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DIALOGUES
CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION.
No. II.
BY
DAVID HUME, Esq.
4 nezo Edition, with a Preface and Notes, which bring the Subject
do wn to the present time.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E,
Price One Shilling.
��DIALOGUES
CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION.
PART VII.
DUT here, continued Philo, in examining the ancient
system of the soul of the world, there strikes me, all
on a sudden, a new idea, which, if just, must go near
to subvert all your reasoning, and destroy even your
first inferences, on which you repose such confidence.
If the universe bears a greater likeness to animal bodies
and to vegetables, than to the works of human art, it
is more probable, that its cause resembles the cause
of the former than that of the latter, and its origin
ought rather to be ascribed to generation or vegetation
than to reason or design. Your conclusion, even
according to your own principles, is therefore lame and
defective.
Pray open up this argument a little farther, said
Demea. For I do not rightly apprehend it, in that
concise manner in which you have expressed it.
Our friend Cleanthes, replied Philo, as you have
heard, asserts, that since no question of fact can be
proved otherwise than by experience, the existence of
a Deity admits not of proof from any other medium.
The world, says he, resembles the works of human
contrivance : Therefore its cause must also resemble
that of the other. Here I we may remark, that the
operation of one very small part of nature, to wit man,
upon another very small part, to wit that inanimate
E
�64 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
matter lying within his reach, is the rule hy which
Cleanthes judges of the origin of the whole, and he
measures objects, so widely disproportioned, by the
same individual standard. But to waive all objections
drawn from this topic; I affirm, that there are other
parts of the universe (besides the machines of human
invention) which bear still a greater resemblance to
the fabric of the world, and which therefore afford a
better conjecture concerning the universal origin of this
system. These parts are animals and vegetables. The
world plainly resembles more an animal or a vegetable,
than it does a watch or a knitting-loom. Its cause,
therefore, it is more probable, resembles the cause of the
former. The cause of the former is generation or vege
tation. The cause, therefore, of the world, we may
infer to be something similar or analogous to generation
or vegetation.
But how is it conceivable, said Demea, that the
world can arise from anything similar to vegetation or
generation ?
Very easily, replied Philo. In like manner as a tree
sheds its seed into the neighbouring fields, and produces
other trees ; so the great vegetable, the world, or this
planetary system, produces within itself certain seeds,
which, being scattered into the surrounding chaos,
vegetate into new worlds. A comet, for instance, is
the seed of a world ; and after it has been fully ripened,
by passing from sun to sun, and star to star, it is at last
tossed into the unformed elements which everywhere
surround this universe, and immediately sprouts up
into a new system.
Or if, for the sake of variety (for I see no other
advantage), we should suppose this world to be an
animal; a comet is the egg of this animal : and in
like manner as an ostrich lays its egg in the sand,
which, without any further care, hatches the egg, and
produces a new animal; so.................I understand
you, says Demea: But what wild, arbitrary suppositions
�Part VII.
65
are these ? What data have you for such extraordinary
conclusions ? And is the slight, imaginary resemblance
of the world to a vegetable or an animal sufficient to
establish the same inference with regard to both ?
Objects, which are in general so widely different;
ought they to be a standard for each other?
Right cries Philo : This is the topic on which I have
all along insisted. I have still asserted, that we have
no data to establish any system of cosmogony. Our
experience, so imperfect in itself, and so limited both
in extent and duration, can afford us no probable
conjecture concerning the whole of things. But if we
must needs fix on some hypothesis; by what rule,
pray, ought we to determine our choice ? Is there any
other rule than the greater similarity of the objects
compared ? And does not a plant or an animal, which
springs from vegetation or generation, bear a stronger
resemblance to the world, than does any artificial
machine, which arises from reason and design ?
But what is this vegetation and generation of which
you talk, said Demea ? Can you explain their opera
tions, and anatomize that fine internal structure on
which they depend 1
As much, at least, replied Philo, as Cleanthes can
explain the operations of reason, or anatomize that in
ternal structure on which it depends. But without
any such elaborate disquisitions, when I see an animal,
I infer that it sprang from generation ; and that with
as great certainty as you conclude a house to have been
reared by design. These words, generation, reason,
mark only certain powers and energies in nature,
whose effects are known, but whose essence is incom
prehensible ; and one of these principles, more than
the other, has no privilege for being made a standard
to the whole of nature.
In reality, Demea, it may reasonably be expected,
that the larger the views are which we take of things,
the better will they conduct us in our conclusions
�66 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
concerning such, extraordinary and such magnificent
subjects. In this little corner of the world alone, there
are four principles, Reason, Instinct, Generation,
Vegetation, which are similar to each other, and are
the causes of similar effects. What a number of other
principles may we naturally suppose in the immense
extent and variety of the universe, could we travel
from planet to planet and from system to system, in
order to examine each part of this mighty fabric ?
Any one of these four principles above mentioned (and
a hundred others, which lie open to our conjecture)
may afford us a theory, by which to judge of the
origin of the world ; and it is a palpable and egregious
partiality, to confine our view entirely to that principle
by which our own minds operate. Were this principle
more intelligible on that account, such a partiality
might be somewhat excusable: but reason, in its
internal fabric and structure, is really as little known
to us as instinct or vegetation ; and perhaps even that
vague, undeterminate word, Nature, to which the
vulgar refer everything, is not at the bottom more
inexplicable. The effects of these principles are
all known to us from experience: but the principles
themselves, and their manner of operation, are totally
unknown : nor is it less intelligible, or less conformable
to experience, to say, that the world arose by vegetation
from a seed shed by another world, than to say that it
arose from a divine reason or contrivance, according to
the sense in which Cleanthes understands it.
But methinks, said Demea, if the world had a
vegetative quality, and could sow the seeds of new
worlds into the infinite chaos, this power would be
still an additional argument for design in its author.
For whence could arise so wonderful a faculty but
from design ? Or how can order spring from any
thing which perceives not that order which it bestows ?
You need only look around you, replied Philo, to
satisfy yourself with regard to this question. A tree
�Part VII.
6y
bestows order and organization on that tree which
springs from it, without knowing the order : an animal,
in the same manner, on its offspring; a bird, on its
nest: and instances of this kind are even more
frequent in the world than those of order, which arise
from reason and contrivance. To say that all this
order in animals and vegetables proceeds ultimately
from design, is begging the question : nor can that
great point be ascertained otherwise than by proving,
a priori, both that order is, from its nature, inseparably
attached to thought; and that it can never, of itself,
or from original unknown principles, belong to matter.
But further, Demea ; this objection, which you urge,
can never be made use of by Cleanthes, without
renouncing a defence which he has already made
against one of my objections. When I inquired con
cerning the cause of that supreme reason and
intelligence, into which he resolves everything; he
told me, that the impossibility of satisfying such
inquiries could never be admitted as an objection in
any species of philosophy. “ We must stop somewhere,”
says he; “ nor is it ever within the reach of human
capacity to explain ultimate causes, or show the last
connections of any objects. It is sufficient, if the steps,
so far as we go, are supported by experience and
observation.” Now, that vegetation and generation,
as well as reason, are experienced to be principles of
order in nature, is undeniable. If I rest my system of
cosmogony on the former, preferably to the latter, it is
at my choice. The matter seems entirely arbitrary.
And when Cleanthes asks me what is the cause of my
great vegetative or generative faculty, I am equally
entitled to ask him the cause of his great reasoning
principle. These questions we have agreed to forbear on
both sides; and it is chiefly his interest on the present
occasion to stick to this agreement. Judging by our
limited and imperfect experience, generation has some
privileges above reason : for we see every day the latter
arise from the former, never the former from the latter.
�68 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
Compare, I beseech you, the consequences on both
sides. The world, say I, resembles an animal; there
fore it is an animal, therefore it arose from generation.
The steps, I confess, are wide ; yet there is some small
appearance of analogy in each step. The world, says
Cleanthes, resembles a machine • therefore it is a
machine, therefore it arose from design. The steps
here are equally wide, and the analogy less striking.
And if he pretends to carry on my hypothesis a step
farther, and to infer design or reason from the great
principle of generation, on which I insist; I may, with
better authority, use the same freedom to push farther
lus hypothesis, and infer a divine generation or
theogony from his principle of reason. I have at least
some faint shadow of experience, which is the utmost
that can ever be attained in the present subject.
.Beason, in innumerable instances, is observed to arise
from the principle of generation, and never to arise
from any other principle.
Hesiod, and all the ancient Mythologists, were so
struck with this analogy, that they universally explained
the origin of nature from an animal birth, and copula
tion. Plato too, so far as he is intelligible, seems to
have adopted some such notion in his Timaeus.
The Bramins assert, that the world arose from an
infinite spider, who spun this whole complicated mass
from his bowels, and annihilates afterwards the whole or
any part of it, by absorbing it again, and resolving it into
his own essence. Here is a species of cosmogony,
which appears to us ridiculous; because a spider is a
little contemptible animal, whose operations we are
never likely to take for a model of the whole universe.
But still here is a new species of analogy, even in our
globe. And were there a planet wholly inhabited by
spiders, (which is very possible), this inference would
there appear as natural and irrefragable as that which
in our planet ascribes the origin of all things to design
and intelligence, as explained by Cleanthes. Why an
�Part VIII.
69
orderly system may not be spun from the belly as well
as from the brain, it will be difficult for him to give a
satisfactory reason.
I must confess, Philo, replied Cleanthes, that of all
men living, the task which you have undertaken, of
raising doubts and objections, suits you best, and
seems, in a manner, natural and unavoidable to you.
So great is your fertility of invention, that I am not
ashamed to acknowledge myself unable, on a sudden,
to solve regularly such out-of-the-way difficulties as you
incessantly start upon me : though I clearly see, in
general, their fallacy and error. And I question not,
but you are yourself, at present, in the same case, and
have not the solution so ready as the objection : while
you must be sensible, that common sense and reason
are entirely against you ; and that such whimsies as you
have delivered, may puzzle, but never can convince us.
PART VIII.
What you ascribe to the fertility of my invention
replied Philo, is entirely owing to the nature of the
subject. In subjects, adapted to the narrow compass
of human reason, there is commonly but one deter
mination, which carries probability or conviction with it;
■and to a man of sound judgment, all other suppositions,
but that one, appear entirely absurd and chimerical.
But in such questions as the present, a hundred
contradictory views may preserve a kind of imperfect
analogy ; and invention has here full scope to exert
itself. Without any great effort of thought, I believe
that I could, in an instant, propose other systems
of cosmogony, which would have some faint appearance
of truth; though it is a thousand, a million to one,
if either yours or any one of mine be the true system.
For instance; what if I should revive the old
Epicurean hypothesis ? This is commonly, and I believe
�7° Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
justly, esteemed the most absurd system that has yet
been proposed ; yet, I know not, whether, with a few
alterations, it might_ not be brought to bear a faint
appearance of probability. Instead of supposing matter
infinite, as Epicurus did ; let us suppose it finite. A
finite number of particles'is only susceptible of finite
transpositions j and it must happen, in an eternal
duration, that every possible order or position must be
tried an infinite number of times. This world, there
fore, with all its events, even the most minute, has
before been produced and destroyed, and will again be
produced and destroyed, without any bounds and
limitations. No one, who has a conception of the
powers of infinite, in comparison of finite, will ever
scruple this determination.
But this supposes, said Demea, that matter can
acquire motion, without any voluntary agent or first
mover.
And where is the difficulty, replied Philo, of that
supposition ? Every event, before experience, is equally
difficult and incomprehensible; and every event, after
experience, is equally easy and intelligible. Motion,
in many instances, from gravity, from elasticity, from
electricity, begins in matter, without any known
voluntary agent: and to suppose always, in these cases,
an unknown voluntary agent, is mere hypothesis ; and
hypothesis attended with no advantages. The beginning
of motion in matter itself is as conceivable a priori as
its communication from mind and intelligence.
Besides ; why may not motion have been propagated
by impulse through all eternity; and the same stock
of it, or nearly the same, be still upheld in the
universe ? As much as is lost by the composition of
motion, as much is gained by its resolution. And
whatever the causes are, the fact is certain, that matter
is, and always has been, in continual agitation, as far
as human experience or tradition reaches. There is not
probably, at present, in the whole universe, one particle
of matter at absolute rest.
�Part VIII.
71
And this very consideration too, continued Philo,
which we have stumbled on in the course of the argu
ment, suggests a new hypothesis of cosmogony, that is
not absolutely absurd and improbable. Is there a system,
an order, an economy of things, by which matter can
preserve that perpetual agitation which seems essential
to it, and yet maintain a constancy in the forms which
it produces ? There certainly is such an economy : for
this is actually the case with the present world. The
continual motion of matter, therefore, in less than in
finite transpositions, must produce this economy or
order; and by its very nature, that order, when once
established, supports itself for many ages, if not to
eternity. But wherever matter is so poised, arranged,
and adjusted, as to continue in perpetual motion, and
yet preserve a constancy in the forms, its situation must,
of necessity, have all the same appearance of art and
contrivance which we observe at present. All the
parts of each form must have a relation to each other,
and to the whole: and the whole itself must have a
relation to the other parts of the universe; to the
element, in which the form subsists ; to the materials,
with which it repairs its waste and decay; and to
every other form, which is hostile or friendly. A
defect in any of these particulars destroys the form;
and the matter, of which it is composed, is again let
loose, and is thrown into irregular motions and fermen
tations, till it unite itself to some other regular form.
If no such form be prepared to receive it, and if there
be a great quantity of this corrupted matter in the
universe, the universe itself is entirely disordered;
whether it be the feeble embryo of a world in its first
beginnings that is thus destroyed, or the rotten carcase
of one languishing in old age and infirmity. In
either case, a chaos ensues; till finite, though in
numerable revolutions produce at last some forms,
whose parts and organs are so adjusted as to support
the forms amidst a continued succession of matter.
�Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
Suppose, (for we shall endeavour to vary the ex
pression) that matter were thrown into any position,
by a blind, unguided force ; it is evident, that this
first position must in all probability be the most
confused and most disorderly imaginable, without any
resemblance to those works of human contrivance, which,
along with a symmetry of parts discover an adjustment
of means to ends, and a tendency to self-preservation.
If the actuating force cease after this operation, matter
must remain for ever in disorder, and continue an
immense chaos, without any proportion or activity.
But suppose, that the actuating force, whatever it be,
still continues in matter, this first position will
immediately give place to a second, which will likewise
in all probability be as disorderly as the first, and so on
through many successions of changes and revolutions.
No particular order or position ever continues a
moment unaltered.
The original force, still remain
ing in activity, gives a perpetual restlessness to matter.
Every possible situation is produced, and instantly
destroyed. If a glimpse or dawn of order appears for
a moment, it is instantly hurried away, and confounded
by that never-ceasing force which actuates every part of
matter.
Thus the universe goes on for many ages in a con
tinued succession of chaos and disorder. But is it not
possible that it may settle at last, so as not to lose its
motion and active force (for that we have supposed
inherent in it), yet so as to preserve a uniformity of
appearance, amidst the continual motion and fluctuation
of its parts ? This we find to be the case with the
universe at present. Every individual is perpetually
changing, and every part of every individual; and yet
the whole remains, in appearance, the same. May we
not hope for such a position, or rather be assured of it,
from the eternal revolutions of unguided matter; and
may not this account for all the appearing wisdom
and contrivance which is in the universe ? Let us
�Part VIII.
73
contemplate the subject a little, and we shall find that
this adjustment, if attained by matter, of a seeming
stability in the forms, with a real and perpetual
revolution or motion of parts, affords a plausible, if not
a true solution of the difficulty.
It is in vain, therefore, to insist upon the uses of the
parts in animals or vegetables, and their curious
adjustment to each other. I would fain know how an
animal could subsist, unless its parts were so adjusted ?
Do we not find, that it immediately perishes whenever
this adjustment ceases, and that its matter, corrupting,
tries some new form ? It happens, indeed, that the
parts of the world are so well adjusted, that some
regular form immediately lays claim to this corrupted
matter: and if it were not so, could the world subsist ?
Must it not dissolve as well as the animal, and pass
through new positions and situations; till in a great,
but finite succession, it fall at last into the present
or some such order.
. It is well, replied Cleanthes, you told us, that this
hypothesis was suggested on a sudden, in the course of
the argument. Had you had leisure to examine it, you
would soon have perceived the insuperable objections
to which it is exposed. No form, you say, can subsist
unless it possess those powers and organs requisite for
its subsistence : some new order or economy must be
tried, and so on, without intermission ; till at last some'
order, which can support and maintain itself, is fallen
upon. But according to this hypothesis, whence arise
the many conveniences and advantages which men and
all animals possess ? Two eyes, two ears, are not
absolutely necessary for the subsistence of the species.
Human race might have been propagated and preserved,
without horses, dogs, cows, sheep, and those innumer
able fruits and products which serve to our satisfaction
and enjoyment. If no camels had been created for the
use of man in the sandy deserts of Africa and Arabia
would the world have been dissolved ? If no loadstone
�74 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
had been framed to give that wonderful and useful
direction to the needle, would human society and the
human kind have been immediately extinguished ?
Though the maxims of Nature be in general very
frugal, yet instances of this kind are far from being
rare; and any one of them is a sufficient proof of
design, and of a benevolent design, which gave rise to
the order and arrangement of the universe.
At least, you may safely infer, said Philo, that the
foregoing hypothesis is so far incomplete and imperfect;
which I shall not scruple to allow. But can we ever
reasonably expect greater success in any attempts of
this nature 1 Or can we ever hope to erect a system of
cosmogony, that will be liable to no exceptions, and
will contain no circumstance repugnant to our limited
and imperfect experience of the analogy of Nature 1
Your theory itself cannot surely pretend to any such
advantage; even though you have run into Anthropo
morphism, the better to preserve a conformity to
common experience. Let us once more put it to trial.
In all instances which we have ever seen, ideas are
copied from real objects, and are ectypal, not
archetypal, to express myself in learned terms : You
reverse this order, and give thought the precedence.
In all instances which we have ever seen, thought has
no influence upon matter, except where that matter is
so conjoined with it as to have an equal reciprocal
influence upon it. No animal can move immediately
anything but the members of its own body ; and
indeed, the equality of action and reaction seem to be
a universal law of Nature. But your theory implies a
contradiction to this experience. These instances, with
many more, which it were easy to collect, (particularly
the supposition of a mind or system of thought that is
eternal, or, in other words, an animal ingenerable and
immortal); these instances, I say, may teach all of us
sobriety in condemning each other ; and let us see, that
as no system of this kind ought ever to be received
�Part IX.
75
from a slight analogy, so neither ought any to he
rejected on account of a small incongruity. For that
is an inconvenience from which we can justly pronounce
no one to he exempted.
All religious systems, it is confessed, are subject to
great and insuperable difficulties.
Each disputant
triumphs in histurn; while he carries on an offensive war,
and exposes the absurdities, barbarities, and pernicious
tenets of his antagonist. But all of them, on the whole,
prepare a complete triumph for the Sceptic ; who tells
them that no system ought ever to be embraced with
regard to such subjects : for this plain reason, that no
absurdity ought ever to be assented to with regard to
any subject. A total suspense of judgment is here
our only reasonable resource. And if every attack, as
is commonly observed, and no defence, among Theolo
gians, is successful; how complete must be his victory,
who remains always, with all mankind, on the
offensive, and has himself no fixed station or abiding
city,* which he is ever, on any occasion, obliged to
defend ?
PART IX.
But if so many difficulties attend the argument a pos
teriori, said Demea; had we not better adhere to that
simple and sublime argument a priori, which, by offer
ing to us infallible demonstration, cuts off at once all
doubt and difficulty ? By this argument, too, we may
prove the Infinity of the divine attributes ; which, I
am afraid, can never be ascertained with certainty from
any other topic. For how can an effect, which either
is finite, or, for aught we know, may be so; how can
such an effect, I say, prove an infinite cause ? The
unity too of the Divine Nature, it is very difficult, if
not absolutely impossible, to deduce merely from con
templating the works of nature; nor will the uni* Hebrews xiii. 14.
�7 6 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
formity alone of the plan, even were it allowed, give
us any assurance of that attribute. Whereas the argu
ment a priori ....
You seem to reason, Demea, interposed Cleanthes, as
if those advantages and conveniences in the abstract
argument were full proofs of its solidity. But it is
first proper, in my opinion, to determine what argument
of this nature you choose to insist on; and we shall
afterwards, from itself, better than from its useful con
sequences, endeavour to determine what value we ought
to put upon it.
The argument, replied Demea, which I would insist
on, is the common one. Whatever exists, must have
a cause or reason of its existence; it being absolutely
impossible for anything to produce itself, or be the
cause of its own existence. In mounting up, therefore,
from effects to causes, we must either go on in tracing
an infinite succession, without any ultimate cause at all;
or must at last have recourse to some ultimate cause,
that is necessarily existent: now that the first supposi
tion is absurd, may be thus proved. In the infinite
chain or succession of cause and effect, each single effect
is determined to exist by the power and efficacy of that
cause which immediately preceded; but the whole
eternal chain or succession, taken together, is not
determined or caused by anything; and yet it is
evident that it requires a cause or reason, as much
as any particular object which begins to exist in time.
The question is still reasonable, why this particular
succession of causes existed from eternity, and not
any other succession, or no succession at all. If
there be no necessarily-existent being, any supposi
tion which can be formed is equally possible; nor is
there any more absurdity in Nothing’s having existed
from eternity, than there is in that succession of causes
which constitutes the universe. What was it, then,
which determined Something to exist rather than
Nothing, and bestowed being on a particular possibility,
�Part IX.
77
exclusive of the rest ? External causes, there are
supposed to he none. Chance is a word without a
meaning. Was it Nothing ? But that can never pro
duce anything. We must, therefore, have recourse to
a necessarily-existent Being, who carries the Reason of
his existence in himself; and who cannot be supposed
not to exist, without an express contradiction. There
is consequently such a Being ; that is, there is a Deity.
I shall not leave it to Philo, said Cleanthes, (though
I know that the starting objections is his chief delight)
to point out the weakness of this metaphysical reason
ing. It seems to me so obviously ill-grounded, and at
the same time of so little consequence to the cause of
true piety and religion, that I shall myself venture to
show the fallacy of it.
I shall begin with observing, that there is an evident
absurdity in pretending to demonstrate a matter of fact,
or to prove it by any arguments a priori. Nothing is
demonstrable, unless the contrary implies a contra
diction. Nothing, that is distinctly conceivable, im
plies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as
existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There
is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a
contradiction. Consequently there is no being, whose
existence is demonstrable. I propose this argument as
entirely decisive, and am willing to rest the whole
controversy upon it.
It is pretended that the Deity is a necessarilyexistent being; and this necessity of his existence is
attempted to be explained by asserting, that if we knew
his whole essence or nature, we should perceive it to
be as impossible for him not to exist as for twice two
not to be four. But it is evident, that this can never
happen, while our faculties remain the same as at
present. It will still be possible for us, at any time,
to conceive the non-existence of what we formerly con
ceived to exist; nor can the mind ever lie under a
necessity of supposing any object to remain always
�7 8 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
in. being j in the same manner as we lie under a
necessity of always conceiving twice two to be four.
The words, therefore, necessary existence, have no
meaning; or, which is the same thing, none that is
■consistent.
But farther : why may not the material universe be
the necessarily-existent Being, according to this pre
tended explication of necessity? We dare not affirm
that we know all the qualities of matterj and for aught
we can determine, it may contain some qualities, which,
were they known, would make its non-existence appear
as great a contradiction as that twice two is five. I
find only one argument employed to prove that the
material world is not the necessarily-existent Being;
.and this argument is derived from the contingency
both of the matter and the form of the world. “ Any
particle of matter,” it is said *, “ may be conceived to
be annihilated; and any form may be conceived to be
altered. Such an annihilation or alteration, therefore,
is not impossible.” But it seems a great partiality not
to perceive, that the same argument extends equally to
the Deity, so far as we have any conception of him;
and that the mind can at least imagine him to be non
existent, or his attributes to be altered. It must be
some unknown, inconceivable qualities, which can
make his non-existence appear impossible, or his attri
butes unalterable : and no reason can be assigned, why
these qualities may not belong to matter. As they are
altogether unknown and inconceivable, they can never
be proved incompatible with it.
Add to this, that in tracing an eternal succession of
objects, it seems absurd to inquire for a general cause
or first author. How can anything that exists from
eternity, have a cause; since that relation implies a
priority in time, and a beginning of existence ?
In such a chain, too, or succession of objects, each
part is caused by that which preceded it, and causes
* Dr Clarke.
�Part IX.
79
that which succeeds it. Where then is the difficulty ?
But the whole, you say, wants a cause. I answer, that
the uniting of these parts into a whole, like the
uniting of several distinct counties into one king
dom, or several distinct members into one body, is
performed merely by an arbitrary act of the mind, and
has no influence on the nature of things. Did I show
you the particular causes of each individual in a collec
tion of twenty particles of matter, I should think it
very unreasonable, should you afterwards ask me, what
was the cause of the whole twenty. That is suffi
ciently explained in explaining the cause of the parts.
Though the reasonings which you have urged,
Cleanthes, may well excuse me, said Philo, from start
ing any farther difficulties; yet I cannot forbear
insisting still upon another topic. It is observed by
arithmeticians, that the products of 9 compose always
either 9, or some lesser product of 9 ; if you add to
gether all the characters, of which any of the former
products is composed. Thus, of 18, 27, 36, which are
products of 9, you make 9 by adding 1 to 8, 2 to 7, 3
to 6. Thus, of 369 is a product also of 9 ; and if you
add 3, 6, and 9, you make 18, a lesser product of 9 *.
