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CREED OF A SECULARIST.
<xNee tardum opperior nee prseeedentibus insto.”
Haraxd Epistles, Bk. i., Ep. ii. 71.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Sixpence.
�This little tract was written for the members of the
Belfast Secular Society. It was read at their meeting
held on the 19th of April 1876, and was agreed to as
setting forth their views on the subject of Natural
Religion. It is only by arguments grounded on those
views that we
“ May assert Eternal Providence
And justify the ways of God to men.”
�CREED OF A SECULARIST.
O long ago as the time of Epicurus, b.c. 310, it was
perceived that the universe need not be assumed
to be a creation, but might be eternal and self-existent.
This view was, however, opposed to the almost univer
sal opinion of mankind, not only in those times, but in
all ages since. That opinion was, and is, that the
material universe is the production of a personal power.
In this tract we propose to examine the arguments
urged in support of this opinion and the doctrines
founded on it.
Here, at the outset, it may be observed that the
limits of a tract cannot contain a complete examination
of a subject which is of the most supreme importance,
and on which a vast amount has been written. But it
is better to give the arguments on this subject in their
most condensed form, as a manifesto of our belief,
rather than that Secularists should remain in silence
under the imputation that they do not believe any
thing. Therefore, we shall commence by giving the
principal reasons on which Secularists generally ground
their opinions in these days. And we shall conclude
by stating what at present may be safely regarded as
the Creed of a Secularist.
Each paragraph in these pages might be expanded
into a volume, without exhausting what might be
profitably written on the subject. At the same time,
it is doubtful whether the generality of men, in the
present state of their education and habits, would read
or listen to a lengthened statement on this subject, to
S
�6
Creed of a Secularist.
understand which requires so much reasoning power
and attention.
An erroneous impression is very widely spread,
against which it is necessary to guard the honest
inquirer. . This wrong impression is that the burden of
evidence lies with those who deny the validity of the
proofs offered for the existence of a personal Deity and
a future life. In a valuable work written lately by
Professor Stanley Jevons, on the principles of science,
he makes the following remarks in the preface :—
“Fears have been expressed that the progress of
Scientific Method must [therefore] result in dissipating
the fondest beliefs of the human heart. Even the
utility of religion is seriously proposed as a subject for
discussion. It seems to be not out of place in a work
on Scientific Method to allude to the ultimate result
and limits of that method. I fear I have very
imperfectly succeeded in expressing my strong convic
tion that before a rigorous logical scrutiny, the Reign
of Law will prove to be an unverified hypothesis,—the
uniformity of nature an ambiguous expression,—the
certainty of our scientific inferences to a great extent a
delusion. . . . Our mental powers seem to fall infinitely
short of the task of comprehending and explaining
fully the nature of any object. I draw the conclusion
that we must interpret the result of Scientific Method
in an affirmative sense only.”
By this paragraph, Professor Jevons evidently thinks
he has saved the Christian faith from its enemies.*
But the real fact is that he quite misunderstands the
true position of Secularists. He thinks, as many
eminent men think, that if they can prove that our
scientific knowledge is only probable, though in a very
high degree, they have overcome all objections to
Christianity. It is right, therefore, to explain that
such proofs would not, in any way, concern Secularists.
* Professor Jevons is not singular. This piece of rhetoric is a
favourite among those who publish Assumptions without Philosophy.
�Creed of a Secularist.
7
We are offered, for our belief and guidance, a great
many different systems of theology and of morals. It
is not enough for each of those persons, who call upon
us to believe what they assert on such subjects, to
threaten us with eternal damnation if we hesitate to
assent to their doctrines. They are bound to give us
reasons for the belief they ask us to accept, and not
merely to say, “ you are not omniscient, and therefore
cannot prove that this doctrine is false. Therefore you
must admit it is true.” We are not reasonably called
upon to prove absolutely that their doctrine is
impossible. Our duty, and our desire, is to examine
any evidence they offer in its favour, either on authentic
testimony or on logical grounds. If this evidence be
in open conflict with all the knowledge it is possible
for men to obtain on any subject, it would be the
height of folly to accept the doctrine as true, simply
because all our knowledge is imperfect. If all our
knowledge on any subject is only probable, why should
we be required to admit any system of theology as
absolutely true and not to be denied, or even examined,
under the severest penalties ?
But there are many reasons for believing that all our
knowledge is not of the doubtful character attributed to
it by Professor Jevons. And he shows an inconsist
ency, which he would be the first to detect in a work
on science, but which seems to be inseparable from
theological argument, when he asserts in one place (in
the extract above) that all our scientific conclusions are
affirmative only, and in another (Vol. I., p. 53), that
“ between affirmation and negation, there is [accordingly]
a perfect balance or equilibrium. Every affirmative
proposition implies a negative one, and vice versa.”
