove it ? Of what nature
are its evidences; and, weighed in the
scientific balance, what is their value ?
THE EVIDENCES OF THEISM.
The evidences of a Creator are not only
of several distinct kinds, but of such
diverse characters that they are adapted
to minds of very different descriptions,
and it is hardly possible for any mind to
be equally impressed by them all. The
familiar classification of them into proofs
a priori and a posteriori marks that, when
looked at in a purely scientific view, they
belong to different schools of thought.
Accordingly, though the unthoughtful
believer whose creed really rests on
authority gives an equal welcome to all
plausible arguments in support of the
belief in which he has been brought up,
philosophers who have had to make a
choice between the a priori and the
a posteriori methods in general science
seldom fail, while insisting on one of
�62
THEISM
these modes of support for religion, to
speak with more or less of disparage
ment of the other. It is our duty in the
present inquiry to maintain complete im
partiality and to give a fair examination
to both. At the same time, I entertain a
strong conviction that one of the two
modes of argument is in its nature scien
tific, the other not only unscientific, but
condemned by science. The scientific
argument is that which reasons from the
facts and analogies of human experience,
as a geologist does when he infers the
past states of our terrestrial globe, or an
astronomical observer when he draws
conclusions respecting the physical com
position of the heavenly bodies. This is
the cl posteriori method, the principal
application of which to Theism is the
argument (as it is called) of design. The
mode qf reasoning which I call unscien
tific, though in the opinion of some
thinkers it is also a legitimate mode
of scientific procedure, is that which
infers external objective facts from ideas
or convictions of our minds. I say this
independently of any opinion of my own
respecting the origin of our ideas or con
victions ; for even if we were unable to
point out any manner in which the idea
of God, for example, can have grown
up from the impressions of experience,
still the idea can only prove the idea,
and not the objective fact, unless, in
deed, the fact is supposed (agreeably to
the book of Genesis) to have been
handed down by tradition from a time
when there was direct personal inter
course with the Divine Being; in which
case the argument is no longer a priori.
The supposition that an idea, or a wish,
or a need, even if native to the mind,
proves the reality of a corresponding
object, derives all the plausibility from
the belief already in our minds that we
were made by a benignant Being who
would not have implanted in us a ground
less belief, or a want which he did not
afford us the means of satisfying; and
is therefore a palpable petitio principii if
adduced as an argument to support the
very belief which it pre-supposes.
At the same time, it must be admitted
that all a priori systems, whether in
philosophy or religion, do in some sense
profess to be founded on experience,
since, though they affirm the possibility
of arriving at truths which transcend
experience, they yet make the facts of
experience their starting-point (as what
other starting-point is possible ?). They
are entitled to consideration in so far as
it can be shown that experience gives
any countenance either to them or to
their method of inquiry. Professedly a
priori arguments are not unfrequently of
a mixed nature, partaking in some degree
of the a posteriori character, and may
often be said to be a posteriori arguments
in disguise; the d priori considerations
acting chiefly in the way of making some
particular a posteriori argument tell for
more than its worth. This is emphati
cally true of the argument for Theism
which I shall first examine—the necessity
of a First Cause. For this has in truth
a wide basis of experience in the univer
sality of the relation of cause and effect
among the phenomena of nature ; while,
at the same time, theological philoso
phers have not been content to let it
rest upon this basis, but have affirmed
causation as a truth of reason appre
hended intuitively by its own light.
ARGUMENT FOR A FIRST
CAUSE.
The argument for a First Cause
admits of being, and is, presented as a
conclusion from the whole of human
�ARGUMENT FOR A FIRST CAUSE
experience. Everything that we know
(it is argued) had a cause, and owed its
existence to that cause. How, then, can
it be but that the world, which is but a
name for the aggregate of all that we
know, has a cause to which it is indebted
for its existence ?
The fact of experience, however, when
correctly expressed, turns out to be, not
that everything which we know derives
its existence from a cause, but only
every event or change. There is in
nature a permanent element, and also a
changeable : the changes are always the
effects of previous changes; the perma
nent existences, so far as we know, are
not effects at all. It is true we are
accustomed to say, not only of events,
but of objects, that they are produced
by causes, as water by the union of
hydrogen and oxygen. But by this we
only mean that, when they begin to exist,
their beginning is the effect of a cause.
But their beginning to exist is not an
object; it is an event. If it be objected
that the cause of a thing’s beginning to
exist may be said with propriety to be
the cause of the thing itself, I shall not
quarrel with the expression. But thatwhich in an object begins to exist is that
in it which belongs to the changeable
element in nature ; the outward form and
the properties depending on mechanical
or chemical combinations of its compo
nent parts. There is in every object
another and a permanent element—viz.,
the specific elementary substance or sub
stances of which it consists and their
inherent properties. These are not known
to us as beginning to exist: within the
range of human knowledge they had
no beginning, consequently no cause;
though they themselves are causes or
con-causes of everything that takes place.
Experience, therefore, affords no evi
63
dences, not even analogies, to justify our
extending to the apparently immutable
a generalisation grounded only on our
observation of the changeable.
As a fact of experience, then, causation
cannot legitimately be extended to the
material universe itself, but only to its
changeable phenomena; of these, indeed,
causes may be affirmed without any
exception. But what causes ? The cause
of every change is a prior change ; and
such it cannot but be; for, if there were
no new antecedent, there would not be
a new consequent. If the state of facts
which brings the phenomenon into
existence had existed always or for an
indefinite duration, the effect also would
have existed always or been produced
an indefinite time ago. It is thus a
necessary part of the fact of causation,
within the sphere of our experience, that
the causes as well as the effects had a
beginning in time, and were themselves
caused. It would seem, therefore, that
our experience, instead of furnishing an
argument for a First Cause, is repugnant
to it; and that the very essence of
causation, as it exists within the limits
of our knowledge, is incompatible with a
First Cause.
But it is necessary to look more par
ticularly into the matter, and analyse
more closely the nature of the causes of
which mankind have experience. For
if it should turn out that, though all
causes have a beginning, there is in all
of them a permanent element which
had no beginning, this permanent
element may with some justice be
termed a first or universal cause, inas
much as, though not sufficient of itself to
cause anything, it enters as a con-cause
into all causation. Now, it ‘ happens
that the last result of physical inquiry,
derived from the converging evidences
�64
THEISM
of all branches of physical science, does, from it, inasmuch as mind is the only
if it holds good, land us, so far as the thing which is capable of originating
material world is concerned, in a result change. This is said to be the lesson of
of this sort. Whenever a physical phe human experience. In the phenomena
nomenon is traced to its cause, that of inanimate nature the force which
cause when analysed is found to be works is always a pre-existing force, not
a certain quantum of force, combined originated, but transferred. One physical
with certain collocations. And the last object moves another by giving out to it
great generalisation of science, the con the force by which it has first been itself
servation of force, teaches us that vhe moved. The wind communicates to
variety in the effects depends partly the waves, or to a windmill, or a ship,
upon the amount of the force and partly part of the motion which has been given
upon the diversity of the collocations. to itself by some other agent. In volun
The force itself is essentially one and tary action alone we see a commence
the same; and there exists of it in ment, an origination of motion ; since all
nature a fixed quantity, which (if the other causes appear incapable of this
theory be true) is never increased or origination, experience is in favour of the
diminished. Here, then, we find, even conclusion that all the motion in exist
in the changes of material nature, a per ence owed its beginning to this one
manent element,-to all appearance the cause, voluntary agency, if not that of
very one of which we were in quest. This man, then of a more powerful Being.
it is apparently to which, if to anything,
This argument is a very old one. It
we must assign the character of First is to be found in Plato; not, as might
Cause, the cause of the material universe. have been expected, in the Phadon,
For all effects may be traced up to it, where the arguments are not such as
while it cannot be traced up by our would now be deemed of any weight, but
experience to anything beyond : its trans in his latest production, the Leges. LnA
formations alone can be so traced, and of it is still one of the most telling arguthem the cause always includes the force • ments with the more metaphysical class
itself; the same quantity of force in of defenders of Natural Theology.
some previous form. It would seem,
Now, in the first place, if there be
then, that in the only sense in which truth in the doctrine of the conservation
experience supports in any shape the of force—in other words, the constancy
doctrine of a First Cause—viz., as the of the total amount of force in existence—
primaeval and universal element in all this doctrine does not change from true
causes—the First Cause can be no other to false when it reaches the field of
than Force.
voluntary agency. The will does not,
We are, however, by no means at the any more than other causes, create force :
end of the question. On the contrary, granting that it originates motion, it has
the greatest stress of the argument is no means of doing so but by converting
exactly at the point which we have now into that particular manifestation a por
reached. For it is maintained that mind tion of force which already existed in
is the only possible cause of force; or other forms. It is known that the source
rather, perhaps, that mind is a force, from which this portion of force is
and that all other force must be derived derived is chiefly, or entirely, the force
�ARGUMENT FOR A FIRST CAUSE
evolved in the processes of chemical com
position and decomposition which con
stitute the body of nutrition; the force
so liberated becomes a fund upon which
every muscular, and even every merely
nervous action, as of the brain in thought,
is a draft. It is in this sense only that,
according to the best lights of science,
volition is an originating cause. Volition,
therefore, does not answer to the idea of
a First Cause; since force must in
every instance be assumed as prior to it;
and there is not the slightest colour, de
rived from experience, for supposing
force itself to have been created by a
volition. As far as anything can be con
cluded from human experience, force has
all the attributes of a thing eternal and
uncreated.
This, however, does not close the dis
cussion. For though whatever verdict
experience can give in the case is against
the possibility that will ever originates
force, yet, if we can be assured that
neither does force originate will, will
must be held to be an agency, if not
prior to force, yet coeternal with it; and
if it be true that will can originate, not
indeed force, but the transformation of
force from some other of its mani
festations into that of mechanical motion,
and that there is within human experience
no other agency capable of doing so, the
argument for a will as the originator,
though not of the universe, yet of the
kosmos, or order of the universe, remains
unanswered.
But the case thus stated is not con
formable to fact. Whatever volition can
do in the way of creating motion out of
other forms of force, and generally of
evolving force from a latent into a visible
state, can be done by many other causes.
Chemical action, for instance; electricity ;
heat; the mere presence of a gravitating
65
body : all these are causes of mechanical
motion on a far larger scale than any
volitions which experience presents to us ;
and in most of the effects thus produced
the motion given by one body to another
is not, as in the ordinary cases of
mechanical action, motion that has first
been given to that other by some third
body. The phenomenon is not a mere
passing on of mechanical motion, but a
creation of it out of a force previously
latent or manifesting itself in some other
form. Volition, therefore, regarded as
an agent in the material universe, has no
exclusive privilege of origination : all that
it can originate is also originated by other
transforming agents. If it be said that
those other agents must have had the
force they give out put into them from
elsewhere, I answer that this is no less
true of the force which volition disposes
of. We know that this force comes from
an external source—the chemical action
of the food and air. The force by which
the phenomena of the material world are
produced circulates through all physical
agencies in a never-ending though some
times intermitting stream. I am, of
course, speaking of volition only in its
action on the material world. We have
nothing to do here with the freedom of
the will itself as a mental phenomenon—
with the vex ata questio whether volition
is self-determining or determined by
causes. To the question now in hand it
is only the effects of volition that are
relevant, not its origin. The assertion is
that physical nature must have been pro
duced by a will, because nothing but will
is known to us as having the power of
originating the production of phenomena.
We have seen that, on the contrary, all
the power that will possesses over
phenomena is shared, as far as we have
the means of judging, by other and much
F
�66
THEISM
more powerful agents, and that in the
only sense in which those agents do not
originate, neither does will originate. No
prerogative, therefore, can, on the ground
of experience, be assigned to volition
above other natural agents, as a pro
ducing cause of phenomena. All that
can be affirmed by the strongest assertor
of the freedom of the will is that voli
tions are themselves uncaused, and are
therefore alone fit to be the First or
Universal Cause. But, even assuming
volitions to be uncaused, the properties
of matter, so far as experience discloses,
are uncaused also, and have the advan
tage over any particular volition, in being,
so far as experience can show, eternal.
Theism, therefore, in so far as it rests on
the necessity of a First Cause, has no
support from experience.
To those who, in default of experience,
consider the necessity of a First Cause as
matter of intuition, I would say that it is
needless, in this discussion, to contest
their premises; since admitting that there
is and must be a First Cause, it has now
been shown that several other agencies
than will can lay equal claim to that
character. One thing only may be said
which requires notice here. Among the
facts of the universe to be accounted for,
it may be said, is mind; and it is selfevident that nothing can have produced
mind but mind.
The special indications that mind is
deemed to give, pointing to intelligent
contrivance, belong to a different portion
of this inquiry. But if the mere exist
ence of mind is supposed to require,
as a necessary antecedent, another mind
greater and more powerful, the difficulty
is not removed by going one step back :
the creating mind stands as much in
need of another mind to be the source
of its existence as the created mind. Be
it remembered that we have no direct
knowledge (at least apart from revela
tion) of a mind which is even apparently
eternal, as force and matter are: an
eternal mind is, as far as the present
argument is concerned, a simple
hypothesis to account for the minds
which we know to exist. Now, it is
essential to an hypothesis that, if ad
mitted, it should at least remove the
difficulty and account for the facts. But
it does not account for mind to refer one
mind to a prior mind for its origin. The
problem remains unsolved, the difficulty
undiminished—nay, rather increased.
To this it may be objected that the
causation of every human mind is matter
of fact, since we know that it had a
beginning in time. We even know, or
have the strongest grounds for believing,
that the human species itself had a
beginning in time. For there is a vast
amount of evidence that the state of
our planet was once such as to be incom
patible with animal life, and that human
life is of a very much more modern
origin than animal life. In any case,
therefore, the fact must be faced that
there must have been a Cause which
called the first human mind—nay, the
very first germ of organic life—into exist
ence. No such difficulty exists in the
supposition of an eternal mind. If we
did not know that mind on our earth
began to exist, we might suppose it to
be uncaused; and we may still suppose
this of the mind to which we ascribe its
existence.
To take this ground is to return into
the field of human experience, and to
become subject to its canons, and we
are then entitled to ask where is the
proof that nothing can have caused a
mind except another mind. From what,
except from experience, can we know
�ARGUMENT FROM THE GENERAL CONSENT OF MANKIND
67
what can produce what—what causes reason to expect, from the mere occur
are adequate to what effects ? That rence of changes, that, if we could trace
nothing can consciously produce mind back the series far enough, we should
but mind is self-evident., being involved arrive at a primaeval volition. The world
in the meaning of the words ; but that does not, by its mere existence, bear
there cannot be unconscious production witness to a God; if it gives indications
must not be assumed, for it is the very of one, these must be given by the
point to be proved. Apart from experi special nature of the phenomena, by
ence, and arguing on what is called what they present that resembles adapta
reason—that is, on supposed self-evidence tion to an end : of which hereafter. If,
—the notion seems to be that no causes in default of evidence from experience,
can give rise to products of a more the evidence of intuition is relied upon,
precious or elevated kind than them it may be answered that if mind, as
selves. But this is at variance with the mind, presents intuitive evidence of
known analogies of nature. How vastly having been created, the creative mind
nobler and more precious, for instance, must do the same, and we are no nearer
are the higher vegetables and animals to the First Cause than before. But if
than the soil and manure out of which, there be nothing in the nature of mind
and by the properties of which, they are which in itself implies a Creator, the
raised up. The tendency of all recent minds which have a beginning in time, as
speculation is towards the opinion that all minds have which are known to our ex
the development of inferior orders of perience, must, indeed, have been caused,
existence into superior, the substitution but it is not necessary that their cause
of greater elaboration and higher organi should have been a prior intelligence.
sation for lower, is the general rule of
ARGUMENT FROM THE
Nature. Whether it is so or not, there
GENERAL CONSENT OF MAN
are at least in nature a multitude of facts
KIND.
bearing that character, and this is
sufficient for the argument.
Before proceeding to the argument
Here, then, this part of the discussion from Marks of Design, which, as it
may stop. The result it leads to is that seems to me, must always be the main
the First Cause argument is in itself of no strength of Natural Theism, we may
value for the establishment of Theism : dispose briefly of some other arguments
because no cause is needed for the exist which are of little scientific weight, but
ence of that which has no beginning; which have greater influence on the
and both matter and force (whatever human mind than much better argu
metaphysical theory we may give of the ments, because they are appeals to
one or the other) have had, so far as authority, and it is by authority that the
our experiences can teach us, no begin opinions of the bulk of mankind are
ning—which cannot be said of mind. principally, and not unnaturally, governed.
The phenomena or changes in the The authority invoked is that of mankind
universe have, indeed, each of them a generally, and specially of some of its
beginning and a cause, but their cause wisest men; particularly such as were in
is always a prior change; nor do the other respects conspicuous examples of
analogies of experience give us any ' breaking loose from received prejudices.
�68
THEISM
Socrates and Plato, Bacon, Locke, and
Newton, Descartes and Leibnitz, are
common examples.
It may, doubtless, be good advice to
persons who in point of knowledge and
cultivation are not entitled to think
themselves competent judges of difficult
questions, to bid them content them
selves with holding that true which
mankind generally believe, and so long
as they believe it; or that which has
been believed by those who pass for the
most eminent among the minds of the
past. But to a thinker the argument
from other people’s opinion has little
weight. It is but second-hand evidence;
and merely admonishes us to look out
for and weigh the reasons on which this
conviction of mankind or of wise men
was founded. Accordingly, those who
make any claim to philosophic treat
ment of the subject employ this general
consent chiefly as evidence that there is
in the mind of man an intuitive percep
tion, or an instinctive sense, of Deity.
From the generality of the belief they
infer that it is inherent in our constitu
tion ; from which they draw the con
clusion, a precarious one indeed, but
conformable to the general mode of
proceeding of the intuitive philosophy,
that the belief must be true; though as
applied to Theism this argument begs
the question, since it has itself nothing
to rest upon but the belief that the
human mind was made by a God, who
would not deceive his creatures.
But, indeed, what ground does the
general prevalence of the belief in Deity
afford us for inferring that this belief is
native to the human mind, and indepen
dent of evidence ? Is it, then, so very
devoid of evidence, even apparent ?
Lias it so little semblance of foundation
in fact that it can only be accounted for
by the supposition of its being innate ?
We should not expect to find Theists
believing that the appearances in nature
of a contriving intelligence are not only
insufficient, but are not even plausible,
and cannot be supposed to have carried
conviction either to the general or to
the wiser mind. If there are external
evidences of Theism, even if not perfectly
conclusive, why need we suppose that
the belief of its truth was the result of
anything else ? The superior minds to
whom an appeal is made, from Socrates
downwards, when they professed to give
the grounds of their opinion, did not
say that they found the belief in them
selves without knowing from whence it
came, but ascribed it, if not to revelation,
either to some metaphysical argument
or to those very external evidences
which are the basis of the argument
from design.
If it be said that the belief in Deity is
universal among barbarous tribes, and
among the ignorant portion of civilised
populations, who cannot be supposed to
have been impressed by the marvellous
adaptations of Nature, most of which are
unknown to them ; I answer, that the
ignorant in civilised countries take their
opinions from the educated, and that in
the case of savages, if the evidence is in
sufficient, so is the belief. The religious
belief of savages is not belief in the God
of natural theology, but a mere modifica
tion of the crude generalisation which
ascribes life, consciousness, and will to all
natural powers of which they cannot per
ceive the source or control the operation.
And the divinities believed in are as
numerous as those powers. Each river,
fountain, or tree has a divinity of its own.
To see in this blunder of primitive
ignorance the hand of the Supreme
Being implanting in his creatures an
�ARGUMENT FROM THE GENERAL CONSENT OF MANKIND
instinctive knowledge of his existence is
a poor compliment to the Deity. The
religion of savages is fetichism of the
grossest kind, ascribing animation and
will to individual objects, and seeking to
propitiate them by prayer and sacrifice.
That this should be the case is the less
surprising when we remember that there
is not a definite boundary line, broadly
separating the conscious human being
from inanimate objects. Between these
and man there is an intermediate class
of objects, sometimes much more power
ful than man, which do possess life and
will—viz., the brute animals, which in an
early stage of existence play a very great
part in human life; making it the less
surprising that the line should not at
first be quite distinguishable between the
animate and the inanimate part of nature.
As observation advances, it is perceived
that the majority of outward objects have
all their important qualities in common
with entire classes or groups of objects
which comport themselves exactly alike
in the same circumstances, and in these
cases the worship of visible objects is ex
changed for that of an invisible Being
supposed to preside over the whole class.
This step in generalisation is slowly
made, with hesitation and even terror;
as we still see in the case of ignorant
populations with what difficulty experi
ence disabuses them of belief in the
supernatural powers and terrible resent
ment of a particular idol. Chiefly by
these terrors the religious impressions of
barbarians are kept alive, with only
slight modifications, until the Theism
of cultivated minds is ready to take
their place. And the Theism of culti
vated minds, if we take their own
word for it, is always a conclusion either
from arguments called rational or from
the appearances in nature.
69
It is needless here to dwell upon the
difficulty of the hypothesis of a natural
belief not common to all human beings,
an instinct not universal. It is con
ceivable, doubtless, that some men
might be born without a particular
natural faculty, as some are born without
a particular sense. But when this is the
case, we ought to be much more particular
as to the proof that it really is a natural
faculty. If it were not a matter of
observation, but of speculation, that men
can see ; if they had no apparent organ
of sight, and no perceptions or knowledge
but such as they might conceivably have
acquired by some circuitous process
through their other senses, the fact that
men exist who do not even suppose
themselves to see would be a consider
able argument against the theory of a
visual sense. But it would carry us too
far to press, for the purposes of this dis
cussion, an argument which applies so
largely to the whole of the intuitional
philosophy. The strongest Intuitionist
will not maintain that a belief should be
held for instinctive when evidence (real
or apparent), sufficient to engender it, is
universally admitted to exist. To the
force of the evidence must be, in this
case, added all the emotional or moral
causes which incline men to the belief;
the satisfaction which it gives to the
obstinate questionings with which men
torment themselves respecting the past;
the hopes which it opens for the future ;
the fears also, since fear as well as hope
predisposes to belief; and to these in the
case of the more active spirits must
always have been added a perception of
the power which belief in the supernatural
affords for governing mankind, either for
their own good or for the selfish pur
poses of the governors.
The general consent of mankind does
�70
THEISM
not, therefore, afford ground for ad
mitting, even as an hypothesis, the origin,
in an inherent law of the human mind,
of a fact otherwise so more than suffici
ently, so amply, accounted for.
THE ARGUMENT FROM CON
SCIOUSNESS.
There have been numerous arguments,
indeed almost every religious meta
physician has one of his own, to prove
the existence and attributes of God from
what are called truth of reason, sup
posed to be independent of experience.
Descartes, who is the real founder of the
intuitional metaphysics, draws the con
clusion immediately from the first
premise of his philosophy, the celebrated
assumption that whatever he could very
clearly and distinctly apprehend must
be true. The idea of a God, perfect in
power, wisdom, and goodness, is’ a clear
and distinct idea, and must therefore, on
this principle, correspond to a real object.
This bold generalisation, however, that a
conception of the human mind proves
its own objective reality, Descartes is
obliged to limit by the qualification—
“ if the idea includes existence.” Now,
the idea of God implying the union of
all perfections, and existence being a
perfection, the idea of God proves his
existence. This very simple argument,
which denies to man one of his most
familiar and most precious attributes,
that of idealising as it is called—of con
structing from the materials of experience
a conception more perfect than experi
ence itself affords—is not likely to satisfy
any one in the present day. More
elaborate, though scarcely more success
ful efforts, have been made by many of
Descartes’ successors, to derive know
ledge of the Deity from an inward light;
to make it a truth not dependent on ex
ternal evidence, a fact of direct per
ception, or, as they are accustomed to
call it, of consciousness. The philo
sophical world is familiar with the attempt
of Cousin to make out that, whenever we
perceive a particular object, we perceive
along with it, or are conscious of, God;
and also with the celebrated refutation
of this doctrine by Sir William Hamilton.
It would be waste of time to examine
any of these theories in detail. While
each has its own particular logical
fallacies, they labour under the common
infirmity that one man cannot, by pro
claiming with ever so much confidence
that he perceives an object, convince
other people that they see it too. If, in
deed, he laid claim to a divine faculty of
vision, vouchsafed to him alone, and
making him cognisant of things which
men not thus assisted have not the
capacity to see, the case might be
different. Men have been able to get
such claims admitted; and other people
can only require of them to show their
credentials. But when no claim is set up
to any peculiar gift, but we are told that
all of us are as capable as the prophet of
seeing what he sees, feeling what he feels
—nay, that we actually do so—and when
the utmost effort of which we are capable
fails to make us aware of what we are
told we perceive, this supposed universal
faculty of intuition is but
“ The dark lantern of the Spirit
Which none see by but those who bear it
and the bearers may fairly be asked to
consider whether it is not more likely
that they are mistaken as to the origin of
an impression in their minds than that
others are ignorant of the very existence
of an impression in theirs.