To a superficial observer, so wonderful a regularity may
be admired as the effect either of chance or design:
but a skilful algebraist immediately concludes it to be
the work of necessity; and demonstrates, that it must
for ever result from the nature of these numbers. Is it
not probable, I ask, that the whole economy of the
universe is conducted by a like necessity, though no
human algebra can furnish a key which solves the diffi
culty ? And instead of admiring the order of natural
beings, may it not happen, that, could we penetrate into
the intimate nature of bodies, we should clearly see
why it was absolutely impossible they could ever admit
of any other disposition ? So dangerous is it to intro
duce this idea of necessity into the present question 1
* Republique des Lettres, Aout, 1685.
F
�80
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
and so naturally does it afford an inference directly
opposite to the religious hypothesis !
But dropping all these abstractions, continued Philo ;
and confining ourselves to more familiar topics ; I shall
venture to add an observation, that the argument a
priori has seldom been found very convincing, except
to people of a metaphysical head, who have accustomed
themselves to abstract reasoning, and who, finding from
mathematics, that the understanding frequently leads
to truth, through obscurity, and contrary to first appear
ances, have transferred the same habit of thinking to
subjects where it ought not to have place. Other
people, even of good sense and the best inclined to
religion, feel always some deficiency in such argu
ments, though they are not perhaps able to explain dis
tinctly where it lies. A certain proof, that men ever
did, and ever will, derive their religion from other
sources than from this species of reasoning.
P A R T X.
It is my opinion, I own, replied Demea, that each man
feels, in a manner, the truth of religion within his own
breast; and from a consciousness of his imbecility and
misery, rather than from any reasoning, is led to
seek protection from that being, on whom he and
all nature is dependent. So anxious or so tedious are
even the best scenes of life, that futurity is still the
object of all our hopes and fears. We incessantly look
forward, and endeavour, by prayers, adoration and
sacrifice, to appease those unknown powers, whom we
find, by experience, so able to afflict and oppress us.
Wretched creatures that we are ! what resource for us
amidst the innumerable ills of life, did not religion sug
gest some methods of atonement, and appease those
terrors with which we are incessantly agitated and
tormented ?
�Part X.
81
I am indeed persuaded, said Philo, that the best, and
indeed the only, method of bringing every one to a due
sense of religion, is by just representations of the
misery and wickedness of men. And for that purpose
a talent of eloquence and strong imagery is more
requisite than that of reasoning and argument. For is
it necessary to prove, what every one feels within bimself? It is only necessary to make us feel it, if
possible, more intimately and sensibly.
The people, indeed, replied Demea, are sufficiently
convinced of this great and melancholy truth. The
miseries of life; the unhappiness of man; the general
corruptions of our nature; the unsatisfactory enjoyment
of pleasures, riches, honours; these phrases have
become almost proverbial in all languages. And who
can doubt of what all men declare from their own
immediate feeling and experience ?
In this point, said Philo, the learned are perfectly
agreed with the vulgar; and in all letters, sacred and
profane, the topic of human misery has been insisted
on with the most pathetic eloquence that sorrow and
melancholy could inspire. The poets, who speak from
sentiment, without a system, and whose testimony has
therefore the more authority, abound in images of this
nature. From Homer down to Dr Young, the whole
inspired tribe have ever been sensible, that no other re
presentation of things would suit the feeling and
observation of each individual.
As to authorities, replied Demea, you need not seek
them. Look round this library of Cleanthes. I shall
venture to affirm, that, except authors of particular
sciences, such as chemistry or botany, who have no
occasion to treat of human life, there is scarce one of
those innumerable writers, from whom the sense of
human misery has not, in some passage or other, extorted
a complaint and confession of it. At least, the chance
is entirely on that side; and no one author has ever, so
far as I can recollect, been so extravagant as to deny it.
�82 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
There you must excuse me, said Philo : Leibnitz has
denied it; and is perhaps the first * who ventured upon
so bold and paradoxical an opinion; at least, the first
who made it essential to his philosophical system.
And by being the first, replied Demea, might he not
have been sensible of his error ? For is this a subject
in which philosophers can propose to make discoveries,
especially in so late an age ? And can any man hope
by a simple denial (for the subject scarcely admits of
reasoning) to bear down the united testimony of man
kind, founded on sense and consciousness 2
And why should man, added he, pretend to an
exemption from the lot of all other animals ? The whole
earth, believe me, Philo, is cursed and polluted. + A
perpetual war is kindled amongst all living creatures.
Necessity, hunger, want, stimulate the strong and
courageous: Fear, anxiety, terror, agitate the weak and
infirm. The first entrance into life gives anguish to the
new-born infant and to its wretched parent: weakness,
impotence, distress, attend each stage of that life: and
it is at last finished in agony and horror.
Observe too, says Philo, the curious artifices of Nature
in order to embitter the life of every living being. The
stronger prey upon the weaker, .and keep them in per
petual terror and anxiety. The weaker too, in their
turn, often prey upon the stronger, and vex and molest
them without relaxation. Consider that innumerable
race of insects, which either are bred on the body of
each animal, or flying about infix their stings in him,
These insects have others still less than themselves,
which torment them. And thus on each hand, before
and behind, above and below, every animal is surround
ed with enemies, which incessantly seek his misery and
destruction.
Man alone, said Demea, seems to be, in part, an
That sentiment had been maintained by Dr King*, and some few
others, before Leibnitz; though by none of so great fame as that
German philosopher.
t Romans viii. 22.
�Part X.
exception to this rule. For by combination in society,
he can easily master lions, tigers, and bears, whose
greater strength and agility naturally enable them to
prey upon him.
On the contrary, it is here chiefly, cried Philo, that
the uniform and equal maxims of Nature are most ap
parent. Man, it is true, can, by combination, surmount
all his real enemies, and become master of the whole
animal creation : but does he not immediately raise up
to himself imaginary enemies, the daemons of his fancy,
who haunt him with superstitious terrors, and blast
every enjoyment of life ? His pleasure, as he imagines,
becomes, in their eyes, a crime: his food and repose give
them umbrage and offence : his very sleep and dreams
furnish new materials to anxious fear: and even death,
his refuge from every other ill, presents only the dread
of endless and innumerable woes. Nor does the wolf
molest more the timid flock, than superstition does the
anxious breast of wretched mortals.
Besides, consider, Demea: This very society, by which
we surmount those wild beasts, our natural enemies;
what new enemies does it not raise to us ? What woe and
misery does it not occasion 1 Man is the greatest enemy
of man. Oppression, injustice, contempt, contumely,
violence, sedition, war, calumny, treachery, fraud; by
these they mutually torment each other: and they would
soon dissolve that society which they had formed, were
it not for the dread of still greater ills, which must
attend their separation.
But though these external insults, said Demea, from
animals, from men, from all the elements, which assault
us, form a frightful catalogue of woes, they are nothing
in comparison of those which arise within ourselves,
from the distempered condition of our mind and body.
How many lie under the lingering torment of diseases ?
Hear the pathetic enumeration of the great poet—
Intestine stone and ulcer, colic-pangs,
Daemoniac frenzy, moping melancholy,
�84 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,
Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence.
Dire was the tossing, deep the groans : Despair
Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch.
And over them triumphant Death his dart
Shook ; but delay’d to strike, tho’ oft invok’d
With vows, as their chief good and final hope.*
The disorders of the mind, continued Demea, though
more secret, are not perhaps less dismal and vexatious.
Remorse, shame, anguish, rage, disappointment, anxiety,
fear, dejection, despair; who has ever passed through
life without cruel inroads from these tormentors ?
How many have scarcely ever felt any better sensa
tions ? Labour and poverty, so abhorred by every one,
are the certain lot of the far greater number : and
those few privileged persons, who enjoy ease and
opulence, never reach contentment or true felicity.
All the goods of life united would not make a very
happy man : but all the ills united would make a
wretch indeed ; and any one of them almost (and who
can be free from every one ?) nay often the absence of
one good (and who can possess all ?) is sufficient to
render life ineligible.
Were a stranger to drop, on a sudden, into this world,
I would show him, as a specimen of its ills, an hospital
full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors
and debtors, a field of battle strewed with carcases, a
fleet foundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under
tyranny, famine, or pestilence. To turn the gay side
of life to him and give him a notion of its pleasures ;
whither should I conduct him ? to a ball, to an opera,
to court 1 He might justly think, that I was only
showing him a diversity of distress and sorrow.
There is no evading such striking instances, said
Philo, but by apologies, which still farther aggravate
the charge. Why have all men, I ask, in all ages,
complained incessantly of the miseries of life ? . . .
They have no just reason, says one : these complaints
* Paradise Lost, xi. 484— 493.
�Part X.
85
proceed only from their discontented, repining, anxious
disposition. . . . And can there possibly, I reply, be a
more certain foundation of misery, than such a
wretched temper ?
But if they were really as unhappy as they pretend,
•says my antagonist, why do they remain in life 1 . . .
Not satisfied with life, afraid of death.
This is the secret chain, say I, that holds us. We are
terrified, not bribed to the continuance of our ex
istence.
It is only a false delicacy, he may insist, which a
few refined spirits indulge, and which has spread these
■complaints among the whole race ? of mankind. . . .
And what is this delicacy, I ask, which you blame ?
Is it anything but a greater sensibility to all the
pleasures and pains of life ? and if the man of a
delicate, refined temper, by being so much more alive
than the rest of the world, is only so much more
unhappy; what judgment must we form in general of
human life ?
Let men remain at rest, says our adversary; and
they will be easy. They are willing artificers of their
own misery. . . . No ! reply I: an anxious languor
follows their repose; disappointment, vexation, trouble
their activity and ambition.
I can observe something like what you mention in
some others, replied Cleanthes : but I confess, I feel
little or nothing of it in myself; and hope that it is
not so common as you represent it.
If you feel not human misery yourself, cried Demea,
I congratulate you on so happy a singularity. Others,
seemingly the most prosperous, have not been ashamed
to vent their complaints in the most melancholy
strains. Let us attend to the great, the fortunate
-emperor, Charles V. when, tired with human grandeur,
he resigned all his extensive dominions into the hands
of his son. In the last harangue, which he made on
�86 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
that memorable occasion, he publicly avowed, “ that
the greatest prosperities which he had ever enjoyed, had
been mixed with so many adversities, that he might
truly say he had never enjoyed any satisfaction or
contentmentBut did the retired life, in which he
sought for shelter, afford him any greater happiness 1
If we may credit his son’s account, his repentance
commenced the very day of his resignation.
Cicero’s fortune, from small beginnings, rose to the
greatest lustre and renown; yet what pathetic com
plaints of the ills of life do his familiar letters, as well
as philosophical discourses, contain ? And suitably to
his own experience, he introduces Cato, the great, the
fortunate Cato, protesting in his old age, that had he
a new life in his offer, he would reject the present.
Ask yourself, ask any of your acquaintance, whether
they would live over again the last ten or twenty years
of their life. No ! but the next twenty, they say, will
be better :
And from the dregs of life, think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give. *
Thus at last they find (such is the greatness of human
misery; it reconciles even contradictions) that they
complain, at once of the shortness of life, and of its
vanity and sorrow.
And is it possible, Cleanthes, said Philo, that after
all these reflections, and infinitely more, which might
be suggested, you can still persevere in your Anthro
pomorphism, and assert the moral attributes of the
Deity, his justice, benevolence, mercy, and rectitude,
to be of the same nature with these virtues in human
creatures ? His power we allow infinite : whatever
he wills is executed: but neither man nor any other
animal is happy: therefore he does not will their
happiness. His wisdom is infinite: he is never
mistaken in choosing the means to any end : but the
course of Nature tends not to human or animal felicity :
* From Dryden’s “ Aurengzebe. ”
�Part X.
87
therefore it is not established for that purpose.
Through the whole compass of human knowledge,
there are no inferences more certain and infallible than
these. In what respect, then, do his benevolence and
mercy resemble the benevolence and mercy of men ?
Epicurus’ old questions are yet unanswered.
Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able 1 then ishe impotent. Is he able, but not willing ? then is he
malevolent. Is he both able and willing 1 whence
then is evil 1
You ascribe, Cleanthes, (and I believe justly) a
purpose and intention to Nature. But what, I beseech
you, is the object of that curious artifice and machinery,
which she has displayed in all animals ? The preserva
tion alone of individuals, and propagation of the species.
It seems enough for her purpose, if such a rank be
barely upheld in the universe, without any care or con
cern for the happiness of the members that compose it.
No resource for this purpose : no machinery, in order
merely to give pleasure or ease : no fund of pure joy
and contentment: no indulgence, without some want
or necessity accompanying it.
At least, the few .
phenomena of this nature are overbalanced by opposite
phenomena of still greater importance.
Our sense of music, harmony, and indeed beauty of
all kinds, gives satisfaction, without being absolutely
necessary to the preservation and propagation of the
species. But what racking pains, on the other hand,
arise from gouts, gravels, megrims, toothaches, rheu
matisms ; where the injury to the animal-machinery
is either small or incurable ? Mirth, laughter, play,
frolic, seem gratuitous satisfactions, which have no
farther tendency : spleen, melancholy, discontent,
superstition, are pains of the same nature. How then
does the divine benevolence display itself, in the sense
of you Anthropomorphites ? None but we Mystics, asyou were pleased to call us, can account for this strange
mixture of phenomena, by deriving it from attributes,
infinitely perfect, but incomprehensible.
�88 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
And have you at last, said Cleanthes smiling,
betrayed your intentions, Philo ? Your long agreement
with Demea did indeed a little surprise me; but I find
you were all the while erecting a concealed battery
against me. And I must confess, that you have now fallen
upon a subject worthy of your noble spirit of opposition
and controversy. If you can make out the present
point, and prove mankind to be unhappy or corrupted,
there is an end at once of all religion. Por to what
purpose establish the natural attributes of the Deity,
while the moral are still doubtful and uncertain ?
You take umbrage very easily, replied Demea, at
opinions the most innocent, and the most generally re
ceived even amongst the religious and devout themselves:
and nothing can be more surprising than to find a topic
like this, concerning the wickedness and misery of
man, charged with no less than Atheism and profane
ness. Have not all pious divines and preachers, who
have indulged their rhetoric on so fertile a subject;
have they not easily, I say, given a solution of any
difficulties which may attend it! This world is but a
. point in comparison of the universe; this life but a
moment in comparison of eternity. The present evil
phenomena, therefore, are rectified in other regions,
and in some future period of existence. And the eyes
of men, being then opened to larger views of things,
see the whole connection of general laws; and trace,
with adoration, the benevolence and rectitude of the
Deity, through all the maze and intricacies of his
providence.
No 1 replied Cleanthes, No ! These arbitrary sup
positions can never be admitted, contrary to matter of
fact, visible and uncontroverted. Whence can any
cause be known but from its known effects ? Whence
can any hypothesis be proved but from the apparent
phenomena ? To establish one hypothesis upon
another, is building entirely in the air ; and the utmost
we ever attain, by these conjectures and fictions, is to
�Part X.
89
ascertain the bare possibility of our opinion; but never
can we, upon such terms, establish its reality.
The only method of supporting divine benevolence
(and it is what I willingly embrace) is to deny ab
solutely the misery and wickedness of man. Your
representations are exaggerated; your melancholy views
mostly fictitious ; your inferences contrary to fact and
experience. Health is more common than sickness;
pleasure than pain ; happiness than misery. And for
one vexation which we meet with, we attain, upon
computation, a hundred enjoyments.
Admitting your position, replied Philo, which yet is
extremely doubtful; you must, at the same time, allow,
that, if pain be less frequent than pleasure, it is in
finitely more violent and durable. One hour of it is
often able to outweigh a day, a week, a month of our
common insipid enjoyments. And how many days,
weeks, and months, are passed by several in the most
acute torments ? Pleasure, scarcely in one instance, is
ever able to reach ecstasy and rapture : and in no one in
stance can it continue for any time at its highest pitch
and altitude. The spirits evaporate ; the nerves relax;
the fabric is disordered • and the enjoyment quickly de
generates into fatigue and uneasiness. But pain often,
how often ! rises to torture and agony ? and the longer
it continues, it becomes still more genuine agony and
torture. Patience is exhausted; courage languishes ;
melancholy seizes us ; and nothing terminates our
misery but the removal of its cause, or another event,
which is the sole cure of all evil, but which, from our
natural folly, we regard with still greater horror and
consternation.
But not to insist upon these topics, continued Philo,
though most obvious, certain, and important; I must
use the freedom to admonish you, Cleanthes, that you
have put the controversy upon a most dangerous issue,
and are unawares introducing a total Scepticism into the
most essential articles of natural and revealed theology.
�90 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
What! no method of fixing a just foundation for
religion, unless we allow the happiness of human life,
and maintain a continued existence even in this world,
with all our present pains, infirmities, vexations, and
follies, to he eligible and desirable! But this is con
trary to every one’s feeling and experience : It is con
trary to an authority so established as nothing can
subvert. No decisive proofs can ever be produced
against this authority; nor is it possible for you to
compute, estimate, and compare, all the pains and all
the pleasures in the lives of all men and of all animals
and thus by your resting the whole system of religion
on a point, which, from its very nature, must for ever
be uncertain, you tacitly confess, that that system is
equally uncertain.
But allowing you, what never will be believed; at
least, what you never possibly can prove; that animal,
or at least human happiness, in this life, exceeds its
misery; you have yet done nothing : For this is not,
by any means, what we expect from infinite power,
infinite wisdom, and infinite goodness. Why is there
any misery at all in the world 1 Not by chance surely.
From some cause then. Is it from the intention
of the Deity ? But he is perfectly benevolent. Is it
contrary to his intention? But he is almighty.
Nothing can shake the solidity of this reasoning, so
short, so clear, so decisive : except we assert, that these
subjects exceed all human capacity, and that our
common measures of truth and falsehood are not
applicable to them; a topic, which I have all along
insisted on, but which you have from the beginning
rejected with scorn and indignation.
But I will be contented to retire still from this
intrenchment, for I deny that you can ever force me in
it: I will allow, that pain or misery in man is com
patible with infinite power and goodness in the Deity,
even in your sense of these attributes : What are you
advanced by all these concessions? A mere possible
�Part XI.
91
■compatibility is not sufficient. You must prove these
pure, unmixed, and uncontrollable attributes from the
present mixed and confused phenomena and from these
alone. A hopeful undertaking ! Were the phenomena
ever so pure and unmixed, yet being finite, they would
be insufficient for that purpose. How much more,
where they are also so jarring and discordant?
Here, Cleanthes, I find myself at ease in my argu
ment. Here I triumph. Formerly, when we argued
concerning the natural attributes of intelligence and
design, I needed all my sceptical and metaphysical
subtlety to elude your grasp. In many views of the
universe, and of its parts, particularly the latter, the
beauty and fitness of final causes strike us with such
irresistible force, that all objections appear (what I
believe they really are) mere cavils and sophisms; nor
can we then imagine how it was ever possible for us to
repose any weight on them. But there is no view of
human life, or of the condition of mankind, from which,
without the greatest violence, we can infer the moral
attributes, or learn that infinite benevolence, conjoined
with infinite power and infinite wisdom, which we must
discover by the eyes of faith alone. It is your turn
now to tug the labouring oar, and to support your
philosophical subtleties against the dictates of plain
reason and experience.
PAET XI.
I
scruple not to allow, said Cleanthes, that I have
been apt to suspect the frequent repetition of the word
infinite, which we meet with in all theological writers,
to savour more of panegyric than of philosophy; and
that any purposes of reasoning, and even of religion,
would be better served, were we to rest contented with
more accurate and more moderate expressions. The
�92 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
terms admirable, excellent, superlatively great, wise,
and holy; these sufficiently fill the imaginations of
men; and anything beyond, besides that it leads into
absurdities, has no influence on the affections or senti
ments. Thus, in the present subject, if we abandon all
human analogy, as seems your intention, Demea, I am
afraid we abandon all religion, and retain no conception
of the great object of our adoration. If we preserve
human analogy, we must for ever find it impossible to
reconcile any mixture of evil in the universe with
infinite attributes ; much less can we ever prove the
latter from the former. But supposing the Author of
Nature to be finitely perfect, though far exceeding
mankind ; a satisfactory account may then be given of
natural and moral evil, and every untoward phenome
non be explained and adjusted. A less evil may then
be chosen, in order to avoid a greater: Inconveniencies be submitted to, in order to reach a desirable
end. And, in a word, benevolence, regulated by
wisdom, and limited by necessity, may produce just
such a world as the present. You, Philo, who are so
prompt at starting views, and reflections, and analogies;
I would gladly hear, at length, without interruption,
your opinion of this new theory • and if it deserve our
attention, we may afterwards, at more leisure, reduce it
into form.
My sentiments, replied Philo, are not worth being
made a mystery of; and therefore, without any cere
mony, I shall deliver what occurs to me with regard to
the present subject. It must, I think, be allowed,
that if a very limited intelligence, whom we shall suppose
utterly unacquainted with the universe, were assured,
that it were the production of a very good, wise, and
powerful Being, however finite, he would, from .his
conjectures, form beforehand a different notion of it
from what we find it to be by experience; nor would
he ever imagine, merely from these attributes of the
cause, of which he is informed, that the effect could be
�Part XI.
93
so full of vice, and misery, and disorder, as it appears
in this life. Supposing now, that this person were
brought into the world, still assured that it was the
workmanship of such a sublime and benevolent Being ;
he might, perhaps, be surprised at the disappointment;
But would never retract his former belief, if founded on
any very solid argument; since such a limited intelli
gence must be sensible of his own blindness and
ignorance, and must allow, that there may be many
solutions of those phenomena, which will for ever
escape his comprehension. But supposing, which is
the real case with regard to man, that' 'this creature is
not antecedently convinced of a supreme intelligence,
benevolent and powerful, but is left to gather such a
belief from the appearances of things; this entirely
alters the case, nor will he ever find any reason for such a
conclusion. He may be fully convinced of the narrow
limits of his understanding ■ but this will not help him
in forming an inference concerning the goodness of
superior powers, since he must form that inference
from what he knows, not from what he is ignorant of.
The more you exaggerate his weakness and ignorance,
the more diffident you render him, and give him the
greater suspicion that such subjects are beyond the reach
of his faculties. You are obliged, therefore, to reason
with him merely from the known phenomena, and to
drop every arbitrary supposition or conjecture.
Bid I show you a house or palace, where there was
not one apartment convenient or agreeable ; where the
windows, doors, fires, passages, stairs, and the whole
economy of the building, were the source of noise, con
fusion, fatigue, darkness, and the extremes of heat and
cold; you would certainly blame the contrivance, with
out any farther examination. The architect would in
vain display his subtlety, and prove to you, that if this
door or that window were altered, greater ills would
ensue. What he says may be strictly true: The
alteration of one particular, while the other parts of the
�94 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
building remain, may only augment the inconveniences.
But still you would assert in general, that, if the archi
tect had had skill and good intentions, he might have
formed such a plan of the whole, and might have
adjusted the parts in such a manner, as would have
remedied all or most of these inconveniences. His
ignorance, or even your own ignorance, of such a plan,
will never convince you of the impossibility of it.
If you find many inconveniencies and deformities in
the building, you will always, without entering into
any detail, condemn the architect.
In short, I repeat the question. Is the world, con
sidered in general, and as it appears to us in this life,
different from what a man, or such a limited being,
would, beforehand, expect from a very powerful, wise,
and benevolent Deity ? It must be strange prejudice to
assert the contrary. And from thence I conclude, that,
however consistent the world may be, allowing certain
suppositions and conjectures, with the idea of such a
Deity, it can never afford us an inference concerning his
existence. The consistence is not absolutely denied,
only the inference.
Conjectures, especially where
infinity is excluded from the divine attributes, may
perhaps, be sufficient to prove a consistence; but can
never be foundations for any inference.
There seem to be four circumstances, on which
depend all, or the greatest part of the ills, that molest
sensible creatures j and it is not impossible but all these
circumstances may be necessary and unavoidable. We
know so little beyond common life, or even of common
life, that, with regard to the economy of a universe,
there is no conjecture, however wild, which may not be
just; nor any one, however plausible, which may not be
erroneous. All that belongs to human understanding,
in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical,
or at least cautious; and not to admit of any hypothesis
whatever; much less, of any which is supported by no
appearance of probability. Now, this I assert to be the
�Part XI.
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case with regard, to all the causes of evil, and the cir
cumstances on which it depends.
None of them
appear to human reason, in the least degree, necessary
or unavoidable; nor can we suppose them such, without
the utmost license of imagination.
The first circumstance which introduces evil, is that
contrivance or economy of the animal creation, by
which pains, as well as pleasures, are employed to
excite all creatures to action, and make them vigilant
in the great work of self-preservation. Now pleasure
alone, in its various degrees, seems to human understanding sufficient for this purpose. All animals might
be constantly in a state of enjoyment; but when urged
by any of the necessities of nature, such as thirst,
hunger, weariness; instead of pain, they might feel
a diminution of pleasure, by which they might be
prompted to seek that object which is necessary to
their subsistence. Men who pursue pleasure as
eagerly as they avoid pain ; at least, might have been
so constituted. It seems, therefore, plainly possible
to carry on the business of life without any pain.