Moreover, there are strong arguments for believing
that many of our conclusions are absolutely certain.
Our feelings are absolutely true. Because what we feel
we feel. However erroneous our inferences, drawn
from our feelings, may be, yet the feelings are absolutely
�8
Creed of a Secularist.
true,. About this proposition there cannot be any
doubt or uncertainty whatever. It is as true in dream
ing and in mania as in the highest intellectual life.
All our other knowledge consists in formula, constructed
so as to declare that changes in our feelings are pro
duced as if they were caused by certain objects which
are supposed to be perceived as accompanying certain
changes in the feelings, in some respects alike, and in
some respects different. These objects have only an
abstract existence; and they exist only in relation to
the mind that feels the effects produced by their
qualities. Every proposition could be put in a form
which would contain certain truth about the relations
of these objects to feeling, if it were worth while to
incumber our phraseology with limitations, which, when
remembered, are equally effectual when stated once
for all.
It is by overlooking the fact of this relativity of
knowledge that men persist in asking after the absolute,
or the nature of the thing in itself. Everyone can see
the futility of an inquiry about the distance of any
point without referring to some other point from which
the distance is to be measured. They forget that it
is equally absurd to ask for the absolute nature of that
which is found only in relation to feelings. And yet,
one of the reasons for asserting that our knowledge is
uncertain, is founded on the impossibility of answering
such a question!
We claim absolute certainty for our knowledge of
relations of phenomena to feeling; the phenomena
themselves being abstractions, and assumed because
they account for feeling. By observation of such rela
tions and the aid of a first postulate—that nature is
uniform, — we arrive at the furthest conclusions of
science by the use of deductive logic. But here, again,
the certainty of this postulate is denied, and on this
hangs the whole question.
.Now it will be admitted that the proposition known
�Creed of a Secularist.
9
as the law of identity, namely, “ whatever is—is,” is a
certain truth. And it is equally true that “ whatever
is—will be, unless the conditions be changed.” Because
the conditions themselves are part of what is. And all
our knowledge is composed of formula of what is.
That is, what changes in feeling are observed as co
existing. Where error occurs, as it frequently does, it
is in the practical application of our knowledge. We
may not observe that the conditions are changed, and
may make mistakes in supposing them to be the same
as those before observed. But this does not diminish
the certainty of the knowledge of which we thus make
a wrong use.
All knowledge, traced to its ultimate source, is a
classification of feelings, heelings are not merely alike
and different. There are many feelings which are
partly alike and partly different. In fact the degree of
likeness or difference may vary to any amount, heel
ings are classified by their likenesses, and distinguished
by their differences. If the classification be correctly
performed, the knowledge so obtained is true without
any uncertainty ; for all feelings are exactly what they
are felt to be. But it is necessary to guard against the
error of supposing that when we have decomposed two
feelings so as to separate the like from the unlike parts,
that those like parts, though classified together and
named, have any other than an abstract existence. It
is useless to ask for their properties, further than those
which belong to the parts of the feelings which are
known to be alike. As only complete feelings are felt,
parts of feelings must be abstractions. All feelings are
complex, for they are the integrated effects of present
perception and past association. We give names to
these parts of our feelings for the sake of classification
and communication; but it has been the great drag upon
philosophy that men will consider these abstractions as
objective, real and absolute, and without necessary rela
tion to those feelings of which they form part. Matter
�io
Creed of a Secularist.
and motion, and force and mind, are all abstractions of
this kind. Each of them may, with absolute truth, be
described as that part of certain feelings which is alike.
Any proposition concerning them that keeps this dis
tinctly in view is true, without any mixture of un
certainty. To inquire what they are without reference
to the feelings is to ask what is motion in itself without
anything moved, or what is the nature of the number
nine without anything to reckon or to divide into parts.
In fact, so far as human knowledge is concerned, feeling
is the only concrete, the only real thing. Any name
given to what is not a complete state of feeling, is an
abstract name. We can know the nature of these
abstractions by knowing the likenesses in the feelings for
which they stand, and we cannot knowr them in any
other manner, because they are only abstractions: that
is, each is only part of a feeling. But the conclusion to
be drawn from this is that we do know them perfectly
when we confine ourselves to the consideration of what
they represent; and that we cannot know them at all
without so confining ourselves. If our fancy endow
them with an objective nature which does not truly
belong to them, it is not wonderful that a definition
cannot be given of their objective properties.
We
might as well ask what muscles we use when we fly in
a dream. We have not any right to say our know
ledge is uncertain because we cannot answer a question
put in acategorematic terms, or, in other words, in
language which has not any logical meaning.