The inconclusiveness, in a speculative
point of view, of all arguments from the
subjective notion of Deity to its objective
�THE ARGUMENT FROM CONSCIOUSNESS
reality was well seen by Kant, the most
discriminating of the a prion meta
physicians, who always kept the two
questions, the origin and composition of
our ideas and the reality of the
corresponding objects, perfectly distinct.
According to Kant, the idea of the
Deity is native to the mind, in the sense
that it is constructed by the mind’s own
laws, and not derived from without; but
this idea of speculative reason cannot be
shown by any logical process, or per
ceived by direct apprehension, to have a
corresponding reality outside the human
mind. To Kant, God is neither an
object of direct consciousness nor a con
clusion of reasoning, but a Necessary
Assumption—necessary, not by a logical
but a practical necessity, imposed by the
reality of the Moral Law. Duty is a
fact of consciousness : “Thou shalt ” is
a command issuing from the recesses of
our being, and not to be accounted for
by any impressions derived from experi
ence ; and this command requires a
commander, though it is not perfectly
clear whether Kant’s meaning is that
conviction of a law includes conviction
of a lawgiver, or only that a being of
whose will the law is an expression is
eminently desirable. If the former be
intended, the argument is founded on a
double meaning of the word “ law.” A
rule to which we feel it a duty to con
form has, in common with laws commonly
so-called, the fact of claiming our obedi
ence ; but it does not follow that the
rule must originate, like the laws of the
land, in the will of a legislator or legis
lators external to the mind. We may
even say that a feeling of obligation
which is merely the result of a command
is not what is meant by moral obligation,
which, on the contrary, supposes some
thing that the internal conscience bears
7i
witness to as binding in its own nature;
and which God, in superadding his
command, conforms to, and perhaps
declares, but does not create. Conced
ing, then, for the sake of the argument,
that the moral sentiment is as purely of
the mind’s own growth, the obligation of
duty as entirely independent of experi
ence and acquired impressions, as Kant
or any other metaphysician ever con
tended, it may yet be maintained that
this feeling of obligation rather excludes
than compels the belief in a Divine
legislator merely as the source of the
obligation; and, as a matter of fact, the
obligation of duty is both theoretically
acknowledged and practically felt in the
fullest manner by many who have no
positive belief in God, though seldom,
probably, without habitual and familiar
reference to him as an ideal conception.
But if the existence of God as a wise
and just lawgiver is not a necessary part
of the feelings of morality, it may still be
maintained that those feelings make his
existence eminently desirable. No doubt
they do, and that is the great reason why
we find that good men and women cling
to the belief, and are pained by its being
questioned. But surely it is not legiti
mate to assume that in the order of the
universe whatever is desirable is true.
Optimism, even when a God is already
believed in, is a thorny doctrine to
maintain, and had to be taken by
Leibnitz in the limited sense that the
universe, being made by a good being, is
the best universe possible, not the best
absolutely; that the Divine power, in
short, was not equal to making it more
free from imperfections than it is. But
optimism, prior to belief in a God, and
as the ground of that belief, seems one
of the oddest of all speculative delusions.
[ Nothing, however, I believe, contributes
�72
THEISM
more to keep up the belief in the general
mind of humanity than this feeling of its
desirableness, which, when clothed, as it
very often is, in the forms of an argu
ment, is a naif expression of the ten
dency of the human mind to believe
what is agreeable to it. Positive value
the argument, of course, has none.
Without dwelling further on these or
on any other of the a priori arguments
for Theism, we will no longer delay
passing to the far more important argu
ment of the appearances of contrivance
in nature.
THE ARGUMENT FROM MARKS
OF DESIGN IN NATURE.
We now at last reach an argument of
a really scientific character, which does
not shrink from scientific tests, but
claims to be judged by the established
canons of Induction. The design argu
ment is wholly grounded on experience.
Certain qualities, it is alleged, are found
to be characteristic of such things as are
made by an intelligent mind for a
purpose. The order of Nature, or some
considerable parts of it, exhibit these
qualities in a remarkable degree. We
are entitled from this great similarity in
the effects to infer similarity in the
cause, and to believe that things which
it is beyond the power of man to make,
but which resemble the works of man in
all but power, must also have been made
by intelligence, armed with a power
greater than human.
I have stated this argument in its
fullest strength, as it is stated by its
most thoroughgoing assertors. A very
little consideration, however, suffices to
show that, though it has some force, its
force is very generally overrated. Paley’s
illustration of a watch puts the case
much too strongly. If I found a watch
on an apparently desolate island, I
should, indeed, infer that it had been
left there by a human being; but the
inference would not be from marks
of design, but because I already knew
by direct experience that watches are
made by men. I should draw the infer
ence no less confidently from a footprint,
or from any relic, however insignificant,
which experience has taught me to attri
bute to man : as geologists infer the past
existence of animals from coprolites,
though no one sees marks of design in a
coprolite. The evidence of design in
creation can never reach the height of
direct induction; it amounts only to the
inferior kind of inductive evidence called
analogy. Analogy agrees with induction
in this, that they both argue that a thing
known to resemble another in certain
circumstances (call those circumstances
A and B) will resemble it in another
circumstance (call it C). But the differ
ence is that in induction A and B are
known, by a previous comparison of
many instances, to be the very circum
stances on which C depends, or with
which it is in some way connected.
When this has not been ascertained, the
argument amounts only to this, that
since it is not known with which of the
circumstances existing in the known
case C is connected, they may as well be
A and B as any others ; and therefore
there is a greater probability of C in
cases where we know that A and B exist
than in cases of which we know nothing
at all. This argument is of a weight
very difficult to estimate at all, and
impossible to estimate precisely. It may
be very strong, when the known points of
agreement, A and B, etc., are numerous
and the known points of difference few;
or very weak when the reverse is the
case; but it can never be equal in
�THE ARGUMENT FROM MARKS OF DESIGN IN NATURE
validity to a real induction. The resem
blances between some of the arrange
ments in nature and some of those made
by man are considerable, and even as
mere resemblances afford a certain pre
sumption of similarity of cause; but how
great that presumption is it is hard to
say. All that can be said with certainty
is that these likenesses make creation by
intelligence considerably more probable
than if the likenesses had been less, or
than if there had been no likenesses
at all.
This mode, however, of stating the
case does not do full justice to the
evidence of Theism. The design argu
ment is not drawn from mere resem
blances in Nature to the works of human
intelligence, but from the special charac
ter of those resemblances. The circum
stances in which it is alleged that the
world resembles the works of man are
not circumstances taken at random, but
are particular instances of a circumstance
which experience shows to have a real
connection with an intelligent origin, the
fact of conspiring to an end. The
argument, therefore, is not one of mere
analogy. As mere analogy it has its
weight, but it is more than analogy. It
surpasses analogy exactly as induction
surpasses it. It is an inductive argu
ment.
This, I think, is undeniable, and it
remains to test the argument by the
logical principles applicable to induction.
For this purpose it will be convenient to
handle, not the argument as a whole, but
some one of the most impressive cases
of it, such as the structure of the eye or
of the ear. It is maintained that the
structure of the eye proves a designing
mind. To what class of inductive argu
ments does this belong ? and what is its
degree of force ?
73
The species of inductive arguments
are four in number, corresponding to the
four inductive methods—the methods of
agreement, of difference, of residues, and
of concomitant variations. The argu
ment under consideration falls within the
first of these divisions—the method of
agreement. This is, for reasons known
to inductive logicians, the weakest of the
four; but the particular argument is a
strong one of the kind. It may be
logically analysed as follows :—
The parts of which the eye is com
posed, and the collocations which con
stitute the arrangement of those parts,
resemble one another in this very
remarkable property, that they all con
duce to enabling the animal to see.
These things being as they are, the
animal sees; if any one of them were
different from what it is, the animal, for
the most part, would either not see, or
would not see equally well. And this is
the only marked resemblance that we can
trace among the different parts of this
structure, beyond the general likeness of
composition and organisation which
exists among all other parts of the animal.
Now, the particular combination of
organic elements called an eye had, in
every instance, a beginning in time, and
must, therefore, have been brought
together by a cause or causes. The
number of instances is immeasurably
greater than is, by the principles of in
ductive logic, required for the exclusion
of a random concurrence of independent
causes, or, speaking technically, for the
elimination of chance. We are, there
fore, warranted by the canons of in
duction in concluding that what brought
all these elements together was some
cause common to them all; and inasmuch
as the elements agree in the single
circumstance of conspiring to produce
�74
THEISM
sight, there must be some connection by
way of causation between the cause which
brought those elements together and the
fact of sight.
This I conceive to be a legitimate in
ductive inference, and the sum and sub
stance of what induction can do for
Theism. The natural sequel of the argu
ment would be this. Sight, being a fact
not precedent but subsequent to the
putting together of the organic structure
of the eye, can only be connected with
the production of that structure in the
character of a final, not an efficient, cause;
that is, it is not sight itself, but an ante
cedent idea of it, that must be the
efficient cause. But this at once marks
the origin as proceeding from an in
telligent will.
I regret to say, however, that this
latter half of the argument is not so in
expugnable as the former half. Creative
forethought is not absolutely the only
link by which the origin of the wonderful
mechanism of the eye may be connected
with the fact of sight. There is another
connecting-link on which attention has
been greatly fixed by recent speculations,
and the reality of which cannot be called
in question, though its adequacy to
account for such truly admirable com
binations as some of those in Nature is
still, and will probably long remain,
problematical. This is the principle of
“ the survival of the fittest.”
This principle does not pretend to
account for the commencement of
sensation or of animal or vegetable life.
But assuming the existence of some one
or more very low forms of organic life, in
which there are no complex adaptations
nor any marked appearances of con
trivance, and supposing, as experience
warrants us in doing, that many small
variations from those simple types would
be thrown out in all directions, which
would be transmissible by inheritance,
and of which some would be advan
tageous to the creature in its struggle for
existence and others disadvantageous,
the forms which are advantageous would
always tend to survive, and those which
are disadvantageous to perish. And
thus there would be a constant though
slow general improvement of the type as
it branched out into many different
varieties, adapting it to different media
and modes of existence, until it might
possibly, in countless ages, attain to the
most advanced examples which now
exist.
It must be acknowledged that there is
something very startling, and prima facie
improbable, in this hypothetical history
of Nature. It would require us, for
example, to suppose that the primaeval
animal, of whatever nature it may have
been, could not see, and had at most
such slight preparation for seeing as
might be constituted by some chemical
action of light upon its cellular structure.
One of the accidental variations which
are liable to take place in all organic
beings would at some time or other pro
duce a variety that could see, in some
imperfect manner, and this peculiarity
being transmitted by inheritance, while
other variations continued to take place
in other directions, a number of races
would be produced who, by the power of
even imperfect sight, would have a great
advantage over all other creatures which
could not see, and would in time ex
tirpate them from all places, except,
perhaps, a few very peculiar situations
underground. Fresh variations super
vening would give rise to races with
better and better seeing powers, until we
might at last reach as extraordinary a
combination of structures and functions
�ATTRIBUTES
as are seen in the eye of man and of the
more important animals. Of this theory,
when pushed to this extreme point, all
that can now be said is that it is not so
absurd as it looks, and that the analogies
which have been discovered in experi
ence, favourable to its possibility, far
exceed what any one could have sup
posed beforehand. Whether it will ever
be possible to say more than this is at
present uncertain.
The theory, if
admitted, would be in no way whatever
inconsistent with creation. But it must
be acknowledged that it would greatly
attenuate the evidence for it.
Leaving this remarkable speculation
to whatever fate the progress of discovery
may have in store for it, I think it must
be allowed that, in the present state of
our knowledge, the adaptations in Nature
afford a large balance of probability in
favour of creation by intelligence. It is
equally certain that this is no more than
Part
75
a probability ; and that the various other
arguments of natural theology which we
have considered add nothing to its force.
Whatever ground there is, revelation
apart, to believe in an author of nature
is derived from the appearances in the
universe. Their mere resemblance to
the works of man, or to what man could
do if he had the same power over the
materials of organised bodies which he
has over the materials of a watch, is of
some value as an argument of analogy;
but the argument is greatly strengthened
by the properly inductive considerations
which establish that there is some con
nection through causation between the
origin of the arrangements of nature and
the ends they fulfil; an argument which
is in many cases slight, but in others,
and chiefly in the nice and intricate
combinations of vegetable and animal
life, is of considerable strength.
II.—ATTRIBUTES
The question of the existence of a Deity,
in its purely scientific aspect, standing as
is shown in the First Part, it is next to
be considered, given the indications of a
Deity, what sort of a Deity do they point
to? What attributes are we warranted,
by the evidence which Nature affords of
a creative mind, in assigning to that
mind?
It needs no showing that the power, if
not the intelligence, must be so far
superior to that of man as to surpass
all human estimate. But from this to
omnipotence and omniscience there is a
wide interval. And the distinction is of
immense practical importance.
It is not too much to say that every
indication of Design in the Kosmos is so
much evidence against the omnipotence
of the designer. For what is meant by
design? Contrivance : the adaptation of
means to an end. But the necessity for
contrivance—the need of employing
means—is a consequence of the limita
tion of power. Who would have re
course to means if to attain his end his
mere word was sufficient? The very idea
of means implies that the means have an
�7&
THEISM
efficacy which the direct action of the
being who employs them has not.
Otherwise they are not means, but an
encumbrance. A man does not use
machinery to move his arms. If he did,
it could only be when paralysis had
deprived him of the power of moving
them by volition. But if the employ
ment of contrivance is in itself a sign of
limited power, how much more so
is the careful and skilful choice of con
trivances? Can any wisdom be shown
in the selection of means when the
means have no efficacy but what is given
them by the will of him who employs
them, and when his will could have
bestowed the same efficacy on any other
means ? Wisdom and contrivance are
shown in overcoming difficulties, and
there is no room for them in a being for
whom no difficulties exist. The evi
dences, therefore, of Natural Theology
distinctly imply that the Author of the
Kosmos worked under limitations; that
he was obliged to adapt himself to
conditions independent of his will, and
to attain his ends by such arrangements
as those conditions admitted of.
And this hypothesis agrees with what
we have seen to be the tendency of the
evidences in another respect. We foundthat the appearances in nature point,
indeed, to an origin of the Kosmos, or
order in nature, and indicate that origin
to be design, but do not point to any
commencement, still less creation, of the
two great elements of the universe—the
passive element and the active element,
matter and force. There is in nature
no reason whatever to suppose that
either matter or force, or any of their
properties, were made by the being who
was the author of the collocations by
which the world is adapted to what we
consider as its purposes; or that he has
power to alter any of those properties"
It is only when we consent to entertain
this negative supposition that there
arises a need for wisdom and con
trivance in the order of the universe.
The Deity had on this hypothesis to
work out his ends by combining materials
of a given nature and properties. Out
of these materials he had to construct a
world in which his designs should be
carried into effect through given proper
ties of matter and force, working to
gether and fitting into one another.
This did require skill and contrivance,
and the means by which it is effected
are often such as justly excite our
wonder and admiration; but exactly be
cause it requires wisdom, it implies
limitation of power, or rather the two
phrases express different sides of the
same fact.
If it be said that an Omnipotent
Creator, though under no necessity of
employing contrivances such as man
must use, thought fit to do so in order
to leave traces by which man might
recognise his creative hand, the answer
is that this equally supposes a limit to
his omnipotence. For if it was his will
that men should know that they them
selves and the world are his work, he,
being omnipotent, had only to will that
they should be aware of it. Ingenious
men have sought for reasons why God
might choose to leave his existence so
far a matter of doubt that men should
not be under an absolute necessity of
knowing it, as they are of knowing that
three and two make five. These
imagined reasons are very unfortunate
specimens of casuistry; but even did we
admit their validity, they are of no avail
on the supposition of omnipotence, since,
if it did not please God to implant in man
a complete conviction of his existence,
�ATTRIBUTES
nothing hindered him from making the
conviction fall short of completeness by
any margin he chose to leave. It is usual
to dispose of arguments of this descrip
tion by the easy answer—that we do not
know what wise reasons the Omniscient
may have had for leaving undone things
which he had the power to do. It is
not perceived that this plea itself implies
a limit to omnipotence. When a thing is
obviously good and obviously in accor
dance with what all the evidences of
creation imply to have been the Creator’s
design, and we say we do not know
what good reason he may have had for
not doing it, we mean that we do not
know to what other, still better object—
to what object still more completely in
the line of his purposes, he may have
seen fit to postpone it. But the neces
sity of postponing one thing to another
belongs only to limited power. Omni
potence could have made the objects
compatible. Omnipotence does not need
to weigh one consideration against
another. If the Creator, like a human
ruler, had to adapt himself to a set
of conditions which he did not make,
it is as unphilosophical as presumptuous
in Us to call him to account for any
imperfections in his work; to complain
that he left anything in it contrary to
what, if the indications of design prove
anything, he must have intended. He
must at least know more than we know,
and we cannot judge what greater good
would have had to be sacrificed, or what
greater evil incurred, if he had decided
to remove this particular blot. Not so
if he be omnipotent. If he be that, he
must himself have willed that the two
desirable objects should be incompatible;
he must himself have willed that the
obstacle to his supposed design should
be insuperable. It cannot, therefore, be
77
his design. It will not do to say that it
was, but that he had other designs which
interfered with it; for no one purpose
imposes necessary limitations on another
in the case of a being not restricted by
conditions of possibility.
Omnipotence, therefore, cannot be
predicated of the Creator on grounds of
natural theology. The fundamental
principles of natural religion, as deduced
from the facts of the universe, negative
his omnipotence. They do not, in the
same manner, exclude omniscience: if
we suppose limitation of power, there is
nothing to contradict the supposition of
perfect knowledge and absolute wisdom.
But neither is there anything to prove it.
The knowledge of the powers and
properties of things necessary for
planning and executing the arrange
ments of the Kosmos is, no doubt, as
much in excess of human knowledge as
the power implied in creation is in excess
of human power. And the skill, the
subtlety of contrivance, the ingenuity as
it would be called in the case of a human
work, is often marvellous. But nothing
obliges us to suppose that either the
knowledge or the skill is infinite. We
are not even compelled to suppose that
the contrivances were always the best
possible. If we venture to judge them
as we judge the works of human artificers,
we find abundant defects. The human
body, for example, is one of the most
striking instances of artful and ingenious
contrivance which nature offers, but we
may well ask whether so complicated a
machine could not have been made to
last longer, and not to get so easily and
frequently out of order. We may ask
why the human race should have been
so constituted as to grovel in wretched
ness and degradation for countless ages
before a small portion of it was enabled
�78
THEISM
to lift itself into the very imperfect state
of intelligence, goodness, and happiness
which we enjoy. The divine power may
not have been equal to doing more ; the
obstacles to a better arrangement of
things may have been insuperable. But
it is also possible that they were not.
The skill of the Demiourgos was suffi
cient to produce what we see; but we
cannot tell that this skill reached the
extreme limit of perfection compatible
with the material it employed and the
forces it had to work with. I know not
how we can even satisfy ourselves, on
grounds of natural theology, that the
Creator foresees all the future; that he
foreknows all the effects that will issue
from his own contrivances. There may
be great wisdom without the power of
foreseeing and calculating everything;
and human workmanship teaches us the
possibility that the workman’s knowledge
of the properties of the things he works
on may enable him to make arrange
ments admirably fitted to produce a given
result, while he may have very little
power of foreseeing the agencies of
another kind which may modify or
counteract the operation of the machinery
he has made. Perhaps a knowledge of
the laws of nature on which organic life
depends, not much more perfect than
the knowledge which man even now
possesses of .some other natural laws,
would enable man, if he had the same
power over the materials and the forces
concerned which he has over some of
those of inanimate nature, to create
organised beings not less wonderful nor
less adapted to their conditions of exist
ence than those in nature.
Assuming, then, that while we confine
ourselves to Natural Religion we must
rest content with a Creator less than
Almighty, the question presents itself,
Of what nature is the limitation of his
power ? Does the obstacle at which the
power of the Creator stops, which says
to it, Thus far shalt thou go and no
further, lie in the power of other Intelli
gent Beings; or in the insufficiency and
refractoriness of the materials of the
universe ; or must we resign ourselves to
admitting the hypothesis that the author
of the Kosmos, though wise and know
ing, was not all-wise and all-knowing, and
may not always have done the best that
was possible under the conditions of the
problem ?
The first of these suppositions has
until a very recent period been, and in
many quarters still is, the prevalent
theory even of Christianity. Though
attributing, and in a certain sense
sincerely, omnipotence to the Creator,
the received religion represents him as
for some inscrutable reason tolerating
the perpetual counteraction of his pur
poses by the will of another Being of
opposite character and of great though
inferior power, the Devil. The only
difference on this matter between popular
Christianity and the religion of Ormuzd
and Ahriman is that the former pays its
good Creator the bad compliment of
having been the maker of the Devil, and
of being at all times able to crush and
annihilate him and his evil deeds and
counsels, which, nevertheless, 'he does
not do. But, as I have already
remarked, all forms of polytheism, and
this among the rest, are with difficulty
reconcileable with an universe governed
by general laws. Obedience to law. is
the note of a settled government, and
not of a conflict always going on. When
powers are at war with one another for
the rule of the world, the boundary
between them is not fixed, but constantly
fluctuating. This may seem to be the
�ATTRIBUTES
case on our planet as between the
powers of good and evil when we look
only at the results; but when we con
sider the inner springs we find that both
the good and the evil take place in the
common course of nature, by'virtue of
the same general laws originally im
pressed—the same machinery turning
out now good, now evil things, and
oftener still the two combined. The
division of power is only apparently
variable, but really so regular that, were
we speaking of human potentates, we
should declare without hesitation that
the share of each must have been fixed
by previous consent. Upon that suppo
sition, indeed, the result of the combina
tion of antagonist forces might be much
the same as on that of a single creator
with divided purposes.
But when we come to consider, not
what hypothesis may be conceived, and
possibly reconciled with known facts, but
what supposition is pointed to by the
evidences of natural religion, the case
is different. The indications of design
point strongly in one direction—the
preservation of the creatures in whose
structure the indications are found.
Along with the preserving agencies there
are destroying agencies, which we might
be tempted to ascribe to the will of a
different Creator; but there are rarely
appearances of the recondite contrivance
of means of destruction, except when the
destruction of one creature is the means
of preservation to others. Nor can it be
supposed that the preserving agencies are
wielded by one Being, the destroying
agencies by another. The destroying
agencies are a necessary part of the pre
serving agencies : the chemical com
positions by which life is carried on
could not take place without a parallel
series of decompositions. The great J
79
agent of decay in both organic and in
organic substances is oxidation, and it is
only by oxidation that life is continued
for even the length of a minute. The
imperfections in the attainment of the
purposes which the appearances indicate
have not the air of having been designed.
They are like the unintended results of
accidents insufficiently guarded against,
or of a little excess or deficiency in the
quantity of some of the agencies by
which the good purpose is carried on, or
else they are consequences of the wearing
out of a machinery not made to last for
ever: they point either to shortcomings
in the workmanship as regards its in
tended purpose, or to external forces not
under the control of the workman, but
which forces bear no mark of being
wielded and aimed by any other and
rival Intelligence.
We may conclude, then, that there is
no ground in Natural Theology for attri
buting intelligence or personality to the
obstacles which partially thwart what
seem the purposes of the Creator. The
limitation of his power more -probably
results either from the qualities of the
material—the substances and forces of
which the universe is composed not
admitting of any arrangements by which
his purposes could be more completely
fulfilled; or else, the purposes might have
been more fully attained, but the Creator
did not know how to do it; creative
skill, wonderful as it is, was not suffi
ciently perfect to accomplish his purposes
more thoroughly.
We now pass to the moral attributes
of the Deity, so far as indicated in the
Creation ; or (stating the problem in the
broadest manner) to the question, what
indications Nature gives of the purposes
of its author. This question bears a very
different aspect to us from what it bears
�8o
THEISM
to those teachers of Natural Theology who
are encumbered with the necessity of ad
mitting the omnipotence of the Creator.
We have not to attempt the impossible
problem of reconciling infinite benevo
lence and justice with infinite power in
the Creator of such a world as this. The
attempt to do so not only involves abso
lute contradiction in an intellectual point
of view, but exhibits to excess the revolt
ing spectacle of a Jesuitical defence of
moral enormities.
On this topic I need not add to the
illustrations given of this portion of the
subject in my essay on Nature. At the
stage which our argument has reached
there is none of this moral perplexity.
Grant that creative power was limited by
conditions the nature and extent of which
are wholly unknown to us, and the good
ness and justice of the Creator may be all
that the most pious believe; and all in
the work that conflicts with those moral
attributes may be the fault of the con
ditions which left to the Creator only a
choice of evils.
It is, however, one question whether
any given conclusion is consistent with
known facts, and another whether there
is evidence to prove it; and if we have
no means for judging of the design but
from the work actually produced, it is a
somewhat hazardous speculation to sup
pose that the work designed was of a
different quality from the result realised.
Still, though the ground is unsafe, we
may, with due caution, journey a certain
distance on it. Some parts of the order
of nature give much more indication of
contrivance than others; many, it is not
too much to say, give no sign of it at all.