Why then is any animal ever rendered susceptible of
such a sensation 1 If animals can be free from it an
hour, they might enjoy a perpetual exemption from
it • and it required as particular a contrivance of their
organs to produce that feeling, as to endow them with
sight, hearing, or any of the senses. Shall we con
jecture that such a contrivance was necessary, without
any appearance of reason ? and shall we build on that
conjecture, as on the most certain truth ?
But a capacity of pain would not alone produce,
pain, were it not for the second circumstance, viz., the
conducting of the world by general laws; and this
seems nowise necessary to a very perfect Being. It is
true ; if everything were conducted by particular voli
tions, the course of nature would be perpetually
broken, and no man could employ his reason in the
conduct of life. But might not other particular voliG
�g6 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
tions remedy this inconvenience ? In short, might
not the Deity exterminate all ill, wherever it were to
be found ; and produce all good, without any prepara
tion or long progress of causes and effects ?
Besides, we must consider, that, according to the
present economy of the world, the course of nature,
though supposed exactly regular, yet to us appears
not so, and many events are uncertain, and many dis
appoint our expectations. Health and sickness, calm
and tempest, with an infinite number of other accidents,
whose causes are unknown and variable, have a great
influence both on the fortunes of particular persons,
and on the prosperity of public societies ; and indeed
all human life, in a manner, depends on such accidents.
A being, therefore, who knows the secret springs of
the universe, might easily, by particular volitions,
turn all these accidents to the good of mankind, and
render the whole world happy, without discovering
himself in any operation. A fleet, whose purposes
were salutary to society, might always meet with a
fair wind; good princes enjoy sound health and long
life; persons born to power and authority, be framed
with good tempers and virtuous dispositions. A few
such events as these, regularly and wisely conducted,
would change the face of the world, and yet would no
more seem to disturb the course of nature, or confound
human conduct, than the present economy of things,
where the causes are secret, and variable, and com
pounded. Some small touches given to Caligula’s
brain in his infancy, might Lave converted him into
a Trajan; one wave, a little higher than the rest, by
burying Caesar and his fortune in the bottom of the
ocean, might have restored liberty to a considerable
part of mankind. There may, for aught we know, be
good reasons, why Providence interposes not in this
manner; but they are unknown to us; and though
the mere supposition, that such reasons exist, may be
sufficient to save the conclusion concerning the divine
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97
attributes, yet surely it can never be sufficient to
establish that conclusion.
If everything in the universe be conducted by
general laws, and if animals be rendered susceptible of
pain, it scarcely seems possible but some ill must arise
in the various shocks of matter, and the various con
currence and opposition of general laws. But this ill
would be very rare, were it not for the third circum
stance, which I proposed to mention, viz., the great
frugality with which all powers and faculties are dis
tributed to every particular being. So well adjusted
are the organs and capacities of all animals, and so
well fitted to their preservation, that, as far as history
or tradition reaches, there appears not to be any single
species which has yet been extinguished in the
universe.* Every animal has the requisite endow
ments ; but these endowments are bestowed with so
scrupulous an economy, that any considerable diminu
tion must entirely destroy the creature. Wherever
one power is increased, there is a proportional abate
ment in the others, Animals, which excel in swift* Here Hume was quite in error, and consequently made an
admission against himself by thinking that no race of animals has
ever become extinct. The truth is that the very reverse is the.
case. A whole animal and vegetable creation have become
extinct, as the fossil remains of gigantic animals and gigantic
trees abundantly testify. Even tropical climates in parts of the
earth have been, as it were, extinguished, and their places
occupied in some cases by arctic, and in others by temperate
climates. It was probably a change of climate which came on
in places whence the now extinct animals could not get away,
that caused their destruction. At Maidstone, in England, there
have been found the fossil remains of a ’ saurian reptile, called
iguanodon. From these remains naturalists have calculated that
the animal was seventy feet (or more) in length. Therefore these
facts strengthen Hume’s position. They shew at least that this
part of creation is imperfect. They shew that the present order
of things on earth may be as mortal and perishable as that which
preceded it. The fossil remains of the human race may prove a
puzzle to a superior order of animals four hundred thousand years
hence.
But in the days of Hume, geology was not among the sciences
then known. Fossils were an insoluble riddle. It was not until
a long time after Hume’s death, and after the pioneers of
�98 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
ness, are commonly defective in force. Those which
possess both, are either imperfect in some of their
senses, or are oppressed with the most craving wants.
The human species, whose chief excellency is reason
and sagacity, is of all others the most necessitous, and
the most deficient in bodily advantages; without
clothes, without arms, without food, without lodging,
without any convenience of life, except what they owe
to their own skill and industry. In short, nature
seems to have formed an exact calculation of the
necessities of her creatures; and, like a rigid master,
has afforded them little more powers or endowments
than what are strictly sufficient to supply those
necessities. An indulgent parent would have bestowed
a large stock, in order to guard against accidents, and
secure the happiness and welfare of the creature in the
most unfortunate concurrence of circumstances. Every
course of life would not have been so surrounded with
precipices, that the least departure from the true path,
by mistake or necessity, must involve us in misery and
ruin. Some reserve, some fund, would have been
provided to ensure happiness; nor would the powers
and the necessities have been adjusted with so rigid
an economy. The author of nature is inconceivably
• powerful; his force is supposed great, if not altogether
inexhaustible: nor is there any reason, as far as we
can judge, to make him observe this strict frugality in
Geology had groped and lost their way through numbers of
Noachian, and other equally absurd theories by which they tried
to account for the origin and existence of fossil organisms, that
the true theories of geological science were discovered.
There is scarcely any thing in the history of human enlighten
ment, that is more strange and interesting than the steady advance
and triumph of scientific geology over the fables of the Hebrew
and other nonsensical cosmogonies. Only at rare intervals, and
in remote corners of civilization, can there be found even a
Christian priest who has the stupidity, ignorance, and audacity
to question the completeness of this triumph. Religion has fre
quently led men astray, when seeking moral and scientific Truth ;
but religion has never taught men anything worth knowing,
except the knowledge of its own immorality and worthlessness.
�Part XI.
99
his dealings with his creatures. It would have been
better, were his power extremely limited, to have
created fewer animals, and to have endowed these with
more faculties for their happiness and preservation.
A builder is never esteemed prudent, who undertakes
a plan beyond what his stock will enable him to
finish.
In order to cure most of the ills of human life, I
require not that man should have the wings of the
eagle, the swiftness of the stag, the force of the ox,
the arms of the lion, the scales of the crocodile or
rhinoceros ; much less do I demand the sagacity of an
angel or cherubim. I am contented to take an increase
in one single power or faculty of his soul. Let him be
endowed with a greater propensity to industry and
labour ; a more vigorous spring and activity of mind;
a more constant bent to business and application.
Let the whole species possess naturally an equal
diligence with that which many individuals are able
to attain by habit and reflection; and the most bene
ficial consequences, without any alloy of ill, is the
immediate and necessary result of this endowment.
Almost all the moral, as well as natural evils of human
life arise from idleness ; and were our species, by the
original constitution of their frame, exempt from this
vice or infirmity, the perfect cultivation of land, the
improvement of arts and manufactures, the exact
execution of every office and duty, immediately follow ;
and men at once may fully reach that state of society,
which is so imperfectly attained by the best regulated
government. But as industry is a power, and the
most valuable of any, nature seems determined, suitably
to her usual maxims, to bestow it on men with a very
sparing hand; and rather to punish him severely for
his deficiency in it, than to reward him for his attain
ments. She has so contrived his frame, that nothing
but the most violent necessity can oblige him to
labour; and she employs all his other wants to over-
�ioo Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
come, at least in part, the want of diligence, and to
endow him with some share of a faculty of which she
has thought fit naturally to bereave him. Here our
demands may be allowed very humble, and therefore
the more reasonable. If we required the endowments
of superior penetration and judgment, of a more
delicate taste of beauty, of a nicer sensibility to bene
volence and friendship; we might be told, that we
impiously pretend to break the order of nature; that
we want to exalt ourselves into a higher rank of
being; that the presents which we require, not being
suitable to our state and condition, would only be
pernicious to us. But it is hard ; I dare to repeat it,
it is hard, that being placed in a world so full of wants
and necessities, where almost every being and element
is either our foe, or refuses its assistance . . . we
should also have our own temper to struggle with, and
should be deprived of that faculty which can alone
fence against these multiplied evils.
The fourth circumstance, whence arises the misery
and ill of the universe, is the inaccurate workmanship
of all the springs and principles of the great machine of
nature. It must be acknowledged, that there are few
parts of the universe, which seem not to serve some
purpose, and whose removal would not produce a visible
defect and disorder in the whole. The parts hang all
together ; nor can one be touched without affecting the
rest, in a greater or less degree. But at the same time,
it must be observed, that none of these parts or prin
ciples, however useful, are so accurately adjusted, as to
keep precisely within those bounds in which their
utility consists ; but they are, all of them, apt, on every
occasion, to run into the one extreme or the other.
One would imagine, that this grand production had not
received the last hand of the maker; so little finished is
every part, and so coarse are the strokes with which it is
executed. Thus, the winds are requisite to convey the
vapours along the surface of the globe, and to assist
�Part XI.
IOI
Bien in navigation : bnt how oft, rising up to tempests
and hurricanes, do they become pernicious ? Rains are
necessary to nourish all the plants and animals of the
earth: but how often are they defective, how often ex
cessive ? Heat is requisite to all life and vegetation; but
is not always found in the due proportion. On the mix
ture and secretion of the humours and juices of the body
depend the health and prosperity of the animal: but the
parts perform not regularly their proper function. What
more useful than all the passions of the mind, ambition,
vanity, love, anger ? But how oft do they break their
bounds, and cause the greatest convulsions in society 1
There is nothing so advantageous in the universe, but
what frequently becomes pernicious, by its excess or
defect; nor has Nature guarded, with the requisite
accuracy, against all disorder or confusion. The irregu
larity is never, perhaps, so great as to destroy any
species; * but is often sufficient to involve the in
dividuals in ruin and misery.
On the concurrence, then, of these four circumstances,
does all or the greatest part of natural evil depend.
Were all living creatures incapable of pain, or were the
world administered by particular volitions, evil never
could have found access into the universe : and were ani
mals endowed with a large stock of powers and faculties,
beyond what strict necessity requires; or were the
several springs and principles of the universe so accur
ately framed as to preserve always the just temperament
and medium; there must have been very little ill in
comparison of what we feel at present. What then
shall we pronounce on this occasion ? Shall we say,
that these circumstances are not necessary, and that
they might easily have been altered in the contrivance
of the universe ? This decision seems too presump
tuous for creatures so blind and ignorant. Let us be
more modest in our conclusions. Let us allow, that if
the goodness of the deity (I mean a goodness like the
* See the Note at page 97.
�102 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
human) could be established on any tolerable reasons a
priori, these phenomena, however untoward, would not
be sufficient to subvert that principle; but might easily,
in some unknown manner, be reconcilable to it. But
let us still assert, that as this goodness is not antece
dently established, but must be inferred from the phe
nomena, there can be no grounds for such an inference,
while there are so many ills in the universe, and while
these ills might so easily have been remedied, as far as
human understanding can be allowed to judge on such
a subject. I am sceptic enough to allow, that the bad
appearances, notwithstanding all my reasonings, may
be compatible with such attributes as you suppose :
But surely they can never prove these attributes. Such
a conclusion cannot result from scepticism; but must
arise from the phenomena, and from our confidence in
the reasonings which we deduce from these phenomena.
Look round this universe. What an immense pro
fusion of beings, animated and organized, sensible and
active 1 You admire this prodigious variety and
fecundity. But inspect a little more narrowly these
living existences, the only beings worth regarding.
How hostile and destructive to each other! How
insufficient all of them for their own happiness I How
contemptible or odious to the spectator 1 The whole
presents nothing but the idea of a blind Nature,
impregnated by a great vivifying principle, and pouring
forth from her lap, without discernment or parental
care, her maimed and abortive children.*
Here the Manichaean system occurs as a proper
hypothesis to solve the difficulty : and no doubt, in
some respects, it is very specious, and has more probabil
ity than the common hypothesis, by giving a plausible
account of the strange mixture of good and ill which
* “As is the race of leaves, even such is the race of men.
Leaves, some indeed the wind sheds on the ground, but the bud
ding wood produces others when the season of spring comes on ;
thus does the race of men, one produce, another cease [produc
ing].”—Iliad vi. 146-9.
�Part XL
Io3
appears in life. But if we consider, on the other hand,
the perfect uniformity and agreement of the parts of
the universe, we shall not discover in it any marks of
the combat of a malevolent with a benevolent being.
There is indeed an opposition of pains and pleasures
in the feelings of sensible creatures : but are not all
the operations of Nature carried on by an opposition of
principles, of hot and cold, moist and dry, light and
heavy? The true conclusion is, that the original
Source of all things is entirely indifferent to all these
principles ; and has no more regard to good above ill,
than to heat above cold, or to drought above moisture,
or to light above heavy*
There may four hypotheses be framed concerning the
first causes of the universe : that they are endowed
with perfect goodness ; that they have perfect malice ;
that they are opposite, and have both goodness and
malice; that they have neither goodness nor malice.
Mixed phenomena can never prove the two former un
mixed principles. And the uniformity and steadiness of
general laws seem to oppose the third. The fourth,
therefore, seems by far the most probable.
What I have said concerning natural evil will apply
to moral, with little or no variation; and we have no
more reason to infer, that the rectitude of the Supreme
Being resembles human rectitude, than that his
benevolence resembles the human. Nay, it will be
thought, that we have still greater cause to exclude
from him moral sentiments, such as we feel them;
since moral evil, in the opinion of many, is much more
predominant above moral good than natural evil
above natural good.
* A remarkable passage in Tacitus (Annals xvi. 33,) contains a
similar idea. He says, “ The same day furnished a bright ex
ample of virtue in the person of Cassus Asclepiodotus, a man con
spicuous among the Bithynians for the extent of his wealth, who
continued to treat Soranus in his decline with the same respect he
had constantly shewn him in the meridian of his fortune. The
consequence was, that he was stripped of all his property and
driven into exile: thus exemplifying the indifference of the Gods
towards patterns of virtue and of vice ! ”
�104 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
But even though, this should not he allowed; and
though the virtue, which is in mankind, should be
acknowledged much superior to the vice; yet so long
as there is any vice at all in the universe, it will very
much puzzle you Anthropomorphites, how to account for
it. You must assign a cause for it, without having
recourse to the first cause. But as every effect must have
a cause, and that cause another; you must either carry
on the progression in infinitum, or rest on that
original principle, who is the ultimate cause of all
things.............
Hold ! Hold! cried Demea: Whither does your
imagination hurry you ? I joined in alliance with you,
in order to prove the incomprehensible nature of the
Divine Being, and refute the principles of Cleanthes,
who would measure everything by a human rule and
standard. But I now find you running into all the
topics of the greatest libertines and infidels; and
betraying that holy cause, which you seemingly
espoused. Are you secretly, then, a more dangerous
enemy than Cleanthes himself ?
And are you so late in perceiving it 1 replied
Cleanthes. Believe me, Demea; your friend Philo,
from the beginning, has been amusing himself at both
our expense; and it must be confessed, that the
injudicious reasoning of our vulgar theology has
given him but too just a handle of ridicule. The
total infirmity of human reason, the absolute incom
prehensibility of the Divine Nature, the great and
universal misery and still greater wickedness of
men; these are strange topics, surely, to be so
fondly cherished by orthodox divines and doctors. In
ages of stupidity and ignorance, indeed, these
principles may safely be espoused; and, perhaps, no
views of things are more proper to promote
superstition, than such as encourage the blind amaze
ment, the diffidence, and melancholy of mankind.
But at present ....
�Part Xll.
105
Blame not so much, interposed Philo, the ignorance
of these reverend gentlemen. They know how to
change their style with the times. Formerly it was a
most popular theological topic to maintain, that human
life was vanity and misery, and to exaggerate all the
ills and pains which are incident to men. But of late
years, divines, we find, begin to retract this position ;
and maintain, though still with some hesitation, that
there are more goods than evils, more pleasures than,
pains, even in this life. When religion stood entirely
upon temper and education, it was thought proper to
encourage melancholy; as indeed, mankind never have
recourse to superior powers so readily as in that dis
position. But as men have now learned to form
principles, and to draw consequences, it is necessary to
change the batteries, and to make use of such argu
ments as will endure at least some scrutiny and
examination. This variation is the same (and from the
same causes) with that which 1 formerly remarked
with regard to Scepticism.
Thus Philo continued to the last his spirit of
opposition, and his censure of established opinions.
But I could observe, that Demea did not at all relish
the latter part of the discourse; and he took occasion
soon after, on some pretence or other, to leave the
company.
PART XII.
After Demea’s departure, Cleanthes and Philo con
tinued the conversation in the following manner. Our
friend, I am afraid, said Cleanthes, will have little
inclination to revive this topic of discourse, while you
are in company; and to tell truth, Philo, I should rather
wish to reason with either of you apart on a subject so
sublime and interesting. Your spirit of controversy,
�io6 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
joined to your abhorrence of vulgar superstition, carries
you strange lengths, when engaged in an argument;
and there is nothing so sacred and venerable, even in
your own eyes, which you spare on that occasion.
I must confess, replied Philo, that I am less cautious
on the subject of Natural Religion than on any other;
both because I know that I can never, on that head,
corrupt the principles of any man of common sense;
and because no one, I am confident, in whose eyes I
appear a man of common sense, will ever mistake my
intentions. You in particular, Cleanthes, with whom
I live in unreserved intimacy; you are sensible, that not
withstanding the freedom of my conversation, and my
love of singular arguments, no one has a deeper sense
of religion impressed on his mind, or pays more profound
adoration to the Divine Being, as he discovers himself
to reason, in the inexplicable contrivance and artifice
of Nature. A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes
everywhere the most careless, the most stupid thinker;
and no man can be so hardened in absurd systems, as
at all times to reject it. That Nature does nothing in
vain, is a maxim established in all the schools, merely
from the contemplation of the works of Nature, without
any religious purpose; and, from a firm conviction of
its truth, an anatomist, who had observed a new organ
or canal, would never be satisfied till he had also dis
covered its use and intention. One great foundation of
the Copernican system is the maxim, That Nature acts
by the simplest methods, and chooses the most proper
means to any end; and astronomers often, without
thinking of it, lay this strong foundation of piety and
religion. The same thing is observable in other parts
of philosophy; And thus all the sciences almost lead
us insensibly to acknowledge a first intelligent Author;
and their authority is often so much the greater, as they
do not directly profess that intention.
It is with pleasure I hear Galen reason concerning
the structure of the human body. The anatomy of a
�Part XII.
1O7
man, says he, * discovers above 600 different muscles ;
and whoever duly considers these, will find, that in
each of them Nature must have adjusted at least ten
different circumstances, in order to attain the end which
she proposed; proper figure, j ust magnitude, right
disposition of the several ends, upper and lower position
of the whole, the due insertion of the several nerves,
veins, and arteries: So that, in the muscles alone, above
6000 several views and intentions must have been
formed and executed. The bones he calculates to be
284 : The distinct purposes, aimed at in the structure
of each, above forty. What a prodigious display of
artifice, even in these simple and homogeneous parts ?
But if we consider the skin, ligaments, vessels, glandules,
humours, the several limbs and members of the body;
how must our astonishment rise upon us, in proportion
to the number and intricacy of the parts so artificially
adjusted 1 The farther we advance in these researches,
we discover new scenes of art and wisdom: But descry
still, at a distance, farther scenes beyond our reach ; in
the fine internal structure of the parts, in the economy
of the brain, in the fabric of the seminal vessels. All
these artifices are repeated in every different species of
animal, with wonderful variety, and with exact propriety
suited to the different intentions of Nature in fra,mi ng
each species. And if the infidelity of Galen, even when
these natural sciences were still imperfect, could not
withstand such striking appearances • to what pitch of
pertinacious obstinacy must a philosopher in this age
have attained, who can now doubt of a Supreme
Intelligence ? f
* De formations foetus.
t Without denying the truth of what Hume says here, to the effect,
that the human frame shews clear and unmistakable proofs of
design ; yet it is doubtful whether his eminently philosophical mind
would have allowed him to state the fact in such very decided
terms as these, if he had been acquainted with even a glimpse of
the evolution theory. But Oken was not born until three years
after Hume’s death. And Darwin’s “Descent of Man” was not
published until more than a century after Hume had ceased to
�io8 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
Could I meet with one of this species, I would ask
him: Supposing there were a God, who did not dis
cover himself immediately to our senses; were it
possible for him to give stronger proofs of his exist
ence, than what appear on the whole face of nature ?
What indeed could such a divine being do but copy
the present economy of things ; render many of his
artifices so plain, that no stupidity could mistake
them; afford glimpses of still greater artifices, which
demonstrate his prodigious superiority above our
narrow apprehensions; and conceal altogether a great
many from such imperfect creatures? Now, according
to all rules of just reasoning, every fact must pass for
undisputed, when it is supported by all the arguments
write. Oken and his followers discovered that the skull and limbs
of vertebrate animals are merely modified forms. And Darwin
discovered that the human animal is merely a development from an
inferior one. Oken has left on record how the light first dawned
on his mind ; and a knowledge of the circumstance is of importance
to the thinker.
In August 1806, while Oken was among the Hartz mountains, he
unexpectedly saw the well-preserved skull of a hind. From the
appearance which the skull accidentally presented to him, he
exclaimed “ a vertebral column ! ” This was a piece of reasoning
a priori. Nevertheless, by thinking over this suggestion he
ultimately discovered that, in all vertebrate animals, the bones of the
skull are only modified vertebrae.
Perhaps he who thinks on Probability will perceive that although
arguments grounded on a priori reasoning are utterly barren of
proof and consequently of result, yet, so far as we know, all the
important discoveries, hitherto made, have been generated from
suggestions arising from a priori considerations. “ Nature does
nothing in vain.” As yet, it is on such suggestions that the
evolution theory is grounded. From considerations such as this
the true thinker will be on his guard, and will not give way to that
prevalent weakness of the human mind, when, upon a comparison
of two important things relating to the same subject, one is found
to be of less importance than the other,To consider the less important
as_ of scarcely any value whatever. “ The Cyclic Poems ” are a
fair sample of an important matter which was despised unphilosophically. During twenty-one centuries they were regarded as
nearly beneath contempt. Yet from Mr F. A. Paley’s “ Introduction ”
to his first volume of the Iliad, we know, in his skilful hands,
how almost invaluable the remains of the “ Cyclic Poems ” proved
towards ascertaining the correct date of our “ Homer.”
�Part XII.
109
which, its nature admits of; even though these
arguments be not, in themselves, very numerous or
forcible. How much more, in the present case, where
no human imagination can compute their number,
and no understanding estimate their cogency ?
I shall farther add, said Cleanthes, to what you
have so well urged, that one great advantage of the
principle of theism, is, that it is the only system of
cosmogony which can be rendered intelligible and
complete, and yet can throughout preserve a strong
analogy to what we every day see and experience in
the world. The comparison of the universe to a
machine of human contrivance, is so obvious and
natural, and is justified by so many instances of order
and design in nature, that it must immediately strike
all unprejudiced apprehensions, and procure universal
approbation. Whoever attempts to weaken this theory,
cannot pretend to succeed by establishing in its place
any other that is precise and determinate. It is
sufficient for him, if he start doubts and difficulties,
and by remote and abstract views of things, reach
that suspense of judgment, which is here the utmost
boundary of his wishes. But besides that this state
of mind is in itself unsatisfactory, it can never be
steadily maintained against such striking appearances
as continually engage us into the religious hypothesis.
From the force of prejudice, human nature is capable
of adhering, with obstinacy and perseverance, to a false
absurd system. But I think it absolutely impossible,
by valid argument, to maintain or defend any system
at all, inculcated by natural propensity and by early
education, in opposition to a theory supported by
strong and obvious reason.
So little, replied Philo, do I esteem this suspense
of judgment in the present case to be possible, that
I am apt to suspect there enters somewhat of a dispute
of words into this controversy, more than is usually
imagined. That the works of nature bear a great
analogy to the productions of art, is evident; and
�11 o Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
according to all the rules of good reasoning, we ought
to infer, if we argue at all concerning them, that their
causes have a proportional analogy. But as there are
also considerable differences, we have reason to suppose
a proportional difference in the causes, and in par
ticular ought to attribute a much higher degree of
power and energy to the supreme cause, than any we
have ever observed in mankind. Here then the
existence of a Deity is plainly ascertained by reason;
and if we make it a question, whether on account of
these analogies, we can properly call him a mind or
intelligence, notwithstanding the vast difference which
may reasonably be supposed between him and human
minds ; what is this but a mere verbal controversy ?
No man can deny the analogies between the effects.
To restrain ourselves from inquiring concerning the
causes, is scarcely possible. From this inquiry, the
legitimate conclusion is, that the causes have also an
analogy, and if we are not contented with calling the
first and supreme cause a God or Deity, but desire to
vary the expression ; what can we call him but Mind
or Thought, to which he is justly supposed to bear a
considerable resemblance ?
All men of sound reason are disgusted with verbal
disputes, which abound so much in philosophical and
theological inquiries ; and it is found, that the only
remedy for this abuse must arise from clear definitions,
from the precision of those ideas which enter into any
argument, and from the strict and uniform use of
those terms which are employed. But there is a
species of controversy, which, from the very nature
of language and of human ideas, is involved in
perpetual ambiguity, and can never, by any precaution
or any definitions, be able to reach a reasonable
certainty or precision. These are the controversies
concerning the degrees of any quality or circumstance.