But we have here come upon some of the most dis
puted points in the most difficult of inquiries, and we
cannot hope that in the space at our command we can
produce conviction in anyone holding an opinion differ
ent from that above expressed. Nor is it necessary to
an inquiry into the validity of a belief tendered for our
acceptance. For theological propositions must be ex
posed to at least as much doubt as can be proved to be
inherent in all propositions of whatever kind. Natural
�Creed of a Secularist.
11
religion professes to examine these questions on scien
tific methods, and it is not for those using these
methods to try to discredit their own witness.
Revelation demands assent on other grounds, hut even
here the evidence of authenticity must be examined by
scientific methods, and if we be asked to admit that the
Reign of Law is an unverified hypothesis, because of
the uncertainty of all knowledge, what are we to say
about assertions of inspiration made at remote times in
out-of-the-way places, and in phraseology the meaning
of which is constantly disputed ? The truth is, as
Bacon expressed it (“ Novum Organum,” i. sec. 49) :—
“ The human understanding resembles not a dry light,
but admits a tincture of the will and passions, which
generate their own system accordingly; for man always
believes more readily that which he prefers.”
Discipline and subordination to a personal ruler are
more essential to the well-being of a primitive com
munity than they are in an advanced civilization.
Obedience is cultivated as one of the prime virtues, and,
when this becomes an habitual feeling, it prepares the
mind for belief in a personal Deity.
So well as we know the theology of ancient nations, the
qualities which they attributed to the personal power
supposed to have produced the material universe, and
to wrhich we may give the general name of “ Supreme
Deity,” have varied according to the ethics of the
people who believed in his existence. The qualities
which every people attribute to their god are those
which they would most admire in their king. If they
have a conception of a future life, their heaven will
offer the delights they desire in this life and their hell
the tortures they would willingly inflict on their enemies.
Thus the Grecian Zeus is an Olympic Agamemnon.
He is not in every respect better than any other God,
but like Agamemnon, who rules the combined armies of
Greece before Troy, so Zeus presides perpetually at the
council of the gods. Again, the Jewish idea of a
�12
Creed of a Secularist.
Jehovah was that of a chief priest who was also at the
head, of the State. The idea of the gods among the
Bomans was more republican. Their gods were so
many consuls, with power to make a temporary dictator
when occasion required. While the Christians repre
sented the Creator as a being like the Bishop of Rome
in his love of prayer, consisting partly of fulsome flat
tery, partly of insincere self-depreciation, joined with
suggestions as to the best way of managing the world.
He was also likened to the Rope in his love of gorgeous
ceremonial, vows of asceticism, declared celibacy, fast
ing, and self-scourging. He could be coaxed into giv
ing an unjust preference by the intercession of a
favourite saint, male or female. And, above all, that
men should be correct in their opinions as to his own
nature, and that of the other two persons of the trinity,
very obscurely indicated in revelation (as the numbers
of heresies show), he was supposed to consider a
matter of much more importance than that men should
act for their own happiness and that of their fellow
men.
According to their own savage ideas the early Jews
represented the deity as vindictive, jealous, and reserv
ing all justice and favour for his chosen people, and
extending it to them only so far as they kept the cove
nant, which, their traditions told them, had been made
between him and Abraham, the founder of the race.
According to their own love of pleasure the ancient
Greeks supposed that Zeus, their supreme deity, pos
sessed qualities which we now consider wholly un
worthy of a being who is to be worshipped and obeyed.
The later Greeks, after the time of Plato, had indeed a
higher idea of the qualities to be attributed to the ruler
of the universe ; but as they were very reticent on this
subject we cannot give any exact account of their
beliefs on it, which indeed were confined to the
educated.
When the members of the organised Christian church
�Creed of a Secularist.
ij
proceeded to define the Supreme Deity, they were de
stitute of science and very imperfectly skilled in logic.
Without regarding the imperfections of nature, or what
they styled creation, they proceeded to flatter the Deity.
It is true they believed that there existed inspired
truth in the Jewish books which attributed to him
actions of the most unjust, cruel, and abominable char
acter ; but they did not venture to form a moral esti
mate of those actions. At the same time, they incon
sistently exalted the attributes of the Deity, so as to
endow him with infinite wisdom, power, and goodness;
and this is the view which all the theists in Chris
tian nations, of whatsoever sect, take of their supreme
deity.
It is our present object to examine the proofs that
are offered to maintain the existence of such a Supreme
Deity. But before entering upon that examination we
shall show how the conception arose, of which the
proofs were afterwards offered.
One great difficulty in dealing with this subject is
the well-known fact that there are so few whose
greatest desire is to know the truth. zEschylus
(“ Prometheus Bound,” 248-50), speaks of the vain
hopes that Prometheus or Foresight gave to men as a
remedy for the disease of despair; and the great
majority of mankind (although they would scarcely ac
knowledge it in explicit terms) would rather believe an
agreeable falsehood than learn unpalatable truth.