The signs of contrivance are most con
spicuous in the structure and processes
of vegetable and animal life. But for
these, it is probable that the appearances
in nature would never have seemed to
the thinking part of mankind to afford
any proofs of a God. But when a God
had been inferred from the organisation
of living beings, other parts of nature,
such as the structure of the solar system,
seemed to afford evidences more or less
strong in confirmation of the belief:
granting, then, a design in Nature, we can
best hope to be enlightened as to what
that design was by examining it in the
parts of nature in which its traces are the
most conspicuous.
To what purpose, then, do the ex
pedients in the construction of animals
and vegetables, which excite the admira
tion of naturalists, appear to tend ?
There is no blinking the fact that they
tend principally to no more exalted
object than to make the structure
remain in life and in working order for
a certain time; the individual for a few
years, the species or race for a longer
but still a limited period. And the
similar though less conspicuous marks
of creation which are recognised in
inorganic nature are generally of the
same character. The adaptations, for
instance, which appear in the solar
system consist in placing it under con
ditions which enable the mutual action
of its parts to maintain instead of
destroying its stability, and even that
only for a time, vast,.indeed, if measured
against our short span of animated
existence, but which can be per
ceived even by us to be limited;
for even the feeble means which
we possess of exploring the past are
believed by those who have examined
the subject by the most recent lights to
yield evidence that the solar system was
once a vast sphere of nebula or vapour,
and is going through a process which in
the course of ages will reduce it to a
�ATTRIBUTES
single and not very large mass of solid '
matter frozen up with more than arctic
cold. If the machinery of the system is
adapted to keep itself at work only for a
time, still less perfect is the adaptation
of it for the abode of living beings, since
it is only adapted to them during the
relatively short portion of its total dura
tion which intervenes between the time
when each planet was too hot and the
time when it became, or will become,
too cold to admit of life under the only
conditions in which we have experience
of its possibility. Or we should, per
haps, reverse the statement, and say that
organisation and life are only adapted
to the conditions of the solar system
during a relatively short portion of the
system’s existence.
The greater part, therefore, of the
design of which there is indication in
nature, however wonderful its mechanism,
is no evidence of any moral attributes,
because the end to which it is directed,
and its adaptation to which end is the
evidence of its being directed to an end at
all, is not a moral end; it is not the good
of any sentient creature; it is but the
qualified permanence for a limited period
of the work itself, whether animate or
inanimate. The only inference that can
be drawn from most of it respecting
the character of the Creator is that he
does not wish his works to perish as
soon as created; he wills them to have
a certain ^duration. From this alone
nothing can be justly inferred as to the '
manner in which he is affected towards
his animate or rational creatures.
After deduction of the great number
of adaptations which have no apparent
object but to keep the machine going,
there remain a certain number of pro
visions for giving pleasure to living
beings, and a certain number of provi-
sions for giving them pain. There is no
positive certainty that the whole of these
ought not to take their place among the
contrivances for keeping the creature or
its species in existence, for both the
pleasures and the pains have a con
servative tendency—the pleasures being
generally so disposed as to attract to the
things which maintain individual or
collective existence; the pains, so as to
deter from such as would destroy it.
When all these things are considered,
it is evident that a vast deduction must
be made from the evidences of a Creator
before they can be counted as evidences
of a benevolent purpose; so vast, indeed,
that some may doubt whether, after such
a deduction, there remains any balance.
Yet, endeavouring to look at the question
without partiality or prejudice, and with
out allowing wishes to have any influence
over judgment, it does appear that,
granting the existence of design, there is
a preponderance of evidence that the
Creator desired the pleasure of his
creatures. This is indicated by the fact
that pleasure of one description or
another is afforded by almost everything,
the mere play of the faculties, physical
and mental, being a never-ending source
of pleasure, and even painful things
giving pleasure by the satisfaction of
curiosity and the agreeable sense of
acquiring knowledge; and also that
pleasure, when experienced, seems to
result from the normal working of the
machinery, while pain usually arises from
some external interference with it, and
resembles in each particular case the
result of an accident. Even in cases
when pain results, like pleasure, from the
machinery itself, the appearances do not
indicate that contrivance was brought
into play purposely to produce pain :
what is indicated is rather a clumsiness
G
�82
THEISM
in the contrivance employed for some
other purposes. The author of the
machinery is no doubt accountable for
having made it susceptible of pain ; but
this may have been a necessary condition
of its susceptibility to pleasure; a suppo
sition which avails nothing on the theory
of an omnipotent Creator, but is an
extremely probable one in the case of a
Contriver working under the limitation
of inexorable laws and indestructible
properties of matter. The susceptibility
being conceded as a thing which did
enter into design, the pain itself usually
seems like a thing undesigned ; a casual
result of the collision of the organism
with some outward force to which it was
not intended to be exposed, and which
in many cases provision is even made to
hinder it from being exposed to. There
is, therefore, much appearance that
pleasure is agreeable to the Creator,
while there is very little, if any, appear
ance that pain is so; and there is a
certain amount of justification for infer
ring, on grounds of Natural Theology
alone, that benevolence is one of the
attributes of the Creator. But to jump
from this to the inference that his sole
or chief purposes are those of benevo
lence, and that the single end and aim of
Creation was the happiness of his creatures,
is not only not justified by any evidence,
but is a conclusion in opposition to such
evidence as we have. If the motive of
the Deity for creating sentient beings
was the happiness of the beings he
created, his purpose, in our corner of
the universe at least, must be pro
nounced, taking past ages and all
countries and races into account, to
have been thus far an ignominious
failure; and if God had no purpose but
our happiness and that of other living
creatures, it is not credible that he would
have called them into existence with the
prospect of being so completely baffled.
If man had not the power by the exercise
of his own energies for the improvement
both of himself and of his outward
circumstances to do for himself and
other creatures vastly more than God
had in the first instance done, the Being
who called him into existence would
deserve something very different from
thanks at his hands. Of course, it may
be said that this very capacity of improv
ing himself and the world was given to
him by God, and that the change which
he will be thereby enabled ultimately to
effect in human existence will be worth
purchasing by the sufferings and wasted
lives of entire geological periods. This
may be so; but to suppose that God
could not have given him these blessings
at a less frightful cost is to make a
very strange supposition concerning the
Deity. It is to suppose that God could
not, in the first instance, create anything
better than a Bosjesman or an Andaman
islander, or something still lower; and
yet was able to endow the Bosjesman or
the Andaman islander with the power of
raising himself into a Newton or a
Fenelon. We certainly do not know
the nature of the barriers which limit
the divine omnipotence; but it is a very
odd notion of them that they enable the
Deity to confer on an almost bestial
creature the power of producing by a
succession of efforts what God himself
had no other means of creating.
Such are the indications of Natural
Religion in respect to the divine benevo
lence. If we look for any other of the
moral attributes which a certain class of
philosophers are accustomed to distin
guish from benevolence, as, for example,
Justice, we find a total blank. There is
no evidence whatever in nature for
�IMMORTALITY
divine justice, whatever standard of
justice our ethical opinions may lead us to
recognise. There is no shadow of justice
in the general arrangements of nature;
and what imperfect realisation it obtains
in any human society (a most imperfect
realisation as yet) is the work of man
himself, struggling upwards against
immense natural difficulties into civilisa
tion, and making to himself a second
nature, far better and more unselfish
than he was created with. But on this
point enough has been said in another
essay, already referred to, on Nature.
These, then, are the net results of
Natural Theology on the question of the
divine attributes. A Being of great but
limited power, how or by what limited
Part
83
we cannot even conjecture; of great,
and perhaps unlimited intelligence, but
perhaps, also, more narrowly limited than
his power; who desires, and pays some
regard to, the happiness of his creatures,
but who seems to have other motives of
action which he cares more for, and who
can hardly be supposed to have created
the universe for that purpose alone.
Such is the Deity whom Natural Re
ligion points to; and any idea of God
more captivating than this comes only
from human wishes, or from the teaching
of either real or imaginary Revelation.
We shall next examine whether the
light of nature gives any indications con
cerning the immortality of the soul and
a future life.
III.—IMMORTALITY
The indications of immortality may be
considered in two divisions—those which
are independent of any theory respecting
the Creator and his intentions, and those
which depend upon an antecedent belief
on that subject.
Of the former class of arguments
speculative men have in different ages
put forward a considerable variety, of
which those in the Phcedon of Plato are
an example; but they are for the most
part such as have no adherents, and
need not be seriously refuted, now.
They are generally founded upon pre
conceived theories as to the nature of
the thinking principle in man, considered
as distinct and separable from the body,
and on other preconceived theories re
specting death. As, for example, that
death, or dissolution, is always a separa
tion of parts ; and the soul being without
parts, being simple and indivisible, is
not susceptible of this separation.
Curiously enough, one of the interlo
cutors in the Phcedon anticipates the
answer by which an objector of the
present day would meet this argument—
namely, that thought and consciousness,
though mentally distinguishable from
the body, may not be a substance
separable from it, but a result of it,
standing in relation to it (the illustration
is Plato’s) like that of a tune to the
musical instrument on which it is
played; and that the arguments used
to prove that the soul does not die with
the body would equally prove that the
tune does not die with the instrument,
�84
THEISM
but survives its destruction and con
tinues to exist apart. In fact, those
moderns who dispute the evidences of
the immortality of the soul do not, in
general, believe the soul to be a sub
stance per se, but regard it as the name
of a bundle of attributes, the attributes
of feeling, thinking, reasoning, believing,
willing, etc.; and these attributes they
regard as a consequence of the bodily
organisation, which, therefore, they argue,
it is as unreasonable to suppose surviving
when that organisation is dispersed as
to suppose the colour or odour of a
rose surviving when the rose itself has
perished. Those, therefore, who would
deduce the immortality of the soul from
its own nature have first to prove that
the attributes in question are not attri
butes of the body, but of a separate
substance. Now, what is the verdict of
science on this point ? It is not per
fectly conclusive either way. In the
first place, it does not prove, experi
mentally, that any mode of organisation
has the power of producing feeling or
thought. To make that proof good it
would be necessary that we should be
able to produce an organism, and try
whether it would feel—which we cannot
do; organisms cannot by any human
means be produced, they can only be
developed out of a previous organism.
On the other hand, the evidence is wellnigh complete that all thought and feel
ing has some action of the bodily
organism for its immediate antecedent
or accompaniment; that the specific
variations, and especially the different
degrees of complication of the nervous
and cerebral organisation, correspond to
differences in the development of the
mental faculties; and though we have
no evidence, except negative, that the
mental consciousness ceases for ever
when the functions of the brain are
at an end, we do know that diseases
of the brain disturb the mental functions,
and that decay or weakness of the brain
enfeebles them. We have, therefore,
sufficient evidence that cerebral action
is, if not the cause, at least, in our
present state of existence, a condition
sine qua non of mental operations; and
that, assuming the mind to be a distinct
substance, its separation from the body
would not be, as some have vainly
flattered themselves, a liberation from
trammels and restoration to freedom,
but would simply put a stop to its
functions and remand it to unconscious
ness, unless and until some other set of
conditions supervenes, capable of re
calling it into activity, but of the exist
ence of which experience does not give
us the smallest indication.
At the same time, it is of importance
to remark that these considerations only
amount to defect of evidence; they
afford no positive argument against
immortality. We must beware of giving
a priori validity to the conclusions of
an a posteriori philosophy. The root of
all a priori thinking is the tendency to
transfer to outward things a strong asso
ciation between the corresponding ideas
in our own minds; and the thinkers
who most sincerely attempt to limit
their beliefs by experience, and honestly
believe that they do so, are not always
sufficiently on their guard against this
mistake. There are thinkers who regard
it as a truth of reason that miracles are
impossible; and in like manner there
are others who, because the phenomena
of life and consciousness are associated
in their minds by undeviating experi
ence with the action of material organs,
think it an absurdity per se to imagine it
possible that those phenomena can exist
�IMMORTALITY
under any other conditions. But they
should remember that the uniform co
existence of one fact with another does
not make the one fact a part of the
other, or the same with it. The relation
of thought to a material brain is no
metaphysical necessity, but simply a
constant co existence within the limits
of observation. And when analysed to
the bottom on the principles of the
Associative Psychology, the brain, just
as much as the mental functions, is, like
matter itself, merely a set of human
sensations either actual or inferred as
possible—namely, those which the anato
mist has when he opens the skull, and
the impressions which we suppose we
should receive of molecular or some
other movements when the cerebral
action was going on, if there were no
bony envelope and our senses or our
instruments were sufficiently delicate.
Experience furnishes us with no example
of any series of states of consciousness
without this group of contingent sensa
tions attached to it; but it is as easy to
imagine such a series of states without
as with this accompaniment, and we
know of no reason in the nature of
things against the possibility of its being
thus disjoined. We may suppose that
the same thoughts, emotions, volitions,
and even sensations which we have
here, may persist or recommence some
where else under other conditions, just
as we may suppose that other thoughts
and sensations may exist under other
conditions in other parts of the universe.
And in entertaining this supposition we
need not be embarrassed by any meta
physical difficulties about a thinking
substance. Substance is but a general
name for the perdurability of attributes ;
wherever there is a series of thoughts con
nected together by memories, that consti
85
tutes a thinking substance. This absolute
distinction in thought and separability
in representation of our states of con
sciousness from the set of conditions
with which they are united only by con
stancy of concomitance is equivalent in
a practical point of view to the old
distinction of the two substances, Matter
and Mind.
There is, therefore, in science no
evidence against the immortality of the
soul but that negative evidence, which
consists in the absence of evidence in
its favour. And even the negative evi
dence is not so strong as negative
evidence often is. In the case of witch
craft, for instance, the fact that there is
no proof which will stand examination
of its having ever existed is as conclu
sive as the most positive evidence of its
non-existence would be ; for it exists, if
it does exist, on this earth, where, if it
had existed, the evidence of fact would
certainly have been available to prove
it. But it is not so as to the soul’s
existence after death. That it does not
remain on earth and go about visibly or
interfere in the events of life is proved
by the same weight of evidence which
disproves witchcraft. But that it does
not exist elsewhere there is absolutely
no proof. A very faint, if any, presump
tion is all that is afforded by its dis
appearance from the surface of this
planet.
Some may think that there is an
additional and very strong presumption
against the immortality of the thinking
and conscious principle, from the analysis
of all the other objects of Nature. All
things in Nature perish, the most beau
tiful and perfect being, as philosophers
and poets alike complain, the most
perishable. A flower of the most ex
quisite form and colouring grows up
�86
THEISM
from a root, comes to perfection in
weeks or months, and lasts only a few
hours or days. Why should it be other
wise with man? Why, indeed. But
why, also, should it not be otherwise ?
Feeling and thought are not merely
different from what we call inanimate
matter, but are at the opposite pole of
existence, and analogical inference has
little or no validity from the one to the
other. Feeling and thought are much
more real than anything else; they are
the only things which we directly know
to be real, all things else being merely
the unknown conditions on which these,
in our present state of existence, or in
some other, depend. All matter apart
from the feelings of sentient beings has
but an hypothetical and unsubstantial
-existence; it is a mere assumption to
account for our sensations ; itself we do
not perceive, we are not conscious of it,
but only of the sensations which we are
said to receive from it; in reality it is a
mere name for our expectation of
sensations, or for our belief that we can
have certain sensations when certain
other sensations give indication of them.
Because these contingent possibilities
of sensation sooner or later come to
an end and give place to others, is it
implied in this that the series of our
feelings must itself be broken off? This
would not be to reason from one kind of
substantive reality to another, but to
draw from something which has no
reality except in reference to something
else, conclusions applicable to that
which is the only substantive reality.
Mind (or whatever name we give to
what is implied in consciousness of a
continued series of feelings) is, in a
philosophical point of view, the only
reality of which we have any evidence;
and no analogy can be recognised or
comparison made between it and other
realities, because there are no other
known realities to compare it with.
That is quite consistent with its being
perishable; but the question whether it
is so or not is res integra, untouched by
any of the results of human knowledge
and experience. The case is one of
those very rare cases in which there is
really a total absence of evidence on
either side, and in which the absence of
evidence for the affirmative does not, as
in so many cases it does, create a strong
presumption in favour of the negative.
The belief, however, in human immor
tality in the minds of mankind generally
is probably not grounded on any scien
tific arguments either physical or meta
physical, but on foundations with most
minds much stronger—namely, on one
hand the disagreeableness of giving up
existence (to those at least to whom it
has hitherto been pleasant), and on the
other the general traditions of mankind.
The natural tendency of belief to follow
these two inducements, our own wishes
and the general assent of other people,
has been in this instance reinforced by
the utmost exertion of the power of
public and private teaching; rulers and
instructors having at all times, with the
view of giving greater effect to their
mandates, whether from selfish or from
public motives, encouraged to the utmost
of their power the belief that there is a life
after death, in which pleasures and suffer
ings far greater than on earth depend
on our doing or leaving undone while
alive what we are commanded to do in
the name of the unseen powers. As
causes of belief these various circum
stances are most powerful. As rational
grounds of it they carry no weight at all.
That what is called the consoling
nature of an opinion—that is, the pleasure
�IMMORTALITY
we should have in believing it to be true—
can be a ground for believing it is a
doctrine irrational in itself, and which
would sanction half the mischievous
illusions recorded in history or which
mislead individual life. It is sometimes,
in the case now under consideration,
wrapped up in a quasi-scientific language.
We are told that the desire of immor
tality is one of our instincts, and that
there is no instinct which has not corre
sponding to it a real object fitted to
satisfy it. Where there is hunger there
is somewhere food, where there is sexual
feeling there is somewhere sex, where
there is love there is somewhere some
thing to be loved, and so forth : in like
manner, since there is the instinctive
desire of eternal life, eternal life there
must be. The answer to this is patent
on the very surface of the subject. It
is unnecessary to go into any recondite
considerations concerning instincts, or to
discuss whether the desire in question
is an instinct or not. Granting that
wherever there is an instinct there
exists something such as that instinct
demands, can it be affirmed that this
something exists in boundless quantity,
or sufficient to satisfy the infinite craving
of human desires ? What is called the
desire of eternal life is simply the desire
of life; and does there not exist that
which this desire calls for? Is there not
life? And is not the instinct, if it be
an instinct, gratified by the possession
and preservation of life? To suppose
that the desire of life guarantees to us
personally the reality of life through all
eternity is like supposing that the desire
of food assures us that we shall always
have as much as we can eat through
our whole lives, and as much longer as
we can conceive our lives to be pro
tracted to.
The argument from tradition or the
general belief of the human race, if we
accept it as a guide to our own belief,
must be accepted entire : if so, we are
bound to believe that the souls of
human beings not only survive after
death, but show themselves as ghosts to
the living; for we find no people who
have had the "one belief without the
other. Indeed, it is probable that the
former belief originated in the latter,
and that primitive men would never have
supposed that the soul did not die with
the body if they had not fancied that it
visited them after death. Nothing could
be more natural than such a fancy ; it is,
in appearance, completely realised in
dreams, which in Homer, and in all ages
like Homer’s, are supposed to be real
apparitions. To dreams we have to add
not merely waking hallucinations, but the
delusions, however baseless, of sight and
hearing, or, rather, the misinterpreta
tions of those senses, sight or hearing
supplying mere hints from which imagi
nation paints a complete picture and
invests it with reality. These delusions
are not to be judged of by a modern
standard: in early times the line be
tween imagination and perception was
by no means clearly defined; there was
little or none of the knowledge we now
possess of the actual course of nature,
which makes us distrust or disbelieve
any appearance which is at variance
with known laws. In the ignorance of
men as to what were the limits of nature,
and what was or was not compatible
with it, no one thing seemed, as far
as physical considerations went, to be
much more improbable than another.
In rejecting, therefore, as we do, and as
we have the best reason to do, the tales
and legends of the actual appearance of
disembodied spirits, we take from under
�88
THEISM
the general belief in mankind in a life
after death, what in all probability was
its chief ground and support, and
deprive it of even the very little value
which the opinion of rude ages can ever
have as evidence of truth. If it be said
that this belief has maintained itself in
ages which have ceased to be rude, and
which reject the superstitions with which
it once was accompanied, the same may
be said of many other opinions of rude
ages, and especially on the most im
portant and interesting subjects, because
it is on those subjects that the reigning
opinion, whatever it may be, is the most
sedulously inculcated upon all who are
born into the world. This particular
opinion, moreover, if it has on the whole
kept its ground, has done so with a
constantly increasing number of dis
sentients, and those especially among
cultivated minds. Finally, those culti
vated minds which adhere to the belief
ground it, we may reasonably suppose,
not on the belief of others, but on
arguments and evidences; and those
arguments and evidences, therefore, are
what it concerns us to estimate and
judge.
'Fhe preceding are a sufficient sample
of the arguments for a future life which
do not suppose an antecedent belief in
the existence, or any theory respecting
the attributes, of the Godhead. It re
mains to consider what arguments are
supplied by such lights, or such grounds
of conjecture, as Natural Theology affords
on those great questions.
We have seen that these lights are but
faint; that of the existence of a Creator
they afford no more than a preponder
ance of probability; of his benevolence,
a considerably less preponderance ; that
there is, however, some reason to think
that he cares for the pleasures of his
creatures, but by no means that this is
his sole care, or that other purposes do
not often take precedence of it. His
intelligence must be adequate to the
contrivances apparent in the universe,
but need not be more than adequate
to them, and his power is not only not
proved to be infinite, but the only real
evidences in Natural Theology tend to
show that it is limited, contrivance being
a mode of overcoming difficulties, and
always supposing difficulties to be over
come.
We have now to consider what infer
ence can legitimately be drawn from
these premises, in favour of a future life.
It seems to me, apart from express
revelation, none at all.
The common arguments are, the good
ness of God; the improbability that he
would ordain the annihilation of his
noblest and richest work, after the greater
part of its few years of life had been
spent in the acquisition of faculties
which time has not allowed him to turn
to fruit; and the special improbability
that he would have implanted in us an
instinctive desire of eternal life, and
doomed that desire to complete dis
appointment.
These might be arguments in a world
the constitution of which made it pos
sible without contradiction to hold it for
the work of a Being at once omnipotent
and benevolent. But they are not argu
ments in a world like that in which we
live. The benevolence of the divine
Being may be perfect, but, his power
being subject to unknown limitations,
we know not that he could have given
us what we so confidently assert that he
must have given ; could (that is) without
sacrificing something more important.
Even his benevolence, however justly
inferred, is by no means indicated as the
�IMMORTALITY
interpretation of his whole purpose; and
since we cannot tell how far other pur
poses may have interfered with the
exercise of his benevolence, we know
not that he would, even if he could, have
granted us eternal life. With regard to
the supposed improbability of his having
given the wish without its gratification,
the same answer may be made: the
scheme which either limitation of power,
or conflict of purposes, compelled him to
adopt may have required that we should
have the wish, although it were not
destined to be gratified. One thing,
however, is quite certain in respect to
God’s government of the world : that he
either could not, or would not, grant to
us everything we wish. We wish for
life, and he has granted some life; that
we wish (or some of us wish) for a
boundless extent of life, and that it is not
granted, is no exception to the ordinary
modes of his government. Many a
man would like to be a Croesus or an
Augustus Caesar, but has his wishes
gratified only to the moderate extent of a
pound a week or the secretaryship of his
Trade Union. There is, therefore, no
assurance whatever of a life after death,
on grounds of natural religion. But to
any one who feels it conducive either to
his satisfaction or to his usefulness to
hope for a future state as a possibility,
there is no hindrance to his indulging
that hope. Appearances point to the
existence of a Being who has great
power over us—all the power implied in
the creation of the Kosmos, or of its
organised beings at least—and of whose
goodness we have evidence, though not
of its being his predominant attribute;
and as we do not know the limits either
of his power or of his goodness, there is
room to hope that both the one and the
other may extend to granting us this
gift, provided that it would really be
beneficial to us. The same ground
which permits the hope warrants us in
expecting that, if there be a future life, it
will be at least as good as the present,
and will not be wanting in the best
feature of the present life—improvability
by our own efforts. Nothing can be
more opposed to every estimate we can
form of probability than the common
idea of the future life as a state of
rewards and punishments in any other
sense than that the consequences of our
actions upon our own character and sus
ceptibilities will follow us in the future as
they have done in the past and present.
Whatever be the probabilities of a future
life, all the probabilities in case of a
future life are that such as we have been
made or have made ourselves before the
change, such we shall enter into the life
hereafter; and that the fact of death will
make no sudden break in our spiritual
life, nor influence our character any
otherwise than as any important change
in our mode of existence may always be
expected to modify it. Our thinking
principle has its laws, which in this life
are invariable, and any analogies drawn
from this life must assume that the same
laws will continue. To imagine that a
miracle will be wrought at death by the
act of God making perfect every one
whom it is his will to include among his
elect, might be justified by an express
revelation duly authenticated, but is
utterly opposed to every presumption
that can be deduced from the light of
Nature.
�THEISM
90
Part
IV.—REVELATION
The discussion in the preceding pages
respecting the evidences of Theism has
been strictly confined to those which
are derived from the light of Nature. It
is a different question what addition has
been made to those evidences, and to
what extent the conclusions obtainable
from them have been amplified or modi
fied, by the establishment of a direct
communication with the Supreme Being.