Men may argue to all eternity, whether Hannibal be
a great, or a very great, or a superlatively great man;
�Part XII.
111
what degree of beauty Cleopatra possessed; what
epithet of praise Livy or Thucidydes is entitled to,
without bringing the controversy to any determination.
The disputants may here agree in their sense, and
differ in the terms, or vice versa ; yet never be able
to define their terms, so as to enter into each other’s
meaning: Because the degrees of these qualities are
not, like quantity or number, susceptible of any exact
mensuration, which may be the standard in the con
troversy. That the dispute concerning theism is of
this nature, and consequently is merely verbal, or
perhaps, if possible, still more incurably ambiguous,
will appear upon the slightest inquiry. I ask the
theist if he does not allow, that there is a great
and immeasurable, because incomprehensible, difference
between the human and the divine mind. The more
pious he is, the more readily will he assent to the
affirmative, and the more will he be disposed to
magnify the difference. He will even assert that the
difference is of a nature which cannot be too much
magnified. I next turn to the atheist, who, I assert,
is only nominally so, and can never possibly be in
earnest; and I ask him, whether, from the coherence
and apparent sympathy in all the parts of this world,
there be not a certain degree of analogy among all the
operations of nature, in every situation and in every
age, whether the rotting of a turnip, the generation of
an animal, and the structure of human thought, be
not energies that probably bear some remote analogy
to each other. It is impossible he can deny it. He
will readily acknowledge it. Having obtained this
concession, I push him still farther in his retreat; and
I ask him, if it be not probable, that the principle
which first arranged, and still maintains, order in this
universe, bears not also some remote inconceivable
analogy to the other operations of nature, and among
the rest to the economy of human mind and thought.
However reluctant, he must give his assent. Where
H
�112 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
then, cry I to both these antagonists, is the subject
of your dispute ? The Theist allows that the original
intelligence is very different from human reason. The
atheist allows, that the original principle of order bears
some remote analogy to it. Will you quarrel, gentle
men, about the degrees ; and enter into a controversy
which admits not of any precise meaning, nor conse
quently of any determination ? If you should be so
obstinate, I should not be surprised to find you
insensibly change sides; while the theist, on the one
hand exaggerates the dissimilarity between the supreme
Being, and frail, imperfect, variable, fleeting, and
mortal creatures; and the atheist, on the other, magni
fies the analogy among all the operations of nature,
in every period, every situation, and every position.
Consider then, where the real point of controversy lies,
and if you cannot lay aside your disputes, endeavour,
at least, to cure yourselves of your animosity.
And here I must also acknowledge, Cleanthes, that,
as the works of Nature have a much greater analogy to
the effects of our art and contrivance, than to those of
our benevolence and j ustice ; we have reason to infer,
that the natural attributes of the Deity have a greater
resemblance to’those of men, than his moral have to
human virtues. But what is the consequence ?
Nothing but this, that the moral qualities of man are
more defective in their kind than his natural abilities.
For as the Supreme Being is allowed to be absolutely
and entirely perfect; whatever differs most from him,
departs the farthest from the supreme standard of recti
tude and perfection.*
* It seems evident, that the dispute between the Sceptics and
Dogmatists is entirely verbal; or at least regards only the degrees
of doubt and assurance, which we ought to indulge with regard to all
reasoning : and such disputes are commonly, at the bottom, verbal,
and admit not of any precise determination. No philosophical
Dogmatist denies, that there are difficulties both with regard to
the senses and to all science ; and that these difficulties are in a
regular, logical method, absolutely insolvable. No Sceptic denies
�Part XII.
1T3
These, Cleanthes, are my unfeigned sentiments on
this subject; and these sentiments, you know, I have
ever cherished and maintained. But in proportion to
my veneration for true religion, is my abhorrence of
vulgar superstitions ; and I indulge a peculiar pleasure,
I confess, in pushing such principles, sometimes into
absurdity, sometimes into impiety.
And you are
sensible, that all bigots, notwithstanding their great
aversion to the latter above the former, are commonly
equally guilty of both.
My inclination, replied Cleanthes, lies, I own, a con
trary way. Religion, however corrupted, is still better
than no religion at all. The doctrine of a future state
is so strong and necessary a security to morals, that we
never ought to abandon or neglect it. For if finite and
temporary rewards and punishments have so great an
effect, as we daily find: how much greater must be
expected from such as are infinite and eternal ?
How happens it then, said Philo, if vulgar super
stition be so salutary to society, that all history
abounds so much with accounts of its pernicious
consequences on public affairs ? Factions, civil wars, •
persecutions, subversions of government, oppression,
slavery ; these are the dismal consequences which always
attend its prevalency over the minds of men. If the
religious spirit be ever mentioned in any historical
narration, we are sure to meet afterwards with a detail
of the miseries which attend it. And no period of time
can be happier or more prosperous, than those in which
it is never regarded or heard of.
The reason of this observation, replied Cleanthes, is
obvious. The proper office of religion is to regulate
that we lie under an absolute necessity, notwithstanding these
difficulties, of thinking, and believing, and reasoning, with regard
to all kinds of subjects, and even of frequently assenting with
confidence and security. The only difference, then, between these
facts, if they merit that name, is, that the Sceptic, from habit,
caprice, or inclination, insists most on the difficulties; the Dog
matist, for like reasons, on the necessity.
�114 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
*
the heart of men, humanize their conduct, infuse the
spirit of temperance, order, and obedience : and as its
operation is silent, and only enforces the motives of
morality and justice, it is in danger of being overlooked,
and confounded with these other motives. When it
distinguishes itself, and acts as a separate principle
oyer men, it has departed from its proper sphere, and
has become only a cover to faction and ambition.
And so will all religion, said Philo, except the
philosophical and rational kind. Your reasonings are
more easily eluded than my facts. The inference is
not just, because finite and temporary rewards and
punishments have so great influence, that therefore
such as are infinite and eternal must have so much
greater.
Consider, I beseech you, the attachment
which we have to present things, and the little concern
which we discover for objects so remote and uncertain.
When divines are declaiming against the common be
haviour and conduct of the world, they always represent
this principle as the strongest imaginable, (which
indeed it is); and {describe almost all human kind as
lying under the influence of it, and sunk into the deepest
lethargy and unconcern about their religious interests.
Yet these same divines, when they refute their specu
lative antagonists, suppose the motives of religion to
be so powerful, that, without them, it were impossible
for civil society to subsist; nor are they ashamed of so
palpable a contradiction. It is certain, from experience,
that the smallest grain of natural honesty and benevo
lence has more effect on men’s conduct, than the most
pompous views suggested by theological theories and
systems. A man’s natural inclination works incessantly
upon him ; it is for ever present to the mind; and
■ mingles itself with every view and consideration :
whereas religious motives, where they act at all, operate
only by starts and bounds ; and it is scarcely possible
4'or them to become altogether habitual to the mind.
The force of the greatest gravity, say the philosophers,
�Part XII.
JI5
is infinitely small, in comparison of that of the least
impulse : yet it is certain, that the smallest gravity will,
in the end, prevail above a great impulse ; because no
strokes or blows can be repeated with such constancy
as attraction and gravitation.
Another advantage of inclination : it engages on its
side all the wit and ingenuity of the mind : and when
get in opposition to religious principles, seeks every
method and art of eluding them : in which it is almost
always successful. Who can explain the heart of man,
or account for those strange salvos and excuses, with
which people satisfy themselves, when they follow their
inclinations in opposition to their religious duty ? This
is well understood in the world; and none but fools
ever repose less trust in a man, because they hear, that,
from study and philosophy, he has entertained some
speculative doubts with regard to theological subjects.
And when we have to do with a man, who makes a
great profession of religion and devotion ; has this any
other effect upon several, who pass for prudent, than
to put them on their guard, lest they be cheated and
deceived by him ?
We must farther consider, that philosophers, who-.
♦
cultivate reason and reflection, stand less in need of
such motives to keep them under the restraint of
morals : and that the vulgar, who alone may need
them, are utterly incapable of so pure a religion as
- *
represents the Deity to be pleased with nothing but
virtue in human behaviour. The recommendations to
the Divinity are generally supposed to be either
frivolous observances, or rapturous ecstasies, or a
bigoted credulity.
We need not run back into
antiquity, or wander into remote regions, to find
instances of this degeneracy. Amongst ourselves, soniehave been guilty of that atrociousness, unknown to the '*
Egyptian and Grecian superstitions, of declaiming, in
express terms, against morality ; and representing it as,
a sure forfeiture of the divine favour, if the least trust
•or reliance be laid upon it.
�116 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
But even though superstition or enthusiasm should
not put itself in direct opposition to morality; the
very diverting of the attention, the raising up a new
and frivolous species of merit, the preposterous distri
bution which it makes of praise and blame, must have
the most pernicious consequences, and weaken ex
tremely men’s attachment to the natural motives of
justice and humanity.
Such a principle of action likewise, not being any of
the familiar motives of human conduct, acts only by
intervals on the temper; and must be roused by
continual efforts, in order to render the pious zealot
satisfied with his own conduct, and make him fulfil
his devotional task. Many religious exercises are entered
into with seeming fervour, where the heart, at the time,
feels cold and languid. A habit of dissimulation is by
degrees contracted: and fraud and falsehood become
the predominant principle. Hence the reason of that
vulgar observation, that the highest zeal in religion
and the deepest hypocrisy, so far from being incon
sistent, are often or commonly united in the same
individual character.
The bad effects of such habits, even in common life, '
are easily imagined : but where the interests of religion
are concerned, no morality can be forcible enough to
bind the enthusiastic zealot. The sacredness of the
cause sanctifies every measure which can be made use
of to promote it.
The steady attention alone to so important an
interest as that of eternal salvation, is apt to extinguish
the benevolent affections, and beget a narrow, con
tracted selfishness. And when such a temper is
encouraged, it easily eludes all the general precepts of
charity and benevolence.
Thus the motives of vulgar superstition have no
great influence on general conduct; nor is their opera
tion very favourable to morality, in the instances where
they predominate.
�Part Xll.
117
Is there any maxim in politics more certain and
infallible, than that both the number and authority of
priests should be confined within very narrow limits;
and that the civil magistrate ought, for ever, to keep
his fasces and axes from such dangerous hands ? But
if the spirit of popular religion were so salutary to
society, a contrary maxim ought to prevail. The
greater number of priests, and their greater authority
and riches, will always augment the religious spirit.
And though the priests have the guidance of this spirit,
why may we not expect a superior sanctity of life, and
greater benevolence and moderation, from persons who
are set apart for religion, who are continually inculcat
ing it upon others, and who must themselves imbibe a
greater share of it ? Whence comes it then, that, in
fact, the utmost a wise magistrate can propose with
regard to popular religions, is, as far as possible, to
make a saving game of it, and to prevent their
pernicious consequences with regard to society ? Every
expedient which he tries for so humble a purpose is
surrounded with inconveniences. If he admits only
one religion among his subjects, he must sacrifice, to
an uncertain prospect of tranquillity, every considera
tion of public liberty, science, reason, industry, and
even his own independency. If he gives indulgence to
several sects, which is the wiser maxim, he must pre
serve a very philosophical indifference to all of them,
and carefully restrain the pretensions of the prevailing
sect; otherwise he can expect nothing but endless
disputes, quarrels, factions, persecutions, and civil
commotions.
True religion, I allow, has no such pernicious con
sequences : but we must treat of religion, as it has
commonly been found in the world ; nor -have I any
thing to do with that speculative tenet of Theism,
which, as it is a species of philosophy, must partake of
the beneficial influence of that principle, and at the
same time must lie under a like inconvenience, of being
always confined to a very few persons.
�118 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
Oaths are requisite in all courts of judicature ; but
it is a question whether their authority arises from any
popular religion. It is the solemnity and importance
of the occasion, the regard to reputation, and the
reflecting on the general interest of society, which are
the chief restraints upon mankind. Custom-house
oaths and political oaths are but little regarded even by
some who pretend to principles of honesty and
religion ; and a Quaker’s asseveration is with us justly
put upon the same footing with the oath of any other
person. I know, that Polybius * ascribes the infamy
of Greek faith to the prevalency of the Epicurean
philosophy : but I know also, that Punic faith had as
bad a reputation in ancient times, as Irish evidence has
in modern ; though we cannot account for these vulgar
observations by the same reason. Not to mention,
that Greek faith was infamous before the rise of the
Epicurean philosophy; and Euripides f, in a passage
which I shall point out to you, has glanced a remark
able stroke of satire against his nation, with regard to
this circumstance.
Take care, Philo, replied Cleanthes, take care : push
not matters too far : allow not your zeal against false
religion to undermine your veneration for the true.
Forfeit not this principle, the chief, the only great
comfort in life; and our principal support amidst all
the attacks of adverse fortune. The most agreeable
reflection, which it is possible for human imagination
to suggest, is that of genuine Theism, which represents
us as the workmanship of a Being perfectly good, wise,
and powerful; who created us for happiness ; and who,
having implanted in us immeasurable desires of good,
will prolong our existence to all eternity, and will trans
fer us into an infinite variety of scenes, in order to satisfy
those desires, and render our felicity complete and
* Lib. vi. cap. 54.
+ Iphigenia in Tauride, 1206.
Triarov 'EXXas ol8ei> ovSev.
“ The Greeks are ignorant of good faith. ”
�Part XII.
119
durable. Next to such a Being himself (if the
comparison be allowed), the happiest lot which we can
imagine, is that of being under his guardianship and
protection.
These appearances, said Philo, are most engaging
and alluring; and with regard to the true philosopher,
they are more than appearances. But it happens here,
as in the former case, that, with regard to the greater
part of mankind, the appearances are deceitful, and that
the terrors of religion commonly prevail above its
comforts.
It is allowed, that men never have recourse to de
votion so readily as when dejected with grief or
depressed with sickness. Is not [this a proof, that the
religious spirit is not so nearly allied to joy as to
sorrow 1
But men, when afflicted, find consolation in religion,
replied Cleanthes. Sometimes, said Philo : but it is
natural to imagine, that they will form a notion of
those unknown beings, suitably to the present gloom
and melancholy of their temper, when they betake
themselves to the contemplation of them. Accordingly,
we find the tremendous images to predominate in all
religions ; and we ourselves, after having employed the
most exalted expression in our descriptions of the Deity,
fall into the flattest contradiction, in affirming, that the
damned are infinitely superior in number to the elect.
I shall venture to affirm, that there never was a
popular religion, which represented the state of
departed souls in such a light, as would render it
eligible for human kind, that there should be such a
state. These fine models of religion are the mere
product of philosophy. Eor as death lies between the
eye and the prospect of futurity, that event is so shock
ing to Nature, that it must throw a gloom on all the
regions which lie beyond it; and suggest to the
generality of mankind the idea of Cerberus and Furies ;
devils, and torrents of fire and brimstone.
�120 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
It is true, both, fear and hope enter into religion ;
because both these passions, at different times, agitate
the human mind, and each of them forms a species of
divinity suitable to itself. But when a man is in a
cheerful disposition, he is fit for business, or company,
or entertainment of any kind; and he naturally
applies himself to these, and thinks not of religion.
When melancholy and dejected, he has nothing to do
but brood upon the terrors of the invisible world, and
to plunge himself still deeper in affliction. It may,
indeed, happen, that after he has, in this manner,
engraved the religious opinions deep into his thought
and imagination, there may arrive a change of health
or circumstances, which may restore his good-humour,
and raising cheerful prospects of futurity, make him
run into the other extreme of joy and triumph. But
still it must be acknowledged, that, as terror is the
primary principle of religion, it is the passion which
always predominates in it, and admits but of short
intervals of pleasure.
Not to mention, that these fits of excessive, enthusi
astic joy, by exhausting the spirits, always prepare the
way for equal fits of superstitious terror and dejection ;
nor is there any state of mind so happy as the calm
and equable. But this state it is impossible to support,
where a man thinks, that he lies, in such profound
darkness and uncertainty, between an eternity of
happiness and an eternity of misery. No wonder, that
such an opinion disjoints the ordinary frame of the
mind, and throws it into the utmost confusion. Ard
though that opinion is seldom so steady in its operation
as to influence all the actions; yet is it apt to make a
considerable breach in the temper, and to produce that
gloom and melancholy so remarkable in all devout people.
It is contrary to common sense to entertain appre
hensions or terrors upon account of any opinion what
soever, or to imagine that we run any risk hereafter, by
the freest use of our reason. Such a sentiment implies
�Part XII.
I2I
both, an absurdity and an inconsistency. It is an
absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions,
and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless
appetite for applause. It is an inconsistency to believe,
that, since the Deity has this human passion, he has
not others also • and in particular, a disregard to the
opinions of creatures so much inferior.
“ To know God,” says Seneca, “ is to worship him.”
All other worship is indeed absurd, superstitious, and
even impious. It degrades him to the low condition of
mankind, who are delighted with intreaty, solicitation,
presents, and flattery. Yet is this impiety the smallest
of which superstition is guilty. Commonly, it de
presses the Deity far below the condition of mankind;
and represents him as a capricious demon, who exercises
his power without reason and without humanity!
And were that Divine Being disposed to be offended
at the vices and follies of silly mortals, who are his own
workmanship ; ill would it surely fare with the votaries
of most popular superstitions. Nor would any of
human race merit his favour, but a very few, the
philosophical Theists, who entertain, or rather indeed
endeavour to entertain, suitable notions of his divine
perfections : as the only persons, entitled to his com
passion and indulgence, would be the philosophical
Sceptics, a set almost equally rare, who, from a
natural diffidence of their own capacity, suspend, or
endeavour to suspend, all judgment with regard to
such sublime and such extraordinary subjects.
If the whole of Natural Theology, as some' people
seem to maintain, resolves itself into one simple,
though somewhat ambiguous, at least undefined pro
position, That the cause or causes of order in the
universe probably bears some remote analogy to human
intelligence : if this proposition be not capable of ex
tension, variation, or more particular explication : if it
affords no inference that affects human life, or can be
the source of any action or forbearance: and if the
analogy, imperfect as it is, can be carried no farther
�122 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,,
than to the human intelligence; and cannot be trans
ferred, with any appearance of probability, to the other
qualities of the mind: if this really be the case, what
can the most inquisitive, contemplative, and religious
man do more than give a plain, philosophical assent to
the proposition, as often as it occurs ; and believe that
the arguments on which it is established, exceed the
objections which lie against it ? Some astonishment
indeed will naturally arise from the greatness of the
object; some melancholy from its obscurity; some
contempt of human reason, that it cannot give any
solution more satisfactory with regard to so extraordin
ary and magnificent a question. But, believe me,
Cleanthes, the most natural sentiment, which a welldisposed mind will feel on this occasion, is a longing
desire and expectation that heaven would be pleased to
dissipate, or at least alleviate this profound ignorance
by affording some more particular revelation to man
kind, and making discoveries of the nature, attributes,
and operations of the divine Object of our faith. A
person seized with a just sense of the imperfections of
natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the
greatest avidity: while the haughty dogmatist, per
suaded that he can erect a complete system of theology
by the mere light of philosophy, disdains any further
aid, and rejects this adventitious instructor. To be a
philosophical sceptic, in a man of letters, is the first and
most essential step towards being a sound, believing
Christian ; a proposition which I will willingly re
commend to the attention of Pamphilus; and I hope
Cleanthes will forgive me for interposing so far in the
education and instruction’of his pupil.
Cleanthes and Philo pursued not this conversation
much further; and as nothing ever made greater
impression on me than all the reasonings of that day;
so, I confess, that upon a serious review of the whole I
cannot but think that Philo’s principles are more
probable than Demea’s ; but that those of Cleanthes
approach still nearer to the truth.
�POSTSCRIPT.
A short account of the “ Dialogues ” will probably be
acceptable to the reader.
It has been stated, in the Preface to this edition of
them, that they were laid in manuscript before Sir
Gilbert Elliott in the year 1751. Hume was most
anxious to publish them, but his friends always dis
suaded him from doing so, knowing how dangerous to
his personal and social peace the experiment might
prove. So, by his will, he appointed his friend Dr.
« -Adam Smith his literary executor, with full power
over all his papers except the “ Dialogues,” which,
however, Dr. Smith was directed to publish. As an
inducement to Dr. Smith to comply with this direction,
Hume added the following clause :—“ Though I can
trust to that intimate and sincere friendship which has
ever subsisted between us for his faithful execution
of this part of my will, yet as a small recompense of
his pains in correcting and publishing this work, I
leave him £200 to be paid immediately after the
publication of it.”
Although there is not the least reason to call in
question the sincerity of the friendship above referred
to, yet Hume foresaw that Dr. Smith would not com
ply with the direction, couched in such affectionate
language, and followed by a substantial legacy; for
by a codicil bearing date the 7 th’ August 1776, only
a few days before Hume’s death, he made the following
provision :—“ I do ordain that if my Dialogues, from
whatever cause, be not published within two years
and a half after my death, as also an account of my
�124 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
life, the property shall return to my nephew, David,
whose duty in publishing them, as the last request of
his uncle, must be approved of by all the world/’
Almost immediately after Hume’s death, his friend,
Dr. Smith, edited the autobiography, “ My own Life,”
alluded to in the codicil; and in a letter addressed to
William Strahan, Esq., dated 9 Nov. 1776, Dr. Smith
gave an account “ of the behaviour of our late excellent
friend, Mr Hume, during his last illness.” That
letter concludes thus :—“ Upon the whole, I have
always considered him, (Hume) both in his lifetime,
and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the
idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps
the nature of human frailty will permit.” But Dr.
Smith was afraid to publish the “ Dialogues,” and,
although both they and the legacy of <£200 were
offered to him independently of any condition that
might be implied in the terms of the bequest, he
refused both. So it was left to be seen what “ my
nephew, David,” would do.
This David Hume was an advocate at the Scotch
bar, and subsequently a baron in the Court of
Exchequer. He was a true Christian, a very bad
writer, a staunch supporter of terrorism, and a bigoted
upholder of all the arbitrary oppressions exercised by
the English government during the period from 1793
to 1830. He was very unwilling to publish the
“ Dialogues.” However, in the year 1779, he printed
them, but without the name of any publisher, printer,
or even place of printing attached to the volume. The
editor has in his possession a copy of this first and
merely printed edition of the “ Dialogues.” Its title
page stands thus:—“Dialogues concerning Natural Reli
gion, by David Hume, Esq.; Printed in 1779.”—On
the fly leaf there is written, “From the Author’s
Nephew,” indicating that the merely printed copies
were not exposed -for sale, and were circulated only
privately. But as delivery of any written or printed
�Postscript.
125
matter to only one person is “publication ” in the eye
of the law, perhaps the baron persuaded himself that
he had complied with “ the last request of his uncle ”—
in the eye of the law.
So intense was Baron Hume’s dread of the social
persecution which hitherto has always been suffered
by those persons who have sided with the plaintiff in
the good old cause of “ Truth v. Christianity. ” A
cause not yet decided against the plaintiff, notwith
standing the atrocities which the defendant inflicts,
almost every year on those who side with the plaintiff.
The late Dr. John P. Nichol of Glasgow University,
says, “It is at once unjust and unwise to consider
errors and crimes of this sort (persecutions) as ex
clusive attributes of the Romish Church; on the
contrary, their root lies deep in the heart of man.
The domain of physical inquiry is now wholly safe
from the disorders of intolerance; but there are large
departments of knowledge within which Reason is
not yet free; where authority abides on its throne,
and popular prejudice stores its thunderbolts’’
TURNBULL AND SPEAKS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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Dialogues concerning natural religion No. II
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 64-125 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: New edition. Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. "A new edition, with a Preface and Notes..."[Title page]. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh.
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DIALOGUES
CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION,
DAVID HUME, Esq.
A new Edition, with a Preface and Notes, which bring the Subject
down to the present time.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E,
Price One Shilling.
��PREFACE.
“ Among the sayings of Homer mark well this one too and
improve upon it; he says :—A good messenger brings the great
est credit on every transaction.”—Pindar’s Pythian, iv. 277-78.'
TF ever Truth sent “a good messenger” to the human.
race, it was in the person of David Hume, who was
born at Edinburgh, on the 7th May 1711, N. S. But
Hume did not receive his message from Truth written,
as it were, on a sheet of paper. No : like Pindar’s
messenger of old, Hume had to acquire by labour and
care the knowledge which enabled him to learn and
deliver the message which he conveyed to mortals. '
Moreover, he was obstructed by two obstacles, which
few men, prosecuting such studies as he laboured in,.
succeed in surmounting.
His first obstacle was poverty.
In his delightful little autobiography, (“ My Own
Life,”) he informs us that his fortune was “very slender.”
How he surmounted this obstacle he tells us thus :—
“I resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my
deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my inde
pendency, and to regard every object as contemptible,
except the improvement of my talents in literature.”
His second obstacle was Christianity.
It is not permitted to mortal man, in his present
state of existence, to be by nature free from the pre
judices which arise from his education, and the
prepossessions imperceptibly springing from it. These
adhered to Hume for a long time. He sent the manu
script of his “ Dialogues concerning Natural Beligion ’’
A
�2
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
to his friend, Sir Gilbert Elliott, with whom he
corresponded on the subject. Writing to Sir Gilbert
Elliott in March 1751, Hume says, “The general pro
gress of my thoughts began with an anxious search after
arguments to confirm the common opinion—doubts stole
in—dissipated—returned—were again dissipated—re
turned again, and it was a perpetual struggle of a restless
imagination again st inclination—perhaps against reason.”