Bacon says “ a mixture of a lie doth ever add plea
sure,” and Gray says “ Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis
folly to be wise.” An eminent writer speaking of edu
cation, says “ Every man who rises above the common
level has received two educations—the first from his
teachers, the second, more personal and more important,
from himself.” Unfortunately the great mass of man
kind never receive the second education.
Therefore it is hard to get men to examine the evi
dences of Natural Religion without prejudice, or even
�14
Creed of a Secularist.
with, patience. They are afraid that the truth would
abolish hopes that have now become customary, heredi
tary, respectable, and that a change would affect their
honour. The truly wise man is he who does not fear
anything so much as running the risk of believing, that
which is false. It has been said correctly that the
most profound infidelity is that which fears lest the
truth should be evil.
In every healthy man there is a strong instinctive
fear of death. Such a fear is necessary to the continu
ance of the species. A race of men who had it not
would necessarily perish before those in whom it was
strong. But the effect of such a fear on the mind is to
breed a hope that death is not a termination of exist
ence, but the portal to another life. This hope, com
bined with certain experiences in dreams, reveries, and
hallucinations, during which the primitive man believes
he sees and converses with the dead, and the evident
fact, namely, that death destroys the human body, gives
rise to a belief that man is composed of two parts, a
body and a soul; and that the soul has eternal life,
while the body decays in the grave. This belief did not
involve any obvious absurdity so long as the soul was
imagined to be material. The name for the soul or
spirit of man in Greek was
in Hebrew ruach; and
its nature was considered to be that of air. The writers
of Genesis vi. 17, vii. 5, 22, the Septuagint translators
of those passages, and the writer of Revelation xi. 11,
called it “ the breath of life.” The Romans called it
animus, which is akin to the Greek avisos, and to the
Sanscrit an “to breathe.” It is only by comparatively
recent refinements that the soul has been considered to
be immaterial, and until very lately there was a plau
sible analogy for such an existence, in the class of what
chemists, forty years ago, called the “ imponderables.”
Now that these imponderables have been shown to be
only forces or functions of matter, the analogy which gave
some probability to this conception of an immaterial
�Creed of a Secularist.
15
soul points to the conclusion that the so-called soul is
merely a function of organised matter.
As soon as thought and power and capacity for sen
sation and feeling are conceived as possible, apart from
a material body, there is not any reason for questioning
the possibility of a personal spiritual deity. Among
primitive races the powers above are believed to be the
souls of departed heroes, whose power has been exag
gerated by tradition.
All men suffer more or less pain in this world, and
they see their neighbours suffering all around them.
They do not always feel that their own sufferings are
merited, and they know, so far as observation can teach
them, that the pains of others are not at all propor
tionate to their misconduct. When civilization has so
far advanced that justice is considered a duty, there is
a strong desire to find results analogous to our ideas of
human justice in the working of nature. Since such
results in nature cannot be found in this life, man
naturally desires to believe in a deity infinite in wisdom,
power, and goodness, who will rectify in a future life
the inequalities of this life—punishing the guilty, re
warding the virtuous, lowering the successful and proud,
and raising the humble.
In modern times, when human sympathies have been
so far extended as to include remote posterity, there is
a strong desire for the progress of the human race; and
until lately it was believed that there was not any
guarantee for such progress other than the guidance of
a benevolent deity. There is now reason for believing
in human progress as a result of natural causes; but
before these reasons were apparent, there were many
who asserted that the human race was deteriorating,
physically and mentally, and could be restored to its
primitive vigour and virtue only by divine aid.
Tor such reasons an overwhelming majority of mankind
were ready to accept joyfully any evidence of the exist
ence of a deity with the attributes of infinite wisdom,
�16
Creed of a Secularist.
power, and goodness. To those so ready to believe, an
assertion of the fact, authoritatively made by any very
able man who said, and may have believed, he had a super
natural revelation of the truth, was sufficient to obtain
a number of enthusiastic disciples who, confident in the
goodness of their intentions, added accounts of miracles
performed by their teacher, the more readily to allay
the doubts or countervail the opposition with which
their assertions of revelation were frequently met.
Many such revelations have been believed in by differ
ent bodies of men. When miracles were believed to
be of frequent occurrence, the truth of the miracles
claimed by rival sects was not denied; but they were
attributed to the devil.* And although the believers
in each supposed revelation, claim it as an exception,
and believe their own miracles, yet all will admit the
substantial truth of this account of the rise of the rival
systems.