It would be beyond the purpose of this
essay to take into consideration the
positive evidences of the Christian or
any other belief which claims to be a
revelation from Heaven. But such
general considerations as are applicable,
not to a particular system, but to
Revelation generally, may properly find
a place here, and are, indeed, necessary
to give a sufficiently practical bearing
to the results of the preceding investi
gation.
In the first place, then, the indications
of a Creator and of his attributes which
we have been able to find in Nature,
though so much slighter and less con
clusive even as to his existence than the
pious mind would wish to consider
them, and still more unsatisfactory in
the information they afford as to his
attributes, are yet sufficient to give to the
supposition of a Revelation a standing
point which it would not otherwise have
had. The alleged Revelation is not
obliged to build up its case from the
foundation; it has not to prove the very
existence of the Being from whom it
professes to come. It claims to be a
message from a Being whose existence,
whose power, and to a certain extent
whose wisdom and goodness, are, if not
proved, at least indicated with more or
less of probability by the phenomena of
Nature. The sender of the alleged
message is not a sheer invention; there
are grounds independent of the message
itself for belief in his reality; grounds
which, though insufficient for proof, are
sufficient to take away all antecedent
improbability from the supposition that
a message may really have been received
from him. It is, moreover, much to the
purpose to take notice that the very
imperfection of the evidences which
Natural Theology can produce of the
Divine attributes removes some of the
chief stumbling blocks to the belief
of a Revelation; since the objections
grounded on imperfections in the Reve
lation itself, however conclusive against
it, if it is considered as a record of
the acts or an expression of the wisdom
of a Being of infinite power combined
with infinite wisdom and goodness, are
no reason whatever against its having
come from a Being such as the course of
nature points to, whose wisdom is pos
sibly, his power certainly, limited, and
whose goodness, though real, is not
likely to have been the only motive
which actuated him in the work of
Creation. The argument of Butler’s
Analogy is, from its own point of view,
conclusive : the Christian religion is open
to no objections, either moral or intel
lectual, which do not apply, at least,
equally to the common theory of Deism;
the morality of the Gospels is far higher
and better than that which shows itself
in the order of Nature; and what is
�REVELATION
morally objectionable in the Christian
theory of the world is objectionable only
when taken in conjunction with the
doctrine of an omnipotent God; and
(at least as understood by the most
enlightened Christians) by no means im
ports any moral obliquity in a Being
whose power is supposed to be restricted
by real though unknown obstacles,
which prevented him from fully carrying
out his design. The grave error of
Butler was that he shrank from admit
ting the hypothesis of limited powers ;
and his appeal consequently amounts
to this : The belief of Christians is
neither more absurd nor more immoral
than the belief of Deists who acknow
ledge an Omnipotent Creator; let us,
therefore, in spite of the absurdity and
immorality, believe both. He ought to
have said : Let us cut down our belief
of either to what does not involve
absurdity or immorality; to what is
neither intellectually self-contradictory
nor morally perverted.
To return, however, to the main sub
ject : on the hypothesis of a God, who
made the world, and in making it had
regard, however that regard may have
been limited by other considerations, to
the happiness of his sentient creatures,
there is no antecedent improbability in
the supposition that his concern for
their good would continue, and that he
might once, or oftener, give proof of it
by communicating to them some know
ledge of himself beyond what they were
able to make out by their unassisted
faculties, and some knowledge or pre
cepts useful for guiding them through
the difficulties of life. Neither on the
only tenable hypothesis, that of limited
power, is it open to us to object that
these helps ought to have been greater,
or in any way other than they are. The
91
only question to be entertained, and
which we cannot dispense ourselves from
entertaining, is that of evidence. Can
any evidence suffice to prove a Divine
Revelation ? And of what nature, and
what amount, must that evidence be ?
Whether the special evidences of
Christianity, or of any other alleged
revelation, do or do not come up to the
mark, is a different question, into which
I do not propose directly to enter. The
question I intend to consider is, what
evidence is required; what general con
ditions it ought to satisfy; and whether
they are such as, according to the known
constitution of things, can be satisfied.
The evidences of Revelation are com
monly distinguished as external or in
ternal. External evidences are the testi
mony of the senses or of witnesses. By
the internal evidences are meant the
indications which the Revelation itself
is thought to furnish of its divine origin ;
indications supposed to consist chiefly in
the excellence of its precepts, and its
general suitability to the circumstances
and needs of human nature.
The consideration of these internal
evidences is very important, but their
importance is principally negative : they
may be conclusive grounds for rejecting
a Revelation, but cannot of themselves
warrant the acceptance of it as divine.
If the moral character of the doctrines
of an alleged Revelation is bad and
perverting, we ought to reject it from
whomsoever it comes, for it cannot come
from a good and wise Being. But the
excellence of their morality can never
entitle us to ascribe to them a super
natural origin; for we cannot have con
clusive reason for believing that the
human faculties were incompetent to find
out moral doctrines of which the human
faculties can perceive and recognise the
�92
THEISM
excellence. A Revelation, therefore,
cannot be proved divine unless by ex
ternal evidence—that is, by the exhibi
tion of supernatural facts. And we
have to consider whether it is possible
to prove supernatural facts, and, if it
is, what evidence is required to prove
them.
This question has only, so far as I
know, been seriously raised on the
sceptical side by Hume. It is the ques
tion involved in his famous argument
against miracles—an argument which
goes down to the depths of the subject,
but the exact scope and effect of
which (perhaps not conceived with per
fect correctness by that great thinker
himself) have in general been utterly
misconceived by those who have at
tempted to answer him. Dr. Campbell,
for example, one of the acutest of his
antagonists, has thought himself obliged,
in order to support the credibility of
miracles, to lay down doctrines which
virtually go the length of maintaining
that antecedent improbability is never a
sufficient ground for refusing credence
to a statement, if it is well attested. Dr.
Campbell’s fallacy lay in overlooking a
double meaning of the word “impro
bability”; as I have pointed out in my
Logic, and, still earlier, in an editorial
note to Bentham’s treatise on Evidence.
Taking the question from the very
beginning, it is evidently impossible to
maintain that, if a supernatural fact really
occurs, proof of its occurrence cannot be
accessible to the human faculties. The
evidence of our senses could prove this
as it can prove other things. To put
the most extreme case : Suppose that I
actually saw and heard a Being, either
of the human form or of some form
previously unknown to me, commanding
a world to exist,, and a new world
actually starting into existence and com
mencing a movement through space,
at his command. There can be no
doubt that this evidence would convert
the creation of worlds from a speculation
into a fact of experience. It may be
said I could not know that so singular
an appearance was anything more than
a hallucination of my senses. True,
but the same doubt exists at first re^
specting every unsuspected and surpris
ing fact which comes to light in our
physical researches. That our senses
have been deceived is a possibility which
has to be met and dealt with, and we do
deal with it by several means. If we
repeat the experiment, and again with
the same result; if at the time of the
observation the impressions of our senses
are in all other respects the same as
usual, rendering the supposition of their
being morbidly affected in this one par
ticular extremely improbable; above all,
if other people’s senses confirm the testi
mony of our own; we conclude, with
reason, that we may trust our senses.
Indeed, our senses are all that we have
to trust to. We depend on them for the
ultimate premises even of our reason
ings. There is no other appeal against
their decision than an appeal from the
senses without precautions to the senses
with all due precautions. When the
evidence on which an opinion rests is
equal to that upon which the whole con
duct and safety of our lives is founded,
we need ask no further. Objections
which apply equally to all evidence are
valid against none. They only prove
abstract fallibility.
But the evidence of miracles, at least
to Protestant Christians, is not, in our
own day, of this cogent description. It
is not the evidence of our senses, but of
witnesses, and even this not at first
�REVELATION
hand, but resting on the attestation of
books and traditions. And even in the
case of the original eye-witnesses, the
supernatural facts asserted on their
alleged testimony are not of the trans
cendent character supposed in our ex
ample, about the nature of which, or
the impossibility of their having had a
natural origin, there could be little
room for doubt. On the contrary, the
recorded miracles are, in the first place,
generally such as it would have been
extremely difficult to verify as matters of
fact, and, in the next place, are hardly
ever beyond the possibility of having
been brought about by human means or
by the spontaneous agencies of nature.
It is to cases of this kind that Hume’s
argument against the credibility of
miracles was meant to apply.
His argument is: The evidence of
miracles consists of testimony. The
ground of our reliance on testimony
is our experience that, certain conditions
being supposed, testimony is generally
veracious. But the same experience
tells us that, even under the best condi
tions, testimony is frequently either inten
tionally or unintentionally false. When,
therefore, the fact to which testimony is
produced is one the happening of which
would be more at variance with experi
ence than the falsehood of testimony,
we ought not to believe it. And this
rule all prudent persons observe in the
conduct of life. Those who do not are
sure to suffer for their credulity.
Now, a miracle (the argument goes on
to say) is, in the highest possible degree,
contradictory to experience; for if it
were not contradictory to experience it
would not be a miracle. The very
reason for its being . regarded as a
miracle is that it is a breach of a law
of nature—that is, of an otherwise invari
93
able and inviolable uniformity in the
succession of natural events. There is,
therefore, the very strongest reason for
disbelieving it that experience can give
for disbelieving anything. But the men
dacity or error of witnesses, even though
numerous and of fair character, is quite
within the bounds of even common
experience. That supposition, therefore,
ought to be preferred.
There are two apparently weak points
in this argument. One is, that the evi
dence of experience to which its appeal
is made is only negative evidence, which
is not so conclusive as positive, since
facts of which there had been no pre
vious experience are often discovered,
and proved by positive experience to
be true. The other seemingly vulner
able point is this. The argument has
the appearance of assuming that the
testimony of experience against miracles
is undeviating and indubitable, as it
would be if the whole question was
about the probability of future miracles,
none having taken place in the past;
whereas the very thing asserted on the
other side is that there have been
miracles, and that the testimony of
experience is not wholly on the negative
side. All the evidence alleged in favour
of any miracle ought to be reckoned as
counter-evidence in refutation of the
ground on which it is asserted that
miracles ought to be disbelieved. The
question can only be stated fairly as de
pending on a balance of evidence: a
certain amount of positive evidence in
favour of miracles, and a negative pre
sumption from the general course of
human experience against them.
In order to support the argument
under this double correction, it has to be
shown that the negative presumption
against a miracle is very much stronger
�94
THEISM
than that against a merely new and sur
prising fact. This, however, is evidently
the case. A new physical discovery,
even if it consists in the defeating of a
well-established law of nature, is but the
discovery of another law previously un
known. There is nothing in this but
what is familiar to our experience; we
were aware that we did not know all the
laws of nature, and we were aware that
one such law is liable to be counteracted
by others. The new phenomenon, when
brought to light, is found still to depend
on law; it is always exactly reproduced
when the same circumstances are re
peated. Its occurrence, therefore, is
within the limits of variation in experi
ence, which experience itself discloses.
But a miracle, in the very fact of being
a miracle, declares itself to be a supersession, not of one natural law by
another, but of the law which includes
all others, which experience shows to be
universal for all phenomena—viz., that
they depend on some law ; that they are
always the same when there are the
same phenomenal antecedents, and
neither take place in the absence of
their phenomenal causes, nor ever fail to
take place when the phenomenal condi
tions are all present.
It is evident that this argument against
belief in miracles had very little to rest
upon until a comparatively modern
stage in the progress of science. A few
generations ago the universal depen
dence of phenomena on invariable laws
was not only not recognised by mankind
in general, but could not be regarded by
the instructed as a scientifically estab
lished truth. There were many pheno
mena which seemed quite irregular in
their course, without dependence on
any known antecedents ; and though, no
doubt, a certain regularity in the occur
rence of the most familiar phenomena
must always have been recognised,
yet even in these the exceptions which
were constantly occurring had not yet,
by an investigation and generalisation of
the circumstances of their occurrence,
been reconciled with the general rule.
The heavenly bodies were from of old
the most conspicuous types of regular
and unvarying order; yet even among
them comets were a phenomenon
apparently originating without any law,
and eclipses, one which seemed to take
place in violation of law. Accordingly,
both comets and eclipses long continued
to be regarded as of a miraculous nature,
intended as signs and omens of human
fortunes. It would have been impossible
in those days to prove to anyone that
this supposition was antecedently im
probable. It seemed more conformable
to appearances than the hypothesis of an
unknown law.
Now, however, when, in the progress
of science, all phenomena have been
shown by indisputable evidence to be
amenable to law, and even in the cases
in which those laws have not yet been
exactly ascertained, delay in ascertaining
them is fully accounted for by the special
difficulties of the subject; the defenders
of miracles have adapted their argument
to this altered state of things by main
taining that a miracle need not neces
sarily be a violation of law. It may,
they say, take place in fulfilment of a
more recondite law, to us unknown.
If by this it be only meant that the
Divine Being, in the exercise of his
power of interfering with and suspending
his own laws, guides himself by some
general principle or rule of action, this,
of course, cannot be disproved, and is
in itself the most probable supposition.
But if the argument means that a
�RE VELA TION
95
It will perhaps be said that a miracle
miracle may be the fulfilment of a law
in the same sense in which the ordinary <does not necessarily exclude the inter
events of Nature are fulfilments of laws, it vention of second causes. If it were the
seems to indicate an imperfect concep will of God to raise a thunderstorm by
tion of what is meant by a law, and of miracle, he might do it by means of
winds and clouds. Undoubtedly; but
what constitutes a miracle.
When we say that an ordinary physical the winds and clouds were either suffi
fact always takes place according to cient when produced to excite the
some invariable law, we mean that it is thunderstorm without other divine assist
connected by uniform sequence or co ance, or they were not. If they were
existence with some definite set of not, the storm is not a fulfilment of law,
physical antecedents; that whenever that but a violation of it. If they were suffi
set is exactly reproduced the same pheno cient, there is a miracle, but it is not the
menon will take place, unless counter storm ; it is the production of the winds
acted by the similar laws of some other and clouds, or whatever link in the chain
physical antecedents; and that, when of causation it was at which the influence
ever it does take place, it would always of physical antecedents was dispensed
be found that its special set of antece with. If that influence was never dis
dents (or one of its sets if it has more pensed with, but the event called mira
than one) has pre-existed. Now, an culous was produced by natural means,
event which takes place in this manner and those again by others, and so on
is not a miracle. To make it a miracle from the beginning of things; if the
it must be produced by a direct volition, event is no otherwise the act of God
without the use of means; or, at least, than in having been foreseen and
of any means which, if simply repeated, ordained by him as the consequence of
would produce it. To constitute a the forces put in action at the Creation ;
miracle a phenomenon must take place then there is no miracle at all, nor
without having been preceded by any anything different from the ordinary
antecedent phenomenal conditions suffi working of God’s providence.
For another example : a person pro
cient again to reproduce it; or a pheno
fessing to be divinely commissioned
menon for the production of which
the antecedent conditions existed must cures a sick person by some apparently
be arrested or prevented without the in insignificant external application. Would
tervention of any phenomenal antece this application, administered by a person
dents which would arrest or prevent it not specially commissioned from above,
in a future case. The test of a miracle have effected the cure? If so, there is
is: Were there present in the case such no miracle; if not, there is a miracle,
external conditions, such second causes but there is a violation of law.
It will be said, however, that, if these
we may call them, that whenever these
be violations of law, then law is violated
conditions or causes reappear the event
will be reproduced? If there were, it is every time that any outward effect is
not a miracle; if there were not, it is a produced by a voluntary act of a human
miracle, but it is not according to law; being. Human volition is constantly
it is an event produced, without, or in modifying natural phenomena, not by
violating their laws, but by using their
spite of, law.
�96
THEISM
laws. Why may not divine volition do combination of physical antecedents and
the same ? The power of volitions over a physical consequent. But this, whether
phenomena is itself a law, and one of the true or not, does not really affect the
earliest known and acknowledged laws argument; for the interference of human
of nature. It is true the human will will with the course of Nature is only not
exercises power over objects in general an exception to law when we include
indirectly, through the direct power among laws the relation of motive to
which it possesses only over the human volition; and by the same rule interfer
muscles. God, however, has direct ence by the Divine will would not be an
power, not merely over one thing, but exception either, since we cannot but
over all the objects which he has made. suppose the Deity in every one of his
There is, therefore, no more a supposi acts to be determined by motives.
tion of violation of law in supposing that
The alleged analogy, therefore, holds
events are produced, prevented, or modi good; but what it proves is only what I
fied by God’s action, than in the suppo have from the first maintained—that
sition of their being produced, pre divine interference with nature could be
vented, or modified by man’s action. proved if we had the same sort of
Both are equally in the course of Nature, evidence for it which we have for
both equally consistent with what we know human interferences. The question of
of the government of all things by law.
antecedent improbability only arises be
Those who thus argue are mostly be cause divine interposition is not certified
lievers in Free Will, and maintain that by the direct evidence of perception,
every human volition originates a new but is always matter of inference, and,
chain of causation, of which it is itself more or less, of speculative inference.
the commencing link, not connected by And a little consideration will show that
invariable sequence with any anterior in these circumstances the antecedent
fact. Even, therefore, if a divine inter presumption against the truth of the
position did constitute a breaking-in inference is extremely strong.
upon the connected chain of events, by
When the human will interferes to
the introduction of a new originating produce any physical phenomenon, ex
cause without root in the past, this would cept the movements of the human body,
be no reason for discrediting it, since it does so by the employment of means,
every human act of volition does pre and is obliged to employ such means as
cisely the same. If the one is a breach are by their own physical properties
of law, so are the others. In fact, the sufficient to bring about the effect.
reign of law does not extend to the Divine interference by hypothesis pro
origination of volition.
ceeds in a different manner from this : it
Those who dispute the Free Will produces its effect without means, or with
theory, and regard volition as no excep such as are in themselves insufficient.
tion to the universal law of Cause and In the first case, all the physical phe
Effect, may answer, that volitions do not nomena, except the first bodily move
interrupt the chain of causation, but ment, are produced in strict conformity
carry it on, the connection of cause and to physical causation; while that first
effect being of just the same nature movement is traced by positive observa
between motive and act as between a tion to the cause (the volition) which
�REVELATION
produced it. In the other case the
event is supposed not to have been pro
duced at all through physical causation,
while there is no direct evidence to con
nect it with any volition. The ground on
which it is ascribed to a volition is
only negative, because there is no other
apparent way of accounting for its exist
ence.
But in this merely speculative explana
tion there is always another hypothesis
possible—viz., that the event may have
been produced by physical causes in a
manner not apparent. It may either be
due to a law of physical nature not yet
known, or to the unknown presence of
the conditions necessary for producing
it according to some known law. Sup
posing even that the event, supposed to
be miraculous, does not reach us through
the uncertain medium of human testi
mony, but rests on the direct evidence of
our own senses; even then, so long as
there is no direct evidence of its produc
tion by a divine volition, like that we
have for the production of bodily move
ments by human volitions—so long,
therefore, as the miraculous character of
the event is but an inference from the
supposed inadequacy of the laws of
physical nature to account for it—so
long will the hypothesis of a natural
origin for the phenomenon be entitled to
preference over that of a supernatural
one. The commonest principles of
sound judgment forbid us to suppose for
any effect a cause of which we have
absolutely no experience, unless all
those of which we have experience are
ascertained to be absent. Now, there
are few things of which we have more
frequent experience than of physical
facts which our knowledge does not
enable us to account for, because they
depend either on laws which observation,
97
aided by science, has not yet brought to
light, or on facts the presence of which
in the particular case is unsuspected by
us. Accordingly, when we hear of a
prodigy, we always in these modern times
believe that, if it really occurred, it was
neither the work of God nor of a demon,
but the consequence of some unknown
natural law or of some hidden fact. Nor
is either of these suppositions precluded
when, as in the case of a miracle
properly so called, the wonderful event
seemed to depend upon the will of a
human being. It is always possible that
there may be at work some undetected
law of nature which the wonder-worker
may have acquired, consciously or un
consciously, the power of calling into
action; or that the wonder may have
been wrought (as in the truly extraordi
nary feats of jugglers) by the employ
ment, unperceived by us, of ordinary
laws, which also need not necessarily be
a case of voluntary deception ; or, lastly,
the event may have had no connection
with the volition at all, but the coinci
dence between them may be the effect
of craft or accident, the miracle-worker
having seemed or effected to produce by
his will that which was already about to
take place, as if one were to command
an eclipse of the sun at the moment
when one knew by astronomy that an
eclipse was on the point of taking place.
In a case of this description the miracle
might be tested by a challenge to repeat
it; but it is worthy of remark that re
corded miracles were seldom or never
put to this test. No miracle-work er
seems ever to have made a practice of
raising the dead; that and the other
most signal of the miraculous operations
are reported to have been performed
only in one or a few isolated cases,
which may have been either cunningly
h
�98
THEISM
selected cases or accidental coincidences.
There is, in short, nothing to exclude
the supposition that every alleged miracle
was due to natural causes; and as long
as that supposition remains possible no
scientific observer, and no man of ordi
nary practical judgment, would assume
by conjecture a cause which no reason
existed for supposing to be real, save the
necessity of accounting for something
which is sufficiently accounted for with
out it.
Were we to stop here, the case against
miracles might seem to be complete.
But, on further inspection, it will be
seen that we cannot, from the above
considerations, conclude absolutely that
the miraculous' theory of the production
of a phenomenon ought to be at once
rejected. We can conclude only that
no extraordinary powers which have ever
been alleged to be exercised by any
human being over nature can be evidence
of miraculous gifts to any one to whom
the existence of a Supernatural Being
and his interference in human affairs is
not already a vera causa. The existence
of God cannot possibly be proved by
miracles, for, unless a God is already
recognised, the apparent miracle can
always be accounted for on a more
probable hypothesis than that of the
interference of a Being of whose very
existence it is supposed to be the sole
evidence. Thus far Hume’s argument
is conclusive. But it is far from being
equally so when the existence of a Being
who created the present order of Nature,
and, therefore, may well be thought to
have power to modify it, is accepted as
a fact, or even as a probability resting on
independent evidence. Once admit a
God, and the production by his direct
volition of an effect, which in any case
owed its origin to his creative will, is no
longer a purely arbitrary hypothesis to
account for the fact, but must be
reckoned with as a serious possibility.
The question then changes its character,
and the decision of it must now rest
upon what is known or reasonably sur
mised as to the manner of God’s govern
ment of the universe; whether this
knowledge or surmise makes it the more
probable supposition that the event was
brought about by the agencies by which
his government is ordinarily carried on,
or that it is the result of a special and
extraordinary interposition of his will in
supersession of those ordinary agencies.
In the first place, then, assuming as a
fact the existence and providence of
God, the whole of our observation of
Nature proves to us by incontrovertible
evidence that the rule of his government
is by means of second causes; that all
facts, or at least all physical facts, follow
uniformly upon given physical condi
tions, and never occur but when the
appropriate collection of physical condi
tions is realised. I limit the assertion
to physical facts, in order to leave the
case of human volition an open question;
though, indeed, I need not do so, for, if
the human will is free, it has been left free
by the Creator, and is not controlled by
him either through second causes or
directly, so that, not being governed, it
is not a specimen of his mode of govern
ment. Whatever he does govern, he
governs by second causes. This was
not obvious in the infancy of science ; it
was more and more recognised as the
processes of nature were more carefully
and accurately examined, until there
now remains no class of phenomena of
which it is not positively known, save
some cases which from their obscurity
and complication our scientific pro
cesses have not yet been able completely
�REVELATION
to clear up and disentangle, and in
which, therefore, the proof that they
also are governed by natural laws could
not, in i’ne present state of science, be
more complete. The evidence, though
merely negative, which these circum
stances afford that government by second
causes is universal, is admitted for all
except directly religious purposes to be
conclusive. When either a man of
science for scientific, or a man of the
world for practical, purposes inquires
into an event, he asks himself, What is
its cause ? and not, Has it any natural
cause? A man would be laughed at
who set down as one of the alternative
suppositions that there is no other cause
for it than the will of God.
Against this weight of negative evi
dence we have to set such positive
evidence as is produced in attestation of
exceptions; in other words, the positive
evidences of miracles. And I have al
ready admitted that this evidence might
conceivably have been such as to make
the exception equally certain with the
rule. If we had the direct testimony of
our senses to a supernatural fact, it might
be as completely authenticated and
made certain as any natural one. But
we never have. The supernatural cha
racter of the fact is always, as I have
said, matter of inference and specula
tion ; and the mystery always admits the
possibility of a solution not supernatural.
To those who already believe in super
natural power the supernatural hypo
thesis may appear more probable than
the natural one; but only if it accords
with what we know or reasonably surmise
respecting the ways of the supernatural
agent. Now, all that we know from the
evidence of nature concerning his ways
is in harmony with the natural theory and
repugnant to the supernatural. There
99
is, therefore, a vast preponderance of
probability against a miracle, to counter
balance which would require a very
extraordinary and indisputable congruity
in the supposed miracle and its circum
stances with something which we con
ceive ourselves to know, or to have
grounds for believing, with regard to the
divine attributes.