Most probably this is virtually the true inner history
of every honest thinker.
It was about the year 1730 that Hume commenced
his “ anxious search.” Before that time, the inductive
philosophy, or rather the logic of induction, first given
to the world in a scientific shape by Bacon in his
Novum Organum, 1620, had been applied solely to the
phenomena of the physical world, especially by
Elamsteed, James Gregory, Boyle, and Sir Isaac
Newton."' But the application of that logic to the
* It may be explained here that the Logic of induction consists
in dealing with facts, not words. Thus, to prove that John, or
any other man, is mortal, a disciple of Aristotle would say, “ All
men are mortal; John is a man ; therefore John is mortal.” To
this a disciple of Bacon would object that the mortality of all men
had been begged not proved. This objection is fatal to the argu
ment; for we cannot prove that all men are mortal. We may
believe that such is the case ; but all we can prove regarding it
amounts to this, namely, “ So well as we know all men preceding
those now alive have died; we do not know that any man now
living has any element of immortality in him ; therefore we infer
that all men are mortal—probably.” The truth is that this in
ference is grounded on instinct rather than on reason : in the words
of Hume, “ ’tis certain, that the most ignorant and stupid peasants,
nay infants, nay even brute beasts, improve by experience, and
learn the qualities of natural objects, by observing the effects which
result from them. When a child has felt the sensation of pain
from touching the flame of a candle, he will be careful not to put
his hand near any candle ; but will expect a similar effect from a
cause which is similar in its sensible qualities and appearance.”
That we cannot prove to demonstration any matter of fact is the
chief principle of Hume’s philosophy. If the reader will reflect on
the idea contained in the word probability he will thereby more
clearly perceive the value of the inductive logic, and the truth of
Hume’s philosophy, than by anything that can be written by the
editor.
�Preface.
3
so-called world of spirit had been scarcely thought of.
It is true, indeed, that Locke in his “ Essay concerning
Human Understanding,” and more particularly in his
subsequent letters in defence of that work, had main
tained that matter might possess the quality of thinking
power as well as the qualities of extension and solidity.
But that matter contained the principle of its order
within itself, and had of itself arranged the material
universe, was an idea which had long ceased to influence
the world of Thinkers: alas! a very small world indeed,
and possessing very few inhabitants. Even if before
Hume any of those “ happy few” entertained that idea,
it is very probable that he would have been deterred
from publishing it; for by so doing he ran the risk of
acquiring something more than fame from those
Christians who chose to prosecute him, under the
provisions contained in the mild “ Act of Toleration,”
and other “ tender mercies ” of the Christians ; and so,
when Hume began his “anxious search,” prudence
required him to shew its results primarily on objects
not generally calculated to excite suspicion.
So, his first effort was in his essay 11 Of the Idea of
Necessary Connexion.” In this essay he shews that
we cannot assign a cause to any single phenomenon
without having the opportunity of comparing it and its
cause with other similar phenomena. He shews also
that even when we perceive an instance of cause and
effect we cannot tell why or how the cause produces the
effect. Of course here he suppresses (although he
doubtless perceived) the further inference that since
Divine Providence never, for instance, was seen by any
man in the act of creating a planet like our own, we
have not sufficient proof, on even the ground of an
argument from cause and effect, to shew that this planet,
called the Earth, is not self-created.
But he hinted at this inference in his essay “ Of a
Particular Providence and of a Future State.” There
he says, “ I much doubt whether it be possible for a
�4
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
cause to be known only by its effect, or to be of so
singular and particular a nature as to have no parallel,
and no similarity with any other cause or object, that
has ever fallen under our observation. ’Tis only when
two species of objects are found to be constantly con
joined, that we can infer the one from the other ; and
were an effect presented, which was entirely singular,,
and could not be comprehended under any known
species, I do not see that we could form any conjecture,
or inference at all concerning its cause. If experience
and observation and analogy be, indeed, the only guides
which we can reasonably follow in inferences of this
nature; both the effect and the cause must bear a
similarity and resemblance to other effects and causes
which we know, and which we have found, in many
instances, to be conjoined with each other. As the
antagonists of Epicurus always suppose the universe,
an effect quite singular and unparalleled, to be proof of
a Deity, a cause no less singular and unparalleled;
reasonings, upon that supposition, seem, at least, to
merit our attention. There is some difficulty, how we
can ever return from the cause to the effect, and, reason
ing from our ideas of the former, infer any alteration on
the latter, or any addition to it.”
To human beings this Earth is a singular performance.
We do not know anything of what goes on in the
other planets and stars. Consequently, from what we
know of our own planet we cannot logically infer
anything decided and definite regarding the other
heavenly bodies, or prove whether or not they even
shew marks of design.
In his “Dialogues concerning Natural Religion,”
Hume has brought forward almost every argument for
and against the existence of Divine Providence that has
been adduced on that subject from the days of
Anaxagoras to those of Professor Tyndall. Hume
says, “ all religious systems, it is confessed, are subject
to great and insuperable difficulties. Each disputant
�Preface.
5
triumphs in his turn; while he carries on an offensive
war, and exposes the absurdities, barbarities, and
pernicious tenets of his antagonist. But all of them,
on the whole, prepare a complete triumph for the
Sceptic, who tells them that no system ought ever
to be embraced with regard to such subjects; for
this plain reason,—that no absurdity ought ever to be
.assented to with regard to any subject. A total
suspense of judgment is here our only reasonable
resource.”
Nevertheless, so far as the human mind can judge,
the material universe probably shews traces of design.
But if so it is a design very different in its nature from
that shewn in human works of art. Consequently the
weight of probability is in favour of the supposition that
the present material universe has been arranged by
some Intelligence capable of the task, but who is in
all other respects utterly unknown to us, and, probably,
unknowable by us. In the words of Hume, “ The
whole of Natural Theology, as some people seem to
maintain, resolves itself into one simple, though some
what ambiguous, at least undefined proposition, that
the cause or causes of order in the universe probably
bear some remote analogy to human intelligence.”
One great merit of this doctrine is that it is consistent
with all the phenomena in the moral as well as in the
physical world. Instead of trying to force Philosophy to
fit into beds and boxes far too small for the purpose,
this doctrine leaves Philosophy free either to make or
find for herself a suitable resting-place. Moreover, by
shewing that all we can know is only a very small amount
of knowledge, this doctrine proves to demonstration the
uselessness and the immorality of bigotry and persecu
tion. It is melancholy to think that the masses of
mankind are nearly as ignorant of the practical worth
of this invaluable doctrine in the present day as they
were a century ago, in the days of Hume. Our object
is now to republish it in a form accessible to every one
�6
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
able and willing to read and study it; and its
inestimable value to mankind justifies us in expecting
that its republication will receive the blessing of
Divine Providence.
Hume’s opinions excluded him from the professorships
in the universities of Scotland, and, in fact, from all
places in the state and in literature : just as they would
exclude any one who professed them in the present
day. He died at Edinburgh on Sunday the 25th
August 1776, after having triumphantly surmounted
all the miseries arising from both poverty and
Christianity.
The scope of this edition of the
“ Dialogues ” precludes the Editor from entering upon
the details of Hume’s life. These the reader will find
in Mr John H. Burton’s admirable work on that subject,
which will well repay its perusal. For the history of
David Hume affords a lesson of the utmost value, as
an example, to the courageous Student and Thinker in
this and probably many future ages.
�DIALOGUES
CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION.
RAMPHILUS TO HERMIPPUS.
has been
Hermippus,
though
IT the ancientremarked, my conveyed mostthat their in
philosophers
of
struction in the form of dialogue, this method of
composition has been little practised in later ages, and
has seldom succeeded in the hands of those who have
attempted it. Accurate and regular argument, indeed,
such as is now expected of philosophical inquirers,
naturally throws a man into the methodical and
didactic manner ; where he can immediately, without
preparation, explain the point at which he aims; and
thence proceed, without interruption, to deduce the
proofs on which it is established. To deliver a system
in conversation, scarcely appears natural; and while
the dialogue-writer desires, by departing from the direct
style of composition, to give a freer air to his per
formance, and avoid the appearance of Author and
Reader, he is apt to run into a worse inconvenience, and
convey the image of Pedagogue and Pupil. Or if he
carries on the dispute in the natural spirit of good
company, by throwing in a variety of topics, and
preserving a proper balance among the speakers, he
often loses so much time in preparations and transitions,
that the reader will scarcely think himself compensated,
by all the graces of dialogue, for the order, brevity,
and precision, which are sacrificed to them.
�8
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
There are some subjects, however, to which dialogue
writing is peculiarly adapted, and where it is still
preferable to the direct and simple method of com
position.
Any point of doctrine, which is so obvious that it
scarcely admits of dispute, but at the same time so import
ant that it cannot be too’often inculcated, seems to require
some such method of handling it; where the novelty
of the manner may compensate the triteness of the
subject; where the vivacity of conversation may
enforce the precept; and where the variety of lights,
presented by various personages and characters, may
appear neither tedious nor redundant.
Any question of philosophy, on the other hand,
which is so obscure and uncertain, that human reason
can reach no fixed determination with regard to it; if
it should be treated at all, seems to lead us naturally
into the style of dialogue and conversation. Reason
able men may be allowed to differ, where no one can
reasonably be positive: opposite sentiments, even
without any decision, afford an agreeable amusement :
and if the subject be curious and interesting, the book
carries us, in a manner, into company ; and unites the
two greatest and purest pleasures of human life, study
and society.
Happily, these circumstances are all to be found in
the subject of Natural Religion. What truth so obvious,
so certain, as the being of a God, which the most
ignorant ages have acknowledged, for which the most
refined geniuses have ambitiously striven to produce
new proofs and arguments ? What truth so important
as this, which is the ground of all our hopes, the surest
foundation of morality, the firmest support of society, and
the only principle which ought never to be a moment
absent from our thoughts and meditations ? But in
treating of this obvious and important truth ; what
obscure questions occur, concerning the nature of that
•divine Being; his attributes, his decrees, his plan of
�Part I.
9
providence ? These have been always subjected to the
■disputations of men : Concerning these, human reason
has not reached any certain determination : But these
are topics so interesting, that we cannot restrain our
restless inquiry with regard to them; though nothing
but doubt, uncertainty, and contradiction, have as yet
been the result of our most accurate researches.
This I had lately occasion to observe, while I passed,
as usual, part of the summer-season with Cleanthes, and
was present at those conversations of his with Philo
and Demea, of which I gave you lately some imperfect
account. Your curiosity, you then told me, was so
excited, that I must of necessity enter into a more exact
detail of their reasonings, and display those various
systems which they advanced with regard to so delicate
a subject as that of Natural Religion. The remarkable
contrast in their character still further raised your
-expectations ; while you opposed the accurate philo
sophical turn of Cleanthes to the careless scepticism of
Philo, or compared either of their dispositions with
the rigid inflexible orthodoxy of Demea. My youth
rendered me a mere auditor of their disputes ; and that
■curiosity, n atural to the early season of life, has so deeply
imprinted in my memory the whole chain and connection
of their arguments, that, I hope, I shall not omit or
confound any considerable part of them in the recital.
PART I.
After I joined the company, whom I found sitting in
Cleanthes’ library, Demea paid Cleanthes some compli
ments, on the great care which he took of my education,
and on his unwearied perseverance and constancy in all
his friendships. The father of Pamphilus, said he, was
your intimate friend : the son is your pupil ; and
may indeed be regarded as your adopted son, were we
to judge by the pains which you bestow in conveying
�io Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
to him every useful "branch, of literature and science.
You are no more wanting, I am persuaded, in prudence
than in industry. I shall, therefore, communicate to
you a maxim which I have observed with regard to
my own children, that I may learn how far it agrees
with your practice. The method I follow in their
education is founded on the saying of an ancient,
“ That students of philosophy ought first to learn Logics,
then Ethics, next Physics, last of all the Nature of
the Gods.”* This science of Natural Theology,
according to him, being the most profound, and
abstruse of any, required the maturest judgment in its
students ; and none but a mind, enriched with all the
other sciences, can safely be entrusted with it.
Are you so late, says Philo, in teaching your children
the principles of religion ? Is there no danger of their
neglecting, or rejecting altogether, those opinions, of
which they have heard so little during the whole
course of their education ? It is only as a science,
replied Demea, subjected to human reasoning and
disputation, that I postpone the study of Natural
Theology. To season their minds with early piety, is
my chief care ; and by continual precept and instruc
tion, and I hope too by example, I imprint deeply on
their tender minds an habitual reverence for all the
principles of religion. While they pass through every
other science, I still remark the uncertainty of each part ;
the eternal disputations of men ; the obscurity of all
philosophy; and the strange, ridiculous conclusions,
which some of the greatest geniuses have derived from
the principles of mere human reason. Having thus
tamed their mind to a proper submission and self
diffidence, I have no longer any scruple of opening to
them the greatest mysteries of religion ; nor appre
hend any danger from that assuming arrogance of
philosophy, which may lead them to reject the most
established doctrines and opinions.
* Chrysippus apud Plat de repug. Stoicorum.
�Part I.
ir
Your precaution, says Philo, of seasoning your
children’s minds early with piety, is certainly very
reasonable; and no more than is requisite in this
profane and irreligious age. But what I chiefly admire
in your plan of education, is your method of drawing
advantage from the very principles of philosophy and
learning, which, by inspiring pride and self-sufficiency,,
have commonly, in all ages, been found so destructive
to the principles of religion. The vulgar, indeed, we
may remark, who are unacquainted with science and
profound inquiry, observing the endless disputes of the
learned, have commonly a thorough contempt for
Philosophy; and rivet themselves the faster, by that
means, in the great points of theology which have
been taught them. Those who enter a little into
study and inquiry, finding many appearances of
evidence in doctrines the newest and most extra
ordinary, think nothing too difficult for human reason ;
and, presumptuously breaking through all fences,
profane the inmost sanctuaries of the temple. But
Cleanthes will, I' hope, agree with me, that, after we
have abandoned ignorance, the surest remedy, there is
still one expedient left to prevent this profane liberty.
Let Demea’s principles be improved and cultivated:
Let us become thoroughly sensible of the weakness,
blindness, and narrow limits, of human reason : Let us
duly consider its uncertainty and endless contrarieties,
even in subjects of common life and practice : Let the
errors and deceits of our very senses be set before us ;
the insuperable difficulties which attend first principles
in all systems; the contradictions which adhere to the
very ideas of matter, cause and effect, extension, space,
time, motion; and, in a word, quantity of all kinds,
the object of the only science that can fairly pretend toany certainty or evidence. When these topics are
displayed in their full light, as they are by some philo
sophers and almost all divines ; who can retain such
confidence in this frail faculty of reason as to pay any
�12 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
regard to its determinations in points so sublime, so
abstruse, so remote from common life and experience ?
When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even
that composition of parts which renders it extended;
when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable,
and contain circumstances so repugnant and contra
dictory ; with what assurance can we decide concerning
the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity
to eternity ?
While Philo pronounced these words, I could observe
a smile in the countenance both of Demea and Clean
thes. That of Demea seemed to imply an unreserved
satisfaction in the doctrines delivered : but in
Cleanthes’ features, I could distinguish an air of
finesse; as if he perceived some raillery or artificial
malice in the reasonings of Philo.
You propose then, Philo, said Cleanthes, to erect
religious faith on philosophical scepticism ; and
you think, that if certainty or evidence be expelled
from every other subject of inquiry, it will all retire
to these theological doctrines, and there acquire a
superior force and authority. Whether your scepticism
be as absolute and sincere as you pretend, we shall learn
by and by, when the company breaks up ; we shall then
see, whether you go out at the door or the window ; and
whether you really doubt, if your body has gravity, or
can be injured by its fall; according to popular opinion,
derived from our fallacious senses and more fallacious
experience. And this consideration, Demea, may, I
think, fairly serve to abate our ill-will to this humorous
sect of the sceptics. If they be thoroughly in earnest,
they will not long trouble the world with their doubts,
cavils and disputes : if they be only in jest, they are,
perhaps, bad raillers; but can never be very dangerous,
either to the state, to philosophy, or to religion.
In reality, Philo, continued he, it seems certain,
that though a man, in a flush of humour, after intense
reflection on the many contradictions and imperfections
�Part I.
of human reason, may -entirely renounce all belief'
and opinion; it is impossible for him to persevere
in this total scepticism, or make it appear in his conduct
for a few hours. External objects press in upon him :
passions solicit him : his philosophical melancholy dis
sipates ; and even the utmost violence upon his own
temper will not be able, during any time, to preserve the
poor appearance of scepticism. And for what reason im
pose on himself such a violence ? This a point in which
it will be impossible for him ever to satisfy himself,
consistently with his sceptical principles : so that upon
the whole nothing could be more ridiculous than the
principles of the ancient Pyrrhonians ; if in reality they
endeavoured, as is pretended, to extend, throughout, the
same scepticism, which they had learned from the de
clamations of their schools, and which they ought to have
confined to them.
In this view, there appears a great resemblance
between the sects of the Stoics and Pyrrhonians
though perpetual antagonists : and both of them seem
founded on this erroneous maxim, That what a man
can perform sometimes, and in some dispositions, he
can perform always, and in every disposition. When
the mind, by Stoical reflections, is elevated into a
sublime enthusiasm of virtue, and strongly smit with
any species of honour or public good, the utmost
bodily pain and sufferings will not prevail over such a
high sense of duty; and it is possible, perhaps, by its
means, even to smile and exult in the midst of tortures.
If this sometimes may be the case in fact and reality,,
much more may a philosopher, in his school, or even
in his closet, work himself up to such an enthusiasm,,
and support in imagination the acutest pain or most
calamitous event which he can possibly conceive. But
how shall he support this enthusiasm itself ? The
bent of his mind relaxes, and cannot be recalled at
pleasure: avocations lead him astray: misfortunes
attack him unawares : and the philosopher sinks by
degrees into the plebeian.
�14 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
I allow of your comparison between the Stoics and
Sceptics, replied Philo. But you may observe, at the
same time, that though the mind cannot, in stoicism,
support the highest flights of philosophy; yet, even
when it sinks lower, it still retains somewhat of its
former disposition; and the effects of the Stoic’s
reasoning will appear in his conduct in common life, and
through the whole tenor of his actions. The ancient
schools, particularly that of Zeno, produced examples
of virtue and constancy which seem astonishing to
present times.
Vain wisdom all and false philosophy.
Yet with a pleasing sorcery could charm
Pain, for a while, or anguish ; and excite
Fallacious Hope, or arm the obdurate breast
With stubborn patience, as with triple steel. *
In like manner, if a man has accustomed himself to
sceptical considerations on the uncertainty and narrow
limits of reason, he will not entirely forget them when
he turns his reflection on other subjects; but in all his
philosophical principles and reasoning, I dare not say
in his common conduct, he will be found different
from those, who either never formed any opinions in
the case, or have entertained sentiments more favour
able to human reason.
To whatever length any one may push his speculative
principles of scepticism, he must act, I own, and live,
and converse, like other men ; and for this conduct he
is not obliged to give any other reason, than the
absolute necessity he lies under of so doing. If he
ever carries his speculations farther than this necessity
constrains him, and philosophises either on natural or
moral subjects, he is allured by a certain pleasure and
satisfaction which he finds in employing himself after
that manner. He considers, besides, that every one,
even in common life, is constrained to have more or
less of this philosophy ; that from our earliest infancy
we make continual advances in forming more general
* “ Paradise Lost.” ii., 565.
�Part I.
»5
principles of conduct and reasoning; that the larger
experience we acquire, and the stronger reason we are
endued with, we always render our principles the more
general and comprehensive; and that what we call
philosophy is nothing but a more regular and
methodical operation of the same kind. To philo
sophise on such subjects is nothing essentially different
from reasoning on common life ; and we may only
expect greater stability, if not greater truth, from our
philosophy, on account of its exacter and more scrupu
lous method of proceeding.
But when we look beyond human affairs and the pro
perties of the surrounding bodies : when we carry our
speculations into the two eternities, before and after
the present state of things; into the creation and
formation of the universe; the existence and properties
of spirits ; the powers and operations of one universal
Spirit, existing without beginning and without end;
omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, infinite, and in
comprehensible : we must be far removed from the
smallest tendency to scepticism not to be apprehensive
that we have here got quite beyond the reach of
our faculties. So long as we confine our speculations
to trade, or morals, or politics, or criticism, we make
appeals, every moment, to common sense and ex
perience, which strengthen our philosophical con
clusions, and remove (at least, in part) the suspicion
which we so justly entertain with regard to every
reasoning that is very subtle and refined. But, in
theological reasonings, we have not this advantage;
while at the same time we are employed upon objects,
which, we must be sensible, are too large for our grasp,
and, of all others, require most to be familiarised to
our apprehension. We are like foreigners in a strange
country, to whom every thing must seem suspicious,
and who are in danger every moment of transgressing
against the laws and customs of the people with whom
they live and converse. We know not how far we
�16 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
ought to trust our vulgar methods of reasoning in such
a subject; since, even in common life, and in that
province which is peculiarly appropriated to them, we
cannot account for them, and are entirely guided by a
kind of instinct or necessity in employing them.
All sceptics pretend, that, if reason be considered
in an abstract view, it furnishes invincible arguments
against itself; and that we could never retain any con
viction or assurance, on any subject, were not the
sceptical reasonings so refined and subtile, that they
are not able to counterpoise the more solid and more
natural arguments derived from the senses and ex
perience. But it is evident, whenever our arguments
lose this advantage, and run wide of common life, that
the most refined scepticism comes to be upon a footing
with them, and is able to oppose and counterbalance
them. The one has no more weight than the other.
The mind must remain in suspense between them ; and
it is that very suspense or balance, which is the
triumph of scepticism.
But I observe, says Cleanthes, with regard to you,
Philo, and all speculative sceptics, that your doctrine
and practice are as much at variance in the most
abstruse points of theory as in the conduct of common
life. Wherever evidence discovers itself, you adhere
to it, notwithstanding your pretended scepticism ; and
I can observe, too, some of your sect to be as decisive as
those who make greater professions of certainty and
assurance. In reality, would not a man be ridiculous,
who pretended to reject Newton’s explication of the
wonderful phenomenon of the rainbow, because that
explication gives a minute anatomy of the rays of
light; a subject, forsooth, too refined for human com
prehension ? And what would you say to one, who
having nothing particular to object to the arguments
of Copernicus and Galileo for the motion of the earth,
should withhold his assent, on that general principle,
that these subjects were too magnificent and remote to
�Part I.
l7
be explained by the narrow and fallacious reason of
mankind ?
There is indeed a kind of brutish, and ignorant
scepticism, as you well observed, which gives the vulgar
a general prejudice against what they do not easily
■understand, and makes them reject every principle
which requires elaborate reasoning to prove and esta
blish it. This species of scepticism is fatal to knowledge,
not to religion; since we find, that those who make
greatest profession of it, give often their assent, not
only to the great truths of Theism and natural theology,
but even to the most absurd tenets which a traditional
superstition has recommended to them. They firmly
believe in witches; though they will not believe nor
attend to the most simple proposition of Euclid. But
the refined and philosophical sceptics fall into an incon
sistence of an opposite nature. They push their
researches into the most abstruse corners of science;
.and their assent attends them in every step, proportioned
to the evidence which they meet with. They are even
obliged to acknowledge, that the most abstruse and
remote objects are those which are best explained by
philosophy. Light is in reality anatomized : The true
system of the heavenly bodies is discovered and ascer
tained. But the nourishment of bodies by food is still
an inexplicable mystery : the cohesion of the parts of
matter is still incomprehensible. These sceptics, there
fore, are obliged, in every question, to consider each
particular evidence apart, and proportion their assent to
the precise degree of evidence which occurs. This is
their practice in all natural, mathematical, moral, and
political science. And why not the same, I ask, in the
theological and religious? Why must conclusions of
this nature be alone rej ected on the general presumption
of the insufficiency of human reason, without any parti
cular discussion of the evidence? Is not such an unequal
•conduct a plain proof of prejudice and passion ?
Our senses, you say, are fallacious; our understandB
�18 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
ing erroneous; our ideas even of the most familiar
objects, extension, duration, motion, full of absurdities
and contradictions. You defy me to solve the diffi
culties, or reconcile the repugnancies, which you discover
in them. I have not capacity for so great an undertak
ing : I have not leisure for it: I perceive it to be
superfluous. Your own conduct, in every circumstance,
refutes your principles; and shows the firmest reliance
on all the received maxims of science, morals, prudence,
and behaviour.
I shall never assent to so harsh an opinion as that of
a celebrated writer*, who says, that the sceptics are not
a sect of philosophers, they are only a sect of liars. I
may, however, affirm, (I hope, without offence) that they
are a sect of jesters or railers. But for my part, when
ever I find myself disposed to mirth and amusement, I
shall certainly choose my entertainment of a less
perplexing and abstruse nature. A comedy, a novel, or
at most a history, seems a more natural recreation than
such metaphysical subtleties and abstractions.