It is beyond the scope of the present tract to refute
the claims which any body of believers may think they
possess for believing they have a teacher who has been
the receiver of a direct and supernatural revelation. In
the present day miraculous stories do not add much to
the authority of any creed, and, in the absence of
miracles, how can a man know certainly that the com
munication which he has received, either as vision or
as voice, and which he believes to be a supernatural
revelation, is not a mere delusion ? An eminent writer
said, “ If one assert that God spoke to him in a dream,
it is only another way of saying he dreamed that
God spoke.” In fact many eminent divines, feeling
that proof by revelation is scarcely convincing of itself,
have offered arguments in favour of the existence of
such a deity as we have described, on other grounds.
* We may here refer to a remarkable fact (“Phases of Faith,’’
chapter ii.), namely, that the Mahommedans have a current notion
that the four Gospels contained in our New Testament are spurious
narratives of late date.
�’
Creed of a Secularist.
iy
Such proofs are all founded on what is known as the
law of causality, which is acknowledged as true by all.
But there are two different opinions—each held by
able and eminent men—as to the grounds of the belief
in the law of causality. Those who believe in innate
ideas think that we have an intuitive knowledge that
there cannot be any effect without a cause armed with
power adequate to produce the effect. Those who re
ject the doctrine of innate ideas consider that our belief
is warranted only by invariable experience; and until
very lately they have denied that the term cause in
cludes the idea of power, and have asserted that it is
simply a recognition of the fact that every effect has,
under the same circumstances, an unvarying antecedent
called its cause, and every cause under the same limita
tion an invariable consequence called its effect. It is
now held by men of science that the amount of energy
in the material universe is never increased or dimin
ished in the least degree. This theory, known as “ the
conservation of energy,” enables us to give greater pre
cision to our conception of causality.
Cause and effect consist in two successive states of
matter, of which the preceding is the cause, the suc
ceeding the effect. All phenomena imply an arrange
ment of matter in space called the conditions and a
change of this arrangement.
The word “ cause ” is
sometimes understood as including the arrangement,
but is now more frequently confined to the dynamic
cause. Every change of state implies a transfer of
energy between the parts of a definite arrangement
of matter. The conditions of the change consist of
this arrangement. The cause is the energy possessed
by the matter before the transfer. The effect is the
new distribution of matter and energy after the transfer.
The energy transferred may be of three forms—either
motion of one portion into an equivalent amount of
motion in another portion, or motion into strain, or
strain into motion. The idea of power is thus restored
�18
Creed of a Secularist.
to the term cause, with the advantage that the amount
of power Can be measured, and that the cause and effect
being often interchangeable, are found in all such cases
to be equal in energy, including both actual and
potential.
This, in effect, is the same doctrine as that of the
Intuitionalists, though held under a different warrant.
Both schools are agreed that the cause must be ade
quate to produce the effect, and both accept the effect
as a measure of the cause. Indeed, causes are con
tinually measured by their effects, and cannot be
measured by anything else. An amount of heat is
measured by the quantity of ice it will melt—a degree
of heat by the expansion it causes of the mercury in a
thermometer—and the strength of the will by the
amount of temptation it will overcome. Now, as all
our experience on this subject consists in perceiving
transfer of a limited amount of energy—which, as it
can be conceived to be increased, is certainly not in
finite—it is a hopeless attempt on the part of either
Intuitionalist or Experientialist to prove an omnipotent
creator or infinite power from the existence of finite
effects, by means of the law of causality, which measures
power by its effect.
As for omniscience, it is hard to reconcile this attri
bute with thought at all. Because, according to our
experience of thought, it is essentially mutable—fluctu
ating—uncertain ; and without these qualities it should
not be called thought. We think only when we are
in doubt or difficulty. Those actions which we have
learned to perform without difficulty we perform without
thought. Those conclusions which were at first formed
with difficulty, and received with doubt, become in
stinctive when they become habitual. The child ex
pends intense thought upon remembering the multipli
cation table ; the practised accountant writes down the
result without thought. But if there be not any suffi
cient reason for believing that the governing power has
�Creed of a Secularist.
19
any attribute analogous to what we know as mind, then
it is needless to prove that the hypothesis that there is
such a thing in nature as omniscience involves a selfcontradiction. Psychology is now able to account for
all changes of feeling on the hypothesis which physi
ology confirms—namely, that changes of feeling are
always preceded or accompanied by motion in the
grey matter partly composing the nerves ; and changes
of feeling, together with past feelings, recalled by
association, constitute the whole of what we call
mind. Hence there is not any mental action which
may not be accounted for by motions of matter within
or without the human organism. This does not leave
any room for supposing there is an entity called mind,
soul, devil, angel, spirit, goblin, fairy, witch, demon,
leprechaun, banshee, ghost, or, in short, any sort of in
tellect which can exist without an organised system of
nerves in a material body.