This extraordinary congruity is sup
posed to exist when the purpose of the
miracle is extremely beneficial to man
kind, as when it serves to accredit some
highly important belief. The goodness
of God, it is supposed, affords a high
degree of antecedent probability that he
would make an exception to his general
rule of government for so excellent a
purpose. For reasons, however, which
have already been entered into, any
inference drawn by us from the good
ness of God to what he has or has not
actually done, is to the last degree pre
carious. If we reason directly from God’s
goodness to positive facts, no misery,
nor vice, nor crime ought to exist in the
world. We can see no reason in God’s
goodness why, if he deviated once from
the ordinary system of his government
in order to do good to man, he should
not have done so on a hundred other
occasions ; nor why, if the benefit aimed
at by some given deviation, such as the
revelation of Christianity, was transcen
dent and unique, that precious gift
should only have been vouchsafed after
the lapse of many ages; or why, when it
was at last given, the evidence of it
should have been left open to so much
doubt and difficulty. Let it be remem
bered also that the goodness of God
affords no presumption in favour of
a deviation from his general system of
government unless the good purpose
could not have been attained without
�IOO
THEISM
deviation. If God intended that man of the wonderful stories, such multitudes
kind should receive Christianity or any of which were current among the early
other gift, it would have agreed better Christians; but when they do, excep
with all that we know of his government tionally, name any of the persons who
to have made provision in the scheme of were the subjects or spectators of the
creation for its arising at the appointed miracle, they doubtless draw from tradi
time by natural development; which, let tion, and mention those names with
it be added, all the knowledge we now which the story was in the popular mind
possess concerning the history of the (perhaps accidentally) connected; for
human mind tends to the conclusion whoever has observed the way in which
that it actually did.
even now a story grows up from some
To all these considerations ought to small foundation, taking on additional
be added the extremely imperfect nature details at every step, knows well how,
of the testimony itself which we possess from being at first anonymous, it gets
for the miracles, real or supposed, which names attached to it; the name of some
accompanied the foundation of Chris one by whom, perhaps, the story has
tianity and of every other revealed re been told being brought into the story
ligion. Take it at the best, it is the itself first as a witness, and still later
uncross-examined testimony of extremely as a party concerned.
ignorant people, credulous as such
It is also noticeable, and is a very im
usually are, honourably credulous when portant consideration, that stories of
the excellence of the doctrine or just miracles only grow up among the igno
reverence for the teacher makes them rant, and are adopted, if ever, by the
eager to believe; unaccustomed to draw educated when they have already be
the line between the perceptions of come the belief of multitudes. Those
sense and what is superinduced upon which are believed by Protestants all
them by the suggestions of a lively ■originate in ages and nations in which
imagination; unversed in the difficult there was hardly any canon of proba
art of deciding between appearance and bility, and miracles were thought to be
>
reality, and between the natural and the ;among the commonest of all phenomena.
supernatural; in times, moreover, when 'The Catholic Church, indeed, holds as
no one thought it worth while to con- £an article of faith that miracles have
tradict any alleged miracle, because it inever ceased, and new ones continue to
was the belief of the age that miracles in Ibe now and then brought forth and
themselves proved nothing, since they I
believed, even in the present incredulous
could be worked by a lying spirit as well e —yet if in an incredulous generation
age
as by the spirit of God. Such were the c
certainly not among the incredulous
witnesses; and even of them we do not portion of it, but always among people
f
possess the direct testimony; the docu- v
who, in addition to the most childish
ments of date long subsequent, even on i;
ignorance, have grown up (as all do who
the orthodox theory, which contain the a
are educated by the Catholic clergy)
only history of these events, very often t
trained in the persuasion that it is a duty
do not even name the supposed eye- ti believe and a sin to doubt; that it is
to
witnesses. They put down (it is but d
dangerous to be sceptical about anything
just to admit) the best and least absurd v
which is tendered for belief in the name
�RE VELA TION
of the true religion; and that nothing is
so contrary to piety as incredulity. But
these miracles which no one but a
Roman Catholic, and by no means every
Roman Catholic, believes, rest frequently
upon an amount of testimony greatly
surpassing that which we possess for any
of the early miracles; and superior, espe
cially in one of the most essential points
—that in many cases the alleged eye
witnesses are known, and we have their
story at first hand.
Thus, then, stands the balance of
evidence in respect to the reality of
miracles, assuming the existence and
government of God to be proved by
other evidence. On the one side, the
great negative presumption arising from
the whole of what the course of nature
discloses to us of the divine government,
as carried on through second causes and
by invariable sequences of physical
effects upon constant antecedents. On
the other side, a few exceptional in
stances, attested by evidence not of a
character to warrant belief in any facts
in the smallest degree unusual or impro
bable ; the eye-witnesses in most cases
unknown, in none competent by charac
ter or education to scrutinise the real
nature of the appearances which they
may have seen,1 and moved, moreover,
by a union of the strongest motives
which can inspire human beings to per
suade, first themselves, and then others,
that what they had seen was a miracle.
The facts, too, even if faithfully reported,
are never incompatible w’ith the sup
1 St. Paul, the only known exception to the
ignorance and want of education of the first
generation of Christians, attests no miracle but
that of his own conversion, which of all the
miracles of the New Testament is the one which
admits of the easiest explanation from natural
causes.
IOI
position that they were either mere co
incidences, or were produced by natural
means, even when no specific conjecture
can be made as to those means, which
in general it can. The conclusion I
draw is that miracles have no claim
whatever to the character of historical
facts, and are wholly invalid as evidences
of any revelation.
What can be said with truth on the
side of miracles amounts only to this:
Considering that the order of nature
affords some evidence of the reality of a
Creator, and of his bearing goodwill to
his creatures, though not of its being the
sole prompter of his conduct towards
them: considering, again, that all the
evidence of his existence is evidence also
that he is not all-powerful, and consider
ing that in our ignorance of the limits of
his power we cannot positively decide
that he was able to provide for us by the
original plan of Creation all the good
which it entered into his intentions to
bestow upon us, or even to bestow any
part of it at any earlier period than that
at which we actually received it—con
sidering these things, when we consider
further that a gift, extremely precious,
came to us which, though facilitated,
was not apparently necessitated by what
had gone before, but was due, as far as
appearances go, to the peculiar mental
and moral endowments of one man, and
that man openly proclaimed that it did
not come from himself, but from God
through him, then we are entitled to say
that there is nothing so inherently im
possible or absolutely incredible in this
supposition as to preclude any one from
hoping that it may perhaps be true. I
say from hoping; I go no further; for I
cannot attach any evidentiary value to
the testimony even of Christ on such a
subject, since he is never said to have
�102
THEISM
declared any evidence of his mission
(unless his own interpretations of the
Prophecies be so considered) except in
ternal conviction; and everybody knows
that in pre-scientific times men always
supposed that any unusual faculties
which came to them, they knew not
how, were an inspiration from God; the
best men always being the readiest to
ascribe any honourable peculiarity in
themselves to that higher source rather
than to their own merits.
pART V.—GENERAL RESULT
Brom the result of the preceding exami
nation ol the evidences of Theism, and
(Theism being pre-supposed) of the evi
dences of any Revelation, it follows that
the rational attitude of a thinking mind
towards the supernatural, whether in
natural or in revealed religion, is that of
scepticism as distinguished from belief
on the one hand, and from Atheism on
the other; including in the present case
under Atheism the negative as well as
the positive form of disbelief in a God—
viz., not only the dogmatic denial of his
existence, but the denial that there is
any evidence on either side, which, for
most practical purposes, amounts to the
same thing as if the existence of a God
had been disproved. If we are right in
the conclusions to which we have been
led by the preceding inquiry, there is
evidence, but insufficient for proof, and
amounting only to one of the lower
degrees of probability. The indication
given by such evidence as there is points
to the creation, not, indeed, of the
universe, but of the present order of it, by
an Intelligent Mind, whose power over
the materials was not absolute, whose
love for his creatures was not his sole
actuating inducement, but who, never
theless, desired their good. The notion
of a providential government by an
Omnipotent Being for the good of his
creatures must be entirely dismissed.
Even of the continued existence of the
Creator we have no other guarantee than
that he cannot be subject to the law of
death which affects terrestrial beings,
since the conditions that produce this
liability wherever it is known to exist are
of his creating. That this Being, not
being omnipotent, may have produced a
machinery falling short of his intentions,
and which may require the occasional
interposition of the Maker’s hand, is a
supposition not in itself absurd nor
impossible, though in none of the cases
in which such interposition is believed to
have occurred is the evidence such as
could possibly prove it; it remains a
simple possibility, which those may
dwell on to whom it yields comfort to
suppose that blessings which ordinary
human power is inadequate to attain
may come not from extraordinary human
power, but from the bounty of an intelli
gence beyond the human, and which
continuously cares for man. The possi
bility of a life after death rests on the
same footing—of a boon which this
powerful Being who wishes well to man
may have the power to grant, and which,
�GENERAL RESULT
if the message alleged to have been sent
by him was really sent, he has actually
promised. The whole domain of the
supernatural is thus removed from the
region of Belief into that of simple
Hope; and in that, for anything we can
see, it is likely always to remain; for we
can hardly anticipate either that any
positive evidence will be acquired of the
direct agency of Divine Benevolence in
human destiny, or that any reason will
be discovered for considering the realisa
tion of human hopes on that subject as
beyond the pale of possibility.
It is now to be considered whether
the indulgence of hope, in the region of
imagination merely, in which there is no
prospect that any probable grounds of
expectation will ever be obtained, is
irrational, and ought to be discouraged
as a departure from the rational principle
of regulating our feelings as well as
opinions strictly by evidence.
This is a point which different thinkers
are likely, for a long time at least, to
decide differently, according to their
individual temperament. The principles
which ought to govern the cultivation
and the regulation of the imagination—
with a view on the one hand of prevent
ing it from disturbing the rectitude of
the intellect and the right direction of
the actions and will, and on the other
hand of employing it as a power for in
creasing the happiness of life and giving
elevation to the character—are a subject
which has never yet engaged the serious
consideration of philosophers, though
some opinion on it is implied in almost
all modes of thinking on human character
and education. And I expect that this
will hereafter be regarded as a very im
portant branch of study for practical
purposes, and the more in proportion as
the weakening of positive beliefs respect
103
ing states of existence superior to the
human leaves the imagination of higher
things less provided with material from
the domain of supposed reality. To me
it seems that human life, small and con
fined as it is, and as, considered merely
in the present, it is likely to remain even
when the progress of material and moral
improvement may have freed it from the
greater part of its present calamities,
stands greatly in need of any wider
range and greater height of aspiration
for itself and its destination, which the
exercise of imagination can yield to it
without running counter to the evidence
of fact; and that it is a part of wisdom
to make the most of any, even small,
probabilities on this subject, which furnish
imagination with any footing to support
itself upon. And I am satisfied that the
cultivation of such a tendency in the
imagination, provided it goes on pari
passu with the cultivation of severe reason,
has no necessary tendency to pervert the
judgment; but that it is possible to form
a perfectly sober estimate of the evidences
on both sides of a question and yet to
let the imagination dwell by prefer
ence on those possibilities which are at
once the most comforting and the most
improving without in the least degree
overrating the solidity of the grounds
for expecting that these rather than any
others will be the possibilities actually
realised.
Though this is not in the number of
the practical maxims handed down by
tradition and recognised as rules for the
conduct of life, a great part of the hap
piness of life depends upon the tacit
observance of it. What, for instance, is
the meaning of that which is always
accounted one of the chief blessings of
life—a cheerful disposition? What but
the tendency, either from constitution or
�104
THEISM
habit, to dwell chiefly on the brighter
side both of the present and of the
future ? If every aspect, whether agree
able or odious of everything, ought to
occupy exactly the same place in our
imagination which it fills in fact, and
therefore ought to fill in our deliberate
reason, what we call a cheerful disposi
tion would be but one of the forms of
folly, on a par except in agreeableness
with the opposite disposition in which
the gloomy and painful view of all things
is habitually predominant. But it is not
found in practice that those who take
life cheerfully are less alive to rational
prospects of evil or danger and more
careless of making due provision against
them than other people. The tendency
is rather the other way, for a hopeful
disposition gives a spur to the faculties
and keeps all the active energies in good
working order. When imagination and
reason receive each its appropriate
culture they do not succeed in usurping
each other’s prerogatives. It is not
necessary for keeping up our conviction
that we must die, that we should be
always brooding over death. It is far
better that we should think no further
about what we cannot possibly avert,
than is required for observing the rules
of prudence in regard to our own life and
that of others, and fulfilling whatever
duties devolve upon us in contemplation
of the inevitable event. The way to
secure this is not to think perpetually of
death, but to think perpetually of our
duties, and of the rule of life. The true
rule of practical wisdom is not that of
making all the aspects of things equally
prominent in our habitual contempla
tions, but of giving the greatest promi
nence to those of their aspects which
depend on, or can be modified by, our
own conduct. In things which do not
depend on us, it is not solely for the sake
of a more enjoyable life that the habit
is desirable of looking at things and at
mankind by preference on their pleasant
side; it is also in order that we may be
able to love them better and work with
more heart for their improvement. To
what purpose, indeed, should we feed
our imagination with the unlovely aspect
of persons and things ? All unnecessary
dwelling upon the evils of life is at best
a useless expenditure of nervous force:
and when I say unnecessary, I mean all
that is not necessary either in the sense
of being unavoidable, or in that of being
needed for the performance of our duties
and for preventing our sense of the
reality of those evils from becoming
speculative and dim. But if it is often
waste of strength to dwell on the evils of
life, it is worse than waste to dwell
habitually on its meannesses and base
nesses. It is necessary to be aware of
them; but to live in their contemplation
makes it scarcely possible to keep up in
oneself a high tone of mind. The
imagination and feelings become tuned
to a lower pitch ; degrading instead of
elevating associations become connected
with the daily objects and incidents of
life, and give their colour to the thoughts,
just as associations of sensuality do in
those who indulge freely in that sort of
contemplations. Men have often felt
what it is to have had their imaginations
corrupted by one class of ideas, and I
think they must have felt with the same
kind of pain how the poetry is taken out
of the things fullest of it, by mean asso
ciations, as when a beautiful air that had
been associated with highly poetical
words is heard sung with trivial and
vulgar ones. All these things are said in
mere illustration of the principle that in
the regulation of the imagination literal
�GENERAL RESULT
truth of facts is not the only thing to be
considered. Truth is the province of
reason, and it is by the cultivation of the
rational faculty that provision is made
for its being known always, and thought
of as often as is required by duty and
the circumstances of human life. But
when the reason is strongly cultivated,
the imagination may safely follow its own
end, and do its best to make life
pleasant and lovely inside the castle, in
reliance on the fortifications raised and
maintained by Reason round the outward
bounds.
On these principles it appears to me
that the indulgence of hope with regard
to the government of the universe and
the destiny of man after death, while we
recognise as a clear truth that we have
no ground for more than a hope, is
legitimate and philosophically defensible.
The beneficial effect of such a hope is
far from trifling. It makes life and
human nature a far greater thing to the
feelings, and gives greater strength as
well as greater solemnity to all the senti
ments which are awakened in us by our
fellow-creatures, and by mankind at
large. It allays the sense of that irony
of Nature which is so painfully felt when
we see the exertions and sacrifices of a
life culminating in the formation of a
wise and noble mind, only to disappear
from the world when the time has just
arrived at which the world seems about
to begin reaping the benefit of it. The
truth that life is short and art is long is
from of old one of the most discourag
ing parts of our condition ; this hope
admits the possibility that the art em
ployed in improving and beautifying the
soul itself may avail for good in some
other life, even when seemingly useless
for this. But the benefit consists less in
the presence of any specific hope than in
105
the enlargement of the general scale of
the feelings; the loftier aspirations being
no longer in the same degree checked
and kept down by a sense of the insignifi
cance of human life—by the disastrous
feeling of “ not worth while.” The gain
obtained in the increased inducement to
cultivate the improvement of character
up to the end of life is obvious without
being specified.
There is another and a most impor
tant exercise of imagination which, in
the past and present, has been kept up
principally by means of religious belief,
and which is infinitely precious to man
kind, so much so that human excellence
greatly depends upon the sufficiency of
the provision made for it. This con
sists of the familiarity of the imagination
with the conception of a morally perfect
Being, and the habit of taking the
approbation of such a Being as the
norma or standard to which to refer
and by which to regulate our own
characters and lives. This idealisation
of our standard of excellence in a Person
is quite possible, even when that Person
is conceived as merely imaginary. But
religion, since the birth of Christianity,
has inculcated the belief that our highest
conceptions of combined wisdom and
goodness exist in the concrete in a living
Being who has his eyes on us and cares
for our good. Through the darkest and
most corrupt periods Christianity has
raised this torch on high—has kept this
object of veneration and imitation before
the eyes of man. True, the image of
perfection has been a most imperfect,
and, in many respects, a perverting and
corrupting one, not only from the low
moral ideas of the times, but from the
mass of moral contradictions which the
deluded worshipper was compelled to
swallow by the supposed necessity of
�io6
THEISM
complimenting the Good Principle with
the possession of infinite power. But it
is one of the most universal, as well as
of the most surprising, characteristics of
human nature, and one of the most
speaking proofs of the low stage to
which the reason of mankind at large
has ever yet advanced, that they are
capable of overlooking any amount of
either moral or intellectual contradic
tions and receiving into their minds
propositions utterly inconsistent with
one another, not only without being
shocked by the contradiction, but with
out preventing both the contradictory
beliefs from producing a part at least of
their natural consequences in the mind.
Pious men and women have gone on
ascribing to God particular acts and a
general course of will and conduct in
compatible with even the most ordinary
and limited conception of moral good
ness, and have had their own ideas of
morality, in many important particulars,
totally warped and distorted, and not
withstanding this have continued to con
ceive their God as clothed with all the
attributes of the highest ideal goodness
which their state of mind enabled them
to conceive, and have had their aspira
tions towards goodness stimulated and
encouraged by that conception. And it
cannot be questioned that the undoubt
ing belief of the real existence of a Being
who realises our own best ideas of per
fection, and of our being in the hands of
that Being as the ruler of the universe,
gives an increase of force to these feel
ings beyond what they can receive from
reference to a merely ideal conception.
This particular advantage it is not
possible for those to enjoy who take a
rational view of the nature and amount
of the evidence for the existence and
attributes of the Creator. On the other
hand, they are not encumbered with the
moral contradictions which beset every
form of religion which aims at justifying
in a moral point of view the whole
government of the world. They are,
therefore, enabled to form a far truer
and more consistent conception of Ideal
Goodness than is possible to anyone who
thinks it necessary to find ideal good
ness in an omnipotent ruler of the world.
The power of the Creator once recog
nised as limited, there is nothing to dis
prove the supposition that his goodness
is complete, and that the ideally perfect
character in whose likeness we should
wish to form ourselves, and to whose
supposed approbation we refer our
actions, may have a real existence in a
Being to whom we owe all such good as
we enjoy.
Above all, the most valuable part of
the effect on the character which Chris
tianity has produced by holding up in a
Divine Person a standard of excellence
and a model for imitation is available
even to the absolute unbeliever, and can
never more be lost to humanity. For it
is Christ, rather than God, whom Chris
tianity has held up to believers as the
pattern of perfection for humanity. It
is the God incarnate, more than the
God of the Jews or of Nature, who, being
idealised, has taken so great and salutary
a hold on the modern mind. And what
ever else may be taken away from us by
rational criticism, Christ is still left; a
unique figure, not more unlike all his
precursors than all his followers, even
those who had the direct benefit of his
personal teaching. It is of no use to
say that Christ as exhibited in the
Gospels is not historical, and that we
know not how much of what is admir
able has been superadded by the tradi
tion of his followers. The tradition of
�GENERAL RESULT
followers suffices to insert any number
of marvels, and may have inserted all
the miracles which he is reputed to have
wrought. But who among his disciples
or among their proselytes was capable of
inventing the sayings ascribed to Jesus,
or of imagining the life and character
revealed in the Gospels? Certainly not
the fishermen of Galilee; as certainly
not St. Paul, whose character and
idiosyncrasies were of a totally different
sort; still less the early Christian writers,
in whom nothing is more evident than
that the good which was in them was
all derived, as they always professed that
it was derived, from the higher source.
What could be added and interpolated
by a disciple we may see in the mystical
parts of the Gospel of St. John, matter
imported from Philo and the Alexandrian
Platonists and put into the mouth of the
Saviour in long speeches about himself
such as the other Gospels contain not the
slightest vestige of, though pretended to
have been delivered on occasions of the
deepest interest and when his principal
followers were all present; most promi
nently at the last supper. The East was
full of men who could have stolen any
quantity of this poor stuff, as the multi
tudinous Oriental sects of Gnostics after
wards • did. But about the life and
sayings of Jesus there is a stamp of
personal originality combined with pro
fundity of insight which, if we abandon
the idle expectation of finding scientific
precision where something very different
was aimed at, must place the Prophet of
Nazareth, even in the estimation of those
who have no belief in his inspiration, in
the very first rank of the men of sublime
genius of whom our species can boast.
When this pre-eminent genius is com
bined with the qualities of probably the
greatest moral reformer, and martyr to
107
that mission, who ever existed upon
earth, religion cannot be said to have
made a bad choice in pitching on this
man as the ideal representative and
guide of humanity; nor, even now,
would it be easy, even for an unbeliever,
to find a better translation of the rule of
virtue from the abstract into the concrete
than to endeavour so to live that Christ
would approve our life. When to this
we add that, to the conception of the
rational sceptic, it remains a possibility
that Christ actually was what he sup
posed himself to be—not God, for he
never made the smallest pretension to
that character, and would probably have
thought such a pretension as blasphe
mous as it seemed to the men who con
demned him—but a man charged with
a special, express, and unique commis
sion from God to lead mankind to truth
and virtue; we may well conclude that
the influences of religion on the character
which will remain after rational criticism
has done its utmost against the evidences
of religion are well worth preserving,
and that what they lack in direct strength
as compared with those of a firmer belief
is more than compensated by the greater
truth and rectitude of the morality they
sanction.
Impressions such as these, though not
in themselves amounting to what can
properly be called a religion, seem to me
excellently fitted to aid and fortify that
real, though- purely human, religion,
which sometimes calls itself the Religion
of Humanity and sometimes that of
Duty. To the other inducements for
cultivating a religious devotion to the
welfare of our fellow-crtatures as an
obligatory limit to every selfish aim, and
an end for the direct promotion of which
no sacrifice can be too great, it superadds
the feeling that, in making this the rule
�10S
THEISM
of our life, we may be co-operating with
the unseen Being to whom we owe all
that is enjoyable in life. One elevated
feeling this form of religious idea admits
of, which is not open to those who
believe in the omnipotence of the good
principle in the universe, the feeling of
helping God—of requiting the good
he has given by a voluntary co-operation
which he, not being omnipotent, really
needs, and by which a somewhat nearer
approach may be made to the fulfilment
of his purposes. The conditions of
human existence are highly favourable
to the growth of such a feeling, inasmuch
as a battle is constantly going on, in
which the humblest human creature is
not incapable of taking some part,
between the powers of good and those
of evil, and in which every, even the
smallest, help to the right side has its
value in promoting the very slow and I
often almost insensible progress by which
good is gradually gaining ground from
evil, yet gaining it so visibly at consider
able intervals as to promise the very
distant, but not uncertain, final victory of
God. To do something during life, on
even the humblest scale if nothing more
is within reach, towards bringing this
consummation ever so little nearer, is
the most animating and invigorating
thought which can inspire a human
creature; and that it is destined, with or
without supernatural sanctions, to be the
Religion of the Future I cannot entertain
a doubt. But it appears to me that
supernatural hopes, in the degree and
kind in which what I have called rational
scepticism does not refuse to sanction
them, may still contribute not a little to
give to this religion its due ascendancy
over the human mind.
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V
fl ■
■
f
OV&R 630,000 SOLD
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R.P.A. Cl?eap Repripts
(WITH POR^AIT IN EACH CASE).
1. HUXLEY’S LECTURESAND
ESSAYS. (A Selection.) With
Autobiography.
2. THE PIONEERS OF EVO
LUTION. By EDWARD CLODD.
3. MODERN SCIENCE AND
MODERN THOUGHT. By
SAMUEL LAING. With Illustrations.
4. LITERATURE AND DOGMA.
By MATTHEW ARNOLD.
5. THE RIDDLE OF THE UNI
VERSE. By Professor ERNST
HAECKEL.
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Moral, and Physical. By
HERBERT SPENCER.
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LAING.
10. TYN^
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By Cx. RLES DARWIN.
12. EMERSON’S ADDRESSES
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13. ON LIBERTY. By J. s. MILL.
14. THE STORY OF OREA
TfON. By EDWARD CLODD.
15. AN
AGNOSTIC’S
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16. THE LiFE OF JESUS. Bv
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Victorian Blogging
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Nature, the utility of religion, and theism
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Mill, John Stuart [1806-1873]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 112 p. ; 22 cm.
Series title: R.P.A. Cheap Reprints
Series number: 19
Notes: Printed in double columns. First published 1874. Publisher's advertisements on last four numbered pages at the end, and continue on endpaper and on back cover. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Watts & Co.
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1904
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RA1634
N485
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Religion
Nature
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Nature
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Religion
Religion-Philosophy
Theism
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PDF Text
Text
MANUEL
DE MORALE
RATIONALISTE
Fondee sur les Lois de la Nature
PAR
MADELEINE DELBENDE
PRIX: UN SHILLING
THE FRENCH ETHICAL SOCIETY
4?-&^RATHBROOK ROAD, LONDRE5, S.W.I6,
ANGLETERRE
7?