In vain would the sceptic make a distinction between
science and common life, or between one science'and
another. The arguments employed in all, if just, are
of a similar nature, and contain the same force and
evidence. Or if there be any difference among them,,
the advantage lies entirely on the side of theology and
natural religion. Many principles of mechanics are
founded on very abstruse reasoning; yet no man who
has any pretensions to science, even no speculative
sceptic, pretends to entertain the least doubt wtth regard
to them. The Copernican system contains the most
surprising paradox, and the most contrary to our natural
conceptions, to appearances, and to our very senses : yet
even monks and inquisitors are now constrained to
withdraw their opposition to it. And shall Philo, a.
man of so liberal a genius, and extensive knowledge,
entertain any general undistinguished scruples with
*L’art de perser.
�Part I.
J9
regard to the religious hypothesis, which is founded on
the simplest and most obvious arguments, and, unless
it meets with artificial obstacles, has such easy access
and admission into the mind of man ?
And here we may observe, continued he, turning
himself towards Demea, a pretty curious circumstance
in the history of the sciences. After the union of
philosophy with the popular religion, upon the first
establishment of Christianity, nothing was more usual,
among all religious teachers, than declamations against
reason, against the senses, against every principle derived
merely from human research and inquiry. All the
topics of the ancient Academics were adopted by the
lathers ; and thence propagated for several ages in
every school and pulpit throughout Christendom. The
Reformers embraced the same principles of reasoning,
or rather declamation; and all panegyrics on the excel
lency of faith were sure to be interlarded with some
severe strokes of satire against natural reason. A cele
brated prelate too *, of the Romish communion, a man
of the most extensive learning, who wrote a demonstra
tion of Christianity, has also composed a treatise, which
contains all the cavils of the boldest and most determined
Pyrrhonism. Locke seems to have been the first
Christian, who ventured openly to assert, that faith
was nothing but a species of reason; that religion was
only a branch of philosophy; and that a chain of argu
ments, similar to that which established any truth in
morals, politics, or physics, was always employed in
discovering all the principles of theology, natural and
revealed. The ill use which Rayle and other libertines
made of the philosophical scepticism of the fathers and
first reformers, still farther propagated the judicious
sentiment of Mr Locke: And it is now, in a manner,
avowed, by all pretenders to reasoning and philosophy,
that Atheist and Sceptic are almost synonymous. And
as it is certain, that no man is in earnest when he
*Mons. Huet.
�20 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
professes the latter principle ; I would fain hope, that
there are as few who seriously maintain the former.
Don’t you remember, said Philo, the excellent saying
of Lord Bacon on this head i That a little philosophy,
replied Cleanthes, makes a man an Atheist: a great
deal converts him to religion. That is a very judicious
remark too, said Philo. But what I have in my eye is
another passage, where, having mentioned David’s fool,
who said in his heart there is no God, this great philo
sopher observes, that the Atheists now-a-days have a
double share of folly : for they are not contented to say
in their hearts there is no God, but they also utter that
impiety with their lips; and are thereby guilty of multi
plied indiscretion and imprudence. Such people, though
they were ever so much in earnest, cannot, methinks, be
very formidable.
But though you should rank me in this class of fools,
I cannot forbear communicating a remark that occurs
to me from the history of the religious and irreli
gious scepticism 'with which you have entertained us.
It appears to me, that there are strong symptoms of
priestcraft in the whole progress of this affair. During
ignorant ages, such as those which followed the dis
solution of the ancient schools, the priests perceived, that
Atheism, Deism, or heresy of any kind, could only pro
ceed from the presumptuous questioning of received
opinions, and from a belief that human reason was equal
to every thing. Education had then a mighty influence
over the minds of men, and was almost equal in force to
those suggestions of the senses and common understand
ing, by which the most determined sceptic must allow
himself to be governed. But at present, when the influ
ence of education is much diminished, and men, from a
more open commerce of the world, have learned to com
pare the popular principles of different nations and ages,
our sagacious divines have changed their whole system
of philosophy, and talk the language of Stoics, Platonists, and Peripatetics, not that of Pyrrhonians and Acad
�Part II.
21
emics. If we distrust human reason, we have now no
other principle to lead us into religion. Thus, sceptics
in one age, dogmatists in another; whichever system
best suits the purpose of these reverend gentlemen, in
giving them an ascendant over mankind, they are sure
to make it their favourite principle, and established
tenet.
It is very natural, said Cleanthes, for men to embrace
those principles, by which they find they can best defend
their doctrines; nor need we have any recourse to priest
craft to account for so reasonable an expedient. And
surely, nothing can afford a stronger presumption, that
any set of principles are true, and ought to be embraced,
than to observe that they tend to the confirmation of
true religion, and serve to confound the cavils of Atheists,
Libertines; and Freethinkers of all denominations.
PART II.
I must own, Cleanthes, said Demea, that nothing can
more surprise me, than the light in which you have all
along put this argument. By the whole tenor of your
discourse, one would imagine that you were maintaining
the Being of a God, against the cavils of Atheists and
Infidels: and were necessitated to become a champion
for that fundamental principle of all religion. But
this, I hope, is not, by any means, a question among us.
No man; no man, at least, of common sense, I am per
suaded, ever entertained a serious doubt with regard to
a truth so certain and self-evident. The question is not
concerning the Being, but the Nature, of God. This I
affirm, from the infirmities of human understanding, to
be altogether incomprehensible and unknown to us. The
essence of that Supreme Mind, his attributes, the manner
of his existence, the very nature of his duration; these,
and every particular which regards so divine a Being,
�'ll Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
are mysterious to men. Finite, weak, and blind crea
tures, we ought to humble ourselves in his august
presence; and, conscious of our frailties, adore in silence
Iris infinite perfections, which eye hath not seen, ear
hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart
of man to conceive. They are covered in a deep cloud
from human curiosity: it is profaneness to attempt
penetrating through these sacred obscurities : and next
to the impiety of denying his existence, is the temerity
of prying into his nature and essence, decrees and attri
butes.
But lest you should think, that my piety has here
got the better of my philosophy, I shall support my
opinion, if it needs any support, by a very great authority.
I might cite all the divines, almost, from the foundation
of Christianity, who have ever treated of this or any
other theological subject: but I shall confine myself,
at present, to one equally celebrated for piety and philo
sophy. It is Father Malebranche, who, I remember,
thus expresses himself: * “ One ought not so much
(says he) to call God a spirit, in order to express posi
tively what he is, as in order to signify that he is not
matter. He is a Being infinitely perfect: Of this we
cannot doubt. But in the same manner as we ought
not to imagine, even supposing him corporeal, that he
is clothed with a human body, as the Anthropomorphites
asserted, under colour that that figure was the most
perfect of any • so neither ought we to imagine, that
the Spirit of God has human ideas, or bears any resem
blance to our spirit; under colour that we know nothing
more perfect than a human mind. We ought rather to
believe, that as he comprehends the perfections of mat
ter without being material .... he comprehends
also the perfections of created spirits, without being spi
rit, in the manner we conceive spirit: That his true
name is, He that is; or, in other words, Being without
restriction, All Being, the Being infinite and universal.”
* Recherche de la Verite, liv. 3. cap. 9.
�Part II.
23
After so great an authority, Demea, replied Philo, as
that which you have produced, and a thousand more
which you might produce, it would appear ridiculous in
me to add my sentiment, or express my approbation of
your doctrine. But surely, where reasonable men
treat these subjects, the questions can never be con
cerning the Being, but only the Nature, of the Deity.
The former truth, as you well observe, is unquestion
able and self-evident. Nothing exists without a cause;
and the original cause of this universe (whatever it be)
we call God; and piously ascribe to him every species
of perfection. Whoever scruples this fundamental
truth, deserves every punishment which can be inflicted
among philosophers, to wit, the greatest ridicule, con
tempt, and disapprobation. But as all perfection is
entirely relative, we ought never to imagine that we
comprehend the attributes of this divine Being, or to
suppose that his perfections have analogy or likeness to
the perfections of a human creature.
Wisdom,
Thought, Design, Knowledge; these we justly ascribe
to him; because these words are honourable among
men, and we have no other language or other concep
tions by which we can express our adoration of him.
But let us beware, lest we think, that our ideas any wise
correspond to his perfections, or that his attributes have
any resemblance to these qualities among men. He is
infinitely superior to our limited view and compre
hension; and is more the object of worship in the
temple, than of disputation in the schools.
In reality, Cleanthes, continued he, there is no need
of having recourse to that affected scepticism, so dis
pleasing to you, in order to come at this determination.
Our ideas reach no further than our experience: We
have no experience of divine attributes and operations :
I need not conclude my syllogism : you can draw the
inference yourself. And it is a pleasure to me (and I
hope to you too) that just reasoning and sound piety
here concur in the same conclusion, and both of them
�24 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
establish the adorably mysterious and incomprehensiblenature of the Supreme Being.
Not to lose any time in circumlocutions, said
Cleanthes, addressing himself to Demea, much less in.
replying to the pious declamations of Philo; I shall
briefly explain how I conceive this matter. Look round
the world : contemplate the whole and every part of it:
you will find it to be nothing but one great machine,
subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines,
which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond,
what human senses and faculties can trace and explain.
All these various machines, and even their most minute
parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy,,
which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever
contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to
ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though
it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance ;
of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence.
Since therefore the effects resemble each other, we are
led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causesalso resemble : and that the Author of Nature is some
what similar to the mind of man ; though possessed of
much larger faculties, proportioned to the. grandeur of
the work which he has executed. By this argument
a posterion, and by this argument alone, do we prove
at once th’e existence of a Deity, and his similarity tn
human mind and intelligence.
I shall be so free, Cleanthes, said Demea, as to tell'
you, that from the beginning I could not approve of
your conclusion concerning the similarity of the Deity
to men; still less can I approve of the mediums by
which you endeavour to establish it. What! No
demonstration of the Being of God! No abstract argu
ments ! No proofs a priori ! Are these, which have
hitherto been so much insisted on by philosophers, all
fallacy, all sophism ? . Can we reach no further in this
subject than experience and probability ? I will not
say, that this is betraying the cause of a Deity : But
�Part II.
surely, by this affected candour, you give advantages to
Atheists, which they never could obtain by the mere
dint of argument and reasoning.
What I chiefly scruple in this subject, said Philo, is
not so much that all religious arguments are by Cleanthes
reduced to experience, as that they appear not to be
even the most certain and irrefragable of that inferior
kind. That a stone will fall, that fire will burn, that
the earth has solidity, we have observed a thousand
and a thousand times ; and when any new instance of
this nature is presented, we draw without hesitation the
accustomed inference. The exact similarity of the
cases gives us a perfect assurance of a similar event; and
a stronger evidence is never desired nor sought after.
But wherever you depart, in the least, from the
similarity of the cases, you diminish proportionably the
evidence; and may at last bring it to a very weak
analogy, which is confessedly liable to error and
uncertainty. After having experienced the circulation
of the blood in human creatures, we make no doubt
that it takes place in Titius and Msevius: but from
its circulation in frogs and fishes, it is only a presumption,,
though a strong one, from analogy, that it takes place in
men and other animals. The analogical reasoning is
much weaker when we infer the circulation of the sap in
vegetables from our experience that the blood circulates
in animals; and those, who hastily followed that
imperfect analogy, are found, by more accurate experi
ments, to have been mistaken.
If we see a house, Cleanthes, we conclude, with
the greatest certainty, that it had an architect or
builder; because this is precisely that species of
effect which we have experienced to proceed from that
species of cause. But surely you will not affirm, that
the universe bears such a resemblance to a house, that
we can with the same certainty infer a similar cause,
or that the analogy is here entire and perfect. The
dissimilitude is so striking that the utmost you can
�2 6 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
here pretend to is a guess, a conjecture, a presumption
concerning a similar cause; and how that pretension
will be received in the world, I leave you to consider.
It would surely be very ill received, replied
Cleanthes ; and I should be deservedly blamed and
detested, did I allow that the proofs of a Deity
amounted to no more than a guess or conjecture. But
is the whole adjustment of means to ends in a house
and in the universe so slight a resemblance ? The
economy of final causes ? The order, proportion and
arrangement of every part? Steps of a stair are
plainly contrived, that human legs may use them in
mounting; and this inference is certain and infallible.
Human legs are also contrived for walking and mount
ing ; and this inference, I allow, is not altogether so
certain, because of the dissimilarity which you
remark; but does it, therefore, deserve the name only
of presumption or conjecture?
Interrupting him, Demea cried, where are we ?
Zealous defenders of religion allow that the proofs of a
Deity fall short of perfect evidence! And you, Philo,
on whose assistance I depended in proving the adorable
mysteriousness of the Divine Nature, do you assent to
all these extravagant1 opinions of Cleanthes ? For
what other name can I give them ? Or why spare my
censure, when such principles are advanced, supported
by such an authority, before so young a man as Pamphilus ?
You seem not to apprehend, replied Philo, that I argue
with Cleanthes in his own way ; and by showing him
the dangerous consequences of his tenets, hope at last
to reduce him to our opinion. But what sticks most
with you, I observe, is the representation which
Cleanthes has made of the argument a posteriori ; and
finding that that argument is likely to escape your hold
and vanish into air, you think it so disguised that you
can scarcely believe it to be set in its true light. Now,
however much I may dissent, in other respects, from
�Part II.
the dangerous principles of Cleanthes, I must allow,
that he has fairly represented that argument; and I
shall endeavour so to state the matter to you,
that you will entertain no further scruples with regard
to it.
Were a man to abstract from every thing which he
knows or has seen, he would be altogether incapable,
merely from his own ideas, to determine what kind of
scene the universe must be, or to give the preference to
one state or situation of things above another. For
as nothing which he clearly conceives could be esteemed
impossible or implying a contradiction, every chimera
of his fancy would be upon an equal footing; nor could
he assign any just reason why he adheres to one idea
or system, and rejects the others which are equally
possible.
Again; after he opens his eyes, and contemplates the
world as it really is, it would be impossible for him, at
first, to assign the cause of any one event, much less
of the whole of things or of the universe. He might
set his fancy a rambling ; and she might bring him in
an infinite variety of reports and representations.
These would all be possible; but being all equally
possible, he would never, of himself, give a satisfactory
account for his preferring one of them to the rest.
Experience alone can point out to him the true cause of
any phenomenon.
Now, according to this method of reasoning, Demea,
it follows (and is, indeed, tacitly allowed by Cleanthes
himself), that order, arrangement, or the adjustment of
final causes, is not, of itself, any proof of design; but
only so far as it has been experienced to proceed from
that principle. For aught we can know a priori,
matter may contain the source or spring of order,
originally, within itself as well as mind does; and
there is no more difficulty in conceiving, that the
several elements from an internal unknown cause,
may fall into the most exquisite arrangement, than to
■conceive that their ideas, in the great universal mind
�28 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
from a like internal unknown cause, fall into that
arrangement.
The equal possibility of both these
suppositions is allowed. But by experience we find,
(according to Cleanthes), that there is a difference
between them. Throw several pieces of steel together,
without shape or form; they will never arrange them
selves so as to compose a watch. Stone, and mortar,
and wood, without an architect, never erect a house.
But the ideas in a human mind, we see, by an
unknown, inexplicable economy, arrange themselves so
as to form the plan of a watch or house. Experience,
therefore, proves that there is an original principle of
order in mind, not in matter. From similar effects we
infer similar causes. The adjustment of means to ends
is alike in the universe, as in a machine of human
contrivance. The causes, therefore, must be resem
bling.
I was from the beginning scandalised, I must own,
with this resemblance, which is asserted, between the
Deity and human creatures ; and must conceive it to
imply such a degradation of the Supreme Being as no
sound Theist could endure. With your assistance,
therefore, Demea, I shall endeavour to defend what
you justly call the adorable mysteriousness of the
Divine Nature, and shall refute this reasoning of Clean
thes ; provided he allows, that I have made a fair
representation of it.
When Cleanthes had assented, Philo, after a short
pause, proceeded in the following manner.
That all inferences, .Cleanthes, concerning fact,
are founded on experience ; and that all experimental
reasonings are founded on the supposition that
similar causes prove similar effects, and similar
effects similar causes; I shall not, at present, much
dispute with you. But observe, I entreat you, with
what extreme caution all just reasoners proceed in
the transferring of experiments to similar cases.
Unless the cases be exactly similar, they repose no
�Part IL
29
perfect confidence in applying their past observation
to any particular phenomenon. Every alteration of
circumstances occasions a doubt concerning the event;
and it requires new experiments to prove certainly,
that the new circumstances are of no moment or
importance. A change in bulk, situation, arrangement,
age, disposition of the air, or surrounding bodies; any
of these particulars, may be attended with the most
unexpected consequences: and unless the objects be
quite familiar to us, it is the highest temerity to ex
pect with assurance, after any of these changes, an event
similar to that which before fell under observation.
The slow and deliberate steps of philosophers, here,
if anywhere, are distinguished from the precipitate
march of the vulgar, who, hurried on by the smallest
similitude, are incapable of all discernment or con
sideration.
But can you think, Cleanthes, that your usual phlegm
and philosophy have been preserved in so wide a step
as you have taken, when you compared to the universe,
houses, ships, furniture, machines : and from their
similarity in some circumstances inferred a similarity
in their causes ? Thought, design, intelligence, such as
we discover in men and other animals, is no more than
one of the springs and principles of the universe, as
well as heat or cold, attraction or repulsion, and a
hundred others which fall under daily observation.
It is an active cause, by which some particular parts
of nature, we find, produce alterations on other parts.
But can a conclusion, with any propriety, be transferred
from parts to the whole ? Does not the great dispro
portion bar all comparison and inference ? From
observing the growth of a hair, can we learn anything
concerning the generation of a man ? Would the \
manner of a leaf’s blowing, even though perfectly )
known, afford us any instruction concerning the
vegetation of a tree ?
But allowing that we were to take the operations of
one ■ part of nature upon another for the foundation of
�30 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
our judgement concerning the origin of the whole,
(which never can be admitted); yet why select
so minute, so weak, so bounded a principle as the
reason and design of animals is found to be upon this
planet ? What peculiar privilege has this little
agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we
must thus make it the model of the whole universe ?
Our partiality in our own favour does indeed present
it on all occasions; but sound philosophy ought
carefully to guard against so natural an illusion.
So far from admitting, continued Philo, that the
operations of a part can afford us any just conclusion
concerning the origin of the whole, I will not allow
any one part to form a rule for another part, if the
latter be very remote from the former. Is there any
reasonable ground to conclude, that the inhabitants
of other planets possess thought, intelligence, reason,
or anything similar to these faculties in men ? When
nature has so extremely diversified her manner of
operation in this small globe ; can we imagine, that
she incessantly copies herself throughout so immense
a universe ? And if thought, as we may well suppose,
be confined merely to this narrow corner, and has
even there so limited a sphere of action; with what
propriety can we assign it for the original cause of
all things? The narrow views of a peasant, who
makes his domestic economy the rule for the gov
ernment of kingdoms, is in comparison a pardonable
sophism.
But were we ever so much assured, that a thought
and reason, resembling the human, were to be found
throughout the whole universe, and were its activity else
where vastly greater and more commanding than it ap
pears in this globe ; yet I cannot see why the operations
of a world constituted, arranged, adjusted, can with any
propriety be extended to a world which is in its
embryo-state, and is advancing towards that con
stitution and arrangement. By observation, we know
somewhat of the economy, action, and nourishment of
�Part IL
31
a finished animal; but we must transfer with great
caution that observation to the growth of a foetus
in the womb, and still more to the formation of an
animalcule in the loins of its male parent. Nature, we
find, even from our limited experience, possesses an
infinite number of springs and principles, which
incessantly discover themselves on every change of her
position and situation. And what new and unknown
principles would actuate her in so new and unknown
a situation as that of the formation of a universe we can
not, without the utmost temerity, pretend to determine.
A very small part of this great system, during a very
short time, is very imperfectly discovered to us; and
do we thence pronounce decisively concerning the
origin of the whole ?
Admirable conclusion! Stone, wood, brick, iron,
brass, have not, at this time, in this minute globe of
earth, an order or arrangement without human art and
contrivance: therefore the universe could not originally
attain its order and arrangement, without something
similar to human art. But is a part of nature a rule for
another part very wide of the former ? Is it a rule for
the whole ? Is a very small part a rule for the universe ?
Is nature in one situation, a certain rule for nature in
another situation vastly different from the former ?
And can you blame me, Cleanthes, if I here imitate
the prudent reserve of Simonides, who, according to the
noted story, being asked by Hiero, What God was ?
desired a day to think of it, and then two days more;
and after that manner continually prolonged the term,
without ever ‘bringing in his definition or description 1
Could you even blame me, if I had answered at first,
that I did not know, and was sensible that this subject
lay vastly beyond the reach of my faculties? You
might cry out sceptic and railer, as much as you
pleased : but having found, in so many other subjects
much more familiar, the imperfections and even con
tradictions of human reason, I never should expect any
�32 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
success from its feeble conjectures, in a subject so
sublime, and so remote from the sphere of our observa
tion. When two species of objects have always been
observed to be conjoined together, I can infer, by
custom, the existence of one wherever I see the exist
ence of the other : and this I call an argument from
experience. But how this argument can have place,
where the objects, as in the present case, are single,
individual, without parallel, or specific resemblance,
may be difficult to explain. And will any man tell me
with a serious countenance, that an orderly universe
must arise from some thought and art, like the human;
because we have experience of it ? To ascertain this
■masoning, it were requisite, that we had experience of
the origin of worlds; and it is not sufficient, surely,
that we have seen ships and cities arise from human art
and contrivance.
Philo was proceeding in this vehement manner, some
what between jest and earnest, as it appeared to me ;
when he observed some signs of impatience in Cleanthes,
and then immediately stopped short. What I had to
suggest, said Cleanthes, is only that you would not
abuse terms, or make use of popular expressions to
subvert philosophical reasonings. You know, that the
.vulgar often distinguish reason from experience, even
where the question relates only to matter of fact and
existence; though it is found, where that reason is
properly analyzed, that it is nothing but a species of
experience. To prove by experience the origin of the
universe from mind, is not more contrary to common
speech, than to prove the motion of the earth from the
same principle. And a caviller might raise all the same
objections to the Copernican system, which you have
urged against my reasonings. Have you other earths,
might he say, which you have seen to move ?
Have ....
Yes ! cried Philo, interrupting him, we have other
earths. Is not the moon another earth, which we see
�Part II.
33
to turn round its centre ? Is not Venus another earth,
where we observe the same phenomenon ? Are not the
revolutions of the sun also a confirmation, from analogy,
of the same theory? All the planets, are they not
earths, which revolve about the sun? Are not the
satellites moons, which move round Jupiter and Saturn,
and along with these primary planets round the sun ?
These analogies and resemblances, with others which I
have not mentioned, are the sole proofs of the Coper
nican system: and to you it belongs to consider,
whether you have any analogies of the same kind to
support your theory.
In reality, Cleanthes, continued he, the modern
system of astronomy is now so - much received by all
inquirers, and has become so essential a part even of
our earliest education, that we are not commonly very
scrupulous in examining the reasons upon which it is
founded. It is now become a matter of mere curiosity
to study the first writers on that subject, who had the
full force of prejudice to encounter, and were obliged
to turn their arguments on every side in order to render
them popular and convincing. But if we peruse
Galileo’s famous Dialogues concerning-the system of the
world, we shall find, that that great genius, one of the
sublimest that ever existed, first bent all his endeavours
to prove, that there was no foundation for the distinction
commonly made between elementary and celestial
substances. The schools, proceeding from the illusions
of sense, had carried this distinction very far; and had
established the latter substances to be ingenerable,
incorruptible, unalterable, impassible ; and had assigned
all the opposite qualities to the former. But Galileo,
beginning with the moon, proved its similarity in every
particular to the earth; its convex figure, its natural
darkness when not illuminated, its density, its distinc
tion into solid and liquid, the variations of its phases,
the mutual illuminations of the earth and moon, their
mutual eclipses, the inequalities of the lunar surface,
C
�34 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
&c. After many instances of this kind, with regard to
all the planets, men plainly saw that these bodies
became proper objects of experience; and that the
similarity of their nature enabled us to extend the same
arguments and phenomena from one to the other.
In this cautious proceeding of the astronomers, you
may read your own condemnation, Cleanthes; or rather
may see, that the subject in which you are engaged
exceeds all human reason and enquiry. Can you pre
tend to show any such similarity between the fabric of
a house, and the generation of a universe? Have you
ever seen Nature in any such situation as resembles the
first arrangement of the elements ? Have worlds ever
been formed under your eye; and have you had
leisure to observe the whole progress of the phenomenon,
from the first appearance of order to its final consumma
tion? If you have, then cite your experience, and
deliver your theory.
PAET III.
How the most absurd argument, replied Cleanthes, in
the hands of a man of ingenuity and invention, may
acquire an air of probability! Are you not aware, Philo,
that it became necessary for Copernicus and his first
disciples to prove the similarity of the terrestrial and
celestial matter; because several philosophers, blinded
by old systems, and supported by some sensible appear
ances, had denied this similarity ? but that it is by no
means necessary, that Theists should prove the similarity
of the works of Nature to those of Art; because this
similarity is self-evident and undeniable ? The same
matter, a like form : what more is requisite. to show an
analogy between their causes, and to ascertain the origin
of all things from a divine purpose and intention? Your
objections, I must freely tell you, are no better than the
�Part III.
35
abstruse cavils of those philosophers who denied motion ;
and ought to be refuted in the same manner, by
illustrations, examples, and instances, rather than by
serious argument and philosophy.