That there is a necessary connection between mind
and body is further proved by what is called in logic the
method of concomitant variations. We find that the
mind alters with the body, that it grows with its
growth, and that it strengthens with its strength. As
the body grows old and approaches its end, the mind
decays. In disease or fatigue of body, the mind is less
powerful than when the body is in health and in a state
of vigour. When health is restored, or repose has re
invigorated the body, the mind resumes its power.
Further, by acting on the body with drugs, we can
cause at will variations of mental power and mental
state. The ego, or personality, consists in continuity.
The human body is constantly changing, but so long as
its power of waste and repair remains continuous, the
individuality and identity remain. It is on the same
principle of continuity that a river remains the same
although the water of which it is composed is always
changing. When the continuity of the body is de
stroyed after death—when the continual waste of the
�20
Creed of a Secularist.
cells which compose the tissues, caused by their death,
is not replaced—the body loses its personality. There
is not any longer an organized system of nerves pre
serving the traces of past feelings, and whereby the
past ideas can be incorporated with present feelings.
Consequently the continuity of mental states ceases
with the dissolution of the body, and the personality
of the mind is at an end.
In fact the belief that the Creator has a mind is
usually defended only by the application of human
analogy to the notion of final causes. It is asserted
that the universe shows such proofs of design, in its
orderly arrangement, that its present state can be
accounted for only on the supposition that the universe
was preconceived and all the means by which its con
dition at any time wras to be reached predetermined in
the mind of the Creator or Supreme Deity.
This argument to account for the existing order in
matter supposes a self-existent order in mind. But it
would be valid only if there were any sufficient reason
for believing that order is more probably a property
inherent in mind than in matter. There is not any
such reason. We really have not any experience of
order in mind, which does not arise from order in
matter. And, on the other hand, we have some sub
stantial indications that matter may contain within
itself a principle of order.
This indication that there is a principle of order
inherent in matter, and the natural forces acting on it,
is to be found in the doctrine of development. Bor a
long time this doctrine was discredited; but now since
Darwin pointed out the reach and bearing of the law of
natural selection, that doctrine has been received by all
the most eminent foreign thinkers, and by a daily
increasing number of our own more conservative
countrymen. Darwin applied his own theory only to
organized matter. On that point there is not any one
whose knowledge is superior to his, and with scientific
�Creed of a Secularist.
2I
caution he restricted his inferences to his special sub
ject. But the doctrine has been shown to be much
more generally applicable to the explanation of the
nature and changes of the universe, in the works of
Herbert Spencer, who traces the possible genesis of all
the present forms of the ordered universe from the
necessary action of known forces on such a distri
bution of matter as science has shown to have been
most probable.
To state the scope of his arguments here, in a man
ner that would do them justice, is simply impossible.
The main point is that such arrangements of matter as
are more in harmony with the surrounding forces, must
have greater relative permanence than those which are
less so; and as all arrangements are sooner or later
deranged or broken in pieces there must ensue a con
tinually increasing harmony among the groups of atoms
which form individual objects, at first inanimate, later
becoming organized, and, in the highest development
yet reached, possessed of thought.
It is not necessary for the purpose of our present
inquiry to admit that any of the details given by Her
bert Spencer are true. It is enough to show that
matter may be conceived to contain in itself a principle
of order, and that this conception is in harmony with
known facts. While on the other hand it is impossible
to adduce any facts in support of the opinion that any
mind untaught by experience (that does not, in other
words, reflect the observed order in matter) does contain
such a principle of order.
All the minds of which we have any experience have
gained their ideas of order from observation of the
phenomena of matter. The faculty which enables them
to observe with advantage is itself inherited from many
generations of ancestors. So far, therefore, our experi
ence goes to show that order in matter is not the effect
of preconceived order in mind, but that order in rrn'-nd
is the effect of unvarying laws acting on matter, and
�22
Creed of a Secularist.
thus producing order in that matter which is reflected
in the mind capable of perceiving it and drawing con
clusions from it.
Thus, experience is utterly at variance with the
theory of final causes, which professes to be founded on
human analogy.
But the law of causality is in itself sufficient to over
throw the argument from final causes. The whole
arrangement of matter at any one time is the result of
the arrangement of the preceding instant, each atom
acting with the motions or energies it then had. That
preceding arrangement, again, is the result of what pre
ceded it. And so the series of states may be traced
backwards.
The present condition of the universe is the necessary
result of every preceding state. Were the universe
to be replaced in the same state as it was millions
of years back, and subject to the same forces, it would
of necessity pass through exactly the same series of
states which it has done and arrive at the same result.
The same men acted on by the same motives, would do
as they have done. It is impossible that any variation
could arise from any supposed action of choice or free
will. Everything that takes place in the universe is the
result of unvarying forces.