£ ffiwK $ iff& ,
3
U
��ts)A?O
nationalsecularsociety
Manuel de Morale
Rationaliste
��Nous ne vivons que par I’harmonie generale de nos actes
avec les Lois de la Nature.
M. Deshumbert.
Il est important de constater qu’une croyance inculquee
Pendant les premieres annees de la vie, alors que le cerveau
est encore impressionnable, semble presque acquerir la nature
d’un instinct; or, ce qui caracterise un instinct, c’est qu’on
lui obeit-independamment de la raison,
Darwin.
��PREFACE
La necessite d’un manuel de morale rationaliste
remplagant les catechismes qui basent la morale sur des
dogmes surannes est evidente pour tous ceux qui ont une
connaissance meme superficielle de psychologie.
Mais faire
un tel traite de morale n’est pas facile. Il ne s’agit
plus en effet d’affirmer au nom d’un Dieu “justicier,” il faut
donner des raisons, fournir des preuves que tel acte est bon,
que tel autre est mauvais.
Ce manuel s’est largement inspire du livre de M.
Deshumbert “La Morale Fondee sur les Lois de la Nature”
dans lequel'est si clairement expose ce qu’on peut appeler
avec certitude : le Bien. Puisse-t-il aider a former
une humanite libre, noble et heureuse.
Madeleine Delbende. 4
5
�I CHAPITRES
I.—Base de la Morale.
II.—Nos Devoirs.
III. —Quelques points supplementaires..
IV. —Nos Droits.
V.—La Conscience.
VI.—La Volonte.
VII.—Les Sanctions.
VIII.—Du Manage.
IX.—De la Mort.
6
�Manuel de Morale Rationaliste
i
BASE DE LA MORALE
1. —Qu’est-ce que la Morale?
La Morale est la Science qui nous indique ce que doit etre
notre conduite pour faire le Bien et eviter le Mai.
2. —Que faut-il entendre par Science?
La Science est 1’ensemble des connaissances resultant de
l’observation patiente, d’experiences nombreuses. C’est
ainsi que l’astronomie est la science qui traite des astres, que
la biologie est la science qui traite des proprietes des corps
vivants, etc.
3. —SuR
QUOI REPOSE LA SCIENCE DE LA MORALE?
La Science de la Morale repose, comme toutes les autres
sciences, sur la connaissance des lois de la Nature.
4. —Que faut-il entendre par Nature?
Par Nature il faut entendre la totalite des etres et des
choses. La Nature est done 1’Univers dans son entier. Elie
est Tout-ce-qui-est.
5. —Qu’entend-on par lois de la Nature?
Par lois de la Nature on entend les phenomenes qui se produisent toujours et de meme faqon chaque fois que les
7
�circonstances sont les memes : “Les memes causes produisent toujours les memes effets.”
6. —Comment pouvons-nous connaitre les- lois de la
Nature?
En etudiant, grace a. la methode scientifique experimentale,
la Nature et les phenomenes qui s’y manifestent,
7. —Quelles
sont
les
lois
la
de
Nature qui nous
INTERESSENT AVANT TOUTE AUTRE?
Les lois de la Vie puisque nous sommes des etres vivants.
8. —Quelles
sont les
sciences
qui
etudient les lois
DE LA VIE?
Ce sont surtout la biologie; la physiologic (fonctions
organiques par lesquelles la vie se manifesto) ; la psychologie
(facultes mentales);
naturelie. Mais toutes les
sciences contribuent a la connaissance de la Vie; la chimie,
la physique, etc.
9. —Quand la Vie
est-elle apparue?
Quand les circonstances l'out permis, quand la temperature
a ete favorable, la vie est apparue dans l’Ocean sous formes
de petites cellules vegetales flottantes.
10. —D’OU EST VENUE LA VlE?
Il y a un temps incalculable, alors que l’atmosphere chaude
de la Terre etait surchargee de vapeur d’eau, de gaz carbonique et d’electricite, le carbone, l’azote, l’oxygene et l’hydrogene qui existaient deja se combinerent d’une facon nouvelle
et formerent la substance “vivante” appelee protoplasms. La
vie est done venue du milieu inorganique (e’est-a-dire du
non-vivant).
En verite aucune ligne bien nette ne separe la nature inor
ganique des etres vivants. C’est ainsi qu’un fil metallique
soumis a un courant electrique se -comporte exactement
comme un muscle; une tige d’acier soumise a une force qui
8
�l’allonge jusqu’ a presque la casser envoie, si .on la lais.se au
repos, des molecules qui se groupent au point aminci afin.
de le renforcer : or, les os font de meme. Les cristaux
aussi reparent leurs blessures lorsqu’ils sont plonges dans un
liquide nourricier; une mince couche de metal fondu qu’on
repand sur une surface froide forme des cellules avec
“noyau”, ce qui, .pensait-on, il y a peu de temps, constituait le
trait caracteristique des cellules vivantes.—Enfin il est
souvent difficile de distinguer entre un mineral et un vegetal
d’organisation inferieure, tels les coraux par exemple.
Quant a l’obj ection que le protoplasme est totalement diffe
rent, des corps qui le composent, il suffit de rappeler que l’eau
differe aussi totalement dans son aspect et ses proprietes
de l’oxygene et de l’hydrogene qui la composent.
. 11.—Qu’est-ce qui caracterise la Vie?
1°—ILassimilation, c’est-a-dire l’absorption de substances
differentes tirees du milieu et que la plante ou l’animal trans
forme en d’autres substances semblables a celles qui le com
posent deja. C’est ainsi qu’une' chevre transforme l’herbe
qu’elle mange en substances semblables a celles qui composent
ses muscles, son sang, son lait, etc2°—La reproduction qui assure la vie de 1‘Espece. *
12. —Comment s’explique la diversite des etres qui
PEUPLENT NOTRE TERRE?
Par 1’Evolution dont les lois nous expliquent le developpement et les changements des etres.
13. —Quelle est la cause principale de l’Evolution?
Le desir intense qu’a tout etre vivant, du plus petit jusqu’au plus grand, de continuer dans l’existence. De la, la
necessite de ^’adapter au milieu et aux circonstances changeantes : Lamarck (France), Darwin (Angleterre), de Vries
(Hollande), ont a eux trois formule les lois de l’Evolution.
14. —L’Homme fait-il partie de la Nature?
La Nature etant Tout-ce-qui-est, l’homme fait forcement '
partie de la Nature et, comme tel, est soumis a ses lois. Il
9
�fait partie de la Nature au meme titre que tous les autres
etres; il est le dernier produit de revolution sur notre
planete.
.
,
15.—L’Homme est-il
l’Univers ” ?
comme on l’a
dit
le
" Roi ' de
Il y a sans doute sur des millions d’autres planetes des
etres beaucoup plus developpes que nous, les conditions y
etant souvent plus propices (plus de lumiere et de chaleur par
exemple).
16.—Qu’EST-CE
QUE LA “ LOTTE POUR LA VlE ” ?
Par “ lutte pour la vie ”, on entend generalement le triomphe de la force brutale. Mais une etude approfondie nous
montre que si la force brutale existe dans la Nature, celle-ci
favorise surtout le developpement de 1’intelligence et le
developpement moral.
17.—Comment la Morale derive-t-elle de la Vie ?
Parce que tous les etres vivants afln de vivre, et de vivre
plus et mieux ont du accomplir certains actes, manifester
certaines tendances, tels que :
L’activite, le travail, la perseverance, le courage, la prevoyance, la patience qui permettent de trouver la nourriture,
de se defendre des especes ennemies, de surmonter les obsta
cles ;
La justice qui permet le developpement de chaque etre;
Id aide mutuelle,
cooperation, la bonte qui aident au
developpement de l’individu et des autres;
U amour maternel et paternel sans lequel les enfants n’auraient pu vivre;
XJaltruisme, ou pensee pour les autres;
Le sacrifice, ou devouement pour les autres.
Il y a eu evolution des sentiments, tout comme il y a eu
evolution des organes : c’est ainsi que l’altruisme dans
l’histoire de la morale remplace peu a peu l’egoisme;
l’altruisme s’etend de la famille a la tribu, de la tribu a la
nation ou patrie, de la patrie a l’humanite, de l’humanite a
tout ce qui a vie.
i
10
■
�18. —Puisque la Morale derive de la Vie, les vegetaux
ET LES ANIMAUX SONT DONC MORAUX?
Il faut bien qu’il en soit ainsi, puisque nous venons de voir
que certains actes moraux sont indispensables a la vie. Un
acte moral reste moral, meme s’il est fait instinctivement. La
mere qui instinctivement, sans prendre le temps de reflechir,
risque sa vie pour son enfant agit moralement. Les
vegetaux et les animaux peuvent done agir moralement. ,
19. —Quels
actes
'trouvons-nous
moraux
chez
les
VEGETAUX ?
Le travail (racines et feuilles);
La perseverance (racines);
La cooperation (les differentes parties travaillent pour le
bien de la plante ou de 1’arbre; de tres petites fleurs comme
les paquerettes placees ca et la sur la tige se sont groupees
afin d’attirer plus surement les insectes qui aident a leur
fertilisation).
La prevoyance (en automne les plantes a bulbes
emmagasinent la nourriture dont elles se serviront au
printemps).
Uamour maternel (soins et sacrifices de la plante pour ses
graines).
Le sacrifice (chute des feuilles en automne; les feuilles
meurent pour que l’arbre, plus important; qu’elles, puissent
continuer a vivre).
,
'
20. —Quels
actes
moraux
trouvons-nous
chez
les
ANIMAUX ?
Tous ceux que nous trouvons chez les vegetaux, mais
accomplis peut-etre plus consciemment. La vie des insectes,
des oiseaux, etc., fournit d’abondants exemples. Les animaux
domestiques menant une vie artificielle ou ils n’ont ni a chercher leur nourriture, ni a se defendre de leurs ennemis, ni a
defendre leurs petits, sont souvent moins moraux que leurs
freres en Jiberte : leurs qualites morales s’atrophient par
manque d’exercice.
11
'
.
�II
NOS DEVOIRS
21. —Quelles qualites devons-nous surtout developper
ET PRATIQUER ?
1° La proprete;
2° L’amour de la verite;
3° La franchise;
4° La justice;
5° L’honnetete;
6° La bonte;
7° La generosite;
''
8° L’aide mutuelle;
9° La cooperation (union dans un but determine).
10° Le respect de soi-meme;
11° La sobriete;
12° La maitrise de soi (volonte);
13° L’amour du travail;
14° La prevoyance;
15° L’attention;
16° La perseverance;
17° La patience;
18° La bonne humeur;
19° L’egalite d’humeur;
20° La modestie et la simplicite;
21° La tolerance;
22° Le respect de la liberte d’autrui ;
23° L’obeissance;
24° La fermete;
25° La politesse;
26° La reconnaissance;
27° L’amour du devoir.
22. —POURQUOI
LA PROPRETE EST-ELLE NECESSAIRE ?
Parce qu’elle est la premiere condition de notre bien-etre
physique et que le bon fonctionnement de notre corps a une
12
�heureuse influence sur notre developpement intellectuel et.
moral. De plus un etre sale est repugnant et devient une
gene, sinon un danger, pour autrui.
23. —POURQUOI FAUT-IL DEVELOPPER
l'AmOUR
DE LA VERITE ?
Parce que la verite que la science seule pSut .decouvrir
avec certitude, est belle; parce qu’elle fortifie notre jugement,
epanouit notre coeur, aide au developpement de l’individu et
des groupes; parce qu’elle est universelie et.aide ainsi a
l’union de tous les hommes.
24. —POURQUOI FAUT-IL ETRE FRANC ?
La franchise est la verite dans les petites choses de la vie
de tous les jours. Il ne faut jamais dire de mensonge : Le
mensonge indique un manque de courage moral, un manque
de cceur lorsque le mensonge nuit a autrui; il nuit certainement a celui qui ment en deteriorant son etre moral, et en
faisant que personne ne croit a ses paroles.
Etre franc ne signifie pas qu’on doive dire des choses desobligeantes ou faire des remarques desagreables. Si cependant on est oblige de dire une chose desagreable il faut avoit
soin de choisir des paroles qui adoucissent le heurt et d’ajou
ter quelques mots aimables. Ne pas oublier que dans ce cas
le but n’est pas de faire souffrir mais de corriger la per
sonne eh lui montrant l’erreur ou elle est tombee.
25. —POURQUOI FAUT-IL'ETRE JUSTE?
Parce que la justice est une condition de securite pour chaque individu; que chacun a un droit egal au notre a vivre,
a posseder des biens acquis honnetement, a se developper le
plus possible. Dire du mal, voler, favoriser, profiter de la
faiblesse d’autrui sont done des actes d’injustice qui engendrent da haine, le desir de vengeance, etc.
26. —POURQUOI FAUT-IL ETRE H0NNETE ?
Nous venons de voir que le vol, quelle que soit sa forme,
est injuste. De plus il est facile d’imaginer l’etat d’une
societe ou chacun essayerait sans cesse de s’emparer par
force ou par ruse du bien de son voisin. Cette societe
ne subsisterait pas longtemps a cause de la desunion qui
regnerait bientot parmi ses membres.
13
�27. —POURQUOI
FAUT-IL ETRE BON ?
Parce que la bonte diminue la peine et augmente le bonheur. Nous serons bons envers tous les faibles, les enfants,
les malades, les infirmes. Nous serons bons aussi envers les
animaux et tout ce qui a vie (plantes), car tout ce qui vit est,
comme nous, sensible a la douleur.
Nous serons bons dans nos jugements des autres:
n’oublions pas que nous ne pouvons savoir ce que nous
aurions fait en des circonstances semblables, avec un tem
perament semblable. La bonte vient done adoucir la justice
et souvent, par l’encouragement qu’elle donne, elle permet a
l’individu de se corriger et de se perfectionner.
Il faut etre bon, non seulement dans les choses importantes,
mais aussi dans les relations ordinaires de la vie : par exemple pas de reproches inutiles, pas de taquineries non plus
car nous ne devons jamais augmenter en ce monde la douleur,
le chagrin, la tristesse, ni jamais decourager.
Il est clair que bonte ne veut pas dire faiblesse, mais sympathie intelligente.
28. —POURQUOI
FAUT-IL ETRE .GENEREUX ?
Parc que la generosite derive a la fois de la justice et de
la bonte.
Il est juste si le sort nous a ete clement de donner notre
superflu a ceux qui a la suite de circonstances malheureuses
sont pauvres ou malades. Et il est bon d’etre genereux, en
pensees et en paroles, de pardonner en son coeur, de ne pas
ajouter au malheur d’un ennemi par des paroles blessantes.
29. —POURQUOI
FAUT-IL
COOPERATION ?
PRATIQUER
L’AIDE MUTUELLE
ET LA
Parce que nous ne pouvons vivre sans l’aide des autres et
qu’il serait injuste de ne pas aider a notre tour- ceux qui
nous aident.
De plus 1’entr’aide encourage; la cooperation diminue les
difficultes et augmente notre pouvoir; enfin elle lie davantagge entre eux les membres de la societe.
30. —PoURQUOI FAUT-IL AVOIR LE RESPECT DE SOI-MEME ?
Il faut avoir le respect de soi-meme (ou de la dignite per
sonnels) tout comme nous avons le respect d’une chose belle
�qui nous est donnee : Nous sommes une manifestation de la
vie; deteriorer notre etre, l’entraver dans ses marveilleuses
possibilites de developpement harmonieux, est un crime
envers la vie et envers nous-memes. .
Nous ne ferons jamais rien de bas, jamais rien qui puisse
entrainer la juste reprobation des autres; nous ne nous
exposerons pas aux influences malsaines, en un mot nous ne
nous permettrons jamais de faire ce qui pourrait entrainer
la deterioration de notre sante, de notre cerveau, de notre
cceur.
■
31. —POURQUOI FAUT-IL ETRE S0BRE ?
Parce que tout exces est mauvais pour la sante, qu’il diminue l’intelligence et l’energie morale, nous rendant ainsi inferieur a nous-meme. Les exces sont done contre la dignite
personnels. C’est pour cela que nous eviterons l’alcool, Ie
tabac, tout ce qui tend a diminuer nos forces physique,
intellectuelle, morale'.
32. —POURQUOI LA MA.1TRISE DE SOI EST-ELLE NECESSAIRE ? (
)
*
Si nous ne pouvons nous gouverner nous-memes nous ne
pourrons certainement pas nous rendre maitres des choses
adverses, des malheurs qui pourrons nous assaillir; nous
serons des impulsifs incapables de marcher sans defaillance
vers un but; des agites incapables d’achever une oeuvre un
peu longue et difficile. Nous serons la feuille detachee que
le vent entraine ou il veut. Etre maitre de soi c’est la vraie,
la seule liberte.
33. —POURQUOI DEVONS-NOUS TRAVAILLER ? .
L’activite est une condition de vie; le travail est l’activite
disciplinee, organisee. Le travail nous developpe et nous
permet d’aider nos semblables; la paresse atrophie notre cer
veau et nos muscles. Travailler, etre utile, est un devoir
envers nous-memes, envers les autres, envers la Vie.
Travailler est done aussi un Honneur et nous ferons
toujours notre travail manuel ou intellectuel, agreable ou
ennuyeux a fond et de notre mieux par amour pour la vie,
par esprit de justice envers les autres et aussi par dignite
personnelle.
(*) Voir, pour -plus de details, le chapitre sur la Volonte.
15
�34. —POURQUOI DEVONS-NOUS ETRE PREVOYANTS ?
Afin de ne pas etre a charge aux autres, afin de pouvoir
aider ceux qui auraient besoin de secours.
35. —Pourquoi
l’attention est-elle necessaire
?
Sans attention nous ne pouvons accomplir notre travail .de
notre mieux, et notre developpement intellectuel et moral en
est retarde.
Une negligence peut aussi entrainer des consequences
graves (tels qu’accidents de machines dus a une piece mal
jointe).
Concentrons done toujours notre attention sur notre
ouvrage, quel qu’il soit.
36.—Pourquoi
la perseverance est-elle necessaire
?
C’est la perseverance seule, e’est-a-dire la continuite dans
l’effort qui nous permet de surmonter une tache difficile, de
perfectionner notre etre, d’acquerir des connaissances.
Aucun effort .n’est perdu et le plus petit effort renouvele
constamment arrive a bout de tout: une goutte d’eau tombant
sans cesse a la meme place finit par creuser la pierre la
plus dure.
37.—Pourquoi
faut-il etre patient
?
Il y a plusieurs sortes de patience :
La patience dans l’attente;
La patience dans les contradictions;
La patience dans la souffrance, et qui est une forme du
courage.
Dans aucun cas 1’impatience n’est utile; au contraire,
elle diminue les forces en fatiguant les nerfs, l’attente semble
plus longue, la souffrance plus douloureuse. L’impatience
est proche parents de la colere qui agit comme un poison
sur l’organisme.
De plus dans les contradictions il n’est que juste d’ecouter le
contradicteur, car il se peut que nous nous trompions ou que
notre contradicteur soit de bonne foi. Enfin, si nous voulons
amener quelqu’un a nos vues, un ton calme, quoique convaincu, fera beaucoup plus d’impression que la violence qui
produit souvent l’entetement.
�38. —Pourquoi faut-il cultiver la bonne humeur ?
En premier lieu parce que la bonne humeur a une influence
salutaire sur la sante. De plus il n’est pas juste d’augmenter
la tristesse des autres en leur montrant un visage morose.
Done, en depit des souffrances physiques ou morales, faisons
preuve de courage; efforqons-nous de montrer un visage
souriant, augmentons ainsi la somme de bonheur chez autrui
et par contre coup en nous-meme.
39. —Pourquoi faut-il pratiquer l’egalite d'humeur ?
L’egalite d’humeur montre la maitrise de soi. Etre tout a
coup triste, tout a coup gai, un jour plein de patience, le lendemain emporte est deconcertant et penible pour les autres
et a sur eux une mauvaise influence.
40. —Pourquoi faut-il etre modeste et simple?
Il se peut que nous soyons orgueilleux de notre position
sociale, de notr.e richesse, de notre savoir.
Or, tout cela est en grande partie du a d’autres qu’a nousmemes. La position, la richesse peuvent nous avoir ete transmises sans qu’il y ait eu un effort de notre part; ou bien
e’est l’intelligence, l’energie, heritees- des parents qui nous
ont permis de les acquerir.
Etre orgueilleux de son savoir e’est montrer que nous
savons encore peu de choses, car, plus on apprend et plus on
s’apergoit que la science est illimitee et que nous en ignorons
une vaste partie. Faire etalage de ses connaissances e’est
aussi manquer de bonte et de tact envers ceux qui n’ont pas
regu les memes avantages que nous.
Soyons simples aussi dans nos paroles et dans nos gouts.
Faire etalage de luxe est non seulement un manque de bon
gout mais e’est aussi un manque de bonte et de justice, le
luxe etant trop souvent fait de la misere d’autrui.
41. —Pourquoi devons-nous etre tolerants ?
Respecter l’opiriion des autres, e’est reconnaitre leur liberte
de penser. L’intolerance a cause la mdrt de savants et de
grands penseurs (1’Inquisition instituee par l’Eglise romaine,
les guerres de religion, certains troubles politiques en sont
d’affreux exemples), et le Progres a ainsi ete retarde de
plusieurs siecles.
17
�Tolerance ne vent pas dire cependant indifference,
faiblesse, lachete. Lorsqu’il s’agit de mensonges, de choses
nuisibles au developpement de l’etre humain, il est de notre
devoir de lutter franchement contre eux, et d’eclairer les
esprits.
42.—Po^feQUOI FAUT-IL RESPECTER LA LIBERTE' D’AUTRUI ?
Nous n’avons pas le. droit d’empecher les autres d’agir
cotnme ils 1’entendent tant que leur conduite n’attente pas au
developpement des autres. Nous n’avons done pas le droit de
medire d’autrui. En general nous nous occupons beaucoup
trop des affaires des autres et presque toujours dans le but
de critiquer, si ce n’est pas par simple curiosite.
43'-—PoURQ.UOI DEVONS-NOUS PRATIQUER L’OBEISSANCE ?
Obeir c’est suivre de notre plein gre les lois, les reglements, les ordres que nous reconnaissons justes et utiles.
C’est ainsi que nous obeissons avec joie aux lois de la
Nature, aux reglements des groupes dont noils faisons partie
(famille, ecole, societes, etc.), aux conseils des personnes
ayant plus d’experience ,que nous.
L’obeissance fait partie de la discipline personnelle, et la
discipline librement acceptee et pratiquee contribue a la
bonne marche du groupe, a l’harmonie generale.
44. —POURQUOI DEVONS-NOUS ETRE FERME ?
Lorsqu’apres mure reflexion et en ayant le droit, une personne a etabli un reglement, des defenses, elle doit les suivre
et les faire suivre avec fermete. Les lois de la Nature sont
inflexibles, et les quelques lois etablies par les parents par
exemple devront etre inflexibles elles aussi. La fermete
engendre le respect.
45. —POURQUOI FAUT-IL ETRE POLI ?
Parce que la politesse n’est que la bonte dans les petites
choses et qu’elle nous permet aussi de montrer notre respect
ou notre reconnaissance. La politesse agit comme l’huile sur
les rouages et empeche bien des heurts, bien des froissements
dans la vie de tous les jours, et surtout dans la vie de ceux
qui trayaillent pour nous.
18
�46. —POURQUOI FAUT-IL ETRE RECONNAISSANT ? '
’
Parce que la reconnaissance est une dette de justice ef de
bonte envers ceux qui se sont occupes de nous, qui nous ont
aide dans la vie, qui ont travaille pour nous, qui se sont meme
sacrifies pour nous.
47. —Pourquoi
Devoir ? •
faut-il developper en nous l’amour du
Parce qu’il est juste, noble et digne de faire ce qu’on
doit.
48. —D’APRES TOUT CE QUI
Bien
PRECEDE,
pouvons-nous dqnner
QUELLE DEFINITION DU
?
Le Bien est tout ce qui contribue a la conservation et a
Paccroissement de la Vie. C’est-a-dire a notre plein develop
pement physique, intellectuel, moral, social et esthetique, a
l’emploi normal de toutes nos activates. Ou, plus simplement,
le Bien est tout ce qui contribue a l’epanouissement harmonieux de l’individu et des groupes dont il fait partie.
En se rappelant que l’emploi normal de toutes nos activites ne peut s’exercer pleinement et notre epanouissement harmonieux ne peut s’obtenir que par la cooperation, l’aide
mutuelle, l’union, la sympathie agissante pour tous les etres
et par le desir actif, toujours present, de contribuer le plus
possible au plus grand epanouissement du plus grand nombre,
—desir qui fait que l’individu se devoue volontairement pour
le groupe quand cela est necessaire.
49. —Qu’est-ce que le
Mal ?
Inversement, le Mal est tout ce qui amoindrit inutilement
la Vie, tout ce qui gene sans raison ce plein developpe
ment, cet epanouissement harmonieux de l’iridividu ou des
groupes (.