Suppose, therefore, that an articulate voice were heard
in the clouds, much louder and more melodious than
any which human art could ever reach : suppose, that
this voice were extended in the same instant over all
nations, and spoke to each nation in its own language
and dialect: suppose, that the words delivered not only
contain a just sense and meaning, but convey some in
struction altogether worthy of a benevolent Being,
superior to mankind: could you possibly hesitate a
moment concerning the cause of this voice 1 and must
you not instantly ascribe it to some design or purpose ?
Yet I cannot see but all the same objections (if they
merit that appellation) which lie against the system of
Theism, may also be produced against this inference.
Might you not say, that all conclusions concerning
fact were founded on experience : that when we hear
an articulate voice in the dark, and thence infer a man,
it is only the resemblance of the effects which leads us
to conclude that there is a like resemblance in the cause:
but that this extraordinary voice, by its loudness, extent,
and flexibility to all languages, bears so little analogy
to any human voice, that we have no reason to suppose
any analogy in their causes : and consequently, that a ra
tional, wise, coherent speech proceeded, you knew not
whence, from some accidental whistling of the winds,
not from any divine reason or intelligence ? You see
clearly your own objections in these cavils ; and I hope
too, you see clearly, that they cannot possibly have more
force in the one case than in the other.
But to bring the case still nearer the present one of
the universe, I shall make two suppositions, which imply
not any absurdity or impossibility. Suppose, that there
is a natural, universal, invariable language, common to
every individual of the human race; and that books are
�36 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
natural productions, which, perpetuate themselves in the
same manner with animals and vegetables, by descent
and propagation. Several expressions of our passions
contain a universal language: all brute animals have a
natural speech, which, however limited, is very intelli
gible to their own species. And as there are infinitely
fewer parts and less contrivance in the finest composition
of eloquence, than in the coarsest organized body, the
propagation of an Iliad or JEneid is an easier supposition
than that of any plant or animal.
Suppose, therefore, that you enter into your library,
thus peopled by natural volumes, containing the most
refined reason and most exquisite beauty : could you
possibly open one of them, and doubt that its original
cause bore the strongest analogy to mind and intelli
gence? When it reasons and discourses; when it expostu
lates, argues, and enforces its views and topics; when it
applies sometimes to the pure intellect, sometimes to the
affections ; when it collects, disposes, and adorns every
consideration suited to the subject: could you persist in
asserting, that all this, at the bottom, had really no
meaning; and that the first formation of this volume in
the loins of its original parent proceeded not from thought
and design? Your obstinacy, I know, reaches not that
degree of firmness: even your sceptical play and wanton
ness would be abashed at so glaring an absurdity.
.
But if there be any difference, Philo,, between, this
supposed case and the real one of the universe, it is all
to the advantage of the latter. The anatomy of an
animal affords many stronger instances of design than
the perusal of Livy or Tacitus: and any objection which
you start in the former case, by carrying me back to. so
unusual and extraordinary a scene as the first formation
of worlds, the same objection has place on the supposi
tion of our vegetating library. Choose, then, your party,
Philo, without ambiguity or evasion : assert either that
a rational volume is no proof of a rational cause, or
admit of a similar cause to all the works of nature.
�Part III.
37
Let me here observe, too, continued Cleanthes, that
this religious argument, instead of being weakened by
that scepticism so much affected by you, rather
acquires force from it, and becomes more firm and
undisputed. To exclude all argument or reasoning of
every kind, is either affectation or madness. The
declared profession of every reasonable sceptic is only
to reject abstruse, remote, and refined arguments; to
adhere to common sense and the plain instincts of
nature; and to assent, wherever any reasons strike him
with so full a force, that he cannot, without the
greatest violence, prevent it. Now the arguments for
natural religion are plainly of this kind ; and nothing
but the most perverse, obstinate metaphysics can reject
them.
Consider, anatomize the eye; survey its
structure and contrivance ; and tell me, from your own
feeling, if the idea of a contriver does not immediately
flow in upon you with a force like that of sensation.
The most obvious conclusion, surely, is in favour of
design; and it requires time, reflection, and study, to
summon up those frivolous, though abstruse objections,
which can support Infidelity. Who can behold the
male and female of each species, the correspondence of
their parts and instincts, their passions, and whole
course of life before and after generation, but must be
sensible, that the propagation of the species is
intended by Nature ? Millions and millions of such
instances present themselves through every part of the
universe; and no language can convey a more intelli
gible, irresistible meaning, than the curious adjustment
of final causes. To what degree, therefore, of blind
dogmatism must one have attained, to reject such
natural and such convincing arguments ?
Some beauties in writing we may meet with, which
seem contrary to rules, and which gain the affections,
and animate the imagination, in opposition to all the
precepts of criticism, and to the authority of the
established masters of art. And if the argument for
�38
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
Theism be, as you pretend,. contradictory to the
principles of logic j its universal, its irresistible
influence proves clearly, that there may be arguments
of a like irregular nature. Whatever cavils may be
urged; an orderly world, as well as a coherent,
articulate speech, will still be received as an incontest
able proof of design and intention.
It sometimes happens, I own, that the religious
arguments have not their due influence on an ignorant
savage and barbarian j not because they are obscure
and difficult, but because he never asks himself any
question with regard to them. Whence arises the
curious structure of an animal ? From the copulation
of its parents. And these whence? From their
parents ? A few removes set the objects at such a
distance, that to him they are lost in darkness and
confusion j nor is he actuated by any curiosity to trace
them farther. But this is neither. dogmatism nor
scepticism, but stupidity; a state of mind very different
from your sifting, inquisitive disposition, my ingenious
friend. You can trace causes from effects : you can
compare the most distant and remote objects: and
your greatest errors proceed not from barrenness of
thought and invention; but from too luxuriant a
fertility, which suppresses your natural good sense, by
a profusion of unnecessary scruples and objections.
Here I could observe, Hermippus, that Philo was a
little embarrassed and confounded: but while he
hesitated in delivering an answer, luckily for him,
Demea broke in upon the dis,course, and saved his
countenance.
.
Your instance, Cleanthes, said he, drawn from books
and language, being familiar, has, I confess, so much
more force on that account: but is there not. some
danger too in this very circumstance ; and. may it not
render us presumptuous, by making us imagine we
comprehend the Deity, and have some adequate idea Ox
his nature and attributes ? When I read a volume, 1
�Part III.
39
enter into the mind and intention of the author: I
become him, in a manner, for the instant; and have
an immediate feeling and conception of those ideas
which revolved in his imagination while employed in
that composition. But so near an approach we never
surely can make to the Deity. His ways are not our
ways. His attributes are perfect, but incomprehensible.
And this volume of Nature contains a great and in
explicable riddle, more than any intelligible discourse
or reasoning.
The ancient Platonists, you know, were the most
religious and devout of all the Pagan philosophers ;
yet many of them, particularly Plotinus, expressly
declare, that intellect or understanding is not to be
•ascribed to the Deity; and that our most perfect
worship of him consists, not in acts of veneration,
reverence, gratitude, or love; but in a certain mysterious
self-annihilation, or total extinction of all our faculties.
These ideas are, perhaps, too far stretched ; but still it
must be acknowledged, that, by representing the Deity
as so intelligible and comprehensible, and so familiar to
a human mind, we are guilty of the grossest and most
narrow partiality, and make ourselves the model of the
whole universe.
All the sentiments of the human mind, gratitude,
resentment, love, friendship, approbation, blame, pity,
emulation, envy, have a plain reference to the state
and situation of man, and are calculated for preserving
the existence and promoting the activity of such a
being in such circumstances. It seems, therefore,
unreasonable to transfer such sentiments to a supreme
existence, or to suppose him actuated by them; and
the phenomena, besides, of the universe will not
support us in such a theory. All our ideas derived
from the senses are confessedly false and illusive : and
cannot, therefore, be supposed to have place in a
supreme intelligence: and as the ideas of internal
sentiment, added to those of the external senses,
�40 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
compose the whole furniture of human understanding,
we may conclude, that none of the materials of thought
are in any respect similar in the human and in the
divine intelligence. Now as to the manner of think
ing; how can we make any comparison between
them, or suppose them any wise resembling? Our
thought is fluctuating, uncertain, fleeting, successive,
and compounded; and were we to remove these
circumstances, we absolutely annihilate its essence,
and it would in such a case be an abuse of terms to
apply to it the name of thought or reason. At least,
if it appear more pious and respectful (as it really is)
still to retain these terms, when we mention the
Supreme Being; we ought to acknowledge, that their
meaning, in that case, is totally incomprehensible ; and
that the infirmities of our nature do not permit us to
reach any ideas which in the least correspond to the
ineffable sublimity of the divine attributes.
PART IV.
It seems strange to me, said Cleanthes, that. you,
Demea, who are so sincere in the cause of religion,
should still maintain the mysterious,, incomprehensible
nature of the Deity, and should insist so strenuously
that he has no manner of likeness or resemblance to
human creatures. The Deity, I can readily, allow,
possesses many powers and attributes, of. which we
can have no comprehension: but if our ideas, so far
as they go, be not just, and adequate, and cor
respondent to his real nature, I . know not what there
is in this subject worth insisting on. Is the name,
without any meaning, of such mighty importance?
Or how do you IMystics, who maintain the absolute
incomprehensibility of the Deity, differ from Sceptics
or Atheists, who assert, that the first cause of all is
�Part IV.
4i
unknown and unintelligible ? Their temerity must
be very great, if, after rejecting the production by a mind,
I mean a mind resembling the human, (for I know of no
other), they pretend to assign, with certainty, any
other specific intelligible cause : and their conscience
must be very scrupulous indeed, if they refuse to call
the universal, unknown cause a God or Deity; and to
bestow on him as many sublime eulogies and un
meaning epithets as you shall please to require of
them.
Who could imagine, replied Demea, that Cleanthes,
the calm, philosophical Cleanthes, would attempt to
refute his antagonists, by affixing a nickname to them ;
and, like the common bigots and inquisitors of the
age, have recourse to invective and declamation,
instead of reasoning ? Or does he not perceive, that
these topics are easily retorted, and that Anthropomorphite is an appellation as invidious, and implies as
dangerous consequences, as the epithet of Mystic, with
which he has honoured us ? In reality, Cleanthes, con
sider what it is you assert when you represent the
Deity as similar to a human mind and understanding.
What is the soul of man ? A composition of various
faculties, passions, sentiments, ideas ; united, indeed,
into one self or person, but still distinct from each
other. When it reasons, the ideas, which are the
parts of its discourse, arrange themselves in a certain
form or order ; which is not preserved entire for a
moment, but immediately gives place to another
arrangement. New opinions, new passions, new affec
tions, new feelings arise, which continually diversify
the mental scene, and produce in it the greatest variety
and most rapid succession imaginable. How is this
compatible with that perfect immutability and simplicity
which all true Theists ascribe to the Deity 1 By the
same act, say they, he sees past, present and future :
His love and hatred, his mercy and justice, are one
individual operation : He is entire in every point of
�42 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
space ; and complete in every instant of duration.
No succession, no change, no acquisition, no diminution.
What he is implies not in it any shadow of distinction
-or diversity. And what he is, this moment, he ever
has been, and ever will he, without any new judgment,
sentiment, or operation.
He stands fixed in one
simple, perfect state : nor can you ever say, with any
propriety, that this act of his is different from that
•other; or that this judgment or idea has been lately
formed, and will give place, hy succession, to any
-different judgment or idea.
I can readily allow, said Cleanthes, that those who
maintain the perfect simplicity of the Supreme Being,
to the extent in which you have explained it, are
complete Mystics, and chargeable with all the con
sequences which I have drawn from their opinion.
They are, in a word, Atheists, without knowing it.
For though it be allowed, that the Deity possesses
attributes of which we have no comprehension; yet
ought we never to ascribe to him any attributes which
are absolutely incompatible with that intelligent nature
essential to him. A mind, whose acts and sentiments
and ideas are not distinct and successive ; one, that is
wholly simple, and totally immutable; is a .mind,
which has no thought, no reason, no will, no. sentiment,
no love, no hatred ; or in a word, is no mind at. all.
It is an abuse of terms to give it that appellation;
and we may as well speak of limited extension without
figure, or of number without composition.
Pray consider, said Philo, whom you are at .present
inveighing against. You are honouring with . the
appellation of Atheist all the sound, orthodox divines,
almost, who have treated of this subject; and you will
at last be, yourself, found, according to your reckoning,
the only sound Theist in the world. But if idolaters
be Atheists, as, I think, may justly be asserted, and
Christian Theologians the same ; what becomes of the
argument, so much celebrated, derived from the
universal consent of mankind ?
�Part IV.
43
But because I know you are not much swayed by
names and authorities, I shall endeavour to show you,
a little more distinctly, the inconveniencies of that
Anthropomorphism, which you have embraced; and
shall prove, that there is no ground to suppose a plan
of the world to be formed in the divine mind, con
sisting of distinct ideas, differently arranged; in the
same manner as an architect forms in his head the plan
of a house which he intends to execute.
It is not easy, I own, to see what is gained by this
supposition, whether we judge of the matter by Reason
or by Experience. We are still obliged to mount
higher, in order to find the cause of this cause, which
you had assigned as satisfactory and conclusive.
If reason (I mean abstract reason, derived from
inquiries a priori) be not alike mute with regard to all
questions concerning cause and effect; this sentence at
least it will venture to pronounce, That a mental world,
or universe of ideas, requires a cause as much as does
a material world, or universe of objects; and, if
si mil ar in its arrangement, must require a similar cause.
For what is there in this subject, which should occa
sion a different conclusion or inference ? In an abstract
view, they are entirely alike ; and no difficulty attends
the one supposition, which is not common to both of
them.
Again, when we will needs force Experience to pro
nounce some sentence even on these subjects, which lie
beyond her sphere; neither can she perceive any
material difference in this particular, between these two
kinds of worlds; but finds them to be governed by
similar principles, and to depend upon an equal variety
of causes in their operations. We have specimens in
miniature of both of them. Our own mind resembles the
one: a vegetable or animal body the other. Let
Experience, therefore, judge from these samples. Noth
ing seems more delicate, with regard to its causes, than
thought; and as these causes never operate in two
�44 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
persons after the same manner, so we never find two
persons who think exactly alike. Nor indeed does
the same person think exactly alike at any two different
periods of time. A difference of age, of the disposition
of his body, of weather, of food, of company, of books,
of passions; any of these particulars, or others more
minute, are sufficient to alter the curious machinery of
thought, and communicate to it very different move
ments and operations. As far as we can judge,
vegetables and animal bodies are not more delicate in
their motions, nor depend upon a greater variety or more
curious adjustment of springs and principles.
How therefore shall we satisfy ourselves concerning
the cause of that Being, whom you suppose the Author
of Nature, or, according to your system of Anthro
pomorphism, the ideal world, into which you trace the
material ? Have we not the same reason to trace that
ideal world into another ideal world, or new intelligent
principle ? But if we stop, and go no further ; why go
so far ? Why not stop at the material world 1 How
can we satisfy ourselves without going on in infinitum ?
And after all, what satisfaction is there in that infinite
progression ? Let us remember the story of the Indian
philosopher and his elephant. It was never more
applicable than to the present subject. If the material
world rests upon a similar ideal world, this ideal world
must, rest upon some other j and so on, without end.
It were better, therefore, never to look beyond the
present material world. By supposing it to contain the
principle of its order within itself, we really assert it to
be God; and the sooner we arrive at that divine Being,
so much the better. When you go one step beyond
the mundane system, you only excite an inquisitive
humour, which it is impossible ever to satisfy.
* So long ago as about B.C. 450, the doctrine that the material
universe contains the principle of its order within itself had been
preached, at Athens, by Anaxagoras, from whom the tragic poet,
Euripides, learned it, and embodied it m the fine lines, which
have been preserved in the “ Stromata of Clemens Alexandrmus,
�Part IV.
45
To say, that the different ideas, which compose the
reason of the Supreme Being, fall into order, of them
selves, and by their own nature, is really to talk with
out any precise meaning. If it has a meaning, I would
fain know, why it is not as good sense to say, that the
opas rov wpov rov8’ tiireipov al'Srbpa
Kai yqv irbpi^ fy-Oifo’ iiypais1 ev dyKaXais;
tovtov vipufe Zrjva, tov8’ 7)yov 'S-ebv.
“Do you see on high this boundless ether and holding the Earth
in its soft arms ? Consider this to be Zeus, and regard this to be
God.”
This doctrine was held by Epicurus and other ancient philo
sophers. It was celebrated by Euripides, Lucretius, Virgil and
Shelley. After lying in obscurity during many centuries Hume
gave it fair play in his “Dialogues.” Little if any notice was
taken of it. The clerics had utterly failed in their attempts to
refute the reasoning contained in Hume’s essay “of Miracles.”
This may have deterred them from attacking the “Dialogues,”
or, more probably, the clerics were unable to understand the
arguments contained in the “ Dialogues. ”
Be that as it may : so matters remained until at a meeting of
the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at
Belfast on the 19th August 1874, Professor Tyndall, in his
inaugural address, republished this doctrine. The circumstances
under which it was thus ushered into the world rendered it almost
impossible that the clerics could safely remain silent and entrust
their various and conflicting forms of Christianity to the healing
effects of time. On the other hand, as a body, the clerics were
wholly ignorant of Hume’s arguments. Very few of them had
even read his “Dialogues.” So, on their part it was dangerous to
attempt in public the refutation of a doctrine which rested on
arguments with which the clerics were wholly unacquainted. But
the doctrine had been published and was ringing in the ears of the
lay Christians as well as in the ears of the clerics ; and it could not
be snuffed out with an exclamation of “Pooh! Pooh!” the
favourite rhetoric of Divines. The clerics resolved to do their best
—and bad was their best. To an unconcerned observer their con
duct was ridiculous in the extreme. On the next Sunday (23d
August,) during the morning, noon and evening, the pulpits of
Belfast reverberated with the screams of the clerics, not one of
whom showed that he understood Mr Tyndall’s argument. They
shrieked and screamed, and roared and shouted, and ranted and
raved about clocks and watches, and stars and planets, and trees
and flowers, and
“ babbled of green fields ; ”
but not one of them touched on Mr Tyndall’s argument, or gave
the slightest “ outward and visible sign ” of knowing what it was.
�46 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
parts of the material world fall into order of themselves
and by their own nature. Can the one opinion be
intelligible, while the other is not so ?
Indeed, on that bright and genial Sunday the Belfast clerics
furnished a definite illustration of those who are
“worse than worst
Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts
Imagine howling.”
Collaterally with this screaming business, almost all the lay and
clerical journals in England, Ireland and Scotland, headed by the
“ Times, ” denounced Mr Tyndall “ by bell, book and candlebut
not one of the writers in those journals gave the slightest indica
tion that he understood Mr Tyndall’s argument.
But although the clerics throughout these three kingdoms do
not appear to have grasped Mr Tyndall’s process of reasoning, they
showed a keen, instinctive “ anticipated precognition ” of what his
conclusion was likely to be. They suspected that the result would
be “the deification of matter. ” And they knew that if this should
be effected, not only this our craft is in danger to be set at
nought; but also that the temple of the great Trinity should be
despised, and his magnificence should be destroyed, whom all
Asia and the world worshippeth. Consequently, like their worthy
predecessors, (Acts xix, 27, 28) the Christians “ were full of
wrath. ” Not being able to refute Mr Tyndall, they reviled him
in every possible style. A characteristic element in the sermons
preached on that Sunday was an utter disregard of Truth. _ Not
one of the preachers even pretended to consider whether it was
possible that the material universe did really contain within itself
the principle of its own order. All they attempted was to vilify
that doctrine and to insult Mr Tyndall. Since the burning of Dr
Prestley’s house, in Birmingham, 14th July 1791, the history_ of
England does not record such a blind and disgraceful persecution
as that contained in the insults hurled at Mr Tyndall on that
Aristotle (“Ethics” x. 9,) says, “He who exercises himself in the
wav of thought, and does his best to improve it, and has the best
mental disposition, seems also to be the most beloved by the gods.
Commenting on this passage, an eminent scholar says
A very
noble and consoling sentiment to those who care little for popular
notions, but everything for Truth. It is humiliating to think how
immeasurably the Greek philosophers surpassed us of the present
dav in this best and holiest of all virtues, love of Truth.
While waiting for a settlement of this question, it may be
observed that the supposition that matter contains the principle of
its own order within itself, and that the present material universe has
been arranged by that Principle, is not in the least more difficult to
understand than the supposition that the material universe has
been created and arranged by a so-called Spirit, infinite m wisdom,
power and goodness, of whom we do not know anything,
through the medium of his limited and imperfect works. Both
suppositions are only hypotheses.
�Part IP.
47
We have, indeed, experience of ideas, which fall into
order of themselves, and without any known cause :
But, I am sure, we have a much larger experience of
matter, which does the same; as in all instances of
generation and vegetation, where the accurate analysis
of the cause exceeds all human comprehension. We
have also experience of particular systems of thought
and of matter, which have no order : of the first, in
madness; of the second, in corruption. Why then
should we think, that order is more essential to on©
than the other 1 And if it requires a cause in both,
what do we gain by your system, in tracing the
universe of objects into a similar universe of ideas?
The first step, which we make, leads us on for ever. Itwere, therefore, wise in us, to limit all our inquiries to
the present world, without looking farther. No satis
faction can ever be attained by these speculations, which
so far exceed the narrow bounds of human under
standing.
It was usual with the Peripatetics, you know, Clean
thes, when the cause of any phenomenon was demanded,
to have recourse to their faculties or occult qualities;
and to say, for instance, that bread nourished by
its nutritive faculty, and senna purged by its purgative:
but it has been discovered, that this subterfuge was
nothing but the disguise of ignorance ; and that these
philosophers, though less ingenuous, really said the
same thing with the sceptics or the vulgar, who fairly
confessed that they knew not the cause of these
phenomena. In like manner, when it is asked, what
cause produces order in the ideas of the Supreme Being;
can any other reason be assigned by you, Anthropomorphites, than that it is a rational faculty, and that such
is the nature of the Deity ? But why a similar answer
will not be equally satisfactory in accounting for theorder of the world, without having recourse to any such
intelligent creator as you insist on, may be difficult to
determine. It is only to say, that such is the nature.
�48
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
of material objects, and that they are all originally
possessed of a faculty of order and proportion. These
are only more learned and elaborate ways of confessing
our ignorance; nor has the one hypothesis any real
advantage above the other, except in its greater
conformity to vulgar prejudices.
You have displayed this argument with great
emphasis, replied Cleanthes: you seem not sensible
how easy it is to answer it. Even in common life, if I
assign a cause for any event, is it any objection, Philo,
that I cannot assign the cause of that cause, and
answer every new question which may incessantly
be started? And what philosophers could possibly
submit to so rigid a rule? philosophers who confess
ultimate causes to be totally unknown, and are
sensible that the most refined principles into which
they trace the phenomena, are still to them as inexpli
cable as these phenomena themselves are to the vulgar.
The order and arrangement of nature, the curious
adjustment of final causes, the plain use and intention
of every part and organ; all these bespeak in the
clearest language an intelligent cause or author. The
heavens and the earth join in the same testimony :
the whole chorus of Nature raises one hymn to the
praises of its Creator: you alone, or almost alone,
disturb this general harmony. You start abstruse
doubts, cavils, and objections : you ask me, what is the
cause of this cause ? I know not; I care not; that
concerns not me. I have found a Deity; and here I
stop my enquiry. Let those go further, who are wiser
or more enterprising.
I pretend to be neither, replied Philo : and for that
very reason, I should never, perhaps, have. attempted
to go so far; especially when I am sensible that 1
must at last be contented to sit down with the same
answer, which, without further trouble, might have
satisfied me from the beginning. If I am still to
remain in utter ignorance of causes, and can absolutely
�Part V.
49
give an explication of nothing, I shall never esteem it
any advantage to shove off for a moment a difficulty
which, you acknowledge, must immediately, in its full
force, recur upon me. Naturalists indeed very justly
explain particular effects by more general causes• though
these general causes themselves should remain in the end
totally inexplicable : but they never surely thought it
satisfactory to explain a particular effect by a particular
cause, which was no more to be accounted for than the
effect itself. An ideal system, arranged of itself, without
a precedent design, is not a whit more explicable than a
material one, which attains its order in a like manner;
nor is there any more difficulty in the latter supposition
than in the former.
PART V.
But to show you still more inconveniencies, continued
Philo, in your Anthropomorphism; please to take a
new survey of your principles. Like effects prove like
causes. This is the experimental argument; and this,
you say, too, is the sole theological argument. Now it
is certain, that the liker the effects are which are seen,
and the liker the causes which are inferred, the
stronger is the argument. Every departure on either
side diminishes the probability, and renders the
experiment less conclusive. You cannot doubt of the
principle: neither ought you to reject its conse
quences.
All the new discoveries in astronomy, which prove
the immense grandeur and magnificence of the works of
Nature, are so many additional arguments for a Deity,
according to the true system of Theism : but, accord
ing to your hypothesis of experimental Theism,
they become so many objections, by removing the
effect still further from all resemblance to the effects
of human art and contrivance.
For if Lucretius,
D
�50 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
even, following the old system of the world, could
exclaim,
Quis regere immensi summam, quis habere profundi
Indu manu validas potis est moderanter habenas ?
Quis pariter ccelos omnes convertere ? et omnes
Ignibus setheriis terras suffire feraces ?