Two of the greatest results of modern science are
that matter and energy are each constant in amount;
so that unless we are prepared to put an arbitrary limit,
in time past, on the action of present laws, we must
find, at the furthest term in the series to which we
have patience to follow it, that the matter and the
energy were the same as now. In fact ive have the
same grounds for believing that matter and energy have
existed from eternity that roe have for believing that
space is infinite. In the one case we cannot find that
after as many steps as our imagination can make we
come any nearer an end. In the other case, after an
equal number of steps we are unable to perceive any
sign of a beginning.
�Creed of a Secularist.
-3
If matter and power have been eternal there cannot
be any cause for their existence; for a cause involves a
priority in time, and there cannot be any priority when
the series to be accounted for has been eternal.
In truth the argument from final causes halts on
every foot. Because from the existence of an ordered
universe to prove the existence of a Supreme Deity
who is infinite in wisdom, power, and goodness, it is
necessary to prove that the universe in question is as
perfect as its assumed creator.
It is scarcely possible that any disputant will be so
hardy as to assert the perfection of this world. Those
who are most earnest in asserting their belief in the ex
istence of a deity with such attributes are most em
phatic in their denunciations of sin. Do they deny
that sin is an evil 1 Or do they reprobate that which
they do not believe to exist ?
In short, the old dilemma of Epicurus has never yet
received an answer. Can the deity overcome evil and
will he not ? Then he is not benevolent. Would he
do so but cannot 1 Then he is not omnipotent.
Theology has been singularly unfortunate in the
attempt to overcome the fear of death by the immor
tality it promises. The conception of a possible hell is
enough to increase rather than mitigate the fear of
death ; and thoughtful people find it hard to believe
that any good man could be happy in a promised heaven
while a number of his fellow-creatures were suffering
most horrible and eternal torments. And thus the con
ceptions of a future life and a Supreme Deity have lost
for ever a portion of that weight which they once
possessed among mankind.
As an act of justice, or vengeance, the punishment
of the wicked is not any longer looked upon with the
same satisfaction that it was when man’s passions were
more uncontrolled. Most of those persons who think on
these subjects would be better pleased that the ill-doers
should be wiped out of society, and simply prevented
�24
Creed of a Secularist.
from doing any more mischief, than that they should
suffer eternal torments. There is not any thoughtful
and benevolent man who has any sympathy with those
who believe that part of the happiness of Lazarus,
lying in the bosom of Abraham, was derived by
Lazarus from his beholding the sufferings of Dives.
All men act from the strongest motives and cannot
act otherwise. Consequently to prove that the punish
ment in a future existence of what was inevitable in
this life could be an act of justice, is simply impossible.
Evil-doers here must be restrained or destroyed if the
race is to advance. But such restraint or destruction
is to be inflicted for the same reasons that any other
immediate obstacles to human advancement are to be
removed. This is the justification of human punish
ment, which crushes the venomous serpent without
believing in its moral guilt. But it does not justify
unnecessary torture. Guilt should be punished: but
the guilty person should not be subjected to protracted
torments, here or hereafter.
Lastly our hope of improvement in the condition of
living beings does not any longer appear to depend
wholly on the hypothesis that there is a Deity infinite
in wisdom, power, and goodness. We see that the
tendency of natural forces is to bring all organisations
more into harmony with each other, and to disintegrate
the inharmonious elements altogether. A continuance
OF THIS ADJUSTMENT IS ITSELF PROGRESS.
These arguments, (to which might be added many
others equally cogent) are sufficient to prove that from
what we know of the material universe, there is not
sufficient reason for accepting the doctrine that it has
or ever had a first cause outside itself, or, if it had,
that such cause was infinite in wisdom, power, and
goodness. There is not any necessity for believing that
there is a cause for the existence of matter or energy.
Because these are as likely to have been eternal as
space is likely to be infinite. And the argument might
�Creed of a Secularist.
25
be left here if the phenomena of the universe could be
accounted for by matter and transfer of motion alone.
But it will have been observed that this is not our
statement. We have distinguished between two forms
of energy. One consisting of matter in motion, the
other of matter in a state of strain owing to forces of
attraction and repulsion inherent in it. Science tends
more and more to show that these forces are only dif
ferent modes whereby one force is manifested.
This force, then, must be considered the Eternal
Cause of which we are in search. This force is the
ultimate cause to which and to which only we can ever
refer all phenomena. There is not the least advantage
in seeking further or supposing a cause for this cause.
So long as we can refer a particular effect to a general
cause we are increasing our knowledge. When we sup
pose a cause that is not more general than its supposed
effect, we are guilty of having recourse to the exploded
method of explanation, ridiculed by Moliere. Eor in
stance, the explanation that Opium produced sleep be
cause it had a virtus dormativus. To assume a cause for
the forces inherent in matter, would be to seek a cause
not in the least more general than the effect to be ac
counted for. Because all phenomena can be expressed
in terms of matter and force. Since matter is eternal
it does not need a cause. It follows that there cannot
be any cause more general than force ; because force is
all that remains of phenomena when matter has been
accounted for.