)
*
(*) Ces definitions sont tirees de I’owvrage de M. Deshumbert: “ La morale fondee 'sur les, Lois de la Nature.”
Derniere edition: “ Ligue de Propaganda morale de
Belgique,” Bruxelles, 1921. Traductions en anglais,, portugais, espagnol, roumain, hollandais.
19
�Ill
QUELQUES POINTS SUPPLEMENTAIRES
50. —Qu’est-ce qui forme le '‘'temperament7’ ?
Notre temperament, c’est-a-dire l’ensemble de nos ten
dances bonnes et mauvaises, nous est legue :
1° Par nos ancetres (heredite);
2° Par le milieu (education, coutumes du pays, climat,
etc.).
51. —Qu’est-ce que l’heredite?
C’est le premier facteur qui forme notre temperament
physique, intellectuel, moral et esthetique. C’est la loi biologique qui fait que les bonnes et mauvaises tendances des
parents, des grands-parents et d’ancetres plus eloignes, sont
transmises aux enfants. L’heredite que nous transmettrons
nous-memes augmente ainsi notre responsabilite.
52. —Qu’est-ce que la solidarity ?
Par solidarity on entend cette dependance mutuelle qui
existe entre tous les hommes. Nous sommes lies les uns aux
autres par l’influence que nos actes, nos paroles, nos ecrits ne
peuvent manquer d’exercer sur antrui. L’Humanite passee,
presente et a venir forme un tout solidairc: Nous subissons
encore l’influence du Passe avec ses erreurs, ses fautes, se's
vertus, ses efforts. Luttons done pour que notre influence
soit toujours bonne : le plus petit effort compte. Luttons
pour la Verite et le Bien afin de rendre meilleures et plus
heureuses la generation presente et celles de l’avenir.
53. —Qu’est-ce qu’un optimiste?
L’optimiste est celui qui voit le bon cote des choses et
croit en des temps meilleurs. Le pessimiste est le contraire
de l’o/’/wmste.
54. —Est-il bon d’etre optimiste ?
Il est raisonnable d’etre optimiste parce que l’etude des
choses montre abondamment qu’il y a eu Progres.
20
■
�Il est bon d’etre optimiste parce que cette confiance donne
de l’energie, repand le courage, la bonne humeur et la joie.
Au contraire le pessimisme decourage, deprime et empeche
tout effort.
Cependant il faut avoir le courage et l’honnetete de voir
les choses comme elles sont, meme les choses mauvaises, afin
de lutter contre elles. L’optimisme ne doit pas etre une satis
faction beate mais la certitude de pouvoir ameliorer les gens
et les choses. Cette certitude qui entraine Yaction, laquelle
amene un resultat, donne a la vie toute sa valeur.
55. —Qu’est-ce que la “ Dette des Ancetres ” ?
“ La dette des Ancetres ” dont parlent les philosophes
orientaux est la reconnaissance que nous devons avoir pour
les hommes de tous les temps passes, et de tous les pays qui
ont contribue au Progres. Cette dette nous ne pouvons la
payer qu’en contribuant nous-memes au progres physique,
intellectuel, moral et esthetique.
56. —Qu’est-ce que la Patrie ?
La patrie est le pays ou nous sommes nes, ou nous avons
recu notre education, ou nous avons appris les traditions de
nos ancetres. A ce titre nous avons des devoirs envers notre
patrie : nous devons obeir a ses lois justes, travailler pour
elle, la rendre prospere, noble et belleCe n’est pas etre “ patriote ” mais bien plutot ignorant que
de hair ou mepriser les autres peuples. C’est seulement
l’association fraternelle de toutes les nations qui permettra
a chaque Patrie d’atteindre la prosperite et un developpe
ment harmonieux.
57. —Que faut-il mettre au-dessus de la Patrie ?
Au-dessus de la Patrie se place VHumanite qui comprend
toutes les races humaines et toutes les Nations, solidaires
aussi les unes des autres. Nous avons envers l’Humanite le
meme devoir qu’envers les autres groupes plus petits. Nous
devons toujours travailler dans le sens de la Vie.
Un acte “ patriotique ne doit jamais leser l’Humanite.
Par exemple, nous n’avons pas le droit d’attaquer un pays
sous pretexte d’agrandir le notre.
58. —EsT-CE UN DEVOIR DE VOTER ?
Oui, c’est un devoir de voter, puisque c’est un moyen
d’aider au progres du groupe.
21
x
�IV
NOS DROITS
59. —Avon^-nous des
droits
?
Tout etre a incontestablement droit a la Vie, c’est-a-dire
au developpement complet et harmonieux de son etre. Ce
droit entraine done pour tous et sans distinction:
Le droit a l’instruction;
Lc droit au travail;
Le droit au produit de son travail ou a son equivalent;
Le droit d’etre libre (liberte de pensee, de parole, d’action);
Le droit au confort dans la vieillesse.
60. —Sur
quoi reposent nos
Droits ?
Sur le respect et I’amour de la vie, et sur la justice.
61. —Quel rapport
Devoir ?
existe-t-il entre le
Droit et le
Le Droit et le Devoir sont intimement lies. Nous avons,
une fois ne, droit a la vie mais il est aussi de notre devoir
envers la VIE de travailler, nous-memes a notre epanouisse
ment harmonieux.
Le Droit des autres forme aussi nos devoirs envers eux :
Non seulement nous ne devons pas empecher leur developpe
ment mais nous devons les aider en cela.
De plus nous devons toujours avoir en vue le developpe
ment du plus grand nombre, et si notre developpement per
sonnel familial ou national devait gener celui du Groupe plus
grand, il serait bon de mettre le developpement de celui-ci au
premier plan; (done pas de guerres de conquete, pas
d’injustices pour favoriser les siens). Cette renonciation
contribuera d’ailleurs malgre tout a notre developpement
personnel en augmentant notre volonte, la joie du devouement; et le bien-etre harmonieux du Groupe retentira sur
ses parties.
22
�62. —Avons-nous
droit au
..
Bonheur ?
, *
Nous ne pouvons guere dire que nous avons droit au bonheur, le Bonheur n’etant qu’un resultat du a l’harmonie qui
existe entre nos actes et ceux des autres groupes. La
Nature etant le groupe supreme dont tous les autres depen
dent, il importe d’agir en harmonie avec les Lois de la
Nature, lesquelles nous indiquent comme nous 1’avons vu
ce qui est beau, ce qui est Bien. En faisant ainsi nous
eprouverdns tout le Bonheur d'ont notre organisme. est
capable. ‘
63. —Quel
est alors notre but principal dans'la
Vie ?
L’etude de la Vie nous montre que l’individu existe pour
se developper lui-meme, (la Vie ayant son but en elle-meme),
pour etre utile au groupement dont il fait partie : famille,
ecole, societes de gymnastique et de sports, le village, la
'ville, la Nation, l’Humanite. Le groupe reagissant sur
l’lndividu, plus le groupe est parfait plus l’individu peut se
developper librement.
64. —Comment
pouvons-nous
etre
utiles
aux
groupes
DONT NOUS FAISONS PARTIE ?
En nous developpant nous-memes, puis en aidant les
groupes a vivre toujours plus et mieux; en luttant contre le
mensonge, ^injustice, la cruaute sous toutes ses formes,
(envers les animaux aussi bien qu’envers les hommes). .
t
23 •
�V
LA CONSCIENCE
65. —Qu’est-ce qu’on entend par “ Conscience ” ?
Le mot conscience s’emploie pour designer :
1° La connaissance des choses; c’est la conscience physiologique ou philosophique;
•
,
2° Cette espece de “ voix interieure ’ ’ qui approuve ou qui
blame notre conduite : c’est la conscience morale.
66. —La conscience morale est-elle infaillible ?
Non, parce que la Conscience morale est formee par
l’heredite et surtout par le milieu. Cette “ voix interieure ”
n’est qu’un phenomene psychologique du a la comparaison
plus ou moins consciente de notre conduite a l’ideal qu’on
nous a donne, aux coutumes sociales, aux traditions. La
Conscience differe done suivant les individus, les races, les
temps.
La Conscience doit done etre guidee par la Raison,
eclairee par la Science. La connaissance des lois de la Vie
fournit comme nous ■ l’avons vu une connaissance exacte
(scientifique) de ce qui est Bien, un guide sur pour notre
conduite individuelle, nationale et internationale.
67.—Qu’est-ce qu’un cas de conscience ?
Lorsque notre ligne de conduite ne semble pas claire, il y a
ce qu’on a appele un cas de conscience, ou, mieux encore
conflit de devoirs.
68-—Dans ce cas que nous indique la definition du Bien?
Que l’idee dominante qui doit nous servir de guide est
celle-ci:
24
�1° Choisir l’acte qui ne nuira pas a notre developpement
ni a celui du groupe;
2° Choisir l’acte qui augmentera notre developpement
et celui du groupe.
.
, ..
Sans oublier jamais que l’altruisme doit primer l’egoisme,
le groupe, en cas de conflit, etant plus important que
l’individu. D’ailleurs rappelons que plus un groupe sera,
bien organise, plus l’individu pourra se developper librement
et harmonieusement.
Il est evident que dans chaque cas il faudra ■ longuement
reflechir afin de voir tous les aspects de notre acte, afin
d’etre sur de choisir ce qui sera vraiment favorable a plus de
“ VIE”.
69. —Qu’entend-on par examen de conscience ?
Faire un examen de conscience c’est analyser notre con
duite de facon a voir plus clairement en nous-meme et a
nous mieux diriger. Faire notre examen de conscience
chaque jour est une excellente habitude. Il doit etre suivi
de la ferme resolution de mieux faire a l’avenir, et les
bonnes resolutions doivent porter sur des choses bien
precises.
70. —Qu’est-ce que mediter ?.
Mediter, c’est songer profondement a un sujet qui eleve
nos pensees, qui nous rend plus forts. Par exemple : l’eternite
du Cosmos, la vie universelle la solidarite, la justice, les
beautes de la Nature, la dette des Ancetres, la mort individuelle, l’influence de nos actions, etc.
71. —Qu’est-ce que “ Communier ”?
C’est mettre nos pensees en harmonie soit avec la Nature,
soit avec les Grands Hommes. Cette “communion” est done
bonne puisqu’elle aide a notre perfectionnement, en meme
temps qu’elle nous apporte la serenite.
25
�VI
LA VOLONTL
72.—Qu’entend-on
pa£
Libre Arbitre ?
Par libre arbitre (ou volonte arbitraire), on entend le
pouvoir absolu de faire telle ou telle chose que nous “voulons ”. La doctrine du libre-arbitre fait de nous des etres
completement independants au point de vue moral.
73.—Qu’entend-on par
determinisme
?
Le determinisme, au contraire, se rattache a la grande loi
de cause et d’effet. D’apres les partisans de cette theorie,
nos actes sont entierement causes par notre temperament
herite et le milieu qu nous sommes- LogiquemenQ. cette
theorie supprime toute responsabilite morale : nous obeissons
fatalement a la tendance la plus forte.
«
74.—Ou SE TROUVE
*
la verite
?
Nous sommes “ determines ” car nous sommes bien le produit de nos ancetres et du milieu. Cependant, les deterministes ne semblent pas avoir tenu compte de la personne
humaine, produit'nouveau, avec l’assimilation, les combinaisons, les elaborations nouvelles de son cerveau. Or, les faits
prowvent que tout etre normal ayant pris conscience de luimeme et ayant perQu un but a le pouvoir de choisir parmises
innombrables tendances heritees; parmi les nombreuses idees
regues, celles qui le meneront vers ce but; et il se .peut que
les tendances de 1 ’instant soient opposees a celles exigees par
notre but.
.
r ’
r
C’est cette faculte qui constitue ce qu’on a appele volonte,
ou energie morale.
La volonte est done bien influencee par toutes nos activites
(sante, ideal du au temperament et au milieu), mais a son
tour, cette energie morale influence, notre etre. . La volonte
■ ne s’oppose done pas au “ determinisme ”, mais bien plutot le
complete.
26
J
�Tout etre normal est heureusement doue de volonte
laquelle se developpe par Lexercice, comme toute. autre
faculte.
75.—Comment s’explique le mecanisme de la volonte ?
Le mecanisme de la volonte eSt intimement lie au mecan
isme de la pensee : Chaque fois que l’on pense une pensee
quelle qu’elle soit la cellule cerebrale active subit une legere
modification, elle se gonfle de sang aux depens des autres
cellules, devient done plus forte. Cette modification s’opere
d’autant plusfacilement que la pensee se repete, si bien, qu’a
la longue, cette pensee deviendra habituelie. La est le danger
de toute pensee mauvaise : il y a, immediatement, deteriora
tion de notre etre, et toute pensee, toute image mentale, tend
a se realiser, a s’agir.
.
-
'
76-—Comment pouvons-nous exercer un choix parmi
LES TENDANCES OPPOSEES QUI NOUS SOLLICITENT?
En detournant immediatement notre attention de toute
pensee nuisible, et cela en pensant a autre chose, a l’acte que
nous savons preferable, en evoquant les images qui augmenteront notre desir de. bien faire.
Grace au mecanisme
indique, la “ tentation ” disparaitra d’elle-meme.
77. —POURQUOI
LA
CROYANCE
EN
LA
VOLONTE
EST-ELLE
BONNE ?
Parce que cette croyance, justifiee par les faits, nous donne
la confiance necessaire en nous-meme pour surmonter les
obstacles et atteindre le but desire.
L’attention proIongee, la perseverance, la maitrise de soi
sont les manifestations de la Volonte.
78. —Qu’est-ce
qui
est
necessaire
a
une
volonte
CONSTANTE ?
Un but eleve, e’est-a-dire un Ideal vers lequel tous nos
efforts se dirigerdnt- Notre ideal supreme doit etre le Bien
selon la definition indiquee.
27
' ' '
<
�VII
LES SANCTIONS
-
79. —Que faut-il entendre par sanctions ?
On appelle sanction 1’ensemble des peipes ou des recom
penses attachees a la violation ou a 1’observation d’une loi.
80. —COMBIEN
DE GENRES DE SANCTIONS Y A-T-IL ?
On peut distinguer :
1° Les sanctions naturelies;
2° Les sanctions morales;
3° Les sanctions legales;
4° Les sanctions de l’opinion.
81. —Les sanctions naturelles sont-elles justes ?
Ces sanctions, qui fortifient la sante ou amenent la maladie
ou la mort, qui amenent la prosperite ou la pauvrete derivent
etroitement et fatalement d’un fait precedent et ne sont pas
appliquees dans le but de corriger ou de ' recompenser:
chaque acte est suivi de ses consequences naturelies. Celui
qui suit les lois de l’hygiene se porte bien (toutes choses
egales d’ailleurs); celui qui ne travaille pas aura son
cerveau non developpe et ne reussira pas dans sa profes
sion ; celui qui dans un naufrage ne sait pas nager sera sans
doute noye malgre toutes les autres qualites qu’il peut avoir;
l’enfant qui herite d’une constitution faible parce que son
pere etait alcoolique subit les consequences ineluctables des
lois de l’heredite.
Et il est bon qu’il en soit ainsi puisque de cette facon les
plus forts de sante, les plus actifs, les plus intelligents et les
plus moraux finissent par remplacer les faibles, que ce soit au
point de vue sante, intelligence ou morale : Il ne peut en
etre autrement, a nous de nous bien penetrer de cette loi
universelle de cause et d’effet, de decouvrir les lois naturelles
et d’y obeir si nous voulons la meilleure vie pour nous et nos
descendants.
*
28
�82. —Les sanctions morales sont-elles justes ?
Les sanctions morales qui entrainent immediatement selon
l’acte, l’amelioration ou la deterioration de l’individu sont
tres’ justes. Mais les sanctions morales qui entrainent la joie
ou le remords le sont moins car nous avons vu que la “ con
science ” depend de l’individu. Or, ce n’est pas toujours le
plus coupable qui souffre le plus, et il arrive que le remords
pour une faute legere soit plus profond que le remords
d’une faute grave, le remords etant proportionne a la
sensibilite de l’individu, a sa comprehension de la faute
commise.
83. —Les sanctions legales sont-elles justes ?
Comme il est impossible de determiner le degre de responsabilite des accuses, il est difficile de proportionner . le
chatiment a la faute. D’ailleurs, il est convenu qu’on inflige
une punition pour empecher 1’accuse de recommencer, pour
faire peur aux autres qui seraient tentes de mal faire, pour
sauvegarder la societe.
Il peut arriver aussi que des innocents soient punis. Quant
aux recompenses telles que decorations, prix de vertu, etc.,
elles sont trop souvent cause de vanite, de basses intrigues,
et elles ne vont pas toujours aux plus meritants.
84. '—Les sanctions de l’opinion sont-elles justes ?
L’estime, 1’admiration ou, au contraire, le mepris que nous
inspirons aux autres ont une certaine valeur. Le monde
pourtant se trompe souvent, et, souvent, ne connait pas la
mesure.
85. —Faut-il faire le Bien a cause des sanctions ?
Non; faire le Bien en vue d’une recompense ou afin
d’eviter un chatiment est un degre tres inferieur de
moralite. Nous devons faire le Bien par dignite personnelle,
par amour de la justice et du devoir, par amour des autres
(solidarite) par amour de la Beaute et de la Vie universelie
dont nous sommes une parcelle.
29
�VIII
DU MARIAGE
86. —Quelles
sont
les
conditions
d’un
mariage
HEUREUX ?
Le mariage, afin d’etre heureux, doit ctre fait de consentement mutuel, d’attachement, d’estime, d’admiration, de
similarite de sentiments et d’ideal. Le mariage ne doit
famais se faire a la legere.
87. —Quel est le but du Mariage ?
Le developpement complet de l’etre, et, cette immense responsabilite, la continuite de la race. Il importe, par simple
justice de leguer a nos enfants la sante, l’intelligence, les
tendances morales, de former une generation harmonieusement developpee et heureuse.
88. —Quels sont les devoirs entre epoux ?,
Le respect;
La franchise;
La confiance;
L’aide mutuelle.
Beaucoup de bonte, de patience, d’indulgence: s’oublier
pour 1’autre sera toujours le meilleur moyen d’etre
heureux.
89. —Quels sont les devoirs des parents envers leurs
ENFANTS ?
?•
Les devoirs des parents envers leurs enfants commencent, bierf avant la naissance de ceux-ci.
Et cela non
seulement en se perfectionnant eux-memes, mais en etudiant
tout ce qui se rapporte a l’art d’elever les enfants, tant au
point de vue physique qu’au point de vue intellectuel et moral
(psychologie).
30
�L’enfant ne, les parents devront lui prodiguer leurs soins.
Des le berceau leurs actes, leurs paroles, leurs gestes devront
contribuer a developper chez l’enfant toutes les qualites que
nous avons enumerees : Ne jamais oublier que I’exemple
est le meilleur des maztres.
Ils traiteront tous leurs enfants avec la plus parfaite
egalite. Ils ne se permettront jamais de repondre par un
mensonge a leurs questions. Ils etabliront peu de defenses,
mais celles-ci etablies apres mure reflexion seront inflexibles
comme les lois naturelies.
Les parents seront a la fois les maitres et les amis de leurs
enfants. Ils s’interesseront a leur developpement intellectuel, a leurs amusements; ils veilleront a leurs amities,
a leurs lectures.
Par tous ces moyens les parents chercheront a former des
individus nobles et eclaires pouvant travailler a leur tour au
developpement de l’humanite.
90.—Quels sont les devoirs des enfants envers' leurs
PARENTS ?
-
Nos parents ont fait pour nous bien des sacrifices : ils nous
ont soignes dans les maladies, souvent ils se sont prives de
bien-etre afin de nous elever le mieux possible. Nous devons
done les cherir, leur etre reconnaissants, .faire tout en notre
pouvoir pour leur eviter les soucis, les chagrins, et pour les
rendre heureux. Nous’' devons les. respecter a cause de ces
sacrifices faits pour nous avec joie, et a cause de leur
experience de la vie. Nous devons obeir aux quelques lois
erigees par eux pour notre bien : Les parents sont nos conseillers et nos amis naturels. Enfin, plus tard, nous les
soignerons a notre tour avec le meme devouement, et nous
les aiderons pecuniairement si cela est necessaire.
31
�IX
DE LA MORT
91— Qu’est-ce que la Mort?
La mort est l’arret des activites qui caracterisent la vie et
la dissociation, c’est-a-dire la separation des elements qui
composent notre corps.
92. —Pourquoi
la
Mort ?
Peu a peu l’energie des corps s’epuise, peu a peu les organes s’usent, cela ne peut pas ne pas etre, et il arrive un
moment ou le vieillard, le malade, cessent completement
d’agir : Ils “ meurent ”, laissant la place aux jeunes et aux
forts. La mort est done necessaire pour que la VIE puisse
continuer dans toute son activite maximum. Les morts
individuelles sont une condition de VIE eternelle car le
Cosmos reprend les ions qui composent les corps afin d’en
faire de nouveaux groupements. N’oublions pas que le
resultat de nos actions continue losgtemps apres nous.
93. —Quelle
doit etre notre attitude devant la
Mort ?
La mort d’etres chers entraine une grande douleur et
nous devons faire appel a tout notre courage moral afin de
ne pas attrister ceux qui nous entourent.
Pour nous-memes nous devons accepter la mort avec calme
et dignite puisque la mort est une fonction naturelle.et que
nous en comprenons la necessite. La mort est notre sacri
fice supreme a cette Vie a laquelle nous avons consciemment
contribue et qui a ete pour nous la source de joiesD’ailleurs le desir de vivre, si intense chez les jeunes,
diminue dans la vieilesse, et le vieillard s’endort dans le
Grand Tout, comme nous nous endormons le soir, apres une
journee bien remplie.
FIN
Printed by C. A. Watts & Co. Ltd., 5 and 6 Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street,
London, E.C 4.
���
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Manuel de morale rationaliste: fondee sur les lois de la nature
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Delbende, Madeleine
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Rationalism
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Text
THE ABSENCE OF
DESIGN IN NATURE.
fttintt
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF CHICAGO.
BY
PROF. H. D. GARRISON
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT
PUBLISHING
63, FLEET STREET, EC.
1884.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
COMPANY,
�iT is claimed by theologians that the order of Nature when
rightly interpreted proves the existence of a great contriver
or designer ; and, it is further maintained, by many that the
chief lf not the sole object in view by that great designer h
and always has been, the welfare of the human race/
exis.te?ce of »Deity, endowed with the attri
butes of infinite wisdom and power, it follows as a logical
necessity, that whatever he designs and executes muft be
faultless in plan and perfect in workmanship. In other
words, a perfect God can make no mistakes. If we find
what we believe to be mistakes in nature, we may explain
their existence m one only of two ways. First, we mav
assume that we ourselves are mistaken ; or, if this is not
possible then we must conclude that the imperfections
observed are not the product of divine wisdom and work
manship.
The first explanation, which simply assumes that in all
such cases we ourselves are in error, has proven so con
venient to theologians and so anodyne to the human intellect
tihat it is usually adopted, without question or remonstrance
We assume that what appears to be useless and purposeless
m nature will present a different aspect when we come to
more fuiiy understand the matter; and if, after prolonged
and thorough investigation, the difficulty still persists, we
hush the voice of reason by still assuming that we have not
yet gone deeply enough into the matter. We are invited
into the field of nature to observe the evidences of design
which are to prove the existence of a Great Designer but
at the very threshold of our inquiry are warned that we
must only heed evidence in favor of the proposition in
question. When difficulties appear and doubts arise we
are admonished that in times past it has often happened
�Absence of design m nature.
3
that what men have thought useless or even injurious has
been found, on further inquiry, to be useful or even
essential, and that,, therefore, a like solution of every pro
blem is certain to result from adequate investigation. We
appeal to reason to prove a proposition, and then delibe
rately reject all the adverse evidence, assuming that it must
be imperfect, misleading, and false, or it would not be
adverse. It is as if the State, which assumes all prisoners
before trial to be innocent, should refuse to receive or credit
the evidence of the prosecution, because it has often hap
pened in times past that men, esteemed guilty beyond
doubt, by the bench, the bar, and the people, have been
shown by the developments of time to be absolutely
innocent.
The alternative of this mode of disposing of the subject
on ex parte evidence is, if imperfections and purposeless
parts are found in nature, to deny that nature furnishes any
proof of design. The existence of such harmony and
adaptation of means to ends as we perceive about us, can
not be accepted as proofs of design, while there remains
even one imperfect or purposeless structure in nature ; for
we cannot conceive that a perfect God made a single
mistake, or left any work in an imperfect or unfinished
condition. Nor can we conceive that God designed some
parts of nature and neglected other parts. All is, therefore,
the product of divine plan and workmanship, or none is.
There is, however, a third method of solving this pro
blem, which, at first glance, is apparently very profound,
but which, on investigation, proves to be a transparent
sophistry. Thus, it is said that behind all matter and force
there may exist an agency or being, who created the universe,
with all its materials and forces, and who, having created
matter and the laws to which it is subject, is content to
allow nature to proceed in obedience to the original divine
plan. This is simply foreordination and predestination ap
plied to the universe. But it will be noticed that in stating
this pioposition, we are obliged to refer to an agency or
“force behind all force," which involves a contradiction of
terms. In other words, we must assume that, somewhere
behind all matter and force, there is yet another force
which is an absurd proposition.