Omnibus inque locis esse omni tempore prtesto ? *
If Cicero esteemed this reasoning so natural as to put
it into the mouth of his Epicurean : Quibus enim oculis
animi intueri potuit wester Plato fabricam illarn tanti
operis, qua construi a Deo atque cedificarl mundum
facit? quoemolitio? quae ferramenta 1 quivectes? quat
machines ? qui ministri tanti muneris fuerunt ? quernadmodum, autern obedire et parere voluntati architect
aer, ignis, aqua, terra potuerunt If If this argument,
I say, had any force in former ages ; how much greater
must it have at present; when the bounds of Nature
are so infinately enlarged, and such a magnificent scene
is opened to us ? It -is still more unreasonable to form
our idea of so unlimited a cause from our experience of
the narrow productions of human design and invention.
The discoveries by microscopes, as they open a new
universe in miniature, are still objections, according to
you, arguments, according to me. The farther we push
our researches of this kind, we are still led to infer the
universal cause of all to be vastly different from man
kind, or from any object of human experience and
observation.
* Bk. ii. 1094.—“ Who is able to rule"the whole of this immen
sity ? Who can hold in his hand, with power to guide them, thestrong reins of this unlimited expanse ? Who can, at the same
time, turn round all the heavens, and warm all the Earth with
ethereal fires ? or, who can be, at the same moment, present in all
places. ”
+ De nat. Deor. lib. i.
.
“ With what mental vision could your Plato behold that fabric
involving so much labour, by which he represents the world to
have been arranged and erected by Divine Providence ? What
contrivance was there ? What iron instruments ? What levers .
What engines ? What servants were there in so great a work.
Besides, in what way could fire, air, earth and water be caused to
obey and submit to the will of the architect ? ”
�Part K.
51
And what say you to the discoveries in anatomy,
chemistry, botany ? . . . . These surely are no objec
tions, replied Cleanthes: they only discover new in
stances of art and contrivance. It is still the image of
mind reflected on us from innumerable objects. Add,
a mind like the human, said Philo. I know of no
other, replied Cleanthes. And the liker the better,
insisted Philo. To be sure, said Cleanthes.
Now, Cleanthes, said Philo, with an air of alacrity
and triumph, mark the consequences. First, By this
method of reasoning, you renounce all claim to infinity
in any of the attributes of the Deity. For as the cause
ought only to be proportioned to the effect; and the
effect, so far as it falls under our cognizance, is not in
finite ; what pretensions, have we, upon your supposi
tions, to ascribe that attribute to the divine Being?
You will still insist, that, by removing him so much
from all similarity to human creatures, we give in to the
most arbitrary hypothesis, and at the same time weaken
all proofs of his existence.
Secondly, You have no reason, on your theory, for
ascribing perfection to the Deity, even in his finite
capacity; or for supposing him free from every error,
mistake, or incoherence, in his undertakings. There
are many inexplicable difficulties in the works of Nature,
which, if we allow a perfect author to be proved a priori,
are easily solved, and become only seeming difficulties,
from the narrow capacity of man, who cannot trace in
finite relations. But according to your method of
reasoning, these difficulties become all real; and perhaps
will be insisted on, as new instances of likeness to human
art and contrivance. At least, you must acknowledge,
that it is impossible for us to tell, from our limited views,
whether this system contains any great faults, or
deserves any considerable praise, if compared to other
possible, and even real systems. Could a peasant, if
the JEneid were read to him, pronounce that poem to
be absolutely faultless, or even assign to it its proper
�52 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
among the productions of human wit; he, who
had never seen any other production ?
But were this world ever so perfect a production, it
must still remain uncertain, whether all the excellencies
of the work can justly be ascribed to the workman. If
we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form
of the ingenuity of the carpenter who framed so com
plicated, useful, and beautiful a machine?. And what
surprise must we feel, when we find him a stupid
mechanic, who imitated others, and copied an art, which,
through a long succession of ages, after multiplied trials,
mistakes, corrections, deliberations, and controversies
had been gradually improving? Many worlds might
have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity,
ere this system wTas struck out; much labour lost; many
fruitless trials made; and a slow, but continued improve
ment carried on during infinite ages in the art of world
making. In such subjects, who can determine, where
the truth; nay, who can conjecture where the probability,
lies • amidst a great number of hypotheses which may
be proposed, and a still greater number which may be
imagined ?
.
™ ...
And what shadow of an argument, continued Philo,
can you produce, from your hypothesis, to prove the
unity of the Deity? A great number of men join, m
building a house or ship, in rearing a city, in framing
a commonwealth : why may not several deities combine
in contriving and framing a world ? This is only so much
greater similarity to human affairs By sharing the
work among several, we may so much farther.limit t e
attributes of each, and get rid of that extensive power
and knowledge, which must be supposed in one deity,
and which, according to you, can only serve to weaken
the proof of his existence. And if such, foolish, such
vicious creatures as man, can yet often unite m framing
and executing one plan; how much more those deities
or daemons, whom we may suppose several degrees more
perfect ?
�Part V.
53
To multiply causes, without necessity, is indeed con
trary to true philosophy : but this principle applies not
to the present case. Were one deity antecedently
proved by your theory, who were possessed of every
attribute requisite to the production of the universe ; it
would be needless, I own, (though not absurd), to
suppose any other deity existent. But while it is still
a question, whether all these attributes are united in
one subject, or dispersed among several independent
beings ; by what phenomena in nature can we pretend
to decide the controversy ? Where we see a body
raised in a scale, we are sure that there is in the opposite
scale, however concealed from sight, some counterpoising
weight equal to it: but it is still allowed to doubt,
whether that weight be an aggregate of several distinct
bodies, or one uniform united mass. And if the weight
requisite very much exceeds anything which we have
ever seen conjoined in any single body, the former
supposition becomes still more probable and natural.
An intelligent being of such vast power and capacity
as is necessary to produce the universe, or, to speak in
the language of ancient philosophy, so prodigious an
animal, exceeds all analogy, and even comprehension.
But further: Cleanthes, men are mortal, and renew
their species by generation; and this is common to all
living creatures. The two great sexes of male and
female, says Milton, animate the world. Why must
this circumstance, so universal, so essential, be excluded
from those numerous and limited deities ? Behold, then,
the theogony of ancient times brought back upon us.
And why not become a perfect Anthropomorphite ?
Why not assert the deity or deities to be corporeal, and
to have eyes, a nose, mouth, ears, &c. 1 Epicurus main
tained, that no man had ever seen reason but in a hu
man figure; therefore the gods must have a human
figure. And this argument, which is deservedly somuch ridiculed by Cicero, becomes, according to you,,
solid and philosophical.
�54 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
In a word, Cleanthes, a man, who follows your
hypothesis, is able, perhaps, to assert, or conjecture,
that the universe, sometime, arose from something like
design: but beyond that position he cannot ascertain
one single circumstance; and is left afterwards to fix
every point of his theology, by the utmost licence of
fancy and hypothesis. This world, for aught he knows,
is very faulty and imperfect, compared to a superior
standard; and was only the first rude essay of some
infant deity, who afterwards, abandoned it, ashamed of
his lame performance: it is the work only of some
dependent, inferior deity, and is the object of derision
to his superiors : it is the production of old age and
dotage in some superannuated deity; and ever since
his death, has run on at adventures, from the first im
pulse and active force which it received from him. You
justly give signs of horror, Demea, at these strange
suppositions j but these, and a thousand more of the
same kind, are Cleanthes’s suppositions, not mine. From
the moment the attributes of the Deity are supposed
finite, all these have place. And I cannot, for my part,
thiuk, that so wild and unsettled a system of theology
is, in any respect, preferable to none at all.
These suppositions I absolutely disown, cried Clean
thes : they strike me, however, with no horror;
especially, when proposed in that rambling way in
which they drop from you. On the contrary, they
give me pleasure, when I see, that, by the utmost in
dulgence of your imagination, you never get rid of the
hypothesis of design in the universe; but are obliged
at every turn to have recourse to it. To this concession
I adhere steadily ; and this I regard as a sufficient
foundation for religion.
�Part VI.
55
PART VI.
It must be a slight fabric, indeed, said Demea, which
can be erected on so tottering a foundation. While we
are uncertain, whether there is one deity or many;
whether the deity or deities, to whom we owe our
existence, be perfect or imperfect, subordinate or
supreme, dead or alive; what trust or confidence can
we repose in them ? What devotion or worship address
to them ? What veneration or obedience pay them ?
To all the purposes of life, the theory of religion be
comes altogether useless : and even with regard to
speculative consequences, its uncertainty, according to
you, must render it totally precarious and unsatisfactory.
To render it still more unsatisfactory, said Philo,
there occurs to me another hypothesis, which must
acquire an air of probability from the method of rea
soning so much insisted on by Cleanthes. That like
effects arise from like causes : this principle he supposes
the foundation of all religion. But there is another
principle of the same kind, no less certain, and derived
from the same source of experience; that where several
known circumstances are observed to be similar, the un
known will also be found similar. Thus, if we see
the limbs of a human body, we conclude, that it is also
attended with a human head, though hid from us.
Thus, if we see, through a chink in a wall, a small part
of the sun, we conclude, that, were the wall removed,
we should see the whole body. In short, this method
of reasoning is so obvious and familiar, that no scruple
can ever be made with regard to its solidity.
Now if we survey the universe, so far as it falls
under our knowledge, it bears a great resemblance to
an animal or organized body, and seems actuated with
a like principle of life and motion. A continual cir
culation of matter in it produces no disorder : a contin
�56 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
•
ual waste in every part is incessantly repaired : the
closest sympathy is perceived throughout the entire
system: and each part or member, in performing its
proper offices, operates both to its own preservation and
to that of the whole. The world, therefore, I infer, is
an animal; and the Deity is the soul of the world,
actuating it and actuated by it.
You have too much learning, Cleanthes, to be at all
surprised at this opinion, which, you know, was main
tained by almost all the Theistsof antiquity, and chiefly
prevails in their discourses and reasonings. For though
sometimes the ancient philosophers reason from final
causes, as if they thought the world the workmanship
of God; yet it appears rather their favourite notion to
consider it as his body, whose organization renders it
subservient to him. And it must be confessed, that as
the universe resembles more a human body than it does
the works of human art and contrivance ; if our limited
analogy could ever, with any propriety, be extended to
the whole of nature, the inference seems juster in favour
of the ancient than the modern theory.
There are many other advantages, too, in the former
theory, which recommended it to the ancient theolo
gians. Nothing more repugnant to all their notions,
because nothing more repugnant to common experience,
than mind without body; a mere spiritual substance,
which fell not under their senses nor comprehension,,
and of which they had not observed one single instance
throughout all nature. Mind and body they knew,
because they felt both : an order, arrangement, organi
zation, or internal machinery, in both, they likewise
knew, after the same manner: and it could not but
seem reasonable to transfer this experience to the
universe; and to suppose the divine mind and body tobe also coeval, and to have, both of them, order and
arrangement naturally inherent in them, and insepar
able from them.
Here, therefore, is a new species of Anthropomor
�Part VI.
57
phism, Cleanthes, on which you may deliberate; and
a theory which seems not liable to any considerable
difficulties. You are too much superior, surely, to
systematical prejudices, to find any more difficulty in.
supposing an animal body to be, originally, of itself,
or from unknown causes, possessed of order and
organization, than in supposing a similar order to
belong to mind. But the vulgar prejudice, that body
and mind ought always to accompany each other, ought
not, one should think, to be entirely neglected; since
it is founded on vulgar experience, the only guide
which you profess to follow in all these theological
inquiries. And if you assert that our limited experi
ence is an unequal standard, by which to judge of the
unlimited extent of nature, you entirely abandon
your own hypothesis, and must thenceforward adopt
our Mysticism, as you call it, and admit of the absolute
incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature.
This theory, I own, replied Cleanthes, has never
before occurred to me, though, a pretty natural one;
and I cannot readily, upon so short an examination
and reflection, deliver any opinion with regard to it.
You are very scrupulous, indeed, said Philo : were I
to examine any system of yours, I should not have
acted with half that caution and reserve, in starting
objections and difficulties to it. However, if anything
occur to you, you will oblige us by proposing it.
Why then, replied Cleanthes, it seems to me, that,
though the world does, in many circumstances, re
semble an animal body; yet is the analogy also
defective in many circumstances, the most material :
no organs of sense ; no seat of thought or reason; no
one precise origin of motion and action. In short, it
seems to bear a stronger resemblance to a vegetable
than to an animal, and your inference would be so far
inconclusive in favour of the soul of the world.
But in the next place, your theory seems to imply
the eternity of the world; and that is a principle,.
�58 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
which, I think, can be refuted by the strongest reasons
and probabilities. I shall suggest an argument to this
purpose, which, I believe, has not been insisted on by
any writer. Those who reason from the late origin of
arts and sciences, though their inference wants not
force, may perhaps be refuted by considerations derived
from the nature of human society, which is in continual
revolution, between ignorance and knowledge, liberty
and slavery, riches and poverty ; so that it is impossible
for us, from our limited experience, to foretell with
assurance what events may or may not be expected.
Ancient learning and history seem to have been in
great danger of entirely perishing after the inundation
of the barbarous nations ; and had these convulsions
■continued a little longer, or been a little more violent,
we should not probably have now known what passed
in the world a few centuries before us. Nay, were it
not for the superstition of the Popes, who preserved a
little jargon of Latin, in order to support the appearance
of an ancient and universal church, that tongue must
have been utterly lost: in which case, the western
world, being totally barbarous, would not have been
in a fit disposition for receiving the Greek language
and learning, which was conveyed to them after the
sacking of Constantinople. When learning and books
had been extinguished, even the mechanical arts would
have fallen considerably to decay; and it is easily
imagined, that fable or tradition might ascribe to them
a much later origin than the true one. This vulgar
argument, therefore, against the eternity of the world,
seems a little precarious.
But here appears to be the foundation of a better
argument. Lucullus was the first that brought cherrytrees from Asia to Europe ; though that tree thrives so
well in many European climates, that it grows in the
woods without any culture. Is it possible, that,
throughout a whole eternity, no European had ever
passed into Asia, and thought of transplanting so
�Part VI.
59
delicious a fruit into his own country ? Or if the tree
was once transplanted and propagated, how could it
ever afterwards perish ? Empires may rise and fall;
liberty and slavery succeed alternately; ignorance and
knowledge give place to each other; but the cherrytree will still remain in the woods of Greece, Spain,
and Italy, and will never be affected by the revolutions
of human society.
It is not two thousand years since vines were trans
planted into France ; though there is no climate in the
world more favourable to them. It is not three centuries
since horses, cows, sheep, swine, dogs, corn, were known
in America. Is it possible, that, during the revolutions
of a whole eternity, there never arose a Columbus, who
might open the communication between Europe and
that continent ? We may as well imagine, that all
men would wear stockings for ten thousand years, and
never have the sense to think of garters to tie them.
All these seem convincing proofs of the youth, or
rather infancy, of the world ; as being founded on the
operation of principles more constant and steady than
those by which human society is governed and directed.
Nothing less than a total convulsion of the elements
will ever destroy all the European animals and
vegetables which are now to be found in the Western
world.
And what argument have you against such convul
sions, replied Philo. Strong and’ almost incontestible
proofs may be traced over the whole earth, that every
part of this globe has continued for many ages entirely
covered with water. And though order were supposed
inseparable from matter, and inherent in it; yet may
matter be susceptible of many and great revolutions,
through the endless periods of eternal duration. The
incessant changes, to which every part of it is subject,
seem to intimate some such general transformations ;
though at the same time it is observable, that all the
-changes and corruptions of which We have ever had
�60 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
experience, are but passages from one state of order to
another; nor can matter ever rest in total deformity
and confusion. What we see in the parts, we may
infer in the whole ; at least, that is the method of
reasoning on which you rest your whole theory. And
were I obliged to defend- any particular system of thisnature (which I never willingly should do), I esteem
none more plausible than that which ascribes an eternal
inherent principle of order to the world; though
attended with great and continual revolutions; and
alterations. This at once solves all difficulties; and
if the solution, by being so general, is not entirely com
plete and satisfactory, it is at least a theory that we
must, sooner or later, have recourse to, whatever
system we embrace. How could things have been as
they are, were there not an original, inherent principle
of order somewhere, in thought or in matter ? And it
is very indifferent to which of these we give the pre
ference. Chance has no place, on any hypothesis,
sceptical or religious. Everything is surely governed
by steady, inviolable laws. And were the inmost
essence of things laid open to us, we should then
discover a scene, of which, at present, we can have no
idea. Instead of admiring the order of natural beings,
we should clearly see, that it was absolutely impossible
for them, in the smallest article, ever to admit of any
other disposition.
Were any one inclined to revive the ancient Pagan
Theology, which maintained, as. we learn from Hesiod,
that this globe was governed by 30,000 deities, who
arose from the unknown powers of nature : you would
naturally object, Cleanthes, that nothing is gained by
this hypothesis ; and that it is as easy to suppose all
men and animals, beings more numerous, but less
perfect, to have sprung immediately from a like origin.
Push the same inference a step farther ; and you will
find a numerous! society of deities as explicable as one
universal deity, who possesses, within himself, the
�Part VI.
61
powers and perfections of the whole society. All these
systems, then, of Scepticism, Polytheism, and Theism,
you must allow, on your principles, to be on a like
footing, and that no one of them has any advantage
over the others. You may thence learn the fallacy of
your principles.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Dialogues concerning natural religion
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Edition: New ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 61 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. 'A new Edition, with a Preface and Notes, which bring the Subject down to the present time'. [Title page]. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh.
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Hume, David [1711-1776]
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Thomas Scott
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[1875]
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CT210
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Theology
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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 (Dialogues concerning natural religion), 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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English
Conway Tracts
Natural Theology
Religion-Philosophy
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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.]
(Limited).
Chairman—GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE.
Honorary Associates:
M. Berthelot
Paul Carus, Ph.D.
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Stanton Coit, Ph.D.
W. C. Coupland, D.Sc., M.A.
F. J. Furnivall, M.A., Ph.D., D.Litt.
F. J. Gould
Prof. Ernst Haeckel
/
Leonard Huxley
Prof. W. C. van Manen
Eden Phillpotts
J. M. Robertson
W. R. Washington Sullivan
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Bankers:
The London City and Midland Bank, Ltd., Blackfriars Branch, London, S.E.
A tiditors:
Messrs. Woodburn Kirby, Page, & Co., Chartered Accountants, I, Laurence Pountney Hill,
London, E.C.
Secretary and Registered Offices:
Charles E. Hooper, 5 and 6, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C.
All who approve of the publication, in a cheap and popular form, of works
such as the present Reprint can help to produce them, and can join in a systematic
propaganda for encouraging free inquiry and sober reflection, and repudiating
irrational authority.
These are the objects of the R. P. A. (The Rationalist Press
Association, Ltd.).
The Members of this Association have banded themselves
\ together, not with any view to commercial gain, but solely to promote sound
masoning and the growth of reasoned truth, as essential to the welfare and
•ess of humanity.
Should these aims commend themselves to your judgment,
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London, E.C.
�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
-
-
-
•
•
7
UTILITY OF RELIGION
-
-
•
•
-
34
THEISM
-
-
-
•
-
57
•
- •
-
-
•
5«
61
-
-
62
NATURE -
-
-
-
PART I.
57
INTRODUCTION
THEISM
THE EVIDENCES OF THEISM
-
•
ARGUMENT FOR A FIRST CAUSE
-
-
-
67
70
THE ARGUMENT FROM MARKS OF DESIGN IN NATURE -
72
ARGUMENT FROM THE GENERAL CONSENT OF MANKIND
THE ARGUMENT FROM CONSCIOUSNESS
-
-
PART II.
ATTRIBUTES -
-
-
-
■
•
•
75
•
•
-
83
-
•
•
9°
PART III.
IMMORTALITY
-
-
■
PART IV.
REVELATION
-
-
-
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,
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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
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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.
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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
�52
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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up its purpose with such invincible industry, such all-regarding vigilance, such constant soundness of
judgment, such perfect fairness and candour, and such complete command of the whole special litera
ture of the subject. True to his early devotion of himself to the single-hearted search for truth,
the author has revised his whole work, bringing it abreast of the latest developments of criticism
and the latest documentary discoveries...... The book, in short, is a marvel of mere commercial
value, the production of which does honour to the printers no less than to the publishing Associa
tion. Cheapness and good form cannot be carried further in combination.”
—J. M. Robertson, in '■'■The Literary Guide."
Half morocco, gilt edges, 10s. net, by post 10s. 6d.
Cloth, 5s., post free.
The Faith of an Agnostic;
Or, First Essays in Rationalism.
By GEORGE FORESTER
“ The author’s position is well and cleverly defended, and he writes with an evident sincerity
that commands respect.”—Liverpool Mercury.
“ The Faith of an Ag tostic is one of those books of inestimable value to all intelligent and
serious persons who take any real interest in the momentous questions of life and death. The
author, Mr. George Forester, has a delightfully lucid style........ This yidispensable book.”—
Reynolds' s Newspaper.
“What is best in the book, perhaps, is its atmosphere of honesty and kindness. The reader
who disagrees will find no cause to accuse its author of any lack of earnestness or reverence. The
humanitarian teaching of the book, especially in a chapter headed ‘Thoughts in a Meat Market,’
will interest even those who have no turn for metaphysics.”—Morning Leader.
AGENTS FOR THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LIMITED :
WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
�UNIFORM WITH THE R.P.A. REPRINTS.
Now Ready, 160 pp., price 6d., by post 8j^d.; Cloth, is., by post is. 3d.
INGERSOLL’S
Lectures apd Essays.
(A SELECTION.)
CONTENTS
THE TRUTH.
THE GODS.
ABOUT THE HOLY BIBLE.
WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.
A THANKSGIVING SERMON.
THE GHOSTS.
HOW TO REFORM MANKIND.
ART AND MORALITY.
With fine Portrait of Author.
WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
80 large pages, price 6d., by post 7^d.
THE AGNOSTIC ANNUAL
FOR 1905.
Contents:—■
“ A Septuagenarian ”
THE PASSING OF CHRISTIANITY
SPIRIT
Professor W. H. Hudson
THE SATANIC
DOES DETERMINISM DESTROY RESPONSIBILITY? Dr. Charles Callaway
THE FORMATION OF OPINION AND THE VALUE OF DOUBT
Charles Watts
AFTER THE CHURCH
- Geoffrey Mortimer
William G. Hutchison
RENAN AS A DRAMATIST J. M. Robertson
LESSING’S THESIS OF PROGRESSIVE REVELATION
AN APPRECIATION OF COMTE
- F. J. Gould
A WORLD WITHOUT GOD : AN ANTICIPATION
- J. McCabe
RATIONALISM IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
- H. Dundas
To order of all Booksellers, or direet from
WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
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'
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fl ■
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OV&R 630,000 SOLD
*
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.
6. EDUCATION : Intellectual,
Moral, and Physical. By
HERBERT SPENCER.
7. THE EVOLUTION OF THE
IDEA OF GOD. By grant
ALLEN.
8. HUMAN ORIGINS. By SAMUEL
LAING.
10. TYN^
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LECTURES
ANL
ASAYS. (A Selection.)
11. THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.
By Cx. RLES DARWIN.
12. EMERSON’S ADDRESSES
AND ESSAYS. With Introduc
tion by Dr. STANTON COIT.
13. ON LIBERTY. By J. s. MILL.
14. THE STORY OF OREA
TfON. By EDWARD CLODD.
15. AN
AGNOSTIC’S
APO
LOGY. By Sir LESLIE STEPHEN
16. THE LiFE OF JESUS. Bv
ERNEST RENAN.
17. A MODERN ZOROASTRIAN. BySAjVl-UEL LAING.
18- AN INTRODUCTION TO
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HERBERT SPENCER. By
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19. TH REE ESSAYS N RELI
GlON. .By JOH$ E
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4. NEW LIGHT ON OLD PRO
BLEMS.
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SON, M".A.
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Nature, the utility of religion, and theism
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Mill, John Stuart [1806-1873]
Description
An account of the resource
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.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watts & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1904
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G756
RA1634
N485
Subject
The topic of the resource
Religion
Nature
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Nature, the utility of religion, and theism), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Nature
NSS
Religion
Religion-Philosophy
Theism
-
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PDF Text
Text
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, NOVEMBER 9th, 1879,
AT FOUR o’clock
precisely,
On “EASTERN RELIGIONS,”
By MONCURE
D. CONWAY, M.A.
SYLLABUS.
The humanity of Religions.
Missionary misrepresentations.
Intermarriages and migrations of Religions.
Evolution of Religion in China.
Aryan Religion generally.
The Indian Job.
Iranian Religion.
Buddhism.
Indian Sects.
Mahommedanism.
The Moslem liberals of Persia.
The Religion of Humanity.
The Lecture on Sunday, November 14th, will be by C. PFOUNDES
Esq. (Sec. to the Nipon (Japan) Institute), ou “Japan, and its
People.”
______________________
Payment at the Door; —
ONE PENNY;—SIXPENCE;—and Reserved Seats ONE SHILLING.
3—1,000.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
On "eastern religions" by Moncure D. Conway [lecture syllabus]
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sunday Lecture Society
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 1 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1879]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5708
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lectures
Moncure Conway
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (On "eastern religions" by Moncure D. Conway [lecture syllabus]), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Moncure Conway
Religion-Philosophy