But there is not any present warrant for endowing
these forces with the attributes of personality, such as
thought and the moral qualities of justice and benevo
lence. Power they have. But this power is far from
being infinite. The fact that in many cases the amount
of this power can be very accurately measured proves
that it is finite.
There is a favourite speculation with some theists
that the universe may be arranged in a manner
�26
Creed of a Secularist.
analogous to the brain of a thinking being, and there
are some plausible arguments for this speculation. If
the law stated by Herbert Spencer be correct, namely,
that in any arrangement of matter, motion which has
already passed through any line will be more easily pro
duced in the same line, then associated motions will
be reproduced together; and as this is believed to be
the action which accompanies and is a feeling, it is
not an unreasonable inference that the universe may
possess feeling. The reasons against admitting this
doctrine may be stated here in a very brief form. The
experience of such a mind of the universe as that specu
lation involves would be complete. It would include all
preceding phenomena. There would be an immediate
and instinctive response to every new excitation, and
we know from our invariable experience of mind that
in such cases consciousness is absent. When we have
practised writing we are not conscious of the process
by which the muscles of the fingers are governed. In
the case supposed the actions of the universe would all
be of the same instinctive nature ; and therefore devoid
of consciousness.
In conclusion, it may be stated that a Secularist can
have a creed as well as any other man. Of course the
creed of a Secularist must vary according as human
knowledge advances. But it is not any part of our be
lief that it is our duty either to relinquish inquiry after
truth through despair, nor do we wish to have the ap
pearance of knowing more than we do, or more than
any other people. On the contrary, we reserve to our
selves the right of suspending our judgment until we
perceive sufficient reason for believing any particular
truth. The maxim of Horace is here strictly appli
cable :—
“ For him that’s slow I do not wait,
Nor those before me emulate.”
In short, whatever may be the state of human know
�Creed of a Secularist.
2,7
ledge the creed of a Secularist must always be a creed
which does not conflict with facts as we know them.
It is needless, and it is unjust to represent Secularists
as merely the destroyers of received opinions ; especi
ally as secularists have a faith which those who read
what follows will perceive to be perfectly definite, and,
in so far, the very antipodes of scepticism.
For we believe in one Deity, or controlling power
over the universe, who manifests himself as energy.
He is unchangeable in quantity and amount. He
governs according to fixed laws, and he has not any
known beginning or ending. His will is written in his
works, and has been partly understood and explained to
man by a series of prophets from Thales, Aristotle and
Epicurus to Huxley, Tyndal and Darwin. A revelation
of his will, but not a supernatural one, is constantly
being made more and more complete. To learn this,
to know and obey it, is to acquire happiness for our
selves and our descendants. To be careless of it or dis
obedient to it, leads to punishment inevitable, with
out mercy and without resentment, but strictly accord
ing to law. The father’s sins of neglect or disobedience
are visited on the children ; and the ultimate result is
death to the family. “ The wages of sin is death.”
Those who have learned and followed the law are
nature’s aristocracy and continue their lives through
their offspring and live as a race for ever. Our Deity
does not require any praise or flattery. Prayer will
not alter his actions : nor does he require or punish any
love or hatred. Knowledge of his will and active obe
dience to it “is the whole duty of man.” His will,
like the will of man, is the result of the various forces
and their actions, strictly according to law. The end is
progress ; because those who are the fittest to live are
those who survive. Those who rebel and those who
follow false gods are alike punished. Repentance, fol
lowed by knowledge and obedience may redeem the
race :—
�28
Creed of a Secularist.
“ Ignorance is the curse of God
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven. ”
But the punishment which lies in the consequences of
disobedience must be borne, and will bear fruit for
ever, or at least, so long as the continuity of the family
exists.
We believe that the life of the obedient will be
continued through succeeding stages of improvement,
not in their own persons, but in those of their descen
dants who inherit their faculties and habits. The con
tinuity of life will thus transmit the integrated effects
of all previous conduct. But there is not any such
continuity of consciousness or of feeling. The material
representative of this everlasting life, whether suffering
or enjoying the effects of the actions which have made
him what he is, has not any memory of those actions
which occurred before his birth, nor will he be conscious
of their effects when they occur after his death.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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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
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Creed of a secularist
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 28 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. "... tract was written for members of the Belfast Secular Society. It was read at their meeting on the 19th April 1876, and was agreed to as setting forth their views on the subject of Natural Religion". [Page [4]]. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
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[1876?]
Identifier
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CT169
Subject
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Secularism
Creator
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[Unknown]
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Creed of a secularist), 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
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Natural Theology
Secularism
Secularism-Great Britain-19th Century