’
Paley and others have written many volumes with a
view of proving the existence of this hypothetical being
�4
Absence of design in nature.
behind nature, using arguments which, in the main, are
analogous to the celebrated watch argument, which may be
thus briefly stated : A traveller finds a watch, and, on ex
amination of its mechanism, notes abundant evidence of
design, which induces him to believe that the watch did not
c >me by chance, but had a designer and maker. Next, the
anatomist and physiologist examine the body of the watch
maker, and, on careful inspection, find it to be more won
derful in many respects than the watch, wherefore they
conclude that it must have been designed and manufactured
by an artificer possessed of superhuman knowledge and
power. The theologian now takes up the clue and finds that
this Great Designer lives somewhere in the sky, or behind
nature ; and, although he does not frankly say as much,
evidently concludes that this mighty being is so very won
derful that he did not require either a designer or maker at
all ! For the sake of argument, however, we may neglect
the absurdity involved in the doctrine of design, that God
himself must have been designed by a greater God, and he
by another, and so on, ad infinitum, and address ourselves
at once to the facts of nature.
That there is a remarkable adaptation of living beings to
their environment, is apparent to all, and has in all ages
and among all peoples, originated and maintained the the
ory of an intelligent, designing Deity. Can this wonderful
adaptation of living beings to their environment be other
wise explained ? The doctrine of evolution—natural selec
tion—the survival of the fittest, explains all in a most
satisfactory manner. Evolution is, therefore, the designing
hand. True, steps in the development of beings of every
kind are not yet, and, perhaps never will be, made out with
certainty. It may never be known, for example, what com
bination of circumstances drove the whale—originally a land
animal—into the sea ; but conditions having that tendency
are readily conceivable. Those who refuse to accept the
doctrine of evolution, because all the steps and stages in
the evolution of animals and plants have not been observed,
and cannot be reproduced experimentally, occupy the
illogical position of rejecting the evidence of an army of
witnesses simply because of the absence of one or a few,
the testimony of whom they hope, almost against hope,
would be contradictory to those at hand. For the same
reason we might refuse to accept all the sciences, and indeed
�Absence of design in nature.
5
all knowledge, not excepting theology, which, indeed,
would be the first to fail by this test.
Since all the adaptation observed in nature is fully
and rationally accounted for by the theory of evolution—
indeed, we might say, is required by that theory—it is
plainly a violation of the fundamental laws of human reason
to attempt to explain these relations by invoking miracu
lous agency—a cause unknown to science, and of the exist
ence of which no proof can be given in this age.
Pushing aside for the time, however, all of these grave
objections, which in themselves are fatal to the doctrine of
design, let us see if the facts so much relied upon by Paley,
Lord Brougham, and others warrant, in any degree, the
inferences drawn from them. As before remarked, any
creature or organ designed and made by an omniscient and
omnipotent creator should be absolutely perfect in every
respect. What creature is perfectly adapted to its environ
ment, or what organ performs its functions perfectly ? The
eye, on which teleologists place so much stress, is very far
from perfection. The number of persons seen with eye
glasses and other devices to aid ordinary vision, shows that
this organ is, to say the least, very easily disordered in many
different ways. Optically the eye is not perfectly planned
to guard against spherical or chromatic aberration, while, in
mechanical construction, it is inferior to the cheapest optical
instrument in the market. Astigmatism, or want of sphe
ricity of the cornea, is present in a greater or less degree in
the case of every human eye, while the crystalline lens
seems to be even more imperfect than the cornea in this
respect. Moreover, these refracting media, the cornea and
crystalline lens, are not truly centered, as Helmholtz has
shown, on the optical axis of the eye. The refracting
media of the eye, as the aqueous humor, the crystalline
lens, and vitreous humor, are not uniformly transparent,
and hence, rays of light during transmission, undergo absorp
tion and refraction, giving rise to various shadows, halos,
and fringes, which fall upon the retina to the great impair
ment of vision. Even in the best of eyes there are numerous
opaque granules, or floating patches, in the humors, giving
rise to moving spots or spectres, so well observed and yet so
annoying while using the microscope, especially if the field
is well illuminated. Long-sightedness and short-sightedness
are common difficulties arising from want of proper relation
�b
Absence of design in nature.
between the refracting power of the eye and its depth, or the
antero-posterior diameter. All of these difficulties are prac
tically overcome or avoided in even the cheapest photogi aphic cameias in the market, and yet no one has ever
claimed that the camera had a miraculous origin, or that the
wonderful design manifest in its mechanism proves its de
signer to have been a god. In the inner corner of every
human eye is.seen a little mass of flesh containing a little
plate of cartilage. It is the vestige of the membrana
nictitans or third eye-lid of birds and reptiles, and is not of
the slightest use to man. Why is it there ? Its existence,
which is inexplicable on the theory of design, is not only
consistent with the theory of evolution, but is one among
the thousands of unanswerable arguments in favor of that
theory.
The ear is, in many respects, as imperfect as the eye.
There are, in the structure of the external ear, and attached
to it, ten muscles—all in a rudimentary condition, and all
absolutely useless. Indeed, all of the ear visible to the eye,
except a small shell-shaped depression immediately around
the opening, and not so large as an ordinary teaspoon, is
completely useless, and, in consequence of its liability to
freeze, is to some extent injurious. For what purpose, then,
was this mass of useless material formed ? Does its beauty
or its utility as an additional member on which jewellery
can be worn justify its existence ? The internal construction
of the ear is quite as faulty as that of the eye ; but for the
present we must content ourselves with only the observations
that we cannot hear either very high or very low tones, and
that we judge but very imperfectly of either the direction
or distance of sounds.
Turning our attention now to other structures, we find,
for example, on looking into the mouth of a child, a set of
teeth beginning to appear soon after birth, and which con
tinue to cut their way through swollen and tender gums
from time to time, during two or three years. Hardly is the
last one of these milk-teeth visible, before the whole set
begins to vanish, before the incoming, so-called “ permanent
set.” If the child is able to survive the tooth-aches and
teething-syrups and diseases of a dangerous character inci
dent to this period, and largely caused by the cutting and
shedding of one set of teeth and the appearance of another
set, it may hope, by the time it is able to vote, to have
�Absence of design in nature.
7
cut the last wisdom tooth. But, as a rule, long before
this time the service of the dentist is needed on the
new crop of teeth. As a matter of fact, the den
tist furnishes us the only strictly reliable and permanent
teeth we ever have. No one can doubt that the process of
teething, and the teeth produced, are far from bearing the
impress of perfection. Indeed, few animals having any teeth
at all are not better off in this respect than the human
race.
Looking a little further down the throat, we observe a
pair of tonsils, of no earthly use except as filling for a small
amount of space which certainly might have been filled
with some tissue not so liable to become inflamed and
swollen, as in tonsilitis or quinsy. In surveying this region
of the body, we notice that the opening into the trachea, or
windpipe, lies just below the opening into the oesophagus or
gullet, so that every breath of air through the nostrils must
cross the path of food to the stomach, and, what is worse,
every grain of food and every drop of liquid, on its way to
the stomach, must pass over the opening into the trachea,
thus endangering the life of man every time a mouthful of
food is- swallowed. That the danger is real, and not simply
imaginary, is abundantly proven by the large number of
deaths due to choking caused by the impaction of pieces of
food, often relatively small, in the glottis during meals.
Even when death does not result, the evil of the arrange
ment is apparent in the spasmodic coughing caused by the
entrance of small crumbs or drops of liquid during meals.
The arrangement of the various digestive fluids in the
alimentary canal is far from being the best one possible. In
the mouth, food meets saliva, an alkaline liquid having a
tendency to convert starch into sugar, but this process is
hardly begun before the food reaches the stomach, where it
meets an acid liquid—the gastric juice—which effectually
destroys the alkalinity of the saliva which had been swal
lowed, and thus at once and for ever prevents its action.
Even the ptyaline, the ferment principle of the saliva, is
destroyed by the action of the gastric juice. After leaving
the stomach food encounters two alkaline liquids—the bile
and pancreatic juice, the latter secretion being simply
saliva again. Here, digestion begun but not completed in
the stomach, is arrested, and the kind which began in the
mouth is again set up ! Such an arrangement is not justified
�8
Absence of design in nature.
by any principles of chemistry or of economy with which
we are acquainted.
These, and hundreds of similar defects, are wholly unac
countable by, and incompatible with any theory of Theistic
design, but they are in perfect harmony with the theory of
Evolution, which assumes that man has attained his present
degree of perfection by the gradual modification and im
provement of inferior organisms. His organisation has been
built up on the piece-upon-piece and patch-upon-patch plan,
and hence is far more complex, in many respects, than it
might have been had it been directly planned by an all-wise
architect, or even by a good physiologist.
Design implies purpose, as much as it does the existence
of a designer. With this principle in view, let us glance at
one or two sample facts in nature. For what purpose was
such an animal as the tiger designed ? This animal has
been endowed with great strength, sharp teeth and claws,
acuteness of sight and hearing, a favorable color, and
remarkable cunning—all for what purpose ? The only
possible answer is, “ to enable him to capture and kill other
animals as food.” But we find that the tiger’s food has not
been neglected. The antelope exhibits as much evidence
of design as the tiger, but the purpose is evidently dif
ferent. His acuteness of sight and hearing, and especially
his fleetness, are designed to enable him to run away from
the tiger ! Here, then, is design working against design,
and we are assured that “a house divided against itself
cannot stand.” If the antelope was designed as food for
the tiger, why was he given such desire and capacity to run
away and neglect his duty to the latter ? Less design
bestowed upon the antelope would have necessitated less
elaboration of the tiger ! It is worthy of note, however,
that of all animals on which tigers love to dine, man was
most easily captured and slain, until his own ingenuity gave
him weapons for defence. Does this fact indicate that man
was specially designed as food for tigers and lions ? But,
seriously, why should one animal have been designed to eat
up another ? What possible profit or pleasure can the
Deity derive from this world-wide and incessant slaughter ?
Every second of time records the dying agonies of thousands
of animals to whom life was, apparently, as sweet as it is to
us. Indeed, this universal butchery and murder seen on
every hand throughout the animal kingdom is one of the
�Absence of design in nature.
9
chief hindrances to the refinement of men. It is impossible
to learn mercy from nature, and yet, without mercy, man is
a brutal savage,
„
. x
„
We are aware of the fact that, but for the existence ot
carnivorous animals, there would have been, far less variety
in the animal kingdom ; but it is also evident that, with
less variety, there might have been even a greater number
of individuals in existence. If it is said that, but for car
nivorous animals—including man for this argument her
bivorous animals would soon possess the earth and crowd out
the human race, we answer, that a little design, causing
them to multiply less rapidly, would have obviated that
danger. If man was the chief object of the solicitude of the
Great Designer, those troublesome animals might have been
omitted altogether.
W© have heard the explanation that God made all the
animals, as well as everything else, “for his own glory,”
which implies that he is exceedingly fond of blood and car
nage, and further, that, before he created them, he was not
quite as glorious as he wished to be.
The old race of theologians—unfortunately not yet quite
extinct—claimed boldly that everythingin existence was
made for the use and benefit of man, directly or indirectly.
When Galileo announced the discovery of the moons of
Jupiter, the clergy asked him if they were visible to the
unaided eye ? On his replying that they were not, he was
told that, since everything was made for the use of man, and
since these alleged moons were not visible, and, therefore,
were of no use to him, it followed, as a logical consequence,
that they did not exist at all!
With the view of testing this theory, let us cull a few
sample facts bearing upon this question from.nature. There
are at a least half a million species of plants in existence, of
which man uses, directly or indirectly, about one in every
three hundred. Are the remaining two hundred and
ninety-nine simply passive and neutral ? By no means.
They drain the earth and air of the nutriment which would
otherwise go to the support of the useful plants. There can
be no neutrality in this matter. “ He that is not for us is
against us.” What shall we do with such facts as these ?
Shall we admit their logic and say that the Great Designer
fails three hundred times as often as he succeeds ? But the
whole truth is not yet told. Even in those cases in which
�Absence of design in nature.
plants evince the most evidence of design, the degree of
success attained is only partial. As articles of food, such
ruits as crab-apples, wild cherries, May-apples, paw-paws
persimmons, etc., are very defective, both in We aid
nutritive constituents ; while, as remedies, the entire vegetable-kmgdom fails to present a single perfect specimen. gIf
w?flCiina ip an S
b/en desiSned by the Great Designer,
1 mduSlgn? th? dlseases they were intended to cure,
end h°WHhiaVe rOr?d then?.to be Perfectly adapted to that
would
PerfecVemedl6S’ the Practice of medicine
Xwon gTTSJnCe ?ave beuV very simPle and certain
P.
• Having diagnosed the case, the doctor might disiss it, leaving the labor of looking up the right remedy in
friendsal°gUe
ltS administration to tbe patient or to his
nJSd 6Ven in,.the case of those plants found to be most
useful as remedies, there is no relation between their place
of growth and the use which is made of them. Thus the
cinchona tree, the most serviceable of all medicinal plants,
f°^nd m 10Y’ marshy’ malarious regions, where, as a
emedy, it is most needed. On the contrary, it is found
perched upon the top of a small area of the Andes mountains,
a locality for a long time unknown, and now almost in
accessible to human beings. If we are told that the Creator
put the cinchona in the best place for the welfare of the
plant, we reply that man has since found a score of other
locabties in which it flourishes as well, and in some cases,
better, than in its original home ; and, secondly, that a little
touch of Infinite design might have made it grow about
Peru, Illinois, as well as in Peru, South America. But who
designed the palmella or ague-plant, but for which cinchona
would have been far less necessary? Here we see an
organism, and there are hundreds of similar instances ex
quisitely designed to cause disease, and, on the other hand
we find a remedy imperfectly designed to cure it. Here is
another case of design warring against design. Nature
teems with similar instances. Evidently, less design
bestowed on actinomyces, palmellae, trichina spiralis, the
itch animalcule, tape-worms, etc., would have obviated the
necessity of designing an elaborate materia medica.
Pmmg our attention for a moment to the animal kingdom
we find that we use a score or two of animals largely and in
various ways, and that we use the skins or other parts, and
�Absence oj design in nature.
11
sometimes the fleshy of a few hundred more ; but naturalists
believe there are fully a million species of animals, great
and small, in existence. Therefore more than ninety-nine
per cent, of the species of animals in existence are not only
of no service to man, but are absolutely injurious. Here, as
in the case of plants, neutrality is an impossibility.
Hundreds of carnivorous animals infest our forests and
streams, while over three thousand kinds of snakes hiss and
snap at us as we trudge along the path of life, including the
copperheads and fifteen kinds of rattlesnakes, specially de
signed for and donated to us Americans. Oh, for a full
appreciation of the length and breadth and depth of the
beneficence manifested in the design of a rattlesnake ! To
make our earthly habitation a more perfect elysium, it has
pleased the Great Designer to make the air almost hazy with
hornets, wasps, flies, fleas and mosquitoes, giving us Ameri
cans several new kinds, as if the hornets which stung the
Moabites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, and the Hittites were
not good enough or bad enough for us.
The truth is, just as it should be, according to the doctrine
of evolution, that man is simply a member of the animal
kingdom, and that, like all other subjects of that great realm,
he must struggle for his life from birth to death. He must
contend with climate, disease, and enemies of all kinds. In
this unceasing battle, he avails himself of every help and
means within his reach. He uses such animals and plants
as he caii for food and clothing and as servants, and fights,
with all his power, against the remainder. His ingenuity
enables him to turn so many things to good account, in this
contest, that his egoism prompts him to the belief that all
things were made for him. But, as a matter of fact, every
other living organism struggles for continued existence in
substantially the same manner, and might with as much
propriety set up the same claims.
There are those in every community who affect to believe
that everything that occurs is specially designed and directed
by an overruling Providence, and hence, on almost every
coin we see the motto, “ In God we trust,” and almost every
obituary notice begins, “ Whereas, it has pleased an over
ruling Providence to remove Mr. Blank,” etc., and yet, as
everyone knows, the pious and orthodox are not more exempt
from accidents, disease and death than are heretics. If an
overruling Providence is managing these matters he ought
�12
Absence of design in nature.
to, and certainly would, make some plain distinctions in the
distribution of his gifts and punishments. There are,
throughout the country, probably ten saloons and other in
famous houses for every church, and yet it is no exaggeration
to state that lightning strikes ten times as many churches as
it does saloons. Of course, the steeples and spires of churches
are very tempting to electricity, but lightning, directed by
Omnipotence, should be able to strike a basement saloon as
readily as a church-steeple. Not long since, we read of a
minister who was struck by lightning and instantly killed
while praying during the regular Sunday services, also of a
pious man who was struck and killed while reading his
bible. What shall we do with these and millions of similar
facts ? No one can harmonize them with the theory of
design and an overruling Providence, except by assuming
that, in some mysterious way, unknown to men, they are
beneficial to our race. But the propriety and reasonableness
of such an assumption are the very questions in dispute.
Recognising the fact that the good are as frequently stricken
with the “ visitations of Divine Providence ” as the bad,
theologians have evolved two explanations by which to pacify
their flocks. The first is that all of these calamities—and,
indeed, all the evil in the world—are the works of the Devil.
But who is the Devil, on whom the onus of blame is thus
shifted ? Did he, like God, create himself, or is he the
creature, the agent, the employee of God ? In the affairs of
this world, we hold the proprietor responsible for the acts of
the employee. Indeed, God himself, if correctly reported,
gave us the correct principle of action governing this matter,
when he said : “ But if the ox (which had gored some one)
were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath
been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but
that he hath killed a man or woman ; the ox shall be stoned,
and his owner also shall be put to death.” Why has not
this terribly vicious ox, the Devil, been “kept in” or
“ stoned ” to death long ago ?
The other explanation is by means of the argument of
ignorance, which is usually sanctified and sugar-coated by
the quotation, “ Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,” im
plying that the evil or calamity is, after all, but a blessing
in disguise. The argument in full may be thus summa
rised : Many things and events are plainly beneficial;
others, apparently pernicious, finally prove to be advan-
�Absence of design in nature.
13
tageous j therefore, all things and events are blessings,
either openly or in disguise. If, however, we invert this
argument it will look as well, logically, and prove as much.
“ Many things and events are undoubtedly injurious ;
Other things and events which at first seem to be advanta
geous, finally prove to be inimical; therefore, all things and
occurrences are either openly or covertly hostile to mankind,
tod, therefore, essentially bad.” The argument is as cogen
in one form as in the other, and is but sophistry at best.
If God really wishes to prove to us his existence, can
he not devise some proof not susceptible of any other in
terpretation ? Can he not write ? He is credited with paint
ing all the exquisite colors and hues in nature. If so, cannot
he write a single sentence somewhere, and in some manner,
which could not be counterfeited or explained away by men ?
If he controls the winds and clouds why does he not some
times arrange the latter into significant forms, or paint on
them some words giving us some reliable information ? We
do not ask for much. Let him simply say, “ The bible is
inspired,” or, “ Obey the pope,” or, “ Follow Talmage,”
or “Believe in Joseph Cook.” Any little hint will suffice
to eradicate infidelity from the world, when we are certain
that its origin is divine. The matter in the tail of a comet
might easily be arranged into a few words which all men
could see. No matter in what language the information
came, its translation would offer no difficulties. The surface
of the moon might have been variegated with a few texts
instead of with volcanic craters. We are aware that God is
reported to have written two editions of the decalogue on
stone tablets, but unfortunately for the credibility of the
account, Moses had to wait, in each case, forty days for the
completion of the work ; and now there are those so depraved
as to suggest that in that length of time Moses might have
done the work himself.
If God is really so solicitous in regard to the welfare
of men, why does he not, at least sometimes, speak ? He
is said to have been very familiar and communicative two
or three thousand years ago. Can he not talk now ? The
clergy will of course call these queries blasphemous, as
they do everything which cannot be otherwise disposed of,
but they are candid, and are the serious thoughts of every
one who permits himself to think upon this subject. A
little four-year-old girl, belonging to an acquaintance in
�14
Absence of design in nature.
Ohio, was, some time since, heard to soliliquize thus, when
saying her evening prayer : “ Now, God, I have talked to
you often enough. If you hear me why don’t you talk
back ? ” Sure enough ! Why don’t God talk, or act in re
sponse to prayer ? It is the disgrace of wood and stone idols
that, however much they are appealed to, to speak or act
they maintain a stolid indifference ; but, in truth, does our
God behave differently ? Hundreds of millions of prayers
in the case of President Garfield, failed to evoke the slightest
sign of even the existence of a God. Had these prayers
been addressed to Bael, or Joss, the result could not have
been more disastrous. Billions of billions of prayers for the
conversion of the wicked and the heathen have been pre
sented, and yet—although this is evidently the proper thing
to do—the work is scarcely farther advanced than it was a
thousand years ago. Indeed, no one in this age, not even
the preacher, expects a prayer to be answered.
Those who have abandoned all the usual arguments in
favor of a Supreme being, based on the evidence of design,
as intrinsically bad, but who still wish to fortify their belief
in the existence of such a Being, often assert that the mere
order of harmony observable in nature, offers them sufficient
evidence. It is plain, however, that if nature exists at all,
some kind of order must exist, and that, whatever may be
the course of events, some sort of harmony is a necessary
consequence. If matter exists, it must assume some shape
and occupy some position. If, however, the matter of the
universe could be shown to be in the best possible forms,
an argument for a supreme intelligence might rest on that
basis, but he would possess a dull imagination indeed, who
could not suggest numerous improvements in this respect,
both in the form and qualities of matter, as we find it on
our planet. The climate, for example, might have been
made more genial and uniform, and the soil in many
districts richer. Fewer mountains and deserts would have
sufficed, and with less water better distributed, our world
would have been better arranged. Indeed, a small amount
of matter might have taken the form of homes, food, and
clothing, vvith evident advantage to mankind. The labor
of the human race is chiefly expended in re-arranging
nature. The convenience of photographers, for example,
would have been greatly enhanced if light had been en
dowed with such properties that it would not affect a sensitive
�Absence of design in nature.
15
plate before its passage through a lens. If we are told that
such a modification of light would unfit it for use as a
chemical agency in many other respects, we can only reply
that, while we cannot so load a gun as that it shall hit a
bear but miss a calf, this is just what is to be expected from
one with whom “ all things are possible.”
I freely admit that the arrangement of matter and its
qualities might have been much worse, but if they had been
we should not have existed at all. In the case of our moon
a worse arrangement is actually seen, and, as a consequence,
life is believed to be absent from that body. Water might
have been made to freeze at forty degrees above, or forty
degrees below zero, with some advantages in both cases.
Alcohol might have been made with a repulsive taste, or
without its intoxicating properties, with evident advantage
to mankind. Thus, we might proceed to point out changes
and possible improvements in the form and properties of
matter ad infinitum. Since it is possible, therefore, to sug
gest improvements in the properties and state of aggregation
in which we find matter, perfection in the order of nature
cannot be claimed, unless it is assumed that in some way or
other, not always manifest, everything must be for the best
as we find it, which is simply the old argument of igno
rance.
But if perfection in the order of nature is not made a part
of the argument, then the simple proposition remains, that
the existence of matter in any state of aggregation, and with
any kind of properties, is sufficient to prove the existence of
an intelligent designing Creator, who himself came into
existence without any assistance or cause whatever, and then
proceeded to create everything out of nothing ! In the apt
phraseology sometimes employed by gentlemen of the bar,
those who use this argument go into and come out of the
same hole.
So far as the doctrine of design implies the process of
reasoning on the part of God it is plainly absurd, because the
divine mind can neither reason, nor learn, nor forget.
Reasoning is that process by which finite minds glide by
easy or difficult steps from the known to the unknown ; but,
since all possible knowledge is supposed to be ever present
in the Infinite mind, this process is both unnecessary and
impossible. Therefore, while an unreasoning God may ap
pear to be a kind of theological monstrosity, it is clear that
�16
Absence of design in nature.
a God who reasons is no God at all, but worse still is a God
who reasons badly.
Finally, we may be asked if we deny the existence of
God ? Our reply is, “ By no means.” To do so, would imply
that we have positive knowledge on this point. We neither
affirm nor deny the existence of a Supreme Being, because
we have no definite and conclusive information on that
subject. We simply maintain that the evidence which has
thus far been relied upon to prove the existence of such a
Being, is insufficient and fallacious. If new evidence can
be advanced, or if the old can be made more cogent, we
shall be among the first to give the matter a full and fair
reconsideration.
London: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh,
63, Fleet Street, E.O.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The absence of design in nature : a lecture delivered before the Philosophical Society of Chicago
Creator
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Garrison, H.D.
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh.
Publisher
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Freethought Publishing Company
Date
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1884
Identifier
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N279
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<p class="western"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" name="graphics1" align="bottom" width="88" height="31" border="0" alt="88x31.png" /></p>
<p class="western">This work (The absence of design in nature : a lecture delivered before the Philosophical Society of Chicago), identified by <span style="color:#0000ff;"><span lang="zxx"><u>Humanist Library and Archives</u></span></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Subject
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Creationism
Creation
Nature
NSS